As the old colonial powers - Britain, France, Portugal, and Belgium - retreat from Africa, the US
is rushing in. Angola, Uganda, Ethiopia, Eritrea, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and even
obscure African countries are appearing on every Clinton official's itinerary. Does this diplomatic
frenzy support a coordinated US foreign policy agenda? Or, is it driven by less noble, even
colonialist economic objectives? Since the recent flurry of State Department attention was
preceded by the signing of questionable mineral, communications, and financial deals by
highly-leveraged US corporations, it's a fair question. US newspaper headlines trumpet the trend:
"American Mineral Fields Corporation of Arkansas in billion dollar mineral deal," "New
Millennium Investment, Inc. of Washington signs Congo telecommunications agreement," and "The
Leon Tempelsman & Son Investment Group proposes Angolan diamond operation." Grandiose
financial statements follow with almost frantic regularity. And most of the corporations making
these announcements have heavyweight lobbyists from both sides of the political aisle.

For example, Barrick Gold Corp., an influential Canadian-US mining conglomerate which recently
announced an 83,000-square-kilometer concession in Congo's Kivu province, has ex-Secretary
of State James Baker, Bush's old point man, on its advisory panel. Meanwhile, through Citizens
Energy International, Inc., the Kennedy family has interests in Continental Oil's Angolan oil
exploration projects, even though the area is a war zone. The Kennedy connection to Democratic
campaign contributor Maurice Tempelsman reportedly facilitated support for his company's
Angolan diamond proposal from State Department and former National Security Advisor Anthony
Lake. Lake instructed a senior deputy to call the US Export-Import Bank about possible
financing, even though this violates guidelines prohibiting the bank from guaranteeing import/export
financing to areas embroiled in civil unrest.

And, as if this pressure on the State Department to support certain African governments - be they
democratic or despotic - isn't enough, the US military is also a player. "African governments
recognize our military expertise," a Pentagon spokesman emphasized on conditions of anonymity,
when questioned about US training teams ensconced as permanent fixtures in Uganda, Rwanda,
Ethiopia, and half a dozen other African countries. US Special Forces also train 700-person rapid
deployment battalions in Uganda, Zimbabwe, and Ethiopia, ostensibly for "African peacekeeping"
duties. But the nature of their duties remains vaguely defined.

Military and political involvement is raising concern in some Washington quarters, however. Rep.
Ben Gilman, Chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, was sufficiently curious in July 1997 to ask
if the US military was training the Rwandan army in "counter-insurgency" in Gisenyi commune on
the Congo/Rwandan border, commonly called "the killing fields" by local Hutu refugees. The
army's answer: Only "humanitarian assistance" was involved. But the same words were used to
justify US involvement in Vietnam and early Soviet moves in the Afghan conflict.

With Madeleine Albright's seven-nation Africa trip in December, the Rev. Jesse Jackson's
appointment as President Clinton's special emissary, and Harold Wolpe's designation as the Great
Lakes envoy, many Africa observers are beginning to wonder if US engagement has sinister
overtones. "We are seeing a new colonialization in Africa," a World Bank official admits, "and it's
by American speculators with minimum cash/maximum profit ventures based on short-term,
low-risk exit plans. US political and military muscle is being used to facilitate the rape of Africa's
resources by American multinationals backed by both Democratic and Republican heavyweights."

Rev. Jackson's December speech in Nairobi did little to dispel this notion. "Africa's raw material
base is just exploding with potential," he explained at a US Embassy gathering, "whether it's new
oil finds in Angola and Gabon, or gold and diamonds, copper and uranium in Southern Africa."

So, what is the Clinton Administration's policy? Does the US fully grasp the potential pitfalls in
African countries where the odds of achieving democratic government are greater than their
peasant populations achieving a minimum per capital income of $150 a year? Unfortunately, the
answer is clouded by rhetoric. "The stakes are too high for us to stand aloof," UN Ambassador
Bill Richardson told the House International Relations Committee in November, following his visit
to the Congo, "and the United States is maintaining a policy of cautious engagement." He
elaborated: "But we have a range of other interests in the region and intend to encourage the new
African governments to undertake necessary political and economic reforms and to play a
constructive role in the region." Commenting on Albright's tour, State Department spokesperson
James Foley added, "The trip will focus on advancing US interests in the Great Lakes region,
justice and the rule of law, stability, and economic opportunity." "What justice and what rule of
law?" a cynical Red Cross official asks, surveying the burned-out hulk of a prison in Bulinga,
Rwanda, following a rebel Hutu attack on Dec. 4 that left 10 Tutsi dead. "And whose economic
interests?" wonders Arnold Bisasi, an opposition Uganda Freedom Movement spokesperson.
"That of Uganda, or that of American businessmen exploiting our raw material resources?"

Another question is whether US pressure and financial muscle will have a moderating impact on
governments that maintain power through corruption, terror, and subjugation of their populations.
Or this: Is it reasonable to expect that corporations will become responsible, nation-building
partners?

"It doubt it," says British Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs official Andrew Davidson. "After all,
the US tried it with Mobutu for 30 years, and look at how successful that was." As an
afterthought, he added: "We don't seem to have much better luck. Just look at how President Moi
of Kenya manipulated the elections, President Mugabe in Zimbabwe confiscates farmland, and
President Chiluba's Zambian police shoot at his rival ex-President Kenneth Kaunda, while our
own multinationals exploit East Africa's agricultural industries."

