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.


REPARATIONS NOW IN OUR LIFETIME!


N E W S L E T T E R…….#15


April 2001


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


*********

GIVE POWER AND MEANING TO

THE REPARATIONS MASS MOVEMENT

GIVE OF YOURSELF!


Note from the REPNOW Newsletter Editor:

Is the REPARATIONS NOW IN OUR LIFETIME becoming a force to be reckoned with or What!!!!

At every turn someone, some way, and somehow is speaking positively, and/or negatively about Reparations for descendants of Slaves. Hey, it's all good. This is what it takes to get the word out to the grassroots, the churches, the schools and universities, the Civil Rights groups, the government, and the media regarding compensation for forced migration, enslavement, rape, beatings, maiming, and murder. This Triangular/African Slave Trade was the mother of all "CRIMES AGAINST BLACK HUMANITY."

Until everyone and his momma is talking about Reparations, our job is still cut out for us! And when you see White folks concerned and speaking out against justice and the needs of Blacks, then you know that we are moving in the right direction - WE ARE BECOMING MOVERS AND SHAKERS for empowerment and self-determination for our betterment, as well as for our progeny - something we have not done since being forced to these shores!!! Did you ever notice how issues, matters, and crises aren't important and urgent when they are related to Black Peoples? Well, this is all about to change. Black Folks are coming together to let it be known that WE, TOO, HAVE HUMAN RIGHTS!!! Brothers and Sisters, things have got to change if we are ever to improve our image and our ways. It is now time to ROCK THE BOAT and MAKE WAVES , or remain a sunken and nameless ship whose treasures are forever stolen.

At all costs we cannot abandon, prolong, or postpone our fight for Reparations. Our right to justice served is long overdue, and must be accomplished until the cries of our forebears can no longer be heard deep in our souls. Our enslaved families that died and endured relentless despair and untold merciless suffering won't rest until we, their offspring, attain a more profound status in this World resulting from all their blood, sweat, and free labor that established economic power and authority on this globe for privileged White Folks! Yes, we are stigmatized and ostracized and yet bear the scars of oppression, inequality, and discrimination particularly in the countries that took us captive out of Africa, but with Reparations, we can finally begin to change the negative image of Black Peoples all over the World.

Right now, we are on a roll! Don't hold back, and don't allow the enemy to dictate our needs or suppress our cries for Reparations because fighting for this cause is "the right thing to do." It seems everyone in power and authority is using this phrase these days, so we might as well do the same but MEAN IT!!!

Tziona Yisrael, Editor
REPNOW Newsletter
[www.thelawkeepers.org]

*********

Stay strong in the struggle; we will win!



Dejoser


*********


NEW YORK TIMES ON REPARATIONS AND THE UN WORLD CONFERENCE AGAINST RACISM:

The December 12th Movement International Secretariat, the International Association Against Torture and North-South XXI have for many years at the United Nations fought for the issues of:

  1. Declaration of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and Slavery as a Crime against Humanity
  2. Reparations for Africans in the Diaspora and on the Continent
  3. The economic basis of racism. The US has tried everything it can to suppress and eliminate discussion or consideration of these issues at the UN, in general, and at the World Conference, in particular. When media, such as the NY Times, are forced to acknowledge that there is a debate going on around these issues, it reflects that the movement is growing and cannot be ignored. We have to step up our organizing for the World Conference.


The following article on Reparations and the UN World Conference against Racism appeared in the New York Times on Sunday, March 4, 2001:

GLOBAL LOOK AT RACISM HITS MANY SORE POINTS



UNITED NATIONS, March 1 A conference on racism this summer could be one of the most explosive meetings this organization has ever held, with moves afoot to cast globalization as a racial issue and to demand reparations for the slave trade and colonialism.

Though the conference is still six months away, the agenda is already being passionately debated, and an increasingly broader range of issues is falling under the rubric of race.

The meeting to be held in Durban, South Africa, from Aug. 31 to Sept. 7 was first proposed by developing nations led by Cuba, and it was always expected to have something of an anti-Western bias.

