Nelson, "What's Going On.."

~RE

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: More on reconSILLYation.....
Date: Mon, 1 Mar 1999 08:36:58 -0500
From: "Rodney Cash" <Rodney_Cash@...>
To: historynotes@egroups.com




In S. Africa, Truth Panel Data Upset Parliament
Apartheid Battles Live On as Legislators Assail Each Other

By Lynne Duke
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, March 1, 1999; Page A14

CAPE TOWN, South Africa?In full-throated battle, South Africa's black
and white lawmakers waged psychological war. They heckled and harangued.
They shouted each  other down. They hurled moral denunciations. Blacks
accused whites of having the blood of the past on their hands. Whites
accused blacks of using guilt as a blunt instrument.

When the 490 members of South Africa's Parliament gathered in joint
session last week for a debate on the nation's Truth and Reconciliation
Commission, it was clear that the effort to lay bare the nation's
apartheid past had become perhaps the most polarizing issue in
post-apartheid politics.

South Africa's political terrain may have undergone a sea change five
years ago with the end of repressive white-minority rule, but the
battles of the past live on -- over right and wrong; over guilt and
innocence; over national
reconciliation and whether it can ever be achieved.

Reconciliation has been a central goal of President Nelson Mandela's
government since it was elected in 1994 in South Africa's first
nonracial election. And although Parliament, on the surface, represents
the successful post-apartheid blending of all political and racial
elements, it is a fractious and inherently unbalanced body. It is
dominated by a black majority representing groups that fought the battle
against apartheid. It is led by the ruling African National Congress,
Mandela's party, which holds a 63 percent of its seats.

But black power is resented and feared by the white minority, which
includes
politicians who were part of the apartheid system of racial separation.
Thus,
Parliament is riven by racial friction, just like the society at large,
as a new national identity is being forged.

The bitter seven-hour debate in the packed chamber of the National
Assembly, the lower house of Parliament, was another official step in
the long process of national healing, intended to chart the way forward
now that the truth
commission has largely concluded its work. The truth-telling process was
intended to foster reconciliation by uncovering past abuses, offering
amnesties to perpetrators who confess their crimes and making
reparations to their victims.

But the process has been marked by the refusal of politicians from the
apartheid era to acknowledge what the ANC as well as the truth body say
is crystal clear:  That murder, torture, abduction and other such crimes
were the approved policy instruments of the white-minority regime.
Although some apartheid-era officials have offered apologies for past
suffering, none has admitted authorizing or even  knowing about the
widespread abuses.

Justice Minister Dullah Omar, an ANC member, criticized his white
political
colleagues as people who "arrogantly refuse to acknowledge that they
need to
cleanse their hands, which for decades have been dripping with the blood
and
tears of millions of victims." They have refused, he said, despite the
fact that they "have been so generously permitted to participate in the
new democracy without recrimination."

Still, Tony Leon, the sharp-tongued leader of the predominantly white
Democratic  Party, seized upon Omar's words as symbolic of the deepest
fear of the white political minority -- being subject to the whims of
the black majority.

"When the minister of justice says that certain parties are graciously
permitted  to be here today, I say it is an infamous day because the
minister who is gracious enough to permit you to be here today will be
ungracious enough to take you away tomorrow," Leon declared.

Further to the right on the white political spectrum -- among the
Afrikaners who descended from 17th-century Dutch settlers -- members of
the Freedom Front and other hard-right parties are hard pressed even to
concede the extent to which apartheid was wrong.

"Mistakes were made," said Freedom Front leader Constand Viljoen, whose
party
still pines quixotically for a volkstaat, or territory for the Afrikaner
people.

"Apartheid was an immoral and unjust system," said Marthinus van
Schalkwyk,
leader of the New National Party, which -- before it started calling
itself
"new" -- was the party that created apartheid a half-century ago.

Van Schalkwyk also touched on a raw ANC nerve. He said that torture by
apartheid government soldiers was no different from torture by
liberation guerrillas -- a kind of moral equivalence that the truth
commission itself made in accusing the ANC, like the apartheid regime,
of committing human rights abuses during the anti-apartheid struggle.

Peter Mokaba, a fiery and popular deputy cabinet minister from the ANC,
had had enough.

"Apartheid was not a mistake; it was a criminal system against
humanity," Mokaba  said, to applause in the chamber. "Honorable
Marthinus, you have not accepted this."

Then, addressing Mandela, who sat through the entire exchange, Mokaba
said:
"Comrade President, we are ready to forgive, and also not to forget --
but only when they accept the basis of our pain. They should not argue
with us about our pain. They must listen and understand what we suffered
at their hands."




© Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company

------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/historynotes
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

Never Forget,,

~RE

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Mo' Black History....the Maafa
Date: Mon, 1 Mar 1999 08:51:27 -0500
From: "Rodney Cash" <Rodney_Cash@...>
To: historynotes@egroups.com




In the Race Riot of 1919, a Glimpse of Struggles to Come

By Peter Perl
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 1, 1999; Page A01

Another in a biweekly series of stories about the people and events that
shaped Washington in the 20th century.

Nobody knows precisely how or where it started, but on a steamy Saturday
night, July 19, 1919, the word began to spread among the saloons and
pool halls of downtown Washington, where crowds of soldiers, sailors and
Marines freshly home from the Great War were taking weekend liberty.

A black suspect, questioned in an attempted sexual assault on a white
woman, had been released by the Metropolitan Police. The woman was the
wife of a Navy man. So the booze-fueled mutterings about revenge flowed
quickly among hundreds of men in uniform, white men who were having
trouble finding jobs in a crowded, sweltering capital.

Late that night, they started to move. The mob drew strength from a
seedy
neighborhood off Pennsylvania Avenue NW called "Murder Bay," known for
its
brawlers and brothels. The crowd crossed the tree-covered Mall heading
toward a predominantly poor black section of Southwest. They picked up
clubs, lead pipes and pieces of lumber as they went.

Near Ninth and D streets SW, they fell upon an unsuspecting black man
named
Charles Linton Ralls, who was out with his wife, Mary. Ralls was chased
down and  beaten severely. The mob then attacked a second black man,
George Montgomery, 55, who was returning home with groceries. They
fractured his skull with a brick.

The rampage by about 400 whites initially drew only scattered resistance
in the black community, and the police were nowhere to be seen. When the
Metropolitan Police Department finally arrived in force, its white
officers arrested more blacks than whites, sending a clear signal about
their sympathies.

It was only the beginning. The white mob -- whose actions were triggered
in
large part by weeks of sensational newspaper accounts of alleged sex
crimes by a  "negro fiend" -- unleashed a wave of violence that swept
over the city for four  days. Nine people were killed in brutal street
fighting, and an estimated 30 more would die eventually from their
wounds. More than 150 men, women and children were clubbed, beaten and
shot by mobs of both races. Several Marine guards and six D.C. policemen
were shot, two fatally.

"A mob of sailors and soldiers jumped on the [street]car and pulled me
off,
beating me unmercifully from head to foot, leaving me in such a
condition that I could hardly crawl back home," Francis Thomas, a frail
black 17-year-old, said in a statement to the NAACP. Thomas said he saw
three other blacks being beaten, including two women. "Before I became
unconscious, I could hear them pleading with the Lord to keep them from
being killed."

The Washington riot was one of more than 20 that took place that summer.
With
rioting in Chicago, Omaha, Knoxville, Tenn., Charleston, S.C., and other
cities, the bloody interval came to be known as "the Red Summer." Unlike
virtually all the disturbances that preceded it -- in which
white-on-black violence dominated -- the Washington riot of 1919 was
distinguished by strong, organized and armed black resistance,
foreshadowing the civil rights struggles later in the century.

Postwar Washington, roughly 75 percent white, was a racial tinderbox.
Housing
was in short supply and jobs so scarce that ex-doughboys in uniform
panhandled along Pennsylvania Avenue. Unemployed whites bitterly envied
the relatively few blacks who had been fortunate enough to procure such
low-level government jobs as messenger and clerk. Many whites also
resented the black "invasion" of previously segregated neighborhoods
around Capitol Hill, Foggy Bottom and the old downtown.

Washington's black community was then the largest and most prosperous in
the
country, with a small but impressive upper class of teachers, ministers,
lawyers and businessmen concentrated in the LeDroit Park neighborhood
near Howard University. But black Washingtonians were increasingly
resentful of the growing dominance of the Jim Crow system that had been
imported from the Deep South.

Racial resentment was particularly intense among Washington's several
thousand returning black war veterans. They had proudly served their
country in such units as the District's 1st Separate Battalion, part of
the segregated Army force that fought in France. These men had been
forced to fight for the right to  serve in combat because the Army at
first refused to draft blacks for any role other than laborer. They
returned home hopeful that their military service would earn them fair
treatment.

Instead, they saw race relations worsening in an administration
dominated by
conservative Southern whites brought here by Woodrow Wilson, a
Virginian.
Wilson's promise of a "New Freedom" had won him more black voters than
any
Democrat before him, but they were cruelly disappointed: Previously
integrated departments such as the Post Office and the Treasury had now
set up "Jim Crow corners" with separate washrooms and lunchrooms for
"colored only." Meanwhile, the Ku Klux Klan was being revived in
Maryland and Virginia, as racial hatred burst forth with the resurgence
of lynching of black men and women around the country -- 28 public
lynchings in the first six months of 1919 alone, including seven black
veterans killed while still wearing their Army uniforms.

Washington's newspapers made a tense situation worse, with an
unrelenting series of sensational stories of alleged sexual assaults by
an unknown black
perpetrator upon white women. The headlines dominated the city's four
daily
papers -- the Evening Star, the Times, the Herald and The Post -- for
more than a month. A sampling of these July headlines illustrates the
growing lynch-mob mentality: 13 SUSPECTS ARRESTED IN NEGRO HUNT; POSSES
KEEP UP HUNT FOR NEGRO; HUNT COLORED ASSAILANT; NEGRO FIEND SOUGHT ANEW.
Washington's newly formed chapter of the NAACP was so concerned that on
July 9 -- 10 days before the bloodshed -- it sent a letter to the four
daily papers saying they were "sowing the seeds of a race riot by their
inflammatory headlines."

Violence escalated on the second night, Sunday, July 20, when white mobs
sensed the 700-member police department was unwilling or unable to stop
them. Blacks were beaten in front of the White House, at the giant
Center Market on Seventh Street NW, and throughout the city, where
roving bands of whites pulled them off streetcars.

One of black Washington's leading citizens, author and historian Carter
G.
Woodson, 43, the new dean at Howard University, was caught up in that
night's
horror. Walking home on Pennsylvania Avenue, Woodson was forced to hide
in the shadows of a storefront as a white mob approached. "They had
caught a Negro and deliberately held him as one would a beef for
slaughter," he recalled, "and when  they had conveniently adjusted him
for lynching, they shot him. I heard him groaning in his struggle as I
hurried away as fast as I could without running, expecting every moment
to be lynched myself."

The Parents League, a black citizens group that had been formed
primarily to
improve the "colored schools," printed and distributed about 50,000
copies of a Notice to the Colored Citizens, a handbill that advised "our
people, in the
interest of law and order and to avoid the loss of life and injury, to
go home before dark and to remain quietly and to protect themselves."

The city's chief executive, Louis Brownlow, the chairman of the District
Commissioners, issued an urgent appeal: "The actions of the men who
attacked
innocent Negroes cannot be too strongly condemned, and it is the duty of
every citizen to express his support of law and order by refraining from
any inciting conversation or the repetition of inciting rumor and
tales."

But a crucial event had already occurred that morning that would
overwhelm
Brownlow's good intention. The Washington Post published a front-page
article
that would be singled out by the NAACP, and later by historians, as a
contributing cause of the riot's escalation. Under the words
"Mobilization for Tonight," The Post erroneously reported that all
available servicemen had been ordered to report to Pennsylvania Avenue
and Seventh Street at 9 p.m. for a "clean-up" operation.

It was never clear how this fictional mobilization call was issued, but
it
became a self-fulfilling prophecy, as white rioters gathered and blacks
began
arming themselves in defense. Longtime Post reporter Chalmers Roberts,
in his
history of The Washington Post, called the paper's riot coverage
"shamefully
irresponsible."

As blacks realized that authorities were not protecting them, many took
up arms.  More than 500 guns were sold by pawnshops and gun dealers that
Monday, when the  worst violence occurred. White mobs were met by black
mobs up and down the Seventh Street commercial corridor. Black Army
veterans took out their old guns;  sharpshooters climbed to the roof of
the Howard Theatre; blacks manned barricades at New Jersey Avenue and at
U Street.

Black men were driving around the city firing randomly at whites. Blacks
turned the tables and pulled whites off streetcars. At Seventh and G
streets NW, a black rioter emptied his revolver into a crowded streetcar
before taking five bullets from police. At 12th and G NW, a 17-year-old
black girl barricaded herself in her house and shot and killed an MPD
detective. In all, 10 whites and  five blacks were killed or mortally
wounded that night.

James Scott, a World War I veteran, boarded a streetcar at Seventh
Street and
Florida Avenue NW late Monday night and quickly noticed he was the only
black
man on board. As he headed for a vacant seat, a white soldier barred his
way and  shouted, "Where are you going, nigger?"

"Lynch him!" yelled another white. "Kill him! . . . Throw him out the
window," others yelled.

"I was being grabbed from all sides. I forced my way to the rear door
and was
hit by something as I stepped off, which cut my ear and bruised my
head," Scott recalled in a statement to the NAACP. "As the car moved
away, the conductor fired three shots at me."

Finally, on Tuesday, as city leaders and members of Congress realized
the
situation was out of hand, President Wilson mobilized about 2,000 troops
to stop the rioting -- cavalry from Fort Myer, Marines from Quantico,
Army troops from Camp Meade and sailors from ships in the Potomac. City
officials and businessmen  closed the saloons, movie houses and billiard
rooms in neighborhoods where violence erupted.

Despite the federal troops, white mobs gathered again. But a strong
summer
downpour doused their spirits and heavy rains continued through the
night,
effectively ending the riot of 1919.

In the ensuing months, the NAACP and others pushed for hearings into the
riot. But the episode became a mostly forgotten chapter of Washington
history, largely  because conservative Southern congressmen blocked
further inquiry.

Sociologist Arthur Waskow, who interviewed riot survivors in the 1960s,
said the  experience gave them a new self-respect and "a readiness to
face white society as equals. . . . The Washington riot demonstrated
that neither the silent mass of 'alley Negroes' nor the articulate
leaders of the Negro community could be counted on to knuckle under."




© Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company

------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/historynotes
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: historynotes digest
Date: Mon, 1 Mar 1999 21:33:40 -0800
From: "Warren Blakely" <warrenaman@...>
To: <historynotes@egroups.com>

This is exactly what white people want us to do. There is no violent
solution, nor is there any protection in guns. We have to go on an
effective
educational plan to awaken critical thinking abilities in our people. I
am
suggesting to you that there are far too few individuals in our
community
who have any real appreciation for the origins of this world wide
genocide
that's going on. We need to start educating the children of the world so
that they will not bear arms against their own brothers and sisters. We
are
bearing the arms that sustain these dictators and sexual deviants!
-----Original Message-----
From: eGroups Digest <historynotes@egroups.com>
To: warrenaman@... <warrenaman@...>
Date: Sunday, February 28, 1999 2:58 AM
Subject: historynotes digest


>eGroups Daily Digest: historynotes has 1 new messages.
>Click here http://www.eGroups.com/list/historynotes/?start=195 to read
them.
>
>-----------------------------------------------------------------
>195. REality                   Historynotes Forum on LEGAL RIGHT TO A
PEOPLE'S M
>-----------------------------------------------------------------
>
>------------------------------ message 195 ------------------------------
>http://www.eGroups.com/list/historynotes/?start=195
>
>From: REality <ausetkmt@...>
>Subject: Historynotes Forum on LEGAL RIGHT TO A PEOPLE'S MILITIA
>Date: Sat, 27 Feb 1999 15:01:46 -0500
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
>
>
>-------- Original Message --------
>Subject: Fwd: Forum on LEGAL RIGHT TO A PEOPLE'S MILITIA
>Date: Sat, 27 Feb 1999 14:19:41 EST
>From: <THECODENY@...>
>To: D12M@...
>
>COMMUNITY FORUM:
>THE LEGAL RIGHT TO A PEOPLE'S MILITIA
>
>     ...But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing
>inevitably
>the same Object evinces a design to reduce them [the People] under
>absolute
>Despotism, it is their [the People's] right, it is their duty, to throw
>off
>such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security...
>    The Declaration of Independence of the United States
>
>A New York City Police Death Squad, executed Amadou Diallo.  It is not
>enough
>to shout "Enough.  Never Again!" We said this in 1973 when 10-year-old
>Clifford Glover was killed.  In 1979, when Randy Evans was murdered and
>Luis
>Baez was shot 22 times.  In 1984, when Eleanor Bumpurs was shotgunned to
>death.  In 1995 when Anthony Baez was choked to death.  In 1996 when
>Keshawn
>Watson was shot 24 times.  In 1997, when Abner Louima was tortured.  Yet
>with
>the Diallo execution many so-called leaders are still putting forward
>the same old solutions that have been proven useless in the past -
>"Pray.  March.  Beg for a federal investigation."
>Amadou Diallo was killed simply because he was Black.  And the position
>taken
>by Adolph Giuliani, the Commander-in-Chief of the New York City Police
>Department, is that his troops can do whatever they want in our
>community
>because we will not defend or protect ourselves.  It is for these
>reasons that the December 12th Movement is calling a community forum to
>discuss the legal right of the Black and Latino community to have a
>People's Militia.
>
>A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free
>State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be
>infringed.
>
>Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
>
> Our People's Militia would be a vehicle to educate, organize and
>mobilize our community to exercise our legal right to defend and protect
>ourselves from illegal police terror.  This right is well grounded in
>the United States' Declaration of Independence, its Constitution and
>throughout its history.
>Come to St. Mary's Episcopal Church (521 W. 126th Street, between
>Amsterdam
>Avenue and Broadway) on Monday, March 1, at 6:30 P.M. to discuss a new
>solution - the legal right to a People's Militia - to an old problem -
>police
>terror in the Black and Latino community.
>
>DECEMBER 12th MOVEMENT
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/historynotes
>Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com
>
>
>
>-----------------------------------------------------------------
>
>--
>View the full archives, subscribe/unsubscribe, use the
>group calendar at http://www.eGroups.com/list/historynotes
>Manage your subscriptions at http://eGroups.com
>
>Free e-mail groups by eGroups.com.
>
>

------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/historynotes
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

<-------------------------- enlarge screen to this width to read message
----------->

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Sanity break....
Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1999 15:48:19 -0500
From: "Rodney Cash" <Rodney_Cash@...>
To: historynotes@egroups.com



      So why is it so many Africans refuse to act and organize based on
the
essential points of this essay? Read "THE FALSIFICATION OF AFRICAN
CONSCIOUSNESS" by Amos Wilson, "REALITY REVOLUTION" by Kofi Addae
(Erriel Roberson), and "AFROCEN-TRICITY" by Molefi Asante.
  SOUL! PEACE! AND HAIRGREASE!


 Black History And Culture: The Basis For African Unity


------------------------------------------------------------------------


By Ron Daniels

  Malcolm X once said, "of all our studies, history is best qualified to
reward
our research." The examination and study of history as Malcolm saw it is
not
simply an esoteric exercise, It has a very practical purpose - studying
the past
  to discern the lessons necessary to plan and execute strategies for the
liberation of African people.

A knowledge of history and culture, therefore, is a vital ingredient in
the
formula for the rescue and restoration of the race. Carter G. Woodson
did not
conceive of Black History as the mere celebration of the accomplishments
of the
race. He saw knowledge of self and kind, history and culture, as
liberating
tools, which should inspire African people to seize control of our own
destiny.

One of the realities we need to face in terms of the study of Black
history,
however, is the fact that though there is an overarching African
worldview and
culture with elements which are common to all African people, there are
a
multiplicity of distinct ethnic and cultural sub-groupings which
comprise the
African family, the Black race. African people are as diverse and
distinct as
the indigenous nations, the Native Americans, who populate the United
States.

Like Africans, Native Americans share an overarching worldview and
culture,
however, the Cheyenne were often in conflict with the Sioux and the
Comanches
and the Apaches were often at odds with each other. The reason for this
is very
basic, ethnicity and a particular culture are more important, in terms
of
peoples allegiances, than skin color or generalized cultural
similarities alone.
  In the face of the European onslaught, Native Americans were seldom
able to
unite to fight the White invaders despite the commonality of their
overarching
worldview and culture.

