Association of Concerned Africa Scholars
Analysis and Action on Policies Impacting Africa

In 2000 a young Eritrean woman named Aster Yohannes arrived in Phoenix, AZ with a dream of completing her college education so she could return home to her husband and four young children. She was the recipient of a UN-funded scholarship for college bound individuals in her homeland Eritrea. In September of 2001, Aster’s husband, the former Minister Petros Solomon was arrested, along with 10 other high-ranking members of the government for demanding democratic reform. When the Government of Eritrea refused to allow Aster to bring her children to the US, she felt she had to return to Eritrea.

In response to the accelerating repression against students and scholars in Ethiopia, ACAS on May 11th wrote to Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, urging him to release all detainees and restore conditions ensuring freedom of speech and academic freedom. While some detainees have been released, others have not.

Association of Concerned Africa Scholars
February 5, 2001

President Benjamin William Mkapa,
United Republic of Tanzania
The State House
PO Box 9120
Dar Es Salaam
Tanzania
FAX 22-211-3425

Dear President Mkapa,

The Association of Concerned Africa Scholars writes today to condemn the killings of activists on the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba in late January and the ongoing suppression of peaceful citizens exercising their democratic rights. We support the call of our colleagues in the Legal Aid Committee of the Faculty of Law of the University of Dar Es Salaam (28 January 2001) for an end to police violence and repression.

As a national association of scholars in the United States, many of whom have had a long association with and respect for the United Republic of Tanzania, we are deeply concerned by these violations of fundamental human rights and the killings on the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba on Saturday 27 January 2001. We were equally appalled by the reports of arrests, harassment, torture, injury and incarceration of the leaders of political organizations exercising their rights to peaceful assembly on these islands and in Dar Es Salaam. We condemn these actions unequivocally and call for your government to immediately put a stop to such measures and to investigate the abuses of the police and other security forces.

We note that the Legal Aid Committee, which has been providing human rights training for members of the police force since 1997, expresses particular concern at the behavior of the police force and we call on the government to ensure that the commanders of this force are held accountable for the actions of their subordinates.

Mr. President, we look forward to hearing from you the actions that your government is taking to put a stop to these violations of human rights and we will be following these events closely in this country and working to make others aware of the reports from your country.

Sincerely,
William Martin
Co-Chair, Association of Concerned Africa Scholars
Fernand Braudel Center
Binghamton University
PO Box 6000
Binghamton, NY 13902-6000
[email protected]

http://acas.prairienet.org

cc.
Ambassador Charles R. Stith
United States Embassy
P.O. Box 9123
Dar es Salaam
Tel [255] (22) 2666010/1/2/3/4/5
Fax 2666701
Email: [email protected]

His Excellency Mustafa Salim Nyang’anyi
Embassy of the United Republic of Tanzania
2139 R St. NW, Washington, DC 20008, USA.
Tel: (202) 884-1080 & (202) 939-6125
Fax: (202) 797-7408
e-mail: [email protected]

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell
U.S. Department of State, Washington, DC, 20520
Fax: 202-261-8577
e-mail: [email protected]

Association of Concerned Africa Scholars
January 31, 2001

[Note: Within a week after this letter, Dr. Depelchin was released and ended his hunger strike after UN observors were dispatched to Ituri province. Dr. Depelchin shortly thereafter left Uganda. We thank ACAS members and others for their work on this and related, continuing, issues.]

31 January 2001
His Excellency Yoweri K. Museveni
President of the Republic of Uganda
The President’s Office
Kampala, Uganda
Fax: 256 41 235 462

Dear Mr. President,

I write on behalf of the Association of Concerned Africa Scholars to express our deep concern and dismay over the kidnapping by Ugandan forces of Dr. Jacques Depelchin, whom many of us know from his work in the North American and African academic community. Dr. Depelchin was arrested at gunpoint on January 28, 2001 in Bunia, and taken to Kampala by force. He is now apparently under some form of “city arrest,” and is engaged, in response, on a hunger strike.

As far as we know, there is no justification for this action, and no charges have been laid against him. We thus urge that restrictions on Dr. Depelchin be immediately removed, and that his possessions be returned to him.

If, however, the Ugandan authorities have evidence that Dr. Depelchin has violated the law or committed a crime, then they should formally charge in open court and give him an opportunity to defend himself, with legal counsel, as guaranteed under law.

We also urge that your office to work to end the promotion of ethnic violence and genocide in Ituri province, and to encourage the despatch of neutral international observors to Bunia and Ituri.

