THEME STATEMENT
INCLUSIVE SECURITY: U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY POLICY, AFRICA,
AND THE AFRICAN DIASPORA
The election victory of President Barack Obama is historic in and of itself,
a cause for celebration if only as a testament to the dramatic distance
our country has traveled along the path of social justice. The market
fundamentalism and unilateral militarism that have shaped the U.S.
stance towards the rest of the world in recent years have clearly failed.
Africa and the entire world, as well as the American people, hold enormous
expectations for real change.
But the new administration will be constrained by hard economic,
strategic, and political realities. It will be weighed down by the bureaucratic
and mental inertia of the past, and influenced by vested interests trying to
preserve privilege while giving the appearance of change. Despite historic
victories and new opportunities, neither our country nor our world is
"post-racial." On the contrary, the racially defined history of injustice still
shapes today's realities, both national and international.
Charting a new course is essential. But it will not be easy, and it will require
fundamental shifts in our thinking:
- From unilateralism to recognition of our interdependence with
other nations and of the urgency of building sustainable multilateral
cooperation.
- From seeking security in narrow military responses to understanding
that our long-term security depends on working together with others
to find ways to increase common security.
- From focusing exclusively on threats from violent enemies to paying
attention to less conventional threats that endanger us all—climate
change, epidemics, natural disasters, economic disasters, and even the
unpredictable side effects of accelerating technological changes.
- From assuming that markets will take care of themselves and that the
rich can find security in building higher walls to accepting that both
self-interest and our common humanity require investment in basic
economic and social rights for all.
-
From privileging U.S. relations with powerful friends and enemies
in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, while continuing to treat
historically marginalized regions such as Africa, the Caribbean, and
Latin America as afterthoughts, to accepting the fact that a truly global
vision requires overcoming the historical, racial, and geographical
inequities from which these regions still suffer.
New Approaches for U.S. National Security Policy
Implementing such a vision requires building popular understanding and
pressure, as well as step-by-step action in both executive and legislative
arenas. It is essential to begin now. Changing overall policy structures
and guidelines should go hand-in-hand with new initiatives for Africa,
the Caribbean, and Latin America. TransAfrica Forum recommends that
the Obama administration and the U.S. Congress consider the following
four strategies as stepping stones toward a new relationship with Africa
and the Diaspora:
1. Reduce U.S. Military Spending and Invest in
Reducing Threats Through Cooperative Security
Measures, Arms Reduction, and Multilateral Peace
Initiatives
Congress and the new administration should thoroughly review the U.S.
security budget, with a view to systematically reassessing what programs
actually serve U.S. interests and redirecting resources to diplomatic
initiatives, threat reduction, arms reduction, and multilateral programs
covering the full range of threats to human security.
With respect to Africa, the United States should stop the militarization
of policy by reversing the decision to establish AFRICOM and reviewing
all bilateral military cooperation with African states and anti-terrorism
initiatives to ensure they do not reinforce non-democratic regimes,
contribute to ongoing conflicts, or stimulate new conflicts. Instead, U.S.
security policy towards Africa should focus on strengthening multilateral
peacemaking and peacekeeping capacity, by the African Union, African
regional groups, and the United Nations.
With respect to the Caribbean and Latin America, the United States
should stop the militarization of the "war on drugs" and concomitant
collaboration with repressive military forces. Instead, it should focus on
regional cooperation to meet the threats of drug smuggling and other
criminal activities. In the case of Colombia, the United States should
cease funding for military operations in Colombia carried out by U.S.
or Colombian governments or private military contractors and redirect
those funds toward beneficiary-driven, alternative economic development
programs. It is also important for the U.S. to undertake diplomatic
initiatives to find common ground and reduce tensions with states
currently perceived as enemies, particularly Cuba and Venezuela.
2. Reform Structures for Economic Recovery to Refl ect
Interdependence and Cooperation Rather Than Blind
Reliance on Market Forces
The economic collapse experienced this year has forced even the most
rigid believer in the magic of free markets to recognize the need for public
action to stabilize the economy, provide emergency assistance to industries
and families struggling to survive, create new transparent regulatory
structures, and promote public and private investment for a sustainable
future. This is an opportunity that must not be missed. It is time to
recast free trade agreements based on the false premise of self-regulating
markets and to establish more democratic and accountable international
mechanisms for economic cooperation. Reductions in subsidies and other
trade barriers should ensure protection of the most vulnerable rather
than defer to privileged economic interests. It is imperative that these new
initiatives take account not only of the interests of established powers and
rising new powers such as China, India, and Brazil, but also of regions
and sectors that have been left behind. Moreover, a narrow focus on short-
term growth must be broadened to take into account the impact on the
environment and long-term sustainability of resources.
With respect to Africa, the United States should accelerate bilateral and
international actions to cancel unsustainable debt of African countries. It
should also support reform of international financial agencies dealing with
Africa to promote democratization and transparency of decision-making,
open dialogue on economic policies without ideological preconceptions,
and accountability to and input from national and regional civil society
and legislative bodies. It should cooperate with UN specialized agencies
and African policy analysts, instead of privileging narrow macroeconomic
prescriptions from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
With respect to the Caribbean and Latin America, with their particularly
close ties with the United States, U.S. policy should be directed at mutually
benefi cial economic ties that respect the rights of workers and the public
interest, including protections for indigenous and Afro-descendant
territorial rights and for other marginalized population groups. Whether
the U.S. is engaging with large economic powers, such as Mexico,
Brazil and Venezuela, or smaller countries, such as Haiti, it should seek
partnerships based on mutual respect and common-ground issues. While
approximately half of U.S. aid in Latin America is dedicated to military and
related programs, economies are increasingly vulnerable and inequality
is on the rise. U.S. policy should also include the prompt, unconditional
cancellation of Haiti's debt, and providing long-term support to address
infrastructure capacity and humanitarian needs.
Immigration and refugee policy is an essential component of U.S. economic,
political, and security relations with the Caribbean and Latin America,
and increasingly with some African countries as well. This issue must be
addressed both in terms of respect for human rights and due process and
in terms of the economic interests of workers in both the United States
and immigrant-sending countries. A particularly urgent example of
needed policy change is to extend temporary protected status to Haitians.
While deportations were suspended in the summer of 2008 aft er repeated
hurricane damage, they have now resumed, imposing an extraordinary
burden on both the deportees and the devastated Haitian economy.
3. Restructure U.S. Foreign Assistance Agencies to Foster
Cooperative Engagement with Other Countries and
International Agencies to Confront Global Problems
Despite the size of U.S. foreign assistance programs, leading the world
at over $21 billion in 2007, our country consistently ranks at the bottom
among other rich countries in the percentage of national income devoted
to official development aid (0.16 percent as compared to the international
commitment of 0.7 percent). Independent evaluations also rank the United
States below average in measures of aid effectiveness, such as prioritizing
sustainability, use of local resources, and results-based accountability
over political and commercial considerations and ideologically driven
policy conditions. Management of aid is spread among more than 45 U.S.
agencies, and genuine cooperation with international and local authorities
is more the exception than the rule.
It is essential not only to restructure foreign assistance programs for
greater efficiency, but also to reframe U.S. contributions to internationally
agreed efforts to meet common goals. The United States should contribute
its fair share to meet the needs defined by institutions representing all
stakeholders in critical sectors, following models such as that pioneered by
the innovative work of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria.
Bilateral programs should be coordinated with international programs to
confront priority issues, as defined in the universally agreed Millennium
Development Goals. U.S. assistance programs must also be accountable to
democratic institutions and civil society in the countries where programs
are implemented.
With respect to Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America, programs
currently defined as falling under foreign assistance must be integrated
within broader frameworks of regional and bilateral cooperation. Th is
cooperation should aim to bolster growth at the country level and advance
bold reforms to tackle poverty and inequality. These must be based on
dialogue, transparency, and maximizing eff orts to reach common goals.
There must be recognition of the close interrelationship of issues most
often compartmentalized into security, economic, humanitarian, and
development sectors. Beneficiaries of programs must be treated with
respect and as valued participants in design, monitoring and evaluation
of development projects. Program goals should include leveraging human
capital and increasing empowerment and economic autonomy.
4. Integrate Regional Collaboration and Bilateral
Partnerships to Foster an Inclusive Approach to
Resolve Issues within Each Region
The United States must build greater capacity to set priorities and
implement programs over a wide range of sectors, including traditional
and unconventional security threats, bilateral economic relations, and
investment in common public goods such as health and development.
These sectors intersect in increasingly complex patterns and engage diverse
agencies in such a way that it is impossible for these tasks to be integrated
simply through the traditional mechanisms of foreign embassies in
Washington and U.S. embassies in host countries.
It is imperative to develop new structures for communication, dialogue, and
coordination, involving governments, civil society groups, and the private
sector in both the United States and countries/regions in which the United
States is engaged. One possible partial model to build on is the bi-national
commission, including regular meetings at cabinet and department level,
which has been used at times for U.S. government relations with key states,
such as Mexico and South Africa. Such commissions linking government
departments should be supplemented by more active U.S. engagement in
regional collaborative agencies in specific sectors, and by encouraging
further coordination through offices of the United Nations Development
Program, which has among its tasks the parallel coordination of the
multiple agencies in the United Nations system.
With respect to Africa, it is urgent to establish such frameworks for
broader dialogue including African and U.S. civil society, policy analysts,
legislators, and a wide variety of government sectors rather than, as is now
the case, to privilege the expansion of military ties through AFRICOM,
EUCOM, and CENTCOM and of trade ties through the African Growth
and Opportunity Act.
With respect to the Caribbean and Latin America, it is essential to
explore how regional bodies such as CARICOM, the Organization of
American States, and UNASUR (the Union of South American Countries)
can help advance the inclusive consideration of common problems and of
U.S. relations with neighbors to the south. Such regional cooperation is
particularly imperative in addressing the issue of immigration, as well as
all other aspects of economic and security relationships.
INTRODUCTION
For more than three decades, TransAfrica Forum and its affi liate
organization TransAfrica have been in the forefront of promoting a
human rights-based U.S. foreign policy that would serve to benefi t and
advance the interests of Africans, people of African descent, and other
marginalized and excluded peoples in the United States and around the
world, as well as of the American people in general. U.S. foreign policy
should promote freedom for oppressed people, racial and gender equality,
social justice, mass-based democracy, and sustainable economic and
environmental development practices in Africa, in other countries where
people of African descent reside, and for the global community.
Since the founding of TransAfrica in 1977, we have spoken out to the
American public and its elected and appointed leaders regarding the
interests of black people internationally. We have worked with activists,
political leaders, scholars, and others who have been on the frontline in
seeking justice, human rights, and democratic societies.
President Barack Obama, his new executive team, and the new Congress
must urgently address fundamental problems in U.S. foreign policy, and
a legacy of eroded national image and legitimacy of the United States
around the world. The United States is in perhaps its most unfavorable
position globally in the nation's history. The election of Barack Obama
has raised extraordinary hopes, but these have no chance of being fulfi lled
without a new policy framework and new direction that is inclusive of
global concerns and meets an unprecedented range of challenges. New
policies must address inclusive human security rather than only military
challenges, balancing traditional measures of strength with capacity to
forge cooperative solutions to the world's common problems.
This new framework for U.S. foreign policy must also include an
understanding of and commitment to ending racialized oppression—
often manifest in ethnic, religious, and economic disputes—that impacts
nearly every nation and region globally. The crises facing many in Africa,
the Caribbean, Latin America, and other regions where people of African
descent live, work, and play are built on an accumulation of intersecting
issues including race, class, nation, and gender among others. Such
concerns must be an integral part of U.S. foreign policy strategy, rather
than aft erthoughts.
At present, U.S. foreign policy rests on the assumption that the critical
threats in the international system and against the United States come from
rogue states, from resurgent Cold War enemies such as Russia and China,
and from international terrorists. This is a very narrow framework, an usagainst-
them way of looking at the world that virtually ensures unilateral
and counterproductive responses. In reality, the obvious security threats
are fostered by social, political, and economic instabilities and stimulated
by unequal power relations and lack of accountability on the part of large
states. A foreign policy that emphasizes social justice, human rights,
and economic fairness would go a long way towards resolving those
instabilities.
THE BUSH YEARS AND THE DISMAL STATE OF CURRENT
U.S. FOREIGN POLICY
The current levels of animosity toward the United States are the result
of eight years of arrogant posturing, detrimental policies, aggressive
militarism, and the unilateralism of the George W. Bush administration.
The rise in anti-Americanism in the early years of the 21st century is in
many ways anti-Bushism and is a rejection of the specific actions, policies
and declarations of the Bush years. While this builds on the legacy of the
entire period following World War II, and particularly on the Cold War
years, and on policies continued in the period of American triumphalism
following the Cold War, the gap between the United States and its allies has
grown considerably at a time when urgent common problems call instead
for a new spirit of dialogue and cooperation. Ironically, the extremes of
the Bush years have also exposed the flaws of policies shared with previous
administrations, such as the exaggerated faith in free market trade policies
and in reliance on U.S. military predominance.
