SUE PLEMING and OWN CORRESPONDENT, Washington | Tuesday
SOUTH African President Thabo Mbeki touched down at the Andrews Air Force base outside Washington last night, and is scheduled to meet US President George Bush in the Oval office on Tuesday to discuss his Millennium Africa Recovery Plan (MAP).
MAP is aimed at fostering stability and sustainable economic growth in Africa, the world’s poorest continent.
Mbeki is also expected to meet Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
The plan, which covers issues such as health, trade, conflict resolution and debt cancellation, was drafted by Mbeki and the leaders of Algeria and Nigeria in a bid to give African nations a greater role in tackling the continent’s problems.
Mbeki and Bush met last year before Bush won the US election but this will be their first face-to-face meeting since the former Texas governor moved into the White House.
”They will be trying to get to know each other, They have spoken on the phone but this will be their first meeting since he (Bush) became president,” said Sisulu.
A highlight of Mbeki’s trip will be talks on Tuesday with Israel’s Sharon, who is in Washington at the same time to see Bush. South Africa has in recent years played a low-key mediating role between Israel and the Palestinians.
Now the biggest foreign investor in South Africa and one of the nation’s three top trading partners, the United States developed closer ties with Pretoria at the end of apartheid rule and with the inauguration of President Nelson Mandela in 1994.
A binational commission was created between the two nations involving Mbeki, then deputy president, and former Vice President Al Gore, but the future of this body is unclear.
”Now the two leaders will have to sit down and see how to take the relationship forward. They will have to look at whether to have a fully fledged binational commission and whether we have perhaps passed that stage,” said South African Foreign Affairs Deputy Director-General Ndumiso Ntshinga.
Diplomats say the political and economic crisis in Zimbabwe will feature during the Bush-Mbeki talks as well as discussions on other African conflicts. On his trip to Africa, Powell accused Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe of clinging to power and called for free and fair elections in that country.
Another key issue facing South Africa is Aids, but it is thought that the pandemic will not be the main focus of the talks. South Africa has about 4,7-million people living with HIV/Aids, more than any other country in the world.
Mbeki has been criticised at home for not attending a UN summit on Aids this week in New York. However, South African officials said the president had other matters to attend to and that he was sending his health, foreign affairs and social development ministers to the New York meeting.
Mbeki, who has drawn the ire of activists for his handling of the Aids pandemic, is scheduled to visit Merck Pharmaceuticals in Pennsylvania to look at Aids research there before he leaves on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, in Pretoria on Monday, the two countries signed two treaties aimed at helping South Africa fight one of the highest crime rates in the world.
The Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty will boost cooperation between South African and U.S. law enforcement agencies in areas such as prosecutions, investigations and crime prevention.
The two countries also expanded their 50-year-old extradition treaty to make it harder for criminals to use international borders to hide from justice.
”We are convinced that cutting crime here in South Africa will enhance foreign investment, create jobs and increase tourism,” US Embassy Charge d’Affaires John Blaney told reporters after a signing ceremony in Pretoria.
Under the revised extradition treaty, any offence punishable by at least one year in prison is extraditable. The previous 1951 treaty listed around 30 offences that were extraditable.
”We shall not allow our two countries to be the thick bush where the criminal element can hide from justice,” South African Justice Minister Penuell Maduna said. – Reuters
ZA *NOW:
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