Victory in Court, Defeat on the Ground: The Legacy of the Historic Pigford Class Action Lawsuit for the Black Farmer

from the BFAA 2015 Land Loss Summit
Blackburn Center, Howard University
February 20 – 21, 2015
BFAA Logo 1

The Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association (BFAA) was founded in 1997 “to respond to the issues and concerns of Black farmers in the United States and abroad [and] to monitor the US Department of Agriculture and the historic 1999 Class Action Lawsuit Settlement Pigford v. Glickman, which was to award Black farmers $2.5 billion in damages for loan discrimination practices by the federal government” (from the website http://www.bfaa-us.org).  However, as of May 2002, most of the farmers who had filed had still not received their awards and the USDA’s discriminatory practices against Black farmers continued.  Not only did this lead to the Pigford II Settlement to enforce the award of the full $2.5 billion in damages, it has led many Black farmers to declare the entire Pigford Class Action fraudulent and has fueled continued resistance from America’s farmers of Afrikan descent.

In this first article of several on the 2015 Black Land Loss Summit and the continuing struggle of the Black Farmer in the United States, we present the statements of two individuals who have worked long and hard on the original Pigford Settlement and now are involved in the continuing struggle for justice.  They also present somewhat different perspectives on the relevance and importance of the Pigford lawsuit.  First, however, a summary and discussion of the Pigford I and II Class Action Lawsuits is in order.

A Brief Summary of the Pigford I and Pigford II Class Action Lawsuits

The following explanation of the two class action lawsuits initiated by Black farmers against the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), beginning in 1997, comes from the publication Black Farmers United: The Struggle Against Power and Principalities, by BFAA President Gary R. Grant, Kansas State University Assistant Professor of Sociology Spencer D. Wood, and UNC Chapel Hill doctoral candidate Willie J. Wright (The Journal of Pan African Studies, vol.5, no.1, March 2012, http://www.jpanafrican.com/docs/vol5no1/5.1BlackFarmers.pdf).

In 1997 Pigford I was levied against former Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman and the USDA. The lead plaintiff, Timothy Pigford, was a Black farmer from Cumberland County, North Carolina, but the lawsuit represented the interests of African-American farmers throughout the country. Pigford I makes two points: first, that agents within the FmHA discriminated against Black farmers by denying their requests for loans or farm benefits without just cause, and that the FSA failed to service African-American farmers’ loans in a timely manner or to offer other USDA programs that could prevent them from losing their farm operations, land, and in many cases their homes through foreclosure (Pigford 1997). It often goes unstated that many litigants were never afforded the opportunity to become farmers because they were unfairly prevented from receiving the financial credit required to purchase land, equipment, and other farm necessities.

Second, the litigants posited that once informed of the prejudicial decision-making practices of his employees, former Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman failed to take swift and appropriate action toward addressing these claims (Pigford 1997). Shortly after the filing of Pigford I, Cecil Brewington, another African-American farmer from North Carolina, filed a second lawsuit, which was subsequently combined with the previous suit to complete Pigford I (Brewington et al. 1997). This original lawsuit only accepted discrimination claims from litigants who experienced racial bias and professional misconduct between January 1, 1981 and December 31, 1996 (Pigford 1997). While discrimination certainly occurred before 1981 and, sadly since 1997, the lawsuit covers those years because during that time the offices of the Civil Rights Division of the US Department of Agriculture were unstaffed. Consequently, when farmers filed complaints, they were not officially investigated nor addressed as the office was closed. With no staff, it was impossible for grievances to be fairly investigated and resolved.

After mounting evidence and emotional testimonies, Pigford I was separated into two tracks. Track A required farmers submitting discrimination claims to fulfill a relatively low burden of proof, and allowed farmers whose claims had been proven to collect a maximum payment of $50,000 and possible debt relief. The second track, Track B, allowed unlimited payout and debt relief, but required a preponderance of evidence to justify payment from the government (Pigford 1997).

In 1999 Federal Judge Paul Friedman authorized a consent judgment for $1.25 billion for litigants in Tracks A and B of Pigford I resulting in the largest class-action Civil Rights settlement in the history of the country (Pigford et al. v. Glickman 1999). More than 700 black farmers representing the tens of thousands of absent farmers were at the courthouse to hear the decision. Timothy Pigford, along with the other six lead plaintiffs, and more than forty other farmers, activists, including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and other Civil Rights groups spoke against the consent judgment during what was called the “Fairness Hearing.” Black farmer organizations and activists widely believed that the consent judgment hammered out between attorney Alexander J. Pires Jr., for the plaintiffs, the USDA, and Michael Sitcov, the U.S. Department of Justice’s lead attorney, would be the final nail in the coffin of African-American farmers in America. Specifically, farmers and their advocacy groups argued that fifty thousand dollars was insufficient to compensate fully for the value of lost land. Furthermore, there were no provisions in the settlement for the return of any land nor was there a provision to work out settlements for farms currently in foreclosure. Last, the farmers were concerned that the settlement did not give a proper debt forgiveness process and that many would have additional tax burdens as the awards and debt forgiveness were interpreted as income.

Following years of protests, deliberations, testimonies, and interviews, on April 14, 1999 Judge Paul Friedman concluded that “the consent decree is a fair, adequate, and reasonable settlement for the claims brought in this case” (General Accounting Office 2006: 1). Due to inconsistencies in the filing date issued by the USDA, soon thereafter, additional claims argued that many farmers were left out of the Pigford I settlement. The discrepancy occurred because the USDA did not clarify whether claims were to be received by September 14, 1999 or if they were to be postmarked by this date. There was also the argument that the method used by the USDA to notify farmers of the lawsuit was not adequate enough to reach many elderly African-American farmers in the south, most of whom were without internet and computer access and skills. This gaffe resulted in many farmers being denied admittance into the original civil suit and ultimately led to an extension of the case now known as Pigford II.

On November 30, 2010 after having been defeated eight separate times in the U.S. Senate, both houses of the U.S. Congress finally passed a bill to provide compensation for African-American farmers who were late to file discrimination claims in accordance with Pigford I. On December 8, 2010, President Barack Obama signed into law SB Bill 3838 approving the allocation of an additional $1.15 billion as a final settlement to Black farmers. The bill also provided provisions for an additional $100 million made available by the Credit Commodity Corporation for credit program discrimination claims that were in violation of the government’s Equal Credit Opportunity Act (GPO 2010).

Despite the court-approved settlement for the plaintiffs, the legislation that followed, and a preponderance of independent and federally documented evidence, there are still those who contend that the claims of discrimination made by thousands of African-American farmers across the country are fraudulent (Beck, 2011; March 2004). During a meeting in Washington, D.C. with Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack in November of 2010, the Secretary told the authors of this paper, along with other leaders in the Black Farmer Movement, that there were actually legislators who did not believe that any discrimination ever occurred between USDA officials and African-American farmers and aspiring farmers. The pervasive distribution of this sentiment helps to explain why it took eight proposed bills in the U.S. Senate before Congress approved legislation to allocate funding for Pigford II.

Notably, SB 3838 was attached to the settlement of Cobell et al., v Salazar, a settlement for Native American landowners. Independently, an African-American farmer settlement would likely have failed in the Senate for a ninth time. The attachment of these settlements demonstrates both that African Americans are not the only people of color to experience systemic discrimination in landowning and farming historically, but also that even today government support for African American farmers is so lacking that a settlement for these men and women cannot be passed alone. …

The successful passage of SB 3838 is a significant feat for Black farmers and landowners; however, the passage of this legislation alone will not bring an end to their struggle to retain their farmland nor alleviate the various other hardships they face in producing, harvesting, and marketing their crops (Brown, Dagher and McDowell 1992). For African-American farmers, though Pigfords I and II were designed to rectify years of wrongdoings against non-White Anglo-Saxon Protestant males and females, the court decisions along with the passage of SB 3838 may present a new list of obstacles. …

In order to be eligible to receive a portion of the funding allocated to African-American farmers in Pigford II, farmers must prove in a court of law that they have faced discrimination from the USDA. However, during the process of completing this lawsuit, which took over ten years to come to this settlement, many African-American farmers lost their land, homes and livelihood. As a consequence of their dislocation, many of them have lost papers vital to proving their cases. Many others have lost hope in their government, have lost their health and some have died; therefore, their heirs will now have the task of proving discrimination, which requires providing extensive documentation thereof, in order to obtain the government aid that it has been determined they are owed.

The effects of this longstanding struggle have stretched far and wide. Senate Bill 3838 threatens to comfort citizens and legislators into believing that the struggle faced by African-American farmers is a struggle of the past, making it seem irrelevant in the present, and calling attention away from the issues African-American farmers currently face. Now many successful claimants in Pigford I are riddled with tax bills from the IRS and their local state Departments of Revenue, an unexpected repercussion of their legal victory.

Second, there are very few African-American farmers left operating in AmericaAccording to the 2007 agricultural census those that are still practicing are at an average age of 60 years (Census of Agriculture 2007: 64). Most African American youth, including rural African-American youth, are far removed from agricultural lifestyles and in many cases view farming as a dirty, undesirable, and financially unsustainable profession. In many cases the images and experiences of their parents and grandparents struggling to make a living on the farm and to retain the land has resulted in this psychophysical separation from the land.

At the BFAA Land Loss Summit, we heard two important perspectives on the Pigford case, one from a member of the legal community that assisted the Black farmers in their historic struggle, and another from one of the Black farmers themselves who explained how, as is often the case with such legal battles, the practical result of what is even seen as a victory in the court can actually be more like a bitter defeat in the real world.

Savi Horne

Savi Horne is the Executive Director of the North Carolina Association of Black Lawyers, Land Loss Prevention Project (LLPA). The Land Loss Prevention Project is a non-profit, public interest law firm with an overarching mission of providing legal expertise, community education, and advocacy skills to help farmers and rural landowners who face legal, economic, and environmental challenges. Integral to our legal services program is the North Carolina Rural Environmental Equity Project, which was developed at the request of grassroots groups to formulate legal strategies in addressing environmental racism and public health issues facing local communities. The Land Loss Prevention Project is a founding partner organization of the Black Family Land Trust (BFLT). The BFLT mission is to protect Black owned land in the southern United States through employment of land conservation and community development tools. Savi serves on several national sustainable agriculture and small farms boards: National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture, National Family Farm Coalition and the Rural Coalition. Currently, Ms. Horne is the Team Leader of the Diversity Initiative of the Farm and Food Policy Project (FFPP). The FFPP is a Kellogg Foundation funded project seeking to made inroads into the 2007-2008 federal Farm Bill. The Diversity Initiative members are from leaders from the African-American, Hong-American, American Indian, Latino/Hispanic socially-disadvantage farmers and farmworkers.

In her discussion on the significance of the Pigford I and II class action lawsuits, she recalled one of LLPP’s attorneys going to court (with BFAA President Gary Grant) and encountering the representative of the Farm services Administration County Committee “in his full Confederate regalia … and this was a process that he (Gary Grant) was trying to seek justice. … You can understand that [Mr. Grant] had more than just a fire in his belly, but he had a special calling to do something about this.  And he knew that he couldn’t do this alone.  And so out of this, you get the Black Farmers and Agriculturalists movement that fed from the groundwork that was done by the Federation (of Southern Cooperatives) and others, including the Farmers’ Legal Action Group, the Land Loss Prevention Project and others, to reallySept 20 2015 Savi Horne do something about, in the court, Pigford, and so born in North Carolina, of course, we get the main plaintiff [Timothy Pigford], who up to this point had been trying himself to farm and faced all the obstacles that Gary’s family and others, as well as Eddie (Slaughter) will show us, and so when we look at Pigford, we can look at the numbers and the numbers are very, very informing.”  She noted “the number of people who filed and recovered the ultimate settlement coming out of Pigford I of a billion dollars – that’s a huge sum of money – but then, when we look at the trillions of dollars, as was projected by some of our fierce leadership, coming out of many places including Detroit and the late great work of Chokwe [Lumumba], mayor in Jackson, Mississippi, and that is the call of reparations,” it becomes clear that there is an “unfinished piece in terms of the settlement of what this society, this great country, in order to come to terms with its soul, really needs to take into account.  So when we look at Pigford I, we know that 22,000 farmers had filed and about 15,000 were successful.  And at the end of the day, you did have over a billion dollars in settlement.   [In terms of] Pigford, there were a number of farmers who had sought to file claims, and they got onto the lists of the ‘late’ and the ‘late-late’, and they got onto government lists that the community, not just BFAA, but the inside-the-Beltway community of people who did their part to make this happen and uplift the World Coalition, the National Family Farm Coalition and others to really press Congress to do the heavy lifting … and in the 2008 Farm Bill we had language in there that would authorize the settlement that would now become Pigford II and allow the ‘late’ and ‘late-late’ filers to participate in a process.  And for that process, as Spencer [Wood] said, it was ridiculed by reportage from the New York Times and bloggers that this was a fraudulent exercise, almost as if to say that the government was also in cahoots with Black farmers, and of course, that had its shade of meaning, because we have a Black President, therefore he [must have been] cutting us some slack.  And that is so far from the case.  The President is a man of principle, there is a very, very strong showing that would have been a miscarriage of justice, we had allies in Congress that understood that, and so, with hard work of our groups in the Capitol were able to get this done in the Farm Bill.

“So the 60,000 farmers who submitted claims for the ‘late-late’ and ‘late’ filers were eventually reduced substantially.  So you got about 15,000 who literally were the only ones who got to a laborious process of which the USDA investigated or, if we were to be very charitable, did their ‘due diligence’ to make sure that its settlement was not ridiculed.  They were able to settle some of these claims.  And of course, there are many, many, many farmers who were not able to perfect their claims and as well, there were many families who are still struggling with the huge burden of having to file on behalf of deceased relations and getting the paperwork together, and as so often happened within the Black experience, we find ourselves as heirs of farms that we actually farm, and so to establish those types of records and to perfect the claim they now have been going through a lengthy and protracted probate process in state courts, and of course these processes vary from state to state.  So that process is still ongoing, and so, I’m thinking by conservative estimates that you really won’t have a full closure to Pigford … until probably later this year, after all the estate matters are settled.

“So, what really is the meaning of all this?  And where are we now as Black farmers, as people working with Black farmers?  It’s still very much a struggle to get the resources that Black farmers need to continue in agriculture in the way that they need to continue.  Land that they cannot recover that they have lost is so very expensive.  We find that the increased urbanization and extension out into even the peri-urban areas, for example, you have Black farmers farming in Orange County where I’m from, and by a rough estimate, we have about three left in Orange County in North Carolina.  And two of them are caught in heir property, but they have enough money to farm … so, in North Carolina the number of Black farmers is still anywhere from 1200 to 1400, but we’re not sure, because we really don’t understand what the numbers are saying.  I know that in North Carolina, some of our NGO groups are really holding up the fact that there had been an increase, in its numbers. … We are seeing an increase in urban agriculture. … But at the end of the day, the large piece of the work, the resources that we need for farmers to continue – those who want to continue into agriculture must be able to.  For example, in North Carolina, I think we only have one dairy farmer, and that dairy farmer comes from a farm family that lost 280 acres of land, did not really get anything from Pigford … and even to the extent that, on their own land, they have desecration of a historic gravesite.  And so, one would say the phoenix has risen, just for that family to be able to continue … to provide leadership to the community, to mentor a son who would then pick up the mantle of continuing agriculture; it says that, if the playing field is level, we have people, within our families, within our communities, who would choose to continue in agriculture.  But we still have to continue to fight, to make sure that there is a program available for that and all adequately funded.  For many, many years, the World Coalition and its allies have fought along with the Federation for a receipt for service so that if and when you go into the USDA office you get a receipt. … We need more and more families to engage in that process so we can begin to get a fresh set of data to make sure that those farmers are getting what they need.

“I must say that what is going on with Black farmers is part of an international trend, not just in the United States but internationally, where we find that poor people still have one asset that has now become highly prized, even if it’s in the wetlands, and that is our land.  So, with all the land grabbing that is going on internationally, with even the tainting of our pension system, our pension funds and getting involved in these real estate investment trusts, it now heightens the value of land and our concern that we must continue to hold onto land and to work collaboratively with our home-grown institutions. … We have some favorable state law that would allow us to address heir property by using limited liability, by getting together as a family, coming together, forming a board and protecting the land.  We have to employ many, many strategies to help us to protect this vital resource because, as a farmer once said to me, ‘God doesn’t make any more new land.’  There is no Terra Nova.  There are no new lands to conquer.  It’s either you hold onto what you have, or it becomes a ‘lose-lose’.  We’ve seen, as is well documented through Professor [Phil] Daniel’s work, the historic role of Black farmers in the Civil Rights Struggle, and in fact I would not be standing here if it were not for Black farmers, during the struggle, that stood up and gave our people strength to fight on and do the marches.  So, as we approach the 50th Anniversary of the voting and the uprising [against] what really was an oppressive regime in Alabama and the crossing of the [Edmund] Pettus Bridge, and the March to Montgomery from Selma, we must enshrine within our hearts the struggle to keep the land, to hold on to what we have, and to hold dearly the history. … At the end of the day, what’s most important is that, we as a people engage ourselves and our allies.  Maybe we made some mistakes [with legal representation], but to the extent that we engage in struggle to get this settlement done, I think it says a lot for us, but it also says more importantly that when people gather for the greater good, good will happen.  We all need to come together for great good, because the Black farmers, their struggle for the land, the struggle for safe food, the farmworkers’ struggle, the immigration struggle, the struggle to protect our environment, those are what we are charged as human beings to do, and if we step back and allow the destruction of the Mother Earth, then what’s the point of any of this?  So please, let’s rededicate our lives in this season to great good, and to protect our Mother.”

Gary Grant, President, BFAA

The original Pigford settlement was for $2.4 billion, as Mr. Grant explained, “the largest civil rights settlement in the history of this country, and that was done by a bunch of Black farmers.  When you think of farmers … back in 1996 they thought we had one strap [of their coveralls] hooked up, and we couldn’t hardly talk … but we got the government to settle for $2.4 billion.  That’s enough to buy one bomber. … The community from which I come, the government purchased the land at $25 an Sept 20 2015 Gary Grant and Dr Phil Danielacre back in the 1930s. … You can calculate 10,000 acres of land at $25 an acre.  Today, that land would sell for, if we were selling farmland, somewhere between two and three thousand dollars an acre, and if we were selling is as development for housing and stores and towns to be built, it would sell for somewhere between 25 to 30 thousand dollars an acre.  That’s [getting close to] a half billion dollars.  Right in one spot.  That’s an economic base that no one wants to talk about.  And yet, they are trying to take it back.  No, they aren’t trying to take it, they’re stealing it, that’s what they’re doing. … We’re talking about saving us, is what we’re talking about.  Our acronym is BFAA [“Be-Fa”].  And we say, Ebonically speaking, we have Been-Fa everybody else.  It’s time that we Be-Fa us.”

Eddie Slaughter, Georgia Black Farmer

Eddie Slaughter has a somewhat different take on the Pigford lawsuit and settlement.  While he does not dispute the historical significance of Pigford, his view is from the perspective of the farmers themselves, who, despite the settlement, often saw their difficulties continuing because of the duplicity of politicians and government officials.  While the legal battle may have been won to some degree as a result of Pigford I and II, the practical reality and the legacy of the settlements in terms of the lives of the Black farmers themselves was often quite different.

As Mr. Grant stated during his introduction and also after Mr. Slaughter’s statement, “That’s a farmer who experienced Pigford and yet … the Honorable Judge [Paul] Friedman said that the settlement was fair and equitable. … So, that’s when someone else is doing the defining, and the loss of 7 million acres of [Black-owned] land is a loss of foundation, economic foundation.”  But now, let us hear from Mr. Slaughter himself:

“My name is Eddie Slaughter.  I’m from a little small town in Georgia called Buena Vista, Georgia.  We commonly call it God’s Country, even though the government is trying to take it back.  I know nothing good to say about Pigford.  I was one of the participants in it.  I’m worse off now, and most of the farmers you’ll talk to are worse off now than they were before Pigford.  And there’s a good case that I want to talk to you all about.  And his name is Harry Young.  He died about three years ago.  He was 83 years old.  And Harry Young had a farm in Orangeboro, Kentucky.  He had $750 million in coal and oil reserves on his farm.  He went down to USDA at that time and paid it off.  And they took the hundred-some thousand dollars and put it in an escrow account and a couple of years later they started foreclosing on him.  And he went to court time and time again, as we’ve been going to court, and with no results.  So, finally, what they do to most farmers when they come into being Black, they like the idea that when you stand up and tell the law “this isn’t right” or “that’s wrong”, they say, “Oh, you’re threatening me, you’re intimidating me.”  So guess how this case finally got to court?  When they took him to court for threatening a USDA Loan Officer.  They came in there … and the man took the witness stand, trying to send [Mr. Young] to prison after they robbed him out of his 350 acres of land that had $750 million of coal and oil reserves on it.  And so [Mr. Young’s legal team] presented the receipt showing he had paid the farm off, and the [USDA Officer] had to admit that was his signature and the farm had in fact been paid off.  And guess what?  Like most Black farmers, he died before he could get the settlement.  And I mean, that’s a moral disgrace.  That’s just one of the [cases].  The Pigford law suit, I’m one of the ones that claim that it’s a fraud.  Because I don’t know of no Black farmer that’s received justice out of that lawsuit.  Equal justice under the .aw does not exist in America for the Black and the poor.  And that’s the harsh reality of Pigford.

“You got the $50,000 and you got all of your land returned back to you in the form of debt relief, but then nobody wants to talk about what we’re going through as a result of the persecution of this lawsuit for us that’s actually on the land and making a living on the farm.  ‘Okay, we gave you the $50,000 in 2001.’  [Then, they came back with] ‘Oh, we made a mistake!’  And they took back the debt relief.  And they put the lien back on.  And for nine years, they offset my Social Security Disability check for $300 a month.  And it made my credit bad.  I couldn’t pay my creditors. … And Sept 20 2015 Eddie Slaughtereven worse than that, the money that they were taking from me for nine years to pay off the debt that I owed that they put back against me, illegally – they informed me, ‘Mr. Slaughter, the interest has eaten it up.’  [Thus, the principal on the newly-imposed debt remained unchanged – Editor.] … and then, even worse than that, not just me, but [they did this to] others.  You all remember back when they bought out the peanut quotas for farmers?  White farmers got all their hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars.  They said ‘Mr. Slaughter, your little old $11,000 is going to pay down your debt.’  [So, they truly received no debt relief, as their debts were never actually paid in full during the farming.]  Then, they came up and bought out the cotton allotments, and all the [Black] farmers, Willie Head, Carl Parker, all of them, they [were told] ‘We’re sorry but you all can’t get yours because you’re still in debt to USDA, so we’re putting that against your loan.’  When we demand that we have a statement showing us where all this money is going, we’ve got to go to court, to try to make them produce to show where this money is going.  They haven’t.

“The reason why we’re here is because Howard University, when Professor [Charles] Ogletree was here, he had agreed when he heard about all the grievous things that were going on with Black farmers, ‘We’re going to have a mock trial here.’  And that we were going to get all these farmers from across the country and we were going to put on our side of the story.  So, when USDA and all the officials got together they said ‘No, no, we’ll settle this here and everything’ and what-have-you.  And so, then we went through this Pigford.  The biggest problem we got first of all, anybody that benefited from Civil Rights, you need to understand that the Black farmers were the backbone of the Civil Rights Movement.  When they started sitting in at Woolworth and Walgreen, and all of these counters across the country, it was the Black farmers and landowners that put the bond and got the bail to get them out of jail.  When we were having Freedom Rides … in Virginia, all in North, South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Kentucky, wherever they were going, it was the Black farmers and the landowners that went to bond and went to bail.  When they had Martin Luther King locked up in Albany, Georgia, threatened to send him to Reedsville Prison, one of the worst prisons in the state of Georgia – which he would have been safe there because the Brothers were saying if y’all send him we’re going to protect him – but the farmers, in Mitchell, Baker and Brooks County said if they give Dr. King a bond, even if it’s a million dollars, we’ve got the land to go to bond and go to bail.  So, we need to understand the reason why we need this.  If we had to fight that same struggle today we’ve lost so much land it would be a struggle for us to put up the bond and the bail to defend our people.

“I’ve got seven children and all of them know all of the health problems I’ve had from fighting such a fight that you can’t win.  Right now, while I’m standing here, Rod Bradshaw in Jetmore, Kansas, has 4,000 acres of land that USDA is trying to foreclose on.  Right now, as we speak, [another farmer] already lost his land in Kentucky.  Lucius Abrams in Keysville, Georgia is going to court to try to save his 750 acres of land for his family.  And let me tell you what USDA did for the actual landowners, Black farmers, the ones who are actively participating in the land.  What they did, they closed these cases out, without even a hearing.  So, when they went down to try to take the land, USDA did, and the … County Commissioner there … kind of knew the local authorities, and [Mr. Abrams] filed this injunction saying that ‘we demand that the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, Due Process, be enforced’ and that he had not had due process even in the Pigford case, even as he was a lead plaintiff in Pigford.  So when they got there and they brought their side, USDA brought the records showing that Michael Lewis, the adjudicator in the Pigford lawsuit, stated in court ‘yeah, we threw out a bunch of cases … not just me as an adjudicator, but all across the country’. … If they were legitimate cases, and they were over the thousands of dollars in damages, they were thrown out.

“So now, they said ‘We don’t want to deal with this in Burke County, Georgia.  We want to transfer it back to Washington, DC, to Judge Paul Friedman.  And so, what happened was, the Attorney General of the state of Georgia, as well as the Superior Court in Burke County, said ‘Look, why is this such a problem?  The man has not had a hearing, clearly, you all admit that, the man is here, and the land is here, so Subject Matter Jurisdiction means that the hearing should be in Georgia.’  But because of this all-powerful government and the Justice Department, they move it back to Washington, DC under Judge Garcia.  He looked at it, read it and said ‘Oh, no.’  So they sent all our cases back to Judge Friedman.  And guess what? … Before we could get back to Georgia, the … letter was in the mail there that Judge Friedman had thrown it out again.  Now, if you think that Pigford was for good, explain to me why we got over 14,000 cases before USDA, the Administrative Law Judges and none of them are being heard because you’ve got a Black man that they had in charge of the United States Department of Agriculture … Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights [who] actually has done us worse service than our White brothers would have done.  Matter of fact, I rather would have had one of the Klansmen running around here with that Rebel Flag on him, because one thing about it, when we do it to each other, we make sure that it’s worse.  Not only am I going to stab you in your back, but I’m going all the way to the bone with it.  And if you aren’t going down, I’m not pulling the knife out.  I might twist it a little bit to make sure you go on down. … This stuff here, the Pigford lawsuit … all of the actual Black farmers except for a very, very few, that are still on the land and farming to make a living, they are being persecuted. … [The USDA and government officials] are making their credit bad.  We can’t go back into USDA … because the Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, said ‘well this happened 10 or 15 years ago, no sense in me firing these folks [who failed to protect the Black farmers] now.’  So … if we go back into USDA now, it’s a hostile environment for Black farmers.  It is clearly an adversarial relationship and they are very arrogant. … But we … the actual farmers, are being persecuted because of this Pigford lawsuit. … And I personally don’t know one Black farmer that received justice.”

Dr. Ridgely A. Mu’min Muhammad of Muhammad Farms, and a member of BFAA, wrote an article in The Farmer dated October 21, 1999 on the just-completed Pigford I settlement, titled “Another Slap in the Face” (http://muhammadfarms.com/farmer-Oct-27-99.htm).  Dr. Muhammad would speak later in the 2015 BFAA Land Loss Summit.  We will include some of his remarks in a future article.

Remembering Phil Africa

 

MOVE Phil Collage 1REMEMBERING PHIL AFRICA
Saturday, January 31, 2015, 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Kingsessing Recreation Center, Philadelphia, PA

Mama Ramona Africa, the sole adult survivor of the May 13, 1985 bombing of the MOVE Organization’s house on Osage Avenue in West Philadelphia, addressed the hundreds of friends and supporters in the audience who had come from across the country to the Kingsessing Recreation Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to pay respects to MOVE Nine Member and New Ancestor Phil Africa on this cold Saturday afternoon, January 31, 2015.

