Month: August, 2017
Harvey is Deemed the Costliest Disaster in U.S. History
| August 31, 2017 | 8:21 pm | Local/State | Comments closed

Pop culture applies Woody Guthrie’s political barbs masked in all-American balladry
| August 30, 2017 | 8:26 pm | Labor, Woody Guthrie | Comments closed

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/life/article/Pop-culture-applies-Woody-Guthrie-s-political-11961032.php

Pop culture applies Woody Guthrie’s political barbs masked in all-American balladry

August 25, 2017 Updated: August 26, 2017 11:01pm

“This land is your land, this land is my land,” sang Lady Gaga, reciting the lyrics of Woody Guthrie’s iconic “This Land Is Your Land” before plunging into Houston’s NRG Stadium as the Super Bowl halftime entertainment.

“This land was made for you and me.”

Gaga’s performance, against a backdrop of twinkling red, white and blue stars, might not have seemed political. The scene appeared to be nothing more than a singer performing a beloved song during the nation’s most popular sporting event.

During the previous year’s Super Bowl halftime show, Beyonce provoked viewers by trotting out a brigade of dancers dressed in Black Panther garb. It was interpreted by some as an anti-police statement. Lady Gaga was to be the nonpolitical sequel, an NFL-approved conciliator for both left and right. Yet she made her own statement, in the lyrics of Guthrie’s seemingly benign folk song. In other words, commentators were correct in interpreting Lady Gaga’s Guthrie reference as an indirect barb at President Donald Trump.

Today there exists a misconception that “This Land Is Your Land” is uncomplicatedly patriotic, an ode to the American prosperity that stretches “from California to New York Island.” Taught in elementary schools, the song sounds, well, nice, as if it were the musical equivalent of open arms or a hearth. But Lady Gaga couldn’t have made a more loaded choice that night. If he were living today, Guthrie might be the most pointed critic of the nation’s state of affairs.

In 2017, with the country in an existential crisis, with disparate factions fighting over what is or isn’t “American,” the man behind “This Land Is Your Land” remains essential. Compare his songs to the most biting protest anthems in music today – A Tribe Called Quest’s “We the People,” Janelle Monae’s “Hell You Talmbout” and much of Kendrick Lamar’s ouevre – and Guthrie, placed in a contemporary context, remains one of the country’s most acerbic poets of the political consciousness.

Simply put: Guthrie disagreed with nearly all politicians and capitalists.

Consider, for example, that even presentations of his music that celebrate everything else about him – the charming hobo act, the man-of-the-people Midwestern modesty, the lulling, folksy chords of his songs – carry elements of subversion.

The first scene in “Woody Sez,” a buoyant and well-timed Guthrie tribute show at Stages Repertory Theatre through Sept. 3, has a working-class Okie approach a mic to sing “God Bless America” for a New York radio show in 1940, except he tells the audience he has a better song. He sings these lyrics to “This Land Is Your Land”:

In the shadow of the steeple

By the relief office I’d seen my people.

As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking,

Is this land made for you and me?

The official recording of “This Land Is Your Land” omits this verse, which has made Guthrie’s song seem more optimistic about America than he might have intended. “This land was made for you and me” suggests America offers opportunity for all of its citizens.

But the same idea, posed as a question, raises an eyebrow at American exceptionalism, suggesting this is a land of the poor and powerless as much as of the prosperous.

Guthrie’s image of the poor, standing hungry outside the relief office, isn’t the harshest damnation of American capitalism in the song. He also wrote this verse:

There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me.

The sign was painted, it said “Private Property.”

But on the back side, it didn’t say nothing.

This land was made for you and me.

It’s one of Guthrie’s most brilliant illustrations of privilege: a barrier, presumably owned by a corporation, that separates the haves and the have-nots. The connection to Trump’s “Build the Wall” campaign is easy, but imprecise – the verse’s political message points to economic, not literal barriers.

Born into a white middle-class family in Okemah, Okla., Guthrie wrote “Old Man Trump” in the ’50s as a response to living as a tenant of President Donald Trump’s father, Fred Trump, whom Guthrie despised for his discriminatory housing policies:

I suppose Old Man Trump knows just how much racial hate

He stirred up in that bloodpot of human hearts

When he drawed that color line

Here at his Beach Haven family project.

“Woody Sez,” devised by David M. Lutken with Nick Corley, features the superb Ben Hope, who blends country twang with pop clarity in his rendition of Guthrie. The musical tells Guthrie’s story, birth to death, in the form of a Wikipedia-biography-meets-greatest-hits-collection.

Eschewing the life of a “rock star,” the singer paid dearly for refusing to censor himself, getting kicked out of radio shows and spending years wandering the country. He wrote a column, titled “Woody Sez,” in the communist paper People’s World, as well as drew anti-capitalist cartoons. His songs frequently skewer bankers and other players of capitalism. As a migrant farm worker, he saw firsthand the cruelties of the age of industry.

Again and again, we see Guthrie run into trouble for his communist ideals. But his beliefs make sense.

If his earthy, blue-collar lyrics ring truer than those of wealthy modern-day country artists, so do his class-based protestations hit harder than the criticisms of America in, say, Beyoncé’s “Formation,” which described money as a form of power rather than corruption. When it comes to money (and not race), Guthrie’s the anti-establishment Bernie Sanders, Beyoncé’s the 1-percenter Hillary Clinton. And compared to even his best-known proteges, Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan, Guthrie remains the least self-introspective and most invested in acting as a poet of the people, and not just for the people of his time.

By the end of “Woody Sez,” it’s clear Guthrie would not only have despised Trump but likely would have penned song after song in protest of him. That would have sung louder, and with more political clarity, than any tribute or quotation.

And though “Woody Sez” doesn’t shy from politics, the politics are secondary to the music in the show. Lady Gaga knew that but also realized not enough people would understand the implication of a Guthrie reference to get her in trouble – sideways commentary custom-made for keeping good PR in today’s outrage culture.

Consider, even, Stages Repertory Theatre artistic director Kenn McLaughlin’s sly suggestion of Guthrie’s politics without actually saying it:

“The whimsical musicianship inspired by much of Woody’s music and the camaraderie of a small ensemble act as metaphor for the larger promise of America’s unity,” he writes in his director’s note. “It isn’t so much political theatre as it is theatre beyond politics.”

McLaughlin is like Lady Gaga. He’s aware of the optics of staging a show about a staunch leftist during the age of Trump, but he avoids making his show partisan by suggesting Guthrie has a universal, “post-political” appeal.

The image of Guthrie as an all-American balladeer, who spoke to everyone, isn’t far off from the songwriter’s down-to-earth populism. Yet McLaughlin’s playbill writing can’t help but hide the controversial message in plain sight. Words like “promise” suggest an equality that doesn’t yet exist.

Guthrie, with his workaday attire and Okie accent, appears harmless. “This Land Is Your Land” sounds harmless. Lady Gaga’s performance seemed simply patriotic. McLaughlin’s message seems to be one of unity. But these are just appearances. Dig a little deeper and Guthrie’s harshest criticisms of American government, capitalism and idealism sound bitterly timely. Soon you realize “This land was made for you and me” was never anything more than a promise.

In the shadow of the steeple

By the relief office I’d seen my people.

As they stood there hungry, I stood there wondering,

Is this land made for you and me?

One of the lost verses to ‘This Land Is Your Land’

Wei-Huan Chen

Wei-Huan Chen

Theater Critic + Classical/Opera Writer

FE Local 236
| August 30, 2017 | 6:48 pm | Labor, struggle for equality of agricultural workers | Comments closed

The Anti-Empire Report #150
| August 28, 2017 | 7:01 pm | William Blum | Comments closed

William Blum

The Anti-Empire Report #150

By William Blum – Published August 25th, 2017

https://williamblum.org/aer/read/150

I’m back

It has recently been reported that Senator John McCain has an aggressive brain tumor. Not long ago I would have thought: “Good. It’ll be great to be rid of that neanderthal reactionary bastard!”

Not now. My kidneys are gone and I’m on (rather unpleasant) dialysis for the rest of my life. My separated-from German wife is in Germany and can’t fly because of the danger of blood clots forming and lodging in her lungs or heart. I’m an avid reader of medical news and almost every day I get choked-up and depressed by the never-ending heart-breaking stories of incurable pain and suffering of the old and the young.

So I wish the senator a good recovery, if that’s possible. Probably no more possible than his politics recovering. He just condemned all the neo-Nazi actions in Charlottesville, this man who went out of his way to pose for friendly photos with neo-Nazis in Ukraine and jihadists in Syria.

So far the dialysis does not seem to have helped, at least not with my two main symptoms: deep-seated sleepiness at home, resulting in repeated naps, making my writing difficult; and getting out-of-breath and having to stop and rest after a very short and slow walk outdoors. I’m curious about whether any of my readers knows of anyone with a medical problem that was clearly relieved by dialysis. It may be my advanced age of 84 that blocks any improvement. But, supposedly, the dialysis keeps me alive in the absence of functioning kidneys. Incidentally, nine of my readers and friends have offered me a kidney for transplant, but I can’t find a hospital willing to perform it; again it’s my age, though I’m very willing.

At least I still have my eyesight and my hearing. My mind is okay. I have all my limbs and am not paralyzed. And I’m not in pain. Much to be thankful for.

