by UFree Network Media centre

Israel is considered by both international human rights organizations and media polls as one of the worst countries regarding human rights abuses. Amnesty International and Middle East Monitor issued various reports in which they expressed concerns about the Israeli’s practices.

Palestinians mourn the death of Arafat Jaradat, 30, tortured to death in an Israeli prison over only six days, Feb. 18-23, 2013. He leaves behind a pregnant widow and two children. The Israeli Prison Service claimed he died of a heart attack, but the autopsy showed he was in excellent cardiovascular health. He had sustained, however, a total of six broken bones in his spine, arms and legs. Since 1967, 72 Palestinians have been tortured to death and 53 have died due to medical neglect. When Jaradat died, 3,000 prisoners refused meals and impassioned protests erupted across the West Bank. – Photo: AFP

Since the occupation of Palestine in 1948, more than 800,000 Palestinians have been imprisoned. From 1967 onwards, over 700,000 Palestinians – 20 percent of the population of the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip – have been detained. This number represents approximately 40 percent of the total male Palestinian population in the Occupied Territories.

International law sets the foundation for humane and fair treatment of prisoners, assuring that prisoners are not humiliated or tortured. Several countries, including Israel, deny these laws and regulations and practice different forms of humiliation and torture.

Israel is considered by both international human rights organizations and media polls as one of the worst countries regarding human rights abuses.

Palestinian prisoners and detainees are exposed to unfair trials, administrative detention, solitary confinement and are deprived of seeing their families. In addition, physical and psychological torture is exerted by Israeli security services. This report reveals the different methods used by Israeli forces to torture Palestinian political prisoners and is based on interviews with former Palestinian prisoners and detainees.

Palestinian prisoners and detainees: a political issue

Detention and imprisonment became one of the tools for Israeli forces to oppress the Palestinian people calling for freedom and self-determination. This led to never-ending arrest campaigns that imprisoned hundreds of thousands Palestinians over the past seven decades. According to Addameer Detention Report, there were 4,812 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli prisons and detention centers in February 2013, including 178 administrative detainees, 12 women and 219 children – 31 under the age of 16.

UFree Network, established to defend the rights of Palestinian prisoners and detainees, mentioned in previous reports that there are no juvenile prisons for Palestinians. As a result, children often serve their sentences in the same cells as adults. More than 6,000 Palestinian children have been detained since 2000.

In February 2013 there were 219 Palestinian prisoners and detainees under 18, more than 10 percent of them being under the age of 16. A large number of Palestinian prisoners and detainees are accused of executing acts of terrorism or participating in such acts. However, those prisoners were calling for freedom and self-determination, but they did not select terrorism as the appropriate strategy.

Living conditions in prisons

In addition to the arbitrary practice of administrative detention, the restrictions on family visits and the practice of torture, Palestinian prisoners and detainees are denied access to basic health services. Israeli authorities refuse to provide the needed medications to prisoners suffering various health problems. On different occasions, the prison authorities were reported to give prisoners with chronic health disease solely pain killers.

According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, a report issued by the Justice Ministry’s Public Defender’s Office revealed widespread overcrowding, inadequate access to medical care, poor hygienic conditions and excessive punitive measures in most Israeli facilities. In a recent report by the Independent Commission for Human Rights, the organization stated that they are “gravely concerned over the extreme deterioration of the Palestinian prisoners’ conditions in the Israeli prisons and detention centers.”

Torture in Israeli jails: methods used

Israel uses both physical and psychological torture methods while interrogating Palestinian prisoners and detainees. Recently, Arafat Shalsh Jaradat, 30, was murdered by Israeli intelligence – Mossad – while he was under extreme torture in Majdo prison facility. Jaradat died due to a heart attack because of heavy beating.

Palestinian prisoners and detainees are exposed to unfair trials, administrative detention, solitary confinement and are deprived of seeing their families. Physical and psychological torture is exerted by Israeli security services.

The torture methods and its duration vary from one detainee to another, but their overall goal is to intimidate prisoners and seek information that, in many cases, does not exist. This report reveals the main methods used by Israeli forces to torture Palestinian political prisoners.

The methods of torture were obtained by UFree through a series of interviews with former Palestinian prisoners and detainees. For the sake of clarity, the methods are divided into two categories: physical and psychological methods. However, many of the methods used are a combination of both physical and psychological torture.

Physical methods

1. Repeatedly beating or kicking the prisoner in different parts of the body – head, hands, face, abdomen, back, genitalia – using hands and/or metal tools. Sometimes the prisoners’ hands were being tied to the wall or to metal bars during the beatings. Former prisoners also reported to have been beaten deliberately on wounds and injuries caused earlier.
2. Tying the prisoners’ hands and/or legs together for a long period of time. Former prisoners reported to have been tied to the ceiling through their hands and legs. Others have been tied and left in the rain or cold weather for a long period of time.
3. Shaking prisoners violently. This is being done by investigators who change from time to time.
4. Forcing the prisoner to sit on a small chair – chairs for kindergarten kids – for long hours and sometimes days. This is associated with covering the head with a dirty plastic clothing bag. While the prisoner is in this position, he is exposed to very loud music and deprived of sleep.
5. Forcing the prisoner to remain standing for a long period of time.
6. Forcing the prisoner to sleep on the floor without mattress, even during wintertime. Former prisoners also reported they were forced to sleep while sitting on the floor.
7. Blindfolding a prisoner and dragging him or her on the stairs.
8. Spraying gas in the face of a prisoner and using electric shocks against them.
9. Pulling out the hair of the prisoner.
10. Pouring cold water on the prisoner while asleep.
11. Suffocating the prisoner by putting his head in the water and telling him that he will be drowned to death.

Psychological methods

1. Placing the prisoner on a chair with his head covered whilst meanwhile drops of water hit the head regularly.
2. Depriving the prisoner from food for a long period of time or providing the prisoner old or spoiled food.
3. Exposing the prisoner to loud music for a long period of time.
4. Using military and police dogs to frighten the prisoners. Investigators threaten prisoners the dogs will be unleashed and will attack the prisoner.
5. Threatening the prisoner will be sexually abused. Former prisoners reported being forced to be nearly naked.
6. Speaking negatively about the prisoner’s family members and/or threatening the prisoner that their family members will be caused harm. Some former prisoners reported being threatened that their wife would be sexually abused.
7. Depriving the prisoner from defecating or urinating for a long period of time. Other former prisoners reported being forced to defecate or urinate in front of prison inmates.
8. Telling the prisoner, wrongfully, that his family will visit him today. Other former prisoners were wrongfully informed that one or more family members passed away.
9. Spitting in the prisoner’s face.
10. Forcing the prisoner to verbally abuse his/her religious and national symbols.
11. Jailing some of the relatives of the prisoner and torturing them in front of the prisoner.

Legal background

The treatment of Palestinian political prisoners and detainees is a violation of Articles 32, 49 and 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention relating to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. The use of torture methods is not in line with Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). According to Conor Foley of the University of Essex and the Human Rights Centre, torture is also prohibited in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966), the European Convention on Human Rights (1950), the American Convention on Human Rights (1978) and the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights (1981).

Additionally, the U.N. Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984), the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1987) and the Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture (1985) reject the use of torture methods.

Conclusions and recommendations

Palestinian prisoners and detainees face the arbitrary practice of administrative detention, restrictions on family visits, the denial of medical care and the practice of torture. This report reveals the most frequently mentioned methods of torture practiced by Israeli forces against Palestinian prisoners and detainees.

The documented methods were obtained through interviewing former Palestinian prisoners and detainees and violate international law. The international community must meet its legal obligation by putting pressure on Israel to abide by international law and the treaties cited above. UFree therefore recommends the following:

1. European Union-Israeli relations should be frozen until the latter abides by international law.
2. United Nations and its agencies must expose Israeli crimes and save the lives of Palestinian prisoners. Press releases and condemnations are not adequate any more; freezing Israeli participation in the U.N. meetings is a step in the right direction.
3. Palestinian Authority should freeze its security contacts with Israel and take action to stop its human rights violations.
4. Civil society organizations must engage in exposing the atrocities perpetrated by Israel. The BDS (boycott, divestment and sanction) campaign can be the cornerstone of any steps in this direction.

This report was documented and compiled by the Media Centre of the UFree Network, an independent European-wide human rights network set up to defend the rights of Palestinian political prisoners and detainees. They can be reached at www.ufree-p.net or www.ufreenetwork.eu or email secretary@ufree-p.net or media@ufree-p.net. The network can also be found on Facebook, followed on Twitter and subscribed to on YouTube. Join their email list at http://ymlp307.net/xgmmbeyhgmgh.

A senior British politician has revealed Britain’s involvement in the 1961 assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the Congo’s first prime minister.

The leader of the Congolese independence struggle from Belgium was brutally murdered just seven months after taking office on the direct orders of the U.S. and Belgium. Britain, whose involvement had long been suspected, also had a hand in it.

Patrice Lumumba – Photo: AFP

The killing demonstrated the fraud of independence for the former colonial countries in Africa. The Congo was and remains today a poor but vastly underdeveloped country, despite its enormous mineral resources, including uranium, copper, gold, tin, cobalt, diamonds, manganese and zinc.

When the million-strong Congolese working class, second only in size to that in South Africa, organized mass strikes and demonstrations in 1959, Belgium moved swiftly to grant the country independence in the hope that the national bourgeoisie would be more able to restore calm. It organized the transfer of power in such a way as to ensure that “independence” would be a formal fiction. The Western corporations’ ownership of the Congo’s vast mineral wealth meant that the imperialist powers were determined to keep control over the country after independence.

But the political situation spiraled out of control when Lumumba imposed import tariffs and forcibly broke up strikes by workers in Leopoldville (Kinshasa). Black troops mutinied against the Belgian officers Lumumba left in command of the army after independence. Moise Tshombe, acting to protect Western mining interests and the Belgian military, seized control of the resource-rich Katanga province and declared Katanga’s independence. Another secession movement developed in the mineral-rich province of Kasai. Belgium sent its army back into the former colony, supposedly to protect its nationals.

Lumumba threatened to appeal for Soviet aid as a means of freeing the country from domination by Belgian mining interests and Belgian troops. Washington used this as the pretext for allying with Belgium to seek his elimination. When Lumumba invited in United Nations peacekeeping forces, they too subordinated themselves to the machinations of Belgium and the U.S., refusing to take any action to prevent the murder of the new prime minister.

The killing demonstrated the fraud of independence for the former colonial countries in Africa.

Lumumba was assassinated as the direct result of orders from the Belgian government and the Eisenhower administration, acting through the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and local clients financed and “advised” by Brussels and Washington. In 2001, the U.S. government released archive material related to the Kennedy assassination that included an interview with the White House minute-taker under the Eisenhower administration, Robert Johnson. According to Johnson’s account, in a meeting held with security advisers in August 1960, two months after Congo became independent, President Eisenhower ordered the CIA chief Allen Dulles to “eliminate” Lumumba so that the Congo did not become “another Cuba.”

“There was a stunned silence for about 15 seconds and the meeting continued,” Johnson recalled.

Dulles referred to the Congolese leader as a “mad dog.” A week later, he cabled station chief Larry Devlin authorizing the “removal” of Lumumba, up to and including his assassination.

A telegram sent three months before Lumumba’s death by Count Harold d’Aspremont Lynden, then minister for African affairs, to Belgian officials in the Congo stated, “The main aim to pursue in the interests of the Congo, Katanga and Belgium is clearly Lumumba’s definitive elimination.”

Lumumba had already been deposed and placed under house arrest. The meaning of these words was absolutely clear – it was an order to assassinate him.

In November 2001, 40 years after the event, an all-party commission of enquiry acknowledged Belgium’s role in Lumumba’s murder.

Britain too, fearful for its substantial interests in neighboring Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, endorsed the assassination. A British Foreign Office document in September 1960 notes the opinion of a top ranking official, who later became the head of MI5, Britain’s domestic intelligence agency, that “I see only two possible solutions to the (Lumumba) problem. The first is the simple one of ensuring (his) removal from the scene by killing him.”

In this last photo taken of Patrice Lumumba, he is bound and being carried out of Elizabethville on a truck in mid-December 1960. His assassination was ordered by U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower with the concurrence of Belgium and Britain. – Photo: Horst Faas, AP

Walton served until 2009 as research assistant for Professor Christopher Andrew’s authorized and sanitized official history of Britain’s domestic intelligence service MI5, “Defense of the Realm.”

In “Empire of Secrets,” Walton claims – despite the evidence – that it is unclear who organized Lumumba’s assassination and that the jury was still out on Britain’s role. Walton wrote, “The question remains whether British plots to assassinate Lumumba … ever amounted to anything. At present, we do not know.”

Lord Lea replied, citing a conversation he had had with Baroness Daphne Park a few months before she died in 2010: “Actually, in this particular case, I can report that we do. It so happens that I was having a cup of tea with Daphne Park … She had been consul and first secretary in Leopoldville, now Kinshasa, from 1959 to 1961, which in practice (this was subsequently acknowledged) meant head of MI6 there. I mentioned the uproar surrounding Lumumba’s abduction and murder and recalled the theory that MI6 might have had something to do with it. ‘We did,’ she replied, ‘I organized it.’”

She had claimed that if the West had not intervened, Lumumba would have handed over Congo’s – now the Democratic Republic of Congo – rich mineral deposits to the Russians.

When asked by The Hindu for further evidence substantiating such allegations, Lea replied, “That’s the conversation I had with her and that’s what she told me. I have nothing more to add.”

In an interview with the Times, Walton called on MI6 to declassify its internal archives on Lumumba. He said that MI6 must be placed “in the position it deserves in the history of anti-colonial movements in Africa and elsewhere.” This could only be done if MI6 “releases records from its own archives.”

He added that Lord Lea’s claim about the involvement of MI6 in Lumumba’s assassination was “an interesting twist in this story,” but that with the release of MI6’s records, such claims would be “impossible to substantiate.”

MI6 refused to comment on Lea’s revelation. An official said, “We don’t comment on intelligence matters.”

In an interview with the Daily Telegraph 10 years ago, Park said that in every posting in the intelligence agency she had two roles – as a diplomat, answerable to the Foreign Office and as an intelligence officer, reporting to MI6. “You do an ordinary job with an extra dimension,” she explained.

She added that she had smuggled Lumumba’s private secretary – who wanted to defect – across the border under a blanket in the boot of her car.

Following Lumumba’s assassination and the war against secessionist Katanga, the Congo was ruled for decades by the reactionary dictator and kleptocrat, Joseph Sese Seko Mobutu, a U.S. stooge, who systematically looted the country. Following the overthrow in 1997 of his debt-ridden regime, which had outlived its usefulness to Washington, the Congo has been subject to a horrific civil war whose resulting dislocation, famine and disease have killed more than 5 million.

