U.S. governor secures release of award-winning American journalist jailed in Sudan
KHARTOUM, Sudan (AP) -- Sudan's president agreed Friday to release a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist and two Chadians jailed on charges of espionage after meeting with a U.S. governor, a spokesman for the governor said.
Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico secured the release of Chicago Tribune journalist Paul Salopek, his driver and interpreter on humanitarian grounds after meeting with President Omar al-Bashir at the president's palace soon after the governor arrived in Khartoum, said Richardson's spokesman Pahl Shipley.
Richardson was scheduled on Saturday to pick up Salopek and his colleagues, who were in custody in the war-torn region of Darfur. The Sudanese government confirmed the release but did not provide additional comment.
"I emphasized to the President that releasing these men was the right thing to do because Paul Salopek is not a spy, he is my constituent and a respected journalist who was attempting to do his job telling the story of the people, culture and history of the sub-Saharan region known as the Sahel," Richardson said in a written statement.
Salopek, who has a home in New Mexico, was on assignment for National Geographic Magazine when he was arrested last month and charged with espionage, passing information illegally, writing "false news" and entering the African country without a visa. His trial was set to resume Sunday before a judge in the North Darfur capital of el-Fasher.
His wife, Linda, had traveled with Richardson to Sudan to help secure his release, Shipley said.
Chris Johns, the editor in chief of National Geographic Magazine, said he was "overjoyed" that Salopek and his two assistants were being released.
"We are incredibly grateful to the wide circle of individuals and organizations that helped in the effort to secure Paul's release. And we are especially appreciative of the personal role Governor Richardson took in the process that has to led this outcome," Johns said in a written statement.
In 2001, Salopek won a Pulitzer for international reporting for his work covering Africa. In 1998, he won a Pulitzer for explanatory reporting for his coverage of the Human Genome Diversity Project.
Richardson, a former U.S. congressman, U.N. ambassador and energy secretary during the Clinton administration, secured the release in 1996 of three Red Cross workers, including an Albuquerque pilot, from Marxist rebels in Sudan.
Richardson also has traveled to Iraq, North Korea and Cuba to gain the release of Americans held prisoner. Last year, he went to North Korea at the communist government's invitation.
The Sudanese government has a history of tension with the press and aid groups, which have previously accused Khartoum of unnecessarily restricting access, especially in the conflict-ridden Darfur region.
More than 200,000 people have died in Darfur since 2003 when ethnic African tribes revolted against the Arab-led Khartoum government.
The United Nations and aid organizations have warned of a deepening humanitarian crisis in Darfur, saying violence has mounted since a peace agreement was signed in May by the Sudanese government and one of the region's major rebel groups.
Al-Bashir last week ordered the release of an envoy of Slovenia's president who was convicted of espionage in Darfur. Tomo Kriznar, the Slovenian president's envoy to Darfur, was arrested in July and convicted on Aug. 14.
Friday, September 08, 2006
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Zimbabwe & Pan-African Liberation: An Interview With Netfa Freeman
An interview with Netfa Freeman, Director of the Social Action & Leadership School for Activists
Netfa Freeman is one of the more dedicated and clear thinking political activists committed to making the world a better place. Working primarily on issues relating to Africa and the African Diaspora, he is also an organizer in the No War on Cuba Movement and an advocate for the anti-imperialist cause in general.
There is a dearth of first-hand information on Zimbabwe, so when I learned that Netfa had recently returned from a trip to Zimbabwe, I contacted him and suggested an interview so that he could share his thoughts on his trip. He was kind enough to take time from a busy schedule to answer the following questions.
[Q] You've just returned from Zimbabwe, where you visited the Ujamma Youth Farming Project. Before we talk about your trip, please tell us about the organization you head, the Social Action and Leadership School for Activists (SALSA).
[Freeman] Yes, I am the Director of the Social Action & Leadership School for Activists (a.k.a. SALSA), but SALSA is not an organization unto itself. SALSA is actually a program of the larger Institute for Policy Studies (IPS). Since 1963 IPS has sought to transform ideas into action for peace, justice, and the environment by linking and strengthening social movements. IPS is a Washington DC based non-profit, multi-issue think tank that has been working with movements from the U.S. Civil Rights era onwards.
SALSA is just one of several programs/projects of IPS which was started in 1994 as successor to IPS' Washington School. I’ve been with SALSA and IPS since 2000. SALSA is a skills training program that offers classes or workshops in various aspects of social justice activism and organizing. Secondly, SALSA offers free public political education forums on various issues ranging in scope from the local DC area, to national and international. The skills classes fall under general categories, such as organizational development, communications, money matters, leadership and management, techno-activism, etc. We generally refer to the forums in the political education category as our “policy” forums. There are no confines as to what subjects we cover in our policy forums but because the program basically reflects my own ideological leaning, the forums tend to have a more revolutionary regard that is more left than liberal.
Frankly, although IPS and my colleagues at IPS often refer to themselves as liberal, I’m not a liberal. Personally I’m definitely more left than liberals tend to be. In fact the organization I voluntarily belong to, which better reflects my affinity for, and commitment to Africa in general and Zimbabwe in particular is PALO, the Pan-African Liberation Organization. Instead of a philosophy, PALO regards “pan-Africanism” as an objective, which is the total liberation and unification of Africans on the continent and in the Diaspora under scientific socialism. This is in line with the practical and theoretical contributions of the late President Kwame Nkrumah.
[Q] Kwame Nkrumah’s revolutionary theory continues to be an inspiration for the pan-African movement, and many regard Zimbabwe as the focal point of that struggle. What are your thoughts on the role of Zimbabwe in the pan-African movement?
[Freeman] As Africa herself must be the land base for the pan-African Movement, it’s crucial for there to be at least one beacon of revolutionary progress and resistance against imperialism for Africa’s people, scattered and suffering around the world. Zimbabwe’s anti-imperialist stance makes her that beacon. Nkrumah referred to such bases as liberated zones and urged pan-African revolutionaries to protect our liberated zones at all costs. This is because such zones are to serve as the launching pads of the struggle for a Unified Socialist Africa.
Zimbabwe has a very pivotal role in this neocolonial phase of the pan-African Movement for several reasons. Not the least of which are the land reforms that have boldly swept the country. Nowhere on the continent have Africans taken as radical a measure toward land reform as we have in Zimbabwe. And not only have Zimbabwe’s land reforms been an inspiration for people in other African states, they have gained respect in Diasporan countries such as Venezuela and Bolivia. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has publicly praised Zimbabwe’s land reform process as a model he would like to emulate in that country. Another thing that makes Zimbabwe pivotal is its role regarding our sister states: such as aiding Mozambique against the foreign inspired counter insurgency of RENAMO; military assistance for SWAPO’s liberation struggle in Namibia; recently helping the Congo to secure its borders against CIA backed incursions; and lending troops to the AU mission to stabilize Sudan. No other African state is upholding such a cooperative position at this time. Zimbabwe even strategically held off on its land reforms at the request of South Africa and other Southern African states, so not to strengthen the belligerence of white settler colonialists in those countries. And they did this at great cost to the integrity of their own struggle. These things are concrete expressions of pan-African cooperation.
Furthermore, President Mugabe is a leader who also publicly keeps the inspiration of Kwame Nkrumah alive. That is, not only have all the aforementioned things been done under the leadership of Mugabe, he also often mentions Nkrumah and his ideals in speeches addressing other Africans. He is not afraid to speak of socialism at a time when no other African leader dares utter the word. President Mugabe openly condemns imperialism with the boldness and clarity we have only come to expect from leaders such as Fidel Castro or Hugo Chavez. That is why President Mugabe receives such resounding applause wherever he goes on the continent of Africa or when he speaks at UN or AU summits. No other African leader is doing what he is doing right now, and because he is, Zimbabwe stands as an inspiration to African people the world over. We need to see and hear such things. They serve as political education for pan-Africanism.
[Q] You’ve put your ideals into action through, among other things, your work with the Ujamma Youth Farming Project. Tell us about that project, and your purpose in visiting it.
[Freeman] An integral part of any genuine social justice movement or revolution is the empowerment of the working class, the women in society and the youth. The Ujamma Youth Farming Project (UYFP) was established in June 2005 by a group of Zimbabwean university students who saw Zimbabwe’s land reform as a means to empower youth. The project is an African youth-led farming cooperative that has secured a 100-acre plot in the central city of Gweru under the government’s A1 resettlement program and is registered under the Ministry of Youth, Gender and Employment Creation. (1) Led by the project’s chairman and cofounder, Kwanisai Mafa (age 32), the leadership core of UYFP is a very socially conscious group that stands against poverty and for the development of the African family, nation and continent toward their fullest potential. Our mission is to empower African youth through gainful farming initiatives so that they’re able to get the essential skills necessary to function as lifelong productive citizens in Africa’s development.
The first goal is to grow into an agribusiness that can eventually offer produce to wholesalers and retail outlets in and around Midlands province in Zimbabwe. But a longer-term goal is to establish a training program so that youth of African descent from outside of Zimbabwe and even outside of Africa will be able to visit, meet, train/work, and bond with their youth counterparts on the farm. I began working with the UYFP from here in the U.S. in August of 2005, serving as U.S. liaison to help raise mostly pan-African support for it. Since the formation of UYFP we’ve learned that our biggest challenge has been in mobilizing resources to kick-start the project. So that has been my main role: to secure resources and promote the project. While we have every intention of becoming self-sufficient, we don’t qualify for loans from local banks and the land can’t be used as collateral because it was acquired under the A1 village development scheme for non-commercial farmland.
My purpose for recently visiting the project is basically to finally see first hand what I’ve been supporting since last year and also to get first hand experience of Zimbabwe’s political situation; the effects of U.S. and British sanctions, etc. This, because I’ve also been working as an organizer with PALO to expose the misinformation against Zimbabwe by Britain, the U.S. and Western world in general. I’ve become pretty familiar with the political situation through my own research into the things a person can glean from historical and geopolitical context, but I wanted to also fortify that knowledge with a physical visit to the country. As you’re well aware Greg, there is an intense propaganda assault of misinformation and lies being waged against Zimbabwe, and so many people only respect what someone has to say about a place when the person has been there. So I went there, to do a site visit of the farm and to see what else I could learn about the political situation. Although UYFP does not refer to itself as a political initiative, the political implications of the project are obvious to me and that is what really motivates my work with it.
[Q] There is indeed an unrelenting propaganda campaign by Western governments and media. You saw a good deal of the country while you were there. As an eyewitness to the current situation in Zimbabwe, how does what you saw compare with reports in the corporate media? I am also interested in your assessment of the impact of Western sanctions on the nation, as well as how well the spirit of the people is holding up under that onslaught.
[Freeman] Well, there is no short answer to that question but I’ll try. Yes, we did see a good deal of the country, my partner and I. We were able to travel from what’s basically the northeast of the country --Harare--into the center provinces where Gweru is, further south to Bulawayo, then up toward the northwest to the great Mosi-oa-Tunya Falls (what the settlers renamed Victoria Falls), then back through all those areas to Harare again. We did all this taking the people’s public transportation, buses and what are called kombis (2).
It was a very educational and gratifying trip to say the least. Politically, Zimbabwe is in an intriguing situation that is grossly misrepresented by the Western World and even by too many so-called progressives, Africans alike. As you say in your book, Greg, complexity and context are neglected in the analysis/information that is readily available about Zimbabwe. The police and the state news media (at least TV news) consist overwhelmingly of young people, below the ages of 30, and many women. Now in my view, youth and women are generally the sectors of society that are too zealous about justice and too courageous to be in the majority in carrying out the maintenance of a repressive state. Claims of an atmosphere of repression and volatility that are propagated by British and U.S. media are pure lies. From what we saw, life is relatively peaceful. The police don’t even carry guns, as they all do in the U.S. What kind of dictator or repressive government is it when the police don’t even carry guns? In fact, we barely saw any uniformed police presence in the cities we visited. They were mostly on the main roads where they had checkpoints trying to catch smugglers of currency and foreign exchange.
The sanctions have exacerbated a shortage of foreign exchange and also, as a result, instigated a black market in exchange of Zimbabwean currency for foreign currency. This is reaping crippling effects on the economy, making foreign currency that much more scarce for the government and banks, which of course need it to conduct business in the international economy. Because the Zimbabwean currency had become too physically cumbersome to carry and complicated to calculate, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe introduced a new currency while we were there that slashes three zeros from the bills. They were phasing in this new currency while phasing out the old. The measure wasn’t expected to reduce the hyperinflation but merely to make currency more manageable.
Western reports regularly imply that there is repression of news media that is not state-owned. But we saw opposition papers being sold openly on the streets by vendors and we saw people reading them. However, more people seemed to be reading the Herald and the Sunday Mail, the state’s papers. The state-owned news -- TV or print -- also reports on corruption among government officials. So the suggestions that the state’s news institutions are less reliable simply on the grounds that they are state-run is bogus in my view. It’s the content of the news that should be the gauge of reliability, not just the source. We also found that people are very distrustful of foreigners. They know that there is a propaganda assault on their country and that people have come there for video footage and interviews as a means to present things out of context. We had several people urge us that when we returned to the U.S. to tell the truth about Zimbabwe. It was disheartening to have my own African sisters and brothers hold this level of skepticism about me but I understood it.
The effects of the illegal and immoral sanctions are evident. I refer to sanctions as “war without guns or bloodshed.” Only the imperialist powers have the ability to enforce sanctions and are therefore always exempt from them. Because of this reason sanctions are always immoral. It’s a blatant lie that the sanctions are confined to travel and financial assets of government officials. (3) In fact maybe I should not say it’s a lie because those imposing the sanctions publish public information that would easily dispel such a misrepresentation. Basic needs such as gasoline have become scarce, making it susceptible to exploitation on the black market. While the black market offers national currency at much lower than official rates, it offers gasoline for triple, sometimes four times, the official market price. People need gasoline, so if they have the money, they pay it. Almost everywhere we went there were power outages. Because the country imports electricity the outages are a means of conserving energy. In spite of all these things the people seemed to adjust to the challenges and for many sanctions seem to harden them with either animosity and/or the resolve to oppose the governments of Britain and the U.S.
