---------- Forwarded message ----------
for your information (it is very long, but also very interesting). perhaps
there are also organizations on the list that wish to sign this
letter.   Best, Ylva H.

 -----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, July 31, 2000 1:55 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: ACTION: draft ltr re Clinton Nigeria trip - for your comment


ADNA Action:  000731
Message from: International Roundtable on Nigeria
For contact information see also:
http://www.aiusa.org

Dear ADNA members,

Following find a draft of a potential letter to President Clinton
regarding his upcoming trip to Nigeria crafted by IRTON and APIC
in the form of a sign-on letter, for your comment and feedback.
Please send comments to me by e-mail or fax no later than close of
business Friday 8/4 and we will edit a final version and send it back
for your signatures next week.

For those in the DC metropolitan area, we will be discussing this
draft at tomorrow's meeting as well.

Thanks for your assistance in developing this letter.
Regards,
Vicki Ferguson
ADNA Communications Facilitator


** draft ** draft ** draft **  NOT for circulation beyond the ADNA list

President William Jefferson Clinton
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington DC

Dear Mr. President,

As members of the International Roundtable on Nigeria (IRTON),
and the Advocacy Network for Africa (ADNA) coalitions of
educational, advocacy, environmental, faith-based, labor and human
 rights organizations, we are writing to you to express our
appreciation for  your decision to visit West Africa and Nigeria in
particular. The incredible sacrifice and dauntless efforts put forth
by individuals and human rights groups working in Nigeria over the
last seven years, made it possible for the country to move towards
the establishment of a more open, just and democratic society. and
their efforts should be noted and applauded.

Mr. President, your visit offers a rare opportunity to highlight positive
 developments in Africa and also to reaffirm the support of the
people  and the government of the United States to the people of
Africa in  meeting those challenges and issues which still remain.

We encourage you Mr. President to use this opportunity to
commend the Nigerian people and the Obasanjo administration for
the work they have done to promote human rights in Nigeria and to
address the major obstacles to Nigeria's political transition. We also
urge you to speak with members of the civil society, and key
representatives from the Niger Delta who have played such a critical
role in the countries struggle to regain freedom and justice.

We understand that your visit will be very short, nevertheless we feel
 it is important to draw your attention to some very critical regional
issues where the United States can and should help African
governments and peoples. It is not only in their interest, it is also in
the interest if the United States.  These issues include:

1. Regional security, in particular the crisis in Sierra Leone and
peacekeeping needs, and

2. Responding to the HIV/AIDS crisis in West Africa

Nigeria

Mr. President, today, the people of Nigeria embrace new
opportunities and enjoy a level of freedom that only three years ago
seemed impossible.  Both the administration of President Obasanjo
and the newly elected legislators and governors have shown a
welcome commitment to re-establishing the rule of law, respect for
human rights and official accountability. However much more needs
to be done and Nigeria's transition is still extremely fragile. The
success of the transition to democracy rule will ultimately depend on
 the commitment and energy of the government, civil society and the
 Nigerian people to consolidate democracy, protect fundamental
human rights, and develop the country.

(i) Strengthening Democratic Institutions and Civil Society

Nigeria has come a long way since the days of former head of state
General Sani Abacha. Following Gen. Abacha's death, both the
regimes of General Abdulsalami Abubakar and President Obasanjo
repealed repressive legislation and released all political prisoners.

President Obasanjo convened a judicial commission of inquiry
headed by Mr. Justice C.A. Oputa, a retired Supreme Court judge,
to investigate past human rights violations and make
recommendations on redress for victims and preventative measures.
The commission's mandate allows it to look into serious human rights
abuses committed by all governments since 1966. At the same time,
with the help of non-governmental human rights groups, the National
Human Rights Commission intends to complete the drafting of a
National Action Plan on human rights by the end of the year. Both
of these institutions should be highlighted and reminded that the
importance of their work cannot be underestimated. We would hope
that a public re-affirmation of US diplomatic and financial support for
 their efforts would be made.

A key actor in Nigeria's transition is the country's dynamic civil
society, which is among Africa's largest and most capable. These
groups have a vital role to play in keeping the transition moving
forward and in the right direction. The Obasanjo administration and
newly elected officials need to be encouraged and reminded that
they are partners in this endeavor, with a legitimate role to play
either in dissenting or offering critiques of each others
performance. As the leader of a country where civil society
regularly engages, disagrees and tries to change government
policy, we believe that a reminder of legitimacy of these activities in
a democracy would be invaluable.

