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The Clinton Administration and Africa: A View from Nairobi, Kenya

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2021

Korwa G. Adar
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Extract

There is nothing more fundamental to Africans who are concerned with the future of the African continent than the issues of democracy, human rights, good governance, and the rule of law. These basic human liberties, among other concerns, constitute the central driving force behind what is often referred to as Africa’s “second liberation.” The primary purpose of this article is to assess the Clinton administration’s role in this second liberation, particularly in terms of its involvement in issues of democracy and human rights. This assessment is offered from the perspective of an individual who has been directly involved in the prodemocracy and human rights movement in Kenya. This article focuses on whether the Clinton administration’s policies are still heavily influenced by classic U.S. conceptions of realpolitik, or if enlightened leadership more in line with a neo-Wilsonian idealpolitik—as official rhetoric suggests—has permitted a fundamental departure in favor of a more coherent and tangible democracy and human rights foreign policy stance in the post-Cold War era.

Type
Views from Abroad
Information
African Issues , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , 1998 , pp. 70 - 74
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1998 

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References

Notes

1. Tonelson, Alan, “Jettison the Policy,” Foreign Policy, 97 (Winter 1994/95): 125 Google Scholar.

2. Burnstead, Richard A., “The U.S. and Africa: The Democratic Agenda,” Maoni Ya Amerika (Embassy of the United States of America, Nairobi, Kenya), 60 (1992): 4–5 Google Scholar. See also “Bill Clinton, Election 92,” Africa Report (September/October 1992): 19–20.

3. Burnstead, Richard A., “Bill Clinton,” Maoni Ya Amerika 60(1992): 11 Google Scholar.

4. Brinkley, Douglas, “Democratic Enlargement: ‘The Clinton Doctrine’,” Foreign Policy 106 (Spring 1997): 116 Google Scholar. See also Warren Christopher, “U.S./Africa: A New Relationship,” Africa Report (July/August 1993): 36–39; and Brinkley, Douglas, Strategies of Enlargement: Bill Clinton and U.S. Foreign Policy (Cambridge: Yale University Press, 1997)Google Scholar.

5. Christopher, Warren, “America’s Leadership, America’s Opportunity,” Foreign Policy 98 (Spring 1995): 8–10 Google Scholar.

6. For the Ogoni uprising, see Osaghae, Eghosa, “The Ogoni Uprising: Oil Politics, Minority Agitation, and the Future of the Nigerian State,” African Affairs 94 (1995): 325–344 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7. For the view that the Clinton administration has had only modest success in its “democracy enlargement” pledge, see Carothers, Thomas, “From Revolution to Retrenchment,” Foreign Affairs 76, no. 1 (January/February 1997): 85–99 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8. For a detailed analysis of Hemptone’s, Smith experience in Kenya, see his Rogue Ambassador: An African Memoir (Sewanee, Tenn.: University of the South Press, 1997)Google Scholar.

9. For a detailed analysis of the intimidation, arrests, and detention of the Kenyan academics by Moi regime, see Korwa G. Adar, “Human Rights and Academic Freedom in Kenya’s Public Universities: The Case of the Universities Academic Staff Union (UASU),” Human Rights Quarterly, forthcoming.

10. Brazeal, Aurelia, “Relationship Between Kenya and the U.S. Is Much More Than Aid,” Maoni Ya Amerika 72 (December 1993): 3 Google Scholar (address by Ambassador Brazeal to Kenya-U.S. Association, November 18, 1993).

11. Salim, Salim, “Africa in Transition,” in U.S. Foreign Policy: An African Agenda, ed. Minter, William (Washington, D.C.: African Policy Information Center, 1994),2 Google Scholar.

12. See generally, Mutua, Makau wa, “U.S. Foreign Policy Towards Africa: Building Democracy Through Popular Participation,” in U.S. Foreign Policy: An African Agenda, ed. Minter, William (Washington, D.C.: African Policy Information Center, 1994), 13–17 Google Scholar.

13. Christopher, “America’s Leadership,” p. 27.

14. Ibid.

15. Oxfarm International, Oxfam Briefing Statement on President Clinton’s Africa Trip (Washington, D.C.: Oxfam International, March 23, 1998), 2 Google Scholar.

16. See generally, “African Americans Urge Senate to Modify Africa Trade Bill,” TransAfrica, March 7, 1998, 1–10.