Monday, February 29, 2016

UN Experts to Investigate Violations of Human Rights in Burundi
BURUNDI

The United Nations independent experts appointed to investigate violations of human rights committed during the ten-month crisis in Burundi, will be in the country on Tuesday, March 1, according to a statement from the UN High Commissioner for human rights released Monday.

The three experts, including the UN Human Rights Council who had requested to be dispatched since December 17, were mandated to “investigate violations and abuses of human rights in order to prevent deterioration of the situation”.

“Our goal is to help the state (Burundi) to fulfill its obligations on human rights and to establish accountability for violations and abuses of human rights, including identifying the perpetrators,” said South African Christof Heyns, UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions.

“We received a clear mandate from the Human Rights Council to help Burundi avoid the worst,” added Algerian Maya Sahli-Fadel, Special Rapporteur of the African Union on refugees, asylum seekers, displaced persons and migrants in Africa.

The third of these experts is the Colombian Pablo de Greiff, special UN rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence.

“The sending of this mission was not easy because the Burundian government initially created obstacles. The mission was made possible during the visit of the UN Secretary General in Burundi a week ago”, a UN personnel told AFP on condition of anonymity.

The fact-finding mission will present a preliminary report on March 21 and its final report in September.

Burundi is immersed in a 10-month deep political crisis, born from the desire of President Pierre Nkurunziza to stay in power for a third term, which he obtained in July.

According to the opposition, civil society and part of his camp, his re-election violates the constitution and the Arusha agreement that ended the civil war between 1993 and 2006 which saw 300,000 people dead.

The armed violence have already killed more than 400 dead and forced more than 240,000 people to leave the country. Human rights organizations have denounced the existence of mass graves, many cases of executions and targeted killings.
Like Zuma’s Plane, Burundi’s Peace Process is Struggling to Take Off
SIMON ALLISON
29 FEB 2016 10:02

Photo: Burundi's President Pierre Nkurunziza (R) embraces his South African counterpart Jacob Zuma (R) as he departs after an Africa Union-sponsored dialogue in an attempt to end months of violence in the capital Bujumbura, February 27, 2016. The African Union will send 100 human rights monitors and 100 military monitors to Burundi, South Africa's president said on Saturday after a trip to the tiny nation that is facing its worst crisis since a civil war ended a decade ago. REUTERS/Evrard Ngendakumana

As an aircraft, Jacob Zuma’s presidential plane may be unreliable and unfit for purpose. But as a metaphor for Burundi’s ongoing strife, and the international community’s repeated failure to address the crisis, it does the job perfectly. By SIMON ALLISON.

President Jacob Zuma’s weekend visit to Burundi ended in ignominy. As his fellow heads of state departed, Zuma’s plane remained stranded on the tarmac at Bujumbura International Airport, forcing the president to stay in troubled Burundi for an unscheduled extra night. He wasn’t happy.

“This plane is compromising his safety and it is embarrassing,” said South African National Defence Force spokesman Siphiwe Dlamini. “We need [a new plane] like yesterday. Not even tomorrow. It is very critical. This is not an isolated incident.”

Zuma was in Burundi to lead a high-level delegation of the African Union, comprised of five heads of state (from South Africa, Ethiopia, Gabon, Senegal and Mauritania). The delegation was supposed to meet with Burundi’s President Pierre Nkurunziza, and persuade him to co-operate with regional mediation efforts designed to end the emerging conflict in Burundi.

Like Zuma’s plane, Burundi’s peace process has struggled to take off. Nkurunziza has been notably unwilling to engage directly with the main opposition groups, which have been hampered by a lack of co-ordination. It hasn’t helped that the mediator appointed to lead the process, Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni, has been distracted by domestic politics: his controversial re-election campaign concluded earlier this month (to no one’s surprise, he was re-elected).

Meanwhile, the situation in Burundi continues to deteriorate. Refugees continue to pour across the country’s borders (260,000 people and counting), while even more have been internally displaced. There are frequent incidents of violence in the capital, including mysterious disappearances and summary executions, and the situation in the more rural areas is likely to be even worse. The reason we don’t really know what’s going on outside the capital is because of the government’s near-complete elimination of independent media and civil society organisations. We do know, however, that rebel militias are gaining strength in border regions, with alleged support from Rwandan security forces, in preparation for an all-out conflict.

Into this delicate situation arrived the AU’s high-level panel. It was not quite the game-changing intervention that the AU had threatened in December, when its Peace and Security Council voted to send a 5,000-strong peacekeeping mission to the country, a decision hailed at the time as evidence that the AU was no longer a paper tiger, but was really taking charge of continental security issues.

Alas, the mission was short-lived: even before it got to the planning stage, heads of state at the AU Summit in January scrapped the idea, much to the delight of Burundi’s energetic foreign minister, who declared the decision a “vindication” of his government. In place of the peacekeepers, the AU decided to send a few presidents to Bujumbura to pressure Nkurunziza. So much for the continental body’s newfound assertiveness.

Zuma, as the man responsible for mediating the peace process that brought an end to Burundi’s last civil war in the early 2000s, was a natural choice to lead a high-level delegation. He welcomed the assignment, which perhaps provided a welcome respite from his many troubles on the home front, and gave him a chance to show off his credentials as a statesman.

He did not take this chance.

The high-level panel struggled to get through to a stubborn Nkurunziza, as their final statement reveals. Despite describing the visit as “fruitful and productive”, in reality the delegation failed to extract any meaningful concessions from the Burundian government.

The government’s first commitment, to “continue the steps it has begun to open up space for free political activity by the people of Burundi and ensure the freedom of the media”, is ironic given that the government has been actively closing civil society space and limiting media freedom over the last year.

Its second commitment, to allow the AU to deploy 100 human rights observers and 100 military observers “to monitor the situation” is merely a rehash of a previous commitment to allow AU observers in, one which has been repeatedly stymied. Observers are right to remain sceptical until the observers are actually on the ground, and even then their impact will be limited by resources and access.

In other words, the panel achieved nothing new. Most significantly, it failed to extract a concrete promise from Nkurunziza to attend genuinely inclusive peace talks. In the past few months, Burundi’s government has said it is happy to attend talks, but only if it got to choose who is represented at those talks. Hardly a recipe for peace.

A frustrating trip for the South African president was capped by the breakdown of his presidential plane, forcing him to stay longer than he would have liked in Bujumbura. It’s hard to miss the symbolism of the technical failure, however: If even President Zuma can’t get off the ground, is there any real hope that the peace process can achieve lift off? DM

Photo: Burundi's President Pierre Nkurunziza (R) embraces his South African counterpart Jacob Zuma (R) as he departs after an Africa Union-sponsored dialogue in an attempt to end months of violence in the capital Bujumbura, February 27, 2016. The African Union will send 100 human rights monitors and 100 military monitors to Burundi, South Africa's president said on Saturday after a trip to the tiny nation that is facing its worst crisis since a civil war ended a decade ago.

REUTERS/Evrard Ngendakumana
Hecklers Disrupt Trump Rally, Photographer Shoved to the Ground
A Donald Trump rally in Virginia was repeatedly disrupted on Monday by protesters, including some from the Black Lives Matter movement, in a stark display of the divisions the Republican front-runner's presidential campaign has long been accused of sowing.

01 Mar 2016 06:50

WASHINGTON - A Donald Trump rally in Virginia was repeatedly disrupted on Monday by protesters, including some from the Black Lives Matter movement, in a stark display of the divisions the Republican front-runner's presidential campaign has long been accused of sowing.

A Time magazine photographer trying to document the exit of dozens of black protesters from the rally in southwestern Radford, Virginia, was grabbed by the neck and shoved to the ground by a U.S. Secret Service agent.

Hecklers disrupted the rally on a day when the New York billionaire fended off criticism that he had not clearly condemned white supremacist support during an interview on CNN on Sunday.

Trump taunted the protesters, shouting "Are you from Mexico?" at one of them. Supporters in the audience confronted the hecklers in angry, face-to-face exchanges.

As black protesters were escorted from the rally, the crowd around them began to chant, "All lives matter."

Trump waited for the scene to quiet down before saying, "Folks, you're going to hear it once: All lives matter." The crowd roared with applause.

Black Lives Matter is a civil rights movement that sprung from police shootings of black Americans in recent years.

