Raymond W. Copson
Specialist in International Relations
Foreign Affairs and National Defense Division
January 22, 1999
Summary
Congress has dealt repeatedly with issues related to sub-Saharan Africa, since the late 1950s. This report provides basic background on Africa and its history, U.S. policy, and congressional involvement, for the general congressional reader.
The modem human species is believed to have emerged in Africa approximately 200,000 years ago. Perhaps 2,500 years ago, the Bantu people began to expand from a West African base, gradually spreading a complex agricultural system over much of the continent. Africanists generally agree that loyalties to large ethnic groups, a key factor in African politics today, were largely absent in pre-colonial Africa.
The Atlantic slave trade, which began about 1450 and lasted 400 years, removed millions of people in their most productive years from Africa and left the continent ill-prepared to cope with the European "scramble for Africa. " From the 1870s through the early twentieth century, nearly the entire sub-Saharan region was divided among the European powers. The Europeans built a basic economic infrastructure; but imposed a bureaucratic system of government and strengthened traditional chiefs and other "big men" to help them rule. These patterns deepened divisions in African societies and strengthened anti-democratic patterns of government.
After World War 11, African nationalists organized political parties and began to demand independence. By the early 1960s, independence had come to most of eastern and western Africa, but white minority rule persisted in southern Africa, ending only in 1994, when universal-suffrage elections were held in South Africa.
In the first years of the 1960s, there were high hopes that the end of colonialism would bring rapid economic growth. Instead, Africa, confronted a number of problems, including inefficient, state-centered economic systems, frequent military coups, ethnic strife, and corruption. The Cold War contributed to Africa's difficulties, flooding the continent with arms and strengthening a number of repressive regimes that had superpower backing. French policy also tended to bolster authoritarian governments in former French colonies.
In the early 1990s, hopes for Africa's future revived following widespread political and economic reforms, and the end of the Cold War. By mid-decade, however, the pace of reforms had slowed and central Africa, fell into an era of violent conflict. "Afro-pessimists" believe that these developments have gravely damaged Africa's prospects, but others argue that they are temporary problems masking an underlying "African Renaissance." The Clinton Administration has sided with the "Afro-optimists," despite frustrations over the war in Congo (formerly Zaire) and other problems.
In the 105th Congress, the House passed a bill to strengthen U.S.-African economic ties, and a bill to strengthen African food security was enacted into law. Previous Congresses have passed legislation on a number of African issues, including apartheid in South Africa and covert U.S. involvement in Angola.
Congressional interest in Africa seems certain to continue, not only because the region is affected by a number of serious problems, some of which could have grave humanitarian consequences, but also because of the potential Africa offers for U.S. trade and investment should these problems ease. Africa's problems and prospects will likely assure continuing constituent interest as well. This report is intended to introduce congressional readers to the region by providing an overview of Africa's history, a summary of U.S. policy toward Africa, and a listing of principal congressional actions affecting the region. The paper concludes with suggestions for further reading and a fist of selected Congressional Research Service (CRS) products.
An internal African migration of great significance was launched perhaps 2,500-5,000 years ago, as the Bantu people of West Africa began to expand their area of settlement from a base that was probably in the northeast of present-day Nigeria or possibly Cameroon. The Bantu eventually became the predominant people over most of sub-Saharan Africa, although people speaking so-called Nilo-Saharan languages are widely found in the Sahel grasslands on the southern border of the Sahara and parts of eastern Africa. The Nilo-Saharan languages may have had their origins in the Nile valley, but the term "Nilotic" to describe peoples existing today has fallen out of favor with scholars because of the extensive intermingling of Bantu and Nilo- Saharan speakers over the centuries. Bantu tropical agriculture was not suited to the Mediterranean climate of extreme southern Africa, and this region continued to be inhabited by people known as "Khoisan" or "San."
Experts are uncertain about the origins of iron use in Africa, 3 but by about 500 BC, it appears that the Bantu had become skilled in smelting iron and making the iron tools that created a highly successful agriculture and accelerated their expansion. When Europeans began to explore the African coast after 1450 AD, they found that farmers were growing a wide variety of crops, including grains as well foods unfamiliar to Europeans, such as bananas. Some of these had come into Africa through contacts with the Indian Ocean region and southeast Asia. 4 Many African farmers also had cattle, although the tsetse fly kept cattle out of the wetter, central part of the continent. After the discovery of America, farmers quickly adopted maize, peanuts, and other new world crops.
By 1500, an estimated 47 million Africans were living in thousands of farming communities spread across the continent, 5 although in particularly dry regions, such as Kenya's Rift Valley, some lived a purely pastoral life, herding cattle, sheep, and goats. These were exchanged with farmers for grains and other essentials. 6 Large towns and cities had not developed, probably because large settlements were likely to be struck down by the parasites and other disease-causing organisms that had evolved with homo sapiens in Africa.7 Human populations outside Africa, by contrast, had largely escaped these diseases and hence could more easily build cities.
A number of African kingdoms had developed as the more successful chiefs consolidated their authority through conquest and alliance. To the south of the Congo River estuary, for example, European explorers encountered the Kongo kingdom, where a powerful king ruled several provinces through royal relatives.10 Great artistic achievements also characterized many of these pre-colonial kingdoms, as evidenced by the naturalistic bronze castings of heads in the kingdom of Benin, in today's Nigeria, and the stylized Congolese masks and carvings that inspired Picasso and other modern artists.
