By Alemayehu G. Mariam|
It
is proper to congratulate President Obama on his re-election to a
second term. He put up a masterful campaign to earn the votes of the
majority of American voters. Mitt Romney also deserves commendation for a
hard fought campaign. In his concession speech Romney was supremely
gracious: “At a time like this we can’t risk partisan bickering and
political posturing. Our leaders have to reach across the aisle to do
the people’s work, and we citizens also have to rise to occasion.”
There has been a bit of finger-wagging, teeth-gnashing, eye-rolling
and bellyaching among some Ethiopian Americans in the run up to the U.S.
presidential election held last week. Some were angry at President
Obama and actively campaigned in support of his opponent. They felt
betrayed by the President’s inability or unwillingness to give effect to
his lofty rhetoric on human rights in Africa and Ethiopia. Others were
disappointed by what they believed to be active support for and aid to
brutal African dictators. Many tried to be empathetic of the President’s
difficult circumstances. He had to formulate American foreign policy to
maximize achievement of American global national interests. Terrorism
in the Horn of Africa was a critical issue for the U.S. and Obama had to
necessarily subordinate human rights to global counter-terrorism
issues.
I was quite disappointed by the President’s failure to implement even
a rudimentary human rights agenda in Ethiopia and the rest of Africa.
But I also understood that he had some fierce battles to fight
domestically trying to shore up the American economy, pushing some basic
social policies, fighting two wars and putting out brushfires in a
conflict-ridden world. I gave the President credit for a major
diplomatic achievement in the South Sudan referendum which led to the
creation of Africa’s newest state. President Obama authorized the
deployment of a small contingent of U.S. troops to capture or kill the
bloodthirsty thug Joseph Kony and his criminal partners. He launched the
kleptocracy project which I thought was a great idea.
As I argued in my
column “Africorruption, Inc.“,
the “business of African governments in the main is corruption. The
majority of African ‘leaders’ seize political power to operate
sophisticated criminal enterprises to loot their national treasuries and
resources.” I felt the kleptocracy project could effectively prevent
illicit money transfer from Ethiopia to the U.S. According to Global
Financial Integrity, Ethiopia lost US$11.7 billion to illicit financial
outflows between 2000 and 2009. I gave the president high marks for
working through the U.N. to pass U.N. Resolution 1973 which endorsed the
effort to protect Libyan civilians and his use of NATO partners to
shoulder much of the military responsibility to rid Gadhafi from Libya
after 41 years of brutal dictatorship. More broadly, I give him credit
for closing secret C.I.A. prisons, ending extraordinary renditions and
enhanced interrogations (torture), trying to close down the detention
camp in Guantánamo Bay and move trials from military tribunals into
civilian courts and abide by international laws of human rights. No
doubt, he has much more to do in the area of global human rights.
I believe he could have done a lot more in Africa and Ethiopia to
promote human rights, but did not. I have written numerous columns over
the past couple of years that have been very critical of U.S. policy. In
the “The Moral Hazard of U.S. Policy in Africa“,
I argued that neither the U.S. nor the West could afford to sacrifice
democracy and human rights in Africa to curry favor with incorrigible
African dictators whose sole interest is in clinging to power to enrich
themselves and their cronies. In my column, “Thugtatorship: The Highest Stage of African Dictatorship”,
I argued Africa’s thugtatorships have longstanding and profitable
partnerships with the West. Through aid and trade, the West and
particularly the U.S. has enabled these thugocracies to flourish in
Africa. A few months ago, in my column “Ethiopia in Bond Aid,”
I argued that international aid is negatively affecting Africa’s
development. “Before much of Africa became ‘independent’ in the 1960s,
Africans were held under the yoke of “colonial bondage”. ‘International
aid’ addiction has transformed Africa’s colonial bondage into
neo-colonial bondaid.” In another recent column “Ethiopia: Food for Famine and Thought!”,
I criticized the G8 Food Security Summit held in Washington, D.C. this
past June as a reinvention of the old colonialism: “The G-8’s ‘New
Alliance’ smacks of the old Scramble for Africa. The G-8 wants to
liberate Africa from hunger, famine and starvation by facilitating the
handover of millions of hectares of Africa’s best land to global
multinationals…”
But despite disappointments, misgivings, apprehensions and concern
over the Obama Administration’s failure to actively promote human rights
in Ethiopia and Africa, I have supported President Obama. For all his
faults, he has been an inspiring leader to me. Like many Americans, I
was awed by state Senator Obama’s keynote speech at the Democratic
national Convention in 2004 when he unapologetically declared: “There’s
not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian
America; there’s the United States of America. There is not a liberal
America. There is not a conservative America. There is a United States
of America.” These words continue to inspire me to dream of the day when
young Ethiopian men and women shall come together from all parts of the
country and shout out and sing the words, “There is not an Oromo
Ethiopia, Amhara Ethiopia, Tigrai Ethiopia, Gurage Ethiopia, Ogadeni
Ethiopia, Anuak Ethiopia… There is only a united Ethiopia where ‘justice
rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.’”