The Trump rally took place on the eve of Super Tuesday, the biggest voting day in the race to pick the 2016 presidential nominees for the November election. A number of Southern states including Virginia are holding contests on Tuesday and opinion polls show Trump is likely to consolidate his status as favourite to win the Republican nomination.

It was unclear whether Trump would be damaged by support from white supremacists. He has risen in opinion polls and won three of four early nominating contests while proposing a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country, calling Mexican immigrants criminals and insulting women.

'GET THEM OUT'

On Monday, the protesters disrupted Trump's remarks several times for long stretches, prompting him to shout to security guards several times, "Get them out please, get them out."

Trump appeared to relish the discord, saying after the turmoil in the crowd that his rallies were more exciting than those of the other candidates: "But it is fun, and exciting."

At a rally last week in Nevada, Trump also jumped into the fray with a protester when he said, "I'd like to punch him in the face."

Time photographer Chris Morris was on the fringe of an enclosed media section when he was seized by an agent from the Secret Service, which has the job of protecting the U.S. president and some White House candidates.

"I stepped 18 inches out of the (press) pen and then he grabbed me by the neck and started choking me and then he slammed me to the ground," Morris told CNN at the scene.

The Trump campaign said it was not aware of the details of the incident and directed inquires to local law enforcement.

Secret Service spokesman Robert Hoback said the agency was aware of the incident involving one of its employees but it still working to "determine the exact circumstances that led up to this incident."

Earlier on Monday, Trump's rivals slammed him for equivocating on white supremacist support when he was asked repeatedly on CNN if he would condemn the Klan and disavow support from white supremacists, including David Duke, a former Klan grand wizard from Louisiana.

Trump said that he had been hampered by a faulty earpiece during the CNN interview.

On the Democratic side, front-runner Hillary Clinton alluded to the country's divisions on Monday after a landslide victory on Saturday in South Carolina's primary shifted her attention from party rival Bernie Sanders to the candidate she may end up facing in November.

"I don’t think America ever stopped being great," she told supporters in Massachusetts, adding a twist to Trump's "Make America Great Again" slogan. "What we need to do now is make America whole."

(Additional reporting by Amanda Becker, Susan Heavey, Megan Cassella; Writing by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Frances Kerry)

- Reuters
Secret Service Agent Brutally Choke Slams a Photographer at Trump Rally
BY BRIAN RIES

This story was updated at 3:15 p.m. ET.

A Secret Service agent violently slammed a photographer to the ground during a Donald Trump rally held in Virginia on Monday.

The incident, which was captured in numerous videos, began when Christopher Morris, a Time magazine photographer, attempted to take photos of a crowd of Black Lives Matter protesters, who disrupted the Trump rally by marching out with their hands above their heads.

He is stopped by an agent and then tells him, "Fuck you." The agent asks, "What?"

An Instagram video posted by a spectator then clearly shows the agent choking the journalist and slamming him to the ground. That video has been removed, but there is a GIF of what it looked like .

A longer version of that video can be seen on Storyful's YouTube.

A third video then shows the agent standing over Morris, who is kicking him away with both legs.

Joe Perticone, an Independent Journal reporter who recorded a video of the incident up close, described it as a "choke slam."

"Are we having a good time?" Trump reportedly asked his supporters as the incident unfolded, according to the Washington Examiner.

Morris, a war photographer who witnesses said was on assignment for TIME magazine, said he was arrested.

He was "credentialed press" and was trying to leave a press pen to photograph the protesters when he was forcefully stopped.

Time confirmed the situation and said it had reached out to the U.S. Secret Service "to express concerns about the level and nature of the agent's response."

Morris gave a short interview to CNN's Jim Acosta shortly after being ejected from the event.

"I stepped 18 inches out of the pen and he grabbed me by the neck and started choking me and slammed me to the ground," Morris said.

He told WSET reporter Annie Andersen that he was arrested after trying to show Trump's press official what the agent had done. "I said he choked me, so I put my hand on him, and that's when I was arrested," he said.

Benjamin Lowy, a photojournalist on assignment with the Wall Street Journal who was seen on video trying to break the two men apart, told Mashable the scuffle began in a "tug of war" of sorts before escalating. "All of a sudden the agent just kind grabbed him by the neck and slammed him down into the ground," he said.

Lowy said he told the agent he overreacted with the body slam.

"I said, 'Dude that was way over the top. Too much. You don't need to body slam a dude that's in his 60s to the ground,'" he said.

The agent responded that Morris had "put his hands on me" and so he was permitted to do the takedown.

It was initially unclear if the security staffer was a member of Trump's Secret Service detail or a member of his private security team, though a statement from the campaign cleared that up, and referred further questions to law enforcement.

The Secret Service said in a statement that it was investigating the incident.

Trump's campaign security has been criticized for roughing up reporters and otherwise restricting their access to his events in the past.

A Huffington Post story in January included a comment from the Secret Service that said, "Any restrictions on press movements above and beyond security related procedures are designated and enforced by staff, not by the Secret Service."

The agency has not yet commented on Monday's events.
Demonstrators Disrupt Trump Rally, Photographer Shoved to the Ground
BY DOINA CHIACU
Reuters

Protestors hold hands in the air as they yell at U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during a campaign event in Radford, Virginia February 29, 2016.
REUTERS/CHRIS KEANE

WASHINGTON - A Donald Trump rally in Virginia was repeatedly disrupted on Monday by protesters, including some from the Black Lives Matter movement, in a stark display of the divisions the Republican front-runner's presidential campaign has long been accused of sowing.

A Time magazine photographer trying to document the exit of dozens of black protesters from the rally in southwestern Radford, Virginia, was grabbed by the neck and shoved to the ground by a U.S. Secret Service agent.

Hecklers disrupted the rally on a day when the New York billionaire fended off criticism that he had not clearly condemned white supremacist support during an interview on CNN on Sunday.

Trump taunted the protesters, shouting "Are you from Mexico?" at one of them. Supporters in the audience confronted the hecklers in angry, face-to-face exchanges.

As black protesters were escorted from the rally, the crowd around them began to chant, "All lives matter."

Trump waited for the scene to quiet down before saying, "Folks, you're going to hear it once: All lives matter." The crowd roared with applause.

Black Lives Matter is a civil rights movement that sprang from police shootings of black Americans in recent years.

The Trump rally took place on the eve of Super Tuesday, the biggest voting day in the race to pick the 2016 presidential nominees for the November election. A number of Southern states including Virginia are holding contests on Tuesday, and opinion polls show Trump is likely to consolidate his status as favorite to win the Republican nomination.

It was unclear whether Trump would be damaged by support from white supremacists. He has risen in opinion polls and won three of four early nominating contests while proposing a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country, calling Mexican immigrants criminals and insulting women.

His rivals for the Republican nomination, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, urged him to ask the New York Times to release a recording of his recent interview with its editorial board, following a report he told it he was not serious about his immigration proposals.

'GET THEM OUT'

On Monday, the protesters disrupted Trump's remarks several times for long stretches, prompting him to shout to security guards several times, "Get them out please, get them out."

Trump appeared to relish the discord, saying after the turmoil in the crowd that his rallies were more exciting than those of the other candidates: "But it is fun, and exciting."

At a rally last week in Nevada, Trump also jumped into the fray with a protester when he said, "I'd like to punch him in the face."

Time photographer Chris Morris was on the fringe of an enclosed media section when he was seized by an agent from the Secret Service, which has the job of protecting the U.S. president and some White House candidates.

"I stepped 18 inches out of the (press) pen and then he grabbed me by the neck and started choking me and then he slammed me to the ground," Morris told CNN at the scene.

The Trump campaign said it was not aware of the details of the incident and directed inquires to local law enforcement.

Secret Service spokesman Robert Hoback said the agency was aware of the incident involving one of its employees but it still working to "determine the exact circumstances that led up to this incident."

Earlier on Monday, Trump's rivals criticized him for equivocating on white supremacist support when he was asked repeatedly on CNN if he would condemn the Klan and disavow support from white supremacists, including David Duke, a former Klan grand wizard from Louisiana.

Trump said that he had been hampered by a faulty earpiece during the CNN interview.

Duke on Monday denied that he had endorsed Trump. But he said he planned to vote for him and had advised his friends to do so too because of the candidate's views on immigration and world peace.

Duke told Fox News Radio he disapproved of Trump's "lip service" in support of Israel, but "I told my people to vote for him in the election" for strategic reasons. He said he had not been part of the Ku Klux Klan for nearly 40 years.

