DIPLOMATIC TIMES MAGAZINE RALPH J. BUNCHE HERO OF DIPLOMACY SPECIAL ISSUE

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DIPLOMATIC TIMES ISSUE 05 JANUARY - MARCH 2021 $5.00

RALPH J. BUNCHE INTERNATIONAL MAN OF PEACE Preserving The Legacy Of Giant Hero Of Diplomacy -AFRICAN AMERICANS IN DIPLOMACY ISSUE

DIPLOMATIC TIMES JANUARY - MARCH 2021

-CONTENTS-

Dr. Ralph Bunche Hero Of Diplomacy

[Cover Photo: Ralph Bunche / credit: UN]

(credit: UN / (In 1964 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and wife Coretta Scott King visited UN and met with Ralph Bunche)

3: EDITORIAL - The Rich Legacy Of Dr. Ralph J. Bunche Must Be Preserved 4: Ralph Bunche Was an Accidential Diplomat: Grandson 5: Ralph Bunche: A True Hero Of Diplomacy 8: “Ralph Bunche Is Now Shamefully Forgotten”: Sir Brian Urquhart “Dr. Ralph Bunche Was An Accidental Diplomat” - Grandson

12: Ebenezer Don Carlos Bassett- America’s First African American Diplomat 17: Former UN Ambassador Susan Rice Left Troubled Legacy in Africa

(credit: Diplomatic Times

19: Secret PLO Meeting Destroyed Andrew Young’s Diplomatic Career

20: Patricia R. Harris - The First African American Female Ambassador 21: African American Female Diplomat Alleges “Horrific” Racial Harassment at U.S. Borders ANDREW YOUNG

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Secret PLO Meeting Ends Diplomatic Career

PATRICIA ROBERTS HARRIS First African American Female Ambassador (Credit: Wikipedia)

22: U.S. Foreign Service Still “White, Yale, and Male” -Black Diplomats 23: African American Former Ambassadors Speak Out Against Police Abuse and Systemic Racism

(UN PHOTO)

24: European Union Diplomat Questions “Absence” Of Black Leadership Amid Social Unrest 26: U.S. Ambassador in Moldava Speaks on Diversity in Foreign Service 29: Controversial Black Ambassador To Apartheid South Africa Dies 30: African American Women Diplomats Strive To Increase Diversity

SUSAN RICE Leaves Troubled Diplomatic Legacy in Africa

(photo credit: UN)

COVERING THE WORLD OF JUSTICE AND DIPLOMACY

31: President Biden Names Linda Thomas-Greenfield As UN Ambassador

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DIPLOMATIC TIMES ISSUE O5 JANUARY - MARCH 2021 PAGE 2

-EDITORIAL -

Dr. Ralph Bunche In His Own Words:

THE FORGOTTEN LEGACY OF PIONEER DR. RALPH J. BUNCHE -Diplomatic Times-

President John Kennedy (left) and Ralph J. Bunche, UN Under-Secretary for Political Affairs at UN headquarters in New York, Sept. 25, 1961 (UN Photo)

Ralph Bunche is an unsung hero of

diplomacy and peace. Bunche was the ultimate American peacemaker. A powerful voice in world affairs. As an African American, Bunche’s accomplishments in the world of peace are mind boggling. In 1950, Bunche was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating the 1949 Armistice Agreements between Israel and four Arab states. He was the first African American and person of color to receive the award, long before Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Sadly, Bunche’s legacy is almost forgotten as he has not been given the honor he truly deserves due to being in the shadows of Martin Luther King, Jr., who is honored every year. As a matter of fact, one of Dr. King’s mentors was Mr. Bunche, a professor at Howard University and diplomat who served at the US State Department and United Nations. At the United Nations, the legacy of Dr. Ralph J. Bunche, one of the greatest peacemakers in contemporary history, is all but forgotten. This despite the fact Bunche was the ultimate American peacemaker serving the UN for 25 years in pursuit of peace. As an African American, Bunche’s accomplishments in the world of peace are mind boggling. In 1950, Bunche was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating the 1949 Armistice Agreements between Israel and four Arab states. He was the first African American and person of color to receive the award, long before Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Sadly, Bunche’s rich legacy is almost a distant memory as he has not been given the honor he truly deserves, particularly at the UN where he served faithfully for a quarter of a century. Walking into UN world headquarters in New York City, one is

Ralph Bunche, U.N. Undersecretary for special political affairs, holds a press conference in Leopoldville, Republic of the Congo, January, 1963.

(United Nations Photo)

Credit: ucla.edu

immediately struck by the lack of any physical honors to Dr. Bunche either in the form of a statue, head bust, or even photographs on the walls.

Pushing Back Against Racism:

“It is remarkable that, except for Bunche’s appearance on a 20-cent stamp in 1982, there is little recognition in the United States today of this remarkable diplomat.”

this latest swimming pool incident, which has been perpetrated upon Los Angeles negroes, my blood boils. And when I see my people so foolhardy as to patronize such a place, and thus give it their sanction, my disgust is trebled. Any Los Angeles negro who would go bathing in that dirty hole with that sign—”For Colored Only,” gawking down at him in insolent mockery of his Race, is either a fool or a traitor to his kind. It is true we have made a rather feeble protest against it. But why stop with that—because of a slight set-back? Must we go on passively like lambs in the fold and accept such conditions, which can only be the forerunner of greater discrimination in the future?” (Credit: https://newsroom.ucla.edu/)

Stephen Zunes - Baltimore Sun

Dr. Bunche Last Honored At United Nations In 2003 It has been nearly nearly 20 years since the UN last honored Dr. Bunche back in October 2003 with an exhibition entitled: “The Life and United Nations Career of Ralph Johnson Bunche”.

Since then, Dr. Bunche’s legacy at the UN has all but faded away. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department Of State honored Dr. Bunche in major way during Black History Month February 2020. Dr. Bunche became the first African American Desk Officer at the U.S. Department of State in 1944.

Dr. Ralph Bunche’s diplomatic work helped shape some of the most significant moments of 20th Century Dr. Bunche is best known for his successful mediation of the Armistice Agreements between Arab nations and Israel. It was the first and only time in the long history of the Middle East conflict that peace agreements were signed by all of the nations involved. Dr. Bunche was a great man of peace. It is imperative that his legacy is not forgotten. Dr. Bunche is a hero and inspiration not only for Black Americans but for all of us in the world who want to live in peace.

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“I want to tell you that when I think of such outrageous atrocities as

Peace In Our Time And The United Nations:

“If today we speak of peace, we also speak of the United Nations,

for in this era, peace and the United Nations have become inseparable. If the United Nations cannot ensure peace, there will be none. If war should come, it will be only because the United Nations has failed. But the United Nations need not fail.

Surely, every man of reason must work and pray to the end that it will not fail. In these critical days, it is a high privilege and a most rewarding experience to be associated with the United Nations — the greatest peace effort in human history....

Unfortunately, there may yet be some in the world who have not learned that today war can settle nothing, that aggressive force can never be enough, nor will it be tolerated. If this should be so, the pitiless wrath of the organized world must fall upon those who would endanger the peace for selfish ends. For in this advanced day, there is no excuse, no justification for nations resorting to force except to repel armed attack... (Credit: https://newsroom.ucla.edu/)

“Peace is no mere matter of men fighting

or not fighting. Peace, to have meaning for many who have known only suffering in both peace and war, must be translated into bread or rice, shelter, health and education, as well as freedom and human dignity — a steadily better life. If peace is to be secure, long-suffering and long-starved forgotten peoples of the world, the under-privileged and the under-nourished, must begin to realize without delay the promise of a new day and a new life....

There will be no security in our world, no release from agonizing tension, no genuine progress, no enduring peace, until, in Shelley’s fine words, ‘reason’s voice, loud as the voice of nature, shall have waked the nations.” (Credit: https://newsroom.ucla.edu/)

Ralph Bunche Was An “Accidental Diplomat” -Grandson Ralph Bunche III Reflects Fondly

By Gary Raynaldo Diplomatic Times

R alph Johnson Bunche was the ultimate American peacemaker. A powerful voice in world affairs.

“He was an accidental diplomat – he worked on issues that mattered to him and that led him to focus on decolonization, peacekeeping and mediation.”

– Ralph Bunche III said speaking about his grandfather recently during Black History Month. The life of Ralph Bunche was celebrated by the State Department as a Hero of US Diplomacy, with reflections on his legacy as relayed by his grandson. Ralph Bunche III also explained that his grandfather’s legacy was “embedded in who we are as a family.” He said it was Mr. Bunche’s grandmother who raised him and really was the driver of his life and how he viewed the world.

“And the focus on that was education.

Education was the most important thing that he sees for the advancement of peoples generally. And it is a key point in our life.” Ralph Bunche III told the audience that he grew up in England, as was evidenced by his British accent. He said education and studying was everything for his grandfather as well as for him growing up in England. He said Mr, Bunche’s extraordinary studying habits came from his grandmother who pushed him hard to value education. He also reflected on how accidental his grandfather was a diplomat. “He was only in the foreign service for a short time. He valued being an independent, international civil servant. But it was difficult to remain neutral in his role as a diplomat.” Ralph Bunche III then told the audience of mostly State Department employees that “each and everyone of you in this room are engaged in that struggle of wanting to engage more in the domestic affairs of the United States but not being able to because of your role (in foreign service)” He added that they should not see it as a failure not to engage, but as a success

Credit: Gary Raynaldo / Mr. Ralph Bunche III in front of one of his grandad’s Department of State letters at Heroes of U.S. Diplomacy event at the National Museum of American Diplomacy. on February 27, 2020 Wash. D.C.

of wanting to take positions on domestic issues but unable to. “It is a success to deal with that internal tension and to maintain your neutrality in your role is an incredibly difficult thing to do, and should be celebrated.”

Dr. Bunche worked at the Department of State as the first African American Desk Officer, before helping to establish the United Nations and joining its staff in 1946. This year marks the 71st anniversary of his receiving the Nobel Peace Prize for his work negotiating a cease-fire between the new state of Israel and Arab nations in the region.

“He [Dr. Bunche] was working on the issue that was in front of him and mattered to him – the situation of African Americans in the United States. That led him to look into the state of subjugated peoples around the world…which then led him to looking at the Civil Rights movement in the United States with an internationalist outlook. He didn’t intend for any of this – it was all kind of accidental. He was an accidental diplomat.”

In addition to his diplomatic work, Dr. Bunche was active in the civil rights movement. In 1936, Bunche helped establish the National Negro Congress, an organization committed to labor and civil rights for African Americans. By the 1960s, Bunche marched with Martin Luther King, Jr. in Washington, D.C. and in Selma, Alabama. However, many more radical members of the civil rights movement were critical of Dr. Bunche. At the Hero of Diplomacy celebration, a panelist, Dr. Ravi Perry, Chair of Howard

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University’s Depment of Political Sc ence reflected on Mr. Bunche’s background as a political scientist, which he said laid the foundation for his great peacekeeping achievements. Dr. Perry also pointed out the ambivalence certain segments of the African American community viewed Mr. Bunche during the crucial Civil Rights era.

“African Americans had mixed views about Ralph Bunche. Moderate, mainstream Blacks supported his measured, pragmatic approach to politics to solve Black issues to be appropriate. Then there were those on the left like Malcolm X and Stokely Carmichael who wrote him letters and in private sessions stating he had not done enough. He always wrestled with that, and the difficulty of being an international civil servant.”

-Dr. Ravi Perry Mr. Perry added that Mr. Bunche had been working quietly behind the scenes as early as 1939 on behalf of advancing African American rights, for example, arguing for equality with the Republican National Committee.

Credit: Gary Raynaldo / Ralph Bunche III

Dr. Perry shared a quote from Dr. Bunche: “As political scientists, we should never lose sight of the human.” Bunche applied this to his work both domestically and internationally. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield also participated in the Heros of Dipolmacy panel discussion serving as moderator. Thomas-Greenfield is an American diplomat who served as the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs in the United States Department of State’s Bureau of African Affairs from 2013 to 2017. Thomas-Greenfield will serve as the U.S. Ambassador to the UN in the new President Joe Biden administration.

“He sought liberation at home as well as abroad.

He broke down barriers, not just in the context of civil rights, but also in the context of global world challenges.”

-Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield

Dr. Ralph Johnson Bunche Is A True Hero Of United States Diplomacy “Dr. Bunche Deserves Major

By Gary Raynaldo Diplomatic Times

The problem with writing about

Dr. Ralph J. Bunche’s life is where to start. Dr. Bunche accomplished so much in the world of peace and civil rights. Since he is most famous for winning the Nobel Peace Prize I will start there. In 1950, Bunche was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating the 1949 Armistice Agreements between Israel and four Arab states. He was the first African American and person of color to receive the award. The peace agreement Dr. Bunche negotiated is groundbreaking. “A forgotten voice in world affairs Peacemaker: Ralph J. Bunche deserves major recognition for Israel’s existence”, observed Stephen Zunes writing in the Baltimore Sun May 17, 1998. Zunes also addresses how Dr. Bunche’s accomplishments have mostly gone unnoticed.

“During the media coverage of the 50th anniversary of Israel, there has been scant mention of the African-American who won the Nobel Peace Prize for mediating a truce in the Arab-Israeli war in 1948.

This overlooked figure is Ralph J. Bunche, the United Nations diplomat who prodded the Arab states into implicitly recognizing Israel and helped to legitimize the Jewish state in the international community.”

(UN Photo / Ralph Bunche, the veteran UN official and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. 1 September 1950. Below: Ralph J. Bunche at the United Nations Security Council to discuss the situation in the Congo November 20, 1961. (UN Photo)

Ralph Bunche. U Thant (left) Acting Secretary-General of U.N. with Gen. I.J. Rikhye, Adviser to the Secretary-General on the Congo at the Security Council 1961.

Credit: Gary Raynaldo / Exhibit at National Museum of Diplomacy highlighting Ralph Bunche’s work for peace with the UN, include, top left, a UN peacekeeping “Blue Beret” worn by Bunche in the field, his UN arm band, and upper right, replica of Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Bunche in 1950. Postal Stamp.

-Stephen Zunes - Baltimore Sun.

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Recognition for Israel’s Existence” - Stephen Zunes -The Baltimore Sun. Well, if this is true, how come Mr. Bunche has not been given the recognition he truly deserves more than 20 years after Zunes wrote his article? It is really quite incredulous that Ralph remains a forgotten voice in world affairs even to this day!

“With the notable exceptions of Bunche, Andrew Young and Donald McHenry, few African-Americans have played major roles U.S. foreign policy” - Stephen Zunes

Maybe it was because Ralph was not a flamboyant race baiter in the mold of Jesse Jackson that the media never quite latched onto him.

Perhaps it was his unmatched intellect and analysis of world affairs that many in the media found intimidating and chose to ignore him. I must admit that as an African American, I never really heard much about Ralph and all his accomplishments when I was young in college. I also have to come clean and admit that when I did read about Ralph later after I graduated from college and began my career as a journalist with the Black Press I wrongly concluded that Ralph was too establishment and not down for the Black cause. I simply could not believe that someone who was Harvard educated, a U.S. Department of State civil servant, and a diplomat at the United Nations could possibly be sincere about change for Africa and U.S. Civil Rights. Boy, was I wrong! Ralph is one of the most important African Americans or Americans, for that matter, of the 20th Century without a doubt. I discovered this only about two years ago by deep reading and research on Ralph’s life and accomplishments. I will do my part as a journalist to write about this great American as much as I can to make sure the legacy of Dr. Ralph J. Bunche is not forgotten. Ralph is a true Hero of Diplomacy!

Early Life Of Ralph Bunche Greatly Influenced

By Grandma’s Push For Academic Excellence DIPLOMATIC TIMES

died while Ralph was still studying at Harvard. It was while Ralph was a student at UCLA that he began to develop his oratory skills that would serve him well later in his career as a diplomat and peace mediator at the United Nations. Ralph joined a debating team and took part in oratorical contests.

In a contest in 1926, Ralph tackled the issue of peace. Ralph began his speech with one of his favorite quotation, the words of the Prophet Isaiah:

Ralph Bunch’ was born in Detroit,

MI in 1904 to parents Olive Agnes Johnson and Frederick O. Bunch.

Ralph’s mother died in 1917 and his father re-married leaving the family.