“A lot of people have come up to MOVE People and asked us how we’re doing, are we okay.  Of course we grieve the loss of our brother.  John Africa [MOVE’s late founder, who died in the May 13, 1985 bombing of MOVE’s Osage Avenue house – Editor] has taught us that we are living beings, we’re alive, we have feelings.  So, we can be hurt, our feelings can be hurt.  But one thing is for sure, we can be hurt but we won’t be stopped.  And that’s what’s important.

“Phil touched the lives of so many people, and we got so many responses, so many statements, that we just can’t read them all. … But meanwhile, what we’re going to do is let you know how people, all across the globe, feel about Phil Africa.”

Mike Africa was born in prison, the son of Mike Africa Sr. and Debbie Africa of the MOVE Nine.  He has spoken about growing up the son of two Political Prisoners and how that legacy has guided his steps as he has grown to become a father himself.  He and Sis. Rain Africa, one of the Next Generation of the Youth of the MOVE Organization known as the “Seeds of the Seeds”, along with a Brother from Friends of MOVE New York, served as the emcees for the event.

I entered the hall to the sound of the tribute to Phil Africa from the world’s most famous Political Prisoner, Veteran of the Black Panther Party and longtime MOVE supporter, Mumia Abu-Jamal:

BRO. PHIL AFRICA (1956-2015), MOVE MEMBER
[col. writ. 1/10/15] © ’15 Mumia Abu-Jamal

He was born William Phillips, on Jan. 1, 1956, but few people called him by that name.

Most people knew him as Phil, and after joining the revolutionary naturalist MOVE organization in the early 1970s, most called him Phil Africa.

He was part of the confrontation of Aug. 8, 1978, in Philadelphia, where nearly a

Mumia Abu-Jamal

Mumia Abu-Jamal

dozen MOVE members were charged in connection with that conflict, in which a cop likely died from friendly fire – but MOVE members were charged.

Among them, Phil Africa. Phil was among 9 MOVE men and women charged with murder, and convicted in a hotly disputed trial, of third degree murder. So disputed, in fact, that several days after the trial, Judge Edwin Malmed would admit, in a locally broadcast interview, that he “Hadn’t the faintest idea” (his very words) …who killed the cop.

The 9 MOVE members were sentenced to 30 to 100 years: the longest in Pennsylvania history since third-degree became law in PA. Judge Malmed reportedly acknowledged the illegality of such a sentence, telling those sentenced that it may be reversed on appeal, but, for now, it would hold them. It appears Malmed believed the State Appellate courts were fairer than even they believed.

But not to people named Africa it seems.

For today, 37 years after the events of August, 1978, the fact that 7 remaining men and women are still in prison is nothing short of a scandal.

The MOVE men and women should’ve been free, at least 7 years ago, when they reached their minimums.

But this is Pennsylvania, where madness passes as normality.

Phil lost a son back in the mid –‘70s, when police trampled his child, Life Africa.

On May 13, 1985, when the police bombed a MOVE home, another son, Little Phil, was among the 11 people shot and burned to death.

Phil was an extremely talented artist and painter. He was a man with a gift of lightness, a witty sense of humor, and an ever-present smile.

Phil Africa, MOVE member, will be long loved and remembered by his wife, Janine Africa, by his brothers and sisters in MOVE, and by many, many prisoners across the state, whom he counseled over the years.

Phil lived through 59 cycles of planet earth, before being returned to his Mother.

From Prison Nation, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Mike Africa read the following statement from MOVE Nine Political Prisoner Debbie Africa just after I entered the hall. 

Remembering Phil
The one thing that always stands out in my mind when I think about Phil is his urgency to be family to all of us in MOVE and those outside of MOVE that love MOVE.  No matter what he was doing, if you needed his attention, he was there.  Phil always had an ear for anybody who needed to talk.  Phil always had a hope for anybody who needed a strong arm.  There was no time that was not the correct time to talk to Phil.  No matter what, he would drop what he was doing and make you his priority.  Long Live John Africa.  Phil was always ready to feed people MOVE’s Law, no matter who or what you are.  Black, White, Puerto Rican, French or German, always ready to encourage people with MOVE belief whether the garbage man, lawyer, clergy, or cops.  He always understood what his purpose was.  What his purpose is.  Everybody knows him.  People even name their sons after him.  He’s the big brother that anybody would want to have.  Phil never passed up an opportunity to talk our Move Nine Debbiebelief to people, and boy did he talk.  I believe that’s another reason we got along so good.  We shared that characteristic, talking.  Janine said, while in prison, Phil earned the respect of many, many inmates and staff alike.  Phil earned respect of prison guards because of his sincere commitment to be right.  Phil commanded the appreciation even from people who weren’t receptive to MOVE’s principles.  They had no choice but to acknowledge that example of loyalty to John Africa.  Phil took a lot of the younger kids in prison under his wing.  Working hard to keep them out of trouble, and steer them in the right direction, away from gang violence, drugs and nonsense.  They loved Phil at Dallas and called him Father Phil.  Phil never misused their trust to ego-trip or lord it over them or others.  Phil always remained humble, to model MOVE’s principle and always acknowledging of the source of his strength and courage: John Africa.  Phil even had time for the older generation in Dallas, making them feel comfortable and young by playing on the Dallas Senior Ball Team with them.  Everybody who came in contact with Phil loved him, as he left a vibration of courage and determination stamped on the hearts of all who loved him.  That vibration will live forever in us, as Phil will live forever, for Phil is with Mama and Mama will always be.  Ona Move!  Long live the Power that pulls all things together.  Long Live John Africa.

Suzanne Ross, New York Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition, made reference to one of Phil’s paintings, a lion with the caption “Real Power”, which she dubbed a self-portrait.  She never met Phil personally, but she exchanged many letters with him and he sent paintings to her.  “Phil knew that the deranged police and correctional officers, as much harm as they did, did not represent real power.  Phil’s revolutionary love and power was the kind of power we appreciate and support.  When I think of Phil’s passing I think in ultimate, extreme terms.  Good versus evil, love versus vengeance, revolution versus reaction.  Phil and MOVE represent [this] in all the positive ways and the System in all the opposite.  When my granddaughter, who is twelve years old, heard Phil had passed, she burst into tears and she said, ‘He never even belonged there in the first place!’  And the outrage of someone who never belonged there in the first place, and then ‘mysteriously dies’, is very hard, in just the simplest concept of justice, to accept.”

Ann Lamb, New York City Jericho Movement, shared her pain and her love with the crowd.  “It is really, really devastating [to have heard] that Phil had passed the night before, because there is no excuse for it, there is no reason for it to have happened, and it is really, really painful to stand up here and talk. … I never actually met Phil, but we corresponded for many years, and he did send me many of his paintings … and I extend from the Jericho Movement to the entire MOVE Family our sincerest love for what you are going through right now, and we will continue to support you, and all US-held Political Prisoners, until everyone is home, and everyone is free.  Because there is no alternative.”

Baba Karim, a longtime supporter and ally of MOVE, read a letter from Delbert Africa, another member of the MOVE Nine who was famously, and brutally, beaten by Philadelphia police as he was being arrested at the end of the 1978 police assault.  He began with the reading of the letter:

Delbert Africa being beaten by Philadelphia police, August 8, 1978.

Delbert Africa being beaten by Philadelphia police, August 8, 1978.

Ona MOVE!  Long Live John Africa’s Revolution!  Long Stand Phil Africa’s revolutionary example. … I’m in a state of shock, but handling those troubles as I know Phil would.  Working hard, keeping mind and body busy, so as not to [brood on] a lot of questions.  That way can only lead to depression, ultimately stopping work.  And that’s what the demon wants, to stop those working to revolute this foul system. … Yeah, it’s rough right about now, but Mama ain’t gonna put up no barriers in our way towards freedom.  It’s this damn System that took Phil away from us too soon, way too soon.  I can feel the void, you know.  I try to keep all the good times in mind, so as not to get too sad.  You do the same, Old Soldier. … I can handle whatever they come up with as long as I hold tight to MOVE Law. … With a warm revolutionary hug, and a sharp salute of solidarity, Ona MOVE Karim, Stay strong.  Delbert Africa.  Long Live John Africa Forever!

Baba Karim spoke of his experience meeting MOVE in prison and being impressed that none of the MOVE members were ever depressed, despite the fact that “everybody knows that MOVE didn’t kill that cop”, there were “nine MOVE members [who] were innocent in jail, they’re innocent!  They didn’t do nothing but try to protect their family, defend themselves against the brutal-ass police force headed by [police commissioner and future mayor Frank] Rizzo.”  About Phil specifically, “his dedication, his commitment, his honesty, his sincerity, being lighthearted all the time, is an example that we can all learn from.”

Paulette Dauteuil, National Jericho Movement, shared greetings from former Political Prisoner Larry Butler and current Political Prisoner Tom Manning.  She then added her own comments: “It is an example that we on the outside need to take.  As Safiya [Bukhari, former Political Prisoner, Veteran of the Black Panther Party and Founder of the Jericho Movement who became an Ancestor in 2003] said, we have to pick up this work to free our Prisoners. … There should be a thousand people sitting in this room for Phil.  [There were several hundred as it was – Editor.]  It’s great that we’re all here, but with the work we do, we need to embrace and organize more people.  So please, if nothing else, take Phil’s philosophy, and talk to people, and help people understand the lives of our Political Prisoners are at stake every day they are [inside those walls].”

Do Right Ministries supports prisoners in several Pennsylvania prisons.  Elder Lee G. Farrell sent a message of solidarity that was relayed by Mike Africa.  Elder Farrell had met Phil and Delbert while visiting his nephew Gabriel Pitman at SCI Dallas, where Phil and Delbert were being held.  He shared letters with Phil over the years and buried some of them under a tree in South Sudan to “spread his DNA in the Motherland.”  Mike Africa then read a poem Elder Farrell had sent him from Gabriel Pitman:

Bro. Phil, True Revolutionary
Mama called, and I answered.
Don’t y’all grieve for me.
As I lived life, so too I embrace death.
Free, able to see deep within, far beyond and far behind
These bars of steel and brick that bind
Lies Mama’s essence.
Just look around.  Can you see?  Can you feel the blessings of her presence?
If not, my sympathies are for you.
‘Cause truly you use her goodness for bad.
Living life in fear of losing things you never had,
And never will.
As your freedom, justice and equality
Are premised on all the people you’ve killed.
Liberty for all, it’s just an illusion.
That’s why, as I lived life, so too I’m choosing to die.
Free, in Revolution!  Yes, the whole damn system is guilty as hell.
Through our lives, this is proved.
So while the system dies, in fear of its self-made hell,
We’ll live life free, faithfully, forever.
Ona MOVE!
January 10, 2015 to Infinity
For Rebel Phil, for Sista Merle, and the whole MOVE Family,
Your light shines on forever.
A Messenger, 2015, a.k.a. Gabriel R. Pitman.
Long Live Phil Africa!

Kevin Gilroy, representing the Partisan Defense Committee, made a statement in support of MOVE, recounting the history of MOVE’s longtime conflict with the Philadelphia police that culminated in the 1978 police assault on the MOVE House in Powelton Village that led to the MOVE Nine’s imprisonment and the subsequent 1985 bombing of the Osage Avenue MOVE House that killed six adults and five children.

Sis. Taina Asili, New York-based vocalist and longtime supporter of MOVE, sang a beautiful and moving song she had dedicated to MOVE, Mumia and Political Prisoners, including Phil Africa, titled “Prison Break”.  Videos of her performances of “Prison Break” can be seen on YouTube, as well as on the full video of this event at MOVE’s Facebook page, www.facebook.com/picturethestruggle.

Sis. Basiymah Muhammad-Bey, Longtime MOVE Supporter and Former Assistant President-General, UNIA-ACL, brought “warm greetings of revolutionary struggle.”  She met Phil Africa at age 17 during the Powelton Village police siege when her mother insisted they bring water to the MOVE Family as the police were trying to starve them out.  “She made us have an assembly line where we organized cases of water and we brought it to the compound. … We are under attack … and we have to help each other pull ourselves up.  Some of us are a little tougher than others.  But from what we see going on right now … all of Ferguson, all of New York, all of the world rising against the injustices to our people, and we are left to still tumble harder to Free ‘Em All!  So in the midst of all the storm that’s going on, look at MOVE.  Long Live John Africa!  Still standing strong!  That means something to you when you’re in the field.  I [remember] watching them, and thought that something was mentally wrong with them.  Had no idea that something was mentally wrong with me!  And so I say to my teachers in my school, of course the training that I have received, from MOVE and many others, has allowed my revolutionary fight to be as strong as the [air] that I breathe!”

Zack Africa, MOVE Family Member, presented a Slide Show he produced in honor of Phil Africa.

Sue Africa, MOVE’s first Minister of Confrontation, made some extensive comments, which we excerpt here: “I’m going to start out today by reading a quote from a book titled Strategic Revolution from John Africa because Phil is a true revolutionary, still revoluting, generating and moving. … To quote John Africa:

John Africa

John Africa

MOVE is strong-willed, clear-visioned, one-minded, true in dedication.  MOVE don’t stagger, waver or stumble or fall short.  With the MOVE Organization, a step forward is a step gained, and a step lost for the System, because the MOVE Organization will not take a step back.  Our aim is revolution, our trust is Mama, our drive is consistency, our target is System, and we will not be stopped, for we have the courage of fight, the understanding of true law, and the power of God in both fists.

She went on: “Long Live John Africa!  Like we’ve heard all throughout today, Phil touched a lot of lives.  I have some letters and readings that the inmates at Dallas with Del and Phil wrote.”  She then read a few of those letters, including one from activists at the Bruderhof, one from a MOVE support group in France, words of support from friends with Save the Children in Minneapolis, Minnesota and some remarks from Baba Omar Sadiki, a supporter living in Morocco. 

She finally shared some remarks from fellow MOVE Nine Political Prisoner Eddie Africa:

Eddie Africa

Eddie Africa

Ona MOVE!  My brother Phil is a good man.  A father, a husband, a brother, a good soldier.  I sit here thinking of him and I’m smiling.  I can hear his voice, see his laugh, and it touches me in a good way.  The memories of our brother are countless and I think of them a lot. … At times I would call on his strength.  I would lean on him to get past a particular problem.  He would give me MOVE Law to make me strong.  And his smile showed his love.  We spent a lot of time together and I will hold that time together close to me. … He is not perfect, but he strives for it, as we all did.  His friends are many, prisoners and staff.  They gravitated to Phil.  Some of them not understanding why, as the stories told about us were supposed to turn folks against us.  But the lies that are told don’t match Phil and MOVE’s behavior, how we really are in person. … Phil was taught to revere family.  Life, wherever, whoever it was, without prejudicial characterizations.  Phil’s example is a good one, and instead of feeling down about him, I will use his life to strengthen mine.

Mama Alberta Africa, the wife of The Coordinator, MOVE Founder and Ancestor John Africa, spoke about Phil.  “Phil and I were extremely close.  He always took care and looked out for me. … I have a small quote here from Alphonso Africa.  It’s very small, just one line.  It’s from when he was on trial with The Coordinator.  And Alphonso said, ‘Now, as MOVE Members, we are secure in that we live, so shall we live.’  And I have a little something here from the writings of John Africa:

Everything that is dependable has always been here.  And everything that has always been here stays here.  Because it don’t fail.  You don’t see a thing outside your window that is within the Law of Life that hasn’t always been here.  The sky you see was here for your mother to see.  The sun in the sky was experienced by your grandmother as by you.  The grass that abounds the earth that you walk was witnessed and walked by your grandmother’s mother.  The water that is wet to your touch today was wet to the touch of your parents a zillion years ago and beyond, because the composition of water don’t fail.  The language of life is very plain.  Life plainly states to live, as death plainly states to die.  MOVE don’t have to be fearful of death.  MOVE will never know the suffering of death.  Because our belief is engaged in the principle of life.  All that life just outside your window, that is MOVE Law you’re looking at.  All of that life you see didn’t just happen to be here.  Life is here because life is alive.  MOVE believes in life.  And it ain’t life that disappears.  It is death that will not last in the Law of Life.

Mama Alberta concluded her remarks: “Life is the most powerful thing there is, and Phil Africa is connected to that force, a proven prophet of God, a MOVE Member.  All those involved in interfering with Phil Africa’s work, MOVE’s work, will not be able to will away the suffering they’ve got to do for violating MOVE.  Long Live John Africa.  Long Live MOVE.  Long Live Phil Africa.”

Mike Africa, who had been serving as one of the emcees for this event, took some time to share some remarks of his own.  “All this dates back to ’78 when they arrested Phil and they arrested the MOVE Nine, that started as a result of March 28, 1976, when the police came out there and they killed Phil Africa’s baby [Life Africa, who was knocked out of the arms of his mother, Janine Africa, and died when his head

The MOVE Nine after the 1978 assault.

The MOVE Nine after the 1978 assault.

hit the pavement – Editor].  People don’t know that.  Because the police tried to say that the baby didn’t exist because the baby didn’t have a Birth Certificate.  Phil Africa was in prison because of the work to protect our children.  To protect us.  And this is how the System repays people for trying to protect children!  It’s no different than when they killed Jesus Christ, when they were looking for Jesus Christ because they had heard that the Messiah was coming to bring peace.  It’s no different than when they killed Martin Luther King.  It’s no different than the killing of Malcolm X.  Because the System is not here to help us.  It is here to eliminate anybody [that opposes it].  And this family here, this MOVE Organization, is a family, and we’ll work together, and we’ll be close to each other and we will continue to fight this system as Phil Africa did.  Long Live John Africa.  Down with this rotten-ass System.”

There were a few musical performances from supporters of the organization.  Three strong young Brothers from MOVE had formed a group named Raw, and they performed “We Ain’t Crazy” for the appreciative crowd.

Baba I Abdul Jon spoke about his introduction to MOVE and the devotion he has felt toward them ever since: “I was following the MOVE Organization [since] 1976 when they came out with the arms [the famous “Guns on the Porch” incident when MOVE Members stood on the porch of their Powelton Village house with rifles in a show of defiance toward the brutality of the Philadelphia police – Editor].  I thought that was the most amazing, craziest thing I had ever seen in my life.  They were standing their ground with their weapons [saying that] no longer would they allow [police] to come in and beat on them. … It was Phil Africa’s child who was killed [in 1976].  Phil Africa had a child killed prior to August 8, 1978 and on May 13 [1985, the police bombing of the MOVE house on Osage Avenue that killed six adults and five children, among them another of Phil Africa’s children – Editor].  The MOVE Nine is making sacrifices. … If we have to spread some of this work out, people have to start standing up for themselves. … The MOVE Organization is standing up against this government in a manner and way in which nobody has ever done, and in a manner and a way that everybody needs to do.  One of the things that Phil told me is that it only takes a few people. … There’s no compromising with this System because they don’t have anything that they ever offer you.  They don’t have health, they don’t have wealth, they don’t have anything. … It’s just war and murder!”

The Commemoration of Phil Africa.

The Commemoration of Phil Africa’s life at the Kingsessing Recreation Center.


The Daughter of Delbert Africa spoke briefly and shared her feeling with the audience.  She spoke of her connection to Phil and the MOVE family even when she lived in a different world.  “I want you all to know that the movement continues.  It continues whether there’s rhetoric, whether there is marching, poster boards; life lives within.  It was taught and bred in me from the time I was born in Canada till today.  I have never denied my MOVE Family, nor have I denied my lineage, and I make sure that everyone is clear, I am here because of my father, because of what Uncle Phil taught me, because of my mother. … I want you to keep love in your heart. … I’m glad that he existed and he exists still within me.  Ona MOVE.”

Fred, a local supporter, sang a brief song and then he recounted a conversation he once had with Phil.  “I remember trying to express the [pain] I felt from the darkness this System had imposed upon me.  And he stopped me and said, ‘Fred, look.  We all have done bad things.  But when you came to MOVE, and you embraced John Africa’s teachings on life, these things no longer mattered.  Under the System’s influence you had no choice but to be corrupt, and in the dark, because the System is sick and corrupt.  John Africa’s influence is the influence of innocence, truth.  Once you turned around, you started to leave that [corruption] behind, and as long as you stay, work, keep on generating, you only get cleaner, and you leave that darkness behind.’  I never met a man who brought so much light into the darkness.  I love you Phil.  Long Live Revolution.  Long Live John Africa Forever.”

He then read a statement from Kristen Reed, a longtime supporter of MOVE and Mumia who now lives in New Mexico:

The best word I’ve seen in the aftermath of this tragedy that describes Phil’s open and honest demeanor is love. … You knew he would always be there for you. … To try to make sense of such a loss is impossible.  The world has lost one of its strongest, brightest and warmest souls. … Rest in Power, my friend.  You are sorely missed.

Political Prisoner Sundiata Acoli, imprisoned since 1973 as a result of a Shootout with New Jersey police that left Zayid Shakur dead and led to the conviction of himself and Assata Shakur (who subsequently escaped and now lives in Cuba) in the death of police officer Werner Foerster, released a statement through Prison Radio:

I could not have met a better comrade. … Very intelligent, good confidence and courage, yet easygoing and not concerned with his own self-importance.  Or, in other words, a comrade’s comrade, who was too soon transferred to points unknown, but left indelible favorable impressions on me.  And while I’d like to use this occasion to commemorate both the MOVE 11 [who died in the 1985 Osage Avenue bombing – Editor] and the MOVE Nine … we commemorate the dead by remembering them, by honoring them, for as long as one person remembers their name, they yet live.  We commemorate them by remembering and honoring them all, and by coming together, working together with them, for we all know MOVE Political Prisoners want freedom, all Political Prisoners want freedom, and it’s time we brought our Political Prisoners home.  So let’s … get together and make it happen, for MOVE Political Prisoners and all Political Prisoners.  Free them all.  Bring them home.  I thank you.

Mama Pam Africa, President of the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal (ICFFMAJ), roused the audience with her usual revolutionary fire: “Phil’s life is an example of resistance, of true resistance.  And you find that in Phil, but you find that in every last MOVE Member. … Everybody talks about the greatness of Phil, and you could talk for hours and never even get to the tip of the iceberg. … When I met MOVE and Phil, I thought that I was coming to help MOVE.  When I saw the confrontation in 1978, ’77, and police had surrounded MOVE, I thought I was out there for me to help them.  But through these years it’s been MOVE Pam Africa 1MOVE helping me, and I want everybody else to understand the battle that the MOVE Organization is doing and waging against this government is for each and every last one of us.  Inside the prison, outside the prison, and when for years, all you hear MOVE speak about is life, about Mama, about the air, the water, the soil, and that is so important.  To fight for these things, the necessities of life, is something that we all must get involved in.  I remember one time, when our sisters were fighting about water the prison, and another Political Prisoner said ‘Y’all are talking about water?  I’m talking about freeing Political Prisoners.’  Well, if you can’t make the connection between water and Political Prisoners … you’re not making the connection at all, because you need water to survive. … My brother Phil died in that prison because he wasn’t supposed to be there.  He was healthy and strong when he went in. … And they write letters about the people that are now dying in prison on a regular basis. … We say ‘Hands Up, Don’t Shoot’ and ‘Black Lives Matter’; all lives matter! … The same information and love and understanding that people get on the street, is what you get from every last MOVE Member that’s in prison.  We can’t tell you enough what it means to fight for your air, your water and your soil.  That is revolution.  That is protecting yourself. … This system didn’t come after MOVE because MOVE cursed and MOVE demonstrated against Puppy Palace and things like that.  They came after MOVE because MOVE is waking people up about all life.  The Animal Rights Movement now – I learned about animal rights in 1977 when MOVE was battling toe-to-toe about animals that are in prisons, and people who see zoos as a place to go and take your family and think that the animals are doing fine.  Those are concentration camps, death camps, just like the ones that people recognize that people are in inside those prisons.  I’ll never forget, when I first encountered MOVE, they were demonstrating at Puppy Palace. … It’s MOVE who will make you understand about the necessity of life, and if you’re talking about freeing Political Prisoners, all prisoners, you’ve got to take it all the way across the board, or no one’s going to be free.  That’s what John Africa taught us. … The same monster, the same government … the same people that are doing all these things, are the same people that are doing it all the way across the board. … This fight is about each and every last person that’s in this room, and your children, your family. … And I know I appreciate what MOVE has done for me, and my children and what’s continuing to be done for me and my children. … These [people] thought when they dropped the bomb [in 1985], that would be the end of MOVE.  I’ll never forget Rizzo saying the same thing in 1978.  Now he’s gone, all the judges are gone, a lot of the cops are gone, and MOVE is stronger, and these people are getting weaker.  When you saw Occupy, that was their children coming up against them. … When you see ‘Hands Up, Don’t Shoot’, you see their children coming up after them because of the wrong that they do. … You want to do something for Phil?  Do what Phil has done, and what Merle has done. … Stand up, continue to resist, continue to fight. … Let’s get to Philadelphia on that day [May 13, the 30th anniversary of the MOVE bombing on Osage Avenue – Editor], so that we can shut it down.  And we want them to feel us coming. … Ona MOVE, Long Live John Africa, Long Live the Power that pulls all things together.  Ona MOVE!”

Bro. Russell Shoatz, son of Political Prisoner Russell “Maroon” Shoats, followed up Mama Pam’s comments by briefly recounting his own awakening to the importance of MOVE’s decades-long resistance.  “I’m that ignorant kid, I’m that person who didn’t know.  There are still people outside this room, who don’t know.  And Pam is 110% right.  We’re talking about ‘People’s Socialism’ and ‘Maroon the Implacable’, my dad’s new book.  But I remember the conversations about MOVE, about the Africas, that were in prison.  They aren’t crazy!!  Now, the crazy done come full circle now.  Now the crazy’s come so full circle that we’ve got a whole movement talking about People’s Socialism, but they were doing that a long, long, long time ago.  But nobody is pointing back and saying ‘do you remember when MOVE was getting locked up for defending animals and everybody was saying they were crazy?’  Now we’ve got a whole movement, trying to save the planet, White folks, Asian folks, Purple folks, Green folks.  But nobody is saying ‘here’s a whole family that was bombed’ [for taking a similar, uncompromising stand – Editor]. … It ain’t about nothing but freedom.  And these people exemplify freedom.  Behind the walls, and here.  In front of your face.  You want to see freedom?  You want to see life?  Look at MOVE.  You see life.  You see freedom.  Long Live John Africa.  Ona MOVE!”

To close out the event, the Seeds of Wisdom, the MOVE Organization’s original youth group who are now adolescents and young adults, gathered on the stage and recited, in unison, the following creed:

In MOVE Law we trust.
All things in order of life.
The Power of Truth is Final.
Long Live MOVE.
Long Live John Africa’s Revolution.
Long Live John Africa.
Long Live John Africa.
Long Live John Africa.
Ona MOVE!

On Wednesday, May 13, 2015 at 12:00 Noon, supporters and activists will gather again to commemorate the 30-Year Anniversary of The May 13 Massacre: The 1985 Bombing of the MOVE Organization by the City of Philadelphia.  The event will be held at First District Plaza, 3801 Market St., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  For more details, be sure to visit http://www.onamove.com or the MOVE Facebook page, www.facebook.com/picturethestruggle.

 

 

 

MOVE’s Phil Africa Passes to the Ancestors

Phil Africa, a member of the original MOVE Nine who have been imprisoned since Move Nine Phil 21978 after a highly controversial police assault in West Philadelphia, has died under suspicious circumstances in a Pennsylvania prison hospital.

In the early 1970s, a man once named Vincent Leophart was known for walking the dogs of neighbors in the Powelton Village area of West Philadelphia.  After finding a permanent home for himself, in 1972 he developed a philosophy he called The Guideline, which would become the basis of the principles of the MOVE Organization.  He took the name John Africa, and those who would join MOVE would take the name Africa as a surname, thus establishing themselves as a “family”.  MOVE was often characterized, rather simplistically, as a “back-to-nature”  and “Black liberation” organization, but their membership, while largely Black, also included White and Latino members, and their ideology went beyond just a commitment to natural living, including support of truth-and-justice issues and a consistent stance in opposition to the increasing use of drugs such as Ritalin on school children, issues about which they have regularly warned the public during rallies and teach-ins for decades.

