LUANDA: US President Joe Biden is in Angola on Tuesday for the first and only visit to sub-Saharan Africa of his presidency, which is focused on a major infrastructure project that is a counterpoint to China\u2019s investments.
\nBiden arrived in the oil-rich Portuguese-speaking country late Monday for a two-day visit centered on a multinational project to rehabilitate a railway line ferrying minerals from inland countries to the Angolan port of Lobito for export.
\nIn anticipation of his trip, the Angolan government declared December 3 and 4 public holidays and deployed heavy security across the capital Luanda, a city of around 9.5 million people.
\nBiden, who hands over to Donald Trump on January 20, starts his visit on Tuesday with talks with President Joao Lourenco in the capital Luanda and is due to later deliver remarks at the National Slavery Museum.
\nOn Wednesday, he is to travel to Lobito, an Atlantic port city about 500 kilometers (310 miles) south of Luanda.
\nThe port is at the heart of the Lobito Corridor project that has received loans from the United States, the European Union and others to rehabilitate a key railway connecting the mineral-rich inland countries of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Zambia with Lobito, from where they can be exported.
\nIt is \u201ca real game changer for US engagement in Africa,\u201d John Kirby, the White House national security communications adviser, told reporters Monday.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s our fervent hope that as the new team comes in and takes a look at this, that they see the value too, that they see how it will help drive a more secure, more prosperous, more economically stable continent.\u201d
\nThe Lobito project is a piece in the geopolitical battle between the United States and its allies and China, which owns mines in the DRC and Zambia among an array of investments in the region.
\nA similar railway project involving Chinese investment is aimed at ferrying minerals out via a Tanzanian port on the Indian Ocean.
\nA senior US official told journalists ahead of Biden\u2019s trip that African governments are seeking an alternative to Chinese investment, especially when it results in \u201cliving under crushing debt for generations to come.\u201d
\nAngola, for instance, owes China $17 billion, about 40 percent of the nation\u2019s total debt.
\nLourenco, too, appears to want to diversify his country\u2019s partnerships beyond China and Russia.
\n\u201cWe\u2019re not asking countries to choose between US and Russia and China,\u201d Kirby said. \u201cWe\u2019re simply looking for reliable, sustainable, verifiable investment opportunities that the people of Angola and the people of the continent can rely on.\u201d
\nHuman rights organizations have urged Biden to raise Angola\u2019s rights record.
\nAmnesty International said in a report last month that Angolan police had killed at least 17 protesters between November 2020 and June 2023 as part of a long-running crackdown on dissent.
\nIt urged Biden, 82, to demand that Angola \u201cimmediately release five government critics arbitrarily detained for more than a year.\u201d
\nAngola, a nation of 37 million people, was devastated by a 27-year civil war that started on independence from Portugal in 1975, when the UNITA rebel movement challenged the MPLA that is still in power.
\nDuring the Cold War years the United States funnelled covert aid to UNITA. It recognized the MPLA government only in 1993, becoming an importer of its oil.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LUANDA: US President Joe Biden is in Angola on Tuesday for the first and only visit to sub-Saharan Africa of his presidency, which is focused on a major infrastructure project that is a counterpoint to China\u2019s investments. Biden arrived in the oil-rich Portuguese-speaking country late Monday for a two-day visit centered on a multinational project […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":447127,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-447112","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n