But the opportunity to air grievances rarely heard on an international platform has been seized by groups in developing nations too, from China to Chile, that want to force often hidden and extraordinarily sensitive issues into the discussion.

Beyond consideration of the North- South hemispheric divide as a color line, those issues include treatment of immigrants and asylum seekers in developed countries, the caste system in India and contemporary slavery in Africa as well as discrimination in Latin America and parts of the Caribbean against people of African descent.

Governments in some regions have been fighting consideration of many of those issues. But human rights groups, often linking through the Internet, have gained more leverage than ever against the governments that have elbowed them out of the spotlight in the past.

The aim, the human rights advocates say, is to demonstrate that racism is an international phenomenon that manifests itself in many forms. And they point to the full title of the event the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance to buttress their argument. Two earlier meetings held in 1978 and 1983 were more narrowly focused.

"The last two conferences on racism were about foreign policy," said Gay J. McDougall, executive director of the International Human Rights Law Group in Washington. "The first one was on decolonization and the second one was on apartheid. But this one is in everybody's back yard, and there's a lot of nervousness about it."

Ms. McDougall is among those pressing for strong international action on the slave trade and the legacy of colonialism on behalf of people of African descent all over the Western Hemisphere. But she has also backed calls to put the Indian caste system, which human rights groups say affects between 100 million and 200 million people, on the conference agenda, over the strong objection of the Indian government.

Smita Narula, who has been studying caste for Human Rights Watch in New York, said that "for Asia, caste has become coterminus with race inasmuch as it defines the exclusion of a people based on their descent." But so far, she said, Asian governments have succeeded in keeping the issue out of conference documents.

Representatives of governments will begin a four-day meeting in Geneva on Tuesday to discuss the conference agenda and the content of documents to be issued in Durban. Some new issues have been assured a place in the conference, and battle lines have been drawn for others in four regional meetings in France, Senegal, Chile and Iran.

In Strasbourg, France, the issue of Europeans' treatment of Roma, or Gypsy, people was put on the agenda by governments themselves. In Santiago, Chile, strong lobbying by African-American groups gave new visibility to racial discrimination in Latin America. And in Dakar, Senegal, where delegates were very strongly in favor of reparations for the trans- Atlantic slave trade, the new president of Senegal, Abdoulaye Wade, cautioned the conference against looking only to history when examining Africa's problems. Ethnic intolerance and the continuation of slavery are still issues.

The big story for me," said Ms. McDougall who is also a member of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and attended the Santiago meeting "was the cross-regional discourse that was generated in a new way among African-descended communities throughout the hemisphere, the poorest of the poor." When the meeting was over, she said, the topic of discrimination against black Latin Americans, which was not in the draft of the regional platform, had been added. "It was a recognition for the first time in a multilateral document in Latin America that racism was an issue of current salience," she said.

The Tehran meeting, grouping the Middle East and Asia, was the most contentious, and there was a move to revive something of the old cold war shibboleth of Zionism as racism. Though the word Zionism was not used, official delegations urged the Durban conference to demand an end to the "foreign occupation" of Jerusalem and characterized Israeli domination of Palestinian areas as "a new kind of apartheid, a crime against humanity, a form of genocide, and a serious threat to international peace and security. "Kishore Mahbubani, the author of "Can Asians Think?" and Singapore's ambassador to the United Nations, said in an interview that "racism is a sunrise issue."

"It is a natural result of a shrinking globe," he added. "Races that in a sense never had contact with each other are thrown together in close proximity in a new neighborhood. The first sign of this is the new wave of immigrants."

But most controversial is an international movement to make concrete demands for reparations for the trans-Atlantic slave trade and for some form of compensation for centuries of colonialism.

Mary Robinson, formerly the president of Ireland and now the United Nations commissioner for human rights, generally supports such demands, particularly in finding some form of recompense for slavery. "That trauma is still there," she said in an interview, "and it's deep, and it hasn't been properly acknowledged."

Mrs. Robinson said the conference could achieve concrete results just by urging the enforcement of existing laws and international conventions against bias and discrimination. "About 85 percent of measures that can be taken are already in force or will be agreed on without difficulty," she said. "Then there will be a number of issues on which political leadership will be needed.

