Cooped-up locals angry about Bush visit

Reuters ^ | 07/08/03 | Clar Ni Chonghaile

[Pokey78]

Goree Island, Senegal - US President George Bush made an eloquent speech but did not win many friends during his brief visit to Goree Island off Senegal on Tuesday.

"We are very angry. We didn't even see him," said Fatou N'diaye, a necklace seller watching dignitaries file past to return to the mainland at the end of Bush's tour.

N'diaye and other residents of Goree, site of a famous slave trading station, said they had been taken to a football ground on the other side of the quaint island at 6am and told to wait there until Bush had departed, around midday.

Bush came to Goree to tour the red-brick Slave House, where Africans were kept in shackles before being shipped across a perilous sea to a lifetime of servitude.

He then gave an eloquent speech about the horrors of slavery, standing at a podium under a sizzling sun near a red-stone museum, topped by cannon pointing out to the sea.

The cooped-up residents were not impressed.

"It's slavery all over again," fumed one father-of-four, who did not want to give his name. "It's humiliating. The island was deserted."

White House officials said the decision to remove the locals was taken by Senegalese authorities. But there was no doubt who the residents blamed.

"We never want to see him come here again," said N'diaye, hiking her loose gown onto her shoulders with a frown.

As the sun rose over Goree before Bush's arrival, the only people to be seen on the main beach were US officials and secret service agents. Frogmen swam through the shallows and hoisted themselves up to peer into brightly painted pirogues.

Normally, the island teems with tourists, Senegal's ubiquitous traders, hawkers of cheap African art, photographers offering to take pictures and all the expected trappings of a tourist hot-spot in one of the world's poorest countries.

On Tuesday, shutters on the yellow and red colonial-style houses remained shut. The cafes were closed and the narrow pier deserted, apart from security agents manning a metal detector, near the sandy beach. A gunship patrolled offshore.

"We understand that you have to have security measures, since September 11, but to dump us in another place...? We had to leave at 6am I didn't have time to bathe, and the bread did not arrive," the father-of-four said.

"We were shut up like sheep," said 15-year-old Mamadou.

Many residents compared Bush's hour-long visit unfavourably to the island tour by former President Bill Clinton in 1998.

"When Clinton came, he shook hands, people danced," said former Mayor Urbain Alexandre Diagne.

As the Bush roadtrip moved on, Goree was returning to normal with children once again diving into the shallows and clambering over the now inoffensive pirogues.

[PhiKapMom]

Leave it to Reuters to point our some negatives. Do they EVER write anything positive about President Bush?

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[Williams]

I swear you could print this article in Mad magazine as a satire of how biased the press is. Let me try to distill what this article's message is: "Give Bush no credit for his phoney speech on slavery, blacks hate him and he rounded them up as slaves and they know that Clinton is their real friend and Bush is a racist bastard who they despise!"

I think if anything I toned down the article.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

White House officials said the decision to remove the locals was taken by Senegalese authorities. But there was no doubt who the residents blamed.

Did Reuters actually ask the WH if it was the WH's decision to move the people? Do they understand that the Bush Administration is not in power in Senegal? Filing their reports must be really difficult, if they cannot keep these simple facts straight.

[Pokey78]

I've been reading several of the South African papers tonight, and if you based your opinion from them, you'd think Bush was a combination of Hitler, Amin, & Mugabe.

[onyx]

They neglected to call POTUS a 'cowboy' --- heads shall roll for that!

[RedwM]

obviously Al Gore's ancient ancestral homeland.

[PhiKapMom]

This is so disgusting! It is like the press from around the world have decided to take down President Bush!

Why do I get this sick feeling the Clintons have a ton of friends in the media all over?

[Pokey78]

From the City Paper in S.A.:

[Welsh Rabbit]

No. I wonder what their next headline will be? Probably something like, "Bush Motorcade Creates Traffic Holdups in Lagos; Local Commuters Irate".

[PhiKapMom]

ROFLOL!!!!!!! Just wait -- Reuters will get to that next!

[PhiKapMom]

That would not surprise me out of Reuters. Their hatred of Pres Bush goes way back!

[dirtbiker]

Many residents compared Bush's hour-long visit unfavourably to the island tour by former President Bill Clinton in 1998. "When Clinton came, he shook hands, people danced," said former Mayor Urbain Alexandre Diagne.

Several things these backward, third-world people need to realize: 1) Clinton was a hustler, he wanted, he HAD to be liked by all, Bush is a real man, he could care less what you think about him, 2) These people are probably mad because Bush is the first American offical that didn't apologize for slavery, nevermind the fact it was their OWN people, even kinfolk, that sold them into bondage in the first place, 3) The decendants of those slaves now in this country need to get down on their knees and thank God every day for taking them from their backward hellhole and bringing them to America!

[xm177e2]

Yeah, I'll bet the South Africans are real shook-up about Bush's militant warmongering and imperial designs on... Liberia... which looks like it might be resolved without a fight (Chuck Taylor won't step down unless he knows Bush is prepared to drive him out--he's going to call Bush's bluff)

[ysoitanly]

He didn't 'get a bath and the bread didn't arrive'? And today was different because.....? I guess Bush cut off the local jacuzzis and catering truck that apparently comes by each morning.

[onyx]

Remember when Hitlery discovered a Jewish uncle by marriage just in time for the election?

POTUS will have to 'discover' a black forefather and a French uncle. Maybe then his popularity will rise within Europe and Africa.

[PhiKapMom]

That's a good one!

[xJones]

Leave it to Reuters to point our some negatives. Do they EVER write anything positive about President Bush?

Well, no. Reuters reporters would have died and gone to left-wing heaven if the Iraqi military had managed to gas/kill tens of thousands of American soldiers during the invasion of Iraq.

Reuters had a bad war and things didn't work out the way they predicted. Reuters is still hopeful though, and they'll report - and embellish - any little piece of bad news for the Coalition troops in Iraq.

[razorback-bert]

N'diaye, hiking her loose gown onto her shoulders with a frown.

I am guessing that it been gov clinton, she would have been hiking her gown with a smile.