I will scatter them, and then I will gather them: Deuteronomy 4:27; 28:64; 32:26; Isaiah 11:12;

Jeremiah 23:8 / Read about the African Slave Trade in Deuteronomy 28^th Chapter.

N E W S L E T T E R…….#19

"Take direct action against the U.S. government!" Dr. Robert Brock

Note from the REPNOW Newsletter Editor:

Blacks may have various personal agendas, however, this demand for Reparations

is a concern that requires a UNITED FRONT.

At this point, with the thrust for Reparations being at an all time high, there should be meetings and conferences and information disseminated throughout all major cities and in EVERY SINGLE BLACK NEWSPAPER THAT EXISTS in this country, as well as in others that hold Descendants of Slaves. We are on a roll, and we just can’t stop now!

If there is but one accomplishment that has the potential to resolve all the injustices Blacks face in White Societies, it’s the matter of Reparations for Descendants of Slaves. With these payments, we can relocate to friendly countries and establish our own settlements: housing, schools/universities, farms, Health Centers, and small businesses. This would give us empowerment over our own economic welfare, social programs, educational systems for our children, and self-determination.

White folks have us believing that America is the "Greatest Country on Earth." Surely, we have heard this lie throughout our early years in elementary school and throughout high school. Another thing we’ve heard ad nauseam is, "Aren’t you proud to be an American?" How can Blacks applaud this racist country and its environment that enslaved Blacks out of Africa, that wrote a constitution sustaining the White privileged, and that established institutional racism and prejudice towards Blacks and other people of color? How can we accept such a delusion as the "United States is the "Greatest Country on Earth?" And then we, Survivors of the Slave Trade, are asked, "Aren’t you proud to be an American?" How can anyone in good conscience ask a Black person such an insane question. Although I have never been asked this question, I have heard it asked of others. But I have my answer already prepared for the brave soul who asks me this asinine question: "I know too much about the founding fathers of America and the TransAtlantic Slave Trade to make such an absurd statement."

The Thirteen Colonies and the United States of America were established with the blood and misery of Native Americans and Blacks out of Africa. Some of these Peoples were my forebears, and all who were taken captive endured a most horrible and heinous experience - one that was so terrible and merciless that the impact of this TransAtlantic Slave Trade still affects Native Americans and Blacks today. But insensitive White Folks want us to dismiss the injustices we face in White Societies and magnify the "Greatest Country in the World" regardless of their involvement in the Human Rights Violations of Black Humanity. Bowing down to the powers-that-be has never gotten us anywhere. But on the contrary, it has kept us suppressed, afflicted, and in great despair.

Unfortunately, Blacks are more apt to be elected to high offices and acquire positions in corporate America if they can demonstrate support for White Folks and their interests, keep a low profile, and not make the wrong waves and demands in regard to Black needs and issues. White Folks will even make us "Directors of Personnel," while they decide who is to be hired. Hence we know very well who is calling the shots. Therefore, to see a Black Director of Personnel is to falsely believe that we have the job in the bag regardless of how qualified we are. And to sit on a team in search of a high ranking employee is another joke White Folks pull. The team interviews six Whites and one Black token with exceptional credentials. You know how we have to be the cream of the crop before they will even consider us for an interview and for employment. And even though we may have higher degrees than Whites, we don’t always get the job, but the White high school student will. We are also aware of the Blacks who have had the same jobs for years and with great evaluations, but it’s the young White kids who are trained by these Blacks who advance and make it up the corporate ladder. Y’all know what I’m talking about. Also, I’m tired of hearing "None of us are perfect" when it comes to White Folks, and "Well, you know that’s typical of them" when it comes to Black Folks. And I tell you that I CAN’T TAKE IT ANY MORE!!!

I am always amazed at the news that comes my way concerning the injustice Blacks face in the United States on a daily basis: racism, discrimination, prejudice, racial profiling, police brutality, lack of a quality education for our children, ghetto life, lack of adequate medical care, and lack of sufficient take-home pay for our livelihoods. Why aren’t we marching in the streets of Washington, D.C. demonstrating for better living conditions if YOU believe that the United States is such a great place to live? Why aren’t YOU broadcasting your anger at the United States for sending billions of YOUR tax dollars to Israel to build admirable housing settlements and to establish a stable social program for these people who are not descendants of the TransAtlantic Slave Trade? Blacks and other minorities have good reason to be upset and outraged at the way we are treated and abused in White Societies and at the total disregard for our wellbeing. And I am not surprised at the present uprising in Cincinnati due to the disrespect and disdain the Whites there have for the Blacks. Actually, I am amazed that this unrest is only now surfacing, and that it is not nationwide. Yet, we are supposed to be living in the "Greatest Country in the World." Well, maybe that is a true statement. Unfortunately, it just has no significance for Blacks and other people of color.

Therefore, it behooves us to use Reparations to establish a place(s) where we can truly be proud of our environment - one whereby, our children can develop a sense of positive self-esteem, and one that will enable us to leave a legacy for our progeny. Let the compensation for the TransAtlantic Slave Trade be used to the best and the maximum of its purpose. Let’s make this Reparations legacy last, as it will enable us to move on, re-educate our children to the GOD’s Truth, establish ourselves as Black People to be reckoned with, and allow our forebears to rest in peace. What it all boils down to is that we must attain self determination, respect, dignity, and distinction throughout this World AND WE MUST ATTAIN IT NOW!

***

Because I have been deluged with super information, it’s necessary to send out TWO PARTS of the REPNOW Newsletters #19. Therefore, you can expect another copy in just a few days. Be sure to share it with others and encourage them to take part in our efforts to acquire this DEBT that is long over due.

Stay strong, be real to the Reparations Movement, and give it all you’ve got. Remember, this thrust is for the legacy that we never received, and it is so very much needed now in order to amend the suppression and oppression Black Peoples all over the World have endured since the rape of Africa and since being forcibly migrated to White Societies. Hey, if we don’t revolutionize the present status of Black Peoples in Africa and throughout this World, then who will? No longer let it be said that Blacks and other people of color are subject to White domination. Let us FINALLY look out for our own interests be they in White Societies or in friendly countries that open their doors to Descendants of Slaves.

Finally, I pray that the Most High GOD of Hosts will stir up a storm at the WCAR and one that will call attention to Reparations and the racism, discrimination, prejudice, and injustices we face. I wish all NGO’s and significant others participating in this Conference a safe trip and one that will manifest great accomplishments.

Tziona Yisrael, Editor

P.S. Be sure to read "CONVICT LEASING IN ALABAMA" under WHY THE POWERS-THAT-BE OWE BLACKS BIG TIME!

Work with me, work with others, but let’s all work TOGETHER for the betterment of Blacks all over the World. Either we attain this goal and be successful and prosperous Black Peoples, or we can continue on the destructive paths headed for the demise of Black Peoples that Descendants of the Slave Masters have paved for us.

Many, many thanks to everyone making an effort to do their part and/or work with others for Reparations.

Don’t forget to send me FEEDBACK regarding your meetings, Conferences, dialogues, and debates, so that everyone can be informed of the progress of Reparations’ activities and affairs.

Just one more thing, kindly realize that this is OUR "Reparations" Newsletter. As much as I’d like to publish all the articles that come my way regarding the injustices we face in White Societies, please know that I just can’t. I must dedicate this Newsletter to the "Reparations" Fight for Descendants of Slaves and our Liberation. Thank you for your support in this regard.

Tziona Yisrael, Editor

REPARATIONS NOW IN OUR LIFETIME Newsletter

www.thelawkeepers.org

(Click on "Repnow")

***

If anyone has a list of E-mail addresses of University and College Black Student Unions, please advise: Afraqueen@AOL.COM

July 19, 2001

In advance of a major international conference on racism, Human Rights Watch today called for reparations to counter the most severe continuing effects of slavery, segregation, and other extreme forms of racism.

Human Rights Watch said national and international panels should be created with maximum transparency and public participation to identify and acknowledge past abuses and to guide action to counter their present-day effect.

"Groups that suffer today because of slavery or other severe racist practices should be compensated by governments responsible for these practices," said Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch. "Those most seriously victimized today by past wrongs should be the first priority for compensation to end their victimization."

Roth said reparations for past abuse should focus first on groups that continue to suffer the most severe hardships. "We're not talking about a handout or a windfall," said Roth. "We are calling for long-term commitments to correct the damage done to the groups left most seriously disadvantaged."

Human Rights Watch proposed the establishment of national panels, in multiracial countries such as the United States, Brazil and South Africa, as well as one or more international panels to look at the effect of the slave trade. These panels would focus on tracing these effects not for particular individuals but for groups.

