Review of of Citizen Diplomacy Summit, April 3 A Citizen Diplomacy Summit was held at Marian College April 3. Co-sponsored by the International Center of Indianapolis and The Franciscan Center for Global Studies at Marian College (and endorsed by more than a dozen other organizations), this program was part of a series of nationwide summits intended to raise awareness about the Citizen Diplomacy movement and explain its role in advancing U.S. foreign relations, promoting world peace, and increasing international activism. The Summit at Marian was one of a series of dozens of Community Citizen Diplomacy Summits called by the Coalition for Citizen Diplomacy, which will bring together representatives of these Summits to a National Summit in Washington DC July 12-14.

The Summit kicked off with a keynote speech by Rep. Dan Burton, Chair of the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere for the House Committee on International Relations. Some might have thought that the main message a US Congressperson could deliver to a Summit on Citizen Diplomacy should be: “My fellow politicians and I are irrelevant.” In fact, Rep. Burton has long praised the private voluntary organizations he has seen working around the world. He admires churches’ relief missions, university students studying abroad, and the Peace Corps. The Congressperson carried up to the podium an excellent speech connecting these citizen efforts to the wider challenges facing Latin America and the US.


The speech he delivered however was slightly different, and focused more on the threat to shaky democracies across Latin America posed by the twin threats of Cuba and (especially) President Hugo Chávez in Venezuela. Rep. Burton seems to feel a sense of déjà vu, having seen something similar during the 1980s with the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, the FMLN in El Salvador, the New Jewel Movement in Grenada, FARC in Colombia … all supported by the USSR and Castro. Today the situation is perhaps even more disturbing since Venezuela’s oil gives Chávez access to resources with which to cause trouble that Fidel Castro has never possessed (“Chávez is Castro with money,” said the Congressperson). In the 1980s, Burton believes, the “Reagan Doctrine” helped defeat most of these leftist movements be establishing democracy, and the new wave of leftists must be confronted similarly today.

This struggle in Latin America touches us directly in Indianapolis. The state’s economy depends on trade with Latin America. Rep. Burton tells of a recent trip to Central America he made with Lt. Gov. Skillman: his thinking about trade has evolved over time, moving from opposition to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) in the 1990s to support for a Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) today. He supports CAFTA today because of its implications for national security: we can use it to stop the wars of the 1980s from reappearing. Another way the conflicts in Latin America directly touch our lives is through immigrants dislodged by war and poverty.

By straying from his prepared speech, Rep. Burton gave the audience a peek into the thinking of one of the most influential conservative policymakers in Congress … no doubt about it, to judge from the speech he delivered at Marian college, that thinking is preoccupied with Hugo Chávez.

The audience, however, didn’t get a chance to hear one of the most important passage from the Congressperson’s prepared speech:

Elsewhere in Central America, in El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala,
political corruption and a growing outbreak of violent crimes, especially by
gangs, have posed serious challenges to these young democracies. Drug
trafficking, HIV/AIDS, poverty, lawlessness and crime are straining resources in
the Caribbean, already stretched thin by hurricane reconstruction. Governments
alone cannot relieve and rebuild the lives affected by the natural and man-made
challenges. There is a significant role that needs to be filled by the
organizations, like many represented here today, who can deliver care,
compassion, assistance and technology to help the underdeveloped or disaffected
segments of the societies in these areas.

This is the most significant message from the Congressperson for the Citizens Diplomacy Summit. Poverty, social disarray, and government corruption can drive people toward extremism. The global problems facing poor and unstable countries in Central America and around the world are too much for their governments to solve. They are too much for the US government to solve. Because we are inextricably linked to the rest of the world by trade, by immigration, and by instantaneous communication, the problems wracking the lives of local communities around the world hurt us in Central Indiana as well. Most importantly, perhaps, local groups here may be able to partner with local groups in other countries to solve these global problems.

Rep. Burton could have made another point connecting the geopolitical interests of the US with the themes of this Summit. Hugo Chávez may or may not be funding guerrillas in the region, but what he definitely is funding is a masterful public diplomacy campaign to win the hearts and minds of people across the region. Chávez connects the poverty people experience every day with a grand story of how the US is responsible, but this is not the essence of his public diplomacy campaign. The key is that Chávez puts Venezuela’s money where his mouth is. We caught a taste of this over the winter when he offered to provide cheap heating oil to poor Americans.


But any warm-and-fuzzies Bostonians might feel toward Chávez about receiving discounted Venezuelan heating oil is nothing compared to the love that some people around Latin America and the Caribbean feel for Venezuela. Venezuelan soldiers help Jamaica rebuild after Hurricane Ivan while Venezuelan petrodollars pay for Cuban doctors to provide first-rate free health services to poor people around the region (replicating the very popular program of providing Cuban doctors to slum-dwellers in Venezuelan cities).

