Compare the response in Hunters Point when San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr attempted to hold a townhall on July 20, 2011, four days after police murdered Kenneth Harding, 19 (video below)

Chris Moreland, who cried “Justice!” at the Oakland townhall, is now in jail on $100,000 bail for battery of an officer, clearly a trumped up charge; arraignment Friday, 2 p.m., Wiley Manual Courthouse; support march 7 p.m., 19th and Telegraph

by Davey D

Alan Blueford, 18, was preparing to graduate from high school when he was murdered by police for running from them on May 6 in East Oakland.

Here in Oakland, California, the shooting death of Alan Dwayne Blueford is one such killing. Oakland police have been very shady with the stories they put forth to the public. It seems like a deliberate attempt to muddy the waters, cast seeds of doubt and cover up their own mistakes.

Initially police said they were in a shoot-out and Blueford shot the officer in the stomach. Later the police said Blueford shot the officer in the leg. Next the police said that it was possible the officer was shot in the leg by another officer in a case of friendly fire. Finally it came out that the officer shot himself. He shot himself in the foot.

Many believe the officer shot himself after he killed Blueford and saw the young man was unarmed. The police then doubled back and said a gun was recovered; the community has yet to see any evidence of fingerprints, gun residue etc. Many have concluded it was the officer planting a gun near the scene.

This would not be unusual in a city that in the past 10 years has had to shell out over $58 million for wrongful death shootings and police brutality incidents. This would not be far-fetched in a city that was home to a rogue group of cops known as the Oakland Riders, who were found to routinely plant drugs and guns on suspects. One of the Riders is a still a fugitive at large.

Adding to all this was the fact that Blueford was left on the ground for four hours to die while the officer, who lied and then finally admitted to shooting himself, was treated.

The public still does not know the name of the officer, thanks to California’s Police Officers Bill of Rights, which prevents the public from knowing the names of officers involved in brutality incidents. Community investigators have revealed the officer who murdered Blueford is Miguel Masso, a former military man who lives in Los Banos, which is more than 100 miles outside of Oakland.

Alan Blueford’s family and community activists held a 3 p.m. rally in front of the Alameda County DA’s office, 1225 Fallon St., Oakland, on Wednesday, May 23, 3:00 p.m., to make these demands: Release the cop’s name, take him off paid leave, charge him with murder and fire him. Some of Alan’s supporters proceeded from the rally to the townhall called by Mayor Jean Quan and Police Chief Howard Jordan, but the family chose not to go.

In an attempt to do more damage control, OPD held a town hall meeting on Wednesday, May 23, at Acts Full Gospel Church. Folks showed up only to discover the police chief would only answer questions that were pre-written. This annoyed folks to no end. Then he seemed ill prepared or unable to answer basic questions. He also hawked what many saw as blatant lies. This led to more than half the room turning their backs on the chief and throwing up fists.

The chief cut the meeting short and left the building with angry residents in tow. They got at him and let him know that there needs to be accountability and the community would not stand for his lies. The chief was definitely embarrassed.

Later that night we learned Oakland police came after one of the community members shown in the video holding a bullhorn, Chris M. They claimed he assaulted an officer at the church. If that was the case, when and where did that happen and why not arrest him on the spot?

Here’s a video of last night’s townhall meeting and dispersal.

Listen to Davey D on Hard Knock Radio Monday-Friday at 4 p.m. and his Morning Mix show every Tuesday at 8 a.m. on KPFA 94.1 FM or kpfa.org. He can be reached at mrdaveyd@aol.com. Visit his website, daveyd.com, and his blog, Davey D’s Hip Hop Corner, where this story first appeared.

After murdering high school senior Alan Blueford, Oakland police have been trying to do damage control. Initially they claimed Blueford was involved in a shoot-out and shot the officer. We now know the officer shot himself after killing Blueford. The officer’s name was not released to the public due to California law. The police held a townhall meeting at Acts Full Gospel church to try and calm down angry residents. As Chief Howard Jordan rattled off lie after lie, folks turned their backs to him. They were not feeling what amounted to a dog and pony show. OPD cut the townhall short as folks surrounded the police and demanded justice for Alan Blueford. We caught up with Oscar Grant’s uncle, Cephus Johnson, aka Uncle Bobby to get his assessment of what took place. – Video: Davey D

Compare the response of the people of Hunters Point when San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr, who had been captain of their precinct before being appointed chief, attempted to hold a townhall meeting on July 20, 2011, four days after police murdered Kenneth Harding, 19, when he ran from them after they pulled him off the T-train light rail car for his lack of a transfer to prove he’d paid his $2 fare. – Video: El Tecolote

Taking it to the streets: Justice for Alan Blueford! Release Chris Moreland!

Dady Chery, Editor, Haiti Chery

The townhall meeting did not go as anticipated. The plan had been for Oaklanders to sit in the Acts Full Gospel Church and, like so many devotees, politely listen to the lying monotone of the police chief about the recent killing of another Black youth, then write their questions for triage and more monotonous answers: the rage cleanly severed from voice and heart.

There is such a thing as an appropriate reaction to profound injury. First, the attendees began to turn their backs on the lies: a reaction as old as time (video above by Davey D). Animals in zoos do this when they dislike a visitor. Birds and even butterflies resolutely turn their tails to insults.

The attendees began to turn their backs on the lies: a reaction as old as time. Animals in zoos do this when they dislike a visitor. Birds and even butterflies resolutely turn their tails to insults.

The spell was broken. People had regained themselves. Next, the fists began to rise, and the questions started to flow, unwritten. A bullhorn called “Justice!” and got the response “For Alan Blueford!”

Source: https://twitter.com/Anon4justice/status/205844630389010432/photo/1

“Justice!”

“For Alan Blueford!”

Chris Moreland, the man who cried “Justice!” into the bullhorn, is himself now in jail: targeted for arrest by police on the evening of May 23 on trumped up charges including battery of a police officer. How? With sound waves from a bullhorn?

Bail has been set at an outrageous $100 K. To free Chris, it is necessary to raise $10 K by Friday, May 25. Please donate here.

Chris will be arraigned Friday, 2 p.m., at Wiley Manual Courthouse. An emergency march has been planned to support him Friday at 7 p.m. at 19th and Telegraph.

Whatever the police might do to distract the population from the real issues, the Occupy protests in Oakland and elsewhere in the U.S. are about more than the occasional incidence of police brutality. The protests call for dismantling a system of social inequity that requires such a show of arbitrary violence that city police departments in the U.S. behave like a foreign occupation force toward Black youths.

Dady Chery grew up at the heart of an extended working-class family in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. She emigrated to New York when she was 14 and since then has traveled throughout the world, living in Europe and several North American cities. She writes in English, French and her native Créole and holds a doctorate. She can be reached at dc@dadychery.org. This story first appeared on her blog, Haiti Chery.

A beautiful tribute to Alan Blueford and his family – Video: Myron Potier

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by Malaika Kambon

“Oro en paz, fierro en guerra” (“Gold in peace, iron in war”) – Motto of the San Francisco Police Department

Alan Blueford’s mother Jeralynn testified passionately at the May 15 Oakland City Council meeting. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

The video re-play of the Oakland City Council meeting for that evening shows members of the family, arm in arm, giving each other much needed support as they spoke before a standing-room-only public audience with hundreds more outside of the doors of the council chambers, addressing the issues of the cold blooded assassination of their child. They testified about the lies and criminalization of him that the police had told family members and stated on television and radio and posted online on the police website, and they described the OPD’s callous disregard for their grief and need for information as they tried to piece together precisely what had happened to their child and how.

Mayor Jean Quan’s council seat was noticeably vacant. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

It didn’t seem to matter. The Oakland City Council was interested only in addressing – behind closed doors – what to do about how police handle informing relatives of officer-involved shooting victims. Alan’s parents had been told to “go sit down” and wait in the police station lobby for over two hours, with no information about their son, while the police purported to be “continuing their investigation” of an alleged “shoot-out” between an allegedly “unidentified” Black person and OPD officers.

Jeralynn and Adam Blueford said they raced to Oakland police headquarters in the early hours of May 6 after their son’s friend called to inform them that their son, Alan Blueford, had been shot and killed by a police officer.

Alan Blueford, 18, would have graduated in June.

Councilwoman Desley Brooks called repeatedly for someone to “find police Chief Howard Jordan” to facilitate a “discussion of police protocol for dealing with victim’s families,” but why does this issue overshadow the issue of another OPD slaying of an innocent Afrikan youth?

The OCC mindset bodes ill for any true investigation of this matter. Yet another pointless “internal investigation” will scream cover-up and “discussion of police protocol” will become nothing more than an administrative sound bite in the form of a report, while the deeper issue of an out of control department of killer cops goes untouched.

Note the similarities between five specific cases, in three separate cities, not more than three years apart, all of which included the police or vigilante murders of very young African men who were doing nothing that could even remotely be construed as criminal behavior.

And then, note the similarities between the assassins – and the consistent fact that all of the killers are free and white and that their criminal actions are protected under cover of law, no matter the evidence brought against them.

Miguel Masso, OPD

The three young Afrikan men were doing nothing more than awaiting the arrival of female friends to get a ride to go watch a televised professional boxing match.

This is not criminal activity. But the targeting of these young men for assault with deadly force was at the least inappropriate and quite probably a hate crime.

George Zimmerman, insurance underwriter cum vigilante

Thus far, Florida Republican Gov. Rick Scott’s administration is defending its decision to keep Zimmerman’s gun permit active. The argument that “short of a permit holder being convicted of a felony, the state does not have the authority to revoke a permit” is especially specious. Zimmerman is an armed and dangerous loose cannon. Yet he is free, has killed and is under no known court orders of supervision.

Were the situation not so serious, this would be comical, particularly since the FBI says it now seeks to charge George Zimmerman with a hate crime. By definition, the FBI and its history of counterintelligence programs of hatred against Afrikan people (COINTELPRO) makes this an extreme case of the pot literally calling the kettle black. The FBI, a federal organization built upon hatred, charging a hater with – ahem – hating!

Johannes Mehserle, ex-BART cop

His attorney, Michael Rain, successfully lobbied the state of California to have his client’s trial moved out of Oakland to Los Angeles.

Rain also got the gun enhancement charge, which would have added 10 years to Mehserle’s sentence, dismissed by “convincing” Judge Robert Perry to believe that his client truly confused his Taser for his gun, even though Oscar Grant photographed Mehserle holstering his Taser, drawing his gun and firing what turned out to be the fatal shot.

After the deals were made, Mehserle dried his eyes and showed no remorse whatever for the murder. He and his appellate attorney Dylan Schaffer are now attempting to have his 2010 involuntary manslaughter conviction overturned on the grounds that the ruling “sets a precedent that makes it difficult for police officers to do their jobs.”

Oakland Schools Police Sgt. Barhin Bhatt holds shut the gate to Fremont High School during a March 4, 2011, protest. – Photo: KALW

While Mehserle didn’t clean up quite as handily as did Zimmerman and Masso, note the similarities of the three murderers: While the police departments and mainstream media criminalized the slain Afrikan victims, the assassins completely altered their public image photographs and demeanor, hoping that taking geeky, boy next door photos, donning suits and ties, crying – while lying – in court, and making public apologies to grieving families will divert the public from focusing on the heinous crimes they and their respective departments have committed and continue to commit against a global Afrikan community.

Every member of the large and close knit family of Alan Dwayne Blueford who could spoke truth to power at the Oakland City Council meeting on May 15 in support of justice for their slain loved one, who was gunned down on May 6 by one of the OPD’s paid killers behind the badge, Miguel Masso. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

Note the further similarities between the Oscar Grant, Trayvon Martin, Kenneth Harding, Raheim Brown and Alan Blueford shootings:

• All except Kenneth Harding were shot in the small hours of the morning.
• All were denied critical medical treatment.
• All were posthumously criminalized both by the police and by a mainstream press that wouldn’t have mentioned the shootings at all if the Afrikan communities of the world hadn’t taken to the streets in rebellion.
• All were unarmed; all shots were fired by police or an armed vigilante civilian.
• All were either fleeing from police or “co-operating” with police directives, despite racial epithets being spewed by police and/or police escalation of legal activities to justify their subsequent use of deadly force.
• None was threatening police.
• None was over 22 years old.

This is George Zimmerman’s gun, a Sig Sauer. The .40 caliber of this model is the standard issue gun for the SFPD. All police officers carry other weapons and often carry a backup weapon as well. SFPD’s Weapons Training Video can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbZCPkf4_WY.

Trayvon Martin’s body had been left in the morgue for three days before his parents were notified; Kenneth Harding was forced to bleed out and die in public surrounded by heavily armed cops; Raheim Brown was shot multiple times to the head and chest while sitting in a car after a Skyline High School dance; Alan Blueford was shot three times in the back, his ID was stolen and his body was left on the street for over four hours – no telling how long he fought for life – and his parents were delayed at the police station without being told exactly what happened to their child and then fed a tissue of lies. Yet the allegedly clumsy cop was rushed to Highland Hospital post haste from the crime scene after shooting himself in the foot.

Meanwhile police departments purchase new SUVs and lethal toys such as the LRAD, used supposedly for the first time in the U.S. at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh. Now the OPD has acquired one. See “Is Oakland Police Itching to use its LRAD Weapon…Is That Why We Keep Hearing About Riots?“

Not only that, but 35 percent of Oakland’s budget goes to the police in the form of retirement benefits, cost of living increases and a recent proposal for $276,842 to be used to retrofit 149 police vehicles.

One particularly interesting entry appears on pages viii and ix of the Oakland 2009-11 Proposed Policy Budget: “In March 2009, to avoid a year-end deficit of over $8 million (stemming mainly from overspending in Police), 5.0 FTE vacant positions were frozen to save $0.2 million, fees were raised to generate $0.01 million, $0.45 million in police expenses were authorized for transfer to other funds, and a $0.5 million insurance claim was submitted to seek reimbursement for unanticipated police costs following the recent BART police shooting. In addition, $4.2 million in project costs have been deferred to the next year.”

The retrofit, the war toys and the new SUVs are an alleged response to increased criminal activity of Oakland’s Afrikan citizenry that does not exist, while killer cops and armed “citizen” vigilantes roam free to kill with impunity and justify their actions with “officer protection” claims, “stand your ground laws” that apparently apply only to vigilantes, and with the incredible hubris to claim a need to safeguard cities in which the population runs from them if given a chance.

Haiti Emergency Relief Fund and Haiti Action Committee co-founders attorney Walter Riley and Pierre Labossiere, with Aja Minor of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI), spoke at Tuesday’s City Council meeting in support of the Haitian Family Reunification Parole Program. Councilwoman Desley Brooks’ resolution urges President Obama to help Haiti recover, save lives and “end a double standard.” – Photo: Malaika Kambon

With the U.S./U.N. military occupation worsening conditions in Haiti, a petition for a Haitian Family Reunification Parole Program has been sent to Obama, such that Haitians, like hundreds of thousands of Cuban, Indochinese and Kosovar refugees, can be paroled to the U.S. and a program like that for Cubans can be established for Haitians. Such a resolution was on the Oakland City Council agenda for discussion on May 15, File 11-0396.

Adam and Jeralynn Blueford – shown here with SF8 and Black Panther veteran Richard Brown – and most of the family came to the annual Malcolm X Jazz and Arts Festival on May 19 in Oakland’s San Antonio Park. Jeralynn spoke to a crowd that had peaked at 10,000 people that day. She rocked the house and vowed that her son’s death would not be forgotten nor in vain. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

Atrocities such as these are always committed against peoples of color globally and predominantly against Afrikan people. We therefore must seriously connect what is happening on a larger and more realistic scale. Otherwise corrupt governments will continue to feed as we bleed.

A BAMN member passed out fliers at the May 15 Oakland City Council meeting seeking justice for Alan Blueford. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

Suggested reading: Dr. Jeffrey S. Adler’s “‘The Killer Behind the Badge’: Race and Police Homicide in New Orleans, 1925-1945.”

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.

On Saturday afternoon, May 12, at the Eastmont Mall Oakland police substation, the family of Alan Blueford speaks at a rally supporting justice for their son, murdered by OPD early in the morning of Saturday, May 6, 2012, near the intersection of 92nd and Birch Street in East Oakland. – Video: Earl Black

Family members and supporters marched on May 12 from 92nd and Birch, where Alan was gunned down and left for over four hours to bleed to death, to the Eastmont Mall police substation, chanting all the way. – Video: Earl Black

On Saturday afternoon, May 12, in front of the Eastmont Mall police substation, Alan Blueford’s cousin Tanisha Bradford addressed the lies the police presented to the family and expressed, along with other family members, anger and outrage, not only over the death of their beloved, but also because of the way the police continued to excuse their own criminal behavior in obvious and blatant disregard for the family’s feelings and rights. – Video: Earl Black

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by Monica Moorehead

Across the country, people are donning their hoodies and rallying for justice for Trayvon Martin, and this little fellow, Isaiah Henry-Simpson, 7, of Arlington, Va., attending a rally at Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C., with his parents, wasn’t about to be left out. People are even wearing hoodies in church. - Photo: Jacquelyn Martin, AP

His death has come to symbolize every young person of color’s nightmare as they rightfully fear becoming a victim of senseless violence — be it at the hand of a police officer, a prison guard or a racist vigilante — because of how they look and dress. On March 26, millions of people, the vast majority of them Black, but also of every nationality, participated in a “National Hoodie Day.” That means they are rallying wearing a hoodie as did Martin the day he was murdered.

Martin was stalked by vigilante George Zimmerman as he was returning home from picking up a can of iced tea and a bag of Skittles for his younger brother in a gated community in Sanford, Fla., where he was visiting his father. On 911 tapes, Zimmerman said that Martin looked “suspicious” because he was wearing a hoodie. The police dispatcher told Zimmerman not to pursue Martin, but he did so anyway. Zimmerman later revised this to claim that Martin was pursuing him. The armed Zimmerman outweighed the unarmed 17-year-old Martin by 90 pounds.

Martin’s girlfriend said that he told her during a call on his cell phone that he was being followed by someone. On the 911 tapes, Martin can be heard crying for help before he was shot to death in the chest. Two female eyewitnesses have confirmed this.