Jean Shaoul, a professor at Manchester University, can be reached at jean.shaoul@mbs.ac.uk. This story first appeared on the World Socialist Web Site.

Pacifica, WBAI, AfrobeatRadio broadcast April 13, 2013

WBAI AfrobeatRadio Host Wuyi Jacobs: On Thursday, in a performance that raised eyebrows and caused teeth gnashing among Congolese peace and justice activists, movie actress Angelina Jolie thanked leaders of the G8 summit for their effort to end sexual violence in war. KPFA’s Ann Garrison has the story.

AfrobeatRadio/Ann Garrison: At the end of March, British Foreign Secretary William Hague and movie actress Angelina Jolie flew to Rwanda, where Hague was photographed shaking hands with Rwandan President Paul Kagame. Rwandan Foreign Secretary Louise Mushikiwabo then told the press that good relations between the U.K. and Rwanda had been restored. Last year the government of the U.K. had slashed aid to Kagame’s administration because of U.N. reports that it was funding, arming and commanding the M23 militia waging war in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Movie star Angelina Jolie speaks as British Foreign Secretary William Hague and other leaders of the G8, including U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, listen. – Photo: AP

Nevertheless, after British Foreign Secretary Hague had reportedly re-established good relations with the Kagame administration, he and Jolie crossed the border to visit rape victims in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo and generate headlines about their campaign to end the use of rape as a weapon of war.

On Thursday this week, Jolie thanked the G8 summit of the world’s eight wealthiest nations for their commitment and contribution of $35 million to the cause and said that the use of rape as a weapon could be ended.

Angelina Jolie: Hundreds and thousands of women and children have been sexually assaulted, tortured or forced into sexual slavery in the wars of our generation. Time and again the world has failed to prevent this abuse or to hold attackers accountable. Rape has been treated as something that simply happens in war. Perpetrators have learned that they can get away with it and victims have been denied justice. But wartime rape is not inevitable. This violence can be prevented and it must be confronted.

WBAI: Article 27 of the Fourth Geneva Convention has, since 1949, explicitly prohibited wartime rape and enforced prostitution, but Jolie also thanked the G8 for promising to take this seriously.

Angelina Jolie: So I welcome the pledge by the G8 to regard rape and sexual violence in armed conflict as grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions.

Congolese historian BK Kumbi

BK Kumbi: Well, I think that Angelina Jolie should learn a little bit more about Congo and the real issues that are going on in this part of the world. There is a tragedy and what she’s doing, actually, is just assuming a side of the story that is said by the Western powers, and we don’t see anything good coming out of that. So I think that her speech ends up inflaming emotions against Congolese men and somehow just makes the world forget about the role played by Rwanda in this tragedy.

AfrobeatRadio: That was BK Kumbi, who will be speaking to WBAI AfrobeatRadio in a longer conversation soon about how the big powers divert attention from the root causes of war in Congo by focusing on the singular issue of rape and violence against women.

For Pacifica, WBAI and AfrobeatRadio, I’m Ann Garrison.

Oakland writer Ann Garrison writes for the San Francisco Bay View, Global Research, Colored Opinions, Black Star News and her own website, Ann Garrison, and produces for AfrobeatRadio on WBAI-NYC, KPFA Evening News and her own YouTube Channel, AnnieGetYourGang. She can be reached at ann@afrobeatradio.com. If you want to see Ann Garrison’s independent reporting continue, please contribute on her website at anngarrison.com.

Palestinians protest apartheid constantly – and creatively. This banner was raised to demonstrate resistance to a new segment of the apartheid wall in Qalqilya, Palestine, on July 31, 2003.

There, in full view of the world, is the latest apartheid state, where Arabs are excluded from certain roads, where their very land is carved up from beneath them and placed behind barbed wire, cyclone fences and concrete walls.

Welcome to the Israeli occupation, blessed by the U.S. government as its imperial outpost, where the lives of Palestinians are broken into thousands of pieces daily, where everything, from olive trees to water sources, everything but the sun itself, is locked up, barred, caged from the people of Palestine.

And so, those who were subjected to the bitter hatreds and repression of Christian Europe – for centuries – are now subjecting another people to bitter hatreds and repression on behalf of Europe and America – because of Western lust for Middle Eastern oil.

The gift of one empire (the British) and now the tool of another empire (the U.S.), Israel has become the rabid attack dog of the West, ready, willing, armed and able to strike any target its master so commands – especially Arab targets.

Meanwhile, the Palestinians suffer every tragedy an oppressed people can suffer: dislocation, occupation, imprisonment of its militants, subversion of its political leaders, seizure of its lands and the embitterment of its spirits by the apartheid regime of Israel.

Compare the road on the left for Israelis only to the one on the right side of the wall for Palestinians.

And if you read comments in the Israeli press or listen to Israeli politicians, you find the naked racism and hatreds expressed against Arabs that 60-plus years ago was expressed against German Jews – and 60-plus years before that, expressed against Indian tribes and newly freed Africans in America.

Israel is today apartheid country. We need to acknowledge this in order to mobilize against it.

Down with apartheid – anywhere in the world!

© Copyright 2013 Mumia Abu-Jamal. Read Mumia’s latest book, “The Classroom and the Cell: Conversations on Black Life in America,” co-authored by Columbia University professor Marc Lamont Hill, available from Third World Press, TWPBooks.com. Keep updated at www.freemumia.com. For Mumia’s commentaries, visit www.prisonradio.org. For recent interviews with Mumia, visit www.blockreportradio.com. Encourage the media to publish and broadcast Mumia’s commentaries and interviews. Send our brotha some love and light: Mumia Abu-Jamal, AM 8335, SCI-Mahanoy, 301 Morea Road, Frackville, PA 17932.

KPFA Evening News, April 20, 2013

KPFA Evening News Anchor Sharon Sobotta: Secretary of State John Kerry made headlines this week when he suggested, at a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, that President Obama might soon be visiting Africa. Kerry gave no details about when or which countries.

Cynthia McKinney shares the stage with Ghanaian musicians at a New York City rally during her presidential campaign, on July 18, 2008. – Photo: Mario Tama

KPFA’s Ann Garrison spoke to former Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney about the president’s relationship to the continent of his father’s birth.

KPFA: Cynthia McKinney, would you like to comment on President Obama’s relationship to Africa and the prospect of his spending his 23rd hour and more on the African continent since becoming president?

Cynthia McKinney: The sad fact is that yesterday, while you and I were SKYPE chatting, I requested some information from a friend of mine on the African continent, and I asked if the United States is still bombing Somalia, because this was a Somali who chose to leave the U.S., to leave North America, and to go back home.

And he said, unfortunately: yes. And I began to apologize, to issue the apology for U.S. policy once again. And it was so touching and so amazing, just this exchange, because, on the one hand, I feel that I’ve done everything that I could possibly do to change U.S. policy.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said that we needed a radical revolution of values, and when you have a United States president who is from the African continent, descended of African people, that represents a kind of radical revolution in and of itself. But then, that African American president is bombing Africa.

And it just goes to show you that fake change is not enough. It does not mean policy change, and it does not mean values change.

KPFA: Do you agree with Glen Ford, Bruce Dixon and the other Black Agenda Report editors that Obama is a more effective evil, that he’s getting a pass because he’s Black.

Cynthia McKinney: I have used Glen Ford’s terminology more times than I can even count. First of all, I find Glen Ford to be the most astute political observer on the scene today. Period. Bar none. And when Glen came out with “the more effective evil,” it was so clear. It was so clear.

He came out with that at the very moment that progressive members of the left – or so-called left – were making excuses for a policy that constitutes war crimes and crimes against humanity. And so there is a new kind of terminology, I believe, that needs to become a part of our lingua franca, and that is “pro-war left.”

We cannot get to peace as long as members of the pro-war left are prominently placed as representatives of the values of those of us who are truly on the left.

KPFA: And that was former Georgia Congresswoman and Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney, who will be in California this coming week, from April 21 to 25, on a speaking tour titled Latin America, Africa and Obama. For dates and locations, see the San Francisco Bay View, sfbayview.com.

For Pacifica, KPFA and AfrobeatRadio, I’m Ann Garrison.

Oakland writer Ann Garrison writes for the San Francisco Bay View, Global Research, Colored Opinions, Black Star News and her own website, Ann Garrison, and produces for AfrobeatRadio on WBAI-NYC, KPFA Evening News and her own YouTube Channel, AnnieGetYourGang. She can be reached at ann@afrobeatradio.com. If you want to see Ann Garrison’s independent reporting continue, please contribute on her website at anngarrison.com.

Obama’s speech in Ghana during his first trip to Africa, in 2009

Six term congresswoman, ‘08 Green Party presidential candidate and international peace activist Cynthia McKinney has been that rare voice in the halls of the U.S. Congress and wherever the people need her who is willing to risk her life to represent for Black people, fearlessly investigating such hot issues as Katrina, Haiti, the Congo, the opening of the FBI files on Tupac’s assassination, the invasion of Libya and more. Currently pursuing a doctoral degree, she is writing her dissertation on the life of the late President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and attended his recent funeral in Caracas.

Hear Cynthia McKinney in person during her April 21-25 California speaking tour, which begins in San Diego and Los Angeles and concludes in the Bay Area.* On Wednesday, April 24, she’ll speak on the campus of Laney College in the Forum, 900 Fallon St., Oakland, at 6:30 p.m., and on Thursday, April 25, at the Arlene Francis Center, 99 Sixth St., Santa Rosa, at 7 p.m. The tour is a fundraiser for the SF Bay View newspaper and Block Report Radio.

Come meet this great leader of our time, a woman as warm as she is courageous, and exchange a word with her as she signs your copy of her new books, the autobiographical “Ain’t Nothing Like Freedom,” just released in time for this tour, and “The Illegal War on Libya,” released last fall. Hear Cynthia McKinney in her own words in this interview for Block Report Radio.

MOI JR: Our next guest is six time congresswoman and 2008 Green Party candidate and international peace activist, the one and only Honorable Cynthia McKinney. How are you?

CM: I’m doing great, JR. How are you doing?

MOI JR: I’m good. I know we are only days away from your upcoming California tour, where you’ll be helping the San Francisco Bay View newspaper to raise money for its very much needed services to the community. But you will also be profiling your new book, “Ain’t Nothing Like Freedom.” Can you tell the people a little bit about what’s going on at this tour that will stop on April 24 at Laney College and will also go to the Arlene Francis Center in Santa Rosa on April 25. Can you tell the people a little about what you’ll be talking about?

CM: Well, of course. I’ll be talking about the contents of both of the books, the Libya book, which came out while the bombing was still going on in Libya. I took a group of journalists there so that we could tell the truth about what was happening on the ground rather than what the propagandizing media were saying to the world about what was being done in Libya.

People who seek the truth know they will hear it from Cynthia McKinney. This audience packed historic Riverside Church in New York City on Sept. 30, 2011, to hear her speak about her personal observations on Libya as a witness to the NATO invasion.

So I guess you could say that “Ain’t Nothing Like Freedom” is a recounting of my experiences inside Congress and things I think could make the Congress more responsive to the issues of the people – and how I felt just as a human being, as a person going through a smear campaign, multiple redistricting, the things that people said about me, the “soft repression,” I call it now: the stigmatizing, the ridiculing and ultimately now the silencing that I’m experiencing because I dare to speak out. And that’s interesting phraseology in and of itself: You speak out and so you get silenced, you know.

And I’ll be talking not only about my experiences but how I felt, because at the end of the day I have feelings just like everybody else. And so even though maybe I am a public person, I’m not supposed to have feelings? But my mother and my father’s hearts were broken by the treatment that I received. My mom still shudders at the idea of me going out in public and having to be viewed through the prism of the local news, because she knows they have a special interest and they are just not going to get it right; and I’ll end up looking like a caricature of myself.

I would like people to come out so they can experience me as a person – not as a product, not as a politician, not as a public persona – but me as an average American person just trying to make a difference.

“Ain’t Nothing Like Freedom” is a recounting of my experiences inside Congress and how I felt just as a human being, as a person going through a smear campaign, multiple redistricting, the things that people said about me, the “soft repression,” I call it now: the stigmatizing, the ridiculing and ultimately now the silencing that I’m experiencing because I dare to speak out.

MOI JR: No doubt about that, and we support you. Can you tell the people a little about the content of your NATO book, or your book that deals with Libya?

CM: Well, we were fortunate enough to have people who contributed to the book who were there in Libya as the bombing took place, so we have that perspective. We also had the perspective of people who either lived in Libya or visited Libya prior to the bombing, and they gave that perspective. And then we had people who had an interest in Libya, had never been there but recognized the importance of this move by NATO, representing the White world supported by segments of people of color, so they had a particular view to present as well, and that was all there.

Cynthia McKinney’s latest book, “Ain’t Nothing Like Freedom,” is literally hot off the press. Here is Amazon’s description: “Elected six times to the House from the state of Georgia, Cynthia McKinney cut a trail through congressional deceit like a hot ember through ash. She discovered legislators who passed laws without reading them. Party leaders who colluded across party lines against their constituents’ interests. Black-skinned individuals shilling for the white status quo. She excoriated government lassitude over Hurricane Katrina, uncovering dark secrets. She held the only critical congressional briefing on 9/11, introducing counter-testimony of scholars, investigators, former intelligence agents. As a member of the House Armed Services Committee, she held (Defense Secretary) Rumsfeld to account for malfeasance by military contractors and missing billions in the Pentagon’s budget. Then she hammered him on the reasons for the failure of NORAD air defenses on 9/11. She read truth into the Congressional Record, held town halls and hearings, led protests, showed up while others played along to get along, took the side of the people against the will of the party. And when she got too truth seeking and speaking, the Republicans rigged the Democratic primaries to boot her out, leaving behind a trail of achievements mostly won singlehandedly. But McKinney rose again like a Phoenix, answering the call to run as 2008 Green Party candidate for President, challenging the corrupt two-party stranglehold on American democracy. Then it was on to the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza, to be seized on the high seas and imprisoned in Israel. On to Tripoli, to serve as witness to the NATO terror bombing of Libya. On to Malaysia to serve on the War Crimes Commission ... Often introduced as the Sojourner Truth, the Harriet Tubman of our age, McKinney reflects here on the Biblical figures of Esther, Deborah and Naomi. This is the Cynthia McKinney saga as it stands to date – what she saw, what she learned and how she fought for change.” Adds Nobel Laureate Mairead Maguire, “Cynthia McKinney’s passion to bring about social and political change through peace and politics is very inspirational to all who have the honor, like myself, of knowing her or will come to know her by reading something of her life in this challenging book.”

