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Obama Begins Africa Tour in Senegal Obama Looks to History and Future in Senegal
(about 14 hours later)
DAKAR, Senegal — President Obama plunged into a visit to Africa on Thursday likely to highlight the continent’s strivings for democracy and well-being, but the trip is expected to be overshadowed by the fate of Nelson Mandela in South Africa. DAKAR, Senegal — President Obama looked across the Atlantic Ocean as he stood in a stone doorway at Gorée Island, a symbolically important landmark that serves as a reminder of ships bound for America bearing African slaves in shackles.
The twin narratives — highlighting the achievements of one nation’s democratic culture in Senegal even as South Africa frets over the looming post-Mandela era — have set the bookmarks for a voyage planned for months but overtaken by the health of Mr. Mandela, South Africa’s 94-year-old former president whose condition is officially described as “critical” almost three weeks after he was hospitalized with a lung infection. America’s first black president spent about a half-hour inside the slave house on the edge of the water, walking quietly with his wife, Michelle Obama, a descendant of slaves, by his side.
Speaking in Dakar on Thursday, President Obama called Mr. Mandela a “hero for the world,” news reports said as concern persisted in South Africa about his well-being. After meeting government leaders here, Mr. Obama is set to to travel to South Africa on Friday on the second stage of his three-nation foray to the continent. Photographers briefly captured a reflective-looking president in the “door of no return.” Afterward, Mr. Obama was stoic, describing the visit only as a “very powerful moment” that helped him to “fully appreciate the magnitude of the slave trade,” which for so long defined the history of blacks in the United States.
Late Wednesday, even as Mr. Obama arrived here from Washington, President Jacob Zuma of South Africa announced that he was canceling a one-day trip to neighboring Mozambique because of Mr. Mandela’s condition. “Obviously, for an African-American, an African-American president, to be able to visit this site, I think gives me even greater motivation in terms of human rights around the world,” he said.
But President Zuma said in a statement on Thursday that, while Mr. Mandela was still critically ill, he had improved overnight and his condition was now stable. Mr. Obama formally opened his visit to the African continent earlier in the day at the Palace of the President, where he met with President Macky Sall of Senegal to discuss opportunities for greater trade and investment that could bolster the economies of both countries.
President Obama’s journey to Africa will reach back into earlier times when Africa struggled against slavery and white domination, represented in planned visits to the island shrines of Gorée Island near Dakar, considered by some a symbol of the slave trade, and Robben Island off Cape Town, South Africa, where Mr. Mandela, along with other political prisoners, spent much of a 27-year imprisonment that ended in 1990. “I see this as a moment of great promise and great progress for the continent,” Mr. Obama said. “All too often, the world overlooks the amazing progress that Africa is making.”
Some of Africa’s modern reality, though, has been obscured. In advance of the president’s visit, beggars, hawkers, crazily parked cars and paraplegics have been cleared from Dakar’s main avenue, replaced by small American flags fluttering from light poles and police patrols along the Atlantic Ocean. In his first extended visit to Africa since becoming president, Mr. Obama was greeted by some large crowds, including women dressed in traditional white garb to signify peace.
Mr. Obama’s main purpose in Senegal is seen as highlighting Senegal’s democratic culture: There has never been a coup d'état here, and last year an incumbent was turned out by voters. Dakar’s newspapers have been grumbling for days about the security headaches brought on by the president’s visit — a matter of pride for government officials but something else for citizens bearing the brunt of closed main avenues and impromptu roundups by the local police. Despite that greeting, some Africans have criticized Mr. Obama for what they say has been a lack of attention and investment. As president, he spent one day in sub-Saharan Africa in 2009, delivering a speech in Ghana.
The visit will thus offer a partly sanitized vision of this chaotic African metropolis. Mwangi S. Kimenyi, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said: “Africans have been largely disappointed, especially when they look at the focus on Africa by the previous presidents. They therefore have a feeling that President Obama is still not in tune with the emerging continent.”
“Obama is stifling us,” La Tribune reported on its front page Wednesday. “The Americans are imposing extreme measures,” Le Pop complained. “Dakar, under the hammer,” said L’As. “The Americans take over Senegal,” said L’Observateur. Meanwhile, Chinese leaders have traveled extensively in Africa in the last several years, investing billions of dollars in infrastructure throughout the continent.
Addressing reporters on Thursday at Senegal’s downtown presidential palace, Mr. Obama thanked the crowds that had earlier greeted his motorcade and praised Senegal for having “one of the most stable democracies in Africa.” American officials concede the challenge from China and other countries but insist that the United States has not been absent.
Questioned about African discrimination against gays, in the wake of Wednesday’s Supreme Court decision — gays are seen as persecuted in Senegal as elsewhere on the continent — Mr. Obama responded that states should practice equal treatment for all. “China’s paying a lot of attention to Africa,” Mr. Obama said in his news conference. “Brazil, Turkey, India are heavily invested in trying to expand trade and commerce with Africa.”
A day earlier, on the back streets of this bustling West African city, the enthusiasm for Mr. Obama's visit was more muted. There were no American flags, and the posters of Mr. Obama and Macky Sall, the Senegalese president, that were hastily plastered by the government along the oceanfront were nowhere to be seen. Four years ago newly painted “Obama” barbershops and corner markets were common, here and all over West Africa; today they are far harder to find. White House officials said the president’s trip would provide an opportunity for American businesses to increase their investments in African countries and to bolster trade with their counterparts on the continent.
Some on Dakar’s streets shared in the official pride, but others doubted that the American they will not see will make a dent in their daily worries. “The Senegalese are fed up, and we are hungry,” said Fatoumata Ndiaye, a housewife, standing with her empty shopping bucket outside a busy open-air fish stall in the Ouakam district. She could not afford the fresh fish — albeit covered in flies — that she coveted, but instead would have to settle for the pungent dried version. “We, frankly, have heard a high-demand signal from the U.S. private sector for us to play an active role in deepening our trade and investment partnerships in Africa,” said Benjamin J. Rhodes, Mr. Obama’s deputy national security adviser.
“We are asking him to help us,” Mrs. Ndiaye said, commenting on the visit of the president. “There’s no work here.” A pepper vendor, Samba Top, who said he was on his feet 12 hours a day and made $1.25 on a good day, walked up: “He’s got to help us, and quick,” said the 27-year-old father of four, carrying his load of little pepper sacks. For Mr. Obama’s administration, the weeklong visit to Africa is an important part of shaping policy regarding trade, security and human rights.
Still others warned that it made no sense to wait for a helping hand from the Americans. “I’m not expecting much from him. The Americans elected him to develop America, not Senegal,” Amadou Diallo, a building contractor, said outside an open-air pots and pans stand as a young man studied the Koran inside. But for the president himself, it is also a personal journey to countries that count him as one of their own.
But pride — a recognition of this African nation’s special status as an unfaltering democracy since independence — was close to the surface on Dakar’s streets. Over two years, in 2011 and 2012, the citizens rejected, through street protests and then the ballot box, an elderly president who refused to recognize his constitutional mandate was at an end. Now the son of that former president, Abdoulaye Wade, has been jailed on corruption charges by Mr. Sall’s government. As he walked onto Gorée Island from a ferry on Thursday afternoon, hundreds of residents of the area screamed with glee, many of them wearing white T-shirts emblazoned with his face and the words: “Welcome home, Mr. President.”
“The government has been saying, he’ll give us this, he’ll give us that,” Mr. Diallo said. “But we are not going to be beggars in front of Obama.” If the slave quarters made him somber, then the long rope line packed with eager faces had the opposite effect. Mr. Obama had a broad smile on his face as he shook the many hands reaching out to touch him. He held a baby for the cameras and moved briefly to the beat of bongo drums.