On the Democratic side, front-runner Hillary Clinton alluded to the country's divisions on Monday after a landslide victory on Saturday in South Carolina's primary shifted her attention from party rival Bernie Sanders to the candidate she may end up facing in November.

"I don’t think America ever stopped being great," she told supporters in Massachusetts, adding a twist to Trump's "Make America Great Again" slogan. "What we need to do now is make America whole."

(Additional reporting by Amanda Becker, Susan Heavey, Megan Cassella and Eric Walsh; Writing by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Jonathan Oatis, Frances Kerry and Cynthia Osterman)

This article was funded in part by SAP. It was independently created by the Reuters editorial staff. SAP had no editorial involvement in its creation or production.
Salt Lake City Police Shoot Teen, Face Rock Throwers
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A 17-year-old boy who authorities say was wielding a metal stick was shot and critically injured by Salt Lake City officers Saturday night, touching off unrest downtown as officers donned riot gear and blocked streets and bystanders threw rocks and bottles.

The teenager shot by two Salt Lake City Police officers was in critical condition at a local hospital Sunday after being struck twice in the torso, according to Detective Ken Hansen with the Unified Police Department, which is investigating the shooting.

Salt Lake City Police declined to identify the boy Sunday afternoon because he is a minor. In a statement, the department said two Salt Lake City officers were trying to break up a fight around 8 p.m. where the teenager and another male were hitting a third male with metal objects.

The officers ordered the males to drop the metal, "stick-like objects," and one male complied. The teenager did not drop the stick and instead moved toward the victim in a threatening manner, Salt Lake City Police Detective Greg Wilking said.

One or both of the police officers then shot the teen. Police said earlier Sunday that the teenager was shot when he tried to attack one of the officers. Wilking said Sunday afternoon that investigators were still trying to determine if that was the case. He said they had not yet interviewed the officers involved.

Wilking did not have details about how far away the teenager was from officers or the victim when police shot him. He also did not have details about how long the sticks were or where the males got the metal. Police said earlier Sunday that the boy had been wielding a broomstick.

Police did not release the identities of the other two males involved or whether they were also minors. The male who was hit with the sticks did not require medical attention, Wilking said. He did not know what happened to the other male who had been wielding a stick or whether investigators spoke with him.

Neither officer involved in the shooting was injured, Wilking said. Police are not releasing the identity of the officers but said Sunday that both were placed administrative leave while the incident is investigated.

The officers were both wearing body cameras but police said Sunday they will not release the footage because of the ongoing investigation and the possibility that the teenager depicted could face charges.

Police did not have details about what prompted the fight in the street, which was near a downtown homeless shelter, shopping mall and movie theater. Bystander Selam Mohammad told The Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News that he was friends with the teenager and said the boy was shot as he turned to face police.

"He barely even turned around, then boom, boom, boom — and he just dropped," Mohammad told the Deseret News. When asked about that account, Hansen said he did not have details to confirm or deny that information.

After the shooting, bystanders began yelling obscenities and throwing rocks and bottles at police, who called in about 100 officers to help. Police, including officers wearing helmets and carrying riot shields, barricaded four surrounding city blocks. A light rail stop in the neighborhood was closed.

Hansen said the bystanders throwing rocks and bottles were people hanging out near the shelter. He didn't know if they were homeless, but he said they were not customers of the nearby shopping center. Hansen said the area was relatively busy, with people visiting the shopping center and restaurants and others hanging out near the shelter and homeless facilities.

"There were pockets of that disturbance for hours," Hansen said Sunday. Wilking said police asked bystanders to leave the area and put up barricades and tape to clear streets. He said bystanders were throwing objects at police for only about 10 minutes. He said police asked people to leave but did not physically move anyone, form a riot line or spray anything such as tear gas to disperse the crowd.

"It's kind of making more of a presence with your body," he said of the tactic used to clear the streets. Four people were arrested for civil disorder, Salt Lake City police said. Salt Lake City Mayor Jackie Biskupski said in a statement Sunday that she was saddened and that the shooting was a tragedy for everyone involved.

"The use of force by law enforcement against the public can tear at the delicate balance of trust between both sides, and must be taken extremely seriously," she said. "These incidents create a number of unanswered questions in the short term, and justice requires we work together in good faith to find answers."

Follow Michelle L. Price at https://twitter.com/michellelprice.

Sunday, February 28, 2016

Black Power--White Backlash: 150 Years of Struggle for National Liberation and Socialism

Since the Civil War Africans have been on the frontline of the movement against oppression and economic exploitation

By Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note: This keynote address by Abayomi Azikiwe was delivered at the Annual African American History Month public meeting held on Saturday February 27, 2016 and sponsored by Workers World Party Detroit branch. The program was chaired by Debbie Johnson of Workers World while greetings were delivered by Stacey Rogers of the International Longshoreman and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 10, who discussed a resolution passed recently by her local in the Bay Area of California in solidarity with the people of Flint poisoned through their water services by the state of Michigan; Clarence Thomas, the former Secretary-Treasurer of the ILWU Local10, who is in the area for a solidarity mission with the city of Flint.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This year represents the 50th anniversary of the Black Power Movement emanating from the struggle for Civil Rights largely centered in the South of the United States.

1966 marked a turning point in efforts that had lasted for over a century aimed at winning full equality and self-determination for the descendants of enslaved Africans. Since the demise of chattel slavery as an economic system the capitalist ruling class has maintained its grip on the U.S. and indeed large swaths of territory throughout the world.

What role did African people play in both building the system of capitalism and challenging its hegemony? At what stage is the renewed campaign against racism and the extent to which it will hopefully take the struggle for self-determination, social justice and socialism aimed at transforming the state and society?

In this presentation we will examine some aspects of the Post-Civil War period including the issuance and passage of a series of Civil Rights measures such as: General William Sherman's Order No. 15; the 13th Amendment and the Civil Rights Act of 1866; the 14th and 15th Amendments. These developments will be placed in their social and political context.

The African American struggle against national oppression and economic exploitation has continued through the 20th century with the anti-segregation and women's movements of the 1950s through the 1970s up until the anti-racist struggles today against police terrorism and for self-determination in the workplace, public service, education and cultural affairs. With 2016 being an election year it is important that we review some of the important historical developments that are continuing to shape the politics of the second decade of the 21st century.

The Historical Importance of the Civil War

By 1860 there were nearly four million Africans living in slavery and another half-million designated as free human beings. Altogether 11 states seceded from the United States by early 1861.

African labor was indispensable in the growth and profitability of the European, Latin American and North American economic systems. This fact has been examined by numerous historians including Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois, C.L.R. James, Dr. Eric Williams, Dr. William A. Hunton, Walter Rodney, Prof. Gerald Horne, and many others.

The desire to maintain the economic system of slavery resulted in a split within the U.S. and a horrendous Civil War that resulted in over 600,000 deaths, over a million injuries and the displacement of millions more resulting in the large-scale social destruction of the slaveholding South which lasted for well over a century. After the war industrial capitalism, whose growth was fueled by the profits from the Atlantic Slave Trade, became the dominant economic system in the U.S. and internationally.

Sentiments towards secession escalated rapidly after the election of Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln as president in November 1860. The Republicans were considered the party of abolition and consequently the Southern ruling class felt threatened that the economic basis of their existence was being systematically undermined.

Only two days after the national elections, the state legislature in South Carolina called for a special convention on December 20. During this gathering the representatives voted unanimously for separation from the Union. In the following six weeks other states—Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas—also voted to secede from the U.S.

Later Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina and Tennessee had decided to leave by June of 1861 some two months after the war had begun with the attack by Lincoln’s forces on Fort Sumter in South Carolina. The state of Tennessee was the last to withdraw from the Union when Gov. Isham D. Harris, a proponent of the Confederacy since early 1861, utilized the request for volunteers by Lincoln as a rallying cry for the white settlers to support secession. Harris said in response to Lincoln’s request for recruits, that “Tennessee will not furnish a single man for the purpose of coercion…but 50,000 if necessary for the defense of our rights and those of our Southern brothers.”  
By the conclusion of the summer of 1862, the Confederate armies were on the march towards capturing Washington, D.C. Africans who had run away from the plantations and taken refuge in Union military camps began to receive training. A regiment of African troops were prepared for battle in Indiana yet Lincoln was reluctant to deploy them.

Soon enough Confederate General Robert E. Lee crossed the Potomac River at Leesburg, Virginia. This dramatic march north created panic in the capital while ships were placed on standby to transport Lincoln and his Cabinet out of Washington to an undisclosed location. General George B. McClellan was given command of the 90,000 men in the Army of the Potomac.