The numbers are staggering when you think about 100 million people being stripped out of a continent. It’s staggering to think about, to see this kind of destruction. So when Africans say, OK, you’ve made my home an intolerable place to live so I’m going to go to your home and live. Then that’s when you can see the apartheid inside the European countries. Through my travels, I have come to view this global apartheid.

And then what is the function of NATO? NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, was created as an outgrowth of World War II, which saw as its purview the preservation of “democracy” as opposed to communism or socialism in the Western European countries. While I was in Congress, I was one of the persons who voiced my opposition to the extension of NATO into areas in Eastern Europe.

Actually, NATO is an anachronism now. It was created to thwart the drive of the Soviet Union into Western Europe, and now we see NATO all over the world. It’s in Afghanistan, it was in Libya; it’s gone from Western Europe to Africa and Asia. And why is that?

What are the policies that are being protected by this military onslaught against people of color? Clearly the interests that are being protected are not the interests of the people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya and other interests. We have to look at this, and I kind of just stumbled on this as a result of my travels and the glaring inequalities – glaring apartheid-like status of people of color in European countries – and then the sort of obverse of that in the countries that are populated by people of color. So I’m just putting voice to that now.

MOI JR: You recently traveled to Caracas, Venezuela, and attended the funeral of the late great freedom fighter and president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez. Can you tell the people a little about that experience as well as the counter-revolution that the United States has been trying to implement? You know, what’s going on on the ground in Caracas and in Venezuela?

CM: Well, first of all I have to state that I have always had a sense of solidarity with the peoples of Latin America, but that sense of solidarity was never really fully expressed. I have to say a word of thanks to my professor – I’m doing work on my Ph.D. and I am making great progress and great strides, and at the proper time I intend to invite everybody to come to my graduation – but it was one of my professors who suggested that I spread my wings and expand my territory beyond that which I knew. I do not speak Spanish; I do speak French, and so as a result of the similarities of the romance languages I am able to understand a bit of Spanish although I can’t speak it.

So I decided to get into some research on the U.S. policies, for example, with the Puerto Rican independence movement and the counter-intelligence program that operated against the Puerto Rican independentistas. From there my interest and my solidarity has grown such that I am now doing papers on Venezuela and Hugo Chavez.

Venezuela is in the midst of having elections after having lost its charismatic and transformative leader, so there is a lot of public sentiment that Nicolas Maduro will win the election. Now there’s some – I think a replay of what happened in Iran is under consideration – because of course the efforts of the United States government, which is against the values and the policies of the Bolivarian Revolution, are to thwart the victory of Nicholas Maduro and to taint the election process.

Cynthia McKinney and another guest at the funeral stand before an enlarged photo of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez hanging at the place of his burial.

MOI JR: Right. How do you feel about what was going on in the streets? Did you see the people calling Hugo Chavez a dictator like you do on mainstream news in the United States, or did you see the people supporting the Bolivarian Revolution as I saw in a lot of the alternative press that was also covering his passing?

CM: Well, there were millions of people in the streets; in fact, there were so many people who were at the military academy where he lay in state that I couldn’t even get close. The second time I went – I just came back maybe a week and a half to two weeks ago – I was there with an international delegation and they had to close the place off. We originally were scheduled to go in the morning, and we couldn’t go because there was still a crush of people there.

I saw people wailing in the streets. People were crying, people were angry, people were defiant, people were accusatory. I saw a full range of emotions there. And the interesting thing is I really have to question a person who puts the values and interests of another country ahead of their own country. We see that happening here in the United States as well. Those of us who hold fast say that there ought to be primacy of the rule of law and the protection of the Bill of Rights ought to be extended to every U.S. citizen. Yet we have people who stake their loyalty out for other countries and then follow what’s determined to be the interests of the other countries.

That is what the case is in Venezuela: You have a very small population of people who look to the United States for leadership and guidance. If this means that their fellow Venezuelan citizen has to suffer, then so be it, because they tie their identity so closely to that of the United States that they forget about the interests of their fellow Venezuelans, and I find that peculiar and sad.

MOI JR: For those who are just tuning in, you are listening to the voice of international peace activist Cynthia McKinney right here on the Block Report. Ms. Cynthia McKinney, can you compare Hugo Chavez – Venezuela under Hugo Chavez – to Qaddafi’s Libya? What exactly were the two leaders about and what were their countries about under their leadership, as well as what is the similarity in how they were attacked and removed? Some say that Hugo Chavez was assassinated; we know that Qaddafi definitely was assassinated. Can you talk a little bit about the attacks on them and their countries by the United States as well as the similarity of their accomplishments?

Cynthia McKinney reports from Libya.

Another president comes to mind in that region who was very close to Hugo Chavez and that’s President Aristide. After the Haitians defeated the French empire and declared a republic in 1804, Haiti was forced to pay reparations for their freedom to France. And President Aristide said it’s time for us to get our money back. We need to get our money back. France needs to pay us reparations.

And so Aristide began to turn the Haitian state around to invest in the Haitian people. When I was there, there was an effort to address the abysmal statistics on adult literacy, on sanitation – just the things we take for granted. I was there not too long ago where people were celebrating the fact that they had their first road coming into the town. For these kinds of investments, the administration in Haiti was derided. It accepted thousands of doctors from Cuba and petrodollars from Venezuela to build those roads and to uplift the people.

We saw what happened with President Aristide: He was kidnapped and kicked out. And the same thing happened to Hugo Chavez. Now what is it that he was doing? He was investing in the Venezuelan people for literacy. In fact, it’s so amazing: I just got back, as I said, and the people brag about reading. Can you imagine people bragging in the United States about reading? It doesn’t happen.

People brag in Venezuela about reading. They love their Constitution, they vote the Constitution, and so they love their Constitution. And they read and they read and they read because Hugo Chavez told them to read – to become a reading society. There are tens of thousands of Cuban doctors there. The petrodollars are being used to build schools and provide health care. Every neighborhood has a community garden where they have organic food. So their quality of life was being raised for the average Venezuelan in the Bolivarian Revolution.

Cynthia McKinney’s “The Illegal War on Libya” as described by Amazon: “In 2011, former congresswoman and 2008 Green Party candidate for president, Cynthia McKinney, took a delegation of observers to Libya to monitor NATO’s purported humanitarian intervention. Prefaced by Ramsey Clark, this collection of essays includes scholarly and legal analysis, as well as personal accounts by witnesses to the NATO assault on a helpless civilian population it had a U.N. mandate to protect and the massive propaganda campaign that made it possible. It responds to the many questions left unanswered by a complicit mainstream media, such as: Why Libya, not Bahrain, Yemen or Egypt? What was life in Libya like under Qaddafi? What is the truth about the so-called ‘Black mercenaries’? What was the role of Western NGOs and the International Criminal Court? What about Africom’s plans for Africa? What did it have to do with Liby’a independent central bank, its oil, its plans for an African currency, its efforts to free African states from the coils of the Bretton Woods Institutions (the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, or IMF)? Cynthia McKinney and other contributors to this volume were in Libya during the period of the NATO bombardment of Libyan cities and were among the few independent voices to report on the tragedy.”

The quality of life was measurably better for the average Venezuelan, the average Haitian, the average Libyan. The statistics from the United Nations indicate that Libya had the highest standard of living on the entire African continent. Not any longer. The subsidized education, subsidized housing, actually free education, free health care, subsidized food, free farming utensils if you wanted to start a farm.

Every so often there was a debt jubilee: People would charge up their credit cards buying Western things, and so there was a jubilee on that and people would be relieved of that debt. When was the last time that happened here?

You know, what we are experiencing, particularly in Latin America now, is a different vision for a different way of living and a different way of being, a different way of being human, and it’s about our humanity to each other, it’s how we treat each other, how we live with Mother Earth, how we live with each other. I met a U.S. citizen when I was there this last time in Venezuela, and she chose to leave the U.S. – a Black woman chose to leave the U.S. – and live in Venezuela. She’s been there for seven years now.

She said to me something that I still to this day reflect on and find very interesting. She said to me, “Cynthia technically I’m poor, but I have health care, I’m a teacher – I teach English and so I provide education for people – I have all the food that I need to eat, and so I question how they could call me poor.” And she went on to say that she found the materialism and the focus on consumption in the United States appalling and it just reached the point that she had to leave, so she left.

She said that there were seven other U.S. people who left with her. They were all men, and they all eventually returned to the United States. She said she recently reached out to all of them; to a person, every one of them is sorry that they returned to the U.S., because now they understand that quality of life doesn’t mean how many cars you have parked in your driveway and how big a driveway you have and how many houses you accumulate and what the square footage of your house is. That’s not an indication of your quality of life.

I think back to the King of Bhutan (a kingdom in the Eastern Himalayas), who said that the indicators for success for Bhutan were now going to be an indication of happiness: gross national happiness instead of gross national product. It’s all in the way we look at how we are supposed to relate to each other and to relate to earth. Mother Earth is not a commodity. Mother Earth is what sustains and gives us life.

MOI JR: For those of you just tuning in, you are listening to the voice of the international peace activist Cynthia McKinney, who is on her way to the Bay Area. Wednesday, April 24, she will be speaking at the Laney College Forum at 6 p.m. And the next night, Thursday, April 25, she will be speaking at the Arlene Francis Center in Santa Rosa at 7 p.m. Ms. Cynthia McKinney, how can people stay in touch with you if they would like to hear more about what you’re talking about and they’re not able to make it to the tour?

CM: Well, I hope everyone will come to the tour. At least come see me, give me a hug, give me a high five, because it’s hard really to go on. There’s a friend of mine who says people don’t understand how hard it is to be Cynthia McKinney, so I’m going to unveil myself. I’m just going to be a regular ordinary person and I’d like to experience regular ordinary folks who want to talk about real things.

Cynthia McKinney accepts a bouquet of flowers from a supporter during her 2008 campaign for president. Come meet her at Laney College in Oakland April 24 or in Santa Rosa April 25. – Photo: © Danny B!

MOI JR: As well as they can buy the two new books.

CM: Oh yes, of course; they can buy the books. Clarity Press makes them available on line, or you can send someone to buy them in person and I’ll sign them. (Editor’s note: Both books will be available at every event on the tour. Cynthia will sign them for you on the spot.)

MOI JR: Well, we can’t wait to have you here on the West Coast, and we will talk to you soon.

CM: OK, I can’t wait to get there, JR.

*Tour dates

• Sunday, April 21: The World Beat Center, 2100 Park Blvd, San Diego, 6 p.m.
• Monday, April 22: Chuco’s Youth Justice Coalition, 1137 E. Redondo Blvd, Inglewood, 6:30 p.m.
• Tuesday, April 23: The Kaos Network, 4343 Leimert Blvd, Los Angeles, 6:30 p.m.
• Wednesday, April 24: The Laney College Forum, 900 Fallon St., Oakland, 6:30 p.m.
• Thursday, April 25: Arlene Francis Center, 99 Sixth St., Santa Rosa, 6:30 p.m.

The People’s Minister of Information JR is associate editor of the Bay View, author of “Block Reportin’” and filmmaker of “Operation Small Axe” and “Block Reportin’ 101,” available, along with many more interviews, atwww.blockreportradio.com. He also hosts two weekly shows on KPFA 94.1 FM and kpfa.org: The Morning Mix every Wednesday, 8-9 a.m., and The Block Report every other Friday night-Saturday morning, midnight-2 a.m. He can be reached at blockreportradio@gmail.com.

Dominique DiPrima displays a Romaine “Chip” Fitzgerald poster at the Kaos Network in Los Angeles on June 27, 2008.

We have witnessed what many deemed impossible, the election of an Afrikan to the presidency of the USA in our lifetime. And yet change as they have, things remain the same; the oppression of empire and domination of Caucasian/Western supremacy persist. Let us return home and begin to rebuild the world in our image!

Romaine “Chip” Fitzgerald is the longest held Black Panther Party political prisoner. Send our brother some love and light: Romaine Fitzgerald, B-27527, Kern Valley State Prison, A5-110, P.O. Box 5101, Delano CA 93216.

KPFA Weekend News, March 30, 2013

BK Kumbi, a Congolese woman educated and active in Geneva, managed to interrupt U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s remarks about peace in Congo at a conference for a little over one minute before, as she told KPFA and the SF Bay View, she “got thrown out.”

KPFA/Ann Garrison: The Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 2098 on Thursday to extend the mandate of the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo, though press and Africa activists commonly call it the most expensive and colossal failure in U.N. “peacekeeping” history. The so-called peacekeeping force, which is now nearly 20,000 strong, was created in the year 2000, but by the year 2008, the International Rescue Commission’s epidemiological study concluded that 5.4 million people, most of them civilians, had died of the fighting or of consequent hardship between 1998 and 2007 alone.

The Security Council’s press release says that this year’s mandate creates the first ever specialized “intervention brigade” to go after militias active in Congo, although, in 2009, U.N. troops joined the Congolese army and even the Rwandan army to “hunt down Hutu militias” in Congo.

Maurice Carney is executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Friends of the Congo.

Maurice Carney: Yes, it is nothing new. And there are two critical components missing from these efforts on the part of the U.N. One is justice for the Congolese people, and two is accountability for Congo’s aggressors, Rwanda and Uganda. The efforts on the part of the U.N. are omitting these two elements, which are vital to bring about peace and stability in the region.

For the past 16 years, both the Rwandan and Ugandan governments have maintained an illicit minerals smuggling network in Congo’s eastern provinces that has perpetuated the conflict and contributed to the death of millions. And despite the devastation wrought by these two U.S. client states, the United States has continued to provide arms, equipment, training, intelligence, financing and diplomatic cover for the Kagame regime of Rwanda and the Museveni regime of Uganda.

Without U.S. support, neither Rwanda nor Uganda would be able to get away with the war crimes and crimes against humanity that they continue to commit in the DRC.

KPFA: Carney also said that he agrees with BK Kumbi, a Congolese woman who managed to interrupt U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon at a March conference on Congo peace in Geneva, Switzerland:

Without U.S. support, neither Rwanda nor Uganda would be able to get away with the war crimes and crimes against humanity that they continue to commit in the DRC.

U.N. Secretary General General Ban-Ki-Moon: As for the guarantors of peace …

Rwandan President Gen. Paul Kagame and U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon are photographed together on March 23, 2013, at the United Nations, where U.N. media reported them to be discussing “security in the Great Lakes Region of Africa.”