The panels should serve as truth commissions aiming to reveal the extent to which a government's past racist practices contribute to contemporary deprivation domestically and abroad, Roth said. They should educate the public, acknowledge responsibility, and propose methods of redress and making amends.

A primary purpose of reparations would be to address the social and economic foundations of today's victims' continuing marginalization-through means such as investment in education, housing, health care, or job training.

The question of compensation for slavery will be one of the most controversial topics when the U.N. World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance meets in Durban, South Africa from August 31 to September 7.

Human Rights News

New York

350 Fifth Avenue, 34th Floor

SLAVERY STRATEGY: INSIDE THE REPARATIONS SUIT

The American Lawyer

July 2001

Earthquake prediction is a famously inexact science, but it's easy to see this one coming. By year-end, an all-star team of lawyers calling themselves the "Reparations Coordinating Committee" plans to file a suit seeking reparations for slavery. The legal merits of the case are unknown, but the tremors will no doubt be felt far and wide.

The group faces problems that seem insurmountable. Slavery ended in 1865. Who are the plaintiffs? The defendants? And if the group wins, by some miracle, what will the damages be?

An A-list of lawyers and academics, led by Charles Ogletree Jr., of Harvard Law School and Randall Robinson, of TransAfrica Forum, an African-American policy group, is trying to answer those questions. No final decisions have been made, and they're being tight-lipped about their work, but a few particulars are beginning to emerge. Multiple cases in multiple forums are likely. The defendants will come from both the public and private sectors. And the remedy will be aimed at institutions, not individuals.

The litigation side of the group includes J.L. Chestnutt Jr., a civil rights lawyer and activist from Selma, Ala., who represented Martin Luther King Jr.; Alexander Pires Jr., of Conlon, Frantz, Phelan & Pires in Washington, D.C., who worked with Chestnutt in winning a billion-dollar settlement for black farmers discriminated against by the U.S. Department of Agriculture; Stanley Chesley, the king of mass tort litigation from Cincinnati's Waite, Schneider, Bayless & Chesley, who represented Holocaust survivors in a reparations suit; the enormously successful trial attorney Willie Gary of Stuart, Fla.; and the ubiquitous Johnnie Cochran.

The lawyers are working closely with a group of political scientists, historians, and economists, including Cornel West of Harvard University and Manning Marable of Columbia University. The group meets every other month or so at TransAfrica's D.C. office; smaller groups meet more frequently. Pires has written the early drafts of the complaint; Gary also is focusing on the nuts-and-bolts legal problems. Both men doubt whether clever legal arguments alone can carry the day. "There are lots of ways to get creative," said Gary. "They could get us into court, but I don't know if they could survive a motion to dismiss."

Help may lie in the political arena. The black farmers' suit, for example, only moved forward after a once-in-a-lifetime alliance between Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich prevailed on Congress to waive the statute-of-limitations defense. Gary would like to see similar legislation introduced before the reparations case is even filed. Congressman John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., the leading congressional advocate for reparations, is a likely sponsor. The group is leaning toward filing a number of suits simultaneously, all overseen by an umbrella organization. The cases against the U.S. Department of Commerce, the state of Mississippi, and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (to name three likely defendants), for example, will involve very different facts and may rely on different theories of law. Using multiple forums will simplify and streamline each case. In addition, "I don't think we should put all our eggs into one basket," said Chestnutt. "Some people think that a judge would be afraid to dismiss a reparations suit, but I think most judges wouldn't be able to get rid of it fast enough."

Every black American may be affected by the legacy of slavery, but the plaintiffs may be a more select class. Chestnutt and Gary say that proving a causal link will be easier for some individuals than others. They favor limiting the size of the plaintiff class to those who most directly felt the impact of slavery, such as those who suffered under Jim Crow laws, or whose grandparents were slaves. They recognize that this strategy may alienate those who are excluded, but Gary said, "I'd rather win a case for 50 percent of the blacks in this country than lose a case filed on behalf of 100 percent." Others in the group are leaning toward a more inclusive class, according to Chestnutt.

The defendants are easier to name. They will include the federal government, states that allowed slavery (and perhaps others), and private corporations that profited from slavery. Chestnutt said that little attention has been paid to the last group, but it's the most controversial and may pose the greatest legal difficulties. Attorney Deadria Farmer-Paellmann, whose previous work forced Aetna Inc. to apologize for issuing "slave policies" that paid owners if their slaves died or escaped, is researching the issue. She predicts that by year-end, she'll identify about 70 corporations as potential defendants, mostly banks and insurance companies.

The theory of the case isn't set. Chestnutt favors unjust erichment. "This is the richest, most powerful country in the history of the world, and a lot of it was built on the backs of slaves," he said.

By Paul Braverman

Submitted by brc-reparations@yahoogroups.com

[It will be great to finally see the rewards from this awesome team battling for Reparations. However, these top attorneys cannot dismiss the fact that some victims of this Slave Trade wish to leave the lands of our captors, and this is our human rights prerogative. Therefore, it is imperative that these attorneys also take this information into consideration as they resolve the Reparations issue. T.Y., Editor]

CALIFORNIA FIRST U.S. STATE TO BACK SLAVE REPARATIONS

SACRAMENTO, Calif., July 11 (Reuters) - The California state assembly unanimously passed a resolution on Wednesday urging the U.S. Congress to study slave reparations, becoming the first state to back moves proponents hope will result in cash restitution for the nation's history of slavery.

The assembly resolution will now be sent to Congress, according to its author, Democratic state Senator Kevin Murray of Los Angeles, who added that it was the first resolution of its kind passed by any state in America.

"(It) is a necessary and positive step in the process of race relations," Murray said in a statement. "I am gratified and pleased that this resolution has met with such across-the-board acceptance."

California joins a number of major municipalities, including Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit and Dallas, which have called for federal hearings on the reparations issue.

The resolution notes the state legislature's support for efforts in the U.S. Congress to pass legislation acknowledging the history of slavery in the United States.

It also supports Congressional efforts to establish a committee to study reparation proposals for African Americans, asks Congress to apologize to black Americans for the "fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality and inhumanity of slavery," and urges the establishment of a national museum and memorial devoted to slavery in the United States.

U.S. Rep. John Conyers, Democrat of Michigan, introduced a bill in 1989 calling for a study of possible reparations for the more than 200 years of legalized slavery in the United States -- launching an ongoing political debate on the issue.

Submitted by brc-reparations@yahoogroups.com

BRC-REPARATIONS: Black Radical Congress - Reparations Caucus

JULY 11^TH RESOLUTION ON REPARATIONS (LCB FEEDBACK FORM)

July 13, 2001

INTRODUCED BY Senator Murray

(Coauthors: Assembly Members Aroner, Calderon, Canciamilla, Cardenas, Cedillo, Chan, Chavez, Chu, Cohn, Corbett, Cox, Diaz, Dutra, Firebaugh, Florez, Frommer, Goldberg, Havice, Hertzberg, Horton, Jackson, Keeley, Kehoe, Koretz, LaSuer, Liu, Longville, Lowenthal, Migden, NegreteMcLeod, Oropeza, Pavley, Reyes, Salinas, Shelley, Simitian, Steinberg, Strickland, Strom-Martin, Vargas, Washington, Wesson, Wiggins, Wright, and Zettel)

JANUARY 10, 2001 Senate Joint Resolution No. 1--Relative to slavery.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST

SJR 1, as amended, Murray. Slavery.

This measure would memorialize Congress to enact legislation similar to House Concurrent Resolution 356, which, among other things, would acknowledge the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery in the United States and the 13 American colonies, apologize to African-Americans on behalf of the people of the United States for the wrongs committed against their ancestors who suffered as slaves, and urge the establishment of a national museum and memorial regarding slavery as it relates to the history of the United States, and other significant African-American history. The measure would also memorialize Congress to enact legislation similar to House Resolution 40, which would establish the Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African-Americans. Fiscal committee: no.