Similarly, on the African continent ethnic differences were exploited as
a part
of the Europeans divide and conquer strategy. Different African ethnic
nations
were actually turned against each other as a part of the holocaust of
enslavement.

It is interesting to note, therefore, that the idea of Black unity, or
Pan-Africanism, arose out of the negative historical experiences that
African
people endured - the holocaust of enslavement and colonial domination at
the
hands of European imperialists. In North America, the victims of chattel
slavery
  (the most dehumanizing and destructive form of slavery in history)
began to
study history as a way of recapturing the identity and culture which the
European slave masters attempted to totally destroy.

A battered and humiliated people found within the glorious accounts of
their
past the basis for self esteem and the inspiration to struggle to build
new
African communities in this country. The concept of Pan-Africanism, the
idea
that all African people should work in solidarity to promote the
progress and
common destiny of all African people, was born in the diaspora among
Africans
who had been uprooted from their homeland and alienated from their
specific
ethnicities and cultures.

On the African continent, the multiplicity of African peoples soon
discovered
that their cultural and ethnic diversity was of little consequence to
the
European invaders whose primary objective was to exploit a seemingly
inexhaustible pool of free Black labor. Though the motive for the
enslavement of
  Africans was initially economic, theories of race and white supremacy
were
concocted to rationalize the horrendous human carnage in the greatest
holocaust
in human history.

When the trafficking in slaves was no longer the most efficient method
of
extracting profits, the European imperialists simply shifted strategies,
divided
  up the continent among themselves at the Congress of Berlin in 1884 and
established colonies as the new form of White domination.

It was out of this experience of slavery and colonialism that
continental
Africans also learned that to Europeans they were all Black people, an
inferior
race to be exploited for the benefit and development of Europe.
Ironically, it
was out of the ranks of the Africans who received a European education
and those
  who were permitted to play minor roles in the colonial administration
that the
opposition to White domination began to develop. As Amilcar Cabral
observed,
some among the petite bourgeoisie and intellectuals returned to the
"source,"
the strength of African culture and the African masses to mobilize
resistance to
  colonial domination. Concepts like Negritude, the African personality
and
African socialism emerged from an examination of the traditional way of
life of
African people and the glorious historical accomplishments of ancient
Africa and
  the great Sudanic Kingdoms.

Thus for diasporic and continental Africans, the negatives of slavery,
colonialism and other forms of White domination forced a recognition of
shared
commonalities within the framework of the African worldview and culture
- out of
  the negative was discovered the potential to forge positive, powerful
movements
  for the liberation of African people. Out of diversity, Africans found
the
foundation for African unity, cooperation and action.

Hence, the study of Black history and culture was decisive in creating a
growing
  consciousness of the common destiny of self and kind which sparked the
development of the Pan-African idea and the quest for the liberation of
African
people. The process of creating Pan-African unity is obviously an
unfulfilled
goal. As we face a new century and millennium, Black History and Culture
must
continue to serve as the basis for creating African unity.

Send your comments and suggestions to: comments@....

------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/historynotes
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

Thanks Calvin,
Deep Knowledge has a nice book selection and friendly site,,

They carry Runoko Rashidi's books as well.

FYI.. upcoming chat  3/6/99 4pm w/ Dr Muata Ashby,

Hotep

~RE Ausetkmt


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: LIVE CHAT with AUTHOR of "EGYPTIAN YOGA"
Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1999 09:16:28 -0800
From: Calvin Moree <calvin@...>
To: "'Historynotes@egroups.com'" <Historynotes@egroups.com>

*************** LIVE CHAT WITH AUTHOR OF "EGYPTIAN
YOGA"*******************
Talk live with Dr. Muata Ashby prolific author of over 20 books on the
Mystical Teachings of Ancient Africa at 4 PM EST, Sat. March 6, 1999.
His books reveal the
incredible power we have within and how our Ancient Ancestors developed
valuable
techniques over 7000 years ago for awakening that power!!!  Stay tuned
for upcoming LIVE
CHATS with Dr. Marimba Ani and Dr. Asa Hilliard as DeepKnowledge.com
brings deep knowledge
right to your PC.

Join DeepKnowledge.com today and verify your PC is ready for our CHAT
events. CHAT ROOMS are available 24 hours for you and your friends to
meet and discuss our
DEEP books.  Tell us who you want to CHAT with next!!!

  Surf to http://deepknowledge.com <http://deepknowledge.com/bn.cfm>
  right now and do an author search on "Ashby" to view all of our guest's
incredible works.

   Peace out!!!

------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/historynotes
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

Thanks Barbea,



-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: n a message dated 2/28/99 1:21:03 PM EST, ABraz43091
writes:
Date: Wed, 03 Mar 1999 12:40:47 +0000
From: Barbea Williams <dancebmw@...>
Organization: StarNet User
To: historynotes@egroups.com
References: <s6dbad96.091@...>

N.U.D.
You have probably never heard of "N.U.D."  With good reason.  It is
the acronym  for a very subtle and little known marketing term
specifically directed toward people of color.  NUD stands for Non
Urban Dictate.  Three words that essentially mean a company is not
interested in the Black Consumer. [A NUD label means that a company does
not want their marketing and advertising materials placed in media that
claim an urban audience as their main target.] There are legitimate
reasons for companies not using urban radio.  It may be that Blacks
don't index high in certain categories or that a company's strategy is
to market to the Black consumer down the road after they have
established a strong position in their primary target.  But a NUD
usually means that a company is not interested in the Black consumer.
Companies evade discrimination liability by embracing it as theory
rather than policy. As a service to Black consumers, the Urban Institute
will list all companies that have a NUD policy. Armed with this
information, we feel that Black consumers will be able to make informed
buying decisions.

[companies> with NUD:
Starbucks
Jos. A Bank
CompUSA
Weight Watchers
Keebler
Continental Airlines
Northwest Airlines
America West Airlines
Life Savers
HBO - Apollo Series
Paternal Importers
Calico Corners
OM Scott
Pepperidge Farms
Ethan Allen
Busy Body Fitness
Mondavi Wines
Builders Square
Don Pablo
Aruba Tourism
Lexus
Ciba Vision
Kindercare
Grady Restaurant
Eddie Bauer (Bower)

Please forward this information on to any other consumer that you
consider friend and advise them to do likewise.  Remember, we can't
act wisely unless we are informed wisely.
_______________________________________________
       V. JORDAN
VIRGINIA L. JORDAN, MSgt, USAFR
Chief, Information Management, 36 APS/CCQ
DSN 984-2944    DSN FAX 984-2802
email address: virginia.jordan@... >>

------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/historynotes
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: More reconSILLYation......
Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1999 08:07:04 -0500
From: "Rodney Cash" <Rodney_Cash@...>
To: historynotes@egroups.com



  Greaseman Hits the Road to Repentance

By Frank Ahrens
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 3, 1999; Page C01

Today, Doug "Greaseman" Tracht plans to put his Washington employment
future in
the hands of Rock Newman, the former boxing promoter and Marion Barry
confidant.
  The two have scheduled a noon news conference at which the deejay aims
to make
a public apology for the racist statement that got him fired from
WARW-FM last
week.

The unlikely pairing, and the media circus it promises, should make for
grand
theater right out of a Tom Wolfe novel. Magnanimous black race-healer
reaches
out to self-destructive white shock jock. Self-promotion meets
self-flagellation. Too bad this isn't a tabloid town.

It's clear why Tracht needs Newman: His imprimatur, and his street
credibility
among some segments of black Washington, could help defuse the anger
sparked by
Tracht's slur. Last Wednesday on Classic Rock 94.7, after playing a part
of a
song by black singer-songwriter Lauryn Hill, Tracht said, "No wonder
people drag
  them behind trucks" -- a reference to the torture and murder in Texas
of of a
black man, James Byrd Jr., by a white supremacist.

But why is Newman doing this? He knows that the association with Tracht
could
hurt him within the black community -- he has already received criticism
of the
alignment, and reports that the calls have run about "70-30 opposed."
Newman
said his niece left him a voice mail message yesterday morning saying,
"I read
it in the paper -- tell me it's not so."

It's partly about returning a favor, Newman said yesterday, and partly
about
trying to make something good come from something bad.

Newman met Tracht 10 years ago, when Newman was promoting former
heavyweight
boxing champ Riddick Bowe early in his career. Tracht gave the two air
time on
his morning show, which was then on DC-101, and also helped with a
community
project Newman was heading.

After he heard about Tracht's slur last week, and after his anger
abated, Newman
  said, curiosity got the better of him. He had to call Tracht to see if
he was
still the same man he once knew or if he had changed into a racist,
Newman said.
  Convinced that Tracht was suitably contrite, Newman said, he decided to
assemble the news conference, which is scheduled to take place at
National City
Christian Church on Thomas Circle downtown.

"Forgiveness has always been one of our better traits through the ages,"
Newman
said Monday night on WPGC, referring to the black community.

So Newman has a plan cooking. He has arranged for Tracht to embark on a
series
of very public atonements at which he plans to offer himself up to the
black
media. Today at 2 p.m., Tracht is scheduled to be grilled by former
Georgetown
basketball coach John Thompson on sports-talk WTEM (980 AM). At 4 p.m.,
he is to
  appear on Joe Madison's show on black-talk WOL (1450 AM). Madison hopes
to get
one of James Byrd's sisters on the phone with Tracht. Tonight at 11,
plans call
for Tracht to talk to Tavis Smiley on "BET Tonight."

"Part of the deal, if you will, is that the community he most offended
is the
one he should speak to first," Newman said. "He should subject himself
to
criticism that might come from those strongly opposed" to what he said.

Newman knows what the cynics are saying: What's Rock's cut? He responds
that his
  only role is as intercessor.

"If there was any possibility of any kind of remuneration of any kind, I
couldn't do it," Newman said. "That would pollute and compromise my
effort."

Tracht yesterday maintained his public silence.

Think of it as the beginning of the Greaseman's penance, a first step in
the
rebuilding of his career. Politically and culturally, Tracht must run
this
orchestrated gantlet and humbly, obsequiously receive his punishment if
he is to
  ever recover from his gaffe. And there's no guarantee he will. Jimmy
the Greek
and Al Campanis are largely remembered for less brutal, but very public,
racist
slurs.

Apology is not out of Tracht's character, say those who've worked with
him.
Despite his boundary-pushing on-air comic style, Tracht seemed almost
mystified
when he genuinely offended listeners, colleagues remembered. He tried to
convince complaining callers that he was "really an okay guy who never
meant to
hurt anyone," said one former co-worker.

Newman said he saw something of that within Tracht when he contacted him
last
weekend.

"I told him how outraged I was, how insulted I was," Newman said. "I
used some
words you can't print. I was paying close attention to his reaction. If
it had
been some sort of arrogant, condescending reaction, then I was prepared
to make
life more uncomfortable for him -- not that I had figured out how to do
that."

Instead, Newman said, Tracht appeared to be "very saddened by what
happened."

"So I asked him the question: Are you saddened by the fact that you lost
your
job or by the pain you caused?" Newman said, referring to Tracht's
approximately
  million-dollar annual contract. "He expressed some real feelings about
how he
felt about the pain that was caused and, frankly, in the midst of what
was a
half-hour conversation, he never ever mentioned the job."

Not everyone is convinced. WKYS morning man Russ Parr, who considers
Newman a
friend, said he doesn't endorse the idea of Tracht's planned public
penance.
"Rock is loved by a lot of people, but he's going to have to answer to
it," he
said. "Some people are going to have a little problem with this."

Meanwhile, things are still happening at Tracht's former station.
Several
employees of CBS Radio, which owns WARW, are doubly upset about the
incident --
first, that Tracht was not immediately fired for what he said (it took
the
station a day to cut him loose), and that the station's safeguards for
preventing such a remark from airing had not been used.

In radio, many deejays -- especially controversial ones, such as Tracht,
Howard
Stern and the duo of Don and Mike -- have their programs filtered
through a
delay device that allows station employees to keep off the air any
remarks that
violate FCC decency standards or otherwise are deemed especially
objectionable.
At WARW, according to reports, Tracht, his two producers and a backup
employee
had from seven to 10 seconds to keep the slur from going out over the
air.
Listeners, instead, would have heard what sounded like a record skip.

Craig Ashwood, now an on-air personality at Chancellor Media's WFOX in
Atlanta,
was at WARW from 1993 to 1998, where he was the program director and
later
served on the sales staff. CBS Radio, WARW's owner, required a company
manager
to man the "dump and delay" button during Tracht's show. For one year,
Ashwood
came in to work every morning at 5 during the week and listened to
Tracht's show
  while working, holding his finger near the dump button. In the course
of that
year, Ashwood said, he "dumped" Tracht about three times, all for
sexually
related comments.

According to CBS employees, neither Tracht nor his producers made an
attempt to
"dump" Tracht's slur and neither did the last gatekeeper -- a young
station
employee with little radio experience, who is not a CBS manager. Sources
said
WARW has collected all tapes of the offending show -- last Wednesday's
-- and
removed them from the studio.

WARW has forbidden station employees to speak with the media.

    <Picture>


© Copyright The Washington Post Company

------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/historynotes
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

F Y I...
~RE

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Fw: [AfricaWorld] Jobs for Youth -pass it on
Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1999 08:48:55 -0500
From: "Kwasi Akyeampong" <kwasi@...>
Reply-To: "Kwasi Akyeampong" <kwasi@...>
To: The Black List <TheBlackList@...>


-----Original Message-----
From: Michelle Onyeka Okoh <mokoh1@...>
To: Undisclosed recipients: ; <Undisclosed recipients: ;>
Date: Tuesday, March 02, 1999 5:57 PM
Subject: [AfricaWorld] Jobs for Youth -pass it on


>
>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>
>Subject: FW: Jobs for Youth -pass it on!
>
>-Y.E.S. to Jobs
>
>Minority Internship Program offers on-the-job training for youth!
>
>Y.E.S. (Youth Entertainment Summer) is offering 8-10 week summer jobs
> to qualified, minority, high-school students. The program places students
>in entry-level positions at record companies, music distribution and
> publishing companies, television and radio stations, entertainment
> retail stores, film companies, law firms, trade publications and other
>related businesses.
>
>The program is operating in Dallas, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los
> Angeles, Miami, Nashville, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco and
> Washington DC.
>
>It is open to 16-18 yr old high school students
>with a gpa of 2.5, a letter of recommendation, and a 90% attendance
>record in school.
>
> If interested, write for an application to the
>following:
>
> Y.E.S. to Jobs
> P.O. Box 3390
> Los Angeles, CA  90078-3390 or email:
>
>yestojobs@...
>
>Deadline is April 1, 1999
>(article found in The Dallas Examiner, 2/4/99 issue)
>
>eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/africaworld
>Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com
>

------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/historynotes
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Fwd: Report on "The Legal Right to a People's Militia" Meeting
Date: Mon, 8 Mar 1999 21:14:49 EST
From: THECODENY@...
To: The Black List <TheBlackList@...>
CC: abssa@...

  REPORT ON
  "THE LEGAL RIGHT TO A PEOPLE'S MILITIA"
HARLEM MEETING

         The cold-blooded murder of Amadou Diallo by a New York City
Police Department
Death Squad has prompted calls of "Enough" and "Never Again!"  The
responses
proffered by the so-called leadership - March, Pray, Vigil, Demonstrate,
More
Black police, Residency Requirements, Beg for Federal Intervention,
etc.  -
are familiar, tired and have been proven futile.  Generally, in cases
like
these, the ruling powers just wait out the anger of the masses,
confident that
once the emotional outbursts subside, there will be no sustained
pressure for
justice or fundamental change.  However, the outrage of the local,
national
and international community in this case has been so great and has so
far
maintained itself, that it is quite likely that the system will be
forced to
offer up a couple of these killers for trial and conviction on some
(probably
lesser) charge.  Well aware of the likelihood of that scenario, and
responding
to the demand of many people for a new approach to this seemingly
ageless
problem,  the December 12th Movement and the Malcolm X Commemoration
Committee
held a forum on March 1st on "The Legal Right to a People's Militia."
         The meeting, held at St. Mary's Episcopal Church in Harlem,
opened with an
introduction by Viola Plummer of the December 12th Movement who chaired
the
session and gave the historical and political background to this issue.
She
recited the many killings that had preceded the Diallo execution and the
many
ways the system had awarded impunity to police killers.  She noted that
the
problem was not simply in New York but was national in dimension.  She
set the
rules for the night.  The program was not a rally, nor was it to be a
recounting of horror stories.  It was to be a serious  discussion of a
serious
topic.  In addressing the fear that some people voiced around the
legality of
a people's militia, Viola referred to two historic US documents:
      ...But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing
inevitably
the same Object evinces a design to reduce them [the People] under
absolute
Despotism, it is their [the People's] right, it is their duty, to throw
off
such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security...
                                         The Declaration of Independence
of the United States
and
      A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free
State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be
infringed.
                                         Second Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution

         Plummer's introduction was followed by presentations by three
attorneys, -
Jomo Thomas and Roger Wareham of the December 12th Movement and Malik
Shabazz,
National Coordinator for the Million Youth March, who had come to New
York
from Washington, D.C. to attend the program.
         Thomas' presentation examined the history of the Second
Amendment to the
Constitution and the on-going contention between a decentralized
government
(States' rights) and a centralized one (Federal rights).   He looked at
the
opposing theories of "collective" versus "individual" rights which have
been
put forward to either restrict (collective rights) or expand (individual
rights) the notion of a militia.  He noted the almost total lack of US
Supreme
Court litigation on the Second Amendment.  He pointed out that the
government
and courts never incorporated the Second Amendment, as they did with
several
other amendments, through the 14th Amendment, to make it applicable to
the
states. This left the states with the right to regulate who could or
could not
bear arms. It left the state authorities, as well as those aided and
abetted
by them, with the power to terrorize, victimize and deny life-giving and
life-
preserving assistance to Blacks and Latinos, while freely giving it to
the
white majority. Examples were given from the period of slavery through
Reconstruction and Jim Crow into the current period.
         Roger Wareham, in addressing the right to bear arms, continued
by answering
the question left by Thomas' presentation - WHY? He began with the
observation
that the debate around the Second Amendment is, as with most issues in
the US,
colored by race and racism.  Wareham stated that the judicial neglect of
the
Second Amendment is/was tied to the historic fear which white people
had/have
of Black people arming themselves.  He noted that the first gun control
laws
were enacted for that explicit purpose. They did not apply to whites,
only to
Blacks.  The New York State laws on possession of rifles and/or shotguns
specify that weapons owners must: I) be of good moral character; ii)
have not
been convicted of a felony or serious offense. If those requirements are
satisfied, no permits or licenses are required, except in New York City
(which, not coincidentally, has the highest concentration of Blacks and
Latinos in New York State).  The New York law on militias exactly tracks
the
language of the Second Amendment, but it is  not part of the highest law
of
the state, i.e. the New York State Constitution, but of the civil rights
law.
         Wareham emphasized that the Second Amendment has two purposes:
(1) a vehicle
for popular participation in the security of the community; and, most
importantly for the situation facing the Black and Latino communities,
2) an
armed citizenry to prevent potential tyranny by a government empowered
by a
monopoly of force.
         White militias were not considered a problem by the government
as long as
they concentrated on attacking Blacks, Latinos, Native Americans and
Asians.
And, since white people were protected by the government, they did not
see the
need for a militia to prevent tyranny. But once members of  these
militias,
many of them disillusioned and embittered Vietnam veterans,  were
confronted
with the loss of their farms to agribusiness, with foreclosures and tax
forfeitures, they began to address the central government and the banks
as
their enemy.   When militias began to shoot law enforcement agents and
rob
banks, the government finally began to deal with them seriously.
         Wareham ended on the note that self-defense is a civil and human
right.
         Malik Shabazz reenforced the points made by Thomas and Wareham
and made the
important observation that the Washington, D.C. police force is all
Black and
Washington D.C. has the highest per capita murder rate in the country.
The
fact that they are Black does not stop the D.C. police from  killing
Black
civilians.  Shabazz talked about the situation in Jasper, Texas, where
three
whites had torn James Byrd's body apart.  He said that it is situations
like
these which made the formation of a New Black Panther Party necessary
and
announced that the Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia chapters of the
Million
Youth March Black Power Organizing Committees were re-forming themselves
into
chapters of the New Black Panther Party.
         The presentations were followed by questions and comments from
the audience
of some 100 people.  In response to a question, Thomas asserted that the
call
for a militia is a call for the masses of our community to have a stake
in the
security and protection of the community. It is not a call for the thugs
who
terrorize our community to be legally armed.  The overwhelming sentiment
was
in favor of forming of a militia. The key issue for people was its
legality.
Thus the discussion focussed on the fact that it is legal for people to
constitute themselves a militia.  And that Black people have a little
known
history of militias.  The Deacons for Defense in Louisiana were cited as
models of a militia which ensured the protection of Black people's
rights. On
the question of the right to bear arms, the participants stressed that
they
were not advocating that people get guns, but that they have a legal
right to
possess them under the US Constitution and the laws of New York State..
         In response to the demand of the audience, it was agreed that
the program
would be held in all the boroughs of the City. The founders of the
militia
would come from those who participated in the meetings.
         The final presentation was by Black Nationalist poet and
activist George
Edward Tait.  He cited a statement by former US Defense Secretary Caspar
Weinberger that you use violence to stop violence - that the possession
of and
willingness to use force is the most effective deterrent to another's
use of
force against you.  Tait's rendition of `his classic poem "The Black
Brigade"
drew a standing ovation and brought the program to an appropriate close.
         The next meeting will be held at 6:30 P.M. on Monday, March 15,
1999 at House
of the Lord Church, 415 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn.



