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. 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.
Speakers will dissect U.S. military, financial and diplomatic backing for African strongmen (particularly in Rwanda, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia and Egypt) 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);
• 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

COALITION members include: Foreign Policy in Focus of The Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), Washington’s first progressive multi-issue think tank; 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).