Ulrike Wilson, the IMF representative in Kampala, is more hopeful, describing Ugandan President
Museveni as "extremely pragmatic and forward-thinking." She points to economic liberalization, a
freewheeling press, and tolerance of opposition voices - if not opposition parties. Her argument is
that Uganda is a shining example of how the US and African countries can work together to
advance both democracy and economic growth. After years of decline under Idi Amin, a seven
percent growth rate in 1997 certainly provides some proof. South Africa's multi-racial progress is
also presented as evidence that international big business can promote Africa's democratic
progress. "Commerce and democracy are two sides of the same coin," quips an AT&T executive,
contemplating his company's burgeoning South African operations.

But as the US gets increasingly involved, policies and objectives remain less than clear. A
Carnegie Foundation researcher asks pointedly, "Is there a coherent US African policy, or is the
Administration being dragged into relationships with corrupt and volatile regimes by American
corporations seeking to exploit Africa's gold, diamond, oil, and copper resources?" Another fair
question when one considers the sudden involvement of business giants Bechtel, Goldman Sachs,
and the American Diamond Buyers group in the Congo and Angola. Military involvement is also
expanding without a clear objective. With staging bases in Mombasa and Addis Ababa, and
training missions in Rwanda, Ethiopia, Uganda, and elsewhere, the US may be forming a military
"Pax Afri-Americana." Even the admirable concept of training battalions to form an indigenous
peacekeeping force has no defined guidelines. Who will be in overall command? Will US or
African generals give the orders? What are the specific parameters for using this force? And who
will pay for any military adventurism? Thus far, such questions haven't been asked. "This
US-trained and -supplied force will be used to oppress indigenous opposition movements with
American hardware," charges Elly Kigozi, an opposition Uganda Federal Alliance military
commander, from his undisclosed location. "Congress can't really believe that the Ugandan
government will allow American generals to control its own battalions, can they? They can't be that
stupid, surely?"

More worrisome to US civil liberties groups is covert CIA involvement in destabilizing the Islamic
fundamentalist government of the Sudan. Involvement in the internal affairs of African nations raises
serious moral issues, argues Rev. Richard Rogers of the Southern Sudan Relief Committee. Over
$20 million has been spent on the pretext that the rogue Khartoum regime sponsors international
terrorism. Egyptian intelligence and Al-Sha'b newspaper report that up to 850 US military advisers
are training guerrillas for the SPLA (Sudanese Peoples Liberation Army) of rebel John Garang.
But US support seems to lack clear direction. "We're not against Islam," Garang said during a
December visit to Egypt, contradicting US policy. Meanwhile, General Omar Hassan Al-Bashir
maintains control, while the SPLA splinters into factions, some siding with Al-Bashir's
administration.

Economic sanctions are applied half-heartedly, mainly due to pressure from US corporations
dependent on the Sudan's gum Arabic exports for manufacturing. "Is this just another case of
corporate America driving foreign policy instead of the other way around?" asks a Lebanese
businessman, lamenting the demise of his diamond buying enterprise in the Congo.

Meanwhile, relief organizations are concerned by another trend: US oil and mining corporations
that hire mercenary protection forces. Tensions between the local black-clad "Cobra" militia in
Congo Brazzaville and ex-US military personnel guarding US oil facilities in Cabinda are already at
flash point. "This is bound to spill over into our operations," predicts relief worker Andrew
Edwards. "It's arrogant of them to have their own private armies on someone else's national
territory, and there seems to be no direction on this by the US government."

A Belgian diplomat is more blunt. "How long can this go on before a dozen US security officers
are killed?" he wonders, recalling the death of 30 Belgian paratroopers in Kigali, Rwanda, in
1994. "And what will the US administration's reaction be then?"

To many observers, this headlong plunge, driven by business and military pressure, forms a
dangerous mix. But others, such as Rev. Jackson, are more confident. "Africa has a lot to offer,
the United States has a lot to offer," he predicted before a meeting with Kenya's now re-elected
President Daniel arap Moi, "and the fact that we both have a lot to offer makes us want to be
good friends and mutually-beneficial trading partners." Whether that sentiment becomes reality
depends on at least three factors: corporate responsibility, a reduced US military presence, and a
strong, clearly defined African policy. At the moment, hopes are high, especially since Albright's
tour and the announcement that President Clinton plans to visit Africa this year.

During her Africa tour in December, Albright's announcement that Clinton's Partnership for
Economic Growth and Opportunity will provide a $90 million loan to develop new oil fields in
Angola was encouraging. But a subsequent statement, made during a visit to a Chevron oil drilling
platform, raised eyebrows. An additional $350 million from the US Export-Import Bank, she
explained, may only support the purchase of US equipment, a move suggesting that the State
Department is more interested in promoting US commercial interests than African self-reliance.
Compared with China's pending $150 million no-strings-attached grant to the Congo, the US
requirement raises the specter of colonial thinking.

"What is needed," muses another relief worker, who prefers to be unnamed, "is a clearly defined
US government policy dealing with African governments to ensure that the potpourri of American
big business, military adventurism, and interference in the internal affairs of African countries
doesn't clash with the peasant population's aspirations. Or else the consequences will be far
greater than in Somalia."

