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By Humphrey Carter

CYNTHIA McKinney, President Clinton's special envoy to Africa, said yesterday that we are seeing a “new United States of America.” McKinney, who will tonight give a lecture for Club Ultima Hora in the Banca March conference hall on the Great Lakes region of Africa, economic and geo-strategic interests in conflict today, said in Palma yesterday “in my country right now, there is a tremendous concentration of power in the hands of a very few people. “The United States you all think about in a fond way, the one which came to Europe's aid at the end of WWII and drew up the Marshall Plan to help rebuild parts of Europe has changed, we were a loving, generous and giving country, but the US of today with Bush is not the US of yesterday, it's even different from when his father was President. “When you think about liberty and the protector of democracy, you're thinking about another America. “The America we've got now is breaking down our civil liberties, attacking the Bill of Rights, using equipment built to protect us to invade our privacy, spy and snoop on us” she said. McKinney said that it is a shame Spanish Prime Minister Aznar and Britain's Tony Blair are following Bush's lead, especially when they are “diverging from the wishes of the people to do Bush's dirty work. “The situation in the Great Lakes and Iraq is very similar. Zaire was the heart of the Great Lakes, the richest country in Africa with regards to minerals and natural resources, Iraq is the same with huge oil reserves, but then we're told that Iraq is all about national security and other reasons.” “Saturday's marches for peace were glorious,” she said, adding that one day the same mass demonstrations may be seen for peace in Africa. “Millons of people made it clear that they want a better world and to see that so many people want to create a better society is a truly wonderful thing,” McKinney, the first Afro-American congresswoman for the State of Georgia, said yesterday.