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…….#21

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

Note from the REPNOW Newsletter Editor:

To those attending the World Conference Against Racism (WCAR) in behalf of Africa and the Descendants of Slaves, again, I pray that the Most High GOD will be with you as you strive to end the racism that Blacks face and acquire Reparations for the TransAtlantic Slave Trade that has resulted in our suppression and our being under the control of the Descendants of the Slave Masters since being forced from the shores of Africa.

The high volume of information in the media today concerning RACISM, The World Conference Against Racism, and Reparations for the TransAtlantic Slave Trade should be the topic of discussion at the breakfast table, in the religious circles, during lunch on the job market, on Black radio and TV talk shows, on the college campuses, as we dine in restaurants, and with our Congressional Representatives. The United States has got to address the bondage and affliction the Slaves out of Africa endured and the suppression, racism, discrimination, and prejudice so-called African Americans face today.

The information in these Reparations Newsletters is essential documentation for all seeking knowledge concerning payment for the DEBT owed from the TransAtlantic Slave Trade and is very enlightening about the degrading incidents and misery Blacks face in ghettoes and in the rest of this White Society that affords Blacks and other people of color the worst educational system in the country. College students taking courses in Black History should realize the scholarship of our people on the Internet and included in these Reparations Newsletters. I applaud my people for their research and courage in coming forward with news we can use, so that all of us in the dark can see the whole Truth of our predicament in the United States. How I wish that the information in the articles in these REPNOW Newsletters had been available when I thirsted so much to know about the Slave Trade that totally inhibited, brainwashed, and destroyed my People.

Regarding The World Conference Against Racism, if the United States doesn’t want to discuss Racism and Reparations for the atrocities of the Slave Trade in South Africa, why then isn’t it discussed and brought to an end in the US? And if such a meeting takes place, then the United States should also explain why it builds new housing settlements in Israel and contributes towards the Israeli social programs but won’t improve the infrastructure of the Black ghettoes where the working poor must live because of their economic status. If Blacks are going to choose to stay in the United States, then by all means necessary demand that the US government do justly by Descendants of Slaves.

Be sure to inform at least ten people about the REPARATIONS NOW IN OUR LIFETIME NEWSLETTER! Information regarding the TransAtlantic Slave Trade and Reparations for this crime has got to reach all our people if we want everyone involved in this fight for justice served and for true FREEDOM and liberty to pursue happiness. Believe it or not, there are still too many Blacks out there who know NOTHING and have heard NOTHING about Reparations for Descendants of Slaves.

I will be on vacation for two weeks, but will still have periodic access to my E-mail.

Tziona Yisrael, Editor

www.thelawkeepers.org

(Click on "Repnow")

P.S. On Thursday August 23, I had the pleasure of meeting with Dr. Saharra Bledsoe in Washington, D.C. during the Historical Nation-Wide Petition Campaign she started (that’s been taking place since this past Tuesday). I cannot tell you how encouraged and more determined I am to be involved in this our thrust for Reparations. Dr. Bledsoe is truly an inspiration and an asset to the cause. I was absolutely fascinated with her written "Program and Budget" for a holistic approach to eliminate the ghettoes and to improve the economic and social status of the impoverished in the United States. In addition to that I found Dr. Bledsoe deeply involved and committed to increasing awareness of Reparations at the grassroots level and getting 50,000 signatures for the DEBT owed to Descendants of Slaves. If we ALL followed her lead, every Black in America would soon know about Reparations and why it is so important that we acquire these monies.

WebSites involved with her fight for Reparations are as follows:

Dr. Saharra Bledso

MzWayMaker@aol.com

NGO’s VOW TO FIGHT TO THE END FOR REPARATIONS AT

THE WORLD CONFERENCE AGAINST RACISM

Tuesday, August 14, 2001

PRESS CONFERENCE

Tuesday, August 14, 2001 at 11am

Sistas Place Coffee House

456 Nostrand Ave, Brooklyn, NY

Veteran human rights activist Viola Plummer stated unequivocally, "NGO's are prepared to resist the intensified under-the-table arm twisting and threats by US and Europe" in their effort to derail the demand for "Declaration of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and Slavery as a Crime against Humanity" and for "Reparations for People of African Descent" in the upcoming World Conference against Racism (WCAR) in Durban, South Africa. Plummer said " We will fight to the end!"