Kenya-born Milan Vesely is a freelance journalist and 60 Minutes consultant with 40 years of
military and business experience throughout Africa.

Dave Dellinger’s father was a well-connected Massachusetts lawyer and friend of Republican   Governor Calvin Coolidge. One of his grandmothers was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and his father’s ancestors went back to North Carolina -- before the Revolution. In fact, Benjamin Franklin was a direct ancestor, by way of a grandnephew and a full-blooded Cherokee Indian.

With such a pedigree, it was hard to see why Dave would become an all-American radical, an internationally respected nonviolent activist and a leader of peace and justice movements for more than 60 years. But the young man from the Boston suburb of Wakefield took a less traveled path from the start, living with the poor, attending seminary, and refusing to register for the draft at the brink of World War II. Then and later, he went to jail for his beliefs. By the 1960s, he was a legendary figure, able to forge an alliance between anti-war activists and civil rights leaders. He was America’s Gandhi, advancing the theory of pacifist resistance through his words and deeds.

On May 25, 2004, at 88, Dave departed this world among family and close friends in Central Vermont from pneumonia-induced heart failure. He had been living in Vermont for almost 25 years, most recently in the Montpelier area. Whenever racism, imperialism, or injustice raised its head, Dave was there, his efforts all the more remarkable for their compassion, clarity, and humor. Putting himself in harm’s way, he sometimes managed, almost miraculously, to turn antagonists into allies with the gentle moral force of his convictions.

On the Path

Dave was mostly known as nonviolent anti-war activist, but his path took many turns. In the mid-1930s, for example, it looked as if he might end up in law or the government. Obviously, Dave saw something different ahead. He’d been picking up ideas from philosophy and economics, from radical campus Christians and college friends like Walt Rostow. Rostow was advocating communism at the time, but Dave questioned its approach and lack of a spiritual dimension. (Later, Rostow backed war in Southeast Asia “to save them from communism.” Dave said he wasn’t too surprised.) He also drew inspiration from nature, the campaigns of Gandhi, and from getting to know fellow workers during a summer job in a Maine factory.

In his autobiography, From Yale to Jail, Dave recounted a college incident that changed his life. One night, when tensions were high after a football game, he and some college friends were attacked by local toughs. In the fight, Dave decked one – and then experienced revulsion at what he’d done. “I knew that I would never be able to strike another human being again,” he wrote.

He stayed with the young man he’d hit, apologized, and walked him home. As they parted, Dave felt what he called “the power of our unexpected and unusual bonding.” The encounter’s impact stayed with him.

On his way to begin a doctorate fellowship at Oxford University in 1936, he stopped in Spain to see the communal settlements of the Popular Front and stayed at the People's University in Madrid. As Francisco Franco's soldiers advanced on the city, he considered joining the resistance. If his friends were going to die, he thought, he was ready, too. But he couldn’t ignore grim reality: Communists were shooting Trotskyists and both were shooting anarchists. In fact, while he was in Barcelona, some anarchists fired at his car. Ultimately, he came to the philosophical realization: “Whoever won in an armed struggle, it wouldn't be the people.”

Back in the US, Dave rejected a comfortable future and left Yale. With no cash and wearing his oldest clothes, he traveled around the country, riding freight trains, sleeping at missions, standing in bread lines, even begging. His journey continued intermittently for three years, following a path inspired by Francis of Assisi.

Love, War, and Prison

The 1940s were not easy times to oppose war and promote nonviolence. Pacifists found themselves alone as liberals and Leftists in the anti-war movement supported “preparedness,” collective security, and -- once Germany attacked Russia -- entry into the conflict. Dave was living and working in Harlem while studying at the Union Theological Seminary. After the 1940 conscription law was passed, he opted not to accept religious exemption; instead, he and several others refused to register for the draft.

His reasons for opposing the unfolding “world war” were complicated. He knew about US corporate support for Hitler and the Nazis. He had also visited Germany, and concluded that there was potential for internal opposition. In general, he saw the war as a geopolitical chess game rather than a fight against tyranny and racism. Beyond that, he couldn’t stomach having an exemption when so others, especially Blacks, were given no choice.

His decision not to register led to two of the most important events in his life: meeting the woman with whom he would spend the next 60 years, and going to jail for the first time.

Dave spent a year in the Danbury federal prison. Early on, because he sat in the Black section during a movie, he was put in solitary. Then, when he refused to answer to a number or submit to guard harassment, he was thrown into the notorious Hole. Some prisoners were broken by the experience. For Dave, it led to a personal breakthrough.

“I felt warm inside,” he wrote later, “and filled all over with love for everyone, everyone I knew and everyone I didn’t know, for plants, fish, animals, even bankers, generals, prison guards and lying politicians … Why did I feel so good? Was it God? Or approaching death? Or just the way life is supposed to be if we weren’t so busy trying to make it something else? It didn’t matter why. The only thing that mattered was that it was happening.”

After that, Dave was targeted as a troublemaker. But his commitment to ending racial segregation also brought him new allies, especially among Black prisoners. There were more threats and more days in solitary. Dave didn’t waver, even when Communist prisoners -- who at first called him a hero – decided he was a “fascist coward” after Germany invaded the Soviet Union.

