SENEGAL: As Liberia's escalating war loomed in the background, US President George Bush started a whirlwind five-country tour of Africa yesterday by expressing solidarity with victims of the 19th century slave trade.
Slavery was "one of the greatest crimes in history", he said at Goree Island, a former slave trading post off the coast of Senegal from which chained slaves were sorted, beaten and despatched to the Americas.
"At this place life and liberty were stolen and sold," he said, accompanied by his wife, Laura, and the President of Senegal, Mr Abdoulaye Wade.
While avoiding a direct apology, he said Americans through the ages had "clearly saw this sin and called it by its name". The gesture was seen as part of President Bush's attempt to counter his image as a cowboy gunslinger following the Iraq war.
It may also win support among African-Americans in advance of next year's re-election campaign.
But on the dusty streets of Africa, there were signs of scepticism towards his visit. He received a lukewarm reception on the streets of the capital, Dakar, as his motorcade passed. Clusters of Senegalese clapped or kept their arms crossed, and some protesters cried "Bush, butcher".
It offered a sharp contrast with the visit of the last US president, Mr Bill Clinton, in 1998 when cheering crowds thronged the streets. Mr Bush brings the promise of $15 billion on HIV/AIDS spending and greater trade links on his five-day swing through Senegal, South Africa, Botswana, Uganda and Nigeria.
But the urgent need to resolve Liberia's bloody civil war may come to dominate the trip. The US is considering sending 2,000 peacekeeping troops to the embattled west African nation, where rebels have encircled President Charles Taylor in the capital, Monrovia.
After meeting with seven regional leaders yesterday, President Bush said he had not decided whether to send US troops. A 20-strong US military team is currently in Monrovia on an assessment mission.
It would be the first such deployment since the ill-fated Somalia mission of 1993, when the deaths of 19 US servicemen prompted an embarrassing retreat.
Mr Bush repeated his demand that Mr Taylor, widely believed to have destabilised west Africa since coming to power six years ago, step down before more US troops land. But Mr Taylor says he will only leave after their arrival.
Neighbouring countries have already pledged 3,000 peacekeepers. They are calling for others from the US, South Africa and Morocco to complete the force. International prosecutors on war crimes charges want Mr Taylor. He stands accused of smuggling diamonds and guns, and fuelling atrocity-filled insurgencies in neighbouring Sierra Leone, Guinea and the Ivory Coast. In an interview at his mansion in the rebel-surrounded capital, Monrovia, Mr Taylor told the Associated Press: "When they write the history books, I'd like to be seen as the man who finally brought peace to Liberia."
On Sunday Mr Taylor accepted an offer of asylum from Nigeria - which has drawn protests from human rights groups - but refused to specify when he would go.
As Mr Bush met with regional leaders Laura Bush viewed local art with President Wade's wife, Viviane, in recognition of Senegal's deep cultural tradition.
Today Mr Bush visits South Africa, the economic and political powerhouse of sub-Saharan Africa.
However he will not be meeting Mr Nelson Mandela - an unprecedented move for a visiting head of state - following Mr Mandela's attacks on him as a threat to world peace and a man who "cannot think properly".
The sharp criticism reflected popular African scepticism towards the Bush presidency in the wake of the Iraq war and, more recently, for its growing interest in Africa's untapped oil resources.