State/P Toria Nuland Swears-In New SCA Asst Secretary Donald Lu

 

 

Confirmations: Donald Lu (SCA), Brian Nichols (WHA), Brett M. Holmgren (INR)

The U.S. Senate confirmed by voice vote two nominees for the State Department’s geographic bureau and one nominee for the functional bureau.
2021-09-13 PN551 Department of State | Donald Lu, of California, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor, to be Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs (SCA).
2021-09-13 PN268 Department of State | Brian A. Nichols, of Rhode Island, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Career Minister, to be an Assistant Secretary of State (Western Hemisphere Affairs).
2021-09-13 PN273 Department of State | Brett M. Holmgren, of Minnesota, to be an Assistant Secretary of State (Intelligence and Research).

 

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Amb. Donald Lu to be Asst Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs (State/SCA)

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On April 23, 2021 President Biden announced his intent to nominate Ambassador Donald Lu  to be the next Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs. The WH released the following brief bio:

Donald Lu, Nominee for Assistant Secretary, Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, Department of State

Donald Lu, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor, has been U.S. Ambassador to the Kyrgyz Republic since 2018. Previously, Lu was U.S. Ambassador to Albania. He has also served as Deputy Chief of Mission, U.S. Embassy New Delhi, India, Deputy Chief of Mission and the Chargé d’affaires, U.S. Embassy Baku, Azerbaijan and Deputy Chief of Mission, U.S. Embassy Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic. Earlier, Lu was the Deputy Director, Office of Central Asian and South Caucasus Affairs, for the Department of State and, before that, the Special Assistant to the Ambassador for the Newly Independent States. He also held postings in India, Georgia, and Pakistan. Lu earned M.A. and B.A. degrees from Princeton University. He is the recipient of the Rockwell Anthony Schnabel Award for advancing U.S.-European Union relations. Ambassador Lu speaks and reads Albanian, Russian, Azerbaijani, Georgian, West African Krio, Hindi and Urdu.

According to history.state.gov, the Foreign Relations Authorization Act for Fiscal Years 1992 and 1993 (P.L. 102-138; 105 Stat. 658) authorized the appointment of an Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs on October 28, 1991. Previous appointees to this position are as follows:
SES William Todd served as Acting A/S for SCA in 2017. On January 3, 2019, Trump nominated Robert Williams, a former Defense Intelligence Agency official for the SCA bureau. The nomination was withdrawn by the president on April 11, 2019.
SFSO Alice G. Wells served as Acting A/S from 2017-June 2020. After Ambassador Wells’ departure, DAS Thomas L. Vajda served as the South and Central Asian Bureau’s “senior bureau official on an interim basis.” SFSO Dean Thompson has been Acting A/S since January 20, 2021.
If confirmed, Ambassador Lu would be the first Senate-confirmed assistant secretary to lead the bureau since 2017.  Also with Ambassador Lu’s nomination, Foggy Bottom now has  one non-career appointee (EUR), one retired FS (NEA), and five active career Foreign Service officers  (WHA, EAP, AF, IO, SCA) expected to lead the State Department’s geographic bureaus.

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Confirmations 11/20: Pettit, Spratlen, Krol, Moreno, Lu, Hartley, Controversial Nominees Up Next Month

— Domani Spero
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The U.S. Senate confirmed the following nominations by voice vote on November 20:

  • James D. Pettit, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Moldova
  • Pamela Leora Spratlen, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Uzbekistan
  • George Albert Krol, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Kazakhstan
  • Luis G. Moreno, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to Jamaica
  • Donald Lu, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Albania
  • Brent Robert Hartley, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Slovenia

On November 18, the State Department spox, Jeff Rathke said that “The full Senate can consider each of these nominees quickly. Certainly, our career nominees could be confirmed en bloc, they’re well-qualified, and they’re experienced.”

We desperately need all of America’s team on the field of diplomacy, and these are all spectacularly qualified career nominees. This is exactly how our remaining nominations should be considered and confirmed. There are 19 career Foreign Service officers awaiting confirmation on the Senate floor. They were all carefully considered in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and approved. The full Senate can consider each of these nominees quickly. Certainly, our career nominees could be confirmed en bloc, they’re well-qualified, and they’re experienced.A total of 58 State Department nominees, including 35 career diplomats, are still waiting.
[…]
Nominees on the floor have waited for more than eight and a half months on average, 258 days. It’s critical, in the Department’s view, that we get these nominees confirmed before the Senate adjourns for the year to prevent further delay in meeting our foreign policy objectives, and while we appreciate the progress just made, we know that America is stronger if the backlog is cleared and our nominees are confirmed before Thanksgiving. The Secretary has made a personal plea to his former colleagues in the Senate, and we would ask again for their help.

