Inside: Medical
Special Section Medical
A Special Section of The Washington Diplomat
VOLUME 23, NUMBER 8
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August 2016
AUGUST 2016
WWW.WASHDIPLOMAT.COM Oversaturated Study Cites the Fats That
Betting on the Games: Cities Say Olympics Not Worth the Costs It’s seen as a glittering prize, having your city be the focus of global attention as the host of the Olympic Games. But after the races have been run, the shots put and the hurdles jumped, does the prize still shine? When all that’s left are dusty stadiums and a bill as long as the gold medal javelin winner’s throw, does hosting the Olympics still add up to victory? / PAGE 6
SOUTH AMERICA Colombians love a good party, and in a year stained by terrorism, South America’s second-most populous country has finally given the world something to celebrate. On June 23, Bogotá signed a historic ceasefire with FARC rebels that could end the longest armed conflict in Latin American history and cement Colombia’s transformation from a violence-plagued narco state to a stable emerging market. PAGE 11
United States
State Department Treads Line in PostBenghazi Security Era As Democrats and Republicans bicker over what really happened in Benghazi nearly four years ago, the State Department has quietly revamped its guidelines for protecting U.S. diplomats overseas while still letting them do their jobs. / PAGE 8
Culture
Glimmers of Style In Hermit Kingdom A rare exhibit goes inside the secretive regime of North Korea and takes viewers beyond the country’s artistic mix of kitsch and propaganda. / PAGE 28
Could Shorten Your Life t
BY ROBERT PREIDT (HEALTHDAY
People Hof World Influence
South America
High levels of animal-based saturated fats were tied to earlier death; unsaturated fats seem healthier
NEWS)
old the butter, margarine and high-fat dairy: A new study supports the concluded a team of researchers notion that these “satuled by Dr. Frank Hu of Harrated” fats are bad for you. vard School of Public Health in Boston. The study, which followed One nutritionist believes the study should help clear more than 126,000 confusion people for three decades, up the many consumers have about found that people who ate higher amounts of saturated fats dietary fat. “There’s a common misconception and trans fats died earlier than those makes you that eating dietary fat who stuck to healthier unsaturated gain body fat,” said fats. Unsaturated fats include Lenox Hill Hospital in New Sharon Zarabi, a nutritionist at plant-based, unprocessed York City. “It is important as those found in olive, to anacanola or soybean oil, the fats such lyze what you’re eating — are they hydrogenated study au- with refined thors explained. fats coupled carbohydrates [for example, “These findings support white bread] or are current dietary recommendations they unsaturated from plant sources?” to replace saturated fat and trans fat with unsaturated fats,” 26
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Islam’s Exceptional Relationship To Politics The mainstream debate over Islam in the West tends to center on moderate versus radical, with a heavy dollop of terrorist talk thrown into the mix. Author Shadi Hamid argues that Western societies are missing a big part of the picture, and that Islam as a political force shouldn’t be underestimated. / PAGE 4
Diplomatic Spouses
COLOMBIA ON CUSP OF PEACE
Cuban Doctor Found New Life in Cabo Verde Cuba is famous for its cigars and rum, but perhaps its most valuable export is its doctors. While many goods are lacking on the communist island, it has dispatched tens of thousands of doctors to treat the poor all over the world. One of them is Dr. Yamile Luque Tamayo Saco Rocha, an anesthesiologist who found a new life in Cabo Verde. / PAGE 29
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2 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | AUGUST 2016
Photo taken at the Colombian Residence by Lawrence Ruggeri of Ruggeriphoto.com.
Contents
THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | August 2016
11
6
23 8
14
33
NEWS
20
31
U.S. Views on Islam A surprising new survey found rising American support for Muslims.
Delicate lace works weave together a hard-edged picture of migration.
Shadi Hamid argues that the West ignores Islam’s relationship to politics at its own peril.
MEDICAL
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A train mural exhibit at the Canadian Embassy is a scenic, nostalgic ride.
4
People of World Influence
Olympic Gamble As Brazil racks up Olympic-size bills, many cities say the Games aren’t worth the costs.
8
Post-Benghazi Balancing Act The State Department walks a fine line to keep diplomats safe without stifling them.
Good vs. Bad Fats
Certain fats could shorten or lengthen your life.
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Chronic Costs As U.S. cancer survivors live longer, other chronic conditions could stress the health care system.
CULTURE
11 Cover Profile: colombia Bogotá is on the verge of clinching a historic peace accord with FARC rebels.
28
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Brexit Blues Done right, referendums empower democracy. Done wrong, they unleash its dangers.
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18
30 Very Personal Collection The National Gallery of Art honors the man whose collection formed its foundation.
Guatemala’s Firsts The country’s first female envoy to the U.S. tackles migration, impunity and poverty.
Pyongyang’s Propaganda A rare local exhibit shows surprising glimmers of expression inside North Korea.
Diplomatic Spouses A Cuban doctor found new life in the Creole Portuguese-African culture of Cabo Verde.
33
No Escape
All Abroad
Siblings with Soul
BeBe and CeCe Winans have a soulful family reunion at Arena Stage.
34
Dining Eating along the water in Washington just got a lot more interesting.
REGULARS 36 Cinema Listing 38 Events Listing 40 Diplomatic Spotlight 45 Appointments / World Holidays 46 Classifieds 47 Real Estate Classifieds THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | August 2016 | 3
WD | People of World Influence
Islam’s Political Sway Scholar Argues West Ignores ‘Islamic Exceptionalism’ at Its Own Peril by Michael Coleman
T
he mainstream debate over Islam in the West tends to center on moderate versus radical, with a heavy dollop of terrorist talk thrown into the mix. Brookings scholar and author Shadi Hamid contends that Western societies are missing a big part of the picture, and that Islam as a political force should be a major part of the discussion. Hamid’s new book, “Islamic Exceptionalism: How the Struggle Over Islam Is Reshaping the World,” explains how the ancient religion influences law and governance and remains central to many Muslims’ concept of community. In the book, Hamid offers a provocative argument that Islam is “exceptional” among religions in the way it relates to politics, with profound implications for how we understand the future of the Middle East. The scholar puts forth the theory that religion and politics have always been inextricably linked in Islam, making it inherently resistant to secularization. Hamid refrains from editorializing whether this phenomenon is good or bad; he simply suggests that it must be taken into account. “We don’t have to like it, but we have to understand it — because Islam, as a religion and as an idea, will continue to be a force that shapes not just the Middle East, but the West, as well, in the decades to come,” says the press release accompanying Hamid’s book. A senior fellow in the Brookings Institution’s Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World, Hamid is an American Muslim, the son of elite Egyptian immigrants who was raised in the tony Bryn Mawr community near Philadelphia. His first book, “Temptations of Power: Islamists and Illiberal Democracy in a New Middle East,” was named a “Best Book of 2014” by Foreign Affairs magazine. Prior to joining Brookings, he was director of research at the Project on Middle East Democracy and a Hewlett Fellow at Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. The Diplomat sat down with Hamid at his Brookings office to discuss “Islamic Exceptionalism,” the alleged hypocrisy in U.S.-led democracy building, why he’s wary of people demanding that Muslims denounce Islamic terrorist attacks and how the ancient religion can be adapted to a thoroughly modern world.
The Washington Diplomat: Why did you choose to use the word ‘exceptionalism’ in your book’s title? 4 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | August 2016
Many in the West, and certainly in the U.S., interpret the word to mean ‘better than’ or ‘superior’ to others in the same category. What makes Islam exceptional? Shadi Hamid: I see exceptional as being a value-neutral word. Something can be exceptional and that can manifest itself in positive or negative ways, depending on the context. I also thought that maybe it’s easier for American readers to relate to that title. TWD: But how does exceptionalism apply to Islam? Hamid: I want to challenge this idea that being different or exceptional is necessarily good or bad. I think when it comes to Islam, the presumption is that if Islam is different, then that’s a bad thing and that Islam has to become more normal or it has to become more like Christianity. That’s a big part of what I want to challenge — this idea that all cultures, people and religions have to follow this kind of preset trajectory. It’s part of our American liberal faith; we believe there are universal ideals and values that everyone should not just aspire to, but automatically end up in over time.
“
You can’t force people to be something they don’t want to be. That actually can be more counterproductive or violent if you are trying to impose this top-down secularism on societies that are broadly conservative. Shadi Hamid
”
author of ‘Islamic Exceptionalism: How the Struggle Over Islam Is Reshaping the World’
Christianity went through this several centuries ago and they had an enlightenment and secularization, so it’s almost like that trajectory and multistep process is baked into our American DNA and in Europe’s DNA. It’s this kind of Western presumption about the course that history takes. I think that’s
Photo: Paul Morigi / Brookings Institution
what makes Islamic exceptionalism so fascinating from a research standpoint. It raises many questions that don’t just apply to Islam or the Middle East but also broader questions of who we are and what animates us as human beings and what drives our politics. TWD: How does Islamic exceptionalism, then, apply to current events? Hamid: I think it [the discussion of Islam in politics] comes at a time when more Americans and Europeans are starting to kind of acknowledge the weaknesses of Western liberal democracy in light of the rise of [Donald] Trump, far-right parties in Europe, Brexit, etc. I think it’s dawning on more and more people that something isn’t quite right. How do we organize more successful societies not just in the sense of economics, but meaning? We want meaning in our politics and in the Middle East, people often find that meaning in religion. In Europe, people are finding that meaning in ways that I would think are even more dangerous than religion — white nativism, xenophobia, hyper-
nationalism. It gets at the question of liberal democracy: Is it enough? TWD: Many in the West are distrustful of Islam as a force in politics. Certainly in the U.S. many of us value the separation of church and state, so doesn’t that pose a particular challenge for Islam in politics? Hamid: You can’t force people to be something they don’t want to be. That actually can be more counterproductive or violent if you are trying to impose this top-down secularism on societies that are broadly conservative. When you talk about Sharia law or Islamic government, I think we, as Americans, jump to a conclusion and think that Sharia is automatically bad, strict, imposing and all of that. If we took 50 Muslims who believe Sharia should play a role in public life and asked what Sharia means to you, all 50 of them would say something different. TWD: For the lay people among us, what is Sharia? The word is often associated with terrorist groups so it has something of a PR problem, to say the least.
Hamid: Islamic law is a shorthand translation, which is part of it, but even that is too narrow … it’s Islamic tradition, Islamic thought, Islamic philosophy — there is so much that goes into it. When we talk about law in the U.S., we have something very specific in mind … it’s very tangible statutes. Sharia was never codified; there wasn’t one book you could go to. That’s what made it such a diverse body of laws. A lot of it had to do with how a local judge or clerics would interpret things in their own particular contexts. There was room for interpretation. You could have a judge interpreting things one way in Morocco and another in Indonesia, depending on time and place. TWD: American Catholics and Protestants are often debating how to incorporate ancient biblical Christian teaching to modern times. How does Islam wrestle with that? Hamid: I argue in the book that modernity isn’t necessarily always good. It imposes structures that may not always have been natural or organic to these societies. Islamic law was designed for 7th-century Arabia … that was the context in which the Koran was revealed, so you’re trying to take this pre-modern body of law and knowledge and make it relevant for the modern era in a world of modern nation states. That’s a difficult square to circle. I think a lot of the challenges we see in the Middle East is trying to adapt these pre-modern ideas and fit them into these new modern contexts. It’s something we have to come to terms with. My starting point as a researcher is we don’t have to like things we study or observe. We don’t have to like the Muslim Brotherhood. We probably shouldn’t agree with them on various aspects of their ideology. As Americans, we’re not going to like a lot of the things they say — fine. But my job as a researcher is to immerse myself in that world and try to understand and then try to convey that understanding to the reader. Even if your starting point is that secularism is the best thing ever and that’s the way it should be, that’s fine. But others can choose their own way. We have to come to terms with the idea that Islam is not going to be privatized any time soon in these countries. TWD: So you’re saying the world must accommodate Islam? Hamid: What’s the alternative? We have to think of ways to … accommodate Islam’s role but hopefully in a way that is pluralistic and tolerant. Here in the West, if I say ‘accommodate Islam,’ I’m just saying it in the same way we would accommodate Christian Evangelicals or Orthodox Jews. If you want to practice in your traditional way, no one will stop you. As an American Muslim, if a Christian group is talking about how the Christian identity is more central and there is less room for Muslim ideas, those are things that make me more concerned about my own place in society. I say people should be able to express their Islamic beliefs any way they want as long as they do so through the legal and democratic mechanism protected under our Constitution. When I say accommodate, it means we accommodate people who are different than us. No one is talking about changing our Constitution. This fear of Sharia law being implemented in certain parts of the U.S. — are you kidding me? Of course it has to be legal and of course it has to be expressed through the democratic process. TWD: Where is that happening elsewhere in the world? Hamid: Indonesia and Malaysia I think are two positive examples where Islam has become normalized in public life. It hasn’t
Hamid: ISIS’s legacy will be very important because they are state builders. They haven’t just been blowing things up like al-Qaeda; they’ve also been trying to build their state. That’s what makes them even scarier. They have an interest in governance and they represent this idea of establishing a new set of structures in the Middle East. Their legacy, as I see it, is whenever you have an ungoverned space in a Muslim-majority country, you’ll have that local extremist group who says ISIS set the standard.
Credit: Official White House Photo by Pete Souza
President Barack Obama gazes down a hallway during a tour of Sultan Hassan Mosque in Cairo, Egypt, on June 4, 2009. Author Shadi Hamid says U.S. presidents often like the idea of democracy in the Muslim world, until Islamists come to power.
become as polarizing. Oddly enough, Indonesia is one of the more democratic Muslimmajority countries, but it’s also a country that has had the implementation of more Sharia bylaws on the local level than say Egypt, Jordan or Morocco. Why? Because there is more decentralization and more democracy. If people are saying they want more Islam in their politics, then regardless of what party you are, you have to learn to speak the language of religion. That’s why I actually say democratization and Islamization are likely to go hand in hand, not the other way around. The more democracy you have, the more people are going to want to express the sentiment. They may say, ‘Why can’t we have more Sharia at the local level, at least on certain issues?’
TWD: The rise of Donald Trump suggests that some Americans are supportive of a more hardline approach toward the Islamic religion in the U.S. What’s your view of his rise? You’ve said that it plays into the hands of the Islamic State. Hamid: ISIS wants Muslims in the West to feel more alienated. They want French Muslims to not feel fully French or American Muslims to not feel American. If there are more disillusioned Muslims in the West, they can draw a few more lone wolves. ISIS doesn’t want mass support; they are under no illusions. The thing that is so scary about terrorism is first of all, you can’t eliminate it. What we can change is how we as Americans react to it. ISIS is betting we’ll have a bad reaction to terrorism. If America was seen as going in and blowing things up, then ISIS would gain more sympathy in the Middle East. This is where the Iraq War was so dangerous. Trump contributes to this narrative that Muslims don’t belong in the West, that Muslims are never going to be fully American. It’s very dangerous to feed into that rhetoric. It divides our society. TWD: Some Americans contend that the
TWD: The administration of George W. Bush was very bullish on democratizing the Middle East, but the West hasn’t always been happy with the result. The Muslim Brotherhood’s democratic rise to power — peaking with Mohamed Morsi’s election as president in 2012 — is one example. Hamid: As disastrous as the Bush administration was, one of the things they did get right was the freedom agenda, at least its basic premise that the only way to fight terrorism and extremism in the long term is to promote more open democratic societies where people have a way to express their grievances peacefully. If they can’t, they are more likely to turn to other methods, some of them violent. I think that basic premise was actually correct. What I think the Bush administration didn’t quite realize or understand is that if people had the choice to vote in free and fair elections, they would tend to vote for Islamic parties. And they were totally unprepared for that or the implications of that. I think there was a sort of a presumption that people would vote for less religious parties over time and become more moderate and naturally gravitate in this positive direction, that people would naturally become more pro-American somehow. People in the Bush administration believed in democracy in theory, but they weren’t comfortable with it in practice. It’s still a challenge today. When the Brotherhood was overthrown — a democratically elected president was overthrown by a military coup in 2013 — the Obama administration refused to call that a coup…. Even to this day, with the Obama administration, we have this same problem that they’re not comfortable with the idea of Islamist parties coming to power through free elections.
Muslim community in the U.S. needs to be more vocal in its denunciation of terrorism. I’m sure you’ve heard the sentiment. Hamid: I get it more often than I would like. I’m a little bit tired of it because Muslims have been doing so much condemning. We have a joke in the Muslim community that we should just come up with an ‘I condemn’ app for our phones. Every American Muslim organization and leader and imam, they’ve been very outspoken against ISIS … even to the extent that there are American Muslim leaders who are on ISIS’s kill list. That stuff doesn’t get as much attention on Fox News because it’s not exciting to people. People want to focus on the sensational. I’m my own person. I’m not responsible for anyone else. If individual Muslims want to go around condemning stuff, that’s great — more power to them — but this kind of built-in presumption or expectation that I have to issue some statement of condemnation, I think that is very problematic. I shouldn’t feel under any pressure to do that. TWD: Finally, who is your target audience with the book? Hamid: I want any American who is wondering about Islam and is confused about Islam to pick it up. I want my book to help offer greater understanding. I’m not under any illusion that people are going to agree with everything I write in my book, and that’s not even my goal. But if someone can pick up my book and come out with at least a slightly better understanding of the Middle East and Islam, that to me would be great. WD Michael Coleman (@michaelcoleman) is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.
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TWD: Where does the Islamic State [also known as ISIS] fit into all of this? DCM-Diplomat.indd 1
6/4/16 8:55 AM
THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | August 2016 | 5
WD | South America
Olympic Regrets As Brazil Racks Up Bills, Many Cities Say Games Aren’t Worth Costs by Karin Zeitvogel
I
t’s seen as a glittering prize, having your city be the focus of world attention for a few weeks as the host of the Summer or Winter Olympic Games. But what about the run-up to those two weeks in the sun? And after the races have been run, the shots put and the hurdles jumped, does the prize still glitter? When all that’s left are stadiums that require upkeep and a bill as long as the gold medal javelin winner’s throw, does hosting the Olympics still seem like a good idea? “I’m a proud Bostonian. I like the idea of showing off Boston, and I think that’s the spark behind an Olympic bid,” said Chris Dempsey, the Harvard Business School graduate who quit his day job as a consultant at Bain & Co. to work pro bono to make sure the Olympics did not come to Boston in 2024. “We didn’t want our governor and our mayor to focus on where to put the velodrome and what the opening ceremony would look like,” said Dempsey, a co-founder of the grassroots No Boston Olympics movement, which, on a shoestring budget, took on the big guns and successfully kept Boston Olympics-free. “We wanted our governor and our mayor and others to focus on fundamental questions about quality of life in the city and we were concerned that the Olympics would distract from that,” Dempsey said. And distract from ordinary problems the Games do. While the lavish spectacle gives nations the global spotlight and a bump in tourism, the add-ons — from state-of-the-art stadiums to frightening ski-jumps to intricate, man-made waterways for canoe and kayak competitions — bring little benefit to the average inhabitant of London, Beijing, Atlanta, Athens or Sochi. And they cost an arm and a leg to build and, after the Games, to maintain. “Stadiums, which cost a lot and produce minimal economic benefits,” wrote Binyamin Appelbaum in an Aug. 5, 2014, article in the New York Times, “are a particularly lousy line of business. (This is why they are usually built by taxpayers rather than by corporations.) And even though Brazil, like other recent hosts, has sought to make stadium spending more palatable by also building general infrastructure, like highways and airports, the public would derive the same benefit at far less cost if the transportation projects were built and the stadiums were not.” In Rio de Janeiro, people are beginning to see the downsides of hosting the Olympics, but will be paying for those failings for years to come, said Dempsey. Brazilians should have taken a cue from the fate of stadiums that were built for the World Cup in 2014, but by that time, the Olympic bid had been signed and sealed for five years. Brazil built a dozen stadiums for the 2014 World Cup — the most profitable soccer world championship for the global federation, FIFA, but not for Brazil, which spent more than $3 billion on the stadiums alone, mostly using public money. Many of the stadiums are now in financial straits, and officials are desperately trying to find a way to make the venues productive contributors to the communities in
6 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | August 2016
Greece decommissioned an international airport at Elliniko to build stadiums there ahead of the 2004 Olympics. Within a few years after the Games had left town, the airport and stadiums were crumbling into oblivion, with tumbleweed rolling down the runway and airplanes with Olympic rings on their tails standing idle.
which they stand. The $550 million stadium in The budget for the Rio Olympics has risen the capital, Brasilia, is now a bus parking lot. from less than $9 billion in 2009, when Brazil If stadiums cost stupid money, they’re just bid for the Olympics, to $12 billion this year. the tip of the expense iceberg that comes with And that’s just for the preparation stage. The hosting the Olympics, said Smith College eco- cost of running the Games in London — $4.1 nomics professor Andrew Zimbalist, author billion — was supposed to be covered entirely of “Circus Maximus: The Economic Gamble by private money. “They fell short — $1.6 bilBehind Hosting the Olympics and the World lion short, which the London government had Cup.” to come up with,” Zimbalist noted. “One of the things that’s true Supporters of the Lonabout all of the Olympic Games don Games counter that before now is that there have the Olympics helped realways been massive cost overvitalize a rundown secruns,” Zimbalist told a meettion of East London that ing of No Boston Olympics in otherwise would’ve taken January 2015. decades for private in“For London, it went up from vestment to develop. They $4 billion [the official budget] also note that many of the to the $15 to $20 billion range; structures have been refor Athens, it went from $1.6 purposed for other sportto $16 billion; for Sochi, it was ing events. $12 billion and it went up to But the legacy of Lonbetween $50 and $70 billion.” don remains mixed, with Zimbalist said the costs spipromises of a large-scale ral out of control because comeconomic boost largely mittees bidding for the Games unfulfilled. Still, London don’t come clean about how was financially better off Andrew Zimbalist much they’ll cost. Their aim than other cities to absorb economics professor when they’re bidding for the the cost overruns that inat Smith College Olympics is simple: They want evitably entail Olympic to “convince a political body to construction. Rio may not support their ideas, so they always come out be in the same fortunate position. first with a barebones sketch of what they want Two months before the start of the Games to do,” Zimbalist said. in Brazil, officials in the state of Rio de Janeiro “Once there’s a political go-ahead, they start warned that a mix of inflation, a weakening adding the frills and the bells and the whistles currency, government crisis and heavy spendand the price keeps going higher and higher,” ing on the Olympics meant they would not be he said. And very often, taxpayers are left pick- able to continue offering public health, secuing up the tab. rity and education services, Luisa Leme wrote
“
One of the things that’s true about all of the Olympic Games before now is that there have always been massive cost overruns.
