Since 1968, U. S. foreign policy toward African nations has emphasized democratic political reform and the protection of human rights. The road to independence for many former colonies in sub-Saharan Africa often drew both the United States and the Soviet Union into African affairs, as these former colonies struggled to establish stable governments. U. S. policy was to support anticommunist independence movements as part of a larger overall strategy to block Soviet expansion in Third World nations. Although in most cases the United States refrained from intervening militarily, the United States provided financial and other assistance to friendly regimes and withheld assistance in the form of economic sanctions from those deemed undesirable. Some anticommunist regimes receiving American support were not the most desirable allies but represented the lesser of two evils. Because of support for objectionable regimes and because of policy variations by presidential administration, U. S. foreign policy in Africa sometimes appeared inconsistent and at odds with its commitment to democratic ideals.
U. S. foreign policy took other forms as well. Independence struggles often resulted in civil wars, ethnic violence, and human rights abuses that involved the international community in humanitarian relief efforts. The United States engaged in peacekeeping efforts where civil war and sectarian violence threatened the delivery of humanitarian aid to regions torn by war and drought. In the 1980s, the United States joined international efforts to end the longstanding policy of apartheid, the rigid segregation of white and nonwhite people, in South Africa. Because of proximity to the Middle East, nations of northern Africa posed a different set of problems for the United States. The Arab-Israeli conflict in the Middle East spilled over to create difficulties of Arab nationalism and terrorism, especially in Libya, Somalia, and Sudan, straining relations with the United States. These nations eventually became havens for terrorist organizations.
Cold war competition between the United States and the Soviet Union prompted the internationalization of African independence movements. In 1975 the former Portuguese colony of Angola became independent, triggering a power struggle between three factions. A Marxist guerrilla group, the Popular Movement for the Independence of Angola (MPLA), seized power with the backing of Soviet arms and Cuban troops. In 1976 the U. S. Congress cut off appropriations for military action in Angola. By the mid-1980s, some 50,000 Cuban troops provided security for the MPLA. In 1985 the Reagan administration received Congressional approval to send arms to an anticommunist resistance group trying to overthrow the MPLA, providing support until a diplomatic settlement calling for the withdrawal of foreign troops could be reached. Although the 1988 settlement did not end fighting in Angola, it did end international interference.
The independence movement in Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) also brought a Marxist regime to power, but this time with the complicity of the United States. In 1965, when Great Britain demanded African majority rule as a condition for Rhodesian autonomy, white leaders illegally declared Rhodesia’s independence. Great Britain sought help from the United Nations, which imposed economic sanctions while Britain negotiated for majority government. In 1972 two Marxist revolutionary groups, the Zimbabwean African National Union (ZANU), under Robert Mugabe, and the Zimbabwean African People’s Union (ZAPU), under Joshua Nkomo, began a civil war to overthrow the white government. With the help of U. S. diplomatic efforts during the Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford administrations, the white Rhodesian government agreed to share power with moderate black leaders. However, when the popular moderate Abel Muzorewa was elected the first black prime minister in April 1979, leaders in the West did not recognize his election as representative of true majority rule. President James Earl Carter maintained economic sanctions. Muzorewa was unable to hold out against continued sanctions and guerrilla warfare under Mugabe and Nkomo, and another election in 1980 brought the Marxist Mugabe to power. Although ZANU had intimidated voters, the West considered Mugabe’s election legitimate, and Carter lifted economic sanctions. Mugabe subsequently turned Zimbabwe into a dictatorship.
The white regime in South Africa posed a particularly complex problem for U. S. policymakers, who agreed in their opposition to the practice of apartheid but disagreed on the best way to reform the South African government. The Reagan administration tried to achieve reform through persuasion, but in 1986, Congress pursued a more aggressive policy by enacting the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Law. This act imposed economic sanctions, banning trade with and investment in South Africa until the South African government took concrete steps toward ending apartheid. Within the United States, antiapartheid activists also pressured U. S. corporations to end their business dealings in South Africa. In conjunction with similar international sanctions, such measures had a significant impact on the South African economy. In 1991 President George H. W. Bush was able to lift economic sanctions after the South African government, under F. W. de Klerk, lifted its ban on outlawed political parties, including the African National Congress (ANC), and released the former ANC leader, Nelson Mandela, and other political prisoners from prison. In its first multiracial elections in 1994, Mandela was elected president of South Africa.
Relations with the predominantly Muslim nations of northern Africa were also problematic for the United
States, reflecting the difficulties of maintaining relations with the Arab nations in the Middle East. Sudan broke diplomatic ties with the United States in 1967 because of U. S. support for Israel during the Arab-Israeli War. Although relations improved during the 1970s and the United States extended development aid to Sudan in the 1980s, the United States suspended aid after a 1989 coup that instituted harsh Islamic rule and support for terrorism. In 1993, President William J. Clinton placed Sudan on the list of state sponsors of terror and imposed economic sanctions. Clinton also launched retaliatory missile strikes in 1998 against a suspected chemical weapons plant in Sudan following the bombing of U. S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. Sudan has continued to struggle under the weight of civil war, which has had a devastating effect on both its economy and society.