Convention Security: Multiple voices calling in French for order, then for security officers to throw BK Kumbi out. [As they did.]

KPFA: For Pacifica, KPFA and AfrobeatRadio, I’m Ann Garrison.

This transcript is the extended version of the KPFA Radio story. The extended audio will be added shortly.  

Oakland writer Ann Garrison writes for the San Francisco Bay View, Global Research, Colored Opinions, Black Star News and her own website, Ann Garrison, and produces for AfrobeatRadio on WBAI-NYC, KPFA Evening News and her own YouTube Channel, AnnieGetYourGang. She can be reached at ann@afrobeatradio.com. If you want to see Ann Garrison’s independent reporting continue, please contribute on her website at anngarrison.com.

Free Congo: Face to Face with Ban Ki Moon, Genève 1er mars 2013 from BK Kumbi on Vimeo

Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare in which a small group using the element of surprise and extraordinary mobility dominates a larger and less-mobile traditional army or strikes a vulnerable target and withdraws almost immediately.

Mrs. Johnnie Bell Robinson, Leo’s widow, receives the Leo L. Robinson and Nelson Mandela Freedom Awards and the South African flag. On the left is South African Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool and on the right is “The Real” Clarence Thomas, ILWU Local 10 leader. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

As a “conductor” on the Underground Railroad, she went on 19 missions, freed over 300 enslaved Afrikans. In 1863, during the Civil War, she planned and executed a successful armed assault in South Carolina that freed 756 enslaved Afrikans.

Fearful of her successes, the Southern slavocracy offered a $40,000 ransom for her capture, which coincidentally was the same amount of foreign aid that President Thomas Jefferson gave Napoleon to assist his efforts in re-enslaving Haiti.

Napoleon failed and gave Jefferson the famous Louisiana Purchase in recompense.

Harriet Tubman succeeded, was not ever captured and was known to threaten to shoot anyone who tried to turn back, stating, “You will be free or die.”

Years later, she said, “I was a conductor of the Underground Railway for eight years. I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger.”

Fast-forward to the 21st century and another freedom fighter arises, the incomparable Leo L. Robinson, named the “King of Labor” and recognized across the globe as a fierce guerrilla fighter against oppression and for the rights of the rank and file.

Mrs. Johnnie Robinson stands with ILWU Local 10 union members as she is presented with a plaque of Local 10’s newspaper, The Dispatcher, with photos of Leo Robinson speaking and organizing ILWU Local 10 political actions. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

Young Mr. Robinson was asked, “What kind of a threat do the Vietnamese pose to you?” Young Mr. Cassius Clay famously said, “No Vietnamese ever called me nigger.” He then refused to be drafted into the Army and was stripped of his boxing titles.

Mr. Robinson, who enlisted in the Navy in 1954 to avoid a life of “criminal” activity, said of the experience that he spent “three years, 11 months, 22 days, 11 hours and 45 minutes of wasted time.”

Neither man, once inducted into activism, ever gave up.

By these realizations were both men propelled into a lifetime of activism consisting of confronting and battling capitalism and imperialism with a belief in the power of the people: the power of the grassroots, the power of the working class. They both believed that together, the poor, the hungry, the downtrodden and oppressed masses can stop the world, that the revolution will be won, and that the power of the people can shut these suckers down.

Both men individually were a force to be reckoned with – one a professional boxer, the other a professional labor leader and organizer, a kind of boxer in his own right.

And both men are and have always been champions in their chosen professions.

Fast-forward to the 21st century and another freedom fighter arises, the incomparable Leo L. Robinson, named the “King of Labor” and recognized across the globe as a fierce guerrilla fighter against oppression and for the rights of the rank and file.

Leo Robinson grew ever stronger by fighting for the working class and by fighting for human rights. His list of accomplishments reads like a bible of collective and individual political activity and accomplishments:

• Co-founded the Northern California Chapter of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CTBU), sent to Washington, D.C., in 1977 to help establish the Women’s Commission; supporter of the first female secretary-treasurer to be elected in Local 10’s history;
• Wrote the 1977 resolution calling for the boycotting of all South African cargo in response to the 1976 Soweto Massacre of Black South African school children;
• Was elected speaker about South African liberation struggles at numerous anti-apartheid rallies;
• Sponsored ANC members to come to the U.S. to speak, and along with community groups and the CTBU, organized the first trade union conference on apartheid held at San Francisco State University;
• Fought for all international unions to recognize Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday as a paid holiday;
• Fought to protect two Black women in Oroville who were being attacked and harassed by the KKK;
• As part of the CBTU leadership, was an official Black trade unionist delegate to Cuba and Nicaragua in 1983; was the ILWU international rank and file representative to attend the 11th World Congress of the World Federation of Trade Unionists held in Berlin, Germany, in 1986;
• Organized the African-American Longshore Coalition in 1986 to fight the internal problems of “racism, sexism, white privilege and all forms of discrimination,” which he felt would destroy the ILWU if not addressed;
• In 1994, helped an African Studies instructor to move his entire library of books to Tanzania and wrote the ILWU position paper on the Israeli-Palestine question, calling for the PLO to be recognized as the sole representative of the Palestinian people;
• In 2004, collaborated with the Local 10 ILWU rank and file membership to write the resolution calling for a Million Worker March in Washington, D.C., stipulating that there be NO elected officials speaking; on Oct. 17, 2004, the march drew thousands.
• Marched with tens of thousands of members of the Occupy Movement to shut down the Port of Oakland on Nov. 2, 2011, declaring that “the Occupy Movement is not separate and apart from the labor movement. More than anything else, it is a direct challenge or raises the question of the rights of capital as opposed to the rights of the worker.”

Listen to this powerful interview with Africa Today host Dr. Walter Turner and union leader “The Real” Clarence Thomas of ILWU Local 10: “The Life of ILWU Local 10 Activist Leo Robinson with ILWU Local 10 Member Clarence Thomas on Africa Today,” broadcast March 18, 2013:

Watch the powerful documentary, “ILWU Local 10 Member and Anti-apartheid Activist Leo Robinson: A Life In Struggle,” produced by the Labor Video Project, to see how Leo Robinson successfully organized the ILWU’s fight and victory against South African apartheid.

Leo L. Robinson believed in the power of the union, and in the power of the people. He fought to change the conditions of women within the ILWU just as fiercely as he fought against the apartheid regime of South Africa.

He believed that we all have a responsibility to battle imperialism and that the working class will not accept the juggernaut attempting to re-enslave, murder and kill us. “Go into struggle and battle for victory,” said a speaker at Leo’s memorial service, recalling his wisdom. “Victory is ours if only we struggle.”

Leo L. Robinson made his transition on Jan. 14, 2013. Born on May 26, 1937, he was 76.

At the memorial service on March 24, 2013, Leo Robinson, ILWU guerrilla fighter for the people, was posthumously awarded the Leo L. Robinson and Nelson Mandela Humanitarian Awards for outstanding contributions to the freedom of South Africa by South African Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool and South African Consul-General of Los Angeles Cyril S. Ndaba. Accepting for Mr. Robinson was his wife, Mrs. Johnnie Bell Robinson.

ILWU Local 10 was awarded the Leo L. Robinson Humanitarian Award for outstanding contributions to the freedom of South Africa by Consul-General Ndaba. This documentary of the memorial service, too, was produced by the Labor Video Project.

“Inhale the spirit of Leo Robinson. Embody the spirit and go into struggle and battle for victory. Victory is ours only if we struggle,” said one of several who spoke at the memorial service.

Malaika H Kambon is a freelance photojournalist and the 2011 winner of the Bay Area Black Journalists Association Luci S. Williams Houston Scholarship in Photojournalism. She also won the AAU state and national championship in Tae Kwon Do from 2007-2010. She can be reached at kambonrb@pacbell.net.

Ambassador Johnnie Carson
Outgoing Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs
Department of State
Bureau of African Affairs
2201 C St. NW
Washington, D.C. 20520
United States of America

March 20, 2013

Dear Ambassador Carson,

We are writing to you with regard to the current U.S. policy position on “Lasting Solution to Instability” in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which you presented on Feb. 11, 2013, at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., United States.

Women in Goma, eastern Congo, rally for peace on Aug. 1, 2012. – Phil Moore, Getty Images

“Clearly, a sophisticated and internationally backed solution is the only way forward. We were able to achieve such a solution to end the conflict in the former Yugoslavia through the Dayton Accords. We were able to end Africa’s longest running civil war, the conflict in Sudan, through the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that was negotiated by the IGAD states and supported by the United States, Norway and Great Britain.” – Johnnie Carson

We are deeply concerned by this neocolonial vision that the United States is imposing upon the populations of the DRC in addressing issues of peace and security in the Great Lakes region of Africa. While the U.S. has been addressing issues of peace and security in its 50 states as well as supporting the unity of European countries under the European Union of 27 states without ever considering fragmenting them, the administration appears to accept the splitting of African countries as a viable solution to similar concerns.

This treatment of African territories recalls the 1884-1885 Berlin conference where colonial powers partitioned the African map without regard for the will of African peoples. We commemorate the 19th century genocide of millions of Congolese, perpetuated by the members of the International African Association, under the command of Leopold II of Belgium, who used forced labor to gather wild rubber from vines and enforced quotas by the cutting off of heads or hands of recalcitrant Congolese populations.

We are deeply concerned by this neocolonial vision that the United States is imposing upon the populations of the DRC in addressing issues of peace and security in the Great Lakes region of Africa.

We invoke the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the 1956 Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights that recognize the right of all peoples to exist, to live in peace and dignity, to self-determine, to freely decide their political status, to pursue their economic, social and cultural goals, and to manage and make use of their own resources.

This treatment of African territories recalls the 1884-1885 Berlin conference where colonial powers partitioned the African map without regard for the will of African peoples.

We cite the following reports that detail international crimes committed in DRC and Great Lakes Region of Africa since 1994:

-The November 2012 United Nations (U.N.) Group of Experts report on the ongoing role played by Rwanda and Uganda in directing proxy militia groups in the DRC.

-The 2010 “Mapping Exercise” report by the U.N. HCHR on serious violations of human rights and international laws committed between 1993 and 2003 in the DRC.

-The 2009 Mukwege and Nangini report on Rape with Extreme Violence: a weapon of war, of destruction and displacement in the DRC.

-The 2008 report by U.N. experts showing the involvement of several companies in the financing of the conflicts in the DRC and particularly the armed groups.

-The 2005 U.N. Security Council Resolution 1756 recognizing the specific link between illicit trade of natural resources and the proliferation of arms trafficking in the DRC.

-The 2006 Lutundula report on illegal mining and contracts in the DRC.

-The 2004 U.N. Security Council Resolution 1533 on the illicit flow of weapons in the DRC and arms embargo on all foreign and Congolese forces.

-The 2002 Kassem U.N. report on the illegal exploitation and trade of natural resources in the DRC.

-The 1998 Garreton Report on the situation of human rights in the DRC.

-The 1994 Gersony report on mass killings by Rwandan Patriotic Front led by Paul Kagame after their military victory in the civil war post-genocide Rwanda.

The crimes committed in the DRC since 1996 breach Articles 6, 7 and 8 of the Rome Statute defined as crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, sexual violence, persecution and forced displacement, and war crimes.

The consecutive armed conflicts that have been fought in the DRC are proxy wars sponsored by multinational corporations for the illegal access and control of coltan, cassiterite, beryllium, niobium, andesine, europium ruthenium (used in aeronautic and space industry), oil, diamonds, gold, zinc, cobalt, copper, silver, cadmium, uranium, and other rare and new metals of exceptional concentration in the DRC’s soil. The mining of these natural resources are often undertaken in inhuman and unsafe conditions, by men, women as well as children who are exploited, treated without human dignity, and often forced into labor at gunpoint.

Under the pretext of self-defense, Rwanda has militarily invaded the DRC since 1996 and engaged in genocidal killings of civilians, Congolese and Rwandan refugees, and taken this opportunity to plunder DRC’s natural resources. This incited the “convoitise” of other countries bordering the DRC, including Uganda.

The consecutive armed conflicts that have been fought in the DRC are proxy wars sponsored by multinational corporations for the illegal access and control of coltan, cassiterite, beryllium, niobium, andesine, europium ruthenium (used in aeronautic and space industry), oil, diamonds, gold, zinc, cobalt, copper, silver, cadmium, uranium, and other rare and new metals of exceptional concentration in the DRC’s soil.

This situation gave rise to a regional war on Congolese soil that involved more than seven foreign countries, including the occasion when Rwandan and Ugandan armed forces fought each other in a fierce battle in Kisangani in 1999 and 2000 with total international impunity, despite numerous reports of innocent Congolese civilian casualties and sexual violence committed by their troops.

We invoke the U.N. Security Council Resolutions 1674 (2006) on the protection of civilians in armed conflict and Resolutions 1493 (2003), 1596 and 1616 (2005), 1698 (2006), 1768 (2007), 1771 (2007 -2008) on arms embargoes against armed groups in eastern DRC.

We cite the U.N. Security Council Resolution 1794 (2007) that stresses that the protection of civilians must be given priority when deciding on the use and capabilities of available resources and states that the U.N. Security Council Mission must use all necessary means to protect civilians under imminent threat of physical violence.

Despite the constant incursions by forces from Rwanda and Uganda into the Congo to plunder its resources, terrorize its people and destabilize its government, DRC President Kabila (right) appears chummy with his counterparts, Rwandan President Kagame (left) and Ugandan President Museveni. Here, they meet in November 2012 to resolve the conflict as nearly a million Congolese are driven from their homes.

We recall President Barack Obama’s speech in Ghana in July 2009 where he publicly recognized the need for a new approach and a clean break from neocolonial practices, stating that the U.S. must support “strong institutions” in Africa, “not strongmen.” We are therefore disappointed in the failure of this vision for changes in U.S. foreign policy and the fact that current policy approaches for Africa exhibit a double standard.

The U.S. currently favors a military agenda, subverting institutionalization and promoting armed violence as the only way to access political and economic power in the Great Lakes Region of Africa.

We are concerned that the U.S. is not taking stronger steps in holding Rwanda and Uganda regimes accountable for their support to proxy wars and crimes committed in the DRC – by failing to sanction Rwanda at the U.N. Security Council for violating the U.N. sanctions regime and arms embargo inside the Congo, withhold further military aid, place both the Rwandan government and its high-level officials named in the U.N. reports on the sanctions list, and investigate whether the Leahy Amendment has been violated in U.S. training of Rwandan troops.

The U.S. currently favors a military agenda, subverting institutionalization and promoting armed violence as the only way to access political and economic power in the Great Lakes Region of Africa.

