President Barack Obama on Sunday will announce a new initiative to double access to electric power in sub-Saharan Africa, part of his effort to build on the legacy of equality and opportunity forged by his personal hero, Nelson Mandela.
Obama, who flew from Johannesburg to Cape Town on Sunday, is paying tribute to the ailing 94-year-old Mandela throughout the day. The president and his family visited Robben Island, where the anti-apartheid leader spent 18 years confined to a tiny cell, including a stop at the lime quarry where Mandela toiled and developed the lung problems that sent him to the hospital for most of the month.
The White House said Obama's guide during the tour was 83-year-old South African politician Ahmed Kathrada, who also was held at the prison for nearly two decades and guided Obama on his 2006 visit to the prison as a U.S. senator.
The president also saw the prison courtyard where Mandela planted grapevines that remain today, and where he and others in the dissident leadership would discuss politics, sneak notes to one another and hide writings.
"On behalf of our family, we're deeply humbled to stand where men of such courage faced down injustice and refused to yield. The world is grateful for the heroes of Robben Island, who remind us that no shackles or cells can match the strength of the human spirit," Obama wrote in the guest book in the courtyard, his U.S. Secret Service agents standing watch in the old guard tower above.
During the tour, which took place under sunshine and clear, blue skies, Obama, first lady Michelle Obama and daughters Malia and Sasha took in the expansive view of the quarry, a huge crater with views of the rusty guard tower from where Mandela was watched. Obama commented on the "hard labor" Mandela endured and asked Kathrada to remind his daughters how long Mandela was in prison.
Michelle Obama asked how often Mandela would work and was told he worked daily. As the family turned to leave, Obama asked Kathrada to tell his daughters how the African National Congress, the South African political party, got started.
After the tour, Obama visited retired archbishop Desmond Tutu at a youth center run by his HIV foundation before delivering what the White House has billed as the signature speech of the president's weeklong trip, an address at the University of Cape Town that will be infused with memories of Mandela.
Obama will use the address to unveil the "Power Africa" initiative, which includes an initial $7 billion investment from the United States over the next five years. Private companies, including General Electric and Symbion Power, are making an additional $9 billion in commitments with the goal of providing power to millions of Africans crippled by a lack of electricity.
Gayle Smith, Obama's senior director for development and democracy, said more than two-thirds of people living in sub-Saharan Africa do not have electricity, including 85 percent of those living in rural areas.
"If you want lights so kids can study at night or you can maintain vaccines in a cold chain, you don't have that, so going the extra mile to reach people is more difficult," Smith said.
SCRIPTURES:
| Isa 30:2 | That walk to go down into Egypt, and have not asked at my mouth; to strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh, and to trust in the shadow of Egypt! |
| Isa 30:3 | Therefore shall the strength of Pharaoh be your shame, and the trust in the shadow of Egypt [your] confusion. |
| Isa 30:5 | They were all ashamed of a people [that] could not profit them, nor be an help nor profit, but a shame, and also a reproach. |
| Lam 4:17 | As for us, our eyes as yet failed for our vain help: in our watching we have watched for a nation [that] could not save [us]. |
______________________________
No comments:
Post a Comment