Carson
United
States Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Ambassador
Johnnie Carson, on Wednesday, held a teleconference with reporters.
Carson spoke on Boko Haram, elections in Nigeria, U.S. trade relations
with Africa, ECOWAS and so on. Excerpts:
Boko Haram menace
In
respect to Nigeria itself, we continue to see Boko Haram as a serious
domestic threat to stability in northern Nigeria, and we have, in fact,
been in very close contact with Nigerian officials about this situation.
We have offered to the Nigerians a wide variety of training to help
them to improve their investigation skills, their ability to collect
information on the Boko Haram threat, on forensics, to be able to do
investigations on post-blast situations. We have also offered them
advice on how they can better defend against car bombs and IEDs, and we
have worked with their security services, the police, and the military.
But
with respect to Boko Haram, we have also said very clearly that we see
the solution to this problem as both a security and a socio-economic
issue. There has to be a sound security strategy, but there also has to
be a sound socio-economic strategy to address the enormous poverty
which exists in northern Nigeria. Both have to go hand in hand. And so
we are willing and open to help Nigeria in trying to deal with this
domestic threat and recognise the seriousness of it, but again, as I
say, it requires a security strategy as well as a socio-economic
strategy to ultimately resolve it.
ECOWAS
ECOWAS
is one of the stronger and more effective sub-regional organisations.
We have a high respect for the organisation itself. We have a high
respect for the ECOWAS Secretariat in Abuja and we have enormous respect
for the current chairman of ECOWAS, President Ouattara and his foreign
minister Duncan. I think they have done a very, very good job in
leading ECOWAS.
With
respect to both Mali and Guinea-Bissau, in the case of Mali in
particular, we remain open to seeing precisely what it is that ECOWAS
seeks to do militarily in that country. We think that ECOWAS does have a
role, but that role should be clearly defined. It should be carefully
thought out, and it should be staffed properly before it is undertaken.
I think we have been willing to provide logisticians and planners to
ECOWAS Secretariat to help with any planning that they are doing, but
the mission and the role must be defined before we make any kind of
commitment. And we look at the mission as being critical to what we
would do to perhaps help. At this juncture we have not, as far as I
have been made aware, been asked for any kind of assistance with respect
to Guinea-Bissau.
Threat to democracy In Africa
We
are committed to working with African countries on a bilateral basis to
help strengthen their democratic institutions, help promote good
governance and to strengthen their parliamentary and judicial systems.
We are working also with civil society groups to enhance and increase
their participation.
When
we see a breakdown or an assault on democracy in Africa, as we have
seen in Mali and in Guinea-Bissau recently, we have sought to work with
the important sub-regional organizations as they have sought to restore
democracy. So in the case of both those countries, we have tried to
work very closely with the ECOWAS leadership, both under the leadership
of President Alassane Ouattara, but also under the ECOWAS Secretariat in
Abuja.
I
think that ECOWAS has been very clear in both of those cases that they
want an end to military rule, that the end of the era for coup d’états
is over and that the people of those countries want and deserve
democracy. So I think that ECOWAS has stood up and stood clearly in
favor of what people want. We have to, as a part of the international
community, work with the sub-regional organisation, and we have to be
prepared to put pressure, including sanctions, on the states and on the
individuals in those countries who perpetrate military interventions or
who seek to retain power through unconstitutional means. So in both of
those instances, the United States has acted to cut off its assistance,
its non-humanitarian assistance to both of those countries and to
identify those individuals who are most responsible, and to sanction
them with travel and visa bans.
Food shortage in West Africa
President Obama will, this Friday (today), on the eve of the
G8 conference to be held at Camp David, will be speaking on the issue
of food security, agriculture and food self-sufficiency in Africa for
the most part. He has invited four African presidents, your own
President John Atta Mills, President Yayi from Benin, Prime Minister
Meles from Ethiopia, and President Kikwete from Tanzania to this event,
which will focus on agriculture.
President
Obama has instituted a new major initiative called Feed the Future
which is designed to create a green agricultural revolution in Africa of
the type that occurred in Latin America and in Asia in the 1960s and
70s and which effectively ended widespread hunger in many places in
Latin America and Asia and has transformed places like Brazil into
economic powerhouses, and which has ended food insufficiencies in places
like India. That green agricultural revolution has not yet come to
Africa where some 70% of all African households depend primarily or
secondarily on agriculture. President Obama, through Feed the Future
program and working with the United Nations and with the G8, is
determined to put an enormous spotlight on and focus on agriculture.
Africa
has enormous promise and potential in the agriculture field, and there
is absolutely no reason why Africa should be a food deficit country and
why there should be food insufficiency in the continent and why it
cannot, in fact, be a major agro-producer, not only for the continent,
but also for export globally and around the world. It is our focus here
to step up our efforts in agriculture, and you will be hearing a lot
more from the President on this issue over the next few days coming out
of discussions here, as I mentioned with four African leaders, including
AU Chairman Jean Ping on Friday and Saturday and going into early next
week. But it is one of the things that this President and this
administration regard as a major, major project to work with Africa on.
ECOWAS’s approach in Guinea-Bissau
We remain very much concerned about what is happening
in Guinea-Bissau. First of all, we remain strongly opposed to military
interventionism in the continent. We have expressed our appreciation
to ECOWAS for its strong statements and its strong commitment to return
Guinea-Bissau back to democratic rule. We believe that the country
should be returned back to democratic rule as quickly as possible
following the constitution that exists in that country. We believe that
ECOWAS has an important role to play in helping to advance the
democratic agenda, to encourage the military to leave, and to help to
bring about stability. But equally, we believe that others can in fact
play good supporting roles to ECOWAS, including the community of
Portuguese speaking states and others in the international community. I
think that it is important that the military step aside. They have
been a negative force there. They have been, in many instances,
associated with narcotrafficking and with the instability that has
prevailed there for far too long. Clearly, we need to see the military
out of power. We need to see civilian government brought back according
to the lines of the constitution.