Invited speakers were:

For more than a decade the December 12th Movement has been an active participant in the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and was a key organization in having the UN convene this World Conference. The National Black United Front has led a drive to petition the UN for genocide committed by the US against its Black citizens and has been closely involved in the preparations for the World Conference.

456 Nostrand Avenue

Brooklyn, NY 11216

718. 398-1766 (phone) 623-1855 (fax)

E-mail: D12M@aol.com

Submitted by brc-reparations@yahoogroups.com

USA THREATENS WCAR BOYCOTT

August 10, 2001

The big secret is finally out in the open. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has publicly threatened the organizers of the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance (WCAR) that the United States is prepared to boycott the United Nations gathering if its demands are not met. Those demands are to remove references to Zionism from the draft declaration as well as defining slavery as a crime against humanity meriting Black reparations. If not, Powell says, the United States government will not participate in the deliberations scheduled for August 31 - September 8th in Durban, South Africa.

The public announcement follows months of behind the scenes pressure by the Bush Administration to delete what they think is offensive and issues that they are not prepared to see discussed before the world body of racial justice activists. The zionist lobby has been vociferous in its demands that the U.S. draw a line in the sand on categorizing the Israeli treatment of Palestinians as racist, even though this formulation already appears in former UN documents. The pressure was so intense that representatives of governments who had previously recognized the colonial status of the Palestinian people have capitulated to this blackmail and are asking the delegates "not to rock the boat" in the name of the broader interests of the global antiracist movement. At this point, the enormous arm-twisting seems to have succeeded and the language on Zionism does not look like it will appear in the final declaration.

It has proven more difficult to isolate those Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) that have been carrying the banner for Black reparations, and this has presented a knotty problem for the U.S. The conference has been divided into many working groups on specific topics and the one devoted to reparations has been one of the most active and the most successful in organizing a strategy to see that this is included in the final declaration. This was reinforced by an Africa and Africa-Descendents caucus that is united on a strategy aimed at influencing the WCAR on three main issues. These issues are the first three points of a ten-point call-to-action on which the Caucus reached a consensus in the meeting in Geneva this past week:

1. that the transatlantic slave trade, slavery and colonialism are crimes against humanity;
2. that the victims of the slave trade, slavery and colonialism - i.e., Africans and African descendants - are entitled to reparations; and
3. recognition of the economic basis of racism - that is, the linkage between the exploitation of Black labor and racism

To many, these may seem like mild assertions and it may be difficult to grasp why the U.S. is so adamantly opposed to these formulations. However, this debate is not merely a demand for belated recognition of Europe and America's misbegotten racist past. At stake for the United States and its allies is a political and ideological struggle that is taking place in the context of 21st century economic globalization.

At an international level, the U.S. and its allies want to deny responsibility for the current emiseration of their former colonies in Africa, Latin America or Asia. In particular, they want to sever the link between contemporary poverty and five centuries of slave trading and colonialism. This boils down to a refusal to offer substantive debt relief, which keeps Africa and other former colonies indentured to U.S. financial institutions.

On the domestic front, the reparations theme poses an adamant rejection of the "new racism" that guides the Bush Administration. This neo-racism discards discredited biological racism in favor of attacking the demands to redress grievances as "reverse" racism. Its proponents deny the ongoing existence of racism and therefore the need for compensatory programs. What is worse, the neo-racists cloak their support for maintaining white supremacy in a bogus call for reconciliation based upon abandoning the concrete struggle for racial justice. In its place we are offered domestic assaults on affirmative action - an extremely modest compensatory program. And then we are offered the thinly disguised racialized privatization schemes of public services and schools, which constitute neoliberalism's U.S. face.

There is no such thing as institutional racism, Bush claims, and racial disparities are dismissed by blaming the victims of racial bias for their own impoverished status, for the high Black incarceration rate, for low educational achievement and Black political marginalization in U.S. society.

For African Americans the demand that the world body recognize slavery as a crime against humanity that merits compensation would call the internal logic of the neo-racist agenda into question. And this movement is growing. Over the past few years, activists have pushed reparations to the center of discourse in the African American community. And some successes have been achieved, even within the framework of traditional politics. Several city councils, for example, have passed pro-reparation resolutions, including Chicago, Detroit and Dallas. And now this battle is being taken to the international community. In this context, the political and ideological legitimacy that the demand for reparations would achieve if included in the final declaration of the World Conference Against Racism would be immeasurable.