In 1807, the British parliament voted to end the slave trade, and over the next 60 years, the Royal Navy intercepted more than 1600 ships off Africa's coasts and freed over 160,000 captives, sending most to Sierra Leone. 15 But many ships evaded the British patrols, and large numbers of slaves continued to be exported until slavery was abolished throughout the Americas in the 1850s and 1860s. U.S. participation in the slave trade was banned by legislation passed in 1807 and strengthened in 1819. For a number of years, U.S. Navy ships were stationed off the African coast to participate in efforts to halt the trade, but with limited success. 16
The Atlantic slave trade was conducted by European traders based on the West African coast. They purchased slaves from African owners by trading guns, alcohol, cloth, or other European-manufactured goods; as well as cowrie shells, which had monetary value in pre-colonial Africa. Slavery had long been practiced in Africa, where it was customary to enslave people captured during wars, together with condemned criminals, and, in some societies, convicted adulterers and enemies of the king. 17 In addition, some of those sold into the Atlantic slave trade were kidnap victims. 18 According to historians, slaves in traditional African societies were typically absorbed into families or local armies, and their treatment was generally less harsh than in the plantations of the new world. Moreover, the children of slaves in Africa often could not be sold. 19
Effects. Scholars debate the effects of the slave trade on the politics and economies of African societies,20 but the era was clearly associated with turmoil and outbreaks of war affecting much of West Africa. The guns that flooded Africa in exchange for slaves helped fuel this instability, and the quest for European arms gave warring parties a powerful incentive to constantly seek new captives.21 It seems certain that warfare related to the slave trade, the loss of millions of people in their most productive years, and the psychological damage to individuals resulting from political instability and fear of capture, weakened Africa and left it ill-prepared to cope with the onset of direct European colonization.
The Colonial Era
As late as 1870, there was little indication that the European powers were about to leave their isolated positions on the coast and partition Africa among themselves.
Instead, it seemed more likely that indigenous political entities would consolidate their authority and eventually develop into nation-states. In West Africa, for example, the kingdom of Ashanti (Asante) had profited from its wealth in gold and the slave trade, and had acquired a strong central government, an advanced system of roads, well defined boundaries, and a national language.22 It seemed destined to grow stronger. Buganda in East Africa, to take another example, had become the chief naval power on Lake Victoria and was known for its powerful king, the Kabaka; its strong army; and its growing trade. 23
Meanwhile, a number of "secondary empires" -- secondary in the sense that they relied on imported European military technology -- were emerging. 24 Many of these were based in Muslim societies, and their gains did much to promote the spread of Islam in sub-Saharan Africa. In earlier centuries, Islam had been spreading slowly in West Africa as a result of trans-Sahara trade contacts, and had made larger gains in northeastern Africa through trade and Arab immigration. Africans who wanted to associate themselves with the wider Islamic world often converted willingly, and Koranic schools had begun to introduce literacy in Arabic across the Sahel. But in the nineteenth century, a series of holy wars or jihads created a vast West African Islamic empire centered on Sokoto, in modem Nigeria. In East Africa, the sultans of the island of Zanzibar were extending their power on the mainland, and Egypt was expanding its control in northeastern Africa. With troops on Lake Victoria by 1876, 25 it seemed headed for an empire reaching into central Africa.
In southern Africa, it was the "Boers" or Afrikaners, practicing a very conservative form of Christianity, who established a nineteenth century secondary empire. Descended from Dutch, Huguenot, and German settlers who had arrived at the Cape of Good Hope in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, thousands of Boers trekked deep into the African interior to escape the cultural influences of the British. (Britain had taken control of the Cape during the Napoleonic wars.) With modem rifles and cavalry tactics, the Boers defeated the powerful Zulu in key battles, and established farms in grasslands areas recently depopulated by a series of African wars sparked by Zulu expansionism . The Zulu were acquiring modem arms themselves and remained a major force in the region under a king ruling through an aristocracy.
The Scramble. The development of Africa's indigenous political entities was halted by the European scramble for Africa, which began in competition over the Niger and Congo River basins in the 1870s. The scramble concluded in 1920, when British forces, making use of combat airplanes developed during World War 1, ended the last resistance in Somalia. By this time, all of sub-Saharan Africa, except for Ethiopia and Liberia, was under European control. Ethiopia had thwarted Italian ambitions to make it a colony by inflicting a humiliating defeat on Italian troops at Adowa in 1896. However, Menelik II, the Ethiopian emperor, was unable to oust the Italians from the colony of Eritrea, which they had established along the Red Sea coast. (Italy invaded Ethiopia again in 1935, in what some historians regard as an opening phase of World War II. The Italians were driven from the region by British troops in 1941-1942.) 26
The scramble was made possible in part by advances in medicine, which for the first time gave Europeans a measure of protection against tropical diseases. Gains in military technology, particularly the development of machine guns and modem artillery, gave Europeans tremendous advantages over even very large African forces. In 1898, for example, an army of British and Egyptian troops killed 10,800 Sudanese in one day of fighting, while losing 48 officers and men themselves. 27 As a result of Europe's military advantages, many Africans chose not to resist the colonial invasion, although the Ashanti, the Zulu, the Boers, the Herero of German Southwest Africa (Namibia), and peoples in French West Africa did launch armed struggles against the colonizers.
Many European leaders were initially reluctant to seize territory in Africa because they doubted that potential financial gains would balance the likely cost. However, in Britain , France, and Germany there were imperialists and nationalists both in and out of government who brought popular and political pressure to bear in support of expansion. Anti-slavery activists felt that direct rule would end the slavery that continued to exist in Africa itself, and missionaries saw that their efforts could benefit as well.
Business interests seeking to develop and exploit Africa's resources were also influential, particularly with respect to southern Africa. Diamonds were discovered at Kimberley, in present-day South Africa, in 1871, and gold was found on the Witwatersrand (in and around modem Johannesburg) in 1885. (It was not until 1902, however, that British troops finally subdued the Afrikaners, in the second of the "Boer Wars.") The new colonial powers also valued Africa's agricultural potential. Germany, for example, sought to create a reliable source of raw cotton in its East African colony of Tanganyika. 28
The profit motive was perhaps strongest with King Leopold II of Belgium, but he successfully hid his real interests for many years amid a show of humanitarian concerns. Working closely with Henry M. Stanley, the British-American explorer and journalist, Leopold built a vast empire under his personal control by funding the exploration of the Congo River basin and persuading local chiefs to sign treaties, which they little understood, recognizing his authority. At the Berlin West Africa Conference in 1884-1885, Leopold won recognition of the sovereignty of his International Association of the Congo (IAC), which controlled Congo and has been described as Leopold's "one-man enterprise." 29 Britain and Germany had come to favor recognition of Leopold's IAC as a means of thwarting the growth of French influence in west and central Africa. 30 Leopold had also succeeded in winning the endorsement of U.S. President Chester Arthur for his plans, which were supported by a Senate resolution as well. 31
The Berlin conference set rules for the future acquisition of colonies in Africa, requiring that countries exercise effective control of an area before claiming it. This had the effect of limiting most further colonization to the strongest powers -- Britain, France, and Germany, although Portugal secured territories in Angola and Mozambique, where Portuguese settlers had long been present. Germany lost its colonies in the First World War, and by that time it was clear that Britain was the dominant power in Africa, with colonies stretching from southern Africa through eastern Africa and Sudan to Egypt, and holding the Gold Coast, including the former Ashanti, and Nigeria in West Africa and Nigeria. France, however, also held large territories in West and in Central Africa.