It’s also very nice to have gone past the hangups my condition thrust upon me and to be back writing my report for the first time in five months. During the recent American presidential campaign I wrote that if I were forced to vote and also forced to choose between Clinton and Trump I’d vote for the Donald. (As it turned out I voted for the Green Party candidate, Jill Stein.) I stated two reasons why I’d choose Trump over Clinton: presumably, a lesser chance of nuclear war with Russia and a lesser chance of the American government closing down the Russian TV station, Russia Today (RT), broadcasting in the US. There was at the time, and now again, growing Congressional pressure to do just that and I’m very reliant on the station. Because of such matters I was willing to overlook Trump’s many and obvious character defects, which I summed up with the endearing word of my people back in Brooklyn –- “shmuck”. But by now the man’s shmuckiness has been writ so large that little hope for him can be maintained.

What is keeping Donald Trump from drowning in the very cesspool of his own shmuckiness is a gentleman named Kim Jong-un. Who would have believed that a single historical period could produce two such giant shmucks, men who tower over their pathetic contemporaries? There’s only one explanation for this remarkable phenomenon. Of course. It’s Russia. Moscow is using the two men to make America look foolish. And Russia, it may soon be revealed, gave North Korea its nuclear weapons. Did you think that such an impoverished, downtrodden society could produce such scientific marvels on its own?

Is there any act too dastardly for Vladimir Putin?

We don’t know yet whether Trump’s son, daughter or son-in-law made any deals with Kim Jong-un. Stay tuned to Fox News and CNN.

Those stations, amongst others, put out a lot of fake news, but when it comes to news of North Korea nothing compares to the fake news of 1950. Did you know there’s no convincing evidence that North Korea did what they’re most famous for –- the June 25, 1950 invasion of South Korea, which led to the everlasting division of the Korean peninsula into two countries? And there were no United Nations forces that observed this invasion, as we’ve been taught. In any event, the two sides had been clashing across the dividing line for several years. What happened on that fateful day in June could thus be regarded as no more than the escalation of an ongoing civil war. Read my chapter on Korea in Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II for the full details of these and other myths.

The response to terrorism

I still get emails criticizing me for the stand I took against Islamic terrorists earlier this year. Almost every one feels obliged to remind me that the terrorists are acting in revenge for decades of US/Western bombing of Muslim populations and assorted other atrocities. And I then have to inform each one of them that they’ve chosen the wrong person for such a lecture. I, it happens, wrote the fucking book on the subject!

In the first edition of my book Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower, published in 2001, before September 11, the first chapter was “Why do terrorists keep picking on The United States?” It includes a long list of hostile US military and political actions against the Islamic world during the previous 20 years.

So I can well see why radical Muslims would harbor a deep-seated desire for revenge against The United States and its allies who often contributed to the hostile actions. My problem is that the Islamic terrorist actions are seldom aimed at those responsible for this awful history –- the executive and military branches of the Western nations, but are more and more targeted against innocent civilians, which at times includes other Muslims, probably even, on occasion, some who sympathize with the radical Islamic cause. These random terrorist acts are thus not defendable or understandable from any revenge point of view. What did the poor people of Barcelona have to do with Western imperialism?

Civilians are of course much easier to target, but that’s clearly no excuse. As I’ve pointed out in the past, we should consider this: From the 1950s to the 1980s the United States carried out all kinds of very harmful policies against Latin America, including numerous bombings, without the natives ever resorting to the uncivilized, barbaric kind of retaliation as employed by ISIS. Latin American leftists generally took their revenge out upon concrete representatives of the American empire: diplomatic, military and corporate targets – not markets, theatres, nightclubs, hospitals, schools, restaurants or churches.

The terrorists’ choice of targets is bad enough, but their methods are even worse. Who could have imagined 20 years ago that an organization would exist in this world that would widely publicize detailed instructions on how to choose a truck to drive down a busy thoroughfare and directly into crowds of people? What species of human being is this?

What is needed is a worldwide media campaign to make fun of the very idea that such men, along with suicide bombers, will be rewarded by Allah in an afterlife; even the idea of an afterlife can of course be derided; yes, even the idea of Allah, by that or any other name, can be derided; at least the idea of such a cruel God. Appealing to jihadists on simply moral grounds would be even more useless than appealing to Pentagon officials or Donald Trump on moral grounds. The jihadistshave to be deeply ridiculed; the small amount of human empathy and decency still remaining in their heart of hearts has to be reached through embarrassing them before their friends and family. Femmes fatales can be used against young Islamic men, most of whom, I’d venture to say, have sizable sexual hangups. Bombing them only increases their numbers.

Some thoughts on the question that will not go away: Capitalism vs. socialism

“The whole art of Conservative politics in the 20th century is being deployed to enable wealth to persuade poverty to use its political freedom to keep wealth in power.” –– Aneurin Bevan (1897-1960), Labour Party (UK) minister

The fact that Donald J. Trump is a champion –- indeed, a model, or as he might say, a huge model –- of capitalism should be enough to make people turn away from the system, but the debate between capitalism and socialism continues without pause in the Trump era as it has since the 19th century. The wealth gap, affordable housing, free education, public transportation, a sustainable environment, and health care are some of the perennial points of argument we’re all familiar with.

So many empty houses … so many homeless people –- Is this the way a market economy is supposed to work?

Twice in recent times the federal government in Washington has undertaken major studies of many thousands of federal jobs to determine whether they could be done more efficiently by private contractors. On one occasion the federal employees won more than 80% of the time; on the other occasion 91%. Both studies took place under the George W. Bush administration, which was hoping for different results.  The American people have to be reminded of what they once knew but seem to have forgotten: that they don’t want BIG government, or SMALL government; they don’t want MORE government, or LESS government; they want government ON THEIR SIDE.

As to corporations, we have to ask: Do the members of a family relate to each other on the basis of self-interest and greed?

Speaking in very broad terms … slavery gave way to feudalism … feudalism gave way to capitalism … capitalism is not a timelessly valid institution but was created to satisfy certain needs of the time … capitalism has outlived its usefulness and must now give way to socialism … the ultimate incompatibility between capitalist profit motive and human environmental survival demands nothing less.

The system corrupts every important aspect of our lives, including the one which takes up the most of our time -– our work, even for corporation executives, who demand huge salaries and benefits to justify their working at jobs that otherwise are not particularly satisfying. Several years ago, the Financial Times of London reported on Wall Street’s opposition to salary limits:

Senior bankers were quick to warn the plans would cause a brain drain from the profession as top executives seek more rewarding jobs out of the public eye. Unlike other careers where job satisfaction and other considerations play a part, finance tends to attract people whose main motivation is money. … ‘The cap is a lousy idea,’ complained one top Wall Street executive. ‘If there is no monetary upside, who would want to do these jobs?’

As for those below the executive class … When they work, it’s too often just any job they can find, rather than one designed to realize innermost spiritual or artistic needs. Their innermost needs are rent, food, clothes, and electricity.

For those concerned about the extent of freedom under socialism the jury is still out because the United States and other capitalist powers have subverted, destabilized, invaded, and/or overthrown every halfway serious attempt at socialism in the world. Not one socialist-oriented government, from Cuba and Vietnam in the 1960s, to Nicaragua and Chile in the 1970s, to Bulgaria and Yugoslavia in the 1990s, to Haiti and Venezuela in the 2000s has been allowed to rise or fall based on its own merits or lack of same, or allowed to relax its guard against the ever-threatening imperialists.

The demise of the Soviet Union (even with all its shortcomings) has turned out to be the greatest setback to the fight against the capitalist behemoth, and we have not yet recovered.

How could the current distribution of property and wealth reasonably be expected to emerge from any sort of truly democratic process? And if this is the way regulated capitalism works, what would life under unregulated capitalism be like? We’ve long known the answer to that question. Theodore Roosevelt (president of the United States 1901-09) said in a speech in 1912: “The limitation of governmental powers, of governmental action, means the enslavement of the people by the great corporations who can only be held in check through the extension of governmental power.”

And what do the corporate elite want? In a word: “everything” … from our schools to our social security, from our health care to outer space, from our media to our sports.

“We are all ready to be savage in some cause. The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of the cause.” – William James (1842-1910)

A few years ago, when George W. Bush came out as a painter, he said that he had told his art teacher that “there’s a Rembrandt trapped inside this body”.  Ah, so Georgie is more than just a painter. He’s an artiste.
And we all know that artistes are very special people.
They’re never to be confused with mass murderers, war criminals, merciless torturers or inveterate liars.
Neither are they ever to be accused of dullness of wit or incoherence of thought or speech.

Artistes are not the only special people.
Devout people are also special: Josef Stalin studied for the priesthood.
Osama bin Laden prayed five times a day.

And animal lovers: Herman Goering, while his Luftwaffe rained death upon Europe, kept a sign in his office that read: “He who tortures animals wounds the feelings of the German people.”
Adolf Hitler was also an animal lover and had long periods of being a vegetarian and anti-smoking.
Charles Manson was a staunch anti-vivisectionist.

And cultured people: This fact Elie Wiesel called the greatest discovery of the war: that Adolf Eichmann was cultured, read deeply, played the violin.
Mussolini also played the violin.
Some Nazi concentration camp commanders listened to Mozart to drown out the cries of the inmates.
Former Bosnian Serb politician Radovan Karadzic, convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia for war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity, was a psychiatrist, specializing in depression; a practitioner of alternative medicine; published a book of poetry and books for children.