------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/historynotes
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

Subject: Report on 1st Prep Meeting for World Conference on Racism -Next
Meeting March 13
    Date: sat, 6 Mar 1999 22:28:14 EST
    From: RWare10709@...
       To:AICT1@..., D12M@...
       CC:Svwysw@...



To All Those Interested in Human Rights:

         On Saturday, February 13th, the December 12th Movement
International
Secretariat and the International Association Against Torture hosted the
first
of a series of meetings to help community-based organizations and other
NGOs
(non-governmental organizations) prepare for and make input to the UN
World
Conference on Racism.  The Conference is scheduled to be held in 2001.
The
meeting was very successful and the participants agreed to continue the
work.

The next meeting will be on SATURDAY, MARCH 13th, from 11 am to 3 pm  in
the
GALLERY of the ADAM CLAYTON POWELL, JR., STATE OFFICE BUILDING, AT 163
W.
125th STREET.  All are invited.  We will take the results from these two
meetings to the Commission on Human Rights session which begins on March
22nd
in Geneva, Switzerland.  For more information, contact:
         December 12th Movement
         E-Mail  D12M@...
         Telephone:  (718) 398-1766
         Fax:  (718) 623-1855

         International Association Against Torture
         E-Mail:    AICT1@...
         Telephone:  (212) 234-7788
         Fax:   (212) 678-2548

Following is an excellent account of the first meeting, written by a
young
Black journalist named Charles Brooks.

Subject:        UN World Conference on Racism by Charles Brooks


Racism and discrimination which is firmly rooted in the pasture of an
overwhelming political, cultural, social and economic landscape of
America
continues to oppress and simultaneously violate the human rights of
African-Americans as well as non-white peoples.  Before his tragic death
in
1965, Malcolm X articulated the need for Blacks to migrate from a civil
rights
or domestic approach, on the question of racism, to a higher plane of
human
rights in the international arena.  It was his goal to bring  before the
politicos of the United Nations the issue of genocide and racism while
charging the US of violating the human rights of Blacks residing within
its
own borders. Roger Wareham of the December 12th Movement International
Secretariat tells Final Call, "Since 1989, through our involvement in
the
United Nations, in the human rights arena and with the Organization of
African
Unity (OAU), we've tried to continue the legacy of Malcolm, the absolute
necessity for us to place our struggle in the international arena.  If
we are
to progress, we can't keep it within the confines set by the people who
oppress us."

The December 12th Movement International Secretariat and the
International
Association against Torture, as non-government organizations (NGO),
hosted the
first Pre-Preparation meetings held at the United Nations Church Center
in the
UN Plaza to strategically prepare for the UN Global Conference on Racism
to
take place by 2001 at an undetermined location. Mr. Wareham, as
moderator for
the meeting explained the importance of the role played by non
government
organizations in preparations for Global conferences sponsored by the
United
Nations by stating that NGO's are not tied to the government and they
are able
to raise issues which the politics of the world can sometimes prevent
countries from raising.

Meanwhile, when the United Nations Commissioner of Human Rights
announced in
April 1997 that a Global Conference is to take place no later than 2001,
the
US as well as the industrialized nations of France and England
vehemently
opposed the idea apparently out of fear of being exposed for their
continued
practices of racism within their borders, according to the
representatives
from the December 12th Movement International Secretariat and the
International Association against Torture.  Carlos Aranaja, press
officer of
the US mission to the United Nations, told the Final Call that it is the
general position of the US to oppose UN global conferences. "The US
views the
UN has having too many conferences than is needed.  The conference may
not
have the desired effect and becomes a forum of opinions with no
results," says
Mr. Aranaja.

The pre-preparatory meeting was called to get a head start on the
preparation
and participation for input at the World Conference of Racism. This
conference
is vital, in particular to Africans in America and throughout the
Diaspora is
a crucial because it attempts to address the issue of the Trans-Atlantic
slave
trade as the key factor of the distribution of Africans throughout the
Diaspora as well as the economic underpinnings of racism.  "If we don't
safeguard our interests, in terms of the issues crucial to our own
existence,
then nobody else will," says Mr. Wareham.  Viola Plummer, International
Association against Torture adds, "We want the World Conference to
acknowledge
the economic roots (of racism) as the world begins to absolve itself
through
an economic resolution (reparations).  Ms. Plummer continues, "It is our
position that the masses of people of color should share the wealth they
currently produce but more importantly, the wealth which created the
current
economic giants which continue to exist today."  Ms. Plummer stressed
the
economic basis of racism as opposed to the pathological or psychological
perspective of racism that tends to dominate dialogues of racism in
America
and globally.

The pre-prep meetings were open to the public while the December 12th
Movement
International Secretariat and the International Association against
Torture
sought to present their data within a grassroot framework before the
community, "if this conference is to be meaningful to our struggle, then
those
of us who have been the victims of the longest sustained assault on a
people's
humanity in history must give it leadership and direction."  The
meetings
addressed the goals and objectives of the World Conference, reparations,
the
formulation of a dialectical strategy to counter efforts which threaten
to
dilute the racism issue and the numerous tendencies of racism and how
they
manifest domestically and globally as well. This was accomplished by
their
providing a wealth of evidence which documents the thriving tendencies
of
racism within the social, political and economic context of America.
The
audience witnessed presentations from NGO representatives on police
brutality, prison industrial complex, immigration and deportations,
exploitation of labor and wage discrimination especially in the Third
World, slavery and the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and its impact on
weakening Africa's infrastructuredue to a disastrous loss of labor, self
determination and political development.  Additionally, they facilitated
dialogue on immigration and deportation , environmental racism, and the
gross inequalities between the Blacks and whites in housing, wages and
unemployment. "I wanted to be a part of this discussion so, for me, it
was very interesting.  We need to look at this and make our people
understand that this situation of racism continues  all over the world,"
  says, Pohemba Shifeta of Namibia.



------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/historynotes
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

Please submit questions directly to Karl@...

I know I've got my list ready,


How about You Spartacus R ?
Can you give us any more information on the murder investigation
concerning that Black Youth from Brixton about 5 years ago, which
was in the papers alot recently due to the Family's civil lawsuit
against the police, if I remember correctly.

Peace,
~RE

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: The Police, The Black Community and The Way Forward.
Date: 9 Mar 1999 00:25:54 -0000
From: Karl@...
To: The Black List <TheBlackList@...>

Dear Kwasi Akyeampong,

The Assistant Commissioner Denis O'Connor, of the Metropolitan Police
Service has invited Blacknet UK to an open discussion forum with the
Director of the Racial and Violent Crimes Task Force, Deputy Assistant
Commissioner John Grieve.  This will take place at New Scotland Yard on
Thursday 18 March 1999; to discuss the issues raised in the MacPherson
Report.

They are particularly interested in the impact this has had on the
Police and London's Black Communities, and the way forward to increase
the Black Communities' confidence in policing.

We are asking our (Blacknet) E-mail members to reply to this message
with  any suggestions and/or comments that we may put forward at the
discussion, so as to make it clear to them what it is that we as a
community would like to see put in place in order for us to have any
respect or faith in the Metropolitan Police Service.

We ask that you take the above seriously and respond accordingly, as we
now have the opportunity to gain the respect we rightly deserve as human
beings, and black people, in Britain

Many Thanks
Karl Anthony  Blacknet UK


______________________________________________________________________
To unsubscribe, write to TheBlackList-unsubscribe@...



------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/historynotes
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

************************************
REality's - R U M O R  C O N T R O L
************************************

This is posted mainly for your info..
Biggest Thanks Barbea, and You too Swami..

Peace,

~RE


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Update on Internet "rumor" 3/99
Date: Tue, 09 Mar 1999 09:27:21 +0000
From: Barbea Williams <dancebmw@...>
Organization: StarNet User

Everyone,

This update information just came back to me from Congressman Pastor's
office.

Barbea

Herrera, M wrote:
>
> Barbea,
> There are no plans within Congress to impose an internet fee.  Unfortunately
this "rumor" has everyone in a frenzy.  As of recently, there are no plans or
legislations for such a fee.  Any questions...you may call me.
> E. Mari Herrera
> 624-9986
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Barbea Williams [mailto:dancebmw@...]
> Sent: Monday, March 08, 1999 4:37 AM
> To: Harold Campbell; Jennifer Baker; John Taylor; Liz Burden; Herrera,
> M; Maria Barbosa; Patricia Morris; Poovi; Runoko Rashidi; Sarah
> Marshall; Stephen M. Hardy; Talena Hardin; Terra Smith
> Subject: Re: FW: Please Read
>
> THIS IS IMPORTANT TO ALL THAT USE THE INTERNET.
>
> The House has a bill set up for a vote ASAP on whether to charge
> long distance charges for Internet access even if you dial-up locally.
> This is something that affects each of us. Please read and forward:
>
> Congress will be voting in less than two weeks. CNN stated that the
> Government would, in two weeks time, decide to allow or not allow  a
> charge to your phone bill equal to a Long Distance call EACH time
> you access the Internet.
>
> The address is http://www.house.gov/writerep/
>
> If you choose, visit the address above and fill out the necessary form!
>
> If EACH one of us, forwards this message on to others in a  hurry,
> we may be able to prevent this injustice from happening!
> PLEASE,  PASS THIS ON!
>
> Thank you,
>
> Al

-----------------------------------------------------------
(From Swami Gyankirti 3/9/99)

May Peace Be With You

In the interest of fairness I feel people need to know about this.

Perhaps this should be sent to every list possible.

Long Distance Tax for Local Login Users:

To all E-mailers,

The House has a bill set up for a vote ASAP on whether to charge long
distance charges for Internet access even if you dial-up locally.

This is something that affects each of us. Please read and forward:

Congress will be voting in less than two weeks. CNN stated that the
Government would, in two weeks time, decide to allow or not allow a
charge to your phone bill equal to a Long Distance call EACH time you
access
the Internet.

The address is http://www.house.gov/writerep/

If you choose, visit the address above and fill out the necessary form!

If EACH one of us, forwards this message on to others in a hurry, we
may be able to prevent this injustice from happening!

PLEASE PASS THIS ON!!!

--

LOVE ALWAYS


Swami Gyankirti

LOVE<>SERVICE<>SURRENDER
=========================
http://www.medissage.org/Swami/


-----------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/historynotes
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

So Where'd they get the High Powered Weapons from in the
first place ?
yeah right.. sounds kinda fishy to me.

~RE

----------------------------------

11:50 AM ET 03/03/99


  35 Said Dead in Papua New Guinea
            PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea (AP) _ Clan fighting in Papua
New
  Guinea has left 35 people dead and dozens injured, a newspaper
  reported Wednesday.
            Police said 23 people have died in recent fighting in the
  Eastern Highlands province between 10 clans in the Okapa district,
  while another 12 deaths had been reported between two clans in
  Kainantu.
            Police attributed the high number of casualties in the South
  Pacific nation to the use of military weapons, including hand
  grenades, a rocket launcher and high-powered rifles, The Nation
  newspaper reported.
            In the past, fighters living in the jungle highlands of Papua
  New Guinea have used traditional weapons, such as bows and arrows
  and stone axes.
            Police said the fighting between villages in the Okapa
district
  started years ago and a peace treaty was due to be signed early
  last month. However, fighting broke out again when one of the
  warring groups allegedly abducted a young girl and a pregnant
  mother.
            Police Chief Inspector Edward Kinamun, from the Eastern
  Highlands capital of Goroka, said the weapons used by rival groups
  in the latest killings may have been stolen from the Papua New
  Guinea Defense Force.
            Kinamun said the clans were ignoring police efforts to stop
the
  fighting.
            ``They are heavily armed so they do not fear or respect us at
  all,'' he said.

--

REality Ausetkmt
  <"http://welcome.to/RealTruth/">

"Live Patiently in the world; know that those who hate you
  are more numerous than those who love you" {african proverb}

------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/historynotes
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

F Y I  Smithsonian Unveils African Project:

I'd surely like to see this one..
I went to the African Galleries at the Smithsonian
last year and I found alot of interesting things
housed there, some given minimal catalog information
and very little geographic or tribal information.

I'll put this on my list of must see's for the Millenium

Peace,

~RE

-------------------------------


01:06 PM ET 03/03/99

  Smithsonian Unveils African Project
  By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID=
  Associated Press Writer


            WASHINGTON (AP) _ ``You will walk through time in Africa ...
  from the beginnings of the human experience to the present,'' says
  Sulayman S. Nyang, lead developer of a new Smithsonian exhibit on
  the second largest continent.
            The Hall of African History and Culture is scheduled to open
in
  Dec. 15, seven years after the National Museum of Natural History
  closed its antiquated exhibit on Africa.
            ``Throughout the exhibition, visitors will find personal
  accounts from contemporary interviews and literary works, as well
  as cultural voices from proverbs, prayers, folk tales, songs and
  oral epics,'' said Natural History Museum Director Robert Fri.
            Thousands of people participated during the years the new
  exhibit was under development, Nyang said, providing answers to the
  question: ``What do Africans want to tell Americans about what it
  means to be African?''
            The main focus of the $5.5 million project is a permanent
6,500
  square foot Hall of African History and Culture. It's in the same
  general area as the old African hall, which was criticized for
  generalities and inaccuracies.
            ``This exhibition is going to present Africa in a new light
  based on the most recent scholarship,'' said Nyang, a native of
  Gambia who is a professor at Howard University in Washington. ``We
  have avoided all the booby traps of generalization.''
            In addition to the exhibit hall, there will be an Internet
  connection available where people can study the exhibit from afar
  and learn more detail than can be presented at the museum itself.
  And the exhibit will be kept up to date with continuing
  performances, seminars, lectures and program changes.
            The continent's geography includes deserts, savanna,
seaports,
  jungle and tropical forests as well as huge cities. The exhibit
  underscores the cultural and linguistic diversity of those living
  there, Nyang said. Africa has 54 nations, hundreds of languages and
  thousands cultures, he said.
            The exhibit will begin, as did humankind, with the early
  hominids of Africa's Olduvai Gorge.
            The hall will include looks at the Nile cultures of Egypt and
  Nubia, the great Mali empire, the Almoravids of North Africa who
  fused African and Islamic culture and invaded Spain and Portugal,
  the rise of the slave trade and history in the making in South
  Africa today.
            The African Diaspora, the wide scattering of people through
the
  world, is depicted, with a section quoting the words of Olaudah
  Equiano, who was enslaved in what is now Nigeria and sold to a
  British Royal Navy officer. In 1789, he wrote a book about his
  experiences.
            Other galleries include:
            _Kongo Crossroads, which focuses on people in the continent's
  center who often go to crossroads _ places of possibility _ to
  invoke their ancestors' blessings for success.
            _Market Crossroads, which recreates the bustle of shopping in
  Accra, Ghana, including the voices of Comfort Kwachi, a yam vendor,
  and Adjoa Mintah, seller of housewares.
            _Work and the Environment Gallery, which looks at the daily
life
  of the Bamana, the farming people of Mali; the techniques of
  African potters and Masai herders in Tanzania.

--

REality Ausetkmt
  <"http://welcome.to/RealTruth/">

"Live Patiently in the world; know that those who hate you
  are more numerous than those who love you" {african proverb}

------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/historynotes
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

I think Derr got his "Just Desserts"..
Just like Sweet Willie Brown.

~RE Ausetkmt

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Reuters on Sweet Revenge
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 1999 21:50:41 -0500
From: Steve Kretzmann <steve@...>
Reply-To: steve@...
To: Multiple recipients of list SHELL-NIGERIA-ACTION
<shell-nigeria-action@...>

California pie-tossers cream CEO of Chevron


SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California's renegade band of political pie
tossers struck again Wednesday, creaming the chairman of oil giant
Chevron Corp. as he arrived at a local school to deliver a speech.


Witnesses said four members of the self-proclaimed ``Biotic Baking
Brigade'' (BBB) swooped down on Chevron CEO Ken Derr and hit him with
several pies as he arrived at a San Francisco high school to talk to
students about careers in engineering.


``He went ahead with his talk, he took it well,'' Chevron spokesman Mike
Libbey told Reuters. ``That's not to say we don't take it seriously.
Executive security is very important to us.'' He added that the pies did
not hit Derr in the face, but some pie got on his jacket.

The assailants, two men and two women, fled the scene after hurling the
pies -- made of tofu and tofu cream with blueberry.

A BBB member who identified himself as ``Agent Salmonberry'' told
Reuters later that the pie attack on Derr was intended to draw publicity
to Chevron's operations in Nigeria, where the ethnic Ogoni group and
environmental activists have accused foreign oil companies of degrading
their ancestral land and polluting fragile ecosystems.

Chevron has operations in Nigeria, but has said it does not operate on
Ogoni land.

``It is really disturbing that unless it's on our soil, the mass media
don't think its worthwhile to cover,'' Agent Salmonberry said.


Three BBB activists were sentenced to six months in jail last month for
hitting San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown with cherry, pumpkin and tofu
pies in a November 1998 attack aimed at highlighting the plight of the
homeless.

The judge in the case, which provoked a spirited public debate in San
Francisco over the limits of free expression and the meaning of
political theater, levied the maximum possible sentence for a
misdemeanor battery charge after the pie throwers declined probation.


The Biotic Baking Brigade has hit several prominent people in recent
months, including the executive director of the Sierra Club, a Nobel
prize-winning economist and the director general of the World Trade
Organization.

REUTERS


Steve Kretzmann
Project Underground
www.moles.org

"We have decided to unite in our desire to live, and
therefore we have begun to convince an elder spirit to protect Ruira
(oil) to take care of our Kera Chicara (sacred land) and to save us all
from the final destruction when instead of water we'll drink oil, when
the earth will have been completely bled dry and the heart, in which our
people live, doesn't beat anymore, and when we will no longer be there
singing and dancing to the sound of those heartbeats"

-U'wa Pueblo, August 1998

------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/historynotes
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [BRC-NEWS] International Tribunal on Africa
Date: Thu, 11 Mar 1999 04:05:55 -0800 (PST)
From: ILC <theorganizer@...>
To: brc-news@...

Report from the Preparatory Meeting of the Africa Tribunal
Johannesburg, South Africa
February 27-28, 1999

By Ralph Schoenman

One year ago in Bingerville, Ivory Coast, a conference was organized
jointly by the Gas and Electrical Workers Federation (SYNASEG) of Ivory
Coast and the International Liaison Committee for a Workers
International
(ILC) to discuss the necessity for an International Tribunal to Judge
Those Responsible for the Murderous Course Imposed on the Workers and
Peoples of Africa.

Following one year of discussions with trade unions and mass
organizations
on the continent of Africa, the ILC, on behalf of affiliated unions and
organizations in 92 countries, supported the initiative of African trade
union federations to hold a Preparatory Conference in Johannesburg,
South
Africa. Leaders of the Black movement in Brazil and worker activists
from
the United States, Europe and from political parties and mass
organizations in Africa joined in the preparatory work in Johannesburg
of
the International Tribunal on Africa.

The Preparatory Conference was hosted by the Socialist Party of Azania,
whose 15 delegates took responsibility for organizing the multiple tasks
of the Conference, including extensive meetings with television, radio
and
print media.

