Africa Notes: Summing Up ... And Looking Ahead - March 1989

March 16, 1989

The past eight years have wrought fundamental changes in the relations between the United States and Africa. I believe the prospects for this relationship have never been as bright as they are now. For the first time in our history, the United States has a president who knows firsthand Africa and its enormous diversity, problems, and potential. George Bush has traveled extensively in sub-Saharan Africa's 46 independent nations over his many years of public service; he knows all but a few African presidents and prime ministers personally from extensive conversations with them in their capitals or ours:

Ronald Reagan has bequeathed to our new president a firm basis on which to address Africa's problems and help develop Africa's potential. Our role as peacemaker in Angola and Namibia has clearly raised U.S. prestige throughout Africa to unprecedented heights even as it has once again illustrated the folly of ignoring the intimate connection between African regional and global politics.