AFRIPOL.ORGIDEAS HAVE CONSEQUENCES

 

Obama's Africa Agenda                                                                           

By  Witney W. Schneidman, an adviser on Africa to the campaign to elect Senator Barack Obama as President of the United States, sets out Obama's fundamental policy objectives for Africa.
Barack Obama will pursue three fundamental objectives on the continent.
One is to accelerate Africa's integration into the global economy.
A second is to enhance the peace and security of African states.
And a third is to strengthen relationships with those governments, institutions and civil society organizations committed to deepening democracy, accountability and reducing poverty in Africa.
Conflict Resolution
A priority for Barack Obama is to end the genocide in Darfur by increasing pressure on the government to halt the killing and stop impeding the deployment of the United Nations peacekeeping force. He holds Khartoum accountable for abiding by its commitments under the Comprehensive Peace Accord that ended the 30-year conflict between the north and South.
In Somalia, Obama sees a need to recalibrate the U.S. approach. For the last several years, our efforts at state-building, humanitarian relief and counter-terrorism have worked at cross purposes; we need to develop an approach so that they work at common purpose.
In the eastern Congo, there is a need to strongly support the UN military force, MONUC. We also have to transform the "tripartite plus" process, which brings together senior officials from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda, from a talk-shop into one that imposes verifiable accountability on each participant for progress and security.
In the Niger Delta, we should become more engaged not only in maritime security but in working with the Nigerian government, the European Union, the African Union and other stake holders to stabilize the region.
In Zimbabwe, the recently agreed-upon power sharing arrangements need to evolve quickly from a Mugabe-controlled government to a government that reflects the March 29 election that the Movement for Democratic Change won. Most immediately, Robert Mugabe needs to allow NGOs unhindered access to the four to five million people who need essential food and medicine supplies.
Africom, the U.S. military command for Africa, should also realize its potential, in cooperation with other U.S. agencies and regional partners, to promote peace, security, and stability on the continent.
An Obama agenda will create a Shared Security Partnership Program to build the infrastructure to deliver effective counter-terrorism training, and to create a strong foundation for coordinated action against al Qaeda and its affiliates in Africa and elsewhere.
The Shared Security Partnership Program will provide assistance with information sharing, training, operations, border security, anti-corruption programs, technology and the targeting of terrorist financing.
Africa and the Global Economy
To accelerate Africa's integration into the global economy, and to expand prosperity on the continent, Obama would establish an Add Value to Agriculture Initiative (AVTA) that will spur research and innovation aimed at partnering with land grant institutions, private philanthropies and businesses to promote higher yield seeds, better irrigation methods and affordable and safe fertilizers.
Such an initiative will also address issues related to food security in order to alleviate high food costs in various African countries.
Barack Obama will strengthen the African Growth and Opportunity Act to ensure that African producers can access the U.S. market and will encourage more American companies to invest in Africa. He will also work with the Overseas Private Investment Corporation to develop lending facilities to small and medium businesses, so that those companies under $5 million can become $10 and $20 million companies, creating new jobs, sustainable incomes and partners for American companies.
He will help to enhance the prosperity beginning to reach Africa. The World Bank estimates Africa's middle class will grow fourfold in the next 20 years, from its current levels of 12 million people in countries such as South Africa, Zambia, Nigeria, Kenya and others. Barack Obama will work to accelerate this process.
China's rapidly expanding influence on the continent holds promise for Africa, especially in the area of infrastructure development. Its growing presence is also generating concerns around saddling new debts on African governments, environmental degradation and worker safety on the part of Chinese extractive companies, and eroding the market share of African producers on the continent and globally.
Barack Obama will engage the Chinese to establish the rules of the road and to ensure that we are working at common purpose to enhance economic development on the continent.
However, it will be important that African governments are part of this effort and part of this dialogue; the days of external powers on their own deciding what is best for Africa needs to come to an end, once and for all.
Deepening Democracy, Ending Poverty
