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
Category: Action Alerts
ACAS Statement on Presidential Executive Order No. 13769
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
Urgent action to end xenophobic attacks in South Africa
“We call for urgent action to end the xenophobic attacks in South Africa. The undersigned represent members of the North Eastern Workshop on Southern Africa, the African Studies Association, the African Studies Association Women’s Caucus, the Association of Concerned African Scholars, and the US-Africa Network. As scholars and activists, we know that this violence directed at “strangers” defies a long history of exchange, migration, and solidarity in the region—especially during the anti-apartheid movement. As friends and family members of southern Africans, we worry about the safety of many who are close to us. And as human beings, we are shocked and heartbroken to see this violence continue. We therefore urge President Zuma’s administration to bring this violence to an end, and to foster policy that prevents such violence in the future.”
ACTION: Please email Meghan Healy-Clancy at healy.meghan@gmail.com with your name, title, and affiliation to sign the petition.
Central African Republic: Whose Responsibility to Protect? (AfricaFocus Bulletin)
November 27, 2013 Central African Republic: Whose Responsibility to Protect? (Reposted from sources cited below)
AfricaFocus Bulletin Editor’s note:
“In the Central African Republic, the scale of the humanitarian crisis is undeniable; the threat of even greater escalation of violence and chaos is real. And there is a consensus that greater international action is essential. But the questions of who does what when, and who pays, remain unanswered. France is sending additional troops to reinforce the African peacekeeping force now in place, but the processes for funding and coordinating African Union and United Nations multilateral actions are still in slowmotion mode….” read more
ACAS releases statement on the LRA and Central Africa
ACAS has released a statement and accompanying press release expressing its deep concern that the recent campaign in the United States to pursue and arrest Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), could have dangerous unintended consequences. Expanding U.S. military operations with the Ugandan army to capture Kony could increase the militarization of the region and lead to deaths of civilians who are caught in the crossfire or become targets of retaliatory attacks by the LRA, as has occurred in the past.
ACAS also is producing materials that scholars can use to engage with students on their campuses and with teachers and middle and high school students in their communities, who are a major audience of the Kony2012 video produced by Invisible Children.
SIGN PETITION: US Aid to Ethiopia Supports Forced Relocations for Land Grabs
The ACAS Task Force on Land Grabs urges you to sign a petition to President Obama and USAID administrator Dr. Rajiv Shah to stop your tax money financing land grabs, forced removals of pastoralist peoples, and “cultural transformation” in Ethiopia.
Go to the petition (click on “Petition” tab to see text).
This initiative is from the Oakland Institute and Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia (SMNE).
Demand an end to the violence against teachers and students in Haiti
We the undersigned are responding to a call for international solidarity sent out by the executive committee of a coalition of education organizations in Haiti after the police killing of a protesting teacher, and signed on Oct. 11, 2010, by the coordinators of the coalition François Mario, CNEH (teachers’ union), Eugène Jean, UPEPH (parents’ organization), and Josué Mérilien, UNNOH (teachers’ union). We stand in solidarity with teachers, students, and parents in Port-au-Prince who are organizing for schooling for Haitian children abandoned by the education system, and for decent living and working conditions for teachers and students. We demand an end to the systematic violence against them.
US Foreign Aid Bill: $8 billion “shall” go to GMO research
The “Global Food Security” bill is back. After its introduction in the Senate a year ago, Bill Gates and Bill Clinton have been quietly pressing for this piece of legislation that aims to fight global hunger with one hand while orchestrating a giant taxpayer subsidy to pesticide and ag biotech companies with the other. The bill, also known as the Lugar-Casey Act — for Senators Richard Lugar (R-IN) and Robert Casey (D-PA) — would refocus aid programs on agricultural development, with a caveat: public funding of genetically engineered (GE) seeds is what this bill means by “agricultural development.”
Last spring Pesticide Action Network joined Food First, Union of Concerned Scientists and other partners in commending the overall intention of the bill, while calling for the removal of the corporate give-away clause buried in its language. The Lugar-Casey Act directs some $7.7 billion to agricultural research and development, much of which could go directly into the coffers of corporations like Monsanto because of one clause mandating that research funds “shall” go towards GE crop research. Monsanto (the world’s largest purveyor of GM seeds) has done more lobbying on the Lugar-Casey Act than any other interest.
USAID would be responsible for implementing the bill. Over the last two decades, this agency has spent millions of US taxpayer dollars on developing GE crops, with not one success story to show for it. A highly touted partnership between USAID and Monsanto to develop a virus-resistant sweet potato in Kenya failed to deliver anything useful for farmers. After fourteen years and $6 million, local varieties vastly outperformed their genetically modified cousins in field trials.
