National Press Club: Activists Will Question Why Dictators Coming To U.S.-Africa Summit

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Paul Rusesabagina, left, hero of “Hotel Rwanda shown with Don Cheadle; part of panel discussing dictatorship in Africa

[**MEDIA ADVISORY**]

Activists Want Termination of U.S. Support for Uganda’s Anti-LGBT Dictator Museveni And Others

Group will declare that policy emboldens Gen. Museveni to incite hatred & intolerance and to escalate repression heading into 2016 elections.

WHAT: Washington, D.C.-based IPS’ Foreign Policy In Focus joins a diverse U.S. based activist coalition focusing on Africa in calling on U.S. leaders to stop supporting and enabling brutal dictators across Africa including Uganda’s anti-LGBT dictator Yoweri Museveni. This will happen at a special press conference that comes days ahead of the first ever U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit that President Obama is hosting in Washington, DC on August 4, 5 and 6.

American support for Uganda even as Gen. Museveni now in power for 28 years has intensified his campaign against the LGBT community, hoping to translate the attacks into votes in the next presidential election will be denounced at the press conference. Speakers will also deplore U.S. military, financial and diplomatic backing for African strongmen (particularly in Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Ethiopia) with billions of American taxpayers’ dollars. They will demand a halt to this largesse.

The Coalition stresses that President Obama’s 2009 declaration in Ghana (“Africa doesn’t need strongmen, it needs strong institutions”) remains a brilliant insight into Africa’s priorities. It will therefore urge Mr. Obama to align his policies with those words.

WHO (SPEAKERS):
    •    Paul Rusesabagina, hero of “Hotel Rwanda;” Hotel Rwanda Rusesabagina Foundation (HRRF) Via video/phone;
    •    Nita Evele, women’s rights campaigner;
    •    Zoe Bakoko, former Cabinet Minister under Gen. Museveni;
    •    Claude Gatebuke, Rwanda genocide survivor;
    •    Milton Allimadi, publisher of Black Star News in New York;
    •    Nii Akuetteh, democracy campaigner and founding Executive Director of George Soros’s West Africa foundation.

WHERE: The National Press Club 529 Fourteenth St, NW, Washington DC 20045.

WHEN: THURSDAY July 31st, 2014; 2 PM EDT through 4 PM EDT

MODERATOR: Shaka Ssali — Host of VOA’s “Straight Talk Africa”

COALITION members include: Foreign Policy in Focus at The Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), Washington’s first progressive multi-issue think tank; Africa Faith and Justice Network (AFJN); African Great Lakes Action Network (AGLAN); Don’t Be Blind This Time; Friends of the Congo (FOTC); Hope Congo (HC); Hotel Rwanda Rusesabagina Foundation (HRRF); Mobilization for Justice and Peace in Congo (MJPC) and la Fédération Internationale des Droits de l’Homme (FIDH).

CONTACTS:
Maurice Carney, 202 580-2944 or  [email protected]
Netfa Freeman, [email protected]

 

PUBLIC IS WELCOME TO ATTEND

 

 

 

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