The United States did not have colonies in Africa, but the U.S. Navy assisted the American Colonization Society as it began to settle former slaves on the West African coast in 1820. The first permanent settlement was achieved in 1822, after arduous struggles and near-defeat by disease and unfriendly local warriors. The settlers issued the Declaration of Independence of the Republic of Liberia in 1847, and in subsequent decades, the Americo-Liberians used firearms to conquer indigenous peoples and extend their control into the hinterland. Some scholars argue that this expansion did not differ significantly from the actions of the European colonizers, 32 and that it set the stage for the violent disintegration of Liberian society in the late twentieth century. In April 1980, indigenous soldiers from the hinterland killed the Americo-Liberian president, William Tolbert, setting off a decade of political violence and human rights violations, followed by a 6-year civil war. 33
Effects. The effects of the colonial era on Africa and its peoples, like the effects of the slave trade, are a subject of scholarly debate. The consequences of Leopold's rule in his vast Congo colony, however, were quite clearly negative. Human rights activists and missionaries, including American missionaries, gradually made known the vast scale of the abuses that were taking place in Congo as Leopold tried to extract the maximum profit from his enterprises. Forced labor, beatings, mutilations, summary executions, and the use of starvation as an instrument of policy 34 were commonplace in Congo and the subject of Joseph Conrad's novel, The Heart of Darkness, published in 1902. The situation in Congo became an international scandal, forcing the Belgian government to remove the colony from Leopold's personal control in 1908, and to institute reforms.
In the British and French-controlled territories, the colonial era did provide a backbone of infrastructure, including roads and telephone systems, although rural areas generally benefitted far less than towns and cities. Standards of public health improved, and some elementary education began to be provided. Christian missions protected by the colonial authorities played a major role in promoting education and literacy -- winning millions of converts as a result. 35 Opportunities for higher education, travel, and employment in the modem sector, though limited, empowered a number of Africans who later became leaders in independent Africa. Kenya's Jomo Kenyatta and Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah, for example, studied at the London School of Economics, and Nkrumah also attended Lincoln University in the United States, as did Nigeria's Nnamdi Azikiwe. All were later presidents of their respective countries.
At the same time, European investment in Africa was limited, and colonial governments generally expected African colonies to pay their own way in terms of development. In order to generate the necessary revenue, the colonial state was heavily involved in the economy, influencing decisions on what crops should be planted and regulating prices as well as investment. Many statist systems based on the colonial model persisted after independence, retarding the evolution of market economies. Colonial economic policies also made Africa dependent on the export of primary products -minerals, agricultural products, and timber -- to the developed world in exchange for manufactured goods. The prices of primary products have fared poorly relative to manufactured goods in the post-colonial world, contributing to Africa's problems.
Colonial governments had no interest in promoting democracy or developing democratic traditions, which would have complicated their efforts to rule Africa with a minimum of expenditure. In the words of one expert, "the colonial state in Africa was an authoritarian bureaucratic apparatus of control and not intended to be a school of democracy.36 As pressure for political rights and independence mounted after World War 11, colonial regimes often imprisoned their critics and took other authoritarian measures that set unfortunate precedents for post-colonial rulers. Most Africans had no opportunity for political participation until the very end of the colonial period, when elections began to be held.
While Britain and France discouraged popular participation for most of the colonial era, they did work closely with local chiefs and other big men, because the cooperation of these traditional authorities was essential in obtaining the labor and tax revenues the colonial regimes required. Some contend that in strengthening big men, whose influence rested on kinship ties, the granting of favors, and the suppression of dissent, the colonial authorities contributed significantly to the problems independent Africa has suffered with respect to corruption, nepotism, and authoritarianism.
Colonial practice, many scholars believe, shaped Africa's present-day ethnic divisions by intensifying language and cultural differences among African peoples. In their view, this came about in part because Europeans of the colonial era tended to view the world in terms of "tribes" and "nations," and encouraged Africans to do likewise. Moreover, the colonial authorities, particularly the British, found it administratively convenient to group peoples together as "tribes" and rule indirectly through "tribal chiefs," whom they strengthened and in some instances created.37 Africans found that they could most effectively advance their interests in the colonial era if they worked through tribal organizations and sought the patronage of tribal leaders, and this tended to strengthen tribal loyalties. Today, these ethnic divisions are the source of much of Africa's violent politics. Even where civil war does not occur, ethnic divisions typically weaken political institutions and undermine economies.38
The colonial partition of Africa often had the effect of imposing artificial boundary divisions on Africa, separating peoples that had been linked by culture and trade. After the partition, roads and railroads were built to fink the capitals of the new colonial states to their hinterlands, rather than to one another; creating difficulties in transport between African countries that remain to this day. Moreover, by imposing the bureaucratic colonial state on African societies, the Europeans suppressed the diverse indigenous political arrangements that had governed Africa before the partition. Whether some of Africa's pre-colonial political entities could have continued to develop in ways that avoided or minimized the problems that confront the African state today is one of the unknowns of history. The fact that they were denied the opportunity to develop further is regarded by historian Basil Davidson as the "black man's burden.39
End of Colonialism. World War H (1939-1945) severely weakened Britain and France, and hastened the end of the colonial era in Africa. The war aims of the western powers tended to undermine the ideological basis of colonialism by stressing the importance of democracy and resistance to aggression -- ideas that resonated with Africa's emerging nationalists. At President Roosevelt's insistence, the United States and Britain had agreed on a set of war aims in the 1941 Atlantic Charter that affirmed "the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live." 40 The United Nations Charter signed at the end of the war committed the colonial powers to developing self government and free political institutions in the territories under their control (Article 73).