Ralph’s maternal grandmother Lucy Taylor Johnson later gave Ralph and his sister a start on their new life in Los Angeles by adding an “e” to their family name, according to his biography Ralph Bunche: An American Life - By Brian Urquhart 1993. Ralph was a star basketaball player in High School and earned an athletic scholarship at UCLA. Ralph became a respectable scholar at UCLA. He practiced the art of oratory and debate and became president of the Southern Branch Debating Society. Ralph also wrote articles for the UCLA newspaper Daily Bruin. Ralph was also a star of the UCLA basket ball team. Ralph’s grandmother had a major impact on Ralph’s motivation and confidence to excel in academics. His grandmother reared him and his sister after they lost their parents in childhood. In a 1968 interview, Ralph spoke of his grandmother’s influence on his educational and career motivations:

“She instilled in me a desire to do my best in anything I tried to do so that I could have a sense of achievement and experience pride.

She taught me the value of self-respect and dignity. Although having little education herself, she appreciated the value of education and insisted that I should get as much of it possible, and the best possible.”

-Ralph Bunche

Ralph Bunche in early years circa 1924 (wiki)

Nana stayed on Ralph constantly encouraging and monitoring his academic progress. She reportedly marched into his High School, which was predominately white, and demanded that the Principal take him out of vocational classes. Nana demanded Ralph be placed in classes that would prepare him for university.

“This boy is going to college and he must be ready for it,” his grandmother said. Ralph would later recount that he would never had gone to college had not it been for Nana’s encouragement and fighting for him. Ralph graduated from UCLA with the highest honors in Political Science and the top grades in his class. He was also Class Valecdictorian. Ralph gave the University’s Commencement speech during which he stated that “Humanity’s problem today is how to be saved from itself ” and noted the importance of developing the “socially valuable man.”

In 1927, Ralph earned a grant of a fellowship at Harvard University to do graduate work in political science.

Ralph went on to earn a Master’s Degree and Doctorate from Harvard, specializing in French colonial policy, while also teaching at Howard University in Washington D.C. Ralph holds the distinction of being the first African-American to be awarded a doctorate in political science. Nana would live long enough to see her grandson graduate from UCLA. Nana’s last letter to Ralph before she passed away concluded with her asking him “will you finish at Harvard this year?” She

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“They shall beat their swords into plough-shares; and their spears into pruning hooks’ nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.” -Isaiah 2:4 The Biblical Old Testament scripture pretty much sums up Ralph’s quest for world peace at a very early age. Ralph also learned early on in college that education was key for Blacks to rise above any inferiority complex with regard to Whites. Ralph stated that the only way to break down “this infernal inferiority complex which besets so many of our kind” was increasing education, which he believed was the only way Blacks could compete with other races. During a speech at UCLA, Ralph stated: “We must meet their standards or be left in the rut. And heaven know’s we’ve been in the rut long enough already...You know it’s often said of our Race that we are kings of the alibi.”

HARVARD While Ralph was still studying at UCLA, he wrote to William E.B. Dubois, the nation’s foremost Black intellectual activist at the time informing him he at been granted a scholarship at Harvard. After five weeks at Harvard in the Fall of 1927, Ralph decided to pursue a Ph.D. in poliltical science. Ralph observed that there was no more than about thirty or forty black students studying at Harvard then.

Ralph was described by fellow black students as being involved in discussions on race relations and strategies for challenging the color line. He was also remembered as being very outspoken, articulate and approachable, making friends with ease.

While at Harvard, Ralph earned extra money working in a secondhand bookstore in Harvard Square. In 1928, Ralph completed his Master’s Degree and for the next six years alternated between teaching at Howard University and working toward the doctorate at Harvard. The Rosenwald Fellowship, which he held in 1932-1933, enabled him to conduct research in Africa for a dissertation comparing French rule in Togoland and Dahomey. He completed his dissertation in 1934 with such distinction that he was awarded the Toppan Prize for outstanding research in social studies. From 1936 to 1938, on a Social Science Research Council fellowship, he did postdoctoral research in anthropology at Northwestern University, the London School of Economics, and Capetown University in South Africa.

HOWARD UNIVERSITY Ralph was an instructor at Howard University in Washington D.C., one of the premiere historically Black colleges in the United States. At Howard, Ralph helped set up the political science department. However, Ralph soon found HU to be a “confining” environment which he made up his mind to escape. Ralph and similiar thinking colleagues of his had a distrust of the “Black Bourgeoisie”. Ralph recounted his experience working under Mordecai Johnson, the President of HU to The New Yorker. “Mordecai once openly criticized me in a faculty meeting. ‘Bunche is going all the way to Africa to find a problem’. Negro colleges are petty places. The horizon is very limited, very narrow. They can be a graveyard. They know they exist as expedients. They’re not in the free, competitive market. I had to get out.” But one great thing at HU, is that Ralph met his future wife Ruth Harris.

Dr. Ralph Bunche Was The “Dynamo” Of African Decolinization And Mentor To The First Generation Of Liberation leaders With his perspective broadened by his studies in Africa, Ralph came to believe that the Class Struggle would supplant the Race Struggle. He viewed the world as a giant class struggle between the haves and the have nots. Ralph also oppossed Pan-Africanism, which he viewed as a distraction from the right road to African liberation.

Diplomatic Times Staff

Ralph Bunche’s desire to travel to Africa in the late 1920’s was met with incredualty from the President of Howard University where he was a professor. The university president was astounded that Bunche wanted to focus on international problems rather than domestic ones. He reportedly said: “Bunche is going all the way to Africa to find a problem.” Indeed, Ralph travled all the way to Africa to find a problem. In 1931, Ralph accepted a $2,000 Rosenwald Fellowship to do a comparison of French Colonial Administration in the French colony of Dahomey and Togoland. In June 1932, Ralph sailed for Europe spending four months in France, gathering data from the French Colonial and Mandates Office. While in Paris, Ralph mingled with the community of Black inellectuals and artists who left America for a better life. Ralph then travled to Geneva preparing background material and research and meeting with officials from the League of Nations.

From Europe, Ralph traveled to French Togoland and Dahomey to study colonial administration up close and personal. Ralph arrived in West Africa in November 1932 and visited Senegal, Togoland, Dahomey, Ghana, and Liberia. Ralph summed up his observations in Africa:

ENGLAND 1937

(wikithinglink.com)

Ralph traveled to London, England in 1937. In London, Ralph observed that the English were racist but in a far more subtle manner than Americans.

Ralph studied at the London School of Economics. While in London, Ralph met many African students who embraced Pan-Africanism such as Jomo Kenyatta, a Kenyan anti-colonial activist and politician who governed Kenya as its Prime Minister from 1963 to 1964 and then as its first President from 1964 to his death in 1978. He also had study sessions at the homes of Pan-African groups from the Gold Coast, Uganda, Kenya.

Ralph would view that educated Africans tended too be individualistic and self-centered and that there was very little hope for Pan-Africanism or African unity. In London, Ralph also met Paul Robeson, an American bass baritone concert artist and stage and film actor who became famous both for his cultural accomplishments and for his political activism. Ralph also became acquainted with George Padmore, a Trinidadian who was a leading Pan-Africanist, journalist, author, and memeber of the Communist Party. Padmore had also been a student of Ralph’s at Howard U.

“One of Bunche’s greatest “The African is no longer to be considered a Barba- purposes was decolonization. rian, nor even a child. But only an adult retarded in He was the dynamo of decoterms of Western Civilizalonization and he was actution.” ally, one way or another, the -Ralph Bunche 1933 teacher and mentor of quite SOUTH AFRICA 1937 Ralph believed that although race most certainly was a factor in imperialism in the 1930’s when he visited Africa, greed was at a number of the first genera- Ralph set sail from England aboard a the heart of racial oppression. He further ship and arrived in Cape Town, South was of the opinion that imperialism was an tion of liberation leaders in Africa in September 1937. Ralph international expression of capitalism. It studied the political, economic, and bothered Ralph that throughout the worsocial status of the non-European Africa.” ld the masses of non-whites were exploited groups of South Africa. Ralph’s traby so very few whites. Here is where critics slapped a Marxist jacket on Ralph for such thinking. However, Ralph was by no means a Marxist. Ralph simply worked all his life for peace and equality -not Marxism.

-Sir Brian Urquhart ‘Ralph Bunche An American Life’

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vels took him to Lesotho, Thaba’Nchu, afeking, Johannesbourg, Pretoria, and Durban. Ralph came face-to-face with “Europeans Only” signs and the immoral separation of the races.

DR. RALPH J. BUNCHE:

“HE IS NOW SHAMEFULLY FORGOTTEN” -Brian Urquhart - Ralph Bunche Invented Peacekeeping LEGACY OF RALPH BUNCHE:

By Gary Raynaldo

Diplomatic Times

“ I think there are two legacies: one, I mean, obvious is the sort of practical ones. I mean his enormous contribution to the early civil rights movement, even before it was called civil rights movement, both as an activist and a writer; his contribution to the writing of “An American Dilemma”, which was the most important book still, I think, on the race problem in the United States; his work on the Charter – he’s the only person I know who drafted two chapters of the UN Charter. He then became a UN civil servant and, of course, he’s well known for mediating the end of the first Arab-Israeli war, the armistice agreements between Israel and for which he got the Nobel Peace Prize. And this was the only written agreement between Israel and its Arab neighbours, I think, for some 30 years. So it was an amazing achievement.”

-Sir Brian Urquhart - Nov. 20, 2003 interview.

“A changemaker who was the first Afri-

can American to win the Nobel Peace Prize, Ralph Bunche is considered the ‘Father of Peacekeeping’ for his contributions to the United Nations. And yet his is not a name many would recognize.” That is the description of Bunche in a Mar. 20, 2019 short documentary produced by the United Nations entitled: UN In Action - Ralph Bunche: Hero for Peace.

“Ralph Bunche was an incredibly modest man.

He’s now shamefully forgotten.”

-Sir Brian Urquhart Sir Brian Urquhart, who is the author off the definative biogaphy of Ralph Bunche said sadly in a Nov. 20, 2003 UN interview that Bunche is now “shameully forgotten.”

Urquhart, a former UN official, was very close to Bunche having worked with him for many years at the international organization. “He’s the only person I know who drafted two Chapters in the UN Charter,” Urquhart said in the 2003 interview that coincided with the centennial celebration by the UN of Bunche’s birth in 1903.

It is truly sad that the “Father of Peacekeeping”, a titan of 20th century diplomcacy is now considered all but forgotten despite his great achievements and contributions to world peace. Right across the street from the world headquaters of the United Nations builidng in New York City is an almost unnoticed monument to Bunche: RALPH BUNCHE PARK. It is a small municiapal public park under the operation of the NY City Parks Department rather than the UN. It is a pedestrian plaza named in honor of Bunche. If one was not intentionally looking for it, it is as if the park does not exist. It is hidden like his legacy.

“Ralphe Bunche Invented Peacekeeping” - Urquhart “ I mean Bunche created this whole techniRalph Bunche Park located across the street from United Nations world headquarters in New York City, que of mediation, which he used in getting the NY. This pedestrian plaza is named in honor of Ralph Bunche, a titan of 20th century diplomacy and the first African-American recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. At the center of the park, the 50-foot tall obelisk armistice agreement between the Israelis and Peace Form One pierces the sky, dedicated as an homage to Bunche by sculptor and friend Daniel Larue the Arabs, and then he created actually from Johnson. scratch peacekeeping. It didn’t exist in the UN Charter at all. It was an idea which had never been mentioned. And I think that was much easier in a way, but on the other hand you couldn’t have got any of those things done if we hadn’t had a person of enormous gifts. I mean, not only gifts of intellect but gifts of personality and gifts of honesty and understanding,” Sir Urquhart observed.

“They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more”

Ralph Bunche Park Isaiah wall and stairs across First Avenue from the United Nations headquarters. It was built and dedicated in 1948 during construction of the U.N. headquarters and has the famous quotation from Isaiah 2:4: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” incised into its wall.

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-Isaiah 2:4 The above is an inscription from the Bible Book of Isaiah etched into a wall at across the steet from the United Nations on the west side of First Avenue at 43d Street. Known as The Isaiah Wall, it was originally a retaining wall built by the city at the site of Tudor City. It is now part of the little, nondescript park named in honor of Mr. Bunche. It is not a very fitting honor to this great, great man of peace who helped build the United Nations. In fact, the UN has nothing to do with the NY City-owned park.

Ralph Bunche Won The Nobel Prize For Bringing Peace Between Arabs and Jews

By Gary Raynaldo Diplomatic Times

away from in a continuous state of frustration.” On Sept. 23, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly set up a commission to consider the Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) But Ralph was always hopeful througout the negotiations calling himself an “incurable optimist.” Ralph worked long hours into the early mornings at great sacrifice to his health and family. Ralph was away from his home in New York shuttling between Stockholm, Paris, London, Egypt, Jordan, and Greece during the two years of mediating the Arab-Israeli conflict. Ralph’s main base of operations was the small Greek island of Rhodes. In fact, Bunche was so confident in his eventual success that he had commissioned a local potter to make commemorative ceramics, which he then presented to the representatives upon the signing of the document. Bunche reportedly told the negotiators that once they signed the armistice agreement, they’d each get one of the plates as a souvenir.

On Sept. 17, 1948, Jewish terrorists assassi-

nated the UN Mediator for Palestine Count Folke Bernadotte of Sweden in West Jerusalem as he sought to bring peace to the Middle East. A member of the right-wing group that assassinated him offered a chilling account of the motive in a 1971 interview: “We knew that if Bernadotte with his magnetic personality and all his influence came and talked with his plan in Paris, the General Assembly would decide for this plan and endorse it. So we had to kill him on this day.”

Ralph Bunche was Bernadotte’s deputy and chief adviser at the time of the assasination.

It was not lost on Ralph that he was most certainly intended to have been gunned down by assasins along with Bernadotte. “Just think.

That was only the second or thrid time since we’ve been out here that I wasn’t riding next to him in the back seat of the car. It just wasn’t my time to go, I guess,” Ralph wrote in a letter to his wife. Against this backdrop, Ralph would succeed Bernadotte and become the acting UN Mediator for Palestine and go on to win the Noble Peace Prize in 1950. Ralph was acclaimed as the oustanding mediator of the Arab-Israeli conflict for his help in negotiating the end of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war by getting the combatants to sign armistice agreements. This was not easy task. The Arab-Israeli conflict was and continues to be one of the most of the most frustrating and difficult problems that have faced the international community since World War II. The origins of the conflict can be traced back to Jewish immigration and sectarian conflict in Mandatory Palestine between Jews and Arabs.

It has been referred to as the world’s “most intractable conflict,” with the ongoing Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip surpassing 50 years. But in 1949, Ralph some how managed to bring peace between the Arabs and Jews. The Jews have laid claim to Palestine baseed on Israel conquring Palestine some 3,000 years ago. Ralph explained the monumental task ahead of him and the United Nations: “One thing seems seems sure, this problem can’t be solved on the basis of abstract justice, historical or otherwise. Reality is that both Arabs and Jews are here and intend to stay. Therefore in any ‘solution’ some group, or at least its claim, is bound to get hurt. ...the mental strain is the heaviest I have ever experienced. This Palestinian problem is so complicated and serious that many of us walk

The prestigious international Alfred Nobel Prize Award (credit: Wikipedia)

“I am not unaware, of course, of the special and broad significance of this award – far transcending its importance or significance to me as an individual – in an imperfect and restive World in which inequalities among peoples, racial and religious bigotries, prejudices and taboos are endemic and stubbornly persistent. From this northern land has come a vibrant note of hope and inspiration for vast millions of people whose bitter experience has impressed upon them that color and inequality are inexorably concomitant. May there be freedom, equality and brotherhood among all men. May there be morality in the relations among nations. May there be, in our time, at long last, a world at peace in which we, the people, may for once begin to make full use of the great good that is in us.”

-Ralph Bunche, acceptance speech upon winning the Nobel Peace Prize 1950

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When the Israeli negotiator Moshe Dayan asked what he would have done if they had failed to come to an agreement, Bunche replied, “I’d have broken the plates over your damn heads!”