For two days, 60 delegates brought documents and provided testimony
addressing the devastating impact on the peoples of the continent of
Africa of the policies of structural adjustment, austerity and the
destruction of social services imposed by the International Monetary
Fund
and the World Bank

Epidemic disease, the destruction of any systemized provision of health
care, the rapid pauperization of tens of millions of people and the
calculated promotion of internecine violence and war have created a
virtual holocaust of famine, mass migration, besieged refugee
populations
and a generalized augmentation of Aids, Ebola and systemic diseases. Up
to
40 million people are expected to die.

Noting that over US$30 billion annually service a debt to the banks and
corporations which have seized the natural wealth of the continent, the
delegates reported on the impact of these policies: life expectancy on
the
continent has decreased by 20 years and over 4 million children die
annually from treatable diseases such as measles, diarrhea and malaria.

The Preparatory Conference examined carefully two legislative proposals
in
the United States concerning the African continent: the Africa Trade and
Development Act (also called the "NAFTA for Africa Bill") and the Hope
for
Africa Act, introduced by Jesse Jackson, Jr. Following the discussion,
the
conference delegates issued an "Open Letter to African Americans and All
Working People in the United States" in which they expressed their views
and concerns about both these bills. [See Open Letter below.]

Extensively covered by radio and television in South Africa, the Press
Conference concluding the conference was the lead television story. News
and television reports were continuous in Xhosa, Sutho, Zulu, English
and
Afrikaans.

An important feature of the Johannesburg meeting was the unanimous
adoption of a resolution based on the call of the Labor Action Committee
to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal -- a resolution that was endorsed by the ILC and
its international affiliates. The trade union delegates and
representatives of political organizations, ranging from the Peoples
Convention Party of Ghana to the Socialist Party of Azania, undertook to
call upon their organizations to prepare rallies, meetings, and
mobilizations in defense of Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Trade Union delegates will prepare vigils and communiques directed to
their respective U.S. Embassies calling for a new trial and for the
freedom of Mumia.

The Sowetan, which has a circulation of close to two million, has
scheduled feature stories on the international campaign to free Mumia
and
the special responsibility of African movements against apartheid and
injustice to mobilize in his defense.

Trade Union delegates from Azania, Swaziland, Comoros, Mozambique,
Rwanda,
Burundi, Niger, Benin, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Ghana and
Algeria undertook to coordinate their efforts with U.S. participants in
the work of the Africa Tribunal through the Labor Action Committee to
Free
Mumia Abu-Jamal.

The decision was taken to send a delegation from the Africa Tribunal
Preparatory Committee to the United States to meet African-American and
worker activists for the purpose of collaborating in the work of the
Tribunal and in concrete actions in Africa to build mass action in
defense
of Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Ralph Schoenman was asked to coordinate these efforts and to prepare the
work of the visiting delegation of the Africa Tribunal to the United
States.


[Ralph Schoenman is the past executive director of the Bertrand Russell
Peace Foundation. He is currently the U.S. representative of the
Paris-based International Committee Against Repression. He is the author
of numerous books, including "Hidden History of Zionism" and
"Iraq:Kuwait:
A History Suppressed." He is a regular contributor to The Organizer
newspaper.]

*************************************************************************

OPEN LETTER TO AFRICAN AMERICANS AND
ALL WORKING PEOPLE IN THE UNITED STATES

28 February 1999

Note: Activists and trade union delegates from throughout Africa, joined
by participants from Europe, the U.S. and Brazil, conferred recently for
three days in Johannesburg, South Africa at the Preparatory Conference
of
the International Tribunal to judge those responsible for the murderous
course which menaces the very existence of the peoples of Africa. The
delegates issued the following statement:


We, the sponsors and organizers of the Africa Tribunal, have examined
legislative proposals in the United States concerning the African
continent concerning the African continent.

We note that The Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (HR434), called "The
NAFTA for Africa Bill," has re-emerged as "The Africa Trade and
Development Act."

This Act requires African nations to submit to the economic and
political
dictates of the International Monetary Fund. Under the Act, before any
investment can occur in an African country, its government must be
certified annually by the United States President.

The requirements for certification are full compliance with United
States-designed economic measures which go beyond those imposed by the
IMF
in Russia, Latin America and Asia, with catastrophic results.

To qualify, every government on the African continent must:

_ Reduce dramatically all taxes on corporations, foreign or domestic;

_ Undertake immediate, sweeping privatization of public assets and
public
   services -- whether in transportation, communication, medical care or
   major industry;

_ Open up most areas of the economy to ownership and control by foreign
   conglomerates;

_ Permit unrestricted access of foreign corporations to natural
resources,
   including agriculture, land and minerals;

_ Adopt agricultural policies that replace food production with cash
crops
   sought by foreign corporations for the commodities market.


When NAFTA was first proposed, the Clinton administration presented it
as
an Act designed to expand the economies of the United States, Canada and
Mexico based on unrestricted "trade" and a market economy.

We may judge the results:

In but five years, over a half-million jobs have been lost in the United
States and nearly one million jobs have disappeared in Mexico. Temporary
and part-time work in the United States accounts for over 50 percent of
employment -- without benefits or pensions.

Wages in Mexico have fallen by 50 percent and the peasant cooperatives
--
the "ejidos" -- a principal gain of the Mexican revolution -- have been
eliminated, driving millions of peasants into the cities as a desperate
reserve army of labor. The system of Maquiladoras and "free trade zones"
have spread throughout Mexico, where the formation of independent trade
unions is a matter of life and death and where the labor laws of Mexico
are not enforced.

We are aware that President Clinton's proposal produced widespread
opposition among trade unionists and Black activists.  We know that
workers in the United States and especially African American activists
reject these plans to plunder and oppress the people of Africa.

We have learned that other legislation has been prepared which has been
presented as a humane alternative, "The Hope for Africa Act."

In this document we read that the Act refers to "comprehensive
cancellation of the debt," a position with which, of course, we agree.
Over 20 percent of African GNP services the debt -- a debt already
repaid
many times over. Compound interest weighs down every country with even
greater obligation than that already repaid.

Upon reading further, however, we see in the same document, "The Hope
for
Africa Act," that the phrase "debt relief" replaces that of
"cancellation
of debt." In addition, future debt payments are not to be cancelled but
are allowed to reach five percent annually of export earnings.

Other parts of the Act refer to "a transition through debt relief," a
clear retreat from the promise of "cancellation." The issue is thus
posed:
"debt relief" or "reduction" is not the same as "cancellation."  In
fact,
"debt relief" means that the debt will continue.

Let us look further: In promoting the Act, Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr.
cites favorably President Clinton's State of the Union Address calling
for
a "fairer trading system for the twenty-first century and for common
ground on which business, workers, environmentalists, farmers and
governments can stand together."

We ask, however, if the call for corporations and workers to share
common
ground is not precisely the corporatist agenda embodied in NAFTA?

Trade unions are expected to assume responsibility for corporate profit
and to participate in the assault upon worker living standards.

In essence, the independence of trade unions is to be compromised
fatally
as they are called upon to police workers on behalf of the bosses,
dissolving the ability of workers to defend their wages, benefits and
all
the gains of past struggles.

We believe this becomes very clear when we see that "The Hope for Africa
Act" allocates responsibility for investment in Africa to the Overseas
Private Investment Corporation of the United States government and to
the
Export-Import Bank of the U.S. Treasury.

These two institutions subsidize U.S. corporations and their investments
overseas. We must further note that "The Hope for Africa Act" calls for
"Decisional Boards" governing investment in Africa which "shall have
majority private sector membership."

In short, corporations will determine how, where and when funds are
invested.

The Act also dictates that all U.S. funds must be "dispensed through
non-governmental organizations in each nation in consultation with a
broad
spectrum of African civil society."

The responsibilities of NGOs and African civil society in each African
country include:

_ Educational systems
_ Healthcare
_ AIDS prevention and treatment
_ Democratization
_ Food Security
_ Environmental measures
_ Social, political and economic status of women


We raise the following concerns:

NGOs are responsible to no one. They are unelected and need not even
originate in the African country over which they exercise such major
social, economic and political hegemony.

In essence, the Act replaces the governments of Africa with NGOs from
afar
and with "civil society" at home with respect to major social, economic
and political decisions.

What is left to governments is the right to police and subjugate their
people. Civil society becomes a euphemism for control of social policy
by
private organizations, unelected and outside the control of the people
over whom they exercise this power.

Virtually all NGOs are private groups and those organizations comprising
civil society are invariably funded by large private sources. This means
that Africa's peoples are unable to enjoy democracy and the right to
make
their own decisions concerning the future of society. None of us --
African trade unionists and activists -- can accept this, even as we are
convinced that none among you would agree either.

We also should like to point out that the Act allows foreign
corporations
to "operate with the same labor and environment standards as they do in
their home countries."

The Act refers to "core ILO standards." This term is a retreat from the
original ILO codes that ban child labor, protect job security and
guarantee the right to independent trade union representation -- none of
which exists in the United States.

The Act designates OPIC and USAID to oversee investments, but these
agencies work under the guidance of U.S. corporations in deciding
whether
projects should be funded.

Sixty-one private NGOs in Africa, who aspire to assume responsibility
for
funding social and public service, support the Act.

The death of missions of children in Africa from epidemic disease and
lack
of basic medication is a social responsibility, divorced under the Act
from governments and assigned to private organizations.

AIDS and Ebola, which have claimed as many as 40 million people,
represent
a vast tragedy whose presumptive remedy is put in the hands of NGOs
answerable to the U.S. "private sector."

For us these principles are inviolable:

1. Absolute cancellation of the debt.

2. Outright rejection of all plans for structural adjustment.

3. Opposition to all schemes for privatization.

4. Respect for the principle of the right of all peoples and nations to
    exercise full control over their destinies.

5. Immediate removal of all foreign military bases from the continent of
    Africa, noting that these bases serve as organizing centers and
launching
    points for repression and for preserving oppressive regimes
subservient
    to international finance capital.


We join here in the demand posed by broad sectors of African, African
American and international workers organizations for reparations.
Reparations can only begin to mitigate the devastating consequences of
centuries of slavery, plunder of natural resources and massive
exploitation of human labor.

The political, economic and social system responsible for these policies
and acts which have led to the death and misery of hundreds of millions
of
people must be held accountable for the human suffering its has caused.

We know that many sincere people are seeking how best to remedy the
suffering of vast millions on the African continent. It is precisely to
address this tragedy that the Africa Tribunal has been convened. We ask
you to join us in uncovering what has occurred, why it is happening, who
is responsible and how this painful reality may be transformed.

Neither the people of Africa nor any government that purports to
represent
them is allowed any significant control by the two Acts before Congress
with regard to life and death matters for the continent of Africa.
Please
join with us in seeking the truth about which policies have produced
exploitation and subjugation of entire peoples on this suffering
continent.

This is why we consider it essential to meet face to face and to discuss
these compelling issues with African American workers and activists, and
with the labor movement. We seek to involve you in support of the
African
people in their determined struggle for a better life.

The Continuations Committee of this Preparatory Session of the Africa
Tribunal has decided to send a delegation to the United States to meet
all
those interested and to open a discussion on these issues.

We urge you to join us in this essential work of preparation for the
International Tribunal on Africa and look forward to hearing from you
regarding it.


Signed by more than 60 delegates including:

24 members of the Socialist Party of Azania including its president,
Lybon
Mbasa; Jane Duncan Salim Vally, Workers Organization for Socialist
Action
(WOSA); Hassen Lorgut, Workers Library and Museum, Johannesburg; Zsan
Senan, SYNASFG, Benin; Claude Quenum, SG/UNACOB/CSTB, Benin; Jeff
Rampou,
MEGWU;  Reg Feldman and Barrie Barrow, New Unity Movement; Richard
Tiendrebeogo and Gaston Azova, CGT Burkina Faso; Paul Nkunzisana,
F.O.R.T.R.A. Burundi; ); Boinaidi Abdul el Ghaniyou, National Union of
Professors, Comoros Islands; Zran Senan, SYNASFG, Ivory Coast; Vicente
Vilaninfo, Mozambique;  Sidibe Assane, Federation of Workers Unions,
Niger; Jean Marie Vianney Nzarakurana, Oppressed People's Organizations
Network, Rwanda; Kote Abou, trade unionist, Senegal; Norbert Gbikpi
Benissan, National Union of Independent Trade Unions of Togo (UNSIT);
Esther Woode, Zimbabwe; Francois Grandazzi, general secretary, CGT-FO
France; Daniel Gluckstein, coordinator, International Liaison Ctte for a
Workers International (ILC); Ralph Schoenman, ILC-United States who had
been the secretary general of the Bertrand Russell Tribunal on U.S. War
Crimes in Indo-China and a president of the International Tribunal on
the
Debt; Mathari Annegret, Committee to Support the Africa Tribunal,
Switzerland;  three delegates from Brazil (Bahia, Porto Allegre and Rio
de
Janiero)

*****

NOTE: For a copy of the final declaration of the Johannesburg
Preparatory
Meeting (International Tribunal on Africa), please contact us at
<theorganizer@...>.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
BRC-NEWS: Black Radical Congress - International
News/Alerts/Announcements
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subscribe: Email "subscribe brc-news" to <majordomo@...>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/historynotes
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

Subject: Bill Seen as a Threat to [Afrikan] Countries' Sovereignty
Date: Thu, 11 Mar 1999 09:20:04 -0800
From: Calvin Moree <calvin@...>
To: "'Historynotes@egroups.com'"

Dr. Clarke admonished us to not let them "take Africa again!"  Read on
to start to understand how the effort us underway.  Please forward to
others.  Courtesy of http://DeepKnowledge.com.   This information and
more can be found at http://www.citizen.org/pctrade/Africa/finalfac3.htm
<http://www.citizen.org/pctrade/Africa/finalfac3.htm> .

Bill Seen as a Threat to Countries' Sovereignty

The following have written to members of the United States Senate urging
modifications to the Crane-Lugar initiatives on Africa--H.R. 1432 and
S.778 respectively:  Dr. Mary Frances Berry, Congressman John Conyers,
Congressman Danny Davis, Hon. Ronald V. Dellums, Danny Glover, Earl G.
Graves, Jr., Donna Brown Guillaume, Robert Guillaume, Hon. Richard G.
Hatcher, Hon. A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr., Congressman Jesse L. Jackson
Jr., Coretta Scott King
Dorothy Lavelle, Edward Lewis, Reverend Joseph Lowery, William Lucy, Gay
McDougall, Senator Carol Moseley-Braun, Walter Mosley, Prof. Charles J.
Ogletree, Jr., Randall Robinson, Congressman Bobby Rush, Dr. Jane E.
Smith, Congressman Louis Stokes, Reverend Leon Sullivan, Susan Taylor,
Prof. Ron Walters, Prof. Cornel West.

Text of the Letter

Dear Senator:

To date, there has been enormous confusion about the Crane-Lugar bill on
sub-Sahara Africa that narrowly passed the House as H.R. 1432 on March
11, 1998. We have opposed the bill in its current form because it poses
significant threats to Africa's long term interests in sustainable
economic development and
democracy-building.

Indeed, South African President Nelson Mandela publicly announced his
opposition to the sub-Sahara Africa bill on the same grounds during
President Clinton's recent state visit to South Africa.

Like many Members of the U.S. Congress, we are eager for the United
States to pass legislation that would benefit Africa. However, our
strenuous efforts in the House to remove the many offensive provisions
from the bill were rejected. In the end, the House vote split the
Congressional Black Caucus. Many respected Africa advocacy organizations
and scholars, such as TransAfrica, Association of Concerned African
Scholars, Third World Network's Africa Trade Working group (comprised of
representatives from 25 African nations), the U.S. Coalition of Black
Trade Unionists, the University of Maryland's Ron Walters and numerous
church, anti-hunger groups and labor unions oppose the bill. At the same
time, many individuals and organizations with whom we
normally agree on Africa issues supported the bill.

The bill now heads to the Senate as S.778. We would like to work on
building a consensus among African-American leaders and others concerned
about Africa in support of necessary amendments to at least neutralize
the worst elements of the bill. As well, considering that this will be
the Africa Bill in Congress for a long while to come, we must ensure
that vital missing elements are added.

Under the cover of an appealing name and non-binding preamble, the
Lugar-Crane bill contains numerous provisions mainly aimed at
benefitting large foreign private investors and multi-national
corporations at the expense of true and equitable African development.
As South African Deputy President Thabo Mbeki noted during the Clinton
visit, the bill would impose strict new conditions on African countries
while setting no rules for American companies interested in investing in
Africa and would increase the relative power of multinational
corporations over African governments. Indeed, analysis of the bill's
specific provisions shows that it would assault the sovereignty of
African countries in ways not present in our country's dealing with
other nations.

Absent significant changes, the bill would inflict on Africa the worst
terms of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the
Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) and the harsh International
Monetary Fund (IMF) structural adjustment program.

1. No New Conditions for Maintaining Existing Trade and Aid Benefits

Under the bill's Section 4, African countries would be singled out for
annual certification of compliance with a long list of new conditions by
the President of the United States in order to continue to obtain
existing Generalized System of Preference (GSP) trade benefits and
perhaps even existing aid. (GSP is an existing U.S. trade program
providing special market access at favorable terms for developing
countries)


The new conditions required in the bill would impose a "trickle down"
economic model on Africa based on broad privatizations of government
assets through
divestiture, cuts in domestic spending and corporate taxes, and the
granting of new rights to foreign investors to acquire African natural
resources and other assets without limitation, including those which are
required to be privatized by external "experts". As noted below, this
model which is typified by the IMF's structural adjustment program, has
caused significant harm in many African countries. Currently, only
African countries seeking loans from the IMF must comply with such harsh
strictures. This Lugar-Crane bill would make this onerous treatment a
new condition of all U.S. trade relations with only Africa among the
nations of the world. For instance, Section 9(e) of the bill actually
amends the 1974 Trade Act to require that only sub-Saharan African
countries must meet the new conditions in Section 4 of the bill to in
order to continue GSP status.

Proposed Amendments: Section 4 must be amended so that any new
conditions established in the bill only apply to new benefits created in
the bill and specifically are not applied to existing trade or aid
programs. As well, section 9(e) of the bill specifically amending the
1974 Trade Act must be eliminated altogether.

2. No Imposition of an Economic Model that Could Damage Africa

The bill sets forth nearly two dozen conditions which African countries
must meet. While some of the economic and social policies mandated in
this list might be
appropriate for some African countries, the bill incredibly seeks to
impose all of the conditions on all African countries.

These conditions can be summarized in three categories:

      o Compliance with IMF rules requiring reorganization of domestic
economic and social policies including cuts in domestic spending and
corporate tax
      rates, and broad privatization through divestiture. Indeed,
specific conditions set forth in the bill include "material compliance
with" IMF terms.

      o Compliance with World Trade Organization rules, including (a)
deep tariff cuts, (b) systematic removal of import restrictions and
subsidies including
      those relating to agriculture and food, © opening of service
sectors (communications, transportation, banking) to allow unlimited
foreign acquisitions
      while limiting government regulation, and (d) the imposition of
U.S.-style monopoly patent and other intellectual property rules. The
bill specifically
      requires African countries to join the WTO and to immediately,
unilaterally bind tariff and other trade terms to WTO standards in the
interim.

      o Adoption of currency and investment deregulations, including
establishing new rights for foreign investors to establish ownership
over Africa's natural
      resources and land, and for treatment of such foreign investors
equal to treatment of local African businesses. These terms replicate
the provisions of
      the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, a proposed investment
treaty which the U.S. has just refused to sign on the grounds that it is
invasive of
      sovereignty and would require changes in too many existing U.S.
federal and state laws.

These requirements were not developed de novo for this bill, although
they have never been imposed all together on any nation or region. There
is ample evidence of the negative results of such policies when they
have been imposed piecemeal in the past. For instance, the World Bank
(1) reports that countries in Africa following IMF structural adjustment
policies have had slower growth in agricultural production than
countries which are not adhering to IMF structural adjustment. Numerous
studies have also documented cuts in economic growth, education and
health care for countries strictly complying with IMF terms.

Many African countries have found that substantial public investment in
education, health care and infrastructure-building is essential to
building the foundation for vigorous economic development. As well,
technical assistance, low interest loans and subsidies have worked well
in supporting domestic food security in many Africa countries. A
poignant example of the threat of the IMF model is Ghana, which like
Uganda, has been touted as a poster child for the success of IMF
structural adjustment programs. Yet nearly half of Ghanaians live below
the poverty line. Half of all deaths in recent years have been of
children under five years old, even though children under 5 only
constitute a fifth of the population (2). Under IMF requirements to
limit domestic spending, public spending on health, education and
agriculture in Ghana have been falling. In particular, the share of the
health budget spent on the poor has fallen. In 1990, Ghana's total per
capita spending on health care was barely half of the average for
sub-Saharan Africa. Public spending on agriculture fell from 3.9% of the
budget in 1990 to 1.4% in 1996.