With the coming of peace, Africans who had been educated abroad during the 1930s, returned to Africa and began to organize opposition to the colonial regimes. Their thinking had been influenced by European intellectual currents of the day, and many had become socialists. They had also studied the revolutionary movements sweeping Asia and the struggle of black Americans to achieve social justice. Nkrumah and other African nationalists were greatly inspired by the work of W.E.B. DuBois, the black American sociologist and civil rights leader.41
By the end of the 1940s, British policyrnakers, who had granted independence to India in 1947, generally recognized that the African colonies would one day be independent -- but they tended to see that day as many decades in the future. France, by contrast, was following a policy of "assimilation" that in theory was to lead to the integration of its colonies into a greater France. Individual Africans could be assimilated as French citizens once they had achieved a certain standard of French education, and some, such as Leopold Senghor, poet, philosopher, and future President of Senegal, represented French Africa in the National Assembly.
All around Africa, however, nationalist sentiments were mounting, and by the early 1950s, the British faced a guerrilla uprising known as Mau Mau among the Kikuyu of Kenya. New political parties were organizing and staging anti- colonial protests in Gold Coast (Ghana) and Nigeria. British decision-makers soon concluded that their weakened country could ill-afford the cost of suppressing rising African nationalism, and the independence timetable was moved forward. Ghana became independent in 1957, followed by Nigeria in 1960, Tanzania in 1961, and Kenya in 1963.
Political parties were organizing in the French colonies as well, but President Charles de Gaulle was shocked when, in 1958, the little territory of Guinea voted in a referendum for independence rather than close association with France in a proposed new French Community. In the face of agitation for independence elsewhere, de Gaulle decided that France would cut its losses, and 14 independent countries emerged from French-held Africa in 1960. Demands for independence sprang up unexpectedly in the Belgian Congo in 1958, and with little power to resist, Belgium granted Congolese independence in 1960 as well.
Southern Africa. In most of southern Africa, independence was long delayed because of the presence of substantial white populations which generally opposed majority rule . In several countries in the region, Africans had to resort to armed struggle to win their freedom. In 1965, the tiny minority British-descended settlers in Rhodesia issued a Unilateral Declaration of Independence from Britain, which was pushing for democratic reforms. This led to United Nations sanctions against the Rhodesian regime, and Africans launched a civil war. Rhodesia finally became the independent country of Zimbabwe under a majority-elected government in 1980. Guerrilla wars broke out in Angola and Mozambique in the 1960s, and independence came only in 1975, after Portuguese military dictator Antonio Salazar was ousted in a 1974 coup in Lisbon. Armed struggle also took place in Namibia (South West Africa), which South Africa had taken from Germany in 1914, but independence did not come until 1990, following a UN-supervised election.
In South Africa itself, whites of both English and Afrikaner descent had enjoyed self-government since 1910, when Britain had granted what would later be known as Commonwealth status. 42 Opposition to white minority rule had existed for decades, but in 1948, the National Party (NP), representing conservative, nationalistic Afrikaners, came to power and imposed an institutionalized system of racial segregation known as apartheid (apart-ness).
Protests against apartheid mounted in the late 1960s, and in the 1970s, an increasingly violent resistance campaign was met by ever harsher government repression. In the 1980s, as resistance continued to grow, South Africa launched a number of military strikes and covert operations beyond South Africa's borders against bases and personnel of the opposition African National Congress (ANC). Late in the decade, however, South Africa's white-controlled government was facing international isolation, and many Afrikaner leaders came to realize that the costs of defending apartheid would be unsustainable in the long run. Consequently, the regime undertook secret discussions with the ANC on the outlines of a majority-based system that would include protections for minority interests. ANC leader Nelson Mandela was freed from prison in February 1990, and difficult constitutional negotiations concluded in November 1993. Universal-suffrage elections were held in April 1994, and Mandela became President in May of that year.
Even in these early years, however, serious problems were beginning to emerge. The former Belgian Congo fell into civil war from 1960-1964, and its mineral-rich Katanga province attempted to secede. In January 1963, the president of Togo, Sylvanus Olympio, was assassinated in the first of dozens of military coups and attempted coups that would plague the region. Nkrumah, who had made Ghana a socialist, one-party state was overthrown in 1966, and the first of Nigeria's many coups occurred that same year. Ethnic tensions mounted in Nigeria as a result of the coup, and when the Ibo people of eastern Nigeria attempted to secede, a civil war broke out that lasted until 1970.
Sub-Saharan Africa's annual rate of per capita economic growth fell to .8% in the 1970s, and plunged to a negative 2.2% per year in the 1980s, more than wiping out all previous gains. 44 In these decades, most African countries were governed by authoritarian regimes, and a few, such as Idi Amin's government in Uganda (1971-1979), were quite violent. Civil wars broke out not only Uganda, but also in Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, and Chad, as well as in Angola and Mozambique, where long civil wars followed the wars for independence. When drought struck wide areas of the continent in 1982-1984, the highest death tolls occurred in the war-torn countries, particularly Ethiopia and Sudan, where international relief agencies could not reach the hungry.
The underlying causes of Africa's problems in the post-independence era have been the subject of much discussion and analysis. The impact of the colonial era, which is blamed for inciting ethnic divisions and creating traditions of authoritarian rule as well as bureaucratic interference in the economy, has already been mentioned. Colleges and universities began to appear in African colonies only at the end of the colonial period, leaving very small indigenous elites to deal with the challenges of independence. Independent Africa confronted a major population challenge as well. In 1950, there were an estimated 200 million people in the sub-Saharan region, but by 1990, the number had grown to 600 million. 45
The Cold War has also been blamed for many of Africa's problems. Vast quantities of arms came into Africa during the Cold War, fueling Affican conflicts. Most of these arms came from the Soviet Union and its allies, and went to self- proclaimed Marxist regimes in Ethiopia, Angola, and Mozambique. In reaction, the United States provided far lesser quantities of weapons, but focused much of its economic assistance on regimes that were perceived as anti-Soviet. This competitive Cold War involvement, critics maintain, tended to strengthen governments on both sides that were anti- democratic and following inefficient, state-oriented economic policies, often marked by considerable corruption. 46
The degree to which French policy may have contributed to Africa's problems is a matter of debate. France had remained actively engaged in Africa because French policy makers believed that a major African role would help give France great power status at a time when the two superpowers were dominant elsewhere. By overt and covert means, they cultivated a "special relationship" with the elites of their former colonies, which they regarded as France's "chasse gardee," or "exclusive hunting ground." 47 In addition, France capitalized on the tie of language to forge close relations with the "francophone" regimes in Zaire and Rwanda, former Belgian colonies.
