The Foreign Service Journal, September 2010

postponed its consideration until the board’s next session, set to begin on Oct. 5 ( www.unesco.org/ ) . Widespread concerns that an asso- ciation with Equatorial Guinea’s regime would tarnish UNESCO’s rep- utation prompted the delay. Oppo- nents cited the fact that Obiang first seized power during a 1979 coup, after which he assumed the title of presi- dent of the Supreme Military Council. A new constitution was passed in 1982, making Obiang president of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea; he was then re-elected to that position in 1989, 1996, 2003 and 2009. According to the country’s official Web site ( http://guinea-equatorial. com ), Obiang has “reopened schools, expanded primary education, restored public utilities and roads and put the nation on the path of participatory democracy.” The site also claims that the country’s November 2009 elections were “democratic and free,” despite the fact that Obiang received 95.37 percent of the vote. To most outside observers, these claims are ludicrous. Reporters With- out Borders ranked Equatorial Guinea at 158th out of 175 countries on its 2009 press freedom index ( http://en. rsf.org/ ) . It also tied for 168th out of 180 nations on Transparency Interna- tional’s 2009 Corruption Perceptions Index ( www.transparency.org ) . A January report by Human Rights Watch demolishes any claim that last year’s elections were free or fair, ob- serving that Obiang put opposition leaders at a disadvantage by giving only six weeks’ notice of the poll and har- assing and jailing opposition party members ( www.hrw.org ) . HRW also highlights the discrep- ancy between Equatorial Guinea’s sta- tus as the fourth-largest sub-Saharan African oil producer and the fact that more than 75 percent of the country’s population lives below the poverty line. The United Nations Convention Against Corruption Coalition issued a statement expressing “firm opposition to the establishment of this prize.” The group calls on UNESCO to set up “clear, transparent guidelines for the creation of awards by the U.N. and all member agencies, in order to guaran- tee that all awards and their funding sources are in full accord with … es- sential values” ( www.uncaccoalition. org ). Not all critics have phrased their objections so politely. The crux of the matter, as a sardonic May 6 editorial in The Economist puts it, is that “setting up such prizes should pose no prob- lem. Getting anybody to accept them may” ( www.economist.com/ ) . For now, anyway, it seems that the international community has declined to accept the proposed establishment of the UNESCO-Obiang Prize — at least until Pres. Obiang sees fit to “improve the quality of human life” in his own country. — Laura Caton, Editorial Intern Hail, Colombia Since launching “Plan Colombia” in July 2000, the United States has given more than $7 billion to bolster the be- leaguered country in its long-running struggle against drugs and violence. In a June editorial, “A Decade of Plan Colombia: Time for a New Approach” ( www.thedialogue.org ) , Inter-Amer- ican Dialogue President Michael Shifter assesses the strategy’s troubled history. He concludes that while Colombian security has improved over the past decade, the role of U.S. in- volvement is debatable. According to Shifter, “the data are simply not encouraging,” because Plan Colombia’s major goal — reducing the amount of coca grown in Colombia and therefore the amount of cocaine available in the U.S. — has failed. Although the Obama administra- tion “expresses a continuing commit- ment to Colombia’s efforts to deal with its wide-ranging challenges,” Shifter calls for a “serious rethinking” of the strategy. In particular, he asserts that its anti-drug focus is almost useless without addressing wider issues in the region. The call to re-examine anti-drug policy comes at a delicate juncture for Colombia. On Aug. 7, former Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos was in- augurated as president, but a new ad- ministration may not lead to new policies. Recent articles from the New 10 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 0 C Y B E R N O T E S 50 Years Ago... I consider that all Foreign Service officers ought to pursue, par- ticularly in the first 10 or 20 years of their service, the effort to broaden their general educational background; that it should be the duty of the Department of State to encourage and help them in this respect; and that for this purpose there should be occasional periods of in-service educational training along the lines of those now provided for a few officers by the National War College and other service academies, but embracing all officers and not just a highly selected minority. — George F. Kennan, testifying before the Subcommittee on National Policy Machinery of the Senate Committee on Govermment Operations on May 26, 1960; FSJ , September 1960.