Monday, October 28, 2013

Shut Down the SOA and Change U.S. Foreign Policy! Nov.22-24: Justice Not Impunity! Join us at the gates of Fort Benning

We mobilize for the right of our communities to exist in the face of the greed of capital and the misery of war. Nov. 22-24: Converge on Fort Benning, Georgia - Shut Down the SOA and Change U.S. Foreign Policy. We mobilize for another world - JOIN US!

Click here [http://soaw.org/november/en/] for more information about the November Vigil at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia, home of the School of the Americas, the notorious training ground for the likes of Efraín Ríos Montt, Hugo Banzer Suarez, Jorge Rafael Videla, and many many more whose crimes have so far been concealed by the cloak of secrecy. Mobilize your community and join thousands of students, torture survivors, migrants, people of faith, union workers, veterans, artists, and families from across the Americas.
The November 22-24, 2013 Vigil weekend includes:
 * Massive rally at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia, with amazing musicians and speakers from across the Americas
 * Procession to Commemorate the Martyrs
 * Colorful and Creative Puppetista Pageant and Street Theater to Celebrate the Resistance
 * Conference, Strategy Sessions, 50+ workshops and a Peoples' Movement Assembly at the Columbus Convention Center
 * Protest at the largest private, for-profit immigrant prisons in the United States
 * Reports from human rights activists in Honduras following the elections process on November 24th
 * A special concert to honor Father Roy Bourgeois and pay homage to musician Jon Fromer
 * Nonviolent Direct Action + Concerts + Film Screenings + Trainings + more

End Impunity!
This November, when we gather at the gates of Fort Benning, it is with hope in our hearts, and it is so much more. It is with the righteous anger of those who can no longer face injustice with resignation. It is with the determination demanded of us, if we hope to live in a more just world. This year, when we mobilize, it will be a commitment to future generations, and honor of those who have passed.
We derive our strength from our hearts, from each other, from the Earth, and from that great story of human hope and courage of which we are all a part. That story, of how we struggle and may triumph, is the never-ending glow of justice. Our movement is in step with each stride toward that light. For when those who have suffered and who are still suffering empower themselves, when self-determination is restored, when their stories reach us, then it is our victory too.
Today we can also look toward the Mayan Q'eqchi' people of Lote Ocho, Guatemala, who have filed a court case against Canadian mining giant Hudbay Mining, Inc, and their Guatemalan subsidiary for abuses against the community committed by security personnel working for Hudbay's subsidiary. In April of this year, when former Guatemalan dictator (and SOA graduate) Ríos Montt was put successfully put on trial for genocide, those who suffered in that country's 36-year civil war held the public's attention. Though the conviction was overturned one week later, the struggle for reparations has not lost momentum.
Join us in celebration of resistance. Join us to learn of how people are standing up to Empire in other parts of the Americas. Join us to learn how you are a part of the same struggle.
Hasta la victoria siempre,
-SOA Watch

Please join the mobilizing efforts, download, print and distribute the November Vigil Flyer [http://soaw.org/docs/NovemberVigil.pdf].

Click here [https://org.salsalabs.com/o/727/t/10656/shop/item.jsp?storefront_KEY=777&t=&store_item_KEY=3430] to order a batch of full color, union printed palm cards for your outreach work in your community

See you at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia!

"Tear down the walls" National Gathering for Justice

November 1 to 3, 2013 in Tucson, AZ
[www.AFGJ.org]

2013-10-28 [www.liberationradio.org/episodes/2013-10-28-conference-afghanistan-cuba.html]:
Chuck Kaufman, National Coordinator of the Alliance for Global Justice, speaks on the upcoming Tear Down the Walls conference bringing together immigrant rights, environmental justice, anti-imperialist and other movements to talk strategy and action. Listen to the full episode. Download the audio file here. [pslweb.us/pod/LibRadio-2013-10-28.mp3]

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Solidarity with the People of New Africa

Solidarity with the African American People has been part of the international campaign for liberation of the captive Nation of New Africa within the USA Federal jurisdiction.

Also see Uhuru Solidarity Movement for African People's Solidarity [link]


Uhuru Solidarity Movement for African People's Solidarity

"African People's Solidarity Committee" & "Uhuru Solidarity Movement" asks that you
Take the Pledge of Solidarity!
Support self-determination and reparations for African people! Take the pledge of solidarity and make a donation of any amount towards reparations to the African community! No more genocide in our name!
Taking the Pledge of Solidarity is a concrete way to show your support for the revolutionary struggles of African people for national liberation and self-determination.


