Africa a Challenge for Obama in 2010

…The Africa Policy Outlook is an annual report released by Africa Action and Foreign Policy In Focus. Each year, the publication highlights key issues and developments for U.S. policy towards Africa. This year, it calls on the Obama administration to prove its commitment to long-term development in Africa with policies that emphasize “respect for human rights, the environment, peace, and justice.”

…While the U.S. government chose not to increase funding for HIV/AIDS last year, it tripled the budget of AFRICOM, the U.S. Military Command in Africa established in 2007 under former president George W. Bush. Africa policy experts point to this shift as a clear indication of the militarization of U.S. foreign policy in Africa.

AFRICOM is supposedly designed to give humanitarian support to African people. But in reality, says the report, “Africa has never been the intended beneficiary of AFRICOM,” noting that U.S. military efforts on the continent seem to be linked most closely to oil and other economic interests.

For example, multinational oil companies have long been profiting from oil reserves in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria at the expense of local communities. None of the wealth and practically all of the costs have been transferred to residents of the Niger Delta, an extremely underdeveloped and poor area. Frustrated community members eventually took up arms, staging attacks on oil facilities to demand a share of the region’s oil wealth.

“Since Nigeria is the fifth-largest crude oil exporter to the United States, Washington is very concerned and is looking to support Nigerian military efforts to crush the dissidents,” notes the report.

The situation in the Niger Delta and similar instances in other African countries help to illuminate the U.S. command’s priorities, says the Africa Policy Outlook report. “When it comes to the extractive industry in Africa, which thrives in corrupt and dictatorial environments, the United States and AFRICOM have helped to maintain the status quo,” concluded the report, citing questionable transfers and uses of military power in Gabon, Mali, and Somalia as well as Nigeria.

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