WHEREAS, Approximately 4,000,000 Africans and their descendants were enslaved in the United States and the 13 American colonies in the period 1619 through 1865; and

WHEREAS, Slavery was a grave injustice that caused and continues to cause African-Americans to suffer enormous damages and losses, both material and intangible, including the loss of human dignity and liberty, the frustration of careers and professional lives, and the long-term loss of income and opportunity; and

WHEREAS, Slavery in the United States denied African-Americans the fruits of their own labor and was an immoral and inhumane deprivation of life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, citizenship rights, and cultural heritage; and

WHEREAS, Although the achievements of African-Americans in overcoming the evils of slavery stand as a source of tremendous inspiration, the successes of slaves and their descendants do not overwrite the failure of the nation to grant all Americans their birthright of equality and the civil rights that safeguard freedom; and

WHEREAS, An apology is an important and necessary step in the process of racial reconciliation, because a sincere apology accompanied by an attempt at real restitution is an important healing interaction; and

WHEREAS, A genuine apology may restore damaged relationships, whether they are between two people or between groups of people; and

WHEREAS, African-American art, history, and culture reflect experiences of slavery and freedom, and continued struggles for full recognition of citizenship and treatment with human dignity, and there is inadequate presentation, preservation, and recognition of the contributions of African-Americans within American society; and

WHEREAS, There is a great need for building institutions and monuments to promote cultural understanding of African-American heritage and further enhance racial harmony; and

WHEREAS, A commission to study reparation proposals for African-Americans should be established; now, therefore, be it Resolved by the Senate and Assembly of the State of California, jointly, That the Legislature respectfully memorializes the United States Congress to enact legislation similar to House Concurrent Resolution 356, which was introduced on June 19, 2000, and House Resolution 40, which was introduced on January 6, 1999; and be it further Resolved, That the Secretary of the Senate transmit copies of this resolution to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Chairpersons of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, and to each Senator and Representative from California in the Congress of the United States.

This is not the final version of this resolution - but it is the last version we have posted on our web site. You can view this resolution by selecting Bill Information on the Official Legislative Information home page (www.leginfo.ca.gov), enter the number 1 in bill number box and click search. Select SJR 1 from the list of measures displayed. Scroll down the Bill Document screen for that measure to view the documents associated with that measure.

Submitted by dolphingreen@hotmail.com (Malik Hakim)

July 25, 2001

LONDON (AP) - A U.N. conference against racism is in danger of being derailed by arguments over the term Holocaust and disputes over reparations for slavery and colonialism, Amnesty International said Wednesday.

In meetings ahead of the conference, member states have argued over whether Holocaust should refer specifically to Nazi atrocities against the Jews, or genocide in general, Amnesty's international program director Claudio Cordone said Wednesday.

Preparations for the Aug. 31 opening of the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance have also been bogged down by disputes over how to deal with the legacy of the slave trade and colonialism, he said.

Cordone said the disputes could push countries to downgrade their participation at the conference in Durban, South Africa, and make it harder to reach a common platform.

``If at all that happens the world will have missed a unique opportunity to make a difference in the fight against racism, letting down the victims of discrimination in a spectacular way,'' he said.

According to Amnesty, time has been wasted debating the meaning of Holocaust - an issue raised by several Arab countries.

``The controversy over this issue is insensitive to the feelings of survivors of the Holocaust and is of no use to the fight against racism. They are creating a climate of division that risks undermining all aspects of the conference,'' Cordone said.

Also Wednesday, Israel complained of what it said were efforts by Arab countries to demonize it at the conference over its treatment of the Palestinians.

``According to proposals now on the table, Israel is the only country in the world which is breaching world principles of justice and is practicing racism, practicing genocide, practicing ethnic cleansing, practicing neo-apartheid,'' said Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister Michael Melchior.

``I think there are a couple of other countries which also have some problems,'' he told foreign ambassadors in Jerusalem.

Africans want both, but Western nations led by the United States, Britain and Canada are resisting. Such arguments should be resolved in a different forum, Cordone argued.

The U.N. acknowledged Wednesday there was a danger that the conference could be derailed, but said there was enough common ground for it to be a success.

``There has to be a leap of political will. Countries are going to have to seize this opportunity to tackle these very important issues,'' said Jose Luis Diaz, spokesman for the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights - which is acting as the preparatory committee for the world conference.

``I think people around the world won't forgive countries for missing such an opportunity.''

---

On the Net:

Amnesty International: http://www.amnesty.org/

[Isn’t it strange how the World and the U.S. especially rallied behind European Jews when they spoke and steadily speak out about the Jewish Holocaust, but the Israelis refuse to permit anyone to speak out about their racist behavior against the Palestinians? Also, who coined this word "Holocaust?" Is it only pertinent to White Jews?" And does that mean that there was/is no Native American and Black Holocaust? T.Y., Editor]

SAY NO TO REMOVAL OF REPARATIONS FROM WCAR

Jubilee South Africa

July 1, 2001

Press Statement For Immediate Release

Removal of reparations from the agenda of the Third United Nations World Conference Against Racism is a denial of violations of people’s rights, including slavery, colonialism, apartheid and various forms of economic injustice. This was the clear message from the two-day international consultation on apartheid debt and reparations, involving Southern African and European Jubilee and other anti-debt movements,

held in Johannesburg on June 29th and 30th.

The consultation affirmed that reparations are an acknowledgement of wrongdoing and send a message that human rights violations should not be repeated. In this light, the delegates opposed the attempt to remove the issue of ongoing discrimination against Palestine from the agenda.

A UN Conference that does not address the need to restore the dignity and development of victims of racism will be nothing much more than a talk-shop.

Released by Jubilee South Africa on behalf of Jubilee and Anti-debt Campaigns in:

Germany, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Switzerland, Zambia, Zimbabwe

For further details, contact

Neville Gabriel at 083 449 3934

George Dor at 339 4121 or 648 7000

***

Campaign Against Neo-liberalism in South Africa (CANSA)

Can be contacted at the Johannesburg Office of the

Alternative Information and Development Centre (AIDC)

3rd fl Cosatu House, cnr Leyds and Biccard Streets,

Braamfontein, South Africa

Postal address:

60 Isipingo Street, Bellevue East 2198, South Africa

Tel during office hours:

27 11 339 4121

Fax:

27 11 339 4123

Tel after office hours:

27 11 648 7000

Email:

cansa@sn.apc.org

Submitted by BRC-REPARATIONS: Black Radical Congress - Reparations Caucus

Questions/Problems: send email to brc-reparations-owner@egroups.com

OPEN LETTER TO THE BALTIMORE SUN CONCERNING REPARATIONS

Dear Mr. Hewitt:

I am writing to request that the Baltimore Sun do more feature articles about the international legal battle for Reparations for all African-Americans. In particular, I am asking that, after you carefully review the information at www.afre-ngo.org, you direct one of your editors or reporters to conduct an in-depth interview with the Honorable Silis Muhammad or one of his Ambassadors or Ministers.

Since 1998, Mr. Muhammad has repeatedly testified before diverse United Nations bodies in Geneva, Switzerland, concerning the ethnocide, genocide, forced assimilation and institutionalized racism which the U.S. government continues to impose upon 40 million African-Americans. He has repeatedly emphasized that Reparations is about our Restoration as a people--we need to be restored to our original language, original religion and original culture, we need to establish our own collective political identity in the international legal realm, and we deserve the leverage and power to mold our own destiny as a people. The Honorable Silis Muhammad has also urged the U.N. to establish a forum which would allow African-American representatives from North, Central, South America, and the Caribbean to collectively analyze the lingering effects of plantation slavery and the type of Reparations which would best advance all of us. In his April 12th 2001 intervention before the U.N. Human Rights Commission, Mr. Muhammad asked the U.N. to place a Reparations Sanction upon the U.S. government for her long-time and ongoing oppression of our people.

On May 3rd 2001 the U.N. removed the U.S.A. from the Human Rights Commission. Although that is not a sanction per se, it does indicate to many observers that a growing number of nations are fed up with America's posing as a champion of human rights worldwide while she continues to exploit and abuse a whole nation of Black people within her own borders. Seldom are articles published in the media about the courageous and noble work of the Honorable Silis Muhammad. America's ruling elite and the white mass media have striven mightily to hide this man's image and message from the masses for fear that the truths he is revealing will set in motion a new and powerful phase of our liberation movement. A man who works so hard for the benefit of all African-Americans, including future generations to be born, should not beclose to invisible. I hope that when you review the information at www.afre-ngo.org you will decide to give his efforts and all the efforts of those battling for full-strength Reparations regular front-page coverage in your newspaper.

By Minister Malik Al-Arkam

Submitted by dolphingreen@hotmail.com (Malik Hakim)

A WISE LIBERATION MOVEMENT USES

BROAD RANGE OF TACTICS

Minister Malik Al-Arkam

Boston Representative of the

Honorable Silis Muhammad

www.afre-ngo.org

REPARATIONS MOVEMENT GAINING MOMENTUM

July 6, 2001

According to official statistics, African-American men who finish college still, even at the ages of 35-39, make just $739 for every $1,000 that white male college graduates make. More Black men are now in prisons than in higher education. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the median net

worth of the white American family is about ten times that of the Black American family.

To their dismay, many Black voters in Florida found last November that their votes only count if the Caucasian power structure lets them count. Today the President who immorally gained office via the disenfranchisement of African-American citizens mocks them by systematically destroying the meager gains of the Civil Rights Movement and affirmative-action plans. Shortly before his assassination in 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote: "White America has allowed itself to be indifferent to race prejudice and economic denial. It has treated them as superficial blemishes but now awakes to the horrifying reality of a potentially fatal disease. The American people are infected with racism -- that is the peril."