The Lugar-Crane bill not only requires IMF compliance but also
specifically requires cuts in domestic spending and cuts in the
corporate taxes that countries around the world use to fund essential
public services. We hear continually about how the future of the
American economy relies on improved education. Yet, the Lugar-Crane bill
would deny such vital public investments in Africa. Already, over 44
million children in Africa are not in primary school. Africa is the only
developing region in which school attendance rates are declining. Many
reports document that a major factor in the erosion of education is the
collapse of public investment. For instance, in Zambia, which under IMF
pressure to cut government expenditure, the national budget for
education fell from 13.4% of total spending in 1985 to 9.1% in 1992.
High registration fees at health centers have discouraged their use,
leading to a decline in immunizations for measles, whooping cough,
diphtheria, and tuberculosis. These are all diseases which have now
resurfaced as major killers in Zambia.

In Senegal, under the IMF structural adjustment program, the government
has cut education expenditures. Yet 67% of Senegalese adults and 77% of
women were illiterate in 1995. Health care expenditures have also fallen
under structural adjustment. In 1990, the government spent 2.3% of GDP
on health care while the WHO recommends at least 9%. In 1988, 52% of
women were receiving no prenatal care, and maternal mortality was 750
per 100,000 live births. By 1993, this figure had risen to 1,200 per
100,000.

The IMF's economic remodeling has also thwarted economic growth in many
African countries. For instance, unemployment and child labor have
increased under structural adjustment in Senegal. Unemployment in Dakar
rose from 25% in 1991 to 44% in 1996 as Senegal implemented the IMF's
requirements.

IMF structural adjustment also has undermined the position of poor
farmers in Africa. In Zambia, IMF-supported policies restricted the
access of poor farmers to
credit for production and marketing. Withdrawal of state marketing
agencies has exposed poor farmers to exploitation by large traders.
Thus, for example, in the
Eastern Province farmers working with Oxfam lost income because of the
low prices paid by intermediaries despite the fact that retail prices
for maize and other
food staples had increased nationally. In 1994, the Zambian Catholic
Commission for Justice and Peace reported that poor farmers were
bartering cereals for
groceries at "ridiculously low prices," and cited the exchange of 15kg
of maize for soap worth a quarter as much.

As well, the harsh social impact of such wrenching economic and social
requirements has been reviewed closely in a Danish government study (3).
The study
identified IMF-World Bank programs as a key factor of "decisive
importance" contributing in Rwanda to the deterioration in ethnic
relations which preceded the
genocide of more than half a million people starting in April 1994, and
faulted the IMF for "overlooking these potentially explosive political
consequences when
designing and imposing their economic conditions." The IMF played a
similar role in Yugoslavia prior to the violent breakup of that country
and subsequent ethnic
war.

Meanwhile, the Lugar-Crane bill additionally requires WTO membership and
compliance with WTO trade liberalization. Yet, many African countries
have not joined the WTO after the Organization for Economic Development
and Cooperation (OECD,) which is a WTO supporter, reported that
sub-Sahara Africa would be the losing region under WTO rules (4). The
report documented that net food-importing countries would be hurt by WTO
rules requiring cuts in domestic agriculture subsidies and eliminating
market safeguards to protect staple food commodities. As well, the OECD
reported that the WTO's tariff escalation (higher tariffs on finished
products and lower tariffs on raw natural resources) would undermine
development of diversified economies with value-added processing
industries. The concentration of nations with both criteria is in
sub-Saharan Africa.

Indeed, there is a grim record in Africa of increased hunger following
food trade liberalization and agricultural subsidy cuts, although
already 40% of Africans suffer from hunger or malnutrition. For
instance, in Senegal numerous government programs supporting farmers
were eliminated. Now few farmers can afford agricultural inputs, and the
programs that do exist are geared towards exports, such as groundnuts.
Production of basic food crops for local consumption, such as
vegetables, corn, and millet, has suffered, and food security has been
thereby undermined. In 1990, 33 percent of the population was classified
as hungry. By 1992, this figure had increased to 40%. In 1996, the
Senegalese Ministry of Planning estimated that 22% of children suffered
from chronic malnutrition. The same outcomes have been suffered in
Tanzania after similar agriculture restructuring. Tanzania also cut
agricultural subsidies and liberalized trade. The World Bank reports
that infant mortality, nutrition, and primary school enrollment are
"stagnant or worse, compared to the level of the 1970s or early 1980s,"
prior to these changes. As in Senegal, these policies have increased the
price of agricultural inputs. Between 1989 and 1992, price increases of
fertilizers ranged from 183% to 412%. Meanwhile producer prices have
fallen. From 1985 to 1991, producer prices for maize fell 30%, for
cassava 32%, for sorghum and millet 40%. 1996 Tanzania faced a severe
food shortage, due in part to the removal of subsidies on fertilizers.
Currently, over 40% of all Tanzanian children under 5 years of age have
stunted growth and 90 out of 1000 children born in the country die
before their first birthday (5).

The WTO also mandates countries to establish and enforce monopoly-style
intellectual property rules. The Lugar-Crane bill additionally repeats
this requirement in a separate conditionality provision. Under such
rules, a sole inventor of a medicine or technology is allowed exclusive
control of its use, including setting its price, for 15-plus years. Yet,
neither the United States nor Europe complied with such rules now
imposed on developing countries because it would have shut their
citizens away from access to important medical and technological
innovations. Indeed, until the 1994 NAFTA, Canada maintained a system of
compulsory licensing of necessary pharmaceuticals to ensure access for
poor consumers. Such policies are now in place in many African and Latin
American countries. Yet, during the President's recent Africa trip, the
U.S. Commerce and Trade agencies threatened South Africa, already a WTO
member, with trade sanctions allowed under the WTO if South Africa's
Minister of Health continued her policy of selecting primary
pharmaceuticals for which prices were controlled and generic copies were
allowed into commerce.

Finally, the Lugar-Crane bill would require African governments to cede
their ability to shape foreign investment to best suit their broad
public interests. Among these MAI-like requirements are to provide
systematic "national treatment" and new establishment rights for foreign
investors. National treatment means requiring identical treatment for
foreign investors and business as is given locals. Yet, many African
countries' land reform programs are explicitly based on recognizing the
differences between large foreign corporations and small farmers, with
land redistribution specifically aimed at local farmers.

Moreover, every developing nation has found it necessary to shape
investment with rules that expand national industrial, communications,
financial and transportation capacity. Such policies, which were
numerous in the development of our own country, remain in many sectors
including U.S. laws limiting foreign ownership of communications
services, certain national security-related industries and, in many
states, farm land and mining and timber concessions. Yet, the
Lugar-Crane bill would promote the purchase (perhaps at firesale prices
given that rapid divestiture is required) of African natural resources,
production capacity and service providers by a handful of immense
foreign corporations. We must avoid the continent-wide sell off of
Africa's mineral wealth to foreign investors when the results will
simply mirror, for example, Maurice Templesman's Zairian diamond mines
or Shell's brutal control of Nigeria's Ogoniland. It would be cynical
indeed if the terms of this legislation promoted the replacement of the
governmental colonialism Africa fought to escape with economic
colonialism of equally strangling dimensions. Indeed, some African
economists, writing in the journal Third World Economics, specifically
have labeled the Crane bill as an instrument of recolonization.

Proposed Amendments: In order to encourage economic and political
reform, avoid unacceptable infringement on the sovereignty of the
affected
states and to avoid severe socio-economic repercussions, two levels of
amendment are necessary.

First, the introductory language of section 4 must be changed to state
that African countries are not required to meet all of the underlying
obligations and that the listed economic and social policies are
recommendations, not binding conditionalities. Second, some of the
specific
provisions of section 4 (a) and (b), must be deleted including the
requirements for: material compliance with programs of and obligations
to
International Monetary Fund; active pursuit of WTO membership, binding
of tariffs to WTO levels and assumption of other meaningful binding
obligations; reduction of corporate taxes and reduction of government
consumption; national treatment and new establishment rights for foreign
investors; and privatization of government-controlled assets through
divestiture programs.

Finally, binding human rights, food security, labor, environmental, and
other public interest policies should be added to GSP and U.S. aid
qualification as entitling countries to additional benefits. (Currently,
the limited reference in the Lugar-Crane bill to education, public
health or
food security are non-binding.)

3. The NAFTA Model Has Been Rejected As Failed. It Should Not Be Imposed
on Africa.

Just last fall, the United States Congress entered into a lengthy debate
about the merits of providing "fast track" trade authority to expand
NAFTA to Latin America and Asia. By a large margin, Congress rejected
this trade model in light of NAFTA's negative real-life outcomes and the
fast track request was withdrawn. Yet the Lugar-Crane bill provides
congressional authority for the President to negotiate and enter into a
U.S.-Sub-Saharan Africa Free Trade Area modeled on the NAFTA. Why
inflict this rejected model on Africa?

In only four years of NAFTA, 28,000 small and medium sized Mexican
businesses have collapsed. Under NAFTA, over one million Mexican peasant
families have become unemployed, in part by NAFTA's agricultural
provisions which removed Mexico's previous safeguards against dumping of
subsidized U.S. grain imports. In four years of NAFTA, the percentage of
"extremely poor" Mexicans rose from 30% to 51%.

Proposed Amendment: Section 7 of the bill establishing a U.S.-sub-Sahara
Free Trade Area modeled on NAFTA without binding labor, environmental,
human rights standards or other public interest provisions must be
eliminated. When the U.S. national debate on a new negotiating
authority that balances social, labor and environmental objectives with
trade goals is resolved, Africa should be among the regions included in
this
more constructive trade agenda.

4. Ensuring New U.S. Market Access Benefits African Workers and
entrepreneurs

The Lugar-Crane bill provides for new duty-free, quota free access to
the U.S. market for textile and apparel goods shipped from Africa.
Unfortunately, these
provisions are written in a manner that fails to ensure that any new
investment occurs in Africa or that African workers are actually
employed. Under the bill's terms, goods transshipped through Africa but
produced in a third country, such as China, would obtain the new
benefits. Attempts to remedy this transshipment problem were also
rejected by the bill's House sponsors. Indeed, the problem is so
enormous that the textile industry--the source for new African
investment capital on which the bill relies--vehemently opposes the
bill. The American Textile Manufacturers Institute (ATMI) reaffirmed
their opposition to the Lugar-Crane bill with a unanimous vote at their
March 26, 1998 board meeting. ATMI views the bill as means for massive
transshipment through Africa from China rather than as presenting them
with new African investment opportunities.

Not only would these provisions chill investment in the very sector the
bill targets, but they could flood African countries with cheap
transshipped goods. For
instance, many of Zambia's textile factories have been closed since the
IMF required Zambia to open its markets to such imports, which led to
widespread
unemployment. Average unemployment in Zambia now exceeds 20%.

Moreover, the bill's provisions would provide preferential treatment to
textile and apparel goods produced by workers imported into Africa from
third countries.
Human rights advocates have raised the possibility that the bill's easy
access without African worker rules could promote the establishment of
new indentured Asian worker camps in Africa like those in the Northern
Mariana Islands. Indeed, Mauritius has seen its African unemployment
rate shoot upward as Chinese and Vietnamese workers, willing to accept
starvation wages have been imported to staff the island nation's
burgeoning textile and apparel industry.

Finally, to the extent that the bill's stated intent is to shift away
from a focus on aid and towards private enterprise and trade, African
countries must be given greater access to the U.S. market and African
entrepreneurs must be given the assistance necessary to establish new
African businesses. A much more significant trade benefit would be to
provide quota and tariff free market access for products listed under
the Lome Convention, including bananas, in which the U.S. is not a
competing producer. (The Lome Convention is a treaty between African,
Pacific and Caribbean former European colonies and Europe which provides
for preferential market access for a set list of tropical products,
minerals and other goods. The list of goods covered by Lome would be a
useful key for African goods entitled to enjoy new U.S. market access.)

The Lugar-Crane bill provides significant funding under the USAID
program for African countries' to obtain technical assistance in
complying with the bill's new
conditionalities and for U.S. corporations interested in investing in
Africa. What is missing are resources for technical support for micro
loans, and loan guarantees for African entrepreneurs to foster
independent African economic development.

Proposed Amendments:

To ensure investment in textile and apparel manufacturing in Africa:
Section 8 of the bill must be amended to add: comprehensive provisions
banning transshipment through Africa, duty and quota-free, of goods
manufactured in third countries such as China; the requirement that
goods
must contain 60 percent African value-added to obtain duty-free,
quota-free market access; the requirement that companies must have 55%
African
ownership and African workers must comprise at least 90% of those
employed in plants producing textiles and apparel to obtain duty-free,
quota-free
treatment. As well, to ensure African workers share in the benefits of
additional investment, labor standards, including a ban on indentured,
forced
or child labor must be added to this section.

To provide additional U.S. market access, section 8(e) must be added to
establish quota and tariff free market access for products listed under
the
Lome Convention, including bananas, in which the U.S. is not a competing
producer.

To shift some USAID funds to African entrepreneurs the following
amendments are required: Change section 5(a) to make promotion of
micro-credit loans and small indigenous African enterprises as a goal of
future USAID funds; change the definition in section 10(c)(1) to focus
on
small U.S. and African businesses and entrepreneurs, and change (c)2 to
provide technical assistance and funding to small African entrepreneurs.

5. Binding Debt Relief Provisions Must Be Added

Capital outflows or debt repayment from Africa exceed capital inflows in
aid and other forms of assistance. Indeed, debt service takes more than
80% of Africa's
export earnings, and is rising (6). Yet, the only reference in the
Lugar-Crane bill to debt reduction/relief is contained in a non-binding
"sense of the Congress"
provision. Indeed, even this hortatory language refers to the benefits
of debt relief for countries that meet the bill's harsh
conditionalities.

If this bill passes, it is likely to be the only Africa bill for many
years.

Failure to address Africa's crushing debt burden belies any serious
attempt to establish a mutually beneficial partnership with Africa.

Proposed Amendment: Change the provision referencing the merits of debt
relief/reduction: 1) by inserting binding provisions committing the U.S.
to forgive direct U.S. debt obligations and 2) to require the U.S. to
exercise its vote on multilateral lending institutions to require those
organizations to do the same.

6. Locking in annual aid funding for Africa.

The Lugar-Crane bill neither restores targeted funding to revive the
Development Fund for Africa nor establishes a new line item for Africa
aid. Since the attack on the Development Fund for Africa in 1996,
African aid funding must be scraped out annually from discretionary
funds. The U.S. Congress must repair this.

Proposed Amendment: A few textual amendments to the current Lugar-Crane
Section 5(b) would reestablish the line-item funding for the Development
Fund for
Africa. An additional sentence must be added to stress the importance of
continued and increased aid to Africa, which now receives approximately
$1.25 per capita in U.S. assistance per year.

                                                              ***

The sub-Sahara Africa bill's House proponents rejected the changes
listed in this memo. Most of these proposals were simply ruled out of
order in the House Rules Committee when offered as amendments and were
not even allowed to be debated. The few amendments that were ruled in
order were mainly defeated under the leadership of the bill's House
sponsors. Significantly, lead sponsor Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) led the
battle on the floor against Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL) and Rep. George
Miller's (D-CA) amendment forbidding new market access to products made
in Africa using indentured or forced labor. The stance of the House
sponsors emphasizes the problems awaiting the bill in conference even if
the Senate allows the amendments recommended in this letter.

The Lugar-Crane bill as written would have an irreversible impact on
Africa and the aspirations of its people for self-governance and
economic well-being. Its
current emphasis is to promote non-labor intensive economic development
that primarily benefits multi-national corporations and is for the
purpose of exports. Any Africa Trade bill designed to benefit African
economic development must emphasize labor-intensive economic development
and must have African domestic consumption as its current priority. The
Senate must move to dramatically strengthen the pro-development,
pro-Africa dimensions of S.778.

Finally, the Lugar-Crane initiative represents a unique opportunity for
the United States to facilitate and support viable economic linkages
between the
African-American business community in this country and its counterpart
in Africa. African-American entrepreneurs, physicians, accountants,
lawyers, negotiators, brokers, and other professionals are amply
qualified and uniquely equipped to join with relevant professionals and
entities on the African continent and must be full participants in any
US/Africa partnership promised by this initiative.

An economically strong and politically stable Africa would serve the
interests not only of the inhabitants of that continent. Such mutually
beneficial economic ventures would open as yet untapped opportunities
for social, cultural, and intellectual collaboration and exchange. It is
our belief that the changes to the Lugar-Crane bill suggested in this
letter will begin moving us in this direction.

A bad bill on Africa is worse than no bill at all.

Sincerely,

(Signatories listed on page 1.)

1. Adjustment in Africa: Reform, Results and the Road Ahead, Washington:
World Bank, 1994, cited in A Case for Reform: Fifty Years of the IMF and
the World Bank, Oxfam, 1995, p. 15.

2. Ghana Human Development Report, 1997.

3. Steering Committee of the Joint Evaluation of Emergency Assistance to
Rwanda, The International Response to Conflict and Genocide: Lessons
from the Rwanda Experience, March
1996.

4. OECD-World Bank, "Trade Liberalisation: Global Economic
Implications," 1993, ISBN 92-64-13962-1.

5. Ross Hammond, in association with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of
Tanzania, "The Impact of IMF Structural Adjustment Policies on Tanzanian
Agriculture," in Friends of the
Earth and Development Gap, On the Wrong Track: A Summary Assessment of
IMF Interventions in Selected Countries, January 1998.

6. Carol Thompson, "Africa Economic Development," in Global Focus: A New
Foreign Policy Agenda 1997-1998, Interhemispheric Resource Center Press,
1997.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/historynotes
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

F Y I..

~RE Ausetkmt


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: THE LAGOS KILLINGS: A PRESS STATEMENT
Date: Sun, 14 Mar 1999 08:29:14 -0500
From: disera@...
Reply-To: disera@...
To: Multiple recipients of list SHELL-NIGERIA-ACTION
<shell-nigeria-action@...>

Please see below a press statement issued by a Yoruba
self-determination group on the recent killings in Lagos. Just like its
respose to our struggle in the Niger Delta, the state is again
resorting to war and terror at a time the world is being led to believe
that we are becoming a democracy by May 29.
Doifie Ola, The Pan-Niger Delta Resistance Movement, CHIKOKO, Yenagoa,
Niger Delta, Nigeria
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------
OODU'A YOUTH MOVEMENT
24, Jebba, Ebute Metta West,
off Apapa Road, Lagos

OUR DAY SHALL COME

BEING TEXT OF PRESS CONFERENCE OF THE OODU'A YOUTH MOVEMENT [OYM] HELD
ON THURSDAY, 11TH MARCH 1999 AT NO 8, IMARIA STREET, ANTHONY VILLAGE,
LAGOS

Gentlemen and Ladies of the Press,

We of the Oodu'a Youth Movement and our friends and brothers welcome
you to this press conference which has been called in the light of a
renewed, vicious, total and premeditated agenda of genocide against
Yoruba people.

A superficial appraisal of the events of the last fortnight would
merely suggest a crackdown on an urban-based terrorist organisation.
However, such an appraisal does not involve an intelligent
understanding of what is going on especially the substantive agenda of
a clearly political offensive cleverly disguised as a law-and-order
response.

For instance, only last Thursday, March 4, 1999, an attempt was made to
assassinate the Coordinator of Oodu'a Youth Movement, Mr. Abiodun
Aremu. At about 10.00 p.m., not less than twenty sedans and jeeps
filled with Operation Sweep men besieged his street, surrounded his
house on No. 10 Oladosu Sanusi Street, Mushin and invaded his
apartment. Their mission was evident in their utterances, and in the
sheer magnitude of violence unleashed o Mr. Aremu's household,
including his wife3 who is still receiving treatment for aggravated
provocateurs planted shock and under close monitoring on account of an
eight-month-old pregnancy. They had come to exterminate him.

Not finding him at home, they proceeded on a vandalization blitz
directed at hid household furniture, wedding photographs, momentoes and
souvenirs, clothings, children's toys, library and electronic gadgets,
including a computer system and photocopier. Not on eitem was left
undestroyed and not one member of his household escaped the battery of
the invading party which was armed with matchets, hammers, traditional
daggers, charms and amulets apart from their automatic rifles.

