Sean Blackmon, activist, organizer and broadcaster, currently serving as co-host of Radio Sputnik’s “By Any Means Necessary”; Jacqueline Luqman, Black Alliance for Peace Mid-Atlantic Region Co-Coordinator, co-host of Radio Sputnik’s “By Any Means Necessary” and host of “Luqman Nation” on the Black Power Media YouTube channel; Kamau Franklin, former practicing attorney, first program director of New York City Police-Watch and co-founder of Black Power Media; and Karanja Gaçuça, a U.S.-based Kenyan journalist, publisher of thebriefscoop.com and executive editor of panafricmedia.org; discussed the power of story at the first-ever African Peoples’ Forum. The event was held December 11 at the Eritrean Civic & Cultural Center in Washington, D.C. Journalist Hermela Aregawi and activist Yolian Ogbu moderated.
The first and second panels can be viewed here and here.
TF editor Julie Varughese reported on this event being held to counter the Biden administration’s U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit.
The One Africa! One Nation! Marketplace in front of the Uhuru House at the Gary Brooks Community Garden in the majority-Black north side of Saint Louis, Missouri / credit: Black Power Blueprint
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in The Burning Spear. Light edits have been made to conform this piece to TF’s style.
This month, Regions Bank, a financial institution with branches in the U.S. South and Midwest, notified the Black nonprofit, African People’s Education and Defense Fund (APEDF), that the bank was “exiting” its 20-year relationship, closing accounts, withdrawing lines of credit and canceling mortgage loans.
This assault on the ability of African people to build economic self-reliance was the latest in a series of actions revealing government and corporate cooperation targeting the Black community programs of the Uhuru (Freedom) Movement, including its popular Women’s Health Center, Black Power Vanguard Basketball Court, “One Africa! One Nation!” Marketplaces, Gary Brooks Community Garden, Uhuru Jiko Commercial Kitchens and Bakery Cafe, Akwaaba Hall events venues, Black Power 96 radio station, Uhuru Furniture & Collectibles stores, Uhuru Foods & Pies and Uhuru House community centers for Black people.
Uhuru Wa Kulea African Women’s Health Center under construction in North St. Louis. It is being built as part of the Black Power Blueprint by the APSP to address the issue of infant and maternal mortality / credit: Burning Spear
Facebook has blocked the ability for supporters to crowdfund for Uhuru programs through their personal pages. GoFundMe froze over $9,000 in donations for the Hands Off Uhuru! Legal Defense Fund for more than three months until the group’s lawyers took legal action to get the funds released. The Stripe payment processing company also blocked contributions to the group for a period of time.
On February 14, the Pinellas County Commission revoked $36,801 in funding that had been previously approved for WBPU 96.3 FM Black community radio station in St. Petersburg, Florida, after expressing political opposition to its association with the Black power Uhuru Movement.
A community basketball court named, “Black Power Vanguard Basketball Court,” finished construction in 2022 in the majority-Black north side of Saint Louis, Missouri, as part of Black Power Blueprint / credit: Black Power Blueprint
These economic sanctions have come on the heels of a series of violent government-initiated attacks on the Uhuru Movement that began in earnest with the July 29 militarized FBI raid on seven Uhuru properties. That also includes two acts of arson, one arrest and interrogation, censorship in the removal of a change.org petition, and a U.S. State Department announcement of a $10 million reward for information that could tie Uhuru leaders to Russian government interference in U.S. elections and public opinion influencing.
Ona Zené Yeshitela, Board President of APEDF, says, “Our organization has built over 50 economic institutions, financed through our own fundraising work and the donations of thousands of people. These banks don’t want Black people to be able to feed, clothe and house ourselves. They do not want money circulating in the Black community.”
A volunteer work day at the Gary Brooks Community Garden in the majority-Black north side of Saint Louis, Missouri / credit: Burning Spear
Omali Yeshitela is founder of the Uhuru Movement and Chairman of the African People’s Socialist Party. He is considered the primary target of the FBI raids and reportedly pending indictments on charges of serving as a pawn of the Russian government. A 1960s field organizer registering voters with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the 81-year-old Yeshitela has fought for Black Power for over 50 years.
He charges, “These banks are collaborating with the government to deny Black people the right to have free healthcare, to have economic development in our communities, for our children to have safe basketball courts. They want us on welfare. But we’ve got a right to have our own power. These banks are imposing economic sanctions on our movement because we are engaged in unifying the African Nation that represents an existential threat to the continuation of the colonial mode of production on which they are built and maintained.”