“At the end of the day, GE crops don’t have much to offer – especially to farmers in the developing world,” notes PAN senior scientist Dr. Marcia Ishii-Eiteman. The bill’s single-minded focus on promoting GMOs runs directly counter to the scientific findings from the most comprehensive analysis of world agriculture to date, the IAASTD
http://www.panna.org/mag/summer2008/agriculture/business-as-usual-is-not-an-option.
This landmark report highlights the need to strengthen agroecological research to support small-scale farmers, while decreasing corporate control of seeds and the food system. “We will be working with partners in the coming weeks to mobilizing a strong message to the Senate reiterating our call to strip the GM clause from the bill,” adds Ishii-Eiteman.
Global Food Security Act
Foreign Policy in Focus
http://www.fpif.org/articles/global_food_security_act
Zimbabwe: Human Rights Defenders Under Attack – Act Now!
“History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people”.
—Martin Luther King Jr.
Dear Friends,
Today the government of Zimbabwe rearrested Jestina Mukoko and 15 others on trumped up charges of “banditry, terrorism and insurgency”. The arrest follows the appearance of Jestina and her comrades before a Harare Magistrate at which they were formally indicted remanded in custody.
We cannot be silent in the face of this outrageous attack on human rights defenders. The only crime committed by Jestina Mukoko, a long time civic leader in Zimbabwe and her co-accused is standing up against tyranny in Zimbabwe and speaking out in defense of human rights and democracy. As Martin taught us, it takes the silence of good people for abuses of this nature to persist. We call upon people of good conscience all over the world to add your voice in calling for the unconditional release of Jestina Mukoko and her comrades. Zimbabwe’s compromised courts cannot be trusted to deliver justice to activists who have been targeted and victimized for their principled stand on human rights and democracy. There is no chance for these activists getting a fair trial under the unreconstructed judicial system in Zimbabwe.
State agents abducted Jestina and others back in October last year and they suffered torture and abuse in secret detention. Following loud protests from activists in Zimbabwe and around the world, Jestina and others surfaced form secret detention only to be released to the notorious Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison where they were held for two more months and only released on bail as part of a political deal by parties to Zimbabwe’s new inclusive government. The re-arresting of Jestina Mukoko and other activists is a shame to the new inclusive government in Zimbabwe.
We call upon you to raise your voices again in support of these human rights defenders by taking the following actions:
1. Call the Zimbabwe Embassy to the U.S.*: Phone number (+1 202 332-7100) and register your protest at the detention and ill-treatment of these human rights defenders and demand their immediate release.
2. Write to President Obama– and ask him to pressure the Zimbabwe government to release Jestina Mukoko and her fellow activists
Click here to send a message to President Obama.
Reports of horrible conditions and abuse in Zimbabwe’s prisons are rampant we therefore must act with speed to secure the release of these human rights defenders.
Please act now!
In solidarity,
Staff @ Africa Action
Still Missing: Leading Zimbabwe Human Rights Activist Abducted
Take Action! Phone the Embassy of Zimbabwe!
Dear Friend,
Africa Action is concerned about the whereabouts of Justina Mukoko, a prominent civil socity leader in Zimbabwe, reportedly missing for over forty-eight hours. As the Director of the Zimbabwe Peace Project, Jestina has been instrumental in keeping the world informed of human rights abuses in Zimbabwe.
We must all denounce this attempt to silence this heroine of Zimbabwe’s struggle for democracy and demand that she be released immediately and returned to her family unharmed.
PHONE THE EMBASSY OF ZIMBABWE!
202-332-7100
The abduction of Jestina Mukoko follows a protest organized by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) that was brutally crushed by police. Over seventy workers were arrested throughout Zimbabwe and many more were severely beaten by anti-riot police, including ZCTU Secretary General, Wellington Chibhebhe. Jestina’s abduction follows a clear pattern consistent with previous abductions by government agents, particularly the Central Intelligence Organization.
TAKE ACTION: Africa Action urges the international community to call for the immediate release of Jestina Mukoko.
To support the call to release Jestina Mukoko, phone the Embassy of Zimbabwe in the U.S. at 202-332-7100 with the following message:
“Hi. I am calling with a message for the Government of Zimbabwe. I am very concerned about the recent whereabouts and safety of Jestina Mukoko, Executive Director of the Zimbabwe Peace Project. As you should know, she has been missing now for over forty-eight hours. I urge the Government of Zimbabwe to take every step to ensure the safe and secure return to her family immediately.”
Visit www.africaaction.org to learn more about the crisis in Zimbabwe, and read Africa Action’s report, A Dream Deferred – the 2008 Zimbabwe Elections.
In solidarity,
The Staff @ Africa Action