Given these conditions, we denounce the U.S.’s continued support and promotion of the authoritarian regimes in both Rwanda and Uganda in the face of reports evidencing their significant destructive role in the DRC over the past 16 years. Not only have both Rwanda and Uganda governments militarized political space inside their respective countries, they have also exported this militarization to the DRC to the detriment of the Congolese civilian populations.

Withhold further aid from Rwanda until the U.N. Group of Experts and the U.S. government have credible evidence that the Rwandan government no longer supports rebel militias in the DRC.

We decry the neocolonial and paternalistic visions imposed upon the populations of the DRC under the Framework for Peace, Security and Cooperation Agreement signed Feb. 24, 2013, drafted under the leadership of the United States without any national consultations in the DRC and based on policies that favor the international economic interest of multinational corporations.

We denounce the U.S.’s continued support and promotion of the authoritarian regimes in both Rwanda and Uganda in the face of reports evidencing their significant destructive role in the DRC over the past 16 years.

Recalling the U.N. Security Council Resolutions 1325 and 1820 adopted by the U.N. Security Council on Women, Peace and Security; Diaspora Congolese women call on the U.S. to:

1. Demonstrate the political will to end the conflict in the Great Lakes Region of Africa.
2. Sanction Rwanda and Uganda at the U.N. for violating the U.N. sanctions regime and arms embargo by arming the rebel militias inside the Congo and not respecting the protocols signed by heads of states of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region.
3. Submit the names of the top level Rwandan officials named in the U.N. Group of Experts report, starting with Rwandan Defense Minister James Kaberebe, Chief of Defense Staff Charles Kayonga and Gen. Jacques Nziza, military adviser to Kagame. Section 8 of U.N. Security Council Resolution 2076 “[e]xpresses its intention to consider additional targeted sanctions, in accordance with the criteria set out in Resolution 1857 (2008) against the leadership of the M23 and [those providing external support to the M23] and those acting in violation of the sanctions regime and the arms embargo, and calls on all Member States to submit, as a matter of urgency, listing proposals to the 1533 Committee.
4. Take similar action in the U.S. House of Representatives to compliment the Senate’s Amendment 3199 to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) calling for imposing an asset freeze and visa ban on those supporting the M23.
5. For the U.S. president to add to the existing Department of Treasury sanctions list, under Executive Order 13413, top level officials in the Rwandan and Ugandan government named in the November 2012 U.N. Group of Experts report.
6. Withhold further aid from Rwanda until the U.N. Group of Experts and the U.S. government have credible evidence that the Rwandan government no longer supports rebel militias in the DRC.
7. Initiate an inquiry to discover whether the Leahy Amendment is being violated as a result of the United States military support for the Rwandan and Ugandan militaries.
8. Amend Public Law 109-456 to make it a requirement for the secretary of state to withhold aid from Congo’s neighbors who destabilize the Congo. The current law authorizes the secretary of state to withhold aid but does not make it mandatory that the secretary of state withhold aid from Congo’s neighbors.
9. Per section 102(3) of PL 109-456, support democratic institutions in the DRC via technical, financial and training resources in order to buttress local efforts to expand democratic space and strengthen democratic institutions in the Congo.
10. Elevate the profile of the U.N. Mapping Exercise report at the United Nations and request that the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. make the implementation of the report recommendations a priority.
11. Although many policy institutes have called for a reform of Congo’s security sector, there cannot be any successful reform of the security sector without reform of the political sector. The U.S. government should support reformation of Congo’s Electoral Commission and assure via aid conditionality that the Constitution is not changed to extend the term of the presidency.

Thank you

Yours sincerely,

Diaspora Congolese Women immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers from Belgium, Canada, France, South Africa, United Kingdom and the United States of America

cc: DRC President Joseph Kabila, U.S. President Barack Obama, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, DRC Minister for Foreign Affairs Raymond Tshibanda, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, DRC Ambassador to the United Nations Ignace Gata Mavita, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, DRC Ambassador to the U.S. Faida M. Mitifu, U.S. Ambassador to the D.R. Congo James F. Entwistle, Executive Secretary of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) A.D. Ntumba Luaba, International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda

For further information, please contact commoncauseuk@gmail.com.

Signatories

For Diaspora Congolese women in the United States of America: Jeanne Kasongo (Shalupe Foundation, Boston), Marie-Jeanne Luyinda Georges (Victory Women, New Hampshire), Bibiane Tshefu (WILPF, New York), Leontine Daliga Lanza (Activist Congolese Women, Los Angeles), Marie-Jeanne Kirby-Lanza (Atlanta), Jacky Kalonji (Catholic Mothers, Boston), Anne M. Kalonji (Dallas), Claude Kabuya (Boston), Nita Evele (Congo Global Action, Washington)

For Diaspora Congolese women in the United Kingdom: Marie-Louise Pambu (Common Cause U.K., London), Maguy Mayanda (Common Cause U.K., London), Kongosi Onia Mussanzi (Common Cause U.K., Bradford), Nzita Ngoma (Common Cause U.K., Manchester), Germaine Odia (Common Cause U.K., London), Charlotte Ngubia (Mothers of Congo, U.K.), Mina Munga (WILPF Scotland, Glasgow), Liliane Mbiki Lando (Common Cause U.K., London), Francoise Lutala Kabe (Common Cause U.K., Cardiff), Esther Muloway (Common Cause U.K., Essex), Carine Mushigo (Common Cause U.K., London), Christine Lilley (U.K.), Marie-Claire Faray (Common Cause U.K., WILPF U.K., London), Marie-Thérèse Nlandu (London)

For Diaspora Congolese women in Belgium: Stella Kitoga (FIREFEC, Bruxelles), Juliette Kimpiabi (FIREFEC, Bruxelles), Marceline Mundela (Bruxelles), Louise Ngandu (Belgique), Elena Matundu (GFAIA, Bruxelles)

For Diaspora Congolese women in France: Elza Vumi (Congo Actif, Paris)

For Diaspora Congolese women in South Africa: Me Lola Miteu (Johannesburg)

On March 26, 2013, war crimes suspect Bosco Ntaganda appeared for preliminary proceedings before the International Criminal Court (ICC) as the judges set the date for the trial of The Prosecutor v. Bosco Ntaganda to begin Sept. 23, 2013. The ICC had taken him into custody on March 22 and escorted him to the ICC detention center in The Hague (Netherlands) after it was confirmed by both the Rwandan government and the U.S. Department of State that Ntaganda, a Rwandan native, surrendered himself voluntarily to the U.S. embassy in Kigali, Rwanda, and asked to be sent to the ICC.

Bosco Ntaganda arrives at his mountain base at Kabati, DRC, on Jan. 11, 2009. He’s known as The Terminator. – Photo: Lionel Healing, AFP

Bosco Ntaganda is the third high profile veteran of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) and Rwanda-backed militia leader in the eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to have fled to Rwanda after having committed heinous crimes in the Congo. Jules Mutebesi, formerly of the Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD), did the same in 2004 while Laurent Nkunda continued the illicit Rwanda-backed network under the guise of the National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP) in 2006.

In 2009, when global pressure built on Rwanda to cease its support of the CNDP and its leader, Laurent Nkunda, Rwanda placed Nkunda under house arrest – where he remains – and replaced him with Bosco Ntaganda. Today, due to pressure, Bosco has been removed from the equation and Sultani Makenga now stands to take his place, presiding over the same Rwanda-backed illicit network that has been a fixture in the eastern provinces of the DRC for the past 15 years.

It is vital for the global community to understand that Bosco Ntaganda neither acted alone nor as a “rebel” in the sense that many portray him, but as a Rwandan proxy. It has been a common political tactic, on Rwanda’s part, to install top military officials in the Congolese military.

When Rwanda first invaded the DRC in 1996, for instance, it installed James Kabarebe as the Congolese Army chief of staff. Kabarebe, who is currently Rwandan minister of defense, was named in the November 2012 U.N. Group of Experts Report as among the top level officials in the Rwandan government orchestrating and commanding the M23 militia in the DRC. He was also responsible for replacing Laurent Nkunda with Bosco Ntaganda as head of the CNDP in 2009.

It is vital for the global community to understand that Bosco Ntaganda neither acted alone nor as a “rebel” in the sense that many portray him, but as a Rwandan proxy.

Bosco Ntaganda has been transferred to the ICC and many wonder what secrets he will reveal. The fate of this individual and the content of his testimony during the trial may divert attention from the real question at hand: Will the global community allow the Rwanda-backed illicit network in the eastern provinces of the DRC to remain intact?

As clearly shown when Mutebesi and Nkunda were removed from the field, the military aggression in the region does not require Bosco Ntaganda to continue its operations. Moreover, both Bosco and Makenga took up arms against the Congolese people, and Makenga is under U.S. and U.N. sanctions for the use of child soldiers and other crimes, reminding us that the issue is not Bosco alone, but the network and/or system that produces the likes of Bosco, Mutebesi, Nkunda, Makenga and a host of others.

The DRC’s current president, Joseph Kabila, who lacks legitimacy, is complicit in preserving this network rather than laying the groundwork for peace and security in the country. He utilized the network to intimidate voters and appropriate the 2011 elections. Will he once again enter into a deal with yet another Rwanda-backed militia leader – Sultani Makenga – leaving the illicit network intact and operational?

Bosco Ntaganda made his first appearance before the International Criminal Court on Tuesday, March 26, telling the judge he was innocent of charges ranging from murder and rape to using child soldiers. – Video frame: AFP

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice effectively reinforced the Obama administration’s official stance when she recently stated that, while the U.S. recognizes that Rwanda has been “negatively involved” in the DRC, holding them accountable is “complicated.” Complexity is not a viable reason to continue “business-as-usual” when the result is widespread suffering.

Rwanda and Uganda, both led by strongmen and lauded in the international community, have invaded the Congo twice and consistently sponsored militia groups inside the Congo, resulting in the death of millions of Congolese civilians, and yet the political will of the United States and the global community to hold them accountable remains lamentably weak.

The DRC’s current president, Joseph Kabila, who lacks legitimacy, is complicit in preserving this network rather than laying the groundwork for peace and security in the country.

Congolese people are seeking peace and justice. Trying Bosco Ntaganda at the ICC may lead to some measure of justice for the crimes perpetrated at his behest; however, it appears that his backers in Rwanda may very well be let off the hook yet again and allowed to continue their military aggression against the DRC.

The Kanyaruchinya camp on the edge of Goma, eastern Congo, had to be abandoned by tens of thousands of people last November as fighting moved closer. Nearly 1 million Congolese have been displaced since spring 2012. – Photo: Christina Corbett, Oxfam

Public propaganda and promotional appeals must not be allowed to cover for Rwanda’s destructive role in the region. Though support for Paul Kagame and the Rwandan regime exists at the highest levels of government and industry in the West, volumes of studies and reports from 1997 continuing to present day have established the verity of their longstanding aggression against the DRC.

The responsibility of those working for peace in the region remains to acknowledge the body of evidence and to put pressure on Rwanda to cease its sponsorship, support and backing of illicit networks in the DRC that have visited untold suffering upon the people of Congo. When searching for solutions, it is vital to examine recent history for ways to avoid feeding cycles of violence. The Congolese government must not integrate the Rwanda-backed M23 network into the Congolese military as it did in 2009, which laid the foundation for the current crisis, or we will face a similar problem in another few years.

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Howard G. Buffet, son of multi-billionaire Warren Buffet, have been on a public relations offensive to cleanse Rwanda’s image of any association with criminal activity in the DRC.

Militia leaders who have fled to Rwanda after having committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in the DRC should face justice. Figures such as Laurent Nkunda Batware, Jean-Marie Runiga, Baudouin Ngaruye and Jules Mutebesi would be a good start. As a result of the U.N.-created Peace Framework for the DRC, former Irish Prime Minister Mary Robinson was appointed as U.N. special envoy to the Great Lakes Region.

As special envoy, Prime Minister Robinson can seize the opportunity to push for these other war criminals in Rwanda to face justice. This would send a signal to leaders in the region that the global community is finally serious about combatting impunity and lack of accountability in the DRC.

Since President Obama’s 2009 Speech in Ghana, where he declared that the U.S. was ready to support “strong institutions” and not “strongmen” in Africa, many have been awaiting this much-needed shift in U.S. foreign policy. Unfortunately, the declaration rings hollow, especially to the nearly 1 million Congolese who have been displaced since spring 2012, because, in spite of all the mayhem and suffering that Rwanda strongman Paul Kagame has sponsored in the DRC, he continues to receive strong support and backing from Washington and a plethora of powerful institutions and individuals in the West.

Public propaganda and promotional appeals must not be allowed to cover for Rwanda’s destructive role in the region.

The arrest of Bosco Ntaganda should not be seen as a solution, but as a test of the global community’s political will to help dismantle the destabilizing networks in the eastern provinces of the DRC that produce the likes of Bosco Ntaganda.

Kambale Musavuli is the spokesman for the Friends of the Congo. He is featured in the short film “Crisis in the Congo: Uncovering the Truth,” an abbreviated version of the upcoming documentary looking at the role of Rwanda and Uganda in the upheaval in the DRC. He can be reached at kambale@friendsofthecongo.org. Follow him on twitter @kambale or facebook at https://www.facebook.com/kambalemusavuli.

Sylvain Sibomana

Ingabire is appealing to have the judgment against her overturned. The prosecutors are appealing for a harsher sentence, more than eight years. They accuse Ingabire of “genocide ideology” for asking that all the victims, not only Tutsi but also Hutu, be remembered at the Kigali Genocide Memorial.

Seventeen people have been arrested, beaten and taken to different police stations and “safe houses” manned by military intelligence.

The party interim secretary general, Mr. Sylvain Sibomana, was badly beaten by Rwandan police officers, both inside and outside of the Supreme Court premises. In police custody at the Kicukiro police station, he was thrown against the wall several times, hogtied to a chair and kicked. Our colleague who briefly saw him in the station noted that his head and body are both severely bruised and that he had a broken tooth. They also said that his head and lip are both swollen, and that he can neither walk nor stand normally. We don’t know whether there is a reason to fear a fractured skull, cracked ribs or worse.

Victoire Ingabire and her British lawyer Iain Edwards in court during the trial preceding the appeals by both prosecution and defense.

Mr. Sibomana urgently needs independent medical care.

Sixbert Musangamfumara is the external relations commissioner for the Rwandan FDU-Inkingi Coalition of Parties, based in Finland. He can be reached at sixbert.musangamfura@gmail.com. Visit the website at http://www.fdu-rwanda.com/.

