What Africa means to the US

By Fiona Ledger
BBC Africa Live, London

America and Africa are two vast continents separated by over 4,000 miles of ocean - but united by over 400 years of history.

Author Angelou describes Ghana as her second home

Historically, for the 12% of US citizens who are African Americans, African ancestry is a source of humiliation and suffering.

But in coming to terms with the badge of slavery, African Americans have also turned to Africa as a source of inspiration, a place - often in their minds - where they can affirm pride in themselves, and search for the hero, warrior or even king in their psyche.

A number of African Americans have adopted African or Muslim names for that very reason.

Activist Stokely Carmichael became Kwame Toure, while boxer Cassius Clay became Muhammad Ali. Writer Maya Angelou has described Ghana as her second home.

Meanwhile, for much of the rest of America - as in much of the rest of the developed world - Africa is a place far away, stalked by disease, famine and war.

But for American governments, Africa has meant more.

Cold War politics

For much of the 1970s through to the 1990s, Southern Africa was a microcosm of the Cold War, as America and the Soviet Union sought to establish their spheres of influence, sometimes through diplomacy and aid, but more often through war.

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The MPLA government of Angola received arms from the Soviet Union.

So America covertly backed the South African apartheid government and its client, Unita, in Angola.

Unita leader Savimbi was an unlikely friend for America, being a Chinese-trained guerrilla with a taste for autocracy.

But on the basis that an enemy's enemy is a friend, he received enormous amounts of help from the American government.

However, Cold War politics aside, it was Liberia that was the jewel in America's African crown.

Founded in 1822 by freed American slaves, Liberia was ruled for 136 years by a corrupt and debt-ridden political elite. But America made it a strategic base in Africa.

Great powers don't reject their partners because they smell Chester Crocker, American Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs

The American-built Roberts Field airport has one of the longest runways on the continent, and was used as a transit point for Allied operations during the Second World War.

And for over 60 years, the Firestone rubber company had a huge plantation just outside Monrovia, run like a state within a state.

It was on Liberian soil that the Americans built a base for monitoring radio stations and handling intelligence from around the continent.

Even as Liberia's debts piled up over the decades, the Americans paid up and turned a blind eye to corruption and human rights abuses.

"Great powers don't reject their partners because they smell," Chester Crocker, American Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, once memorably said.

Muslim relations

But Liberia's descent into the mayhem of civil war in 1989 coincided with the end of the Cold War and the country became orphaned, mostly abandoned to warlords as aid and diplomatic interest dwindled elsewhere in Africa.

Savimbi enjoyed unofficial backing from the US

America meanwhile became increasingly taken up by the Middle East.

Last week's visit of George Bush to the continent seems to suggest America's interest in Africa is being rekindled, not least because the continent's leaders offer a strategic role in the War On Terror.

There are at least 15 countries in Africa with Muslim majorities or substantial minorities, many of whom African Muslims take a keen interest in events in the Muslim world beyond the confines of the continent.

America is aware of their disaffection and now seeks their goodwill.