The Sanford police questioned Zimmerman in a squad car for about an hour and then released him. He has never been arrested or charged with shooting Martin. The Sanford police have a sordid reputation of not arresting anyone accused specifically of assaulting Black men.

Sanford is also the city where racist whites drove the legendary Jackie Robinson out of town with death threats. Robinson was playing minor league baseball there in the 1940s before he integrated baseball’s Major Leagues in 1947.

Zimmerman has publicly stated that he thought the killing would “all blow over.” He has also said that Martin attacked him, attempting to portray himself as the victim. Though he apparently hoped these statements would have countered the outrage, they have only added fuel to an incredible brushfire of mass anger from below.

Social media spread national outrage

Although Martin’s shooting initially received considerable coverage in the Florida media, it gained national coverage only in early March when Black radio hosts and blogs started to report the story. Tracy Martin and Sybrina Fulton, Martin’s parents, consistently kept their son’s story in the media with interviews.

Once the 911 tapes were finally released, the case received broader attention from Twitter and Facebook users. A change.org petition calling for Zimmerman’s arrest appeared online and gathered over 2 million signatures.

Tweets of the 911 tapes have been retweeted thousands and thousands of times. The anger does not begin and end with Zimmerman killing Martin. Many understand a police cover-up is involved. Also, Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law has attracted attention.

Passed in 2005, this Florida law states that any person who “feels” threatened by another person has the right to use a weapon to defend him or herself without necessarily facing the prospect of being arrested or prosecuted. Similar laws exist in at least 20 other states. Zimmerman has used this law as an excuse for shooting Martin. The police supported his claim of self-defense based on this law, which was rubber-stamped by the National Rifle Association and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

The Sanford police chief has temporarily stepped down due to criticism. State Attorney for Florida’s Fourth Judicial Circuit Court Angela B. Corey has been assigned to investigate the case that will be presented to the grand jury on April 10.

The national outcry for justice for Trayvon Martin, spearheaded in the grassroots led by the African-American community, continues to resonate throughout every sector of U.S. society. Several Miami-based high schools staged walkouts last week. Trayvon Martin lived in Miami.

Even President Barack Obama was forced to make a public statement on the case, saying that if he had a son, he would look like Martin. This personal statement prompted attacks by racist right-wingers like Newt Gingrich and Glenn Beck, who accused the president of reverse racism.

The U.S. Justice Department was pressured to announce plans to carry out an investigation regarding Zimmerman’s violation of Martin’s civil rights.

Well-known celebrities such as Spike Lee, Mia Farrow, Jamie Foxx, Sinead O’Connor, Ricky Martin and Clay Aiken have added their voices to the demand that Zimmerman be arrested. The entire Miami Heat basketball team, Martin’s favorite, led by Dwayne Wade and Lebron James, posed in hoodies with their heads bowed in honor of Martin. They have also worn the words “We want justice” on their sneakers during games.

Amar’e Stoudamire and Carmelo Anthony from the New York Knicks have worn hoodies during pregame warmups. The National Basketball Players Association issued a statement demanding an arrest and accusing the Sanford Police Department of “racial bias.”

The Miami Heat’s show of solidarity and support for Trayvon Martin organized by LeBron James and Dwayne Wade may be a trendsetter, returning social awareness to major league sports. – Photo: LeBron James

The great singer, Chaka Khan, initiated a song and video featuring other R&B singers like Kelly Price and Luke James honoring the memory of Trayvon Martin. The video shows actors Angela Bassett and Loretta Devine wearing hoodies.

Parallels with the Emmett Till lynching

The Trayvon Martin case has rightfully been compared to the lynching of 14-year-old African-American Emmett Till, a native Chicagoan. In August 1955, while visiting relatives in Money, Miss., Till was kidnapped by three Ku Klux Klan members, who tortured and then fatally shot Till before tossing his body in the Mississippi River. His so-called crime was allegedly whistling at a white woman. The KKK members were arrested and then acquitted by an all-white jury. These same men bragged about committing the murder in a Life magazine article.

Till’s funeral in Chicago attracted at least 50,000 people from around the country. His mother, Mamie Till Mobley, purposely allowed his casket to be opened to allow the world to see his horribly battered and disfigured face. This spontaneous anger transformed itself three months later into the Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott.

The one-year-long boycott successfully struck down a racist city law that relegated Black people to the back of the bus. This boycott eventually ignited the historic Civil Rights Movement in the South that brought about federal laws desegregating public places and legalizing the basic, democratic right of Black people to vote.

Many compare the initial response to Martin’s lynching to what happened after Till’s. The important question that begs an answer is this: Will Martin’s murder also help spark an ongoing, organized, massive movement against racial injustice?

This is a legitimate question since Martin’s lynching is a painful and constant reminder that a racist war exists in the U.S. against people of color, specifically young Black men. Many of the protests around the country have linked Martin’s murder to the killings of other young Black men in local areas by either the police or vigilantes like Zimmerman.

Martin’s parents initiated a town hall meeting in Eatonville, Fla., March 26 calling for a national movement to evolve so that what happened to their son will not happen to others. While the hall only held 500 people, tens of thousands of people stood for hours outside observing the proceedings on jumbotrons.

Every minute of every day, police stop and frisk thousands for no other reason than walking or driving while Black and Latino/a. The vast majority of millions imprisoned or caught in the vicious web of the U.S. criminal justice system are poor, young people of color. The global capitalist economic crisis, which has displaced millions of skilled and semi-skilled workers, has totally pushed aside young workers of color in disproportionate numbers. This marginalization has shut the doors to public education and job training for youth.

The corporate media are now making contemptible attempts to justify Zimmerman’s actions and dilute the mass anger by reporting that Martin was suspended from school for 10 days for possessing marijuana. This kind of demonization of one’s character is nothing new when it comes to youth of color. The big-business media do it to divert attention from the real issues: racist vigilantism and police brutality.

At a March 26 press conference, Trayvon Martin’s mother, Sybrina Fulton, stated, “They have killed by son and now they are trying to kill his  reputation.” Attempts are now being made by the media to raise doubts in the minds of the public that Zimmerman, as heard on the 911 tapes, called Martin a racial slur before shooting him and that the screams for help did not come from Martin but from Zimmerman.

All these obvious diversions serve to raise consciousness that capitalism as a racist, divide-and-conquer system offers no bright future for young people, especially for those like Trayvon Martin whose killer is still free to walk the streets. The fact that the vast majority of youth expressing their solidarity with Trayvon Martin are other young Black men who face demonization on a daily basis shows that they have nothing to lose and everything to gain in openly expressing their solidarity with their fallen brother.

Many whites have visibly expressed their anti-racist solidarity in the many protests around the country. A 68-year-old white man, John Carnduff Stewart, was arrested for sending “death threats” to the Sanford police chief due to his outrage at the Martin shooting. Stewart reportedly described the entire police department as being “bigoted” and “unprofessional,” according to the Orlando Sentinel on March 23.

Justice for Trayvon Martin goes beyond Zimmerman’s arrest. The call for justice must also include a united movement’s demand for the right to good paying jobs, education, health care, housing and all human needs that capitalism denies to much of humanity. An International Day of Solidarity with Trayvon Martin has been called for April 10, the first day of the grand jury proceedings.

Monica Moorehead - Photo: Gary Wilson, WW

© 2012 Workers World. This story was originally published March 26, 2012, by Workers World, 55 W. 17^th St., New York NY 10011, ww@workers.org, www.workers.org, at http://www.workers.org/2012/us/trayvon_martin_0405/.

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by Ann Garrison, Cameron Jones, David Rosenberg and Anthony Fest of the KPFA Evening News Team

On commencement day, May 12, 2012, Sonoma State University President Dr. Ruben Armñana decorated retired Citigroup CEO Sanford Weill with the sash signifying his doctorate in humane letters. William Penn University Vice President Steve Noah did the same for Rwandan Gen. Paul Kagame. A 2001 U.N. report documents Citigroup subsidiary Citibank’s role in laundering money gained by Kagame’s war and plunder in Congo to finance more of the same.

The $12 million cost of the Weills’ honorary doctorates was between one seventh and one eighth of the $88 million that they sold their Manhattan condo for, upon Sanford Weills’ retirement from Citigroup – to a $31 million Sonoma County estate and vineyard – and after the multi-billion series of bailouts that taxpayers, thanks to our federal legislators, saved Citigroup with, while American taxpayers faced foreclosure and crushing student debt loads with no relief.

On the same day, William Penn University awarded an honorary doctorate in humane letters to Rwandan President Paul Kagame, despite 18 years of U.N. human rights investigations documenting his army’s atrocities in Rwanda and Congo.

Students, faculty and Sonoma activists protested Weill’s honorary doctorate; Rwandan, Congolese and Burundian Americans traveled from all over the country to protest Kagame’s. KPFA Evening News reported both protests and reported on one connection between them: Citibank, a subsidiary of Citigroup, which laundered money gained by Kagame’s war and illegal resource exploitation in Congo to fund more of the same.

Citibank also provides “trade, foreign investment, cash management and treasury services, all of which involve close collaboration with the Democratic Republic of Congo’s leading banks.”

Here are all three KPFA Evening News reports, for the record and for those who organized, from Petaluma to Oskaloosa:

Sonoma State University Sanford Weill protest

by Cameron Jones

Broadcast May 12 on KPFA Weekend News

Transcript

KPFA Weekend News Anchor Cameron Jones: Today is graduation day at Sonoma State University. And at SSU, a coalition of students, faculty and local occupy activists held a public demonstration to express their outrage over the honorary degree given to former Citigroup CEO Sanford Weill, one of the chief architects of the financial crisis.

During the May 12 afternoon commencement ceremony at SSU, Columbia University Professor Marc Lamont Hill made a pointed commencement speech addressing Sanford Weill’s crimes without mentioning his name and called for the business graduates in particular to behave more responsibly than Weill did during the career that shattered so many lives. Professor Hill co-authored “The Classroom and the Cell: Conversations on Black life in America” (December 2011) with Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Many Sonoma State graduates are saddled with student loan debt, much of owed to Citigroup.

Melanie Sanders is a Sonoma State University student. She graduated today and also participated in the protest. She says the silent protest is not intended to disrupt graduation proceedings. However, she says it’s an insult to give Weill an honorary degree, considering the damage he’s caused to struggling Americans – including herself.

Melanie Sanders: We’re deeply offended that he’s receiving this degree today. I put 19 years into my own degree. I’m a single mom, I’ve had a home foreclosed. I have student debt that doubled from $15,000 to $29,000 under Citigroup. So it’s absolutely an insult to me and my family and the honor of my graduation for him to be there.

Cameron Jones: Sandy Weill is now retired and very wealthy. He donated $12 million to fund the construction of Sonoma State’s controversial Green Music Center, which includes a 1,400-seat symphony hall that bears his name.

Sheppard Bliss teaches humanities at Sonoma State. He’s also active with the Sonoma Occupy Movement. He says today’s protest is intended to bring attention to the increasing corporatization and privatization of higher public education.

Sheppard Bliss: “So one of the big problems in higher education today, especially public higher education, is the privatization and corporatization of the university, which is based on tax dollars that we as citizens pay. So it’s our responsibility to be vigilant and see what’s happening. Of course this is happening throughout the CSU (California State University) system and the University of California system. So we have multiple objectives here, which was to expose what was happening in this particular situation and help students, family members connect the dots.”

Cameron Jones: Both Sandy Weill and his wife Joan were recipients of honorary doctorates today. For more information on Sandy Weill’s background, as well as the corporatization of Sonoma State, you can visit www.shameonssu.org.

Rwanda, Congo and Citibank: Moving the money

by Ann Garrison

Broadcast May 12 on KPFA Weekend News

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees published this photo on May 16, 2012, with the news that 8,200 Congolese have fled across the eastern Congolese border to refugee camps in Rwanda since April 27 and that 30,000 have fled to camps in Uganda in May. These refugees are waiting to meet with UNHCR staff in the Nkamira transit center, Rwanda. Camps in both Rwanda and Uganda are already drastically overcrowded. – Photo: S. Modola, UNHCR

Citibank also provides “trade, foreign investment, cash management and treasury services, all of which involve close collaboration with DRC’s leading banks.”

Transcript

KPFA Weekend News Anchor: Citigroup’s role in the national and global economic implosion and the foreclosure and student loan debt crises have received considerable press in recent years, but some of its other exploits are less well-known. KPFA’s Ann Garrison prepared this report on Citigroup subsidiary Citibank’s involvement in laundering money gained by Rwanda’s war and illegal mineral extraction in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

KPFA/Ann Garrison: In 2001, a U.N. panel of experts traced Citibank’s involvement in transferring money gained by Rwandan President Paul Kagame’s war and illegal resource extraction in the Democratic Republic of the Congo from a Rwandan bank back to Rwandan and Rwandan-backed militias in Congo.

Section 30 of the “2001 Report of the Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of the Democratic Republic of the Congo” offers one example of the financial transactions by which BCDI, a bank in Kigali, Rwanda, which Rwandan President Paul Kagame and other members of his Rwandan Patriotic Front Party own shares in, funded the Rwandan war in Congo with the help of Citibank, New York.

Rwanda borders Congo’s North and South Kivu provinces, which have been the site of war, resource plunder and horrific atrocities since Rwanda invaded Congo in 1996.

In Sections 130 through 135 of the same report, the panel of experts estimated that, between late 1999 and 2000, when the price of the mineral coltan soared, the Rwandan Army may have made as much as $20 million a month on Congolese coltan and at least $250 million over a period of 18 months, substantially more than enough to sustain its war in Congo during that time.

“Here,” the experts wrote, “lies the vicious circle of the war. Coltan has permitted the Rwandan army to sustain its presence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The army has provided protection and security to the individuals and companies extracting the mineral. These have made money which is shared with the army, which in turn, continues to provide the enabling environment to continue the exploitation.”

The report then traces Citibank’s role in the transfer of wealth created by smuggling Congo’s coltan into Rwanda and sending a share of profits back to Congo to sustain Kagame’s war. In one case, the Rwandan bank, BCDI, ordered Citibank in New York to pay millions of dollars to Rwandan companies which were providing supplies to the RCD, a Rwandan backed militia that became a major force in the Second Congo War. The Second Congo War formally ended with a peace treaty in 2003, though the conflict continues.

Renewed fighting in recent weeks has caused an estimated 10,000 Congolese refugees to flee across the eastern border into already overcrowded refugee camps in Rwanda and Uganda.

In January 2008, the International Rescue Committee estimated that 5.4 million people had died in the Congo conflict between 1998 and 2008 alone. The majority had died of hunger, disease and other hardship in the region’s refugee and internally displaced persons camps.

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

Rwandan President Paul Kagame, Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters?

by Ann Garrison

Broadcast May 13 on KPFA Weekend News

Those protesting at William Penn call Rwanda’s leader Gen. Paul Kagame, rather than president, to emphasize their conviction that he rules by force, not by law or popular election.

Transcript

KPFA Weekend News Anchor Anthony Fest: Yesterday at Sonoma State University, many students and faculty took part in a protest over the university’s granting of an honorary degree to Sanford Weill, former head of Citigroup. Protestors said Weill bears a big share of responsibility for the nation’s financial woes.

A similar protest took place yesterday at a private university in Iowa. At William Penn University, the recipient of the honorary degree was Paul Kagame, the president of Rwanda. Kagame also delivered the commencement speech. Protestors say that nearly two decades of United Nations human rights investigations have shown that forces under Kagame’s command have committed crimes against humanity, both in Rwanda and in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo. KPFA’s Ann Garrison has the story.

KPFA/Ann Garrison: The Africa Faith and Justice Network, African Great Lakes Action Network, Foreign Policy in Focus, Congo Global Action, Friends of the Congo, Mobilization for Justice and Peace in Congo and the Foundation for Freedom and Democracy in Rwanda all joined the coalition to protest William Penn University’s honorary doctorate and commencement invitation to the man they call Gen. Paul Kagame.

Rwandan, Burundian and Congolese Americans demonstrate outside the commencement exercises at William Penn University May 12, 2012.

Demonstrators began chanting “Kagame! Criminal!” as KPFA spoke with Theophile Murayi, the U.S. chairman of opposition leader Victoire Ingabire’s political party, the United Democratic Forces, who had traveled to Oskaloosa to protest:

KPFA/Ann Garrison: Are there any Congolese people there with you today?

Theophile Murayi: Yes, we do have some Congolese with us. We have also a few Burundians with us, because this president has been a human abuser not just for Rwandans but for the entire Great Lakes Region of Africa, so Rwandans, Burundians and Congolese alike really feel the pain when William Penn University decides to award him a doctorate of humane letters.

We had very good media coverage, and we had a fair turnout, considering Iowa is not exactly where you find the greatest number of Rwandans. We had people coming from all over, from Michigan, from Wisconsin, from Chicago. They came from Maryland. We have people who went all the way from Tennessee and Texas. So it was really a good turnout and the demonstration went well … [shouts ... chants ... Kagame! Kagame!] … Kagame’s car is coming up.

KPFA/Ann Garrison: Oh … your people are shouting at Kagame’s car?

A man the demonstrators believed to be one of Kagame’s secret service agents videotaped the protestors from across the street. One protestor said that he had seen the same man shooting video of the protest at Kagame’s visit to Chicago last year.

KPFA/Ann Garrison: He’s avoiding the demonstration and going down a back road?

Theophile Murayi: Yeah, he’s going by the back road that goes around the campus. He didn’t come our way.

KPFA/Ann Garrison: And what … and … what are they chanting? “Kagame assassin?”

Theophile Murayi: Kagame criminal!

KPFA/Ann Garrison: Criminal … how many of you are there there?

Theophile Murayi: We are … we are around 40 people here.

KPFA/Ann Garrison: Murayi said that the demonstrators agreed not to make any noise when students came out of the commencement exercises to have their pictures taken, though they held up signs because they felt the students should know about Kagame’s crimes. Murayi also confirmed that someone who appeared to be a Rwandan Secret Service agent was shooting video of the demonstrators.