The Father of Peacekeeping

In 1950, Bunche was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace for his successful mediation of a series of armistice agreements between the new nation of Israel and four Arab neighbors, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. It was a monumental achievement not only because Bunche became the first person of color in the world to be so honored. But more importantly because it was the first, and to date it remains the only, time that all the parties to the Middle East conflict signed armistice agreements with Israel. And it is noteworthy to take a look at the competition for that year’s Nobel Peace Prize. Bunche was competing with Winston Churchill, Harry S. Truman, Albert Schweitzer and George C. Marshall.

After winning the prestigious award, Bunche became rightfully known all over the world as the “Father of Peacekeeping.” Bunche set the mold for peacekeeping as it was a mostly novel concept at the time. Bunche was of the firm belive that there was no human problem that could not eventually be solved. Bunche was blessed with this wonderful God-given gift of peacekeeping in an often evil world.

Ralph Bunche Denounced Assassination of UN Mediator Count Bernadotte as “Outrage” Against The International Community Diplomatic Times Staff

The assassination of Count Folke Bernadotte

deeply affected Ralph Bunche. Ralph denounced the murder as an “outrage against the international community and an unspeakable violation of elementary morality.” Also for Ralph, the assassination hit too close to home as he had previously nearly always rode in the back seat of a car with Bernadotte while they were in Israel.

Ralph was also shocked at the sheer barbarity of the murder. The perpetrators of the henious crime belonged to a Zionist underground group known as LEHI, that was led by Yitzhak Shamir, Dr. Israel Scheib, and Nathan Friedman-Yellin, which waged a campaign of “personal terror” to force the British out of Palestine. Yitzhak Shamir, who played a role in planning the assasination, would never be tried and was later elected Israel’s 8th Prime Minister serving two terms, 1983–84 and 1986–1992. LEHI was also known as the “Stern Gang.” LEHI accused Count Bernadotte of being a British agent. LEHI also considered Bernadotte’s UN partion plan for Palestine to be a threat to its goal of Israeli independence on on both banks of the Jordan River. They wanted to prevent the “internationalization” of Jersusalem.

Bernadotte had recommended that Jerusalem be in Arab territory under international supervision . The Jewish extremists vowed to protect Jerusalem by any means necessary. In NY Times column July 24, 1948, columnist C.L. Sulzberger reported meeting with two LEHI members who stated: “We intend to kill Bernadotte and any other uniformed United Nations observers who come to Jerusalem.” When Sulzberger asked why, “They replied that their organization was determined to seize all of Jerusalem for the State of Israel and would brook no interference by any national or international body.”

None of LEHI’s leaders or the actual gunmen were ever caught although they were early known to Israel’s leaders.

Israeli authorities failed to adequately investigate the murder and failed to punish the culprits. Ralph was critical of Israel’s failure to assure Bernadotte’s safety in Jerusalem. Ralph said Bernadotte’s saftery was an Israeli responsibility becacuse at the time of his assassination, he had been in the presence of and Israeli liason officer and was within the Israeli lines. Ralph then spent September 23-25 writing a full report of the incident to the UN Security Council. The report heavily indicted not only the Jewish terrorists but also called attention to what he termed as the

Count Folke Bernadotte (left) with Ralph Bunche in Israel 1948 (Credit: Wikipedia Commons Public Domain)

“The crucial work to be done here would not permit me to accompany Bernadotte’s body to Stockholm. I’m trying to keep a lid on the truce. This is a grim business I’m in.”

-Ralph Bunche letter to wife Ruth September 1948-

ambivalence of Israeli authorities. Ralph also made note of the steady stream of attacks in the local Jewish press on both the mediator and the Truce Supervison Organization prior to the murder, accusing both of bias and discrimination. Ralph suggested the Jewish authorities had been very lax about the UN Mediator’s safety in his scathing report to the UN Security Council Sept. 27, 1948. In his report Ralph describes the day of 17th September, 1948, “the murder took place in Jerusalem of Count Bernadotte, the United Nations Mediator for Palestine, and of Colonel Andre Serot. The murderers, who travelled in a jeep, were wearing Jewish military uniforms. The murder took place in the Jewish held area of the city, according to a UN report: Two men dressed in Israeli Army uniforms and armed with automatic weapons of sten or tommygun type, approached left side of car in which mediator was riding. Carefully scrutinizing passengers, one of them thrust his gun through rear left window and fired several bursts directly at mediator, killing him and Colonel Serot. Two other men armed with similar guns approached mediator’s car from right and fired, apparently for purpose of covering assault and preventing pursuit. Subsequent examination of car showed ten certain and two possible bullet perforations in back seat upholstery and right side of chassis, and in addition one bullet perforation through front of chassis and another through top of radiator grill.”

“The ruthless assassination of Count Folke Bernadotte, United Nations Mediator in Palestine, and of United Nations Observer Colonel Andre Serot of the French Air Force, in Jerusalem on Friday, 17 September 1948, was the result of a deliberate and planned attack aimed at the person of the Mediator and at the authority of the United Nations in Palestine.”

-27 Septemeber 1948 From Ralph Bunche To The Secretary-General Transmitting Report Regarding The Assassination of the United Nations Mediator.

Count Bernadotte street sign in Gaza City, Gaza Strip Palestine (credit: Wikipedia Commons)

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“At the time of the fatal attack in Jerusalem, Count Bernadotte and his party had no armed protection of any kind. Official recognition of his presence in the Jewish area of Jerusalem was extended by Israel authorities in assignment of official liaison officer, who was travelling with mediator’s party, in lead car, at time of the assault. This liaison officer however was unarmed,” Ralph wrote in his scathing report to the UN Security Council.

Ralph Bunche Was Deeply Involved In The Civil Rights Movement In America Diplomatic Times Staff

Ralph Bunche is well known for

being an international man of peace.

However, Ralph’s deep involvement in the U.S. Civil Rights struggle is often over looked by his world peace accomplishments. Bunche was a major player in the civil rights struggle serving nearly 25 years on the board of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and marching alongside the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in the Selma to Montgomery march.

“He sought liberation at home as well as abroad. He broke down barriers, not just in the context of civil rights, but also in the context of global world challenges.” -Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said at Heroes of U.S. Diplomacy at Department of State event honoring Dr. Bunche in Washington D.C. February 27, 2020.

However, back in the day, Ralph was unfairly maligned by some leading civil righths leaders accusing him of being too establishment and not doing enough. Scholars point to the ambivalence certain segments of the African American community viewed Bunche during the crucial civil rights era. “African Americans had mixed views about Ralph Bunche. Moderate, mainstream Blacks supported his measured, pragmatic approach to politics to solve Black issues to be appropriate. Then there were those on the left like Malcolm X and Stokely Carmichael who wrote him letters and in private sessions stating he had not done enough. He always wrestled with that, and the difficulty of being an international civil servant,” Dr. Ravi Perry, Chair of Howard University’s Department of Political Science said at Feb. 27, 2020 event honoring Bunche in Washington D.C. Dr. Perry added that Mr. Bunche had been working quietly behind the scenes as early as 1939 on behalf of advancing African Ameri-

The Rev. Ralph Abernathy, far left, Ralph Bunche (with glasses), the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and Coretta Scott King in the Selma march, 1965. Bunche, a UN official, told marchers that the UN supported their cause. (Source PASSBLUE.com June 9, 2020 BRUCE DAVIDSON/COURTESY HOWARD GREENBERG GALLERY) PASSBLUE.com - The UN Must March for Justice and Racial Equality

can rights, for example, arguing for equality with the Republican National Committee. Meanwhile, back when Ralph was serving as the acting mediator in the Arab-Israeli situation in the Middle East, W.E.B. Du Bois, the influential African American rights activist, launched a scathing attack on Ralph. Speaking before the American Jewish Congress at Madison Square Garden, Du Bois accused Ralph of betraying the interests of the Jewish people. Du Bois attacked Ralph for being part to a “disgraceful betrayal” of the Jews by the U.S. Department of State s the heirs of British imperialism. Ralph was deeply hurt by the scathing words of Du Bois, because he had greatly admired and respected Du Bois.

Apparently, the pain ran so deep in Ralph that he never forgot Du Bois scathing attack on his intergrity. It was all the more painful as Du Bois was a peson Ralph deeply revered and respected. Ralph even refused to serve as a sponsor for a testimonial dinner for Du Bois on his 83rd birthday. No doubt Ralph took a lot of heat from Black leadership for his decision not to honor Du Bois.

In additon, Ralph was crtiticised for his lack of support to Patricia Lumumba in the Congo.

But what a lot of folk don’t realilze is that Ralph was extremely committed to the Civil Rights movement. This is most evident in his participation in the 1965 Selma-Montgomery March with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. At the time, Ralph was nearly blind and suffering from multiple ailments including a chronic phlebitic condition that precluded any lengthy walking. There were 50 long miles between Selma and Montgomery.

Ralph mustered the strength by grace of God marching the distance in the lead alongside Dr. King, his wife Coretta Scott King and Ralph D. Abernaty. In fact, it was Dr. King who invited Ralph to join the historic march. At great risk to his health and life, Ralph marched for this important cause to demonstrate the desire of Black American citizens to exercise their constitutional right to vote, in defiance of segregationist repression.

So, you see, this great man of peace was nobody’s “Uncle Tom” when it came to standing up his fellow Black Americans. As a matter of fact, according to Bryant Urqhart’s biography, when Ralph arrived in Selma, Dr. King told him,, “Ralph, your presence gives a new dimension to our effort.”

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“When I published his biography in 1993, I was surprised to discover that virtually no one, especially African-Americans, knew of his founding role in the civil rights movement; or of the commanding part he had played in bringing about decolonization; or that, as a very sick man, he had marched with Martin Luther King on Washington and Selma and had made remarkable speeches on both occasions; or that his writing on racial problems in the sixties had a relevance and originality which have now become part of the acknowledged wisdom on the subject. I found that most people believed that this warm, humorous and wise man was a cold, faceless international bureaucrat. I was astonished to hear Isaiah Berlin, who had met him in Washington in the 1940s and in Israel, dismiss him, with Oxford omniscience, as “just an Uncle Tom.” -Bryant Urquhart recounted in UN Character Sketches.

“By God, we are here! Little more need be said. No words could be as eloquent as this magnificent, historic march, which has been made possible by the superlative leadership of Dr. King and his associates.

This morning as we walked together, I said to Dr. King that this must be your greatest triumph in the sense of all the obstacles that had to be overcome; and he agreed that it was.

Incidentally, I have discovered in the course of this March that in addition to being a great leader, Dr. King is quite a walker.

In fact he walked with such ease, in a gliding sneaky sort of stride that I began to wonder whether he was not getting a little help from the Lord. The Lord was certainly not helping my aching legs.”

-Ralph Bunche Selma March 1965

Ebenezer Don Carlos Bassett: America’s First African-American Diplomat Is Remembered For His Moral Integrity “Bassett’s courage in literally placing himself in the line of fire to protect the rights of refugees and noncombatants should still inspire us a century-and-ahalf later.”

Diplomatic Times Staff

Ebenezer Don Carlos Bassett served

as the first black United States ambassador, long before Colin Powell and Condeleeza Rice. More than one hundred and thirty years ago, Bassett bacame the first black US ambassador.

Very little is known of Bassett. “Until just a few years ago, Ebenezer Don Carlos Bassett ran the real possibility of becoming entirely forgotten to history,” writes Christopher Teal, author of the biography: Hero of Hispaniola: America’s First Black Diplomat (Praeger, 2008). As a young diplomat in 1999, Teal accidentally “rediscovered” Bassett when he began his first overseas tour in the Dominican Republic.

Teal made the recount in an article he penned for The Foriegn Service Journal.

“While walking down the hall to the office of our ambassador for a courtesy call during my first week in country, I scanned the array of pictures on the wall depicting previous U.S. envoys to the island of Hispaniola. While I recognized a few, such as Frederick Douglass, I knew nothing about Bassett, one of the first figures portrayed. Nor did anyone else in the embassy seem to know anything about him.”

-Teal writes.

The author said his curiosity was piqued and he began researching Bassett’s background. “What I found was an incredible story, which led me to write his biography.”

President Ulysses S. Grant appointed Ebenezer Bassett as the U.S. Minister to Haiti and the Dominican Repub-

Ebenezer Don Carlos was the first African American to serve as a U.S. diplomat anywhere in the world in 1869. Carlos served as ambassador to Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

lic in 1869. He was the first African American to serve as a U.S. diplomat anywhere in the world. The United States was just emerging from the Civil War and remaking itself as a nation. African Americans were slowly making advances in politics, business, education, and government.

Ebenezer Bassett helped lead this sweeping change, and notably opened the door for other African Americans to enter the diplomatic corps, including Frederick Douglass. Basset was born in 1833 in Connectiut. His father had fled slavery in the South and his mother was a Pequot Indian.

His life as a pioneer in race relations began early. In 1853, he became the first black student at the Connecticut Normal School, today known as Central Connecticut State University.

He worked for 14 years as a teacher in Philadelphia and was United States minister to Haiti from 1869 to 1877.

During the Civil War, Bassett became one of the city’s leading voices into the cause behind that conflict -- the liberation of four millions of black slaves -and helped recruit African American soldiers for the Union. In nominating Bassett to become Minister Resident to Haiti, President Ulysses S. Grant made him one of the highest ranking black members of the United States government. During his tenure, the

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-Christopher Teal Restoring Bassett’s Legacy

Christopher Teal, author of Ebenezer Bassett biography and director of film documentary on life of Bassett.

Ameican Minister Resident also dealt with cases of citizen commercial claims, diplomatic immunity for his consular and commercial agents, hurricanes, fires, and numerous tropical diseases. At the end of the Grant Administration in 1877, Bassett submitted his resignation as was customary with a change of hands in government. When he returned to the US, he spent an additional ten years as the Consul General for Haiti in New York City. Prior to this death on Nov. 13, 1908, he returned to live in Philadelphia, where his daughter Charlotte also taught at the Institute for Colored Youth. In 1888, Frederick Douglass was appointed a diplomat in Bassett’s old position in Haiti. Bassett briefly assited Douglass but the posting was not successful and ended bitterly.

Teal wrote in his article that sadly, unlike many of his peers who broke the color barrier in other professional fields, Basset’s accomplishments would soon be forgotten. “Thankfully, over the past several years, more people are beginning to review Bassett’s legacy and examine his pioneering work as an advocate for human rights in foreign policy. After my publication of his biography in 2008, his home state of Connecticut began recognizing the contributions of this distinguished native son. Both Central Connecticut State University and Yale University have established scholarships and awards in Bassett’s name, including the Bassett Award for Human Rights.”

Teal made a film, “A Diplomat of Consequence,” which his says is not just an historical documentary. “Bassett’s legacy demonstrates what diplomats have accomplished and what they do in today’s complicated environment.”

Teal said the film brings in contemporary voices of minority diplomats as a crucial component of why diversity in foreign affairs still is imperative for successful engagement today. “In the end, this is a story of character. Bassett broke many barriers through his life, and he never hesitated to do the right thing.” (Continued Page 13 )

America’s First Black Diplomat Ebenezer Bassett Paid A Price For His Uprightness Diplomatic Times Staff

Bassett served with distinction, courage, and integrity in one of the most crucial, but difficult postings of his time, historians point out. According to Christopher Teal, author of Bassett’s biography, “Upon arrival in Port-au-Prince in June 1869, Bassett found his new home torn apart by civil war,” Teal recounted in article for State, a digital magazine published by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Human Resources. Teal writes: “The 36-year-old diplomat tried to negotiate between the collapsing Haitian government and rebel forces, while trying to save civilians who were trapped in the fighting. The Department scrutinized Bassett’s actions since it had issued orders stating that civilians seeking safety during the war could not seek refugee status. As the war continued, however, thousands of civilians fled to Bassett’s residential compound.” According to Teal, Bassett wanted to protect the women and children escaping the war and went to negotiate directly with the rebels. Teal points out that Haitian rebels refused to provide protections and instead demanded a list of refugees to determine who might be enemies.

“Bassett broke many barriers through his life, and he never hesitated to do the right thing. Bassett was an important individual in tumultuous times for the United States, and his work as a diplomat deserves to be widely known and celebrated.”

“You will pardon me for reminding that the holding of women and children as hostages is repugnant to modern civilization and especially to the government of the United States,”

“Sadly, unlike many of his peers who broke the color barrier in other professional fields, his accomplishments would soon be forgotten. Ebenezer Bassett died on Nov. 13, 1908, at the age of 75.”

