The Foreign Service Journal, December 2004

DEALINGWITH DARFUR ■ AFTER ABU GHRAIB ■ REMEMBERING ARCHER BLOOD

$3.50 / DECEMBER 2004 OREIGN ERVICE FJ O U R N A L S THE MAGAZINE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS PROFESSIONALS

HANDS ACROSS THE GLOBE: The Value of Medical Diplomacy

CONTENTS December 2004 ■ Volume 81, No. 12

F OCUSON M EDICAL D IPLOMACY F EATURES

20 / EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION AFTER ABU GHRAIB: THE U.S. HUMAN RIGHTS By Susan Maitra AGENDA / 48 The prisoner abuse scandal hurt America’s reputation. 22 / PUBLIC HEALTH AS A GLOBAL SECURITY ISSUE Still, the Bush administration has made some progress. The optimistic talk heard a generation ago predicting the By George Gedda imminent end of infectious diseases has proved naïve and dangerous. But the world community can respond DOES THE U.S. NEED A NATION-BUILDING AGENCY? / 56 effectively to the global health and security crisis. Post-conflict nation-building will be an important By Randy Cheek instrument of U.S. foreign policy in the 21st century. By Dennis A. Rondinelli and John D. Montgomery 30 / MEDICINE ASACURRENCY OF PEACE IN IRAQ American and Iraqi physicians have opened a dialogue to APPRECIATION: ARCHER KENT BLOOD / 61 help jump-start a return of Iraq to the modern medical By Douglas Kerr age and rebuild the nation’s health-care infrastructure. By Lousanne Lofgren S CHOOL S UPPLEMENT 37 / AN EXCURSION OF HOPE: STILL HAVEN’T FOUND WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR / 71 FIGHTING HIV/AIDS IN ETHIOPIA & DJIBOUTI Does an international high school experience make you USAID’s High-Risk Corridor Initiative program operates who you are? Here are some answers to that question. along a 850-kilometer stretch of highway in between By Mikkela Thompson Addis Ababa and Djibouti. It offers SCHOOLS AT A GLANCE / 84 valuable lessons for treating and Essential data on educational choices. preventing HIV/AIDS. By Jeffrey Ashley

41 / MEDICAL DIPLOMACY AT C OLUMNS D EPARTMENTS WORK IN 1950S NEPAL An American doctor tells how he PRESIDENT’S VIEWS / 5 LETTERS / 7 and his team brought modern medi- Do You Know a CYBERNOTES / 12 Shin-Kicker? cine to a remote and mysterious MARKETPLACE / 14 By John Limbert country from which outsiders had BOOKS / 64 PAGE 20 been barred for 100 years. SPEAKING OUT / 15 IN MEMORY / 66 By George Moore, M.D., M.P.H., The Lessons of Darfur INDEX TO and Berwyn Moore By Harry C. Blaney III ADVERTISERS / 102 REFLECTIONS / 104 AFSA NEWS / By William V. Roebuck CENTER INSERT

THE MAGAZINE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS PROFESSIONALS OREIGN ERVICE Foreign Service Journal (ISSN 0146-3543), 2101 E Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20037-2990 is published FJ O U R N A L S monthly with a combined July/August issue by the American Foreign Service Association, a private, non-profit Editor Editorial Board organization. Material appearing herein represents the opinions of the writers and does not necessarily represent STEVEN ALAN HONLEY Senior Editor HOLLIS SUMMERS, the views of the Journal, the Editorial Board or AFSA. Writer queries and submissions are invited, preferably by SUSAN B. MAITRA CHAIRMAN e-mail. Journal subscription: AFSA Members - $13 included in annual dues; others - $40. For foreign surface mail, Associate Editor add $18 per year; foreign airmail, $36 per year. Periodical postage paid at Washington, D.C., and at additional mail- SHAWN DORMAN KENT C. BROKENSHIRE ing offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to Foreign Service Journal, 2101 E Street N.W., Washington, D.C. Ad & Circulation Manager STEPHEN W. BUCK 20037-2990. Indexed by Public Affairs Information Service (PAIS). The Journal is not responsible for unsolicited ED MILTENBERGER PATI CHAPLIN manuscripts, photos or illustrations. Advertising inquiries are invited. The appearance of advertisements herein Business Manager CAROL A. GIACOMO MIKKELA V. THOMPSON does not imply the endorsement of the services or goods offered. FAX: (202) 338-8244 or (202) 338-6820. E- WILLIAM W. JORDAN Art Director MAIL: [email protected]. WEB: www.afsa.org. TELEPHONE: (202) 338-4045. © American Foreign Service CARYN SUKO SMITH LAURIE KASSMAN Association, 2004. Printed in the U.S.A. Send address changes to AFSA Membership, 2101 E Street N.W., KAY WEBB MAYFIELD Editorial Intern Washington, D.C. 20037-2990. Printed on 50 percent recycled paper, of which 10 percent is post-consumer waste. DAVID CODDON VIRGINIA F. SMITH Advertising Interns CHRISTOPHER L. TEAL VIVIAN ZHANG, TED WILKINSON LULWA BORDCOSH Cover and inside illustrations by Roy Scott

DECEMBER 2004/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 3 J. KIRBY SIMON FOREIGN SERVICE TRUST AN INVITATION TO PROPOSE PROJECTS FOR FUNDING BY THE J. KIRBY SIMON FOREIGN SERVICE TRUST IN 2005

he J. Kirby Simon Foreign Service Trust is a chari- • Facilities for the Homeless: Armenia – refugee center; table fund established in the memory of Kirby Democratic Republic of the Congo – group home for TSimon, a Foreign Service Officer who died in 1995 street children; Greece – refugee center. while serving in Taiwan. The Trust is committed to • Projects for Victims of Abuse: Albania – handicraft expanding the opportunities for community service and program for trafficking victims; Lithuania – support professional fulfillment of active Foreign Service Officers center for trafficking victims. and Specialists and their families. • Project for Animal Care: Armenia – animal shelter. The principal activity of the Trust is to support projects that are initiated and carried out, not in an official capacity The Trust now invites the submission of proposals for and not on official time, by Foreign Service personnel or support in 2005. It is anticipated that most of the new members of their families, wherever located. The Trust, grants will fall within the same funding range as the 2004 however, will also consider proposals from other U.S. awards, and that projects assisted by the Trust will reflect Government employees or members of their families, a variety of interests and approaches, some of which are regardless of nationality, who are located at American illustrated by the 2004 grants. diplomatic posts abroad. Grants provided by the Trust can be used to support In 2004 the Trust made its eighth round of grant several categories of project expenses; the third awards, 35 in all, ranging from $500 to $4500, for a total of paragraph of this announcement provides examples. $78,520. These grants support the involvement of Foreign Grant funds from the Trust, however, cannot be used to Service personnel in the projects briefly listed below pay salaries or other compensation to U.S. Government (further described in a Trust announcement entitled employees or their family members. Because of the Grants Awarded in 2004 and available at limited resources available to the Trust, it is not in a www.kirbysimontrust.org). The grants defray a wide position to support projects that have reasonable range of project expenses, including books, food, toys, prospects of obtaining full funding from other sources. furniture, computers, sanitary facilities, sports and kitchen Nor does the Trust support projects that require more equipment, medicines, medical instruments and testing, resources than the Trust and other funders can provide. TV/DVD monitor, fitness equipment, job training The Trustees wish to emphasize that the Trust will machinery and staff costs, excursion costs, supplies for provide support for a project operated by a charitable or building renovation and for a security wall. educational organization only where the Foreign Service- • Educational Projects: Bangladesh – school for street related applicant(s) play an active part in initiating and children; Belarus – school sports facilities; Caracas – carrying out the project, apart from fundraising. public school for blind children; Ghana – small rural A proposal should include a description of the project, school; Guatemala – before-and-after-school library; what it is intended to achieve, and the role to be played by Kosovo – multi-ethnic school; Kosovo – school for the applicant(s); a preliminary plan for disseminating the minority and displaced children; Mauritius – computer results of the project; a budget; other available funding, if training center for poor youths; Mongolia – school for any; and a brief biography of the applicant(s). Proposals street children; Peru – village children’s library; South should be no longer than five double-spaced pages Africa – youth employment training school; Zambia – (exclusive of budget and biographical material). school for orphans. Applicants should follow the application format that is • Other Projects for Children: Honduras – home for available at www.kirbysimontrust.org or that can be street children; Lithuania – cultural/recreational obtained by communicating with the Trust (see below). excursion for residents of a children’s home; Mexico – Proposals for projects to be funded during calendar program to obtain birth certificates for poor rural year 2005 must be received by the Trust no later than children; Uruguay – child care center near a squatter’s March 1, 2005. village; Zimbabwe – income-generating program for AIDS orphans; and projects at orphanages in Colombia, Proposals and inquiries can be sent El Salvador, Kyrgyzstan, South Africa and Turkey. by mail, fax or e-mail to: • Health-related Projects: Bolivia – program to obtain J. Kirby Simon Foreign Service Trust birth certificates for recovering substance abusers; 82 Edgehill Road, New Haven, CT 06511 Bosnia-Herzegovina – disease prevention for women; FAX: 203-432-0063 Guatemala – sexually-transmitted disease treatment for [email protected] women; Madagascar – nutrition program for undernourished nursing mothers; Morocco – neonatal Further information about the Trust can be found center; Zimbabwe – AIDS palliative care unit. on the Web at www.kirbysimontrust.org PRESIDENT’S VIEWS Do You Know a Shin-Kicker?

BY JOHN LIMBERT

Last June, shortly • The Averell Harriman Award for after returning from Since 1968 AFSA a junior officer (FS-4 to FS-6); my second TDY in • The William Rivkin Award for a Iraq, I presided over has recognized mid-level officer (FS-1 to FS-3); a very moving AFSA colleagues who • The Christian A. Herter Award Awards Day ceremo- show the integrity, for a senior officer (FE/OC – FE/CA). ny where we hon- Recognizing dissenters is never ored four colleagues initiative and easy. Doing so may mean swallowing for their constructive dissent. It was a intellectual courage our pride and admitting we were pleasure to present awards to Betsy to take a stand for wrong — or could be wrong — about Orlando (the Harris Award for special- an issue. It may mean embracing an ists), Steven Weston (the Harriman what is right. unpopular and contrary view on poli- Award for junior officers), Keith cy or operations, or it may mean iden- Mines (the Rivkin Award for mid-level tifying ourselves with an abrasive, dif- officers), and Ron Schlicher (the in 1975; Iran in 1979; Rwanda in ficult personality. None of the above Herter Award for senior officers). 1994; and Iraq and Afghanistan in will come easily in a Foreign Service Each of these colleagues, in his or her 2004. None of these places was that values collegiality and consensus. own way, represented what is best in orderly, and none of them conformed Dissent is not only difficult; it can our Service: the readiness to stand up to any rulebook so far written. be ugly. In our close-knit Foreign for what one believes is right, even if it Since 1968 AFSA has recognized Service community, which rewards involves career and personal costs. colleagues who show the integrity, ini- discipline and loyalty, dissent can pit What our dissenters do is not just a tiative and intellectual courage to take colleagues against each other. It can nice thing. It is vital for the health of a stand for what is right. We are damage friendships and sometimes the Foreign Service. We need them, proud to present awards to those even family relationships. It can hurt even the obnoxious ones. They are Foreign Service personnel who say careers and reputations. our gadflies, our shin-kickers, who “no,” or ask “why?” and “why not?” But the very difficulty of the force us to look again at our beloved AFSA is proud to present awards to process makes it all the more impor- assumptions, to ask the awful question those who, like Betsy Orlando, Craig tant. So I urge all of you: for the sake “why?” and to remind us that all Johnstone, Ed Peck, Sam Hart, David of our Service, go to www.afsa.org/ human wisdom does not reside in the Long, Keith Mines and Tom Boyatt, awards, and take an hour to write a Foreign Affairs Manual, in guidance have challenged conventional wisdom nomination for a colleague who has from Washington, or even in the and taken a risky or unpopular stand. shown the courage to stand up for Foreign Service Act. They remind us For the sake of our Service and our what he or she believes is right. Do that the realities of our violent and profession, we must honor our dis- not wait for that colleague’s boss to unpredictable world rarely conform senters. I urge all of you to recognize write a nomination; he or she proba- to the bureaucratic guidelines and colleagues who have had the courage bly won’t. And keep in mind that the compromises of competing bureaus to speak out by nominating them for person who deserves your nomination and departments. Think of Vietnam one of our AFSA awards for construc- may well be working down the hall or tive dissent: in another section of a mission. John Limbert is the president of the • The Tex Harris Award for a Our profession will be better for American Foreign Service Association. Foreign Service specialist; your efforts.

DECEMBER 2004/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 5

LETTERS

Remembering Lyall Breckon up to that point — the disputed part of both groups — those who studied and It was with great sadness that I the line should simply be described left, and those who stayed — have read in the October Foreign Service “and thence to the sea.” This artful added considerably to our fundamen- Journal of the death this past June of compromise by a master diplomat tal security. Lyall Breckon. Without a doubt, he permitted each country its own inter- Now, regrettably, the message was one of the smartest and most tal- pretation. The mandate was signed many international students are get- ented FSOs I encountered in my and the new negotiations launched on ting is that the hassles of getting to career, and — more importantly — time. and remaining in the U.S. (application one of the finest people. I could tell other such stories, as fees, the visa process, arrival indigni- I worked for Lyall in the late 1980s I’m sure other former colleagues ties, and Kafkaesque monitoring) are when we both were on the U.S. con- could. But most of all, I will remem- just not worth it, and that there are ventional arms control delegation in ber Lyall for his personal warmth and attractive alternatives. Meanwhile, Vienna. He was a brilliant writer, thoughtfulness, his modesty and his Australia, Canada and the U.K. are all always able to find just the right tremendous integrity. making major efforts to attract stu- phrase to explain concisely for Wash- Janet Andres dents who previously would have ington readers the current status of FSO, retired come to the U.S., and they are suc- those complicated talks. He was also Longboat Key, Fla. ceeding. In our own case at Texas a gifted negotiator, working tirelessly Tech University, there has been a to achieve cooperation among the 23 International Visitors Enhance decline in most international cate- NATO and Warsaw Pact participating National Security gories, but an especially steep drop in nations. This was not an easy task in “The Brave New World of Visa Indian students (historically our the twilight of the Cold War, with Pact Processing” (September) really struck largest group) as they opt more and discipline breaking down. a chord. Having recently made the more for Australia. Other categories By the time the Conventional transition to academia from the have also declined, especially first- Forces in Europe Negotiations began Foreign Service, I now appreciate time students applying for visas. in March 1989, it had already taken even more the importance of having Higher education may be the United almost two years for participants just international students and research- States’ fourth- or fifth-largest export to agree on the mandate for those ers in the U.S. product (something very few Ameri- talks. At the end, with a festive CFE During my long overseas service I cans even realize), yet we are volun- launch by foreign ministers already consistently met two categories of tarily giving away market share to our scheduled, final agreement on the individuals who were highly favorable global competitors — something we mandate was hung up over a dis- toward our country: those who’d had forcefully oppose for other U.S. agreement between NATO members close contact with Peace Corps “products.” Greece and Turkey. Greece demand- Volunteers, and those who had stud- Of course, there is a need for vig- ed that a particular port in southern ied in the U.S. These two groups ilance in issuing visas and in moni- Turkey (which had been used for the have served as a natural, pro- toring international students — invasion of Cyprus) be within the American constituency in their own but from my experience on both CFE area of application; Turkey countries. Historically, we also sides of the visa window, I believe adamantly refused. attracted the very best scholars and the current system represents such Lyall broke the stalemate by researchers — many of whom ended overkill that it may amount to a proposing that — rather than continu- up staying here and contributing Maginot Line giving a false sense of ing to use specific town names to tremendously in ensuring that our security rather than a real defense describe the line marking the area of nation would remain the global leader against terrorism. (After all, how application in Turkey, as the text did in technology. I firmly believe that difficult would it be for a group of

DECEMBER 2004/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 7 L ETTERS

terrorists with false identities simply Good MOH Coverage many times abroad and at home in the to walk across the border some- I received the October Journal last four decades. where between Brownsville, Texas today and, after seeing several letters The “In Memory” notice of Jack’s and San Diego?) Meanwhile, we are reflecting on the MOH coverage in passing correctly referred to him as an attracting fewer and fewer of the your June issue, I realized that I had accomplished editor of international world’s “best and brightest” and, as a neglected to commend you for publications who also wrote several result, have smaller built-in pro-U.S. unique and careful coverage of a very volumes of poetry and a book about constituencies abroad as the influ- thorny issue. It’s nice to see the issue the Holocaust. I read many of Jack’s ence of other global competitors “out of the closet,” so to speak, works over the years, but one piece grows. How unfortunate. although I see that one previous stands out most clearly as a testimony Tibor Nagy Jr. letter-writer felt it did not go far to the man, his ideals, his code of FSO, retired enough (that may be a fair observation, honor, his humanity. Lubbock, Texas but I’m not in a position to comment). It was an article he wrote for I also think it was very timely of Commentary magazine in 1994. In More Memories of Hume you to get articles for the October the opening paragraph, he declared, Hume Horan and I were best per- issue on perceptions of the U.S. elec- “I have recently gotten into the habit sonal and professional friends for 40 tion from various non-American cor- of saying Kaddish, the Jewish memor- years. To the touching memorials in respondents, none of whose views ial prayer, for Gentiles. This may be the September and October issues, I surprised me in the least (although unusual, but I need no rationale to would like to add a vignette about one or two of my FS pals would prob- justify extending a traditional Jewish Hume’s parrot, Polynesia, who in her ably say the issue was slanted). family rite to non-Jews. The persons own way reflected Hume’s unusual tal- There is no question that the FSJ for whom I say Kaddish were all ents. has gradually — maybe not too grad- members of my extended family-in- Poly, an African grey parrot, was ually, thank God! —moved forward in laws, so-to-speak, on my wife’s side of the Horan family pet for 18 years, but recent years. Unfortunately, our whom I was fond.” Hume was Poly’s first love. She rode retired colleagues who are non-AFSA Jack confesses, however, “Still, I on his shoulder, cooed in his ear and members do not benefit from that am puzzled about this new-fangled constantly called his name. Like progress, and many resist believing practice of mine. For I still remem- Hume, Poly was extraordinary. Poly that AFSA membership would be ber all too vividly a time in my life was much more than a mimic: she worthwhile just to receive the Foreign when saying Kaddish was a daily tor- sang several lines of “The Star Service Journal each month. But ment, a reminder of my hapless con- Spangled Banner;” carried on long we’re working on it! fusion and disorientation as an orphan phone conversations; conversed in Gil Sheinbaum boy in a world ruled by crabby old French as well as English; and made FSO, retired men passing their final gray years in comments appropriate to events Vienna, Va. ritual repetition of prayers they did going on around her. Poly was well not understand. And here am I now, known to Foreign Service folks who Remembering Jack Sloan myself an aged, too often angry man served with Hume in Africa and the When Jacob (“Jack”) Sloan died on in a world with which I am not at ease, Middle East. June 26, 2004, at the age of 86, a seizing every opportunity to recite the Some years ago, when he could no remarkable man left us to our potent same Kaddish.” He asks, “Is it longer care for her, Hume gave Poly memories of him. because I secretly agree with the to us. Like the Horan family, we I met Jack for the first time in India Midrashist that ‘prayer is midway to enjoyed Poly’s cheerful presence for a in 1966. He was in the cultural affairs atonement?’” number of years. Two months after section in Embassy New Delhi (part In the four pages of the article, as Hume’s death of cancer, Poly, too, of his distinguished 21-year career at much poetry as they are prose, Jacob died of cancer. We picture her now the U.S. Information Agency), while I Sloan takes the reader through the perched on Hume’s shoulder in the was information officer in our Madras upbringing and adulthood which Great Beyond. consulate. His intelligence and wit spawned his love-hate relationship Robert P. Paganelli shone through from our very first with the Jewish prayer. “And now,” he FSO, retired meeting, and my wife and I had the writes, “I begin to wonder whether in Fredonia, N.Y. pleasure of Jack and Ann’s company looking for every opportunity to say

8 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL/DECEMBER 2004 L ETTERS

Kaddish I may not be defying the memory of the (admittedly self- inflicted) humiliation I assumed as a troubled child in an indifferent world of pathetic valetudinarians, that mori- bund world of rote and routine. Or perhaps it is that (as a stoical adult and not an angry child) I repeat the Kaddish time and again to confirm the hard truth: that ‘God is high above all words of solace.’” Jack concludes that, “Perhaps the first and simplest, the least rational and pretentious, is closest to the essence of my personality: I say Kaddish out of love of language, of the music of language, and of the language of faith.” Jack’s words, written 10 years ago, quoted a saying by Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav: “This entire world is a very narrow bridge. The thing is not to be afraid.” Jack summed up in his clos- ing sentence, “Saying Kaddish for those I loved will, I hope, help me to cross that narrow bridge without too much fear.” I treasured Jack’s friendship, and feel in my heart that his final crossing was not only calm but fearless as well. Eddie Deerfield FSO, retired Chairman Emeritus, Foreign Service Retirees Association of Florida Palm Harbor, Fla.

Bring Back the Senior Seminar Many thanks to the Journal for publishing “A Tribute to the Senior Seminar” by Bill Stedman in the July-August 2004 issue (Speaking Out). As someone who considers his year in the 11th Seminar (1968- 1969) to be one of the most rewarding of my Foreign Service career, I second the commendation. Let me underline one particular dimension that was especially important for someone like me who had spent

DECEMBER 2004/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 9 L ETTERS

nearly 20 years working overseas or Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Atlanta country I sought to represent. on foreign policy assignments: and Dallas introduced me to a coun- Every session of the Seminar gave namely, the systematic re-introduc- try I didn’t recognize at first. Night us additional opportunities to under- tion of Seminar participants to rides with the police in Chicago, Los stand not only the interrelation of American society. Angeles and New York gave me domestic and international relations When I entered the 11th Seminar, insights into racial and social ten- but also the impact of domestic inter- I was only superficially aware of the sions that had been subordinated in ests on the conduct of foreign policy. social, economic and political my consciousness to my duties as a My colleagues from all the other upheaval underway at home. I inter- Foreign Service officer. We met agencies of government made me preted State background papers and amid the riots at the Democratic aware of their differing insights in newspaper accounts in the context National Convention in Chicago, the assessing domestic and foreign policy of my experiences during the civil rights revolution fueled by the issues and led me to rethink many Depression, World War II, the post- assassination of Bobby Kennedy and departmental policies and positions war boom and the Cold War. How Martin Luther King, and the dissen- that I had previously accepted as not surprised I was with the United sion spawn by the Vietnam War. In susceptible to challenge. Around the States I encountered on Seminar vis- our posts overseas, these were issues Seminar table, military members its to the Northeast, the Midwest, that were somewhat academic: our raised questions with their superiors the new South, Texas and the Pacific immediate concerns related to for- about the strategy and tactics being Coast! Our meetings with political, eign policy issues. As a result, I truly employed in Vietnam. All of us business, labor, community and uni- had no perspective on the historic probed senior government officials, versity leaders in Boston, New York, crisis that was transforming the academics and community leaders

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10 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL/DECEMBER 2004 L ETTERS

about the purpose and direction of changing. To represent it appropri- domestic affairs, Cold War strategy ately and effectively in the interna- Correction and the role of government and the tional arena, we must understand A line was inadvertently private sector. our home turf as it is actually is, not The Senior Seminar was a mind- as we believe it to be. The cancella- dropped from the article stretching experience for me and I tion of the Seminar is therefore a “Two Democracies, Shared believe every senior government serious loss for the Foreign Service. official, whether in domestic or for- I am not aware of any similar pro- Challenges,” by Dini Djalal, eign affairs, needs to have such an gram that allows Senior Foreign in the October 2004 issue of interval in his or her career. I doubt Service officers the opportunity to that any other experience in govern- refresh themselves intellectually and the Foreign Service Journal. ment or academia provides a better become reacquainted with our The first line on p. 32 should opportunity. Our exposure to poli- country at a critical time in their cy-makers, authorities and special- career development. read: “A former student ists went far beyond the usual uni- I truly hope that the decision to activist, Witoelar’s concern is versity setting and was a learned lec- discontinue the Senior Seminar will ture. The Senior Seminar had no be reconsidered in the very near human rights advocacy: a restrictions on scope, content or future. sore point in U.S.-Indonesia questioning. Irving G. Tragen Ours is one of the most dynamic FSO, retired relations.” countries in the world, and it is ever- San Diego, Calif. ■

DECEMBER 2004/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 11 CYBERNOTES

RAND Surveys FS on cerns about ‘gray area’ challenges Health and Foreign Policy that face the global community.” e did not have anywhere The RAND Center for Domestic Among these “gray area” concerns Wnear enough people in and International Health (www.rand. are several global health crises, fore- org/health/healthsecurity) and the most among them the spread of infec- place with the right language Nuffield Trust (www.nuffieldtrust. tious diseases and the pervasive threat org/uk/index.html) are conducting a of bioterrorism. The RAND Center skills or the right sensitivities to survey among Foreign Service officers for Domestic and International Health respond [to negative images of to determine their views of the role runs a variety of projects to address that health issues play, or should play, these problems. Along with the afore- Americans shown on Arabic as explicit components of U.S. foreign mentioned survey and a series of stud- television]. policy. ies, the center’s programs include The survey, the results of which had strengthening California’s public — Edward P. Djerejian, asked by not been released as of press time, is health infrastructure, improving dis- Colin Powell to investigate rising part of a broader effort to connect the ease surveillance in the D.C. area, anti-Americanism in the Arab scientific and diplomatic communities preparing for the psychological effects world, www.nytimes.com, Oct. 12. by conveying to the latter a sense of of a terrorist attack, and developing a the importance and global nature of research agenda for the Global Health health issues. Policy Research Network, an affilia- As this issue of the Foreign Service tion of experts in international public says medical tourism could become a Journal underscores (see p. 20), health health. $2-billion-a-year business in India has become a central, albeit often The RAND Center has also partic- alone by 2012. overlooked, factor in U.S. foreign pol- ipated in several trilateral conferences With “Third World prices and First icy and security. This reflects a funda- with health experts from Canada and World care,” India’s hospitals are hard mental change in international rela- the United Kingdom. In April 2003, to resist. Nor is distance an obstacle. tions — in an age of increasing inter- representatives from each country met The Washington Post reported Oct. 21 dependence, the line between domes- in Washington, D.C., to discuss how to that last year alone, 150,000 foreigners tic and foreign policies is increasingly bring health and security into the “for- visited India for medical reasons. blurred. Health crises may originate eign policy mainstream.” Topics Among them was Howard Staab, who within one country’s borders, but their included: improving global health traveled 7,500 miles from his home in effects are distinctly global. governance, developing a common Durham, N.C., for a heart operation The Global Threat of New and research program to integrate health that would have cost $200,000 at Reemerging Infectious Diseases and foreign policy, and building multi- home. The total cost in India: (www.rand.org/publications/MR/ lateral partnerships for action. $10,000, including travel expenses. MR1602), a 2003 RAND report, is a — David Coddon, Editorial Intern Speaking of travel expenses, Indian comprehensive analysis of the secu- hospitals are now offering complete rity implications posed by infectious Medical Tourism: India packages — after your operation, you diseases, whether they occur natu- Joins the Pack can relax in a luxury hotel and enjoy rally or as a result of terrorism. As Forget the Taj Mahal. “Bolliwood?” top-rate entertainment. the report notes: “Today, the United Not a chance. For many, India’s hospi- The Houston-trained chairman of States and most of the world face lit- tals have become a prime tourist India’s Apollo Hospitals, Dr. Prathap tle danger from direct military attraction; in New Delhi, hospitals are C. Reddy, has offered to subcontract assault from an opposing state. This a hot new “outsourcing” money-spin- work from the British National Health threat has been supplanted with con- ner. Consulting firm McKinsey & Co. Service, carrying out surgery — hip

12 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL/DECEMBER 2004 CYBERNOTES

of information on health and medicine 50 Years Ago... stand out. On quick glance there would seem to be little The American Academy of Family connection between fine arts and foreign relations; yet Physicians provides basic information about everyday family medical con- there have been historical instances — often at a crucial time of cerns such as flu shots, asthma and adjustment following an upheaval such as war — when the two have hair loss at Family Doctor (www.fam been curiously intertwined. ilydoctor.org). Similarly, Medicine- Net (www.medicinenet.com) pro- — Car Charlik, in “Fine Arts of Foreign Policy,” FSJ, December 1954. vides a valuable comprehensive guide for users to search for information not only about “Diseases and Conditions” and knee replacements, coronary thousands of years. And beginning in but about “Symptoms and Signs” as bypass operations, etc. — at a fraction the 18th century, wealthy Europeans well. AllRefer Health (www.health. of their cost in the U.K. This would traveled to spas from Germany to the allrefer.com) includes a section dramatically reduce the long waiting Nile. where readers can learn about what lines as well as costs for the British Today, relatively low-cost jet air particular surgeries entail. It also National Health Service, and at the travel and globalization have opened offers a 4,000-term medical encyclo- same time allow India to earn more this business to a mass market. pedia. than $1 billion annually and create — David Coddon, Editorial Intern Of particular interest to senior citi- some 40 million new jobs. zens and those with questions about India and, soon, the Philippines, Click for Medical medications is MedlinePlus (www. are competing with already estab- Information You Can Use medlineplus.gov), a service of the lished Asian medical tourism sites like New discoveries in medicine occur U.S. National Library of Medicine and Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore. every day. From new breakthroughs National Institute of Health. Under The medical tourism business — in heart disease and osteoporosis pre- “Drug Information” users can investi- which combines health care services vention to AIDS vaccine development gate the ingredients of and user guide- with a holiday in one attractive pack- and advancements in the search for a lines for prescriptions and over-the- age — also counts Jordan, Israel, cure to cancer, the flurry of informa- counter medications. Lithuania, South Africa, Costa Rica tion on important health issues is Med Help International (www. and others among its active promoters. sometimes difficult to keep up with. medhelp.org) is a nonprofit organiza- It is a new boom industry. To match this flood of new knowledge tion which began operating in 1994. Actually, of course, medical tourism is an equally substantial burst of new The organization began providing a is thousands of years old, the Canadian self-help medical Web sites. forum in 1997 for users to ask their Broadcasting Corporation points out While these Web sites should not specific questions of medical experts in an informative background feature be used as a substitute for consultation in a format which allowed others to (http://www.cbc.ca/news/back with a doctor or other health-care pro- learn from their concerns. ground/healthcare/medical fessional, they offer a good basis for For a self-guided search of medical tourism.html). In ancient Greece, investigating everything from basic information, HealthWeb (www. pilgrims and patients came from all family health concerns to the latest healthweb.org) offers a good index of over to visit the home of the healing news on the cutting edge of medical searchable topics that can help steer god, Asklepios, at Epidaurus. In technology. In addition to many of the users to the Web sites of specialty Roman-era Britain, the waters at Bath Web sites highlighted in the May 2003 organizations. HealthWeb is a collab- were a destination for patients for edition of Cybernotes, several sources orative project of more than 20 health

DECEMBER 2004/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 13 C YBERNOTES