Even though the present political economy is intentionally designed to crush the masses of Black people, our unity, our spiritual power and our cumulative experiences motivate us to make a way where there is seemingly no way. A growing number of Black folks from all walks of life and from diverse political and religious persuasions are now joining their voices in a rising chorus to demand justice from the U.S. government in the form of Reparations. In March of 1994 the National Commission For Reparations, spear-headed by the Honorable Silis Muhammad and Attorney General Misshaki Muhammad, sent an historic Petition for Reparations to the United Nations office in Geneva, Switzerland.

All of America's citizens should know that this historic document was the prelude to a crucial legal and spiritual battle inside the United Nations which has intensified since Mr. Muhammad began making oral and written interventions in the U.N. in 1998. According to international law, the United States owes her Black victims massive restitutions in diverse forms, including but not limited to money, gold, equipment, exemption from unjust taxation, freedom for political prisoners, real estate, and, for all who desire, safe transportation back to our Original Homeland of Africa. And please remember this: Reparations are due to all Black descendants of slaves in America, regardless of their political outlook, economic status or religious preferences.

Starting in 1998 the Honorable Silis Muhammad began testifying before diverse United Nations bodies in Geneva. In May of that year he delivered an oral intervention before the Working Group On Minorities. In August, 1998 he delivered an oral statement before the Sub-Commission On The Promotion & Protection Of Human Rights. He stated that the slave descendants remain a lost people as the result of the lingering effects of slavery. He asked the United Nations to assist African-Americans by establishing a forum.

In March, 1999 Mr. Muhammad delivered a Written Statement to the Commission On Human Rights. In this he established his argument based on Article 27 of the International Covenant On Civil & Political Rights. He emphasized that the U.S. Constitution does not embody the living will of African-Americans. He charged the U.S. government with violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In May, 1999 Mr. Muhammad delivered an oral statement before the Working Group On Minorities. He asked if the African-American struggle for human dignity is not equal to that of groups struggling for human life. He stated that the death of the human spirit is a living hell.

In July 1999 the Honorable Silis Muhammad delivered a Written Statement to the Sub-Commission On The Promotion & Protection Of Human Rights. He stated that the U.S. government intentionally deprived our people of education in our Mother Tongue. He charged the U.S. with committing fraud against the United Nations and genocide against African-Americans. In August 1999 Mr. Muhammad delivered an oral statement to the Sub-Commission. He requested U.N. assistance under Article 27 and under the Declaration of the Rights of Minorities. He defined the condition of African-Americans as that of "civil death" and he charged the U.S. with perpetrating civil death upon our people. He pointed to the Mother Tongue as the key to preservation of identity and he again asked for a forum.

In April of the year 2000, Mr. Muhammad delivered the following address to the Human Rights Commission: "The lingering effects of plantation slavery leave my people and me in a deprived state. We are deprived of our mother tongue. Today, the United States of America grants minorities the use of their own language. But mine was forcibly taken away. I am denied and deprived of its use. Article 27 of the International Covenant On Civil & Political Rights, which the United States has ratified, declares: 'In those States in which ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities exist, persons belonging to such minorities shall not be denied the right, in community with other members of their group, to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practice their own religion, or to use their own language.' We, the so-called African-Americans, in the aftermath of plantation slavery, cannot speak our own language, in community with other members of our group. The U.S. Government took it away. African Americans originate from many parts of Africa encompassing hundreds of languages.

Therefore, it would be impossible to implement the prayer of African-Americans regarding the loss of their 'mother tongue.' The inability to implement a remedy makes it impossible to enforce any law. Our prayer, however, is for Reparations. In this way America can address this legal and moral wrong: we will choose a language pleasing to us. This argument is being made by a group that represents only one tenth of one percent of African-Americans in the United States. Nonetheless, the argument is made. In conclusion, we ask that the United States pay Reparations to the so-called African-Americans, as the United States cannot restore our 'mother tongue,' if ever it wanted to. Nor should the United States continue, illegally to choose and force one upon us, which it has done for the last 400 years! We ask that the Commission On Human Rights recommend a Reparation Sanction against the United States to the ECOSOC and the General Assembly."

During the past several months AFRE (All For Reparations And Emancipation), the NGO which has been instrumental in opening doors for us at the U.N., forwarded key recommendations to the upcoming World Conference Against Racism which will soon convene in South Africa. One of these is as follows: "We recommend that the WCAR encourage the governments concerned to voluntarily and immediately establish tax-exempt status for slave descendants, a status which will be in effect until both Reparations and Restoration of Human Rights have been achieved."

In his April 12th 2001 intervention before the Human Rights Commission in Geneva, Mr. Silis Muhammad again asked the United Nations to place a Reparations Sanction upon the U.S. government for its long-term and ongoing oppression of African-Americans. On May 3rd 2001 the U.N. removed the USA from the Human Rights Commission. Although that is not a sanction per se, it does indicate to many observers that a growing number of nations are fed up with America posing as a champion of democracy while abusing and exploiting millions of people within her own borders.

Presently the U.S. Government and the white mass media are busy trying to undermine and dilute the Reparations issue. They want to hide the noble work of the Honorable Silis Muhammad and other advocates of full-strength Reparations, while mis-directing millions of African-Americans into seeking justice inside the courts of the very same U.S. government which has oppressed us for centuries. Some of the Caucasian power structure's servants have suggested that maybe Blacks are owed some watered-down reparations in the form of so-called educational benefits, health benefits and business-development benefits to be designed by the malevolent ruling elite.

By Minister Malik Al-Arkam alarkam@webtv.net

http://www.afre-ngo.org

RIGHTS LEADERS URGE POWELL TO ATTEND

U.N. RACISM CONFERENCE

In a letter sent to Secretary Powell on Monday, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, a broad coalition of 180 civil rights and human rights groups, asks him to aid "the global effort to eradicate the vestiges of racism, root and branch."

The letter urges him to lead a strong delegation to the conference in Durban, South Africa, which starts on Aug. 31, and to give the conference more generous support than the $250,000 budgeted by the Clinton administration before it left office.

The executive director of the leadership conference, Wade J. Henderson, said in an interview that there were several reasons to view the conference and a high-level American delegation as important.

Secretary Powell said on June 20 in a Senate hearing that issues like viewing Zionism as racism and compensation for slavery could derail the conference.

State Department officials said no decisions on participating had been made, although the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, Mary Robinson, has met twice with Secretary Powell on the issue.

Some United Nations officials fear that the United States may not attend at all or may send a low-level delegation. Private American rights groups will be out in force, however, at a parallel unofficial conference, also in Durban.

"Powell's presence could help to influence the U.S. delegation to participate with a more open mind," Mr. Henderson said. For civil rights leaders, he added, "this is an important opportunity to try to use the U.N.'s stage as a way of reflecting back on what the United States both said and did in policies related to race. We want to use the international forum as a way to address our domestic agenda."

In preparing an agenda and a declaration for the conference, some countries have sought language that others see as thinly veiled references to Israel that echo the anti-Zionist language of some United Nations documents of the 1970's.

Wording that was ultimately approved by planners is still provocative to some countries. One provision states, "Theories of superiority of certain races and cultures over others promoted and practiced during the colonial era continue to be propounded in one form or another even today." That rankles in some Western capitals.

In Lusaka, Zambia, on Monday, he told a meeting of African leaders, "While Africa and Africans have suffered terribly in the past few centuries from slavery and colonialism and people of African descent still suffer discrimination in many societies, we cannot hide the fact that today some of our own societies are also disfigured by ethnic hatred and violence."

He said the conference should produce "a document that looks unflinchingly at every society in the world" and "builds on the past but does not become a captive of it."

Mr. Henderson and Karen K. Narasaki, executive director of the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium, part of the leadership conference, said in interviews the broad scope of their coalition encompassing groups that represent women, minority groups and gay and disabled people, among others gave them standing at the conference with an equally broad array of foreign human rights groups.

The Dalit leader, Martin Macwan, a recipient of two American human rights awards, works closely with the leadership conference, Mr. Henderson said. "The rubric of `related intolerance,' it seems to us, incorporates them," he added.

Ms. Narasaki said the diversity of her consortium and the larger leadership conference also reflected a successful marriage between civil rights and human rights interests.

"We know the Department of Justice, and the human rights agencies know the State Department, where we have a lot less experience," she said. "Because of the breadth of our coalition, we have expertise on every issue."

