| (The following article appeared
in the Washington Times on March 31,
2001)
Lawmaker calls for more
U.S. activism in Africa
Gus Constantine THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The United States must stand up to radical
regimes in Africa while working closely with
those nations that seek to broaden democracy,
respect human rights and adhere to the rule of
law, said Rep. Ed Royce, chairman of a key House
panel on Africa.
In an interview with reporters and editors at
The Washington Times on Thursday, Mr. Royce
pledged to steer a different course than the
Clinton administration, which tended to avoid
confrontation with leaders such as Col. Moammar
Gadhafi of Libya, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and
Charles Taylor of Liberia.
The focus in Africa is changing from aid to
trade, said Mr. Royce, California Republican,
who chairs the House International Relations
subcommittee on Africa.
He was accompanied by Paul M. Whibey of the
Institute for Advanced Strategic
Political Studies, a think tank with offices in
Washington and Jerusalem.
Mr. Whibey's current focus is on oil in the
South Atlantic, where Angola's oil exports have
been instrumental in financing its civil war
against Jonas Savimbi's National Union for the
Total Independence of Angola, or UNITA.
Oil has also been discovered farther north
off the coast of Equatorial Guinea, the only
state in Africa that had formerly been a Spanish
colony.
Last week, Equatorial Guinea's strongman,
Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, was in Washington
seeking help in developing the newfound
potential.
The Gulf of Guinea is of vital strategic
importance to the United States, Mr. Whibey
said.
He envisioned a central role for the United
States in developing the region, going as far as
proposing the creation of a new South Atlantic
Command for the U.S. military.
It could be similar to Southern Command, the
U.S. command responsible for Latin America and
the Caribbean, he said.
Such an energy center in the South Atlantic
could lessen American dependence on oil from the
Persian Gulf, Mr. Whibey said.
In emphasizing the need for a new direction
away from President Clinton's Africa policy, Mr.
Royce was particularly critical of the past
administration's muted voice on the bloodletting
in Sierra Leone.
"The Clinton administration did little
to support the elected government of [President
Ahmed Tejan] Kabbah or to condemn the brutality
of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), the
congressman said.
Until recently, Foday Sankoh led the RUF,
even though he spent time in a Nigerian jail. He
has now been rearrested in Sierra Leone.
What appeared to upset the congressman most
was the links of West African leaders to Col.
Gadhafi.
An oil-export surge in Angola, where new
fields have recently been tapped, and Equatorial
Guinea is a comparatively new phenomenon. For
years oil exports from Africa have been anchored
in Nigeria and less so in Cameroon and Gabon.
Basing a strategic security policy on oil
exports from Equatorial Guinea and Angola would
create other problems, analysts say.
Angola is engaged in a civil war that has
gone on for nearly 26 years and offers none of
the stability that business normally seeks
before investing abroad.
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