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

San Francisco writer Ann Garrison writes for the San Francisco Bay View, Global Research, Colored Opinions, Black Star News, the Newsline EA (East Africa) and her own website, Ann Garrison, and produces for AfrobeatRadio on WBAI-NYC, Weekend News on KPFA and her own YouTube Channel, AnnieGetYourGang. She can be reached at ann@afrobeatradio.com.

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• Rwandan opposition leaders’ Christmas behind bars
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• Kagame court again denies bail to Victoire Ingabire
• Children in armed conflict: Olara Otunnu speaks to KPFA and Afrobeat Radio

Brittany Crawford

Upon her passing, Brittany’s organs were donated, and her generous gifts saved the lives of four people. Her parents, Keith and Lenore Crawford, were led to start a foundation, “Give Life, Save Life,” a non-profit organization. The foundation will focus on education and awareness of organ procurement and creating a database of African American donors.

Minority populations are disadvantaged in organ transplantation in several ways. Three key factors prevent African Americans from receiving kidneys at rates equal to whites. First, African Americans exhibit higher rates of diseases that cause kidney failure, like hypertension and diabetes. Five percent of people on wait lists died in 2008 and, more specifically, 4.6 percent of people on kidney wait lists perished. Second, the African-American population has a high prevalence of type B blood, which is more rare in the general population (and a problem because blood type matching is necessary for a successful transplant). Third, race-linked poverty and socioeconomic issues make it much harder to navigate the organ transplant system.

The foundation will hold workshops, screenings and scholarships in the African-American community.

The launch date for the foundation will be on Sept. 15, 2012, which would have been Brittany’s 21st birthday.

For more information, email givelifesavelife@gmail.com. Coming soon: givelifesavelife.org.

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by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery

A turtle swims in the pristine waters of Caracol Bay, one of the world's most beautiful bays, set to become a deep water port to facilitate the plundering of northeastern Haiti’s plentiful mineral riches. President Martelly says the port will be “built with the U.S. government’s help.”

It turns out that the real plan for Haiti’s northeastern region – especially the Caracol Bay area – is one that was hatched by Canadian mining corporations, with the U.S. and South Korean sweatshop zone being a side project and distraction. If this mining plan is given a green light while Haiti is under foreign occupation, it will permanently strip the country of much of its mineral, cultural and ecological wealth.

If this mining plan is given a green light while Haiti is under foreign occupation, it will permanently strip the country of much of its mineral, cultural and ecological wealth.

In a recent interview with Canada’s Financial Post, Majescor Resources Inc. CEO Dan Hachey was effusive about Michel Martelly’s installment as president because he expects Martelly’s policy of mimicking the Dominican Republic (DR) to be a boon to the mining sector.

Hachey enthusiastically noted that “30 years ago, there was no mining sector to speak of in the Dominican Republic ….

Dominican Republic Pueblo Viejo mine on Aug. 7, 2009; one would be hard put to find deforestation due to charcoal production that looks quite as bad as this. – Photo: Mining Journal

“They’re going to be coming on with production this year.”

This glowing picture omits the fact that Barrick and Goldcorp have come under strong popular opposition in the DR. In a country where 20 percent of the population lacks access to drinking water, these companies are accused of polluting 2,500 cubic meters of water per hour with the vast quantities of cyanide needed to process 24,000 tons of ore a day by opencast – or open-pit – mining. Open-pit mining is banned by the European Union. Activists in the DR have joined forces with a broader group called Observatorio de Conflictos Mineros de América Latina (OCMAL) that has launched a campaign to end this practice in the region.

There is great concern that the DR’s biggest water reservoir, which is close to the mining operations, is continuously at risk of cyanide contamination, since stories of spills and massive fish die offs caused by mining companies are legion. Barrick and Goldcorp have also been accused of dynamiting mountains and destroying Taino Indian archaelogical sites.

In this April 10, 2012 photo, Haitians watch as workers build a road through the mountains that will lead to an exploratory drill site in the department of Trou Du Nord, Haiti. Two mining companies are drilling around the clock to determine how to get the gold, silver and copper out. – Photo: Dieu Nalio Chery, AP

SOMINE is an acronym for Société Minière du Nord-Est S.A. and is described in the mineral trade sheets as a “Haitian affiliate mining company.” It is 66.4 percent owned by Majescor, with the rest being owned by Haiti’s elite. Majescor is still a relatively small company that conducts mineral surveys.

The SOMINE property is surrounded by other mining properties owned jointly by Majescor and much larger concerns like Eurasian Minerals and Newmont Mining. Once Majescor’s surveys are complete, it plans to find a big partner, like Barrick, Eurasian or Newmont to handle the extractive part of the project.

Curiously, the area of the SOMINE property was initially surveyed as early as “the 1970s by the U.N. Development Program, with some very good results [but the project was not pursued, then] there was a feasibility study done by the Germans [Bundesanstalt fur Geowissenschaften und Rohstoffe (BGR)] in 1980, and there was further drilling done in the 1990s by Canadian junior [mining companies],” recalled Hachey.

During the 1980s, the area was explored again by the UNDP and also surveyed by the French Bureau de Recherches Géologiques et Minière (BRGM), both of which reported finding only copper.

The metal-rich mountain ridge running from southeast DR to northern Haiti was formerly known simply as the Massif du Nord but has become the “Massif du Nord Metallogenic (or Mineralization) Belt.”

The mineral rights to the area were assigned to SOMINE under a Mining Convention executed on May 5, 2005 – valid until March 9, 2020 – between this company and the post-Aristide coup government. After this, it did not take long for Haiti’s mountains to start to glitter. For example, an exploration of the Faille-B prospect in 2007 found a gold vein that averaged 42.7 grams of gold per ton of ore (g/t) over 6 meters, including values of 107.5 g/t of gold over one meter.

According to Hachey, April 11, 2012, assays from Blondin found:

• 0.45 percent copper over 96.5 meters;
• 0.3 percent copper over 12 meters, including 0.61 percent copper over 1.5 meters; 154 grams of silver per ton (g/t) over 12 meters, including 869 g/t silver over 1.5 meters.

March 13, 2012, results from Blondin discovered:

• 72.4 g/t silver over 15 meters;
• 16.9 g/t silver over 113 meters, including 6.2 g/t silver over 1.5 meters; 0.43 percent copper over 113 meters, including 4.44 percent copper over 1.5 meters.

In April 2012 an EMX-Newmont joint venture and the Haitian government signed a Memorandum of Understanding that allows exploration drilling while a Mining Convention is being ratified to permit development. Under this new MOU, the Savane La Place gold prospect is the first project selected for drilling. – Source: http://www.eurasianminerals.com/new/Haiti.asp

• 255 g/t silver over 13.5 meters, including 2,069 g/t silver over 1.5 meters; 0.35 percent copper over 13.5 meters, including 0.52 percent copper over 1.5 meters; 0.02 g/t gold over 13.5 meters, including 0.04 g/t gold over 1.5 meters;
• 277 g/t silver over 13.5 meters, including 1,428 g/t silver over 1.5 meters; 0.18 percent copper over 13.5 meters, including 0.52 percent copper over 1.5 meters; 0.04 g/t gold over 13.5 meters, including 0.04 g/t gold over 1.5 meters.

These highly concentrated deposits of copper, silver and gold should reasonably represent a new found wealth for Haiti at a time of dire need of resources for the country’s reconstruction. But if the DR is to serve as an example, Haiti will not benefit from its minerals.

These highly concentrated deposits of copper, silver and gold should reasonably represent a new found wealth for Haiti at a time of dire need of resources for the country’s reconstruction. But if the DR is to serve as an example, Haiti will not benefit from its minerals.

In the DR, Barrick owns 60 percent of the Pueblo Viejo gold mine and Goldcorp Inc. owns the remaining 40 percent. To get a sense of the scale of the greed, one need only consider that currently the Pueblo Viejo mine is slated to produce 1 million ounces of gold per year at a cost of only US$20-$50 per ounce, making it one of the lowest-cost gold mines in the world.

Hachey comments with evident enthusiasm, “What we’re most excited about is that we found some silver, which was never really realized before. It’s the first silver discovery in Haiti.

Majescor has found fabulous riches in the 50-square-kilometer SOMINE property in Haiti’s Massif du Nord Mineralization Belt.

“The geology is a little complex for a copper porphyry, but in a good way. The surprises that we’re getting are all good ones.”

As major draws for a big mining partner to this next phase of the project, Hachey is advertising that, unlike Port au Prince, which was destroyed by the earthquake, Cap Haïtien is a pleasant place for a Canadian mining executive and his family to come to. In addition he notes that there are plans for “the construction of a deep-water port at Caracol,” only 15 kilometres from the SOMINE property and near Cap Haïtien.

The textile factories’ contributions to the degradation of Caracol Bay should be trivial compared to the damage from opencast gold mining and construction of a deep-water port.

This first official announcement of a deep-water port for Caracol explains in part why there has been no effort to mitigate the ecological effects of the massive free-trade (sweatshop) zone inaugurated in March 2012 in that area: The textile factories’ contributions to the degradation of Caracol Bay should be trivial compared to the damage from opencast gold mining and construction of a deep-water port.

Update

Monday, May 7, 2012, Le Matin – Martelly announces that the construction of a port will soon start in Fort-Liberte [near Caracol], in the Northeast. The port will cost US$179 million and is supposed to be “built with the U.S. government’s help,” but it will likely be entirely owned by U.S. concerns.

Recommendations from Haiti Chery

• “Fertile Land Seized for New Sweatshop Zone”
• “Caracol Haiti Industrial Park With Projected Adverse Environmental Impact”
• “Industrial Park Threatens Precious Caracol Bay Ecosystem”
• “Caracol Free-Trade Zone Jeopardizes Natural and Cultural Heritage”
• “Argentina’s Famatima, Chilecito Protesters Halt Open-Pit Gold Mine”

Dady Chery grew up at the heart of an extended working-class family in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. She emigrated to New York when she was 14 and since then has traveled throughout the world, living in Europe and several North American cities. She writes in English, French and her native Créole and holds a doctorate. She can be reached at dc@dadychery.org. This story first appeared on her blog, Haiti Chery.

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by Isaac Ontiveros, Californians United for a Responsible Budget

Gov. Jerry Brown could eliminate or reduce solitary confinement with the stroke of a pen, a decision that would cut in half the cost of housing nearly 5,000 California prisoners in solitary confinement – and one that 12,000 California prisoners called on him to make when they simultaneously starved themselves during last year’s hunger strikes. His decision today to expand prison spending instead, while cutting essential services, calls into question whether his Corrections Department is negotiating in good faith with the hunger strike representatives. Stated Peter Schey, who heads the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, at the March 20 release of a petition to the United Nations requesting an investigation: “California holds more prisoners in solitary confinement than any other state in the United States or any other nation on earth. The treatment of these prisoners is barbaric and, numerous experts agree, amounts to torture.” Gov. Brown’s decision comes on the same day Israel is conceding to the demands of nearly 1,600 Palestinian hunger strikers by emptying all solitary confinement cells and allowing families to visit their imprisoned loved ones.

“Of course we applaud the goal of reducing corrections spending; however, the way to do that isn’t to increase the corrections budget,” comments Debbie Reyes of the California Prison Moratorium Project. The governor’s plan includes increasing Corrections spending from $8.082 billion up to $8.889 billion in this budget year, an increase of $807 million. “Why are we increasing General Fund spending on Corrections by 10 percent while we’re cutting In Home Supportive Services, cutting funds for our public colleges, cutting Workforce Development and cutting Health and Human Services?” asks Reyes.

Despite the court ruling and Gov. Brown’s criminal justice realignment plan, the May Revise calls for expanding California’s prison system.

“Building more prisons that we don’t need and can’t afford is the policy that got us into this mess in the first place,” commented Emily Harris of Californians United for a Responsible Budget. “CDCR’s approach to the intertwined budget and prison crises has been to hit the pause button, but now they’re ready to fast forward more prison and jail cells. It is past time to reverse a failed policy that has made California poorer at the expense of our most vulnerable residents.”

The savings proposed by closing the California Rehabilitation Center (CRC) are eliminated by plans to expand new infill beds at three existing prisons, convert the closed DeWitt Nelson Youth Facility to an adult prison, expand the Folsom Transitional Treatment Facility to house women, and open and operate the new California Health Facility.

“We’re very disappointed that Gov. Brown has turned from the opportunity to continue to reduce the number of people in prison. Now is the time for a real overhaul of the sentencing and parole laws that fueled the growth of the system over the past three decades,” said Gail Brown of Life Support Alliance. Today’s proposal suggests returning to the courts to increase the population reduction benchmark from 137.5 percent to 145 percent.

Gail Brown continues, “If we implemented the Alternative Custody Program and compassionate release, expanded medical parole, developed a geriatric parole process and actually released life-term prisoners who are being held way past their minimum release date as prescribed by law, we wouldn’t be trying to build all these expensive new prison beds.”

The budget proposes slashing authorization to borrow over $4.1 billion from AB900 prison construction funds but allocates an additional $500 million to counties to expand jail capacity, adding to the $1.2 billion awarded to counties earlier this year. “The governor is not solving the prison crisis by encouraging a bigger jail crisis,” said Kevin Michael Key of Critical Resistance. “If more state money is to flow to the counties as a part of realignment, Sacramento should be encouraging counties to spend that money on social services.”

“Let’s invest our scarce tax dollars in Californians rather than sink it into building more jails,” added Key.

California Prison Moratorium Project, Life Support Alliance and Critical Resistance are all members of Californians United for a Responsible Budget, a statewide coalition of more than 50 organizations working to CURB prison spending by reducing the number of prisons and prisoners in California. CURB’s detailed response to the Corrections provisions of the May Revise and CDCR’s “Future of California Corrections” report can be found at http://curbprisonspending.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/CURB-response-to-CDCR-Future-of-California-Corrections-Final-1.pdf. Bay View staff contributed to this story.

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by Toni Renee Battle

Then SNCC leader, now Congressman John Lewis led the first Selma-to-Montgomery march for voting rights on March 7, 1965, when 600 marchers were attacked by police in riot gear, who fractured Lewis’ skull on a day remembered as Bloody Sunday. Before going to the hospital, Lewis appeared before television cameras demanding intervention by President Johnson, who, eight days later, appeared before a joint session of Congress to demand passage of the Voting Rights Act. It was passed Aug. 3, 1965.

Applause broke out and necks craned to see over church hats and fans wagging throughout the burgundy pews. The legend entered the sanctuary and climbed the stairs to the pulpit. The congregation jumped to their feet and clapped for over five minutes. The moderator stated, “No introductions are needed. Ladies and gentlemen, with great honor tonight we are in the presence of greatness. Tonight we will hear from Congressman John Lewis!” Her announcement was met with more thunderous applause.

The city of Oakland was all abuzz about the Barbara Lee and Elihu Harris Lecture Series, which was featuring Congressman John Lewis of Georgia’s 5^th District in conjunction with the Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Center. The lecture series discussion title was: “Where Do We Go From Here? Chaos or Community; Find a Way to Get in the Way!”

Congressman John Lewis was enthusiastically introduced by former Oakland Mayor Elihu Harris and Congresswoman Barbara Lee of California’s 9^th District. Harris spoke to the crowd about why social justice was still so important in the 21^st century and how despite some historical gains there is still work to be done. He shared a story about trying to get state legislative support in California to make Martin Luther King’s birthday a holiday in the early 1980s.

Harris said a state legislator told him, with good intentions of course, “I’d like to support it (the King Holiday). But if we have a holiday for a nigger, the next thing you know, they’ll want one for a Mexican.” The audience gasped, some nodding their heads in understanding. Harris continued, “Some people still feel that way today and smile in your face. This is why the social justice fight is still significant today!”

Following Harris, Congresswoman Barbara Lee was met with applause and “Amens!” As she took the floor, she paid homage to Congressman Lewis for paving the way for her and others. She stated, “We’ve come a long way, but we have a long way to go! We owe you a debt of gratitude … to pick up the baton and fight the good fight.”

Congressman John Lewis speaks April 21 at Beebe Memorial Church in Oakland. – Photo: Toni Battle

Congressman Lewis commented on the status of Civil Rights today: “Here today we are too quiet! Find a way to get into trouble if we are going to create a real America! For more than 50 years I’ve been getting in trouble and I plan to get in some more trouble!” Speaking of the sacrifices he and others in the movement made, he said, “Through our actions we reformed and liberated a society!”

As he continued to take those gathered on the journey of struggle, loss and triumph, he urged: “We have to vote like we’ve never voted before.” He said, “Over and over again throughout this country, I am asked, ‘Is President Obama the fulfillment of the Martin Luther King Jr. dream?’ I say, ‘No, he is the down payment. Too many are still being left behind – Blacks, Latinos, Asians, Native Americans, gay and straight. Don’t get weary! Don’t get tired! Maybe our forefathers came in different ships, but we all in the same boat now. We must continue until no one is left out or left behind and respect the dignity of every human being.”

As the legend held his fist in the air, the crowd erupted in applause and stood to their feet.

Many San Francisco residents were in attendance. Bayview Hunters Point resident and Southeast Commissioner Bobbrie Brown said: “What a blessing! I lived through segregation and to hear the power of Congressman Lewis’ words was truly amazing.”

Another long term Bayview Hunters Point resident, Carol Tatum, stated: “I loved his story about Bloody Sunday. I just took a Civil Rights tour in March of this year in Alabama, and the guide spoke of the sheriff wearing the ‘Never’ button Congressman Lewis spoke of. What an honor to hear him speak tonight!”

Toni Renee Battle is a consultant, journalist, educator, speaker and a lifelong Bayview Hunters Point resident. She is a small business owner of “Embrace Diversity … Embrace Success” Consulting Services and also founder of The Legacy Project, an educational program which emphasizes the teachings of Black and Native American culture, traditions and histories for youth from seventh through 12^th grades. She may be reached at tonirbattle@yahoo.com.   

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by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery

Members of the dissolved Haitian army parade at Camp Lamantin, a former military base in Port-au-Prince. – Photo: Ramon Espinosa, AP

For the sake of accuracy, let us forgo this awkward and unfounded label and call them “men” or “gangs.” These marching men claim they want to enforce respect for the national sovereignty and get their back pay. One suspects their priorities are reversed.

