SANTA MARIA, Cape Verde - After a grueling seven-nation, 11-day trip, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton wrapped up her Africa tour on Friday by reaffirming her promise to renovate American relations with the continent.

"I leave Africa after this remarkable trip even more committed," Mrs. Clinton said before leaving Cape Verde.

"I have seen the joy and energy Africans have, evidenced not just by the boogieing, but by the hard work and perseverance," she said, referring to a recent comment from her husband, former President Bill Clinton, that she knew how to "boogie" with African dancers.

"And we've seen the worst humanity can do to itself," she added, presumably referring to Congo, where Mrs. Clinton met victims of a brutal civil war that just does not seem to end.

Mrs. Clinton seemed satisfied that she had accomplished her mission: strengthening American relations with crucial allies on the continent, like Nigeria and South Africa, and sending a message of "tough love," as she called it, to nations like Kenya and Congo.

Over all, she said, the United States wants to work more closely with African nations as a partner, not simply as a patron or dispenser of aid. In exchange, she said, African leaders must deliver democracy and good government.

Mrs. Clinton vowed to stay on top of Africa, even after she gets back to Washington, closely monitoring the issues she addressed on her tour. She also pointed to Cape Verde, a set of palm-studded islands best known for their beaches and enormous tourist hotels, as an example of what good leadership can do.

"This is possible," she said. "You create not just economic growth but a sense of human dignity and possibility."

Kenya. South Africa. Angola. Congo. Nigeria. Liberia. And finally Cape Verde. Mrs. Clinton saw with her own eyes some of Africa's most promising countries - and some of its most troubled ones. In Kenya, she pushed for the government to prosecute perpetrators of the postelection violence last year. In South Africa, the big issue was Zimbabwe and how the South African government should do more to help ease the crisis there.

In Angola, the theme was good governing practices and oil, a strategic concern of the United States given the many inroads China has made there and elsewhere in Africa in its hunger for natural resources. In Congo, Mrs. Clinton was passionate about the need to end the nation's rape epidemic.

"The secretary's visit to the heart of the world's deadliest war zone in eastern Congo was a potential game-changer for that conflict," said John Prendergast, a founder of the Washington-based Enough Project. "Her commitment to addressing root causes such as the conflict minerals that power our electronics industry was a refreshing contrast to the usual disaster sympathy tourism of visiting dignitaries."

"Now," he added, "comes the hard part: making good on the promises and living up to the high expectations engendered by her visit."

In Nigeria, Mrs. Clinton pressed for electoral changes. In Liberia, she praised the country's president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the only woman in Africa to be elected head of state.

The Liberian visit had a special warmth, almost like a meeting of long-lost cousins. Liberia was founded in the 19th century by freed American slaves, and the country's flag, the people's names and even the police uniforms with plastic-brimmed hats were all reminiscent of the American versions. Mrs. Clinton received possibly her most exuberant welcome there, and a Liberian man with a long wooden horn followed her around most of the visit, blowing out loud funny noises whenever she said something striking.

"I love that - the horn - I want to take that guy with me wherever I go," she said.

In Cape Verde, Mrs. Clinton seemed to have few bones to pick. For once, she said, she had a cheat sheet on a country that included a list of far more positives than negatives. The country has fewer than 500,000 people and has escaped the turmoil that has engulfed so much of Africa. The all-inclusive, poolside buffet resorts here feel like something found in Cancun or the Bahamas.

Mrs. Clinton called Cape Verde "a model of democracy and economic progress in Africa."

On Friday, just as she had at every stop, she started her speech by saying, "I bring you greetings from President Obama."

She called him a "son of Africa" and said that under the Obama administration, the United States was determined to help Africa reach its promise.





By Jeffrey Gettleman, The New York Times, August 14, 2009

MONROVIA, Liberia - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton landed in Liberia in the driving rain Thursday morning and sent a strong message of support to President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who has recently come under scrutiny for her role in the country's conflict-ridden past.

Mrs. Johnson Sirleaf, a Harvard-trained economist, instantly became a symbol of women's empowerment and a departure from war in this long-suffering nation in 2005, when she became Africa's first woman to be elected head of state.

But in late June, Liberia's Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommended barring her from public office for 30 years because she had been one of the "political leaders and financiers of different warring factions" during the country's intermittent armed conflicts from 1989 to 2003.

Mrs. Clinton backed her up 100 percent.

"I look at what President Sirleaf has done over the past three years and I see a very accomplished leader," she said.

Mrs. Clinton also said, "We think Liberia is on the right track, as difficult as that might be."

Liberia is the second to last stop on Mrs. Clinton's seven-nation African tour. She has met with rape survivors from Congo's war, scolded Kenyan politicians for failing to try the instigators of political violence, toured a refugee camp and talked about the oil business with Nigerian leaders.

At one point, Mrs. Clinton sparred with a Congolese student who asked for former President Bill Clinton's opinion on a certain subject, and she snapped back, "My husband is not the secretary of state, I am," a comment that has gotten more attention than anything else she has said or done on this trip.

On Thursday, at a news conference in the Liberian Foreign Affairs Ministry, Mrs. Clinton was asked whether she regretted the exchange. She declined to answer.

"The most important part of this trip has been the relationships we built," she said.

Mrs. Clinton also spoke at Liberia's national legislature, telling lawmakers, "I know some of you in this chamber bore arms against each other," which drew nervous laughter. "But your being here, committed to the peaceful resolution of disputes, is a great message."

All the warring factions during Liberia's recent conflicts were responsible for gross human rights violations, the truth commission said. And Mrs. Johnson Sirleaf has admitted sending money to Charles Taylor, an infamous Liberian warlord now on trial for war crimes, when he challenged the former dictator Samuel K. Doe.

But in a speech for her nation's Independence Day celebrations last month, Mrs. Johnson Sirleaf apologized for her "misjudgment" and said that "when the true nature of Mr. Taylor's intentions became known, there was no more impassioned critic or strong opponent to him in a democratic process" than she.

Since 2003, the United States has spent more than $2 billion trying to stabilize Liberia, a country of 3.5 million people. Per capita, that is about as much foreign aid as the United States has given any country.

Mrs. Clinton promised more, saying the United States would help fix up Monrovia's airport and train police officers. Lawlessness was still a serious problem, she said, and as if to reinforce the point, a group of young men on buzzing motorcycles, who were apparently chasing after a thief, nearly collided with her motorcade as she was passing through Monrovia's broken streets.





By Jeffrey Gettleman, The New York Times, August 14, 2009

ABUJA, Nigeria - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton sent a message of tough love to Nigeria on Wednesday, praising the country's strong military and showing public appreciation for its huge oil industry, but also harshly criticizing the government for being corrupt.

Mrs. Clinton thanked Nigeria, Africa's most populous country and typically its biggest oil producer, for its help in resolving wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone and for providing peacekeepers to Sudan.