These special relationships with France usually brought both military and economic assistance, as well as a promise of French intervention to protect friendly regimes from violent unrest. Several thousand French troops were stationed at African bases. French businesses, meanwhile, gained privileged access to trade and investment opportunities. Critics maintained that French policy was perpetuating corrupt and authoritarian regimes in many countries, but defenders argued that France was contributing to stability and, as a result, facilitating development. (France began to reduce its military and financial commitments in Africa after the Socialist Party won legislative elections in May 1997, but the future direction of French policy is not yet clear.) 48
The 1990s
In the later 1980s and early 1990s, as the colonial era fell farther into the past and the Cold War waned, scholars began to focus on characteristics of the African state and African societies to explain the continent's difficulties. This line of analysis led to a number of discouraging conclusions about the continent. Some scholars concluded that African states were too weak to promote societal change and economic development, largely because the institutions of the state had been corrupted. The personal ambitions of leaders, ethnic favoritism, and "pathological patrimonialism," 49 were blamed by some for diverting state resources to the personal fortunes of ruling cliques, and to the police and military officials who kept them in power. There was much academic discussion of the "failed state" in Africa, amid extensive media coverage of famine and conflict in Somalia, Sudan, and other countries.
At the same time, there were several positive developments affecting Africa in the early 1990s, that gave rise to hopes for a better future. With the end of the Cold War, some noted, Africa's authoritarian rulers would no longer be able to play the superpowers against one another to perpetuate their hold on power. The momentous changes in South Africa were also highly encouraging because they averted a widely expected and potentially very violent revolution. Many anticipated that a stable South Africa would soon become an "engine of growth" for the economies of much of the sub- Saharan region. Several African countries were already well-advanced in free market economic reforms that they had undertaken at the behest of western aid donors. By the mid-1990s, GDP growth rates were exceeding population growth rates in many countries, and some were achieving rates of 5% or better.
Political reforms were also beginning in many of Africa's authoritarian states because of mounting demands for democratization from opposition movements and donors as well. In some countries, national political conferences convened and diverse interests in Africa's growing "civil society" were represented, including human rights organizations, nascent political parties, and religious leaders. Multiple political parties were permitted in countries that had been one- party states for years, and elections that seemed generally free and fair began to be held. These developments brought favorable reactions from a number of analysts. In 1991, for example, U.S. scholar Richard Joseph, who had been a critic of Africa's patrimonial politics, published an article entitled "Africa: The Rebirth of Political Freedom," which noted that a "virtual miracle" seemed to be underway. 50
Afro-Pessimism v. African Renaissance
For many observers, the hopes of the first half of the 1990s have faded, in part as a result of disappointment over the course of African democratization. Some of Africa's authoritarian leaders learned to manipulate the electoral process and divide the opposition, creating what one authority, Larry Diamond, calls "pseudo-democracies." Diamond argues that the governments of Kenya, Gabon, and Cameroon have played a "cat-and-mouse game with international donors, liberalizing politically in response to pressure while repressing as much as they can get away with in order to hang on to power." 51 A disappointed Richard Joseph wrote in 1998 that Africa's democratic opening at the beginning of the decade had resulted, with few exceptions, in "virtual democracies." These may have the surface characteristics of liberal democracy, such as regularly scheduled elections, but "their governments systematically stifle opposition behind a mask of legitimacy." 52
Another concern has been the violence and instability afflicting central Africa since 1994. The Rwanda genocide of that year, which saw perhaps one million people killed, followed by the upheaval in Congo (Zaire) in 1996-1997, and a new Congo civil war in 1998 have shown that violent conflict remains a very serious problem for Africa. Several countries now have troops in Congo pursuing a variety of causes and interests, and creating fears of a wider war. Ethiopia and Eritrea waged a brief border war in 1998, and seem resistant to mediation attempts. Angola, 53 Burundi, 54 Sierra Leone, Sudan 55 and other countries are also afflicted by new or continuing armed conflicts.
Preliminary data suggest that Africa's economic performance slipped in 1998, 56 in part reflecting global economic problems but perhaps also because of a slowdown in privatization and other reforms in a number of countries. The deepening conflict in central Africa has also held back the region's growth. Skeptics of Africa's economic performance note that despite a growth spurt in mid-decade, overall GDP growth for the years 1991-1997 was 2.2% per year, or somewhat less than the population growth rate. 57 When final data are available, South Africa's economy, the region's largest, is expected to show a growth rate near zero for 1998, and its slow growth is hampering prospects throughout southern Africa.
Africa's AIDS epidemic continues to intensify. According to a December 1998 United Nations update, 70% of all new HIV infections are in sub-Saharan Africa, and 80% of all AIDS deaths occur there. 58 The disease, much like the slave trade in earlier times, takes away young adults in their most productive years. An estimated 11.5 million people have already died in Africa, while 21.5 million adults and one million children are believed to be infected. Infection rates in some countries in southern Africa, which is severely affected, are estimated at 20%-26% of people aged 15-49.
"Afro-pessimists," look at the totality of these trends and conclude that for at least the next several years the continent's political and economic prospects are not very bright . This view is firmly rejected by many other observers, however, including some with long experience in African affairs, who argue that Afro-pessimism results from stereotyped views of Africa and a media tendency to focus on violent, dramatic events. In a recent article, two experts argue that there is a "new reality" in Africa "in which governments are becoming accountable to citizens; in which economic policies are empowering a growing private sector; in which real progress is being made in addressing difficult but tractable problems." 59 Optimists subscribe to the view that an "African Renaissance" is underway, using a term much favored by South Africa's Deputy President Thabo Mbeki. In a December 1997 speech, the U.S. Ambassador to South Africa, James Joseph, endorsed the African Renaissance concept and said that "nothing can stop Africa now." 60
The optimists, while acknowledging that there have been setbacks, maintain that the dominant political themes of the 1990s have been reconciliation in several formerly conflict-torn countries, most notably South Africa, and widespread gains in democratization through the electoral process. A recent book in the optimistic school, sponsored by the American Assembly, points out that in 1996 and 1997 alone, national elections were held or scheduled in 28 African countries. 61 The optimists argue that the wave of elections in Africa in recent years has established precedents that will be difficult to erase, thus making further democratization possible in years to come. They see Nigeria's progress toward a handover to an elected civilian regime, scheduled for May 1999, 62 as particularly encouraging. Oil-rich Nigeria is home to 110 million people, and successful democratization there could have broad impact in the region.
