Czechs Wrap Up Eventful EU Presidency
The global economic calamity, international G-20 summit, NATO’s 60th anniversary summit, the collapse of its own ruling government, a president opposed to the very bloc his country presides over, and now swine flu — it certainly hasn’t been a dull agenda for the Czech Republic as it wraps up its six-month rotating presidency of the European Union in June.
 But the presidency isn’t over yet, and Czech Ambassador Petr Kolar told the Diplomatic Pouch that the country is preparing for two other major projects “that we hope will also be the lasting accomplishments of our presidency.”
Those are the Eastern Partnership Summit and the Southern Corridor Summit, which take place in Prague on May 7 and 8, respectively. Both may also strain the already-shaky relations that Europe has with Russia.
The Eastern Partnership Summit is seen as a key outreach by the European Union to six ex-Soviet states — Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine — a move that has upset Moscow.
The summit could potentially open up vast areas of trade, economic aid, security cooperation and travel to Europe’s eastern neighbors, but in return those neighbors would have to commit to democracy and the rule of law — a tradeoff that’s particularly tricky in Belarus, widely considered Europe’s last dictatorship. Since a dispute with ally Russia in 2007 over energy prices though, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has made tentative overtures to the West, and the EU in turn has suspended a travel ban on the president, allowing him to visit the Vatican recently.
But Lukashenko won’t be attending the summit despite an invitation from the Czechs — a snub that reflects the complexities of rapprochement. Nevertheless, Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg said reaching out to former Soviet satellites is necessary, despite EU worries over countries such as Belarus and Moldova. “We believe that sending a strong message to the six partnership countries … is very important in the light of the recent developments in the region, and that we need to engage with our neighbors more closely in order to promote good governance, the rule of law, and transparency,” Schwarzenberg recently said.
The foreign minister also largely dismissed Russian concerns. “I am sure Russia will see this time that it’s not against them,” he said. “It is purely a development project.”
Likewise though, the Southern Corridor Summit is likely to rankle Russian nerves. The aim is “to strengthen energy independence of the EU by diversifying our sources as well as transit routes of vital energy imports,” according to Kolar. “Diversifying” energy sources is also code for reducing dependence on Russia, as Prague works to entice countries around the energy-rich Caspian and Mediterranean Seas to cooperate with the European Union in exchange for gas supplies.
It’s a bold gamble and one that could easily backfire for the Czech Republic if leaders fail to show up or if progress isn’t made on the Nabucco gas pipeline project, seen as a key alternative to Russia’s monopoly on the Caspian’s energy routes.
It’s clear the Czechs’ allegiance stands firmly with the West, not surprising given the country’s history of Soviet occupation. In describing the biggest accomplishment so far of the Czech EU presidency, Ambassador Kolar said the EU-U.S. Summit that the Czech presidency organized in Prague on April 5 “launched a new era of cooperation between the United States and the European Union. Personally, I am convinced that President Obama’s trip to Europe brought Europe and the United States even closer together. We are very thankful for his friendship and for America’s alliance, which was solidified and confirmed by this visit.”
In addition to President Barack Obama’s address to huge crowds in Prague, the Czech government has seen the G-20 and NATO summits take place under its EU watch, and more recently, accepted a formal application for Albania’s entry into the 27-member club and discussed membership with Turkey.
Although the Czech government has been working to bring together a wide assortment of international leaders and parties, internally it’s been fractured by political rifts that have threatened to throw the larger presidency into disarray. In late March, Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek’s coalition was toppled when it narrowly lost a no-confidence vote. The collapse of the government was punctuated by the vocal anti-EU campaign of the country’s president, Vaclav Klaus, a notorious “euroskeptic” who helped to engineer Topolanek’s ouster.
In fact, the largely ceremonial president may have grabbed more headlines than the government’s collapse over the past few months. The Financial Times “Brussels Blog” recently called Klaus “the naughty boy who will never grow up” for provocations such as refusing to fly the EU flag from Prague Castle and other undiplomatic gaffes.
And amid speculation that Klaus would try to chair a June 18 summit of EU leaders — potentially derailing discussions on guarantees for Ireland to ratify the Lisbon Treaty and the appointment of a European Commission president — officials have suggested they would postpone the two key decisions until after Sweden assumes the EU presidency.
Kolar told the Diplomatic Pouch that no decision has been made on who will chair the June summit, and he stressed that the country is ruled by a parliamentary democracy and not a presidential one. “The government is run by the prime minister,” he said of Klaus’s role. “It also applies to foreign policy as well as to the issues of EU policies.”
And one of the biggest issues being debated in Parliament will come up in early May, when the Czech Senate is scheduled to vote on the Lisbon Treaty, which has already been approved by the lower house.
 The ambassador also pointed out that “the prime minister’s cabinet is staying in office until the new government takes over. It is expected that many members in this new ‘caretaker’ government will be senior civil servants who have already been participating in and performing functions under the EU presidency.”
Indeed, Topolanek will be staying on to ensure continuity for the EU presidency at least into May, when an interim government is set to take over.
Kolar though rejected criticism that the rotating six-month system of the EU presidency leads to inconsistency and less-equipped nations at the helm.
“One of the advantages I see is that everybody — no matter how big or small a country in the European Union — can be in charge of chairing and coordinating EU matters. It should increase the member states’ responsibility as well as stakes since they know that one day they will be in the presidency chair,” he said.
“A disadvantage is perhaps that there is a lesser degree of strategic continuity in the main priorities since every presidency is free to prepare its own set of priorities,” the ambassador added. “Nevertheless, since 2007, the EU has been trying to address this possible shortcoming by introducing the Trio Presidencies in which the three consecutive presidencies — currently France, the Czech Republic and Sweden — prepare a common, 18-month framework strategy and coordinate closely during their respective presidencies.”