Members of ISIS and Al Qaeda and other suicide bombers are genuinely and sincerely convinced that they are doing the right thing, for which they will be honored and rewarded in an afterlife. That doesn’t make them less evil; in fact it makes them more terrifying, since they force us to face the scary reality of a world in which sincerity and morality do not necessarily have anything to do with each other.

Dick Gregory, 1932-2017

“Mayor Daley and other government officials during the riots of the ’60s showed their preference for property over humanity by ordering the police to shoot all looters to kill. They never said shoot murderers to kill or shoot dope pushers to kill.”

“When the white Christian missionaries went to Africa, the white folks had the bibles and the natives had the land. When the missionaries pulled out, they had the land and the natives had the bibles.”

“The way Americans seem to think today, about the only way to end hunger in America would be for Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird to go on national TV and say we are falling behind the Russians in feeding folks.”

“What we’re doing in Vietnam is using the black man to kill the yellow man so the white man can keep the land he took from the red man.”

Notes
  • Washington Post, June 8, 2005 and March 23, 2006
  • Financial Times (London) February 5, 2009
  • Washington Post, November 21, 2013

Any part of this report may be disseminated without permission, provided attribution to William Blum as author and a link to williamblum.org is provided.

USA/Africa: No Policy? Bad Policy? Or Both?
| August 23, 2017 | 8:47 pm | Africa | Comments closed

AfricaFocus Bulletin August 23, 2017 (170823) (Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor’s Note

“Africa is terra incognita for the Trump Administration: a continent it cares little–and understands even less–about. With no dyed-in-the-wool Trumpian Africa hands available, the administration appears ready to cede Africa policy making to career civil servants and a few mainstream Republican appointees.” – Matthew T. Page

The headline to Page’s article in Quartz Africa states that “Donald Trump could be getting his US-Africa policy right by simply not having one.” His view is actually more nuanced, in judging that no policy would likely be only “less bad” than explicitly “bad policy” that might result from greater White House interest in Africa.

There is no doubt, however, that analysts are left to speculate about how much personnel appointments might actually shape Africa decisions on the ground.

This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains three well-informed articles analyzing the state of play in Africa-related personnel appointments under this administation, including this one by Matthew Page, until recently the U.S. intelligence community’s top expert on Nigeria (see his website http://www.nigeriaknowledge.com/), as well as commentaries by Richard Dowden of the Royal African Institute and Reed Kramer of AllAfrica.com.

Twitter updates from Reed Kramer this morning (23 Aug 2017):

“Retired senior diplomat & ex U.S. ambassador to #Ethiopia Don Yamamoto to be acting Assistant Secretary for #Africa @StateDept. Starts Sep 5”

“Appointment of ‘acting’ Assistant Sec likely means no nominee for top #Africa post @StateDept soon. Senate opposition blocking Peter Pham.”

Although the notion of a unified “Africa” policy is largely a fiction under any administration, there is no doubt that the Trump administration is unusually bereft of authority and personnel at the State Department, which has the task of making sense of the policies of different departments and providing local knowledge to adapt policy to Africa-specific realities and changing circumstances.

In general, the incoherence of policy making under Trump, rapid staff turnover in his immediate entourage, lack of staffing in government agencies, and the ongoing investigations into his administration make even the immediate future of any foreign policy highly uncertain. It is also highly debatable whether continuity of policy guided by knowledgeable “adults” rather than zealots would actually produce “good policy.”

That said, the consequences for Africa of U.S. global policy on climate change, counter-terrorism, health, corruption and illicit financial flow, human rights norms, and development goals, to name only a few such areas, will inevitably have fallout effects for Africa. These effects will surely be as great as, or greater than, the impact of policy decisions on Africa-specific issues. And the policy directions on domestic issues across the U.S. Government will set the context for each agency’s international engagement in Africa as well as in multilateral institutions. Thus it is quite possible to have no policy on “Africa” and disastrously worse policies than the “less bad” (continuity) policies of previous administrations.

As readers are aware, AfricaFocus particularly features such issues on which global and U.S. policy has particularly negative effects on Africa. This AfricaFocus Bulletin accordingly includes below a partial list of issues and cabinet officials who are shaping U.S. policy, with brief references to AfricaFocus coverage and a few other additional links from current news sources.

For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on the USA and Africa, visit http://www.africafocus.org/country/usa-africa.php

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor’s note+++++++++++++++++

Better Off

Donald Trump could be getting his US-Africa policy right by simply not having one

Matthew T. Page

August 09, 2017 Quartz Africa

https://qz.com/1049923/donald-trump/

Last week, secretary of state Rex Tillerson made one of his rare press appearances to give a tour d’horizon of US foreign policy priorities. In his lengthy and candid remarks he touched on North Korea, China, Syria, Ukraine, and Venezuela, among other issues–but made no mention of Africa.

This omission reflects the reality that Africa is terra incognita for the Trump Administration: a continent it cares little–and understands even less–about. With no dyed-in-the-wool Trumpian Africa hands available, the administration appears ready to cede Africa policy making to career civil servants and a few mainstream Republican appointees.

Guided by this team of low-key professionals, could president Trump’s Africa policy turn out to be more pragmatic than extreme? Could it steer clear of Trump’s trademark controversies and missteps? Many of the signs point to yes: with luck, bureaucratic effort, and Congressional top cover, US Africa policy under Trump might remain relatively fumble-free.

Adrift on Africa?

During Trump’s first six months in office, US-Africa policy has been adrift. At no time since before the creation of the State Department’s Africa Bureau in 1958–a time when most African nations were still European colonies–has Washington been so distracted and disengaged.

Trump poses with African leaders following family photo of the G7 Summit expanded session in May. L -R: Kenya’s president Uhuru Kenyatta, Guinea’s Alpha Conde, Donald Trump, AfDB’s Akinwumi Adesina,    Nigeria’s Yemi Osinbajo and Ethiopia’s PM Hailemariam Desalegn. (Reuters/Jonathan Ernst)   

Prospective budget and organizational cuts suggest Trump–unlike George W. Bush–does not see promoting good governance, human rights, and socioeconomic development as a strategic US interest. Trump’s senior officials reportedly do not take Africa-related issues seriously, urging subordinates to keep them off their plate. They have thus far shown little interest in engaging with African countries beyond making business deals and leveraging military ties.

Perhaps because of this ambivalence, ambassador John Campbell’s prediction last December that “career civil servants and diplomats, together with Congress, will play a big role in setting policy” has largely borne out. Key Republican senators derisively view secretary Tillerson’s proposal to make deep discretionary cuts to his department; Democrats call Tillerson’s plan “a devastating assault on American interests and values”.

Congressional pushback from Republican Africa stalwarts like Sen. Jeff Flake, and Rep. Ed Royce and Rep. Chris Smith will also intensify if Trump tries to undermine longstanding bipartisan programs, like the President’s Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Congress will also weigh in on Trump’s forthcoming Africa appointments.

Personnel Problems

At least one of these appointments–Trump’s new senior director for Africa Cyril Sartor–started work at the National Security Council last week. After a painful ten monthlong vacancy, Sartor–a dour but Africa-savvy CIA mandarin–stepped into the breach. Tasked with advising senior administration officials and coordinating interagency decision-making on Africa, Sartor is a veteran bureaucratic gladiator that will resist any effort to politicize his portfolio.

Beyond naming Sartor, the Trump administration has failed to fill out its Africa team. At the State Department, the job of assistant secretary of state for African Affairs remains unfilled. Career diplomat Peter Barlerin–a trained economist that has yet to serve as an ambassador–has been treading water as Acting Assistant Secretary for several months. As a result, the Bureau and its 45 embassies across Africa continue to operate much as they did before with little–if any–new country-specific guidance.

The likeliest candidate for assistant secretary is Vatican-diplomat-turned-Africawonk Dr. J. Peter Pham. A prolific writer with a hard-nosed Africa policy strategy ready to go, Pham lacks strong ties to his prospective boss. Secretary Tillerson reportedly has vacillated over naming Pham, despite his preeminence among the GOP’s miniscule cadre of Africanists.

At the Department of Defense (DOD), seasoned civil servant Amanda Dory stepped down as deputy assistant secretary of Defense for Africa earlier this year. Dory’s unexpected departure thrust her newly-minted deputy Michelle Lenihan into an acting role. On the military side, Air Force Major General Curtis L. Williams recently became chairman of the joint chief’s in-house Africa advisor.

Over at the embattled US Agency for International Development (USAID)–still in danger of being dismantled by Trump–career professional Cheryl L. Anderson has been Acting Assistant Administrator for Africa. Newly confirmed USAID administrator Mark Green, a widely respected former ambassador to Tanzania, likely will pick her replacement soon.

Dabbling Donald?

As new appointees slowly come on board, US-Africa policy will regain some of its shape and direction. Less liberal and ambitious than under previous administrations, its focus on democracy, development, and human rights will diminish. Guided by apolitical professionals, it almost certainly will not reflect Trump’s bigoted, antihumanist world view.

But what if Trump tries to dabble in Africa policymaking? How would these policy professionals cope?

