Bulletin Spring 2005 No. 70

Africa and Iraq: Making the Connections Page Editorial: Making the Links between Africa and the War in Iraq Bill Martin and Meredeth Turshen ______1

From Stealing to Robbing: Globalization and the US War Economy George Caffentzis ______4

On the Roots of War: Theses on The War in Iraq Silvia Federici ______8

Kerr-McGee Corporation in occupied Western Sahara - Oil Blocking Path to Freedom? Washington Office on Africa ______14

Shareholders focus of campaign to end Kerr-McGee’s involvement in Occupied Western Sahara Press Release, Oslo, Norway, Feb 28th 2005 ______16

Chad’s Oil: Miracle or Mirage? Following the Money in Africa’s Newest Petro-State Ian Gary and Nikki Reisch ______18

What Intellectuals Do in Peacetime Asma Abdel Halim ______22

Manufacturing the Homeland Security Campus and Cadre William G. Martin ______27

ACAS Resolution on the Study of Africa After 9/11, 7 November 2004 ______33 ASA Reply, 11 February 2005 ______34 ACAS Reply to ASA, 10 March 2005 ______36

Recent ACAS Alerts ACAS Alert: Twice a Victim, first in Haiti, then in the US, 19 November 2004 ______37 ACAS Alert: Ngugi Wa Thiong’o and Njeeri Wa Ngugi, 19 January 2005 ______40 ACAS Alert: Defend Academic Freedom in Botswana, 22 February 2005 ______43 ACAS Alert: The Story of Aster Yohannes and the Struggle for Democracy in Eritrea, November 2004 ______44

ISSN 1051-08442 ACAS Bulletin, No. 70, Spring 2005

Editorial: Making the Links between Africa and the War on Iraq

Bill Martin and Meredeth Turshen

This issue of the ACAS Bulletin grows US Deputy Secretary of Defense, to the out of a northeast regional conference Presidency of the World Bank. organized by Educators to Stop the War held in New York City on 5 March 2005, Militarization for the US state, now under in which a number of us participated the guise of protecting us from terrorism, under the ACAS banner--literally: the is most often about protecting oil fields original hand-stitched ACAS banner still and pipelines. And oil, most of us agree, lives! The conference was an electrifying is the original reason for this spurious event, mobilizing student and teacher war.(1) As we have detailed in previous activists from grade schools to issues of the ACAS Bulletin (60/61, Fall universities, and from across the region. 2001, and 64, Winter 2002/2003), Africa It seemed to us, meeting together after the has been supplying more and more of US conference, that it was imperative to oil requirements, and there is more and propel this work forward. As a more US prospecting for oil in Africa and contribution to this effort we present here its surrounding waters. The United States four workshop presentations by our is expected to receive as much as 25 members, as well as continuing works by percent of its petroleum imports from ACAS and our broader membership. Africa within the next ten years, leading to the need to “protect” African states, The links between Africa and the war in most often corrupt and militarized ones, Iraq should not be difficult to draw for and support their own wars on “terrorist” readers of the Bulletin. ACAS has for enemies. This has the potential to turn years now been tracking the US role in Africa into a new “middle east” for the the militarization of Africa (see our United States, with all the tragic website http://acas.prairienet.org and the implications that has for Africans work of our member, Daniel Volman). confronting imperial states to the North This extends well beyond the use, for and increasingly repressive regimes at example, of Djibouti as a staging area for home. the invasion of Iraq, or South Africa’s supply of arms to the US and UK Our first articles in this issue tackle these militaries. Indeed the militarization of long-term trends. In “From Stealing to Djibouti is but one small sign of the much Robbing: Globalization and the US War greater thrust into the continent by the US Economy, ” George Caffentzis charts the military, the growing embrace between links between oil and the US military. A the US military and African militaries, distinctive feature of the war economy, he and the militarization of the overall writes, is that it must satisfy demands that relationship between Africa and the US. are temporally indeterminate and come If we needed any final confirmation of from a ubiquitous spatial field. This this trend, it is surely provided by Bush’s marks a shift from the structural nomination of Paul Wolfowitz, currently adjustment model of the 1980s and early 1990s to direct military control today.

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Unlike the Cold War, which put a limit on ruled that the people of Western Sahara the regions where the US military could have the right to self-determination. be deployed, and put a cap on the future Morocco, which occupies much of the investment required to counter the well- Western Sahara and is seeking to annex it defined adversary's investment, the new as part of “Greater Morocco,” has denied war economy requires a new military the Sahrawi people this right. The model that dictates the deployment of US Polisario Front, which was formed in troops throughout the planet. “Their job is 1973 to fight Spanish colonialism, leads to occupy an unprecedented multiplicity their struggle. The US government, not of new bases controlling strategic areas of unexpectedly, is siding with Morocco, its wealth (which in this age often is spelled long-time ally. "O-I-L") and pressuring an ever- increasing multitude of recalcitrant states From the Western Sahara we turn to to ‘reform,' consequences be damned.” Chad, which we reported on in 2001 and A second general article, “On the Roots of again in 2002/03 (ACAS Bulletins 60/61 War: Theses on The War in Iraq,” by and 64). Ian Gary and Nikki Reisch ask: is Silvia Federici, examines the social, oil a miracle or a mirage? Can oil economic, and political effects of war. revenues really transform this poverty- “War defeats social movements, stricken land? Chad, described as Africa’s expropriates people from their lands, and newest petro-state, is a central African gives capital control over the planet's country marked by corruption, instability, natural resources: oil, water, minerals, and human rights abuses. Their land, and seeds.” It is not surprising, she conclusion is that, despite the support notes, that the map of military received from the World Bank and other intervention is today, to a large extent, donors, the country remains unprepared to also the map of oil. “One of the main manage the complexities of an economy objectives for international capital is the increasingly dominated by oil, adding to liberalization of the oil industry, oil being concerns about the stability of African oil- the only vital commodity that is not exporting countries. Billions of dollars are privatized.” falling outside the revenue transparency safeguards, the government has limited These articles are followed by two case capacity to spend the money effectively, studies. We first present two short pieces and there are ongoing problems with on oil and the actions of Kerr-McGee human rights and the rule of law. Gary Corporation in occupied Western Sahara. and Reisch are concerned that poverty The first, “Oil Blocking Path to reduction objectives may not be achieved. Freedom?” comes from the Washington (2) Office on Africa; the second, “Shareholders Action” comes from ACAS A third set of articles tackles the impact of member Richard Knight. They illustrate the war in Iraq on African studies, Africa the extraordinary US pressure on Africa’s scholars and students, and freedom of oil producing nations, which is part of the speech at home. We began to look at same (militarized) energy policy that these issues in our last Bulletin, dictated the invasion of Iraq. Western “Academic Freedom under Attack” (69, Sahara is Africa’s last colony. Formerly a Winter 2004). colony of Spain, the World Court has

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Asma Abdel Halim wonders what reapply the lessons of past victories. The intellectuals do in peacetime. Recognizing text of the Resolution is followed by the that one must always begin one's correspondence we have had with the resistance at home against powers that as secretariat of the African Studies a citizen one can influence, she laments a Association (ASA) concerning the ACAS trend increasingly observed everywhere: Resolution, which was passed at the last “a fluent nationalism, masking itself as ASA membership meeting in New patriotism and moral concern, has taken Orleans on 11 November 2004 by a large over critical consciousness, which then majority of those in attendance. puts loyalty to one's ‘nation’ before everything.” At that point, she concludes, ASA, in responding to ACAS three there is only the treason of the months later, rejected all of our intellectuals and complete moral suggestions, including the very specific bankruptcy. ones that called for open discussion and debate of the impact of 9/11 on African Bill Martin takes a broad look at the studies, formal ASA sponsorship of impact of the “War on Terror” (sic) on plenary sessions to discuss these matters, our campuses in his article, “Cloning and ASA sponsorship of special issues of Condi, or Manufacturing Your Homeland African Issues and the African Studies Security Campus and Cadre.” He traces Review. In our reply we requested ASA the launching of large-scale initiatives to to conduct a formal poll of the create a cadre and set of institutions that membership on the resolution, to be penetrate our campuses and link them to distributed by secret ballot in a regular national security, military, and mailing of Association materials. We intelligence agencies. “The aim,” he welcome your response to this exchange writes, “is nothing less, as Congressional and are open to suggestions for next steps. hearings show, than to turn back ASA has now requested a meeting with opposition on our campuses to imperial the ACAS co-chairs in April, and we will war, and turn campuses into institutions press this issue at the next ASA meeting, that will, over the next generation, so stay tuned. produce scholars and scholarship dedicated to the so-called war on terror.” Finally, we reprint our most recent Action Alerts, which were circulated to the As these articles chart, a major aim of membership by E-mail in the past five neo-conservatives and militarists is to months. definitively roll back the movement gains of the 1970s and 1980s, which led African Endnotes: studies centers and many (but not all) scholars to reject any further CIA/DOD (1) According to Greg Palast, the oil funding, including the NSEP program industry prefers state control of Iraq's oil over the neo-cons’ proposed sell-off launched in the early 1990s. In this because it fears a repeat of Russia's connection, we publish the ACAS energy privatization. (In the wake of the Resolution on the Study of Africa After collapse of the Soviet Union, US oil 9/11 (posted on our website as a petition companies were barred from bidding for and signed by 72 people as of 16 March the reserves.) It appears the oil industry has won, that Iraq will retain control, and 2005), which sought to reaffirm and that the neo-cons’ plan to use Iraqi oil to

3 ACAS Bulletin, No. 70, Spring 2005 scuttle OPEC has failed. (see “Secret US (2)ACAS wishes to thank the authors for Plans for Iraq's Oil” 17 March 2005 allowing us to reproduce the executive http://www.baou.com/newswire/main.ph summary of their recently released report; p?action=recent&rid=20107) the full report is available on the website of the Catholic Relief Services (CRS).

From Stealing to Robbing: Globalization and the US War Economy

George Caffentzis, Coordinator of the Committee for Academic Freedom in Africa

Does globalization require the expansion pacific because this expansion of and intensification of the US war neoliberal policies depended on monetary economy? Although its supporters claim forces (especially threats to bar nations' that globalization provides the economic access to credit), a class "deal" (where it basis for the liberation of humanity from was implied that roughly the top 20% of war, it is now clear that the preservation the population of Third World nations of globalization will intensify war and "going global" were to be participants in stimulate the growth of the US war the global economy), and, when violence economy. In order to make my case I will was actually called on--as it often was in briefly recount some recent history. Central America, Central Asia, Cambodia, and Africa--"contras" were employed to Money and "Contras" Rule: from the repress recalcitrant social forces or Mexican Debt Crisis to the Asian national movements. The policy of direct Financial Crisis deployment of the US military was eschewed. The process of neoliberal globalization began its remarkable career in 1982, with Implicit however in the IMF's and World the Mexican debt crisis and the structural Bank's demands that structural adjustment adjustment program that was put in place conditionalities be imposed on former by Mexico's leaders as a condition for colonized countries was the threat of their renegotiating the nation's debt with armed destabilization at the hands of CIA- international creditors. By the end of the sponsored "rebels." As I wrote at the time, 1990s this process of avoiding national the US military's strategy in these early bankruptcy by imposing the neoliberal globalization struggles was "a "reforms" demanded by the World Bank combination of buying high-tech, and IMF had transformed the political automated death machines and hiring out economies of more than a hundred the 'dirty jobs' to low-waged mercenaries countries. It also led to a degree of the abroad" which echoed the neoliberal, homogenization of economic policies Reaganomic strategy of "automation and worldwide unparalleled in the history of computerization of domestic production capitalism. and the exportation of 'dirty work' to the This was a "dark victory" over the 'dirt wages' of the 'free trade zones' of the achievements of the anti-colonial Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, movement of the 1960s and 1970s, as Mexico and so on." The classic case of Waldon Bello called it,1 but it was also this strategy was the Reagan and Bush both swift and "pacific." It was apparently

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Administrations' support of UNITA in steady relative, and even absolute, decline Angola. in military budgets. In real 2004 dollars, US military expenditures went from $449 The process of globalization sped up, of billion in 1989 to $317 billion in 1999, course, with the "collapse" of communist i.e., a decline of about 30%. The US party-led governments in Eastern Europe military budget in that decade declined and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in relative to GDP in that decade as well, the 1990s. Neoliberal economists from 5.6% in 1989 to 3.0% in 1999.2 designed "shock therapy" structural Ideologically, this was the time when the adjustment programs that not only Defense Department began to look destroyed the socialist infrastructure but desperately for new enemies and a new also, in Russia, led to the premature death legitimation for military interventions. of millions of adult men--perhaps as many They had to settle, rather uncomfortably, as would have died in a nuclear exchange! with a sorry lot of cocaine capitalists, first The spread of globalization nevertheless in Panama, and then, in Colombia, for remained relatively irenic from the point enemies and a justificatory doctrine of of view of the US war economy and, aside "humanitarian interventionism." from the short civil war in Romania, globalizing capitalism's defeat of President Clinton (with all the ambiguities communism was accomplished "not with and illusions he evoked) largely defined a bang, but a whimper." this period in the political imagination. Clinton-era ideologues presented The end of the "Cold War," however, was neoliberal globalization as the realization the beginning of what the Zapatistas have of the Enlightenment dream of a world called "The Fourth World War," since it market that was fundamentally irenic and pitted, most saliently, indigenous peoples civilizing, since it appeals to and develops against the forces of globalization participants' rational interests while enclosing the planet's remaining common mildly repressing their passions. These land and communal peoples. The initial interests were continually reinforced by stage of this war, however, was the nature of international trade that, compatible with the overall contraction of supposedly, leaves everyone better off the US war economy. after the exchange. Under the ideological cover of a "win-win" result, major "trade" Indeed, even though there were dozens of (actually "liberation of capital") deals insurgencies, civil wars and genocides were brokered (NAFTA, the WTO, the (often called "complex emergencies") all formation of the Euro Zone, etc.) in over the world in the decade after 1990, relative peace. leading to millions of deaths, the triumph of neoliberal globalization saw one of the The Crisis of Neoliberalism and the great periods of disarmament in history War on Terror among the "super-powers." According to a reliable 2000 estimate, Soviet military Given that the global expansion of expenditures in constant 2000 dollars neoliberal policies coincided with a steep went from $405 billion in 1989 to $56 drop in worldwide military spending, the billion in Russia in 1999, i.e., a decline of Clinton ideologists could claim some about 85%!3 In the US there was also a empirical support for their thesis: the

