US encourages Mali transition but…  

                          

The United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on a whistle stop tour of African countries has enjoined stakeholders to break new grounds and resolve the protracted crisis in Mali to improve the momentum of the transition process.

Speaking in the Senegalese capital Dakar on Wednesday, Mrs. Clinton whose tour will take her South Sudan, Uganda, South Africa and probably Ghana warned that her country “will not resume assistance to certain countries until military governments there cede power to civilian administrations".

She urged Malians to work concertedly together for a successful political transition that would culminate in April 2013 and admonished stakeholders to reject violent extremism and unite to deal with insurgents who had undermined the country’s territorial integrity.

“Mali until the developments of months ago was on the right path. The international community should continue to play its role to help the country overcome its challenges” she remarked.

Mrs. Clinton also said that it was time that African governments treated their people with dignity, insisting that democracy and development should develop African models of partnership by building transitional and not transactional relations based on respect for human rights to add value to partners and people.

According to her, people in the United States have been asking questions about the administration's concern with democracy elsewhere in the world while it has enough to deal with at home.

Clinton said "this is not altruism but strategic interest. Strong stable partners are in the interest of the United States".

She also spoke of “a new kind of partnership with Senegal and Africa as a whole adding that the US believes in the potency of the Senegalese and African youths to change the course of their own history for the better.

She praised Senegalese youths for standing up for democracy and their country’s constitution in the run- up to the poll and in the aftermath of the elections which culminated in the peaceful handover of power.

"Talent is universal, opportunity is not and the US wants to advance the aspirations of the African youth in line with our shared values. It is a mutual mission, a race between hope and fear, potential realized and despair. But there is an unlimited future for those ready to work together" she remarked.

First published on 1August 2012 on apanews.net