---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 17:42:31 -0800
From: Charlotte Utting <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: [log in to unmask]
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [wa-afr] FW: UPDATE: Press Briefing Bush foreign policy
----------
From: [log in to unmask]
Organization: Africa Policy Information Center
Reply-To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 15:55:37 -0500
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: UPDATE: Press Briefing Bush foreign policy
ADNA Update: 012601
Message from: ACOA/Africa Fund and APIC
For contact information see also:
http://www.africapolicy.org
Dear ADNA members,
Following find the presentation given by Salih Booker, of
ACOA/Africa Fund and the Africa Policy Information Center at the
National Press Club briefing yesterday. Feel free to share this with
your contacts.
Regards,
Vicki Ferguson
ADNA Communications Facilitator
From: "Salih Booker" <[log in to unmask]>
Date sent: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 22:24:29 -0500
Subject: today's briefing on bush policies
George Bush's Foreign Policy Agenda
National Press Club Briefing
January 25, 2001
Africa: Off the Agenda?
Salih Booker, Executive Director
American Committee on Africa, The Africa Fund & Africa Policy
Information Center (APIC)
Will Africa be "off the Agenda" of a Bush administration? Only four
days in office and we can answer that question with a resounding
NO! It is far worse than that. Four days into the term of the
appointed President, and Bush has already in effect declared war
on Africa and Africans.
* George Bush's very first foreign policy action -- and one in which
it appears the Secretary of State was not consulted -- has been to
de_fund international public health and family planning services, by
withdrawing U.S. money form service providers who also provide
reproductive health education and abortion services using money
from other sources. In light of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa,
this is criminal. It amounts to throwing gasoline on the fire that is
AIDS. * Bush's next action has been to place under review the
Clinton Executive Order (May 2000) that supports African rights to
import or produce generic versions of HIV/AIDS medications that
are still under U.S. patent. The impending reversal of this order is
an anti_African measure of immense proportions. It would be the
moral equivalent of carpet bombing Africa and done in the name of
American pharmaceutical companies, the devastating
consequences for Africa's economy and security to be felt later.
We have predicted a return to the blatantly anti-African policies of
the Reagan era characterized by a general antipathy toward black
people and a fabricated perception of Africa as a social welfare
case. We were not being pessimistic, but rather we were attempting
to draw attention to the public record on the admittedly limited
"thoughts" of the former Texas Governor and to the record of the
Bush team members.
* During the campaign, Bush and his advisors repeatedly stressed
that Africa did not "fit into the national strategic interests" of
America. During the televised debates he said Africa was not a
priority, and that he wouldn't intervene to prevent or stop genocide in
Africa should such a threat -- as occurred in Rwanda in 1994 --
develop.
* Dick Cheney's perspective on Africa is epitomized by his 1986
vote, while a member of Congress, in favor of keeping Nelson
Mandela in prison and his opposition to sanctions against apartheid
in South Africa. More recently, as the CEO of Haliburton the
world's largest oil services company he was complicit in sustaining
the dictatorship of the late Gen. Sani Abacha in Nigeria.
* National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice was until this year a
Director of Chevron, another oil company that buttressed military
rule in Nigeria and literally hired the regime's soldiers to fire on
unarmed protesters at the sites of its operations. A Chevron oil
tanker bears her name!
With Bush himself coming from the oil industry as do so many in his
cabinet, some observers have begun to refer to the administration
as an "Oiligarchy". Indeed Oil is likely to top the list of American
interests in Africa as defined by the Bush team and they will
concentrate on helping oil industry friends reap maximum profits
with minimum constraints.
The selection of General Colin Powell as the first African American
Secretary of State, along with Rice (the first African American
National Security Advisor), is unlikely to be sufficient to obfuscate
the base racism that remains the major determinant of U.S. policies
toward Africa. And neither of them have demonstrated particular
interest in or special knowledge of African issues (Powell's election
observer role in Nigeria notwithstanding). Moreover, both are loyal
Republicans with a shared conventional orientation toward
international affairs that derives from a narrow militaristic
understanding of human security.
