AAPDEP-Sierra Leone U.S. Tour on Infant and Maternal Mortality raises medical supplies and cash to build clinic

By Dr. Aisha Fields, International Director, All African People's Development and Empowerment Project (AAPDEP)

(Reposted from UhuruNews.com - Published Apr 27, 2011)

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama – On February 5, 2011, my children and I stood waiting inside the Nashville International Airport baggage claim anxiously waiting to see a sister who I had spoken to many times and whose face graced several AAPDEP posters, fliers and web pages but who I would now finally be meeting in person--Nurse-midwife Mary Koroma.


Nurse-midwife Mary Karoma - Freetown, Sierra Leone

My three-year old son, who was supposed to be holding one half of a large sign that read “Welcome Nurse Mary!”(my 7-year-old daughter stood quietly holding the other half), was instead running circles around me when I saw Sis Mary nervously stepping off of the escalator, walking toward an airport employee, ticket in hand.

The children and I quickly headed toward her and with smiles and hugs welcomed and introduced ourselves to her.

During the 2 hour car ride to my home, Nurse Mary and I talked a lot about the clinic she built in Sierra Leone and her organization of traditional birth attendants, Women in National Development (WIND).

As it was her first time traveling to the US (as part of a 7 state 9-city tour none-the-less!), we talked a lot about the many similarities between African communities in the US and in Sierra Leone, what to expect during the upcoming tour and about our shared vision of sustainable development for Africa and African people through self-determination.

I could tell in that first discussion that we had indeed partnered with the right person to launch our AAPDEP Infant and Maternal Health Project!

The next six weeks took us to 7 US states and 9 cities as part of the whirlwind “Stop the Hemorrhaging!”(STH) US-wide fundraising tour.

By all standards, the “Stop the Hemorrhaging!”tour was a tremendous success!

Events were organized in Philadelphia, PA, Washington D.C., Baltimore, MD, Huntsville, AL, Jackson, MS, Daytona Beach, FL and St. Petersburg, FL.

There were stops at universities, nursing schools, birthing centers, middle schools, community centers and churches!

Hundreds of people had the opportunity to meet Nurse Mary, learn first-hand about the plight of African women and babies and the horrible conditions that have been imposed on African people in Sierra Leone in general.

More than that, though, audiences were able to walk away with a real analysis of why these conditions exist in Africa and among African people everywhere and what must be done to reverse them once and for all!

The tour kicked off in Washington, D.C. with three events, two sponsored by AAPDEP-DC and a third by the Family Health & Birth Center. The first AAPDEP-DC event took place at St. Stephen's Church and included presentations from Nurse Mary, Ayesha Fleary, Director of Information & Education for AAPDEP and Lauren Arrington, an African nurse-midwife based in Baltimore, MD.

People arrived early to make sure they had a seat. Despite the late start and a few technical difficulties the crowd stayed attentive.

Ayesha Fleary opened up the event introducing the attendees to AAPDEP and why we felt it necessary to use this tour not only as a way to raise awareness around the issue but also as a way to begin development through fundraising.

Midwife Lauren Arrington provided great information around the high rates of infant and maternal mortality in African Communities across the U.S., which helped tie the Sierra Leone work to the overall contradictions that affect African people no matter where we’re located.

Nurse Mary ended the program with a dynamic presentation that outlined her work and what she hoped to accomplish in partnership with AAPDEP.

The attendees were very receptive and at the close of the event stayed around to speak with all of the presenters, wanting to know more about how they could help.

At Family Health & Birth Center, Nurse Mary had the opportunity to meet fellow midwives and health care workers during a small gathering.

While the turnout was modest, we were able to spread the information and get connected to a network of midwives and develop a relationship with the birth center.

The second AAPDEP-DC event was an informal dinner fundraiser at Little Ethiopia Restaurant.

There, more than 30 people joined Nurse Mary and AAPDEP organizers for a delicious dinner and discussion about the way forward for the AAPDEP Infant and Maternal Health Project (IMHP).

Many of the attendees had attended our first event and came back for more. During this one event, we raised a little over $600 in donations which spoke to the impact that we were making in DC.

The first tour stop in Philadelphia was at Harambee Institute of Science & Technology, an African-centered K-8 charter school.

There, Nurse Mary and I spoke to a group of about one hundred 7th and 8th graders.

This event was especially important to me as a former student, having attended Harambee almost 30 years ago.

Nurse Mary and I were both excited and a bit anxious about speaking at Harambee, since our presentations would need to be different from all the others, which had primarily adult audiences.

We decided that the best way to approach the presentations would be to share with them some of the conditions that our people are faced with in Sierra Leone and around the world (in Philly too!) and to focus on the students themselves by reminding them of their primary responsibility as African students–to learn all that they can in order to solve the problems we are confronted with as a people.

In the end, we were pleased to find that the students were not only brilliant, attentive and eager to learn, but that they were in full unity with accepting their responsibility to African people!

Harambee has donated $500 to the AAPDEP IMHP, qualifying the school as a “silver”level sponsor.

As such, the school will be honored with a commemorative brick in the new AAPDEP birthing clinic that will be built in Sierra Leone.