Adam Nossiter reported from Dakar, Senegal, and Alan Cowell from London.

Since becoming president in 2009, Mr. Obama has often deflected questions about the racial barrier he broke in that first election.
When asked about his efforts to raise the quality of life for African-Americans, he often responds by saying that he was elected to be the president of all Americans.
But here, in Africa, it is harder for him to avoid the history he has made.
In the days ahead, Mr. Obama will have more opportunities to reflect on the connection he feels with Africa. He is scheduled to deliver the marquee speech of his trip to college students in South Africa.
“This is going to be a continent that is on the move,” Mr. Obama said at the end of a news conference in Senegal. “It is young. It is vibrant and full of energy. And there’s a reason why a lot of other countries around the world are spending a lot of time here.”
He will not visit Kenya, where his father was born. That has become a source of disappointment for many there. And anger about some of Mr. Obama’s policies — including his embrace of some of the antiterrorism efforts of President George W. Bush — has dampened the enthusiasm for his arrival in some places.
In his remarks to reporters, Mr. Obama gave little indication of his personal motivations on the trip. Instead, he repeated his belief that the United States should not “lose focus” on cultivating relationships with African countries.
“The reason I came to Africa is because Africa is rising,” Mr. Obama said. “And it is in the United States’ interests — not simply in Africa’s interests — that the United States don’t miss the opportunity to deepen and broaden the partnerships and potential here.”

Adam Nossiter contributed reporting from Dakar, and Alan Cowell from London.