"The people in Liberia owe their freedom to you," she said. "People across Africa owe so much to you."

But when it came to the topic of corruption - and Nigeria is notoriously corrupt, from top ministers in the government to the plump police officers on the street - Mrs. Clinton took a decidedly different tone.

She told a crowd of civic leaders that the reason so many millions of Nigerians were desperately poor, despite the nation's having so much oil, was "a failure of government at the federal, state and local level."

She also spoke of flawed elections and a lack of public trust that has seriously eroded the credibility of the Nigerian government.

"Nigeria is at a crossroads," she said.

America's ties to Nigeria are a crucial piece of the reinvigorated relationship that the Obama administration is trying to strike with Africa. It has 150 million people and is the world's fifth largest supplier of crude oil to the United States. It could supply even more, but heavily armed insurgents in the oil producing areas have hampered drilling operations by blowing up pipelines and kidnapping oil workers, seemingly at will.

There is some hope that this problem, which has been raging for years, may finally be easing. The Nigerian government recently offered an amnesty program to rebel fighters, and despite ample skepticism from experts and the rebels themselves, Nigerian officials said that many combatants had indicated that they were willing to surrender.

"There was a need to be bold and imaginative," said Nigeria's foreign minister, Ojo Maduekwe, who met with Mrs. Clinton for more than an hour on Wednesday. "Old methods were not going to be good enough."

The United States and Nigeria already cooperate closely on military affairs, with many of Nigeria's top officers having passed through American military academies. Mrs. Clinton said that the Nigerian defense minister asked her on Wednesday for specific American military help to quash the remaining rebels in the oil producing areas, and that the American government would look closely at the request.

Nigeria is the fifth stop on Mrs. Clinton's 11-day, seven-nation African tour. Next she will go to Liberia and Cape Verde, then head home on Friday.

Earlier on Wednesday, Mrs. Clinton struck a more conciliatory tone with Nigeria's leaders. At a news conference with Mr. Maduekwe, she said, "We strongly support and encourage the government of Nigeria's efforts to increase transparency, reduce corruption" and prepare for a clean national election in 2011, after a deeply flawed one in 2007.

Mrs. Clinton avoided answering a question about the Nigerian government's recent crackdown on an extremist Islamic group. According to some reports, more than 700 people were killed a few weeks ago, many of them civilians, and the rebel leader was widely believed to have been executed in police custody.

Mrs. Clinton said she did not have enough information to comment on the operation. The group at the heart of the government's assault - Boko Haram, a Hausa expression meaning "Western education is prohibited" - has no known links to any broader organizations. Still, Mrs. Clinton said that "we have no doubt that Al Qaeda has a presence in North Africa" and that terrorists would "seek a foothold wherever they can."

By Jeffrey Gettleman, The New York Times, August 12, 2009

LUANDA, Angola - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton gave a gentle nudge to Angola on Sunday, urging this up-and-coming nation, a major oil producer that has drawn close to China, to push harder to democratize.

Mrs. Clinton said she was "encouraged by the steps the Angolan government has taken," like the peaceful parliamentary election last year. But she said the country needs to go further, holding presidential elections and investigating human rights abuses, sooner than later.

"We know opportunity and prosperity for the Angolan people depend on good governance and democracy," Mrs. Clinton said, emphasizing what has become the dominant theme of her seven-nation Africa tour.

For years Angola was a no-go zone, the scene of one of the fiercest battles of the cold war, in which American-backed rebels squared off against tens of thousands of Cuban troops in a jungle war that dragged on for more than two decades and killed hundreds of thousands of people.

The guns are quiet now, and a beat of life is returning to the streets of Luanda, the capital, a city with graceful architecture sprawled along the sea.

But once again Angola is a crucial battleground. This time, it is the contest for influence in Africa, largely fought between the United States and an increasingly powerful, resource-hungry China.

As if to underscore that, a Chinese forklift crew whizzed past Mrs. Clinton's motorcade just as she pulled up to the hilltop presidential palace Sunday afternoon to meet Angolan officials. Roads, bridges, schools, railways, phone lines - the Chinese are working on them all, lifting this country out of the ruins of war and hoping in return to secure the inside track on Angola's crude oil reserves, which now have it tied with Nigeria for the title of Africa's biggest oil producer.

But Mrs. Clinton did not bite when asked to comment on American efforts to check the rising Chinese influence. "I'm not looking at what anyone else does in Angola," she said at a news conference. "I'm looking at what the United States can do."

The United States has had a sad history with Angola, the third stop on Mrs. Clinton's Africa trip. In the 18th century, Angola was a major slave market, with countless Angolans shipped to the United States in chains. After Angola won independence from Portugal in 1975, the United States bankrolled what turned out to be a brutal rebel movement.

The rebels lost, the Communist, Cuban-backed movement won and though the Angolan government today says that it has outgrown Marxism, the nation's flag still looks much like the Soviet hammer and sickle.

"This is a history of missed encounters," said Angela Braganca, an Angolan lawmaker.

American diplomats here said Mrs. Clinton will be the first secretary of state to spend the night in the country.

With the nation recovering, the American government does not want to miss out on Angola's oil bonanza. ExxonMobil and Chevron are already here, competing against Chinese firms for new deals. Last year imports from Angola to the United States surged by more than 50 percent.

But the oil money has cleaved Angolan society into the haves and the have-nots, a situation true in many African countries. Mrs. Clinton saw this firsthand. As she sat down for a luncheon buffet at the hilltop palace, the tables heaped with lobster and cakes, the rusty roofs of the teeming slums shimmered below.

Though Angola's per capita gross domestic product is more than $4,000, a huge sum by African standards, the country remains at the bottom of United Nations development indexes measuring quality of life. The average life span for an Angolan man is 37 years.

Part of the reason millions of Angolans remain so poor is corruption. According to Human Rights Watch, billions of dollars of oil money have simply disappeared. Opposition politicians told Mrs. Clinton that the Angolan government needed to be investigated and that there was no free press in the country.

Mrs. Clinton seemed quite aware of many of these issues, but again, her tone toward Angolan officials seemed more friendly than pushy.

"Corruption is a problem everywhere," Mrs. Clinton said at the news conference, with the country's foreign minister standing beside her. "It's only fair to add that Angola has begun taking steps to increase transparency."




By Jeffrey Gettleman, The New York Times, August 9, 2009

CAPE TOWN - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Saturday that the United States was ready "to put meat on the bone" in its relations with South Africa after discussing regional issues, like the instability in Sudan and the war in Somalia, with Jacob Zuma, South Africa's new president.

The talks were part of a broader American effort to revive the friendship between the United States and South Africa, which was particularly strong when Mrs. Clinton's husband was president, but had grown frosty in recent years.

Mr. Zuma, who became president in May after surviving a corruption scandal, seemed to reciprocate, saying that South Africa wants to take its relationship to the United States to "a higher level."