Progress in Africa
In
the last three years, we have seen significant progress in Africa
toward what people everywhere want and deserve – that is the right to
freely elected governments that respond to their needs, and that pursue
peace, justice and prosperity. The United States’ role in Africa is
intended to support democratic governance, economic development,
conflict mitigation, improved health delivery, and combating a range of
transnational issues with our African partners.
The
signs of progress across Africa are clear – another democratic transfer
of power in Senegal this year; adherence to constitutional processes in
Malawi that allowed a new, second female president for Africa to take
the place of the former deceased president, President Muthurika;
successful elections in Nigeria and Zambia last year; Cote d’Ivoire’s
remarkable growth effort after its return to democracy in 2011; the
process underway in Guinea Conakry to establish a full democratic
system; and Niger’s return to democracy in 2010.
These
are all examples of the wave of democratic progress being led by the
people of Africa. Of course challenges remain; however, the progress is
unmistakable and inspiring. Even in tough and difficult situations
like Somalia – where AMISOM’s recent successes against al-Shabaab must
be followed by improved delivery of citizen services – we are seeing
progress. And of course the conflict between South Sudan and Sudan
remains a very serious concern and we call on the government of Sudan
and the government of South Sudan to immediately implement the AU Peace
and Security Commission Roadmap and UN Security Council Resolution 2046.
Today,
I am particularly concerned with the situation in Mali, a glaring
exception to the democratic progress we have seen in other parts of
Africa. Twenty-one years of democratic governance was swept aside by a
few mutinous soldiers who seemed more concerned about their own welfare
than that of the people or the nation they were supposed to be serving.
Their action has imperiled Mali’s territorial integrity, allowed rebels
to take over half of the country, set back the country’s economic
development and reduced the government’s capacity to respond to drought
conditions in the north.
The
strong regional response to the coup in Mali makes clear that this
misadventure has no future. The United States fully supports ECOWAS’s
mediation efforts to help Mali return to democratic rule. But the path
is clear – a short term transitional government that leads directly to
free and fair presidential elections so that Mali can move forward with
re-establishing its tradition of democratic governance is required. The
military must step aside completely. Those who have illegally seized
power in Mali have no right to remain in power and no strength to
address the serious security and humanitarian issues that Mali faces
today. The sooner the transition back fully to democratic governance,
the sooner Mali, with the assistance of the regional and international
allies, can begin to repair the damage.
Similarly,
I am deeply concerned about the situation in Guinea-Bissau. We have
strongly condemned the military coup and the continued exercise of
authority behind the scenes by military leaders in that country. Every
effort should be made to restore constitutional order and civilian rule,
and the process should follow Guinea-Bissau’s constitution. With
ECOWAS in the lead, the states in the region should work with the
community of Portuguese language countries and other international
partners to restore democracy to that country. In democracies the
military has no role to play in governance.
I
remain absolutely convinced that Africa is at the beginning of an
unprecedented period of progress, both politically and economically.
Problems such as those that we see in Sudan, Mali, and Guinea-Bissau
are no longer the norm across Africa. They are the exception to a much
more progressive and promising Africa. Africa’s economic potential is
already well known. Perhaps less appreciated, but even more important,
is the tremendous intellectual, technical and business capital
represented by Africa’s youth, women and entrepreneurs.
We
will continue to work to be good partners to the people of Africa
through our support for the five pillars of President Obama’s policy
towards the continent. We will support Africa’s efforts to build strong
democracies, to promote sustainable economic growth, to prevent
conflicts, to expand access to healthcare and to dramatically improve
agriculture, and to address the transnational issues such as food
security, climate change, and international crime. It is now time for
us to focus on Africa’s potential and promise and not to define the
continent solely by its problems.
U.S. trade relations with Africa
I don’t have the figures of U.S. trade in front of me, and I don’t want
to guess what the numbers are. But I can say that Africa is a
significant provider of petroleum products to the United States. Some
18 to 19% of all of our petroleum requirements are sources from Africa.
Nigeria is our largest single African supplier and the largest supplier
of low sulfur sweet crude to the United States, and it supplies roughly
8 to 9% of our needs, almost exactly the same amount as we get from
Saudi Arabia.
We
also import a large number of other minerals from Africa. We don’t
import very many finished products from the continent, even though we
have the AGOA legislation. The African Growth and Opportunities Act has
opened up the U.S. market to allow some 5,000 products to enter the
U.S. from Africa duty free. Most of the products coming in under the
AGOA legislation are textile products, leatherwear, footwear, and we
also import from South Africa automobiles as well that are shipped into
the United States.
The
trade could be substantially better and larger. We hope that it will
continue to grow. We think that Africa has enormous economic potential.
We think that it is the last economic global frontier. We are
encouraging American companies to look at Africa as an investment and
export destination, and we encouraging African countries not only to
look at American products, but also to look at the American market as
one that they can benefit from.
U.S.
exports to Africa tend to be large capital goods items. We sell
airplanes, Boeings to Ethiopian Airlines, to Kenya Airways, to South
African airlines. We are not their principle supplier as we are to
Ethiopia and to Kenya Airways. We are a major supplier of airplanes and
airplane parts to Air Morocco. We supply large diesel generators,
freight trains, diesel locomotives, sophisticated and hi-tech imaging
equipment, mining equipment, all of these things on the high end. We do
not sell very many consumer products to the African market. Those are
coming in from places in Asia, but we do believe Africa is a significant
market and an important market.
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