Hands Off the Philly City Hall 2! Shabaka Mnombatha Found "Guilty" by Imperialist Judge, Police Exposed

Following a fierce morning demonstration outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia, International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement, People's Organization for Progress and Uhuru Solidarity Movement members attended the trial of Shabaka Mnombatha (aka Franklin Moses), 1 of 2 members of InPDUM facing charges stemming from the police attack inside City Council chambers on March 19, 2009.

9 Months of protests, struggle, hearings, judges recusing themselves from the case and various legal delays led up to Shabaka's trial on 2 misdemeanor charges of "disorderly conduct" and "resisting arrest." Shabaka's representation was to be a public defender, but activist attorney Michael Coard, who is also representing InPDUM Philadelphia leadership Diop Olugbala in his case, came in to replace the PD and made an impressive case for Shabaka's innocence, exposing the inconsistencies in the stories of the 3 Civil Affairs police officers who testified for the State. Coard used his incredible skills as a defense attorney to expose that it would be impossible to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Shabaka resisted arrest or was disorderly in expressing his Constitutional right to free speech while protesting the city budget in City Council on March 19th, 2009.

However, Judge Joseph Waters immediately returned a "guilty" verdict, having shown his allegiance to the State from the beginning and following through to the end, convicting Shabaka of the 2 misdemeanor charges. But Coard summed the day up as a victory: "We won, because we didn't have to call up any witnesses, and we let the cops expose themselves." An appeal has already been filed, and the movement will reconvene outside the CJC for a demonstration on the morning of February 10th, 2010 for Diop's trial. Diop is facing the misdemeanor charges as well as a felony "aggravated assault" charge that was reinstated after being initially dropped by the first judge.

For more information contact Uhuru Solidarity Movement at 215-387-0919 or philly@uhurusolidarity.org.

African People's Solidarity Committee National Conference Deepens White Support for African Liberation Struggle

“Stop U.S. Colonial Wars Around the World and Inside This Country” was the theme of the annual national conference of the African People’s Solidarity Committee (APSC) held at the Uhuru House in St. Petersburg, FL January 10th through the 12th.

Formed by the African People’s Socialist Party in 1976 the African People’s Solidarity Committee is made up of white activists organizing solidarity from our own communities under the strategic leadership of the African-led Uhuru Movement.

Building a movement for white reparations for African people, APSC organizes white people to recognize our genuine interest in overturning this white power system by standing in solidarity with the African-led movement to unite all African people and liberate Africa.

Activists in solidarity with the Uhuru Movement converged on St. Petersburg from many places around the U.S. including Oakland, CA; Chicago, Minneapolis, Boston, Brooklyn, Philadelphia and the Tampa Bay Area.

The conference combined lively multimedia reports on APSC campaigns such as Africa’s Resources in African Hands and the Uhuru Foods Holiday Pie Campaign with deep theoretical presentations and discussions that helped all of us better understand this present period of transformation and the role we can play in it.

Chairman Yeshitela gave political education

Chairman Omali Yeshitela, leader of the Uhuru Movement and the African Socialist International gave powerful overviews summing up the current work of the African People’s Socialist Party, which is expanding worldwide.

The Chairman emphasized that in this deepening crisis of imperialism the growing liberation struggles of African and oppressed peoples around the world are leading the way against imperialist domination in all forms. He stated that it is important to move beyond protest to a genuine anti-imperialist movement led by African workers.

The Chairman exposed that capitalism was born from the enslavement of African people, the genocide of Indigenous peoples and the colonial oppression of the majority of the world for the benefit of the white world.

In his presentation on the meaning of socialism Chairman Yeshitela expanded on the question of the Labor Theory of Value. Noting that traditionally political theoreticians including Karl Marx and V.I. Lenin—though they struggled for a revolutionary trajectory—left out of this theory the reality of the stolen labor of enslaved African and colonized peoples whose unpaid toil unearthed the minerals and natural resources needed for the existence of the factories that provided jobs for the white workers of Europe.