That is why the U.S. and the European Union (EU) have been dragging their feet about appointing a high level WCAR delegation. It is also why most of the foundation community, has been stingy with their financial backing. And that is why - until the U.S. threat to boycott - the media has been complicit in keeping most U.S. people ignorant of the fact that the conference was even occurring.

The agenda battle has re-ignited remembrance of the white arrogance associated with the colonial past. David Commissiong, a Barbadian official, said of the stance taken by the EU and US, "We are talking about dealing with the current, existing legacies of that past" and "we are disappointed that the former colonial powers - and we should emphasize that some still are colonial powers - are so reluctant to acknowledge the indisputable facts of history and to come up with concrete solutions to many of the disturbances and injustices that stem from that history."

Whatever the final U.S. decision, the ploy to hold the UN hostage via the boycott threat and the backroom arm-twisting is beginning to add up to a major diplomatic blunder, which has further eroded any claim the U.S. still had as a leading proponent of "democracy."

By Frances M. Beal <fbeal@aclunc.org>

Frances M. Beal is a columnist for the San Francisco Bay View newspaper and National Secretary of the Black Radical Congress. The views and opinions expressed in this article are her own.

Submitted by brc-news@lists.tao.ca

[Beal’s views are that of mine, as well. T.Y., Editor]

REPARATIONS AND BEYOND

WASHINGTON - 08.11.01 --From the inception of our nation in 1776 to 1868 a thriving slave trade flourished between the United States and various African nations. An estimated 30-60 million African men, women, and children were forcibly taken from their African homelands and brought here to the United States and enslaved. These people and their families were never compensated by the US government for damages and human suffering, which was caused by this crime against humanity. That is why I am issuing a call for the issue of reparations to be studied seriously in this country. I also believe that the United States should issue an official apology for its participation in the world slave trade of the 18th and 19th centuries.

The issue of reparations for blacks has long been avoided in this country although there are countless reasons that validate the need. US jurisprudence and history have honored the tradition of paying victims for damages and suffering. US history is replete with instances of US support for the payment of reparations to individuals and communities that have been wronged by the US government. The United States government has even apologized at least once for mistreating some of its citizens of color. The only thing unusual about a discussion of reparations or payment of damages in the American context is the outcry against reparations or damages being paid to black people. The very outcry itself, given US history, is a sad indicator of how far away this country really is from the One America that we all want to see and live in.

The treatment of blacks in this country has historically been deplorable and while steps have been made to better the racial climate, nothing has been done to compensate those who have been wronged in the process. Bush does not want to talk about reparations because he opposes paying compensation to black Americans for slavery. That is what Ari Fleischer his spokesman, had the nerve to categorically state at a White House briefing. I hope that is a mischaracterization of President Bush's attitude, especially given the facts surrounding the November 2000 elections. Fortunately, the facts of the long, sorry story of the mistreatment of African Americans doesn't depend on the supposed opinions of President Bush. Sadly, however, even the Emancipation Proclamation failed to end the story. The end of the Civil War merely ushered in yet another chapter in the long book on black marginalization in the US that is still being written today.

The ignoble 1857 Dred Scott decision saw the United States Supreme Court rule that no black man could be regarded as an equal and therefore had no rights which the white man was bound to respect. Not even The Fourteenth Amendment, which was the constitutional rejoinder to the Dred Scott decision, could effectively protect Black women and men from the deep-seated racism, which produced Jim Crow and the end of the Reconstruction Era. The Supreme Court nailed apartheid into the fabric of America with its 1892 Plessy vs. Ferguson decision which legally enshrined "separate but equal" as US custom and law. Segregation would remain the law of the land until its demise three-quarters of a century later.

