The ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee raised concerns Tuesday about the US enabling ongoing human rights abuses in Africa.
Noting recent acts of repression committed by US allies, Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) asked State Department officials about American influence on the continent. He enumerated events that have taken place since the start of last year, and asked if American partners were getting a “free pass.”
“In Ethiopia, they just had a parliamentary election, not a single opposition leader was elected. We have seen the security forces there have killed hundreds of protesters,” Cardin said. “In Chad, we have dozens of military officers who have been arrested because they wouldn’t vote for the president.”
“In Somalia, we have a report in yesterday’s Washington Post that they’re using children for spies,” he continued. According to that story, CIA-backed forces donned masks and marched former child soldiers into militant hotbeds to identify extremists.
Cardin also noted there have been “extrajudicial killings by the military in Nigeria and Kenya, and yet I don’t see a response by America in regards to these activities.
The State Department’s Linda Thomas-Greenfield insisted that US envoys condemned each one of the recent cases mentioned by the Cardin.
“We make clear to these governments that this is a core value for the United States,” the Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of African Affairs replied.
Thomas-Greenfield noted, however, that security concerns take clear precedent.
“We can’t draw a line and say we’re not going to work with you on terrorism because of human rights violations,” she said. “But we reinforce with these governments on a regular basis that they must respect human rights and civil liberties and rule of law.”
Defending the administration’s engagement with Ethiopia, Thomas-Greenfield said “intense discussions over the past year” have led to a “human rights dialogue.”
In response to a similar line of inquiry from the committee’s chair, Sen. Bob Corker (D-Tenn.), Thomas-Greenfield said that the citizens of these countries want the US to work with their governments.
She also claimed that they behave better when cooperating with the US than when not, pointing out to Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) that the US has refused to sell equipment to Nigeria.
Markey, however, had noted that the Obama administration was re-thinking this policy. According to AFP, the White House is considering selling twelve A-29 Super Tacano fighter jets to the Nigerian government. The aircraft is designed to attack forces on the ground.
“We’re on a thin edge, here,” Markey said. “We just have to be very careful, especially if the government doesn’t control its own military.”
Cardin also remarked that as far as budgetary matters are concerned, the US could do more to signal its interest in promoting well-behaved actors in Africa. He noted that security assistance packages for African countries doubled between 2013-2015, from $500 million to $1 billion while “Democracy and Governance” budgets fell in the same time frame.
“I would think that ‘Democracy and Governance’ is a clear indication of our commitment on good governance and human rights,” he said.