The fuss over Operation Murambatsvina is another propaganda ploy. (4) Western news hasn’t ceased mentioning the government’s demolition of shantytowns in Zimbabwe last year. But what is always neglected is Operation Garikai, which I’ve seen with my own eyes. (5) This noble operation is rebuilding brand new homes for all those displaced by Operation Murambatsvina that are of course far better than their previous homes. You can see that construction of the homes has been interrupted by sanctions, but why does no one even talk about it? I’ve taken video footage of them. Is it ignorance or intentional omission? I tend to believe the latter because when I’ve presented these facts to so-called progressives they all but physically run from them. We cannot let the enemies of Africa and enemies of all humanity dictate how we see the world or Africa. They’ve become very sophisticated in how they advance their misinformation so we must become that much more sophisticated in how we get ours.
[Q] That is beautifully put. You’ve touched on a curious aspect of a segment of the Western Left. It rightly condemns U.S. intervention in the Middle East, while simultaneously favoring sanctions, covert operations and war against other manufactured enemies, such as was the case with the bombing of Yugoslavia, or as is happening today with the economic strangulation of Cuba, North Korea and Zimbabwe. It often seems that there are those on the Western Left who have lost their bearing, and are thus prey to appeals to support imperial adventures under the pretext of human rights, when in fact other motives are at play. How does Western policy against Zimbabwe relate to the invasion and occupation of Iraq? And finally, is there anything else you would like to add concerning Zimbabwe or the pan-African Liberation struggle?
[Freeman] This is a complicated question that is directly related to ideology. On the one hand there is the class in the West that is reflected by governments and business corporations, and which are incestuous in many ways. We can refer to this as the capitalist class. This class has the power to imbue society with its ideas and values, fooling much of society into believing that they share the same economic and political interests as the capitalist class. Then there are others in society who unwittingly adopt those values and ideas, or else see the contradictions in them and reject that. Many on the Western Left have chosen to adopt enough of these values and ideas that they cannot go far enough left. They’re stuck in a middle ground trying to reconcile things that are irreconcilable.
More simply put, Western policies against both Zimbabwe and Iraq are not motivated by any desire to see democracy or justice for the people of those countries. They are in fact motivated by the need to dominate and exploit the labor and resources of those countries. Because the West is so much less than democratic or just, exploitation is the only thing that can motivate its policies. Yet many on the Western Left cannot accept this fact. Even though all facts and history reveal this, they cannot accept that the ideas and values of democracy and justice are complete hypocrisies and lies on the part of these governments and corporations. On some level they acknowledge the injustices of the policies but on another level they believe these are isolated incidents or merely the result of shortsightedness. If they didn’t believe this, then they would have to reassess their understanding of reality in general. For example, often we hear from those among the Western Left denouncing such things as the U.S. blockade against Cuba, saying “It’s a failed policy”; “It has failed to bring freedom and democracy to Cuba,” as if the policy is really to bring those things to Cuba. Moreover they would not dare consider that Cuba is already a democracy. Even when this Left doesn’t accept Western policies against a country, they generally do accept some degree of demonizing propaganda, whether true or false. We can see this with Zimbabwe, Cuba and even Venezuela to an extent.
A practical reason is that most of this Left works through non-profit organizations or NGOs. And because most get their funding from, either their government, a corporate foundation, or some rich individual(s) with no interest in seriously challenging the system or world order, the West has effectively co-opted the Left by funding its activities. They then are torn between biting the hand that feeds them -- that is, speaking complete truth to power -- or acquiescing to merely an acceptable level of protest against them by speaking only select truths to power.
So more to the relationship between policies toward Zimbabwe and Iraq, you also have varying factors at work such as the racial stereotypes and what the people will put up with. The Arab world is effectively stereotyped as fanatical terrorists that have irrational hatred for the West and everyone in it. They can be bombed and outright invaded because the outcry will not garner enough support to effectively stop it. Yugoslavia was and still is to a large extent unknown by the masses in the U.S., so bombing that nation was not such a big deal; especially since some of the blame can be shared with NATO and there is no obvious racism that would upset anybody. But for Africa it is a different story. While most Africans/Black people around the world are politically disorganized and too imbued with Western values and ideas to take an effective stand against Western policies toward Africa, the easiest way to get us organized and energized around Africa would be for the West to bomb or invade her. Somalia did not go well or last long and Zimbabwe stands out more as a Black Liberation struggle against racist settler colonialism. So instead they use covert operations by mercenaries and the fostering of internal destabilization. This works because our stereotype is a bit different from our Arab sisters and brothers. We are pegged as not being able to get along and being naturally violent toward each other. You can see this regarding our populations, even within the Western countries themselves, and many of us have accepted this stereotype and self fulfill the prophecy if you will.
So in short, policies toward all these countries are essentially the same: to maintain Western hegemony over countries that refuse to dance to its tune. And the dilemma of the Western Left essentially is to try protesting against the injustices of those policies while at the same time not upsetting the powers that be too much, or questioning their own class privileged perceptions of reality and stereotypes. They can only appeal for the powers that be to simply become a little less oppressive and “more benevolent,” instead of working to organize and fight “with” (instead of “for”) the people who are under subjugation in order to completely transform the world order. That is, fight to dilute the dominance of the powers that be and turn them into ordinary folk who are no longer capable of exploitation and oppression.
The one thing I would like to add about the pan-African Movement is that revolutionary an-Africanism recognizes the interconnectedness of humanity. All just people around the world must recognize the value in a United Socialist Africa. I’d like to quote Ho Chi Minh of Vietnam who said simply, “The Liberation of Africa is the Liberation of man.”
For further information, contact:
The Social Action and Leadership School for Activists
http://www.hotsalsa.org/
The No War On Cuba Movement
http://www.nowaroncuba.org
The Ujamma Youth Farming Project
http://ujammafarming.org/
The Pan-African Liberation Organization
panafricanlib@yahoo.com.
To make a donation to the Ujamma Youth Farming Project
http://ujammafarming.org/donate.htm
Gregory Elich is the author of Strange Liberators: Militarism, Mayhem, and the Pursuit of Profit
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1595265708/sr=8-1/qid=1156814483/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-5343377-5198403?ie=UTF8
Notes:
(1) There are two programs comprising Zimbabwe's land reform process. The A1 model is intended to create small family farms for landless peasants or those previously farming in areas unsuitable for agriculture. The aim of the A2 model is to create commercial farms for those who have the means to become rapidly productive.
(2) Kombi - a mini-van bus
(3) On December 21, 2001, President Bush signed into law S. 494, the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act of 2001. Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina, the one-time supporter of apartheid Rhodesia, sponsored the bill. The law instructed American officials in international financial institutions to "oppose and vote against any extension by the respective institution of any loan, credit, or guarantee to the government of Zimbabwe," and to vote against any reduction or cancellation of debt. The law also authorized President Bush to fund opposition media and organizations in Zimbabwe. U.S. officials in international financial institutions were joined by British and Western European officials in ensuring the near-total cutoff of foreign currency flowing into Zimbabwe, a crippling blow for a nation that had to import 100 percent of its oil and 40 percent of its electrical power supply.
(4) Operation Murambatsvina was the first phase of a program to improve living conditions for the urban poor. In this phase, squalid slum dwellings were torn down.
(5) Operation Garikai is the second phase of that effort, in which new homes are being constructed for the urban poor. The intent is to provide decent housing installed with plumbing to former slum dwellers. It is indicative of the nature of Western reporting that much emphasis was given to Operation Murambatsvina, while Garikai has been almost entirely ignored. Western media thereby managed to deliberately distort the project and portray it as simply a malevolent effort to drive people into homelessness.
Netfa Freeman is one of the more dedicated and clear thinking political activists committed to making the world a better place. Working primarily on issues relating to Africa and the African Diaspora, he is also an organizer in the No War on Cuba Movement and an advocate for the anti-imperialist cause in general.
There is a dearth of first-hand information on Zimbabwe, so when I learned that Netfa had recently returned from a trip to Zimbabwe, I contacted him and suggested an interview so that he could share his thoughts on his trip. He was kind enough to take time from a busy schedule to answer the following questions.
[Q] You've just returned from Zimbabwe, where you visited the Ujamma Youth Farming Project. Before we talk about your trip, please tell us about the organization you head, the Social Action and Leadership School for Activists (SALSA).
[Freeman] Yes, I am the Director of the Social Action & Leadership School for Activists (a.k.a. SALSA), but SALSA is not an organization unto itself. SALSA is actually a program of the larger Institute for Policy Studies (IPS). Since 1963 IPS has sought to transform ideas into action for peace, justice, and the environment by linking and strengthening social movements. IPS is a Washington DC based non-profit, multi-issue think tank that has been working with movements from the U.S. Civil Rights era onwards.
SALSA is just one of several programs/projects of IPS which was started in 1994 as successor to IPS' Washington School. I’ve been with SALSA and IPS since 2000. SALSA is a skills training program that offers classes or workshops in various aspects of social justice activism and organizing. Secondly, SALSA offers free public political education forums on various issues ranging in scope from the local DC area, to national and international. The skills classes fall under general categories, such as organizational development, communications, money matters, leadership and management, techno-activism, etc. We generally refer to the forums in the political education category as our “policy” forums. There are no confines as to what subjects we cover in our policy forums but because the program basically reflects my own ideological leaning, the forums tend to have a more revolutionary regard that is more left than liberal.
Frankly, although IPS and my colleagues at IPS often refer to themselves as liberal, I’m not a liberal. Personally I’m definitely more left than liberals tend to be. In fact the organization I voluntarily belong to, which better reflects my affinity for, and commitment to Africa in general and Zimbabwe in particular is PALO, the Pan-African Liberation Organization. Instead of a philosophy, PALO regards “pan-Africanism” as an objective, which is the total liberation and unification of Africans on the continent and in the Diaspora under scientific socialism. This is in line with the practical and theoretical contributions of the late President Kwame Nkrumah.
[Q] Kwame Nkrumah’s revolutionary theory continues to be an inspiration for the pan-African movement, and many regard Zimbabwe as the focal point of that struggle. What are your thoughts on the role of Zimbabwe in the pan-African movement?
[Freeman] As Africa herself must be the land base for the pan-African Movement, it’s crucial for there to be at least one beacon of revolutionary progress and resistance against imperialism for Africa’s people, scattered and suffering around the world. Zimbabwe’s anti-imperialist stance makes her that beacon. Nkrumah referred to such bases as liberated zones and urged pan-African revolutionaries to protect our liberated zones at all costs. This is because such zones are to serve as the launching pads of the struggle for a Unified Socialist Africa.
Zimbabwe has a very pivotal role in this neocolonial phase of the pan-African Movement for several reasons. Not the least of which are the land reforms that have boldly swept the country. Nowhere on the continent have Africans taken as radical a measure toward land reform as we have in Zimbabwe. And not only have Zimbabwe’s land reforms been an inspiration for people in other African states, they have gained respect in Diasporan countries such as Venezuela and Bolivia. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has publicly praised Zimbabwe’s land reform process as a model he would like to emulate in that country. Another thing that makes Zimbabwe pivotal is its role regarding our sister states: such as aiding Mozambique against the foreign inspired counter insurgency of RENAMO; military assistance for SWAPO’s liberation struggle in Namibia; recently helping the Congo to secure its borders against CIA backed incursions; and lending troops to the AU mission to stabilize Sudan. No other African state is upholding such a cooperative position at this time. Zimbabwe even strategically held off on its land reforms at the request of South Africa and other Southern African states, so not to strengthen the belligerence of white settler colonialists in those countries. And they did this at great cost to the integrity of their own struggle. These things are concrete expressions of pan-African cooperation.
Furthermore, President Mugabe is a leader who also publicly keeps the inspiration of Kwame Nkrumah alive. That is, not only have all the aforementioned things been done under the leadership of Mugabe, he also often mentions Nkrumah and his ideals in speeches addressing other Africans. He is not afraid to speak of socialism at a time when no other African leader dares utter the word. President Mugabe openly condemns imperialism with the boldness and clarity we have only come to expect from leaders such as Fidel Castro or Hugo Chavez. That is why President Mugabe receives such resounding applause wherever he goes on the continent of Africa or when he speaks at UN or AU summits. No other African leader is doing what he is doing right now, and because he is, Zimbabwe stands as an inspiration to African people the world over. We need to see and hear such things. They serve as political education for pan-Africanism.
[Q] You’ve put your ideals into action through, among other things, your work with the Ujamma Youth Farming Project. Tell us about that project, and your purpose in visiting it.
[Freeman] An integral part of any genuine social justice movement or revolution is the empowerment of the working class, the women in society and the youth. The Ujamma Youth Farming Project (UYFP) was established in June 2005 by a group of Zimbabwean university students who saw Zimbabwe’s land reform as a means to empower youth. The project is an African youth-led farming cooperative that has secured a 100-acre plot in the central city of Gweru under the government’s A1 resettlement program and is registered under the Ministry of Youth, Gender and Employment Creation. (1) Led by the project’s chairman and cofounder, Kwanisai Mafa (age 32), the leadership core of UYFP is a very socially conscious group that stands against poverty and for the development of the African family, nation and continent toward their fullest potential. Our mission is to empower African youth through gainful farming initiatives so that they’re able to get the essential skills necessary to function as lifelong productive citizens in Africa’s development.