Plessy versus Ferguson ushered in "Jim Crow" laws and marked the end of the post-Civil War Reconstruction Era. Blacks were now legally barred from access to employment and public places such as restaurants, hotels, and other facilities. By the early 20th Century, every Southern state had passed laws that created two separate societies; one black, the other white. Blacks and whites could not ride together in the same railroad cars, sit in the same waiting rooms, use the same washrooms, or drink from the same water fountains. Blacks were denied access to parks, beaches, and picnic areas; they were barred from many hospitals. What had been maintained by custom in the rural south had become sanctioned by the United States Supreme Court as the law of the land. These laws were not overturned until the 1954 Brown versus Board of Education Supreme Court decision and the subsequent passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

The millions of blacks who lived and worked in America's completely segregated society, suffered a century of terror and lynchings at the hands of the Ku Klux Klan and the general public and the complete failure of the state to protect them.

Human Rights Watch recently issued a report stating that the US should pay reparations not only for slavery, but for segregation, too. No mention is made in the Human Rights Report of the one hundred years of lynchings subjected to Black people in America. Four little girls bombed to their deaths in 1963 are only just now beginning to have justice served; however their parents, relatives, and an entire grieving community received nothing in compensation for their suffering.

A recent and commendable Wall Street Journal article reported that in the early 20th century, tens of thousands of convicts, most of whom were black men, were snared in a largely forgotten justice system rooted in racism and nurtured by economic expedience. Alabama was perhaps the worst offender, but certainly was not the only one. Until nearly 1930, Alabama was providing convicts to businesses hungry for hands to work in farm fields, lumber camps, railroad construction gangs and, especially in later years, mines. For state and local officials, the incentive was money and for many years, convict leasing was one of Alabama's largest sources of funding. Nearly two decades after slavery was abolished in America, men were dying as slaves in a prison work scheme that benefited southern states and businesses. Alabama's forced labor system generated nearly $17 million for the state government alone, or between $225 million and $285 million in today's dollars. Of course, this does not include the profits accruing to the many southern companies that benefited from this mostly-black slave labor.

Unfortunately slavery, Jim Crow segregation, and prison slave labor were not enough for the purveyors of state-sanctioned racial discrimination of the American sort. The Federal Government of the United States used all its available resources to thwart the call of African Americans for the US to respect their basic human rights. Thus, the COINTELPRO program was born. COINTELPRO was the FBI's secret program to undermine the struggle for freedom from racism and discrimination that was led by African American, and later Native American, Latino, and progressive white organizations. Though the name stands for "Counterintelligence Program," the targets were not enemy spies. In an infamous FBI memo, the stated purpose of COINTELPRO was to "expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize the activities of black nationalist " organizations as well as "their leadership, spokesmen, membership, and supporters."

The FBI took the law into its own hands and secretly used fraud, force, harassment, intimidation, psychological-warfare, other forms of deception, and even murder, to sabotage constitutionally protected political activity. This reign of terror left countless black, white, Native American, and Latino victims behind bars who were convicted of bogus crimes and to this day are serving exceptionally long sentences that arose from their politically motivated actions. Many of these men and women who have committed their lives to movements that sought justice in an era marked by war, racial violence, and political assassinations, are aging behind prison walls, serving longer sentences than they would have in any other industrialized nation.

Additionally, there have been many victims of COINTELPRO. Our country's democracy is the biggest victim. That our laws could be subverted by a small group of people in high office is a clear danger to all of us. However, that it was done specifically to this country's people of color to deny them and the United States the benefit of the authentic leadership of true representatives of America's communities, especially America's black community, deprives us all of talents that are even now desperately needed but wasted in graveyards, prisons, or in fractured individuals, families and communities. This illegal US government activity affected more than the individuals involved, but also their families and our entire community.

Today the vestiges of racial discrimination, which began during the days of black race hatred and slavery, are still visible.

Black women and men are haunted by the reality that "Driving While Black" in many states makes you a prime target for police harassment. In the state of New Jersey, at least eight of every ten automobile searches carried out by state troopers on the New Jersey Turnpike over most of the last decade were conducted on vehicles driven by blacks and Hispanics--eighty percent of the stops, yet only 30% of the population. This is racial profiling at its worst. But New Jersey is not the only Driving While Black culprit.

The Justice Department admits that blacks are more likely than whites to be pulled over by police, imprisoned, and put to death. And, though blacks and whites have about the same rate of drug use, blacks are more likely to be arrested than whites and are more likely to receive longer prison sentences than whites.

Twenty-six black men were executed last year, some probably innocent; 2001 was begun by executing a retarded black woman.

