Category: Press Statements

Mar 14, 2012

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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.

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Jun 24, 2008

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ACAS Press Release: Zimbabwe Crisis

Press Release: Zimbabwe Crisis
June 24, 2008
4pm EST

The Association of Concerned Africa Scholars (ACAS), has published a special issue on Zimbabwe in the ACAS Bulletin. It introduces the issues surrounding Zimbabwe’s March 29 elections and the current political violence leading up to the June 27th Presidential run-off.

The aim of this special Zimbabwe issue is to provide details and analysis often left out of mainstream news sources. The reader will find a variety of articles from different perspectives, by Zimbabwe experts from the fields of political science, sociology, history, and theology, as well as from seasoned Zimbabwe journalists and an NGO worker reporting from the field. The special issue concludes with a historically-inflected editorial on Zimbabwe’s politics of violence, an open letter to Thabo Mbeki, and provides a listing of on-line resources for further research and information.

The issue was edited by Tim Scarnecchia and Wendy Urban-Mead, and contains articles by (among others): Norma Kriger, Jimmy G Dube, Augustine Hungwe, Sabelo J Ndlovu-Gatsheni, David Moore, Amy Ansell, and Peta Thornycroft.

Contact:
Tim Scarneccia
Kent State University
(330) 672-8904
tscarnec@kent.edu

Wendy Urban-Mead
Bard College
(845) 264-1805
wum@bard.edu

Read the issue here | PDF version: https://concernedafricascholars.org/docs/acasbulletin79.pdf

Jan 05, 2008

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ACAS Press Statement on the Crisis in Kenya

Association of Concerned Africa Scholars
January 5, 2008

The Association of Concerned Africa Scholars (ACAS), an organization of United States-based academics and activists, today rejected superficial and misleading popular and media portrayals of the post-electoral violence in Kenya as “tribal.”

We are equally concerned about the role of the U.S. government — far from a neutral player — both before and after the elections.

More than 300 people have been killed in the crisis related to the legitimacy of the December elections.

ACAS calls for the U.S. and other Western governments to honor initiatives and mediation by the African Union as well as by Kenyans themselves.

ACAS calls for a speedy, independent re-examination of the electoral results or another election for President.

ACAS condemns and calls for an end to:
• the widespread violence by the principal Kenyan political actors

• restrictions on the right to assemble and demonstrate peacefully and non-violently

• recently declared restrictions on press freedoms

Brief Background:

The Current Crisis represents the dominant class’s attempt to secure power and maintain social and political control over the majority who are denouncing the electoral process. The ability of Kenyan politicians to exploit cleavages between the haves and have-nots contributes to the violence and marginalizes the majority from the political process.

The U.S. contribution to the crisis. Seeing it as a key ally in the “war on terror,” the Bush Administration has built a close military relationship with the Kibaki government; The U.S. has played a central role in building up Kenya’s weaponry and internal security apparatus, now being deployed in the crisis. Current U.S.-Kenyan relations are a product of 24 years of U.S. support to the Daniel arap Moi dictatorship that jailed, exiled or disappeared those opposed to the regime. The legacy of these politics remains institutionalized within the political process itself and creates huge barriers to democratic freedom and political participation. Overall, the current turmoil in Kenya is the clear result of colonial rule, external intervention, and detrimental foreign aid policies.

For more information on ACAS, see https://concernedafricascholars.org

ACAS has three prominent Kenya experts that available for comment or to provide contextualization to the media:

Kenya Experts:
•Frank Holmquist, Political Scientist, Hampshire College, 413-256-0726 (home), 413-335-5620 (cell), 413-559-5377 (office)

•Edwin S. Segal, Anthropologist, University of Louisville, 502-836-9598.

•Ann Seidman, co-director of the Boston University School of Law Program on Legislative Drafting for Democratic Social Change. 617-361-6786.