”
Photo: Luca Zeitvogel
on the Council of the Americas website. “Most of the Olympic venues are finished or in the final stage of construction, but many of Rio’s so-called ‘legacy projects’ — urban infrastructure to support the Games such as a new subway line — are running behind,” Leme wrote. Brazil, of course, has had no shortage of Olympic-scale headaches, many of them self-inflicted. Public mistrust of the government is seething ahead of the Games. A massive corruption scandal involving the state-owned oil company has ensnared dozens of top politicians, including its highest-profile casualty, President Dilma Rousseff, who was suspended in May and faces impeachment charges for allegedly manipulating government finances ahead of her re-election campaign. Meanwhile, the once-booming economy is tanking, with the country registering its worst recession in 25 years in the first quarter of 2016. Striking police recently greeted visitors at a Rio airport with banners that read, “Welcome to Hell” and “Police and Firefighters Don’t Get Paid.” Top athletes have withdrawn from the Games over fears about contracting the Zika virus. And while concerns about Zika may be overblown given that mosquito season in Brazil is technically over in August, headlines about raw sewage being spilled into Rio’s waterways doesn’t exactly inspire confidence among athletes who’ll need to swim in that water. Sochi, a microcosm of Russian corruption, and Athens, emblematic of Greek mismanagement, were also public relations nightmares in the run-up to the Games. But most host nations ultimately get their acts together and in the spirit of solidarity, the world tends to overlook the bumps on the road to Olympic glory. Once the athletes and spectators file out of the gleaming new villages and stadiums, however, residents are left to pick up the pieces. A 20-minute ride south on the Athens Metro — built to support the 2004 Olympics — followed by a 20-minute walk through drab neighborhoods and industrial sites takes you to a sad reminder of Greece’s Olympic mistakes. The old international airport at Elliniko was decommissioned ahead of the 2004 Olympics and several shiny, new stadiums built there. Within a few years after the Games had left town, the airport and stadiums were crumbling into oblivion, with weeds sprouting on the bleachers and tumbleweed rolling down the runway. At the far end of the runway, several airplanes now stand idle, the Olympic rings on their tails unable to save them from becoming yet another Greek ruin. On the other side of Athens, the Olympic village, which was supposed to be turned into public housing after the Games, is also in a state of decrepitude — empty, abandoned, crumbling and stripped of copper pipes, marble and anything of value. Thousands of Greeks put their names into a lottery that would give them the chance to buy homes in the Olympic village. But according to an article in Britain’s Telegraph newspaper, seven years later, only half the apartments were occupied and those who did buy into the dream found themselves in a nightmare. Cracks have appeared in the façades of buildings, moisture is creeping up the walls and parents have to drive for miles to take their kids to school because only two of the promised schools near the Olympic village were completed and they are over-subscribed. Former javelin thrower turned politician Sofia Sakorafa told the Telegraph that the Games were “a hugely wasted opportunity and one that sticks in the throat of
Photo: By Atos International, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
The Olympic Rings stand outside the main park in Sochi, whose 2014 Winter Games were estimated to cost Russia between $50 billion and $70 billion.
many people. We are left with installations that are rotting away because we don’t even have the money to maintain them.” If it makes Greeks feel any better, they’re not alone. Montreal was nearly bankrupted after hosting the Games in 1976. Residents of the city spent a decade paying down the $1.5 billion debt the city was stuck with after the event. They were also stuck with a stadium, which they dubbed “The Big O” in honor of the debt, that has been described by a Canadian journalist as a “huge, round, pale, sterile, soulless architectural excrescence.” The stadium’s roof has torn and collapsed in the past. A new roof was recently budgeted at $300 million, probably more than residents want to spend, again, on the stadium. Beijing’s Bird’s Nest stadium cost $480 million to build, and now costs $11 million a year to maintain. The stadium, designed by dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei and Swiss architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, has been described in recent years as little more than a mediocre tourist attraction. (An Olympics aquatics center, however, has found new life as a successful water park.) But Beijing may get more bang for its buck. The city recently doubled down on its Olympic gamble by winning the right to host the 2022 Winter Games. Indeed, for emerging nations such as China and Kazakhstan, which competed with China for the Winter Games, the Olympics are a source of national pride and prestige. Governments such as China, Russia, Kazakhstan and Qatar that don’t necessarily have to answer to public opinion can also afford to spend big in an effort to send a message that they’ve arrived on the world stage. Yet despite the large costs and limited rewards, public support for hosting the Olympics tends to be high, even though the euphoria can sour once the Games are over. But if the Olympics don’t benefit the average citizen in the host city, they have to be appealing to someone, right? Otherwise, why would anyone bid for the Games? In Athens, “a lot of entrepreneurs and property developers got rich very quickly,” Sakorafa told the Telegraph. Likewise, despite the estimated $50 billion price tag for the Sochi Winter Games, many of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s business cronies reportedly walked away with a nice chunk of change. Others who benefit from the Games are members of bid committees — even ones that don’t get the Games. Bostonians were
up in arms when they found out that the head of Boston’s bid committee, former Massachusetts Transportation Secretary Richard Davey, was being paid $300,000 a year to try to bring the Games to their fair city. Five other bid committee officials were also on six-figure salaries, and former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick was offered $7,500 for every day that he traveled to promote Boston’s bid. Patrick refused to take up the offer and, of course, the bid committee is now history. Dempsey said the Olympic ideal of “people coming together, laying down arms and competing fairly is wonderful and something to be celebrated.” But, he added, there’s a problem with the Interna-
tional Olympic Committee’s (IOC) outdated business model, which hasn’t changed since the 1890s. Since the second modern Olympics, held in Paris in 1900, the Games have jumped from city to city every four years. “We’ve really moved beyond a model of having to move the Olympics to a different city every four years — every two with the Winter Games — but the IOC has not. They’re still asking cities to spend all this money to build up venues and centers that don’t really have any good use and cost the host city a lot of money, but don’t bring a lot of payoff,” Dempsey said. “In today’s connected world, there is surely a much better way to put on these events and celebrate our athletes and all the wonderful things that happen with the Olympics without the enormous costs and drawbacks that are part of the IOC’s model,” he added. To address some of the concerns, the IOC announced a strategy called Olympic Agenda 2020, an overhaul of the bidding process that would force cities to lower infrastructure costs before they are considered for the Games, thereby expanding the pool of candidates and adding long-term value to the host city. Some have also suggested holding the Olympics in one city all the time. Athens, where the first modern Games were held in 1896, has been suggested as the ideal single-site Olympic host city. But whether Athenians would embrace that idea after their post-2004 Games experience is another thing. The IOC would likely resist the change, too, as it might leave them on the hook for more Olympic expenses. WD Karin Zeitvogel (@Zeitvogel) is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.
THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | August 2016 | 7
WD | United States
Beyond Benghazi State Department Moves to Protect Diplomats, Aid Workers Overseas by Larry Luxner
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s Democrats and Republicans bicker over what really happened in Benghazi nearly four years ago, the State Department has quietly revamped its guidelines for protecting U.S. diplomats as well as employees of NGOs in overseas danger zones. Heather Higginbottom, deputy secretary of state for management and resources, discussed those guidelines with other panelists during a June 22 conference at the U.S. Institute of Peace titled “Frontline Diplomats and Development Workers.” The USIP event preceded by six days the release of a congressional report on the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. After two years, $7 million and 800 pages, the report, led by House Republicans, found no new evidence of wrongdoing by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, although it heavily criticized the Pentagon, CIA and State Department for failing to protect America’s diplomats abroad. In response to the report, Clinton said “it is time to move on” and noted that she implemented an array of changes at State in the wake of the tragedy. Republicans, however — some of whom issued a separate, more stinging assessment of Clinton’s actions — are unlikely to let the issue go in a heated election year. As the campaign rhetoric and conspiracy theories over Benghazi continue to divide the nation, officials have been working behind the scenes to keep diplomats and aid workers safe but not sheltered. Stevens himself, a fluent Arabic speaker, reportedly prided himself on interacting with the people of Benghazi as much as possible. The USIP discussion focused on efforts to balance access to facts on the ground with the need to mitigate risk in conflict zones. “Leaders must accept that some danger will always be present if we want to be part of the world,” said Higginbottom, noting that while these dangers may be evolving, they are not necessarily new. In fact, the event coincided with this year’s 100th anniversary of the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service, founded in 1916. That was long before an age when embassies were stormed and diplomats taken hostage, as happened in Iran in 1979, or when terrorists blew up U.S. missions abroad, as was the case in 1998 in Kenya and Tanzania. To be sure, diplomats aren’t the only ones targeted by bad guys. Employees of NGOs ranging from Oxfam America to Save the Children also face risks overseas, as do Peace Corps volunteers and
8 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | August 2016
Photo: State Department
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry walks with his staff across the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad on April 8, 2016. The sprawling compound is one of America’s most heavily fortified missions abroad.
“
Leaders must accept that some danger will always be present if we want to be part of the world.
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Heather Higginbottom U.S. deputy secretary of state for management and resources
thousands of people on the payroll of USAID. “Twenty months ago, a large group of us gathered here at USIP to discuss what constitutes acceptable risk for development workers,” said Doug Wilson, former assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, in introducing Higginbottom. “The simple premise of that discussion was this: For those who serve their country in uniform, on the battlefield, the acceptance of risk is a given. But U.S. diplomats and development workers also face increasing challenges trying to forge relationships with the public. Too often, the ways they have been told to deal with these challenges is insufficient, like relying on social media and fortress-like structures. We’re so risk-
averse that we’re creating fundamental barriers to trust.” Among the questions experts grapple with: What constitutes acceptable levels of risk for frontline civilians? And what tools and resources are needed to minimize risk without undermining the basic goals of engagement? Higginbottom, who has been in her current role since December 2013, said the dilemma cuts to the heart of U.S. foreign policy. “An aid worker who gets clean water for a village may stop the next Ebola virus. Our efforts to counter violent extremism may steer a potential terrorist down a better path,” she said. “Stabilizing Afghanistan and Iraq — and even places like the southern Philippines and northern Nigeria — is necessary so that they don’t serve as bases for terrorism. But we can’t score if we’re not on the field.” To that end, Higginbottom’s office has come up with six specific priorities following the State Department’s 2015 Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR) that she says “have helped the department adapt to this evolving threat to make sure we’re appropriately balancing our mission.” These include tailoring aid programs to shifting security situations; teaching diplomats how to physically move around in conflict zones; and offering
hands-on training for high-threat posts. In the past year alone, the State Department has slashed U.S. personnel in Cairo by 20 percent by eliminating “tasks that were administrative in nature,” and resumed a U.S. presence in war-torn Somalia with a phased approach to reduce risk. “We haven’t had an embassy in Mogadishu since 1991, but we never severed our relations. Our embassy in Nairobi enabled us to maintain a relationship. We’ve had day trips to Mogadishu, trips to other cities and routine movements from Nairobi,” said Higginbottom. “Our risk analysis made clear that a strong presence is in our national interest. But we need to be proactive in reducing our footprint wherever possible.” The State Department has also opened a foreign affairs training center in Virginia and “convenes senior officials from across the department to determine which of our posts are most at risk and move those to the front of the line for security needs.” Even so, Higginbottom conceded, “We need to continue to do a better job caring for people who take the risks, to ensure we’re addressing their needs. Second, we have to foster a more nuanced understanding in Washington about the risks inherent in the conduct of diplomacy. Some uncertainty and danger will always be a part of the world. Our
people thrive when they’re having a positive impact on the ground. But if we don’t stay engaged, we will lose our most effective and talented Foreign Service officers.” USAID Acting Assistant Administrator Thomas Staal has worked at the agency since 1988, working in hotspots ranging from Sudan to the West Bank and Gaza. Ten years ago, he said, 80 percent of humanitarian assistance worldwide went to natural disasters. Today, 80 percent is spent on conflict disasters. “Around the world, humanitarians grapple with the willful denial of access. Humanitarian aid is obstructed by incomprehensible rules as well as bad actors, while arms flow freely across borders.” Complicating matters, he pointed out that in 2014, there were 190 attacks against aid workers — triple the 63 attacks reported in 2004. Meanwhile, the number of aid workers killed surged to 121 in 2014 from 56 in 2003, a time span that also saw a dramatic rise in harassment by roadside militias and unwarranted search and seizures. “Governments around the world are imposing legal and fiscal restrictions on aid workers, which hampers their ability to operate freely,” Staal said. “When I was in Sudan registering World Vision, I met with Sudan’s head of security. He told me, ‘Everyone comes to Sudan for one of three reasons: spying, subversion or proselytizing. My job is to find out which one of those is you, and expel you.’” Even so, said Staal, “We cannot allow ourselves to become bunkerized. We must venture out and get to know the local dynamics in order to be effective. This is why USAID has redefined and refined how it does business.” As such, USAID has boosted the number and intensity of the security training required of staffers in high-threat environments. In 2013, for example, following the flare-up in violence in South Sudan, USAID began train-
Photo: U.S. Institute of Peace / Bill Fitz-Patrick
From left, U.S. Institute of Peace Global Policy Team Director Linwood Ham, Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources Heather Higginbottom and USAID Acting Assistant Administrator Thomas Staal discuss strategies for protecting diplomats and aid workers overseas at the U.S. Institute of Peace.
ing its local staff in trauma awareness and resilience. Staffers in 30 countries must now undergo similar courses. “Careful negotiations at the local level in South Sudan ensure that partners have the buy-in of locals,” Staal said. “In some places, we’re working more closely with the U.S. military. In the Central African Republic, partners negotiated with MINUSCA [the U.N. mission there] to increase patrolling on roads where the World Food Program was becoming victims of roadblocks and attacks. We calibrate programming so it remains responsive to shifting needs.” Staal noted not only the professional strains of working in a difficult environment, “but also having to go to places where you can’t bring your families. In 30 years of my working career, the only post where I didn’t bring my
family was Iraq.” Staal also lamented how security concerns have dramatically driven up costs. “When I was in Iraq, we visited a school that had been renovated by USAID. It cost us $20,000 to renovate the school, but $35,000 to visit that school when you added up the cost of vehicles and security,” he said. “Even in places where we don’t think we’re a party to a conflict, we are seen as part of the problem. In the past, aid workers were seen as somehow neutral. That’s clearly no longer the case in many countries.” Rebecca Zimmerman, associate policy analyst at the Rand Corp., has worked in several African and Asian countries, but her principal experience has been in Afghanistan. She said that with a jump in travel restrictions for U.S. diplomatic staffers, there’s been a “dra-
matically increased reliance on development workers.” As a result, NGOs are “constantly evaluating” what the risk threshold is. “I’ve been to Afghanistan under every security consideration you can possibly imagine — from not being allowed to leave the base at all, to living in a house in town. I can tell you that the difference in what I’m able to learn is stark. When you are able to get out and do a job that you’re supposed to do, you can bring back not just immediate knowledge, but an understanding of second- and third-order effects, which we cannot really begin to understand when you are behind high walls.” Stacia George, deputy director of USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives, put it in perspective. “I signed up for this job, I know what I’m getting into and I don’t regret that. But it’s gotten much harder to recruit,” she said. “People don’t want to be locked behind walls. They want to have impact. Imagine after Hurricane Katrina if the people who were told to rebuild New Orleans had to do it from Atlanta, leading a team from afar. It’s not the same. That’s not to say we want to take arbitrary risks, but there’s a lot of risk we take by not getting out there.” For example, she said, back in 2007 while overseeing USAID’s $45 million stabilization program in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas from her base in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar, the assumption was that everyone in the semi-autonomous tribal belt bordering Afghanistan supported the Taliban, meaning nothing could be accomplished there. “But by being able to go out there, we quickly ascertained that we could work in those areas,” said George. “The majority of the population was actually on our side.” WD Larry Luxner is news editor of The Washington Diplomat.
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10 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | AuGuST 2016
WD | Cover Profile
Colombia at Peace? Bogotá on Verge of Clinching Historic Reconciliation with FARC Rebels by Larry Luxner
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olombians love a good party, and in a year already stained by terrorism — from Brussels and Beirut to Paris, Orlando, Istanbul, Dhaka, Baghdad and now Nice — South America’s second-most populous country has finally given the world something to celebrate. On June 23, the government of President Juan Manuel Santos signed a ceasefire with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC in Spanish), effectively ending the longest armed conflict in Latin American history. Over the last 50 years, that war has cost as many as 220,000 lives and displaced nearly 6 million people. It’s not a done deal until the two sides sign a formal peace treaty, in a ceremony unlikely to take place until mid-August at the earliest. The details still have to be ironed out, including the scheduling of a referendum that voters must approve for the agreement to move forward. To be sure, many of Colombia’s 49 million inhabitants aren’t pleased about the idea of making nice with one of the world’s most feared terrorist groups. Leading them is former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, a fierce opponent of the deal who calls it a “capitulation” to FARC. But Juan Carlos Pinzón, Bogotá’s man in Washington, and other supporters of the deal say it is a historic milestone in Colombia’s transformation from a narco-state wracked by insurgent violence to one of the world’s most attractive, stable emerging markets. “We got here through lots of sacrifice by our armed forces,” said Pinzón, who on Aug. 3 marks his first anniversary as ambassador here. “We hit hard against the terrorists, against crime and against violence. That’s how President Santos has been negotiating: peace through strength. This is a very important achievement after four years of negotiations.” FARC emerged as a left-wing guerrilla group in the 1960s in response to socio-economic inequalities. Inspired by Marxist-Leninist ideology, the group vowed to defend Colombia’s peasants against wealthy landowners and right-wing governments. In recent decades, however, FARC embraced kidnappings, bombings, assassinations, landmine explosions, extortion and other brutal tactics. Facing attacks from right-wing paramilitary forces in the 1990s, it also entered the lucrative coca market, taxing growers and trafficking cocaine. A multibillion-dollar U.S. aid package targeting drug production and trafficking known as Plan Colombia, along with a tough military crackdown led by Uribe, squeezed the FARC army. In recent years, its ranks dwindled from an estimated 17,000 in 2001 to roughly 7,000 or fewer today. Asked how many fighters the group currently has, Pinzón said he had an idea but refused to say, for strategic reasons. Pinzón, 44, is an expert on Colombia’s anti-FARC campaign. As Santos’s defense minister from 2011 to 2015, he pursued hardline policies against the leftist rebels, dramatically reducing the size of jungle territory they controlled while also scoring successes against another guerrilla group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), which is not a party to the current accord. Interestingly, Santos sent Pinzón to Washington to replace his predecessor, Luis Carlos Villegas, who was promptly named defense minister — in essence giving the two men each other’s jobs. Before joining the
Photo: Lawrence Ruggeri
As defense minister from 2011 to 2015, Ambassador Juan Carlos Pinzón pursued hardline policies against leftist FARC rebels, dramatically reducing the size of jungle territory they controlled.
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FARC was once the largest guerrilla group in the Western Hemisphere. We were able to force them into a position of having no other choice but to negotiate peace…. What was once the most violent country in the world is moving to peace and prosperity. Juan Carlos Pinzón
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ambassador of Colombia to the United States
Ministry of Defense, Pinzón held various positions as senior advisor to the executive director of the World Bank; vice president of the Colombian Banking Association; assistant vice president of investment banking at Citibank; chief of staff for the Ministry of Finance; and economist at Citigroup. “FARC was once the largest guerrilla group in the Western Hemisphere. We were able to force them into a position of having no other choice but to negotiate peace,” he said. “We expect them to stop their criminal activities and violence, and take advantage of the opportunity to participate in Colombia’s politi-
cal life.” The ambassador added: “Of course, there are still other expressions of violence in Colombia, like ELN and some criminal organizations. We will confront them as well.” Jason Marczak, director of the Atlantic Council’s Latin America Economic Growth Initiative, said the ceasefire is “an incredibly significant” step for Colombia. “There have been a number of temporary ceasefires over the course of the negotiations, but the permanence of this one is a game-changer and shows that the end of the conflict is hopefully near,” he said. “The key will be to agree to final terms of a comprehensive peace deal that goes beyond the ceasefire itself. I am very optimistic that will happen. The government and the FARC have shown incredible progress. It’s been an uphill discussion over the last few years, but all the pieces are at least in place.” Marczak calls Pinzón “not only a great diplomat, but also a well-respected member of Colombia’s military establishment” who knows his way around Capitol Hill. “Ambassador Pinzón is a fantastic representative for the Colombian government in the U.S., having served honorably as minister of defense and personally overseeing much of the campaign against FARC,” he said. “He is the right advocate in Washington for the peace deal, and also for assuring members of Congress and the human rights community that the Colombian government will not let up militarily on the FARC if they don’t comply with the agreements.” See c olombia • page 12 THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | August 2016 | 11
Colombia Continued • page 11
Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, agrees that Pinzón enjoys credibility on the issue, precisely because he was formerly the minister of defense. “He’s widely seen as somebody who represented the interests of the armed forces,” said Shifter, whose think tank has invited Pinzón to speak on various occasions. “It was very shrewd to have him during this period as ambassador in Washington. He can counter the argument that somehow Santos is turning the country over to the FARC or being soft on terrorists.” Pinzón spoke to The Washington Diplomat in mid-July at his elegant residence just off Dupont Circle. “The main role of the Colombian armed forces is to protect people,” he told us in between meetings with various lawmakers. “Let me remind you that Colombia has had a demobilization effort for years. It’s a challenge, but Colombia is one of the few countries that even has a reintegration agency precisely dedicated to this. What was once the most violent country in the world is moving to peace and prosperity. “Experts say we will see between 1 and 2 percent of additional economic growth as a result of this peace agreement,” added Pinzón. “This will give Colombia the chance to increase investment in areas that were not active in the economy before.” The ambassador said the peace agreement is moving full steam ahead — and that there is no going back. “We expect that during the next two weeks, the constitutional court will rule in favor of the plebiscite, or referendum, as a means to ratify the agreement. Then there will be the signing of the final agreement with FARC, within the next 30 days,” he told us, explaining that the referendum will take place some time in late September. Nevertheless, significant hurdles remain. Among the concerns: how to verifiably disarm FARC foot soldiers and commanders — some of whom, as the New York Times pointed out, were kidnapped as children and know of no other life — and reintegrate them into society? A “transitional justice” system, which will offer reduced sentences to rebels who confess their crimes, was also a bitter pill to swallow for many Colombians who wanted tougher punishments. And with illegal coca production on the
Photo: By Dougwash - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Above, El Poblado is an important economic center in the revitalized Colombian city of Medellín, once known as the most violent city in the world.
upswing, many Colombians worry that criminal gangs or rebel groups such as the ELN will swoop in to take over FARC’s old cocaine stomping grounds, sparking a bloody power struggle. Nevertheless, public support for the peace deal appears high, though Santos, who has staked his legacy on the landmark agreement, has seen his personal approval ratings tumble. So now the campaigning begins. Just as ardently as Santos advocates for the peace deal, Uribe and his allies are trashing it and urging followers to resist it. In a recent interview with Americas Quarterly, the former president — who left office with a 75 percent popularity rating — said that despite the government’s claims, security has actually worsened, and that cocaine production has doubled from 200 metric tons a year to more than 400 tons. Uribe, who hails from a prominent ranching family, may have his own agenda for undermining the peace process. He’s been accused of having ties to right-wing paramilitary groups, which have helped wealthy landowners consolidate territory and have been implicated in massacres and human rights violations. (As a former president, Uribe enjoys immunity from prosecution.) The fact that a former president has come out so strongly against the agreement, says Pinzón, “proves that Colombian democracy is open and strong. It allows any vision to be part of the discussion, and those debates are welcome.” Marczak said Uribe has been campaigning in Washington for some time now against the peace deal. “His message has been heard loud and clear, and now Santos has to dispel those concerns,” he warned. “It’s incumbent upon the
12 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | August 2016
Photo: Larry Luxner
Above, Colombian soldiers patrol the countryside while at left, a police officer looks out over a colonial street in Cartagena. Violence in Colombia, fueled by drug gangs, leftist rebels and paramilitary squads, has gone done dramatically in recent years. A police officer looks out over a colonial street in Cartagena. Violence in Colombia, fueled by drug gangs, leftist rebels and paramilitary squads, has gone done dramatically in recent years.
Photo: Larry Luxner
government to show that this deal will be implemented according to the standards, and that those who have committed heinous human rights violations will face jail time. This is the only option.” Cynthia Arnson, director of the Wilson Center’s Latin American Program, agrees. “There’s been vigorous opposition by Uribe, who was here to make his case against
the peace process,” she said. “But most countries have been overwhelmingly supportive, and it’s to be expected that, even in the midst of the deep, fractious political debate in our own country, that support will continue.” Working in Bogotá’s favor is the fact that U.S. support for Colombia has been bipartisan. Both Democrats and Republicans have long
backed Plan Colombia, a military aid program that has cost $10 billion since its implementation 16 years ago. In March, during a visit by Santos to the White House, President Obama announced he would ask Congress to allocate $450 million for a new program called Peace Colombia to help guide the country as it enters the postconflict phase. “For over 15 years, Congress has worked on a bipartisan basis to support Colombia in its fight against the FARC. Looking ahead to the future, U.S. support for Peace Colombia will be just as critical,” Shifter said. “It’s easy to rally members of Congress around an imminent security threat in our hemisphere, especially with one of our closest allies. It’s another thing to rally members of Congress to support peace.” Congress is concerned, he said, not only about Colombia’s rising drug production
but also because of the impunity issue. “The Colombians have come up with transitional justice, whereby if people acknowledge their crimes, there will be reduced penalties. Even Human Rights Watch is very concerned about this.” Drugs are a very real issue, especially in light of a new United Nations report showing that Colombia has overtaken Peru as the world’s top source of cocaine. “FARC is very much involved in the drug trade,” said Shifter. “They see this is going to be all over soon, so they’re trying to increase production as much as they can before the agreement is implemented.” On July 15, Colombia’s senior presidential advisor for post-conflict issues, Rafael Pardo, gave a detailed presentation at the Wilson Center on what will actually happen now that a ceasefire has been reached. With the ceasefire in effect, five of the six items under negotiation in Havana are now closed: comprehensive agriculture development; political participation; rebel reintegration into civilian life; illegal crop eradication; and transitional justice and compensation to victims. The sixth element, the disarmament of FARC and implementation of the deal, will follow a detailed timetable, with the surrender of weapons and ammunition monitored and verified by a 240-member United Nations peacekeeping mission. “Our first challenge is how to stabilize regions where FARC is located now as an armed group,” said Pardo, explaining that the former guerrillas will be moved from the 100 jungle municipalities where they are now scattered to 23 specific centers. “We have to make sure that once FARC leaves these regions, no other illegal group will take their place or enter those regions to do illegal activities.” In simple terms, Colombia is following three roadmaps. One is related to the imme-
diate peace agreement at hand, the second deals with FARC’s future and the third covcolombia at a Glance ers Colombia’s progress over the next 10 to 20 years. Independence Day July 20, 1810 (from Spain) GDP per-capita (PPP) $13,800 (2015 estimate) The government’s overall Rapid Response Strategy — the first of the three steps — will Location northern South America, bordering the GDP growth 3.1 percent (2015 estimate) caribbean Sea, between Panama and venezuela, last for 18 months and cost the equivalent of Unemployment 8.9 percent (2015 estimate) and bordering the north Pacific Ocean, between $400 million. It involves four lines of action Ecuador and Panama Population below poverty line 27.8 percent and 26 projects, as well as compensation for (2015 estimate) Capital bogota 30,000 victims of FARC violence. Industries textiles, food processing, oil, clothing “The second and third steps are long Population 46.7 million (July 2015 estimate) and footwear, beverages, chemicals, cement; term. The goals are to implement the agreeEthnic groups Mestizo and white 84.2 percent, gold, coal, emeralds ment and the other is to transform rural liv-NOTE: Afro-colombian multatto, andto assure your ad is free of mistakes in spelling and Although (includes every effort is raizal made ing conditions,” said Pardo, adding that the Palenquero) 10.4 percent, percent, content it is Amerindian ultimately3.4up to the customer to make the final proof. National flag government will introduce tax incentives unspecified 2.1 percent (2005 estimate) of Colombia for companies to invest in previous conflict GDP (purchasing power parity) $667.4 billion two faxed changes will be made at no cost to the advertiser, subsequent changes zones. “This will take at least 20 years andThe first (2015 estimate) considered approved. cIA WOrld fActbOOk would cost a lot. There are other programs will be billed at a rate of $75 per faxed alteration. Signed ads are SOurcE: beyond the agreement, and the purpose is to close the gap between living standards Please check this ad carefully. Mark any changes to your ad. of Colombians in the cities and living stan- dent, we will need to work with the United “There’s no issue of greater concern for dards in the 20 percent of our population If the ad is correct sign andrelations fax to: (301) 949-0065 needs changes States. U.S.-Colombian have sursenior Colombian officials than the possible that lives rural areas.” vived different administrations, from Presi- implosion of Venezuela and the spillover Meanwhile, back in Washington, Pinzón dents Clinton to Bush to Obama. So we ex- of unrest into Colombia,” Shifter said. “If PhOtO: lArry luxnEr The Washington Diplomat (301) 933-3552 declined to speculate how ties with the U.S. pect the next president to continue that.” things completely break down in Venezuela, would fare under a Donald Trump presiThe same cannot be said for Colombia’s that would really upset Colombia precisely Pedestrians throng a covered walkway along a picturesque street off Parque bolívar in cartagena’s Approved dency, though he did say Colombia has tried tense __________________________________________________________ relations with neighboring Venezu- at a time when they’re trying to stabilize the historic district. hard to stay out of America’s domestic poliela. On July 10, more than 35,000 desperate situation. ” Changes ___________________________________________________________ tics. Venezuelans poured across the border into Pinzón said he’s confident Colombia will Pinzón — whose family’s legacy of mili___________________________________________________________________ “We’re working very hard to keep this the Colombian city of Cúcuta to buy food overcome that “situation” — and that in the tary service spans more than 120 years — bipartisan,” he said. “In the House, we got and household goods like toilet paper and end, voters will support the peace plan. has never lost his enduring love of the counapproval of $100 million more than what cooking oil that are no longer available at “We Colombians were always a very re- try’s armed forces. the administration requested, while in the home. silient country, despite the violence. It was “Even as I’m sitting here in Washington, Senate, we got what the administration reShifter calls Venezuela “a real wild card,” always able to keep its democratic institu- I keep thinking about our soldiers and poquested. Both Republicans and Democrats especially if Nicolás Maduro’s government tions, a set of sound policies and an en- licemen,” he said. “And the more I think support our efforts.” continues to face unrest in the wake of mas- trepreneurial attitude by its people that al- about them, the more I respect them and Regarding the November election (Pin- sive food shortages, political repression and lowed us — even in hard times — to keep am thankful for what they did. No matter zón plans on attending both parties’ national declining prices for oil, the country’s only moving forward,” he said. “Through hard what, I will always be on their side.” WD conventions), he said: “It’s their country. I real export (also see “Venezuela’s Envoy In- work, sacrifice, a strong determination and just hope the American people make up their sists Embattled Country Won’t Collapse” in the heroism of our armed forces, we were Larry Luxner is news editor of The minds, and regardless of who becomes presi- the July 2016 issue). able to overcome this.” Washington Diplomat.
