Washington, DC — TransAfrica Forum, the oldest and largest African American human rights advocacy organization for the African world in the United States, commemorates its 30th anniversary with a series of events in Washington, DC this week.
AllAfrica caught up with Nicole Lee, TransAfrica Forum's executive director, to reflect on the organization's past, present, and future. Excerpts:
What is TransAfrica focusing on now?
This new era of TransAfrica will focus on some new initiatives, but we will also go back to our roots. Certainly first and foremost we are a policy and advocacy organization. We work to educate both U.S. citizens and others, African Americans and people of other races, the Congress, U.S. corporations and all other stakeholders about the effects of U.S. foreign policy toward Africa…
We continue to be on the cutting edge of issues that are both in the short term and in the long term affecting the African world negatively and are hoping really to highlight ways in which international systems may give some countries an unfair advantage and other countries no advantages whatsoever.
There are many issues that are facing the continent and the African world as a whole and TransAfrica attempts ensure the U.S. role in that is just and that we as a country will have better policies that will help for sustainable development, will ensure that human rights are respected, and will give African countries and their people sovereignty.
You mentioned that overarching idea of a just U.S. foreign policy. What is your assessment of U.S. foreign policy toward Africa right now? What does a just foreign policy in Africa look like?
Many times policies [have been] self-interested, whether it is our government's interest in hegemony and militarism, or its interest in ensuring that our corporations are able to extract resources for a much lower price than they would actually get in a fair market. This is no different than what we were seeing 30 years ago. We are still having those same struggles, they may have different names and in different places, but they are similar struggles.
Certainly the U.S. does talk about doing good on the continent. We talk about charity, we talk about debt relief, [but] many times what we don't talk about and therefore don't address are issues that the U.S. has created historically over time that still affect Africa.
When we talk about debt relief for Africa we really do need to talk about the fact that these debts are odious, illegitimate. We need to talk about the fact that resources have been extracted from Africa without payment to the people that lived there and owned the land for centuries.
Although the U.S. government does have a lot of discussion around issues facing Africa, they are really just touching the surface. They are not really not going into our obligations to the African governments and U.S. citizens are not necessarily holding our government accountable for both historical and our present day policies that negatively affect Africa.
Specifically, what issue has gotten your attention?
We are specifically focusing right now on issues of U.S. militarism. We are seeing U.S. militarism at an all-time high on the continent, and we are attempting to hold the U.S. government, the Defense Department and the State Department accountable for not consulting with African governments prior to the creation of the Africa command.
Are there any positive developments in U.S. foreign policy toward Africa you want to highlight?
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Well I think that we have taken some steps forward, but we have also taken some steps back. One of the steps forward that we have taken is constituencies in the United States [have gotten] together and worked toward ensuring that the U.S. gives its fair share in aid.
We certainly are not giving aid in the amounts that we should, but one issue that we should highlight though is HIV/Aids. Although there are many, many problems in the way that we deliver treatment and prevention, it is an example of a time where constituents have gotten together and demanded that the government really take into account issues facing the continent, our culpability in that, and how we can address this life-threatening problem.
See TransAfrica's website for details of its celebrations tonight and tomorrow night.