When it comes to engaging with our African partners to deepen democracy, enhance accountability and reduce poverty, Barack Obama will work with Congress to put more resources on the table.
But let's give credit where it is due. The President's Emergency Program for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), with 1.7 million people in Africa on anti-retrovirals, has been an extremely important initiative, as has the Bush administration's program to eradicate malaria and address neglected tropical diseases.
It is often said that this administration's legacy in Africa will revolve around these programs and the tripling in development assistance from $2 billion in 2000 to $6 billion today, and rightly so.
Nevertheless, the picture is incomplete if we stop there. The reality is that the bulk of this increase is due to increased spending on HIV/AIDS, humanitarian assistance and debt relief. In fact, development assistance to the poorest countries in Africa has decreased by half in this time frame. Ironically, the percentage of development going to the best-governed countries has dropped even more, by two-thirds, in this period.
The Millennium Challenge Account may change this latter trend, given the $3.7 billion in commitments to 10 countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
We have seen no increase in development assistance in areas such as democracy building, the rule of law, judicial reform, the strengthening of parliaments, education and enhancing the entrepreneurial skills of men and women.
To redress this, an Obama agenda will work with Congress to increase our investment in foreign assistance. Obama will spearhead an initiative to eliminate the global education deficit by establishing a Global Education Fund to help fill the financing gap for primary education in Africa and the developing world. He will also make the Millennium Development Goals America's goals.
On climate change, an Obama agenda will launch a Global Energy and Environment Initiative (GEE) to bring developing countries into the global effort to develop alternative sources of energy and mitigate the stark consequences of climate change.
Barack Obama's vision of leadership in this new era begins with the recognition of a fundamental reality: the security and well-being of each and every American is tied to the security and well-being of those who live beyond our borders, including in Africa. The United States will provide global leadership grounded in the understanding that the world shares a common security and a common humanity. We must lead not in the spirit of a patron, but in the spirit of a partner. Extending an outstretched hand to others must ultimately be about recognizing the inherent quality, dignity and worth of all people.
This kind of American leadership will also leverage engagement and resources from our traditional allies in the G8 countries, as well as from new actors, including emerging economies such as India, China, Brazil and South Africa, the private sector and global philanthropy.
Yet while America and our friends and our allies can help developing countries build more secure and prosperous societies, we must never forget that only the citizens of these nations can sustain them.
Bipartisan Policy
What all of us who are engaged in Africa have in common is a willingness to put partisanship aside when it comes to advocating for resources for Africa. There is no question that this bipartisan consensus, especially in Congress, needs to be nurtured, deepened and expanded.
The consensus was first forged in 2000, when the Clinton administration advocated for the African Growth and Opportunity Act. It was enhanced during the Bush administration, which extended AGOA three times, created the Millennium Challenge Account and, of course, the $15 billion PEPFAR programme.
This bipartisan consensus was evident several months ago when the Bush administration asked Congress to double to $30 million the amount that the U.S would spend on AIDS relief. In a stirring act of American compassion, Congress funded the program at $48 billion with another $2 million being allocated for programs in the U.S.
Barack Obama knows about bipartisanship through his work as community organizer, a state legislator in Illinois and a U.S. Senator. He understands that hunger is not a partisan issue, he understands that disease is not blue or red but it is very real. He understands that genocide in Darfur is not an issue of Republican or Democrat but one of morality and common humanity, and he worked with Senator Sam Brownback, Republican of Kansas, to pass the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act in 2006.
By every measure, this election is historic. In voting for Barack Obama, you will be voting for genuine change and, when it comes to Africa, a deepening of those partnerships that benefit Africa and benefit America.
Witney W. Schneidman served as deputy assistant secretary of state for African affairs in the Clinton administration. This article is excerpted from remarks to the Constituency for Africa 2008 Ronald H. Brown African Affairs Series forum on "U.S.-Africa Policy Agenda and the Next Administration" at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.

