fyi...
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> >From: [log in to unmask]
> >Reply-To: [log in to unmask]
> >To: [log in to unmask]
> >Subject: UPDATE: USA - Bush and Africa, the Coming Apathy
> >Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 16:27:54 -0500
> >
> >ADNA Update: 001215
> >Message from: Africa Policy Information Center
> >For contact information see also:
> >http://www.africapolicy.org
> >
> >Dear ADNA members,
> >
> >Following find the recent article by APIC/AfricaFund/ACOA Director
> >Salih Booker previewing the coming administration. Feel free to
> >share this with your networks.
> >
> >Regards,
> >Vicki Ferguson
> >ADNA Communications Facilitator
> >
> >
> >From: "APIC" <[log in to unmask]>
> >Date sent: Wed, 13 Dec 2000 21:36:18 -0500
> >Subject: USA: Bush and Africa, the Coming Apathy
> >Send reply to: [log in to unmask]
> >
> >The Coming Apathy: Africa Policy Under a Bush Administration
> >
> >By Salih Booker
> >
> >Salih Booker is the director of both The Africa Fund in New
> >York and the Africa Policy Information Center in Washington.
> >
> >"There's got to be priorities," George W. Bush responded when
> >asked about Africa in the second presidential campaign debate.
> >Africa did not make his short list: the Middle East, Europe, the Far
> >East, and the Americas. A Bush presidency portends a return to the
> >blatantly anti-African policies of the Reagan-Bush years,
> >characterized by a general disregard for black people and a
> >perception of Africa as a social welfare case. Vice President Dick
> >Cheney is widely expected to steer the younger Bush on most policy
> >matters especially foreign affairs. Cheney's perspective on Africa in
> >the 1980s was epitomized by his 1986 vote in favor of keeping
> >Nelson Mandela in prison and his consistent opposition to sanctions
> >against apartheid South Africa.
> >
> >In Africa, a Bush White House will likely concentrate on helping its
> >oil industry friends reap maximum profits with minimum constraints,
> >and it will have absolutely no sense of responsibility for past
> >American misadventures, or for global problems like AIDS or
> >refugees. But events and activism in Africa plus grassroots pressure
> >in the U.S. and internationally could change all of that, as it did
> >during the White House tenure of the last Republican Africaphobe.
> >
> >Ironically, those chosen to set international priorities for Bush will
> >likely include two loyal African-Americans, Colin Powell and
> >Condolezza Rice, who will probably not deviate from the Bush-
> >Cheney exclusion of Africa from the U.S. global agenda. Neither
> >Powell nor Rice has shown any particular interest in or special
> >knowledge of African issues. Both have repeatedly pledged their
> >allegiance to a strong unilateralist view of the use of U.S. power,
> >based on the traditional geopolitical concepts of the national interest
> >held by the white American elite. Africans are invisible on their
> >policy radar screens though all too visible on CNN for the Texas
> >governor's taste.
> >
> >"No one liked to see it on our TV screens," said Bush, when asked
> >about genocide in Rwanda in 1994, but Clinton "did the right thing,"
> >he argued, in deciding not to act to stop the slaughter. Bush ignored
> >the fact that the U.S. also failed to support and indeed blocked
> >multilateral action by the United Nations. This false dichotomy
> >between bilateral intervention and noninvolvement is common among
> >U.S. policymakers. But the concessions of Bush's team to
> >multilateral options are likely to be particularly scant.
> >
> >The need for multilateral support for peace and security rather than
> >continued expansion of unaccountable bilateral military ties is one of
> >the highest priority issues affecting Africa. But hard-line U.S.
> >unilateralism will likely make a bad situation worse. When not
> >ignoring African security crises, the new administration will likely
> >attempt to "delegate" African peacekeeping, using this as a rationale
> >for expanding relationships with privileged partners, such as Nigeria,
> >while denying resources for strengthening multilateral involvement.
> >In fact, we may well see a repeat of this year's abortive effort by
> >congressional Republicans to cut funds for UN peacekeeping in
> >Africa to zero.
> >
> >On two other African priority issues, however debt cancellation and
> >the HIV/AIDS pandemic public pressure has a chance to cross
> >traditional political barriers and make unexpected breakthroughs, as
> >did the struggle for sanctions against apartheid in the Reagan era.
> >Action on both issues currently receives at least nominal support
> >across party lines, as evidenced in Bush's unexpected though
> >qualified rhetorical endorsement of debt relief in the debates. Any
> >significant action will require spending money and opposing vested
> >economic interests, and therefore movement on these issues will
> >initially become even more difficult than it has been to date. But
> >there are openings.
> >
> >Republican skepticism of multilateral institutions has even found
> >some common ground with critics on the political left, as in the
> >Meltzer Commission's criticism of international financial institutions
> >and the recent congressional resolution mandating U.S. opposition
> >to user fees for primary health and education in poor countries.
> >More narrowly, many favor debt cancellation for practical business
> >reasons (those with unpayable debts are unlikely to be good
> >customers). If debt cancellation makes it high enough on the next
> >administration's agenda, there will be room for debate on policy.
> >
> >Complacency, however, is more likely. "We already did debt relief
> >last year," policymakers may disingenuously conclude, "and now
> >poor countries should take care of their own problems." The fact that
> >the majority of countries affected are African will make it easy for a
> >Bush administration to give debt relief lower priority. In the context of
> >a Bush presidency 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. By any
> >measure of catastrophic events in human history, the HIV/AIDS
> >pandemic should serve as such a wake-up call.
> >
> >At the end of the year 2000, there are more than 25 million Africans
> >living with HIV/AIDS more than 70% of the adults and more than
> >80% of the children who are infected worldwide. Almost four million
> >Africans were newly infected during the year 2000. Yet almost no
> >one in Africa is receiving the expensive treatments now available to
> >people living with HIV/AIDS in rich countries. Pharmaceutical
> >companies, under pressure, are offering discounts on drugs. But
> >they are also continuing their campaign against the production and
> >import of generic alternatives. Congress approved the administration
> >request for a little more than $300 million in new funds for HIV/AIDS
> >worldwide in fiscal year 2001. Yet the scale of the catastrophe has
> >still not struck home. Nor has the awareness that AIDS' unequal
> >impact both results from and reinforces economic inequalities,
> >amounting to a global apartheid.
> >
> >If we regard HIV/AIDS as just another disease, and those affected
> >as excluded from our common humanity, then the odds of making
> >Africa a priority in the years ahead are low indeed. If its horrors can
> >serve to remind enough of us of our common humanity, then even
> >those with the most exclusionary agendas will be forced to respond.
> >For the Bush administration, it will be a clear choice between black
> >gold and black people.
> >
> >Africa Policy Information Center,
> >110 Maryland Ave. NE, #509, Washington, DC 20002.
> >Phone: 202-546-7961. Fax: 202-546-1545.
> >E-mail: [log in to unmask]
> >
> >***
> >
> >This message from APIC/AfricaFund/ACOA 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
>
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