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President Obama receives flowers from children while disembarking from Air Force One at Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on July 26, 2015. Obama begins a two-day stay in Ethiopia and becomes the first American leader to visit Africa's second-most-populous nation.(Photo: Simon Maina, AFP/Getty Images)
NAIROBI, Kenya — President Obama became<span style="color: Red;">*</span>the first sitting U.S. president to visit Ethiopia on Sunday,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>highlighting<span style="color: Red;">*</span>the East African country's increasing<span style="color: Red;">*</span>value to combat Islamic extremism despite a poor human rights record.
“Obama’s visit means our country is a safe place to invest and do trade,” said Dawit Betty, 25, a student in Ethiopia's capital of<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Addis Ababa. “Ethiopia has been forgotten for so long. The coming of the U.S. president will bring a new beginning for this country.”
The country's economic heft is growing, so Ethiopian<span style="color: Red;">*</span>leaders are eager to hear about Obama's<span style="color: Red;">*</span>plans for trade, but discussions<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Monday<span style="color: Red;">*</span>are likely to focus heavily on terror threats facing Africa. Obama<span style="color: Red;">*</span>is likely to urge Ethiopian leaders to<span style="color: Red;">*</span>keep pressure on al-Shabab, the al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group that has staged deadly attacks in neighboring Kenya and Somalia, including one Sunday by a suicide bomber outside a luxury hotel in the Somalian capital of Mogadishu that killed nine<span style="color: Red;">*</span>people.
“He is going now to Ethiopia because they need to act quickly on al-Shabab,” said Mario Aguilar, a political<span style="color: Red;">*</span>professor at the University of<span style="color: Red;">*</span>St. Andrews<span style="color: Red;">*</span>in Scotland.
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Though<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Obama probably won't discuss<span style="color: Red;">*</span>human rights extensively on his visit, his presence at least calls attention to the government's abuses, said<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Ethiopian civil rights activist Ellani Jembere, who hopes Obama will raise the issue privately during talks with<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn.
President Obama shakes hands with Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn upon his arrival on Air Force One at Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on July 26, 2015.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: Saul Loeb, AFP/Getty Images)
“I am very happy because Obama is coming at the right time when this nation needs him,” he said.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>“We need him to address electoral reforms and push the government to increase democratic space.”
International human rights groups have been critical of<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Desalegn's party,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>the<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>which claims to have won nearly 100% of the vote in parliamentary elections in May.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>They’ve condemned the government for imprisoning journalists, suppressing peaceful demonstrations and harassing political opponents.
Tuesday, Obama is slated to address<span style="color: Red;">*</span>the 54-member African Union<span style="color: Red;">*</span>at its<span style="color: Red;">*</span>headquarters in Addis Ababa about the fight against terrorism and the importance of creating greater economic opportunities for people, so they won't be lured by<span style="color: Red;">*</span>terror groups. Ethiopian peacekeeping troops have clashed with al-Shabab in Somalia as part of an African Union mission to root out the terrorist group from the war-torn country. Other African nations —<span style="color: Red;">*</span>including<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Kenya, where Obama wrapped up a visit Sunday —<span style="color: Red;">*</span>have <span style="color: Red;">*</span>contributed troops to the effort.
The United<span style="color: Red;">*</span>States<span style="color: Red;">*</span>maintains a drone base in southern Ethiopia for operations against the militant group, which killed 148 people, mostly students, in a four-day siege on a northeastern Kenyan university in April.
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Obama’s trip will <span style="color: Red;">*</span>call attention to the African Union’s cooperation in combating al-Shabab<span style="color: Red;">*</span>and mediating conflicts in other hot spots such as Congo and Rwanda, Aguilar said.
“The African Union … has done significant diplomatic work in the last few years,” he<span style="color: Red;">*</span>said. “It has always been ignored by Western powers. I think this defines the actual purpose of the visit. It is to engage, in a sense, with Africa in a different way.”
Trade will also be an important part of Obama’s agenda.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Last month, the United<span style="color: Red;">*</span>States<span style="color: Red;">*</span>renewed the 15-year-old African Growth and Opportunity Act, or AGOA, which had been slated to expire in September. The legislation, which lowers tariffs for key African exporters, has helped double annual trade between the United States<span style="color: Red;">*</span>and Africa to $52 billion since 2001, according to White House figures.
U.S. and African trade representatives must <span style="color: Red;">*</span>hammer out individual trade agreements under the law.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>"African countries are very keen on AGOA,” said William Attwell, an Africa specialist with Oxford Analytica. “African manufacturers and businesses will be looking for messages that signal progress of the ongoing trade deal negotiations. This deal presents an opportunity for the African economy to diversify."
Ethiopia in particular has been undergoing an economic renaissance. The country’s gross domestic product has grown<span style="color: Red;">*</span>by more than 10% a year during the past decade. The United<span style="color: Red;">*</span>States<span style="color: Red;">*</span>is the country’s fourth-largest trading partner. Still, Ethiopia is one of the poorest countries in Africa, and unemployment stands around 17%. To create jobs, the country’s leaders want to expand trade and maintain growth.
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“There is a need for ensuring there is a structural transformation in the economy,” said Assefa Admassie, principal researcher at the Ethiopian Economics Association in Addis Ababa.
Contributing:<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Mihret Yohannes and Katharina Wecker in<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Berlin
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