Powell focuses on Africa

First official visit to Africa

American Secretary of State Colin Powell has arrived in Mali at the start of a four-nation African tour to discuss regional conflicts and the devastating threat of Aids.

Mr Powell, the first African-American to hold such high office in the US government, will especially concentrate on health issues and Aids in his discussions in South Africa, Kenya and Uganda later this week.

But in Mali, he is expected to concentrate on security issues in West Africa, and in particular the conflict along the borders of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

No recent American leader took as much personal interest in Africa as former President Clinton, and now with the new US administration in office, Africans are anxious to see whether President George Bush, who they suspect is less internationalist than his predecessor, continues the trend.

They feel their best hope is in the influence that they can bring to bear on Mr Powell.

West Africa

Mali despite being one of the poorest countries in the world, is a significant political player at the moment, holding both a seat on the United Nations Security Council and the chair of the West African regional organisation, Ecowas.

Mr Powell and Mr Konare will discuss regional security

President Alpha Oumar Konare has spent the last few months trying to talk sense into his colleagues from Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.

But fighting continues and is now threatening to push Liberia back into a state of civil war.

The United Nations peacekeeping force in Sierra Leone, is a major international commitment, and much of the cost is falling on the United States.

There are no American troops involved in the region, other than in training peacekeeping toops, but President Konare is likely to lobby for at least more logistic support.

Our correspondent in West Africa says there has been a convergence of views in Washington and African capitals on the importance of neighbouring states to resolve as a region problems once considered on a state by state basis, problems ranging from economics to guerilla insurgency.

The Americans have shown little inclination for any direct military intervention in Africa since their debacle in Somalia in 1993, when 18 US soldiers were killed.

Mali

Mali is itself an impressive case study of how a poverty stricken country can use democracy and transparent financing to steer itself away from a past of corruption and political instability.

Mali is badly hit by poverty and Aids/HIV

So although it is far from one of the key military or economic powers in the region, it is what might be described by the Americans as a success story.

But seen from Mali itself, the success is less obvious.

President Konare's critics say what they have actually got is croney capitalism, and only the very few have benefitted from the huge aid inflows and the free market.

In Bamako, donkey carts still mingle with the rush hour traffic, while flashy new villas are rising all along the banks of the River Niger.