Pledge of Solidarity
[http://apscuhuru.org/campaigns/apsd2011/pledge.xhtml]:
I recognize that this unjust system built on slavery and genocide must be overturned.
I pledge my solidarity with the struggle of Africans, Indigenous, and other colonized peoples for self-determination, reparations, and independence in our lifetime!
I recognize that Africans inside the US, Europe, and throughout the world, suffer from a lack of self-determination and control of their own resources.
I recognize that Africa’s resources have been and continue to be stolen by the US and Europe to benefit the general white population.
I recognize that this system is built on war and violence against oppressed peoples, including the ongoing war against the African community that has destroyed the lives of countless black men and women such as Oscar Grant, Trayvon Martin, Mark Duggan and so many others.
I pledge my solidarity with the struggle of Africans and other colonized peoples to reclaim their land, labor, resources, and self-determination!

Take the Pledge of Solidarity with African People within the USA
[wepay.com/donations/days-in-solidarity-with-african-people-2012-facing-the-truth-about-racial-injustice-seeing-the-future-through-the]:
I believe that the legacy of enslavement, Jim Crow and injustice for African people in the US continues to be an historic wrong that must be rectified.
 I recognize this history is the basis for the poverty, foreclosures and joblessness that continues to haunt black communities, as white families now have 22 times the wealth of their black counterparts and black teenagers today face more than 40 percent unemployment.
 I oppose the targeting of black communities by policies of heavy-handed policing and discriminatory sentencing guidelines resulting in police brutality and more than a million African people in prisons rather than in colleges or the workforce.
 I pledge my commitment to the African-led movement for reparations, self-reliance and justice, and stand in support of the Days in Solidarity with African People.
---
“Take the Pledge of Solidarity with African People” is a critical stand that white people and other allies of the African liberation movement can take to say that we support the right of African and all oppressed peoples to resist their oppression and organize for power over their lives and resources!
 The Uhuru Solidarity Movement is a worldwide organization of Euro-Americans and other allies working under the leadership of the African People’s Socialist Party to organize in our own communities to overturn our legacy of colonial violence and complicity through reparations and solidarity with African liberation. Take the Pledge! Take a Stand!
 Get involved! Email info@uhurusolidarity.org to build an event in your area, raise reparations, participate in outreach online and on the ground and more!