South Africa is a powerhouse in Africa, with an impressive mineral-driven economy and considerable clout across the continent. Mrs. Clinton said she wanted the nation to play a larger role not just in Africa but on the global stage as well, helping in the battle against climate change, for instance.

South Africa is the second stop on her seven-nation Africa tour, and Mrs. Clinton has continued to emphasize the "deep and personal" connection of President Obama, whose father was Kenyan, to the continent.

On Saturday, Mrs. Clinton and her entourage left Pretoria, South Africa's capital, shortly after dawn and flew to Durban, a large city on the eastern coast, to meet Mr. Zuma.

Mrs. Clinton's aides said that it had been exceedingly difficult getting on Mr. Zuma's schedule, and it was only at the last minute that the Clinton team detoured several hundred miles to see Mr. Zuma in a nondescript room at the Durban airport.

Relations between the countries had become strained in recent years in good part over former President Thabo Mbeki's stance on AIDS - he questioned the link between H.I.V. and the disease - and his refusal to take a hard line against Zimbabwe's autocratic leader, Robert Mugabe.

Mrs. Clinton continued on to Cape Town, where her aides had been hoping for a light day in an otherwise grueling 11-day tour, typically packed with several stops per day and lots of rushing around in motorcades and jostling by big men with sunglasses and earpieces.

But the work continued full steam. Mrs. Clinton, who seems uncannily resistant to jet lag, visited two community housing projects and danced with children, lugged some rocks into a wheelbarrow, planted flowers, planted a tree and beamed as a choir broke out into a song about her.

"Hill-ar-eee, Hill-ar-eee!" the men and women sang, their faces glazed with sweat.

Other people banged on drums, and little boys with dented trumpets tipped their heads back and blew spirited notes skyward.

The community housing project, which began with some modest seed money from the United States government, was a personal favorite of Mrs. Clinton's. She first visited the site in 1997, then returned the next year with her husband, Bill Clinton.

"This is so exciting," she said Saturday, as she stood with some of the women who built the houses with their own hands. "This is what I really believe in."

One particularly audacious South African woman put that to the test. She brushed her way past the burly security guards, strutted right up to Mrs. Clinton and wagged her finger playfully, saying, "Last time you came here you promised you'd give us some more money."

Mrs. Clinton laughed.

"You're right," she said. "I left my purse on the bus, but that's no excuse."

An aide slipped her a crisp $50 bill, which Mrs. Clinton promptly handed over to the woman.

"These are good businesswomen," Mrs. Clinton said before disappearing into yet another armored car and driving off.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: August 12, 2009
An article on Saturday about a visit to South Africa by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton misstated the location of Durban, where she met the new president of South Africa, Jacob Zuma. (The error was repeated in an article about Mrs. Clinton's visit on Sunday.) Durban is on the coast of the Indian Ocean, not the Atlantic Ocean. The article on Sunday also referred incorrectly to Durban's size. It is South Africa's third-largest city, with a population of more than 3 million; it is not a "beach town."

CULLINAN, South Africa - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton sought to rebuild American relations with South Africa on Friday after years of frustration over the nation's approach to issues like AIDS and the crisis in Zimbabwe.

Promising to "broaden and deepen" American ties to South Africa, the continent's economic and political powerhouse, she said the two countries would "work together to build a global architecture of cooperation."

But she also made clear her disapproval of the nation's past policies on AIDS, which have been widely criticized as lagging behind science and allowing the premature deaths of hundreds of thousands of people through government inaction.

"We have to make up for lost time," she said at an American-financed AIDS clinic here.

South Africa is stop No. 2 on Mrs. Clinton's seven-nation tour of Africa, and a big part of her visit here seems to be about mending fences. South Africa's previous president, Thabo Mbeki, questioned the link between H.I.V. and AIDS, which deeply discouraged American officials who saw his nation as a crucial battleground over the disease. Nearly one out of five South African adults is H.I.V. positive.

Mr. Mbeki also refused to take a hard line against Zimbabwe, South Africa's neighbor, which has sunk into despair under the autocratic rule of its president, Robert Mugabe. Beyond that, the United States has been irked by South Africa's attempts to tone down or prevent United Nations action against Myanmar, a notorious human rights violator.

The American-South Africa "relationship was fraught with far more difficulty than the previous administration was willing to acknowledge," said an aide to Mrs. Clinton, speaking on condition of anonymity. "We had little access and even less influence."

But with new administrations in both South Africa and the United States, there seemed to be a new spirit of cooperation on Friday, or at least a lot of talk about it. Mrs. Clinton called South Africa the "economic anchor of Africa" and praised the nation's strong financial sector, which she said had mostly escaped the credit crunch that plagued much of the rest of the world. "Frankly, we could learn a lot from your example," Mrs. Clinton said at a business leader luncheon.

But the South Africans were vague about exactly what they might do differently after her visit. South Africa's foreign minister, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, said, "We promised to continue to work with the people of Zimbabwe to implement the agreement that they signed," referring to an awkward power-sharing agreement Mr. Mugabe struck with Zimbabwe's opposition after a bloody election season last year.

And compared with Kenya, where thousands of people lined the street just to catch a glimpse of Mrs. Clinton ducking into her armored Chrysler, the public reaction to her arrival in South Africa was decidedly cooler.

It was hard to find stories about the visit in local newspapers, and at the business luncheon where she spoke, there were dozens of empty seats. Mrs. Clinton's aides also confided that there were complications trying to arrange a meeting with South Africa's new president, Jacob Zuma. The two are scheduled to meet Saturday, but the Clinton entourage will have to detour several hundred miles to Durban, on the Indian Ocean Coast, to see him.

On Friday morning, Mrs. Clinton visited the father figure of post-apartheid South Africa and a hero across the world, Nelson Mandela. It was not so much an official act as a time to see an old friend. Mr. Mandela, 91, is no longer actively engaged in African affairs, as he was during Bill Clinton's presidency, when he and the Clintons grew close. According to a person who witnessed the visit, he was frail and quiet as Mrs. Clinton chatted with him, holding his hand.

As the sun was sinking and the hills were darkening, Mrs. Clinton stood shoulder to shoulder with two patients at the AIDS clinic here. "When I first found out my status, I felt my world was collapsing on top of me," said Simangele Ncube. "But look at me today. I stand in front of you a beautiful woman. The virus is not written in my face. But I am H.I.V. positive."

Mrs. Clinton seemed almost too moved to speak and nodded solemnly.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: August 12, 2009
An article on Saturday about a visit to South Africa by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton misstated the location of Durban, where she met the new president of South Africa, Jacob Zuma. (The error was repeated in an article about Mrs. Clinton's visit on Sunday.) Durban is on the coast of the Indian Ocean, not the Atlantic Ocean. The article on Sunday also referred incorrectly to Durban's size. It is South Africa's third-largest city, with a population of more than 3 million; it is not a "beach town."