Shortly after getting out, Dave was invited to speak at a National Conference of the Student Christian Movement in Ohio, and there met Betty Peterson, a student at Pacific College in Oregon. She also opposed the draft, had worked with migrant workers, and was interested in Dave’s commune experience. On February 4, 1942, only a month after they met, Dave and Elizabeth married.

Building a Movement

During the war years, the couple and their comrades often risked arrest as they struggled against the tide. A demonstration at the Capitol in 1943 led to another prison term for Dave, this time two years at the prison farm just outside the walls of the Lewisburg penitentiary. During that sentence, he joined a strike to end segregation and fasted for weeks to stop prison censorship and the use of the Hole. The protesters won a small victory this time, ending the censorship of mail.

By the time Dave was released in 1945, Elizabeth had given birth to their first of five children and was living at a Pennsylvania apple farm. Before long, between picking apples and working on a nearby dairy farm, Dave and friends teamed up to launch Direct Action, a magazine reflecting their militant opposition to war and faith in the power on nonviolent action. That was succeeded by Alternative, Individual Action, and finally Liberation, a venerable magazine for 20 years. Countless writers, many prominent from the 60s onward, contributed to a new groundswell of radical thought.

Dave’s first editorial in Direct Action, written in September 1945, condemned the recent atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and outlined his philosophy:

“Hiroshima and Nagasaki were atomized at a time when the Japanese were suing desperately for peace. The American leaders were acting with almost inconceivable treachery by denying that they had received requests for peace … . The atom bombs were exploded on congested cities filled with civilians. There was not even the slightest military justification, because the military outcome of the war had been decided months earlier. …

“The war for total brotherhood must be a nonviolent war carried on by methods worthy of the ideals we seek to serve. The acts we perform must be the responsible acts of free men, not the irresponsible acts of conscripts under orders. We must fight against institutions but not against people.

“There must be strikes, sabotage and seizure of public property now being held by private owners. There must be civil disobedience of laws which are contrary to human welfare. But there must be also an uncompromising practice of treating everyone, including the worst of our opponents, with all the respect and decency that he merits as a fellow human being. We can expect to face tear gas, clubs and bullets. But we must refuse to hate, punish or kill in return. …”

It’s common to hear that the 50s, and even the early 60s, were times of conformity and repression. But storms were brewing behind those calm skies, and Dave helped drum up the winds for change. There were anti-nuclear demonstrations and civil disobedience actions, marches and Freedom Rides in the South, solidarity actions to bridge the people-to-people gap between Cuba and US after 1959, protests with Martin Luther King in the civil rights movement, and a series of nonviolent committees and organizations. It was a tumultuous period, leading up to the 1967 March on the Pentagon, protests at the Democratic National Convention in 1968, and the 1969 show trial of the Chicago Eight.

“The anti-Vietnam War movement did not start in a vacuum,” Dave wrote. “It was the offspring of previous movements for justice and peace. And like a lot of children it had to fight its way against the efforts of its parents to prevent it from straying too far outside the compromises they themselves had made with conventional society.” Going up against the national “peace leaders” of his day, Dave and a few others sided with SDS (Students for a Democratic Society), which came on strong beginning in 1965 with a call for a national anti-Vietnam war demonstration. After that protest, Dave was jailed again -- and threatened with charges of treason. When some of his fellow political prisoners heard, they refused bail unless the threats were dropped. Faced with solidarity, the government folded.

The next year, Dave visited Vietnam for the first time, personally witnessing the ruthless conduct of the war, talking with US POWs, and getting the Vietnamese side from Ho Chi Minh. They also talked about Harlem (“Uncle Ho” had worked for a Brooklyn family after World War I) the poverty of Black people, and how anti-communist paranoia had led the US into a series of arrogant mistakes. The visit led to a series of trips Dave helped organize until the war ended in 1975. His people-to-people diplomacy helped secure the release of captured US servicemen.

Showdown in Chicago

In 1968 -- from Berkeley to Prague, in Mexico City and Paris -- a hunger for change filled the air. Even mainstream media and some US leaders couldn’t deny what was happening. In March, Eugene McCarthy, an opponent of the war, won 42 percent of the presidential primary vote in New Hampshire. Soon afterward, Robert Kennedy entered the race and President Lyndon Johnson decided not to seek another term. Then, on April 4, a rifle shot rang out in Memphis, ending the life of Martin Luther King. Rebellions erupted in 125 cities, leading to 20,000 arrests and the mobilization of federal troops.

In June, Kennedy was assassinated. By July, more than 220 major demonstrations had happened on campuses across the country. In Vietnam, 10,000 US soldiers had died since the beginning of the year, more than in all of 1967. At that point, the Democrats held their nominating convention.

According to Chicago’s strongman Mayor Richard Daley, “agitators” like Dave, Tom Hayden of SDS, Abbie Hoffman of the Yippie movement, and others incited the riots that erupted at the Democratic National Convention in August 1968. As was later proven, however, it was actually a police riot. Meanwhile, a climate of repression blanketed the nation. A new attorney general, Richard Kleindeinst, called anti-war activists “ideological criminals,” while the FBI launched a secret counter-intelligence program. “Tricky Dick” Nixon was in the White House, and scapegoats were needed to explain away civil disorder.