They are also unilateralists at a time when the need for multilateral
support for peace and security in Africa rather than continued
expansion of unaccountable bilateral military ties is one of Africans'
highest priorities. Congo, Sierra Leone, Sudan are obvious
examples where support of United Nations peacekeeping operations
will become crucial.
On two other priority issues, however, debt cancellation and the
HIV/AIDS pandemic public pressure will make the difference in
defining U.S. Africa policy, just as did the struggle for sanctions
against apartheid in the Reagan years.
* During the debates Bush announced his support for debt relief for
poor countries and he must be held accountable to that
* Republican skepticism of multilateral institutions, in this case the
World Bank and the IMF, finds some common ground with critics on
the political left
* Large segments of the faith community with close ties to the
Republicans support debt reduction
* African American activism for debt cancellation, repudiation and
reparations will grow considerably during the Bush term
In the context of a Bush administration and a divided Congress,
breaking through the systemic American disdain for Africa will not
happen unless there are real shifts in public perceptions,
comparable to those that happened in the 1980s regarding apartheid
in south Africa. In this sense the AIDS pandemic is a wake-up call.
* the AIDS epicenter is Africa, and it is a consequence and a
dramatic feature of global apartheid (an international version of Jim
Crow segregation where access to basic human rights including to
quality healthcare is denied along the Color line)
* Pharmaceutical companies continue to campaign against African
production and importation of generic anti-retroviral drug alternatives
to protect the existing price structure and their enormous profits
* instead of cutting funding for international public health, Bush
should be considering setting aside five percent of the budget
surplus to create a global fund for international public health crises
such as AIDS
* though AIDS has been declared a threat to U.S. national security,
only a meager $300 million in new funds for AIDS programs
worldwide was appropriated for FY2001
* African governments are spending more on debt payments to rich
countries and institutions than on health and education for their own
people
Finally, there is the matter of Race. The basic illegitimacy of the
Bush administration in the eyes of the vast majority of African
Americans has foreign policy implications. It will make it more
difficult for the White House or State Department to be taken
seriously if they choose to support democratization in Africa,
something that was missing during the Clinton years and which
should be central to U.S. policies toward Africa. Beyond that, the
return of such blatant discrimination as occurred in Florida or as is
inherent in the record of Attorney General-designate John Ashcroft,
along with the continuation of racial prejudice and double standards
toward Africa that are at the core of U.S. traditions in foreign policy,
will open up the terrain for equally blunt and direct action against
racism and racist policies toward Africa and Africans.
The real foreign policy priority for the United States is the threat
presented by the structural inequities that perpetuate war and
poverty in the world today where race, place, class and gender are
clearly the major determinants of peoples' full access to the entire
spectrum of human rights. The appointed president, George Bush ,
has now declared where he stands on this greatest challenge facing
our world. This will not pass.
***
This message from ACOA/Africa Fund and the Africa Policy
Information Center is distributed through the Advocacy Network for
Africa (ADNA).
Vicki Lynn Ferguson
Advocacy Network for Africa
Communications Facilitator
c/o Africa Policy Information Center
110 Maryland Ave, NE #509
Washington, DC 20002
Ph: 202-546-7961
Fax: 202-546-1545
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Web: http://www.africapolicy.org/adna
Our next meeting is Wednesday, Jan 31, Garfield Comm Ctr, E Cherry and 23rd, Seattle
7:00 PM WSAN business meeting
8:00 PM Program: Pan-African and International Conference for the Cancellation of the African
and Third World Debt/Jubilee South
We usually meet the last Wednesday of the month. To post a message: [log in to unmask] To subscribe sending a blank message to [log in to unmask] To unsubscribe send a blank message to [log in to unmask] For complete information on the Washington State Africa Network visit: www.ibike.org/africamatters
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