He made the point that African and colonized workers are the true proletariat leading the world revolution through struggles for national liberation, not the white workers sitting on the pedestal of the enslavement of Africans. If white workers want to destroy the capitalist system of bosses and workers they must stand in solidarity with colonized workers leading the anti-imperialist struggles.

The Chairman also educated us about the question of Anarchism, stating that he unites with anarchists in their hatred of the state, which is always a repressive institution upholding the interests of the class in power. He believes that eventually after imperialism is destroyed and control over the land, resources and political institutions are in the hands of the working class there will be no more need for a state.

However, in the meantime, colonized workers who have conquered state power have to defend their power through the workers’ state which represses the former elite bourgeois class that is always striving to regain its power at the expense of the people. Everyone interested in destroying the white power bourgeois state must support the workers’ state on the road to true communism in which the institution of the state no longer is necessary.

Uhuru on the Move!

On the opening day of the conference, African People’s Socialist Party Economic Development leader Ironiff Ifoma led an informative discussion on “Uhuru on the Move: Where We’ve Been and Where We’re Going.”

Laying out all the victories of the Party over the past year, including the founding of the African People’s Socialist Party in Sierra Leone, Ifoma put out the goals for 2010 including the Party’s Fifth Congress to be held in Washington, DC in July.

Gaida Kambon, APSP’s National Secretary, gave an inspiring presentation about the history of the Uhuru Movement, her role in many of the Party’s leading community campaigns over the years and what motivated her to dedicate her life to African liberation.

APSC chairwoman Penny Hess gave multimedia presentations showing that African people are oppressed by colonialism inside this country. Africans in the U.S. are not struggling against racism, Hess exposed, but are waging an anti-colonial movement. She showed why it is in the interest of white people to take up the demand for reparations to African people and why a stand of white solidarity is the progressive stand that represents our genuine interest in joining humanity for justice and liberation.

Africa’s Resources in African Hands

Alison Hoehne, chairwoman of the APSC unit in Philadelphia, led a workshop on the work of Uhuru Solidarity Movement (USM), APSC’s activist organization.

Lisa Burgess, Harris Daniels, Maureen Wagener, Ruby Gittelsohn, Scott Milinder, Stephanie Midler, Miah O’Malley-Thompson, Lisa Watson, Bill Canada and others reported on some of USM’s most successful campaigns of 2009, including the Earth Day Festival and Yoga for a Purpose which involved the participation of many yoga studios in raising money for projects of the Uhuru Movement.

Plans were laid out for 2010 focusing on building membership, launching the campaign for Africa’s Resources in African Hands and building the annual African People’s Solidarity Day which aims to raise $10,000 for the work of the African People’s Socialist Party.

Everyone who participated in the APSC conference was mobilized and renewed to build APSC and the Uhuru Solidarity Movement.

APSC member Kitty Reilly believed “the APSC conference was one of the best ever. I know I am eager to get out and build a powerful movement in the white community for reparations to African people!”

For more information on the African People’s Solidarity Committee visit www.apscuhuru.org

Uhuru!

Solidarity with Haiti & Africa's Resources in African Hands Organizing Meeting

Tuesday, January 26th, 7 to 8:30pm
Niebyl Proctor Marxist Library

6501 Telegraph Ave, Oakland
oakland@uhurusolidarity.org 510-625-1106

Organizing meeting of the Uhuru Solidarity Movement.
Join the committee to build the Africa's Resources in African Hands Action Network!

We will start with a brief study on the situation in Haiti and throughout the African world.

We will then get started in discussing and organizing the work to build the Africa's Resources in African Hands - Reparations Now! Campaign and the Uhuru Solidarity Movement's Week of Action to Stop Obama's Colonial Wars Here and Abroad in March.

The African People’s Solidarity Committee and the Uhuru Solidarity Movementis calling on white people to support the African-led programs and campaigns to win self-determination for African people worldwide as the only solution to natural and human-made disasters.

The African People’s Solidarity Committee is calling on white people to support the African-led programs and campaigns to win self-determination for African people worldwide as the only solution to natural and human-made disasters.

