THE BALANTA FOUNDER OF THE AFRICAN UNION 6TH REGION CAMPAIGN

There has been a lot of appropriate outrage over the dismissal of Dr Arikana Chihombori Quao from her post as the African Union (AU) Permanent Ambassador in the United States. However, most people do not know that it was an American of Balanta origin that was the first to launch the African Union 6th Region Campaign in the United States.

AU credential 1.JPG

After arriving in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in late December 2002, Ras Nathaniel (born and raised in the suburbs of Chicago) registered with the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia Ministry of Information & Culture Press and Information Department as a journalist for the Rastafari Speaks newspaper.

Ras Nathaniel AU Credentials.JPG

With official media credentials, Ras Nathaniel now had access to the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), the African Union (AU) and the United Nations (UN). On February 3-4, 2003, Ras Nathaniel attended the 1st Extra-Ordinary Summit of the Assembly of the African Union in Addis Ababa and began issuing reports to the African Diaspora via the internet.  He was the only African American journalist in the room when the historic Article 3(q) was adopted that officially “invite(s) and encourage(s) the full participation of Africans in the Diaspora in the building of the African Union in its capacity as an important part of our Continent.” From this decision, the African Diaspora would become designated as the 6th Region of the African Union. Aware that Malcom X had also been an observer at the AU’s predecessor, the Organization of African Unity (OAU), Ras Nathaniel now felt an awesome responsibility to the African Diaspora, and particularly to the Rastafari community, to keep them informed of all things related to the African Union. At the final press briefing of the First Extraordinary Summit of the Assembly of the African Union, Ras Nathaniel asked South African President and AU Chairperson Thabo Mbeki to “comment on the kinds of proposals that were discussed in the brainstorming session concerning the inclusion of the African Diaspora in the African Union”. After meeting with the Rastafari community in Shashemane, Ras Nathaniel was mandated to draft the African Diaspora and Recommendations for the African Union letter. On February 25, 2003 it was delivered to President Thabo Mbeki and IRIE began conducting a Repatriation Census in the African Diaspora, a task that was originally given to Malcom X at the OAU. According to Malcolm X,

“One of the things I saw the OAAU doing from the very start was collecting the names of all the people of African descent who have professional skills, no matter where they are. Then we could have a central register that we could share with independent countries in Africa and elsewhere. Do you know, I started collecting names, and then I gave the list to someone who I thought was a trusted friend, but both this so-called friend and the list disappeared. So, I’ve got to start all over again.” (Jan Carew, Ghosts In Our Blood, p. 61)

“The 22,000,000 so-called Negroes should be separated completely from America and should be permitted to go back home to our African homeland which is a long-range program; so the short-range program is that we must eat while we’re still here, we must have a place to sleep, we have clothes to wear, we must have better jobs, we must have better education; so that although our long-range political philosophy is to migrate back to our African homeland, our short-range program must involve that which is necessary to enable us to live a better life while we are still here.” (Interview with Malcolm X, by A.B. Spellman, Monthly Review, Vol. 16, no.1 May 1964).

Thus, Malcolm X, along with John Henrik Clarke, wrote the following into the Organization of Afro- American Unity (OAAU) Basic Unity Program

 

i. Restoration: “In order to free ourselves from the oppression of our enslavers then, it is absolutely necessary for the Afro-American to restore communication with Africa . . . .

ii. Reorientation: “ . . . We can learn much about Africa by reading informative books . . . “

iii. Education: “ . . . The Organization of Afro-American Unity will devise original educational methods and procedures which will liberate the minds of our children . . . We will . . . encourage qualified Afro-Americans to write and publish the textbooks needed to liberate our minds . . . . educating them  [our children] at home.”

iv. Economic Security: “ . . . After the Emancipation Proclamation . . . it was realized that the Afro-American constituted the largest homogeneous ethnic group with a common origin and common group experience in the United States and, if allowed to exercise economic or political freedom, would in a short period of time own this country. WE MUST ESTABLISH A TECHNICIAN BANK. WE MUST DO THIS SO THAT THE NEWLY INDEPENDENT NATIONS OF AFRICA CAN TURN TO US WHO ARE THEIR BROTHERS FOR THE TECHNICIANSTHEY WILL NEED NOW AND IN THE FUTURE.

 

From that moment on Ras Nathaniel focused his efforts on conducting the Repatriation Census and became the unelected, grassroots representative of the African Diaspora, devoting himself to the fulfilment of the five-year plan for Ethiopian Millennium Repatriation.

