With Obama as President, U.S. Words Have New Weight in Guinea - NYTimes.com

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By ADAM NOSSITER

CONAKRY, Guinea — The Club Obama does not look like much, just a square thatched-roof platform jutting out to the ocean where jembe music, beer and the young mix at the edge of the pungent Boulbinet fish market.

Soldiers gather there, too, particularly the feared Red Berets; a notorious military camp is within view. Everybody, it seems, wants to relax under the sign of the American president.

There is no Club Sarkozy nearby in this sweltering, squalid capital; in West Africa, the French president cannot compete at present, despite his country’s historic connections as the former colonial power here. Right now, in this volatile region, mere mention of being from America — Obama’s America — is enough to avert an armed soldier’s grim gaze, defuse a mob’s anger, soften an unyielding border guard or lower the demands from ubiquitous bribe-seeking policemen.

The president’s name, freshly painted, appears above a barbershop, a grocery, a school, even tire stores here, as well as the cabaret in Boulbinet. In a leading bookstore downtown, a full-scale poster of Obama looks out from behind a closed door, a visual echo of the sentiments of those who go in to discuss politics.

The implications of this new American authority in an unfamiliar spot received a tryout last week, when the Obama administration sent a senior diplomat here to condemn the massacre of dozens of unarmed civilians protesting Guinea’s military government in September. They seem clear: America punches above its weight, in a part of the world that it has hitherto left to the French. The United States, with few practical sticks to beat the junta, nonetheless has a moral authority in the streets that the big-dog French do not match.

But there is another competitor for influence here, the Chinese, who are seen as supporting the junta, particularly after the junta said it had recently reached an agreement with a Chinese company that could provide it with up to $7 billion in infrastructure. The quid pro quo was not specified, but China is known to be interested in the country’s bauxite and other minerals.

China has not yet confirmed the deal, but analysts said it was a potential boost to the junta and a setback to China’s push to be seen as a responsible competitor for natural resources.

“What happened in Guinea was extreme in terms of its violence and cruelty,” said Princeton N. Lyman, a former American diplomat in Africa who is now at the Council on Foreign Relations, so China could become “something of a target in a way they haven’t been for some time.”

The deal arrived amid a wave of popular anger and restiveness that preceded the massacre, fueled by years of lockdown by repressive governments. Guinea’s army has fired on demonstrators before, yet tens of thousands risked their lives by amassing at a soccer stadium last month to protest the junta, which seized power after the death of the nation’s longtime strongman, Lansana Conté, late last year.

On Wednesday, the International Criminal Court in The Hague confirmed that it was looking into the killings.

“We don’t accept it anymore,” said Sow Baïlo, a Guinean actor and intellectual with a wide following. “That’s why we went to the stadium.”

In that context, the tough American stance against the government, as enunciated by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, carried a special weight.

“After the declaration of Hillary Clinton, the people regained confidence in themselves,” said Mamadi Kaba, president of the Guinean branch of the African Assembly for Human Rights. “It was a very powerful symbol. People understood that they had not been abandoned.”

There were indications that the junta itself understood the potency of the American position.

When William Fitzgerald, deputy assistant secretary of state, delivered an unusual personal dressing-down to the junta leader, Capt. Moussa Dadis Camara, the reaction was not sputtering rage, as it had been after tough words from the French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner. Instead, the volatile officer listened with apparent calm. He kept the American envoy an hour beyond the appointed 60-minute meeting, while repeating his justifications for the massacre and asserting his lack of responsibility.

“We were there for two hours,” Mr. Fitzgerald said afterward. “I was quite uncomfortable.”

Captain Camara kept senior African officials waiting outside, in particular Burkina Faso’s president, Blaise Compaoré, who had just been sent as a mediator by other West African states.

Mr. Fitzgerald’s message to the captain was that the United States held him responsible for the killings, that he was becoming a “pariah” and that he should not run in coming elections.

But the officer, though visibly ill at ease, only rapped the table a few times, according to people who were there.

Similarly, when Mrs. Clinton said the next day that she was “appalled” by the “vile violation of the rights of the people” in Guinea, Captain Camara had nothing to say, publicly at least. But when Mr. Kouchner called for an international intervention force, the captain angrily said, “Guinea is not a subprefecture, is not a neighborhood in France.”

The differing reactions were not lost on local observers. Mamadou Mouctar Diallo, an opposition leader, said Captain Camara “dared to defy France, but he didn’t dare defy the U.S.”

“America is a power that counts,” Mr. Diallo said. “You can’t turn your back on them.”

Nadim Audi contributed reporting from Paris, and Michael Wines from Beijing.