Philadelphia in the 1960s and 1970s was extremely turbulent, as were many urban centers in the United States, as Frank Rizzo, first as Philadelphia’s Police Commissioner and later as its mayor, mirrored the “law-and-order” philosophy of the Nixon Administration and the Federal Bureau of Investigation under J. Edgar Hoover in the pursuit and destruction of Black Liberation and Civil Rights organizations from the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to Malcolm X, the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement, among others.  Rizzo made it his business to eradicate first the Philadelphia Black Panther Party in the late 1960s, and then MOVE in the 1970s.  A series of harassment arrests, complete with gratuitous assaults by Philadelphia police against MOVE members that resulted in the death of Life Africa, an infant member of MOVE, increased tensions between MOVE and the police.  In 1977, a neighborhood dispute between MOVE and other residents of the Powelton Village community drew the attention of several community mediators who finally saw MOVE reach an agreement with their Move Nine Powelton Villageneighbors, but also of the Philadelphia police, which had already earned the nickname of “Rizzo’s Thugs” with many city residents who had come to recognize the brutality, racism and corruption of the police force.  Rizzo’s police blockaded the house where the MOVE family lived for a year, attempting to “starve them out”, before deciding to launch an assault on August 8, 1978.

The assault on the MOVE compound employed fire hoses in an attempt to drown the MOVE people who were hiding in the basement or force them out to the main floor of the building, where they would be met by hundreds, if not thousands, of rounds of ammunition fired into the house.  Indications are that one of those rounds hit Philadelphia police officer James Ramp in the back as he was storming the house, killing him.  Because of Rizzo’s unbridled hatred of MOVE and the fact that MOVE Move Nine Delberthad successfully resisted the Philadelphia police blockade for a year, the MOVE people, who had been hiding in the basement and possessed several non-operational firearms, were to be blamed for Ramp’s death.  When the MOVE people were finally extracted from the house, four Philadelphia police officers viciously beat Delbert Africa in a scene that was captured in a rather famous (or rather, infamous) photo (right).

Eleven MOVE people were arrested and taken to trial.  Prior to trial, however, they were offered a “deal”: renounce MOVE and go free; remain loyal to MOVE and be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.  Two of the eleven took the “deal” and charges against them were dropped.  The other nine — Merle, Debbie, Janine, Janet, Delbert, Phil, Mike, Chuck and Edward Africa — who refused to renounce MOVE, were taken to trial and convicted on a variety of charges connected to the assault on the house and the death of police officer James Ramp.  They each were sentenced to terms of 30 to 100 years in prison, and prosecutors as well as police and politicians have steadfastly insisted that they will impose the full 100 year sentence on all of them, meaning that they will all die in prison.  These people would be known as the MOVE Nine.

The four police officers who viciously beat Delbert Africa, on videotape and in photographs, were also tried, but the judge ordered a “directed verdict” at the last moment and acquitted all four of them of any charges in connection with the beating.  This behavior is seen today in the recent grand jury decisions to not charge police officers in the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and Eric Garner in Staten Island, New York, as well as hundreds of other cases of unpunished police brutality over the last several decades.

Among the better-known advocates of MOVE is current Political Prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal, a former Minister of Information for the Philadelphia Black Panther Mumia 15Party who, as a journalist during the Powelton Village siege and assault, had broadcast interviews with MOVE members over the radio and helped to counteract the dehumanizing propaganda that had been spread about them.  Mumia was targeted by the Philadelphia police and was arrested on December 9, 1981 for the murder of police officer Daniel Faulkner.  He was convicted in a trial replete with withheld evidence, witness intimidation and many other forms of prosecutorial, police and judicial misconduct, and was sentenced to death, which has since been commuted by a federal judge to life without the possibility of parole after years of appeals, rallies and court challenges.  Mumia’s daughter, affectionately known as “Goldii”, recently died as she and the MOVE Family have been fighting for Mumia’s exoneration and release from prison. 

On March 13, 1998, the first of the MOVE Nine died in prison, Sis. Merle Africa.  A statement that day from the MOVE Organization said the following:

Today our sister and family member Merle Austin Africa died under very suspicious circumstances. After a short bout with a stomach virus from which she was almost Move Nine Merlefully recovered (family visited with Merle last Thursday) she fainted in the cell last night going to the bathroom. The prison authorities removed Debbie Sims Africa and stayed in the cell with Merle for 45 minutes and finally called an ambulance and took her to an outside hospital.

We were not allowed any information and only after Merle’s mother insisted was she told that Merle had died.

Information is sketchy but on Thursday the 5th Merle was looking good and feeling back to her old self and gave strong hugs to family who came to visit. Merle was a young woman in her mid-forties of good health and strong spirit.

One week after she is dead. We need to have answers!

Now, the second member of the MOVE Nine has died in prison, and under Ramona Africa 1remarkably similar circumstances.  The following statement was released by Mama Ramona Africa (pictured, right), who was the sole adult survivor of the May 13, 1985 Osage Avenue assault on MOVE that killed five children and six adults (including MOVE’s visionary founder, John Africa).

On Saturday, January 10th Phil Africa, revolutionary, John Africa’s First Minister of Defense, and beloved brother, husband and father,  passed away under suspicious circumstances at the State Correctional Institution at Dallas, PA. On Sunday, January 4th Phil Africa wasn’t feeling well and went to the prison infirmary. Though he wasn’t feeling well, other inmates saw Phil Africa walking, stretching and doing jumping jacks. Hearing that Phil was in the infirmary MOVE members drove up to visit him and were denied a visit by the prison. While they were visiting with Delbert Africa, Phil was secretly transported to Wilkes Barre General Hospital where he was held in total isolation, incommunicado for five days.

Prison officials at SCI-Dallas wouldn’t communicate about Phil’s condition. They told MOVE that Phil was at Wilkes Barre General hospital and the hospital denied he was there. The hospital and the prison behaved very suspiciously denying Phil the ability to call family members or his wife of 44 years, Janine Africa, stating that she was not a blood relative. The hospital and prison received hundreds of phone calls in support of Phil from around the world. When they finally submitted to pressure and allowed Phil to call Janine on Thursday, January 8th he was heavily drugged, incoherent and couldn’t even hold the phone to talk to her.

On Friday, January 9th Phil was sent back to the prison infirmary and placed in hospice care upon arrival. On Saturday, January 10th Ramona and Carlos Africa were granted permission to visit Phil in the prison infirmary. When they reached him he was incoherent and couldn’t talk or move his head to look at them. An hour after they left Delbert called with the news that Phil passed away.

Inmates in the infirmary and others in the prison were shocked when they heard the news. They had witnessed his vigorous health for decades in the prisons, had just seen him stretching and doing jumping jacks six days earlier. This rapid decline all occurred while he was being held for six days in isolation, incommunicado from his MOVE family at Wilkes Barre General Hospital.

The fact that Phil was isolated for the six days before he passed, that he was in such better health before he was taken to the hospital, and that the hospital refused to release his medical information is beyond suspicious.

This is another example of how the system hates MOVE and will do anything to stop MOVE. You can look at the example of August 8th, 1978 when the MOVE 9 were illegally imprisoned, and May 13th, 1985 when the government dropped a bomb and intentionally murdered 11 MOVE members to see this point clearly. When Merle Africa died in prison on March 13th, 1998 the conditions were very similar. She had been one way in the prison, but within hours of being forced to go to an outside hospital she was dead.

Move Nine PhilPhil made a deep impression on people all around the world. He was constantly writing, often dozens of letters a day, encouraging solidarity and strength, and warmly advising hundreds of people. Phil worked hard to learn to paint and created countless paintings which he sent to supporters for free to draw attention to issues, get raffled off for the struggle, and bring people together. Phil took his commitment and work as a revolutionary very seriously, but was often smiling, laughing, and giving people hugs and encouragement. He was a warm father figure to many in the prison where he taught inmates how to box, to think, and how to get stronger. Despite having two of his children murdered by the system and being separated by prison, Phil was a father figure to many. He was separated from his wife Janine for over 36 of the 44 years they were married, but he worked hard to stay connected with her even though they were so callously isolated by the system.

It’s this system’s  intention for MOVE people to die in prison. The MOVE 9 never should have been imprisoned at all, and according to their sentence they should have been paroled over six years ago. The death of Merle and Phil Africa rests directly at the feet of this government! Phil will never be forgotten. He is dearly missed, but his strong example should inspire everyone to fight harder for the freedom of the MOVE 9 and all political prisoners!

LONG LIVE PHIL AFRICA!

LONG LIVE MERLE AFRICA!

FREE THE MOVE 9!

LONG LIVE JOHN AFRICA!

Memorial Service for Phil Africa

A memorial service is being planned for Phil Africa on Saturday, January 31 at the Kingsessing Recreation Center in Philadelphia.  Here is the announcement from Mama Ramona Africa about the memorial service:

ONA MOVE, Everybody. First, let me thank each of you for your genuine and kind words to this family regarding the loss of our brother, Phil Africa.  We wish we could thank you individually but the sheer number of the responses we have received makes that impossible.  Know that we love you all and our family truly appreciates your response to our loss.  We want to inform you that there will be a celebration of the revolutionary life our brother, Phil Africa, on Saturday, January 31, 2015 at the Kingsessing Recreation Center, located at 49th and Kingsessing Ave. from 1-4 pm. We’re inviting all of you that can attend.  If you choose to, you can take the opportunity to verbally express how Phil touched you; what his revolutionary life means to you or whatever you would like to say about Phil Africa.  If you are located far away or can not attend for whatever reason but would like to send us a brief comment about Phil, please do so and we will see that it’s read at the celebration.  Again, thanks to each and every one of you for all of your kind words of support. 

Ramona Africa for The MOVE Family

More information is available on the MOVE Organization’s Website, http://onamove.com, including the following statement:

Many people have asked where they could send cards to Ramona Africa and the entire MOVE Family. Please send a card to the MOVE Family at this difficult time at:

The MOVE Organization
P.O. Box 19709
Philadelphia, PA 19143
(215) 386-1165
onamovellja@aol.com

and Phil’s life partner/beloved wife Janine Africa at:

Janine Phillips Africa #6309
451 Fullerton Ave.
Cambridge Springs, PA 16403-1238

and all members of the MOVE Family still unjustly and illegally imprisoned by the anti-life,  money-loving Philadelphia-Pennsylvania-U.S. authorities. Free the MOVE 9!

Janine Africa, as drawn by her husband Phil Africa.

Janine Africa, as drawn by her husband Phil Africa.

Killing and Dying in Black and Blue

Eric Garner 2The protests continue across the United States in response to the recent grand jury decisions not to indict police officers in Ferguson, Missouri and Staten Island, New York in the deaths of Michael Brown (Ferguson) and Eric Garner (New York, pictured right).  New York Mayor Bill Di Blasio has drawn the ire of the New York City Police Benevolent Association’s Pat Lynch for his statements of sympathy for the Garner family and those families of Afrikan-American young men who must counsel them on how to avoid (or survive) confrontations with police. 

We have seen the battle lines bring drawn between the Afrikan-American Giuliani 1community and the Law-and-Order Lobby.  Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani attempted to shame Afrikan-American commentator Michael Eric Dyson several weeks ago on the Sunday morning talk shows, challenging him that marchers have hit the streets across the country against police brutality, but have failed to do so in response to “Black-on-Black crime”.

Then, on Sunday, December 14, a Baltimore City police officer was shot and seriously wounded during a traffic stop in which one of the occupants refused to leave the car.  The officer who was shot reportedly never drew his weapon.  At a press conference outside the hospital where the officer was being treated, Baltimore City Police Commissioner Anthony Batts decided to enter the political fray with the statement, “We’ve had marches nationwide over the fact that we’ve lost lives in police custody.  I wonder if we’re going to have the same marches as officers are shot, too.” 

On Saturday, December 20, two New York police officers were murdered when NYPD LiuIsmaaiyl Brinsley walked up to Officers Wenjian Liu (left, top) and Rafael Ramos (left, bottom) in Brooklyn and shot both of them in the head as they sat in their patrol car, according to police authorities.  Brinsley had shot and wounded his ex-gitlfriend in Maryland earlier that day, and shot himself to death shortly after killing the two police officers, according to NYPD Ramosnews reports in retaliation for the killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner.  Predictably, right-wing pundits came out of the woodwork to condemn Mayor DiBlasio for his statement of solidarity with Black parents following the Eric Garner murder, even as he attended a press conference to condemn the slayings.  George Pataki, Republican former Governor of New York, condemned DiBlasio  and US Attorney General Eric Holder for their “divisive anti-cop comments”.   Lynch, the head of the Police Benevolent Association, asserted that DiBlasio had “blood on his hands.”  DiBlasio has since publicly asked for a pause in the continuing anti-police brutality protests in New York, at least until after the officers’ funerals.  New York police commissioner William Bratton seemed to strike a conciliatory note with the mayor, even as members of the New York Police Department turned their backs on the mayor in a recent public show of defiance.  And while Giuliani appeared to defend DiBlasio, calling Pataki’s remarks an “over-reaction”, he did accuse President Barack Obama and Attorney General Holder of stoking hatred against the police.  “We’ve had four months of propaganda starting with the President, that everybody should hate the police,” he told Fox News.  On CNN, he said, “Maybe, just maybe, they should spend the next four months not talking about police hatred, but talking about what they are going to do about bringing down crime in the community.” 

Then there was a backlash against a Maryland 911 operator for posting her concerns about police misconduct on Facebook.  On Sunday, December 21, actor James Woods condemned MSNBC talk show host and National Action Network chair Rev. Al Sharpton, saying he was responsible for the shooting of officers Liu and Ramos.  On Tuesday, December 23, MSN posted a story titled “Off duty, black cops in New York feel threat from fellow police“, specifically making reference to a Reuters study.  “Reuters interviewed 25 African American male officers on the NYPD, 15 of whom are retired and 10 of whom are still serving. All but one said that, when off duty and out of uniform, they had been victims of racial profiling. … The officers said this included being pulled over for no reason, having their heads slammed against their cars, getting guns brandished in their faces, being thrown into prison vans and experiencing stop and frisks while shopping. The majority of the officers said they had been pulled over multiple times while driving. Five had had guns pulled on them.”

All this seems indicative of a continuing culture of hostility not only towards the Afrikan-American population in major urban areas (hence the repeated instances of harassment, brutality and violence), but also against any who would speak out against it (As far as we are concerned, the only ones who should be criticizing Sharpton right now are the Ferguson-area activists who had been protesting for the last 100-plus days and yet were denied the opportunity to speak at Sharpton’s Washington, DC march, and other activists and organizers who may see him as less of an activist and more of an opportunist, but that’s an argument for a later time).  That cheerleaders for an old Nixon-era law-and-order repressive philosophy that has disproportionately and repeatedly violated the rights of Afrikan descendants would feel qualified to lecture us on issues of repression and racial sensitivity is an indicator of the collective insanity of many in the halls of power.  But we digress.

First, let’s tackle the substance of the remarks from the former mayor, the former governor and the current police commissioner.  Lynch’s remarks seem so full of vitriol that responding to them in polite company would strain the vocabulary and would, quite frankly, be a waste of time.

Former mayor Giuliani asks, Why are we so concerned when police kill us and ignore the numerous cases of “Black-On-Black crime” that occur in our communities every day?  Aside from the obvious answer that police brutality and crime are two different subjects and should not even be mentioned in the same sentence, and the also-obvious response of pointing to Giuliani’s own record of stoking the fires of racial discord (see KUUMBAReport #8, December 1998, A Tale of Two Marches, about the first Million Youth March in Harlem and Giuliani’s efforts to increase tensions), let me throw a few things out:

(1) People seem to love talking about “Black-on-Black crime” without apparently acknowledging just how racist that very concept is.  The majority of crime committed against Black people is by Black people.  Guess what?  The majority of crime committed against White people is by White people.  Same for Latino communities, Asian communities and so on.  Crime is most often a product of proximity; you commit crime against those who are within easy reach.  Thus most crime occurs within communities rather than between communities.  (And statistics indicate that even Black-on-White crime, to the degree that it occurs, is not nearly as prevalent as most Whites assume it to be.)  But we never hear anyone talking about White-on-White crime, not even in West Virginia, Tennessee or North Dakota, now do we?  And apparently no one considers police brutality to be an example of White-on-Black crime, though that is often the dynamic at play.

(2) We march when police kill us because the police are supposed to be protecting and serving our communities as the major part of their jobs (jobs that are supported with our tax dollars), not assaulting and killing us.  We march on City Hall, Police Headquarters and the Capitol because the police impose their authority on our people under color of authority as bestowed on them by City Hall and our elected “leaders”.  No government official gives the thug or gang-banger this authority, and marches on City Hall do not resonate with thugs and gang-bangers.

(3) And contrary to the stereotype that is promoted by Giuliani and other elected “leaders” who want to push their own “personal responsibility” (what a concept) off on someone else, we do mobilize when crime in our communities shakes us out of our collective complacency, in spite of the occasional reprisals (such as witness intimidation, gangland shootings, house burnings and just a general climate of fear) that come from the more vicious members of the “criminal element”.  In Tubman City (Baltimore), there have been several marches through some of the “rougher” neighborhoods in response to the violence in our communities, especially in the last two years (most notably the 300 Black Men’s March along North Avenue on July 11, which drew closer to 600 as reported in the Baltimore Sun), and there are men’s ministries in churches as well as mentoring programs from Black men’s organizations, including groups of ex-offenders, who have been reaching out to develop solutions to the crime that terrorizes our communities.  So let’s put those misconceptions to rest.

Meanwhile, Commissioner Batts is waiting for the massive community march to protest the deaths of police officers, again as though police brutality and the crime Baltimore Police Batts 1that sometimes victimizes police as well as us are the same thing or are equivalent.  Of course, police have a very dangerous job (though a recent study reportedly found that garbage collectors, firefighters and deep sea fishermen suffer higher rates of injury and death, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics doesn’t even list police officers in the top ten most dangerous professions), but they patrol these dangerous neighborhoods armed with semiautomatic pistols, Tazers and PR-24 nightsticks and are often protected by Kevlar and helmets, especially in situations involving hostages, riots and those ever-so-dangerous “peaceful” protesters.  The ones who find themselves in these dangerous neighborhoods with practically no such protection, all-day-every-day, are the people who live there, and they often feel threatened by the police as well.  Just ask the families of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Terence West and so many others.  Ask the victims of “Stop and Frisk” in New York.  Look at the videos on YouTube that show police committing acts of what can only be described as gratuitous violence against motorists and pedestrians who commit the grave sin of questioning them.

If Commissioner Batts wants to know why our activists don’t respond as forcefully when a police officer is killed, first let me say that when any person dies for no reason at all, we who are concerned about truth and justice are outraged.  When a police officer dies as the result of a heroic act (such as those who gave their lives to save civilians in New York during the World Trade Center terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001), this is just as tragic as when any other innocent dies.  But police often do not endear themselves to us when they react as they often do when they kill us, or when activists like several members of the Black Panthers defend themselves against police attacks and then are branded as aggressors, as happened most famously in December 1969 when Chicago and Illinois law enforcement assaulted and murdered Fred Hampton in Chicago.  That vicious attack, which culminated in the cold-blooded execution of Hampton after he had been mortally wounded, was first covered up with a false story about “violent Panthers” who never so much as fired a shot at the police that night, and the record was never officially set right even after the truth had been revealed for all to see.  And that is only the most famous of countless such confrontations between Black activists, in particular, and police.  Meanwhile, police associations regularly seek the death penalty in cases when activists such as Mumia Abu-Jamal are charged with murders of police, no matter how questionable the evidence, no matter how many witnesses are coerced and tortured and no matter how many lies are told by police and prosecutors in these cases, while the police who riddled Amadou Diallo with bullets in New York were hidden in secret for 48 hours while they got their story straight.  The Fraternal Order of Police consistently comes down on the side of even clearly murderous and corrupt cops and against the communities they are supposed to be “protecting” and “serving”.  These and other issues are what have created an air of suspicion between police and especially Afrikan-American communities, not anything that Mayor DiBlasio or President Obama says.

Commissioner Batts, former Governor Pataki and former Mayor Giuliani must have been storing their scripts up for a rainy day ever since they found themselves on the defensive for the actions of their brothers in arms.  Certainly, they had become tired of answering the criticisms of activists who pointed out the long list from the police assaults of Rodney King (Los Angeles) and Abner Louima (New York) to the murders of Oscar Grant (Oakland), Adolph Grimes (New Orleans), Archie Elliott III (Baltimore), Terence West (Baltimore), Anthony Baez (New York), Ronald Madison (New Orleans), Amadou Diallo (New York) and so many others, leading up to the recent killings of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice (Cleveland) and several others this year alone.  Thus, they have reacted defensively, the very reaction that raises the ire of the community ever the more, because it shows a refusal to face up to the responsibility the police  hold in the murders of innocents and because they attempt to draw a false connection between murders committed by thugs who are not expected to uphold the law and those committed by police who we are told to respect and obey by people such as Commissioner Batts, former Governor Pataki and former Mayor Giuliani.

When people in official positions of political power are able to speak honestly with our community without the judgmental attitudes we have grown all too accustomed to, and are able to accept their own responsibility for tensions instead of attempting to foist it all on us, then we will be able to heal the community wounds that exist between the people and the police.  I’m not holding my breath on that one, but that is the least of what it will take.  Mayor DiBlasio came close immediately after the fiasco that was the Eric Garner grand jury, but then his cohorts in the New York hierarchy slapped him into submission and may have slapped him back into line.  Without such a conciliatory step from those in the halls of power across the board, there will likely be no true healing, and the old fantasy of “Support Your Local Sheriff” will be buried forever.

 

 

Dr. Barryl Biekman Speaks at the Launch of the International Decade for People of African Descent

Dr Barryl Biekman 1On Wednesday, December 10, 2014, the United Nations held a special event at UN Headquarters in New York City to officially launch the International Decade for People of African Descent.  The ten-year observance, from January 1, 2015 to December 31, 2024, has been billed by the UN as an opportunity to concentrate on issues of racism and racial discrimination faced by people of Afrikan descent around the world under the theme of “People of African Descent: Recognition, Justice and Development”.  Dr. Barryl Biekman, a Surinamese-born Afrikan Diaspora organizer living in The Netherlands, is the chairperson of the African Union-African Diaspora Sixth Region (AUADS), an Afrikan Diaspora Civil Society organization that is working to organize Afrikan Diasporans in Europe.  She was chosen by the President of the UN General Assembly, His Excellency Sam Kutesa, to give an introductory speech on behalf of Afrikan Diaspora Civil Society.  This is the text of her speech.

Statement by
Dr. Barryl A. Biekman, 
Civil Society Speaker
Launching the International Decade for People of African Descent
United Nations
New York
December 10, 2014

Mr. President, Excellencies, Honoured Guests, Representatives of the African Families and Civil Society,

I bring you greetings from the members of Tiye International, The African European Women’s Movement “Sophiedela”, the Platform of the Dutch Slavery Past, the Global Coalition for the International Decade for People of African Descent and the world wide Civil Society grassroots African families on this historical moment of the launching of the International Decade for People of African descent.International Decade for People of African Descent Logo

[The Global Coalition for the International Decade for People of African Descent is established to provide global peoples activism and support for the implementation of the International Decade for People of African Descent as proclaimed by the United Nations for the period 2015-2024 based on the principles of Recognition, Justice and Development.]

Mr. President,

We support the International Decade for People of African descent and it’s Mandate to follow the recommendations pertaining to the DDPA [Durban Declaration and Plan of Action – Editor] from the 2001 World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance (WCAR), as well as the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD).

It must be reminded here that the decision to have the International Decade did not come as a gift from heaven. It came only because of a long struggle by Pan Africanist supported by those civil society organizations who were committed to the implementation of the DDPA and finally because of the hard working involvement of the Working Group of Experts on People of African descent, not to forget the support of the African Group and the great majority of member states of the United Nations. A special thanks therefore goes to the African countries for their role in defending the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action and to the African Union to declare African Diaspora worldwide family as their 6th region.

The launching of the Decade today is a great victory for the cause of justice with the strong reaffirmation of and call for the full and effective implementation of the DDPA. We hope that the implementation of the Decade should put a final end to the opposition against, undermining of and false promotion regarding the Durban follow-up process which we have regularly witnessed since the successful World Conference Against Racism in 2001.

At the center of the demands during the World Conference Against Racism, by African people and in diaspora under the leadership of the 12th December Reparation Movement and many other Pan African Reparation Coalitions, was the declaration of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, slavery, colonialism and apartheid asDr Barryl Biekman 2 crimes against humanity. In fact it was the longest and most depraved crime against humanity ever.. which lasted for more than three centuries as had been declared by the United Nations including the republic Suriname by its Permanent Delegation, ambassador Udenhout in 2001. The trans-Atlantic slave trade, slavery, colonialism and apartheid destroyed the development of Africa and enriched Europe and the European colonists in the Americas. It established the system of racism & racial discrimination, to be specific Afrophobia, that effects and has its impact what the African people and in diaspora experience until today.

Mr. President,

Really, we have reasons to be glad with the establishment of the Decade. But we have reasons to be disappointed too. Because despite of the adoption of the Programme of Activities by the General Assembly last month, powerful State actors, including those who boycotted the 2009 Durban Review Conference and the 2011 commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the adoption of the DDPA, continue their efforts to render the DDPA impotent. We deplore the nine votes cast against and 42 abstentions cast, but salute the 121 votes in favor of the resolution on actions against racism and comprehensive implementation of the DDPA, which the third committee of the General Assembly approved on November 26th. At the same time we are bewildered that abstaining countries succeeded to delete a paragraph from the G77 draft resolution, which had the support of the majority of countries and which stated: “Commends the constructive role played by non-governmental organizations in participating in the Durban follow-up mechanisms and the Human Rights Council, which has greatly contributed to the development of the Programme of Activities and the preparation for the International Decade.”

Mr. President, Truth has the inherent power to produce the promised effects.

The full and irrevocable recognition by all countries that the trans-Atlantic slave trade, slavery, colonialism and apartheid was a crime against humanity is necessary for the credibility of the Decade. Without that we have reason to doubt the sincerity of states to restore the rights of people of African descent during the Decade. It is why I on behalf of the African descent worldwide families challenge all national state parliaments and governments to officially recognize and declare the trans-Atlantic slave trade and slavery as crimes against humanity as some countries have already done. We call on all the countries who organized, participated in and profited from the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the hard slave labour by the kidnapped African ancestors to present their sincere apologies as the first step and I challenge all governments and parliaments concerned, to act on this urgent matter.

“I on behalf of the African descent worldwide families challenge all national state parliaments and governments to officially recognize and declare the trans-Atlantic slave trade and slavery as crimes against humanity as some countries have already done.”

We strongly welcome the efforts by Caribbean governments & states to place the issue of Reparations on the International Agenda. For the African descendants families the adopted theme of the Decade, “Recognition, Justice, Development”, is Dr Barryl Biekman 4for us synonymous with the Repairing of the damage, which must become the overall concept of the Decade. Reparations is not limited to material repair, but something more fundamental relating to restoring every aspect of the rights of people of African descent.

Mr. President,

We therefore invite all Member States, as proposed by the Global Coalition for the International Decade for People of African Descent, to recognize and honour the Decade as the “Reparation Decade”.

We believe that the right of People of African descent to learn about their rights as enshrined in the DDPA and other Human Rights instruments must be assured during the Decade. The Decade must become a framework to address the concentration of misery and disadvantages which people of African descent face everywhere they live: poverty, racial discrimination and lack of access to human rights & their institutions, high rates of unemployment and imprisonment, vulnerability to violence and lack of access to justice, lack of access to good education, healthcare, housing, multiple forms of discrimination, and political and economic marginalization and stigmatization.

As educators and scholars across the racial divide agree that (a) the primary purpose of education is to uplift and enhance the lives of all individuals (b) it must be the right type of education that engenders positive identity, self-esteem, self-confidence including love, respect and appreciation for one’s history and culture. We therefore call for adapting both formal and informal education for students of African descent and others so that that it no longer marginalizes and relegates Africa and Africans to periphery of anything important, but for most that our next African generations can say: “I’m not afraid, because of the color of my skin, to be an African … I’m proud to be an African.”