Facing an escalating military crisis, on September 22, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, set to go into effect on January 1, 1863, saying “And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons. And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defense; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages. And I further declare and make known, that such persons of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.”

By the conclusion of the war some 186,000 African troops had served in the Union army and contributed to its ultimate victory. Nonetheless, the question of what was to become of the former enslaved and their free counterparts was yet to be settled.

Even with the passage of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution in January 1865 and its ratification by December, it did not grant the right to vote to the African people. General William Sherman’s Field Order No. 15 aimed at the redistribution of 400,000 acres of land to freed slaves living on the coast of the southeast states of Georgia, Florida and South Carolina, was designed to assist in building loyalty to the Union as well as facilitate the building of some semblance of an independent existence for those who were freed from bondage.

Nonetheless, after Lincoln’s assassination the order was rescinded by President Andrew Johnson and the seized Confederate land was returned to the Planters. Africans gained land in the South as a result of the unstable social and political conditions facing the region during and after Reconstruction.

A series of Civil Rights legislative measures were enacted from 1866-1875. These included:

The Civil Rights Act of 1866—“mandated that ‘all persons born in the United States, with the exception of American Indians, were ‘hereby declared to be citizens of the United States.’ The legislation granted all citizens the ‘full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property.’” (history.house.gov)

The Reconstruction Act of 1867—divided the South into five military districts initiating the period of greater African American participation in local, state and federal government including legislative branches.

14th Amendment—was passed in 1866 and ratified two years later in 1868. It also said that all persons born in the U.S. were citizens. Therefore, ostensibly granting citizenship rights to freed Africans.

15th Amendment—granted African American men the right to the franchise. Saying “the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

The Civil Rights Act of 1875—often referred to as the Enforcement Act or Force Act, was passed in an atmosphere of rising reaction throughout the U.S. The bill was “introduced by one of Congress’s greatest advocates for black civil rights, Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, in 1870. The original bill outlawed racial discrimination in juries, schools, transportation, and public accommodations. Republican leaders were forced, however, to chip away at the legislation’s protections in order to make it palatable enough to pass in the face of growing public pressure to abandon racial legislation and embrace segregation.” (history.house.gov)

During this period African Americans were elected to Southern state governmental structures, appointed as civil servants and were placed as well as voted into the Congress and the Senate. Nevertheless, the former Confederates fought these reforms with a vengeance forming the Ku Klux Klan in 1865 leading to a reign of terror that extended into the mid-1960s.

History.com website summarizes this period noting “Under the administration of President Andrew Johnson in 1865 and 1866, new southern state legislatures passed restrictive ‘black codes’ to control the labor and behavior of former slaves and other African Americans. Outrage in the North over these codes eroded support for the approach known as Presidential Reconstruction and led to the triumph of the more radical wing of the Republican Party. During Radical Reconstruction, which began in 1867, newly enfranchised Blacks gained a voice in government for the first time in American history, winning election to southern state legislatures and even to the U.S. Congress. In less than a decade, however, reactionary forces–including the Ku Klux Klan–would reverse the changes wrought by Radical Reconstruction in a violent backlash that restored white supremacy in the South.”

1966 and the Rise of Black Power

Consequently, the next century would be one of strife and struggle for the African American people.  Not only did the Compromise of 1877 effectively end Federal Reconstruction, although it did continue at the local and state levels in several Southern states until the conclusion of the 1890s, it also prevented the question of the rights of women to become a focus of debate within official political channels.

African American women and men had supported women’s suffrage even during the period of slavery and its immediate aftermath. Frederick Douglass was a proponent of abolition and full voting rights for all women long before the 19th amendment to the Constitution was passed in 1920.

Organizational expression of the women’s movement took on forms through African American churches and civic groups. A women’s club movement grew exponentially during the 1890s coinciding with the anti-lynching campaign of Ida B. Wells-Barnett and others.

Women were involved in the early phase of the Pan-African Movement in Europe and the United States between 1893 and 1927. Wells-Barnett was a co-founder of the NAACP in 1909 acting in her capacity as a journalist, researcher, publisher, an advocate for women’s rights and other issues.

Two World Wars brought millions of African Americans into the military services and the industrialization process catapulted by global conflict fostering the migration of millions from the rural and urban South to the North and West. Other migration trends out of the South during the late 19th century took thousands to Kansas, Oklahoma and as far away as Liberia in West Africa.

The modern day Civil Rights Movement gained a mass character in December 1955 with the commencement of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. By 1960, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) had been formed out of the sit-ins. The 1961 Freedom Rides to break down segregation in interstate commerce emboldened the students and workers to expand mass demonstrations in Albany, Birmingham, Selma, Cambridge, Danville, and other areas.

In June 1963, Detroit mobilized hundreds of thousands in the largest Civil Rights march in U.S. history led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rev. C.L. Franklin, Rev. Albert B. Cleage and other leaders. Two months later the March on Washington gained international attention for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who emerged during the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-56 forming the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957.

President John F. Kennedy had announced the introduction of yet another Civil Rights Bill, the first since 1957, in June 1963. Limited progress had been made towards its passage by the time Kennedy was assassinated on November 22.

Even with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the concrete conditions of African Americans remained oppressive. Rebellions erupted in Watts in 1965 and later in Chicago, Cleveland, and other cities in 1966.

The first effort to organize an independent political party under the symbol of the Black Panther took place in Lowndes County, Alabama in 1965-66. It was out of this project that Stokely Carmichael gained even more notoriety and was elected as chairman of SNCC in May of 1966.

In 1966 the term “White Backlash” entered into the political lexicon of the U.S. An attempt to pass a Civil Rights Act of 1966 failed in Congress due in large part to the perception by many whites within the ruling class and their allied political parties that the advent of militant Civil Rights demands, the Black Power Movement, urban rebellions and growing opposition to the President Lyndon B. Johnson’s escalation of the war in Vietnam exemplified that year by SNCC, went beyond what was considered acceptable demands.

By March-April 1967, King would join SNCC and other progressive forces in public opposition to the war sealing his fate with the U.S. government. When he was assassinated in April 1968, rebellion erupted in 125 cities across the country. Just in the prior year of 1967, 164 rebellions were recorded as discontent with the system of national oppression, capitalism and imperialism accelerated.

These developments in the U.S. coincided with a broader worldwide revolutionary movement in various regions of Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa and Asia. The advent of the socialism in the former Soviet Union, China, Democratic Korea, North Vietnam, Cuba, Yugoslavia, etc., provided a political and economic alternative to capitalism and imperialism. Many of the liberation movements in Africa moved towards Marxist ideology along with the most advanced states emerging from colonial rule.

A concerted government policy to reverse the gains of the Civil Rights, Black Power, Anti-War, Anti-Imperialist and revolutionary movements was well underway by the Johnson administration in 1967. Widespread demonstrations, civil unrest and rebellion severely damaged the image of the U.S. as a “democratic” state concerned with human rights both domestically and internationally. As the U.S. lost more battles in Vietnam, other liberation fronts throughout Southeast Asia and internationally observed that Washington and Wall Street were not invincible.

Imperialism and capitalism could be defeated and a completely different method of organizing society was proving to be not only possible, but viable. The socialist and independent states began to outstrip the West in areas of science, healthcare, the elimination of racism and gender discrimination, and by also empowering the working class, national minorities and peasants.

With specific reference to our interest is the notion of revolutionary organization to transform the racist, capitalist and imperialist system. Reforms initiated during the 1950s-1970s were reversed in a similar fashion as the events which unfolded after 1877.

After forming the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense in October 1966, Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, set the stage for further armed confrontations with law-enforcement. Police brutality had been common practice in the U.S. even in the rural and urban South where agents worked in close cooperation with the agricultural and industrial bosses along with the bankers.

Another major theoretical contribution of the BPP was its position on the women’s question. The Party encouraged women to take leadership positions in the areas of political education, mass organizing and military defense. There were at least two women that served on the Central Committee of the Party while others ran offices, the free breakfast programs and conducted political education classes.

The U.S. government under both Johnson and President Richard M. Nixon, who took office in January 1969, had as one of its primary objectives the defeat of the armed resistance to occupation by the Vietnamese and the eradication of the revolutionary movement in the U.S. From its earliest period the Party sought to form alliances on an international level with the socialist countries and national liberation movements.

