By Dennis Conrad
When lawmaker Barack Obama heads to Africa for a five-nation tour this week, he will take with him a credential no other US senator can claim.
Obama's late father was a goat herder who went on to become a Harvard-educated government economist for his native Kenya. That connection, the Democratic lawmaker hopes, will give a special resonance to his words.
"One of the messages I'm going to send is that, ultimately, Africa is responsible for helping itself," Obama said in an interview on Wednesday.
'What's positive is that there was no major violence' Obama departs Friday on a 15-day tour that will take him not only to his father's homeland, but also to South Africa, Congo, Djibouti and Sudan. While he has visited Africa twice before, this trip is certain to be different.
Continues Below ↓
Now, he not only is a celebrated political figure in the United States, featured on magazine covers and often mentioned by pundits and political activists as a future president or vice president, he is viewed as a hero in parts of Africa.
The freshman Democrat from Illinois, who is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on Africa, said his presence in Africa would not be "an episode of biography," but would revolve around the people he meets, the stories they tell, and what can be learned from them.
The visit to the Congo will come just a few weeks after the nation had its first free legislative and presidential balloting in 46 years, with some 17nbsp;000 United Nations peacekeepers deployed to oversee the voting because of concerns that fear and intimidation could affect the results.
Earlier this year, Obama attached an amendment to a pending bill that would provide up to $52 million about (R351nbsp;570 million) to the Congo while letting President George W. Bush withdraw the assistance if the country makes insufficient progress toward democracy.
Continues...
|
StumbleUpon
Reddit
Digg
Delicious
Newsvine
Facebook
muti
Twitter
