Others With Mickey Leland

It is most regrettable that Mickey Leland lost his life while on a hunger relief mercy mission in Ethiopia.

To honor his memory, Congress should pass the Global Poverty Reduction Act this year. This act would effect subtle but profound changes in our nation’s approach to international poverty by mandating a different focus on our foreign aid goals. Under the proposed new guidelines, aid would be primarily used to reduce child mortality, increase female literacy and reduce the percentage of any given country’s population living in such dire poverty that even basic survival items aren’t available.

All too often our foreign aid simply props up oligarchies that, in a narrow sense, serve what we deem our security interests, or profit an economic elite at the expense of the commonplace.

Mickey Leland died wanting something better for everyone. Let’s work to make his dream come true.

RODNEY B. THORN

San Jose