By August 1969, Eldridge and Kathleen Cleaver of the BPP among others had established an International Section in the North African state of Algeria while attending the Pan-African Cultural Festival. Cleaver had attended an international journalist conference in the DPRK where relations were established. Meetings were held earlier with the Vietnamese in 1967 when Carmichael consulted Ho Chi Minh in Hanoi and later after the International Section was established.

There were other revolutionary organizations founded during this period, including the two most significant being formed right here in Detroit. These organizations are the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement (DRUM) and the League of Revolutionary Black Workers (LRBW), established in 1968-69 as well as the Republic of New Africa formed in March 1968. The LRBW and its affiliates operated in the plants and other workplaces in addition to the schools, universities and neighborhoods.

In Detroit ideas related to the building of alternative centers of power whether they were in the plants, on the campuses and in the communities, took on broader dimensions than in other cities. The efforts of the revolutionary movement led directly to the creation of viable reforms including affirmative action programs, the election of African Americans to public office including the state legislature, city council and the mayor’s office in 1973 with the ascendancy of Coleman A. Young.  

The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) counter-intelligence program (COINTELPRO) along with other tactics utilized by the Central Intelligence Agency, the U.S. military and the corporate community, attacked the Black Liberation Movement with a ferocity that was unparalleled in the history of the country. Hundreds of the principal organizers of the movement were arrested on trumped-up and politically motivated charges. Many would spend years in prison or in forced exile as is the case with Albert Woodfox, Assata Shakur, Mutulu Shakur, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Nehanda Abiodoun, Sundiata Acoli, Leonard Peltier, Oscar Lopez Rivera, to name only a few.

Dozens of others were assassinated such as Bobby Hutton, Fred Hampton, Mark Clark, Ralph Featherstone, Che Payne Robinson, Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., George Jackson, 11 MOVE members, Hugo Pinnell, etc.  Moreover, the COINTELPRO project was designed to discredit the revolutionary movement and prevent it from gaining respectability among youth and the broader working class. A revolutionary culture was counter-posed with materialism and individualism. The liberation of women, gender equality, LGBTQ emancipation were projected as “wedge issues” contrasted with purportedly other more important questions such as corporate profitability, national security for the capitalist system, military hegemony for the imperialist military structures and unbridled control of the media where ruling class propaganda is disseminated around the clock in an attempt to both confuse and demoralize the masses.

Within the area of jurisprudence, legal decisions have been rendered since the late 1970s which have in essence reversed the trajectory of Civil Rights law that emerged from the 1940s through the 1960s. Affirmative Action has been virtually outlawed in numerous states including Michigan and California. Right-to-work legislation has been passed in Michigan, the birthplace of automotive unionism, along with Wisconsin where labor rights and social democracy found a base for over a century.

State governments and local entities at the will of the corporate and banking elites abrogate fundamental laws of self-rule, due process and the right to vote. The imposition of emergency management in its most brutal form was carried out in contravention of the electorate. The forced bankruptcy of Detroit, the largest in municipal U.S. history, was conducted without a vote of the people or their representatives. The transfer of administration, ownership and control of public assets such as the Detroit Water & Sewerage Department, the Detroit Public Schools, Belle Isle, the Detroit Institute of Arts, etc. never faced public scrutiny on an official level or were done without the approval of voters.

As we have stated before, the contradictions within the current capitalist crisis does not permit even the purported “sanctity” of bourgeois democratic practice. The U.S. political system routinely violates its own laws and regulations since the capacity for the changing of legal codes often lags behind the imperatives of the exploitative system.

Objectively the conditions of African Americans, Latinos, working class women, and the proletariat as a whole have worsened over the last four decades. Despite the official jobless rate being calculated at less than five percent, the labor participation rate is the lowest since the mid-1970s. Half of the people in the U.S. are either living in poverty or near this level. Discontent runs deep with the system as is exemplified in the current phase of the struggle.

Black Power and the White Backlash in 2016

Since this is an election year the question of race and economics are coming to the fore once again. The situation in Flint is indicative of what the future of the U.S. may look like. In actuality, Flint is by no means the only city in the country where tap water is undrinkable. What has distinguished the crisis in Flint is that the people have spoken out against these crimes and are demanding that the state and federal governments do something to correct it immediately.

Despite months of press coverage and visits by a host of activists, politicians and celebrities, the holding of a hearing in Congress and the donations of millions of bottles of water, not one pipe has been dug up and replaced in the city. The “assistance” provided by the state and federal government has more to do with covering up the crimes of those responsible than holding them accountable in the overall process of rebuilding and seriously addressing the burgeoning healthcare and human services crises.

Then of course we have the intervention of Hillary Clinton who speaks to African Americans in a church and places this as the main focus of campaign ads. The mayor of Flint is seen in a commercial telling people they should vote for Clinton.

Now the African American people are called upon to rally behind the Democratic Party ostensibly to stave off the potential horrors of a Donald Trump presidency. Nonetheless, how did African Americans really fair under the Clinton administration of the 1990s?

For those with historical amnesia we wish to remind you to take a cursory view of such measures as the “elimination of welfare as we now it”; the ominous crime bill; the effective death penalty act; the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA); placing a hundred thousand of new cops on the streets; the further deregulation of the financial industry leading to predatory lending as official policy resulting in the loss to millions of their homes to the banks; the building of prisons and increasing mass incarceration to lock up the so-called “super-predators.”

On a foreign policy level we must recount the continuation of the war and sanctions program against Iraq resulting in the deaths of a million people, many of whom were children; the bombing of Sudan destroying a pharmaceutical plant under the false allegation that it was a chemical weapons factory; the institution of the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) which may sound good but in practice perpetuates imperialist interference and control of the economic affairs of the continent; fostering globalization, which is just a modern term for imperialism through the World Trade Organization and the Free Trade Area of the Americas; just to name some of the most well-known policies of the Clinton era.

After eight years of the Bush administration and the expansion of the “war on terrorism” along with the maintenance of the prison-industrial and military-industrial complexes, the current administration of President Barack Obama must be analyzed objectively as well. The failure of the administration to address the special oppression of African Americans has been exposed through the outrage prompted by blatant police and vigilante killings of youth across the country.

African Americans remain disproportionately impoverished, imprisoned, socially marginalized and susceptible to political manipulation. Clinton stands in the pulpit of a Flint church as if to say “these are my people”; yet when she served as the Secretary of State in the first Obama administration the North African state of Libya, the most prosperous and stable on the continent, was destroyed by Pentagon bombs, naval blockades, the expropriation of national wealth and the funding of counter-revolutionary militias acting as ground troops of the imperialist system.

Today Libya not only lies in ruin but has become a haven for the Islamic State, the dreaded “terrorist organization” which Clinton and Trump are saying they will destroy. How can they destroy IS when U.S. imperialism created it as a bulwark against Iranian influence in Iraq and Syria?

The regime-change policy towards Libya and Syria has contributed immensely to the worse humanitarian and displacement crisis since the conclusion of World War II. Some 60 million people have been displaced both within and outside their borders. Millions are trafficked through Libya to other states and regions including across the Mediterranean into Southern, Central and Eastern Europe. Racism and xenophobia are escalating inside Europe dividing the EU and fueling ultra-right wing fascist organizations and parties.

Inside the U.S. mass demonstrations and urban rebellions against racist violence have occurred over the last three years in response to the brutal unpunished vigilante murder of Trayvon Martin as well as the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Eric Garner in New York and Freddie Grey in Baltimore . The Black Lives Matter Movement, by no means a uniform organization, which has its own contradictions stemming from this reality, is still subjected to a renewed form of COINTELPRO.

Spontaneity and the Mass Struggle: The Need for a Revolutionary Party

There is no doubt that anger is mounting in the city of Detroit and throughout the U.S. This unease exists outside the fact that organizations similar to the Black Panther Party and other revolutionary groups are not in evidence nationally in the current period.

Consequently there is an important role to play for a Marxist-Leninist Party committed to organizing the working class and the nationally oppressed. The character of the oppressive state must be laid bare before the masses. The systematic oppression of the African American people and the working class in general lies at the heart of the crisis, which derives from the contradictions between the ownership of capital and the means of productions with the actual relations of production.

We have worked for substantial reforms not as end unto themselves but as a method of exposing the need for revolution by illustrating the character of the state as a reflection of the inherently exploitative system of capitalism. African Americans and other oppressed nations can only win genuine liberation through socialist revolution. The state must be transformed as a mechanism to ensure the right to self-determination, independence, social justice and full equality. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans can bring total freedom since they are controlled by the same class forces representing the owners of capital.

