Susan Rice and Africa’s Despots

[XemaSab]

ON Sept. 2, Ambassador Susan E. Rice delivered a eulogy for a man she called “a true friend to me.” Before thousands of mourners and more than 20 African heads of state in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Ms. Rice, the United States’ representative to the United Nations, lauded the country’s late prime minister, Meles Zenawi. She called him “brilliant” — “a son of Ethiopia and a father to its rebirth.”

Few eulogies give a nuanced account of the decedent’s life, but the speech was part of a disturbing pattern for an official who could become President Obama’s next secretary of state. During her career, she has shown a surprising and unsettling sympathy for Africa’s despots.

This record dates from Ms. Rice’s service as assistant secretary of state for African affairs under President Bill Clinton, who in 1998 celebrated a “new generation” of African leaders, many of whom were ex-rebel commanders; among these leaders were Mr. Meles, Isaias Afewerki of Eritrea, Paul Kagame of Rwanda, Jerry J. Rawlings of Ghana, Thabo Mbeki of South Africa and Yoweri K. Museveni of Uganda.

“One hundred years from now your grandchildren and mine will look back and say this was the beginning of an African renaissance,” Mr. Clinton said in Accra, Ghana, in March 1998.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/10/opinion/susan-rice-and-africas-despots.html?hp&_r=0

[kelliekat44]

1. Hmmmm...aren't most democracies or independent countries formed by "ex-rebel commanders?"

We seldom know how any country is going to turn out under such leaders. Neither did we know how our own country would turn out under the leadership of such "rebel commanders" as George Washington and the other rebel whom we lovingly call "founding fathers." When helped to succeed by established nations, "rebel-commander" frequently help form thriving, freedom-loving countries. However, when thwarted in their development, like Haiti (roundly attacked by EU nations and America for being the first black nation to throw off the yolk of bondage from EU), they often fail and become miserably poor nations whose resources are stolen from the people in order to keep fighting oppressing outsiders for centuries. When these countries refuse to just hand over their rich minerals and land, the so-called democracies paint them as failures, uncivilized, ignorant, and sometimes terrorist organizations and turn me to deal with unscrupulous opportunists within who merely want to enrich themselves at the expense of their own people. With no weapons to fight off the puppets of the oppressors, the people succumb to generations of waring factions, genocide, and alienation from the rest of the world. The history of most sub-saharan African nations is such and except and until several generations ago, such was the case of many South American countries. (Just think what Cuba might be like had not the criminal and oligarchial mobsters not entrenched in the US to fight against Castro forever.) So maybe Ms. Rice has a different view of people whom she has come to actually know and work with...different from men and women whose actual purpose is to see that the success of these peoples is thwarted always by outside interests and jaundice reporting and clandestine operations to keep the people at each others' throats instead of working together for their own common good. Just a thought.

[kelliekat44]

2. Seems like HiPointDem's post gets to the heart of what I am saying. nt