"An open letter to all white people - Where do you stand? Build the "Days in Solidarity with African People" 2013"
2013-07-31 from "Uhuru Solidarity Movement" [http://uhurunews.com/story?resource_name=an-open-letter-to-all-white-people-where-do-you-stand-build-the-days-in-solidarity-with-african-people-2013]:
This is an open letter to all white people living in North America, Canada, England, Europe or elsewhere. Will you take a stand in solidarity with African liberation? 
Millions of us from the white community are sickened by the verdict that let George Zimmerman walk for the brutal murder of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. 
 Are you one of us who is deeply concerned by the obvious widening of the gap in the conditions of life for African people and the white population in what has been so incorrectly called a “post racial America?" 
 Where today, every 28 hours an African person in the U.S. is killed by the police. 
 Do you bristle at the injustice of the fact that an estimated 95 percent of African youth in the inner cities are unemployed without any possibilities for a productive future, or despise the reality that, of the 2.5 million people in prison in the U.S., half of them are black and poor serving long sentences on charges that white people don’t even get arrested for? 
 For us, seeing African and Latino youth stopped and frisked by police much like the pass laws of apartheid South Africa is profoundly disturbing. 
 This is a call for all those who want to take action, who want to make a difference, not through charity but through genuine solidarity, to participate in the campaign led by Uhuru Solidarity Movement to build the “Days in Solidarity with African People” in your city or on your campus. 
 Uhuru Solidarity Movement is the organization of white people organized directly under the leadership of the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP). 
 The APSP leads the Uhuru Movement and is organizing and uniting Africans around the world as one people struggling to liberate Africa and Africans everywhere. 
 As the only white organization that operates directly under the leadership of the African Liberation Movement, the Uhuru Solidarity Movement (USM) is a strategic component of the revolutionary movement of African people. Our mission is to organize inside the belly of the beast, winning other white people to take a stand in solidarity with the self-defined struggle of African people for liberation, self-determination and power over their own lives and resources. 
 USM is built on the understanding that the “racial gap” in the U.S., Europe and throughout the world has a material basis. The U.S. is built on a foundation of the enslavement of African people and the genocide of the Indigenous people. 
 Europe and white populations throughout the world have been built and sustained by colonialism and the continued extraction of resources of Africa. 
 Think about it. There would be no United States without the enslavement of millions of Africans and the violent theft of the land of the native people. 
 This is the essence of America. 
 Slavery and the theft of this land are what gave white people the higher standard of living and opportunities to climb the so-called ladder of success. 
 There would be no England without the vast wealth extracted from the “empire on which the sun never set.” 
 White people could have it all as long as African people and oppressed peoples everywhere continue to be exploited for stolen labor and resources, a reality that has always demanded white people’s complicity and complacency. 
 There was no kinder, gentler capitalism in the past. 
 Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and Andrew Jackson were slaveowners and Indian-killers. Our white ancestors participated in lynching, genocide and terror against African and Indigenous people. George Zimmerman is just carrying out that historic legacy; it’s nothing new. 
 The African People’s Socialist Party, which leads the Uhuru Solidarity Movement, is the organization of African people whether in the U.S., Canada, Europe, the Caribbean, South America or on the continent of Africa. 
 The Uhuru Movement is organized in London, Paris, several German cities, Sweden, Belgium, many cities in Sierra Leone and organizations growing in South Africa, Kenya, Nassau in the Bahamas and Colombia, South America. 
 Everywhere African people are catching the same hell. 
 The Uhuru Movement fights for African working people to have control over their own resources and lives. The continent of Africa and all its minerals and resources belongs to African people and must be used for their benefit, not European and American corporations. That just makes sense. 
 This is a world of constant imperialist crisis and unending imperialist war around the world and inside this country against oppressed peoples. 
 The U.S. capitalist economy is in crisis because all around the world people who have been living for hundreds of years under Western military and economic domination are rising up, saying no to U.S.-bred oppression and are taking control of their destinies. 
 As white people, we are learning that to find a future in this world defined by the decline of U.S. imperialism, we must jump off this pedestal that lets us live at the expense of African and other peoples. 
 We must join the world community. African people and the majority of the world’s peoples are speaking to us, calling for us to join them in solidarity in the fight for justice and a world without oppressors and the oppressed, a world in which all humanity can live in peace, no one at the expense of others. 
 The “Days in Solidarity with African People” are days of tribute to African people, a look at the history of how this injustice began and a salute to the future of liberation and justice for African and oppressed peoples everywhere. 
 “Days in Solidarity with African People” events are already planned for October 2013 in St. Petersburg, San Diego, Oakland, Philadelphia, Gainesville, Miami and the list of cities continues to grow. 
 This campaign is based on the understanding that as white people who have lived on the backs of African people for 500 years, our genuine solidarity is in reparations to African people and raising resources for the Uhuru Movement, which is only funded by the support of African people and their allies and supporters. 
 The “Days in Solidarity with African People” campaign has a goal to raise $14,000 to the work of the African People’s Socialist Party plus the expenses of the campaign between now and November 2013 as a concrete expression of our unity with reparations.
 There are several ways that white people, no matter where you are located, can get involved immediately and win unity and reparations from your community. 
First: “Take the Pledge of Solidarity with African People” today. Sign your name, leave your statement, make your donation. This is a key part of the campaign where you can publically take a stand in solidarity with African Liberation and win others to take the pledge as well! http://tiny.cc/nnns0w 
Second: Become a sustaining member of the Uhuru Solidarity Movement and provide ongoing support of the Uhuru Movement. As a member of the USM, you will receive your membership packet and card in the mail as well as a personal membership orientation with a USM organizer. uhurusolidarity.org 
Third: Win reparations in your own community through building fundraisers as part of the “Days in Solidarity with African People” campaign. Can you raise $1,000, $500 or $250? We can meet with you, provide training and materials. We can also hook you up with USM organizers and/or members in your area to join efforts. Email info@uhurusolidarity.org 
Fourth: Join the committee. We need help passing out flyers, putting up posters, updating our website, editing video, taking photos at events, mailing out packets, organizing actions and more. Email info@uhurusolidarity.org 
And: Build a “Days in Solidarity with African People” event on your campus, at your church or in your city. Big or small - we can help you make it a reality.  Email info@uhurusolidarity.org
We can take a stand and be counted on the side of African liberation. Join the “Days in Solidarity with African People” campaign today!
Uhuru! 


In the name of New African Peace, Organize...


For example, on Earth Day, 2011, in the USA, the "Uhuru Solidarity Movement" organized a series of events for African Liberation, as seen in the following article.