Such coordination is all the more urgent in the face of ongoing economic straits for Europe, which remains divided over the best way to handle the financial crisis. The Czech Republic for one has made it abundantly clear that bailouts aren’t the answer.
Like the colorful Klaus, Prime Minister Topolanek has been prone to his own fiery rhetoric. Ahead of the G-20 Summit, he blasted President Obama’s economic recovery plans as “a way to hell,” arguing that the European Union was right to steer clear of budget deficits and protectionism, unlike the Americans.
Kolar was a bit more diplomatic on the topic, advocating a balanced approach for different member countries.
“The Czech Republic took over the EU Presidency at a time when the economic crisis was beginning in Europe,” he said. “The Czech Republic believes that our presidency contributed to the common acceptance of the fact that protectionism and closure of national markets are not the way to go. While views may differ among individual EU member states as to what the best solution should be, our determination to work together prevails. The Czech Republic is not a big supporter of massive state subsidies or of pumping money into the economy. On the other hand, we respect that other member states may have their own specifics, which they need to address.”
As to his country’s own forecasts, Kolar said, “As an open economy with emphasis on export, the Czech economy is naturally affected by the global economic crisis. But our banking sector is stable and we benefit from our long-term responsible monetary and fiscal policies. Thus, the possible downturn of the economy will not hopefully have a deep impact in the Czech Republic.”
 As Ambassador Kolar puts a graceful spin on his country’s EU presidency, the Czech National Theatre Ballet was making its own graceful moves to mark the occasion. The artistic troupe came to Washington’s Harman Center for the Arts for a weekend engagement in late April to serve as a cultural highlight of the presidency.
Making its D.C. debut, the 20-member ballet troupe performed three works — “D.M.J. 1953-1977,” “Petit Mort” and “Sinfonietta” — that fused contemporary, minimalist theatricality with classical Czech music and dance. The Washington Post called it a “winning local debut” whose intimate, natural yet sleek choreography was an ideal fit for the Harman’s stage.
It was also a fitting show for a country looking to take its place on the world stage. At the relaxed post-performance reception, Czech Deputy Chief of Mission Jaroslav Kurfurst displayed the kind of unaffected diplomacy the Czechs pride themselves on.
Congratulating the “amazing” dancers, he said that “diplomacy is like ballet. We want to express ourselves but can’t always say what we want. We dance around too.”
Top photo, Czech Republic President Vaclav Klaus, right, motions to President Barack Obama and the U.S. delegation to sit down before their bilateral meeting during Obama’s visit to Prague on April 5 as part of the EU-U.S. Summit that the Czechs helped to organize as part of their presidency of the European Union. Czech Ambassador Petr Kolar, middle photo, calls the summit one of the biggest accomplishments of the Czech presidency because it “launched a new era of cooperation between the United States and the European Union.”
Meanwhile, a local highlight of the presidency was a performance by the Czech National Theatre Ballet, bottom photo, at Washington’s Harman Center for the Arts in late April.
Top photo: White House Photo/ Pete Souza
Bottom photo: Diana Zehetner
Rice Offers Her Vision of Middle East
Special to the Diplomatic Pouch contributed by Larry Luxner
Despite the 9/11 attacks and America’s continuing war in Iraq, there’s far more reason to be optimistic about the Middle East today than on Jan. 20, 2001 — the day George W. Bush moved into the White House.
That’s the view from Bush’s last secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice. Now a political science professor at Stanford University, Rice spoke Sunday night at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue in her first public appearance in Washington since leaving office. Her lecture followed a talk earlier in the day with 4th-, 5th- and 6th-graders at the Jewish Day School of the Nation’s Capital.
 “Whenever I’ve been asked how history will judge the Bush administration, I remind people that today’s headlines and history’s judgments are rarely the same,” Rice said at the fundraiser attended by 450 people, most of them paying $25 or more to hear her speak. “One has to think about other impossible things that we now see as inevitable.”
Rice recalled how, as the White House specialist on Soviet affairs from 1989 to 1991, she was lucky enough to witness the peaceful collapse of the Soviet Union.
“In 1947, when 2 million Europeans were still starving, and in 1948, when the Berlin crisis split Germany and Harry Truman made the fateful decision to recognize the State of Israel, or in 1949, when the Chinese communists won and in 1950 the Korean War erupted, do you think anybody would have believed that in 2006, I would have the great pleasure of attending a NATO summit in Latvia with the president of the United States?”
Looking back, Rice argued that eight years of the Bush administration did bring about a measure of hope to the Middle East — despite what many critics may say.
“When we came into office in 2001, the most dominant factor was the raging intifada that was killing thousands of people, with suicide bombs going off not in the West Bank but in Tel Aviv. This had largely been brought about by Yasser Arafat, who was determined not to make peace with Israel. I will never forget a tank shell that went off in Bethlehem, blowing a hole in the Church of the Nativity,” Rice recalled
Furthermore, she pointed out that Saddam Hussein still ruled Iraq and Syrian forces were still occupying Lebanon. “The Middle East of 2001 was not at all a hopeful place, and there was no debate on democracy. We were told that somehow the Mideast was an exception, even though democracy was growing in Latin America and even in Africa — that it was not consistent with Islam to talk about democracy.
“But now, there is a debate, and women have the right to vote in Kuwait,” she insisted. “Today, there is a democracy debate in places like Egypt. Saddam Hussein is gone from Iraq, the Syrians are gone from Lebanon, and the Lebanese government is very pro-American. And we’ve finally got to the place where Iran is seen as the problem, not the United States.”