Their support of the AAPDEP IMHP hasn’t stopped there, though! Several teachers at Harambee have expressed interest in donating personally, and the school has decided to continue to sponsor the IMHP, initially through a school-wide pennies drive!

Uhuru Furniture Store-Philadelphia, an institution of the African People’s Education & Defense Fund (APEDF) organized a second Philly stop on the STH tour.

This event, the only one of the tour with a predominately North American audience, featured a dynamic presentation from African People’s Solidarity Committee (APSC) organizer Harris Daniels who laid out the dialectal relationship between the poverty experienced by African and other colonized people and the wealth of the white world.

Harris’s presentation made a clear distinction between charity, which does not address the core reason for the misery and poverty experienced by Africans and other oppressed people, and genuine solidarity with the struggles of African people to reclaim control over our resources and lives.

There were several nurses and midwifery students who attended the event, all of whom were so moved by the presentation given by Nurse Mary that they offered to organize fundraisers and equipment drives for the IMHP clinic.

From Philly the tour traveled to Holy Ghost Missionary Baptist Church right outside of Jackson, Mississippi.

Words can’t express how much AAPDEP appreciates the warm reception that was given to us from Pastor and Mrs. Burse and the entire congregation!

Nurse Mary spoke at both 8am and 11am services as part of the church’s Black History Month program organized by AAPDEP volunteer Dr. Teri Robinson.

After 8am service, Nurse Mary and I were ushered into the fellowship hall of the church, decorated beautifully in red, black and green and with a large sign that read “Welcome Nurse Mary.”

There, we, along with those who attended morning services enjoyed a delicious breakfast buffet cooked by several of the sisters at the church.

At the end of the 11am services, we were honored with a luncheon that was only topped by the generous donation of $5,000 made by the church to the AAPDEP IMHP!

In order to honor the congregation for their tremendous contribution, the largest birthing room of the new clinic will be named “Holy Ghost Missionary Baptist Church Birthing Room.”

From Mississippi Nurse Mary whizzed back to the east coast to speak at Sojourner Douglass Nursing College located in Baltimore, Maryland.

There, Nurse Mary gave a powerful presentation to the students.

She explained her role as a health care worker and the difficulties she faced working for the State, which is what led her to ultimately start her own clinic.

She explained the importance of the responsibility they hold as health care professionals and what they must do with their degree.

Even though the students did not expect to donate when asked they contributed their coins, dollars and checks to this great effort.

We raised $120 at this event, but gained forces who were committed to helping raise awareness, gather supplies, and organize fundraising events on behalf of the IMHP. We truly want to thank those students who attended.

Next stop was Alabama A&M University in Huntsville, Alabama where Nurse Mary spoke to science students who are a part of the Health Career Opportunities Program.

The events was really important in that it offered African students who are studying to enter into science and health-care fields an opportunity to have a first-hand account of the issues faced by African women and infants on the Continent.

Our last leg of the tour took us to Florida where we had events in St. Petersburg and Daytona Beach.

In St. Petersburg, we spoke at the Uhuru House, the international headquarters of the African People’s Socialist Party and the Uhuru Movement.

Organized by AAPDEP-Tampa/St.Pete, the event featured presentations from local AAPDEP organizer Camilla Hippolyte and Chairman Omali Yeshitela, leader of the Uhuru Movement.

Chairman Omali discussed the significance of AAPDEP in this period as an organization, which provides African people an opportunity to use our energy, skill and resources toward building concrete programs that help to transform the conditions we are faced with as African people.

With the assistance of Sis Baye Moye who offered a heart-felt, impromptu second call for donations, we were able to raise just over $1,000 in cash and pledges!

The tour wrapped up at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida at the National Conference of the National African Students Association (NASA).

The event was outstanding! Nurse Mary and I spoke to a full house of almost 200 African students from universities throughout the US.

After our presentations, dozens of students rushed to meet Nurse Mary and I to discuss ways that they could become a part of AAPDEP, volunteer their skills, time and resources.

One young student, a brother born in Liberia, has offered to help us get computers and internet access for AAPDEP’s new clinic in Sierra Leone.

Another brother from Ghana whose older sister died in childbirth, applauded AAPDEP’s effort to build awareness of African infant and maternal mortality and pledged his support to organize other Africans, especially men, to participate in supporting the project.

Based on contacts we made at the conference, we are currently in discussions with African student organizations at Miami Dade College as to the best way to bring their entire membership into AAPDEP!

The day after the event at Embry-Riddle was March 20, and Nurse Mary was heading back to Sierra Leone, having worked almost non-stop since her arrival in the US in February.

Not only had we successfully spread awareness of African infant and maternal mortality to hundreds through the STH Tour, but Nurse Mary had a hands-on one week intensive training on emergency delivery techniques with AAPDEP Partner, Midwife Jennie Joseph, founder of The Birth Place and Commonsense Childbirth School of Midwifery in Winter Garden, Florida.

AAPDEP leadership was also able to make quite a few important determinations about the way forward for the overall work in Sierra Leone. One of the most exciting advancements is that Nurse Mary is no longer just AAPDEP’s “partner.”

