Colin Powell: Bush Man Or Black Man?
7.29.01 Courtland Milloy Wash.Post pC1
A recent letter from Sec.State Colin L. Powell to Dorothy Height regarding U.S. participation in the upcoming World
Conference Against Racism began charmingly enough. Powell had scratched out the formal, typed salutation to
"Dear Dr. Height" so that it read "Dear Dorothy" in his own handwriting. "We remain deeply committed to working
toward a successful WCAR that, as you suggest, advances a better understanding of the factors contributing to
current-day racism and intolerance," Powell wrote. That part sounded like Powell talking to a friend, a powerful
black man reassuring a respected black woman who serves as chairman of the Leadership Conference on Civil
Rights. But in other parts of his letter, which was a response to Height's request that Powell lead the U.S.
delegation to the conference in South Africa next month, Powell was unmistakably secretary of state, sounding
more like a Bush man than a black man.
"However, we are increasingly concerned that the WCAR may instead focus on divisive regional issues, thereby
preventing the Conference from addressing the larger issue of racism affecting all societies," Powell wrote. One of
those "divisive regional issues" is a proposed discussion of reparations for slavery in the United States. Another is
a proposition equating Zionism with racism. Of all the diplomatic dances that America's first black secretary of state
has performed so far, none has ever caused him to step on the toes of his fellow blacks.
In fact, Powell won much praise for making the African continent his first tour abroad and for participating in an
international AIDS conference, despite objections from some of the more conservative members of his own
Republican Party. During the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia last year, Powell courageously
tackled the thorny subject of race and impressed many in the audience with a strong defense of affirmative action.
"Race still casts a shadow over our society," he noted. "Despite the impressive progress we have made over the
last 40 years to overcome the legacy of our past, it is still with us." He went on to tell the convention:
"We must understand the cynicism that exists in the black community, the kind of cynicism that is created when, for
example, some in our party miss no opportunity to roundly and loudly condemn affirmative action that helped a few
thousand black kids get an education, but you hardly hear a whimper when it's affirmative action for lobbyists who
load our federal tax code with preferences and special interests."
Although blacks voted 9 to 1 against the Bush-Cheney ticket in November, the worst that blacks had to say about
Powell was that he had joined the wrong party. Now, President Bush's administration has put Powell on the spot by
signaling that the United States may pull out of the racism conference, in part because participants want to address
some of the same issues that Powell brought up in his convention speech. It is odd to see him in the position of
seeming to protect American sensibilities against tough talk on race, which he has personally never shied away
from. In a meeting last month with Mary Robinson, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, Powell said that
"serious work" needed to be done to remove the issues of reparations and Zionism from the discussion, which he
said put the conference "in danger of becoming mired in past events."
In her letter to Powell, written on July 9 and co-signed by Barbara Arnwine, executive director of the Lawyers'
Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Height stressed the importance of taking racial history into account. "We
urge the United States to adopt policy positions at the WCAR that seek to advance an enlightened understanding
of both the historic and contemporary factors contributing to current day problems of racism, racial discrimination,
xenophobia and related intolerance," she wrote. Powell's reply, dated July 20, contained no guarantees on that
matter. So, for now, the only solace to be found was that a secretary of state had at least taken the time to write
back.
Between Jim Crow & apartheid: Israel today
12.6.00 interview Phyllis Bennis by M.Elbaum ColorLines
… After 1966, military rule was lifted, but it was replaced by a set of Jim Crow-like laws designed to
discriminate against Arabs in Israel. According to Adalah, an Arab rights organization in Israel, today there are at
least 20 laws that specifically provide unequal rights and obligations based on what the Israelis call nationality,
which in Israel is defined on the basis of religion. Israelis must carry a card, which identifies them as either a Jew, a
Muslim, or a Christian. All non-Jews are second-class citizens, legally and practically. The Israeli Supreme Court
has literally dismissed all cases which dealt with equal rights for Arab citizens. …
Global look at racism hits many sore points
3.1.01 Barbara Crossette NYTimes
UN … 2 earlier meetings held in 1978 and 1983 were more narrowly focused. "The last two
conferences on racism were about foreign policy," said Gay J. McDougall, exec. dir. Intl HRts Law Group in
Washington. "The first one was on decolonization and the second one was on apartheid. But this one is in
everybody's back yard, and there's a lot of nervousness about it." … "The big story for me," said Ms.
McDougall, also a member of UN Committee on Elimination of Racial Discrimination and attended the Santiago
meeting, "was the cross-regional discourse that was generated in a new way among African-descended
communities throughout the hemisphere, the poorest of the poor."
The Tehran meeting, grouping the Middle East and Asia, was the most contentious, and there was a move to
revive something of the old cold war shibboleth of Zionism as racism. Though the word Zionism was not used,
official delegations urged the Durban conference to demand an end to the "foreign occupation" of Jerusalem and
characterized Israeli domination of Palestinian areas as "a new kind of apartheid, a crime against humanity, a form
of genocide, and a serious threat to intl peace & security." Kishore Mahbubani, the author of "Can Asians
Think?" and Singapore's ambassador to the UN, said in an interview that "racism is a sunrise
issue."
"It is a natural result of a shrinking globe," he added. "Races that in a sense never had contact with each other are
thrown together in close proximity in a new neighborhood. The first sign of this is the new wave of immigrants." But
most controversial is an international movement to make concrete demands for reparations for the trans-Atlantic
slave trade and for some form of compensation for centuries of colonialism. Mary Robinson, formerly president of
Ireland and now UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, generally supports such demands, particularly in
finding some form of recompense for slavery. "That trauma is still there," she said in an interview, "and it's deep,
and it hasn't been properly acknowledged." Mrs. Robinson said the conference could achieve concrete results just
by urging the enforcement of existing laws and international conventions against bias and discrimination. "About 85
% of measures that can be taken are already in force or will be agreed on without difficulty," she said.