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THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | AuGuST 2016 | 13
WD | Europe
Dangers of Democracy Done Right, Referendums Educate. Done Wrong, They’re Brexit by Karin Zeitvogel
T
he Swiss say they’re the key to political stability. But Switzerland is a small, wealthy Alpine nation that has been doing direct democracy — the system of government that gives citizens a large say in the legislative process, including through referendums — for centuries. For Britain, one referendum led to unprecedented political instability, casting an unflattering light on the dangers of democracy unleashed. On June 23, over 17 million British citizens voted to sever the United Kingdom from the European Union, plunging the U.K. into the unknown. The stunning “Brexit” result prompted a litany of questions: What happens next? How soon will Britain invoke the so-called Article 50 of the EU’s governing treaty and formally trigger the two-year divorce proceedings with the bloc? Can the U.K. still reap the economic rewards of the EU’s single-market access, without paying the price of free movement of people? Will London continue to serve as a financial hub or will businesses flock to other EU cities? Will pro-EU Scotland and Northern Ireland break off, further diminishing Britain’s prestige on the world stage? As leaders of the “Leave” campaign promptly backtracked on some of their lofty promises — apparently Britain’s national health care system won’t be getting that 350 million pounds a week in EU funds — and regret began to seep in about the historic decision, millions of Brits immediately began asking another question: Can we have a do-over? After a Machiavellian political tussle that saw former London Mayor Boris Johnson usurped (also see sidebar), Theresa May stepped in to become Britain’s second female prime minister. Jittery investors seemed somewhat reassured that May, a steady, tough political operative, might quell Britain’s political turmoil. But while the respected former home secretary has said she will take her time negotiating with the EU to get Britain the best exit deal possible, she’s also made it clear that there’s no going back. “Brexit means Brexit,” May said, vowing to respect the will of British voters. Meanwhile, Swiss voters wrote the referendum system into their constitution in 1865. Between the mid-1800s and the early 1990s, Switzerland held 398 nationwide referendums, covering every sphere of government activity, according to Canadian Parliament member David Kilgour, who wrote about the issue in 1994.
14 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | August 2016
There have been many more since then, including one in 2014 in which the Swiss narrowly voted to impose quotas on immigrants entering the Alpine nation from the European Union. This was seen as a slap in the face to the principle of free movement of people that is dear to the 28-member (now 27) bloc. Unchecked immigration from the EU — and the rightwing populist anger it has stirred — is also one of the main reasons why the Brexit vote went the way it did. Negotiations between the Swiss and the EU were in their second year when Brexit happened. But after the U.K. voted to leave the EU, Brussels doubled down and told the Swiss that if they limit the free movement of people, they will lose access to the EU single market. Like the Swiss, Brits want to have their EU cake and eat it too. A majority of Britons — 66 percent — want the government to make continued access to the world’s largest common market a priority when it eventually begins talks to leave the EU. Yet 31 percent want restrictions on freedom of movement to top the list of negotiating items, according to a poll conducted for BBC News by the ComRes research company.
“
The iconic Big Ben clock tower stands at the north end of Westminster Palace in London.
The story of the referendum … is one of people taking a joke too seriously.
”
Photo: By Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
— Jonathan Coe British writer
Britain, however, is unlikely to get special treatment from Brussels, which fears other EU member states might demand similar perks, undermining the concept of the economic union.
Shaky Reality and Bendy Bananas Many experts point out that Britain’s anti-immigrant fervor is driven by a shaky grip on reality. A poll conducted by the Ipsos MORI group in the U.K. before the Brexit referendum showed that Britons who intended to vote “leave” thought 20 percent of the U.K.’s population of 64 million people are EU immigrants, while the average “remain” voter thought the number was around 10 percent, according to the Ipsos poll, which interviewed 1,083 respondents over 11 days in April and
May this year. The correct figure for EU-born people living in the U.K. is, in fact, 5 percent, according to Ipsos MORI. Other things that Brits got wrong about EU membership: Four in 10 people in the U.K. thought that 13 percent to 30 percent of national child benefits were paid to EU residents, when the correct figure is 0.3 percent, according to Ipsos MORI. Voters also misjudged how much the EU spends on administration. “The average guess is that 27 percent of the overall budget is spent on staff, admin and maintenance costs, when in reality it’s 6 percent,” Ipsos MORI wrote. Similarly, a quarter of people in the U.K. thought their country was the top contributor to the EU budget. In truth, Germany (23 percent) paid in more than twice as much as the U.K. (11 percent), while France (16 percent) and Italy (12 percent) also contributed
more to the EU budget in 2014 than the U.K. did. Finally, voters underestimated how much other EU countries invest in the U.K. The average estimate by people polled was that other EU countries are responsible for around 30 percent of total investment into the U.K. The actual figure is 48 percent.
ALSO SEE: Boris, Britain’s Undiplomatic Top Diplomat PAGE 16
One final, more bizarre myth bandied about ahead of the vote: The EU regulates how bendy bananas imported to the bloc can be. This myth was perpetuated by Boris Johnson, Britain’s See Br ex it • page 16
SiDebar
Post-brexit breakup details W
hat are the implications of britain’s decision to split from the European union? here are some of the questions that people have been wondering about and a few scenarios — both immediate and long-term — in a post-brexit future:
Service changed the outlook on britain’s long-term issuer and debt ratings to negative from stable, saying that the brexit vote “will herald a prolonged period of uncertainty for the u.k., with negative implications for the country’s mediumterm growth outlook.”
NOT-SO UNITED KINGDOM:
CONSTRUCTION:
Scotland and northern Ireland voted to remain in the Eu. Scottish first Minister nicola Sturgeon said that following the vote by England and Wales to leave, a second referendum on independence for Scotland was likely. A poll conducted by comres found that far more people in the u.k. (53 percent) think it is likely that the four-entity union will no longer exist in 10 years’ time than think England can win a major soccer tournament (13 percent).
restrictions on immigration could result in a slowdown in the sector, which needs 130,000 more workers, according to hSbc.
CONFUSION: Some in the u.k. wondered if they would need to get new passports. they don’t. there is no such thing as an Eu passport. britain is also not a part of the Eu’s passport-free travel area known as the Schengen zone. PROPERTY: house prices are expected to fall across the u.k. in the next three months and continue to remain lower for the next year, at least in london and East Anglia, the royal Institution of chartered Surveyors said. luxury property prices have fallen to their lowest level since the global financial crisis. STERLING: Immediately after the referendum, the pound fell to a 35-year low against the u.S. dollar. After the bank of England elected to hold interest rates steady in July, the pound rose 2 percent against the dollar — its best showing since 2009. It is not, however, back to its pre-brexit exchange rate. INTEREST RATES: currently at 0.5 percent, rates could be cut to a record-low 0.25 percent in August to encourage businesses and individuals to spend, rather than keep their money in the bank. GROWTH: hSbc has halved its 2017 forecast for the u.k.’s gdP growth. S&P forecast brexit would lop 1.2 percent off the country’s gdP growth in the next year and 1 percent in 2018. Moody’s Investors
RACISM: Incidents of overt racial abuse have risen sharply since the brexit vote. Many of the attacks have targeted u.k. residents from Eu member states in Eastern and central Europe, i.e. Poland, the baltic states, etc. VALUE-ADDED TAX: the “substantive body of Eu law establishing common rules for vAt across member states” would no longer apply to the u.k. if brexit becomes reality. but pundits say vAt, which accounts for 17 percent of u.k. government receipts, is unlikely to be abolished. vAt currently stands at 20 percent. POLITICS: david cameron announced his resignation after the leave vote triumphed. days later, nigel farage stepped down as head of the euroskeptic uk Independence Party (ukIP), saying he had achieved his political ambitions after campaigning in favor of leaving the Eu and wanted his life back. Ironically, farage is still a member of the European Parliament that he frequently disparages. the opposition labour Party, meanwhile, is in disarray. Several members of the labour shadow cabinet stepped down and party leader Jeremy corbyn faces an ongoing leadership challenge. theresa May stepped into the breach to become britain’s second female prime minister since Margaret thatcher. “the 59-year-old home secretary’s carefully cultivated image of political dependability and unflappability appears to have made her the right person at the right time as the fallout from the u.k.’s vote to leave the Eu smashed possible rivals out of contention,” wrote gavin Stamp of bbc news. And brexit gave the world a new british foreign minister in the form of former london Mayor boris Johnson, a rather unlikely diplomat (see related sidebar on page 16). — Karin Zeitvogel
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3 THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | AuGuST 2016 | 15
Brexit
SiDebar
cOntInuEd • PAgE 14
boris, britain’s undiplomatic top diplomat
new foreign minister, as he led the Leave camp. The only merit to Johnson’s claim that Brussels bans bendy bananas is its alliterative quality. The European Commission did standardize rules regarding bananas that had been drawn up in a confusing manner by individual governments and the industry. One of the EU rules was that bananas should not have malformations or an abnormal curvature. But no bananas were banned. “Many of us are still very shaky on fundamental aspects of our relationship with the EU,” Ipsos MORI Social Research Institute Managing Director Bobby Duffy said. Anand Menon, a professor of European politics and foreign affairs at King’s College in London, said the “high levels of ignorance about the EU” were troubling but not surprising, “given the lack of accurate information provided to the public, as well as the mistruths, exaggerations and scaremongering” in tabloid headlines during the Brexit campaign.
H
e’s been called the eccentric, zip-lining, American-born politician who was briefly the odds-on favorite to take over as prime minister after david cameron left office in ignominy. french foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault called him a liar. german foreign Minister frank-Walter Steinmeier said his behavior was outrageous. the hindustan times called him a racist and the Economist said he is “unscrupulous, unserious and poorly organized.” Meet boris Johnson, the flamboyant former london mayor who is now britain’s foreign minister. labour Party MP david lammy tweeted his reaction to the announcement by new Prime Minister theresa May that boris would be the country’s top diplomat: “Is this a bad dream? An elaborate wind up? Please god help us.” In a headline in the guardian newspaper, Sonia Purnell, author of “Just boris: A tale of blond Ambition,” wrote: “never have we needed diplomacy more. Instead we have boris Johnson.” And former conservative MP Matthew Parris, who now writes a weekly column for the times newspaper, called Johnson “creeping ambition in a jester’s cap.” Indeed, Johnson is an odd choice to be britain’s top diplomat. When she chose him, May must have forgotten the limerick Johnson penned about turkish President recep tayyip Erdogan involving a goat and sexual congress. She must have overlooked the time Johnson likened democratic presidential nominee hillary clinton to “a sadistic nurse in a mental hospital” and said President barack Obama held a grudge against the u.k. because of his kenyan ancestry. Of bill clinton, Johnson was a bit more flattering, once saying: “If bill can deal with hillary, he can surely deal with any global crisis.” After republican presumptive nominee donald trump said radicalization had made
POlItIcAl gAMbIt bAckfIrES, SPEctAculArly If Britons have such a tenuous understanding of the EU, should the referendum have been held at all? Critics say certain issues are too complex to be distilled into a yes-or-no vote, and that highly technical policies should be left to legislators who’ve been elected by the people and have time to study the issues. Proponents of referendums, however, argue that they get the ordinary man in the street more interested in politics. Indeed, if anything, Brexit served as a wakeup call to politicians around the world that many voters feel left behind by globalization. Referendums, done right — as in Switzerland, where voters are given booklets that explain in detail the issues that they’re voting on — serve to educate voters, supporters say. But many counter that the U.K. referendum was different — and not just because of the lack of informational booklets. “The battle of Brexit came about not because of any serious demand for national change but for … a power vendetta within a tiny group of privileged men,” wrote Scottish journalist Neal Ascherson in the London Review of Books. Former Prime Minister David Cameron called the referendum in 2013 as a political maneuver to unite his Conservative Party and appease angry euroskeptics. The pro-Europe Cameron never imagined the Leave side would actually win. Polls at the time showed Brits had no interest in decoupling from the EU. Now, Cameron’s legacy will forever be tarnished by a gamble that amounted to political suicide. “The story of the referendum … is one of people taking a joke too seriously,” author Jonathan Coe wrote, also in the London Review of Books. “As a passionate Remainer, I’m trying to accept the result with good grace, but it’s hard when it was brought about by a campaign eloquently described by (former BBC reporter turned novelist) Robert Harris as ‘the most depressing, divisive, duplicitous political event of my lifetime,’” Coe lamented. The morning after the referendum, many Britons woke up with a Brexit hangover, or what some are calling “Bregret,” particularly after markets plummeted and the value of
PhOtO: gOvErnMEnt Of uk - httPS://WWW.gOv.uk/ gOvErnMEnt/PEOPlE/bOrIS-JOhnSOn
Former London Mayor Boris Johnson was recently named Britain’s secretary of state. parts of london no-go areas, Johnson responded by saying: “the only reason I wouldn’t visit some parts of new york is the real risk of meeting donald trump.” that risk may become all too real if trump — another populist and entertainer in the vein of Johnson — wins the White house. both men share a penchant for hyperbole and historic inaccuracy. In 2003, Johnson offended Africans when he said: “the Queen has come to love the commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving piccaninnies.” during campaigning for the referendum, Johnson likened the Eu to hitler’s Europe. “napoleon, hitler, various people tried this out, and it ends tragically. the Eu is an attempt
to do this by different methods.” he has said the Eu is “in many ways corrupt” and, separately, that it imposed too many rules and regulations on the u.k. “first, they make us pay in our taxes for greek olive groves, many of which probably don’t exist. then they say we can’t dip our bread in olive oil in restaurants. We didn’t join the common market — betraying the new zealanders and their butter — in order to be told when, where and how we must eat the olive oil we have been forced to subsidize.” Johnson was born in new york, but moved back to the u.k. when he was 5. he renounced his u.S. citizenship in 2015 after American tax authorities ordered him to pay six figures in capital gains tax following the highly profitable sale of his london home. (britons do not pay capital gains tax on the sale of their principal residence.) Johnson eventually paid up but in an apparently retaliatory move was said to be seeking 8 million pounds from the u.S. Embassy in london for unpaid congestion charges — a daily “toll” for driving through parts of central london between the hours of 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. So why would May make such an unorthodox choice? Some speculate the shrewd prime minister may be looking for a scapegoat should negotiations with the Eu flounder. but Johnson’s supporters counter that he was an effective mayor who can inject muchneeded adrenaline into a stale diplomatic system. Ironically, making his debut last month on the international stage, Johnson changed his bombastic tune. unlike his earlier comments comparing the Eu to hitler, he took a more conventional approach, telling the bloc’s foreign ministers that britain is not abandoning its “friends.” — Karin Zeitvogel
democracy,” Jeremy Shapiro, research director at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told Judy Dempsey of Carnegie Europe. At the same time, Shapiro said he couldn’t envision Brexit moving forward. “It has become clear just in the few days since the June 23 referendum that the process of separating the U.K. from the EU is too laced with economic complications and geopolitical uncertainties to proceed,” he said. “So, the unstoppable political force of the people’s will has crashed into the bureaucratically immovable object of EU membership. Something impossible will have to happen.”
brExIt dO-OvEr
PhOtO: by 0x010c - OWn WOrk, cc by-SA 4.0 vIA WIkIMEdIA cOMMOnS
london is one of the largest financial centers in the world, but following the brexit decision, other European cities such as frankfurt and Paris are vying to become the next financial hub.
the pound tumbled. Some Brits said they were simply casting a protest vote, never thinking the Leave camp would come out on top. Up to 7 percent of Leave voters and 3 percent of Remain voters said they regretted the way they voted, a poll conducted by London-based Opinium Research found. More than 4 million people have signed a petition to rerun the vote. Others, however, want a break from the ballot box. A July ComRes poll for the Independent newspa-
16 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | AuGuST 2016
per found that 57 percent of respondents rejected calls for a second referendum. And for now, May’s government has doused Remainers’ hopes in cold water, saying the referendum was a “once in a generation” vote and the outcome has to be respected. Some experts agree that ignoring the results could spark another round of upheaval. “It is impossible to reverse Brexit. The idea of overturning such a clearly and legitimately expressed will of the people would gut many of the most cherished principles of British
Dempsey, a nonresident senior associate for Carnegie Europe, surveyed a group of experts for her “Strategic Europe” blog on whether Brexit could be reversed. “In theory yes, but in the practical world of politics, it is very hard to see how the British vote to exit the EU can be reversed,” former Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt told Dempsey. “It’s of course up to the U.K. political system. But I fail to see that it can deliver a U-turn of such massive magnitude in any reasonable timeframe.” Yet other experts pointed out that there are various avenues the Conservative Party could take to forestall, or even abandon, the Brexit divorce. It could hold off on invoking Article 50, for example, and drag out negotiations with the EU. Even if Article 50 is triggered, “Britain has two years to complete its separation, or longer if all other EU members agree. That is a long time in politics,”
Uri Dadush, senior associate in Carnegie’s International Economics Program, noted in the Strategic Europe blog. “Reversal could occur either if a new referendum overturns Brexit or if a new government is elected on a Remain platform.” “There are many possible scenarios, from Scotland blocking Brexit to the U.K. government putting a mildly changed relationship to a second referendum,” Fraser Cameron, director of the EU-Russia Centre, told Dempsey. “But more important is why reverse the decision now? Why not let those who campaigned for Brexit take responsibility and see how far they get in negotiating a new nirvana for the U.K.?” Some analysts told Dempsey that while Britain may not attain nirvana, it might wind up with something akin to a Norwaylike relationship with the EU, whereby the U.K. would still have access to the single market, but would have to accept the free movement of labor in return. That arrangement, however, would essentially make the Leave victory moot by reinforcing the status quo — all while stripping Britain of the political influence it once wielded in Brussels as a voting EU member. Remain advocates haven’t given up hope, though. “Those who argue that the vote should be blindly accepted fall into the trap set by populists pitting so-called ordinary people against the elites,” Cornelius Adebahr, associate in Carnegie’s Europe Program, told Dempsey. “The referendum was consultative in nature, called by a prime minister eager to secure his party base and hijacked by opponents for political opportunity, with a campaign filled with hyperbole, hubris and hysteria. “Certainly, in a referendum intended to
Photo: By Tom Evans - https://www.flickr.com/photos/number10gov/27798459571/ via Wikimedia Commons
British Prime Minister David Cameron announces his resignation in the wake of the Brexit referendum to sever the United Kingdom from the European Union, a political gambit that backfired spectacularly on Cameron.
be about regaining sovereignty, the British Parliament should rule supreme. Its members, most of whom are against Brexit, were democratically elected, and the members of the U.K. government have pledged to serve the country’s interest. Time for both to act accordingly and call for an early general election.” There haven’t been any moves to force an early general election, but a parliamentary committee has begun an inquiry to explore, among other issues, the “role and purpose of referendums and the relationship between
direct democracy” — as in Switzerland — “and parliamentary democracy.” Among the questions the committee will seek to answer: What is the legal status of referendums in the U.K. and what questions are appropriate to be determined by referendums? Parliament “still has to pass the laws that will get Britain out of the 28-nation bloc, starting with the repeal of the 1972 European Communities Act,” journalists Brian Wheeler and Alex Hunt wrote on the BBC News website. Peter Ludlow, chairman of the European
Strategy Forum, warns that parliamentary gimmicks won’t sit well with voters. “The British people were consulted, and a majority of them said Leave. To plead now that the British Parliament can, let alone should, ignore the popular vote is simply not credible,” he told Dempsey. “It is equally unrealistic to imagine that the U.K. will be offered another deal that can be voted on in a second referendum. This has happened in the past when Denmark and Ireland voted no to EU treaties. But the starting point was totally different in each case,” Ludlow added. “The only development that might transform the outlook is therefore the election of a new, pro-EU government in the U.K.,” he concluded. “Given the post-Brexit turmoil in British politics, a realignment is not impossible. However, the new party is unlikely to win an election unless and until Brexit has been consummated and the electorate has had an opportunity to see just what a shabby option it is.” At the moment, the next general election is set to be held in 2020, but early elections could be called if two-thirds of MPs vote in favor of such a move — a tall legislative order. For now, many analysts expect Parliament to give May, a seasoned EU negotiator, time to set the terms for Britain’s departure from the bloc. Meanwhile, the Remain camp will be doing just that — biding its time, to see how she does. The final verdict could take years. In fact, according to one ComRes poll, a quarter of Britons think the U.K. will still be a member of the EU in 10 years’ time. WD Karin Zeitvogel (@Zeitvogel) is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.
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THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | August 2016 | 17
WD | Central America
Guatemala Moves Forward Country’s First Female Envoy to U.S. Tackles Migration, Impunity, Poverty by Larry Luxner
M
arithza Ruiz de Vielman, a lawyer and former foreign minister, recently arrived in Washington as Guatemala’s first-ever female ambassador to the United States. The seasoned diplomat — whose experience ranges from bananas to the Belize territorial dispute — presented her credentials to President Obama in a June 27 ceremony at the White House, along with 10 other new ambassadors. As the representative here of Central America’s most populous country, Ruiz takes her new job seriously. “To date, I am the only woman who has held the position of secretary of state, and I hope I will not be the only one,” she said. “Guatemala offers many opportunities to women. We still believe there’s a lot to be done.” The arrival of Ruiz, who replaces Julio Ligorria as ambassador, coincides with an upheaval in Guatemalan politics. Last October, voters elected one-time TV comedian Jimmy Morales president in a landslide election, in the wake of public anger over his predecessor, Otto Pérez Molina, who was jailed a month earlier after his ouster in connection with a vast corruption scandal. The 47-year-old Morales, who heads the center-right National Convergence Front, had no previous political experience before running for president. Ruiz declined to discuss her country’s domestic politics but did suggest that “Guatemala has come a long way” since the military dictatorships that dominated much of the 20th century. The country’s bloody civil war pitted U.S.-backed government forces against leftist rebels, including indigenous Maya and peasants, as well as academics, activists and others opposed to the regime. An estimated 200,000 people were killed or forcibly disappeared between 1960 to 1996; a U.N. commission concluded that the bulk of human rights abuses were committed by the government. Many powerful business and military interests continue to evade accountability for the war and the issues that sparked the conflict — namely economic and political marginalization — remain unresolved. “We had an internal armed conflict for 36 years and signed a peace accord in 1999,” Ruiz told The Washington Diplomat in her first interview with any U.S. media outlet as ambassador. “We have worked very hard to advance a system that will offer opportunities to everybody. We have made a serious, well-intended effort to defend human rights and the rule of law.” Ruiz, who was born and raised in Guatemala, speaks perfect English thanks to her years as an exchange student at Detroit’s Our Lady of Mercy High School. She earned her law degree from Guatemala’s Universidad Rafael Landívar in 1973 and was an independent litigator in civil, constitutional and trade law cases before joining the public sector. In the past, Ruiz has argued for greater access for Guatemalan bananas to the European market and represented Guatemala in the Uruguay Round to establish the World Trade Organization (WTO). In 2000, she was appointed ambassador to the United Kingdom, where she served for three years until running for vice president in Guatemala’s presidential election in 2003. “Guatemala is doing economically well, but we still need better market access opportunities for the products in which we are competitive,” she said, noting that Guatemala now has free trade agreements in effect
18 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | August 2016
Photo: Larry Luxner
Marithza Ruiz de Vielman, a lawyer and former foreign minister, recently became Guatemala’s first-ever female ambassador to the United States.