Sincerely,
William G. Martin, Co-Chair

We the undersigned human rights, religious, development, humanitarian, and consumer organizations call upon the international diamond industry to announce immediate, practical measures to end the international trade in conflict diamonds. We are dismayed that despite clear evidence that international trade in rebel-controlled diamonds has ignited, fueled, and sustained cruel conflicts in Sierra Leone, Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for many years, to date neither the diamond industry nor diamond importing governments have taken actions to successfully limit or end that trade.

The Association of Concerned Africa Scholars
July 19, 1999

Africa Growth and Opportunity Act Passes House
Efforts to Oppose Economic Conditionality Defeated
Opponents Focus on Senate

The House of Representatives in mid-July approved the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (H.R. 2489), legislation that if it became law would link new trade preferences for Africa to structural adjustment reforms and IMF style conditionalities. The ACAS Executive Committee believes the legislation approved by the House is worse than no bill at all and we recommend members urge their Senators to vote against the bill when it comes for a vote in that body.

Supporters of the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), including the Clinton administration, most business groups, Africare, the African American Institute, a majority of the Black Caucus and the entire African diplomatic corps in Washington, argue the legislation is a long overdue recognition of U.S. interests in Africa and an important first step in promoting U.S. trade and investment. The conditionalities in the legislation, argue supporters, are modest and in most cases are subject to the presidential discretion. But opponents such as Representatives Jesse Jackson, Jr., Maxine Waters and 12 other members of the Black caucus as well as the 13 million member AFL-CIO trade union federation, TransAfrica, the Sierra Club, Public Citizen, COSATU and a coalition of African NGOs argue the legislation imposes economic policy prescriptions without providing meaningful development for the poorest continent in the world. (For a full list of opponents see the Public Citizen web site at http://www.citizen.org/pctrade/Africa/opponents.htm). Although the South African government now supports the legislation, Nelson Mandela’s first reaction to the legislation was to call it “unacceptable.” An alternative trade bill proposed by Rep. Jesse Jackson (and cosponsored by 75 other members of Congress), that would expand trade preference, call for debt cancellation and insist on minimal levels of continuing development aid, was not even brought to a vote. Its provisions should be reconsidered by the House and Senate.

What AGOA Does

The legislation approved by the House offers African countries a series of rewards, including expanded duty free access to American markets for certain products, equity and infrastructure funds to support U.S. investment, and establishment of a mechanism to promote and review U.S. trade policy toward Africa. Yet to receive these benefits, African governments must remove restrictions on foreign investment, reduce corporate taxes and privatize state owned companies.

The benefits of these programs are, moreover, minimal. The House bill would in theory allow duty free imports of textiles, primarily from Kenya and Mauritius, if the textile imports do not damage U.S. companies. But a March 1999 Congressional Budget Office study suggested that in reality 90 percent of African textiles would probably be declared “import sensitive” and denied access to U.S. markets. The Senate version of the bill, which has been approved by the Senate Finance Committee but not by the full Senate, allows imports only of textiles made with U.S. cloth and thread.

The legislation also provides authority for the president to provide “duty free” access to U.S. markets for certain African goods under a trade provision known as GSP. Yet according to the Deputy U.S. Trade Representative, more than 29 African countries already have GSP trade status and the real effect of this provision is simply to encourage the president to consider allowing “enhanced GSP” status for certain African products if they will not damage U.S. manufacturers. Each decision on each product would have to first be reviewed by both the U.S. Trade Representative and the International Trade Commission.

Supporters argue the real value of the bill is not so much in the specific lifting of trade restrictions, but in the framework it establishes for promoting trade with Africa including the call for a free trade agreement between the U.S. and Africa and the establishment of annual forums at which trade and finance ministers from Africa and the U.S. meet. Efforts to strengthen U.S. ties with Africa are indeed welcome, and the Clinton administration has already established a special trade office for Africa and the first ever meeting of African and U.S. trade and finance ministers was held in Washington in early 1999. But what are the benefits to those who do not attend meetings of government officials and other elites?

The Wrong Framework, the Wrong Symbolism

A closer examination reveals that the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act approved by the House establishes the wrong framework and is a step in the wrong direction. The legislation passed by the House establishes a framework that might at best help a few more economically advanced countries-but will bring few if any benefits to the majority of people in Africa. Indeed at its core are policies now proven to increase poverty and decrease the provision of public goods such as health care and education.

At the core of the Act is another attempt to force African governments to prioritize a series of free market principles, including cuts in government expenditures, privatization of government corporations, new rights for foreign investors to buy African natural resources and state firms without limits, deep cuts in tariffs, and membership in the World Trade Organization. (See the attached excerpts from the bill for a list of the conditions.)

Labor advocates did manage to force the sponsors to add a provision raising the issue of labor rights and there is a reference to the importance of respect for “internationally recognized human rights,” but eleven of the twelve items on the checklist used to determine “eligibility” for benefits under the legislation are designed to open markets for U.S. investment and trade.

