The Africa Battle
By Susan E. Rice
Tuesday, December 11, 2001; Page A33
What has Africa got to do with Osama bin Laden or terrorist finance
networks? Just this: Africa is the world's soft underbelly for global
terrorism. If we intend to win -- and not just to fight -- the war on
terror, we cannot view Africa as separate from our comprehensive, global
war. Terrorism directed against the United States is alive and well in
Africa, as was obvious after the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and
Tanzania. Al Qaeda and other terrorist cells are active throughout East,
southern and West Africa, as well as North Africa. These organizations
plan, finance, train and execute terrorist operations in many parts of
Africa, not just Sudan and Somalia. Terrorist organizations take advantage
of Africa's porous borders, and weak law enforcement, judicial
institutions and security services to move men, weapons and money around
the globe. They manipulate poor, disillusioned populations, often with
religious or ethnic grievances, to recruit for their jihad.
And what are we doing about it? Not nearly enough. President Bush has
defined well the necessity of a comprehensive, long-term response to the
global threat we face. He has rightly coupled the imperative of robust
military action with efforts to build a durable coalition, improve
our collecting of intelligence, seize terrorist assets, defend our
homeland and disrupt terrorist organizations around the world. But two
critical pieces are missing from our comprehensive strategy. First and
most urgent, we must help those countries in Africa and elsewhere that
have the will to cooperate with us in the war on terror but lack the
means. It's not enough simply to say to the world: "You are either with us
or against us." There are many countries that cannot defend their own
citizens from terror, much less America's. President Bush was right to say
that we would help such countries, but we do not yet have a strategy in
place, much less the resources to implement it.
After the East Africa embassy bombings, the U.S. government finalized the
first-ever continent-wide strategy to combat crime, terrorism and narcotics
flows in Africa. Africa received, for the first time, an annual share of
the State Department's global anti-crime, counternarcotics and counterterrorism
budgets. It was a start. But given the global battle we face today, these
resources are woefully inadequate. We need to invest tens of millions of
dollars annually to help a large number of African countries control their
borders, improve intelligence collection, strengthen law enforcement and
build effective judicial institutions.
Second, over the longer term, we need to change the conditions around the
world that breed terrorism. Islam is a fast-growing religion in Africa.
That in itself is not a concern. But the fact that some of Islam's most
radical and anti-American adherents are increasingly active from South
Africa to Sudan, from Nigeria to Algeria, should concern us greatly.
Africa is an incubator for the foot soldiers of terrorism. Its poor, young,
disaffected, unhealthy and undereducated populations often have no stake
in government nor faith in the future. They harbor an easily exploitable
discontent with the status quo. For such people, in such places, nihilism
is as natural a response to their circumstances as self-help. This is why
we must view it as our fight, not just the developing world's, to close
the gaps between rich and poor. Fighting this battle will not be swift
or cheap. America needs to lead our partners in the developed world, both
in the public and private sectors, to invest on a scale previously
inconceivable. We will have to open our markets completely to goods and
services from the developing world, provide much more trade and investment
financing, bridge the digital divide, bolster democratic institutions,
invest more in debt relief, increase assistance for education, build
health infrastructure, treat the infected, find a vaccine for HIV/AIDS.
We will have to pay the price, billions and billions, to help lift the
peoples of Africa and other underdeveloped regions out of poverty and
hopelessness. Without progress on this front throughout the developing
world, we should expect bin Laden and future such enemies to find a
growing constituency for their radical form of Islam, whose chief tenet is
hatred of America.
The United States cannot bear this burden alone. African peoples and
African governments will have to provide the leadership, the transparency
and the will to forge a better future. Without this, all well-intentioned
efforts will fail. But with mutual commitment and sustained investment, we
can achieve mutual security and, eventually, even mutual prosperity.
Unfortunately, these are by necessity budget-busting times. It's not
enough to ramp up spending, as we must, for defense and intelligence. We
must also dramatically increase resources in the Foreign Operations
accounts to help would-be partners in Africa and elsewhere fight side by
side with us in the war on terror.
The Foreign Operations budget for FY 2002 is all but final and, regrettably,
it is business as usual -- almost a straight-line appropriation. At the end
of the day, Pakistan will fare somewhat better, but much of the rest of
the world will not. Africa is already being cannibalized to fund Pakistan's
and other new programs. Thus, after several years of progressively increasing
resources, Africa will likely get less than last year. Now is the time to
reverse that trend and to invest what we must to fight truly comprehensively
the global war on terrorism. If we are going to fight this war big, we
must also fight it smart.
The writer was assistant secretary of state for African Affairs from 1997
to 2001.
---------------© 2001 The Washington Post Company---------------------
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