Mr. President,

We have seen the situation faced by people of African descent around the world grow more and more precarious, and we seek urgent and concrete results from the International Decade. African Diaspora Civil Society grassroots organizations cannot afford to leave any members of the African Diaspora and African Civil Society around the world behind. Every forum, every workshop, every review and assessment, every planning session and every on-the-ground implementation project must closely involve representatives from Civil Society and the grassroots communities. And we cannot stress enough the importance of always including women, girls and young male adults, the future generation, on an equal basis. To leave them behind would be as to leave our hearts and souls, our very selves, behind as well.

“Every forum, every workshop, every review and assessment, every planning session and every on-the-ground implementation project must closely involve representatives from Civil Society and the grassroots communities.”

When an African American man is strangled to death by the police on the streets of New York we the people of African descent feel the same that we cannot breathe. We add our voices in solidarity with all those demonstrating to demand justice for the victims of racially based police brutality. This situation makes it clear that institutionalized racism is still alive and that the campaigns against all forms of multiple racism & racial profiling as well the symbolic & psychological violence

Protests of "Black Pete" in the Netherlands

Protests of “Black Pete” in the Netherlands

situation in different countries must be intensified. Whether the ‘Black Pete figure’ in the yearly Dutch Santa Claus culture historical tradition is just a problem in the Netherlands because of the revival of stereotype of African (black) people or interlinked to similar historical cultural tradition, stereotypical language like some people continue to call us ’nigger’ & racist situations in other parts of Europe and the rest of the world.

Mr. President

On behalf of the world wide African diaspora families I invite all of you to join hands with us for the implementation of the Programme of Activities in the spirit of “Recognition, Justice and Development.” Because this Decade requires the committed support and involvement of all: international, regional, national, sectors of society, stakeholders and people of good will in the world.

I invite you all to make this “Reparation Decade” a great success.

I thank you Mr. President

 

 

The National Day of Mourning, “Thankkksgiving”?

 

UAINE Coles Hill MassassoitThis week, families will gather in a festive tradition of thanksgiving.  Most will sit down to a lavish dinner of turkey, collard greens and pumpkin pie with family and close friends.  Some may even invoke the old Thanksgiving myths centered around the Pilgrims and their fabled encounter with the Wampanoag people (Most will not know the Indians by this name).  Very few will know the full story of the encounter between the European settlers and the Indigenous community they encountered in Plymouth, Massachusetts, or the series of events that was set in motion for subsequent encounters between the White man and the Red man.

We will not be able to provide the full story here, but perhaps a few stories will help.  The first one comes from the web site http://www.uaine.org/dom.htm, the online presence of the United American Indians of New England (UAINE), sponsors of an annual Day of Mourning commemoration and protest in Plymouth, Massachusetts that began in 1970.  The piece was written by the primary organizers of the National Day of Mourning, Moonanum James and Mahtowin Munro.

Thanksgiving: A National Day of Mourning for Indians by Moonanum James and Mahtowin Munro

Every year since 1970, United American Indians of New England have organized the National Day of Mourning observance in Plymouth at noon on Thanksgiving Day. Every year, hundreds of Native people and our supporters from all four directions join us. Every year, including this year, Native people from throughout the Americas will speak the truth about our history and about current issues and struggles we are involved in.

Why do hundreds of people stand out in the cold rather than sit home eating turkey and watching football? Do we have something against a harvest festival?

Of course not. But Thanksgiving in this country — and in particular in Plymouth –is much more than a harvest home festival. It is a celebration of the pilgrim mythology.

According to this mythology, the pilgrims arrived, the Native people fed them and welcomed them, the Indians promptly faded into the background, and everyone lived happily ever after.

The truth is a sharp contrast to that mythology.

The pilgrims are glorified and mythologized because the circumstances of the first English-speaking colony in Jamestown were frankly too ugly (for example, they turned to cannibalism to survive) to hold up as an effective national myth. The pilgrims did not find an empty land any more than Columbus “discovered” anything. Every inch of this land is Indian land. The pilgrims (who did not even call themselves pilgrims) did not come here seeking religious freedom; they already had that in Holland. They came here as part of a commercial venture. They introduced sexism, racism, anti-lesbian and gay bigotry, jails, and the class system to these shores. One of the very first things they did when they arrived on Cape Cod — before they even made it to Plymouth — was to rob Wampanoag graves at Corn Hill and steal as much of the Indians’ winter provisions of corn and beans as they were able to carry. They were no better than any other group of Europeans when it came to their treatment of the Indigenous peoples here. And no, they did not even land at that sacred shrine called Plymouth Rock, a monument to racism and oppression which we are proud to say we buried in 1995.

The first official “Day of Thanksgiving” was proclaimed in 1637 by Governor Winthrop. He did so to celebrate the safe return of men from the Massachusetts Bay Colony who had gone to Mystic, Connecticut to participate in the massacre of over 700 Pequot women, children, and men.

About the only true thing in the whole mythology is that these pitiful European strangers would not have survived their first several years in “New England” were it not for the aid of Wampanoag people. What Native people got in return for this help was genocide, theft of our lands, and never-ending repression. We are treated either as quaint relics from the past, or are, to most people, virtually invisible.

When we dare to stand up for our rights, we are considered unreasonable. When we speak the truth about the history of the European invasion, we are often told to “go back where we came from.” Our roots are right here. They do not extend across any ocean.

National Day of Mourning began in 1970 when a Wampanoag man, Wamsutta Frank James, was asked to speak at a state dinner celebrating the 350th anniversary of the pilgrim landing. He refused to speak false words in praise of the white man for bringing civilization to us poor heathens. Native people from throughout the Americas came to Plymouth, where they mourned their forebears who had been sold into slavery, burned alive, massacred, cheated, and mistreated since the arrival of the Pilgrims in 1620.

But the commemoration of National Day of Mourning goes far beyond the circumstances of 1970.

Can we give thanks as we remember Native political prisoner Leonard Peltier, who was framed up by the FBI and has been falsely imprisoned since 1976? Despite mountains of evidence exonerating Peltier and the proven misconduct of federal prosecutors and the FBI, Peltier has been denied a new trial. Bill Clinton apparently does not feel that particular pain and has refused to grant clemency to this innocent man.

To Native people, the case of Peltier is one more ordeal in a litany of wrongdoings committed by the U.S. government against us. While the media in New England present images of the “Pequot miracle” in Connecticut, the vast majority of Native people continue to live in the most abysmal poverty.

Can we give thanks for the fact that, on many reservations, unemployment rates surpass fifty percent? Our life expectancies are much lower, our infant mortality and teen suicide rates much higher, than those of white Americans. Racist stereotypes of Native people, such as those perpetuated by the Cleveland Indians, the Atlanta Braves, and countless local and national sports teams, persist. Every single one of the more than 350 treaties that Native nations signed has been broken by the U.S. government. The bipartisan budget cuts have severely reduced educational opportunities for Native youth and the development of new housing on reservations, and have caused cause deadly cutbacks in health-care and other necessary services.

Are we to give thanks for being treated as unwelcome in our own country?

Or perhaps we are expected to give thanks for the war that is being waged by the Mexican government against Indigenous peoples there, with the military aid of the U.S. in the form of helicopters and other equipment? When the descendants of the Aztec, Maya, and Inca flee to the U.S., the descendants of the wash-ashore pilgrims term them ‘illegal aliens” and hunt them down.

We object to the “Pilgrim Progress” parade and to what goes on in Plymouth because they are making millions of tourist dollars every year from the false pilgrim mythology. That money is being made off the backs of our slaughtered indigenous ancestors.

Increasing numbers of people are seeking alternatives to such holidays as Columbus Day and Thanksgiving. They are coming to the conclusion that, if we are ever to achieve some sense of community, we must first face the truth about the history of this country and the toll that history has taken on the lives of millions of Indigenous, Black, Latino, Asian, and poor and working class white people.

The myth of Thanksgiving, served up with dollops of European superiority and manifest destiny, just does not work for many people in this country. As Malcolm X once said about the African-American experience in America, “We did not land on Plymouth Rock. Plymouth Rock landed on us.” Exactly.

[Mahtowin Munro (Lakota) and Moonanum James (Wampanoag) are co-leaders of United American Indians of New England.]

This information on the National Day of Mourning and the United American Indians of New England is available on their web site, http://www.uaine.org/dom.htm.

The 45th National Day of Mourning is to be held November 27, 2014 at 12:00 noon.  The location is Coles Hill in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

UAINE NDOM Plaque

United American Indians of New England: We Are Not Vanishing. We Are Not Conquered. We Are As Strong As Ever.

Email: info@uaine.org

There is always a pot luck social following National Day of Mourning rally and march at the downstairs social hall at First Parish in Plymouth UU church on November 27.

Background Information on UAINE

Who we are: UAINE is a Native-led organization of Native people and our supporters who fight back against racism and for the freedom of Leonard Peltier and other political prisoners. We support Indigenous struggles, not only in New England but throughout the Americas.

Moonanum James of UAINE addresses the National Day of Mourning.

Moonanum James of UAINE addresses the National Day of Mourning.

We fight back on such issues as the racism of the Pilgrim mythology perpetuated in Plymouth and the U.S. government’s assault on poor people. We protest the use of racist team names and mascots in sports. We speak to classes in schools and universities about current issues in the Native struggle. Indigenous people from North, Central or South America who live in New England and who agree with what we are trying to do are welcome to join with us. We also welcome the support of non-Native people from the four directions. We believe very strongly that we must support others in struggle, particularly other communities of color, the lesbian and gay community, and the disabled community.

UAINE and money: UAINE is a self-supporting organization that receives no funding from any government agency. We rely on those who support us in our struggle for the funds needed to continue to fight that struggle. Any moneys we receive from our participation in any program or our speaking engagements or from any other contributions go right into the UAINE coffers. We do not have paid staffers. In other words, no one is using UAINE as a means of making a living.

UAINE and the history of National Day of Mourning: In 1970, United American Indians of New England declared US Thanksgiving Day a National Day of Mourning. This came about as a result of the suppression of the truth. Wamsutta, an Aquinnah Wampanoag man, had been asked to speak at a fancy Commonwealth of Massachusetts banquet celebrating the 350th anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims. He agreed. The organizers of the dinner, using as a pretext the need to prepare a press release, asked for a copy of the speech he planned to deliver. He agreed. Within days Wamsutta was told by a representative of the Department of Commerce and Development that he would not be allowed to give the speech. The reason given was due to the fact that, “…the theme of the anniversary celebration is brotherhood and anything inflammatory would have been out of place.” What they were really saying was that in this society, the truth is out of place.

What was it about the speech that got those officials so upset? Wamsutta used as a basis for his remarks one of their own history books – a Pilgrim’s account of their first year on Indian land. The book tells of the opening of my ancestor’s graves, taking our wheat and bean supplies, and of the selling of my ancestors as slaves for 220 shillings each. Wamsutta was going to tell the truth, but the truth was out of place.

Here is the truth: The reason they talk about the pilgrims and not an earlier English-speaking colony, Jamestown, is that in Jamestown the circumstances were way too ugly to hold up as an effective national myth. For example, the white settlers in Jamestown turned to cannibalism to survive. Not a very nice story to tell the kids in school. The pilgrims did not find an empty land any more than Columbus “discovered” anything. Every inch of this land is Indian land. The pilgrims (who did not even call themselves pilgrims) did not come here seeking religious freedom; they already had that in Holland. They came here as part of a commercial venture. They introduced sexism, racism, anti-lesbian and gay bigotry, jails, and the class system to these shores. One of the very first things they did when they arrived on Cape Cod — before they even made it to Plymouth — was to rob Wampanoag graves at Corn Hill and steal as much of the Indians’ winter provisions as they were able to carry. They were no better than any other group of Europeans when it came to their treatment of the Indigenous peoples here. And no, they did not even land at that sacred shrine down the hill called Plymouth Rock, a monument to racism and oppression which we are proud to say we buried in 1995.

The first official “Day of Thanksgiving” was proclaimed in 1637 by Governor Winthrop. He did so to celebrate the safe return of men from Massachusetts who had gone to Mystic, Connecticut to participate in the massacre of over 700 Pequot women, children, and men.

About the only true thing in the whole mythology is that these pitiful European strangers would not have survived their first several years in “New England” were it not for the aid of Wampanoag people. What Native people got in return for this help was genocide, theft of our lands, and never-ending repression.

But back in 1970, the organizers of the fancy state dinner told Wamsutta he could not speak that truth. They would let him speak only if he agreed to deliver a speech that they would provide. Wamsutta refused to have words put into his mouth. Instead of speaking at the dinner, he and many hundreds of other Native people and our supporters from throughout the Americas gathered in Plymouth and observed the first National Day of Mourning. United American Indians of New England have returned to Plymouth every year since to demonstrate against the Pilgrim mythology.

On that first Day of Mourning back in 1970, Plymouth Rock was buried not once, but twice. The Mayflower was boarded and the Union Jack was torn from the mast and replaced with the flag that had flown over liberated Alcatraz Island. The roots of National Day of Mourning have always been firmly embedded in the soil of militant protest.

  • For More Information Contact United American Indians of New England/LPSG

 

Frank B. (Wamsutta) James 1923-2001

The man who sparked the National Day of Mourning protest and march was known WamsuttaFrankJames 1as Wamsutta Frank James.  The following short bio is taken from his obituary, written upon his death in 2001, and posted on http://www.nativeweb.org/obituaries/wamsutta.html.

Frank B. (Wamsutta) James, an Aquinnah Wampanoag elder and Native American activist, died February 20, 2001 at the age of 77. James first came to national attention in 1970 when he, with hundreds of other Native Americans and their supporters, went to Plymouth and declared Thanksgiving day a National Day of Mourning for Native Americans. The National Day of Mourning protest in Plymouth continues to this day, now led by his son.

James was proud of his Native American heritage long before it was fashionable to do so, and spent many hours researching the history of the Wampanoag Nation and of the English invasion of the New England region.

A brilliant trumpet player, James was the first Native American graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music in 1948. While many of his classmates secured positions with top symphony orchestras, James was flatly told that, due to segregation and racism, no orchestra in the country would hire him because of his dark skin. While at the Conservatory, he became the first non-white member of the Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia fraternity. In 1957, James became a music teacher on Cape Cod, where he was a very popular and influential instructor. He went on to become the Director of Music of the Nauset Regional Schools, retiring in 1989.

James devoted much of his life to fighting against racism and to fighting for the rights of all Indian people. James often traveled long distances to be at Native American protests, including the Trail of Broken Treaties in Washington, DC in 1972, when Native American activists took over the Burea of Indian Affairs building, and the historic Longest Walk from California to Washington, DC in 1978.

Although he was less active in recent years due to declining health, he always maintained an interest in all Native American issues. He was the moderator of United American Indians of New England from 1970 until the mid-1990s. [UAINE is the organization which organizes the National Day of Mourning protests in Plymouth.]

A former President of the Federated Eastern Indian League, he was also the Executive Director of Operation Mainstream on Cape Cod in the 1970s. [FEIL was an organization of all Native American people from the East Coast.] [Operation Mainstream was a federally-funded job retraining program serving the Cape and Islands; it was later absorbed by CETA.]

In the 1970s, he was appointed by Gov. Sargent to the newly-created Massachusetts Commission on Indian Affairs. James later resigned from the Commission due to what he felt was the state’s refusal to take Native American needs and issues seriously.

James was considered by many who knew him to be a true Renaissance man. In addition to his many other talents, he was also a gifted painter, scrimshaw artist, silversmith, draftsman, builder, raconteur, model shipmaker, fisherman, and sailor.

He is survived by his sisters, his children and his grandchildren.

Below, from UAINE’s web site at http://www.uaine.org/wmsuta.htm, is the suppressed speech of Wamsutta Frank James, the speech he was supposed to have delivered on Thanksgiving Day, 1970, the day the National Day of Mourning protest began.

THE SUPPRESSED SPEECH OF WAMSUTTA (FRANK B.) JAMES, WAMPANOAG
To have been delivered at
Plymouth, Massachusetts, 1970

ABOUT THE DOCUMENT: Three hundred fifty years after the Pilgrims began their invasion of the land of the Wampanoag, their “American” descendants planned an anniversary celebration. Still clinging to the white schoolbook myth of friendly relations between their forefathers and the Wampanoag, the anniversary planners thought it would be nice to have an Indian make an appreciative and complimentary speech at their state dinner. Frank James was asked to speak at the celebration. He accepted. The planners, however, asked to see his speech in advance of the occasion, and it turned out that Frank James’ views — based on history rather than mythology — were not what the Pilgrims’ descendants wanted to hear. Frank James refused to deliver a speech written by a public relations person. Frank James did not speak at the anniversary celebration. If he had spoken, this is what he would have said:

I speak to you as a man — a Wampanoag Man. I am a proud man, proud of my UAINE Mayflower IIbancestry, my accomplishments won by a strict parental direction (“You must succeed – your face is a different color in this small Cape Cod community!”). I am a product of poverty and discrimination from these two social and economic diseases. I, and my brothers and sisters, have painfully overcome, and to some extent we have earned the respect of our community. We are Indians first – but we are termed “good citizens.” Sometimes we are arrogant but only because society has pressured us to be so.

It is with mixed emotion that I stand here to share my thoughts. This is a time of celebration for you – celebrating an anniversary of a beginning for the white man in America. A time of looking back, of reflection. It is with a heavy heart that I look back upon what happened to my People.

Even before the Pilgrims landed it was common practice for explorers to capture Indians, take them to Europe and sell them as slaves for 220 shillings apiece. The Pilgrims had hardly explored the shores of Cape Cod for four days before they had robbed the graves of my ancestors and stolen their corn and beans. Mourt’s Relation describes a searching party of sixteen men. Mourt goes on to say that this party took as much of the Indians’ winter provisions as they were able to carry.

Massasoit, the great Sachem of the Wampanoag, knew these facts, yet he and his People welcomed and befriended the settlers of the Plymouth Plantation. Perhaps he did this because his Tribe had been depleted by an epidemic. Or his knowledge of the harsh oncoming winter was the reason for his peaceful acceptance of these acts. This action by Massasoit was perhaps our biggest mistake. We, the Wampanoag, welcomed you, the white man, with open arms, little knowing that it was the beginning of the end; that before 50 years were to pass, the Wampanoag would no longer be a free people.

What happened in those short 50 years? What has happened in the last 300 years? History gives us facts and there were atrocities; there were broken promises – and most of these centered around land ownership. Among ourselves we understood that there were boundaries, but never before had we had to deal with fences and stone walls. But the white man had a need to prove his worth by the amount of land that he owned. Only ten years later, when the Puritans came, they treated the Wampanoag with even less kindness in converting the souls of the so-called “savages.” Although the Puritans were harsh to members of their own society, the Indian was pressed between stone slabs and hanged as quickly as any other “witch.”

And so down through the years there is record after record of Indian lands taken and, in token, reservations set up for him upon which to live. The Indian, having been stripped of his power, could only stand by and watch while the white man took his land and used it for his personal gain. This the Indian could not understand; for to him, land was survival, to farm, to hunt, to be enjoyed. It was not to be abused. We see incident after incident, where the white man sought to tame the “savage” and convert him to the Christian ways of life. The early Pilgrim settlers led the Indian to believe that if he did not behave, they would dig up the ground and unleash the great epidemic again.

The white man used the Indian’s nautical skills and abilities. They let him be only a seaman — but never a captain. Time and time again, in the white man’s society, we Indians have been termed “low man on the totem pole.”

Has the Wampanoag really disappeared? There is still an aura of mystery. We know there was an epidemic that took many Indian lives – some Wampanoags moved west and joined the Cherokee and Cheyenne. They were forced to move. Some even went north to Canada! Many Wampanoag put aside their Indian heritage and accepted the white man’s way for their own survival. There are some Wampanoag who do not wish it known they are Indian for social or economic reasons.

What happened to those Wampanoags who chose to remain and live among the early settlers? What kind of existence did they live as “civilized” people? True, living was not as complex as life today, but they dealt with the confusion and the change. Honesty, trust, concern, pride, and politics wove themselves in and out of their [the Wampanoags’] daily living. Hence, he was termed crafty, cunning, rapacious, and dirty.

History wants us to believe that the Indian was a savage, illiterate, uncivilized animal. A history that was written by an organized, disciplined people, to expose us as an unorganized and undisciplined entity. Two distinctly different cultures met. One thought they must control life; the other believed life was to be enjoyed, because nature decreed it. Let us remember, the Indian is and was just as human as the white man. The Indian feels pain, gets hurt, and becomes defensive, has dreams, bears tragedy and failure, suffers from loneliness, needs to cry as well as laugh. He, too, is often misunderstood.

The white man in the presence of the Indian is still mystified by his uncanny ability to make him feel uncomfortable. This may be the image the white man has created of the Indian; his “savageness” has boomeranged and isn’t a mystery; it is fear; fear of the Indian’s temperament!

High on a hill, overlooking the famed Plymouth Rock, stands the statue of our great Sachem, Massasoit. Massasoit has stood there many years in silence. We the descendants of this great Sachem have been a silent people. The necessity of making a living in this materialistic society of the white man caused us to be silent. Today, I and many of my people are choosing to face the truth. We ARE Indians!

Although time has drained our culture, and our language is almost extinct, we the Wampanoags still walk the lands of Massachusetts. We may be fragmented, we may be confused. Many years have passed since we have been a people together. Our lands were invaded. We fought as hard to keep our land as you the whites did to take our land away from us. We were conquered, we became the American prisoners of war in many cases, and wards of the United States Government, until only recently.

Our spirit refuses to die. Yesterday we walked the woodland paths and sandy trails. Today we must walk the macadam highways and roads. We are uniting We’re standing not in our wigwams but in your concrete tent. We stand tall and proud, and before too many moons pass we’ll right the wrongs we have allowed to happen to us.

We forfeited our country. Our lands have fallen into the hands of the aggressor. We have allowed the white man to keep us on our knees. What has happened cannot be changed, but today we must work towards a more humane America, a more Indian America, where men and nature once again are important; where the Indian values of honor, truth, and brotherhood prevail.

You the white man are celebrating an anniversary. We the Wampanoags will help you celebrate in the concept of a beginning. It was the beginning of a new life for the Pilgrims. Now, 350 years later it is a beginning of a new determination for the original American: the American Indian.

There are some factors concerning the Wampanoags and other Indians across this vast nation. We now have 350 years of experience living amongst the white man. We can now speak his language. We can now think as a white man thinks. We can now compete with him for the top jobs. We’re being heard; we are now being listened to. The important point is that along with these necessities of everyday living, we still have the spirit, we still have the unique culture, we still have the will and, most important of all, the determination to remain as Indians. We are determined, and our presence here this evening is living testimony that this is only the beginning of the American Indian, particularly the Wampanoag, to regain the position in this country that is rightfully ours.

Wamsutta
September 10, 1970

Fighting Terrorism Since 1492a(Right) HOMELAND SECURITY POSTER, SIERRA MADRE MOUNTAINS, MEXICO: Geronimo pictured with braves, photographed before surrender to General Crook, March 27, 1886 (photo by C.S. Fly).

APACHE WARRIORS: (l-r) Yanozha, Chappo (Geronimo’s son), Fun (Yanozha’s half brother), Geronimo.

From the web sites http://www.californiaindianeducation.org/indian_warriors/geronimo.html and www.callie.org

 

 

 

Seeds of Suspicion: Feed the Future, Afrika and GMO Foods

 “This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill — the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill — you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.”
— Morpheus, to Neo in The Matrix (1999)

Seeds of Suspicion 1THE RABBIT HOLE: Seeds of Suspicion

On September 26, 2014, the Africa Braintrust event was held at the John Wilson Convention Center in Washington, DC.  The annual event, organized by United States Congress member Karen Bass (D-California), brings together a variety of speakers and panels to discuss issues of interest to Afrika and the Afrikan Diaspora.  This year’s event centered around the August USA-Africa Summit, in which President Barack Obama met with 50 Afrikan heads of state to discuss USA-Afrika relations.

In earlier posts, we reported on the keynote address by former US Ambassador Johnnie Carson, the first of three panels that were held at the session, and the keynote address by Dr. Rajiv “Raj” Shah, Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).  Dr. Shah began his address by commenting about the continuing Ebola crisis, then discussed two signature USAID programs: Feed the Future and Power Africa.  Last year, we attended a Congressional Policy Breakfast about Power Africa and the Electrify Africa Act, and we wrote about that session for this Web Site, including many of the concerns raised by community activists and concerned Afrikans about access to power in rural areas, questions of who primarily benefited from Power Africa and the potential environmental and human rights consequences.

Here, we will spend some time on USAID’s Feed the Future initiative.  The stated aims are laudable: increasing the crop yields of rural farmers so the populace can eat instead of starving, so that children can play and go to school instead of wasting away through malnutrition, and so that countries can effectively feed their people instead of waging oppression and war over scarce resources.  But the picture is far more complicated than that.  The journey we will undertake here will delve into USAID’s checkered past in Latin America, examine the agency’s ties with major multinational biotech and agribusiness corporations, take a look at the concerns surrounding genetically modified (GM) food, scrutinize the issue of patents and food sovereignty (which is different from “food security”), and ask the question: Is this the Future we want for Afrika?

What Dr. Rajiv Shah of USAID Says About Feed the Future

First, here are the words of Dr. Rajiv Shah at the 2014 Africa Braintrust event as he touted USAID’s Feed the Future initiative:

“The first [of USAID’s current signature programs] is Feed the Future, and when Rajiv Shah USAID 1President Obama took office, he really made this the top developmental priority.  The slide you’re looking at is a picture of an Ethiopian farmer and daughter collecting the harvest.  In Ethiopia today, through Feed the Future, we’re working with DuPont and a host of local farming cooperatives to increase the farm yields for 35,000 maize farmers and their families.  Today, as a part of our Feed the Future partnership, the government has liberalized its seed sector, has refined the way it protects private capital investments, has offered licenses and engaged foreign investors, and has built upon the innovation labs that were set up across American colleges and universities.  Now, we measure the results of these efforts through legitimate and widespread household surveys, and we now know that as a result of this program in Ethiopia, public and private, Ethiopia has driven down the rate of hunger, of poverty, of stunting, which is an expression of malnutrition in children that robs them of their future, and has increased the rate of reduction of poverty and malnutrition three times in just the last two and a half years.  That’s an extraordinary achievement, and as a result 160,000 children today who would have been hungry are now laughing, learning, playing, going to school, and not because we’re handing out more American food, but because we’re helping their farmers, mostly women, improve the productivity from their own labor and their own ingenuity.  That kind of story is playing out in Ethiopia, but also in 14 other countries in Sub Saharan Africa.  It’s playing out across more than 200 companies that have committed more than $10 billion of private investments.  It’s playing out in the African Union that has reaffirmed this year is the year of agriculture for Africa, and has put into place a set of leadership commitments and policy reforms, and it plays out at a global level in last week’s announcement of global hunger levels that have come down by more than 40 million individuals, almost all of whom are in Sub Saharan Africa over the last three or four years.

“Today, as a part of our Feed the Future partnership, the government has liberalized its seed sector, has refined the way it protects private capital investments, has offered licenses and engaged foreign investors, and has built upon the innovation labs that were set up across American colleges and universities.”
— Dr. Rajiv Shah, Administrator of USAID

“These are extraordinary successes and gains, and I just want to note and thank the United States Congress and its leaders, including Representative [Karen] Bass, for introducing, on a bipartisan basis in both the House and the Senate, Feed the Future legislation that will authorize this program into law and ensure that we can stick with it, using this model of development to continue to drive down hunger and poverty and drive up agricultural investment and growth for decades to come.  So I would like to take this moment to ask for your support for Feed the Future, and that you support Representative Bass and that you support the bipartisan members of the House and Senate that are going to try to make this happen, we hope, in the Lame Duck Session this year, because I think it’s telling that our political leaders, at a time that, sometimes, is a little fractured and a little partisan, can come together to support this kind of an effort, executed to this level of excellence.   So thank you for your leadership, Representative Bass. …”

We thank Rep. Bass for her continued commitment to bring information to her constituents and to concerned Afrikans and Afrikan Diasporans.  Her Africa Braintrust event provides an opportunity for us to learn about the analysis and plans of a number of activists, scholars and government officials from the United States and Afrika.  That being stated, it is necessary for us to now compare the words of Dr. Shah to what others around the world have said, what the corporate partners of USAID have said and done, the warnings of food activists and farmers’ advocates, and what the implications will be for Afrika as the next frontier (target?) of USAID’s Feed the Future initiative.  We will reference and quote a number of articles, statements and Web Sites during our journey, and we include the locations of these articles, analyses and statements so you can look them up for yourself, and perhaps dig even deeper down the rabbit hole.

