Category: Action Alerts

By Bill Martin, Co-Chair ACAS
20 July 1998

The trade and investment legislation known as the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act has already been approved by the House and is coming up for a vote in the Senate Finance Committee this week. ACAS, along with many of our African allies and US groups like TransAfrica, the AFL-CIO and Public Citizen, believes this legislation is worse than no bill at all.

We encourage our members to actively oppose the bill.

We attach to this message background material that documents the problems with this legislation in its current form. This includes a background briefing, entitled “Dictated Trade,” that explains the principal problems with the legislation. We also provide excerpts from the eligibility requirements contained in the bill, which demonstrate the strict conditionalities to be imposed on African states.

We urge you to contact your Senators and asked them to vote against the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (S. 778).

Senate and other Washington DC addresses can be obtained from our web site

Further information, including statements by other African and US organizations, is also available on our ACAS web site as well as Public Citizen’s extensive site on the bill: the Public Citizen web site

Association of Concerned Africa Scholars
March 9, 1998

To: ACAS Members
From: Bill Martin, Co-Chair
Date: March 9, 1998
Re: Act Now on Africa Growth and Opportunity Bill

I am writing to urge ACAS members to ask their members of Congress to vote against the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act that the House of Representatives is expected to consider this coming Wednesday, March 11.

In principle, supporters of Africa should welcome the new attention to Africa represented by this legislative initiative and President Bill Clinton’s upcoming trip to Africa. But the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (H.R. 1432) provides few tangible benefits to the majority of African countries that are too poor to take advantage of the bill’s purported trade and investment benefits. Furthermore, the legislation entrenches the positions of U.S. multinationals, reinforces failed structural adjustment programs, and imposes onerous new strictures for debt relief.

ACAS, together with TransAfrica, several unions, and Ralph Nader’s consumer organization Public Citizen, has openly and jointly opposed the act as currently proposed. We urge you to write your Congressional representative in opposition to the legislation as currently formulated. The House vote is scheduled for this Wednesday, March 11 and the legislation will then go to the Senate. Equally important, we urge you to consider writing op-ed pieces and letters to the editor of your local newspaper, arguing for an alternative partnership between the U.S. and Africa. Among the points we believe should be considered in developing this alternative are:

* Structural adjustment programs, so harshly imposed on African states, have failed and should be abandoned–as is being considered for Asian states confronted by economic crisis. SAPs in Africa to date have exacerbated income inequalities, forced a defunding of education and social programs, and brought broad-based growth to only a small number of African states at best;

* African trade unions, church groups, women’s organizations and a broad coalition of groups representing civil society have raised serious questions about the economic provisions enshrined in this legislation. Organizations representing these African forces have persuaded the World Bank to engage in a joint, two year long study of the effect of these programs in four African countries to better understand and critique the consequences of these programs;

* Most African countries are dependent on a relatively small number of primary commodity exports, and will thus see few tangible benefits from the provisions of this legislation, while multinationals are given further control over African markets and products;

* Debt relief–often contracted by US-installed and supported dictators–remains a priority for Africa, where 50 percent of the population of Africa as defined by the World Bank are living in poverty;

* Continuing and protected levels of U.S. foreign assistance to Africa remain a critical priority for U.S. foreign policy in the region. But the current Clinton administration proposals do not contain specific protected levels of assistance to Africa –although assistance is protected to the countries of the former Soviet Union and Israel/Egypt.

ASSOCIATION OF CONCERNED AFRICA SCHOLARS
8 March 1998

Association of Concerned Africa Scholars
November 25, 1997

Members of ACAS have given strong support to the campaign to ban landmines and remove the 100,000,000 mines from the ground in 66 countries of the world, mostly developing countries where women and children (mostly people of color) are the casualties. The time has come for a final showdown in favor of a total ban.

Over 100 nations are ready to sign such a treaty in Ottawa, Canada, on Dec. 2-3, 1997. Unfortunately, the US is not one of them. Rather, as a grandiose public relations move, the US has announced its leadership in a major demining effort over the next decade, but refuses to sign the treaty that would stop most of the source of anti-personnel landmines. As a “ban bus” crossed the US this past month, citizens everywhere rallied in support of the ban. NGOs have taken the lead, as symbolized by the recent Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. Retired military leaders have supported the ban. Congress, though time prohited final passage, was ready to pass legislation to support the ban. ONLY THE PENTAGON OPPOSES THE BAN….and that without reference to their own documentation which shows them to be counter-productive.

THUS, ACAS members are encouraged to make a final attempt themselves…and through their influential contacts…to persuade President Clinton to sign the treaty! Send a strong message in support of the ban, through whatever means you wish, before December 1st.

President Clinton’s e-mail address is: president@whitehouse.gov

The White House comment web site is: http://www.whitehouse.gov/WH/Mail/html/Mail_President.html

And on Dec. 2nd, phone the white house opinion line 1-202-456-1111

Maybe your comment will be the one to swing his position to that of the rest of the world. You might want to praise him for his demining initiative….and point out that 20 times as many new mines are placed each year, than removed. Why not stop the source???