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INSIDE AFRICA

Covering the Obama Victory

Aired November 8, 2008 - 12:30:00 ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

JIM CLANCY, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. And welcome to INSIDE AFRICA. I'm Jim Clancy in for Isha Sesay. Well, what a time it was. Here in the United States there were celebrations, as the election campaign ended, and Barack Obama emerged as president-elect. So from where we stand, it's pretty hard to tell whether those of you in Africa didn't celebrate even more. David McKenzie was in the home village of Obama's father in Kenya when Barack Obama was declared the winner. David, what was it like to cover this story from there?

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN ANCHOR: Well, Jim, it really was a special and unique experience. The CNN team came here to western Kenya to witness what the people of Kogelo, a tiny village about an hour and a half that direction from the capital here, to see what it was like, whether Barack Obama would win this presidency, and to

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be there was really a special time for us, Jim. And so now, after months of Barack Obama mania, Obama mania here in Kenya and around the world, here in Africa, there in that village, it was really the center point of that excitement.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE0

MCKENZIE: When we first arrived in Kogelo, we found a sleepy sort of place, but things were about to change. There's construction going on everywhere to improve Obama's village. And the worldwide press assembled to hang on every word of Obama's family.

MALIK OBAMA, OBAMA'S HALF BROTHER: We're extremely excited. We're not nervous.

MCKENZIE: Everyone was hoping for an Obama win, but we did find one likely supporter of McCain -- the bull ready to be slaughtered should Obama take the White House.

But democracy still had to play out. Malik Obama, a half-brother of the senator, watches the news trickle in with the diehard fans. Villagers watched it on the big screen until the moment came.

And now, the entire village is coming here to Barack Obama's ancestral home, as they see it here in Kenya, to celebrate this historic victory. Let's watch as they have a party.

MALIK OBAMA: Hey, way to go, brother. You did it. You did it, you know, and, you know, all the best, and I'll be seeing you.

MCKENZIE: Even granny Sarah Obama at 86 couldn't resist the drive (ph). She's already getting ready for the inauguration.

SARAH OBAMA, OBAMA'S STEP-GRANDMOTHER (through interpreter): I want to thank everybody for voting my grandson in. It is a very important job that he's just got. I might die from excitement at the airport. What I can tell you is, that he should work very hard and bring progress to Kenya and all of America.

MCKENZIE: For today, they won't want to think about the challenges that could await President Barack Obama. The village of Kogelo only sees possibilities.

And that bull -- well, we all know how much Kenyans love their barbecues.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCKENZIE: Certainly, it's an event that Kogelo will never forget and nor will Kisumu, where I'm standing right now. You know, people sat up all night, in the morning they found out Barack Obama was the next president. They partied throughout this town, throughout this country and throughout this continent, Jim.

CLANCY: David, an exciting time, but what really do they expect might come with Barack Obama in the White House?

MCKENZIE: It's a great question, Jim. Over the past two months, we've been talking to people in Kenya and across this region, asking, you know, why is it that you want Barack Obama? Obviously, they say, first it's because of his Kenyan heritage, but then we pushed them and we say, well, what else could he provide? Some people on the streets of Nairobi said, well, this might mean visas and passports for us, but all joking aside, people think -- they're realistic, that as the next president, his priorities will be to fix the financial crisis in the U.S., to help the U.S.'s image abroad. And Africa might not be his immediate priority, but people are really hopeful that just his image and his prospect for change they're excited about, and that perhaps one day, because of his links to Africa, he might come here and visit them, and that certainly would be an exciting day here in Kisumu -- John.

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CLANCY: All right. David McKenzie, there in Kenya, thank you for that.

Well, Nigerians also celebrating Obama's historic victory, and Christian Purefoy filed this report from Lagos.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE

CHRISTIAN PUREFOY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, I'm Christian Purefoy in Lagos, Nigeria, the most populous black nation in the world. There's about 150 million Nigerians. And the news today -- that a black man is president of America -- has left people here overwhelmed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Honestly, as a black man, winning the president in America, we -- all the black in Africa, we're very happy, and we're very glad about that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He has made history, for all the blacks (inaudible), for all the black to move and (inaudible).

