Bush has Residents of Slave Island Rounded up

[Guest guest]

<http://story.news./news?tmpl=story & u=/nm/bush_africa_anger_dc>

 

On Goree Island, Bush Visit Sparks Anger

 

Tue Jul 8,12:00 PM ET

 

By Clar Ni Chonghaile

 

GOREE ISLAND, Senegal (Reuters) - President Bush ( news -web sites ) 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 6 a.m. 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 U.S. 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 6 a.m. 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 unfavorably to the island tour by

former President Bill Clinton ( news -web sites ) 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.

--

Neil Jensen: neil

The WWW VL: Sumeria http://www.sumeria.net/

" Dragons is sooooo stupid! " -- Yosemite Sam