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Bush peace mission liberia { July 8 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25154-2003Jul8.html?nav=hptop_tshttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25154-2003Jul8.html?nav=hptop_ts
Bush Says U.S. Will Participate in Liberia Peace Mission
President Describes Slavery as 'One of the Greatest Crimes of History'
By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 8, 2003; 12:29 PM
GOREE ISLAND, Senegal, July 8 -- President Bush, on the first leg of his five-day African tour, said today that the United States would participate in restoring peace to the violence-torn West African nation of Liberia.
Just two hours after arriving on the continent, the president said, "We'll participate in the process" of maintaining a ceasefire. He did not promise to send troops to the country, but his remarks were the closest he has come to committing the American military.
"We're in the process of determining what is necessary to maintain the ceasefire and to allow for a peaceful transfer of power," the president said after a meeting with a group of West African leaders here. Speaking of the West African group's leader, Ghanaian President John Kufuor, Bush added, "I assured him we'll participate in the process. And we're now in the process of determining what that means."
Shortly after those remarks, Bush's spokesman, Ari Fleischer, said the president was not intending to announce his much-anticipated decision on whether he would dispatch U.S. troops to Liberia. Fleischer said a U.S. assessment team has not finished its work, adding: "It will not be for some time until the exact form will be known."
Many in Liberia, which was settled in the 19th century by freed American slaves, have celebrated the prospect of U.S. peacekeepers as the only means of bringing order to the country. Liberian President Charles Taylor, who has been indicted for crimes against humanity by a U.N.-backed court, agreed on Sunday to step down and to accept an offer of refuge in Nigeria, but he did not say when he would depart. Hundreds of thousands have been killed in 14 years of intermittent fighting in Liberia.
Bush again called on Taylor to leave, but he did not tie his departure to U.S. involvement. Although administration officials had earlier implied a link between the two, Bush aides today said Taylor's departure was necessary but not a precondition to a U.S. role.
The United Nations, Britain, France and various neighbors of Liberia have urged Bush to participate in a peacekeeping operation, but many in the administration, particularly in the Pentagon, are concerned about committing more of the already stretched U.S. forces.
An administration official, briefing reporters today on condition of anonymity, said the West African leaders at Bush's meeting "didn't ask for troops" and "didn't raise any specific needs, just the need for general support."
Bush made his remarks about Liberia at the Presidential Palace in Dakar before traveling on Senegal President Abdoulaye Wade's yacht to Goree Island. Here on the island, the departure point for millions of slaves sent across the Atlantic, Bush took the same tour of the island's House of Slaves that former president Bill Clinton took five years ago, and he delivered an emotional speech about the evil of slavery.
"At this place, liberty and life were stolen and sold," he told a small group of Senegalese invited to the island amid extraordinarily tight security. "Human beings were delivered and sorted, and weighed, and branded with the marks of commercial enterprises, and loaded as cargo on a voyage without return. One of the largest migrations of history was also one of the greatest crimes of history."
In using such words, Bush expressed regret for the American history of slavery. Like Clinton, he did not apologize for slavery, but he spoke of the virtues of overcoming it. He spoke of slaves in societies "indifferent to their anguish" and of their "corrupted" captors. He noted John Adams's description of slavery as "an evil of colossal magnitude."
"Years of unpunished brutality and bullying and rape produced a dullness and hardness of conscience," he said. "Christian men and women became blind to the clearest commands of their faith and added hypocrisy to injustice."
Bush's address, laden with Christian references, appeared to be geared as much to his domestic audience as to Senegal's 10 million inhabitants, who are 92 percent Muslim and only 2 percent Christian.
He spoke of American slaves finding "a suffering Savior" and referred to other African Americans who found strength in Christianity.
Bush, who won less than 10 percent of the black vote in 2000 but who is eager to broaden his appeal to minorities, also devoted liberal praise today to the achievements of African Americans, including Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington and Martin Luther King Jr. "The spirit of Africans in America did not break," he said, adding that the battle for racial justice "is not over" at home.
"By a plan known only to Providence, the stolen sons and daughters of Africa helped to awaken the conscience of America," he said. "The very people traded into slavery helped to set America free."
The president also tied the triumph over to slavery to his administration's foreign policy. "This belief in the natural rights of man, this conviction that justice should reach wherever the sun passes, leads America into the world," he said on an outdoor stage here with the old slave houses in the background. "With the power and resources given to us, the United States seeks to bring peace where there is conflict, hope where there is suffering, and liberty where there is tyranny."
He also hailed a partnership with Africa that "will wage an unrelenting campaign" against terrorists.
Bush also told the West African leaders privately that fighting terrorism was motivating his trip. Bush "emphasized that the best way to fight terror is to support the habits of freedom, and that that was represented in his trip here," an aide said.
At the House of Slaves, Bush peered through the "Door of No Return," between the slave cells and the Atlantic. Here the bodies of dead slaves were tossed, attracting sharks that devoured the live slaves who tried to escape when they were loaded on ships. He briefly toured the slave pens, dark rooms with bars and dirt and stone floors that once imprisoned as many as 200 captives at a time. A particularly grim chamber for rebellious slaves was only three feet high, with no light.
A somber-faced Bush, with first lady Laura Bush and the Senegalese president, also toured the upper level, once the masters' quarters and now an exhibition featuring leg irons, guns, and ball-and-chain sets. On one wall was the 23rd psalm in dialect: "De Lawd me shepud! A hab ebrything wa A need." In the guest book, Bush scribbled: "With warm regards from America. May God bless those who learn the lessons of history in this important site."
"Very moving, very touching," Bush said after he left.
In his visit to Senegal, lasting only six hours, Bush was kept from the public by a huge military and security presence. Roads were shut and traffic removed for miles in Dakar, and residents and shopkeepers on Goree Island reported that they were asked to shut their homes and offices. Access to the island was strictly controlled, and each person coming ashore underwent a bag search and passed through a metal detector on the pier.
After Bush's 15 minute speech and tour of the slave house, Air Force One took off just after 1 p.m. local time for Pretoria, South Africa. Bush is scheduled spend the rest of the week visiting that country, Botswana, Uganda and Nigeria before returning to Washington Saturday.
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
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