Although the Police and political leadership of Lagos State and Nigeria
have not admitted, there is an ongoing sustained security operation
aimed at physically eliminating leaders and activists of Yoruba-based
groups clamouring for restructuring and for addressing the distributive
imperfections in the polity. In order words, killer squads are visiting
not just members of Oodu'a Peoples Congress (OPC) but leaders of other
groups who are not involved in the series of confrontations into which
the Police had drawn the OPC. The case of Mr. Aremu is one strong
evidence that those of us in the self-determination cannot afford to
ignore.

We use this opportunity to restate that Mr. Aremu is neither a member
nor leader of OPC. He belongs to the Oodu'a Youth Movement, a fact well
known to the Lagos State Police Command whose head is coordinating this
renewed clampdown. In the last five years of the OYM, its leadership
has issued several documents and has cause to enter into correspondence
with the Police and other arm of government. In essence, the Police or
government could not have had problem distinguishing OYM from OPC.

We might take liberty to stress that there is a multiplicity of efforts
similar to OPC. There are as many Yoruba groups proclaiming
self-determination as are many perspectives on, and dimensions, to
self-determination. Our is made up of youth  particularly from the
professions (law, journalism, human rights advocacy); trade union
movement, student movement but including grassroots cadres as well. It
derived from a profound conclusion (reached after years of reflection
over a diverse pool of political experience spanning all social
movements) that:

i Military rule and militarism are not ethically neutral frameworks of
repression. The preponderance of officers of core  Northern extraction
in the distribution of strategic command appointments in the services
makes military rule an exclusive organ of furthering Hausa-Fulani
interests. This is evident in the preponderant advantage of the North
in political leadership, creation of states and local governments,
citing of infrastructure, headship of executive organs boards, panels,
etc., citing and re-location of institutions, (law school, military
units). But the most dramatic illustration of the utility of the
military as a Northern Military was the annulment of the June 12, 1993
election won by Bashorun Moshood Abiola.

ii The political structure of the polity is liable to manipulation and
has been manipulated  by Northern elites in the contest for access to
effective political power. It has also wiped  off all the pioneering
gains made through responsible, far-sighted and welfarist use of the
regional system by the Yoruba, in the process, creating an
homogenisation of under-development and backwardness in the face of
colossal natural endowments. Thus, the Nigerian formation is
essentially a facilitator of unproductive accumulation and is,
therefore, anti-development.

Our position is that the structure needs to be comprehensively
restructured to ensure devolution of power to enable each nationality
or coalition of nationalities to  prosecute development programmes.
This is not a recipe for breaking the country. Indeed, we believe that
the Yoruba have contributed so much to the Nigerian project and would
be the last to clamour for its disintegration. However, if it must
remain as a single polity, it must be sustained on just terms.

Other self-determination groups are basically cultural, insisting on
promotion of cultural symbols, ethics, belief systems, fashion and
entertainment that edify the Yoruba essence.

The OPC and the Current State Offensive

OPC, as far we are concerned, has a legitimate right to exist as an
organisation. Its programmes are known to the world, propagated through
press releases, involvement in coalitions, outdoor programmes, etc. Its
leaders are not encamped in military camps in rural Western Nigeria.
They are known and operate openly, running OPC programmes or relating
with other similar groups. And we dare say that no Nigerian has had any
cause to complain that OPC has assaulted him or her or impaired his or
her business.

The demonization of the body can be traced to the state. Through the
utterances of public officials, security operations and harassment of
its members, the state has sought to de-legitimise its agenda and
ultimately to destroy it. But we have never had any illusion that what
is being rubbished is the idea of self-determination which it
represents.

Beyond that, it must be clear by now that the group's resort to
self-defence is a legitimate response in the face of the programme of
extermination of the state. This programme is now very familiar as it
has been enacted in various ways and at various times including:

7 take over of Western  Region's Government in the 1960s and the
hounding into jail  of key Yoruba leaders, including Chief Obafemi
Awolowo,

7 Genocide unleashed on the Tiv and other nationalities of the Middle
Belt also in the 1960s,

7 The civil war through which the Igbos were mercilessly killed  in
their millions and their subsequent exclusion from the mainstream of
politics, the armed forces, state holdens, diplomatic service, etc.,

7 The assaults on Yoruba in the 1990s through the assassination of
Kudirat and M.K.O. Abiola, jailing of General Obasanjo, Diya,
Olarewaju, Adisa, etc., harassment of Chief Ajasin, attempt to snuff
life out of Chief Abraham Adesanya, detention of key Yoruba elements,
etc.

The issue, therefore, is not to condemn the methods of OPC but to
wonder whether the group had any option in the circumstance other than
to defend its members. For instance, liberating illegally detained
people from police cells, concentration camps may be inevitable if the
state blocks all chances of peacefully negotiating their release  or
allowing the court process to adjudicate. The breakdown of the whole
procedure of treating detainees and the premeditated resort of the
state to murder should be blamed for the  whole escalation of the
problem.

Beyond that, there has been extensive use of agents provocateurs
planted by the police and other security agencies within all structures
of OPC. Their operational brief has been to subvert the peaceful
approach of OPC in order to give it a profile of a terrorist platform.
Such agents also stir and escalate internal wranglings in order to
present the group as a thuggish, unorganised, uncoordinated and badly
focused one.

This strategy is at the root of the decidedly political intervention of
the police in the seeming internal crisis that has been played up in
the last two weeks. As a matter of fact, the police organised a press
conference for 'one faction' of OPC and caused a massive denunciation
of the body as mindlessly and incurably terrorist. Apparently, the
police were looking for additional justification for its homicidal
agenda.

We wish to call for restraint on the part of the public and especially
other Yoruba groups. The issue is not to condemn the OPC nor what is
often wrongly and arrogantly phrased as its 'violent methods'.  As far
as we are concerned the real issues are:

7 the right to organise and associate, including to hold public
meetings, assembly, etc.,

* the right to self-determination

We hasten to add that all Nigerians must not be denied the right to
take measures to defend himself or  herself when in danger of being
exterminated by a band of terrorists masquerading as public authority
and law enforcers. Self preservation is a basic human instinct about
which nothing can be done.

  We wish to inform that the extermination of OPC members and members of
similar group by the State is continuing. All kinds of dimensions are
also coming into the sad picture. For instance, persons with Yoruba
traditional facial marks have become targets of stop-and-strip
operations by the police and Operation Sweep. Worse still, persons with
scars of surgical incisions known as 'gbere' in Yoruba are also
targets. In fact, many innocent citizens have been harassed and
brutalised merely on that score. This brazen cultural assault is also
reprehensible. Incision is a surgical procedure with scientifically
valid prophylactic and
therapeutic utility. It must never become a cause to be marked out as a
terrorist.

Equally  unsettling is the use  of the Operation Sweep as a killer
squad and the official resort of the police and the state to
assassination. We had thought that all these were very much legacies of
the Abacha era. These are illegal procedures unknown to local and
international law, and indeed, violate even the Force Order of the
Police. All Nigerians, especially the media and human rights community
must condemn these and rise against them.

Conclusion and Demands

We assert that all nationalities have a right to exist and campaign for
the protection of their interests through civil organisations. The
assault on Yoruba people should therefore, cease at once.

Secondly, the police and the state should use legal and constitutional
means, especially the criminal justice procedure, if it is convinced
that any individual or group of individuals has breached the law.
Extermination and a blind strategy of containment (as evident in break
up of meetings, etc.,) are unknown to law.

As the handover to civilians approaches, the operation of joint
services task forces (Operations Sweep, Gbale, Wipe, Wedge, etc.,) has
become totally untenable. We, therefore, call for complete withdrawal
of military officers and men from civil duties. More importantly, the
Nigerian police has repeatedly affirmed its capability to combat crime
if empowered with the outlay of finance, welfare benefits, and
logistics provided for the ad-hoc crime-combat units.

We also call for a judicial Commission of Enquiry into the killings to
ascertain all the victims, to bring to justice the perpetrators of
their murder and recommend specific compensation.

Finally, we commend then various groups, individuals, pro-democracy
activists,  leading politicians and media who have intervened in the
matter.

Ijijagbara ni Ijijabori, Oodu'a a gbe wa  o.


ABIODUN AREMU
National Coordinator

------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/historynotes
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

Oh Yeah..
I think they need to do a lil Global Pie Tossin.

I'm down with tossin a few around here in D-Mecca,
and they gonna be Sweet Potato if I got anything to do with it.

Hit Em Up,

~RE Ausetkmt


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Derr Pied!
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 1999 20:25:13 -0500
From: Steve Kretzmann <steve@...>
Reply-To: steve@...
To: Multiple recipients of list SHELL-NIGERIA-ACTION
<shell-nigeria-action@...>

For Immediate Release: March 10, 1999


CONTACT: Biotic Baking Brigade via e-mail at bbb_apple@...


San Francisco, CA - The Ecotopia Cell of the Biotic Baking Brigade (BBB)

swung into action today in its first post-'Cherry Pie 3' sentencing

action, delivering just desserts in the form of three pies to the head

(quite literally, as well as the suit and tie) of Chevron, CEO Kenneth
T.

Derr.


This latest pastry incident occurred outside of the Galileo Academy of

Science and Technology at 10:35 a.m., shortly before he was to give a

corporate greenwash speech to kids at the school's "National Engineers

Week" program. BBB Agent 3.14 launched the first strike after saying to

Derr, "Do people really kill Nigerians for oil? People Do," in reference
to

Chevron's "People Do" ad campaign. The multiple pie-throwers
successfully

tossed three pies, and then disappeared without a trace.


Derr was targeted because the BBB believes in thinking globally and
acting

locally. Abroad, Chevron engages in destruction of indigenous cultures
and

ecosystems; murder of nonviolent activists in Nigeria; obstruction of
any

meaningful efforts to address global warming; and repeated labor

violations. Closer to home, Chevron is one of the worst corporate
polluters

in California. Here in the Bay Area, its Richmond refinery earned top

billing from a recent study by the Environmental Protection Agency,
which

designated the Richmond plant as the nation's biggest toxic waste
producer,

releasing about 1 million pounds of poison to the air and 500,000 pounds
to

the Bay.


"From the forests of Columbia to the platforms of Nigeria down to the

waters and workers of own Bay, large petro-chemical corporations display

callous disregard for human life and the future of this planet," says
BBB

Agent Blueberry of the Cherry Pie 3 Solidarity Committee. "We have

witnessed toxic spill after toxic spill. We have seen our fellow workers

perish in refinery 'mishaps,' and we have watched oil companies take off

their gloves and get directly involved in the murder of indigenous
peoples

the world over. To their lies, we respond with pies."


This action comes in light of new information about direct collaboration

between Chevron and Nigerian security forces in the continuing
repression

of protesters in Nigeria's Delta region. Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich

(D-OH) and several members of Congress are calling for a congressional

investigation into the allegations of killings of innocent Nigerian

civilians, human rights abuses and harassment of environmental activists
by

Nigerian security forces with the help of Chevron, a U.S.- based oil

company.


The BBB is not afraid to name and identify the destroyers of our future.

After all, the Earth is not dying: it is being killed, and the people
doing

the killing have names and faces. As Chief Executive Officer, Derr has
the

greatest share of Nigerians' blood on his hands, and yet this corporate

killer walks the streets a free man. But not free from our delicious

resistance. . . .


This action kicks off a campaign of international solidarity pie actions

for the Cherry Pie 3, who were jailed for 6 months by Judge Ernest

Goldsmith in order to "deter" pie-throwing. To the forces of law and
order

in San Francisco, Agent Blueberry says, "Deter This!"

Steve Kretzmann
Project Underground
www.moles.org

"We have decided to unite in our desire to live, and
therefore we have begun to convince an elder spirit to protect Ruira
(oil) to take care of our Kera Chicara (sacred land) and to save us all
from the final destruction when instead of wa ter we'll drink oil, when
the earth will have been completely bled dry and the heart, in which our
people live, doesn't beat anymore, and when we will no longer be there
singing and dancing to the sound of those heartbeats"

-U'wa Pueblo, August
1998

------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/historynotes
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

Moustfa,
This message that you attributed to me, came "From Egyptlist",
and I did not write it or for that matter inflect "any of my views"
so please do not hold this to me.

You have no idea what my Personal Politics is, so I think you're
360 degrees off base here.

as far as you removing me - no problems, I think it is a listowners
perogative to remove whomever they want, and you own this list.

I do think however that you need to be more clear when reading the
headers who wrote the message that you are reading, and not just
where you read it being sent from.  That is something I do everytime
I read a message, so I do not ever remove any of the headers, sent in
any message, to any of my emaillists, as you always do on Egyptlist.
It is a dangerous practice, which usually ends up with someone being
falsly accused of saying something, as in this case.

that is why I never have instances like this of false accusation, and
character slander, especially in front of the entire group, or list.
My character and politics stands firm for itself, in my signature.

I own 5 large email lists, as well as several internet based
businesses which are profitable and public, and never have I been
so stupid as you have accused me of, so I am glad that you have made
your character assasination public, revealing your true self,
"Knowledge is Power", guess that's why you never sign your name to
emails.