By Jeffrey Gettleman, The New York Times, August 7, 2009

U.S Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is scheduled to leave Washington Monday on a seven-nation Africa visit. The five day trip will take her to Kenya, South Africa, Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Liberia, and Cape Verde.

Clinton is expected to spotlight President Barack Obama's commitment to making Africa a priority in U.S. foreign policy.

Her visit is the earliest in any U.S. administration that both the President and the Secretary of State have visited Africa.

Professor Okey Onyejekwe, director of governance at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa told VOA that Clinton's Africa visit will help concretize the core principles President Obama recently unveiled in Accra, Ghana.

"I imagine that this is really a followup to President Obama's visit to Accra in which he basically sketched out the general thrust of America's policy towards Africa. And I think that it will be worthwhile if now she can operationalize and concretize some of the raw principles which was contained in Obama's speech in Accra," Onyejekwe said.

He said Clinton's stance would replicate President Obama's message.

"Whatever position she takes should reflect the broad principles which were contained in Obama's speech. And here again I think that it's a question of carrot and stick," he said.

Onyejekwe said the visit should shed light on a different America policy from previous administration.

"We are also expecting on the continent in my judgment some consistency and flexibility in terms of U.S policy. And here again I think where the difference can be made from past administrations that had brought principles, but were very selective in terms of the operationalization of those principles," Onyejekwe said.

Hillary Clinton is also scheduled to meet Somalia's President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed in Kenya's capital, Nairobi.

The meeting comes at a critical moment for Somalia, which has not had a functioning government since 1991 after long-time President Mohammed Siad Barre was overthrown.

Somalia today is home to a growing number of hard-line Islamic insurgent groups including al-Shabab.

Onyejekwe said that there is need for the international community as well as the Africa Union to help stabilize the crisis in Somalia.

"It's important for the global community and African states in particular to stabilize and normalize the situation in Somalia for obvious reasons. One of which is that the threat to peace and security in the sub-region is enormous and with external actors also actively engaged," Onyejekwe said.

He said mistakes made during the previous U. S administration should be avoided in attempting to resolvo the crisis in Somalia.

"They must also take into consideration the realities on the ground and the various actors so that they do not make the same mistakes that were made during the Bush administration," he said.

Onyejekwe said there should be a strong partnership of equals between the United States and Africa.

By Peter Clottey, Voice of America, August 2, 2009

WASHINGTON - On a seven-nation tour of Africa this week, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will pledge more U.S. assistance, including military aid, to Somalia's shaky government as it fights for survival against Islamist extremists.

U.S. officials say the Obama administration plans to go ahead with additional weapons supplies to double an initial provision of 40 tons of arms. The U.S. also has begun a low-profile mission to help train Somali security forces in neighboring Djibouti, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivities surrounding U.S. involvement in the program.

Clinton will see Somalia's beleaguered interim president, Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, on Thursday in Kenya, the first stop on her trip. She intends to reaffirm American backing of Ahmed's Transitional Federal Government.

Clinton's meeting with Sheik Ahmed comes at critical juncture for Somalia, which has not had a functioning government since 1991 and is home to a growing radical Islamist movement known as al-Shabab. The group, which U.S. officials say has links to al-Qaida, was designated a terrorist organization by Washington last year.

It's not clear if Clinton will make a specific contribution at the meeting. The administration's top diplomat for Africa, Johnnie Carson, said last week that "we are prepared to provide additional assistance to the (Somali) government." Carson added that the U.S. would also continue to support a small African Union peacekeeping force manned by soldiers from Uganda and Burundi.

Carson did not elaborate on the assistance. Other officials said a second batch of up to 40 tons of new weaponry, added to 40 tons that arrived over the past several months, will come from stockpiles held by African militaries. The United States would pay for it, officials said.

One senior official said the Pentagon, which has a base at Camp Lemonier in Djibouti, is providing facilities such as tents for the training and is assisting with logistics.

Officials say the U.S. military is not conducting the training and will not put any forces in Somalia. The administration is making a concerted effort to avoid putting any American footprint in Somalia, which would risk alienating allies and add to charges by Islamic extremists of a Western takeover.

Djibouti is one of several nations mentioned as willing to help train Somalia's rudimentary police and military.

Last week, the European Union agreed in principle to send military advisers to Djibouti to train Somali forces in counterinsugency and anti-piracy tactics. In mid-July, two French security advisers in the country to train Somali security forces were abducted from and a hotel in Mogadishu, the Somali capital.

Al-Shabab has claimed responsibility and said they would be tried under Islamic law for alleged spying and "conspiracy against Islam."

Violence in Somalia has surged in recent years, catapulting the nation into the top 10 most violent countries in the world for the past two years, according to the National Counterterrorism Center. NCTC data, which covers attacks against civilians or noncombatants, shows that there were 767 terrorism-related deaths in 2007 and nearly 2,000 in 2008.

Only three countries saw more killings in 2008 - Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Somali government holds only a few blocks in Mogadishu, with support from the peacekeepers, although it still controls the port, the airport and key government buildings. The top U.N. envoy for Somalia said last week that the country is at a "turning point" and in desperate need of international support, especially military equipment, training and money.

At the same time, the Somali coast has seen a surge in piracy. Hijackers have carried out hundreds of attacks this year, including one in April involving an American cargo ship that ended with U.S. naval intervention. Somali pirates are currently holding for ransom about a dozen vessels.

In addition to voicing support for the Somali government, officials said Clinton will also take aim at Eritrea, a small Red Sea state that the United States and United Nations accuse of supporting the Islamists with money and weapons. Eritrea denies the charges but questions the legitimacy of Sheik Ahmed's government.

"Somalia is a place where they have been spoilers," Carson said of the Eritrean government. The U.S. and U.N. Security Council have threatened to punish Eritrea.

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, warned last week that Eritrea has only a "small window" of time to change policy or face penalties.

By MATTHEW LEE and LOLITA C. BALDOR, The Associated Press, August 2, 2009

President Obama is worthy of admiration for his efforts to improve relations with America's adversaries Iran, North Korea and a few others. But for most of those states, it's time to give it up, and the Obama administration appears to realize that.

The U.S. is trying to enforce tax collections and Switzerland is trying to protect its tradition of banking secrecy. The talks come as a UBS bank customer pleads guilty in a tax case.

As a federal probe of secret Swiss bank accounts made headlines in the summer of 2008, New York businessman Jeffrey P. Chernick got nervous. A middleman in international toy sales, Chernick had hidden millions of dollars from the Internal Revenue Service at Switzerland's largest bank, according to a recent court filing.

Concerned that the bank, UBS, would spill his secrets to the U.S. government, Chernick decided to disclose his account to the IRS and pay the unpaid taxes, according to the court document. Then a Swiss lawyer and a Swiss bank executive talked him out of it, according to the document.