"One of them will be how we find the language to condemn in full terms the evil of slavery, returning to the issue of compensation for past practices. "It may sound strange that we still have to do that, but in fact we need to close off a period and say that this exploitation was in real terms a crime against humanity when it took place and that it has had an effect into this century. The more generous and open the condemnation is, the less I believe there will be a push to focus on precise monetary compensation."

By Barbara Crossette

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/04/world/04RACE.html
(Portions of this article were also published in The Plain Dealer International , out of Cleveland, Ohio)
*********


RIDING THE REPARATIONS BANDWAGON

A WHITE WOMAN'S PERSPECTIVE



March 2, 2001


I admit it. I, a middle aged white woman, have jumped on the Reparations "band wagon". When I was asked several years ago if I thought reparations for the enslavement of African Americans were in order, I stammered and shuffled my feet and said, "it depends". A safe response for a liberally minded white woman who had absolutely no idea what I was really being asked. Like so many other whites (and people of color) I thought reparations was only (and all) about money. I thought reparations meant someone tossing out an arbitrary number and someone else (the government) writing a check and that was that.

This is exactly why most white people who hear and/or read about the Reparations movement get nervous and defensive and respond with one of several classic objections:

1) "I didn't have slaves, nor did my family benefit from slavery."

2) "Slavery hasn't existed for over 140 years, why do we have to pay for something that happened then."

3) "Blacks have been getting preferential treatment for years and frankly I'm tired of it."

4) "It is only going to divide us more."

There are of course dozens of other responses but these seem to be four of the most popular and the most worthy of addressing in such a brief article.

First of all Reparations is not a recent notion nor is it something born out of the 60's civil rights movement. Reparations advocates (both black and white) have been around for over 100 years. Reparations is a verb and not a noun. The movement is a process of exploring the damages inflicted upon the descendants of those who were kidnapped and held captive in the United States throughout a period of several hundred years and dialoguing about potential compensatory remedies. Also included in this exploration are all the corporations and governmental organizations who benefited from the slave industry and who are prosperous today because of their practices.

No one would argue that receiving an inheritance from a relative might affect what kind of future one might have. African Americans have inherited the injustices inflicted upon their ancestors and are living with them today in various forms. For those who are not educated about our American history, it is tempting to view the few civil rights laws and affirmative action programs of the last 30 years as remedies for several hundred years of hatred, mistreatment and oppression.

As Congressman John Conyers pointed out at the Race Relations Institute Conference on Reparations in Nashville in February, those who are promoting reparations on the governmental level are (at this point) only requesting a study of the damages. These damages are not limited to money, and frankly, there is not a dollar figure large enough that could provide healing and justice for all the victims of the legacy of slavery. And, it is not even concluded that money will be the end result of reparations.

So far the government has refused to support a study. This does not mean studies are not being done, just that the government refuses to acknowledge them.

It is telling that many Americans don't object to billions of dollars being spent on strategic air missile defense systems -- which don't even work or the money spent on the studies which examine why they don't work. And yet, many white Americans vehemently object to a study of Reparations -- something that could specifically identify the injustices heaped upon our African brothers and sisters which have had lingering effects. A study of Reparations is a study of our history and something that could help promote racial healing and justice for blacks and whites alike.

In regards to one of the primary objections, my family didn't have to own slaves in order for me to benefit from slavery. As a white woman I have enjoyed first class privileges my entire life and I do not come from an upper middle-class family. In fact I have never forgotten the shame of seeing my mother pay for groceries with food-stamps when our family was destroyed. But regardless of my economic status, I was (and am now) the recipient of numerous invisible advantages every day. I never knew what those advantages were or meant until I started working with those who dealt with discrimination and oppression all of their lives. As a white person, understanding the insidious nature of racism was an effort to educate myself because it had no bearing on my everyday life. I couldn't see it so it didn't exist for me. I had to open my mind in order to see that racial discrimination is a stain in the fabric or our American culture. I'm not just referring to the obvious kinds of racial injustices but all the subtleties that keep people of color enslaved -- today.