-Christopher Teal

-Bassett said to rebel leader General Jean-Nicolas Nissage Saget as recounted by Christopher Teal.

“With a response from Washington, D.C., weeks away by boat, Bassett stood alone as a voice for human rights and eventually succeeded in the negotiations. Bassett personally escorted the refugees to the center of the capital to return them to their homes, saving thousands from execution. During his eight years in Port-au-Prince, Bassett faced several similar incidents. With courage and leadership, he resolved many crises and prevented further conflicts, helping to pave the way for future diplomatic appointments of other minorities.” -Christopher Teal

(Credit: https://www.facebook.com/Ebenezer D. Bassett)

-Christopher Teal

The case that posed the greatest challenge to him, however, was Haitian political refugee General Pierre Boisrond Canal. The general was among the band of young leaders that had successfully ousted the former President Sylvan Salnave from power in 1869. By the time of the subsequent Michel Domingue regime in the mid 1870s Canal had retired to his home outside the capital. Domingue, the new Haitian President, however, brutally hunted down an perceived threat to his power including Canal. General Canal came to Basset and requested political asylum. A standoff resulted, with Bassett’s home surrounded by over a thousand of Domingue’s soldiers. Finally, after five-month siege of his residence, Bassett negotiated Canal’s safe release for exile in Jamaica. - Christopher Teal. Bassett’s actions did not go over too well with the State Dept.

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Clifton R. Wharton - A Pioneering Black Diplomat - The First African American To Join The United States Foreign Service Diplomatic Times Staff

Clifton R. Wharton was the first

African American to join the Foreign Service. He was also the first African American appointed as chief of a diplomatic mission to a European country. Wharton earned a master of law degree from Boston University School of Law in 1923 and joined the Department of State as a law clerk. His diplomatic career stretched across nearly four decades of distinguished service.

In 1925, Wharton became the first African American to enter the Foreign Service after the passage of the 1924 Rogers Act, which consolidated the Department’s Consular and Diplomatic Services. He would be the only African American admitted to the Foreign Service for the next 20 years. Wharton held various posts at embassies and consulates around the world—Liberia, the Canary Islands, Madagascar, the Azores, and Portugal. In 1953, he became consul general in Marseilles, France.

Clifton R. Wharton, American career diplomat

posts in small, tropical countries. According to an article in Black History Now, ‘the State Department had a long-standing policy of sending its black diplomats to Liberia—or sometimes Haiti or the Canary Islands— and keeping them there.’ BHN writes the policy dated back to Reconstruction when Ebenezer D. Basset was named the first black member of the diplomatic corps. Over the next several years, a considerable number of diplomatic appointments and postings to these countries were assigned to other African Americans. Wharton’s

First Black Diplomat To Head U.S. Misson in Europe Five years later, President Dwight Eisenhower named him minister to Romania, making him the first black career diplomat to head a U.S. mission in a European country. At the time, U.S. diplomatic relations with Romania were strained. The United States demanded reparations for damage done during the Communist takeover and froze Romanian assets in American banks. Romania accused the United States of espionage. By 1960, Wharton had helped negotiate a settlement. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy appointed him Ambassador to Norway. Wharton was the first African American career Foreign Service officer to become an Ambassador.

In May 2006 the U.S. Postal Service issued a stamp to honor his service.

Wharton spent more than 40 years in the Foreign Service. Wharton was born on May 11, 1899, in Baltimore, and graduated from English High

President John F. Kennedy sits with US Ambassador to the Kingdom of Norway, Clifton R. Wharton. Oval Office, WhitHouse, Washington, D.C. March 1961 (White House Photo.)

School in Boston. After earning a Master Degree in Law, he joined the State Department as a law clerk and in 1924, following the formation of a career Foreign Service, became the first black to pass both the written and oral examinations. Wharton was then assigned as third secretary of at the United States Embassy in Monrovia, Liberia. From 1930 to 1942 he was a consul in Las Palmas in the Canary Islands and was then named consul in Tananarive, Madagascar. He also served in Ponta Delgada in the Azores. In 1949, he was assigned as first secretary and consul in Lisbon. a huge break from the traditional pattern of assigning black diplomats to

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experience half a century later showed that establishment of the Foreign Service and introduction of the merit system had changed little. Three other African Americans who were already consulate employees—William H. Hunt, James G. Carter, and William J. Yerby—found themselves in the same situation as Wharton when they, too, earned positions as Foreign Service officers on the basis of merit in 1925: each was relegated to Liberia, Haiti, or the Canaries, BHN wrote.

Wharton Breaks State Department’s Color Barrier Wharton broke the department’s color barrier by becoming the first black diplomat to be named ambassador to

a European nation. President Harry Truman was the driving force in breaking this pattern of discrimination and racism in the State Department, according to BHN. Under Truman, in 1949, the State Department finally allowed an African American to break its unofficial color barrier when it appointed Wharton diplomatic consul to Lisbon, Portugal, BHN wrote. According to BHN, it was finally, in 1958, under President Dwight Eisenhower, the last barrier to African American careers in the State Department was breached when Wharton was appointed U.S. Ambassador to Romania. After this initial appointment as full ambassador, Wharton went on to serve in that capacity in Norway, at the behest of President John F. Kennedy. He also was asked to be the U.S. representative to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, (NATO) and to serve as a delegate to the United Nations.

“Wharton is an iconic figure in diplomatic lore, remembered as one of the first merit-based foreign service officers and as the diplomat who most proved the value of skill over favoritism.”

-Black History Now After retiring from the U.S. Foreign Service in 1964, he lived a quiet life in Phoenix, Arizona. He died there, on April 23, 1990, at the age of 90.

-Edward Richard Dudley -

First African American To Hold The Rank Of An Ambassador in 1949 Diplomatic Times Staff

Edward Richard Dudley became the

first African American to hold the rank of ambassador in 1949. In 1948, President Harry Truman sent Dudley to Liberia as U.S. Envoy and Minister.

Upon elevation of the Mission in Liberia to a full U.S. Embassy in 1949, Dudley was promoted to the rank of Ambassador. With that, Ambassador Dudley became the first black Ambassador in U.S. history. This also made him the highest ranking diplomat, often referred to as the Dean of the Diplomatic Corps, in Liberia’s capital of Monrovia. efore becoming an ambassador, Dudley had a distinguished career as an attorney. Ambassador Dudley was a civil rights lawyer in the 1940s, appointed to the New York Attorney General’s Office and then was recruited by Thurgood Marshall to become a Special Assistant at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Subsequently, he became the Legal Counsel to the Governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands, moving there with his young family.

During an oral history interview with the Association of Diplomatic Studies and Training, Ambassador Dudley recounted what he considered his highest achievement in Liberia. During this time, African American Foreign Service officers were stuck in what was perjoratively called the “negro circuit.”

Dudley describes their situation:

In Liberia “…the leading black foreign service officer there had never had the opportunity of serving anywhere else in the world, despite the fact that it was a policy of our State Department to rotate foreign service officers about every two years….”

-Ambassador Edward R. Dudley

Ambassador Edward R. Dudley became the first African American to hold the rank of U.S. Ambassador serving in the west African nation of Liberia from 1949-1953.

Ambassador Edward R. Dudley (left) with Liberian President William Tubman circa 1949 (National Museum of American Diplomacy)

Dudley contiued:

“…Despite the fact that we had scores of black people — men and women — in both the Foreign Service Officer corps and in the other areas of government such as secretaries, clerks, other people, none had ever gotten outside of a little triumvirate there that we called Monrovia, Ponta Delgada and Madagascar — all black, hardship, disagreeable posts.”

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Edward Richard Dudley was born on March 11, 1911, to Edward Richard and Nellie (Johnson) Dudley in South Boston, Virginia. Dudley was educated in the public schools of Roanoke, Virginia. was the son of a dentist in South Boston, Va. During his student years he worked as a bellhop, waiter and real estate clerk in an uncle’s office, enrolling as a pre-dental student at Johnson C. Smith College in North Carolina and graduation in 1932 with a B.S. degree. He became a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraterninty.

Dudley then taught school in Gainsboro, Virginia. He studied dentistry for a year on a scholarship at Howard University, and then moved to New York City. His wife was Rae (Elizabeth) Oley Dudley and had one child, Edward Richard Dudley jr. In New York, Dudley worked odd jobs including stage manager for Orson Welles at a public works theater project. In 1938, he enrolled at St. John’s University School of Law, graduating with an LL.B. in 1941. For a brief period he practiced law, entered Democratic politics in Harlem, and was an Assistant New York State Attorney General in 1942. In 1942, he married Rae Oley.

They had a son, Edward R. Dudley, Jr. In 1943, he joined the N.A.A.C.P. legal team. As an assistant special counsel, he wrote briefs and prepared cases seeking the admission of black students to Southern colleges, equal pay for black teachers and end to discrimination in a public transportation. He was executive assistant to the Governor of the Virgin Islands from 1945 to 1947, and was then appointed by President Harry S. Truman as Minister to Liberia in 1948 and then as ambassador in 1949. In 1953, after leaving his post as ambassador to Liberia he returned to the NAACP, and joined its “Fight for Freedom” fundraising project. He again left the NAACP in 1955 to become a Justice in Domestic Relations Court in New York City, New York. In 1955, New York City Mayor Robert F. Wagner, Jr., appointed him as justice of the Domestic Relations Court.

In 1961, Dudley was elected President of the Borough of Manhattan, where he served until 1965, becoming the first African American chairman of the New York County Democratic Committee. Also in 1965, he was elected as a Justice on the Supreme Court for the State of New York and served until 1967 when he was designated as an Administrative Judge for the Criminal Court for the City of New York. In 1971, he was appointed as an Administrative Judge on the Supreme Court of New York and served until his retirement in 1985. Dudley died in 2005 at the age of 93.

-Edward Richard Dudley - First Black American Diplomat Passport On Display at D.C. Museum

A diplomatic passport issued in 1948 to Ambassador Edward R. Dudley, the first African American to hold the rank of ambassador. The passport joins a number of documents, letters, and photographs from Dudley’s trailblazing service collected in 2019.The National Museum of American Diplomacy has collected some significant items over the years. The NMAD believes that artifacts are powerful storytelling tools which “will shed light on the work and history of our nation’s diplomats that may otherwise go unnoticed by the general public.” At over 8,000 items, according to NMAD, “the collection reflects a wide range of people, places, and issues that make up our nation’s rich diplomatic history.” NMAD also recently acquired several significant artifacts that it said vividly illustrate moments in U.S. diplomatic history and “some of the dedicated people who have served our country in diplomatic capacities.” The NMAD tells the story of the history, practice, and challenges of American diplomacy. The NMAD is located at the U.S. Department of State at the Harry S. Truman Building in Washington D.C. (Photo Credit: The National Museum of American Diplomacy) DIPLOMATIC TIMES ISSUE O5 JANUARY - MARCH 2021 PAGE 16

Susan Rice Leaves Behind Controversial Diplomatic Legacy In African Affairs Rice Accused Of Enabling Rwanda Genocide

By Gary Raynaldo Diplomatic Times

Susan Rice left behind a controversial

diplomatic legacy in Africa from Ivory Coast to Rwanda. Writing a scathing article in the Aug. 11, 2020 issue of the New York Times, columnist Bret Stephens concluded that “Susan Rice was a diplomatic disaster.” Stephens made the observation in the context of examining closely Rice’ overall record as a U.S... diplomat in Africa as then-presidential candidate Joe Biden was rumored to be considering her as a running mate.

“Still, a few facts about Rice seem to have endured. She has been a sycophant with despots. She has been inept in her diplomacy. She has played politics with human rights and played realpolitik with the truth.”

-Bret Stephens, NY Times Aug. 11, 2020.

Stephens particularly targeted Rice for her “friendships” with various African despots. He wrote that Rice later lobbied for the government of Rwanda President Paul Kagame when she was out of office, and gave him diplomatic cover when she was serving as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. In the late 1990’s several million people died in what was termed the second Congo war after Rwanda and Uganda invaded the DR Congo to clear out Hutu refugees and militia who were behind the 1994 genocide. Also in many political circles, Rice was criticized for not pushing for a U.S. military response as the genocide in Rwanda became apparent. In a February 23, 2009 interview with NPR, Ambassador Rice steadfastly defended the U.S. role: “No policymakers in Washington or on Capitol Hill or any editorial boards, for that matter, were advocating U.S. military intervention in Rwanda,” Rice says. “It wasn’t an option that was ever credibly contemplated, whether or not that would have been the right option.”

Human skulls at the Nyamata Genocide Memorial. During the Rwandan genocide of 1994, members of the Hutu ethnic majority in the east-central African nation of murdered as many as as as many as 800,000 people, mostly of the Tutsi minority. (credit: Wikipedia Commons)

Ambassador Rice has a most troubled diplomatic history regarding Rwanda when she served as then-President Bill Clinton’s special assistant and senior director for African affairs. From April 6, 1994 to July 16, 1994, an estimated 800,000 people lost their lives in a horrific killing campaign overseen by the Hutu-led government and several paramilitary organizations aganist the Tutsi minority. The 29-year-old Rice served as a lead diplomat for the Clinton administration for Africa during the genocide that occurred during Clinton’s second term in offce. At the time, the Clinton administration was haunted by the disastrous military intervention in Somalia when two Black Hawk helicopters were shot down in 1993 and dead U.S. soldiers were dragged through the streets of Mogadishu, and was reluctant to get involved and intervene in the genocide that was occuring in Rwanda. The Clinton administration, Rice particularly, was accused of turning a blind eye to the carnage developing before the world due to domestic political considerations. There have been unconfirmed reports that Rice asked her colleagues on the National Security Council that “If we use the word ‘genocide’ and are seen as doing nothing, what will be the effect on the November [congrssional] election?” Critics are also of the opinion that if the U.S. had taken early miliary action, many deaths in Rwanda could have been prevented.

“Mr. Chairman, let me be clear: the United States in no way supported, encouraged, or condoned the the intervention of Rwandan or Ugandan forces in the Congo, as some have suggested. This is a specious and ridiculous accusation that I want to lay to rest once and for all.”

-Susan Rice - Sept. 15, 1998 testimony before U.S. Congress.

Susan Rice served as the 27th United States Ambassador to the United Nations from 2009 to 2019 and and as the 24th U.S. National Security Advisor from 2013 to 2017. (credit: UN Photo)

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Veteran U.S. Diplomats Defend Susan Rice ‘s Record on Africa Bret Stephens’ article caused a firestorm of reaction from multiple U.S. policy veterans who worked with Rice during her diplomatic career. They accused him of ignorance about the African continent, and a “cherry-picking style journalism divorced from context, nuance and knowledge”. In an open letter dated Aug. 15, 2020 obtained by online news site Axios, 47 former high-ranking U.S. officials-many of whom served as American ambassadors in Africa “take strong issues” with Stephens’ NY Times column. Stephens is known for his neoconservative foreign policy opinions.

“As Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs from 19972001, Susan Rice was tireless in her effort to bring peace to the region and simultaneously transform the U.S.-African relationship into one based on mutual respect and benefit. One of the usual victims in the politics of personal assassination is the truth. This phenomenon holds in the current extrajudicial “trial” of Susan Rice. Her record is being examined with a microscope and a telescope, at times refracting the light so completely that original facts become completely obscured. Such is the case with much of the examination of Ambassador Rice’s record on Africa, particularly when she was the Clinton administration’s lead diplomat toward that continent. What should endure about Susan Rice’s relationship with Africa—and her record—is that she cared deeply about Africans and Americans, and that she was effective in bringing peace, prosperity and democracy to the continent.” - Open Letter defending diplomatic record and legacy of Ambassador Rice in Africa.

Meanshile, history will judge Madame Rice’s diplomatic legacy in Africa. But in all fairness, being in her position at the time was no easy task both as a woman and a person of color.

Susan Rice While at UN Backed Ouattara In Disputed Ivory Coast Presidential Election

(credit: UN Photo) / Susan Rice, U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations Dec. 9, 2010 at UN world headquarters in New York, NY.

