Folks,

 With my tight schedule these days, I couldn't resist sharing this artilce
with all. I hope it helps give us another perspective of what we are up to
face in eradicating the most dangerous group of people in Africa - tyrants
and dictators. Enjoy-

======================================================================

Good press for dictators The American Prospect; Princeton; Apr 9, 2001; Ken
Silverstein

Somewhere in Africa, a dictator sits in his presidential palace, alone and
forlorn. Just recently, he deployed troops to quell an opposition rally and
a few unarmed civilians were killed. Nothing out of the ordinary, really;
but this time the international press have descended on his capital. Foreign
governments are calling for democratic reforms. And embarrassed
international financial institutions, which have long subsidized the corrupt
regime, are openly discussing a loan cutoff.
As he ponders the gross unfairness of his current predicament, the dictator
is momentarily despondent. Abruptly, though, a smile comes to his face.
There is still plenty of money in his personal checking account-the state
treasury-so all is not lost. Far from it. The dictator flips through his
Rolodex and reaches for the telephone.
Who's he gonna call? In all likelihood, lobbyist Herman Cohen in Arlington,
Virginia. In recent years, Cohen has emerged as the influence peddler of
choice for African despots in need of a public relations buff-up. His access
and client list are both sure to grow even more now that George W. Bush--
under whose father Cohen served as assistant secretary of state for
Africa-occupies the White House.
Lobbying for foreign governments almost always poses ethical dilemmas. Adwoa
Dunn-Mouton, a former staff director for the Senate Foreign Relations
Subcommittee on Africa, worked as a lobbyist for several African governments
after leaving Capitol Hill. She says that she tried to prod clients to take
concrete steps toward democracy that would change international perceptions
about their governments. "They didn't want to hear it," recalls DunnMouton,
who resigned after a brief career at the Washington Strategic Group, a
Beltway lobbying firm. "The whole point of hiring a lobbyist was to have
someone spin the situation so they wouldn't have to make real changes."
"Putting a happy face on murder and mayhem" is how Charles Lewis, executive
director of the Center for Public Integrity, describes the role of lobbyists
like Cohen who represent foreign dictators. "Most of the countries who hire
them have virtually no money, but they need professional schmoozers to
promote their regimes," he says. "They're paying for respectability and
stature in Washington and, they hope, foreign aid and access to American
markets."
Though a relative newcomer to the profession, Cohen has quickly become one
of Washington's best-known lobbyists for foreign nations. A key to his
success is the contacts he formed, at home and abroad, during a 38-year
career in the State Department (where he served as ambassador to Senegal,
then to Gambia, before he became assistant secretary of state for Africa).
Cohen cultivated close relations with Mobutu Sese Seko of the former Zaire
(now the Democratic Republic of Congo). In 1992 Mobutu's power was eroding
and there was a strong internal push for a transition to civilian rule.
Pro-democracy forces hoped Cohen, who went to Zaire, would press the tyrant
to step down. Instead, he appeared on government-run television and
announced that the aging kleptocrat was "enthusiastic for democracy." In
South Africa, Cohen and George H.W. Bush's administration lifted all
sanctions on the apartheid regime in July 1991-a step opposed by Nelson
Mandela, who didn't become president of the country until three years later.