These gangs have been around for months, but their more public appearances immediately followed massive demonstrations on Feb. 29 to commemorate the 2004 coup against Aristide. The march had been organized by a new party of Lavalas supporters called “Ghettos-Unis” (United Ghettos). Over 10,000 people marched through Port-au-Prince chanting, “Yes to democracy, no to reinstatement of dictatorship!” and proclaiming, “Intimidations will not make us back down! We don’t need your motorcycles; give your passport instead!” with reference to Martelly’s refusal to deliver his passport to a Senate committee investigating the citizenship of various government officials.

The appearance of the armed gangs has coincided with a rash of murders by gunfire. At least three members of the Haitian National Police (PNH), one lawyer and a well-known painter were killed in March 2012, but the most famous victims of the crime spree have been Jean Liphete (Ti Lifet) Nelson and Jean-Baptiste Jean-Philippe (Samba Boukman), both politically outspoken Fanmi Lavalas members and accomplished individuals who could probably have qualified for political office if this had been their ambition.

Jean Liphète Nelson (Ti Lifèt)

Samba Boukman was a charismatic musician and militant who is best known for having helped to broker a truce between the poor neighborhood of Bel-Air’s armed Lavalas partisans and the U.N., when MINUSTAH was randomly blasting these neighborhoods with gunfire from tanks and helicopters after Aristide’s removal.

In addition, Reginald Antoine, a labor leader and director of Platform for Workers Unjustly Fired from Public Administration (Plateforme des Employés Injustement Révoqués de l’Administration Publique, PEVEP) had his entire family – sister and brother in law, and two children, 2 and 10 – killed by explosives on March 13, according to AHP. Members of PEVEP had been protesting and demanding the benefits associated with their severance.

Jean-Baptiste Jean-Philippe (Samba Boukman)

It is worthwhile to consider how the new armed gangs are supported. Their training camps have been photographed in the Haitian countryside by the Western press since before Martelly’s inauguration. The sources of weapons and training may be reasonably guessed because, after all, the U.S. publicly promised to sell arms to Haiti for its presumed drug war, and France formally pledged to train Haiti’s new army right after Haiti promised to relax its adoption policy.

Both of these “friends” of Haiti also wield considerable influence in the U.N. So it is hardly worthwhile to entertain some notion that MINUSTAH and the new gangs might somehow be at odds with each other. In fact they reinforce each other: The presence of MINUSTAH is proffered as the reason a “Haitian army” is needed to protect the national sovereignty, and the threat of paramilitaries is used to justify MINUSTAH’s continued stay in Haiti.

Despite the U.N.’s record of rapes, child prostitution, trading of food for sex, and killings by gunfire and cholera, this organization still claims to be indispensable for safety and democracy in Haiti.

Leaving MINUSTAH aside for now, a more productive line of thinking is to consider that, although weapons and uniforms make for a good show, these are not all an army needs. Given that even in the best cases, armies are parasitic on a population, how does this mysteriously emergent paramilitary force get its meals, water, board and clean clothes? After all, back when the army was disbanded in 1995, its 7,000 soldiers had been consuming 40 percent of Haiti’s national budget.

Reports of appropriations of government buildings by the armed gangs have become common. Their speaker, a man called Larose Aubain, circulates freely and communicates with officials of the executive branch. For example, in an AHP report of Feb. 27, Aubain claimed that he and his colleagues had conferred with the minister of defense. In the same report, Aubain vowed that the gangs would occupy all the former FAd’H bases until the army’s restoration.

Paramilitaries are attractive to Haitians unable to find any other way to support their families. – Photo: Isabeau Doucet

Asked how he would rid the city of the gangs, Yvon Alteon, the presidentially appointed delegate for the Northern Region, replied that the problem must be handled at the highest level, and anyway the men should not be feared because they’ve promised to “behave themselves.”

A week earlier Martelly had responded to similar questions by saying that there would come a more propitious time for the armed men to serve their country and advising them to be patient, get out of their uniforms and put down their weapons within a week. After this “ultimatum” expired, Secretary of State for Public Safety Reginald Delva reported, according to a March 16 AHP report, “Following an agreement with the authorities, these citizens will not be forced to vacate the premises, but will not, for now, circulate in military uniform and with weapons.”

Again, the repetition that these are merely young Haitians who have an inordinate zeal to serve their country and are in need of a change of clothing. Mr. Delva added that negotiations were continuing as the government inventories “the human resources” at the camps.

For its part, MINUSTAH announced, through Information Officer Eliane Nabaa, that U.N. “peacekeepers” are ready and able to disarm and dislodge the paramilitaries but will not do so without first getting a request from the Haitian National Police (PNH), according to AHP March 20.

Haitian paramilitary recruits train weekly on the outskirts of Port au Prince. This militia is called the Organization of Demobilized Soldiers for the Reconstruction of Haiti. – Photo: Andres Martinez Casares, New York Times

• On May 29, 2008, police officer Jacques Luckner, assigned to the Cite Soleil police station, was molested by MINUSTAH soldiers;
• On Aug. 6, 2008, police officers Donson Bien-Aimee and Ronald Denis, both assigned to the Cite Soleil police station, were beaten by MINUSTAH soldiers although they had clearly identified themselves as policemen.

By far the most serious consequence of inviting MINUSTAH to help confront “the insecurity problem” would be to buttress the U.N.’s arguments for renewal of this force, although the great majority of the population despises it, and the Haitian Senate has formally approved a resolution calling for the U.N. soldiers to depart by October 2012.

Member of the Lower House of Parliament Ronald Lareche, who sits on the Justice and Public Safety Committee, commented that MINUSTAH ought to fulfill its supposed mandate of strengthening democracy, rather than do nothing but watch paramilitary gangs, which are an obvious departure from democracy, train in the country in full view of everyone.

In addition, Mr. Lareche called for National Police Director Mario Andresol to take drastic action against any member of the police who disregards his orders. This apparently had the effect of immediately causing rumors to start to fly about heads rolling at the NPH.

In late March, Port-au-Prince was calm, with a single buglary as its most serious crime in one 72-hour span. Suspects in the assassination of Ti Lifet and the killing of a police officer have been arrested. Departmental Director of Western Police Michel Ange Gideon attributes this turnaround to the implementation of “Boukle Port-au-Prince” (Buckle Port-au-Prince), a program that combines a heavy police presence together with roadblocks of the city’s major arteries, where random searches are conducted. There is now talk of extending this program for a month.

However long Boukle Port-au-Prince lasts, it is unlikely to bring relief to cities like Cap Haitian that are under predation. But our Haiti is another place with a bad case of post-colonialitis: a disease that causes people to believe that their capital city is the only place that matters, though it is merely a port from which wealth is removed. Those who neglect to treat this disease do so at their own risk.

The Haiti Press Network (HPN) reported April 6 that police had successfully dislodged a paramilitary gang from the city of Saint Marc. Recall that Saint Marc, according to reports by HPN on March 23 and AHP on March 28, is also the place where the population recently refused to allow Martelly’s unelected appointees to the city government into the municipal buildings.

On April 25, according to HPN, “ex-soldiers” responded to a call by Haitian Minister of the Interior and National Defense Thierry Mayard-Paul to appear at the old premises of the Academy of Brothers to register themselves. Mr. Mayard-Paul announced that the government has put 107 million gourdes (U.S. $5 million) at the disposal of the “ex-soldiers.”

Background

For more information, see Harvest of Hope: Kevin Pina Documentary on Haitian Army, With Review by Dady Chery.

Dady Chery grew up at the heart of an extended working-class family in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. She emigrated to New York when she was 14 and since then has traveled throughout the world, living in Europe and several North American cities. She writes in English, French and her native Créole and holds a doctorate. She can be reached at dc@dadychery.org. This story first appeared on her blog, Haiti Chery.

Feb. 29 protest – Video: PalechoTV

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Davey D begins his Morning Mix show, broadcast 8-9 a.m. on May 15, with powerful testimony on the police murder of Alan Blueford by his cousin Tanisha, his mother and Jack Bryson of the Oscar Grant Committee. (Show begins after the news digest, at about five minutes in.)

Video by TomVeeTV

Alan Blueford's Facebook profile picture

On Saturday, May 12, 3 p.m., protesters marched from 9200 Birch St., where OPD left Alan to bleed to death for four hours, to the Eastmont Mall Police Sub-Station, 2652 73rd Ave., Oakland, chanting “Jail killer cops!” and “No justice, no peace, no racist police!” See the videos by Earl Black below of the march and rally.

All who demand justice for Alan Blueford will Occupy the Oakland City Council in City Hall, Oscar Grant Plaza, 14th & Broadway, at 6 p.m. Tuesday, May 15.

Statement by the Blueford family

Alan DeWayne Blueford was an 18-year-old senior at Skyline High School, preparing to graduate in June. He was the youngest son of Adam Blueford Sr. and Jeralynn Brown Blueford.

During the early morning hours of May 6, 2012, Alan was murdered by an officer – whose name has yet to be released – with the Oakland Police Department. His family is now seeking justice for his death.

Here is what we know:

• At or about midnight, May 6, Alan and two friends were standing on the corner of 90th and Birch Street waiting for “some girls in a white Chevy,” Alan told his father during a phone call.

• After the phone call, police officers approached Alan and his friends, with guns drawn. The police officers were called to respond to another incident, but decided to stop Alan and his friends when they saw them because they “believed the young men had a concealed weapon.”

• Alan ran down Birch Street from the police officers.

• Approximately two blocks down Birch Street on the 9200 block the officer chasing Alan murdered him by shooting him three times. The officer also shot himself.

• Although Alan had his brown wallet with his ID, Oakland Police Department never called to tell his parents he was shot and killed.

• Alan’s two friends were detained for over six hours. After their release, one of the young men had the traumatic task of calling Alan’s parents and telling them Alan was shot and killed by an Oakland police officer.

• Initial reports put out by OPD, stated that “a suspect” (Alan) and a police officer exchanged gun fire and the officer was shot in the stomach by the suspect and the suspect was shot by the officer. Both were said to have been rushed to Highland Hospital where Alan died and the police officer was expected to recover. OPD also included in their reports witness statements who said they saw Alan shooting. OPD reported that they retrieved Alan’s firearm at the scene.

• Later OPD changed their story to state that the officer was shot in the leg and an investigation was in process to determine whether the officer was wounded by “friendly fire.” Only one of the officers chased Alan.

• What we now know is that Alan Blueford never shot the police officer, at the police officer, or anyone else. OPD changed their story yet again, admitting and confirming that THE OFFICER SHOT HIMSELF.

• We also know that Alan was never rushed to Highland Hospital. Only the police officer. Alan’s body lay in the streets for approximately 4 hours.

• Alan was shot multiple times by the police officer.

• The family has reason to believe that Alan never had a firearm.

• The family has reason to believe that Alan never caused the officer to be threatened. Alan’s body can be described as a shorter stature – approximately 5 feet 6 ½ inches – and thin build, 140 pounds.

When Alan’s family learned of the claimed circumstances surrounding Alan’s death, we all knew that the facts were not true! Additionally, because they never called to confirm his death, we were sadly left with hope that the unnamed “suspect” was not Alan. He was a joy to many people. We are suffering a great loss.

Now OPD claims that the “victim” – no longer suspect – was a convicted felon on probation. His family will simply respond by saying felony probation does not describe Alan’s character. To describe Alan, you have to share that he 1) was a Christian; 2) worked with the disabled children at Skyline, one of whom described “Al” as his “best friend”; 3) began his mornings at Skyline High School by praying with his godmother and supervisor; 4) passed out candy at his grandmother’s every Halloween; and 5) was well known by his family and friends as a respectful young man.

But even more important is the fact that when the police officers decided not to respond to the call, but rather to bother Alan and his friends, all they knew is that they were three African-American young men. That’s why Alan was murdered.

Alan’s family is seeking justice for his death. We are determined to have this “incident” thoroughly investigated and all wrongful parties prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. We ask that all of you support us by calling District 7 City Councilman Larry Reid, at (510) 238-7007.

As we embark upon this long journey, we rely on the grace and mercy of our Father God, through faith in the blood of Jesus Christ. We find peace in scripture, specifically Genesis 50:20 (NIV): “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant if for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.”

Hammer demands justice for his friend, Alan Blueford

Video by missmollie33

Hammer was one of the people who spoke yesterday in front of the Oakland Police Department headquarters on Seventh Street. Hammer knew Alan Blueford, who was a close friend of his children. Hammer’s words are beautiful, strong, loving and true.

There is still an ongoing investigation, but one thing is clear: OPD is up to their old corrupt tricks. They claimed Alan Blueford shot at them, yet Alan’s family has now been told that there were four shots fired – three were fired into Alan’s back, and the fourth was the cop shooting himself/herself in the foot.

Alan Blueford was unarmed when he was running away from the cops. The identity of the cop has not been released and the cop is on paid administrative leave at this point pending an Internal Affairs investigation.

Protest march for Alan Blueford, killed by Oakland Police during a pedestrian stop

Protesters marched from 9200 Birch St., where OPD left Alan to bleed to death for four hours, to the Eastmont Mall Police Sub-Station, chanting “Jail killer cops!” and “No justice, no peace, no racist police!”

Videos by Earl Black

Alan Blueford’s cousin speaks on the facts in the Oakland police murder of Alan and the police cover-up. The rally was held Saturday afternoon, May 12, in front of the Eastmont Mall Police Sub-Station. She addresses the lies the police presented to the family and, along with other family members, expresses their anger and outrage, not only over the death of their beloved, but also because of the way the police continued to excuse their own criminal behavior in obvious and blatant disregard for the family’s feelings and rights.

This report was updated May 13.

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An open letter to Dr. LaDonna Porter

by Carol McGruder

Supporters of Proposition 29, including Carol McGruder at far right, demonstrate April 24 in front of San Joaquin General Hospital to protest Dr. LaDonna Porter’s opposition to the tobacco tax initiative. Porter appears in anti-Prop. 29 ads statewide, funded by the tobacco companies. – Photo: Craig Sanders, The Record

Though my mother worked all of her life, like many Black women of her generation, she was a woman of modest means, a woman who had invested all of her worldly goods into her children. She was diagnosed with breast cancer through a free screening program at a community clinic in San Francisco; she received the best care at San Francisco General Hospital from a team of top notch University of California, San Francisco, doctors. She survived 10 years from her initial diagnosis and enjoyed a great quality of life until her end.

Dr. Porter, I was shocked and angered, as were many across the state, when I saw and heard your “No on Prop 29, No on the California Cancer Research Act” radio and television commercials that have been flooding California’s airwaves. I assumed that an African American woman and a physician, though not an oncologist, would appreciate the disproportionate rates of cancer affecting the Black community.

Carol McGruder, director of the San Francisco African American Tobacco Free Project

The script of your commercial says that Prop 29 does not provide any funding for treatment. As you may know, Dr. Porter, effective treatments are developed through research; there can be no treatment without RESEARCH. I am sure that I speak for all cancer victims, cancer survivors and their families in voicing our wholehearted support for Prop 29. We want to unleash the power and creativity of California’s best and brightest researchers. Contrary to your comments, Dr. Porter, this funding will stay in California, but hopefully all Americans will one day benefit from the discoveries made in our great state.

I am sure that I speak for all cancer victims, cancer survivors and their families in voicing our wholehearted support for Prop 29. We want to unleash the power and creativity of California’s best and brightest researchers.

Dr. Porter, those of us profoundly touched by cancer want to eliminate it; to do that our state needs research – research that can help us find ways to prevent cancer, help us find ways to design culturally specific programs that will get Black folks into care earlier, research that can help us find out why African American women under the age of 45 are at greater risk for triple negative breast cancer – which is the most aggressive type of breast cancer and the hardest to cure – can help us find out why, though more White women get breast cancer, more Black women die from it. These questions can only be answered through research. Dr. Porter, rather than working against progress, perhaps you would you lend your voice to helping us set that research agenda and making sure it includes the needs of the African American community.

Dr. Porter, rather than working against progress, perhaps you would you lend your voice to helping us set that research agenda and making sure it includes the needs of the African American community.

Though there were many falsehoods in your commercial, one that I took particular umbrage with was the one stating how much this tax will cost Californians. The tax will add one dollar to each package of cigarettes sold in California. In addition to cancer research, $156 million will go to California’s underfunded tobacco control program.

The savings that will be generated from preventing our young people from starting to smoke and helping smokers – of whom one out of two will die from smoking – to stop is estimated at $5.1 billion. That’s $5.1 billion in long term health care costs saved for all California taxpayers, because though the majority of us don’t smoke, we all pay the cost and bear the burden of smoking.

We cannot put a price on the savings in human life and suffering. Proposition 29 is a true win-win for everyone – everyone except the tobacco industry. It is the only entity that reaps huge profits at our expense. Big tobacco is dumping tens of millions of dollars into California in the hopes of confusing voters and defeating this life-saving initiative.

Big tobacco is dumping tens of millions of dollars into California in the hopes of confusing voters and defeating this life-saving initiative.

Dr. Porter, as co-chair of the African American Tobacco Control Leadership Council, we ask you, did you or will you receive any compensation for your stance on Prop 29? We have a hard time believing that with all of the issues facing our community you would pick this one to volunteer your time on. If you have received compensation, we ask that you give it back. In this year alone, over 160,000 African Americans will be diagnosed with cancer. It is difficult to believe that you knowingly participated in this disinformation campaign mounted by the tobacco industry, an industry that has preyed on our community for far too long.

The African American Tobacco Control Leadership Council has over 150 years of combined expertise in research, smoking cessation, community capacity building, advocacy and public policy. We are working diligently to save the lives of Black people. Dr. Porter, we sincerely invite you to dialogue with us. We will pray for you. It is not too late to “do the right thing” and stand with us in our fight against Big Tobacco, standing as David stood against Goliath.

We are working diligently to save the lives of Black people. Dr. Porter, we sincerely invite you to dialogue with us. We will pray for you. It is not too late to “do the right thing” and stand with us in our fight against Big Tobacco, standing as David stood against Goliath.

