[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 14800]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     STOP PLAYING GAMES WITH AFRICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Miller of Michigan). Under a previous 
order of the House, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Watson) is 
recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. WATSON. Madam Speaker, as we mark the first anniversary of the 
President's historic tour of Africa, we cannot help but wonder when, if 
ever, the government of this country will end the ``promise game'' they 
are so adept at playing with the peoples of Africa.
  The administration's whirlwind, 1-week tour was ostensibly undertaken 
in pursuance of a policy ``to work with others for an African continent 
that lives in liberty, peace, and growing prosperity.'' It offered a 
laundry list of financial aid and development initiatives that could 
wipe out its poverty and dependence.
  It is up to us to insist that the promises are kept and not relegated 
to unfunded programs for Africa, so characteristic of compassionate 
conservatives.
  Startled by the realities of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, a threat 
potentially more devastating than global terrorism, the administration 
announced a tripling of its relatively modest commitment to battling 
the spread of the dreaded disease in Africa. The proposed $15 billion 
appropriation over the next 5 years in a region in which the pandemic 
has infected more than 30 million people, a tenth of them being 
children under the age of 15, is a drop in the bucket compared to the 
several billions we are committing annually to the pursuit of 
geopolitical strategies of a significantly less danger to the world at 
large.
  But as generous and noble as this initiative is and touted to be, it 
is subject to political strings and is actually presented as another 
means of imposing our ideological concepts on the suffering people of 
Africa.
  The other priority of the administration's African policy is the so-
called advancement of political and economic freedom. Considering the 
means by which this government sat itself in power, it remains a source 
of wonder that they have had the unmitigated gall to propose to lecture 
any other state, least of all ancient African kingdoms, on the arts of 
governance and the democratic path to freedom.
  The supposedly well-intended African Growth and Opportunity Act, 
known as an AGOA, is designed to build trade capacity with Africa and 
will, no doubt, be renewed and extended. Yet its full effect may never 
be realized until its implementation is not limited to those African 
nations that place themselves under the thumb of U.S. business 
interests.
  The administration's third African policy priority is, they say, to 
create peace and regional stability. This would and could have been a 
lofty goal in itself had it not been proffered by an administration 
whose overall relations with other nations is based on a doctrine of 
preemptive aggression and regime change by violent external force.
  We of the Congressional Black Caucus have been dubbed the conscience 
of this Congress. It is our duty to watch over the actions and 
activities of this government and to insist that, in words as well as 
in deeds, the interests of our constituency primarily and of the Nation 
ultimately are served.
  In closing, Madam Speaker, our priority, therefore, is to ensure that 
the advantageous promises made to Africa are kept, and that every cent 
committed is spent as appropriated; that this and every other 
administration become fully convinced that its appropriations to Africa 
are not charitable contributions, but at least are reparations for past 
exploitations and, at the most, investments in the prosperity of 
Africa's people and all of the world.

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