NGO Letter to President Obama regarding waivers to the Child Soldiers Prevention Act

Dear President Obama,

We are writing to express our deep disappointment with your decision to grant blanket national interest waivers and allow all forms of US military assistance to Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Sudan, and Yemen, despite their continued use of child soldiers in violation of the Child Soldiers Prevention Act of 2008 (Title IV of the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act).

We recognize that the United States has a complex set of national interests in each of these countries, including for example, counter-terrorism concerns in Yemen. However, the administration could have accommodated these concerns while also showing that it was taking the Child Soldiers Prevention Act seriously and using its leverage strategically to effectively end the use of child soldiers.

As you know, the Child Soldiers Prevention Act was adopted in 2008 with strong bipartisan support from Congress because of deep concerns over the continuing recruitment and use of child soldiers around the world. By prohibiting foreign military financing, military training and several other categories of US military assistance to governments using child soldiers, the law allows the US administration to exert powerful leverage on states with abusive child recruitment policies and practices. The United States was one of the first countries in the world to enact such groundbreaking legislation.

As mandated by the Act, the State Department identified countries in violation of the law in its annual Trafficking in Persons report, which was published on June 14, 2010. The countries identified were Burma, Chad, DRC, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. Of the six, Burma receives no US military assistance and the administration contends that the assistance received by Somalia is not covered by the law.

Your decision to give the remaining four countries a blanket waiver means that none of the six violators will be impacted by the law. We believe that your waiver undermines the intent of the law and sends an unfortunate message that the administration is not seriously committed to ending the use of child soldiers. By giving a blanket waiver, the administration has also given up the significant leverage that the law provides to influence the child recruitment practices of its military allies.

The White House has stated that continued engagement will allow the United States to help these governments end their use of child soldiers, including by professionalizing their military forces and implementing existing plans to end child recruitment. However, this approach has been ineffective thus far. The DRC has received IMET training from the US since FY 2004, and Chad has received IMET since at least FY 2002. Yet both countries continue to use child soldiers in their forces. Continuing existing programs-as the US has done for years-without other changes in the approach is unlikely to yield change. Informing these governments that certain programs will be suspended until they have removed all child soldiers from their ranks could prove more effective.

The Child Soldiers Prevention Act does not present an “all or nothing” approach. Section 404 (e) of the Act permits continued engagement with governments in violation of the Act. Specifically, the section allows assistance for “international military education, training, and nonlethal supplies” otherwise prohibited under the Act upon certification to the appropriate congressional committees that the government is taking reasonable steps to demobilize child soldiers, provide rehabilitation and reintegration assistance, and that US assistance is directly supporting the professionalization of the military.

Many of the military programs identified in the memorandum of justification regarding the waiver of restrictions could have been continued under Section 404 (e). In contrast to the use of the blanket waiver, providing programs through Section 404 (e) would have tied the continued assistance directly to concrete progress in ending child soldier use.

Your decision to issue the waivers was unfortunate. However, we don’t believe that you need to wait until next year’s determination process to take additional action on this issue. We recommend the following:

1) Establish specific benchmarks with the governments concerned within the next six months. These benchmarks should require a cessation of new child recruitment and demonstrable progress in the demobilization or release of children from existing forces. Failure to do so should result in the suspension of specific and targeted military programs;

2) Publically commit to refrain from transferring any lethal equipment to Chad, DRC, and Sudan until the Secretary of State certifies that these countries are no longer in violation of the Child Soldier Prevention Act;

3) Establish a substantive dialogue with key stakeholders, particularly the NGOs and Congressional offices involved in creating the Child Soldiers Prevention Act, regarding:

a) the determination of governments to be listed in 2011;

b) how determinations regarding any waivers and/or exceptions under section 404(e) will be made;

c) how the law can be most effectively implemented in order to achieve its objectives.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely yours,

African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies

African Faith & Justice Network

American Federation of Teachers

Amnesty International USA

Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America

Caring for Kaela

Child Protection International

Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers

3D Security Initiative

Fellowship of Reconciliation

Foreign Policy in Focus

Friends Committee on National Legislation

Human Rights First

Human Rights Program, University of Minnesota

Human Rights Watch

International Labor Rights Forum

International Justice Mission

Multifaith Voices for Peace and Justice

National Consumers League

Open Society Policy Center

Oxfam America

Pax Christi USA

Physicians for Human Rights

Presbyterian Church USA

Ramsay Merriam Fund

Refugees International

Resolve

United Methodist Church, General Board of Church & Society

World Vision

CC:

The Honorable Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State

Samantha Power, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights at the National Security Council

The Honorable Maria Otero, Undersecretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs

The Honorable Michael Posner, Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor

The Honorable Andrew J. Shapiro, Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs

The Honorable Harold Koh, Legal Advisor, Department of State

Ambassador Luis CdeBaca, Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons

Senator Richard Durbin

Senator Sam Brownback

Senator John Kerry, Chair, Senate Foreign Relations Committee

Senator Richard Lugar, ranking member, Senate Foreign Relations Committee

Congressman Howard Berman, Chair, House Committee on Foreign Affairs

Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, ranking member, House Committee on Foreign Affairs

The Obama administration’s failure to speak out more boldly against human rights abuses is a poor moral and a political choice.

The Obama administration’s record on human rights has been a major disappointment.

In part because the Bush administration abused the promotion of democracy and human rights to rationalize its militaristic policies in the Middle East and elsewhere, the Obama administration has at times been reluctant to be a forceful advocate for those struggling against oppression. For example, Obama was cautious in supporting the ongoing freedom struggle in Iran, in part because he believes that more overt advocacy could set back what he sees as the more critical issue of curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions. He is also aware of how the history of U.S. interventionism in that country, overt threats of “regime change” by the previous administration, and the U.S. invasion of two neighboring countries in the name of promoting democracy could lead to a nationalist reaction to such grandstanding. (Despite this caution, however, the Iranian regime has falsely accused Obama of guiding the massive pro-democracy movement that is challenging the increasingly repressive rule in that country.)

Harder to defend is Obama’s continuation of the Bush administration’s policy of arming and training security forces in Saudi Arabia, Oman, Egypt, Jordan and other dictatorial regimes in the region.

During his highly anticipated address in Cairo last June, Obama failed to praise his autocratic host, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. He also invited leading critics of the regime, including secular liberals and moderate Islamists, to witness his speech. On the other hand, he refused to criticize the Mubarak regime, acknowledge its autocratic nature, or address any concern over its thousands of political prisoners — even when pushed to do so in a BBC interview. Indeed, Egyptian grassroots pro-democracy group Kefaya chose to boycott the speech, demanding that Obama show his commitment to democracy in deeds, not just words. Obama’s foreign aid budget includes over $1.5 billion in unconditional aid to the Mubarak dictatorship. And Washington didn’t publicly express concern when Egyptian police attacked American human rights activists attempting to deliver relief supplies to the besieged Gaza Strip last month.

Most of the opposition to Obama’s escalation of the war in Afghanistan has been based on cost and the dubious prospects of victory. But there is concern that the government for which Americans are expected to fight and die is a serious abuser of human rights. Not only did U.S.-backed Hamid Karzai steal the most recent presidential election, but his cabinet includes a number of notorious warlords who have engaged in serious crimes against humanity. Furthermore, U.S.-backed Afghan security forces have engaged in gross and systematic human rights violations, and U.S. bomb and missile attacks killed hundreds of civilians in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan since Obama assumed office.

Similarly, U.S. forces remain in Iraq, and billions of dollars support the sectarian regime despite ongoing violations of human rights by Baghdad’s rulers. The recent dismissal of charges against U.S. Blackwater mercenaries, who massacred 17 unarmed civilians in Baghdad’s Al-Nusur Square, and the Obama administration’s refusal to extradite them to face justice have also raised concerns regarding the U.S. commitment to basic human rights.

Elsewhere in the Middle East, the Obama administration rejected calls by Amnesty International and other human rights groups to suspend military aid to Israel following its use of U.S. weaponry against civilian targets in last year’s war on the Gaza Strip, which resulted in more than 700 civilian deaths, over 300 of whom were children. Even worse, Obama has pledged to increase military aid over and above the more than $10 billion provided to the Israelis by the Bush administration. The Obama administration called on Israel to freeze expansion of its colonization efforts in the occupied West Bank and threatened to cut planned loan guarantees to the Israeli government if it continues to refuse. But Obama still rejects conditioning direct aid and has similarly refused to call on Israel to withdraw from the its illegal settlements, as required under international humanitarian law and confirmed through a series of UN Security Council resolutions.