The real danger Hugo Chávez poses to Latin America is not funding revolutionaries. It is that poor people will be seduced toward his populist economic policies that are unsustainable over a long period and that might not work at all without the enormous cash windfalls Venezuela has received selling its oil to the US (most Latin American countries aren’t sitting atop one of the world’s largest reserves of oil, and thus can’t afford Chavéz-style goofiness). When the policies fail and the condition of their economies gets even worse, angry people whose expectations have been lifted and dashed will blame betrayal, and could seek scapegoats on which to vent their frustration. No one wants to see that happen.

It would be a pity if Chavéz’s policies were adopted not on their merits but because only Chavéz seems to care enough about the poor and disenfranchised to try to relieve their problems. Here is a place where citizen diplomats can make a difference. Most Hoosiers who help build schools in Guatemala or provide medical care to Peru aren’t trying to promote the US Administration’s foreign policy: they are trying to do the right thing. But for American citizens to choose to sacrifice to help the poor in other countries defuses Chavéz’s message that only he cares.

A question politely left unasked during the question and answers after Rep. Burton’s speech: which president poses a greater threat to Latin America? It’s likely that many people in the audience identify more with Hugo Chavéz’s populism than with the Bush Administration’s policies. Perhaps that is what distinguishes “citizen diplomacy” from “public diplomacy.” If diplomacy means a government negotiating with other governments in pursuit of its foreign policy goals, public diplomacy is a government trying to win the hearts and sway the minds of citizens in other countries, again in pursuit of its foreign policy goals. (Examples of techniques of our government’s public diplomacy: news broadcasts to the Muslim world (that get the US government’s message to ordinary citizens), bringing rising leaders from other countries to the US (in hopes that they will better appreciate American culture and policies.) Citizen diplomacy is decentralized, not part of any government’s pursuit of policy goals, and sometimes quite difficult to mesh with any broader agenda. It is carried out by thousands of individuals and groups for thousands of individual and group goals, many of which may conflict with US government policy.

Dan Burton’s speech was followed by a panel discussion bringing together an abundance of very diverse individuals representing groups engaged in many different aspects of citizen diplomacy (as well as many activities that wouldn’t count as citizen diplomacy). Some highlights from each panelist:

Fran Quigley, Executive Director of ACLU-Indiana, has chronicled many cases of citizen diplomacy in NUVO. He identified three noteworthy examples:

• The IU Medical School’s remarkable partnership with Moi University in Eldoret, Kenya.
• Faith-based partnerships between local groups in Indiana and local groups around the world have multiplied too quickly to count
• Quoting Tip O’Neill that “all politics are local,” Fran expressed admiration at the local groups who have translated their citizen diplomacy initiatives into significant influence over DC-based international policy

Stan Soderstrom is Associate Executive Director of Kiwanis International, “a global organization dedicated to changing the world one child and one community at a time.” With more than 8,400 clubs (280,000 members) in 96 countries, Kiwanis International has a genuinely global reach. It has experience addressing serious large-scale problems, as with its long-time partnership with UNICEF. Kiwanis has raised nearly $100 million to iodize salt to prevent thyroid problems and mental retardation in poor countries, and sponsors many service leadership programs. Lately Stan and Kiwanis International have convened the first of an expected series of discussions of some of the leaders of the international community in Indianapolis.

Henry Cole is Chair of Indiana Sister Cities. One might think that with its mission of “promoting understanding and cooperation between the citizens of Indiana and its sister cites and sister states,” Sister Cities would be no more than just another group aspiring to give the world a big hug. Not so. Henry mentioned Tempe’s award-winning Sister City program: the program has drilled wells and planted trees in dry, deforested Timbuktu, and sponsored exchanges with Skopje. Bloomington has maintained a mutually beneficial partnership with Posoltega, Nicaragua.

Kristin Garvey is associate director of the International Center of Indianapolis, which is devoted to making Indianapolis a welcoming place for those from around the world. In addition to helping businesses adapt effectively to a global marketplace, the International Center runs the National Council for International Visitors program for Indianapolis. Whenever the State Department sends groups of Albanian water treatment engineers or Senegalese middle school administrators to the US to learn about this country, Kristin is in charge of the Central Indiana portions of these visits.


Susan Sutton, Associate Dean of International Programs at IUPUI, discussed the opportunities for broader citizen diplomacy that emerges from the university. Educating students globally has long been one of the main forms of citizen diplomacy, IUPUI offers focused and tailored study abroad through service learning. It has signed affiliation agreements with more than 160 higher education institutions around the world. And with more than a thousand students from abroad coming to Indianapolis every year, IUPUI is a conduit bringing the world here.