Site of the Month: www.blonz.com Health and nutrition needs have challenged our fitness and eating habits since the beginning of time. “Attention to health is life’s greatest hindrance,” grumbled Plato 2,400 years ago. However, in the Information Age all of that has the potential to change given a little knowledge about diets and exercise — and the right Internet link. For health and nutrition questions, Dr. Ed Blonz serves as a useful traffic cop for directing visitors to government agencies, medical societies, research universities, food corporations and more. The Blonz Guide (www.blonz.com) offers hundreds of links to everything from nutrition hints and fitness tips to cooking guides and technical journals. Blonz, holder of a Ph.D. in nutrition from the University of California at Davis, is a syndicated nutrition columnist who offers health and nutrition advice. The Blonz Guide provides links to government agencies such as the FDA, the CDC and the USDA as well as to top food science and nutrition research centers. It also offers useful links to industry representatives such as the American Egg Board and The Wine Institute, corporations such as Coca- Cola, Kellogg’s and Frito Lay, and consumer resources like Ask the Dietitian and the Center for Science in the Public Interest’s Nutrition Action Healthletter. Perhaps the most valuable resource page on The Blonz Guide is the “Health and Medical Resources” section. Blonz provides links to groups with interests ranging from headache education and sun protection awareness to heart disease and diabetes. The Blonz Guide also offers links to nutrition and health resources in the news, such as the CNN and New York Times health pages. Whether you are searching for the latest in cancer research or investigating the nutritional make- up of your favorite dinner, The Blonz Guide is the perfect first step toward making attention to your health life’s simplest convenience, not its greatest hindrance. — Kris Lofgren, Editorial Intern

science libraries, while Trip Database highlights medical topics on the left Plus (www.tripdatabase.com) is a column of the page. straightforward search engine for The National Institute of Health scouring through articles on health produces a guide for determining the and medicine. Another handy source legitimacy and veracity of medical for searching technical biomedical Web sites (http://nccam.nci.nih. and life science articles is PubMed gov/health/webresources/index. Central (www.pubmedcentral.nih. htm). Medical advice should be gov), managed by the U.S. National taken with caution, for as Mark Twain Library of Medicine. once cynically penned, “Be careful For children’s health issues, Dr. about reading health books. You may Greene (www.drgreene.com) offers die of a misprint.” a useful illustrated encyclopedia of While all of these Web sites offer a hundreds of pediatric issues. Also of wealth of medical knowledge, none note is eChildsHealth (www.echild can replace a face-to-face consultation shealth.com,) which focuses more with a health care professional. ■ generally on parenting issues but — Kris Lofgren, Editorial Intern

14 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL/DECEMBER 2004 SPEAKING OUT The Lessons of Darfur

BY HARRY C. BLANEY III

he Darfur crisis continues on Sudanese government’s gamble that remained under Sudan’s control. In its grim course as these words the world would not go beyond addition, the Khartoum government Tare being written in early rhetoric has paid off handsomely. simply dressed the Jinjaweed in uni- November, and likely will not be fully Many of our allies have worked to forms, assigning them duty as guards resolved by the time this appears in thwart or at least delay any effective for the displaced persons camps — a print. But some lessons for U.S. multilateral action, both at the United classic case of letting the foxes guard diplomacy and our future role in the Nations and elsewhere. Their mo- the henhouse. world are already clear — and deeply tives varied: some had commercial As I write in November, after yet troubling. interests (e.g., Sudanese oil), while another so-called deadline expired, The six years of my Foreign others asserted they could not inter- reports of murder, rape, forced relo- Service career I spent as a policy plan- vene in another country’s internal cation and government carnage con- ner inculcated in me the urgency for affairs, no matter how badly it mis- tinue. Yet the international communi- the State Department to get ahead of treated its own people. But the result ty, including the U.S., inexplicably the headlines and push the interna- was the same: a green light for the continues to insist it needs the coop- tional diplomatic community — as killings to proceed. eration of the Khartoum government well as the U.S. bureaucracy — to In particular, Russia, China and to intervene more aggressively. react rapidly to situations like Darfur. France — and, eventually, a majority So I commend Secretary of State of the U.N. Security Council — wast- Averting Our Eyes Colin Powell, in particular, for his freed no time in making clear that they Mindful of that background, one quent and impassioned calls for would not support any effective sanc- can make a case that even strong U.S. action, including his midsummer visit tions against the Sudan government. leadership might not have sufficed to to Sudan, and his insistence on calling (China went so far as to threaten a energize the international communi- the atrocity what it is: genocide. veto.) Sec. Powell had to labor might- ty. But I would contend that the Bush But it quickly became apparent ily to get the Security Council to set a administration’s failure to follow up that President George W. Bush had 90-day deadline for Khartoum to decisively on Sec. Powell’s welcome no intention of using his “bully pulpit” cease its support for the killers and to declaration that the Darfur situation to gain domestic support for interven- provide access to the region for the constitutes “genocide” doomed all ing in Darfur if the international com- delivery of humanitarian assistance efforts to intervene effectively from munity failed to act — in sharp con- and African Union monitoring — but the start. trast to his approach to Iraq a year with no enforcement mechanism and That is not to say the U.S. has done earlier. And that realization freed the next to no resources to implement the nothing to help; quite the contrary. Sudanese government to break every intervention. Not only are we one of the very few agreement it entered into and ignore When Khartoum ignored that governments to consistently advocate every ultimatum the U.N. belatedly demand, barely bothering to conceal an end to the killings, but we have issued. its contempt, we then went to anoth- given concrete unilateral and multilat- Let me be clear: The lion’s share of er 30-day ticking clock — all the while eral assistance. As Sec. Powell testi- blame belongs to the regime in witnessing even more deliberate dev- fied to Congress in early September, Khartoum for instigating this latest astation of the Darfur people, with U.S. government humanitarian assis- reign of terror against its own citizens, thousands dying by the week. Some tance in response to the Darfur crisis using the forces of the Jinjaweed (also progress finally seemed to be made in Sudan and Chad (where thousands known as the Janjaweed) to do their this fall as more assistance was of refugees have fled) already totaled dirty work for them. But the allowed to get in, but the aid $211.3 million as of Sept. 2. This

DECEMBER 2004/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 15 S PEAKING O UT

includes $112.9 million in food assistance, $50.2 million in non-food assistance, $36.4 million for refugees in Chad, $5 million for refugee programs in Darfur, and $6.8 million for the African Union monitoring mission (which we initiated through base camp set-up and logistics support by a private U.S. contractor). An additional $20.5 million in Fiscal Year 2004 funds is in the pipeline for initial support of this expanded mission. Yet all of this did not stop the killing and abuse. It has been argued that the administration was legitimately concerned that direct action by the U.S. would unwind other interests — global, regional and (most of all) domestic. For example, State Department officials made it clear they did not want to lessen Sudan’s cooperation on counterterrorism, unwind the tenta- tive agreement between Khartoum and southern Sudanese rebels, stir up opposition within the Arab world, or upset our larger agenda at the U.N., particularly with the Russians and the Chinese. They argued that the Defense Department would oppose any additional troop commitments, even relatively small ones. It is also true that Sudan is in a region of Africa that few Americans know about, and, it seems, fewer care very much about (even without fac- toring in “donor fatigue”). Nor did it help that the U.S. media — with a few honorable exceptions — have consistently played down the crisis and its humanitarian costs. Even at the height of the genocide, Darfur rarely made the headlines or the opening story on network news, and days often went by without any mention in mainstream media at all, even as thousands and thousands of women and children died. When the crisis was covered, especially on TV, it was presented episodically — almost like some unstoppable natural disas- ter — and with little real analysis.

16 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL/DECEMBER 2004 S PEAKING O UT

Instead, we were fed a pablum of Washington attended the conference more a sham, and our support for it reports about the Olympics, murder and largely refused to acknowledge seems to be mostly a fig leaf in terms trials, the upcoming television season the government’s own responsibility of stopping the killing. and so forth for the situation in his remarks to the In retrospect, it seems clear that Even in my own NGO community, conference. He also insisted that his our ongoing involvement in both Iraq which had the courage to send people government would never allow inter- and Afghanistan distracted Washing- into harm’s way on the ground in national peacekeepers to enter the ton policy-makers from addressing yet Sudan, some have tended to wring country and protect civilians. another crisis. And the presidential their hands instead of demanding that Eventually, Khartoum grudgingly and congressional elections made a Washington, and the world, act with agreed to allow some African Union decision to intervene with our own force or effective sanctions. At a observers and troops to enter Sudan, military forces even more inoppor- major conference about Darfur held albeit with a limited mandate — but tune and difficult. I was heartened at American University on Sept. 24, not nearly enough to be effective or that, in the first presidential debate on the despair of the NGO representa- even upset the government. As the Sept. 30, Senator Kerry pushed a bit tives was so deep that many speakers New York Times reported on Oct. 26, on the need for American support for argued it was useless even to urge the A.U. monitors are not permitted intervention, if not clearly an on-the- direct intervention by American to intervene to protect civilians even ground role for American troops. But troops. Their preferred alternative as they are being killed or raped. Yet in response, Pres. Bush said America was action by the African Union, African Union leaders actually praised was already engaged, and ruled out which has consistently said it would the Khartoum government for its any change in the U.S. script for deal- only act with the Sudanese govern- cooperation during their mid-October ing with Sudan. ment’s approval. Reinforcing that meeting in Libya. Thus, the African And that “script” is the real prob- message, Khartoum’s ambassador in Union mission appears more and lem. In the interest of pursuing the

DECEMBER 2004/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 17 S PEAKING O UT

“war on terrorism,” the Bush admin- actions and policies were apparent istration has continued on a path of even as late as the first week in accommodation with a regime that November, when the Sudanese can best be described as little more army and police surrounded sev- than thugs and killers. And it has eral refugee camps in Darfur and done so knowing full well that only denied access to humanitarian the application of force and effec- groups — making it clearer than tive sanctions, or at least a direct and ever that the African Union moni- unquestioned threat of it, along with tors are powerless to intervene. a massive commitment of humani- (The timing of the action — during tarian resources, could prevent the the U.S. elections, which diverted deaths of hundreds of thousands of American public attention — is Darfur civilians, most women and surely no coincidence.) The U.S. children. and U.N. protested the action, but the security situation has deteriorat- Lessons to be Learned ed to the point that many relief In a Sept. 20 editorial, the organizations have had to withdraw Financial Times observed: “The their staff. And press reports of search for maximum consensus has killings and other acts of barbarism clashed with the need to send a suf- taking place against black civilians ficiently robust message to and internally displaced people con- Khartoum to make it crack down on tinue. government-linked militias.” The In short, even after two U.N. paper speculated that the United Security Council resolutions, threats States was more focused on getting of sanctions, an African Union sum- the crisis “contained” than on stop- mit in Libya, and American assis- ping the killings and punishing the tance to airlift a small group of A.U. perpetrators. Sadly, that interpreta- troops, the Khartoum government tion seems borne out by the facts. still felt confident enough to send its We are going through a period of troops into the Al-Jeer Sureaf camp debate about what role America housing 5,000 refugees and lay it to should play in world affairs. waste. The State Department Leaders and opinion-makers who spokesman could only say that the have led us into Iraq for what they Bush administration “stands with now call humanitarian and democ- the international community in racy-related reasons fall silent holding the government of the before the genocide in Sudan. Once Sudan responsible for the violations again we stood aside at a critical and requests immediate return of juncture to prevent another geno- the camp residents.” cide of horrendous dimensions. Not only did our diplomacy fail That was a real choice and says a lot more than a million people in a far- about our nation and its leaders. It off land. We failed in our contin- is a story that has been repeated gency planning, our preventive and from the days of the Holocaust to pre-crisis actions. We also failed to the killing fields of Cambodia and build an effective international struc- Uganda, to Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda ture that could act preventively. and elsewhere — and now in Sudan. There is no reason we cannot give the We keep repeating “never again,” United Nations the kind of in-house but because we close our eyes, it capacity and funding to intervene comes back again and again, quickly with humanitarian support stronger than ever. and blue helmets quickly in instances The ineffectiveness of U.S. of genocide. There is also no substi-

18 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL/DECEMBER 2004 S PEAKING O UT tute for addressing crises early, doing leaders or by much of our public. foreign intervention so often cited as high-level preventive diplomacy, and Some observers have concluded an excuse for looking the other way is going all-out to support those efforts; that in the post-9/11 era, the a canard. both the U.S. and the European American public is preoccupied with The next time there is a genocide Union need to develop more effective domestic terrorism. It is also suppos- — and each Darfur paves the way for methods of early crisis identification edly disillusioned about conflicts that the next — I hope and pray the next and monitoring. We also need to be seem to have no end, particularly administration will not just say the prepared to form “coalitions of the those (like Iraq) into which they feel right things, but follow up with action. willing,” perhaps working through they may have been improperly led. Nothing less than the moral authority NATO and other organizations, when In the process, we seem to have of the United States is at stake. ■ the U.N. voting system blocks action grown inured to others’ suffering. — as we did in Kosovo. For their Yet a recent opinion poll conduct- Harry Blaney, a retired FSO who part, the media also need to make a ed by the Chicago Council for served at the U.S. Missions to NATO greater commitment to covering con- Foreign Relations is instructive. and the European Community, and flicts like the one in Darfur and to do While 76 percent of Americans on the Policy Planning Staff and in the so early, prominently and in-depth, oppose playing the role of “world White House, among other assign- with some examination of their larger policeman,” nearly the same propor- ments, is the president of the Coalition implications. tion (75 percent) support the use of for American Leadership Abroad For American foreign policy and U.S. troops to stop a government (COLEAD), an alliance of more than for America’s stature as the leader of from committing genocide against its 50 nonprofit U.S. foreign affairs the world, the implications of all this own people, or in a purely humanitar- groups that includes the American are staggering — yet they are not ian crisis (72 percent). Such findings Foreign Service Association. These counted in any real way by either our at least suggest that the resistance to views are his own.

DECEMBER 2004/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 19 F OCUSON M EDICAL D IPLOMACY

MEDICAL DIPLOMACY: EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION

BY SUSAN MAITRA

edical diplomacy is an idea the role of science, technology and health in U.S. foreign whose time has come. Simply policy. Their conclusion that science, technology and put, policy-makers have begun health were indeed diplomatic imperatives was reaf- to realize that health is not just a firmed by Secretary of State Colin Powell four years later. domestic matter. Making health a key component of U.S. foreign policy is Broadly speaking, of course, the top priority of the RAND Corporation’s Center for medical diplomacy has been practiced for many years. Domestic and International Health Security, established MThe International Red Cross was founded in 1863 to pro- in 2002. RAND researchers are currently completing a vide relief to the wounded in war, and became a major survey of Foreign Service members on the subject (see force behind the development of international humani- Cybernotes, p. 12), and have worked closely with the tarian law. The World Health Organization was estab- Nuffield Trust, a British think-tank, to bring internation- lished in 1948, and has since spearheaded many interna- al experts in health and foreign policy together. tional initiatives. During the height of the Cold War, While health has to some extent always been an issue from 1956 through 1976, a remarkable and largely in foreign policy, most believe it now requires prioritiza- unknown collaboration took place between U.S. and tion, high-level conceptualization and coordination. No Soviet virologists that provided the tools for the eventual one doubts that medical diplomacy’s potential is great. As eradication of smallpox and polio. Following the Bay of John Wyn Owen, secretary of the Nuffield Trust and Pigs invasion in 1962, the Kennedy administration sent director of the U.K. Global Health Program, character- millions of dollars worth of medical supplies to Cuba as a ized it at a 2003 symposium: “If weapons were a cur- means to negotiate prisoner releases. rency of the Cold War, then health might be a currency In the post-Cold War world, “vaccine diplomacy,” as of globalization and a bridge to peace.” Peter Hotez — a George Washington University professor and principal investigator of the Human Hookworm A Broad New Horizon Vaccine Initiative — terms it, was an effective factor in the This month’s focus section, an introduction to this former republics of Yugoslavia: prior to the Dayton broad new horizon in foreign policy, was inspired by Accords, even after other channels had broken down, the retired FSO John Harter. Harter’s personal involve- health ministers of Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia maintained ment with the subject is itself a pointer to medical a dialogue that cut across ethnic lines. And in sub-Saharan diplomacy’s many different facets. As AFSA Confer- Africa during the 1990s, the U.N. and its partners suc- ence Affairs Officer in 1991, Harter organized a sym- ceeded in imposing ceasefires in war-torn areas — the posium sponsored by AFSA and the Pharmaceutical “Days of Tranquility” — to carry out mass immunization Manufacturers Association at the Department of State of children for polio and other infectious diseases. to explore the implications of globalization for the In 1997, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright com- American pharmaceutical industry, which, it was appar- missioned the National Academies of Science to examine ent even then, would increasingly require the attention of American embassies. Then, in 1999, Harter’s wife Susan Maitra is the Journal’s Senior Editor. was diagnosed with a rare and dreadful disease,

20 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL/DECEMBER 2004 F OCUS

myelodysplasia, that ended her life a year later. The Theory and Practice of Following her death, he embarked on a personal mis- Medical Diplomacy sion of medical diplomacy, establishing a memorial We do not pretend to a comprehensive presentation fund to help globalize pathbreaking research on the of medical diplomacy here. Our package begins with causes and cure for MDS. what for policy-makers is the key: the recognition that Indeed, one of the most striking elements in the med- public health is a global security issue. The threat of ical diplomacy equation is the existence of private philan- bioterrorism, while especially alarming, is only one thropy and powerful NGOs as a major force on the inter- aspect of it. Diseases such as HIV/AIDS can devastate national health scene, with the Bill and Melinda Gates economies, thereby creating the kind of “failed states” Foundation only the largest and most prominent. The that are breeding grounds for terrorism. Randy Cheek, French organization, Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors a former FSI instructor and now a senior fellow and Without Borders, founded by a small group of French Africa analyst at the National Defense University, doctors in 1971, was the first NGO to both provide emer- makes this case comprehensively in “Public Health as a gency medical assistance and publicly bear witness to the Global Security Issue” (see p. 22). plight of the populations they served. Now MSF has In some respects, practice is already ahead of policy affiliates in 18 countries, and is just one among many when it comes to medical diplomacy. Even the U.S. NGOs active around the world. military has quietly extended its role beyond protecting Public-private partnerships have become decisive in the health of its personnel abroad to getting involved in meeting the needs of developing countries in an envi- rebuilding health systems. For example, the dialogue ronment of slashed government aid budgets. This is as with American physicians to help revive modern medi- true in the health field as anywhere else, where consor- cine in post-Saddam Iraq was initiated by the U.S. tiums including governments, bodies such as the World Army Medical Brigade. Consultant and former med- Health Organization and the World Bank, NGOs, foun- ical society executive director Lousanne Lofgren tells dations and private corporations are active in everything the story in “Medicine As a Currency of Peace in Iraq” from promoting hand-washing with soap in Central (see p. 30). America to rolling back malaria around the world. The The Bush administration’s five-year, $15-billion Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, emergency effort to fight AIDS abroad, launched in launched in 2000 to improve access to both existing and May 2003 as a priority program in 15 nations, was the priority new vaccines in low-income countries, is a good largest single up-front emergency commitment in example. GAVI partners include UNICEF, WHO, the history for an international public health effort. But World Bank, governments, foundations, vaccine manu- well before that initiative, USAID’s health mission facturers and public health and research institutions. had expanded to programs addressing child and Recently, the biotechnology industry joined forces with maternal health and combating infectious diseases, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill and Melinda including HIV/AIDS. FSO Jeffrey Ashley gives us a Gates Foundation to create the nonprofit group BIO first-hand look inside the agency’s initiative in the Ventures for Global Health to get new medical tech- high-risk HIV/AIDS corridor in Ethiopia & Djibouti nologies to the world’s poorest people. in “An Excursion of Hope: Fighting HIV/AIDS” At the same time, the expanding global commerce (see p. 37). in health goods and services, the proliferation of multi- Finally, we present a case study in medical diploma- lateral and bilateral trade agreements, and the debate cy from the 1950s, “Medical Diplomacy at Work in over how to balance the need to protect U.S. markets 1950s Nepal.” The pioneering medical work of Dr. without endangering “global public goods” — encom- George Moore and his colleagues in Nepal, following passing such topics as drug pricing policies, intellectu- the country’s opening to outsiders after 100 years, was al property rights, expansion of the U.S. health insur- based on their ability to establish a relationship of trust ance industry abroad, and the hot, new boom industry with the Nepalese and attests to the value of medical of “medical tourism” (see Cybernotes, p. 12), among diplomacy as a bridge between people from disparate others — are certain to command increasing attention. cultures (see p. 41). ■

DECEMBER 2004/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 21 F OCUSON M EDICAL D IPLOMACY

PUBLIC HEALTH AS A GLOBAL SECURITY ISSUE Roy Scott

THE OPTIMISTIC TALK OF AN END TO INFECTIOUS DISEASES HAS PROVED NAÏVE AND DANGEROUS. BUT THE GLOBAL COMMUNITY CAN RESPOND EFFECTIVELY TO THE CRISIS.

BY RANDY CHEEK

one too soon, we are rediscovering the wisdom of our ancestors — public health is the basic tenet upon which all other forms of security rest. Without a healthy and prosperous citizenry, a state cannot growN its economy, improve the material and spiritual lives of its people, or adequately defend its borders and interests. Thus, a government that cannot secure the health of its people has failed its most fundamental responsibility, lacks legitimacy, and will ultimately find itself without popular support. Infectious epidemics represent especially potent threats to public health and the stability of states. The high

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mortality levels from such outbreaks shrink the work and public health. It was the emergence of the bipolar force, decimate the educated elites, and reduce the Cold War, with its threat of nuclear destruction, that effectiveness of critical sectors (e.g., education, law narrowed the definition of security to military capabili- enforcement, the military, and the civil service). This ty and projection of force. Lost in the discussion were attrition of resources, both human and economic, in human development and advancement — the very turn diminishes the ability of the state to provide for underpinnings of the social contract upon which the the fundamental needs of its people — food, housing, English philosopher Thomas Hobbes based his defini- education and employment. tion of government more than three centuries ago. However, it is the indirect, long-term effects of epi- Now that the Cold War era is over, another develop- demics that most seriously threaten state capacity and ment is forcing us to alter our perception of the issue, provide a breeding ground for instability and conflict. globalization: the pace and scope of interconnectivity These effects include the evaporation of public confi- between nations and peoples. Historically, health was dence; the erosion of the cohesive family unit; the loss viewed as a national public good, and efforts to address of accumulated knowledge and skills as tradesmen, health problems were taken within sovereign states. laborers and farmers die early; and the emergence of a However, this paradigm is useless, even dangerous, in large orphan population that is undereducated, disaf- an interconnected world in which capital, labor, pro- fected from society, and facing a vastly diminished life duction, and consumption move globally. Travel time expectancy. All too often, the result is to turn what between remote corners is measured in hours, not should be active cooperation into antagonistic con- weeks, and information travels in fractions of a second, frontation as societies turn against their leaders, result- at a pace faster and a volume greater than we humans ing in increasing incidents of civil and ethnic conflict. can process. The resulting social upheavals can dwarf in magnitude Consequently, the parochial concept of “national the direct macroeconomic effects of population deci- security” has become a quaint, dated legacy of our past. mation. Security is a multi-dimensional, interconnected global These threats do not only affect remote Third World fabric — made all too apparent to Americans by the countries. In his book The Health of Nations (MIT tragedy of the 9/11 attacks. Since security must now be Press, 2002), Andrew Price-Smith observes that: addressed globally, so must its basic foundations — “[Such a] confluence of negative trends may compro- including health. It is no longer enough to concern mise the ability of transitional states (e.g., Russia and ourselves with national health, for threats to security in South Africa) to consolidate democratic and effective any region, however remote, can have serious implica- systems of governance.” tions for all regions. Global threats require global solu- Such lessons may seem obvious, and indeed, it is tions, and the threat to public health is no exception to only recently that we have defined security so narrow- the rule. ly as to focus primarily on military power. Prior to the 1940s, security discussions routinely included econom- Microbial Threats, Old and New ic capacity, population growth rates, education levels, The list of infectious diseases threatening human survival changes over time, but never diminishes in Randy Cheek, a former FSI instructor, is a senior fellow number. Ancient scourges like malaria, cholera, and Africa analyst at the Institute for National Strategic typhus and plague (which ravaged parts of India as Studies at the National Defense University. In addition recently as 1994) persist, and global travel and envi- to lecturing at the National War College and Industrial ronmental encroachment have released pathogens College of the Armed Forces at NDU, he teaches courses which provide new challenges to human survival. The on health and security, and African security issues, at the migration of Lassa and Ebola hemorrhagic fevers from Elliott School of International Studies at The George the Congo jungle to Europe and the United States is Washington University. Mr. Cheek has also published probably just a matter of time and opportunity. SARS articles on HIV/AIDS and African issues in U.S. and traveled from remote China to Toronto in a matter of African journals. weeks in 2003, and while it has not taken as drastic a

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toll as originally feared, it is still a A government that shift eastward toward the popula- real threat in Asia. tion behemoths of China and Meanwhile, malaria is resurgent cannot secure the health India, and northward into Eastern in areas where it had been eradi- Europe and Russia. These cated for decades. Newly drug- of its people has failed its regions are currently experiencing resistant strains of tuberculosis and the highest increases in HIV other diseases continue to con- most fundamental infection rates globally, and repre- found modern science. The West sent the potential for startlingly Nile virus is now endemic in parts responsibility. large numbers of newly infected of North America, as is dengue persons by 2010. fever. A newly mutated strain of As dire as these statistics are, influenza emerges every year, rais- we have only begun to experience ing the specter of a return of the 1918 Spanish influen- the turmoil and disruption associated with the HIV za virus that killed at least 20 million worldwide. (The pandemic. With an incubation period of between recent news that much of the U.S. flu vaccine supply is seven and 10 years, we are well into the HIV infection contaminated and unusable has already led to calls for phase of the pandemic, as current infection rates show. rationing, and harbors the potential to fuel genuine However, we have not yet begun to see these astro- panic in the event of an epidemic.) Even such obscure nomic infection rates translate into deaths — a cer- pathogens as Mad Cow Disease (BSE) and avian tainty in three to five years, as those infected in the influenza threaten our delicate food chain with disrup- late 1990s see their HIV infection evolve into AIDS. tion if not collapse. All of these diseases, once obscure The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS and confined to remote, isolated corners of the world, (UNAIDS) estimates that 68 million people will die are now either present in the United States or just a globally from AIDS between 2000 and 2020. This rep- short plane ride away from our international airports. resents a threefold increase in the rate of death from But all these newly emerging microbial threats pale 1980-2000, the first 20 years of the pandemic. Failure before the mother of all pandemics: HIV/AIDS. to target rising infection rates with effective preven- While malaria, cholera and tuberculosis all erode the tion programs will ensure that this rapid rise in mor- ability of developing nations to provide for their peo- tality rates will increase past the UNAIDS target of ple’s needs, HIV represents a quantum leap in the 2020. The future of an unrestrained HIV pandemic is nature of the threat, as it incorporates all the inherent one of wildly escalating mortality and increasing social, dangers of an epidemic outbreak as well as those of a political and economic instability. chronic attrition of populations. HIV is an attrition epidemic (like malaria or TB) Preying upon our most innate of drives — repro- during its infection stage, when it lies within the body, duction — HIV threatens to depopulate the globe the building its numbers and weakening its victims. way the Black Death did Europe 650 years ago. During this seven-to-nine-year period, victims suffer Globally, 38 million people are infected with HIV, with gradual weakening and diminished capacity to provide 25 million living in sub-Saharan Africa. In 2003, near- for family and contribute to society. In its final stages, ly five million people were infected with HIV world- when HIV evolves into AIDS, it manifests the attrib- wide — three million in sub-Saharan Africa. This rep- utes of an outbreak epidemic (like bubonic plague or resents the highest yearly infection rate since the influenza), imposing extreme and costly demands on beginning of the HIV pandemic — sobering evidence the medical system and causing panic and social dis- that we have not yet begun to effectively control this ruption. plague. While sub-Saharan Africa remains the epicen- This combination of outbreak and attrition effects ter of HIV infection, with four southern African coun- makes HIV/AIDS unique among infectious diseases. tries experiencing adult infection rates over 30 percent As such, it constitutes an important case study of the (Zimbabwe, Botswana, Lesotho, and Swaziland), evi- implications of all infectious epidemics for global sta- dence indicates that in the near future, the focus will bility and security.

