Activists from across the United States joined together for the African Peoples' Summit held December 11 in Washington, D.C. / credit: Julie Varughese

Role Media Plays in U.S.-Africa Relations: Third Panel of African Peoples’ Forum

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; executive director of Community Movement Builders and co-founder and host at 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.

Photo credit: Abena Disroe-Morris

‘U.S.-Africa: How the Peoples’ Struggles Connect’: Second Panel of African People’s Forum

Paul Sankara, consultant, activist and brother of assassinated Burkina Faso leader Thomas Sankara; Eugene Puryear, community organizer and host at BreakThrough News; Erica Caines, a Black Alliance for Peace Coordinating Committee member, co-editor of Hood Communist and founder of Liberation Through Reading; and Nebiyu Asfaw, co-founder of both the Ethiopian American Development Council and the #NoMore Movement discussed connecting African peoples' struggles across the continents at the first-ever African Peoples’ Forum.

Speakers of three panels that took places December 11 at the first-ever African Peoples' Forum in Washington, D.C. / credit: Abena Disroe-Morris

‘Economic Development As a Human Right’: First Panel of African Peoples’ Forum

Journalist and activist Elias Amare, U.S./Africa Bridge Building Project Director Imani Countess, American Ethiopian Public Affairs Committee (AEPAC) organizer Elias Hiruy, and medical doctor and #NoMore Movement co-founder Simon Tesfamariam discussed economic development as a human right at the first-ever African Peoples' Forum. This was organized to counter the Biden administration's U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit.

Tigray People's Liberation Front fighters arrive June 29, 2021, in Mekele, the capital of Ethiopia's Tigray region. On left: TPLF Chairman Debretsion Gebremichael. On right: Ethiopian President Abiy Ahmed winning the Nobel Peace Prize in October 2019 / photo illustration: Toward Freedom

U.S.-Backed TPLF Breaks 5-Month Truce By Resuming War in Northern Ethiopia

Dismissing the Africa Union-led peace negotiations, the Tigray People's Liberation Front called for Western intervention in Ethiopia before resuming a war with the Ethiopian state on August 24. This ended a five-month truce with Ethiopia’s federal government, weeks after envoys from the United States and European Union visited its base. Pavan Kulkarni reports for People's Dispatch.