As far as blacks receiving preferential treatment they most certainly do. Blacks and other people of color are preferred targets of the police and other law enforcement officials. People of color are certainly recipients of preferential treatment in our criminal justice system as is evidenced by the fact that they receive longer sentences for the same crimes committed by whites. It is certainly preferable to many white owned financial institutions to deny home loans to people of color in particular neighborhoods where whites are the majority.

A cursory study of the criminal justice system will support these allegations in black and white. When we look at the figures of who is in prison and we realize that there were few (if any) prisons in America during slavery we must ask ourselves some honest questions. Why are American prisons one of the fastest growing businesses in this country? Is it possible that our prison system has replaced slavery on some level? Are black men (and women) less threatening when they are held captive in controlled environments? These are all very complicated questions that are relevant to the issue of reparations and in need of consideration.

I'm most fascinated when I hear someone suggest that reparations will only serve to further divide the races and therefore should be abandoned. I can think of nothing more divisive than what has already been done to African Americans in this country. Are white Americans honestly convinced that race relations are so good now that we don't want to jeopardize them?

Learning about and acknowledging another's oppression does not take anything away from me. If anything, I have benefited enormously from re-visiting history and making connections between the historical truths and contemporary social ills. I've also learned a great deal from those who have been brave enough to tell their stories. This is another reason I believe so strongly in the Reparations movement. The road to healing race relations is the process of discovery and listening. When whites and blacks join together to look truthfully at the past and jointly explore what the damages were (and are) to those of African descent, it is clear that money is not the only solution. Healing can occur in many forms and no one -- so far that I know - is suggesting that money is the total solution.

After hearing some preliminary figures of how much the U.S. government profited from taxing the slave trade (it's not that far from George W's proposed tax cut ironically) I personally believe that a check of some kind must be written. But again, it is only part of the solution.

We whites need healing too. Otherwise we wouldn't get so angry when we hear the words reparations or compensatory remedies. It's not the words that cause such a violent reaction in some, it is something much deeper that we must address. Our own fear, hatred and anger has done a number on us whites.. It has made us arrogant. And our arrogance is just a by-product of our ignorance -- which fortunately can be remedied if we can stop blaming the victims long enough to seek the truth.

It is often our arrogance that prompts us to dismiss (out of hand) the idea of reparations. We have been in the driver's seat for so long that we can't abide the notion that someone else might have another route worth exploring.. I say let's scoot over to the passengers seat and ride the Reparations band-wagon. No one knows where we will end up but we will at least end up there together -- which is better than where we are right now.

By Molly Secours mollmaud@telalink.net

Ms. Secours is counselor, writer and racial dialog
facilitator and lives with her musician husband in
Nashville, TN.

Copyright (c) 2001 Molly Secours. All Rights Reserved.
(Permission was granted to publish this article.)

Molly Secours
"Only when we cease to scream with activity
can we hear the gentle murmur of peace within."

M.Secours
PO Box 681
Mt. Juliet, TN 37122

http://www.steveconn.com/molly

***
Ms. Secours' candid remarks on Reparations are greatly appreciated. She did well in presenting her caring views on how the matter of Reparations should first be addressed. Although, my personal views might differ in depth and detail, Ms. Secours is deserving of prime kudos.

*********


LOCAL PRESS

ATLANTA WILL BE THE SITE FOR A GLOBAL AFRICAN CONFERENCE

Atlanta Daily World



Officials with The Center for Constitutional Rights and the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition have partnered with other leaders and activists to stage a global conference on Africa to be held in Atlanta this winter.

The "State of the Black World" conference will convene in Atlanta November 28, through December 2, at the Georgia International Convention Center.

Invitations have been extended to civil rights activists here and abroad, but it was not reported that any have confirmed they will attend.

A similar conference was held more than 31 years ago, titled the Congress of African People.

"The SOBWC is envisioned as the first great gathering of the African peoples of the world in the new century and millennium," said Ron Daniels, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights.

"It is viewed as a vehicle to confront the multitude of crises facing Black people."

The conference will also serve as a vehicle to form strategies that will restore Africa as a leading force on the world stage. In that spirit, the planning committee has adopted the theme "Creating Our 21st Century."