On December 23, 2005, Ras Nathaniel and IRIE signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Western Hemisphere African Diaspora Network (WHADN) creating the AU 6th Region Education Campaign. On April 18, 2003, the African Union in conjunction with the Foundation for Democracy in Africa (FDA) and members of WHADN, announced plans for establishing technical definitions of the Diaspora and the process of effectively integrating the Diaspora into the organs and programs of the African Union, notably the Economic, Social and Cultural Council (ECOSOC). Members of WHADN and the AU delegation agreed that participants should become actively involved in this process by forwarding proposals thru the WHADN Secretariat to the AU Commission for consideration and taking ownership of the outcomes of adopted projects. It was stressed that WHADN is a network in which Diaspora organizations could freely mobilize and coordinate their interaction with the African Union on an equal basis, WHADN to serve as the “functional interface mechanism with the AU.” Among the first groups to submit a proposal to WHADN for consideration by the AU Commission was The Issembly for Rastafari Iniversal Education (IRIE). Recognizing that WHADN was “a functional interface mechanism with the AU” and “the first step of membership” in the AU 6th Region Diaspora Initiative mandated to coordinate events in 2006 to popularize the AU, Ras Nathaniel, seeking funding and more immediate and effective means towards Repatriation to Africa, sought to utilize this new mechanism to present to the African Union the Rastafari Repatriation Census Proposal for the Start of the Ethiopian Millennium (September 11,2007).

According to the proposal, “Based on results already obtained in three Repatriation Census Workshops, IRIE estimates that there is a minimum of 100 cities or locations with 100 people with various skill sets, representing a minimum of $300,000 per city plus equipment. That translates into Brain Gain of 10,000 persons and US $30 million in financial resources plus equipment available for repatriation. . . . By conducting a Repatriation Census, the African Union will immediately benefit from having a central skills technician resource database from which they could fill skills shortages in various sectors of the African Continent’s economy. . . . This proposal seeks to combine the mandate for African Union Educational Workshops with the mandate to develop a Central Diaspora Skills Resource Bank with the existing Repatriation Census Workshops being conducted by the Issembly for Rastafari Iniversal Education.” The proposal was approved and thus was born the African Union 6th Region 2006 Education Campaign with Ras Nathaniel as its Director.

Immediately after signing the MOU, from January 4 to 10, 2006, Ras Nathaniel traveled to Jamaica to strategize with the Rastafari community on that island. A plan was eventually approved to host a Rastafari Global Unity Conference in South Africa (Azania). On November 8th, Ras Nathaniel arrived in Azania and a group of Rastafari Elders gave him the name, “Siphiwe Baleka”.  On November 9, Ras Nathaniel, along with Ras Tekla Haymanot, Sister Yaa Ashantewaa, and Ras Gareth Prince, appeared on South African Broadcasting Company (SABC) TV Africa Live program to explain the Rastafari position.

Immediately after returning from Azania, Ras Nathaniel traveled to Honduras in November for the Central American Black Organization (CABO) 12th Assembly in La Ceiba Honduras as a member of the Pan African Organizing Committee (PAOC). In Honduras, Ras Nathaniel was a roommate of elder Dr. Pauulu Kamarakafego, CEO of the Pan-African Movement to the United Nations. Dr. Kamarakafego has served as a counselor, consultant, official and friend to Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyere, CLR James, Walter Rodney and various African liberation movements. Dr. Kamarakafego was responsible for organizing the 6th Pan African Congress in Tanzania in 1969. With Dr. David Horne of the PAOC, Ras Nathaniel made a presentation on the AU 6th Region Diaspora Initiative and the process for electing the twenty representatives to the AU’s Economic, Social and Cultural Council (ECOSOCC).

On January 6, 2007, at the request of the Pan African Community Coalition (PACC) and the Pan Afrikan Organizing Committee (PAOC), Ras Nathaniel was invited to the New York Town Hall Meeting to discuss and supervise the election of New York’s Diaspora Representatives to the African Union (AU). After his presentation, the town hall discussed the formation of the Community Council of Elders (CCE) that conducted the election on January 27th. 

March 31, 2007 Election Results for the African Union 6th Region for New York State http://nkwanta.tripod.com/id10.html?fbclid=IwAR1iDPhno6E_rauS7yslYJ1ihaNiwPL8PM9_bjXxxMUEVlMqDW2CLUqCIlY

March 31, 2007 Election Results for the African Union 6th Region for New York State http://nkwanta.tripod.com/id10.html?fbclid=IwAR1iDPhno6E_rauS7yslYJ1ihaNiwPL8PM9_bjXxxMUEVlMqDW2CLUqCIlY

ECOSOC email 2.JPG

With African Diaspora elections underway and spreading throughout the Diaspora, Ras Nathaniel then attended the African Union Grand Debate in Ghana in July as Coordinator for IRIE and Director of the AU 6th Region Campaign. At this event, there were many other representatives and observers from the African Diaspora. Ras Nathaniel’s main focus was on the AU 6th Region Diaspora Initiative, the elections for its representatives to ECOSOC, and the issue of citizenship for members of the 6th Region.

