http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/ Read About The Latest News / Information In The Pan- Afrikan World And Beyond! en Fri, 20 Nov 2009 23:19:08 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/images/misc_2/rss.jpg http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/ http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/afrikan-world-news/40430-explosions-unrest-mark-puerto-ricos-economic-crisis.html Wed, 18 Nov 2009 22:45:53 GMT Explosions of Unrest Mark Puerto Rico's Economic Crisis

Written by Juan A. Ocasio Rivera
Wednesday, 18 November 2009

Source: NACLA Report on the Americas
https://nacla.org/node/6254

The unsuspecting governor, smack in the middle of an important press conference, missed being hit by a projectile by mere inches. The projectile? Not a bullet, but an egg. An outraged citizen calling himself "The Common Guy" ("el tipo común") interrupted the press conference by screaming in outrage at Puerto Rico Governor Luis Fortuño and by throwing a slider that landed on a sign highlighting a new development project the governor was announcing. As officers locked the man in a bear hug and carted him off, and as the press swarmed this "Common Guy," it became clear that this public display of resistance was not only transcendental for its raw expression of pain and anger, but was also symbolic and representative of everyone's frustration and open outrage at the turn of events on the island.

Puerto Rico is witnessing the kind of social, economic, and political upheaval not seen in decades. Declaring a fiscal emergency, the pro-statehood Fortuño administration recently passed a Fiscal Emergency Law, which, among other measures, implemented the layoff of over 20,000 government workers - nearly 10% of the total. In addition to huge cuts in budgets and services, the layoffs caused immediate shock and outrage due to its massive breadth and potential effects. Government officials contend that they inherited a bankrupt government from previous administrations along with a huge debt load. They are scrambling to prevent their credit ratings to be classified in the lowest of categories - the junk rating - and contend that the measures were necessary.

With an unemployment rate of around 16%, it is obvious that Puerto Rico confronts a serious economic crisis. According to U.S. Census Bureau 2008 figures, the island's median household income stands at $18,610 (compared with $52,175 in the United States) and median family income stands at $21,639 ($63,211 in the U.S.). Per capita income is $10,064 ($27,466 in the U.S.), and 41.4% of families and 45.3% of individuals fall below the federal poverty level. In 2007, over 50% of families on the island received some form of public assistance. The figures alone provide a snapshot of the depth of the economic crisis. Although solutions are not lacking - several leading politicians and economists continue to offer alternative fiscal policies - citizens continue to express concern over their economic situation.

Coupled with a soaring crime rate - over 750 murders this year alone - alarming suicide rates, increasing acts of domestic violence, and worrisome mental health needs on the island, emotions have reached a boiling point. Ordinary citizens have begun to express the belief that their government cannot control the social crisis.

Incidents of police abuse, including a recent incident in which university students were indiscriminately attacked with batons and tear gas, are being denounced at an increasing rate across the island. Squatter communities (also known as developers of rescued lands) have recently been targeted as lawbreakers by the conservative administration, and families without clear title to their properties are being forcibly evicted from their homes.

Part of the government's fiscal emergency response has been an attempt to reverse the gains previously won by collective bargaining agreements, drawing a sharp outcry from the union sector. Opposition political parties have called for a larger burden to be borne by the rich and by large corporations, only to be rebuked by the administration, which has gone ahead with significant increases in basic services. The administration, whose governor identifies himself as a U.S. Republican, also censured several books by renowned authors for use in the island's schools - including Antología personal by José Luís González, El entierro de Cortijo by Edgardo Rodríguez Juliá, and Aura by Carlos Fuentes - a deed met with fierce opposition. A further alarming development was the governor's signing of an executive order authorizing the police superintendent to activate the National Guard to quell public disturbances and civil unrest - an act undertaken immediately before the announcement of the layoffs.

Activists from across the political spectrum joined forces to confront the fiscal emergency law and called for a national strike that was held this past October 15. The coalition, known as All Puerto Rico For Puerto Rico (TPRPR), is made up of political organizations, student groups, and civic and religious organizations, including churches. Among its more publicly recognizable activists are priests and labor leaders. Unions such as the Electrical Workers Union (UTIER) and the labor coalition FASYL (Front for Solidarity and Struggle) are also heavily involved.

Reverend Juan Vera, of the TPRPR Coalition, is seen by most as one of the main organizers of the coalition. He declared, during one of the massive demonstrations linked to the national strike, that "the streets will be our battleground. We declare that there will only be tranquility when our governors respect the will of the people. Today we begin a new page in the history of Puerto Rico."

The demonstrations on October 15th, which garnered approximately 200,000 people, were centered in the San Juan area, and focused principally on the largest avenues in the area known as the Ponce de Leon. Schools in the area were closed, government offices were at a standstill, and public transportation was halted. Remarkably, the largest shopping mall in the Caribbean, Plaza Las Americas, closed for the day, only the second time in its history, leading some to claim that the national strike had the desired effect of crippling business for the day. Others hoped publicly that the government would change course once confronted with the growing demands for alternative solutions.

Special police intelligence units were deployed, and Police Superintendent José Figueroa Sancha confirmed that activists were recorded for "intelligence purposes," drawing an outcry from rights activists. Figueroa Sancha, previously second-in-command of Puerto Rico's FBI office, has been implicated in the agency's targeted assassination of revolutionary leader Filiberto Ojeda Rios in 2005. Ojeda Rios was the de facto leader of Los Macheteros, an anti-colonial guerrilla force advocating Puerto Rico's political independence. He had been wanted by the FBI for 15 years, having gone underground in 1990 after the infamous $7 million Wells Fargo heist by his organization in 1983.

Los Macheteros have re-appeared during the current unrest, issuing a statement on September 23 calling for struggle and for solidarity with the affected working class, warning that the government's fiscal measures were designed to satisfy the needs of corporations and to further the statehood goals of the governor. The pro-independence guerrillas called for "firm, effective, and coordinated actions" designed "to evolve into revolutionary action" in order to obtain necessary democratic, labor, and political rights. Calling for all pro-independence forces to unite, the organization reiterated its position and intent to utilize armed struggle as simply one of the methods of struggle alongside the Puerto Rican working class.

At one point during the October 15 protests in San Juan, several hundred students spontaneously conducted an act of disobedience, stealing the media limelight. Ordered by the police to disperse, the students suddenly decided to resist the order and promptly sat down in the middle of "Las Americas" Expressway, one of the largest highways in the country. Blocking traffic for five hours, the students chose to display their militancy and strength by sending a message in action to the current administration. The students haggled with the authorities for hours, insisting that the police leave the area first, while the police ordered the students' dispersal as a condition. The tension was finally broken when nationalist icon Rafael Cancel Miranda arrived to speak with the students, and officers themselves began to disperse.

Cancel Miranda was one of four Puerto Ricans who opened fire in the U.S. Congress in 1954 in a dramatic demand for the island's independence, serving 25 years in federal prison until President Carter's clemency in 1979. The FUPI (Pro-Independence University Federation) released a statement after the demonstrations praising the militancy of the students and the presence of Cancel Miranda. The statement highlighted the fact that the students present "recognized him and listened to him, because Rafael Cancel Miranda has the moral stature necessary to be heard. It is indicative of the students' recognition of our people's true leaders, who with their lives have demonstrated commitment" and acted honorably.

Days after the National Strike, members of the Hostosian National Independence Movement (MINH) surprised the governor as he arrived at a political party meeting in the town of Toa Baja. Pro-independence activists, labor leaders, and ordinary citizens who had been laid off via the Fiscal Emergency Law all participated in the MINH demonstration. In the days and weeks following those actions, the governor and his entourage have been met with consistent and repeated demonstrations, protests, and acts of civil disobedience. These acts are conducted by different organizations, with different interests, and different constituencies, but have all been coordinated by the coalition and brought together by labor leaders. They all continue to demand the cancellation of the layoffs and of the Fiscal Emergency Law. Pro-independence student activists have indicated that they will now begin a campaign to demand "more," an ominous though unclear warning. In recent days, union leaders have led visits and sit-ins at several offices of elected officials in order to pressure for changes to the Fiscal Emergency Law and continue to confront the governor at every turn.

In the days after the demonstrations, the governor declared that he would not reverse the layoffs and would not repeal any of the provisions of the Fiscal Emergency Law. In response, student organizations and labor leaders expressed their intention to move forward with a general strike, one that would be held indefinitely, designed to bring the country to a standstill, with the political purpose of forcing the administration to roll back some of the harsher measures contained in the Fiscal Emergency Law.

Meanwhile, Governor Luis Fortuño continues to misstep and provoke the growing activist movement. During the last days of October, he cancelled the Natural Reserve designation of hundreds of acres of land that were to be protected from contamination and development. The removal of protection was opposed by environmentalists, who saw it as a capitulation to development interests. The explosion of unrest on the island will likely deepen as ordinary citizens identify and oppose the privatization efforts of the administration.

The Common Guy and his egg did not constitute the only explosion on the island. On October 21, an explosion occurred in the Gulf gasoline refinery owned by Caribbean Petroleum Corporation (CAPECO) in the town of Bayamon, drawing a frenzy of media coverage and frantic conjecture by officials in the Fortuño administration about whether it was an act of sabotage. The fire burned for three days, spewing thick black toxic smoke that, luckily, was mostly blown out to sea by wind gusts. The explosion was so severe that it marked 2.8 on the Richter scale, blowing out windows in local homes and business, and seriously damaging several homes in the area. Residents pointed out that at midnight the explosion lit up the sky as if it were noon, and were amazed, frightened, and traumatized by the severity of the blast.

Those who opposed a hated development project in the town of Peñuelas likely feel vindicated. The "Gasoducto," recently abandoned, was a development project designed to transport natural gas throughout the southernmost towns of the island, but met with unusually fierce community opposition, most especially in the towns of Ponce and Peñuelas. Anti-gasoducto arguments were based on the fact that the gas line was to come dangerously close to residential areas, and activists called attention to serious accidental blasts in other countries where gas lines are maintained.

The CAPECO blast was a haunting reminder that overdevelopment coupled with a lack of oversight and regulation is a serious threat to civilian safety in residential areas. But it gave the administration an opportunity to attempt to link the blast to the growing protest movement. In spite of having immediate confirmation from CAPECO employees who reported seeing dangerous flammable vapors being emitted from the oil and gasoline transfer stations, and who ran from the site in anticipation of the blast - and luckily were not hurt because they fled in vehicles and not on foot - the administration, along with FBI officials, continued for days to report that they could not rule out "terrorism" and "sabotage" as a possible cause of the blast. Some saw this as a feeble attempt to weaken the protest movement by attempting to scare more moderate elements of the organizations involved and so prevent further unrest. Within days, firefighters were able to contain the blaze and extinguish it, and the FBI confirmed no evidence of sabotage was found, instead finding a history of neglect and corruption.

What they cannot contain, however, is the true explosion being witnessed on the island. The true explosion is not the pyrotechnical type. It is the explosion of dissent, of organization, and of resistance on the part of hundreds of thousands of ordinary citizens who, like the Common Guy, are tired of coming in second place to big business and global capital. Working class families have been shocked into action by the neoliberal policies of the Fortuño administration, and have taken to public demonstrations and civil disobedience to attempt to roll back some of its more painful policies. While corporations continue to repatriate billions of dollars to their U.S. offices, and while elected officials continue to pay six figures to consultants and authorize salary increases for themselves, the working class in Puerto Rico has exploded in outrage and action. While it may not result in immediate fundamental political change, it certainly marks an exciting and historical moment in the history of the United States' oldest colony.

Juan A. Ocasio Rivera is a social worker, professor, and freelance writer based in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico. He has been a contributor to online publications such as CounterPunch and Upside Down World, and has collaborated with various progressive organizations, including the September23.Org project and La Nueva Escuela.



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Freedom Archives Home ]]> Afrikan World News Moorbey http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/afrikan-world-news/40430-explosions-unrest-mark-puerto-ricos-economic-crisis.html http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/afrikan-world-news/40413-asi-north-american-region-salutes-apsp-sierra-leone-founding-conference.html Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:04:05 GMT *African Socialist International announces launch of international workers party in Sierra Leone to contest in future elections * *Website: *African Socialist International (ASI) (http://www.asiuhuru.org) This statement was made by the African Socialist International North American Region on...

African Socialist International announces launch of international workers party in Sierra Leone to contest in future elections

Website: African Socialist International (ASI)

This statement was made by the African Socialist International North American Region on November 17th at a press conference at the Sierra Leone Embassy in Washington, D.C.


Photo: Chioma Oruh, leader of the North American Committee to Build the African Socialist International

The African Socialist International, in unity with other organizations of the Black is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations, proudly announces the launch of an international workers party that will begin contesting for state power in Sierra Leone. The launch of the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP) in Sierra Leone marks the first officially registered political party led by and benefiting the masses of African workers and peasants in Sierra Leone’s history. As we speak, Chernoh Alpha M. Bah, a former child soldier, journalist and activist, is leading a conference attended by hundreds of Africans from Sierra Leone and by an international delegation of members of the African Socialist International from the North American region.

The international significance of this event cannot be overstated. The existence of the African People’s Socialist Party in Sierra Leone is here to expose the illegitimate attempts by neocolonial rulers that have their interests everywhere except with the masses of workers and peasants. We see that since the 2007 election of president Ernest Koroma and the overall leadership of the All People’s Congress, the conditions of the everyday worker in Sierra Leone have not improved. Rather we see president Koroma appealing more to the interests of foreign nations such as the United States, England and China. Koroma’s betrayal of his people is evident in the million dollar deals with the British Department for Foreign International Development (DFID) that provide monies for supposed social programs that alleviate nothing for the masses but result in securing the UK’s interest in the diamond mines. Further betrayal is exposed in Koroma’s permission of AFRICOM’s Africa Partnership Station to impose U.S. maritime security interests on how Africans in Sierra Leone use their own waters. This new program, in addition to the FBI’s legal attaché in Freetown, allows for the U.S. military and intelligence apparatus to trump any attempt by Sierra Leone to set the terms of their own security. No Western nation would allow Africans to set up militarily in their home region.

The launch of the African People’s Socialist Party is a bold step in a new direction. It says that Africans will not put the interests of foreign nations before those of her own citizens. This has been a longtime coming and should be embraced by all working class Africans around the world as a necessary step in moving towards a true freedom that we can believe in. Furthermore, in this period when the affairs of the entire African world are dictated by foreign interests and when the interests of the toiling masses—the workers and the peasants—are not represented, the African People’s Socialist Party in Sierra Leone now gives a voice to the voiceless. They are speaking truth to power about the various diamond miners that keep up the criminal economy of resource extraction without just payment of these precious stones—miners like the Global Exploration Corporation, Rex Mining Corporation, DiamondWorks (BranchEnergy and BranchMining), and Sierra Rutile-Nord Ressources. They are exposing the devastating scenario where more African women in Sierra Leone die from preventable childbirth related complications than anywhere else in the world.

Joining the hundreds of African workers in Sierra Leone Party is an international delegation from North America that will be there for 2 weeks. The delegation is led by Chairman Omali Yeshitela. Some of the activities they will participate in are: 1) a conference from November 16-18 that lays out the initial goals and objectives of the APSP in Sierra Leone, 2) setting up an FM and internet radio station that will allow African workers in Sierra Leone to hear news and other programs that articulate a political understanding of local and global political affairs with their interests in mind, and 3) launching the Oloshoro Fishing Project as well as a program to address the alarming infant and maternal death rates in Sierra Leone as led by the All African People’s Development and Empowerment Project.

