Showing posts with label U.S. lobbyist for Sudan nixed. Show all posts
Showing posts with label U.S. lobbyist for Sudan nixed. Show all posts
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Lobbyist lashes out at supervisor
A lobbyist for the Board of Supervisors publicly berated District 3 Supervisor D.I. Smith on Monday over Madison County's lobbying strategy.
The lobbyist, C. Stevens Seale, had given the Board of Supervisors a year-end update, touting $4.5 million in federal funds earmarked for three Madison County projects, when he began berating Smith as he tried to comment.
The projects Seale mentioned in his report included $1.5 million each for the Reunion interchange, Gluckstadt interchange and the Lake Harbour Drive extension.
Following a nearly 15 minute report, Smith tried to make a comment about Lake Harbour Drive, but was interrupted and harsly scolded by Seale.
"I know exactly what you're trying to do Supervisor Smith," Seale said. "And I'll say publicly I'm offended by the fact you did that."
Seale said he felt Smith was questioning his role in obtaining the funds when other county agencies like the Madison County Foundation and municipalities like the city of Ridgeland had also worked to lobby for the same projects.
Seale said Smith should have come to him privately instead of waiting to question him during an open meeting.
"I work for Madison County and that requires communication," Seale said. "I have a great working relationship with four of the five supervisors and would like to have the same with you. I'm not going to get into the personal politics of this board."
Smith never got a chance to explain himself, but following the meeting insisted he was not questioning Seale's lobbying.
Instead, Smith said he was trying to point out that the $1.5 million earmarked for Lake Harbour Drive was for its eventual extension over Interstate 55 and not for the widening of the road scheduled to begin this year.
Madison County recently reneged on a $1.9 million commitment to help Ridgeland widen Lake Harbour Drive, saying those funds have been reallocated due to increased costs for other projects and the sagging economy.
"Some are making the argument that the county didn't need to pay the $1.9 million because they got $1.5 million coming from the federal government," Smith explained. "The county is putting a lot of stuff at risk when they won't deliver on their promises."
In the past Smith has questioned Seale's contract with the county that calls for a fixed fee of $75,000 plus expenses such as airfare, meals and entertainment.
Smith has complained that the contract does not specify goals or performance measures that could be monitored by the board.
Earlier Seale told supervisors that politics and a lack of unification can hamper his ability to lobby for the county.
Smith's firm, Wise Carter Child & Caraway, is one of two representing the Board of Supervisors alone.
The other is former state Sen. and Canton attorney Barbara Blackmon who works alongside another former state senator, Gloria Williamson.
The county pays Blackmon and Williamson $75,000 a year as well, plus expenses such as airfare, meals and entertainment.
For several years most governmental entities in the county had agreed to let the Madison County Foundation, a private more independent organization made up of influential business leaders, take the lead on lobbying, but gradually that coalition has unraveled as individual elected officials began jockeying for power and influence.
"It really hurts our efforts to have potential opposition for specific projects based on politics or other reasons," Seale said during the meeting, noting that the Reunion interchange in particular had received some negative publicity and suffered from a lack of support.
All in all he said it had been a successful year, however.
"Not a lot of counties get $4.5 million in earmark federal funding in one year," Seale said.
Source:onlinemadison.com/
Sunday, November 29, 2009
U.S. lobbyist for Sudan nixed
WASHINGTON (BP)--Efforts by the Sudanese government to hire a U.S. lobbyist have been stopped, according to The Washington Post.
An application seeking approval of a lobbying contract was submitted to the Treasury Department but rejected by Maj. Gen. J. Scott Gration, the special U.S. envoy to Sudan.
Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough, a law firm in Atlanta, wanted permission for a lobbyist on behalf of the Sudanese government, which is based in the city of Khartoum. The firm dropped the effort in October after its application was denied.
Sudan's militant Islamic regime has backed genocidal campaigns against both Christians and moderate Muslims over the last 25 years.
During the last six years in the country's western region of Darfur, Khartoum military forces and Arab militias supported by the government have instituted ethnic cleansing against African Muslims, resulting in the killing of about 400,000 people, as well as rampant torture, rape and kidnapping, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has reported. About two million Sudanese are homeless in Darfur and another 250,000 are in refugee camps in Chad and the Central African Republic, according to USCIRF.
While Darfur's crisis involves conflict between Arab Muslims and African Muslims, a civil war of more than 20 years that ended in 2005 involved a campaign by the Khartoum regime against Christians and animists in southern Sudan, as well as moderate, African Muslims. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement that closed that war has yet to be fully implemented.
In a letter to President Obama before the application was denied, Rep. Frank Wolf, R.-Va., urged Obama to block the hiring of a lobbyist to represent Sudan.
"This would be a disgrace and must not be permitted to take place under any circumstances," said Wolf, co-chair of the Congressional Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission. "Too often lobbyists are viewed as granting access ... the only thing they lack is the political will to bring about a lasting peace in Sudan. And no lobbyist can manufacture that."
Having a U.S. lobbyist for the Sudanese government would not have been a first.
