An Obituary for ACAS (1977-2012)
ACAS was a nice little organization. It’s a shame that it hasn’t done anything since 2012 and that very few people appear to care any longer. Someone may tell you otherwise, but an organization that has no active members and doesn’t do anything isn’t real. And now it’s officially all over. We will never see its like again.
Rest in Peace.
Dear President Biden,
I write with deep concern over the situation in Sudan. The crisis is deepening, with no end in sight for the suffering of civilians in Sudan. Heavy weaponry including artillery, tanks and jet aircraft have been used in densely populated areas in Khartoum, killing hundreds and injuring thousands. The conflict has quickly spread across the country, making it difficult to seek safety. Human rights and aid organizations – including Amnesty International – are reporting that civilians are bearing the brunt of the fighting. Food and fuel prices have soared, and there are power and water outages. And the healthcare system has collapsed, with 60% of Khartoum’s hospitals closed.
With the lives of so many civilians at risk, I urge you to appoint a Presidential Envoy who can lead U.S. diplomatic efforts with Sudanese and regional partners to develop a robust policy response that centers itself on protecting civilians.
Specifically I ask you to appoint a Presidential Envoy who will report directly to you and lead a robust cross agency U.S. Government response. Given the magnitude of the crisis, a Presidential Envoy is necessary to lead a coordinated international community response.
This unfolding crisis is happening at the same time as the 20-year anniversary of the atrocities committed in Darfur. Civilians there remain at the mercy of the same security forces who committed crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur and other parts of Sudan. Longstanding impunity has allowed those suspected of war crimes in Darfur to remain in leadership positions today, contributing to the current violence in Sudan.
I implore you to take action – the Sudanese people must have our support.
David Wylie, Association of Concerned African Scholars
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Take action yourself in this Amnesty International effort at: Amnesty International USA | Amnesty International USA (amnestyusa.org)
Dear President Biden and Secretary Yellen,
The U.S. economy has created more than 12 million jobs since President Biden took office, thanks to the sound policies and leadership of your administration. But there is general agreement that the risk of recession is substantial.
The Federal Reserve has raised interest rates dramatically, and the impact of those increases is ongoing. This policy is intended to cause an increase in unemployment and appears to have contributed to the current instability in the banking system.
These conditions in the U.S. could worsen the already expected decline in growth and employment around the world. The International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s April World Economic Outlook concludes that “Risks to the outlook are heavily skewed to the downside, with the chances of a hard landing having risen sharply.” The IMF estimates that 56% of low-income countries are in or at high risk of falling into debt distress.
Downturn and recession around the world would eliminate many export-related jobs in the United States and reduce growth and employment here. From January 2020 to May 2021, the U.S. economy lost an estimated 2.2 million export-related jobs due to the fall in global demand for U.S. exports, as this demand fell during the pandemic and recessions in many countries. While some of these jobs have since been recovered, the current global downturn could reverse this recovery, potentially threatening the livelihoods of millions of U.S. workers.
Unfortunately, if more action is necessary to counteract economic slowdown and recession, a divided Congress is unlikely to be able to provide a new round of effective economic policies. But your administration can take effective action on its own by supporting a new issuance of Special Drawing Rights (SDR) at the IMF.
SDRs have zero cost to the U.S. federal budget or taxpayers. A new SDR issuance would create more than $200 billion worth of international reserves for developing countries, helping to stabilize global economies and U.S. export markets and therefore preserve and create U.S. jobs that would otherwise be lost to a global recession.
During the pandemic in August 2021, the U.S. supported the IMF’s issuance of $650 billion worth of SDRs. This measure was by far the single most important action taken to support the economies of developing countries in the face of combined global health, debt, economic, and climate crises. The amount of assistance received by developing countries from this SDR issuance was more than all of the development aid from high-income countries to developing countries over the span of a year. In the first year after the allocation, over 100 low- and middle-income countries used their SDRs in some form, including to stabilize currencies and avert balance of payments crises, to repay debts to the IMF, and to purchase critical imports such as food, vaccines, and personal protective equipment, including from the United States. Based on the Bank for International Settlements’ research on the relationship between mortality and global recession, the 2021 issuance very likely saved hundreds of thousands of lives.
