Africa Activism and National Summit on Africa
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Greetings to all!
The latest issue of the Progressive Response includes information and
analysis about the National Summit on Africa. The following para-
graphs are excerpted from today's issue. To read the complete text,
link to the Progressive Response from the Foreign Policy in Focus
homepage:
http://www.foreignpolicy-infocus.org
Readers are encouraged to link to a FPIF special report by William
Minter of the Africa Policy Information Center. His essay "United
States and Africa: Starting Points for a New Policy Framework" is
posted at:
http://www.foreignpolicy-infocus.org/papers/africa/index.html
*** AFRICA ACTIVISM: WHAT DIRECTION NOW? ***
By Jim Lobe and Jim Cason
(Jim Lobe is a Washington-based correspondent with the Inter Press
Service news agency. Jim Cason is an executive committee member of
the Association of Concerned Africa Scholars. Both are part of FPIF's
"think tank without walls.")
From February 16 to 20, some 2,300 committed and energetic delegates
from throughout the United States gathered in Washington, DC, for a
five-day, high-profile "summit" dedicated to building a politically
powerful coalition for Africa, but there was much uncertainty about
how to do it. The official program and plenary sessions were domi-
nated by U.S. and African government officials, members of Congress,
and corporate leaders. But the energy in the workshops and hallways
of this event, as well as the commitment of delegates to use their
own funds to get to Washington for the meeting, demonstrated again
the potential for Africa activism that still exists in the United
States ten years after the South African victory over apartheid. Par-
ticularly noticeable was the high attendance--upwards of 30%--of Af-
rica expatriates who established themselves during the conference as
key players in any future constituency for the continent.
The National Summit on Africa (NSA) was a four-year effort, gener-
ously funded with almost $8 million by the Ford Foundation and the
Carnegie Corporation of New York. The NSA approved a 254-point plat-
form--a sometimes-contradictory laundry list of policy recommenda-
tions--the "National Policy Plan of Action for U.S.-Africa Relations
in the 21st Century."
Beginning in May 1998, the National Summit on Africa convened a se-
ries of "regional summits and policy fora" around five broad themes
in U.S.-African relations:
1) democracy and human rights;
2) economic development, trade and investment, and job creation;
3) education and culture;
4) peace and security; and
5) sustainable development, quality of life, and the environment.
Each regional summit elected state delegations who, together with 500
at-large delegates, participated in the deliberative process at the
Washington gathering. The NSA's National Policy Plan will be pre-
sented to policymakers with the view that it will form the blueprint
for a new and broader U.S. engagement with Africa in the 21st cen-
tury.
Among the specific proposals endorsed by the summit were an urgent
request for the U.S. to provide increased funding for AIDS research,
education, and prevention and a demand for comprehensive debt relief
for Africa. The final summit document also calls for conditional sup-
port of the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act trade bill that is cur-
rently before the U.S. Congress and for a new "Marshall Plan"--scale
commitment of additional financial resources for African development.
The recommendations urge Washington to support a ban on landmines,
end sales of small arms to Africa, and provide far more money for
peacekeeping missions in Africa.
But the final assembly, addressed by two of the most widely respected
black politicians, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Jr.(D-IL) and former Rep. Ron
Dellums (D-CA), was clouded with charges by many grassroots and non-
governmental organizations (NGOs) rooted in the antiapartheid move-
ment that the mobilizing effort put into the summit risked being hi-
jacked by a leadership with a "corporate-friendly" agenda. "Somehow
all the hard work we put into making our voices heard here was for
nothing," complained Nunu Kidane, a former co-chair of the California
delegation. Kidane had helped organize the San Francisco regional
summit, but she resigned in disgust because of what she characterized
as the top-down nature of the NSA.
"Many of the people who went to Africa to do solidarity work in the
1960s and 1970s, knew they would never get paid," said Prexy Nesbitt,
a Chicago-based activist and educator who serves on the board of the
Africa Fund and has worked with TransAfrica, the Washington Office on
Africa, and many of the other national Africa groups. "But today,"
Nesbitt explained, "[with the emphasis on trade and investment],
you're getting more and more people going with a sense of 'what is in
it for me?' This [meeting] is controlled by the latter type. These
are the new colonizers."
Although Nesbitt didn't mention him by name, he appeared to describe
Leonard H. Robinson, Jr., the NSA's "president and CEO", who had de-
fended Washington's "constructive engagement" policy with apartheid
South Africa as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Af-
fairs in the Reagan and Bush administrations. More recently Robinson
worked as a lobbyist for both Sani Abacha's military regime in Nige-
ria and Togolese president Gnassingbe Eyadema, one of Africa's long-
est ruling dictators. Robinson apparently intends to transform the
NSA into a permanent organization directed with a board half of whose
directors will represent U.S. corporations active in Africa. "We're
going to need a board that brings a lot more to the table," said
Sunni Khalid, the former National Public Radio reporter who is now
the summit spokesperson. "It takes a lot of money to do this."