By Barbara Crossette

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/11/international/11RACE.html?ex=995864375&ei=1&en=4cf6197fef1b5389

Submitted by alarkam@webtv.net.

***

The Bush Administration, speaking through Mr. Colin Powell, openly opposes approval of any compensation-for-slavery proposal at the upcoming WCAR. In truth, genuine Reparations must include not just monetary compensation, but the Restoration of a people who to this day are subjected to ethnocide, forced assimilation, and institutionalized racism.

Minister Malik Al-Arkam

www.afre-ngo.org

[Secretary General Kofi Annan should know and realize that it is because of "history" Blacks are experiencing these "current" racist "problems." T.Y., Editor]

Stay strong in the struggle; we will win!

Dejoser

AFRICAN AMERICAN TASK FORCE ON THE UN/WCAR

July 18, 2001

A Call for an African-American National Consultative Assembly

IHRAAM takes this opportunity to salute you and the organizations and people you represent in your continuing struggles for the realization of Human Rights.

In order to question the authority of the state in relation to the need for new or reformed institutions in a politically functional and coherent manner, it is customary for aggrieved groups, minorities, nations, indigenous peoples, etc. to organize a political unity in keeping with democratic norms and international law through which they can be politically represented in relation to the government concerned, the United Nations (UN), other friendly nations, and the international community at large. Quite often it is the ability of a group, minority, etc. to politically and democratically "self-identify" and "self-organize" that will, from a practical point of view, determine the degree of seriousness with which its demands and grievances, in relation to its government, will be given serious consideration by that government, the UN or the international community at large.

The purpose of creating political unity should be not only to resolve the immediate socio-economic and political needs of the group denied equal status and its human dignity, but to attempt to do so first through mutually beneficial negotiations with the state concerned, with a view to improving the democratic, economic, environ-mental and developmental situation of the state as a whole, as well as that of the aggrieved group as a whole. Concomitantly, the group concerned must demonstrate its concern with the individual human rights of its members as well as with the rights of other groups, individuals and nations.

Indeed, joining with other free nations to achieve commonly-sought rights may seem to require greater effort than some may feel is desirable or required. However, the implementation of both minority rights and freedom in our world today and consequently of international law, carries an equal burden of responsibilities to others and to mother earth.

Keeping this in mind, IHRAAM's "SECOND INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE RIGHT TO SELF-DETERMINATION & THE UN" will invite the leadership of all AFRICAN-AMERICAN and other targeted minorities or nations to:

(1) Give consideration to and assist in the democratic establishment of an AFRICAN-AMERICAN NATIONAL CONSULTATIVE ASSEMBLY as a first step in pursuing the implementation of the declarations and recommendations officially approved by the WCAR; and

(2) Seek to officially consult with government on the institutional needs and changes required to end racism and provide for Human Rights.

This Conference, which is scheduled to be held in Spring 2002, will also give consideration to the establishment of an INTERNATIONAL CONSULTATIVE ASSEMBLY (of minorities, peoples or internal nations who seek the right of self-determination). This body would attempt to establish an effective and efficient consultative relation with the UN in such a manner as to permit a greater input from civic society towards informing decisions related to the need for UN assistance or involvement in self-determination and racism conflicts, particularly in areas where the undemocratic nature of some UN organs, coupled with power politics, may obscure the dangers to global peace, human rights and socio-economic development (i.e. situations like that of the Zapatistas, the Palestinians, the Kashmiris, the Kurds, the Tamils, the African-Americans, the Native-Americans, the Dalits, the Catholics in Northern Ireland, the Chechens, the Puerto-Ricans, etc.)

In conclusion, IHRAAM and its AFRICAN-AMERICAN TASK FORCE ON THE WCAR are aware that the interest of African-Americans, as well as that of peoples of African descent, will be glued to the struggle for REPARATIONS (the admission of wrongdoing and thereby the obligation to satisfy, compensate or restore). Indeed, IHRAAM fully supports and promotes this effort and feels that the raising of this question in the WCAR forum will be the most spectacular and important achievement and contribution of the WCAR, even though concerned governments will take time in officially recognizing these past wrong doings and their obligation to provide reparations. One of the duties of an AFRICAN-AMERICAN NATIONAL CONSULTATIVE ASSEMBLY will be to facilitate and plan for such a process. An INTERNATIONAL CONSULTATIVE ASSEMBLY (of minorities, peoples or internal nations who seek the right to self-determination) would have similar goals in regard to its consultation with the UN in relation to the situations above mentioned.

IHRAAM Directorate, and Members, AFRICAN-AMERICAN TASK FORCE ON THE WCAR

www.ihraam.org

ihraam@usa.net

mihraam@aol.com

Submitted by ihraam@geocities.com (IHRAAM)

It Is The Black Fool Who Says I Have Lost Nothing In Afrika!!

Much love to the Afrikan nation.

Hoteph

Osiris Akkebala

(p.a.i.'n)

NETHERLANDS RATIFIES INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT

Sixty countries must deposit papers of ratification with the United Nations certifying their national legislatures had ratified the pact before the court can be established, and supporters predicted the required ratifications could be reached within the next 10 to15 months.

The Dutch parliament ratified the treaty last week, enabling Ambassador Dirk Jan van den Berg to deposit the ratification papers on the third anniversary of the treaty's adoption by a U.N. conference in Rome on July 17, 1998.

But the administration of President Bush, which took office in January, has served notice it would not ratify the pact. The Pentagon fears it could be used to try U.S. military personnel.

Some administration officials want the United States to rescind its signature from the treaty. Others want Washington to mount a campaign to prevent the court, supported strongly by Europeans, from getting established.

France, Italy, Luxembourg, Austria, Germany, Spain, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland are among the European countries who have previously ratified the treaty. Britain is expected to do so in September.

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-un-cour.html?ex=996470039&ei=1&en=af774dd71bea2102

***

President Bush strongly opposes the International Criminal Court because he knows that the U.S. government has long practiced ethnocide, genocide and forced assimilation against millions of African-Americans. He also knows that there is hard evidence that the U.S. government intentionally developed the AIDS virus. He deeply fears the day when the U.S. government (and individual representatives thereof) will be formally charged with diverse violations of international law and human rights.

Malik Al-Arkam

Submitted by BRC-REPARATIONS: Black Radical Congress - Reparations Caucus

Questions/Problems: send email to <brc-reparations-owner@egroups.com>

[The United States does not fear that this international court would be used to try U.S. military personnel. The United States fears that its image would be marred because of its past involvement in the TransAtlantic Slave Trade and its unjust treatment of Descendants of Slaves - bringing Truth to surface that the U.S. IS NOT a proponent of Human Rights. Let’s call a spade a spade! T.Y., Editor]

LONG-RANGE JUSTICE RAISES FEARS FOR SOVEREIGNTY

What is dawning, human rights lawyers say, is an age of justice without borders — and not everyone is happy about it.

The trend, while celebrated by human rights advocates, is being viewed by some lawyers and governments as an alarming challenge to national sovereignty and a potentially unpredictable political

tool.

The case of Mr. Milosevic, the former Serbian leader who was handed over to an international tribunal this week, more than any other "demonstrates that even the highest government officials are vulnerable to international prosecution for the most heinous human rights crimes," said Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch.

"It's a momentous occasion for Milosevic's victims, who might see a modicum of justice done," said Mr. Roth, whose organization strongly supports what is called "universal jurisdiction" for human rights offenses. "But it's also an historic moment for the human rights movement," he added, "because it will begin to force would-be tyrants to think twice before replicating Milosevic's atrocities."

Some fear, however, that such a trend could have a paralyzing effect on government decision-making and warn that there are no guarantees that such prosecutions — which are hopscotching borders in roundabout ways — will be even-handed, indicting the friends as well as the foes of great powers.

Nonetheless, there is a trend — whether justice is pursued by international tribunals, under national laws or by states and prosecutors claiming that some crimes are so awful that the accused should have no place to hide.

There was Manuel Noriega, the dictator of Panama who was seized by the United States in 1989, and convicted in 1992 of drug trafficking. There is Augusto Pinochet, the former Chilean strongman, who spent a year and a half in British custody on a Spanish warrant before being allowed to return home, where his legal problems continue. Hissan Habre, the former ruler of Chad, was under arrest in Senegal until a new government turned him loose last year, but his fate remains uncertain. Jean Kambanda, a former Rwandan prime minister, went to jail for life last year for his role in his country's 1994 genocide, mostly of ethnic Tutsi.

Others may have their days in court. Peru is demanding extradition from Japan of its former president, Alberto K. Fujimori. A Belgian prosecutor is trying to open proceedings against Saddam Hussein of Iraq, whose case is also being studied by American officials.