By Gary Raynaldo Diplomatic Times

Ivory Coast is another subject of controversy regarding Susan Rice’s African diploma-

cy when she served as the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations. On Dec. 9, 2010, the UN Security Council issued a statement saying that Ivory Coast opposition candidate Alassane Ouattara won the disputed presidential election. The statement came after three days of debate at the UN, in which Russia expressed concern that the UN was exceeding its mandate. US ambassador to the UN ambassador Rice said a peace treaty signed after Ivory Coast’s 2002 civil war empowered the UN mission there to certify the election. The Security Council’s endorsement of Ouattara essentially left Laurent Gbagbo with almost no supporters in the outside world and paved the way for the former to become President of Ivory Coast. Apparenly, Russia demanded that Ambassador Rice’s statement that week , during which she was serving as UN Security Council president, be “corrected in the record”. In its attempt to block the Security Council statement that would recognize challenger Ouattara as the winner of the country’s disputed presidential election, Russia argued that the Council should not set the precedent of being a certifier of elections results. Russia has expressed concern that by declaring Ouattara the winner, the UN is exceeding its mandate. However, the US says the UN mission in Ivory Coast is empowered to certify the presidential election. Ivory Coast’s electoral commission announced the week before that Ouattara had won the November 28 poll, but the Constitutional Council overturned the result, awarding

DIPLOMATIC TIMES ISSUE O5 JANUARY - MARCH 2021 PAGE 18

victory to incumbent Laurent Gbagbo. Then, the head of the U.N. mission in the West African nation, Y.J. Choi, declared Ouattara the winner. On Dec. 7, 2010, Ambassador Rice said in a press conference regarding Ivory Coast:

“It is our strong view as the United States that all parties need to that result and to act in a peaceful fashion to ensure as ECOWAS said today that President-elect Ouattara is able to take up his post swiftly and peacefully in accordance with Ivorian practices and procedures. We think it is important that there be a clear and unified statements and actions by the international community that reinforce respect results for the election and reinforce our already considerable commitment of effort and resources to the maintenance of peace and security in Cote I’voire. That certainly the interest of the United States and many many other delegations express the same interest.”

The situation in Ivory Coast would continue to deteriotate into early New Year 2011. On March 30, 2011, the UN Security Council demanding an immediate end to the surge in violence against civilians in Ivory Coast, imposed targeted sanctions against Gbagbo and his close associates, while reaffirming the mandate of the United Nations mission there to protect civilians, including to prevent the use of heavy weaponry against them.

Many took issue with the UN taking sides in anoter nation’s politcal elections.

Andrew Young Outspoken UN Ambassador

-Secret PLO Meeting Destroys Diplomatic Career he doesn’t make the headlines with some vivid criticism of some country, including his own, about how they are being beastly to his fellow blacks,” according to an May 27, 1997 article in the NY Times. “But Young is not acting like a U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. He is acting instead like an ambassador of the United States. to Africa, and even like an ambassador of Black Africa to Washington.”

Andrew Young Victim of Double Standard?

By Gary Raynaldo Diplomatic Times

A secret meeting with the PLO in

1979 resulted in a major diplomatic blunder that led to the resignation of the first African American U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations-Andrew Young . “The meeting blew up into a big fiasco-U.S. officials were not supposed to talk to the PLO--and led to my resignation, Young said as recounted to Richard Scheer in the Sep. 12, 1993 Los Angeles Times. It sparked the anger of black leadership at Israel and American Jews for allegedly bringing Ambassador Young down. Many high-profile black leaders, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson, embraced the Palestinian cause and some even met with PLO head Yassar Arafat, which damaged Black-Jewish relations. Meanwhile, Israel and American Jews vehemently denied having any part in the departure of the Ambassador who resigned Aug. 14, 1979. A spokesman for the Israeli ambassador in Washington D.C. told the Washington Post on Oct. 17, 1979 : “The government of Israel and the ambassador of Israel in Washington never asked for Mr. Young’s resignation and were in no way involved in the events that led to it. This was entirely an administration decision.”

Rabbi Alexander M. Schindler of New York, president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, declared told the New York Times on Sep. 6, 1979: “Black leaders have allowed themselves to be distracted from the stark reality that the Administration which let Andrew Young go has also failed blacks and Jews and all who believe in economic justice and compassion for the poor.” In 1977, President Jimmy Carter appointed Young to serve as the United States Ambassador to the United Nations. Young was the first African-American to hold the position. Young took on the job and emerged as an outspoken ambassador to the UN under the administration of President Carter, often stirring controversy. Young “has emerged as the most talkative and controversial member of President Carter’s Cabinet as well as the most aggressive and consistent. Seldom a day goes by that

U.S Ambassador to the United Nations Andrew Young at press briefing at UN world headquarters New York Feb. 17, 1977 (UN Photo Yutaka Nagata)

“I deny that my meeting was secret-the State Department knew about it in advance and no one objected. I had given the Israeli ambassador a full report on what was going on.”

-Andrew Young, Sep. 12, 1993 Los Angeles Times

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Many supporters of Young were of the opinion that he was the victim of a double standard regarding contacts with the PLO. They pointed out that the American ambassador to Austria, an industrialist from Cleveland named Milton Wolf, also had met several times with PLO officials earlier that year. However, ambassador Wolf was not subjected to similar repercussions as Young. Ambassador Young has steadfastly maintained that he only was concerned with stopping the killings between Arabs and Jews and finding a solution for long-lasting peace in the Middle East. Meanwhile, Shortly after Young resigned as U.S. envoy to the UN, the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson on Sept. 24, 1979 travleled to the Mddle East with a plea for talks with the PLO. The Rev. Jackson upon arriving in Beruit, Lebanon Sept.

29,1979 literaly embraced PLO Leader Yasser Arafat with a big hug. That picture of Jackson embracing Arafat went around the world on the news wires.

Many would denounce Jackson for embracing Arafat in the same manner Young was denounced .

“My position has always been that aggressive diplomacy, no matter how unpopular, is necessary to stop killing. No matter how long they go, at some point there will still be some Jews and some Arabs and they will have to figure out how to live with one another . . .”

Andrew Young - Chicago Tribune Sept. 10, 1993 interview.

Patricia Roberts Harris Was First African American Female To Serve As Ambassador For United States

Fiddr First African American Female AmDiplomatic Times Staff

“Patricia Roberts Harris

is one of those quiet warriors whose life stands as a testament to excellence, tenacity, and commitment to change.”

The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture makes this assessment in descrbing the life of Ms. Harris. She was an American government official and diplomat who served under President Jimmy Carter as United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and United States Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare.

Harris was the first African American woman named to a U.S. ambassadorship and the first as well to serve in a presidential cabinet. Harris grew up in Mattoon and in Chicago. She graduated from Howard University, Washington, D.C., in 1945, pursued graduate studies for two years at the University of Chicago, and from 1946 to 1949 was a program director for the Young Women’s Christian Association in Chicago. In 1949 she returned to Washington, D.C., where she did further graduate work at American University and worked as assistant director of the American Council on Human Rights (1949–53). For six years thereafter she was executive director of the national headquarters of Delta Sigma Theta sorority. In 1960 she graduated from the law school at George Washington University and was admitted to the District of Columbia bar. After a year in the criminal division of the U.S. Department of Justice, she became associate dean of students and lecturer in law at Howard University. During 1962–65 she worked with the National Capital Area Civil Liberties Union. Although she relinquished her administrative post at Howard in 1963, she remained on the Howard faculty.

U.S. Ambassador to Luxembourg Harris became the first African American woman to serve as Ambassador

Patricia Roberts Harris was the first African American female to serve as U.S. Ambassador (Wikipedia)

when President Lyndon Johnson appointed her as the United States Ambassador to Luxembourg in 1965.

She was the first African American woman named as an American envoy. She also served as an alternate delegate to the 21st and 22nd General Assemblies of the United Nations.

After her diplomatic career, Harris returned to Howard University as a full professor, and was named Dean of the School of Law in 1969. Harris’ position at Howard was another breakthrough as she was the first woman to head an American law school. There would be more “firsts” for this dynamic lady. Shortly after taking office in 1977, President Jimmy Carter selected Harris to become Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Again Harris made history, this time becoming the first African American woman to become a Cabinet Secretary. During her tenure as HUD Secretary, she helped reshape the focus of the department. supporting housing rehabilitation. In January, 2000, the U.S. Postal Service honored Harris with a commemorative postage stamp bearing her likenes.

Patricia Harris in her swearing in ceremony to be U.S. Ambassador to Luxembourg in 1965. (credit U.S. Department of State)

“I feel deeply proud and grateful this President chose me to knock down this barrier, but also a little sad about being the ‘first Negro woman’ because it implies we were not considered before.”

-Patricia R. Harris on being first African American woman named as an American Ambassador

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Harris returned to George Washington U. as a full-time professor of law, and in 1982 she made an unsuccessful bid for mayor of Washington, D.C. Harris also served as Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.’s first Executive Director. Harris died of breast cancer at age 60 on March 23, 1985 and was interred at Rock Creek Cemetery in D.C.

African American Diplomat Alleges Racial Harassment At U.S. Borders

By Gary Raynaldo DIPLOMATIC TIMES

For Tianna Spears, an African Amer-

ican diplomat, a U.S. Diplomatic Passport was not worth the paper it was written on. A Diplomatic Passport provides the holder ‘red carpet’ treatment, privilege, respect and diplomatic immunity internationally, but back in her own home county America, it could not protect her from the painful scourge of racism. Spears alleges she was racially profiled by US border officials, who pulled her over at least 25 times for extensive questioning and car inspections over a six-month period last year despite being the holder of a coveted diplomatic passport. Back in April 2018, Spears, 26, thought she had finally fulfilled her dream of being a diplomat when she joined the U.S. Department of State and was on a path into the prestigious Foreign Service. Spears was assigned a posting at the U.S. Consulate in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, just across the border from El Paso, Texas. Spears said she would regularly cross the border back into the US to visit friends or go shopping.

At the border was the beginning of a nightmare at the hands of US border officials, she said.

“As soon as I started crossing the border regularly, I experienced this harassment. I was threatened. I was constantly asked if I was really a US citizen. They questioned if I stole my car, if my car was a rental. They accused me of being a liar, a drug dealer. Every time I told them I worked as a US diplomat, they laughed at me. It was just harassment and bullying on a racial level.”

-Tianna Spears told The World

“I showed my Diplomatic Passport, stating I worked at the U.S. Consulate General in Ciudad Juarez, and lived there. Sure you do,” he laughedSprears wrote in her blog recounting an alleged incident in January 2019 where she was pulled over by a U.S.

Credit: Linkedin/ Tianna Spears is a former American diplomat who worked at the United States consulate in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, across the border from El Paso, Texas USA.

Border official and interrogated as a suspected drug dealer. “Just because you say you work at the Consulate, does not mean that you are not smuggling drugs into the country,” he said.

“He probed, asking more questions.

A new official appeared and searched my car, tossing around the contents in my backseat and glove compartment.

He took his left hand and rubbed it up and down my car windows.”

“I’m going to meet my friend in El Paso,” I stated.

“When you talk to a man, you look at the ground. Do you understand me?” He glared at me, face full of disgust. The officers laughed. My shoulders tense.

“I was furious at his insinuation that I was a drug smuggler and his racially charged implication based off of my appearance. I demanded an apology from the manager for the disgusting and unjust defamation of my name and my character.

The CBP manager took another step forward to stand on top of the

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Spears Resigns From Her Dream Job At State Department

chunks from all the harassment and stress. I gave up and cut all my hair off. My voice shook when I spoke.

The simple thought of driving would make my hands perspire and my heart race.” Spears resigned from her State Department job and her dream of a long career serving her country in the Foreign Service came crashing down on her. But Spears made it clear she strongly believes that she was “forced out” due to the on-going harassment and stress. The Customs and Border Patrol denies Spears’ allegations, saying its own video footage contradicts some of her claims — including an incident in which Spears has alleged that an officer stood in front of her with his hand on his gun, his finger on the trigger, according to NPR. The CBP told NPR that Spears was pulled over a dozen times because inconsistencies with her address triggered an automatic second check. CBP says it found no evidence of officers’ misconduct in Spears’ case, and so there was no disciplinary action. ‘Border Patrol agents quickly began deleting racist and violent posts after the existence of their private Facebook group was reported’, article by The Intercept is an inside look into the “racist” mindset of the CBP. American Academy of Diplomacy Calls on Pompeo To Review Incidents of Alleged Racism

Credit: gofundme / Tianna Spears.

platform that the bench sits on, positioning him to be a couple inches taller than me. He placed his hand on his gun in the holster, finger around the trigger, and told me to get back in my car. His body language and his hand looked like he was just about shoot.

I did not move. Shaking. I remember wondering if he would just shoot me. Why not? I had already said too much.” Spears claimed her supervisors at the U.S. consulate did nothing to help after she reported the incidents. “After weeks of writing letters, meetings, and emails to management, I was transferred to Mexico City on a temporary assignment and then reassigned permanently. I developed a stutter. I could not look people in the eye. I was extremely on edge all the time and my hair began to fall out in

Tragically, Spears is not alone, as she is one of many current and former minority foreign service officers going public to speak out about the special challenges they face as diplomats. On Jul. 13, 2020, The American Academy of Diplomacy, an organization of former U.S. officials in international affairs, called on Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to order a review of incidents, “ensure equal treatment” of minority U.S. diplomats and make clear their mistreatment is “unacceptable.”

“We are writing to address one acute issue: the deeply troubling pattern in the mistreatment of Black, Hispanic and other minority officers crossing U.S. border/entry points. By their own testimony, many State Department officers have endured regular and persistent discrimination and harassment by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officers.”

(Continued on Page 28)

U.S. State Department / Foreign Service Is Far From Being Racially Diverse

Credit: Gary Raynaldo / The United States Department of State headquarters located in Foggy Bottom section of Washington, D.C.

“Foreign Service Still White, Male, and Yale”

D

“ espite decades of attempts to make the Foreign Service look more like the real America, it’s still pretty much white, male, and Yale,” according to a May 22. 2016 article in Foreign Affairs. The article is titled: “The State Department Has a Diversity Problem” According to the article, “After over a decade into what the State Department says has been a dedicated effort to make the Foreign Service “look more like America,” it has found itself on the defensive in recent days, following criticism

by Susan Rice, then-President Barack Obama’s national security adviser, about the lack of diversity among America’s diplomats and the rest of the foreign policy workforce.

“In the halls of power, in the faces of our national security leaders, America is still not truly reflected,” Rice said in a commencement address at Florida International University in Miami on May 11, borrowing former Sen. Bob Graham’s description of the career services as “white, male, and Yale.” Diverse backgrounds produce leaders able to “come up with more creative insights, proffer alternative solutions, and thus make better decisions,” Rice said - Foreign Affairs article May 2016.

Four years since the article, things remain the same at the State Department, according to critics. In a Feb. 20, 2020 report by the Government Accountablity Office found that although the State Department says it is committed to improving racial and gender representation in its workforce, department leaders have failed to analyze career promotion data to adequately understand barriers women and minorities face. “Watchdog Finds ‘Uneven Progress’ in State Department’s Effort to Improve Workforce Diversity” writer Courtney Buble examined the Goverrnment Accountability Office report on diversity.

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The GAO analyzed data for over 40,000 employees who worked at the department from 2002 to 2018 and found “uneven progress” in improving diversity. The total proportion of racial and ethnic minorities in full-time, permanent positions increased from 28% in fiscal 2002 to 32% in fiscal 2018 with variations among specific races and ethnicities. Over the same period, the number of women at the agency decreased slightly from 44% in 2002 to 43% in 2018. Additionally, with few exceptions, whites and men had the highest promotion rates and held the majority of leadership positions among the career and foreign service. Meanwhile, The U.S. State Department says it is committed to improving the racial and gender representation in its workforce.

(Continued On Page 28)

African American Former Ambassadors Speak Out Against Police Abuse And The Systemic Racism in U.S. Society Black former ambassadors have added their voices to those around the

nation and world condemning the brutal deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and other unarmed Black Americans. The Association of Black American Ambassadors (ABAA) issued a statement calling for reforms to address systemic racism and police brutality in the United States.