Major news outlets around the world reported East African warlord Bosco Ntaganda’s surrender this week. Rwandan American law professor Charles Kambanda spoke to KPFA about Ntaganda and why the story of his surrender is thoroughly implausible.

KPFA Evening News, March 23, 2013

The Congolese Army gave Bosco Ntaganda the title of general after his “integration” from the force that had been fighting the Congolese army. Professor Kambanda, Human Rights Watch and others described that move as, in fact, a concession of Congolese territory to Rwandan control. The agreement fell apart, leading to his mutiny in 2012 and his so-called “surrender” to the U.S. Embassy and the ICC this month. – Photo: Alain Wandimoyi, AP

KPFA’s Ann Garrison spoke to Rwandan American Charles Kambanda, a law professor at St. John’s University in New York City and former professor at the National University of Rwanda, about Bosco Ntaganda and why he considers the story of Ntaganda’s surrender thoroughly implausible.

KPFA/Ann Garrison: Professor Kambanda, there are a lot of questions about whether Bosco Ntaganda was actually Congolese or Rwandan. He was born in Rwanda, he moved to Congo, then back to Rwanda to fight under Kagame in the Rwandan Civil War and the first and second Congo Wars.

The ICC indicted him as a Rwandan national, but now he’s being presented to the world as a Congolese rebel. Isn’t the most important point that he’s been a Rwandan military officer, responding to orders from Kagame’s military chain of command for the 20-plus years of his military career?

U.S. Embassy, Kigali, Rwanda

KPFA: Well, if Kagame, the U.S., Ntaganda, the ICC or anyone else had wanted to make the story that Ntaganda is a Congolese rebel easier to believe, wouldn’t it have made more sense for Ntaganda to have “surrendered” to MONUSCO, the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo, in Goma?

Charles Kambanda: I believe Kagame and Ntaganda had no choice. It was just the order from donors. The donors were telling Kagame: “We want that Ntaganda or else NO MORE MONEY FOR YOU.” Kagame was only being ordered by the donors that “We want this guy. We want him in our embassy.” Everything was planned, so he had no choice but only to surrender Ntaganda to the American Embassy. That’s it.

Professor Charles Kambanda

KPFA/Ann Garrison: OK, let’s talk about Rwandan security in Kigali. A Google map indicates that the U.S. Embassy is just a short distance from Kigali’s Police Headquarters on Police Road and the Avenue of the Gendarmerie, which run parallel between the two – the police headquarters and the U.S. Embassy – until they intersect at the Embassy, across the street from what appear to be Rwanda’s central government ministries.

The U.S. Embassy in Kigali, Rwanda, is located at 2657 Avenue de la Gendarmerie (Kacyiru), at its intersection with Police Headquarters Road.

KPFA/Ann Garrison: And that was Professor Charles Kambanda, who in a longer interview explained that the propaganda about Ntaganda’s so-called decision to surrender to the ICC serves the U.S. and the Security Council by making it look as though they are responding to Congo’s human catastrophe and making the International Criminal Court appear credible.

It also, he said, allows Kagame to pretend that he does not let the big Western powers tell him what to do – because Ntaganda did this on his own. For Pacifica, KPFA and AfrobeatRadio, I’m Ann Garrison.

Confirmation outside the KPFA newscast from Gen. Kayumba Nyamwasa

Rwandan Gen. Kayumba Nyamwasa with Rwandan President Paul Kagame before they fell out and Kayumba went into exile in Johannesburg, South Africa, where he survived an assassination attempt in 2010.

“It is not possible for anybody to walk in any American embassy compound without appointment. Since 2001 American embassies’ security were reinforced with barricades, several tens, or hundreds metres from embassy. In Kigali the outer perimeter is manned by Rwandan police and private security both comprised of demobilized soldiers who all know Ntaganda. He could only move through this ring in an embassy or government of Rwanda vehicle. No remotest possibility that he entered embassy without appointment/arrangement.”

Oakland writer Ann Garrison writes for the San Francisco Bay View, Global Research, Colored Opinions, Black Star News and her own website, Ann Garrison, and produces for AfrobeatRadio on WBAI-NYC, KPFA Evening News and her own YouTube Channel, AnnieGetYourGang. She can be reached at ann@afrobeatradio.com. This story first appeared on her website. If you want to see Ann Garrison’s independent reporting continue, please contribute on her website at anngarrison.com.

The rising presence of China and India in Africa has important implications for the continent’s development. While the two Asian giants provide a much-needed alternative to the old – and until now sole – paradigm of dependence on the West, both countries are accused of being part of the global land-grabbing group. Many African governments are complicit in this wholesale plunder of their land, which the Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N. has compared to the “Wild West.” India’s particular role in the land takeover underway in Africa raises serious questions about the direction of South-South relations.

Thirsty?

Just before the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, the Indian food and beverage giant Parle Agro ran an ad campaign to promote its new LMN lemon drink. One commercial spot showed a couple of Bushmen digging in the sand for water, when their stick breaks. Suddenly, they see a water tap and wrench it off to use as a digging tool.

Fortunately, the Advertising Standards Council of India forced the company to make changes because the spot was racist and made fun of water scarcity, an acute problem in Africa and India.

The Parle ad is an apt metaphor for growing fears in Africa about India’s seemingly insatiable demand for the continent’s land and water. Water scarcity at home – and global fears of a looming water and food crisis – are among the reasons India has joined the club of land predators.

Global fears of a looming water and food crisis are among the reasons India has joined the club of land predators.

India now ranks third in the amount of land grabbed from other countries. It is, says environmental journalist Darrel De Monte, “The irony of a former British colony turning into a neo-colonizer.”

Colonization starts at home

This is a story of irony upon irony: India, a country with more poor people than the whole of sub-Saharan Africa, a champion of South-South solidarity and an aid giver to Africa, is participating in the frenzied heist of its arable land. Africa, a continent which has seen more than its fair share of conflict and weather-triggered famines, is being taken over to feed the world while its own people starve.

A man harvests fruits of the Jatropha tree in Taabo, Ivory Coast. Jatropha has fallen from favor as a diesel fuel substitute, yet growers continue to grab land to grow it that should be yielding food. – Photo: Kambou Sia, AFP

India is a leading – but by no means the only – member of this inglorious club. It includes Indonesia, China, Europe, the United States, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries, as well as mammoth investment banks such as Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan. Pension, private equity and hedge funds – and even development banks – are all in on what has been dubbed “the great land robbery.”

India itself has been the target of land-grabbing by both domestic and foreign entities, in a case of the land-grabbed now grabbing land.

Indian officials dismiss any criticism that its policies in Africa are a “neo-colonial grab” for resources and insist that Delhi is genuinely committed to Africa’s development. Unlike the “loot and leave strategies” of other nations, India seeks “sustainable partnerships” in Africa.

But recent history indicates otherwise. Anuradha Mittal, director of the Oakland Institute, which has extensively documented the issue, put it bluntly and succinctly: “The takeover of peoples’ land and water by corporations – even if they are from the Global South – is a new form of colonization.”

More than 80 Indian companies have acquired immense swathes of arable land in Ethiopia, Madagascar, Kenya, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Cameroon and Mozambique to grow food crops, as well as sugarcane and palm oil, both raw stock for biofuel.

Africa is a dream come true for investors who put profits before people.

Apart from the lust for quick returns, the Indian interest in African land is also triggered by a worrying drop in crop yields as a result of “Green Revolution fatigue,” climate change and the real challenge of feeding an additional few billion people in the coming decades.

Take Punjab for instance, once the wonder child of India’s Green Revolution and a textbook model for developing countries everywhere. Today, the state is reeling from a dangerously low water table, its soil contaminated by decades of chemical pesticides and fertilizers. Worse, around 18 cancer deaths are reported daily, a high price to pay for sustaining the country’s food security needs for so long.

India’s food security concerns exclude using much domestic land for biofuel production. At the same time, its energy requirements have risen exponentially. Africa, with 60 percent of the planet’s arable land and compliant governments who make that land available at giveaway prices, is a dream come true for investors who put profits before people.

Breaking all the rules

Perhaps the most controversial Indian company operating in Africa is Bangalore-headquartered Karuturi Global. CEO Sai Ramakrishna Karuturi set out from Kenya, where he made a fortune farming roses for European markets, and decided to replicate the rose formula in Ethiopia where millions of people already depend on food aid to survive.

African workers in a Karuturi Global factory process yellow and red roses for commercial consumption. – Photo: Simon Maina, AFP

The most documented Karuturi venture is in Gambela, one of the poorest regions of Ethiopia that borders the new state of South Sudan. The way Karuturi tells it, he asked for “only” 100,000 hectares but the Ethiopian government “insisted” he take 300,000 hectares, twice the size of Delhi, for 99 years at US$1.5 per hectare. A disastrous maize harvest in 2011 sent Karuturi Global share prices plummeting, but this didn’t dent Karuturi’s ambitions. He wants a million plus hectares in Africa to make his the world’s biggest farming company.

A recent Human Rights Watch (HRW) report found that 70,000 people were forcibly displaced in a so-called “villagization program” in Gambela to make room for Karuturi’s operations. The company plans to grow oil palm, sugar cane, rice, maize, edible oils and cotton. Thousands of local Anuak farmers are being forced to become lowly-paid wage laborers on land that belonged to their ancestors. HRW also accused the Ethiopian army of arbitrary arrest, rape and torture of scores of residents in Gambela to make way for large-scale commercial farming.

Apart from its press releases, there is little evidence that Karuturi Global is contributing to Ethiopia’s development.

Karuturi contends that the land had not been cultivated for centuries. People are leaving, not because of forced displacement, he says, but because of urbanization. As for any strictures from the Oakland Institute, he has never even heard of it. Karuturi wonders whether this might be a case of racism against non-European and non-American investors in Africa.

Apart from its press releases, there is little evidence that Karuturi Global is contributing to Ethiopia’s development through capacity building and making food affordable. What is certain is that the massive clearing of land and forests will result in the “loss and degradation of wetlands, decrease in wildlife populations and habitat, proliferation of invasive species and loss of biodiversity.”

Karuturi Global CEO Sai Ramakrishna Karuturi proudly poses before a flower sculpture bearing his company name. Ethiopians hold an inscribed plaque commemorating Karuturi Global’s “friendship” with their struggling nation.

More major players: Siva Group

Another Indian player moving in on Africa, also from southern India, is the Chennai-headquartered Siva Group, a tangled conglomerate conveniently registered in the fiscal paradise of Singapore. Siva Group Chairman Chinnakannan Sivasankaran made a fortune when the PC and telecoms market started taking off in India. Sivasankaran is one of the richest Indians, with a net worth of more than $4 billion.

In 2010, he began acquiring shares in other Indian companies doing business in Africa, quickly becoming a major player himself. What the Siva Group website calls a “foray” in the palm oil sector in Africa translates today into a 50 percent share in a 170,000 hectare palm oil plantation in Liberia, shares in palm oil and soybean production in the DRC (Democratic Republic of the Congo), 200,000 hectares in Cameroon and at least 100,000 hectares in Sierra Leone, as well as in Ivory Coast.

Both Liberia and Sierra Leone struggle hard to feed themselves and rebuild after long brutal civil wars. In the DRC, despite the United Nations presence and resolutions galore, bloody confrontations that have already claimed up to 6 million lives continue. Land is the resource that is most likely to spark conflict in any country where the majority of the population depends on farming for their livelihood, as is the case in most of Africa.

Land is the resource that is most likely to spark conflict in any country where the majority of the population depends on farming for their livelihood, as in Africa.

The Siva Group, and its complex tangle of subsidiaries and holding companies, now controls close to 700,000 hectares of African land, nearly all of it for massive oil palm plantations.

Government gets in the game

But it’s not just Indian companies with their fingers in the African land pie. The Delhi government acquired a million hectares of land in Ethiopia to grow jatropha, a much-hyped source for biofuel. Contrary to the hype, jatropha does require water and nutrients and therefore presents a threat to food crops – impossible to justify amid recurrent warnings of an imminent global hike in food prices.

A full-scale assault on the African commons is underway, and Indian companies are part of the attack. Most of these mega-agribusiness projects, which require huge inputs of water and fertilizer, are located near major rivers that can be tapped to irrigate the giant industrial plantations. There are fears that if the current pattern continues, Africa is headed for “hydrological suicide.” It also means ceding decision-making power on the question of what is grown, for what ends and for whom.

Africa shining

During his last visit to Africa, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was widely quoted as saying, “The commerce between India and Africa will be of ideas and services, not manufactured goods against raw materials after the fashion of Western exploiters.”

A man watches as precious forest is cleared to make way for a palm oil plantation in Sierra Leone. – Photo: Simon Akam, Reuters

“Africa shining” is just as potent a mirage as “India shining”; the shine is restricted to the economic and political elite on both sides of the Indian Ocean. African leaders – both elected politicians and traditional chiefs share the responsibility for allowing the pillage of their continent in the name of economic growth and development.

The battle rages on into the new millennium

There is a complex and sometimes toxic combination of social, environmental, economic and geopolitical factors at play in the new scramble for the continent’s land and resources, but the stakes are deadlier this time.

When battle lines have been drawn over the control of land and natural resources in India, with protests and repression reported in more than a hundred districts, it is dismaying to see that Indian companies are replicating the same pattern in Africa.

Given their track record in their own country, it would be naïve to expect Indian companies to show real commitment to the people affected by their investments in Africa. Voices are rising on the continent, however, challenging the intentions of foreign investors. India would do well to take note, or it might find that the welcome it is currently receiving could quickly fade.

It would be naïve to expect Indian companies to show real commitment to the people affected by their investments in Africa.

Sputnik Kilambi is an experienced radio journalist who now focuses on media development. She divides her time between her native India and Africa. Contact her at sputnikkilambi@gmail.com.

“The assassination of (Rwandan President) Juvénal Habyarimana and (Burudian President) Cyprien Ntaryamira on the evening of April 6, 1994,” when their plane was shot down as it prepared to land in Kigali, Rwanda, “was the catalyst for the Rwandan Genocide. … The assassination set in motion some of the bloodiest events of the late 20th century, the Rwandan Genocide and the First Congo War,” according to Wikipedia.

Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana and Burundi President Cyprien Ntaryamira died when their French-piloted plane was hit by missiles and crashed in the presidential compound in Kigali on April 6, 1994. The widows of the slain presidents filed a civil suit for money damages against Rwanda’s current President Paul Kagame on May 1, 2010, for these intentional “extra-judicial killings,” charging that Kagame intended to trigger the mass violence now known as the 1994 Rwanda genocide.