She has become a member and will serve as the AAPDEP Chair in Sierra Leone.

Now, all of AAPDEP’s projects in the country, not only the IMHP, will be under Nurse Mary’s direct leadership.

Connected to this is another exciting development - Women in National Development (Nurse Mary’s organization of TBA’s) is now merging with AAPDEP to become AAPDEP-WIND, increasing AAPDEP’s overall membership by over 150 people!

Now, before the new AAPDEP clinic is built in Sierra Leone, which is slated for summer 2012, Nurse Mary’s current clinic will officially become an AAPDEP clinic—The AAPDEP-WIND Community Birth and Health Clinic.

As an AAPDEP clinic, we will work to ensure that it has access to the necessary supplies, medicines and equipment.

In fact, AAPDEP was able to organize for Nurse Mary to return to Sierra Leone with over 250 pounds of medicines and equipment including fetal heart monitors, blood pressure cuffs, infant and adult scales, clamps, thermometers, suture, and a variety of first aid supplies.

Many thanks to AAPDEP partner Jennie Joseph (Winter Garden, FL), and supporters Dr. Michelle Strongfields (Philadelphia, PA), Brother Shabaka Mombatha (Philadelphia, PA), and Lauren Arrington & Family (Baltimore, MD), for the very generous donations they made to this first medical shipment.

When it was all said and done, hundreds of Africans and our allies contributed a little more than $10,000 to AAPDEP during the Stop the Hemorrhaging tour, for the work to build the IMHP, giving us a solid footing for the establishment of our new clinic and for our work to train traditional birth attendants in Sierra Leone. The tour helped us to expand our influence and organization into cities around the US and has helped us to break new ground in terms of our organizational capacity in Sierra Leone.

It is AAPDEP’s goal as the weeks and months since the STH tour pass, to be able to report that Nurse Mary’s 6 weeks in the US offered our people more than a great tour, but that it in fact will come to represent a turning point in our effort to stamp out the high rates of infant and maternal death in Sierra Leone.

To borrow an often repeated quote from Nurse Mary herself, “Together we will succeed!”

Uhuru Solidarity Movement condemns Obama’s war and torture of African and Arab people – from Guantanamo to U.S. prisons, from Libya to Philadelphia!

Calling all progressive Euro-Americans to come to the Uhuru Solidarity Movement National Convention on June 4 and 5, 2011 in Philadelphia, PA: “Resistance is the Future! Solidarity with African Liberation!”

On Monday, April 25, two reports were released – both vividly demonstrating the depth of the brutality with which the Obama administration is carrying out and intensifying the U.S. aggression and warfare against African and Arab peoples, inside the U.S. and worldwide.

President Obama, promising “hope” and “change” in his election campaign, has in fact escalated the war on Arab and African people at home and abroad. He has initiated the first war by AFRICOM on Africa, with the bombing of Libya and the brutal murder of the Libyan people.

It is Obama who has intensified the attacks on the people of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Haiti, Congo, Colombia and the Israeli genocide on the Palestinian people in Gaza. It is Obama that is attacking the African community in the U.S. with increasing police violence, increasing direct military occupation and mass imprisonment of young Africans.

Guantanamo leaks lift lid on world’s most controversial prison

The Guardian newspaper released an article titled: “Guantanamo leaks lift lid on world’s most controversial prison,” based on the leaking of 759 “secret” U.S. military dossiers covering almost every prisoner since the U.S. prison camp was opened in 2002.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/25/guantanamo-files-lift-lid-prison

This report reveals the real criminality of the neocolonial Obama regime that carried out mass torture of the 779 mostly Arab men captured and held at Guantanamo in the name of the “war on terror.”

It states that over two years after Obama promised to close Guantanamo, 172 people are still there, unable to even stand trial as they have been so badly tortured over a prolonged period.

It speaks of outrageous rights abuses inflicted on the captives, the vast majority of whom were brought there on ridiculous grounds, including an 89-year-old Afghan villager with dementia. He was brought to the concentration camp to be interrogated about some “suspicious phone numbers.” There is also the 14-year-old boy, tortured for his “possible knowledge of Taliban local leaders.”

The exposé showed that of the 779 prisoners at Guantanamo, the overwhelming majority, 606, were cleared and released by the U.S. due to “no intelligence showing any threat to the U.S. and its allies.”

This rate of false imprisonment is similar to that of the “Stop and Frisk” police policy. In Philadelphia, a quarter of a million people, mostly young African men, were stopped and harassed by the police in 2009 alone. Less than three percent of those was found to have weapons, which was the rationale for this gross abuse of African people’s democratic rights.

Systemic torture of Africans imprisoned in Pennsylvania

The second paper released on April 25 documents the chilling and systemic torture of Africans imprisoned in Pennsylvania’s state prison, SCI Huntingdon.
http://hrcoalition.org/sites/default/files/Unity%20and%20Courage-SCI%20Huntingdon%20Report.pdf

The Human Rights Coalition based this report on a year-long investigation and over 1000 pages of letters, grievances, affidavits and testimonies from prisoners. It shows the courageous resistance by prisoners in solitary confinement in Huntingdon’s Restricted Housing Unit, where they faced the most unimaginable torture and degradation.

