THURSDAY, 6.00PM:
UNITED States President Bill Clinton told a joint sitting of the National Assembly on Thursday that the US is committed to developing closer ties through trade and co-operation, and that South Africa is an example to the world for its efforts in overcoming apartheid.
He said the US will help South Africa overcome the problems left by apartheid. “America wants a strong South Africa, America needs a strong South Africa.”
Earlier, Clinton responded to Deputy President Thabo Mbeki’s criticisms of the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, saying: “My formula would be … that you have trade and aid.”
Mbeki had been quoted in Business Day saying he felt the “trade rather than aid” formula being bandied about Washington is short-sighted (see below).
Clinton also confirmed that the US has, for the first time, purchased military equipment from South Africa — demining machinery. He praised President Nelson Mandela for his leadership in the global campaign to ban landmines, saying the US plans to increase its budget for mine clearing.
He said he hopes his visit will change the image of Africa held by many Americans.
Earlier in the day, after it was discovered Parliament did not have a US flag, a Belville flag maker managed to have a US flag couriered from Johannesburg in time for Clinton’s arrival in the National Assembly at 4pm.
Muslims Against Global Oppression, who demonstrated at Cape Town International Airport on Clinton’s arrival, also protested in Adderley Street during his speech in the National Assemby, with placards that included slogans like, “Watch your daugher, you murdering scum” and “Muslims Against Global Oppression and Oppressors like Bill Clinton”.
THURSDAY, 1.00PM:
UNITED States President Bill Clinton flew in to Cape Town in the early hours of Thursday morning, arriving at 2.00am in an airport bedecked with more snipers than garlands, and in the middle of a howling south-easter.
The early arrival was planned to help avoid traffic congestion during the day. Accompanied by by his wife Hillary, and members of his cabinet, Clinton was greeted by Foreign Affairs Minister Alfred Nzo and other dignitaries.
The visit will not be all handshakes and empty rhetoric — on Wednesday Deputy President Thabo Mbeki was reported to have criticised the US’s Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, which is fighting its way through Congress. The bill, which Clinton is punting strongly during his trip, aims to give preferential trade terms to African countries satisfying US human rights and free market criteria, as part of a new “trade rather than aid” policy.
Mbeki, however, believes Africa needs trade and aid. Speaking to the French journal Polititique Internationale, he is reported to have said that without substantial investment from the developed world, Africa will be largely stuck with producing raw materials rather than manufactured goods. Trade alone, he said, will not be enough to end the most grinding kinds of poverty, and simple trade solutions will leave the poorest African countries at a constant disadvantage to giants like the US.
Mbeki is not alone in his concerns. Voices are being raised in objection to the power the bill will give to the US President to unilaterally decide whether any particular country is meeting its requirements. Usually, such conditionalities would be mediated by bodies such as the World Trade Organisation, and would make provision for dispute-resolution mechanisms.
There is already a particular point of conflict between the US and South Africa which could lead to the latter’s being shut out of the agreement from the start — there is a difference of opinion over whether South Africa’s planned parallel importation of medicines infringes intellectual property rights. A very powerful lobby in the US — the pharmaceutical industry — contends that they do.
Even though a recent court decision in the US Supreme Court legitimised the practice of parallel imports into the US itself, indications are that the long, strong arm of US trade representatives will work to strap South Africa into the most profitable deal possible — for the US.
These issues will doubtless be the subject of some tough talking during Clinton’s visit, in between the addresses to Parliament, scheduled for Thursday, and the visits to Robben Island and community projects. If he proves unyielding, the ranks of those who sympathise with a small band of Muslims who were protesting at Cape Town International Airport this morning will be swelling. The protestors called him “Mr Evil”.