PUREFOY: And here what is basically the gateway to America in Nigeria. U.S. embassy is up there; people applying for residency, visas down here. Their hopes and dreams fundamentally changed by Obama's victory.

(on camera): How are you feeling about the election?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For a black man to be the president of the United States of America and (inaudible) proud to the whole world, generally.

PUREFOY: What do you want from the next president of the United States, Barack Obama?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Actually, what -- what they stood for is change. And that is what we want.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That he's going to make some changes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The whole world has recognized that (inaudible) in a black man. Now we're so happy that for the first time, a black man is ruling the world. Now we believe very, very strongly that he's going to do better, that he's going to deliver.

PUREFOY: So, opinion here is overwhelmingly in Obama's favor. And if any of these people are successful in their residency applications, Obama has paved the way for maybe their son or daughter to be president.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CLANCY: Many Africans hope that Barack Obama will help solve some of the major problems facing their continent. Coming up next on INSIDE AFRICA, we'll look at one of those -- the conflict and humanitarian crisis in eastern Congo.

Also coming up, basketball star Dikembe Mutombo talks about his hopes for Congo, Africa, and the Obama administration.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CLANCY: Well, welcome back to INSIDE AFRICA. You know, with Barack Obama now going to the White House, many wonder whether he can help heal the open wounds on the continent. One of the worst -- the conflict in eastern Congo. A decade of fighting there has killed more people than any conflict since World War II, left more than a million people displaced, and threatens to get even worse.

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(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CLANCY: Cause and effect. This is eastern Congo, where a rebel conflict and the humanitarian crisis that comes with it have dragged on for a decade. The U.N. estimates a quarter of a million people have been displaced since the violence flared up again in August. Conditions in the camps are desperate.

IBRAHIMA COLY, UNHCR NORTH KIVU CHIEF: There is the sentiment of panic here. The security is the first priority. The second priority is food.

CLANCY: And there is not enough of either to go around. U.N. peacekeepers, who struggle to protect the displaced, are feeling the strain.

ALAN DOSS, U.N. SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE: We have approximately one soldier for every 10,000 citizens in the Kivus. We have 10,000 soldiers roughly; in the Kivus 10 million people. So that shows you the scale of the challenge we face.

CLANCY: And the blue helmets are sometimes targets themselves. Rebels recently fired rockets at a U.N. convoy in North Kivu. Even some of the displaced are taking out their frustration on U.N. troops.

One of the rebel leaders at the center of this conflict is Laurent Nkunda, a Tutsi. The former DRC army general says he's simply doing what the government will not, protecting ethnic Tutsis from Hutu fighters, who allegedly took part in Rwanda's genocide.

Nkunda explained it to CNN's Anderson Cooper two years ago.

LAURENT NKUNDA, REBEL COMMANDER: That's why our people remains in the refugees camp in Rwanda, in Burundi, and in Uganda.

CLANCY: The Democratic Republic of Congo in turn accuses Rwanda of aiding Nkunda's forces, a charge Rwanda denies.

The biggest obstacle to peace may be the DRC's abundance of mineral resources, including gold, tin ore and coltan, a key component in cell phones and laptop computers. The international watchdog group Global Witness says all sides in this conflict are involved in the illegal mining or related activities, and they all have a financial incentive to keep the war going.

CARINA TERTSAKIAN, GLOBAL WITNESS: These armed groups wouldn't be able to trade if there were nobody to buy these minerals. The problem at the moment is that companies are not performing any kind of due diligence. So they're not trying to find out where do these minerals come from, and might they be passing through the hands of some of these armed groups.

CLANCY: Western diplomats are trying to pressure leaders to implement existing agreements, such as a January ceasefire that was signed by the DRC and 22 rebel groups.