Revulsion toward the United States is driven by very real policies carried
out by the Bush administration. The administration brazenly violated
both U.S. and international norms at a rate that shocked the world. Th e
appalling list of transgressions includes, but is not limited to:
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Sanctioning of torture in violation of both U.S. and international law
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Invading Iraq on the basis of hyped-up and misleading intelligence
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Facilitating a war between Israel and Hezbollah
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Attempting to further militarize Africa with AFRICOM
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Withdrawing from the Kyoto Agreement to slow global warming
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Establishing "secret" prisons in Europe and elsewhere where detainees
in the war on terror were sent and tortured
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Carrying out "extraordinary renditions" where individuals captured
under the aegis of the war on terrorism were sent to countries such as
Egypt and Syria to be tortured
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Creating the Guantanamo gulag
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Giving succor and support to dictators such as Equatorial Guinea's
President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, Egypt's Mohammad
Mubarak, and Pakistan's former President Pervez Musharraf
In this hemisphere, the Bush administration has woefully exacerbated
critically needed humanitarian needs and severe human rights violations,
notably in the cases of Haiti and Colombia. After playing what many
consider a questionable role in the departure of former Haitian president
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti was virtually forgotten by the Bush
administration and U.S. policy-makers. In Colombia, Afro-Colombians
bear a disproportionate burden of the U.S.-sponsored war on drugs, while
the U.S. and Colombian governments have pushed for a new trade pact
that would reinforce inequalities.
Issues of special concern to Africa and the Diaspora were also egregiously
mismanaged. Whether the issue was the election calamity in Zimbabwe,
"anti-terrorism" operations that reinforce repressive regimes in the
Horn of Africa and the Sahel, human rights in Colombia and Haiti or
the treatment of immigrants, including Afro-Latinos, the United States
under the Bush administration was consistently on the wrong side. Even
while declaring a genocide in Darfur in the Sudan, the administration
consistently failed to take consequential action to pressure the Sudanese
government and support international peacekeepers.
On AIDS, extraordinary public mobilization, led by AIDS activists in South
Africa, internationally and in the United States, resulted in signifi cant
advances over these eight years. The results have been significant, even if
still inadequate. President Clinton, whose administration was missing in
action on AIDS in Africa, became an effective campaigner on the issue
after leaving office. President Bush, whose USAID administrator initially
dismissed antiretroviral treatment for Africans as impractical because
"Africans can't tell time", now finds that the presidential AIDS program is
one of the few accomplishments he can claim for history. Yet even in this
arena, the U.S. response has been hobbled by deference to pharmaceutical
companies and right-wing ideology on key issues of women's rights,
resulting in policy prescriptions that have made the funds invested less
effective.
The end of the Bush era in itself provides new opportunities. Th e world
looks forward to an administration that is more ready to use diplomacy, that
is willing to meet with adversaries, and that is willing to work with other
nations to address global concerns ranging from economic development,
to environmental dangers to terrorism. Yet today's challenges cannot
be fixed by a return to the policies of the pre-Bush years. There are new
challenges and unresolved issues that require more fundamental change.
BEYOND BUSH
Since the end of the Cold War, under both Democratic and Republican
administrations, U.S. foreign policy has floundered. As in the Cold War
period, Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America have been neglected
and abused; fundamental issues of global inequality and instability
have not been addressed. The assumption that the United States must
maintain and expand political, economic, and military dominance over
the rest of the world has not been fundamentally challenged. Instead it
has been embraced across partisan lines. Yet the challenges facing the
United States are increasingly common challenges shared with the entire
world. Although still the single largest power, the United States stands
no chance of resolving these problems without shifting to a posture of
cooperation rather than unilateral dominance. Unless this happens,
then more diplomacy and better image management will still fall short.
Even better-managed military forces will continue to be inadequate or
counterproductive in meeting elusive challenges of terrorism, drugs, or
piracy. Natural disasters and social instability will continue to produce
new anger and new recruits to violence.
Finding new enemies to replace the simplistic paradigms of the Cold War
cannot produce security. What the American people—indeed, people
around the world—want is not just a new administration with old ideas
but new leaders willing to take U.S. foreign policy in a new direction. In
virtually every area of foreign policy, there is a need for original thinking,
innovative paradigms, and fresh strategies to solve the most vexing
problems facing the global community.
Fundamentally, it is necessary not only to present a new foreign policy
face to the world, but to shape an international agenda that shows more
and more Americans how our own security depends on that of others. Th e
old civil rights adage that "none of us are free until all of us are free" has
its corollary in an inclusive human security framework: "None of us can
be secure until all of us are secure."
This report traces out the key elements of such an
inclusive agenda for U.S. foreign policy, illustrating
the principles with a number of examples in specific
policy sectors and particularly with respect to Africa
and the African Diaspora. It is organized in four
sections:
Section One outlines the features of new threats
and opportunities in the current global security
environment, spelling out the need for approaches
that include but are not driven by traditional security
threats.
Section Two outlines the elements of an inclusive
human security framework, building on the
extensive work done in this arena by scholars and
international agencies in the last two decades.
Section Three explores the implications of an
inclusive human security framework for national
security policy, touching in particular on the balance
of short-term and longer-term responses to direct
security threats, on economic development and
cooperation, and on the need and opportunities for
institutional reform.
Section Four illustrates the implications of an
inclusive human security framework for policy
towards Africa and other countries with significant
African Diaspora populations, specifically in the
Caribbean and Latin America.
SECTION ONE: THREATS AND OPPORTUNITIES IN TODAY'S GLOBAL SECURITY ENVIRONMENT
In the first decade of the 21st century, the United States and the world
are facing profound changes in the shape of threats to our security. Th e
traditional threats of conventional or even nuclear wars between states
have not disappeared. But they have been eclipsed by a host of new realities.
Intelligence agencies, foreign policy and military offi cials of the outgoing
Bush administration, and analysts across the political spectrum agree:
the boundaries between military, economic, and other threats are porous.
Violent non-state actors are no longer confined to the periphery. And
social and economic crises have direct, not just theoretical, implications
for the scale of violent threats to us all.
The list of new threats is familiar to all of us from the daily news.
Terrorism from 9/11 to Mumbai. Internal wars and disorder that take
their deadly toll in the Congo, Sudan's Darfur, Somalia, and elsewhere.
Pandemics from HIV/AIDS to the next unpredictable flu virus that may
emerge. Global warming and climate change, punctuated by natural
disasters compounded by human failure such as Hurricane Katrina.
Spiraling economic crises that have shown they can bring down the rich
and devastate the moderately well-off as well as heighten the suff ering of
the poor. The direct connection between social and economic chaos and
the number of recruits to political or criminal violence, in our cities as
well as in foreign countries.
The temptation, however, is still to apply military metaphors—and military
strategies—to the new threats rather than to make systematic adjustments
in strategy. Witness the "global war on terror" or the "war on drugs." Even
when military strategists give more weight to "winning hearts and minds"
than to military hardware, the tendency is to tack on development and
propaganda functions to the military, rather than to make fundamental
changes that will reduce the role of the military in meeting threats it is
ill-equipped to confront.
Changing this pattern requires a comprehensive analysis of threats that
goes beyond military perspectives, even within the realm of threats of
physical violence. Non-state actors with access to the means of violence
now include not only rebel groups within a single country, but complex
international terrorist networks, pirates, drug smugglers, people
smugglers, and both organized and unorganized criminals making use of
the latest technologies. When confronting such a diverse and decentralized
set of threats, a response aimed at "taking out the enemy" at all costs is
not only doomed to failure, but it is also likely to be counterproductive.
Indiscriminately expanding the state's security apparatus not only
threatens our rights but also misuses resources. Th e effects of invasions,
commando raids, torture, and aggressive profiling and targeting of
suspect groups must be weighed not just in terms of enemies killed and
perpetrators arrested, but also in terms of social disruption, heightened
animosities, and expanding the pool of recruits to terror and crime.
Expanding the military response, moreover, diverts attention and
resources from directly addressing the full range of threat-producing
issues with strategies that are appropriate and forward-looking. Th ere
are no simple formulas for engaging the diversity and complexity of the
issues beyond the military sphere, in the economy, the environment, and
other sectors. But in the light of the current crises, the disastrous impact
of ignoring their implications for our security is undeniable.
That recognition, and its reflection in the hopes for change under the
Obama presidency, means that the scope of threats also provides new
opportunities. Ironically, one of the most significant opportunities
can be found in a new development that many analysts still present as
a threat, namely the rise of a multi-polar world in which United States
power is increasingly limited by other rising powers and international
non-state networks. The monopoly of global governance by rich countries
is declining. That makes U.S. participation in genuine constructive
multilateralism not only an option but a necessity.
The most familiar element of this new reality is the rise of the powers
collectively referred to under the new acronym BRIC (Brazil, Russia,
India, and China). In 2001 Goldman Sachs argued that by 2050 the
combined incomes of these four large powers could eclipse the combined
economies of the world's current richest countries. Today China is poised
to play the role that the United States occupied in the previous century—
the locomotive of global developments. China's rising economic infl uence
in Africa is particularly notable and prominent in recent news. While
Africans have many questions about the human rights implications of
Chinese involvement, the entry of another alternative to dependence on
Western Europe and North America is welcome. The global impact of
India, Brazil, and Russia on developing countries is less widely discussed,
but their increased influence has been clearly visible in international
negotiations on trade and other economic issues—including consultations
on response to the global economic crisis in 2008.
Yet the changes in the world scene go far beyond the shift in the
configuration of big powers by adding the BRICs to the traditional
triad of North America, Western Europe, and Japan. Both at the global
level and at regional levels, new multilateral initiatives are accelerating
communication, consultation, and cooperation on mutual interest among
small as well as large countries of the Global South. This is not totally
new, of course. Even during the period of the Cold War, the Non-Aligned
Movement, the Organization of African Unity, and blocs of developing
countries such as the Group of 77 at the United Nations (formed in 1964
and now counting 130 member states) have taken stands and, in some
cases (such as the anti-apartheid struggle) had decisive influence.
In recent years, new communications developments have helped accelerate
the formation and the practical functioning of such networks, from groups
such as island states particularly affected by the impact of global warming
to alliances of small countries and civil society from both North and
South that have taken leadership in the campaigns against land mines and,
more recently, against cluster munitions. For example, in December 2008
more than 100 countries signed the ban on cluster munitions, although
the prominent non-signatories included the United States, Brazil, Russia,
China, India, and Pakistan.
Particularly significant—although generally neglected in the United consultation, and
States foreign policy debate—is the development of new frameworks of
thinking about global issues within the multinational arena. Punctuated
by a series of United Nations conferences involving not only countries but
also parallel civil society gatherings—the best known have been the series
of conferences on women culminating in the 1995 Beijing meeting—
international agencies have promoted systematic, pioneering, and wide-
ranging research on global problems. In international agencies and
multilateral forums, moreover, opportunities for creative leadership to . .
come from citizens and representatives of small as well as large countries
have opened up. Small rich countries, such as the Nordic countries, have
long played a critical role in leadership in multilateral institutions, as have
exceptional leaders from the Global South. Those opportunities have now
been expanded by an order of magnitude.
Among the results has been a developing understanding, among both
scholars and practitioners, of integrating frameworks of human security
and human development. The Human Development Reports of the United
Nations Development Programme have given an impressive theoretical
and empirical base to these concepts. While these perspectives have gained
wide currency among scholars and among many governments around the
world, with the participation of many analysts and practitioners from the
United States, offi cial and mainstream U.S. discourse has lagged behind.
The opportunities for new directions, should the United States decide to
reduce its self-imposed intellectual isolation, contributing to as well as
learning from others in the international community, are enormous.
SECTION TWO: THE ELEMENTS OF INCLUSIVE HUMAN SECURITY
An inclusive human security framework that meets the requirements
of both United States national security and global security in the 21st
century must expand the scope of traditional security thinking in two
primary ways:
(1) Inherent in the concept of human security is recognition of the tight
interconnection between threats from violence by both state and non-
state actors and the wider environment (economic, social, and natural)
within which we must function. Driven by the current economic crisis,
recognition of this reality is growing rapidly.
(2) Less widely acknowledged is the need for a framework that is inclusive
in that it not only takes into account the most powerful friends and
enemies, but also confronts the inherited and growing inequalities
within nations and on the international arena. Fundamental to this
kind of inclusiveness, and the opportunities for our country to fi nd
security in a majority-minority world, is the history of race and, in
particular, the role of Africa and the African Diaspora. Of equally
strategic importance is the imperative to make human security
inclusive of both men and women, addressing the gender inequities
that are still pervasive in societies around the world.
HUMAN SECURITY
The concept of human security has multiple genealogies, but the
formulation which has been widely accepted as the "founding moment"
was articulated in the 1994 Human Development Report of the United
Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The concept has also been
associated with the foreign policy of some middle level countries, Canada
being the most notable. Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy
wrote that "Human security today puts people first and recognizes that
their safety is integral to the promotion and maintenance of international
peace and security. The security of states is essential, but not suffi cient…."