(ii) Security Force Reform

Despite these positive steps, significant issues continue to threaten
the transition to democracy.   The Nigerian security forces, both the
 military and police, continue to commit serious human rights
abuses  and thereby undermine the rule of law and the stability that
the  transition needs. Nigerian security forces employ abusive
policing  mechanisms and do so with impunity, enhancing an
already  negative reputation. As a result, many citizens turn to
vigilante  groups to safeguard their communities from the increasing
threat of  inter-communal conflict. The growing dependence on
vigilante and  self-protection groups underscores the need for a
thorough  rebuilding of the Nigerian justice system.

The Nigerian legislature and the Obasanjo administration must
institute transparent, independent systems to monitor the activities of
 police and security forces. There must also be transparent
investigations into all allegations of human rights abuses and report
of the excessive use of violence by security forces. Persons found
guilty of committing violations should be held accountable.

The United States is currently providing assistance for the
restructuring and training of Nigerian military and police forces in
order to increase professionalism. Such efforts are welcome and
much needed step in the right direction. We would like to stress that
even as we acknowledge the need for increased professionalization,
 any assistance to these institutions must be focused on improving
respect for the rule of law and human rights. At the same time US
training can and must support and encourage accountability by
vetting candidates for training to ensure that they have not
committed any human rights abuses in the past and by monitoring
and following up on candidates who do take part in the training.
These same principles must be applied to any assistance and
training offered to the Nigerian military, be it for general rebuilding
or for specialized initiatives like regional peacekeeping projects.

(iii) Helping Rebuild the Rule of Law

The Department of State is also providing assistance to the judicial
system through the Rule of Law Program. This is an essential
program that should be expanded and prioritized. The Nigerian
courts have had their authority eroded by years of underfunding,
intimidation and blatant disregard for their authority. If this is not
corrected, the police will never regain the credibility they must have
to be effective.

The Obasanjo government also reportedly plans to involve non-
governmental organizations in the process to reform the
administration of justice. Such an effort is long overdue and should
be strongly encouraged.  A large number of un-convicted prisoners
are currently held in harsh overcrowded cells. The review of law
enforcement policies should address the torture and ill treatment of
prisoners by the police, the high mortality rates in Nigeria's prisons,
and the widespread concern that police have routinely carried out
extrajudicial killings of armed robbery and other criminal suspects.
The Nigerian government should also develop and institute
independent monitoring systems that would regulate the activities of
police and security forces.

(iv) The Crisis in the Niger Delta

Mr. President, Nigeria is facing its most serious and devastating
crisis in the Niger Delta region where residents have suffered
systematic repression, environmental degradation from oil
production and political and economic marginalization for far too
long. Security forces in the Niger delta have use brutal lethal tactics
to silence the voices of those demanding freedom from pollution and
a fair share of the revenues generated from their lands.

Sadly this violence is not a thing of the past. In May and June of this
 year, security forces were reported to have used excessive and
lethal force against groups protesting in the Niger Delta and agitating
 for a halt to oil production. The armed forces were also reported to
have killed defenseless civilians in reprisal for the killing of police
and soldiers. This situation has helped fuel the increase in the
number of attacks on oil installations and oil workers in the region
which in turn has provoked violent reprisals from law enforcement
and security forces.

It is essential that Special Forces used to protect oil facilities and
pipelines are accountable to the law. The use of shoot-on-sight type
authorization for such forces by the Obasanjo administration should
be condemned and stopped.

Further, the Obasanjo administration must be made to realize that
only an open and transparent accounting of the past, as well as the
transparent enforcement of the rule of law in the present will help
bring lasting peace to the Niger Delta region.  Members of the
security forces guilty of abuses must be held accountable for their
actions, as must criminal elements and individuals that have used
violence against officials of the government.  For example, the
government announced plans to investigate reported reprisal killings
by soldiers in Yenagoa in September of 1999. This investigation
must be completed, its findings must be made public and action
must be taken on its conclusions. We would hope that in your visit
you could remind the government of the interest of the United States
in this particular investigation.

(v) Corporate Accountability

Central to helping resolve some of the issues in the Niger Delta are
multinational oil companies, many if them US based. These
corporations can and must play a role in the consolidation of
democracy and the rule of law. The oil corporations have a
responsibility to alleviate the devastating poverty that drives inter-
communal conflict and violence in the Niger Delta region and to
ensure that their activities du not contribute to human rights or
environmental abuses. Mr. President, drilling in the Niger Delta
region by companies such as Royal Dutch Shell and US-based
Chevron has caused widespread environmental devastation and has
also fueled inter-ethnic civil unrest. Oil companies have aided and
collaborated with Nigerian security forces to stop protests and
occupations.