"Earth Uprising: USM supports African Liberation by Hosting Earth Day Events around the U.S."
2011-04 from the "Uhuru Solidarity Movement" newsletter [http://apscuhuru.org/usm/newsletter/2011-01/article1.xhtml]:

Through the Earth Uprising campaign, Uhuru Solidarity Movement recognizes that the struggle for the environment cannot be separated from the struggles for justice and self-determination for oppressed peoples.
Today we see African and Arab people and the peoples of the world rising up in resistance to the colonial conditions imposed on them by imperialism, where over 3 billion people live on less than $2 a day so that white power and Euro-American people can prosper.
African people are showing us that a system where less than 20% of the the world's population consumes 80% of the world's resources is unsustainable! The just liberation struggles led by African and oppressed people will heal the environment, not the parasitic system that created the destruction of the earth and the earth's people! Join the campaign demanding that "Oppressed People and the Planet Must Be Free!"
The Uhuru Solidarity Movement is currently involved in a variety of events for the 2011 Earth Day. Events took place or will be held in Philadelphia, PA, St. Petersburg, FL, San Francisco, CA and Columbus, OH.
By organizing these Earth Uprising! events, USM is taking a stand against oppressive acts against the Earth and the people! Oppressed people and the planet must be FREE! Uhuru!
---
Philadelphia, PA - 3rd Annual Earth Day Fest and Flea Market :
In Philadelphia we held the Third Annual Earth Day Fest and Flea Market in beautiful Clark Park on Sunday April 17th, with the support of the entire community! The event drew hundreds who came to support the fundraising efforts of Uhuru Solidarity Movement in raising resources for the economic and social justice programs of the Uhuru Movement, and the program featured live music from Coco Sol and other outstanding bands, as well as powerful political presentations from leaders in the struggle for African self-determination.
Diop Olugbala, president of the International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement, captured the crowd's attention and drew massive support for the understanding of environmental justice through African liberation with his powerful presentation, which you can watch HERE. Other speakers, including Russell Shoatz (son of African political prisoner Russell Maroon Shoatz), who expressed support saying, "if you are interested in freeing political prisoners, or supporting African people in any way, you have to join the Uhuru Movement!"
Coco Sol rocks the Earth Day stage in Philly's Clark Park with songs of African liberation!

---
San Francisco, CA - Uhuru Solidarity Movement Oakland reached across the SF Bay to host its first event at Twinspace Continuum. USM organizer Wendy Snyder opened up the program with a powerpoint by Chairwoman Penny Hess, "Environmental Destruction: another form of colonial war!"connecting the question of environmental justice with the liberation of African and oppressed peoples. There were solidarity statements from Haruki Eda from Japan Multicultural Relief Fund, Jay Jones of the Center for Progressive Action and Sealli Moyenda of the International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement. DJ8 and MC Jay Scribe provided amazing music and freestyle rap to keep the energy flowing. Finally, Hip hop artists Ragtop Medeyah and Unity Lewis both lit up the space with their bold lyrics and beats.
---
St. Petersburg - Earth Uprising!
Earth Day Events: Panel Discussion and Spoken Word Event
 When: Thursday, April 21, 2011 • 6:30pm
 Where: University of South Florida St. Pete Campus, CAC 133, 140 7th Ave S, St. Petersburg, FL
 Free Event • Refreshments • Panel Speakers • Discussion • Ironiff Ifoma, African People's Education and Defense Fund • Camilla Hippolyte, All African People's Development and Empowerment Project • Penny Hess, African People's Solidarity Committee • Dr. Trey Connor, USF Assistant Professor, English • Dr. Joseph Dorsey, USF Assistant Professor, Environmental Policy
 The Uhuru Solidarity Movement in St. Pete hosted a film showing of the documentary "Poison Fire" that exposes the environmental and economic destruction caused by Shell Oil and Euro-American imperialism in the Niger Delta.
On Thursday April 21, USM is hosting a dynamic panel discussion on environmental justice at the University of South Florida! This event will feature a diverse panel of speakers addressing topics under the theme “Earth Uprising, Oppressed People and the Planet Must be Free!” The panel and discussion will focus on such diverse topics as the effects of globalization on the environment, the role of education in the struggle for environmental justice, and the relationship between environmental destruction and the dominant social-economic system.
USM is teaming up with a student organization on campus to host a poetry and spoken word open mic night in honor of Earth Day on Friday, April 22nd. Students as well as anyone else in the community is invited to let their voices be heard on the theme of "Earth Uprising" by reading their own original work or their favorite poems. All of these events will benefit the programs of the Uhuru Movement for economic and social justice for the African community.
Spoken Word Event
 When: Friday, April 22, 6pm
 Where: Coquina Club, USF St. Pete, 140 7th Ave S, St. Petersburg, FL More info: 727-683-9949
---
 Columbus, OH - Film Viewing and Discussion: “Poison Fire” on the Niger Delta environmental disaster
 When: Friday, April 22, 2011 • 6:30pm
 Where: Ohio State University Campus, Arps Hall - Room 383, 1945 North High Street, Columbus, OH
 USM information booth at annual community Earth Day celebration When: Saturday, April 23, 2011 • 11am-7pm Where: Franklin Park Conservatory, 1777 East Broad St, Columbus, OH