5 ACAS Bulletin, No. 70, Spring 2005 more trade, the less guns; the more the world market, that could only be met by interests, the less the passions. However, military means. beginning with the Thai financial crisis in the summer of 1997, continuing with the As in a horror movie, the world market's serial unfolding of financial crises in Asia, irenic face morphed in 1999 to show its Russia, and Brazil, and ending in the martial visage. First, there was a major official 2001 US recession, a new increase in the US military budget. US dynamic emerged. Its most obvious military spending in constant 2004 dollars consequence for the antiwar movement went from $317.1 billion in 1999 to was an increase in the US military budget $475.3 billion in 2004, i.e., an increase of and the seamless merging of the military 47%. The US war against Yugoslavia in with domestic policing, so that it was no 1999 was the eventual turning point. The longer clear where military spending and Clinton Administration decided that the action ended and "homeland" policing Milosevic regime, after first appearing began or, to put it legalistically, when war willing to adopt neoliberal policies, was ended and crime began. These latter resisting them and needed to be developments were, of course, essential to disciplined. Instead of depending on the "war on terrorism" that Clinton first contras like the Kosovo Liberation Army declared in 1998 and that Bush as they might have done before, the rededicated after September 11, 2001. Clinton Administration directly intervened in Yugoslavia by bombing The increasing militarization inaugurated Belgrade and occupying Kosovo. by the "war on terrorism" and the crisis of Bombing and occupation were to become neoliberal globalization are related. For the typical military policies of the George by the late 1990s it began to be clear that W. Bush Administration, but we should the forces of "Money" and "Contras" was remember that they were actually not enough to "rule": direct US military anticipated by the late Clinton interventions were necessary. The depth Administration just as Reagan's typical of this crisis was indicated by the failure military policies were initially put into of the WTO meetings in Seattle in 1999, place by Carter. This is what is called "bi- not only in the streets of the city, but, partisan" politics in the US. more troubling for globalizing capital, within the meetings themselves. For an Clinton's Yugoslavia in 1999 was increasing number of governments were followed by Bush's Afghanistan in 2001 beginning to question the truth of the and Iraq in 2003. These nations were on globalization ideology (given the the long list of "rogue" states, "terrorist" consequences of the Asian financial states, and "failed" states used in the crisis) and were threatening to change the 1980s and 1990s to pick out recalcitrants, rules by themselves. This skepticism was misfits, and "losers" in the neoliberal seen again and again in the post-Seattle global order. Bush redefined the list in meetings of the WTO and the 2001 with a new taxonomy of states: "the inconclusive meetings around FTAA. axis of evil" and those "forty or fifty Globalization was losing its conceptual countries" that may harbor terrorists. But and ideological hold by the late 1990s. many of these anomalies were states for This posed a major challenge to the US, which globalization was evidently not the as the hegemon and rule keeper of the "win-win" situation that it was claimed to

6 ACAS Bulletin, No. 70, Spring 2005 be. Bush declared a period of endless Globalization, therefore, requires the "war on terrorism" in response to the intensification of a war economy in the attacks of 9/11 because the very stability US, i.e., an economy essentially of the world market was increasingly in dependent on a significant amount of question, not because the perpetrators of resources (at least 3% of GDP, if viewed the 9/11 crimes were so powerful, historically) being invested in the military numerous or ubiquitous. As more and for its own reproduction. This is not more nations could not "play by the rules" surprising. There has never been a period of the neoliberal globalization regime, in US history when it did not have a war they were registered as specimens of the economy. In the 19th century this status excluded, i.e., nations to be intimidated, was often hidden because the "war" was subverted and, if necessary, invaded. Al in the "homeland" with the suppression of Qaeda and Afghanistan simply provided slave rebellions and the extermination of the cases to justify the paradigm. indigenous peoples' resistance. We should reject the view that somehow such a war The role the US must play in the economy is exceptional or an interruption functioning of the world market drove the of "normal" capitalist economy. But there Bush Administration to war in Iraq in the is not only one kind of war economy. The first place. We know that the reasons war economy of WWII was different from officially given for this invasion were that of the 1960s and that differed from completely concocted, i.e., the Saddam the Reagan-Bush 1980s. Hussein regime did not possess "weapons of mass destruction" any longer and it did What is distinctive about the war not do business with Mr. Bin Laden and economy of the present is that the Co. But there were reasons, particular and demands it must satisfy come from a general, that necessitated the war, the ubiquitous spatial field and they are most prominent being the increasing temporally indeterminate. The Cold War likelihood that the Hussein regime was, in at least put a limit on the regions where a Houdini-like way, breaking out of the the US military could be deployed and it decade-long sanctions regime set up by put some cap on the future investment and defended by the US. If Hussein's required to counter the well-defined regime did manage to achieve this feat of adversary's investment. What is being being able to return to the world required now is a new military model that commodity and credit market, formally or dictates the deployment of US troops informally, without the US' approval, it throughout the planet. Their job is to would have been a serious blow to US occupy an unprecedented multiplicity of hegemony over the recalcitrants of the new bases controlling strategic areas of world market. For, after all, the Hussein wealth (which in this age often is spelled regime was the classic rule breaker. "O-I-L") and pressuring an ever- Instead of seeing the Houdini regime increasing multitude of recalcitrant states escape, Bush decided to kill it in what has to "reform," consequences be damned. turned out to be a botched execution. For a nation "reforms," in the Bush Administration's glossary, if it accepts the Conclusion: from stealing to robbing rules of neoliberal globalization, even though these rules would mean the immiseration of its population, the

7 ACAS Bulletin, No. 70, Spring 2005 stripping of its resources, or the loss of its As educators aiming to stop the war, own autonomy. In other words, reform or therefore, our first commandment to our die, even if reform means death! students and colleagues should therefore be: "Thou shalt not rob!" I call this transformation from the earlier phase of globalization to the present one ______"a movement from stealing to robbing," [A talk given at the Educators to Stop the for while both are forms of theft the War Conference, March 5, 2005, Hunter former is surreptitious (through debt and College High School, NY.] credit restrictions) while the latter requires direct violence (invasion and occupation Endnotes: by the US military) or the palpable threat 1. See Walden Bello, with Shea Cunningham and of it for the expropriation of wealth to Bill Rau, Dark Victory: the United States, Structural Adjustment, and Global Poverty take place. The first, "stealing" phase of (Oakland: Institute for Food and Development globalization was largely accomplished Policy, 1994). via the IMF's and World Bank's monetary 2. Soviet and Russian statistics concerning pressure on governments to make their military expenditures are difficult to estimate since people and resources directly exploitable they were/are considered state secrets. Consequently, many of the estimates are due to the by transnational corporations. This phase US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. My of globalization was compatible with a reading of the "reliability" of these statistics is due dramatic reduction of the US war to their uncomfortable implications for US economy. Clearly the "robbing" phase of military spending. They are to be found online at: globalization will require an ever- http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russi a/mo-budget.htm. expanding war economy. For as 3. The statistics concerning US military spending globalization fails in region after region as percent of GDP come from Office of and the number of nation-state Management and Budget, Historical Tables, recalcitrants grows, the hegemon of the Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal market will have to respond to the goad of Year 2005 (2004), Washington, pp. 45-52. The source for the statistics concerning US military a potential infinity of threats and demands spending in constant 2004 dollars is to be found in to exit to the point when, perhaps, the the Center for Defense Information Defense exhausted "robbers" won't even be worth Monitor November/December 2003. stealing from!

On the Roots of War: Theses on the War in Iraq

Silvia Federici

If we place the war against Iraq in a beginning of the world economy, to the historical context, we can see that war is a colonization process of the 18th and 19th structural component of capitalist centuries, which brought the populations development. and resources of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East under the hegemony of From the "Conquest" that marked the European and American capital, through

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WWII which ensured US capital access to to convince them to stay the course. The the world market, war has constantly been turning point was the period between on the agenda. War is a means to acquire 1997 and 2001, which witnessed first the economic assets, change class relations, "Asian Crisis" and later the failure of the and re-launch the accumulation process. WTO meeting in Seattle to produce a Indeed, in the history of capitalism, war trade agreement, demonstrating that has been economic development by other resistance to the prescriptions of the IMF means, a cost of production, escalating in and the World Bank was building at both proportion to the resistance it had to the grassroots and governmental levels. break. Since then, opposition to globalization has continued to intensify. Witness the Hugo In the case of the United States, since Chavez "revolution" in Venezuela, WWII the guarantor of world Argentina's President Nestor Kirchner's accumulation, hardly a decade has gone opposition to the dictates of the IMF in by without a war, whether conducted Argentina and his recent decision to pay through the direct involvement of US only 30 cents out of every dollar on troops, or under the umbrella of the Argentina's external debt. Witness also United Nations, or through proxy armies the victory of the left in Uruguay, and the (as in case of Angola, El Salvador, constant mass protests against the Mozambique, Nicaragua, and Panama) or, privatization of public utilities and the more surreptitiously, through death payment of the debt that have taken place squads, and the politics of mass torture in recent years in Bolivia (800 protests and assassination, as in the cases of since President Carlos Mesa's Argentina, Chile, and, prior to that, Brazil appointment in the fall of 2003). The (to name the most outstanding cases). resistance to privatization in Peru, and the mass mobilization of indigenous people in In this context, I argue that war is on the Ecuador against Occidental Petroleum are agenda today because of the crisis of the further expressions of the globalization globalization project that was launched in crisis. No wonder these days we are told the 1970s and 1980s through the politics that Al Qaeda might enter the US through of structural adjustment and trade the Mexican border! liberalization. Africa, War and Structural Adjustment Hailed as the pathway to "economic In Africa as well we see the coincidence recovery," twenty years later these between the implementation of the policies have shown they cannot deliver. structural adjustment programs (SAPs), Far from it, in every country in which introduced in the 1980s by the World they have been applied, they have Bank and the International Monetary produced unprecedented levels of Fund (IMF), and the development of a impoverishment, social protest, and a state of constant warfare. The situation in process of economic and political re- Africa shows that structural adjustment colonization that can no longer be generates war, and war, in turn, completes disguised. Thus, the temptations for the work of structural adjustment, as it governments to drop out of the makes the countries affected dependent on globalization deal has continued to international capital, and the powers that increase and so has the need to use force represent it, beginning with the US, the

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European Union (EU) and the UN. In which structural adjustment has plunged other words, to paraphrase Clausewitz, the majority of the population. While "structural adjustment is war by other intensifying social protest, this, over the means." years, has torn the social fabric as millions of people have been forced to There are many ways in which structural leave their villages and go abroad in adjustment promotes war. This economic search of new sources of livelihood; and restructuring was presumably meant to the struggle for survival has laid the boost productivity, eliminate inefficiency, ground-work for the fomenting and and increase Africa's competitive edge in manipulation of local antagonisms and the the global market. But the opposite has recruitment of the unemployed occurred. More than a decade after its (particularly the youth), by warring adoption, local economies have collapsed, parties. Many "tribal" and religious foreign investment has not materialized, conflicts in Africa (no less than the and the only productive activities in place "ethnic" conflicts in Yugoslavia) have in most African countries are once again, been rooted in these processes. From the as in the colonial period, mineral mass expulsions of immigrants and extraction and export-oriented agriculture, religious riots in Nigeria in the early and that contributes to the gluts in the global mid-1980s, to the "clan" wars in Somalia market, while Africans do not have in the early 1990s, to the bloody wars enough food to eat. between the state and the fundamentalists in Algeria, in the background of most In this context of generalized economic contemporary African conflicts there have bankruptcy, violent rivalries have been the World Bank's and the IMF's exploded everywhere among different "conditionalities," that have wrecked factions of the African ruling class, who, peoples' lives and undermined the unable to enrich themselves through the conditions for social reproduction and exploitation of labor, are now fighting for social solidarity. access to state power as the key condition for the accumulation of wealth. State There is no doubt, for instance, that the power, in fact, is the key to the youths who have been fighting the appropriation and sale on the international numerous African wars of recent years are market of either the national assets and the same who two decades ago could have resources (land, gold, diamonds, oil, been in school, and could have hoped to timber), or the assets possessed by rival or make a living through trade or a job in the weaker groups. Thus, war has become the public sector, and could have looked at necessary underbelly of a new mercantile the future with the hope of being able to economy, or (according to some) an contribute to their families' well-being. "economy of plunder" (Bayart et al. Similarly, the appearance of child-soldiers 1999), thriving with the complicity of in the 1980s and 1990s would never have foreign companies and international been possible if, in many countries, the agencies, who (for all their complaints extended family had not been undermined about "corruption") benefit from it. by financial hardships, and millions of children were not without a place to go A further source of warfare in Africa has except for the street and had instead been the brutal impoverishment into someone to provide for their needs.

