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SAINT PETERSBURG, Florida—Three of the four U.S.-based defendants in the U.S. government’s case about a conspiracy with Russia to sow social discord spoke out May 10 for the first time since indictments dropped last month.

“It’s important to note where theres’s some troubling aspects of this case, where the federal government is using federal criminal law to stifle dissenting voices,” said Leonard Goodman, attorney for Penny Hess, chair of the African People’s Solidarity Committee. The committee formed in 1976 in Saint Petersburg for white people to organize in the white community for reparations to Africans.

The attorneys of the newly dubbed “Uhuru 3″—Hess, as well as African People’s Socialist Party (APSP) Chairman Omali Yeshitela and Uhuru Solidarity Movement Chair Jesse Nevel—appeared remotely on Zoom, while the defendants stood at a podium in the Uhuru House, one of the party’s properties in Saint Petersburg.

“There’s been a misunderstanding about my connection to Russia because my first and most significant contact I had with Russians was when I was in Berlin, Germany,” said Omali Yeshitela, chairman of the African People’s Socialist Party.

That’s when his attorney, Ade Griffin, intervened. “I ask that you not to get into any specifics about contacts with Russia at this point.”

Yeshitela said he wanted to explain his experience in the U.S. Army dating back to 1961, when he saw the Berlin Wall erected, which split Germany into east and west. “That’s something that’s not been mentioned at all,” he said, adding, “My crime is my absolute belief in free speech.” Yeshitela went on to recount that he has faced charges and abuse at the hands of police, usually for demonstrating on behalf of the right to free speech. “This is no different,” he said. “They kill Black people for talking in this country … If it’s not afforded to us, there can be no free speech for anybody.”

White Defendants Make Their Case

Hess, a white woman who has been part of the movement since 1976, spoke of the wealth stolen from African people.

“The chairman has done what cities and states don’t do,” she said in explaining the work of the party to build institutions that support African people.

“[These charges] are false to an idiotic and laughable extreme,” Nevel of the Uhuru Solidarity Movement told the press, adding later in his address the U.S. government knows Yeshitela is not a Russian agent. “They know who he really is. Just like they knew who Martin Luther King really was. Who Marcus Garvey really was. Who Malcolm X really was. Who Fred Hampton really was. A freedom fighter for his people and for the oppressed peoples of the world. But they can’t openly say that. They can’t openly charge Chairman Omali Yeshitela with being an agent for freedom. So they lie, and charge him as an agent of some foreign power we’re all supposed to be afraid of.”

Similarly, Nevel spoke of his and Hess’ roles as white people.

“They know who we work for: The African liberation movement,” Nevel said. “We speak not for some foreign malign influence, but for millions of other white people out there who refuse to be complicit with our own government’s unceasing state sanctioned violence against African people.”

Nevel then said that despite the U.S. government’s best efforts to scare white people away from liberation movements, “More and more of us are becoming co-conspirators, too.”

Yeshitela told the press the party was forced to start its own radio station because a white-owned station kicked it off the air.

“They’ve never accused us of hurting anybody or stealing from anybody. It’s [about suppressing] free speech.”

Pointing to Colonialism

The APSP opposed U.S. support of Ukraine after Russia intervened in Ukraine in February 2022. They have connected the U.S. position to a longer history of European colonialism. Yeshitela has noted African countries have not supported the Ukraine position en masse, despite U.S. threats, as discussed in this Toward Freedom article.

Yeshitela denounced the press for only relying on the U.S. government’s press release to report on the party. He tied that to the colonial relationship that has dominated the world for more than 500 years, since Christopher Columbus accidentally landed in the Americas after trying to reach India, intent on exploiting the wealth of that land.

“For the longest period of time, white people have been subjects of history and African people have only been the objects of history,” Yeshitela said. “When we begin to speak for ourselves, we don’t tell the same story … It can be disturbing … And you find out to your surprise that the slave doesn’t feel the same way about the slavemaster as the slavemaster feels about himself.”

Next Steps

The party, nor its attorneys, announced during the press conference the next date for a court appearance. If found guilty, the accused face up to 15 years in prison.

