by Susan Rice
My view was that the regime in Khartoum, then led behind the scenes by the radical Islamist cleric Hassan al-Turabi, was plainly opposed to the U.S. and our national interests. The indisputable evidence included its active support for terrorism, gross violations of human rights—particularly against the people of southern Sudan and later Darfur—and efforts to destabilize friendly neighboring states. Add to that the regime’s long-standing support for the brutal Lord’s Resistance Army, which for decades has terrorized northern Uganda.
On a bipartisan basis, U.S. policy in both the administration and Congress was supportive of the people of southern Sudan and hostile toward Khartoum. As I testified before Congress in July 1998, we viewed Sudan and its National Islamic Front government as “the only state in Sub-Saharan Africa that poses a direct threat to U.S. national security interests.” This determination led the Clinton administration to adopt a policy aimed at pressuring the regime in Khartoum to fundamentally change its behavior. Rather than a policy of regime change, this was one of pressure, isolation, and containment. In keeping with our growing concerns, I directed the interagency process that resulted in the administration’s imposition of comprehensive economic sanctions on Sudan in November 1997, freezing all Sudanese assets in the U.S, banning all investment and most trade with Sudan. These sanctions were swiftly backed by Congress and codified into law.
I had argued for a complete trade ban, including a prohibition on the U.S. continuing to import gum arabic from Sudan. A rare product found only in trees that grow throughout Africa’s Sahel region, gum arabic is a key ingredient in sodas, newspaper print, and prescription drugs. Senator Robert Menendez from New Jersey, the geographical heart of the pharmaceutical industry, vehemently objected to sanctioning gum arabic, even though it was Sudan’s largest export to the U.S. A force on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Menendez was typically tough on human rights and terrorism; in this case, however, he sought an exception for his home-state industry. Viewing his proposed exemption as a gutting measure, I argued strenuously that Secretary Albright should resist his demand. Admittedly, my vehemence may have been excessive. In retrospect, my doggedness reminds me of my refusal as a child to cede any ground during dinner table battles when convinced of the righteousness of my position.
To douse my fervor, Albright enlisted her counselor and close advisor, Wendy Sherman, who knew the Hill extremely well, having served as assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs. Wendy sat me down in her seventh-floor office to explain that Secretary Albright had to be pragmatic. When you are responsible for U.S. policy toward the whole world, not just one continent, as Wendy patiently reminded me, you must choose your battles carefully. This was a fight that mattered greatly to the powerful Menendez, who could hold more important administration priorities hostage. I was rolled—politely but firmly. For me, this was a resounding policy defeat.
As part of our toughened approach, we supported neighboring states’ efforts to counter the regime in Sudan and helped them defend against rebels backed by Khartoum. Through the Frontline States Initiative, the U.S. channeled $20 million in nonlethal, defensive military aid to Ethiopia, Uganda, and Eritrea starting in 1996. We also signaled our support for the independence aspirations of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) of southern Sudan, which was fighting for the right of self-determination or, failing that, for a new government in Khartoum. In later years, when Sudan launched its bid for one of the rotating African seats on the U.N. Security Council in 2000, the U.S. organized a rare and surprisingly successful campaign to deny Sudan its anticipated seat, substituting Mauritius, a friendly, democratic market economy, in its place.
The enduring challenge we faced, as we aligned U.S. policy with that of Sudan’s neighboring states, was casting our lot with undemocratic leaders. We had to weigh competing imperatives. On the one hand, a core pillar of our policy toward Africa was the promotion and consolidation of democracy and defense of human rights; on the other, our top priorities in East and Central Africa were counterterrorism, reducing ethnic conflict, and preventing another genocide. As a result, there were times when regional cooperation to advance U.S. security interests took precedence over democracy promotion. For a period, I and others in Washington (outside the human rights community) saw potential in several of the relatively “new” or up-and-coming African leaders. To overgeneralize, Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia, Isaias Afwerki of Eritrea, Paul Kagame of Rwanda, and Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, each in his own way seemed in the early to mid-1990s to be intelligent, straightforward, independent-minded, self-reliant, and economically astute leaders who were willing to work with Washington to address security threats and conflicts in Somalia, Sudan, and later in Congo, formerly Zaire. At the time they stood in contrast to the calcified leaders-for-life in places like Mobutu Sese Seko’s Zaire, Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, and José dos Santos’s Angola; and, for a while, they seemed willing to collaborate in the service of goals we shared.