The African Doula Project trained 14 African women to become doulas/midwives at a session held at Akwaaba Hall/Uhuru House in the majority-Black north side of Saint Louis on the day of the FBI raid against the Uhuru Movement on July 29 / credit: Burning Spear
Yeshitela likens the economic aggression against Uhuru Movement institutions to those the U.S. government and society made against Marcus Garvey and his United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), the bombing of Tulsa’s “Black wall street” and the destruction of the Black Panther Party Black-community survival programs.
He accuses the U.S. government of imposing economic sanctions against the Black-led Uhuru Movement, as they do against countries that do not bow to U.S. world domination, such as Cuba, Venezuela, Afghanistan, China and Russia.
A four-plex apartment building in the majority-Black north side Saint Louis that serves as housing for the African Independence Workforce Program, creating jobs for those re-entering the community from the U.S. prison system / credit: Burning Spear
The actions of Regions Bank and other financial institutions come after widespread public exposure of the role of the slave trade in the birth of the U.S. banking and insurance industries and during a time of growing demands for reparations to Black people for slavery and colonialism.
A campaign has been launched to defend the Uhuru Movement, its leaders and institutions, chronicled at HandsOffUhuru.org. Supporters are raising funds for legal defense, mobilizing for protest demonstration at U.S. federal buildings, organizing call-ins to government officials and demanding “Hands Off Uhuru! Hands Off Africa!”
Burning Spear is the official organ of the African People’s Socialist Party.
A demonstration took place March 18 in Washington, D.C., that coincided with the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq / credit: ANSWER Coalition
WASHINGTON, D.C.—An estimated couple of thousand of people to “several thousand” marched on March 18 in downtown Washington D.C., calling for an end to the U.S. imperialist project that they hold responsible for 20 years of a “War on Terror” on millions of people. The weekend marked the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
U.S. interference in the form of military invasions and other types of activities since 2001 have caused the global displacement of 38 million people and the death of at least 900,000 people, according to the Costs of War Project. Those are conservative estimates.
The demonstration aimed to link the lack of funding for people’s needs in the United States with the diversity of tactics the United States uses to perpetuate wars on people around the world.
“The proxy war in Ukraine has already taken hundreds of thousands of lives, plunged the world into crisis, and will cost the people of the U.S. at least $113 billion in public money,” Press TV reported. “Over the past year, Washington has supplied Ukraine with military equipment worth more than $50 billion, excluding other types of assistance worth tens of billions of dollars.
Rally speakers representing a diverse cross-cut of U.S. society, ranging from students and Filipino migrants, to internal U.S. colonies like African and Indigenous peoples, as well as Wikileaks Publisher Julian Assange’s brother, Gabriel Shipton, gathered in front of the White House for a 1 p.m. rally. Toward Freedom Board Secretary Jacqueline Luqman also spoke, which can be found here, here and here.
Then a mile-long march kicked off that stopped briefly at the Washington Post headquarters.
“The corporate media has decided to boycott the American ppl when they speak up against the war machine. CNN, NBC, ABC, all the corporate networks are just echo chambers for the Pentagon — nothing else.”
Activists spoke out against the newspaper—now owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos—because it spread information that helped build the U.S. government’s case for the invasion of Iraq. A U.S. Senate intelligence committee report later found the war was based on false information.
Happening now in front of the Washington Post: “Whether it’s the war at abroad or the war at home, you can count on the Washington Post to be a liar and a warmonger!” —@EugenePuryearpic.twitter.com/m6fi8aSvm7
— Party for Socialism and Liberation (@pslnational) March 18, 2023
“Thousands of anti-war protesters stretched for blocks without a corporate camera in sight yesterday,” tweeted independent journalist Chuck Modi, who has documented protests in Washington, D.C. “In pre-cell phone age, you wouldn’t even know it happened.”
Activists on Saturday carried coffins wrapped in the flags of countries that the United States has either invaded over the past two decades or that the United States has helped fuel a conflict inside of through the shipment of arms and funds.
Growing numbers are condemning the US/NATO for fueling the war in Ukraine and blocking peace negotiations. On March 18, the 20th anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq, protesters carried mock coffins to the White House and demanded “Money for People’s Needs, Not the War Machine” pic.twitter.com/gs3yrujlfK
More than 200 organizations demonstrated against the United States funding and arming the war in Ukraine, and called for the United States to not interfere in peace negotiations. They also spoke out against a possible military conflict with China and decried the U.S./EU sanctions regime that prevents food, fuel and medicine from reaching one-third of the world’s population.
