The Republic of Chad has been a frequent subject here at Global Investment Watch. Located in North Africa, it has the dubious distinction of having one of the worst governments on that continent. As I noted in my post, “Country Risk 2008: Chad “, since 1991 this country has been controlled by a totalitarian ruler, Idriss Deby. Chad is a troubled country with a vast range of human rights problems. According to the U.S. State Department’s 2008 Human Rights Report to Congress on Chad, the government’s human rights record remained poor with extrajudicial killings, torture and rape committed by security forces, arbitrary arrest and detention, widespread official corruption, child abuse and trafficking, repression of union activity and exploitative child labor practices.
How does a dictatorship with a horrific human rights record manage to maintain any semblance of legitimacy in Washington? This is where their man – or men in this case – come into play. The guys at Patton Boggs LLP.
Patton Boggs – Chad’s Voice in Washington
One of the leading lobbying firms in Washington D.C., Patton Boggs was founded in 1962 by James R. Patton, Jr and joined soon after by George Blow and then Thomas Hale Boggs, Jr. Again according to its website, it has “participated in the formation of every major multilateral trade agreement considered by Congress.”[1] Notable associates have included John Breaux, former Democratic U.S. Senator and Representative from Louisiana, and Benjamin Ginsberg, former national counsel to the Bush-Cheney presidential campaign and the Republican National Committee, National Republican Senatorial Committee and National Republican Congressional Committee and Ron Brown, the Secretary of Commerce under Bill Clinton.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Patton Boggs is a registered agent for the Republic of Chad. In its “Registration Statement Pursuant to the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 ,” which was filed on August 29, 2007, the firm “[a]dvises the Chadian government on U.S. policy issues relating to Chad, relating to Africa more broadly and relating to peace and rule of law issues.
So who helps the Chadian government in Washington? Mark Cowan, Jude Kearney and Rodney Slater.
Mark Cowan
Before entering the private sector and joining Patton Boggs, Mr. Cowan held presidential appointments in three administrations. During the first Reagan administration, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health until his appointment as Chief of Staff and Counselor to the Secretary of Labor in 1982. Later, President George H.W. Bush appointed him as a Commissioner on the National Commission on Employment Policy. He was Counsel to the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct (ethics) of the U.S. House of Representatives. He also served at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as an operations officer, serving abroad and as a country desk chief in the agency’s Directorate of Operations, and later held the position of Assistant Legislative Counsel to the Director of Central Intelligence.
Jude Kearney
Prior to joining Patton Boggs, Mr. Kearney previously served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Service Industries and Finance at the U.S. Department of Commerce. During his time at the Department, he oversaw the trade offices responsible for government-wide promotional efforts on behalf of the service industry.
Rodney Slater
Mr. Slater served as Secretary of Transportation under President Bill Clinton. Previous to his tenure as transportation secretary, Mr. Slater served as director of the Federal Highway Administration.
Patton Boggs was retained by the embassy of Chad for a monthly retainer of $10,000 to “improve bilateral relations with the Executive Branch.” The Justice Department database of registered foreign agents does not indicate that Patton Boggs has withdrawn from that role.
The Oil Flows but the World Bank Goes
When the World Bank agreed in 2000 to help finance a $4.2 billion pipeline to tap the undeveloped oil wealth of Chad, one of the world’s poorest and most unstable nations, the agreement was a novel response to a persistent African quandary: how to make the continent’s rich natural resources pay off for its people, not only for its powerful.
The strategy was to use the World Bank’s money and credibility to persuade Chad to dedicate its earnings from oil to attacking its poverty by building schools, roads and hospitals.
That experiment ended quietly this week. Chad repaid the $65.7 million it owed the World Bank out of national coffers swollen by more than $1 billion a year in oil revenues, but it had not honored its bargain, the bank said.
As was noted recently in the New York Times ,
Under the plan, the World Bank helped finance a 665-mile pipeline for an oil consortium led by Exxon Mobil, linking oil fields in southern Chad with Atlantic Ocean terminals in Cameroon. In exchange, the government of Chad agreed to channel most of its royalties into fighting poverty. An independent oversight board was to approve or deny spending projects based on their prospects for reducing poverty.
But it never really worked that way. In May 2005 the board, in a damning investigation, found that much of the money was being wasted on abuses like shoddy school desks made of buckled wood, computers and printers purchased at inflated prices, and wells, schools and hospitals that were paid for but not completed.
Life has gone from bad to worse for most people in this landlocked country. According to Unicef, child mortality rose from 1990 to 2006. Only one adult in four is literate, and 37 percent of children are underweight.
Over the years, Chad failed to comply with key requirements of this agreement. A new agreement was signed in 2006, but once again the government did not allocate adequate resources critical for poverty reduction in – education, health, infrastructure, rural development and governance. Regrettably, it became evident that the arrangements that had underpinned the Bank’s involvement in the Chad/Cameroon pipeline project were not working. The Bank therefore concluded that it could not continue to support this project under these circumstances.
One wonders whether Patton Boggs’ formidable resources minimized the blowback that this country should have suffered as a result of the scuttled deal. From my perspective, it is troubling that any U.S. business should represent the interests of this troubled dictatorship.
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