What Latin American Activists Say: USAID’s influence in Latin America & The Caribbean

An article dated July 21, 2012, titled ALBA Expels USAID from Member Countries (http://alethonews.wordpress.com/2012/06/22/alba-expels-usaid-from-member-countries/), translated by Rachael Boothroyd for the Web Site http://venezuelaanalysis.com, reported on the Resolution from the Political Council of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) for the immediate withdrawal of USAID from member countries of the alliance.  The Resolution goes as follows:

On behalf of the Chancellors of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America, gathered in Rio de Janeiro, Federal Republic of Brazil, on June 21st 2012.

Given the open interference of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in the internal politics of the ALBA countries, under the excuse of “planning and administering economic and humanitarian assistance for the whole world outside of the United States,” financing non-governmental organizations and actions and projects designed to destabilise the legitimate governments which do not share their common interests.

Knowing the evidence brought to light by the declassified documents of the North American State Department in which the financing of organisations and political parties in opposition to ALBA countries is made evident, in a clear and shameless interference in the internal political processes of each nation.

Given that this intervention of a foreign country in the internal politics of a country is contrary to the internal legislation of each nation.

On the understanding that in the majority of ALBA countries, USAID, through its different organisations and disguises, acts in an illegal manner with impunity, without possessing a legal framework to support this action, and illegally financing the media, political leaders and non-governmental organisations, amongst others.

On the understanding that through these financing programmes they are supporting NGOs which promote all kind of fundamentalism in order to conspire and limit the legal authority of our states, and in many cases, widely loot our natural resources on territory which they claim to control at their own free will.

Conscious of the fact that our countries do not need any kind of external financing for the maintenance of our democracies, which are consolidated through the will of the Latin American and Caribbean people, in the same way that we do not need organisations in the charge of foreign powers which, in practice, usurp and weaken the presence of state organisms and prevent them from developing the role that corresponds to them in the economic and social arena of our populations.

We resolve to:

Request that the heads of state and the government of the states who are members of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America, immediately expel USAID and its delegates or representatives from their countries, due to the fact that we consider their presence and actions to constitute an interference which threatens the sovereignty and stability of our nations.

In the city of Rio de Janeiro, Federal Republic of Brazil, June 21st 2012.

Signed by: The government of the Pluri-national state of Bolivia, The government of the Republic of Cuba, The government of the Republic of Ecuador, The government of the Commonwealth of Dominica, The government of the Republic of Nicaragua, The government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

Why did ALBA make such a statement?  Surely, USAID doesn’t use its status as a global “humanitarian” agency (Isn’t “International Development” their last name?)USAID Logo 1 cannot be attempting to destabilize legitimate governments, can they?  Well, perhaps we need more information and testimony, such as the following article from the Web Site http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/ALBA-Strongly-Condemns-USAID-Plot-in-Cuba-20140808-0043.html, published August 8, 2014, titled The member states of the Bolivarian Alliance for Peoples of Our America (ALBA) demanded the United States cease its subversive actions against Cuba.  Here is an excerpt:

The statement released this Thursday follows revelations about the recruitment and employment of young Latin American people since 2009 in a bid to convert contemporary Cubans into “agents of change” and promote political dissent on the island.

The U.S. based agency Associated Press revealed on Sunday that the U.S. agency for International Development (USAID) sent a group of young people from Costa Rica, Venezuela and Peru to Cuba under the guise of carrying out health and social projects, when in reality their main goal was to find and encourage anti-government activists.

In the text, ALBA expressed its “indignation”, describing the project as “immoral”.

“The ALBA condemns this new plan against Cuba, and demands and end to the subversive, illegal actions partly covered by the U.S. government, that violate the sovereignty and right of the Cuban people to self-determination.” added the communiqué.

“The countries of ALBA express their deep solidarity with the Cuban Republic and demand the United States respect the Cuban people’s will in continuing to improve its economic and social model, as well as the consolidation of its democracy, without any external interferences.”

An analysis of USAID’s objectives in Latin America was presented last month in an article on the Web Site http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/USAIDin-Latin-America-More-Than-Just-Aid-20141027-0055.html, USAID in Latin America: More Than Just Aid, published 27 October 2014, which said, in part:

After being expelled from numerous Latin American countries for dubious activity, the United States organization USAID has developed a reputation of an organization that while providing aid is also developing ways to undermine governments in a number of the continent’s countries.

According to their website, USAID’s mission is “furthering America’s interests, while improving lives in the developing world.” However in practice, they may well be furthering the United States interests, but not by improving lives in the developing world but by supporting the activities of groups that are opposed to democratically elected governments.

The most recent damning revelations are that the agency not only had attempted to create a twitter style social media network in Cuba to undermine the government, but on top of this an Obama administration program secretly dispatched young Latin Americans to Cuba using the cover of health and civic programs to provoke political change in order to overthrow Castro’s government, which the United States has been trying to do for over 50 years now, with no success.

After it was revealed that USAID had been interfering in Cuba, the House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Jason Chaffetz said, “That is not what USAID should be doing … USAID is flying the American flag and should be recognized around the globe as an honest broker of doing good. If they start participating in covert, subversive activities, the credibility of the United States is diminished.”

But USAID’s track record of engaging in subversive activities is a long one, and U.S. credibility as an “honest broker” was lost many years ago.

The USAID operations in Latin America, which are overseen by what is known as the “Office of Transition Initiatives” (OTI), is a way for the U.S. to promote its interests through soft power. The U.S. calls these projects aiding in “transition”, whereas in reality it is nothing but meddling in the internal affairs of sovereign nations. They work with many different NGOs and private companies, all under the guise of providing aid to developing nations.

USAID have engaged in activities to undermine democratically elected governments in Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia and Haiti and interfered in Brazil, Ecuador and most likely other nations. …

But not only is USAID’s image tattered in many parts of Latin America, it is also held in suspicion among several activists in Ayiti (Haiti). A report critical of USAID, which was released by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), was detailed in the April 3, 2013 article New Report on U.S. Aid to Haiti Finds “Troubling” Lack of Transparency, Effectiveness (http://www.cepr.net/index.php/press-releases/press-releases/new-report-on-us-aid-to-haiti-finds-troubling-lack-of-transparency-effectiveness).  Among the article’s revelations:

A new report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) identifies significant problems with the delivery of U.S. aid in Haiti and finds an overall lack of transparency on how the billions of dollars obligated for U.S. assistance to Haiti are being used. The report, “Breaking Open the Black Box: Increasing Aid Transparency and Accountability in Haiti,” by CEPR Research Associate Jake Johnston and Senior Associate for International Policy Alexander Main, examines the effectiveness of U.S. assistance to Haiti, how it is being administered, to what extent it is adhering to the “USAID Forward” reform agenda and what steps can be taken to ensure its more effective and transparent delivery.

“Billions in U.S. aid money are going to Haiti with little transparency to ensure that it is being used effectively,” paper co-author Jake Johnston said. “The situation for many people in post-quake Haiti is especially daunting, but for USAID it has been business as usual. No care has been taken to ensure that U.S. taxpayer dollars are being best utilized in Haiti.”

The report notes that the few audits and evaluations of USAID’s programs in Haiti since the earthquake present a “troubling picture of the manner in which U.S. relief and reconstruction efforts have been conducted so far.” Contractors have hired far fewer Haitians than promised, Haitian businesses were largely excluded, goals were not met, there was inadequate supervision of grantees, and USAID had not conducted internal financial reviews of contractors.

The paper shows that of the $1.15 billion in contracts and grants awarded since the 2010 earthquake, over half went to the top 10 recipients of global USAID awards, with the largest recipient being the for-profit company Chemonics International Inc., the single largest recipient of USAID funds worldwide aside from the World Bank and U.N. Meanwhile, just 0.7 percent of USAID awards have gone directly to Haitian businesses or organizations. …

The paper notes that despite USAID’s “Forward” reform agenda, the agency has blocked disclosure of additional information, including through Freedom of Information Act requests. …

“Without transparency, not only is it impossible for U.S. taxpayers to know what is being done with their money, but the Haitian government and the Haitian people have little opportunity to ensure that U.S.-funded projects actually assist Haiti in rebuilding and dealing with ongoing urgent humanitarian needs,” paper co-author Alex Main said.

So, there is evidence that USAID has acted, in the recent past, to undermine governments in Latin America, and that many of those governments have expelled USAID employees as a result.  There are also reports of a lack of transparency as to how funds are spent in countries, such as Ayiti (Haiti), where USAID has purportedly acted in a humanitarian capacity.  What has that to do with Feed the Future, and why should we assume that USAID will act in a similar fashion in Afrika?

What Food Activists Say: USAID’s Support of GMOs

Another troubling aspect of USAID’s practices over the years has been the agency’s consistent support of corporations that are engaged in the promotion of genetically modified (GM, or GMO for “genetically modified organism”) food, which goes back over a decade.  An October 2002 report by Greenpeace (http://greenpeace.co/uk) titled USAID and GM Food Aid, states, among other things:

In August 2002, Andrew Natsios of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) accused environmental groups of endangering the lives of millions of people in southern Africa by encouraging local governments to reject genetically modified (GM) food aid. Mr. Natsios said, “They can play these games with Europeans, who have full stomachs, but it is revolting and despicable to see them do so when the lives of Africans are at stake.” He added, “The Bush administration is not going to sit there and let these groups kill millions of poor people in southern Africa through their ideological campaign.”

In fact, the cynical manipulators of the famine in Africa are the US government, USAID and the GM industry. They are using the current situation to force the introduction of GM crops on countries desperate for food aid. There are numerous sources of non-GM aid available around the world, including the USA. Using these sources is the best way to both feed people and maintain their dignity, yet the US has made a clear policy decision to only supply GM contaminated aid from US suppliers. Aid agencies, the EU and UK Government all believe that best practice in emergency aid is to provide support to the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) in the form of cash, so that it can buy grain from the quickest and most cost effective sources. The only organisation that thinks otherwise is USAID. US policy thus impedes aid from generating maximum benefit.

It is clear that the current program of aid donation is the latest twist in a crude 10-year marketing campaign, led by USAID and designed to facilitate the introduction of US-developed GM crops into Africa. …

The simple fact is that USAID has chosen to supply GM maize as food aid, even though there are numerous grain companies in the USA from whom they could supply certified non-GM grain. …

During negotiations on the Cartagena Biosafety Protocol, part of a UN sponsored international agreement to control the movement of GM crops around the world, African countries made it clear that they did not want to become a test site or dumping ground for unwanted GM food. Yet this now seems to be the case. Indeed, in comments largely ignored at the time, the UK Chief Scientist Professor David King said that the Bush Administration’s efforts to force GM foods into Africa in the form of food aid is “a massive human experiment.  Professor King questioned the morality of the Administration’s desire to introduce GM into African countries, where people are facing starvation in the coming months. …

USAID has become increasingly frustrated over countries not taking GM contaminated aid – a US official was quoted as saying, “beggars can’t be choosers.” USAID clearly states, however, that among other things its role is to “integrate GM into local food systems” and “spread agricultural technology through regions of Africa.” US Secretary of State Colin Powell said in Johannesburg, “In the face of famine, several governments in southern Africa have prevented critical US food assistance from being distributed to the hungry by rejecting GM corn which has been eaten safely around the world since 1995.” …

There is much more to this article, including an analysis of how the US’s specific means of delivering aid makes this result not only possible, but likely, as well as USAID’s connections with global agribusiness and biotech corporations and its efforts to further the opening of markets (“trade liberalization”) and the enforcement of patents, hardly an aid imperative.  The whole article can be found at the Web Site www.greenpeace.co.uk.

There is more still to this part of the story, which we will cover in more detail when our journey takes us to India.  But now, we wish to share with you the words of an executive of Monsanto, one of the largest biotech and agribusiness corporations in the world and a major corporate partner of USAID.  Monsanto is quite proud of its role in pushing GMO food on the world, primarily through its proprietary hybridized seeds.  These seeds have been marketed to farmers in the United States, India and other parts of the world.  While Monsanto claims these “magic seeds” have brought nothing but benefit to farmers around the world, many of the farmers themselves have quite a different tale to tell.  But first, the words of this Monsanto executive, which makes it clear that USAID has been an enthusiastic backer of GMO food and biotechnology for quite some time, and that they enjoy a rather cozy relationship with USAID.

What Monsanto Says: The Promise of GMO Foods

Monsanto Logo 1Following are excerpts from a statement of Mr. Gerald Steiner, Executive Vice President, Sustainability and Corporate Affairs, Monsanto Company, before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, July 20, 2010, which was posted on Monsanto’s Web Site, http://www.monsanto.com/newsviews/pages/feed-the-future-initiative.aspx:

Thank you for inviting me to testify today on a vital new initiative, Feed the Future (www.feedthefuture.gov), which provides a framework for addressing one of our planet’s great needs, and great opportunities – the use of more productive and sustainable agricultural development to reduce hunger and poverty. 

Our company has made a three-pronged commitment to improve sustainable agriculture: We will do our part to help farmers double yields in our core crops of corn, cotton and soybeans between 2000 and 2030, while producing each bushel or bale with one-third fewer resources in aggregate (such as land, water and energy). And, just as importantly, in so doing we will help farmers to earn more and improve the lives of their families and rural communities. 

… Our cornerstone strategy is to actively engage and seek collaboration from a wide range of partners in the public sector, private sector, academia and civil society. 

… USAID Administrator Dr. Rajiv Shah, when introducing Feed the Future to the Chicago Council Symposium on Agriculture and Security in May, asked for private-sector input. “Tell us what countries and donors can do to reduce constraints on business operations,” he said. “And please explore with us whether our tools to encourage investment . . . would help you make the commitment to invest greater resources in these specific value chains and countries.” …

… At Monsanto, we develop improved seed through advanced breeding as well as biotechnology. 

… Cutting-edge science and technology is built into the seed itself, which can be planted by an African farmer using a hoe, or an American farmer using sophisticated machinery. …

… These require systems approaches that begin with improved seeds, access to fertilizer and extension training, and end with functioning markets. What we need in order to effectively contribute – as noted in the Feed the Future Guide and implied in Dr. Shah’s question – are enabling business environments. 

That includes policies that provide predictability, such as reliable, science-based regulatory systems, as well as laws that protect the fruits of our research and development and the ability to fairly compete in the marketplace. … 

I am encouraged by Feed the Future’s endorsement of business- enabling policies, and by its support for public-private partnerships. … Monsanto is engaged in a variety of public- private partnerships in markets around the world. …

… we are equally focused on public- private partnerships that help farmers access and use agricultural technology to produce more abundant crops, while using fewer resources. One of these is Project Sunshine, a partnership with the government of the Indian state of Gujarat and local NGOs, which has helped thousands of subsistence farmers to increase corn yields and break the cycle of poverty. …

Farmers who planted hybrids doubled, or even tripled their corn yield – and, as a result, doubled or tripled their income. Those who accepted free seed and inputs in 2008 were able to purchase them at minimal cost the following year. By 2010, Project Sunshine generated additional farm income of $27 million, improving living standards and increasing spending power so that families can afford to educate their children. …

Again, these are Mr. Steiner’s own words.  Monsanto is clearly quite proud of its work in the development and promotion of GMO foods and its relationship with USAID.  Mr. Steiner’s mention of Project Sunshine is also important, for it is the subject of a case in the Gujarat State of India that we will examine in a few minutes.

What Food Activists Say: Monsanto’s Plans for Control of India’s Food and Farmer Suicides

Mr. Steiner’s statement above extols the benefits of GMO seeds for the farmers of India, but as we have already stated, numerous voices are saying something entirely different.  We will quote parts of some of the articles below and will simply refer to others, with their Web addresses included so you can read the articles in their entirety.

A Daily Mail article by Andrew Malone (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1082559/The-GM-genocide-Thousands-Indian-farmers-committing-suicide-using-genetically-modified-crops.html) helped tell the world about The GM genocide: Thousands of Indian farmers are committing suicide after using genetically modified crops with this opening statement:

When Prince Charles claimed thousands of Indian farmers were killing themselves after using GM crops, he was branded a scaremonger. In fact, as this chilling dispatch reveals, it’s even WORSE than he feared.

Sourcewatch (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Monsanto_in_India) released a report, Monsanto in India, which goes into more detail about the crisis of farmer suicides.  Here is part of that article:

Farmers in India are finding that the “biotechnology revolution” is having a devastating effect on their crop lands and personal debt levels. “In 1998, the World Bank’s structural adjustment policies forced India to open up its seed sector to global corporations like Cargill, Monsanto, and Syngenta. The global corporations changed the input economy overnight. Farm saved seeds were replaced by corporate seeds which needed fertilizers and pesticides and could not be saved” says Vandana Shiva, leader of the movement to oust Monsanto from India in her 2004 article The Suicide Economy Of Corporate Globalisation. “As seed saving is prevented by patents as well as by the engineering of seeds with non-renewable traits, seed has to be bought for every planting season by poor peasants. A free resource available on farms became a commodity which farmers were forced to buy every year. This increases poverty and leads to indebtedness. As debts increase and become unpayable, farmers are compelled to sell kidneys or even commit suicide. …”

UPDATE: “Since 1997, 182,936 Indian farmers have taken their lives and the numbers continue to rise. According to a recent study by the National Crime Records Bureau, 46 Indian farmers kill themselves every day – that is roughly one suicide every 30 minutes – an alarming statistic in a country where agriculture is the economic mainstay“.

Yet even this number may be underestimated. According to P. Sainath, rural affairs editor of The Hindu, “the states where these [figures] are gathered leave out thousands from the definition of ‘farmer’ and, thus, massage the numbers downward. For instance, women farmers are not normally accepted as farmers (by custom, land is almost never in their names). They do the bulk of work in agriculture – but are just ‘farmers’ wives’.” This classification enables governments to exclude countless women farmer suicides. They will be recorded as suicide deaths – but not as ‘farmers’ suicides’. Likewise, many other groups, too, have been excluded from that list.”

This has been called a genocide. Says the Deccan Herald, “Bt cotton requiring more water than hybrid cotton, was knowingly promoted so as to allow the seed industry to make profits. What happens to the farmers as a result was nobody’s concern. And never was. … Strange, the country has already jumped into the second phase of green revolution without first drawing a balance sheet of the first phase of the technology era. Such an approach will only worsen the crisis, and force more farmers to commit suicide or abandon their farms. As a result, India is sure to witness the worst environmental displacement the world has known and this will be in the field of agriculture.”

Others have also written extensively on Monsanto’s GMO seeds and their implication in the wave of farmer suicides in India.  An article on Global Research (http://www.globalresearch.ca/killer-seeds-the-devastating-impacts-of-monsanto-s-genetically-modified-seeds-in-india/28629) titled KILLER SEEDS: The Devastating Impacts of Monsanto’s Genetically Modified Seeds in India by Iqbal Ahmed, January 12, 2012, states:

Monsanto’s operation in India illustrates monopolization and manipulation of the market economy, tradition, technology, and misgovernance. The world’s largest producer of genetically engineered seeds has been selling genetically modified (GM) in India for the last decade to benefit the Indian farmers – or so the company claims.

Prominent physicist, food and farmers’ activist and 1993 Right Livelihood Award winner Dr. Vandana Shiva (founder of Navdanya http://www.navdanya.org/) has Vandana Shiva 1authored more than 20 books and 500 papers in leading scientific and technical journals.  One of them, available on http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-seeds-of-suicide-how-monsanto-destroys-farming/5329947, is The Seeds Of Suicide: How Monsanto Destroys Farming (Global Research, March 13, 2014 and Asian Age and Global Research, April 5, 2013), which goes into detail to allege that

Monsanto’s talk of ‘technology’ tries to hide its real objectives of control over seed where genetic engineering is a means to control seed.

Tony Cartalucci, a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”, wrote an article for Global Research on March 14, 2014 (http://www.globalresearch.ca/gmo-agribusiness-in-india-grassroots-action-against-monsanto-cargill-sygenta/5373420) titled GMO Agribusiness in India: Grassroots Action against Monsanto, Cargill, Sygenta, Grassroots Activism Builds Wall Against Western Imperialism.

Also from Global Research, Colin Todhunter wrote an article on June 20, 2014 titled Criminalising Dissent in India against GMOs and Monsanto (http://www.globalresearch.ca/criminalising-dissent-in-india-against-gmos-and-monsanto/5387779).

There have been some victories, however small, for farmers and food activists in Indian courts and government agencies.  The Project Sunshine seeds that Monsanto executive Steiner was touting in his statement above, for example, were withdrawn from the project in 2012, as the following article from DNA India, Sun no longer shines on GM maize seeds (http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-sun-no-longer-shines-on-gm-maize-seeds-1681371, April 27, 2012) explains:

Gujarat government on Thursday withdrew propriety seeds of multinational company (MNC) Monsanto from ongoing Project Sunshine of the government. Non Government Organisations (NGOs) and anti-GM lobby hailed the move.

“We cannot let our food security be compromised by giving unusual leverages to MNCs,” said Prabhakar Kelkar, national president – Bharatiya Kisan Sangh (BKS). Talking at a press meet in the city on Thursday, he said that the move is the first step towards ensuring food security in the country.

Popularly known after its brand name ‘Prabal’, Monsanto seeds are double-crossed hybrid of maize that was being distributed to tribal farmers of Gujarat under Project Sunshine. …

Speaking on the issue, agriculture minister Dilip Sanghani said that government was purchasing Monsanto seeds to be given to ‘Project Sunshine’ farmers, but it has now stopped doing so. …

Earlier, use of Prabal seeds by government in Project Sunshine invited criticism from BKS, scientists and NGOs. … It is also alleged that authorities selected the seeds despite adverse opinion of agriculture scientists.

Another article apparently sought to clarify the issue, however, by stating that the Gujarat government did not “ban” the seeds; it only ceased distributing them.  The article Gujarat says ‘no’ to ban on distribution of Monsanto hybrid maize seed (http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/gujarat-says-no-to-ban-on-distribution-of-monsanto-hybrid-maize-seed/article3386089.ece) is excerpted below:

Despite opposition from various quarters, including the agricultural experts and the farmers’ organisations, the Gujarat government has refused to impose a total ban on distribution of the Monsanto hybrid maize seed named “Prabal” to the farmers in the State, particularly the tribal agriculturists. …

“The State government does not distribute seeds, it only certifies for distribution, and therefore there is no question of stopping the distribution,” the official said. He said the State government had not taken any decision to “ban” the distribution of Monsanto seeds, but it had only decided to allow distribution of other varieties of seeds also along with Prabal if farmers chose it.

The State government had been distributing Prabal, the hybrid maize seeds developed by the American multi-national company Monsanto, to the tribal farmers since 2008. The agricultural scientists and experts, however, maintain that Prabal, which required more water and fertilizers than other varieties and needed deep soil, was not suitable for the usually dry and rain-fed areas like Gujarat, and particularly for the poor tribal farmers.

Then, in July 2013, an appeals court and India’s Intellectual Property Appellate Board rejected two patent applications from Monsanto for varieties of their GMO seed, as reported in the July 15, 2013 Nation of Change article Monsanto’s Patent Appeal Rejected by Indian Government, Saving Farmers, Food and Lives by Christina Sarich (http://www.nationofchange.org/monsanto-s-patent-appeal-rejected-indian-government-saving-farmers-food-and-lives-1373891665):

Part of the reason Monsanto was not able to pass their patents is because the 1970 Patent Act excluded patents in agriculture and medicine. The act had to be amended when India signed the World Trade Agreement (including sections covering Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights). Strong sections of the Act, like ‘what are not inventions’ in clause 3 and the especially 3d, ‘excludes as inventions the mere discovery of any new property or new use for a known substance,’ were key in Monsanto’s refusal. It was this same clause that kept the Novartis pharmaceutical company from patenting a known cancer-curing drug. They tried to challenge this in the Supreme Court of India, but lost. Many are saying that what the Novartis case is to our global Right to Health, the new refusal of Monsanto’s patents are the same Right to Seed and Right to Livelihood for farmers.

There are supposedly 27,000 farmers who have committed acts similar to a farmer in Bhiwandi taluka, India, who consumed pesticide after his crops failed miserably due to draught and increased debts to companies like Monsanto. Farmers have been petitioning the Indian government to help lift them out of poverty. While not every farmer blames Monsanto directly, the majority of these farmer suicides happen in the cotton belt, where Monsanto controls 95% of the cotton seed supply with Bt cotton. The costs of the seeds jumped more than 8,000% with the introduction of Bt cotton. …

Monsanto’s attempts to patent further seeds and bankrupt entire generations of farmers and their families that have successfully farmed for centuries have been halted – at least in India – for now.

What Monsanto Says II: No Connection Between GMO and Indian Farmer Suicides

Monsanto, of course, denies any connection between their GMO seeds and the farmer suicides in India.  On the Monsanto Web Site (http://www.monsanto.com/newsviews/pages/india-farmer-suicides.aspx), a number of statements designed to give the corporation’s side of this and other controversies can be found.  In the piece titled Is Bt or GMO Cotton the Reason for Indian Farmer Suicides, Monsanto makes the following contentions (among others):

Farming in rural India brings with it a set of systemic and social issues that can lead to hopelessness among farmers and an unacceptably frequent occurrence of farmer suicides. Significant research has documented the problem is complex and disproved the claim that GMO crops are the leading cause. …

The international community has conducted several studies to identify the reasons for the unacceptably frequent occurrence of farmer suicides in India over the last three decades. For example:

A 2008 study by the International Food Policy Research Institute found indebtedness among Indian farmers can be linked to numerous causes, including a lack of reliable credit, changes in government policies, cropping patterns, plant and insect resistance to pesticides, and even shifts in the crops planted on the farm.

The Council for Social Development’s (CSD) June 2012 study, Socio-Economic Impact assessment of Bt Cotton in India, identified the key reasons leading to farmer suicides as lack of irrigation facilities, unavailability of timely credit and fluctuating cotton prices over the years. …

Despite claims by those who oppose GMO crops, research also demonstrates there is no link between Indian farmer suicides and the planting of GMO cotton.

Farmer suicides in India have been a problem for nearly three decades – starting well before the first GM crop (biotech or Bt cotton) was introduced in 2002. …

One contention that is not answered is that the problems with irrigation and resistance to pests might have been triggered by the need for larger volumes of water for Monsanto’s GMO crops in areas where irrigation was not available as well as increasing resistance of pests when they adapted to the GMO varieties and the new pesticides that were required to ensure their cultivation.  Also not mentioned was the “shifts in the crops planted” from cycling through different crops, as farmers have done for centuries before the advent of industrial farming, to “monocropping” to conform with the demands of factory (industrial) farming, as is promoted and practiced in many corporate agricultural environments.

“Terminator” Seeds and “Terminator” Courts: Threatening the Right to Save Seeds?

There has also been discussion about the several-thousand-year-old practice of seed saving, and the degree to which this age-old agricultural tradition is being threatened by the patenting of seeds by corporations like Monsanto.  Allegations of the development of a “Terminator” seed that produces sterile or non-viable offspring (to require farmers to buy seed every year instead of recycling the seeds from a previous planting) have been categorically denied by Monsanto (despite their acquisition in 2006 of a company that was conducting experiments in this very same technology), but Monsanto jealously guards its seed by patenting it, and then threatening farmers who try to save their seed (instead of buying it again from Monsanto) with lawsuits.  An article on the Web Site http://thirdworldtraveler.com, Terminator Seeds Threaten an End to Farming by Hope Shand and Pat Mooney (rafiusa@rafi.org, www.rafi.ca), Earth Island Journal, Fall, 1998, noted that

In March 1998, Delta & Pine Land Co. and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced they had received a US patent on a new genetic technology designed to prevent unauthorized seed-saving by farmers.