In 1998 for example, 120 unarmed youths from the Ijaw community
occupied the Chevron Parabe production platform, taking 200
employees of Globestar McDermott/EPTM hostage. The youths were
demanding that Chevron make financial compensations for polluting
the water and re-invest in community development. On May 28, after
requesting assistance from Nigerian security forces, Chevron's
head of security accompanied Nigerian Naval and police officers in
an attack that resulted in the deaths of two protestors. No member of
 the security forces or for that matter any officials from Chevron
were ever held accountable. On-going impunity of this sort will
undermine confidence in the Obasanjo administration and will only
re-emphasize the perception that multinationals in the Delta consider
 themselves above the law and beholden to no one.

(vi) Debt Relief

As of the first quarter of 2000, Nigeria's internal debt was estimated
to be in the vicinity of US$4 billion. Nigeria's external debt is
estimated to be about $30 billion dollars, or about 70% of its 1999-
estimated Gross Domestic Product. Of that amount about $18 billion
is payment on arrears.  During this period it has, on an official level,
 tried everything to manage the debt: debt rescheduling, debt
conversion, debt-buy back and curtailed new borrowing, yet it has
seen little or no relief. The strategy is just not working and it cannot
work.

For the United States, the dollar figures quoted above are not large,
but for Nigeria, they are insurmountable, and accentuate the fact
that Nigeria with its economic monoculture of oil and its 120 million
population, is a poor country, even though it is oil-rich.   Indeed the
2000 National budget of Nigeria was roughly N600 billion, which is
equivalent to what the District of Columbia is budgeting to spend on
its schools in the coming year.  The US's 2001 budget by
comparison is $1.8 trillion! Under the Nigerian Year 2000 budget
120 million Nigerians will have to starve for about 5 years if the
Nigerian Government is to use up all of its money to pay off its
external debt if all interest payments were to be frozen today.

This is clearly an untenable situation and one that will place severe
pressure on the Obasanjo administration, possibly undermining the
transition to democracy. It is essential that Nigeria be granted a
mixture of:

(a) IMMEDIATE stoppage on further interest payments and accrual;

(b) OUTRIGHT cancellation of a substantial portion of its debt; and

(c) An institutional RE-DIRECTION of some portion of the debt
payments under international supervision to definite poverty
eradication projects such as health education and services
(especially addressing HIV/AIDS and malaria), clean water
provision and public education throughout the country.

(vii) Assistance with Recovery of Looted National Assets

Mr. President, the corruption under the Abacha period was
documented and roundly condemned. However the looting of
precious national assets had been rampant long before the reached
the staggering levels under Abacha. It is estimated that over the
years US $98.8 billion has been stashed away by Nigerians in
foreign banks, illegally acquired money by its leaders, family
members and cronies.

During the Gulf Crisis of the early 90s, as one example, about $12
billion of Nigeria's oil windfall went missing.  In five years alone
(1993-1998) General Abacha and some members of his family are
now confirmed to have salted away as much as $5 billion in Swiss,
German, UK and American banks, among several other countries.
Abacha's son recently confessed to moving $700 million in cash
from his home in Abuja through several such banks, all on behalf of
his father, no questions asked.

The Obasanjo civilian regime has made an anti-corruption crusade
one of its watchwords, and it must be encouraged by the United
States in that direction.  It has, (together with the Abubakar military
regime before him) already reported recovery or freezing of some
of the loot (as much as $2 billion total so far), especially from and in
Swiss banks, some directly from the Nigerian crooks and their
partners, but there is greater need of multilateral cooperation with
Nigeria and relaxation of secrecy laws to speed these recoveries.

The laudable efforts by the United States to help holocaust victims
recover assets looted by the Nazis during World War II could be
and should be replicated to help in the recovery of the assets stolen
from the Nigerian people. Assets that could be used to help pay
back part of the crippling debt and used to rebuild and extend much
needed social services in Nigeria.

 Regional Challenges

(i)  Sierra Leone

Mr. President, the brutal crisis in Sierra Leone continues to be the
most dangerous issue facing the West Africa region. The RUF
insurgency has undermined basic human rights and humanitarian
principles, exposed the use of child soldiers, and has raised
challnges over how the international community deals with armed
forces who are determined to butcher their way to power. While
many might think that Sierra Leone is a small limited crisis, for us
the RUF scenario is all to plausible in a number of West African
countries with major implications for regional stability.

Despite a belated engagement on ths issue, the international
community is now involved in Sierra Leone and helping countries in
West Africa better respond to the crisis. There are a number of
issues which we feel must be addressed if current efforts are to be
successful and lasting peace and security are to be restored to all of
 the people of Sierra Leone.

