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Monitoring and
Contesting Republican Rule
Foreign Policy In Focus has launched its Republican Rule project
to provide constant monitoring of the new policies the Bush-Helms-DeLay-Cheney
team advances. This initiative has brought together analysis
from a score of experts, including Salih Booker of the Africa
Policy Information Center, Robert Borosage from Campaign for
America’s Future, and Coletta Youngers of Washington Office
on Latin America (see: www.fpif.org/republicanrule).
According to the IRC’s Tom Barry: “All branches of
the U.S. government are currently in the hands of Republicans,
but they need constant reminding that their conservatism does
not reflect the view of the majority.” At an FPIF press
briefing at the National Press Club in Washington in January,
seven members of the FPIF advisory committee gave powerful presentations
about the domestic and international implications of Republican
rule.
Fostering Strategic
Dialog
The IRC’s John Gershman was an organizer and one of three
presenters at a forum sponsored by FPIF, together with the Asia
Center for Justice and Peace and the Friends Committee on National
Legislation, to discuss how progressives can forge a more cohesive
agenda for U.S.-China relations in the wake of last spring’s
divisive debate over China’s trade status. A new report
on the future of U.S.-China relations by the Nautilus Institute,
based on two forums in China involving Chinese and U.S. analysts
(including Tom Barry), will be released this month.
In the wake of a decision by a NAFTA arbitration panel that
the U.S. must allow Mexican trucks on U.S. highways, some DC-based
advocacy groups and labor unions have geared up to oppose implementation
of the decision, citing safety concerns. IRC commentary on the
decision took the road less traveled, however, and is challenging
progressives to rethink the issue. “Congratulations on
your superb commentary on the NAFTA trucking debate—by
far the best I’ve seen.” —Jonathan Fox, Chair,
Latin American and Latino Studies Department, UC-Santa Cruz.
See www.us-mex.org/borderlines/updater.
The IRC is participating in a roundtable series sponsored
by the Center for U.S.-Mexico Studies at UC-San Diego and the
University of Arizona that will look at the failures, accomplishments,
and lessons of binational, crossborder activism in recent years.
Connecting
Citizen Movements with Policymakers
At this year’s Annual Meeting on the Border Environment,
the IRC, in conjunction with the Mexico City-based Programa
LaNeta, is organizing a workshop for grassroots activists on
using the Internet to enhance their impact.
As part of our new commitment to advance citizen movements,
we are adding to our policy reform work a series of newly drafted
Citizen-Based Global Affairs Agendas summarizing citizen movements
around the world (see www.fpif.org/cgaa).
One of FPIF’s new special focus areas is Colombia and
the Drug War. New and updated FPIF policy briefs on these topics
are being widely used by advocacy groups such as the Washington
Office on Latin America, who are circulating them among policymakers
on Capitol Hill.
Our recent profile of Mexico’s new “Border Czar”
Ernesto Ruffo was distributed and discussed at a daylong roundtable
between community leaders, government officials, and Ruffo himself,
who, event organizers let us know afterward, was “very
impressed.”
Two FPIF policy briefs, “East Timor,” and “Papua,”
were distributed by the East Timor Action Network at a recent
national conference in Phoenix, and were central to the discussion
during the first Washington, DC conference of the Indonesian
Human Rights Network, a new U.S.-based organization for supporting
peace and human rights in the war-torn region. As with other
policy briefs, these two were distributed to policymakers and
their staff by advocacy groups.
Praise
for the IRC
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“We just received the hardcopy in Spanish of borderlines.
As usual it is packed full of great information. Congratulations
on your excellent work.”
–Native Cultures Institute of Baja California (CUNA)
“I think you have a good vehicle for creating a
progressive, independent voice on foreign policy….
For instance, the brief on Warfare vs. Welfare: I had
been plugging that issue for a while, but when it came
out in your brief in a format that is easy to use and
with the trade-offs with the social welfare programs,
we actually got Congresswoman Elizabeth Furse to do a
bill in Congress to take the money for arms subsidies
and put it into welfare for legal immigrants… And
finally, the network that you are building, your infrastructure,
and all the different ways you have of getting the word
out make the Foreign Policy In Focus project a very sound
investment in terms of building a solid base across the
country of independent voices and a fuller debate on foreign
policy.”
–Bill Hartung, World Policy Institute
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In January the IRC’s BIOS program project completed a
three-part review of border environmental policy timed to coincide
with the change of administrations on both sides of the line
and the development of the next five-year binational border
environmental management plan. The recent Bush-Fox presidential
meeting also occasioned a series of IRC analytical articles
on the crossborder relationship, including recommendations for
a binational immigration policy. February’s borderlines
took a hard look at the role low wages play in keeping Mexico’s
maquiladora industry competitive, raising serious questions
about the role the industry can, or should, play in Mexico’s
development process. Visit www.us-mex.org/borderlines.
The IRC is putting the finishing touches on a report on the
Phelps Dodge Mining Corporation that will provide citizens and
activists in our hometown of Silver City, New Mexico, with essential
information and tools for planning our community’s future.
We’re also assisting the Arizona-based Border Ecology Project
with distribution of a report on copper mining in northern Mexico.
The Sierra Club requested copies of our three-part border
environmental policy series for their Feb. 14-18 meeting of
the board of directors in Brownsville, Texas.
In the News
Thanks to our expanded media outreach office, FPIF commentaries
appeared in more newspapers during the past three months than
in any previous quarter since the project’s inception five
years ago. Publications include The Birmingham News,
Providence Journal, Charleston Gazette, Scranton
Times, The Nation, and Albuquerque Tribune.
Additionally, BIOS is gaining a reputation as a solid source
of helpful and compelling information among a growing number
of news outlets. Currently, BIOS articles and commentaries are
being reprinted in El Cambio de Arizona, NAFTA Digest,
Politico Magazine, and Hispanic Vista.
Bits and Pieces
The IRC’s Border Information and Outreach Service has
a new, easier-to-access web address: www.us-mex.org.
John Gershman, formerly of Food First, is now an IRC staff
member.
Check out the new FPIF Internet presence at www.fpif.org,
which has many new features (including a well-used feedback
facility) and many new visitors (nearly doubled number of hits—up
to 6,000 daily—in the past three months).
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