It describes the “culture of torture and terror” fostered by the guards and endorsed by the prison administration and the PA Department of Corrections. Africans were deprived of food, water, clothing, bedding and hygiene items. They were starved, were threatened with death, beaten and tortured for any form of resistance.

In September and October 2010, prisoners organized a protest of these conditions. Guards sprayed them with a toxic chemical, “O.C.”, and left them to burn with no water to wash it off.

As horrendous and appalling as the treatment of Africans and others in PA prisons revealed by the report is, we can’t be surprised by it.

We saw how many of the U.S. military guards who tortured Arab prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Iraq were trained in PA prisons like SCI Greene and SCI Huntingdon.

U.S. torture techniques are practiced and perfected on African people kidnapped from cities like Philadelphia and Pittsburgh and held in the dungeons of U.S. prisons, U.S. concentration camps.

The Uhuru Solidarity Movement (USM) absolutely condemns this collective punishment of African, Arab, Mexican and all oppressed people by the U.S. government.

We must stand up as white people living in the belly of imperialism and defend the right of the African community and all others to organize and resist the colonial terror being waged every day against their people.

In February we saw the military occupation and siege of a 33-block radius of the African community on the south side of St. Petersburg, FL, the location of the national office of the Uhuru Movement after a cop was killed. This was no different than how the U.S. marines operate in Afghanistan.

Homeland Security, FBI, SWAT teams and many other police agencies carried out door-to-door searches. They stopped cars and busses going in and out of the community and stuck guns in children’s faces. The police didn’t even know who they were looking for, but the entire African community was locked down and under siege. This is colonial occupation!

We have to say that just as the people of Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen and throughout the Middle East and North Africa have the right to resist their poverty and oppression at the hands of U.S.-backed regimes, so do African people in the U.S. have the right to resist.

We have to recognize that U.S. occupation of communities of Arab and African people from Afghanistan to Philadelphia, and kidnapping, imprisonment and torture of prisoners, is part of the U.S. colonial war on African and other oppressed peoples worldwide.

The Uhuru Movement shows that imperialism is in the deepest crisis of its existence

The U.S. and imperialist economy can only exist on stolen resources – oil, gold, diamonds, bauxite, coltan – and all the wealth and minerals stolen daily by U.S. corporations, the World Bank and IMF from Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America.

Today, the crisis is deepening because oppressed people are fighting fiercely to control their own resources and regain their self-determination – from Iraq, to Haiti, and inside the U.S.

Obama has the largest military budget of all time

In a desperate attempt to control the world’s resources, Obama has the largest military budget of all time: $700 billion. The U.S. government spends $200 billion every year on the war on African people in the U.S.

Philadelphia alone spends $1.1 billion a year on police, prisons and courts. This is counterinsurgency war that builds the trillion dollar prison economy by terrorizing a whole young generation of African people – from places like north and southwest Philly!

Call to build a real anti-war movement

We have the urgent responsibility to build a real anti-war movement from the white community in solidarity with African people’s just resistance and liberation struggle!

We condemn ALL U.S. colonial wars and call for all other white people like ourselves who are tired of hearing these atrocities that the U.S. government carries out in our name, and who are compelled to do something to change this reality, to join Uhuru Solidarity Movement and come to the USM National Convention on June 4 and 5 in Philadelphia.

The Uhuru Solidarity Movement is the organization of Euro-Americans or white people who organize under the leadership of the African-led Uhuru Movement for reparations and material solidarity with the struggle for African liberation, in the U.S. and worldwide.

It is the ONLY organization in the world where we can truly make a difference because we work under the strategy and leadership of the rising African Revolution.

Being active in USM is how we can change our historic relationship as colonial oppressors of African and other people.

This is the only way we can start to reverse the history of imperialism, where we live off the wealth and power created from the enslavement of African people and the genocide of Indigenous people – who are still captive in the other concentration camps, the so-called reservations, living in poverty and dying at an average age of 44 years!

Come to the Uhuru Solidarity Movement Convention – June 4 and 5 in Philadelphia

This year’s Convention will feature

• Keynote speaker Omali Yeshitela, founder and leader of the Uhuru Movement and Chairman of the African Socialist International
• Diop Olugbala, International President of the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement
• Glen Ford, Executive Editor of BlackAgendaReport.com and member of the Black is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations
• Nellie Bailey, Director of the Harlem Tenants Council (also member of Black is Back Coalition)
• Pam Africa of MOVE and the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal
• Penny Hess, Chairwoman of the African People’s Solidarity Committee
  

Learn more about the Convention on the USM website. Register by emailing registration@uhurusolidarity.org.

STAND UP AGAINST U.S. WARS AND TORTURE!

ATTEND THE UHURU SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT CONVENTION!

GET ORGANIZED TO PARTICIPATE IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE FUTURE OF RESISTANCE AND LIBERATION FOR AFRICAN AND ALL OPPRESSED PEOPLES!

UHURU! REPARATIONS NOW!