Clinton Pushes Kenyan Leaders to Follow Through on Promised Reforms

By Mary Beth Sheridan and Stephanie McCrummen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, August 6, 2009

NAIROBI, Aug. 5 -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton began a major trip to Africa on Wednesday by publicly urging Kenya, a strategic U.S. ally, to move faster to resolve tensions lingering from a disputed 2007 election that precipitated the country's worst crisis since it gained independence.

Clinton went further in a meeting with Kenyan leaders, urging them to fire the attorney general and the police chief, who have been accused of ignoring dozens of killings carried out by police death squads, according to a senior U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the meeting was private. Clinton also raised the possibility of banning some Kenyan officials from traveling to the United States if the government does not move more quickly to prosecute those responsible for post-election ethnic violence that left 1,300 people dead. The organizers are widely suspected to include senior officials and cabinet ministers, many of whom have family members in the United States.

"We are going to use whatever tools we need to use to ensure that there is justice," the official said. "We raised the possibility of visa bans and implied there could be more."

Clinton's public remarks were more gentle but still reflected the Obama administration's concern that Kenya, which has lent crucial support to U.S. humanitarian, diplomatic and military operations in this volatile region, could slip back into political and ethnic violence that brought it close to collapse last year.

President Mwai Kibaki and former opposition leader Raila Odinga, now the prime minister, ended the crisis with a power-sharing deal and a commitment to political reforms that would include prosecution of those suspected of participating in the post-election violence. But Clinton made clear that their coalition government has not followed through.

"The absence of strong and democratic institutions has permitted ongoing corruption, impunity, politically motivated violence, human rights abuses, lack of respect for the rule of law," Clinton said at a news conference after meeting with Kibaki, Odinga and security officials.

'They're Trying to Hide'

Kenyans remain deeply frustrated with the coalition government, which they say is bloated with well-paid officials concerned more with their own survival than with the welfare of the country, swaths of which are in the midst of a hunger crisis.

In the latest example of trouble with the peace deal, the Kenyan government stepped back in recent days from a commitment to establish a special tribunal to try people accused in connection with the post-election violence. The government said it would rely on a "reformed judicial system" instead.

But in a country with a history of sweeping corruption cases, political killings and other official misdeeds under the rug, human rights groups and ordinary Kenyans cast the move as a blatant bid by senior officials to avoid punishment.

"They're selfish, and they're trying to hide," said Caleb Onduso, 25, who was among a crowd at a convention center here Wednesday hoping to hear Clinton speak. "They've forgotten us."

The U.S. Embassy also condemned the government's move in a statement on the eve of Clinton's visit, saying it was "not a credible approach in the eyes of Kenyans and the international community."

If the government fails to establish the special tribunal, U.S. officials say, they will support prosecution of the suspects by the International Criminal Court.

Clinton's trip comes just three weeks after President Obama visited Ghana and laid out his emerging policy toward Africa. Like Obama, whose father was Kenyan, Clinton is emphasizing good governance and touting a $20 billion U.S.-led program to provide poor countries in Africa and elsewhere with agricultural aid aimed at small farmers.

Clinton aides said the trips marked the first time a president and a secretary of state had visited Africa so early in a new administration. Clinton is set to log 21,200 miles on her 11-day, seven-country tour.

Economic Growth

She began her visit Wednesday morning at the annual forum on the U.S. African Growth and Opportunity Act, or AGOA, a program started by President Bill Clinton that allows enhanced U.S. market access for African products. Clinton said she wanted to emphasize Africa's success stories and move beyond the "stale and outdated" image of the continent as a place awash in poverty, disease and conflict.

Sub-Saharan Africa had economic growth averaging more than 5 percent for the five years leading up to 2009, the first such expansion in 45 years. But the continent is now feeling the pinch of shriveling trade and remittances due to the global economic crisis.

At the AGOA Forum, Clinton emphasized plans for U.S. development assistance to focus more on spurring business and trade. Meanwhile, she said, African countries must focus on good governance and adherence to the rule of law, conditions she called "essential to creating positive, predictable investment climates."

In her meeting with Kibaki and Odinga, Clinton delivered a "frank statement" from Obama pressing for greater progress on political reforms such as a new constitution and an overhaul of the police, she told reporters.

Kibaki appeared to bristle at some of the U.S. demands, saying at the conference that his government had introduced electoral reforms and was in the midst of a constitutional review.

"These and other reforms are genuinely Kenyan," he said. "And Kenyans are driving them forward in earnest, for the good of all."

But Odinga, who had accused Kibaki of stealing the 2007 presidential election, acknowledged that there were problems and praised Clinton.

She has "demonstrated she's a true democrat, in agreeing to work with her opponent," he said, referring to Obama. "That's a lesson Africa needs to take seriously."