Optimists also accept that there have been disappointments in the economic sphere, but note that Africa has been less affected by the East Asian financial crisis than other parts of the world. In 1998, they note, the region's anticipated growth, though slower than in 1997, will comfortably exceed the rate expected for developing countries worldwide.63 Moreover, a number of francophone countries, as well as Mozambique, Uganda, and a few others continue to grow at much higher rates due to past reforms, showing what could be achieved elsewhere in the region. Africa's natural resources, including vast, newly-discovered oil deposits off the West African coast, as well as the continent's minerals, wildlife, and forests, also encourage the optimists to anticipate a brighter future for Africa.
The Administration has stressed Africa's potential as a U.S. trading partner, emphasizing the growing importance of oil imports from the region and the possibilities for increased exports and investment. It has given strong endorsement to a congressional trade and investment initiative, the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, which, as noted above, passed the House in 1998. 68 Administration spokesmen argue that the United States has a number of other interests in Africa as well, such as preventing weapons proliferation, preserving environmental resources of global importance, and combating the drug trade and international terrorism.
To further its objectives in Africa, the Administration has launched a number of Africa assistance initiatives, such as the Leland Initiative, aimed at enhancing Africa's access to the Internet, and the Greater Horn of Africa Initiative (GHAI) intended to reduce perennial food insecurity over much of eastern Africa. Administration policy has encountered some difficulties, however, and a defining moment came early in the Administration when, in October 1993, 18 U.S. soldiers were killed while participating in a United Nations humanitarian relief operation in Somalia. In reaction to this incident, the United States and the United Nations hesitated in sending peacekeepers when the Rwanda genocide broke out in 1994, and President Clinton later acknowledged to Rwandans that "we did not act quickly enough after the killing began." 69
In the wake of the Somalia and Rwanda experiences, the Administration has sought to strengthen Africa's own peacekeeping capabilities through the Africa Crisis Response Initiative (ACRI), which trains units of African armed forces for peacekeeping duties. Nonetheless, Africa's continuing conflicts are a source of frustration to Administration policyrnakers, since they undermine efforts to promote economic growth and political reform.
Trade results have been mixed, at least to date. U.S. exports to Africa have recently been increasing at a time when exports to the world as a whole have declined slightly.70 Nonetheless, Africa exports continue to total less than I% of U.S. exports, as has been the case for several years. 71 Imports from the region, consisting primarily of petroleum, represented about 1. 9% of total U.S. imports in 1997. Investment in sub-Saharan Africa is about 6% of total U.S. foreign direct investment. 72
Policy in Previous Administrations
Sub-Saharan Africa became a distinct item on the foreign policy agenda in 1958, when President Eisenhower authorized the creation of a Bureau of African Affairs in the Department of State.73 Over the years, Africa policy has often been the subject of controversy, with debate typically centering on whether a particular Administration was doing too much or too little with respect to an issue, such as apartheid in South Africa, African development, or the Soviet/Cuban role. These controversies cannot be reviewed in any detail here, but the principal issues faced by successive Administrations can be briefly noted.
The Eisenhower Administration confronted its first African crisis in 1960, with the Congo rebellion, which it feared would be exploited by the Soviet Union. The Administration supported the deployment of a UN peacekeeping force, which the Soviets initially agreed to, but then turned against. The Kennedy Administration (1961-1963) was more favorably disposed toward African nationalists than the Eisenhower Administration, although Cold War pressures limited Kennedy's policy options. President Kennedy did approve funding for a large and controversial dam Nkrumah sought for Ghana, and toward the end of his Administration Kennedy began to press the white regimes of southern Africa for reforms. 74 In 1963, The United States backed a UN-sponsored voluntary arms embargo against South Africa, over the objections of Britain and France.
Africa policy during the Johnson Administration (1963 -1969) focused on Congo (Zaire), where the United States gave extensive covert aid to suppress rebellions thought to be communist-inspired or of potential benefit to the Soviet Union. 75 It was during this period that Mobutu Sese-Seko, with U.S. backing, solidified his position as Zaire's president -- a position he would hold until 1997. While Washington gave limited military assistance to Congo (Zaire), in addition to covert aid, congressional concerns over the emergence of "another Vietnam" prevented deeper involvement.
In the Nixon and Ford Administrations (1969-1977), the Africa policy focus shifted to southern Africa and the violent upheavals affecting Angola, Mozambique, and Rhodesia. Political controversy over Africa policy sharpened considerably in these years, as critics came to believe that policymakers were too sympathetic to the white minority regimes. However, Henry Kissinger, the most influential policymaker of the period, believed that the Soviet Union was following a policy of "ruthless opportunism" and "adventurism" in Africa and elsewhere, and this view goes far toward explaining Africa policy during the period. 76 When Congress banned further involvement in Angola in 1975, Kissinger claimed that it was unwilling to confront Soviet expansionism. 77
President Jimmy Carter's Administration (1977-1981) brought a new emphasis on human rights to U.S. foreign policy, resulting in a strong push for majority rule in Zimbabwe, advocacy of independence for Namibia, and heavy criticism of apartheid in South Africa. Mobutu was also pressed for economic and political reforms, but Zaire policy, like Africa policy generally, continued to be constrained by Cold War considerations. The Administration did not react to the Liberia coup in 1980, perhaps because reports of human rights violations and corruption had discredited the Americo-Liberian regime.