Foreign ministers meet ahead Of G7 summit
7.19.01 RFE/RL
Rome … The foreign ministers today also called on the UN to come up with a new approach
towards Iraq and urged Israel to accept international observers to monitor the implementation of the Mitchell
Report. … In Israel, a spokesman for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon reiterated Sharon's objections to
international observers.
Amnesty Int'l report cites 'legal racism' in Israel
7.25.01 Joseph Algazy Ha'aretz (Israel)
A report to be issued by Amnesty International cites Israel as discriminating against Palestinians both inside the
country and in the territories. The world's leading human rights organization is issuing a report on racism worldwide
in advance of the World Conference Against Racism, slated for Durban this fall. According to the report, which
covers nearly 100 countries and is slated for full release tomorrow, "prejudice against Palestinian citizens of Israel
is widespread in the criminal justice system, both in the courts and law enforcement methods." The report notes
that in the October 2000 riots, security services used live ammunition against civilians, killing 13 Israeli Arab
citizens. It notes that "it took weeks of protests for a Judicial Commission of Inquiry to be set up.
"A Border Policewoman was later quoted as saying 'we handle Jewish riots differently. When such a demonstration
takes place, it is obvious from the start that we do not bring our guns along.'" Referring to the territories, the report
says "different laws apply to Jewish settlers and Palestinian residents. Palestinians are governed by more than
3,000 military orders, allowing for trials by military courts, which are often unfair. "Since 1967, thousands of
Palestinian homes in the Occupied Territories have been demolished ostensibly because they were built without a
permit but Israeli officials have discriminated against Palestinians when granting permissions and enforcing
planning prohibitions."
In anticipation of the Durban conference, where some countries, led by Iran, are seeking to brand Israel and
Zionism as racist, Amnesty takes the unusual step of declaring in its introductory statement about racism that "the
preparations for the World Conference Against Racism are currently marred primarily by disputes over the issue of
reparations for slavery, and over colonialism and issues relating to Israel, Zionism and the use of the term
'Holocaust.'" Warning that because of these disputes some countries may "downgrade the level of their
participation … or not attend," the human rights group says that the WCAR therefore "may fail to reach
agreement on a common platform."
The organization says it holds no position on any system of government or ideology "such as Zionism," but focuses
instead on holding "states to be accountable for human rights violations under international human rights
standards." Thus, the group says, "it would be more productive if the WCAR were to address any discriminatory
state practice, such as discrimination in Israel and the Occupied Territories against Palestinians, by recalling the
international obligations of states rather than addressing any particular ideology."
"There is also a dispute over the use of the term 'Holocaust,'" says the group, noting that "each genocide has had
specific aspects and survivors refer to their experience with terms that are particularly meaningful to them.
"'Holocaust,' for instance, is widely understood to mean the racist genocide of the Jews during World War II. The
controversy over this issue is insensitive to the feelings of survivors. All genocides are equally reprehensible. The
WCAR must ensure that the crime of genocide is not trivialized and that all victims are recognized."
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Zionism is racism
Ridiculous resolution or the truth that hurts?
8.91 Ian Williams NYTimes
… Resolution 3379, which in 1975 determined that "zionism (sic) is a form of racism and racial
discrimination." Of all the ignored resolutions passed by the UN against Israel, this is the one that rankles Israel
most, perhaps proving the adage about the hurtfulness of the truth. It has even been quoted by Israelis as
justification for the UN not having a role in the peace process-as if resolutions against apartheid debarred the UN
from a role in South Africa. Indeed, 3379 referred back to the 1973 resolution condemning "the unholy alliance
between South African racism and zionism, " and to the 1963 resolution which determined that "Any doctrine of
racial differentiation or superiority is scientifically false, morally condemnable, socially unjust and dangerous. " It
passed by 72 to 32, with 35 abstentions. In general it was the East Bloc and Islamic states against the West, with
the nonaligned states split between abstentions and support.
Sec.Gen Perez de Cuellar, whose sometimes discernible unhappiness with the Security Council's conduct of the
Gulf war could not overcome his sense of duty to it, felt able to speak against this General Assembly resolution in
May, after Quayle had spoken. He told reporters: "My position has always been that there was a wrong and unfair
interpretation of what Zionism is. Zionism was first of all the need of the Jewish people to preserve their identity and
at the same time to try and get a state for their nation. You cannot say that trying to get a territory for your nation is
racism. …
U.S. plans to boycott UN racism conference
3.9.01 Stephanie Nolen Toronto Globe & Mail
The U.S. plans to boycott the UN global conference on racism in August if it becomes clear
that the Zionism-is-racism issue will come up for debate. "We're trying to maintain the position that the UN can be
helpful and solve problems, and we don't want that to get off track," said a State Dept official who is working
on the U.S. role at the World Conference Against Racism. "If it really appears this is going to be a train wreck, we'll
get off the rails rather than get run over." But the Canadian government said yesterday that, while it would oppose
any effort to revive the incendiary issue, it will attend the UN gathering regardless.
In one of the UN's most troubled hours, a resolution that "condemned Zionism as a threat to world peace and
security" and "a form of racism and racial discrimination" was passed 75 votes to 35 by the General Assembly in
1975. The resolution was repealed in 1991 and has been largely absent from state-level discussion since. But
recent fighting in the Middle East, which has claimed the lives of about 360 Palestinians and 65 Israelis, has
rekindled support for the resolution, particularly from Arab and Islamic nations. The U.S. is determined not
to see it on the agenda.