The ‘imperial presidency’ is the real issue

The Obama administration issued a “suggestion of immunity” from federal court jurisdiction for Kagame, even though the assassinations of the two presidents occurred before the present government of Rwanda existed and before Kagame was an official in any government, much less head of state. The 10th Circuit and 4th Circuit ruled differently on whether a “suggestion of head-of-state immunity” must be obeyed by the Supreme Court and the other federal courts.

Plaintiffs’ complaint in Habyarimana vs. Kagame promises to prove that then Gen. Paul Kagame, now president of Rwanda, ordered the assassination of Rwandan President Habyarimana and Burundian President Ntaryamira on April 6, 1994.

Unofficial acts not entitled to immunity: Supreme Court 2010

Presidential immunity from federal jurisdiction by decree is contrary to Samantar v. Yousuf, the Court’s 2010¹ ruling that held head-of-state immunity is “derivative of” the “sovereign immunity” of nations which Congress defined in FSIA (Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act of 1976) and limited to “official acts.” The president cannot create, or ignore, federal jurisdiction properly established and interpreted by the other branches.

‘Suggesting immunity’ for Kagame aligns U.S. with known war criminals – why?

Whether now-President Kagame should be protected by Obama administration-invoked immunity from federal jurisdiction is a separate policy question that was widely discussed during the congressional vetting process of Susan Rice’ candidacy for Secretary of State in late 2012,² in light of:

Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana

• Rwanda’s responsibility for the mass violence perpetrated by M23 in the Congo, reported by U.N. Experts in November 2012;³
• Rwanda’s responsibility for the mass violence in Congo 1993-2003, including genocide and war crimes in yjr U.N. Mapping Report of Oct. 1, 2010;⁴
• Rwanda’s responsibility for resource rape of the Congo, reported by UNSC Experts 2001-08;⁵) and,
• Kagame’s responsibility for the assassination of the two presidents, which was well known within the ruling RPF party, according to the Oct. 1, 2011, confession of President Kagame’s former Chief of Staff Dr. Theogene Rudisingwa, MD;⁶

In Habyarimana v. Kagame, the Supreme Court will have the opportunity to determine whether Mr. Obama, or any chief executive, has the power to ignore federal jurisdiction established by Congress (FSIA and TVPA, Trafficking Victims Protection Act) as interpreted by the Supreme Court in Samantar v. Yousuf.

Professor Peter Erlinder, past president of the National Lawyers Guild, president of ADAD, the UN-ICTR defense lawyers associations, Arusha, Tanzania, a founding member of the National Coalition to Protect Civil Freedoms and the Minnesota Bill of Rights Defense Coalition, is director of the International Humanitarian Law Institute of St. Paul, Minn. He can be reached at proferlinder@gmail.com.

1. Ironically, Samantar v. Yousuf was decided while counsel for petitioners was being held in respondent Kagame’s 1933 Prison while facing a 25-year sentence for having represented the plaintiffs in this action. Petitioner’s counsel was released on “humanitarian grounds” following an international campaign.
2. “Helene Cooper, U.N. Ambassador, Questioned on U.S. Role in Congo Violence,” New York Times, Dec. 9, 2012
3. Final Report of the U.N. Security Council Committee established pursuant to Resolution 1533 (2004) concerning the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nov. 15, 2012
4. UNHCHR Mapping Report, Democratic Republic of the Congo (Crimes Committed in Congo) (1993-2003) October 1, 2010
5. Final Report(s) of the Group of UNSC Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of Democratic Republic of the Congo (2001, 2002, 2003, and 2008
6. October 1, 2011, Public Confession of Theogene Rudesingwa

by Selma James and Nina López

The funeral of President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela took place on International Women’s Day – a fitting day of departure for “the president of the poor” who was loved by millions, especially by women, the poorest.

Women reach out lovingly to touch their president, Hugo Chavez, in 2009. – Photo: Prensa PSUV, EPA

Chávez soon learned that the revolution he led depended on women, and said so: “Only women have the passion and the love to make the revolution.” He acknowledged that the “missions” – the new social services which were at the heart of his popularity and which the state funded but did not run – were mainly created and run by grassroots neighborhood women.

In 2006, when announcing the partial implementation of Article 88 of the new constitution recognizing caring work as productive – a breakthrough worldwide – Chávez said: “[Women] work so hard raising their children, ironing, washing, preparing food … giving [their children] an orientation … This was never recognized as work yet it is such hard work! … Now the revolution puts you first. You too are workers, you housewives, workers in the home.”

Chávez was not the first movement leader who went on to head the government, to have understood women’s centrality to creating the new society they were striving to build.

Half a century ago, Julius Nyerere, leader of Tanzania’s independence struggle and its first president, aimed his program for development at the elimination of two ills: women’s inequality and poverty. He said: “Women who live in villages work harder than anyone in Tanzania,” working “in the fields and in the homes.”

“The truth is that in the villages the women work very hard. At times they work for 12 or 14 hours a day. They even work on Sundays and public holidays.” Whereas the village men “are on leave half their lives.”

Hugo Chávez stops to speak with a young mother.

Encouraged by Nyerere, in one region, 17 ujamaa villages created a communal society based on equity among women and men, children and adults – all contributed what they could and all shared equally in the wealth produced. Their extraordinary society was destroyed by Nyerere’s power-hungry colleagues against his will, but it showed us what is possible.

Closer to Venezuela, women gained recognition under Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti’s first democratically elected president (1990 and 2000). Determined to tackle extreme poverty and injustice, Aristide created a Ministry of Women’s Affairs, appointed women to ministerial posts, supported girl domestic workers, and survivors of military rape. As in Venezuela, women were the main organizers and beneficiaries of literacy and health programs; the rise in the minimum wage benefited them especially – sweatshop workers are mainly women.

Young people’s love for Aristide is legendary, but women’s devotion has been as constant. Two months after the devastating 2010 earthquake, women collected 20,000 signatures in three days demanding President Aristide’s return from exile – they needed him for reconstruction. A year later he was back, not as president but as educator, reopening the medical school he had founded for poor students, which the coup had closed.

In Bolivia, indigenous women were recognized as central to the mass mobilizations which propelled Evo Morales into the presidency. These included the “water wars,” which drove the multinational Bechtel out of Bolivia. Bechtel had privatised the water and criminalized people who collected rain water.

In 2008 the women were prominent in surrounding Congress for several days while the new constitution was debated; the white parliamentary elite intended to absent themselves to prevent a vote. The blockade forced them to sleep in the building ‘til the vote was taken. That constitution heralded a new level of power for women – from pay equity to recognition for the economic value of caring work.

Emotions ran high in Caracas the day of Chavez’ funeral – from the joy of remembering to the pain of losing him. The rest of the city was nearly deserted. – Photo: Luis Acosta, AFP

The Mothers and Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, who led the 1983 overthrow of the dictatorship and who had long campaigned for justice for the thousands the dictatorships raped, murdered and disappeared, have long paid tribute to Chávez – a most unusual military man.

They, like women all over South America and beyond, will be watching anxiously to see that the gains of the Bolivarian revolution are not undermined.

Selma James is founder of the International Wages for Housework Campaign, international coordinator of the Global Women’s Strike, a network of grassroots women and author of “The Power of Women and the Subversion of the Community.” She is the widow of C.L.R. James, author of the classic history of the Haitian revolution, “The Black Jacobins.” Nina López, from Argentina, founded Legal Action for Women and is joint co-ordinator of the Global Women’s Strike. This story first appeared in the Guardian of London.

Revolutionaries throughout the Americas and the Caribbean owe a great debt to Hugo Chavez. His selfless struggle for the advancement of the masses of poor and oppressed in Venezuela – and throughout the Americas and the Caribbean – occupied him 24/7. Like so many before him, he was not given a breathing space.

The Empire pursued him unrelentingly, in a constant attempt to undermine and destabilize his program for liberation. The U.S. imperialists and their allies never missed an opportunity to demonize this great freedom fighter, and he lived with constant threats to his own life and to the sovereignty of Venezuela.

The external pressure, combined with the huge undertaking of transforming a nation of almost 30 million people, meant that he was forced to put his personal life and health on the back burner. The terrible truth is that the vast majority of Venezuelans lacked all the basic necessities of life prior to his presidency, and rebuilding this country, which had been destroyed by more than two decades of neo-liberal policies, was an overwhelming task.

For those who are not familiar with Venezuela’s ethnic mix, the country has a large African population. Before the Bolivarian revolution, the two institutionalized political parties, Democratic Action and COPEI, ensured that Africans remained marginalized – second class citizens in every way.

Race is a very powerful dynamic in Venezuela and for that matter throughout the region. There is a racist dimension to the politics of the Castilian elites, who of course vehemently opposed Chavez’ plan to empower the masses and in particular Black Venezuelans.

The Castilian elites vehemently opposed Chavez’ plan to empower the masses and in particular Black Venezuelans. After 14 years of Hugo Chavez’ leadership I can assure you that Africans have come in from the cold.

After 14 years of Hugo Chavez’ leadership I can assure you that Africans have come in from the cold. This is a new Venezuela and an amazing accomplishment in a country with such a rabid bourgeoisie, who were so used to their own position of white privilege that they could not imagine life any other way.

So it was with sheer determination and a lifetime of struggle that this great champion of the oppressed, Comandante Hugo Chavez, led a revolution that provides us with a working example of what he termed “21st century socialism,” where people of all ethnicities have a place under the sun.

Socialism Venezuelan style

Following the collapse of the Eastern Bloc or what was referred to at the time as “actually existing socialism,” the World Mathaba hosted an international gathering in Tripoli – the aim being to examine the implications of this historical moment and the way forward. Revolutionaries from all over the world, including Venezuela, attended this gathering.

At that time, some of those in Europe and throughout the world who had promoted Soviet style communism and described themselves as Marxists-Leninists were disillusioned. They had lost direction and, as a result, some of them abandoned socialism altogether.

However, many saw the collapse as something to be expected, since we had witnessed the limitations of Soviet style communism. We had seen firsthand failed attempts to mechanically replicate Soviet style communism across the Global South. Furthermore, we rejected the idea that “socialism” was primarily a European product and somehow synonymous with European-Soviet expressions of socialism. We understood socialism as a universal principle that pre-dated Marxism and found expression in all cultures.

Hugo Chavez and Muammar Qaddafi are two heads of state who showed the world how oil wealth can be used to eliminate poverty and empower the people. Who will have the courage to follow in their footsteps?

According to Qaddafi, what had collapsed in the Eastern Bloc was not socialism as we understood it but a form of “bureaucratic collectivism.” He went on to say that, outside of the Jamahiriya, he believed that the struggle for and implementation of the “new socialism,” which would truly lead to power, wealth and arms in the hands of the people, would occur in the coming years in South and Central America.

That was in 1990, nine years before Chavez’s electoral victory and the path-blazing journey he embarked on. It was a journey which laid the foundation for a regional movement of socialist oriented and anti-imperialist governments.

Like the socialism of the Jamahiriya, which was inspired by an Islamic theology of liberation, the socialism Chavez spoke of was grounded in the theology of liberation borne out of the extreme poverty and social deprivation in the barrios of South and Central America. Revolutionary theologians such as Gustavo Gutierrez, Juan Segundo and Jose Miranda proclaimed that the message of Jesus Christ was incompatible with neo-liberal capitalism and was in fact revolutionary and socialistic to its core.

In the words of Chavez, “Capitalism is the way of the devil and exploitation. If you really want to look at things through the eyes of Jesus Christ – who I think was the first socialist – only socialism can really create a genuine society.”

This was an idea close to the hearts of the people of Venezuela, but which earned Chavez the wrath of the establishment’s clergy.

Like Qaddafi, Chavez rejected the left/right dichotomy. Both saw it as meaningless and obsolete, since it failed to encapsulate their realities. Chavez himself said he was “neither left nor right” and made it clear that the PSUV, the party of the Bolivarian revolution, was not Marxist-Leninist.

In the words of Chavez, “Capitalism is the way of the devil and exploitation. If you really want to look at things through the eyes of Jesus Christ – who I think was the first socialist – only socialism can really create a genuine society.”

He acknowledged the great contribution made to socialist theory and practice by Marx, Lenin, Trotsky and Mao Tse-tung; however, he knew that if socialism was to be successfully implemented in Venezuela and throughout the Americas and the Caribbean, it had to be a socialism rooted in the experiences and traditions of the peoples of the Americas.

Homegrown

Drawing on the example of Jesus Christ and the legacy of Venezuela’s own revolutionary hero, Simon Bolivar, Chavez’s Bolivarian revolution resonated throughout the region, not least of all because it was homegrown. The indigenous character of all the programs and policies meant that they were implemented with tremendous success.

Venezuela, under Chavez, became a shining example of a viable alternative to the failed neo-liberal model, which has brought nothing but despair and devastation. The communitarian socialism of Evo Morales of Bolivia is in the same tradition – indigenous and homegrown.

In the words of one Venezuelan woman, who was weeping in the street upon hearing the news of Chavez’ death: “Chavez is alive! We are all Chavez.”

Hugo Chavez’s contributions to the region and the entire Global South are far too many to catalogue here. Perhaps one of the most important was his insistence that if socialism was to be built in the 21st century, it must be the people, the masses, organized at the base level in the “communal councils,” actively and consciously shaping their destiny, rather than being dictated to by a so-called revolutionary vanguard.

This was the very cornerstone of the Libyan Jamahiriya. Revolutionary committee members were facilitators, not a vanguard. Like the Libyan Jamahiriya, Chavez’ bottom up revolution gave the world an example of a rare and genuine transfer of power and wealth to the people.

Chavez was a great orator and thinker but, most importantly, a man who walked the talk. Putting the idea of people’s empowerment into practice, in just 14 years he took Venezuela from a neo-colony – a landscape of poverty stricken barrios, quite literally stretching as far as the eye could see – from a nation where the majority of the population lived in disgraceful conditions alongside a tiny minority of parasitical elites who enjoyed all of the benefits of Venezuela’s vast oil wealth to an example of a “people’s revolution.” The real international community salutes you, brother.

If socialism was to be built in the 21st century, it must be the people, the masses, organized at the base level in the “communal councils,” actively and consciously shaping their destiny, rather than being dictated to by a so-called revolutionary vanguard.

In the words of one Venezuelan woman, who was weeping in the street upon hearing the news of Chavez’ death: “Chavez is alive! We are all Chavez.”

The life and times of Hugo Chavez will continue to inspire all those who fight for a world free of racism and imperialism. Like his hero, Bolivar, Chavez will be forever etched into the world’s collective memory because he changed the world. Be assured that the great sacrifice he made has led to the kind of transformation from which, in his words, “there is no turning back.”