The APSP has launched a campaign called “Hands Off Uhuru! Hands Off Africa!” through which it is fundraising to cover the cost of legal fees.

The fourth U.S.-based defendant, Augustus C. Romain, Jr., better known as Gazi Kodzo, faces up to five years in prison. When the indictment dropped, Romain had been in prison on unrelated charges since July. Romain was the APSP’s secretary general until late 2018. They have since gone on to start another group, Black Hammer, which lost many of its young members in the summer of 2021 following the group’s attacks on other political groups. Romain’s attorney, Stacey Flynn, did not reply to Toward Freedom‘s inquiry as of press time.

Toward Freedom has reported on the FBI’s raid of the APSP’s properties, provided information on Regions Bank ending its 20-year relationship with the party, and covered the U.S. Department of Justice’s announcement of indictments as well as the recent arraignments.

Julie Varughese is editor of Toward Freedom.

Activists on the left, as well as radical U.S.-based organizations, came out yesterday against the indictments of three members of the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP), one former party member, and three Russian nationals for allegedly attempting to sow discord in the United States by working with Russia.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Tuesday, April 18, that a federal grand jury returned a “superseding indictment” charging the four people with:

…working on behalf of the Russian government and in conjunction with the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) to conduct a multi-year foreign malign influence campaign in the United States. Among other conduct, the superseding indictment alleges that the Russian defendants recruited, funded and directed U.S. political groups to act as unregistered illegal agents of the Russian government and sow discord and spread pro-Russian propaganda; the indicted intelligence officers, in particular, participated in covertly funding and directing candidates for local office within the United States.

The four charged include:

• Omali Yeshitela, a U.S. citizen residing in St. Petersburg, Florida, and St. Louis, Missouri, who serves as the chairman and founder of the APSP;
• Penny Joanne Hess, a U.S. citizen residing in St. Petersburg, Florida, and St. Louis, Missouri, who is chairperson of the African People’s Solidarity Committee;
• Jesse Nevel, a U.S. citizen residing in St. Petersburg, Florida, and St. Louis, Missouri, who is chair of the APSP’s Uhuru Solidarity Movement; and
• Augustus C. Romain Jr., aka Gazi Kodzo, a U.S. citizen residing in St. Petersburg, Florida, and Atlanta, who once served as secretary-general of the APSP and is a founder of the Black Hammer Organization in Georgia.

Repressing Africans in Struggle

Hess and Nevel are white solidarity members. Nevertheless, that an African organization was targeted has raised concerns.

Anti-imperialist African organization Black Alliance for Peace yesterday issued a statement pointing to the U.S. government’s history of repressing the African liberation struggle:

Not since the Palmer Raids of the early 20th century, nor since the indictment of W.E.B DuBois in 1951, or the confiscation of Paul Robeson’s U.S. passport during the anti-communist “McCarthyist” era, has there been such a hysterical response to African people asserting their rights and freedom of speech in the United States. This renewed attack against anti-imperialist Africans, framed within the absurd notion of “Russian influence,” comes as capitalism decays and U.S. global hegemony loses its hold on the world. The attacks on the APSP and the Uhuru Movement are part of a historical tendency to align African political activists with U.S. “adversary” states to marginalize African internationalism (including solidarity with Cuba and Palestine, for example) and to suppress Black radicalism.

It is also an assault on the efforts of Africans organizing against the violence and murders suffered at the hands of the U.S. state. Indeed, Africans do not need Russia to tell them they are suffering the brunt of violence in the heart of the U.S. empire!

Wayne State University professor Dr. Charisse Burden-Stelly noted her forthcoming book, Black Scare/Red Scare, points to the APSP raid of July 2022 to draw the connection between U.S. domestic anti-communist purges of the past and repression of activists today.

“It is no coincidence that an African socialist organization is being targeted,” she tweeted.

US charges 4 Americans, 3 Russians in election discord case

I start the epilogue of Black Scare/Red Scare with this case to discuss the resonances of those scares today. It is no coincidence that an African socialist organization is being targeted. https://t.co/SnVgP94m3N

— Dr. CBS (@blackleftaf) April 19, 2023

Interfering in Elections

The DOJ attempted to connect the charged activists with a Russian conspiracy to interfere in U.S. elections, beginning with the 2016 election of Trump.