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War has not only been a consequence of context. This can be seen even in the case economic change; it has also been a of military interventions by the US that means to produce it. Two objectives stand are usually read through the prism of out when we consider the prevailing "geo-politics" and the Cold War, such as patterns of war in Africa, and the way in the support given by the Reagan which warfare intersects with Administration to the governments of globalization. First, war forces people off Sudan and Somalia, and to UNITA in the land, i.e., it separates the producers Angola. Both in the Sudan and Somalia from the means of production, a condition SAPs were underway since the early for the expansion of the global labor 1980s when both countries were among market. War also reclaims the land for the major recipients of US military aid. In capitalist use, boosting the production of the Sudan, US military assistance cash crops and export-oriented strengthened the hand of the regime of agriculture. Particularly in Africa, where Colonel Jaafar an Nimeiri against the communal land tenure is still widespread, coalition of forces that were opposing the this has been a major goal of the World cuts demanded by the IMF; even though, Bank, whose raison d'être as an in the end, it could not stem the uprising institution has been the capitalization of that in 1985 was to depose him. In agriculture. Thus, it is hard today to see Somalia, US military aid helped Siad millions of refugees or famine victims Barre's attack on the Isaaks, an episode in fleeing their localities without thinking of the ongoing war waged by national and the satisfaction this must bring to World international agencies over the last decade Bank officers as well as agribusiness against Africa's pastoralist groups. companies, who surely see the hand of progress working through it. In Angola too, US military aid to UNITA served to force the government not just to War also undermines people's opposition renounce socialism and the help of Cuban to market reforms by reshaping the troops, but to negotiate with the IMF, and territory and disrupting the social it undoubtedly strengthened the networks that provide the basis for bargaining power of the oil companies resistance. Significant here is the operating in the country. correlation--frequent in contemporary Africa--between anti-IMF protest and In Africa too, globalization is in conflict. This is most visible perhaps in shambles. As timid as it may seem, the Algeria, when the rise of anti-government growing revival of Pan-Africanism and Islamic fundamentalism dates from the the move to a West African currency -- anti-IMF uprising of 1988, when the Eco -- spurring regional development thousands of young people took over the and creating alternatives to the dollar, are streets of the capital for several days in exemplary in this context (see Koomson the most intense and widespread protest 2004). since the heyday of the anti-colonial struggle. International Capital’s Aims Through war, international capital aims to External intervention--often seizing local regain control over the world economy. It struggles and turning them into global is important to stress here that the war conflicts--has played a major role in this drive began already with the Clinton

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Administration, as demonstrated by its negotiations with China for oil attacks on Sudan and Afghanistan in exploration result in an agreement. Darfur 1998, the war against Yugoslavia in 1999, as well would not elicit much attention and the escalation of the military budget were oil not involved. in the same year. Notice also that support for a politics of military interventionism Not last, war has a terror function: terror grew in US/EU political circles after the plays at the level of international policy collapse of state socialism in 1989, which the same function that capital punishment promised to clear the way to a new plays at the level of domestic policy. It imperial drive. "Humanitarian intimidates people and governments into intervention"--the slogan of the 1990s-- compliance, punishes transgressions, and was the ideological justification for such a warns of coming retaliations. In this move. The number of countries that by sense, there is also a connection between means of warfare have been brought the re-launching of war in foreign policy under the trusteeship of the UN/US, and and the renewed use of torture. We can the network of military bases by means of dismiss in fact the idea that torture is a which the US has been girdling the planet, means to acquire essential information. are the political and physical The Italian jurist Cesare Beccaria manifestation of this project, as is the disposed of that fallacy already in 1764, prospect of an unlimited "war against when he argued that as far as truth-finding terror." is concerned, torture is as good as the medieval ordeal. The function of torture is War defeats social movements, to terrorize--this much has been learned expropriates people from their lands, from the experience of Latin America in gives capital control over the planet's the 1960s and 1970s--and so is the natural resources: oil, water, mineral, function of war, which above all must land, and seeds. Not surprisingly, the map convince workers across the world that no of military intervention today is, to a large alternative exists to capitalism. extent, also the map of oil. One of the main objectives for international capital is Given this analysis of roots of war, what the liberalization of the oil industry, oil should be the strategy of an anti-war being the only vital commodity that is not movement? privatized. Significantly, the US has invaded Iraq at the very moment when the The first caveat is against any country was preparing to return to the personalization of the war policy, of the world oil market and was concluding type that led to the campaign in support of deals with France and Russia for the Kerry's election, which was based on the development of its oil industry (ibid.). Oil assumption that "everything is better than is also the reason for the large investment Bush." We also have to abandon the idea the US has made in the war against the that salvation may come from Europe, FARC in Colombia; for its renewed presumably the soil where a more military support to Indonesia (under the enlightened variety of capitalism is guise of aid to the populations struck by flourishing. If Chirac and Schroeder fail the tsunami); for its attempted to support Bush' s war drive more openly, destabilization of Venezuela, which will it is because they face a more combative continue, especially if Venezuela's working class; consequently they cannot

12 ACAS Bulletin, No. 70, Spring 2005 divert as much of the surplus to military policies as structural adjustment and spending, nor can they cut workers' economic liberalization. As I have argued, entitlements as easily as the US to the extent that these policies are in government can. In France, Germany, and crisis and resistance to them continues to Italy, workers of all ages and from all intensify, their implementation will be sectors (public and private) have gone to premised on a state of permanent warfare. the streets over and over again to protest the attacks on pensions, to defend the 35 That war is once again today the hours work week, and to demand that handmaid of economic policy is well and bankrupt companies not be allowed to provocatively demonstrated by Paul "dump" their workers. This is something Wolfowitz's appointment as President of we have not seen in the US, which is why the World Bank, as it is by whispers the US government can more confidently coming from the corridors of power produce a military budget of $500 billion suggesting that the Bush Administration dollars and create a devastating hole in has no need at present for its staff of public resources through its tax cuts. This economists and little interest even in is where the anti-war movement in the replacing those who retire. Clearly, the United States must concentrate its efforts; Bush Administration's task at the moment for the beast of war will not be stopped is to redraw the map of power relations unless it is denied the resources it feeds globally and domestically, and historical upon: money and soldiers. This implies record demonstrates that organizing war is that it is crucial that we see the continuity, a primary step in this direction. in our analyses and strategy, between military and economic policy, both on the References domestic and international level. Bayart, Jean-Francois et al. (1999) The Criminalization of the State in Africa, Thus, the success of the antiwar Oxford: The International African movement in the United States will Institute, in association with James Curry. depend on its capacity to build a mobilization against the cuts in Social Beccaria, Cesare. 1764. An Essay on Security, education, medical care and Crimes and Punishments. other social entitlements. The same movement must also include among its Federici, Silvia. 2000. “War, strategic priorities the reversal of the Globalization, and Reproduction” Peace politics of mass incarceration and the use & Change 25(2):153. of the death penalty which, long before September 11 and the Patriot Act, have Koomson, George. 2004. "West African disenfranchised thousands of African Eco, slated to be functioning 2007," Americans and being instrumental to the African Agenda, 7 (5&6): 5-6. (Published maintenance and creation of profound by the Third World Network, Africa, inequalities and divisions within the Accra) See also "Eco is a reality, says American working class. At the treasurer of West African Parliament" and international level, the antiwar movement "West Africa's Secret Currency" in the must join with the antigloblization same issue. movement in the opposition to the

13 ACAS Bulletin, No. 70, Spring 2005

Shareholders focus of campaign to end Kerr-McGee’s involvement in Occupied Western Sahara Press Release, Oslo, Norway, Feb 28th 2005

Rotterdam, Netherlands; New York, NY, Western Sahara have the right to self- USA; Seattle, WA, USA; London, determination including independence. England Morocco rejected the Court’s ruling and February 28th 2005 invaded the territory in the first days November, forcing a majority of the Western Sahara Resource Watch, population into refugee camps in Algeria. representing organizations in 20 Morocco has refused to implement a 1991 countries, announced today a campaign UN peace plan in which a referendum against the American energy company would allow the people of Western Kerr-McGee (KMG). This Oklahoma Sahara to choose between independence City-based corporation is involved in the and integration into Morocco. The UN illegal, unethical and politically Legal Council says that Western Sahara is controversial plundering of hydrocarbons a non-self-governing territory and that in the Moroccan occupied areas of exploitation of the territory’s Western Sahara. Morocco has illegally hydrocarbons would be illegal. occupied Western Sahara since 1975 and the people of the territory, led by “It is remarkable that Kerr-McGee does Polisario, are struggling for self- still not understand the political, legal and determination and independence. Kerr- humanitarian dimensions of the McGee has been exploring for oil and gas catastrophe they are inflicting to the in the territorial waters of Western Sahara Sahrawi people. For three years, the since 2001 under license from the company has refused to listen to our Moroccan state oil company, ONAREP. arguments. Now we hope to get some Today, the international solidarity assistance from their shareholders” said movement for Western Sahara started Richard Knight, a member of the contacting the company’s 600 biggest Association of Concerned Africa Scholars shareholders, demanding that action be and spokesperson of Western Sahara taken to prevent the company from Resource Watch. renewing the contract that is set to expire May 1st. The campaign requests the shareholders to play a role as active investors, Western Sahara is Africa’s last colony. influencing KMG not to renew its Formerly a colony of Spain, in May 1975 contract May 1st. If the constructive a UN mission determined that the people shareholder pressure does not succeed in of Western Sahara overwhelmingly changing the KMG policy, the campaign supported the liberation movement demands the investors to divest. Polisario and were categorically for independence and against integration of So far, a Norwegian and a Dutch seismic the territory into Morocco. In mid- survey company have decided to not October of that year the International continue the activities in Western Sahara Court of Justice ruled that the people of due to the political implications of the

16 ACAS Bulletin, No. 70, Spring 2005 contracts. This happened as a illegal. Since Kerr-McGee signed the consequence of active shareholder reconnaissance contract with ONAREP in ownership and dozens of sell-outs over 2001, Morocco has stalled the UN- the last years. Also a Danish and a French supported peace process. Morocco has company have left the area, making Kerr- even rejected a generous plan put forward McGee the only foreign company by former U.S. Secretary of State James remaining in the Western Sahara. Baker. Kerr-McGee’s activities have already blocked the peace efforts and One major investor has already divested contributed to rising tension in the region. from Kerr-McGee - the Norwegian fund If Kerr-McGee continues, there are administrator Skagenfondene has sold its definitely possibilities of taking legal 100.000 shares, taking a two million actions against the company, and we dollar loss. Due to the massive negative strongly urge Kerr-McGee to not renew attention on Kerr-McGee’s activities in their contract. We are very sure that our the occupied territories, they regarded the measures will make Kerr-McGee shares as too risky. Now the government- withdraw, as the last company in the owned Norwegian Petroleum Fund is industry still operating in Western Sahara. considering if it should sell its shares, The question is how and when”, said estimated to be worth over $7 million. Jacob Mundy founder of Friends of Western Sahara “The campaign against Kerr-McGee has (www.friendsofwesternsahara.org). lead to an impressive mobilization worldwide. Today, 19 organizations on For further information, or to receive a four continents have all started contacting full version of the shareholder letter, their respective Kerr-McGee shareholders please contact Richard Knight (New simultaneously. Last month, we contacted York, USA) tel (+1) 212-663-5989 all screening agencies in the world, [email protected], Jacob Mundy explaining them the nature of the (Seattle, USA) tel (+1) 206-329-1341 contract, urging them to recommend their [email protected], Tom clients to sell. Now contacting the Marchbanks – Western Sahara Campaign shareholders is a natural second step in (UK) tel (+44) 794-955-6718 our strategy,” said Liesbeth den Haan of [email protected] or Liesbeth den Haan the Netherlands Foundation for the Right (Holland), tel (+31) 610858899, e-mail to Self-Determination for the Sahrawi [email protected]. People. The campaign is coordinated by the No country recognizes Morocco’s newly founded Western Sahara Resource sovereignty over Western Sahara. The Watch. WSRW is a network of Polisario-formed government in exile, a organizations that work to preserve the founding member of the African Union natural resources in Western Sahara for which is recognized by 70 countries the usage of its people, inasmuch as their including South Africa, has heavily sovereignty over those resources is a right condemned the Kerr-McGee contract. with erga omnes character enshrined in several UN resolutions and human rights “Morocco’s planned theft of Western documents. Sahara’s hydrocarbons is immoral and

17 ACAS Bulletin, No. 70, Spring 2005

Chad’s Oil: Miracle or Mirage? Following the Money in Africa’s Newest Petro-State Ian Gary and Nikki Reisch © Catholic Relief Services and Bank Information Center, February 2005

Chad’s Oil: Miracle or Mirage? The solve the problem of the “resource Chad-Cameroon Petroleum Development curse”; and to energy-hungry and Pipeline Project, transporting oil industrialized countries searching for new from landlocked southern Chad to the and stable sources of oil. Atlantic coast of Cameroon for export, represents the foremost test case of the Poverty, Politics and Petrodollars: Chad extent to which oil revenues can be used is a landlocked country with a long to alleviate poverty in a challenging history of civil war, continued political developing country context. The most instability, a weak judicial system, innovative feature of the project is the widespread corruption and an all- establishment of a legal framework encompassing institutional capacity (Chad’s Law 001 and subsequent problem. This is an extremely amendments and decrees) that earmarks challenging environment in which to money for poverty reduction attempt to turn oil revenues into benefits expenditures and creates an oversight for the poor. And the stakes are high—if committee to ensure the transparent Chad’s oil money is mismanaged, it management of the country’s oil wealth. could mean increased hardships and Touting the promise of petrodollars for conflict for the nearly seven million Chad’s poor over public concerns that people in Chad living on less than $1 per new revenues would be lost to corruption day. Since independence in 1960, Chad and mismanagement, the World Bank has known more years of war than of provided financing that catalyzed the peace, and rising tensions in the region ExxonMobil-led oil development. Given mean that violence is never far off. A the dismal track record of oil-producing coup attempt in May 2004 reminded countries around the world and the high observers of the fragile political stakes in a country as unstable as Chad, environment, and tensions have increased this experiment has come into the over the attempt by President Déby’s international limelight. The fate of the ruling party to change the constitution to $4-billion plus project is not only of vital allow him to run for a third term in 2006. importance to the people of Chad, who The Chadian oil experiment depends hope to reap its benefits but risk bearing largely on the political will of the enormous costs if oil production leads to government to respect the rule of law corruption, conflict and the further where there is little history of doing so, to concentration of power in the hands of a develop accountable institutions, and to few. It is also of great interest to other encourage democracy. In an environment countries facing the challenge of where the government faces internal and transforming their oil wealth into benefits external threats, such political will for their people; to donors attempting to appears to be in short supply.