Links:
• Learn more and JOIN the Uhuru Solidarity Movement: www.uhurusolidarity.org.
• Uhuru News: www.uhurunews.com
• Black is Back Coalition: www.blackisbackcoalition.org

Message from Colonel Mu'ummar Qaddafi

Reposted from UhuruNews.com

Recollections of My Life: Col. Mu'ummar Qaddafi, The Leader of the Revolution
April 5, 2011



By Col. Mu'ummar Qaddafi; Translated by Professor Sam Hamod, Ph.D.

In the name of Allah, the beneficent, the merciful...

For 40 years, or was it longer, I can't remember, I did all I could to give people houses, hospitals, schools, and when they were hungry, I gave them food. I even made Benghazi into farmland from the desert, I stood up to attacks from that cowboy Reagan, when he killed my adopted orphaned daughter, he was trying to kill me, instead he killed that poor innocent child. Then I helped my brothers and sisters from Africa with money for the African Union.

I did all I could to help people understand the concept of real democracy, where people's committees ran our country. But that was never enough, as some told me, even people who had 10 room homes, new suits and furniture, were never satisfied, as selfish as they were they wanted more. They told Americans and other visitors, that they needed "democracy" and "freedom" never realizing it was a cut throat system, where the biggest dog eats the rest, but they were enchanted with those words, never realizing that in America, there was no free medicine, no free hospitals, no free housing, no free education and no free food, except when people had to beg or go to long lines to get soup.

No, no matter what I did, it was never enough for some, but for others, they knew I was the son of Gamal Abdel Nasser, the only true Arab and Muslim leader we've had since Salah-al-Deen, when he claimed the Suez Canal for his people, as I claimed Libya, for my people, it was his footsteps I tried to follow, to keep my people free from colonial domination - from thieves who would steal from us.

Now, I am under attack by the biggest force in military history, my little African son, Obama wants to kill me, to take away the freedom of our country, to take away our free housing, our free medicine, our free education, our free food, and replace it with American style thievery, called "capitalism," but all of us in the Third World know what that means, it means corporations run the countries, run the world, and the people suffer. So, there is no alternative for me, I must make my stand, and if Allah wishes, I shall die by following His path, the path that has made our country rich with farmland, with food and health, and even allowed us to help our African and Arab brothers and sisters to work here with us, in the Libyan Jamahiriya.

I do not wish to die, but if it comes to that, to save this land, my people, all the thousands who are all my children, then so be it.

Let this testament be my voice to the world, that I stood up to crusader attacks of NATO, stood up to cruelty, stood up to betrayal, stood up to the West and its colonialist ambitions, and that I stood with my African brothers, my true Arab and Muslim brothers, as a beacon of light. When others were building castles, I lived in a modest house, and in a tent. I never forgot my youth in Sirte, I did not spend our national treasury foolishly, and like Salah-al-Deen, our great Muslim leader, who rescued Jerusalem for Islam, I took little for myself...

In the West, some have called me "mad", "crazy", but they know the truth yet continue to lie, they know that our land is independent and free, not in the colonial grip, that my vision, my path, is, and has been clear and for my people and that I will fight to my last breath to keep us free, may Allah almighty help us to remain faithful and free.

c: Col. Mu'ummar Qaddafi, 2011/05/04

Copyright Col. Mu'ummar Qaddafi, - Mathaba.Net

With permission to
Lisa Karpova
Pravda.Ru

Diop Olugbala Speaks at Earth Uprising! Philadelphia, April 17, 2011

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Diop Olugbala Speaks at Earth Uprising! Philadelphia, April 17, 2011

Sponsored by Uhuru Solidarity Movement
http://UhuruSolidarity.org

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U.S. and Western imperialism out of Libya now! Self-determination and national liberation for Arab and African people!

Tripoli, Sunday, March 20, 2011—Libyans mourn during the funeral of people who were killed after air strikes.

The African People’s Solidarity Committee (APSC) condemns the U.S. imperialist attack on Libya—an attack that initiates yet another colonial war of occupation under the Obama regime, this time on the continent of Africa.

The U.S. and other imperialist powers opened the war on Libya with a “shock and awe” attack on March 19, the eighth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

The aggression against Libya included the launching of 100 “Tomahawk” cruise missiles and 40 bombs dropped from U.S. B-2 “Stealth Bombers.”

At least 60 civilians are reported to have been killed in this initial assault. This brutal action established the “no-fly zone,” that cleared the Libyan airways for a U.S.-backed invasion.

This enables the U.S. and other imperialist forces to terrorize the people of Libya with impunity, to steal Libyan oil interests in Benghazi and to try to secure a balance of power in the North African region in favor of the increasingly weakened U.S.

The U.S. initiated the action after the United Nations Security Council voted on Friday, March 18 to sanction the no-fly zone for the benefit of the imperialist powers.

The Security Council vote passed with the cowardly abstention of China and Russia, who are now making statements opposing the imperialist action. Even the neocolonial Arab League and the African Union, which generally act in the interest of imperialism, have opposed this war.

The U.S. charged that Libyan president Muammar Gaddafi was attacking the people of Libya—this was used as a pretense for this newest colonial war in the Middle East. In reality attacks on citizens are being waged by U.S. neocolonial client states such as Bahrain and Yemen, to which the U.S. government has issued no response.