The Carter Administration was faced with apparent Soviet and Cuban gains in the sub-Saharan Africa, and came under domestic political pressure to respond. An oppressive, pro-Soviet regime had emerged in Ethiopia, and in response, the Carter Administration forged ties with Somalia, Ethiopia's neighbor. Somalia then complicated the situation by invading a province it claimed in Ethiopia, and many feared that the United States might become militarily involved if Cuban and Ethiopian troops crossed into Somalia. Cuba and Ethiopia did launch a successful counteroffensive against the Somalis, but their advance halted at the Somalia border, averting a crisis. Cold War concerns also played a role in the Carter Administration's opposition to mandatory sanctions against South Africa. 78
Cuban troops were also in Angola, where they were assisting the Marxist regime in fighting the UNITA resistance movement. This Cuban deployment became a major concern for Africa policymakers in the Reagan Administration (1981-1989). There was strong support in the Reagan Administration for resuming covert aid to UNITA, and a publicly- acknowledged covert aid program was launched in 1986 after Congress had repealed prohibiting legislation in 1985. Chester Crocker, the Assistant Secretary of State for Africa in those years, favored a policy of "linkage," intended to secure Cuban withdrawal from Angola in exchange for independence for South African-held Namibia. Crocker has written that he faced heavy political opposition from all sides on this issue, but a 1988 regional peace agreement, negotiated under U.S. leadership, finally achieved the goals he sought. 79 With respect to South Africa, Administration critics believed that the United States was not pushing hard enough for political change, and in 1986, Congress enacted sweeping sanctions legislation, over President Reagan's veto.
Africa policymakers in the Bush Administration (1989-1993) directed much of their attention to the Horn of Africa. Rebel forces in Ethiopia were poised to overthrow the regime in 1991, and Bush Administration diplomats, working with both the government and the rebels, managed to arrange a peaceful transition, avoiding an ethnic and political upheaval of the sort that devastated Liberia after the 1980 coup. 80 Somalia, however, had fallen into an era of clan violence, which, combined with drought and famine, had created a humanitarian disaster by 1992. Consequently, just before leaving office, Bush sent U.S. troops to launch a massive, multi-national humanitarian intervention. The move was credited with saving thousands from starvation, 81 despite the loss of American life that occurred in 1993. With Cold War tensions easing, the Bush Administration also pushed Mobutu for reforms. This was part of a broader policy of promoting democracy and economic liberalization in Africa generally.
Davidson, Basil. The Black Man's Burden: Africa and the Curse of the Nation State. New York, Times Books, 1992.
Gordon, David F., David C. Miller, Jr., and Howard Wolpe. The United States and Africa: A Post-Cold War Perspective. New York: W.W. Norton, 1998.
Hochschild, Adam. King Leopold's Ghost. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998.
Joseph, Richard, ed. State, Conflict, and Democracy in Africa. Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Reinner Publishers, 1999.
Pakenham, Thomas. The Scramble for Africa, 1876-1912. New York: Random House, 1991.
Reader, John. Africa: A Biography of the Continent. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998.
Schraeder, Peter J. United States Foreign Policy Toward Africa: Incrementalism,
Crisis, and Change.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Selected CRS Products
Africa: U.S. Foreign Assistance Issues. CRS Issue Brief 95052, by Raymond W. Copson. Continuously updated.
Congo (Formerly Zaire). CRS Issue Brief 96037, by Raymond W. Copson. Continuously updated.
Liberia: Issues for the United States. CRS Issue Brief 96025, by Carl Ek. Continuously updated.
Nigeria in Political Transition. CRS Issue Brief 98046, by Theodros Dagne with the assistance of Amanda Smith. Continuously updated.
Sudan: Humanitarian Crisis, Peace Talks, Terrorism, and U.S. Policy. CRS Issue Brief 98043, by Theodros Dagne. Continuously updated.
South Africa: Background, Current Issues, and Political Outlook, CRS Report 98-650 F, by Raymond W. Copson. July 30, 1998.
1. Roland Oliver, The African Experience (New York: Harper Collins, 1991), 1-26.
2. John Reader, Africa: A Biography of the Continent (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998), 91- 95.
3. See, for example, Paul Bohannan and Philip Curtin, Africa and Africans, fourth edition (Prospect Heights, Illinois: Waveland Press, 1995), 146-147.
4. Sorghum and coffee, among other crops, are believed to be African in origin. Coffee reached the wider world by way of Arabia.
5.Reader, Africa: A Biography, 240.
6. John Lonsdale, "The Conquest State of Kenya, 1895-1905," in Unhappy Valley: Conflict in Kenya and Africa, ed. Bruce Berman and John Lonsdale (London: James Currey, 1992), 1920.
7. William H. McNeill, Plagues and Peoples (New York: Doubleday, 1977); Reader, Africa: A Biography, 240.
8. Bruce Berman, "Ethnicity, Patronage, and the African State: the Politics of Uncivil Nationalism," African Affairs 97 (July 1998): 305-341.
9. John Iliffe, Africans: The History of a Continent (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 79-80.
10. Ibid., p.80.
11. Iliffe, Africans: The History of a Continent, 127; Reader, Africa: A Biography, 379.
12. Reader, 379-380; Iliffe, 131. Both authors cite Paul E. Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery: A History of Slavery in Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).
13. Bohannan and Curtin, Africa and Africans, 184-185.
14. Oliver, The African Experience, 123.
15. Reader, Africa: A Biography, 42; Iliffe, Africa: the History of a Continent, 148.
16. E.B. Potter, The Naval Academy Illustrated History of the United States Navy (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1971), 59.
17. Philip D. Curtin, The Tropical Atlantic in the Age of the Slave Trade (Washington: American Historical Association, 1991), 15-19.
18. Iliffe, Africa: The History of a Continent, 133.
19. Bohannan and Curtin, Africa and Africans, 182. Reader, however, reports instances of slaves being used as human sacrifices in Africa. Africa: A Biography, 183.
20. Paul E. Lovejoy, "The Impact of the Atlantic Slave Trade on Africa: A Review of the Literature," Journal of African History 30 (1989), 365-394. See also Reader, Africa: A Biography, 406-407.
21. Robin Law, The Slave Coast of West Africa, 1550-1750: the Impact of the Atlantic Slave Trade on an African Society (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), 345-350.
22 Basil Davidson, The Black Man's Burden: Africa and the Curse of the Nation-State (New York: Times Books, 1992), 76.
23. Roland Oliver and Anthony Atmore, Africa Since 1800, 4th ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 81-83.
24. Bohannan and Curtin, Africa and Africans, 192-204.
25. lliffe, Africans: The History of a Continent, 165.