We, children of the African world far away from the motherland, stand proud today in unity with our sisters and brothers in Sierra Leone who have done the hard work of launching this much needed international political front. The African Socialist International of the North American Region salutes your bravery and commitment to the worldwide struggle for liberation, particularly at this difficult point in history of sophisticated oppression—where it hides in the cloak of neocolonialism and Africans everywhere are encouraged to feel hopeful in the most desperate and devastating of times marked by a global economic crises and militarism. We stand here in front of the Sierra Leonean embassy as part of the global African nation that is one billion strong. Your achievements in launching this workers party will not go unnoticed and we stand together with you to say, “One Africa! One Nation!”

Uhuru! ]]> Afrikan World News BSUP http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/afrikan-world-news/40413-asi-north-american-region-salutes-apsp-sierra-leone-founding-conference.html http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/afrikan-world-news/40396-racial-disparity-all-active-ethics-probes-focus-black-lawmakers.html Sun, 15 Nov 2009 16:49:54 GMT Racial disparity: All active ethics probes focus on black lawmakers By JOHN BRESNAHAN | The House ethics committee is currently investigating seven African-American lawmakers — more than 15 percent of the total in the House. And an eighth black member, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.),... Racial disparity: All active ethics probes focus on black lawmakers

By JOHN BRESNAHAN |


The House ethics committee is currently investigating seven African-American lawmakers — more than 15 percent of the total in the House. And an eighth black member, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.), would be under investigation if the Justice Department hadn’t asked the committee to stand down.

Not a single white lawmaker is currently the subject of a full-scale ethics committee probe.

The ethics committee declined to respond to questions about the racial disparity, and members of the Congressional Black Caucus are wary of talking about it on the record. But privately, some black members are outraged — and see in the numbers a worrisome trend in the actions of ethics watchdogs on and off Capitol Hill.

“Is there concern whether someone is trying to set up [Congressional Black Caucus] members? Yeah, there is,” a black House Democrat said. “It looks as if there is somebody out there who understands what the rules [are] and sends names to the ethics committee with the goal of going after the [CBC].”

African-American politicians have long complained that they’re treated unfairly when ethical issues arise. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus are still fuming over Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s decision to oust then-Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.) from the House Ways and Means Committee in 2006, and some have argued that race plays a role in the ongoing efforts to remove Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) from his chairmanship of that committee.

Last week’s actions by the House ethics committee are sure to add fuel to the fire.

The committee — which has one African-American lawmaker, Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.), among its 10 members — on Thursday considered three referrals from the recently formed Office of Congressional Ethics. It dismissed a case against Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.), who is white, but agreed to open full-blown investigations of California Democratic Reps. Maxine Waters and Laura Richardson, both of whom are black.

The committee was already investigating five other African-Americans. Rangel is the subject of two different probes, one involving a host of issues he has put before the committee and another involving allegations that corporate funds may have been used improperly to pay for members’ trips to the Caribbean in 2007-08. Reps. Carolyn Kilpatrick (D-Mich.), Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and Donald Payne (D-N.J.) and Del. Donna Christensen (D-U.S. Virgin Islands) are also included in the second of those investigations.

A document leaked to The Washington Post last week showed that nearly three dozen lawmakers have come under scrutiny this year by either the House ethics committee or the Office of Congressional Ethics, an independent watchdog created in 2008 at the insistence of Pelosi. While the list contained a substantial number of white lawmakers, the ethics committee has not yet launched formal investigative subcommittees with respect to any of them — as it has with the seven African-American members.

The OCE has also been a particular target of ire for the Congressional Black Caucus. Black lawmakers, including CBC Chairwoman Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), met with OCE officials earlier this year to raise their concerns. Spokesmen for Lee and the OCE both declined to comment.

A number of CBC members opposed the resolution establishing the OCE, arguing that it was the wrong response to the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal, which helped Democrats seize control of the House in 2006.

Setting up the OCE “was a mistake,” Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) told The Hill newspaper recently. “Congress has a long and rich history of overreacting to a crisis.”

Cleaver, though, now finds himself part of the four-member subcommittee that will investigate Waters, who voted against the OCE. Waters is being probed over her intervention with the Treasury Department on behalf of a minority-owned bank in which her husband served on the board and owned at least $250,000 in stock.

While she has flatly denied engaging in any unethical or improper behavior in her dealings with OneUnited, Waters was described by colleagues and Democratic aides as “livid” over the ethics committee’s decision to investigate her.



“She was hopping mad,” a Democratic lawmaker said of Waters. “She feels this is a complete miscarriage of justice.”

Another CBC member said black lawmakers are “easy targets” for ethics watchdog groups because they have less money — both personally and in their campaign accounts — to defend themselves than do their white colleagues. Campaign funds can be used to pay members’ legal bills.

“A lot of that has to do with outside watchdog groups like [Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington] that have to have a level of success to justify OCE,” the CBC member said. The good-government groups were strong backers of the OCE’s creation.

But these same groups won’t go after Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), this lawmaker claimed, “because she has plenty of money to defend herself,” and the outside groups don’t want to take a risk. The Democrat said the ethics committee would be going up against Harman’s lawyers and “going up against” the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee if they push the OCE to pressure the ethics committee to act.

In fact, CREW filed a complaint against Harman with the OCE.

Harman was allegedly recorded on a 2005 federal wiretap discussing with an Israeli operative her bid to become Intelligence Committee chairwoman. Harman has denied any wrongdoing, but an attempt by the ethics committee to get a transcript of the taped call was rebuffed by the Justice Department.

What especially galled black lawmakers was that the ethics committee voted to move forward with the Waters and Richardson probes following the OCE referrals, while Graves — who OCE also thought should be investigated by the ethics committee — saw his case dismissed.

Even worse, the ethics committee issued a 541-page document explaining why it wouldn’t look into allegations that Graves invited a witness to testify before the Small Business Committee — on which he sits — without revealing his financial ties to that witness.

“It is kind of crazy,” said an aide to one senior black Democrat. “How can it be that the ethics committee only investigates African-Americans? It doesn’t make sense.”

White lawmakers have certainly been the subject of ethics committee investigations before. Former Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) was admonished by the committee for his dealings with corporate lobbyists, while ex-Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) was the target of an investigation over his dealings with teenage male House pages in late 2006. Foley resigned after the sex scandal was revealed.

And the document leaked to the Post last week shows that a number of white lawmakers — including senior House Appropriations Committee members John Murtha (D-Pa.), Pete Visclosky (D-Ind.), Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.) and Jim Moran (D-Va.) — have drawn the attention of the committee and the OCE.

The two congressional ethics watchdogs are looking into these members’ ties to the PMA Group, a now-defunct lobbying firm that won tens of millions of dollars in earmarks from members of the Appropriations Committee. The lawmakers who arranged for the earmarks received hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from PMA’s lobbying clients.

But it seems unlikely that the PMA case will become the subject of a full-blown ethics committee investigation. The Justice Department is also looking into the PMA allegations; the FBI raided PMA’s office last year, and Visclosky and his former chief of staff have been served with document subpoenas. And under ethics committee rules, the panel cannot conduct an investigation of any member or staffer already being probed by a law enforcement agency.

The nation’s only black senator, Roland Burris of Illinois, is currently under investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee. It’s not clear whether that committee is currently investigating any white members, although Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) is likely to be in its sights if the Justice Department doesn’t pre-empt a committee investigation.

Jonathan Allen contributed to this story.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story did not acknowledge the fact that CREW has filed a complaint against Rep. Jane Harman with the Office of Congressional Ethics. ]]> Afrikan World News Moorbey http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/afrikan-world-news/40396-racial-disparity-all-active-ethics-probes-focus-black-lawmakers.html http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/afrikan-world-news/40378-china-pledges-10billion-africa-loans.html Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:51:42 GMT "'China's policy is based on mutual development. Few Western countries have a foreign policy like this-most are about telling Africans what to do.' Kwaku Atuahene-Gima, executive director of the Africa Programme at the China/Europe International Business School in Shanghai, said."

Al Jazeera English - Africa - China pledges $10bn in Africa loans ]]> Afrikan World News Aragorn http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/afrikan-world-news/40378-china-pledges-10billion-africa-loans.html http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/afrikan-world-news/40361-ethiopian-cave-filled-gold.html Wed, 11 Nov 2009 20:20:37 GMT Ethiopia discovers mine with 40 tonnes of gold (AFP) – 1 day ago ADDIS ABABA — Ethiopia on Tuesday announced the discovery of a mine containing more than 40 tonnes of gold deposit worth 1.7 billion dollars (1.1 billion euros). The state-run Ethiopian News Agency reported that the new find,... Ethiopia discovers mine with 40 tonnes of gold
(AFP) – 1 day ago
ADDIS ABABA — Ethiopia on Tuesday announced the discovery of a mine containing more than 40 tonnes of gold deposit worth 1.7 billion dollars (1.1 billion euros).
The state-run Ethiopian News Agency reported that the new find, announced by the ministry of mines and energy, will require some 200 million dollars to extract and process.
"Geological survey indicates that... an estimated 500 tonnes of gold deposit is found in the country," the agency said, providing a figure for the whole of Ethiopia.
Some 44 companies are engaged in gold exploration, earning Ethiopia about 105 million dollars in export every year.
The Horn of Africa country has mineral resources that have so far remained unexploited.

Ethopia Discovers Mine With 40 Tons Of Gold | News One ]]> Afrikan World News Pan_Afreekan_Warrior http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/afrikan-world-news/40361-ethiopian-cave-filled-gold.html http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/afrikan-world-news/40355-omali-yeshitela-travels-sierra-leone.html Tue, 10 Nov 2009 21:44:29 GMT Omali Yeshitela, leader of the Uhuru Movement and Chair of the Black is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations is traveling with a delegation to Freetown, Sierra Leone November 13. Yeshitela will be an observer and speaker at the historic launch of the African People’s Socialist... Omali Yeshitela, leader of the Uhuru Movement and Chair of the Black is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations is traveling with a delegation to Freetown, Sierra Leone November 13. Yeshitela will be an observer and speaker at the historic launch of the African People’s Socialist Party in West Africa.



Yeshitela is making his trip just days after the successful Black is Back-led march in Washington, D.C. on November 7. Several hundred people joined that march which called for an end to U.S. wars and occupations against oppressed people around the world and inside the U.S.

As the Chairman of the worldwide organization known as the African Socialist International Yeshitela will be hosted by former child soldier, journalist and activist, Chernoh Alpha M. Bah, leader of the Africanist Movement of Sierra Leone which has now voted to become the African People’s Socialist Party-Sierra Leone.

Sierra Leone is one of the most impoverished countries in the world even though it produces some of the planet’s largest and most beautiful diamonds. The country was ravaged in the late 90s by an internal war backed by foreign interests for control of the country’s resources.

The launch of the African People’s Socialist Party in Sierra Leone marks the first officially registered political party led by and benefiting the masses of African workers and peasants in Sierra Leone’s history. Some of the themes of the conference will be “One Africa! One Nation!” and “Africa’s Resources for African people!”

Yeshitela and his delegation will be in Sierra Leone for 13 days of events that include the African People’s Socialist Party founding conference November 16 through 18.

Other scheduled activities include the gala launching of the Oloshoro community fishing project and the opening of Africa’s first community-owned radio station in the town of Makeni. Yeshitela will also give a lecture to the students at Fourah Bay College in Freetown.

Yeshitela’s delegation includes black leaders and activists from the U.S. and Britain as well as white supporters of these historic events. ]]> Afrikan World News uhururadio http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/afrikan-world-news/40355-omali-yeshitela-travels-sierra-leone.html http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/afrikan-world-news/40354-sierra-leone-new-workers-party-will-contend-state-power.html Tue, 10 Nov 2009 21:43:10 GMT This month the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP) will be launched in Sierra Leone. The new workers party will be established during a 3-day conference to be held from November 16 -18, 2009 at the British Council Hall in Freetown. Image:... This month the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP) will be launched in Sierra Leone. The new workers party will be established during a 3-day conference to be held from November 16 -18, 2009 at the British Council Hall in Freetown.



The APSP will be the first official socialist party to be formed in the history of the country. This revolutionary workers party will contend with the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) and the All People’s Congress (APC) for control of the state. Organizers say that the APC and SLPP have ruined all aspects of the country’s development in their combined 50 years of nearly unchallenged monopoly of power.

The APSP promises an end to the ethnic division, regional balkanization and fragmentation that has left Africa vulnerable to the exploitation of its rich natural resources by outside interests. They want to use Sierra Leone’s supply of the world’s finest diamonds and other resources to solve the country’s pressing problems, such as the world’s highest infant and maternal mortality rates, a life expectancy below 40 years, the worst health and education services and a nearly complete absence of infrastructural development.

The APSP’s “Revolutionary National Democratic Program” calls for the nationalization of strategic sectors of the economy, expansion of the public service, increasing minimum wage and better conditions of service, an agrarian program for farmers, youth employment and provision of social services to better the condition of life of the people.

According to the organization’s convener, Chernoh Alpha M. Bah, “the APSP is making a break from the usual narrow ethnic-groupings masquerading as political parties in Sierra Leone. It is introducing issue-oriented programs into the political terrain and equally giving voice to the aspirations and desires of the workers and peasants whose energies and strengths have been used by neocolonialist forces for their own selfish upliftment.”

Chernoh Alpha M. Bah is an award-winning journalist, who has built the Africanist Movement into a popular force for change in the region. He declares that, “The future can only belong to the African workers and poor peasants if we build a party for ourselves that has the ability, strength and capacity to lead our struggle for socialist democracy and self-determination, a party that will effectively embody and mirror our collective spirits and aspirations to fight against neo-colonialism and imperialism not only in Sierra Leone but throughout the African world.”

The 3-day conference will include guest presentations by African Socialist International (ASI) Chairman Omali Yeshitela and ASI Secretary General Luwezi Kinshasa, who says that, “The establishment of the APSP in Sierra Leone is an exciting development in our worldwide struggle for African unity and national self-determination. It rejects neo-colonialist Pan-Africanism and replaces it with African Internationalism, which puts the African working class at the helm of our struggle for black power.”

For more information, contact info@uhurunews.com ]]> Afrikan World News uhururadio http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/afrikan-world-news/40354-sierra-leone-new-workers-party-will-contend-state-power.html http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/afrikan-world-news/40348-detroit-muslims-vigilant-determined-community-moves.html Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:21:31 GMT A vigilant, determined community moves on By Ashahed M. Muhammad -Assistant Editor- | Last updated: Nov 10, 2009 - 8:48:19 AM A vigilant, determined community moves on (http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/National_News_2/article_6565.shtml) DETROIT, Mich. (FinalCall.com) - Muslims recently... A vigilant, determined community moves on
By Ashahed M. Muhammad -Assistant Editor- | Last updated: Nov 10, 2009 - 8:48:19 AM
A vigilant, determined community moves on

DETROIT, Mich. (FinalCall.com) - Muslims recently gathered at Masjid Al-Haqq, a non-descript brick duplex in an economically depressed part of the city for the traditional Islamic Friday congregational prayer called Jum'ah.