Foday Sankoh, though not a head of state, will almost certainly face proceedings in Sierra Leone for leading a particularly vicious rebel army against a government in which he was a minister.

At the Yale Law School, Ruth Wedgwood, a professor of international law, said the idea of universal jurisdiction first arose in 1919, in an abortive attempt to put Kaiser Wilhelm on trial for World War I. "The U.S. was quite reluctant," Ms. Wedgwood said, in part because of the fuzziness of one of the charges, "crimes against the principles of humanity," the predecessor to crimes against humanity. "It's funny what a difference time makes," she said.

After World War II, the Nuremberg trials of Nazi officials were the century's high point in the use of universal jurisdiction for war crimes. But after that, this kind of law became a narrow specialist field, Ms. Wedgwood said.

Now, she calls it "a growth industry," revived in recent years with the establishment of war crimes tribunals for the Balkans and Rwanda, and with the impending opening of the International Criminal Court, perhaps within the next two years.

William Pace, convenor of the Coalition for an International Criminal Court, said that the speed the movement for universal jurisdiction has picked up in a decade is remarkable.

"Between 1989 and 1995," he said, "virtually every international affairs expert promised us that there would never be a statute to create an International Criminal Court, that it would take another 30, 50, 100 years."

"Equally, we have been told over the years that never will we see Milosevic transferred to The Hague," he added. "One of the messages here is that patience works. The era of impunity is being replaced by a new era of international law and justice."

Hans Corell, the United Nations' legal counsel and a central figure in drawing up plans for international tribunals, said the establishment of the International Criminal Court will strengthen the hands of those who want to bring an errant leader to trial.

But other legal scholars are disturbed by threats aimed at Yugoslavia by rich nations, especially the United States, that money to rebuild the country would be withheld until Mr. Milosevic was turned over.

And Henry A. Kissinger, writing in the current issue of Foreign Affairs, warns against what he sees as a dangerous mix of law and politics in what he acknowledges has become a growing movement for universal jurisdiction over the last decade.

Mr. Kissinger, whom some strident critics want to see face trial for his policies in Cambodia during the Vietnam War, writes that a universal system "must not allow legal principles to be used as weapons to settle political scores."

He sees a possible chilling effect on makers of foreign policy, who would have to weigh whether they could be prosecuted for acting on behalf of what they see as their nation's interests.

Mr. Kissinger himself was recently haunted by American involvement in Chile when he was secretary of state almost 30 years ago, as a Paris judge tried to summon him to answer questions in the Pinochet prosecution.

By Barbara Crossette

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/01/world/01NATI.html?ex=994954763&ei=1&en=3088042c1f01a132

***

The U.S. government fears the establishment of the International Criminal Court which could be used one day to prosecute U.S. leaders and soldiers for crimes against humanity. The USA is the greatest human rights violator on the planet. To this day it continues to practice ethnocide, genocide, forced assimilation and institutionalized racism against 40 million African-Americans while ignoring our just demand for Reparations. For evidence that the U.S. government developed the AIDS virus, please visit www.boydgraves.com For detailed updates on the international legal battle for Reparations for all African-Americans, visit www.afre-ngo.org

Minister Malik Al-Arkam

Submitted by AlArkam@webtv.net

N E W P A N T H E R V A N G U A R D

M O N T H L Y C O M M U N I T Y F O R U M

"Reparations: Does the United Nations Have a Role to Play?"

NVPM Chairman, B. Kwaku Duren will speak at and moderate this forum and will also be attending the WCAR on behalf of the NPVM's Intercommunal Reparations Campaign. During the evening rap artist, D-Dash will perform the newly released CD single, Reparations Are Due! The NPVM's Reparations Survival Kit will also be available for purchase.

NPVM@GlobalPanther.com

http://www.GLOBALPANTHER.COM

Co-sponsored by Community Services Unlimited, Inc.

Tammy Lee

New Media CO-OP

Web Guide

http://www.newmediacoop.com

***

CO-OP BLACK WEB TOUR

WWW.GLOBALPANTHER.COM IS NEW PANTHER VANGUARD MOVEMENT, THE INTERNATIONAL PANTHER HEADQUARTERS

Noting my own renaissance in the Civil Rights Movement, via the Reparations Movement three years ago at a meeting at the International Panther Headquarters in Los Angeles, California, and a recent press release of the 35th Anniversary Reunion and Conference of the Black Panther Party, October 11-14, 2001, I offer this site next on the Black Web Tour as an important site in our history and our future. The site is intriguing and beautifully tranquil. The General Information link provides links to the Code of Conduct, the Ten Point Platform and Program, how to Get Involved and Reparations pages. And, there is a lot more.

The New Panther Vanguard Movement and other Non-Governmental Organizations who are attempting to

place the issue of "reparations for Africans in the Americas and in Africa, and other Indigenous People's on the working agenda of the World Conference scheduled for Durban, South Africa from August 31, to September 7, 2001.

<cid:part1.08010303.02040302@netscape.com>

<http://hc2.humanclick.com/hc/21795881/?cmd=file&amp;file=visitorWantsToChat&amp;site=21795881&amp;byhref=1>

<cid:part2.01030707.05000800@netscape.com>

<http://hc2.humanclick.com/hc/21795881/?cmd=PoweredByPage&amp;site=21795881>

Surf in at http://WWW.GLOBALPANTHER.COM and reach the New Panther Vanguard Movement at NPVM@GLOBALPANTHER.COM <mailto:NPVM@GLOBALPANTHER.COM>.

Submitted by "Tammy Lee" <tammylee@successnet.net>

New Media CO-OP

Web Guide

http://www.newmediacoop.com

NVMP Chairman, B. Kwaku Duren

1470 West Martin Luther King Blvd. (between Western and Normandie) in Los Angeles.

Tel. # (323) 296-4383.

Peace Brothers and Sisters,

Robert

For further information contact Rhazard988@AOL.COM

…let's work together to heighten this righteous call for justice.

Peace and Power,

Ukali

JOIN THE BLACK REPARATIONS MOVEMENT TODAY !

IT IS A WIN, WIN CASE FOR US!

Oscar L. Beard

- Obtain Reparations from all countries that prospered from Black Slave Labor

- Demonstrate in front of the UN in Geneva for World Attention

- Establish an International Fund for Descendants of Slaves

- Seek support for Reparations from Companies that prosper off of Black Clients

- Seek Celebrity support for Reparations

- Involve the Media

- Make "Reparations" the buzz word for 2000

- Etc., etc., and by "any means necessary" within the Law

IN SUPPORT OF REPARATIONS!

Ahna Tafari

RACISM CONDEMNATION HITS OBSTACLES

June 27, 2001

Diplomats are trying to get a draft done in time for the World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa, set for Aug. 31-Sept. 7.

Last week, she visited Secretary of State Colin Powell to urge him to attend, but failed to get a promise.

Some American blacks have demanded compensation for past abuses like the $4.3 billion that Germany recently agreed to pay victims of Nazi slave labor.

``The dehumanizing impact of stripping people of their names, of their identities, of their families, and fattening them for export... these are crimes against humanity now,'' Robinson said.

Robinson said reparations might include monuments, museums and historical education programs, not just money.

Last week, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the United States' participation in the Durban meeting depends on how slavery -- as well as alleged discrimination against Palestinians in Israel -- figure on the agenda.

``Financial reparations and a formal apology (for slavery) would do nothing to address racism and discrimination today,'' Boucher said. ``The conference should address current problems.''

The discussions will also likely skirt the issue of discrimination between castes, which countries like India and Nepal are trying to fight, but would rather keep out of the international spotlight, Robinson said.

The U.S. wariness has angered black U.S. lawmakers, who met with Robinson last week and urged the Bush administration to participate.

``It's the brave and the courageous countries of the world, particularly the western ones who participated in colonialism, who participated in the slave trade, whose voices need to be heard to say, `Let us correct this wrong,''' Rep. Cynthia McKinney, D-Ga., said in a telephone interview Wednesday.

Submitted by alarkam@webtv.net

[One thing is clear, and that is WE WILL NOT JUST SETTLE FOR THE LIKES OF MONUMENTS, MUSEUMS, AND HISTORICAL EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS FOR THE HUMAN RIGHTS ATROCITIES THAT WE HAVE ENDURED, and it’s an insult to even suggest it. No one made this suggestion to the European Jews. And if the leaders of the countries that instituted the TransAtlantic Slave Trade do no wish to discuss their past Human Rights crimes in a forum, then they should seek alternative means to resolve racism and Reparations to the satisfaction of all parties concerned. It would appear that White Societies are the only ones permitted to point the finger and identity grievances. Isn’t this the very injustice that WCAR is all about? T.Y., Editor]

Muhammad Mosque of Islam in Boston, Massachusetts invites you to attend weekly meetings each Sunday at the Dillaway located at:

183 Roxbury Street

Roxbury, Massachusetts

(Next to the Timilty School, in Roxbury)

Meetings start at 2:00 PM, but on the last Sunday of the month we start at 1:00 PM.