 

SENATOR OBAMA HAS ENOUGH EXPERIENCE TO LEAD AMERICA
-By Emeka Chiakwelu, the founder of Afripol Organization. 02/09/07

The waiting, the speculation, are over. Senator Barack Obama has finally declared his intention to seek the highest elective office in America - the presidency.
           Senator Barack Obama

He wants to the be the first among his peers, the post boomer generation to occupy the White House. This will make him the first African American president ever in America.
Everybody acknowledges, his intellect and the kennedyesque quality, yet some are pointing to his so-called inexperience, by pointing to the number of years he has been national senator. But critics must look at the big picture, what they see as a weakness, is nothing but a great strength. Obama a brand new face on the national scene, with a fresh idea on problems confronting America in 21st century, has a enough experience.
First of all, the premise that the junior senator from Chicago is inexperience is a fallacy, that has no legs to stand on.
Well, we can say that Obama has not been in national position for a while, but he has engaged in politics and civic duties for a very long time. He was a state senator for seven years fighting for working families and less privilege. Before that, he was involved in civic duties, helping and defending the poor in their assertion of their rights and responsibilities in our polity. One thing for sure, he has been on the side of the masses and that is the most important experience and requirement for seeking both local and national offices.
Long experience may look good on paper, but when experience is short in positive achievement and paucity in compassion, they can become a stumbling block.
Social capital, the capacity to understand human predicament and to seek solution to alleviate them are essentially what voters are looking in their leaders.
Senator Obama has the experience in dealing with people especially the neglected people on the grassroots; those that have no power and without the powerful interest group to speak and lobby for them.
Senator Obama is for the people, the common people who he has been fighting for all this time. He is real, he is one of the people, he came from the working American people and when he get to the White House, he will continue fighting for them.
Senator Obama will make a great president, because apart from having an electrifying charisma and personality, his compassing wisdom will enable him to close the partisan gap in Washington. He is truly the man of the people; during the 2004 Democratic party convention, he reminded Americans the most significant thing by uttering those hallow words:

"Tonight, we gather to affirm the greatness of our nation not because of the height of our skyscrapers, or the power of our military, or the size of our economy; our pride is based on a very simple premise, summed up in a declaration made over two hundred years ago: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”
That is the true genius of America, a faith in simple dreams, an insistence on small miracles; that we can tuck in our children at night and know that they are fed and clothed and safe from harm; that we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door; that we can have an idea and start our own business without paying a bribe; that we can participate in the political process without fear of retribution; and that our votes will be counted -- or at least, most of the time.
There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America."

Senator Obama is ready to lead and all we can do is to support him, may he will be the one to transform our differences and bridge the gap by restoring America to a greater heights. Senator Obama is the one that can once again reaffirmed our belief in America as a beacon of hope and justice.
 

 

SENATOR OBAMA IS ELECTABLE , BUT WHEN?   11/18/06
 -By Emeka Chiakwelu, the founder of Afripol Organization.
There is no doubt that the freshman senator from Chicago is qualify to become American president. Not just only that, he is also elect able. But the appropriate time appears to be greatest hurdle to his ambition. Many people including his fellow politicians and political pundits are asking Senator Obama to throw in his hat for 2008 presidential election. While others are not so sure about the timing, thus suggesting that he needs more experience.

Without doubt Obama is a very attractive candidate, he has the political will, the intellect and of course, the charisma to electrify the crowd including friends and foes.
A conservative pundit who regularly appears on Fox television writes an article urging him to run. In the article, I’m paraphrasing him, he asked Obama to run for the Democratic party primary which he emphasized to be good for his political life. He said even if he loses the primary which is likely, it will boast his career and established him as front runner in the future.

This methodology of reasoning is not in line with realism. Seeking the highest office in the land is not a game especially at this point in time, a turbulent period in the global geo-politics.
 

Senator Obama must be ready and seasoned before dabbling to fight for Democratic party flag bearer. He must be equipped with experience and a strong political base that is able to sustain him financially and psychologically. What do I mean by this? At a point in the campaign for either primary or general elections there are sand dunes and ocean waves that will attack and only a rooted political experience and devoted grassroots support can salvage him.
If a scandal do come up and his supporters back down due to their unwillingness to fight with him, that will tarnish his career forever. Obama is a very smart man and who understand politics and history. He must sit down and sleep over running for presidency at the infant stage of his career. If he navigates his political career prudently the presidency will be for him to lose. But if he forgets that patience is a virtue, he may not actualize his political ambition.
Senator Obama can win the presidency now, but if he fails due to scandal or a political mistake at the heat of the battle. Are the electorates willing to forgive him? He must think hard on this before he commence on making his decision.