Followers of the late Imam Abdullah embraced, talked and relied on each other for support and strength*all vowing to continue his work. Rambunctious children ran and played in the back of the mosque, sternly but lovingly told by the elder men in the mosque to keep their voices down*but nothing like the abuse claimed in the FBI's affidavit.

A strong spirit of brotherhood, camaraderie and unity was present, nothing like the toxic atmosphere or heated rhetoric of government overthrow alleged by the FBI. There was no talk of anger, revenge or retaliation Nov. 6, only spiritual guidance and faith to overcome challenges.

A bearded man with a black turban, Amir Mika'il Stewart Saadiq, who had been under Imam Abdullah's tutelage for almost a decade, delivered the khutbah, or sermon.

A tolerant and easy-going man, he told those gathered while it would not be easy, they should not be angry or bitter. Imam Saadiq advised listeners to direct their energy toward continuing the outreach and service for which Imam Abdullah was known. He also told congregants grief counseling would be held later that evening for the children of the mosque emotionally traumatized by recent events.

“Allah is with us,” Mr. Saadiq said. “How are you going to retaliate when they can do whatever they want to do to you anytime they feel like it?” he asked.

Mr. Saadiq added that the Islamic community, as was Imam Abdullah, remains unapologetically supportive of freedom for Imam Jamil al-Amin who is currently serving a life sentence at the Supermax prison located in Florence, Colo. The onetime Black Panther leader known as H. Rap Brown was convicted in 2002 of killing a Georgia sheriff, but his followers still maintain he is innocent.

“Sometimes, religious communities can be naïve. We know Muslims do evil just like Christians do evil, but we believe Imam Jamil al-Amin is innocent of all charges,” said Imam Saadiq.

“Imam Luqman was the heart and soul of the community,” said Akil Fahd, who had become really close to him over the past five years. Pausing several times to collect his thoughts, Mr. Fahd was one of the men who conducted the “ghusl,” the ritual of washing and preparing Imam Abdullah's body for the Janazah prayer prior to his burial at Knollwood Cemetery in Canton. He said the late imam's body was “full of holes” and the religious leader had been shot at least 18 times. Imam Abdullah's family members corroborated Mr. Fahd's account.

Mr. Fahd acknowledged that Imam Abdullah was known to carry a weapon for protection, especially to prevent being robbed on days when a large amount of charity was collected.

“It was protection for his general person, not to be offensive or to attack other people,” said Mr. Fahd.

Mr. Fahd said members of Masjid Al-Haqq are aware of the so-called informants listed in the FBI affidavit. But, he said, the Muslims are not feeding into what they see as a divide and destroy strategy by the government.

“This is part and parcel of the COINTELPRO strategy, to turn brothers against one another and questioning each other's commitments,” said Mr. Fahd. “We are just focusing on the legacy of Imam Luqman Abdullah and the activities that he was a strong advocate of, reaching out to and feeding the poor, trying to assist brothers who are returning home from incarceration, instead of focusing on the intrigues of the government.”

In retrospect however, he did offer some advice for other Muslim organizations to prevent agent infiltration and to identify those who may be working on behalf of government schemes.

“The thing we have to be cognizant of*particular within poor communities*is that they are mainly targeted by individuals who come and appear to have generous resources,” Mr. Fahd said. “They will kind of try to get up under leadership, try to gain the trust of leadership, then (during) the times when the community is in need, they will give the leadership some sort of financial support. They target more of their socialization with leadership.”

In another part of town that same day, Imam Dawud Walid, Michigan's director of the Council on American-Islamic Affairs (CAIR) delivered the Jum'ah sermon at the American Muslim Center in Dearborn, just a few miles away from the location where Imam Abdullah was killed.

His message was drawn from the Islamic book of scripture, Holy Qur'an, chapter 49 and verse 6. Imam Walid said before jumping to conclusions based rumors, media broadcasts or the internet, reflect on the words of Allah: “Oh ye who believe! If a person of questionable character comes to you with news, thoroughly verify it lest you should unknowingly do harm to others and then regret what you have done,” the imam said.

At the nearby Motown Kabob restaurant on Woodward Ave. and Milwaukee, those eating lunch spoke highly of Imam Abdullah and his work, describing how the mosque was open 24-hours a day for anyone to come by and get out of the cold, or ask questions about Islam. If a husband and wife were having problems in the home, instead of allowing conflict to escalate, men would go to the mosque, stay until things cooled off, and then seek to resolve the problem.

Along the route to a nearby coffee shop on Joy Road where Imam Abdullah would get his coffee, storeowners testified of a “good brother” who was always willing to help.

Masood Qayyum, a young man in his 30s, has known Imam Abdullah for 15 years and looked up to him as a mentor.

“It's like, you have to stay strong, and that is the type of energy that he gave*a strong energy* to give you the strength that you need as a man being out here in society and dealing with the things you have to deal with on a daily basis,” said Mr. Qayyum.

Twenty-six-year-old Amirah Jabril knew Imam Abdullah her entire life. He was a family friend and was like an uncle to her.

“He was a wonderful man, he was an influence over so many people. This man stood up for a cause and was shot down execution style. Where is the justice in that?” Ms. Jabril asked. “There is no justice in murder. None. There can never be.”



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Freedom Archives Home ]]> Afrikan World News Moorbey http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/afrikan-world-news/40348-detroit-muslims-vigilant-determined-community-moves.html http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/afrikan-world-news/40347-activists-family-demand-justice-death-imam-slain-fbi.html Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:18:39 GMT Activists, family demand justice in death of imam slain by FBI (http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/National_News_2/article_6564.shtml) Activists, family demand justice in death of imam slain by FBI By Ashahed M. Muhammad -Assistant Editor- Updated Nov 10, 2009 - 8:53:27 AM ... Activists, family demand justice in death of imam slain by FBI

Activists, family demand justice in death of imam slain by FBI
By Ashahed M. Muhammad -Assistant Editor-
Updated Nov 10, 2009 - 8:53:27 AM

DETROIT, Mich. (FinalCall.com) - Activists continue to demand answers in the death of Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah, the 53-year-old leader of Detroit's Masjid Al-Haqq gunned down by the FBI under suspicious circumstances.

Despite cold whipping winds, a spirited demonstration demanding an independent investigation into the shooting was held on Nov. 5 at the McNamara Federal Building. Supporters said the man described in the FBI's 43-page affidavit, and portrayed by the mainstream media as something of a Muslim mafia don, was not the man they knew and loved.

Filled with emotion, Omar Regan, Imam Abdullah's 34-year-old son, challenged the media to tell the truth about his father and challenged law enforcement to reflect on their own humanity.

“It's not right for them to set up traps and try to assassinate our character. It's not right for them to say my father, my brother and all of their friends were a danger to their community. They're not in the community! The community loves us!” shouted the young man who lived with Imam Jamil al-Amin for several years as a teenager. “There are people in the community now sad because of the loss of my father wondering if people are still going to be there to feed them, to give them clothes to take care of them. If they want to know about my father, go inside of the community and ask the community who he was!”

Some in the crowd began to shed tears listening to his heartfelt words.

“The man has 13 children and none of us have a criminal record!” said Mr. Regan. “I want to say to the people, even the ones who are holding the badges and holding the guns, why don't you do your research and stop looking at it is as just a job? Find out*if you truly have a heart*and stop trying to just earn a check and learn how to be decent human beings! That's what I learned from my father! How to care about people!”

Members of the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War and Injustice and the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality spearheaded the rally to show support for Detroit's Islamic community.
The groups said the community has come under siege from federal and local law enforcement officials.

Members of the Nation of Islam were in attendance as well as Muslims from a variety of mosques in the Detroit metropolitan area and surrounding suburbs.

A broad-based coalition of activists have protested Imam Abdullah's death, including members of the Detroit Green Party, and many Christian pastors and organizations.

As the speakers addressed the crowd during rush hour, people drove by, honked their horns in support, and waved at those gathered.

Sandra Hines, an activist with the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War and Injustice and the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality, spoke at the demonstration.

“It appears as if this whole incident that took place was entrapment by the FBI and it almost makes you feel that they may possibly be some kind of front group against people of color,” said Ms. Hines.

“They have not cracked down on these right wing groups,” said Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan African News Wire. “They have even shown up at events were the president was*armed. If we would have shown up someplace when Bush was president*armed*we would have been shot on sight,” Mr. Azikiwe added.

“We think people outside of the Muslim community have to take a stand on this. The Muslim community has been under fire since 9-11,” Mr. Azikiwe said. He called on President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder to “stop the murderous policies against Muslims in this country.”

Neo-COINTELPRO underway

In an exclusive interview with The Final Call at the Michigan office of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), Imam Dawud Walid, the group's area director, and Ron Scott, head of the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality both expressed concern of what they believe to be a “neo-COINTELPRO” directed at organizations with Black Nationalist and Islamic leanings.

COINTELPRO was a covert operation employed by federal and local law enforcement to disrupt and destroy Black and progressive organizations during the civil rights and Black Power movements.

Mr. Scott said Black men labeled as “radicals” mixed with Islam are an “obvious target” and another primary issue is funding for law enforcement.

The multi-jurisdictional task forces of the FBI and ATF, along with a number of agencies, want funding from the Justice Dept., so there is motivation to keep the threat level high, he said.

“The more threat they have, the more money they get, the more they are able to continue this, in addition to the fact of the actual bias,” said Mr. Scott. “There has always been a Black scare coming out with the COINTELPRO program of which I was a victim of, along with many others,” added Mr. Scott, a former Black Panther active with the organization in the 1960s.

Increased scrutiny of Islamic charities such as the Holy Land Foundation in Richardson, Texas, has had a “chilling effect” on American Muslim organizations nationwide, said Imam Walid. This “was only the first step” in a growing focus on charitable, humanitarian and service oriented groups with members who practice Islam, he continued.

Calling the use of agent provocateurs “a national policy issue,” Imam Walid criticized the use paid informants inside mosques, intimidation by law enforcement and selective outrage by politicians.

In the final days of the Bush administration, former attorney general Michael Mukasey introduced controversial new FBI guidelines related to an initial threat assessment, he observed. Under the new guidelines, race and religion can be used as primary factors to begin an initial assessment without any real proof that anything is planned or whether any terrorism connections are present.

A June 2009 study by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) titled “Blocking Faith, Freezing Charity,” found the U.S. government's efforts*which many activists call harassment*unfair and ineffective while “seriously undermining American Muslims' protected constitutional liberties and violating their fundamental human rights to freedom of religion, freedom of association, and freedom from discrimination.”

The religious leaders of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Michigan released a statement Nov. 6 decrying the use of informants and agent provocateurs sent into mosques on “fishing expeditions.”

Questions about government investigation of imam's shooting

As a standard procedure, the FBI dispatched a Shooting Incident Review Team following the fatal encounter with Imam Abdullah. The results of the review will be forwarded to the Justice Dept. Many activists say the FBI's nefarious dealing with Black people and organizations brings no confidence the agency can fairly investigate itself and the actions of field agents.

Dearborn police are involved in the investigation, which also troubles Mr. Scott. “The Dearborn Police Department has a horrendous and vicious history of racism and Islamophobia,” he said.

In the FBI's 43-page affidavit attached to the criminal complaint, Imam Abdullah is described as “a highly placed leader of a nationwide radical fundamentalist Sunni group consisting primarily of African-Americans, some of whom converted to Islam while they were serving sentences in various prisons across the United States. Their primary mission is to establish a separate, sovereign Islamic state ‘The Ummah' within the borders of the United States governed by Shariah law.”

Stemming from a federal investigation of the group which began in 2007, the FBI said Imam Abdullah and the other defendants are charged with running an interstate crime ring that received and sold stolen goods, engaged in mail and insurance fraud, illegally possessed firearms and body armor and tampered with motor vehicle identification numbers.

Andrew G. Arena, special agent in charge of Detroit's FBI office, has consistently said his agents acted appropriately on Oct. 28 when, according to the FBI, during a raid on a warehouse just outside of Detroit, Imam Abdullah refused to surrender. An FBI dog was dispatched to go after him and, according to FBI, after Imam Abdullah shot the dog, they fired, killing him.

The narrative delivered by the FBI is widely disputed.

Members of Masjid Al-Haqq said Imam Abdullah surrendered along with the others, and only fired on the FBI dog after the dog was specifically sent to attack him. Family members were told Imam Abdullah was handcuffed after being shot and left bleeding and dying, while the wounded FBI dog was taken via medical helicopter to a treatment center. Family members ask why officials chose not to take Imam Abdullah to the hospital after being shot, when they argue, the only reason to handcuff him would be if he were alive after being wounded.

Official autopsy results have not yet been released, which adds to the uncertainty, and necessitates an independent investigation, said activists.

Hodari Abdul-Ali, a radio host and chair of the Social Justice Task Force for the Muslim Alliance in North America, served with Imam Abdullah on the Majlis ash-Shura, the governing body which sets policy for the organization. He told The Final Call everyone should speak out against injustice, otherwise they might be the next victims.

“The FBI and all of these right wing racist hate-mongers with microphones are just stirring up this anti-Islamic fervor around the country and this is something that all right-minded people need to speak out against,” said Mr. Abdul-Ali. “I think of that statement Angela Davis made back in the day, ‘If they come for me in the morning, they'll come for you at night.'”

Imam Walid said after the initial report of the Oct. 28 shooting appeared in the media, he contacted many publications directly, protesting some headlines, challenging news reports and telling journalists not to simply “regurgitate the government line.”

When asked by The Final Call why it appeared as if the preliminary information about the shooting was so sensationalistic and inaccurate, he attributed the problem to “lazy reporting.”

“With so much left unknown in the developing case, MPAC is warning government agencies and media outlets of the alarming exploitation of this isolated incident that is stigmatizing Muslim American communities around the country,” said the Muslim Public Affairs Committee, in a statement.

“This imam was for the Yemeni community, for the Black community, for the Latino community. We know him as a person who feeds the hungry, opens his home, opens his mosque, he would give you the coat off his body for you to be warm,” said Ibrahim Aljahim, president of the Detroit-based Arab American Outreach.

“This was a set up by the government. We have to wake up and realize it. He was getting stronger and stronger and they didn't want that,” said Mr. Aljahim. Many strong leaders, such as Minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam, are also feared and targeted, added Mr. Aljahim.

Mr. Scott agreed. “It is a very dangerous situation and it is being pushed via propaganda. And it is either allowed to be done, or planned, so that any potential unification of Islam whether it is between Arabs and African Americans, or unification of younger and older African Americans, and unification of any group of people who are in favor of progressive movement, that is what they are concerned about,” said Mr. Scott. “That is why I believe they are beginning to start a new movement and Muslims are an obvious target and African-American Muslims are a specific target.”

Racial, religious profiling root of terror cases? (FCN, 10-26-2009)

The strange saga of an alleged FBI-paid instigator (FCN, 09-11-2009)

Skepticism about dubious plot in New York (FCN, 06-01-2009)

Cointelpro 2009: FBI up to old dirty tricks? (FCN, 04-18-2009)

The FBI-Manufactured Plot to Kill Farrakhan (03-1995)

FCN is a distributor (and not a publisher) of content supplied by third parties. Original content supplied by FCN and FinalCall.com News is Copyright 2009 FCN Publishing, FinalCall.com. Content supplied by third parties are the property of their respective owners.