The first goal is to grow into an agribusiness that can eventually offer produce to wholesalers and retail outlets in and around Midlands province in Zimbabwe. But a longer-term goal is to establish a training program so that youth of African descent from outside of Zimbabwe and even outside of Africa will be able to visit, meet, train/work, and bond with their youth counterparts on the farm. I began working with the UYFP from here in the U.S. in August of 2005, serving as U.S. liaison to help raise mostly pan-African support for it. Since the formation of UYFP we’ve learned that our biggest challenge has been in mobilizing resources to kick-start the project. So that has been my main role: to secure resources and promote the project. While we have every intention of becoming self-sufficient, we don’t qualify for loans from local banks and the land can’t be used as collateral because it was acquired under the A1 village development scheme for non-commercial farmland.
My purpose for recently visiting the project is basically to finally see first hand what I’ve been supporting since last year and also to get first hand experience of Zimbabwe’s political situation; the effects of U.S. and British sanctions, etc. This, because I’ve also been working as an organizer with PALO to expose the misinformation against Zimbabwe by Britain, the U.S. and Western world in general. I’ve become pretty familiar with the political situation through my own research into the things a person can glean from historical and geopolitical context, but I wanted to also fortify that knowledge with a physical visit to the country. As you’re well aware Greg, there is an intense propaganda assault of misinformation and lies being waged against Zimbabwe, and so many people only respect what someone has to say about a place when the person has been there. So I went there, to do a site visit of the farm and to see what else I could learn about the political situation. Although UYFP does not refer to itself as a political initiative, the political implications of the project are obvious to me and that is what really motivates my work with it.
[Q] There is indeed an unrelenting propaganda campaign by Western governments and media. You saw a good deal of the country while you were there. As an eyewitness to the current situation in Zimbabwe, how does what you saw compare with reports in the corporate media? I am also interested in your assessment of the impact of Western sanctions on the nation, as well as how well the spirit of the people is holding up under that onslaught.
[Freeman] Well, there is no short answer to that question but I’ll try. Yes, we did see a good deal of the country, my partner and I. We were able to travel from what’s basically the northeast of the country --Harare--into the center provinces where Gweru is, further south to Bulawayo, then up toward the northwest to the great Mosi-oa-Tunya Falls (what the settlers renamed Victoria Falls), then back through all those areas to Harare again. We did all this taking the people’s public transportation, buses and what are called kombis (2).
It was a very educational and gratifying trip to say the least. Politically, Zimbabwe is in an intriguing situation that is grossly misrepresented by the Western World and even by too many so-called progressives, Africans alike. As you say in your book, Greg, complexity and context are neglected in the analysis/information that is readily available about Zimbabwe. The police and the state news media (at least TV news) consist overwhelmingly of young people, below the ages of 30, and many women. Now in my view, youth and women are generally the sectors of society that are too zealous about justice and too courageous to be in the majority in carrying out the maintenance of a repressive state. Claims of an atmosphere of repression and volatility that are propagated by British and U.S. media are pure lies. From what we saw, life is relatively peaceful. The police don’t even carry guns, as they all do in the U.S. What kind of dictator or repressive government is it when the police don’t even carry guns? In fact, we barely saw any uniformed police presence in the cities we visited. They were mostly on the main roads where they had checkpoints trying to catch smugglers of currency and foreign exchange.
The sanctions have exacerbated a shortage of foreign exchange and also, as a result, instigated a black market in exchange of Zimbabwean currency for foreign currency. This is reaping crippling effects on the economy, making foreign currency that much more scarce for the government and banks, which of course need it to conduct business in the international economy. Because the Zimbabwean currency had become too physically cumbersome to carry and complicated to calculate, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe introduced a new currency while we were there that slashes three zeros from the bills. They were phasing in this new currency while phasing out the old. The measure wasn’t expected to reduce the hyperinflation but merely to make currency more manageable.
Western reports regularly imply that there is repression of news media that is not state-owned. But we saw opposition papers being sold openly on the streets by vendors and we saw people reading them. However, more people seemed to be reading the Herald and the Sunday Mail, the state’s papers. The state-owned news -- TV or print -- also reports on corruption among government officials. So the suggestions that the state’s news institutions are less reliable simply on the grounds that they are state-run is bogus in my view. It’s the content of the news that should be the gauge of reliability, not just the source. We also found that people are very distrustful of foreigners. They know that there is a propaganda assault on their country and that people have come there for video footage and interviews as a means to present things out of context. We had several people urge us that when we returned to the U.S. to tell the truth about Zimbabwe. It was disheartening to have my own African sisters and brothers hold this level of skepticism about me but I understood it.
The effects of the illegal and immoral sanctions are evident. I refer to sanctions as “war without guns or bloodshed.” Only the imperialist powers have the ability to enforce sanctions and are therefore always exempt from them. Because of this reason sanctions are always immoral. It’s a blatant lie that the sanctions are confined to travel and financial assets of government officials. (3) In fact maybe I should not say it’s a lie because those imposing the sanctions publish public information that would easily dispel such a misrepresentation. Basic needs such as gasoline have become scarce, making it susceptible to exploitation on the black market. While the black market offers national currency at much lower than official rates, it offers gasoline for triple, sometimes four times, the official market price. People need gasoline, so if they have the money, they pay it. Almost everywhere we went there were power outages. Because the country imports electricity the outages are a means of conserving energy. In spite of all these things the people seemed to adjust to the challenges and for many sanctions seem to harden them with either animosity and/or the resolve to oppose the governments of Britain and the U.S.
The fuss over Operation Murambatsvina is another propaganda ploy. (4) Western news hasn’t ceased mentioning the government’s demolition of shantytowns in Zimbabwe last year. But what is always neglected is Operation Garikai, which I’ve seen with my own eyes. (5) This noble operation is rebuilding brand new homes for all those displaced by Operation Murambatsvina that are of course far better than their previous homes. You can see that construction of the homes has been interrupted by sanctions, but why does no one even talk about it? I’ve taken video footage of them. Is it ignorance or intentional omission? I tend to believe the latter because when I’ve presented these facts to so-called progressives they all but physically run from them. We cannot let the enemies of Africa and enemies of all humanity dictate how we see the world or Africa. They’ve become very sophisticated in how they advance their misinformation so we must become that much more sophisticated in how we get ours.
[Q] That is beautifully put. You’ve touched on a curious aspect of a segment of the Western Left. It rightly condemns U.S. intervention in the Middle East, while simultaneously favoring sanctions, covert operations and war against other manufactured enemies, such as was the case with the bombing of Yugoslavia, or as is happening today with the economic strangulation of Cuba, North Korea and Zimbabwe. It often seems that there are those on the Western Left who have lost their bearing, and are thus prey to appeals to support imperial adventures under the pretext of human rights, when in fact other motives are at play. How does Western policy against Zimbabwe relate to the invasion and occupation of Iraq? And finally, is there anything else you would like to add concerning Zimbabwe or the pan-African Liberation struggle?
[Freeman] This is a complicated question that is directly related to ideology. On the one hand there is the class in the West that is reflected by governments and business corporations, and which are incestuous in many ways. We can refer to this as the capitalist class. This class has the power to imbue society with its ideas and values, fooling much of society into believing that they share the same economic and political interests as the capitalist class. Then there are others in society who unwittingly adopt those values and ideas, or else see the contradictions in them and reject that. Many on the Western Left have chosen to adopt enough of these values and ideas that they cannot go far enough left. They’re stuck in a middle ground trying to reconcile things that are irreconcilable.
More simply put, Western policies against both Zimbabwe and Iraq are not motivated by any desire to see democracy or justice for the people of those countries. They are in fact motivated by the need to dominate and exploit the labor and resources of those countries. Because the West is so much less than democratic or just, exploitation is the only thing that can motivate its policies. Yet many on the Western Left cannot accept this fact. Even though all facts and history reveal this, they cannot accept that the ideas and values of democracy and justice are complete hypocrisies and lies on the part of these governments and corporations. On some level they acknowledge the injustices of the policies but on another level they believe these are isolated incidents or merely the result of shortsightedness. If they didn’t believe this, then they would have to reassess their understanding of reality in general. For example, often we hear from those among the Western Left denouncing such things as the U.S. blockade against Cuba, saying “It’s a failed policy”; “It has failed to bring freedom and democracy to Cuba,” as if the policy is really to bring those things to Cuba. Moreover they would not dare consider that Cuba is already a democracy. Even when this Left doesn’t accept Western policies against a country, they generally do accept some degree of demonizing propaganda, whether true or false. We can see this with Zimbabwe, Cuba and even Venezuela to an extent.
A practical reason is that most of this Left works through non-profit organizations or NGOs. And because most get their funding from, either their government, a corporate foundation, or some rich individual(s) with no interest in seriously challenging the system or world order, the West has effectively co-opted the Left by funding its activities. They then are torn between biting the hand that feeds them -- that is, speaking complete truth to power -- or acquiescing to merely an acceptable level of protest against them by speaking only select truths to power.
So more to the relationship between policies toward Zimbabwe and Iraq, you also have varying factors at work such as the racial stereotypes and what the people will put up with. The Arab world is effectively stereotyped as fanatical terrorists that have irrational hatred for the West and everyone in it. They can be bombed and outright invaded because the outcry will not garner enough support to effectively stop it. Yugoslavia was and still is to a large extent unknown by the masses in the U.S., so bombing that nation was not such a big deal; especially since some of the blame can be shared with NATO and there is no obvious racism that would upset anybody. But for Africa it is a different story. While most Africans/Black people around the world are politically disorganized and too imbued with Western values and ideas to take an effective stand against Western policies toward Africa, the easiest way to get us organized and energized around Africa would be for the West to bomb or invade her. Somalia did not go well or last long and Zimbabwe stands out more as a Black Liberation struggle against racist settler colonialism. So instead they use covert operations by mercenaries and the fostering of internal destabilization. This works because our stereotype is a bit different from our Arab sisters and brothers. We are pegged as not being able to get along and being naturally violent toward each other. You can see this regarding our populations, even within the Western countries themselves, and many of us have accepted this stereotype and self fulfill the prophecy if you will.
So in short, policies toward all these countries are essentially the same: to maintain Western hegemony over countries that refuse to dance to its tune. And the dilemma of the Western Left essentially is to try protesting against the injustices of those policies while at the same time not upsetting the powers that be too much, or questioning their own class privileged perceptions of reality and stereotypes. They can only appeal for the powers that be to simply become a little less oppressive and “more benevolent,” instead of working to organize and fight “with” (instead of “for”) the people who are under subjugation in order to completely transform the world order. That is, fight to dilute the dominance of the powers that be and turn them into ordinary folk who are no longer capable of exploitation and oppression.
The one thing I would like to add about the pan-African Movement is that revolutionary an-Africanism recognizes the interconnectedness of humanity. All just people around the world must recognize the value in a United Socialist Africa. I’d like to quote Ho Chi Minh of Vietnam who said simply, “The Liberation of Africa is the Liberation of man.”
For further information, contact:
The Social Action and Leadership School for Activists
http://www.hotsalsa.org/
The No War On Cuba Movement
http://www.nowaroncuba.org
The Ujamma Youth Farming Project
http://ujammafarming.org/
The Pan-African Liberation Organization
panafricanlib@yahoo.com.
To make a donation to the Ujamma Youth Farming Project
http://ujammafarming.org/donate.htm
Gregory Elich is the author of Strange Liberators: Militarism, Mayhem, and the Pursuit of Profit
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1595265708/sr=8-1/qid=1156814483/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-5343377-5198403?ie=UTF8
Notes:
(1) There are two programs comprising Zimbabwe's land reform process. The A1 model is intended to create small family farms for landless peasants or those previously farming in areas unsuitable for agriculture. The aim of the A2 model is to create commercial farms for those who have the means to become rapidly productive.
(2) Kombi - a mini-van bus
(3) On December 21, 2001, President Bush signed into law S. 494, the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act of 2001. Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina, the one-time supporter of apartheid Rhodesia, sponsored the bill. The law instructed American officials in international financial institutions to "oppose and vote against any extension by the respective institution of any loan, credit, or guarantee to the government of Zimbabwe," and to vote against any reduction or cancellation of debt. The law also authorized President Bush to fund opposition media and organizations in Zimbabwe. U.S. officials in international financial institutions were joined by British and Western European officials in ensuring the near-total cutoff of foreign currency flowing into Zimbabwe, a crippling blow for a nation that had to import 100 percent of its oil and 40 percent of its electrical power supply.
(4) Operation Murambatsvina was the first phase of a program to improve living conditions for the urban poor. In this phase, squalid slum dwellings were torn down.
(5) Operation Garikai is the second phase of that effort, in which new homes are being constructed for the urban poor. The intent is to provide decent housing installed with plumbing to former slum dwellers. It is indicative of the nature of Western reporting that much emphasis was given to Operation Murambatsvina, while Garikai has been almost entirely ignored. Western media thereby managed to deliberately distort the project and portray it as simply a malevolent effort to drive people into homelessness.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
PANW Editor Reviewed Legacy of Radical Media in Detroit
Open Forum Co-Hosts (left to right), Abayomi Azikiwe, PANW Editor, Titilayo Akanke & Malik Yakini. Photo taken at WDTR, 90.9 FM in Detroit (Nov. 25, 2001)
Originally uploaded by panafnewswire.
2005 Allied Media Conference Featured Panel on the History of
Radical Media in Detroit
Charles Simmons & Abayomi Azikiwe spoke on alternative press
outlets
By a Pan-African News Wire Correspondent
Allied Media Conference web site:
http://alliedmediaconference.com
Bowling Green, OH, 18 June, 2005 (PANW)--A national
conference on the role of alternative media was held during
the weekend of June 17-19 at Bowling Green State University.
Entitled the "Allied Media Conference, New Solutions to Old
Problems", the three day event showcased a variety of
spokespersons within the broad spectrum of radical
communications outlets and networks that exist today across
the United States.