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The Plague of the It is the indirect, Economists suggest that HIV/ 21st Century AIDS will lower the growth rate of Vice President Al Gore, in a long-term effects of South Africa’s GDP by 20 percent 2000 speech to the U.N. Security over the next decade. Other Council, clearly identified the link epidemics that most nations in the region will suffer between HIV/AIDS and security: equal, or greater, damage. Due pri- “For the nations of sub-Saharan seriously threaten state marily to a loss of skilled workers Africa, AIDS is not just a humani- and increased costs due to training, tarian crisis. It is a security crisis — capacity and provide a many businesses and industries will because it threatens not just indi- fail or operate at a loss. Instead of vidual citizens, but the very institu- breeding ground for growing and furthering their entry tions that define and defend the into the global economy, many character of a society.” The plague instability and conflict. HIV-afflicted states will struggle of the 21st century, the HIV/AIDS just to maintain their current status pandemic has the potential to or fall further behind. reverse the social, economic and political gains made On a more personal scale, HIV is shaking the very during the past 300 years, not only in Africa but in many concept of planning for the future for many in the other parts of the world. As such, HIV/AIDS serves as developing world. Many southern African states have a window to the impact of all global infectious diseases seen average life expectancies plummet from nearly 70 on fragile human networks. years to less than 40 in two decades. Callisto Madavo,

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a former vice president of the World Bank, provided a maximize their potential and improve their standard of sobering testimonial on the disease’s impact in living. Zimbabwe when he stated, “Further, if the worst pro- Perhaps the most malignant and corrosive impact of jections come to pass, by about 2010 life expectancy HIV is on the social fabric of a nation, tearing families will return virtually to where it stood the day I was and communities apart, and creating long-term prob- born, in what was then Southern Rhodesia, half a cen- lems that will long outlive the immediate results of HIV tury ago.” infections. The skyrocketing numbers of orphans While the drop in life expectancy is dramatic in and resulting from HIV/AIDS deaths in sub-Saharan Africa of itself, these figures gain even more importance when is both a short and long-term burden for these fragile their impact on decision-making and personal action is states. In the short term, governments must provide considered. Individuals and societies become more services for these children who have lost connections to reluctant to commit to long-term education and train- family and community, often with resources that do not ing programs as life expectancies drop. Such invest- exist. In the long term, the situation is even more ments in human capital, the people who make up a alarming, as millions of orphans are reaching adulthood nation, not only demonstrate a faith and hope for the without the benefit of social integration, lacking educa- future, and pay dividends in the immediate gains of tion or training, and without any concept of a future. increased productivity, but also in the commitment to J. Brian Atwood, former administrator of the United future progress and development. HIV makes such States Agency for International Development, summed investment much more risky and less likely, further up the potential catastrophe of AIDS orphans in a 1997 decreasing the ability of peoples and governments to speech when he stated, “This outgrowth of the

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HIV/AIDS epidemic will create a lost The list of infectious Richard Holbrooke, the former generation — a sea of youth who are United States ambassador to the disadvantaged, vulnerable, underedu- diseases threatening United Nations, warned members of cated and lacking both hope and the Security Council in 2000 that, “if opportunity. What we are seeing human survival it [HIV/AIDS] is not dealt with, it will here are the seeds of crisis.” It is esti- clearly wreck the economies of Africa mated that, by 2010, sub-Saharan changes over time, and the subcontinent. [AIDS] will Africa alone will have more than 10 spread; you can’t draw a wall around million AIDS orphans. but never diminishes Africa and commit continental triage.” Undermining in number. Indeed, HIV is spreading daily — National Stability hourly — reaching epidemic levels of As Atwood notes, HIV is much infection throughout the developing more than a social or developmental threat — it is a world. While currently concentrated primarily in sub- concrete threat to stability and security. Nelson Saharan Africa, the disease is already emerging as a Mandela, in a speech before the World Economic security threat in other countries, including some Forum in 1997, hinted of the potential for conflict and thought of as economically well-developed. Peter Piot, instability to emerge when a people realize that their director of UNAIDS, has commented: “We have every government is unable to meet their needs when he reason to assume that the epidemic in Southeast Asia noted that, “South Africans are beginning to under- will soon be just as widespread as it is in Africa, and that stand the cost [of HIV/AIDS] … observing with grow- East Africa’s experience — a slowdown of its economy ing dismay its impact on the efforts of our new democ- — will be replicated in Eastern Europe and the devel- racy to achieve the goals of reconstruction and developing countries of Asia and Latin America.” UNAIDS, opment.” the main advocate for global action on the epidemic, is In addition to eroding the link between people and tasked with preventing transmission of HIV, providing their government, infectious epidemics have a more care and support, reducing the vulnerability of individ- pernicious ability to pit people against each other with- uals and communities to HIV/AIDS, and alleviating the in societies. As the resource base begins to shrink, impact of the epidemic. competition among surviving groups for access to and A recent study by the Center for Strategic and control over the levers of power and influence increas- International Studies identified five nations as the es. This competition often results in social and politi- “Next Wave,” ripe for an explosion of HIV infection cal fragmentation and ethnic, racial or socio-economic rates rivaling those of sub-Saharan Africa: Nigeria and conflict. David Gordon of the United States National Ethiopia (together representing over a quarter of that Intelligence Council, one of the first policy analysts to already ravaged continent’s population), Russia, China recognize the connection between health and security, and India. The last three nations, which collectively noted in his ground-breaking 2000 “National contain close to a third of the Earth’s population, are all Intelligence Estimate” the potential for intra-state con- nuclear-armed countries beset with ethnic and social flict resulting from epidemic disease. Gordon noted strife and burdened by economic and political pres- that, “[t]he severe social and economic impact of infec- sures that threaten to erupt into internal conflict. The tious diseases … and the infiltration of these diseases addition of HIV/AIDS, with its demonstrated ability to into ruling political and military elites and middle class- disrupt society at all levels, will only increase the poten- es of developing countries are likely to intensify the tial for regional conflict and instability. struggle for political power to control scarce state resources.” The Will to Act The global nature of the threat HIV/AIDS repre- The world community, led in many respects by the sents becomes immediately clear when we pause to United States and the United Nations, has made the remember how interconnected and mobile we all are. beginnings of a response to this global health and secu-

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rity crisis. UNAIDS, along with HIV is much more than response programs. Key among the World Health Organization these is the controversy over tar- and World Bank, have begun glob- a social or developmental geting of resources for prevention al programs to mitigate the impact versus treatment programs. Given of HIV/AIDS on affected societies. threat — it is a concrete the limited funds available, a battle The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, has emerged within the donor and Tuberculosis, and Malaria — a threat to stability recipient community pitting those wide-ranging independent effort who want to target aid for preven- to combat the three pervasive and security. tion, to stem the growth and endemic diseases that sap the abil- spread of HIV and other diseases, ity of developing nations to versus those who prefer increased improve the lives of their people funding for treatment of those — has made outstanding progress in identifying pro- already afflicted. Even among those insisting on a con- grams to stem the spread of these diseases and treat centration on prevention, controversy over approaches those afflicted. The U.S. President’s Emergency has decreased the potential effectiveness of response Program for AIDS Relief is another program designed programs. to target critically affected nations and speed their The optimistic talk heard a generation ago predict- response. ing the imminent end of infectious diseases (much like Such efforts can succeed. Smallpox has been eradi- the confident belief after our victory in the Cold War cated (with the exception of those worrisome vials that we had reached the “end of history”) has proved reserved for biological warfare research, hopefully naïve and dangerous. Such talk actually misrepresents well-secured) and poliomyelitis may be next, depend- the nature of our struggle to preserve human health ing on the outcome of the current mass vaccination and security. We are in combat with an adversary far campaign centered in West Africa. Thailand and Brazil older than we, and with a greater ability to evolve and are recognized globally for addressing the HIV pan- adapt than we will ever possess. As Dennis Pirages demic early and making remarkable progress in stem- commented in a 1996 report, “Microsecurity: Disease ming the spread of the disease. In Africa, Uganda and Organisms and Human Well-Being,” issued by the Senegal are two examples of states that recognized the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and security implications of HIV at different stages — Security Project: “Infectious diseases are potentially Senegal before the disease reached critical levels, and the largest threat to human security lurking in the Uganda at the height of its epidemic — and marshaled post-Cold War world. … Educating people to think national resources to protect their citizens and dramat- about this struggle with microbes in an evolutionary ically lower infection rates. way is the ultimate solution. … [P]olicy-makers need All of these nations, and the other examples of hero- to understand the potential seriousness of the problem ic response to the threat of infectious disease, repre- and reallocate resources accordingly.” sent the victory of political will translated into mean- Fortunately, there is reason for hope that policy- ingful action. However, given the depth and breadth of makers have indeed realized the importance of this the HIV pandemic, massive resource outlays are struggle and are beginning to take action globally to required merely to cope with the disease, let alone beat combat the threat of infectious disease. Western gov- it back. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan has esti- ernments have begun to direct their development pro- mated that it will take $8 billion to $10 billion per year grams toward increasing the capacity of developing over the next decade to adequately address the HIV nations to provide for the basic public health needs of pandemic in Africa. A combination of limited funds their citizens. The Global Fund has seen dramatic and donor fatigue may make it difficult to meet that increases in contributions from a variety of sources, target, especially when one considers the myriad other including the European Union, the United States and diseases that demand attention across the globe. the Gates Foundation. The Global Fund has also In addition, conceptual issues also undercut taken steps to diminish the gap between contributions

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and disbursements, increasing the Those who commit their of development aid. These pace of program starts. The U.S. resources are increasingly being contributed $1 billion in 2004, lives to the betterment committed without restrictions on while the E.U. has given approxi- their use in the recipient country, mately $500 million. It is estimat- of the global family providing the flexibility necessary ed that by 2006, total contributions to adapt to changing demands and to the Global Fund will exceed $50 are the front-line needs. billion, and disbursements will top This commitment of global $12 billion. warriors in the battle resources is the only answer to the Additionally, as other initiatives, challenge of infectious disease. including the President’s HIV/ for human security. The threat to human security is not AIDS Emergency Program, begin restricted to individual nations or to gather steam, coordination will regions, so the response must be be critical. There is evidence that this need for coor- on a similar scale. And while policy-makers will decide dination is appreciated: E.U. member-states, along the nature of the response, the actual implementation with the U.S. at many levels, have attempted to coor- will lie in the hands of individuals who translate policy dinate efforts through the rubric of the New Program into action. Those who commit their lives to the bet- for African Development (NEPAD), a pan-African terment of the global family — including our diplo- organization attempting to ensure coherent and mats and civil servants — are the front-line warriors in needs-based decision-making with respect to targeting that battle. ■

DECEMBER 2004/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 29 F OCUSON M EDICAL D IPLOMACY

MEDICINE ASACURRENCY OF PEACE IN IRAQ Roy Scott

AMERICAN AND IRAQI PHYSICIANS HAVE OPENED A DIALOGUE TO HELP RETURN IRAQ TO THE MODERN MEDICAL AGE AND REBUILD THE NATION’S HEALTH CARE SYSTEM.

BY LOUSANNE LOFGREN

n late December 2003, Dr. Khodeir Abbas, the Iraqi minister of health, appeared on “The News Hour with Jim Lehrer.” Asked by Susan Dentzer what he intended to do in terms of reinvigorating the training and educationI of Iraqi physicians, nurses and others going forward, Dr. Abbas responded: “We are going to hold the first international conference in Iraq in mid-February in order to tell the international community that we are back, and we are standing on our feet…” Indeed, optimism was high as more than 350 Iraqi medical specialists and 30 American and two British physicians

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gathered on Feb. 14, 2004 — less than a year after U.S. tion, but deterioration of the health-care system and troops landed in Iraq — for the first international med- water supplies greatly threatened the health and well- ical conference in Iraq since Saddam Hussein became being of the Iraqi people. president in 1979. Iraqi doctors came from as far north In 1999 the International Committee of the Red as Kurdistan and as far south as Basra for the opportu- Cross issued this bleak report: “Standards of care in nity to update their knowledge, exchange ideas and hospitals and health centers have reached appalling lev- chart their future at the Iraqi Medical Specialty Forum. els, despite the doctors’ dedication and high qualifica- The forum was designed as an academic medical tions. Iraq’s 130 hospitals, many of them built by for- conference to help Iraqi physicians improve their eign companies from the 1960s to the 1980s, have not health-care system to provide the best care for the peo- received the necessary repairs or maintenance since the ple of their country. It was also intended to encourage Gulf War, but above all since the imposition of sanc- Iraqi physicians to revitalize independent, nongovern- tions. The buildings are in an advanced state of disre- mental medical specialty societies in their country and pair (cracked and leaking roofing, broken windows and establish an overarching organization to represent their doors, bulging floors), as are the hospital sewage works, interests as a group. The interaction would help Iraqi the electricity and ventilation systems [and] the eleva- doctors establish connections with their specialty coun- tors. Expensive imported equipment, or even more terparts in the West and jump-start a return of Iraq to basic items, are no longer being replaced.” the modern medical age. The U.N. sanctions banned all trade with Iraq after The story of this unique initiative — its background, its 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Further, the U.N. Security execution and follow-up — is a timely addition to the Council resolution did not grant an exemption for trans- annals of medical diplomacy, and a reminder that med- mission of medical and scientific literature, effectively icine transcends national boundaries and is a valuable cutting Iraqi physicians off from the international med- bridge to peace. Despite the ongoing violence and dev- ical community and creating an intellectual embargo. astation, the medical profession is reaching out to col- The U.S. enforced the embargo through licensing leagues in Iraq. requirements for goods sent to Iraq, visa restrictions, postal regulations and a ban on travel by Americans to A Once-Modern Healthcare System Iraq. The regime’s own prohibitions on satellite and In the 1970s, Iraq’s health-care system was consid- Internet communication, and travel restrictions ered the finest in the Middle East, with large hospitals imposed on Iraqi physicians who wanted to attend con- and the latest equipment. The country’s oil reserves ferences outside of the country, compounded the prob- were used for large projects that advanced the country, lem. Those who spoke out against the regime were including sophisticated water treatment facilities and an jailed, or worse. The future was grim, and many highly extensive school and university system, as well as a qualified Iraqis left their country or tried to do so. strong military. But under Saddam Hussein’s rule, from When coalition forces reached Baghdad in April 1979 to 2003, neglect, mismanagement and corruption 2003, military medical officers and humanitarian orga- set in. If the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-1988 drained the nizations began to assess the civilian population’s country, the Persian Gulf War of 1991 and subsequent health-care needs, the state of facilities and the medical U.N.-imposed trade sanctions left the Iraqi economy community. It was difficult, however, to identify the and infrastructure in shambles. The U.N.’s “oil-for- leaders among the physicians they met. While Iraq’s food” program provided some aid for the Iraqi popula- medical education system, conducted in English and modeled after the six-year British curriculum, trains Lousanne Lofgren, a certified association executive, is physicians in a range of specialties similar to the West, a free-lance consultant with more than 20 years of independent medical organizations did not function as experience working with medical societies. Previously the voice of the profession or specialty. she was assistant executive director for health policy, “Under Saddam Hussein, you had to be a member of practice and informatics for the American Society of the Ba’thist party to be elected, and when medical soci- Plastic Surgeons. ety elections were held you were told whom to elect,”

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says orthopedic surgeon Tim Gibbons, M.D., an Iowa Moreover, a campaign by insurgents against Iraq’s pro- National Guard Reservist on active duty with the Medical fessional class — including doctors — had opened up. Brigade in Iraq. “Intimidation by the ruling party was For security reasons the four-day event was shrouded in ever-present at all levels.” Professional organizations had secrecy. At the last minute the forum was moved from become pawns of Saddam Hussein’s government. Medical City, a teaching hospital affiliated with the Medicine and resources were strictly controlled by the University of Baghdad College of Medicine, to the more regime, which favored the party loyalists, and discussion secure Baghdad Convention Center, located within the of issues and sharing of knowledge did not exist. Green Zone (now known as the “International Zone” under the new Iraqi government). The Medical Forum Initiative Is Born As the “official” war ended last year, the idea for the An Optimistic Beginning “Iraqi Medical Specialty Forum” was born. The inspi- The American and British doctors, who took up the ration came from the U.S. military, the idea was challenge of participating in the forum, flew into Jordan endorsed by the Coalition Provisional Authority, and and then into Baghdad. Their expectations were heavi- funding was secured. Dr. Shakir Al-Ainachi, a Baghdad ly influenced by continuous media reports, but many orthopedic surgeon and president of the Iraqi Society of were experienced in the advocacy role of U.S. medical Physicians, stepped forth on the Iraqi side. The ISP’s societies, and all were willing to share their knowledge role under Dr. Shakir was to organize the Iraqi medical with their Iraqi counterparts. What they found was a community into independent professional medical spe- country devastated by war but basking in newfound cialty societies. The ISP would co-host the forum in freedom. And, they were, by all accounts, overwhelmed cooperation with the Iraqi Governing Council, the by the resilience of their Iraqi colleagues. Coalition Provisional Authority, the Combined Joint A May 28 article in the San Francisco Chronicle Task Force 7 Medical Command and USAID. reflects the collective observations of the 30 American Announcements of the plans to hold an international physicians who participated in the Iraqi Medical medical forum were sent out by e-mail to medical soci- Specialty Forum. It was authored by Drs. Bernard S. eties in the U.S. and the U.K. (which had governed the Alpert, Ira D. Sharlip, Thomas C. Cromwell and Assad country prior to its independence in 1932). A. Hassoun, four Bay-area physicians who participated Col. Donald Gagliano, commander of the Medical in the Baghdad conference. The following is an excerpt: Brigade in Iraq, assigned Major Gibbons as military “We found a nation of Rip Van Winkle-like physi- liaison to Dr. Shakir, and Gibbons played a key role in cians. Their governmentally-imposed developmental managing the international component of the plan, arrest prompted in them an exemplary resilience. fundraising, sponsorship, security and other logistical Operations are performed competently by surgeons considerations. Dr. Michael Brennan, a retired mili- never having seen one, mimicking late-1970s Western tary ophthalmologist then back in practice in North texts. Masks are worn for weeks, and gloves are rester- Carolina, was brought in to assist in connecting with ilized for successive use. Conditions in some hospitals doctors and encouraging participation in the confer- are deplorable. ence. Brennan and Gibbons visited doctors in hospitals “Yet, with infrastructure decimation, educational in Kurdistan, Mosul, Babylon, Al Hillah, and virtually repression, equipment and supply depletion and pro- every major hospital in Baghdad. Dr. Brennan later fessional isolation, these proud and courageous healers said that for the role he played, being independent of care for the sick and injured of their nation with integri- the government was an advantage: it was better that he ty, tenacity, hope and a smile. Our Iraqi colleagues dis- did not belong to either the Army or the Coalition played an optimism whose flame by now should have Provisional Authority. been extinguished from 25 years of energy-depleting Meanwhile, daily media reports on Iraq highlighted assaults. One obstetrician declared: ‘We are like a continued fighting, destroyed facilities, lack of essential caged bird … We now have been let out of the cage but services and general unrest — Baghdad seemed an don’t know how to fly. We can either go back to the unlikely venue for an international conference. cage or get help learning how to fly.’”

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The forum’s agenda featured Professional organizations for registration and lodging costs for clinical presentations, panel discus- young physicians, displays for med- sions and organizational develop- had become pawns ical equipment, invitations for Iraqi ment sessions for Iraqi medical spe- and international guests, and print- cialty societies, as well as keynote of Saddam Hussein’s ing and distribution of conference presentations by prominent Iraqi literature. and international officials. Papers government ... Both Drs. Brennan and Gibbons were presented by Iraqi doctors. left Iraq before the forum convened, International physicians gave clini- discussion of issues and but Dr. Brennan returned to Iraq for cal presentations on 16 specialty the conference in February, and areas, ranging from anesthesia to sharing of knowledge continues to volunteer his time on emergency medicine to obstetrics, the project. oncology, orthopedics, plastic did not exist. surgery and psychiatry, and broader What Next? topics such as medical ethics, malpractice, and organiza- The exchange in Iraq changed the American physicians tion governance. who participated — their hearts and voices have a com- The conference expenses were covered through a pelling passion now. They returned to their practices and $250,000 USAID-funded grant from Abt Associates, Inc., sought out opportunities to share their experiences with and included purchase and distribution of copies of the colleagues, local civic organizations, and at regional and Journal of the American Medical Association, scholarships national medical meetings. These highly motivated physi-

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cians have inspired a range of initia- E-mail messages from East region, and are developing data- tives and have petitioned their bases of information on volunteer national medical specialty societies Iraqi physicians tell of opportunities. for funds to reach out to their Iraqi Some forum participants, such as counterparts. bombings of their clinics Dr. Rick Wilkerson, have taken up the As a result, some U.S. medical cause on a personal level. Wilkerson organizations have developed schol- and cars, of fear of is collecting used external fixator arships for Iraqi physicians to attend devices from fellow orthopedic sur- educational meetings in the United kidnapping of geons and shipping them from his States and programs for American Iowa practice to an Iraqi contact doctors to go to Iraq. Some groups themselves and their for distribution to trauma centers. have extended honorary society C. James Holliman, M.D., an emer- memberships for a period of time, children for ransom. gency physician from Penn State, is including Internet access to mem- communicating with several Iraqi bers-only online educational materi- physicians who are interested in resi- als. Other societies have taken on projects such as col- dency training in emergency medicine, a recognized spe- lecting surgical instruments, textbooks and educational cialty in the U.S. but not one that exists there. He hopes CDs, and soliciting equipment donations from medical to work with them to start an emergency medicine train- suppliers. Still other organizations are making plans to ing program in Iraq. In the meantime, plans are develop- hold conferences in more secure locations in the Middle ing for interested Iraqi physicians to train in emergency

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medicine at other Middle Eastern medical centers. For the Iraqi medical profession, the Medical USAID’s Health Mission in Iraq Specialty Forum event marked the beginning of a upporting essential health and education is one of process of rejuvenation. But more work needs to be SUSAID’s four priority commitments in Iraq. The done, and the obstacles to progress are many and grave. agency’s goals include supporting a reformed Iraqi Ministry In the months since February, insurgent attacks in Iraq of Health, delivering essential health services, funding vac- have increased, and civilian injuries and deaths have cines and high-protein biscuits for pregnant and nursing risen. Optimism is under siege among Iraqi doctors, as mothers and malnourished children, providing basic pri- evidenced in e-mail messages from physicians telling of mary health care equipment and supplies, training and bombings of their clinics and cars, of fear of kidnapping upgrading health staff, providing health education and of themselves and their children for ransom, and the information, and identifying the specific needs of the health frustration of learning, after a long day of difficult sector and of vulnerable populations. surgery, that their patient is a terrorist. The fear of USAID works with Iraq’s Ministry of Health, UNICEF and being hit by an explosion on the road and being killed in a variety of nongovernmental organizations and private- the street as a traitor if you have anything to do with the sector partners to meet these goals. These are some of the Americans or the national guard is also very real. “The major accomplishments to date: situation here is very difficult beyond any imagination,” • Re-equipped more than half of the 600 primary health writes one surgeon, a feeling echoed in messages from care centers in Iraq, each with approximately 60 items of other Iraqi physicians. basic medical equipment, office furniture, and laboratory Though there is no official tally of professionals equipment. assassinated, Iraqi police put the number at “hundreds” • Vaccinated over three million children under age 5 and in Baghdad alone. Physicians have been killed or 700,000 pregnant women in campaigns that included threatened; some have closed their practices. “I was monthly immunization days. given one week,” Abid Ali Mahdi, director of the • Provided supplementary doses of Vitamin A for more Institute of Radiotherapy and Nuclear Medicine in than 600,000 children under age 2 and 1.5 million lactating Baghdad told the New York Times in February. “But I mothers. can’t quit. If I step down, nobody would come and take • Provided iron folate supplements for over 1.6 million my place.” women of childbearing age. Dr. Hamid Al-Mondhiry, a hematologist at Penn • Screened more than 1.3 million children under age 5 State, who participated in the Baghdad forum shares for malnutrition. this concern. “The criminals are kidnapping doctors, • Distributed high-protein biscuits to more than 450,000 scientists and business people for money,” he says. children and 200,000 pregnant and nursing mothers. “They want the most talented to leave Iraq.” A native • Provided potable water for 400,000 persons each day Iraqi, Dr. Al-Mondhiry left his home country more than in Basrah and 170,000 persons in Kirkuk and Mosul. 20 years ago and is most anxious to aid in the recon- • Provided skills training for 2,500 primary health care struction of the health-care system there. “The escalat- providers and 700 physicians. ing violence breaks my heart,” he says. • Trained 2,000 health educators, teachers, religious leaders and youth to mobilize communities on hygiene, Our Shared Profession Binds Us diarrhea, breastfeeding, nutrition and immunization issues. Almost six months after their experience in Iraq, • Provided vaccines and cold chain equipment to select- nearly all of the 30 American physicians who traveled to ed health centers. Baghdad for the Iraqi Medical Specialty Forum gath- • Developed a national plan for the fortification of wheat ered once again — this time in the Washington, D.C., flour with iron and folic acid. area. Their reunion took place on Sept. 25-26, but this — From the USAID Web site, time the meeting also included high-level officials from http://www.usaid.gov/iraq/accomplishments/health.html the Departments of State, Health & Human Services and Defense, along with representatives from Project

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Hope, the World Medical Association, the British extraordinary circumstances. They are inspiring.” Medical Association, the American Medical Associa- Among future plans discussed are medical confer- tion, the American College of Surgeons and various ences at facilities being developed in Baghdad and in medical specialty societies. the Kurdish area in the north. Additionally, Project The meeting participants shared updates on Iraq Hope is leading development of a children’s hospital in and assessed progress in bringing about the vision of Iraq, which will be a significant, tangible sign of health- organized medicine in Iraq and developing liaison rela- care progress. It will also be a venue for international tionships with specialty colleagues in this wartorn medical volunteers to work directly with their Iraqi country. The new U.S. embassy in Baghdad and counterparts. appointment of a health attaché will help facilitate con- When asked whether the Iraqi Medical Specialty tacts for medical outreach initiatives. Participants dis- Forum is a good model for diplomacy that could be cussed “what works and what doesn’t,” with an empha- replicated in other countries, the response from Dr. sis on the importance of continuing the contact. There Gibbons, a key forum organizer now back at his ortho- was a strong feeling among the physicians that they pedic surgery practice in Iowa, was unequivocal: needed to let the Iraqi doctors know that they haven’t “Absolutely.” been forgotten. “Medicine is our bond,” says Bernard Alpert, M.D., a Yank Coble, M.D., president-elect of the World San Francisco plastic surgeon who traveled to Baghdad Medical Association and past president of the American and participated in the forum. “Our shared profession Medical Association, summed up the feelings of many: binds us in a manner that transcends politics, religion and “The physicians in Iraq are making heroic efforts under geography. Medicine is a currency of peace.” ■

36 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL/DECEMBER 2004 F OCUSON M EDICAL D IPLOMACY

AN EXCURSION OF HOPE: FIGHTING HIV/AIDS Roy Scott

USAID’S HIGH-RISK CORRIDOR INITIATIVE PROGRAM OPERATES ALONG A 850-KILOMETER STRETCH OF HIGHWAY IN ETHIOPIA AND DJIBOUTI.

BY JEFFREY ASHLEY

he 850-kilometer stretch of road between Addis Ababa and the port of Djibouti, nes- tled among magnificent highlands and plains, is home to wonderful historical sites, especially the holy city of Harar andT the ancient tree of Afar under which humanity was born. Camels saunter gracefully on either side of the dusty sweep of baked and seemingly endless graveled roads. This is a land filled with cultural richness, diversity and nuances and vast expanses of stunning vistas. But the extensive sweep of corridor is also home to thousands of people who are affected by or already

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infected with HIV/AIDS. The The program’s In the process of traveling the cor- thousands of truckers and other ridor, I could not help but absorb transport workers who traverse the 25 HIV/AIDS the austere beauty of the land, the region, especially along the corri- profundity of its history, the splen- dor, not only run the risk of becom- Information Centers dor of its people, and the sheer ing infected with HIV, but also of devastation that the HIV/AIDS spreading it far beyond the two offer a truly epidemic has inflicted in the countries’ borders. region. Ethiopia already has a national comprehensive, holistic prevalence rate of 6.6 percent in An Initiative Is Born the adult population and an esti- approach to the To address the cross-border epi- mated 13.7 percent in the urban demic in the region, the USAID population. With such rates, it is epidemic. mission in Ethiopia established the likely that HIV/AIDS will continue High-Risk Corridor Initiative pro- to seriously damage and diminish gram in 2001. Originally a three- the health, economy and development of the country. year, $3 million program, the HRCI now operates in Although Djibouti’s HIV epidemic appears to be less 25 sites along the corridor (21 in Ethiopia, four in severe, with a prevalence rate estimated at 2.9 per- Djibouti) to publicize and implement HIV/AIDS cent in the adult population, the majority of the prevention practices and thereby encourage the truckers along the length of the corridor are demand for them; increase the availability of services Ethiopian. Hence, the potential for cross-border improving both availability and quality of care and HIV transmission is substantial. support services for people living with the disease, as This past May, I traveled along this expanse of well as orphans and vulnerable children; and enhance dust-swept road with 15 officials from the Ethiopia the livelihood and security of people (particularly and Nairobi regional USAID missions and Save the children) affected by HIV/AIDS. Children’s office in Addis Ababa. Our goal was to Specifically, HRCI uses HIV/AIDS Information evaluate the work of the USAID-funded Save the Centers to train peer educators; develop behavior Children/U.S. High-Risk Corridor Initiative pro- change and communication materials that are sensi- gram, a comprehensive HIV/AIDS-prevention, care tive to the local culture; conduct awareness-raising and support activity providing assistance to thousands sessions with hotel and bar owners; improve access of people in Ethiopia and Djibouti. to, and the capacity of voluntary counseling and test- For five days our delegation talked to resident citing for HIV; provide access to screening and treat- izens, officials and public health workers in both ment for sexually transmitted infections; provide countries in order to learn about and see first-hand access to opportunistic infection treatment services; what types of HIV/AIDS projects are being imple- provide home-based care and psychosocial support to mented, identify areas for potential growth, and people living with AIDS; establish community-based come up with recommendations for future directions. child care centers; and provide material support to orphans and vulnerable children. As this list of ser- Dr. Jeffrey Ashley is director of regional HIV/AIDS vices suggest, HRCI offers a truly comprehensive, programs in East and Central Africa for USAID’s holistic approach to the epidemic. Regional Economic Development Services Office in Since their establishment, the 25 HIV/AIDS infor- Nairobi. A public health scientist specializing in inter- mation centers in Ethiopia and Djibouti, along with national health and epidemiology, he has been a other prevention programs and services, are now pro- USAID Foreign Service officer since 1995, serving in viding approximately 100,000 at-risk youth, transport Tanzania, Cambodia and Angola. He has spent the workers, sex workers, dock workers, orphans and vul- majority of his professional career in wartorn areas of nerable children with the necessary information and the world. services to protect themselves against HIV/AIDS. In

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Djibouti, for example, the centers The potential for Information Centers and those in operate in trucker rest stops, in the wider community. I was residential and recruitment sites cross-border HIV repeatedly impressed by the staff’s for dock workers and in the city diligence and dedication to assist- center of Djiboutiville, where transmission in Africa ing people affected by or living community counselors and several with HIV/AIDS. One young volunteers provide services. and elsewhere is woman counselor told me that her Further, HIV/AIDS education pro- zeal was motivated in part by the grams conducted and implement- substantial. fact that several members of her ed by peers there are critical to immediate family and friends had prevention initiatives. The HRCI died of AIDS. She says working in program has this year trained more than 90 dock the field is her way of healing her sense of grief and workers, 60 truckers and 40 highly vulnerable loss, and “giving back” to those who are afflicted, to women. Each of the trained peer educators reaches ameliorate their bleak prospects. up to 15 or more of their peers each week, providing The HRCI program also provides counseling them with information on HIV/AIDS prevention and opportunities that create demand for prevention ser- access to care and support. vices; referral to voluntary counseling and testing Currently, there are 19 sites offering voluntary centers; and outreach and peer support to people liv- counseling and testing that have already tested ing with HIV/AIDS. Particularly noteworthy, the approximately 10,000 people for HIV/AIDS and members of our delegation visited Dire Dawa, treated nearly 2,000 cases of sexually transmitted Ethiopia, where we met a group of about 25 home- infections. Future plans are to consolidate programs, based care providers who briefed us on their com- especially in Ethiopia, and to focus on expansion of munity activities. Armed with a basic care kit con- services in 2005. taining antiseptic solutions, gloves, gauze, plastic Last but certainly not least, HRCI’s network of sheeting and other materials, these indefatigable home-based care providers have provided support to individuals regularly visit private homes to provide 500 people living with HIV/AIDS and education sup- care to hundreds of sick AIDS patients in the area. port to over 600 orphans and vulnerable children. The assistance these home-based care providers give is, in a word, extraordinary! Where outreach, Deep Into the Corridor treatment and care services are negligible or absent, As in other countries in Africa, HIV too often is these unfaltering caregivers fill a glaring void in the transmitted to vulnerable young girls and women lives of sick or dying patients. Their skill and dedica- whose low social status and poverty render them par- tion are matched only by their compassion. Those I ticularly susceptible to sexual exploitation. The spoke to all shared a common vision and similar rea- truckers, transport workers and dock workers along sons for wanting to provide care for HIV/AIDS the corridor who encounter them then run a higher patients. Empathy for fellow Ethiopians and a deep risk of contracting the virus and transmitting it to desire to improve the quality of their lives provided their wives and sexual partners. It was this facet of the foundation for these providers’ call to service. the HIV/AIDS epidemic that we focused on during What was for me the most profoundly moving our trip. experience of all during the trip was a visit to the My colleagues and I visited many diverse compo- HRCI community-based child-care center. In Dire nents of the HRCI program along the corridor. At Dawa, I visited a classroom of vibrant, joyful chil- the information centers in both Ethiopia and dren, 4 to 6 years old, all of whom were either Djibouti, we spoke with numerous energetic, com- orphaned or essentially abandoned as a result of HIV. mitted counselors and volunteers who are providing Prior to their enrollment in the center, the teachers practical awareness and risk reduction information to working there told us, these children had been their clients — both those who actually go to the chronically malnourished, riddled with suppurating

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skin infections and generally The importance of our HIV/AIDS prevention, care and despondent and withdrawn. After support initiatives and service deliv- enrolling in the USAID-sponsored work was evident in ery for the next several years. program, these children are now The HRCI is a successful pro- receiving health care, basic child- the healthy bodies and gram targeting at-risk populations hood education and integrated along this geographic transport cor- learning and recreational activities. smiles of the children ridor. The program has clearly Children receive meals, uniforms, demonstrated that it can deliver sanitation material and general we encountered. high-quality prevention, care and health care from a nurse associated support services cross-nationally with the child care center. with unique and innovative inter- Besides the dramatic improvement in their physi- vention strategies. USAID has similar projects in cal condition, I was struck by how happy and well- several other parts of Africa as well, and REDSO is adjusted these children appeared to be, especially supporting a northern transport corridor initiative in considering their dire straits and past mistreatment. several countries in East and Central Africa. The We played with the kids, watched them interact with Ethiopia-Djibouti transport corridor program, which teachers and visitors alike, and commented to the began as an HIV prevention-only initiative, later teachers and one another on how healthy and happy demonstrated that prevention programs also they looked. After spending an hour with the chil- required care and support components in order to be dren and teachers, I left feeling grateful to the HRCI successful. As this program has evolved, so, too, have program for providing these children with a chance its scope and impact. to grow and learn in a safe, healthy environment. Our delegation’s trip along the corridor drew to a close on a quiet, balmy evening as we finished our Into the Setting Sun meetings and final consultations with the program’s The communities and towns we passed through implementing organizations in the Djiboutian capi- along the high-risk corridor in heat-drenched tol. After watching the fiery sun set into the Red Sea, Ethiopia are remarkably vibrant despite the obvious we spent the evening gazing out over the Gulf of impact of HIV/AIDS. Both there and in the impov- Aden as we shared our cumulative impressions and erished, garbage-strewn fetid shantytown of the port feelings of the past several days. The importance and of Djibouti, where thousands of dock workers live, I critical impact of our work is certainly evident in the saw first-hand that the HRCI program has an impor- healthy bodies and smiles of the children we saw; in tant impact on the health and livelihoods of thou- the truckers’ decisions to protect themselves against sands of vulnerable individuals, thanks in no small HIV/AIDS; in the enthusiastic, committed dock part to the teamwork between USAID’s Regional workers trained as peer educators in Djibouti; and in Economic Development Services Office (REDSO) in the people living with AIDS who receive the human Nairobi and the country missions in Addis Ababa and touch, care and assistance from home-based care Djibouti. It takes exceptional teamwork to develop providers. HIV/AIDS programs, especially those with cross- It is rewarding and uplifting to see USAID pro- national and border complexities. With technical sup- grams touching and favorably influencing the lives of port and open communication between the three so many vulnerable or potentially vulnerable individ- missions, the HRCI program can and will continue to uals suffering from the desolation of AIDS. This is thrive by providing critical HIV/AIDS interventions the joy of the work at USAID — to know that pro- to highly vulnerable populations. USAID/Ethiopia grams are affecting, inspiring, and improving the has extended the HRCI up to the year 2008 for health and livelihoods of the beautiful Ethiopian and approximately $4 million. USAID is also engaged in Djiboutian people. What a marvelous excursion of discussions on how to continue its investments along hope to mitigate the effects of HIV/AIDS on the peo- the Djibouti corridor in order to further expand ple of this most historic and ancient land. ■

40 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL/DECEMBER 2004 F OCUSON M EDICAL D IPLOMACY

MEDICAL DIPLOMACY AT WORK IN 1950S NEPAL Roy Scott

HOW AN AMERICAN M.D. AND HIS TEAM BROUGHT MODERN MEDICINE TO A REMOTE AND MYSTERIOUS LAND FROM WHICH OUTSIDERS HAD BEEN BARRED FOR 100 YEARS.