But for those who continue to choose Big Tobacco over the health of their own people, we say shame, shame, shame. In the name of my mother, Ruth J. McGruder, shame, shame, shame. In the name of Marie Evans, who was given free Newport cigarettes at age 9 in Boston, later dying at 54 from lung cancer due to her lifelong addiction to nicotine, shame, shame, shame. In the name of the 47,300 Black people who die every year from tobacco-related diseases, shame, shame, shame.

We urge all Californians to vote June 5 YES, YES, YES on Prop 29!

Carol McGruder, co-chair of the African American Tobacco Control Leadership Council and award-winning advocate, can be reached at cmcgruder@usa.net.

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by Kambale Musavuli

In recognition of Genocide Prevention Month, the permanent mission of the Czech Republic to the United Nations and United to End Genocide organized an event titled “Justice in 2012,” bringing justice seekers from Uganda, Sudan and Congo to share experience as human rights activists in their respective countries, the role of the International Criminal Court, its arrest warrants and the importance of justice for the victims.

Kambale Musavuli, spokesperson of Friends of the Congo, served as one of the speakers and shared why it is important to support justice in the Congo. The event took place at the Bohemian National Hall in New York City on April 30, 2012.

Distinguished guests, diplomats, activists and justice seekers, Good evening.

Kambale Musavuli

I’d like to thank the permanent mission of the Czech Republic to the United Nations and United to End Genocide for hosting this panel discussion. I also would like to thank Staci Alziebler-Perkins, an amazing human rights activist and the New York City Genocide Prevention Coalition Convener, for uniting justice seekers on this last day of Genocide Prevention Month.

I’m delighted to be joined by Mr. Magid Kabash of the Nuba Mountains International Association, who has just returned from the Nuba Mountains and shared with us his personal eyewitness account of what is unfolding there. It is also an honor to be joined by Stephen Lamony of Uganda who also has been a justice seeker at the Coalition for the International Criminal Court.

We are convening tonight to share with you our experience as human rights activists on issues related to our countries. We have been asked to recommend how the ICC can be engaged in our countries, from issuing arrest warrants to providing justice for the victims in our homeland.

This is a daunting task to do in 15 minutes for a Congolese human rights activist such as myself, yet I stand here to share with you the optimum way of supporting the Congolese people who have been fighting to get justice since the beginning of the war in their country in 1996.

My talk will be organized into four sections: the case of Bosco Ntaganda, the United Nations Mapping Exercise Report, Equitable Justice and Recommendations to the ICC.

1. The Prosecutor v. Bosco Ntaganda (ICC-01/04-02/06 – Pre-trial)

According to the ICC arrest warrant, Bosco Ntaganda is allegedly criminally responsible under article 25 (3) (a) of the Rome Statute for three counts of war crimes: enlistment of children under the age of 15; conscription of children under the age of 15; and using children under the age of 15 to participate actively in hostilities. As a deputy chief of the General Staff of the Forces Patriotiques pour la Libération du Congo (FPLC, the military wing of the Union des Patriotes Congolais of Thomas Lubanga), Bosco Ntaganda is accused of having used his authority to implement the FPLC’s policy regarding the enlistment and conscription of children under 15 and of having involved them actively in the hostilities in Ituri from July 2002 to December 2003.

Bosco Ntaganda wore his national army uniform to attend the 50th anniversary celebration of Congo’s independence in Goma in eastern Congo on June 30, 2010. Since 1996, he has alternated between the roles of rebel and soldier in both Rwanda and DR Congo. – Photo: Alain Wandimoyi, AP

So who is Bosco exactly, and why is he important to understanding what’s happening in DRC?

According to the ICC, Bosco Ntaganda was born in Kiningi, Rwanda, in 1973 and came to the Congo in the 1980s. At age 17 he joined the Rwandan Patriotic Front rebels in southern Uganda. After the RPF rebels successfully toppled the regime in Rwanda in 1994, Bosco began alternating between playing the roles of a rebel and a soldier, in both Rwanda and DR Congo, starting in 1996.

In 2006, he was indicted by the ICC for allegedly recruiting child soldiers but has not been turned over to the ICC by the Congolese government. Since the unsealing of his arrest warrant, he has continued to commit crimes in the Congo and maintained a mafia network for the illegal exploitation of Congo’s resources, arms trade and illegal levies and taxation of local communities.

One of his highest-profile killings took place when he was in charge of CNDP rebel soldiers who carried out the 2008 Kiwanja massacre. The CNDP (Congrès National pour la Défense du Peuple) is an armed militia established in the Kivu region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in December 2006 by Laurent Nkunda, another war lord we hope will be indicted by the ICC.

According to Human Rights Watch, “At least 150 people were killed on Nov. 4 and 5, 2008, in Kiwanja. Most victims had bullet wounds to the head or wounds caused by machete, spear or club, indicating they had been summarily executed rather than killed in the cross fire or by rocket and mortar shells. At least 14 of the victims were children, eight were women and seven were elderly.” HRW adds that “International humanitarian law prohibits the summary execution or mistreatment of any person in custody, whether civilians or captured combatants. When committed deliberately or recklessly, such acts are war crimes.”

In 2009, Ntaganda and his troops from the CNDP were integrated into the Congolese national army. Since March 2012, he and a few of his loyal troops appear to have deserted the army and today are battling the Congolese forces in the town of Mweso and Mushake, causing the displacement of hundreds of Congolese in surrounding towns.

Victims of the 2008 Kiwanja massacre killed by CNDP rebel soldiers led by Bosco Ntaganda lie on the floor of a home. – Photo: Benedicte Kurzen, VII Mentor Program

The United Nations tried to bring attention to the issue of impunity when it released the Mapping Exercise Report, showing that making systematic changes will ultimately be more impactful to improve the situation than trying individuals responsible for war crimes.

While Congolese applaud the fact that Bosco Ntaganda has been indicted by the ICC, we urge you to look beyond Ntaganda to concentrate on ending the impunity rampant in the Congo, where the warlords of yesterday and frequent human rights abusers are promoted to government positions or army ranks. The United Nations tried to bring attention to this issue when it released the Mapping Exercise Report, showing that making systematic changes will ultimately be more impactful to improve the situation than trying individuals responsible for war crimes.

2. United Nations Mapping Exercise report

On Oct. 1, 2010, The U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights released a 550-page report called “Mapping Exercise,” documenting 617 alleged violent incidents of “the most serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law committed within the territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo between March 1993 and June 2003.” The report also identifies countries “that could be held responsible for serious violations of human rights committed by their national armies during the period under consideration in the DRC, and in particular Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Angola.”

It singled out the crimes committed by the Rwanda army by noting that “the apparent systematic and widespread attacks described in this report reveal a number of inculpatory elements that, if proven before a competent court, could be characterized as crimes of genocide.”

Why did the United Nations decide to produce yet another report on human rights violations in the Congo? The discovery of three mass graves in North Kivu in 2005 was a stark reminder to the United Nations that the past human rights violations in the Congo remained largely uninvestigated. This prompted the U.N. to reactivate earlier U.N. investigative efforts but on a much larger scale.

The Mapping Report notes that the ICC is the only judicial mechanism that has the capacity, the integrity and the independence required to prosecute those who bear the greatest responsibility for the crimes – as defined by international law – committed on DRC territory. It adds that “charges filed and the proceedings [at the ICC] neither do justice to the hundreds or even thousands of victims, nor reflect the true scale of the criminal activities of the accused, documented in numerous prior inquiries.”

“(C)harges filed and the proceedings [at the ICC] neither do justice to the hundreds or even thousands of victims, nor reflect the true scale of the criminal activities of the accused, documented in numerous prior inquiries.”

The report also brings attention to the fact that there are few or no charges relating to acts of sexual violence in the arrest warrants issued by the ICC. It states that this “only contributes to minimizing the importance of these crimes and to confirming a culture of impunity that the Court was intended to overcome.” It also points to the contradiction that, in the Bosco Ntaganda and Thomas Lubanga’s cases, there are no charges for sex crimes whilst those against Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui do include such charges.

Understanding the role the ICC can play in supporting justice for the many victims of the political conflict in the Congo, we believe that an equitable application of justice will help to enhance the legitimacy of the court and create better cooperation from member countries throughout the world.

3. Equitable application of justice

Some of the major drivers of the conflict and atrocities in the Congo have not been held to account. There is no indication that the ICC has any intentions of holding neighboring countries responsible for the crimes they have committed or sponsored in the Congo per the U.N. Mapping Exercise Report. Take the case of Thomas Lubanga, for example. He was supported by both Rwanda and Uganda as he recruited child soldiers and committed atrocities in the Congo, but neither the leaders of Rwanda or Uganda have been held accountable for being sponsors and accessories to the crimes committed by Lubanga.

Thomas Lubanga was supported by both Rwanda and Uganda as he recruited child soldiers and committed atrocities in the Congo, but neither the leaders of Rwanda or Uganda have been held accountable for being sponsors and accessories to the crimes committed by Lubanga.

The leaders of nations who are in the good graces with the West and serve Western interests are often given a pass. The current prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, gave Congolese victims hope when they found out that “at a July 2003 news conference, Mr. Moreno-Ocampo announced out of the blue that he ‘believed’ atrocities in Congo, a member state formerly known as Zaire, could qualify for an ICC investigation.” This hope was lost when, in a June 8, 2006, article in the Wall Street Journal titled “Justice Delayed – For Global Court, Ugandan Rebels Prove Tough Test,” it was reported that “an agreement emerged” for Uganda not to be tried for crimes committed in the Congo.

On March 14, 2012, the ICC handed down its first verdict since its founding a decade ago, finding Thomas Lubanga guilty of enlisting child soldiers. But Rwanda and Uganda have not been held accountable for being sponsors and accessories to his crimes. – Photo: Antony Njuguna, Reuters

4. Prescriptions

In order to enhance the legitimacy of the court, the ICC has to deal with those who are culpable in a more equitable fashion. Our hope is that the ICC and international bodies support the U.N. Mapping Exercise Report and the 2005 ICJ ruling. They represent efforts to end the culture of impunity, to provide justice for the victims, and to create a framework for accountability for mass crimes committed and still being committed in the Congo. We believe it is imperative to implement the recommendations listed on the U.N. Mapping Report as a means to deliver justice for the Congolese people and support a more equitable and just process for indictment of individuals and multinationals aiding, abetting or committing the crimes in the Congo.

Over 200 Congolese organizations and human rights groups have called for the United Nations to establish an international tribunal to prosecute the crimes against humanity, war crimes and possible genocide committed in the Congo. They recommend that we:

1. Establish new general policies of justice that would build on the creation of several complementary mechanisms, judicial and non-judicial;

2. Establish accountability measures in public institutions that would result in the removal from management of people such as Gen. John Bosco Tanganda and Gen. Numbi, who are accused of serious violations or attacks against human rights defenders, so that they can face prosecution;

3. Institute appropriate mechanisms to ensure justice and shed light on crimes and massive violations of human rights denounced in the report, including:

(i) The creation of special courts or special chambers within the Congolese courts;

(ii) The creation of a new Truth and Reconciliation Commission,

(iii) The establishment of compensation programs for victims, and

(iv) True and thorough reforms of the entire security sector – army, police and justice system.

On Dec. 13, 2011, Justice Julia Sebutinde of Uganda was elected as the fifth judge of the U.N. International Court of Justice (ICJ), joining Hisashi Owada of Japan, Xue Hanqin of China, Peter Tomka of Slovakia and Giorgio Gaja of Italy. She is the first African woman on the court and brings to three the number of women ICJ judges. Sebutinde conducted judicial inquiries into high-profile corruption cases in Uganda and, in 2005, presided over the trial of Charles Taylor, former President of Liberia, in the United Nations-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone.

5. Support a regional accountability and reconciliation mechanism to address issues of impunity and lack of justice.

Given what I have shared with you, I want to now tell you a bit about me and why I am a justice seeker for the Congolese people. I came to the United States in the late ‘90s when my family was granted political asylum as the second Congo war began. I rarely speak about my family and what we experienced while living in the Congo, but I’d like to share with you a nightmare that I’ve had almost every week since probably 2008.

The dream always starts as I am walking down the side of the road with thousands of people carrying their belongings heading toward what I presume to be a safer place. The road is familiar and I’m surrounded with people who seem to be displaced from their homes. On my left, there is a little stream down a short hill. Across the stream, there are trees all along the path. People are conversing, moving slowly and calmly.

Then I hear a scream from somewhere in the crowd. I can’t tell if it is coming from the front or the back. I look around and I see people running toward me. The screams intensify and now everyone is running. I see people trying to run with their belongings and then decide to drop them to run faster.

I look back as I run and I see blood splash and people in military uniform just cutting people with machetes. I pass a few people … I’m scared … I’m sweating. I’m also feeling guilty about people I’ve passed as I look back and see them lying in blood and their limbs all over.

I run over a hill to hide. Someone follows me to hide where I am. As I look up to see what is happening on the road, I can see the fear in people’s faces. I see that fear where you know it’s pointless to run but you are running anyway in hopes that you will survive. I hide again and move closer to the stream and the person hiding with me gets closer to me as if he knows we both will be safe.

In May 2012, residents of the town of Kibumba walk some 30 kms (20 miles) to the eastern Congo city of Goma, capital of North Kivu, as they flee fighting between Congolese army deserters led by ex-Gen. Bosco Ntaganda and the regular Congolese army (FARDC) near the Virunga National Park on the border with Rwanda. – Photo: AFP

I hope you can visualize how when students are taking a test in a classroom they are so determined to pass the test that they have a very serious look on their faces and there is a complete silence in the room. The look of the assailant is comparable to the look of these students in the classroom. He is determined … to kill.

As I watch him, all I can think about is that I am … next. Then the guy looks up to where I am sitting in total fear and it seems that he can’t see me even though he is looking straight at me. He climbs up the hill and keeps going and hacking more people with his machete. I look up, and I see people I know just being cut into pieces. I start saying to myself, “Oh God … Oh God … Oh God!” Then, I wake up.

This dream is the burden of my conscience because of the ongoing realities in Congo. This is what thousands have experienced, according to the U.N. Mapping Exercise Report. The killings haven’t stopped. Today we still have people running for their lives so they won’t be killed. It is our responsibility to support the Congolese victims in their pursuit of justice so that the dreams of the Congolese will be ones of peace and justice, not of fear and atrocity.

With the new commitment of the United States government to prevent mass atrocities and genocide around the world, there needs to be a serious and unified push to raise the profile of the Congo. Congolese people have seen an estimated 6 million of their citizens perish in an unjust war. They have witnessed how the perpetrators of these crimes still roam the streets of their country or are given humanitarian awards and accolades.

Congolese people have seen an estimated 6 million of their citizens perish in an unjust war. They have witnessed how the perpetrators of these crimes still roam the streets of their country or are given humanitarian awards and accolades.

It is absolutely necessary that when we talk about “Never again,” we not only reference the Jewish Holocaust or the Rwandan Genocide but the continued instabilities that make broad-scale violence possible and seed the conditions leading to genocide. The Congolese people deserve justice for the millions they have lost. We hope that all justice seekers around the world will join us in working to deliver justice to the Congolese people.

To learn more about the situation in the Congo, visit http://congojustice.org to view “Crisis in the Congo: Uncovering the Truth.”

Kambale Musavuli, a Congolese native, is spokesperson and student coordinator for Friends of the Congo. He can be reached at kambale@friendsofthecongo.org. You can follow him on twitter @kambale and like his Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/kambalemusavuli.

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by Savannah Kilner and Michelle Williams

Michelle Williams

Michelle’s mother was told by doctors and social workers at Kaiser she would need 24-hour care. She relied on In-Home Support Services (IHSS), her brother and Michelle, who came to her home to help whenever she could.

But on Feb. 27, 2012, while caring for her mom, expecting respite care and assistance and looking for a good facility for her mom to be placed in, a Kaiser social worker threatened to get Adult Protective Services involved. That’s when Michelle realized she was under duress.

In a climate of proposed cuts to an already slashed social services budget, Michelle was forced to take care of her mother. This was a difficult and tedious job, as her mother is paralyzed and is totally dependent on others.

IHSS could provide care only eight hours a day Monday through Saturday, leaving the rest to Michelle. The situation was very challenging, as Michelle is unemployed due to her own personal physical disabilities.

If Michelle was not caring for her mother 16 hours a day and all of Sunday, APS – like CPS (Child Protective Services, an arm of the police – could charge her with neglect or abandonment. “I feel like I am under house arrest. At this time I have no other family to help out. If I leave, APS gets involved … This has emotionally, physically and mentally drained me. I feel imprisoned in my mother’s home.”

Michelle was being surveilled by Kaiser social workers and county workers and had to seek other counsel. “They don’t sit down and explain the logistics of the medical industry. They use classism, racism, ageism and ableism to bank on people not understanding, not caring, not knowing our rights … First, like some commodity, they wanted to institutionalize her. Now I can’t get help.” Michelle was under extreme duress. “It’s breaking me down,” she said. “I’m physically in a lot of pain. It’s affecting my disabilities and I fear losing my own home.”

Michelle fought Kaiser and the county and demanded that emergency respite care be provided for her mother. After many trials, she is now back in her own home.

Budgets created by capitalist colonial governments have never been set up to serve poor people’s needs. So when we talk about reform, social services are still part of a system that kills us. And yet, many of us rely on the few social services that are out there. Over the last couple years especially, the attack on social services in California and the inflation of the prison-building budget have accelerated in a frightening way.

Recent cuts to In-Home Support Services (IHSS) have impacted hundreds of thousands of families in California. IHSS allows poor elders and people with disabilities to stay in their homes and communities with their families and children.

Last Thursday, Gov. Jerry Brown proposed reducing state spending on the IHSS program by $210 million – over $420 million if federal matching funds are lost. This would eliminate In-Home Supportive Services for about 245,000 elders and people with disabilities and mental health needs. According to the state, over 440,000 people are receiving IHSS services.

Gov. Jerry Brown proposes to eliminate In-Home Supportive Services for about 245,000 elders and people with disabilities and mental health needs, putting them at risk for institutionalization.