First during her lecture, and later in a subsequent dialogue with Leon Wieseltier, literary editor of The New Republic, Rice said she “understands” that many people were opposed to the Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq — a war that has dragged on now for six years and cost the lives of more than 4,200 U.S. troops, not to mention an untold number of Iraqis.
“But it is also true that Iraq — one of the most geo-strategically important countries in the world — is no longer run by a murderous tyrant, but by a democratic leadership and friend of the United States. That is, for us, a strategic improvement, and Iraq is still a bulwark against Iran,” Rice contended.
She added that “while we were not able to deliver a Palestinian state, some very important things happened between 2001 and 2008. A negotiated peace really did begin to take hold between the Israelis and Palestinians, and here I give tremendous credit to Ariel Sharon. I knew Ariel Sharon and I liked him very much. He never told you he’d do something he wouldn’t do.”
The 66th secretary of state said she was “distressed” the morning she learned that Hamas — and not the Fatah party controlled by Mahmoud Abbas — had won the 2006 Palestinian elections that the U.S. government had pushed for.
Warning though that “you don’t fix that problem by not having elections,” Rice said, “I’m afraid we’re going to have to tolerate some elections that don’t turn out the way we want, as we find a balance between Islam and democracy. The good news about Iraq was that the first elections were pretty sectarian, but that the Islamists did less well in the second set of elections.”
Recalling the moment of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Rice said she was “shell-shocked, and I remained so” for several days after. “The image of Americans jumping out of 80th-story buildings is something you never forget,” she said. “You tell yourself you did what you could, and you believe it intellectually but never in your heart, because it happened on your watch. The fact is, America had to go on. I am grateful, not proud, that it did not happen again on our watch.”
Asked what was the most serious mistake of the Bush administration, Rice replied: “It’s going to take a while to catalogue all of them.”
“But the one that comes to mind, was our assumptions about what would be left in Iraq. The place collapsed and then we ended up trying to use our own people to be their civil service. It’s like, if you live in Gaithersburg, [Md.], you would never expect Washington to fix your sewer system — and we weren’t very good at insurgency.”
But Rice defended her boss’s decision to send additional troops into Iraq. “In my heart, I was worried,” she admitted. “I thought if the surge did not work, then we had played our last card. I knew that more troops was a good idea, but they had to do something different. We couldn’t just keep doing what we were doing.”
The former secretary of state declined to answer a written question from the audience about her disagreement with former Vice President Dick Cheney over the detention of suspected al-Qaeda terrorists at Guantánamo.
Responding to Wieseltier’s question about “the T word” — torture — Rice said the White House’s decision to use “enhancement interrogation techniques” on those suspects is an appropriate subject for debate. “It’s important to remember the times. People of goodwill had the hardest possible dilemmas and choices. This was tough stuff, the kind of stuff I never thought I’d be talking about,” she explained.
“Up to the day we left, the president wanted to do everything he could to protect the country. There were second-wave attacks planned. We knew virtually nothing about how al-Qaeda operated. We were as deaf, dumb and blind about al-Qaeda on Sept. 10 as we could possibly be,” she bluntly said.
But Rice avoided the Rice controversial words she spoke last week when she told students at Stanford that “we did not torture anyone,” explaining that “the president instructed us that nothing we would do would be outside of our obligations, legal obligations, under the Convention Against Torture,” then adding: “And so, by definition, if it was authorized by the president, it did not violate our obligations under the Convention Against Torture.” That assertion reminded many critics of Richard Nixon’s infamous defense, “When the president does it, that means it is not illegal.”
Rice though was clear in her D.C. appearance that the president’s actions were within the law. “[E]very time I talked to the president about it, he said it had to be within our legal obligation. That is why we sought an opinion from the Justice Department and from the attorney-general himself.”
Quizzed on Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Rice noted that the costs to Tehran’s leadership for pursuing weapons of mass destruction are getting higher every day, in the form of international sanctions against Iranian financial institutions, though she sounded a pessimistic tone that progress could be made.
“I’m quite confident that moderates in Iran don’t exist, but there may be reasonable people who may be willing to stop incurring those costs and make a deal with us,” she said, adding that Iran’s national elections in June will be a barometer of which faction is gaining the upper hand.
“If we can get a better alignment politically, then perhaps some deal is possible,” she said. “Our concern is not acquiesce to Iran’s aggressive behavior in the Middle East. Given Iran’s agenda, which is bound to clash with Israel, it’s doubtful that the kind of stability we associated with the Soviet nuclear deterrence could be attained in the Middle East.”
Rice added: “Peace in the Middle East will not come about without American leadership. Whatever you think about the policies of any one administration, never lose sight of the fact that the United States is the most generous, the most compassionate and the freest country on the face of the earth. We need to remind people of that.”
Sri Lanka Closes in on Tamil Tigers
Special to the Diplomatic Pouch contributed by Larry Luxner
In early April, Sri Lanka’s foreign secretary, Palitha Kohona, gathered half a dozen journalists to the Washington residence of the Sri Lankan Ambassador Jaliya Wickramasuriya. There, over premium Ceylon tea and pastries, he confidently declared that Asia’s longest-running ethnic war would be wrapped up in a matter of days.
“Maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow, maybe next week,” was how he put it when one reporter asked how much longer the war would go on.
 Nearly a month later, the fighting still rages. But Sri Lankan government forces now finally appear to be on the verge of once and for all defeating the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a fierce group of separatists — some say terrorists — that for 25 years has fought for an independent Tamil homeland in the island’s northeast.
“Almost everybody in the world thought the Tigers were unbeatable,” said Kohona. “We were consistently told by the international community that our Sri Lankan security forces would not stand a chance against them.”