They told Chernick that a high-ranking official in the Swiss government could find out which UBS accounts would be turned over to the U.S. government, and the Swiss lawyer later told Chernick that the banker had paid the official $45,000 for word that his account was not among them, according to the court filing. Chernick authorized a withdrawal from his UBS account to cover the payment.

That narrative was contained in a "statement of facts" by Chernick and the Justice Department entered in connection with his guilty plea this week to filing a false tax return.

The plea comes as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton prepares to take up issues of bank secrecy and tax evasion today with her Swiss counterpart and as a federal court in Florida focuses on a broad government challenge to UBS. The U.S. government has asked the court to demand that UBS identify the holders of 52,000 accounts that Americans are suspected of having used to dodge taxes.

The Swiss government has stated that such a demand would be incompatible with Swiss law, and it has vowed to prevent UBS from complying.

The United States is trying to enforce tax collections; Switzerland is trying to protect the tradition of secrecy that has helped make its banking industry a global powerhouse and an important piece of the Swiss economy.

The two sides are scheduled to brief a federal judge in Miami this morning on the status of negotiations. On Wednesday, they told the judge that they had yet to reach a settlement. Barring a resolution or another postponement, the two sides are due to face off Monday in a hearing that essentially amounts to a trial in the case.

Meanwhile, Clinton is scheduled to meet with Swiss counterpart Micheline Calmy-Rey at the State Department.

The Swiss would like any request for information about the bank accounts to be handled administratively under an existing tax treaty, according to a source informed of the negotiations who spoke on condition of anonymity because of their sensitivity.

The U.S. government has expressed frustration with that process. The United States sought to obtain records through the existing channel in July 2008, and, as of February, it had obtained none, an IRS official said in a court filing. Under a deal that enabled it to avoid criminal prosecution, UBS admitted in February that it engaged in a scheme to defraud the IRS by helping Americans set up accounts in the names of offshore companies.

According to the filing in the Chernick case, UBS bankers went to lengths to help him avoid exposure. They cut his name and account number from account statements so the documents could not be linked to him.

A lawyer for Chernick declined to comment.

By David S. Hilzenrath, The Washington Post, July 31, 2009

WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday praised Britain's call to reconcile with moderate Taliban guerrillas.

In a joint appearance with British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, Clinton said the allies agreed about how to handle the Taliban.

On Monday, Miliband said in a speech at NATO headquarters that while hard-line fundamentalist commanders committed to a global jihad must be pursued relentlessly, ordinary rank-and-file Taliban should be given the opportunity reconcile with the Afghan government. The speech raised questions about whether Britain was advocating a more conciliatory approach with the Taliban.

"His analysis of the way forward is very much consistent with ours, and we will continue to stand shoulder to shoulder in pursuit of our common objectives," Clinton said.

Miliband has also been arguing for a greater burden sharing among NATO allies in Afghanistan. But Wednesday, he stressed that the Afghan government needed to take a bigger responsibility for its own security.

"There is a lot of talk, rightly, about burden sharing within the coalition, but the greatest burden sharing must be between the international community and the government of Afghanistan, which increasingly needs to take the lead - the security lead, as well as the political lead - in shaping the future of that country," he said.

Miliband said that Britain will stay in Afghanistan, despite declining public support for the war.

"I think the British people will stay with this mission, because there is a clear strategy and a clear determination on behalf of the United States and other coalition members to see this through," he said.

A total of 191 British personnel have died in Afghanistan since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.

Twenty-two have been killed this month, about half in Operation Panther's Claw, a major offensive against the Taliban in Helmand Province. The recent deaths have ignited a debate in Britain about its role in the war and the quality of its military equipment.

By DESMOND BUTLER , The Associated Press, July 29, 2009

With all of the immense numbers coming out of Washington these days, former senator, ex-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's campaign debt is chump change. Make that, "was."

Here's the news: There is no more Hillary Clinton campaign debt.

In fact, there's a campaign fund surplus.

And, in fact, while the current secretary of State officially left politics on being sworn into the Obama administration's top diplomatic post and says future political office "is not anything that is at all on my radar screen," she's still got eight campaign workers on staff. She's also said, "I'm out of politics."

Hmmm. Note the present tense in that statement.

Of course, she's out of politics now. Also of course, who knows what the situation will be in 2012? Who'd have guessed three years ago she'd be showing her management skills by running the huge Department of State? For a president named Barack Obama?

Or what about 2016? She'd be 69 then. Her good friend, John McCain, wasn't too old to run at 72. Too old to win, but not too old to run.

As the N.Y. Daily News report, Clinton's $22 million in campaign debts (a good chunk of it owed to herself), has somehow now turned into some $3+ million in cash on hand and still growing, some in her old Senate fund and some in her defunct presidential campaign warchest.

Obama appealed to his supporters to help her pay off the millions she spent unsuccessfully running him down in the spring of 2008 before giving up her $250 million effort that June. Clinton appealed for money. Also hubby Bill appealed. Chelsea. All kinds of folks and contests. It worked.

fact, it's still working; her campaign site is still accepting donations, presumably from those Democratic voters who helped make 18 million cracks in the ultimate glass ceiling. She didn't get to pay herself back. But Clinton doesn't owe fired consultant Mark Penn any more millions.

The old campaign, which spent $100,000 on staff last quarter, says it's winding down and will soon drop from eight staffers down to five. Clinton's former New York senatorial colleague, Chuck Schumer, has to run a campaign next year. He's only got three fulltimers.

One other thing: There's probably no connection. So many things have changed. But as The Ticket reported here 54 weeks ago, business friends of Hillary Rodham Clinton have purchased the web domain name HRC2012.

Hmmm.

By Andrew Malcolm, Los Angeles Times, July 30, 2009

As part of her swing through Africa next week, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton plans to visit eastern Congo, the epicenter of two wars in the past decade, and denounce the alarming rates of rape in the region, an official said Wednesday.

"She is intending to go to Goma, where a lot of this violence is taking place," said Johnnie Carson, assistant secretary of state for African affairs, in an interview, referring to the provincial capital of eastern Congo.

The Congolese military launched an offensive earlier this year against Rwandan Hutu rebels who have lived for years in eastern Congo. The rebels have been a major cause of the deadliest documented conflict since World War II, which has involved several countries in the area and left millions dead from the violence and turmoil.

The eastern Congo has one of the highest rates of sexual violence against women in the world, with both soldiers and rebel groups using rape as a tool of war.

Clinton also is scheduled to visit Kenya, South Africa, Angola, Nigeria, Liberia and Cape Verde on her trip.

By Mary Beth Sheridan, The Washington Post, July 29, 2009

WASHINGTON - The United States and China on Tuesday pledged closer cooperation to deal with global hot spots such as Iran and the worst financial crisis since the 1930s. Each side sought to minimize areas of disagreement.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and their Chinese counterparts both expressed satisfaction with what they were able to accomplish during two days of talks.