People of African descent must begin to create their own futures, according to Joseph Beasley, Southern Regional Coordinator for Rainbow/PUSH.

"It is high time that our people begin to stand up and come together," he said. "We are of the race, but it is high time we be about the race. There is nothing wrong with being for the race."

Daniels, Beasley and others including Markel Hutchinson, CEO/founder of the National Youth Connection are expecting upwards of 5,000 Blacks to attend the conference.

"Black people from all corners of the globe will meet here to face the reality that the colorline, as W.E.B. DuBois described it, afflicts us all everywhere," Daniels said.

Racism, White supremacy, colonialism, neo-colonialism, poverty, hunger disease genocide and fratricide are also problems that will be addressed at the conference according to Daniels.

Though a supporter of the event, Faheem Martin, of the Kalonji Brotherhood said he also hopes there will be some form of action created that attendees will be able to implement in their respective communities.

Rest assured, there definitely would be, according to Daniels.

"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."

Organizers also hope to use the conference to heal the centuries old estrangement between African and African American peoples.

"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," Daniels explained.

Organizers hope to convene the festival in 2004 in Haiti to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Haitian Revolution.

"A conference of this magnitude is long overdue,' said conference organizer Patricia Johnson.

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

by Mashaun D. Simon

This article was contributed by T'zirah Baht Yehudah
*********


AFRIKAN WORLD REPARATIONS AND

REPATRIATION TRUTH COMMISSION

P. O. BOX TN 1127, ACCRA, GHANA WEST AFRICA FAX: 233 21 777098
MEMORANDUM



TO: SELORM TECLU

FROM: AFRIKAN WORLD REPARATION AND
REPATRIATION TRUTH COMMISSION (AWRRTC) EXECUTIVE MEMBERS AND ELDERS

SUBJECT: DISMISSAL FROM AFRIKAN WORLD
REPARATION AND REPATRIATION TRUTH COMMISSION (AWRRTC)

DATE: 19TH FEBRUARY, 2001


Effective, 8 February, 2001 AWRRTC Executive members and Elders met and decided your immediate "Dismissal" from the Afrikan World Reparations and Repatriation Truth Commission (AWRRTC).

Reasons for such a decision are outlined in the attached memorandum below, dated 11 January, 2001, as well as your refusal since receiving this memorandum (11 January) to attend AWRRTC's weekly meetings, to answer to the charge of 'Breach of Trust'.

AWRRTC Executive Members and Elders are kindly requesting that you return all documents belonging to AWRRTC, and do "not" speak, correspond, nor carry-on any business affairs on behalf of AWRRTC.

cc:(i)Co-Chair Debra Kofie
Cotonou Benin

(ii)NCOBRA, USA

***
AFRIKAN WORLD REPARATIONS AND REPATRIATION TRUTH

COMMISSION

P. O. BOX TN 1127, ACCRA, GHANA WEST AFRICA FAX: 233 21 777098
MEMORANDUM



TO: SELORM TECLU

FROM: DR. HAMET M. MAULANA, (Co-Chair Afrikan
World Reparation and Repatriation Truth Commission (AWRRTC)

SUBJECT: YOUTH STUDY GROUP

DATE: 11th January, 2001



Selem, after the last meeting with you, 17th December, 2000 and reflecting on your statements concerning your Leadership position and influence over the Youth Study Group, it comes now time herein for me to respond as Co-Chair of AWRRTC.

Please know that AWRRTC considers the Ghanaian youth to be absolutely essential and significant in its Reparations Claim for Mother Africa. The Ghanaian youth is one of the medians AWRTC needs to help educate the general Ghanaian population in their various ethnic languages about the Reparations Claim. AWRRTC considers the youth to be a 'Critical' factor in the Reparations and Repatriation movement.