Initially an ally of the United States and Great Britain, Libya ended its relations with the West in 1970, when the discovery of oil left Libya no longer dependent on Western aid. A 1969 military coup had brought Colonel Muammar al-Qaddafi to power. Although Qaddafi appeared at first to favor relations with the West, U. S. support for Israel soured relations with Qaddafi, who established a dictatorship, nationalized Western oil companies, and used oil revenues to support terrorism and purchase weapons from the Soviet Union. Relations with Libya grew hostile, as President Ronald Reagan imposed economic sanctions. In 1986 the Reagan administration launched retaliatory air strikes against Libya for its role in a discotheque bombing in West Berlin. In 1988 Libya was responsible for bombing a Pan Am airline flight over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 259 people on board and 11 on the ground but refused to extradite the suspects in the attack. Relations with Libya underwent a dramatic reversal in August 2003, following the U. S. attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq. In what was considered a success in the war against state sponsorship of terrorism, Libya accepted responsibility for the Pan Am attack, paid the families of victims, and ended its ties to terrorism.
American intervention in African affairs also assumed peacekeeping efforts in various countries. In December 1992 President Bush sent American troops to Somalia as part of a UN peacekeeping force to protect humanitarian relief workers hampered in their ability to deliver aid to the people of Somalia because of civil war. The peacekeepers came under fire from warring factions after attempting to encourage cooperation among factions in assuming the responsibilities for civil society. In October 1993 18 U. S. soldiers were killed and their bodies dragged through the streets of Mogadishu. President Clinton withdrew the American troops from Somalia. Although Somalia was enveloped in chaos after the troop withdrawal, the Clinton administration hesitated to engage in further military action in Africa. Congress once again cut off appropriations for military intervention, except to protect U. S. citizens and embassy officials. U. S. troops did not intervene to halt genocide in Rwanda in 1994. Although the United States was a major contributor to humanitarian aid for Rwandan refugees, both the United States and the UN were criticized for not intervening sooner to end the genocide.
After the cold war ended, the United States developed new relations with African nations that focused on economic development and internal African stability. The United States worked primarily through nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in Africa to extend financial assistance for humanitarian and developmental purposes, provide medicines and treatment for victims of the HIV/ AIDS epidemic, aid victims of natural disasters, and alleviate the problems of refugees displaced by civil war and genocide. In his 2002 State of the Union address, President George W. Bush called for a five-year, $15 billion initiative to combat AIDS in Africa and the Caribbean. In May 2003 Bush signed the U. S. Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Act of 2003, which provided appropriations for foreign aid through fiscal year 2008. In May 2007 Bush sought reauthorization for the legislation, asking Congress to double appropriations to $30 billion over the next five years.
The western region of Sudan, known as Darfur, presented a humanitarian crisis beginning in February 2003, when rebels seeking self-determination and an end to oppression attacked and captured several military garrisons. The government in Khartoum responded by backing militias, known as the janjawid, and providing air support as the militias attacked the civilian population of Darfur. The janjawid destroyed whole villages, murdering the men and boys and raping the women, causing many to flee in terror. The displaced persons gathered in refugee camps on the outskirts of larger towns in Darfur or crossed the western border into Chad, raising tensions between Sudan and Chad. In 2004 the massive campaign to eradicate the indigenous population and the desperate conditions of the refugee camps brought the situation in Darfur to the attention of the international community, formerly preoccupied with mediating an end to the civil war between northern and southern Sudan.
The Western response to the crisis was primarily in the form of humanitarian assistance to the refugees in camps rather than political or military intervention. Although the United States determined that the violence constituted “genocide,” thereby obligating the UN to intervene under international law, the international community could not agree on the use of the term “genocide” and relied instead on weak and ineffective pressure on the Sudanese government to stop the janjawid and provide protection for the refugee camps and humanitarian workers. Peace talks and cease-fire agreements, including the historic Darfur Peace Agreement, signed by both the Sudanese government and the largest rebel faction in May 2006, failed to end the violence. The United States continued to provide food for the people of Darfur, where an estimated 2.5 million people lived in camps, and to pressure the government in Khartoum through the use of economic sanctions.
Through 2008, foreign policy initiatives continued to promote democratic regimes and curb the growing problem of state-sponsored terrorism.
See also eoreign policy.
Further reading: Johnnie Carson, Shaping U. S. Policy on Africa: Pillars of a New Strategy (Washington, D. C.: Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, 2004); M. W. Daly, Darfur’s Sorrow: A History of Destruction and Genocide (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007); Peter J. Schraeder, United States Foreign Policy toward Africa: Incrementalism, Crisis, and Change (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994).
—Cynthia Stachecki
World History