The patented technology enables a seed company to genetically alter seed so that the plants that grow from it are sterile; farmers cannot use their seeds. The patent is broad applying to plants and seeds of all species including both transgenic (genetically engineered) and conventionally-bred seeds. The developers of the new technology say that their technique to prevent seed-saving is still in the product development stage, and is now being tested on cotton and tobacco. They hope to have a product on the market sometime after the year 2000.

Monsanto was implicated in this as well, based on its attempt to buy Delta & Pine Land in 1998 (which failed) and its ultimate success in acquiring that company around 2006.  Monsanto, however, has denied that it has any intentions to develop and market “Terminator” seed technology.  Again, from the Monsanto Web Site (http://www.monsanto.com/newsviews/pages/terminator-seeds.aspx), Myth: Monsanto Sells Terminator Seeds:

Fact: Monsanto has never commercialized a biotech trait that resulted in sterile – or “Terminator” – seeds. Sharing the concerns of small landholder farmers, Monsanto made a commitment in 1999 not to commercialize sterile seed technology in food crops. We stand firmly by this commitment, with no plans or research that would violate this commitment.

Perhaps this is true, and perhaps Monsanto has stood by the commitment it says it made to “smallholder farmers” in 1999 to not pursue “Terminator” technology in its seeds.  Monsanto does, however, publicly defend its practice of prosecuting farmers who attempt to save their seeds, again from their Web Site, http://www.monsanto.com/newsviews/pages/why-does-monsanto-sue-farmers-who-save-seeds.aspx, Why Does Monsanto Sue Farmers Who Save Seeds?

When farmers purchase a patented seed variety, they sign an agreement that they will not save and replant seeds produced from the seed they buy from us. More than 275,000 farmers a year buy seed under these agreements in the United States. Other seed companies sell their seed under similar provisions. They understand the basic simplicity of the agreement, which is that a business must be paid for its product. The vast majority of farmers understand and appreciate our research and are willing to pay for our inventions and the value they provide. They don’t think it’s fair that some farmers don’t pay.

A very small percentage of farmers do not honor this agreement. Monsanto does become aware, through our own actions or through third-parties, of individuals who are suspected of violating our patents and agreements. …

Whether the farmer settles right away, or the case settles during or through trial, the proceeds are donated to youth leadership initiatives including scholarship programs.

Also, from the Monsanto Web Site, http://www.monsanto.com/food-inc/pages/seed-saving-and-legal-activities.aspx, Seed Saving and Legal Activities:

In agriculture plants and seeds with enhanced traits or genetics may be patent protected. This is true in the U.S. for plant varieties as well as biotech innovations.  Monsanto is one of many seed companies that patent their innovations.  Growers who purchase our patented seeds sign a Monsanto Technology/Stewardship Agreement — an agreement that specifically addresses the obligations of both the grower and Monsanto and governs the use of the harvested crop.  The agreement specifically states that the grower will not save or sell the seeds from their harvest for further planting, breeding or cultivation.

The United States Supreme Court seems to agree with Monsanto in this regard.  On the Web Site of Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News, GEN News Highlights, May 13, 2013 (http://www.genengnews.com/gen-news-highlights/breaking-news-unanimous-supreme-court-upholds-monsanto-seed-rights/81248358/) appears the story Unanimous Supreme Court Upholds Monsanto Seed Rights.  It reports on a case between Monsanto and an Indiana farmer over the saving of soybean seed.

The U.S. Supreme Court today unanimously sided with Monsanto’s right to enforce its patents for genetically modified soybean seed beyond their initial sale, over objections from a 75-year-old Indiana farmer who used multiple generations of the seed.

So, we have established USAID’s links with Monsanto and other biotech agribusiness corporations.  We have seen how this alliance has been used to promote the use of GMO seeds in India.  We have seen how farmers in India have in many instances suffered because of the imposition of GMO seeds.  We have also read the words of Monsanto’s executives as they explained their denial of any connection between their GMO seed and farmer suicides, as well as their stated willingness to take legal action against farmers, even poor farmers, who rely upon time-honored practices such as saving seeds.  We have also taken a look at USAID’s record in Latin America and Ayiti, one which has inspired distrust in many corners of South America and the Caribbean.  And we have read the words of both Dr. Shah of USAID and of Mr. Steiner of Monsanto regarding the plans for Feed the Future, especially in Afrika.  So, what are the implications of all this?  Should Pan-Afrikanists, Afrikan Internationalists, Black Nationalists, progressives of all races and nationalities and people who just plain like to engage in such revolutionary acts as the eating of food be concerned, and why?

Implications for Afrika

Land Grab NC Black Farmer 1Paula Crossfield wrote a piece on http://civileats.com/2009/08/06/will-obama-let-the-usaid-genetically-modified-trojan-horse-ride-again/ (August 6, 2009) titled Food Security in Africa: Will Obama let USAID’s Genetically Modified Trojan Horse Ride Again?, which began with an August 5, 2009 visit to Kenya by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, then-Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, Representatives Donald M. Payne (D-NJ) and Nita M. Lowey (D-NY):

While the group was there on a broad platform to discuss economic development in Africa, including food security issues, the delegation took the opportunity yesterday afternoon to visit the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) lab, which is best known for unsuccessfully trying to produce a genetically modified, virus-resistant sweet potato under a US-led program. The trip to KARI highlights the poor vision the United States currently holds on furthering food security in Africa.

Historically, the introduction of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) in the US and other countries has primarily profited patent-holding companies, while creating farmer dependence on the chemical fertilizers and pesticides produced by a few US corporations, used to the detriment of human health, soil quality and the environment. The failed sweet potato project at the KARI lab was a product of a public-private partnership between Monsanto, KARI and United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the federal organization responsible for most US non-military foreign aid. USAID is not shy about their desire to promote biotechnology, and have been working towards furthering a GMO agenda abroad since 1991, when it launched the Agricultural Biotechnology Support Project (ABSP). According to this in-depth research article by the organization GRAIN, the ABSP sought to “identify suitable crops in various countries and use them as Trojan Horses to provide a solid platform for the introduction of other GM crops.”

In Kenya, that crop was the sweet potato — the focus of the USAID-funded Kenya Agricultural Biotechnology Support Program, which sought for fourteen years at KARI, at a cost of $6 million, to create and bring it to market before the partnering groups abandoned the project. …

The point … is to show how a tangled consortium (these are just some of the groups), funded by taxpayer dollars via USAID, seeks to further the aims of biotech abroad, especially in Africa, where Kenya, Mali, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda and Zambia were singled out and have been the testing grounds for this strategy.

The obvious beneficiaries of such international development are the handful of corporations which own the patents and the technology, and which produce the herbicides and pesticides required by the use of such seeds. … Africans … have a right to be worried — they can look to India to see what a future relying solely on biotech seeds could look like, where a depleted water table, poisoned waterways and farmer suicides have been the result of the first Green Revolution. …

After painting the picture of a corporate-influenced, GMO-friendly food aid regime being promoted by USAID, Ms. Crossfield goes on to suggest a better alternative based on a major report that was researched, compiled and released in 2009 by a team made up of hundreds of scientists and policymakers and which strongly recommended a locally-based, more sustainable means of fighting world hunger and improving food security (physical and economic access to food, whether self-determined or imposed upon a community) while maintaining a nation’s food sovereignty (the right of a community to control their own access to food and the standards their food must meet – more on that later):

But instead of tired solutions that are not working, we need a paradigm shift, says Dr. Hans Herren, who has worked in Nairobi for 27 years and was co-chair of the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) report. The IAASTD report [pdf] was sponsored by the World Bank, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO), and represented four years of work by 400 scientists. …

Biotechnology is a reductionist pipe dream which is overly dependent on waning resources. By contrast, the IAASTD looked at agro-ecological solutions that focused on agricultural resilience. Agriculture according to the IAASTD requires multifaceted, local solutions. While biotechnology has been promising drought tolerance and higher yields for years without delivering, there are real answers available now — like drought tolerant varieties, suited to certain areas, which are naturally bred; science that focuses on building the quality of the soil and the capacity for that soil to hold more water; or push and pull solutions that deal with pests naturally by attracting beneficial insects or planting compatible species that act as decoys for those pests.

… In light of what we now know about USAID, and the fact that there are biotech friendly advisers like Technology and Science Advisor to [then-Secretary of State Hillary] Clinton Nina Fedoroff and Chief Scientist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rajiv Shah in the administration, it is not hard to assume how those monies might be used. But President Obama should significantly change our policy if he wants to truly help the continent he says he cares so much about.

Obama administration: Study the IAASTD. If there is any hope for a better food system in Africa and the U.S., we must first accept that what is being practiced now is not sustainable, and begin to start the process of making it so. – See more at: http://civileats.com/2009/08/06/will-obama-let-the-usaid-genetically-modified-trojan-horse-ride-again/#sthash.ZWCaX21q.dpuf

Dr. Angelika Hilbeck, ETH Zurich, Institute of Integrative Biology, Zurich, Switzerland, wrote The IAASTD report and some of its fallout – a personal note (http://www.inesglobal.com/_News/iaastd.html), to describe her experience as part of the group that had put together the IAASTD report:

The paradigm of industrial agriculture was maximizing profits from land by focusing on one factor only: productivity – the increase of yields literally at any costs. With the help of chemicals and cheap oil, cheap food was brought to many in the industrialized world and has brought unimaginable profits to the chemical and oil companies. This came at the expense of the health of humans and the environment, the costs of which were never factored into the economic equation in any meaningful way. The price was paid by all, including those who never profited from cheap food in the first place which for most humans constitutes fundamental injustice in itself. With today’s world population split deeply into a very affluent part in the industrialized world where many people eat themselves to death and an impoverished part where many people starve to death and live under the most appalling conditions ever, a shift in the obviously dysfunctional agricultural and food production paradigm has become paramount for global peace and justice. Exactly what went wrong and how we can improve on it was to be learned from the biggest ever review of global agricultural food production and the underlying causes for continued and growing hunger and starvation: the International Assessment of Knowledge, Science and Technology, or IAASTD for short.

The IAASTD was a multi-stakeholder process consisting of governmental and non-governmental organizations, the private sector, producers, consumers, the science community and multiple international agencies involved in the agricultural and rural development sectors. The expected outputs were critical, in-depth global and sub-global assessments of local and institutional knowledge and experiences. The participants had to create plausible scenarios for the future based on the past events and existing trends in population growth, climate change to mention just a few. ‘What if’ questions had to be developed and answered to the best of the current existing knowledge that would allow the implications of different technological options to be explored and understood. The aim was to inform processes of future planning and thinking as to what may happen as the world continues to develop over the next 30-50 years. The process lasted 3 years and involved over 400 experts and over 100 countries. The intergovernmental process ensured ownership by governments, while the Integrated Bureau allowed the full range of stakeholders to meet as a single body for constructive exchanges and consensus building. More information on the details of the process can be found on the IAASTD website (http://inesglobal.com/_News/iaastd.html).  Now, from the above said, it was clear right from the start that this process would be hard, very hard – tough truths would have to be faced and it was to be expected that those who profited and continue to profit from the existing situation would have to swallow some bitter pills. Well, as it turned out too bitter for some.

Thus, those with vested interests were able to exert influence over even the IAASTD report, though not enough to significantly blunt the report’s conclusions.

A few paragraphs above, we mentioned two terms that are often confused with each other: food security and food sovereignty.  “Food security” is often used by officials like Dr. Shah of USAID when describing a “foreign-aid” process in which the US or its corporate partners deliver food aid to a starving populace, akin to “giving a man a fish” on a massive scale.  Seeds that are “owned” by major agribusinesses are given, or sold, to poor farmers, who then plant the seeds, sometimes without question, based on the promises of greater crop yields and a resultant easier life.  But these farmers do not decide what seeds to plant; the corporations make that decision, often in their laboratories, a decision that becomes clear when the farmers try to “save” their seeds and find themselves prosecuted for it in local or international courts.  What these officials will not talk about is “food soverignty”, in which the people in the community take ownership in decifing what seed will be planted, how it will be done, and whether they will save their seed or not.  Farmers’ rights afvocates and food activists will usually speak of “food sovereignty”, which is much more self-determinative, akin to a community “learning to fish”.

Here is how a couple of Web sites define the terms and explain the difference between food security and food sovereignty.  The first is from http://globalfoodpolitics.wordpress.com/2012/11/30/food-security-vs-food-sovereignty/.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, “Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.” Food sovereignty is a broader concept. According to the 2007 Declaration of Nyéléni, food sovereignty encompasses “The right of peoples, communities, and countries to define their own agricultural, labour, fishing, food and land policies which are ecologically, socially, economically and culturally appropriate to their unique circumstances. It includes the true right to food and to produce food, which means that all people have the right to safe, nutritious and culturally appropriate food and to food-producing resources and the ability to sustain themselves and their societies. Food sovereignty means the primacy of people’s and community’s rights to food and food production, over trade concerns.” Food sovereignty is thus embedded in larger questions of social justice and the rights of farmers and indigenous communities to control their own futures and make their own decisions.

From http://www.coffeekids.org/food-sovereignty-vs-food-security-is-there-a-difference/:

Food security and food sovereignty, although often used interchangeably, are considerably different concepts. Food security, a much more widely understood notion, refers to communities with access to food. NGOs that work with food security projects often work with a community to meet its food needs, denoting that it currently lacks the quantity and quality of food necessary to sustain community members. Food security does not necessarily stipulate what types of food are provided or whether or not that food is local or brought in from other regions, and it does not always require the direct involvement of the community to attain and administer that food (e.g., disaster-relief situations in which food arrives from outside sources). Food sovereignty, on the other hand, is slightly more specific and elicits certain guidelines that food security does not explicitly mention. Food sovereignty puts ownership of food systems into the hands of the communities themselves. It involves a sustainable, long-term process in which a community can establish its own food systems and produce its own local products without being subject to fluctuating international markets or dependent on external sources for the acquisition of seeds. Food sovereignty takes into account the cultural and social, political, geographical and environmental context of the community in order to develop an appropriate plan of action to address the community’s particular problems and needs.

So, what is at stake here is Afrika’s right to food sovereignty; whether it will be sacrificed so that corporations and superpowers can make the claim of having “saved the world” in the name of food security while fattening the pockets of the corporate CEO’s and shareholders.  What’s at stake is the ability of the farmers of Afrika to make decisions as to whether their food will be organic, conventional or GMO; whether they will control their own farming practices or whether they will be controlled by either foreign organizations like USAID or multinational corporations like Monsanto; whether traditional farming and agricultural practices that have sustained communities for centuries or millennia will be lost forever as corporations and their governmental allies work to bring into play yet another massive land grab based on the ruination of farmers through the economic pressures brought on by introduction of GMO food, that simple looking little “magic seed” which is really a Seed of Suspicion that might just raise the curtain on another disappearing act for the rights of the world’s peoples to feed themselves on their terms.  This battle has already played out in India, to disastrous effect for many poor farmers there.  Latin America and the Caribbean have perhaps avoided that Land Grab Ethiopia 4crisis but have suffered in other ways as their governments have been undermined and their leaders toppled.  Afrika suffered under a Scramble once before, at the time of the enslavement of millions of her Sons and Daughters in the Americas, Europe and Arabia.  Open your eyes and see the latest Scramble, this one for Afrika’s land and resources, one that has, in fact, already been going on for centuries through the extractive industries (gold, diamonds, coltan and other minerals) and more recently through the acquisition of farmers’ lands for the use by foreign and corporate interests for food export or for the growing of biofuels.  The latest theater is the Scramble for Control of Afrika’s Food, one that appears to be hiding behind initiatives like Feed the Future.

There is much more to look at here.  We won’t be able to do it in this article, which is already much longer than a “usual” blog piece.  We hope we have been able to keep your attention.  We hope we have been able to share some valuable information.  As stated above, the links to the articles should give you the opportunity to dig even deeper if you so choose.  One final link we’d like to share is to an article by Colkin Todhunter, GMO Agribusiness and the Destructive Nature of Global Capitalism (http://www.globalresearch.ca/gmo-agribusiness-and-the-destructive-nature-of-global-capitalism/5323232), which carries the discussion into a scathing critique of the entire capitalist system.  Perhaps that is a rabbit hole to be explored at a later time.
 

Africa Braintrust: USAID, According to USAID

On Friday, Sept. 26, 2014, the Africa Braintrust Event was held at the John Wilson Convention Center in Washington, DC.  The annual event, organized by US Congressmember Karen Bass (D-California), is designed to discuss issues of concern to the Afrikan Continent, the Afrikan Community and the Afrikan Diaspora in an open forum, complete with keynote speakers, panel discussions and questions from attendees.  The 2014 Africa Braintrust concentrated on a review of the recent USA-Africa Summit, in which President Barack Obama invited 50 Afrikan heads of state to Washington, DC top discuss US-Afrika relations. 

USAID Logo 1Our previous article featured the keynote address by former Ambassador Johnnie Carson and the follow-up panel discussion. This article will deal specifically with the keynote speech of Dr. Rajiv “Raj” Shah, head of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) since 2010.  Here, Dr. Shah begins with a brief discussion about the Ebola crisis in West Afrika and his concern for the people there.  By this time, the first two Americans had already contracted the disease and had recovered after undergoing extensive medical treatment, while Afrikans in the Continent were falling ill and facing death by the thousands.  He then discusses his vision for what USAID plans to accomplish in Afrika, specifically with regard to two key initiatives: Feed the Future and Power Africa. A previous post on this Web Site from November 2013 featured a Congressional Breakfast sponsored by Rep. Bass’ office pertaining to Power Africa and the open discussion that followed.  A following piece (coming soon) will examine USAID’s Feed the Future Initiative in the context of USAID’s previous efforts in India and issues that have been raised about USAID’s activities in Latin America, and as such urges caution in moving headlong into a “food security” initiative that may leave Afrika’s food supply in the hands of major corporate agribusiness and thus anything but secure.  But, for now, let us hear the words of Dr. Rajiv Shah, head of USAID, after his introduction by Rep. Karen Bass:

REP. KAREN BASS INTRODUCES DR. RAJ SHAH, USAID

Karen Bass 1“Everyone is concerned about what is happening on the Continent in regard to the Ebola crisis, and we didn’t feel like we could go through the day without letting you know exactly what the US government and what our role is has been in response to that crisis.  And I feel it’s going to be a moment when we are past this crisis and we will get past this crisis, that it is going to be a moment of tremendous pride when we look back and see the role that that the United States played in regard to the crisis.  But in addition to the Ebola crisis the theme throughout our day is a look back at the Summit and a look forward as to where we’re going to go with US-Africa relations, and USAID plays a tremendous role in that regard.  And some of the most significant initiatives that were actually happening way before the Summit, maybe even before the Summit was even thought of, are very significant initiatives that have been taking place in regard to our relationship with Afrika, has been under the leadership of Dr. Shah and USAID.  One of my complaints that I’ve told him several times, is that the work that we do sometimes is just not that widely known.  And I know it came up with one of the comments, it was certainly my frustration with the Summit too, that it really didn’t get the press coverage that it deserves.  As a matter of fact, if you saw the President’s press conference, he walked right out of the Summit and had a press conference with all of the US press, who asked him no questions about Afrika or about the Summit.  They wanted to know why Congress wanted to sue him.  That was what they asked him during that press conference.  So I think it’s not only my responsibility as a member of Congress, but I think it’s all of our responsibilities to spread the good news about what us happening in Afrika and also to talk about what this Administration has been doing in regard to Afrika.  

“So on that note, Dr. Raj Shah serves as the 16th Administrator of USAID and leads the efforts of more than 10,000 professionals in 80 missions around the world.  That’s a heck of a job.  But since being sworn in, he was baptized by fire.  He was sworn in on December 31, 2009.  Dr. Shah managed the US government’s response to the devastating 2010 earthquake on Haiti.  He co-chaired the State Department’s first review of American diplomacy and development operations and now spearheads President Obama’s landmark Feed the Future Food Security Initiative, and he also leads USAID Forward, an extensive set of reforms to USAID’s business model, focusing on seven key areas, including procurement, science and technology, and monitoring and evaluation.  Please join me in welcoming Dr. Raj Shah.” 

SPEECH OF DR. RAJ SHAH, USAID 

Rajiv Shah USAID 1“The success of the Summit will really be measured years out, not days out, and it will depend entirely on whether or not we’ll be able to follow through on the high aspirations that were set in that context. … 

“I will start today with a few comments about Ebola. Not because I think that this is a defining moment in the future of US-Africa relations but because I think it is such a critical and urgent and immediate national security priority, to use the President’s language, that I just want to introduce the concepts of what we’re doing.  I was actually very moved about a week ago when I read a Washington Post story about a young mother in Monrovia that I really can’t get out of my head.  When her three year old son developed a fever, she brought him to an Ebola Treatment Unit, but in violation of ETU—that’d what we refer to them as, Ebola Treatment Units—in violation of their protocols, she refused to leave his side.  She chose to walk with him into the isolation unit.  Within the care center she chose to stand by him and care for him and hold him and hug him and bring him water and rehydration in an effort to save his life.  And she was with him when her son died.  Before long, after that tragic moment, she too began to exhibit the telltale signs of this virus.  I share that with you because the reality of Ebola is, it actually, believe it or not, does not spread as easily as people think.  It spreads through personal contact and through body fluids.  And one of the devastating realities of this crisis right now in West Africa is that it strikes down the people who care the very most.  It’s the mothers who refuse to let go of their children.  It’s the caregivers who rush to the front lines communities and homes to identify those who might be sick.  And it’s the doctors and nurses and the trained medical professionals inside the care units that are dealing with an epidemic at a proportion that had really never been seen before.  And so, even as we try to achieve on the grand and involved vision and aspirations that I think were set at the African Leaders’ Summit this past August, I think it is worth pausing and recognizing that at times of crisis like this, it is incumbent upon America as the world’s unquestioned humanitarian leaders to so what President Obama did last week.  What he did was he said, We’re going to use capabilities that only America has, to ensure that the world has a strong, coordinated and effective response. He said that there are hundreds, thousands of cases, now.  If we get on top of this right now, we will be looking at tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of cases.  He noted that this was not just a health emergency, but it threatens the fabric of society immediately in the three countries that are all coming out of conflict and aspiring for peace, prosperity and growth themselves, but also could have devastating consequences throughout the region and throughout our connected world.  And he directed us to put all of the resources of the United States government, the civilian resources of USAID and the Centers for Disease Control and the military resources we have access to, to work to mount a strong response.  So we will have more than 3000 US service members on the ground in West Africa.  We will provide the world’s logistic and operational backbone to get hundreds of thousands of sets of protective equipment every month to dozens of new Ebola Treatment Units that we will build in Liberia and Sierra Leone and Guinea.  We will help support the salaries, the recruiting, the training of thousands, tens of thousands of health workers so they can go to every door and every community, in some cases providing simple improved hygiene, in other cases identifying those who are sick or tracing the contacts of those who have been positively diagnosed.  And we will deploy a range of technology, from mobile laboratory diagnostics to improved forms of protective equipment, to new vaccines and therapeutics and immunotherapies that are aggressively under development to ensure that if this crisis gets even further beyond our grasp, the world has a set of tools that can be brought to bear to protect our colleague communities throughout West Africa.  And it is times like this—as Representative Bass mentioned, my first week on the job was the Haiti earthquake, and this is a photo from that experience—but it is times like this when you realized that there are situations where only America can lead.  And that we embrace those opportunities on behalf of our colleagues and friends in Africa and around the world.  And so, while we’re not looking to displace others—in fact the President just yesterday convened a group of world leaders at the UN General Assembly and called on them to do more and I was a little bit late [to this meeting today] because I was following up on his call, with some of our partners around d the world—we need everyone to do a lot more here, but we are prepared to step up and lead, and we are prepared to make sure that this crisis is contained, and I’m happy after my remarks, if we have time, to take any further questions or comments, but I want to thank you for your interest and support of the Ebola effort. 

“But stepping back, to the African Leaders’ Summit.  That Summit was really designed to craft and communicate a clear message about the future of US-Africa relations.  It was not about humanitarian crisis or state fragility, but rather, focused on the other side of the coin that we know has been the single most dynamic story of global economic affairs over the last decade.  And that is the tremendous economic potential and progress of Africa, now and in the future, and what we believe some day could easily be the world’s largest common market, in what is already the world’s largest source of young people seeking jobs, and what we know can be a massive accelerant to global growth and prosperity.  It’s in that context that, four or five years ago, the President directed us through the first-ever Policy Directive from a US President on development, to adopt a new model of engagement with our developmental partners in Africa and around the world.  We embraced a new way of working, that involved, even in difficult budget environments, increasing our budget resources for Sub Saharan Africa to nearly $8.6 billion a year, the largest commitment to any part of the world.  It involved asking more of our African leaders, and saying, as we’re going to expand our investments in agriculture and power and health, we want to see more African leadership which we have seen in each of those areas.  It involves working with country governments more closely, to embrace a set of policy reforms that ensure that our investments can deliver results, and it involves really standing up, reaching out and to the private sector and attracting tens of billions of dollars in private investment commitments for these areas of work.  And while I agree, Representative Bass, that we should do more to communicate what we do, and that it was unfortunate that in that press conference folks wanted to know about who was getting sued by Congress and why, the reality is, the Summit itself, I hope, sent a profound message to those who are paying attention.  The fact that, how many of the top Fortune 100 CEO’s in our county did we have in person, in town, to engage with the 50 African heads of state.  The fact that the President spent all day, every minute of the entire day, and going late into the evening, tom personally moderate the sessions for the formal Summit.  And the fact that we heard of tens of billions of dollars of investment commitments in sectors like energy and agriculture.  Those announcements were made possible because of a handful of initiatives that I would like to describe to you because I think of them as defining of this new approach for how we work with Sub Saharan Africa. 

“The first is Feed the Future, and when President Obama took office, he really made this the top developmental priority. The slide you’re looking at is a picture of an Ethiopian farmer and daughter collecting the harvest.  In Ethiopia today, through Feed the Future, we’re working with DuPont, and a host of local farming cooperatives to increase the farm yields for 35,000 maize farmers and their families.  Today, as a part of our Feed the Future partnership, the government has liberalized its seed sector, has refined the way it protects private capital investments, has offered licenses and engaged foreign investors, and has built upon the innovation labs that were set up across American colleges and universities.  Now, we measure the results of these efforts through legitimate and widespread household surveys, and we now know that as a result of this program in Ethiopia, public and private, Ethiopia has driven down the rate of hunger, of poverty, of stunting, which is an expression of malnutrition in children that robs them of their future, and has increased the rate of reduction of poverty and malnutrition three times just the last two and a half years.  That’s an extraordinary achievement, and as a result 160,000 children today who would have been hungry are now laughing, learning, playing, going to school, and not because we’re handing our more American food, but because we’re helping their farmers, mostly women, improve the productivity from their own labor and their own ingenuity.  That kind of story is plating out in Ethiopia, but also in 14 other countries in Sub Saharan Africa.  It’s plating out across more than 200 companies that have committed more than $10 billion of private investments.  It’s playing out in the African Union that has reaffirmed this year is the year of agriculture for Africa, and has put into place a set of leadership commitments and policy reforms, and it plays out at a global level in last week’s announcement of global hunger levels that have come down by more than 40 million individuals, almost all of whom are in Sub Saharan Africa over the last three or four years. 

“These are extraordinary successes and gains, and I just want to note and thank the United States Congress and its leaders, including Representative Bass, for introducing, on a bipartisan basis in both the House and the Senate, Feed the Future legislation that will authorize this program into law and ensure that we can stick with it, using this model of development to continue to drive down hunger and poverty and drive up agricultural investment and growth for decades to come. So I would like to take this moment to ask for your support for Feed the Future, and that you support Representative Bass and that you support the bipartisan members of the House and Senate that are going to try to make this happen, we hope, in the Lame Duck Session this year, because I think it’s telling that our political leaders, at a time that, sometimes, is a little fractured and a little partisan, can come together to support this kind of an effort, executed to this level of excellence.   So thank you for your leadership, Representative Bass. 