"The world conference has to do with a worldwide phenomenon, not with individual country situations, and we
will resist with all of the strength and diplomacy and all the parliamentary abilities we have, the injecting of a
country-specific situation," the official said. "There have been two previous world conferences on racism [in 1978
and 1983] and we didn't go to those because they were about Zionism being a form of racism and about the
apartheid regime in South Africa, exclusively. They were country-specific polemic-fests, that's what they were
foreseen to be and what they turned out to be. We would like to [attend], we believe it's important, and racism is
clearly something with which the U.S. has a long history of struggle and at least some success, and we think that
we have some things to offer," he said. "But we're not going to get suckered into a situation where there's a
document we'd have to vote against. I'm not going to tell [Secretary of State] Colin Powell it's worth his time if it's
going to degenerate." …
Arabs criticise Israeli 'apartheid'
7.23.01
The Star (Johannesburg, S.Africa)
Cairo Arab human rights activists are urging next month's UN racism conference in South Africa to
push for an end to Israel's "apartheid regime" as well as racist practices in Arab countries. "The world community is
urged to take on its responsibility to liquidate the last apartheid regime in Israel," they said at the end of their
conference on Sunday. More than 60 delegations from non-government Arab and international human rights bodies
attended the meeting. Bahedeen Hassan, an organiser, said activists were not calling on "throwing Israel and the
Jews into the sea" but "appealing for an end to Israeli racist practices in the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem".
The Cairo declaration also focused on several forms of racism in Arab countries, said Hassan, who heads the Cairo
Institute for Human Rights Studies. The declaration called for an end to ethnic-driven conflicts and civil wars in Arab
countries, such as Sudan. When the meeting opened on Thursday, Hanny Megally of the US-based Human Rights
Watch charged Kuwait, Syria, Libya and Gulf Arab states with discrimination, such as denying citizenship to some
groups or mistreating foreign workers.
Rightists plan trip to Temple Mount 'disguised as Arabs'
7.25.01 Nadav Shragai Ha'aretz (Israel)
A group of well-known right wing extremists, led by convicted Jewish underground member Yehuda Etzion and
Kach activist Baruch Marzel, have announced plans to "camouflage" themselves as Arabs and infiltrate a group of
Arabs heading to the Temple Mount so they can pray "silently" on the plaza. In a letter to Jerusalem Police
Commander Mickey Levy, eight leading members of "The Temple Mount Movement," including Etzion and Marzel,
write that "if we are denied access as Jews, dressed as and looking like Jews - we will recommend to friends who
are ready and willing to go to the Temple Mount that we dress up as Arabs to do so."
The 8 note that Muslims are allowed onto the mount, which has been closed to non-Muslims since the outbreak of
the Intifada last fall. "They are allowed in without any checks to see if they are terrorists and the gates are open to
them. Are we any worse than them?" In a related development, the Faithful of the Temple Mount movement has
petitioned the High Court of Justice to force the police to allow them to bring "a symbolic cornerstone" for a Third
Temple to Mograbi Gate on the southern side of the Western Wall on Sunday, for their annual Tisha B'Av
ceremony there. The petitioners also want to be allowed to use a megaphone for their rally and to be allowed into
the plaza on the mount in groups.
Tough restrictions on Mount for Friday prayers
8.3.01 Baruch Kra Ha'aretz (Israel)
Only men aged over 40 with Israeli identity cards will be allowed to enter the Jerusalem Temple Mount compound
to attend prayers at mosques today. Police will not restrict the
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entrance of Moslem women to the compound. In anticipation of renewed trouble in the area, police and Border
Police will take up positions from early morning throughout the city, backed by a helicopter. Reinforcements will be
sent to help man roadblocks and spot checks will be carried out. Police will also beef up their patrols inside the Old
City of Jerusalem and along major arteries. Several thousand policemen, led by Jerusalem District Commander
Major General Mickey Levy, will be on duty and Police Commissioner Shlomo Aharonishky will follow
developments. A police spokesman said that stringent action would be taken against anyone attempting to incite
worshipers or disturb the peace and public order.
7.01 Shrub champions grants, not loans ¹ for the poor en route to bankers' conference for world's
richest nations.
Subject: Re: U.S. boycott? response
Roger Wareham, Intl Assn. against Torture & ICARE
Internet Ctr Anti-Racism Europe Amsterdam
3.7.01 Annalle
Reports from several reliable sources including Gay McDougall from the Intl HRts Group and people from SA govt,
that U.S. HAS threatened to boycott the WCAR if the
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Goal 3: Strategic Objective 3.1 CIVIL RIGHTS
Strategic Plan for FY2000 - 2005
Justice Dept
¹
… Strategies to Achieve the Objective
Investigate & prosecute individuals for civil violations of federal laws. The enforcement of civil violations
against individuals is another critical aspect of the Dept's civil rights enforcement strategy. The importance &
significance of such prosecutions are to remedy discriminatory conduct and make whole persons who have been
victimized. ¹ …
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issue of reparations is raised. The boycott would be in terms of sending a lower-level delegation. Although
Sec.State Powell has been briefed and he has the WCAR on his radar screen, in mind my, THAT DOES NOT
MEAN that the US will not try to manipulate this process.
To the person who said, "Who cares?!" , in some ways you're right. The reason why I think it is important is that
first, several other countries have threatened to follow suit, and second, given the way the UN works, I think there
will be attempts to try to appease these western countries. It may have the (intended ... notice the timing ,ie right
before the Intersessional) affect of moving the discussion & consideration of reparations and other
compensatory measures more towards their position. I think NGOs should clearly state that they vehemently reject
any attempt, by any country, to manipulate the WCAR process.
We all must recognize the power of the US in the UN. And many of you may not have been at the
Informal Meeting in January, when Cheryl Sims of the US mission in Geneva read a bold & brazen statement
that said the US "has no regrets, takes no responsibility and will not apologize" for slavery. They also said that they
WOULD NOT support reparations or compensation being a sub-theme under WCAR Theme 4. It has been
Ambassador Betty King's line since the first PrepCom, that the US will not deal with issues of reparations or
compensation.