While imperialist U.S. president Barack Obama states that he will not send in “ground troops,” in fact the U.S.-led imperialist forces have already been arming and leading the so-called rebels on the ground in Libya. Despite U.S. media claims to the contrary, the Libyan “rebels” are a small, imperialist-backed group whose sole purpose is to undermine the Gaddafi government and usher in U.S. interests.

On March 7, UK newspaper The Guardian reported that Libyan farm guards arrested seven British intelligence force soldiers near the oil-rich Libyan town of Benghazi.

As African Socialist International (ASI) Chairman Omali Yeshitela has stated, “The real issue is the crisis of imperialism that is challenging the balance of power in the North Africa/Middle East region to the detriment of U.S. and world imperialism.”

Rapid changes resulting from the mass uprisings in long-time neocolonial states such as Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and others in the region have undermined the strategic interests of the U.S. and Western imperialist forces.

In light of these developments in a region rich with oil and other resources and which has strategic interests including protecting the settler state of Israel, “Iran and Libya have become increasingly significant to the imperialists,” said Chairman Yeshitela.

“Libya’s opposition to the white nationalist Israeli settler state and support for Palestinian resistance offers another problem for the U.S. and other imperialists,” he continued.

APSC also denounces the desperate attacks on the people of Yemen and Bahrain by U.S.-influenced and directed governments.

As Chairman Yeshitela has stated, “This is an attempt to push back the tide of history resulting from the growing resistance of the peoples of the world that threatens to push Western imperialism into its grave.”

Even as the U.S. is bombing Libya it is intensifying its war against the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan. In the days leading up to the bombing of Libya, U.S. drone bombings murdered 40 people in Pakistan where anti-American protests have been growing following the release of the U.S. CIA agent who murdered Pakistani citizens.

U.S. attempting to return the world to open colonial domination

The U.S. is openly attempting to control the elections in Haiti where the Obama regime has appointed William Jefferson Clinton as the colonial viceroy.

Last week imperialist U.S. president Obama called neocolonial South African president Jacob Zuma in an attempt to persuade Zuma to prevent popular, U.S.-deposed former Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide from returning to Haiti. Obama expressed no problem with the recent return of former murderous neocolonial dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier to Haiti, however.

Inside this country the U.S. is waging an increasingly deadly war against African and Indigenous people with massive military occupations of African and Mexican communities, ongoing police murders of African civilians, mass roundups into the colonial prison system and deepening poverty.

Inside the U.S. and throughout the world the masses of people are struggling to overturn the legacy of white power, which starves them and steals their resources and sovereignty for the benefit of the white world.

All throughout the Middle East and all over the African continent, in South America and inside the U.S., people are rising up by the millions!

The military assault on Libya is another desperate attempt to rescue imperialism from its inevitable downfall.

The anxiety of the white population—the oppressor nation—inside the U.S. and Europe is palpable as U.S. economic, political and military power faces serious threats to its parasitic existence on every front.

The crisis of imperialism is based on the fact that the U.S., Europe and capitalism itself were built on the enslavement of African people, the genocide of the Indigenous people and the theft of the land, resources and civilizations of the majority of the people on the planet.

Oppressed peoples of the world have had enough. They are struggling for justice and liberation by any means necessary.

African, Arab and Indigenous working classes are waging increasingly successful struggles to throw off the iron hand of this parasitic system. They are struggling for the return of their stolen resources and to regain control over their own nations, resources and governments.

APSC calls on the white population to abandon its unity with imperialism and join with oppressed peoples of the world, including those inside the U.S., who are struggling for national liberation, justice and power over their own lives.

White people who unite with the demands of the rest of the world’s peoples must go beyond calling for “peace.” This is a call to be part of creating a new and just world. Join the struggle to destroy imperialism and the pedestal on which we sit at the expense of the majority of humanity.

Participate in the Black is Back Coalition’s Conference on the Other Wars
March 26 in Washington, DC
www.blackisbackcoalition.org

U.S. out of Libya and the Middle East!
Victory to Arab and African people as they struggle for self-determination and national liberation!

U.S. and all imperialism out of Libya!
Reparations now!

Assassination threats against Chairman Omali Yeshitela part of counterinsurgency

This article is being reposted from Uhurunews.com. The Uhuru Solidarity Movement shares this article to express our solidarity with the just struggle of African people to defeat the counterinsurgency and win liberation and self-determination in their own hands. We call on all sectors of the Euro-American population to join the Uhuru Solidarity Movement (uhurusolidarity.org). Africans have a right to resist! Hands off Omali Yeshitela!

In the same week that the U.S. government deployed over 200 assault weapon-toting police officers, FBI tanks and SWAT in military uniform in order to keep the African community of South St. Petersburg, FL on lockdown, the U.S. government’s counterinsurgency intensified against the Uhuru Movement in the form of direct assassination threats made against Chairman Omali Yeshitela.

A nationally syndicated white nationalist radio DJ called for the Chairman’s death.

In addition, in an online police message board, cops have been posting threats of violence against community meetings at Uhuru House, calling for the assassination of anyone, as they revealed a government-sponsored surveillance of the Uhuru House by a private investigator based in Sarasota, FL.