His statement is one of the clearest presentations of this now widely shared
understanding:
The meaning of security is being transformed. Security
traditionally has focused on the state because its fundamental
purpose is to protect its citizens. Hobbled by economic adversity,
outrun by globalization, and undermined from within by
bad governance, the capacity of some states to provide this
protection has increasingly come into question. This incapacity
is particularly obvious in war-torn societies. The state has, at
times, come to be a major threat to its population's rights and
welfare—or has been incapable of restraining the warlords
or paramilitaries—rather than serving as the protector of its
people. This drives us to broaden the focus of security beyond
the level of the state and toward individual human beings,
as well as to consider appropriate roles for the international
system to compensate for state failure.
—Lloyd Axworthy, "Human Security and Global Governance:
Putting People First," Global Governance, 7, 2001, pp. 19-23.
The UNDP's 1994 formulation stressed that human security should
be regarded as people-centered, universal, best ensured through early
prevention, and consisting of interdependent components. It includes
both freedom from fear and freedom from want. The report listed seven
major categories of human security: economic security, food security,
health security, environmental security, personal security (including
threats of both state and non-state violence), community security, and
political security.
In the period since this formulation, there has been much debate about the
relationship of the different elements of human security, and in particular
the relationship between those most directly associated with freedom from
fear and the more encompassing set of factors associated with freedom
from want.
Freedom from fear is built largely on the philosophical principle of
individual, liberal, democratic rights. This is why, in fact, human security
is sometimes called individual security. Freedom from want is based more
on issues of the global economic system, and especially around issues
of staggering inequalities in the vital aspects of life—nutrition, health,
education, and among others, employment. It is important to note that these
inequalities, accentuated by global policies of free-market fundamentalism,
characterize not only relationships between countries but also inequalities
within countries, in the Global North as well as in the Global South.
INCLUSIVE HUMAN SECURITY
The threats coming from extreme inequalities both within and among
countries are generally recognized as a major factor aff ecting human
security. But their significance is most commonly underestimated.
TransAfrica Forum is convinced that this aspect needs to be front-and
center, and that understanding it is essential to shaping the fundamental
changes needed not only in foreign policy but also the concepts of national
identity that unconsciously shape our understanding of the role of the
United States in the world.
In 1966, Senator Robert Kennedy, speaking to the National Union of
Students in South Africa, highlighted the significance of this history in
his opening remarks:
"I came here because of my deep interest and aff ection for
a land settled by the Dutch in the mid-seventeenth century,
then taken over by the British, and at last independent; a land
in which the native inhabitants were at first subdued, but
relations with whom remain a problem to this day; a land which
defined itself on a hostile frontier; a land which has tamed rich
natural resources through the energetic application of modern
technology; a land which once imported slaves, and now must
struggle to wipe out the last traces of that former bondage. I
refer, of course, to the United States of America."
—Robert F. Kennedy, University of Cape Town, 6 June 1966.
It was that commonality between the history of South Africa and the United
States that energized the mobilization of the anti-apartheid movement in
the United States in the last half of the 20th century. If the United States is
to shift towards an understanding of "inclusive human security" that goes
beyond paying attention to the rich and powerful, there must be a similar
understanding of the parallels between the past and present of our country
and the deep structural divisions still embedded around the world.
Although it has taken on a special character in the current era of
accelerating globalization, world-wide interconnectedness is not new, as
instanced most dramatically by the history of slavery and the slave trade.
After slavery, the fates of Africa and its descendants outside the continent
were linked by parallel histories of colonialism, disenfranchisement,
and marginalization in the Americas as well as in Africa. Until the
independence of scores of Asian and African countries in the 1950s and
1960s, international institutions were virtually monopolized by rich
Western countries—an imbalance which continues today in the Security
Council and in institutions managing the world economy.
What is new is the pace and depth of interconnectedness. Financial crises
affecting Wall Street echo instantaneously on stock markets around the
world. Terrorists can use the Internet to plot attacks on skyscrapers an
ocean away. Global warming brings drought to the Horn of Africa, and
increases the ferocity of natural disasters on American coastlines as well.
The new challenges impact rich as well as poor, white as well as black.
But on virtually every global issue, Africa and people of African descent
endure a horrendously disproportionate share of the damage. Poverty,
war, the global AIDS pandemic, climate change, and the polarizing eff ects
of economic globalization—in every case, Africa and African populations
around the world are particularly vulnerable.
In their 2002 book The Miner's Canary, Lani Guinier and Gerald Torres
made the point eloquently:
Those who are racially marginalized are like the miner's
canary: their distress is the first sign of a danger that threatens
us all. It is easy enough to think that when we sacrifi ce this
canary, the only harm is to communities of color. Yet others
ignore problems that converge around racial minorities at
their own peril, for these problems are symptoms warning us
that we are all at risk.
Traditionally, both the foreign policy establishment and most Americans
have conceived foreign policy as a series of bilateral relationships, with
priority given to a small number of prominent "friends" and "enemies".
Africa and African states have rarely made either list, although many
have argued that the continent should have special priority given that it
was the origin of more than 10 percent of the American people. Today,
it is increasingly obvious that such a state-centered approach fails to
correspond to the complex and changing realities of trans-border and
trans-continental issues. A new vision of U.S. foreign policy must not only
take account of Europe, the Middle East, and the rising Asian giants of
China and India. It must also acknowledge Africa's central place in the
resolution of global crises, and the significance of close U.S. ties with other
regions with large African-descendant populations. Similarly, it must
recognize the strategic centrality of women's rights to inclusive human
security, whether in such realms as health and education or in response to
war and other forms of violence.
The Caribbean and Latin America ("so far from God, so close to the
United States", runs the Mexican saying) are intimately connected to the
United States through trade and immigration, but consistently neglected
in broader strategic discussions of foreign policy. While this area becomes
front and center in hybrid domestic/foreign issues such as immigration
and the war on drugs, these arenas are rarely understood in their broader
foreign policy context. Even less acknowledged is the fact that African-
descendant populations are significant not only on the Caribbean islands,
but also in large and strategically important countries on the South
American continent, such as Colombia, Venezuela, and Brazil.
The percentage of immigrants in the U.S. population has risen from 4.7
percent in 1970, to 12.5 percent in 2006, and may soon exceed its 1910 high
of 14.7 percent. While more than half the 30 million immigrants are from
Mexico and Asia, some 3 million come from the Caribbean. One million
are from Africa, part of a rapidly increasing group as globalization fuels
African migrant flows across the Atlantic as well as south to South Africa
and north to Europe.
Yet, with the notable exception of anti-Castro Cuban exiles, none of these
immigrant groups plays a prominent role in shaping public conceptions
of the role of the United States in the world. The wealth of insights and
networks they bring are more likely to be regarded as threat than as
opportunity. And often they are pitted against each other, and against
African Americans and other minorities, in competition for jobs and
resources.
The task of changing " foreign policy" perspectives must be paired with
the tasks of building a new society at home that can bring justice to and
recognize the contributions of all sectors of our society and body politic. Th is
in turn requires that policy reorientations must be guided by an inclusive
vision of human security.
This does not mean, of course, that one can assume consensus or a
monopoly of wisdom among countries or communities that have not
been included in the debate, any more than among any more historically
privileged community. But the fact is that common experiences of
oppression do give insights that are often invisible to those in a position of
privilege. African Americans, and many other Americans, have identifi ed
with historical struggles against racial and ethnic oppression. Th at history
and that identification is a rich resource for shaping a vision of the United
States that joins with the world rather than seeks to dominate it.
An inclusive human security framework also requires acknowledgement
of the central role of women, both as disproportionately affected by threats
to human security and as agents in finding new solutions. Women bear
more of the burden in wartime, even when they are non-combatants, as
victims of sexual violence and as those who must assume responsibility
for families. Likewise, the burdens of HIV/AIDS and chronic diseases fall
most heavily on women. Food crises particularly affect women, given both
their family responsibilities and the fact that in Africa and other areas,
they contribute the major part of agricultural labor.
When women are empowered as agents of change, the results benefi t not
only women but society at large. Education of women, for example, is one
of the most cost-effective methods of promoting better health, respect for
human rights, and increased pressure for resolution of conflicts. While the
participation of a handful of individual women in government may or may
not bring suffi cient change, wider participation of women in governance
shows a strong correlation with greater attention to societal needs. In
opinion polls in the United States, gender is one of the few factors that
is associated with differences on broad foreign issues, with women more
open to multilateral action and diplomacy and more skeptical about the
unilateral use of force.
Critics of the human security framework say that the concept is too vague,
and that it groups too many diverse threats to enable offi cials to prioritize
responses realistically. There is no doubt that different threats do require
different responses, and that there must be informed decisions about
allocating resources. But it is even more shortsighted and unrealistic to
ignore the fact that threats are interrelated and that traditional national
security responses are inadequate to today's complex realities. Continuing
to focus primarily on the military defeat of enemies, while subordinating or
assimilating other threats to that simplistic model, is not only ineff ective.
In terms of diminishing the threats to real human security, it is also
counterproductive.
SECTION THREE: IMPLICATIONS FOR NATIONAL SECURITY POLICY
From the perspective of inclusive human security, the immediate
implications for national security policy are that it is necessary (1) to
expand the scope of policies considered to be relevant for security and
(2) to re-order priorities based on long-term considerations and on the
interrelationship between diff erent sectors.
In this section we consider several critical examples illustrating how new
thinking is required to confront the realities of the 21st century. First we focus,
within the traditional security sector, on arms control in particular. Th en we
turn to the relevance of policy on economic development and cooperation
to the inclusive human security agenda. And finally we address the need for
institutional reform of U.S. executive programs concerning foreign policy
issues, as well as the critical roles of Congress and of public involvement.
TRADITIONAL SECURITY: THE ROLE OF ARMS CONTROL
The United States must reduce military spending and invest in reducing
threats through arms reduction, cooperative security measures, and
multilateral peace initiatives. Congress and the new administration should
systematically review the U.S. security budget, with a view to cutting
wasteful military programs and redirecting resources to diplomatic
initiatives, threat reduction, arms reduction, and multilateral programs
covering the full range of threats to human security.
Within the traditional security arena, focused on enemy states and on
hostile insurgent groups, the most important changes needed should build
on the emerging consensus that it is far more effective to anticipate and
reduce threats than to confront them with military force once they have
already gained momentum. It is time to implement the familiar mantra
that military force should be the last resort rather than the fi rst resort.
The ways to do this include proactive diplomacy (probably the most
widely accepted in principle although rarely implemented), strengthening
multilateral peacekeeping and peacemaking capacity (to be discussed
below with particular reference to Africa), and, oft en underestimated
except with respect to nuclear weapons, arms control.
Over the last eight years the traditional role of arms control in promoting
U.S. security and foreign policy has been challenged by the Bush
administration. The president has argued that arms control constrains
U.S. action and is therefore detrimental to U.S. national security, and that
the need has been outdated because of the fall of the Soviet Union. Both
assumptions are false. Arms control has not only contributed signifi cantly
to United States security by reducing the number and types of weapons it
faces, it has also created a process of dialogue and alternative channels for
diplomacy with other states. The international community, and humanity
more broadly, has benefi ted as certain classes of weapons and locations for
weapons placements have been ruled out of bounds.
Arms control can make a significant contribution to threat reduction. Th is
requires not only reinvigorating traditional efforts focused on nuclear arms
reduction and non-proliferation. It also requires replacing commercial and
security policies that encourage the proliferation of conventional weapons,
including small arms, with policies aimed at limiting the spread of such
weapons, particularly in zones of conflict and instability. The extension of
more technologically advanced small arms to non-state actors as well as to
repressive regimes threatens U.S. security as well as the security of other
countries.
While the high priority given to the case of nuclear weapons is justifi ed
by the enormous destruction that can be caused by a single use of such
weaponry, arms control efforts must give equally high priority to the
widespread damage done by conventional weapons, including small arms.
The cumulative toll of these weapons, in the hands not only of states but
also of terrorist groups, militia, drug smugglers, pirates, and criminals of
all kinds, is not only a present threat to security in almost every country but
also one that is rapidly widening its reach.
Arms control efforts, by their nature, can never be totally successful.
However, even when they fall short, the positive eff ects can be substantial.
Fewer arms can reduce the severity as well as the length of confl icts, and
contacts with enemies—even "rogue states" or groups committed to extremist
ideologies—can serve to peel off supporters and reinforce moderates who
are willing to compromise. Inclusive efforts to reduce the damage done by
conflict are essential to creating a more equitable international order capable
of fostering international peace and security. Arms control should be seen to
be a universal concern, not an eff ort confined to the most powerful nuclear
powers with permanent positions on the United Nations Security Council.