During the advocacy effort to pass H.R. 2003 (“Ethiopia Democracy and
Accountability Act of 2007”), we had opportunities to meet with U.S.
Senator Obama’s staffers in his district office and on the Hill on a
number of occasions. Our meetings were encouraging and there was little
doubt that Senator Obama would support H.R. 2003 if the bill had made it
to the Senate floor after it passed the House of Representatives in
October 2007. In February 2008, our advocacy group, the Coalition for H.R. 2003, formally endorsed Barack Obama’s
presidential bid. We declared that “it is time for the U.S. to abandon
its support of African dictators, and pursue policies that uplift and
advance the people of Africa. It is time for an American president who
will stand up for human rights in Ethiopia, and demand of those who
violate human rights to stand down!”
Over the last four years, our enthusiasm and support for the
President flagged and waned significantly as Africa remained on the
fringes of U.S. foreign policy agenda. During the recent presidential
“foreign policy debate” Africa was barely mentioned. There was only
passing reference to Al Qaeda’s presence in Mali, the third poorest
country on the planet. (According to the Economist Magazine, Ethiopia is the poorest country on the planet.)
But not to make excuses, the President had a lot on his foreign policy
plate. The Arab Spring was spreading like wildfire sweeping out longtime
dictators. Nuclear proliferation in the Middle East remains a critical
issue. The global economic meltdown threatens certain European countries
with total economic collapse.
Hope Springs Eternal in Ethiopia and the Rest of Africa
I am hopeful that human rights in Africa will occupy a prominent role
in the foreign policy agenda of President Obama’s second term. An
indication of such a trend may be evident in the announcement two days
after President Obama’s reelection that he will be visiting Myanmar
(Burma) in a couple of weeks. After five decades of ruthless military
dictatorship, Myanmar is gradually transforming itself into a democracy.
President Thein Sein has released political prisoners, lifted media
bans and implemented economic and political reforms. Amazingly,
pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi is the acknowledged opposition
leader in parliament after two decades of house arrest. Last week, a
State Department spokesperson underscored the need for human rights
improvement in Ethiopia according to a Voice of America report. There
are favorable signs the Obama Administration will pursue a more
aggressive human rights agenda in Africa.
President Obama Would Like to Leave a Legacy of Democracy and Freedom in Africa
Historically, second-term presidents become increasingly focused on
foreign policy. They also become acutely aware of the legacy they would
like to leave after they complete their second term. I believe President
Obama would like to leave a memorable and monumental legacy of human
rights in Africa. I cannot believe that he is so indifferent to Africa
that he would leave it in worse condition than he found it. When he
became president, much of Africa was dominated by dictators who shot
their way to power or rigged elections to get into power. In much of
Africa today, the absence of the rule of law is shocking to the
conscience. Massive human rights violations are commonplace. In
Ethiopia, journalists, dissidents, opposition leaders, peaceful
demonstrators, civil society and human rights advocates are jailed,
harassed and persecuted every day.
Needless to say, for President Obama Africa is the land of his father
even though he was born and raised in America. I believe President
Obama, like most immigrant Ethiopian Americans, would like to help the
continent not only escape poverty but also achieve better governance and
greater respect for the rule of law. He would like to see Africa having
free and fair elections and improved human rights conditions. In his
book Dreams From My Father, he wrote, “… It was into my father’s image,
the black man, son of Africa, that I’d packed all the attributes I
sought in myself, the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, DuBois and
Mandela. And if later I saw that the black men I knew – Frank or Ray or
Will or Rafiq – fell short of such lofty standards; if I had learned to
respect these men for the struggles they went through, recognizing them
as my own – my father’s voice had nevertheless remained untainted,
inspiring, rebuking, granting or withholding approval. You do not work
hard enough, Barry. You must help in your people’s struggle. Wake up,
black man!” A man whose life’s inspiration comes from Martin Luther
King, Malcolm X, W.E. B. DuBois and Nelson Mandela cannot ignore or
remain indifferent to the suffering of African peoples. I think he will
help Africans in their struggle for dignity in his second term.