After all, Trump’s penchant for praising autocratic leaders could, for example, complicate efforts by US officials to nudge the continent’s strongmen leaders to relinquish power and hold credible elections. Trump’s ‘hashtag diplomacy’ could also spark an international incident.

If Trump and his top lieutenants continue to show as little interest in Africa as they do now, the chance of one of these scenarios playing out seems remote. If this dynamic changes, however, Washington’s beleaguered Africa policymakers will have just one option left: damage control.

Peter Pham: President Trump’s perfect pick for top Africa post?

By Richard Dowden

African Arguments, August 1, 2017

Richard Dowden is the director of the Royal African Society and the author of Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles.

http://africanarguments.org – Direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/y84em5n3

If Pham becomes Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, it would likely mark a shift in the tone and priorities of US-Africa relations.

If Donald Trump has a to-do list and Africa is on it, it must come a long way down. It is seemingly impossible to find anyone on his team that has an interest in the continent. And the crucial position of Assistant Secretary of State for Africa remains empty, though perhaps not for much longer. Over six months into his administration, there are growing noises suggesting the US president may finally be ready to put forward a name for the government’s top Africa post.

J. Peter Pham’s name has already been doing the rounds as the most likely candidate. He is director of the Atlantic Council’s Africa Centre and a prolific former academic with close links to the Republican Party.

A one-time Washington outsider who challenged the consensus on US-Africa relations, Pham has reportedly been trying to broaden his connections in departments whose staffs are more likely to lean Democrat than Republican. He is working hard to establish relationships with experts across the spectrum, trying to build a policy consensus.

Twitter exchange: Matthew Page, Reed Kramer      

Pham has written profusely on Africa and rejects the previous approach – espoused by Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama – that insisted democracy and human rights should be the cornerstone of US support. Instead, he argues that economic growth should take precedence, though he has recently emphasised security and good governance too. He urges US companies to grasp business opportunities on the continent.

New and un-realities

This approach may suit Trump well, though if appointed, Pham will be hard-pressed in trying to work out exactly what his boss’ Africa policy is. Previous US presidents have typically talked the talk regarding respect for human rights, democratic accountability and a free civil society when it comes to Africa. But Trump is from a different planet.

His policy-light “America First” agenda, his incontinent outbursts, and his wilful ignorance about the world make it difficult to understand what he might want from the continent. The content of his phone calls to half a dozen African presidents meanwhile have not been made public.

Access to oil seems to be one of Trump’s priorities, so Angola, Equatorial Guinea and Nigeria may be important. Though less so their democratic and human rights records.

This uncertainty will mean that Pham’s job, if he gets it, will not be easy. In fact, the language of the current administration is reminiscent of America’s mood in the 1980s. At that time, a senior unnamed US official told historian Niall Ferguson: “The judicious study of discernible reality is not the way the world really works any more. We’re an empire now, and when we act we create our own reality.”

This sounds close to Trump’s dismissal of reality as “Fake News” and his programme of creating new realities.

“Overly optimistic notions”

The US has a number of large-scale projects in Africa. Its power to enhance or undermine national economies and governments remains immense.

Militarily, the US military command known as Africom has bases across the continent and engages in the training of soldiers, especially in the Sahel where Islamist militant groups operate. Tackling this security threat was a priority in Trump’s campaign. It has also been identified by Pham as an area of possible bipartisan support in which the US can forge ahead.

Another crucial programme in Africa is the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (Pepfar) through which the US has spent billions each year since 2003. Started under Bush Jr. and extended by Obama, the programme today supports around 11.5 million people with life-saving antiretroviral medicines. The US government recently agreed to maintain current levels of spending in 2018 despite the White House’s attempts to cut it back.

The US also sees Africa as a source of raw materials and a trading partner. The African Growth and Opportunities Act (AGOA), first signed into law in 2000, provides a framework for this commerce and offers certain trade preferences for African countries. In 2016, US imports from sub-Saharan Africa under AGOA totalled $9.3 billion, 56% of which was petroleum products. In the opposite direction, Pham wants to create more demand for American products on the continent and believes that “advancing US economic interests in Africa will, and must be, driven primarily by the private sector”.

Pham says he wants Africa to take control of its destiny. But whether that means helping African states reach a mutually beneficial relationship with the US is not clear. He talks of “earned engagement” with the US, implying that African governments must first win America’s respect, or at least its favour.

He preaches stability and economic growth over democracy and human rights. And he insists that the US must correct its long-held and “overly optimistic notions of what African partners are capable of and willing to do”.

If Pham takes charge as many are expecting him to, it would likely mark a significant shift in the priorities and principles typically espoused by the US in dealing with Africa. The space for discussion and negotiation open to African governments would likely narrow even further. And under Pham, it seems policies would not be crafted alongside African leaders and their people, but unapologetically designed to fit the needs of Trump’s America. For the president, his appointment may make perfect sense.

Third Trump Try to Fill Senior Africa Policy Post

by Reed Kramer

AllAfrica, July 25, 2017 http://allafrica.com/stories/201707251159.html

See also Reed Kramer, “White House Choices Shape Africa Policies” AllAfrica, April 1, 2017 http://allafrica.com/stories/201704010135.html

After two abandoned attempts to fill the highest Africa position in the White House, the Trump team is considering a career intelligence officer.

No announcement has been made, but sources with access to the selection process say Cyril Sartor, deputy assistant director for Africa at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), is the front runner to be senior director for Africa at the National Security Council (NSC).

On April 1, AllAfrica was the first to report the choice of Air Force veteran and former Pentagon Africa counter-terrorism director Rudolf Atallah for the NSC Africa job. Buzz Feed, which wrote about the Atallah selection 12 days later, reported on June 23 that the offer to Atallah had been “yanked” – after he had been introduced at an ‘all-hands’ NSC meeting and had been actively working on African issues for the administration.

No reason has been advanced for the reversal on Atallah, who was the second person named to direct Africa at NSC. The first, Robin Townley, was blocked from taking the job after his security clearance reportedly was rejected by the CIA.

Among the positions Sartor has held, according to a brief biography posted online by the Aspen Security Forum in July 2016, are serving as briefer for two National Security Advisors and as acting intelligence officer for Africa at the National Intelligence Council (NIC), which produces strategic forecasts for the U.S. government. The bio says he earned an MA in African History from Boston University in 1984.

Sartor is among the small group of African Americans at senior level in the intelligence community. No official government biography is available online.

The information posted by Aspen accompanied Sartor’s participation in a public panel on terrorism in Africa at the Aspen forum in July 2016, a relatively rare appearance by an intelligence analyst. “It feels a little weird for a CIA officer to be live streaming on YouTube,” Sartor joked, as he began his prepared remarks.

“Violent Islamic ideology is a foreign import to sub-Saharan Africa and as such it only thrives where it can co-opt local grievances,” Sartor said, citing complaints among nomadic Tuareg people in Mali and “clan frustrations” that spur the insurgency in Somalia.

The socioeconomic roots of popular grievances must be addressed, he told the Forum, adding, “I sincerely believe the international community can defeat terrorism in sub Saharan Africa with a robust mix of long-term development and security assistance.” He said defeating terrorism in Africa “will take a long time” – in part because insurgencies typically last “more than a dozen years” and also because the youth population across Africa is growing faster than anywhere else in the world.

Africa director at NSC is one of two high-level Africa jobs that remain unfilled more than five months into the Trump administration. No formal nomination has been put forward to head the Africa Bureau at the State Department, a front-line position tasked with managing U.S. diplomatic relations with the continent.

Africa experts who track policy developments believe a nomination for the senior Africa post at State could be nearing. The choice for Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian was announced on July 19 – only the third nomination to date for one of the 22 assistant secretary positions in the department.

After several names were discussed within the administration to be nominated as Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, well-connected sources say that J. Peter Pham, director of the Africa Center at the Atlantic Council, is being vetted and that his name could be one of the next submitted by the White House to the Senate for confirmation.

That these key posts remain empty is widely seen as part of the reason for the U.S. response to the ‘Compact for Africa’ put forward by German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the G20 Summit earlier this month. Riva Levinson, a Republican and a Washington DC-based government relations consultant with extensive African experience, writing in The Hill, labeled as “utterly tone-deaf” President Trump’s decision to leave the Summit during the session on ‘Partnership with Africa, Migration and Health’, the focus of which was “the well-being of Africa’s 1.6 billion people.” His daughter and advisor, Ivanka Trump, took his place at the table with the Summit principals, primarily heads of state and of international organizations,

Grant T. Harris, who was senior director for African Affairs in the Obama White House, sees ‘de-prioritization’ of Africa by the Trump administration as creating an opening In Africa for other powers. “Chinese leaders must be salivating” – the country now takes in $50 billion a year or more from African investments, he wrote in The Hill. “North Korea has sold weapons to African countries, in violation of UN sanctions, to fund its weapons of mass destruction programs, and Russia is looking to Africa to hedge against U.S. sanctions,” he wrote.

Peter Pham, the presumed nominee to head the Africa Bureau at the State Department, is a prolific author of analytical essays and books whose work has focused on African security issues. He prepared a strategy paper published by the Council and submitted to the Trump transition team in December, which advocated – among other recommendations -reassigning four north African nations (Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco) to the Africa Bureau at the State Department, where they currently fall under the Bureau of of Near Eastern Affairs. This reorganization took place at the NSC soon after Trump assumed office.