“Russia’s foreign intelligence service allegedly weaponized our First Amendment rights—freedoms Russia denies its own citizens—to divide Americans and interfere in elections in the United States,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the DOJ’s National Security Division.

However, much evidence exists to show the United States interferes the most in other countries’ elections and democratic processes. Aside from invading 201 countries since the end of World War II, the United States deployed 64 covert operations to subvert governments around the world between 1947 and 1989, according to political scientist Lindsey O’Rourke. Meanwhile, political scientist Dov Levin’s work found the United States interfered in 81 elections between 1946 and 2000.

Attacking Activists

The APSP had been preparing for this moment since late December, when they received “strong indications” of indictments coming down in early 2023 after the FBI had raided the party’s properties in July 2022, as Toward Freedom had reported. Then the APSP announced last month that Regions Bank, a financial institution in the U.S. South, had closed the party’s accounts and withdrawn lines of credit. The APSP referred to that move as “U.S. economic sanctions” on Black community projects.

Freedom Road Socialist Organization also issued a statement that referred to more recent history of repression.

On September 24, 2010, the FBI raided seven homes of anti-war activists and the office of the Twin Cities Anti-War committee. All told, twenty-three activists were subpoenaed to a Chicago-based grand jury that claimed to be investigating “material support for terrorism.” As time went on, the FBI continued their attack on anti-war and international solidarity activists by targeting important veterans of the movement who worked with the Anti-war 23, including Chicano activist Carlos Montes in Los Angeles and Palestinian organizer Rasmea Odeh in Chicago. A national defense campaign defeated most of these attacks.

Toward Freedom Board Secretary and independent journalist Jacqueline Luqman commented on the danger for all activists who oppose U.S. global hegemony.

“Today it’s the APSP. Tomorrow it could be you and me,” she tweeted. “All you need to do is oppose US imperialist policy in Ukraine and Palmer Raids 2023 will be unleashed to silence you.”

Today it's the APSP. Tomorrow it could be you and me. All you need to do is oppose US imperialist policy in Ukraine and the Palmer Raids 2023 will be unleashed to silence you. #NoCompromiseNoRetreat https://t.co/E9qb3pQz1F

— Luqman Nation Media (@luqmannation1) April 19, 2023

Julie Varughese is editor of Toward Freedom.

Editor’s Note: The following is the writer’s analysis of Russia-Sudan relations.

Russia’s ambitious plans to establish a naval base in Sudan could soon be thwarted. The northeast African country is reportedly trying to “blackmail” Moscow by demanding a review of a deal allowing construction of a Russian naval facility on Sudan’s Red Sea coast.

In November 2020, the Kremlin announced plans to build a seaport technical facility in the city of Port Sudan, guaranteeing Russia’s first substantial military foothold in Africa since the former Soviet Union was dismantled. The two countries reached a deal that would allow Russia’s navy a 25-year lease in Port Sudan, housing up to four ships and 300 soldiers, in exchange for weapons and military equipment for the northeast African country.

But now, a Russian state news agency, RIA Novosti, reports Sudan wants to re-negotiate the deal. One Russian publication went so far as to call it “blackmail.” In exchange for providing the land for a naval base to Russia, Khartoum reportedly has asked Moscow to arrange payments to the country’s central bank during the first five years of the lease, with the option of extending the deal to 25 years.

The Kremlin has not yet responded to the proposal, although Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said the two countries’ militaries continue negotiations on the creation of a naval logistics base for Russian warships in the Red Sea. Sudan’s officials, on the other hand, strongly deny their country has been trying to “blackmail” Moscow.

“It is not true. This news is not true. This is groundless news. The Sudanese side is not asking for any payments in connection with the military base agreement,” said Onur Ahmad Onur, charge d’affaires of Sudan’s embassy in Moscow.