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Freedom Archives Home ]]> Afrikan World News Moorbey http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/afrikan-world-news/40347-activists-family-demand-justice-death-imam-slain-fbi.html http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/afrikan-world-news/40337-annexation-colombia-united-states.html Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:59:31 GMT The Annexation Of Colombia To The United States November 09, 2009 By Fidel Castro Anyone with some information can immediately see that the sweetened ‘Complementation Agreement for Defense and Security Cooperation and Technical Assistance between the Governments of Colombia and the United... The Annexation Of Colombia To The United States
November 09, 2009

By Fidel Castro

Anyone with some information can immediately see that the sweetened ‘Complementation Agreement for Defense and Security Cooperation and Technical Assistance between the Governments of Colombia and the United States' signed on October 30, and made public in the evening of November 2, amounts to the annexation of Colombia to the United States.

The agreement puts theoreticians and politicians in a predicament. It wouldn't be honest to keep silence now and speak later on sovereignty, democracy, human rights, freedom of opinion and other delights, when a country is being devoured by the empire as easy as lizards catch flies. This is the Colombian people; a self-sacrificing, industrious and combative people. I looked up in the hefty document for a digestible justification and I found none whatsoever.

Of 48 pages with 21 lines each, five are used to philosophize on the background of the shameful absorption that turns Colombia into an overseas territory. They are all based on the agreements signed with the United States after the murder of the distinguished progressive leader Jorge Eliecer Gaitan on April 9, 1948, and the establishment, on April 30, 1948, of the Organization of American States debated by the foreign ministers of the hemisphere meeting in Bogota, with the US as the boss, during the dramatic days when the Colombian oligarchy cut short the life of that leader thus paving the way to the onset of the armed struggle in that country.

The Agreement on Military Assistance between the Republic of Colombia and the United States of April 1952; the one related to Army, Naval and Air Missions from the US Forces, signed on October 7, 1974; the 1988 UN Convention against the Illegal Trafficking of Drugs and Psychotropic Substances; the 2000 UN Convention against Organized Transnational Delinquency; the 2001 Security Council Resolution 1373 and the Inter-American Democratic Charter; the Democratic Security and Defense Policy resolution and others referred to in the abovementioned document, none of them can justify turning a 713,592.5 square miles country located in the heart of South America into a US military base. Colombia's territory is 1.6 times that of Texas, the second largest state of the Union taken away from Mexico and later used as a base to conquer with great violence more than half of that country.

On the other hand, over 59 years have passed since Colombian soldiers were sent to distant Asia, in October 1950, to fight alongside the Yankee troops against Chinese and Korean combatants. Now, the empire intends to send them to fight against their brothers in Venezuela, Ecuador and other Bolivarian and ALBA countries, to crush the Venezuelan Revolution as they tried to do with the Cuban Revolution in April 1961.

For more than one and a half year before the invasion of Cuba, the Yankee administration fostered, armed and used counterrevolutionary bandits in the Escambray the same way it is now using the Colombian paramilitary forces against Venezuela.

At the time of the Giron [Bay of Pigs] attack, the Yankee B-26 aircrafts piloted by mercenaries operated from Nicaragua. Their fighter planes were brought to the theater of operations in an aircraft carrier and the invaders of Cuban descent who landed in our territory were escorted by US warships and by the American marines. This time their war equipment and troops will be in Colombia posing a threat not only to Venezuela but to every country in Central and South America.

It is really cynical to claim that the infamous agreement is necessary to fight drug-trafficking and international terrorism. Cuba has shown that there is no need of foreign troops to prevent the cultivation and trafficking of drugs and to preserve domestic order, even though the United States --the mightiest power on Earth*has promoted, financed and armed the terrorists who for decades have attacked the Cuban Revolution.

The preservation of domestic peace is a basic prerogative of every government and the presence of Yankee troops in any Latin American country to do it on their behalf constitutes a blatant foreign interference in their internal affairs that will inevitably elicit the peoples' rejection.

A simple reading of the document shows that not only the Colombian airbases will be in the Yankees' hands but also the civilian airports and ultimately any facility that may be useful to their armed forces. The radio space is also available to that country with a different culture and other interests that have nothing in common with those of the Colombian people.

The US Armed Forces will have exceptional prerogatives.

The occupants can commit any crime anywhere in Colombia against Colombian families, property and laws and still be unaccountable to the country's authorities. Actually, they have taken diseases and scandalous behavior to many places like the Palmerola military base in Honduras. In Cuba, when they came to visit the neo-colony, they sat astride the neck of Jose Marti's statue, in the capital's Central Park. The limit set with regards to the total number of soldiers can be modified as requested by the United States, and with no restriction whatsoever. The aircraft carriers and warships visiting the naval bases given to them can take as large a crew as they choose, and this can be thousands in only one of their large aircraft carriers.

The Agreement, which will remain in force for successive 10-year periods, can't be modified until the end of every period, with a one-year prior notice. What will the United States do if an administration as that of Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, Bush sr. or Bush jr., and others like them, is asked to leave Colombia? The Yankees have ousted scores of governments in our hemisphere. How long would a government last in Colombia if it announced such intentions?

Now, the politicians in Latin America are faced with a sensitive issue: the fundamental duty of explaining their viewpoints on the annexation document. I am aware that what is happening in Honduras at this decisive moment draws the attention of the media and the foreign ministers of this hemisphere, but the Latin American governments cannot overlook the extremely serious and transcendental events taking place in Colombia.

I have no doubts about the reaction of the peoples; they will be sensitive to the dagger being shoved deep inside them, especially in Colombia: They will oppose! They will never cave in to such ignominy!

Today, the world is facing serious and pressing problems. The entire humanity is threatened by climate change. European leaders are almost begging on their knees for some kind of agreement in Copenhagen that will prevent the catastrophe. They practically concede that the Summit will fail to meet the objective of reaching an agreement that can drastically reduce the greenhouse gas emissions and promise to continue struggling to attain it before 2012; however, there is a true risk that an agreement cannot be reached until it is too late.

The Third World countries are rightly claiming from the richest and most developed nations hundreds of billion dollars a year to pay for the climate battle.

Does it make sense for the United States government to invest time and money in building military bases in Colombia to impose on our peoples their hateful tyranny? Along that path, if a disaster is already threatening the world, a greater and faster disaster is threatening the empire and it would all be the consequence of the same exploiting and plundering system of the planet.

Fidel Castro Ruz
November 6, 2009
10:30 a.m.
From: Z Net - The Spirit Of Resistance Lives
URL: ZNet - US Annexation Of Colombia



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Freedom Archives Home ]]> Afrikan World News Moorbey http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/afrikan-world-news/40337-annexation-colombia-united-states.html http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/afrikan-world-news/40308-canadian-judge-grants-bail-2-men-arrested-following-murder-detroit-imam.html Fri, 06 Nov 2009 23:54:54 GMT Judge in Windsor, Ont., grants bail for 2 men arrested in death of Detroit imam (CP) – 2 hours ago The Canadian Press: Canadian men linked to Detroit imam slain in FBI shootout get bail (http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5gnC35VNvf3nAxxEl3WDYPnnrzXXg) WINDSOR, Ont.... Judge in Windsor, Ont., grants bail for 2 men arrested in death of Detroit imam

(CP) – 2 hours ago
The Canadian Press: Canadian men linked to Detroit imam slain in FBI shootout get bail

WINDSOR, Ont. * A judge has granted bail for two Windsor, Ont., men arrested following a deadly FBI sting in Detroit.

The Crown and defence lawyers announced the bail arrangement in court late Friday morning for Mohammad Al-Sahli and Yassir Ali Khan.

The two men were expected to be in court, but when a large crowd of supporters from the local Muslim community showed up, the lawyers met with family behind closed doors to discuss possible bail conditions.

Shortly after, they emerged with an agreement.

Almost two weeks ago, a Detroit imam was shot while FBI agents attempted to arrest him on charges of conspiracy to sell stolen goods.

Three men were considered at large, and one was arrested shortly afterwards in Windsor.

He's now out on bail.

Al-Sahli and Khan were arrested last weekend.

Copyright © 2009 The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
************************************************** ******
Local imams want investigation into Abdullah shooting
Local imams want investigation into Abdullah shooting | detnews.com | The Detroit News


Oralandar Brand-Williams / The Detroit News
A local group of imams is calling for an independent investigation into last month's fatal shooting of Detroit Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah in an FBI raid

The imams' committee of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Michigan (CIOM) today also called for "a fair and speedy adjudication for those who were arrested related to this raid. Abdullah was killed during the FBI action on Oct. 28.

"Muslims, as well as people of all faiths and good conscience, agree that individuals or groups are innocent until proven guilty," read a statement from the council. "The Islamic faith supports fairness to all and condemns extremism."

Abdullah was shot to death during the FBI raid at a Dearborn warehouse. Eleven others were also investigated and arrested in connection with the case. The federal complaint against the men included several charges, including conspiracy to sell stolen goods.

The FBI said Abdullah had an anti-government ideology. His colleagues and acquaintances have denied the allegations.

The imams' committee also today called on "all law enforcement agencies not to use excessive force or act out of unfounded suspicion and exaggerated fear," read the statement. "We also urge federal law enforcement, media and other agencies not to participate in rhetoric that may serve to marginalize an entire faith simply because some members of that faith are implicated in alleged criminal activities."

Later this afternoon, a community meeting will be held at the Muslim Center on West Davison in Detroit to address community concerns over the shooting. One of Abdullah's sons and other leaders in the Detroit Muslim community, as well as non-Muslim community activists, will speak at the events.

bwilliams@detnews.com (313) 222-2027





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Freedom Archives Home ]]> Afrikan World News Moorbey http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/afrikan-world-news/40308-canadian-judge-grants-bail-2-men-arrested-following-murder-detroit-imam.html http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/afrikan-world-news/40302-no-substitute-dialogue-says-drc-president-kabila.html Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:28:33 GMT From Sydney Kawadza in MUTARE Courtesy of the Zimbabwe Herald DRC President Joseph Kabila has challenged Africa to follow his country’s example by actively seeking dialogue and pursuing national reconciliation as a means of solving any internal differences. In his keynote address at the... From Sydney Kawadza in MUTARE
Courtesy of the Zimbabwe Herald

DRC President Joseph Kabila has challenged Africa to follow his
country’s example by actively seeking dialogue and pursuing national
reconciliation as a means of solving any internal differences.

In his keynote address at the annual Dag Hammarskjold Commemoration
Seminar at Africa University here yesterday, President Kabila said
victory over foreign forces that threatened to tear DRC apart was partly
attributable to political dialogue.

"Political dialogue, entailing compromise and give and take, had to be
brought to bear in order to defuse misunderstandings, build confidence,
mend the social fabric and induce reconciliation," the DRC leader said.

"Indeed, accepting to share power with adversaries, or granting amnesty
to rebels is seldom an easy decision.

"It can be politically painful and even dangerous. It takes vision,
wisdom and, above all, courage.

"Looking back, we do not regret having ridden that, at times, bumpy
road.

"It led us to where we stand today: strong and tall, as it was meant to
be," he said.

President Kabila challenged African countries to draw inspiration from
the DRC and its rebirth through resistance, dialogue, reconciliation,
democratic rule and hard work.

President Kabila’s presentation was titled "The State of the Congolese
Nation Following Negotiations".

The war in the DRC ended in late 2002 and President Kabila subsequently
formed a national unity government that roped in six vice presidents,
four of them former rebel militia leaders.

President Kabila paid tribute to the Zimbabwe Defence Forces for their
leading role in resolving, through Operation Sovereign Legitimacy, the
armed conflict that claimed millions of lives in his country.

He said the DRC received "heroic support" from Zimbabwe, Angola and
Namibia in those "dark days".

"I wish to seize this opportunity and, once again, pay tribute to these
sister countries.

"As a nation, we will never forget the blood shed by their gallant sons
and daughters to help us preserve our independence, territorial
integrity and national sovereignty," he said.

In September this year at the last Sadc Summit in the DRC, President
Kabila said he was grateful for Zimbabwe’s assistance and would soon
visit the country to personally convey his people’s gratitude.

The seminar, which ends today, is being held under the theme "The
Democratic Republic of Congo: The Road to Conflict Transformation and
National Healing".

President Kabila chronicled the DRC’s conflicts, starting with the
killing of iconic statesman Dr Patrice Lumumba in 1961 soon after the
country’s independence from Belgium the previous year.

This resulted in a drawn-out liberation struggle led by nationalists
such as Cdes Pierre Mulele, Antoine Gizenga and the current president’s
father, Laurent Desire Kabila.

"Unfortunately, this took place at the peak of the Cold War (between the
former USSR and the West) and their efforts got entangled in the
East-West rivalry.

"They could not succeed at the outset."

President Kabila said the military coup of 1965 ushered in 32 years of
Mobutu Sese Seko’s misrule, which only ended in 1997.

An era of freedom and democracy dawned, but this was almost nipped in
the bud by invading armies.

"As if history was repeating itself, no time was given to the new
revolutionary regime to organise and put people back to work. Just a
year later, the DRC was dragged into a long and protracted war of
aggression by her eastern neighbours," he said.

This was after Rwandese and Ugandan troops invaded the country in
support of DRC rebel militias who were tacitly backed by Western powers.

The war lasted over five years and claimed millions of lives.

President Kabila said the conflict was the costliest war in terms of
human losses after the Second World War.

The popular resistance organised by the late Laurent Kabila rallied
friendly countries and saved the nation, though unfortunately it also
claimed the liberation fighter’s life.

Meanwhile, President Kabila returned home last night after spending two
days in Zimbabwe.

He bade farewell to President Mugabe at State House in the evening with
the Zimbabwean leader expressing his desire for the two to continue
interacting.

President Mugabe parting shot was: "Thank you for the visit. Let’s keep
in touch."

During his visit, President Kabila met the three principals to the
Global Political Agreement to get an insight into how the inclusive
Government was functioning.


Zanu-PF Congress preps on course

Herald Reporter

Preparations for Zanu-PF’s National People’s Congress in December are
progressing as scheduled, party national chairman Cde John Nkomo has
said.

Delegates to the congress — expected to number about 10 000 — will elect
the Presidium comprising the President and First Secretary, two Vice
Presidents and Second Secretaries and a national chairperson. The First
Secretary will, in turn, appoint members of the Politburo.

Speaking after meeting the Congress Co-ordinating Committee on Monday,
Cde Nkomo said he had received progress reports but could not reveal the
amount of money raised so far.

The party aims to raise US$5 million for the congress.

"I have received progress reports from all the sub-committees that are
organising the Congress and they have confirmed that everything is
progressing according to our plan. We are quite optimistic that by the
time of the congress everything will be in place. As a committee, we
have come up with a system where we meet with the sub-committees every
Monday to monitor progress of the preparations."

Cde Nkomo dispelled rumours that the party was failing to raise
sufficient funds to finance the five-yearly meeting

"Yes, in every endeavour there are challenges and our case cannot be an
exception. But challenges are not problems," said Cde Nkomo.

"The challenges that we are facing are ordinary challenges that can be
found in any project."

Almost all the 10 provinces have endorsed the current leadership of
President Mugabe and Vice President Joice Mujuru ahead of the Congress.