ACAS Board of Directors:
Ousseina Alidou, Merle Bowen, Horace Campbell, Imani Countess, Asma Abdel Halim, Frank Holmquist, Gerald Horne, Al Kagan, Sidney Lemelle, William Martin, Bill Minter, James Mittelman, Prexy Nesbitt, Joel Samoff, Elizabeth Schmidt, Ann Seidman, Meredith Turshen, Daniel Volman, Immanuel Wallerstein, David Wiley, Noah Zerbe, and Jennifer Davis.

May 11, 2001

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Open letter to Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia

Association of Concerned Africa Scholars
May 11, 2001

In response to the accelerating repression against students and scholars in Ethiopia, ACAS on May 11th wrote to Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, urging him to release all detainees and restore conditions ensuring freedom of speech and academic freedom. While some detainees have been released, others have not. We urge our members to write as well to:

Prime Minister Meles Zenawi: Fax: 251-1-55-2020
US Secretary of State Colin Powell: Fax: (202) 261-8577, Email: Secretary@state.gov

Print addresses are on our letter below. The African Studies Association (USA) also issued a letter to Prime Minister Meles on 25 June 2001.

Background: Human Rights Watch has issued an alert with a briefing (May 10, 2001); see also the appeal from the Families and Friends of Professor Mesfin Wolde Mariam and Dr. Berhanu Nega (May 14, 2001), as well as an online petition and short biographies of Professor Mesfin and Dr. Berhanu. Further efforts are being organized by the Ethiopian University Support Site, and the Addis Ababa University Alumni Network.

* * *

May 11, 2001

His Excellency Meles Zenawi
P.O.Box 1031
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Via Fax: 2511-55-20-20

Dear Prime Minister Meles,

On behalf of the Association of Concerned Africa Scholars (ACAS), a national organization of progressive scholars actively engaged with Africa, we write to urge that you take immediate steps to release detained students and scholars, and allow university communities to return to their work unhindered by state repression.

ACAS and its members have a long history of respect and support for Ethiopian struggles for freedom; indeed Ethiopia has often been a source of inspiration for Americans. We are thus particularly disturbed by what can only be seen as a determined campaign to suppress free speech and academic freedom. Whatever the events and persons involved in the April disturbances in Addis Ababa, the subsequent attack on Addis Ababa University and other institutions of higher education shocked our members and many in the international academic community. The reports of subsequent summary arrests and the detention of thousands of students and scholars–without charges or trial–is of especially grave concern. The even more recent arrest of Professor Mesfin Woldemariam, the founding member of Ethiopian Human Rights Council, and Dr. Berhanu Nega, a prominent economist at Addis Ababa University, signals we fear an unrelenting campaign to eliminate all dissent, well beyond even the repression of those who work within the fields of higher education.

We thus urge you to use your office to ensure the immediate release of all detained students, scholars, and related persons–or if evidence exists, their charge in public court. The continuation of sweeping arrests and detention without charges, the closure of universities and colleges, and the imposition of loyalty oaths as a condition of study and scholarship, gravely threatens Ethiopia’s proud intellectual heritage, its continuation, and progressive relations between Ethiopia and the United States. We hope continuing repression can be reversed, and return Ethiopia to us as a signal beacon of the struggle for freedom for both Africa and America.

Sincerely,

Merle Bowen, Co-Chair
William G. Martin, Co-Chair

cc:

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell
U.S. Department of State
Washington, DC 20520
Fax: (202) 261-8577

Ambassador Berhane Gebre-Christos
Ethiopian Ambassador to the United States
Embassy of Ethiopia
3506 International Drive, NW
Washington DC 20008
Fax (202) 686-9551

Feb 05, 2001

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Open Letter to President Benjamin Mkapa of Tanzania

Association of Concerned Africa Scholars
February 5, 2001

President Benjamin William Mkapa,
United Republic of Tanzania
The State House
PO Box 9120
Dar Es Salaam
Tanzania
FAX 22-211-3425

Dear President Mkapa,

The Association of Concerned Africa Scholars writes today to condemn the killings of activists on the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba in late January and the ongoing suppression of peaceful citizens exercising their democratic rights. We support the call of our colleagues in the Legal Aid Committee of the Faculty of Law of the University of Dar Es Salaam (28 January 2001) for an end to police violence and repression.