26. Post-war Ethiopia took full control of Eritrea in 1962, setting off a long resistance struggle. Eritrea finally became independent in 1993.
27. Thomas Pakenham, The Scramble for Africa, 1876-1912 (New York: Random House, 1991), 543-546.
28. Reader, Africa, A Biography of the Continent, 597.
29. Reader, Africa: A Biography, 539.
30. On Leopold in the Congo, see Adam Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghost (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1998). See also Pakenham's Scramble for Africa.
31. Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghost, 75-82.
32. Curtin and Bohannan, Africa and Africans, 221-222.
33. CRS Issue Brief 96025, Liberia: Issues for the United States (continuously updated).
34. Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghost, 225-234.
35. Ilffe, Africans: the History of A Continent, 222-229.
36. Berman, "Ethnicity, Patronage, and the African State," 329.
37. lliffe, Africans, The History of a Continent, 200-202.
38. For a recent statement of this view, see Berman, "Ethnicity, Patronage, and the African State. "
39. Hence, the title of his book, The Black Man's Burden: Africa and the Curse of the Nation-State. On the negative political consequences of colonialism, see also Mahmoud Mamdani, Citizen and Subject: 1960 Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996).
40. James McGregor Burns. Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom (New York and London: Harcourt Brace Javanovich, 1970), 130.
41. Oliver and Atmore, Africa Since 1800, 217-218.
42. Pakenham, Scramble for Africa, 667.
43. Donald George Morrison and others, Black Africa: A Comparative Handbook (New York: The Free Press, 1972), 52.
44. John Ravenhill, "A Second Decade of Adjustment: Greater Complexity, Greater Uncertainty," in Thomas M. Callaghy and John Ravenhill, eds. Hemmed In: Responses to Africa's Economic Decline (New York: Columbia University Press), 18.
45. lliffe, Africans: The History of a Continent, 243.
46. Zaire, a major beneficiary of U.S. assistance over many years, is often cited as a case in point. See CRS Issue Brief 96037, Congo (Formerly Zaire).
47. Peter J. Schracder, "France and the Great Game in Africa." Current History (May 1997), 207. On the French covert role, see Kaye Whiteman, "The Man who Ran Francafrique," The National Interest (Fall 1997).
48. Roland Marchal, "France and Africa: the Emergence of Essential Reforms?" International Affairs (April 1998), 355-372.
49. Zaki Ergas, ed. The African State in Transition (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987), 9. Articles in this edited volume elaborate the critique of the African state.
50. Journal of Democracy 2 (Fall 1991), 11-24.
51. "Is the Third Wave Over?" Journal of Democracy (July 1996), 31-32.
52. "Africa, 1990-1997: From Abertura to Closure," Journal of Democracy (April 1998), 6.
53. CRS Report 98-816 F, Angola Update (October 1, 1998).
54. CRS Report 98-877 F, Burundi: Update (October 26, 1998).
55. CRS Issue Brief 98043, Sudan: Humanitarian Crisis, Peace Talks, Terrorism, and US Policy (continuously updated).
56. The World Bank estimates sub-Saharan Africa's rate of GDP growth at 2.4% in 1998, as compared with 3.5% in 1997. Global Economic Prospects, 1998/1999 (Washington: World Bank, 1998) 6.
57. Ibid. The bank estimates sub-Saharan population growth at 2.6% per year from 1990 through 1996. African Development Indicators, 1997. (Washington: World Bank, 1997), 7.
58. UNAIDS (Geneva), AIDS Epidemic Update (December 1998).
59. David F. Gordon and Howard Wolpe, "The Other Africa: An End to Afro-pessimism," World Policy Journal (Spring 1998). Wolpe is a former Member of Congress and former Chairman of the House Africa Subcommittee. He is currently the President's special envoy to Africa's Great Lakes region. Gordon is a Senior Fellow at the Overseas Development Council.
60. "The Idea of African Renaissance: Myth or Reality?" Vital Speeches (December 15, 1997).
61 "David F. Gordon, David C. Miller, Jr., and Howard Wolpe, The United States and Afiica, a Post-Cold War Perspective (New York: W.W. Norton, 1998), 42. The American Assembly is a non-partisan organization affiliated with Columbia University that promotes policy discussion.
62. CRS Issue Brief 98-046, Nigeria in Political Transition (continuously updated).
63. Africa's anticipated growth, as note above, is 2.4%, while growth for developing countries generally is expected to be 2.2%. World Bank, Global Economic Prospects, 1998199, 6.
64. CRS Report 96-420 F, Africa: President Clinton's 1998 Visit (May 4, 1998).
65. Address by the President to the Parliament of South Africa, March 26, 1998.
66. Remarks by the President to the People of Ghana.
67. Ibid.
68. See, for example, a speech by the Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, Susan E. Rice, to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, July 14, 1998.
69. Remarks in Rwanda, March 25, 1998.
70. January-October 1998, exports to sub-Saharan Africa increased by 4.2%, while exports to the world declined by 1 %. U.S. International Trade Commission Trade Data Base.
71. U.S. International Trade Commission Trade Data Base; U.S. Department of Commerce, US. Foreign Trade Highlights.
72. U. S. Department of Commerce, Survey of Current Business (September 1997).
73. Peter Schraeder, United States Foreign Policy Toward Africa: Incrementalism, Crisis, and Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 1.
74. Richard D. Mahoney, JFK: Ordeal in Africa (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), 223-243.
75. Schraeder, United States Foreign Policy Toward Africa, 74-80.
76. Henry Kissinger, White House Years (Boston: Little Brown, 1979), 119, 1257.
77. Ibid., 1257.
78. Cyrus Vance, Carter's Secretary of State, wrote that mandatory sanctions would have harmed "important Western economic interests." Hard Choices: Critical Years In America's Foreign Policy (New York: Simon and Schuster), 275.
79. Chester A. Crocker, High Noon in Southern Africa: Making Peace in a Rough Neighborhood (New York: W.W. Norton, 1992).
80. Schraeder, United States Foreign Policy Toward Africa, 172,
81. Walter Clarke and Jeffrey Herbst, "Somalia and the Future of Humanitarian Intervention," Foreign Affairs (March/April 1996), 84-85.
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