Briefly, do know what is at issue here with AWRRTC concerning you is a 'Breach of Trust'. Breach of Trust is predicated upon you telling me 17th December, and I quote you:

"I did not want the youth in the 'Study Group' to feel that I was using them, by telling them that the idea of the Study Group is affiliated with AWRRTC. Because they may not want to be apart of AWRRTC. So, I never mentioned AWRRTC's interest or connection with the Study Group". End of quote. Also, you said that you are going to register the study group in the name of illumini'. Selam, I believe you have been with the study group since its inception in August, 2000. This was a period of over four (4) months, while meeting on a weekly basis. Selam, are you telling me that you never once in this time period, as a senior member of AWRRTC, who had just attended an NCOBRA National Conference on Reparations in Washington, D.C. USA (June 14-20, 2000), representing the interest of AWRRTC, had never once taken the time to announce to the Youth Study Group, AWRRTC's interest and position with this Group?

Selam, first of all, if I may recall to your attention, Co-Chair Lady Debra Kofie and myself, along with you, after AWRRTC's 2nd International Historic Reparations and Repatriation Conference in Accra, July 28-30, 2000; we both advised you in the interest of AWRRTC on how to best go about laying out the modalities and parameters in setting up an AWRRTC "Youth Study Group. You heard us out very well on this matter, and agreed to pursue the project at per recommendation from AWRRTC Co-Chairs. I even met with you in the month of September,2000 at your work site office (Institute of Economic Affairs), to reinforce AWRRTC's position vis-a-vis establishing the Youth Study Group.

Selam, to this end, I felt the compelling need to tell you that in the struggle for Reparations and Repatriation for African peoples, "TRUST" is Paramount to the success of our overall mission.

This is absolute in light of the fact that there is so much International 'Provocateuring' trying to undermine, or, outright derail Africa's Reparations Claim against European nations, as well as the USA.

EMAIL:awrrtc@hotmail.com
*********


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

Peace and Power,
Ukali
*********


NEWSLETTER

BANTU-LAND Grassroots Messages!


Volume XXIV ISSUE 1


MARCH 8, 2001
ST. LOUIS HOSTS REPARATIONS AWARENESS DAY FORUM

ON UNITED NATIONS WORLD CONFERENCE AGAINST RACISM


On Sunday February 25, 2001 at 2:pm the Clifford Wilson Center was the site of the Sunday Forum. The event was sponsored by the December 12 th Movement International Secretariat, National Black United Front (NBUF), National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N'COBRA), Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (MXGM).

The forum facilitator, Mr. Alphonso Lumpkins (NBUF/N'COBRA member) , welcomed the more than 100 people who came to the program and gave them some insight on NBUF's efforts in bringing the charges of Genocide before the U.N.

The local chapter of N'COBRA was introduced to the gathering by its Male Co-Chair Alvin Brown who began by first explaining the purpose of the N'COBRA surveys in helping to determine the manner of Reparations our people would like then inviting those present to fill-out one of the surveys. The local chairperson of the Youth Commission, Richard Phillips, spoke about the April 4, 2001 walk-out that is being led by the Tupac Generation and sponsored by N'COBRA's National Congress of Economic Development Commissioners. The local N'COBRA Treasurer, B. J. Brown was introduced and she ended by inviting all present to join N'COBRA. X. Peter Clark , local N'COBRA Secretary, spoke on education's importance, and N'COBRA's demand in this area. The Female Co-Chair Diane Allen (Lady D) then summed up N'COBRA's message reminding all that this was Reparations Awareness Day, and the need for Reparations because among other things "we have lost our minds!"

Sister Colette Pean was introduced and she began by reminding us that "as Malcolm said"...."go to the U.N." She said that the UNWCAR (Aug. 31 thru Sept. 7, 2001 in South Africa) will be a continuation of the work of D12 and NBUF and N'COBRA to get the question of our HUMAN RIGHTS on the world stage. She explained how previously the African Group at the UN had banned together and presented a statement saying that the "Atlantic Slave Trade" was a crime against Humanity and a violation of the Human Rights of Africans by those Nations engaged in the trade. (The U.S. through its ambassador to the U.N. by threathening to cut off aid to these countries, had this resolution removed)