Gerald A. Perreira is international secretary of the Black Consciousness Movement Guyana (BCMG). He lived in Libya for many years, served in the Green March, an international battalion for the defense of the Libyan revolution, and was an executive member of the World Mathaba based in Tripoli. He can be reached at mojadi94@gmail.com.

March 11 will make the second anniversary of the triple catastrophes that occurred in Japan: the earthquake, the tsunami and the nuclear meltdowns at Fukushima. Over the last two years people are asking whether the Fukushima nuclear disaster is worse than what occurred in 1986 in Chernobyl.

We must speak out and demand closure of all nuclear power plants.

Unless the principles of physics, chemistry and biology are cancelled, the effects that have been documented in the various populations exposed to the radioactive releases from Chernobyl will occur in those exposed to Fukushima releases. Let us consider “Science 101”:

Physics:

Perpetuating the Japanese government’s efforts to quell fears rather than assess and mitigate the effects of the Fukushima meltdown, a government-backed scientist said last month: “Since the accident in Fukushima, no health effects from radiation have been observed, although we have heard reports some people fell ill due to stress from living as evacuees and due to worries and fears about radiation.” But these demonstrators are not convinced. As he spoke, it was announced at Fukushima that three children have been diagnosed with thyroid cancer. – Photo: Reuters

Chemistry:

All elements, radioactive or not, belong to groups best shown in the Periodic Table of Elements. Radioactive strontium belongs to the same chemical family as calcium and, like calcium, becomes deposited in human bones and teeth of children and the unborn as well as in animals, fish and birds. Like potassium, radioactive cesium is deposited in muscle – of all animals: fish, birds and humans – while radioactive iodine is taken up by the thyroid gland, causing the greatest damage in unborn and young animals. These chemicals damage as they release high-energy radiation that causes damage to the surrounding tissues, including mutations.

Biology:

As radioactive isotopes are spread over land and water, they become deposited – but in a non-uniform manner, depending upon wind direction, weather and elevation.

Life process in plants results in the up-take of radioactivity, which is released as plants die or become dormant and leaves fall to the ground to seep into the soil to be taken up again the next season. In the interim, fruit, vegetables and grains eaten by livestock and people become contaminated.

A woman cries during a brief visit to her home in the evacuation zone near the Fukushima reactors a year after the disaster. “A year on, we are really not seeing basic health services being offered in an accessible way and we are not seeing accurate, consistent, non-contradictory information being disclosed to people on a regular basis,” observed a Human Rights Watch researcher. – Photo: Kim Kyung-Hoon, Reuters

After Chernobyl, not all life systems were examined, but of those that were – wild and domestic animals, birds, insects, plants, fungi, fish, trees and humans – all were damaged, many permanently. Thus, what happens to animals and plants with short-term life spans is predictive of those with longer ones.

Moller and Mousseau and others have done field research in both Chernobyl and Fukushima. They document adverse effects seen in organisms with short life spans such as birds, rodents and insects, which have completed as many as 25 generations. Those effects are much worse than has been reported in humans, who are now entering their third generation since Chernobyl.

As after Chernobyl and Three Mile Island in the U.S., adverse effects suffered by those exposed to Fukushima fallout has been attributed to “stress.” Certainly such disasters result in stress, but the adverse effects in multiple animal and plant species cannot be due to psychological stress.

Isotopes in soil, water, food, plants or animals cannot be detected by sight, taste or smell. Radiation measuring devices can detect the alpha, beta and gamma emissions, but only if they are performed. And they are useful only if the information is released to the public.

Radiation from Fukushima, as with Chernobyl, was detected around the world. Radioisotopes have massively contaminated the Pacific Ocean, and nuclear radiation from Fukushima has been linked to adverse effects in the U.S.

Unless the principles of physics, chemistry and biology are cancelled, the effects that have been documented in the various populations exposed to the radioactive releases from Chernobyl will occur in those exposed to Fukushima releases.

The uniqueness of Japan bears mention. Japan is a small country with a large, dense population. Population around the Fukushima nuclear plants is greater than around Chernobyl. Now two years later, the Fukushima plants are still leaking. Consider too, the Fukushima area was and is a major crop producer, and the level of radioactive cesium in vegetables and fish continues to increase.

Since we are discussing a basic guide to understanding, let us also consider:

Economics:

Twenty years after the Chernobyl catastrophe, the cost to Ukraine, Russia and Belarus exceeded $500 billion. That does not include the 950 million Euro “sarcophagus” that is under construction, to be transported over the top of the reactor by 2015. Nor does it include the cost of a disposal site for the reactor’s fuel, which will be more difficult to remove since the recent collapse of that reactor’s roof.

Former Navy quartermaster Maurice Enis is one of 100 crewmen of the USS Ronald Reagan, the aircraft carrier that spent about 80 days off Fukushima on a rescue mission two years ago, suing TEPCO for adverse health effects since working in radioactive plumes after the Fukushima disaster. He has lumps on his jaw, between his eyes and on his thigh, stomach ulcers and lung problems, and is losing weight and hair. He’s been honorably discharged and has no way to pay for medical care. – Photo: Lynne Peeples

The San Onofre reactor, easily viewed when driving between San Diego and Los Angeles, located near an earthquake fault, has had a series of mechanical problems. It is estimated that it will cost some $3.7 billion to de-commission all three reactor units. The 50-kilometer (31-mile) area around San Onofre is populated by some 2.4 million people in over 50 towns and cities and includes all of Camp Pendleton. San Onofre, like the Diablo Canyon reactor, are on the Pacific Ocean, subject to tsunami flooding.

Politics:

It is impossible to separate politics from economics, as is very obvious by the flood of money flowing to the U.S. government. Must we leave these decisions to be made only by those who control the flow of information, money and power, many of whom have no knowledge of the scientific principles and facts, which have been well documented for decades?

Ethics:

Seldom taught in the fields of finance, commerce and much of technology, ethics considerations are not accessible to those who have made these costly, irreversible, life-endangering decisions. Who indeed is to decide who lives, gets sick, has birth defects or dies a premature death?

We must speak out and demand closure of all nuclear power plants. Please, contact your local, state and national representative and write to your local newspapers.

Janette D. Sherman, M.D., a physician, toxicologist and author, concentrating on chemicals and nuclear radiation that cause cancer and birth defects, is consulting editor for “Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and Nature,” a comprehensive presentation of all the available information concerning the health and environmental effects of the low dose radioactive contaminants. Originally published by the New York Academy of Sciences in 2009 for $150, she has had it republished for wide distribution at only $10. See http://janettesherman.com/books/. Dr. Sherman has worked in radiation and biologic research at the University of California nuclear facility and at the U.S. Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory at the Hunters Point Shipyard in San Francisco. Her primary interest is the prevention of illness through public education and patient awareness. She can be reached at www.janettesherman.com.

KPFA Evening News, March 9, 2013

Paul Kagame will speak at the University of Hartford on March 12, 2013, to launch the “Genocide and Holocaust Education Initiative” at its Maurice Greenberg Center for Judaic Studies.

Many similar events, where the Holocaust and the Rwanda Genocide have been equated, include President Barack Obama’s April 2012 address to the Elie Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies at Boston University. KPFA’s Ann Garrison spoke to Professor Ed Herman, co-author of both “Manufacturing Consent” and “The Politics of Genocide,” about why this equation, which is so frequently made at university departments, courses and events, is wrong.

KPFA/Ann Garrison: Professor Herman, first I’d like to play an audio clip from “Le Déluge,” a film in progress about the Rwanda Genocide, in which Noam Chomsky, then you, then former Rwandan Prime Minister Faustin Twagiramungu speak. Is that OK?

Professor Ed Herman: Yes.

KPFA: OK, first Noam Chomsky.

Former Rwandan Prime Minister Faustin Twagiramungu

KPFA: Now, Professor Herman.

Ed Herman: Genocide is used by various political actors to meet their own political needs. It’s a very politicized word.

KPFA: And now, former Rwandan Prime Minister Faustin Twagiramungu.

Faustin Twagiramungu: About the situation of my country, genocide, massacres, you name it … the truth still has to be told.

KPFA: OK, Professor Herman, what do you think of the film and its thrust? Is it compatible with the standard model of the Rwanda Genocide?

Professor Edward S. Herman, co-author of “Manufacturing Consent” and “The Politics of Genocide”

This, I think, is a gigantic lie and the film contests that gigantic lie.

KPFA: What do you think the Israeli government and the Zionist movement get out of this identification with Rwanda?

Ed Herman: The main thing they get is a reminder that holocausts exist. The Israeli government and the Zionist movement need that reminder of the holocaust, to justify their own policy, as they need the accusations of anti-Semitism. So it may be a false equation, but it keeps in mind the possibility of a holocaust and a reminder of what the Jewish people went through back at the time of the Nazis.

KPFA: They never seem to mention Congo.

Ed Herman: Yes.

KPFA: And someone sent me a picture of Congolese marching behind a banner that says “Nazi was wrong but USA and EU are worse in Congo.”

Ed Herman: What that sign is saying is that there are mass killings in the Congo, and the West is partly ignoring them and partly even supporting the people who are engaging in it. Kagame and Museveni are actively invading and occupying and killing people in the Congo.

And Kagame and Museveni are still being armed and protected by the West, so they’re engaging in genocidal practices in the Congo. And the West is not only not doing anything about it; it’s essentially supporting them. So the whole business of focusing on the Nazis must look hypocritical to victims in the Congo. And there are millions of them.

KPFA: And that was Professor Ed Herman, on “The Politics of Genocide,” which is also the title of his book, co-authored with David Peterson.

For Pacifica, KPFA and AfrobeatRadio, I’m Ann Garrison.

Oakland writer Ann Garrison writes for the San Francisco Bay View, Global Research, Colored Opinions, Black Star News and her own website, Ann Garrison, and produces for AfrobeatRadio on WBAI-NYC, KPFA Evening News and her own YouTube Channel, AnnieGetYourGang. She can be reached at ann@afrobeatradio.com. This story first appeared on her website. If you want to see Ann Garrison’s independent reporting continue, please contribute on her website at anngarrison.com.

“Le Deluge,” a film in progress by Keith Snow and Anna May Simone

Grahamstown Unemployed People’s Union spokesperson Ayanda Kota had much more to say about this tragedy and its post-apartheid South African context than we were able to report on the KPFA Evening News on Sunday, March 3, 2013.

He said that the Black Consciousness Movement founded by Steve Biko, with his call for the restoration of humanity shattered by apartheid, offers the best hope of healing. He also said that restoration would come from below, from those still experiencing the pain in their communities, not from the wealthy political elites, both Black and white, now sheltering in suburbs and behind gates. We didn’t have time to include that in KPFA’s broadcast news transcribed and audio archived here, so I’m adding it, albeit briefly for now.

Women take the lead in this South African Unemployed Peoples Movement march.

The only other report of Thandiswa’s death that was visible on the web as of March 4 was Mandy Dewall’s in South Africa’s The Daily Maverick: “Thandiswa Qubuda – another dead brick in the wall of rape imprisoning South Africa.”

De Wall also quoted Ayanda Kota: “Thandiswa Qubuda’s passing is horrifying. She met her death in the most savage and brutal way. If Thandiswa were from a wealthy family, her story would have been in all the newspapers, the police would have rounded up the perpetrators and they would be in jail. But because she is unemployed, she is the wretched of the earth. She does not appear in the headlines and her rapists walk free.”

KPFA Evening News, March 3, 2013

KPFA Evening News Anchor Anthony Fest: Turning now to news from South Africa, Thandiswa Qubuda died in a Grahamstown, South Africa, hospital on Thursday night of injuries sustained six weeks earlier in a brutal gang rape. The South African Unemployed People’s Movement of Grahamstown said that it took the police three hours to arrive at the scene of the crime after it was reported, even though there is a police station only about a half mile away.

The Unemployed People’s Movement also issued a release saying that poor people in South Africa cannot expect protection, only violence and oppression, from the South African police. Earlier in the week in Johannesburg, in a notorious case around the world, police tied a Mozambican cab driver to the back of a police van and dragged him along the ground, then left him to die of his injuries. KPFA’s Ann Garrison spoke to Unemployed People’s Movement spokesman Ayanda Kota and filed this report.

KPFA/Ann Garrison: Ayanda Kota summarized what is known of Thandisa’s case by phone from Grahamstown for KPFA. On Jan. 19, he said, she was dragged into a yard in Grahamstown, where she was publicly beaten and gang raped. One of the key witnesses testified that the gang rapists had called him and said that he must also rape her, but that he refused, ran away and called neighbors, who rushed to the scene.

By the time the neighbors got there, the perpetrators had run away and Thandiswa lay on her back, unconscious and half naked in pouring rain, with her pants down and her arms crossed over her breasts, as though to protect herself, and one of her ears cut off. He said that it took police three hours to respond despite a police station barely a half mile away.

Ayanda Kota, in his earlier activist days, holds a photo of Steve Biko, founder of the South African Black Consciousness Movement and author of “I Write What I Like.” Biko died in police custody in 1977 at age 30, 17 years before the end of legal apartheid. Ayanda said that South Africa now needs the revolutionary restoration of humanity that Biko called for and that it will come from below, from those still suffering.

Ayanda said that this tragedy is an example of patriarchy, of the epidemic of rape and violence in South African society, and of the incompetence, negligence, violence and/or militarization of the South Africa police.

Ayanda Kota: So we are very saddened by the death of our beloved sister Thandiswa. Our hearts are broken. If you look carefully at the story of Thandiswa, you see the sheer incompetency and negligence of the police. Every day you turn on that radio, television, you open that newspaper, it is the brutality of the police, the negligence of the police, the militarization of the police.

KPFA: He listed other examples of police negligence or violence, including the police execution of unarmed schoolteacher and writer Andrés Tatane, during a street protest, the police massacre of more than 40 striking miners at the Lonmin Corp.’s Marikana Platinum Mine, the brutal police beating of protestors, and the death, earlier this week, of a Mozambican taxi driver whom police dragged down Johannesburg streets tied to the back of a police van. The taxi driver died of his injuries unattended in a police cell, but bystanders captured cell phone videos of the event, and eight police officers in that case have been arrested.

For Pacifica, KPFA, and AfrobeatRadio, I’m Ann Garrison.

Oakland writer Ann Garrison writes for the San Francisco Bay View, Global Research, Colored Opinions, Black Star News and her own website, Ann Garrison, and produces for AfrobeatRadio on WBAI-NYC, KPFA Evening News and her own YouTube Channel, AnnieGetYourGang. She can be reached at ann@afrobeatradio.com. If you want to see Ann Garrison’s independent reporting continue, please contribute on her website at anngarrison.com.