Solidarity with Haiti Community Discussion by Uhuru Solidarity Movement Oakland

Tuesday, January 19th, 7 to 9pm
Niebyl Proctor Marxist Library
6501 Telegraph Ave, Oakland (near Alcatraz)

COMMUNITY DISCUSSION
Video presentation of current analysis on Haiti
from the African Socialist International

Join Africa’s Resources in African Hands Action Network and the Uhuru Solidarity Movement.
We are an activist organization that works under the leadership of the African-led Uhuru Movement. We organize solidarity & raise resources for the worldwide struggle of African people for control over their land, communities and resources. We are lookin for you to join!

oakland@uhurusolidarity.org
510-625-1106

The devastation began more than 200 years ago: Solidarity with African people in Haiti! Africa’s Resources in African Hands!

In the wake of the devastation following the 7.0 earthquake on January 12, 2010, the African People’s Solidarity Committee, a white organization working under the leadership of the African People’s Socialist Party, expresses our deepest solidarity with African people in Haiti.

With at least 50,000 dead, hundreds of thousands injured and more than 3.5 million homeless, the conditions on the island have been described as unimaginable. With relief efforts moving slowly and the threat of mass starvation mounting, U.S. military occupation forces are being sent in, raising the specter of the brutal treatment of African people in New Orleans following the 2005 Hurricane Katrina.

U.S. president Barack Obama has promised a massive U.S. relief effort with a pledge of $100 million to be sent to Haiti as an outpouring of support comes in from throughout the U.S. and around the world. All major media sources have sent reporters to the country’s capital, Port-au-Prince.

We unite with the efforts to send massive resources into Haiti as quickly as possible.

But the disaster hit Haiti 200 years ago and its problem is the colonial devastation that has long subjected this proud and once independent and prosperous African-led country to live on a diet of mud pies and dwell in tin shanty towns.

A strong earthquake is deadly, but a 7.2 tremor in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1989 resulted in 63 deaths as opposed to the tens of thousands in Haiti.

We are forced to ask, where was the North American outcry and outpouring of support over the past 25 years as Africans from Haiti were locked up in vile U.S. detention camps in their desperate attempts to escape the conditions imposed on them by U.S. economic policies that force the people to live on less than $2 a day?

As the bodies of Africans struggling for asylum from Haiti washed up on south Florida beaches where was the mass mobilization of resources to the already devastated island?

Where was the outrage when Haiti’s democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was kidnapped by the Bush administration in 2004, deposed from his position and exiled to Africa?

We recognize that Africans in Haiti are the people who freed themselves from enslavement by waging the first successful workers’ revolutionary movement against French colonial powers in the Western Hemisphere. They are the people who defeated Napoleon’s army of 30,000 French troops in 1804, declaring Haiti a free and independent country open as a refuge for anyone in the world seeking to escape oppression and injustice.

Following the victorious revolution in Haiti, the U.S. and much of Europe imposed an economic embargo on the island. France then forced the Haitian people to pay “reparations” for its lost “property” which included enslaved African people themselves on land stolen from the indigenous Taino people who now have been wiped off the face of the earth.

As an article on the Uhuru News website states, “The United States occupied the island from 1915 to 1934. This U.S. occupation dismantled Haiti’s revolutionary constitutional system that prohibited land being purchased by foreigners.

“The U.S. occupation reinstituted the enslavement of African people to build roads, and established the National Guards that ran the country after the marines left. In the process the U.S. looted the entire treasury of Haiti.

“This is why Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere today, why Africans are forced to live in shanties, subsist on a diet of mud pies and are regularly shot down by U.N. armed forces! Africans continue to have no control over our resources, our Africa and our lives everywhere.”

The reality is that the U.S. is a wealthy and powerful imperialist country built on the enslavement of African people and the genocide of the indigenous people for the benefit of the white population. All of the U.S.-pledged relief aid will never transform the colonial devastation imposed on Haiti.

The Uhuru Movement led by the African People’s Socialist Party is calling for African people worldwide to join together for a united relief effort to African people in Haiti under the slogan of “One Africa, one people, one destiny!”

The Uhuru Movement is leading the campaign for Africans on the Continent of Africa, inside the U.S., the Caribbean or wherever they have been forcibly dispersed around the world to organize to reunite and liberate Africa under the leadership of the African working class. This is the goal of the Party-led African Socialist International which has been built in the U.S., Canada, the U.K, Sierra Leone and other places in the African world.