She told us that this conference has been 2 years in the making; that there are some 184 Nations in the U.N., and that the United States has fought against holding this conference. She said that this is the third world conference against racism, and gave us some insight to the previous two. She compared the efforts that were given by the U.S. for previously held conferences of this nature, then compared that to the fact that "not one national or regional meeting was held or scheduled to be held within the United States for this very important (to us...this is our conference....something that we can give factual information about) UNWCAR. She stated that the best place to hold the conference would be the U.S. in New York where the U.N. has its headquarters. The United States offers accessibility via roads, communication etc., that other countries cannot offer. There are some 40 million African descendents here, and combined with the large numbers in South America (Brazil which is close to 60% Black; Columbia with some 15 million Blacks caught in the middle of a drug war and a civil war) Latin America and the Caribbean and Canada the western hemisphere has plenty of African descendents to give factual testimony to the effects of Slavery and Racism and it's effects on us today.

She explained the "Durban 400", and the need to have grassroots people addressing the African Nations and NGO's that will be present. It is important that the central issues of this conference be about a Declaration that the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and Slavery be classified as a Crime against Humanity; the Reparations be paid [although at the present time the word Restitution has be put in brackets] and that NGO organizations such as D12 play a key role in accomplishing these goals.

After a very informative presentation, the forum was opened for questions from those present. The questions were varied, and the age group of questioners ranged from grade school age to our senior citizens. And of course, also present was the element that feels that we should not be seeking Reparations or that Reparations are due to the descendents of Slaves and tried their best to defend the United States Government. {This was good because the people present were able to witness the fact that in South Africa as here in the U.S. everyone who is Black will not be there speaking on our behalf demanding Reparations.}

Special thanks were given to the United Black Community Fund which made the Wilson Center available. The forum ended with everyone invited to participate in a Caribbean dinner, which the local Haitian Community had prepared in honor of our main speaker, Sister Colette Pean.

Alvin Brown - Male Co-Chair
N'COBRA/ST.LOUIS

Contributed by abantu@swbell.net

MALCOLM X. GRASSROOTS MOVEMENT


P.O.BOX 831
FLORISSANT, MO.63032

*********

Onaje Muid gave a presentation before lawyers at Columbia University last evening (February 28, 2001) along with Sis. Deadria Farmer-Paellmann, who began the research and struggle against Aetna, Bro. Charles Barron, community activist and Bro. William Allen, a NYC Council Member who gave the legislative/political side. There were judges and other elected officials in the audience and the event was co-sponsored by the Black Women's Lawyers Assoc. (or some such).

NCOBRA's on the move...

Sister Niamo
*********


JOIN THE BLACK REPARATIONS MOVEMENT TODAY !

IT IS A WIN, WIN CASE FOR US!

Oscar L. Beard
*********


The Reparations Movement's goals are as follows:

- Obtain Reparations from all countries that prospered from Black Slave Labor
Schedule Conferences, Marches, and Protests until the White Society apologizes and
compensates Descendants of the Slave Trade
- Speak at the United Nations on Reparations for Survivors of the Slave Trade in order
to gain International Support of all or most countries
- Demonstrate in front of the UN in Geneva for World Attention
- Establish an International Fund for Descendants of Slaves
- Target Companies that existed during the days of Slavery for Reparations, and if they
do not comply, then list them as "Unworthy" for Black patronage
- 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!


WAKE UP!
STAND UP!
STEP UP!
and DO SOMETHING IN SUPPORT OF REPARATIONS!
OR THERE CAN BE NO REAL - PEACE!

Ahna Tafari
*********


REPAIRING THE AMERICAN HOLOCAUST



February 14, 2001

DURHAM, N.C. -- A new study in Germany may help illuminate one of our looming issues here in the United States. The study was on the children of Nazis, very comparable to our issue -- reparations for slavery.

Germany spent the last 50 years both accepting responsibility for the horrors of Nazism and educating its people to prevent any such repetition of history. But recently, German public-opinion polling firms noted a growing sentiment against foreigners living in Germany. One poll even found that nearly 10 percent of Germans thought the Nazis had "good ideas."