Later, in 1998, when their mutual cooperation openly frayed, these so-called “New African Leaders” turned their guns on each other and, in some instances, their own people. The unsavory compromise we had made of prioritizing American security interests over our values became ever more costly and difficult to stomach. Human rights activists and some journalists leveled substantial criticism at the Clinton administration and me personally for our perceived coziness with these deeply flawed leaders. We erred, in retrospect, in heralding their leadership as “new” and as a departure from the norm. I do not regret our cooperation over issues of mutual interest, such as Sudan, but believe we would have been wiser to explain our approach in terms of national interests, while avoiding praise for individual leaders and speaking out more forcefully about their failings and abuses.
By the time President Clinton and his cabinet-level advisors approached the end of his first term, they had brokered a landmark peace agreement in Bosnia and defused a political crisis in Haiti. As their confidence in executing national security policy grew, they came to see beyond Africa’s multiple crises to perceive its long-term potential. In Washington more broadly, attention to Africa was rising. It was a rare foreign policy arena in which partisan differences were few, and cooperation was the norm.
The Clinton administration was eager to seize opportunities to build a genuine U.S.-Africa partnership. Anthony Lake spearheaded this focus, including by taking personal leadership of U.S. diplomacy to prevent another genocide in Burundi. For a national security advisor—whose responsibilities include every continent and region of the world—Tony devoted uncommon attention to Africa.
Other senior officials followed suit, and I joined several of them on various trips across the continent. Ambassador Albright’s U.N. responsibilities required sustained attention to Africa—addressing conflicts in Angola, Mozambique, Sudan, and Central Africa—and I traveled with her on all three of her official African visits. In 1995, Commerce Secretary Ron Brown famously declared in Senegal that “the era of America ceding the African market to the former colonial powers is over,” shaking France to attention. And, in early 1997, First Lady Hillary Clinton made her first of two solo trips to Africa, visiting West, Southern, and East Africa to promote democratic progress and increased U.S.-Africa trade and investment. I found it gratifying to be working on an area that was attracting top-level interest and where I felt we could paint policy on a virtually blank canvas.
Following President Clinton’s reelection in November 1996, attention turned to who would lead the national security team in the second term. Christopher, Lake, and most of the other Principals departed, and Clinton decided to elevate Deputy National Security Advisor Sandy Berger to national security advisor and U.N. ambassador Madeleine Albright to secretary of state. They, in turn, moved to restock the NSC and State Department with their chosen team.
In early December 1996, I was called to meet privately with Berger and Albright in the White House Situation Room. As my mother’s old friend, Madeleine and Mo
m had conspired over the years to guide me on various issues—from important professional decisions to tedious judgments about my hairstyle, which they both suggested I should change to look more mature. During Clinton’s first term, of course, Ambassador Albright and I had worked together intensively on U.N. and African matters. Sandy had also become a valued colleague and friend, as we labored through myriad tough issues together.
Once we settled into our seats, I realized that this was to be a conversation about my future. Madeleine said she would like me to serve with her at State as an assistant secretary, a promotion that Sandy enthusiastically backed, even though it meant me leaving the NSC. Questions followed. “Do you want to move to State? What policy areas would be of most interest to you?” We discussed the Bureaus of International Organizations, which oversees U.N. affairs; Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor; and Intelligence and Research. Each was a functional bureau with important but relatively discrete mandates. They also raised the Bureau of African Affairs, which seemed to be their preference.