Eight activists, including Dave, were indicted. The main charges were conspiracy and traveling across state lines “with the intent to incite, organize, promote, encourage, participate in, and carry on a riot.” Actually, some of the defendants didn’t even know one another, and as Abbie used to say, “We couldn’t agree on lunch.” But they felt that the charges were a distraction, and decided to put the government on trial. At 54, Dave was the self-proclaimed “old man” of the group.

The proceedings ran five months, beginning on September 26, 1969. Many of the key moments were big news across the country. A few were absurdly funny, like the day the defendants rolled in a cake to celebrate Bobby Seale’s birthday. When Judge Julius Hoffman ruled the cake out of order, Bobby said: “You can arrest a cake, but you can’t arrest the revolution.” But sometimes the trial looked like an inquisition, perhaps never so clearly as on October 29, when Blank Panther Bobby Seale was carried into the court, bound and gagged, for demanding his right to defend himself. 

The following February, as Judge Hoffman began post-trial contempt proceedings, Dave was allowed to address the court. It was an extraordinary moment. “I will talk about the facts and the facts don’t always encourage false respect,” he began. “Now I want to point out first of all that the first two contempts cited against me concerned ... the war against Vietnam, and racism in this country, the two issues this country refuses to solve, refuses to take seriously.”

Hoffman ordered him to stop, but Dave was on a roll. “You see,” he said, “that’s one of the reasons I have needed to stand up and speak anyway, because you have tried to keep what you call politics, which means the truth, out of this courtroom, just as the prosecution has.”

Ignoring the judge’s repeated command that he sit down and shut up, Dave continued. “You want us to be like good Germans supporting the evils of our decade, and then when we refused to be good Germans and came to Chicago and demonstrated, now you want us to be like good Jews, going quietly and politely to the concentration camps while you and this court suppress freedom and the truth. And the fact is that I am not prepared to do that.” The marshals started moving in.

“You want us to stay in our place like black people were supposed to stay in their place, like poor people were supposed to stay in their place, like people with formal education are supposed to stay in their place, like women are supposed to stay in their place, like children are supposed to stay in their place, like lawyers are supposed to stay in their places. It is a travesty of justice and if you had any sense at all you would know that the record that you read condemns you and not us. And it will be one of thousands and thousands of rallying points for a new generation of Americans, who will not put up with tyranny, will not put up with a facade of democracy without the reality.”

And as the marshals grabbed him, he declared, “People no longer will be quiet. People are going to speak up. I am an old man and I am just speaking feebly and not too well, but I reflect the spirit that will echo throughout the world.”

Applause and “complete disorder in the courtroom” followed -- especially when the marshals tried to silence Dave’s daughter Michelle and he bounded to her rescue. As John Tucker, one of the defense attorneys, recalls it, “Everyone -- the audience, the press, the defendants and their lawyers -- was screaming or shouting or sobbing. No one who was there will ever forget it.”

A Civil Resister

Long after the Chicago trial (the defendants were initially found guilty, but the verdict was overturned by history and higher courts), Dave continued to work with countless peace, solidarity, and social justice movements, often joining in protests and hunger strikes. He actively supported independent political action, from the anti-nuclear Clamshell Alliance and the Greens to Bernie Sanders. Accompanied by Elizabeth, he frequently visited prisoners, an enduring commitment that helped spark the 2002 formation of Vermont’s Alliance for Prison Justice. Most notably, he worked for the releases of Native American leader Leonard Peltier and Black journalist Mumia Abu Jamal, whom he considered political prisoners convicted of murder on trumped-up evidence.

Comfortable working with young people and collective process, he never stopped fighting for disarmament and social justice, and against corporate exploitation and war. And through it all, he taught and practiced nonviolent civil resistance, bringing those he touched countless teaching moments.

For 12 years, beginning in 1990, Dave was board co-chair of Toward Freedom (TF), a progressive foundation based in Burlington, VT, and wrote frequently for its flagship publication. In 1993, Pantheon Books published his long-awaited, often revelatory autobiography, From Yale to Jail: The Life Story of a Moral Dissenter. It was recently released by Catholic Worker Books. His other books include Revolutionary Nonviolence, More Power Than We Know, Beyond Survival, and Vietnam Revisited: Covert Action to Invasion to Reconstruction.

Dave remained engaged in life and interested in politics until his final months. In 2001, for instance, at age 85, he got up at 2:45 a.m. to catch a ride to demonstrations in Quebec City against the creation of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). Continuing to speak out for disarmament and social justice, he focused more recently on prison issues and economic alternatives to globalization.

In October 2001, some of his friends organized a celebration of his life in Burlington. It was a long overdue tribute and hundreds came, including family members and old movement friends Howard Zinn, Dennis Brutus, Cora Weiss, Art Kinoy, John Froines, Staughton Lynd, Ralph DiGia, Ted Glick, and many more. True to form, Dave didn’t want the event to focus only on him, but also on Elizabeth and the issues and movements to which they had committed themselves. Still, the touching stories revealed the friendships, hopes, passions, and fierce determination that shaped Dave’s life. TF preserved the evening on a CD set, Nonviolent Warriors: Dave Dellinger and the Power of the People.

About a year ago, after a TF meeting, Dave quietly passed me a copy of a poem he had just written. A meditation on Valentine’s Day, it also described his approach to life with eloquent simplicity:

I love everyone,

even those who

disagree with me.

I love everyone,

even those who

agree with me.