Conventional Weapons, including Small Arms
Most U.S. arms control negotiations have focused on limiting nuclear
weapons and placing restraints on their development. However, the more
immediate threat faced by much of humanity is from conventional weapons.
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, each
of the last ten years has seen, on average, 17 active "major armed confl icts."
Non-state conflicts are even more numerous with between 21 and 32
active conflicts per year since 2002. In 2007, for example, there were 14
major armed conflicts underway; collectively over time these confl icts
alone have been directly responsible for over 350,000 deaths, the majority
of which are in developing countries in Africa and Asia.
Small arms, defined as those weapons that can normally be carried by
one person, include automatic weapons such as the AK-47, grenades,
landmines, cluster munitions, and others. Advances in technology make
many of these weapons usable even by child soldiers, and their wide
diffusion promotes increased violence not only from political but also
from criminal groups.
The United States has been a crucial supplier of arms to these confl icts.
It leads the world in transfers of conventional weapons, accounting for
some 31 percent of global arms transfers between 2003-2007. Over 65
percent of these transfers go to developing states. Many go to countries at
war. In 2003, for example, the United States provided weapons to 18 of 25
countries that were involved in military conflicts. More than half of these
countries were defined by the U.S. State Department as "undemocratic."
The United States provides weapons as part of foreign aid, allowing
countries to buy weapons at greatly reduced prices, and selling weapons
that are in excess of U.S. military needs (the Excess Defense Articles
program). State Department employees can be rewarded for brokering
arms sales agreements. Collectively, these activities constitute Foreign
Military Assistance. For fiscal year 2008 the administration requested
over $4.5 billion, with top recipients being Israel ($2.4 billion) and Egypt
($1.3 billion). In Latin America and the Caribbean, for example, the
United States provided some $7.3 billion in military assistance over the
period 1997 to 2007, most for counter-narcotics programs, with Colombia
strongly represented (www.ciponline.org).
Given the political will, there are a number of measures that can be taken
immediately to slow the spread of conventional weapons:
- Reduce the U.S. role in conventional weapons sales by enforcing
laws that are already on the books, such as the Arms Export Control
Act of 1976, the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, and the Export
Administration Act that requires items with both civilian and military
uses to be closely regulated.
-
Reduce incentives for the U.S. military to offset the costs of new
weapons by selling versions of these same weapons abroad.
-
Reverse the decisions made under the Clinton administration that
give the State Department an active role in promoting commercial
sales of military equipment abroad.
-
Sign and ratify the 1997 international treaty to ban landmines, which
has been ratified by 122 countries, and encourage other states that
have refused to support the treaty to do so, particularly China, Russia,
India, and Pakistan.
-
Sign and ratify the international convention on cluster munitions,
signed by over 100 countries in December 2008.
The United States should work actively towards:
-
Negotiating the International Arms Trade Treaty, which seeks to
apply existing international law and common international standards
to conventional arms sales and transfers.
-
Enacting the Conventional Arms Threat Reduction Act which would
allow the United States to spend money to look for, guard and possibly
destroy vulnerable stockpiles of conventional weapons.
-
Working with China, Russia, and other major conventional arms
sellers to reach agreement on international rules for the interdiction
of illicit weapons in international waters or airspace.
Nuclear Weapons and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)
Nuclear weapons must remain a key concern because they alone have the
potential for killing thousands or even millions of people at a time; the
threat comes not only from states but also from the danger that states may
not be able to protect weapons stockpiles from falling into the hands of
terrorist groups. Current U.S. nuclear weapons policy contradicts public
opinion and thus calls into question both democracy and government
accountability. According to public opinion polls at least 70 percent of
Americans favor the total elimination of nuclear weapons, a percentage
that has held constant since the 1990s.
During the Cold War, nuclear arms control advanced despite continued
hostilities between the parties. Through multilateral agreements and
bi-lateral arrangements with the Soviet Union, nuclear weapons were
prohibited in space, the Antarctic, and on the ocean floor. Nuclear weapons
testing was banned in the atmosphere, space, and underwater in 1963.
Eventually all nuclear testing was prohibited in 1996 by the Comprehensive
Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) which President Clinton signed but which the U.S.
Senate refused to ratify. Arms control also reduced the number of nuclear
weapons, with U.S. stocks declining from 27,000 nuclear warheads in the
mid-1970s to an estimated 5,400 warheads in 2008.
As suggested by Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, William Perry and Sam
Nunn in a January 2007 op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal, the United
States can and should adopt as a declared goal the elimination of nuclear
weapons world-wide. Immediate steps that the U.S. can take are to:
- Agree to Russia's offer of reducing total nuclear stockpiles to 1,000
warheads per country, including all reserve stockpiles.
- Take U.S. nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert to insure they cannot
be launched by accident.
- Withdraw U.S. nuclear weapons from Europe, freeing itself of the
burden of being the only country now keeping nuclear weapons on
the territory of another state.
- Maintain current prohibitions on funding new nuclear weapons
design and development.
- Ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
- Begin negotiations on a verifiable treaty to ban the production of
fissile material for nuclear weapons.
With the United States itself committed to reduction and eventual
elimination of nuclear weapons, it would acquire new credibility in efforts
to enforce and strengthen the non-proliferation treaty, including working
with other nuclear states on specific concrete steps towards this goal as well
as reducing the incentive for acquisition of nuclear weapons by other states.
DEVELOPMENT POLICY AND HUMAN SECURITY
A policy of inclusive human security requires that economic and social
development be included as fundamental components of national security
policy. This implies the need to reform structures for economic recovery
to reflect interdependence and cooperation rather than blind reliance on
market forces. As a corollary, U.S. foreign assistance agencies must be
restructured to foster cooperative engagement with other countries and
international agencies to confront global problems.
The economic collapse experienced in 2008 has forced even the most rigid
believer in the magic of free markets to recognize the need for public
action to stabilize the economy, provide emergency assistance to industries
and families struggling to survive, create new transparent regulatory
structures, and promote public and private investment for a sustainable
future. This is an opportunity that must not be missed. It is time to
recast free trade agreements based on the false premise of self-regulating
markets and to establish more democratic and accountable international
mechanisms for economic cooperation. Reductions in subsidies and other
trade barriers should ensure protection of the most vulnerable rather
than defer to privileged economic interests. It is imperative that these new
initiatives not only take into account the interests of established powers
and rising new powers such as China, India, and Brazil, but also those of
regions and sectors that have been left behind.
Despite the size of U.S. foreign assistance programs, leading the world
at over $21 billion in 2007, our country consistently ranks at the bottom
among other rich countries in the percentage of national income devoted
to official development aid (0.16 percent as compared to the international
commitment of 0.7 percent). Independent evaluations also rank the United
States below average in measures of aid effectiveness, such as prioritizing
sustainability, use of local resources, and results-based accountability
over political and commercial considerations and ideologically driven
policy conditions. Management of aid is spread among more than 45 U.S.
agencies, and genuine cooperation with international and local authorities
is more the exception than the rule.
It is essential not only to restructure foreign assistance programs for greater
efficiency, but also to reframe U.S. contributions to internationally agreed
efforts to meet common goals. The United States should contribute its fair
share to meet the needs defined by institutions representing all stakeholders
in critical sectors, following models such as that pioneered by the innovative
work of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria. Bilateral programs
should be coordinated with international programs to confront priority
issues, as defined in the universally agreed Millennium Development Goals.
U.S. assistance programs must also be accountable to democratic institutions
and civil society in the countries where programs are implemented.
The era of "free-market fundamentalism" or "neo-liberalism" as it is
often called, is coming to an end. This extreme model of blind reliance
on the market, beginning with the rise to power of Thatcher in the UK
and Reagan in the U.S., is nearing its end because of its failure to bring
jobs and basic means of survival to the majority of humanity. The crisis
experienced for decades by the poor in the Global South has now exploded
with unprecedented consequences in the United States and around the
world. The scale of the disaster creates the opportunity and the absolute
necessity for rethinking. That rethinking must include not only the shape
of the U.S. economy and the economies of other large powers, old and
new, but U.S. participation in common global challenges.
In order to contribute to inclusive human security, development and
economic cooperation policy must go beyond considering traditionally
separate sectors of trade, debt relief, and official development assistance.
We must shape a broader agenda of freedom from aid dependence and
of economic cooperation that is both mutually beneficial and serves to
reduce the glaring inequality between the rich and the poor.
The principal elements of such a shift have been recently described by Yash
Tandon, executive director of the Geneva-based South Centre Secretariat,
an intergovernmental policy think tank of developing countries.
Development: The Current Context
Within a national framework, development is defined in an evolving
democratic process. Development is self-empowerment. It aims at leading
lives of dignity which include gainful employment that helps individuals
to meet basic needs and achieve security, equity and participation. From
the perspective of the Global South, development means the satisfaction
of the basic material and social needs of the people through a system of
governance that is democratic and accountable to the people and though
minimizing imperial interventions in developing societies.
Official development assistance or "aid," from the United States, other
bilateral "donors," and international financial institutions, has always had
a problematic relationship to these goals. Even when the ostensible goals
include fostering sustained economic growth and alleviating poverty, the
practice has often diverged from them.
In many cases, the explicit as well as implicit objective has been different,
most often to support favored client regimes for military or commercial
advantage. In these cases the fact that economic and social goals are not
achieved should hardly be surprising. In other cases, tied aid requiring
procurement and the use of high-priced consultants from donor countries
undermines the effectiveness of aid. Despite widespread recognition of
these problems, the practice continues, with the United States among
those states most resistant to change.
Even more serious is the imposition of counterproductive ideological
conditions, under the aegis of the International Monetary Fund, World
Bank, and bilateral agencies requiring similar conditions. During the
1980s and 1990s, most of the countries that came under the austerity
and export-led strategies of the IMF and World Bank became hostages
to the demands of liberalization and privatization. Under the so-called
Washington consensus, state-controlled industries were systematically
dismantled everywhere in Africa; some of these industries were actually
closed down, whilst others were bought up by foreign corporations. At
the same time trade liberalization opened the door to cheaper imports
from outside, and many of the cost-ineffi cient African industries were
shut down in the face of increased competition instead of making them
more effi cient in the heat of competition. They simply shut down and set
thousands of workers on to the streets.
The Way Ahead
The way ahead must begin with a fundamental change of mindset.
Instead of thinking about "aid" as the key ingredient, the contribution of rich
countries to development in the Global South must be secondary to strategies
for those countries to chart their own development aimed not
only at specific goals but also at an exit from aid dependence. In contrast
to the donor strategy on development aid, the strategy must put people of
the developing countries in the driver's seat. What is now called "foreign
aid" may still have a role to play, but in a radically different manner and
modality; the primary objective must be to empower the people.
At the international level, the new situation demands a complete overhaul of
the institutions of global governance, including a radical restructuring of the institutional
aid architecture.
This should include initiating an inclusive dialogue, a participatory
radical restructuring of the planning process, and a plan to restructure the current architecture of
international assistance, including the World Bank, the International
Monetary Fund, the OECD, and the organizations of the United Nations
system, as well as agencies of national "donor" and "recipient" agencies
and representatives of civil society.
At a time when there is universal agreement on the need to restructure
mechanisms for international economic cooperation, it is essential to take
the opportunity for a more inclusive approach. There is much constructive
thinking within the context of United Nations global conferences and
other venues. The challenge is to combine immediate action on priority
issues with a vision of long-term planning.
Within each country that is a recipient of financing because of its needs
for development, bilateral and multilateral assistance must be integrated
into programs designed at a national level, with the participation not only
of national government agencies but also of legislative and civil society
bodies. This would be in effect a reversal of the current pattern, in which
policies and budgets are largely determined by consultation between
international donor groups and national governments, with legislative
and civil society input relegated to ineffective consultation at a later time.
There is no formula for building such new structures. But there are several
general principles that should apply, and growing experience, such as that
found within the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria, on how to
combine technical expertise, participation by diverse shareholders, and
results-based evaluation.
Among the principles that should be included as policy guidelines are the
following:
-
The budgeting process must be bottom-up rather than top-down.
This means that participatory budgeting processes to address poverty
and inequality must begin with the poor themselves. This is in
contrast to the system developed by the World Bank in the 1980s and
1990s—called Economic Structural Adjustment Programs (ESAPs)
and later PRSPs—Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers. Although termed
participatory planning, public participation was limited to comments
by non-governmental organizations on already formulated plans. Th e
fig leaf of consultation was followed by parliamentary approval and
resource mobilization. The challenge is to invert the system so that
public and legislative participation take priority, within the context of
ongoing dialogue with technical experts and donor agencies.
-
Employment and decent wages should be priority objectives. Th e
challenge is to ensure that the growth of the economically active
population is associated with productive labor absorption, in both
agriculture and non-agriculture sectors. This means a focus on
sustainable agricultural intensification and the creation of productive
non-agricultural employment, which will require increased capital
accumulation, technological learning and innovation. Additionally,
developing countries need to ensure that their farmers are protected
against the onslaught of policy prescriptions which favor capital-
intensive and corporate driven agribusiness. Protection of the
peasantry will be essential to provide food security and maintain
sovereignty over national development plans.