For more information and to schedule free lectures on Reparations at your church, school, business or organization, feel welcome to telephone Minister Malik Al-Arkam at (617) 770-2017.

***

LECTURE ON:

REPARATIONS AND BLACK EMPOWERMENT

Dillaway House

183 Roxbury Street

Roxbury, Massachusetts (Next to the Timilty School)

Time: 2:00 P.M.

Lecture will focus on: the seldom-publicized international legal battle for broad Reparations for all African-Americans. It will include an update on the ill-conceived plans of the U.S. government to undermine Reparations at the upcoming World Conference Against Racism which will convene in a few weeks in Durban, South Africa.

The speaker, Minister Malik Al-Arkam, is the Boston representative of the Honorable Silis Muhammad, who has repeatedly testified in person before diverse United Nations bodies, including the Human Rights Commission, concerning ethnocide, genocide, forced assimilation and institutionalized racism, as well as the urgent need for a U.N. forum in which African-Americans can explore the exact forms that Reparations should take. You, your families and friends are most welcome to attend this timely lecture.

CONTACT: Muhammad's Mosque of Islam: (617) 770-2017

E-mail: alarkam@webtv.net

www.afre-ngo.org

THE REPARATIONS EDUCATION AND MOBILIZATION CONFERENCE

SCHEDULED FOR JUNE 29/30, 2001 WAS POSTPONED!

THE LEGACY OF THE BLACK POWER MOVEMENT

AND

THE UNITED NATIONS WORLD CONFERENCE AGAINST RACISM

The December 12th Movement, based in New York, and The National Black United Front (NBUF) are co-sponsoring a Black Power conference in support of the United Nations World Conference Against Racism.

The United Nations World Conference Against Racism will be held in Durbin, South Africa from August 31, 2001 - September 7, 2001.

By Dr. Conrad W. Worrill

***

To All Concerned African People:

The United Nations' World Conference against Racism begins August 31, 2001 in Durban, South Africa. The December 12th Movement International Secretariat is seeking you to be a part of the Delegation of 400 African people to South Africa in support of two crucial issues:

Malcolm X said that we must put our situation on the international agenda, in the international arena. We must be there in a massive presence to defend our human rights.

Costs:
We estimate that the total cost for the trip (the Conference is from August 31, to September 7), i.e., travel, lodging and meals, will be approximately $2500.  If you are planning to go we need a deposit of $250.00 immediately.

We, along with the National Black United Front, are working with a Black Travel Agency based in Chicago which has already made airline travel arrangements to and reserved blocks of hotel rooms in Durban. Your check or money order should be made out to AARCO TRAVEL AND TOURS and should be sent to the:

For more information on the World Conference against Racism and the struggle to defend the human rights of African people, contact us at:

Telephone #718-398-1766
Fax #623-1855
E-mail: D12M

IF YOU WISH TO GO TO SOUTH AFRICA, PLEASE FILL OUT THE FORM BELOW.

APPLICATION FORM FOR THE DURBAN 400

NAME:

ADDRESS

PHONE :

FAX:

E-MAIL:

ORGANIZATIONAL AFFILIATION (if any):


YES: I want to be a member of the Durban 400.  Enclosed is my check in the
amount of $_______________.


_____________________________________________________________
NAME

PHILOSOPHY BORN OF STRUGGLE CONFERENCE ON

RACE, REPARATIONS, AND RESTITUTION

Place: Brown University

CONTACT:

J. Everet Green

HUMANITAS 3000

37 Old Oregon Road

Cortlandt Manor

New York, New York 10567

55^TH AFRIKAN DIASPORA NATION STATE CONFERENCE

We need to practice Ujima(Collective Work and Responsibility) and send in early Registration Fees and Donations to pay for this Kujichagulia (Self Determined) conference, through Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics). Pan Afrikan Black Nationalist have for scores of decades developed Kummba and held on to Imani. Now the time has come to practice what we have organized around. Umoja and Self Determination "By any means necessary." Or Are you spewing rhetoric without substance?

"Idle words....make for idle minds... creating idle bodies..... Power to the people.....

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(561)689-6400

No Group rate available at this time * $99. Single $119. suites + tax

All rooms are within five (5) miles of conference site. Transportation will be provided by schedule to and from Hotel / Motel stops. The conference space will be centrally located to all motels. Some motels will set aside at least ten (10) rooms for our conference and will provide group rates as we meet the group room minimum. You must make your own motel reservations. Ask for shuttle service from the airport, bus, or train stations. Please REGISTER EARLY for the conference. Your Registration Fee will all go toward conference expenses. Don’t forget to let advise us of where you intend to stay.

Registrations Form (copy and return via E-mail):

55^TH AFRICAN NATION DIASPORA STATE CONFERENCE

Name____________________________ Phone #______ _____________________

Address __________________________ Country___________________________

City______________________________ State____ District./Region_____________

Organization Affiliations________________________________________________

I (We) will staying at: __________________________________________________

$40 Registration Fee Enclosed __ Yes __ No

Donation Included $_______

Please make Checks and Money Orders Payable to: Robert Hazard. Send all mail to the following address * Mawusi c/o Robert Hazard * P.O. Box 2186 * West Palm Beach, Fl. 33402. For information and assistance call Robert Mawusi Hazard at (561) 881-8298. Round trip transportation from the motels to the conference will be scheduled.

CONTACT: RHazard988

THE "STATE OF THE BLACK WORLD" CONFERENCE

Convenes in Atlanta November 28 – December 2, 2001 at the Georgia International Convention Center.

"A set of goals and objectives have been outlined," he said. "We hope to identify, analyze and discuss the critical crises and issues facing Black people. We also hope to provide some sort of leadership and skill development training to enhance our collective capacity to engage the struggle for liberation."

"Our agenda also includes discussion of meaningful definitions of liberation and reconstruction, intensifying the global movement for reparations and working towards the convening of an International Black Arts and Cultural Festival,"

For more information, call 1-866-ATL-SOBW or visit www.TBWT.com

"Power never conceded without a demand, it never did and never will - where there is no struggle, there is no progress." F. Douglas

BECOME A MEMEBER OF N'COBRA. Visit us at www.N’COBRA.com, write the national headquarters at:

P.O. Box 62622

Washington. D.C. 20029-2622

E-mail me for further information about the WCAR at onajemuid4@cs.com or write:

Onaje Mu'id

P.O. Box 8003

Englewood, NJ 07631.

*Onaje Mu'id is a human rights activist with the International Commissioner of N'COBRA and Policy Chair of the National Black Alcoholisms and Addiction Council-New York Chapter and Ndundu member of the Council of Independent Black Institutions.

The book listing on Reparations and Black History can be found in REPNOW Newsletters 1 - 5.

Imari A. Obadele

"Without Sanctuary"

The web address for Without Sanctuary" is listed in the REPNOW Newsletter #13.

Please pass this information on to others for it is out of…

AMERICA'S SHAME: CONTEMPT & THE LYNCHINGS

See a wide range of E-mail Addresses & WebSites on REPARATIONS in the REPNOW Issue #13.

THE NEW REPUBLIC: AGAINST REPARATIONS

<Can black people believe in America? Is the measure of a community's strength how articulately they can call for charity? John McWhorter on the latest fashion in African American pessimism, and why it should be rejected.>

For the record, the author is black:

CHECK IT OUT:

http://www.thenewrepublic.com/072301/mcwhorter072301_print.html

http://www.linguistics.berkeley.edu/lingdept/Current/people/facpages/mcwhorter.html

JOHN MCWHORTER can be emailed directly at: johnmcw@socrates.berkeley.edu

***

In response to the above article, Khalifah writes:

While we appreciate your communiques, BIG TIME! It is debatable as to whether we should waste the time of our readers with the diatribe and dribble of a "wanna be" clone of uncle Clarence Thomas and uncle Ward Connerly.

Right now he is a -0- who wroter a -0- book of uselessness denigrating the Noble Struggle of Afrikan people...it was only the third book that I seriously considered NOT FOLLOWING MY OWN POLICY in the publication of YOUR BLACK BOOKS GUIDE over the last 12 years. That is, any new books sent to me as "review copy" for distribution consideration, I automatically note it by listing it in the section alled "NEW BOOKS RECEIVED SINCE LAST EDITION." The other two book that got this kind of treatment were a book from a fellow named Frederick K. Price and another named Ken Hamblin.