Nearly 60 African American former ambassadors signed the statement: “I can’t breathe!” These words, repeated for over eight minutes by George Floyd as a Minneapolis police officer’s knee bore down on his neck to the point of death, have become an angry protest cry for many in America. The Association of Black American Ambassadors (ABAA) joins the nation and people of conscience around the world, in mourning the brutal deaths of George Floyd, Ahmed Arbery, Breonna Taylor and other unarmed Black Americans. We offer our prayers and condolences to the Floyd, Arbery and Taylor families and for all those unjustly killed, wounded or detained. The ABAA condemns the actions that led to the death of George Floyd, which once again bring attention to the longstanding systemic and systematic discrimination against Black people. Equally, the ABAA censures and renounces the mindset and actions borne of racism, sexism and anti-immigrant attitudes that risk making it acceptable to take innocent lives which is antithetical to American and international human rights law. We believe it is time for all people of conscience to voice their opposition to legally sanctioned violence; it is tarnishing America’s image at home and abroad.”

-The Association of Black American Ambassadors - June 10, 2020

Below is a list of ABAA members who have signed the letter, along with their previous post(s) of assignment.

Sincerely, Ambassador Edward J. Perkins President, ABAA: Cynthia H. Akuetteh: Gabon and Sao Tome and Principe Bernadette Allen: Niger C. Pat Alsup: The Gambia Shirley E. Barnes: Republic of Madagascar Joyce Barr: US Ambassador retired Clyde Bishop: Republic of the Marshall Islands Carol Moseley Braun: New Zealand Aurelia E. Brazeal: Micronesia, Kenya, Ethiopia Pamela E. Bridgewater: The Republic of Benin and The Republic of Ghana Reuben E. Brigety: The African Union Sue K. Brown: Montenegro Johnnie Carson: Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Affairs Cook, Suzan Johnson: Ambassador- at- Large For International Religious Freedom Ruth A. Davis: The Republic of Benin and Director General of the Foreign Service Horace D. Dawson: Botswana Harriet L. Elam-Thomas: Senegal Jendayi Frazer: The Republic of South Africa, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs James Gadsden: Iceland Irvin Hicks Sr.: Ethiopia Bonnie Jenkins: Coordinator for Threat Reduction Programs Howard F. Jeter: Nigeria Mosina Jordan: Central African Republic

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Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield

Ambassador Susan E. Rice

Kenton W. Keith: Qatar Delano E. Lewis: The Republic of South Africa Dennise Mathieu: Niger and Namibia C. Steven McGann: Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, The Kingdom of Tonga an Tuvalu James McGee: Swaziland, Madagascar and the Comoros Donald McHenry: United Nations Elizabeth McKune: Qatar George Moose: Career Ambassador and Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Bismarck Myrick: Kingdom of Lesotho Wanda Nesbitt: adagascar, Cote d’Ivorie and Namibia Nichols, Brian: Zimbabwe (presently serving) Adrienne O’Neal: Republic of Cape Verde Susan D. Page: Republic of South Sudan Larry Palmer: Republic of Honduras and Barbados and Eastern Caribbean Maurice Parker: Kingdom of Lesotho and Republic of Liberia Edward J. Perkins: Republic of Liberia, United Nations, The Republic of South Africa and the Director General of the Foreign Service June Carter Perry: Lesotho and Sierra Leone Robert C. Perry: Central African Republic Charles Ray: Cambodia and Zimbabwe Helen Patricia Reed-Rowe: Republic of Palau Reed, Frankie: Fiji, Kirbati, Nauru, Tonga and Tuvalu Eunice S. Reddick: Gabon, Sao Tome and Principe and Niger Susan Rice: United Nations and National Security Advisor Brenda Schoonover: Togo Mattie R. Sharpless: Central African Republic Pamela L. Spratlen: Kyrgyz Republic and Uzbekistan Sylvia Stanfield: Brunei Darussalam Charles R. Stith: Tanzania Teddy B.Taylor: Papua New Guinea, The Soloman Islands and the Republic of Vanuatu Linda Thomas-Greenfield: Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Harry K. Thomas: Bangladesh, The Philippines and Zimbabwe Barry L. Wells: Republic of the Gambia and Director of the Office of Civil Rights Sharon P. Wilkinson: Burkina Faso and Mozambique Bisa Williams: The Republic of Niger John L. Withers ll: Albania Johnny Young: Sierra Leone, Togo, Bahrain, and The Republic of Slovenia

European Union Career Diplomat Questions The “Absence” of Black Leadership Amid U.S. Social Unrest that a singular leader is not needed to distract from the message. “Why the Black Lives Matter movement doesn’t want a singular leader” is an excellent POLITICO article published July 22, 2020 addressing this issue raised by Ambassador Portocarero.

By Gary Raynaldo DIPLOMATIC TIMES

W

“ HERE IS BLACK LEADERSHIP?”

European Union career diplomat,

“There is no chairperson or candidate calling the shots in private or serving as a public rallying point. With no singular person to attack in tweets, President Donald Trump instead directed his ire and threats of violence at mostly peaceful protesters.”

former ambassador Herman Portocarero wants this question answered amid the current U.S. civil unrest that was sparked by the homicide of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer. In his blog post “Another Country,” Portocarero, who served as the EU’s first full-fledged ambassador to Cuba in 2012 questions the absence of black leadership and the urgent need for new leadership during this point of crisis. Here are excerpts from the former ambassador’s blog – The Diplomatic Lounge: “The title of James Baldwin’s 1962 novel often comes to my mind as summing up the collective feelings of alienation experienced by many African-Americans individually and Black communities collectively in the United States.”

-Herman Portocarero Portocarero reflects on the murder of George Floyd: “Speaking about the murder of Mr George Floyd by a White police officer in Minneapolis, Mr Joe Biden summed up all that the White House is denying: America never got over its original sin of racism. To deny that there is a systemic problem is just ridiculous,” Portocarero writes in his blog. Ambassador Portocarero writes that the “underlying racism” never healed since the end of slavery.

“The over-militarization of police forces throughout the United States always makes tensions worse, not better. No protesting civilian wants to be confronted with troop contingents equipped and behaving like an invading and occupying force,” Portocarero writes.

-Laura Barrón–López writes in POLITICO. “In terms of strategy —

and this is very real that we have to be honest about this — it makes it harder for those who are against us to do what they did in the ‘60s, which is to target one leader,” said Cliff Albright, co-founder of Black Voters Matter Fund, a voter engagement nonprofit –

POLITICO. Credit: Gary Raynaldo / ©Diplomatic Times / Herman Portocarero, former European Union ambassador to Cuba, speaks on future of the socialist nation at Columbia University political forum Nov. 12, 2019.

“Civilian policing in the US has been utterly perverted by the defense industries. Just like wars anywhere thrive on the arms trade, militarized police forces are a typical example of a solution creating its own problems.

The manufacturing and sale of security equipment is a sideline to the indecent internal arms race in the US, and a billion-dollar industry in its own right, cleverly courting the police apparatus and public powers everywhere,” the diplomat adds.

Ambassador Portocarero On Police Training: “The next issue is training. I find it unbelievable that with all the tools of HR management to which we subject any candidate for any job, it still appears impossible to avoid recruiting police officers with the wrong basic instincts. Not people getting carried away in the heat of passion– although policemen and women should possess adequate self-control– but persons ca-

pable of cold-blooded murder by minutes-long strangulation like Mr. Derek Chauvin.” The former EU ambassador is likely to get a lot of flack from Africans involved in the struggle for social justice for his questioning of Black leadership in the current crisis in the U.S. They may say who does Mr. Portocarero think he is to question our leadership when the ambassador is far removed from the struggle living a privileged life in Europe. But it is a fair question. One has to admit that although the recent police killings of Black Americans have sparked massive protests in the U.S. not seen since the 1960’s, there really has not been a singular Black leader or Black leaders leading this contemporary Black Lives Matter movement for social justice like in the past with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, James Baldwin, John Lewis, Jesse Jackson, Roy Wilkins, et al. But perhaps that is the point with this contemporary movement of Black social justice

DIPLOMATIC TIMES ISSUE O5 JANUARY - MARCH 2021 PAGE 24

But let us now return to Ambassador Portocarero’s thoughts on Black leadership, who concludes his blog asking:

“My last point is a very delicate one, but it has to be mentioned “Where is Black leadership?”

“The worst vicious circle in all this will be the increased racism, with prejudices confirmed and reinforced by the burning and the looting. Yet this is the real message: too many poor Americans and especially Black people are indeed living in another country, long left behind by politics, no longer inspired by civic leaders with standing and credibility. Street violence has always been the language of the powerless. The breaking and burning looter reacts to the killer instinct of the bad cop. It will take time and a great deal of patience and intelligence to break those vicious circles, if that is at all possible.

(Continued on Page 28)

U.S. Senators Call For Investigation of Racial Harassment Of Minority Diplomats at Borders panic diplomatic officers,” the Senators added, referencing accounts from Black diplomats who experienced border harassment but were too afraid of jeopardizing their careers to make formal complaints. “We cannot afford to lose the best and brightest public servants our country has to offer to incidents that betray our American values. Agents responsible for this behavior must be held fully accountable and the practice of forcing minority diplomatic officials to bear the pernicious consequences of racial misconduct of other government officials must stop.”

Committee Democrats are currently examining a pattern of systemic mistreatment of minority U.S. government officials by CBP agents. The investigation requested is just one step of a broader review, the senators said in their statement.

By Gary Raynaldo DIPLOMATIC TIMES

S

enate Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and Senator Cory Booker (D-N.J.) are leading a call on the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Inspector General (IG) to open a formal investigation into allegations of racism, racial targeting, and harassment of U.S. government officials

by Trump administration Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents at U.S. border crossings. Mendez and Booker are joined by Senators Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Tim Kaine (DVa.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) The Senators’ letter follows the disturbing account of former U.S. diplomat Tianna Spears, who was subjected to an inexplicable amount of inspections, intimidation, and other forms of race-based harassment by CBP officers at the U.S.-Mexico border under the Trump administration. Ms. Spears, a Black woman stationed as a diplomatic officer at the U.S. Consulate General in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, was stopped at the U.S.-Mexico border for questioning and inspections approximately 25 times in a 6-month span. Despite repeatedly identifying herself as a U.S. government official and asking CBP why she was being subjected to additional layers of inspection without explanation, the incidents continued. In highlighting the State Department’s and CBP’s failure to guarantee a workplace environment free from discrimination and politicization, the U.S. Senators underscored that the unwarranted attacks and harassment of professional civil and foreign servants is corrosive for our diplomacy and damaging to our democracy. “According to the American Academy of Diplomats, an association of former U.S. ambassadors and senior foreign affairs government officials, this issue is not new; problems range from CBP officers not accepting standard diplomatic documentation to engaging in repeatedly hostile questioning and delays of Black and His-

The Senators Letter Calls For:

U.S. Senators ob Menendez (D-N.J.) and Senator Cory Booker (D-N.J.) lead call for investigation into alleged racial profiling/harassment of U.S. Diplomats of color at border crossings.credit: menendez.senate

“Not only are these incidents unacceptable, they fly in the face of our American values of diversity, equality, and respect for fundamental civil rights,” the Senators wrote.

“The vile legacy of racially profiling Americans simply based on their skin color, a quality they have no choice in whatsoever, has no place in our nation’s present nor our future.”

DIPLOMATIC TIMES ISSUE O5 JANUARY - MARCH 2021 PAGE 25

-A full investigation into the allegations by Ms. Spears, including the basis for subjecting Ms. Spears repeatedly to secondary inspection at the U.S.-Mexico border and a review of CBP’s internal investigation.

-A review of all complaints to CBP and the Department of Homeland Security related to any targeting, profiling, harassment, abuse of authority, or improper treatment of U.S. government officials, particularly at U.S. border points of entry, including formal and informal complaints made to the Inspector General’s office, the Joint Intake Center, the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties; to employees in supervisory, managerial, or leadership positions; through any relevant hotlines; from federal agencies on behalf of other parties; at border stations and other ports of entry; and by any whistleblowers; and should include an assessment of whether race or ethnicity was a factor in any request for further inspection or inappropriate conduct; -A full accounting of all secondary inspections or screenings of U.S. government officials at border and ports of entry crossings since January 1, 2015, broken down by race and ethnicity.

U.S. Ambassador In MOLDOVA Speaks About Diversity in The Foreign Service

By Gary Raynaldo

some questioned if he was truly qualified to be in more advanced position given his young age. “I got it early in my career because of my young age. Some older Foreign Service persons have expressed resentment of my higher position because of my age.

They would say, look, I am older than you with more experience. But I will try to have a conversation with the person, have lunch with them, and ask them what are the issues they have to lower the temperature. The more you try to elicit them in a more disarming way, the better it is. I will try to work with this person for a mutually beneficial relationship. I say to him I can learn from all your years, wisdom, etc.”

DIPLOMATIC TIMES

Ambassador Dereck J. Hogan, an

African American, recalls how surprised people were upon seeing a black man for the first time when he served as a U.S. Foreign Service officer in Russia early in his career. Hogan, who speaks fluent Russian, was shopping in a mall at the time. “People were staring at me and a child was saying to his mother in Russian ‘Look, mommy a Black man!’ Hogan grew up in a diverse neighborhood in Pennsylvania. “I went from a very heterogeneous community to a very homogenous country where the only people of color they saw was on T.V. in videos,” Hogan recounted. Hogan, who currently serves as Ambassador to the U.S. Embassy in Moldova, recounted the experience and shared his insights on diversity and inclusion and advice for diverse candidates considering a career in foreign policy recently. Hogan was the guest lecturer at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service Institute for the Study of Diplomacy Diverse Diplomacy Leaders Speaker Series. Hogan said he decided to pursue a career in Foreign Service when he was a 16-yearold High School student and his parents sent him to summer school at the Governor’s School for Global and International Studies in Pittsburgh.

“Two Foreign Service officers came and spoke to us about public service, learning about other cultures, foreign policy. I was hooked. I said I want to live oversees. I want to help make the world a better place,” Ambassador Hogan said. Bacelor’s Degree from the University of Pittsburgh and a Master’s Degree in Public Affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University. In addition to Russian, he speaks fluent Spanish, and Romanian. Hogan also recalled a time he was walking in Russia and a car with several white men in it when one yelled “Hey Black guy!” in Russian. Hogan, not missing a beat, yelled back: “Hey white guys!” in the same language. “Everyone

On Retaining Minorities in Top Posts in Foreign Service amid high rate of departures: (credit: md.usembassy.gov) Ambassador to U.S. Embassy in Moldova, Dereck J. Hogan

laughed. I found you can disarm people by moving in and around their culture, learning the language, and interacting with them,” Hogan said, noting that he worked in Eastern Europe at a time where neo-Nazism was resurging.

Moldova, where Hogan serves as an Ambassador, is an Eastern European country and former Soviet republic, sandwiched between the Ukraine and Romania.

“I see myself as someone who has been truly blessed. We have an opportunity to shape our relations with the rest of the world.”

-Hogan on being member of U.S. Foreign Service

DIPLOMATIC TIMES ISSUE O5 JANUARY - MARCH 2021 PAGE 26

Hogan Sees A More Systematic Approach To push For More Diversity and Inclusion in Foreign Service After 23-Year Long Career in Diplomacy The State Department has made concerted efforts and noticeable improvements in expanding the racial and ethnic diversity of its workforce, but minority employees are still disproportionately more likely to be passed over for promotion than their non-minority counterparts – Federal Times. The Senior Executive Service has an even greater racial disparity, with minorities making up only 20.7 percent of its ranks, according to OPM’s most recent 2017 report on the service.

“I see now, 23, years later, a more systematic approach to push for more diversity and inclusion. I really believe in the power of one. What can each of us do to make change,” Hogan said.

On personal experiences of racism in the Foreign Service when it concerns presenting proposals or projects to colleagues, Hogan said he has not sensed that someone did not like his proposal because of his race. However, he said there were times when

“Retention is not about money. It is an opportunity to make change. It is a good idea to identify mentors for young talent who want to reach a level we aspire to. But it is important to have a merit system, identifying and nurturing the best. We need to help people get to a threshold level,” Hogan said.

Hogan Speaks On Tianna Spears, African American Diplomat Who Alleges Racial Harassment At U.S. Borders Tianna Spears, an African American diplomat, alleges she was racially profiled by US border officials, who pulled her over at least 25 times for extensive questioning and car inspections over a six-month period last year despite being the holder of a coveted diplomatic passport. Spears claimed her supervisors at the U.S. consulate did nothing to help after she reported the incidents. “After weeks of writing letters, meetings, and emails to management, I was transferred to Mexico City on a temporary assignment and then reassigned permanently. I developed a stutter. I could not look people in the eye.”

