Hillary in Africa- Not Going Well

In case you didn't know, Hillary Clinton is on an eleven-day, seven-nation trip to Africa. It didn't seem to go too well in Kenya, Angola and the Congo.

Last Wednesday, in Kenya, she gave the Kenyans a harsh lecture about their corruption.

At a press conference with Kenyan Foreign Minister Moses Wetangula, she said,

"The absence of strong, effective democratic institutions has permitted ongoing corruption, impunity, politically motivated violence, human rights abuses and a lack of respect for the rule of law."

Wetangula said his government was doing everything it could and it was important for nations to talk to each other candidly.

"President Kibaki and his team assured the Secretary of State that reforms are on course and that the war against impunity in the country is on, that a war against corruption is on," Wetangula said at the joint news conference.

"All sanctuaries of corruption will be destroyed to make Kenya a cleaner and safer place to do business," he promised.

Translation? We'll get around to it.

In Luanda, the capital of Angola, Clinton met Monday with Angolan President Eduardo Dos Santos and tried to get him to agree to a series of reforms that would include going after corruption and holding a new election. Asked afterward by reporters how the discussions went, Clinton replied:

"He committed that the constitution would be completed and elections would be held under it in a timely manner, as soon as it could be done,"

"We underscored the importance of moving expeditiously to get the constitution done and then holding elections as soon as possible under the constitution. He was very positive in his reactions to the points we were making," she said.

(Which is diplomatese for "We'll get around to it in a few decades.")

There was no word on whether Mrs Clinton offered assistance to Angola in the form of training on holding honest elections.



Also on Monday, Mrs Clinton spoke before a university audience in Kinshasha, Congo. During the Q&A, she reacted angrily when - as she understood the question - a Congolese university student asked what Mr Clinton thought about an international financial matter.

"My husband is not secretary of state, I am," she snapped. "I am not going to be channeling my husband."

By the way, Mrs Clinton has put on quite a bit of weight, hasn't she? Maybe that's what makes her so irritable. Seriously though, is this the way a diplomat acts in front of a foreign audience? Hardly. Don't chalk up any new hearts and minds out of that audience. Just before the that question another student asked her if the United States and the West felt a need to apologize to the people of Congo for colonialism and postcolonial interference.

Answer?

"I cannot excuse the past and I will not try," she said. "We can either think about the past and be imprisoned by it or we can decide we're going to have a better future and work to make it."

She might have added that the United States had never colonized Congo-or any other African nation.


To her credit, Mrs Clinton has also told the Congolese to do something about that high occurrence of rape in their country. Don't expect results, however.

And don't expect corruption within African governments to end anytime within the next millenium, either.

Next stop? Probably an overnight in Germany, where she will demand the Germans stop drinking beer.