I love everyone,

rich and poor,

and I love everyone

of different races,

including people

who are indigenous,

wherever they live,

in this country

or elsewhere.

I love everyone,

whatever religion they are,

and atheists too.

People who contemplate,

wherever it leads them.

I love everyone,

both in my heart

and in my daily life.

Echoing Gandhi, Dave often said: “Be the change you wish to see.” He did just that, and it was inspiring to behold.

Greg Guma edits Toward Freedom, a progressive magazine also available online at TowardFreedom.com, and is the author of Uneasy Empire: Repression, Globalization, and What We Can Do and the new play, Inquisitions (and Other Un-American Activities), available on CD and airing on radio. He worked closely with Dave for 20 years.

Across Latin America, new social movements are demanding social justice and challenging the policies of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank. New governments, most openly progressive or claiming to be, have formed alliances to negotiate collectively with developed countries about economic policy, external debt, foreign investments, and free trade.

Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, and Bolivia are rejecting the 1990s neo-liberal policies, which increased poverty, unemployment, political crisis, corruption, and external debt. The informal economy has invaded the cities: People barter, sell food on the street, offer services without paying taxes, or trade illegally.

According to researcher Saskia Sassen, the region is occupied with huge social and political processes, creating transnational citizenship, increasing cities’ roles, and engaging in the “geopolitics of war.” Sassen, a Dutch native who grew up in Argentina, currently lives in the US and conducts research around the world. A sociologist, demographer, and economist, this self-proclaimed “transnational citizen” is a professor at the University of Chicago and the London School of Economics, and the author of books including Losing Control? Sovereignty in the Age of Globalization (2002), The Global City (2001), Guest and Aliens (1999), and Globalization and its Discontents (1998).

In Buenos Aires, she recently presented a report, “Cities Transformed: Demographic Change and Its Implications in the Developing World,” based on a study sponsored by the US National Academy of Sciences, and provided this interview.

TF: More and more people have named themselves “citizens of the world,” and identify with universal values. Does national citizenship make sense as the state loses power in a globalized world?

Sassen: The conditions for a transnational citizenship are solidifying. Although some groups are genuinely transnational like Internet communities, world social forums, or international volunteer movements, transnational citizenship is just a component of a much more complex experience: traditional citizenship. Formal rights with regard to the state continue to be the crucial element.

People from all over the world are producing a sort of “transnationalism in situ.” They meet on the street for the first time, in companies, in the neighborhoods of global cities, or encounter other immigrants in highly professionalized jobs. Immigrants, even illegal ones, often become new political subjects.

The phenomenon of “transnational citizenship” opens the possibility of generating new forms of lateral power among groups with few resources, and also improving transnational policies, mobilizing more and more sectors inside a country.

TF: You also talk about the need to “urbanize the social sciences.”

Sassen: To understand social processes, one needs to focus on what happens in cities. Metropolises are strategic places in the global economy: They are bridges between the nation-state and the world, they are locations for implementing measures to reduce the influence of big foreign companies. These measures include assuring housing for the impoverished middle class, establishing taxes for the “new rich” and corporations, promoting civic responsibility, and guaranteeing worker-oriented labor standards.

The coexistence of huge clusters of power and poverty give the city a unique political character. Cities clearly show the contradictions of globalization: concentrations of international capital and increasingly marginalized populations exist side by side.

Globalization is tangible in the struggles that occur from one city to another; for example, the demands of migrants and gay and lesbian communities. This makes it necessary to research the practice of citizenship and the role of civil society. The loss of government influence gives way to new forms of power at local or neighbor levels. Cities are building that new political geography.

TF: What did you study in Latin America?

Sassen: I focused on very specific global circuits: migrations, informal economies, economic inequalities. For example, Sao Paulo is a crucial area to explore complex social processes. Recently, a student of mine finished an extraordinary investigation about the relationship between globalization and favelas (very poor and often violent neighborhoods). She did field work in four favelas, some controlled by drug dealers with whom she could negotiate the conditions to remain inside. She demonstrated how globalization materializes in the cities through processes of informal economy.

TF: How do you explain the attempts of Venezuela, Brazil, and Argentina to strengthen the state’s role in social development?
Sassen: Two tendencies are in play. Neoliberalism, along with International Monetary Fund and US policies, diminished the autonomy of the nation-state, mainly in the countries of the South. On the other hand, presidents Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and Luis Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil want to use the state as a political base to implement changes they consider necessary. A social democratic state could implement measures and provide resources for projects benefiting the citizens and local economy.

Recovering the role of the state is a challenge that can mobilize popular support, as we have seen in Venezuela and Brazil. The president of Argentina, Néstor Kirchner, understood this issue when he announced a revision of the privatizations and the assets still in state hands, and changed most of the magistrates at the Supreme Court to look for transparency and state legitimization.

Neoliberalism reoriented key local components toward the global financial markets and gave tremendous earnings to an elite concentrated primarily in the big metropolises. This elite represents nearly 20 percent of the inhabitants of the 40 global cities of the world, places like Buenos Aires, Bangkok, Sao Paulo, Seoul, or New York. The Argentinean crisis — which really started in the 90s — is one of the most dramatic instances showing the marginalizing nature of neoliberal policies. The projects we see in Venezuela, Brazil, and the one emerging in Argentina, are seeking to distribute national resources to favor much more than that 20 percent.

