June 24, 2003 - US Department of State: Malian President Amadou Toumani Toure greeted at Peace Corps headquarters

Peace Corps Online: Peace Corps News: Headlines: Peace Corps Headlines - 2003: June 2003 Peace Corps Headlines: June 24, 2003 - US Department of State: Malian President Amadou Toumani Toure greeted at Peace Corps headquarters

By Admin1 (admin) on Wednesday, June 25, 2003 - 1:11 pm: Edit Post

Malian President Amadou Toumani Toure greeted at Peace Corps headquarters





Read and comment on this US Department of State Press Release that Malian President Amadou Toumani Toure was greeted at Peace Corps headquarters with a standing ovation from Peace Corps volunteers June 24 as Peace Corps Director Gaddi H. Vasquez pledged to further expand current Peace Corps operations in Mali. President Toure, whose remarks in French were translated into English, praised Peace Corps for its a wonderful work in Mali, noting that many Peace Corps volunteers now know Mali better than most Malians. On behalf of the Malian people, the president expressed his country's profound gratitude and respect for the work Peace Corps has done in Mali and for the volunteers who, he noted, sleep on the same mats as the Malian people, eat the same food and get bitten by the same mosquitoes. Read the story at:

Peace Corps Director Pledges Expanded Operations in Mali*

* This link was active on the date it was posted. PCOL is not responsible for broken links which may have changed.



Peace Corps Director Pledges Expanded Operations in Mali

(Malian President Toure visits Peace Corps HQ in Washington) (770) By Charles Corey Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- Malian President Amadou Toumani Toure was greeted at Peace Corps headquarters with a standing ovation from Peace Corps volunteers June 24 as Peace Corps Director Gaddi H. Vasquez pledged to further expand current Peace Corps operations in Mali.

Speaking to a packed audience of Peace Corps staffers, volunteers and former volunteers, Vasquez reminded everyone that Mali is being featured in this year's Folk Life Festival, which opens on the Washington Mall June 25. The event, sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution, is symbolic of "the beginning of a new phase in our partnership," he said.

Through the Folk Life Festival, Vasquez said, "the richness of Mali's culture and its people will become known to millions of Americans.... For its part, Peace Corps wishes to build on its momentum by expanding our operations in Mali and strengthening our partnership with you."

Vasquez said he has asked the Peace Corps regional director in Mali to "push ahead to examine new areas of cooperation in sectors such as youth development, export and tourism promotion, information technology applications and municipal development."

Turning to the president, Vasquez said "I am personally committed to work with you on this effort," and went on to announce that he would also soon travel to Mali.

With the U.S. Ambassador to Mali, formerly a Peace Corps volunteer to Peru, Vicki Huddleston looking on, Vasquez reminded everyone that Peace Corps began its partnership in Mali 32 years ago to help the country deal with a terrible drought which gripped the country.

"Since that time," he said, "Peace Corps has become involved in many other sectors of Mali's economic development, including health education, HIV/AIDS prevention' agriculture, natural resource management, water and urban sanitation and small enterprise development."

More than 2,500 Americans, he told his audience, have spent two years of their lives working and living with Malians as Peace Corp volunteers.

Mali is currently Peace Corps' largest program in Africa, Vasquez noted, with 180 volunteers now serving there.

"Peace Corps is about working with partnerships: partnerships with government and local organizations; partnerships with regions and villages; and partnerships between Malians and Americans. Mali has always been one of Peace Corps's best partners," he said, and credited President Toure with fostering an "extremely receptive" environment for Peace Corp volunteers.

"Under your leadership, Mr. President, our Peace Corps volunteers are able to live and work in one of Africa's strongest democracies," and this factor, he said, is indeed "critical" to the success of the Peace Corp mission in Mali.

In closing, Vasquez told the President "Peace Corps is eager to work with you...and we are eager to work with your regional institutions to develop new areas of cooperation."

President Toure, whose remarks in French were translated into English, praised Peace Corps for its a wonderful work in Mali, noting that many Peace Corps volunteers now know Mali better than most Malians. On behalf of the Malian people, the president expressed his country's profound gratitude and respect for the work Peace Corps has done in Mali and for the volunteers who, he noted, sleep on the same mats as the Malian people, eat the same food and get bitten by the same mosquitoes.

"We are proud of the achievements in the areas of education and health" that Peace Corps has brought to Mali, he said.

The president expressed his hope of even closer ties between Mali and the United States and took issue with what he called an incorrect stereotype that Mali is a poor country. "I don't agree," that Mali is poor, he said. While Mali has many assets, he admitted it has many constraints as well.

While Mali is known for its production of cotton and gold, Toure said, Mali's first asset is its people. Although Mali is Africa's second largest cotton producer behind Egypt, the raw cotton is exported to Asia, used to make tee shirts, which are then re-imported back into Mali, he said, thus depriving Mali any value-added income from that product. He also lamented that the country exports few finished goods like jewelry or clothing.

At the conclusion of the program, Peace Corps Director Vasquez presented the president with a Peace Corps flag to mark the beginning of an era of expansion and growth in the Peace Corps' relationship with Mali. President Toure presented Vasquez with a door from Dogon country in Mali, symbolizing the open door that has long existed between the Peace Corps and Mali.