In 2009, Gov. Schwarzenegger began an all-out attack on IHSS. He cut the program and implemented background checks, barring formerly incarcerated people from employment. IHSS has historically been a way for poor people to make some money caretaking for their extended families and neighbors – providing employment to folks who may not be able to find it elsewhere and supporting families staying together in their homes.

Since about three years ago, applicants are required to undergo fingerprinting and background checks at their own cost. Anyone with certain “job-related” felonies is immediately banned – Schwarzenneger expanded that list of convictions from four to 50. The new application says: “If you ever had a felony or serious misdemeanor conviction, you are ineligible to be a caregiver,” which is inaccurate and makes many people with any record think they are ineligible.

The program was by no means perfect – IHSS workers only make $8-$12 an hour in California. Michelle never intended to be a paid IHSS worker, but it was one way for family members to remain caretakers and for elders and people with disabilities to stay in their homes.

Jerry Brown continues the dismantling of IHSS in Schwarzenegger’s wake, which puts poor families and families of color at risk for criminalization via APS. It also puts about 250,000 elders and people with disabilities living in California at risk for institutionalization.

Elders and people with disabilities, family members and IHSS unions and workers are fighting the further cuts to the IHSS program. Budget genocide systematically withholds basic necessities from poor and people of color communities as it beefs up prisons and policing and the criminalization of poverty.

How can we create true models of interdependence and caretaking that do not rely on the state and that value the beauty and brilliance of intergenerational family and community? POOR’s Homefulness Project is one attempt to answer this question.

Read more about issues of poverty and race written by the people who face them daily at POOR Magazine/POOR News Network, www.poormagazine.org.

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The role of Sara Baartman in world history and herstory

by Paradise Free Jahlove

Swedish Minister of Culture Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth performs a clitoridectomy on a cake styled as the voluptuous body of “Hottentot Venus” Sara Baartman as the designer, African-Swedish performance artist Makode Aj Linde, in blackface, screams in mock pain. This photo brings flashbacks of that infamous picture of a brother lynched and burnt at the stake with an amused white audience in the background. – Photo: Marianne Lindberg de Geer, Facebook

The shocking photos that went viral on the net show several established left-wing members of the Stockholm cultural elite watching and laughing as Minister Liljeroth slices a cake depicting a black African woman with minstrel-esque face. The video has been viewed more than 3 million times.

Liljeroth was invited to open the festivities by performing a clitoridectomy on the cake, which she did by slicing off the part of the cake in the crotch area. The inside of the cake appears to be colored red. The minister then proceeded to feed that part of the cake to its designer, African-Swedish performance artist Makode Aj Linde. He was done up in blackface, his head protruding through the table. Whenever the cake was cut in the area of the genitalia, Linde would cry out in mock agony.

What makes this story interesting, beside the cake being modeled after some art work by a brother who was trying to draw attention to female castration in Afrika, was that the cake was modeled after Sara Baartman, who some 200 years earlier had been paraded around Europe as a freak because of her Afrikan voluptuousness. After only five years, she died; they had used her up. Then they dislodged her brain and genitalia with its elongated and extraordinary labia and preserved them in bottles for public viewing in French and other European museums.

Below is the story as it was originally intended with a few modifications because of recent happenings:

Sara Baartman was the forerunner to the video vixen, go go girl, cage and pole dancer – although not by choice. She was a member of the Hottentot tribe, whose people had a unique feature: Their body fat was predominantly stored in the buttocks, instead of the belly or thighs.

And so when this voluptuous woman, who lived in Capetown, South Afrika, was spotted by Europeans in the early 1800s, they flipped out when they saw her unusually ample bosom, ample behind and thick, full lips! Soon thereafter they invited her to Europe, promising wealth, fortune and fame. But when Sara – the English name she was given – arrived in Europe in 1810, they locked her in a cage on wheels – buck naked! They paraded her all over Europe as a freak and said, “Look, Black people have tails!”

They called her Hottentot Venus, the Black goddess of lust (Hottentot) and love (Venus).

From Hottentot voluptuousness to Victorian bustle to today’s Booty Pops

Almost a century later, Europeans would try and revisit the Sara Baartman scenerio with Josephine Baker, who was above and beyond it all. “What savage beauty! She’s so magnificently primitive!” they exclaimed.

And later, in the 1960s, someone came up with the idea to create an anti-voluptuous Black madonna goddess image named Twiggy, who was so frail and thin and puny she looked like a twig. And this image was pushed so ubiquitously that thin became in – so that 50 years later thousands, if not millions of women still suffer from anorexia, bulimia and low self-esteem today.

And believe it or not, here in the 21st century, Jim Crow laws still stand against the magnificently diverse and oftentimes amble Black and Brown behind in beauty pageants worldwide; there seems to be an unwritten rule that no woman can enter a Miss America or Miss Universe contest with hips larger than 36 inches or have a behind with too much personality.

And yet the madness doesn’t end there. Today because of modern day technology it is possible to get lip implants, breast implants and implants for your behind! You can also buy padded underwear products, including the cleverly titled “Booty Pops,” which give a little bit of that Hottentot Venus look that was supposed to be inferior.

One moral to this story is that we have to do for self and create our own standards and public images of beauty, which we will be able to do by keeping more of our dollars in the community and supporting Black businesses! Buy Black Wednesday!

Sara Baartman died after only five years in Europe at the tender age of 21. She was born in 1789 and buried in 2002, 213 years later. And now this latest indecency in Sweden … May the world finally let Sara Baartman rest in peace.

Paradise is president of the International Black Writers & Artists Local 5 in Oakland and was recently honored by the City of Oakland with “Paradise Day,” on Oct. 6! He may be reached at oaklandworldsfair@yahoo.com. Paradise also facilitates the Buy Black Wednesdays Facebook page and group, hosts the Black Wednesday Show every Wednesday at 6 p.m. on www.harambeeradio.com and blogs at www.blackwednesdays.blogspot.com.

Editor’s note: Ann Garrison suggests calling the Swedish Embassy in the U.S. as she did: (202) 467-2652.

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City’s jobs legislation is already working and can work even better

by Ruben Santana

San Francisco’s local hiring law is successfully increasing diversity and opportunity for local residents on City-funded construction. Local community contractors such as Rubecon and Liberty Builders can work with the City to expand upon these early success stories as local hiring requirements under the law increase this year.

Last month, Mayor Ed Lee and Supervisor John Avalos announced that although the local hiring policy required only 20 percent local participation on construction in its first year, local residents performed 34 percent of all the job hours on covered projects. The legislation increased the diversity of the City’s construction workforce and boosted opportunities for local workers of color and women.

We have even seen local working families on the verge of departing San Francisco during this time of economic crisis stay in the city by securing employment through the new local hiring law.

There is no better time to promote inclusion of San Francisco’s communities on public works projects. Look around the city and one can view at least 16 cranes that have gone up around town with even more work breaking ground this year.

Thanks to this law, some longtime blue-collar workers who have been squeezed out of San Francisco have even moved back to the city for the chance to go back to work.

What is most exciting is that more youth are becoming interested in blue-collar careers and enjoying the quality of life that high-paying union construction jobs provide. To meet this demand, the City has invested in programs such as CityBuild and our community-based organizations that are at the ready to prepare them to excel in a union construction apprenticeship.

When I started out as a carpenter, these programs were not in place and there was less support for local workers starting out in the trades. My experience began during a period of longstanding barriers for workers of color and women and I had to work even harder to prove myself. Today, I am glad to see future potential workers benefit from my experience in supporting a local hiring policy that guarantees opportunities for a new generation of local craftsmen and craftswomen.

Our local hiring law is a continuation of the process of breaking down barriers to maintaining a blue-collar middle class in San Francisco.

The next step in making local hiring work as its employment requirements increase is to identify and support the unique role that local community contractors play. The City can help increase these early local hiring success stories by partnering with local contractors who actively recruit and employ local residents.

The Local Business Enterprise (LBE) ordinance alone does not accomplish that, as we have seen how non-local firms are sometimes able to hang a shingle in San Francisco, make minimal payroll and property tax contributions to the local economy, and claim the bidding preferences designed to promote and expand truly San Francisco-based contractors. The City should target opportunities for LBEs that also have a strong track record of consistently employing local residents.

The first year of local hiring has been more successful than most people imagined. To expand upon its success, we need to continue cultivating our local contractor community base and engaging the unique experiences of those of us who have been fortunate to make the transition from worker to business owner, giving back to the community by regularly employing San Franciscans to help rebuild this great city.

Ruben Santana is the owner of Rubecon Builders, Inc., a union general contractor based in Bayview Hunters Point with over 100 years of combined experience in the construction industry. Rubecon regularly employs in excess of 50 percent local workers on construction jobs and is a committed supporter of San Francisco’s Local Hiring Policy for Construction.

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by the Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa’adat

On Palestinian Prisoners Day April 17, 500 students marched in Glasgow to occupy BBC Scotland headquarters, demanding full coverage of Palestinian prisoners’ mass hunger strike. – Photo: WeAreAllHanaShalabi

Palestinian hunger strikers are demanding an end to isolation and solitary confinement; an end to administrative detention; access to family visits for all prisoners, including those from Gaza; and access to education and media. Sa’adat has been held in isolation for over three years, since March 2009.

Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike are demanding international solidarity. Actions you can take are listed below.

Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike are demanding international solidarity.

In a breaking news report, Palestinian political prisoners from the PFLP have rejected an occupation offer to end Sa’adat’s isolation if they would break the hunger strike. They refused; the hunger strike includes prisoners from all Palestinian factions, united in their demands.

The following letter from Ahmad Sa’adat to his family, the Palestinian and Arab people and the world was released April 24, the eighth day of his hunger strike, smuggled from his isolation cell. It calls for support for the hunger strike on Palestinian, Arab and international levels:

“Do not worry; my health is much better than in the previous hunger strike, and I am confident it will remain so. Thank you for your continual support of my position in this hunger strike. As is the case in every strike, they took all of our electrical appliances, canteen, clothing … We only have left prison clothes, some change of underwear, pajamas, towels, soap and toothpaste.

“All of us have lost about 5-7 kilograms (11-15 pounds) in weight, but everyone is in good health and, most importantly, in high morale and determined to continue the strike. We are confident of victory, relying on the justice of our cause and our demands and the support of the masses of our people, our nation and the free world – individuals, organizations and institutions – standing, as always alongside our just struggle.

“These demands include a number of legitimate human rights under international law, including abolition of solitary confinement as a dangerous form of torture with no security or legal justification and contrary to international humanitarian law and all international conventions that prohibit torture. We are also demanding an end to the prohibition of family visits to the prisoners from Gaza for more than seven years, as well as interference with family visitors from the West Bank under the pretext of ‘security reasons’ and demanding that such visits be allowed for extended as well as immediate family.

“These demands include a number of legitimate human rights under international law, including abolition of solitary confinement as a dangerous form of torture with no security or legal justification and contrary to international humanitarian law and all international conventions that prohibit torture,” writes Ahmad Sa’adat to his family.

“What we need from the masses of the people, political forces and institutions is to raise the voices and the call of our just demands of the prisoners with a unified voice and not subject the cause of the prisoners to internal disputes or the management of division.

“This strike includes participation from all political forces and factions, without exception, and the best gift from the political forces supporting us is to implement agreements for unity on which the ink is not yet dry. Such unity is an essential foundation, the most important pillar to achieve our just national goals.

“In conclusion, I salute and thank all of the Palestinian, Arab and international forces standing beside our just struggle. Forward to victory!”

This story originally appeared on the website of the Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa’adat. Email the campaign at info@freeahmadsaadat.org.

Statement from strike leadership: We will continue until our demands are met

by the Higher National Leadership Committee of the Prisoners’ Struggle

This is the moment of truth, where hunger grips our bleeding wounds. This is a call of duty and we cannot be weak or cowardly. We are facing a real massacre committed by the Zionist jailers against our individual and collective rights, where we are confronted by torture and abuse on a daily basis, around the clock, in an attempt to force all of the hunger strikers to break the strike.

Outside Ofer Prison in Ramallah May 1, the Israeli Occupying Force fired tear gas, rubber coated steel bullets and stun grenades at protesters supporting hunger strikers. At least two were injured. Since 1967, 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. – Photo: Palestine News Network

First, we will continue our strike. We will not go back, except by achieving our demands. We will not be defeated by their crimes and cruelty as we draft a vision for a decent life.

Second, we will take qualitative and unprecedented steps if the Prison Service continues to refuse our demands, and we will not announce these steps until the moment of implementation.

Third, we call on the masses of our people in the beseiged Gaza Strip, the brave West Bank and all of Palestine, and our families at home, to organize mass rallies and marches toward Israeli checkpoints in order to confront the occupation.

Fourth, we expect our Arab brothers and sisters in Egypt and Jordan to encircle the embassies of the Zionist entity in order to force it to respond to our demands.

Fifth, we call upon the free people of the world and the Arab and Muslim communities in all countries of the world to implement rallies, protests, occupations and sit-ins at Israeli embassies as an expression of solidarity with the prisoners’ cause and to expose the crimes of the Zionists.

Sixth, we value highly the reporting of Palestinian and Arab satellite channels in their coverage of our strike, including Al-Jazeera, that is consistent with the pulse of our nation and its identity, as well as al-Aqsa TV, al-Quds TV, and call upon the Arab and Palestinian media to exercise their duty to our just and humanitarian cause.

Seventh, we are looking forward to an important and active Egyptian role in support of our cause and we appeal to the ruling power in sister Egypt to do all in its power to compel the Zionist entity to commit to our demands, including ending the policy of solitary confinement and isolation and the abolition of the “Shalit law.”

We swear to continue to strike until our demands are met, no matter what the cost. We believe in our right to a dignified life even if we fall as martyrs. We must live with dignity or die.

Finally, we swear to continue to strike until our demands are met, no matter what the cost. We believe in our right to a dignified life even if we fall as martyrs. Our dignity is the greatest cost; we are committed before God; we must live with dignity or die.

This statement originally appeared on the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network.

Palestinians organize hunger tents in support of detainees

Thousands of Palestinians around the West Bank and Gaza have joined in solidarity by setting up tents outside the Red Cross in Gaza and in areas around Ramallah and the West Bank, where the local communities are staging hunger strikes in support of the Palestinian prisoners held in administrative detention by the Israeli Prison Service. …

On Palestine Prisoners’ Day, 160 prisoners began an open hunger strike while 2,000 people marched towards the Red Cross in Gaza City in solidarity, alongside thousands protesting around the West Bank. The 160 detained prisoners began an open hunger strike with a further 2,300 prisoners who refused food for one day and 1,200 prisoners who said they would begin a hunger strike. This added to three quarters of the 4,700 Palestinians being held in Israeli prisons.

This story originally appeared on the Palestine News Network.

Palestinian prisoners’ hunger strike: Repression and solidarity escalate

Repression against prisoners continues: Numerous prisoners have been moved from prison to prison, prisoners are fined 250-500 New Israeli Shekels daily and Addameer lawyers are barred from the prisons, according to an April 30 report from the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network.

“Nonetheless, the resistance continues. … Calls are echoing throughout Palestine and on social media around the world for a general strike May 1, for International Workers’ Day and the prisoners. A protest will take place outside Ramleh prison hospital, where hunger strikers are held, on Thursday, May 3, while daily pickets will take place in London in solidarity with the prisoners,” Samidoun reports.

“Successful and growing protests are taking place around the world and throughout Palestine – but more action is urgently needed as the prisoners’ lives, health and bodies are on the line for their rights, dignity, and their cause and people.”

Students occupy BBC for Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike

More than 500 student protesters marched from George Square in Glasgow to occupy BBC Scotland headquarters on Palestinian Prisoners’ Day April 17 to demand mainstream media coverage of the prisoners’ hunger strike, reports WeAreAllHanaShalabi. The students want BBC’s worldwide audience to know what led to the prisoners’ decision to call for a mass hunger strike, and they question BBC’s impartiality.

As in the U.S., Scottish police treated the student marchers with more hostility than protection and arrested several. – Photo: WeAreAllHanaShalabi

According to the report, “The demonstrators entered the building before midday and are currently holding the main lobby, chanting ‘BBC, shame on you; put the prisoners on the news’ and ‘Hunger strikers will not bow; free the political prisoners now. …

“The actions today take place two days after thousands of international activists attempted to fly into Ben Gurion Airport demanding the right to travel to the West Bank on invitation of the mayor of Bethlehem. There are currently around 50 activists being held in detention, including four Scottish nationals, who are refusing food and water in solidarity with the Karamah Hunger Strike.

“The demonstrations around the issue of the hunger strikers are being organized by student Palestine societies in Scotland, with the support of various organizations, uniting under the banner of ‘We Are All Hana Shalabi.’ …

“One of the occupiers said, ‘The Karamah Hunger Strike represents a potentially significant moment in the history of the Palestinian struggle. The fact that 2400 Palestinian prisoners are on hunger strike against the apartheid policies of the Israeli occupation shows the desire of Palestinians to have their freedom from prison and freedom from occupation. The BBC is complicit through their silence on the ongoing situation in Palestine, and we are occupying today to highlight that the magnitude of this issue and this injustice demands that the media cover it.”

Gaza child launches hunger strike for imprisoned father; Prison Services attempt to bargain with prisoners’ healthcare

Former prisoner Samer Abu Sir reported that Israeli prison administration forces attempted to bargain with imprisoned patient Akram Rakhawi in Ramle hospital, saying they would provide him with inhalers and oxygen if he broke his hunger strike. Rakhawi refused, saying that despite his heart disease, shortness of breath and diabetes, he would not break his strike.

Hamas militants stage a mock prison break during a rally April 13 in Jabalya, northern Gaza Strip, calling for the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails. – Photo: Mohammed Salem, Reuters

Abu Sir also called to expand the activities on April 17 for the International Day of Solidarity with Palestinian Prisoners, noting that of course it is not enough to have one day, the 17th of April, as the only day for Palestinian prisoner solidarity and to stand alongside the captives behind the bars of the occupation every day. He said that this day of action is a strong support for international solidarity mobilization and engagement with the issue of prisoners, and a tool to put pressure on international institutions, in particular the United Nations.

This story originally appeared on the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network.

