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APIC/Africa Fund: Questions for Policymakers
APIC/Africa Fund: Questions for Policymakers
Date distributed (ymd): 001016
APIC Document
+++++++++++++++++++++Document Profile+++++++++++++++++++++
Region: Continent-Wide
Issue Areas: +political/rights+ +economy/development+
+security/peace+ +US policy focus+
Summary Contents:
Please find below the text of a joint APIC/Africa Fund brochure
distributed before the U.S. presidential debates to the debate
moderator and other media professionals. We were pleased that in
the second debate the moderator at least posed a question about
Africa. We were not at all satisfied with the answers from either
candidate.
We are distributing the questions more broadly because most of the
issues posed apply, with appropriate changes in wording, not just
for candidates in the U.S. elections, but also for policymakers
here and elsewhere after the election.
We follow the questions with (1) very brief excerpts from two
critical Washington Post editorial comments appearing after the
second presidential debate, and (2) links to poll data showing that
the public differs sharply from the conventional wisdom. Polls
consistently show that the public is far more favorable than
political insiders assume to support for UN peacekeeping, increased
spending on the global HIV/AIDS pandemic, and similar measures of
interest to Africa.
Another posting also sent out today contains a letter just mailed
to APIC members from APIC/Africa Fund director Salih Booker.
+++++++++++++++++end profile++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Questions on Africa Policy for Candidates and Policymakers
The questions here are addressed to candidates in the November 2000
election in the U.S. They also apply more generally to rich-country
policy makers whose actions or indifference shape the international
response to issues such as debt, HIV/AIDS, economic development,
security and human rights.
Africa Policy Information Center (APIC)
110 Maryland Ave. NE, Suite 509
Washington, DC 20002
http://www.africapolicy.org
American Committee on Africa/Africa Fund
50 Broad St., Suite 1701
New York, NY 10004
(212) 785-1024
africafund@igc.org
Four decades after the first wave of African independence and less
than a decade after the end of political apartheid in South Africa,
the African continent risks being trapped in an updated system of
global apartheid. Initiatives to expand genuine political and
economic freedoms are widespread across the diverse continent. But
their chances for success depend not only on local efforts but also
on global structures dominated by a minority of rich-country
elites.
Recognizing Africa's Importance
(1) Thirteen percent of Americans trace their ancestry to Africa.
The US imports 14 percent of its oil from Africa. Overall US trade
with Africa is greater than with the former Soviet Union. Yet,
according to the New York Times, "Mr. Bush has not yet made a
priority of Africa, which has been discussed more extensively by
his rival, Mr. Gore. Like Mr. Clinton, however, neither Mr. Bush
nor Mr. Gore has suggested that they would change the American
position that there is no strategic interest in Africa..."
- What interests do you think the US has in Africa?
Achieving Economic Justice
(2) Despite years of international promises to provide debt relief
for impoverished countries, African countries are still spending
more on debt payments to wealthy countries than they invest in
health. The World Bank/IMF Heavily Indebted Poor Countries
(HIPC) initiative has only been implemented for a few countries,
and even for them provides no sustainable exit from
debt bondage.
- Do you support canceling Africa's unsustainable debt as was done
for European countries in economic crisis such as Germany and
Poland? What new measures do you propose to achieve this?
(3) Many decisions about economic policy for African countries are
being made by global institutions, such as the World Bank, IMF, the
World Trade Organization, and the "Paris Club" of creditor
countries. These decisions are weakening African governments'
capacity to provide essential public investments like health and
education infrastructure. In recent years, public pressure has
resulted in more public information, but neither African
governments nor African civil society have effective roles as
participants in these decision-making processes.
- What measures do you propose to increase democratic participation
and transparency in global economic institutions, so that they are
accountable to those affected by their decisions?
(4) According to UNAIDS, Africa, with about 12 percent of the
world's population, accounts for 80 percent of the world's deaths
due to AIDS. Ninety percent of the world's deaths due to malaria
are in Africa. In the last decade, life expectancies in many
African countries, which had been improving, have begun dropping
sharply largely due to AIDS. African governments are struggling
with woefully inadequate public infrastructure and resources to
address a broad spectrum of health needs. These include primary
health care, as well as AIDS-specific education, prevention,
research, treatment and care, and support for families and
communities to strengthen their capacity to cope with the long term
effects of the AIDS pandemic.
- In light of this global health emergency, especially devastating
in Africa, do you support allocating public wealth - at least 5
percent of the US annual budget surplus - to a global health
emergency fund to provide grants with distribution criteria based
upon the seriousness of the health threat and the resources
available to address them?
- What additional measures would you support to defeat AIDS?