TF: What risk do cities face in terms of international terrorism?

Sassen: Cities are now the favorite target. War inflamed hate against the US like a boomerang effect. The many suicidal terrorists are proof that Iraq’s defeat didn’t demoralize extremists, they go on recruiting followers and intensify the attacks. The most recent attacks in Baghdad or Indonesia demonstrate that innocents are the ones dying.

The Annual Report on Global Terrorism (2002) from the US State Department notes that between 1993 and 2000, 94 percent of the injuries and 61 percent of the deaths from terrorist attacks took place in cities. These are centers of power, the focus of media attention, and are sufficiently complex to hide terrorist movements. The city has replaced the kidnapped airplane: the new target is the media show, not the enemy in person.

Every attack broadcast by media induces people to repeat it, a fact that could become a vicious circle. Neither politicians nor the military’s leaders will take the biggest risks; urban populations will. While US policy provokes rage and hate from other cultures, cities [throughout the world] will remain targets for terrorist attacks.

Insecurity will also destabilize underdeveloped societies. Many poor countries suffered shocking economic policies, which destroyed traditional national sectors. Now they will also have to pay the costs of an American policy against terrorism causing anger and desperation, an ideal breeding ground for violence. It would be naive to think that the rich and relatively safe countries in the North will evade the consequences of urban attacks. No matter how far away, we cannot ignore the poverty, wars, and diseases suffered by the South.
 

Born only nine months apart, US President George W. Bush and Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo are both children of former presidents. Her father, Diosdado Macapagal, was president from 1961-1965; Bush’s held the office from 1989-1992. Both also came to power not by winning elections, but on the basis of Supreme Court decisions in their respective countries, and were sworn in on January 20, 2001. Bush had some special assistance in the last election from his brother Jeb, governor of Florida. Former Vice President Arroyo took power after President Joseph “Erap” Estrada was toppled in a popular uprising.

But the surreal and striking similarities between the two, as well as the electioneering parallels, go much deeper. The Philippines, a former US colony, will face a choice on May 10. US citizens vote on November 2.

To stay in power past 2004, for example, both presidents have made the “war on terror” and free market capitalism their central rallying points. Arroyo claims that her market reforms and the nation’s security are at risk in the election. So does Bush, who has used the capture of Saddam Hussein to rebuild his falling popularity. She has also tried, so far unsuccessfully, to use a domestic “war on terror” to bolster her flagging ratings.

In 1994, as a senator, Arroyo sponsored the ratification of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) that led to the country’s World Trade Organization (WTO) membership. She remains a staunch supporter of neo-liberal economic policies, ignoring the growing social, ecological, and economic injustices they fuel.

“As free trade expands across the earth,” Bush claims, “the realm of human freedom expands with it.” His administration charges on with bilateral and sub-regional trade and investment agreements in an attempt to build from below what the WTO has thus far failed to deliver for US corporate interests. Domestically, his policies ensure welfare for the rich, and poverty and injustice for millions.

Kindred Spirits

The Philippine government is a key US ally in Asia - politically, economically, and militarily. Declaring it the “second front on the war on terror,” the US administration has poured military aid, including troops, into the country (TF, Spring 2003). The Philippines was one of the first countries to commit troops to Iraq, and was awarded “major non-NATO US ally” status, which confers priority in receiving US military aid. Arroyo needs US support for her war against Muslim and communist insurgencies. Bush needs her support for the Iraq war and in policing Southeast Asia against groups like the Abu Sayyaf kidnap-for-ransom gang and Jemiah Islamiah.

Last May, Arroyo became the first Asian head of state granted a formal state visit to the US since Bush took power. In October, Bush became the first US president since Eisenhower to address the Philippine Congress.

Arroyo shares the dualistic worldview of the Bush “either with us or against us” doctrine. She has charged that anyone who opposed US military intervention in the Philippines was “not a Filipino.” Then she asked, “If you are not a Filipino, then who are you? A protector of terrorists, a cohort of murderers, an Abu Sayyaf lover.”

Bush’s affection for capital punishment, first as Texas governor, now as president, is well-known. In December 2003, Arroyo joined the chorus. Reneging on a promise she made upon assuming office, she lifted a four-year-old moratorium on the death penalty and announced that convicted kidnappers and drug traffickers should be executed. Planned executions are “our act of love for those who are looking for jobs,” she claims, “because in order to have more jobs, investors should not be scared to pour in investments due to kidnappings.”

They also appear to share disdain for human rights and civil liberties. Bush has the Patriot Act, Code Orange, Homeland Security, Guantanamo Bay, countless detentions, and an endless, borderless war at home and abroad. Last November, $8.5 million from the $87 billion Iraq “reconstruction” package financed the paramilitary assault on Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) protests in a militarized Miami.

Meanwhile, Arroyo is promoting a draconian anti-terrorism bill. A Patriot Act clone, it would frame legitimate political activity like pickets, strikes, and rallies as terrorism, and allow arrests and detention of suspects for up to 30 days without charges. In her self-styled offensive against “terrorists” and “communists,” she has deployed 6000 troops to reinforce police in Metro Manila. Other regions remain militarized war zones. The Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights (KARAPATAN) charges that under Arroyo, human rights violations have increased to levels last seen during the Marcos dictatorship, including multiple murders, torture, abductions, displacements, and the targeting of progressive activists.