-
Policies should ensure support for domestic markets. Th e creation
of a domestic market is essential if developing countries are to
generate employment for their people, or for people of their region.
All countries have developed by first ensuring that their domestic
markets are created, protected and expanded before they have opened
them up to foreign competition in return for seeking export markets
for their products. Flawed export-led development strategies need to
be re-examined, given that they distort development priorities, divert
resources away from basic needs of the population, create the wrong
kinds of skills, and make the economy more vulnerable to the hazards
of international trade and capital movements.
There are many Americans now working in bilateral government programs,
international agencies, and non-governmental organizations who would
welcome the opportunity to take part in a development process driven by
developing country initiative. Many staff and technical personnel from
both the Global North and the Global South working within international
institutions would likewise welcome such a shift in direction, giving them
the opportunity to apply their skills to meeting human need at this time
of crisis.
In order for the United States to make its maximum contribution to such
efforts, it is time to take stock and to begin to transform the full range of
U.S. foreign policy institutions.
TRANSFORMING U.S. FOREIGN POLICY INSTITUTIONS
The United States must build greater capacity to set priorities and
implement programs over a wide range of sectors, including traditional
and unconventional security threats, bilateral economic relations, and
investment in common public goods such as health and development.
These sectors intersect in increasingly complex patterns and engage diverse
agencies in such a way that it is impossible for these tasks to be integrated
simply through the traditional mechanisms of foreign embassies in
Washington and U.S. embassies in host countries.
The goal must be to integrate regional collaboration and bilateral
partnerships to foster an inclusive approach to resolve issues within each
region as well as at the global level.
It is imperative to develop new structures for communication, dialogue, and
coordination, involving governments, civil society groups, and the private
sector in both the United States and countries/regions in which the United
States is engaged. One possible partial model to build on is the bi-national
commission, including regular meetings at cabinet and department level,
which has been used at times for U.S. government relations with key states,
such as Mexico and South Africa. Such commissions linking government
departments should be supplemented by more active U.S. engagement in
regional collaborative agencies in specific sectors, and by encouraging
further coordination through offices of the United Nations Development
Program, which has among its tasks the parallel coordination of the
multiple agencies in the United Nations system.
The prerequisite for such new structures, however, is a systematic review
of the present system, involving congressional oversight and public
participation as well as executive streamlining and restructuring.
Current Context
The Bush years have not only devastated the reputation of the
United States in the world, but they have also crippled many of the
institutions responsible for managing foreign affairs. In addition to
neglect of international obligations and to over-emphasis on military
and narrow security considerations, the administration has also
prioritized politics, ideology, and private profit over competence and
professionalism, driving out many competent civil servants, adding
new levels of bureaucracy, and farming out government operations to
largely unaccountable private contractors.
Within the "foreign assistance" field, for example, enormous resources
have been expended in creating the Millennium Challenge Corporation,
a new agency which has emphasized Washington-imposed ideological
restrictions and promotion of the private sector over internationally
recognized good practices in development. Right-wing ideological tests
have been imposed on programs to promote public health, including
programs to fight AIDS. Political appointments, many being transferred
to civil service status, have embedded in agencies personnel who are in
fact opposed to the objectives of those agencies.
Yet the current state of U.S. foreign policy institutions is not simply the
result of the last eight years of the Bush administration. It is the cumulative
result of the dominance of neo-conservative foreign policy perspectives
on political and military issues and of free-market fundamentalist views
on the world economy, and of the absence from mainstream debate of
alternative views on the role of the United States in the world. Opportunities
for new thinking in multilateral terms at the end of the Cold War were
squandered, and 9/11 provided new openings for skewing institutional
agendas to an "us-against-them" mentality.
The result has been to reinforce the dominance of military institutions
which was a legacy of the Cold War, to reduce investments in institutions
for diplomacy and international cooperation, and to restrict rather than
expand U.S. dialogue with others in the international community.
Yet the opportunities for a new direction, visible in the expectations for the
Obama presidency, are also based on alternate less visible tendencies in the
public arena. Recent polling on foreign policy issues, pioneered by institutions
such as the Program on International Policy Attitudes (pipa.org) and by
scholars such as Steven Kull and Benjamin Page, have shown that the U.S.
public is strikingly more open to multilateral approaches and a wider vision
of security than members of the country's policy establishment.
In a strikingly consistent pattern, notes Page in The Foreign Policy DisConnect, an analysis of over three decades of polls, the public overwhelmingly
endorses foreign policies that take into account not only security
from foreign attack, but also domestic well-being and international
justice. Skeptical of military aid and arms sales, majorities consistently
support stronger eff orts to resolve confl icts through diplomacy, humanitarian
aid efforts (particularly in Africa), and strengthening the United
Nations, including its peacekeeping capacity. Page concludes that the
fact that foreign policy elites often disagree with the public, and even are
unaware of public views, is a democratic deficit that should be remedied.
The potential for change, as well as some of the obstacles still to be overcome,
is illustrated by the U.S. government response to HIV/AIDS in recent years. In
an astonishingly short period of time, in historical perspective, African and
American AIDS activists have sparked a turnaround since the international
AIDS conference in Durban, South Africa in July 2000. President Clinton,
whose administration was missing in action on AIDS in Africa, became
an effective campaigner on the issue after leaving offi ce. President Bush,
whose USAID administrator initially dismissed antiretroviral treatment for
Africans as impractical because "Africans can't tell time," now finds that the
presidential AIDS program is one of the few accomplishments he can claim
for history. Th e fight against AIDS is far from won, and the U.S. response
still far from adequate. But there is now a bipartisan consensus that fi ghting
this global pandemic is a national obligation rather than an optional act of
charity.
The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) represents
a significant advance in U.S. international engagement, as do the U.S.
commitments made to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria.
Despite the program's bilateral limitations, and the imposition of ideological
constraints, many working in this program have in fact built cooperative
relationships with parallel multilateral and local efforts. Congress and the
new administration have a chance to address limitations to the program,
removing the bias against generic drugs, restrictions on support for
reproductive health, and stopping the policy of privileging abstinence over
other prevention methods on ideological grounds. More generally, the
commitment to global public health illustrated by the current program can
become part of a more comprehensive commitment, in conjunction with
international and local efforts.
The Way Ahead
More generally, restructuring current institutions to meet the needs of
an inclusive human security agenda must be more than bureaucratic
reconfiguration that risks expending more energy on turf wars and lengthy
debate than any gains to be expected. It must draw on the knowledge and
wisdom of career professionals whose advice has often been disregarded
by their political superiors, on the capacity of Congress to investigate
current programs and foster constructive debate on alternatives, and on the
willingness of professionals and the public to become engaged.
The following notes are presented as illustrative contributions to the debate,
singling out several critical elements for consideration. In addition to points
of general reference, we have given a few specific examples that can and
should be implemented with minimal delay.
1. Congressional Review and Oversight
Congress should actively take on its oversight responsibilities, by beginning
a transparent and comprehensive series of hearings on the roles of diff erent
agencies in U.S. foreign policy, and the appropriate boundaries between
legislative, judicial, and executive responsibilities.
Most immediately, Congress should:
- Repeal the Military Commission Act. This Act, which eliminates the
right of habeas corpus has allowed the U.S. government to hold prisoners
without charges and allows the President to determine who is an enemy
combatant.
- Repeal the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Th is Act
determines how the government can secretly eavesdrop on Americans.
The July 2008 update of the Act eliminated judicial oversight in
government surveillance and gave telecommunications companies
immunity.
More systematic consideration of restructuring should include:
- The division of responsibility between the State Department and
the Department of Defense in shaping foreign policy priorities and
programs.
-
Remedying the disproportionate budget allocations provided to
the Department of Defense compared to civilian foreign policy
institutions.
-
Removal of reconstruction, governance and development functions
and activities from the Department of Defense. The DOD lacks
core competence in these areas and does not have a track record of
sustainable development.
-
Determining ways to allocate responsibility for coordination within
sectors among the full range of agencies having impacts on U.S.
relations with other countries and the international community.
This includes not only agencies with primary foreign relations
responsibilities, such as State and Defense, but also other agencies
with primarily domestic mandates.
-
Designing mechanisms to take into account the foreign policy
implications of operations of domestic agencies, particularly the
Department of Homeland Security.
2. "Foreign Assistance" and Global Public Goods
Agencies related to foreign assistance, numbering more than 45, have
undergone multiple reorganizations in recent years, and focusing on
another such reorganization is unlikely to be the most productive initial
approach to increasing both the quantity and quality of results within
the diverse sectors included under this rubric. Instead the most urgent
priority is to establish a substantive dialogue, both within the United
States government and with civil society and international counterparts,
on how to meet the common needs.
In addition to taking into account the guidelines discussed in the section
above on "Development and Human Security," both Congress and the
administration should focus both on (1) increasing resource fl ows to
ensure the U.S. provides its fair share of international obligations to meet
these needs, and (2) improving coordination, effi ciency, and transparency
of government programs in these sectors.
One example of such an approach, highlighted in a recent report from the
National Institute of Medicine (www.iom.edu), calls for doubling annual
U.S. commitments to global public health and for the White House to
appoint a senior offi cial to work with government agencies to coordinate
such aid with other areas of foreign policy. Global public health should be
a "pillar" of U.S. foreign policy, noted the National Institute of Medicine
Report, which was supported by four U.S. government agencies and fi ve
private foundations and released in December 2008.
In a similar way, congressional and executive action should facilitate
the rethinking of other areas of "foreign assistance," from health and
education to energy and poverty, by engaging relevant agencies and non-
governmental experts and organizations concerned with these specific
sectors at home and abroad. This would foster consideration of common
problems facing the United States and other countries, rather than
segregating "foreign assistance" into a residual category.
3. Reform, Democratization, and Coordination of Global Multilateral
Institutions
Within an inclusive human security framework, strong, effective, and
democratic multilateral institutions are essential for both U.S. national
security and global security.
Congress and the administration should prioritize immediate fulfillment
of existing U.S. obligations, particularly the payment of arrears on dues
to the United Nations for general operations and for peacekeeping. This
minimum commitment has been postponed for political reasons, despite
overwhelming support among the American public and the urgent need
to strengthen United Nations operations.
The United States should also support reforms both for greater efficiency
and for democratization in multilateral institutions, by measures such as
the following:
- Engage actively in dialogue and ongoing program development within
the United Nations system on the full range of global problems.
- Support measures to strengthen United Nations peacekeeping capacity,
including contingency plans for contributions to a permanent UN
emergency peacekeeping response capacity.
- Work with other United Nations members to find ways to make
Security Council participation more representative.
- Establish more inclusive forums for collaboration on international
economic policy.
- Support review of governance structures and mandates, as well
as coordination with the United Nations system, of international
financial institutions, including the International Monetary Fund and
the World Bank.
4. Public Engagement and Governmental Accountability
A final element that is essential for meaningful reform of U.S. government
institutions dealing with foreign policy is new engagement by the
public, including academic specialists, representatives of civil society
organizations, and particularly Americans with personal experiences and
connections to other countries. In particular, both the administration and
Congress need to find new ways to stimulate public debate and to include
recent immigrants from Africa and from other countries of the African
Diaspora, whose intimate knowledge and personal experiences are rarely
considered in official debates about policy towards their countries.
The Obama administration has made a commitment to involve the public in
governance through innovative use of electronic technologies, such as those
deployed during the election campaign. While such mechanisms are likely
to be most successful with respect to domestic policy, groups concerned
with foreign policy issues need to take full advantage of this opportunity.
Additional mechanisms that can promote such an expansion of the public
sphere include:
-
The administration should expand and make use of opportunities for
multilateral and bilateral consultation available in the parallel civil
society forums that are increasingly a regular feature of international
conferences, particularly encouraging the wider participation of
groups that are normally excluded from such gatherings because of
lack of resources or public visibility.
-
Congress should expand hearings, including joint hearings between
committees involved in domestic and foreign policy issues, to consider
the full range of U.S. international relations. Special eff orts should
be made to reach beyond the usual circles of Washington experts to
include representatives of communities and groups with personal
knowledge of issues. Examples could include hearing from refugees
and human rights advocates from African, Caribbean, and Latin
American countries.
-
Members of Congress should use their convening power and take the
initiative to hold informal public hearings and debates on issues, both
in Washington and in their districts, giving opportunities for greater
variety of formats and public participation.
Adopting changes such as those mentioned in this section will in itself
have positive implications for U.S. policy towards Africa and other
regions of the African Diaspora in particular. However, given the
history of neglect of both these regions, it is also particularly important
to develop policy solutions that meet the specific needs of Africa, the
Caribbean, and Latin America.