There is a lot of power in a threat given the politics & protocol of the UN. I think we need to take it seriously.
WASHINGTON Sec.State Powell on Monday underlined the Bush administration's increased focus
on Hispanic issues by launching a drive for more Hispanic American diplomats. He signed a deal with a student
association to attract new recruits and pledged to improve the State Dept's record on employing members of
America's fastest-growing minority. "We haven't been doing too well," he told the audience at a signing ceremony
of a Principles of Cooperation with the Hispanic Assoc. of Colleges & Universities (HACU).
Only 4% of State Dept employees are Hispanic, compared to 6.6% among federal employees overall and
12.5% of the population overall, the first African American secretary of state said.
Black voters overwhelmingly rejected President Bush in favor of Democrat Al Gore in an election in November.
Republicans are targeting Hispanics, who like blacks make up about 10% of the voting population but are
expected to overtake them as the largest U.S. minority by 2005. "We've taken action to make sure that Hispanic
Americans are properly represented in the work of the U.S.," just as Americans in the past protested for the equal
rights promised in the Declaration of Independence, Powell said.
The deal forged new links with HACU, which groups 245 institutions with two-thirds of all Hispanics in U.S. higher
education, aiming to increase their awareness about the State Dept as an employer. Powell & HACU
President Antonio Flores noted before signing the deal that the president's first foreign port of call after taking office
in January had been Mexico, and that President Vicente Fox had been the first foreign leader to visit him. Bush
& Powell were also due to depart later on Monday for the president's first European tour, where their first stop
would be the Spanish capital Madrid, Powell noted. "All of this seems to signal the fact that Secretary Powell and
President Bush have wisely concluded that it is in America's best interests, and it is in fact necessary for the future
prosperity of our nation, that the Western Hemisphere takes a top priority in our foreign policy," Flores said. Powell
introduced three young Hispanics sworn in that day as State Dept interns as an example of the deal's goal.
Maybe in 25 years or so one of them would be sworn in as Secretary of State, he said, welcoming them to their
posts. "Don't restrict yourselves to Hispanic issues. The world is yours," he said.
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Calif. to boost minority students
7.20.01 AP
SAN FRANCISCO 6 years after doing away with affirmative action, the University of California
approved a new admissions policy Thursday intended to open the door wider to blacks and Hispanics and give a
boost to good students from bad high schools. Starting in 2003, California students who graduate in the top 12.5
% of their high school class can be sure of a place at the University of California, though some may have to go
to community college first. Currently, UC guarantees admission to the top 4 % of each of the state's high
schools, or 12.5 % of all students statewide. The UC Board of Regents approved the new standard 14-3,
effective for the fall of 2003. UC has 135,000 undergraduates at eight campuses.
The new program, known as "dual admissions,'' could increase enrollment of blacks, Hispanics and American
Indians, whose numbers have declined at the top campuses, particularly prestigious Berkeley and UCLA, since UC
dropped its affirmative action programs in 1995. "There are still students in this state who need someone to believe
in them,'' said Tracy Davis, the student representative to the UC Board of Regents, said Wednesday. "What we are
hopefully doing with this proposal is creating an opportunity, a glimmer of hope.'' Dual admissions is the latest in a
series of changes to UC admissions policy. At the same time, UC President Richard Atkinson is proposing
eliminating the SAT I as an admissions requirement, a test that Hispanic and black students tend to score lower on
than whites and Asian Americans.
UC is keeping its overall overall admissions policy, which is to take the top 12.5 % of all students statewide.
What is different about the new eligibility guarantee is that it applies to individual schools, addressing the problem
of students who go to schools that may be ill-equipped, overcrowded and lack college prep courses. The new
policy builds on a change implemented this year that extended eligibility to the top 4 % of students in individual
high schools. Under the policy approved Thursday, students who fall between the top 4 % and 12.5 % of
their class will have to go to community college for their first 2 years.UC has a long-standing commitment to accept
all eligible students at one of its eight undergraduate campuses, though students may not necessarily get into the
campus of their choice.
The regents made it a condition of approval that UC officials review several issues, including raising the required
grade-point average in community college from the
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current minimum of 2.4. UC officials estimate that up to 36 % of the students eligible under dual admissions
would be black, Hispanic or American Indian. Those groups made up 18.6 % of the fall 2001 freshman class;
recent census figures show they represent about 40 % of the state population.
Gates, Bono, unveil 'DATA Agenda' for
Africa
Bono: "Prevent fires rather than put them out"
2.3.02 CNN
New York Microsoft founder Bill Gates & Bono, lead singer for the rock band U2, announced at the World Economic
Forum here Saturday their plan to focus the world's attention on issues confronting Africa.
"We have an agenda," said Bono at a news conference, "which we're calling the 'DATA Agenda': 'Debt, AIDS and trade for Africa, in return for democracy, accountability and transparency in Africa.' It's a deal, and it's a tough deal, but we think if we follow that through, by this summer's G-8 we can get govts to agree on a kind of Marshall Plan for Africa. It's a good analogy I think, particularly post-9.11.01.
… The U.S. invested in Europe after WWII as a bulwark against Sovietism. And it had debt cancellation as
part of it, and trade, etc."
"At the moment," Bono said, "Africa is in the same kind of vulnerable position that Europe was to other extremists & ideologies. And I think it would be very smart for the West to invest in preventing the fires rather than putting them out, which is a lot more expensive."
For years, the singer has been an outspoken advocate for third-world debt relief.
Gates & wife, Melinda have created a $24 billion fund whose main purpose is to bridge the disparity in health care between poor & rich countries. Bono cited the Bill & Melinda Gates Fdtn as a source of funding for DATA. Gates warned, however, that private charitable contributions alone will not be enough to achieve the DATA goals; govts also must play a part.