BY GEORGE MOORE, M.D., M.P.H., AND BERWYN MOORE

hen the World War II-vintage DC-3, piloted by a bearded Sikh, landed on a dirt airstrip atop a cliff near Kathmandu in October 1952, I began a medical mission as profoundly challenging as it was important. WNepal’s existence as a closed, private domain of the maharajas had come to an end just two years earlier, and for the first time in over 100 years outsiders were being allowed in. When the new king asked the United Nations for assistance in developing a democracy, the United States responded affirmatively. The U.S. Public Health Service assigned me, with eight other American team members, to live and work in this remote, mysterious country. There was no

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American embassy or consulate, nor a predecessor from in Nepal searching for a rare bird, relating Nepal’s history whom to seek advice. My team and our families were a in the process. I learned that, after Jang Bahadur Rana handful of people in a country without telephones or deposed the king in the Kot Massacre of 1846, Nepal paved roads, without a place to live, and with limited became a closed country under the tyrannical, hereditary knowledge of the language and culture. rule of the Rana maharajas. There were no roads into the As leader of the public health team, my assignment kingdom, only a few trails heavily guarded by soldiers. was to assess health problems and to implement pro- The Ranas forbade newspapers, radios, schools and pub- grams to solve them. The challenge was to do this among lic gatherings. They lived lavishly while the population a people whose exposure to the rest of the world for the remained impoverished and ignorant. Finally, in 1950, last century was nonexistent. Supported by the resource- the maharaja was deposed and King Tribhuvan, a descen- fulness of our team and the help of a cadre of pensioned, dant of the murdered royal family, was restored as the British-trained Gurkhas, we established a relationship of ruler of Nepal. Tribhuvan led Nepal to democracy and trust with the Nepalese that allowed us to bring modern recognition as a sovereign nation by the U.N. medicine into their lives and to introduce treatments for My research into the medical problems I would find diseases such as malaria, typhus and smallpox. in Nepal suggested that all three types of malaria as well Our experience in Nepal exemplifies the value of as typhus, smallpox and parasitic infestations were preva- medical diplomacy as a bridge between people from lent. Accordingly, I drew up hurried lists of the needed wildly disparate cultures. specialists and itemized the supplies required to build a medical laboratory. The lists were approved, and my wife An Unexpected Request Connie, a registered nurse, our 4-year-old daughter and I A career in medical diplomacy was not in my mind arrived in Kathmandu in mid-October 1952, joining the when I graduated from Temple University Medical agricultural technicians, including entomologist Dr. School in 1948 and began my residency in dermatology. George Brooks, who had arrived a few days earlier. We During the Korean War I became a commissioned offi- found ourselves in makeshift quarters that lacked elec- cer in the United States Public Health Service. Then, a tricity and running water. We were without diplomatic year into my first assignment, I received a call from support; but at the same time, unfettered by protocol, we USPHS headquarters asking me to head up a special mis- could interact informally with King Tribhuvan. sion to Nepal. Within days, I found myself in the hands When I requested a liaison, the king responded by of the Department of State and the Public Health Service appointing a minister of health on the spot. The new in Washington. There, a new desk had been set up for minister was one of only nine physicians in Kathmandu. Nepalese affairs but, unfortunately, the young man in In the past, these men had served only the royal and mil- charge knew little about the country. itary families, leaving nine million Nepalese to live and Ironically, a little book titled In Search of the Spiny die without modern medical care. Medical data, nurses Babbler: An Adventure in Nepal, just published in 1952, and health care workers were nonexistent. A tour of the turned out to be my best source of background informa- community hospital, built some 20 years earlier by a tion. In it, ornithologist Dillon Ripley recounts his travels maharajah, revealed vacant rooms littered with trash and occupied by pigeons. The situation seemed hopeless, but Dr. George Moore served in Nepal from 1952 to 1954 as I resolved to persevere as I waited for staff and supplies a commissioned officer of the U.S. Public Health Service. to arrive from the States. Since retirement in 1971, he has taught courses in the Soon, a shortwave radio message from Washington epidemiology of chronic diseases, and conducted informed me that our mission was in danger and, due to research studies and developed programs in internation- a sudden change in the political situation, the promised al and community health at the University of Virginia personnel and supplies would not arrive. There had been Medical School and the Medical College of Virginia. His no disturbances in our area, however, and our Nepalese daughter Berwyn, born in India in 1953, is a writer of friends also gave us no cause for alarm. I decided to nonfiction and poetry, and an associate professor of ignore the message, and traveled to Calcutta, where I English at Gannon University in Erie, Pa. managed to assemble some laboratory equipment and

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supplies for a primitive but functional inspired me, and he accepted my invita- diagnostic laboratory that included a tion to join us as my administrative offi- kerosene-operated incubator and refrig- cer. While he had no formal medical erator. I hired a secretary, a young training, his knowledge of the land, its Nepalese man who was the proud owner people and customs proved invaluable. of an ancient typewriter, and set out to Also, as a Gurkha, he was respected by identify the health problems and prepare both the Nepalese and my staff. a five-year plan for the king to improve Shiva organized safaris to venture to the health of his people. remote villages where I could begin to assess the people’s needs. We found Targetting Malaria trustworthy porters to carry our equip- in the Terai ment over miles of trails and retired but One day, as if by a miracle, a young able-bodied Gurkha soldiers to assist us Gurkha officer, Shiva Bahadur Rai, with operations. These initial safaris appeared. Home on leave from what provided sufficient information to was then Britain’s Federation of Malaya, assemble a five-year health plan and Shiva was interested in our program. He Shiva Bahadur Rai was a Gurk- present it to the king’s council for had survived eight weeks in enemy terri- ha officer from the Himalyan approval. There was still no word from tory after escaping from a POW camp in foothills who served in the Washington, but the new king approved Italy during World War II. His story British army. the plan and a first-year budget of

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$60,000. Our objectives were: to identify the diseases long-lasting changes in health and medical practices and and health of the people and to start an insect-borne dis- education. ease control program. We were ready to begin. Our first priority was to exterminate the vast and Sitala, the Goddess of Smallpox deadly population of malarial mosquitoes in the subtrop- Blending our medical initiatives with Nepalese cus- ical lowlands known as the Terai. We hauled barrels of toms was especially crucial in our strategy for conducting DDT, the pesticide of choice at that time, and hundreds smallpox immunizations. Of the many health problems of compression sprayers from the Calcutta docks to our in Nepal, smallpox epidemics were the most deadly. In outpost in Kathmandu. We would venture — mostly on some villages, smallpox had killed half the non-immune foot, sometimes by elephant — to villages throughout the children and left the other half pockmarked. During an jungles, the hills and the mountains of Nepal to destroy epidemic, the people worshipped a goddess named mosquitoes. We knew that a female mosquito sucked Sitala, translated literally as “she who makes cool.” Sitala blood from a person with malaria at night, and then rest- was typically pictured sitting on a lotus leaf, clad in red, ed on the ceiling and walls of the dwelling to digest the with nimba leaves in her four hands. People made offer- blood: by spraying DDT on the inside ceilings and walls ings to Sitala daily, and the dangerously ill were placed of all village houses at the same time, we would kill the directly in front of her image for healing. infected mosquitoes and halt the transmission of malaria. Bringing smallpox immunization to Nepal was not a I also planned to conduct physical examinations of the simple task, on two counts. For one, the vaccine used in people and administer vaccines and any necessary treat- the States was a freeze-dried, lyophilized product that ments. I still wondered, though, how the people would required refrigeration to maintain potency. The vaccine react to a strange doctor spraying their homes with a poi- would arrive by air pouch, but we had no way to refriger- son, examining their bodies, and injecting them with ate it during the months it would take getting it to the vil- painful needles. lages. For another, even if we could manage to keep the My strategy was to visit the home of the village leader vaccine potent, how would we convince the Nepalese to or cleric with Shiva the night before our teams arrived. accept it? Shiva would explain the nature of our mission in such a I conferred with Shiva and my staff and we concluded way that it was accepted and sanctioned enthusiastically. that we might be able to work something out if we had a We then sprayed the leader’s home with DDT. The next viable vaccine to start with. I ordered a box of vaccine morning the family swept out dead mosquitoes, bedbugs from Washington, D.C., immediately. We met the plane and cockroaches with such joy that the other villagers at the Kathmandu airstrip and carried it to our kerosene- were eager to do the same. Our teams exterminated operated refrigerator. The next day, I inoculated some of pests in every home in the village. We used this strategy our staff and was relieved to find out that some of the in every village we visited, calculating that malarial trans- ampules were still good. I was then able to keep the vac- mission would decrease by 70 percent in the first year. cine virus alive by inoculating staff one after another Wherever possible, we arranged to use a Buddhist or using the pustules produced. Hindu temple as a clinic. The temple usually had no fur- I conferred with Hindu and Buddhist priests about niture, so we used a wooden box as an examining table using Sitala, the goddess of smallpox, in our campaign to and placed drugs and instruments on a sheet on the induce people to be vaccinated. They readily agreed, and ground. Sterilization was limited to iodine and Zephiran we quickly produced large campaign posters showing solution. We gave injections in an adjoining room under Sitala in full regalia with her four hands holding syringes a huge brass prayer wheel, which afforded at least some and other medical items. The inscriptions in Nepali privacy. The villagers’ first experience with modern med- exhorted the people to be immunized for her sake. icine thus took place in the safety and familiarity of their Runners delivered the posters to the village priests and temples. Whether they attributed their improved health lamas who plastered them on their homes and temples to us or their gods was irrelevant in the short term. As for all to see. Most of the people were illiterate, but the our programs resulted in visible benefits, the Nepalese religious leaders (always the first to be vaccinated) read would be increasingly open, we knew, to implementing the message to them and announced the arrival of the

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team. Villagers greeted us festively. and poisonous snakes, our treks into the hills presented Because the vaccine would remain viable only by pass- other challenges. There, monsoon rains make for slip- ing it from person to person through their sites of inocu- pery crags and leech infestations. The latter, segmented lation, or pustules, we recruited boys willing to be inocu- worms about two inches long, could penetrate the eyelets lated and become part of our team. A villager would pass of our shoes by lengthening their body to squeeze through the line and bare his arm for a staff member to through. The Gurkhas used their kukri — the trademark sterilize a spot. Another worker would take a ball of 18-inch knife with a curved blade — to flick them off clean, white string and hold a length between his hands, before we even noticed them. They also used the kukri touch the middle of the string to the pustule of the boy to clear trails through dense bamboo and brush as we and then apply that piece of string to the villager’s arm. A climbed the Himalayas to Sherpaland, villages at alti- third worker would then prick the spot where the string tudes over 16,000 feet near the Tibetan border. touched to allow the inocula to penetrate the skin. We The Sherpa villagers had never seen Westerners, we could successfully immunize several hundred people in a were told, and had been visited by someone from few hours, and we continued using this strategy in village Kathmandu only twice before, when the maharaja’s sol- after village. Our 1952-1953 effort was a significant start diers appropriated women for his harem and again when to the control of smallpox in Nepal. zamindars, or landlords, attempted to collect taxes. As we neared the village, our coolies became increasingly Learning Experiences in Sherpaland apprehensive. Dogs began barking. We entered the vil- If in the southern lowlands of the Terai we faced dan- lage and a man appeared from behind a house, then gers from heat, unclean water, bandits, leopards, tigers another, until several men, all armed, confronted us.

DECEMBER 2004/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 45 F OCUS

What a strange spectacle we must have been to them. I sipped it politely. The lama accorded us every hospitali- was too fair, and Brooks, an African-American, was too ty during our stay. We found perfect workers for our dark; and we were dressed as though from another world. team in the young women who had once been part of the We instructed our interpreter to utter a greeting. The maharaja’s harem but were returned to their villages men continued to grip their weapons, however, and their when he was deposed in 1950: they spoke Nepali and stony faces remained unchanged. Finally, a man spoke, were eager to help us. The lama also offered us the and our interpreter turned to us and cried, “They speak Buddhist temple to use as a clinic. Tibetan and do not understand me!” We encouraged the The translation process, while effective, was cumber- interpreter to keep trying and to gesture with his hands. some; the Tibetan dialect had to be translated to Nepali As he did, one of the men in the back smiled and jab- and then to English. We kept instructions as simple as bered to his companions. Apparently, he had been to possible, but occasionally the patients provided cause for Kathmandu and knew enough Nepali to understand the worry. I would look up and see treated patients swapping gist of the interpreter’s words. Soon, the men relaxed and pills. The colors of the tablets fascinated them and often smiled. Our interpreter went on to extol our goodwill one patient had a preference for the other’s remedy. mission with promises of medical cures. Sometimes, several patients in a row had similar symp- Soon, women and children poured out of their houses toms as they overheard an earlier person’s complaints. laughing and shrieking their acceptance of us as guests. Every village, every patient provided a new learning The Sherpas led us to the esteemed lama who begged us experience that showed us how to be more judicious in to join him for tea, a hot concoction made from rancid assessing their conditions. We became more attuned to butter, barley flour and concentrated tannic acid. We their needs with each succeeding visit.

46 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL/DECEMBER 2004 F OCUS

A problem not so easily solved came at the end of our The intensive anti-malarial programs that the U.S. and visit to particular villages where the Sherpa girls wanted the World Health Organization supported throughout to become our wives. Polygamy is practiced in the 1960s allowed Nepal’s Terai area to be repopulated Sherpaland, and when the girls learned that both Brooks and to become the bread basket for the country, even- and I had only one wife apiece, they rallied the entire vil- tually exporting 15 percent of its grain crops to India. lage to support their efforts to marry us. We fumbled (Sadly, like most other parts of the developing world, about for diplomatic regulations, but this was a situation Nepal has seen the return of malaria in recent years Washington had definitely not prepared us for. Finally, due to drug resistances and persistent poverty.) Shiva struck the right note — our prestige and high Medical school had trained me as a physician, but did standing in America forbade us even to consider marry- not prepare me for the challenges of treating people with ing girls from the small villages. The girls withdrew, quite a sharply different culture, belief system, education and satisfied that there was no chance for them. worldview. It was direct experiences with the Nepalese that taught me medical diplomacy. Instead of disregard- Friendship as a Cure ing their culture, which would have had disastrous The health programs we implemented in Nepal in results, I respected it and integrated it into my medical the 1950s were successful, measured not only by the practice. They accepted what I did because they trusted positive results we witnessed while there, but by their me, and they trusted me because I respected them. continuation in the form of new initiatives that fol- Perhaps medical diplomacy can best be summed up lowed. By 1977, for example, when Nepal had by Buddha’s dictum that “friendship is the only cure for acquired roads and electricity, malaria was eradicated. hatred, the only guarantee of peace.” ■

THE REMINGTON

DECEMBER 2004/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 47 AFTER ABU GHRAIB: THE U.S. HUMAN RIGHTS AGENDA

THERE IS NO QUESTION THAT THE PRISONER ABUSE SCANDAL HURT AMERICA’S REPUTATION. BUT THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION HAS PUSHED FORWARD WITH EFFORTS TO EXPAND THE U.S. HUMAN RIGHTS AGENDA, AND ENJOYED SOME SUCCESSES.

BY GEORGE GEDDA

ersuading foreign countries to embrace Damage Control American concepts of human rights is Abu Ghraib posed a special challenge for Lorne Craner, always hard work. But the task becomes who headed the State Department’s human rights bureau even more challenging whenever from early 2001 until this past August. In the immediate America’s own record comes under fire — aftermath of the scandal, Craner privately wondered as it did this past spring following the rev- whether his bureau would survive its impact. “I have been elations of widespread mistreatment of particularly appalled,” he told a July hearing of a House Iraqi detainees by U.S. soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison in International Relations subcommittee, summing up his per- PBaghdad in 2003 and 2004. sonal reaction to the revelations. While shocking, the abuses at Abu Ghraib (and, report- One of Craner’s top aides concurred, saying it was a “dark edly, at U.S. detention centers in Afghanistan and Cuba) day” for the bureau when the scandal first came to light. “We actually paled in comparison with previous examples of were as disconsolate as you can imagine.” People asked: American wrongdoing in wartime. For example, U.S. sol- “How hard is this going to make what we’re trying to do?” diers killed as many as 500 unarmed civilians in the village Secretary of State Colin Powell, Craner and other offi- of My Lai in March 1968 during the Vietnam War. cials consistently maintained that the best way for the U.S. Abu Ghraib differed from all other incidents because the to regain the moral high ground would be to bring to justice misdeeds were there for all to see — pictures of mostly those responsible for the abuses, just as Washington regu- young U.S. troops engaging in what President Bush has larly demands that other governments hold their officials called “disgraceful” behavior. Into the world’s remotest cor- accountable for misconduct. Several soldiers have already ners the vulgar images were flashed via TV screens, the been convicted and sentenced, with more scheduled for Internet and other media. trial. But just how high up the military chain of command The scandal made it more difficult for the administra- blame would rise was still in doubt as of November. tion to garner support for its Iraq policy. And it hardly fit The principal product of Craner’s former bureau, offi- with the American self-image as the peerless leader in the cially known as the Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights promotion of human rights worldwide. Complicating and Labor, is an annual report on rights conditions world- matters for the administration was the revelation that wide. The report runs almost a million words and covers Bush had signed a declaration in 2002 asserting that the more than 190 countries and territories. Such a project U.S. had the authority to ignore international rules for could only be undertaken by a country with vast informa- treatment of captives. In response, Bush insisted he has tion-gathering resources and a high degree of confidence issued no directives authorizing the torture or mistreat- about the virtue of its own human rights practices. ment of Iraqi prisoners. There is no better source for comprehensive information about torture of prisoners than this report. For George Gedda, a frequent contributor to the Journal, is instance, the section on China in this year’s edition con- the State Department reporter for the Associated Press. tains 37 separate references to torture in that country. The

48 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL/DECEMBER 2004 Bush administration has refused to use that term to during a meeting with Craner that Abu Ghraib was an describe the events at Abu Ghraib, but the International image-staining event for the United States, Craner respond- Committee for the Red Cross has said that the actions of ed by saying, “We’re trying to shut it down. In your country, American soldiers there were “tantamount to torture,” cit- leaders have sanctioned it [prisoner abuse] for decades.” ing prisoner humiliation, threats of imminent execution And when the United States inveighed against Sudan’s and forced use of hoods. One can conclude with some election earlier this year to a seat on the U.N. Commission degree of confidence that Chinese officials enjoyed seeing for Human Rights, a Sudanese diplomat, Omar Bashir America figuratively knocked off its human rights pedestal Manis, said it was ironic for Washington to raise objections after long years of nagging China for its rights abuses, in light of the “atrocities” committed by American forces at including prisoner torture. Abu Ghraib. Election to a seat for Sudan “is not at all dif- The world learned of the Abu Ghraib wrongdoing on ferent” from the United States itself winning a seat, said April 28, two months after the 2004 edition of the rights Manis, whose government is blamed for the uprooting of 1.2 report was released — and a week before the scheduled million Sudanese in the Darfur region. release of a State Department report outlining American Most serious observers would dismiss Manis’ suggestions efforts to ease rights conditions in 101 of moral equivalency between the countries. With the blot on America’s United States and Sudan on human reputation peaking as the release date rights. But the allegations are still approached, the administration decid- Abu Ghraib posed a damaging, giving foreign governments ed that delay was the best option. On a handy riposte when confronted by May 17, 12 days late, the State special challenge for U.S. allegations of rights abuses. Department released the study, titled Officials admit that it is impossible to “Supporting Human Rights and Lorne Craner, who say whether Abu Ghraib made coun- Democracy: The U.S. Record 2003- tries feel they could safely brush aside 2004.” headed State’s human U.S. pressures to stop torturing pris- “The Abu Ghraib scandal was a oners, arresting dissidents or curbing cloud that was obscuring what we try rights bureau from 2001 independent media outlets. to do,” Craner said in unveiling the Still, as Craner sees it, the public report. “And we want to punch until this past August. reaction overseas was far more muted through the cloud and to say we’re not than expected. “I really thought it going to give up on democracy and (Abu Ghraib) was going to do us in, human rights promotion.” He asked: [so] I was kind of surprised,” he said “Who would be better off if we self-consciously turned in an interview after leaving the State Department in inward and ignored human rights abuses elsewhere — in August. places like Burma and Zimbabwe and Belarus?” Craner acknowledged that he was concerned about pos- The May report highlights the length and breadth of sible post-Abu Ghraib fallout when the administration U.S. human rights efforts around the world. Some exam- decided in July to suspend aid funds to Uzbekistan, partly ples are the establishment of a school in East Africa to because of prisoner torture. In light of the scandal, the sanc- enhance the leadership skills of politically active women, tion against the terror war ally may have looked hypocritical, and the founding of the first independent printing press in Craner said. But in the end, he was unaware of anyone even Kyrgyzstan. U.S. funding, according to the study, also has raising the issue. created halfway houses for former child soldiers in Craner believes that foreign audiences were impressed Colombia so that they can have normal lives. that there was no attempt in Washington to sweep Abu Ghraib under the rug. He mentioned, in particular, the Diplomatic Fallout sight of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld being hauled Not surprisingly, critics saw the Abu Ghraib scandal as an before a congressional committee for hours of grilling. opportunity to score points at America’s expense. A reporter from the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television network implau- Broadening the Human Rights Agenda sibly suggested during an interview with Pres. Bush that President Bush has surprised many with his ambitious Abu Ghraib showed that, in terms of human rights, there human rights agenda. At times, he has evoked memories was no difference between an Iraq governed by Saddam of President John F. Kennedy. “The advance of freedom is Hussein and one run by the United States. the calling of our time; it is the calling of our country,” When an envoy from one large dictatorship suggested Bush said in a November 2003 speech announcing “a for-

DECEMBER 2004/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 49 Not surprisingly, columbia plaza apartments critics saw the prisoner Capital Living With Comfort and Convenience 24 Hour abuse scandal as an Fitness Center opportunity to score points at America’s expense. Utilities Included Complimentary Voice Mail Beautiful and Spacious: Courtyard Style Plaza Polished Hardwood Floors Efficiency$1,100 - $1,250 1 Bedroom 1,400 - 1,700 Private Balconies ward strategy of freedom in the Huge Walk-in Closets 2 Bedroom 2,100 - 2,700 Middle East.” 2400 Virginia Ave., N.W To be sure, that initiative has been 24 Hour Front Desk Washington, D.C., 20037 Garage Parking Avaliable Tel: (202) 293-2000 received coolly in the region, where Controlled Access E-mail: [email protected] authoritarian rulers no doubt calcu- Potomac River Views Minutes to Fine Dining late that any loosening of their grip Newly Renovated Kitchens Office Hours: Mon. - Fri. 8:00 AM-5:30 PM could mean curtains for their Sat 10:00 AM-4:00 PM regimes. And it seems that whatever Directly across the street from Main State, minutes to Kennedy Center and Georgetown grass-roots good will Bush may have generated with the initiative has been more than offset by the hostility of Arabs and non-Arab Muslims to American policy in Iraq and in the Middle East in general. Powell disputes the notion of many Arabs that the initiative is yet another unwelcome example of an overbearing America pushing its agenda on others. He frequently makes clear that the United States has no intention of imposing democracy on Arab countries. The comment suggests that the original ideal- ism of the proposal has been replaced by a dose of realism. Still, Bush’s concept represents a marked change from the long U.S. history of unquestioned American acceptance of the undemocratic status quo in the region. It’s not often that any administration can claim a rights breakthrough as clear as the one that occurred a year ago in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. While maintaining good relations with then-Georgian

50 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL/DECEMBER 2004 President Eduard Shevardnadze, the United States quietly cultivated pro-democracy groups and individuals in the country, most notably Mikhail Saakashvili, who studied law in the United States under a government-sponsored program. In the wake of fraudulent parliamentary elections in November 2003, mass protests in which Saakashvili played a key leadership role were held and Shevardnadze was forced from office within weeks. Georgians then moved quickly to hold presidential elections. Saakashvili won by a land- slide, and Powell attended his inau- gural on Jan. 25. Powell later sent a memo to all State Department employees on the positive pro-democracy role the United States can play, citing Georgia as an example. “Through good diplomacy and good assistance programs,” Powell wrote, “the United States has not just made friends with a new government, but we have a friendship with the Georgian people that will last for generations. This is a model worth replicating.” The U.S. human rights umbrella live better. has been expanding lately. Non- governmental organizations from the brand new luxury high rise : fully appointed one, one bedroom dens and two bedroom corporate suites : state of the religious right to the feminist left are art fitness and business centers : heated outdoor lap pool : embracing the administration’s efforts custom made mahogany furniture : fully equipped kitchens : luxury towels and linens : soft, firm or hypoallergenic pil- to combat trafficking in persons or, as low selection : weekday club breakfast serving Starbucks® Coffee : afternoon Tazo® Tea : digital premium cable and Ambassador-at-Large John R. Miller high speed internet : 27” and 20” sony wega tv and dvd : calls it, “modern-day slavery.” In sony cd stereo : free local phone : on-site management, maintenance, housekeeping : concierge services : walking its most gruesome manifestation, distance to ballston common mall, ballston and virginia women and children are kidnapped, square metro stops forcibly taken to another country and sexually exploited. The White House imposed sanctions against Venezuela in September for failing to take steps to combat the problem. The administration is also keeping closer watch on religious freedom these days. In an unusual censure of korman communities arlington a key ally in the war on terrorism, the CORPORATE SUITES administration in September accused Saudi Arabia of “particularly severe arlington, va 880 north pollard street 866.korman.4 : kormancommunities.com violations” of religious freedom. A 1999 law gives the administration

DECEMBER 2004/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 51 52 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL/DECEMBER 2004 the authority to impose sanctions port, high-level visits and diplomatic against religiously intolerant coun- sweet-talking will reassure abusive tries; any such action against the king- The U.S. human rights nations that few penalties accompany dom is considered unlikely. the criticism.” For much of 2004, Powell has umbrella has been made the situation in Sudan a high A Consensus Forms priority. He has worked hard to assist expanding lately. Human rights have been a key ele- more than one million people in the ment of American foreign policy since Darfur region who have been uproot- the early days of the Carter adminis- ed in an ethnic cleansing campaign he tration, when — at the president’s has classified as genocide. With the urging — Congress created the possible exception of U.N. Secretary Ultimately, that provision was human rights bureau at the State General Kofi Annan, no one is more stripped from the latest version of the Department. (Originally a stand- identified with efforts to ease the suf- bill, but in its stead, the director of alone office, it is now part of the fering in that area than Powell. homeland security would have Democracy, Human Rights and authority to detain such individuals Labor Bureau.) A Mixed Record indefinitely. However, as of mid- To say the least, President Carter’s During his three years at State, November, it was unclear that the bill policies were highly contentious. Craner attached importance both to would pass in any form. Human rights abuses by military dic- democratic reforms and efforts to Among the harsher critics of cur- tatorships in Argentina and Chile secure the release of individual pris- rent U.S. human rights policies is were a particular concern in the late oners of conscience. He said China William Schulz, executive director of 1970s, and Carter loosened U.S. ties pleased and surprised the administra- Amnesty International USA. He used with those countries and the many tion in 2002 by freeing 10 political the occasion of the February release others in the region run by generals. prisoners, an unusually large number. of the State Department’s annual But he was more tolerant of the abus- But, he acknowledged, at that rate it human rights report to say: “The con- es of strategically important countries, would take six centuries for China to tent of this report has little correspon- including South Korea, the Philip- release all prisoners of conscience — dence with the administration’s for- pines and Saudi Arabia. This left assuming there were no arrests in the eign policy; indeed, the U.S. is Carter open to the criticism that he interim. So he spent considerable increasingly guilty of a ‘sincerity gap,’ was directing sanctions solely at time during his years as rights chief overlooking abuses by allies and justi- strategically unimportant countries. trying to chip away at Chinese author- fying action against foes by post-facto It is the kind of criticism that all sub- itarianism, using the country’s experi- references to human rights. In re- sequent administration’s have faced. ment in village elections as a starting sponse, many foreign governments Among Carter’s stronger critics was point. will choose to blunt criticism of their Jeane Kirkpatrick, who would be- This fall, human rights groups abuses by increasing cooperation with come President Reagan’s ambassador voiced strong objections to initial the U.S. war on terror rather than by to the United Nations. She argued administration support for an intelli- improving human rights.” that it was unwise to treat communist gence reform bill that would have Schulz also said Amnesty Inter- and anti-communist authoritarians allowed the deportation of foreigners national’s research confirms that alike. Her basic premise was that the to countries with a well-documented public beheadings continue in Saudi former don’t evolve: the latter do. history of torture. Advocates of the Arabia; mass public executions are After the defeat of its first nominee measure see it as an important anti-ter- ordered in China; and people are to head the human rights bureau, the rorism tool, while opponents note the “disappeared” in Chechnya and Reagan administration seriously con- potential for abuse. In 2002, the Colombia. sidered calling for its abolition; Justice Department deported a Syrian- “As with Iraq before the war, Secretary of State Alexander Haig born Canadian citizen, Maher Arar, to where such violations were over- said the existence of that office Syria, a country with a long record of looked for decades by the U.S., these implied that other bureaus in the human rights abuses. Arar alleges that countries will feel little pressure to department were working against he was tortured during his 375-day end such abuses. After today’s release human rights. But Reagan eventually prison stay. To many, it was a clear case of this report, U.S. military aid and nominated Elliott Abrams, then the of American complicity in torture. training, political and economic sup- head of the State Department’s

DECEMBER 2004/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 53 Human rights have been a key element of American foreign policy since the early days of the Carter administration.