Such priorities were made starkly clear in the debate on the House floor in mid-July, when the sponsors of this legislation used a parliamentary maneuver to defeat an attempt that would have allowed countries to import generic, lower cost drugs to deal with national emergencies such as the HIV/AIDS crisis. At the moment, the U.S. is vigorously threatening South Africa with trade sanctions in retaliation for the South African government’s efforts to obtain low cost, generic alternatives to drugs necessary for combating AIDS.

These policies are not new. The World Bank and IMF have been imposing these policies on poorer countries in the world for decades, but even the multilateral institutions have acknowledged that these policies have not improved conditions for the poorest segment of the world’s population. In fact, according to a new report by the United Nations Development Program, the poorest countries have actually gotten poorer in the last decade and that same report notes that 29 of the 34 poorest countries in the world are in Africa.

In summary: the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act passed by the House is a step in the wrong direction. This legislation is an attempt to force African countries to prioritize macroeconomic policies that are not appropriate for the level of development in Africa.

An Alternative Vision

Congressman Jesse Jackson, with the assistance of labor, citizen and environment groups, drafted an alternative piece of legislation-the HOPE for Africa Act (H.R. 772)–that sought to focus U.S. Africa policy on debt relief, development assistance and social programs. That legislation, however, was never brought to the floor for a full debate. (For a full comparison of that legislation with the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, see the Public Citizen comparison on the web).

Defeat AGOA in the Senate

The Africa Growth and Opportunity Act must now be approved by the Senate. The ACAS Executive urges members to write to your senators and express your opposition to this legislation, and urge a new, fairer deal for Africa-as proposed in key provisions of the Hope Act.

July 19, 1999
The Association of Concerned Africa Scholars

By Bill Martin, Co-Chair ACAS
20 July 1998

The trade and investment legislation known as the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act has already been approved by the House and is coming up for a vote in the Senate Finance Committee this week. ACAS, along with many of our African allies and US groups like TransAfrica, the AFL-CIO and Public Citizen, believes this legislation is worse than no bill at all.

We encourage our members to actively oppose the bill.

We attach to this message background material that documents the problems with this legislation in its current form. This includes a background briefing, entitled “Dictated Trade,” that explains the principal problems with the legislation. We also provide excerpts from the eligibility requirements contained in the bill, which demonstrate the strict conditionalities to be imposed on African states.

We urge you to contact your Senators and asked them to vote against the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (S. 778).

Senate and other Washington DC addresses can be obtained from our web site

Further information, including statements by other African and US organizations, is also available on our ACAS web site as well as Public Citizen’s extensive site on the bill: the Public Citizen web site

Dictated Trade: The Case Against the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act [H.R. 1432, S. 778]

President Bill Clinton and the U.S. Congress should be applauded for seeking to define a new U.S. foreign policy toward Africa that recognizes the demands from the continent for political, social and economic change. ACAS also welcomes the legislation’s intent to strengthen U.S. ties with the continent. The current draft of the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act pending before the Senate, however, is worse than no bill at all.

While this trade and investment legislation has won the enthusiastic support of some African governments, and the more lukewarm support of others (note President Nelson Mandela’s dissent), other African social movements and analysts have long argued that the policies promoted by the bill will result in yet greater hunger, poverty, and foreign control over the continent.

The Act does break new ground: it proposes to shift our relationship with Africa from aid to trade and investment. In fact, this month as the trade legislation is being debated, the Senate is also proposing cuts in foreign aid that will result in a 20% t o 30% reduction in foreign aid to Africa according to the Clinton administration.

The legislation offers a series of rewards for countries pursuing IMF style market-led economic reforms, including expanded duty free access to American markets for certain products, equity and infrastructure funds to support US investment, and the establishment of a mechanism to promote and review trade policy toward Africa.

Promoters of the Act, however, have been unable to demonstrate how African producers will benefit, beyond slight increases in textile exports. How producers of other manufactured goods, much less raw materials-and particularly oil which is 70% of US imports from Africa–might gain is not at all evident. It is no surprise that the most industrial and powerful African government has found the bill’s provisions, in the words of Nelson Mandela, “unacceptable.”

Those who will benefit are obvious. As one South African business magazine reported: “the prime beneficiaries of the Clinton African plan are the major American corporations.” Hundreds of millions of dollars in guarantees are allocated to insure US investment, subsidizing firms who reap the rewards of the forced privatization of African telecommunications and infrastructure. While the bill’s promoters speak of assisting Africans, African-Americans, and women, the primary group targeted for assistance a re the multinationals who control Africa’s trade and access to rich markets.