"Private philanthropy is no substitute for govt action here," Gates said. "The scale of the problem and the need to
engage, govt-to-govt, is just way too great for this to be done, even with the kind of increase we'll see in personal
philanthropy. And we've said to govts, you know, 'If you step up and increase, we'll step up and increase as well,'" Gates said. "If govt is pulling back on this stuff, then the AIDS epidemic absolutely will not be stopped and the whole view of the rich world and how they've behaved to the world at large I think will be sort of irredeemable," Gates said.
Bono said he and his colleagues have been petitioning world leaders to address the DATA agenda, with at least
one major success. "We just saw [Canadian] Prime Minister [Jean] Chretien yesterday, who confirmed that at the next G-8, Africa will be center-stage."
The G-8, or Group of Eight, includes the world's top industrialized democracies, U.S., Canada, Great Britain,
France, Germany, Italy, Japan & Russia. Bono said Chretien also told him that Canada would be the first
country to open trade to all the poorest countries of Africa. "[There's] a certain distrust of aid and the way it's been spent in the past," Bono said. " … We have to do a lot to change the public's mind. I know Americans are very generous in spirit and I know that if they think they can help and if they think the money can be used well, they will put their hands in their pockets."
Gates said, "It's my view that if people lived next to the 2 billion people in the world who are having to deal with the worst conditions, we wouldn't need people like ourselves speaking out on this topic. People would see those
neighborhoods. They'd think about those people, and on a pure humanitarian basis, the vaccination problems, the AIDS epidemics problem would get the resources that they need.
"Because people, the rich world & the poor worldm are so separated, the awareness of the crisis in AIDS and the very effective interventions that can take place is very, very low. The time is really now to change these things. That's true from the point of view of the relationship between the rich world and the poor world, it's true from a security point of view, an economic point of view. … We're hopeful that the U.S. and other govts will see this as a turning point," Gates said.
Bono said, "What's going on is actually a crisis of the order never experienced before. I think HIV-AIDS has set
back development to the point where we're living with statistics that we should not be living with. 25 million Africans are HIV-positive and they will leave behind 40 million AIDS orphans by the end of the decade. This is really unacceptable. It's an everyday holocaust."
Gates said the media can play a key role. "There's this paradox that if a plane crashes, and a few hundred people are killed, that's news. But the fact that every day, 50 times as many children died of preventable diseases? It's not news that day, the next day or the next day."
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East Cape delegates see racism as a manifestation of poverty
5.11.01 Mike Loewe East Cape News
Racial tension in the Eastern Cape is a reflection of underlying provincial poverty. … SA National NGOs
Coalition (SANGOCO) … "People are also saying that racism assumes many forms but the onslaught
between white and black is a manifestation of poverty. Poverty is the source of intolerance and racism."
Black Mesa re Agenda item 11 Civil & Political Rights
UN Commission on HRts, 56th session 3.19 - 4.27.01 per Intl Indian Treaty Council
Aleuts Cong. hearings 6.20-9.12.84
documentary
contra Aleutian Headache Deadly WWII Battles on American soil, Bert Webber
Black Radical Congress
¹
NAACP ¹
²
Kathleen Cleaver
4.20.01 interview Zachariah Mampilly Africana.com
… empowerment, self-determination. … revolutionary movement. We weren't trying to get the right to
vote. We weren't trying to get citizenship. We saw ourselves essentially as putting an end to domestic colonialism … told about, haven't actually seen, document in possession of State Dept released somehow. It stated what govt needed most to prevent, what they were most concerned about, was formation of close alliances to work together between African American or black revolutionaries, Arab revolutionaries and people fighting in Asia & Latin America, which is exactly what we were doing.
We were working with people in Cuba, people in Mexico. We went to conferences with Vietnamese. When Eldridge left to Algeria, we organized the Intl Section of the BPP, which put us right in the same town with representatives of the MPLA from Angola, ZAPU and ZANU from Zimbabwe, ANC from South Africa, with people fighting in Ethiopia, in Canada, the FLQ, in Brazil. We made that link, completely. We were very clear about the way that the struggle we were part of was similar to struggles by people of color all fighting the same imperialist. It was anti-imperialist from the beginning, and recognized that we were up against the same enemy.
… We could draw parallel between what the US Army was doing in Vietnam, and what Oakland police were doing in Oakland. It was not esoteric at all. … I had a son born in Algeria and a daughter born in North Korea, in Pyongyang. … The point is not the Party. The point is the political struggle and the movement. … This was an inspiring model. That's what is important about it. People took it and used it. That's why the govt had to destroy it. They did not destroy the model … prisoners who were former members of the BPP serving extraordinarily long time. People like Eddie Conway, in for 30 years & still trying to get a hearing. … This is not something that happened in 1968 & finished.
interviewer: 1997. Largest
black middle class in history. Largest black underclass. Black middle class has roughly tripled since the day King died, but 45 % of all black children live at or below poverty line. How did we get here?
CLEAVER: Well, one of the ways we got here was through the takeover by corporate interests of the legal & political structures that govern our lives. … "commercial democracy" needs a middle class to function smoothly. It doesn't need equality. What it needs is inequality. It needs a certain number of people at the elite level, a certain number of people in the middle level, and the rest of the people scrambling and hoping they could get there, all following the same zealous commitment to making money. Now, when you have people who are revolutionaries, they repudiate the commitment to making money, and say, "We want justice. We want change. We want truth. We want freedom." Well, that's not going to work if the structure is based on financial rewards and financial incentives. So we were at odds with the way the system worked. We had a different idea. We said, "Power to the people."