Only three years ago, the LTTE controlled more than 5,800 square miles of territory — about 23 percent of the West Virginia-size island in South Asia — and the group had sympathizers and admirers throughout the world.
How times have changed.
At last check, the rebels were down to a 1.7 square-mile sliver of beachfront, an area less than half the size of Rock Creek Park. They’ve taken cover among an estimated 20,000 civilians still inside the crowded enclave, while more than 200,000 refugees have escaped the bloodshed over the last three months, as LTTE leaders plead for a ceasefire.
Yet the government refuses to stop the war, sensing victory may be less than one week away at this point. “Our message is that the war is over, the delusion of Eelam is in tatters, and it’s time to recognize this and give democracy a chance,” said Kohona.
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, a relative of Ambassador Wickramasuriya, hinted on May 1 that surrender was still an option for the armed Tigers.
“In the five or six days remaining, we have given the opportunity for the LTTE to lay down their arms and surrender to the armed forces and, even in the name of God, free the civilians held by them,” he declared at an event in Colombo, the capital. “If they have no regard for their own lives, they should at least consider the lives of others.”
Sri Lanka’s minister for human rights, Mahinda Samarasinghe, added that officials are now considering an amnesty for LTTE rebels who give up their arms — but not for leaders of the insurgency, including the group’s elusive founder, Velupillai Prabhakaran.
Meanwhile, the United Nations has called on the Tigers to let the remaining civilians leave the shrinking strip of land. It’s also urging the Sri Lankan government to “exercise maximum restraint, including no use of heavy weapons” in the conflict zone.
“The months of fighting during which the inhabitants of the conflict zone have been trapped have taken a terrible toll among the civilian population,” said John Holmes, the U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs. “We must have access to all internally displaced persons wherever they are, including in the conflict zone.”
At this point, according to Kohona, “the LTTE is trying to save their own skins, but nobody seems to ask how the civilians got there. We insist that the civilians be allowed to go. It is a primary concern of the government that civilian casualties be minimized as much as possible. Until we came into this small area, civilian casualties were so low that even the LTTE propaganda machine had no pictures of civilians who had been hurt.”
He added that “those who are now getting killed are children who have bee thrown at our security forces by the LTTE with only a minimum of training.”
The foreign secretary also angrily denied reports that Sri Lankan government forces are shelling civilians. “Anybody who has experience with shells would know that you can’t fire at your enemy without causing harm to yourself when you’re that close,” he insisted. “Shells are not simply lobbed across, they’re fired from a distance. This is another story that goes around and is accepted without critical analysis. The president himself has given his assurance that we will not fire heavy artillery into the no-fire zone.”
He added: “Why should we fire shells into the midst of civilians? The fruit is just about to fall into our hands. The LTTE is nearly defeated. What would we get by tormenting civilians?”
Meanwhile, the Sri Lankan Embassy in Washington has begun taking up a collection for urgent humanitarian aid for the 180,000 or so civilians now sheltered in temporary welfare centers. The embassy said these refugees are in “urgent need of a substantial amount of essential items such as food, clothing and medicine.”
The embassy is specifically appealing for milk powder, sugar, canned food, instant noodles, biscuits, clothing, toiletries, bed sheets, tents, baby bottles, candles, slippers and saucepans, among other things.
Kohona bristled at suggestions that his government is running African-style refugee camps. “I worked in the U.N. before, and I’m very familiar with the camps in Darfur and eastern Congo. We have no families crouching under trees with sunken eyes, waiting for their next meal. People get three meals a day. There’s even a school with accommodation for 600 children. It’s not ideal, but life is continuing in relatively normal fashion.”
Meanwhile, Ambassador Wickramasuriya is making the rounds of Capitol Hill, meeting with influential lawmakers in a bid to convince them that it’s the LTTE — not the Sri Lankan defense forces — that are committing atrocities and should be charged with genocide.
“The LTTE, due to its extremely sophisticated lobbying machinery, conveys messages which are far from the truth,” Kohona said. “Our mission here has been working overtime to get our side of the story to the Obama administration.”
With major hostilities soon to be a thing of the past, Sri Lankan officials are focusing on the future. As such, Kohona vowed to start rebuilding the devastated north almost immediately — an effort that could cost upward of $2 billion. He also promised that the refugees would “definitely go back to their homes” in a matter of months, not years.
“In the Eastern Province, when we recovered it [from the LTTE], over 187,000 people had been displaced, and 95 percent of them were returned to their homes within 12 months,” he declared. “There’s no intention of keeping people in these camps forever.”
Note: Financial contributions have to be made through bank checks only, written in the name of “Embassy of Sri Lanka” and mailed to the attention of: Accounts Department, Embassy of Sri Lanka, 2148 Wyoming Ave., NW, Washington, D.C. 20008. All donors are requested to write “Relief Fund for Northern Civilians” in the memo line of their checks.
In the March 2009 issue of The Washington Diplomat, Sri Lankan Ambassador Jaliya Wickramasuriya discussed his government's battle against the Tamil Tiger rebels — a battle that continues to drag on into May.
Peddling for the People of Tanzania
 Simon Shercliff may have left his job teaching in Tanzania for the British Foreign Service, but he never left behind his love of the African country. So in addition to revisiting once a year and introducing the country to his wife, Shercliff set up Orphans in the Wild, which works to help children orphaned by AIDS in the Mufindi District of Tanzania.
Today, from his post as a political officer at the British Embassy in Washington, Shercliff continues to work on the U.K.-based charity he founded in 2005. But he does more than peddle dreams and handouts. He and his small team peddle concrete action based on local needs and input — “helping the community help themselves,” Shercliff told the Diplomatic Pouch.
