NEW YORK, August 4 (RIA Novosti) - This week’s US-Africa Leaders Summit will serve to honor some of Africa’s “horrible retrograde dictators of the past,” a US-based human rights advocate Jeffrey Smith told RIA Novosti.
“There is a culture in Washington that allows us to uplift and honor these horrible retrograde dictators of the past as opposed to working cooperatively and proactively with leaders at the democratic vanguard who push through positive change in Africa,” said Smith, who works with the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights.
He criticized the long-standing leaders of Equatorial Guinea, Uganda and Angola for repressing their own people, and blasted honorary side events at this week’s Washington summit for elevating such “big men of the past."
“It’s in America’s long-term strategic and economic interests to work with more democratic leaders. In West Africa, Senegal, Benin and Ghana are on the upswing and performing well economically with leaders who push good governance at the regional level,” he said.
The summit, which takes place on August 4-5, will see nearly 50 African heads of state and government officials meet in Washington for talks on development and trade on the continent that is reach in resources and that has become a destination for much of the European and Chinese investment.
“The Leaders Summit seems to have dispatched Africa’s serious human rights problems to a sideshow, but the summit’s development and security goals hinge on addressing repression, corruption, and the rule of law,” said Daniel Bekele of Human Rights Watch.