These media attacks do not represent the isolated rantings of a marginal sector of white society, but are part of a broader U.S. government-sponsored counterinsurgency against the African community in order to intimidate and neutralize the revolutionary leadership of the movement for African liberation.

During the Black Revolution of the Sixties, the FBI created a counterinsurgency program called COINTELPRO whose stated purpose was “to expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize the activities of black nationalist, hate-type organizations and groupings, their leadership, spokesmen, membership, and supporters, and to counter their propensity for violence and civil disorder.”

COINTELPRO was carried out by the FBI in collusion with local police departments in all of the areas where the Black Revolution of the Sixties was occurring.

Examples of COINTELPRO activities include the assassinations of Fred Hampton, Mark Clark, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and over 30 members of the Black Panther Party, as well as countless others arrested or forced into exile.

Counterinsurgent operations against the African community and the movement for African liberation continue to this day, as evidenced in the recent counterinsurgent assault against the African community of St. Petersburg that consisted of a military occupation of South St Pete and a vicious ideological assault on the Uhuru Movement.

“Bubba the Love Sponge” Calls for Assassination of Chairman Omali

For several weeks now on a popular Tampa Bay radio program, a white radio DJ named Todd Alan Clem, better known as “Bubba the Love Sponge,” has devoted hours of air time to attacking and slandering the Uhuru Movement, even going so far as to call for the assassination of Chairman Omali Yeshitela.

On February 25, 2010, Clem played clips of Chairman Omali Yeshitela speaking at a rally in St. Petersburg after the police murder of Hydra Lacy, an African who allegedly killed two cops and wounded another during the police invasion of his home on January 24, 2011.

Clem and his co-hosts called on the FBI to investigate and shut down the Uhuru Movement. “The Mayor should be going to speak to the FBI,” said one of Clem’s co-hosts. They also called on the IRS to investigate the Uhuru Movement’s financial records.

After playing the clip of the Chairman speaking, Clem said, “Wouldn’t you just love it if the boys rolled up during one of these little meetings and they just cuffed and stuffed him?” He later said, “Does this not just incense you? Does this not just make you want to take up arms and go kill this guy?”

Clem’s white nationalist views are defined by his undying allegiance to the police and U.S. government.

He glorifies the occupying police forces and demonizes the Africans who are subject to police containment.

On the same morning that Bubba declared his desire to assassinate Chairman Omali Yeshitela, he interviewed the former mayor of Tampa, Dick Greco, and encouraged his listeners (the “Bubba Army”) to re-elect Greco “because he talks about the police and enforcing laws, which is great.”

In 2008, Clem established a 501(3)(C) nonprofit, “Bubba the Love Sponge Foundation,” to raise funds for the families of police officers who died occupying the African community.

Clem even carries an “honorary Sheriff’s badge” along with a stockpile of firearms in his automobile. (http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/media/2009/06/shopck-jock-bubba-the-love-sponge-clem-off-radi-othis-morning-after-losing-two-handguns-in-car-burgl.html)

Clem posted on his website a screenshot of the Uhuru News homepage and encouraged his clan of followers to comment on the articles. As a result, the “Bubba Army” has flooded hundreds of posts into the comments section of several articles on Uhuru News.

These posts have exposed white nationalism at its most raw and base level.

Comments have included demands for the “Uruhus” to “go back to Africa”, references to Africans as “tar babies,” “monkeys,” “velcro-headed niggers,” etc., and threatening comments to intimidate the supporters of the Uhuru Movement, such as: “You have more to fear than just the Bubba Army. There is a force greater than even that at work… Expect us.”

Rabid White Nationalism Exposed in Comments on Media and Police Sites

These comments are no different from those regularly posted in response to any article about the African community or the Uhuru Movement on the St. Pete Times or even the liberal “progressive” media outlet, WMNF.

Comments posted on WMNF’s article about the press conference held by the Uhuru Solidarity Movement to denounce the military occupation of the African community in St. Petersburg, FL, included references to a 16-year-old African, Nicholas Lindsey, as a “thug” and an “animal” who is “extremely lucky he’s not full of bullet holes right now.”

Some comments have been aimed at Penny Hess, Chairwoman of the African People’s Solidarity Committee (APSC), as well in response to APSC’s opposition to the military occupation of the African community.

A comment on a February 22, 2011 St. Pete Times website article entitled “St. Petersburg police search for killer as they mourn another fallen officer” says: “While we may kill many of them, we cannot win a battle against an enemy that is using unconventional tactics that quickly adapt to our force. If we, the citizens, wish to combat these people, we must use unconventional tactics. If we employ terror tactics on groups like the Uhurus and scare them underground, they will cease to be a threat. It’s time to take it to the Uhurus and eliminate them in their own territory.”

A search for “Uhuru” on LEOAffairs.com, an online message board for cops (as its website proclaims, “the online voice of Law Enforcement”) yields several hundred pages of comments related to the Uhuru Movement, especially in the section of the forum devoted to the St. Petersburg Police Department.