Secretly, I felt trapped. Africa seemed a bridge too far for me. Not because I was unprepared in substance, but because I knew something no one else except Ian did: I was two months pregnant. Ian and I had barely digested the implications of our decision to start a family and had not told even our parents, much less any friends or colleagues. I wanted to wait at least until the end of my first trimester—past the period of highest risk for miscarriage. Also, such an announcement didn’t seem conducive to constructive consideration of my next career move. So I hedged, implying that Africa may not be the best fit for me. They seemed puzzled. The unprecedented opportunity at age thirty-one to lead a regional bureau should have been highly attractive to me, and while I was capable of running these other bureaus, Africa was squarely in my wheelhouse.
Boxed in, with great trepidation, I confessed, “What I am about to tell you, I have not even told my mother. Madeleine, knowing Mom, you especially will appreciate how hurt she would be if she knew you learned this before her. But I don’t think we can have a meaningful conversation unless you know: I am pregnant.” They were surprised, yet totally supportive, finally grasping my hesitation. I continued, “I worry that I won’t be able to travel to the extent that the Africa job requires if I have an infant. I also would need a first-rate deputy to help me hold things together in the bureau when I do have to travel. Recognizing that I am young and have no prior experience at State, I would want a heavyweight with me.”
They got it—assuring me that they would support me as a new mother, their expectations regarding travel would be calibrated accordingly, and I could have any deputy I wanted.
“I know exactly who I would want,” I said.
“Who?” they asked.
“Johnnie Carson.”
They knew Johnnie. He was one of the most experienced and respected career officers, our ambassador to Zimbabwe and previously to Uganda, and among the foreign service’s most senior African Americans. He was someone I admired and trusted to provide wisdom and ballast to the bureau. “Done,” they said, which I was not sure would be welcome news to Johnnie, since he would have to leave a plum ambassadorship in Zimbabwe and return to a tough bureaucratic job at main State.
Madeleine and Sandy reiterated that they thought I would be the best person for the Africa job, given my demonstrated ability to digest the issues and drive Africa policymaking, my unique understanding of Clinton’s preferred approach, my closeness to them, and my passion for putting Africa far higher on the nation’s foreign policy agenda.
“We really hope you accept this offer,” Madeleine said, as Sandy nodded in accord.
“Thank you both very much for your confidence in me. Can I have a day or two to talk with Ian?” I replied, rising to my feet and gathering my things.
Together, Ian and I weighed the benefits and downsides, pretty easily concluding that it was an opportunity I should not pass up. We had family in Washington to support us. We could afford a nanny, and, to ensure our family was intact, Ian would move back from Canada, where he was working. The next day, I accepted the job and told my parents, but I never revealed to Mom that Madeleine knew before she did that I was pregnant with Jake.
I remained as senior director for Africa at the NSC well into 1997, as my nomination was formalized, and I awaited my confirmation hearing. Senator John Ashcroft, the evangelical Christian and staunch, if genteel, Republican chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on African Affairs, seemed in no hurry to meet me or set a hearing date.
Months passed, and the administration’s legislative affairs staff tried to figure out why Ashcroft wouldn’t give me the time of day. They ultimately divined that he was reportedly uncomfortable with, and perhaps opposed to, the notion of a young pregnant woman serving as assistant secretary for Africa. Finally, in late July 1997, just as I was due to deliver, Ashcroft agreed to meet me—the prerequisite for a hearing.
Our meeting was set for July 22, and though I was mindful that seeing me in the fullness of my pregnancy would do little to assuage his concerns, I was looking forward to sitting down with Ashcroft and getting the confirmation ball rolling. As fate would have it, at about 4 a.m. on the 22nd, almost a week after I was due, I started feeling the unmistakable pangs of labor. For some hours, they were tolerable, early-stage pains, and I thought—Why not carry on working through much of the day, as I had every day up to that point of my uneventful pregnancy?