(Contiuned on Page 28)

U.S. Ambassador Ensnared In Washington-Zimbabwe Diplomatic Row Amid George Floyd Murder Protests

By Gary Raynaldo

DIPLOMATIC TIMES

Zimbabwe summoned the U.S. ambassador in Harare to a meeting over comments by a White House official that caused an uproar in the government that accused Zimbabwe of being among “foreign adversaries” such as Russia and China seeking to incite unrest in America in the wake of the death of George Floyd. The U.S. ambassador to Zimbabwe, Brian Nichols, was called in to meet with Zimbabwe’s foreign minister over comments last Sunday May 31 by U.S. national security adviser Robert O’Brien. In an interview with ABC’s “This Week”, O’Brien said Zimbabwe is among “foreign adversaries” that could face retaliation for allegedly trying to foment unrest in the U.S. over the death of Floyd, a black man who pleaded for air as a police officer pressed a knee into his neck.

“I want to tell our foreign adversaries, whether it’s a Zimbabwe or a China, that the difference between us and you is that that officer who killed George Floyd, he’ll be investigated, he’ll be prosecuted and he’ll receive a fair trial. There’s a difference between us and you, and when this happens, we’ll get to the bottom of it. We’ll clean it up. It’s not going to be covered up.”

-U.S. national security adviser Robert O’Brien Zimbabwe Foreign Minister Says O’Brien’s Allegations “False and Factually Unfounded”

Zimbabwe’s foreign affairs minister Sibusiso Moyo characterized the the U.S. national security adviser’s statement describing Zimbabwe as an adversary as “false” and “without any factual foundation whatsoever and that they are deeply damaging to a relationship already complicated by years of prescriptive megaphone diplomacy and punitive economic sanctions,” according to a tweet from the foreign minister. Moyo said Harare

Credit: U.S. Department of State / Brian A. Nichols , Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Republic of Zimbabwe

protesters, civil society, and members of the opposition in Zimbabwe and to hold accountable those responsible for human rights abuses. Nichols, an African American, also got personal in his letter:

“Mr. Floyd’s murder was a tragedy that has filled Americans with horror and anger. As an African American, for as long as I can remember, I have known that my rights and my body were not fully my own. I have also always known that America conceived in liberty has aspired to be better-a shining city on a hill-and that is why I have dedicated my life to her service. Both American’s and Zimbabwe’s constitutions enshrine the right to free speech and peaceful protest. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline.”

DIPLOMATIC TIMES ISSUE O5 JANUARY - MARCH 2021 PAGE 27

“I have today informed the US Ambassador of Mr O’Brien’s false & factually unfounded allegations which are deeply damaging to a relationship already complicated by years of prescriptive diplomacy & punitive economic sanctions. Zimbabwe is not & has never been an adversary of USA.” -Zimbabwe Foreign Minister Nichols presented his credentials on July 19, 2018, as U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Zimbabwe. Ambassador Nichols previously served as the Ambassador to Peru from 2014 to 2017. From 2007 to 2010, he served as the Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Colombia. Ambassador Nichols has also served in Mexico and El Salvador during major democratic transitions. He began his Foreign Service career as a Consular Officer in Lima in 1989.

Ambassador Nichols statement prior to being confirmed Zimbabwe

tinction to appear before the for the second time as a nominee to serve the American people, as ambassador. My professional achievements owe to the wonderful women who join me today.

My beautiful wife Geri, also a career Senior Foreign Service Officer, my daughters Alex and Sophie. They have all pushed me to be a better person, sacrificed for my career, and nurtured me with their love and support. I have had the good fortune to represent the country that I love in fascinating countries around the world. I have advanced American values of respect for democracy, human rights, the rule of law, and private enterprise throughout my career. Those are values that my late father, Charles Nichols, a Fulbright Scholar and founder of Brown University’s Africana Studies program, instilled in me and my brothers. My mother, Mildred Nichols, has served the people of Rhode Island, promoting higher education, vocational training, and charitable programs to lift people out of poverty for 50 years. Should I be confirmed, I will draw upon those values and my experience to strengthen our relations with Zimbabwe as it reforms, promote American principles, and help the people of Zimbabwe build a better future. As I have in all of my previous assignments, I will have no higher priority than the welfare and security of American citizens. After 38 years of independence, Zimbabwe approaches a crossroads.

The government and people of Zimbabwe have an opportunity to follow a new path: to become a stable and democratic country while returning to the prosperity of the past. This is what the Zimbabwean people need and deserve. To fulfill this goal, the Zimbabwean government should intensify its efforts to carry out profound governance, electoral, human rights, and economic reforms. An absolutely critical test will be the Zimbabwean authorities’ ability to deliver on July 30 a free, fair, and credible national election in accordance with international standards. Given Zimbabwe’s enormous potential, genuine reforms can and will yield great dividends for her people. If confirmed, I look forward to close and continued collaboration with our Congress to help Zimbabwe along a path of positive change.

U.S. Department Of State Diversity Problem

U.S. Department Of State Diversity Problem

Continued from Page 22 “According to State, to represent the United States to the world, the agency must have a workforce that reflects the rich composition of its citizenry. State has implemented several plans, activities, and initiatives to improve diversity and representation throughout the ranks of its workforce,” the report said.

“However, longstanding diversity issues persist at the agency, such as underrepresentation of racial or ethnic minorities and women in the senior ranks” and it “may have an incomplete picture of issues affecting diversity in its workforce” with its current annual reporting, the article on the report stated.

Among the auditors’ findings on racial and ethnic diversity: From 2002 to 2018, when controlled for education, years of service, language skills and other factors, GAO found the odds of racial and ethnic minorities being promoted were lower than whites across all levels in the civil service. The same was true for the foreign service, except in top-level positions, where minorities slightly led whites by 0.2% In fiscal 2018, in management and executive levels—as measured by the federal General Schedule pay scale for career servants and foreign service ranks—the proportion of minorities decreased the higher up the ranks one climbed. While not citing specific numbers, GAO found the data were similar in 2002.

According to the GAO report, as for gender, the results were a little more nuanced: From 2002 to 2018, women were less likely than men to be promoted in the career service, but were more likely than men to be promoted in the foreign service. For management and executive levels, in fiscal 2018, the proportion of women decreased the higher up the rank one looked, starting at GS-14 in the civil service and class four in the foreign service. GAO also reported a similar trend to 2002 Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, introduce a bill to encourage State “to develop new recruitment, retention and promotion strategies and mechanisms to grow and maintain a more diverse workforce.” In addition to addressing race, ethnicity and gender issues, the bill would require State to also consider the LGBTQ+ community.

“The State Department’s director of recruitment, Woody Staeben, said that among new hires in the past five years, the number of white officers is down to about 70 percent. But it will take much longer for the overall figure to change, because the average Foreign Service career spans 27 years. “The trend line is in the right direction,” he said. “This is the good news.

The bad news is, we are not where we want to be.”

- May 2016 Foreign Policy.

The article in Foreign Policy did note, however, “one area in which the State Department has improved significantly in recent years is in the diversity of the professional background of both candidates and hires, making the Foreign Service much less elitist than it was several decades ago.” The article

further observed:

As Rice pointed out in her speech, by failing to draw “fully on the strengths of our great nation” we’re shortchanging our diplomatic corps and dooming ourselves to a legacy of groupthink.

“Without tapping into America’s full range of races, religions, ethnicities, language skills, and social and economic experiences we are leading in a complex world with one hand tied behind our back.”

-Susan Rice ‘Creating a diverse Foreign Service, then, isn’t just some feel-good project. It’s the only way to ensure that the State Department is ready to challenge old modes of thinking and craft solutions that truly represent what today’s America has to offer.’

-Nicholas Kralev - Foreign Affairs

DIPLOMATIC TIMES ISSUE O5 JANUARY - MARCH 2021 PAGE 28

EU Diplomat Black Leadership

Black Female Diplomat Racial Harassment

Continued From Page 24

Continued From Page 21

“And most of all, it absolutely requires a change of leadership at the top come November.(2020 U.S. Presidential Elections) Or else, there will forever be Another Country, always denied, long-suffering, but exploding in vicious instincts when senseless repression is carried too far once again.”

-Ambassador Portocarero.

“Problems include CBP officers not accepting standard diplomatic documents; placing Black and Hispanic officers in secondary examination without cause; and repeated hostile questioning and delays. This is made even more glaring when they travel with Caucasian colleagues who pass through with the same documentation. Mistreatment of State Department personnel by U.S. CBP is not new. While in the past, some incidents came to the attention of Department leadership, the continued reports, including from our most senior members, suggest that such mistreatment lives on and too often goes unaddressed. We hope you concur that any perception of tacit acceptance of such practices or indifference to the reports by Department officials or other Federal officials is unacceptable and warrants action. We would like to suggest some steps to address and hopefully halt the mistreatment of Black and other minority staff, indeed all State Department staff, by law enforcement at border entry posts: • A Department-wide review, ordered by you, regarding the specific incidents reported by officers and consideration of measures that can be taken within State both to intervene immediately in such cases and ensure equal treatment at the border of all staff in Mexico and worldwide; • A review of the issue at a senior level with the Department of Homeland Security, specifically the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, to ensure such practices cease; and • Make clear to all Department employees that you regard such mistreatment as unacceptable, that you expect reported cases to be addressed overseas and domestically, as appropriate, and that you will follow up regularly with the Director General and relevant senior officials at State and other agencies.”

Mr. Portocarero was born in Antwerp is a Belgian writer and diplomat of Portuguese and Spanish ancestry. After graduating law school at Antwerp University, Portocarero practiced law at the Antwerp bar. He joined the Belgian diplomatic service in 1978.

His first posting was with the Belgian permanent representation to UNESCO in Paris. In 1979 he joined the Embassy of Belgium in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. In 2012 he ended his career as a Belgian diplomat to join the newly created European External Action Service, the diplomatic arm of the European Union. Based on his earlier experiences in Cuba and the Caribbean, as well as on his record in multilateral (UN) diplomacy, he was named the EU’s first full-fledged ambassador to Cuba in July 2012. He is also the author of Havana Without Makeup: Inside The Soul of The City.

U.S. Ambassador In Moldava Continued From Page 26

Ambassador Hogan said after hearinng Tianna’s chilling account:

“I was heartbroken reading about that. It really showed us how much work we really have to do. She (Tianna Spears) spoke with her supervisor but did not find a resolution there. She has shared her experience with the world, writing about it. There is zero tolerance for any harassment of people(based on race). I am confident the State Department knows these are things that can’t be repeated.”

Controversial Black U.S. Ambassador To Apartheid SOUTH AFRICA Edward Perkins Dies At Age 92 General of the Foreign Service (19891992). He was next tapped by President George H.W. Bush as the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations with the rank of Ambassador (1992-1993), and then by President Bill Clinton as U.S. Ambassador to Australia (1993-1996).

By Gary Raynaldo DIPLOMATIC TIMES

Ambassador (ret.) Edward Per-

kins died on Saturday evening Nov. 7, 2020 at the age of 92. Ambassador Edward Perkins was U.S. ambassador to then-Apartheid South Africa from 1986 to 1989 under President Ronald Reagan. Ambassador Perkins was a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, retiring in 1996 with the rank of Career Minister. He served as U.S. ambassador to Australia, the United Nations, Liberia, and most notably, as a controvrsial ambassador in the final days of apartheid in South Africa.

“As Director General of the Foreign Service, his commitment to a broadly diverse Foreign Service at all levels of the profession has been a lasting legacy to the quality of American diplomacy. His career represents a deep commitment to global public service and the profession of diplomacy, two values very dear to us at ISD (Institute for the Study of Diplomacy). Ambassador Perkins was, quite simply, a towering figure of American diplomacy. He was a gracious strength and a defender of the best of American diplomacy and young, aspiring diplomats. He will always be honored, and deeply missed”.

-Barbara K. Bodine, Director, Institute for the Study of Diplomacy

Edward Perkins – A Black U.S. Ambassador to Apartheid South Africa in his own words: On his role as U.S Ambassador to South Africa:

(credit: berkleycenter.georgetown.edu / Ambassador Edward Perkins (June 8, 1928 – November 7, 2020) was U.S. ambassador to South Africa

A Black Ambassador to Apartheid South Africa Under President Ronald Reagan In 1985, just 13 years after becoming an FSO, Perkins was appointed

by President Ronald Reagan as U.S. Ambassador to Liberia. Perkins next took on one of the most controversial diplomatic assignments at the time: U.S. Ambassador to Apartheid South Africa. The South Africa Apartheid regime, under which nonwhites were systematically oppressed and deprived of their rights, is without a doubt one of the worst crimes against humanity of the 20th century.

“South Africa was in turmoil during the 1980s. Apartheid was still the law and although whites were just a fraction of the population, they owned 90 percent of the land. The government, led by President P.W. Botha, was on the verge of a bloody civil war with Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress. Each day brought news of more violence”. – NRP Oct. 24, 2006.

DIPLOMATIC TIMES ISSUE O5 JANUARY - MARCH 2021 PAGE 29

Ambassador Perkins endured much abuse and criticism and protests from Black Americans for his agreeing to serve in a country where a racist regime brutally protected its system of apartheid, and for allowing President Reagan to “use him” as a Black American face to mask the Reagan administration’s refusal to get tough with racist South Africa. In fact, Reagan even vetoed a bill to impose sanctions on South Africa, only to be overruled

by Congress. Reagan, along with UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who also opposed sanctions, consistently demonized anti-Apartheid activists led by the African National Congress party of Nelson Mandela as Communists.

Civil Rights leaders like Jesse Jackson sharply condemned Perkins, saying his accepting the role of Ambassador to South Africa was “like a Jew carrying messages between a reactionary administration and Hitler.” – NPR After South Africa, he returned state-side and became the first African American appointed as Director

“My job was to make change.

The (U.S.) Embassy had to be a giant agent of change.

My message to the Afrikaner leaders and the Black leaders was Apartheid was going to go! Because South Africa can not exist with this kind of system in the world. And President Reagan is behind the effort to eradicate Apartheid.”

On Relations With South African Blacks: “The Black leadership in South Africa had taken a vow even before I came that because I was appointed by Ronald Reagan they could not cooperate with me. This included (Archbishop) Desmond Tutu and several others. The Blacks were skeptical as hell about the United States if we were really sincere.

But the wife of anti-apartheid activist Walter Sisulu, (Albertina Sisulu) agreed to an invitation to have dinner with me and other officials. After dinner, she told me ‘Mr. Ambassador, welcome to South Africa. I know you are wondering why I am meeting with you, it is because you are a Black man and you can’t be all that bad’. I would say she was one of the most effective leaders in South Africa at the time.

The Black leadership finally decided that they would cooperate with me.

Desmond Tutu was the last one to come around. He said you’re a Black person. You can’t be all that bad so we will work with you”.

African American Women Striving To Increase Diversity In The Ranks of U.S. Foreign Service After college, Lia came across the Thomas R. Pickering Fellowship in Foreign Affairs. The Pickering Fellowship, a program funded by the U.S. Department of State and administered by historically Black college Howard University, was Lia’s pathway into the foreign service. Lia has said that one of the elements of the Pickering Fellowship is that fellows serve in an embassy overseas for a summer, and serve in the State Department for another summer, so as to get a sense of what a foreign service officer does over the course of the two internships.

By Gary Raynaldo

DIPLOMATIC TIMES

Meet Lia Miller. Lia is an African-Ameri-

can, a wife and mother of two, and is also a U.S Foreign Service Officer/Diplomat living overseas in the former Soviet Republic of Yerevan, Armenia in Eastern Europe. As a Foreign Service Officer, Lia has worked extensively on issues across the Middle East, North Africa, and Latin America during her 15 years with the U.S. Department of State. She is currently the Chief Public Affairs Officer at U.S. Embassy Yerevan. Lia has also held assignments in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, the Operations Center, the Bureau of Public Affairs, the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, and at the U.S. Embassies in Bolivia, Tunisia, Nicaragua, and Oman. Lia is a 2001 Thomas R. Pickering Graduate Fellowship alumna. Lia was also named a 2018 Black American National Security & Foreign Policy Next Generation Leader by New America and the Diversity in National Security Network and separately as a Regional Policy Expert by Women of Color Advancing Peace and Security. Lia recently shared her experiences as a foreign service officer during Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of Diplomacy Diverse Diplomacy Leaders Speakers Series along with foreign service officer Christina Tilghman, both of whom served as President of the Pickering and Rangel Fellows Association. For Lia, working as a diplomat for the U.S. government was initially not in her career plans when she graduated from college. Lia said it was more of a “happy accident” that she became a foreign service officer.

