Tanzania Welcomes Bush, but Obama Is Topic No. 1 on the Street
Article du New York Times : http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/18/world/africa/18prexy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Tanzanian women wore commemorative outfits as they awaited President Bush’s arrival late Saturday in Dar es Salaam.
DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania — President Bush has been smothered with affection here, never more so than on Sunday, when he sat at a wooden desk under a sweltering sun with President Jakaya Kikwete by his side and signed a $698 million grant of foreign aid to Tanzania.
But while people here in the capital city of this East African nation are excited about Mr. Bush, another American politician seems to excite them even more — Senator Barack Obama.
Mr. Bush is on a six-day, five-country tour to spotlight American efforts to fight poverty and disease in Africa. Though the president’s face is on billboards all over town, the name Obama is on the lips of Tanzanians — from taxi drivers to city merchants to the artisans who sell wooden Masai warriors in makeshift stalls at a dusty open-air market on the outskirts of town.
Halfway around the world, Mr. Bush cannot escape the race to succeed him.
“It seemed like there was a lot of excitement for me — wait a minute, maybe you missed it!” he said, only half in jest, on Sunday, after Mr. Kikwete was asked about Mr. Obama during their joint news conference here.
To be sure, there is excitement about Mr. Bush. The White House says foreign aid to Africa doubled during his first term and will nearly double again, to $8.7 billion a year by 2010, if his budget proposals are adopted. The $698 million agreement he signed Sunday is the largest grant awarded so far by the Millennium Challenge Corporation, established to assist countries that embrace democracy and fight corruption.
Tanzania also benefits from Mr. Bush’s global AIDS initiative, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, called Pepfar. Mr. Bush visited an AIDS clinic on Sunday to spotlight the program, which is to expire this year.
He called on Congress to reauthorize it and to keep intact a provision that sets aside one-third of money for AIDS prevention on programs that promote abstinence. Critics of that provision, including the independent Institute of Medicine, say it hampers prevention efforts.
“Pepfar is working,” Mr. Bush said at the news conference. “It is a balanced program. It is an A.B.C. program: abstinence, be faithful, and condoms.”
Africa is one corner of the world where, despite the war in Iraq, the image of the United States remains favorable — a point Mr. Kikwete made, ever so gingerly, to Mr. Bush.
“Different people may have different views about your administration and your legacy,” the Tanzanian president said. But Tanzanians, he said, believed that Mr. Bush and his administration “have been good friends of our country and have been good friends of Africa.”
Yet Africans, like many Americans, are already looking ahead to the next president of the United States. And, as in the United States, race and gender play a role in the debate. An unscientific sampling on Sunday turned up little mention of Senator John McCain and his fellow Republicans; but talk of Mr. Obama and his rival, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, was everywhere.
“I hear a lot of people say maybe the Americans are not yet ready to get a lady president or a black president,” said Ndesumbuke Lamtane Merinyo, a batik fabric designer displaying his wares at the upscale Kilimanjaro Hotel Kempinski overlooking the Indian Ocean, where the Bushes are staying. Of Mr. Obama, he said, “Africans feel like they might get more attention from America once America has a black president.”
Outside of town, at the Mwenge Village market, Theresa Maridadi, 62, was seated with a newspaper in her lap, debating the Democrats with her son, Lucas Kahtoza, who lit up at the mention of Mr. Obama’s name and put his hand to his chest.
“Remember, Obama is from Africa,” he said. “From my heart, it is good.”
His mother cut him off. “Why you want to like Obama because he come from Africa?” she demanded. She is for Mrs. Clinton: “Her husband was the president, she has more exposure. She’s mature, she’s a woman. It’s good for a woman to lead that country.”
President Kikwete’s minister for tourism and natural resources, Shama Mwangunga, shared the sentiment. “Even people in the villages, they watch between Obama and Clinton,” she said, waiting for Sunday’s news conference to begin. But she favors Mrs. Clinton, who visited Tanzania while her husband was president.
At least one Tanzanian refused to weigh in on the race — Mr. Kikwete. After a subtle warning from Mr. Bush to steer clear, he artfully ducked Sunday’s news conference question.
“Well, I don’t think I can venture into that territory, either,” he said. “Of course, people talk with excitement of Obama — well, our excitement is that President Bush is at the end of his term, and the U.S. is going to get a new president, whoever that one is. For us, the most important thing is, let him be as good a friend of Africa as President Bush has been.”