Take action!

1. Sign a letter demanding the Israeli state implement all of the demands of hunger striking Palestinian prisoners. Tell the Israeli Prison Services that the world is watching! Sign at http://samidoun.ca/2012/04/prisoners-hunger-strike-enters-12th-day-take-action-now-60-days-of-hunger-for-bilal-diab-and-thaer-halahleh/#letter.

2. Join a protest or demonstration for Palestinian prisoners. Organizing an event, action or forum on Palestinian prisoners on your city or campus? Use the form at http://samidoun.ca/2012/04/submit-your-palestinian-prisoner-solidarity-activities-here/ to contact us and we will post the event widely. If you need suggestions, materials or speakers for your event, please contact us at samidoun@samidoun.ca.

World renowned artists Carlos Latuff designed this graphic for Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike, #Palhunger.

4. Write to the International Committee of the Red Cross and demand they uphold their duties to protect the rights of Palestinian political prisoners. Go to http://samidoun.ca/2012/04/palestinian-prisoners-day-take-action-to-call-for-freedom-for-palestinian-prisoners/#letter to sign a one-minute letter and make your voice heard.

5. Distribute materials, including factsheets (http://samidoun.ca/2012/04/new-factsheets-for-distribution-on-palestinian-prisoners-day/) and videos (http://samidoun.ca/2012/04/videos-the-testimony-of-palestinian-prisoner-dr-abdul-aziz-omar/), telling the story of Palestinian prisoners.

All these stories were relayed by the ever-vigilant Political Prisoner News, ppnews@freedomarchives.org. The Bay View thanks them for keeping the people informed.

California prisoners may resume hunger strike July 1

by Bato Talamantez

We need to somehow let Pelican Bay and other prisoners know that hunger strikes in Palestine are for basically the same human rights as their own here and let our prisoners derive strength and solidarity for their own upcoming ordeal, now scheduled for the first of July.

I’m afraid more prisoners are about to die of starvation, as they are as determined as any prisoners anywhere to put an end to their own suffering – or die trying to correct this gross injustice within Amerikkka’s gulags.

In the spirit of solidarity.

Bato Talamantez, a member of the legendary San Quentin 6, can be reached at batowato@gmail.com.

A young Palestinian woman raises the Palestinian flag on an Israeli armored vehicle. She was sprayed in the face with burning chemicals.

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by Jordan Flaherty

Art Rocker, who chairs Operation People for Peace, and Dr. E. Faye Williams, chair of the National Congress of Black Women, lead a march with hundreds of protestors in front of the Washington, D.C., office of BP claims fund czar Ken Feinberg. Rocker’s group represents over 400 churches, 100 pastors and 10,000 underserved and underrepresented claimants. “Finally,” Rocker said, “over $773 million will be paid to these claimants. This group represents over 10 percent of all oil spill claims that have been received by Judge Barbier at the federal district court in New Orleans. After Dick Gregory and I protested and went to jail several times over Ken Feinberg’s hundreds of promises, finally we can see some daylight.”

“People should be aware that the oil is still there,” says Wilma Subra, a chemist who travels widely across the Gulf meeting with fishers and testing seafood and sediment samples for contamination.

Subra says that the reality she is seeing on the ground contrasts sharply with the image painted by BP. “I’m extremely concerned on the impact it’s having on all these sick individuals,” she says. Subra believes we may be just at the beginning of this disaster. In every community she visits, fishers show her shrimp born without eyes, fish with lesions, and crabs with holes in their shells. She says tarballs are still washing up on beaches across the region.

While it’s too early to assess the long-term environmental impact, a host of recent studies published by the National Academy of Sciences and other respected institutions have shown troubling results. They describe mass deaths of deepwater coral, dolphins and killifish, a small animal at the base of the Gulf food chain. “If you add them all up, it’s clear the oil is still in the ecosystem; it’s still having an effect,” says Aaron Viles, deputy director of Gulf Restoration Network, an environmental organization active in the region.

The major class action lawsuit on behalf of communities affected by the spill has reached a proposed $7.8 billion settlement, subject to approval by a judge. While this seems to have brought a certain amount of closure to the saga, environmentalists worry that any settlement is premature, saying they fear that the worst is yet to come. Pointing to the 1989 Exxon spill off the coast of Alaska, previously the largest oil spill in U.S. waters, Viles said that it was several years before the full effect of that disaster was felt. “Four seasons after Exxon Valdez is when the herring fisheries collapsed,” says Viles. “The Gulf has been a neglected ecosystem for decades. We need to be monitoring it closely.”

In the aftermath of the spill, BP flooded the Gulf with nearly 2 million gallons of chemical dispersants. While BP says these chemicals broke up the oil, some scientists have said this just made it less visible and sent the poisons deeper into the food chain.

It is widely agreed that environmental problems on the coast date back to long before the well blew open. The massive catastrophe brought into focus problems that have existed for a generation. Land loss caused by oil company drilling has already displaced many who lived by the coast, and the pollution from treatment plants has poisoned communities across the state – especially in “cancer alley,” the corridor of industrial facilities along the Mississippi River south of Baton Rouge.

“The Gulf is a robust ecosystem and it’s been dying the death of a thousand cuts for a long time,” says Viles. “BP is legally obligated to fix what they screwed up. But if you’re only obligated to put the ecosystem back to where it was April 19, 2010, why would we?”

Fishing is a huge part of the economy for the Gulf Coast. Around 40 percent of the seafood caught in the continental U.S. comes from here. Many area fishermen were still recovering from Hurricane Katrina when the spill closed a third of Gulf waters to fishing for months. George Barisich, president of the United Commercial Fisherman’s Association, a group that supports Gulf Coast fishers, says many fishers still had not recovered from Hurricane Katrina when the oil started flowing from the BP spill. Now, he says, many are facing losing their homes. “Production is down at least 70 percent,” compared to the year before the spill, he says. “And prices are still depressed 30, 40, 60 percent.”

In a video statement on BP’s website, Geir Robinson, vice president of Economic Restoration for BP’s Gulf Coast Restoration Organization, says that the company believes the legal settlement will resolve most legitimate economic claims. “We do have critics,” adds Robinson. “And we’re working hard every day to show them that we will meet our responsibilities.”

Environmentalists and scientists also complain the Obama administration has let down the Gulf Coast. Viles is critical of the role the U.S. government has played, saying that by inaction they seemed to protect BP more than coastal communities or the environment. “The Coast Guard seems to empower the worst instincts of BP,” Viles says. “I don’t know if it’s Stockholm Syndrome or what.”

International environmental groups have also joined in the criticism. Oceana, a conservation group with offices in Europe and the Americas, released a report April 17 criticizing the U.S. government’s reforms as being either ineffective or nonexistent, saying “offshore drilling remains as risky and dangerous as it was two years ago, and that the risk of a major spill has not been effectively reduced.”

Theresa Dardar lives in Bayou Pointe-au-Chien, a Native American fishing community on Louisiana’s Gulf Coast. Dardar and her neighbors have seen their land vanish from under their feet within their lifetimes due to canals built by the oil companies to access wells. The canals brought salt water into freshwater marshes, helping cause the coastal erosion that sees Louisiana lose a football field of land every 45 minutes. The main street that runs through the community now disappears into the swamps, with telephone poles sticking out of the water.

Now, in addition to worries about disappearing land and increasing risk of hurricanes, she fears that her family’s livelihood is gone for good. “It’s not going to be over for years,” she says, expressing a widely held concern among fishers here. “We’re just a small Native American fishing community. That’s all they’ve done their whole lives. Some of them are over 60. What are they going to do? If BP gives them money for the rest of their lives, that’s one thing. But if not, then what can they do?”

Jordan Flaherty is a journalist based in New Orleans and author of the book “Floodlines: Community and Resistance from Katrina to the Jena Six.” He can be reached at jordan@floodlines.org. This story previously appeared in CounterPunch.

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by Malaika Kambon

Fly Benzo, known for his mentoring of youth, holds Nailah Amari Bey, one of his staunchest supporters. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

Nowhere is this fight more in evidence than in the Bayview Hunters Point community in California and in all parts north, south, east and west in Haiti. The battle rages and is being waged against the same enemy.

And in true revolutionary fashion, in both locales, Africans are fighting back against nearly insurmountable odds – with attitude, courage, dignity and absolute fearlessness.

Consider the case of DeBray “Fly Benzo” Carpenter. He was busted on Oct. 18, 2011, by two of SFPD’s finest, John Norment and Joshua Fry, for (gasp!) participating in a community organized rally while playing a boom box in a (dare I say) “unauthorized” location – said location being a gy-normous plug attached to a tree in Mendell Plaza in the heart of the vibrant, predominantly Afrikan Bayview Hunters Point community.

Then, when said SFPD officers, following their practice of repeatedly harassing Fly, began to videotape him being arrested for playing a boom box, Fly decided that it was fitting that he record them, the SFPD, while they wasted taxpayer’s hard earned coin by harassing Black people playing music on community land.

All 64 available seats in the courtroom were filled with Debray “Fly Benzo” Carpenter’s supporters with dozens more in the hallway outside on April 20 for the first session of his sentencing hearing. Fly was unjustly convicted for exercising his First Amendment right to record the police and organize for justice after the SFPD murder of Kenneth Wade Harding Jr. on July 16, 2011. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

So, comes now the brutal assault of DeBray Carpenter, in which he is arrested by the SFPD’s Norment, Fry and four or five others of their ilk, who are in fact armed and who are trespassing upon the land that Fly’s parents practically built. He is also injured, hospitalized, jailed and charged with feloniously resisting arrest, assaulting a police officer, and videotaping police officers and thus interfering with them in the performance of their sworn duties – of harassing the community.

After all, they hang out in Mendell Plaza on their bicycles all day, four to six deep, every day. Explained Officer Fry at Fly’s trial, “It’s our job to be there so people feel safe.”

Now, the tree and the plaza in which it sits is so centrally located that it is half a block from the internationally renowned San Francisco Bay View newspaper building, half a block from the century old Bayview Opera House and the very public Joseph Lee gymnasium and half a block from where 19-year-old Kenneth Wade Harding Jr. was brutally murdered on July 16, 2011, for being too poor to pay the $2 light rail fare on the new T-train line that banned Black people from building it – but that passes right through the heart of the Bayview Black community, taking millions of dollars of our hard earned money while claiming to meet our transportation needs.

Fly knows this. Being an astute young man and the product of three generations of proud and fearless community organizers – from his parents Claude Carpenter and Barbara Banks, leading contractors training and hiring community workers for decades, to his grandparents and their predecessors – he knows the injustices that exist.

Barbara Banks, mother of Debray “Fly Benzo” Carpenter and a contractor and community leader in her own right, is always there standing firm, side by side with her son. Here she reviews some legal documents at the initial April 20 session of his sentencing hearing. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

And then, in typical kangaroo court fashion, after a trial by a jury not of his peers, Fly is convicted of three misdemeanor counts of resisting arrest, assault upon a police officer, and that ever present interfering with said officers’ dubious duties by videotaping them in their illicit performance.

Fly’s attorney, Severa Keith, fought valiantly for acquittal on all charges. In a message to Bay View readers after the trial, she wrote:

“While the outcome could have been much worse, we wanted better. DeBray was convicted by a jury that did not have the opportunity to hear the entire story. The judge refused to allow any evidence related to DeBray’s prior interactions with these officers, which included incidents of racist acts, threatening acts, taunting and evidence that their superiors had told them to video record Mr. Carpenter.

“Evidence of DeBray’s history of community activism was also excluded. All this was excluded on the basis that it would tend to ‘confuse the issues’ in the trial. Evidence was limited to the events of Oct. 18, 2011.

“The exclusion of this important and relevant history between DeBray and the officers who arrested him was shocking to me and made an already uphill battle a mountain. It is clear from watching the video of DeBray’s arrest that the incident did not start on that day; there was a history there, and the jury did not hear it.

“Rather than confuse the issues, the history of Officer Fry’s and Norment’s outrageous conduct actually illuminates and clarifies what happened on Oct. 18. Their bias, motives and personal animosity towards DeBray were not allowed in the trial.

“The effect of the exclusion of this evidence, which was going to be presented by four willing and brave witnesses, who were willing to speak up about the officers’ conduct, even though they feared retribution, became clear during the trial. During DeBray’s testimony, several jurors asked the question of whether he had had past contacts with these officers. Their questions went unanswered.”

Orwellian? Yep. Illegal? Yep. Happen before? Of course! Jack boots in your cheerios? You bet.

Elders confer outside the courtroom at Fly Benzo’s sentencing April 27: Claude Carpenter, father of DeBray “Fly Benzo” Carpenter, videographer and Oscar Grant Committee activist Earl Black and Bay View publisher Willie Ratcliff. Claude had spoken to the court April 20 on behalf of his son, correcting the misinformation in the record introduced by the prosecution. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

So here’s the re-mix, the part where the people step up and fight back more strongly.

Fly Benzo is alive, and we, the true people, would like him to stay that way. We object to one of our favorite sons being snatched, stolen and harassed.

Supported 100 percent by community, friends and family Fly, being an intelligent young man, has increased his writing and speaking out, for he realizes that not only have his First Amendment rights as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution been violated, but he is now subject to enslavement via that same constitution’s illegal 13th Amendment as well.

“There have been many cases in which video evidence has contradicted an officer’s testimony and either an officer was convicted of wrongdoing or a suspect’s charges have been overturned or dismissed. With this great lack of integrity and accountability of the very ones who are paid to uphold the law, it is imperative, in the interest of justice, that civilians’ right to record police be preserved rather than criminalized,” wrote Fly in “The First Amendment Right to Record the Police.”

Thus, in a tremendous outpouring of worldwide love and community support, it seems as though half of Hunters Point, if not all of it at some point passed by Mendell Plaza, at Third and Palou on Wednesday, April 18, 2012, when 30-50 people held a press conference to emphasize that the freedom of one of its own, DeBray “Fly Benzo” Carpenter, was of the utmost importance.

And on April 20, even though Fly was not sentenced as scheduled, 80-100 people packed the courtroom and the adjoining hallways at the Hall of (in)Justice as influential members of the community spoke in court on Fly’s behalf. This is indicative of the fact that his status as a peacemaker, negotiator and mentor in the lives of many Bay Area youth and as a community, entrepreneurial and student leader and as a staunch advocate for the civil rights of dispossessed Afrikan and other communities of color is well known and documented.

So when DeBray Carpenter was sentenced on April 27, half the room was again filled with his supporters, with more on the way, and hundreds more awaited news of the outcome via blog post, email and social networking.

The community gathered around DeBray “Fly Benzo” Carpenter at an April 18 pre-sentencing press conference and rally in Mendell Plaza, where Fly was brutalized and arrested Oct. 18, 2011, for recording the police and where Kenneth Harding had been murdered by SFPD on July 16, 2011. On April 27, Fly was sentenced to stay away from the plaza, the heart of the community. From left in the back row are Archbishop Franzo King of St. John Coltrane Church, Lisa “Tiny” Gray-Garcia of POOR Magazine, Kenneth Harding’s mother Denika Chatman, Mesha Irizarry of the Idriss Stelley Foundation, Larry Felson of the October 22nd Coalition, DeBray “Fly Benzo” Carpenter, Fly’s attorney Severa Keith, journalist Alex Schmaus, videographer Kilo G Perry, Kenneth Harding’s uncle Marco Scott, Sharena Thomas, Fly’s cousin Kelley, writer TaLea Monet and her baby daughter; in front are activists Rebbeca Ruiz-Lichter and Kitty Lui. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

The court issued numerous fines and conditions that are in direct violation of his right to community activism via peaceable assembly, as guaranteed by the First Amendment. In fact, his sentence includes a “stay away” order from Mendell Plaza, the town square at the heart of Bayview Hunters Point that was a top priority community demand for decades and, since it was finally built, a place used more effectively for feeding, entertaining, educating and unifying the community by Fly Benzo than by anyone else.

Fly cannot go to court and protest the stay away order until June 8, over a month after sentencing. And in an attempt to humiliate him, the very officers who assaulted him demanded that he apologize to them for their obstruction of his lawful citizen’s right to videotape police officers performing their duties in a public space!

The following are the court ordered shackles imposed upon DeBray Carpenter as a consequence of his conviction on three misdemeanors, including “use of a cell phone to harass and intimidate officers in the performance of their duties”:

• Three years’ probation
• A jail suspended sentence of six months for each of the three misdemeanor counts of resisting arrest, placing a (cell) phone in the face of police officers, thus preventing the performance of their duties, and assault while being arrested. Counts 1 and 3 are to be served concurrently and count 2 served consecutively, so he’s under the threat of one year’s jail time if probation is violated.
• A stay away order, prohibiting DeBray Carpenter from being on Third Street between Oakdale and Quesada, i.e. Mendell Plaza and the next block south, unless passing by in a vehicle.
• Random warrantless searches and seizures of his person, property and home, to which he must consent
• A ban on weapon possession, which is a superfluous condition, since Mr. Carpenter was unarmed at the time of his arrest
• One hundred hours of community service, to be performed on weekends
• The completion of anger management classes
• An order to obey all laws and to remain at arm’s length from all officers
• Maintenance of full time school attendance and/or employment
• Participation in San Francisco’s SWAP street and sidewalk sweeping program
• Payment of nearly $1,000 in court fines and fees, including the civil liability fines to be imposed if probation conditions are violated.

Anybody who thinks this isn’t a pre-planned noose around this man’s neck, raise your hand!

This is the box where it all started, an electrical outlet attached to a palm tree in Mendell Plaza. On Oct. 18, 2011, SFPD pulled the plug on the boom box where music was playing and people were gathering in support of community investigation into the murder of Kenneth Wade Harding, Jr. Now the box is locked, a signal, like Fly Benzo’s stay away order, that SFPD, not the people, are in charge of Mendell Plaza. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

So are cell phones, cameras and camcorders now deemed lethal weapons? And is the use of them to record illicit police activity now deemed a criminal act?

Is this how the courts intend to overturn our rights as demonstrated to us by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale when the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, born of the Deacons for Defense in the South, began teaching the African community to watch and record the police terrorizing our communities?

