Behind the Obama Visit to East Africa. Imperialism with a “Human Face”, Outright Militarization of the African Continent
Washington’s foreign policy towards Africa was highlighted recently through the visit of President Barack Obama to Kenya and Ethiopia.
Also the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, came to the United States the previous week and held high-level meetings with Obama along with other officials in the State Department and the Pentagon.
Obama’s term ends next year and many have criticized him for not visiting the country where his father was born since he was elected to office in 2008. Kenya has been a longtime ally of the U.S. since the early days of independence in 1963 under the leadership of Jomo Kenyatta, the first president of the East African state.
The president attended a business development conference in Kenya. He emphasized during his trip the much-touted phenomenal economic growth on the continent.
Although there has been the enhanced exploitation of natural gas and other strategic resources in East Africa, economic problems persist. Kenya is a capitalist country that is heavily dependent upon the marketing of agricultural, clothing and tourism to the West.
Unemployment and poverty continues to trap millions while economic relations with the imperialist states do not offer any significant prospects for the absorption of large segments of the population into the urbanized labor market. Most people still work in the agricultural sectors of the economy through the production of tea, coffee, sisal and other products.