Rigging the Votes

Both Bush and Arroyo claim divine endorsement. The born-again US leader believes God wanted him to be president and is on his side in a “conflict between good and evil.” Less secure but equally pious, Arroyo told Time Magazine in November 2000: “I will follow my father’s footsteps by doing what is right, and God will take care of the rest.” With friends like God, who needs a popular mandate?

Nevertheless, election-related scandals haunt both leaders. In the Third World, these are dubbed “corruption.” In the “civilized” US, they represent business as usual. For example, Bush’s top financial sponsor was Enron, the bankrupt energy corporation mired in accounting scandals, price gouging, and shady partnerships. Enron ex-chairman and CEO Ken Lay co-chaired Daddy Bush’s 1992 reelection committee and chaired that summer’s Republican National Convention.

Topping Bush in the corporate slime department, Arroyo is linked to serious money-laundering allegations. Her husband, Mike Arroyo, allegedly held 260 million pesos in secret bank accounts under the fictitious name of “Jose Pidal.” His younger brother Ignacio claims that he is “Jose Pidal,” but invoked his right to privacy against answering related questions at a recent hearing. The evasiveness of the Arroyo brothers and the president on this issue has only fuelled suspicions.

There are grave concerns that neither of the upcoming elections will be fair and free. Prior to the last US election, thousands of people - mainly Black and Democrat-voting - were electronically purged from Florida’s voter rolls on the orders of Jeb Bush and Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris. These votes might have swung the state, and the presidency, for Gore. Now, the Help America Vote Act requires that every state computerize, centralize, and purge voter rolls before the 2004 election. Fault-prone, fraud-susceptible touchscreen voting machines and internet-based voting systems are being introduced. There are close ties between the Bush administration and Diebold, whose vote-counting machines operate in 37 states.

In the Philippines, the planned introduction of computerized voting sparked a political outcry. Opposition Senator Aquilino Pimentel, Jr., warned that computerized elections in 2004 could lead to new kinds of poll fraud. Instead of ballot box snatching, there could be “diskette switching,” he said. Gregorio “Ka Roger” Rosal, spokesperson for the Communist Party of the Philippines, predicted that the Arroyo camp would cheat to hold onto power. “The elections will be high-tech, the cheating will also be high-tech,” he charged. In January, the Supreme Court ruled that the Commission on Elections

didn’t follow the law and public policy in connection with public biddings, so the contract was nullified. US voters are at the mercy of technological tricksters. It’s low-tech cheating as usual in the Philippines.

Then there’s the celebrity factor. California’s Terminator-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger should boost Bush’s presidential campaign, particularly Republican campaigning in the most populous state. Arroyo has popular TV newsreader-turned-senator Noli De Castro as her running mate. The background of Arroyo’s most serious rival perhaps attests to the disdain with which many ordinary Filipinos hold “trapos” - traditional politicians. Like his friend, the deposed Estrada, Fernando Poe Junior - “FPJ” - is a popular actor famed for playing action hero and underdog roles. Philippine politics makes the pageantry and posturing of the US primaries seem bland.

It’s no surprise, in such circumstances, that many people in both countries are wary of investing hope and energy in electoral politics as a way to bring about positive change. In the US, notwithstanding the desperation engendered by the current regime, an “anyone-but-Bush” strategy fails to confront the fundamental injustices which underpin imperial politics at home and abroad. If there is hope in the Philippines, it comes from the building and sustaining of vibrant social movements struggling for justice and liberation, not the miasma of electoral politics. Whoever becomes president, it’s something to consider during this election year.

Aziz Choudry is an activist, researcher, and writer working in anti-colonial and anti-globalization struggles.

ELECTION GLOSSARY

Apathy: The reason most US politicians are able to achieve and maintain office

Ballot: An object recording a voter’s decision; frequently counted toward an election’s outcome

Campaign: A sophisticated, market-researched advertising initiative in which a candidate is sold to the public like a brand of air freshener, or a fruit-flavored snack-food

Concession Statement: An act of willpower in which the loser lies about the election being well-fought and disingenuously congratulates the victor

Corruption: The most effective and efficient way to produce results in government

Debate: A contest to see which candidate can answer the fewest questions

Democracy: A political system characterized by protected individual rights and liberties for certain lucky countries in the Middle East

Gerrymandering: Some political-type word learned in grade school

Green Party: A ragtag group of can-do ruffians trying to compete in a world that just doesn’t seem to care

Incumbent: The winner in an upcoming election, unless he runs over a pedestrian

Independent: A third-party candidate; offers a second point of view

Politics, Conservative: A school of thought that values limited government authority over the welfare of actual flesh-and-blood people

Politics, Liberal: A school of thought that values the welfare of idealized, hypothetical people over actual flesh-and-blood people

Pollster: A telemarketer with an Ivy League degree

Primary: A special election preview attended only by democracy nerds

Referendum: A legal process by which voters are allowed to make important political decisions; not a great idea, in general

Special Interest Groups: Like-minded individuals who explain to members of Congress what’s important each term

Spin: The art of turning a groping allegation into a testament of character

Underdog: A candidate unlikely to win; often leads a double-life as a mild-mannered shoeshine boy

Voter Turnout: The percentage of the population that votes in an election; dependent upon whether it rains and TV networks are airing reruns or not

- from The Onion