The African People’s Solidarity Committee is calling on white people to support the African-led programs and campaigns to win self-determination for African people worldwide as the only solution to natural and human-made disasters.

We are calling other white people to join us in standing for reparations to African people and to join and support the Uhuru Solidarity Movement campaign for Africa’s Resources in African Hands.

The only way to transform the horrendous conditions that African people suffer under colonialism and neo-colonialism is by African workers themselves taking control over all their resources and land. Charity only keeps the power and resources in the hands of imperialism and the white world.

We understand that the only sustainable future for the planet, for us and for all humanity lies in genuine solidarity with self-determination and liberation for African people and all oppressed people, not in the continuation of imperialist war, plunder and hoarding scarce resources at the expense of others!

Solidarity Not Charity!

To contact the Uhuru Solidarity Movement national office call 215-387-0919

www.uhurusolidarity.org

Earthquake and colonial domination equal deadly combination in Haiti

Reposted from UhuruNews.com

The island country of Haiti where African people waged the first successful workers’ revolution that brilliantly defeated the French colonial slave master militarily in 1804 today faces an estimated 100,000 dead, thousands homeless and vast devastation following a massive earthquake on Jan. 12. Read the full article

LIVE Broadcast of the African People's Solidarity Committee National Conference!

On UhuruNews.com - Sunday, January 10th - Monday, January 11th

Special broadcast January 10-11 of the National Conference of the African People's Solidarity Committee

In St. Petersburg Florida. It starts 9:30am US Eastern.

You can listen to the audio here, or instead view it live at Live Video

African People's Solidarity Committee Annual National Conference

Sunday, January 10 - Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Uhuru House
1245 18th Ave. S., St. Petersburg, FL 33705