In modern-day American presidency it does appears that the route to White House is through governorship mansion . Most recent American presidents have been governors except JFK, albeit Obama’s mass appeal smells like that of JFK, yet history suggested that American voters have the affinity to elect governors as their presidents.
Senator Obama probably have to sit out his tenure and run for re-election before seeking the office of the presidency. This will reinforce his readiness and makes him more political mature. If he can get the opportunity to become a governor, that will be a great boast to his ambition. And will silence his critic that believes that only prerequisite to presidency is via an executive position.
Those that argues that legislative experience and background are not enough to qualify a presidential candidate to hold the highest office in the Land are simply wrong.
I strong disagree with that because only when we elect more people with legislative experience, then we can able to make a prudent call.
© 2006 AFRIPOL.org

 

Sen. Obama Will Consider 2008 White House Run10/22/06 AP
WASHINGTON (Oct. 22) - Sen. Barack Obama acknowledged Sunday he was considering a run for president in 2008, backing off previous statements that he would not do so.
In recent weeks, his political stock has been rising as a potentially viable centrist candidate for president in 2008 after former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner announced earlier this month that he was bowing out of the race.
In a recent issue of Time magazine, Obama's face fills the cover next to the headline, "Why Barack Obama Could Be The Next President." He is currently on a tour promoting his latest book, "The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream."  On Sunday, Obama dismissed notions that he might not be ready to run for president because of his limited experience in national politics. He agreed the job requires a "certain soberness and seriousness" and "can't be something you pursue on the basis of vanity and ambition." "I'm not sure anyone is ready to be president before they're president," Obama said. "I trust the judgment of the American people. "We have a long and vigorous process. Should I decide to run, if I ever decide to, I'll be confident that I'll be run through the pages pretty well," Obama said.
 

 

SENATOR OBAMA ON COVER OF TIMEoct,2006.
                    

“First-term Sen. Barack Obama has the charisma and ambition to run for president, but is he ready to answer the tough questions? Foremost among them is whether he will run in 2008, and he's not denying it. But the mania surrounding the Illinois Democrat's book tour is reminiscent of the Colin Powell mania in 1995, when the general leveraged speculation of a presidential run into huge book sales. And that's not all they have in common.”

