The Africa Fund
New York, New York, United States
May 19, 1998
3 pages
A coalition of African American civil rights leaders, elected officials and foreign policy experts today released a letter to President Bill Clinton rejecting the administration’s “constructive engagement” accommodation with the Nigerian military dictatorship and calling instead for economic sanctions on the repressive regime and greater political and diplomatic backing for that west African nation’s democracy movement. The letter is signed by a prestigious group of African-American leaders that includes Congressional Black Caucus Chair Maxine Waters, NAACP President Kweisi Mfume and NAACP Board Chair Julian Bond, Congressman Donald Payne, Africa Fund Chair Dr. Tilden...
A coalition of African American civil rights leaders, elected officials and foreign policy experts today released a letter to President Bill Clinton rejecting the administration’s “constructive engagement” accommodation with the Nigerian military dictatorship and calling instead for economic sanctions on the repressive regime and greater political and diplomatic backing for that west African nation’s democracy movement. The letter is signed by a prestigious group of African-American leaders that includes Congressional Black Caucus Chair Maxine Waters, NAACP President Kweisi Mfume and NAACP Board Chair Julian Bond, Congressman Donald Payne, Africa Fund Chair Dr. Tilden LeMelle, TransAfrica head Randall Robinson, American Committee on Africa President Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker, former U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria Walter Carrington, Congresswomen Carolyn Kilpatrick and Cynthia McKinney, labor leader Bill Lucy, and human rights attorney Gay McDougall. The letter’s call for oil sanctions challenges the Administration’s refusal to use its considerable economic for human rights and democracy. The International Roundtable on Nigeria, an alliance of U.S. and Nigerian human rights, environmental, pro-democracy and trade union organizations, of which The Africa Fund is a member, joins the African American leadership in support of a policy that puts African people and their inalienable rights to social justice, human rights and democracy at the forefront of U.S. policy towards Nigeria and not at the back of the foreign policy bus.
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Used by permission of Africa Action (successor to The Africa Fund).