PROGRAM

Day I—Sunday, January 10
8:30	Registration and Breakfast
9:30	Welcome
9:45	A New Kind of Relationship for White People in Solidarity With the African Liberation Movement African People’s Solidarity Committee Chairwoman Penny Hess opens the conference with an introduction to the philosophy of the Uhuru Movement and its program for a just and sustainable world based on an end to a system of oppressors and the oppressed. She will present an overview of the current crisis of global capitalism, the rise of anti-colonial struggles and the principled role for white people in the growing international movement for African freedom. Hess is author of Overturning the Culture of Violence and longtime leader of the movement for “white solidarity with black power” under the leadership of Chairman Omali Yeshitela and the African People’s Socialist Party.
10:05	Uhuru on The Move; Where We’ve Been and Where We’re Going Ironiff Ifoma will present a multi-media review of the political and economic accomplishments of the Uhuru Movement in 2009 and its plans for 2010. Ifoma is the Director of Economic Development for the African People’s Socialist Party and a longtime member of the Party’s Political Bureau. She has guided the development of the Uhuru Movement’s economic self-reliance institutions throughout the U.S. for decades.
10:25	A New Day: Beyond Protest to a Genuine Anti-Imperialist Movement Struggling for Power African Socialist International Chairman Omali Yeshitela will deliver the conference’s keynote presentation. His visionary analysis of world events is expected to include commentary on the Obama presidency, the new Black is Back! Coalition, the causes of the global economic crisis, and the growing struggle of African workers against imperialism. The prolific theorist and revolutionary strategist explains the role of growing people’s movements in oppressed countries around the world in weakening U.S. and European world dominance. Having completed successful organizing tours this year in Kenya and Sierra Leone, Yeshitela will discuss the centrality of Africa to the world-wide anti-imperialist movement, the unity of African people everywhere and the significance of the African People’s Socialist Party.
11:25	Discussion, Questions and Answers
12:00	Lunch
1:00	Pictoral Review of Uhuru Movement African Community Programs Presented by Kitty Reilly and Janice Kant. Enjoy a beautiful slide show presenting the dynamic community empowerment programs of the Uhuru Movement in the U.S. and Africa, including the economic development institutions of the African People’s Education and Defense Fund, the international technical and scientific collaborations of the All African People’s Development and Empowerment Projects, the sustainability work of the African Village Survival Initiative, and the independent media programs of Uhuru News. Share and appreciate the on-the-ground fruition of the African “do-for-self” philosophy of the African People’s Socialist Party.
1:45	Fundraising Tradition Facilitated by Kitty Reilly (St. Petersburg, FL), Bill Canada (Oakland, CA) and Maureen Wagener (Oakland, CA). At the core of solidarity is active reparations to African people. This is our chance to give back and contribute to a growing and vibrant African liberation movement that is changing the world.
3:00	The Day of Reckoning: Colonialism, National Liberation and Solidarity African People’s Solidarity Committee Chairwoman Penny Hess explains why “it’s colonialism, not racism” at the root of the oppression of African people in the U.S. and around the world. Using a dynamic slide presentation, she will illustrate how the U.S. was born from the enslavement of millions of African people and the genocide and theft of the land of the indigenous people of the Americas. She will chronicle the actions of white people across the right-left political spectrum in relation to the black rights struggles in the U.S. and internationally. She will review the various fronts in the current re-emergence of national liberation struggles and present a challenge to white people seeking change today to join in solidarity with the anti-imperialist resistance movement under the leadership of the African revolution.
5:30	Dinner and Get together
7:00	Video of the African People's Socialist Party in Sierra Leone
Day II—Monday, January 11
8:30	Registration, Breakfast
9:00	Welcome
9:15	The Colonial Police State and Counterinsurgency View and discuss a video presentation prepared by the Uhuru News team of the African People’s Socialist Party on the State, the institution of violence protecting the status quo for the powers that be. What is the role of the State’s fronts in enforcing oppression: the police, the army, the prisons, the courts, and how does the State function differently in white and African communities?
10:30	What We’ve Been Struggling for All These Years – It’s Happening! African People’s Socialist Party (APSP) National Secretary Gaida Kambon will speak about the heroic legacy of the APSP and recent advances in its revolutionary trajectory both in the U.S. and in Africa. Kambon is a fiery fighter for African liberation, having led numerous Uhuru Movement campaigns over the years. Born in Panama, she grew up in Brooklyn and was an organizer for the 1st World Tribunal on Reparations for African People held in NYC in 1982 and a leader in many of the Uhuru Movement campaigns for the democratic rights of African people over the years. A powerful example of women’s leadership in the African revolution, Kambon inspires courage and optimism in all who aspire to take up the struggle for freedom and justice.
12:30	Lunch
1:30	Build the Uhuru Solidarity Movement 2010: Practical Grassroots Organizing Uhuru Solidarity Movement organizers will provide an overview of the major events, fundraisers and campaigns of the Uhuru Solidarity Movement for 2010. They will review the USM’s membership program and how to build a branch in your area. Learn how you can participate in recruitment and fundraising through USM events, institutions and programs like Earth Day, African People’s Solidarity Day, the Week of Action, Yoga with a Purpose, online auction, flea markets, and food booths.
5:00	Dinner
6:30	The Power of the People: Why We Are Socialists African People’s Socialist Party Chairman Omali Yeshitela and APSC Chairwoman Penny Hess will explain what socialism means according to the philosophy of African internationalism. How does socialism as led by African workers differ from the European/white model? How is the struggle for socialism expressed through the growing movements for national liberation? What is neo-colonialism and what part does it play in the struggle of African workers for power? Hear the African revolutionary perspective on these questions and more.
Day III—Tuesday, January 12
8:30	Registration, Breakfast
9:30	Welcome
9:45	Annual Reports African People’s Solidarity Committee (APSC) organizers present an analysis of the political environment of their communities, report on the work of 2009 and discuss plans for 2010. How you can join the solidarity work on all its fronts including Uhuru Foods, Uhuru Solidarity Movement, UhuruNews.com and The Burning Spear newspaper.
1:00	Lunch
2:00	Using Social Media for Outreach and Organizing Learn protocols and share tips for getting the word out online about the campaigns and fundraisers of the Uhuru Movement.
3:00	Adjourn

info@apscuhuru.org • 727-683-9949

Uhuru Solidarity Movement Oakland Meeting This Tuesday Night!

