ACCRA, Feb 20: US President George W. Bush on Wednesday fought to dispel African concerns that he wants to build new US military bases on the continent, and downplayed worries about mounting US competition with China.

“I know there’s rumours in Ghana — ‘all Bush is coming to do is trying to convince you to put a big military base here.’ That’s baloney. Or as we say in Texas, ‘that’s bull,’” Bush said. “We do not contemplate adding new bases.” “That doesn’t mean we won’t develop some kind of office somewhere in Africa. We haven’t made our minds up. This is a new concept,” he added, amid deep suspicion about a new US military command for the region, Africom.

The US Defence Department says it is centralising all US military and security interests on the continent — previously split among commands focused on Europe, the Middle East, and the Pacific — into one.

Some African critics have tied the project to the fact that, by 2015, Washington expects that 25 per cent of the oil it imports will come from the continent, essentially from the Gulf of Guinea.

Bush rejected the premise: “It is a command structure that is aiming to help provide military assistance to African nations, so African nations are more capable of dealing with Africa’s conflicts, like peacekeeping training.” He cited the joint African Union and United Nations effort in Sudan’s Darfur region.

The US president also batted away concerns about a growing US rivalry with China in Africa over access to the continent’s oil, metals, and other raw materials, saying that Beijing was not a “fierce competitor.” “I don’t view Africa as zero-sum for China and the United States. I think we can pursue agendas without creating a great sense of competition,” Bush said during a joint press conference with Ghana President John Kufuor.

“Do I view China as a fierce competitor on the continent of Africa? No, I don’t,” Bush said.

Kufuor warned against trying to “ostracize” China, which he said was “coming not as a colonial power, as far as we can see. It’s coming, if I may put it, as a guest, and I believe on our terms, on the terms of the African nations.” Kufuor also said he accepted Bush’s explanation on Africom and declared that it should “put paid” to the rumours that Washington seeks to expand its influence on the continent by constructing new military installations.

Bush made no specific mention of increasing Sino-US tensions over Sudan — Beijing has resisted Washington’s push for increased sanctions on leaders in Khartoum over what Bush calls “genocide” in Darfur.

Pursuing what he has called a “mission of mercy”, Bush also unveiled a new five-year, 350-million-dollar plan to fight “neglected tropical diseases” including elephantiasis and river blindness worldwide.

The US president, here on the second-to-last leg of a five-country Africa tour, goes to Liberia on Thursday before returning to the United States. He has already been to Benin, Tanzania, and Rwanda.

Bush has called for greater global efforts to end conflicts in Darfur and Kenya, but has mainly worked to draw attention to US efforts to help the continent battle deadly diseases and poverty.

Flag-waving Accra schoolchildren lined the ocean-side roadway along Bush’s motorcade route to Osu castle — girls in yellow dresses, boys in khaki shorts with blue or yellow shirts.

In the face of a security-driven road closures, some residents said they understood the reasons for the shut-down but complained about not getting enough notice, or alternate routes, as traffic ground to a standstill.

On Thursday, he was to hold talks with Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa’s first elected female president, whose country is the only candidate to host Africom.

Before his trip, Bush said that “if there is going to be a physical presence on the continent of Africa in the forms of a headquarters that you just described, obviously we would seriously consider Liberia. Liberia is a friend.”—AFP