JJ gets chilly Washington welcome

02:55 p.m Feb 24, 1999 Eastern

By Steve Holland

WASHINGTON, Feb 24 (Reuters) - President Bill Clinton, who last year visited Ghana in sweltering African heat, responded on Wednesday by welcoming Ghanaian President Jerry Rawlings on a freezing, snowy Washington morning.

Last April, Clinton, at the start of a 12-day tour of Africa, was greeted by hundreds of thousands of Ghanaians in Accra's Independence Square on a day of 100-degree temperatures and about 100 percent humidity.

Ghanaians collapsed from the heat, fought over bottles of water and surged toward Clinton in what he called the biggest crowd he had ever seen. Unswayed by the heat, Rawlings gave a long address.

On Wednesday, Rawlings and Clinton wore heavy overcoats on the South Lawn of the White House to fend off freezing temperatures and a steady northeasterly breeze after a light dusting of snow overnight.

``In our hearts, our welcome is warm,'' Clinton told Rawlings during the official welcoming ceremony before several hundred bundled-up people.

Rawlings said: ``When the president visited Africa, we gave him a treat of the African sauna bath... I wanted to get a feel of the air-conditioned atmosphere of the American weather.''

Clinton and Rawlings then went into the Oval Office for talks about a wide range of African economic and political issues. They were to hold a news conference in the afternoon, then attend a state dinner.

Rawlings, who last September visited Cuba and hailed President Fidel Castro as an ``inspiration'' for developing countries, gave what came close to being a lecture to the United States during his arrival remarks.

He called on the United States to make a ``greater commitment to end hunger and starvation'' in Africa and said debt relief was needed for African nations too.

He also called on Washington to pay off its $1.6 billion in arrears to the United Nations and restore contributions to the U.N. Population Fund.

Rawlings, 51, who originally took power in a 1979 coup and whose early record on human rights was suspect, was first elected in 1992 and has made the transition from radical firebrand shunned by Washington to an elected president and economic reformer. He is in his second four-year term.

Coming to Washington on a state visit was a major coup for him and he was reaping some rewards, with U.S. assistance for a number of projects in Ghana to be announced during the visit.

The Overseas Public Investment Corp., a federal agency that provides direct loans, loan guarantees and political risk insurance coverage to American companies investing in emerging markets, was to provide a $7.5 million investment into privatisation of Ghana's state-owned pharmaceutical company.

A U.S-Ghanaian trade and investment framework agreement was to be signed, only the second between the United States and a sub-Saharan nation.

And Washington is to provide $1 million to help Ghana meet world standards on child labour, $1.5 million to work with Ghana's energy sector to strengthen its power supply, and a $2.9 million grant for equipment and training for Ghana's contribution to an African peacekeeping force.