OBAMA IN AFRICA
Continent disappointed in him thus far
The president finally makes a high-profile visit to a continent that had huge expectations of his first election.
WASHINGTON — Barack Obama shares his family roots and the color of his skin with much of the African continent. The result: Africans had enormous expectations when Obama was first elected 4 ½ years ago.
Yet he’s never expressed much of an interest in African policy. He’s barely set foot there since he became the first black president of the United States. On the continent, the euphoria over his triumph quickly turned to disappointment as Obama failed to pay high-profile attention to their part of the globe.
Against that unique personal backdrop, Obama will travel to Africa on Wednesday to start a three-country, seven-day trip.
Big crowds very likely will greet him at planned stops in Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania. He’ll visit some of the iconic touchstones of the continent’s racial history, in- cluding the spot in Senegal where slaves were shipped off to North America and the island prison in South Africa where Nelson Mandela was held for 18 years.
He also will meet with government leaders in each nation and deliver a major speech to the continent while in South Africa. Throughout, he’ll stress investment, trade, energy and democracy. He isn’t expected to unveil any significant new programs.
For the man whose identity itself carried such a strong message to Africa, though, the trip also is designed to start making up for the neglect of subSaharan African in his first term.
“This is a deeply substantive trip and one that has been highly anticipated on the continent,” said Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser to the president. “And frankly, there’s been great disappointment that the president hasn’t traveled to Africa until this point, other than a brief stop in Ghana.”
Some Africa experts say Obama’s inaction can be excused because he confronted a series of domestic and international crises elsewhere. Others say the president stayed clear of the continent to avoid calling more attention to the false charge that he was born in Kenya.