Good Luck to You Moustafa and Egyptlist,

~REality Ausetkmt

~~~8~8~8~8~8~8~8~8~8~8~8~8~8~8~8~8~8~8~~~

EgyptList@... wrote:
>
> RE,
>
> 1)  It is wrong that you forward messages from Egyptlist, to other discussion
> groups, without the consent of that person.
>
> 2)  Egypt was, is, and never will be a tool in a stupid political game,
> between racist black Americans and the white American society.  Listen and
> tell your others in the same arena, I, and Tehuti Research Foundation, are
> 100% against your dirty ploy to use and abuse ancient Egypt, and we will do
> everything possible against your stupid call of counter-racism.
>
> 3)  If you and this other character who wrote the message that you forwarded,
> speak highly of Christianity and degrade your own African belief system,
> neither one of you belong on Egyptlist.  He is a traitor.  He is a follower.
> He is nothing and knows nothing.
>
> As a result of the above, I have removed you from Egyptlist.

--

REality Ausetkmt
  <"http://welcome.to/RealTruth/">

"Live Patiently in the world; know that those who hate you
  are more numerous than those who love you" {african proverb}

------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/historynotes
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

To: rrashidi@...
CC: allow_me@...
Subject: TRIP TO GHANA  15 JUNE - 29 JUNE 1999


AN AFRICAN JOURNEY- RETURN TO THE ANCESTRAL HOMELAND

EXPERIENCE THE 7TH ANNUAL JUNETEENTH CELEBRATION IN GHANA, WEST AFRICA

15 DAY TOUR- JUNE 15 THROUGH JUNE 29, 1999   COST: $2700

EXPERIENCE: GHANA'S PAST, PAST AND FUTURE (I.E. THE PRIME MERIDIAN,
VILLAGE LIFE, RIVER CRUISE, BEACHES, UNIVERSITIES, SECONDARY SCHOOLS,
MUSEUMS, MARKETS)

ARRANGEMENTS THROUGH ALKENS TOURS OF BROOKLYN, NY.  CONTACT BARBARA
GORDON (800) 327-9974  (718) 856-9100     FAX:  (718) 856-9507

TOUR PRESENTED BY:
  NIAS E.HARRIS (210)648-2067    E-MAIL- allow_me@...

------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/historynotes
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

Announcement

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [BRC-NEWS] The Color of Violence conference
Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1999 20:06:05 -0800 (PST)
From: Andrea Smith <andysm@...>
To: brc-news@...

	 The Color of Violence: Violence Against Women of Color
			 April 14-15, 2000
		 University of California, Santa Cruz


The Color of Violence: Violence Against Women of Color, will bring
together scholars in the humanities, social sciences, and law, as well
as
cultural workers and activists whose work challenges violence against
women of color, to explore the relationships among racism, colonialism,
and gender violence in the lives and histories of women of color.

Presenters will also analyze the ways in which gender violence
structures
the global economy and determines the relationships between colonizing
and
colonized nations, historically and in the present.


Significance of the Event

The proposed conference, The Color of Violence: Violence Against Women
of
Color, will bring together scholars in the humanities, social sciences,
and law, as well as cultural workers and activists whose work challenges
violence against women of color, to explore the relationships among
racism, colonialism, and gender violence in the lives and histories of
women of color.  Feminist theories on violence against women have called
rape a tool of patriarchal control.  As Susan Brownmiller stated in her
landmark work Against Our Will, rape "is nothing more or less than a
conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a
state of fear" (5). Brownmiller's analysis has received widespread
criticism, particularly from women of color, for failing to account for
rape as a tool not only of patriarchy but also of racism and
colonialism.

While Brownmiller and her critics have greatly expanded our
understanding
of violence against women, the relationships connecting violence against
women of color to racism and colonialism remain insufficiently analyzed.

The Color of Violence, therefore, seeks to place the experiences of
women
of color at the center of the analysis.  The purpose of this one an a
half
day conference is to analyze the connections between sexual and domestic
violence in communities of color and the political and economic
structures
of violence nationally and globally.  This conference will explore the
myriad ways in which colonization is itself an act of sexual violence
directed against colonized communities.

Expanding upon the themes of the recent UC Davis conference, Indigenous
Intellectual Sovereignties: A Hemispheric Convocation, which examined
the
violent repercussions of colonialism upon Native women, The Color of
Violence will investigate the past and present connections among
colonialism, racism, and violence against women of color in general.
Building upon the work of Neferti Tadiar, the conference will analyze
the
ways in which modern capitalism is constituted and maintained through
the
sexual exploitation of women in the Third World and women of color in
the
US, as evidenced by the global trafficking of women and the super-
exploitation of female labor in multinational industries.

Finally, working from the themes of the recent UC Berkeley conference,
Critical Resistance: Beyond the Prison Industrial Complex, The Color of
Violence will explore the relationship between the prison system and
sexual and domestic violence.


Conference Themes

According to critical race theorist Kimberle Crenshaw, women of color
live
in the dangerous intersections of gender and race.  In the dominant
discourse of anti-violence advocates, women of color who survive sexual
or
domestic abuse are often told that they must pit themselves against
their
(violent) communities to begin the healing process.  Communities of
color,
meanwhile, often advocate that women keep silent about the sexual and
domestic violence in order to maintain a united front against racism.
Clearly, women of color must find a way to transform the dominant
discourses and practices of both anti-racist and feminist theory around
issues of violence.

The Color of Violence will provide an opportunity to develop analyses
and
strategies toward both goals:  first, challenging violence within
communities of color, and second, shifting the focus of the dominant
anti-violence against women movement away from a purely gender-based
politic.

This work is timely and important because, increasingly, mainstream
anti-violence advocates are demanding longer prison sentences for
batterers and sex offenders as a front line approach to stopping
violence
against women.  However, as UC Berkeley's historic Critical Resistance
conference has made clear, the criminal justice system has always been
brutally oppressive toward communities of color.

The Color of Violence will explore alternatives to incarceration for
perpetrators of sexual and domestic violence that minimize harm to
communities of color.  Furthermore, since most women in prison are women
of color, the conference will also examine the relationship between the
sexual exploitation of women in prison and sexual violence against women
outside of prison.

The relationship between the criminal justice system and the media has
proven particularly deleterious to communities of color.  Take, for
example, the narrow but pervasive media messages surrounding the O.J.
Simpson and Mike Tyson cases, both of which subtextually portrayed men
of
color as categorical perpetrators of sexual and domestic violence.
Simpson in particular became the archetypal black male predator of white
women.  In each of these national discussions about sexual and domestic
violence, the criminal justice system was depicted as society's
protector
from the violent proclivities of black men; from each of these national
discussions, the perspectives of women of color were noticeably absent.

The Color of Violence will explore the ways in which the media
perpetuate
the victimization of women of color both by portraying them as silent
and
powerless and by shutting them out of the national discourses that
affect
them.  This conference will also examine attempts by several artists to
intervene in mainstream media practices by developing counter-
representations of women of color and violence.

The Color of Violence, however, will not only highlight the contemporary
experiences of women of color and their relationships to gender
violence,
but also explore topics that histories of US colonialism have typically
neglected:  the ways in which gender violence shapes the very processes
of
racism and colonialism and assists in the subjugation of communities of
color.  The recent UC Davis conference Indigenous Intellectual
Sovereignties: A Hemispheric Convocation began an exploration of the
relationship between past and present structures of colonialism and
violence against indigenous women.  We wish to expand upon the work of
that conference by analyzing the relationship between personal and
institutional violence in the lives and histories of women of color.
Religion is a particularly vexing topic because religious oppression has
always involved a high degree of gender violence, especially in the
Americas.  On the other hand, religion and spirituality can also act as
modes of resistance to colonization.

Related topics include the ways in which sexual and domestic violence
operate in attacks on immigrants' rights and Indian treaty rights, the
proliferation of prisons, militarism, economic neo-colonialism, and
institutional racism.  We will also seek to broaden current discourse on
gender violence to include analyses of the myriad ways in which the very
bodies and physical capacities of women of color have been and continue
to
be colonized, especially through forced sterilizations and other
attempts
to seize control of the reproductive process.

In closing, The Color of Violence will appeal to scholars in Women's
Studies, American Studies, Ethnic Studies, History, Political Science,
Sociology, Literature, and Law, providing a multi-disciplinary forum for
topics related to violence against women of color.  This conference will
provide a rare opportunity for activists to be informed by the
theoretical
contributions of scholars as well as for scholars to be informed by the
experiences of women of color working at the grassroots level.


Keynote Presentations

Angela Davis (UC Santa Cruz): Co-founder of Critical Resistance: Beyond
the Prison Industrial Complex.

Haunani Kay Trask (University of Hawaii):  Author of Notes of a Native
Daughter, which discusses the "cultural prostitution" of Native Hawaiian
women.


Participants (confirmed to date)

Anannya Bhattacharjee (New York):  Founder of Sakhi - a South Asian
battered women's shelter; Former Director of Committee Against
Anti-Asian
Violence.

Kum Kum Bhavnani (UC Santa Barbara):  Co-editor, Women of Color Series,
New York: Routledge.  Current work addresses women in prison.

Chrystos (Menominee nation):  Author of several books of poetry which
address sexual violence in Native communities.  Her titles include Not
Vanishing, Fugitive Colors, Dream On, and Fire Power.

Kimberle Crenshaw (UCLA):  Author, Critical Race Theory: The Key
Writings
that Formed the Movement.  Author of several essays that address
violence
against women of color.

Ines Hernandez-Avila (UC Davis).  Professor of Native Studies.  Author
of
several articles on indigenous women and violence.

Isabel Kang (Chicago):  Founder of KAN-WIN, a Korean battered women's
hotline.

Mimi Kim (San Francisco):  Long-time activist with the Asian Women's
Shelter, which provides shelter Asian American battered women.

Nantawan Lewis (Metropolitan State University, Ohio):  Author of
forthcoming book on Thai women and sex tourism.

Beth Ritchie (University of Illinois--Chicago):  Domestic violence
activist.  Author of Compelled to Crime: The Gender Entrapment of
Battered
Black Women.

Loretta Rivera (Mending the Sacred Hoop, Minnesota):  Director of
program
that develops sexual/domestic violence programs for Indian tribes.

Luana Ross (UC Davis):  Author of Inventing the Savage: The Social
Construction of Native Criminality.

Neferti Tadiar (UC Santa Cruz) Professor of History of Consciousness;
author of several essays on the relationship between sexual violence and
colonialism in the Pacific.

Janelle White (San Francisco): San Francisco Women Against Rape

Sherry Wilson (Ho Chunk Nation): Women of All Red Nations


TENTATIVE PROGRAM

Friday

Keynote Speaker: Angela Davis
Respondents: Luana Ross, Neferti Tadiar, Ines Hernandez-Avila,
              Kimberle Crenshaw

Saturday

Plenary Session:  9:00 - 10:45

Workshops:  11:00 - 12:45

US Colonialism and Violence Against Women of Color
Law Enforcement & Violence Against Women of Color
Challenging Dominant Discourses on Violence in Feminist Theory and
Practice
Media/Cultural Representations of Violence Against Women of Color

Lunch:  12:45 - 1:45

Plenary Session:  1:45 - 3:30

Workshops:  3:45 - 5:30

Breaking the Silence on Violence in Communities of Color
Religion, Spirituality, and Violence Against Women
Violence Against Women of Color and the Global Economy
Colonized Bodies of Women of Color

Dinner Break:  5:30 - 7:30

Cultural Performances and Literary Readings:  7:30 -10:00
Closing Keynote: Haunani Kay Trask


For More Information, contact:

Andrea Smith
123 Felix Street #4
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
831-460-1856
<andysm@...>


[Messages on BRC-NEWS may be forwarded and cross-posted to other lists
and posted on web sites, as long as proper attribution is given to the
author of the article (including their email address), the originating
publication/organization (including any copyright notices), and the
article wording is not altered in any way, other than for formatting.

While not required, as a courtesy, we'd appreciate it if you mentioned
that you received the article via the BRC-NEWS list. Thank you.]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
BRC-NEWS: Black Radical Congress - International
News/Alerts/Announcements
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subscribe: Email "subscribe brc-news" to <majordomo@...>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unsubscribe: Email "unsubscribe brc-news" to <majordomo@...>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Digest: Email "subscribe brc-news-digest" to <majordomo@...>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Discussion: Email "subscribe brc-all" to <majordomo@...>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Questions/Problems: Send email to <owner-brc-news@...>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Black Radical Congress WWW Site:  http://www.blackradicalcongress.com/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Want To Start Your Own List? Go To:  http://www.igc.org/igc/services/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/historynotes
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [BRC-NEWS] OAU pushes for African assertiveness
Date: Mon, 22 Mar 1999 05:42:03 -0800 (PST)
From: Africa Analysis <aa@...>
To: brc-news@...

http://www.africaanalysis.com/007.html

OAU pushes for African assertiveness

ADDIS ABABA. The Organisation of African Unity (OAU) is at the centre of
new initiatives for Africans to reach a new understanding and assert
Africa's primacy over its affairs.

The move coincides with the new Anglo-French understanding over Africa,
as
exemplified by the recent double-act by British foreign minister, Robin
Cook, and his French counterpart, Hubert Védrine.

Burkinabè President Blaise Compaoré, who is the current OAU chairman,
and
the unpredictable Libyan leader, Colonel Mu'ammar Qadhafi, are emerging
as
prime movers of the new African assertiveness.

Quite unprecedentedly two extraordinary OAU summits are planned for this
year, in addition to the ordinary one (scheduled for Algiers, Algeria)
in
July. The first extraordinary summit is expected to be held in
Ouagadougou
at the end of March and will have only one item on its agenda: finding
African solutions to all the conflicts on the continent, including in
Angola, the Casamance in Senegal, Comoros, Congo-Kinshasa, the Horn of
Africa, Sierra Leone and Sudan.

For Compaoré it will be a great boost to his domestic and international
image. Internally, despite the undeniable steady progress in
socio-economic development, the ghost of the assassinated popular former
president Thomas Sankara, continues to haunt him. Compaoré's régime also
continues to be discredited as a result of the draconian measures by the
Burkinabè security apparatus against the critical independent media and
the business activities of his wife, Chantal, and his brother, François
Compaoré.

Interestingly, however, Compaoré seems to have won over the European
Union, a result of his excellent relations with the French. European
funds
continue to pour into Burkina Faso through generous development
co-operation loans and grants. The Scandinavian countries, especially
Holland and Denmark, appear very enthusiastic about Compaoré's régime.
However, in Africa, Compaoré still has to live down Sankara's death.
Thus
he is suspected of using his OAU chairmanship to get Africa to forgive
and
forget. If he could assist in resolving the conflicts that beset Africa,
his image will definitely be boosted.

For the Libyans, always very influential diplomatically and financially
in
Africa, resolving the continent's conflicts will further enhance their
position in Africa and deflect them from the pariah status the US and
others have fostered upon them.

The OAU's second extraordinary summit is scheduled for Tripoli in
September, the 30th anniversary of Qadhafi's al Fatah revolution. The
agenda for the Tripoli summit will be to revise the OAU charter and
remove
all obstacles to African unity. There has only been one amendment to the
charter since the OAU was formed in 1963. The Tripoli summit, therefore,
if it materialises, will be historic. Even if it does not achieve its
aim,
it will set an agenda for a revamped OAU in the new millennium. Other
continent-wide organisations, such as the Kampala-based Pan African
Movement, the Accra-based Organisation of African Trades Unions and the
All-African Students Union have all expressed enthusiasm for the Tripoli
summit. The Pan African Movement is currently organising a series of
regional meetings in Africa to sensitise and mobilise support for the
Tripoli summit.

(c) 1999 Africa Analysis


--------------------------------------------------------------------------
BRC-NEWS: Black Radical Congress - International
News/Alerts/Announcements
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subscribe: Email "subscribe brc-news" to <majordomo@...>

------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/historynotes
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

-= Two Stories on the Dalits and India's Caste System Problems =-

{Runoko is departing for India on Friday, for a tour of this area}

Runoko :

Can You Please Share anything with us on this ?
Blessed Travels and Peace on your Journey Runoko,

Free The Land !!
~RE

-----------------------------------------------
1.

02:39 AM ET 03/19/99

Communist Gunmen Sought in E. India

  Communist Gunmen Sought in E. India
            NEW DELHI, India (AP) _ Paramilitary forces hunted today for
  communist rebels who killed 35 upper-caste Hindus in a raid on
  their village, the latest round of a caste war in southeast India.
            Some 100 guerrillas escaped after their raid on Senari
village
  just before midnight Thursday, when they rounded up villagers and
  sprayed them with bullets. The killings took place in Jehanabad
  district, the center of violence in Bihar state, 525 miles
  southeast of New Delhi.
            The attackers left behind pamphlets saying the slayings were
  carried out by the People's War Group in retaliation for the
  killings of 33 Dalits _ people from the lowest class _ over the
  last six weeks, STAR said.
            The Dalits were allegedly killed by Ranbir Sena, a private
army
  suspected of receiving arms and funding from upper-caste
  landowners. Dalits, which means ``oppressed ones,'' are without
  caste in Hinduism's hierarchy, making them the lowest group. Most
  Dalits are poor, uneducated farm laborers.
            The People's War Group and other leftists have been trying to
  organize laborers in Bihar and other parts of India to better their
  condition and secure them land, a challenge to the social order
  that the Ranbir Sena has answered with violence.
            Bihar, a state of 100 million people, has been ravaged by
caste
  violence as well as kidnappings, armed robberies and extortion.
            Thursday's massacre in Senari was the worst since December
1997,
  when the Ranvir Sena killed 61 Dalits with guns, machetes and
  spears in Jehanabad's Lakshmanpur Bathe village.
            The Jehanabad caste killings prompted the Hindu
nationalist-led
  federal government late last month to fire the state government,
  run by a socialist party. The federal government said the state had
  disintegrated into total lawlessness.
            But Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee restored the
government
  March 8 because he did not have the support for necessary
  parliamentary ratification of the federal takeover of Bihar.
            The main opposition Congress Party refused to support
Vajpayee,
  accusing him of exaggerating Bihar's troubles in order to put his
  own man in charge of the state, considered politically important
  because of its large population.



------------------------------------------

2.

06:39 AM ET 03/19/99

Men Beheaded in Eastern India

  Men Beheaded in Eastern India
  By MANISH KUMAR=
  Associated Press Writer=
            SENARI, India (AP) _ The lone survivor of India's latest
caste
  massacre described today how he hid under the bodies of his
  neighbors as Maoist guerrillas beheaded the upper-caste villagers.
            Sunil Sharma, 22, his clothes stained with the blood of other
  victims, was in a state of shock and could barely speak a day after
  the attack in Senari. The village is 525 miles southeast of New
  Delhi in Jehanabad, a district at the center of a caste war raging
  in Bihar, India's most lawless state.
            About 100 attackers entered Senari just before midnight
Thursday
  and dragged away 34 men, all upper-caste landowners. Their hands
  and feet bound, the victims were summarily beheaded outside the
  village, Sharma said. Sharma said the rebels overlooked him under
  the bodies.
            Police had first reported that Maoist rebels sprayed the
  upper-caste villagers with bullets, killing 35. The death toll was
  confirmed at 33 today, and all were beheaded instead of shot.
            Leaflets left by the attackers said the killings were in
  retaliation for earlier slayings of Dalits, a group who are without
  caste in Hinduism's hierarchy, making them the lowest group. The
  Dalits, whose name means the ``oppressed ones,'' are poor,
  uneducated farm laborers.
            The leaflets and posters left by the attackers identified
them
  as members of the banned Maoist Communist Center and threatened
  further massacres if Dalits were harmed. An earlier television
  report had initially reported that the pamphlets identified the
  attackers as members of the People's War Group.
            Over the last six weeks, 33 Dalits in the district were
killed
  by the Ranvir Sena, a private army suspected of receiving arms and
  funding from upper-caste landowners.
            During Thursday's massacre, other rebels ambushed a nearby
  police station in a diversionary tactic, sparking a three-hour gun
  battle. No deaths were reported in that encounter.
            The MCC and other leftists have been trying to organize
laborers
  in Bihar and other parts of India to better their condition and
  secure them land. The Ranvir Sena has answered the challenge to the
  social order with violence.
            Paramilitary forces fanned out across the region searching
for
  the attackers today.
            Bihar, a state of 100 million people, has been ravaged by the
  caste violence as well as kidnappings, armed robberies and
  extortion.
            The Senari massacre was the worst since December 1997, when
the
  Ranvir Sena killed 61 Dalits with guns, machetes and spears in
  Jehanabad's Lakshmanpur Bathe village.







REality Ausetkmt
  <"http://welcome.to/RealTruth/">

"Live Patiently in the world; know that those who hate you
  are more numerous than those who love you" {african proverb}

------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/historynotes
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

RE-Minder to be REposted again before the conference,
which I suggest WE ALL Attend.

REmember, If you need travel assistance drop me a note.

Free The Land !!!

~RE


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [BRC-NEWS] BRC: National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in
America
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 17:10:14 -0800 (PST)
From: Nuafrikan@...
To: brc-news@...

Greetings of IMANI (FAITH) to all Brothers and Sisters:

Hope to find you all in great Spirit and health.

Wanted to make everyone aware of the 10th Annual N'COBRA (National
Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America) National Convention,
this
Juneteenth Weekend (18-20 June 1999).  This year, WE will gather in St.
Louis, Missouri, under the theme "All Aboard the Reparations Train."

Reparations are, of course, the "repair costs" that Afrikan and African
American people have always demanded from those who have gotten wealthy
from the unjust war, brutality and HOLOCAUST OF ENSLAVEMENT,
SEMI-ENSLAVEMENT, LYNCHING, POVERTY, MASS IMPRISONMENT, ETC, ETC.

There is much happening this year in our growing Reparations movement.
You and your group, church, school, club... can play a major role in
taking us to Victory!

WE, with many of you, continue to raise the righteous issue of freedom
and
amnesty for all of our political prisoners of war, with special emphasis
on Brother Mumia Abu Jamal who faces a possible state murder on
Pennsylvania's death row.  N'COBRA supported our Black farmers, through
our National Black Farmer's Alliance, which in January won a $300
million
settlement from the USDA.  Currently, N'COBRA is organizing the
nomination
and election of Economic Development Commissioners, made of
representatives from as many of our organizations who agree to
participate, who will negotiate with the U.S. government on our behalf
for
our Reparation Downpayment demands.  Shouldn't your organization be
active
in this process?

H.R. 40, "The Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African
Americans Act," was re-introduced into the congress by Congressman John
Conyers and others, in January.  WE all need to contact our
congresspersons and make sure they are signed on to the most important
legislation in the congress and are supporting calls for immediate
hearings.  N'COBRA is also putting the final touches on our landmark
class-action lawsuit against the U.S. —accompanied by some mass direct
actions —which will be filed later this year.  WE desperately need your
financial support as we challenge those who continue to oppress and
brutalize us.  N'COBRA is also helping plan and build two international
actions for Reparations: at the United Nation's "International Court,"
at
The Hague, Netherlands, in May 1999; and, our First Afrikan
International
Reparations and Repatriation Conference, in Accra Ghana, West Afrika, in
August 1999.

To accomplish all of these major tasks, WE need you to become a member
of
N'COBRA, help build a chapter in your area, and help educate our people
to
the Reparations solution.  N'COBRA is all volunteer, and a NO (not,
"non")
PROFIT! WE receive no grants, because this is a movement that our people
must buy into and support.  Membership is only $10 per year for
individuals/families; $25 for local groups; and, $50 for national
organizations.  You can also organize a special fun(d)raiser for our
class-action lawsuit.  In October, for example, the famous group The
Floaters headlined a special Concert for Reparations, in Detroit.
(Elder
Ed Vaughn, who is a Michigan State Representative, is also negotiating
with other groups like the re-generated The Temptations, Dramatics and
others to help us raise needed dollars for the cause).  Please, use your
influence and creativity to assist us in the fight.

Please, get on board the Reparations Train by becoming a member of our
National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America.  Send your
check
or contact us at:

N'COBRA
P.O. Box 62622
Washington, DC 20029-2622
(202)  635-6272
http://www.ncobra.com

May you have Peace and Continued Blessings.

Much Respect and Love,

Brother Jahahara (harry armstrong)

N'COBRA Board of Directors
Editor of Reparations, Now: Justice, Opportunities, Healing!
P.O. Box 10905
oakland, CALAFIA 94610
(510) 834-1158
NuAfrikan@...

P.S.  For the last 10 years —with the exception of 1998 when WE were a
week late at Hampton University in Virginia, —N'COBRA has held our
national convention on Juneteenth weekend.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------