When the UN Human Rights Council investigation led by Richard Goldstone documented war crimes by both Hamas and the Israeli government — confirming previous investigations by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and others — the Obama administration rejected the commission’s findings, calling them “deeply flawed.”  Rather than challenge the content of the meticulously documented 575-page report, U.S. officials instead issued strong but vague critiques. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice was particularly critical of the report’s recommendation that Palestinians and Israelis suspected of war crimes should be tried before the International Criminal Court. “Our view is that we need to be focused on the future,” she argued.

The human rights community was initially pleased when Obama appointed Michael Posner, cofounder and director of Human Rights First, as Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights. However, Posner took the lead in quashing the Goldstone Commission report, insisting it “should not be used as a mechanism to add impediments to getting back to the peace process.” Ironically, just weeks earlier, the Obama administration argued during a UN debate on Darfur that war crimes charges should never be sacrificed for political reasons.

The Obama administration has shown a lack of concern for democracy and human rights outside the Middle East as well. Washington initially raised objections to the coup in Honduras that ousted democratically elected president Manuel Zelaya. But then Obama — in opposition to virtually the entire hemisphere — recognized the November elections that took place under a censured media, widespread political repression, and a boycott by pro-democracy forces. The administration also pledged to continue sending over half a billion dollars of aid annually to the Colombian regime, despite its notoriously poor human rights record. It even signed an agreement that allows U.S. forces to be stationed at seven military bases across that country. Though ostensibly the focus is to curb the drug trade, such aid has also been used in broader counterinsurgency efforts that have serious human rights consequences.

Rejecting calls by liberal Democratic members of Congress, leading human rights groups, Pope Benedict XVI, and most of the international community to participate, the Obama administration decided to boycott the UN Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance in Geneva. And most disturbingly, the Obama administration decided to continue the Bush administration’s policy of remaining one of the few nations in the world to refuse to sign the international treaty banning landmines, completing its review process in secret without allowing for any input from human rights organizations.

Despite all this, there have been some gestures in support of individual human rights activists. For example, in an unprecedented move, the White House hosted the 2009 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award, with Obama personally honoring this year’s recipients, Women of Zimbabwe Arise, who have been struggling for human rights under the repressive Mugabe regime. The White House also intervened on behalf of the 2008 winner, Western Saharan nonviolent activist Aminatou Haidar, as she verged on death from a hunger strike following expulsion from her country by Moroccan occupation authorities. The Obama administration has failed, however, to demand that Morocco honor a series of UN Security Council resolutions and a World Court ruling allowing the people of Western Sahara the right of self-determination.

To Obama’s credit, there is now a subtle but important shift in the U.S. government’s discourse on human rights. The Bush administration pushed a rather superficial structuralist view of human rights. It focused, for instance, on elections — which can easily be rigged and manipulated in many cases — in order to change certain governments for purposes of expanding U.S. power and influence. Obama has taken more of an agency view of human rights, emphasizing the rights of free expression, particularly the right of protest, and recognizing that human rights reform can only come from below and not through imposed means.

In the short term, however, Obama’s failure to more boldly address human rights concerns have alienated much of Obama’s progressive base of support. The right wing, meanwhile, disingenuously portrays Obama as retreating from his predecessor’s supposed support for democracy and human rights. Although the Bush administration provided even more assistance to governments engaged in human rights abuses and used pro-democracy rhetoric largely as a ruse for empire, Obama’s lukewarm support for human rights has enabled right-wingers to seize the moral high ground. As a result, the perceived weakness of the Obama administration’s human rights record raises important ethical and political questions.

Source: http://www.ips-dc.org/articles/human_rights_c

Brainwashing America’s Youth: Obama Uses Public Schools To Indoctrinate Students; Required Reading: Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals”

by Liz Blaine

Like all radicals in positions of power, President Obama’s army of citizen volunteers, Organizing for America, is recruiting high school students as interns to organize the President’s agenda in the 2010 election cycle. I quote,

“Organizing for America, the successor organization to Obama for America, is building on the movement that elected President Obama by empowering students across the country to help us bring about our agenda”

Pam Geller at Atlas Shrugs reports on students at Perry Local High School  in Massillon, Ohio who were given propaganda recruiting papers in government class to enlist students to sign up as interns for Obama’s Organizing for America.

With weekly curricula titled “Strategizing for Effective Change,” “Managing Events,” and “Working With The Media” one wonders exactly what training the students will receive. But you needn’t wonder much further than the next page of the application.

The shocking list of recommended reading during the internship includes