This is why we need a revolutionary party independent of the bourgeoisie which is willing to organize the people based on their national and class interests. We are not opportunists who go before the masses and tell them if they vote for ruling class allied politicians that conditions will improve for their communities.

We must fight for the fundamental political and economic rights of the people while at the same time emphasizing consistently that the system is rotten to the core. As V.I. Lenin stressed in 1903 in “What Is to Be Done?-- The Burning Issues of Our Movement”,  “we have become convinced that the fundamental error committed by the ‘new trend’ in Russian Social-Democracy is its bowing to spontaneity and its failure to understand that the spontaneity of the masses demands a high degree of consciousness from us Social-Democrats. The greater the spontaneous upsurge of the masses and the more widespread the movement, the more rapid, incomparably so, the demand for greater consciousness in the theoretical, political and organizational work of Social-Democracy.”

Lenin goes on to say that “The spontaneous upsurge of the masses in Russia proceeded (and continues) with such rapidity that the young Social Democrats proved unprepared to meet these gigantic tasks. This unpreparedness is our common misfortune, the misfortune of all Russian Social-Democrats. The upsurge of the masses proceeded and spread with uninterrupted continuity; it not only continued in the places where it began, but spread to new localities and to new strata of the population (under the influence of the working class movement, there was a renewed ferment among the student youth, among the intellectuals generally, and even among the peasantry). Revolutionaries, however, lagged behind this upsurge, both in their ‘theories’ and in their activity; they failed to establish a constant and continuous organization capable of leading the whole movement.”

These words ring true today. Our task before us today is to build a revolutionary party with the capacity to continue the struggle against all odds. Please join us in this challenge.  
President Says African Union Will Send Monitors to Burundi
The new initiative falls far short of the African Union's plan announced in December to send a 5,000-strong peacekeeping force, which Nkurunziza's government rejected

27.02.2016 Pulse News Agency

Photo: Military vehicles lead the way as South African President Jacob Zuma arrives as the head of an Africa Union-lead delegation in an attempt to broker dialogue to end months of violence in Burundi's capital Bujumbura February 25, 2016. REUTERS/Evrard Ngendakumanaplay

The African Union will send 100 human rights monitors and 100 military monitors to Burundi, South Africa's president said on Saturday, after a trip to the tiny nation that is facing its worst crisis since a civil war ended a decade ago.

Jacob Zuma, delivering a statement by a delegation of African leaders that he led, did not say when the monitors would arrive or start work in the country, where more than 400 people have been killed since April. Zuma left Bujumbura after the remarks.

The violence has rattled a region with a history of ethnic conflict. Burundi's civil war, that ended in 2005, largely pitted two ethnic groups against each other. Neighbouring Rwanda was torn apart by genocide in 1994.

Western powers have urged Africans to act. The United States and European nations have withheld some aid to poor Burundi and taken other steps to try to put pressure on the government to resolve the crisis, but they say it has had little impact.

“We believe strongly that the solution to Burundi's political problems can be attained only through inclusive and peaceful dialogue," Zuma said in the statement, which also expressed "concerns" about the level of violence and killings.

The decision to send monitors suggests a compromise had been reached with Burundi's President Pierre Nkurunziza, who triggered the crisis in April when he announced a bid for a third term. He went on to win a disputed election in July, in the face of street protests and violent clashes.

The new initiative falls far short of the African Union's plan announced in December to send a 5,000-strong peacekeeping force, which Nkurunziza's government rejected.

Details about the new mission were not immediately clear. Diplomats said other African monitors that had been sent to Bujumbura last year had been stuck in their hotel unable to work because Burundi refused to sign a memorandum allowing them to operate.

Burundi's government has previously said it was ready to for dialogue, but opponents say it has always set preconditions on who would attend and what could be discussed that made such discussions pointless.

Talks sponsored by nearby Uganda in December had been planned to continue in Tanzania in January. But the initiative stumbled at the start of the year when the government said it would not attend as some participants had been behind violence.

For their part, opponents accuse government forces of targeting and killing members of the opposition.

The statement by African leaders said Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni would convene dialogue with "all important stakeholders as soon as possible." It did not say when.
South Africa's Zuma Withdraws Troops From Sudan's Darfur Region
South Africa's President Jacob Zuma attends the opening ceremony of the 26th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union (AU) at the AU headquarters in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa, January 30, 2016. REUTERS/Tiksa Negeri

REUTERS/TIKSA NEGERI

South Africa will withdraw its troops from peacekeeping operations in Sudan's Darfur region, President Jacob Zuma's office said on Wednesday.

Zuma's office also announced on Wednesday that elected officials will receive salary increases of 4.4 percent, compared with inflation of more than 6 percent in Africa's most industrialized economy, the presidency said on Wednesday.

South African troops joined one of the world's largest peacekeeping forces five years after the conflict in Darfur began, but the force has been dogged by allegations by Western powers that it has not done enough to protect civilians and withheld information on the scale of violence.

"Members of the South African National Defence Force were employed in Darfur in 2008 as part of the AU/UN Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID). The termination will take effect from 01 April 2016," the president's office said in a statement.

The measures come at a time when South Africa's economy is struggling, and government finances are under strain.

The presidency said that the below inflation increase of 4.4 percent for political office bearers nationally and in the provinces for 2015/16 were "in line with the current economic climate."

Presidential spokesperson Bongani Majola however said the troops withdrawal had more to do with the completion of the mission than with belt tightening by South Africa.

(Reporting by TJ Strydom; Editing by James Macharia)
South Africa’s Ruling Party and the South African Government
by John Campbell
February 24, 2016

A man walks near posters of former African National Congress (ANC) presidents including former South African President Nelson Mandela (R middle row) at the entrance of Luthuli house, the ANC headquarters in Johannesburg, July 2, 2013. (Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko)

The African National Congress (ANC) is a big tent. Politically, under that tent is the Congress of South African trade Unions (COSATU) and the South African Communist Party (SACP). Both run candidates for office as ANC, not under their own label. The Secretary General of the ANC, Gwede Mantashe, is also a former chairperson of the SACP.

The relationship between the ANC and the South African state can be ambiguous. Some within the ANC see the two as essentially coterminous, as was the case with the Communist party and the former Soviet Union. Others, however, see the two as separate, just as governing parties in other democracies are separate entities, and a ruling party of today can be the opposition tomorrow should the electorate so choose.

Especially among the opposition parties, civil organizations, and the non-ANC media there has long been concern that South Africa is too much governed from Luthuli House, the ANC party headquarters in Johannesburg, rather than the administrative seat of government, Union Buildings, in Pretoria.

Yesterday’s blog post discussed Mantashe’s accusation that the U.S. embassy in Pretoria was engaged in trying to bring about “regime change” through exchange programs and the highly effective response by the U.S. ambassador using humor and sarcasm. To no surprise, the Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa said on February 23 that the ANC was not happy with the ambassador’s response to Mantashe. She said that if the situation had been reversed, “I would go to the Luthuli House of the U.S. and have a discussion. As the ANC leadership we are going to do that. We are going to have engagement to clarify these things. It will still happen, but at the right time.” (There is, of course, no American equivalent of Luthuli House.)

As her reference to Luthuli House indicated, she went on to say that the Mantashe episode is a ruling party issue – not the governments. She went on to say that from the government’s perspective, “our relations with the U.S. are going well.” At least two other ministers have also pointed out Mantashe’s accusation had come from the ANC, not the government. The telecommunications minister characterized Pretoria’s relations with Washington as “very cordial.”

The Zuma government appears to be distancing itself from Mantashe’s ludicrous accusations while not alienating elements within its ruling coalition. More broadly, this episode may indicate that as the ANC weakens, so too may Luthuli House.
Chronicles Chimurenga II: Zimbabwe’s Liberation Struggle: A Zambian Perspective
MUNYARADZI HUNI

DR VERNON Mwaanga is a veteran Zambian politician who held various posts in government as that country hosted several liberation movements during the liberation struggle. Our Deputy Editor, Munyaradzi Huni flew to Lusaka last week to interview Dr Mwaanga so as to understand how Zambia took the decision to host the liberation movements. During the interview, Dr Mwaanga spoke about the allegations that former Zambian President Dr Kenneth Kaunda supported Zapu and was anti-Zanu during the liberation struggle. For the first time, a top official from the Zambian government during the liberation struggle is giving the Zambian story, putting so many contentious issues into perspective.