BRC-NEWS: Black Radical Congress - International
News/Alerts/Announcements
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subscribe: Email "subscribe brc-news" to <majordomo@...>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Black Radical Congress WWW Site:  http://www.blackradicalcongress.com/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/historynotes
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

F Y I..
~RE

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [BRC-NEWS] Conference of the Oppressed and Exploited in Africa
Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1999 20:44:47 -0800 (PST)
From: Steve Drury <S.A.Drury@...>
Reply-To: uniteAfrica@...
To: brc-news@...

http://www.gn.apc.org/uniteafrica/invitation.htm

Proposal for a conference of the oppressed and exploited in Africa,
to be held in Durban, South Africa, September 1999

Against imperialism, war exploitation and poverty;
For Internationalism, solidarity and socialism

Dear Comrades,

We send you greetings on behalf of a number of organisations from South
Africa, Namibia, Congo and the UK (see list below) who met in Durban.
South Africa, on 21-22nd November 1998.

We believe that the struggle for liberation from political oppression
and
economic exploitation cannot go forward without the solidarity of people
across the continent and across the world.

The South African experience is that the mass of people are far from
enjoying any 'liberation'. Conditions of life are getting worse. While a
few people from the liberation movements are sitting in parliament,
enjoying their new liberty the majority of people are becoming poorer.
Thousands of SA workers are being retrenched. Full time workers are
being
replaced by casual labour on short term contracts supplied by labour
brokers (labour agencies). The conditions of housing, services,
education
and health do not improve. Immigrant workers continue to be second class
citizens. Refugees fleeing from tyranny and war in other countries are
treated like criminals when they seek safety here.

Our long struggles have been used by a small minority to elevate
themselves to power and wealth. We have a government that listens to the
requests of the capitalists from inside and outside the country and
ignores the needs of the people who voted them into office.

We believe the experience in South Africa is shared by many people
across
the continent. Every day the struggle to free Africa from imperialist
robbery is suppressed by 'African' regimes.  Foreign administration has
gone but the robbery continues. From the continent as a whole $2 out of
every $4 created by African workers goes straight to institutions like
the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) compared with $1 out of every $4in the
period of direct colonial rule: It is the lMF that dictates government
policy in most countries.

In Congo the imperialists, using various African regimes, suppress all
the
efforts of the Congolese people to establish democratic control over
their
own affairs. The imperialists fear that democratic control would
threaten
their continued robbery of copper, cobalt and diamonds.

In South Africa the organised working class, in trade unions, student
organisations and civic associations, forced the end of apartheid.  But
the new SA government protects the wealth, power and privilege of the
capitalist class who grew rich from apartheid robbery.  Without taking
control of this money and resources it is impossible for working people
to
improve their conditions. In this respect the SA experience is no
different from that of Zimbabwe, Namibia, Kenya and many other
countries.

In the 1970s and 1980s the South African trade unions began to discuss
the
need for a Workers' Charter - a programme for the working people to take
control of production, of raw materials, factories, mines and land, and
to
use them for the benefit of the mass of people, not for the enrichment
of
the few. However this discussion about a Workers' Charter was suppressed
by the supporters of black capitalism.

We say this discussion must be reopened. But it is clear today that such
a
charter should not just be for workers and cannot be developed simply
for
South Africa. It is impossible to confront organisations like De Beers,
Rio Tinto, CDM, Mercedes, Toyota, Fords, Shell or any of the other vast
conglomerates that plan their strategies internationally, if we only
organise country by country.

The charter must be a programme for people across the continent. We have
to break out from the confines of the borders imposed by imperialism. We
need a movement for socialism, liberty and democracy, for workers'
control
of production, for control of the land by the people who work it - a
movement of the oppressed and exploited that stretches across the
continent and reaches out to working people world wide.

Our collective future depends upon our building a workers' movement that
is for working people, not just in name, but because it is built,
organised and led by working men and women, the poor, the unemployed and
the dispossessed.

yours fraternally,

Bongani Mkhungo,
on behalf of the conference steering committee.


In attendance at the initial meeting were representatives from the
following organisations:

Socialist Movement of South Africa, Movement for Socialism (UK), New
Unity
Movement (Durban branch), International Trade Union Solidarity Campaign
(SA section), Workers' Revolutionary Party of Namibia, SWANU (Namibia),
as
well as a Congolese refugee, dockworkers, trade unionists, students and
community activists.

[Moderator: Details are at their web site:  www.gn.apc.org/uniteafrica]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
BRC-NEWS: Black Radical Congress - International
News/Alerts/Announcements
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subscribe: Email "subscribe brc-news" to <majordomo@...>

------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/historynotes
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [BRC-NEWS] Corporate Influence in Africa
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 22:50:51 -0800 (PST)
From: Corporate Watch <corpwatch@...>
To: brc-news@...

US-Africa Economic Initiatives
<http://www.corpwatch.org/trac/globalization/treaties/trade1.html>

Published by In Focus, a project of the Institute for Policy Studies and
the Interhemispheric Resource Center, this May 1998 report released
right
after Clinton's trip to Africa, shows how the US administration's new
proposals use trade and investment incentives to pressure African
governments to adopt market-oriented economic reforms.


US Africa Trade Policy: In Whose Interest?
<http://www.corpwatch.org/trac/globalization/treaties/trade8.html>

The new trade policy announced by the US has less to do with enhancing
Africa's economic capacity and more to do with helping out American
companies battling European competitors over the region's markets, warns
Third World Network's Tetteh Hormeku.


Meet the Multinational Corporations Behind the Lugar-Crane Africa Bill
<http://www.corpwatch.org/trac/globalization/treaties/trade2.html>

Who are the corporations pushing for the passage of the Africa Growth
and
Opportunity Act? Public Citizen looks at the records of some of the
corporations behind the bill.


HEADLINES:
<http://www.corpwatch.org/corner/worldnews/other/index.html>

Nigeria: Chevron Implicated in January Massacre
Nigeria: Youth Call for Army to Withdraw from Delta
Africa: Chad-Cameroon Oil Pipeline Seen Ready For World Bank Mid-1999

---

Corporate Watch, PO Box 29344 San Francisco, CA  94129
Email: corpwatch@...
http://www.corpwatch.org


--------------------------------------------------------------------------
BRC-NEWS: Black Radical Congress - International
News/Alerts/Announcements

------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/historynotes
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [BRC-NEWS] International Tribunal on Africa Declaration
Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1999 19:18:14 -0800 (PST)
From: ILC <theorganizer@...>
To: brc-news@...

Sunday, February 28, 1999

FINAL RESOLUTION OF THE PREPARATORY COMMITTEE
ON THE INTERNATIONAL TRIBUNAL ON AFRICA

JOHANNESBURG

A preparatory meeting for the International Tribunal on Africa was held
in
Johannesburg on February 27 and 28. This meeting was organised by the
Socialist Party of Azania, trade union leaders from Azania (South
Africa)
and the International Liaison Committee for a Workers¹ International
(ILC). Trade unionists and political activists from other African
countries, from North and South America and Europe also participated.

These delegates, along with others who could not attend, brought
documents
and gave testimonies which affirmed that the survival of the peoples of
Africa is at stake. Recent surveys by the World Health Organisation
(WHO)
and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) show that, as a
result
of the spread of diseases and epidemics, destitution and starvation,
life
expectancy in Africa has been reduced by 20 years within the last few
years.

The wars, massacres and genocides, engulfing a constantly growing number
of African countries have exacerbated the already intolerable situation
A
backward movement - most probably unprecedented in the history of
humankind - is taking place on the continent that had already been
ravaged
by the successive scourges of slavery and colonialism.

The testimonies and documents gathered by the preparatory conference
established the fact that the imposition of structural adjustment
programmes (SAPs) by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund
(IMF)
in the early eighties, to facilitate the payment of the external debt,
are
responsible for this deplorable situation.

Every year 30 billion dollars, which could have met the urgent needs of
the African people, are siphoned from the continent to pay and service
the
debt which, in most cases, were granted to notoriously corrupt and
anti-democratic governments.

It was established that a small fraction of the amount spent on debt
servicing and payments could provide the cure for diseases (measles,
malaria, diarrhoea) which affect children mostly, with low cost
medicines
and vaccines, and prevent the death of more than four million African
children yearly.

In spite of the fact that AIDS is assuming epidemic proportions, the
peoples of Africa are being denied access to cures which have proved
efficient in the treatment of AIDS on account of the payments and
servicing of the debt. Continuing internecine violence and wars, which
lead to forced migrations and an increase in the refugee population,
exacerbates the spread of AIDS.

In addition to the external debt, African governments have accumulated
huge internal debts owned to monopoly capital and which acts as a break
on
the national development effort and undermines the sovereignty of the
people.

As a result of the imposition of the structural adjustment programmes by
the World Bank and IMF, African states spend ten times more on the
payment
of the debt, than on health budgets at a time when men, women and
children
are dying in their millions from curable diseases.

Testimonies and documents brought by delegates to the Johannesburg
preparatory meeting also established that privatisation inevitably leads
to the outbreak of war through social dislocation and the economic
deprivation of the African people.

The transfer of the control of national resources to multinational
corporations engenders tensions leading to the setting up of armed
groups
and the hiring of mercenaries by the big corporations to maintain their
hold on the national wealth.

Numerous testimonies and documents that will be published as an annex to
this appeal affirmed that we are confronted by policies which
unhesitatingly sacrifice the peoples of Africa to the financial
interests
of multi-national corporations, stock markets and other international
financial institutions.

On the basis of the testimonies and documents gathered we insist that
the
right of the peoples of Africa to life be urgently asserted; we demand
that those responsible for the deteriorating social, economic and
political conditions on the continent must be brought to justice.

To this end, we pledge to take all measures necessary to convene the
International Tribunal on Africa and constitute ourselves into a
Preparatory Committee for the trial of those responsible for the
worsening
situation in Africa.

We propose that the Tribunal be held at the beginning of the year 2000 ‹
the date and venue will be decided at a later date, after further
consultations with our partners and other supporters. The first task of
the committee will be to publish the testimonies presented at this
conference as well as those that have been sent from countries from
where
delegations could not come to Johannesburg.

This meeting identified public figures and personalities, known for
their
dedication to the defence of the rights of the people who could be
invited
to serve on the jury. A final list of members of the jury will be
announced after the personalities have been contacted.

The delegates pledged to give the widest possible publicity to the
existence of the Tribunal. n this connection, it took cognisance of the
fact that the International Open World Conference will be held in San
Francisco in the year 2000 at the initiative of American trade unions
and
the ILC. That conference which is being convened in defence of the
independence of trade unions and for democratic rights provides a unique
opportunity for publicising the work on the Tribunal.

We fully support the convening of the conference and urge its organisers
to assist us to give extensive publicity to the work of the
International
Tribunal on Africa.

Considering the role of the United States in the imposition of the
dictate
of the World Bank and the IMF on African countries, the meeting decided
to
organise a tour of the United States by a delegation of the Preparatory
Committee to seek the fraternal support of organisations in the United
States which have already declared support for the establishment of the
Tribunal.

Conscious of the devastating effects of slavery, colonialism and
neo-colonialism on the African peoples, the meeting endorsed calls for
reparation for the African people in respect of crimes committed against
them by the imperialist countries.

The meeting also called for the dismantling of all foreign military
bases
on the continent of Africa.

Endorsed by all delegates to the Preparatory Conference for the
International Tribunal on Africa.


ANNEX TO FINAL DECLARATION

Growing evidence has come to light, through the meticulous work of
distinguished scientists and public health specialists in the United
States, indicating that the world's most feared and deadly viruses,
specifically HIV and Esbola, were deliberate laboratory creations.

Dr. Leonard Horowitz, in his book Emerging Viruses, synthesises evidence
concerning the role of the U.S. government and its intelligence agencies
in fomenting the exposure of entire populations in Africa to viral
disease.

Evidence has been published reflecting painstaking research which
exposes
social policies of population control" implemented through the
intentional
transmission of the most deadly viruses ‹ all created in government
funded
laboratories ‹ via tainted hepatitis, polio and small vaccines in Africa
and the United States.

Dr. Maurice Hillman, the U.S. Army's chief vaccine developer and the
official in charge of this work at Mercke, Sharp and Dohme
Pharmaceutical
Corporation, has admitted to infiltrating the Aids virus into vaccines
produced for widespread public use.

We note that Dr. Robert Callo, co-discoverer of the Aids virus, worked
under the auspices of the National Cancer Institute in a classified
"special virus cancer program.

We mark our grave concern over documentation that Hazleton Research
Laboratories and Litton Bionetics, the Medical division of the major
military contractor, Litton Industries, were not only among the major
U.S.
biological weapons contractors, but now acknowledge that viral vaccine
"experiments' were carried out in central Africa and in New York City.

We take grave notice of the evidence that over 750,000 square miles of
Zaire were leased secretly from former President Joseph Mobutu with over
one million people in that leased area subjected to these experiments.

A global epidemic involving Aids and Ebola has reached genocidal
proportions. the very fabric of society has been torn asunder in Africa
and the immensity of the scale of human suffering has only begun to be
measured.

In South Africa alone there are nine million fewer people because of the
impact of Aids. In country and after country the toll on youth is
destroying entire generations.

The International Tribunal on Africa will undertake an exhaustive
inquiry
into this alarming body of data and assemble the full facts concerning
the
sudden and widespread occurrence of deadly viral disease in the African
continent and beyond.

Endorsers:

Azania (South Africa) :
Hassen Lorgat, International Liaison Committee of Workers and Peoples
Reg Feldman, New Unity Movement
Barrie Barron, New Unity Movement
Barney Mokyatle, National Organiser, Socialist Party of Azania (SOPA)
Brand Nthako, president youth organisation, SOPA
Chacale Lorraine, SOPA
Chauke Chavani, SOPA
Dick Soga, SOPA
Gaomphe Boitumelo, SOPA
George Diphofa, SOPA
Harry Motsamane, SOPA
Jeff Rampon, SOPA
Joona Ashraf, Public relations secretary, SOPA
Lybon Mabasa, President of the SOPA
Mabasa Hlomani, SOPA
Moroe Kamohelo, SOPA
P. Dusty Nkoana, deputy president, SOPA
P. Mkhize, General Secretary SOPA
Patrik Mouamal, SOPA
Phineas Malapela, SOPA
Pohre Mahage, SOPA
Rufus Masoramela, SOPA
Sessy Xulu, SOPA
Thomas Mukweuh, ECCAW USA
Jane Duncan, on a personal capacity
Salim Vally, on a personal capacity
Cecil Moeng

Brazil :
Lorenzo Mario Oliveiro Solidado, Bahia
Nilson Viana Césario, Rio de Janeiro
José Valdir Rodriguez Da Silva, Camaraver, Porto Alegre

Burkina-Faso :
Richard Tiendrebeoso, deputy general secretary, CGT-B

Beénin :
Gaston K. Azoua, general secretary, CSTB
Claude Quenum, general secretary, UNACOB

Burundi :
Paul Nkunzimana, President of the FORTRA

Comores :
Boinaidi Abdou Elghaniyou, SNPC, in charge of AFP,
Administration and justice, RFI

Cote d'¹Ivoire :
Flan Zran-Senan, deputy general secretary, SYNASEG

France :
Daniel Gluckstein, national secretary, Parti des Travailleurs
(Workers Party) France, and coordinator of the International Liaison
Committee of Workers and Peoples.
Dan Moutot, International Liaison Committee of Workers and Peoples,
Abdou Koté, trade unionist, Printing Museum
Jean-Pierre Barrois, Parti des Travailleurs
Miguel Cristobal, Parti des Travailleurs

Ghana :
Kwesi Pratt, deputy general secretary of the Convention Party INR

Niger :
Sidibé Assane, USTN

Togo :
Norbert Gbikpi-Benissan, trade unionist UNSIT, International
Liaison Committee of Workers and Peoples


--------------------------------------------------------------------------
BRC-NEWS: Black Radical Congress - International
News/Alerts/Announcements
------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/historynotes
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

F Y I

~RE Ausetkmt

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [BRC-NEWS] National Council for Black Studies International
Summit
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 16:58:39 -0800 (PST)
From: Tina Lee <TLEE@...>
To: brc-news@...

The National Council for Black Studies, Inc. 1999 International Summit
will be held April 15-17, 1999 at Saint Louis University, St. Louis,
Missouri.

In response to the membership and the forces impacting Africana Studies,
NCBS decided to convene the International Summit in order to assess the
status of African Studies and to develop an action plan that will
position
the discipline to meet the challenges of the 21st Century.

Theme:  "At the Dawn of the 21st Century: Positioning African Studies
for
the New Millennium"

Some of the thematic topics include, but are not limited to:  Assessment
and Evaluation of Programs/Departments and Cultural Centers on Local and
National Levels; Power, Authority and Administration in Africana Studies
Leadership; K-12 Education and An Infusion of Africana Materials in the
Public Schools; Collective Economic Development in the African World;
The
Black Community in Transition; From What to What? and, Legislative
Agenda:
Do We Have One?  Other issues include: the Black community - locally and
globally; mentoring, and spirituality.

For detailed information, contact the National Office of NCBS on the
campus of the California State University, Dominguez Hills at: (310)
243-2169; fax (310) 516-3987; or email at ncbs@....

Deadline for Registration:  March 15, 1999.

Note:  The National Council for Black Studies, Inc.  (NCBS) is the
professional organization that is recognized nationally and
internationally as the authoritative voice on the multidimensional
aspects
of the African world experience - the organization whose mission is the
institutionalization and perpetuation of the discipline of Africana
Studies.

NCBS has over 250 colleges, universities, school districts, and
community
organizations who subscribe as "institutional" members, and over 1000
professional, student and community members.

Please join us!!!


**ANNOUNCEMENT**

The National Council for Black Studies, Inc.  YR2000 Conference will be
discussed and preliminarily plans made at the 1999 International Summit!

Please come with themes, topics, issues and conference format
suggestions.
Your input is needed as we...

Position Africana Studies for the New Millennium


Thank you.

Tina W. Lee - Executive Director, NCBS

--------------
BRC-NEWS: Black Radical Congress - International
News/Alerts/Announcements
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subscribe: Email "subscribe brc-news" to <majordomo@...>

------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/historynotes
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com

Please Recirculate

~RE Ausetkmt

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [BRC-NEWS] National Emergency March for Justice on April 3rd
Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1999 22:04:27 -0800 (PST)
From: Center for Constitutional Rights <lthurst@...>
To: brc-news@...

http://www.tbwt.com/march/

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

National Emergency March for Justice - Against Police Brutality

Saturday, April 3, 1999
Washington, D.C.
12:00 Noon - 4:00 PM

Honorary Chairperson:
Rev. Walter Fauntroy, President, National Black Leadership Roundtable


Assemble:
at 10:00 at the Mall on G Street, NW, between 9th and 10th Street at the
Martin Luther King, Jr. Library

March:
at 12:00 down 10th Street past the Justice Department to Constitution
Avenue to the West Front of the Capitol for a

Rally:
Against Police Brutality at 2:00


The Program will include:

o Presentations from family members and victims of police brutality
o Representatives of civil rights and human rights organizations
o Poetry readings, freedom songs and sounds of the struggle


Call 1-900-226-5715 ext. 184:

o For further information on the March
o To enlist in Gideon's Army of registered and organized voters
o To support the March financially


Call 1-800-764-0235:

o To report a recent incident of police brutality
o If you are organizing buses or special contingents


Endorsers (list in formation):

Amnesty International - Anthony Baez Foundation - Asian American Legal
Defense and Education Fund - Association of Legal Aid Attorneys/UAW
Local
2325 - CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities - Center for Democratic
Renewal
- Coalition Against Police Abuse - Ella Baker Center for Human
Rights/Bay
Area Police Watch - Guinean Association of America, Inc. - International
Socialist Organization - Jews for Racial and Economic Justice - Lesbian
and Gay Anti-Violence Project - MADRE - Malcolm X Grassroots Movement -
Movement for Change - National Action Network - National Black Police
Association - National Coalition for Police Accountability - National
Congress for Puerto Rican Rights - National Conference of Black Lawyers
-
National Lawyers Guild - National Lawyers Guild-NYC chapter - New York
City Police Watch - October 22nd Coalition - Pan African Project -
Parents
Against Police Brutality - Racial Justice Working Group of the National
Council of Churches - Refuse and Resist - NY chapter - South Carolina
Malcolm X Grassroots Movement for Self-Determination - Southern
Organizing
Committee for Social and Economic Justice - United Committee to Save
Nigeria - United Concerned Christians at Work - William Moses Kunstler
Fund for Racial Justice - Women for Justice


The National Emergency March for Justice is an Initiative of the
Center for Constitutional Rights,
Ron Daniels, Executive Director

===============================================================

THE CALL FOR A
NATIONAL EMERGENCY MARCH FOR JUSTICE - AGAINST POLICE BRUTALITY

The police murder of Amadou Diallo, a 22 year unarmed immigrant from
Guinea, West Africa, by four officers of the NYPD, who fired 41 shots at
Diallo, 19 of which fatally pierced his body, has provoked a firestorm
of
anger and outrage nationally and internationally. As tragic as the
Diallo
murder is, however, it is simply the tip of the iceberg of an epidemic
of
police brutality and misconduct which is wreaking havoc on Blacks,
Latinos, Asians and other people of color in the ghettos, barrios,
reservations and neighborhoods.  All across this nation the families of
victims of police violence are crying out, demanding justice because
scores of young people of color are being terrorized and are dying
needlessly at the hands of police authorities whom we have entrusted
with
the responsibility of protecting our communities. The crisis between
communities of color and the police has become a National Emergency -
the
bitter harvest of more than two decades of misguided public policies
which
place more priority on massive and aggressive policing, tougher
sentencing
and more prisons over investment in social, economic and racial justice.

The Center for Constitutional Rights is calling upon grassroots
organizations and advocacy groups, public interest legal institutions,
civil rights and human rights organizations, labor and religious
organizations and leaders, civic and fraternal orders, all people of
goodwill, and most importantly youth and families of victims of police
brutality to journey to Washington D.C., Saturday, April 3, 1999, Martin
Luther King Memorial Weekend, for a National Emergency March for Justice
to proclaim to this nation and the world -- ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

We demand immediate action from the President, Attorney General and
Congress of the United States:

1. President Clinton should immediately speak out on this issue and
empower a national commission to investigate the epidemic of police
brutality and misconduct which is afflicting communities of color and
poor
communities across the nation.

2. Attorney General Janet Reno, under the provisions of the Omnibus
Crime
Bill of 1994, should issue a directive to the Justice Department to
intensify pattern and practices investigations in communities with a
high
incidence of complaints of police brutality. In addition, we call on the
Attorney General to press for the expedited investigation of ongoing
civil
rights cases and to hear appeals for the re-opening of cases which may
not
have received appropriate priority.

3. The House Judiciary Committee should immediately convene formal
hearings to take testimony on the scope and breadth of police brutality
and misconduct and formulate recommendations for legislation
accordingly.

4. The Congress of the United States Should:

	 a. Pass legislation to provide funds for the Justice Department to
systematically collect data on police brutality as mandated by the
Omnibus
Crime Bill of 1994.

	 b. Enact legislation that would provide for independent federal
prosecutors to investigate allegations of police misconduct where the
use
of illegal choke holds or deadly force results in the injury or death of
the victim -- The Jonny Gammage Law.

Finally, in memory of all those who have been victimized or died at the
hands of the police, we pledge to keep the pressure on, to mobilize and
organize to crystallize a new national movement to take back our
communities and fight for social, economic and racial justice, putting
America and the world on notice that as long as there is no justice for
people of color, the disadvantaged and the dispossessed, there will be
no
peace.

No justice, No peace!  Get on the Bus!


Buses are being organized from:

       New York City
       New Jersey
       Philadelphia
       Ohio
       North Carolina
       Wisconsin
       and other states

Call the hotline for more information: 1-800-764-0235

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
BRC-NEWS: Black Radical Congress - International
News/Alerts/Announcements
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subscribe: Email "subscribe brc-news" to <majordomo@...>

------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/historynotes
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com