Government studies on health disparities confirm that blacks are less likely to receive surgery, transplants, and prescription drugs than whites. Physicians are less likely to prescribe appropriate treatment for blacks than for whites and black scientists, physicians, and institutions are shut out of the funding stream to prevent this. As a result, Black American males and females experience shorter life expectancy rates than do their white counterparts. A black baby boy born in Harlem today has less chance of reaching age 65 than a baby born in Bangladesh.

In the US education system, 40% of all public schools are racially exclusive, meaning that fewer than 10% of their students are children of color while 40% of public schools in large cities are "intensely segregated," meaning that more then 90% of the students are children of color.

The entire world watched the debacle of the Year 2000 Presidential election in which countless black women and men were denied their constitutional right to vote, suffering the same disfranchisement that their grandmothers and grandfathers struggled to overcome half a century earlier. So bad was the spectacle that autocrats and dictators offered election monitors to the United States. Even former President Jimmy Carter, noted for his election monitoring around the world, stated that the US system was so bad that the US wouldn't even qualify for Carter Center monitors. Sadly, 2007 marks the expiration of important sections of the Voting Rights Act.

It is evident that the United States has not adequately addressed its problem of race. Additionally, it has failed to even account for all its transgressions against its black citizens. Passing laws has not been enough to stem the tide of the deep-seated racism rooted in the fabric of America. Even then, each time laws have been passed erosion of enforcement and the laws themselves has been a consistent problem. The Reconstruction Era, after the United States Civil War, was as short-lived as was the Second Reconstruction, which was inaugurated after the Brown versus Board of Education decision. However, the 1978 Bakke Supreme Court decision began the erosion of the real efforts to integrate the American mainstream. Shaw versus Reno and Johnson versus Miller are important voting Rights Act Supreme Court decisions which end the expansion of protections for blacks and other people of color for the right to representation. The expiration of critical sections of the Voting Rights Act could very well usher in a return of state-sanctioned black disfranchisement on a scale worse than what was discovered in the 2000 November Presidential election.

As you can see, the US is far from having adequately addressed its race problem. In addition, I believe the United States is in long-standing violation of international treaties that it has signed and ratified. Participation in the World Conference Against Racism is but one step needed to reverse the deep-seated appalling conditions and present-day treatment for people of color in this country. The United States could and should also apologize for its participation in the slave trade and the long history of racism against black people that that participation fostered and supported.

By Cynthia McKinney

http://www.tbwt.com/content/article.asp?articleid=1279

The Black World Today

Submitted by alarkam@webtv.net

[I applaud Representative McKinney’s courage to speak the absolute TRUTH, and I pray that every Black Congressional Member, organization, and individual stand behind her as she selflessly work in behalf of all Descendants of Slaves.]

LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE PRESSES U.S. TO ATTEND

THE WORLD CONFERENCE AGAINST RACISM

August 20, 2001

Wading into an already contentious debate over the upcoming United Nations World Conference Against Racism, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR) held a press conference on Thursday where it urged the United States to lend greater support to the goals of the conference.

Wade Henderson, Executive Director of the LCCR, said that despite disagreements over the conference agenda, which include a U.S. demand that the topic of reparations for slavery be banned from discussion, U.S. participation was crucial in demonstrating American commitment to combating racism around the world. The LCCR distributed a letter it sent to Secretary of State Colin Powell urging him to lead a high-level U.S. delegation to the conference.

Negotiations over the conference agenda have been stalled in recent weeks over several thorny issues, most notably an insistence by Arab countries that Israel be criticized as an "occupying power" that deprives Palestinians of basic rights. The United States has threatened to boycott the conference unless the language singling out Israel for criticism is dropped from the agenda.

Tackling the Israel controversy directly, Mr. Henderson said that instead of singling out Israel for criticism in preparatory documents, the general issue of racism in the Middle East should be addressed fairly during the conference itself.

One of the major roadblocks to U.S. participation was apparently removed last week when U.N. conference organizers announced that the contentious question of whether Zionism equaled racism would not be on the agenda, presumably ameliorating some U.S. opposition to the conference. The Bush Administration is expected to announce its decision on whether to attend the conference early this week.