Startled by that finding, social scientists studied the communication of history within families. In summary, the children and grandchildren of Nazi-era Germans believed that their ancestors were at worst innocent bystanders or that they had actually worked (openly or secretly) against the Nazi regime. And many of these descendants believed this even in instances where the descendants had proof that the ancestor had been, for example, in the Gestapo (literally, the Nazi "secret state police"). The living ancestors themselves, when interviewed, often retained an intense dislike of Jews or other Nazi victims, thus undercutting their descendants' conviction that "grandmother sheltered a Jew."

Which brings us to American race-based slavery.

To be sure, there were differences: race-based slavery arose from the ancient practice of taking a defeated enemy as slaves. Portuguese traders introduced the buying and selling of African slaves into Europe, and the new labor source flourished where it was most economical: the Americas. American slavery was thus a gradual historical process, not the Nazis' pitched campaign to use existing biases to political advantage, and ultimately to mass murder.

But Nazism was a systematically violent attempt to build a new world order based on racist principles. American slavery was an attempt to build the new world through systematic, often violent, oppression of a group based on race.

Viewed in that light, American slavery differs from Nazism only because it was based more upon exploiting people for economic gain rather than exterminating them in pursuit of illusory "racial purity." Either way, humans deliberately inflicted unprecedented suffering. And that's not even considering the wars that ended those systems.

Which brings us to reparations to black Americans.

Consideration of reparations to black Americans dates back to 1829. It has been endorsed by many, including Martin Luther King, Jr., who advocated a "massive program of special compensatory measures."

Reparations are gaining momentum again for both slavery and continuing racism (due in part to Randall Robinson's book, The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks, and a [recent] reparations convention…in Chicago). The reparations idea is also based on the claim that every freed male slave should get "40 acres and a mule" as stated in the First Freedmen's Bureau Act (defeated in Congress in 1866) and from the War Department's attempts to help freed men who served under General William Sherman (repeatedly blocked by President Johnson through the late 1860s).
So what can we learn from the German parallel?


After World War I, overly demanding reparations required of Germany helped bring the Nazis to power. But after World War II, Germany, rebuilt with aid from its former enemies, was able to pay reparations to Jewish Holocaust survivors. From the 1950s to the present, Germans choose to pay reparations, even though, according to that study, living Germans seem to feel that neither they nor their relatives were directly responsible for the Holocaust.

In the United States, we have apologized and paid symbolic sums to Japanese Americans locked in concentration camps here during World War II. Similar payments have been made to several Native American tribes, descendants of those wronged long ago.

There are thus numerous precedents in favor of reparations for slavery. These should be paid to the immediate survivors and the descendants who suffered from this great wrong. But should descendants of those who profited from this wrong help pay those reparations?

Like modern Germans, modern Americans claim individual and collective innocence.

So should we, legal descendants of the nation which held slavery as a "property right," be held accountable to the descendants of those who were so gravely wronged? Should the payments be made by all whites to all blacks, regardless of when our ancestors arrived here? Would reparations quiet these claims of those historically wronged or merely help to smolder this sense of resentment?

Our nation must have a discussion about this and resolve it openly, rationally and respectfully. It should be clear by now that these issues will not go away if we simply ignore them.

By Edward Benson

The Chronicle


Duke U.

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AFRICAN CAUCUS GROUP (ACG)

PRESS STATEMENT


Africans and African Descendants unite to raise concerns in Vienna meeting

In preparation for the UN World Conference Against Racism (WCAR) in South Africa August-September 2001, Africans and African Descendants see a need to debate issues of concern in a representable way. African NGOs from many countries will meet in Vienna 28-29 April.

Conditions for Africans and African Descendants must improve

The history of African people and people of African Descendant is complex, intricate and embodies many chapters of injustice and brutalisation. The people who can trace their lineage back to Africa are found on all world continents, in every country. Although their reasons for living in different countries are varied, people of African descent share many of the same problems whichever country they reside in. The African Caucus group hold the opinion that the WCAR will be a great failure if it does not sufficiently address practical remedies to improve conditions for Africans and African Descendents.


African NGO meeting in Vienna 28-29 April 2001

The African Caucus Group appreciates the initiative by UN to put racism and means of eradicating it, in all its forms, on the agen