SECTION FOUR: IMPLICATIONS FOR POLICY TOWARDS AFRICA AND THE AFRICAN DIASPORA
Of all spheres of government, foreign policy has been the one most
dominated by traditional elites—overwhelmingly white, Protestant, and
rich or well-connected to the rich. Despite significant changes in recent
decades in representation of other groups, the foreign policy mindset,
among policymakers, the public, and many opinion-makers, continues to
prioritize traditional U.S. allies and enemies in Europe, the Middle East,
and Asia over the regions of origin of African Americans and Hispanic
Americans. The African continent has most often been treated as an
afterthought or an object of charity, when not an arena in the Cold War
(or, now, in the "global war against terror"). The Caribbean and Latin
America, despite their status as the geographically closest regions, with
significant impact on "domestic" issues such as immigration and trade,
also tend to rank low on the list of foreign policy priorities.
This is an imbalance that must be addressed. The United States must give
due attention to its relationships with all world regions, taking into account
not only the historically privileged ties with Europe and the economic
weight of rising powers but also the need for increasing democratization
of influence on world affairs. Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa
deserve attention both on their own terms and because their fates are
closely linked to continuing issues of full participation of Americans
sharing their heritage with these regions.
It is widely known, as shown by U.S. census data, that African Americans
and people of Hispanic origin are the two largest minority groups in this
country, accounting respectively for 13.5 percent and 15 percent of the
population respectively. It is less often recognized that Afro-Latinos, who
are in effect members of both population groups, are a significant and
rising proportion of the population, although census categories do not
allow precise estimates (more than half of Hispanic Americans reject the
"white/black" categories on the census form).
Even less recognized, and an issue of particular emphasis for TransAfrica
Forum, is the significant representation of Afro-descendants in Latin
American countries, and the fact that these population groups are
systematically disadvantaged in almost every country. In Latin America
itself Afro-descendants are increasingly claiming their rightful place in
national identities and in access to equal rights. Brazil, with an estimated
45 percent of the population of African descent, and Colombia, with an
estimated 26 percent or more of African descent, both surpass the United
States in percentages of population of African descent. According to
the Inter-American Development Bank, as much as 26 percent of Latin
America's population is of African descent; other estimates put the
numbers as over one-third.
U.S. policy towards Africa and the African Diaspora, accordingly, must
not only include Africa and the Caribbean, as is generally recognized, but
also begin to take into account the significance of Afro-Latinos both in
the United States and in Latin America.
U.S.-AFRICA RELATIONS
.
During the period of the Cold War, U.S. relations with Africa were
overwhelmingly dominated by the global rivalry with the Soviet Union.
The consequences, in which both superpowers supported their clients
with little regard to human rights or development concerns, are visible in
many of the countries that were the focus of greatest U.S. attention, such
as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia, and Liberia.
Almost 15 years after Nelson Mandela took office in South Africa, the
United States still lacks a coherent Africa policy. There are pieces of such a
policy—support for the war against AIDS is now a bipartisan consensus,
as is an expressed concern for Darfur. It is instructive that it was only in
June 2008 that the U.S. government finally took Mandela and members of
his party off the official list of terrorists, a legacy of past support for the
apartheid regime. Still, the U.S. did aid the transition to democracy in
South Africa in the 1990s. In recent years some other African issues have
attracted attention, and activists have pressured Washington to act, with
some success.
On AIDS the results have been significant, even if still inadequate. Th ere
has been significant debt cancellation for some African countries, freeing
up resources for investments in health and education. On other issues—
conflict, human rights, debt, trade, and development—the record is less
inspiring. The Clinton administration shared the international failure to
act against genocide in Rwanda. On Darfur, the Bush administration has
offered heady rhetoric but little effective action. The Democratic Republic
of the Congo has suffered a series of devastating wars, as efforts by the
international community have consistently fallen short. More generally,
neither the Clinton nor Bush years can provide a good model. Both
administrations raised the U.S. profile in Africa, but neither followed up
the hopes they raised with consistent action.
Most often, indeed, policymakers, the media, and much of the public
still take a narrow view of Africa, as an arena for fighting terrorists, a
place to pump oil, as a recipient of "charity", and the scene of one horrifi c
crisis after another. In many cases, the U.S. government has supported
useful development projects, and government as well as nongovernmental
organizations have supported the increasingly vibrant civil society and
pro-democracy organizations now present in almost every African
country. But Africa has also suffered disproportionately from the Bush
administration's assault on multilateral institutions. Rhetorical support
for African initiatives most often faltered when the time came to provide
the necessary resources.
There is no one prescription for the wide range of issues faced by over 50
African countries. It would be a serious mistake to allow the prominence
of crises to obscure the advances being made in the establishment of
democratic institutions, in the fastest growth anywhere in the world in
cell phone usage, in vigorous media expression, and in dialogue among
civil society groups in different regions in Africa and in the Diaspora.
Africa's serious problems, moreover, will not be solved from outside, either
by the United States or even by the broader "international community."
But if U.S.-Africa policy is molded by a broader vision of inclusive human
security, understanding that U.S. national security also depends on the
human security of Africans, then there are real prospects for a new era of
collaboration and good will.
The Way Ahead
Implementing such a vision requires:
(1) that current U.S. Africa policy be reshaped to ensure that it does no
harm, and
(2) that the United States work with both African and other international
partners to foster multilateral African-led solutions that can address
both the external and internal obstacles to human security.
Do No Harm
When U.S. Africa policy is subordinated to a narrow understanding of
security and a one-sided ideological vision of development priorities,
the United States not only undermines African societies. It also builds
resentment, undercuts the long-term interests of the United States, and
diverts scarce budget resources. Among the policy changes that should be
on the agenda for reconsideration by Congress and the new administration
are the following:
Stop the trend towards increased militarization of U.S.
Africa policy, as instanced most notably by the formation
of AFRICOM and U.S. policy toward Somalia.
The new United States African Command (AFRICOM) formally
established in fall 2008 has been presented as a cost-eff ective institutional
restructuring and a benign program for supporting African governments
in humanitarian as well as necessary security institutions. In fact it
represents institutionalization and increased funding of a model of
bilateral military ties which risks repeating the mistakes of the Cold War.
It risks drawing the United States into conflicts, reinforcing links with
repressive regimes, excusing human rights abuses, and frustrating rather
than fostering sustainable multilateral peacemaking and peacekeeping.
The most visible result of this approach is the crisis in Somalia, now
attracting world attention as the source of an unprecedented threat of
piracy. There is no easy solution for the internal chaos in that country,
which has now lasted almost two decades. In the last two years in
particular, however, U.S. policy has not only failed to improve the chances
for stability. It has also, by prioritizing an anti-terrorist agenda and
supporting an invasion by neighboring Ethiopia, reduced the chances of
reconciliation, intensified the humanitarian crisis, and strengthened the
most extreme Islamist groups.
There are serious risks of similar escalation, under diff erent circumstances,
in other areas where U.S. bilateral military involvement is increasing,
particularly the countries of the Sahel-Sahara border and the oil-rich
Niger Delta.
It is essential that both Congress and the administration closely examine
and rethink these policies and potential dangers before further damage
is done.
Pass and implement the Jubilee Act to cancel debt for
African and other developing countries
Despite the implementation of debt cancellation programs for many
developing countries over the last decade by the United States and
international financial institutions, poor countries are still paying almost
$400 million a year in debt payments to creditors, resources that are
desperately needed for investment in health, education, and other projects
promoting development. Studies of debt cancellation for African countries
to date shows that every dollar of debt cancelled has freed up two dollars
for needed social investment.
Congress should reintroduce and pass in the next session, and the new
administration should implement, the Jubilee Act passed by the House
of Representatives in 2008, which cancels impoverished country debt,
prohibits harmful economic and policy conditions on debt cancellation,
mandates transparency and responsibility in lending from governments
and international financial institutions, calls for a new legal framework
to restrict the activities of predatory "vulture funds," and calls for a U.S.
audit of debts resulting from odious and illegitimate lending.
Stop imposing ideologically-based conditionality on
development programs
Development programs and proposed trade agreements with African
countries should be reviewed to ensure that they conform with guidelines
outlined above in this report. Africa stands to benefit signifi cantly from
reforms of and increased resources for global institutions dealing with
these issues.
This requires a critical review of the results of recently established programs
such as the African Growth and Opportunity Act and the Millennium
Challenge Corporation as well as agencies such as the Overseas Private
Investment Corporation and the U.S. Import/Export Bank. In the eight
years of the African Growth and Opportunity Act, for example, the Act
has encouraged expansion of African imports into the United States. But
that expansion has benefited only a few countries, primarily exporters of
oil and minerals such as platinum. The emphasis on free-trade growth
without considering the need for structural change in trade patterns has
meant very limited benefits. At the same time, the United States has not
responded to African demands to reconsider subsidies such as those to U.S.
cotton farmers that undercut African agricultural export opportunities.
Review U.S. relations with repressive regimes
Congress should review U.S. relations with African countries, taking into
account not only state-to-state relations and conventionally understood
security and economic interests, but also human rights, human security,
the resolution of ongoing conflicts, and the voices of civil society and pro-
democracy forces. Among the African countries for which such a review
is long overdue are Egypt, Algeria, and Ethiopia.
Foster Multilateral African-Led Solutions
Given the intimate interconnections between African problems and global
problems, successful efforts to resolve Africa's problems must involve
collaboration and dialogue among multiple stakeholders, allowing for
African leadership and initiative while simultaneously addressing the
external context of outside powers and global institutions, particularly the
United Nations and international fi nancial institutions.
Many of the issues to be addressed, and the need for the United States
to participate in a wider dialogue on inclusive human security, have
been noted earlier in this report. Their application to particular African
countries, regions, and continent-wide issues requires both attention
to the specificity of each case and consultation not only with states and
inter-state institutions but also with relevant civil society institutions
and internationally respected analysts in specific sectors and on specifi c
countries.
Without going into detail, the following list identifies some of the issues
calling for particular attention by Congress and the new administration:
Support multilateral peacemaking and peacekeeping
In addition to paying current UN peacekeeping dues and arrears, the
United States should actively participate in efforts to strengthen United
Nations and African Union peacemaking and peacekeeping capacity.
In ongoing crises, the United States should closely coordinate its eff orts
with those of other stakeholders to maximize the chances of sustainable
outcomes. Among crises calling for particularly urgent attention are
Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Sudan (including
Darfur).
Review economic relations with African countries
Such a review should not only consider U.S. interests in expanding trade
and securing natural resources, but also sustainable benefits for African
countries. Among issues deserving of attention, despite signifi cant
domestic political obstacles, are reduction of subsidies for U.S. agricultural
exports such as cotton and grains and requirements of transparency and
environmental responsibility for U.S. oil and other natural resource
companies operating in Africa.
Turn from "assistance" to "public goods"
As noted in previous sections, programs to support health, education,
women's rights, environmental protection, and other public goods should
not be regarded as optional charitable expenditures dependent on the
goodwill of the rich. Rather, they are investments that are essential for
economic growth and human security in African countries, with long-
term benefits not only for Africa but for all of us who live in an ever-more-
interconnected world.
Support democracy with consistent criteria, prioritizing
multilateral action
To ensure that U.S. support for democracy in Africa is effective, it must
both be and be seen as consistent rather than as selectively applied to
some and not to others. It must follow the lead of African civil society and
human rights groups, bringing under scrutiny U.S. allies as well as states
regarded as enemies in Washington.
This does not mean that simply denouncing undemocratic practices and
human rights abuses is sufficient. Actions need to be adapted to be most
effective, taking into account the views of civil society, African states, and
other considerations. But it does mean that the United States must pay
attention to democracy in key U.S. allies such as Ethiopia, Algeria, and
Egypt, as well as in cases such as Zimbabwe.
U.S.-CARIBBEAN RELATIONS
U.S.-Caribbean relations have been complicated and therefore it is
important to rehearse in broad outline the historical patterns.
The major features of this relationship in the 20th century and continuing
into this one have been:
- Economic dependence. The Caribbean has since the early 20th
century looked to the U.S. as a major trading partner, a source for
foreign investment and tourist traffic.
- U.S. geo-political dominance. The U.S. has consistently considered
the Caribbean to be within its sphere of influence; the region's
function, in the words of Alfred Mahan, was to serve as a site of
"strategic naval bases" and as a sea frontier to protect American
interests. It thus fell within the 1823 American framework of foreign
policy for Latin America and the Caribbean, the Monroe Doctrine.
In the 20th century, military interventions, such as in Haiti in 1915
and the Dominican Republic in 1916, were followed by Franklin
Roosevelt's 'Good Neighbor Policy' stressing diplomacy. Recent policy
has featured both diplomacy and military intervention. Whatever the
strategy adopted, however, the United States perceived the region
primarily in terms of its strategic location. This resulted in both overt
military interventions and covert interventions, particularly during
the period of the Cold War.
-
Migration. Since the early 20th century and the opening of migration,
Caribbean migrants have flocked to the U.S. This tendency has
been reinforced by multiple waves of immigrants; the remittances
of Caribbean migrants constitute for many Caribbean nations a
significant source of foreign exchange.
