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Many Africans See U.S. As Distant Savior

By BRYAN MEALER
Associated Press Writer

February 21, 2005, 1:27 PM EST

LOME, Togo -- As President Bush visits Europe this week, he is up against a
continent brimming with hostile public opinion. But while Americans have
grown
used to being condemned as global bullies, at least one region has people
looking to them for salvation.

For many of the young people who take to the streets in protest in Lome and
other blighted, overlooked capitals across Africa, only one distant power
seems
great enough to defeat the local forces of tyranny: the U.S. military.

"Tell George Bush to send us guns," young protesters screamed last weekend
in
Lome, capital of Togo, where the dictator of 38 years had just died, only
for
his son to succeed him by military appointment within hours.

"We need American troops to deliver us from this regime," young men shouted.

America's export of democratic ideals, along with the hard-core rap music
and
imagery that has suffused African youth cultures, has made it seem like a
beacon to Africa's downtrodden -- or at least better than France, former
colonial ruler and lasting influence in much of West Africa.

That was evident amid the tear gas and riots in the former French colony of
Togo, when thousands protested against the military's appointment of Faure
Gnassingbe as president. Young people, many in American-branded jeans and
baseball caps, begged Western journalists to send the message that they
wanted
the U.S. Marines to come in stop a new dictatorship from blossoming.

That was before pressure at home and abroad elicited a pledge from
Gnassingbe
late Friday to hold presidential elections within 60 days, and matters may
yet
be resolved peacefully.

Similar pro-American sympathies have been noticeable in other places wracked
by
civil war, ethnic hatred and disease.

In Ivory Coast, where pro-government mobs attacked French families last year
and clashed with French peacekeepers, any foreigner could win immunity and
cheers simply by producing an American flag -- or even a red-white-and-blue
car
air-freshener. Demonstrators waved posters appealing to Bush for help.

The French, whose soldiers, traders and technocrats are still deeply engaged
in
West Africa, get the blame for much that goes wrong here. The United States
keeps a much lower profile. French criticism of the Iraq invasion only adds
to
Washington's luster. So while the educated classes of Africa debate the
rights
and wrongs of U.S. policy, at street level Americans are often seen as
knights
in armor who would surely ride to the rescue if only they knew how bad
things
were.

As U.S. troops rolled into Baghdad in 2003, many people of eastern Congo,
3,000
miles away, were being slaughtered in ethnic massacres. Over and over,
frightened Congolese were heard demanding American intervention.

Months later, rebels descended on Monrovia, Liberia, a country founded by
freed
slaves returned from America. Deposed President Charles Taylor finally
agreed
to step down -- but not until U.S. troops arrived.

The 100 soldiers who joined a West African peacekeeping force were the first
U.
S. military mission on African soil since 10 years previously, when the
killing
of 18 U.S. soldiers in Mogadishu, Somalia, doused any American appetite for
further African interventions.

Yet many Somalians say the American troops are still the only ones who can
deliver their city from warlords and drug-addled gunmen.

In the former French colonies, the call for American firepower usually comes
in
the same breath as vitriolic hatred for the French -- delivered in French,
the
lingua franca inherited from colonial times.

During the demonstrations in Lome (pronounced low-MAY), Togo's beach-front
capital, protesters confronted journalists shouting, "Are you French? If you
are, we will kill you." A French radio journalist was doused with gasoline
but
escaped unharmed.

Few listened to the funeral dirges and electronic anthems droning out of
state
radio in ceaseless homage to the dead president. In neighborhoods full of
restless, unemployed youth, Busta Rhymes and DMX blared from a distant boom
box, near a mural honoring slain rapper Tupac Shakur.

"People are hungry and dying here," said a 24-year-old calling himself LL
Cool
J, after the American rapper.

"The young men are looking for guns," he said. "All we need are guns and the
proper training."

In a country where security forces routinely kick down doors to punish those
critical of the government, nearly all those interviewed refused to give
their
real or full names.

On the shady campus of Lome University, a 22-year-old named Carrie said:
"It's
up to the international community to give us weapons."

Her friends looked on in frosty silence, except to hush her. Students say
the
Gnassingbe regime often planted spies among them to monitor dissent.

"Striking and demonstrating isn't doing us any good," Carrie persisted. "We
need guns to properly fight the government."

Political violence held no attraction for at least one Togolese --
20-year-old
Keith, who had tight dreadlocks, a silver earring and a skull-and-crossbones
tattoo on his meaty shoulder.

"Every time we fight the government we die," he said. "Man, I don't even
like
the word 'guns.'"

Copyright (c) 2005, The Associated Press

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