The bill’s sponsors argue there are no conditionalities contained within this legislation. A review of the text of the bill passed by the House, and the legislation pending before the Senate, reveals however an attempt to force African government to prioritize the following policies:

* severe cuts in government spending;
* fire-sales of government assets;
* new rights for foreign investors to buy African natural resources and state firms without limitation;
* deep tariff cuts;
* imposition of US monopoly and patent rules;
* binding membership in and adherence to all World Trade Organization regulations;
* compliance with all International Monetary Fund and other international financial institutions’ rules;
* avoidance of any “activities that undermine US national security or foreign policy interests” [HR 1432].

The US President alone is to apply these eligibility rules, using “quantitative factors” to monitor compliance.

These policies not new: in one form or another international financial institutions and multinational corporations have been seeking to impose them upon poorer African, Asian, and Latin American states for over twenty years. Where they have been implemented in other countries, the outcome is not only a loss of African states’ sovereignty, but documented increases in income inequality, poverty, malnutrition, and increasingly unstable economies.

These outcomes have led directly to widespread opposition to IMF, World Bank, and related programs by African trade unions, democratic movements, church groups, women’s organizations, etc.-and often riots as food prices rise, and health clinics and school s close.

Never however have these policies and conditions been gathered together as in the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, and then applied to a whole continent. This portends a bleak future, as Africans are stripped of their democratic right to make the most b asic of economic policy decisions, while foreign states and firms dictate trade and investment rules.

If we want to open the door to a more prosperous and democratic future for citizens of both the US and Africa, we need to forge a new relationship based on mutual needs and open public discussions with democratic African governments and movements–and not unilateral and private interests as in HR 1432 and S. 778. In its current form, the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act should be roundly rejected.

July 20, 1998
Contact:
William Martin, Co-Chair
Tel: 217 333 8052; fax: 217 333-5225/359-0949

Association of Concerned Africa Scholars
March 9, 1998

To: ACAS Members
From: Bill Martin, Co-Chair
Date: March 9, 1998
Re: Act Now on Africa Growth and Opportunity Bill

I am writing to urge ACAS members to ask their members of Congress to vote against the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act that the House of Representatives is expected to consider this coming Wednesday, March 11.

In principle, supporters of Africa should welcome the new attention to Africa represented by this legislative initiative and President Bill Clinton’s upcoming trip to Africa. But the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (H.R. 1432) provides few tangible benefits to the majority of African countries that are too poor to take advantage of the bill’s purported trade and investment benefits. Furthermore, the legislation entrenches the positions of U.S. multinationals, reinforces failed structural adjustment programs, and imposes onerous new strictures for debt relief.

ACAS, together with TransAfrica, several unions, and Ralph Nader’s consumer organization Public Citizen, has openly and jointly opposed the act as currently proposed. We urge you to write your Congressional representative in opposition to the legislation as currently formulated. The House vote is scheduled for this Wednesday, March 11 and the legislation will then go to the Senate. Equally important, we urge you to consider writing op-ed pieces and letters to the editor of your local newspaper, arguing for an alternative partnership between the U.S. and Africa. Among the points we believe should be considered in developing this alternative are:

* Structural adjustment programs, so harshly imposed on African states, have failed and should be abandoned–as is being considered for Asian states confronted by economic crisis. SAPs in Africa to date have exacerbated income inequalities, forced a defunding of education and social programs, and brought broad-based growth to only a small number of African states at best;

* African trade unions, church groups, women’s organizations and a broad coalition of groups representing civil society have raised serious questions about the economic provisions enshrined in this legislation. Organizations representing these African forces have persuaded the World Bank to engage in a joint, two year long study of the effect of these programs in four African countries to better understand and critique the consequences of these programs;

* Most African countries are dependent on a relatively small number of primary commodity exports, and will thus see few tangible benefits from the provisions of this legislation, while multinationals are given further control over African markets and products;

* Debt relief–often contracted by US-installed and supported dictators–remains a priority for Africa, where 50 percent of the population of Africa as defined by the World Bank are living in poverty;

* Continuing and protected levels of U.S. foreign assistance to Africa remain a critical priority for U.S. foreign policy in the region. But the current Clinton administration proposals do not contain specific protected levels of assistance to Africa –although assistance is protected to the countries of the former Soviet Union and Israel/Egypt.

ASSOCIATION OF CONCERNED AFRICA SCHOLARS
8 March 1998

Since the end of the Cold War, US policy toward Africa has drifted and become increasingly erratic. ACAS thus welcomes new thinking and initiatives. Unfortunately our analysis suggests that the new Africa Growth and Opportunity Act does not represent a step forward in US-African relations. And many Africans agree.