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Chad’s Landlocked Treasure: After In response to pressure from civil society decades of on-again, off-again organizations concerned that the benefits exploration and negotiations, in July of oil development would not reach the 2003 Chadian oil began to flow through poor, the World Bank conditioned its the 1,050 kilometer pipeline, produced by financing for the pipeline project on the a consortium comprised of ExxonMobil, establishment of a revenue management ChevronTexaco and Petronas, the plan. Chad’s innovative petroleum Malaysian state oil company. Production revenue management law stipulates that from the three active fields in the Doba the majority of direct revenues from oil basin reached its current peak capacity of production – royalties and dividends – be 225,000 barrels per day in late 2004 and earmarked and spent on “priority sectors” more than 60 tanker shipments have been targeting poverty reduction. In addition, a exported to date. Beyond the 1 billion joint government-civil society petroleum barrel estimated reserves in these three revenue oversight committee (the fields, the presence of the pipeline Collège) has been established to play a infrastructure is spurring new oil “watchdog” role, approving projects and production and exploration in Chad. monitoring the quality of their ExxonMobil plans to add five new implementation. “satellite” fields to its existing production in 2005-2006 and, together with other While some information on Chad’s oil companies like Canada’s EnCana, is revenues is made public, details exploring other parts of Chad. With these regarding the calculation of revenues and ongoing activities and the government’s many key agreements between the oil efforts to attract more investment in the companies and the government remain sector, Chad’s oil windfall is likely to be secret. Furthermore, legal safeguards much larger than originally predicted. contain notable loopholes. For example, all indirect revenues – including income Oil Revenues – Chad’s First Taste of taxes on the oil companies – will go Black Gold: The unprecedented measures directly into general government coffers. put in place to safeguard against These indirect revenues may amount to misappropriation of oil revenues are now more than $3 billion over the next 25 being put to the test. In late 2003, years. In addition, the revenue ExxonMobil made its first royalty management law does not cover any payment into the government of Chad’s revenues from oil produced outside the escrow account at Citibank in London, three original Doba fields. These and and Chad was likely to receive $140-150 other weakness mean that it is difficult million in oil revenues during 2004 and for citizens to verify the accuracy of over $200 million in 2005. Over their 25- revenue information disclosed and that year production span, the first three oil much oil revenue will fall outside of the fields in southern Chad may earn the jurisdiction of the law and the control of government more than $5 billion in oil the Collège. revenues. Just how much more Chad will receive from other oil fields tapped in the On the government side, there is a future is yet unknown. profound lack of capacity to master the technical aspects of monitoring oil production and determining oil revenues.

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More than one year into Chad’s life as an in Chad is creating precious few jobs, oil producer, many basic aspects making the generation of non-oil regarding the calculation of oil revenues employment and the careful management remain the subject of dispute between the and spending of oil revenue paramount. government and the ExxonMobil-led The ultimate success of the Chad consortium. experiment will be judged not on barrels of oil produced or revenues generated, “Just Add Oil” – Accountability from but on the successful investment of these Scratch: In a country lacking an effective revenues in Chad’s people through a system of checks and balances, the joint well-planned and executed budget government-civil society revenue system. Chad has little record of oversight committee created by Law 001 effectively budgeting and spending is a unique institution, critical to the government resources, and has a history effort to hold the government accountable of corruption and mismanagement in for the use of oil money. Experience to bidding and procurement procedures. The date has shown that the Collège has made experience of the 2004 budget – the first promising strides to establish itself and containing oil revenues – and plans for exert its authority. At the same time it 2005 show that there are many obstacles needs increased access to information, an standing between transparent budgeting improved ability to investigate of oil revenues and spending those expenditures and the cooperation of monies in a way that reduces poverty. government to prosecute any wrongdoing identified. The Collège lacks an Executive Summary independent and steady source of funding, and without support from With increased scrutiny of revenue flows Chadian civil society will be unable to at the macro-level, problems with effectively carry out oversight in a corruption and mismanagement will country as large as Chad. Finally, the likely migrate downstream where they government has placed trusted allies – are more hidden from public view. As in such as President Déby’s brother-in-law other oil rich countries, systems of – on the Collège and has interfered with patronage may develop through the non- the selection of civil society members. transparent awarding of government While the Collège can influence the contracts funded by oil revenues. These budgeting process, tendencies, together with limited reject ill-founded expenditures and government capacity to absorb increased investigate the execution of projects it levels of funding, have grave approves, ultimately its ability to ensure implications for the poverty reduction that oil revenues are used for poverty objectives of a project dependent on the reduction depends on the willingness of effective use of massive new government the judiciary to prosecute cases of revenues. World Bank projects designed misuse, fraud or corruption that the to increase capacities in these areas prior Collège may uncover. to the arrival of first oil have failed to meet their objectives. Despite World Budgeting for the Boom – Spending Bank promises, the result has been a Chad’s Oil Revenues: For a $4 billion- “two-speed” project whereby the pipeline plus investment, the oil industry enclave was completed a year ahead of schedule

20 ACAS Bulletin, No. 70, Spring 2005 but the government remains largely transparency deficits and severe unprepared to manage its oil windfall. government capacity constraints. The oil experiment hangs by a thread. Chad’s Changing Chad – The Role of External experience shows that transparency is but Actors: Ensuring that Chad’s oil boom one essential ingredient in a system of benefits the poor requires not only oversight, accountability and sanction. building government capacity, but Transparent information can be used for altering policies and, ultimately, both formal and informal enforcement of changing politics. The experience to date the law, but the tools to use it have to be reveals both the limits of external actors’ in place. Investigative and judicial arms ability to influence these changes and the of the government must be independent urgent need for those actors to use what and capable of prosecuting wrongdoing. leverage they do have to support Elections must be free and fair and adherence to the rule of law and Chadians must have the ability to change compliance with the revenue their government through the ballot box management safeguards. In Chad, where if they think it has not managed the oil citizens have limited influence on their wealth well. Informal enforcement – government, external actors – such as the through monitoring by civil society and World Bank, IMF, and the U.S. and publicizing information on the radio and French governments – can be important via other media – must be part of a sources of pressure for greater system of accountability. Transparency is transparency and accountability. The only meaningful if information is rapid accumulation of petrodollars in understood by the government and the Chad confronts the World Bank, IMF and public, and if the findings of oversight other donors with a choice between using bodies lead to action. their known leverage today and relying on their uncertain leverage in the future. It is too early to declare the Chad experiment a failure or a success. A “Model Project” Hanging by a Whether or not Chad manages to escape Thread: Many obstacles stand in the way the “paradox of plenty” may not be of converting Chad’s oil wealth into known for years. There are, though, clear concrete improvements in the lives of the lessons that can be drawn from Chad’s country’s poor. While some have experience to date, which can serve as prematurely hailed the Chad project as a signposts to correct pressing problems in “new model” for harnessing oil revenues Chad and to guide efforts to assist other to benefit development, the record of developing countries in managing Chad’s first year as a petro-state provides resource wealth. And one of the most many reasons for concern. Important fundamental lessons that Chad offers building blocks for transparent and today is the importance of ensuring that effective oil revenue management are minimum conditions of respect for being developed and need to be nurtured, human rights, fiscal transparency, and but limited progress on this front is demonstrated government capacity to tempered by worrying trends in the implement pro-poor programs are in political environment, weaknesses and place prior to promoting investment in loopholes in the revenue management the extractive industries. system, problems with corruption,

21 ACAS Bulletin, No. 70, Spring 2005

What Intellectuals Do in Peacetime1

Asma Abdel Halim

One must always begin one's resistance at the adjective intellectual applies to them is home, against powers that as a citizen one enough to hold them responsible for how can influence; but alas, a fluent they behave as intellectuals and how their nationalism masking itself as patriotism silence or participation makes a difference. and moral concern has taken over the critical consciousness, which then puts The silence in the face of the extremist loyalty to one's "nation" before everything. intellectuals has taken a heavy toll on the At that point there is only the treason of the lives of the courageous intellectuals who intellectuals, and complete moral performed their duty towards their bankruptcy. communities and religions. Albagir Edward Said: Al-Ahram Weekly 24 - 30 Mukhtar of Amnesty International, June 1999 London, recently decried the intellectuals' dire attempts after September 11th to Injustice has become endemic to Africa exonerate Islam from sanctioning killing of and fashionable as nationalism in the the innocent. Not that they had not done it developed world. However, in some before, but then they did it as if it were African countries there seems to be a meant just to sit on shelves and be dug out conviction that the only cure to injustice is by wide-eyed graduate students and other war. Intellectuals around the world have scholars. Those who courageously took the devoted valuable time to the responsibility to confront fanaticism and conceptualization and contextualization, destruction of their communities ended up and other difficult to pronounce words, of hanging from gallows or exiled to other war and its causes and consequences. In the countries. One wonders whether it would process they also engage in their own wars have been possible for dictators to kill and that, in my view, have contributed to exile them if all intellectuals stood fast setting the stage for bloody wars. They behind the courageous ones, through words contribute in at least two ways: the first is and actions. Cases in point are Mahmoud their silence in the face of religious M. Taha of Sudan, Ken Sara Wiwa of extremism, and their conviction that Nigeria, and Nasr Hamid Abuzaid of extremism is a bubble that will soon burst Egypt. Intellectuals around the world were and lose its effect. The second is their busy trying to agree or disagree with the participation in the so called civilian scholars and publish their opinions rather branches of militia where they devote their than take the moral and ethical stand of time to justifying war and theorizing supporting them, whether they agreed with solutions through prophecies of new socio- them or not. For some reason economic relations formulated at the intellectualism seems to be the antithesis of expense of uninformed poor civilians activism. Lack of activism in the anti- whose lives would be shattered for decades extremist camp allowed the extremists’ to come. After reading part of this at a message about injustice to be carried to the recent workshop I think it wise to state the grassroots, while the counter-message obvious: Not all intellectuals commit remained the domain of sympathetic reckless acts; however, the sheer fact that Western and apologetic Muslim scholars.

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The civil wars and other upheavals in the Islamist intellectuals were pivotal in Sudan may serve as good examples of how turning the war between the government intellectuals have been part and parcel of and the Southern Sudanese rebels into a the wars and other conflict situations. religious one. They carefully chose military Intellectuals who are participating in the chants and used the media especially radio war rhetoric, whether they are from the and television to spread ideals that they government side or the rebel side, are themselves knew were silly but were engaged in a war of words—words that effective in playing on the religious never reached the more than one million passions of Sudanese Muslims. The people who have been displaced and the propaganda ranged from silly stories of 50,000 killed in Darfur region. The internet monkeys fighting with soldiers and trees revolution has made easy the exchange of chanting Allahu Akbar, to holding wedding insulting partisan or ethnic foul language parties for the martyrs whom they were that may sometimes culminate in sure were being wed to the celestial wide- intellectual lynching. The formation of eyed females in heaven. In their endeavor troops to attack someone on a list-serve or to Islamize the whole country they sold a discussion board is an amazing daily Islam as a unifying factor that worked exercise on those lists, topped only by the against racism and nationalism. They formation of long lines to congratulate or turned the conflict over power into a holy pay condolences to a list member for a sad war. Now that the American administration or happy occasion. The keyboard troops had forced both sides into a peace lead character assassination expeditions, agreement, the Islamist rhetoric quickly descriptions of past and future battlefields changed into one of ethnicity and a and exchange of nationalistic jargon that warning that Muslims would be wiped out borrows from the heritage of war. by the Southern rebels who found their way into the capital city after the peace For almost sixteen years Sudan has been agreement. under the thumb of Islamist extremists whose cadres spent at least twenty years Newspapers are full of stories of how the organizing to take power. Their capital city is now the sight of men in organization made them the envy of the military fatigues carrying machine guns rest of the political entities. They took over raising havoc whenever it fits their the major financial institutions by initiating purposes. Whatever the reason that this their own banks, insurance and other public behavior is allowed in the market areas and and private companies. They spread their neighborhoods of the city, the rhetoric of influence carefully in both military and Islamist intellectuals has seized the chance civilian institutions. They knew that from to turn their position against racism and then on they only had to wake up early nationalism into one that is full of enough to overthrow the democratic prophecies of doom that would befall the government.2 Despite the fact that their Northerners by the trigger happy rebels financial institutions were failing, they roaming the streets. They, the Islamists, managed to overthrow the elected totally ignore of course the fact that government and to threaten all other escalating the war and signing a lame, stronger financial institutions. vague peace agreement is their responsibility.