… you have class conflict, or you have political conflict generated within dependent
communities. And therefore, the leadership is either aligning itself with the status quo or annihilated, and
essentially have a leadership vacuum. … why should we be worried about the middle class? That's what I'm trying to say. What we should be able to expect is a democratic opportunity to use the resources of this country, and a use of the resources to value humans over property. …
With the collapse of essentially segregation and residential segregation on the basis of color, residential
segregation now is on the basis of wealth. So in the past, black communities had integrated middle class, lower
class working people all in the same area. Now, middle class don't live in the same area where poor people live. So the models and the leadership that is available on a community local level is no longer available. And therefore, the leadership that has developed out of the civil rights struggle, which is essentially reflecting middle class values and middle class concerns, does not deal with the problems of the underclass. And the isolation and the lack of resources of the underclass makes it very difficult to generate leadership that will be listened to by the larger society. … consequence of a collapse of the community. All this dysfunctional behavior is for people who have no families, who have no parents, who have no one who cares about them. That's where that comes from. So the question is: How do you reconstitute communities that have no resources, that have no jobs, that have no future? We can't do it without the use of the resources that have been taken out of those communities.
You have to have (I agree with Jesse Jackson) a Marshall Plan for America. When Europe at the end of the war
was devastated, did they say, "Oh, well, Europeans, you just pick yourself up by your bootstrap, be responsible"? No. They said, "We have wealth. We're going to rebuild this community." … we don't have the political power to make this happen, and the corporations have no interest in making it happen. And the govt is in the pocket of the corporations. So what we need is very fundamental change of political direction, in order to restructure the communities. Meanwhile, you do a lot of private small-scale things that people are doing, because the situation is so desperate.
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Botswana's gains against AIDS put U.S. claims to test
7.1.05 Craig Timberg Wash. Post
Gaborone, Botswana As global leaders gathered in Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum in January, officials from President Bush's $15 billion anti-AIDS program issued a news release citing their accomplishments. Nowhere were the numbers more impressive than in Botswana, where 32,839 AIDS patients were receiving life-extending treatment with the help of the U.S. government, they said.
But thousands of miles away in Botswana, the Bush administration's claim provoked frustration and anger among public and private partners that had built Africa's most far-reaching AIDS treatment program, recalled those involved. Although the Bush program had promised millions of dollars of support, no money had yet arrived, they said.
The operations manager of Botswana's treatment program, Segolame Ramotlhwa, called the U.S. figures "a gross misrepresentation of the facts." His boss, Patson Mazonde, who as deputy permanent secretary for health services had overseen the program since its inception in 2002, called the Bush claim "false" but suggested it was merely a mistake.
They agreed on the number of patients in Botswana who had been put on treatment because of the Bush program: zero.
After first defending its figures from the January news release, the Bush administration last month revised them sharply downward. But even the revised numbers remain in dispute. Administration officials announced that 20,000 people in Botswana were receiving "significant support" from U.S. programs for their AIDS treatment. Health officials in Botswana maintained, as they have for months, that no citizen was dependent on U.S. support for treatment, the cost of which has been covered overwhelmingly by the Botswanan govt.
The disagreement underscores not only the highly politicized nature of treating AIDS in Africa, where less than 10 percent of the people who need antiretroviral drugs are getting them, but also how rare, and coveted, success stories such as those in Botswana remain.
To people receiving the lifesaving medications, the question of who gets the credit may not matter. But for the govt of Botswana, the groundbreaking AIDS program is a source of enormous national pride, while for the Bush administration, being able to announce such successes bolsters its claim to having begun to "turn the tide" against AIDS in the developing world.
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The dispute essentially comes down to a question of how to define "support." In March, in an annual report on the program, the Bush administration said support could include general "system strengthening", a category so broad that it could allow officials to claim to have supported treatment of any AIDS patient who benefited, however indirectly, from U.S. govt assistance.
The head of the Bush administration's program in Botswana, Peter H. Kilmarx, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, said in an interview here in May that he was aware of the upset among the Botswanan officials but that the treatment claims fit within U.S. govt guidelines. The definition used for measuring support, he said, had broadened to the point that even assistance as trivial as editing a govt health official's speeches could allow the Bush program to say it had supported treatment for everyone receiving antiretrovirals from that nation's public health system.
The system "could be abused," Kilmarx said. "But it's not."
The Bush program set its numerical targets even before the legislation creating the program was drafted. In his 2003 State of the Union address, Bush stunned AIDS activists by announcing a $15 billion commitment over 5 years to fight the disease. The program would soon become what U.S. officials call the largest global health initiative undertaken against a single disease by a single country.
Bush announced that the program would "treat at least 2 million people with life-extending drugs." But over the next year, as administration officials developed the president's promise into a program, they recast the goal. It was not practical, officials say they concluded, for the U.S. govt to build clinics, hire doctors and hand out drugs all over the developing world. Officials from the countries targeted for the assistance, including Botswana, made clear that while they wanted help, they believed that their own govts, not U.S., should be distributing the medicine.
In Botswana, a landlocked nation of 1.6 million people in southern Africa, officials were tackling one the world's worst AIDS epidemics. Nearly 4 of every 10 working-age adults were infected with HIV, the virus that causes the disease. Bolstered by vast diamond wealth and a stable govt, President Festus Mogae had committed the nation to providing costly, state-of-the-art AIDS treatment to every citizen.
The daring promise, the first of its kind in Africa, attracted tens of millions of dollars in support from donors, including substantial amounts from the U.S. govt, which took the lead in upgrading laboratories and building a network of centers to test patients for HIV.
With the inception of the Bush program, both the White House and Congress began focusing on delivering the antiretroviral drugs that alone had the prospect of saving millions of lives. U.S. officials charged with implementing this vision were also supposed to produce quantifiable results to make explicit the value of the $15 billion investment.
In Botswana at least, deciding who deserved credit for any one person getting the drugs proved complicated.