Individuals and organizations representing community radio
stations, press agencies, publishing houses, foundations,
youth centers, magazines, journals and popular art put on
displays and held workshops and panels on the experience they
have acquired over the recent period in countering the
monumental impact of an ever increasing concentration of
ownership and programming in the corporate-controlled media.
Some of the panels that were held addressed topics such
as: "Are Our Messages Reaching the Right Audiences?; Zine
Reading; Grassroots Fundraising; Microradio: Overview &
Operations, etc. Many of the speakers represented the
burgeoning movement of activists who are seeking means to not
only get out the news and information that needs to be seen
and heard but to also influence social change in the
contemporary era.
Perhaps one of the most interesting panels took place on June
18 which featured Charles Simmons, professor of journalism
and law at Eastern Michigan University and Abayomi Azikiwe,
the editor of the Pan-African News Wire and a broadcast
journalist, who both examined the history of radical media in
the city of Detroit.
Charles Simmons began the discussion by conveying his own
personal experiences in the United States Air Force during
the early 1960s. Simmons had expressed an unwillingness to
participate in American plans to invade Cuba after the Bay of
Pigs incident in 1961 and the missile crisis which occured in
October of 1962.
After being threatened by his superior officers, he was
placed in military detention along with other dissidents in
the service. It was during this period that Simmons began to
read socialist literature and anti-war tracts through a study
group established by those who were resisting the cold war
policy of the government. Prior to this time period he had
spoken with older GIs who had participated in the Korean war.
These soldiers held a totally different perspective on the
war than what had been promoted by the Eisenhower
administration.
"I thought we had won the war, but when I spoke with people
who had actually gone there to fight, they kept talking about
how they had been beaten by the Korean and Chinese military
forces," Simmons said.
In regard to US-Cuba relations, Simmons said that "we had
seen the newsreels of Malcolm X meeting with Castro during
his visit in 1960 to Harlem and therefore we could not be
against Castro if he was liked by Malcolm."
"We never had a fair media in the African-American community
other than our own," said Simmons. "The media's handling of
the African-American community has been unfair from the
beginning. It has been racist, it was biased in every way we
can think of, it was exclusive and in many communities as it
relates to African-American societies, we only had some
mention of the African-American community one day a week.
Many of the mainstream papers would have a section called
the "Colored Section" or the "Negro Section" and it was
basically a discussion of some level of crime, entertainment
and sports." According to Simmons, "it really hasn't changed
since then, except we have more days of it and it is
broadcast to cable and satellite."
"We were dealing with lynchings in that period and it really
hasn't been that long ago. I can remember when Emmit Till
was lynched. We were the same age. He was visiting his
grandparents in the South and I would do the same thing."
Simmons then went on to discuss some of the organizations in
the African-American community that have published newspapers.
He mentioned the Nation of Islam which published the Muhammad
Speaks.
After his release from the military he returned to Detroit
and attended Wayne State University. He became a student
activist with UHURU, one of the early militant organizations
on campus during the 1960s. "We started to produce leaflets
and we mimeographed them right on the campus. At that time
people didn't get a lot of flyers and junk mail. We were not
saturated with a lot of information. Television wasn't that
old and experienced as it is now," Simmons continued.
"We published a newsletter called the Black Vanguard that was
circulated in the factories. Also we put out a publication
for students called The Razor. We were radicalized more by a
trip we took to Cuba in 1964 designed to challenge the State
Department's travel ban on the country. We were fortunate to
meet Robert Williams there who was in exile from the struggle
in the United States. We also met Che Guervara and got to
talk with him. We got to play baseball and talk to Fidel
Castro. There were a lot of young people in Cuba from the
ANC (African National Congress) and the PAC (Pan Africanists
Congress) from South Africa, there were people from Namibia
and other countries."
Later the political activities of people in Detroit led to
the organization of the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement
(DRUM). Simmons discussed how the organizing expanded to
other work places throughout the area. Eventually in 1969,
the League of Revolutionary Black Workers (LRBW) was
formed. "There were newsletters printed in each plant named
after each revolutionary union movement. When we had protests
they were against both the company and the unions. We wanted
to desegregate the leadership in the company and the union."
Simmons who later became an international correspondent for
the Associated Press, also wrote for the Muhammad Speaks. He
then discussed how the League of Revolutionary Black Workers
took over the campus newspaper at Wayne State University, the
South End, in 1968-69 and ran it as a city wide publication
that was heavily circulated in the plants, the community and
the schools.
Alternative media in post-industrial Detroit
Abayomi Azikiwe then spoke about the changing character of
radical media in Detroit beginning in the middle to late
1970s.
"The whole evolution of radical and alternative media in
Detroit was an outgrowth of the popular struggles of African
people in the United States and around the world which took
place coming out of the post World War II period--and of
course becoming more intensified during the 1960s and early
1970s. As Charles talked about during the 1960s, the African-
American community was in a state of popular revolt. For
example, if you read the Kerner Commission Report on Civil
Disorder, which was published in the spring of 1968, it
indicates that the previous year there had been over 164
rebellions in the United States that were principally led by
African-Americans."
"In 1968, right in the aftermath of the assassination of
Martin Luther King, Jr., over 125 cities had popular
rebellions during that particular time period. That extended
throughout the summer of 1968. This was also paralleled by a
rise of activism in the white community, particularly among
the youth. Within the so-called Hispanic community, mainly
among Puerto Ricans and Mexicans. Also among the Asian-
American youth as well, largely out on the west coast."
According to Azikiwe, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was
assassinated as a result of his evolving position linking the
Vietnam War with the struggle for civil and human rights in
the country. After 1965 the civil rights movement began to
reassess its position to address the economic conditions
facing African-Americans. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and
the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were tremendous victories but
they could not totally address the socio-economic crisis in
the African-American communities across the country.
"All of this coincided with the so-called Counter-Intelligence
Program (COINTELPRO). This program was designed
by the FBI during the 1950s primarily to crush the Communist
Party and the left in the United States. However, by the
early 1960s with the burgeoning civil rights movement, most
of the efforts that emerged from the Counter-Intelligence
Program were geared towards stifling and ultimately smashing
the black liberation movement, both the civil rights aspects
of the movement as well as the black power and black
revolutionary aspects of the movement," Azikiwe continued.
"So by 1969-70, we had hundreds of members of the Black
Panther Party and other organizations that had been
incarcerated, who had been indicted on criminal charges. So
we had a whole attempted criminalization of the African-
American liberation struggle."
"At the same time, we had burgeoning national liberation
movements in Africa. In Guinea-Bissau you had the PAIGC
(African Party for the Independence of Guinea). In Mozambique
there was FRELIMO (Mozambique Liberation Front). In Angola
there was the MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberation of
Angola). In Namibia there was the South-west African Peoples
Organization (SWAPO). In Zimbabwe you had the Zimbabwe
African National Union (ZANU), and the Zimbabwe African
Peoples Union (ZAPU). In South Africa it was the African
National Congress (ANC). All of these organizations saw the
United States as being a principal impediment to their own
excercise in self-emancipation."
"The African-American liberation movement in the United
States attempted to hook up with the Vietnamese liberation
struggle as well as the national liberation movements in
Africa and other parts of the so-called Third World," Azikiwe
stated. Illustrating the significance of the struggle in the
United States during this period, Azikiwe recalled how the
North Vietnamese government had offered to release all United
States prisoners of war in exchange for the Americans
releasing both Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, the founders
of the Black Panther Party for Self-defense. Seale and Newton
were incarcerated during the fall of 1969 when the offer was
made. The United States government under the Nixon
administration immediately rejected the notion of linking the
war in Vietnam with the black liberation struggle in the
United States.
During the early 1970s there were numerous splits within
various revolutionary organizations. It is Azikiwe's
contention that these fissures were related to the pressure
exerted against the black liberation movement by the Counter-
Intelligence Program. All of these organizations had
independent journals.
He cited the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee's
(SNCC) newsletters: The Student Voice and the The Movement.
In addition, he spoke about the Black Panther newspaper, the
Inner City Voice, published by the LRBW in Detroit, which
lasted for several years.
These publications were viewed as a threat by the federal
government. According to Azikiwe, J. Edgar Hoover targeted
the Black Panther newspaper for disruption because it was the
most effective tool the party had during its peak between
1968 and 1971. The newspaper's circulation was reported to
be a quarter-of-a-million copies every week.
"In the Black Panther newspaper you could not only find
articles dealing with the struggle in the United States, you
could also find international news. They had articles by Kim
Il-Sung, Mao Tse-Tung. They had information about the
struggles in South Africa, in Congo, in Congo-Brazzaville, in
Cuba. In fact Eldridge Cleaver, who was the Minister of
Information of the Black Panther Party at that time, when he
fled the United States in 1968, the first place he went after
he stopped in Canada, was Cuba. Robert Williams had also
been there earlier," Azikiwe continued.
Azikiwe mentioned that the Muhammad Speaks, which Charles
Simmons was a correspondent for, was one of the best
newspapers coming out of the country during this time
period. He mentioned that there would be some information on
the religous views of the Nation of Islam under Elijah
Muhammad. However, the bulk of the paper was objective news
coverage of national and international issues confronting
African people internationally.
"There were articles in the paper by Charles Howard, who was
the United Nations correspondent for the Muhammad Speaks.
There were articles by Shirley Graham DuBois, who was the
widow of W.E.B. Dubois, then living in Cairo and the People's
Republic of China. All types of great information, in fact
the Muahmmad Speaks is still available on microfilm for
people who want additional information about that period. If
you are really serious about doing historical studies about
the 1960s and 1970s, the Muhammad Speaks is an excellent
primary resource document. "
Azikiwe went on to discuss the impact of the Counter-
Intelligence Program on the black alternative press during
this era.
"Many of those organs that I mentioned earlier dissolved.
For example, the Movement stopped publishing around 1970.
The Black Panther newspaper after the split in 1971 continued
but it did not have the same impact as before. The newspaper
published until 1980. The Inner City Voice stopped
publishing around 1971. And the Muhammad Speaks, as a result
of the death of Elijah Muhammad in 1975, his son, Wallace
Muhammad, took over the organization in 1975 and about six
months after the death of Elijah Muhammad, tremendous changes
took place within the Nation of Islam. They closed down a lot
of their businesses across the country and one of the
casualties of that whole shift in the Nation of Islam was of
course the dissolution of the Muhammad Speaks newspaper.
This was a major loss to the African-American community and
the world."
"The South End newspaper was taken over by the administration
in 1973 at Wayne State University. They set it up where in
fact students were not able to control the editorial
direction of the newspaper. By the time I got to the
University in the late 1970s, all of these things had been
pretty much eliminated or were in decline. Joining black
student organizations during that time period there was a
void. It was in the aftermath of the tremendous impact of the
Counter-Intelligence Program: the jailing of hundreds of
activists in this country, the driving into exile of many
others. The fact that the newspapers had been shut down and
gone out of business created a tremendous void as it related
to radical and revolutionary ideas during that period."
"During that period," Azikiwe continued, "you had the
development of smaller, more limited publications. For
example in 1982, we created African Viewpoint, a newsletter.
It only published a few issues dealing with the struggles in
Africa and the anti-racist struggle in the United States.
Later Pambana Journal was created which published for over 15
years. By the mid-1990s, with the development of the
internet technologies, this phenomena had a tremendous
impact on the movement building activities."
Azikiwe attributes the mass mobilizations around the defense
of Mumia Abu-Jamal and the anti-war movement to the effective
use of the world wide web. "Today we are in a position to
effectively compete with the corporate media. We have to
utilize technology to advance the popular struggles to a new
level of development in the United States.
During the question and answer period, one audience
particpant lamented the lack of knowledge by many younger
people in Detroit about the tremendous historical legacy
within the city. Azikiwe pointed out that this information is
not taught in the schools or advanced through the mass media
and that it is the responsibility of the activists community
to find creative ways of telling the true peoples' history of
the country.
Another question related to the status of educational radio
in Detroit which has been leased to Detroit Public Television
for management purposes. Azikiwe, who was a co-host along
with Malik Yakini and Titilayo Akanke on the Open Forum
weekly radio program over Detroit Public Schools radio, had
there program eliminated do to the changes stemming from the
current budget crisis in the city and the political
conservativism of the state-controlled school board.
Azikiwe stated that "we have to make the leasing of 90.0 FM a
political issue in the upcoming school board elections, the
first in six years. The station was bought and paid for by
the taxpayers of Detroit and they should control its
programmatic direction. Public television does not broadcast
to people in the city and therefore should not be in charge
of a Detroit educational station. We are demanding full
restoration of community programming over educational radio,"
he declared.
In concluding the panel, Azikiwe encouraged the media
activists present and said that "the days of independent
media are here."
Pro-Kabila Forces Lead in DRC Elections
President Joseph Kabila in Commanding Lead of Electoral Results
Originally uploaded by panafnewswire.
Tue, 05 Sep 2006
Partial legislative election results released on Monday in the Democratic Republic of Congo gave parties loyal to President Joseph Kabila a commanding lead, but allegations of voting fraud forced a three-day delay in the final count.
The 31-party Alliance of the Presidential Majority, headed by the 35-year-old president, gained 169 out of the 341 parliamentary seats for which results have so far been counted, according to the results published on the electoral commission's website and added together by AFP.
The Rally of Congolese Nationalists (Renaco), the opposition bloc supporting Kabila's main rival Jean-Pierre Bemba, was in second place with 47 seats.
The national assembly holds 500 seats altogether.
Meanwhile full provisional results, scheduled to be released on Monday, were postponed to Thursday after 10 officials were detained on suspicion of forging results in favour of the opposition Congolese Rally for Democracy, independent electoral commission official Dieudonne Mirimo said.