In a blog he wrote in January, Pham gave this assessment of how the U.S. needs to respond to the proposed German ‘Marshall Plan’ for Africa. “If the United States is to pursue a foreign policy of America First, then there is a lot of catching up to be done in bringing the public and private sectors together to forge a robust US approach to the new Africa, whose rising geopolitical importance and burgeoning economic dynamism ought to make it a strategic priority in the new administration.”

Setting the Context for Africa Policy

Climate Change (Scott Pruitt, E.P.A. Administrator) AfricaFocus coverage: http://www.africafocus.org/intro-env.php Also of interest: http://tinyurl.com/ydckwkc2 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Pruitt

Health (Tom Price, Health and Human Services Secretary AfricaFocus coverage: http://www.africafocus.org/intro-health.php Also of interest: http://www.africafocus.org/docs17/health1705.php

Kleptocracy and Illicit Financial Flows (Steven Mnuchin, Treasury Secretary) AfricaFocus coverage: http://www.africafocus.org/intro-iff.php Also of interest: http://tinyurl.com/hcu5ymg and http://tinyurl.com/hhzk3qe (on Mnuchin’s wife Louise Linton, of “white savior” and “Instagram” fame)

Security and Peacekeeping (James N. Mattis, Defense Secretary; H.R. McMaster, National Security Adviser; Mike Pompeo, C.I.A. Director; Nikki Haley, U.N. Ambassador) AfricaFocus coverage: http://www.africafocus.org/intro-peace.php Also of interest: http://tinyurl.com/yb3w8f82 and http://www.newsweek.com/us-military-boko-haram-torture-639524

Human Rights and Democracy(Rex W. Tillerson, Secretary of State; Nikki Haley, U.N. Ambassador) AfricaFocus coverage: http://www.africafocus.org/polexp.php

Economic Development (Wilbur Ross, Commerce Secretary; Robert Lighthizer, U.S. Trade Representative) AfricaFocus coverage: http://www.africafocus.org/intro-econ.php

Agriculture (Sonny Perdue, Secretary of Agriculture) AfricaFocus coverage: http://www.africafocus.org/intro-ag.php

Education (Betsy DeVos, Secretary of Education) AfricaFocus coverage: http://www.africafocus.org/educexp.php

Migration (Jeff Sessions, Attorney General; Gen. John Kelly, Former Secretary for Homeland Security; Nikki Haley, UN Ambassador) AfricaFocus coverage: http://www.africafocus.org/migrexp.php Also of interest: http://www.africafocus.org/docs16/migr1610.php

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AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with a particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus Bulletin is edited by William Minter.

AfricaFocus Bulletin can be reached at africafocus@igc.org. Please write to this address to suggest material for inclusion. For more information about reposted material, please contact directly the original source mentioned. For a full archive and other resources, see http://www.africafocus.org

 

Is Putin incorruptible? U.S. insider’s view of the Russian president’s character and his country’s transformation
| August 9, 2017 | 7:58 pm | Analysis, Russia, Vladimir Putin | Comments closed

https://www.sott.net/article/278407-Is-Putin-incorruptible-US-insiders-view-of-the-Russian-presidents-character-and-his-countrys-transformation

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Friends and colleagues,

As the Ukraine situation has worsened, unconscionable misinformation and hype is being poured on Russia and Vladimir Putin.

Journalists and pundits must scour the Internet and thesauruses to come up with fiendish new epithets to describe both.

Wherever I make presentations across America, the first question ominously asked during Q&A is always, “What about Putin?”

It’s time to share my thoughts which follow:

Putin obviously has his faults and makes mistakes. Based on my earlier experience with him, and the experiences of trusted people, including U.S. officials who have worked closely with him over a period of years, Putin most likely is a straight, reliable and exceptionally inventive man. He is obviously a long-term thinker and planner and has proven to be an excellent analyst and strategist. He is a leader who can quietly work toward his goals under mounds of accusations and myths that have been steadily leveled at him since he became Russia’s second president.

I’ve stood by silently watching the demonization of Putin grow since it began in the early 2000s – – I pondered on computer my thoughts and concerns, hoping eventually to include them in a book (which was published in 2011). The book explains my observations more thoroughly than this article. Like others who have had direct experience with this little known man, I’ve tried to no avail to avoid being labeled a “Putin apologist”. If one is even neutral about him, they are considered “soft on Putin” by pundits, news hounds and average citizens who get their news from CNN, Fox and MSNBC.

I don’t pretend to be an expert, just a program developer in the USSR and Russia for the past 30 years. But during this time, I’ve have had far more direct, on-ground contact with Russians of all stripes across 11 time zones than any of the Western reporters or for that matter any of Washington’s officials. I’ve been in country long enough to ponder Russian history and culture deeply, to study their psychology and conditioning, and to understand the marked differences between American and Russian mentalities which so complicate our political relations with their leaders. As with personalities in a family or a civic club or in a city hall, it takes understanding and compromise to be able to create workable relationships when basic conditionings are different. Washington has been notoriously disinterested in understanding these differences and attempting to meet Russia halfway.

In addition to my personal experience with Putin, I’ve had discussions with numerous American officials and U.S. businessmen who have had years of experience working with him – – I believe it is safe to say that none would describe him as “brutal” or “thuggish”, or the other slanderous adjectives and nouns that are repeatedly used in western media.

I met Putin years before he ever dreamed of being president of Russia, as did many of us working in St.Petersburg during the 1990s. Since all of the slander started, I’ve become nearly obsessed with understanding his character. I think I’ve read every major speech he has given (including the full texts of his annual hours-long telephone “talk-ins” with Russian citizens). I’ve been trying to ascertain whether he has changed for the worse since being elevated to the presidency, or whether he is a straight character cast into a role he never anticipated – – and is using sheer wits to try to do the best he can to deal with Washington under extremely difficult circumstances. If the latter is the case, and I think it is, he should get high marks for his performance over the past 14 years. It’s not by accident that Forbes declared him the most Powerful Leader of 2013, replacing Obama who was given the title for 2012. The following is my one personal experience with Putin.

The year was 1992…

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Sharon Tennison

It was two years after the implosion of communism; the place was St.Petersburg. For years I had been creating programs to open up relations between the two countries and hopefully to help Soviet people to get beyond their entrenched top-down mentalities. A new program possibility emerged in my head. Since I expected it might require a signature from the Marienskii City Hall, an appointment was made. My friend Volodya Shestakov and I showed up at a side door entrance to the Marienskii building. We found ourselves in a small, dull brown office, facing a rather trim nondescript man in a brown suit. He inquired about my reason for coming in. After scanning the proposal I provided he began asking intelligent questions. After each of my answers, he asked the next relevant question. I became aware that this interviewer was different from other Soviet bureaucrats who always seemed to fall into chummy conversations with foreigners with hopes of obtaining bribes in exchange for the Americans’ requests. CCI stood on the principle that we would never, never give bribes. This bureaucrat was open, inquiring, and impersonal in demeanor. After more than an hour of careful questions and answers, he quietly explained that he had tried hard to determine if the proposal was legal, then said that unfortunately at the time it was not. A few good words about the proposal were uttered. That was all. He simply and kindly showed us to the door. Out on the sidewalk, I said to my colleague, “Volodya, this is the first time we have ever dealt with a Soviet bureaucrat who didn’t ask us for a trip to the US or something valuable!” I remember looking at his business card in the sunlight – – it read Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.

1994

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Putin as Deputy Mayor of St. Petersburg in the early 90s.

U.S. Consul General Jack Gosnell put in an SOS call to me in St.Petersburg. He had 14 Congress members and the new American Ambassador to Russia, Thomas Pickering, coming to St.Petersburg in the next three days. He needed immediate help. I scurried over to the Consulate and learned that Jack intended me to brief this auspicious delegation and the incoming ambassador. I was stunned but he insisted. They were coming from Moscow and were furious about how U.S. funding was being wasted there. Jack wanted them to hear the “good news” about CCI’s programs that were showing fine results. In the next 24 hours Jack and I also set up “home” meetings in a dozen Russian entrepreneurs’ small apartments for the arriving dignitaries (St.Petersburg State Department people were aghast, since it had never been done before – – but Jack overruled). Only later in 2000, did I learn of Jack’s former three-year experience with Vladimir Putin in the 1990s while the latter was running the city for Mayor Sobchak. More on this further down.

December 31, 1999

With no warning, at the turn of the year, President Boris Yeltsin made the announcement to the world that from the next day forward he was vacating his office and leaving Russia in the hands of an unknown Vladimir Putin. On hearing the news, I thought surely not the Putin I remembered – – he could never lead Russia. The next day a NYT article included a photo. Yes, it was the same Putin I’d met years ago! I was shocked and dismayed, telling friends, “This is a disaster for Russia, I’ve spent time with this guy, he is too introverted and too intelligent – – he will never be able to relate to Russia’s masses.” Further, I lamented: “For Russia to get up off of its knees, two things must happen: 1) The arrogant young oligarchs have to be removed by force from the Kremlin, and 2) A way must be found to remove the regional bosses (governors) from their fiefdoms across Russia’s 89 regions“. It was clear to me that the man in the brown suit would never have the instincts or guts to tackle Russia’s overriding twin challenges.