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The latest warning came from Mr. Altayeb have turned into professionals who are Mustafa, one of the Islamists’ prominent constricted by their lack of vision and their writers. He has been for a while a content with a salary at the end of the proponent of the cession of the North from month. Ironically, this widely admired the South. His latest article is posted on the intellectual has joined one of the most largest Sudanese discussion board devastating wars of the past century. The Sudaneseonline.com; the title may be sheer fact that an intellectual of his caliber translated as, “You Will Remember My has become party to a war, regardless of Words”. The arrogance of the rebel leaders which side he is on, is an indication of how and soldiers became the base for fueling peace time can be a time for intellectuals to resentment against the warriors who seem work their way into war rather than to have earned some sort of impunity after become factors in preventing it. His very the peace agreement. Certain facts and words against intellectuals mirror his own truths collected for his article make it status in the apparatus of conflicts. difficult to convince his readers that the status quo is part of the poor governance of The wars that keep breaking out one after his party. the other in the Sudan seem to be owned by the intelligentsia of the country. Dr. Elizabeth Hodgkin, East Africa researcher It is easy to implicate the Islamist for Amnesty International, and a long time intellectuals for their blatantly Sudanist, told a large group of Sudanese in manipulative rhetoric, but the rebels are not Iowa City that the people fleeing the war in exactly free from the same vice. Civilian Darfur kept asking her why they were branches of armed rebellions, known as the being shot at and who was shooting at “movement,” play the role of think tanks them. She answered, "I don't know." for armed rebels. The Sudan Liberation However, not a day passes by without a Army is no exception in making sure that it long article or a pamphlet from the various has its “Movement”, hence the acronym groups that are fighting the government in SPLM/A. The prominent Northern scholar, the region, with hardly a note on how Dr. Mansur Khalid, who is a law graduate unwinnable such wars are. A clear and holder of a Ph.D. in Education and indication that the conflict is about who held positions such as Minister of competing political interests and that the Foreign Affairs and that of Education led people are not only uninformed but were the think tank of the Movement. Dr. not consulted on whether they wanted to Mansur Khalid’s two-volume book titled, trade miserable, deprived lives for the total The Sudanese Elite and Addiction to devastation of war. Long articles from the Failure,3 is sitting on the shelves of intellectuals of the rebels about the long thousands of intellectuals. I, not counting suffering of the people, and press releases myself among the intellectuals, have been a promising to avenge them, are not in short devoted fan of Dr. M. Khalid ever since my supply. Fiery lies and irresponsible acts of high school days. His style and his the government subject the people to one meticulous research are beyond admirable. of the greatest humanitarian disasters in In his abovementioned book he makes the Africa if not in the world. Both sides find case for how the Sudanese intellectuals are strength in turning their war into an ethnic the source of all the crises that plagued the conflict that pits ethnicities against each Sudan. He decries how the intellectuals other.

24 ACAS Bulletin, No. 70, Spring 2005

Treason versus patriotism is the certain ethnic group in the North as a government intellectuals’ favorite field of “sexual spree” that overwhelmed those writing. In effect Darfur and adjacent women and attracted them to the super regions are now set for some genocidal sexuality of the men of Western Sudan, acts. Granted, the UN could not prove who made up the bulk of that army. He genocide in Darfur; however, there is no ridiculed the impotence of men in the lack of evidence that there is a high North and praised his kinfolks for possibility that it may occur. Each ethnic satisfying the women through their group has turned genocidal against the insatiable sexual desires and abilities. He other. Intellectuals on all sides hardly ignored the fact that the women who were address the hard glaring, fact that military violated by that army, committed group presence of any type amongst the suicides by holding hands and jumping into disempowered, disenfranchised and the Nile to drown, so as to spare their men dispossessed citizens does nothing but the indignity and hurt of living with raped victimize those civilians. Edward Said women. The most heinous war crime was eloquently makes the point that, “As any turned into a sexual competition between displaced and dispossessed person can the men. This is being said and published testify, there is no such thing as a genuine, at a time when the same crimes are being uncomplicated return to one's home; nor is committed in another civil war, in Darfur, restitution (other than simple, naked Western Sudan. Could there be a stronger revenge, which sometimes gives an illusory incentive for an ethnic sexual pay back? type of satisfaction) ever commensurate Not surprisingly the women-members of with the loss of one's home, society, or that board who dared to express their environment.”4 If people could come to opinions against male aggression and terms with the volume of devastation to sexual assault were quickly treated to some civilian lives, then forgiveness of excesses sexual suggestions that were thought to put in the name of a higher cause or good them in their place. would be totally unacceptable; impunity of the government for disregarding its The war in Iraq is another example of how responsibility towards citizens would not intellectuals cannot resist a chance to do pass for defending them or for some abstract thinking. Case in point is the peacekeeping. elections that took place in that country. It is disheartening to listen to analysts The intellectualization of killing and rape articulating how the act of casting a ballot takes various shapes and forms. The has liberated the Iraqis; never mind that it frightful practice of playing with words and was under occupation, martial law, and on of demonizing the other is chilling. The a ballot that shows no names. Another gender wars are the most disgusting to me. example is how some terminology is taken They are a vivid reminder of how for granted and used as basis for theory intellectuals turn the malignant into benign. development. Often one hears intellectuals A recent article published on take the division along ethnic and religious Sudaneseonline.com by a writer from lines without questioning it. Western Sudan awakened the humiliations Geographically Iraq became the Sunni of the 19th century civil wars in the worst triangle, the Shi'a concentrations, and way possible. He described the mass rapes Kurdish areas that dream of independence. by the Mahadiyya army of women of a The Kurds have been removed as a Sunni

25 ACAS Bulletin, No. 70, Spring 2005 segment of the population and ethnicity has was not heard in all boroughs at the same been confused with religion. New time. Would it have been a good argument expressions are not in short supply; the to tell everyone to remember that it was latest is the "debaathification" of Iraq. only two buildings and a couple of Groups, zones and expressions are created thousand people and thank goodness we and dismantled to fit the "experts’" still had about 300 million alive and a parameters and imagination. government in place? We may not feel the absurdity of such an argument till we The simple question by the “masses” seems equate the devastation and the inequity of to be, “but what is the difference between destabilization in both places. It is not far Iraq before elections and Iraq after the fetched to conclude that flag waiving elections?” The simple answer is that the nationalists chanting death to the enemy on war has turned bloodier after the elections. all sides emerge from the same devastation, Attempts to tell the Iraqis to forget about and there is no virtue in branding one ethnic and religious differences are futile group insurgents and another patriots. after three years of basing the Iraqi lives on those divisions. News anchors, who are There is, more often, a negative tendency among the media networks intellectuals, in the existing debate; the debaters are paid a solemn gesture to mark the day excellent at vilifying what they are against when the number of dead American rather than speak to what they are for. Not soldiers reached 1,500 and the injured only that but the debate involves anti- more than 11,000. The same anchors government arguments rather than antiwar continue to count the Iraqi dead by the arguments, to the extent that there is dozen as if they were things or individuals usually a celebration of killing of who “needed killing.” government soldiers and wailing over human rights when the killing is of the The destruction of infrastructure in big rebels. For me the most disconcerting of all Iraqi cities and heavily populated centers is is how intellectuals take for granted the rarely mentioned. Some intellectuals will legality of war and concentrate on the quickly thwart any attempt to mention the illegal acts of the warriors. devastation and displacement of thousands by saying that people who concentrate on 1 This title is taken from the title of a book edited by destruction were just doomsday advocates, Meredeth Turshen and Clotilde Twagiramariya titled, What Women Do in Wartime: Gender and and we would do better if we paid some Conflict in Africa. attention to the positive peaceful life that 2 was going on in some parts of that country. The Sudanese people grew accustomed to waking up in the morning to the tunes of military marches To explain why such a suggestion should that would be followed by a declaration of a insult anyone's intelligence, let us apply it military take over. It became a joke that whoever to the USA. Suppose that we embraced the wakes up the earliest can take over power. notion of being positive and applied it to 3 Khalid, Mansur. 1993, The Sudanese Elite and th the events of September 11 . On that Addiction to Failure, Cairo, Sijjil Alarab Printers. devastating day life was hardly disrupted in most parts of the country. Schools 4 Edward Said. The Treason of the Intellecuals. In remained open and people expressed their Masters of the universe? : NATO's Balkan crusade edited by Tariq Ali. London ; New York : Verso, shock and horror while meeting in peaceful 2000. places. Even in New York City the news

26 ACAS Bulletin, No. 70, Spring 2005

Manufacturing the Homeland Security Campus and Cadre

William G. Martin*

Education and Empire classrooms and community meetings. Teachers have always been called Indeed the area studies project, including to the service of empire. Among today’s African studies, was originally founded most prominent illustrations is Condoleeza upon Cold War premises and funding1-- Rice, previously Stanford’s Provost and, premises which came under attack in the more substantively, a product of Cold War 1970s as secret projects were revealed, Soviet studies--as are most of her older resisted, and unraveled. Despite this mentors who have recently returned to history, today’s new initiatives, from the populate the Pentagon and now the State creation of centers with million dollar Department. While the Cold War and grants to hundreds of fellowships requiring Sovietology are gone from the scene, a service in and reporting to security parallel project is now underway: the agencies, remain largely unobserved and launching of large-scale initiatives to uncontested. create a cadre and set of institutions that penetrate our campuses and link them to HR 3077 national security, military, and intelligence The one recent effort that has been agencies. The aim is nothing less, as extensively discussed is the attack on the Congressional hearings show, than to turn roughly $86 million of Title VI federal back opposition on our campuses to funding for the 120 foreign language, area imperial war, and turn campuses into studies, and international National institutions that will, over the next Resource Centers.2 Created in the late generation, produce scholars and 1950s, these programs encompass graduate scholarship dedicated to the so-called war student fellowships, language instruction on terror. These programs are part of a in more than 200 less commonly taught broader effort to normalize a constant state languages, public outreach, faculty of fear, based on the emotion of terror, research, and courses in area and while criminalizing anti-war and anti- international studies. Of the 120 there are imperial consciousness and action. As in only 17 Middle East centers, with around the past, universities, colleges and schools $4 million in total research and fellowship have been targeted precisely because they funding, and only 11 African centers with are charged with both socializing youth approximately $ 4 million in funding. and producing knowledge of peoples and After 9/11 these programs became, cultures beyond the borders of Anglo- as in the early 1990s, the target of America. broadsides launched by neo-conservatives For the elders among us this should in and out of Congress. The attack was led be familiar ground: in the 1950s and by Stanley Kurtz of the National Review 1960s scores of new programs and Online and a Research Fellow of the hundreds of student grants and fellowships Hoover Institution (like Condoleeza Rice were funded to study the Communist and who is simply “on leave” from Hoover). Third Worlds, while unknown numbers of Kurtz has been backed by a right-wing cast intelligence officers observed our including, among others, Martin Kramer, campuses and sat secretly in our former Director of the Moshe Dayan

27 ACAS Bulletin, No. 70, Spring 2005

Center for Middle Eastern and African voice vote of the Subcommittee and the Studies at Tel Aviv University and author House in October 2003.9 Among the bill’s of Ivory Towers on Sand: the Failure of features lifted directly from Kurtz’s Middle East Studies in America, and testimony was the establishment of an Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum and advisory board with broad investigative promoter of the notorious Campus Watch powers “to study, monitor, apprise, and website which urges students to send in evaluate” the activities of area and reports on “anti-American” teachers.3 language studies centers. The board was to Following Kurtz’s call hearings report not to the U.S. Department of were held in June 2003 before the House Education, the Title VI administering Committee on Education and the agency, but to the Congressional majority Workforce, where Kurtz hyper-ventilated and minority leaders, and the federal that these programs, particularly those contracts for the investigations could be pertaining to the Middle East, “tend to contracted outside of the federally- purvey extreme and one-sided criticism of mandated competitive bidding processes. American foreign policy,” infested as they The board is intended to make sure that are by the anti-American followers of these programs “reflect diverse Edward Said, the man who “equated perspectives and represent the full range of professors who support American foreign views” on international affairs, forecasting policy with the 19th century European the implementation of David Horowitz’s intellectuals who propped up racist related campaign in his colonial empires.”4 African studies FrontpageMagazine.com to “Expose the centers came in for special notice, given Leftist Campaign to Shape America’s their role in rejecting military and Young Minds” and force the hiring and intelligence funding for African studies, tenuring of right-wing scholars.10 including that from the National Security The membership of the proposed Education Program.5 board reveals the controlling agencies and The defense of Title VI programs its lack of institutional diversity: all its by scholars and professional associations members are appointed by and only varied widely. Most found common cause accountable to the government, including in attacking the bill by rallying behind the two from national security agencies.11 defense of academic freedom and And it is not only scholars and large autonomy.6 Some, such as Terry Hartle, academic programs at risk, for the bill calls Senior Vice President of the American for the study and observation of “foreign Council on Education, and Gilbert W. language heritage communities” Merkx, Vice Provost for International (presumably Middle Eastern and Islamic Affairs at Duke University, defended area communities) across the country. It further studies programs in Congressional requires all Title VI institutions to provide testimony by arguing their long and full access to federal government agency valuable contribution to the training of recruiters, including military and national security officers.7 Others were intelligence agencies. What the No Child straightforward in denouncing H.R. 3077 Left Behind Act provided for high as a right-wing attack in the service of schools—mandatory lists of students’ military and intelligence agencies.8 addresses and home telephone numbers to From these hearings came House military recruiters--is now to be visited bill HR 3077, passed unanimously by a upon all college campuses.