“The other program I want to talk about is Power Africa.  And I know you heard about it a little this morning, but I was with President Obama last summer in Africa when he launched Power Africa.  The idea was very simple.  It’s Africa is home to six of the ten fastest growing economies in the world.  These economies are growing at 6, 7, 8% annualized per decade, and they’re doing that despite the fact that they have the highest energy costs anywhere on the planet.  Right now in the United States, we’re experiencing an investment boom because we have the lowest energyRajiv Shah USAID 4 costs anywhere on the planet.  And the President simply said, Why can’t we bring more technology, ingenuity and partnership to transform energy access in Sub Saharan Africa? And so we have.  We made a commitment to support the generation of 10,000 new megawatts of power generation in Africa.  We have achieved 8800 megawatts of that in just one year alone.  We’ve worked with dozens of companies, to invest in large scale power plants and dozens of entrepreneurs to create little solar powered lighting systems for rural villages so that more kids can come home and read at night.  We’ve seen that, as this has moved forward, country governments have embraced the opportunity, and much of the African Leaders’ Summit accelerated the success and progress of Power Africa, allowing President Obama to, in less that one year, triple the commitments to announce that we will commit ourselves to produce 30,000 megawatts of energy in Sub Saharan Africa, and we will do it with the support of $26 billion of new private investment commitments that were made in the run-up to and at the African Leaders’ Summit.  These are extraordinary achievements.  You know, if we’re being honest, I think a lot of folks might have said that that kind of effort might be expected from other countries like China, where if you go and you see these big numbers and announcements, and some questions about would the American business community want to accelerate its efforts just as rapidly, and I think that was definitively answered in the context of the African Leaders’ Summit.  We’re eager to see if Congress can also pass the Electrify Africa Bill, and so we look forward to that effort being supported in authorizing legislation that can help that also succeed for the timeframes required to achieve the outcomes we seek.

“Let me close just by noting the reality of the more competitive world that we live in. I am struck, despite the success of these initiatives, that every time I visit Africa, we will see Turkish business leaders showing up to make investments.  We’ll see a lot of Chinese infrastructure already on the ground.  And we know that countries like Brazil have more embassies in Africa today than the United Kingdom does.  The reality is, I think the rest of the world already knows that Africa is going to be a driver of growth, of investments and prosperity for decades to come and they’re already playing aggressively to position themselves to be beneficiaries of those trade and economic relationships.  Sometimes, the United States is criticized for bringing to our model of partnership a set of conditions: our support for civil society, our political engagement to ensure that democratic rule of law is elevated as a priority.  Our insistence that the way our companies operate abide by laws such as the US Foreign Practices Act.  And a lot of folks believe that, because of those conditions, African leaders and businesses will turn to others as opposed to us.  And if there’s one reality coming out of the African Leaders’ Summit that I just want to highlight for you, it’s that the exact opposite is taking place.  That by and large, leaders seek American brands, and American companies.  They seek American partnership with US universities.  They want the reach of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, of the Dodd-Frank Disclosure Requirements, of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, to define how their economies grow, both so that a broader proportion of people in country experience the benefits of rapid growth, but also because it’s a symbol of mature, forward-looking leadership that has prioritized the future of countries and economies over the future of individuals.  And that’s what we need to continue to embrace and take forward.  It’s what we will continue to do through Power Africa and Feed the Future and all of these innovative new public-private partnerships.  It’s what we hope the laws that come into practice to support these efforts will enshrine.  And it’s why we remain very confident that no matter what you hear about other countries engaging in Africa, and we welcome their engagement so long as it’s transparent and helpful at reducing poverty and building a better life for everybody.  No matter what you hear, we’re confident that American leadership and American partnership and American trade with this vibrant and dynamic continent will remain the priority for African leaders, for businesses here, and for the global economy as it continues to evolve.  So thank you for your time and attention and thank you for being here today.”

Coming Soon: An analysis of USAID, its history in Latin America, its efforts to end hunger in India, its connection to Genetically Modified (GM) foods and major biotech agribusiness, and the implications for Afrika

Who Is Boko Haram?

 

Boko Haram Leader Abubacar Shekau.

Boko Haram Leader Abubacar Shekau.

EDITOR’s NOTE: A couple of weeks ago, a Congressional public meeting discussed the continuing situation in Northern Nigeria concerning the militant group Boko Haram.  We are all pretty much familiar with the abduction of the Chibok schoolgirls and the public threats made against them by Boko Haram’s leader.  We have heard about the bombings, and the #BringBackOurGirls Campaign gained a lot of needed publicity when First Lady Michelle Obama promoted the effort.  Here, we will attempt to share some information (certainly not all there is to know), from three Internet sources and from audio of the Congressional public meeting of July 10, about the Boko Haram crisis, who Boko Haram is, where the group came from, how it has been able to pose such a threat to none other than the vaunted Nigerian military, and what measures are currently being undertaken to answer what some now see as a potential threat to all of North and West Africa.  We end with a very brief comment on how the concept of “unintended consequences” seems to draw a line that leads back to the NATO-led, US-backed war against Libya in 2011.

The Boko Haram Logo.

The Boko Haram Logo.

Some Background on Boko Haram

This is an excerpt of what the free online encyclopedia Wikipedia says about Boko Haram (edited for length):

Boko Haram (usually translated as “Western education is a sin”), is a militant Islamist sect based in northern Nigeria.  Founded by Mohammed Yusuf in 2002, the organization seeks to establish an Islamic state in Nigeria.  The group was designated by the U.S. Department of State as a terrorist organisation in 2013.

In the first half of 2014 Boko Haram killed more than 2000 civilians, in about 95 attacks; and, in the preceding three years, more than 3000.  In May 2014, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan claimed that Boko Haram attacks have left at least 12,000 people dead and 8,000 crippled.

The group exerts influence in the northeastern Nigerian states of Borno, Adamawa, Kaduna, Bauchi, Yobe and Kano. In this region, a state of emergency has been declared. The group does not have a clear structure or evident chain of command and has been called “diffuse” with a “cell-like structure” facilitating factions and splits.  It is reportedly divided into three factions with a splinter group known as Ansaru. The group’s main leader is Abubakar Shekau. Its weapons expert, second-in-command and arms manufacturer was Momodu Bama.

The Boko Haram leadership has international connections to Al-Qa`ida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Al-Qa`ida core, Al-Shabab, the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), Mokhtar Belmokhtar’s factions, and other militant groups outside Nigeria.  Attacks by the group on international targets have so far been limited.  On November 13, 2013 the United States government designated the group a terrorist organization. On 22 May 2014, the United Nations Security Council added Boko Haram to its list of designated al-Qaeda entities, bringing “funding, travel and weapons sanctions” against the terrorist group.

Many of the group’s senior radicals were reportedly partially inspired by the late Islamic preacher known as Maitatsine.  Others believe that the group is motivated by inter-ethnic disputes as much as by religion, and that its founder Yusuf believed that a campaign of “ethnic cleansing” was being waged by Plateau State governor Jonah Jang against the Hausa and Fulani people.

Origin

In 1995, the group was said to be operating under the name Shabaab, Muslim Youth Organization with Mallam Lawal as the leader. When Lawal left to continue his education, Mohammed Yusuf took over leadership of the group. Yusuf’s leadership allegedly opened the group to political influence and popularity.

Yusuf officially founded the group in 2002 in the city of Maiduguri with the aim of establishing a Shari’a government in Borno State under then-Senator Ali Modu Sheriff.  He established a religious complex that included a mosque and a school where many poor families from across Nigeria and from neighbouring countries enrolled their children.

The center had ulterior political goals and soon it was also working as a recruiting ground for future jihadis to fight the state.  The group includes members who come from neighbouring Chad and Niger and speak only Arabic.

In 2004 the complex was relocated to Yusuf’s home state of Yobe in the village Kanamma near the Niger border.

Human Rights Watch researcher Eric Guttschuss told IRIN News that Yusuf successfully attracted followers from unemployed youth “by speaking out against police and political corruption”. Abdulkarim Mohammed, a researcher on Boko Harām, added that violent uprisings in Nigeria are ultimately due to “the fallout of frustration with corruption and the attendant social malaise of poverty and unemployment”. … Chris Kwaja, a Nigerian university lecturer and researcher, asserts that “religious dimensions of the conflict have been misconstrued as the primary driver of violence when, in fact, disenfranchisement and inequality are the root causes”. Nigeria, he points out, has laws giving regional political leaders the power to qualify people as ‘indigenes’ (original inhabitants) or not. It determines whether citizens can participate in politics, own land, obtain a job, or attend school. The system is abused widely to ensure political support and to exclude others. Muslims have been denied indigene-ship certificates disproportionately often.

Nigerian opposition leader Buba Galadima says: “What is really a group engaged in class warfare is being portrayed in government propaganda as terrorists in order to win counter-terrorism assistance from the West.”

Beginning of violence

The group conducted its operations more or less peacefully during the first seven years of its existence (with an exception of some skirmishes in Kannama in 2004).  That changed in 2009 when the Nigerian government launched an investigation into the group’s activities following reports that its members were arming themselves. …

In the wake of the 2009 crackdown on its members and its subsequent reemergence, the growing frequency and geographical range of attacks attributed to Boko Harām have led some political and religious leaders in the north to the conclusion that the group had now expanded beyond its original religious composition to include not only Islamic militants, but criminal elements and disgruntled politicians as well. …

Mohammed Yusuf in custody.

Mohammed Yusuf in custody.

When the government came into action, several members of the group were arrested in Bauchi, sparking deadly clashes with Nigerian security forces which led to the deaths of an estimated 700 people. … The group’s founder and then leader Mohammed Yusuf was killed during this time while in police custody. …

Reemergence

After the killing of Mohammed Yusuf, the group carried out its first attack in Borno in January 2011. It resulted in the killing of four people.  Abubakar Shekau, a former deputy to Yusuf, took control of the group after Yusuf’s death in 2009. … Since Shekau’s rise, the violence has only escalated in terms of both frequency and intensity.

State counter-offensive

According to Human Rights Watch, during the period between 2009 and beginning of 2012, Boko Harām was responsible for over 900 deaths.

On 14 May 2013, President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency in the states of Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa in a bid to fight the activities of Boko Harām. He ordered the Nigerian Armed Forces to the three areas around Lake Chad.  As of 17 May, Nigerian armed forces’ shelling in Borno resulted in at least 21 deaths.  A curfew was imposed in Maiduguri as the military used air strikes and shellings to target Boko Harām strongholds.  The Nigerian state imposed a blockade on the group’s traditional base of Maiduguri in Borno in order to re-establish Nigeria’s “territorial integrity”.

On 21 May, the Defence Ministry issued a statement that read it had “secured the environs of New Marte, Hausari, Krenoa, Wulgo and Chikun Ngulalo after destroying all the terrorists’ camps”. …

On 29 May, Boko Harām’s leader Abubakar Shekau, following military claims that the group had been halted, released a video in which he said the group had not lost to the Nigerian armed forces. In the video he showed charred military vehicles and bodies dressed in military fatigues. …

[Shekau] has taken responsibility for the April 2014 kidnapping of over 200 school girls.  On 6 May 2014, eight more girls were kidnapped by suspected Boko Harām gunmen.  In a videotape, Shekau threatened to sell the kidnapped girls into slavery.  On May 12, 2014 Boko Harām released a video which shows the kidnapped girls and alleging that the girls had converted to Islam and would not be released until all militant prisoners were freed.  On May 17, 2014, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan and the presidents of Benin, Chad, Cameroon and Niger met in Paris and agreed to combat Boko Harām on a coordinated basis, sharing in particular surveillance and intelligence gathering. Chad President Idriss Deby said after the meeting African nations were determined to launch a total war on Boko Harām. Westen nations, including Britain, France, Israel, and the United States had also pledged support.

On 22 May 2014 Boko Harām was officially declared a terrorist group affiliated to Al-Qaeda and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb by the United Nations Security Council.  International sanctions including asset freeze, travel ban and arms embargo were imposed against the group.

On May 2014, Nigerian soldiers shot at the car of their divisional commander whom they suspected of colluding with Boko Harām and it was reported that nine Nigerian generals were being investigated for suspected sale of weapons to Boko Harām.

Is Western Education a Sin?

The Wikipedia article cited above began by stating that the name “Boko Haram” is “usually translated as ‘Western education is a sin’”, but that translation of the name is not correct, according to a number of researchers into the Arabic and Hausa languages which are commonly spoken in Northern Nigeria among the Muslim population.  Two articles, which we reference below, clarify what has been a fair bit of confusion about the name and the initial inspiration for the organization.

From the article Who, What, Why: Exactly what does the phrase Boko Haram mean?, BBC News Magazine Monitor, 13 May 2014:

The official name of the Boko Haram group is actually “Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad”, which in Arabic means “People of the Sunnah (the practice and examples of the Prophet Muhammad’s life) for Preaching and Jihad Group”. (Emphasis added by the Editor)

But the Hausa-speaking residents in the north-eastern city of Maiduguri, where the group had its headquarters, dubbed it Boko Haram

… and the name stuck in the media.

The word “haram” does mean “prohibited” or “sin” in Arabic.  But “boko” not only does not mean “western education”, it also is not an Arabic word.  It means “inauthentic” or “fake” in Hausa, according to Mohammed Kabir of the BBC’s Hausa Service (continuing from the BBC article):

The word’s evolution is bound up with colonialism. In 1903 the Sokoto caliphate, which ruled parts of what is now northern Nigeria, Niger and southern Cameroon, fell under British control. It led to anger among Muslims at the imposition of a non-Islamic education system.

The term “ilimin boko” was used to describe the kind of schooling the colonialists brought with them. Literally ilimi is education (an n is added when it appears as part of a phrase). So ilimin boko is fake education. The fakeness described the foreign form of education being imposed. And the foreigners involved were Western. So it can mean “Western education” in a pejorative sense. Over time the phrase ilimin boko became shortened to just boko. But everybody knows that it is shorthand, Kabir says. (from the article Who, What, Why: Exactly what does the phrase Boko Haram mean?, BBC News Magazine Monitor, 13 May 2014.)

Another article, titled “Boko Haram” doesn’t really mean “Western education is a sin”, by Christian Science Monitor staff writer Dan Murphy (http://www.csmonitor.com), concurs, referencing the research of Paul Newman, professor emeritus in linguistics at Indiana University and one of the world’s leading authorities on the Hausa language:

It turns out the Hausa language doesn’t have a four-letter word that means “Western education.”  It isn’t a mash-up or an acronym.  What it has is a word that came to be applied to a century-old British colonial education policy that many Hausa-speakers saw as an attempt, more-or-less, to colonize their minds.

Newman writes that “boko” has a variety of meanings focused around denoting “things or actions having to do with fraudulence, sham, or inauthenticity” or deception. He says [a] false linkage to the English word “book” was first made in a 1934 Hausa dictionary by a Western scholar that listed 11 meanings for the word – ten of them about fraudulent things and the final one asserting the connection to “book.”  An incorrect assertion, says Newman. …

Newman explains that when Britain’s colonial government began introducing its education system into Nigeria, seeking to replace traditional Islamic education (including replacing the Arabic script traditionally used to write Hausa with a Roman-based script that they also quickly called “boko”) , this was seen as a “fraudulent deception being imposed upon the Hausa by a conquering European force.”

Newman accepts (as can been in the passage above) that “boko” is reasonably associated with “Western education” in English translation today. But the actual resistance was to something being imposed by triumphant foreigners.  (from “Boko Haram” doesn’t really mean “Western education is a sin”, by staff writer Dan Murphy, http://www.csmonitor.com)

The Policy Breakfast and Panel on Boko Haram

 

Congressmember Karen Bass D-CA).

Congressmember Karen Bass D-CA).

This brings us to a Policy Breakfast that was held in the Cannon House Office Building in Washington, DC on Wednesday, July 10, 2014.  Congressmember Karen Bass (D-CA), Ranking Member of the Africa Subcommittee in the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has been holding a serried of “Policy Breakfast” sessions in which Members of Congress, Senators, Ambassadors and other experts have discussed issues of importance to United States foreign policy relating to the Continent of Africa.  Congressmember Bass has been quite active in seeking to make information on current events in Africa known and understood to the concerned public, specifically human rights organizations and advocates for Africa.  Of course, any panel discussion or hearing on Africa that is sponsored in the halls of the US government will be heavily influenced by US foreign policy objectives and not necessarily on the struggle for the liberation, independence and empowerment of African people, but these Policy Breakfast events are useful in that they allow one to learn more about what is happening on the ground on the Continent as well as what the plans are of the United States and its allies in Africa.  Even if one sees the entire perspective of the United States as dedicated to the exploitation of the Mother Continent, sessions such as this one allow us to better understand what the US plans to do in Africa, what other actors are doing positively or negatively, and what the various organizations in the NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) community think, feel and are planning in response.

Instability in Northern Nigeria and the Ongoing Threat of Boko Haram House Subcommittee on Africa Policy Breakfast

Hosted by the Office of Ranking Member Karen Bass, House Africa Subcommittee

With co-hosts Rep. Eliot Engel, Ranking Member, House Foreign Affairs Committee; Sen. Chris Coons, Chairman of Senate Subcommittee on African Affairs; Rep. Chris Smith, Chairman of House Africa Subcommittee 

The Politicians Speak

First was perhaps the most senior current member and the “Dean” of the House of Representatives, Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY).  “When sometimes I’m so disappointed in the way the world has treated Africa, and I look and see the progress that’s been made, and I think that only a few hundred years ago, where Africa was in the world, and to see what is happening now, I think all of you, all, of us, certainly in the broad term of history, can say that we were pioneers almost, in bringing about the changes in a situation that should never have existed.  And so Karen, I take great pride in the fact that, even though at my age I think it’s really late that we got started, in terms of how old we are as a nation and how great Africa has and will continue to be, that we may even consider ourselves a pioneers in restoring the justice and equity that the countries in Africa deserve.”

Congressmember Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) also spoke.  “Nigeria is such an important country.  It has the strongest economy in all of Africa.  Its population is over half that of the United States and its resources are tremendously rich in oil and other natural resources.  And I’m so distressed about what is happening with the 200 girls and the violence with Boko Haram.  And I really feel that we should be doing a Marshall Plan for Nigeria.  I think that one of the best ways we’ve ever spent money was the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe which is now a strong trading partner and a strong, strong democracies throughout Europe.  We need the same attention to Africa and a good place to start would be Nigeria, the most successful economy.  To me it’s troubling beyond belief that a terrorist organization has such sway there that 200 innocent young girls, although some were able to escape, are bring held in captivity.  That the president has said ‘we know where they are, but we can’t get them out because of Boko Haram.’  We have Special Forces over there, but every single nation in this world should be showing their concern to give stability to Nigeria; a country that cannot support and protect innocent little girls needs a lot of help.  And I think that not only America but all of us should be there and I think we should be calling for a Marshall Plan for Nigeria, starting with getting the girls out, and back home.

Congressmember Barbara Lee (D-CA, recently appointed by Congress and President Obama to represent the house in the United Nations): “Congressmember Bass is doing a fantastic job as our Ranking Member on the Subcommittee for Africa. … taken this Subcommittee to the next level and really has made Africa a very central focus of our foreign policy, and that is extremely important in this day and time, given what has taken place, not only in Nigeria but throughout the continent. … We have got to keep a focus… on these girls and bring these girls back. … Who knows how they’re being treated. … We know that they are at risk of violence and we need to insist that … the government of Nigeria along with our government and the entire world community keep a focus and do everything within our power to find these girls and to being them home.  This is the least we can do.  We know that Boko Haram is an organization that has killed thousands of people over the last few years and we’ve not had a real priority and focus on going after them like we do other groups, and I think we have to rev this up a bit.  Insist that the press continue to focus on it.  Insist that we here on the Hill continue to focus on these young girls and the families. … I think we really need to figure out a way to help these girls and the families. … There’s so much work that we need to do.  Finally … as we move … into this century, we need to remember that the continent of Africa is an equal partner with the United States.  Whether it be trade, aid, addressing HIV and AIDS, poverty elimination, whatever the issues are, we have to make sure that this partnership not only comes together in a respectful way, but that it grows.  And that it develops so that the continent of Africa and the people of Africa can really achieve the great, great, great potential that we know that it has. 

Congressmember Mark Meadows (R-NC) of the Africa Subcommittee: “I’ve traveled to the Continent of Africa a number of times and until you see up close and personal, the issues and struggles that many communities face, it really doesn’t touch you personally. … my objective is to take the issues that so many of us deal with in Africa, bring them back to the United States where people, whether it’s in California, or New York, or North Carolina, can feel that. …”

Congressmember David Cicilline (D-RI): “Karen has used this Breakfast Series to really elevate the importance of Africa in our foreign policy, the importance of Africa to the world … really leading the effort to be sure that that information is shared not only with her colleagues but with the broader public and particularly here in Washington through this series.

Congressmember Gregory Meeks (D-NY) was introduced but did not make a statement.

Also present were a group referred to as the Young African Leaders at Howard University.  They were briefly recognized.

PANEL DISCUSSION

 

The Panel.

The Panel: Amb. Robert Jackson (US), Amb. (Retired) Robin Sanders, Amb. Adebowale Adefuye (Nigeria).

The Moderator of the Panel Discussion was Ambassador (Retired) Robin Sanders, former US Ambassador to Nigeria, Founder and CEO of the FEEEDS Advocacy Initiative and owns FE3DS, LLC, both of which work on economic development, human rights and business strategies for Africa.  Prior to that, she served as the US Ambassador to Nigeria (2007-2010), Republic of Congo (2002-2005), and US Permanent Representative to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).  (from the event Program)

Before starting the panel discussion featuring her two guests, Ms. Sanders recognized the African Diplomatic Corps, which included Ambassadors from Rwanda, Chad and Niger, as well as the Charge d’Affaires from Zimbabwe.  She then introduced the two guest panelists: Ambassador Adebowale Adefuye of the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and Ambassador Robert P. Jackson, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, US Department of State.

Ambassador Adebowale Adefuye has served as Nigeria’s representative to the United States since March of 2010.  He previously served as envoy to both Jamaica and the United Kingdom.  He has also worked as an advisor to ECOWAS from 2008 to 2010.  He holds a Ph.D. in History from the University of Ibadan.  (from the event Program)

Ambassador Robert P. Jackson became Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for African Affairs in October of 2013.  He most recently served as Ambassador to the Republic of Cameroon.  His previous assignments include posting s as Deputy Chief of Mission and Charge d’Affaires in Dakar, Senegal, and Director of the Office for the Promotion of Human Rights and Democracy at the Department of State in Washington, DC.

Ms. Sanders started with what she described as a  a “scene setter”: “We all know that Boko Haram has reached about 60,000 square kilometers of territory in Nigeria.  To give you a US analogy, it’s about the size of the state of Georgia or the size of the state of Wisconsin.  So when you think about it, that’s a lot of territory.  We’re looking at a lot of internally displaced people … about 3.3 million in that 60,000 square kilometer area, or those that have moved out of the area completely.  If you’re following the news, of course you’ve heard about the missing 247 girls, but prior to that even, there were horrendous attacks on villages throughout northeastern Nigeria and in other places.  I know you’ve heard about the bombings that have happened in Abuja, Kano, and Kaduna, with the most recent one in the heart of the capital … so we know that they not only have influence in the northeast but they have reached, either through sleeper cells or direct contact in the heart of Abuja, the capital of Nigeria.  The kidnapping of young girls is not limited to that.  We also know that they burn and rout villages.  They kidnap young boys for recruitment and for training.  And so what they’re doing, really, is devastating the North.  There are food security issues because villages and commercial areas have dried up.  So we’re looking at a number of challenges here.  Security as well as humanitarian issues that we all need to take into account.  One of the things I want to ensure that we talk about today is the human factor.  What’s happening to the girls that have returned.  How they’re being supported through training and grief counseling, particularly for their families and for those who have returned.  We’re also going to hear a little this morning about the rise of the vigilante groups.  There were groups that have come up in villages that have filled in the security vacuum there in some of the areas of northeastern Nigeria.  We know that recently one of the leaders of the vigilante groups has been captured and claims that one of the things he did was actually to be a scout for Boko Haram as opposed to protecting village areas … so we’re going to be looking at a range of issues this morning.”

Ms. Sanders asked her first question to Ambassador Adefuye: “Looking at the area where Boko Haram’s current reach is, what is the perspective of the Nigerian government on what is being done to draw back Boko Haram?”

According to Ambassador Adefuye, the Nigerian government feels “excessively unfairly treated by the media” in the US, which insists on emphasizing the negatives of what is happening there.  Yes, the situation with the abduction of the girls from Chibok is bad, he said, but there is more to Nigeria than that.  “Every single thing a responsible government should have done, we have done it.  Either to contain Boko Haram or to prevent them from getting to the capital.  They have been confined to three states of the six where they have been found.  Acts of violence are being contained.  We know where the girls are, but we need to get them out safely.  These things are complicated.”  He noted the complications for the US in rescuing the hostages in Iran in the late 1970’s.  Boko Haram started as a local group pressing local demands.  The global Al Qaida movement brought them in and gave them support.  “90% are not Nigerian nationals.  They are people who came from outside.”  Because of ECOWAS protocols, there is free movement from Chad, Niger and Cameroon.  “As far as we are concerned, we are doing the best we can.  I challenge anyone to say … what ought to have been done by Nigeria that we did not do.”

Ms. Sanders then asked Ambassador Jackson, “What things should we be doing more of to stem the tide of Boko Haram, in terms of freeing the girls and protecting civilians more?”

Ambassador Jackson replied, “The problem of Boko Haram is not new and the roots run deep.”  The group became violent in 2009 but originally lodged “legitimate complaints about corruption and a feeling of political disenfranchisement, and when it turned violent it built off those complaints.  But let’s be clear, its philosophy is abhorrent and its methods are even more abhorrent.  It has killed Muslims and Christians.  It has kidnapped Muslims and Christians.  Soldiers and civilians.  Africans and non Africans.  This year the conflict has claimed thousands of lives on top of the thousands who perished in prior years.  Among other crimes, Boko Haram has conducted deadly assaults on villages in Northeastern Nigeria, and that happens on a regular basis, and we have seen some villages repeatedly victimized like the area around Chibok where the school girls were taken prisoner.  We are also seeing bombings in Abuja, Kano, Kaduna, Maiduguri and elsewhere, and attacks have now spread into neighboring Cameroon.  We see Boko Haram seeking support and refuge inn neighboring countries.”  After the schoolgirls were captured, the United States deployed an interagency team to Abuja to help with recovery efforts, including unmanned aerial surveillance on the girls’ whereabouts, and it is regularly refining that information.  The girls are currently being held in the Sambisi Forest, but that forest is about the size of the state of Maryland.  Also, hundreds of other women & children have been kidnapped.  They are trying to help returned kidnappees to re-integrate into their communities.  And there have been more kidnappings of Muslims, Christians and foreigners.  The US is working to strengthen Nigeria’s democracy and economy, which is an economic powerhouse in Africa, to promote free, fair and peaceful elections next year, and to assist it in defeating Boko Haram, but that it also addresses the issues of corruption and “political disenfranchisement complaints that Boko Haram feeds on.  We are doing what we can, but … even our own country would have great difficulty launching an operation to rescue over 200 girls.  We need to be realistic about what can be done in the short term.  This is going to require a lot of intelligence, a lot of planning, and we are cooperating with the Nigerian government to make that happen.”

Ms. Sanders followed up: “What is happening on the regional side?  Are some of the girls in neighboring countries now?”

Ambassador Jackson: In may France hosted a summit with Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria and they agreed on a set of principles with regard to enhancing cooperation on the borders, an intelligence center in Abuja and military cooperation in border regions.  “We don’t think the girls have left Nigeria. Cameroon has deployed 3000 troops on its border and has engaged and killed scores if not hundreds of Boko Haram over the last several weeks. Niger and Chad (working through the Lake Chad Basin Commission) are partnering with Nigeria to exchange real time information about movements they are seeing and we are working with them to coordinate more effectively.  What we are doing, we provide US $700 million in assistance to Nigeria this year, the largest assistance budget to any country in Sub Saharan Africa.  It’s multi faceted.  It includes food aid, counseling, military training and assistance, screening Nigerian military units we work with” to make sure they are not human rights violators.  The assistance includes “counter-terrorist activities, education for girls in Northern Nigeria because we see this as a need that Boko Haram has fed upon, a health program that includes a vaccination program, and help to displaced people, including those in the area, like from Northern Cameroon.”