"This led the CIE to undertake a re-checking of the data" for Kinshasa, he said. The RCD is the party of one of the country's four vice-presidents, Azarias Ruberwa.
Similar results two weeks ago from the first round of presidential voting which took place on the same day as the legislative vote sparked violent clashes between the rival camps and left 23 people dead.
The first-round presidential results gave 44.8 percent to Kabila and 20 percent to Bemba.
Bitter political rivals signed an accord
The bitter political rivals signed an accord to remove their troops from the city centre and to establish ground rules for the October 29 run-off vote.
A hoped-for meeting between Kabila and Bemba, which observers say could ease sharp tensions in Kinshasa and elsewhere in the country, could also take place as soon as Tuesday, said a source in the UN mission in the DRC known as MONUC.
MONUC and the 1 000-strong European EUFOR force in Kinshasa continued to patrol the capital.
No clashes were reported on Monday, but the city remained tense as public and private transport workers, along with school teachers in Kinshasa and other major cities, went on strike.
Teachers were calling for higher pay, while mini-bus and taxi drivers stayed away from work to protest what they described as police extortion and racketeering. Late on Monday organizers called for the drivers to go back to work.
The remaining legislative seats tallied on Monday have gone to independents and smaller parties, including one led by the country's ex-central bank governor, Pierre Pay Pay, who had garnered 24 seats.
Ballots remained to be counted notably in Kinshasa, which accounts for 58 seats and where Bemba enjoys strong support, as well as in the western province of Bandudu.
The July 30 elections — the country's first multi-party polls in 46 years — were a key step in the political transition of the vast central African nation after it emerged in 2003 from a bloody five-year civil war.
Kinshasa has been relatively calm since the two rival camps agreed to the billeting of their troops, although the deal has not been completely adhered to.
Supreme Court finished hearing appeals
Also on Monday, the country's supreme court said it had finished hearing appeals over the first round of the presidential election and would officially announce the final first-round results on Tuesday.
Eight appeals had been lodged, including ones alleging voting fraud, bribery and ballot-stuffing.
A court source speaking on condition of anonymity said that none of the appeals against the first-round count had affected the outcome, due to the width of the lead Kabila held over Bemba.
The lead did not give Kabila the absolute majority needed to win outright under electoral rules, however, making the October 29 run-off necessary.
The European Union announced on Monday that it had released €16 million ($20 million) to help fund the presidential second round, which will coincide with other provincial elections.
AFP
Fidel Castro Sends Message to the Cuban People, September 5, 2006
Spanish here, with new Fidel photos. English as soon as it's posted...
The photos can be conveniently blown up on screen.
http://www.granma.cubaweb.cu/secciones/siempre_con_fidel/art-062.html
He makes reference to the 100 hours book, which is still not out yet in English. It can be purchased in Spanish on the internet from such sources as Amazon. The Cuban edition, which featured a dreadful photo of Fidel, and was supposed to have been released in Cuba at the time of his August 13 birthday, is being revised. The cover has also been redone, as you can see from one of the photos in this gallery.
Here are excerpts of the 718-page Cuban edition, which the CubaNews list had translated: http://www.walterlippmann.com/fc-100-hours.html
==============================================================
Fidel Castro Sends Message to Cuban People
Havana, Sept 5 (ACN) Fidel Castro sent a message to the Cuban people on Tuesday saying "I am recovering satisfactorily, the most critical period has passed, and in the coming days I will be receiving distinguished guests."
In the message published by Granma newspaper, Fidel Castro explains that some recently published pictures of him and a video were received with pleasure by the Cuban people. "Some were right to observe that I had lost some weight, as the only unfavorable aspect," he said, adding that he was happy that they had realized that fact, since he lost 41 pounds in just a few days.
The leader of the Cuban Revolution said the last stitch from his operation was removed after a 34-day convalescence.
Fidel Castro said that even during his most difficult days since July 26 he has made a continuous effort to counter the adverse political consequences of such an unexpected health problem.
He said that while he always behaved as a disciplined patient, he was able to advance on some important issues and went on to explain that he concluded revising his interview contained in the book "Cien Horas con Fidel" (A Hundred Hours with Fidel) by journalist Ignacio Ramonet, whose Cuban edition he said will be out in the near future as promised.
Fidel Castro explained that although the most critical moment of his recovery had passed and that he will soon be receiving distinguished visitors coming to Cuba for the September 11-16 Non-Aligned Movement Summit, "it does not mean that every activity will be immediately followed by videos or pictures," but he said that all will be reported.
The Cuban leader said that it is not convenient to permanently offer information or release images on his health process. "We must all understand, and be realistic, that a full recovery will take time."
"At this time I am in no hurry and nobody else should be in a hurry. The country is functioning well and is advancing," Fidel pointed out in his message.
"The school year was inaugurated today, with more students and more prospects than in any previous year. What a wonderful event!" he exclaimed.
In concluding the message dated September 4, 2006, Fidel Castro asked Cubans not to blame anyone for the discretion that, for the sake of the security of the country and the Revolution, he had requested of all.
The photos can be conveniently blown up on screen.
http://www.granma.cubaweb.cu/secciones/siempre_con_fidel/art-062.html
He makes reference to the 100 hours book, which is still not out yet in English. It can be purchased in Spanish on the internet from such sources as Amazon. The Cuban edition, which featured a dreadful photo of Fidel, and was supposed to have been released in Cuba at the time of his August 13 birthday, is being revised. The cover has also been redone, as you can see from one of the photos in this gallery.
Here are excerpts of the 718-page Cuban edition, which the CubaNews list had translated: http://www.walterlippmann.com/fc-100-hours.html
==============================================================
Fidel Castro Sends Message to Cuban People
Havana, Sept 5 (ACN) Fidel Castro sent a message to the Cuban people on Tuesday saying "I am recovering satisfactorily, the most critical period has passed, and in the coming days I will be receiving distinguished guests."
In the message published by Granma newspaper, Fidel Castro explains that some recently published pictures of him and a video were received with pleasure by the Cuban people. "Some were right to observe that I had lost some weight, as the only unfavorable aspect," he said, adding that he was happy that they had realized that fact, since he lost 41 pounds in just a few days.
The leader of the Cuban Revolution said the last stitch from his operation was removed after a 34-day convalescence.
Fidel Castro said that even during his most difficult days since July 26 he has made a continuous effort to counter the adverse political consequences of such an unexpected health problem.
He said that while he always behaved as a disciplined patient, he was able to advance on some important issues and went on to explain that he concluded revising his interview contained in the book "Cien Horas con Fidel" (A Hundred Hours with Fidel) by journalist Ignacio Ramonet, whose Cuban edition he said will be out in the near future as promised.
Fidel Castro explained that although the most critical moment of his recovery had passed and that he will soon be receiving distinguished visitors coming to Cuba for the September 11-16 Non-Aligned Movement Summit, "it does not mean that every activity will be immediately followed by videos or pictures," but he said that all will be reported.
The Cuban leader said that it is not convenient to permanently offer information or release images on his health process. "We must all understand, and be realistic, that a full recovery will take time."
"At this time I am in no hurry and nobody else should be in a hurry. The country is functioning well and is advancing," Fidel pointed out in his message.
"The school year was inaugurated today, with more students and more prospects than in any previous year. What a wonderful event!" he exclaimed.
In concluding the message dated September 4, 2006, Fidel Castro asked Cubans not to blame anyone for the discretion that, for the sake of the security of the country and the Revolution, he had requested of all.
Sunday, September 03, 2006
Five Questions With Aaron Neville on New Orleans
Five Questions With Aaron Neville
By Celia Herrera, AOL Black Voices
Hard To Stop The Big Easy
Crescent City's Favorite Son
Just after the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, Crescent City's favorite son gears up to release 'Bring It On Home' on Sept. 19, an album he says is sprinkled with the "old school."
The idea of performing at countless benefit concerts sounds like a lot of work for a legendary singer who's going on five decades in the business, but for this Crescent City favorite son, it was all he could do to stop from losing hope that his hometown be reborn.
Aaron Neville's place in the pantheon of Big Easy musical legends is unparalleled.
The younger brother of Meters founder, Art Neville, he first burst on the scene in 1966 with his ballad 'Tell It Like It Is' and came to greater fame in the '70s as the lead singer for the Neville Brothers which includes brothers Aaron, Charles, Cyril and Art.
On Sept. 19, Neville will release 'Bring It On Home,' a medley of classic soul tunes. "The music has helped," said the crooner when he sat down with Black Voices to talk about his role in the rebuilding of New Orleans:
BV: You said about 'Bring It On Home,' "These classic songs have been pumping blood to my heart from the first second I heard them. They've been a part of my life. Singing them, especially in the aftermath of Katrina, was a deeply spiritual experience. They helped me get through. They gave me hope. And for me, music has always been about hope." With that in mind, what's been your spiritual journey around recording Sam Cooke's 'A Change Is Gonna Come' and Curtis Mayfield's 'People Get Ready.' What kind of changes are you looking for in New Orleans, in the world?
AN: We've been looking for peace and brotherhood for a long time, but I don't know how soon we're going to get it. As far as New Orleans, I hope for it to come back to being a city one day. Another part that I grew up in will never be there anymore, but I'd like to see it come back for the people that live there.
BV: You've collaborated with so many artists, and on this album Chaka Khan. Any stories or memories you can share about working with some of these legends?
AN: [Chaka] is a great singer. It was an honor to be singing with her. Otis Redding, I got to chill on tour with him for a month, the same year he died. To be able to meet this guy, and sing his stuff today - that was a great time in my life. Curtis Mayfield was in a hotel in New York, and I got to sit with him for about an hour. He was on his back, he couldn't move. I let him know he was one of my heroes. I was singing some of his songs. I was coming up with songs that he had probably forgot about; it would bring a smile to him. That was a special hour that I spent with Curtis Mayfield.
Centered in the Storm
With biting wit and thoughtful research, academic Michael Eric Dyson takes us all to task in his book, 'Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster.'
11 Questions for Dyson
BV: What's the first single you are releasing off of 'Bring It On Home' and why?
AN: I did a video for 'Ain't No Sunshine,' so they might use that one. We changed it up. We took out the 'I know, I know I know...' out -- kind of made it a ballad.
BV: You've said: "This is a strange moment in my career. Since Katrina I've devoted months and months to benefit concerts-and that's been a blessing. My profile and the profiles of my brothers have been raised by the storm. People all over the world see us as the face of New Orleans. They want to hear us play. They want to feel that we've survived the storm. They want to be assured that life goes on." That's a lot of pressure. Is it hard not to get overwhelmed by everything?
AN: New Orleans musicians -- they're all displaced. I would run across them, and they all had the same look in their eyes, we've lost something big. It took more than our homes; it took a city, a culture. I know there are things happening all over the world, and I think about that too. But I have to think about New Orleans. That's where I was born and raised. You can't kill the music. The music is in our hearts and souls, and it's going to continue. It's still alive in the people. It's not overwhelming, we've just got to keep doing what we're doing and helping the people we can help. Regardless of what's happening I'm going to be on stage playing the music for the people. We're getting just as much out of it as they are. We're going to continue to do benefits and just hope the money is getting to the people.
BV: Houston took in 150,000 evacuees - the most of any U.S. city. Houston police believe the evacuees are partly responsible for a nearly 17.5 percent increase in homicides this past year. What do you think about what the Houston police are reporting?
AN: That could be part of it. At the time, New Orleans had a lot of killings going on. People didn't want to go out. Me and a friend of mine, we used to shoot pool sometimes. We stopped doing that because of the killings. It was mostly gang and drug related. It's possible that they could be fighting over territory in Houston. That could be the problem. But that's everywhere now.
2006-06-09 11:19:29
By Celia Herrera, AOL Black Voices
Hard To Stop The Big Easy
Crescent City's Favorite Son
Just after the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, Crescent City's favorite son gears up to release 'Bring It On Home' on Sept. 19, an album he says is sprinkled with the "old school."
The idea of performing at countless benefit concerts sounds like a lot of work for a legendary singer who's going on five decades in the business, but for this Crescent City favorite son, it was all he could do to stop from losing hope that his hometown be reborn.
Aaron Neville's place in the pantheon of Big Easy musical legends is unparalleled.
The younger brother of Meters founder, Art Neville, he first burst on the scene in 1966 with his ballad 'Tell It Like It Is' and came to greater fame in the '70s as the lead singer for the Neville Brothers which includes brothers Aaron, Charles, Cyril and Art.
On Sept. 19, Neville will release 'Bring It On Home,' a medley of classic soul tunes. "The music has helped," said the crooner when he sat down with Black Voices to talk about his role in the rebuilding of New Orleans:
BV: You said about 'Bring It On Home,' "These classic songs have been pumping blood to my heart from the first second I heard them. They've been a part of my life. Singing them, especially in the aftermath of Katrina, was a deeply spiritual experience. They helped me get through. They gave me hope. And for me, music has always been about hope." With that in mind, what's been your spiritual journey around recording Sam Cooke's 'A Change Is Gonna Come' and Curtis Mayfield's 'People Get Ready.' What kind of changes are you looking for in New Orleans, in the world?
AN: We've been looking for peace and brotherhood for a long time, but I don't know how soon we're going to get it. As far as New Orleans, I hope for it to come back to being a city one day. Another part that I grew up in will never be there anymore, but I'd like to see it come back for the people that live there.
BV: You've collaborated with so many artists, and on this album Chaka Khan. Any stories or memories you can share about working with some of these legends?
AN: [Chaka] is a great singer. It was an honor to be singing with her. Otis Redding, I got to chill on tour with him for a month, the same year he died. To be able to meet this guy, and sing his stuff today - that was a great time in my life. Curtis Mayfield was in a hotel in New York, and I got to sit with him for about an hour. He was on his back, he couldn't move. I let him know he was one of my heroes. I was singing some of his songs. I was coming up with songs that he had probably forgot about; it would bring a smile to him. That was a special hour that I spent with Curtis Mayfield.