As a national association of scholars in the United States, many of whom have had a long association with and respect for the United Republic of Tanzania, we are deeply concerned by these violations of fundamental human rights and the killings on the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba on Saturday 27 January 2001. We were equally appalled by the reports of arrests, harassment, torture, injury and incarceration of the leaders of political organizations exercising their rights to peaceful assembly on these islands and in Dar Es Salaam. We condemn these actions unequivocally and call for your government to immediately put a stop to such measures and to investigate the abuses of the police and other security forces.

We note that the Legal Aid Committee, which has been providing human rights training for members of the police force since 1997, expresses particular concern at the behavior of the police force and we call on the government to ensure that the commanders of this force are held accountable for the actions of their subordinates.

Mr. President, we look forward to hearing from you the actions that your government is taking to put a stop to these violations of human rights and we will be following these events closely in this country and working to make others aware of the reports from your country.

Sincerely,
William Martin
Co-Chair, Association of Concerned Africa Scholars
Fernand Braudel Center
Binghamton University
PO Box 6000
Binghamton, NY 13902-6000
wgmartin@prairienet.org
http://acas.prairienet.org

cc.
Ambassador Charles R. Stith
United States Embassy
P.O. Box 9123
Dar es Salaam
Tel [255] (22) 2666010/1/2/3/4/5
Fax 2666701
Email: usembassy-dar2@cats-net.com

His Excellency Mustafa Salim Nyang’anyi
Embassy of the United Republic of Tanzania
2139 R St. NW, Washington, DC 20008, USA.
Tel: (202) 884-1080 & (202) 939-6125
Fax: (202) 797-7408
e-mail: balozi@tanzaniaembassy-us.org

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell
U.S. Department of State, Washington, DC, 20520
Fax: 202-261-8577
e-mail: secretary@state.gov

Jan 31, 2001

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Open Letter to the President of the Republic of Uganda, Yoweri K. Museveni

Association of Concerned Africa Scholars
January 31, 2001

[Note: Within a week after this letter, Dr. Depelchin was released and ended his hunger strike after UN observors were dispatched to Ituri province. Dr. Depelchin shortly thereafter left Uganda. We thank ACAS members and others for their work on this and related, continuing, issues.]

31 January 2001
His Excellency Yoweri K. Museveni
President of the Republic of Uganda
The President’s Office
Kampala, Uganda
Fax: 256 41 235 462

Dear Mr. President,

I write on behalf of the Association of Concerned Africa Scholars to express our deep concern and dismay over the kidnapping by Ugandan forces of Dr. Jacques Depelchin, whom many of us know from his work in the North American and African academic community. Dr. Depelchin was arrested at gunpoint on January 28, 2001 in Bunia, and taken to Kampala by force. He is now apparently under some form of “city arrest,” and is engaged, in response, on a hunger strike.

As far as we know, there is no justification for this action, and no charges have been laid against him. We thus urge that restrictions on Dr. Depelchin be immediately removed, and that his possessions be returned to him.

If, however, the Ugandan authorities have evidence that Dr. Depelchin has violated the law or committed a crime, then they should formally charge in open court and give him an opportunity to defend himself, with legal counsel, as guaranteed under law.

We also urge that your office to work to end the promotion of ethnic violence and genocide in Ituri province, and to encourage the despatch of neutral international observors to Bunia and Ituri.

Sincerely,
William G. Martin, Co-Chair

Mar 17, 2000

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Boycott Conflict Diamonds

Physicians for Human Rights
July 17, 2000

Open Letter to the World Diamond Congress

Antwerp, Belgium

To whom it may concern:

We the undersigned human rights, religious, development, humanitarian, and consumer organizations call upon the international diamond industry to announce immediate, practical measures to end the international trade in conflict diamonds. We are dismayed that despite clear evidence that international trade in rebel-controlled diamonds has ignited, fueled, and sustained cruel conflicts in Sierra Leone, Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for many years, to date neither the diamond industry nor diamond importing governments have taken actions to successfully limit or end that trade.