Plus, the call was raised to close U.S. military bases around the world and U.S. military commands, such as AFRICOM. Some estimates have ranged from as little as 800 bases to thousands of bases, according to U.S. military veteran and psychologist Monisha Rios. She claimed at the International Women’s Alliance conference, held March 4-5 in Washington, D.C., that activists have used a figure based on a calculation that undercounts U.S. military installations.
People leading the march held banners that read, “Remember Iraq: No More Wars Based on Lies” and “Fund People’s Needs, Not War.”
‼️You definitely didn’t hear it on on Tucker Carlson or the Washington Post, but several thousand marched in DC this weekend against endless U.S. wars.
After the march, a teach-in was held at New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, just a few blocks from the rally site. There, professor Noam Chomsky, as well as representatives from the U.S. colonies of Guam and Hawaii, gave remarks.
Activists like Asantewaa Nkrumah-Ture of Philadelphia, a member of the Black Alliance for Peace, spoke out against the international wars as well as the domestic war on the people of the United States. That includes the most recent federal government move to eliminate Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits to hungry families. “Roughly 60 percent of those households have children, and more than half include older people or adults with disabilities,” the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette‘s editorial board writes.
“More and more ppl are against this war because their conditions are worsening. They’re cutting food stamps; it’s harder to pay rent; wages are stagnant. This must change. We must fight back!”
The protest was noted for how it was led by people who bear the brunt of U.S. imperialism.
“When the interests and positions of colonized people are respected, the turnout to mobilizations look different,” tweeted the Black Alliance for Peace, an anti-imperialist organization led by African people in the United States. “Perhaps the March 18 demonstrations signal a shift is taking place: That an anti-imperialist movement led by young African and other colonized peoples is rising.”
When the interests and positions of colonized people are respected, the turnout to mobilizations look different. Perhaps the March 18 demonstrations signal a shift is taking place: That an anti-imperialist movement led by young African and other colonized peoples is rising. https://t.co/W2O8fHr8HU
— Black Alliance for Peace (@Blacks4Peace) March 20, 2023
Many commented that a renewed movement for peace was emerging with this demonstration. About 11 million people protested the U.S. invasion of Iraq 20 years ago. An ANSWER Coalition representative did not reply to this reporter in time to confirm the number of marchers on March 18.
“Here we are again, 20 years later, because imperialism persists,” Black Agenda Report Executive Editor Margaret Kimberley told activist group Popular Resistance. “As long as that is true, the location of the war will change, the people waging the war will change, but we will still have wars. Our goal is to end imperialism.”
Besides in Washington, D.C., demonstrations were held in dozens of cities across the United States.
Maasai in the Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya / credit: Henrik Hansen on Unsplash
NAIROBI—Close to 500 organizations and 4,747 individuals recently petitioned the Tanzanian government to respect the rights of 70,000 Maasai pastoralists, who are at risk of being evicted from ancestral land because of the government’s collusion with big-game hunting interests.
The petition was delivered after a government official summoned on January 11 village and ward leaders within the 1,500 square kilometers in question, informing them the government would be making a decision for the interest of the country. Maasai residents are calling on President Samia Suluhu Hassan to drop the plans.
“The Maasai residing within the targeted Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA) are disallowed from building decent houses or even planting a tree, including even owning a motorbike,” Joseph Oleshangay, a lawyer representing the Maasai, told Toward Freedom. “Successive governments have eternally destined this community to remain impoverished. Now, this current move is a continuation of the abuse meted on the Maasai.”
The boundaries of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area is in pink / credit: Encyclopedia Britanica
Royal Intervention
The Tanzanian government had planned to lease the 1,500 square kilometers of Maasai ancestral land to Otterlo Business Corporation (OBC), which a group of Dubai royal families own, according to the petitioners. But after evictions in 2009, 2013 and 2017, the Maasai sought legal recourse. A 2018 East African Court of Justice (EACJ) ruling placed an injunction, prohibiting the destruction of Maasai property, the harassment of the Maasai, and the eviction of the people as well as their more than 200,000 livestock. The injunction remains until the case arrives in court.
Despite several attempts, Tanzania’s Directorate of Presidential Communications declined to respond to Toward Freedom.
According to Oleshangay, with the government ignoring the court, the Maasai community has gone back to a regional court to seek protection and direction.
Within the three years the Maasai people have faced eviction, an estimated 15,000 people have been displaced from their homes.
Isaya Lesion, spokesperson for OBC and himself a Tanzanian national, told Toward Freedom that all the land in Tanzania belonged to the public and the president holds the land in trust of the citizens and may intermittently change its usage for the benefit of the country.
“It has happened before in Ihefu Basin, Mtwara and Kilobero, just to name a few places where evictions by the government have happened to pave the way for development on behalf of the nation.”