DAVID MILIBAND, BRITISH FOREIGN SECRETARY: All leaders in the region need to know, it's clear that the world is watching, and not just the world's TV crews, but the world's political leaders.

CLANCY: But until the international community confronts the plunder of mineral wealth, it is hard to imagine a lasting peace coming to this region.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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CLANCY: Now, the reality is the financial crisis that's enveloping the world right now leaves developed countries with less money, not more to spend on crises like Congo. Well, maybe that's what we need, says Human Rights activist John Prendergast, someone skilled in diplomacy and smart enough to know throwing money at political problems won't accomplish anything.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN PRENDERGAST, ENOUGH PROJECT: It's a free-for-all, and here is the problem. You know, coltan, which was six, seven years ago, was the thing that was fueling everything and the bottom fell out of the price is now beginning to inch back up slowly, steadily, surely, much, much more expensive. It will be much, much more expensive next year than it was last year, because the Australian supply chain has become problematic.

What we've done over the last decade, Jim, is we -- we've thrown billions of dollars of humanitarian aid and billions of dollars in peacekeeping. This is the largest, most expensive peacekeeping force in the entire world, without a political strategy to deal with the root causes. This Rwandan -- the problem of the Rwandan militias, the problem of the mineral extraction. We've got to develop a political strategy.

That's why we're so excited, frankly, that we have a president in Washington who is going to take office on January 20th, who has a desire to engage politically in some of Africa's deeper problems, and we hope that the United States, working with the United Nations, working with key African neighboring states, working with the Europeans, can construct a political strategy that addresses the root causes of the Congo.

CLANCY: Let's change the subject a little bit and talk about the open letter on Darfur. Because here, people are just addressing President-elect Barack Obama and giving him a clear message of what people have seen happen on Darfur, and what has to happen in the future.

PRENDERGAST: What activists all over the United States -- and you have what is a unprecedented people's movement in the United States to support some kind of positive change in Darfur, in the broader country of Sudan. And they're saying, let's not like the last five years, the last six years of the Bush administration, let's not focus on the symptoms of the problem, let's not focus on managing the problem. Let's focus on ending it. Let's end it with a serious peace process. Just like the United States, when it worked with the Europeans and the Africans, were able to end Sudan's -- southern Sudan's war, which was much deadlier, by the way, than Darfur.

There has been no sustained, high-level diplomatic process like there was for southern Sudan that deals with the problems in Darfur, that includes and involves all the key countries that have an influence, like the Egyptians, like the Saudis, like the Omanis. The people who have invested heavily in the economy of Sudan, and who want stability and peace in order for their investments to bear fruit. The people like the Chinese, who have invested $8.5 billion in the Sudanese oil sector, and whose assets are at risk if war spreads in Sudan. So we together, working together, with the strategy, to focus on getting a solution to the problem in Darfur. I believe it's doable.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CLANCY: Prendergast says if the United States and China work together to end the Darfur crisis, and he believes they can, we could see the beginning of the end of that nightmare within a matter of six months.

Well, NBA star Dikembe Mutombo also has high hopes for this Obama presidency. Coming up straight ahead on INSIDE AFRICA, his conversation with Isha Sesay.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DIKEMBE MUTOMBO: My mission is not in politics, but my mission is -- how can we change this world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Making business news in Africa. The International Monetary Fund says it expects Rwanda's economy to grow more than 8 percent this year, but the agency's head in Rwanda told Reuters that high inflation could contribute to a slowdown in growth in 2009. The IMF says gains in agriculture and construction have helped to maintain Rwanda's overall growth.

Vodafone, the world's largest seller of mobile phones services, announced it will take control of Vodacom, the biggest mobile phone company in South Africa. British-based Vodafone already had an existing 50 percent stake in Vodacom, but it says it agreed to buy another 15 percent stake. The deal expected to be completed in the first half of next year.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CLANCY: Welcome back, everyone. You're watching INSIDE AFRICA.