“
To date, I am the only woman who has held the position of secretary of state, and I hope I will not be the only one. Guatemala offers many opportunities to women. We still believe there’s a lot to be done. Marithza Ruiz de Vielman
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ambassador of Guatemala to the United States
with the United States (through the Central American Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA), as well as with the European Union and Mexico. Ruiz has served on several bodies that oversee the global coffee, maritime and sugar industries. Even more importantly, in 2004 she helped establish the United Nations-backed International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG in Spanish), which works with national prosecutors to dismantle clandestine security groups that continue to operate despite the end of the civil war. “I negotiated the first efforts that evolved into what today is called CICIG,” she told us. “We should all be satisfied that so many countries have supported us, including the United States, in this effort and that our president has agreed to extend the mandate of CICIG for another two years.” CICIG targets secret groups that undermine the state, “though their main goal now is economic power,
not elimination of political opponents,” according to the International Crisis Group, which wrote about CICIG in a January 2016 report. “International support and financing guarantee the commission’s independence, though it operates under Guatemalan laws. Unlike traditional capacity-building efforts, it not only trains, but also works side by side with national prosecutors and police, providing them with the necessary technical expertise and political autonomy to hold powerful suspects accountable before the law,” the Crisis Group said. The agency works hand in hand with Guatemala’s highly regarded public prosecutor, Thelma Esperanza Aldana Hernández, whose tireless investigation of Pérez Molina led to the former president’s impeachment and arrest. In a November 2015 speech at the Wilson Center, Aldana — a close friend of the new ambassador — said that support from CICIG, an entity Pérez Molina had tried to dismantle, had been absolutely critical in bringing the president down. Another important issue the government faces is migration, especially in a U.S. election year in which Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has vowed to build a wall on the border with Mexico to keep immigrants out. While overall migration to the U.S. from Mexico has been down or stable since the 2008 recession, the number of unaccompanied minors crossing the Rio Grande from Mexico into Texas is rising again after a similar spike in 2014. “Latin Americans have made valuable contributions to make this country what it is,” Ruiz said. “We understand that migration in recent years has become a security concern. But we are confident that the United States will support our efforts to improve the economic situation of our citizens, because that will encourage them to stay in Guatemala.”
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Above, guatemalans roam an outdoor market in chichicastenango, known for its traditional Maya culture. below, the city of Antigua guatemala is famous for its Spanish baroque-influenced architecture and has been designated a unEScO World heritage Site.
To that end, Ruiz praised the Obama administration’s Alliance for Prosperity program, which the Senate approved by a 66-33 vote last December. The $750 million program aims to improve governance, strengthen security and promote economic integration in Central America’s three “Northern Triangle” countries: Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. In a November 2015 New York Times oped piece advocating for the plan, Vice President Joe Biden wrote that “the economies of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras remain bogged down as the rest of the Americas surge forward. Inadequate education, institutional corruption, rampant crime and a lack of investment are holding these countries back.” But critics of the plan say it could backfire, benefiting the country’s political and corporate elite while exacerbating poverty and the migration crisis. After reaching record high levels during the spring and summer of 2014, the flow of Central American unaccompanied children and families arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border declined sharply — but has since begun to climb again. Along the southwest border, U.S. officials apprehended 32,952 unaccompanied children ages 17 or under during fiscal 2016, up dramatically from the 18,889 who were taken into custody in fiscal 2015 but still less than the 36,280 who were apprehended in fiscal 2014, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. In fiscal 2016, more Guatemalan children (10.717, to be exact) presented themselves at the border than kids of any other nationality — partly a reflection of the country’s sheer size compared to its neighbors, but also a result of Guatemala’s high levels of poverty. Among other things, the Alliance for Prosperity earmarks U.S. funds to further strengthen the Guatemalan Public Ministry and CICIG. It also seeks to create a similar anti-corruption body in Honduras. It’s still unclear how much of the $750 million will go to Guatemala, said Ruiz. “Let’s improve the lives of Guatemalans in Guatemala, and they will stay there. But of course our government supports migrants who live in the United States,” she said, estimating their number at around 1.6 million. “We want them to feel like part of the solution. In fact, the president recently inaugurated a call center for migrants in four Mayan languages plus Spanish. Calls to our consulates have actually gone down because people find out what they need to know by calling the new call center.” Ruiz, who has served as special advisor to Guatemala’s foreign affairs minister on a number of issues since 1996, is also an expert on one of her country’s most enduring problems: Guatemala’s territorial dispute with
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Belize. Formerly known as British Honduras, the sparsely populated nation of 340,000 people is slightly smaller than Massachusetts. Ruiz declined to discuss Guatemala’s claims in detail, but on all official maps of Guatemala, Belize appears shaded in, as if its very status as a country is in dispute. In April, Guatemala — which in the past has claimed more than half of its English-speaking neighbor — deployed about 3,000 troops to the border following a shooting incident that killed a Guatemalan teenager. Each side accused the other of triggering the violence, even though talks have been ongoing for years to resolve the territorial dispute. “I can assure you these incidents have never been provoked by the Guatemalan Army [but] by the defense forces of Belize, and in that respect, the Organization of American States has played a very positive and significant role because they investigate these incidents,” said Ruiz, who has been working on the issue for 20 years. Despite the simmering tensions, she said, “We now have an excellent opportunity to solve that territorial, maritime and island dispute because both Belize and Guatemala have agreed to submit their case to the International Court of Justice. A number of procedures in both countries have to be completed, but the political will for both countries to solve the issue is there.” WD Larry Luxner is news editor of The Washington Diplomat.
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WD | United States
U.S. Views on Islam Despite Attacks and Rhetoric, Survey Finds Surprising Rise in American Support for Muslims by Anna Gawel
W
atching the latest Islamic-inspired terrorist carnage on TV or listening to Donald Trump’s charged campaign rhetoric, you would think that Americans’ opinions of Muslims and Islam in general might be worse than ever. But a surprising new poll shows the exact opposite: American attitudes toward Muslims and their faith have progressively improved since last November, despite the June 12 attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando that killed 49 people in the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. Respected pollster Shibley Telhami presented his latest survey, “American attitudes toward the Middle East,” on July 11 at the Brookings Institution, where he serves as a nonresident senior fellow. Telhami conducted two polls — one two weeks before the Orlando killing spree, and the other two weeks after — and compared them to an earlier poll taken in November 2015. (The survey was released before the deadly attack in Nice that killed over 80 people during France’s national holiday celebrations.) Telhami found that since last year’s poll, Americans’ views on Muslims went from 53 percent favorable to 58 percent favorable in May to 62 percent favorable in June. During the same November-June timeframe, Americans with favorable views of Islam increased from 37 percent to 44 percent. That’s still less than half the country, Telhami noted, though it marks an increase nonetheless. On the question of whether people think that Islamic and Western religious and social traditions are compatible, however, the number was much higher, climbing from 57 percent last November to 64 percent in June. Telhami, who is the Anwar Sadat professor for peace and development at the University of Maryland, found another striking trend that wouldn’t shock anyone who’s been paying attention to this year’s bitterly divided presidential race: The country remains as polarized as ever, with Republicans and Democrats viewing the issue through vastly different lenses. In fact, all of the increases in favorability rankings were driven by Democrats and Independents. Republican favorability toward Muslims didn’t budge significantly between November and June, hovering in the low-40s range, while Democrats’ favorability toward Muslims shot up from 67 percent in November to 79 percent in June. (Likewise, Independents rose from 43 percent to 60 percent.) The political gap with regards to Islam was even more stark, with just 24 percent of Republicans holding a favorable opinion of the religion in June, virtually unchanged from November, and 64 percent of Democrats holding a favorable view, a jump from 51 percent last year. As Telhami pointed out, that’s a 40-point discrepancy between the two parties — huge by any polling standard. Democrats and Republicans were similarly far apart on the question of Islamic and Western compatibility (82 percent versus 42 percent, respectively). Breaking it down further by candidate, the chasm becomes even more pronounced: 66 percent of Hillary Clinton supporters had a favorable
20 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | August 2016
Photo: By Dane Hillard - originally uploaded to Flickr as Islamic Center of America, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
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American attitudes toward Muslims and their faith have progressively improved since last November, despite the June 12 attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando that killed 49 people in the worst mass shooting in U.S. history.
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view of Islam, while an overwhelming majority of Donald Trump backers had the polar opposite reaction, with 84 percent holding an unfavorable view of Islam. William A. Galston, a senior fellow in governance studies at Brookings, said at the July 11 discussion that Telhami’s latest survey confirms how deeply fractured the nation has become. Galston noted that “55 percent of Republicans believe in the clash of civilizations. They insist that Islamic and Western religions and social conditions are incompatible with each other. The percentage for Democrats is 17 percent. When you look at Clinton supporters versus Trump supporters on that question, once again, you see about a 50-point gap,” he said, adding that this suggests an even greater degree of polarization between the two candidates than between the parties themselves, “so it’s polarization on steroids.” Telhami speculated that one reason behind the Democratic spike in support for Muslims and Is-
The Islamic Center of America, the largest mosque in the United States, is located in Dearborn, Mich., which has a sizable Muslim-American population.
lam may simply be a kneejerk response to Trump, who has come to be associated with an unapologetically anti-Muslim stance. “To agree with the view that Islam and terrorism are tightly linked, in other words, is to take Trump’s side of the political divide,” Telhami wrote in a Politico piece ahead of the poll’s release. “On the one hand, this means that his core supporters will likely embrace his opinions, and the poll results indeed show that Trump supporters bucked the national trend. On the other hand, those who oppose him have the tendency to reject his view in part because it’s his and because he is using it for political gain. It’s less about Islam and Muslims, and more about taking political sides.” Other reasons for the skewed results may be that Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have specifically condemned rhetoric that lumps all Muslims together as terrorists. Trump’s proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States, which sparked a heated public backlash, may have alienated survey participants as well. Telhami also argued that Americans have a more nuanced view of the Orlando massacre than they are often given credit for. On June 12, Omar Mateen, wielding a semiautomatic pistol and an assault rifle, opened fire on partygoers at a gay nightclub, killing 49 people and wounding 53. After a three-hour hostage standoff, the slaughter ended when police shot and killed Mateen, an American citizen who was born in New York to Afghan immigrants. The 29-year-old had been twice investigated by the FBI for possible terrorist ties but was cleared both times. During the Orlando assault, Mateen
placed a 911 call in which he pledged allegiance to the Islamic State but also expressed support for al-Qaeda and Hezbollah, possibly confusing the groups. Authorities haven’t established any conclusive links between Mateen and the Islamic State, nor have they responded to rumors that the twicemarried gunman was secretly gay. Thus far, the shooting rampage has been classified as both an act of domestic terrorism and a hate crime. When Telhami asked Americans to rate possible factors behind the Orlando shooter’s motives, hate for the LBGT community came in first, followed closely behind by militant Islamist ideology and mental illness. When asked to assess the most important factor, 33 percent named militant Islamist ideology, 21 percent cited mental illness, 19 percent said self-hate and 16 percent said hate for the gay community. Only 2 percent said feeling rejected as a Muslim in America was the most important factor. Telhami pointed out that while one-third of Americans blamed militant Islamist ideology as the primary driver behind the Orlando attack, the majority of Americans didn’t attribute it as the most critical factor. Likewise, 57 percent said the shooter acted independently but was inspired by Islamic State ideology, while 34 percent said he acted for reasons unrelated to the terrorist group, also known as ISIS. “Obviously, most people get it right … there was no evidence that he was under the direction of ISIS,” Telhami said. “But it’s also interesting that one-third think that he wasn’t even
Photo: oversnap / iStock
A new University of Maryland poll shows that American attitudes toward Muslims and Islam have progressively improved since last November, despite the June 12 attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando that killed 49 people in the worst mass shooting in U.S. history.
inspired by ISIS; he was just choosing it for self-boasting.” When asked what could be done to prevent another Orlando-style tragedy, Americans ranked banning weapons to people with terrorist and criminal records first, followed by better security at public venues, fighting the Islamic State abroad and banning the sale of assault rifles. Closely monitoring mosques and Muslin American groups — policies advocated by Trump — came in last. “So obviously the narrative war here was
won more by the Democratic side than the Republican side,” Telhami concluded. The battle against the Islamic State, in fact, ranked first among America’s global priorities (61 percent), followed by U.S. immigration policy (41 percent). Iran only received 7 percent support, while the civil wars in Yemen and Libya came in dead last, with a paltry 1 percent of Americans calling those two countries priorities. Among the poll’s other intriguing findings: In an open-ended question, Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ranked highest among Republicans (14 percent) when asked to name a national or world leader they admired most. Ronald Reagan was picked by 6 percent of Republicans and, surprisingly, 4 percent of Republicans named Barack Obama the leader they most admire. Naturally, Obama fared better among his own party, with 40 percent of Democrats naming him their top choice. Democrats and Republicans remained largely split on issues ranging from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to what caused the rise of the Islamic State (most Democrats blamed the war in Iraq for the group’s rise, while Republicans attributed it to the U.S. troop pullout from Iraq). Telhami said he expects this polarization to widen in the lead-up to Election Day. Despite the apparent pro-Muslim shift among some Americans, notably Democrats, the majority of the country still has a negative view of Islam in general, Telhami cautioned, predicting that the issue of Islam will continue to be used as campaign fodder in the months ahead. WD Anna Gawel is the managing editor of The Washington Diplomat.
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Medical A Special Section of The Washington Diplomat
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August 2016
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Oversaturated Study Cites the Fats That Could Shorten Your Life • by Robert Preidt (HealthDay News) High levels of animal-based saturated fats were tied to earlier death; unsaturated fats seem healthier
H
old the butter, margarine and high-fat dairy: A new study supports the notion that these “saturated” fats are bad for you. The study, which followed more than 126,000 people for three decades, found that people who ate higher amounts of saturated fats and trans fats died earlier than those who stuck to healthier unsaturated fats. Unsaturated fats include plant-based, unprocessed fats such as those found in olive, canola or soybean oil, the study authors explained. “These findings support current dietary recommendations to replace saturated fat and trans fat with unsaturated fats,”
concluded a team of researchers led by Dr. Frank Hu of Harvard School of Public Health in Boston. One nutritionist believes the study should help clear up the confusion many consumers have about dietary fat. “There’s a common misconception that eating dietary fat makes you gain body fat,” said Sharon Zarabi, a nutritionist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. “It is important to analyze what you’re eating — are they hydrogenated fats coupled with refined carbohydrates [for example, white bread] or are they unsaturated from plant sources?”
Photo: firebrand3 / Depositphotos
See Fats • page 26
THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | August 2016 | 23
WD | Medical | Cancer
Costs of Success U.S. Cancer Survivors Living Longer •
by HealthDay News
Likelihood of other chronic conditions will stress health care system in next two decades, report predicts
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A
s the American population ages, more older adults will survive cancer and live with other chronic conditions that will burden the health care system, U.S. government health officials report. “Increasingly, we are seeing the impact of an aging population — fueled by maturing baby boomers — on major diseases, including cancer,” said lead researcher Shirley Bluethmann, a cancer prevention fellow at the U.S. National Cancer Institute. In 2016, nearly 62 percent of almost 16 million cancer survivors
24 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | August 2016
are ages 65 or older, the researchers said. By 2040, an estimated 73 percent of 26 million cancer survivors will be 65 or older. “This steady and dramatic growth will affect the health care system, and so is sometimes referred to as the ‘silver tsunami,’” Bluethmann said. “It not only has implications for older people who are at higher risk for cancer, it also means that we will have higher numbers of older patients with complex health needs.” In the face of this challenge, health care providers will have to build collaborative care teams — including doctors, nurses and
other caregivers — to be able to respond to the needs of this vulnerable population, Bluethmann noted. “We also need to emphasize the benefits of lifestyle for cancer prevention and control across the life course,” she added. “Lifestyle choices, including doing regular exercise and maintaining a healthy weight, may prevent some kinds of cancer, but also offer many benefits in preserving function, reducing symptoms and promoting a high quality of life into old age,” Bluethmann said. For the study, Bluethmann and her colleagues used federal health
data from 1975 to 2012. With Census data, they projected the incidence of cancer from 2016 to 2040. In addition, the researchers used Medicare claims to estimate the impact of other chronic conditions such as heart disease, lung disease and diabetes. They found that by 2040, cancer survivors ages 65 to 74 will make up 24 percent of all survivors, those ages 75 to 84 will make up 31 percent of all survivors and those ages 85 and older will represent 18 percent. Currently, the prevalence of cancer is about the same for men and women. In older age groups,
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It’s going to put a financial strain on the health care system, especially because most of these older cancer survivors are receiving Medicare. KiM MilleR epidemiologist at the American Cancer Society
however, cancer is more common among men. Among those ages 65 to 69, 14 percent of men and 12 percent of women have been diagnosed with cancer. The gap increases with age. In the oldest group, 90 and up, 37 percent of men and 25 percent of women have been diagnosed with cancer, the study found. This gap is most likely due to more prostate cancer survivors, which is usually diagnosed at older ages, Bluethmann said. In addition, aging increases the chances that cancer survivors will suffer from one or more chronic medical conditions. Among cancer survivors ages 65 to 69, 27 percent had a history of other medical problems. Among survivors ages 85 and older, 47 percent had other chronic conditions, the researchers found. The findings were published in the July 1 issue of the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention. One public health expert sees the
explosion in the numbers of cancer survivors, especially those with other medical problems, as concerning. “There aren’t many older adults in clinical trials, so we have a limited amount of knowledge about how to optimize treatment,” said Kim Miller, an epidemiologist at the American Cancer Society. “In addition, the number of oncologists is dwindling, which means there will be fewer doctors to treat the growing population of cancer survivors,” Miller said. Also, other medical problems such as heart disease, lung disease and diabetes make caring for these cancer patients more difficult, she said. “It’s going to put a financial strain on the health care system, especially because most of these older cancer survivors are receiving Medicare,” Miller said.
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Fats CoNtiNUed • Page 23
“
There’s a common misconception that eating dietary fat makes you gain body fat…. It is important to analyze what you’re eating — are they hydrogenated fats coupled with refined carbohydrates [for example, white bread] or are they unsaturated from plant sources?
In the new study, Hu’s team used data from two ongoing studies involving U.S. nurses and health professionals whose diets and health were tracked over decades. Participants’ dietary fat intake was assessed at the start of the study and then every two to four years. Their diet and health were then followed for up to 32 years. sHaRoN NOTE: Although is madedied. to assure yourZaRabi ad is free of mistakes in spelling and During the follow-up, more than 33,300every of theeffort participants nutritionist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City content it is ultimately up to the customer to make the final proof. Hu’s team reported that eating more saturated fat and trans fat was associated with a higher risk of death during the study. For example, for every 2 percent risefaxed in trans fat intake, was a at no cost to the advertiser, subsequent changes The first two changes willthere be made ZarabiSigned gave some which types of fat to look out for — or 16 percent higher odds ofwill dying be during billed the at astudy rateperiod, of $75the perresearchfaxed alteration. ads tips are on considered approved. avoid. ers found. “Essential fatty acids are found in most foods in their natural state, Trans fats are an especially unhealthy form of dietary fat that are this the ad study carefully. Mark any changes your ad. as cold-water fish, nuts, to seeds, hemp and avocados,” she explained. gradually being phased out of thePlease Americancheck food supply, au- such “The saturated sources are usually processed, including fractioned oils, thors noted. If the ad is correct sign and to: was (301) needs changesbutter, animal fats and high-fat dairy margarine, Likewise, every 5 percent increase in saturated fat fax intake tied949-0065 to hydrogenated oils, an 8 percent rise in risk of dying during the study period, the findings products.” Mary Grace Webb is assistant director of clinical nutrition at NewYshowed. The Washington Diplomat (301) 933-3552 But the opposite was true with plant-based unsaturated fats. In that ork-Presbyterian/Queens hospital. She agreed that the new data “reincase, eating high amounts of polyunsaturated or monounsaturated fats forces the need for consumers to include healthier unprocessed plantApproved __________________________________________________________ was linked to an 11 percent to 19 percent reduction in death risk during based fats in their diets, which are naturally trans- and saturated-fat free. These fats include oils, nuts and nut butters, and seeds.” the study period. Changes ___________________________________________________________ In addition, “eating a more plant-based diet with less meat and more Polyunsaturated fats include the omega-6 fatty acids found in most ___________________________________________________________________ plant-based oils and omega-3 fatty acids found in fish and soy and alternative protein sources — such as fish, beans, eggs, and low-fat canola oils, Hu’s team noted. High intakes of both types of fats seemed dairy foods — can also reduce levels of unhealthy fats,” Webb said. And healthy eating doesn’t mean having to skimp on flavor, she tied to longer lifespans, the researchers said. Shifting your diet from saturated to unsaturated fats might have real said. “I love low-fat Greek yogurt topped with raisins and nuts, white balhealth benefits, the study suggested. The investigators found that replacing just 5 percent of calories from saturated fats with equivalent samic vinegar with extra-virgin olive oil on my salads, and every day calories from polyunsaturated or monounsaturated fat was associated I start with crunchy natural peanut butter on whole grain toast with with a 27 percent and 13 percent reduced risk of death, respectively, sliced banana,” Webb said. The study was published online July 5 in JAMA Internal Medicine. WD during the study period. Still, Hu’s team stressed that the study was observational — it cannot prove that certain types of dietary fats affect a person’s odds for death Robert Preidt is a writer for HealthDay News. Copyright (c) 2016 HealthDay. All rights reserved. over a specific time period.
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Long-Distance Medicine Cuba is famous for its cigars, sugar and rum, but perhaps its most valuable export is its doctors. Havana has dispatched tens of thousands of doctors to treat the poor all over the world. One of them is Dr. Yamile Luque Tamayo Saco Rocha, wife of Cabo Verde Ambassador José Luis Rocha. / PAGE 29
ART
Personal Collection The National Gallery of Art is one of the world’s preeminent museums, with a formidable presence. But the man behind many of the gallery’s signature works had a personal approach to collecting art — an intimacy captured in a sweeping exhibition that coincides with the museum’s 75th anniversary. / PAGE 30
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Born to Sing “Born for This: The BeBe Winans Story,” about prodigy siblings BeBe and sister CeCe, is a melodious delight and rousing crowdpleaser. / PAGE 33
ART BEHIND CLOSED DOORS A rare exhibit at the American University Museum looks inside the evolution of North Korea’s Socialist Realist style and uncovers some surprising skill lurking behind the Hermit Kingdom’s signature artistic mix of kitsch and propaganda. / PAGE 28
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WD | Culture | Art
North Korean Expression Rare Exhibit Uncovers Surprises Inside Propaganda-Laden Hermit Kingdom •
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(202) 885-1300 | WWW.AMERICAN.EDU/CAS/MUSEUM/
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his summer, Washingtonians have the chance to delve into the secretive, oppressive regime of North Korea through an exhibition that takes viewers beyond the country’s signature artistic mix of kitsch and propaganda. “Contemporary North Korean Art: The Evolution of Socialist Realism” is the first show of its kind in the United States, curator BG Muhn told The Washington Diplomat, and he said he hopes it brings to light elements in the country’s art world that challenge stereotypes about expression inside the Hermit Kingdom. Socialist Realism was the officially sanctioned art form in communist countries, notably the Soviet Union, that was intended to glorify socialist ideals. “The style is something that most people outside of North Korea have never had a chance to see before,” Muhn said. The North Korean regime, a totalitarian state with severe constraints on freedom of expression and devastating violations of human rights, is given a sanitized record in the state-sponsored art on display. The show overwhelmingly features propaganda art, promoting the interests of the state, but there are some surprises in store for viewers in the form of literary paintings by Un Bong that go into the abstract, a rarity in North Korean art, as well as a striking work in progress by Kim In Sok, who takes everyday life in Pyongyang as his subject. “In general, I agree with the criticism that North Korean art is all propaganda and kitsch, but you have to see more. There is a lot more you can enjoy beyond that level of kitsch, beyond that description,” Muhn said. “The category of kitsch — we all enjoy it. More than 90 percent of art produced in North Korea is kitsch. But we don’t want to ignore the less than 10 percent which is not just propaganda, that is beyond kitsch.” As the show’s title suggests, the exhibition is an exercise in exploring North Korea’s signature artistic style, Socialist Realism. Once the Soviet Union fell, it fell out of fashion — except in the DPRK, where the state artists showcase the genre through the art form of Chosonhwa, which is a traditional painting medium using ink wash on rice paper that absorbed Socialist Realism influences in the 1950s and has since progressed to constitute its own distinct style. Artists in the country have felt little influence from the outside, given North Korea’s closed society, leading the state-sponsored artists to “naturally go to realism,” Muhn said. “They think art is for people. Art should serve people. That means that people have to understand what’s expressed on the canvas or paper, so that’s why realism is so important to them because the purpose of their expression is serving people,” Muhn said. “That has relation to the state propaganda, but my research and also the willingness to show this work to American society shows it is not only propaganda but something else — something beyond, a deeper expression.” The exhibition welcomes viewers with a striking Chosonhwa painting of “Tiger Dashing in Winter,” highlighting the painstaking attention to detail that can be found in all of the other images on display. In the main room, however, it is people — in the service of the North Korean regime, of course — that are the focus. Workers are glorified as they try to pacify and control the elements, as seen
28 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | AUGUST 2016
PHOTOS: AMERICAN UNIVERSITY MUSEUM, THE KATZEN ARTS CENTER
From top, Jo Jong-man’s 1968 “After Securing Arms,” Pak Ryong-sam’s 1977 “Farewell” and Kim Yong-gwon’s 1970 “Charging Forward to the Battlefield” are among the examples of North Korean Socialist Realism-inspired art on display at the American University Museum.
in the large-scale painting “Anticipating New Stream of Water Force,” one of two pieces of collaborative art in the exhibition. It’s all about showcasing North Korea’s economic prowess and technological progress and is a work of immense propaganda, but there’s an unexpected focus on the individual workers, each of whose face is composed with care and a unique expression. In the exhibition of 23 images, 10 are from the Choson National Museum of Art — and they are not originals. Nine are examples of North Korean replicated art, pieces officially sanctioned by the state and near-exact copies of the originals by different artists. The tenth, “Women of Namgang Village,” is a duplicated piece of art, or a copy done by the original artist. Like the large-scale collaborative pieces and the emphasis on workers in service only to the state, these replicated works offer an implicit challenge to viewers about the role of individuality in art. “This is merely just one act of an exhibition,” Muhn said. “I would like to encourage people to see a different society’s work, and try to bring some understanding between the two countries through art and cultural exchange.” WD Mackenzie Weinger (@mweinger) is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.