Notwithstanding the promises of leading companies within the diamond industries that they do not deal in conflict diamonds, sales of such diamonds mined in rebel-controlled territory in Angola, the Congo, and Sierra Leone continue to the present day. Diamonds from these areas are laundered through such countries as Liberia, Togo, Zimbabwe, Congo-Kinshasa, Ivory Coast, and Burkina Faso; and then they are admitted to major cutting and export centers with few questions asked.

We are deeply concerned that Americans have unwittingly subsidized violence in Sierra Leone and Angola through their diamond purchases. According to U.S. State Department sources and independent experts, smuggled and illicit conflict diamonds may amount to as much as ten to fifteen percent of the $50 billion worth of diamond jewelry sold internationally every year. The United States accounts for sixty-five (65) percent of world diamond jewelry sales, which likely includes a significant portion of those conflict diamonds on the market. Thus, American purchases of diamonds provide substantial resources to insurgent forces which mine and/or steal rough stones, providing enormous profits to the diamond industry who export, cut, and sell these conflict diamonds.

Diamond smuggling has permitted the RUF in Sierra Leone and UNITA in Angola to spend hundreds of millions of dollars for weapons and equipment, transforming these insurgencies into formidable fighting forces that have wreaked devastation on their countries. The human cost of wars fueled by diamonds has been extraordinarily high: in Sierra Leone 75,000 have been killed since 1991; in Angola 500,000 have died during the return to civil war in the past decade.

The thousands of American citizens affiliated with our organizations will not knowingly subsidize war and violence in Africa through the purchase of conflict diamonds. Because the diamond industry has failed to impose any realistic or practical controls on its own members, failed to support and maintain a legitimate market that could marginalize the market in conflict diamonds, and failed to initiate a comprehensive, forgery-proof system for identifying, marking, and certifying the country of extraction from which it buys, cuts, and exports, then neither our members nor anyone else can exercise ethical choices when buying diamonds.

Important players in the diamond industry have very recently announced a number of positive steps, including the threat by De Beers, the Diamond High Council, the Israeli Diamond Exchange, and India to ban any member who knowingly trades in diamonds obtained from rebel movements in Africa. We are also aware that De Beers, which controls upwards of sixty percent of the world diamond industry, promised in March that all of its stones were conflict-free. But such threats and promises, while welcome, are largely symbolic unless the diamond industry, in collaboration with diamond producing, cutting, exporting, and importing countries, establishes a transparent, legitimate system that can force the trade in conflict stones out of business, or greatly reduce its profits.

Such a system will require a comprehensive, global system of transparency for establishing origin, legitimate export and import centers, customs and excise regimen in importing countries, international inspection of diamond packets, and other measures proposed by the Working Group on African Diamonds which met in Luanda in June 2000.

We support the Luanda recommendations and welcome the process that has been set in motion for an international ministerial meeting in September. However, the establishment of a comprehensive global system for the mining, export, manufacture and sale of legitimate diamonds will take time, and it may well be years before such a system dries up the flow of money and weapons to insurgents in Sierra Leone and Angola. But the diamond industry can take immediate action to deprive rebel movements of resources by identifying (or marking) diamonds or packets of diamonds and providing forgery-proof certificates of origin/legitimacy, without which no stone (or packet of stones) can be cut, exported, or sold.

The diamond industry has, to date, refused to initiate a system for assuring the legitimacy of the diamonds it buys, cuts and exports. It is past time to do so. We call upon the industry to announce that 1) it will no longer admit rough stones to cutting or export centers that do not have legitimate, internationally sanctioned certificates of origin from reputable diamond producing countries or government-controlled areas within diamond producing countries. 2) that the industry will not buy, or admit to exporting or cutting centers any diamonds or packets of diamonds that originate in the Democratic Republic of Congo, RUF-controlled Sierra Leone, or UNITA-controlled Angola or that have been transshipped through Liberia, Togo, Congo, Burkina Faso, or the Ivory Coast.