International Organizations Bureau. He stressed the importance of democratic reform as the key to improved human rights performance, a tool that has been a mainstay of U.S. policy ever since. Mark Schneider, a vice president of the International Crisis Group, which monitors global trouble spots, was the No. 2 official in the State Department’s human rights office during the Carter administration. He says that the Democrat-vs.- Republican combat over human rights of that period has diminished considerably, with some exceptions, including whether social issues should be included in the rights agenda. “There is greater acceptance of the legitimacy of pressing human rights concerns as a fundamental part of U.S. foreign policy,” Schneider says. “We have learned that over the long term you don’t advance other interests by staying in bed with a repressive regime.” U.S. security concerns have often been at odds with human rights goals. During the Cold War, the United States supported a slew of dictators in Latin America, Africa and elsewhere because they were politically useful. Perhaps the most disreputable dicta- tor with U.S. backing was none other than Saddam Hussein. During the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, Saddam

54 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL/DECEMBER 2004 was regarded as less of an internation- country into the world economy. al menace than the fundamentalist Kerry may have been influenced mullahs in Tehran. He won U.S. sup- U.S. security concerns by his father, Richard Kerry, who port during that period even though spent some 15 years in the Foreign his military slaughtered countless Iraqi have often been at odds Service, mostly working on European Kurds; 5,000 were killed by poison gas issues. In his 1990 book, The Star- at Halabja on March 16, 1988. Not with human rights goals. Spangled Mirror: America’s Image of wishing to offend an ally, the Reagan Itself and the World, the senior Kerry administration paid little heed to the wrote: “The struggle to put policy in massacre. It was not until after touch with reality was difficult enough Saddam’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait that marked change either. Sen. John before the siren song of promoting American officials began citing the Kerry, D-Mass., said relatively little human rights.” slaughter as an example of Saddam’s about human rights or democracy Still, the senator said he supported malevolence. It has been used repeat- promotion during his unsuccessful some U.S. actions with a strong edly by the Bush administration as a campaign for the White House. But human rights dimension, for instance, justification for Saddam’s removal from he sent a signal last May that he in Kosovo and Bosnia. He also called power. And each March 16, the State does not embrace mainstream Demo- for decisive U.S. steps to end the Department issues an anniversary cratic Party thinking on human rights. abuses in Darfur. statement denouncing the atrocities. He told the Washington Post that pur- In the final analysis, the balancing suit of non-proliferation goals in act that has characterized the past Change Ahead? Russia and Pakistan is more important four years — wherein human rights With the Bush electoral victory, we than protection of human rights. And are an important aspect of America’s can expect little change in the human in China, he said, the primary U.S. relations with the rest of the world, rights agenda. Interestingly, a Kerry objective should not be improving but seldom the deciding factor — victory may not have produced a human rights but integrating that will continue. ■

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DECEMBER 2004/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 55 DOES THE U.S. NEED A NATION-BUILDING AGENCY?

POST-CONFLICT NATION-BUILDING HAS BEEN AN INSTRUMENT OF U.S. FOREIGN POLICY SINCE THE TURN OF THE 20TH CENTURY. EFFORTS ARE UNDER WAY TO MAKE IT A MORE EFFECTIVE DIPLOMATIC TOOL IN THE 21ST.

DENNIS A. RONDINELLI AND JOHN D. MONTGOMERY

n March 2004, Senators Richard Lugar, R-Ind., Noting that American incursions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Joseph Biden, D-Del., introduced the and other countries have been followed by “cobbled Stabilization and Reconstruction Civilian together” post-conflict nation-building, Lugar, chairman Management Act. The bill (S. 2127) would cre- of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, argues that ate a “Stabilization and Reconstruction because “international crises are inevitable, and in most Coordinating Committee” charged with estab- cases, U.S. national security interests will be threatened lishing the administrative structure, personnel by sustained instability … the United States must have and resources to deal more effectively with nation-building the right structures, personnel and resources in place Iin the future. This interagency committee would be chaired when an emergency occurs.” Sen. Biden, the commit- by the president’s national security adviser. tee’s ranking minority member, observes that: “As a The legislation would also establish a rapid-readiness nation, we have accepted the stabilization and recon- office within the State Department to coordinate nation- struction missions in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq, building efforts. It would authorize the Secretary of State but we need to go a step further and create structures to create a “Response Readiness Corps” composed of that can plan and execute strategies to deal with future both “active-duty” and “reserve components” of the emergencies” by establishing an office within the State Foreign Service, as well as personnel from non-foreign Department to coordinate civilian implementation of affairs agencies, to mobilize resources quickly when internation-building policies. national crises arise. Although the Lugar-Biden bill was reported to the It would also establish programs within the Foreign Senate on March 18, Congress has taken no action on it. Service Institute, the Army War College and the National In August 2004, however, Secretary of State Colin Powell Defense University to train civilian and military personnel in created an Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction post-conflict stabilization and reconstruction, to ensure that and Stabilization (S/CRS) within the State Department the United States has a cadre of professionals who under- that fell short of the government-wide functions called for stand the complexity and scope of efforts needed to put in S. 2127, but nonetheless moved in the direction urged failed or destroyed states back on the road to economic, by Sens. Lugar and Biden. That office is charged — when political and social development. crises arise and when directed by the Secretary of State — with ensuring a “unified interagency civilian response to Dennis A. Rondinelli is the Glaxo Distinguished implement programs for transitional security and law International Professor of Management at the Kenan- enforcement, justice reform, good governance, promoting Flagler Business School, University of North Carolina at civil society, economic reconstruction, humanitarian Chapel Hill. John D. Montgomery is Ford Foundation response, community building and social sector reform.” Professor of International Studies Emeritus at Harvard The S/CRS coordinator, however, has no budgetary University. They are co-editors of Beyond Reconstruction authority to control intergovernmental agency reconstruc- in Afghanistan: Lessons from Development Experience tion and stabilization activities, and little or no political or (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2004). administrative authority outside of the Department of

56 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL/DECEMBER 2004 State to carry out reconstruction training or to create the process which of itself can achieve no positive aim,” Kennan Response Readiness Corps or Reserve Corps as called for wrote. “Even military victory is only the prerequisite for by the Lugar-Biden bill. some further and more positive achievement which it makes possible but by no means assures.” Nation-Building as an Instrument of Certainly the U.S. track record suggests that past, ad-hoc U.S. Foreign Policy responses have not been very effective in securing peace Does the United States really need another bureaucracy and rebuilding societies ravaged by war. Despite nearly 60 to carry out nation-building? After all, regime change and years of nation-building by the U.S. government in countries post-conflict nation-building have been instruments of U.S. around the world, the American public may be unaware of foreign policy since the turn of the 20th century. The U.S. how infrequently such interventions have succeeded. For military occupation to stabilize post-World War II Japan and example, the World Bank found in 2003 that countries Germany and to restore more democratic political systems emerging from war had a 50-percent chance of relapsing and U.S. financial and technical assistance for postwar into conflict within five years. A study by the Carnegie Western European economic reconstruction through the Endowment for International Peace in 2003 reviewed 16 Marshall Plan marked the beginning of the modern era of major U.S.-led nation-building efforts since the beginning of nation-building. In the subsequent wave of nation-building, the 20th century and found that in only four countries — the United States led in the practice of West Germany, Japan, Grenada and military intervention in Latin America Panama — did democratic gover- (Panama, Guatemala and Grenada) nance continue for more than 10 years and Southeast Asia (Cambodia, Laos In August 2004, after unfriendly regimes were dis- and South Vietnam) and Central Asia placed. In Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and the Middle East (Lebanon, Secretary of State Colin Cambodia, and South Vietnam dicta- Afghanistan and Iraq) to overthrow torships emerged quickly after U.S. unfriendly regimes and rebuild war- Powell created an Office forces left the country. torn countries as democratic market Nor have international organiza- economies. of the Coordinator for tions done much better. After a It is important to recall, however, decade under United Nations supervi- that nation-building was pursued after Reconstruction and sion, democracy in Cambodia is still the Second World War not only by the only a hope; elections are riddled with United States but by Western Euro- Stabilization (S/CRS). corruption, violence and fraud. U.N. pean governments and by internation- peacekeeping and nation-building al organizations, such as the World operations in Somalia, Rwanda and Bank and the United Nations. Non- Sierra Leone failed to achieve either governmental organizations also became important chan- goal, and in other countries they encountered complex con- nels of foreign assistance. During the Cold War, straints that made even humanitarian relief difficult. Washington often attempted to wrap its preference for military incursions in the cloak of U.N. peacekeeping opera- Lessons of Experience tions, allied coalitions, or the work of international develop- Although experience with nation-building yields few ment organizations. hard-and-fast rules for doing it well, it does offer guidelines The post-9/11 military invasions and reconstruction for more successful policies that will be useful if the new efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq continue a long history of civilian coordinating office is created. First and foremost, actions by the U.S. to forcibly replace threatening regimes the office must work closely with the military and the State in other countries. Yet many diplomats, most notably Department, at least in the early stages, to create a secure George F. Kennan, clearly saw the use of military power environment for reconstruction. alone as insufficient, and indeed deleterious, for creating Experience in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo and Bosnia political regimes more favorable to American ideals. In his should teach nation-builders that unless they can quickly book American Diplomacy 1900-1950, Kennan both fore- ensure security and a peaceful settlement of conflict, little saw the need to follow any military intervention with nation- progress can be made toward establishing a strong national building assistance and forewarned of the difficulties. “We government, repairing infrastructure and creating the foun- can remember that war — a matter of destruction, brutal- dation for economic growth. In the aftermath of the ization and sacrifice, of separation, domestic disintegration, American invasions of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, and the weakening of the deeper fabrics of society — is a continuing guerilla warfare, terrorism, lawlessness and eth-

DECEMBER 2004/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 57 nic conflict slowed plans for nation- purposes if their long-term goals are basic services, controlling corruption, building and undermined the legiti- acknowledged openly and officially responding effectively to emergen- macy of the interim occupation orga- rather than carried out in secrecy. cies, and combating poverty and nizations and of the fledgling transi- While it is true that donors risk giving inequality — all at the same time. tion authorities. offense by appearing to interfere with A coordinated U.S. program could The difficulties of establishing basic decisions in independent, sover- better establish the conditions for security were not unique to those eign nations, the accusation that they turning power over to the people of countries or to the Bush administra- are doing so secretly will be even the countries undergoing reconstruction, of course. The issues were just more damaging — and without tion. Experience in Afghanistan as complex in the Balkans and East achieving the desired ends. At the underlines the importance of sharing Timor during the previous adminis- same time, as experience in Iraq, major decisions regarding future tration. The United Nations mission Afghanistan, Cambodia and Bosnia development with a local governing in Kosovo had continuing struggles in shows, transparent objectives are not authority and the people. Where eth- establishing public order, rebuilding enough without strong coordinating nic, religious or other conflicts result- the judicial system, and demilitarizing mechanisms to carry them out. ed in regime change, deliberately or competing political and ethnic Nation-building depends on recre- inadvertently ignoring any important groups. ating a strong state quickly. Postwar segment of society undermines How can a new reconstruction and interventions in the former nation-building. stabilization coordinating office in the Yugoslavia, Central America and Although there may be no stan- State Department and an interagency Afghanistan all testify to the need for dard sequence of development coordinating committee help make a coordinated program to help a new among the various elements in the U.S. policy on nation-building more governing authority find ways of rec- nation-builder’s model, comparative transparent? Experience suggests onciling ethnic or religious conflicts, studies of newly-developed countries that nation-builders are more likely to protecting human rights, generating reaffirms two preconditions to a achieve desired social and political economic opportunities, extending viable state: a competitive economy

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58 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL/DECEMBER 2004 and a competent government. ments as the warlord economy, the strong case for the necessity of nation- Consider the following case studies: black market, smuggling, drugs and building policies, they are unlikely to • Strong economic growth in El the subsistence sector. General eco- be sufficient without adequate organi- Salvador in the post-conflict period nomic progress is retarded by the pro- zational service structures and contributed significantly to the gov- clivity for violence and vulnerability to resources. Explicit, coherent and ernment’s ability to implement the plunder and looting in closed systems transparent policies effectively coor- peace accords during the 1990s. that can inhibit production and desta- dinated within the U.S. government Inflows of foreign aid and private cap- bilize livelihoods and entrepreneurial by the State Department and an ital, along with some international opportunities. Export and other for- interagency committee chaired by the debt forgiveness and exchange rate eign trade opportunities and tariff president’s national security adviser, reforms, helped to stabilize the reform are often more important than as called for in the Lugar-Biden bill, Salvadoran economy and mobilize other forms of assistance to the pri- could more effectively draw on resources for rapid reconstruction. vate sector. lessons from the past, help establish Similar policies in Central America, • A U.S. coordinating office could priorities, and guide the coordination focused on comprehensive macroeco- also focus American economic assis- and integration of activities during nomic adjustment and structural tance on programs that encourage times of chaos and confusion. The reforms, reduced hyperinflation in local entrepreneurship, and that policies must, of course, be applied Nicaragua in the late 1980s and early include women. Both approaches are with due regard for the unique cir- 1990s and helped lower inflation in more likely to avoid charges of colo- cumstances shaped by different cul- other countries in the region, as well. nialism than those dominated by for- tural, political and economic condi- • The international community’s eign public or private organizations. tions in each country that requires work in Afghanistan underlines the reconstruction. importance of coordinated assistance Rethinking Foreign Policy A strong need still exists for a in dealing with all aspects of the econ- Structure and Resources Response Readiness Corps and omy, including such dysfunctional ele- Although past experience builds a Reserve, as outlined in the Lugar-

DECEMBER 2004/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 59 Biden bill, staffed with experienced not encourage the kinds of institu- Foreign Service personnel who rec- tional innovation that nation-build- ognize that conventional relationships ing requires. The standard embassy, are often awkward during nation- even if supplemented by a standard building processes. Because host aid mission, rarely provides current governments themselves are often local information in times of crisis incompletely integrated into their and reconstruction. Whatever enti- own societies and, in any case, are ty serves as the “host government” imperfectly structured to carry out cannot completely open its agencies their new functions, they are as like- and ministries to foreign eyes, and ly to resent as they are to welcome so it has to work at a protective arm’s offers of assistance. Indeed, both length through overburdened for- sides in these relationships suffer eign offices or planning units. from the embarrassment of wartime Because local bureaucracies are defeat or from symptoms of under- untrustworthy or depleted, donors development; the tender nerves of often have to supplement local sovereignty are especially delicate administrative funding in order to during these times. maintain adequate levels of service. The experience of dealing with In order to avoid reinforcing a dis- new, or failed, or reconstructed placed ideology, the very composi- states is therefore likely to be partic- tion of local bureaucracies may have ularly challenging to both sides, and to change. Unacceptable elements to call for unusual degrees of inno- are purged, and new ones added to vation and improvisation. These incorporate elements of the society uncertainties have led the field that had been neglected or excluded offices of nation-builders to concen- from public service by the previous trate on static, fail-safe, all-purpose government. organizational remedies and physi- Explicit policies and specialized cal infrastructure and to avoid deal- post-conflict reconstruction agencies ing with difficult social or political that draw on both military and civil factors. administrative expertise are essential A recurring issue in such interven- because peacekeeping and nation- tions — Iraq being a prime case in building are inextricably interdepen- point — is how best to navigate dent, long-term activities. Regime- between the gentility of diplomatic changing military incursions, no mat- relations and the brutality of military ter how strong their moral justifica- coercion. That balancing act requires tions, can no longer be seen as ends in an unusual degree of sensitivity to themselves. George Kennan clearly internal political, ethnic and regional understood this. At the dawn of a conditions, yet there is little guidance new era of American intervention to in the handbooks of either the State contain communism and shape world Department or the Pentagon. Thus, politics in American interests in the both the United States government 1950s, he said: “Even the most glori- and international organizations need ous military victory would give us no a cadre of military and civilian profes- right to face the future in any spirit sionals who devote their careers to other than one of sorrow and hum- peacekeeping and post-conflict re- bleness for what has happened and of construction and who can apply the the realization that the road ahead is lessons of nation-building flexibly, long and hard — longer and harder, creatively and with sensitivity to local in fact, than it would have been had it conditions. been possible to avoid a military cata- The conventions of diplomacy do clysm altogether.” ■

60 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL/DECEMBER 2004 APPRECIATION

A True Foreign Service Hero Archer Kent Blood 1923 – 2004

BY DOUGLAS KERR

n Sept. 3, Archer Blood, who served in Washington of Pakistani General Yahya Khan’s military as U.S. consul general in Dhaka in crackdown, and urged them to try to stop it. 1971 during Bangladesh’s Libera- tion War, passed away. Bangla- Pakistan’s Military Crackdown deshis have always regarded Blood as In March 1971, following the failure to reach a negoti- a much-loved friend, and he is seen ated settlement to the political dispute arising from the as a heroic, even tragic figure, not only for his conduct dur- recent election, the government of Pakistan had pre-emp- Oing those dark months in 1971, but also because of the way tively removed the foreign press from Dhaka and then the State Department treated him thereafter. In 1996 he commenced a vicious military crackdown in Bangladesh. was invited to return to Bangladesh to participate in cere- Awami League leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was monies marking the 25th anniversary of independence. arrested and the Pakistan army set about murdering his For both Blood and his Bangladeshi friends, that 1996 trip supporters. The focus of their savagery was Dhaka was a joyful reunion. University’s campus, seen as a hotbed of radical and Archer Blood will be remembered for his personal Hindu-inspired opposition. Blood himself reported integrity and moral courage in a time of crisis, and as directly to the State Department and Henry Kissinger’s senior signatory to a dissent cable written during the bru- National Security Council one episode in which the army tal military crackdown by the Pakistan government on its laid siege to the women’s dormitory on campus, set fire to Bangladeshi eastern wing. For Foreign Service officers, it, and mowed down the occupants with machine guns as Blood’s 1971 conduct stands as a stark object lesson in the they fled the flames. A generation of senior Hindu acad- use of the Dissent Channel. The American Foreign emics was rounded up one by one, taken out to the coun- Service Association honored him in 1971 with its presti- tryside and shot. In rural areas, the Pakistani murderers gious Christian A. Herter Award for “extraordinary would order men they suspected of being Hindus to lift accomplishment involving initiative, integrity, intellectual their lunghis; uncircumcised men were shot on the spot. courage and constructive dissent by a Senior Foreign “Rape, murder, dismemberment and the state murder Service officer.” of children were employed as deliberate methods of Three decades later, Blood recounted his experience in repression and intimidation. At least ten thousand civil- his book The Cruel Birth of Bangladesh: Memoirs of an ians were butchered in the first three days,” reports American Diplomat (University Press, Ltd., 2002), a combi- Christopher Hitchens in his book, The Trial of Henry nation of personal biography and professional memoir. Kissinger (Verso Books, 2001). “The eventual civilian Perhaps the greatest value of the book lies in Blood’s repro- death toll has never been placed at less than half a million, duction and analysis of the declassified cables from 1971. and has been put as high as three million.” Against a backdrop of vicious cruelty and “selective geno- At the height of the atrocities, in March-April 1971, cide,” a term he coined as the subject line of one of his Dhaka was almost completely cut off from the rest of the reports, Blood and his team sought to inform their superiors world. But Blood had ingeniously secured permission from

DECEMBER 2004/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 61 the Pakistani authorities to maintain a munications emanating from Dhaka, time bending over backwards to pla- communications wireless, and it was and sought to pry free answers to cate the West Pak[istan]-dominated by way of this tenuous thread that he embarrassing questions from a recal- government and to lessen any de- sent his communications to Washing- citrant Nixon White House and a servedly negative international public ton. According to a dark joke made at secrecy-obsessed Kissinger NSC. relations impact against them. Our the time, all that one heard from government has evidenced what many Bangladesh was “blood, butcher and The Blood Telegram will consider moral bankruptcy … kill.” In addition to Consul General The most well-known of Archer “But we have chosen not to inter- Blood, Scott Butcher was the political Blood’s cables has come to be labeled vene, even morally, on the grounds officer in Dhaka; Andy Killgore had the “Blood Telegram” (pun fully that the Awami conflict, in which, recently left Bangladesh to serve at intended). It is worth excerpting here unfortunately, the overworked term the bureau in Washington. for those who may not have seen it, but genocide is applicable, is purely an As the political crisis darkened also because it is of particularly point- internal matter of a sovereign state. and deepened, Blood struggled to ed relevance given contemporary Private Americans have expressed have his voice heard above the din of Dhaka events. (The frequent unre- disgust. We, as professional civil ser- obfuscation and temporization aris- solved murders of journalists, and the vants, express our dissent with cur- ing from Embassy Islamabad and the recent unsolved deaths in suspicious rent policy and fervently hope that White House. He experienced circumstances raise serious ques- our true and lasting interests here mounting frustration as he sought to tions.) The Blood Telegram stated: can be defined and our policies redi- nudge his superiors into action. It “Our government has failed to rected.” must have felt like trying to push a denounce the suppression of democ- This cable was signed by 20 mem- piece of string. The Washington racy. Our government has failed to bers of the U.S. consulate in Dhaka, press corps in that heady era of denounce atrocities. Our government and by a further nine officers in the Woodward and Bernstein caught has failed to take forceful measures to Near Eastern Affairs Bureau in wind of the general drift of the com- protect its citizens while at the same Washington.

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62 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL/DECEMBER 2004 Archer Kent Blood, 81, died of counselor in Athens. recounting the story of Bangladeshi arterial sclerosis on Sept. 3 at the In 1970 he was posted as consul aspirations for autonomy under Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort general to Dhaka, but was recalled Pakistan and the emergence of the Collins, Colo. in June 1971 following the “Blood state of Bangladesh. Born in Chicago, Ill., he was the Telegram” on the lack of U.S. reac- Besides the Herter Award from eldest of four children. He was vale- tion to the Pakistan military’s 1971 AFSA, Mr. Blood received the John dictorian of his high school class in massacre in East Pakistan, and Jacob Rodgers Award and the Lynchburg, Va., and graduated Phi assigned to the State Department’s Meritorious Honor Award from the Beta Kappa from the University of personnel office. In 1974, he was State Department, and the Distin- Virginia in 1943. He earned a mas- posted as diplomatic adviser to the guished Civilian Service Award from ter’s degree in international relations commandant at the U.S. Army War the Department of the Army. from The George Washington College in Carlisle, Pa., where he In 1993, Mr. Blood and his wife University in 1963. Mr. Blood became the first civilian to be settled in Fort Collins, where they served with the U.S. Navy in the named deputy commandant for enjoyed both “the best climate in North Pacific from 1944 to 1946 international affairs. the world” and full-time involve- before joining the Foreign Service In 1977, under the Carter admin- ment as grandparents. Mr. Blood’s in 1947. istration, Mr. Blood was appointed hobbies included gardening, travel His 35-year Foreign Service DCM in New Delhi, and for the last and hiking. career began with a posting as vice several months of his four-year tour Survivors include his wife of 56 consul to Thessaloniki in 1947, fol- there served as chargé d’affairs. years, Margaret (Millward) formerly lowed by a posting to Munich in Mr. Blood left the Foreign of Tenafly, N.J., who traveled to 1949. In 1950 he was sent to Athens Service in May 1982 to become Greece for their wedding in 1948; and, following a short tour as vice diplomat in residence at Allegheny daughters Shireen Updegraff of Fort consul in Algiers, he was assigned to College in Meadville, Pa., retiring Collins and Barbara Rankin of Bonn in 1953. In 1960, he was post- in 1990. He was guest lecturer at a Denver, Colo.; sons Peter R. Blood of ed to Dhaka, in what was then East number of universities, and pub- Alexandria, Va., and Archer L. Blood Pakistan, as deputy principal officer. lished articles and a book, The of Shaker Heights, Ohio; three sis- In 1965 he was posted to Kabul as Cruel Birth of Bangladesh: Mem- ters; and eight grandchildren. Mem- the deputy chief of mission, and oirs of an American Diplomat orial contributions may be made to from 1968 to 1970 served as political (University Press, Ltd., 2002), The Nature Conservancy.

Blood’s book is engaging in large dor Joseph Farland in Islam- interview. “But I had no choice. The part because of his even-handed abad immediately ordered all copies line between right and wrong was just review of the events of that time. destroyed. In Washington, Assistant too clear-cut. ■ He was a man who “called it like he Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs Joe saw it,” with considerable integrity. Sisco called Henry Kissinger and com- Douglas Kerr and his wife, Michelle In discussing the telegram in his mented, “My people seem to be leav- Jones, assistant public affairs officer book, 31 years later, Blood is self- ing the reservation.” in Dhaka, have lived in the U.K., critical on two points. Firstly, he In a disturbing echo of this racist Canada, Estonia and the U.S. Since regrets not according it a higher slur, supportive comments made by joining the Foreign Service, they level of classification. Secondly, he U.S. Ambassador to New Delhi have lived in Warsaw, and are cur- wishes he had toned down the claim Kenneth Keating were written off by rently midway through a tour in that “our government has failed to President Nixon, who described Bangladesh. He is working both as a take forceful measures to protect its Keating as having been “taken over by custom cabinet-maker and as writer own citizens.” the Indians.” editor for an NGO umbrella organi- Archer Blood was curtailed from zation. He is also the author of “The “Damage Control” Dhaka in June 1971, and sent to Plight of the Pantoflarz: Trailing The reaction to the cable was, in molder in the Personnel Bureau for Husbands in the Foreign Service,” in Blood’s words, “a masterful demon- the next several years. “I paid a price Realities of Foreign Service Life stration of damage control.” Ambassa- for my dissent,” he said in a 1982 (AAFSW, 2002).