Centered in the Storm
With biting wit and thoughtful research, academic Michael Eric Dyson takes us all to task in his book, 'Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster.'
11 Questions for Dyson
BV: What's the first single you are releasing off of 'Bring It On Home' and why?
AN: I did a video for 'Ain't No Sunshine,' so they might use that one. We changed it up. We took out the 'I know, I know I know...' out -- kind of made it a ballad.
BV: You've said: "This is a strange moment in my career. Since Katrina I've devoted months and months to benefit concerts-and that's been a blessing. My profile and the profiles of my brothers have been raised by the storm. People all over the world see us as the face of New Orleans. They want to hear us play. They want to feel that we've survived the storm. They want to be assured that life goes on." That's a lot of pressure. Is it hard not to get overwhelmed by everything?
AN: New Orleans musicians -- they're all displaced. I would run across them, and they all had the same look in their eyes, we've lost something big. It took more than our homes; it took a city, a culture. I know there are things happening all over the world, and I think about that too. But I have to think about New Orleans. That's where I was born and raised. You can't kill the music. The music is in our hearts and souls, and it's going to continue. It's still alive in the people. It's not overwhelming, we've just got to keep doing what we're doing and helping the people we can help. Regardless of what's happening I'm going to be on stage playing the music for the people. We're getting just as much out of it as they are. We're going to continue to do benefits and just hope the money is getting to the people.
BV: Houston took in 150,000 evacuees - the most of any U.S. city. Houston police believe the evacuees are partly responsible for a nearly 17.5 percent increase in homicides this past year. What do you think about what the Houston police are reporting?
AN: That could be part of it. At the time, New Orleans had a lot of killings going on. People didn't want to go out. Me and a friend of mine, we used to shoot pool sometimes. We stopped doing that because of the killings. It was mostly gang and drug related. It's possible that they could be fighting over territory in Houston. That could be the problem. But that's everywhere now.
2006-06-09 11:19:29
Stop The War Slate Marches With Unions on Labor Day in Detroit
David Sole, Michigan Green Party Senate Candidate (2006) at Camp Casey Detroit Last Aug. 24, 2005
Originally uploaded by panafnewswire.
Media Advisory
Mon. September 4, 2006
Contact: (313) 680-5508
URL: http://www.mecawi.org
http://www.stopthewarslate.org
VOTE FOR THE GREEN PARTY / STOP THE WAR SLATE ON Nov. 7
--David Sole for U.S. Senate
--Kevin Carey for State Board of Education
--Lauren Elizabeth Spencer for Michigan State University Board of Trustees
--Michael Merriweather for Wayne State University Board of Governors
--Kristen Hamel for State Representative, 1st District
--Lloyd Clarke for State Senate, 32nd District
--Kyle McBee for State Senate, 13th District
The “Stop the War Slate” formed by the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War and Injustice (MECAWI) has joined the Green Party to help make this election a protest against the U.S. war drive and especially the U.S. wars on Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan.
On Labor Day, September 4, 2006, the Stop the War Slate candidates marched in the parade on Woodward avenue in downtown Detroit. We walked alongside the striking teachers of the DFT as well as other members of organized labor in solidarity with their fight to maintain a living wage and benefits in the present economic crisis in the country.
While the majority of the people oppose the wars, the Republicans and Democrats are united in their support. In recent votes, all but a handful of representatives expressed support for the continued military occupation of Iraq and the U.S. sponsored Israeli terror against Lebanon and Palestine. Debbie Stabenow, the incumbent and Michigan Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate, joined the Republicans and voted for war in each instance.
Around the country, anti-war activists are beginning to make their voices heard in the electoral process by challenging traditional pro-war candidates. Witness how Senator Lieberman, a notorious hawk and big business lackey, lost his own Democratic party’s nomination for re-election.
Support the “Stop the War Slate”, and all the Green Party candidates. David Sole, candidate for U.S. Senate, is a founder of MECAWI, an anti-war organizer for the last 40 years, as well as a UAW president with an unparalleled record of activism on every progressive struggle. David Sole delivered medicine to Iraq in 1998 to defy the U.S. sanctions. He has always supported the Palestinian struggle and stands with the Lebanese resistance in opposing the recent U.S. sponsored Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
Members of the Stop the War Slate have taken special note of recently released United States Census Bureau data that clearly illustrate the growing poverty suffered by many people here in the city of Detroit and the state of Michigan.
We want an end to both the war at home and the war abroad.
----------------------------------------------------------
Stop the War Slate Program
STOP THE PENTAGON WAR: Immediate and unconditional U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan. Bring the troops home NOW. U.S. hands off Iran, north Korea, Venezuela and Cuba. End the U.S.-financed occupations of Lebanon and Palestine. Stop domestic spying and restrictions on basic rights.
STOP THE WAR ON PEOPLE OF COLOR, WOMEN AND LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL AND TRANSGENDERED PEOPLE Restore and defend affirmative action. End police brutality and racist profiling. Stop racist anti-immigrant attacks. Defend reproductive rights for women - Stop the rollback of Roe v Wade. End attacks on lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgendered people – full civil rights and benefits now.
STOP THE WAR ON WORKING PEOPLE (including unemployed, disabled and low income people): Free National Health Care for all. Stop price gouging by pharmaceutical companies. Free prescription drugs for seniors and low income people, including contraceptives. Quality and affordable childcare. Affordable water, gas and electric rates– no shutoffs. Increased and equal funding for quality education in all school districts. Give youth jobs and recreation programs, not jails. No union-busting. No strikebreakers. Stop plant closings and mass layoffs – a job is a right. No bankruptcy by corporations to destroy pensions, health benefits and contracts. Guaranteed job for all who are able to work. End homelessness with construction of low-income housing. Raise the minimum wage to at least $15.
STOP THE WAR ON IMMIGRANTS: No human being is “illegal.” End the harassment, deportation and exploitation of immigrant labor. Amnesty and citizenship rights for all immigrants – not criminalization. No fences at borders.
STOP THE WAR ON THE ENVIRONMENT: Stop corporate pollution of the environment. Immediate clean up of urban and rural dump sites. A statewide plan for a mass transit program that will substantially curtail the use of gasoline and diesel fuel.
http://www.mecawi.org – call 313-680-5508 for more information
Saturday, September 02, 2006
Sudanese Government Launches Darfur Offensive
(AP) Updated: 2006-09-02 08:58
CAIRO, Egypt - The Sudanese government has launched a major offensive against rebels in war-torn Darfur, human rights activists and African Union officials said Friday.
The fighting, which Human Rights Watch said has involved government aircraft bombing villages, began as a senior U.S. envoy was in Khartoum to press the government to accept the deployment of U.N. peacekeepers in the western region.
Sudan on Thursday rejected as "illegal" a U.N. Security Council resolution paving the way for the replacement of 7,000 ill-equipped African Union peacekeepers in Darfur with more than 20,000 U.N. troops and police.
Government troops Monday attacked and later occupied Kulkul, a rebel-held village north of Darfur's provincial capital el Fasher, David Buchbinder of Human Rights Watch said by telephone from New York, citing local reports. Two other rebel-controlled villages have since reportedly fallen under government control.
An African Union official in Khartoum, Sam Ibok, said more than 20 civilians have been killed and more than 1,000 have been displaced since major clashes started early this week according to reports from the affected areas.
He said that these northern areas were a "no-go" zone for AU forces and therefore he had no precise information.
International observers in north Darfur reported that civilians attempting to flee the attacks in Kulkul were turned back by Sudanese government troops, Human Rights Watch said.
Sudanese officials could not be reached on Friday, a weekend day, to comment on the reports. Rebel commanders did not answer calls.
The AU force has been unable to stop the humanitarian catastrophe in Darfur that has killed more than 200,000 people and left more than 2 million displaced over the past three years.
The conflict in Darfur began in 2003 when ethnic African tribes revolted against the Arab-led Khartoum government. The government is accused of unleashing Arab militiamen known as janjaweed who have been blamed for widespread atrocities.
A May peace deal signed by the government and one of the ethnic African rebel groups operating in the region has had little effect.
The African Union has called for the U.N. to take control of the peacekeeping force, whose formal mandate expires on Sept. 30.
But Sudan's President Omar Al-Bashir has maintained steadfast hostility to the presence of the U.N. force, instead offering to send 10,000 government troops to Darfur.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Thursday released a letter he had sent to Al-Bashir urging him to accept a U.N force in Darfur, saying only an impartial peacekeeping force could implement the May peace deal.
Annan also expressed alarm over the recent deployment of large numbers of Sudanese troops in Darfur.
Eric Reeves, a professor from Smith College in the United States who is a prominent campaigner for an end to the Darfur conflict, said he had information that Minni Minnawi, leader of the only rebel faction to sign the peace deal, was collaborating with the government offensive. Two other Darfur rebel groups have refused to sign.
He said his contacts told him thousands of troops and janjaweed militias, backed by Antonov planes, have carried out bombing missions and taken control of three villages north of el Nasher, Kulkul, Bir Maza and Sayeh.
"They are bombing villages without any regard for civilians," he said. "It is more genocidal violence. The end game is to take full control of northern Darfur and isolate the rebels."
John Prendergast, an expert from the International Crisis Group, a global think-tank, was in Darfur until the end of last week and said the government offensive was provoking spiraling violence and reduced humanitarian access to the region.
Earlier this week, the U.N.'s top humanitarian official, Jan Egeland, warned "a man-made catastrophe of an unprecedented scale" loomed within weeks in Darfur unless the Security Council acted immediately.
Egeland said there could be hundreds of thousands of deaths if aid operations collapsed. The operations are already at grave risk because of rising attacks against aid workers and massive funding shortfalls.
Copyright By http://www.chinadaily.com.cn. All rights reserved
Printed from http://www.citizen.co.za
at 9/1/2006 5:48:39 AM
Security Council okays UN takeover of peacekeeping in Darfur
UNITED NATIONS (AFP)The Security Council gave its green light for a UN takeover of peacekeeping in Sudan's strife-torn Darfur region, increasing the pressure on Khartoum to lift its strong opposition to the move.
Twelve of the council's 15 members voted in favor of a resolution which states that the deployment of a 17,300-strong UN force would take place "on the basis of the acceptance of the (Sudanese) government."
China, Russia and Qatar abstained. The text calls for UN peacekeepers to take over from the ill-equipped and cash-strapped African Union (AU) mission, which has been unable to stop a conflict which has left up to 300,000 people killed and 2.5 million people displaced over the past three years.
Deploying a robust UN force is seen as crucial to shore up a fragile Darfur peace agreement signed by the Khartoum government and the main rebel faction in May.
"It is imperative that we move immediately to implement it (the resolution) to stop the tragic events unfolding in Darfur," said US Ambassador John Bolton.
In Washington, top State Department official Kristen Silverberg served notice that Khartoum's agreement was not needed to reinforce the UN mission in Sudan."The (UN) resolution invites Sudanese consent; nothing requires Sudanese consent," she said.
In Darfur, a government official said the resolution lacked "legitimacy and credibility."
"The resolution was based on the premise that security is deteriorating in Darfur," North Darfur governor Osman Yusuf Kibir said on Sudan television.
"This is a false assumption as security has improved and prevails all over the region." But Britain's deputy UN ambassador Karen Pierce said the Darfur crisis "has gone on far too long."
The adoption of the text, she added, "sends a clear message on the need for an unbiased, well-equipped third party to implement the DPA (Darfur Peace Agreement) and ensure the protection of Darfur's civilians.
"China's UN Ambassador Wang Guangya, whose country has close energy ties with Khartoum, said he abstained because he felt it "unnecessary to put the draft to a vote in a hurry.
"Jamal Nasser al-Bader of Qatar, the lone Arab member of the council, said more efforts should have been made to secure Khartoum's "voluntary consent.
"He noted that Qatar would have preferred to see increased UN financial and logistical support to the 7,000-strong AU force in Darfur to enable it to complete its mandate. He also bemoaned the fact that the council did not respond to Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir's alternative plan to deploy 10,500 Sudanese government troops by early January to enhance security in Darfur.
But UN chief Kofi Annan told Beshir in a letter, also relayed to council members, that Beshir's plan "fails to provide for the envisaged transition from the African Union force to a UN operation in Darfur. Ghana's UN Ambassador Nana Effah-Apenteng said the resolution "does not close the door to further dialogue" with Sudan.
He said consultations would also continue with the Arab League, the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the African Union, which were invited to meet with the Security Council September 8.
In a bid to sway Khartoum, the text expresses the council's
"determination to work with the government of Sudan in full respect of its sovereignty.
"The resolution expands the mandate of the 12,273-strong United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) currently operating in the vast African country, and urges "member states to provide the capability for an expeditious deployment.
"It calls for raising UNMIS strength to up to 17,300 troops and up to 3,300 civilian police to monitor implementation of the Darfur peace deal, deploy to buffer zones and refugee camps, and help Sudanese authorities rebuild shattered institutions.
Acting under Chapter Seven of the UN charter, which authorizes military action in cases of threats to international peace and security, the UN force is mandated to use all necessary means to protect UN personnel, humanitarian workers and Darfur civilians.
Washington accuses Sudanese government troops and the Janjaweed militia of genocide over their fierce repression of the uprising launched by ethnic minority rebels in February 2003. And Beshir, in turn, charges that Washington and other Western powers are furthering imperialist aims in Darfur.
If Khartoum refused to give its consent, "the Security Council must sanction those Sudanese officials responsible for blocking UN efforts to protect civilians in Darfur," said Peter Takirambudde, Africa director at Human Rights Watch.