He’s also peddling a bike — from Washington to Africa — to raise funds for Orphans in the Wild. Well, Africa, Indiana, that is. But still, it’s an eight-day, nearly 1,000-mile journey that spans five states and averages more than 120 miles and nine hours each day. The goal is to raise $25,000 and so far, since starting the bike ride on May 2, Shercliff has raised almost $17,000 (you can track the progress at www.dctoafrica.org/theride).
Shercliff, 36, is making the trek with his colleague Oliver Griffiths, 35, first secretary at the British Embassy and a fellow trustee for Orphans in the Wild. Shercliff called Griffiths “the real biker,” having cycled the length of the Atlas mountain range in Morocco in 1997. Even though he commutes about 10 miles on his bike along the Capital Crescent Trail to work every day, Griffiths — who’s worked on trade and development issues since 2004 — says, “This journey will test our physical endurance to its limits.”
One-time rivals in sport at Cambridge and Oxford Universities respectively, Shercliff and Griffiths were “having a beer one night, kicking around ideas” for how to raise money for their charity, Shercliff recalled, when the idea for the bike ride took shape.
Shercliff’s wife Emma then a the tiny town called Africa in Indiana, and even though the two diplomats didn’t have much time in their busy schedules, “we decided to take a week holiday to do this.”
 Shercliff and Griffiths also recently gave a presentation on their charity to the British School of Washington. In addition, both men’s wives held a secondhand book sale to raise money, and another colleague at the embassy will be playing a charity gig with his band on May 30 at the River Falls Clubhouse in Maryland for the effort. Shercliff previously led an expedition walking across the ice caps of Patagonia in 2005 and raised $20,000, and he thought now might be a good time to introduce American audiences to his cause.
Shercliff himself became interested in the cause as a volunteer chemistry teacher at Tosamaganga Secondary School in the Iringa region of Tanzania shortly after finishing college. While there, he was struck by both the devastation that HIV/AIDS has wrought on the region, as well as the resilience of Tanzania’s people.
“One of the wonderful things about Tanzania … ultimately it is actually a very peaceful country. It doesn’t have the civil strife that all of its neighbors have had over the past 20 years. Tanzania very fortunately has managed to steer a course through its local politics to keep everyone happy,” Shercliff said, explaining why he and his wife become “enamored” with the country. “A: It’s a beautiful country, and B: People are happy, which is remarkable given how poor it is — it’s a great credit to the people of Tanzania.”
Yet at the same time, while it hasn’t suffered from much civil strife, Tanzania, like its neighbors, has been devastated by HIV/AIDS, which has plagued the Mufindi area in the southern part of the country. “It’s not a poor part of Tanzania — it’s so fertile — but it’s just been so badly decimated by AIDS and other illnesses,” Shercliff said. “It just means there’s so little opportunities for adults and growing children.”
In fact, it’s estimated that 60 percent of 15- to 40-year-olds in Mufindi are infected with HIV/AIDS, and there are some 15,000 orphans struggling to survive. To that end, Orphans in the Wild aims to provide these children and their communities both immediate and long-term emotional care and material support to feed, clothe and educate them to the end of their compulsory schooling.
 Currently, the group has about 18 children living in its Orphanage Village, but Shercliff described the home as “a last resort.” Rather, the group tries to focus on supporting the wider community than taking children away. Ultimately … it’s still healthier for them in the long run to stay within the community. Our expansion is aimed toward improving the safety net we can make for the village,” Shercliff said.
To that end, Orphans in the Wild has developed a number of vocational, health care and other outreach projects, including: micro-finance loans for activities such as weaving and sunflower farming; doubling the classroom capacity of Igoda Primary School, where orphans are educated, in addition to building a teaching library and providing uniforms and school supplies; boosting the capacity and proximity of local medical facilities to dispense antiretroviral drugs; providing new stoves to women diagnosed with HIV/AIDS to replace smoky indoor wood fires that may cause pulmonary diseases; repairing the houses of elderly grandmothers; and upgrading the Mdabulo General Hospital, a major work in progress that includes the construction of a maternity unit and counseling-treatment center.
But Shercliff stresses that all of the work is done in conjunction with the Tanzanian government as well as the local people. That way, his charity doesn’t wind up falling victim to the stereotype of “white men just coming in and being condescending, giving money, and making themselves feel better,” he said. “We thought long and hard, and with our local contacts and my experience. We’ve got enough local roots there to figure out if we’re going to help or hurt in the long run.
“We keep our eyes very squarely on the fact that this should be led by the people there, and we should be really responsive to the people on the ground,” Shercliff added, noting that the volunteers have daily dialogues with government officials and villagers to figure out what’s working and what’s not.
“You get a sort of visible ownership by the people — and that is so important. What we found in a lot of these things is that usually all it needs is just a bit of a start. And that’s the most important part of the whole procedure — is that we give ownership to the local communities.”
For information on Orphans in the Wild, visit www.dctoafrica.org.
Top photo: Simon Shercliff, first secretary of foreign security and policy at the British Embassy, left, and his embassy colleague Oliver Griffiths are biking nearly 1,000 miles from Washington, D.C., to Africa, Indiana, to raise money for their charity, Orphans in the Wild, which helps victims of HIV/AIDS in Tanzania.
Among the group’s projects are a vocational center, middle photo, and a temporary AIDS testing and treatment center in the village, bottom photo, that the group hopes to make into a permanent facility, as well as a restored library at the local primary school, front page.