DECEMBER 2004/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 63 BOOKS

Leveraging the American reliance on the global econ- highlight successes and challenges. Global omy as a “fact of life,” supporting his Many are highly topical, such as the argument with both economic data discussion of intellectual property dif- Marketplace and vivid examples. At the macro level ficulties in China or references to he notes, for example, that U.S. Boeing-Airbus competition in third- Commercial Diplomacy and the imports and exports of goods and ser- country markets. What Kopp makes National Interest vices and earnings on foreign invest- clear is that developing diplomatic Harry W. Kopp, American Academy ment now register around 30 percent strategies to get at and ultimately of Diplomacy/Business Council for of the $11-trillion U.S. economy. In resolve perennial systemic issues is International Understanding, 2004, this highly competitive global market- critical to realizing potential economic $9.95, paperback, 140 pages. place, Kopp advocates U.S. govern- benefits — not just for individual U.S. ment activism overseas on commercial companies, but also for our economy REVIEWED BY E. ANTHONY WAYNE issues as a win-win proposition to help as a whole. The treatment of these increase U.S. exports, bolster Ameri- systemic business-climate issues Both national-interest-divining dip- ca’s employment base, and to broaden serves primarily to underscore their lomats and profit-seeking business and deepen links between the United significance and is not intended to be operators will take away important States and other countries. comprehensive. lessons from former FSO Harry The author focuses on identifying Kopp’s book does not attempt an in- Kopp’s new book, Commercial Diplo- successful strategies based on first- depth presentation of how government macy and the National Interest, which hand accounts collected from former is organized to take on the commercial includes a survey of best practices ambassadors, experienced diplomatic diplomacy task. Instead, he highlights for this important area of American hands, and savvy business representa- basic reference points such as the diplomacy. tives. As Kopp puts it, this art of com- Foreign Service Act of 1980, the statu- First, he makes a strong case that mercial diplomacy is “practiced at two tory authority for U.S. government the U.S. national interest is well served levels. One — call it the macro level export-promotion efforts. The 1980 by working to leverage our diplomatic — involves the negotiation of princi- Act vests the Department of Com- assets to help secure markets for ples and rules that guide global trade merce as the lead federal trade promo- American companies. Second, and and investment without reference to tion agency, and specifies that “each equally important, the new release specific companies, deals or projects. chief of mission to a foreign country furnishes practitioners with a sensible Another — call it the micro or trans- shall have as a principal duty the pro- “how-to manual” for constructive pri- actional level — involves the contest motion of U.S. goods and services for vate-public sector partnering along for sales and contracts and for enforce- export.” Because Commerce’s Foreign these lines. The interview-based cases ment in particular cases of prior agree- Commercial Service operates princi- that Kopp presents firmly ground this ments.” Kopp’s book cogently ad- pally in large markets, U.S. missions in book in the practical challenges our dresses both levels. many less prominent destinations rely embassies and companies face in an In addition to presenting both deal- on dual- or sometimes multi-hatted increasingly interconnected world. specific and longer-range market strat- State Department “economic-com- This publication is a cooperative egy case-studies, various chapters mercial” officers to advance commer- endeavor of the Business Council for review broader market access issues, cial interests. Now, more than 20 years International Understanding and the investment disputes, protection of after the Act’s ratification, Kopp’s book American Academy of Diplomacy. In intellectual property rights and the offers ample food for thought for the first chapter, aptly titled “the impact of foreign government corrup- adopting effective techniques and basics,” Kopp describes growing tion. Cases have been selected to strategies to help us meet this legisla-

64 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL/DECEMBER 2004 B OOKS

tive mandate. New York, where he was co-CEO of First, increased international inter- The case-based studies in the Goldman Sachs, the investment bank. dependence means that one country’s book are useful and thought-provok- Though not a politician in any sense of success can enrich others, but its mis- ing for those of us grappling with the term, he was a quick learner. His takes can put them at risk. today’s need to support U.S. compa- independence, and a knack for appro- Second, effective governance is a nies. Just as promising is the book’s priately weighing risk and reward, key complement to a market economy. potential to enhance readers’ under- enabled him to be an honest broker Only government can create an ade- standing of how effective commer- and lent credibility to his substantive quate legal and regulatory framework, cial diplomacy can boost American input. His time inside the White law enforcement, social safety nets, prosperity. In so doing, Mr. Kopp’s House also gave him personal links to universal education and the like. book bolsters the case for adequate President Clinton and Clinton’s other Moreover, many multinational issues resources and attention to commer- core staff that enabled him to be an — terrorism, major environmental cial diplomacy. effective Treasury Secretary from day problems and contagious diseases one. And with Mexico on the verge of among them — can only be effective- E. Anthony Wayne is Assistant Secre- financial meltdown just as he took ly dealt with by governments. tary for Economic and Business office in January 1995, he needed to Third, when a crisis of confidence Affairs in the State Department. be. develops and capital starts to flee, nei- The Mexican “bailout” was criti- ther money nor policy reforms alone cized by some as welfare for wealthy can turn the situation around. Both Balancing the investors. Rubin concedes that the are required. support provided the Mexican govern- Fourth, while the IMF and other Private and Publicment created a moral hazard of international financial institutions Sectors rewarding bondholders who should responded well in these cases of finan- have weighed the risks when they cial market turmoil, the “architecture” bought the bonds. of the international system lags behind In an Uncertain World: But he makes a good case that the the markets and itself needs reform to Tough Choices from Wall Street consequences of allowing a Mexican become more nimble. to Washington default — a collapse in its currency While geared primarily for econo- Robert E. Rubin with Jacob and economy — would have been far mists, Rubin’s explanation of how he Weisberg, Random House, 2003, more serious. Instead, the financing applied private-sector principles to $16.95, paperback, 402 pages. package put together by the U.S. and government decision-making, utilizing the International Monetary Fund a theory called “probabilistic decision- REVIEWED BY LADD CONNELL allowed Mexico to restructure its debt making,” is worth even the lay reader’s from short-term to long-term while attention. This approach requires As the first director of the National committing it to economic reforms assigning positive or negative values to Economic Council from 1993-1995, and pledging oil export earnings to each of the possible outcomes for and as Secretary of the Treasury from ensure repayment. alternative courses of action and 1995 to 1999, Robert Rubin had a Rubin notes common elements in weighting the outcomes according to prominent role not only in guiding the origins of the financial crisis in their probability. The discussion is America’s economy but in forging Mexico and those that followed, occasionally dry, and a bit repetitive, responses to international financial beginning in July 1997, in Thailand, but reflects a practical perspective and crises that threatened to upset the South Korea, Indonesia, Russia and wisdom that are far too rare in today’s global economy throughout the late Brazil: fixed exchange rates, some pro- public policy debates. 1990s. While reflecting his low-key tectionism, too-close relationships For anyone to whom these issues style, In an Uncertain World: Tough between banks and corporate borrow- matter — and Rubin makes clear Choices from Wall Street to ers, a lack of financial transparency how important they are to every Washington makes clear that the and, in some cases, more serious self- American — this memoir is a valu- (mostly) successful resolution of these dealing and corruption. In recounting able contribution. ■ crises was by no means a sure thing. responses to these crises, Rubin draws Rubin came to Washington from four key lessons: Ladd Connell, an FSO, is in universi-

DECEMBER 2004/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 65 IN MEMORY

Alton George Adams, 86, IRAQ CLAIMS FIRST FOREIGN SERVICE CASUALTY retired FSO, died Sept. 17 in St. Edward J. Seitz, 41, assistant regional security officer at Embassy Petersburg, Fla. Baghdad, was killed Oct. 24 in a rocket attack at Camp Victory, the American Born in 1918 in Golden City, base adjacent to Baghdad International Airport. A 16-year veteran of the Mo., he graduated from Webb City Foreign Service, Diplomatic Security Special Agent Seitz is the first American High School in 1936. In September diplomatic employee killed in Iraq. 1941 he enlisted in the Naval “The Department of State and I mourn the loss of one of our own today Reserve and began active duty in the in Baghdad,” said Secretary of State Colin Powell from Beijing. “Ed’s death Navy, where he was assigned to the is a tragic loss for me personally, and for all of his colleagues at the Office of Special Services, in January Department of State. Our thoughts and prayers are with Ed’s family. We 1942. He was honorably discharged grieve with them in their loss, and will stand with them as they deal with this in 1945, with citations for perfor- tragedy. Ed Seitz died in the service of his country and for the cause of lib- mance of “exceptional and valuable erty and freedom for others. There is no more noble a sacrifice.” service beyond the call of duty” and Ed Seitz joined the Bureau of Diplomatic Security in 1988, and has “conspicuously meritorious and out- served in Washington, Chicago, Detroit, Shenyang and Sanaa. He had been standing performance of military posted in Baghdad for three months. Prior to the Iraq assignment, Sietz duties.” spent four years in Detroit as an investigator with the FBI’s joint terrorism Mr. Adams attended the task force. In 1999, the State Department honored him for his response to University of Southern California, the bombing of Embassy Nairobi. Prior to joining the Foreign Service, Seitz Los Angeles, before graduating from was a police officer in Cleveland, Ohio. The George Washington University “Ed was a career law enforcement officer, and epitomized the best of our in 1951 with a degree in government bureau,” Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security Francis X. Taylor and foreign affairs. He subsequent- and Director of Diplomatic Security Joe Morton said in a joint statement. “He ly completed specialized training in will be remembered as a man of enormous generosity — one who was always African affairs at Oxford University thinking of others first. It is this very characteristic that led him to accept this in England. dangerous assignment in Camp Victory, outside of the Green Zone.” In 1946, Mr. Adams began his Patrick Quigley, a former FSO and A-100 classmate who trained with Ed Foreign Service career. During his Seitz in South Georgia when they both started in Diplomatic Security, years with the Department of State described him as a dedicated agent who loved what he did, took his job seri- and the Agency for International ously and had “a heart of gold.” Quigley reflected, “He’s one of the few people Development, he and his family I could say lacked malice toward others.” lived in Ethiopia, Paraguay, Sudan, “We are deeply saddened by the death of State Department Special Liberia, Somalia, Ecuador, Sierra Agent Edward Seitz, who was killed in a rocket attack Oct. 24 in Iraq,” John Leone and Kenya, and traveled W. Limbert, president of the American Foreign Service Association, said. extensively in Europe. After his “On behalf of all his colleagues, I extend my heartfelt condolences and retirement, Mr. Adams continued to prayers to Mr. Seitz’s family.” work with USAID as an internation- Mr. Seitz leaves behind his wife Joyce of St. Claire Shores, Mich.; his par- al contractor/negotiator in Africa, ents, Elroy and Alba; and his brother, Bill. The Seitz family has requested that Panama and the Philippines. in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Edward J. Seitz Memorial Fund, He is survived by four daughters c/o Charter One Bank, 8471 Chippewa Road, Brecksville OH 44141. The fund from his first marriage (to Laurel will provide academic scholarships to children of law enforcement officers and Adams in 1941): Elizabeth Judd, assist families of officers killed in the line of duty. Margaret Adams, Cynthia Lewis and Paula Consaul; five grandchil-

66 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL/DECEMBER 2004 I N M EMORY dren, Jennie Chaloupkas, Kathryn overseas broadcasting at the Voice of Association, the National Press Club Lewis, James Lewis, and Emily and America was developed. In and the board of trustees of the Rose Consaul; and five great-grand- February 1942, Bauer and the rest Foundation Documentary Archive children, Garrett, Brent and of the European staff of WLWO of the Austrian Resistance. Samantha Chaloupkas, and Hadyn moved to New York and helped Survivors include his wife of 63 and Harrison Lewis. form what would become the VOA. years, Maria Kahler Bauer of From his second marriage, to It was Robert Bauer who Washington; two children, Virginia Rita E. Fanuco of Panama, he is sur- announced to the German people, Rose Ceaser and Robert F. Bauer, vived by three stepsons, Enrique, on June 6, 1944, that D-Day had both of Chevy Chase, Md.; seven Rafael and Carlos Vargas; five step- begun. “The storm from the west grandchildren; and a great-grand- grandchildren, Ivan Enrique, has begun …” he announced in daughter. Memorial contributions Andrea, Diego Enrique, Rafael German from the American may be made to the DACOR Bacon Ernesto and Gabriel Elias Vargas; Broadcasting Station in Europe, House Foundation, with a view to and two nephews, Michael and based in London, where he was awarding a Robert A. Bauer memor- Patrick Sullivan. chief of the German radio section. ial scholarship. Bauer continued broadcasting after the war, eventually becoming acting chief of VOA’s European division. Robert Albert Bauer, 93, retired In 1953 he joined USIA as a radio Jamroon Bucher, 68, wife of FSO, anti-Nazi radio broadcaster, program manager. He was assigned retired FSO Larry Bucher, died in author and lecturer, died Sept. 27 of to Tehran as a binational center Spearfish, S.D., on Sept. 2, after a a stroke at Sibley Memorial Hospital director in 1958, and transferred to two-year struggle with ovarian can- in Washington, D.C. Paris two years later as a radio-tele- cer. Mr. Bauer was born in Austria. vision officer. In 1961 he returned From 1977 through 1995, Mrs. He earned an M.A. in economics to Washington. In 1963 he was post- Bucher accompanied her husband and an LL.D. from Austrian univer- ed to Cairo as a cultural affairs offi- on assignments in Islamabad, sities in the early 1930s, and an M.A. cer, and was promoted to counselor Tegucigalpa, Lahore, Vientiane, in Arab studies from the American for public affairs in 1966. He Asmara and Washington, D.C. She University in Cairo in 1967. Mr. returned to USIA in 1967. He was is survived by her husband of Bauer practiced law in Austria in the posted to New Delhi in 1971, and Spearfish, six children and 12 grand- mid-1930s, but after the 1938 retired a year later. children. Anschluss, he fled his Nazi-occupied During the 1970s, Mr. Bauer was homeland and joined the Free director of the public affairs pro- Austria movement in Prague. After gram at Kenyon College in Gambier, Czechoslovakia came under Nazi Ohio, and taught political science Myrtle J. Eckblom, 83, retired rule, he became editor-in-chief of there. He then settled in Washing- FSO, died July 30 in Bellevue, the Austria Freedom radio station ton, where he lectured on interna- Wash., following a long illness. that began broadcasting from tional relations at American Uni- Ms. Eckblom was born in Harper, Normandy in 1940. versity and on assignment abroad for Wash., to Josephine and Otto After France fell in 1940, Mr. the State Department, and was a Eckblom. She graduated from West Bauer immigrated to the U.S. and consultant at the Brookings Institu- Seattle High School and business worked as a broadcaster for WLWO tion. He wrote or edited a number schools in Seattle and Oakland, (Overseas) radio, the overseas twin of books, including The Austrian Calif., before beginning a 20-year of WLW-AM radio operated by the Solution (1982), The Threat of Inter- career in the Foreign Service. Crosley Corporation in Cincinnati. national Terrorism (1993) and The As a personnel officer, Ms. At the time, WLWO had the most U.S. and World Affairs (1998). He Eckblom completed tours of duty in powerful shortwave transmitter in also wrote for the West-Ost Journal. Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Saigon, the Americas, and it is there that the Mr. Bauer was a project director Santiago, Accra and Mexico City. format of entertainment, news and for Diplomatic and Consular Following retirement in 1974 she informational programming that was Officers, Retired and a member of returned to Washington, D.C., at the to become the hallmark of American the American Foreign Service request of the State Department, to

DECEMBER 2004/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 67 I N M EMORY

serve an additional year. She retired ALB degree cum laude from In addition to his wife of 55 years, to Palm Desert, Calif., where she Harvard University’s Extension Joelle (Le Marchand), survivors lived for many years before return- School at the age of 81. Mr. and include four children; Melinda and ing to the Pacific Northwest. Mrs. Haselton also taught interna- William of New York City, Ingrid Ms. Eckblom is survived by sis- tional relations at Simon’s Rock Story of Portland, Ore., and Steph- ters Emma Keyes of Edmonds, College in Great Barrington, Mass., anie of London, England; seven Wash., and Lilly Geddie of Durham, and American studies at St. Antony’s grandchildren; and a sister, Claire N.C.; an aunt, Pearl Nelson of College, Oxford University, Kunkel, of Chapel Hill, N.C. Seattle, Wash.; nieces Karen England. Rasmussen of Grand Junction, Painting was Mrs. Haselton’s avo- Colo., Joann Harris of Greeley, cation and her award-winning works Colo., Janet Scott of Durham, N.C. of art were shown in numerous exhi- R. (Rayford) Glynn Mays Jr., 83, and Donna Pallo-Perez of Olympia, bitions, including an exhibition of retired FSO, died of pneumonia Wash.; and nephew David Keyes Jr. Texas artists in New York City. She Aug. 26 at Montgomery General of Bellevue, Wash., as well as sever- was a finalist in the 1950 Hospital in Olney, Md. al great-nieces and -nephews. Metropolitan Museum of Art nation- Mr. Mays was born in Birming- al competition, “American Painting ham, Ala., and graduated from Drew Today.” University in 1942. During World Mrs. Haselton’s husband died in War II, he served stateside as a staff Mary Michelson Haselton, 84, 1995. She is survived by one broth- sergeant in the U.S. Army. In 1944, retired FSO, accomplished artist er, Calvin Michelson, of San he married Matilda Frances and wife of the late FSO George Antonio, Texas; two sisters, Mrs. Leonardo, who died in 2001. After Haselton, died Aug. 27 at her home Rosalie Brooks and Mrs. Rosella the war, he attended Yale University, in Hanover, N.H. Hupp, both of Topeka, Kan.; and a where he was a history instructor Mrs. Haselton was born in Kansas stepdaughter, Roxanne Summers, of while he worked on his doctoral dis- City, Mo., on May 15, 1920, the Mattoon, Ill. sertation. Upon receiving his doc- daughter of Michael and Jeannette torate in European history in 1951, (MacFarlane) Michelson. She grew Mr. Mays joined the State up in Topeka, Kan., and graduated Department and moved to Silver from high school there. In 1941, William Helmer Holm, 85, Spring, Md. she began a career in Washington, retired FSO, died peacefully at his During his 43-year career at D.C., with the War Department. home in Sharon, Conn., on Sept. 3. State, Mr. Mays held numerous posi- From 1953 to 1960, she was a leg- Mr. Holm was born in New York tions both in Washington and islative assistant to Senator Lyndon City on Aug. 4, 1919, the son of abroad. He served first as an intelli- B. Johnson, D-Texas. After her Emilia (Johanson) and Helmer gence research analyst and chief of appointment to the Foreign Service Holm. He attended DeWitt Clinton the Eastern European Branch, in 1960, she served as vice consul in High School and Upsala College. Biographic Information. His team Zurich and Munich until 1964, when During World War II, he served in correctly predicted Nikita Khrush- her marriage to George Haselton, the U.S. Navy in the Pacific theater chev’s rise to power in the Soviet also a Foreign Service officer, as a diver of the 119th Seabees, Union in 1953 after the death of required her to retire. She rejoined Company D. Mr. Holm retired from Joseph Stalin. the Foreign Service in 1974 and the State Department after serving Mr. Mays served with the Foreign served in several State Department in the consular service at posts in Service in Europe from 1957 to 1964. positions, notably as deputy princi- Greece, Ethiopia, Mexico, Somalia, He served as a political officer at the pal officer and chargé d’affaires in Wales, Norway, France, Libya, Iran U.S. Mission in Berlin, and as region- Fiji. She retired in 1978. and Tunisia. “I was a free spirit,” he al director for the department’s After studying at Washburn said. “I loved the world and I saw a refugee program in Geneva. He also University, the University of Texas in lot of it.” served in Salzburg and Frankfurt. Austin, and American University in Mr. Holm was a Sharon resident In his later years, he worked in Washington, D.C., she earned her for 23 years. Washington as director of the Mon-

68 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL/DECEMBER 2004 I N M EMORY

itoring Overseas Direct Employment “remember him fondly as a fount of William J. McGovern, 82, diplo- Staff in the Office of the Under knowledge and wisdom, and also for matic courier, consular officer and Secretary of State for Management. his sense of humor.” one of the few — perhaps only — Upon retirement in 1994, he received For over 50 years, Mr. Mays was FSOs to become a consular agent, the John Jacob Rogers Distinguished an active member of the Silver died in Adelaide, South Australia, on Service Medal. Spring Presbyterian Church and Aug. 8. Carolyn Lowengart, a longtime served as an elder five times. In the Born in 1922 in Taunton, Mass., professional colleague of Mr. Mays, 1980s, he served as executive direc- Bill McGovern served on a U.S. Navy praised his “unwavering integrity tor of Montgomery County Habitat aircraft carrier during World War II, and professionalism,” and said he for Humanity, and remained earning three battle stars to his “inspired countless subordinates to involved in the organization until Pacific ribbon. In 1946, he entered produce far more and better than weeks before his death. During his Mount St. Mary’s College, they ever thought possible.” two decades of volunteer service, Emmitsburg, Md., receiving a B.S. Another colleague wrote of him: he oversaw nearly two dozen con- degree in 1950. In that same year, “He was one of those very special struction and renovation projects. Mr. McGovern joined the Diplo- people who made the department In 1991, President George H.W. matic Courier Service, which sent work and influenced the lives of Bush awarded him a “Thousand him to the Far East, Europe, South many.” A former ambassador and Points of Light” award for his America, North Africa and Australia. assistant secretary of State will Habitat service. Following his traveling courier years,

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he served in Frankfurt, Bucharest, successively to Canton, Mukden, daughter, Kedzie Penfield of Scot- Moscow, Saigon, Honolulu and Peiping, Yananfu and Chung King. land, from his first marriage to the late Perth, Western Australia. He was In 1941, Amb. Penfield was sent Anne Boardman; his second wife, consul in Perth from 1963 to 1967, to establish the first consulate in Georgia; and two granddaughters. and then was assigned to the depart- Gothab, Greenland. He was next ment until 1972, when he retired. posted to Guam as political adviser While in Perth, Mr. McGovern to Admiral Nimitz. In 1948 he was married Trenna Leske, an Australian posted to Prague, and two years later John Holly Scanlon, 79, retired nurse. On retirement they and their to London. In 1954 he was assigned FSO, died on Sept. 27 at Medlink son C.J. returned to her birthplace, to Vienna. Following a tour in Hospital in Washington, D.C. Adelaide, to live. He served as the Athens in 1956, Amb. Penfield Mr. Scanlon was born on July 20, U.S. consular agent in Adelaide for returned to Washington to take up 1925, in Kansas City, Mo., to the late 12 years until his retirement from the post of deputy assistant secretary Henry Patrick and Margaret (nee those duties in the late 1980s. For of State for African Affairs. He Casey) Scanlon. many in South Australia, Bill Mc- attained the rank of career minister He was a United States Navy vet- Govern was the U.S. government, in 1958. After serving as ambas- eran, and joined the Foreign Service helping widows with their Social sador to Iceland from 1961 to 1966, in 1954. During a 28-year career he Security, taking passport applications he returned to Washington. In 1970 was posted with USIA in Phnom and guiding U.S. ambassadors, Mel- he retired to Longbranch, Wash. Penh, Naples, Palermo, Trieste, bourne consuls general and other Amb. Penfield’s experiences Mogadishu, Algiers, Oran, Saigon, U.S. official visitors through their vis- under six presidents from Hoover to Rome and Washington, D.C. its to South Australia. Nixon in the many countries to Mr. Scanlon is predeceased by Son C.J. died tragically in 1992 at which he was posted were character- one brother, Bob Scanlon. He is 23 from the consequences of ized by variety, glamour and danger. survived by four children, Holly Goodpasture’s Syndrome. After that He was fluent in French and Klassen, John Scanlon, Sarah time, Mr. McGovern put aside much Mandarin Chinese. His walk Murdock and Matthew Scanlon; two of his active civic life, and he and through Manchuria to Tibet pro- brothers, Timothy and Joseph Trenna traveled widely. He was a duced many stories. A high point of Scanlon; 13 grandchildren; and five Knight Commander of the Order of his career was the negotiation and great-grandchildren. ■ St. John of Jerusalem and an active signing of the treaty returning member of the South Australia Austria to its citizens after its post- Kidney Foundation. He is survived war management by Russia, France, by his wife, Trenna, of Burnside, Britain and the U.S. The timing of South, Australia. his postings to Prague and London enabled him to witness extraordinary events such as Czechoslovakia’s turn to communism and the corona- James K. Penfield, 96, retired tion of Queen Elizabeth II. FSO and former ambassador, died in An active retiree, Amb. Penfield the hospital in Seattle, Wash., on served the local communities around Send your “In Memory” Sept. 11. Longbranch as energetically as he submission to: Ambassador Penfield was born in had served his government. He was Foreign Service Journal New York City in 1908. He studied head of the Park Recreation Board Attn: Susan Maitra history at Stanford University, grad- and of the Fire Department. His 2101 E Street NW, uating in 1929. He entered the active role in land-use zoning and Washington DC 20037, Foreign Service that year, and was the establishment of a local medical or e-mail it to posted to Mexico. Following train- clinic are among his many activities [email protected], or ing in Mandarin at the Foreign that are still appreciated by commu- fax it to (202) 338-8244. Service Language School he spent nity members. No photos, please. almost a decade in China, posted Amb. Penfield is survived by one

70 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL/DECEMBER 2004 S CHOOLS S UPPLEMENT

STILL HAVEN’T FOUND WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR…

DOES AN INTERNATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL EXPERIENCE MAKE YOU WHO YOU ARE? THE AUTHOR SURVEYS ADULTS WHO HAVE “BEEN THERE, DONE THAT” TO FIND SOME ANSWERS.

BY MIKKELA THOMPSON

f my international life as a Foreign Service Marshall Islands, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, teenager had a theme song, it would be a Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Africa, Sri tossup between U2’s “Where the streets have Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Tanzania, Thailand, no name” and “I still haven’t found what I’m Tunisia, Venezuela, Uganda, UAE, the U.S. and Yemen. looking for.” I attended Copenhagen Yet their experiences have much in common. International School, which I’ve likened to a brotherhood, a place where everyone became CIS: A Trip Down Memory Lane your “family.” Last summer, I was in Copenhagen once Copenhagen is infamous for its rain, and on an August Iagain, sitting at the vegetarian Mediterranean buffet with day in 2004 the rain clouds huddled and banked on the my high school friends. As I tried despondently to pre- other side of the train track as I got out in Hellerup (contend that my falafel was a frikedelle, my friend asked me, sidered a yuppie area just north of Copenhagen, like “So, in 15 years, what have we accomplished?” That McLean, Va.). I walked to the school, which now occupies prompted me to ask another question, as I looked at my Hellerupvej 22-26. How times have changed. friends and tallied up our different jobs and destinies: did I spent 9th grade in Fairfax, Va., but that year pales in high school make us who we are? comparison with the following three years at Copenhagen So I decided to ask around. I visited my old high International School in Denmark. My school in Virginia school and talked with my teachers. I discussed this was a sprawling building full of thousands of students, question with my old schoolmates. And when I returned where I had to watch out for the hallways that were “bad to the States, I continued the discussion with my new neighborhoods.” The next year, 1986, I moved to friends, including those in the Global Nomad communi- Denmark and, after a short interview with the principal, ty. (Global Nomads is a term and an organization for peo- Mr. Keson, was admitted to CIS. The school was a yellow ple who have lived in more than one country as a child as building located on Gammel Kongevej (Old King’s Way), a result of their parents’ professions. See “A Village to on the edge of the red light district. Our neighbors were Call Home — Global Nomads International,” FSJ, June a bodega, a strip club and a kiosk. Across the street was 2004, p. 69.) one of the lakes that made up the moat fortifications of old I sent out an e-mail questionnaire, and received Copenhagen. The school was near the main train station. responses from the adult children of Foreign Service, mil- Back then we didn’t have a gym, just the dirt courtyard in itary, U.N., corporate and educator parents. The respon- front of the building. Only later did the school acquire a dents were of many nationalities, but most had lived in at gym and a fence. And, still later, a new location. least four countries. These people have been around — Our school had 100 students spread out over grades 10 Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belgium, Brazil, through 13. One could take the American high school diplo- Cambodia, Central Republic of Congo, Cyprus, Czech ma or participate in the International Baccalaureate pro- Republic, Denmark, Egypt, England, Ethiopia, Finland, gram, which required an extra year of study. I made lifelong Fiji, France, Germany, Greece, Holland, India, Ireland, friends there while also participating in a drama trip to Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Kenya, South Korea, Brussels, a basketball trip to Berlin, a “Model United Nations” trip to the Hague, a ski trip to France and a cultural Mikkela Thompson is the Journal’s Business Manager. Continued on page 74

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Foreign Service Youth Foundation ounterintuitive as it seems to most parents, For 5-to-8-year-old FS children, “Diplokids” pro- returning to the United States is often the vides a fun place to meet other kids who have Cmost difficult move for our children. Though lived around the world. The pre-teen group, the years in the Washington area may be the “Globe Trotters,” meets for social activities and hosts transition, leadership training and re-entry strangest years in a lifetime of exotic locations, FS workshops. The oldest group, “AWAL (Around the children can still benefit from the efforts made on World in a Lifetime),” for FS teens, includes the their behalf. In this cyber age, the Foreign Service elements of the other programs and a community Youth Foundation sponsors a perpetual virtual club service project (funded by a grant from the Una house — and a tangible place for kids who are in Chapman Cox Foundation). This year’s communi- the DC area. The FSYF is a 501 (C)(3) nonprofit ty service project is dedicated to introducing organization established in 1989 to inform and refugee children to American life. assist Foreign Service youth and their families with their internationally mobile lifestyle. FSYF’s youth FSYF sponsors many other activities including the FSYF community service awards, annual wel- development programs include a myriad of educa- come-back potluck picnic, parenting programs and tional and social activities. Through the FSYF pro- the Kid Video Contest (in conjunction with FSI’s grams children discuss pertinent issues such as Transition Center). FSYF membership is $30 for returning to the U.S., coping with the first week of three years per FS family. For more information school, making new friends, preparing for a move, on FSYF’s activities, go to its Web site, saying goodbye and staying in touch. www.fsyf.org, or e-mail [email protected].

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Continued from page 71 trip to Italy. All the while, compliment, it also suggests that my Copenhagen was a safe haven, with attempts to make those students capa- efficient public transportation and I spent 9th grade in ble, independent human beings have, bicycle paths, giving me the freedom as yet, not met with any success.” to explore the city. Fairfax, Va., but that year The teachers were a vital part of Here, There and the CIS experience. I worshipped pales in comparison with Everywhere: School some of them. And they cared about Experiences the students. In 1994, when one of the following three years For most students, the school’s the former CIS students died of med- location and related activities were a icinal complications at the age of 26, at Copenhagen positive experience. “Seeing Roman three former teachers attended her ruins when studying about Romans, funeral. Dr. Engelberg, IB examiner International School visiting Istanbul when learning about and English teacher, said that it is the the Islamic world,” is the way one students and the atmosphere that in Denmark. respondent put it. This was especial- have kept him at CIS for 17 years. ly true for those who attended high “The students at CIS are unique and school in Italy: history class taught on difficult to leave behind.” He said that location in Rome, taught by people CIS has “a spirit of care and respect Dr. Engelberg added that as a who “are very steeped in it and made and sober academic aspirations,” and teacher, he aims to help his students it completely alive.” One cited the that CIS prepares students for univer- realize their potential and become special effect of studying the history sity and adult life by trying to “make competent managers of their own of the Middle East told from both them competent in everything they lives. As for students wanting to sides with children from both sides in do, including the choices they have to become English teachers, he said the classroom. Others recalled the make.” wryly, “Although it’s intended as a Continued on page 76

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Continued from page 74 field trips (like to Paris and Florence), schools also had children of royalty, or “see you at the front;” and the Getty and the closely walled villa; the prom from deposed regimes, from rich boy getting kidnapped and having his on a boat in Venice; the amphitheater families, from industry, from govern- ear cut off. For some, the one disad- in the dell; the shepherds who walked ment, jet-setters, movie-star kids and vantage to attending an international through playing their pipes when they fun-seekers. As one former student high school was logistics — the two herded their flock; and, of course, who attended high school in the hours it took to get there by bus or, as making close friends. According to 1970s in Rome said, “Our mates were in Hong Kong, needing parents to one student, “I would say that the kidnapped, and their homes in the drive one places. friendship bond was at its highest dur- Middle East were attacked.” One Anna, a Swedish diplomatic ing those later years in high school.” student who attended school in national who used to wander the Although many international stu- Manila said she doesn’t remember streets of Kabul and Delhi by herself, dents were in overseas schools due to anything about politics: “Even though echoed the kind of freedom and inde- the politics of their parents’ coun- there were tanks in the city, we were pendence I experienced in Copen- tries, usually all politics was left out- just happy to have a few days off hagen. “Since my parents lived in side the school gates. I remember a school!” Although politics was Kabul and I in New Delhi during high phenomenal friendship between two important to us, another said, “we did school, I spent all the long weekends boys, whose parents’ countries were not factionalize.” and holidays going back to Kabul to enemies. One of them had a body- If the good experiences were var- be with them. Hence, I was in Kabul guard and was driven to school in a ied and often exotic, so were the bad during the days between Christmas different car every day. Maybe they ones. The worst parts of these and New Year in 1980 when the weren’t really different. Yes, they had schools, reported one respondent, Soviet army invaded,” she said. “But different religions, languages and included drinking gin at a dance and what I remember was my indepen- destinies, but both were from well- feeling sick; listening to Doron and dence and gumption. Each time I off, cosmopolitan families. Many Ali say goodbye at graduation with a Continued on page 79

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Continued from page 76 was to fly back to Kabul (even though were. The teachers were enthusiastic I lived with an American family that and loving.” Another advantage to a hosted me), I would take a cab to the It is hard for children who small school is that one can be Air India office and buy my ticket involved in everything. “We not only myself. Then I would take a cab to have been raised overseas had people from Italy and the U.S., the battered multi-story visa office at but many kids whose parents were the edge of Old Delhi to get my exit to return to high school working more far afield. The teachers and entry visas for Afghanistan. I had were dedicated to where they were to do this on every trip. I got to be in America. and what they were doing,” recalled such a pro, I knew exactly which offi- another. “Perhaps because of this the cials to visit to get my multiple forms school body — teachers and students duly stamped and signed in record — were very open to people from all time. I always bypassed the long lines walks of life. We had and were of clueless tourists and ‘WTs’ (world Marshall Islands, the best thing friends with druggies, punks, prep- travelers of the opium/hashish gener- about school was “running for a dip pies, hippies, you name it.” For many ation). And I managed to visit the cor- at the beach between classes and the best experience was “the feeling rect clerks and get my visa — all with- wearing flip-flops.” of total acceptance as the premise.” out bribing a single person. I also For many, the best part of interna- Others explained that the experi- used to get myself to the airport. tional schools was their relatively ence taught them to read people and Thank God for the cheap cabs in small size and cultural diversity. understand multicultural body lan- India; as a kid you could go any- “People were in similar shoes,” said guage. According to one FS child, where!” one. “It was a small, radical, experi- what she liked best about going to According to another student, mental school and the teachers and school overseas was the mix of people who went to high school in the even the principal knew who you Continued on page 81

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Continued from page 79 from all over the world. “I always felt and the U.S., understands her parents’ more at home in that type of society decision to move her back to the than in American society. When I was Most of the international States for high school in Newport, R.I. a child, when we returned from The worst part of her experience was Africa, every time I would see an kids I talk to, now in their that at the public school in Newport, African or African-American, I would “people thought I was weird because get so excited to see someone from 20s, 30s and 40s, still don’t I’d just come from a small internation- home,” she said. “After a while I real- al school in Thailand. The other stu- ized that African-Americans were not know what they want to dents were always asking me questions Africans, but that was confusing at like, ‘Do you speak Chinese?’” first. I still, to this day, feel very drawn do when they “grow up.” As Ingrid explained: “I guess my to Africans and African-Americans.” parents thought it was important for me to come back so I felt I could fit in Coming “Home” here as well as abroad. At that point, I I have talked to several “kids” was almost 14 and had spent only whose parents moved them “back” to first half of the school year because I about four years in the U.S. I think their home country. For some, it was missed [the high school in New Delhi] they also felt most of the schools in the the first time they had lived in their so much. It made a huge impact on U.S. would do a better job preparing native country, and the culture shock me, and I’ll never forget the time in me for college than some of the inter- was extreme. Some chose to not New Delhi. I think it was the happiest national schools would. I wasn’t really socialize with the other kids. I’ve ever been.” angry with them. I think, even then, I According to one woman, “When I Ingrid, an FS child, who lived in understood their reasons for wanting had to return to North Carolina for my Singapore, South Africa, New Zea- me to go to high school here. Mostly, senior year, I cried every day for the land, Thailand, Venezuela, Sweden Continued on page 89

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DECEMBER 2004/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 83 S CHOOLS S UPPLEMENT SchoolsSchools atat aa GlanceGlance Go to our Web page at www.fsjournal.org and click on the Marketplace tab for more information.