Around 11 a.m., Ian and I concluded it was time to brave the blistering heat and humidity to make our way to George Washington University Hospital, where my mom met us. Lois decreed emphatically that I needed to call Ashcroft’s office and postpone our meeting. I objected, arguing that I may never get another chance to see him. She said: “Look, if you go up there and your water breaks in that meeting, you truly will never see him again.” The voice of reason. I called.
Ashcroft graciously agreed to meet me a bit later in the summer, so I ceased worrying about that and focused the remainder of the afternoon on the fact that my epidural wasn’t working to mask my increasingly intense labor pains in a discrete but significant patch of my belly. Some eight hours later, our son, Jake, arrived with what we would later come to recognize as his customary flair for the dramatic, necessitating extraction with the unwelcome use of forceps. Like all new parents, we found our lives had changed forever—for the better.
While in the early stages of my three-month maternity leave from the NSC, Ashcroft finally met with me. He was cordial and forthright in our introductory meeting in his Senate office. Over heavily sweetened iced tea, Ashcroft explained that he chaired three subcommittees and, frankly, Africa was of least interest to him. Nonetheless, he promised to schedule my hearing for September after the Senate returned from summer recess.
My parents and Ian accompanied me to the hearing, and I also carried in a bassinet our six-week-old son. As per custom, at the start of my opening statement, I introduced my family members present, including young “John David Rice-Cameron,” who, although we called him “Jake,” coincidentally had the same given names as the subcommittee chair. John David Ashcroft welcomed us, duly noting his namesake’s presence. I privately wondered if Ashcroft worried that Jake’s quiescence might be short-lived and I might luck into a shorter than usual hearing.
Indeed, the session was not prolonged, extended only by the late arrival of the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Joe Biden, who apologized for his tardy Amtrak train from Delaware. Senator Biden was effusive, praising my nomination and stressing that he for one had no reservations whatsoever about my comparatively tender age (implying that others may). He recalled at length how he began in the Senate at twenty-nine years old as the single father of two boys, cheerfully recounting how he had done just fine. It was a generous salve, and it also helpfully chewed up the clock. After a nominal quantity of questions, Ashcroft adjourned the hearing before Jake even stirred.
On October 9, 1997, I was unanimously confirmed by th
e Senate as assistant secretary of state for African affairs. Three months to the day after Jake was born, when my maternity leave expired, I moved to the State Department.
9 Storming State
ABUJA, NIGERIA
JULY 7, 1998
To this day, many people in Nigeria think I killed him.
In early July 1998, I traveled to Nigeria with Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Tom Pickering, who was then among the most senior career Foreign Service Officers. As assistant secretary of state for African affairs, I had gotten to know Pickering, my immediate boss, as a wise, fast-talking, and deeply knowledgeable diplomat. Having served as ambassador to six major countries and the United Nations, Pickering had seen and heard almost everything. The purpose of our trip to Nigeria was to encourage a responsible political transition. The nasty former dictator, Sani Abacha, had died a month earlier in the company of prostitutes. Viagra was reportedly involved. His interim successor was a moderate military leader, Abdulsalami Abubakar, who hoped to shepherd Nigeria through a democratic election to select its new leader.
A primary objective of our visit was to meet the wrongfully imprisoned opposition leader, Moshood Abiola. He was the presumed winner of Nigeria’s 1993 election, but the results were annulled, and he was later arrested. We hoped to negotiate his freedom so that he could participate in the upcoming election.
Along with Pickering and U.S. ambassador to Nigeria Bill Twaddell, I met Mr. Abiola in an austere government guesthouse on the vast presidential compound in the capital, Abuja. A large and imposing man, Abiola came with his minder shortly after we arrived. Pickering, a former U.S. ambassador to Nigeria, knew Abiola from years past and greeted him warmly. Abiola, robust and happy to see us, sat on the couch and began to tell us how poorly he had been treated during his four years in prison. He was wearing sandals and multilayered, traditional Nigerian dress. I noted that his ankles were swollen.