Supporting Human Rights and Democracy
(5) Following decades of military dictatorship, Nigeria has an
elected civilian government. President Clinton's trip to Nigeria
was a signal of support for this new government, which is a major
oil supplier for the US. Yet the majority of Nigeria's people
suffer daily from the effects of crushing debt payments,
environmental destruction, abject poverty, human rights abuses, and
military repression, which continue to go unaddressed. The fate of
Nigeria has repercussions far beyond its borders.
- What enforceable measures do you propose to promote corporate
responsibility and ensure accountability from US and other foreign
oil companies in Nigeria, including the clean-up of past pollution?
- What policies and practices do you propose to ensure that
increased US aid supports civilian reconstruction and broad based
economic development rather than military expansion?
- What measures do you support to cancel Nigeria's debt?
(6) Human rights for all are not only valuable in themselves, but
are also indispensable to ensure sustainable and equitable economic
development. Equal education and access to credit for women, for
example, enhance children's health and agricultural production.
Groups deprived of their rights, such as modern-day slaves in Sudan
and Mauritania, are particularly victimized by conflict and
poverty. It appears in many cases that US economic interests take
priority over the promotion of human rights in US/Africa policy.
- What enforceable measures do you propose to ensure that
governments and corporations benefitting from US aid and trade
relations do not violate human rights in Africa?
Promoting Peace and Security
(7) Unresolved conflicts, such as in Angola, Congo and Sudan, and
governments resistant to democracy, such as in C“te d'Ivoire,
Egypt, Kenya and Zimbabwe, threaten to reverse the trend of
democratization in Africa. There is no "one-size-fits-all"
solution. It is clear, however, that sustained international
engagement designed to target the root causes of conflict makes a
significant contribution to sustainable peacemaking. Efforts which
support resolutions with long-term benefits for the broader society
increase the potential for democratic initiatives to succeed in
Africa.
- What do you propose to ensure that the US identify and pursue
non-military measures to prevent conflicts and to support African
campaigns for peace and democracy where conflict exists?
- Which countries would you give priority attention to, and why?
(8) US failure to pay its UN dues, particularly for peacekeeping
operations, heightens the double standard resulting in neglect for
humanitarian crises arising from African conflicts. In 1999, for
example, UN humanitarian appeals raised $453 for each "target
beneficiary" in Kosovo, and only $33 for each "target beneficiary"
in Sierra Leone.
- Do you support full and immediate US payment of its obligations
to the UN? Do you support increasing UN capacity for effective
peacekeeping and humanitarian operations in Africa?
Combating Racism
(9) Although there are more refugees and internally displaced
persons in Africa than any other region of the world, the US has
only one full processing site for all 54 countries of Africa.
Ceilings for admission of African refugees are disproportionately
lower than other regions and fewer processing sites ensure that
fewer Africans will be approved for relocation to the US. 97% of
immigrants detained in the US are people of color, yet the top five
countries of origin for illegal immigrants are European. This stark
reality has led to accusations that the Immigration and
Naturalization Service (INS) is practicing "a decidedly racist
pattern of detainment" - racial profiling. Once granted admission,
Africans are less likely than Europeans to be given the status that
qualifies them for support services such as English classes, job
training and emergency food assistance, typically necessary for a
successful transition to self-reliant participation in American
society.
- What measures would you take to correct these discriminatory and
harsh immigration policies disproportionately applied to African
immigrants and asylum seekers?
- What new policies would you promote to ensure more equitable
processing opportunities, ceilings for admission, and resettlement
resources for African refugees seeking asylum in the US?
(10) Many people say countries which benefitted so tremendously
from the slave trade should pay reparations to Africans and their
descendants, comparable to restitution provided Holocaust and
Japanese internment camp survivors. Reparations should be based not
only on the historical exploitation and destruction caused by the
slave trade and colonialism, but also the crimes of segregation and
structural racism, as well as the Cold War support for apartheid
and other brutal African dictatorships.
- Do you agree? If so, how do you think such reparations should be
implemented in order to address this legacy of injustice? If you do
not agree with reparations, why not?
Washington Post editorial October 13, 2000
(excerpts only: for full text http://www.washingtonpost.com)
The Lesson of Rwanda
... when Rwanda came up during Wednesday's presidential debate,
neither candidate seemed to have grasped even its most basic
lessons.
Gov. George W. Bush got the first chance to reflect upon Rwanda. He
declared that the Clinton administration was right not to
send U.S. troops to stop the killing, and that in the future there
should be early warning systems in places where genocide might
happen. An aspiring president ought to know that, in the case of
Rwanda, there was no lack of early warning. Beginning in
January 1994, three months before the genocide started, the
Canadian general in charge of the U.N. contingent in Rwanda sent
five cables to U.N. headquarters in New York warning that a
bloodbath was brewing and begging for reinforcements. In
February Belgium pressed the same case at the United Nations too.
All the major powers, including the United States, were
well aware of these warnings. They ignored them.