2006 AFP
31/08/2006 22:13:41 UST
News Article by AFP
posted on September 01, 2006 at 13:45:25: EST (-5 GMT)
Sudan VP vows resistance to UN peacekeepers
KHARTOUM, Sept 1, 2006 (AFP) - Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Taha vowed the regime would maintain its opposition to a UN peacekeeping force for Darfur and hailed Hezbollah as a model of resistance, official media said Friday.
"We have options and plans for confronting the international intervention," state news agency SUNA quoted Taha as telling a rally in the North Kordofan State capital of El-Obeid late Thursday.
He cited the toll Shiite militant group Hezbollah had "exacted in the ranks of the army of the Zionist enemy" in this summer's devastating conflict in Lebanon "due to the determination, patience and political will the party enjoys".
"We are prepared for all possibilities," the vice president said, adding that "the battle with the international community requires patience and strict precautions."
He called for "an effective working programme and strenuous action" to oppose the UN force approved by the Security Council Thursday.
Taha was the third government official to speak out against the Security Council's decision to take over the longstanding African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur if Khartoum approved.
North Darfur governor Osman Yusuf Kibir said the Security Council resolution "lacks legitimacy and credibility."
State television quoted presidential adviser Majzoub al-Khalifa Ahmed as saying the resolution was "entirely unacceptable" and warning that it could "incite sedition".
The Security Council overwhelmingly approved the deployment of a 17,300-strong UN force to strife-torn western Sudan, with the United States pressing Khartoum to lift its opposition.
Twelve of the council's 15 members voted in favour of the resolution, which states that the deployment would take place "on the basis of the acceptance of the (Sudanese) government", while China, Russia and Qatar abstained.
The text calls for UN peacekeepers to take over from the ill-equipped and underfunded AU mission, which has been unable to prevent killings, rape and the internal displacement of civilians in Darfur.
Deploying a robust UN force is seen as crucial to the success of a fragile Darfur peace agreement signed by the Khartoum government and the main rebel faction in May.
News Article by DPA
posted on August 30, 2006 at 16:10:00: EST (-5 GMT)
Hundreds of Sudanese take to the streets in anti-UN force protest
Khartoum (dpa) - Hundreds of Sudanese rallied in Khartoum on Wednesday, decrying the prospect of United Nations intervention in Sudan's embattled Darfur region.
Much of the protestors' venom was aimed at the United States and though the rally was largely peaceful, some young men threatened to fight any international force that is sent to Darfur.
"Any American who comes to Sudan will die in Darfur," said one, student Ahmed el-Tayib.
The government-backed protest was largely composed of young men and students who were released from school to attend the rally.
Hundreds more packed atop buses and trucks and drove through the city streets waving banners and singing nationalist songs.
"Sudanese have said with one voice, no, no for America. No United Nations," said another protestor, Ahmed Adam.
Sudan is under intense pressure from the international community, to allow a United Nations force to replace a struggling African Union mission.
The AU has said it will run out of funds in October and currently has only 7,700 troops monitoring volatile Darfur.
Washington dispatched Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer to Sudan this week in an attempt to coax Sudan into accepting a UN mission.
But Frazer was rebuffed when Sudanese President Omer al-Bashir, first refused to meet with her on Monday, stating that he was too busy.
After acquiescing to a meeting, Bashir continued to insist that he will not allow the United Nations to enter Darfur.
The UN already has 10,000 peacekeepers in northern and southern Sudan, monitoring a peace deal that ended twenty-one years of civil war between the north and south.
The conflict in Darfur has raged for three years since rebels attacked government positions in the region, complaining that it remained undeveloped due to neglect.
The government is charged with arming Arab milit
ias to crush the rebellion.
Some 200,000 people have died and two million more have been displaced in what the UN calls genocide.
CAIRO, Egypt - The Sudanese government has launched a major offensive against rebels in war-torn Darfur, human rights activists and African Union officials said Friday.
The fighting, which Human Rights Watch said has involved government aircraft bombing villages, began as a senior U.S. envoy was in Khartoum to press the government to accept the deployment of U.N. peacekeepers in the western region.
Sudan on Thursday rejected as "illegal" a U.N. Security Council resolution paving the way for the replacement of 7,000 ill-equipped African Union peacekeepers in Darfur with more than 20,000 U.N. troops and police.
Government troops Monday attacked and later occupied Kulkul, a rebel-held village north of Darfur's provincial capital el Fasher, David Buchbinder of Human Rights Watch said by telephone from New York, citing local reports. Two other rebel-controlled villages have since reportedly fallen under government control.
An African Union official in Khartoum, Sam Ibok, said more than 20 civilians have been killed and more than 1,000 have been displaced since major clashes started early this week according to reports from the affected areas.
He said that these northern areas were a "no-go" zone for AU forces and therefore he had no precise information.
International observers in north Darfur reported that civilians attempting to flee the attacks in Kulkul were turned back by Sudanese government troops, Human Rights Watch said.
Sudanese officials could not be reached on Friday, a weekend day, to comment on the reports. Rebel commanders did not answer calls.
The AU force has been unable to stop the humanitarian catastrophe in Darfur that has killed more than 200,000 people and left more than 2 million displaced over the past three years.
The conflict in Darfur began in 2003 when ethnic African tribes revolted against the Arab-led Khartoum government. The government is accused of unleashing Arab militiamen known as janjaweed who have been blamed for widespread atrocities.
A May peace deal signed by the government and one of the ethnic African rebel groups operating in the region has had little effect.
The African Union has called for the U.N. to take control of the peacekeeping force, whose formal mandate expires on Sept. 30.
But Sudan's President Omar Al-Bashir has maintained steadfast hostility to the presence of the U.N. force, instead offering to send 10,000 government troops to Darfur.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Thursday released a letter he had sent to Al-Bashir urging him to accept a U.N force in Darfur, saying only an impartial peacekeeping force could implement the May peace deal.
Annan also expressed alarm over the recent deployment of large numbers of Sudanese troops in Darfur.
Eric Reeves, a professor from Smith College in the United States who is a prominent campaigner for an end to the Darfur conflict, said he had information that Minni Minnawi, leader of the only rebel faction to sign the peace deal, was collaborating with the government offensive. Two other Darfur rebel groups have refused to sign.
He said his contacts told him thousands of troops and janjaweed militias, backed by Antonov planes, have carried out bombing missions and taken control of three villages north of el Nasher, Kulkul, Bir Maza and Sayeh.
"They are bombing villages without any regard for civilians," he said. "It is more genocidal violence. The end game is to take full control of northern Darfur and isolate the rebels."
John Prendergast, an expert from the International Crisis Group, a global think-tank, was in Darfur until the end of last week and said the government offensive was provoking spiraling violence and reduced humanitarian access to the region.
Earlier this week, the U.N.'s top humanitarian official, Jan Egeland, warned "a man-made catastrophe of an unprecedented scale" loomed within weeks in Darfur unless the Security Council acted immediately.
Egeland said there could be hundreds of thousands of deaths if aid operations collapsed. The operations are already at grave risk because of rising attacks against aid workers and massive funding shortfalls.
Copyright By http://www.chinadaily.com.cn. All rights reserved
Printed from http://www.citizen.co.za
at 9/1/2006 5:48:39 AM
Security Council okays UN takeover of peacekeeping in Darfur
UNITED NATIONS (AFP)The Security Council gave its green light for a UN takeover of peacekeeping in Sudan's strife-torn Darfur region, increasing the pressure on Khartoum to lift its strong opposition to the move.
Twelve of the council's 15 members voted in favor of a resolution which states that the deployment of a 17,300-strong UN force would take place "on the basis of the acceptance of the (Sudanese) government."
China, Russia and Qatar abstained. The text calls for UN peacekeepers to take over from the ill-equipped and cash-strapped African Union (AU) mission, which has been unable to stop a conflict which has left up to 300,000 people killed and 2.5 million people displaced over the past three years.
Deploying a robust UN force is seen as crucial to shore up a fragile Darfur peace agreement signed by the Khartoum government and the main rebel faction in May.
"It is imperative that we move immediately to implement it (the resolution) to stop the tragic events unfolding in Darfur," said US Ambassador John Bolton.
In Washington, top State Department official Kristen Silverberg served notice that Khartoum's agreement was not needed to reinforce the UN mission in Sudan."The (UN) resolution invites Sudanese consent; nothing requires Sudanese consent," she said.
In Darfur, a government official said the resolution lacked "legitimacy and credibility."
"The resolution was based on the premise that security is deteriorating in Darfur," North Darfur governor Osman Yusuf Kibir said on Sudan television.
"This is a false assumption as security has improved and prevails all over the region." But Britain's deputy UN ambassador Karen Pierce said the Darfur crisis "has gone on far too long."
The adoption of the text, she added, "sends a clear message on the need for an unbiased, well-equipped third party to implement the DPA (Darfur Peace Agreement) and ensure the protection of Darfur's civilians.
"China's UN Ambassador Wang Guangya, whose country has close energy ties with Khartoum, said he abstained because he felt it "unnecessary to put the draft to a vote in a hurry.
"Jamal Nasser al-Bader of Qatar, the lone Arab member of the council, said more efforts should have been made to secure Khartoum's "voluntary consent.
"He noted that Qatar would have preferred to see increased UN financial and logistical support to the 7,000-strong AU force in Darfur to enable it to complete its mandate. He also bemoaned the fact that the council did not respond to Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir's alternative plan to deploy 10,500 Sudanese government troops by early January to enhance security in Darfur.
But UN chief Kofi Annan told Beshir in a letter, also relayed to council members, that Beshir's plan "fails to provide for the envisaged transition from the African Union force to a UN operation in Darfur. Ghana's UN Ambassador Nana Effah-Apenteng said the resolution "does not close the door to further dialogue" with Sudan.
He said consultations would also continue with the Arab League, the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the African Union, which were invited to meet with the Security Council September 8.
In a bid to sway Khartoum, the text expresses the council's
"determination to work with the government of Sudan in full respect of its sovereignty.
"The resolution expands the mandate of the 12,273-strong United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) currently operating in the vast African country, and urges "member states to provide the capability for an expeditious deployment.
"It calls for raising UNMIS strength to up to 17,300 troops and up to 3,300 civilian police to monitor implementation of the Darfur peace deal, deploy to buffer zones and refugee camps, and help Sudanese authorities rebuild shattered institutions.
Acting under Chapter Seven of the UN charter, which authorizes military action in cases of threats to international peace and security, the UN force is mandated to use all necessary means to protect UN personnel, humanitarian workers and Darfur civilians.
Washington accuses Sudanese government troops and the Janjaweed militia of genocide over their fierce repression of the uprising launched by ethnic minority rebels in February 2003. And Beshir, in turn, charges that Washington and other Western powers are furthering imperialist aims in Darfur.
If Khartoum refused to give its consent, "the Security Council must sanction those Sudanese officials responsible for blocking UN efforts to protect civilians in Darfur," said Peter Takirambudde, Africa director at Human Rights Watch.
2006 AFP
31/08/2006 22:13:41 UST
News Article by AFP
posted on September 01, 2006 at 13:45:25: EST (-5 GMT)
Sudan VP vows resistance to UN peacekeepers
KHARTOUM, Sept 1, 2006 (AFP) - Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Taha vowed the regime would maintain its opposition to a UN peacekeeping force for Darfur and hailed Hezbollah as a model of resistance, official media said Friday.
"We have options and plans for confronting the international intervention," state news agency SUNA quoted Taha as telling a rally in the North Kordofan State capital of El-Obeid late Thursday.
He cited the toll Shiite militant group Hezbollah had "exacted in the ranks of the army of the Zionist enemy" in this summer's devastating conflict in Lebanon "due to the determination, patience and political will the party enjoys".
"We are prepared for all possibilities," the vice president said, adding that "the battle with the international community requires patience and strict precautions."
He called for "an effective working programme and strenuous action" to oppose the UN force approved by the Security Council Thursday.
Taha was the third government official to speak out against the Security Council's decision to take over the longstanding African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur if Khartoum approved.
North Darfur governor Osman Yusuf Kibir said the Security Council resolution "lacks legitimacy and credibility."
State television quoted presidential adviser Majzoub al-Khalifa Ahmed as saying the resolution was "entirely unacceptable" and warning that it could "incite sedition".
The Security Council overwhelmingly approved the deployment of a 17,300-strong UN force to strife-torn western Sudan, with the United States pressing Khartoum to lift its opposition.
Twelve of the council's 15 members voted in favour of the resolution, which states that the deployment would take place "on the basis of the acceptance of the (Sudanese) government", while China, Russia and Qatar abstained.
The text calls for UN peacekeepers to take over from the ill-equipped and underfunded AU mission, which has been unable to prevent killings, rape and the internal displacement of civilians in Darfur.
Deploying a robust UN force is seen as crucial to the success of a fragile Darfur peace agreement signed by the Khartoum government and the main rebel faction in May.
News Article by DPA
posted on August 30, 2006 at 16:10:00: EST (-5 GMT)
Hundreds of Sudanese take to the streets in anti-UN force protest
Khartoum (dpa) - Hundreds of Sudanese rallied in Khartoum on Wednesday, decrying the prospect of United Nations intervention in Sudan's embattled Darfur region.
Much of the protestors' venom was aimed at the United States and though the rally was largely peaceful, some young men threatened to fight any international force that is sent to Darfur.
"Any American who comes to Sudan will die in Darfur," said one, student Ahmed el-Tayib.
The government-backed protest was largely composed of young men and students who were released from school to attend the rally.
Hundreds more packed atop buses and trucks and drove through the city streets waving banners and singing nationalist songs.
"Sudanese have said with one voice, no, no for America. No United Nations," said another protestor, Ahmed Adam.
Sudan is under intense pressure from the international community, to allow a United Nations force to replace a struggling African Union mission.
