Addressing the Organization of African Unity (OAU) on December 9, 1997, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright dispelled all possible doubts about the centrality of the Great Lakes region for U.S. African policy. And she left no illusions about the seriousness of the obstacles ahead: “Africa matters, and right now no place matters more in Africa than the Great Lakes. Achieving lasting peace will be as difficult as implementing the Camp David Agreement and as complex as sustaining the Dayton accords.”

The Clinton administration’s new African policy thrust, combined with the changing contours of Canadian African policy, has brought the two governments’ approaches closer together than ever before. In most fundamental respects, their stated aims are closely congruent: They seek in general to promote stability and progress in Africa, conceived in broadly neo-liberal terms. Beyond these general objectives, however, Washington and Ottawa exhibit differences of emphasis and approach that are interesting given the especially close relationship that has long existed between the two countries. In important ways, Canada’s “kinder, gentler” approach to Africa serves to soften the face of U.S. policy priorities without fundamentally altering them, and in this respect serves as a valuable contributor to the fulfillment of U.S. hegemonic priorities on the continent and around the globe. Canada nonetheless has its own history, habits, and linkages in Africa that, although under strain, still allow it to periodically play a surprisingly prominent role on issues of concern to Africans at this historical moment of continental transformation.

With fanfare befitting the arrival of a god of the Western material world, U.S. President Bill Clinton toured Southern Africa imparting “words of wisdom” along the way. His aim, we were told, was to see that the United States becomes Africa’s “true partner.” The reason being, according to Clinton, “[a]s Africa grows strong, America grows stronger ... Yes, Africa needs the world, but more than ever it is equally true that the world needs Africa.” To this end, the United States would pursue a mix of political and economic policies that included the African Crisis Response Initiative and the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, both designed to foster “stability” and “prosperity” on the continent. Lofty goals, to be sure, but ends whose means are badly in need of interrogation. This article does just that: To wit, does Clinton, on behalf of U.S. policymakers, mean what he says? If so, in naming “peace” and “prosperity,” can he make them? Put differently, does the Clinton administration have the power to introduce order where there was chaos? Or will it only compound existing problems and visit new ones upon those who had few to begin with?

There is nothing more fundamental to Africans who are concerned with the future of the African continent than the issues of democracy, human rights, good governance, and the rule of law. These basic human liberties, among other concerns, constitute the central driving force behind what is often referred to as Africa’s “second liberation.” The primary purpose of this article is to assess the Clinton administration’s role in this second liberation, particularly in terms of its involvement in issues of democracy and human rights. This assessment is offered from the perspective of an individual who has been directly involved in the prodemocracy and human rights movement in Kenya. This article focuses on whether the Clinton administration’s policies are still heavily influenced by classic U.S. conceptions of realpolitik, or if enlightened leadership more in line with a neo-Wilsonian idealpolitik—as official rhetoric suggests—has permitted a fundamental departure in favor of a more coherent and tangible democracy and human rights foreign policy stance in the post-Cold War era.