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centers such as Stanford’s Center for Centering Homeland Security on International Security and Cooperation Campus (which offers Organizational Learning and HR 3007 did not pass the Senate Homeland Security Fellowships), Syracuse last year. HR 3007 has however been University’s Institute for National Security resubmitted in early 2005 by House and Counterterrorism, Ohio State Republicans as part of H.R. 507, and will University’s International and Homeland surely remain the subject of debate given Security Program, John Jay’s Center on the interests involved. What the attention Terrorism, and homeland security to HR 3077 obscures, however, is a multi- programs at Johns Hopkins, MIT, and so faceted alternative which aims to bypass on. current area and international studies programs and create a new network that Department of Homeland Security extends across the natural sciences, social As the war has hardened into a sciences, and humanities.12 long-term, militarist rationale to re-flate As Kurtz has argued, the US US hegemony—a failed project to be government’s wars demand knowledge of sure—more comprehensive calculations, languages and areas tailored to new planning, and funding have emerged from military and intelligence needs. In the the heart of the US security, intelligence, immediate wake of 9/11 $20 million was and military agencies to shape these quickly added to Title VI funding alone. At initiatives into a solid war and intelligence the same time, the Department of Defense network. (DOD), awash with billions in budget, At the heart of this effort stands of added $50 million to the program of the course the new Department of Homeland Defense Language Institute, almost as Security (DHS), which employs 183,000 much as the entire Title VI program for people and disburses a $40 billion budget. 226 less commonly taught languages and Its controlling interests are well area studies in the Title VI centers in represented in its Advisory Council, which universities. At the time scholars and is chaired by Joseph Grano, the chairman universities scrambled after these new and CEO of UBS Paine Webber, and is opportunities, with the result that courses, populated with persons who have served in individual grant projects, and certificate senior posts with the FBI, the CIA, Dow programs on “terrorism” and “security” Chemical, Conoco, Eli Lilly, Congress, began to emerge in ad-hoc fashion all and Lockheed Martin. The single around the country. university officer, the President of Four years later almost all the Carnegie Mellon University, is offset it major research universities have jumped seems by the chair of the nation’s Ad on the wagon, announcing new certificates, Council. programs, and centers from East to West DHS at present handles a $70 Coast. These range from new certificate million dollar scholarship and research programs such as the Terrorism and budget, and its initiatives, in alliance with National Security Management Certificate those of military and intelligence agencies, offered by Kaplan Online University (a point towards a whole new network of division of the Washington Post) and campus-related programs. This follows the Denver University’s Homeland Security pattern of the late 1950s when Cold War Certificate Program, to new research programs were created at the nation’s

29 ACAS Bulletin, No. 70, Spring 2005 major universities, often with direct and Scholarships: Cloning Condi secret CIA funding as at Harvard and MIT More immediate and insidious, and among other campuses. Yet there is a funded directly by homeland and national difference this time round: in the 1950s security agencies, is the drive to create a and 1960s at least the Soviet Union new cadre of intelligence and military possessed tanks and nuclear bombs, which officers that rotate between our classrooms could be counterposed to allied US, and national intelligence agencies. The European and Asian governments lure is spectacular and widespread: DHS supporting liberal decolonization and in September 2003 announced the first 100 development around the world. Today winners of a new collegiate fellowship Bush’s wars proceed unilaterally without program in the applied social and any liberal pretenses, and against an enemy behavioral sciences; another 105 were inflated by spin doctors and without any announced late last year.14 Undergraduates weapons of mass destruction. receive a stipend of $9,000 in addition to New centers and programs all tuition and fees for nine months, and dedicated to this project are nevertheless $5,000 summer stipend to work at a DHS- now being built across the country with designated agency. Graduate fellowships federal funds, weaving together initiatives cover tuition and fees and a $27,600 per by campuses themselves. DHS itself has a year stipend (including a mandatory major program to foster the largest ones. summer internship). Needless to say this The University of Southern California has makes a mockery of the desperate student created the first “Homeland Security applications for $9-12,000 graduate Center of Excellence” with $12 million fellowships common across the country. grant that brought in multidisciplinary And DHS fellowships in the experts from UC Berkeley, NYU, and hundreds are not alone, for intelligence and University of Wisconsin-Madison. Texas military agencies have their own programs A&M and the University of Minnesota in play as well. Not to be left behind, the won $33 million to build two new Centers CIA received four million dollars via the of Excellence in agrosecurity. Smaller 2004 Intelligence Authorization Act to grants abound across the nation and flow create a pilot program to train agents in from other agencies as well, from the university classrooms. Named after National Institutes of Health to the Senator Pat Roberts, chair of the Senate National Science Foundation—although no Select Committee on Intelligence, the Pat accurate accounting exists to date. The Roberts Fellowship Program (PRISP) scale of networked private and public offers undergraduate or graduate students cooperation is indicated by the new $25,000 a year. Fellowship holders are National Academic Consortium for required to meet in closed sessions run by Homeland Security led by Ohio State their administering intelligence agency University, which links more than 200 and, upon graduation, accept 18 month’s universities and colleges.13 The employment for each year of fellowship Consortium is the brainchild of General support. Like all CIA employees, graduate Todd Stewart, retired Air Force major student interns have to pass medical and general and executive director of Ohio polygraph tests as well as background State’s own Program for International and investigations. Homeland Security. Scholarship holders as well as the campuses they are on remain a tightly held

30 ACAS Bulletin, No. 70, Spring 2005 secret. As a recent article by David Price or even the diversion of education funding reveals, the project has deep roots in the into secret intelligence projects. For construction of an academic-intelligence students and scholars alike these new marriage reaching back to Vietnam era.15 programs threaten to solidfy dangerous The DOD also partners with the institutional changes. Secret military and Association for the Advancement of intelligence agencies will increasingly American Science to offer Defense Policy dictate which languages, religions, and Fellowships, which places new doctoral- peoples—both beyond and within our level degree students directly into the borders—will be studied and by whom. Department of Defense. The fellowship New networked centers and programs, stipend is $62,000-81,000 per year; created by and tied to federal security needless to say “The fellowship is funding, will form an academic homeland contingent upon the recipient obtaining a security complex destined to implement security clearance.”16 the fear of “un-American others,” all in The inspiration for many of these pursuit of an increasingly profitable and programs—now across all the natural increasingly illusory “war on terror.” sciences, social sciences, and humanities— Meanwhile, hidden behind these facades, is clearly the narrower National Security marches the development of security and Education Program established in 1992, intelligence student trainees who report to which was designed to provide an security agencies and move back and forth, increased number of U.S. students with unknown and unobserved, from our language and area experience for the DOD, classrooms to security agencies. CIA, and other federal agencies. Under The forgotten exposes of the 1970s NSEP students study both in the US and demonstrate what these kinds of programs overseas, on fellowships awarded under produce: an academy not simply the direct administration of the DOD and comprised and at risk, but riddled with under an oversight board which includes secret military and intelligence projects, the director of Central Intelligence; slowly spreading all over the world in fellowship holders are required to seek service of misguided imperial ambitions. employment in “national security” Yet there are positive lessons from the past agencies. as well, for despite the best scholarship and All signs point to the proliferation harshest military and intelligence efforts, of these programs, extending into more France could not maintain its hold over scholarly fields and levels of education. In Indochina and Algeria, Britain over Kenya 2005 the DOD will unveil a new national and southern Africa, Portugal over Guinea- initiative in foreign languages, signed and Bissau, Angola, and Mozambique, and the supported by most other federal agencies US over Vietnam. Indeed, in all these and seeking to introduce more language cases US and European leaders and instruction in the K-12 system, colleges, governments fell due to resistance to and universities with a variety of support occupation and militarism, with no small programs in order to increase “homeland part played by the young and the old, by security.” teachers and students. And therein lies a lesson for scholars: which side are we on? Who is the Enemy? What these programs signal is thus *This essay was first presented at a workshop on not simply an attack on academic freedom “Stopping Military Research & Homeland Security Programs on Campus” at the Educators to Stop the

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War Conference, Hunter College High School, New 1-2, December 2003, http://iml.umkc. York, March 5, 2005. Comments and inspiration edu/aaup/facadv13.htm#HR%203077, accessed from attending students and teachers are gratefully March 4, 2005, and Vijay Prashad, “Confronting acknowledged. Evangelical Imperialists: Mr. Kurtz: The Horror, the 1. As I have argued elsewhere with Michael O. West Horror,” Counterpunch, November 13, 2003, in Out of One, Many Africas (Urbana IL: University http://www. of Illinois Press, 1999). counterpunch.org/prashad11132003.html, accessed 2 See for example the list compiled by the Social March 5, 2005, as well as the articles in the ACAS Science Research Council, “A Sampling of Opinion Bulletin, special issue on “Academic Freedom Under on Title VI, H.R. 3077 and Middle East Studies” Attack,”69, Winter 2004. http://www.ssrc.org/programs/mena/MES_Opinio 9. The longer history of NSEP and background to ns/index.page, accessed March 4, 2005. HR 3077 as it relates to African studies may be found 3. http://www.campus-watch.org/; see Kristine in David Wiley, “Scholars of Africa and Middle East McNeil, “The War on Academic Freedom,” The under Right-Wing Attack,” in the valuable special Nation, November 11, 2002, issue of the ACAS Bulletin on “Academic Freedom http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20021125 Under Attack,” 69, Winter 2004, 4-9. Wiley was been &c=1&s=mcneil, accessed March 15, 2005. especially targeted by Kurtz, as in Kurtz “Ivory 4. Kurtz’s testimony is online: Scam.” ACAS led opposition to NSEP (originally http://edworkforce.house.gov/hearings/108th/sed/t known as the Boren Bill); see ACAS’ 1997 “The itlevi61903/kurtz.htm, accessed March 4, 2005. Case Against DOD and CIA Involvement in Funding 5. See Kurtz “Ivory Scam” May 29, 2002, National the Study of Africa,” Review Online, http://acas.prairienet.org/pubs/nsep97.html, http://www.nationalreview.com/kurtz/kurtz052902. accessed March 12, 2005. asp, accessed March 4, 2005. 10. See Horwitz’s website 6. See the for example the Task Force on Middle East http://www.frontpagemag.com/Content/read.asp?I Anthropology, “Action Alert: HR 3077 Talking D=10. Points,” December 2003, 11. Three members are to be appointed by the http://ga.berkeley.edu/academics/hr3077.html, Secretary of Education, of whom two must come accessed March 4, 2005, or the AAUP’s own from government agencies with national security “Legislative Alert,” September 23, 2003, responsibilities; the House of representatives and http://www.aaup.org/govrel/hea/2003/9- the Senate would each appoint two more. 23alert.htm, accessed March 4, 2004. 12. For the rare, usually online, exceptions see for 7. As Hartle argued in Congressional testimony, “We example Steven Mikulan, “University of Fear,” LA believe that most of the career security foreign Weekly, April 2-04, 2004, language and area specialists in agencies such as the http://www.laweekly.com/ink/04/19/features- Central Intelligence and Defense Intelligence Agency mikulan.php, accessed March 4, 2005, and, especially were trained at institutions with Title VI-funded and just recently, Dave H. Price, “The CIA’s Campus centers” (online at Spies,” Counterpunch, March 12/13, 2005, http://edworkforce.house.gov/hearings/108th/sed/t http://www.counterpunch.org/price03122005.html, itlevi61903/hartle.htm). Merkx’s Congressional accessed March 15, 2005. testimony centered on how his international and area 13. “Current Member List,” centers at both Duke and New Mexico served http://homelandsecurity.osu.edu/NACHS/members military and intelligence agencies. As Merkx testified .html, accessed March 4, 2005. himself, he does “not claim to be typical of all 14. See U.S. Department of Homeland Security, foreign area specialists,” since he knows quite well of Science and Technology Directorate, Office of the vigorous opposition to working with military and Research and Development, University Programs, intelligence agencies. Merkx by contrast was a Undergraduate Scholarships and Graduate founding member of and chaired the Group of Fellowships, http://www.orau.gov/dhsed/, accessed Advisors of the National Security Education Program March 4, 2005. of the Department of Defense; his June 19, 2003 15. See Price, “The CIA’s Campus Spies.” Congressional testimony is online at 16. AAAS Defense Policy Fellowships, http://edworkforce.house.gov/hearings/108th/sed/t http://fellowships.aaas.org/defense/, accessed itlevi61903/merkz.htm, accessed March 4, 2005. March 14, 2005. 8. See for example David Brodsky, “HR 3077 - The Education for Empire Act,” The Faculty Advocate, 4,

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33 ACAS Bulletin, No. 70, Spring 2005

Resolution on the Study of Africa After 9/11

Association of Concerned Africa Scholars, 2004

Whereas we live in a period of increasing international human rights; therefore be it conflict and war affecting Americans, Africans and peoples world-wide, Resolved that we reaffirm our commitment to academic freedom, and call upon scholars as Whereas the defense of democratic freedoms well as college and university administrations requires the free flow of information, free to safeguard free speech; speech, and open debate, Resolved that we call for the repeal of all Whereas we are daily engaged in the recent government laws and actions that discussion and exchange of ideas and restrict civil liberties, free speech, and free scholarship in pursuit of these freedoms, association, including the USA Patriot Act and the Homeland Security Act; Whereas recent U.S. government laws and executive policies, most notably the USA Resolved that we reaffirm the African Studies Patriot Act and Homeland Security Act, have Association's long-standing policy of support operated to restrict basic civil liberties and for the open and transparent determination of freedom of expression, research priorities and awards, and against research determined by the priorities of Whereas more than 300 U.S. cities and military and intelligence agencies, counties and 3 states have passed resolutions opposing the USA Patriot Act, Resolved that we call for a visa policy free of racial and religious profiling, Whereas laws and policies such as the USA Patriot Act and the Homeland Security Act Resolved that we call for expedited hearings interfere with academic freedom and for all refugees, an end to indeterminate contribute to a climate of intolerance on our detention, and the implementation of basic campuses and in our communities, human rights for refugees,

Whereas there is increasing pressure to align Resolved that the Board of Directors of the the study of Africa, its peoples and languages African Studies Association implement the with the narrow priorities of military and above actions by acting without delay to: intelligence operations, (1) Actively pursue these issues with Whereas new security and visa policies based members of Congress, on religious and racial profiling are (2) Re-confirm past resolutions on the subverting the free exchange of knowledge independence of scholarly work from military with and visits by African scholars, and intelligence agencies, most notably the Whereas increasing numbers of Africans and NSEP program and more recent, related others, most notably legitimate refugees, are initiatives, being detained without representation or (3) Dedicate plenary session(s) to this subject hearings for long periods of time, and thus are at the our annual meetings, being denied basic constitutional and (4) Request the Editors of African Issues and

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the African Studies Review to prepare special Resolved that this resolution be sent without issues on these matters, and delay to the U.S. President, all members of (5) Form an Executive Commission with the U.S. Congress, the Secretary of State, the adequate resources to compile data and Secretary of Defense, the Attorney General, investigate trends on emerging threats to the Chairperson of the African Union, academic freedom, which will make regular representative African scholarly associations, reports to the Board and membership, and and the academic press.