MH: Dr Mwaanga, you are known as one of Zambia’s seasoned and celebrated politicians and that you were appointed as a diplomat at the age of 21. That must be some record. Can you briefly tell us who is Dr Vernon Mwaanga?

Dr Mwaanga: Well, thank you very much Munyaradzi. I welcome you here in Lusaka, Zambia. Vernon Mwaanga joined the liberation struggle in Zambia as a youth in 1960 United National Independence Party (UNIP) under the leadership of Dr Kenneth Kaunda at the time. As you probably know, there were two main political parties in Zambia – the African National Congress and the young Turks who wanted more militancy against colonialism broke away from the African National Congress in 1958 to form the party which was then known as ANIP which later became UNIP.

During the struggle, I dealt with issues to do with international affairs. I used to go out and attend meetings on behalf of UNIP. Just before our independence in 1964, I was sent to Oxford University to go and do a diploma course in International Relations. When I finished, I was posted to the British Embassy as a Second Secretary. I got back to Zambia just before independence in September 1964. Then I was appointed Deputy High Commissioner to the United Kingdom where I served for a year.

After that, I was posted to Moscow as Ambassador to the Soviet Union. I came back and became director of the national intelligence. This was in 1966. I headed the intelligence until 1968 and then I was appointed Ambassador to the United Nations from 1968 to 1972. I came back to Zambia and became Editor-in-Chief of the Times of Zambia. From the Times of Zambia I went straight to become Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1973. I served as Minister of Foreign Affairs for four years. Thereafter I went into the central committee of UNIP.

I branched off for a little while and joined the private sector working for Lonhro with people like Tiny Roland and others. I was the director for Africa. After sometime, I linked up with a number of other Zambians to challenge the One Party State in Zambia. We wanted a multi-party state. We then formed the Movement for Multi party Democracy demanding a change from One Party to Multi party. Fortunately we did succeed and in 1991, the country reverted to the multi party system. I was chairman of the campaign committee of the MMD and we won 125 seats out of 150 seats during elections.

Our President Chiluba won 75 percent of the votes. I was Foreign Minister then I became Minister of Information, then became Minister in charge of Parliamentary Affairs, became Government Chief Whip in Parliament up to 2011 when I retired from active politics.

Of course I still do write and comment on political issues and I write books. I am also a part time lecturer for masters degree courses in peace and conflict studies.

MH: During your early political days you were working under Dr Kaunda. Now years later under MMD you were on the opposite side with Dr Kaunda and UNIP. How did this feel? Didn’t this feel like a betrayal of some sort?

Dr Mwaanga: Not even. Dr Kaunda was actually my mentor and he is still my elder statesman. We had honest disagreements over the issue of the One Party State. I went to him and told him that I didn’t think the One Party State was sustainable. When he disagreed we agreed to disagree, but I continue to respect him and to assure him that the struggle we were waging for a return to multi party system was not directed at him. It was directed at changing the system.

MH: This doesn’t usually happen in African politics – people agreeing to disagree.

Dr Mwaanga: Well, that’s what exactly happened. I am very respectful of Dr Kaunda and what he did for this country and for Africa’s liberation struggle. That’s why I had to discuss these issues with him. I had to point out to him that Eastern Europe was changing, the collapse of the Soviet bloc and the emerging multi party movement in West Africa.

I even had the opportunity to go and approach President Nyerere who was very close to me. He was one of the African leaders I admired the most. I said to him, “Mwalimu, you are an architect of One Party system, now there is a growing debate about change to multi party politics, what is your view about this?” I remember what he said. He said, “Look, youngman, we cannot avoid the debate but in the final analysis we have to let our people decide what they want to do. But speaking for myself, (meaning President Nyerere) I am still a believer in One Party system.” He said he thought it was good for his country but he would not impose it on any other country.

He even went on to quote a Swahili proverb saying ‘when you see your neighbour being shaved, you must watch your (bead) because you know that when they are finished with the neighbour they will come to you. And so you should try and make your shave as smooth as possible.’

So I was very respectful of Dr Kaunda and I still am. That’s why I felt the best was to discuss the issues with him.

MH: But when MMD came into power, the party to an extent ill-treated Dr Kaunda. Why?

Dr Mwaanga: There were differences within the MMD in terms of how Dr Kaunda should be treated. There were lots of people whose families had suffered at the hands of Dr Kaunda’s regime using the Emergency legislation to detain people without trial. Some of them had suffered personally. So they took it out in Dr Kaunda.

But with the benefit of hindsight, I think that was not a good thing to do to an elder statesman. Maybe there is shared responsibility on both sides because you also recall that Dr Kaunda tried to get back into active politics. If he had retired, this wouldn’t have happened.

I was in charge of gathering information preparing a package for leaders who would have retired from active politics. I went to 15 Commonwealth countries to see how they were looking after their former leaders. After this we drafted legislation and we now have an Act in this country called Benefit of former Presidents where former Presidents are entitled to get 80 percent of the salary and allowances of the incumbent President. They have a house built for them, they have got security, domestic workers, electricity is paid, water is paid, free medical services and they travel abroad three times a year at government expense. So its a very generous package that we gave to our former leaders.

MH: What is the ideology that drives you? What are the things you believe in?

Dr Mwaanga: I believe in human rights. I believe in political rights for the citizens. Freedom of citizens to express themselves within the boundaries of the law. To campaign against legislation they consider unjust. I believe that there should be honest differences of opinion among us as Africans and these differences should not escalate to levels were violence creeps in. We can differ without being violent. Violence is wrong whether is coming from the opposition or from the government.

MH: Ok, at least we now have some background as to who we are talking to. Now, let’s come to the relationship between Zimbabwe and Zambia. This relationship dates back to the days of the Federation. How would you describe this relationship from these early years?

Dr Mwaanga: The relations between Zambia and Zimbabwe have always been cordial. We cooperated even at political party levels. You had Zanu and you had Zapu in Rhodesia. We had UNIP and the ANC. We worked together to dismantle the Federation. We even worked with Dr Banda’s Malawi Congress Party to fight against the Federation.

When the Federation was imposed on the black majority, there was an agreement among whites that there should be Federation. Blacks were excluded from it. We were not part of that process.

MH: Briefly tell us, how was colonialism in Zambia?

Dr Mwaanga: Colonialism was very severe here because blacks were totally discriminated against even in terms of areas where they could live. If you went to some of our famous hotels, in Livingstone there was a hotel called Fairmount Hotel and there was another hotel called North-Western Hotel – when you got there was a sign written ‘Africans and dogs not allowed.’ That tells you how severe it was.

They segregated even facilities, the railway system was segregated – Africans had their own section in fourth class, whites has second and first class and those elevated blacks who could afford were in the third class.

Residential areas the story was the same. Even here in Lusaka. Those signs of segregation were all over. ‘Africans and dogs not allowed.’ You went to Ndola it was the same, to Kitwe and many other places.

You couldn’t go to a chemist to buy medicine you had to buy medicine through a side window. Even the departmental shops, blacks had to go through a side window. You couldn’t enter a bakery in the centre of the city because entering the bakery was reserved for white people only. The butchery it was the same. You had to go through a side window.

That is what led us as blacks to rise against not just colonialism but also to equate colonialism to the federation. The federation was an off shot of colonialism.

MH: But Zambia is unlike Zimbabwe isn’t it? You didn’t exactly take up arms to wage a war here?

Cde Mwaanga: It wasn’t as violent as it became later in Southern Rhodesia which is Zimbabwe now. But in 1961, UNIP under Dr Kaunda we held a conference at Mulungushi where we decided to change the strategy to make the struggle more active. Prior to that there was what we called ‘passive resistance’ against colonialism and against the federation. But after 1961, there was ‘active resistance against colonialism and the federation.

What this meant was that we had to begin attacking federal and colonial institutions. To send the message to whites that we had began a different phase of the struggle. Passive resistance was not producing results.

After we embarked on this campaign, in less than a year, our leaders were then called to London to go and discuss a new constitutional dispensation under Ian Macloud who was then the colonial secretary in Britain. They agreed on a constitution which was called 15-15-15. Which meant 15 seats for blacks, 15 seats for the mixed races and 15 seats for whites. This didn’t lead to One Man One Vote but if you had attained a certain level of education you could participate in the voting system. That led to the formation of the first black government in 1962 between UNIP and the ANC which then took us into independence in 1964.