During Thursday’s press conference, Mr. Henderson pointed out that because the upcoming racism conference was the first to focus on the behavior of individual nations, many of the countries involved are working behind the scenes to prevent discussion of racial discrimination within their borders. These include India, which wants to avoid discussion of its Dalit, or untouchables; Eastern European countries, which are not keen on examining the plight of Gypsies in the region; and the Sudan, which is against discussing its present-day slave trade. "No state is anxious to have its laundry aired," he said.

Other speakers highlighted issues that have received less attention. Marisa Demeo, Regional Counsel of the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund, said that a key issue for the conference to address was the xenophobia faced by Mexican immigrants and migrant workers in the U.S. These groups are often denied access to U.S. healthcare and other social services, according to Ms. Demos, and they suffer from a harsh immigration policy that prevents families from re-uniting across the border. In addition, immigrants who are HIV-positive are barred from entering the country.

Keith Harper, senior staff attorney at the Native American Rights Fund, stressed the importance of examining how racism affects indigenous peoples. As an example, he noted that Native Americans do not enjoy the same protection of land rights as all other Americans. Instead, they have only "use and property rights," overseen by the federal government. This legal disparity confronts indigenous peoples throughout the world, he added, including Brazil, Canada, and Australia.

Sumita Bhandari, staff attorney of the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium, urged the conference to address violence against Asian-Americans within the United States, which she said has been vastly underreported. According to Ms. Bhandari, there were 496 incidents of racially motivated violence against Asian-Americans in the U.S. last year.

On the issue of reparations for slavery, which has been nearly as controversial as the Israeli question, several speakers expressed dismay at the American insistence that reparations be left off the agenda. Mr. Henderson said it was unfair for the U.S. to make its participation conditional on avoiding the reparations issue. "Diplomatic extortion is outrageous. The World Conference Against Racism should not be held hostage to the U.S. getting its way," he said.

Others took aim directly at what they consider American hypocrisy on reparations. Dr. William Spriggs, an economist at the National Urban League, said it was disingenuous for the U.S. to justify its refusal to address reparations by maintaining that the conference needs to "move forward." He noted that the slave trade involved the forced transfer of 100 million people, the murder of 24 million of them, and the death of countless other millions due to forced labor.

During the question and answer period, Barbara Arwine, Executive Director of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and Ted Shaw, Associate Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., handled the sticky point of President Wade of Senegal's charge that demanding "reparations was absurd." Both agreed he was only one man, and thus his impact on the issue would be of no great consequence.

Charles Tanzer

Submitted by alarkam@webtv.net

UNITED STATES ACCUSED OF DUCKING SLAVERY ISSUE

August 10, 2001

``For the United States to continue beating the issue of the Middle East is a diversion,'' said Adjoa A. Aiyetoro, a law professor at American University who serves as legal consultant to the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America. ``They would rather play tough guy and bully and stay away as opposed to attempting to resolve the issues of racism in this world.''

The U.S. government has said that if language it regards as offensive about Israel remains in proposed documents to be adopted at the conference, it will boycott the meeting, which starts Aug. 31 in Durban, South Africa.

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson said Friday that more progress had been made on the African issues than on the Middle East during the past two weeks of negotiations. There has been ``a significant narrowing of the differences'' over slavery and colonialism, Robinson said.

``The question of how to address the past was one of the most sensitive issues, and there is a genuine feeling that this is going to be one of the real breakthroughs in Durban, the kind of language that is now being brought together,'' she said.

Aiyetoro said the United States, Canada and the European Union were ``continuing in their historic roles as the upholders of white supremacy.''

``These governments are consistent in blocking any language that would characterize the tragedies of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, slavery and colonialism as crimes against humanity,'' she said.

Aiyetoro said campaigners were ``not seeking payment because our ancestors were enslaved, but because of the situation today.''

``There should be no statute of limitations'' for crimes against humanity, she said. ``You can't deal with the future until you have dealt with the past.''

Reparations did not necessarily have to come as money, she said. Countries that benefited from slavery could cancel African nations' foreign debt, fund education and community development programs, return museum artifacts to Africa, and work harder to stop racial discrimination, she said.

***

[Personally, I want justice served for the cruel and merciless pain and suffering my forebears endured, as well as for the Human Rights crimes Blacks face today. I want to move on and out of this racist country where my forebears were enslaved with Reparations to start a new life and live where I can worship freely and pursue assured happiness. In essence, I want Reparations for Descendants of Slaves so that our forebears can rest in peace.]