These actions could help in the short run, and will indicate the diamond industry’s good faith as a partner in longer-term actions that are needed. We urge you to announce these measures at your meeting in Antwerp on July 17.

Sincerely,

Leonard S. Rubenstein
Executive Director
Physicians for Human Rights

Serge Duss
Director, Public Policy and Government Relations
World Vision

Vicki Ferguson
Director of Outreach and Education
Africa Policy Information Center

Gay McDougall
Executive Director
International Human Rights Law Group

Beverly Lacayo
Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa
North American Province

Reverend Phil Reed
Justice and Peace Office
Missionaries of Africa

Erin McCandless
Director
Cantilevers

Edward W. Stowe
Legislative Secretary
Friends Committee on National Legislation

Alan Graham
Chief Executive Officer
Air Serve International

Stephen G. Price, Director
Office of Justice and Peace
Society of African Missions

Daniel Hoffman, Africa Executive
Africa Office, Global Ministries
United Church of Christ/Disciples of Christ

Nina Bang-Jensen
Director
Center for International Justice

Larry Goodwin
Executive Director
Africa Faith and Justice Network

Daniel Volman
Director
Africa Research Project

Ezekiel Pajibo
Facilitator
Advocacy Network for Africa (ADNA)

The Africa Fund

United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR)

Jennifer A. Stewart
Manager, Product/Program Development
Citizens Development Corps

Charmain Gooch, Director
Alex Yearsley, Campaigner
Global Witness

Africa Office of Global Ministries
United Church of Christ/Disciples of Christ
Daniel Hoffman, Area Executive for Africa

Leon P. Spencer
Executive Director
Washington Office on Africa

Merle Bowen and WIlliam Martin
Co-Chairs
Association of Concerned Africa Scholars

Gail R. Carson
Director
Relief and Food Security Programs

David Mozer
Chairperson
Washington State Africa Network

American Committee on Africa

Roney A. Heinz
International Director
Canaan Christians Fellowship Fund

William Goodfellow
Executive Director
Center for International Policy

Peter Vandermeulen
Paul Kortenhoven
Christian Reform Church of North America

Abdul Lamin
Coalition for Democracy in Sierra Leone

Rob Williams
International Development Manager
Concern Worldwide – U.S.

Margaret Zeigler
Deputy Director
Congressional Hunger Center

Stanley W. Hoise
Chief Executive Officer
Counterpart International, Inc.

John Kvcij
Chairman of the Board
Friends of Liberia

Billie Day
Friends of Sierra Leone,

Loretta Bondi
Advocacy Director of the Arms and Conflict Program
The Fund for Peace

Lynn Sauls
International Aid

Kakuna Kerina,
Director, Africa Program
International League for Human Rights

Kathryn Wolford
President
Lutheran World Relief

Kathleen McNeely
Program Associate
Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns

Terry Sawatsky
Co-director for Africa
Mennonite Central Committee

Bill Akin
Coordinator of Non-Violent Education Programs
Mid-South Peace and Justice Center

Rev. Kevin S. Kanouse, Bishop
Rev. Mark B. Herbener, Bishop Emeritus
Northern Texas – Louisiana Synod
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

Jack Marrkand, Executive Director
Partners for Development

Gordon Clark
Executive Director
Peace Action Education Fund

Lionel Rosenblatt
President
Refugees International

Cecelia Gugu Vilakazi
Editor and Publisher
SIMUNYE Newsletter

Maureen Healy
Africa Liason
Society of St. Ursula

Mark Harrison
General Board of Church and Society
United Methodist Church

Susie Johnson
Director, Public Policy
United Methodist Women

Roger Winter
Executive Director
U.S. Committee for Refugees

Jeredine Williams
West African Women’s Crusade
for Peace and Democracy

Mary Diaz
Executive Director
Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children

Meredith Tax, President
Women’s World Organization for Rights, Literature and Development
(Women’s WORLD)

Clive Calver
President
World Relief

Arne Bergstrom
World Relief

Rev. Seamus P. Finn, OMI
Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate

Jul 20, 1998

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Dictated Trade: The Case Against the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act

Dictated Trade: The Case Against the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act [H.R. 1432, S. 778]

President Bill Clinton and the U.S. Congress should be applauded for seeking to define a new U.S. foreign policy toward Africa that recognizes the demands from the continent for political, social and economic change. ACAS also welcomes the legislation’s intent to strengthen U.S. ties with the continent. The current draft of the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act pending before the Senate, however, is worse than no bill at all.