Robert Cabelly, former State Department official, had a contract with Sudan as a U.S. lobbyist from 2005 to 2006. He recently was indicted on several charges -- including violating sanctions and money laundering -- from his involvement with Sudan, according to The Post.
A revised administration strategy on Sudan that refocuses attention on fully implementing the Comprehensive Peace Agreement will help the east African country recover from its current conditions, officials said.
"The strategy uses all elements of our nation's influence -- diplomacy, defense, development -- to bring about a stability, a security, human rights, opportunities for a better future in Sudan. Our strategy aims to give the people of Sudan a country that is governed responsibly, justly and democratically, a country that's at peace with itself and with its neighbors," said Gration, the special U.S. envoy to Sudan, at an Oct. 19 meeting with other officials discussing the strategy in Sudan, according to the State Department website.
On the day the strategy was announced, the administration released a statement from President Obama on Sudan. He expressed how serious the urgency is for Sudan to receive U.S. and international help.
"The genocide in Darfur has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and left millions more displaced ... Sudan is now poised to fall further into chaos if swift action is not taken," said Obama in his Oct. 19 statement on the State Department website.
Sudan is one of eight regimes designated by the State Department as "countries of particular concern," a label reserved for the world's worst violators of religious liberty.
At the conclusion of Wolf's letter to Obama, he briefly cited a true story of a Sudanese woman who was raped. Walking with a group of 20 other women to collect firewood, she was raped by a gang and stabbed in the leg in May, according to a recent U.N. report on Sudan. The same woman was raped and shot in 2003.
--30--
Cindy Ortiz, a junior at Biola University in La Mirada, Calif., is attending the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities' Washington Journalism Center this semester and serving as an intern with Baptist Press.
Source:bpnews.ne
An application seeking approval of a lobbying contract was submitted to the Treasury Department but rejected by Maj. Gen. J. Scott Gration, the special U.S. envoy to Sudan.
Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough, a law firm in Atlanta, wanted permission for a lobbyist on behalf of the Sudanese government, which is based in the city of Khartoum. The firm dropped the effort in October after its application was denied.
Sudan's militant Islamic regime has backed genocidal campaigns against both Christians and moderate Muslims over the last 25 years.
During the last six years in the country's western region of Darfur, Khartoum military forces and Arab militias supported by the government have instituted ethnic cleansing against African Muslims, resulting in the killing of about 400,000 people, as well as rampant torture, rape and kidnapping, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has reported. About two million Sudanese are homeless in Darfur and another 250,000 are in refugee camps in Chad and the Central African Republic, according to USCIRF.
While Darfur's crisis involves conflict between Arab Muslims and African Muslims, a civil war of more than 20 years that ended in 2005 involved a campaign by the Khartoum regime against Christians and animists in southern Sudan, as well as moderate, African Muslims. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement that closed that war has yet to be fully implemented.
In a letter to President Obama before the application was denied, Rep. Frank Wolf, R.-Va., urged Obama to block the hiring of a lobbyist to represent Sudan.
"This would be a disgrace and must not be permitted to take place under any circumstances," said Wolf, co-chair of the Congressional Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission. "Too often lobbyists are viewed as granting access ... the only thing they lack is the political will to bring about a lasting peace in Sudan. And no lobbyist can manufacture that."
Having a U.S. lobbyist for the Sudanese government would not have been a first.
Robert Cabelly, former State Department official, had a contract with Sudan as a U.S. lobbyist from 2005 to 2006. He recently was indicted on several charges -- including violating sanctions and money laundering -- from his involvement with Sudan, according to The Post.
A revised administration strategy on Sudan that refocuses attention on fully implementing the Comprehensive Peace Agreement will help the east African country recover from its current conditions, officials said.
"The strategy uses all elements of our nation's influence -- diplomacy, defense, development -- to bring about a stability, a security, human rights, opportunities for a better future in Sudan. Our strategy aims to give the people of Sudan a country that is governed responsibly, justly and democratically, a country that's at peace with itself and with its neighbors," said Gration, the special U.S. envoy to Sudan, at an Oct. 19 meeting with other officials discussing the strategy in Sudan, according to the State Department website.
On the day the strategy was announced, the administration released a statement from President Obama on Sudan. He expressed how serious the urgency is for Sudan to receive U.S. and international help.
"The genocide in Darfur has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and left millions more displaced ... Sudan is now poised to fall further into chaos if swift action is not taken," said Obama in his Oct. 19 statement on the State Department website.
Sudan is one of eight regimes designated by the State Department as "countries of particular concern," a label reserved for the world's worst violators of religious liberty.
At the conclusion of Wolf's letter to Obama, he briefly cited a true story of a Sudanese woman who was raped. Walking with a group of 20 other women to collect firewood, she was raped by a gang and stabbed in the leg in May, according to a recent U.N. report on Sudan. The same woman was raped and shot in 2003.
--30--
Cindy Ortiz, a junior at Biola University in La Mirada, Calif., is attending the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities' Washington Journalism Center this semester and serving as an intern with Baptist Press.
Source:bpnews.ne
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