Photos: Orphans in the Wild
It’s Raining Receptions
So far, April showers seem to have only brought us May showers instead of flowers, but there’s an abundance of fundraisers, balls, galas and festivals this month to brighten up the days, while benefiting worthy causes.
 And this week the events have blossomed into full gear. Pseudo celebrity-socialite Paris Hilton may have nabbed the spotlight at the Kennedy Center Spring Gala on Sunday, but she couldn’t upstage the real star: Michelle Obama, who came out for the celebration of women in the arts that featured Lily Tomlin, Vera Wang and Patti LaBelle.
The first lady also made an appearance on Monday at the Latin American Montessori Bilingual Charter School as part of an early Cinco de Mayo celebration, while her husband, President Obama, delivered remarks at a Cinco de Mayo event with Mexican Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan.
On Thursday, Ambassador Sarukhan and his wife are also set to host “An Evening in Yucatán,” the third annual spring garden benefit for the Meridian International Center. The Thursday event will provide a bit of relief from the dismal news coming out of Mexico of late and will honor former U.S. Ambassador to Mexico James R. Jones (www.meridian.org/yucatan/index.html).
Also on Thursday, Refugees International (RI) hosts its 30th anniversary dinner at the Italian Embassy honoring Ted Turner with the 2009 McCall-Pierpaoli Humanitarian Award for his work, including the establishment of the United Nations Foundation and CNN. A former RI board member, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke will present Turner with the award, while CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour will interview the media mogul during the program. U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and Rep. Nita M. Lowey (D-N.Y.) will also be honored with Refugees International’s Congressional Leadership Award, while Oscar-nominated actor and board member Sam Waterston will serve as master of ceremonies (www.refugeesinternational.org).
Another humanitarian group has been expanding its annual event to create a two-day extravaganza that combines celebration, celebrities, congressional advocacy and policy workshops.
 CARE’s National Conference and Celebration on May 5 and 6 highlights the organization’s 63rd year combating global poverty — a powerful mission that has attracted some equally powerful fans, as evidenced by the star-studded roster of attendees and honorees (www.care.org).
The centerpiece will be a benefit show at the Ronald Reagan Building & International Trade Center honoring actor, social activist and philanthropist Richard Gere, along with Arnulfa Romero Cruz, a Nicaraguan midwife. For more than 25 years, Gere has been at the forefront of the fight against HIV/AIDS and has also worked to protect human rights and the cultural survival of the Tibetan people. Cruz is being recognized for her leadership as a midwife, a skill she learned at the age of 13 through her grandmother and refined over the years thanks to CARE’s maternal health program in Nicaragua.
The diverse spectrum of the honorees reflects the theme of this year’s celebration, “Many Voices, One Movement,” which “underscores how critical it is that many voices — from a Nicaraguan midwife to a Hollywood movie star, from philanthropists in the nation’s capital to leaders of major corporations around the world — come together to create a movement dedicated to building lasting solutions to poverty by empowering women,” said CARE President and CEO Helene D. Gayle.
Since joining CARE after 20 years with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Gayle has worked to showcase CARE’s goal of addressing the underlying causes of poverty so that people can become self-sufficient. Recognizing that women and children suffer disproportionately from poverty, CARE places special emphasis on working with women to create permanent social change. Thus, women are at the heart of CARE’s community-based efforts to improve basic education, prevent the spread of HIV, increase access to clean water and sanitation, expand economic opportunity and protect natural resources. CARE also delivers emergency aid to survivors of war and natural disasters.
Tracey Neale of Fox 5 News will serve as emcee of the benefit show on May 5, while the dance troupe Step Afrika! will perform. The show caps off a day workshops on humanitarian topics ranging from modernizing U.S. foreign assistance to defending girls’ rights to climate change. In addition, CARE Global Ambassador and entrepreneur Sheila C. Johnson hosts an advocacy leaders luncheon, while Wolf Blitzer of CNN’s “The Situation Room” and fellow journalist Gwen Ifill of “Washington Week” also hold events for CARE participants.
In addition, more than a dozen embassies are hosting private dinners for CARE guests from Australia to Haiti to South Africa, whose ambassador, Welile Nhlapo, also serves as the CARE international chair this year. The embassy dinners are preceded by an afternoon of congressional meetings involving some 400 people on Capitol Hill to discuss global poverty policymaking.
This ever-growing annual event commemorates the sending of the first CARE package on May 11, 1946, to provide relief to survivors of World War II. In the more than six decades since then, CARE has served as a model of how to empower poor people around the world to help themselves. Last year, CARE’s programs improved the lives of 55 million people through more than 1,100 projects in 66 countries. Incidentally, last year’s celebration also raised $500,000 — more than 90 percent of which goes directly to CARE’s fight against global poverty.
Several other notable area events are showcasing international culture and arts. Recent events include the Mosaic Foundation’s 12th annual benefit dinner at the National Building Museum focusing on clean drinking water programs at the foundation, which is composed of the spouses of Arab ambassadors here. The Greek Embassy also hosted a reception to celebrate the cultural and historic linkages between Greece and Afghanistan and to support the Nooristan Foundation, a U.S. nonprofit that offers charitable and educational projects in rural parts of Afghanistan.
Another cross-cultural bridge is shaping up to the social soiree of the spring season. Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov will be among the guests of honor attending the May 7 opening gala of the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery’s spring exhibition, “The Tsars and the East: Gifts from Turkey and Iran in The Moscow Kremlin” (www.asia.si.edu/events/Gala_Tsars.htm).
Lavrov will be joined by Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak as well as Vagit Alekperov, president of Lukoil. The evening includes a black-tie dinner, entertainment and a private viewing of the exhibition, which features 65 sumptuous diplomatic gifts given to Russian tsars by Turkish and Iranian diplomats in the 16th and 17th centuries. An unprecedented partnership between the Freer and Sackler Galleries and the Moscow Kremlin Museums has allowed these objects, rarely seen outside Russia, to be viewed for the first time in the United States.