After checking out of government service, Cohen became head of the Global
Coalition for Africa, a World Bank-affiliated organization that preaches
orthodox pro-business recipes for the continent. In 1994 he and James Woods,
deputy assistant secretary of defense for African affairs under Ronald
Reagan and George Bush the elder, formed the lobby shop of Cohen and Woods
International (CWI). Cohen boasted to Legal Times about the wide range of
contacts-from heads of state to Central Bank governors-that he and his
partner enjoyed in Africa. "You can count on one hand the number of [top
leaders] we don't know," he said. Randall Robinson, president of the
TransAfrica Forum, asserts in Defending the Spirit: A Black Life in America
that Cohen failed to promote democracy while in office-something he could
have done "with any competence and half a heart"-and that he seeks to
collect "representation fees from the very African countries whose interests
he formerly held in callous disregard."
In addition to offering clients strategic advice and chasing up foreign
investment and aid, CWI staffers write speeches, arrange official visits to
the United States, prepare briefing papers, testify before Congress, and
spin the media. Disclosure reports reveal regular contact between firm
employees and a host of Washington power centers-including the White House,
the Pentagon, international lending agencies, and think tanks. CWI folks
also serve as bigwig escorts: They may accompany, say, Mozambique's
commercial attach6 to a meeting with Edwin Barber of the Treasury
Department's Office of African Nations; or they may introduce a top economic
adviser of the Ivory Coast's president to Michael Newell, the country
manager for Sub-Saharan Africa at the U.S. Trade and Development Agency (to
discuss "grant criteria").
Cohen has an especially easy time getting doors to open in the capital.
During a four-month stretch in 1999, he attended a breakfast fundraiser for
Representative Edward Royce, a California Republican who chairs the House
International Relations Subcommittee on Africa; he lunched with Gayle Smith
of the National Security Council; and he had dinner at his home with William
Swing, US. ambassador to Congo. He's a regular on the Hill, where he meets
with members of Congress and key aides. "His name carries a lot of weight,
with Democrats and Republicans," says Charisse Glassman, a staffer for
Democratic Representative Donald Payne of New Jersey, who also sits on the
Africa subcommittee.
One of CWI's first big lobbying contracts came in 1995, when the firm
agreed, in exchange for $300,000, to coordinate media relations for Omar
Bongo, president of Gabon. The firm's stated mission was to present Gabon as
a "politically stable and economically successful country" and to "generate
awareness of President Bongo and his national and international
accomplishments." Among those accomplishments was establishing the "very
concrete process of democratization and democratic reforms."
As the ink dried on the contract, the State Department released its annual
report on human rights around the globe. This report found that Bongo's
security forces were responsible for "many confirmed extra-judicial
killings" and that government-sanctioned torture in Gabon was routine.
("Eyewitnesses reported seeing prisoners tied to chairs, doused with ice
water, or made to crawl on their stomachs over gravel or sun-baked
asphalt.") As to "the very concrete process of democratization" that had
supposedly taken place under Cohen's client-who has been in power since
1967-the State Department said that the previous election in which Bongo
allegedly won 51 percent of the vote was "marred by serious irregularities,
including a secret vote count that excluded all but government observers. In
Bongo's home region of Haut Ogoue, the number of votes cast for Bongo was
greater than the population reported in the 1993 census."
Bongo is not only a thug but a crook as well. It's impossible to know
exactly how much money he has stolen from the national treasury, but a 1999
Senate report on money laundering indicates that he deposited $130 million
with Citibank's private banking department. The report includes a memo that
Citibank's Alain Ober, a private banking officer who handled the account,
sent to several colleagues, which reads: "[I] never asked our client where
his money came from. My guess ... is that in view of the importance of our
client's country as a provider of cheap oil to France, it was (and still is)
important that our client stayed in power and thus the French
government/French oil companies (Elf) made 'donations' to him (very much
like we give to PACs in the U.S.!)."
CWI's contract with Gabon lasted only a year, but there's been no shortage
of business since. The firm's clients have included Tunisia, the Ivory
Coast, Mozambique, and even Angola--despite the Bush administration's strong
support for Jonas Savimbi, the guerrilla leader who has waged war on the
country. Angola is stronger than Savimbi.
Perhaps the most notorious CWI client was Charles Taylor of Liberia. He took
power following a seven-year civil war that Kenneth Cain describes in a
Human Rights Quarterly article as "a relentless campaign of sadistic, wanton
violence unimaginable to those unfamiliar with the details of man's capacity
to visit the abyss, " According to Cain, Taylor "inaugurated the use of
grade school-age children as scouts, spies, and cannon fodder [and]
explicitly employed terror tactics, ethnic cleansing, and political
assassinations."
Taylor brought this charming style of rule to the presidency, which he
assumed in July of 1997. Four months later, security forces kidnapped
prominent oppositionist Samuel Dokie, his wife, a niece, and a cousin as the
family was traveling to a wedding. A week later, the four were found dead.
All of them had been tortured; Dokie's eyes had been gouged out before he'd
been burned and beheaded. In foreign policy, Taylor is chiefly known for his
support of the Revolutionary United Front, a rebel group in neighboring
Sierra Leone that routinely amputates the hands, legs, ears, and lips of
anyone who opposes it.
A contract signed in 1999 by the two parties provided that CWI would be paid
$300,000 to assist Taylor in "overcoming obstacles to a constructive
relationship" between Liberia and the U.S. government and otherwise help to
ease the country's international isolation. Targets of CWI's lobbying
included government officials plus "the business community, the press,
non-governmental organizations, and the academic world."