Another Vice President and Second Secretary to fill the void left by
founding nationalist Cde Joseph Msika will be elected at the Congress.


US can’t teach us anything

Zimbabwe Herald

THE Western alliance’s reaction to the abortive presidential run-off in
Afghanistan should show all who were led to believe that Anglo-Saxon
opposition to President Mugabe’s re-election was about the professed
platitudes of electoral democracy, that they were sold a dead donkey.

American and British opposition to President Mugabe’s victory was
because, in their own words, ‘‘he continues to pose a continuous and
extraordinary threat to the foreign policy of the United States (and the
British governments)’’.

A foreign policy, that we all know, is about plundering other people and
their resources.

A bit of history will suffice here.

Zimbabwe held harmonised presidential, Senate, House of Assembly and
local government elections on March 29, 2008 that saw the presidential
contest failing to produce an outright winner when none of the four
candidates garnered the 50 percent plus 1 votes required for a first
round win.

A run-off was, therefore, called for June 27 pitting President Mugabe
and MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai. And after gauging the mood of the
electorate, and with just days to go before the poll, Tsvangirai
announced his ‘‘withdrawal’’ from the run-off, alleging violence against
his supporters.

The British and American governments immediately began casting
aspersions on the legitimacy of the outcome, saying they would not
recognise President Mugabe’s legitimacy.

This was despite the fact that legal experts had described Tsvangirai’s
‘‘withdrawal’’ as a legal nullity since the run-off had already begun
with the deployment of election officers and observers countrywide.

Fast forward to August 20, 2009, the day Afghanistan held its
presidential election pitting two US-anointed candidates, incumbent
Hamid Karzai and his erstwhile foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah.
Though Karzai initially claimed outright victory with over 53 percent of
the vote in the first round, a UN probe into electoral irregularities
unearthed massive fraud involving over 20 percent of the votes credited
to Karzai.

The votes were docked necessitating a run-off that had been slated for
Saturday, before Abdullah announced his withdrawal saying the run-off
was going to be equally fraudulent.

What shocked many was that even before Abdullah’s withdrawal, the Obama
administration had enthroned Karzai as Afghan president for another five
years, saying ‘‘even if he were forced into a second round of voting he
would almost certainly win it’’.

More was to follow after Abdullah’s withdrawal as the US was first off
the block in congratulating Karzai even before the Afghan electoral
authorities had declared him the winner.

This is not to say we expect the legitimacy of our leadership here to
accrue from US blessings, no. All we are doing is exposing the hypocrisy
of the self-appointed ‘‘international democrats’’ and ‘‘moral
authorities’’ who, ironically, only yesterday opposed our own fight for
democracy here.

A bit of history again.

When Ian Smith declared his UDI on November 11, 1965, the progressive
world was naturally outraged and the UN Security Council responded by
slapping the Smith regime with a raft of sanctions beginning that year
till the brief restoration of British rule in December 1979.

Though the terms of the sanctions forbade trade or financial dealings
with Rhodesia, the US supported the beleaguered settler regime
regardless and covertly channelled assistance through apartheid South
Africa.

US allies, among them Portugal (then under Marcello Caetano), Israel,
and Iran (then under the US proxy Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi), also
assisted and traded with Rhodesia. In an attempt to bypass the UN
sanctions, the US passed the Byrd Amendment in 1971 and continued to buy
chrome from Rhodesia in violation of the UN sanctions.

As if that was not enough, the US also contributed to the establishment
of an armaments industry in Rhodesia that enabled the Rhodesian Front to
kill over 50 000 innocent Zimbabweans whose only "crime" was daring to
demand majority rule.

The US also provided the technical knowledge and support, again through
apartheid South Africa, towards establishing the 700-kilometre Border
Minefield Obstacle along Zimbabwe’s borders with Zambia and Mozambique.
Mines aimed at stopping aspiring cadres from crossing to training camps
and blowing up trained combatants crossing back into Zimbabwe.

Yet today, the US and its allies are trying to re-invent and pass
themselves off as champions of democracy in Zimbabwe.

We urge all those who may have been swayed by the Anglo-Saxon rhetoric
to acquaint themselves with our history to tell friend from foe.

Such knowledge is also vital to understanding the political dynamics at
play in our country today lest we are led down the garden path.

The US can’t teach us anything.


Height of American hypocrisy

By Tendai Hildegarde Manzvanzvike

ZIMBABWE and Afghanistan are thousands and thousands of miles apart.
What makes them suitable variables for comparative analysis? Why is the
West — the United States and Britain in particular — interested in the
two nation states? Why are their recent electoral processes of
significance?

After the failure of the illegal regime change project in Zimbabwe,
"legitimised" in part by the US sanctions law, the so-called Zimbabwe
Democracy and Economic Recovery Act of 2001, the US and its allies
continue to refuse to recognise a Zimbabwe Government in which both
President Mugabe and Zanu-PF are major players, preferring their
handpicked stooges to be in charge.

They have continued to denounce Zimbabwe’s 2008 harmonised elections and
the subsequent Presidential run-off on the basis of alleged issues of
governance, rule of law, human rights, etc.

However, the culmination of Afghanistan’s presidential poll has revealed
the levels of the West’s hypocrisy and double standards, especially the
US, when it comes to Zimbabwe.

The Afghan issue shows that every principle of democracy, which the West
preaches about and would want to export to every part of the world, has
been thrown into the dumpster because their national interests took
precedence over the wishes and interests of the Afghan people.

For, on November 2, Afghanistan’s Independent Electoral Commission
announced that there was a new president, and he was none other than
former president Hamid Karzai.

The Western world, Washington in particular, was quick to embrace and
endorse Karzai as the legitimate leader of Afghanistan.

This contrasted with the West’s reaction to Zimbabwe’s run-off that
invited a full-blown diplomatic offensive in order to reject not only
the electoral results, but also de-legitimise President Mugabe, in
favour of the US, Britain and their allies.

Large sums of money were disbursed through civic organisations in order
to change the colour of Zimbabwe’s politics, a desperate attempt meant
to reverse the gains of independence, especially the land reform
programme, and also derail Zimbabwe’s sovereignty.

People’s memories are still fresh with the attempts made by the Bush
administration, through his Assistant Secretary of State for African
Affairs, Jendayi Frazer, to influence Sadc and the African Union. There
were several vain attempts to have Zimbabwe on the UN Security Council
agenda.

In fact, last week’s abortive visit by UN’s special rapporteur on
torture, Dr Norman Nowak, was a clear demonstration that until a
government of the West’s choice is in power in Zimbabwe; they will not
relent in their quest for regime change.

It is a goal and objective that they are pursuing with impunity, even if
it means funding parallel government structures within the inclusive
Government in pursuance of their interests.

However, on September 15, after monitoring the Afghan elections, former
US president Jimmy Carter described the Afghan poll as "despicable".

Said Carter: "Hamid Karzai has stolen the election . . . Now the
question is whether he gets away with it."

Carter’s comments followed allegations of massive fraud.

Well, on November 2, it became official. Karzai defied the odds, stole
the election and got away with it. If observers had expected disgust and
dismay, they were actually surprised to learn that the Obama
administration was the first to endorse Karzai as the "new president who
(was) the same as the old president".

However, the announcement was just a formality meant to make the
farcical exercise look credible because on October 31, Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton was reported as saying that the Afghan poll would
be legitimate even if Abdullah Abdullah boycotted.

Said the reports in the media: "Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of
State, has said the Afghan elections would be legitimate even if
Abdullah Abdullah boycotted the run-off poll, leaving President Hamid
Karzai unopposed."

Clinton also said that a boycott of the run-off election which had been
scheduled for November 7 by runner-up Abdullah would not de-legitimise
the poll. This was after the Abdullah camp had refused to "participate
in an election which (was) not transparent and fraud-free".

Long before Abdullah announced his withdrawal, both London and
Washington were already anticipating that he would retire "graciously".

Clinton also said that the withdrawal of a candidate would not be
"unprecedented" and would not affect the legitimacy of the vote.

"We see that happen in our own country where, for whatever combination
of reasons, one of the candidates decides not to go forward. I don’t
think it has anything to do with the legitimacy of the election."

So now people know where the withdrawals, boycotts and
‘‘disengagements’’ come from.

Washington was the first to endorse Karzai as Afghanistan’s new
legitimate leader, after the Independent Electoral Commission had
cancelled the run-off in the wake of Abdullah’s withdrawal.

In his congratulatory message, US President Barack Obama threw his
weight behind Karzai and acknowledged that although the election was
"messy", his administration was happy that the poll had finally been
resolved according to the dictates of Afghan law, and expressed hope
that there would be fresh efforts to tackle issues that were part of
Karzai’s first term: rampant corruption. He also urged a new chapter in
Afghan politics.

Meanwhile, other Nato members were talking about a coalition. The allies
appeared to be talking about the same thing in a different way. Maybe it
was because the likes of Gordon Brown, who spoke about a coalition, were
not happy with the final outcome.

It is evident from this that the American experiment plays itself
differently in various parts of the globe depending on whose side one
is.

Karzai is a liability to his people, but he is an asset to Nato, and a
speedy conclusion of this electoral issue was not necessarily meant for
the Afghan people.

The Obama administration has also continued with Bush’s so-called war on
terror. Instead of pulling troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq, Obama is
actually looking at sending over 40 000 more soldiers to Afghanistan.

It appeared Karzai had to be endorsed fast since time is not on Uncle
Sam’s side as winter is starting, and it will be very difficult to move
troops in harsh weather conditions. This is despite the fact that the US
administration has been advised that the Afghan war is unwinnable.

The Afghan war is also meant to boost Nato’s morale since the capitalist
system is celebrating the demise of communism 20 years ago. This is
despite the fact that the geo-political sphere is witnessing a
resurgence of major political and economic players like China and
Russia.


Zim’s sovereignty is irreversible

EDITOR — There is a Zimbabwean element that believes that Zimbabwe’s
independence, let alone sovereignty, are irrelevant.

They believe that these aspects of our nationhood are reversible.

Last Saturday, one of these elements, ROHR (Restoration of Human Rights
Zimbabwe), described as a radical human rights group, convened in the
city centre around 10am with the hope of sending a message to the Sadc
Troika "to take up a hard stance on the political parties, especially
Zanu-PF and President Mugabe, to own up to their agreements under GPA".

The emblazoned ROHR on the T-shirts made one wonder whether Rhodies had
made that daring move of reincarnation.

The irony was the message on the back of their T-shirts: "We will die
for our rights." Meanwhile, a gallant son of the soil who had died for
the true rights of the people of this country was being interred at the
national shrine.

As if ROHR’s actions were not enough, we then learnt that MDC-T leader,
Morgan Tsvangirai — who is the Prime Minister — was also playing golf as
Cde Makasha was being laid to rest.

Not only was this very unfortunate, but it was also very embarrassing
for someone in his position to be doing that. It was unfeeling to say
the least. What was there to celebrate?

Although former US ambassador to Zimbabwe James D. McGee, who introduced
Tsvangirai to the game, is gone, it is not difficult to hazard guesses
of whom he was playing golf with.

There are still so many of them, and since golfing gives opportunities
to discuss "serious" issues, the ‘‘disengagement’’ was probably the
issue as they teed off.

The 11th hour is notable!

Did Tsvangirai give a thought to that?

To the Anglo-Saxons and not just the Rhodies, the 11th month, 11th day
and 11th hour are significant, for this is the day and time when they
honour their heroes from the First World War that ended in 1919.

Anglo-Saxons commemorate this day normally called Armistice Day very
religiously. However, the renegade Rhodesian leader Ian Smith in 1965
declared a Unilateral Declaration of Independence from Britain on the
11th of the 11th of the 11th of 1965.

It was Smith’s action that made people like Cde Makasha leave home to
take up arms and fight for the independence and true rights of this
country.

With this little bit of historical context, the nation should ask what
Tsvangirai’s actions meant, and what an independent Zimbabwe means to
him and his party?

Nomagugu M’simang.
Harare.


We’re tired of MDC-T antics

EDITOR — Ever since MDC-T "disengaged" from the inclusive Government
more than 10 days ago it’s still not clear even to the top leadership as
to what they want to achieve with this move which President Mugabe
attributed to the party’s reliance on "little emotional" rather than
rational thoughts.

I came to this conclusion after Nelson Chamisa, the MDC-T spokesperson,
was at pains to explain what MDC-T’s "disengagement" from Government
means.

Chamisa, who had an interview with a local journalist, was incoherent
and equally confused as he was quoted as saying: "We are not disengaging
from the Government. There is no pullout from Government because we are
Government ourselves. It is impossible for one to pull out of
ourselves."

Then can the party please explain to the layman on the street in plain
Shona, as we cannot talk of English what to "disengage" means? The party
is not attending Cabinet meetings and the Council of Ministers where I
am sure Government business is discussed and direction as to the
operations of the ministries is given. On the other hand, Chamisa was
quoted as saying: "Our ministers are going to their offices and
executing their duties diligently as ministers of excellence." Can MDC-T
please stop insulting the intelligence of the masses, more so their
supporters who indicated that the party should stay in the inclusive
Government during their consultative meetings.

Which takes us back to the question of whose interest are those in MDC-T
serving as reports are that a day before making the decision to
‘‘disengage’’ Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC-T leader, met with officials
from the US, Britain, Canada, Sweden, Denmark, France, Norway,
Switzerland, Holland and Australia, who overwhelmingly pressured him to
announce a "collapse of the inclusive Government".

People are tired of MDC-T antics, which for a long time are exposing
their naivete and gullibility, which borders on the ridiculous. There
seems to be no exceptional strategic advisers to this embattled party as
time and again they have found themselves in the deep end when they
can’t even swim.

MDC-T leaders should be told in no uncertain terms that these childish
antics will not move Zanu-PF, a party of seasoned politicians, to give
in to the regime change agenda.

Susan Chipanga.
Avondale,
Harare.


Boost for Malawi-Zim trade

Herald Reporter

Government has called for the expeditious implementation of measures
that promote trade between Zimbabwe and Malawi.

Officially opening the eighth session of the Zimbabwe-Malawi Joint
Commission in Harare yesterday, Foreign Affairs Minister Simbarashe
Mumbengegwi, said the two countries should work to clear obstacles
affecting trade between them.

"In this regard, we need to remove all impediments to trade, such as
non-tariff barriers, bottlenecks at border posts and unnecessary
bureaucratic procedures that are hindering trade relations between the
two countries," he said.

"We should also bring the private sector including SMEs on board to
ensure that our engagements as governments are relevant and meaningful
to our entrepreneurs."

Minister Mumbengegwi underscored the need to create an enabling business
environment saying that would benefit both countries’ economies.

He said Zimbabwe and Malawi had strong business ties hence the need to
undertake measures that ensured less taxation of the entrepreneurs.

"We, therefore, welcome the proposal to sign the Agreement on the
Avoidance of Double Taxation as a measure to stimulate further
investment between our countries."

He commended the government of Malawi and the Sadc region at large for
rallying behind Zimbabwe in the face of Western illegal sanctions.
Although the Zimbabwe-Malawi Joint Commission last met in 2002, Minister
Mumbengegwi expressed gratitude on the progress it had made since.

