Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Live At Daybreak
President Leaving for Africa Tonight
Aired July 07, 2003 - 05:34 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KRIS OSBORN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: All of this is happening as the president is himself leaving for Africa tonight. And his itinerary are Senegal, South Africa, Botswana, Uganda and Nigeria, but not Liberia. Mr. Bush told CNN's "Inside Africa": "It was important to go before my first term was over to show the importance of Africa to my administration's foreign policy."
Well, only three other U.S. presidents have been to sub-Saharan Africa. President Clinton made a much publicized trip in 1998. You may have seen it. But President Bush brings along some extra baggage.
CNN's Johannesburg bureau chief Charlayne Hunter-Gault now on Bush's visit through the eyes of Africans.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Crushing crowds from Ghana to South Africa. President Bill Clinton brought more charisma than cash, but charisma counted for something on a continent starved for attention as well as assistance. Also, Clinton didn't have any demons to lay to rest here. George W. Bush does, starting with the Iraq war.
NELSON MANDELA, FORMER SOUTH AFRICAN PRESIDENT: What I am condemning is that one power with a president who has no foresight, who cannot think properly, is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust.
HUNTER-GAULT: Condemnation echoed in the streets and from the country's most celebrated cartoonist.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come Mr. Taliban, give me the bin Laden. Daylight come and then he want to go bump.
HUNTER-GAULT: In a poor black township, Bush criticism prompted by the sound of an American accent.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: People -- what about the people who lose their lives in Iraq?
HUNTER-GAULT (on camera): So you think he should stay home?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. He must stay there, not to come here to South Africa.
JOHN STREMLAU, WITWATERSRAND UNIVERSITY: But the perception of Bush in Africa is of a cowboy, that he is a unilateralist, that he is a militarist, that he doesn't listen to what other people say.
HUNTER-GAULT (voice-over): Especially grating, his failure to come to South Africa for the World Racism Conference and later the Earth Summit, leaving it to his secretary of state to take the heat.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So I did this cartoon where his aides are asking him to speak to them and he essentially just gives insults to the camera and then laughs his head off. That's how people feel that George Bush views the developing world.
MOELETSI MBEKI, SOUTH AFRICAN INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS: I think Bush will do very well coming to South Africa and in Africa generally. The United States' policies have been fairly sympathetic to Africa in terms of its economic plight, in terms of its HIV-AIDS crisis. The United States is making huge investments in developing the oil industry in West African.
HUNTER-GAULT: Mbeki's brother, President Thabo Mbeki, will be hosting George W. Bush hours before going to the largest gathering of African leaders on the continent, the African Union in Moputu, Mozambique.
(on camera): Questions are being raised about why the American president would travel this far and not take the one hour flight next door to Mozambique, one of the man questions Africans are asking about a leader who made many of them nervous calling Africa a country instead of a continent.
Charlayne Hunter-Gault, CNN, Johannesburg, South Africa.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
OSBORN: Well, you can keep track of the president's visit to Africa on your own computer at cnn.com, AOL keyword: CNN.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired July 7, 2003 - 05:34 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KRIS OSBORN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: All of this is happening as the president is himself leaving for Africa tonight. And his itinerary are Senegal, South Africa, Botswana, Uganda and Nigeria, but not Liberia. Mr. Bush told CNN's "Inside Africa": "It was important to go before my first term was over to show the importance of Africa to my administration's foreign policy."
Well, only three other U.S. presidents have been to sub-Saharan Africa. President Clinton made a much publicized trip in 1998. You may have seen it. But President Bush brings along some extra baggage.
CNN's Johannesburg bureau chief Charlayne Hunter-Gault now on Bush's visit through the eyes of Africans.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Crushing crowds from Ghana to South Africa. President Bill Clinton brought more charisma than cash, but charisma counted for something on a continent starved for attention as well as assistance. Also, Clinton didn't have any demons to lay to rest here. George W. Bush does, starting with the Iraq war.
NELSON MANDELA, FORMER SOUTH AFRICAN PRESIDENT: What I am condemning is that one power with a president who has no foresight, who cannot think properly, is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust.
HUNTER-GAULT: Condemnation echoed in the streets and from the country's most celebrated cartoonist.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come Mr. Taliban, give me the bin Laden. Daylight come and then he want to go bump.
HUNTER-GAULT: In a poor black township, Bush criticism prompted by the sound of an American accent.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: People -- what about the people who lose their lives in Iraq?
HUNTER-GAULT (on camera): So you think he should stay home?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. He must stay there, not to come here to South Africa.
JOHN STREMLAU, WITWATERSRAND UNIVERSITY: But the perception of Bush in Africa is of a cowboy, that he is a unilateralist, that he is a militarist, that he doesn't listen to what other people say.
HUNTER-GAULT (voice-over): Especially grating, his failure to come to South Africa for the World Racism Conference and later the Earth Summit, leaving it to his secretary of state to take the heat.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So I did this cartoon where his aides are asking him to speak to them and he essentially just gives insults to the camera and then laughs his head off. That's how people feel that George Bush views the developing world.
MOELETSI MBEKI, SOUTH AFRICAN INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS: I think Bush will do very well coming to South Africa and in Africa generally. The United States' policies have been fairly sympathetic to Africa in terms of its economic plight, in terms of its HIV-AIDS crisis. The United States is making huge investments in developing the oil industry in West African.
HUNTER-GAULT: Mbeki's brother, President Thabo Mbeki, will be hosting George W. Bush hours before going to the largest gathering of African leaders on the continent, the African Union in Moputu, Mozambique.
(on camera): Questions are being raised about why the American president would travel this far and not take the one hour flight next door to Mozambique, one of the man questions Africans are asking about a leader who made many of them nervous calling Africa a country instead of a continent.
Charlayne Hunter-Gault, CNN, Johannesburg, South Africa.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
OSBORN: Well, you can keep track of the president's visit to Africa on your own computer at cnn.com, AOL keyword: CNN.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