Notably, this issuance did not benefit U.S. adversaries. Countries that are subject to financial sanctions or whose governments are not recognized by the IMF — including Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran, Myanmar, Russia, Sudan, Syria, and Venezuela — have not been able to use a single SDR from the 2021 issuance. Cuba and North Korea are not IMF members and are therefore ineligible for SDRs. And China has over $3 trillion in foreign reserves and therefore could not use SDRs under current IMF rules.
Leading your administration now to support a new issuance of at least $650 billion in SDRs is a simple, cost-free, and effective way of supporting the economic recovery of the U.S., while saving many lives in developing countries and mitigating the effects of a global recession. So long
Association of Concerned Africa Scholars (USA)
March 15th, 2021
The Honorable Joseph R. Biden President of the United
600 Pennsylvania Avenue Washington DC 20500
President Biden,
As COVID-19 takes lives, impacts jobs, affects healthcare and drives a global economic crisis, we the
undersigned urge the International Monetary Fund, the G20 and White House to:
? Cancel debt and expand debt relief for developing countries to bolster healthcare, protect the
vulnerable, workers and the environment as they confront COVID-19
? Mobilize additional resources to support all countries impacted by the economic and health impacts of
the coronavirus through increased grants and development bank support, emergency reserve funds
known as Special Drawing Rights and sales from IMF gold reserves
? Improve debt restructuring, issue debt payment moratoriums and create expedient debt reprofiling
processes for countries impacted by the coronavirus
? Support all countries to emerge from the crisis with more resilience by encouraging policies and
agreements to increase protections for the vulnerable and that protect our planet, instill greater public
budget transparency, implement financial crisis and market protections, promote responsible lending
and borrowing and curb corruption and tax evasion
Sincerely,
220 Signatories as of 3/15/2021:
Denominations and Denominational Representations
All Africa Conference of Churches
The Episcopal Church
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
The National Council of Churches
The Presbyterian Church (USA)
Association of Concerned Africa Scholars (USA)
And 212 others organizations
Dear friends and colleagues of the struggle,
An online celebration of the life of Jennifer Davis was held on Saturday, July 11. Although it is sad that there will not be a gathering in person, there is a silver lining that her memorial service can now be viewed online.
This is a sad moment in history when, in the last few years, we have lost so many who were heroes in the struggle against apartheid especially in South Africa but, here in the States, Jennifer’s co-worker at ACOA/Africa Fund, Dumisani Kumalo, Immanuel Wallerstein, Ann Seidman, Sean Gervasi, and others.
For more information: Jennifer-davis.org
Facebook: Remembering Jennifer Davis
On Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2018, ACAS expresses its solidarity with people living in African countries and in the African diaspora who were so brutally disparaged in the racist remarks made by President Trump on Jan 11, 2018. As concerned scholars of Africa, with friends, colleagues, and family members in these regions, we are outraged by his bigoted, offensive, and inaccurate characterizations. Sadly, such comments from the White House have become the norm. We demand that President Trump retract his statements and apologize for the harm he has caused.
To students and visitors who hail from the African continent and from diaspora countries, we reiterate that you are our valued friends and colleagues. Those of us who were born in the United States have a great deal to learn from you. Please continue to work with us to improve the tenor of American civic discourse and American understanding and appreciation of peoples on the African continent and in the African diaspora.
We also are dismayed at your Administrations’s plans to cut funding of UN Peacekeeping funds for more than a dozen African countries and for announced plans to cut funding for HIV-AIDS remediation in Africa as well as reducing contributions to the World Health Organization (WHO) as it coordinates research and action against Zika, Ebola, and malaria, diseases that threaten Haiti and parts of Africa as well as these United States.
David Love’s article, “Deportation of African and Other Black Immigrants Is Quietly Increasing And No One Is Taking Note” (Altanta Black Star March 20, 2017) investigates a topic ACAS is following closely. Immigrants living in the US are increasingly insecure and worried about real dangers presented by the new strategies used under the Trump administration to harass, detain, and deport immigrants.
As Love writes: “Since the 2016 election, the ICE raids on Black immigrant communities have intensified. For example, in January, 86 men and women were deported to Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, after being detained and imprisoned, as Africanews.com reported. In November, 108 immigrants were deported to Ghana and 20 people also were deported to Liberia, while 53 others were processed for deportation. Earlier this month, ICE deported 130 people to Senegal, six times the number recorded by the agency in its 2016 report.”
