Africa Leaders’ Summit: Send the Right Message
© 2013 Reuters
Three notorious African leaders РZimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, Eritrea's Isaias Afewerki, and Sudan's Omar al-Bashir Рare not invited to this week's US-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington, DC. But a number of other long-ruling African strongmen, like Angola's Jos̩ Eduardo dos Santos, Equatorial Guinea's Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, and Uganda's Yoweri Museveni, are there. In fact, over a dozen African countries are represented at the summit boast disturbing human rights records of ruthlessly suppressing freedom of expression and freedom of association through harassment, arrest, torture, and trumped up charges and killings.
As President Barack Obama said in an inspiring speech in Accra, Ghana, five years ago, the continent's future is up to Africans, and "Africa needs strong institutions, not strongmen." But a closer look at US policy and practice in Africa shows that Washington too often prioritizes security and trade at the expense of good governance and respect for human rights.
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