U.S. Links Its S. Africa Economic Policy to Free Elections

As soon as South Africa sets a date for free multiracial elections and establishes a transitional council, the United States will take steps to help the onetime outcast nation rejoin the international economy, Secretary of State Warren Christopher said Friday.

“South Africa’s successful transition is important for Africa, the United States and the world,” Christopher said in a speech outlining the Clinton Administration’s post-Cold War policy in Africa. “The United States will help--and we expect the other industrial democracies to help as well.”

South Africa has mineral wealth and an advanced economy. But its racial divisions and tensions brought sanctions and withdrawal of foreign investments that diminished its role in global trade and financial activity.

Although he asserted that President Clinton’s policy toward Africa will be significantly different from the approach of the Ronald Reagan and George Bush administrations, Christopher offered few dramatic departures. He said the U.S. government, free of Cold War concerns, will emphasize democracy and economic development throughout the continent, tailoring Africa policy to African concerns instead of treating the continent as an outpost of the northern hemisphere.

The speech, to a conference of the African-American Institute, had been eagerly awaited by American black leaders pressing for more active U.S. engagement in Africa.

Christopher said the United States is determined to focus its assistance on countries with democratic governments and free-market economies, shunning dictators, including some who enjoyed close U.S. support during the Cold War.

“The people of Africa know where their future lies: not with corrupt dictators like Mobutu (Sese Seko of Zaire), but with courageous democrats in every part of the continent,” he said.

Mobutu long enjoyed American patronage, in exchange for his unwavering support for anti-Communist politics, despite a record of corruption and abuse of human rights. Mobutu amassed a personal fortune estimated at several billion dollars during a quarter-century as the ruler of a country rich in resources but with an impoverished population.

The official U.S. attitude toward Mobutu turned chilly during the Bush Administration, but Christopher is almost certainly the first secretary of state to call him a corrupt dictator in public.

American black leaders have been urging the Administration to adopt a harder line toward Mobutu and to establish diplomatic relations with the newly elected government in Angola to demonstrate support for African democracy. President Clinton recognized Angola this week, ending U.S. support for rebel leader Jonas Savimbi and his National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, which once enjoyed backing from both the United States and South Africa.

Although Christopher said the United States will assist African nations that adopt free-market economic reform, he promised only about $1.3 billion in developmental and humanitarian aid to all sub-Saharan nations, less than half the annual allocation for Israel.

For South Africa, Christopher promised to support funding from the World Bank and other international financial institutions once “progress toward democracy is irreversible.”

“Once a Transitional Executive Council has been put in place, and a date for elections has been set, we will work with our G-7 (the seven main industrial democracies) partners to help South Africa re-enter the global economy,” he said.

Christopher also called for a Somalia-style humanitarian rescue mission for Sudan, where he said a bitter civil war “has resulted in terrible suffering and appalling violations of human rights.”