"In the wake of a severe global financial crisis, we agreed it is vitally important for China and the United States to see through their commitments to repair the financial system and lay the foundation for recovery," Geithner said.

Clinton said the discussions did include areas of tension such as China's human rights record.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States and China minimized their disputes over such issues as the huge trade gap between the two countries and America's soaring budget deficits and instead emphasized a commitment to work together to resolve the worst global financial crisis since the Great Depression.

Wrapping up two days of high-level talks on Tuesday, both countries sought to play down disagreements on trade, exchange rates, human rights and climate change in order to keep from upsetting global investors who have been monitoring the talks for any signs of a rift between the two economic superpowers.

Instead of disagreement, the two countries offered harmony with China pledging to work toward a key U.S. goal that it foster greater domestic-led growth to reduce its reliance on exporting to the United States.

For its part, the Obama administration pledged to tackle the budget deficit, which this year is projected to hit a record $1.84 trillion. That flood of red ink has left the Chinese, the world's largest holder of U.S. Treasury securities, distinctly nervous about the safety of their investments.

The two sides were working to develop a plan to guide future talks between the two nations. The talks this week, which Obama opened Monday, represented a modification of discussions that were begun by the Bush administration. Those talks, led by then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, focused primarily on economic issues.

However, Obama expanded the agenda of the renamed Strategic and Economic Agenda to include not just economic disagreements but also foreign policy issues such as efforts to develop a coordinated response to North Korea's nuclear ambitions.

Both sides stressed the importance of working in a cooperative manner to combat the severe economic downturn, which has pushed the U.S. unemployment rate up to a 26-year high of 9.5 percent and triggered heavy job losses in China and other countries around the world.

"The global financial crisis has made clear that the economic policy choices made by China and the U.S. are ... crucially important to the stability of the world economy as a whole," Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said during the final day's discussions.

In his comments Tuesday, Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan voiced support for a key U.S. goal that China shift to more domestic-led growth rather than depending so much on exports that drive up the U.S. trade deficit.

"China will focus on boosting domestic demand and in particular consumer demand," Wang said, speaking through a translator. He and Geithner sat at the head of a long conference table underneath massive chandeliers in Treasury's ornate Cash Room.

But Wang cautioned that this was "not an easy task" and would require "long-term and arduous efforts." U.S. officials have expressed concerns in the past that China was moving too slowly in making the changes needed such as building a better social safety net that would encourage its citizens to spend more and save less.

Geithner repeated the commitment that the administration would trim its budget deficits once the spending necessary to jump-start the economy and stabilize the financial system had been completed.

However, private economists are worried that the administration has yet to put forward a credible plan to meet Obama's pledge to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term in office. This year's imbalance is projected to be more than four times the size of last year's.

The economic talks on Tuesday focused on the need to fight against erecting protectionist trade barriers during the economic downturn. Other economic issues on the final day were ways to achieve the goal of overhauling the International Monetary Fund and other global financial agencies to give emerging economies such as China greater say in the operation of the institutions.

"We can build upon our joint response to the global financial crisis by continuing to provide constructive leadership and support for the institutions underpinning global financial stability," Geithner said in the meetings being held at the Treasury Department.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was leading a separate set of discussions at the State Department focused on foreign policy concerns. The topics on Tuesday included assisting poor countries in fighting infectious diseases and efforts to improve the functioning of global energy markets.

The United States and China are the world's largest emitters of the gases blamed for global warming. While China did not signal any change in its refusal to agree to a specific cap on those emissions, the two sides did sign a document which Clinton said would create a platform for cooperation on climate change in the future.

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu, who participated in the talks on this issue, said clean energy and climate change would be a critical part of the U.S.-Chinese relationship in coming years.

"The stakes could not be higher," Chu said. He said while he was heartened by the progress the two countries were making both nations "must do more." The discussions represented a lead-up to a global climate conference later this year in Copenhagen.

While officials on both sides struck a conciliatory tone in their public statements, they did raise some tough issues during the closed-door discussions.

China, worried about its huge investments in the United States, quizzed administration officials about budget deficits. The Obama administration pressed China on the need to rebalance its economy to focus more on domestic-led growth rather than relying on exports to the United States, according to aides who briefed reporters.

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, The Associated Press, July 28, 2009

SANTA MARIA, Cape Verde - Think of it as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's informational interview of Africa. Eleven days, seven countries of friendly, engaging, edifying talk - but with no urgent American interest on the line. There were no nukes to stop; no peace deal to start; no young American women to free (Bill Clinton's shadow loomed large from the moment Mrs. Clinton's plane took off).

More than anything, the African safari she finished last week was about her and her emerging style as secretary of state. She stuffed her days with what felt like a dozen events, a blur of high-level meetings, roundtable discussions and "townterviews" (more on that later). She seemed engaged throughout it all, scribbling in her notebooks like a dutiful student during meetings, keeping a straight, earnest face even when one Nigerian religious leader told her he was "constipated with ideas."

"Condi would never do this," whispered one of Mrs. Clinton's aides during yet another sweaty town hall meeting. Neither, probably, would Colin Powell. Or Madeleine Albright. Or Henry Kissinger. Or just about any other secretary of state, a job that in the past seemed to go to people who didn't like to smile much.

But Mrs. Clinton is different. She's a recovering politician, with First Lady tendencies. And a celebrity in her own right. She can't resist the rope line even when it's in a South African housing project teaming with glassy-eyed men and her secret service agents are practically shouting into their cufflinks. Her style is to go heavy on the politics, heavy on the policy, but mix in some real people as well.

"Diplomacy is not just carried out by diplomats," she said in her farewell-for-now speech from Cape Verde.

Ironically, it was one of these softer, Oprah-style moments that did her in. "My husband is not the secretary of state, I am," Mrs. Clinton snapped, after a Congolese student at a town hall meeting (also sometimes called a "townterview") asked what Mr. Clinton thought about an issue. That snippy - but totally inconsequential - comment grabbed more attention that anything else she said or did in Africa. Congo may be burning. Trouble may be brewing in Kenya. Liberia may be heroically emerging from gruesome circus to model democracy. But in the end, Africa isn't so interesting to most Americans. Hillary Clinton still is.

These trips have their own lingo, I learned, as part of the traveling press corps assigned to chronicle every speech, handshake and hug. "Bi-lats" are bilateral meetings. "Meet-n-greets" are visits to American embassies. "Camera sprays" are essentially photo opportunities, usually staged and no questions allowed, and "spray" can be used as a noun, as in, "there's a camera spray at 2 p.m. with President X" or as a verb - "come on guys, time to spray the lunch." The secret service on her plane refer to their M-4 assault rifles as their "sticks." The secretary of state is called "the package."

Traveling with this package was like covering a presidential campaign - but 10 times more exhausting. The press corps are steerage at the back of the plane, the only ones in economy seats (the rest are business-class and Mrs. Clinton has her own bedroom on board). It was a telling statement which media organizations could still afford to spring for the trip: among them, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Fox News and yes, Vogue (she's got a shot at the cover, but probably not until late fall).