AFRICAN STUDIES ASSOCIATION RUTGERS, THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW JERSEY Douglass Campus 132 George Street New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1400 Tel: 732-932-8173 /Fax: 732-932-3394 Web Site: www.africanstudies.org

February 11, 2005

Professor Meredeth Turshen Co-Chair, Association of Concerned Africa Scholars Department of Urban Studies Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy Rutgers University 33 Livingston Avenue New Brunswick NJ 08901

Professor Michael O. West Co-Chair, Association of Concerned Africa Scholars Department of Sociology PO Box 6000 Binghamton University Binghamton, NY 13902-6000

Dear Meredeth Turshen and Michael West:

I am writing in reference to the Resolution on the Study of Africa After 9/11 that the Association of Concerned Africa Scholars introduced at the African Studies Association Business Meeting during the 47th Annual Meeting in New Orleans. The resolution was discussed during the Board of Directors Fall General Board Meeting and the Board subsequently has exchanged emails and phone calls concerning the resolution.

The consensus of the Board is that, for several reasons, it would be inappropriate for the Board to pass such a resolution on behalf of the Association as a whole. First, the ASA is a scholarly and

34 ACAS Bulletin, No. 70, Spring 2005

professional society dedicated to the promotion of teaching and research on Africa, with the widest possible freedom of enquiry and dissemination of findings in both academe and to the wider public in the United States and abroad. Defending intellectual freedom and the professional interests of our members, both individual and institutional, is a fundamental role of the Association. The ASA must be prepared to act, and it has acted recently, to defend those interests in the political arena. During the past year, the ASA joined the Coalition for International Education to support its efforts and the efforts of the directors of the Title VI area studies centers in protesting against inserting a political review board into the re-authorization legislation for the Title VI programs. The ASA also joined the protests against the Treasury Department's attempt to impose a ban on the publication of material by authors from U.S. trade- embargoed countries like Cuba, Sudan, Iran and North Korea, a ban that threatened the integrity of scholarly publishing. The ASA's efforts included writing letters to members of the House and the Senate on these issues. The efforts of senators who similarly rejected the idea of a political review board resulted in the legislation dying in committee in face of election year politics. The Title VI legislation, however, will be up for renewal once again this year and the ASA plans to continue its involvement in this process. Meanwhile, the cumulative and vigorous protests against the publication ban led the Treasury to relax the restrictions late last year.

Second, the ACAS resolution touches on crucial and more general political issues that go well beyond the core academic and professional interests of the ASA to the fundamental rights of American citizens, the character of American democratic institutions, and the conduct of American foreign policy. While ACAS is constituted to address such issues, and it is appropriate and essential for it to do so, the ASA is not. Rather, the ASA mission as a non-profit organization is to bring together individuals and institutions, domestic and international, who are interested in African affairs, to provide information and support services to the Africanist community, and to defend the scholarly and professional interests of the members of the Association as a whole.

Third, the Board felt that considering any general resolution would require polling the ASA's individual members and ensuring that the outcome of any such poll would constitute a position that was fully warranted for a scholarly and professional association committed to the widest possible expression of opinion on the issues. The Association exists as a forum, and not as a platform for particular partisan positions. The ASA serves fundamentally to defend freedom and democracy in the academy and related professional arenas. ACAS, however, can address wider political issues and solicit support from Africanist scholars and others.

Yours sincerely,

Bruce J. Berman President

35 ACAS Bulletin, No. 70, Spring 2005

ASSOCIATION OF CONCERNED AFRICA SCHOLARS (ACAS) 10 March 2005

Bruce J. Berman, President African Studies Association Rutgers University 132 George Street New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1400

Dear President Berman,

We write in reference to your letter of February 11, 2005, written in response to our sponsorship of the “Resolution on the Study of Africa after 9/11.”

We find common ground in your statement that the Association must support the “widest possible freedom of enquiry and dissemination of findings in both academe and to the wider public in the United States and abroad,” and that “defending intellectual freedom and the professional interests of our members, both individual and institutional, is a fundamental role of the Association.” These were precisely the principles behind the resolution.

What we find surprising is that the ASA Board not only rejected the resolution tout court, but rejected every single item in a resolution passed by its own membership at the last annual Membership meeting on 11 November 2005 in New Orleans. None of these items involved partisan support for any political party or program as the Board seems to allege; all were directly related to pressing issues among the Africanist community. In our view, and we believe in the membership’s view, even racial profiling and visa policies for visiting scholars and the indeterminant detention of African refugees are of proper concern to scholars of Africa and their organizations.

Even more surprising was the rejection of the very specific suggestions made in the resolution that called for open discussion and debate over the impact of 9/11 on African studies, as in the call for formal ASA sponsorship of plenary sessions to discuss these matters, or in the call for the sponsorship of special issues of African Issues and African Studies Review. As press reports and meetings of African studies programs reveal, African and international studies are being re- forged by state, military, and intelligence priorities, and we need more light and discussion of these dangerous trends.

For these reasons we request that the ASA conduct what your letter suggested: a formal poll of the membership on the resolution, to be distributed by secret ballot in a regular mailing of Association materials. ACAS would be willing to pay the cost of printing the ballot.

Many thanks for your consideration of this matter.

Sincerely,

Meredeth Turshen Michael O. West Co-Chairs

36 ACAS Bulletin, No. 70, Spring 2005

ACAS Alert: Twice a Victim, first in Haiti, then in the US

19 November, 2004

Dear ACAS members and friends, how the office of Homeland We are forwarding this message Security is abusing its power. because ACAS has been following Please let the magazines, events in Haiti and because of our newspapers and blogs that you actions on the Homeland Security write for know about this story. Act (see our resolution on the ACAS website--and please sign Sunday, November 14, 2004 on!). Twice a victim: first in Haiti, Meredeth Turshen, Michael O. West, then in the U.S., by Jim Defede, ACAS Co-Chairs Miami Herald Columnist

The uncle of Edwidge Danticat, the The gun battle started around 5 Haitian writer, who raised her a.m. with Haitian police and U.N. while her parents were in the US, troops entering the slum died last week while in the neighborhood of Bel Air, a custody of Homeland Security. He stronghold for those still loyal was 81 years old, he had a valid to former President Jean-Bertrand visa to the US, he was a church Aristide. Using bulldozers, the pastor, and he was forced to flee police broke through barricades of Haiti after the UN used his church burned-out cars. to stage an 'operation,' killing several civilians in the process. But unlike previous raids into Bel Air that lasted less than an hour, Upon arriving in the US he this one, on Sunday, Oct. 24, requested asylum - as he had a would persist for the better part visa and a family willing to take of the day. him in, this should have been a straightforward process but Soon after the fighting started, instead he was taken into custody, Joseph Dantica, 81, took refuge refused his blood pressure with a handful of people inside medication and his family was not the Church of the Redeemer. allowed to visit him. He died 5 Dantica had founded the Baptist days later. church more than 25 years ago and was its senior pastor. He had There was no reason to detain him spent the better part of his life in this manner, no reason to deny in Bel Air, and although his him his medication, no reason to family had begged him to move refuse his family the right to somewhere safer, he always visit him. refused.

Edwidge Danticat is the author of “He was a very good man and Krik Krak!, Breath, Eyes, Memory, extremely loyal to the The Farming of Bones and The Dew neighborhood where he lived,” said Breaker. She taught writing at NYU his niece, acclaimed Haitian when I was there, and was a very author Edwidge Danticat. “Even supportive and giving teacher. I'm when things got very rough and passing on the following news difficult in Bel Air, he stayed. report, in the hope that you can He stayed through all the help me spread the word about this different regimes, serving the terrible tragedy, and, as a people of his neighborhood. He community of writers, find ways to was, in his own quiet way, trying respond and make people aware of to make a difference.”

37 ACAS Bulletin, No. 70, Spring 2005

By 9:30 a.m., police and U.N. neighbor's house. “When the gangs troops using armored cars with couldn't find him,” Maxo said, mounted machine guns, approached “they went into the church and Dantica's church. The police took the altar out into the street wanted to go inside. Dantica let and burned it.” them in. On Thursday, Oct. 28, friends They then took up combat positions smuggled Dantica out of Bel Air on the upper floors of the church, and the next day, Dantica and Maxo as well as an adjoining school the boarded a plane for Miami. church operates. The new vantage point allowed police to ambush a Although he provided immigration group of gang members in an alley officials in Miami a passport with below. a valid visa, he told the immigration official that he “A lot of them must have died,” wanted to seek asylum in the said Dantica's son, Maxo. “The United States. shooting went on for a long time.” “The official told him, ‘Well, if A government spokesman said one that's the case, then you have to police officer died in the day's go into the system,'” Maxo fighting and at least two recalled. “I begged them, ‘Please, ''bandits'' were killed. An do not hold my father, because he unknown number of civilians were will not survive.'” wounded. Homeland Security officials sent By early afternoon, the police Dantica to the Krome detention began to withdraw, calling the center along with Maxo. operation a success. A government spokesman told The Associated “I couldn't imagine why they would Press that Haitian police would put someone his age in prison,” establish a permanent presence in said Edwidge, who rushed to the the area to protect residents. airport hoping to retrieve Dantica. “Especially since we were Maxo didn't believe them. No here ready to be responsible for sooner had the police left than he him.” heard there was a group of gunmen looking for him and his father. “I According to Maxo, when Dantica told my father we must go,” he arrived at Krome, his high-blood- said. “And my father said no. He pressure medication was taken away would stay and talk to them. He from him. Maxo and his father were knew many of them since they were placed in separate housing units. little boys.” Edwidge hired immigration attorney The next day, gang leaders came John Pratt, who tried Monday to knocking on Dantica's door. They convince immigration officers to were angry, accusing him of release Dantica on humanitarian cooperating with the police and grounds. He did arrange for a setting up the roof-top ambush. “credible fear interview” Tuesday According to Maxo, the gang morning. members claimed 15 people died in the alley and Dantica was going to Sitting in the waiting room before have to pay for their funerals. Tuesday's hearing, Dantica, according to Pratt, said: “They When the gang members left, didn't give me my medicine.” Dantica knew he could no longer stay. For three days he hid in a

38 ACAS Bulletin, No. 70, Spring 2005

Before Pratt could find out more, custody, which an autopsy by the they were called before the Miami-Dade County medical hearing officer. Five minutes into examiner's office revealed as a the hearing, Dantica leaned preexisting and fatal condition.” forward and threw up. “All of a sudden he started vomiting,” Pratt “It is unfortunate that Mr. said. “He had some kind of an Dantica died during the benefits attack. He fell back against the application process, and we wall. He looked like he had passed understand his family's grief, but out.” there is no connection between the preexisting terminal medical A medic from the detention center condition he had and the process was summoned but suggested Dantica through which he entered the was faking his illness. “He's not country.” cooperating,” the medic said, according to Pratt. After a few Homeland Security would not minutes, the medic agreed to take explain why Dantica was taken into Dantica to the detention center custody if he had a valid visa, clinic. nor would the agency address claims that he had been deprived “The medic was very insensitive,” of his medication. Pratt said. “His whole attitude was wrong.” Maxo said he knew nothing of his father's illness. “All I know is Tuesday afternoon, Dantica was that he wasn't sick when we left taken to Jackson Memorial Haiti,” Maxo said. Hospital. Pratt was told Dantica would be held overnight for Even in death Dantica is unable to observation. return home.

“I asked the officials at Krome, Amid the escalating violence in could a family member go and visit Haiti, Maxo is afraid to take his him in the hospital, and they said father there for a funeral. no, for security reasons,” Pratt Instead, Maxo plans to bury him on said. “I kept trying to tell them Saturday in New York, where they that having family members around have relatives. him would be reassuring for him, especially if his condition was The final weeks of Dantica's life serious. They kept saying no.” is the story of Haiti today, where good people find themselves On Wednesday, Pratt was told that vulnerable and alone and easily Dantica would remain at the forgotten. hospital for at least another day. Officials again refused to let the “He was one of those people caught family visit Dantica. in the crossfire,” Edwidge said of her uncle. “And that's true for At 11 p.m. Wednesday, Pratt was the majority of people in Haiti; notified that Dantica had died. “I they are now in the crossfire and don't know what he died of. But they have nowhere to go.” once they realized it was serious ------they should have let this man see ------his family.” ----

The Department of Homeland C 2004 Herald.com and wire service Security issued a statement saying sources. All Rights Reserved. Dantica “died of pancreatitis while in Homeland Security http://www.miami.com

39 ACAS Bulletin, No. 70, Spring 2005

ACAS Alert: Ngugi Wa Thiong’o and Njeeri Wa Ngugi, 19 January 2005

Dear ACAS Members, surrounding violence against women Some of you may have attended the in Kenya (and, in many ways, the ACAS session on the attacks on world at large). academic freedom at which Kassahun Checole spoke so movingly about We have included a letter, both in the attacks on Ngugi and Njeeri Wa the body of this mail and as an Thiongo Wa Ngugi. We have received attachment, that exemplifies the a request to support them and are spirit of the pressure that we forwarding it to you for action. believe it is necessary to put on the Kenyan government to insure Best wishes for 2005, that these attacks are treated in Meredeth Turshen and Michael O. the most appropriate and West deliberate matter. We fear that ACAS Co-Chairs without this pressure, the political forces behind this January 14, 2005 attack may go unpunished, and the Dear Friends, issue of rape glossed over. A letter of any length, either in As you may already know, world your own words or borrowing from renowned Kenyan playwright, the language of the one included novelist and social critic Ngugi here, would make an immense Wa Thiong'o and his wife Njeeri Wa difference. Please send your Ngugi were brutally attacked on letters to as many of the appended August 11, 2003 in an apartment in addresses as you wish and also Nairobi, Kenya. Ngugi was severely forward our call to others who beaten and burned with cigarettes, might want to join our efforts. and his wife, Njeeri, was raped in If the Kenyan government in the ordeal. compelled to see the overall importance of this trial, we will Subsequently, several people were win an overwhelming victory in our arrested in conjunction with the struggle against violence against attack, and it is becoming women and for the rights of public increasingly clear that this was a intellectuals. Thank you for your politically motivated assault on a time. leading international intellectual and his wife. It was the first Sincerely, time that Ngugi had returned to Gabriele Schwab his home country after 22 years of On behalf of The Ngugi and Njeeri political exile. Solidarity Committee

