Press Statements

ACAS Press Release: Zimbabwe Crisis

By ACAS | 24 June 2008

The Association of Concerned Africa Scholars (ACAS), has published a special issue on Zimbabwe in the ACAS Bulletin. It introduces the issues surrounding Zimbabwe’s March 29 elections and the current political violence leading up to the June 27th Presidential run-off. The aim of this special Zimbabwe issue is to provide details and analysis often left out of mainstream news sources. The reader will find a variety of articles from different perspectives, by Zimbabwe experts from the fields of political science, sociology, history, and theology, as well as from seasoned Zimbabwe journalists and an NGO worker reporting from the field. The special issue concludes with a historically-inflected editorial on Zimbabwe’s politics of violence, an open letter to Thabo Mbeki, and provides a listing of on-line resources for further research and information.

ACAS Press Statement on the Crisis in Kenya

By ACAS | 5 January 2008

The Association of Concerned Africa Scholars (ACAS), an organization of United States-based academics and activists, today rejected superficial and misleading popular and media portrayals of the post-electoral violence in Kenya as “tribal.”

Open letter to Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia

By ACAS | 11 May 2001

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.

Open Letter to President Benjamin Mkapa of Tanzania

By ACAS | 5 February 2001

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 [...]

Open Letter to the President of the Republic of Uganda, Yoweri K. Museveni

By ACAS | 31 January 2001

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 [...]

Boycott Conflict Diamonds

By ACAS | 17 March 2000

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.