Often, we were herded around like goats. "Move! Move ! Move!" her handlers would yell. The secret service were the least of our worries. It was the 20-something aides in charge of babysitting the 30-something and 40-something reporters. Many times they literally pushed us into the press van, Japanese subway style. They said it was their job.

The aides were experts at the camera spray. In eastern Congo, we needed to use two planes to land at a small airport and Mrs. Clinton's plane circled in the air for 15 minutes so journalists could land first, set up their cameras and get the arrival shot of her, the first secretary of state to swoop into Congo's conflict zone, despite the fact this very area has been a killing field since the mid-1990s.

In Liberia, though, she missed a great opportunity: Her motorcade drove right past a muddy soccer field where all the players were on crutches and had one leg. It was an amputee soccer game, a spirited match between war-injured men who refused to give up. Bill would have definitely jumped out and charged across the field to commune. Had Mrs. Clinton, that might have been the enduring image of her Africa trip, not the irritated response in Congo.

But the convoy moved on, through the lashing Liberian rain. It's strange to be in Africa in a bubble. I live in Kenya. I know how it can take two hours to get from the American embassy in Nairobi to the airport. But when the Kenyan government shuts down the main highway for Mrs. Clinton's motorcade, voila!, it takes only 16 minutes. That day, as we raced to the airport in our air-conditioned vans, we passed thousands of Kenyans lining the road. These people weren't waiting to wave goodbye. They were stuck in traffic. We looked at them and they looked at us, separated by glass and speed and unable to share even a word. In a way, it was like being in Africa without any Africans. Even most of the big-time hotels we stayed at had windows that didn't open, denying us that distinctive African pleasure that might have jolted us back to reality: catching a whiff of woodsmoke.

By Jeffrey Gettleman, The New York Times, August 15, 2009

ABUJA, Nigeria - It was hot. She was tired. And it had been a long day in Africa.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was onstage in Kinshasa, Congo's shabby capital, in an auditorium packed with Congolese students.

And then came the question, from a young man in a suit.

"Mrs. Clinton, we've all heard about the Chinese contracts in this country," he said. "The interference is from the World Bank against this contract. What does Mr. Clinton think through the mouth of Mrs. Clinton?"

Mrs. Clinton's answer on Monday has quickly become the No. 1 sound bite from her trip. Her whole seven-nation Africa tour, which has had quite serious intentions, like combating Congo's appalling rape epidemic and raising her personal profile within President Obama's administration, may end up being reduced to this:

"Wait, you want me to tell you what my husband thinks? My husband is not the secretary of state, I am. So you ask my opinion, I will tell you my opinion. I am not going to be channeling my husband."

Almost immediately, her showdown with the student became a media phenomenon, with a level of attention on an American in Kinshasa perhaps not seen since the so-called Rumble in the Jungle between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in 1974.

Mrs. Clinton's aides have been notably frustrated that this brief flash of anger, or undiplo-speak, has come to overshadow a trip that took weeks of planning and was intended to strengthen America's ties to some of its most strategic allies on the continent.

But her evident irritation at the question quickly fueled speculation that Mrs. Clinton felt eclipsed by former President Bill Clinton's trip to North Korea last week, in which he rapidly secured the release of two American journalists who had been sentenced to years of hard labor.

After the forum, her aides told the traveling press corps that there might have been a mistranslation, and that the student actually wanted to know the opinion of her boss, not her husband. But that interpretation did not dispel the controversy either, since it gave new life to the nagging question of whether Mrs. Clinton felt marginalized in the Obama administration.

Her talk with the students had started out friendly enough, with questions about human rights and the environment. But it got a little edgy when several students pushed her on why Congo, whose first prime minister was ousted with the help of the C.I.A., should now trust the United States. She then became a little prickly.

Later, her aides released the transcript of the question, as it had been translated to English from French, and further inspection of the audio recording of the event indicated that the translation was fine; the student had indeed said "Mr. Clinton."

After the event, the student apologized to Mrs. Clinton, saying he had indeed meant to ask what Mr. Obama thought.

Either way, the hubbub seemed to drain Mrs. Clinton. Until then, she had seemed impervious to the jet lag that was stalking her entourage from the moment they plopped down in Kenya. But on Tuesday, especially after meeting Congolese rape victims and touring a squalid refugee camp where thousands of people lived cheek by sunken cheek, Mrs. Clinton seemed enervated. Perhaps it was the sight of so many civilians suffering from a conflict the world has failed to stop. She said a few words on the plane ride back from Congo, but her language was not as emotional as it had been, or as urgent.

No matter the issues she was talking about - encouraging good governing, ending Africa's wars, lifting women up from their lowly position in a place like Congo. The interest in this trip, it seemed, was not about the problems facing Africa. It was about her.

As one journalist covering her trip put it: "She is a celebrity. We have a celebrity secretary of state. When you have a celebrity, you get celebrity coverage."

GOMA, Congo - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton came face to face with the consequences of the brutality in eastern Congo on Tuesday afternoon when she met a Congolese woman who had been gang-raped while she was eight months pregnant.

The fetus died, Mrs. Clinton said, the woman was gravely injured and since there was no hospital nearby, villagers stuffed the woman's wound with grass to keep her from bleeding to death.

"I've been in a lot of very difficult and terrible settings," Mrs. Clinton said later. "And I was just overwhelmed by what I saw."

"It is almost impossible to describe the level of suffering," she said. Eastern Congo's rape epidemic, she added, "is just horrific."

Mrs. Clinton used her unprecedented visit - she is the first secretary of state to venture into the war zone here - to unveil a $17 million plan to fight Congo's stunning levels of sexual violence, a problem she called "evil in its basest form."

She announced that the American government would train doctors, supply rape victims with video cameras to document violence, send American military engineers to help build facilities and train Congolese police officers, especially female police officers, to crack down on rapists.

"This problem is too big for one country to solve alone," Mrs. Clinton said after meeting with Congo's president, Joseph Kabila. Her visit was part of a seven-nation Africa tour intended to strengthen relations with strategic African countries and to use American influence to stop Africa's wars. She arrived Tuesday night in Abuja, Nigeria, and planned talks Wednesday with Nigerian officials.

Eastern Congo is home to the worst war on the continent right now, an intensely predatory conflict driven by a mix of ethnic, commercial, nationalist and criminal interests, in which various armed groups often vent their rage against women. The United Nations calls Congo the rape capital of the world and says hundreds of thousands of women have been raped in the past decade. Nothing so far - not 18,000 peacekeepers, not various regional peace treaties, not other high-level diplomatic visits - have stemmed the violence.

Recent Congo-Rwanda military operations along the volatile border may be making things worse. The operations have spawned revenge attacks that have driven more than 500,000 people from their homes. Dozens of villages of have been burned. Hundreds of villagers have been massacred. And countless women, and recently many men, have been raped. Often the rapists are Congolese soldiers.