(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)


More about Peru RPCV Vicki Huddleston who is now ambassador to Mali





Read and comment on this story we posted in May, 2002 from the Dallas Morning News on American Diplomat and Peru RPCV Vicki Huddleston who at that time was the highest ranking US diplomat in Cuba at:

Our woman in Havana doesn't stand on timidity

Our woman in Havana doesn't stand on timidity

Diplomat supports opposition, which she calls the future

04/07/2002

By TRACEY EATON / The Dallas Morning News

HAVANA – She's the top U.S. diplomat in Cuba. A major player. But there was a time, some people joke, when even her dog, a prize-winning Afghan, was getting more headlines.

Now, though, Vicki Huddleston is firmly in the spotlight, speaking out more than ever and telling people how to bring democracy to Cuba.

"Empower the people," she said, "because the transition has begun. We've got to learn how to deal with a country in transition."

Cuban officials sharply disagree. They say their socialist government is strong, and they resent what they see as U.S. meddling in their affairs.

It's a timely debate. The Bush administration's new point man on Cuba, Otto Reich, just ordered one of the most far-reaching reviews of U.S.-Cuba policy in years. And one of his key sources is Ms. Huddleston, chief of the U.S. mission in Cuba since September 1999.

Ms. Huddleston, a career Foreign Service officer, said she has no idea what the policy review will conclude when it comes out in the next few weeks. But her views are clear: Cuba is changing. More and more Cubans are challenging their government. And the international community should support them.

"Diplomats, journalists ... we've all been too timid," she said.

Some exiles in Miami accused the Clinton administration of having a vague, inconsistent policy toward Cuba. Bush officials have promised to be proactive.

As Ms. Huddleston sees it, there is now a "critical mass" of opposition to the socialist government and it's gaining momentum. She recalled that when she began monitoring Cuban affairs at the State Department in 1989, dissidents were few and were "really tightly controlled."

Government supporters sometimes threw rocks at them, she said, and even stuffed poems into the mouth of a poet who opposed the regime.

By 1999, she said, the opposition had grown and diversified. New groups of independent journalists, human rights activists, farmers, librarians and doctors had sprung up and gained support.

"What I see is a fundamental difference," she said. "Before, the opposition was a relatively small minority that didn't speak for the Cuban people. Now I think they do."

Cuban officials say the dissidents are small in number and do not represent the people. Support for the revolution, they say, can be seen in the huge pro-government parades – sometimes more than a million strong – that stream along the Malecón and past Ms. Huddleston's office at the U.S. Interests Section.

Such marches were frequent during the fight over Elián Gonzalez, the Cuban boy found clinging to a raft off Florida's coast in November 1999. His mother had died during the voyage, and his Florida relatives demanded custody. His father in Cuba wanted Elián back, and the boy was returned in June 2000.

Ms. Huddleston sometimes watched the Elián protests from a balcony at the Interests Section.

She could hardly miss them.

Not long after the Elián saga began, Cuban President Fidel Castro ordered workers to build a sprawling outdoor theater directly in front of the U.S. compound. Named after one of Cuba's founding fathers, it's called the José Martí Anti-Imperialist Tribunal.

After the furor over Elián died down, Ms. Huddleston turned to one of her main projects: to reach out to Cubans who want to change the system and give them, as she calls it, "moral support."

That means meeting with dissidents, farmers, artists and others, she said, giving them hope, telling them not to be afraid.

"Life can be a lot better here," she said. "Life in the future is not to be feared, but welcomed."

Cuban officials contend that the dissidents are "manufactured" – and paid – by the U.S. government, a claim the Americans deny.

In any case, some Cubans have resented Ms. Huddleston's contact with the opposition. And that got her in the doghouse in January 2001.

A Cuban kennel club sent her a letter, telling her that she and her award-winning Afghan, aptly named Havana, had been "dishonorably discharged."

Amalia Castro, president of Cuba's National Association of Afghan Hounds, said she was "morally obligated" to expel the two. Ms. Castro, no relation to the Cuban president, also lashed out at Ms. Huddleston for inviting "counterrevolutionaries" to lunch.

Television networks and newspapers across the United States picked up the story. Embarrassed, the kennel club sent Ms. Huddleston another letter, saying that she was unwelcome, but that her pooch could participate in shows.

Ms. Huddleston still laughs about it.

She's popular among foreign diplomats and often hosts receptions at her official residence, an opulent estate surrounded by palm trees. The scene, with butlers striding across polished stone floors, is formal.

But Ms. Huddleston, an Arizona native and former Peace Corps volunteer, is not.

Most people call her by her first name.

Even some critics say they can't help liking her.

U.S. policy toward Cuba "hurts the Cuban people while doing nothing to bring improvements in democracy or political rights," said Geoff Thale, a senior associate at the Washington Office on Latin America, a private research group.

"Having said that, my experience with Ambassador Huddleston has been positive. She has been open and receptive to those who disagree with her."

Ms. Huddleston is scheduled to leave Cuba in September for a new assignment. Until then, she said, she'll continue reaching out to the Cuban opposition: "It's important that people not think that they are alone out there."


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