WD | Culture | Diplomatic Spouses
Cabo Verdean Cure Cuban Doctor Finds New Life Off Coast of Africa •
BY GAIL SCOTT
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uba is famous for its cigars, sugar and rum, but perhaps its most valuable export is its doctors. While many goods are lacking on the communist island, from cars to computers, its free national health care system is highly rated and over the last 50 years, it has dispatched tens of thousands of doctors to treat the poor all over the world. One of those is Dr. Yamile Luque Tamayo Saco Rocha, wife of Cabo Verde Ambassador José Luis Rocha. “Cuba has a program for doctors to work outside the country and many Cuban doctors go to many African countries,” said Rocha, an anesthesiologist. “As someone who is originally from Cuba and worked in Africa as a medical doctor, I’m proud of the African woman I have become, standing in my role here and promoting my country, Cabo Verde.” In fact, Rocha is the founder of the African Cultural Exchange Group within THIS for Diplomats, a nonprofit volunteer group that welcomes and assists diplomats and their families during their stays in Washington, D.C. “We are like a bridge for linking Africa with other cultures represented here in Washington,” she said.
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As someone who is originally from Cuba and worked in Africa as a medical doctor, I’m proud of the African woman I have become, standing in my role here and promoting my country, Cabo Verde. YAMILE LUQUE TAMAYO SACO ROCHA wife of Cabo Verde Ambassador José Luis Rocha
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In her earlier life in Cuba, Rocha was married and had a son. “The father of my son left the country looking for a better life and l became one of many Cuban women who bring up their children alone, being mother and father, with the help of my family. We were three generations of women at home — my grandmother, my mother and me — because my father was living in another Cuban city, a normal Cuban reality,” she explained. Rocha, too, eventually left the tightly controlled island. Although Cuba has one of the most cost-effective health care systems in the world, its doctors make paltry pay (salaries average roughly $25 a month) and often have to take on second jobs. So while she has fond memories of Cuba and loves to return for the holidays, Rocha also remembers how difficult it was and why she left for a physician’s post in Cabo Verde. “The Cuban government took 30, 40 even 50 percent of our pay [as a foreign doctor], but it was still better than staying in Cuba. I went because I had to do it. I was dying in Cuba. It was during the ‘special period’ when we had no food, no money, no clothes,” she said, referring to an extended period of economic hardship following the collapse of Havana’s key ally, the Soviet Union. Cabo Verde, originally settled by the Portuguese in 1462, was the first European outpost in the tropics. Comprised of 10 volcanic islands and five inlets, this archipelago is located some 350 miles off the coast of West Africa and is known for its Creole Portuguese-African culture. The strategically located string of islands, which once served the slave trade, is poor in natural resources but has won a reputation for political and economic stability. Today, more people with Cabo Verdean heritage live outside the coun-
PHOTO: CULTURAL TOURISM DC
Ambassador of Cabo Verde José Luis Fialho Rocha and his wife Dr. Yamile Luque Tamayo Saco Rocha attend Cultural Tourism DC’s Embassy Chef Challenge in May.
try than the half-million who have remained on the islands. The diaspora includes more than 500,000 in the United States alone, with the biggest concentration in Providence, Rhode Island, and more than 500,000 in Europe. “They are very active. When we have elections, they vote absentee,” said Rocha, noting that Cabo Verde adopted a new constitution in 1992 that created a multiparty system. Today, it is considered one of the most stable democracies in Africa. Her husband is a 32-year veteran of diplomacy, serving in top posts such as director of political affairs and cooperation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and secretary of state prior to coming to Washington in 2014. Rocha said she and her husband still travel between both island nations. “We live and work in Cabo Verde, we are Cabo Verdean citizens and we go to Cuba on vacation. It’s two days of travel either from Cabo Verde to Portugal, then onto Cuba, or Cabo Verde to Providence [Rhode Island] SEE DIPLOMATIC SPOUSES • PAGE 35
THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | AUGUST 2016 | 29
WD | Culture | Art
Distinctive Eye National Gallery Honors One of America’s Greatest Collectors •
BY KATE OCZYPOK
In Celebration of Paul Mellon THROUGH SEPT. 18 NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART ON THE NATIONAL MALL BETWEEN 3RD AND 9TH STREETS AT CONSTITUTION AVENUE, NW
(202) 737-421 | WWW.NGA.GOV
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he National Gallery of Art is one of the world’s preeminent museums, with an overwhelming, sometimes foreboding presence. But the man behind many of the gallery’s signature works had a personal approach to collecting art — an intimacy captured in a sweeping exhibition that coincides with the museum’s 75th anniversary. “In Celebration of Paul Mellon” offers insights into one of America’s greatest art collectors, his wide-ranging tastes and the critical support he lent to build up what was then a fledging Washington institution. The exhibit features 88 of the finest pastels, watercolors, drawings, prints and illustrated books selected from Mellon’s donations, which range from pen landscapes by Vincent van Gogh to portraits by Edgar Degas to watercolors by Winslow Homer. A major donor of funds and works to the National Gallery of Art throughout his life, Mellon inherited his father Andrew’s vast banking fortune. The Pittsburgh native then helped carry out his father’s vision for the museum after Andrew died in 1937. When the National Gallery of Art was formally dedicated in 1941, Paul Mellon presented it with over 100 works from his father’s collection. In the ensuing decades, Mellon would donate over 1,000 pieces to the museum, including many French and American masterworks. The decision to honor Mellon was an easy one. “He is one of the greatest donors of all time,” said curator Andrew Robison. “The Mellon exhibit was something he tentatively suggested to do after his death; he was a very gentle, careful man and not a man to demand or ask for things.” Mellon died in 1999 and his widow, Rachel “Bunny” Lambert, survived 15 years after his death. The National Gallery of Art waited until she died because much of the art Mellon owned had been left to his wife. A large number of Mellon’s gifts to the National Gallery of Art are works on paper. Because they are sensitive to light, they cannot be put on constant display. “It was a good time to bring out into the open the works on paper, the pastels and rare books,” Robison said. “I was put in charge of the exhibit as I knew Paul for many years and am a big fan; I was delighted to try and bring out something about him.” Robison hopes exhibit-goers will see Mellon not just as a major benefactor and collector, but as a connoisseur with varied interests who reveled in the pieces he acquired. The National Gallery notes that Mellon frequently rearranged his treasures, hanging them on walls or admiring them in his hands. “I wanted to do it with a domestic feel,” Robison said, explaining that he designed the exhibit as one would group art in a home — by subject matter, artist and style, as opposed to a formal museum chronology. “I think it gives it a different flavor,” he said. “It’s a very personal show and reminds people of who he was, what he thought and how he approached art.” The result is an expansive yet homey journey that juxtaposes cubist collages by Pablo Picasso with drawings by Juan Gris, for example. The exhibit also includes contributions from Mary Cassatt, Édouard Manet, Paul Klee, Henri Matisse, Paul Cézanne, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and
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PHOTOS: NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART
Among the works in a sweeping survey of Paul Mellon’s collection at the National Gallery of Art are Odilon Redon’s 1912 watercolor “Five Butterflies,” above, Edgar Degas’s 1880 “The Curtain,” at left, and Winslow Homer’s 1874 “The Sick Chicken.”
Georges Braque, among myriad others. Mellon’s tribute is appropriately diverse in nature, with works of art hailing from France, England, Italy, Switzerland and other countries. Although Robison deemed it impossible to name a favorite piece that Mellon donated, he did mention the Winslow Homer watercolors, which he said are a part of American history. “They refer back to a sense of peacefulness, comradeship and more simple history,” he said. WD Kate Oczypok (@OczyKate) is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.
WD | Culture | Theater
Not-So-Seamless Transition Delicate Lace Works Take on Thorny Subject of Migration •
BY GARY TISCHLER
Escape Routes THROUGH AUG. 31 GOETHE-INSTITUT 1990 K ST., NW
(202) 847-4700 WWW.GOETHE.DE/INS/US/EN/STA/WSH.HTML
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he exhibition title, just two words, hints at something much bigger — the largest exodus of people in recorded history, in fact. The words speak to a universal desire to uproot your life in search of a better one, especially if your prior life has become a physical manifestation of hell, whether in the form of a rubble-strewn city in Syria or a barren village in Sudan. It is a journey driven by the natural impetus to flee, from war, poverty or persecution — and the inevitable backlash among those who fear outside encroachment on their comfortable existence. “Escape Routes” is a timely, tight exhibition at the Goethe-Institut that looks at the current wave of global migration through four drawings and 16 lace works by Martin Keil, a visiting artist at the University of Rhode Island, and his mother Rotraut Keil, a German textile designer. Tackling the enormity of this kind of subject matter within the confines of a relatively small exhibition may seem impossible. But taken together, the limited number of works in “Escape Routes” contains more than meets the eye. The digital drawings and pictures made with great care and patience from lace convey a powerful narrative about mutual interdependence and rapid change. The issue that the art confronts is daunting: The United Nations recently estimated that the number of people displaced by conflict exceeds 65 million. Some are trying to escape the Islamic State in Iraq, while others are fleeing an authoritarian regime in Eritrea or drug gangs in El Salvador. The bulk of these people have been displaced within their own countries, but it is the millions pouring across national borders who are grabbing headlines, and ratcheting up xenophobic rhetoric in places ranging from Alabama to Austria. The recent surge in migration has been fueled in part by Syria’s unrelenting civil war. Ever since that nation imploded and a plethora of warring groups — too many to distinguish or extinguish —emerged to fill the vacuum, hundreds of thousands have died and millions more have been on the move, escaping the collapse of their once-ordinary, once-relatively prosperous lives. They have crossed borders on land and dared the dangerous trek along the Mediterranean Sea, pouring into an increasingly unwelcoming Europe and testing the will and humanity of the European Union. In the process, their suffering, the fears they engendered and their sheer numbers have morphed into both a humanitarian and political crisis. Stories of children drowning and individual portraits of pain and desperation have inspired sympathy and generosity. But they also compete with stories of disease and crime spreading in encampments, the threat of terrorism and the erosion of national identity, all of which have become the fodder of the nightly news and the weapons of demagoguery in Europe and the United States. Never mind that the majority of Syria’s refugees have streamed into neighboring countries such as Turkey and Lebanon, not Europe or the U.S. In fact, the U.N. found that over 85 percent of the world’s refugees settled into low- and middle-income countries such as Jordan and
PHOTO: ESCAPE ROUTES (C) REINIGUNGSGESELLSCHAFT
“Escape Routes” is a timely exhibition at the Goethe-Institut that looks at the current wave of global migration through intricate lace works.
Ethiopia — i.e. those least equipped to handle the influx. But that hasn’t stopped EU member states from erecting barriers to stem the tide of migrants seeking shelter on its shores, or U.S. politicians from debating the merits of admitting a paltry 10,000 vetted Syrian refugees. Fears of unchecked immigration prompted Britain to leave the EU and catapulted a billionaire mogul to become the Republican frontrunner in America’s presidential election. But you will not see such specific references in “Escape Routes,” whether they be Syrians, Mexicans or migrants in general. The drawings and pictures are not horrific. They are, in fact, clear as glass and sharp as a needle. The titles offer a few specifics: “Hungarian Border;” “Through the Balkans”; “Human Trafficker”; “Boat People”; “Refugee Camp Slum.” The words seem like a predicament, a state of being — a simple description that belies a striking complexity. In fact, what happens when the drawings upon which they are based become lace is astonishing. The lace pictures have been created from drawings that were stylistically edited for effective transfer into lace. The faces, clearer in the drawings, become somehow more haunting in the passage to lace. You can see the meticulous effort that goes into this transformation, with one loop after another joining to form the outline of a gun, dark figures in a truck, thin girls about to be used, a mother clutching a baby or an imposing barbed-wire fence. Interlinking knots that twist and turn serve as a metaphor for the mass movement of people seeking a better life, and the quandaries this exodus has created. The world as lace is delicate and fragile — the works seem like they might disappear if a blast of wind comes through the door — yet also tactile, thin and strong, as if they have been imprinted into memory. The works themselves in a way bypass artistic language. Their fragility as well as their power beg the question: What will happen to these images — and the people in them — in the coming months or years? Will they begin to recede or multiply? Will they stitch together a community of nations with a renewed sense of solidarity and urgency, or unravel our globalized world at the seams? WD Gary Tischler is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat. THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | AUGUST 2016 | 31
WD | Culture | Art
Canada by Train Embassy Showcases Murals of Country’s Vast Wilderness •
BY KATE OCZYPOK
“Murals from a Great Canadian Train” at the Canadian Embassy is a collection of works that were featured on the Canadian Pacific Railway during its passenger heyday.
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PHOTO: EMBASSY OF CANADA
he majority of Canada’s 3.8 “I think visitors will relate to the murals on a nummillion square miles is domiber of different levels,” Babaian said. “Some will be Murals from a Great Canadian Train nated by stunning mountains, drawn to individual paintings perhaps because of the tundra, forests and untamed specific subject matter, while others will seek out a THROUGH SEPT. 16 wilderness. Perhaps the best way to particular style or color palette.” EMBASSY OF CANADA ART GALLERY soak in this expansive scenery, which Babaian said that visitors will be amazed by the 501 PENNSYLVANIA AVE., NW stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific diversity of the environments the murals depict and (202) 682-1740 | WWW.CAN-AM.GC.CA/WASHINGTON/ Ocean, is by train. how each artist captured the individual beauty of The Embassy of Canada is hosting a each place. “I think they will also be impressed at the unique art exhibit that is all about transproject itself, at the idea of commissioning great artportation, tourism, nature and nostalgia. ists to ‘decorate’ railway cars,” Babaian added. “Murals from a Great Canadian Train” is a collection of works that were feaAlso, she said it’s important to remember that when air travel became poputured on the Canadian Pacific Railway, or CPR, during its passenger heyday. lar in the ’40s and ’50s, railway companies looked for interesting ways to draw CPR, the nation’s first transcontinental railway, was for decades the only in travelers who were turning to planes over trains. practical means of long-distance travel for many Canadians. In 1953, CPR “The park cars and the paintings were part of their attempt to exploit the purchased 173 brand-new stainless-steel rail cars from the Budd Company of lucrative tourist market by offering something airlines couldn’t: an elegant, Philadelphia. With the glass ceiling design in its Vista Dome cars, “The Cana- spacious, modern and comfortable environment for travel and immediate acdian” became the quintessential cross-country train experience. cess to Canada’s most stunning and iconic landscapes,” Babaian said. To highlight the natural wonders along the route and to promote tourism, Even in a bustling city such as D.C., landscape paintings such as these tend CPR chose Canada’s national and provincial parks as the inspiration behind to have a universal appeal, which Babaian said is “rooted in our desire for the interior design of “The Canadian” rail cars. In 1954, the Royal Canadian natural beauty and tranquility and for images that invite contemplation and Academy was asked to coordinate the selection of leading Canadian artists to reflection.” Trains also link us to the early days of our own country’s history, when railpaint murals for each of the 18 Vista Dome cars. Today, CPR primarily serves as a freight railway, and the murals are housed way connected the East and West Coasts and paved the way for America’s exin the Canada Science and Technology Museum’s artifact collection, but they pansion. While today, both Americans and Canadians opt for the convenience of planes and cars, trains continue to hold a special place in both nations. have traveled down to D.C. for a rare appearance. “This is a stunning exhibit that showcases Canada’s history, art and specThe idea behind the Canadian Embassy exhibit was to commemorate the centennial of the U.S. National Park Service. Curator Sharon Babaian said that tacular landscapes,” said Christine Constantin, spokesperson for the Embassy officials at the embassy had heard about the murals and asked about showing of Canada. “Rail allows people to get a glimpse of the breathtaking scenery and immense natural beauty that is Canada and we hope that in 2017, when them as an entire group, a gesture that has seldom been done before. The murals depict parks from every Canadian province, and three are by Canada celebrates its 150th birthday, people will take advantage of our rail members of Canada’s famed Group of Seven, a group of landscape painters in network and explore the nation from coast to coast.” WD the 1920s and ’30s. Snow-tipped mountains, serene lakes and lush blankets of pine trees hint at the breathtaking vistas that train travelers encountered. They Kate Oczypok (@OczyKate) is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat. also evoke the vastness and variety of Canada’s rugged landscape.
32 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | AUGUST 2016
WD | Culture | Theater
Soulful Family Reunion BeBe and CeCe Winans Sing Their Way Into Our Hearts •
BY LISA TROSHINSKY
Born for This: The BeBe Winans Story THROUGH AUG. 28 ARENA STAGE 1101 6TH ST., SW TICKETS ARE $50 TO $99.
(202) 554-9066 | WWW.ARENASTAGE.ORG
“B
orn for This: The BeBe Winans Story,” about prodigy siblings BeBe and sister CeCe, is a melodious delight and rousing crowd-pleaser. But it’s not without its highlights and low points, similar to BeBe’s career path as a gospel and R&B singing legend. The musical, currently at Arena Stage, chronicles the real life of BeBe (Benjamin) and CeCe (Priscilla) Winans, who come from the noted Winans clan from Detroit, most of whom are also gospel artists. During this coming-of-age tale, we witness BeBe ache with jealousy over his brothers’ gospel quartet, watch him envy CeCe as she makes it through an important audition and see him struggle to eventually become an award-winning solo artist by combining contemporary R&B with gospel fervor. In keeping with the Winans’ tradition of keeping a tight-knit family, BeBe and CeCe are played by their real-life niece and nephew, siblings Juan Winans and Deborah Joy Winans. The play features mostly original songs by BeBe, who shares the script credit with director Charles Randolph-Wright, the director behind “Motown the Musical.” That BeBe wanted to keep the family talent legacy alive by writing his own play and casting the lead roles with his family’s next generation of crooning geniuses is understandable. But choosing to tell the family story by using his own lineage was a risk, as the acting and storyline are uneven. Aside from his soulful crooning, the main character, Juan Winans, as an actor, lacks the intensity of the real-life BeBe and shuffles his way through the script as a frustrated, put-upon teen persona who doesn’t grow with the character’s rise to fame. Deborah Winans, who has a powerful singing voice, is somewhat more believable as CeCe, demonstrating a journey from young, naïve teen to happy bride and reluctant superstar. But her superior acting only serves to highlight Juan’s inadequacies. A definite surprise of the play reveals a little-known fact that BeBe and CeCe got their start with none other than the eclectic evangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker in Pineville, S.C. There they spent six years of their late teens and early 20s as part of the couple’s religious TV network, PTL (Praise the Lord). In fact, the play’s momentum lags a bit until the appearance of Kirsten Wyatt, who portrays Tammy Faye. Known for her crying fits and over-the-top makeup, Tammy Faye was a household name in the 1980s and an iconic figure worth revisiting. In parodying Tammy Faye’s eccentric mannerisms and matching her diminutive yet forceful presence, Wyatt shows a different side of Tammy Faye that her TV viewing audience missed out on. Although, as the play illustrates, the Bakkers’ motives for signing the Winans duo was to nab profitable ratings (as depicted in the shameless song “Two Golden Eggs”), Tammy Faye made a point of protecting BeBe and CeCe against the overt racism they received for being on a white, Southern, Christian network
PHOTOS: GREG MOONEY / ATLANTAPHOTOGRAPHERS.COM, COURTESY ALLIANCE THEATRE
At left, Juan Winans as BeBe Winans, Kiandra Richardson as Whitney Houston and Deborah Joy Winans as CeCe Winans star in “Born for This,” the story of the popular sibling soul performers from Detroit.
— a mere couple of decades after the Civil Rights Act. Instead of only playing the caricature so many portrayed during her husband’s sex and financial scandal, Wyatt conducts the part with a great deal of spot-on humor and enough righteous piss and vinegar that gives Tammy Faye the respect she deserved. Unfortunately, this comes a decade after she passed away and her husband rose to reclaim his TV ministry. However, due to Wyatt’s strong performance and an undue amount of script time devoted to the Bakkers, the PTL portion of the play tends to overshadow the Winans’ trajectory. We do get a glimpse of BeBe and CeCe’s wonderful musical pairing with Whitney Houston, portrayed by look-alike and talented Kianda Richardson. With that, we’re treated to their inspiring rendition of “Hold Up the Light.” We miss a lot of BeBe’s accomplishments in later life, and it would have been nice to hear some of the songs that made him famous, like the singles “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” “Heaven” and “In Harm’s Way.” The supporting cast is strong, especially Nita Whitaker, who plays Mom Winans, and Milton Craig Nealy, who plays Pop Winans. Both have solid acting and singing chops. Whitaker was especially hard hitting in her moving solo, “Seventh Son.” Costume designer William Ivey Long must be commended for his elaborately detailed, accurate recreations of Tammy Faye’s glorious pants suits, sequined dresses and matching heels; as well as Whitney Houston’s sleek and lustrous evening gowns. Steven Jamail’s musical direction was flawless. Even with its occasional blemishes, “Born for This” truly reminded us that there is no question that BeBe (and CeCe) found their true calling and share a musical gift. It was enjoyable to go along for the ride. WD Lisa Troshinsky is the theater reviewer for The Washington Diplomat. THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | AUGUST 2016 | 33
WD | Culture | Dining
On the Waterfront Riverside Eating Expands Thanks to Yards Park and the Wharf •
BY MICHAEL COLEMAN
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hen Washingtonians mention the “waterfront,” they typically mean the iconic stretch of real estate along the Potomac River in Georgetown, with its riverside promenade and mostly middling restaurants. That’s about to change. A massive transformation of D.C.’s long-moribund Southwest Waterfront is well underway, and it won’t be long before locals are asking “which one?” when friends suggest a waterfront meet-up for dinner or happy hour. The new $2 billion, mile-long redevelopment project along Maine Avenue known as the Wharf, near the famous fish market in Southwest D.C., promises a number of exciting eateries, including sure-to-be buzzy hotspots from local celebrity chefs Mike Isabella, Jamie Leeds and Fabio and Maria Trabocchi. The mixed-use restoration project, stretching across 24 acres of land and 50 acres of water, marked a major milestone this summer with the announcement of its first office tenant, the American Psychiatric Association. The plan is to eventually open an array of restaurants, retail, upscale condos and apartments, nightlife attractions, including a “jazz alley,” and outdoor space in the form of a pier, sea-wall promenade, market square and “yacht club piazza.” But phase one of the exciting project won’t be finished until next year. In the meantime, it’s worth exploring yet another of D.C.’s newish waterside attractions that’s already bloomed near Nationals Park in the Capitol Riverfront neighborhood. The southeast waterfront along the Anacostia River — anchored by the still gleaming-new baseball stadium and the gorgeously designed Yards Park — boasts some better-than-expected dining at price points that won’t make you wince. Most of the culinary action near Yards Park is along Half and Water Streets, SW. On a comfortable summer evening in July, we biked over to enjoy some free live music courtesy of the annual D.C. Jazz Festival. After listening to Cissa Paz’s sultry Brazilian torch songs and watching kids splash around in a sleek public water garden, we’d worked up an appetite. Glancing around, we spied Due South. The menu touted a grab bag of Southern regional cuisine, from Louisiana’s red beans and rice to South Carolina’s shrimp and grits to Texas barbecue. But while the upscale comfort food sounded appealing, the hour-plus wait did not, so we moved on, vowing to return on another night. Moments later we found no wait — and some very tasty Baja-inspired Mexican food — next door to Due South at Agua 301. At first glance, we weren’t exceedingly optimistic about either spot. AGUA 301 Their thematic approaches to food and large-scale spaces didn’t 301 WATER ST., SE suggest anything especially unique. But in successive visits, we (202) 484-0301 found that Agua 301 and Due South both do what they do well. We asked our waiter at Agua 301 his assessment of the menu WWW.AGUA301.COM and he informed us that he had just moved to D.C. from southern California, where Baja-style tacos rule. He gave the food his hearty stamp of approval. Suddenly, I felt optimistic. Soon after Agua 301 opened, Washington Post food critic Tom Sietsema chastised the kitchen for using too much salt. The cooks seem to have gotten the memo. The black bean dip consisting of beans, onions, jalapeno and Oaxaca cheese — served up in a piping hot, melty mash — was excellent, and a little bit (not a lot) salty, as it should be. The beans retained some of their structure while the mild, soft, almost buttery cheese gave the dish a pleasing texture and contrast. The onions and jalapeno provided the requisite kick, and a pile of small, hot flour tortillas made for an adept delivery mechanism. Good stuff. Guacamole is another star of the menu here. The traditional version — with avocado, lime, serrano peppers and tomatoes — is fresh, creamy and slightly tart with citrus. The eatery also serves guacamole with jumbo lump crab and fresh corn. Since our server praised the tacos — and who doesn’t like tacos — we tried a couple of versions. The carnitas tacos, filled with shredded pork, orange, pickled red onion and habanero salsa, were generous and succulent, with the orange serving as a cool contrast to the habanero heat. The fish tacos were piping hot with a slightly crispy batter and tender texture. A smoky chipotle crema draped the fish, with tart shredded cabbage and pico de gallo piled on top. The tacos — a filling and 34 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | AUGUST 2016
PHOTOS: COURTESY DUE SOUTH
Due South, located near Yards Park, specializes in Southern regional cuisine, from Louisiana’s red beans and rice to South Carolina’s shrimp and grits.
