U.S. official: govt’s brutal reaction radicalised Boko Haram

nited States, India, South Africa and coal for energy production

Okay, on that one I’m sorry. I am not an expert on energy policy. I follow African issues very closely, so I don’t want to be misinterpreted or go off in the wrong direction, so on that one I will have to – in the words of American football – punt. Sorry.

A major crackdown on graft in Kenya

Absolutely, what I want to talk to you about is we discussed with the Kenyan government, on an ongoing basis, the whole issue of graft and corruption. It is of key importance to the United States, and it is of key importance to your president’s administration. Both sides are taking a very active and dynamic approach. There have been some real, real significant movements on the part of the government recently, and we very much look forward to engaging on this future as we go forward in the political progression and good governance. Thank you very much.

Africa Growth and Opportunity Act

I wish I could respond to that with a specific date, but that I do not know. We are absolutely discussing some next steps after AGOA, related to pursuing possibly some free trade agreements, some bilateral free trade agreements, that would be complementary to the Africa-wide continental free trade agreement. But as far as the specific date goes for the review, I do not know that at this time. Thank you.

Al Shabaab’s militants’ and security challenge in Somalia

Peace and stability in Somalia are very important to the United States. We know that they are critically important to Kenya, because, of course, of your common shared border, and we certainly recognize and thank Kenya for its energetic combating of Al Shabaab, and we also recognize the sacrifices that the Kenyan people have had to make because of their courageous battle.

Yes, the United States will continue to pursue trying to bring peace and stability to Somalia with our regional allies, and of course the brunt of the sacrifice, unfortunately, is being taken by the African neighbors, whether it’s Kenya, whether it’s Ethiopia, and of course the brave AMISOM soldiers, who are confronting Al Shabaab every day.

As with such problems, of course it comes, at the end, to the Somali people to be solving it most readily, and we are, of course, supporting the Somali government. We are doing training. We are helping stand up the Somali National Army and then working with other like-minded and interested parties to help Somalia economically, and because the key is, in such efforts, that you can confront the combatants, you can get rid of the combatants, but then the question is, then what? What fills the vacuum? Because if you simply get rid of the bad guys, if you don’t then provide government services, you don’t provide protection to the people, then unfortunately a new group of bad guys will rise up, which is what has happened in Somalia before. So we – all of us in the international community – and again, thanking Kenya for its sacrifices and efforts, we want to make sure that that does not happen this time. Thank you.

The permanent presence of the United States in Mogadishu

I think it’s a very significant announcement, because finally we have what we call a U.S. Ambassador on the ground, the very distinguished Ambassador Don Yamamoto, who was, in practical terms, my immediate predecessor in this position as Assistant Secretary, is now the U.S. Ambassador, and Ambassador Yamamoto has had a long and illustrious career in Africa.

This is his third embassy as ambassador, and he will be engaging now directly with the Somali government on a day-to-day basis, instead of what we had been doing before, of sending personnel very temporarily to Mogadishu and then bringing them back to Nairobi. So Ambassador Yamamoto will be there as a full-time ongoing interlocutor for the Somali government, for other interested parties, to the rest of the international community, so that we can have a much better sense of how we can be helpful in restoring peace and stability to Somalia. We are all delighted, and we thank Ambassador Yamamoto for his willingness to do this critically important task. Thank you very much.

Bilateral free trade agreements

On the free trade agreements, here’s the background on that. Currently, the United States of America has no – that’s no – free trade agreements with any sub-Saharan African country. The only one we have with the continent of Africa is with Morocco, so this administration is very eager to pursue the first ever free trade agreement with a sub-Saharan country, which in effect would serve as a model.

So we’re going through the process now of talking to a number of countries to try to decide which one would be an ideal country for a model, and you know there would be many considerations for such, but part of my visit to Addis Ababa was two parts: it was both bilateral with the Ethiopian government, but it was also with the African Union, and while I was there for the African Union, we had our annual high-level dialogue, and the whole issue of a U.S. free trade agreement versus a continent-wide free trade agreement came up for considerable discussion, and we kept emphasising the point that absolutely we support – the United States supports – the continent-wide free trade agreement, because we support Africa’s attempts at regionalisation, sub-regionalisation, and continental consolidation.

So we don’t want it to be in any way conflicting with or competitive with; we want it to be complementary to. So we’ll be undertaking bilateral discussions with potential countries, and then we’ll make a selection and take it from there. Thank you.

The U.S. position on the crisis in Cameroon between the government and the Anglophone region

Yeah, that is a problem that has been worrying me greatly since I’ve come to this job. I know Cameroon quite well; I served there. Even when I served there, back in the early 1990s, there was a considerable amount of friction between the Anglophone area towards the Cameroonian government, because the Anglophones, in many respects, felt themselves as second-class citizens. Unfortunately, the issue literally grows worse by the day, and one of my big fears is that this deterioration will end up radicalizing a number of the Cameroonian Anglophones, also known as Ambazonians.

If you recall, in Nigeria a number of years ago, Boko Haram was a relatively minor organisation involved in Islamic education, and it was largely through the brutal reaction of the Nigerian government at the time which turned Boko Haram into a much more radical organisation and actually increased Boko Haram’s membership.

The last thing we need is for the radicals in Anglophone Cameroon to just add to their numbers because of the overreaction of the Cameroonian security forces. The United States would really, really call for dialogue between the two sides so that it could lead to some kind of a compromise, maybe some form of decentralisation. Cameroon, in effect, has put forth a potential constitution, which includes decentralisation and quite a bit more local control for each of their regions, including the northwest and southwest provinces, which are the Anglophone provinces.

That constitution has not yet been put into place, but anyway, to answer your question broadly, I am very concerned with what’s going on there, and I fear that it could get much, much worse if there is not some type of resolution now.