While this trade and investment legislation has won the enthusiastic support of some African governments, and the more lukewarm support of others (note President Nelson Mandela’s dissent), other African social movements and analysts have long argued that the policies promoted by the bill will result in yet greater hunger, poverty, and foreign control over the continent.

The Act does break new ground: it proposes to shift our relationship with Africa from aid to trade and investment. In fact, this month as the trade legislation is being debated, the Senate is also proposing cuts in foreign aid that will result in a 20% t o 30% reduction in foreign aid to Africa according to the Clinton administration.

The legislation offers a series of rewards for countries pursuing IMF style market-led economic reforms, including expanded duty free access to American markets for certain products, equity and infrastructure funds to support US investment, and the establishment of a mechanism to promote and review trade policy toward Africa.

Promoters of the Act, however, have been unable to demonstrate how African producers will benefit, beyond slight increases in textile exports. How producers of other manufactured goods, much less raw materials-and particularly oil which is 70% of US imports from Africa–might gain is not at all evident. It is no surprise that the most industrial and powerful African government has found the bill’s provisions, in the words of Nelson Mandela, “unacceptable.”

Those who will benefit are obvious. As one South African business magazine reported: “the prime beneficiaries of the Clinton African plan are the major American corporations.” Hundreds of millions of dollars in guarantees are allocated to insure US investment, subsidizing firms who reap the rewards of the forced privatization of African telecommunications and infrastructure. While the bill’s promoters speak of assisting Africans, African-Americans, and women, the primary group targeted for assistance a re the multinationals who control Africa’s trade and access to rich markets.

The bill’s sponsors argue there are no conditionalities contained within this legislation. A review of the text of the bill passed by the House, and the legislation pending before the Senate, reveals however an attempt to force African government to prioritize the following policies:

* severe cuts in government spending;
* fire-sales of government assets;
* new rights for foreign investors to buy African natural resources and state firms without limitation;
* deep tariff cuts;
* imposition of US monopoly and patent rules;
* binding membership in and adherence to all World Trade Organization regulations;
* compliance with all International Monetary Fund and other international financial institutions’ rules;
* avoidance of any “activities that undermine US national security or foreign policy interests” [HR 1432].

The US President alone is to apply these eligibility rules, using “quantitative factors” to monitor compliance.

These policies not new: in one form or another international financial institutions and multinational corporations have been seeking to impose them upon poorer African, Asian, and Latin American states for over twenty years. Where they have been implemented in other countries, the outcome is not only a loss of African states’ sovereignty, but documented increases in income inequality, poverty, malnutrition, and increasingly unstable economies.

These outcomes have led directly to widespread opposition to IMF, World Bank, and related programs by African trade unions, democratic movements, church groups, women’s organizations, etc.-and often riots as food prices rise, and health clinics and school s close.

Never however have these policies and conditions been gathered together as in the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, and then applied to a whole continent. This portends a bleak future, as Africans are stripped of their democratic right to make the most b asic of economic policy decisions, while foreign states and firms dictate trade and investment rules.

If we want to open the door to a more prosperous and democratic future for citizens of both the US and Africa, we need to forge a new relationship based on mutual needs and open public discussions with democratic African governments and movements–and not unilateral and private interests as in HR 1432 and S. 778. In its current form, the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act should be roundly rejected.

July 20, 1998
Contact:
William Martin, Co-Chair
Tel: 217 333 8052; fax: 217 333-5225/359-0949