A Capitol Hill staffer who asked not to be identified said that CWI
adapted-understandably, under the circumstances-a low-key approach on behalf
of Liberia. "They never tried to say that Taylor was a good guy-they knew
they couldn't get away with that;' he says. "They'd talk about how cutting
off Liberia would be counterproductive and would result in a lessening of
U.S. influence." Despite its best efforts, CWI had only mixed results for
Taylor. Bill Clinton's administration never imposed the broad sanctions
sought by human rights groups, but it did shun the regime and bar all
Liberian officials from entering the United States.
Among CWI's most recent clients-until he was murdered in January-was the
president of Congo, Laurent-Desire Kabila, who drove Mobutu from power. He
was paying the lobby shop $250,000 to build "a more constructive
relationship" between Congo and the United States. Cohen was working on the
project with Edward van Kloberg, who stands out, even within the amoral
world of Washington lobbying, for handling accounts that few will touch. His
clients have included Saddam Hussein of Iraq, Nicolae Ceausescu of Romania,
and Samuel Doe of Liberia. (Van Kloberg's exertions on behalf of the last
two came to a sudden halt when they were murdered in office following years
of brutal rule.)
One of Cohen's specific tasks for Congo-and for another client, Burkina
Faso-is to water down legislation that would bar U.S. imports of "blood
diamonds," whose sale allows African governments and rebel groups to finance
their wars. Industry officials say that blood diamonds account for about 4
percent of the world's $6-billion-a-year trade, while human rights groups
argue that 15 percent is a more accurate estimate.
Last year Democratic Representative Tony Hall of Ohio introduced legislation
that would require that diamonds sold in the United States-where two-thirds
of all diamond sales take place-be accompanied by a certificate of origin,
to ensure that no blood diamonds would be allowed in the country. Deborah
DeYoung, a Hall staffer, recalls that Cohen came by the office to voice his
opposition to the bill. "He said that our proposal wasn't workable and that
we should look at other types of control measures, like monitoring ports,"
she says. "He was advocating an approach that wouldn't shut down an industry
that's important to his clients." In addition to African nations involved in
the trade, the diamond industry fiercely lobbied against the legislation. So
Hall and other supporters have altered the bill in hopes of getting it
through Congress.
CWI's most recent contract-a five-year deal at $600,000 per annum-was signed
last September with the government of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe. At the
time, Mugabe was in desperate need of a PR face-lift. His nation's economy
was in shambles; and 32 people, mostly opposition supporters, had been
killed during parliamentary elections held three months earlier. Meanwhile,
Mugabe's land reform plan-which would seize 3,000 properties without
compensation and give them to landless blacks-was generating criticism,
partly at home but mostly abroad.
The contract calls for CWI to take the "necessary steps to overcome recent
negative publicity, and to restore enduring trust, confidence and mutual
respect between Zimbabwe and the international community." Firm lobbyists
are specifically asked to smooth relations between Zimbabwe and the
International Monetary Fund, and to "counter anti-Zimbabwe content in the
international media." As part of the latter effort, CWI is to establish a
Web site that will provide news from Zimbabwe as well as information about
business and tourism opportunities there.
CWI has been working especially hard to head off congressional passage of
the Zimbabwe Democracy Act, which sailed through the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee last June but stalled on the House side. The bill would
cut off American aid to Zimbabwe and require the U.S. government to oppose
any loans to Mugabe's government by international lenders. Last September,
to oppose the bill, Cohen personally met with Republican Representative Amo
Houghton of New York. According to disclosure forms, Cohen "expressed the
view that, while the objectives of promoting democracy and respect for the
rule of law were certainly laudable, Zimbabwe should be given a few months
to resolve its political crisis rather than rushing to impose external
sanctions." Houghton's office refused to comment on the meeting with Cohen.
In an interview with TAP, Cohen defended the role of the lobbyist in general
and his firm's work in particular: "We advise clients on their situation in
the U.S. and tell them that if they really want to improve relations, here
are some things you have to do. We aren't able to get them any privileges
that they don't deserve." He said that CWI has turned down clients-for
example, the former dictatorship of General Sani Abacha in Nigeria, which he
called "beyond the pale"-and that the firm resigned from the Liberia account
after three months. "We saw there was nothing to be done, that the
government just wanted us to wave a magic wand [to make its problems go
away]." At the same time, Cohen said he'd be happy to renew his firm's
contract with Congo if the new government there so desired, and he
acknowledged that CWI hasn't been able to convince the government of
Zimbabwe to improve its record on civil and human rights. "That's beyond our
influence," he said.
Given the scope of Africa's troubles, particularly armed conflicts and human
rights-abusing governments, Herman Cohen's future prospects are rosy. After
all, murder and mayhem are good for business. So, too, is a lack of
conscience.

[Author note]
KEN SILVERSTEIN, a writer based in Washington, D.C., is a contributing
editor for Harper's magazine. His recent book Private Warriors focuses on
the post-Cold War arms trade.
=====================================================================

Abdoulie A. Jallow
www.dalasigram.com
Making sending funds home more fun than hassle.
[log in to unmask]
[log in to unmask]
402-639-1105





_______________________________________________________
Send a cool gift with your E-Card
http://www.bluemountain.com/giftcenter/

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L
Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
You may also send subscription requests to [log in to unmask]
if you have problems accessing the web interface and remember to write your full name and e-mail address.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------