A comment in response to the video of the Chairman speaking at a rally for Hydra Lacy, posted under the username “Benjamin Martin,” writes: “Time for the Feds to step in or Society to take a stand to eliminate the problem. I’d be interested to know who was in the audience…”

On February 26, 2011, a LEOAffairs poster named “WithRespect” posted information regarding the weekly Sunday meeting at the Uhuru House, and wrote, “Drive-by comes to mind.” Another person under the username “run them over” wrote: “involuntary vehicular homicide would have been justifiable for the whole crowd.”

“Private Investigator” Participates in Campaign of Attack Against Uhuru Movement

It has also come to the attention of Uhuru News that a private investigator named Bill Warner has been spying on the Uhuru Movement.

Warner is based in Sarasota, FL and runs a blog to document his work as a private investigator. He and his wife also run a tile laying business, Warner Bros Carpet and Tile.

In the past week, Warner (who you can learn more about here) has posted a blog entry about the Uhuru Movement at least once a day, including personal details about the leadership of the African People’s Socialist Party.

On the day before the Sunday community meeting at the Uhuru House, referenced in the above mentioned LEOAffairs post, Warner photographed the Uhuru House with a police car sitting right outside and posted it to his blog indicating his role in working with the police in the attack on the movement (HYPERLINK “https://pibillwarner.wordpress.com/“https://pibillwarner.wordpress.com/).

On February 28, 2011, Todd “Bubba” Clem interviewed Bill Warner on his show and said that he thinks the Bubba show should hire Bill Warner as their private investigator (http://www.btls.com/news/recaps/monday-february-28-2011.html).

Warner said he watched the Sunday meeting at the Uhuru House and claimed that the audience consisted of about 50 people, mostly white. This is an outright lie, and in fact, the video footage of the Sunday meeting does not contain any shots of the audience.

Warner employs the tactic of disinformation as part of the counterinsurgent “battle for perceptions.”

This can also be seen on Warner’s blog entries where he interchangeably refers to the Uhuru Movement as the Black Panthers, even though these are two separate organizations.

In the same show in which he interviewed Warner, Clem denied that he ever wished for physical harm against the Chairman. The official recap of that February 25 show contains no mention of Clem’s express desire to “take up arms and go kill” Chairman Omali Yeshitela (http://www.btls.com/news/recaps/friday-february-25-2011.html#comments).

That program was, however, recorded, unedited. Clem’s repeated pleas for arrest, imprisonment and assassination of Chairman Omali Yeshitela are heard loud and clear on this page.

Defining Counterinsurgency

These ideological attacks on the Uhuru Movement in the ruling class media are consistent with the official U.S. government’s strategy for counterinsurgency operations (COIN) that are found in U.S. Army General Petraeus’s widely distributed manual on counterinsurgency.

Petraeus defines insurgency as “an organized movement aimed at the overthrow of a constituted government.”

Petraeus writes, “Insurgency has taken many forms over time, from struggles for independence against colonial powers, to the rising of disadvantaged ethnic or religious groups against their rivals, to resistance to foreign invaders.”

He coins the term liberation insurgency to denote a situation wherein “indigenous elements seek to expel or overthrow what they perceive to be a foreign or occupation government.”

Counterinsurgency is defined as “those political, economic, military, paramilitary, psychological and civic actions taken by a government to defeat an insurgency.”

Petraeus notes the significance of ideology as a motivating factor for insurgents. “The most powerful ideologies tap latent, emotive concerns of the populace, such as the desire for justice, religious beliefs, or liberation from foreign occupation.”

In a section titled “Media and the Battle for Perceptions,” Petraeus explains, “The media directly influence the support of key audiences for COIN forces, the execution of their operations, and the opposing insurgency.

“Recognition of this influence creates a war of perceptions between insurgents and COIN forces that is conducted continuously through the communications media.

“The media are a permanent part of the information environment and effective media/public affairs operations are critical to successful military operations.”

Patreaus writes that counterinsurgents should “respond quickly to insurgent propaganda. As stated above, delaying a response can let the insurgent story dominate many news cycles, allowing their version of events to become widespread and accepted.”

It is clear that the U.S. government has a plan in place for the African community whenever it shows signs of anti-colonial resistance, such as the heavy military occupation that ensued after a 16-year-old African on February 28, 2011 allegedly shot and killed a cop.

These media attacks are a component of the counterinsurgent assault on the colonized African community and the movement for African liberation.

The colonialist-capitalist State recognizes that the African working class, working under the leadership of the Uhuru Movement, presents a most serious threat to a parasitic capitalist social system that requires as its foundation the exploitation and oppression of African people.

These military and ideological expressions of white nationalism and anti-African hatred are indicators of the desperation of imperialism in deep crisis.

As anti-colonial resistance to U.S.-sponsored terror spreads throughout the African community in the U.S. and around the world, it is clear that U.S. imperialism is on its last dying breath.

The U.S. government’s desperate efforts to destroy the Uhuru Movement as representative of the leadership of the African working class will not succeed.

We are calling for Todd “Bubba the Love Sponge” Clem to be removed from the air.

Hands off the Uhuru Movement!

Hands off Chairman Omali Yeshitela!