The report, “The African-American Institute”, dated March 18, 1983, found at https://www.heritage.org/report/the-african-american-institute with the original copy attached, is worth the read in its entirety. Below are a few excerpts.
This organization, the African-American Institute (AAI), has received over $135 million from the American taxpayer in the past twenty-five years. How this money has been, and is being, spent ought to be a matter of concern to the taxpayer and to Congress.
To find such applicants, AAI seeks advice from, among others, "nationalist movements associated with the OAU (organization of African Unity] and the U.N.," thus assuring, "the legitimacy of the exiles' situation and their suitability for the desired training." These organizations include the African National Congress (ANC) and the South-West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO). Both groups have records of terrorism and are committed to establishingby force if necessaryMarxist governments in southern Africa. The ANC, in fact, is regarded by many to be almost completely controlled by the South African Communist Party. It also is widely believed that the recent murder of one-time ANC member Bartholomew Hlapane was ordered by ANC because he had testified about ANC-South African Communist Party links before the U.S.. Senate.6 Never- theless, AAI continues to provide U.S. financed scholarships to students named by these Marxist organizations. ANC Education Committee chairman Fred Dube was contacted by telephone in New York in December 1982 and confirmed the longstanding relationship between the AAI and the ANC, saying:
The only problem we have in dealing with AAI is that they decide what degrees our students are allowed to pursue. We want more students trained in the sciences. They insist that our students focus on the liberal arts, and that our students study in more African than American schools.
While AAI has been dealing with various Marxist organizations, several equally anti-apartheid black organizations, who do not share the Marxist commitments of ANC or SWAPO, have been virtually excluded from this scholarship selection process. One such organizdtion is INKATHA, led by Chief M. Gatha Buthelezi. With a paid membership of over 700,000 black South Africans, INKATHA has long fought apartheid in South Africa by peaceful and non-Marxist means. Nevertheless, according to sources close to INKATHA, the AAI usually ignores INKATHA representatives and does not ask them for names of "worthy" scholarship applicants. This was confirmed by several U.S. government officials.”
The UNITA students complain bitterly about AAI's role during their struggle to adjust to their changing circumstances. "we all knew the African-American Institute favored the MPLA, so we felt we were on our own," one student explains. Adds another student: "One AAI program officer tried to convince us that it was our duty to go back home and work for the MPLA.11 At one point the students began receiving phone calls from MPLA leaders visiting the U.S.
The major complaint about AAI conferences is that the guest lists consistently lean to Marxist or pro-Marxist governments and organizations and either exclude or severely limit participation by Africans and Americans who favor the U.S. Administration's policy prescriptions for African development. (This was true in the Carter Administration as well as in the Reagan Administration.) The conference in Harare typified this. The guest list included five members of SWAPO and several members of the ANC and the Pan African Congress; yet Chief Buthelezi, representing 750,000 black South Africans was not invited.
In fall 1982, for example, AAI honored Angolan (MPLA) foreign minister Paulo Jorge with a dinner in New York, according to AAI program officer Yolande Zahler. This dinner was followed several weeks later by a reception for another MPLA Angolan government official, hosted by David Rockefeller.