Mrs. Clinton said she urged the Congolese government to do a better job of protecting its own people and to prosecute offenders in the Congolese military, which is notorious as one of the least disciplined, poorest paid armies anywhere.

"I spoke at length with President Kabila about the steps needed to be taken to protect civilians," she said. "We believe there should be no impunity for the sexual and gender based violence, and there must be arrests and punishment because that runs counter to peace."

Mrs. Clinton also addressed some of the conflict's root causes, including Congo's illicit mineral trade. In the words of Congo's foreign minister, who also met with Mrs. Clinton on Tuesday, the country, with its rich trove of diamonds, gold, copper, tin, coltan and other minerals, is a "geological scandal."

But Congo's mines are often the unlawful prize of armed groups, and Mrs. Clinton said the world needed to take more steps to regulate the mineral trade to make sure the profits do not end up "in the hands of those who fuel the violence."

After the official meetings, Mrs. Clinton and her heavily guarded entourage toured a refugee camp on the outskirts of Goma where 18,000 people are camped out on a field of volcanic rock. One of the first people she met was an aid worker who rattled off the problems: malaria, diarrhea, hunger, difficulties breathing because of all the dust, and of course, constant insecurity. The aid worker told Mrs. Clinton that an 8-year-old boy who had strayed out of the camp was raped the other day.

"Really?" Mrs. Clinton asked.

"Really," he answered.

Then she met Chantal Mapendo, mother of six, who stepped forward from the corridors of long drawn faces that had instantly formed to look at the important white lady with all the sunglassed security guards. Mrs. Clinton visited the camp for 20 minutes. Mrs. Mapendo, whose home area has been plagued by fighting, has been living here for three years.

"Our life is very bad," Mrs. Mapendo said. "We get raped when we go out and look for food. We want to leave this place and go home."

Mrs. Clinton nodded. "Thank you for talking with me," she replied. "I just met with President Kabila and told him we want to help you return home."

After the camp, she spoke with two rape survivors, including the woman who lost her fetus and nearly bled to death in the bush. Mrs. Clinton then talked with a group of doctors and advocates who specialize in treating victims of sexual violence. Many said they felt abandoned.

"Children are killed, women are raped and the world closes its eyes," said one woman.

Another called Congo the "soft belly" of Africa, a huge, rugged place with a notoriously inept army that has become a magnet for all the rogue groups in Africa.

A third woman, Christine Schuler-DeSchryver, a well-known anti-rape activist, vented about all the empty promises from the stream of high-ranking visitors who have recently come to eastern Congo, "one more important than the next."

"In the end, all we got was a pile of business cards," she said.

She pressed Mrs. Clinton to do more to end the criminally-controlled mineral trade.

"Madame Secretary," she said, "we want you to be our spokesperson, our voice."

After five hours on the ground in Goma, Mrs. Clinton climbed back on the plane, this time bound for Nigeria. She seemed drained.

"It was an incredibly emotional experience," she said.

KINSHASA, Congo - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived in Congo on Monday to push the Congolese government and the United Nations to end the longstanding bloodshed here, taking special aim at the illicit mineral trade that helps fuel the conflict.

"I am particularly concerned about the exploitation of natural resources," she said, referring to Congo's vast reserves of diamonds, gold, copper, tin and other minerals.

She said that illegal mining was one of the root causes of Congo's violence and that armed groups were sustaining themselves off the mineral riches. "There is a lot of money being made in eastern Congo," Mrs. Clinton said.

The war in eastern Congo may be Africa's worst right now, and Mrs. Clinton is hoping that her visit will revitalize efforts to end a dizzyingly complex conflict involving neighboring countries, dozens of rebel groups and a toxic mix of ethnic and commercial interests.

The fighting and its fallout - mass displacement, hunger and disease - have claimed millions of lives in the past decade.

On Tuesday, Mrs. Clinton will fly to Goma, in the heart of the battle zone.

It was not an easy decision to go there, she said. The city was nearly overrun by rebels last year and lies in a bowl of beautiful but treacherous green mountains, making it difficult for aircraft to land and resulting in several fatal air crashes in recent years.

But Mrs. Clinton said the importance of the visit outweighed the risks.

In Goma, Mrs. Clinton plans to meet with several women who have been raped, one of the more personal consequences of this unending war. The United Nations calls eastern Congo the rape capital of the world because hundreds of thousands of women have been sexually assaulted by the various militias haunting the hills. Recently, there has been a sharp increase in cases of men raping men as well.

"Women are being turned into weapons of war," Mrs. Clinton said on the plane from Angola to Congo, the fourth stop on her seven-nation African tour.

The Congo visit has a sharper point to it than many of the other stops. Mrs. Clinton has cast herself as an advocate for women, and eastern Congo desperately needs something to lift it out of its morass of violence, which seems increasingly unsolvable.

On Monday, Mrs. Clinton shared the stage at a town hall meeting with Dikembe Mutombo, a Congolese basketball star who made millions playing professionally in America and came home to build a hospital. Mr. Mutombo spoke passionately of his country's problems and the sense of defeat creeping across the land.

"Don't lose your hope," he told students gathered at the meeting. "That is what is happening in Congo, especially among young people. You are losing hope. You are thinking that nobody cares about you."

Mrs. Clinton has explained that a big part of this Africa tour is to show that America does care about the continent, and not just because President Obama's father was Kenyan.

Again on Monday, in both Angola, a huge oil producer and emerging African heavyweight, and Congo, Mrs. Clinton spoke of reformulating the United States-Africa relationship.

Angola, which used to be an Eastern bloc ally and the site of one of the cold war's most intense, longest-running battles, seemed to respond warmly. The foreign minister, Assuncao dos Anjos, called Mrs. Clinton's visit "the most sublime, most magnanimous moment" that "changes everything." Later in the morning, Mrs. Clinton spoke with Angola's president, Jose Eduardo dos Santos, about environmental issues, democratic reform and possible American-Angolan military cooperation.

But in Congo, that message is a tougher sell.

At the town hall meeting, one student stood up and asked Mrs. Clinton if he were to become president of Congo tomorrow, and if he tried to be independent from the West and follow his own ideas, would he be assassinated? It was a not so thinly veiled reference to Patrice Lumumba, Congo's first democratically elected prime minister, who was killed in 1961 with the help of the C.I.A.

Mrs. Clinton was not defensive. "I can't excuse this past and I won't try," she said. Congo and much of Africa, she said, have been dominated by "a history of colonialism and abuse."

But the question, she said, was this: "Will I be dragged down by the past, or will I decide to do something to have a better future?"

She bristled, though, at another student who asked what her husband, Bill Clinton, thought about a Chinese loan offer to Congo. "You want me to tell you what my husband thinks?" she asked. "If you want my opinion, I will tell you my opinion. I am not going to be channeling my husband."