Christine Vogel is VP of Strategic Development for AFS-USA (formerly American Field Service), which traditionally has organized intercultural student and teacher exchanges. Christine explained how several cities have sought to coordinate many of the diverse and fragmented organizations that work in the area of citizen diplomacy: Newark, Boston, NYC (focusing on the arts), Philadelphia (focusing on the quality of life), and Denver. She offered to put Indianapolis into contact with consultants who led these efforts.


Stephen Akard, Director of International Development for the Indiana Economic Development Corporation, is in charge of promoting international business opportunities for the state. With eleven trade offices and a network of informal connections around the world, the IEDC offers a supporting infrastructure for noncommercial citizen diplomacy initiatives. And from the IEDC’s perspective, robust global linkages of Indiana groups and individuals helps attract foreign investment.


Sergio Agilera, Consul of the Republic of Mexico, spoke briefly about the importance of citizen diplomacy to Mexico and Indiana. There are many opportunities for Hoosiers to engage in Mexico, from the highest levels of government to the poorest communities. When Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson led a delegation of businesspeople to Mexico last fall, Consul Aguilera helped set up high level and very productive meetings for the educators and nonprofits that were on the trip. Juana Watson (advisor on Latino affairs to Gov. Mitch Daniels) described the many trips she has led from Indiana to her native village of Calnali in Hidalgo: churches, IU medical students and professors, firemen and police officers.

Some of the questions from the audience reflected curiosity about specific aspects of citizen diplomacy in Indianapolis.
The International Center organizes the trips for groups of other country’s young leaders visiting the US: but is there a program for young Hoosier leaders to make study trips to other countries? (Answer: not exactly.)
If aspiring citizen diplomats want to learn more intensively about particular cultures, where should they go? Answers: The International Center is very good at preparing businesses and their employees with everything they need. The Nationalities Council of Indiana brings together groups attached almost every country and ethnic group in the world. IUPUI and the other universities in the region have many world-class experts as well as students and faculty members from all over the world.

Some forty college students who attended the summit broke away during the panel discussion for an intensive workshop offered by Americans for Informed Democracy, a nonprofit group that seeks to connect young people to global issues. This workshop paralleled two communications training programs offered by Citizens for Global Solutions to leaders of some of the international organizations in Indianapolis over the weekend. The two sessions offered by AID during the citizen summit:
· Messaging 101: How to talk global issues with Americans. A workshop on the best strategies for talking global issues with Americans using the approach of the U.S. in the World Guide, intended to help students talk more effectively about global issues with friends, family, and the broader public.
· Organizing 101: How to Organize Town Halls That Educate and Activate Your Community. A workshop on how to organize a town hall meeting on global issues, enabling participants to bring the world home to diverse, non-expert members of the public.
As Indianapolis becomes more organized and intentional in its citizen diplomacy, it is important to engage these national organizations that want to provide us with the proper tools.

The citizen summit concluded with a talk by Judy O’Bannon, former First Lady of Indiana and Director of External Affairs of Indianapolis Peace House. Judy has been involved in international exchanges and programs since her late husband moved to Indianapolis as Lt. Governor. Judy offered dozens of examples from her experience of how connecting directly with people from around the world can transform lives.

By the end of the Summit, a sort of logic became clear. Rep. Burton alluded to aspects of international politics that badly require effective citizen diplomacy. Poverty, disease, and corruption are all social dysfunctions contributing to the fragility of democracies in Latin America that he fears could allow troublemakers such as Hugo Chávez to damage vital US interests. These are also local social problems that nongovernmental citizen initiatives from Indiana might help solve more effectively than DC-based international aid programs. Judy O’Bannon observed how the American individuals and communities are changed by citizen diplomacy. The two talks capture vividly the two of the most important reasons for people to engage with the world: it makes the world a better place, and it makes us better people.

Hearing this message about the two crucial possibilities of citizen diplomacy was a crowd of people who, by virtue of plunking down $10 to attend the Summit, have demonstrated they take this seriously: probably most of them are now engaged in forms of citizen diplomacy, and probably most want to become even more engaged. The organizations represented by the panelists are but a few of the hundreds of intermediaries with the mission of connecting people like those in the audience to the sorts of opportunities alluded to by Burton and O’Bannon.

The trick following the Summit is to connect the desires and aspirations of those in the audience (and many, many more like them in the community) to the intermediary organizations, and to help the intermediaries identify the best and most appropriate citizen diplomacy opportunities for people and groups. Caterina Cregor Blitzer, Director of the International Center of Indianapolis, challenged the participants in the Summit to think of concrete action steps. Cathy suggested several:
An institutional inventory of local organizations engaged in citizen diplomacy
Continuation of the discussions of leaders of these organizations initiated by Kiwanis International
A mapping of potential national-level funders of citizen diplomacy in Central Indiana
Continue efforts to integrate global issues and citizen diplomacy in early education  ¶ 12:57 PM