On November 19, the spox tried again:

Yesterday, I began the briefing with a pitch for my fellow Foreign Service officers who have been waiting for Senate confirmation. Secretary Kerry called in from London to his chief of staff, David Wade, and he asked me to come out here again this afternoon and do the same. The Secretary has been in continued contact with his former colleagues on Capitol Hill about this. It’s very important to him. He needs to have his team and he also feels it’s important that these non-controversial nominees be confirmed before Thanksgiving as well. It’s the right thing to do for them, for their families, and for America’s interests.

On November 20, the spox tried once more to appeal that the nominees be confirmed “en bloc or by unanimous consent”to no avail:

We’ve asked the united – that the Senate confirm these nominations en bloc or by unanimous consent, as we’ve seen in some cases this week, particularly because there’s no objection to these highly qualified and dedicated nominees. We urge the Senate to confirm them quickly and put them to work for the country. We need it desperately.

 

It looks like that’s it for today.  Coming up next month, the nominations of the more controversial nominee to Argentina:

Plus the nominee for Hungary:

 

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Senate Confirmation by Crisis Continues: Hoza (Cameroon), Polaschik (Algeria), Andre (Mauritania),

— Domani Spero
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The U.S. Senate appears to continue its trend of headline-triggered confirmations. Today, the Senate confirmed by voice votes the following ambassador to three African posts.

If you missed it, on July 27, WaPo reported that Nigerian Boko Haram militants kidnapped the wife of Cameroon’s vice prime minister. Premium Times citing BBC Hausa reported today that Security Forces in the Cameroun Republic have rescued the wife of the country’s Deputy Prime Minister, Amadou Ali, who was abducted on Sunday by suspected members of the extremist Boko Haram sect.  If that’s not enough bad news, VOA also reported that an outbreak of Cholera has killed 200 in Northern Cameroon and that there are fears that this may be a repeat of the 2010 epidemic, when the country had to deal with 10,000 cases.

Ambassador-Designate Hoza also made the news recently when he was featured and quoted in WaPo’s piece, At Falls Church apartments, would-be ambassadors and families live in limbo. The three other nominees cited in that article, Donald Lu (Albania), Eric Schultz (Zambia), and Amy Hyatt (Palau) are not currently scheduled for a Senate vote.

We have previously blogged about Ambassador-Designate Polaschik when she was the deputy chief of mission who ran the Embassy Libya after Ambassador Cretz left the country due to Wikileaks.  She also led the evacuation of personnel/American citizens in February 2011 and lead the team back into Tripoli when it reopened in September 2011. A few days ago, Algeria was in the news.  Its national airline Air Algerie on a flight from Burkina Faso’s capital of Ouagadougou to Algiers had crashed in Mali. Did that prompt the confirmation?

What about Mauritania, what’s going on there?  Issues of interest include al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb and Mali refugees. Mauritania just had its presidential election last June. The United States “looks forward to continuing to work with President-elect Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz and the Government of Mauritania to promote prosperity and regional security” but that’s going to be difficult without an ambassador there.  Oops! The U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit is coming up next week, perhaps the U.S. Senate did note Mauritania’s Chairmanship of the African Union, and so we’ve got Ambassador-Designate Larry Andre ready to beam over to Nouakchott, so he could beam back to D.C. for the Summit next week.

Three days to go before Congress breaks for the summer!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today at the SFRC: AM – Gottemoeller, Rose, Scheinman; PM – Broas, Lu, Sherman

— By Domani Spero

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee today will hold confirmation hearings on the nominees to three posts related to arms control  (T Bureau) and nonproliferation. The afternoon hearings will consider the nominations for the ambassadorial posts to Morocco, Albania and Portugal.

Morning Hearings

Presiding: Senator Menendez
Date: Thursday, September 26, 2013
Time: 10:00 AM
Location:Senate Dirksen 419

Nominees:

  • The Honorable Rose Eilene Gottemoeller of Virginia, to be Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security
  • Mr. Frank A. Rose of Massachusetts, to be Assistant Secretary of State for Verification and Compliance
  • Mr. Adam M. Scheinman of Virginia, to be Special Representative of the President for Nuclear Nonproliferation, with the Rank of Ambassador

 

This hearing is scheduled to be live webcast. Click here http://www.foreign.senate.gov/hearings/nomination-09-26-2013  to view the hearing live or read the prepared statements.

 

Afternoon Hearings:

Presiding: Senator Murphy
Date: Thursday, September 26, 2013
Time: 02:00 PM
Location: Senate Dirksen 419

Nominees:

  • Mr. Timothy Broas of Maryland, to be Ambassador to the Kingdom of the Netherlands
  • Mr. Donald Lu of California, to be Ambassador to the Republic of Albania
  • Mr. Robert A. Sherman of Massachusetts, to be Ambassador to the Portuguese Republic

This hearing is scheduled to be live webcast. Click here http://www.foreign.senate.gov/hearings/nomination-09-26-2013-pm  to watch video or read the nominees’ prepared statements.

 

(O_O)