DAR ES SALAAM (AFP) — US President George W. Bush, opening a five-country Africa tour, stepped up pressure on Kenyan leaders Saturday to accept a power-sharing deal to end their country's deadly political crisis.
During a three-hour stop in the tiny West African country of Benin, Bush threw his weight behind former UN chief Kofi Annan's efforts to broker the agreement in a bid to end clashes that have killed about 1,000 people.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, expected in Kenya on Monday, will deliver a "clear message" that Washington backs Annan's plan for ending the crisis that began with a disputed December 27 presidential election, Bush said.
"The key is that the leaders hear from her first hand US desires to see that there be no violence and that there be a power-sharing agreement that will help this nation resolve its difficulties," he said.
Looking to another regional conflict, Bush again called for a "robust" UN/African Union peacekeeping force for Sudan's Darfur region, and insisted China must act "collaboratively" on efforts to end violence there.
Questions about the two trouble spots clouded Bush's efforts to use what was likely his final trip to Africa before leaving office in January 2009 to highlight US support for Africa's struggles against disease and poverty.
But they did not appear to dampen the warm welcome in Dar es Salaam, where tens of thousands of people lined the streets to see his motorcade zoom past, under billboards showing his smiling face with slogans like "Thank You for Your Support in Fighting HIV/AIDS" and, near his hotel, "Feel at Home."
As Bush flew from Benin to Tanzania, a top aide aboard his Air Force One airplane suggested that the US president might get more personally involved and warned Washington could wield sanctions to punish foes of the deal.
"President Bush does not need to go to Kenya at this point. At the right moment in time, the president will engage," Jendayi Frazer, Assistant US Secretary of State for African Affairs, told reporters.
"Any individuals who are seen as obstructing the effort towards a peace process, a power sharing agreement ... will be subject to possible further sanction by the US," she said.
In Benin, Bush defended his focus on the relatively upbeat theme of US-African cooperation in battling malaria and HIV/AIDS, as well as rewarding democratic and free market reforms with special aid packages.
"This a large place, with a lot of nations, and no question not everything is perfect. On the other hand, there's a lot of great success stories and the United States is pleased to be involved with those success stories," he said.
Bush and Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete on Sunday were to sign a five-year, 698-million-dollar (476-million-euro) US aid package under the Millenium Challenge Corporation, the largest of its kind.
The US president was also expected to discuss Darfur with his host, who holds the rotating leadership of the African Union.
And Bush was to visit two hospitals, a plant that makes bed nets to fend off mosquitoes that transmit malaria, and a girls school, and meet with families of the victims of the 1998 bombing of the US embassy here.
After Tanzania, Bush heads for Rwanda, Ghana and Liberia as part of an effort to burnish a legacy scarred by the Iraq war with just months left in his term -- and he urged his successor not to neglect the continent.
"My trip here is a way to remind future presidents and future congresses that it is in the national interest and in the moral interest of the United States of America to help people," he said during a joint public appearance with Benin's President Boni Yayi.
"The visit of the president is a symbol," Yayi said through an interpreter. "He is here to support the countries which strive to be virtuous, the governments which accept to work on behalf of their people."
Bush was last in Africa in 2003, when he visited Senegal, South Africa, Botswana, Uganda, and Nigeria.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