February 2000

Almost immediately Putin began putting Russia’s oligarchs on edge. In February a question about the oligarchs came up; he clarified with a question and his answer: “What should be the relationship with the so-called oligarchs? The same as anyone else. The same as the owner of a small bakery or a shoe repair shop.” This was the first signal that the tycoons would no longer be able to flaunt government regulations or count on special access in the Kremlin. It also made the West’s capitalists nervous. After all, these oligarchs were wealthy untouchable businessmen – – good capitalists, never mind that they got their enterprises illegally and were putting their profits in offshore banks.

Four months later Putin called a meeting with the oligarchs and gave them his deal: They could keep their illegally-gained wealth-producing Soviet enterprises and they would not be nationalized …. IF taxes were paid on their revenues and if they personally stayed out of politics. This was the first of Putin’s “elegant solutions” to the near impossible challenges facing the new Russia. But the deal also put Putin in crosshairs with US media and officials who then began to champion the oligarchs, particularly Mikhail Khodorkovsky. The latter became highly political, didn’t pay taxes, and prior to being apprehended and jailed was in the process of selling a major portion of Russia’s largest private oil company, Yukos Oil, to Exxon Mobil. Unfortunately, to U.S. media and governing structures, Khodorkovsky became a martyr (and remains so up to today).

March 2000

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I arrived in St.Petersburg. A Russian friend (a psychologist) since 1983 came for our usual visit. My first question was, “Lena what do you think about your new president?” She laughed and retorted, “Volodya! I went to school with him!” She began to describe Putin as a quiet youngster, poor, fond of martial arts, who stood up for kids being bullied on the playgrounds. She remembered him as a patriotic youth who applied for the KGB prematurely after graduating secondary school (they sent him away and told him to get an education). He went to law school, later reapplied and was accepted. I must have grimaced at this, because Lena said, “Sharon in those days we all admired the KGB and believed that those who worked there were patriots and were keeping the country safe. We thought it was natural for Volodya to choose this career. My next question was, “What do you think he will do with Yeltsin’s criminals in the Kremlin?” Putting on her psychologist hat, she pondered and replied, “If left to his normal behaviors, he will watch them for a while to be sure what is going on, then he will throw up some flares to let them know that he is watching. If they don’t respond, he will address them personally, then if the behaviors don’t change – – some will be in prison in a couple of years.” I congratulated her via email when her predictions began to show up in real time.

Throughout the 2000s

St.Petersburg’s many CCI alumni were being interviewed to determine how the PEP business training program was working and how we could make the U.S. experience more valuable for their new small businesses. Most believed that the program had been enormously important, even life changing. Last, each was asked, “So what do you think of your new president?” None responded negatively, even though at that time entrepreneurs hated Russia’s bureaucrats. Most answered similarly, “Putin registered my business a few years ago”. Next question, “So, how much did it cost you?” To a person they replied, “Putin didn’t charge anything”. One said, “We went to Putin’s desk because the others providing registrations at the Marienskii were getting ‘rich on their seats.'”

Late 2000

Into Putin’s first year as Russia’s president, US officials seemed to me to be suspect that he would be antithetical to America’s interests – – his every move was called into question in American media. I couldn’t understand why and was chronicling these happenings in my computer and newsletters.

Year 2001

Jack Gosnell (former USCG mentioned earlier) explained his relationship with Putin when the latter was deputy mayor of St.Petersburg. The two of them worked closely to create joint ventures and other ways to promote relations between the two countries. Jack related that Putin was always straight up, courteous and helpful. When Putin’s wife, Ludmila, was in a severe auto accident, Jack took the liberty (before informing Putin) to arrange hospitalization and airline travel for her to get medical care in Finland. When Jack told Putin, he reported that the latter was overcome by the generous offer, but ended saying that he couldn’t accept this favor, that Ludmila would have to recover in a Russian hospital. She did – – although medical care in Russia was abominably bad in the 1990s.

A senior CSIS officer I was friends with in the 2000s worked closely with Putin on a number of joint ventures during the 1990s. He reported that he had no dealings with Putin that were questionable, that he respected him and believed he was getting an undeserved dour reputation from U.S. media. Matter of fact, he closed the door at CSIS when we started talking about Putin. I guessed his comments wouldn’t be acceptable if others were listening.

Another former U.S. official who will go unidentified, also reported working closely with Putin, saying there was never any hint of bribery, pressuring, nothing but respectable behaviors and helpfulness.

I had two encounters in 2013 with State Department officials regarding Putin:

At the first one, I felt free to ask the question I had previously yearned to get answered: “When did Putin become unacceptable to Washington officials and why? Without hesitating the answer came back: “‘The knives were drawn’ when it was announced that Putin would be the next president.” I questioned WHY? The answer: “I could never find out why – – maybe because he was KGB.” I offered that Bush #I, was head of the CIA. The reply was, “That would have made no difference, he was our guy.”

The second was a former State Department official with whom I recently shared a radio interview on Russia. Afterward when we were chatting, I remarked, “You might be interested to know that I’ve collected experiences of Putin from numerous people, some over a period of years, and they all say they had no negative experiences with Putin and there was no evidence of taking bribes”. He firmly replied, “No one has ever been able to come up with a bribery charge against Putin.”

From 2001 up to today, I’ve watched the negative U.S. media mounting against Putin …. even accusations of assassinations, poisonings, and comparing him to Hitler. No one yet has come up with any concrete evidence for these allegations. During this time, I’ve traveled throughout Russia several times every year, and have watched the country slowly change under Putin’s watch. Taxes were lowered, inflation lessened, and laws slowly put in place. Schools and hospitals began improving. Small businesses were growing, agriculture was showing improvement, and stores were becoming stocked with food. Alcohol challenges were less obvious, smoking was banned from buildings, and life expectancy began increasing. Highways were being laid across the country, new rails and modern trains appeared even in far out places, and the banking industry was becoming dependable. Russia was beginning to look like a decent country – – certainly not where Russians hoped it to be long term, but improving incrementally for the first time in their memories.

My 2013/14 Trips to Russia

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Modern Russia, thriving

In addition to St.Petersburg and Moscow, in September I traveled out to the Ural Mountains, spent time in Ekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk and Perm. We traveled between cities via autos and rail – – the fields and forests look healthy, small towns sport new paint and construction. Today’s Russians look like Americans (we get the same clothing from China). Old concrete Khrushchev block houses are giving way to new multi-story private residential complexes which are lovely. High-rise business centers, fine hotels and great restaurants are now common place – – and ordinary Russians frequent these places. Two and three story private homes rim these Russian cities far from Moscow. We visited new museums, municipal buildings and huge super markets. Streets are in good repair, highways are new and well marked now, service stations looks like those dotting American highways. In January I went to Novosibirsk out in Siberia where similar new architecture was noted. Streets were kept navigable with constant snowplowing, modern lighting kept the city bright all night, lots of new traffic lights (with seconds counting down to light change) have appeared. It is astounding to me how much progress Russia has made in the past 14 years since an unknown man with no experience walked into Russia’s presidency and took over a country that was flat on its belly.

So why do our leaders and media demean and demonize Putin and Russia???

Like Lady MacBeth, do they protest too much?

Psychologists tell us that people (and countries?) project off on others what they don’t want to face in themselves. Others carry our “shadow” when we refuse to own it. We confer on others the very traits that we are horrified to acknowledge in ourselves.

Could this be why we constantly find fault with Putin and Russia?

Could it be that we project on to Putin the sins of ourselves and our leaders?

Could it be that we condemn Russia’s corruption, acting like the corruption within our corporate world doesn’t exist?

Could it be that we condemn their human rights and LGBT issues, not facing the fact that we haven’t solved our own?

Could it be that we accuse Russia of “reconstituting the USSR” – – because of what we do to remain the world’s “hegemon”?

Could it be that we project nationalist behaviors on Russia, because that is what we have become and we don’t want to face it?

Could it be that we project warmongering off on Russia, because of what we have done over the past several administrations?

Some of you were around Putin in the earlier years. Please share your opinions, pro and con …. confidentiality will be assured. It’s important to develop a composite picture of this demonized leader and get the record straight. I’m quite sure that 99% of those who excoriate him in mainstream media have had no personal contact with him at all. They write articles on hearsay, rumors and fabrication, or they read scripts others have written on their tele-prompters. This is how our nation gets its “news”, such as it is.

There is a well known code of ethics among us: Is it the Truth, Is it Fair, Does it build Friendship and Goodwill, and Will it be Beneficial for All Concerned?

It seems to me that if our nation’s leaders would commit to using these four principles in international relations, the world would operate in a completely different manner, and human beings across this planet would live in better conditions than they do today.

As always your comments will be appreciated. Please resend this report to as many friends and colleagues as possible.