In the era of the Cold War, intensified military intervention was
accompanied by policies of economic cooperation based on free-market
assumptions.
On the military front, attention to the region dramatically accelerated as
a result of the Cuban Revolution. Although U.S. efforts to roll back the
Cuban Revolution failed, the conflict profoundly shaped U.S. involvement
in the region. The U.S. associated other radical and reformist movements
in the region with Cuba, although their inspiration was diverse, including
African American protest movements, the U.S. anti-war movement, and
radical anti-colonial movements in Africa. U.S. intervention included
destabilization of the Manley government in Jamaica and military
intervention in Grenada in 1983.
This period of intervention was followed by the development of a series
of economic packages directed at the trading relationships between the
region and the U.S.. Th e first of these was the Caribbean Basin Initiative,
followed by granting the region parity with the members of NAFTA.
All these programs focused primarily on trade, and were based on two
assumptions. Th e first was that economic problems in the region were
fuel for radical movements, and second, that open markets and free trade
would create zones of economic development. However, the strategy of
developing regional free-trade zones under U.S. leadership did not have
the effect of promoting development in the region.
By the 1990s, another concern loomed high for U.S. foreign policy in the
Caribbean—the drug trade.
Today U.S. foreign policy towards the region is driven by multiple
concerns:
-
the Caribbean as an arena for drug trafficking through the sea-lanes
of the region.
-
the Caribbean as a zone for entertainment and relaxation, making
tourism a driving force for outside investment.
-
the Caribbean as a location for services such as data processing and
telemarketing (although the fairly vigorous labor movement in the
region makes outsourcing difficult for U.S. investors).
-
the Caribbean as a zone of political stability (with the exception of
Haiti), with vibrant representative democratic traditions.
In global terms, the region is not seen as strategically important given its
lack of prominence in the "war on terror."
In economic terms, the relationship between the United States and the
regional trading organization CARICOM is at a crossroads. New action
by the World Trade Organization has reduced the favorable access of some
of the region's commodities to the U.S. market, and there is now a large
trading deficit between the region and the U.S.
The Way Ahead
The United States should emphasize reduction of conflict and maximization
of mutually beneficial economic collaboration both within the Caribbean
region and between the United States and the Caribbean. Th is implies
stopping the militarization of the "war on drugs," drawing on other
countries in the region to build more constructive U.S. relations with Haiti
and with Cuba, and seeking common ground on issues of immigration and
the welfare of Caribbean immigrant communities in the United States.
Such an alternate foreign policy towards the Caribbean should respect the
sovereignty of states in the region and promote open dialogue on common
problems. The priorities of such a policy include:
-
The United States should develop a regular consultative mechanism
with CARICOM, the regional organization representing most
Caribbean states. A joint CARICOM/U.S. consultative body would
include in its terms of reference trade, debt, and other economic issues
as well as immigration, drug smuggling, and security concerns.
- The United States should support and collaborate on a program of
regional development of physical infrastructure through CARICOM
and the Caribbean Development Bank.
- The United States should pledge that there will be no U.S. military
interventions or regime change actions within the region.
- In addition to the cancellation of Haiti's debt, the United States should
work closely with CARICOM to support the drive for democracy in
that country, with CARICOM rather than the United States taking the
lead role among external partners with the Haitian people.
-
The United States should work to resolve pending immigration issues
with the Caribbean, particularly the problems caused for Caribbean
countries through the deportation of Caribbean immigrants caught up
in the racially distorted American criminal justice system.
-
The United States should work with Caribbean countries to address not
only problems of drug smuggling, but also gun-running from the United
States to the Caribbean that contributes to violence in the region.
-
The United States should move immediately to remove economic
sanctions against Cuba and restore full diplomatic relations with it.
It should also declare its support for full democratization and human
rights in Cuba while explicitly renouncing any intentions to interfere
directly or indirectly in the internal affairs of the country.
With a new inclusive perspective of building common human security
and working in collaboration with Caribbean partners, there will be new
opportunities to develop a mutually beneficial policy framework and move
towards reversing the historical inequalities between the region and the
United States.
U. S. RELATIONS WITH LATIN AMERICAN COUNTRIES, WITH
PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO THE ROLE OF AFRO-DESCENDANT POPULATIONS
Latin America, with the Caribbean the world region most closely engaged
with the United States through immigration and trade, has a relatively low
profile with respect to traditional security issues. There is no nuclear threat;
no one expects major conventional wars within the region, much less military
attacks on the United States; and there is no Latin American country that
harbors terrorist groups that have targeted the United States.
Within a more inclusive definition of human security, however, Latin
America is far more central to U.S. interests, and the interconnections
between "domestic" and "foreign" issues are particularly dense. Along with
relations with the Caribbean, relations with Latin America most directly
exemplify whether the United States is in fact ready to pursue a new course
of cooperation, mutual respect, and good neighborliness. The region also
provides the opportunity for a widened dialogue between the United States
and other countries on how to address the shared historical legacies of racial
inequalities due to conquest and to slavery.
Of the issues facing the United States in relation to Latin America, TransAfrica
Forum identifies several that require particular emphasis. Immigration,
both from Latin America and other regions, is important enough to warrant
a separate section (see below). In addition, we stress the general policies of
inclusive hemispheric diplomacy and of fair trade, and the strategic role of
bilateral relations with Colombia, Venezuela, and Brazil, all countries with
substantial Afro-descendant populations.
First of all, for Latin America as with other regions, the United States should
quickly signal its willingness to move towards more inclusive diplomacy and
trade negotiations aimed at fair trade that takes into account workers' rights
and environmental standards as well as mutual benefits for all countries
involved. That implies not only normalization of relationships with Cuba, as
noted above in the section on the Caribbean, but also a new spirit of dialogue
on trade and other issues in dispute with other countries. These aims should
be pursued not only in bilateral venues, but also by maximizing cooperation
within regional institutions such as the Organization of American States,
the Pan American Health Organization, and others.
Secondly, Congress and the administration should consider means to
highlight the particular needs of Afro-Latinos, through hearings and
through giving special attention to the disadvantaged position of Afro-
Latinos in bilateral programs.
Finally, Congress and the administration should review and reform U.S.
policy towards three important Latin American countries with large Afro-
descendant populations: Colombia, Venezuela, and Brazil. Among the
essential points to consider are the following:
(1) Colombia is the country with the most significant U.S. military
involvement in ongoing conflict, in alliance with a repressive regime.
This involvement has been justified by the war against drugs, but the
strategy has both proved ineffective in stopping the flow of drugs
and has instead fueled continued conflict, displacement, and human
rights abuses. Colombia's Afro-descendant population, estimated at
26 percent of the population or more, has suffered disproportionately.
There are as many as 2 million displaced Afro-Colombians among the
total of some 4 million displaced people in Colombia.
The United States should cease funding for military operations in
Colombia. Congress should not pass the U.S. Colombia Free Trade
Agreement as long as human rights abuses and attacks on trade unions
in particular continue with impunity. Congress and the administration
should rethink policy towards Colombia, aiming not only at sustainable
means of controlling drug trafficking but also at safeguarding human
rights and democratization, including attention to workers' rights and
the situation of Afro-Colombians.
(2)
Venezuela, a leading supplier of oil to the United States, is also a
country with a significant proportion of Afro-descendent population
(some estimates are as high as 30 percent of the population). In recent
years, relationships between the populist government of President
Hugo Chávez and the United States have been tense, with the U.S.
accused of backing a coup attempt against the government, and the
United States joining the Venezuelan opposition in strong criticism of
the human rights record of the Chávez administration. Nevertheless,
that government has shown a strong commitment to redressing
historical inequalities in the country, including those concerning the
Afro-descendant population, and plays a prominent role on the Latin
American and world stage.
The United States should give priority to the exercise of diplomacy and
dialogue to improve relations with Venezuela and resolve outstanding
differences. It should also encourage civil society and cultural exchanges
with Venezuela, including dialogue on issues of racial discrimination
and other questions of economic and social inequality.
(3)
As a rising power on the world scene, and the country with the largest
African-origin population outside the African continent, Brazil provides
a unique opportunity for the United States to expand opportunities
for mutually beneficial cooperation and dialogue in multiple sectors,
including trade, the environment, health, and the legacies of racial
injustice and causes of inequality. While the United States and Brazil
generally enjoy friendly relations, the two states have taken strongly
differing stances on such global issues as agricultural subsidies and
how to combat HIV/AIDS. A more active dialogue would be highly
valuable as both countries confront domestic and global issues.
Among the issues Congress and the new administration need to
explore in relation to Brazil are the resolution of differences on trade
and international property rights, including Brazilian complaints
at the WTO about U.S. cotton subsidies and Brazil's use of generic
drugs. Resolution of these issues may depend on the willingness of the
Obama administration and the Congress to confront U.S. domestic
interests, and require consideration of the views of advocacy groups
and the public interest as well as of private-sector concerns.
In addition, Congress and the administration should take advantage
of opportunities for expanding dialogue and cooperation with Brazil
in confronting common problems, such as energy suffi ciency, global
warming, and health.
IMMIGRATION AND FOREIGN POLICY: THE NEGLECTED LINKS
The percentage of immigrants in the U.S. population (including only those
born outside the United States, and not counting family members born
here) has risen from 4.7 percent in 1970, to 12.5 percent in 2006, and may
soon exceed its 1910 high of 14.7 percent. While 11.5 million immigrants
(the single largest national group) come from Mexico, some three million
come from the Caribbean, two million from Central America, and two
million from South America. Of those from South America, the largest
number (more than 500,000) are from Colombia. One million immigrants
are from Africa, part of a rapidly increasing group as globalization fuels
African migrant flows across the Atlantic as well as south to South Africa
and north to Europe.
In recent years the growing debate over U.S. immigration policy has
become closely intertwined with the new debate over homeland security.
But instead of opening a path towards constructive reform, reducing
tensions, and increasing the security of the American people, these debates
have so far served primarily to reinforce stereotypes, increase human
rights abuses, promote investment of resources in ineffective border-
control measures, and postpone real dialogue placing immigration in the
context of the full range of relationships between the United States and the
countries of origin of immigrants.
When considering the complex connections linking immigration,
trade, security against terrorism and drug trafficking, and other foreign
policy issues, while taking into account long-term as well as short-term
considerations, only an inclusive human security framework can provide
a way to explore solutions that enhance the security of both the American
people and those of other countries.
Current Context
Issues of immigration, trade, and foreign policy are most often
compartmentalized. In fact, they are closely interconnected. On the one
hand, immigration trends are closely connected both to the demand
for labor and human rights policies in rich countries and to political
and economic conditions in the countries of origin of immigrants.
Immigration policy is also part of the economic planning by corporate
interests and the governments that represent them. "Trade" agreements—
referred to as FTAs in the United States and EPAs in Europe—are not just
about opening export markets and getting access to raw materials, they
are often also specifically about controlling the flow of labor.
The U.S. Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA), for
example, that first prohibited employers from knowingly hiring illegal
aliens by requiring the verification of an applicant's identity and eligibility
for employment prior to hiring, also established a commission that led
directly to the proposal for NAFTA in 1994, the free trade agreement
between the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The fact is that for rich
countries, automation and outsourcing cannot fully resolve the problem
of labor resources. It is not possible completely to automate or outsource
jobs such as stoop labor on farms, construction work in cities, domestic
services, janitorial jobs, and many others.
The policies shaping immigration are designed to control and manage the
flow of immigrants, not to stop it. That means that there are diff erent—and
changing—policies for recruiting high-skill workers when industry needs
them, and for maintaining an unskilled work force that is large enough
to fill the needs but vulnerable enough that they find it difficult to join in
organizing for their rights.
Thus migration between countries has powerful drivers, economic as
well as political. Refugees flee wars and political persecution. Th ey also
seek opportunities not available in their home country, in search of a
better life or, increasingly, in a desperate search for survival. Today, as in
earlier generations, one of the most powerful forces driving international
migration is economic inequality between nations. There are rich and poor
in every country, but the world's wealth is overwhelmingly concentrated
in very few countries. This means that a child's
chances of survival and advancement depend on
the accident of place of birth. History makes a
difference: over generations richer parents give their
children greater opportunities; and richer countries
can invest in health, education, technology, and
other infrastructure that creates opportunities.
The distribution of wealth today is the result
of centuries of conquest, slavery, colonialism,
and racial discrimination. It is also driven by a
global economy that rewards some and penalizes
others, while powerful governments and special
interests write the rules or apply them to their own
advantage. In the year 2000, according to the fi rst
comprehensive study of global wealth, the richest
two percent of the world's adults owned more than
half of the world's total household wealth.
In such a world, it should be no surprise that people try to move to improve
their lot, and that many are not deterred by laws, fences, or danger. The
phenomenon is worldwide, wherever wealth and poverty coexist: Africans
from around the continent find their way to South Africa, South Asians
find work in the Middle East, Mexicans and Central Americans cross the
border to the southwestern U.S., people risk their lives on small boats
from Africa to Europe, or from the Caribbean to Florida. Whatever
governments do, people will continue to move as long as millions cannot
find a way to make a living at home.