Yet another popular cultural showcase, the Washington Performing Arts Society (WPAS) Annual Gala and Auction, also has some big-name support — with renowned jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis headlining the event, to be held May 16 at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel (www.wpas.org/support/2009annualgala.aspx).
Legendary American jazz musician Marsalis, who perform at the gala, developed the “Capitol Jazz” curriculum that WPAS has been bringing into D.C. public schools.
Also in attendance among the 700 guests will be members of Congress and various ambassadors, including French Ambassador Pierre Vimont, this year’s honorary diplomatic host. (Incidentally, on May 20, Ambassador Vimont also hosts “An Evening to Benefit Innocents at Risk” at his residence.)
 In addition to benefiting Marsalis’s Capitol Jazz Project, the gala will raise funds for WPAS programs such as “Concerts in Schools,” which allows thousands of students to enjoy free, live arts performances; the Embassy Adoption Program, which partners sixth-grade D.C. classes with more than 50 embassies; “Enriching Experiences for Seniors,” which provides performances to senior adults in nursing homes; as well as the In-School Artist Residency Program and Feder Memorial String Competition.
Also on May 16, the Joint Baltic American National Committee hosts its eighth biennial conference (http://jbanc.org) focusing on Baltic regional security and “Old Threats and New Challenges,” with Latvian President Valdis Valdis Zatlers giving the keynote speech for Saturday’s program (along with various events May 15).
Other cultural offerings include the National Museum of African Art’s 30th Anniversary Gala, “Africa Live(s),” with various African ambassadors attending on May 20, the Phillips Collection Annual Gala on May 15, the Kreeger Museum Gala on May 30, and the Opera Ball on June 5.
 Finally, to experience international culture firsthand — minus the black ties and travel — two popular annual embassy showcases are back to throw open the doors to the city’s foreign missions. Last weekend on May 2, Cultural Tourism DC’s Passport DC featured a citywide open house of more than 30 embassies from countries such as Australia, Iraq, Japan, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Ukraine, Venezuela and Zambia. And on May 9, Passport DC continues with the third annual Meridian International Center’s International Children’s Festival, an educational fun-fair where embassies host booths highlighting their country’s rich cultural heritage through interactive displays, crafts and other activities (www.passportdc.org or www.meridian.org).
Also on May 9, the European Union holds its third EU Open House, where area residents and visitors can hop from the Seine to the Rhine, up the Danube, over the Carpathians, from the Mediterranean to the Baltic, all without ever leaving the District.
In 2008, more than 50,000 visitors experienced the diversity and richness of 26 of the 27 member nations of the European Union. The 2009 EU Open House also kicks off Europe Week, a celebration of European culture in the nation’s capital and around the country (www.europe-in-dc.com).
From top photo to bottom photo: At last year’s Washington Performing Arts Society (WPAS) annual gala and auction, the diplomatic hosts was Ambassador of Mexico Arturo Sarukhan, right, pictured with (from left) his wife Veronica Valencia-Sarukhan, Nicole Totah and the Empress Farah Pahlavi. This year, jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis (front page) headlines the WPAS gala and action on May 16, with French Ambassador Pierre Vimont serving as honorary diplomatic host.
The diplomatic hosts of this year’s CARE National Conference and Celebration are Mrs. and Ambassador of South Africa Welile Nhalpo, pictured at last year’s celebration for the leading humanitarian group.
Visitors admire artwork at the Embassy of Kazakhstan at last year's Passport DC embassy showcase, which this year featured another citywide open house event on May 2.
People line up to explore the Embassy of Finland at last year's European Union Open House, which is being held May 9 this year.
African Union Deputy Seeks Obama Administration's Ear
Special to the Diplomatic Pouch contributed by Larry Luxner
When Erastus Mwencha came calling on Washington last week, he had plenty of issues on his plate, from economic disruption and regional energy concerns to Sudanese poverty and Somali pirates.
 Mwencha is deputy chairman of the African Union (AU), which represents 53 countries (basically, all African nations except for Morocco). His objective was to ensure that President Obama — the first occupant of the White House with African roots — pays attention to the critical problems now plaguing Africa.
“The purpose of our visit is to meet the new administration and discuss what we see as Africa’s strategic issues, and how the administration could take those issues into consideration,” said Mwencha, who took over the AU’s number-two spot a year ago. Before that, he was secretary-general of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA).
While he didn’t land a face-to-face with Obama — who like Mwencha traces his roots to Kenya — the 61-year-old African bureaucrat did hold meetings with officials of the World Bank, the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office, the Department of Agriculture, State Department, National Security Council, various business executives and members of Congress.
Mwencha’s visit coincided with a policy speech by Johnnie Carson, Obama’s nominee to be assistant secretary of state for Africa. Carson, who served in six African countries and was U.S. ambassador to three — Uganda, Kenya and Zimbabwe — has traveled to 40 of sub-Saharan Africa’s 48 countries. Carson said that if confirmed, he’d focus on four specific policy areas: strengthening democratic institutions, preventing conflict, fostering economic growth, and partnering with Africa to combat global threats.
Without a doubt, according to Mwencha, Africa’s biggest current challenge is the global economic crisis.
“This has impacted Africa by reducing the continent’s growth rate, which five or six years ago was 5 percent, to around 3 percent this year,” he told Diplomatic Pouch. “For Africa to reduce the number of people living on $1 a day and achieve our goals, Africa needs to grow at no less than 7 percent a year. So if we’re growing at only 3 percent, this means we’ll have more people living on $1 a day or less by 2015, when we were supposed to cut this number by half.”