THE UNITED STATES IS URGED TO SEND DELEGATE

TO THE UNITED NATION RACISM CONFERENCE

August 17, 2001

UNITED NATIONS - US civil rights leaders yesterday called for Secretary of State Colin L. Powell to attend this month's United Nations conference on racism, which Washington is threatening to boycott.

''If the United States does not send an official delegation, we believe it will be a mistake,'' said Wade Henderson, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, a coalition of 180 civil and human rights groups.

''We think the absence of the US will certainly signal in some way that our country takes less seriously the debate over racial discrimination and racism than other countries in the world,'' he said at a news conference.

Henderson was joined at United Nations headquarters by leaders of six other US civil rights groups - including the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and the National Urban League - two weeks before the kick-off of the conference on racism in Durban, South Africa.

The United States has threatened to skip the UN conference unless Arab states drop demands that the conference texts single out Israel as a ''racist'' occupying power.

US officials have also objected to including on the agenda the issue of reparations for victims of centuries of slavery and colonialism.

Negotiations in Geneva over language in the final conference texts ended in failure last week. Disagreements on the agenda kept the United States from attending two previous United Nations conferences on racism.

The leaders told reporters they were concerned about language relating to Israel in the draft text for the conference. However, they were sharply critical of the Bush administration's stance on slave reparations.

''It is especially hypocritical and undemocratic for the United States to take a position that the issue of slavery should not be considered a crime against humanity or that somehow an apology for past practices engaged in slavery should not be open for discussion,'' Henderson said.

In South Africa, meanwhile, about 2000 workers waved anti-American and anti-Israeli signs outside the US Embassy in Pretoria yesterday to protest the US threat to boycott the conference.

At the demonstration arranged by local unions and the South African communist party, protesters waved signs that read, ''Stop Apartheid Israel'' and ''United States: Stop Supporting Racism.''

Jan Tsiane, leader of a local political group, said those protesting yesterday identified with the Palestinian people and the current uprising against Israel.

By Paul Thomasch,

Reuters, 8/17/2001

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/229/nation/US_urged_to_send_delegate_to_UN_racism_conference+.shtml

Submitted by AlArkam@webtv.net (Malik Al-Arkam)

[RACISM is RACISM by any other name, and human beings who are the victims of this heinous crime know better than the guilty of this pain and suffering and the harm it can do to men, women, and children.]

SOUTH AFRICANS IN RACE PROTEST OUTSIDE U.S. EMBASSY

August 16, 2001

PRETORIA (Reuters) - South African protesters demonstrated outside the U.S. embassy in Pretoria on Thursday to denounce Washington's refusal to brand Israel a racist state at an upcoming United Nations conference on racism.

The U.N. meeting, starting in Durban on August 31, may face a U.S. boycott over attempts by Arab states to have an anti-Israeli resolution adopted at the conference.

Some 3,000 protesters allied to South Africa's communist party and main trade union body handed over a petition to the embassy urging Washington to face up to "Zionist racism."

"We can see what side of the racism debate they are on...that country (United States) is still full of racism," Blade Nzimande, general secretary of the South African Communist Party, told protesters.

Speaker after speaker drew parallels between white-ruled South Africa under apartheid and Israel and its policies toward Palestinians.

Protesters carried pro-Palestine posters and others denouncing the U.S. and Israel.

"Viva Arafat, Viva PLO," one poster read in reference to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and his Palestine Liberation Organization.

Protesters blasted U.S. complicity in Israel's "apartheid, occupation, state terrorism, violent subjugation and an unfair economic blockade" against Palestinians.

Scores of police kept watch over the demonstration outside the embassy.

The protesters also slammed Washington's objections to reparations for victims of slavery and colonialism.

The U.S. and some European countries have resisted moves, led mainly by African states, to get delegates at the conference to press for reparations for centuries of slavery.

The U.S. has yet to decide what level of delegation -- if any -- it will send to the conference which the U.N. wants to be a watershed in the fight against global racism and xenophobia.

Submitted by Black Radical Congress

[Once having lived in an APARTHEID Regime, the Black South Africans have not forgotten that the White powers-that-be in South Africa bought their weapons from racist Israelis, AND that too many of these racist White Jews enjoyed the privileges only Whites could in South Africa. Strange how RACISM just won’t let one forget the suppression and suffering it entails no matter where on this globe it exists.]