We are writing to ask you to take Board Members: a few minutes of your time to send Gabriele Schwab, Chair a letter to the addresses appended Chancellor's Professor of English below to encourage the Kenyan and Comparative Literature courts and government to take this University of California-Irvine attack seriously, and to prosecute not only the direct attackers, but E. Ann Kaplan, Professor of all those involved in the attack. English and Comparative Literature This is not only an issue of and Director of the Humanities paramount importance for political Center at SUNY Stony-Brook liberties and the rights of intellectuals. It is also a Simon J. Ortiz, Poet and Writer, critical test case for overcoming Professor of Native American a culture of silence and impunity

40 ACAS Bulletin, No. 70, Spring 2005

Studies and Creative Writing, Tel: +254 20 227411 University of Toronto email: pps@statehousekenya. co.ke Manuel Schwab, Writer 6. Hon. Ayang Nyong'o, Minister Gayatri Spivak, Avalon Foundation Ministry of Planning & Professor in the Humanities National Development Director, Center for Comparative Treasury Building Literature and Society, Columbia P.O. Box 30007-00100, Nairobi Tel: +254 20 252299 Please forward additional copies email: [email protected] of the letters you send to [email protected] for our 7. Phillip Murgor records. Director of Public Prosecution State Law Office Please write to one or more of the P O Box 40112-00100, Nairobi following contacts: Tel: 254 20 227411 no official email address at 1. Kiraitu Murungi DPP but personal email through Ministry of Justice and His law firm, murgor@nbi. Constitutional Affairs ispkenya.com State Law Office, Harambee Ave. P.O. Box 40112, Nairobi Please forward a copy of all Tel: +254 20 227461Minister: letters you send to the following Minister's email: minister- addresses as well: [email protected] 1. Federation of Women Lawyers of Dorothy Angote Kenya Permanent Secretary, PS Justice Amboseli Road off Gitanga Rd. & Constitutional Affairs, P.O. Box 46324 Nairobi, Kenya Please use fax: 254 20 316317; email: [email protected] email: psjustice@Africa online.co.ke Jane Onyango, Executive Director: 2. Attorney General email: [email protected] State Law Office P O Box 40112-00100, Nairobi Hellen Kwamboka Tel: 254 20 227411 email: [email protected] no email address. Please use fax: 254 20 315105 2. The Ngugi and Njeeri Solidarity Committee 3. First Lady Lucy Kibaki email: ngugisolidarity@gmail State House .com P.O. Box 40530-00100, Nairobi Tel: +254 20 227436 3. Kenya Human Rights Commission email:[email protected] P.O. Box 41079-00100 Nairobi, Kenya 4. John Githongo email: [email protected] State House P.O. Box 40530-00100, Nairobi -Thank You Tel: +254 20 227436 The Ngugi and Njeeri Solidarity email:contact@statehousekenya. Committee. co.ke

5. Office of President January 14, 2005 State House To Whom It May Concern: P.O. Box 30510-00200, Nairobi

41 ACAS Bulletin, No. 70, Spring 2005

We are writing to appeal to the It is equally critical to Kenyan government to react demonstrate a willingness on the appropriately and with all government's part to respond to deliberate speed to the brutal the full gravity of the rape of attack on Ngugi Wa Thiong'o and Njeeri Wa Ngugi. The culture of Njeeri Wa Ngugi and the rape of silence around violence against Njeeri. We write to stress the women in Kenya fosters repeated urgency of an appropriate response and widespread abuses against the that will hold accountable not human rights of women. A full only the direct attackers, but all length Amnesty International those responsible for what we see report on violence against women as a politically motivated attack in Kenya (March 8, 2002) cites by enemies of what Professor Ngugi several national and international Wa Thiong'o stands for in Kenya, instruments that hold governments Africa and the world. responsible for failures to prosecute with "due diligence" any The world community continues to violence against women. We want to watch this case closely, first and express our unconditional foremost because we are shocked by solidarity with Njeeri Wa Ngugi in the brutality of this attack and her ongoing struggle to stand rape, but also because of the publicly against the epidemic of grave implications impunity for violence against women. We believe the perpetrators would have. that the government of Kenya has International organizations, both the opportunity and the including women's groups, civil responsibility to meet the liberties organizations, and challenge of supporting her. This organizations of writers and challenge consists in bringing all intellectuals are but a few of the those responsible for this attack members of the international on Njeeri Wa Ngugi and Ngugi Wa community deeply invested in how Thiong'o to justice. But steps the present administration will must also be taken to end the respond to this attack. conditions that foster this culture of silence. Systems must It is critical for the Kenyan be put in place, as in other government to rebuff this grave countries, for women to attack against an internationally anonymously identify their celebrated public intellectual attackers. Every form of sexual whose commitment to his country violence against women must be and the empowerment of ordinary treated as a crime of the gravest people has been unwavering. If consequence. The victims cannot be this attack on the occasion of his left to fight alone. To that end, first return to his home country, we hope that this administration after 22 years in forced exile, is will not set the precedent of not condemned, and all those allowing Njeeri Wa Ngugi to stand responsible pursued for their alone. crimes, a chilling blow to intellectual liberty will have At a time like this, when we are been dealt. Such blows have impact seeing political violence erode so the world over. This one, in many countries in Europe, North particular, would send a sad America, Africa, and indeed on message regarding Kenya's capacity every continent, it is doubly to overcome its political past. important for people in positions This government must respond of power to stand against the firmly to demonstrate a commitment impunity of perpetrators. We hope to the political future of the that with your actions, you will country. set an example for Kenya and the world.

42 ACAS Bulletin, No. 70, Spring 2005

ACAS Alert: Defend Academic Freedom in Botswana, 22 February 2005

Dear ACAS Members and friends, Ken has prepared an urgent submission to the High Court. The From time to time we send out judge has ordered Immigration not alerts on issues of importance to to harass Ken and his daughter in our community. Here is one on the interim, and that the academic freedom, an issue we have government must appear on 7 March been following for many years; to consider all this. suggested action appears at the end. PLEASE publicise this as much as possible in the interests of free Meredeth Turshen and Michael O. speech and academic integrity. This West, is an attack on scholarship and ACAS Co Chairs liberty – and it is being done by the so-called "shining beacon of Professor Kenneth Good (of the African democracy". Department of Political and ANY publicity you can get for this Administrative Studies, University would be very helpful. A letter, e- of Botswana) and I have co-authored mail, etc. to the papers, etc. an academic paper "Presidential Succession in Botswana - No Model These two addresses might be good for Africa". It was due to be to start at: presented to a departmental seminar Office of the President this week. P/Bag 001 Gaborone [email protected] The paper is a critique of what we Tel+267 3950800 both see as growing autocracy in Fax+267 3950858 the so-called "model of Africa" - which many of you may be familiar Mr. R.O. Sekgororoane with through the idyllic portrayal (Chief Immigration Officer) in the Mma Ramotswa books by P. O. Box 942 Alexander McCall Smith. Gaborone [email protected] On Friday evening (18th) around 5 Tel+267 361-1301 three men arrived at Ken's house, Fax+267 314-286 did not identify themselves, were carrying handcuffs, and told Ken Many thanks for your time. that he had a message from the President - Ken was now a Best, Prohibited Immigrant and was given Ian 48 hours to leave the country. Someone had presumably leaked the Dr Ian Taylor paper before it could be presented. School of International Relations University of St. Andrews If you don't know Ken, he is 72 and St. Andrews has a young daughter who is still Fife at school. They live alone Scotland KY16 9AL together. United Kingdom

The only other time when has been Tel+44 (0)1334 472926 deported was by Ian Smith in Fax+44 (0)1334 462937 Rhodesia. Smith gave him longer to [email protected] leave than government of Botswana did.

43 ACAS Bulletin, No. 70, Spring 2005

ACAS Alert: The Story of Aster Yohannes and the Struggle for Democracy in Eritrea , November 2004

Nunu Kidane Constitution and refused to open up Berkeley, CA democratic space for its citizens. Friends of Aster (FOA) is made up of Aster’s We will not forget………we will keep American and Eritrean friends who believe fighting for those who cannot be heard. in the fundamentals of human rights of all people. We came together to inform the In 2000 a young Eritrean woman named public of the human rights abuses in Eritrea. Aster Yohannes arrived in Phoenix, AZ with Through grassroots advocacy, working with a dream of completing her college education human rights organizations and supportive congressional members we campaign for Aster’s safety and release. so she could return home to her husband and For more information, visit the Friends of four young children. She was the recipient Aster web site. of a UN-funded scholarship for college bound individuals in her homeland Eritrea. WHAT WE’RE ASKING OF YOU: In September of 2001, Aster's husband, the former Minister Petros Solomon was • Contact your congressional arrested, along with 10 other high-ranking representative. Ask them to sign the members of the government for demanding “dear colleague” letter supporting democratic reform. When the Government this campaign. We have already of Eritrea refused to allow Aster to bring her gained the signatures of 20 members children to the US, she felt she had to return of The House of Representatives and to Eritrea. hope to get many more. For more information, contact FOA through On December 11, 2003, as her children our web address. waited in the Asmara airport to greet their • Join the Friends of Aster campaign. mother whom they had not seen in almost You can contact us through our web four years, Eritrean security took Aster away address, make a financial donation, as she stepped off the plane. She has not or purchase a special bracelet. All been seen since. When Aster disappeared contributions go directly towards she was recognized by Amnesty gaining the release of Aster and the International as a prisoner of conscience, other political prisoners in Eritrea. defined as someone who has been detained • Spread the word. It is through for the peaceful expression of his/her views. personal convictions that we individually inspire ourselves and Aster and her husband are not the only others to take action towards positive political prisoners in Eritrea. Through this change. Please lend us your voice effort, we also hope to publicize the and spread the word about Aster repressive and undemocratic government of Yohannes, her husband Petros Eritrea which has not ratified the Solomon, and the many political prisoners in Eritrea who cannot be heard.

44 ACAS Bulletin, No. 70, Spring 2005

45

ACAS Executive Committee*

Co-Chairs Political Action Committee

Meredeth Turhen Al Kagan School of Planning & Public Policy Africana Unit, Room 328 Rutgers University University of Illinois Library New Brunswick, NJ 08903 USA 1408 West Gregory Drive E-mail: [email protected] Urbana, IL 61801 USA E-mail: [email protected]

Michael O. West Department of Sociology Binghamton University Binghamton, NY 13902 USA E-mail: [email protected]

Research Committee ACAS Bulletin Editor

Imani Countess Jesse Benjamin 1921 Featherwood Street Human Relations and Multicultural Education Silver Spring, MD 20904 USA St. Cloud State University E-mail: [email protected] St. Cloud, MN 56301-4498 Email: [email protected]

Carol Thompson Political Science Department Box 15036 Northern Arizona University Flagstaff, AZ 86011-5306 USA E-mail: [email protected]

Treasurer Webmaster

Kristin Peterson Noah Zerbe Michigan State University Humboldt State University East Lansing, MI 48824 Arcata, CA 95521 Email : [email protected] E-mail: [email protected]

Website: http://acas.prairienet.org

ACAS Board of Directors*

Adotei Akwei (Amnesty International) Sidney Lemelle (Pomona College) Ousseina Alidou (Rutgers University) William Martin (Binghamton University) Salih Booker (Africa Action) Bill Minter (AfricaFocus) Merle Bowen (University of Illinois) James Mittelman (American University) Joye Bowman (U. of Massachusetts, Amherst) Prexy Nesbitt Horace Campbell (Syracuse University) Joel Samoff (Stanford University) Carole Collins Betsy Schmidt (Loyola University) Jennifer Davis Ann Seidman (Clark University) Asma Abdel Halim (U. Toledo) Immanuel Wallerstein (Binghamton University) Frank Holmquist (Hampshire College) David Wiley (Michigan State University) Gerald Horne (University of Houston) Fanon Che Wilkins (U. of Illinois, Urbana- Willard R. Johnson (MIT) Champaign)

*Affiliation for identification purposes only

ASSOCIATION OF CONCERNED AFRICA SCHOLARS 2005 Calendar Year Membership Form

Special Offer: As part of our continuing effort to enhance member benefits, we have arranged for a special offer that includes reduced membership costs for ACAS (and thus issues of the ACAS Bulletin) and a discounted one-year subscription to the Review of African Political Economy (normally $60/year). This offer is valid only for individual memberships and not institutional or overseas memberships/gifts. Please be sure to include your e-mail address if possible for electronic action alerts.

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ACAS only renewal. ACAS and ROAPE renewal.(for individual members only) SPECIAL: ACAS ACAS & Only ROAPE

Annual Income to $10,000 ------$10 $35 $10,000 to $25,000 ------$25 $50 $25,000 to $50,000 ------$35 $60 Over $50,000 ------$45 $70 Sustainer ------$80 $105 Institutions (ROAPE offer does not apply) ------$60

We will forward subscriptions to the Review of African Political Economy. Please send this page and checks payable to “ACAS” in U.S. $ to:

Kristin Peterson Center for Afroamerican and African Studies University of Michigan 505 South State Street, 4700 Haven Hall #4663 Ann Arbor, MI 48103 USA E-mail: [email protected]