And what if, while the stay away order is in effect, some sadistic “Officer Friendly” decides to force Mr. Carpenter to sweep the wrong sidewalk? And then busts him for doing so?

Can the Orwellian jackboots of 1984 come any closer to DeBray Carpenter and his family in 2012 without causing loss of life? I think not. Do you hear the jackboots coming? Do you hear the clinking of the chains? And did you notice that the noose is always made in America?

By virtue of standing up to authority, Fly Benzo has become a hero to many, and while many alleged activists and politicians are motivated only by greed and personal gain, Fly Benzo remains of and for the people.

Therefore, the shouts of “He’s Not Guilty! He’s Not Guilty!” “Free Fly Benzo,” show a fierce outpouring of community strength, love and commitment to fight for the freedom of one of its own as expressed by multitudes from the outset of his assault by SFPD. His wrongful conviction on Feb. 22 is a violation of his First Amendment rights.

TaLea Monet, Fly Benzo and comrades contemplate the sentence just handed down April 27. If Fly is free, then why is Mendell Plaza a no Fly zone? – Photo: Malaika Kambon

The April 27 court sentencing was the culmination of months in which Fly and the Bayview Hunters Point community took the battle for his freedom from the streets into the courts, which are just another kind of battlefield, albeit one with a pre-stacked deck.

For the reality is that DeBray has been repeatedly harassed for over a year by the SFPD for his activism as a freedom fighter analyzing the meaning and application of First Amendment rights in the context of struggle, building connections between his school and the Hunters Point community via the Black Star Liner Coalition he founded, feeding and empowering the people of his community, and demanding accountability for the murder of Kenneth Wade Harding Jr., while helping to debunk the media misinformation that sought to criminalize Kenneth Harding and seeks to criminalize all young Afrikan men.

The 22-year-old veteran community organizer has been accomplishing all of this while maintaining a 4.0 grade point average at City College of San Francisco and mentoring youth at POOR News Network.

So now, DeBray Carpenter faces three years of probation, during which time the state of California may violate him and send him to jail on the flimsiest of excuses. That’s 1,095 days and nights, until the year of his 25th birthday, with a noose hanging over his head.

And a particularly disturbing corollary to these months of proceedings is that merely being charged with a felony, despite being acquitted of all felonies, means that Mr. Carpenter is bound by law to submit DNA test results to the court to become part of a permanent state, local and federal criminal database and record against him!

That, along with the “stay away” order, is like giving Fly a felony conviction, sub rosa with the implication of drug involvement. This is outrageous and constitutes racial profiling and tracking and provides yet another way for law enforcement to escalate its harassment of him.

Mendell Plaza is the drumbeat and heart of BVHP. Community members meet to discuss events, share food and clothing, hear music and current news. Occasionally, it is also a hair salon! Here the son of Salahaquyya is getting his hair done by Sister Paige. Sala has a TV show. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

But the world now knows that the struggle continues in the heart of Bayview Hunters Point. They know that Fly Benzo’s fight is also against involuntary servitude, i.e. the re-enslavement of Afrikan people that is supported by the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

This amendment states: “Section 1: Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Section 2: Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.” The re-enslaving clause is highlighted.

Fly Benzo’s fight against trumped up charges is a fight for the abolition of the prison industrial complex and its practice of the forced servitude (read: enslavement) of Afrikan men and women on its plantations, as dictated by an unjust government in the 21st century.

We, as the new abolitionists, know this, for we know that the commonly held belief that Afrikan enslavement ended in 1863 is fallacious. Michelle Alexander’s book, “The New Jim Crow,” and the PBS documentary “Slavery by Any Other Name” bears this out.

We know that the enslavement of Afrikan men and women continues to this day, well into the 21st century, via forced imprisonment, and is legal, as is borne out by the 13th Amendment of the U.S. constitution, a law passed by the U.S. Senate on April 8, 1864, by the House of Representatives on Jan. 31, 1865, and officially adopted on Dec. 6, 1865 – a law which is still on the books without change on this day in April 2012, 147 years later, in what U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama proclaims to be a “post-racial “ America.

Fear of Afrikan people gathering together dates from slavery and prompts today’s stay away order keeping Fly Benzo out of Mendell Plaza for exercising his First Amendment rights to free speech and assembly. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

This is a modern day form of delayed convict leasing, the system that was begun after the U.S. Civil War to provide prisoner labor to private parties, such as plantation owners and corporations like Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Co. Corruption, lack of accountability and racial violence resulted in “one of the harshest and most exploitative labor systems known in American history,” according to a source quoted by Wikipedia.

For dramatic insight into the 19th century convict leasing system see the entire PBS documentary “Slavery By Another Name, at http://video.pbs.org/video/2176766758/.

Fast forward to the 21st century.

Revolutionary journalist and prison abolitionist Kiilu Nyasha writes in “Slavery on the new plantation”: “Private companies operate 264 correctional facilities housing some 99,000 adult prisoners,” as opposed to the five private prisons and 2,000 prisoners of 1995, and California is touted as its “new frontier” by the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA).

“Employers (read: slavers) don’t have to pay health or unemployment insurance, vacation time, sick leave or overtime. They can hire, fire or reassign inmates as they so desire, and can pay the workers as little as 21 cents an hour. The inmates cannot respond with a strike, file a grievance, or threaten to leave and get a better job,” Nyasha writes.

Twenty-first century private companies including Microsoft and Wal-Mart now contract prison labor, replacing the 19th century convict leasing system – but not replacing the 19th century 13th Amendment, making the enslavement of African men and women legal.

And according to Michelle Alexander, author of “The New Jim Crow,” more Black people are enslaved behind bars today than were enslaved on the plantations in 1850, before the Emancipation Proclamation was signed.

These are the punitive measures that Fly Benzo faces for “standing his ground” and exercising his First Amendment right to record the police. Trumped up charges, a trial by a jury not of his peers, witnessing vital evidence being disallowed by an ultra-conservative retired judge – just as in actual physical chattel enslavement, these punitive measures are meant to dissuade, intimidate and silence others from following in his footsteps.

At the Free Fly Benzo press conference and rally on April 18 were many of the people who are leading Bayview Hunters Point and the Black community generally to a new era of power, peace and prosperity: Mike Brown of Inner City Youth, Kenneth Harding’s mother Denika Chatman, Kilo G Perry of Cameras Not Guns, Fly Benzo and Kenneth Harding’s uncle Marco Scott. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

In the battle for freedom fought between 1791 and 1804, Haiti defeated the greatest military might of that era: France twice in the form of Napoleon Bonaparte and his brother-in-law Gen. Victor-Emmanuel Leclerc; England, Spain and America via then Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson’s gift of $40,000 in foreign aid to Napoleon. Napoleon’s dream of preserving the “Jewel of the Antilles” by keeping its people – Afrikan Haitians – enslaved failed.

But Haitians did not stop with freeing themselves. Haitians fought for Afrikan freedom in the U.S., fought with Simon Bolivar to free South America, sent soldiers to fight with Mexican revolutionaries, fought side by side with Ernesto “Che” Guevara to free Cuba from the brutal Bautista regime, and provided a safe haven for all who fled enslavement.

Today Haiti still battles the same Euro-American corruption and greed that saw France extort $22 billion from Haitian coffers for her audacity in freeing herself from chattel enslavement.

Just as DeBray Carpenter is subjected to the “business as usual” imposition of having to pay nearly $1,000 in fines and $95,000 bail (read: ransom) into San Francisco’s prison coffers for the dubious distinction of being placed on probation for standing up for his First Amendment rights.

It is the same battle, many fronts, from Hunters Point to Haiti.

Taken as a whole, the continued global targeting of Afrikan people in general and youth in particular, is more than a violation of their civil rights. It is a violation of the human rights of Afrikans in the world and a violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the American Convention on Human Rights. Unlike Haiti, however, the U.S. Constitution legalizes enslavement, and criminalizes Afrikans who protest, while refusing to legitimize their right to do so.

Oh irony: that this targeting is not illegal according to the U.S. constitution, by virtue of its 13th amendment!

Yet in the face of escalating violence, Fly Benzo and others like him are courageously standing up and challenging the injustices written into the U.S. Constitution, as well as the ways in which we are attacked that are antithetical to rights supposedly guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

We, the organizers and defenders of our communities from Hunters Point to Haiti, fight with dignity the viciousness of paramilitary invasion into our communities, fight the deliberate misinformation of mainstream media by speaking truth to power, and fight with our minds and with cameras, not guns. For this we risk being murdered and/or being forced into enslavement.

But unity is being forged and battle is being waged. Despite the targeted killings of our people, attacks upon our media and occupations of our communities, Afrikan people continue to resist and stand up against 21st century attempts at our global re-enslavement.

There is a growing community awareness that is positive and supportive of its freedom fighters, an awareness that knows that DeBray “Fly Benzo” Carpenter is not guilty! We salute our young community leaders such as he. We need them and must nurture and protect them from terrorists in blue.

Mr. Carpenter will be appealing his case on the battlefield of the courts. He and his family will continue to organize in the community and on college campuses.

As he reminded us through his rap, “My folks in Afrika need food; instead they’re sending them bombs.” He makes the vital connections and the struggle continues.

All power to the people!

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.

You can help by donating at a WePay page created to raise funds for DeBray “Fly Benzo” Carpenter, who was arrested, hospitalized and persecuted for copwatching, in order to help pay bail and court fees as well as for his appeal. Go to https://www.wepay.com/donations/freeflybenzo–debray-fly-benzo-carpenter-defense-fund.

On Friday, April 20, Fly Benzo spoke at a Redstone Building racism conference about racism, discrimination, the police setting him up on a bogus charge and Trayvon Martin. My good camera’s battery tanked and I couldn’t leave Fly’s wonderful address and his rap music unrecorded. – Carol Harvey, videographer

A press conference and rally to Free Fly Benzo! was held in Mendell Plaza April 18, two days before his pre-sentencing hearing. Listen to the outpouring of love for a young freedom fighter in this video by Occupy CCSF.

On Oct. 18, 2011, police who have been stalking Fly Benzo ever since he began protesting the SFPD murder of Kenneth Harding on July 16, 2011, viciously beat him when he video-recorded them in response to their video-recording of him. On Feb. 22, 2012, Fly was convicted of three misdemeanors for assaulting the police. Both the police murder of Kenneth Harding and the police beating of Fly Benzo occurred in Mendell Plaza, the heart of Bayview Hunters Point at Third Street and Palou. Though Fly and his supporters are relieved that Judge Jerome Benson did not deprive him of all his liberties by handing him the maximum sentence of three years in jail, his sentence does deprive him of the liberty of Mendell Plaza, the town square of Bayview Hunters Point, where Fly has long been the most effective organizer. The plaza is now a no Fly zone and a no free speech zone.

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by Jeff Thomas

The challenges facing the NOPD have gone from bad to oh-ohhh. The daily risks and perils faced by citizens due to actions of police officers have grown astronomically. With the recent shooting of an unarmed suspected drug dealer and the strange circumstances surrounding the killing of another man after a routine traffic stop, New Orleans may be on the verge of unprecedented violence that may shake the very fibers of the city.

Hundreds marched against injustice in New Orleans Saturday, March 31. We must alert the world and the tourists who partake in New Orleans’ Black culture, they said, that the New Orleans Black community is cruelly oppressed and suffering. They are asking big conventions and tourists not to come to New Orleans until the local ruling class begins to address the issues crushing the life out of the Black community.

The killing of Justin Sipp after an early morning traffic stop raised many concerns, but the hullabaloo was mitigated by the fact that Sipp fired 14 rounds and wounded two officers. Yet the police version of the story – on his way to work, Sipp, a passenger in the stopped car, got out and tried to waylay three police officers – harkened to tales of the invented murderous civilian mob on the Danziger Bridge that police fabricated to hide the murder and mayhem committed by the murderous police mob on the bridge.

Five officers were convicted and five other officers pled guilty to killing two people on the bridge and attempting to cover up their deeds. In that case, police planted evidence and lied on innocent citizens who were victims of a widespread culture of corruption and an apparent hatred for the citizens they swore an oath to serve and protect.

So even though police claim Justin Sipp opened fire and wounded two officers, the citizens of New Orleans have heard NOPD stories before. And though the officers shot will live, Sipp is dead after what allegedly started as a routine traffic stop.

The killing of an unarmed and only partially clothed young man who lived in the home of a suspected marijuana dealer has really stressed the community. The march on City Hall and police headquarters by friends, relatives and other concerned citizens is a glimpse of the level of dissatisfaction with the current political establishment.

New Orleanians parade freely, but clearly expect to be entertained in return for their presence. However, getting New Orleanians out to parade without the requisite trinkets thrown from floats should make the administration take notice.

At a March 31 rally, speakers protested police murders of Black youth and demanded an end to racist mass arrest and incarceration. From the lack of living wage jobs, poor public education, lack of health care, inadequate recreational programs, police harassment, terror and murder, and the lack of affordable housing, they said, the Black community of New Orleans is under an all-around attack. 

The lack of professional policing in New Orleans endangers us all, but especially young African American men, who are the only victims of police killing. In the last 10 years, 100 percent of all citizens killed by police have been African American males.

Some officers have been sentenced to jail terms, but the African American community is beginning to fight back. Let’s hope the good citizens of our city get involved and calmer heads prevail.

As the police have gotten more and more trigger happy, the Sipp shooting might be a harbinger of reactions to come. Young white police fear young African American men. Young African American men have a right to protect themselves. Who will shoot first?

Jeff Thomas can be reached at jeff@sync504.com.

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Pack the courtroom Friday, April 27, 9 a.m., Department 27 or 29 at 850 Bryant, San Francisco

by Earl Black

Fly Benzo, known for his mentoring of youth, holds Nailah Amari Bey, one of his staunchest supporters. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

We should not just sit by doing business as usual while his freedom is about to end. We have an opportunity here to make a difference. We must mourn and seek justice for our dead, but we should just as strongly fight for the freedom of our living.

We need to own that courtroom. Occupy Oakland can do it: “Occupy Fly’s hearing.” Hundreds of people will make a difference.

This case is about Fly taking a stand. He is not a “defendant”; Fly is putting the SFPD on trial. The right to videotape police is on trial here. This case has immense educational value for all of us.

We need to own that courtroom. Fly is putting the SFPD on trial. The right to videotape police is on trial here.

“Occupy Fly’s hearing” and everybody video the police, not in the courtroom but in the hallways and outside. Occupy Oakland is organized. We can do this. “Occupy Fly’s hearing.” Bring your phones, cameras and camcorders and use them. Post this everywhere!

Standing up for righteousness: Interview with Claude Carpenter

Earl Black: Claude Carpenter talks about a life of “standing up for righteousness” and what that means for him, his wife and his son, Fly Benzo (DeBray Carpenter). As happened to his father before him, Fly Benzo faces jail time for standing up for rightousness against the police, against state repression and against housing and employment discrimination in his community of Bayview Hunters Point, San Francisco.

At least 80 people from all over the Northern California Bay Area packed the courtroom April 20 in support of Debray “Fly Benzo” Carpenter, unjustly convicted for exercising his First Amendment right to photograph the police and organize for justice after the SFPD murder of Kenneth Wade Harding Jr. on July 16, 2011. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

Whenever you are willing to stand up and tell the truth, you’re going to find a whole lot of opposition because some people just don’t want to be exposed for where they’re coming from, [especially] when you choose to stand up for righteousness like Fly Benzo is doing.

Myself, his mom, the types of examples we set as being business people but yet we come from the ghetto; we come from the projects. We just had a chance to upgrade our economic standards by standing up for our rights and not just accepting things for the way they are.

Barbara Banks, mother of Debray “Fly Benzo” Carpenter and a contractor and community leader in her own right, is always there standing firm, side by side with her son. Here she reviews some legal documents at the initial April 20 session of his sentencing hearing. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

And what enables him to do this is his intelligence. He’s a very intelligent young man. I’d say he’s a chip off the old block. His mom is a very intelligent African American woman; his father is a very intelligent African American man. And DeBray is a chip off the old block.

I never thought that he would turn out to be a political activist, but I am so proud that my son chooses to stand up – and I stand up alongside him. Every opportunity he gets he stands up for me and his mom, and that is one of the most beautiful things that you can experience as a father: your son standing up for our people you know, where you can just step back.

You know, when he stands up, I step back and I let him do the talking because we have to prepare our young people to assume the torch, to be able to take over and continue to stand up for what they believe. And this is what my son does; this is what Fly Benzo does.

I experienced it myself. I experienced being taken to a jury trial just for standing up for righteousness, so I know what it’s like for my son.

Photographer-videographer Earl Banks completes an interview with DeBray Carpenter’s father, Claude Carpenter, who spoke to the court on behalf of his son, clearing the record of misinformation introduced by the prosecution. – Photo: Malaika Kambon

We have to come out in force. We have to be at his sentencing hearing Friday. We have to stand up with him to let him know that he is not standing alone.

There’s people who believe in what he’s standing for that’s willing to stand up with him, so what we have to do, we have to come out in force. We have to be at his sentencing hearing when he comes back for sentencing [on Friday, April 27, 9 a.m., at 850 Bryant in Department 27 or 29], and we have to come out in numbers to let them know you just can’t make an example out of Fly because he’s standing up for what he believes.

And if we believe in Fly, we have to stand up by his side to where he’s not alone. It’s difficult to see your son when you know how decent a person he is being subjected as a political prisoner, because that’s what he is, someone that’s willing to stand up for what he believes.

They haven’t discouraged Fly, but we have to stand up with him to let him know that he is not standing alone.

Bay Area writer, photographer, videographer and activist Earl Black can be reached at ephilipblack@netscape.net. Transcription by Adrian McKinney.

On Oct. 18, 2011, police who have been stalking Fly Benzo ever since he began protesting the SFPD murder of Kenneth Harding on July 16, 2011, viciously beat him when he video-recorded them in response to their video-recording of him. On Feb. 22, 2012, Fly was convicted of three misdemeanors for assaulting the police. He faces up to three years in jail at his sentencing Friday, April 27, 9 a.m., in Department 27 or 29, 850 Bryant, San Francisco. Pack the courtroom!

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