"Little urgency is given to our problems, and when assistance is ren-
dered, it is relatively too little and often delayed," Organization
of African Unity (OAU) Secretary-General Salim A. Salim told the
delegates during the opening speeches. "This is in remarkable con-
trast to how other societies are treated in this regard. It boils
down to the fact that Africa lacks a strong constituency in the
United States," Secretary-General Salim added.
Salih Booker, who until recently worked with the Council on Foreign
Relations and who drafted the original proposal as a consultant for
Ford and Africare, resigned from the board in October 1998 to protest
the lack of transparency with which the process was being conducted
and the lack of a policy for accepting financial contributions from
corporations with questionable records in Africa, including Chevron.
Unease on the twenty-eight member board increased last December when
Robinson circulated an internal memorandum in which he laid out the
case for creating a new organization after the summit to act as the
"central repository on Africa-related issues and affairs." Arguing
that the lobbying network for Africa had been "moribund [especially
since the conclusion of the Free South Africa movement], largely in-
effectual over a sustained period and considered a nonfactor by the
various power centers of decisionmaking in Washington," Robinson as-
serted that "it would be a travesty if the summit failed to capital-
ize on the momentum it has generated to fill the void."
More disappointments were to come. Grassroots and NGO delegates were
incensed both about the sponsorship by corporate giants Chevron and
Monsanto of specific events and about the appearance of Kenyan Presi-
dent Daniel arap Moi as the sole African head of state to address the
meeting. "Taking money from Chevron was a violation of decisions
taken earlier in the summit process and of the people who are strug-
gling in the Niger Delta," said Jennifer Davis, director of the New
York-based Africa Fund, which played a leading role in the antiapart-
heid movement and more recently in the struggle against military rule
in Nigeria. "I would have preferred to do without a couple of dinners
and not have Chevron and Monsanto as donors," said New York cochair
Mojubaolu Olufunke Okome, a Nigerian who addressed the final plenary
session on behalf of many of the dissidents and won a standing ova-
tion for her comments. "Chevron's policies in the Niger delta are
morally bankrupt," she said, adding that a member of her own family
had been killed in the violence that has wracked the oil-rich region.
*** COMMEMORATIVE BOOK OF SUMMIT ***
(Editor's Note: The following are excerpts from the National Summit on
Africa's "Commemorative Book" outlining the history and purpose of
the Summit. For more information, visit:
http://www.africasummit.org/ )
"The Summit concept became a reality through wide-ranging consulta-
tions with key organizations and individuals... There was a consensus
that improving U.S./Africa relations and the broader public's under-
standing of the continent were essential to (1) enable the U.S. to be
a responsible partner and take advantage of the tremendous opportuni-
ties on the continent, and (2) facilitate a better appreciation of
our national diversity. Inclusiveness, diversity, and broad public
outreach were guiding principles. It was determined that the American
people should be engaged in U.S./Africa relations as never before
through a movement intended to inform and empower them. The Summit
was to be a resource-rich organization acting as a catalyst to bring
existing and new efforts together to ignite a new era of U.S./Africa
cooperation.
"...The National Summit on Africa set out to accomplish its objec-
tives by convening a series of regional policy dialogues, sub-
regional policy fora, and numerous local caucuses and educational
programs....By the conclusion...the National Summit on Africa will
have: produced a Policy Plan of Action for U.S./Africa relations; di-
rectly reached nearly 20,000 Americans and many more through media
coverage and public service announcements; helped to generate many
locally-based Africa-focused organizations; created a delegate struc-
ture through the United States; and outreached to countless continen-
tal and U.S.-based Africans to obtain their views, guidance, and sup-
port....The once distorted face of Africa consistently painted by the
media in this country has given way to a more positive portrayal in
mainstream newspapers throughout the United States...
"Perhaps the most powerful indicator of the Summit's progress is in
its partnerships. Never before, with the possible exception of the
anti-apartheid movement, have political figures from both parties
come together to support a movement in the way they have the National
Summit on Africa. ... These accomplishments have positioned a power-
ful network comprised of informed Americans and representatives from
the non-profit, business, educational, religious, union, and grass-
roots communities to carry forward with a strong and diverse voice,
the clear message that Americans want a stronger and more positive
relationship with Africa...."
Sources for more Information on Africa:
African Faith and Justice Network
mailto:afjn@afjn.org
http://afjn.cua.edu/
Africa Fund
mailto:africafund@igc.org
http://www.theafricafund.org/
Africa News Service
mailto:newsdesk@africanews.org
http://www.africanews.org/
Africa Policy Information Center
mailto:apic@africapolicy.org
http://www.africapolicy.org/
Africare
mailto:africare@africare.org
http://www.africare.org/
Amnesty International
mailto:aakewei@igc.org
http://www.amnestyusa.org/ailib/aireport/ar99/index-afr.htm
Association of Concerned Africa Scholars
mailto:wgmartin@uiuc.edu
http://www.prairienet.org/acas/
Human Rights Watch/Africa
mailto:hrwdc@hrw.org
http://www.hrw.org/
National Summit on Africa
mailto:africasummit@africasummit.org
http://www.africasummit.org/
TransAfrica
mailto:transforum@igc.org
Washington Office on Africa
mailto:woa@igc.org
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