fair bargain at $7 a pair — didn’t last long at our table. Before we move on to Due South, it’s worth mentioning Agua Fria’s margaritas. None of that cloying, calorie-laden, neon green margarita mix is used here. Agua 301’s classic version instead uses fresh lime juice, agave and Sauza Blue Silver tequila. The menu boasts multiple margarita options but we kept it simple and
straightforward with this classic. In fact, on a nice day, a couple of those margaritas, a basket of their tasty chips and salsa and Agua 301’s waterside patio would be more than enough reason to while away an hour or so. We’ll definitely be back. A week later, The Diplomat hit Due South — this time armed with an Open Table reservation. We arrived at 7 p.m. and found more than a few Washington Nationals fans lingering at the bar celebrating the team’s win earlier in the afternoon. A friendly hostess immediately directed us to a table in a section of the restaurant partially enclosed by glass just off the main dining room. At first, I thought the location would impede our ability to connect with the energy of the main room, but we quickly found the quiet more appealing to the clamorous bustle outside. This is a good-looking restaurant with an elegant, rustic yet modern Southern vibe. Polished wood tables and distressed wooden floors anchor a room accentuated with bronzed metal and glass and brown leather banquettes. Scanning the menu, we thought the pimento cheese spread seemed like a novel appetizer that recalled comfort food of youth, so we tried it. Unfortunately, we weren’t particularly impressed with Due South’s version. The kitchen DUE SOUTH obviously uses quality ingredients but the con301 WATER ST., SE trasts were all wrong. While most pimento cheese (202) 479-4616 is creamy in texture, this was more chunky and WWW.DUESOUTHDC.COM granular, albeit with a sharper (and to me, more appealing) flavor than the more typically mild versions of the spread. The toasted bread added more hard textures to the dish and the raw vegetables seemed flat and flavorless. This was not a terrible start — again, the flavor of the cheese itself was appealing — but it was not a great beginning, either. We also ordered the blackened local catfish with grilled corn and okra succotash, baby spinach and smoked heirloom tomato vinaigrette. The blackened fish fillets were plump and flaky with a satisfying light flavor, while the vegetables tasted SEE DINING • PAGE 35
WD | Culture | Dining
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fresh and lively. The intensely smoky tomato vinaigrette tied it all together. But still, something was missing and that something was heat. A few dashes of classic Crystal hot sauce from Louisiana solved the dilemma. This was also a generously proportioned dish, especially at $19. While the catfish was a very good dish, the shrimp and grits — a staple of Charleston, South Carolina’s vibrant food scene — is the star of the show at Due South. The dish features Anson Mills grits. Why does this matter? Because these grits are regularly milled from fresh South Carolina corn. It makes a difference. This particular variety of grits is granular instead of mushy. The pile clings together and makes a fine bed for a generous array of a halfdozen jumbo shrimp, while the lightly salted and succulent Tasso ham gravy, featuring button-sized flecks of ham, adds another dimension of flavor, complexity and heft. The shrimp and grits were delicious and filling, and a deserved staple of the Due South menu. One more note about the Yards Park waterfront area. Another eating and drinking establishment — Bluejacket — sits across Water Street from Due South. Bluejacket has something of an industrial feel and brews 25 beers on site, some of which are quite good. We’ve never been overly impressed with our limited experience with the food but haven’t spent enough time with the menu to make a definitive judgment. Chances are good that we’ll be back to all three establishments as the Yards Park becomes an increasingly appealing waterfront option for dining and relaxing. WD
and then Cuba,” she explained. “I went to Cabo Verde because I am a doctor. I am proud to be Cuban. But the countries aren’t so different: The food, the dances, the beaches and the sun are much the same,” she reflected. “They both have some heavy food but people eat lots of fruits and fresh vegetables — only what’s in season.” She is also learning about American cuisine. This past Thanksgiving, she taught herself how to cook a turkey and how to serve it with cranberry sauce, not the tomato sauce that is used in Cuba. Before coming to Washington with her husband in mid-2014, she was somewhat familiar with the United States. “I learned from American TV and films. I knew a lot but I decided that it would be better to learn here firsthand. People outside idolize the American lifestyle.” Rocha admits that she occasionally indulges in the ultimate form of capitalist worship: shopping. “I’ve discovered Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s, Lord & Taylor, Chico’s, Swarovski. I’ve learned about sales; there are no sales at home. Some people buy here and sell there, taking shoes and handbags — Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren — even second-hand, to sell at home,” Rocha said, noting that she often wears a traditional “pano di terra” hand-woven scarf from Cabo Verde around Washington. “I found this is a way to show people here something representative of my country. I incorporate it in my fashion
Michael Coleman (@michaelcoleman) is the dining reviewer for The Washington Diplomat.
Dr. Yamile Luque Tamayo Saco Rocha is an anesthesiologist who left her native Cuba to practice medicine in Cabo Verde.
style, using it like a scarf draped from my shoulder.” Besides shopping, Rocha said she enjoys joining her friends at Zumba class or at the pool. Otherwise, she likes to write, especially poems and prose. “I think I will write a book. I wrote a little book when my son was born about his first two years. I also like to read, in Spanish and in English. My favorite authors are Isabel Allende, Paulo Coelho and Gabriel García Márquez. “When I was a child, I was always reading. I loved books and got them for Christmas, the end of the year, the end of school and my birthday. Wherever I go, I take my books with me. My husband gets books on politics and U.S. presidents like
Lincoln and Washington. I read his books too.” Rocha said she also likes art, pointing to a framed painting by Cabo Verdean artist Kiki Lima on their living room wall. “He is very famous now and also the brotherin-law of my husband.” While in Washington, she would also like to encourage Americans to learn more about Cuba, especially now that diplomatic relations — and travel restrictions — with Havana have eased. “I want to help Americans travel to Cuba,” she told us. “I want to have good relations with them. They must be more open.” WD Gail Scott is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.
THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | AUGUST 2016 | 35
WD | Culture | Film
Cinema Listings *Unless specific times are listed, please check the theater for times. Theater locations are subject to change.
Cantonese The Blade Directed by Tsui Hark (Hong Kong, 1995, 100 min.) This phantasmagoric action film, the director’s masterful tribute to the martial arts films of his youth, moves like an out-of-control freight train. Featuring rapid cutting, berserk camera movement, frenetic choreography, and compositions bursting with detail, “The Blade” shows one of the world’s best directors at the top of his game. National Museum of American History Sat., Aug. 6, 1 p.m.
Mountains May Depart Directed by Jia Zhangke (China/France/Japan, 2015, 131 min.) At once an intimate drama and a decades-spanning epic, Jia Zhangke’s new film also is an intensely moving study of how China’s economic boom and the resulting materialism have affected the bonds of family, tradition and love (Cantonese, Mandarin and English). National Museum of American History Sat., Aug. 20, 2 p.m.
The Red Wolf Directed by Yuen Wo-ping (Hong Kong, 1995, 92 min.) The first African American to be inducted into the Hong Kong Stuntman’s Association, Bobby Samuels worked with some of Hong Kong’s biggest movie stars during his career there in the 1990s. Join him to close out the 21st Made in Hong Kong Film Festival with a screening and discussion of one of his films, the action-packed hostage drama “The Red Wolf.” National Museum of American History Sun., Aug. 7, 2 p.m.
A Terra-Cotta Warrior Directed by Ching Siu-tung (Hong Kong, 1990, 97 min.) Two and a half years in the making, this was one of the most exquisite fantasy films to come out of Hong Kong in the 1990s, featuring a unique blend of romance, swashbuckling action and comedy. Zhang Yimou and Gong Li — then China’s cinematic power couple — star as an imperial soldier and the woman who brings him back to life after he’s spent centuries encased in clay in the emperor’s tomb. National Museum of American History Sat., Aug. 6, 3:30 p.m.
Czech Home Care (Domaci pece) Directed by Slávek Horák (Czech Republic, 2015, 92 min.)
THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | August 2016
Dedicated home care nurse Vlasta attends to her whimsical patients in her Southern Moravia country region. After Vlasta learns about her own serious illness and need for help, she has to reach outside of her comfort zone, but thanks to the daughter of one of her patients, who introduces her to an esoteric mentor, Vlasta starts to discover the realm of alternative healing, which leads to understanding herself, hopefully. The Avalon Theatre Wed., Aug. 10, 8 p.m.
Matt Damon returns to his most iconic role in Jason Bourne in the next chapter of the Bourne franchise, which finds the CIA’s most lethal former operative drawn out of the shadows. Angelika Mosaic Atlantic Plumbing
Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World
English Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie Directed by Mandie Fletcher (U.K./U.S., 2016) Edina and Patsy are still oozing glitz and glamour, shopping, drinking and clubbing their way around London’s trendiest hotspots. Blamed for a major incident at a fashionable launch party, they become entangled in a media storm. Fleeing penniless to the glamorous playground of the super-rich, the French Riviera, they hatch a plan to make their escape permanent. AFI Silver Theatre Angelika Mosaic Landmark’s Bethesda Row Cinema Landmark’s E Street Cinema
The African Queen Directed by John Huston Fate, in the form of World War I and an invading German army, throws Katharine Hepburn’s starched and stiff-backed British missionary aboard seedy Canadian Humphrey Bogart’s decrepit, titular riverboat. AFI Silver Theatre Aug. 19 to 22
The American Friend (Der Amerikanische freund) Directed by Wim Wenders (W. Germany/France, 1977, 127 min.) Jonathan Zimmermann believes that he will soon die of leukemia and when unscrupulous American Tom Ripley learns of this, he exploits Zimmermann’s illness for his own purposes. He introduces Jonathan to an underworld figure who offers to hire the terminally ill man as a professional hit man (English and German). AFI Silver Theatre Mon., Aug. 1, 7 p.m.
Breaking the Waves Directed by Lars von Trier (Denmark/Sweden/France/Nethe lands/Norway, 1996, 158 min.) In her big screen debut, Emily Watson gives a gutsy, Oscar-nominated performance in this stunning, emotionally draining work that cemented Lars von Trier’s reputation as international cinema’s bad-boy provocateur. Born into a remote and devout Scottish village, Watson is
36 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | August 2016
Photo: Sony Pictures Classics
Anna Gunn portrays Naomi Bishop in “Equity.”
a loyal wife to oilrig worker Stellan Skarsgård, who suffers a debilitating injury. Bedridden and paralyzed, he sends Watson on increasingly debasing sexual escapades and demands that she return to report the details. AFI Silver Theatre Sat., Aug. 27, 6:45 p.m., Wed., Aug. 31, 6:45 p.m.
Equity Directed by Meera Menon (U.S., 2016, 100 min.) Senior investment banker Naomi Bishop is threatened by a financial scandal and must untangle a web of corruption. Angelika Mosaic Landmark’s Cinema Opens Fri., Aug. 12
Florence Foster Jenkins Directed by Stephen Frears (U.K., 2016, 110 min.) Meryl Streep stars as Florence Foster Jenkins, a New York heiress who dreams of becoming an opera singer, despite having a terrible singing voice. Angelika Mosaic Opens Fri., Aug. 12
Funeral in Berlin Directed by Guy Hamilton (U.K., 1966, 102 min.) Reprising the Harry Palmer character from “The Ipcress File,” Michael Caine sets off to East Berlin to assist Soviet security attaché Oskar Homolka in his bid to defect. There, he encounters Israeli secret agent Eva Renzi on a mission to track down Nazi war criminals. Are they after the same man? (Screens with “The Ipcress File” on Aug. 16.) AFI Silver Theatre Sun., Aug. 14, 4:45 p.m., Tue., Aug. 16, 7:30 p.m.
Ghostbusters Directed by Paul Feig (U.S., 2016, 116 min.) Following a ghost invasion of
Manhattan, paranormal enthusiasts Erin Gilbert and Abby Yates, nuclear engineer Jillian Holtzmann, and subway worker Patty Tolan band together to stop the otherworldly threat. Angelika Mosaic
Gideon of Scotland Yard Directed by John Ford (U.K./U.S., 1958, 91 min.) Detective Chief Inspector George Gideon (Jack Hawkins) has a busy docket for the day: a gang of bank robbers at large, an escaped mental patient from Manchester rumored to be on his way to London and an informant’s tip that one of his officers has been taking bribes. Can he crack all the cases in time to make it home for tea with his wife’s relatives and his daughter’s violin recital? AFI Silver Theatre Aug. 27 to Sept. 1
Hunt for the Wilderpeople Directed by Taika Waititi (New Zealand, 2016, 93 min.) Defiant city kid Ricky, raised on hip-hop and foster care, gets a fresh start in the New Zealand countryside, where he quickly finds himself at home with his new foster family. When a tragedy strikes that threatens to ship Ricky to another home, both he and his cantankerous Uncle Hec go on the run in the bush and a national manhunt ensues. Angelika Mosaic Landmark’s Bethesda Row Cinema Landmark’s E Street Cinema
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom Directed by Steven Spielberg (U.S., 1984, 118 min.) This sequel chronicles the further adventures of Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford), famously opening with a bravura action sequence that begins in a Shanghai nightclub and ends with the hero and his compatriots
jumping out of a plane over the Himalayas without parachutes. This time out, an Indian death cult that has enslaved village children takes over the bad-guy roles from the Nazis. AFI Silver Theatre Sun., Aug. 14, 7 p.m., Wed., Aug. 17, 7:30 p.m.
Indignation Directed by James Schamus (U.S., 2016, 110 min.) In 1951, Marcus, a working-class Jewish student from New Jersey, attends a small Ohio college, where he struggles with sexual repression and cultural disaffection, amid the ongoing Korean War (English and Hebrew). Angelika Mosaic Opens Fri., Aug. 5
The Infiltrator Directed by Brad Furman (U.K., 2016, 127 min.) A U.S. Customs official uncovers a money laundering scheme involving Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar. Angelika Mosaic
The Ipcress File Directed by Sidney J. Furie (U.K., 1965, 109 min.) Looking for a different spin on the spy genre, Harry Saltzman, co-producer on the early James Bond films, cast Michael Caine as the bespectacled, unimposing Harry Palmer. Palmer may be a working stiff, but he’s a wised-up one, subtly sarcastic and wary of the old-boy network that’s made a mess of MI6 — just the man to root out a traitor in the ranks, as he’s called upon to do. (Screens with “Funeral in Berlin” on Aug. 16.) AFI Silver Theatre Sat., Aug. 13, 4:45 p.m., Tue., Aug. 16, 7:30 p.m.
Jason Bourne Directed by Paul Greengrass (U.S., 2016, 123 min.)
Directed by Werner Herzog (U.S., 2016, 98 min.) Oscar-nominated Werner Herzog chronicles the virtual world from its origins to its outermost reaches, exploring the digital landscape with the same curiosity and imagination he previously trained on earthly destinations as disparate as the Amazon and the Sahara. Herzog leads viewers on a journey through a series of provocative conversations that reveal the ways in which the online world has transformed how virtually everything in the real world works, from business to education, space travel to healthcare, and the very heart of our personal relationships. Landmark’s Cinema Opens Fri., Aug. 19
The Lobster Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos (Greece/Ireland/Netherlands/U.K. France, 2016, 118 min.) In this highly imaginative, absurdist comedy, Colin Farrell stars as a man who has just been dumped by his wife. To make matters worse, he lives in a dystopian society where single people have 45 days to find true love, or else they are turned into the animal of their choice and released into the woods. Angelika Mosaic Landmark’s E Street Cinema
Love & Friendship Directed by Whit Stillman (Ireland/Netherlands/France/U.S., 2016, 94 min.) Beautiful young widow Lady Susan Vernon takes up temporary residence at her in-laws’ estate to wait out colorful rumors about her dalliances and to be a matchmaker for her daughter Frederica — and herself too, naturally. Angelika Mosaic Landmark’s Bethesda Row Cinema Landmark’s E Street Cinema
The Music of Strangers Directed by Morgan Neville (U.S., 2016, 96 min.) Named for the ancient trade route linking Asia, Africa and Europe, the Silk Road Ensemble is an international collective created by acclaimed cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Blending performance footage, personal interviews and archival film, the documentary follows this group of diverse musicians as they explore
WD | Culture | Film
the power of music to preserve tradition, shape cultural evolution and inspire hope. West End Cinema
Jones and the Temple of Doom” on Aug. 18.) AFI Silver Theatre Aug. 12 to 18
Morris from America
Southside with You
Directed by Chad Hartigan (Germany/U.S., 2016, 91 min.) This romantic tale follows the coming-of-age misadventures of a 13-year-old African American boy living in Germany. Angelika Pop-Up Opens Fri., Aug. 26
Directed by Richard Tanne (U.S., 2016, 81 min.) This film chronicles the 1989 summer afternoon when the future U.S. president, Barack Obama, wooed his future first lady on an epic first date across Chicago’s South Side. Angelika Mosaic Opens Fri., Aug. 26
Notebook on Cities and Clothes (Aufzeichnungen zu kleidern und städten) Directed by Wim Wenders (W. Germany/France, 1989, 79 min.) This “diary film,” as Wim Wenders calls it, investigates the similarities between the filmmaking craft and that of Tokyo-based fashion designer Yohji Yamamoto, who, in the early 1980s, shocked and revolutionized the fashion world (English, French and Japanese). AFI Silver Theatre Tue., Aug. 30, 7:15 p.m.
Our Kind of Traitor Directed by Susanna White (U.K./France, 2016, 108 min.) While on holiday in Marrakech, an ordinary English couple, befriend a flamboyant and charismatic Russian, who unbeknownst to them is a kingpin money launderer for the Russian mafia. When he asks for their help to deliver classified information to the British Secret Services, the couple gets caught in a dangerous world of international espionage and dirty politics (English, Russian and French). Landmark’s Bethesda Row Cinema
Paris, Texas Directed by Wim Wenders (W. Germany/France/U.K., 1984, 147 min.) This unconventional road movie tells the story of Travis, a man who wanders out of Mexico one day and into the blazing heat of Texas’s Big Bend. Travis does not speak a word; he also seems to have largely lost his memory. But he is driven by his wish to find his family again: his young wife, Jane, whose life he seems to have placed in danger through his pathological jealousy, and his 7-year-old son Hunter. AFI Silver Theatre Mon., Aug. 22, 7:30 p.m.
Raiders of the Lost Ark Directed by Steven Spielberg (U.S., 1981, 115 min.) The rip-roaring, action-packed yarn careens from steamy South American jungle to snowy Nepalese mountaintop to dusty Egyptian desert — with Harrison Ford’s intrepid adventurer/archaeologist Indiana Jones battling Nazis to discover an ancient relic. (Screens with “Indiana
The Spy Who Loved Me Directed by Lewis Gilbert (U.K., 1977, 125 min.) Roger Moore’s best James Bond film boasts perhaps the franchise’s greatest opening action sequence, as Bond battles Soviet assassins on the ski slopes of the Austrian Alps, and finally parachutes off a precipice. AFI Silver Theatre Sat., Aug. 6, 5 p.m., Wed., Aug. 10, 7:15 p.m.
The State of Things (Der stand der dinge) Directed by Wim Wenders (U.S., 1983, 121 min.) In this highly personal film about filmmaking in Europe and America, a film crew is stranded at the westernmost tip of Europe. That film’s director, Friedrich Munro, finally sets out for Los Angeles to search for the missing producer, finding him on Sunset Boulevard, where he is hiding from the Mafiosi or loan sharks who are after him. The following morning, the two must pay with their lives for their black-andwhite film adventure. AFI Silver Theatre Mon., Aug. 15, 7:10 p.m.
Swiss Army Man Directed by Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan (U.S., 2016, 95 min.) Hank is stranded on a deserted island, having given up all hope of ever making it home again. But one day everything changes when a corpse named Manny washes up on shore and the two become friends. Atlantic Plumbing Cinema
Tokyo-Ga Directed by Wim Wenders (U.S./W. Germany, 1985, 92 min.) Wim Wenders spotlights the “holy treasure of cinema”: Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu, who made 54 films (English, German and Japanese). AFI Silver Theatre Mon., Aug. 29, 7 p.m.
French The Innocents (Les innocents) Directed by Anne Fontaine (France/Poland, 2016, 115 min.) In 1945 Poland, a young French Red
Photo: gkids fi lms
In ”Phantom Boy,” Leo’s challenge is twofold: he must prevail on the inside through the mental and physical challenges of his illness, and on the outside, in his attempt to stop a dangerous gangster from threatening the safety of New York City.
Cross doctor who is sent to assist the survivors of World War II German camps discovers several nuns in advanced states of pregnancy during a visit to a nearby convent. Fearing the shame of exposure, the hostility of the new anti-Catholic Communist government and facing an unprecedented crisis of faith, the nuns increasingly turn to the worker as their belief and traditions clash with harsh realities (French, Polish and Russian). Landmark’s Bethesda Row Cinema
My King (Mon roi) Directed by Maïwenn (France, 2016, 124 min.) Tony is admitted to a rehabilitation center after a serious ski accident. Dependent on the medical staff and pain relievers, she takes time to look back on a turbulent relationship that she experienced with Georgio. Why did they love each other? How did she allow herself to submit to this suffocating and destructive passion? Angelika Pop-Up Opens Fri., Aug. 26
Phantom Boy Directed by Jean-Loup Felicioli and Alain Gagnol (France/Belgium, 2016, 84 min.) In this stylish noir caper set in the shadowy streets and alleyways of New York, Leo is a bedridden 11-year-old with a secret: He has discovered that he can float free from his body, able to explore the city as a ghostly apparition. While in hospital he befriends Alex, a New York City cop recovering from an injury received while attempting to stop a nefarious gangster who has taken control of the city’s power supply, throwing the metropolis into chaos. Now they must form an extraordinary duo, using Leo’s phantom powers and Alex’s detective smarts to foil the plot and save New York from destruction. Landmark’s E Street Cinema
German The People vs. Fritz Bauer Directed by Lars Kraume (Germany, 2016, 105 min.) In 1957 Germany, Attorney General Fritz Bauer receives crucial evidence on the whereabouts of Adolf Eichmann, the lieutenant colonel responsible for the mass deportation of the Jews who is allegedly hiding in Buenos Aires. Bauer, himself Jewish, has been trying to take crimes from the Third Reich to court ever since his return from Danish exile. Because of his distrust in the German justice system, Fritz Bauer contacts the Israeli secret service Mossad, and, by doing so, commits treason (German, English and Yiddish). Washington DCJCC Tue., Aug. 16, 7:30 p.m.
Wrong Move Directed by Wim Wenders (W. Germany, 1975, 103 min.) Northern Germany, Bonn, a palace along the Rhine, a housing project on the outskirts of Frankfurt and finally the Zugspitze — these are the stations of the journey that the young Wilhelm Meister hopes will save him from the gloomy irritability and despondency that plague him in his hometown. In unfamiliar places, he thinks that he will be able to do what he has always had an uncontrollable drive to do — to write. AFI Silver Theatre Mon., Aug. 8, 7:25 p.m.
Hebrew The Kind Words Directed by Shemi Zarhin (Israel/Canada, 2015, 118 min.) This quirky and wry comedy follows three Jewish Israeli siblings who, in the wake of their mother’s death, learn the man who raised them is not their biological dad. The revelation sends them on a road trip from Israel across France to discover the truth about their real father. The Avalon Theatre
A Tale of Love and Darkness Directed by Natalie Portman (Israel, 2016, 95 min.) Natalie Portman stars in and directs this drama based on the memoir of Amos Oz, a writer, journalist and advocate of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Landmark’s Cinema Opens Fri., Aug. 19
Japanese Our Little Sister (Umimachi Diary) Directed by Hirokazu Koreeda (Japan, 2015, 128 min.) Three sisters live together in their late grandmother’s house ever since their father left home for another woman. After the death of their father, the trio learn about the existence of a 13-year-old half-sister, who comes to live with them. Landmark’s E Street Cinema
Mandarin Dragon Inn Directed by King Hu (Taiwan, 1967, 111 min.) The Chinese wuxia (martial arts) picture was never the same after this legendary film by King Hu. During the Ming dynasty, the emperor’s minister of defense is framed by a powerful court eunuch and executed, and his family is pursued by secret police. In the ensuing chase, a mysterious band of strangers begins to gather at the remote Dragon Gate Inn, where paths (and swords) will cross. AFI Silver Theatre Aug. 5 to 11
Jia Zhangke: A Guy from Fenyang Directed by Walter Salles (France/Brazil, 2014, 99 min.) Brazilian filmmaker Walter Salles accompanies the prolific Chinese director Jia Zhangke on a walk down memory lane as Jia revisits his
hometown and other locations from his ever-growing body of work. At each location, the two directors visit Jia’s family, friends and former colleagues. National Portrait Gallery Sun., Aug. 21, 4:30 p.m.
A Touch of Zen Directed by King Hu (Taiwan, 1971, 200 min.) In King Hu’s grandest wuxia (martial arts) work, a fugitive noblewoman at risk of being captured and executed, hides in a small village and then must escape into the wilderness with a shy scholar and two aides. There, the quartet face a massive group of fighters and are joined by a band of Buddhist monks surprisingly skilled in the art of battle. AFI Silver Theatre Sun., Aug. 21, 5:15 p.m., Thu., Aug. 25, 7:30 p.m.