1. Accountability for human rights abuses for persons guility of
abuses during the 10 year conflict.

2. The deployment of UN peackeepers with a robust mandate and
resources necessary to protect the rights of the Sierra Leonean
people

3. Aggressive enforcement of the UN arms embargo on Sierra
Leone,
including monitoring and enforcement of the embargo in
surruounding countries like Liberia, Burkina Faso and Guinea.

4. Aggressive enforcment of UN Security Council Resolution #####
which prohibits the sale of diamonds from Sierra Leone unless
ceritfied by the government of Sierra Leone and the United Nations.
We would add that specific action must be taken to monitor the
production and sale of diamonds from Liberia to ensure that those
diaomnds are mined inLibiera and are not smuggled conflict
diamonds.

(ii)  Aids

Each day AIDS buries another 5,500 African men, women and
children, with projections that this figure will reach 13,000 daily in
Africa by 2005.  And while the urgency of responding to the
HIV/AIDS pandemic should not obscure the myriad of public health
needs in Africa, AIDS deaths in Africa in 1998 were nearly double
the one million deaths from malaria, and eight times the number of
deaths from tuberculosis.  These and other poverty related health
problems compound the AIDS crisis and must be dealt with in
unison rather than as competing for scarce resources in African
government and foreign assistance allocations.

In spite of the elevation of the issue to the status of a national
security issue earlier this year, the response of the U.S. to the
HIV/AIDS pandemic still falls far short of the minimal commitments
needed to make a serious impact.  The additional $325 million in
funds committed by your administration this year are welcome, but
are only a fraction of the estimated $3 billion a year needed in
Africa for prevention alone.

Nigeria alone is estimated to have almost a million AIDS orphans,
and 2.7 million people living with HIV/AIDS.  Early sexual activity
increases the risk of infection with HIV/AIDS especially for
adolescent girls, and in Nigeria more than 1 in every 10 women
have their first child before age 15.  Funds are needed not only for
education and prevention, but also for treatment and for restoration
of basic health services that can deliver both disease prevention and
care.

In this context, the recent US proposal to loan Africa $1 billion a
year at commercial  rates is a cruel hoax at best and a vivid example
of government-subsidized corporate greed at worst.  The plan aims
to protect pharmaceutical companies threatened by African rights
under the World Trade Organization rules to pursue parallel imports
and compulsory licensing of anti-AIDS drugs.  In other words, the
US government is prepared to push Africa further into debt in order
to prevent Africans from getting cheaper drugs from Brazil or India,
or from licensing local firms to produce generic versions at home.
This will not contribute to combating the double standard of second-
class treatment for Africa, but will help perpetuate it.

Mr. President, what African countries need are not loans which
would increase the debt crisis, but substantial grants and
technical support which African governments and civil society
structures can use to support their highest priorities for
response to the pandemic:

* to rapidly expand education and prevention initiatives;

* to provide increased testing and treatment services;

* to develop and maintain nation-wide social services
infrastructure which can deliver the above;

* to purchase needed medications at the most economical and highly
subsidized rates possible; and,

* to invest in increasing the capacity of communities to cope with
this crisis over the long term.

We urge you to take this opportunity to encourage the Nigerian
government to elevate and integrate response to HIV/AIDS
throughout its Ministries and local governing units, in strong
collaboration with civil society and local community initiatives.  This
requires overcoming barriers of silence, stigma, misinformation and
generally inadequate health infrastructure symptomatic of the
poverty that the majority of Nigerians still struggle under.

Mr. President, as you visit Nigeria, politicians in the U.S. debate
how much of the expected budget surplus to spend on tax cuts and
how much on domestic needs. The option of allocating a significant
part of the surplus to fighting the global AIDS pandemic is not
even on the table.  Because the victims are predominantly black,
the wealthy predominantly white countries fail to respond with
more than token resources.

Today multiple strategies to fight the epidemic are available, and
can make a dramatic difference even in the worst-affected
countries.  Why not take the opportunity of your visit to Nigeria
to call for dedicating a modest 5 percent of the annual budget
surplus -- approximately $9.5 billion a year -- to a global health
emergency fund?  This would send a signal in favor of global
responsibility rather than reinforcing the perception of
globalization as only an opportunity for corporate profit.

And with this call, apply the full weight of your Office to these
priorities upon your return to Washington, DC.  There is still time
to  cancel the debt,  increase the HIV/AIDS response funding, and
to  improve the poverty eradication programs and implementation
apparatus of your Administration, but it will require your
persistent dedication upon your return.

If these truly are priorities for your final months as President, we
stand ready to advise and assist in these efforts with whatever
means at our disposal.


Sincerely,

Signatory organizations list

***

This message is distributed from IRTON and APIC for 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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