Come out to the local meeting of the Uhuru Solidarity Movement to build a movement in Oakland of solidarity with the African community struggle here and abroad. 

We will show a presentation by Omali Yeshitela, Chairman of the African People's Socialist Party and founder of the Uhuru Movement given on October 20th, 2009 at African People's Solidarity Day in Oakland. 

We will discuss the upcoming campaigns for the year including the campaign to Stop U.S. Colonial Wars Here and Abroad and Support African Resources in African Hands, building solidarity with the African Village Survival Initiative, the African Socialist International and other Uhuru Movement campaigns and programs. 

Tuesday, January 5th, 7 to 9pm
Niebyl Marxist Library, 6501 Telegraph Ave, Oakland
oakland@uhurusolidarity.org
(510) 625-1106

COP15: Another reason to organize for change

Change is happening in the world and you can be part of it!

or find out more

Come to the
African People's Solidarity Committee
Annual National Conference
January 10-12 in St. Petersburg, FL

• Keynote by Uhuru Movement leader Omali Yeshitela - A New Day: Beyond Protest to a Genuine Anti-Imperialist Movement Struggling for Power
  


• Presentations by African People's Socialist Party leaders Gaida Kambon and Ironiff Ifoma
  


• African People's Solidarity Committee Chairwoman Penny Hess speaks on solidarity with national liberation struggles.

Discuss the critical questions of today, including oppressed nations demanding trillions of dollars for climate change, slavery, genocide and colonialism from the U.S. and Europe.

Climate Conference in Copenhagen

This past Sunday our radio show focused on the UN Climate Change Conference (COP15) which took place in Copenhagen Dec. 7-18. In case you missed it, here are some highlights:

Background: The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Adopted in 1997, put in force in 2005.

• Calls for cutting carbon emissions so global temperatures will not rise more than 1.5° Celsius.
  


• Calls for $ trillions from wealthy nations to clean up the environment especially in formerly colonized countries.
  


• Protocols are binding for imperialist countries and wealthy countries, but not for impoverished, formerly colonized countries.
  


• Has been signed by a majority of the world's countries; U.S. is only country to say it has no intention of signing.

Copenhagen Climate Change Conference (COP15) marked by reparations demand

Lumumba Di-Aping, leader of the G-77

• A follow up conference to Kyoto, COP15 was marked by the strong voice of oppressed and colonized people demanding reparations from Europe and North America, recognizing that the environmental crisis is a byproduct of colonialism.
  


• The G-77 (130 formerly colonized or economically dependent countries) was represented by Lumumba Di-Aping of Sudan who led a five-day walk out of the conference and raised that any more than a 1° increase means total genocide in Africa.
  


• Angelica Navarro, Bolivian ambassador to the UN: "We think that 20% of the population have created a crisis for humanity. They have a historic responsibility for more than 2/3 of emissions and more than 90% of the increase in temperature. We think that there is a climate debt they owe to all humanity and to mother earth."
  

G-77 leaders criticize U.S. proposal. Prior to the conference, U.S., Britain, Denmark and other European nations held secret talks to develop a "climate fund" proposal that betrays all provisions of the Kyoto Protocol.

Bolivian President
Evo Morales

• Obama presents proposal on last day of Copenhagen conference, offering only a 3% reduction in U.S. carbon emissions and $10 billion/year to poor countries for climate issues, but only if they vote to adopt the proposal that day.
  


• The proposal was not adopted; it was criticized by several leaders as being completely unacceptable. Obama's delivery itself was criticized as being arrogant and deceitful.
  


• Bolivian President Evo Morales especially criticized the pitiful offer of $10 billion considering the $2.6 trillion that has gone to the war in Iraq.

Listen to the entire show on the UhuruRadio archives

Reparations demand important for white people to hear

For white people, it's important for us to hear the reparations demand made at COP15. It ties U.S. and European wealth to the enslavement, plunder and theft of resources and labor of African and Indigenous people. We have their resources.

It requires us to look at the environmental crisis in the context of colonialism. And if we are serious about solving the problem, we have to join the struggle being led by African and other colonized people.