Next, Vice President Al Gore commented. He said, rightly, that "in
retrospect we were too late getting in there. We would have
saved more lives if we had acted earlier." But Mr. Gore also sought
to imply that the administration had not failed completely to
act: "We did actually send troops into Rwanda to help with the
humanitarian relief measures." But U.S. troops did not arrive in
Rwanda until July, after the killing was finished. Mr. Gore also
said the United States was right not to have "put our troops in to
try to separate the parties." But that was not what a Rwanda
intervention need have entailed. In much of the country, the
genocide did not involve two armed bands fighting pitched battles.
It involved thugs killing unarmed civilians.
Mr. Gore went on to say, "In the Balkans, we had allies, NATO,
ready, willing and able to go and carry a big part of the
burden. In Africa, we did not." This is not true either. In Rwanda,
the United States could have built on help from the United
Nations, which had a force of 2,800--before it was cut back in
April, partly at American urging. In May, after the massacre
had begun, the United Nations assembled an African force to go to
Rwanda, and asked the United States to supply 50
armored vehicles. But the United States failed to deliver these for
weeks, arguing over who would provide spare parts and
maintenance.
It is bad enough that Mr. Gore, who claimed to espouse a foreign
policy based on values, half-defends a failure for which even
President Clinton has apologized. It is worse that Mr. Bush does
not even see a policy failure in the way America allowed the
genocide to unfold.
Washington Post opinion column by Colbert I. King October 14, 2000
(excerpts only: for full text http://www.washingtonpost.com)
Asked by moderator Jim Lehrer of PBS's "NewsHour" "Why not Africa?"
when it comes to U.S. intervention overseas, Bush
invoked--unknowingly perhaps--the "Pinky" foreign policy doctrine.
For those too young to remember, "Pinky" was the 1949 film about a
black girl, played by actress Jeanne Crain, who was able
to pass for white. For many years following the movie's release, a
line in the film seemed to get quoted without fail at every
black dinner table and in black barber shops and beauty parlors
across the country whenever talk turned to race.
In "Pinky," a black character, angrily commenting on the state of
race relations at the time, told one of his friends that in
America: "If you're white, you're all right. If you're brown, stick
around. If you're black, git back!"
Those words, or at least the thought behind them, were put into
play by Bush on Wednesday night in Winston-Salem.
Why American intervention in the Balkans, but not Africa, where
600,000 people died in Rwanda in 1994, Lehrer wanted to
know. Bush agreed that the Rwanda genocide was horrible. "No one
liked to see it on our TV screens," he said. "But there's
got to be priorities," he declared.
Said the Texas governor: "Middle East is a priority for a lot of
reasons as is Europe and the Far East and our own hemisphere."
Drawing a line on the globe, Bush said, "Those are my four top
priorities should I be the president."
Message to Africa, whence more than 30 million African Americans
trace their roots: "Git back."
The "Pinky" doctrine is also operative closer to home. While Bush
listed the American hemisphere among his top priorities, he
explicitly excluded Haiti, the black nation in America's own back
yard.
It's almost as if he doesn't believe--or care--that the yearnings
for democracy and peace might be as strong in Zimbabwe as
they are in Yugoslavia; that people of Ivory Coast hate being under
the power of the gun as much as those in the Serbian
province of Kosovo; that Nigerians, Kenyans and Liberians want to
see freedom take hold in their part of the world as much as
Mexicans, Koreans and Czechs.
Maybe Bush doesn't think the lives of an African mother and baby
fleeing from a marauder's machete are worth as much as
those of a European woman and child who are dodging a sniper's
bullets.
Links to Poll Data
Africa-America Institute
Remarks by Clay Ramsay, Research Director
Program on International Policy Attitudes
September 21, 2000
http://www.aaionline.org/bp/africa_thursday/aai_septe2000.htm
Summarizes polls showing, for example:
- 69% say Africa is "important" or "vitally important," 28% say "
not important" or "not at all."
- 50% agree US is not doing enough on AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa;
33% disagree.
- 58% would favor international military action to stop genocide
in Africa or in Asia, essentially the same as in Europe (60%).
Program on International Policy Attitudes/Center on Policy
Attitudes
http://www.pipa.org and http://www.policyattitudes.org
Numerous online reports on polls on international issues
http://www.policyattitudes.org/OnlineReports/Budget/contents.html
Report on September 2000 poll on budget issues, showing that,
when voters were asked to allocate budget funds by percentage, UN
and UN peacekeeping received the highest percentage increase of
all programs. In contrast, voters opted for reducing defense
spending by 24%.
This material is produced and distributed by the
Africa Policy Information Center (APIC). APIC provides
accessible information and analysis in order to promote U.S.
and international policies toward Africa that advance economic,
political and social justice and the full spectrum of human
rights.
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