U.S. Human Rights Policy in the Post Arab Spring Period
In the post-Arab Spring world, the U.S. has come to realize that its
formula of subordinating its human rights policy to security and
economic interests in dealing with dictators needs reexamination,
recalibration and reformulation. By relying on dictators to maintain
domestic and regional stability, the U.S. has historically ignored and
remained indifferent to the needs, aspirations and suffering of the Arab
masses. When the Arab masses exploded in anger, the U.S. was perplexed
and did not know what to do.
The U.S. has been timid in raising human rights issues with Africa’s
dictators fearing lack of cooperation in the war on terror and other
strategic objectives. The U.S. effort has been limited to issuing empty
verbal exhortations and practicing “quite diplomacy” which has produced
very little to advance an American human rights agenda. I believe the
President understands that America’s long term global interests cannot
be advanced or achieved merely through moral exhortations and
condemnations. We know that the President’s style is to exhaust
diplomacy before taking more drastic measures. As he explained, “The
promotion of human rights cannot be about exhortation alone. At times,
it must be coupled with painstaking diplomacy. I know that engagement
with repressive regimes lacks the satisfying purity of indignation. But I
also know that sanctions without outreach–and condemnation without
discussion–can carry forward a crippling status quo. No repressive
regime can move down a new path unless it has the choice of an open
door.” For the past four years, few African dictators have walked
through the door that leads to democracy and human rights. Many of them
have kicked it shut. I am hopeful that in the second term, the President
will go beyond “exhortation” to concrete action in dealing with African
dictators since he holds their aid purse strings.
President Obama is Not Just a President But Also a Constitutional Lawyer and…
I believe President Obama’s experiences before he became a national
leader continue to have great influence on his thinking and actions. As a
constitutional and civil rights lawyer, I believe he has an innate
sense of moral distaste and repugnance for injustice and arbitrariness.
President Obama cut his teeth as a lawyer representing individuals in
civil and voting rights litigation and wrongful terminations in
employment though he could have joined any one of the most prestigious
law firms in America. He spent his early years doing grassroots
organizing and advocacy working with churches and community groups to
help the poor and disadvantaged. To be sure, he has spent more time
doing community work than serving on the national political stage. As a
constitutional and civil rights lawyer, law professor and advocate for
the poor, I believe President Obama understands the immense importance
of the rule of law, protection of civil liberties and human rights and
the need to restrain those who abuse their powers and sneer at the rule
of law. I think the community activist side of him will be more visible
in his second term.
Ask Not What Obama Can Do for Ethiopia, But…
Some of us make the mistake of asking what President Obama can do for
us. The right question is what we can do for Ethiopia by organizing,
mobilizing and lobbying the Obama Administration to establish and pursue
a firm human rights agenda. In his victory speech on election night
President Obama said, “The role of citizen in our democracy does not end
with your vote. America’s never been about what can be done for us.
It’s about what can be done by us together through the hard and
frustrating, but necessary work of self-government.” Governor Romney in
his concession speech said, “At a time like this we can’t risk partisan
bickering and political posturing. Our leaders have to reach across the
aisle to do the people’s work, and we citizens also have to rise to
occasion.” These are the principles Ethiopian Americans, and others in
the Diaspora and at home, should embrace and practice. It should be time
for a fresh start. We should learn from past mistakes and begin to
organize and reach out in earnest to the Obama Administration. Many
groups have had success with the Administration in advancing their
causes including Arab Americans, Iranian Americans, Armenian Americans,
Macedonian Americans, Serbian Americans and many others. As human rights
activists and advocates, we should demand engagement by senior U.S.
officials and diplomats on human rights issues.
The U.S. knows how to apply pressure on dictators who have been
“friends”. In the 1980s, the U.S. played a central role in the
transition of the Philippines, Chile, Taiwan, and South Korea from
dictatorship to democracy. The United States also kept human rights
agenda front and center when it conducted negotiations with the Soviet
Union and other Soviet-bloc countries. The question is not whether the
U.S. can advance a vigorous human rights agenda in Ethiopia or Africa,
but if it has the political will to do so. I am hopeful that will will
manifest itself in President Obama’s second term.
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