MH: In 1964, a new and free Zambia is born, but soon after we see this young country hosting several liberation movements here. How was that decision made?

Dr Mwaanga: First of all, before we became independent, the federation was formally broken up in 1963. Then we had elections here in January 1964, which were won by UNIP overwhelmingly. Come October, we became an independent country.

Prior to independence in 1963 if you remember, the Organisation of African Unity was founded in Addis Ababa. That replaced the regional groups which had existed. The informal groups like the Casablanca Group which comprised of the more militant group of African countries like Ghana, Egypt, Ethiopia and so on. Then there was the Monrovia Group comprising of Senegal, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Liberia among others.

The formation of the OAU meant that all these sub-regional groups disappeared and they all merged into the OAU. And at that conference in 1963, Dr Kaunda who was still the Minister of Local Government in the coalition government between UNIP and the ANC, he subscribed to the charter of the OAU. In the charter, there was the provision that we would support the liberation of the African continent as a whole and that as long as any inch of Africa was not free, none of us should walk the streets of Africa feeling free. That was the motivating factor. So after we became independent, the cabinet then met and decided that we are part of the OAU and we will support the liberation of not just Southern Africa but Africa as a whole because there were other countries in other parts of the continent that were not yet liberated. Countries like Mauritius, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea Bissau and so on. So we had to support all these countries.

Dr Kaunda made a declaration at that time that we will support, host and give residence to liberation movements from Southern Africa to come and set up their offices here in Zambia.

MH: Is this the reason why some Zambians blame Dr Kaunda for the decision to host the liberation movements here? They put it as it if was a Kaunda decision alone?

Dr Mwaanga: Oohh, no, no, it was a decision by Cabinet. The central committee of UNIP and the national council agreed to this. It was not a decision by one person. Dr Kaunda is unfairly blamed for it. It was not his decision alone.

MH: Ok, now between Zapu and Zanu, which of the two first set up bases in Zambia?

Dr Mwaanga: Zapu first came and shortly after Zanu followed. You will probably recall that Zapu had much stronger links with UNIP than Zanu. But at government level, when we decided to host both parties, we did not discriminate in terms of the type of assistance and attention that we paid to the two liberation movements. That distinction was made at party level, but certainly not at government level because it would have violated our commitments to the OAU.

We also had to host other African liberation movements like Swapo from South West Africa, MPLA from Angola, Frelimo from Mozambique and so on. So it became a very big challenge for Zambia to host so many liberation movements, especially in countries like South Africa where we hosted the ANC plus other political groups like the Unity Movement for South African, PAC among others. This presented a challenge for us as a host country.

MH: From your point of view, what would you say where the differences between Zapu and Zanu? Where there ideological differences or what between these two liberation movements from Zimbabwe, then Southern Rhodesia?

Dr Mwaanga: For us, our role was not to look at their differences but to accept them the way they were. Not to look at their ideological differences,if there were any. We also looked at the history of how the struggle started, which one of the two parties was the earlier one. But this wasn’t our main concern as a host country.

Our concern was that we gave them facilities and we set up what was known as the liberation centre which is located in Kamwala on Chilumbulu Road here in Lusaka. We offered them equal facilities. We also offered them houses where they could live. We offered them facilities to obtain passports, we sent students abroad to go and study. We offered scholarships for their students to study at our universities.

MH: There was quite a big community of people from Southern Rhodesia here due to the federation isn’t it?

Dr Mwaanga: Oohh, yes. There was a large community because of the federation and also those who were associated directly with the liberation struggle. When they left their country to go for training beyond Zambia or to be trained here, we had to offer them facilities to travel and so on. We even offered them air tickets to go to different parts of to world. We rented and bought houses for them. We had to offer them security. Security became a very major challenge because the security services from both South Africa and Southern Rhodesia had became very active in terms of wanting to destabilise the liberation movements and even to assassinate some of the leaders.

We had to make sure that as a host country, we offered them security in such a way that we didn’t have any one of these episodes. Subsequent events of course turned to be the direct opposite in the sense that some of the liberation movements started having internal problems within their organisations.

MH: I have spoken to former commanders of both Zipra and Zanla and they point out that the Zambian government was pro-Zapu and anti-Zanu. How far true was this?

Dr Mwaanga: Well, I will dispute that. I think you heard me say that at the political level in terms of the party, Zapu had much closer ties with UNIP. But at the government level, we exhibited what I call an even-handed policy in dealing with the two organisations. As a member of the government I don’t recall a day when we discriminated against Zanu in preference to Zapu.

Whenever they wanted a meeting, whether with our commanders or with me as Foreign Minister or other members of government, they were given fair and equal access.

MH: Some of the comrades say Dr Kaunda was pro-Zapu and very close to the late VP Nkomo?

Dr Mwaanga: He may have been as party leader of UNIP, but at the level of government, in terms of government ministries I can assure that at no time, as Minister of Foreign Affairs or in other ministries, did we receive an instruction that you should be more favourable to Zapu than Zanu.

Cabinet had made a decision that we had to be even handed in the manner in which we dealt with the two parties. I know that Dr Kaunda also enjoyed personal relations with Joshua Nkomo who was based here at the time. They had very good relations over the years.

Zapu was actually a sister party of UNIP. So if there was some bias, it could only be very subtle because as members of government we were told that we should give equal help and equal assistance to both Zapu and Zanu.

MH: How was Dr Kaunda’s relationship with Reverend Ndabaningi Sithole who was the leader of Zanu at the time?

Dr Mwaanga: He enjoyed a good relationship with Reverend Ndabaningi Sithole. Whenever he came over here for a meeting he was met and his needs were attended to. If Dr Kaunda was not able to attend to his needs he would call his ministers to ensure that his problems were solved. Even when we got to the stage where we got involved in negotiations to have both Zanu and Zapu leaders released from prison, we negotiated for both of them in equal measure. We did not discriminate against any one of them. You will also recall that time we had an organisation called the Front Line States comprising Tanzania, Zambia, Botswana and later we co-opted Nigeria. We negotiated as a team from Front Line States without discrimination.

I remember when we sent teams for example to Gweru prison, to go and negotiate for the release of the leaders after we had finished negotiations with the South Africans who were the de-facto colonialists in Southern Rhodesia at the time, our officials were allowed to go and collect leaders of Zanu from Gweru prison and also from Gonakudzingwa to collect Zapu leaders. They were supposed to come for a meeting with the Front Line States.

I remember when we sent our officials to Gweru prison, we sent Mark Chona and one or two of his assistants to go and collect them for this secret meeting before the formal release agreed, when they got to Gweru prison and asked for Reverend Sithole, the officer in charge told our officials that Reverend Sithole was no longer the leader of Zanu. They were told that there had been a change of leadership in Zanu and that (President) Robert Mugabe had taken over.

Our officials didn’t really know what to do. They had to report back to the leaders of the Front Line States and at that time there was suspicion among the leaders of the Front Line States that how could this leadership change take place without their knowledge. Was it initiated by the colonialists or was it something genuinely agreed to by the leaders of Zanu while in prison? We had to pause for a little while to verify these facts. After these facts had been verified, that is when instead of Reverend Sithole coming to Zambia, we had President Mugabe coming. He came with two of his officials. I remember Maurice Nyagumbo came. Joshua Nkomo came with two of his officials also. It was the first time the leaders of the Front Line States got to know that they had been a change of leadership in Zanu.

MH: Was President Mugabe known very much by this time?

Dr Mwaanga: Yes, we knew him. He was the secretary general of Zanu. The leaders knew about him, but they didn’t know prior that he was now the president of Zanu.

--Next week, Dr Mwaanga speaks about the tragic incident that happened at Chifombo were some Zanu comrades were shot by some Zambian soldiers after clashing with their Zapu colleagues. For the first time he speaks about a tense meeting he had with the late Zanu chairman Cde Herbert Chitepo who was assassinated a few hours later. The interview also answers questions on who, from the Zambian perspective, killed Cde Chitepo. He will answer questions on why the Zambian government appeared as if it was against the armed struggle in Rhodesia as it pushed for negotiations between Ian Smith’s regime and the two liberation movements – Zapu and Zanu. He will talk about the sacrifice by the Zambian people as they supported the liberation in many countries across Africa. Don’t be left out as history is being put into perspective .- Get a copy of your favourite Sunday paper next week.