"Although it has been a long time since the last session of the Joint
Commission, we have witnessed the signing and implementation of the
Revised Bilateral Trade Agreement, the MoU on Agriculture and the MoU on
the Promotion of Small and Medium Enterprises," he said.

Minister Mumbengegwi took a swipe at Western governments for maintaining
illegal sanctions on Zimbabwe in spite of their condemnation by Sadc,
Comesa, the Non-Aligned Movement and the African Union.

Malawi Foreign Affairs Minister Professor Etah Banda said her country
was committed to upholding the mutual relationship between the two
countries. She said Malawi would do everything on its part to strengthen
trading relations between Zimbabwe and Malawi.

"We will do our best to ensure that we achieve our goal of enhancing
trading relations between our two countries," she said.

Prof Banda said in the face of modern global challenges, it was
imperative that the two countries explored new areas of co-operation to
deal with emerging global challenges such as climate change. ]]> Afrikan World News XXPANTHAXX http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/afrikan-world-news/40302-no-substitute-dialogue-says-drc-president-kabila.html http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/afrikan-world-news/40301-12-dead-31-hurt-shooting-fort-hood-military-base-texas.html Fri, 06 Nov 2009 06:51:27 GMT Army: 12 dead, 31 hurt in attack at Fort Hood FORT HOOD, Texas – An Army psychiatrist set to be shipped overseas opened fire at the Fort Hood Army post Thursday, authorities said, a rampage that killed 12 people and left 31 wounded in the worst mass shooting ever at a military base in the... Army: 12 dead, 31 hurt in attack at Fort Hood

FORT HOOD, Texas – An Army psychiatrist set to be shipped overseas
opened fire at the Fort Hood Army post Thursday, authorities said, a
rampage that killed 12 people and left 31 wounded in the worst mass
shooting ever at a military base in the United States.

The gunman, first said to have been killed, was wounded but alive and in
stable condition under military guard, said Lt. Gen. Bob Cone at Fort
Hood. "I would say his death is not imminent," Cone said. Col. Ben
Danner said the suspect was shot at least four times.

The man was identified as Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a 39-year-old,
eight-year veteran from Virginia.

President Barack Obama called the shooting at the Soldier Readiness
Center, where soldiers who are about to be deployed or who are returning
undergo medical screening, "a horrific outburst of violence."

"It's difficult enough when we lose these brave Americans in battles
overseas," the commander in chief said. "It is horrifying that they
should come under fire at an Army base on American soil."

There was no official word on motive. Hasan had transferred to Fort Hood
in July from Walter Reed Medical Center, where he received a poor
performance evaluation, according to an official who spoke on condition
of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case publicly.

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, said generals at Fort Hood told her
that Hasan was about to deploy overseas. Retired Col. Terry Lee, who
said he had worked with Hasan, told Fox News he was being sent to
Afghanistan.

Lee said Hasan had hoped Obama would pull troops out of Afghanistan and
Iraq and got into frequent arguments with others in the military who
supported the wars.

Officials were investigating whether Hasan was his birth name or if he
may have changed his name, possibly as part of a conversion to Islam.
However, they were not certain of his religion.

Video from the scene showed police patrolling the area with handguns and
rifles, ducking behind buildings for cover. Sirens could be heard
wailing while a woman's voice on a public-address system urged people to
take cover.

"I was confused and just shocked," said Spc. Jerry Richard, 27, who
works at the center but was not on duty during the shooting. "Overseas
you are ready for it. But here you can't even defend yourself."

Soldiers at Fort Hood don't carry weapons unless they are doing training
exercises.

The Rev. Greg Schannep was about to head into a graduation ceremony when
a man in uniform approached him, warning him that someone had opened
fire. Schannep heard three volleys of gunfire and saw people running.

"There was a burst of shots and more bursts of shots and people running
everywhere," said Schannep, who works for local Congressman John Carter.

The uniformed man who had warned him ran to the theater. Schannep said
he could see the man's back was bloodied from a wound. The man survived,
was treated and will be fine, Schannep said.

Cone said initially three people were held, and all have been
interviewed. Authorities believe, however, that there was a single
shooter.

The Soldier Readiness Center holds hundreds of people and is one of the
most populated parts of the base, said Steve Moore, a spokesman for III
Corps at Fort Hood. Nearby there are barracks and a food center where
there are fast food chains.

The wounded were dispersed among hospitals in central Texas, Cone said.
Their identities, and the identities of the dead, were not immediately
released.

Amber Bahr, 19, was shot in the stomach but was in stable condition,
said her mother, Lisa Pfund of Random Lake, Wis.

"We know nothing, just that she was shot in the belly," Pfund told The
Associated Press. She couldn't provide more details and only spoke with
emergency personnel.

Hasan was single with no children. He graduated from Virginia Tech,
where he was a member of the ROTC and earned a bachelor's degree in
biochemistry in 1997. He received his medical degree from the military's
Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md.,
in 2001 and was at Walter Reed for six years for his internship,
residency and a fellowship.

The attack happened just down the road from one of the worst mass
shootings in U.S. history. On Oct. 16, 1991, George Hennard smashed his
pickup truck through a Luby's Cafeteria window in Killeen, Texas, and
fired on the lunchtime crowd with a high-powered pistol, killing 22
people and wounding at least 20 others.

No other shooting at a military base in the U.S. has been anywhere near
as deadly as Thursday's. In 1993, a gunman at Fort Knox shot five
civilian co-workers, killing three, and then fatally shot himself.

Around the country, some bases stepped up security precautions, but no
others were locked down.

Covering 339 square miles, Fort Hood is the largest active duty armored
post in the United States. Home to about 52,000 troops as of earlier
this year, it is located halfway between Austin and Waco. ]]> Afrikan World News XXPANTHAXX http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/afrikan-world-news/40301-12-dead-31-hurt-shooting-fort-hood-military-base-texas.html http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/afrikan-world-news/40270-marti-juarez-lincoln-lenin-fidel-revolutionary-struggle-redeem.html Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:13:11 GMT From Martí, Juárez, and Lincoln to Lenin and Fidel: The Revolutionary Struggle Redeemed U.S. Civil War, rise and defeat of Radical Reconstruction, and working-class fight for power: talk by Mary-Alice Waters at international conference in Mexico The following presentation was given by... From Martí, Juárez, and Lincoln
to Lenin and Fidel: The Revolutionary
Struggle Redeemed
U.S. Civil War, rise and defeat of Radical Reconstruction,
and working-class fight for power: talk by Mary-Alice Waters
at international conference in Mexico

The following presentation was given by Mary-Alice Waters at the International Conference on Martí, Juárez, and Lincoln in the Heart of Our America, held October 15-17 in Monterrey, Mexico (see front-page news article on conference). Waters is the editor of the Marxist magazine New International and president of Pathfinder Press. Copyright © 2009 by Pathfinder Press. Reprinted by permission. Subheadings are by the Militant.

BY MARY-ALICE WATERS
The decisive battles waged in the second half of the nineteenth century by popular forces under bourgeois leadership, which Juárez, Lincoln, and Martí exemplified, ended the reactionary colonial ambitions of the European monarchies in Mexico, Cuba, and the United States and abolished the institutions of chattel slavery and indentured labor. These were no small accomplishments. They were, in fact, historic, sweeping away the greatest obstacles not only to the expansion of industrial capital but also, along with it, to the development of a fighting, class-conscious proletarian movement.

In all three countries, however, the plebeian masses, who had paid dearly for these revolutionary conquests, soon found their victories drowned in blood.

Others participating in this conference have addressed some of these same questions, concentrating on the history of the class struggle in Mexico and Cuba. My remarks will focus on what we in the United States often refer to as the Second American Revolution—the Civil War of 1861-65 and the postwar decade of Radical Reconstruction—and the lasting consequences of Reconstruction’s bloody defeat.

What they don’t teach us … and why
Radical Reconstruction was born in the revolutionary war that was necessary to abolish slavery and the system of production based on it across the states of the South and to prevent its expansion into the territories, including those that are now the U.S. Southwest, lands taken from Mexico in the 1846-48 Mexican-American War. What I want to emphasize here is that Radical Reconstruction remains to this day the best example in U.S. history of the kind of fighting alliance of rural toilers and the working class that we must build if there is to be a future for humanity.

This is something they don’t teach us in school, and you won’t find in many books either. That’s because history is written by the winners, and the Reconstruction state governments went down to defeat by 1877, betrayed by the northern industrial bourgeoisie and its political parties. That still rising class feared above all the potential that was developing for an expanding alliance of free working farmers with a united working class—artisans and industrial workers alike, urban and rural, Black and white. Their fears were not without foundation. They saw their gravedigger being born—something that had been precluded, to paraphrase Marx, as long as labor in a Black skin was in chains.

The crushing of these popular revolutionary regimes that arose in parts of the South was facilitated, above all, by the refusal of the ruling families of the North to countenance any broadside attack on private property beyond the abolition of slavery. This was the course implemented by their appointed Federal Army commanders in the occupied South, who exercised veto power over legislation adopted by state legislatures during Reconstruction. In particular, the capitalist rulers opposed any sweeping intrusion on the landholdings of southern property owners. Land reform—“forty acres and a mule” for former slaves, and land for the rural poor—was blocked. As a result, former slaves were forced into conditions of virtual peonage throughout the South. The value of labor power was driven down, and the toilers were forcefully divided along race lines for nearly a century to come.

The U.S. rulers and their apologists, in the press, pulpit, and academy, do all they can to hide the truth about Radical Reconstruction because that history explodes every racist and anti-working-class notion they try to instill in us. It shows the opposite—the vanguard role in the U.S. class struggle of toilers who are Black, the potential to forge a fighting alliance between working people who are Black and white, and much more.

Reconstruction state governments
The elected Reconstruction legislatures—especially those of South Carolina (with a sizeable Black majority), and Mississippi and Louisiana (both, for a time, with large numbers of legislators who were Black)—established what with substantial accuracy can be called popular revolutionary dictatorships. Backed by the power of well-organized local militias, drawing their troops from working people who were white as well as Black, as well as by the Federal Army, these governments adopted and implemented broad programs of immediate and democratic demands in the interests of working people.

These measures included abolition of the infamous Black Codes former slave owners had imposed in the immediate aftermath of the war; the barring of racial discrimination; universal suffrage for males regardless of race; property taxes that fell heaviest on plantation owners and the moneyed classes; the first free public schools in the South (including desegregated and free university enrollment in South Carolina); public hospitals and medical care for the poor; public-relief systems; the elimination of whipping and other cruel and inhuman punishments; expanded grounds on which women could sue for divorce and enactment of other measures to advance women’s equality. And more.

Such measures were popular with working people of all skin colors.

None of the Reconstruction governments, however, had the power or the will to enforce an expropriation of the big plantation owners, the measure that could have made possible a radical land reform. It was too late in history for the ascending industrial bourgeoisie in the United States to lead such a revolutionary struggle. Inroads on private ownership of the means of production threatened the foundations of its own class domination. At the same time, the U.S. working class and its organizations were too weak and too politically inexperienced to provide leadership for the kind of class-struggle social movement that could have waged an effective battle to expropriate and redistribute land to the freed slaves, rural toilers, and urban poor.

Necessary alliance of class forces
As the Federal Army was withdrawn state by state from the South a decade after the end of the Civil War, and Radical Reconstruction governments were crushed by spreading counterrevolutionary terror, the first great labor struggles of the post-Civil War years exploded. In 1877 a battle against wage cuts by West Virginia rail workers turned into the first nationwide general strike in the history of the United States—spreading from there to Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, Missouri, Indiana, and Illinois.

In a letter to Frederick Engels, Karl Marx underscored the significance of that development, pointing to the alliance of class forces whose foundations had been laid over the previous decade.

“What do you think of the workers of the United States?” Marx asked Engels. “This, the first outbreak against the associated oligarchy of capital that has arisen since the Civil War, will, of course, be suppressed,” he noted. Then, referring to the withdrawal of Federal troops from the South and the bourgeoisie’s betrayal of the Reconstruction regimes, Marx added that “the policy of the new President [Rutherford Hayes] will turn the Negroes … into militant allies of the workers,” just as “the big expropriations of land (exactly of the fertile land) for the benefit of the railway, mining, etc., companies” (which was accelerating rapidly across the western territories) will bring free farmers in the West to their side.

Marx and Engels could not have been more correct about the alliance of class forces that would have to stand at the center of any revolutionary struggle in the United States from that day forward. But with the bloody defeat of Radical Reconstruction, it was soon clear that not only African Americans but the entire U.S. working class had suffered what would be its worst setback to this day. The consequences have shaped the course of the class struggle in the United States ever since.

Jim Crow and Uncle Sam
Contrary to widespread misconceptions in the United States, legislation imposing the most extreme Jim Crow segregation was not adopted in the immediate aftermath of this defeat. Codification of the U.S. form of institutionalized segregation (on which South Africa’s 1948 apartheid laws were later modeled) was intertwined with the growing dominance of finance capital in the final decades of the 1800s and the emergence of the United States as an imperialist power.

Anti-Black race riots, pogroms, and lynchings expanded murderously throughout the 1870s and 1880s, reaching their highest point in the opening years of the 1890s. The wave of anti-Black terror surged again at the close of World War I and into the postwar economic crisis of the 1920s.

Jim Crow and Uncle Sam advanced hand in hand. Institutionalized segregation and discrimination dividing the toilers at home was the domestic face of Washington’s expansionist course the world over. The racist poison against the black-, brown-, and “yellow”-skinned peoples of Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Philippines, and Hawaii—ideological rationalizations for U.S. imperial designs—reinforced the spreading reign of bigotry and terror within the United States. United action by the oppressed and exploited was crippled. And development of the class alliance pointed to by the founders of the modern working-class movement was postponed for decades.

These were the conditions that gave birth to the first war of the imperialist epoch. Known to Washington as the “Spanish-American War,” U.S. military forces dispatched to Cuba in 1898 not only stole from the Cuban people the independence they had conquered in thirty bitter years of war. They established the battle lines of the class struggle in the Americas for the coming century and beyond.

From bourgeois to proletarian leadership
As the interests of the ever-expanding power of industrial and banking capital came more and more into conflict with the Second American Revolution, in 1877 Washington’s counterrevolutionary course accelerated. With that turning point, revolutionary leadership in the Americas could no longer be exercised by any force other than the working class—which wrested its first decisive triumph some eight decades later with the taking of state power in Cuba. That was the opening in our hemisphere of the trail first blazed in October 1917 by the toilers of tsarist Russia, under the leadership of Lenin and the Bolshevik Party. The unfinished struggle of Martí was redeemed in 1959 by this revolutionary act of the workers and farmers of Cuba. Even more, the unparalleled steadfastness of the Cuban people in face of Washington’s half century of imperialist aggression has transformed the Americas for all time.

For us today, that unparalleled steadfastness is demonstrated to the world by the dignity and unwavering convictions of our five Cuban brothers and comrades unjustly imprisoned for more than eleven years now in the United States. They are being held hostage by Washington to the refusal of the people of Cuba who conquered the first free territory of the Americas to surrender to the U.S. rulers’ imperial demands.