The conflict in eastern Congo is personal for basketball star Dikembe Mutombo. He comes from the DRC, and he's invested millions of dollars of his own money to build a hospital in Kinshasa, the capital. Mutombo talked with INSIDE AFRICA'S own Isha Sesay.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MUTOMBO: This conflict that is making more than 1.2 million people run away, away from their villages, away from their (inaudible), away from their culture and everything they've learned is very sad.

I've invested more than $30 million by building one of the new hospitals built in the Democratic Congo in 40 years, and doing as much work as I've been doing and to change the living condition of the people, and giving them hope that our future can be bright. We cannot just live with -- by being desperate. We've got to have the faith that the things will turn around.

ISHA SESAY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Given where you are today and the successes you've enjoyed, you've been able to play a part in the United States. And then next chapter -- you supported Barack Obama, right from the very beginning, you gave money to his campaign, and now he is president-elect and will be the next president of the United States. What is it that attracted you to Barack Obama right from the beginning?

MUTOMBO: To my generation, to see that there was something very important that I can change, with my three young beautiful children. And one day I can believe that I can tell them that you can become a senator, you can become even president of the United States. Don't worry about the color of your skin.

It's also a moment to realize that, as an African, there will be one of our home in the White House. He is the son of one of the African men, who's becoming the president of the United States.

This is as good as -- the joy is just overwhelming, and I don't know how to express it. Especially on African continent, people stayed on TV watching this, trying to see who was coming to become the president, and to see celebrating every day as we're just talking, not just in Kenya, where his father came from, but all over the continent. It's just a -- it's a huge transformation. Maybe this change, this movement of change will inspire all of us, Africans, to change our minds, to change our mentality, the way we look ourselves, the way we treat each other in African continent, the way we're treating our women and children, and the way we're creating a violence in the continent, and the way we're now worrying about the future of our next generation. It will change even our leaders, they way they see themselves, that they should be there for the people, not for themselves.

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(END VIDEOTAPE)

CLANCY: Now, Mutombo says he plans to build a children's wing onto his new hospital there in Kinshasa.

Well, two landmark legal cases with far-reaching effects. Coming up next on INSIDE AFRICA, we've got the verdict in the Florida trial of Chuckie Taylor, and a measure of justice for a former slave. Stay with INSIDE AFRICA.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK

CLANCY: Welcome back to INSIDE AFRICA. Now, we want to update you on a couple of legal cases that we have been following. The son of former Liberian President Charles Taylor facing life in prison now after being convicted of torture charges in the U.S. state of Florida. That verdict against Chuckie Taylor came with the weight of witnesses. Some disfigured victims testified they were tottered by members of Taylor's military unit known as the Demon Forces. Chuckie Taylor headed that unit from 1999 to 2002.

Now, significantly, he is the first person to be tried under a 1994 U.S. law that makes it a crime for any American citizen to commit torture abroad.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KENDALL COFFEY, FMR. U.S. FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: It's a historic case, the first-ever prosecution by the U.S. under its anti-torture laws, and it establishes not only that the U.S. is stepping up to the position of global leadership that they ought to be asserting, but it now has, in effect, a textbook for future prosecutions..

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CLANCY: His father, Charles Taylor, is on trial in the Hague for alleged war crimes committed in Sierra Leone.

Now, a former slave from Niger has won a landmark case. A West African Court of Justice ordered the government of Niger to pay Hadijatou Mani almost $20,000 for failing to protect her from slavery. The award may not be much by western standards, but Mani says it's enough to build a house and start a new life. She says at the age of 12, she was sold to a man who forced her to work, and he later raped her and forced her to bear his children. Niger criminalized slavery five years ago.

Well, that has to be it for this week's program. Isha Sesay is going to be back with the brand-new edition of INSIDE AFRICA, next week, of course. Check our Web site for a list of times.

We're going to leave you now with some more of those incredible images in Africa, hailing the election of Barack Obama as the next U.S. president. For now, I'm Jim Clancy. Thanks for celebrating with us.

END

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