J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE/AP UGANDA, JULY 11: Dancers in local costume added their rhythmic greeting to Museveni's as Bush arrived in Entebbe

Posted Sunday, July 13, 2003; 13.05BS
To some extent, this emphasis on self-help was tactical, to give Bush relief from the pressure to rush U.S. troops to war-riven Liberia. But it was also a recognition of reality. Which is why Bush's African adventure, which began in Senegal last Tuesday and ended in Nigeria on Saturday, was never supposed to be much of an adventure at all — no bold surprises, radical statements or grand new promises. Instead, it was meant to highlight places where Africa is working — where economies are growing, infection rates declining, democracy taking hold. But the other Africa, the one that isn't working, has a way of making itself felt — even at the most well-planned photo op.

Senegal: Racial Healing
Bush began his journey at an emotionally charged spot: the Door of No Return on Gorée Island, through which millions of African slaves boarded ships that would take them on a hellish months-long journey across the ocean to servitude, if they survived, in the New World. Today, above that cut in the creamy stone, is the inscription: "From this door for a voyage without return." On Gorée, the President made an extraordinary expression of sorrow over slavery, which he called a sin, and racial injustice. "The stolen sons and daughters of Africa helped to awaken the conscience of America," he said. "My nation's journey toward justice has not been easy and it is not over."

The speech, like much else on this trip, built on what Bill Clinton had done on his Africa visit in 1998, but went a little farther, said a little more. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice told Black Entertainment Television before the trip that the Gorée visit was a salute to the descendants of slaves, "an opportunity for [Bush] to praise the heritage they have brought to American life." But the point was not only to soften African-American hearts or to reiterate the compassion in Bush's conservatism. There was also a message, if a subtle one, for Africa in his talk, and afterward in a summit with seven freely elected leaders: American slaveholders ultimately could not contain the God-given spirit of liberty. Africans today should not let warlords and dictators try to do the same.

South Africa: Self-Help
What Are Friends For? To put on a brave public face, crack a joke and keep serious disagreements private. So when Mbeki and Bush were asked during a press conference about their "sharp differences" on Zimbabwe, it didn't matter that the American President's pronouncements against Robert Mugabe have been so much more forceful than the South African's. Mbeki said wryly: "I didn't know, President, that we'd expressed sharp differences."

"I've encouraged President Mbeki and his government to continue to work for the return of democracy in that important country," Bush said. In that quiet nudge, less forceful than his previous statements, Zimbabwe's official Herald newspaper heard a "loud climbdown" — but it heard wrong. Bush's encouragement came not by putting public pressure on Mugabe via Mbeki but by letting Africans handle their problems their way. Long an advocate of this policy, Mbeki then applied it to the question of Peacekeeping in Liberia.

"We're not saying that this is a burden that just falls on the United States," he said. "It really ought to principally fall on us as Africans." The message of self- reliance was Bush's, too; he cited U.S. training of West African peacekeepers as "a sensible policy," a way of enabling countries to guard their own neighborhoods. But that a leading African said the same reinforces the role the Administration wants in Africa — one of active support.

Botswana: Economic Growth
The shopkeeper tittered like a little girl. Bush had just left her Gaborone stall, where she sells silk scarves and alpaca throws. "I was so nervous, but he was so normal, so regular!" she said — before offering her best impersonation of a Texan accent.

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