Annual Tuition, School Name Advertisement EnrollmentPage No. Gender Distribution,Percent M/F BoardingPercent InternationalLevels Offered Common ApplicationAccepts/Offers ADDMiles and to LD Int’lInt’l Airport StudentsDorms Orientation w/E-mail,Holiday phones Break CoverageRoom & Board (USD)

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL Alexandria Country 92 250 47/53 NA NA K-8 NN 20 NA NA NA 15,600 Day School British International 89 300 50/50 NA 50 PK-12 NN 10 Y NA NA 14,500 School Sheridan School 97 215 50/50 NA 3 K-8 NN 10 NN N18,689 Washington International 77 825 49/51 NA 37 PK-12 N Limited 8YNA NA 18,500 School

JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL Indian Mountain School 89 260 60/40 27 12 PK-9 NY 75 NY N29,450

JUNIOR SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL Dana Hall School 88 454 All girls 50 11 6-12 Y Limited 12 YY N34,425 Grier School 80 196 All girls 100 37 7-12, PG YY120 NY Y30,900 Oldfields School 91 185 All girls 80 16 8-12, PG Y Limited 35 NN Y33,700 Perkiomen School 78 265 60/40 60 20 5-12, PG YY 50 YY N31,200 Stone Ridge School of 95 782 All girls NA 2 JK-12 NN 15 NN N17,480 the Sacred Heart Webb School, The 87 280 55/45 33 12 7-12, PG Y Y/N 45 YY Y27,250

SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL Berkshire School 80 385 57/43 86 16 9-12, PG YN 50 YY N33,450 Dublin School 82 124 60/40 78 23 9-12, PG YY 43 YY Y35,400 Emma Willard School 85 312 All girls 60 16 9-12, PG Y NA 7Y Y Y32,750 Fountain Valley School 87 225 47/53 62 20 9-12 YN 70 YY Y29,600 Foxcroft School 90 185 All girls 75 13 9-12 YN 30 YY Y34,000 George School 95 543 50/50 60 15 9-12 YY 40 YY N30,370 Idyllwild Arts Academy 74 262 40/60 85 27 9-12, PG YN120 YY N35,800 Kents Hill School 75 215 60/40 70 20 9-12, PG YY 50 YYLimited 33,900 La Lumiere School 92 106 60/40 40 16 9-12, PG Y Limited 70 NY Y20,550 Langley School 90 466 50/50 NA 0 PK- 8 NA N 15 NA NA NA 20,500 Learning Community of 90 ------Northern Virginia, The Madeira School 92 302 All girls 55 13 9-12 YY 15 YYLimited 34,780 Mercersburg Academy 94 444 56/44 83 11 9 -12, PG Y Y/N 90 YY N30,900 Miss Hall’s School 73 175 All girls 75 18 9-12 Y NA 40 YY N33,800 Northfield Mount Hermon 92 860 51/49 80 25 9-12, PG N Limited 70 YY N33,000 School

Notes: NA - Not Applicable. ADD - Attention Deficit Disorder. LD - Learning Disability. CONTINUED ON PAGE 86

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DECEMBER 2004/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 85 S CHOOLS S UPPLEMENT SchoolsSchools atat aa GlanceGlance Go to our Web page at www.fsjournal.org and click on the Marketplace tab for more information.

Annual Tuition, School Name Advertisement PageEnrollment No. Gender Distribution,Percent M/F BoardingPercent InternationalLevels OfferedCommon ApplicationAccepts/Offers ADDMiles and LDto Int’lInt’l Airport StudentsDorms Orientation w/E-mail,Holiday phones Break CoverageRoom & Board (USD)

SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL (CONTINUED) Oregon Episcopal School 77 265 50/50 25 25 9-12 Y Limited 20 YY Y31,550 Purnell School 76 100 All girls 85 10 9-12 YY 35 YY N33,975 Wentworth Military 82 200 80/20 100 4 9-12, PG NY 50 YY N21,995 Academy Tilton School 78 214 69/31 75 15 9-12, PG YY 40 YY Y33,125

DISTANCE LEARNING/HOMESCHOOLING University of Missouri 80 Independent study: 3-12, PG, accredited HS diploma. Go to: www.cdis.missouri.edu/go/fsd3.asp 21,000 (at Columbia)

MILITARY SCHOOLS Admiral Farragut 82 452 75/25 50 20 6-12 NN 20 YY Y26,000 Academy Valley Forge Military 75 700 All boys 100 12 7-12, PG YN 15 YY N26,450 Academy

SPECIAL NEEDS SCHOOLS Vanguard School 96 136 41/59 90 26 5-12, PG NY 50 YY N34,750 Forman School 85 170 60/40 90 7 9-12 NY 45 YY N43,000 Gow School 78 143 All boys 100 20 7-12, PG N All LD 20 YY N39,500 Greenwood School 79 40 All boys 100 10 9-15 yrs. old NY 75 NY N45,135 Riverview School 83 182 50/50 100 Limited 7-12, PG NY 75 YN N55,643

OVERSEAS SCHOOLS John F. Kennedy 78 65 50/50 50 70 K-8 N Limited 90 Y Y/N N 37,000 International School in Switzerland Leysin American School 83 330 55/44 100 65 9-12, PG Y Limited 75 YY N31,000 in Switzerland St. Michael’s University 83 880 50/50 40 26 8-12 NN 15 YY Y21,900 School St. Stephens School 94 208 43/57 15 59 9-12, PG NN 12 NA YN31,734 TASIS, The American 81 659 51/49 25 35 Nursery-13 Y Limited 8Y Y N33,000 School in England TASIS, The American 81 325 50/50 84 55 7-PG YN 5YYN33,000 School in Switzerland

OTHER

Foreign Service Youth 72 Assists Foreign Service youth by coordinating development programs. Go to www.fsyf.org Foundation

Notes: NA - Not Applicable. ADD - Attention Deficit Disorder. LD - Learning Disability.

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Continued from page 81

I was just sad because it was hard for Not all students enjoy their inter- Sage Advice: What Experts me to adjust to going to high school in national experiences. One was angry and Parents Say the U.S. I was also playing catch-up at her parents for moving her. She Helen Rudinsky, who lived in my freshman year since even the pub- says that she did not make friends Slovakia as a teen, is a licensed clinical lic school was a lot more challenging easily and was often depressed. Both marriage and family therapist and a than the international school I’d she and her sister went through licensed professional counselor, with attended in Chiang Mai, Thailand.” counseling. “We are extremely inse- extensive experience in international Jonathan, an American Foreign cure. I feel like I have no base, no consulting, expatriate support and Service child, lived in Uganda, home. Relationship-wise we have cross-cultural counseling. From her Ethiopia, Brazil and Israel as a young- both been very clingy and intense in own personal and professional experi- ster. He attended the American the past, although we now have suc- ence, she says that it is hard for chil- International School in Tel Aviv and cessful relationships. A lot of soul- dren who have been raised overseas Walt Whitman High School in searching was involved (but maybe to return to high school in America. Bethesda, Md. (with 171 students and that happens with everyone?),” she Often they don’t feel American, and 2000 students, respectively). He loved reported. “I am sure I would have many do not want to participate in the AIS because of its size, and hated been a more balanced person if we anonymity and consumerism of Whitman for the same reason. “I real- didn’t move so much — although, of American high school, which is almost ly disliked Whitman for the usual course, we saw a lot of cultures and a different culture unto itself. Kids clichés associated with high school: different countries, and it’s quite use- who are brought back for high school cliques, fakeness, nobody really ful on my CV as it makes people often spend years “playing catch-up,” seemed interested in anything ‘differ- interested to know more.” Of the says Ms. Rudinsky, where they have to ent.’ High school taught me to be tol- international lifestyle, she said she learn the culture of high school and erant of stupid and intolerant people,” “would only do that to my children if being a teen in America. It is easier to he added. they were very young.” Continued on page 91

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Continued from page 91 be a “big fish in a small pond than a deferred her admission to Brown and small fish in a big pond.” went to Venezuela with her parents Ms. Rudinsky recommends that Returning to the for a year. “What was cool about that parents think about their child’s high was that it was my decision to go school career, as early as when the U.S. is a difficult there, so, unlike in the past, I didn’t child is 8 or 9. Also, parents should be feel like I was being dragged around,” aware that in exposing their children transition for children she reported. to an overseas life, they are creating Returning to the U.S. is a difficult world citizens who will find it hard to raised overseas. transition for children raised overseas. fit in, find their niche, or partner, etc. After hearing many international kids’ Also, it is best for the family as a whole stories, it seems that if one doesn’t to decide about school and to let the return to the U.S. as a preteen, then children take an active part in the perhaps college is the right time to decision-making so that they feel make that change. At that stage, the some “ownership” over their lives. chooses her friends wisely.’ It was also culture shock is more bearable, and A child who sought counseling had said that I enjoy my own company. I the teen is a young adult. In high this view: “I would say that maybe if thought: ‘What is the point in making school most teenagers are vulnerable you are quite young, an international friends when I never know how long to a double whammy of change. For life wouldn’t be too bad. However, I I’ll be here?’ I don’t think it is fair to many, college is close enough to a couldn’t make long-lasting friend- the child once they get older (maybe “foreign country” — something they ships, and it made me feel quite inse- middle-school age).” definitely know how to deal with. cure. On my old school reports I am For some, taking a year off before Parents can make all the difference always described as shy and quiet, and university allowed for maturity. One in how their child sees their interna- I always remember one line: ‘she of the Foreign Service dependents Continued on page 93

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Continued from page 91 tional experience. For Guled, who English literature, writing, anthropolo- specialists, teachers of English as a attended high school in Jamaica and gy, sociology and philosophy. This foreign language, lawyers and immi- India, it was important that he was resulted in her feeling a dichotomy gration lawyers, and writers. One FS allowed to finish the school year at the between her interests and her skills. child, now a journalism student, says same institution (some kids were Now she feels like “a split personality that she has noticed that many yanked out in mid-year). And his with no real expertise.” Others re- Foreign Service kids become writers. father facilitated the acclimatization ceived simpler advice: “My dad warn- My personal theory for this (and also process by introducing him to his co- ed me against working at Japanese for why so many FS folks write workers’ children before school start- companies and my mom warned me books), is that an international/global ed. Most respondents’ parents had against being a homemaker.” life forces one to analyze, assimilate, the usual parental advice on careers, accept, understand, and work and while some steered their children Wanderlust communicate with foreign concepts, toward or away from certain careers, Most of the international kids I talk people and ways. These are valuable perhaps depending on how they saw to, now in their 20s, 30s and 40s, still skills and make for attractive employ- their own experiences. don’t know what they want to do ees — just don’t expect them to stay Certain careers are more transfer- when they “grow up.” I wonder if put for 30 years. able than others, but for some parents this, like my own furniture-moving Ironically, a Foreign Service career it was mainly about job security, know- mania, is part of the wanderlust that can pose a particular obstacle for the ing that in an ever-changing world, was planted in us as children. Most of internationally raised kid. These one’s job can be an anchor. One child them do have successful jobs of the young people have often lived less was steered toward careers where one type you would expect internationally than half their lives in their passport could more readily find work— bank- raised people to have: World Bank country. I have a friend who spent ing, finance, international organizations analysts, IMF officials, international years studying about the U.S. so that — and away from the things she loved: development program managers, IT Continued on page 95

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Continued from page 93 he could pass the Foreign Service Often, it may sound like these of other countries and I learnt a lot exam. For others, their very national- internationally raised children are about other cultures, it has made me ity is a question. One Swede feels that complaining about their fabulous crave change all the time. I hate stay- she could much better represent the lives. But actually most of them are ing in one place, as I feel like I am U.S. as she has lived in the U.S. far aware of the privileges they have had. stagnating.” more than her two years as a toddler As one child acknowledged, I “lived Or, as another candidly put it: “I in her native Sweden. too many lives, saw so much, was must stress that I have a great hus- Some have had many degrees and exposed to so many things. I think it band, a very well-paying job and a many careers as they search for stabili- can serve to confuse as well as great house, and I am healthy. I ty and excitement. As one Thai nation- enrich.” She may “change paths in should be happy all the time just to al put it, “I’d like to get married and five years’ time,” she admitted, due to live my life, which of course I do most start a new life here in the U.S. I have what she terms the “been-there; of the time. I feel like I am missing grown up overseas, moving from place done-that” attitude typical of interna- something, though. I am almost bored to place. I haven’t any solid roots. I tionally raised individuals. because there is no major change in can’t commit to a solid career choice Ultimately, the common thread my life. I know that if I went to live in because I feel that if I do, I will be amongst the internationally raised is another country, it would be great, but stuck. Yet, I yearn to settle down and wanderlust. For some the internal only until the novelty wore off. I don’t start laying roots of my own because I clock is set at six months, and for oth- know what I am looking for.” am done with traveling for now. In my ers it is four years. They may never opinion, from traveling to Third World settle down into a career for more At the Fork in the Road countries all my life, America is the than a decade. The stories are the When asked, “Did your high best country, whether you agree with same: “I think I moved around too school experience determine your the politics or not. Therefore I have much, maybe, when we were growing path in adult life?”, one respondent chosen the U.S. for this.” up. Although I had great experiences Continued on page 97

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Continued from page 95 replied, “I think so. It helped to school years. Not a mean feat in a cement my desire to live overseas, to place where some people pass be in a community of people who had There are so many through for six months and then leave that same experience.” (yes, even they count as part of the At CIS, one of the English exams lessons learned when brotherhood). included memorizing Robert Frost’s Though high school had a forma- “The Road Not Taken.” My English the world has been tive place in many international chil- teacher, Mr. Pierce, told us that it dren’s lives, as it did in mine, it proba- would save our life someday — the your playground. bly didn’t affect us as much as the day we got stuck in an elevator. Years sheer internationalism of our lives. later, I did get stuck in an elevator, at There are so many lessons learned the Kennedy Center. Although I did when the world has been your play- think about my high school English ground. So, although these children class, I was more concerned with try- mer CISer, and I will have a place to still may not know what they are looking to calm the claustrophobic lady stay. Even if the kid that I didn’t like ing for, they have an internal global counting her business cards. I don’t back then called me up now, I would positioning system that is distinct and know if she would have appreciated have dinner with him or her. There offers its own inestimable rewards. my reciting, “Two roads diverged in a are those for whom memories of CIS In the words of one: “I appreciate yellow wood ...” are a time-warp where they were my worldly upbringing. I feel that the But Copenhagen International king. But for most of us, it was a great perspective I got in experiencing com- School did make a difference. It was gathering of our lifelong friends. As a pletely different cultures and lan- much like a secret society. Once a Foreign Service child, I’m rather guages allowed me to see more of what CISer, always a CISer. I can go any- proud and happy that many of my is underneath culture and language where in the world and call up a for- closest friends are from my high and is universal in all people.” ■

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DECEMBER 2004/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 103 REFLECTIONS On the Road to Gaza

BY WILLIAM ROEBUCK

No real temples came tumbling down, “Cheez, Cheez,” the moniker for the burly guy in car and darkness didn’t really cover the earth. number two Radio silence. It was like any of dozens of other trips to Gaza A hasty discussion of limited escape routes, a long U-turn, to see the Gaza City businessman, and then horror: or the Fatah official, or An armored two-ton Suburban, lying in a crater the contact who knew the Hamas guys. across the median, Upside-down, and mangled Poloff was late, as usual, coffee in hand, like a toy car stomped on by an angry or uncaring god. Joking as we left Tel Aviv, A sudden wave of super-normality, a second of time slowed seeing how hard and every breath, every syllable became audible. he could make the PD cultural affairs guy laugh, A gathering crowd, amid the smoke and carnage, as the driver and the young DS agent A sighting, a man down. cast glances backward, and seemed to ask themselves, Nothing. Time stood still. “Are these guys real diplomats or what?” A suggestion that we keep moving colliding with The DynCorp guys were in the other Suburban, A frantic radio call for the third car to check out the scene real soldiers, on a mission, like so many missions before. and look for survivors. A third car, with more security guys, met us at the border. It seemed kind of silly, all that hardware, speaking into The temple had come down. sleeve mikes, armored cars, accelerating to ride side by side, Some of us would walk out; blocking “the principals” from an obviously dangerous Others would be caught in the rubble and debris. donkey cart or Palestinian kid on a bike. The man down eventually got up, and out. The burly guy and two others had told their last joke, We stood around in the blinding sun at Erez crossing, on and carried out their last mission. the border with Gaza, the burly one laughing and telling me of plans to head to A temple of sorts had come tumbling down, Iraq to guard Bremer; crashing on our assumptions of safety and normality and then a brief mention of shifting the order of the cars, our sense of importance, and crushing with blinding force “you guys go first,” our illusions that we were among friends, that we were to facilitate a training mission for new agents. spreading good will They radioed it in to the Marines back at the embassy: and processing peace, or that we were all destined to “Eleven men entering Disneyland” to signal our entry be heroes. into Gaza. The surly Israeli teenager and his older, shaggier The questions about “why” came later, Palestinian counterpart down the road, as did the realization that those of us waving us through; nothing different, in the first car walked away in a bubble like so many trips before, some completed and reported on, of grace that had blown our way back at Erez crossing, with this or that minister or snaggle-toothed PA security five minutes before the bombing. officer; Many others aborted over, obviously idle security concerns. No real temples came tumbling down, And darkness didn’t really cover the earth, This one proceeded two miles into sunny Gaza, But as some of us staggered back to Tel Aviv that day, until we in the lead car were suddenly showered with I realized that no one had radioed the Marines at the dark dust embassy and strange debris and heard the explosion. with the routine call that we had left Gaza, The DS guy in our car frantically calling out on the radio, and no one ever would. ■

William Roebuck joined the Service in 1992 and has served in Kingston, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. He is currently assigned to Damascus.

104 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL/DECEMBER 2004 AFSAAmerican Foreign ServiceNE Association • December 2004WS

CALL FOR 2005 AFSA AWARD NOMINATIONS Inside This AFSA Seeking a Few Good Risk-Takers ... Issue: And the People to Nominate Them STATE: IRAQ SECURITY...... 3 BY BARBARA BERGER, PROFESSIONAL ISSUES COORDINATOR USAID: HONESTY AT WORK...... 4 FAMILY MEMBER COLUMN ...... 6 he coming year will mark the 37th awards. “There is no equivalent award that SINCLAIRE AWARDS...... 7 anniversary of the establishment of we’re aware of, in any other federal DACOR SCHOLARSHIPS...... 7 Tthe AFSA Constructive Dissent agency,” says AFSA Communications Q&A: LONG-TERM CARE ...... 9 Awards. The first three dissent awards Director Tom Switzer. were created in 1968, a time of great emo- In 1969, the second year that the tional turmoil and disagreement among awards ceremony was held, Under AFSA PRESSES DEPARTMENT Americans over our government’s poli- Secretary Elliot Richardson presented ON IRAQ SECURITY cies in Southeast Asia. Unfortunately, our the three AFSA dissent awards to a senior, country appears to be experiencing a sim- mid-level and junior officer. “Constructive First Foreign ilar time of divisiveness and uncertainty dissent cannot take place unless it is cou- today over our foreign policy in Iraq and pled with imagination, creativity, intellec- Service Member the war on terror. tual resourcefulness and, above all, Killed in Iraq AFSA is extremely proud of our dissent Continued on page 5 FSA and the entire Foreign Service community mourn the loss of an Aoutstanding diplomatic security officer, Ed Seitz, killed in Baghdad on Oct. 24. Seitz was the first Foreign Service member to be killed in Iraq. (See In Memory, p. 66.) At the time of his death, Seitz was at Camp Victory, a military base outside the Green Zone near the Baghdad International Airport. AFSA has shared with State management on numerous occasions our members’ concerns about security for Foreign Service personnel in Iraq. AFSA understands that the department is working hard to create a secure environment in an extremely insecure area, but we have urged the department to re-evaluate staffing levels continually and to expedite all possible security enhancements for Foreign Service personnel serving in Iraq. The department has assured us it is doing both. AGGELER Following is the text of AFSA’s press Continued on page 4 AFSANEWSBRIEFS

AFSA Welcomes New Board Member AFSA Gives Money for College High school seniors and Todd A. Kushner has joined the AFSA college undergraduates of Governing Board as a State Department Foreign Service employees representative, replacing Pamela Bates. are eligible to apply for one-time-only Academic Kushner is currently serving as director for Merit Awards, Art Merit counterterrorism finance designations in Awards, and/or renewable, JOSH the Office of the Coordinator for need-based Financial Aid Counterterrorism. He is an economic offi- Scholarships, all sponsored by AFSA. Awards range from $1,000 to $3,000. The submission deadline for applications is Feb. 6, 2005. cer, and has served in The Hague, Kuala Visit AFSA’s scholarship Web page at www.afsa.org/scholar/index.cfm Lumpur, Belgrade, Lagos and Washington. for complete details, or contact Lori Dec at [email protected] or 1 (800) 704-2372, ext. 504. Briefs continued on page 8 Life in the Foreign Service ■ BY BRIAN AGGELER, FOREIGN SERVICE OFFICER

AFSA HEADQUARTERS: Staff: Governing Board: (202) 338-4045; Fax: (202) 338-6820 Executive Director Susan Reardon: [email protected] Business Department STATE DEPARTMENT AFSA OFFICE: PRESIDENT: John W. Limbert (202) 647-8160; Fax: (202) 647-0265 Controller Kalpna Srimal: [email protected] STATE VICE PRESIDENT: Louise K. Crane USAID AFSA OFFICE: Accounting Assistant Steven Tipton: [email protected] (202) 712-1941; Fax: (202) 216-3710 Labor Management USAID VICE PRESIDENT: Bill Carter General Counsel Sharon Papp: [email protected] FCS VICE PRESIDENT: Charles A. Ford FCS AFSA OFFICE: Labor Management Attorney Zlatana Badrich: [email protected] (202) 482-9088; Fax: (202) 482-9087 Labor Management Specialist James Yorke: [email protected] FAS VICE PRESIDENT: Laura Scandurra USAID Senior Labor Management Advisor Douglas Broome: [email protected] RETIREE VICE PRESIDENT: George F. Jones AFSA WEB SITE: www.afsa.org USAID Office Manager Asgeir Sigfusson: [email protected] SECRETARY: F.A. “Tex” Harris AFSA E-MAIL: [email protected] Grievance Attorneys Neera Parikh: [email protected] and AFSA NEWS: [email protected] Joe Slotnick: [email protected] TREASURER: Danny Hall FSJ: [email protected] Office Manager Christine Warren: [email protected] STATE REPRESENTATIVES: Todd A. Kushner, PRESIDENT: [email protected] Law Clerk Marques Peterson: [email protected] Elizabeth Horst, Scot L. Folensbee, STATE VP: [email protected] Member Services Tulinabo Mushingi, John C. Sullivan, RETIREE VP: [email protected] Director Janet Hedrick: [email protected] Jim Wagner USAID VP:[email protected] Representative Cory Nishi: [email protected] FCS VP: [email protected] Web site & Database Associate Meijing Shan: [email protected] USAID REPRESENTATIVE: Thomas Olson Administrative Assistant Ana Lopez: [email protected] FAS VP: [email protected] FCS REPRESENTATIVE: William Crawford Outreach Programs RETIREE REPRESENTATIVES: Gilbert Sheinbaum, Retiree Liaison Bonnie Brown: [email protected] AFSA News Director of Communications Thomas Switzer: [email protected] David E. Reuther, Theodore S. Wilkinson, III, Editor Shawn Dorman: [email protected] Congressional Affairs Director Ken Nakamura: [email protected] Stanley A. Zuckerman

How to Contact Us: Contact to How (202) 338-4045 x 503; Fax: (202) 338-8244 Corporate Relations/Executive Assistant Austin Tracy: [email protected] IBB REPRESENTATIVE: Laurie Kassman On the Web: www.afsa.org/news Scholarship Director Lori Dec: [email protected] Professional Issues Coordinator Barbara Berger: [email protected] FAS REPRESENTATIVE: Michael Conlon

2 AFSA NEWS • DECEMBER 2004 V.P. VOICE: STATE ■ BY LOUISE CRANE

Iraq Security: Far Beyond the Tripwires

ecause AFSA President John Limbert was in Service employees assigned Iraq on a special assignment last May, I stood to these dangerous countries. Bin for him at the annual ceremony honoring Over and over again, we members of the Foreign Service who have died in the have made the point that in line of duty. This ceremony takes place in front of Iraq, were it any other coun- the AFSA Memorial Plaques in the diplomatic lobby try, so many tripwires would of the State Department. On the plaques are engraved have already been crossed the names of 215 Foreign Service members who have that the mission would have died serving their country overseas. been shuttered. Not drawn The first name is that of William Palfrey, who died down, leaving only essential staff in place, but closed in 1797 en route to his post in Paris. At the 2004 cer- down. The head of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security emony, Secretary Powell laid the wreath by the has publicly made the same statement. While plaques. In my remarks introducing the Secretary, acknowledging that having a large mission in Iraq is I noted that while there were no new names carved a policy decision, we have urged the department to into the marble this year, this was only because oth- look at Baghdad’s staffing level. We’ve emphasized ers had sacrificed their lives saving ours. There were that residential security is inadequate. the three DynCorp guards, whose car was blown up The tragic death of Ed Seitz proves AFSA is right crossing into the Gaza Strip. They were escorting to be concerned. We know that the department is Foreign Service employees to a as concerned as we are. The meeting with Palestinian acad- Bureau of Diplomatic Security has emics when a powerful bomb The tragic death of Ed Seitz researched the options for improv- under their lead vehicle was proves AFSA is right ing residential security so staff may remotely triggered. There was sleep without fearing their trail- the brave Salvadoran soldier to be concerned. ers will crumple if hit by a mortar who died outside Najaf. His round, which are now aimed at the battalion was attacked by Iraqi insurgents. A Foreign Green Zone with increasing frequency. Pending Service member who was assigned to the Coalition upgrades, staff may sleep in their offices, but this is Provisional Authority’s Najaf outpost testified to the not a feasible solution for the long run. AFSA will brave action of the Salvadoran soldiers in repelling urge the department to adopt the option which pro- the insurgents’ attempt to overrun his position. vides housing that will protect staff against mortar (“Foreign Service Firefight,” FSJ, June 2004) rounds. At the time, I said I could not help but feel that With such a large Foreign Service “footprint” in it is only a matter of time before there are fresh names Baghdad, with such vulnerable housing and with to chisel in the marble. By October, there was already increasing attacks on foreigners — whether with the one name to add — that of Ed Seitz, a dedicated, 16- military, international agencies or the U.S. govern- year member of the Foreign Service. Given our secu- ment — security is a continuing problem. The same rity situation in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan today, goes for Kabul and Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore. I fear there will be other names to add before the next AFSA applauds the work of the committed staff in wreath-laying in May. As I write this, the wire ser- the Bureau of Diplomatic Security and urges the vices report a bomb exploding at the Marriott Hotel department to give them the resources they need to in Islamabad, Pakistan, at a moment when 11 mem- improve security for our members. Hang the cost! bers of the embassy staff happened to be dining there. I hope against hope that Ed Seitz will be the only AFSA has repeatedly raised with all levels of depart- new name added to the AFSA Memorial Plaques in ment management the matter of security for Foreign the coming year. ▫

