Voice of America
Sunday, January 29, 2012
This has come as a disappointment to some as Obama's father was from Kenya.
While walking onto the House floor to deliver his recent 2012 State
of the Union speech, President Obama told U.S. Defense Secretary Leon
Panetta "great job tonight."
It was later explained the comment
referred to a late night U.S. military raid into Somalia to free two
hostages including an American aid worker.
But Obama's actual speech made no mention of sub-Saharan Africa whatsoever.Kwaku Nuamah, a Ghanaian professor at American University in Washington, is not surprised.
"Africa
is not big in Washington, there is no constituency that cares about
Africa that much," said Nuamah. "I did not think the traditional
contours of American foreign policy were going to change because there
was somebody in the White House with ties to Africa, but of course a lot
of people expected that."
Since making a speech in Ghana in 2009
about how the United States would hold African leaders accountable to
good governance and respecting democratic institutions, President Obama
has not returned to the continent.
Emira Woods from Washington-based Foreign Policy in Focus says actual change though is more important than visits and speeches.
"Wonderful
words, but very much unfulfilled," said Woods. "Those words have to be
lived in terms of U.S. foreign policy and we are still waiting for them
to be realized."
Woods says she feels too much attention is
placed on U.S. military aid in resource rich countries, without regard
to a government's record or how elections are conducted.
This
includes help for Nigeria's embattled government to eliminate Islamic
extremists, and assistance in autocratic-run east and central African
countries to squash the roving Lord's Resistance Army.
Patrick
Mubobo, a Congolese American recently protesting in front of the White
House, is one of those bitterly disappointed, after the U.S. government
did little following flawed 2011 elections in his native mineral-rich
and heavily U.S.-assisted Democratic Republic of Congo.
"We want
to tell him it is over if he does not do the right thing for Congo, for
children who are crying and dying if he does not do the right thing for
democracy, he can count that he has not only lost my vote, but he has
lost a lot of votes," said Mubobo.
Congolese Americans at this
recent protest said they had campaigned vigorously for Obama in 2008 and
even rallied for his health care legislation, but that now they felt
disillusioned with the way the U.S. government was dealing with Africa
and Africans.
U.S. officials point to recent successes in
Africa, such as helping diplomatically as South Sudan became a new
country last year, giving assistance to millions of victims to overcome
drought in the Horn of Africa, and pursuing major health initiatives to
fight AIDS and other diseases.