- 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 the turn of the century

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

IN SUPPORT OF REPARATIONS!

JOHANNESBURG -- An alliance that includes South Africa's emerging grassroots activist movements was formed on July 29 to organise mass protests at the United Nations World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance (WCAR).

But BBC correspondent Emma Jane Kirby says Israel's decision will clearly have much influence over the US.

SLAVERY ROW DOGS RACISM CONFERENCE

The US was "beating the issue of the Middle East as a diversion", said Adjoa Aiyetoro, the spokesperson for the African and African Descendants Caucus and the US legal consultant for the US National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations.

GENEVA, — Negotiators from more than 100 countries have narrowed some differences over racism, but they failed to reach agreement on a document to guide discussions at an upcoming world conference on the issue.

‘What we are all now focusing on is how to ensure that the United States ... will be at Durban.’ — MARY ROBINSON, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights

THE ADMINISTRATION’S stand that the price of U.S. participation is the removal of any discussion of reparations for slavery or Zionism as racism is high-handed, just plain stupid and serves to further alienate an administration already viewed as suspect. From the debacle of the 2000 election to the bogus tax cut to a roster of mediocre appointees and the refusal last month to sign the Kyoto Protocols on global warming endorsed by 178 nations, this administration appears self-referential, bull-headed and deeply out of touch. The Bush administration seems willfully blind to the issue of reparations for slavery, a conversation that has been going on among black Americans, largely ignored, for decades.

And in spite of efforts to portray Secretary of State Colin Powell as a serious player and not simply a poster boy for Republican ideas of racial inclusiveness, black America’s man in the Bush administration looks like he’s out of the loop and powerless on this one. The administration seems willfully blind to the fact that the issue of reparations for slavery, a conversation that has been going on, largely ignored, for decades, has in the last few years become the major unifying issue in the African American community, transcending boundaries of class, geography and politics. The question of whether the descendants of slaves should be compensated for the stolen labor of their ancestors — who built not only the economic foundation of this nation but also some of its most prestigious buildings, including the U.S. Capitol — arguably is the most resonant issue in the African American community since the struggle for voting rights in the 1950’s.

It’s likely that the United States, home to more than 12 million descendants of slaves and ground zero for any discussion of reparations or racism, will not be officially represented in Durban.

Even so, the Bush Administration refuses to talk about it — or even listen to the discussion. This comes as no surprise from a president who seems to pride himself on his lack of intellectual curiosity and empathy. After eight months in office, Bush II’s strongest identifier in the black community remains his enthusiastic implementation of the racially discriminatory death penalty while governor of Texas. The opportunity to hear a diversity of opinions about and approaches to reparations and to participate in what will surely be fascinating discussions at the Durban Conference, which begins Aug. 31, seems lost on the current administration. Instead of taking advantage of a unique opportunity, Bush II reverts to America’s sadly familiar role as international bully and spoil sport, insisting that unless allowed to dictate the rules, he won’t play the game. The administration’s efforts to pressure other nations to support its position, publicly via meetings with Washington-based ambassadors is both coercive and undemocratic.

As the World Conference against racism, xenophobia, and related intolerance, scheduled to convene August 31, to September 7, in Durban, South Africa, nears, the criticism of it in some quarters grows more and more intense.

It, and the critics of the Durban Conference, need to pay attention to the winds of history. These are issues that must be faced. The time for that reckoning has come, and the United States must be involved in helping insure that those questions are framed and discussed in the right way.

The Reparations - Yes International Petition

YOU MUST BE IN SOUTH AFRICA NEXT AUGUST 2001!

Join us, if you want to go to Durban in support of these issues. The application is included in the text of this message, as well as an attached document in .rtf format.

The New Panther Vanguard Movement (NPVM) is taking the initiative locally to propose a local activity to be organized in conjunction with, and supportive of, this Call For an International Day of Action Against Racism. There is not much time to organize such an activity, so we are calling for the immediate formation of a local IDAAR Organizing Committee to plan, coordinate and mobilize, a local protest for August 31, 2001

Hotels / Motels:

AFRIKAN NATION STATE PRE-REGISTRATION FORM