DECEMBER 2004 • AFSA NEWS 3 Iraq Security • Continued from page 1 V.P. VOICE: USAID ■ BY BILL CARTER release following the death of Ed Seitz: “We are deeply saddened by the death The Importance of of State Department Special Agent Edward Seitz, who was killed in a rocket attack Being Honest Oct. 24 in Iraq. This brutal terrorist attack underlines the mortal dangers faced by the o poetry here, just some stark prose prompted by sev- men and women of the U.S. Foreign eral recent situations that make it clear to us that we Service who are working to establish oppor- Nneed to reiterate a few fundamental lessons having to tunity and freedom for the people of Iraq, do with financial management and ethics. It is also an almost- and advance our nation’s vital interests purely selfish effort to lighten our own future workload. So, consider this your refresher course on some of the knowledge you were meant to ingest during your earliest days as a fresh-faced New Entry Professional or International This brutal terrorist attack Development Intern. We here at USAID carry added responsibilities in comparison with some of our coun- underlines the mortal dangers terparts at other foreign affairs agencies in that most of us manage substantial resources, faced by the men and women of of both the financial and material kind. Scrupulous adherence to the stewardship of and fiduciary responsibilities for these resources is more than just important; it is absolute- the U.S. Foreign Service who are ly necessary. This means taking personal working to establish Whenever a potential responsibility, not delegating it to others, such opportunity and freedom for conflict of interest arises, as a Foreign Service National or a contractor. Ultimately, it will be your signature on any the people of Iraq, and advance the safe and wise thing document that you submit. For instance, if you need to sign a voucher for project expen- our nation’s vital interests to do is to recuse yourself. ditures or personal travel, you must make sure around the globe. that the amounts and all supporting information are correct. Time pressures and shoddy past practices are not valid excuses for mis- takes. Any lapses in proper procedure and good judgment may lead to a letter of reprimand or — even worse — to separation. around the globe. On behalf of all his col- Whenever a potential conflict of interest arises, or even the appearance of a conflict leagues, I extend my heartfelt condolences of interest, the safe and wise thing to do is to recuse yourself. In some cases, especial- and prayers to Mr. Seitz’s family,” states ly involving the possible employment of a family member, you may be tempted to over- John W. Limbert, president of the step proper bounds and exert pressure or influence over the outcome. In these cases, American Foreign Service Association. an arm’s length is rarely far enough. Whenever you bump up against a sensitive case “AFSA recognizes that it is impossible like this, please err on the side of caution. to provide 100-percent protection for our Similarly, on the security front, vigilance is more important than ever, as we all know. personnel who staff the front lines of The safety of our colleagues and families may be at stake. Despite briefings by the region- American diplomacy. Since the 1998 East al security officer upon arrival at post, we at AFSA have seen too many instances of offi- Africa embassy bombings, in which 224 cers not heeding security advice and guidance. As a consequence, these officers — almost died (including 53 U.S. government without fail — face serious problems, often leading to curtailment, reprimand and sep- employees), progress has been made in aration. Any kind of security lapse — including inappropriate contacts and mishan- bringing our overseas embassies, consulates dling of or carelessness with classified documents — can lead to the revocation of one’s and other missions up to security standards, security clearance. but much work remains to be done. Finally, I would be remiss, as the holiday season approaches, if I did not mention “We strongly encourage the govern- one further issue that often seems to confuse people: the ethics of receiving gifts. Please ment to review the security arrangements be aware of the limitations on the value of gifts that federal employees may accept. The protecting our dedicated colleagues, and general rule is that employees may not accept food, refreshments, entertainment or any to provide them the fullest measure of pro- other thing of value from a prohibited source or from a person or entity offering the tection possible.” gift because of the employee’s position. A “prohibited source” includes any person or The AFSA statement was quoted by entity seeking or doing business with the USAID. Sorry if this column makes me sound numerous media sources, including AP, like a grinch, but, after all, it is Christmas. I wish you all well in this season of the yule- CNN, The New York Times and The tide bell. Happy holidays from all of us here at AFSA/AID! ▫ Washington Times. ▫

4 AFSA NEWS • DECEMBER 2004 Awards • Continued from page 1 the Foreign Service. PART I: Name of the award for which courage,” Richardson stressed in his Any Foreign Service employee who the person is being nominated; the remarks. has exhibited extraordinary accomplish- nominee’s name, grade, agency and “All of us, I think, believe that the ment involving initiative, integrity and position (or for the Bohlen Award, the Foreign Service as a whole represents the intellectual courage contributing to con- family relationship). best in public service,” then-AFSA structive dissent can be nominated. PART II: Nominator’s name, grade, President Perry Shankle noted in the AFSA Constructive Dissent Awards agency and position and description of October 1988 Foreign Service Journal. are unique for the following reasons: association with the nominee. “Those who originally established and • They are not based on superior per- PART III: Justification for the nomina- endowed these awards certainly believed formance of assigned duties, but on the tion. The narrative should discuss the that. .... To put it in the vernacular, the willingness to stand up for what you actions and qualities that qualify the nom- awards are meant to recognize those who believe is right. inee for the award, with specific examples were prepared to stick their necks out in • No other government agency pre- of accomplishments that fulfill the crite- a way that involves some risk. .... The sents similar awards. These awards are ria above. Part III should not exceed 700 awards recognize the kind of demonstrat- not for whistle-blowers or for those who words. ed service and a capacity for creative dis- have resigned from the Foreign Service The Constructive Dissent Awards sent that marks an exceptionally able and in protest, but for those who are commit- are not for performance of assigned productive public servant.” ted to creatively and positively working duties, however exceptional. Rather, they AFSA believes that these qualities not for change within the system. offer an opportunity to publicly recognize only still exist in our men and women and honor the courageous and thought- who serve today, but deserve to be rec- OUTSTANDING ful actions of our colleagues, over and ognized and honored by their colleagues. PERFORMANCE AWARDS above their responsibilities. Submissions We believe that the members of today’s AFSA also offers three awards recog- that do not meet the dissent criteria, as Foreign Service are brave, dedicated and nizing exemplary performance of assigned determined by our judges, will not be con- proud to serve their country during these duties or voluntary activities at an over- sidered. extremely dangerous and turbulent times. seas post, performance that demonstrates All winners receive a monetary prize And we believe that they continue to extraordinary contributions to effective- of $2,500 and a framed certificate, and are demonstrate the courage of their convic- ness, professionalism and morale. honored at a reception in late June in the tions by going against conventional wis- • THE NELSON B. DELAVAN AWARD for an Benjamin Franklin Diplomatic Reception dom, taking a stand, or questioning the office management specialist. This Room at the State Department. Secretary status quo. award recognizes the work of an OMS of State Colin Powell participated in the who has made a significant contribution 2002 and 2003 ceremonies. A PROUD TRADITION to post or office effectiveness and Further details on nomination proce- Help us continue to carry on the morale, beyond the framework of dures, additional guidelines and a nom- proud tradition of dissent. her/his job responsibilities. ination form can be found on the AFSA Here’s how: nominate someone for • THE M. JUANITA GUESS AWARD for a Web site at www.afsa.org/awards.cfm. a constructive dissent award. community liaison officer. This award From there, you can also link to articles Constructive dissent awards are recognizes a CLO who has demonstrat- about the AFSA awards and the AFSA offered in the following categories: ed outstanding leadership, dedication, 2004 award winners, as well as find a list- • THE TEX HARRIS AWARD for a Foreign initiative and imagination in assisting the ing of past award winners. The deadline Service Specialist families of Americans serving at an over- for nominations is Feb. 25, 2005. • THE W. AVERELL HARRIMAN AWARD for a seas post. Questions should be directed to Junior Officer (FS-4, 5 or 6) • THE AVIS BOHLEN AWARD for a Foreign Professional Issues Coordinator Barbara • THE WILLIAM R. RIVKIN AWARD for a Mid- Service family member. This award rec- Berger, by telephone: (202) 338-4045, ext. level Officer (FS-1, 2 or 3) ognizes the accomplishments of a fam- 521, or e-mail: [email protected]. You may • THE CHRISTIAN A. HERTER AWARD for a ily member whose relations with the also contact AFSA President John Limbert Senior Officer (FE-CA to OC). American and foreign communities by telephone: (202) 338-4045, ext. 502, These prestigious awards serve to rec- have done the most to advance the inter- or e-mail: [email protected]; or Awards ognize and reward those individuals who ests of the United States. Committee Chairman Bruce Laingen by have promoted critical and constructive telephone: (202) 331-3722, or e-mail: solutions to foreign policy problems, NOMINATION PROCESS [email protected]. They are happy to respond management issues, consular policies or The nomination must include the fol- to your questions, suggestions or con- any other area which affects the work of lowing elements: cerns. ▫

DECEMBER 2004 • AFSA NEWS 5 FS VOICE: FAMILY MEMBER MATTERS ■ BY MARLENE MONFILETTO NICE Ten Things You Shouldn’t Say to Newcomers aybe you’ve been at post long 3. “Don’t bother learning the tioner). When the air conditioning or enough to know the good, the language. It’s too hard.” computer is on the blink, aren’t you Mbad and the ugly, but some- One of the best ways to adapt to the glad you have a highly educated and times it’s best to keep your opinions to host country is to learn even a little of experienced engineer or IT profession- yourself. Newcomers have just been the local language. Being able to say, al around to fix it? through the wringer of packing, mov- “Hello, how are you?” “How much is 7. “No one joins that club.” ing and traveling, and they’re trying to that?” “Please,” “Thank you,” or even, My friend checked out the be enthusiastic. So, in the name of “I don’t speak .... Do you speak International Women’s Club in a diplomacy, I suggest avoiding some of English?” is at least comforting, and at European country, even after hearing, these (unfortunately common) real-life best empowering. Often, language “Oh, it’s just a bunch of old ladies hav- pitfalls and try not to make any of the classes give a foundering newcomer a ing tea.” Happily, she found that many following remarks: reason to go out. of the club members were young and 4. “You won’t adventurous. And she learned a lot make any friends about the host country by participat- here.” ing in the group’s cultural tours. Isn’t that a sad 8. “The X officer is a real jerk.” comment? Being told Maybe the newcomer and the X offi- this made me feel like cer are cut from the same cloth; then a kindergartner having you’ll have two enemies. If there’s a real a rough first day. warning to be given, say, “The X offi- Americans are so cer is very particular about …” This JOSH diverse, it’s impossible gives the newcomer an opportunity to to say who will make judge for himself or herself. friends. While you 9. “The person you’re replacing 1. “You’d better have a hobby or can’t change a whole country’s mind was so fantastic. I don’t know you’ll die of boredom here.” about Americans, it’s probable that how we’ll get along without So said a management officer speak- you’ll find a small niche of host-coun- him/her.” ing at a newcomers’ orientation, shak- try friends through special interests. We do miss our friends who leave ing his head as though completely worn 5. “The school is terrible. post before us, but this statement will down by the lack of excitement in a Your child will fall behind his surely make the newcomer feel like an South American post. The smiles U.S. peers and probably won’t intruder who will never measure up. dropped from the newcomers’ faces. graduate on time.” 10. “The local pharmacies sell But what they didn’t know was that the Never mind being told that I won’t anti-depressants over the counter speaker didn’t have any hobbies that find a job, learn the language or have because so many Americans need meshed with the culture. The country, friends. But my kids will fail, too? Most them to survive this tour.” while not the most exciting place on schools overseas don’t offer everything Normally this phrase would be pre- earth, was a garden spot for beaches, good stateside schools do, but their defi- ceded by one of the other statements horses, music and dancing. ciencies are made up for by the cultur- listed above. 2. “Professional spouses don’t al experiences provided, including do well here.” early foreign language classes. Plus, it’s After you’ve avoided all of the Telling anyone upon arrival at a post often possible to supplement any gaps above non-welcoming statements, how that he or she won’t do well there can with local sports clubs or an education- about trying this: “Like everywhere else burst any bubble of excitement. Who al allowance to enhance the academic in the world, this place has its good and knows? Maybe one professional can program. Nothing is hopeless. bad points. Find the good here, and turn things around for others. Better 6. “Oh, you’re a specialist.” make that your focal point.” ▫ to say, “While there are no positions in Outside of the Foreign Service, a spe- Marlene Monfiletto Nice is a Foreign Service your field right now, we’re eager to have cialist is a highly experienced, respect- spouse and a three-time newcomer. She is your input in this area.” ed professional (i.e., a medical practi- currently serving in Zagreb.

6 AFSA NEWS • DECEMBER 2004 AFSA HONORS ACHIEVEMENT IN HARD LANGUAGES The Sinclaire endowment was established in 1982 with a $175,000 bequest 2004 Sinclaire Language from Matilda Sinclaire to AFSA. A former Foreign Service officer who spent Award Winners Announced the last years of her life in Italy, Sinclaire sought to promote and reward superi- roficiency in foreign languages is one or achievement by career officers of the of the key assets of the Foreign Service Foreign Service while studying one of the Pcorps. AFSA has an awards program “hard” languages under the auspices of that helps acknowledge achievement in the the Foreign Service Institute. The study of difficult languages. We are pleased guidelines were amended and updated to announce the winners of the 2004 in October 2001 to expand eligibility for Matilda W. Sinclaire Language Awards. the awards to any career and career con- The winners are: ditional member from any of the foreign Joanne Gilles — Japanese affairs agencies: Department of State, Sarah E. Gordon — Dari USAID, FCS, FAS and IBB. Kimberly D. Harrington — Tagalog For 2004, two of the six winners have Jason P. Hyland — Azerbaijani JOSH been recognized for the study of Tagalog Matthew C. Meadows — Tagalog School of Language, and selected by a and are serving in Manila. Another cur- David H. Rank — Greek committee composed of AFSA staff and rent Embassy Manila employee, Anne Governing Board members. Each of the Coleman, was a recipient of the Sinclaire Sinclaire winners are honored for winners receives a check for $1,000 from Award in 2003. The embassy recognized outstanding accomplishments in the the Matilda W. Sinclaire Endowment all three individuals at their awards cer- study of a “hard” language. Candidates and a certificate of recognition signed by emony on Nov. 18 in Manila. for the award are nominated by the lan- the AFSA president and the chair of the AFSA congratulates all the winners of guage-training supervisors at the FSI AFSA awards committee. this year’s Sinclaire Language Awards. ▫

DREYFUS SCHOLARSHIPS to field of study but, if there are many applicants, preference will be given to students in a field related to for- DACOR Offers Financial eign affairs and for study toward a master’s degree. At Yale, the awards are coordinated by the Yale Support for Students Center for International and Area Studies, Henry R. ACOR Bacon House Foundation has several Luce Hall, 34 Hillhouse Ave., New Haven, CT 06520. scholarships and fellowships for children and Aspirants may apply for the Dreyfus Awards at the time Dgrandchildren of U.S. Foreign Service officers, of their application for admission to Yale University. active or retired, for Academic Year 2005-2006. The Application materials should be sent to DACOR Bacon purpose is to encourage the study of international rela- House Foundation, Attn: William C. Hamilton, 1801 tions, and consists of financial support for study at The F Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20006, by March 15, Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, Conn., and Yale JOSH 2005. Include the following: a copy of the most recent University. Awards are made possible by and limit- appointment or promotion document of the applied to the income from a generous bequest of the late cant's FS parent or grandparent; a brief letter of inter- Ambassador Louis G. Dreyfus Jr. est with full contact information including full name, current and Hotchkiss will seek to select one qualified enrolled student for a permanent addresses, phone (and fax) numbers, and e-mail address; $5,000 scholarship. Applicants should contact the Director of Financial the applicant’s resumé; a copy of the applicant’s most recent tran- Aid, The Hotchkiss School, Lakeville, CT 06039-0800, providing script; and a one-page statement of academic goals, work experi- evidence of a parent or grandparent’s Foreign Service status. ence, awards and non-academic achievements. Applicants for grad- Awards to Yale students, based on merit, will be made by the uate fellowships should add a second page outlining career goals DACOR Bacon House Foundation in consultation with Yale as presently perceived. University. Awards for undergraduates may be up to $5,000 and For further information on either award, contact Sherry up to $10,000 for graduate students. Fellowship awards to gradu- Barndollar Rock at DACOR by phone: (202) 682-0500, ext. 17, or ate and professional students may be up to $10,000, and any sec- 1 (800) 344-9127; fax: (202) 842-3295; or e-mail: prog.coord@ ond-year award will be at half stipend. There is no restriction as dacorbacon.org. ▫

DECEMBER 2004 • AFSA NEWS 7 AFSANEWSBRIEFS USAA: The Never-ending Story Get connected ... After numerous failed attempts — through high-level letters Do you enjoy the Foreign Service Journal but are and phone calls — to convince USAA to return to the past poli- not an AFSA member? Joining is easy and your cy of allowing members of USAID, FAS and FCS to join USAA, membership helps AFSA support all Foreign Service AFSA is trying another strategy. AFSA Governing Board and USAA member Ted Wilkinson volunteered to represent the employees. To become a member of AFSA, Foreign Service community at the November USAA annual go to www.afsa.org/mbr/index.cfm. meeting in Chicago in order to raise the issue of Foreign Service Join the thousands of Foreign Service community membership there. He will make known the AFSA view that all members who receive regular updates from AFSA by Foreign Service employees should be treated equally and fairly. e-mail through our AFSANETs. To subscribe to this AFSA put out a call for members to designate Ted as their proxy for the meeting. As of late October, we had collected about free service, designed to provide updates on items 250 proxies. Thank you for helping AFSA push this issue. of interest to the foreign affairs community, We’ll let you know what happens at the meeting. go to www.afsa.org/forms/maillist.cfm.

Give the Gift of Foreign Look Out for Service Knowledge Your AFSA Ballot Want an easy, inexpensive holiday gift for AFSA Governing Board election family and friends? You’ve come to the right materials and ballots will be mailed place — AFSA. The updated and revised 2005 to all AFSA members in early edition of AFSA’s best seller, Inside a U.S. Embassy, is now available. At $12.95, it’s January. If you do not receive your cheaper than a good box of chocolates, doesn’t ballot by Feb. 4, 2005, please let us make you fat, and lasts longer. know by sending an e-mail to Let’s face it: most Americans still do not understand the role of U.S. embassies and [email protected] or calling have even less understanding of the Foreign Service. So we’ve laid it all out for (202) 338-4045, ext. 525. We will them: profiles of all types of Foreign Service jobs, State Department, USAID, send you a replacement ballot. FCS and FAS included; day-in-the-life entries describing actual days on the job around the world in numerous positions, including IT, OMS, economic, con- Once you receive your ballot, sular, etc.; and stories from the field, now including extremely challenging Iraq please DON’T FORGET TO VOTE service. Each entry comes in a bite-size, easy-to-read format, and the book is by Feb. 28. filled with photos and maps to help bring the people and places to life. By showing the real work of the real people who make up the Foreign Service, this book stands as a challenge to the ignorance and the stereotypes that still persist in American society. TSP Open Season Go to www.afsa.org/inside for more information and to order. The price is $12.95, plus shipping and handling. Discounts are available for quantity orders. The Thrift Savings Plan open Purchase orders can be faxed to (847) 364-1268 or mailed to Association season goes until Dec. 31. Fulfillment Services, 3030 Malmo Dr., Arlington Heights, IL 60005. Complimentary copies are available for anyone who wants to take Inside a U.S. For more information, Embassy along on a speaking engagement or anyone who would like to send a go to www.tsp.gov. copy to a university. Write to [email protected] to request a comp copy. Include your mailing address and let us know how you’ll use the book.

8 AFSA NEWS • DECEMBER 2004 Q: How do people pay for LTC? plans may pay for care in any state- They pay for LTC by using licensed facility; others may limit the kinds A: personal or family resources, of facilities covered. Look carefully at any purchasing LTC insurance, or, if at the exclusions or limitations and the “triggers” Q&A poverty level, with Medicaid assistance. used by plans to determine whether ben- Medicare does not pay for most LTC efits should be paid. These triggers gen- needs.. erally include the inability to perform a certain number of activities of daily liv- Q: Should I buy LTC insurance? ing (bathing, continence, dressing, eating, You should not buy LTC toileting and transferring) and cognitive Retiree A: insurance if you cannot afford impairment or mental incapacity, such as Issues the premiums, have limited assets or have Alzheimer’s disease. Finally, compare the difficulty paying for basic living expens- benefit amounts and length of coverage, BY BONNIE BROWN, es. You should consider buying it if you and look at when benefits start and RETIREE ACTIVITIES have significant assets, some of which you whether there is inflation protection. COORDINATOR want to protect, and you want to pay for your own care and maintain some level Q. Does AFSA have a long-term Long-Term Care of independence. As a rule of thumb, pre- care insurance program? Insurance miums should not exceed 10 percent of Yes, AFSA is now offering your annual income. A: group rates brokered by the Q: What is long-term care? Hirshorn Company for nine insurance Long-term care is for people Q: What kinds of LTC policies are carriers. The long-term care offerings fea- A: with ongoing physical illness- available? ture excellent coverage with more comes, disabilities and/or cognitive impair- LTC insurance can be pur- petitive premiums than the federal plan. ments. It includes assistance with activ- A: chased from private insur- The Hirshorn Company offers personal- ities of daily living, home health or adult ance companies, through an employer or ized service in choosing a company and day care, as well as care in a nursing home association, or through the federal LTC plan that fits members’ needs. Contact or assisted-living facility. program. Most policies are sold to indi- Hirshorn representative Carl Shaiefer at viduals. Group policies, generally sold 1 (800) 242-8221 or cshaifer@hirshorn. Q: Will I need LTC? through employers and associations, com. On the AFSA Web site go to the LTC It is hard to predict, but may offer certain advantages; they may Coverage Page to learn about coverage A: studies indicate that about half not have qualifying medical requirements, choices, including the federal plan, and the of all women and a third of men over and retirees, spouses and parents may also AFSA LTC Quote Request Form. the age of 65 will spend some of their qualify. Additionally, federal law gives tax final years in a nursing or retirement advantages to people who buy certain Q: How can I find out about the home. long-term care insurance policies under federal long-term care program? the Health Insurance Portability and The Federal Long Term Care Q: What do LTC policies cost? Accountability Act of 1966. A: Insurance Program is admin- LTC insurance can be costly. istered by Long Term Care Partners, LLC, A: The cost depends on a num- Q: What should I look for in an a joint venture company between John ber of factors, including age, state of LTC policy? Hancock Life Insurance Company and health, amount of daily benefits, the max- Since plans offer different MetLife, the country's largest carriers of imum benefit period, and inflation pro- A: combinations of health bene- group long-term care insurance. The tection. In purchasing coverage, consid- fits, it is important to shop among poli- OPM Web site contains information er not only your current financial situa- cies, companies and agents to get cover- about LTC insurance at www.opm. tion, but also your future income in retire- age that best fits your needs. LTC poli- gov/insure/ltc/faq/apply.asp#2 ment and projected increases in the cost cies differ in which services they cover and Certified LTC insurance consultants of premiums. When choosing benefit how they cover these services. For exam- are available to answer questions at the amounts, find out how much nursing and ple, one plan may pay for home care from toll-free number: 1 (800) LTC-FEDS assisted living facilities, as well as home licensed facilities only, while others will (800-582-3337) weekdays from 8 a.m. to health care agencies, charge for services pay for other licensed health-care 7 p.m. Information is also available at in the area where you think you will retire. providers, such as practical nurses. Some www.ltcfeds.com. ▫

DECEMBER 2004 • AFSA NEWS 9 CLASSIFIEDS

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10 AFSA NEWS • DECEMBER 2004 CLASSIFIEDS

TEMPORARY HOUSING GEORGETOWN QUARTERS: Exquisite, REAL ESTATE fully-furnished accommodations at the East SHORT-TERM RENTALS End of Georgetown. Short walk to World Bank and State Department. Lower floor of JOANN PIEkNEy/ PRUDENTIAL CAR- TEMPORARy HOUSING three-level home built in 1803 and renovat- RUTHERS REALTORS: Complete profes- ed in 2003. Private front and rear entrances, WASHINGTON, D.C. or Nf ATC TOUR? sional dedication to residential sales in eight-foot ceilings, fireplace, marble bathroom EXECUTIVE HOUSING CONSULTANTS Northern Virginia. I provide you with person- with Jacuzzi and shower, granite and stain- offers Metropolitan Washington, D.C.’s finest al attention. Over 22 years’ real estate expe- less steel kitchen, washer and dryer; walk out portfolio of short-term, fully-furnished and rience and Foreign Service overseas living to tiered rear garden great for entertaining. equipped apartments, townhomes and sin- experience. JOANN PIEKNEY. Street parking and limited car/pick-up shar- gle-family residences in Maryland, D.C. and Tel: (703) 624-1594. Fax: (703) 757-9137. ing with management. Dishes, flatware, tow- Virginia. E-mail: [email protected] els, linens and light maid service included. In Virginia: “River Place’s Finest” is steps Web site: www.foreignservicehomes.com to Rosslyn Metro and Georgetown, and 15 Preference for single person or couple. Rate minutes on Metro bus or State Department commensurate with housing allowance. shuttle to NFATC. For more info, please call Photos available. Contact: (301) 951-4111, or visit our Web site: Tel. (202) 625-6448, www.executivehousing.com E-mail: [email protected], www.EquityFundGroup.com ARLINGTON NORTH: Hyde Park Condo across from Ballston Mall. Beautiful, updated unit with spacious rooms, new kitchen & baths. PIED-A-TERRE PROPERTIES, LTD: f ULLy f URNISHED APARTMENTS: Area carpets, sheer drapes, refinished floors. Select from our unique inventory of fully-fur- Arlington, VA. Two blocks to Rosslyn Metro. 2 bedrooms and two baths. Parking garage. nished & tastefully decorated apartments & Short/long-term rental. Everything included. Walk to Metro station. Vacant. $1,995/Mo. Call townhouses all located in D.C.’s best in-town $1,300 Studio, $1,500 1 BR. Please contact: KDH Properties at Tel: (703) 522-4927. neighborhoods: Dupont, Georgetown, Foggy Theodore at Tel: (703) 973-9551, or Bottom & the West End. Two-month minimum. E-mail: [email protected]. Mother-Daughter Owned and Operated. Tel: (202) 462-0200. Fax: (202) 332-1406. E-mail: [email protected] www.piedaterredc.com WASHINGTON STATE ISLANDS: Spectacular views, wonderful community, climate, boating, hiking. Access Seattle & Vancouver, B.C. Former FSO Jan Zehner, Windermere Real f URNISHED LUXURy APARTMENTS: Estate/ Orcas Island. Tel: (800) 842-5770. Short/long-term. Best locations: Dupont Circle, www.orcashomes.net. Georgetown. Utilities included. All price ranges/sizes. Parking available. E-mail: [email protected] Tel: (202) 296-4989. E-mail: [email protected] HOME DESIGN/RENOVATION

ONE-BEDROOM COTTAGE: For Rent. BUILD yOUR DREAM HOUSE: Former Minute walk from rear gate of FSI. Short/long- FSO Jon Gundersen, Senior Associate with f LORIDA term. Laundry, parking, skylights, fireplace, BOWA Builders, can help you. BOWA is a patio. Kitchenette. $1,500/month. Pets con- high-end residential design and construction sidered. Tel: (202) 415-0556; (703) 920-0852. firm specializing in additions/renovations, LONGBOAT k Ey, BRADENTON/ custom homes and condominium/apartment SARASOTA: Area will exceed expectations. remodeling. With 16 years’ experience, Don’t miss owning in Florida. Resales, new BOWA is nationally ranked by industry pub- f OGGy BOTTOM:Fully-furnished two-bed- homes, rental management and vacation lications as the largest whole-house remod- room townhouse available Jan. 1. for short-term rentals. Dynamic, growing company offering eler and second in customer satisfaction. rental only. $2,500/month. personalized professional service. Contact: Tel: (703) 734-9050. Tel: (202) 965-0088 or Sharon E. Oper, Realtor (AFSA member) Web Site: www.bowa.com. e-mail: [email protected] Wagner Realty. Tel: (941) 387-7199. E-mail: [email protected] MORTGAGE SHARE SINGLE-f AMILy HOME, RESTON: Yours: two BRs, bath, den w/ fire- BUyING OR REf INANCING A HOME? place + privileges. First floor completely ren- Save money with some of the lowest rates in NO STATE INCOME TAX enhances gra- ovated. Owner must share expenses -- big 40 years. Jeff Stoddard specializes in work- cious living in Sarasota, the cultural capital of house. Short or long-term. Owner can assist ing with the Foreign Service community over- Florida’s Gulf Coast. Contact former FSO Paul with furnishing. Three minutes to RTC: seas and in the U.S. Call today and experi- Byrnes, Coldwell Banker residential sales spe- $800/mo plus 1/3 utilities. Leave msg. at Tel: ence the Power of Yes! ® Tel: (703) 299-8625. cialist, by e-mail: [email protected], or (571) 259-5492. E-mail: [email protected] Toll-f ree: (877) 924-9001.

DECEMBER 2004 • AFSA NEWS 11 CLASSIFIEDS

VACATION BOOKS PET TRANSPORTATION

NORMANDy, f RANCE: Large, comfort- able farmhouse near D-Day Beaches for weekly rental. E-mail: [email protected] or OLD ASIA/ORIENT BOOk S BOUGHT Web site: www.laporterouge.net. Asian rare books. Fax: (212) 316-3408. E-mail: [email protected]

HOME LEAVE ON SANIBEL: Former SHOPPING FSO offers 2-bedroom, 2-bath condo on PET MOVING MADE EASy. Club Pet Sanibel Island, Florida. Steps from famous International, is a full-service animal shipper seashells and pristine beach of this vacation who specializes in domestic and internation- paradise. Available on monthly and weekly al trips. Club Pet is the ultimate pet-care board- basis. Tel: (703) 827-0312. 110 - 220 VOLT STORE ing facility in the Washington Metropolitan area. E-mail: [email protected] for avail- MULTI-SySTEM ELECTRONICS Tel: (703) 471-7818 or (800) 871-2535. ability and rates. www.clubpet.com. E-mail: [email protected]

PAL-SECAM-NTSC TVs, VCRs, AUDIO, CAMCORDER, BUSINESS CARDS ADAPTOR, TRANSFORMERS, CRESTED BUTTE, COLORADO: KITCHEN APPLIANCES Historic mining town turned ski resort. Newly GMS WORLD WIDE PHONES renovated & furnished historic miner's cabin, BUSINESS CARDS printed to State EPORT WORLD ELECTRONICS Department specifications. 500 cards for as 3 bedrooms, 2 baths. City center, walk to all 1719 Connecticut Ave NW little as $37.00! Herron Printing & Graphics. shops, restaurants. Great skiing, great sum- (Dupont Circle Metro. Btwn. R & S Sts.) Tel: (301) 990-3100. mer holidays. Three-day minimum. TEL (202) 232-2244 or (800) 513-3907 E-mail: [email protected] Tel: (866) 953-4747. E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected] URL: www.eportworld.com www.crested-butte-wild-iris-guest-house.com DOWNTOWN LOCATION MISCELLANEOUS 1030 19TH ST. NW (between K & L Sts.) Washington, D.C. 20036, TEL (202) 464-7600. LOOkING f OR CAR PARTS? EFM with INQUIRE ABOUT OUR PROMOTIONS vast experience in car parts and accessories LONGBOAT k Ey f LA: Bay-front three- Government & Diplomat discounts can locate the right item for your needs at the bedroom, three-bath townhouse in elegant best price and ship to you via APO or pouch. gated complex. Private beach club, tennis, Contact me for information and pricing at: gym, pool. Two-month minimum. E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected] NUTRITIONAL SOLUTIONS VITAMINS AND THINGS: Herbs, vitamins, homeo- pathics, flower remedies, body care, books, and more! We offer high-quality products that WEST VIRGINIA VILLA: 90 miles from produce dependable health benefits. Visit us SHIPPING D.C. Nicely furnished two-bedrooms 2.5-Bath at www.yellnutrition.com to question our townhouse on golf course at The Woods knowledgeable staff and to place your orders PLANNING TO MOVE OVERSEAS? Resort. Ideal for retirement or vacationing. or call us at: (703) 271-0400. Need a rate to ship your car, household goods, Rent/Lease. Tel: (202) 362-3231, or or other cargo going abroad? Contact: Joseph e-mail: [email protected] T. Quinn. at SEFCO-Export Management Company for rates and advice. Tel: (718) 268-6233. Fax: (718) 268-0505. Visit our Web site at www.sefco-export.com

BARBADOS: Three BR (sleeps 6) gra- WE MAk E GROCERy SHOPPING cious, furnished West Coast seaview home, EASy! If you miss groceries from back home, 1 min to beaches, restaurants, shops; world- visit www.lowesfoodstogo.com. We ship non- class golf 4 minutes away. Pack suit and clubs perishable groceries to you via the Dulles mail EMBASSy CUPS, MUGS or glasses and go. $1,000 week/$2500 month off season. sorting facility. Voila . . . food from home! wanted. Cash or trade. Contact: Lico at: PSZabriskie. E-mail: [email protected]; For more information e-mail: Tel: (703) 698-7180, e-mail: Tel: (301) 587-4956 (home). [email protected] [email protected].

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