Sharon Tennison

About the author

Sharon Tennison ran a successful NGO funded by philanthropists, American foundations, USAID and Department of State, designing new programs and refining old ones, and evaluating Russian delegates’ U.S. experiences for over 20 years. Tennison adapted the Marshall Plan Tours from the 40s/50s, and created the Production Enhancement Program (PEP) for Russian entrepreneurs, the largest ever business training program between the U.S. and Russia. Running several large programs concurrently during the 90s and 2000s, funding disappeared shortly after the 2008 financial crisis set in. Tennison still runs an orphanage program in Russia, is President and Founder, Center for Citizen Initiatives, a member of Rotary Club of Palo Alto, California, and author of
The Power of Impossible Ideas: Ordinary Citizens’ Extraordinary Efforts to Avert International Crises. The author can be contacted at sharon@ccisf.org

Africa: Bridge to Education, or to Nowhere?
| August 8, 2017 | 7:56 pm | Africa, Analysis | Comments closed

Africa: Bridge to Education, or to Nowhere?

AfricaFocus Bulletin August 8, 2017 (170808) (Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor’s Note

“When Liberia’s Minister of Education, George Werner, announced last spring that he was inviting foreign education companies and non-profits to run our public schools, our country came under the international spotlight, both in Western media and for education activists. … Quickly, Liberia was turned into a battlefield between those who see for-profit ‘charter’ schools as the solution to the problems that plague public education across the world, and those of us who point to underinvestment and poor management as the true culprits.” – Mary Mulbah, president, National Teachers’ Association of Liberia

In the United States, recent controversy over for-profit education has prominently intersected with national politics, with the spectacle of “Trump University” and the installation of billionaire privatization zealot Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education in the Trump administration. Internationally, the U.S.-based for-profit company Bridge International Academies (BIA), operating in Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Liberia, and India, has won praise from prominent international “philanthropists,” but has met with intense criticism and skepticism from educators.

Last week, 174 organizations from 50 different countries called on investors and donors “to fully discharge their legal due diligence obligations and cease support for BIA. We would welcome an opportunity to explore alternatives with donors and investors to identify more effective ways to invest sustainably in providing quality education for all children, including those living in poverty.”

This AfricaFocus contains excerpts from that statement, as well as several short background articles and links to resources on the controversy around BIA and Liberia in particular.

For the perspective of Bridge International Academies and its responses to criticism, see http://www.bridgeinternationalacademies.com/

For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on education, culture, and the media, visit http://www.africafocus.org/cultexp.php

For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on Liberia, visit http://www.africafocus.org/country/liberia.php

Additional references

“‘May’ Days in March: Bridge Asked to Account by UK Parliament,” by Susan L. Robertson, Unite for Quality Education blog, April 5, 2017, http://tinyurl.com/l4be27k

Education International on Privatisation https://ei-ie.org/en/detail_page/4654/privatisation

Two recent books are interesting for background on this issue in the United States:

 

  • Samuel E. Adams, director of the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, has written a new book, “Education and the Commercial Mindset” (http://amzn.to/2vAOQJZ) that details how and why market forces have come to rise in public education and become important in corporate school reform. It is reviewed in “Why the movement to privatize public education is a very bad idea,” by Valerie Strauss, Washington Post, July 14, 2016 http://tinyurl.com/y9mffc8e
  • Nancy MacLean’s “Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America” (http://amzn.to/2fqbI8G) has been the subject of intense controversy and of calls from right-wing critics for her to be fired from her post at Duke University. Its thesis is that the right-wing campaign against public education and other attacks on the role of government fueled by the Koch brothers have their roots in academic theories closed linked to opposition to desegregation of schools in Virginia in the 1950s and 1960s, as well as the rise of “white academies” around the South in that period.

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor’s note+++++++++++++++++

Civil society call on investors to cease support to Bridge International Academies

August 1, 2017

[Excerpts only: full 20-page statement, with detailed documentation, available at http://bit.ly/biainvestors]

Introduction

In May 2015, 116 civil society organisations published a statement raising concerns about the costs, impact and quality of Bridge International Academies (BIA), and responding to misleading information about its approach. Since then, evidence from various sources, including the United Nations (UN), a United Kingdom (UK) parliamentary enquiry, independent research reports, and independent media reports, has confirmed these concerns and raised the alarm about the serious gap between the promises of BIA and the reality of their practice, and pointed to other serious challenges.

Key evidence:

  1. Independent research shows BIA’s fees and practices exclude the poor and marginalised;
  2. Documents from the Ministries of Education in Kenya and Uganda demonstrate that BIA has repeatedly failed to respect the rule of law, including minimum educational standards, over several years;
  3. Documents from BIA show poor labour conditions;
  4. Media reports cite concerns about freedom of expression and lack of transparency;
  5. The United Kingdom (UK) Parliament has raised serious questions about BIA’s relationships with governments, transparency, and sustainability, as well as the absence of valid evidence of BIA’s positive impact;
  6. UN and African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights statements raise concerns about negative impacts on education quality, equity and social segregation and stratification.

We recognise that most investors in BIA have positive intentions in wanting to improve the education of children living in poverty. There is an urgent need for education reform – to improve access, equity, and quality for all – so that education can fulfil its potential to play a transformative role in personal, community, and national development. However, evidence demonstrates that investing in BIA is not an appropriate or effective means to meet these objectives.

Cartoon credit: Education International

In light of these findings, the 174 undersigned organisations from 50 different countries are calling on investors and donors to fully discharge their legal due diligence obligations and cease support for BIA. We would welcome an opportunity to explore alternatives with donors and investors to identify more effective ways to invest sustainably in providing quality education for all children, including those living in poverty.

What is Bridge International Academies?

BIA is a large-scale network of private pre-primary and primary schools claiming to deliver “quality affordable education to underserved families and children”. It operates over 500 schools in India, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria, and Uganda, with ambitions to reach 10 million pupils by 2025. It has received investments from major international investors including the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, the Omidyar Network, the United Kingdom, the United States, the World Bank, Pearson, and Bill Gates, for a total amount estimated to be over 100 million US dollars. It uses what it calls a “school in a box” model, employing a highly-standardised approach to education. At BIA, every school looks the same, the material used is the same in each classroom, and most importantly, the lessons are the same across all the academies of the same country. BIA uses a system of scripted lessons, and its teachers – who are mostly secondary school leavers without formal teaching qualifications – receive lesson plans on an e-tablet, which they have to follow word by word.

“UK urged to stop funding ‘ineffective and unsustainable’ Bridge schools

Civil society groups call on foreign donors not to fund Bridge International Academies, citing high fees, low pay and poor teaching methods”Rebecca Ratclifee and Afua Hirsch

The Guardian, August 3, 2017

http://tinyurl.com/y85g4qkg

A coalition of 174 civil society organisations has called on international donors, including the UK government, to drop support for a private school company operating in Africa.

Bridge International Academies (BIA) provides technology-driven education in more than 500 primary and nursery schools in Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda, Liberia and India. Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg are among the high-profile philanthropists from whom the American startup has received funding.

In a statement, campaign groups said the firm charges prohibitively high fees and that teachers are poorly paid, receive little training, and are given inflexible, scripted lessons to read from tablets. The organisations also accused BIA of intimidating its critics, a claim the company has denied.

The statement, signed by organisations from 50 different countries including Global Justice Now and Amnesty International, cited research suggesting that the poorest students cannot afford to attend Bridge schools.

“BIA’s model is neither effective for the poorest children nor sustainable against the educational challenges found in developing countries,” said the campaigners, who alluded to “mounting institutional and independent evidence that raises serious concerns about BIA” and warned of “significant legal and ethical risks associated with investments” in the company.

In Kenya, sending three children to a Bridge school is estimated to represent almost a third of the monthly income of families living on $1.25 (94p) a day, according to a joint study by Kenya National Union of Teachers and Education International, a federation representing 32 million teachers and support staff. The researchers noted that teachers are required to work between 59 and 65 hours a week for a monthly salary of $100.

Uganda’s high court ordered the closure of 63 Bridge schools last year, ruling that they provided unsanitary learning conditions, used unqualified teachers and were not properly licensed. No schools have been closed and Bridge is in dialogue with the government.

In April, following an inquiry into UK aid spending on education, the chairman of the UK parliament’s international development committee questioned whether grant funding should have been provided to Bridge. “The evidence received during this inquiry raises serious questions about Bridge’s relationships with governments, transparency and sustainability,” Stephen Twigg wrote in a letter to the international development secretary, Priti Patel.

Bridge’s model, under which teachers are given electronic tablets containing lesson plans, is seen by some as an answer to improving access to education in low-income countries. In Liberia, BIA is the main partner in a government pilot scheme, Partnership Schools for Liberia (PSL), that involves state-funded private operators running state primary schools. Students at the schools are not charged fees.

The scheme was set up to address the country’s dire education outcomes. “For the sake of these kids, we had to do something,” said Liberia’s deputy minister for education, Romelle Horton. “Quality has to improve.”

One-third of the country’s 15- to 24-year-olds are illiterate and, in 2013, none of Liberia’s 25,000 school-leavers passed the university entrance exam.

Franklin C Jah, the vice-principal for instruction at Martha Tubman public school in Nimba county, one of the Liberian schools that has partnered with BIA, said standards have risen. “Last year, at this school, the students would just copy from the board,” he said. “The teachers would not even explain the notes. But now a computer tells us what to do.”

Initial government assessments suggest Bridge schools in Liberia are generally outperforming their state counterparts. The percentage of pupils scoring zero in reading comprehension in Bridge schools fell by 14% among year 1 pupils, while it increased 2% in government schools. However, pupil attendance was higher in government-run schools: 70%, compared with 60% in Bridge schools by the fourth school term.