The capitalist depression and social crises that are unfolding worldwide are today bringing home to growing numbers of working people an understanding of where we will sooner or later end up so long as we live under the dictatorship of capital. We have watched as the U.S. ruling families, using their state, have cranked out literally trillions of dollars to save the moguls of finance capital from ruin, at the same time that tens of millions of workers and their families are thrown onto the streets and expelled across borders, with accumulating plant closings, home foreclosures, and bankruptcies. The overstuffed prisons of the United States are becoming ever more dehumanizing. And imperialism’s wars, today focused in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq, continue to expand.

In Mexico and the United States, the goals of the unfinished revolutionary struggles inherited from the times of Juárez, Lincoln, and Martí are yet to be redeemed as they have been by the working people of Cuba.

As we are being taught anew with each morning’s breaking news, however, only the conquest, and exercise, of state power by the working class and its allies, and the expropriation of finance capital, can lay the foundations for a different kind of world. A world based not on exploitation, violence, racial discrimination, and dog-eat-dog competition, but on solidarity among working people worldwide that encourages the creativity and recognition of the worth of every individual, regardless of sex, national origin, or skin color.

The class alliance pointed to more than 130 years ago by Marx and Engels, together with the living example of Cuba’s socialist revolution, shows the road for the Americas and the world. The line of march is clear. What’s more, this class alliance has today been strengthened in the United States and Mexico by the tens of millions of workers from Mexico who are part of the fighting vanguard of the labor movement north of the border. We have witnessed the manifestation of that power in the millions-strong mobilizations demanding “Legalization, now!” that swept cities and towns across the United States in the May Day demonstrations of 2006 and 2007, and the broad working-class resistance that has met factory raids and deportations by the immigration police.

The exploration of that class line of march is the most lasting and fruitful contribution this conference is making to struggling humanity. ]]> Afrikan World News Moorbey http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/afrikan-world-news/40270-marti-juarez-lincoln-lenin-fidel-revolutionary-struggle-redeem.html http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/afrikan-world-news/40267-imam-luqman-ameen-abdullah-assassination-update.html Tue, 03 Nov 2009 22:44:36 GMT Detroit Groups to Protest FBI Terrorism; Statements Continue to Condemn Execution, Arrests Detroit groups to protest FBI terrorism on Nov. 5 Feds change story about Imam’s assassination By Abayomi Azikiwe Editor, Pan-African News Wire Detroit Groups to Protest FBI Terrorism; Statements Continue to Condemn Execution, Arrests



Detroit groups to protest FBI terrorism on Nov. 5

Feds change story about Imam’s assassination

By Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire
Detroit
Published Nov 2, 2009 9:29 PM

Funeral services for Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah were held Oct. 31 at the
Muslim Center on Detroit’s west side. More than a thousand people
attended the memorial from the Detroit area and around the United
States. The Muslim leader had been gunned down by FBI agents on Oct. 28.

Speakers at the services stressed that Imam Abdullah was known
throughout the city and country as a peaceful man who worked tirelessly
to help the poor people in the community surrounding the Masjid Al-Haqq
mosque, where he had presided for decades. Questions were raised about
the account of the events given by the FBI, the U.S. Attorney’s office
and the corporate media.

According to information that surfaced just days after his
assassination, the Imam was shot 18 times by FBI agents at a warehouse
in Dearborn, located right outside the city of Detroit. The warehouse
had been set up by the FBI in an attempt to frame the mosque members for
involvement in “stolen goods.” The purported “stolen goods” were also
supplied by the FBI.

Imam Dawud Walid, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic
Relations in Michigan, told the Fighting for Justice radio program,
which aired on the Detroit affiliate of Air America on Nov. 1, that
“Imam Luqman was shot 18 times before he was handcuffed and placed on a
stretcher. In a meeting between the FBI, representatives of the U.S.
Attorney’s office and area leaders of the Muslim community on Friday,
they informed us that Imam Abdullah never fired on the federal agents.
They said that the Imam shot at an FBI dog and then he was shot by the
agents. The dog was medivaced to a veterinary hospital while the Imam
received no medical attention,” Imam Walid said.

Also speaking on the program was Imam Abdullah Bey El-Amin of the Muslim
Center, where the funeral was held for the assassinated leader. Imam
El-Amin corroborated that “Imam Abdullah had multiple, multiple,
multiple gunshot wounds to his body.” El-Amin, a funeral director by
profession, prepared the slain leader’s body for burial.

Imams Walid and El-Amin, plus other prominent Islamic leaders in the
Detroit area, have called for an independent investigation into the
circumstances surrounding Imam Abdullah’s death. Callers to the radio
program viewed the shooting and the arrests of other Masjid Al-Haqq
members as a continuation of the federal government’s
Counter-Intelligence Program (Cointelpro), which was implemented against
so-called dissidents between the 1950s and the 1970s.

The African-American community suffered the most damage from the
Cointelpro terror operations, which resulted in the deaths of numerous
leaders and the framing of others by the federal government and local
police agencies across the country.

Groups to demonstrate at Federal Building

In response to the assassination of Imam Abdullah, the Michigan
Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice (MECAWI) has called for a
mass demonstration outside the federal building in downtown Detroit on
Nov. 5, from 4:30 to 6:00 p.m. The demonstration is designed to both
condemn the assassination of the Islamic leader as well as demand an
independent investigation into his death at the hands of the FBI.

A statement issued by MECAWI on Nov. 2 said that “The FBI and the media
headlines are trying to cover up this outrageous murder. But their story
has changed every day as more and more facts have come to light. Even
the government’s own ‘criminal complaint’ makes it clear that there was
no reason for this huge assault on the Muslim community.”

Groups endorsing the demonstration include the Detroit Coalition Against
Police Brutality, Latinos Unidos of Michigan, Students for Justice in
Palestine, the Detroit Green Party and Workers World Party.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Articles copyright 1995-2009 Workers World. Verbatim copying and
distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without
royalty provided this notice is preserved.

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Email: ww@workers.org
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Detroit groups to protest FBI terrorism on Nov. 5


Stop FBI Terrorism Against Detroit’s Islamic Community

Demand an Independent Investigation Into the Assassination of Imam
Luqman Ameen Abdullah of Detroit's Masjid Al-Haqq

Demonstration – Thurs. – Nov. 5 – 4:30 PM
FBI Office – McNamara Federal Bldg
477 Michigan Ave. at Cass in downtown Detroit

On October 28 the FBI launched a terrorist attack against members of the
Masjid Al-Haqq mosque on Detroit’s west side. Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah
was gunned down – 18 bullets in his body. Eleven of his fellow Muslims
were arrested.

The FBI and the media headlines are trying to cover up this outrageous
murder. But their story has changed every day as more and more facts
have come to light. Even the government’s own criminal complaint makes
it clear that there was no reason for this huge assault on the Muslim
community.

There is no mention of any “terrorism” charge in the government’s
documents.

Most of the charges are rights of all citizens under the U.S.
Constitution:

The victims owned guns (so does half the population).
The victims had knives (so does half the population).
The victims preached separatism (freedom of speech).

Other charges are about receiving stolen goods – usually not an FBI
concern – except that in this case the FBI set up an entire warehouse
operation to lure in and entrap victims. These charges were based on
informants who were themselves criminals.

Charges of mail fraud are the same as those used to frame-up and jail
Marcus Garvey. The FBI called in a medivac helicopter for the dog that
was shot, but gave no medical attention to Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah.

Community members know the work of the Imam and his followers in feeding
and housing poor people for the past 30 years or more.

The FBI is well known historically as a racist, murderous and terrorist
organization.

Their own documents – released under the Freedom of Information Act –
have shown how they collaborated with the KKK in the 1950’s and 60’s to
threaten, beat and kill civil rights workers (remember Detroiter Viola
Liuzzo).

The FBI followed, wiretapped and threatened Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
and his family. Many believe that the FBI was party to Dr. King’s
assassination.

The FBI carried out raids, arrests and murder of Black Panther Party
members, the American Indian Movement and others in the 1960s and 1970s
under its Cointelpro Program.

The FBI was involved in harassing and threatening the Nation of Islam
and Malcolm X for many years. Many believe the FBI was involved in
Malcolm’s assassination.

This demonstration is being called by the Michigan Emergency Committee
Against War & Injustice (MECAWI) – (313) 671-3715 – Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice

And endorsed by:

Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality
Latinos Unidos/United de Michigan
Students for Justice in Palestine
Green Party, Detroit Chapter
Workers World Party


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 2, 2009
11:05 AM

CONTACT: National Lawyers Guild (NLG) [1]
Paige Cram, Communications Coordinator,
212-679-5100, ext. 15, communications@nlg.org

National Lawyers Guild Calls for Immediate and Independent Investigation
Into Assassination of Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah by FBI Agents in
Dearborn

NEW YORK - November 2 - The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) calls for an
immediate and independent investigation into the FBI's fatal shooting on
October 28 of Islamic leader Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah in Dearborn,
Michigan. The FBI killed him during a series of raids of the Masjid
Al-Haqq Mosque by federal and local law enforcement officials in which
11 others were arrested. While mainstream media outlets are calling the
killing and arrests a counter-terrorism operation, the raids arose out
of criminal complaints containing no specific allegations of violations
of federal law or acts of terrorism.

All reports from local residents and community leaders indicate that
Imam Abdullah and Mosque members were dedicated to improving the
community, feeding hungry neighborhood residents and helping young
people in need, even letting many sleep in the mosque during inclement
weather.

By publicizing the killing and arrests as related to terrorism, absent
any such allegations in the complaint, the FBI seems to be engaging in
the same tactics used in its Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO),
in which it spied on, infiltrated and disrupted political movements.
Imam Abdullah had a close relationship with Imam Jamil Abdullah al-Amin,
formerly known as H. Rap Brown, was a field organizer for the Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and later served as national
chairman of the Black Panther Party (BPP).

The FBI and mainstream media blamed the organizing work of SNCC for the
urban rebellions in over 200 cities in the late 1960s. The Black Panther
Party was COINTELPRO's primary target, but it targeted a vast array of
others, including Martin Luther King. In light of these events, we
cannot trust the claim that COINTELPRO has been abandoned. Many have
been imprisoned on spurious charges-Al-Amin, for example, maintains his
innocence in the deaths of Atlanta law-enforcement officers and has
sought an appeal of his case. Reports indicated that he has been
harassed and placed in isolation in the Georgia prison system. Over two
dozen BPP members were killed by law enforcement between 1968 and 1971.

The National Lawyers Guild advocated on behalf of, and represented,
members of the BPP and other political organizations. The FBI tried to
have the Guild labeled as a subversive organization, and for many years
spied on and infiltrated the association and its individual members.

Guild president David Gespass said, "It took more than twenty years to
prove in court that Fred Hampton and Mark Clark were targeted and
murdered by the FBI and Chicago police. We cannot wait that long for the
truth of what happened to Imam Abdullah."

The National Lawyers Guild [1] is dedicated to the need for basic and
progressive change in the structure of our political and economic
system. Through its members--lawyers, law students, jailhouse lawyers
and legal workers united in chapters and committees--the Guild works
locally, nationally and internationally as an effective political and
social force in the service of the people.


The International National Council for Urban Peace, Justice and

Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 10/31/2009 - 4:54pm.
October 30, 2009

We, as members of the International Council for Urban Peace, Justice and
Empowerment are appalled by the raids on Masjid Al-Haqq and a halal meat
packing plant that left Imam Luquman Ameen Abdullah dead. We are
demanding an independent investigation into this action that is clearly
the result of a climate of Islamaphobia fed by law enforcement and a
media bent on sensationalism.

This complaint and the resulting raid are nothing more than government
sponsored terrorism against a group that was working to help the
community. This action is inconsistent with statements by President
Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder which call for mutual
respect for Muslims in the United States. The inconsistencies in this
investigation are glaring. The case is based on the sworn statements of
informants. These informants were convicted criminals who were paid by
the federal government for their 'work'. These criminals were used to
engage and entrap law abiding citizens.

We have seen the media statements that Imam Abdullah was the head of a
separatist group called Ummah, which means Brotherhood. Ummah means
community--not brotherhood. Al-Ummah is not now, or has ever been, a
Black Separatist and radical group, as any discrimination on the basis
of skin color is forbidden in the Koran. We as an organization have
never heard Imam Abdullah make any statements consistent with the
statements in the complaint. We have never seen any actions that would
be consistent with the allegations in the complaint.

The media has stated that there is a sign at the mosque that states that
"There is no God but Allah." There is only one god, who is known by
many names in many cultures. Why was this statement even mentioned?
The FBI has stated that this was not a terrorism case. However, the
investigation was conducted by a counter terrorism unit. They mention
threats against the government and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Is this a terrorism case or not?

Much is also being made of the fact that many of the members of the
Masjid Al-Haqq converted to Islam while in prison. The inference is
that, while they served their time in prison, sought to change their
lives by developing a practicing faith--they have not really changed.

Much is also being made about Imam Jamil Al-Amin being the leader of
Al-Ummah. Various articles state that he is serving time in a federal
prison facility for federal charges after murdering two police officers.
The fact is that those were state charges and he is being housed in a
federal penitentiary on state charges. All of the facts--not just the
words of paid informants--need to be brought out in a clear and unbiased
manner.

The fact is that Masjid Al-Haqq, under the direction of Imam Abdullah,
fed the hungry, housed the homeless, worked with gangs and the formerly
incarcerated to turn a crime ridden and drug infested neighborhood
around to becoming a productive community. The fact is that a complaint
is not an indictment.

The fact is that the media is engaging in an Islamaphobic feeding
frenzy. The most disturbing fact is that a religious leader who reached
out to his people and his community is dead, the victim of a society
that sees anyone who is different as dangerous.

Amir El Hajj Khalid A. Samad and T. Rashad Byrdsong On behalf of the
International Council for Urban (Formations) Peace, Justice and
Empowerment Contact information


Washington's Imam Musa: FBI assassinated Luqman Ameen Abdullah to
intimidate the Black American Muslim community

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 10:42:02 GMT

The following is the transcript of a Press TV interview with US Muslim
activist and director of Masjid Al-Islam in Washington, DC, Imam Abdul
Alim Musa, on the recent killing of Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah by US
federal agents during an alleged shootout in Detroit.

Over one thousand American Muslims gathered in the city of Detroit on
Saturday to mourn the prayers leader who was shot several times by the
FBI in an apparent attempt to arrest him.

As well as giving a new angle into what actually occurred, Imam Musa's
intriguing comments can also provide an insight into the current
atmosphere of the American Muslim community and the US establishment's
attitude toward Islam in general.

Q. The FBI has said that Imam Luqman resisted arrest and shot the police
dog before being killed. Do you have any other information on what took
place?

A. I am now reading what I have in my hand, the indictment from the
United States court. This is about a 42-page indictment, and this
indictment has information that was given to the federal government by
certain informants. I want to read a portion of this document to give
you an idea why we call the Imam Luqman killing an assassination by the
FBI.

If you notice the government, in order to do something to you, they have
to prearrange a scenario so that they do whatever crime that they want
to commit. When they wanted to invade Iraq they said there were weapons
of mass destruction. So, this is what they said. Although it wasn't true
it justified the invasion.

I would like to read what source number one, who is an FBI informant,
says about Imam Luqman. This is in December 2007. It says source number
one testified that on many occasions he heard Luqman Abdullah preach
that Islam should be spread through violent jihad and advocate violence
against the government and against law enforcement.