There have also been questions about the activities of the Nigerian military forces, as well as antiquated bomb detection equipment.  Ms. Sanders asked Ambassador Adefuye, “What are you doing to address those challenges?”

Ambassador Adefuye repeated his expression of gratitude to a number of US officials.  He continued, “Our armed forces are not perfect.  We are not familiar with the issue of terrorism.  Our security forces have been very influential in getting democracy restored in various theaters in Africa, but we were not prepared for the extent of the challenges” from what was a local group pressing local demands but is now a West African branch of Al Qaida.  “We have 170 million people.  1 of 6 Africans is a Nigerian.  One of 10 Africans in the world is a Nigerian.  This is a very complex issue.  We appreciate the help from the US.  If Boko Haram succeeds, the rest of Africa is in danger.”  This is a “part of a worldwide Al Qaida movement.  We cannot solve that problem within such a short time.  We have done much, from homekeeping to removing incompetent officials.”  One thing has been overlooked—the domestic factor in the Boko Haram crisis.  Elections will be held next year.  The 2011 elections were called the most peaceful, best organized by the US.  “Some of those who lost said they would make Nigeria difficult to govern for [Nigerian President] Goodluck Jonathan. … these people are very happy and are using this as leverage against Jonathan.”  As for what has been perceived as a lack of transparency about Nigerian government actions, “You cannot launch covert action and rush to the press to announce it.  We are doing the best we can (to deal with Boko Haram), to reform our country, to organize our forces.” … Because of the Boko Haram threat, “Nigeria is in danger, the whole of Africa is in danger, the Western World is in danger.  And so we will join hands together to deal with this problem, and we are going to be successful.”

On the question of the vigilante groups who have occasionally turned aggressive against their own people as the Anti-Balaka (a vigilante group that was supposed to protect villages from the attacks of Seleka militias) did in Central African Republic, and the status of cooperation between Nigeria and its neighbors?

Ambassador Jackson: The State Department has created a stand alone Nigeria unit, the Nigeria Policy and Operations Group for the next year, to concentrate on Boko Haram and the Nigerian elections, also to deal with corruption in Nigeria as well.  The Leahy Amendment is designed to make sure the US does not train units that are violating human rights.  There are many Nigerian units that we can work well with.  Those who are violators are entered in a database.  This enhances the partnership.  “We’ve talked about the vigilante groups.  They are mainly village groups as far as we can tell.  They are still getting organized.  It’s important that they do not try to take on the broad mission that the security forces are pursuing.” 

Ambassador Adefuye: “On the issue of human rights, my problem with the Western based human rights groups is the source of the information and the nature of the activities.  There is too much advocacy for the human rights of Boko Haram and not enough for the victims of Boko Haram.  It is very difficult to deal with human rights violations in a state of emergency.  We did not remove democracy or create any extrajudicial institutions in dealing with Boko Haram.  We deal with them according to our laws which respect human rights.  The national newspapers are also owned by the main opposition to Goodluck Jonathan.  Meanwhile, those who were jailed for being related in some way to Boko Haram suspects were released.  We are not perfect; just that there is too much emphasis on the negative and ignoring the positive.  As for cooperation with our neighbors, we virtually founded ECOWAS. Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger and Chad meet to patrol and secure the borders.  Vigilante groups are arising when the villagers get together to protect themselves as opposed to waiting for the national police.  They are being trained and act as a local arm of the police; we are working to make sure that their activities are structured so that they are not a source of human rights violations.”

At this point, Congresswoman Fredericka Wilson (D-FL) from Miami, Florida was recognized and given a few moments top speak about her experience during her recent visit to Nigeria.  “When I began to read about Boko Haram in the paper, I was astonished because no one was saying anything.  I called Rep. Bass.  I authored a resolution condemning Boko Haram.  Ultimately … it went to the floor [of the House of Representatives] … where it passed 411-2.  Within days the Foreign Affairs Committee asked me if I wanted to go to Nigeria. … I went to Nigeria with 3 other Congresspeople, Steve Stockman (R-TX), Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX) and Lois Frankel (D-FL).  What we saw was unbelievable.  I had the opportunity to meet victims who had escaped and their parents.  The first victim I met had a deep cut in her throat where Boko Haram had tried to decapitate her.  Her husband, who was a police officer, had been decapitated and they had placed his head next to her.  As she screamed with these wounds on her neck, they cut up her arms and ran. … When Boko Haram had kidnapped the girls, they had been looking for the boys to kidnap them and train them to be Boko Haram members. … Since there were no boys there they took the girls, who had been studying.  These girls were very smart; some were able to trick Boko Haram and sneak away.”  One Boko Haram man who attempted to rape one of the girls stopped when she screamed that she was on her period.  This shocked him “and she said ‘I ran and I ran and I ran until I had no life in me’. … The fathers were crying because people in the meeting were saying ‘we will probably never find these girls’,” which only traumatized the parents even more.  “I met with the Bring Back Our Girls coalition which tweeted every day and met every day across the street from our hotel; lawyers, all kinds of people who are leaders in Nigeria.”  As they met sometimes they were harassed by police and beaten.  “The next day they were back.  They asked me to help them keep this in the news and the headlines. … We’re asking you today to become members in our Tweet War. … And I don’t even want to hear that they can’t find these girls.  They can do anything they want to do.  And if you can put a man on the moon and you find bin Laden, you can find these girls and bring them out. … We cannot let these girls down, and we cannot let this leave the headlines and we cannot let these parents down.”

Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) started the next round of questions, which now came from the audience.  “What is Nigeria doing to reach out to the tribal leaders and the population in the North that has some sympathy for Boko Haram?  What about the Muslim countries in Africa and the other leaders in Africa to protect the people of their country and their continent?  Boko Haram is likelier to listen to African leaders who have supported them in the past.”

Ambassador Adefuye: “The leaders of authentic Islam have disassociated themselves from Boko Haram. … The leaders of the Muslim community in Nigeria have said that Boko Haram is not Islam.  There is hardly any authentic Muslim who [supports] what Boko Haram is doing. … They kill Muslims, they kill Christians.  There have been meetings at ECOWAS and the AU that have condemned Boko Haram. … Every African country has condemned Boko Haram.  Boko Haram is an international nuisance, West African branch of Al Qaida.  No authentic Muslim would support Boko Haram.”

Comments from the audience included statements that African countries have assisted with the effort and not just the West; several people who agreed with Rep. Maloney that a Marshall Plan for Nigeria is needed but one is also needed for Africa and to concentrate on Boko Haram; and a query as to what steps have been taken to engage Nigerian Muslim scholars and to protect Muslim scholars.

Ambassador Adefuye: “We have made it a point to include Muslims and Muslim scholars especially.  Most of those in the lead of the struggle against Boko Haram are Muslims.  Boko Haram kills Muslims who resist them as well as non-Muslims.”

More questions included: Does Nigeria feel that it is in a precarious position being accused of human tights violations when dealing with terrorists who violate human rights? and, How can the Nigerian government be intolerant toward gays and lesbians and then want Boko Haram to be tolerant toward others?

Ambassador Adefuye: On the human rights tightrope they must walk, “Yes, we feel we are between a rock and a hard place when we use necessary force to  attack Boko Haram and then we are accused of violating human rights.  There is a Nigerian proverb, When the fly bites the man, there is no issue.  When the man bites the fly, people start talking. … On gay rights, this is not an issue.  Some want an opportunity to be seen as martyrs.  It is not an issue!  Homosexuality is a way of life in Nigeria.  It’s a part of the culture.  It may be an issue here, but in Nigeria it’s not an issue.”

Still more questions included: How would you suggest sorting out rumors from fact and what measures are in place to help do this?  Also, one audience member questioned the Nigerian government’s inaction on several initiatives and intelligence geared toward fighting Boko Haram.

Ambassador Jackson answered the first comment: “We make every effort to use the best information.  There are opportunities to give feedback on the information.  The Leahy Amendment [reviews] and approves Nigerian military units and police units to receive US military training and equipment.  In 2012, the last year for which we have figures, over 85% were approved.  That does not mean the other 15% had committed violations; only that we still had some questions regarding their eligibility to receive the training and assistance.”

Ambassador Adefuye: “On the information that was or was not acted on–give me evidence.  Not just ‘someone told me.’  There are many attempted bombings that have been prevented.  For every bombing, there were 10 or more that were prevented.  You have to assess information and evidence before you accept it as evidence.”

This audience was clearly invested in this issue and the people were not shy about asking questions. How have the inter-agency teams helped?  What are the specific measures to stop the movement of Boko Haram from one country to another?  What is it that Nigeria is going to do to restore faith in the government for its citizens, bring back the girls and protect the citizens?  And, What advice do you have for those who will be traveling to Nigeria in the near future?

Ambassador Jackson: “Inter-agency teams have provided counter-terrorism assistance including training on detection of bombs, basic forensics, post-blast investigations and crisis management. Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon and Niger have all sent additional troops to the border; Cameroon has sent the most and has engaged Boko Haram successfully.

Ambassador Adefuye: On the question of travel, even with Boko Haram here, “travel has not ceased. … You only have to go to Nigeria once. … Then you will realize that [much of the security concern] is exaggerated.  There is a lot of money, a lot of investments to be made.”  On restoring faith, “we are doing the best we can.  Because of 9-11, no one lost faith in the US.”

More questions from the audience included: Who is Boko Haram?  How many people?  Are they an effective fighting force?  Where are they getting their weapons? Nigeria doesn’t manufacture any weapons. Cameroon doesn’t manufacture any weapons.  Yet Boko Haram has weapons that some are saying is superior to the Nigerian military.  So where did their weapons come from?

Boko Haram activities in Northern Nigeria.

Areas of Boko Haram activity in Northern Nigeria.

Ambassador Jackson: “In terms of numbers, I don’t think anyone knows the exact size of Boko Haram.  It’s in the thousands by our estimates, led by Abubacar Shakar, and the weapons are coming primarily from Libya, but because of bank robberies in Nigeria the Boko Haram members have been able to purchase weapons and bomb making materials and where they procure them is where other people procure them.  But a lot of the weaponry has come from Libya.”

Ambassador Adefuye: Boko Haram started a long time ago.  “Problems of Boko Haram were started by previous governments and not by Goodluck Jonathan.”  On the issue of equipment, “it has been said it comes from overseas.  And after the collapse of [Libyan President Muammar] Gaddafi, you saw what has happened in Mali, and then from there they came to Nigeria.  On elections, we conducted a very successful election in 2011.”  A commission that monitors transparency has been involved “and we have been giving them maximum cooperation. … The 2015 elections will be better than 2011.”  People have been talking to Boko Haram and through Muslim scholars.  Boko Haram exists in factions, and “no single person has come out and said I am Boko Haram.  Even despite that we have tried to contact them through third parties.”

The last few questions seemed to get just a little bit hotter. 

Salih Booker, a longtime activist in African affairs and onetime CEO of Africa Action, asked a pointed question to Ambassador Jackson, who heretofore had been spared the more contentious comments.  Noting Ambassador Jackson’s earlier reference to 85% of the Nigerian forces being approved for training and assistance (with the implication that 15% were ineligible), he pressed the Ambassador on President Obama’s requested waiver of the Leahy Amendment.  “What is the rationale for this, given that the death of the Boko Haram founder [Mohammed Yusuf] in Nigerian police custody is seen as the trigger for the increase in violence?”

Ambassador Jackson responded: “We did not say 15% of the security forces were ineligible, only that they had not been approved.  The waiver would allow the provision of assistance by the Department of Defense notwithstanding other issues, subject to congressional notification.  That does not apply to the State Department.”  On efforts to strengthen the interfaith connections and opportunities for business in Nigeria, Ambassador Jackson said this: “As for interfaith relations, we’ve been meeting with religious leaders to improve outreach to Christian and Muslim communities in Nigeria.  There are opportunities for businesses.  There are travel warnings, but there opportunities for business and an active commercial section that can give advice.”

More questions from the audience: What is the Nigerian government doing to diffuse the belief that there are government officials behind Boko Haram?  What would you say to private sector interests looking to do business in Northern Nigeria and to deal with security issues?  And, as if the questioning had to end on a more contentious note, one audience member asked, Are we facing the beginning of a failed state in Nigeria?

Ambassador Adefuye had been taking the more difficult questions for most of the day, perhaps because of the perception that corruption is so widespread in Nigeria that his statements seemed defensive to some in the audience.  Still, he answered every question, even this last one, to which he had a visceral reaction.  On the question of becoming a failed state, “When a government is having a security problem it does not mean it’s a failed state.”  The primary area where the Nigerian government is having the most difficulty dealing with Boko Haram is in “three states out of 26.  Please, come on.”  On government officials being implicated in complicity with Boko Haram, “You always find some people who are trying to take advantage of the situation.  Some people even in the government are trying to take advantage of the situation.”  On private sector, “the good news is that Boko Haram has failed to disrupt private investment in Nigeria.  You only have to go there once, and you will keep coming back.  There are many American investors there.  Boko Haram has failed to disrupt investment there. … We have become the largest economy in Africa, and the 26th largest economy in the world.  That is not a characteristic of a failed state, my friend.  Please.”

With that, Ms. Sanders thanked the two panelists, the session came to a close, and a few of the members of the audience spoke personally to the Ambassadors. 

I asked Ambassador Jackson after the discussion about the weapons from Libya and when this occurred.  He stated that this happened “over the last two years, after the fall of Gadaffi.”  I asked him if this may be interpreted as an indication of blowback, and he said “I wouldn’t say blowback, but it was a consequence.”  When looking up the definition of “blowback” later, the first two words used are “unintended consequences”.  The NATO-led, US-backed attack on Libya, in which missile strikes in Tripoli sent President Gaddafi on the run, another missile strike in his hometown of Sirte flushed him from his “hiding place” and a third missile strike crippled his convoy and left him defenseless, directly caused his brutal assassination at the hands of Libyan rebels.  This was done not when Libya was a reputed supporter of terrorism, but after President Gaddafi had renounced terrorism, apologized for his role in fostering it, compensated some of the victims of those Libyans who had committed terrorist acts, and offered to assist NATO in keeping Al Qaida and their affiliated groups out of North Africa.  The results of that campaign are now clear: the US Embassy in Benghazi was bombed a year later, killing the Ambassador and three others; Islamist militant groups began to proliferate in Mali, destroying Afrikan monuments; the Seleka waged a reign of terror in the Central African Republic; and now Boko Haram has come across a cache of weapons that allowed it to intensify its resistance movement into a bloody campaign of terror in Northern Nigeria.  The only way in which this would not be seen as “blowback” is because the term technically denotes “unintended consequences of a covert operation that are suffered by the aggressor.”  In this case, the “action” (the war on Libya) was not “covert” and the “consequences” were not suffered by the “aggressor”.  Thus, the Boko Haram crisis may not be “blowback” from the war on Libya, but they certainly were an “unintended consequence”, which only means that Nigeria can thank the United States for much of what it is suffering today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The International Decade for Peoples of African Descent: An Analysis of the United Nations Consultation

EDITOR’S NOTE:  On Monday, July 14, an Informal Consultation was held at the United Nations in New York City to discuss the upcoming International Decade for Peoples of African Descent (January 1, 2015 – December 31, 2024).  The following is an account and analysis by one of the attendees at that consultation, Sis. Dòwòti Désir, Founder and President of the DDPA Watch Group,  www.ddpawatchgroup.infoShe can be reached at ddpawatchgroup@gmail.com.

UN Building 1

The International Decade for People of African Descent: Had?  Took?  Hoodwinked and Bamboozled?

By Dòwòti Désir

Over the past few weeks important meetings with the Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG) have been occurring at the United Nations both in Geneva and the UN’s New York Headquarters concerning the UN International Decade For People of African Descent 2015-2024.  A series of challenges face civil society, most notably a lack of openness and transparency concerning key issues that impact our immediate processes of engagement and our lives in the coming decade and beyond.  While those members of our social movements and civil society as a whole with the means and resources to attend the various consultations in Geneva did so, not without effort, the situation in New York has been extremely problematic.  With an abruptly announced teleconference call on 3rd July compounded with technical issues; closed governmental consultations on 7th July; inadequate notification of an informal consultation for civil society on 14 July; and an Ambassador (His Excellency Kingsley Mamobolo of South Africa) not fully briefed on the complex history of the Durban Declaration & Programme of Action Plan (DDPA), one wonders if the Decade isn’t on the verge of being had, took, hoodwinked and bamboozled?  The exclusion of related or parallel documents submitted by the Working Group of Experts of People of African Descent exacerbates our collective ability to access all documents, respond and/or contribute to their outcome.  Democratic participation has in short been subverted. 

As no formal minutes were taken during the informal consultation of 14 July (or presented to meeting participants afterwards), I have complied my notes from that meeting to share with those unable to attend.  My editorial comments are sprinkled through-out and were originally crafted the day of the meeting; they have since been modified or edited so they read more clearly:

July 14, 2014: This is an informal summation of what transpired today at the UN Informal Consultations for the International Decade for People of African Decent.  [My apologies for not writing or translating my observations in French, Spanish or Portuguese.]  The proceeding that took place today was as informal as possible and conducted in English only with no translations available for attendees.  There were NO documents circulated and I am not even certain if there were any UN personnel taking notes.  An underwhelming meeting, only a total of 36 people were in attendance.  For most of the session the microphones and video were not functioning.  It began at around 15:07 (3:07 pm) and ended at 17:18 (5:18 pm) Eastern Time (US).

South African Ambassador Kingsley Mamobolo right) with his assistant.

South African Ambassador Kingsley Mamobolo (right) with his assistant.

H.E. Ambassador Mamobolo very briefly shared some of his own background on this project but really began the meeting discussing concerns raised during the 3 July teleconference call stating that Geneva is working on translating the document presented to us recently in Portuguese, Spanish and French.  He made some reference to the website that would be used to keep civil society abreast of activities in the various languages.  He iterated the International Decade for People of African Descent runs from January 1, 2015 to December 31, 2024 with the theme of Recognition, Justice, and Development.  He mentioned the IGWG had three principal areas of disagreement:

1) A Forum for African Descendants requires monitoring and so certain practical questions were raised: What would be the financial implications of such a forum?  Where will the money come from for the Forum or various fora?
2) There is already a Permanent Forum for Indigenous People so why do we need one for African Descendants?
2a) He mentioned parenthetically there is a UN Declaration for People of African Descent at issue.  
3) Acknowledging the need for Reparations is a problem in the negotiations of the IGWG.  He cited the example of his country of South Africa and the challenges they faced there.

The UN Peace Garden.

The UN Peace Garden.

The Ambassador also talked about announcing the Decade at the end of the U.N. General Assembly debates to take advantage of the presence of as many Heads of State as possible.  (The body language of most people in the room seemed to agree with this rationale but this is subject to debate among us as civil society.)  This is the essence of the summation provided by the Ambassador.  I was struck by the brevity of his remarks, and his lack of familiarity on various issues that frame the International Decade, namely those of the Durban Declaration (from the 2001 World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa).  While I questioned the extent to which he could act as an effective advocate for us, I later learned the Ambassador has, however, only been in this position for roughly a year.  His effort to meet with civil society was nonetheless greatly appreciated.

Some of the participants at the UN Consultation.

Some of the participants at the UN Consultation.

 When the Ambassador concluded his remarks, questions and comments from the floor were opened up.  These are the issues raised:

  • ♦ The first speaker suggested the Ambassador should consider use of the World We Want 2015/My World Campaign to get the word out about the consultations and to bring greater transparency to this process.
  • ♦ Sister Gayle MacDougal introduced background about the DDPA and negotiation processes and suggested the current group (IGWG) represented by the Ambassador learn something about the negotiation processes and the issues raised at the table from the DDPA.  She also noted gender based issues are not addressed within the document — and that must change.
  • ♦ I spoke next and attacked the 3 points made by the Ambassador, framing my objections within the context of “Black or African Descendant Exceptionalism,” namely: 1) there is always money available for other fora EXCEPT those of African Descendants.  2) Other fora may exist EXCEPT those of African descendants.  My intervention made it clear that for a variety of reasons (which are on some level incomprehensible) African descendants are NOT considered Indigenous People so that the Permanent Forum for Indigenous Peoples does not address our issues and concerns.  This fact needs to be made clear to those who assume they are one and the same.  And finally 3) a crime against humanity was committed which allows for reparations — why is every victim of such a crime allowed reparations EXCEPT African descendants?  In conclusion, I spoke of the necessity to use the word “Reparations” because reparations is beyond a financial issue but a moral, scholarly/academic, scientific, social and economic one.  International Criminal Tribunals exist for these matters.  Referencing the failure to acquire reparations in South Africa that he made mention of earlier, I observed (for better or worse) in South Africa there was at least a Truth and Reconciliation Commission and we are not even being afforded that as a tool of redress as Afro-descendants.  I also shared that as a Haitian Vodou Priest who works with other priests of the AfroAtlantic traditions, everyday we are confronted with the trauma of African descendants based on the Transatlantic Slave Trade (Maafa) and its continued impact on the psyche, so reparations are needed.  I finally stated that from a legal perspective the absence of the word “reparations” has implications.  Without calling perpetrators to task — making them liable for their actions — what assurances do we have that this crime against humanity cannot happen to us again or to another group of people, if the violators are not held accountable?  I cited that even if symbolic, the word “reparations” must be applied in the outcome document to facilitate our ability to be seen and view ourselves as fully recognized human beings.
  • ♦ Dr. Waldaba Stewart made the lack of proper introductions an issue.
    Dr. Waldaba Stewart and Esmeralda Brown.

    Dr. Waldaba Stewart and Esmeralda Brown.

     Noting that we didn’t even know who was in the room with us, protocols were being breached.  He basically said that if openness and transparency were not adapted to these proceedings he would lead a boycott or demonstration right outside the doors of future proceedings.
    ♦ A Black psychologist called for the use of more precise language within the document.  She advised us, within the psychiatric profession, racism is diagnosed as a “toxic stressor.”  Use of such language is critical to make its impact on African Descendants clear.  That term, “toxic stressor”, should appear in the documents related to the International Decade.  She noted the word “disparities” was absent (in education, health, housing etc.) and must be used in the document; and finally, “children” must be referred to in the text, to mitigate the emotional and mental health of another generation of traumatized African descendants.
    ♦ Another person (an educator) who underscored all that was said before her began to outline specific language and recommendations for addressing the matters raised on Page 6 Section C of the declaration document of the International Decade, regarding Education.  She underscored the need for African-centered education, taught by African descendants for African descendants.  She also indicated this should start at primary and secondary schools.  The South African Ambassador responded that the specifics of education, housing, employment and the like would be presented to the Office of the High Commission on Human Rights and they would in turn speak to various UN agencies like Habitat for Humanity and UNESCO to address what modalities or mechanisms could be implemented to resolve the matters raised.  (In my estimate, we should keep in mind these agencies have limited funds to make anything happen for our community, and some like UNESCO have been fighting very hard with the General History of Africa to make its contents more accessible to all, yet the battle continues.)
    ♦ Other matters articulated from the floor had to do with the lack of transparency and openness in the proceedings; greater inclusion of the NGO community; how is the term African Descendant being defined — is it just a reference to the Diaspora?  Are Africans born on the continent included, etc.?  Attorney Roger Wareham made a point of stating the concerns of the International Decade and its historical framework are Pan African issues so that the global African community is included by the term “African Descendant.”

    Queen Mother Delois Blakely makes a strong point.

    Queen Mother Dr. Delois Blakely makes a strong point.

    The issue of reparations was bought up several times, especially by Queen Mother Dr. Delois Blakely, known as the “Community Mayor of Harlem”.
    ♦ Sister Esmeralda Brown and a young Sister named Shantrelle Williams (who was in Geneva on an internship over the summer) spoke about the Working Group of Experts of People of African Descent and observed how their programme of action was NOT incorporated in the IGWG document.  This exclusion, they repeated, was a source of confusion.  (At this juncture, it became apparent the presiding Ambassador was somewhat unfamiliar with the larger workings of these proceedings and the potential for conflict with the Working Group meeting as they were occurring at the same time as the IGWG).  We tried to get the point across to him that the language of the Working Group of Experts must frame the IGWG document and the Programme for the Decade.
    ♦ Her Excellency Rhonda King, an Ambassador from St. Vincent’s (representing CARICOM) spoke about the need for us to be strategic in our work because the governments who DO NOT want to see reparations are powerful and have many resources.  We must be strategic, she cautioned.
    ♦ Others repeated this point but I pointed out that we have experts among us (a point made earlier by Sister Esmeralda Brown during her intervention), reminding all present that we have had elders involved in this process for decades so at this point we must assume that they have been strategic about matters, but what we also seek is agency.  I mention two small things that could be done to facilitate acquisition of said agency: A) Taking advantage of the presence of the Heads of State by recommending they present letters of support for the International Decade for Peoples of African Descentso that they might also be held accountable and, we could leverage the support secured.  B) To allow NGO’s at least one hour to make a presentation before the representatives of the Member States so that they hear our unfiltered voices directly.  I closed by asking that we consider at the earliest occasion, identifying the next meeting date for consultations.
    ♦ The need for assessment reports during the Decade was also raised by a couple of people from the floor, including members of PANASTRAG.
    ♦ Brother Cliff, representing the Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus, spoke of the intersectional elements of the goals of the International Decade and key objectives of the African Union that helped to underscore some important subtle points made earlier.
    ♦ And finally, Brother Amilcar Priestley, Director of the Panama-based AfroLatino Project and one of the few youth attendees at the meeting, rightly called attention to an absence of reference to technology in the document presented by the IGWG.  He emphasized how access to digital technology is a critical imperative, if that divide and the many other disparities faced by African descendants are to be closed.  Digital technology affects our abilities to meet the goals of the International Decade for People of African Descent. 

In conclusion the Ambassador reiterated key points made from the floor to make certain we understood that he heard our urgent requests and expectations.  He of course made no promises, simply noting that he would relay our points back to the powers that be.  He also emphasized that consultations should occur throughout the Decade, not just now and in September.  Ambassador Mamobolo is apparently only acting in this capacity until September.  I would urge we provide him with all the necessary tools needed to understand the history and nature of our collective struggle.  He must be encouraged to be our advocate and not merely serve as a messenger of civil society during the IGWG consultations.  It is also crucial he and CARICOM understand that the right to reparations is a non-negotiable matter.  No one has the right to take the matter off the table unless each and every one of us as African descendants on all continents determines that is the case.  So long as even one person (of the hundreds of millions of us) of African descent demands reparations the matter must remain on the table.  We must NOT stand down!  We shall not be had, taken, hoodwinked or bamboozled.  

To that end, I encourage all reading this summation, to send CARICOM letters of encouragement, appreciation and support regarding the work they are doing on our behalf.  CARICOM must know how strongly we feel, as they are our true voice in this matter of the Decade and our Reparations (from a governmental perspective).  Finally,if everyone is able to blog, write an article, go on radio, or speak to the press in your communities about the aims of the upcoming Decade, Reparations and challenges we face — then please do so.  I recommend using Google Hangout or Skype to host meetings to promote greater public awareness and dialog, if organizing in-person meetings is not an option.  These on-line tools are vital as we organize globally with limited funds.  No effort to mobilize our communities is too small.  Some of us learned the hard way that our governments WILL NOT fight for us as global African people so let us represent and fight for ourselves using whatever means necessary.   

La lucha continua!!  Asé.

In solidarity,
Dòwòti Désir
Founder & President
DDPA Watch Group
www.ddpawatchgroup.info
ddpawatchgroup@gmail.com

Sister Dòwòti Désir founded the DDPA Watch Group in 2009. She is the former Executive Director of the Malcolm X & Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial, Educational and Cultural Center at the historic Audubon Ballroom, and is the author of Goud kase goud: Conjuring Memory in Spaces of the AfroAtlantic, a photo-journal of the monuments, memorials and historic sites of the Maafa.