But Mary Mulbah, president of the National Teachers’ Association of Liberia, has criticised the government for pushing ahead with plans to expand the scheme before receiving results from a larger study. “We don’t agree that student test scores alone should be used to decide whether to dismantle our public education system,” she wrote in a public letter.

Responding to the criticism from civil society groups, BIA said it provides highquality education to marginalised and remote communities across Africa. The company pointed out that it costs an average of just under $7 (£5) a month to send a child to Bridge, and that 10% of students are on scholarships. BIA added that teachers work about 54 hours a week and are given high-quality training before and during their careers, with salaries – between $95 and $116 a month in Kenya – higher than in other non-formal schools.

“Our pupils are outperforming their peers in national exams over consecutive years. Our model means that we’re able to attract new investment towards solving one of the world’s most pressing problems: hundreds of millions of children who are not learning,” the Bridge statement said.

“Public schools and Bridge schools can and do operate side by side to serve communities in countries where there are major shortages of nurseries and primary schools. We help governments quickly address the gap between how many schools they have and how many they need.”

The UK Department for International Development said: “We have supported over 11 million children in primary and lower-secondary education from 2011-15, including over 5.3 million girls.

“Many of the world’s poorest countries rely on privately run schools to provide an education where state provision is failing. Without privately-run schools, millions of children would be denied an education.

What’s bad for America’s children deemed good for others: Riposte to Nick Kristof

August 1, 2017

Fred van Leeuwen

[Fred van Leeuwen is General Secretary of Education International ( https://www.ei-ie.org/), a global union federation consisting of 401 member organisations in 172 countries and territories that represents over 30 million education personnel.]

http://africasacountry.com/ – Direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/yad4ebwb

Writing in The New York Times [http://tinyurl.com/y8vb5rgt] about the growth of privately run for-profit schools in Liberia, the paper’s columnist Nicholas Kristof praises the turnover of a significant number of public schools in Liberia to Bridge International Academies, a US-based for-profit education company. That same company that has been ordered to close its schools in Uganda and Kenya for its neglect and disregard of national educational standards.

Kristof claims that those who oppose the commercialization of education in Liberia and elsewhere, including Education International, are driven by ideological motives rather than the interests of children. This is incorrect. Around the world, the teaching profession is the most outspoken advocate of children’s right to quality schooling. That right is to be realized by governments. And where public authorities fail to make their public schools work, they need to be held accountable and pressured to do better rather than permitted to wheel in the marketeers to do the job they were elected to do in the first place.

Kristof believes that Americans are grown up enough to handle their own education system, but without a shred of evidence he offers that the “solution” for Liberia is to turn their schools over to a foreign, US based corporation.

Liberia experienced two civil wars, the first from 1989 to 1997 and the second from 1999 to 2003, followed by a transition to democracy and elections in 2005. The destruction of those wars left the population vulnerable to the Ebola virus in 2014 and 2015. That catastrophe inflicted serious damage on the economy and education.

Education is a public service that enables people to listen, sows the seeds of tolerance, heals wounds and develops critical thinking. It is a building process that contributes to development, good governance and decent societies.

On the other hand, education that limits such progress, restricts discussion, and focuses exclusively on a few narrow skills fails children and society. Bringing in private education operators, particularly in relative obscurity, is not an example of good governance. Handing over Liberia’s primary and pre-primary education system to a foreign for-profit company like Bridge is as bad for Liberian education as it is for the country’s democracy.

It is of deep concern that deals between the government of Liberia and the education privateers have been so opaque and that independent research and evaluation have been dismissed. Despite the promise that any significant expansion of the privatization project would depend on some rigorous evaluation six months into the trial, the Ministry of Education decided to double the number of schools in the project’s second year.

This earned the Minister a public rebuke from the government appointed evaluation team and the criticism of the international academic community. Suppressing independent research and evaluation and precipitous action are linked. Both have the effect of limiting governance by chilling or blocking informed, public discussion.

The current situation in Liberia is best summed up by Mary Mulbah, the President of the National Teachers’ Association of Liberia (NTAL), who wrote on Africa is a Country last week:

Ultimately the key question is this: why is our own government so incapable of managing this critical public service that it must give the keys to our children’s future over to foreign companies and charities who often seem to have little to no understanding of our country and culture?

As teachers, we have a profound interest in seeing a well-financed, responsibly managed, modern school system that grants all of our students the best chance to succeed in difficult circumstances. But we believe this is best achieved through robust public investment, better administrative management, and stronger accountability for teachers as well as the ministry officials that supervise them.

Noting “successive studies,” Kristof himself acknowledges that for-profit schools “hurt children” in the US. Yet, without missing a beat, he proclaims that they are good for Liberian children.

In the US, as in Liberia, support for the privatization of education systems is not based on objective information, evidence or informed debate. It is, rather, driven by ideology; by the dogma that private must be better than public. It is only recently that much of the American public has realized that they have been victims of exaggeration, empty promises and deception.

Liberians should not be guinea pigs in an experiment to transform the noble mission of public education into a market opportunity for foreign capital.

So, a plea to Nicholas Kristof: let’s not wish upon other people’s children that which we would not accept for our own.

* This text was first submitted to the New York Times as an oped response to Kristof. The newspaper informed Education International that it does not “run response pieces as op-eds.”

Why is Liberia’s Government rushing to sell its public schools to U.S. for-profits?

July 19, 2017 by Mary Mulbah

http://africasacountry.com – Direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/yd6kz73s

When Liberia’s Minister of Education, George Werner, announced last spring that he was inviting foreign education companies and non-profits to run our public schools, our country came under the international spotlight, both in Western media and for education activists.

The Minister and the supporters of the government’s plan excitedly championed the notion that clever thinking and technology could turn around our troubled school system. However, the broader education community warned that the consequences of turning an impoverished country’s school system into an “experiment” would be grave, and could lead to lasting damage to Liberia’s ability to run its own public services and provide free education.

Quickly, Liberia was turned into a battlefield between those who see for-profit “charter” schools as the solution to the problems that plague public education across the world, and those of us who point to underinvestment and poor management as the true culprits.

At first, Minister Werner wanted to outsource all of our public schools to one company – US-based Bridge International Academies, which has come under sustained criticism in Kenya and Uganda for operating substandard schools and flouting government oversight.

Pushback against this plan – which violated our national anti-corruption laws – resulted in the government inviting other companies and providers to take place in what was described as a pilot, which was to be judged independently at the end of the first year.

In all, 93 schools were taken over by foreign providers, with Bridge remaining the largest beneficiary of the pilot, managing 25 of our schools.

Now, the first year has concluded. But instead of waiting for the results of the Randomized Control Trial presently being conducted by the Washington D.C.-based Center for Global Development, the Liberian government is pressing forward with another expansion.

In fall 2017, we are told, an additional 107 public schools will be incorporated into the pilot. Contrary to assurance by the minister that there would not be any significant scale-up in the absence of evidence, that represents more than doubling the so-called pilot.

As the national representative body of Liberia’s teachers, we don’t agree that student test scores alone should be used to decide whether to dismantle our public education system. But the fact that the Liberian government is planning to expand the pilot before it receives the results of a study it commissioned is a clear sign that it is not interested in thoughtfully weighing the consequences and impact of its radical plans.

In fact, while high-profile delegations of celebrity visitors and expensive symposiums have been used to trumpet the “successful” outsourcing of our schools, the story on the ground is much more concerning, and does not align with the rosy picture being painted by the Liberian government, Bridge, and other providers.

Investigative reporting has shown evidence that parents in some towns where outsourced schools are located are furious that their children were left without access to education due to limits on class sizes in pilot schools, which were hastily implemented without a plan to assist students who were left out.

Parents were also promised that extended school hours would be supported by the implementation of school lunch programs that have failed to materialize, leading to large numbers of dropouts in some schools.

These and other harmful impacts of the pilot are easy to find. One simply needs to go to the towns where the schools are located and speak with parents and teachers. Any objective observer will almost certainly discover that there are serious problems that must be addressed before an expansion is even considered.

But far from being serious about methodically and responsibly measuring the effects of the pilot, our Ministry of Education seems determined to increase its scope.

In recent weeks, our global federation, Education International, was informed by the Ministry that a team of American academic researchers hired to provide a critical analysis of the pilot would not be allowed access to any of the schools or the administrators who supervise them. This begs the question: what do they have to hide?

Simultaneously, senior leaders of our teachers’ union have been fired by the government for speaking out against the pilot, and teachers working for Bridge have been told there would be consequences if they spoke to their union representatives or journalists about their concerns. Our union has come under attack not just by the government, but also by those who see us as an impediment to the effort to bring our school system under outside management and control.

Ultimately the key question is this: why is our own government so incapable of managing this critical public service that it must give the keys to our children’s future over to foreign companies and charities who often seem to have little to no understanding of our country and culture?

As teachers, we have a profound interest in seeing a well-financed, responsibly managed, modern school system that grants all of our students the best chance to succeed in difficult circumstances. But we believe this is best achieved through robust public investment, better administrative management, and stronger accountability for teachers as well as the ministry officials that supervise them.

The government’s reluctance to honestly assess the effects of the first year of this radical initiative should give pause to anyone who thinks that it represents the best hope for Liberian children.

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