The AU has said it will run out of funds in October and currently has only 7,700 troops monitoring volatile Darfur.
Washington dispatched Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer to Sudan this week in an attempt to coax Sudan into accepting a UN mission.
But Frazer was rebuffed when Sudanese President Omer al-Bashir, first refused to meet with her on Monday, stating that he was too busy.
After acquiescing to a meeting, Bashir continued to insist that he will not allow the United Nations to enter Darfur.
The UN already has 10,000 peacekeepers in northern and southern Sudan, monitoring a peace deal that ended twenty-one years of civil war between the north and south.
The conflict in Darfur has raged for three years since rebels attacked government positions in the region, complaining that it remained undeveloped due to neglect.
The government is charged with arming Arab milit
ias to crush the rebellion.
Some 200,000 people have died and two million more have been displaced in what the UN calls genocide.
The 1970 Marin County Courthouse Rebellion & Its Aftermath
Ruchell Magee, A Participant in the Marin County Courthouse Rebellion in 1970
Originally uploaded by panafnewswire.
By Kiilu Nyasha
"Slavery 400 years ago, slavery today, it's the same but with a new name".
-- Ruchell Cinque Magee
I first met Ruchell Cinque Magee in the holding cell of the Marin County courthouse in the Summer of 1971. I found him to be soft-spoken, warm and a gentleman in typically Southern tradition. We've been in correspondence pretty much ever since. In fact, I received a letter last week with Ru's suggestions on how we might save BLU Magazine.
I had just returned to California from New Haven, Connecticut, where I had worked as an organizer and a member of the legal defense team of three Black Panthers, including Party Chairman Bobby Seale, on trial for murder and conspiracy. The second trial resulted in a true people's victory, May 24, 1971. We had kept the New Haven courtroom jam-packed throughout the joint trial of Seale and Ericka Huggins that resulted in a hung jury. But the obviously racist judge had to dismiss it due to the enormous publicity and state expense incurred due to huge crowds and tight security.
In my correspondence with George Jackson, author of the bestseller, Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson, he had advised me to seek a press card in order to visit him at San Quentin. In so doing, I wound up working for The Sun Reporter, a local Black newspaper (byline Pat Gallyot), and covering the pretrial hearings of Angela Davis and Magee.
Already familiar with courtroom injustice, racism and bias against Black defendants witnessed in two capital trials, it didn't come as a surprise that Ruchell was getting a raw deal in the Marin Courtroom where he was frequently removed for outbursts of sheer frustration.
By 1971, Ruchell was an astute jailhouse lawyer. He was responsible for the release and protection of a myriad of prisoners benefiting from his extensive knowledge of law, which he used to prepare writs, appeals and lawsuits for himself and many others behind walls.
Now Ruchell was fighting for all he was worth for the right to represent himself against charges of murder, conspiracy to murder, kidnap, and conspiracy to aid the escape of state prisoners.
Although critically wounded on August 7, 1970, Magee was the sole survivor among the four brave Black men who conducted the courthouse slave rebellion, leaving him to be charged with everything they could throw at him.
"All right gentlemen, hold it right there.we're taking over!" Armed to the teeth, Jonathan Jackson, 17, George's, younger brother, had raided the Marin Courtroom and tossed guns to prisoners William Christmas and James McClain, who in turn invited Ruchell to join them. Ru seized the hour spontaneously as they attempted to escape by taking a judge, assistant district attorney and three jurors as hostages in that audacious move to expose to the public the brutally racist prison conditions and free the Soledad Brothers (John Clutchette, Fleeta Drumgo, and George Jackson).
McClain was on trial for assaulting a guard in the wake of Black prisoner Fred Billingsley's murder by prison officials in San Quentin in February, 1970. With only four months before a parole hearing, Magee had appeared in the courtroom to testify for McClain.
The four revolutionaries successfully commandeered the group to the waiting van and were about to pull out of the parking lot when Marin County Police and San Quentin guards opened fire. When the shooting stopped, Judge Harold Haley, Jackson, Christmas, and McClain lay dead; Magee was unconscious (See photo)and seriously wounded as was the prosecutor. A juror suffered a minor injury.
In a chain of events leading to August 7, on January 13, 1970, a month before the Billingsley slaughter, a tower guard at Soledad State Prison had shot and killed three Black captives on the yard, leaving them unattended to bleed to death -- Cleveland Edwards, "Sweet Jugs" Miller, and the venerable revolutionary leader, W. L. Nolen, all active resisters in the Black Liberation Movement (BLM) behind the walls. (Others included George Jackson, Jeffrey Gauldin (Khatari), Hugo L.A. Pinell (Yogi Bear), Steve Simmons (Kumasi), Howard Tole, and the late Warren Wells.).
After the common verdict of "justifiable homicide" was returned and the killer guard exonerated at Soledad, another white-racist guard was beaten and thrown from a tier to his death. Three prisoners, Fleeta Drumgo, John Clutchette, and Jackson were charged with his murder precipitating the case of The Soledad Brothers and a campaign to free them led by college professor and avowed Communist, Angela Davis, and Jonathan Jackson.
Magee had already spent at least seven years studying law and deluging the courts with petitions and lawsuits to contest his own illegal conviction in two fraudulent trials. As he put it, the judicial system "used fraud to hide fraud" in his second case after the first conviction was overturned on an appeal based on a falsified transcript. His strategy, therefore, centered on proving that he was a slave, denied his constitutional rights and held involuntarily. Therefore, he had the legal right to escape slavery as established in the case of the African slave, Cinque, who had escaped the slave ship, Armistad, and won freedom in a Connecticut trial. Thus, Magee had to first prove he'd been illegally and unjustly incarcerated for over seven years. He also wanted the case moved to the Federal Courts and the right to represent himself.
Moreover, Magee wanted to conduct a trial that would bring to light the racist and brutal oppression of Black prisoners throughout the State. "My fight is to expose the entire system, judicial and prison system, a system of slavery.. This will cause benefit not just to myself but to all those who at this time are being criminally oppressed or enslaved by this system."
On the other hand, Angela Davis, his co-defendant, charged with buying the guns used in the raid, conspiracy, etc., was innocent of any wrongdoing because the gun purchases were perfectly legal and she was not part of the original plan. Davis'lawyers wanted an expedient trial to prove her innocence on trumped up charges. This conflict in strategy resulted in the trials being separated. Davis was acquitted of all charges and released in June of 1972.
Ruchell fought on alone, losing much of the support attending the Davis trial. After dismissing five attorneys and five judges, he won the right to defend himself. The murder charges had been dropped, and Magee faced two kidnap charges. He was ultimately convicted of PC 207, simple kidnap, but the more serious charge of PC 209, kidnap for purposes of extortion, resulted in a disputed verdict. According to one of the juror's sworn affidavit, the jury voted for acquittal on the PC 209 and Magee continues to this day to challenge the denial and cover-up of that acquittal.
In any case, Ruchell is currently on the mainline of Corcoran State Prison doing his 39th year locked up in California gulags - many of those years spent in solitary confinement under tortuous conditions. Nearly 40 years! In spite of having committed no physical assaults or murders. Is that not political?
If you would like to contact Ruchell, please write to him at the following address: A92051, 3A 02 204, P.O. Box 3461, Corcoran, Ca. 93272
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The article above was written for the San Francisco Bay View newspaper. You can access the Bay View at www.sfbayview.com. But there's a photo spread that might only be available in the newspaper itself. Feel free to distribute widely in keeping with "Each one teach one." — Kiilu Nyasha, kiilu1@mindspring.com. The article was also reprinted in ANTIFA INFO-BULLETIN (the e-mail AntiFascist newsletter), AFIB No. 308, August 12, 2001 and is reprinted here with permission.
The Legacy of Jonathan & George Jackson
Angela Davis & Jonathan Jackson Demonstrate to Free George Jackson, 1970
Originally uploaded by panafnewswire.
By Norman (Otis) Richmond
George Jackson continued to make news even after his death. When Stanley "Tookie" Williams was executed on December 13, 2005, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger evoked his name as one of the reasons that the founder of the Crips should meet his maker. Governor Schwarzenegger, pointed out, "The dedication of Williams' book Life in Prison casts significant doubt on his personal redemption.
This book was published in 1998, several years after Williams' claimed redemptive experience. Specifically, the book is dedicated to 'Nelson Mandela, Angela Davis, Malcolm X, Assata Shakur, Geronimo Ji Jaga Pratt, Ramona Africa, John Africa, Leonard Peltier, Dhoruba Al-Mujahid, George Jackson, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and the countless other men, women, and youths who have to endure the hellish oppression of living behind bars.' The mix of individuals on this list is curious. Most have violent pasts and some have been convicted of committing heinous murders, including the killing of law enforcement."
George and Jonathan Jackson and Khatari Gaulden are central to understanding Black August. Jackson (September 23, 1941-August 21, 1971) was an African born in America who became a Field Marshal of the Black Panther Party while in prison, where he spent the last 12 years of his life. He was one of the Soledad Brothers who achieved fame due to a book of published letters. Gaulden, the leader who took over after George was assassinated in 1978, was the spark that led to the Black August prairie fire.
On August 7, 1970, George’s 17-year-old brother Jonathan burst into a Marin County courtroom with automatic weapons, freed three San Quentin prisoners and took Judge Harold Haley as a hostage to demand freedom for the three "Soledad Brothers." However, Haley, prisoners William Christmas and James McClain, and Jonathan Jackson were killed as they attempted to drive away from the courthouse. The case made international headlines. The state claimed that Judge Haley was hit by fire discharged from a shotgun inside the vehicle during the incident, since he was being covered by a shotgun attached by wiring, tape, and/or a strap of some sort, and/or held beneath his chin. The shotgun was traced back to Angela Davis.
Gary Thomas, at that time a prosecutor (later a judge) who was also taken hostage and paralyzed by a police bullet during the incident, testified in a subsequent proceeding that "The sawed-off shotgun was being held under Judge Haley's chin by (Ruchell) Magee. The shotgun went off. It was as if it was in slow motion--all outward features of his face moving away." Some accounts of the incident report that Judge Haley's head was taken almost completely off his body as a result of the close-range shotgun blast.
Ruchell Magee, the sole survivor among the group who revolted at the court, was convicted for Haley's kidnapping and murder and sentenced to life imprisonment, which he is serving in Pelican Bay. Now 67 years old, he has lost numerous bids for parole.
One year later in August 1971, three days before he was to go on trial, George was gunned down in the prison yard at San Quentin in what officials described as an escape attempt. When Jackson was murdered 35 years ago at San Quentin prison, August 21, 1971, this writer saw grown, macho men break down and cry tears bigger than cantaloupes. Jackson influenced a larger number of African-Americans and progressive thinking whites than can be imagined.
The murder of Jackson sent Archie Shepp, Bob Dylan and Steel Pulse into the studio to record tributes to him. Jackson was eulogized in the jazz, pop and reggae idioms. “Jazz” man Shepp released “Blues for Brother George Jackson” on his Attica Blues album. Dylan did a single “George Jackson” and the British reggae band (who would later be invited to perform at President William Jefferson Clinton’s first inauguration in 1993) recorded two songs “George Jackson” (a cover of Dylan’s song) and “Uncle George” on their 1977 album Tribute To The Martyrs. The group actually re-recorded ”George Jackson” and “Uncle George” on the 2004 album African Holocaust.
Jackson’s impact was so great that Warner Bros. film attempted to cash in on his image by producing a film, Brothers starring Bernie Casey and Vonetta McGee. The soundtrack was performed by Taj Mahal.
Who was George Jackson and why eulogize a convict? When Jackson was eighteen, he was sentenced from one year to life for stealing $70 from a gas station. He spent the next eleven years in prison, eight and a half of them in solitary confinement.
When he was twenty-eight years old, he was charged with the murder of a guard in Soledad prison. Shortly after his indictment for this murder, his first book Soledad Brother, a book of his letters was published in England, Germany, Italy and Sweden. He was acclaimed throughout the world as the most powerful and eloquent black writers to emerge in years. He became a symbol for the struggle of all oppressed people.
Commenting on Jackson’s writing C.L.R. James pointed out, “The letters are in my opinion the most remarkable political documents that have appeared inside or outside the United States since the death of (Vladimir Ilyich) Lenin.” The late Walter Rodney used to talk about how it was amazing that Jackson could develop an international consciousness from a prison cell.
Jackson’s second book Blood In My Eye was completed only days before he was killed in an alleged escape attempt from San Quentin. Blood In My Eye clearly showed Jackson’s global outlook. He wrote, “The commitment to total revolution must involve an analysis of both the economic motives and the psychosocial motives which perpetuate the oppressive contract. For the black partisan, national structures are quite simply nonexistent. A people without a collective consciousness that transcends national boundaries—freaks, Afro-Amerikkkans, Negroes, even Amerikkkans, without the sense of a larger community than their own group—can have no effect on history. Ultimately they will simply be eliminated from the scene.”
Kumasi and Chaka of Los Angeles and Oakland, respectively, recently appeared on Saturday Morning Live in Toronto. Both knew George and served time in California dungeons. They represent the Black August Organizing Committee whose mission it is to attempt to help prisoners such as Hugo “Yogi” Pennell, Ruchell McGee and countless others still languishing behind California and other prison walls in the United States. For more information on this organization contact http://www.dragonspeaks.org Mumia Abu-Jamal has done several outstanding commentaries about Black August. To listen to these thought provoking messages go to the following URL: http://www.prisonradio.org
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Norman (Otis) Richmond can be reached at Norman@ckln.fm
Richmond can be heard on three radio programs on CKLN-FM 88.1; Saturday Morning Live, Saturdays 10am to 1pm; From A Different Perspective, Sundays 6pm-6-30pm; and Diasporic Music, Thursdays 8pm to 10pm.
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