“I never thought I’d be a part of the government. I initially wanted to be a social worker. But I had realized that I didn’t have what it took to adopt 20 children. Then I went back to school and got a (Thomas R.) Pickering Graduate Fellowship with a Masters in International Relations and Public Administration. I specialize in public affairs and public diplomacy. So, the budding social worker in me gets to be fulfilled because I get to work with people.”

-Lia Miller

Lia said she had a curiosity of international travel at a very early age when her grandparents opened

The Department of State Has To Have The Will To Make Changes on Diversity: - Christina Tilghman

(credit: theblackexpat.com) Lia Miller is a career Foreign Service Officer at the U.S. Department of State. She currently serves as the Chief of the Public Affairs Office at the U.S. Embassy in Yerevan, Armenia located in the Caucasus region between Asia

“For me, feminist foreign policy is women-centric, women-focused policy, written and driven for and by women.”

Lia Miller said in interview -Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy

Increasing diversity in the upper ranks of the U.S. Department of State entails a “cultural shift”, says Christina Tilghman, a career foreign service officer. Christina is currently Senior Advisor for Diversity and Inclusion in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs at the U.S. Department of State. “It is a cultural shift. Our culture has to change. We have to look at how we are going to change the (State) Department. The Department has to have the will to change. We know, as persons of color, representation matters in the Department,” Christina said. She joined the Department of State as a Foreign Service Officer in 2010. “I was the only Black woman and the only person of color when I first started at the U.S. Consulate,” Christina recounted an experience early in her career at a posting abroad. She is a 2006 Thomas R. Pickering Undergraduate Foreign Affairs Fellow.

Lia Miller says the Pickering Fellowship is a vital network to address issues of diversity, retention, promotion.

“More recently, the Pickering Fellowship is to strive for more change in the Department to put people who look like us in more decision-making positions.” In addition, the Charles B. Rangel Graduate Fellowship is a program that aims to attract and prepare outstanding young people for careers in the Foreign Service.

Advice To Young Foreign Service Offices Developing Careers:

(credit: thursdayluncheongroup.org / Foreign Service Officer Christina Tilghman, is Senior Advisor for Diversity and Inclusion in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.

their own travel agency. She said she was bitten by the traveling bug early on in life which stimulated her curiosity about the world beyond the US.

DIPLOMATIC TIMES ISSUE O5 JANUARY - MARCH 2021 PAGE 30

Christina: “Mentors! Don’t be afraid to reach out and ask someone to be your mentor. If you see someone who championing your values, reach out to them. At the end of the day, this is your career. If you want support in your career, reach out. You need to find your voice in the Department, so as not to be viewed as the ‘angry Black woman’.

Lia: “Mentorship is important. A lot of my mentors have left the Department due to changes in the presidential administrations over the years, but I still reach out to them. You need mentors not only in the beginning of your career, but also even if you have been in the foreign service 15 years or longer.

President-Elect Joseph Biden Picks Veteran Diplomat Linda Thomas-Greenfield as U.S. Ambassador to U.N. -Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield Ready To Bring Taste of ‘Gumbo Diplomacy’ to UN Gary Raynaldo

“My mother taught me to lead with the power of kindness and compassion to make the world a better place,” Thomas-Greenfield tweeted after Biden’s transition team announced her nomination. “I’ve carried that lesson with me throughout my career in Foreign Service – and, if confirmed, will do the same as Ambassador to the United Nations.”

DIPLOMATIC TIMES UNITED NATIONS – NEW YORK –

President-elect Joe Biden is nominating career diplomat Linda Thomas-Greenfield as US ambassador to the United Nation. Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield brings a resume of deep diplomatic experience and will help restore the U.S.-UN relationship that was strained after four years of President Trump’s administration which resisted multilateralism. President Trump did not hide his scorn for the UN and took a strong-arm unilateral “America First” diplomatic posture in global affairs. A long-time diplomat, Thomas-Greenfield has previously served as an ambassador to Liberia and the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs from 20132017. Thomas-Greenfield, an African American, was born in Baker, Louisiana, in the early 1950s and attended segregated schools as a child. Prior to joining the Department of State, Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield taught Political Science at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania.

“The People’s Ambassador” According to a statement from the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, “ISD is delighted that President-elect Joe Biden has nominated Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield to be U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and a member of the Cabinet.” ISD said Thomas-Greenfield brought a high-level of compassion to the field of foreign service: “During her time as U.S. Ambassador to Liberia, Thomas-Greenfield earned the nickname “The People’s Ambassador” for her engagement with local populations.

In addition to her ambassadorship in Liberia, Thomas-Greenfield served as Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of African Affairs and as Director General of the Foreign Service and Director of Human Resources. Throughout her career, she has worked to advance diversity at the State Department, a cause that she continued to advance at ISD.”

(credit: U.S. Department of State) Linda Thomas-Greenfield is a career diplomat who has previously served as an ambassador to Liberia and the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs from 2013-2017

-Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield

Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield To Bring Taste of ‘Gumbo Diplomacy’ to UN The Louisiana native who enjoys cooking is set to bring her recipe for what she calls “Gumbo Diplomacy” to global affairs at the UN. In her introductory remarks after Biden nominated her to the UN post, Thomas-Greenfield recounted how, wherever she was posted, she would invite people over to help make a roux and chop up the holy trinity for a homemade, homestyle feast:

“In my thirty-five years in the Foreign Service across the world, I put a Cajun spin on it. I call it Gumbo diplomacy. Wherever I was posted, I’d invite people of all walks then make homemade gumbo. Thats how you break down barriers, connect, and see each-other as humans.”

-Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield

If confirmed, Thomas-Greenfield will be returning to the public service arena after she retired from a 35-year career with the U.S. Foreign Service in 2017.

Thomas-Greenfield’s immediate predecessors were also women: Susan Rice, Samantha Power, Nikki Haley and Kelly Craft.. Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield is also a Distinguished Resident Fellow in African Affairs at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University Walsh School of Foreign Service. Thomas-Greenfield served as ambassador to Liberia under President George W. Bush and Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs under President Barack Obama. Thomas-Greenfield’s 35-years of service in the U.S. Foreign Service far exceeds that of any of her recent predecesssors in the UN position. She spent more than a decade working on refugee and migration issues during her career. Thomas-Greenfield will be in a unique positon at the UN to advocate for the many African issues coming before the the Security Council.

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Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield On Africa: “When one hears the word “Africa”, the mind jumps reflectively to headlines in the news: conflict, terrorism, crisis, famine, disease, and poverty. True – these problems exist. But they do not define Africa. And I know the audience here today knows this more than anyone. The Africa I have come to know and believe in is a continent – a continent of vast opportunity and promise. It’s a continent with tremendous natural and human resources, and a rapidly expanding middle class. It is the next frontier for global opportunities. And it is a continent that has made remarkable progress despite the challenges. When I arrived in Liberia in 1978, I found a continent that suffered from repressive governance, military coups, and violence. That was the norm for many African countries in those days. But now, we’re seeing a different picture. Liberia has emerged as a champion of democracy and peace; in 2005, it elected Ellen Johnson Sirleaf as the continent’s first female president. She has served two terms and will oversee the first transition in Liberia’s history of a sitting president to a democratically elected successor. Both Ghana and Nigeria had been under military-controlled governments. They are both, now, beacons of democracy. Looking ahead, where Africa ends up on the world stage in the next century will depend on how well the continent tackles its own challenges this century. It will also depend on how the United States and the international community partner with Africa to help achieve its promise. Africa’s youth are its single greatest resource and they are a force for good. African leaders should view them as a treasure and a source of dynamism to bring their countries out of poverty and into strong, prosperous, and successful governments. If we can ensure Africa’s youth are engaged and contributing to their countries, Africa’s economy will grow and its people will prosper.

-Assistant Secretary Linda Thomas-Greenfield’s Remarks “Africa’s Place on the World Stage” - Atlantic Council - March 09, 2017.

South Africa Diplomat Says US Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield Will Raise Profile Of African Issues at The United Nations

By Gary Raynaldo

DIPLOMATIC TIMES

President-elect Joe Biden’s selection of career diplo-

mat Linda Thomas-Greenfield his US ambassador to the United Nation has created a lot of excitment among African diplomats. A long-time diplomat, Thomas-Greenfield has previously served as an ambassador to Liberia and the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs from 2013-2017. Africa by its sheer numbers of nations is extremely significant at the UN Security Council. According to data, in 2018, more than 50% of Security Council meetings, 60% of its outcome documents, and 70% of its resolutions with Chapter VII mandates concerned African peace and security issues. African states comprise nearly 28% of the UN’s overall membership, providing significant regional political backing to the A3-bloc of African countries on the Council. South Africa, Niger and Tunisia are the A3 members in 2020. The big world powers don’t respect the A3 on the UN Security Council. Perhaps Linda Thomas-Greenfield will help the African nations become a united powerful trio on the Security Council. The ambassador’s service as Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of African Affairs, where she led the bureau focused on the development and management of U.S. policy toward sub-Saharan Africa, will be extremely valuable at the UN. At the UN, African diplomats are excited about having ambassador Thomas-Greenfield working along side them on issues of importance to Africa. Indeed, it will be hard to ignore Africa with Thomas-Greenfield looming large in the UN. She will most definately be a breath of fresh air from her two U.S. predecessors who had no diplomatic experience.

Former UN ambassadors Nikki Haley and Kelly Craft were merely political appointees of President Trump.

And it is not necessary to repeat the vulcar term Trump used to refer to Afrian countries. Well, maybe it is. In 2018, Trump referred to Haiti and African nations as “shithole countries” during a meeting with a bipartisan group of senators at the White House. So how in the world were African diplomats at the UN supposed to work with Trump’s ambassadors when the president harbors such disdain and disrespect toward their countries? The U.N. human rights office said President Trump’s comments were “shocking and shameful” and “racist.” Botswana’s government said Trump had been “reprehensible and racist,” and said swiftly summoned the U.S. ambassador to clarify whether the nation is regarded as, to use Trump’s word, a “shithole” country. U.N. human rights office spokesman Robert Colville told reporters that the remarks could “potentially damage and disrupt the lives of many people.” The “shocking and shameful” remark “legitimizes the targeting of people based on who they are,” he said, adding: “I’m sorry, but there’s no other word one can use but racist.” The African Union said it was “alarmed” by Trump’s statement.

Credit: Gary Raynaldo / ©Diplomatic Times / Ambassador Jerry Matthews Matjila, Permanent Representative of the Republic of South Africa to the United Nations (File)

Africa is extremely significant at the UN Security Council but is often relegated to the background as the major Western powers dominate at the United Nations. More than 50% of Security Council meetings, 60% of its outcome documents, and 70% of its resolutions with Chapter VII mandates concerned African peace and security issues. Ambassador Jerry Matthews Matjila, Permanent Representative of the Republic of South Africa to the United Nations said recently after the news of Thomas-Greenfield’s nomination as Joe Biden’s top diplomat to the UN he is exicted about the change.

“Linda is a friend of mine. I think the African view will get additional support on African-related issues. With Linda being here it will be a very big injection, a new spirit, building on predecessors. It doesn’t mean when Linda arrives here everything will be resolved. No. But you know, I would think that she brings to bear a vast experience, over three decades of diplomacy. That is what we need now. Now we need a diplomatic skills, maturity and knowing on a common cause. We all need one another. We all need to work together and we can succeed.” -South Africa Ambassador Jerry Matthews Matjila

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President-Elect Biden Names First African American To Be The United States Secretary of Defense

By Gary Raynaldo DIPLOMATIC TIMES

President-elect Joe Biden plans to name

Lloyd Austin, a retired U.S. Army four-star general, as his pick for secretary of defense, who would become the first African American to head to the Pentagon. News of the pick was first reported by Politico, and confirmed by CNN. General Austin, 67, is highly respected in military circles and brings decades of experience having previously led the U.S. Central Command in its Iraq campaign. Austin was the first Black commander of CENTCOM. he USCENTCOM is one of the eleven unified combatant commands of the U.S. Department of Defense, its area of Responsibility includes the Middle East, including Egypt in Africa, and Central Asia and parts of South Asia. The command has been the main American presence in many military operations, including the Persian Gulf War’s Operation Desert Storm in 1991, the War in Afghanistan, and the Iraq War from 2003 to 2011. During his campaign, Biden promised to appoint the most diverse cabinet in American history. Biden already made a revolutionary move in this direction with his selection as Kamala Harris as the first African-American woman to serve as his Vice President. After the election, Biden then tapped veteran African American diplomat Linda Thomas-Greenfield as his U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.

Austin was born in 1953, in Mobile, Alabama and raised in Thomasville, Georgia. He graduated from the United States Military Academy (West Point) with a Bachelor of Science degree in June 1975. He is a graduate of the Infantry Officer Basic and Advanced courses, the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, and the U.S. Army War College. On September 1, 2010, Austin became Commanding General (CG) of U.S. Forces – Iraq (USF-I). After retiring, Austin in 2016 joined the board of Raytheon Technologies, a military contractor Austin will need a congressional waiver of the National Security Act of 1947 to bypass the seven-year waiting period after leaving active-duty military, as prescribed by 10 U.S.C. § 113(a), in order to be appointed as secretary of defense. It would be only the third time a president has requested a waiver — President Harry Truman for George Marshall in 1950, and President Trump for

General Lloyd Austin III, US CENTRAL COMMAND UNITED STATES ARMY (credit: Wikipedia)

James Mattis. Other candidates considered for the role included Michele Flournoy, a former undersecretary for defense policy touted by many Democrats as a qualified pick who would have been another potential history-maker as the first woman to lead the Pentagon, and Jeh Johnson, the former homeland security secretary who previously served as the Defense Department’s general counsel. According to Stars and Stripes, Austin’s name only surfaced as a candidate a week before being disclosed, as Flournoy, a former Pentagon policy chief, long-expected to be Biden’s Pentagon pick, faced increased opposition from the Democratic Party’s left wing over her ties to the defense industry and hawkish positions on conflicts in Afghanistan and Libya during her time in former President Barack Obama’s administration. General Austin was leading CENTCOM as the Islamic State group emerged amid civil war in Syria and tore across the eastern portions of that country and into western and northern Iraq in 2014, capturing a mass of land roughly the size of the United Kingdom. Stars and Stripes noted. Austin then oversaw the early portions of the U.S. military’s role in targeting ISIS, initially with airstrikes, and then as U.S. troops returned to Iraq to train and advise Iraqi forces to fight the new terrorist threat. He also oversaw early American attempts to train Syrian rebels to fight ISIS. Oppositon to Biden’s Defense Secretary Pick.

Writing an opinion piece in the New York Times Dec. 08, 2020, Jim Golby, who has been a special adviser to Vice Presidents Joe Biden and Mike Pence, opposed Biden’s selectgion of Austin:

General Austin meeting with US ambassador to Iraq James Jeffrey (left) and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta (center) in 2011 (credit: Wikipedia)

Vice President Joe Biden, Austin, and Command Sergeant Major Earl Rice, at an event marking the award of the Iraq Commitment Medal in December 2011 (Wikipedia)

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“General Austin is a capable and respected former commander of Central Command, but a civilian — not a recently retired general — should lead the Pentagon” Golby wrote that “after a tumultuous four years, we need civilian leadership and a return to normalcy”. Golby added that there are concerns that recently retired officers would be “too cozy” with their friends still on active duty. “Appointing another retired general to lead the Pentagon will not help return things to normal. General Austin is a fine public servant, and he may well continue his service to the nation out of uniform.

But the Pentagon would be the wrong place for him to do it.”

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DIPLOMATIC TIMES MAGAZINE (diplomatictimes.net) 450 Lexington Ave. #705 New York, NY 10163 (917) 995-5548 Published by Canaan Light Productions, LLC Gary Raynaldo Publisher Marie-Agnes Gomez Editor-In-Chief