The Association of Concerned Africa Scholars (ACAS) registers its outrage and its opposition to the Presidential Executive Order, “Protecting The Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into The United States,” issued by Donald Trump on January 27, 2017, which has cut off legal immigration and travel to the United States from three African nations: Sudan, Somalia and Libya as well as from Iran, Iraq, Syria and Yemen. This ban directly affects refugees from Somalia, Libya, Iraq, and Syria where the U.S. military actions contribute to the exodus of thousands of refugees. Ironically, this ban is directed toward refugees in a continent whose nations have opened their borders to refugees and people fleeing violence while the U.S. is closing boundaries and building walls.
This ban is an ill-advised, religiously-based attack on the rights of people from these majority Muslim nations. This unwise action will not make the U.S. safe, is in opposition to American values, and will fuel anti-American sentiment in Africa and around the world. This scatter-shot action is a threat to all refugees, to the global system of protection for refugees and other displaced people, and to the future of human rights and of U.S. democracy. In addition, this EO violates the Geneva Convention on Refugees which obliges all member states to take in those fleeing war.
In stating that he plans to favor Christian refugees, the President makes clear that this is a religion-based discrimination. Such discrimination has been condemned by many leaders of U.S. Protestant, Catholic, and Evangelical churches. It also violates the ban on government establishment of religion in the first amendment of the US Constitution as well as U.S. law that bars discrimination “in the issuance of an immigrant visa because of the person’s race, sex, nationality, place of birth or place of residence.” (8 U.S. Code § 1152).
This EO violates the most basic of humanitarian norms at the core of our democracy and puts severe burdens on families in Africa, the other affected countries, and the United States. It will have a severe impact on students and scholars who have or would have sought to have, ties and links with US institutions of higher education.
With many other organizations in the United States and around the world, we therefore call for the immediate rescinding of this executive order and a new U.S. policy to accept more of those fleeing the conflicts around the world.
ACAS January 31 2017
ACAS Executive expresses its concern at the Zanzibar election annulment, and agrees with the sentiments of a group of scholars of Zanzibar as below. (see link to full statement and initial signatories)
ZANZIBAR SCHOLARS’ STATEMENT OF CONCERN
1 November 2015
We, as concerned scholars of Zanzibar, write to express our dismay at recent events
following the elections of 25 October 2015.
We continue to be deeply thankful for the repeated opportunities afforded us by the
Government of Zanzibar to study, document, and try to understand the lives of Zanzibaris
– their complexity and inventiveness, their countless achievements, and the challenges
they face.
Our work – our research, writing, and analyses of history, culture, geography and
language – has given us a firm appreciation for the people of Zanzibar. Treating us with
enormous generosity and patience, they have repeatedly taught us the value of community,
hospitality, and perseverance.
In our many combined years of listening to and learning from Zanzibaris about so many
aspects of their lives, we have consistently been struck by their decency, kindness, and
their remarkable ability to meet adversity with grace and good humor. Today we extend
our deepest gratitude to them. And we beseech the Governments of Zanzibar and of the
United Republic of Tanzania to honor their commitment to multi-party democracy and to
keep all of their citizens well and free from harm.
We present this statement in the hope that both the Government of Zanzibar and the
Government of the United Republic of Tanzania will reassert their belief in democracy’s
core values; that they will resolve this crisis with wisdom and humility; and that security
organs will exercise restraint and good judgment, prioritizing at all times the safety,
dignity and rights of the people with whose protection they are charged.
Urgent Action Alert: Mozambique: Drop All Charges Against Carlos Nuno Castel-Branco and Fernando Mbanze (UA 162/15… http://ow.ly/31FXA3
see http://www.amnestyusa.org/sites/default/files/uaa16215_0.pdf
PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 1 SEPTEMBER 2015 TO:
Minister of Justice, Constitutional and Religious Affairs
Abduremane Lino de Almeida
Ministry of Justice
Av. Julius Nyerere, 33
Maputo
Republic of Mozambique
Fax: 011 25821494264 and 011 25821487853
Salutation: A sua Excelência
General Prosecutor of Mozambique
Beatriz da Consolação Mateus Buchili
Office of the General Prosecutor
Av. Vladimir Lenine, 121
Maputo
Republic of Mozambique
E-mail: pgr@pgr.gov.mz
Salutation: Exma. Dra.
Also send copies to:
Ambassador Amélia Matos Sumbana, Embassy of the Republic of Mozambique
1525 New Hampshire Avenue NW, Washington DC 20036
Phone: 1 202 293-7146 I Fax: 1 202 835 0245 I Email: embamoc@aol.com