Harriet M. Isaacs, a 59-year-old civil servant with AIDS, started taking antiretrovirals in 2002, the year before Bush announced his program. The drugs have restored her to health, and with a few months left until her planned retirement, she now looks forward to many more years of playing with her grandchildren.
She expresses no doubt about who saved her life: the govt of Botswana. "It's very expensive," Isaacs said while seated in a bustling AIDS clinic here, "but it's helping people. . . . I'm confident that I can go up to 100 [years old] now."
The reality of who paid for her health care is more complex. She visits a clinic built with the help of the Bill & Melinda Gates Fdtn. She takes medicine donated, in part, by the American pharmaceutical giant Merck. And the cost of most everything else, doctors, nurses, lab work, is covered by the govt of Botswana.
For Isaacs, the role played by the Bush program, so far, at least, has been minor, confined mainly to the training of medical personnel and the monitoring and evaluation of the existing govt program. The total outlay of U.S. government funds for "treatment" in Botswana last year was $2.5 million, about one-twentieth of the amount paid by the Botswana govt. Even that money was delayed by many months.
Yet when it came time to tabulate the Bush program's successes in Botswana, every patient receiving antiretroviral drugs from the national program, including Isaacs, was included. U.S. officials also counted several thousand others who were receiving their medicine from private doctors because, Kilmarx said, some had benefited from a U.S.-funded training program.
He explained that since the January news release in Davos, the number of AIDS patients for which the Bush administration was claiming credit had continued to grow. That day, he said, he was submitting a new total of 41,444 in Botswana to top program officials in Washington. Everyone in Botswana receiving antiretroviral drugs was included, Kilmarx said.
In the days that followed, Kilmarx was asked about the comments made by Mazonde, Ramotlhwa and other health officials from Botswana. He defended the program and then called another meeting with them. Later on the day of that meeting, he reiterated his defense of the numbers, saying that Mazonde and Ramotlhwa were "entirely comfortable" with how the Bush program had portrayed its role in Botswana.
The message he received from the health officials, Kilmarx said, was that while they had been unhappy with some of the Bush program's characterizations, they wanted the funding to keep coming. In subsequent phone interviews, both Mazonde and Ramotlhwa softened their tone, emphasizing their gratitude for the millions of dollars that, they said, they still expected from the Bush program. Ramotlhwa suggested it was better to say the Bush numbers exhibited "some element of distortion" rather than characterizing them as "a gross misrepresentation of the facts."
Yet when asked if there was anyone whose antiretroviral treatment was dependent on the Bush program, Ramotlhwa and Mazonde said they knew of none. "We cannot single out a person who would not be receiving treatment," Mazonde said.
On 6.13.05, 2 weeks after that interview, Bush announced new totals for his AIDS program. They were ahead of schedule, reaching more than 200,000 people with U.S.-supported treatment in the 15 developing countries the program focused on.
In backup documents distributed by U.S. officials, the treatment total for Botswana was neither the 32,839 cited in January nor the 41,444 that Kilmarx submitted to his superiors in May. The new total, offered with no explanation, was 20,000.
Asked about the shift, the Bush program's deputy coordinator, Mark R. Dybul, said in an interview at his Washington office that reporting systems were evolving. "We're changing the numbers as we refine reporting," Dybul said. Of the Botswana health officials, Dybul added, "They saw what's in here and they cleared it."
He also disputed Kilmarx's statement that minor assistance, such as revising an official's speech, would allow the Bush program to claim it had supported treatment for everyone receiving it in a country. The new totals, Dybul said, included only those receiving "significant support," meaning that "these people would not have quality treatment, would not have substantial services, without the U.S. govt."
In a final phone interview, Mazonde again expressed gratitude for the U.S. aid. He added that a series of conversations with U.S. officials in recent weeks had impressed on him the many ways that the Bush program funding was assisting Botswana, and that several million dollars promised for the national treatment program would soon be available.
But when pressed, Mazonde said there were not 20,000 people in Botswana whose "quality treatment" was dependent on the U.S. govt. In fact, he said, there were none.
WCAR Hearing Statement 7.30.01
Madam Chair, the UN Conference Against Racism taking place in Durban South Africa between August and
September 2001 is the largest meeting ever specifically devoted to combating the scourge of racism.
In recognition of the importance of the Conference nearly every country has so far indicated a readiness to send
delegations and hundreds of NGOs are sending representatives. The WCAR is something truly special to the world
community and surely, on any view, something that our country should give complete support to.
Our attendance is especially important because we hold ourselves out to be a nation that is the champion of human
rights and the preeminent democracy in the world today.
I must say Madam Chair that I am surprised that President Bush and his Administration do not share this view on
the importance of the WCAR but instead have publicly adopted an intransigent, if not outwardly hostile, view
of the entire Conference.
I find the Bush Administration's public criticisms of the WCAR at odds with his carefully crafted public image,
created for him by his minders: that is: the "compassionate conservative," "a uniter not a divider."
The WCAR is a perfect opportunity for the Bush Administration to dispel criticisms that they don't care about race
issues and are more content to make empty and meaningless statements about deploring racism during "meet
and greets" on the campaign trail.
The Bush Administration could use the WCAR to publicly show a commitment to ending racism in this country.
Given that 30% of the US population consists of people of color and that we have all experienced racism first hand,
I have to wonder if the Bush Administration's position on the WCAR is just politically dumb or if it is perhaps
indicative of something more malignant.
We all can understand political naivete. However, these Bush folks got together and conspired to deprive blacks in
Florida of their right to vote. Naivete is not one of their more prominent characteristics.
I am compelled to ask the obvious question, then, that no one will ask: Is the Bush White House just full of latent
racists?
Could it be that the Bush Administration's opposition to participating in the World Conference flows naturally from
his Presidential campaign?
