'Just World News' with Helena Cobban

DDV DOES DIPLOMACY: Master Hunk

DDV DOES DIPLOMACY: Master Hunk of the Rational Universe Dominique de Villepin is, according to Reuters, off to make a diplomatic tour of Africa. By an amazing coincidence (!) his itinerary will take him to Angola, Cameroon, and Guinea, the three African countries with seats on the Security Council.

I've noted earlier on JWN that Colin Powell's failure to actually visit key countries, but to rely on phone calls instead, has been noted with annoyance around the world.

But what, I want to know, will the leaders of these three countries do if DDV's people are proposing he visit their leaders at home on the very same day that George W. Bush issues his imperial summons that they visit him at his new Versailles in Crawford, Texas?

If Presidents Dos Santos, Biya, and Conte end up facing this painful scheduling dilemma, how might we expect each of them to react?

(By the way, jolly good luck to these leaders of extremely needy nations as they negotiate the very best deal they can get from the superpowers under the present circumstances. Here are some figures on "Life expectancy at birth" from the U.N. Development Program: Angola-- 45.2 yrs, Cameroon-- 50.0, Guinea-- 47.5, USA-- 77.0, France-- 78.6.)

It would not be a walkover for the US! I don't have the exact figures on comparative aid flows from France and the US to each of these three countries. (Nor do I want to suggest for a moment that aid flows are the only important factor here, though of course they are going to be one factor.) But France is no slouch as an aid donor. In 2000, it disbursed $4.1 billion in overseas development assistance (a figure of $80 per French capita), with 24 percent of that aid going to the "least developed countries"-- a category into which both Guinea and Angola fall. That year, USA overseas development aid came to $10.0 billion-- or $35 per American capita-- with 20 percent going to least developed countries.

Beyond that, we know that Cameroon and Guinea are former French colonies that since independence have been tied into the web of "francophonie" that Paris has maintained especially strongly throughout Africa. So both governments probably have fairly long, close, and quite possibly appreciative relations with Paris. Angola is just emerging (we hope!!!!) from a really nasty civil war and desperately needs the kind of reconstruction aid that the UN and the Europeans are pretty good at-- even if they're still far from perfect-- but is the kind of thing that really doesn't grab Washington's attention at all.

So I'm guessing that those factors, along with a little stroking from DDV, can keep Dos Santos, Biya, and Conte out of Washington's grasp on the war vote. Certainly, none of these governments will be an easy (or cheap) pushover for the US warhawks.

But wait! Good news for the hawks! This just in! Albania's going to contribute troops to the war effort! And so the coalition grows... As for the diplomatic effort in the Security Council, the war party still only has four members.... Thank you, Spain and Bulgaria!