US President Barack Obama walks to Marine One prior to departing from
the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, June 18, 2015.
Obama will in late July become the first sitting American leader to
visit Ethiopia and the headquarters of the African Union, the White
House said Friday.AFP PHOTO | SAUL LOEB
US President Barack Obama will in late July become the first
sitting American leader to visit Ethiopia and the headquarters of the
African Union, the White House said Friday.
Obama's
trip to Addis Ababa will come directly after an already announced trip
to Kenya, his first as president to his father's homeland, press
secretary Josh Earnest announced.
Obama will meet both
the Ethiopian government and AU leaders, for talks on how to "accelerate
economic growth, strengthen democratic institutions and improve
security."
The election of the United States' first
black president — and the first with an African parent — raised high
hopes on the continent, but Obama has been a cautious friend.
In
August last year, the White House hosted a huge Washington summit of
African leaders and the upcoming July trip is intended to build on
progress towards closer economic ties.
A presidential
visit to Kenya had been put on ice while President Uhuru Kenyatta faced
charges of crimes against humanity for his role in 2007-2008
post-election violence.
The International Criminal
Court has since suspended that prosecution, citing a lack of evidence
and Kenya's failure to cooperate.
Human rights groups
have questioned the visit to Kenya, but are also asking why Obama is
visiting Ethiopia so soon after a contested election.
Africa's second most populous nation held a vote in May that was described by many independent observers as flawed.
The
governing party, which has ruled for over two decades, won a landslide,
amid opposition allegations of intimidation and vote rigging.
"The
decision by President Obama to travel to Ethiopia, which has seen three
opposition party members murdered this week alone, is very troubling,"
Jeffrey Smith of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human
Rights told AFP.
Smith said the timing, and the
symbolism of Obama's trip, would "further solidify the image that
America stands behind Africa's autocrats."
The White House stressed that it frequently addresses issues of democracy and political rights with countries in the region.
"We
regularly, both in public and in private, communicate our concerns
about some of the issues," White House spokesman Eric Schultz said.
"I don't think that is going to stop because of this visit."
Ethiopia
and Kenya have both been on the frontline of the fight against
Somalia's Al-Qaeda-allied militia Shebab, and have been important
security partners to Washington.
Shebab units have been
hunted by African Union troops and US drones inside Somalia — but have
outflanked the Kenyan contingent in Somalia to mount a string of
gruesome cross-border raids.
In April last year the group attacked a university in Garissa, Kenya killing 148 people — most of them students.
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