GERALD LEMELLE
Lemelle is the executive director of Africa Action. He said: “Kenya’s role as a manufacturing and financial hub for East Africa makes it an appealing partner for Western investments. The country’s geographic location, bordering on Somalia, a collapsed state, also appeals to U.S. security interests. However, the unhelpful and contradictory U.S. diplomatic response to the botched elections in Kenya risks encouraging leadership around the continent to ignore the will of their citizens…” [Congo]:
KAMBALE MUSAVULI
Musavuli is the national spokesperson and student coordinator for Friends of the Congo. He said: “[The United States] can call for a process of national reconciliation and justice throughout the entire Congo, not just in the east. Such reconciliation should institute a process where the victims of human rights abuses and atrocities are able to secure justice.” [South Africa]:
IMANI COUNTESS
Countess serves as TransAfrica Forum’s senior director of public affairs. She said: “Secretary Clinton and the Department of State can take important steps toward unleashing resources for health, education, and essential services throughout Africa, including South Africa. First, [Clinton] has to create a coherent, comprehensive policy, and secondly, work with her counterparts in the Cabinet to remove the fiscal and trade policies that undermine African economies.” [Somalia]:
DANIEL VOLMAN
Volman is the director of the African Security Research Project. In his report “Making Peace or Fueling War in Africa,” he wrote: “The United States collaborated with Ethiopia in its invasion of Somalia in late 2006, overthrowing the Islamic Courts Union that had brought several months of unprecedented stability to the capital Mogadishu and its surroundings. The invasion was a conventional military success. But far from reducing the threat from extremist groups, it isolated moderates, provoked internal displacement that became one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, inflamed anti-U.S. sentiment, and even provoked the targeting of both local and international humanitarian operations.” [Liberia]:
EMIRA WOODS
A Liberian-American, Woods is co-director of Foreign Policy In Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies. Responding to growing reports that the new U.S. Military command for Africa (AFRICOM) will be based in Liberia, she wrote the piece “AFRICOM: Wrong for Liberia, Disastrous for Africa“, which states: “Basing AFRICOM in Liberia will put Liberians at risk now and into the future. Liberia’s national threat level will dramatically increase as the country becomes a target of those interested in attacking U.S. assets. This will severely jeopardize Liberia’s national security interests while creating new problems for the country’s fragile peace and its nascent democracy.” [Nigeria]:
DAPHNE WYSHAM
Focusing on Nigeria, Wysham is a fellow and board member of the Institute for Policy Studies. She said: “Due to media blackout, Americans may not realize that a rise in the price of gas at the pump is related to bloodshed in the Niger Delta. As one of the largest consumers of Nigerian crude, the United States government cannot stand idly by and watch innocent civilians being killed, starved and maimed.”
For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167