Abdullah told his followers that if the police tried to take his weapon
or tried to apprehend him he would respond with violence and they will
have to shoot him before they can arrest him. Ok, this is a government
informer giving the government the information that they want to justify
using violent means against Imam Luqman.

So, what we are saying is that we refer to his killing as an
assassination by the federal government. This is to intimidate the rest
of the Muslim community. The Muslims in America are under a lot of
pressure and the masjids, the Muslim centers, the community centers are
full of government infiltrators, spies, and saboteurs who try to break
the back of this wonderful Islamic movement in North America.

So what the government is doing by assassinating Imam Luqman is trying
to intimidate the Muslim community, especially the black community. And
I say that because the immigrant community, which is about half of the
Muslims in the United States and the African American Muslim community,
which form the other half, have different views about Islam in America
and how it should be fostered.

The immigrant community has been frightened since the 9/11 terrorist
attack and they practice the kind of American style Islam. Now, the
killing of Imam Luqman is to intimidate us. But our message is
different. We will not be intimidated by the United States government or
by the FBI.

We all state clearly what Imam Luqman said on one occasion. I have from
the same information something that source two, another government
informer said about Imam Luqman. This is on December 12 2007. Source two
told me he had been with Luqman Abdullah outside the masjid on that day
and he was able to surreptitiously record their conversation.

S2 told Abdullah he had authority to donate five thousand dollars to pay
to have someone do something during the 2006 Super Bowl in Detroit.

Abdullah said he would not be involved in injuring innocent people for
no reason. If there is something to be done it is going to be
legitimate. This is what we are saying.

This is from the FBI's own records. They had sent an informer to donate
five thousand dollars to have Imam Luqman do some terrorist type thing
at the super ball, which was in Detroit in 2006. Imam Luqman, by
sticking to his principles of Islam, said and this is recorded on page
four of the FBI indictment, it says that Imam Luqman said he would not
be involved in injuring innocent people for no reason.

You see, so, this is the principle that we all follow here in America.
This is in their own FBI record. They knew, already, that Imam Luqman
was not violence prone. They already knew that he would not do any harm
to any citizen, by his own words, that was not legitimate and that we
would not harm innocent people for no reason.

But when you listen to the television and the radio and all of the news
they try to portray Imam Luqman and his group, and the larger group,
al-Ummah [not Ummah, which is usually interpreted as the overall Muslim
community] as violence prone; as wanting to establish an independent
Islamic state in North America ruled by Sharia law and that Imam Jamil
Abdullah Al Amin, which is the leader who is now in a super max prison
up in Florence, Colorado would be its leader.

Q. Can you give us a little bit of information about this group, Ummah.
Can you explain a little bit about it?

A. al-Ummah is led by Imam Jamil Abdullah Al Amin who was a great civil
rights leader during the 1960s. He converted to Islam in 1972 and became
a part of one of our great Islamic movements in North America called Dar
al-Islam Movement.

When that movement broke up in about 1980 and 1981 Imam Jamil Al Amin
inherited or kept together one section of that group. That group became
known as al-Ummah or basically the community, and so, they have centers
all around America, in Atlanta in Detroit, in many cities in
Philadelphia, and other cities around the country.

It is mostly an African American organization and it believes in the
principle of strong leadership, and so, the goal of this leadership, and
I am telling you from experience; I have worked very closely with the
brothers, we have been friends and associates for 25 or 30 years now;
this group's goal is to spread Islam in America, not through violent
means, but by what the Quran says - bring to the way of the lord through
wisdom and preaching.

So their goal is to invite the American people to Islam through
beautiful preaching, through Da'wa [Arabic for invitation], through
Tabligh [Arabic for proselytization] through all the legitimate means,
but the government in America is fearful of any group that has any
Islamic organization with good strong leadership, especially if that
leadership has ties to Muslims around the world, which Imam Jamil Al
Amin does.

So the goal of the government is to destroy this group and to send the
message to other African Americans that the federal government will not
allow any unified, organized Islamic activities to be carried on inside
of the United States of America. But we have a message for them. We will
not be intimidated by the government of the United States of America.


October 31, 2009

American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections (AMT) Calls for
Probe Into FBI Shooting Death of Luqman Ameen Abdullah

A coalition of local and national organizations which includes the
American Muslim Alliance (AMA), American Muslims for Palestine (AMP),
Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Islamic Circle of North
America (ICNA), Muslim Alliance in North America (MANA), MAS-Freedom,
Muslim Students Association - National (MSA-N), Muslim Ummah of North
America (MUNA), and United Muslims of America (UMA) issued a statement
and press release earlier today calling for a probe of the shooting
death of Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah.

In the press release AMT states:

It is imperative that an independent investigation of Imam Luqman Ameen
Abdullah's death make public the exact circumstances in which he died.

Locally, in the Chicagoland region at least one prominent American
Muslim leader from the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater
Chicago consultative body is urging the community's leaders to also make
some noise in order to bring about an independent investigation of the
shooting death of Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah. The crux of this leader's
argument seems to be that since there is a presumption of innocence and
Imam Luqman had not yet been proven guilty, the FBI shot and killed an
innocent man.

In an email exhorting other Chicagoland leaders to step up in calling
for an investigation into Imam Luqman's shooting this leader ridiculed
the notion that Imam Luqman was anything but a peaceful man who fed the
hungry, sheltered the homeless and worked for the community. If Imam
Luqman was looking to wage a war on America why hadn't he done it yet
asked the local leader rhetorically? Clearly Imam Luqman has at least
one very passionate supporter in the Chicagoland leadership.

Others who were perhaps more close to Imam Luqman did not sanitize Imam
Luqman's beliefs quite as much. Dr. Ihsan Bagby, a professor of Islamic
studies at the University of Kentucky and a board member of the Muslim
Alliance in North America (a national African American Muslim
institution on whose board Imam Luqman sat), reportedly told the Detroit
News that Imam Luqman's organization - Ummah - is anti-government but
does not advocate violence.

Many American Muslim leaders seem to want an independent investigation
into th shooting death of Imam Luqman. The facts surrounding this
shooting support the call for an independent investigation. Furthermore
and under the circumstances, an independent investigation is an absolute
must if the FBI is to regain/retain credibility with the American Muslim
community.

The 43 page affidavit by FBI Special Agent Leone notes in multiple
places, based on transcripts of audio recordings of conversations with
Imam Luqman (purportedly recorded by undercover informants and without
Imam Luqman's knowledge) that he was frequently armed, sometimes wore a
bulletproof vest and spoke of dying in a shoot out rather than being
arrested if he were ever confronted by law enforcement. Regardless of
whether or not these claims by Imam Luqman were true, clearly the FBI
was on notice that this man may very well put up a deadly struggle. As
such, why didn't they attempt to arrest Imam Luqman in a setting that
would have lessened the chances of deadly shootout taking place?

One cannot help but think of the recent "raid" on a slaughterhouse in
Kinsman, Illinois (this raid was in connection with the then sealed
indictment against Tahawwur H. Rana on charges of providing material
support to a terrorism conspiracy). Unlike the move on Imam Luqman in
Detroit which was based on an arrest warrant, the action on the
slaughterhouse in downstate Illinois was based on a search warrant.
According to local news reports including eye witness accounts the FBI
had a used a massive show of force including nearly 100 agents and even
a helicopter.

It may be reasonable to assume that the FBI used a large team of agents
and resources as a deterrent for anyone at the Kinsman, Illinois
slaughterhouse who may want to resist the execution of the search
warrant. To a lay person this strategy of overwhelming force in order
to protect law enforcement agents might make sense. Furthermore, this
strategy, whether it is so intended or not, has the benefit of
protecting the lives of individuals upon whom the search warrant is
served by deterring them for even trying to resist.

So, if a search warrant merits a small army of federal agents, then why
would an arrest warrant (which seems to be a far more serious matter
than a search warrant) not merit similar or even greater precautions and
deterrence measures? What did the attempted execution of the warrant on
Imam Luqman and the others named in the arrest warrant look like? Why
has this not been discussed by the media thus far?

Also, given that the FBI believed, based on what they purportedly heard
from two years worth of audio recordings and informant statements, that
Imam Luqman is armed and is likely to resist arrest with deadly force,
why did the FBI not attempt to arrest Imam Luqman in a setting where
there was a greater element of surprise and where he had fewer options
to flee?

Lastly, there remains the question of whether or not deadly force was
necessary. The news reports are not clear as to what exactly Imam
Luqman did or did not do. It is known that an FBI dog was shot and
killed. Reportedly the dog was killed by Imam Luqman. Did the FBI
agents kill Imam Luqman in a moment of retaliation in an already tense
and deadly situation?

These and other and better questions need to be answered in a
independent investigation of the shooting death of Imam Luqman.
American Muslim leaders have a responsibility to mobilize a grassroots
civil action campaign to pressure the FBI into conducting an independent
investigation.

The credibility of the FBI within sectors of the American Muslim
community is abysmally low as a result of its policy and program of
conducting "assessments" of potential threats by "proactively" pursuing
leads that take undercover FBI informants into otherwise legitimate,
lawful and constitutionally protected gatherings (this policy was
revealed with Muslim Advocates and other civil liberties groups recently
successfully sued to get the FBI to turnover some of it surveillence
policies). The shooting death of Imam Luqman has the potential of
escalating skepticism of the FBI's motives to the kind of deep-seeded
distrust and even contempt or hate of the FBI as Imam Luqman was
portrayed as having in the affidavit of Special Agent Leone.

This is not acceptable. It is not acceptable for the FBI and the
American Muslim community to be at odds with one another. Like it or
not, there are real threats out there. There are people who wish to
bomb and kill and terrorize Americans in America for political gain. We
know very well that the people who are responsible for this wanton
violence are indiscriminate in their attacks and have no qualms about
killing Muslims. That means American Muslims are at as great a risk of
being victims of future terrorist attacks as anyone.

At the same time, if the terrorists wish to use American Muslim
institutions and resources and try to recruit within the American Muslim
community, then it is imperative that there be a strong relationship
between law enforcement and the American Muslim community based on
mutual trust and respect. American Muslims cannot possibly know what to
look for and how to detect clues to extremist operations without the
help and support of law enforcement (including the FBI).

An independent investigation into the shooting death of Imam Luqman
Ameen Abdullah is a must for all of the foregoing reasons. It is the
right thing to do and it is the pragmatic thing to do as well.


The Killing of Imam Luqman Abdullah

Monday, 02 November 2009 16:51
Ali Jafri
Courtesy of Islamic Insights

What is the true story?

By now, most of us have heard the news of the killing of Imam Luqman
Ameen Abdullah by the FBI in Detroit, MI. There are many questions
surrounding the death of Imam Luqman. Although I do not have the answers
to these questions, there are a few issues that come to mind.

Yesterday I was able to read the criminal complaint filed in the United
States District Court in the Eastern District of Michigan (Case:
2;09-mj-30436) on October 27, 2009. Included in the complaint is a
43-page sworn affidavit by FBI Special Agent Gary Leone. This affidavit
chronicles nearly two years of surveillance by the FBI on Imam Luqman
and Masjid al-Haqq in Detroit. The complaint discusses terms such as
kuffar, Qureish, revolution, Imam Jamil, jihad, hadith, etc. This is
odd. The reason this is odd is that these terms have absolutely nothing
to do with what the criminal complaint charges the 11 individuals with.

Law enforcement has drummed up this incident to be terrorism-related, or
somehow related to the faith or political views of Imam Luqman and his
community. The mainstream media has predictably followed suit. But the
actual charges against these 11 individuals say otherwise. The charges
mentioned are as follows: possession of body armor and fire arms by a
convicted felon, providing firearms to a convicted felon, tampering with
a motor vehicle identification number, mail fraud, and selling/receiving
stolen goods. There are absolutely no terrorism-related charges in this
complaint. There are no charges in any way related to the religious or
political views of Imam Luqman. Two years of investigation, and no
material support charge, no conspiracy charge, nothing. When asked why
Imam Luqman had not been charged with terrorism, the United States
Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan Terrence Berg said, "The
charges speak for themselves." And that is exactly my point.

As often has been the case in these so-called "terrorism" cases, smaller
charges are brought and law enforcement still acts as though they
brought terrorism-related charges. And the public doesn't know the
difference. We have seen this pattern again and again under the Bush
administration, and President Obama has continued this dishonest policy.
Look at the words being used in the context of these arrests in the
media and the statements given by law enforcement, and ask yourself what
they have to do with the charges which are alleged. Why are they saying
this is related to terrorism? Do they think we can't read what they
themselves wrote? What does being a Sunni or a fundamentalist or a
Muslim have to do with tampering with a motor vehicle identification
number?

"O you who believe! If a liar/evil person comes to you with a report,
look carefully into it, lest you harm a people in ignorance, then be
sorry for what you have done." (49:6)

What was the nature of this investigation by the FBI? According to its
complaint, at least three agents were used by the FBI in surveillance of
Masjid al-Haqq. The complaint stated that these agents constantly said
and did things in order to make Imam Luqman or others at the mosque say
or do something which would lead to an arrest on terrorism charges. For
example, the criminal complaint mentions how one agent told Imam Luqman
he is interested in blowing up people during the Super Bowl in Detroit,
and Imam Luqman responded that he would not be involved in killing
innocent people (see information from confidential source S-2, paragraph
14). This is just one example, and there are many similar examples in
the complaint. Obviously this does not come as a surprise, because this
is what the FBI does for a living. But we should realize that after two
years of this harassment, the best material they could come up with is
in their complaint.

This incident is another reminder to the Muslim community. When someone
is spending time and effort in order to set us you and put you in
prison, they are not your friend. This is not an attempt to thwart a
crime. This is an attempt to set your you-know-what up. There is a
difference. Any criminal defense attorney will tell you never to speak
to law enforcement without an attorney present. Most will tell you that
if the FBI comes to speak with you, even with an attorney present, you
would be crazy to speak with them. This is because the goal of law
enforcement is to get a criminal conviction. It is beyond disappointing
that some members of our Muslim community, both Sunni and Shia, know
what the FBI is doing to their fellow Muslim brothers and sisters on a
daily basis, yet they continue to want to buddy up to these same agents.
How many more examples are needed before we open our eyes?

I do not know what all transpired with Imam Luqman and his community. I
do not know if they are guilty or innocent of any of the alleged crimes.
What I do know is that a man exercised his First Amendment rights, and
he did not commit a crime by doing so. Had he committed a crime or a
terrorism-related offense, it would be in the complaint. Instead, all we
see are regular criminal offenses being alleged.

Unfortunately there is a segment of our community more interested in
looking like the "good Muslim" than in standing up against oppression or
finding out the truth. These Uncle Toms have predictably made
irresponsible statements regarding Imam Luqman and his mosque without
any of us even knowing all the facts. The Muslim community must stay
away from these types of organizations and mosques, whose leadership
will lead our community away from the sunnah of our Holy Prophet (peace
be upon him and his progeny).

Let's for a minute believe all the allegations in the complaint. Would
this justify this man being killed? Would it justify the alleged 18
shots fired at him? Why all the references to Islam in the complaint if
he is not charged with any political or terrorism related offenses? Why
all this talk about Imam Jamil?

Please, let us open our eyes. ]]> Afrikan World News XXPANTHAXX http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/afrikan-world-news/40267-imam-luqman-ameen-abdullah-assassination-update.html