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| US President Barack Obama dances to music on arrival at Julius Nyerere International Airport, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on July 1, 2013. Photo/AFP |
US President Barack Obama arrived in Tanzania Monday for the
final leg of his three-nation Africa tour, after paying homage in South
Africa to his ailing idol Nelson Mandela. Read (Obama fever hits Tanzania ahead of visit)
Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete alongside
troupes of traditional dancers welcomed Obama and his family to the
country's economic capital and port Dar es Salaam.
A guard of honour fired a 21-gun salute, as women wearing colourful dresses emblazoned with Obama's portrait danced.
Excited Tanzanians began gathering since early
morning to secure a spot to see Obama, with the city's streets decked
out in alternating Tanzanian and US flags.
"In Africa we have so many countries, so Obama
choosing to come to Tanzania, it makes us feel happy," said Francis
Gedyman, 26, a driver.
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"I think maybe he came to Tanzania because we don't have so much corruption, or war. Here we have peace, and democracy."
A key road -- separating Tanzania's presidential
palace from the glittering blue water of the Indian Ocean -- is to be
renamed after Obama.
In Tanzania, Obama's final stop on the tour which
has included Senegal and South Africa, he will hold talks with Kikwete
and visit the Ubungo power plant, after unveiling a new $7-billion
programme to boost African electric power networks.
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| US President Barack Obama (L) dances to music alongside his Tanzanian counterpart Jakaya Kikwete after arrival at the Julius Nyerere International Airport in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, July 1, 2013. AFP |
He will also lay a wreath at a memorial to those
killed in the US embassy bombing in 1998. His wife Michelle will take
part in a First Ladies forum hosted by her predecessor in the role,
Laura Bush.
He arrives in Tanzania just three months after a
visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping, amid talk of an economic rivalry
in Africa between Washington and Beijing.
But his tour has been also overshadowed by the
health of his hero Mandela, who has entered a fourth week in hospital
where he remains critically ill.
Obama did not see Mandela, but he spent the
weekend visiting sites from the revered leader's life, including the
Robben Island prison where the anti-apartheid icon spent 18 years -- a
visit Obama said left him "deeply humbled".
Obama stood in the tiny cell once occupied by
Mandela on the windswept outcrop near Cape Town, and took his daughters
to the lime quarry where the man who would become South Africa's first
black president did back-breaking hard labour.
"Mandela's spirit could never be imprisoned -- for
his legacy is here for all to see," Obama said in a speech at the
University of Cape Town afterwards.
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| Tanzanians getting ready for US President Barack Obama on July 1, 2013 at State House, Dar es Salaam. |
"Nelson Mandela showed us that one man's courage can move the
world. And he calls on us to make choices that reflect not our fears,
but our hopes -- in our own lives, and in the lives of our communities
and our countries," he said.
There has been no update on the health of the
94-year-old Nobel peace laureate since Saturday when South African
President Jacob Zuma said he remained "critical but stable". Few details
have been released about his condition or treatment.
Well-wishers continued to stop by at the
shrine-like wall of goodwill messages outside the Pretoria hospital
where Mandela was admitted on June 8 with a recurring lung infection,
although there were fewer visitors than in previous days.
On Saturday, Obama and his wife Michelle called
Mandela's wife Graca Machel, and the president then privately visited
several daughters and grandchildren of Mandela, to offer support and
prayers.
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| Tanzanians getting ready for US President Barack Obama on July 1, 2013 at State House, Dar es Salaam. |
But he decided against rolling up in his massive entourage at
the Pretoria hospital where Mandela lies, worried that he would disturb
the peace of the man he has described as a "personal inspiration".
Once branded a terrorist by the United States and
Britain, Mandela spent 27 years in prison before walking free from a
jail near Cape Town in 1990.
He won South Africa's first fully democratic
elections in 1994, forging a path of racial reconciliation during his
single term as president, before taking up a new role as a roving elder
statesman and leading AIDS campaigner.
In a strident call for democratic change and good
governance during his speech in Cape Town, the US leader used the
political legacy of Mandela and South Africa's emergence from grim years
of apartheid rule as proof that freedom will ultimately prevail.
"History shows us that progress is only possible
where governments exist to serve their people and not the other way
around," Obama said to loud cheers.
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| Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete (R) and US President Barack Obama (2nd R) watch dancers on July 1, 2013 at the Julius Nyerere International Airport in Dar Es Salaam |
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