The Democrats' fresh face
By Joe Klein
Time
Editor's note: The following is a summary of this week's Time magazine cover story.
It is 9 a.m. on a fresh, sunny Saturday in Rockford, Illinois, and nearly a thousand people have gathered in the gymnasium at Rock Valley College to participate in a town meeting with their Senator, Barack Obama.
It is an astonishingly large crowd for a beautiful Saturday morning, but Obama -- whose new book, "The Audacity of Hope," is excerpted in Time this week -- has become an American political phenomenon in what seems about a nanosecond, and the folks are giddy with anticipation.
"We know he's got the charisma," says Bertha McEwing, who has lived in Rockford for more than 50 years. "We want to know if he's got the brains."
Just then there is a ripple through the crowd, then gasps, cheers and applause as Obama lopes into the gym with a casual, knees-y stride.
"Missed ya," he says, moving to the microphone, and he continues greeting people over raucous applause. "Tired of Washington."
There's a sly hipster syncopation to his cadence, "Been stuck there for a while."
But the folksiness pretty much disappears when he starts answering questions. Obama's actual speaking style is quietly conversational, low in rhetoric-saturated fat; there is no harrumph to him.
About halfway through the hour-long meeting, a middle-aged man stands up and says what seems to be on everyone's mind, with appropriate passion: "Congress hasn't done a damn thing this year. I'm tired of the politicians blaming each other. We should throw them all out and start over!"
"Including me?" the senator asks.
A chorus of n-o-o-o-s. "Not you," the man says. "You're brand new."
Obama wanders into a casual disquisition about the sluggish nature of democracy.
The answer is not even remotely a standard, pretaped political response. He moves through some fairly arcane turf, talking about how political gerrymandering has led to a generation of politicians who come from safe districts where they don't have to consider the other side of the debate, which has made compromise -- and therefore legislative progress -- more difficult.
He's a liberal, but not a screechy partisan. Indeed, he seems obsessively eager to find common ground with conservatives.
"It's such a relief after all the screaming you see on TV," says Chuck Sweeny, political editor of the Rockford Register Star. "Obama is reaching out. He's saying the other side isn't evil. You can't imagine how powerful a message that is for an audience like this."
As we traveled that Saturday through downstate Illinois and then across the Mississippi into the mythic presidential-campaign state of Iowa, Obama seemed the political equivalent of a rainbow -- a sudden preternatural event inspiring awe and ecstasy.
Bill Gluba, a longtime Democratic activist who sells real estate on both sides of the river in the Quad Cities area, reminisced about driving Bobby Kennedy around Davenport, Iowa, on May 14, 1968.
"I was just a teenaged kid," he says. "But I'll never forget the way people reacted to Kennedy. Never seen anything like it since -- until this guy."
The question of when Obama -- who has not yet served two years in the U.S. Senate -- will run for president is omnipresent. That he will eventually run, and win, is assumed by almost everyone who comes to watch him speak.
In Davenport a local reporter asks the question directly: "Are you running for president in 2008?"
Obama surprises me by saying he's just thinking about the 2006 election right now, which, in the semiotic dance of presidential politics, is definitely not a no.
A few days later, I ask Obama the obvious follow-up question: Will he think about running for President in 2008 when the congressional election is over?
"When the election is over and my book tour is done, I will think about how I can be most useful to the country and how I can reconcile that with being a good dad and a good husband," he says carefully, and then adds, "I haven't completely decided or unraveled that puzzle yet."
Which is even closer to a yes -- or, perhaps, it's just a clever strategy to gin up some publicity at the launch of his book tour. The current Obama mania is reminiscent of the Colin Powell mania of September 1995, when the general -- another political rainbow -- leveraged speculation that he might run for president into book sales of 2.6 million copies for his memoir, My American Journey.
Powell and Obama have another thing in common: They are black people who -- like Tiger Woods, Oprah Winfrey and Michael Jordan -- seem to have an iconic power over the American imagination because they transcend racial stereotypes.
"It's all about gratitude," says essayist Shelby Steele, who frequently writes about the psychology of race. "White people are just thrilled when a prominent black person comes along and doesn't rub their noses in racial guilt. White people just go crazy over people like that."
When I asked Obama about this, he began to answer before I finished the question.
"There's a core decency to the American people that doesn't get enough attention," he said. "Figures like Oprah, Tiger, Michael Jordan give people a shortcut to express their better instincts. You can be cynical about this. You can say, It's easy to love Oprah. It's harder to embrace the idea of putting more resources into opportunities for young black men -- some of whom aren't so lovable.
"But I don't feel that way. I think it's healthy, a good instinct. I just don't want it to stop with Oprah. I'd rather say, If you feel good about me, there's a whole lot of young men out there who could be me if given the chance."
Culled from CNN

 

 ABOUT SENATOR BARACK OBAMA OF USA
Barack Hussein Obama is United States of America senator since January 2005. Obama is a Kenyan-American, the first black male to become a Democratic party senator, and the third black male senator in America since reconstruction. His father, Dr. Obama , a Harvard trained economist is from Kenya and his mother, a USA citizen. Just like his father, Senator Obama attended Harvard University and received a Law degree. Before his present position, he was a state senator in Chicago and a professor at Chicago University Law school.
Obama graduated from Columbia University in 1983, and moved to Chicago in 1985 to work for a church-based group seeking to improve living conditions in poor neighborhoods plagued with crime and high unemployment. In 1991, Obama graduated from Harvard Law School where he was the first African American editor of the Harvard Law Review.
Senator Obama Barack is married to Michelle and they have two daughters. His keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention and his political charisma has established him as a likely future US presidential candidate.
© 2006 AFRIPOL.org

 

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