We all remember the Bush Presidential Campaign which featured town hall events with him on stage with selected
and prominently placed blacks, Asians, and Hispanics. Were they there because he wanted them there or were
they there because they were strategically positioned to be with him inside contrived camera shots?
And we remember how the President spoke in Spanish to Latino audiences. Did he do that because he really cares
about Hispanics or was it because the politically necessary thing to do.
I've really tried to give the new Administration the benefit of the doubt. I've reached out to them on a number of
occasions, offering to work with them on issues affecting people in my district. But I am becoming concerned that
they really don't care about racism. I think the Administration's opposition to the WCAR is a clear example of their
indifference to racism.
Madam Chair, you can tell a lot about a man the way they act when they think no one is watching. And I'm
watching President Bush's Administration closely and I've learned a lot from comparing what the Bush people say
publicly and the way they act privately.
I must say that I was speechless that while President Bush said on many occasions throughout his campaign that
he deplored racism and anti-Semitism; but then he chose to speak at Bob Jones University in South Carolina. An
institution that is well known for its virulent racist views and homophobic statements. If Bush was at all sensitive to
African Americans and our sensitivity to the racist and hateful diatribe directed at us by the Bob Jones institution,
then surely he would have not gone there.
Indeed, this is the same institution in which a Professor attacked GOP Presidential candidate Senator Bob McCain
and his wife for having adopted a young Bangladeshi girl.
If candidate Bush really felt that he had the need to go and speak and this type of institution, then he should have
gone there and taken the opportunity to publicly condemn the institution for its vile views on segregation and for
sewing the seeds of hate in this country.
But he didn't do that, instead he went there and reached out to the racists because he believed that he needed to
show the extreme right in his party that he was still one of them. But the cost to his credibility as being a
uniter and not a divider was great.
While President Bush continued to travel around the country campaigning and continuing to call out that he
deplored racism, he steadfastly refused to support Hate Crimes legislation in Texas. Not surprisingly he came
under intense criticism for his refusal to intervene in the execution of Gary Graham despite the availability of
evidence pointing to his innocence on the charge of murder.
And then what of the revelations that the Bush Campaign's Louisiana campaign chair, Governor Mike Foster,
reportedly purchased mailing lists from the infamous David Duke. How could anyone priding themselves in being a
uniter not a divider believe that no one would be shocked that a Presidential candidate was going to reach out to
David Duke's base supporters?
So you see Madam Chair, I'm more than a little suspicious that President Bush is disingenuous with respect to his
opposition to racism and that in truth he really doesn't care about it at all. And therefore no wonder he doesn't see
the need for this country to support the World Conference Against Racism.
The recently published Henry Kaiser Family Foundation/Harvard University/Washington Post study on white
misperceptions on the state of black America confirms that President Bush is not alone in placing little or no
importance on racism and the state of black America. The central finding of the study was that 40-60% of all whites
questioned believed that the average African-American is faring about as well and perhaps even better than
the average white American and perhaps in some cases even better than the average white American. But as the
study noted, govt statistics confirm that this white view of the state of black America is misplaced and that
black America actually falls way behind whites in terms of employment, income, education, and access to
health.
Despite this evidence that black America still lags way behind white America, the Clinton Administration undertook
to introduce a number of reforms that were extremely harmful to people of color in America. President Clinton
signed a Crime Bill that increased the penal population to over 2 million, two-thirds of which are black and Latino.
The Clinton Administration repealed Welfare and in so doing took away billions of dollars of subsidies from poor
and minority families.
President Clinton presided over the quiet dismantling of the affirmative action policy. And he could do that because
the leadership in this country doesn't really believe that black America is in dire condition, and perhaps worse still,
many don't actually care.
This public misconception about the state of black America is significant and owes much of its pervasiveness today
to decades of leadership figures in our society trivializing both the history and extent of racism in our society.
Discussion of lynchings, police beatings, slavery, racial segregation, and poverty in inner city ghettos have all been
reduced to euphemisms like racial discrimination, racial profiling, strained race relations and economically
distressed communities. And today while the US press is fascinated with the treatment of people in Sudan and
China and routinely describes alleged human rights in those countries in inordinate detail, the US press seems
steadfastly disinterested in talking about the appalling condition and present day treatment of people color in this
country. And despite the credibility and timeliness of the Kaiser/Harvard/Washington Post study it largely passed
without any discussion in the mainstream press. And most importantly, I suspectthat the findings of the study would
not have been discussed at all in the White House.
Madam Chair, the World Conference Against Racism is a perfect opportunity for President Bush to detail a clear
commitment to preserve and extend civil rights in this country. George W. Bush could use this as an opportunity to
allay fears among many of us that his attendance at Bob Jones University, his refusal to intervene on Gary
Graham's behalf, and his failure to sign Hate Crimes legislation in Texas are aberrations and not demonstrative of
a serious personal flaw related to racism.
I can tell you with some confidence that if the Bush Administration fails to provide a serious commitment to the
WCAR then he will live to regret it in 2004.
… racial aspects of redistricting have changed considerably during the 1990s. States have drawn new court-
ordered maps that significantly reduced the number of black voters in several black-held districts. But in the 2 most
contested of those districts, Democratic Rep. Cynthia McKinney of Georgia & Melvin Watt of North Carolina
have easily won re-election. During the upcoming redistricting, national Democratic leaders hope to ensure that
their black members win re-election, although they also want, in some cases, to reduce the minority populations in
those districts to bolster their party's prospects elsewhere. Republicans, for their part, want to keep the minority
population concentrated in fewer districts.
But black lawmakers object to moving additional black voters from their districts. "Moving my constituents to
[create] additional Democratic districts is specious," McKinney said in an interview. "There will be no interest in
changing the districts of Democrats to the detriment of [those] Democrats. That won't happen."
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