Lesion further says that the coterie of Civil Society Organizations (CSO), particularly in Tanzania, who are opposed to the eviction plans have “turned the Maasais into their milking cows, using them to secure funding from external donors. It’s a lucrative business and the key players, who disproportionately live in urban centers, live large as the Maasais continue languishing in poverty.”
However, human rights violations are the crux of the case against the government. Indigenous Maasai pastoralists are recognized as legal inhabitants of the land. About 2 million Maasai roam the arid and semi-arid parts of southern Kenya and northern Tanzania, making them one of the largest pastoral groups worldwide. The Maasai are among the Horn of Africa’s pastoralists and itinerant farmers who have lost access to grazing areas and farmlands because of land grabs.
“Any attempts to evict them will certainly be unlawful, unjust, and discriminatory under national law and the international human-rights obligations and commitments of the Government of Tanzania,” said Ann Henga, executive director of the Dar es Salaam-based Legal and Human Rights Centre (LHRC), in an interview with Toward Freedom.
Competing Interest
Hassan government announced plans to create a wildlife corridor, so OBC could use it for trophy hunting and tourism. The company describes itself on its Twitter account as “Sustainable Utilization (Hunting) and photography outfitters in Tanzania. Investors in Loliondo GCA hunting concession. 100% for wildlife conservation.”
Wildlife is 1 of the crucial aspect in our heritage as a country, we must invest and dedicate more in Anti-poaching and educating more people about the benefits of it. This wasn’t a successful raid b’coz the damage was already done, but it’s progress, consistency must be the key. pic.twitter.com/NjGrvN2gds
The government plans to lease to OBC the NCA, which encompasses the Loliondo division, among others. NCA is considered one of the most cinematic landscapes on the globe, with more than 1 million wildebeest migrating through the area every year. It is home to the critically endangered black rhino. In 1979, UNESCO declared the NCA a World Heritage Site.
Joan Carling, co-convener of Indigenous Peoples’ Rights International (IPRI), told Toward Freedom international attention appears to have stamped out eviction efforts.
“The inter-related reasons … are the pressure from UNESCO to address the growing number of humans in the area, which they consider a serious threat to the conservation of wildlife, and, in this sense, would affect the status of the park as a World Wildlife Heritage and Conservation area.”
NCA losing UNESCO recognition would mean fewer tourists. Loliondo is on the main migratory route for wildlife north of the Ngorongoro Crater, east of Serengeti National Park and south of Kenya’s Maasai Mara National Reserve.
In November 2017, the government ended a 25-year-old hunting tourism deal with OBC that reportedly was in exchange for millions of dollars to Tanzania’s armed forces.
The Gulf royal families gave $32,000 to the ruling Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party and $2 million to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, according to government records The East African newspaper reports to have seen. The monies were given in 1994, according to the regional newspaper, which quotes then-Chief Opposition Chief Whip Tundu Lissu. He said he had interrogated the issue for the past 20 years, but because of the alleged chicanery involved in the deal, the government has kept the details of the engagement shrouded in mystery.
“Once again, the Maasai are facing eviction just to please the UAE royal family, underlining the Tanzanian government insensitivity towards the Indigenous pastoralists, as it clearly prioritizes tourism revenue over its people,” said Dr. Paula Kahumbu, a wildlife conservationist and Chief Executive Officer of Wildlife Direct, a nonprofit registered in both Kenya and the United States, in an interview with Toward Freedom.
Trophy Fees
Despite the November 2017 announcement, OBC did not leave Tanzania for a few days. But current Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa said OBC would stay. In November 2018, Tanzania lifted a hunting ban, which had been imposed in October 2015 following abuse and misuse of hunting permits. The OBC had been granted an exclusive license to hunt in 1992 during the presidency of Ali Hassan Mwinyi.
The annual hunting license fee is $60,000 per block allocated to a hunting safari company. Trophy fees for hunting an elephant or a lion are the most expensive. It costs $15,000 to kill an elephant and $12,000 to kill a lion. Presently, Tanzania is focused on attracting tourists who can afford a 21-day hunting safari that costs about $60,000, excluding the cost of flights, gun import permits and trophy fees.
“The Maasai have been subjected to a series of human rights violations and violent evictions in the name of conservation and luxury hunting and safari tourism,” Chris Lang of news outlet REDD-Monitor told Toward Freedom. “The rights of Tanzania’s Indigenous peoples and Tanzanian law must come ahead of a deal with a luxury hunting tourism corporation.”
Charles Wachira is a foreign correspondent based in Nairobi, Kenya, and is formerly an East Africa correspondent with Bloomberg. He covers issues including human rights, business, politics and international relations.