Those who do immigrate to rich countries, whether refugees or other
migrants, legal or illegal, are often seen as threats by both governments
and much of the public. Even in good times, when immigrants are seen as
necessary for the economy, immigrants' rights are vulnerable, particularly
if they are from groups that are viewed as "other" in racial, religious, or
cultural terms. In the context of economic downturn, the potential for
abuses rises. The trend is not confined to the United States: witness the
violent response to immigrants from other African countries in South
Africa and anti-foreigner actions in many European countries. With the
added fear of terrorism, as in recent years under the Bush administration,
and the failure to establish judicial checks on abuses by immigration
authorities, detention raids, mistreatment of detainees, and other abuses
have turned the immigration system under the Immigration and Customs
Enforcement agency (ICE), integrated into the Department of Homeland
Security, into a realm of fear and insecurity.
It is the responsibility of governments to manage immigration in a way that
takes into account the interests of different countries and communities,
while respecting the human rights of immigrants themselves. Yet major
responsibility, particularly for establishing the climate of debate on
policy, lies with civil society, including the media and nongovernmental
organizations. Immigrants of different origins are often pitted against each
other and against long-established minority communities in competition
for scarce resources of jobs, housing, and other community services.
Such divisions help create a tolerance for abuses against immigrants, and
block efforts to find constructive solutions to real differences of interest.
TransAfrica Forum is particularly aware of the complex mixture of views
in African American communities on these issues, and of its particular
responsibility to facilitate understanding and constructive dialogue.
The Way Ahead
Within the context of the inclusive security framework, immigration
reform and implementation of immigration policy should be subjects
not only of domestic debate, but also of negotiations with other aff ected
countries and international dialogue including civil society as well as
government institutions. It is essential to take into account fundamental
principles and policy guidelines, such as those advanced by the National
Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, the American Friends Service
Committee, and the Black Alliance for Just Immigration. In particular
TransAfrica Forum strongly endorses the principles and guidelines for
immigration policy advanced by Black Alliance for Just Immigration.
These principles are:
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All people, regardless of immigration status, country of origin, race,
color, creed, gender, sexual orientation or HIV status, deserve human
rights as well as social and economic justice.
-
Historically and currently, U.S. immigration policy has been infused
with racism, enforcing unequal and punitive standards for immigrants
of color.
-
Immigration to the United States is driven by an unjust international
economic order that deprives people of the ability to earn a living and
raise their families in their home countries.
-
Through international trade, lending, aid and investment policies, the
United States government and corporations are the main promoters
and beneficiaries of this unjust economic order.
-
African Americans, with our history of being economically exploited,
marginalized and discriminated against, have much in common with
people of color who migrate to the United States, documented and
undocumented.
To implement these principles, the following policy steps are
recommended:
-
A fair path to legalization and citizenship for undocumented
immigrants;
-
No criminalization of undocumented workers, immigrants, or their
families, friends or service providers;
-
Due process, access to the courts, and meaningful judicial review for
immigrants;
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No mass deportations, indefinite detentions or expansion of
mandatory detentions of undocumented immigrants;
-
The strengthening and enforcement of labor law protections for all
workers, native and foreign born;
- Reunification of families;
- No use of local or state government agencies in the enforcement of
immigration laws.
Specific measures that should be taken by Congress and the administration
to implement these policies include:
- Congress and the administration should review human rights abuses
by federal, state, and local officials under the Immigration and
Customs Enforcement system; they should recommend appropriate
legal safeguards against such abuses and ensure that U.S. policies and
actions conform to international human rights standards.
- The United States should stop construction of the border fence with
Mexico, and begin a serious dialogue with that neighboring country
on orderly and just procedures for immigration control that respect
the rights of all border-crossers as well as meet the needs for security
of both countries.
- Congress should pass the Child Citizen Protection Act introduced by
Representative Jos‚ Serrano, which provides discretionary authority
to an immigration judge to determine that an alien parent of a United
States citizen child should not be ordered removed, deported, or
excluded from the United States.
- The United States should assign high priority to providing and
extending temporary protected status to citizens of countries in crisis,
particularly in those cases where previous U.S. policies bear significant
responsibility for the crisis, such as in Liberia, Haiti, Somalia, and
elsewhere.
Government action on these sensitive issues, in turn, depends on
initiatives by civil society to establish a wider framework for analysis
and dialogue. With its base in the African American community, and
decades of experience and involvement in issues concerning Africa, the
Caribbean, and Latin America, TransAfrica Forum strongly supports
efforts to expand public consideration of immigration and foreign policy
within the context of an inclusive security framework.
Such a dialogue must include both immigrant and other civil society
groups within the United States and civil society within the countries
of immigration. Within this broader spectrum, TransAfrica Forum is
particularly committed to expanding the opportunities for dialogue
involving diverse sectors of the African Diaspora in the Americas as well
as those involved in ongoing struggles for democracy and justice on the
African continent.
The Human Security Project, developed by TransAfrica Forum, is designed to encourage a shift in U.S.
policy towards Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean: a shift away from aggressive unilateralism toward
human-centered global engagement. The project goal is two-fold:
(1) To introduce the inclusive human security framework to select U.S. audiences, and policymakers,
(2) To
provide concrete policy recommendations, based on this framework, to Congress and the
administration, that will not only be debated but will also be used to improve legislation.
Inclusive Security: U.S. National Security Policy, Africa, and the African Diaspora is produced in collaboration
with the TransAfrica Forum Scholars Council.
TransAfrica Forum Scholars Council and Project Co-Chairs:
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Clarence Lusane, Professor, School of International Service, American University
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Joseph Jordan, Director, Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History, University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill
Other Principal Participants in the Study Process:
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Anthony Bogues, Chair, Africana Studies Department, Brown University
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Horace Campbell, Professor, Syracuse University
-
Imani Countess, Senior Director for Public Affairs, TransAfrica Forum
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Gerald Horne, John J. and Rebecca Moores Chair of History and African American Studies, University
of Houston
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William Minter, Editor, AfricaFocus Bulletin
-
Randy Persaud, Director, Comparative and Regional Studies, School of International Service, American
University
-
Yash Tandon, Executive Director, The South Centre
-
Dr. Ronald Walters, Distinguished Leadership Scholar, Department of Government and Politics,
University of Maryland at College Park
-
Sharon K. Weiner, Assistant Professor, School of International Studies, American University
Additional support provided by:
Fahamu, Networks for Social Justice, Nairobi and Oxford
www.fahamu.org; www.pambazuka.org
The South Centre, Geneva
www.southcentre.org
And the Africana Studies Department at Brown University
Research Interns:
Tendai Chinhakwe, Sarah Moenter, and Jean Boyle
Copy Editor: Alex Baramki
Participants
Anthony Bogues is Harmon Family Professor, Professor of Africana Studies and Political Science, and
current Chair of Africana Studies at Brown University. He is the author of four books, over 50 articles, and
editor of two volumes. His subjects range from Caribbean politics, history and literature to African politics
and literature, and political theory. A former special assistant to the late Jamaican Prime Minister Michael
Manley, he currently serves as an associate director of the Center for Caribbean Thought at the University
of the West Indies and is an Honorary Professor at the Center for African Studies at the University of Cape
Town in South Africa. During the 1990s he was a Ralph Bunche Fellow at Howard University. He is currently
writing a biography of C.L.R. James as well as a book on freedom in the black intellectual tradition.
Horace Campbell has been an activist and scholar for more than forty years. Mr. Campbell is Professor of
African American Studies and Political Science at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York, where he is the
Director of the Africa Initiatives. He works in the wider Syracuse Community as an activist for peace, and
is a board member of the Syracuse Peace Council. He has published two books and edited three others. His
book Rasta and Resistance: From Marcus Garvey to Walter Rodney is going through its sixth edition. He has
contributed over twenty chapters to other edited books. Dr. Campbell is currently writing a book on the wars
against the people of Angola. He is a member of the African Studies Association, the National Conference of
Black Political Scientists, and the African Association of Political Science. Dr. Campbell was educated in the
Caribbean, Canada, Uganda, and the UK. He did his doctoral work at Sussex University in the UK.
Imani Countess serves as the Senior Director of Public Affairs at TransAfrica Forum, where she works
to conceptualize and implement public outreach activities to educate and motivate diverse communities
around U.S. foreign policy. Ms. Countess served for five years as the U.S. national coordinator of the
American Friends Service Committee Africa Program. Traveling throughout the continent of Africa and its
global Diaspora, Ms. Countess created cutting-edge political and activist training events to increase public
participation in policy making. Ms. Countess has advocated for more than twenty years for U.S. policies that
promote sustainable development, economic equality, and participatory democracy in Africa.
Gerald C. Horne holds the John J. and Rebecca Moores Chair of History and African American Studies at
the University of Houston. His research has addressed issues of race in a variety of relations involving labor,
politics, civil rights, and war. Dr. Horne received his Ph.D. in History from Columbia University, and his J.D.
from the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of more than 17 books and 100 scholarly articles
and reviews. His current research focuses on topics including slavery in the U.S. and Brazil, black labor at sea,
the Communist Party in Hollywood, and Negro fascism.
Joseph F. Jordan is director of the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History at the University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He was previously head of the Auburn Avenue Research Library on African
American Culture and History in Atlanta and a senior research analyst on Africa for the Library of Congress.
Jordan has also taught at Xavier University of Louisiana and at Antioch College. He received his doctorate in
African studies from Howard University in 1983. Jordan edited a special issue of Crossroads magazine, "Th at
Covenant Was Kept: Lessons of the U.S. Anti-Apartheid Movement," in 1995. As co-chair of the Southern
Africa Support Project in Washington, DC, Jordan helped organize Nelson Mandela's first visit to the United
States. He is curator of the widely acclaimed exhibit in Atlanta, "Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography
in America."
Clarence Lusane is a professor at the School of International Service, American University.
His research interests are in international race politics, human rights, and electoral politics. He teaches courses in
comparative race relations; modern social movements; comparative politics of Africa, the Caribbean and
Europe; black political theory and political behavior; international drug politics; and jazz and international
relations. His most recent book is Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice: Foreign Policy, Race, and the New
American Century (2006). He worked for eight years in the U.S. House of Representatives as a staff aide
to former D.C. Congressman Walter E. Fauntroy, and then for the former Democratic Study Group that
served as the primary source of legislative information and analysis for House Democrats. He is a national
columnist for the Black Voices syndicated news network, and his articles have appeared in many newspapers
and magazines. Dr. Lusane received his Ph.D. in Political Science from Howard University in 1997.
William Minter is the editor of AfricaFocus Bulletin, based in Washington, DC. He has worked as an author,
scholar, journalist, and activist on African issues since the early 1960s. His latest book, co-edited with Gail
Hovey and Charles Cobb, Jr., is No Easy Victories: African Liberation and American Activists over a Half
Century, 1950-2000. In recent years, he has written and edited analyses of U.S. policy and African issues for,
among other groups, the American Friends Service Committee, the Washington Office on Africa, the Africa
Policy Information Center, Africa Action, and TransAfrica Forum.
Randolph B. Persaud is Professor of Comparative and Regional Studies in the School of International
Service at American University. His research interests focus on globalization, human and global security,
and north/south relations. He has previously served as Assistant Director of the Centre for International and
Security Studies at York University in Toronto, where he received his Ph.D. Dr. Persaud is author of Counter-
Hegemony and Foreign Policy: The Dialectics of Marginalized and Global Forces in Jamaica. He is currently
working on a study of the nuances of American hegemony.
Yash Tandon serves as the Executive Director of the South Centre Secretariat in Geneva. He has taught at
several African universities including Makerere in Uganda and the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.
He is a founding member of the International South Group Network, which seeks to raise attention for
issues in former colonies. He is also a founder of the Southern and Eastern African Trade Information and
Negotiations Initiative. Professor Tandon has written extensively on matters related to African economy and
international relations, and specializes in political economy.
Ronald W. Walters serves as "The Distinguished Leadership Scholar", Director of the African American
Leadership Institute, and Full Professor of Government and Politics at the James MacGregor Burns Academy
of Leadership. He has also held positions at Howard University, Brandeis University, Harvard University,
and Princeton University. He has also served as Senior Policy Staff member for Congressmen Charles Diggs,
Jr. and William Gray. Dr. Walters received his B.A. from Fisk University, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from
American University. He is the author of more than 100 articles and six books.
Sharon K. Weiner is an assistant professor at the School of International Studies at American University.
Her research interests focus on security and the interface between institutional design, bureaucratic politics,
and U.S. defense and foreign policy. She is the recipient of a "Scholar of Vision" award from the Carnegie
Corporation of New York for research in U.S.-Russian efforts to control the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
She is the author of several book chapters and journal articles in leading foreign policy publications. Dr.
Weiner received her B.A. and B.S. from Northeast Missouri State University, her M.A. from the University
of Lancaster (UK), and her Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