Silent L’Inhumaine Directed by Marcel L’Herbier (France, 1924, 121 min.) Filmed three years before the much better known “Metropolis,” “L’Inhumaine” is a groundbreaking science fiction film directed by French filmmaker Marcel L’Herbier, who led a team of contributors drawn from the leading lights of the European avant-garde art world (with French intertitles and English subtitles). AFI Silver Theatre Sat., Aug. 13, 7:15 p.m.
Spanish Ixcanul Directed by Jayro Bustamante (Guatemala/France, 2015, 93 min.) On the slopes of an active volcano in Guatemala, a marriage is arranged for 17-year-old Maria by her Kaqchikel parents (Spanish and Maya). Landmark’s Cinema Opens Fri., Aug. 26
THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | August 2016 | 37
WD | Culture | Events
Events Listings
the Library of Congress will showcase photographs of early opera stars from a collection assembled by the late authority on opera Charles Jahant, in a format that will explore how Jahant might have used an Instagram account had he lived today. Library of Congress James Madison Building
*Unless specific times are listed, please check the venue for times. Venue locations are subject to change.
ART Through Aug. 1
POP of Kolor In this electric mashup of American pop art with Korean traditional art, Kwang Nyun Song and Kungjoo Park re-envision this iconic American art style with unique techniques and motifs to create an irresistible Korean twist on a signature genre. Park’s “The Fantastic Play” expresses the complexity of human beings, who are each filled with different sides to their personality, simultaneously capturing the beautiful, precious side that we often want to reveal, as well as the immature, superficial nature we hide in our hearts. Meanwhile, Song inserts peony blossoms or butterflies — a central motif of Korean traditional folk paintings — into Korean embroidery techniques and infuses portraits of symbolic figures with the concepts of American pop art. Korean Cultural Center Through Aug. 6
Masterworks from the Hirshhorn Collection Joseph Hirshhorn, whose 1966 gift to the nation of nearly 6,000 works led to the creation of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, was a passionate and knowledgeable collector. Since its opening in 1974, the Hirshhorn has carried on its founder’s legacy through an active and ambitious program of acquisitions. Its highly regarded collection charts the development of modern and contemporary art from the late 19th century to the present, across the world, and across media. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Aug. 6 to Nov. 6
Will & Jane Merchandising, parodies and spinoffs through the centuries have put William Shakespeare and Jane Austen on a first-name basis with the world. Explore the stories of “Will” and “Jane” and the nature of literary celebrity. How does today’s Cult of Jane resemble the first wave of Bardolatry 200 years ago? Folger Shakespeare Library Through Aug. 7
(Art)Xiomas – CUBAAHORA: The Next Generation This contemporary Cuban art exhibit, organized with SPAIN arts & culture, is also part of a larger cooperative effort to celebrate contemporary Cuban art and the centennial of the Art Museum of the Americas’s founding director, José Gómez Sicre. The featured artists favor fresh
THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | August 2016
Through Aug. 26
Inside Tracks
Photo: Art Museum of the Americas
Jorge Otero’s “Cáscara,” from the series “War Hero,” is on display at the Art Museum of the Americas “(Art)Xiomas – CUBAAHORA: The Next Generation.”
aesthetics while recognizing historical contexts, whose discourses are more autobiographical than politically contextualized. Exhibition participants shy away neither from committing themselves to projects with cultural institutions nor to working independently. Thus they penetrate and overcome barriers that for too long have characterized the timeline of Cuban cultural cooperation. Art Museum of the Americas Through Aug. 14
Bandits & Heroes, Poets & Saints: Popular Art of the Northeast of Brazil During the slave trade, 10 times more Africans were brought in bondage into Brazil than into the United States, and Northeast Brazil has the largest population of those of African descent outside Africa. This exhibit explores how the ancient cultures of Africa blended with indigenous and colonial Portuguese traditions to form the vibrant and complex cultural mosaic of modern Brazil. American University Museum Katzen Arts Center Through Aug. 14
Contemporary North Korean Art: The Evolution of Socialist Realism Does art exist in North Korea? For many, this has been an open question. This exhibit, the first of its kind in the United States, seeks to broaden understanding of North Korean art beyond stereotypes of propaganda and kitsch to show sophisticated and nuanced expressive achievements. It investigates previously unrevealed evidence of North Korean artistic experimentation, and the nation’s particular evolution of socialist realism within its own culturally homogeneous context. Coinciding with the exhibition of North Korean art, the show
38 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | August 2016
“Examining Life Through Social Realities” documents and examines life and the social realities of people living on the Korean peninsula through the realist paintings of 10 South Korean contemporary artists. American University Museum Katzen Arts Center
This photographic exhibition documents the extraordinary journey of Robyn Davidson, a 27-year-old Australian woman who set off to cross the desolate outback, accompanied only by four camels and a dog. Rick Smolan, the American photographer assigned by National Geographic to document her journey, had his own adventure tracking Robyn down in the desert. The outback of Australia, seen through Robyn’s eyes and Rick’s camera, is an ancient, awesome landscape swept by rain, heat and dust. Embassy of Australia Through Aug. 28
Mats Ek - A Dance Rebel on the Move for 40 Years
Aug. 18 to Oct. 9
Theatrical and wild, with a robust, physical humor and a highly personal movement style — those are some landmarks of Swedish choreographer and director Mats Ek. Since his debut in 1976, his works have stirred and captivated audiences and his reworking’s of ballet classics such as “Giselle” and “Swan Lake” have become classics themselves. This exhibition showcases the insight and sensitivity with which photographer Lesley Leslie-Spinks has captured Mats’s highly personal and precisely delineated world. House of Sweden
Muchedumbre: Photography by Jorge Brantmayer (Chile)
Through Aug. 31
“Muchedumbre” is a photographic project that investigates Chile’s post-dictatorship era, its transition to democracy, its economic boom and Chile’s current state of paradox. As the Chilean society begins to question an economic system centered on open markets and a growing disparity in wealth, more citizens are demanding a more equitable and just nation. This exhibit documents that process beginning in 2006 through 2015, and chronicles different public demonstrations including marches for free education, gender equality and sexual diversity, as well as protests against environmental degradation, among others. Art Museum of the Americas
Currently, 60 million people worldwide are fleeing civil wars, persecution and poverty. Immigration and travel restrictions at the borders of wealthy European countries or on the U.S.-Mexican border, for instance, cannot stop the flow of refugees searching for a better life. In “Escape Routes,” a project by the group REINIGUNGSGESELLSCHAFT, digital drawings and pictures made from lace depict migration movements and their causes. The stylized narratives focus on the topic of mutual interdependence in a globalized world undergoing rapid transition. Goethe-Institut Washington
Through Aug. 14
The Looking Glass: Artist Immigrants of Washington The Alper Initiative for Washington Art presents this exhibit featuring the work of 10 artists who left Latin America for many different reasons over the last 60 years — primarily for safety, freedom and opportunity — and made their homes, and their artistic careers and contributions, in the Washington region. American University Museum Katzen Arts Center
Aug. 18 to Jan. 7
Escape Routes
Through Sept. 4
#Opera Before Instagram: Portraits, 1890-1955
Stories of Migration: Contemporary Artists Interpret Diaspora
An exhibition opening next month at
In this juried and invitational exhi-
bition, 44 artists share personal and universal stories of migration — from historic events that scattered communities across continents to today’s accounts of migrants and refugees adapting to a new homeland. The artists explore: historic events that scattered people and cultures across continents; today’s accounts of migrants from Syria, Latin America and Africa adapting to new homes; and personal experiences of family members. The exhibition will feature works by artists such as fashion designer Hussein Chalayan, Mexican-American fiber artist Consuelo Jiménez Underwood, French-Togolese artist William Adjété Wilson and American artists Faith Ringgold and Penny Mateer. The George Washington University Museum Textile Museum Through Sept. 5
ICEBERGS Designed by James Corner Field Operations, the installation opens as part of the annual “Summer Block Party” series. “ICEBERGS” is built from re-usable construction materials, such as scaffolding and polycarbonate paneling, a material commonly used in building greenhouses. The 20-inch-high “water line” allows panoramic views from high above the ocean surface and down below among the towering bergs. National Building Museum Through Sept. 9
Bonsai: Celebrating 40 Years of the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum This summer the Japan Information and Culture Center (JICC), in partnership with the U.S. National Arboretum and the National Bonsai Foundation, celebrates the 40th anniversary of Japan’s gift of 53 bonsai trees to the United States. These bonsai trees are housed in the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum, which is on the U.S. National Arboretum grounds. To mark the occasion, the Japanese Embassy is hosting a magnificently detailed bonsai photography by Stephen Voss. An accomplished photographer with work published in National Geographic, New York Magazine, Vanity Fair, and Politico, Voss will be presenting his new show “In Training,” which intimately and respectfully captures the quiet mystique and humble, rugged beauty of the bonsai art form. Japan Information and Culture Center Through Sept. 11
19th and early 20th centuries, was a brilliant observer of contemporary life, an innovative painter and an influential teacher. Presented on the centennial of his death, this retrospective — the first in over three decades — will explore the interrelationships in Chase’s work across subject and media, from portraits and figurative paintings, to urban park scenes, domestic interiors, still lifes and landscapes. The Phillips Collection Through Sept. 16
Murals from a Great Canadian Train In 1953, Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) purchased 173 brand-new stainless steel rail cars from the Budd Company of Philadelphia. With the glass ceiling design in its Vista Dome cars, “The Canadian” became the quintessential crosscountry train experience. To highlight the natural beauty along the route and to promote tourism, CPR decided that Canada’s national and provincial parks should be the inspiration for the interior design of “The Canadian” rail cars. In 1954, the Royal Canadian Academy was asked to coordinate the selection of leading Canadian artists to paint murals for each of the 18 Vista Dome cars. The murals are of parks from every province and three are by members of Canada’s famed “Group of Seven” artists: A.Y. Jackson, A.J. Casson and Edwin Holgate. The Embassy of the Canada is delighted to showcase these murals and the everlasting beauty of Canada’s national and provincial parks. Embassy of Canada Art Gallery Through Sept. 17
The GM de Mexico Collection of Drawings and Graphic Art General Motors de Mexico and the Embassy of Mexico present this exhibit of 100 works on paper that highlight the evolution of Mexico’s artistic narrative during the 20th century through renowned Mexican and foreign-born artists, including Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, José Clemente Orozco, Dr. Atl, Elizabeth Catlett, Pablo O’Higgins, Leonora Carrington, Roger Von Gunten and others. “The GM de Mexico Collection of Drawings and Graphic Art” was created in the late 1960s and provides a vast exploration of 20th-century Mexican art. Shown abroad for the first time since 1969, this exhibition is divided into five thematic segments that illuminate the evolution of Mexican art from muralism to modernity. Mexican Cultural Institute
William Merritt Chase: A Modern Master
Through Sept. 18
William Merritt Chase (18491916), a renowned figure in the international art circles of the late
Paul Mellon was one of America’s greatest art collectors and remains one of the gallery’s leading
In Celebration of Paul Mellon
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benefactors. Timed to coincide with the gallery’s 75th anniversary, a special exhibition features 80 of the finest pastels, watercolors, drawings, prints, and illustrated books selected from his donations. National Gallery of Art Through Sept. 18
Karel Appel: A Gesture of Color Karel Appel (1921-2006) is perhaps the most renowned Dutch artist of the latter half of the 20th century and one of founding members of the avant-garde COBRA group. Marking the 10th anniversary of the artist’s death, this survey of 22 paintings and sculptures provides a fresh look at an oeuvre that goes beyond the 1950s, spanning more than 60 years. The Phillips Collection Through Sept. 18
Symbolic Cities: The World of Ahmed Mater Born in 1979 in southern Saudi Arabia and trained as a medical doctor, Ahmed Mater has been a practicing artist since the early 1990s, creating works that offer an unparalleled perspective on contemporary Saudi Arabia. Now based in Jeddah, Mater has focused primarily on photography and video since 2010. From abandoned desert cities to the extraordinary transformation of Mecca, “Symbolic Cities” presents his visual and aural journeys observing economic and urban change in Saudi Arabia. Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Through Oct. 2
Alison Saar in Print Alison Saar uses dynamic printmaking techniques to explore themes of feminine, racial and cultural identity. The artist’s hand-wrought woodcuts combine strong color and bold forms, while her central figures hold evocative objects — snakes, knives, fry pans, plants or bottles — that allude to a range of myth, lore and legend. National Museum of Women in the Arts Through Oct. 2
Hubert Robert, 1733-1808 One of the most prominent artists of his era, Hubert Robert loved and depicted ruined structures of all types, whether real or imagined, and not just those of ancient Rome (he lived in Italy for eleven years). He also drew inspiration from scenes he encountered in his native France, including urban renewal projects, GalloRoman antiquities and natural disasters. At the core of his success was his brilliance as a master of the architectural capriccio, in which random monuments from different locales were artfully brought together to create new, completely imaginary landscapes. National Gallery of Art
from the vine of syncopation” in a sizzling memoir of pride, lust and a past denied. Please call for ticket information. Signature Theatre
Through Dec. 31
Deco Japan: Shaping Art and Culture, 1920-1945 The style that came to be known as art deco, which flourished from the 1920s to 1940s, was a vivid reflection of the modern era and the vitality of the machine age. Between the wars, as normalcy returned to politics, jazz music blossomed and the flapper redefined the modern woman, art deco left its mark on every form of visual art. This exhibit explores how the Japanese interpreted the style and transformed it through their own rich art and craft traditions. Hillwood Museum, Estate and Gardens
Fri., Aug. 5, 8:15 p.m.
La Boheme One of the world’s most beloved operas. Puccini’s masterpiece is an unforgettable tale of love, youth, and tragic loss in 1918 Montmartre, Paris. Wolf Trap Opera presents a fully staged and costumed production of Puccini’s classic opera, in a one-night production featuring full orchestra, chorus, and custom video projections. Tickets are $25 to $75. Wolf Trap
Through Jan. 2
Intersections: Photographs and Videos from the National Gallery of Art and Corcoran Gallery of Art Nearly 700 photographs from Eadweard Muybridge’s groundbreaking publication “Animal Locomotion,” acquired by the Corcoran Gallery of Art in 1887, became the foundation for the institution’s early interest in photography. The Key Set of more than 1,600 works by Alfred Stieglitz, donated by Georgia O’Keeffe and the Alfred Stieglitz Estate, launched the photography collection at the National Gallery of Art in 1949. Inspired by these two seminal artists, Muybridge and Stieglitz, the exhibition brings together highlights of the recently merged collections of the Corcoran and the National Gallery of Art by a range of artists from the 1840s to today. National Gallery of Art Through Jan. 2
Recent Acquisitions of Dutch and Flemish Drawings “Recent Acquisitions of Dutch and Flemish Drawings” encompasses landscapes, seascapes, portraits, still lifes and history subjects that demonstrate the originality of Dutch and Flemish draftsmanship and its stylistic evolution. National Gallery of Art Through Jan. 2
Senses of Time: Video and Film-Based Works of Africa This exhibition features six internationally recognized African artists and examines how time is experienced and produced by the body. Bodies stand, climb, dance and dissolve in seven works of video and film art by Sammy Baloji, Theo Eshetu, Moataz Nasr, Berni Searle, Yinka Shonibare and Sue Williamson, all of whom repeat, resist and reverse the expectation that time must move relentlessly forward. National Museum of African Art Through Jan. 29
Turquoise Mountain: Artists Transforming Afghanistan Decades of civil unrest nearly destroyed Afghanistan’s vital
Aug. 6 to 27 Photo: Johnny Shryock
Irina Tsikurishvili and the ensemble dance in Synetic Theater’s “Twelfth Night,” set in the roaring ’20s.
artistic heritage. Over the past decade, Turquoise Mountain, an organization founded in 2006 at the request of the prince of Wales and the president of Afghanistan, has transformed the Murad Khani district of Old Kabul from slum conditions into a vibrant cultural and economic center. Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
DISCUSSIONS Tue., Aug. 2, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Inside the World of Diplomacy Members of the U.S. Foreign Service are the face of America in countries around the globe. From ambassadors to embassy staffers, their posts are demanding, important and often difficult ones. How does someone enter the world of diplomacy — and what do they find there? Take a rare opportunity to get answers from men and women whose careers are spent in diplomatic Washington as you go inside the American Foreign Service Association and the U.S. State Department. For ticket information, call (202) 633-3030 or visit www. smithsonianassociates.org. American Foreign Service Association Tue., Aug. 2, 6:45 p.m.
The Devil’s Diary: Recovering a Nazi Henchman’s Chilling Account of the Third Reich Before it mysteriously vanished almost seven decades ago, the private diary of Alfred Rosenberg, Adolf Hitler’s “chief philosopher” and a key member of his inner circle, provided a rare firsthand account of the Nazi rise to power and the genesis of the Holocaust. The diary was discovered hidden in a Bavarian castle at war’s end, and its more than 400 handwritten pages provided a harrowing glimpse into the mind of a man whose ideas set the stage for the Final Solution. Tickets are $30; for information, visit www. smithsonianassociates.org. S. Dillon Ripley Center
Mon., Aug. 8, 6:45 p.m.
Cocktails with Ian Fleming and James Bond: Favorite Sips of Stylish Spies Why did James Bond routinely order his martinis “shaken, not stirred”? Find out when you raise a toast to the creator of the iconic British spy, the debonair Ian Fleming. Cocktail experts Simon Ford and Philip Greene share tales of stylish adventure (both real-life and literary) as you sip some of the favorite drinks of both Fleming and his most famous character. Tickets are $50; for information, visit www.smithsonianassociates.org. National Museum of the American Indian Tue., Aug. 9, 6:45 p.m.
Off the Beaten Path in Classical Greece In a country as ancient and frequently visited as Greece, you might think all the must-see spots are always swarmed with tourists, but you’d be wrong. Move destinations like the Acropolis and Crete to less prominent spots on your itinerary and instead discover delights like Cape Sounion, where Greek mythology says Aegeus, king of Athens, leapt from a cliff to his death and gave his name to the Aegean Sea. Tickets are $30; for information, visit www.smithsonianassociates.org. S. Dillon Ripley Center Fri., Aug. 12, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
All Things Italian Indulge your appetite for things Italian, feasting on great paintings, sculpture, architecture, gardens, food, and song. Kathleen Bashian, a certified master guide, leads a tour that celebrates the heritage and cultural influence of Italy as reflected throughout Washington. Highlights include a behind-the-scenes visit to the American History Museum’s Dibner Library to explore early books on Italian architecture and science; a specially arranged tour of Italian
highlights of the National Gallery of Art’s permanent collection; and a visit to the Embassy of Italy. Tickets are $150; for information, visit www.smithsonianassociates.org. Departs from Mayflower Hotel Wed., Aug. 17, 6:45 p.m.
Gelato and Sorbetto: A Cool History It’s summer. Join food historian Francine Segan as she digs into some delicious gelato, starting with the fascinating history of Italian ices and sorbets, and ending with a taste of some of the scrumptious frozen desserts that made even Alexander the Great’s mouth water. Tickets are $40; for information, visit www.smithsonianassociates.org. S. Dillon Ripley Center
MUSIC Thu., Aug. 11, 8 p.m.
The Silk Road Ensemble with Yo-Yo Ma Made up of performers and composers from more than 20 countries, the Silk Road Ensemble was formed by Yo-Yo Ma in 2000. Since then, audiences and critics in over 30 countries throughout Asia, Europe, and North America have embraced these artists passionate about cross-cultural understanding and innovation. Tickets are $30. Wolf Trap
THEATER Aug. 2 to Sept. 11
Jelly’s Last Jam Take your seat at the legendary Jungle Inn nightclub for the electrifying, multiple Tonywinning musical that tells the story of jazz through one of its most notorious entertainers: Jelly Roll Morton. Journey from the back alleys of New Orleans to the dance halls of Chicago to the stages of New York with “he who drinks
The Lonesome West In this brutally funny dark comedy set in the tiny Irish backwater of Leenane, two warring brothers live to torment each other, baiting and brawling over every petty grievance, from would-be girlfriends to cheap potato chips. Only Father Welsh, the local parish priest, will try to save them before their sibling rivalry explodes into a hilarious and brutal finish. Tickets are $45. Andrew Keegan Theatre Through Aug. 9
Twelfth Night Set in the roaring 20s, Synetic’s “Twelfth Night” tells the tale of fraternal twins, Viola and Sebastian, separated in a strange new land. Having survived a shipwreck and believing her brother Sebastian has been lost, Viola falls hopelessly in love with Duke Orsino and disguises herself as a man to enter his services. Tickets start at $35. Synetic Theater Aug. 16 to 28
The Tempest Kicking off its 30th Anniversary Season, the Shakespeare Theatre Company (STC) present “The Tempest” as its 2016 “Free For All” event. In this glittering production by internationally acclaimed director Ethan McSweeny, Prospero’s magical island explodes with life, hosting sprites, goddesses and fools that hold court and delight all ages. Shakespeare Theatre Harman Hall Through Aug. 20
The Phantom of the Opera Cameron Mackintosh’s spectacular new production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “The Phantom of the Opera” comes to D.C. as part of a brand-new North American tour, with critics raving that this breathtaking production is “bigger and better than ever before.” Tickets are $25 to $149. Kennedy Center Opera House
THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | August 2016 | 39
WD | Culture | Spotlight
Diplomatic Spotlight
August 2016
From right, British Ambassador Sir Kim Darroch, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer and Lady Vanessa Darroch lead the toast.
Queen’s 90th Birthday Party
Photo: Carrie Dorean Photography
Hundreds of guests, including ambassadors, top U.S. government officials and journalists, turned out to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II’s 90th birthday on the sprawling, neatly manicured lawns of the British Residence. The pending Brexit referendum didn’t dampen the spirit as Pimm’s Cups and a stately birthday cake toasted the historic occasion. Former Sen. John Warner (R-Va.), Jeanne Cander Myde Warner and Lady Vanessa Darroch.
Stephanie Carter, British Ambassador Sir Kim Darroch and Defense Secretary Ash Carter.
Above, Agnes O’Hare, Rear Adm. Susan Blumenthal, former U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Burt, Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), Ambassador of Ireland Anne Anderson and European Union Ambassador David O’Sullivan.
Photo: Carrie Dorean Photography
Photo: Carrie Dorean Photography
Photo: Carrie Dorean Photography
Traditional British tea is served alongside a photo of Queen Elizabeth II and President Obama in the background.
Photo: Carrie Dorean Photography
Ambassador of Ireland Anne Anderson, European Union Ambassador David O’Sullivan and Ambassador of Russia Sergey Kislyak.
Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) and Executive Director of the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security Melanne Verveer.
Photo: Carrie Dorean Photography
Gunta Razāne, outgoing Ambassador of Latvia Andris Razāns and Leila Beale, wife of the former ambassador of Barbados.
Strathmore Gala The Music Center at Strathmore held its annual spring gala, “We’ve Got Magic to Do,” featuring Tony Award winner Patina Miller. Gala proceeds support nearly 350 annual programs sponsored by the Maryland music center. Photos: Margot Schulman
Strathmore CEO Eliot Pfanstiehl, Strathmore Board member Dede Lang, Chair of the Strathmore Board of Directors Dale Rosenthal and Strathmore President Monica Jeffries Hazangeles.
40 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | August 2016
Strathmore President Monica Jeffries Hazangeles with actress Patina Miller.
Photo: Carrie Dorean Photography
British Ambassador Sir Kim Darroch talks with Margaret Warner of the PBS NewsHour.
Jacqueline Horwitz Sanz, Producing Artistic Director of Young Artists of America Rolando Sanz, Philharmonic Conductor of the Maryland Classic Youth Orchestras at Strathmore Kristofer Sanz and Beth Sanz.
WD | Culture | Spotlight
Montenegrin National Day Ambassador of Montenegro Srdjan Darmanovic welcomed guests, including Sen. John McCain (RAriz.), for an elegant reception at the Library of Congress on July 13 to mark his country’s National Day. The event came on the heels of NATO’s invitation for Montenegro to formally join the security bloc. Photos: James Cullum
Eric Lewis, Defense Attaché at the Serbian Embassy Col. Dragan Galic and U.S. Air Force Maj. Jesse Vig.
Ambassador of Montenegro Srdjan Darmanovic welcomes guests. Behind him stand U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.), left, and Hoyt Brian Yee, deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).
Ambassador of Sweden Björn Lyrvall, Ambassador of Montenegro Srdjan Darmanovic and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) share a laugh.
U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Hoyt Brian Yee.
U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn R-Colo.).
Mirna Vlasic; Deputy Chief of Mission of the Montenegrin Embassy Dubravka Lalovic; Second Secretary at the Montenegrin Embassy Milena Veljovic; and Counselor at the Kosovar Embassy Lendita Haxhitasim.
Defense Attaché at the Albanian Embassy Col. Eduart Bala and John Robinson of the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Ambassador of Montenegro Srdjan Darmanovic and Ambassador Zoran Jankovic of the Consulate General of Montenegro in New York.
Azerbaijani Republic Day
Photos: Gail Scott
Ambassador of Azerbaijan Elin Suleymanov and Ambassador of Barbados John Beale attend Azerbaijan’s Republic Day reception.
Abeer Al Otaiba, Ambassador of the UAE Yousef Al Otaiba and wife of the Azerbaijani ambassador Lala Abdurahimova attend Azerbaijan’s Republic Day reception at the Mellon Auditorium.
Dancers in traditional costume perform at Azerbaijan’s Republic Day reception.
Dancers in traditional costume perform at Azerbaijan’s Republic Day reception.
THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | August 2016 | 41
WD | Culture | Spotlight
Diplomatic Spotlight
August 2016
Barbados Farewell
Filipino Musical Farewell Renowned Filipino musicians Martin Nievera and Lani Misalucha paid a musical tribute to outgoing Philippines Ambassador Jose L. Cuisia Jr. and his wife Vicky in a farewell reception that also celebrated the 70th anniversary of U.S.-Philippines relations. The reception and concert was held June 9 in the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center.
On July 1, Shahin Mafi, CEO of Home Health Connection Inc., opened her Potomac, Md., residence to bid farewell to Ambassador of Barbados John Beale and his wife Leila Beale. Ambassador Beale is leaving his post after seven years in Washington, D.C. Photos: Larry Luxner
Photo: Kaveh Sardari
Maria Victoria “Vicky” Jose Cuisia, Martin Nievera, Lani Misalucha and Philippines Ambassador Jose L. Cuisia Jr.
Photo: Kaveh Sardari
Lani Misalucha, dubbed “Asia’s nightingale,” performs.
Shahin Mafi, Leila Beale and Ambassador of Barbados John Beale.
Photo: Kaveh Sardari
Philippines Ambassador Jose L. Cuisia Jr. is honored by former National Intelligence Director John Negroponte.
Photo: Kate Oczypok Photo: Kaveh Sardari
Martin Nievera serenades Philippines Ambassador Jose L. Cuisia Jr. and his wife Vicky.
Amir Tejpar of the Millennium Challenge Corp., John Barrett and Evan Freund, Philippines team lead for the Millennium Challenge Corp.
Stylist Erwin Gomez and Katie Marfori.
Embassy liaison Jan Du Plain and Deputy Chief of Mission of the Monaco Embassy Lorenzo Ravano.
Sheila M. Switzer, program chairman and FBS state liaison for the Associates of the American Foreign Service Worldwide, and Kun Smith.
Photo: Kate Oczypok
Photo: Kate Oczypok
Khim Sankyi and Jitvimol Kanishthanaka of the Embassy of Thailand.
Photo: Kate Oczypok Photo: Kate Oczypok
Father Jack Hurley and Father Walter Erbi of the Holy See Embassy.
Bambi Lorica of the Filipina Women’s Network and Edith Lorenzana.
Ambassador of Kazakhstan Kairat Umarov, Ambassador of Albania Floreta Faber and her husband Dr. Edmond Faber.
Heidi Kirby of Trump International Hotel and Four Seasons concierge Mel Odilao. Photo: Kate Oczypok
Photo: Kate Oczypok
SEED Foundation Gala The SEED Foundation, a nonprofit established by Sherri Kraham Talabani, made its local debut May 19 with a gala dinner at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. The fundraiser attracted more than 200 people and raised tens of thousands of dollars for the organization. Kraham Talabani is married to Qubad Talabani, the former D.C. representative of the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) who is now the KRG’s deputy prime minister. SEED works to help victims who have been displaced by the Islamic State, with a specific focus on the minority Yezidi population, which has been subject to abduction, torture, rape and sexual slavery. Photos: Greg E. Mathieson Sr. / MAI
Photo: Kate Oczypok
CNN global affairs correspondent Elise Labott and New York Times columnist Tom Friedman discuss the Islamic State threat.
Sherri Kraham Talabani, founder of the SEED Foundation; Turkish journalist Amberin Zaman; Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman, the Kurdistan Regional Government’s representative to the United States (standing); and Joe Pennington, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state.
42 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | August 2016
Artist Ava Nazir; publicist Linda Roth; CNN global affairs correspondent Elise Labott; New York Times columnist Tom Friedman; and Sherri Kraham Talabani, founder of the SEED Foundation.
Ambassador of Montenegro Srdjan Darmanovic and his wife Aneta Spaic.
Omani Iftar
Founder and CEO of the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations John Duke Anthony, former U.S. Ambassador to Oman Richard Schmierer and Ambassador of Oman Hunaina Sultan Ahmed attend an Omani Iftar celebration during Ramadan at the Westin in Crystal City, Va.
WD | Culture | Spotlight
Georgian Independence Georgians celebrated the 25th anniversary of the country regaining its independence on June 8 at the Roof Terrace of 101 Constitution Ave., NW, overlooking Capitol Hill with the country’s defense minister and minister of foreign affairs. Photos: Larry Luxner
Portugal Toasts America On June 28, some 400 people gathered at the Portuguese Residence to toast the regional government of Madeira and its famous wine, and celebrate America’s independence by reflecting on U.S.-Portugal relations. “Toast to America” replicated one of the defining moments of the signing ceremony of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, when the Founding Fathers raised a glass of Madeira wine to commemorate the new country. The event included a performance by President George Washington and Peter Francisco about the historical ties between the U.S. and Portugal, which was the first neutral country to recognize America’s independence. Ambassador of Azerbaijan Elin Suleumanov, Lala Abdurahimova, Nargiza Gulyamov and Ambassador of Uzbekistan Bakhtiyar Gulyamov.
Georgian Minister of Foreign Affairs Mikheil Janelidze.
Deputy Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken.
Natia Zambakhidze, senior counselor at the Embassy of Georgia, and Cara George, program officer at the Millennium Challenge Corp., attend a May 25 reception to welcome a visiting delegation by the American Chamber of Commerce in Georgia.
Investigative journalist Alex Raufoglu and his wife Tamara Grigoryeva, Eurasia program officer at Freedom House.
Counselor at the Georgian Embassy Levan Beridze, Tako Rakviashvili, Ikuli Asatiani and Tata Zhorzholiani.
Sophie Bzishvili, wife of the deputy chief of mission of the Embassy of Georgia; Richard Norland, former U.S. ambassador to Georgia; Sarah Williamson, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Georgia; and Envoy Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary at the Georgian Embassy Giorgi Tsikolia attend a May 25 reception to welcome a visiting delegation by the American Chamber of Commerce in Georgia.
Michael Werz, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress; First Secretary at the Portuguese Embassy Gonçalo Silvestre; Head of Political Affairs at the Mexican Embassy Jennifer Feller; Helga Flores; and Ambassador of Spain Ramon Gil-Casares.
First Secretary at the Georgian Embassy Sopo Kupradze, a guest and wife of the Georgian ambassador Dea Gadua.
Gay Pride Parade June 11 was a day of festivities and firsts as diplomats from a record eight embassies participated in the Capital Pride Parade in Washington, D.C. But the joyous mood was cut short the next day when a gunman stormed a gay nightclub in Orlando, killing 49 people in the worst mass shooting in U.S. history (see “Diplomats Join Gay Pride Parade, Reflect on Orlando Killings” in the July 7 Diplomatic Pouch). Ambassadors and diplomats from Britain, Canada, Denmark, Iceland, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the European Union came out to celebrate LGBT rights in the annual parade that attracts tens of thousands of spectators.
Ambassador of Portugal Domingos Fezas Vital, his wife Isabel Fezas Vital and President of the Madeira Regional Government Miguel Albuquerque.
Amarjeet Sohi, Canada’s minister of infrastructure and communities and a human rights advocate, leads Canadian Embassy staffers and others in this year’s Capital Pride Parade.
Actors portray American Revolutionary War hero Peter Francisco and President George Washington.
Photo: UK in USA
Ambassador of Brazil Luiz Alberto Figueiredo Machado, his wife Maria Angelica Ikeda, Director of International Affairs at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints Ann Santini and her assistant Ashlee Berry.
Photo: Connect 2 Canada
Nordic embassies participate in their first Capital Pride Parade: From left are Icelandic Deputy Chief of Mission Erlingur Erlingsson; Ambassador of Finland Kirsti Kauppi; Ambassador of Norway Kåre R. Aas; Ambassador of Denmark Lars Gert Lose; and Ambassador of Sweden Björn Lyrvall.
European Union Ambassador David O’Sullivan, Lady Vanessa Darroch and British Ambassador Sir Kim Darroch.
Ambassador of the Netherlands Henne Schuwer, U.S. Protocol Chief Peter Selfridge and Ambassador of Cabo Verde José Luis Fialho Rocha.
Professor Joao Macieira, James McGlinchey and Fernando Freitas.
Ambassador of Belgium Johan Verbeke and Ambassador of Ireland Anne Anderson.
Ambassador of the Netherlands Henne Schuwer, British Ambassador Kim Darroch and Ambassador of Sweden Björn Lyrvall. Photo: UK in USA
Photo: UK in USA
The British Embassy joined the Capital Pride Parade for the fourth year with a reception and double-decker bus float featuring the hashtag #LoveIsGREAT.
The Canadian Embassy participates in its first Pride Parade. Photo: Connect 2 Canada
Above, the British Embassy participates in the Capital Pride Parade. Wine expert Bartholomew Broadbent, Juan Teixeira, Henry Broadbent, Júlio Fernandes and Roy Hersh of For the Love of Port.
THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | August 2016 | 43
WD | Culture | Spotlight
Diplomatic Spotlight
August 2016
Refugees International
Aschiana Annual Benefit
Refugees International (RI), an independent advocacy organization, celebrated individuals who have helped shed light on the growing number of global refugees at its 37th annual Anniversary Dinner, held at Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium. Honorees included British billionaire and Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson, Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and Ukrainian civil society leader Olena Honcharova. Nearly 60 million people are displaced from their homes around the world due to war, disease, natural disaster, poverty, persecution and terrorism, the largest number since World War II.
On June 7, the Aschiana Foundation hosted its annual benefit gala at the French Embassy to honor Gen. John F. Campbell, former commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, and Shinkai Karokhail, a member of the Afghan Parliament. The annual event is the primary fundraiser for the Aschiana Foundation, a D.C.-based, volunteer nonprofit dedicated to supporting grassroots programs in Afghanistan that provide children with basic education, health care, psycho-social recovery support, recreational activities, vocational training and the opportunities to grow and develop in a safe environment.
Refugees International (RI) President Michel Gabaudan and RI Board Chair Eileen Shields-West join Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), who was given RI’s Congressional Leadership Award.
Photos: Refugees International
Ambassador of Spain Ramon Gil-Casares and restaurateurs Maria and Fabio Trabocchi. Roberta Mastromichele, Ambassador of Kosovo Vlora Çitaku, Mariella Trager, restaurateur Maria Trabocchi, Marisol Pearlstein and Casila Garcia-Quiroz.
Ambassador of Afghanistan Hamdullah Mohib and Aschiana Foundation President Sanya Younossi.
Mark and Barbara Heller, former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan James Cunningham, Kristin Cairns and Dean Fischer.
RI Board Member Emeritus Sam Waterston and Sir Richard Branson. Economist Sylvia Charles and Ambassador of Dominica Hubert J. Charles. Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.) and former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson.
Former U.S. Ambassador Walter Cutler and photographer Didi Cutler.
Shamim Jawad and former Afghan Ambassador Said Tayeb Jawad.
Honorary chair Ambassador of France Gérard Araud.
Chief Defense Attaché of the French Embassy Brig. Gen. Vincent Cousin and Ellyn Dunford, wife of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr. Volunteers Arzo Wardak and Tamana Heela wear traditional Afghan dresses.
Ambassador of Thailand Pisan Manawapat asks a question.
Photos: Aschiana Foundation / French Embassy
Handmade jewelry was on display.
Judge Laurence Silberman, Aschiana Foundation President Sanya Younossi and Vice President for Research of Inova Health System Zobair Younossi.
Gen. John F. Campbell, Ellyn Dunford and Mary Jo Myers introduce volunteers Nahid Paiman and Tamana Heela.
TECRO Delegation
Drones at Italian Embassy The Institute for Education (IFE) hosted an innovation salon on the expanding use of commercial drones at the Italian Embassy on July 11. Panelists talked about the potential uses of unmanned aircraft, from emergency and humanitarian assistance to pizza delivery, along with the challenges of regulating a ballooning industry. FlyMotion Unmanned Systems also did a drone demonstration inside the embassy’s cavernous lobby.
Lael Mohib, Ambassador of Afghanistan Hamdullah Mohib, Sima Calkin of the Aschiana Foundation Board, honoree and Afghan Parliamentarian Shinkai Karokhail and Mary Jo Myers of the Aschiana Foundation Board.
Photos: James Cullum
An unmanned drone flies inside the Italian Embassy.
IFE Steward Marci Robinson, journalist Jan Smith and Joanne Ke of the Global Development Incubator.
44 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | August 2016
Ambassador of Italy Armando Varricchio welcomes guests.
Ambassador of Italy Armando Varricchio, Ambassador of Colombia Juan Carlos Pinzón and Ambassador of Sweden Björn Lyrvall listen to the panelists.
Founder and CEO of the Institute for Education (IFE) coach Kathy Kemper; Ambassador of Kosovo Vlora Çitaku; Ambassador of Afghanistan Hamdullah Mohib; Ambassador of Sweden Björn Lyrvall; Ambassador of Colombia Juan Carlos Pinzón; and Special Assistant to the President for Economic and Technology Policy at the National Economic Council R. David Edelman.
Panelists R. David Edelman, special assistant at the White House; Ryan English, president and co-founder of FlyMotion Unmanned Systems; humanitarian technology expert Patrick Meier; civilian airline pilot Tiziano Vercellino; and Sergio Barlocchetti, project manager for Elytron Aeronautica.
Photo: TECRO
The Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO) hosted a welcome dinner for a business delegation from Taiwan to the third SelectUSA Investment Summit at the W Hotel on June 19. Participants included TECRO Representative Stanley Kao (first row center), U.S. Assistant Secretary of Commerce Marcus Jadotte (third from left), U.S. Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs Kurt Tong (third from right) and Chairman of the Taiwan External Trade Development Council Francis Kuo-Hsin Liang (second from left).
WD | August 2016
Around the World World Holidays AFGHANISTAN Aug. 19: Independence Day
ANDORRA Aug. 15: Assumption
AUSTRIA Aug. 15: Assumption
BAHAMAS Aug. 1: Emancipation Day
BARBADOS
Aug. 15: Assumption
CHAD
CROATIA
BOLIVIA
Aug. 11: Independence Day
Aug. 5: Victory and Homeland Thanksgiving Day Aug. 15: Assumption
Aug. 6: Independence Day
BURKINA FASO Aug. 5: Independence Day Aug. 15: Assumption
BURUNDI Aug. 15: Assumption
CAMEROON
Aug. 1: Emancipation Day Aug. 1: Kadooment Day
Aug. 15: Assumption
BELGIUM
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC
Aug. 15: Assumption
BENIN Aug. 1: National Day
CAPE VERDE Aug. 15: Assumption
Aug. 13: Proclamation of Independence Aug. 15: Assumption
CHILE Aug. 15: Assumption
COLOMBIA Aug. 7: Battle of Boyacá Aug. 15: Assumption
CONGO, REPUBLIC OF
Send Us Your Holidays & Appointments Fax to: the Washington Diplomat at: (301) 949-0065 E-mail to: news@washdiplomat.com
CYPRUS Aug. 15: Assumption
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC Aug. 16: Restoration Day
EAST TIMOR
Mail to: P.o. Box 1345, silver spring, MD 20915-1345
Aug. 15: Constitution Day
ESTONIA
FRANCE
GRENADA
ECUADOR
Aug. 15: Assumption
Aug. 10: Independence Day
GABON
Aug. 7: National Day Aug. 15: Assumption
Aug. 3: Armed Forces Day
Aug. 28: Assumption (Mariamoba)
GREECE
COSTA RICA
CÔTE D’IVOIRE
GEORGIA
Aug. 20: Day of Restoration of Independence
Aug. 15: Independence Day
EQUATORIAL GUINEA
JAMAICA
Aug. 15: Assumption
Aug. 1: Emancipation Day Aug. 6: Independence Day
HUN GARY Aug. 20: National Holiday
ICELAND
Aug. 15: Assumption Aug. 30: Constitution Day
Aug. 15: Assumption/ Mother’s Day
HAITI
Aug. 15: Assumption
Aug. 1: Commerce Day
INDIA Aug. 15: Independence Day
INDONESIA
Aug. 1: Emancipation Day
Aug. 17: Independence Day
Aug. 15: Assumption Aug. 17: National Day
GUATEMALA
IRELAND
Aug. 15: Assumption
Aug. 1: Bank Holiday
GAMBIA
GUYANA
ITALY
Aug. 15: Assumption
Aug. 4: Freedom Day
Aug. 15: Assumption
Holiday (Assumption)
KAZAKHSTAN Aug. 30: Constitution Day
LITHUANIA Aug. 15: Assumption (Zoline)
LUXEMBOURG Aug. 15: Assumption
MACEDONIA
KYRGYZSTAN Aug. 31: Independence Day
Aug. 2: National Day (Ilinden)
MADAGASCAR
LEBANON Aug. 15: Assumption
Aug. 15: Assumption
LIBERIA
MALAYSIA
Aug. 24: National Flag Day
Aug. 31: National Day
LIECHTENSTEIN
MALTA
Aug. 15: National
Aug. 15: Assumption see HOLIDAYS • PAGe 47
Appointments Cyprus Leonidas Pantelides became ambassador of Cyprus to the United States on June 27, 2016. Ambassador Pantelides previously served as first deputy permanent secretary/director of the Middle East and North Africa Division at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2013-16); ambassador/permanent representative of Cyprus to the United Nations in Geneva (2011-13); and head of the Diplomatic Office of the President of the Republic (2008-11). In addition, he was the Cypriot ambassador to Russia, with parallel accreditation to Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Belarus (2004-08); ambassador to Greece, with accreditation to Albania, Bulgaria and Romania (2001-04); and ambassador to Sweden with accreditation to Iceland, Norway, Latvia and Denmark (1998-2001). Other postings include director of the Office of the Foreign Minister (1997-98); director of the Office of the Permanent Secretary (1996-97); member of the presidential working team during the U.N.-sponsored intercommunal negotiations (1993-98); and first secretary at the Cypriot Embassy in Washington, D.C. (1989-93). Ambassador Pantelides studied philosophy and holds a Ph.D. from the Interdisciplinary Studies Department of the University of Kent in England (1983). The subject of his doctoral dissertation was the concept of time. He has taught international affairs as a part-time professor and is a member of the Advisory Board of the Diplomatic Academy at the University of Nicosia. The author of a book on philosophy, Ambassador Pantelides was born in Nicosia on Jan. 11, 1953, and is the father of four grown children.
Greece Theoharis (Haris) Lalakos became ambassador of Greece to the United States on June 27, 2016, having previously served as ambassador and head of the Liaison Office of the Hellenic Republic in Macedonia since January 2013. Ambassador Lalakos also previously served as minister-counselor, deputy head of mission and
later chargé d’affaires of the Greek Embassy in Turkey (2010-13); head of the CFSP / ESDP Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2009-10); and deputy head of the diplomatic cabinet of the minister of foreign affairs (200709). Other postings include consul general of Greece in Alexandria, Egypt (2004-07), and political affairs counselor at the Embassy of Greece in Washington, D.C., where his main duties included EUU.S. relations, Cyprus, Turkey, NATO and the Balkans (2000-04). From 1998 to 2000, he directed the cabinet of Dr. P. Roumeliotis, Ambassador the European Union Theoharis (Haris) coordinator for the Lalakos Royaumont Process for Stability and Good Neighborliness in South East Europe and, subsequently, was chairman of the Working Table on Democratization and Human Rights of the Stability Pact for South East Europe. In addition, he served as first secretary and later counselor for political and economic affairs at the Greek Embassy in Turkey (1994-98), as well as consul at the Greek Consulate General in Sydney, Australia (1990-94). Ambassador Lalakos was also a conscript in the Hellenic Navy from 1983 to 1985, after which he the joined the Hellenic Foreign Service. Born in Athens on May 2, 1957, he earned a bachelor’s degree magna cum laude in history from Amherst College in Massachusetts and a master’s in international relations from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. Besides Greek, he speaks English and French and is conversant in Spanish and Italian. Ambassador Lalakos is married to Anna Michalopoulou and they have two children, Errikos and Myrto.
Guatemala Marithza Ruiz Sanchez de Vielman became ambassador of Guatemala to the United States
on June 27, 2016. Ambassador Ruiz de Vielman has acted as special adviser to the minister of foreign affairs since 1996 on a number of issues. As member of the Belize Commission, she is involved in the preparatory work to file Guatemala’s complaint before the International Court of Justice, when all requirements have been met. In 2003, Ambassador Ruiz de Vielman participated in the drafting and negotiations between Guatemala and the Organization of the United Nations to establish an International Commission to investigate violations of Human Rights as provided in Guatemala’s Peace Accords. She ran as the vice presidential candidate in the political campaign of Eduardo Suger in 2003. From 2000 to 2003, she served as ambassador of Guatemala to the United Kingdom. She was also permanent representative to the International Coffee Organization, the International Sugar Organization and the International Maritime Organization. In 1994 and 1995, AmbasAmbassador sador Ruiz de Vielman Marithza Ruiz Sanchez served as minister de Vielman of foreign affairs of Guatemala, before which she participated as Guatemala ‘s negotiator in the Uruguay Round to establish the World Trade Organization. Before joining the public sector, Ambassador Ruiz de Vielman practiced law as an independent litigator in civil, constitutional and trade law cases. For over 10 years, she worked as a civil law professor at Universidad Rafael Landivar. In 2002, she taught one semester at the London School of Economics on foreign trade issues to be advanced by developing countries, in addition to teaching several seminars to Latin American and Caribbean negotiators on the dispute settlement system of the WTO. She also presented the banana dispute to a special session of the D.C. American Bar Association. Ambassador Ruiz de Vielman earned her degree
as a law attorney and public notary and a bachelor’s in social and legal sciences from the University Rafael Landivar of Guatemala.
Jordan Dina Kawar became ambassador of Jordan to the United States on June 27, 1016, having previously served as permanent represen- Ambassador tative to the United Dina Kawar Nations since 2014. She led the Jordanian delegation during Jordan’s nonpermanent membership of the U.N. Security Council from 2014 to 2015 and became the first Arab woman to ever preside over the council. In February 2016, she was appointed by the president of the General Assembly as a co-facilitator for the high-level meeting of the plenary of the General Assembly on the large movement of refugees and migrants to take place in September 2016. Prior to her position in New York, Ambassador Kawar served as Jordan’s ambassador to France from 2001 to 2013, with concurrent accreditation to the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and to the Holy See since 2002. She also served as nonresident ambassador to Portugal from 2005 to 2013. Ambassador Kawar holds a master’s degree in international affairs from Columbia University and a bachelor’s degree in international relations from Mills College, both in the United States. She attended Harvard’s Center for International Affairs from 1986 to 1987. She speaks Arabic, French and English.
Mexico Carlos Manuel Sada Solana became ambassador of Mexico to the United States on June 27, 2016, having previously served as consul general of Mexico in Los Angeles since 2013. Ambassador Sada Solana also previously served
as Mexico’s consul general in New York (2011-13); minister at the Mexican Embassy in Washington, D.C. (2007-11); consul general in Chicago (2000-07); consul genAmbassador eral in San Antonio Carlos Manuel Sada (1995-2000); and Solana consul general in Toronto (1989-92). In addition, he was advisor to the undersecretary of education and technological research at the Secretariat of Public Education (1980-81); executive member-at-large of the Public Investment Planning and Control Commission of the government of the state of Oaxaca (1982-83); secretary of state programs for the government of Oaxaca (1983-86); secretary of economic and social development of Oaxaca (1986-89); and municipal president of Oaxaca de Juárez (1993-95). Born in Oaxaca on Aug. 15, 1952, Ambassador Sada Solana is an industrial engineer with a degree from the Ibero-American University. He also did postgraduate studies in production systems development at the University of Newcastle in England; in economic development at the University of Delft in the Netherlands; and in industrial development at the Institute of Public Administration in The Hague. Ambassador Sada Solana is fluent in English and proficient in French.
Thailand Panupat Chavananikul became first secretary at the Embassy of Thailand on June 17, 2016. Banarasi Koananthkul departed the post of first secretary on June 30, 2016. Suchada Maktara departed the post of counselor on June 30, 2016. Patreya Wattanasin became first secretary at the Embassy of Thailand on June 17, 2016.
THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | AuGuST 2016 | 45
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Aug. 15: Founding of Asunción
PERU
MOLDOVA
NAMIBIA
Aug. 27: Independence Day Aug. 31: National Language Day
Aug. 26: Heroes’ Day
Aug. 30: St. Rosa of Lima
NIGER
POLAND
Aug. 14: Commemoration of Oued Eddahab (Reunification Day) Aug. 20: Revolution of the King and the People Aug. 21: King’s Birthday
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Aug. 1: August Monday
Aug. 29: Slovak National Uprising Day
Aug. 1: National Day Aug. 15: Assumption
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TANZANIA
Aug. 13: Women’s Day
Aug. 15: Assumption
Aug. 8: Farmers’ Day (Nane Nane)
TURKEY
ZIMBABWE
Aug. 30: Victory Day
Aug. 11: Heroes’ Day Aug. 12: Defense Forces’ National Day
ST. LUCIA Aug. 1: Emancipation Day
ST. VINCENT and THE GRENADINES Aug. 1: August Monday
SOUTH AFRICA Aug. 9: National Women’s Day
THAILAND
Aug. 31: Independence Day
VENEZUELA
TUNISIA
ZAMBIA
Aug. 12: HM the Queen’s Birthday
UKRAINE
Aug. 15: The Ascension of St. Mary
SENEGAL Aug. 15: Assumption
SOUTH KOREA
PORTUGAL
SEYCHELLES
TOGO
UNITED KINGDOM
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Aug. 15: Assumption
Aug. 15: Liberation Day
Aug. 15: Assumption
PANAMA
RWANDA
SINGAPORE
SPAIN
TRINIDAD and TOBAGO
Aug. 29: Summer Bank Holiday
Aug. 15: The Founding of
Aug. 15: Assumption
Aug. 9: National Day
Aug. 3: Independence Day
PAKISTAN Aug. 14: Independence Day
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