Africa has muted response to Tillerson’s axing
JUBA: The official response of Africans to the unceremonious firing of US secretary of state Rex Tillerson by President Donald Trump in the middle of his first trip to Africa has been muted.
South Sudan’s ambassador to South Africa, Philip Jada Netana, said it was an internal affair and was not prepared to comment. Netana’s response was similar to previous responses of other African ambassadors when asked to comment on government policies of other countries when those policies have not directly impacted on their own countries.
Tillerson was on his first official trip to Africa, a six-day trip which was meant to have incorporated Ethiopia, Kenya, Djibouti, Chad and Nigeria.
The official reason for the visit was ostensibly to discuss Washington’s security cooperation with these countries as the Horn of Africa battles Islamist insurgents trying to destabilise the region.
Unofficially, it was also a trip about damage control after Trump referred to African countries as “**** holes”.
According to a White House official, however, the former secretary of state was told only two days into his trip that he was out of a job.
Tillerson suddenly reported ill while in Nairobi last Friday, cancelling a number of engagements in Kenya before flying back home on Monday a day before the official visit was due to end.
While the reaction of government officials was not forthcoming, they surely must have wondered why he had bothered to come in the first place, while pondering just how serious Africa was to Washington’s agenda.
“It would be better for Africa if the Trump administration ignored us because of the chaos and dysfunction within the administration,” said Nanjala Nyabola, a Kenyan writer and political analyst.
Kenya’s Daily Nation pointed out that Tillerson’s dismissal was only the latest in the administration’s revolving staff door policy, naming previous appointees who had fallen out with Trump and been dismissed.
Even before he suddenly departed the continent, the trip’s success was brought into question.
While in N’Djamena, Chad’s capital, Tillerson copped an earful over sanctions imposed on the country despite the country’s strong cooperation with Washington in the fight against religious fundamentalism.
How his successor, CIA director Mike Pompeo, will fare in strengthening the Trump administration’s relationship with Africa remains to be seen – if that is even a goal in the first place. Pompeo has a reputation for being a right-wing hawk in regards to Iran and in support of Israel as opposed to Tillerson’s more conciliatory approach.
But Africa may be put on the back burner due to more pressing issues as far as Washington is concerned, including dealing with North Korea and its nuclear ambitions, and Iran’s nuclear and regional geopolitical aspirations.