The one thing we can all give generously to the likes of modern day "uncle" toms is that they have learned their craft well....REPARATIONS IS SUCH AN EXPLOSIVE ISSUE, even those taking opposing views to it will get their "15 minutes of fame...."

Khalifah

***

Producers & Disseminators of the Literature that is Finally Freeing Afrikan People:

"Those at Home and those abroad!"

www.KBAbooks.com

Hotep,

I am Gregory Carey, Founder and President of Reparations Central, an online reparations searchable database. We would like for you to view our website that is in the development stage at http://www.reparationscentral.com

In Struggle,

Aluta Continua Asante Sana

1.) I suggest that you approach the city in which you reside for reparations, support for reparations, or information as to how to obtain reparations. Your strategy may be a model we all may benefit from at the local level.

2.) Next, demonstrate your willingness to join others in the struggle for reparations.

3.) I would hope that you join or start an N’COBRA chapter in your locale area (if there is none) and become an active and energetic member/reparations information resource, for your Afrikan brothers and sisters.

Submitted by R. Hazard, N’COBRA

"Together We shall Win REPARATIONS NOW!!!"

Free Your Mind - Join N’COBRA.... Free The People.... Free The Land...

Robert Hazard

"If you are thinking one year ahead, sow a seed.

if you thinking ten years ahead, plant a tree.

If you thinking one hundred years ahead ...

educate the people."

Compliments of Shakira A. Ali

Up You Mighty Race; We Can Accomplish What We Will!!!!

I Remain to Serve,

Senghor Baye

SUPPORT THE DEMAND FOR BLACK REPARATIONS

The history of Native Americans and Blacks making common cause goes back at least to 1503, when a viceroy colonizing Haiti for Spain wrote to King Ferdinand to complain that African slaves "fled among the Indians and taught them bad customs and never could be captured."

A promise yet to be kept

Civil War General William T. Sherman first made reparations an issue in 1865, when he ordered that huge tracts of land captured from the Confederacy be distributed to 40,000 newly freed slaves. His order, known as the "40 Acres and a Mule Proclamation," turned into legislation passed by Congress -- but vetoed by President Andrew Johnson.

In the last dozen or so years, with conditions for most Blacks sharply worsening in the middle of a supposed economic boom, the demand for compensation has come to the fore again.

Starting in 1989, U.S. Representative John Conyers Jr. began annually introducing legislation calling for a study of the lasting effects of slavery and possible reparations. And last year, a book by Randall Robinson called The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks drew attention to the issue. A number of groups are now working on class-action suits or lobbying Congress for restitution.

Some battles for reparations to African Americans have already been won.

The government paid $10 million in 1997 to people victimized by syphilis experiments in the 1930s. The Florida legislature agreed to pay survivors, and relatives of those who suffered, for the loss of life and property when the all-Black town of Rosewood was destroyed by a white mob in 1923. And Oklahoma is considering payments to survivors and descendants for the destruction of Tulsa's Black neighborhoods in 1921.

Creating a tide to lift us all

The word reparations comes from a Latin term meaning "to repair." Is it possible to repair 500 years of brutal enslavement? Never. But is restitution logical and necessary? Absolutely!

The consequences of slavery reach all the way into the 21^st century, and the racism that was created to justify this economically motivated institution is still alive and well. I work as an attorney for the Puyallup nation in Washington state, and I deal every day with the toll that racism, past and present, takes on the lives of a people. Reparations won't right former wrongs or resolve current problems, but they could make a real difference in people's lives.

Most proponents of redress, among whom are the Black Radical Congress and many other African American and left organizations, haven't yet put forward a specific plan for how it would happen. My belief is that compensation should be made both to individuals and on a collective basis.

Many people who might be sympathetic in principle to reparations for African Americans, including some Indians and other people of color, are keenly aware of how little there is to go around among poor and workingclass people. They worry about where the money will come from, and if the cost will somehow boomerang back on them.

I say that the monetary responsibility rests first of all on the large corporations, who reap the benefits of uneven wage scales and continuing discrimination. Forget tax cuts for big business! Instead, a new tax should be added and its funds channeled to compensation.

Second, already existing taxes should be redirected. The government spends astronomical sums on the Pentagon, police and prisons, three of society's most racist structures. Take money away from these bloated institutions of control and put it into reparations!

The call for Black reparations is reasonable and fair. So too were the Indian land claims that resulted in huge settlements with Alaskan Natives and the Puyallup tribe in recent years. And so too was the popular demand for compensation from companies exploiting Alaska's oil that resulted in every registered state resident getting what is essentially a dividend check every year. And the same goes for reimbursements made to Holocaust survivors and Japanese Americans for historical abuses.

Payments to these groups and individuals helped set the stage for the push today to win reparations for Blacks. The lesson we need to learn from our common history of mistreatment and struggle is that when a battle is won for one group, it strengthens all of us.

The last thing that we people of color need to be doing is fighting among ourselves over the little bit that the powers-that-be want to allow us. Instead, we need to demand more from the system for all working and poor people. If it won't deliver, that doesn't mean we turn against each other -- it just means we need to turn together against the system!

By Debra O'Gara, a Tlingit Indian who lives in Seattle, has worked on cases defending treaty fishing and hunting rights as a lawyer for the Puyallup tribe.

http://www.socialism.com/fsarticles/vol22no2/voices.html

Submitted by brc-news@lists.tao.ca and hjnoble@igc.org (Henry Noble)

BRC-NEWS: Black Radical Congress - General News Articles/Reports

Subscribe: mailto:majordomo@tao.ca?body=subscribe%20brc-news

WHY THE-POWERS-THAT-BE OWE BLACKS…BIG TIME!

PARADIGMS OF SANITY

7/25/2001

"We cannot talk about a people that has enslaved us, who discriminate against us, who insult us, who do all manner of other things against us and then use them as models of normality. We cannot use these people who are criminals, who have the world on the edge of suicide, who are now getting ready to negotiate about how many bombs they are going to keep for destroying the earth - how they are going to distribute death to the rest of the world - as models of normality!" -- Dr. Amos N. Wilson

Those of us who are critical thinkers view our oppressors as their history and behavior demand they be seen: as purveyors of disruption, disease and death; and not as the pristine civilizers, or benefactors of humanity they would have us believe them to be. To identify with the white oppressors, who have abused and degraded African people, is insane and counterproductive.

To glorify and imitate their behavior bespeaks not just of brainwashing, but of menticide, the deliberate destruction of a people's psyche. When we were seeking escape or sought ways to thwart their vile systems of slavery, racial caste, political and cultural subjugation, the oppressors in their dementia, called us "crazy".

Whites even invented new words to describe the resistance our ancestors exerted to get from under the stultifying and dehumanizing conditions in the ante bellum South. Such terms as:

Dysaethesia Aethiopica, or Africans who deliberately destroyed the crops of the plantation owners.

They called it Drapetomania when our ancestors ran away.

Goofy whites listed the symptoms as "a sulky, dissatisfied attitude," as if sane human beings should be overjoyed being abused, dehumanized, beaten, raped and forced to work from "can't see in the morning to can't see at night," in exchange for table scraps and tattered clothing.

Some additional terms which actually reveal more about the mental fortitude of our ancestors than any mental affliction are: obstinate, habitual runaways, incorrigible scamps, ingrates and the ever popular insolent, which signifies the unbroken spirit and will to be free of the enslaved people.

They aptly demonstrated resistance to internalizing the self-congratulatory, delusional image Europeans had of themselves when they sang in the old camp song:

Under no circumstances did our ancestors view the people who were beating them, subjecting them to all manner of depravity and abuse as "normal". What made captivity so vile was the absurdity of the experience. It was almost impossible to conceive of the ongoing nightmare, the hell.

If we are to regain our sanity, we must create new definitions and models of what it means to be human. The paradigm of European advanced humanity comes unglued once you study the history of Eurasia, Europe and the relationship with non-Europeans. Their alienation from self and nature are the root of their xenophobia. Their desecration of the environment and inability to peacefully co-exist has the world on the brink of nuclear annihilation.

We have to understand this behavior and the motivating mind-set behind the behavior, as pathological. The more we internalize the propaganda of white oppressors, the more insane we become. Sanity demands we look elsewhere for our models of humanity, compassion, justice and peace.

We must turn to our African ancestors as a model of humanity. To mimic our oppressor is to venture down a pathway to moral and psychological death and ultimately physical self-destruction.

Send your comments and suggestions about this article to: editors@tbwt.net

By Junious Ricardo Stanton

Contributed by RHazard988

[This article calls to mind the book entitled: If GOD is White I Don’t Wanna GO to Heaven.]

BETHUNE PUTS THE ISSUE ON TRIAL

BETHUNE COOKEMAN COLLEGE