Whether or not Sudan really asked Russia for financial compensation, the Kremlin’s struggle to improve its positions in northeast Africa is unlikely to be an easy one. Back in June, it became obvious Russia could face many obstacles in its attempts to establish a material-technical support facility in the strategically important region located between the Gulf of Aden in the south and the Suez Canal in the north. Such a facility could provide material support in the form of ships and soldiers and technical support in the form of command, control, communication, computer and intelligence operations.

On June 1, Sudanese Armed Forces Chief of Staff Muhammad Usman al-Hussein announced the revision of the agreement. About three weeks later, the Sudanese Minister of Defense Yasin Ibrahim Yasin traveled to Moscow to discuss Russian-Sudanese military cooperation with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Shoigu.

In July, while Russia was preparing to ratify the agreement, Sudanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Mariam al-Mahdi arrived in the Russian capital. She said Sudanese lawmakers will “evaluate whether the agreement is a benefit to Sudan itself and the strategic goals pursued by Russia and Sudan.” She also pointed out the future of the deal will largely depend on a “positive solution to a number of issues on which Khartoum counts on Moscow’s understanding and support.”

In an interview with Russian state-owned news agency RIA Novosti, Al-Mahdi openly stressed Sudan needs Russia’s help regarding the country’s dispute with neighboring Ethiopia, which is building the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD)—a hydroelectric-power gravity dam on the Blue Nile River.

“Thanks to its good relations with Ethiopia, Russia can try to convince the Ethiopian side to listen to the voice of reason and come to an agreement that will not do harm to Sudan, as was the case when the dam was first filled,” Al-Mahdi said.

Khartoum fears Ethiopia’s apparent determination to fill the GERD would “threaten the lives of half the population in central Sudan.” In addition, the two countries have a decades-old border dispute, and some analysts claim Sudan and Ethiopia are on the verge of a wide-scale confrontation. It is worth noting Russia and Ethiopia signed a military cooperation agreement in July, and Kremlin officials claim the deal “does not have any destabilizing character.” However, Sudan recently seized Russian-made weapons—72 boxes of arms and night-vision binoculars—that were reportedly smuggled to Khartoum from Ethiopia. This was seen as an “attempt to destabilize the country.” It is entirely possible Russia is trying to balance between the two regional rivals, although Moscow could attempt to indirectly pressure Sudan to give the green light for the establishment of the Russian naval base in the Red Sea.

At this point, it remains uncertain if the Sudanese parliament will ratify the agreement on the Russian base in Port Sudan. Some Russian experts think the construction of a Russian military facility on the Red Sea is unlikely.

“Russia is not going to pay Sudan to host a base in Port Sudan,” said Dmitry Zakharov, head of the Eurasian Institute of Youth Initiatives. “Due to the unthinkable corruption in the African country, the Russian government has no desire to invest in such a project.”

Unlike the Kremlin, the United States seems willing to provide limited financial assistance to Sudan. On August 29, Sudan’s Ministry of Finance and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) signed an agreement for a $5.5 million development grant to support “democratic transition” and to promote economic growth. This is part of a total estimated amount of $200 million to be granted by 2024.

After the Sudanese transition government recognized Israel in 2020, the Trump administration removed Sudan in December from the U.S. list of “state sponsors of terrorism” and lifted U.S. sanctions. Sanctions normally prevent food, fuel and medicine from entering a country, harming ordinary people. Three months later, the two countries held an online Business and Investment Forum, and U.S. navy ships docked in Sudan for the first time in decades. Some Russian military experts believe the United States is pressuring Sudan not to allow Russia to open a naval base in the country, although such a facility could improve Khartoum’s position with neighboring Ethiopia.

Overall, it is Russia, rather than Sudan, that seeks to strengthen its geopolitical positions in the strategically important region. Thus, the coming days and weeks will show if Russia will adopt a more proactive approach regarding this sensitive issue. One thing is for sure: The naval base on the Red Sea would be just the first step in Russia’s ambitions plans to return to Africa, a region that has ceased to be in Moscow’s geopolitical orbit in the post-Soviet years.

Nikola Mikovic is a Serbia-based contributor to CGTN, Global Comment, Byline Times, Informed Comment, and World Geostrategic Insights, among other publications. He is a geopolitical analyst for KJ Reports and Global Wonks.