Obama skipping Kenya on his Africa trip is a missed opportunity
OPINION - Some people are mad at President Barack Obama, but not the ones you might expect. This time, don’t look at the progressives in his party, or even the Republicans...
Some people are mad at President Barack Obama, but not the ones you might expect. This time, don’t look at the progressives in his party, or even the Republicans.
It’s the Kenyans. Believe it or not, yes. It turns out that folks in Kenya, the birthplace of Obama’s late father, are up in arms because the president has bypassed the African nation during his trip to the continent.
President Obama’s trip to the African continent, the second such journey of his presidency, includes Senegal, Tanzania and South Africa. But conspicuously absent from the list is Kenya. Is Obama really snubbing Kenyans, or is there something else going on here? Moreover, is this a missed opportunity?
No political reason to avoid Kenya
From a domestic political point of view, the president has no legitimate reason to avoid visiting Kenya. After all, he is not running for re-election, so there is no need to worry about Republicans and their birther conspiracy theories about the president. Tea Partiers continue to drink the Kool-Aid and believe Obama was born in Kenya, or Indonesia, or somewhere other than the U.S. Yahoo! News even mistakenly referred to Kenya as “the country of his [Obama’s] birth.” Been there, done that. The GOP threw everything they could at this man and it did not stick on him, so the joke’s on them.
Besides, the president has embraced his heritage and is not ashamed of it, nor should he be. It was a part of his appeal as a candidate for the office, so-called foreign-sounding name and all. And he is viewed as a son of Kenya because of his father, and that nation has embraced him as a result.
Rather, apparently, the real reason behind his decision to skip Kenya is the internal political situation in Kenya itself. The newly-elected president, Uhuru Kenyatta, and his deputy William Ruto, are facing charges at the International Criminal Court at The Hague. Specifically, the two are charged with crimes against humanity for reportedly fomenting post-election violence in 2007-8 that left 1,200 dead and 500,000 homeless.
Rapes were committed as well, in a round of violence marked by ethnic strife. Ruto’s trial begins in September, while Kenyatta’s trial starts in November. The men deny the charges from the ICC, while the African Union accuses the ICC of “hunting” Africans and branding them as criminals.
Further, Kenya has an issue with extrajudicial killings by police, including the use of police death squads who reportedly have executed or forcibly ‘disappeared’ up to 500 suspected gang members and terrorists, according to human rights groups.
A sitting president has never visited Kenya
President Obama wants to tout the economic and democratic successes of the three countries he is visiting, and increase ties with them. Kenya, an ally of the U.S., would provide a messaging problem for a president who cares about justice and emphasizes accountability.
In 2009, during his 36-hour trip to Ghana— his first African trip as president—he told the Ghanaian parliament that “Africa doesn’t need strongmen, it needs strong institutions.” Some African leaders have a sad post-colonial history of corruption, replacing the brutality of European colonizers with more of the same brutality and oppression, with the help of Western multinational corporations who would exploit the land and its people.
And yet, this is an area of the world that is neglected and underrepresented by this White House, given that this is only Obama’s second trip to Africa.
Moreover, Kenya has never been visited by a sitting U.S. president, as Obama failed to visit his ancestral land during his first term. This factor may well contribute to the feeling of disrespect from the president on the part of Kenyans. This sentiment came to a head recently when Chris Kirubi, a Kenyan entrepreneur, refused to meet with the president in the nearby country of Tanzania.
A missed opportunity
In addition, Kenyatta’s victory has been perceived as a sign of resentment towards Western intervention on the continent. For example, the top U.S. diplomat in Africa, Johnnie Carson, warned Kenyans not to vote for Kenyatta as the election approached. Meanwhile, the ICC charges have caused the public to rally in favor of Kenyatta.
All of this comes as Uganda and Rwanda have agreed to relocate customs officials to the port of Mombasa, Kenya’s second largest city, in an effort to increase the flow of goods and stem the flooding of cheap imports into East Africa. This is part of an effort to recognize the East African Community (EAC) as a single customs entity and common market, with plans to eliminate barriers to trade among the three nations and build up the railway network connecting them.
Kenya is the economic powerhouse in East and Central Africa, and the fifth largest sub-Saharan economy, with the world’s third largest UN center based in Nairobi. Obama can use his power and influence as the leader of the richest nation on Earth to engage more with these East African nations, which makes his latest African trip a missed opportunity.
President Obama was right not to condone human rights abuses in Kenya. At the same time, the U.S. has its own challenges when it comes to human rights. But he needs to engage with East Africa in a more sustained way by encouraging Kenya’s impressive economic growth, while also challenging the nation to do better with democracy and accountability. That was the message Obama could have conveyed to the Kenyan people in person.
Follow David A. Love on Twitter at @davidalove
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