Other major concerns on the AU agenda include food security, energy independence and the continuing humanitarian crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan.
Unlike the United States and the 27-member European Union, Mwencha declined to call what’s going on in Darfur “genocide.”
“The [International Criminal Court] has already issued a finding that it’s a crime against humanity but not genocide. Even the U.N. itself has come to that conclusion,” said the Kenyan bureaucrat. “From the African perspective, we have issues with that. We would like peace and security taken together in the process. All we are asking is, give us more time.”
Yet Mwencha readily conceded that the hybrid African Union-U.N. peacekeeping force now patrolling Darfur is not effective because there simply aren’t enough troops.
“This is a huge area, and up to now, we have only 10,000 soldiers when we really need 30,000,” he said. “It’s a very costly operation — you need financing and logistics, and this could cost over a billion dollars. It’s very difficult for us to cope with that kind of budget.”
Another hotspot is Zimbabwe, where Mwencha claims events have taken a turn for the better.
“We now have a government of national unity in Zimbabwe, and the accord seems to be working for the time being. We hope Zimbabwe can now focus on humanitarian issues,” Mwencha told us. “The country has moved out of a political crisis, and it is now an economic crisis. President [Robert] Mugabe and the opposition have agreed to work together. It’s not an ideal situation, but at least there’s a functioning government where before there was none.”
Things are much better in neighboring South Africa, despite lingering concerns that the country’s next president, Jacob Zuma, could become the continent’s new “strong man.”
“This election was hotly contested, but the fact it was peaceful is significant, because we’ve been worried that in many African states, elections end up in disputes,” he said. “South Africa constitutes almost 30 percent of Africa’s GDP, so it’s important that this country continues to function as an example for others in the region. We pray that South Africa stays on course.”
Mwencha, whose term of office is for four years, said the AU now employs a staff of nearly 1,500 people at its headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Its mission in Washington, located at 19th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue and headed by Tanzanian diplomat Amina Salum Ali, opened two years ago and has a staff of six.
“We will soon increase that to 10 or 12, and we’ll be looking for a more appropriate location in the areas where most of the embassies are,” he said. “We are, in fact, in the process of identifying a property, though this is a long process.”
Erastus Mwencha, deputy chairman of the African Union, speaks at the National Press Club during his recent Washington visit.
Hope for Ukraine’s Future from Wreckage of Chernobyl Past
Special to the Diplomatic Pouch contributed by Patrick Haggerty
Early in the morning of April 26, 1986, the number four reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded during the course of an experiment. This explosion and the subsequent fires released a massive plume of radioactive fallout that devastated the areas surrounding the plant, and floated as far west as Ireland.
 Last week, the Embassy of Ukraine hosted an event to commemorate the 23rd anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, considered to be the worst nuclear power plant disaster in history.
The April 28 discussion was attended by representatives of the State Department, Department of Energy, NGOs and businesses, each of whom not only looked back on the tragedy, but offered insights on how to build a better future for Ukraine and resolve the lingering issues surrounding Chernobyl.
Holtec International, a company that specializes in nuclear technology solutions, is one of the main parties involved in the ongoing Chernobyl saga. “Our job”, said William Woodward, senior vice president for international projects, “is basically to build the systems to take the fuel out of the plants and put it into an interim storage facility that will be able to store the fuel safely for 100 years.”
But because the fuel does not yet have a facility to travel to, it is kept within the reactors of the three remaining units at the Chernobyl site. This means that the safety systems of these reactors must be maintained to keep the site safe. “We hear of the exclusion zone as a place where nobody goes. Well you’ll be surprised to hear that 3,000 people report to work at the Chernobyl plants every day,” Woodward noted. “Once the fuel has been removed from the plants, we can decommission the plants and put the sarcophagus over reactor four.”
Another part of creating a safer Chernobyl is the construction of a new sarcophagus. The current sarcophagus, originally called the “object shelter,” was never meant to serve as a long-term solution, and as such must be reinforced. “We have made some good progress and the initial contracts for both the sarcophagus and the storage of the fuel were signed in 2007, and that was really the beginning of the end hopefully to come soon when all is safe in the Chernobyl zone,” said Woodward.
And although the problem of the remaining nuclear fuel and the deteriorating encasement surrounding the wrecked reactor represent major remaining issues, there is another hazard that gets very little public acknowledgement. Ukraine observer George Chopivsky pointed out the imminent danger of forest fires in the radioactive exclusion zone. “Huge amounts of radioactivity are concentrated there and the danger is that in the event of a forest fire, this radioactivity and these particles could be carried as a plume to other locations on the continent,” he said.
And at the frontline of the issue is a team led by the University of Life Sciences in Ukraine and Yale University. They, along with U.N. partners, have developed mathematical models to help predict how catastrophic a large-scale fire at Chernobyl would be. “The results are spine-shivering”, said Chopivsky, adding that simple, cost-effective solutions are at readily at hand. “It’s all very doable and not nearly as much as it would cost to build the new sarcophagus.”
Ambassador of Ukraine Oleh Shamshur summed up the progress made in Chernobyl: “Definitely we managed to do a lot already and in cooperation with our friends, I am quite sure Ukraine will do its best to mitigate any further consequences of the Chernobyl disaster.”
Ambassador of Ukraine Oleh Shamshur hosted a discussion on the aftereffects and ongoing cleanup of Chernobyl, the nuclear power plant that exploded 23 years ago leaving behind deserted towns (front page) and a radioactive plume that drifted over parts of the Soviet Union, Europe and North America.
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