Ras Nathaniel was a vocal supporter of a continental passport and setting up passport bureaus in African airports that could efficiently issue a Pan African passport to AU 6th Region members upon arrival anywhere on the continent. 

AU credential 2.JPG
Pan African Passport.JPG

Finally, Ras Nathaniel, working with his friend, Ras Ikael Tafari, who was the Commissioner of Pan African Affairs for the Government of Barbados, helped to set the agenda for the Africa Diaspora Global Conference facilitated by the Republic of South Africa on behalf of the African Union, and jointly organized by the AU, CARICOM and the Government of Barbados, August 27-28, 2007. The context of the event was the Bicentennial Global Dialogue on “Slave Trade, Reconciliation and Social Justice.” Ras Nathaniel submitted his last-ditch proposal for $10 million funding from the governments in attendance, including Venezuela, Brazil and China, for the Ethiopian Millennium Repatriation and an emergency airlift of everyone that had completed Repatriation Census forms in a fashion similar to Operation Solomon, which, on Africa Day, May 25, 1991, airlifted 10,000 Ethiopian Falasha Jews to Israel, an effort kept secret by the military and organized by the American Association of Ethiopian Jews. To Ras Nathaniel, Rastafarians had every right to be repatriated to their spiritual mecca, Ethiopia.

Global Dialogue.JPG

The proposal was rejected, September 11, 2007 came and went, and with his Five-Year Plan now ending in failure, Ras Nathaniel disappeared. Fortunately, his effort, activities and documents have been documented and preserved in the 1,500-page, five volume set, Come Out of Her My People! 21st Century Black Prophetic Faith and Pan African Diplomacy.

On May 12, 2008, Ras Nathaniel legally changed his name to Siphiwe Baleka in order to honor his ancestors.

Today, Siphiwe has continued his educational ministry and focus on the OAAU Basic Unity point iii. Education: to “devise original educational methods and procedures which will liberate the minds of our children . . . to write and publish the textbooks needed to liberate our minds . . . . educating them  [our children] at home.” After receiving genetic testing results through African Ancestry on September 28, 2010, Siphiwe learned that his paternal DNA is a 100% match with the Balanta and his maternal DNA is a 99.2% match with Yoruba. For the past 9 years, Siphiwe began to study his paternal Balanta history, but struggled since Balanta has, from their origin, intentionally remained a stateless society without kings, chiefs, or leaders. As a result, most of their history has not been written down or studied. After collecting all the scattered references to the Balanta people in various European travel diaries, and re-reading African history through the eyes of the Balanta worldview, Siphiwe completed the first Balanta world history textbook, in three volumes, entitled Balanta B’Urassa, My Sons: Those Who Resist Remain. Using haplogroup migration studies and books by Cheik Anta Diop, Yoseph Ben Jochannan, John Henrik Clark, Credo Mutwa, Chancellor Williams and many other great African historians, scientists and intellects, Siphiwe was able to trace his and Balanta ancestral history from their earliest migrations down the Nile, to Wadi Kubbaniya from 42,000 BC to 18,500 BC, their further migration from modern day Sudan down the Nile into Nubia, Upper and Lower Kemet, and their migration across the continent from the Nile Valley across to their current homeland in Guinea Bissau. Using this history, Siphiwe then re-interprets world history from the viewpoint of Balanta at its center. Now, Siphiwe is working with other leaders in the genetic ancestry movement to develop a New Pan African Movement in the Diaspora that is based on the new knowledge of ancestry that had been denied the descendants of people captured, kidnapped and enslaved during the trans-Atlantic trade in African peoples. At the forefront of this movement is the House of Ancestry on which Siphiwe is a board member.

 

Siphiwe Baleka is an example of what one person with a Pan African education and Pan African vision can achieve. Whether it is his personal life, his business life, his athletic career, his publishing and media career, or his career as an artist ( he has sold many paintings), Siphiwe Baleka has internalized and manifested both excellence and the desire to uplift “his” people by any means necessary.

For the complete story of the untold history of this Balanta’s efforts at the African Union, purchase the five volumes of Come Out of Her, My People! 21st Century Black Prophetic Faith and Pan African Diplomacy

Come Out Of Her Volume 1 Cover.JPG