Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika Statement to the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent
EARTH DAY 53: WITCHCRAFT, THE NEW AFRIKAN THREAT TO US NATIONAL SECURITY AND THE MERCY OF DESTINY
Exactly 53 years ago today, on April 14, 1971 at 14:37 Central Standard Time I entered the earth at Longitude 88 W 15 Latitude 41 N 45.
That means that the vital life force energy housed within my body has completed 53 revolutions around the sun today.
My parents Jeremiah Nathaniel Blake and Yolanda Marie Harris were victims of U.S. state sanctioned ethnocide and thus did not know their Balanta and Yoruba ancestral lineages. Thus, at the moment of my birth I received none of my ancestral birth rites and rituals, my placenta was not buried under the family sacred tree to invoke continued nurturing and protection outside of my mother’s womb and instead, my parents were tricked by a dock(tor) who destroyed the placenta that served as the instrument and symbol of my spiritual protective shield and made them sign a berth/birth certificate of manifest certifying that I had been delivered from my mother’s sovereign waters into the jurisdiction of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, thus making me stock in a Maritime Admiralty (UCC) banking scheme. I became capital with a value calculated by the amount of my future labor and held as collateral to secure the debt which the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA owes to international bankers. In this way I was subjected to perpetual servitude as authorized by Pope Nicholas V on June 18, 1452 in his Apostolic Edict known as the Dum Diversas that authorized in the name of Jesus Christ the invasion of my ancestral homeland, the seizing of all our lands and property, and the enslavement of my people. According to 31 U.S.C. § 3128, as a result of the birth certificate,
“a finding of death made by an officer or employee of the UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT authorized by law to make the finding is sufficient proof of death to allow credit in the accounts of a Federal reserve bank or accountable official of the Department of the Treasury in a case involving the transfer, exchange, reissue, redemption or payment of obligations of the Government, including obligations guaranteed by the Government for which the Secretary of the Treasury acts as transfer agent.”
THUS, DESPITE PRESIDENT LINCOLN’S EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION AND THE 13TH AMENDMENT, I WAS BORN INTO SLAVERY.
Like Moses in Egypt, I received the most privileged education in the world that culminated with graduation from Yale University. Nevertheless, I was never taught the nature of my perpetual servitude by Apostolic Decree and my true, dehumanized status on planet earth. Rather, I was lied to and taught that I was free, that I was a citizen of the United States of America, the most powerful nation on earth, and that this was something I should be proud of.
Knowledge of the lie caused such psychological and emotional trauma that after 21 revolutions around the sun, I tried to kill myself. Unsuccessful, I left Yale University and sought truth. I traveled around the earth seeking to understand the mystery of life and the means to free myself and my people from their perpetual servitude. In this way, traveling around the earth that was traveling around the sun, I became a REVOLUTIONARY. I then received a REVOLUTIONARY education from members of the New Afrikan Independence Movement (NAIM) and especially by the Rastafari Movement.
A few days ago, I came to seven conclusions and posted them on Facebook which alarmed many people. I wish now, on my 53rd Earth Day, to take some time to explain each of the conclusions.
1) no one has integrity, vision and power - you can have one or two but not all three
As I learned from Neely Fuller Jr., author of The united-independent compensatory code/system/concept: A textbook/workbook for thought, speech, and/or action, for victims of *racism (white supremacy), if anyone had all three, they would have produced justice on planet earth by now. And what is justice? It is the condition on planet earth where 1) no one is mistreated; and 2) those who need the most help receive the most help.
2) there is no moral authority
By this I mean, there is no institution with the power to provide justice. My primary occupation since leaving Yale and becoming REVOLUTIONARY has been pursuing justice through the international legal order. I was re-educated and trained in political education classes at the NAIM Nkrumah Washington Community Learning Center (NWCLC) and legal classes by the remnants of the NAIM NCBL/Fred Hampton Community College of Law and International Diplomacy. I discovered that at the founding of the United States of America and continuing until today, I was excluded from the statement, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” I tried to pursue these inalienable rights in the United States and was arrested several times for trying to sleep in abandoned buildings (trespassing), possessing two pounds of a green herb bearing seed of its kind (felony cannabis possession) and defending my life and liberty (resisting arrest). I defended myself in court each time and each time I lost. At about this time I joined the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (NCOBRA) meeting at the Washington Park Field House in Chicago, IL. When the 1st Session of the 111th Congress passed S. CON. RES. 26 acknowledging “the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery and Jim Crow laws;” and “apologizes to African-Americans on behalf of the people of the United States, for the wrongs committed against them and their ancestors who suffered under slavery and Jim Crow laws” it also included the following disclaimer: “NOTHING IN THIS RESOLUTION— (A) AUTHORIZES OR SUPPORTS ANY CLAIM AGAINST THE UNITED STATES; OR (B) SERVES AS A SETTLEMENT OF ANY CLAIM AGAINST THE UNITED STATES.”
When my great, great, great, great, great grandfather Brassa Nchabra was trafficked as a prisoner of the Dum Diversas war and enslaved in South Carolina in the 1760’s, THE SOUTH CAROLINA SLAVE CODE OF 1740: AN ACT FOR THE BETTER ORDERING AND GOVERNING [OF] NEGROES AND OTHER SLAVES IN THIS PROVINCE decreed:
"V. If any slave who shall be out of the house or plantation where such slave shall live or shall be usually employed, or without some white person in company with such slave, shall refuse to submit or to undergo the examination of any white person, it shall be lawful for any such white Person to pursue, apprehend and moderately correct such slave; and if such slave shall assault and strike such white person, such slave may be lawfully killed."
Two hundred and eighty years later, my cousin Jacob Blake, was shot seven times in the back in Kenosha, WI for refusing to submit to the white police officer Rusten Sheshkey. The state sanctioned legal genocide and ethnocide of the South Carolina slave code of 1740 had been replaced by “PROTECTED BY QUALIFIED IMMUNITY”. After eight generations, nothing had changed. Me and my people were still subjected to the perpetual servitude of the Dum Diversas Apostolic Edict now codified in United States law and practiced throughout the United States. I lived with the real prospect that any day I could lose my life at the hands of racist police officers in the United States.
As I could find no justice in the local, state or federal courts for the harms done to my family and me for eight generations, I concluded there was no moral authority in the U.S. Legal System. Dr. Y.N Kly encouraged me to study international law, I discovered such things as the Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. In 1997, at Dr. Kly’s request, I attempted to submit under the UN 1503 procedure a Petition of the Nkrumah-Washington Community Learning Center on Behalf of their Members, Associates and Afro-American Population Whose Internationally Protected Human Rights Have Been Grossly and Systematically Violated By the Anglo-American Government of the United States of America and Its Varied Institutions. I thought I could simply state our grievances and a fair-minded guardian of moral authority at the UN, would see to it that justice was served. Of course, that did not happen. Nothing happened. Since then, I have submitted my family’s grievances for state-sanctioned ethnocide at the Inter American Commission for Human Rights, the only jurisdiction when an individual can bring such reparations claims against the United States. My petition was dismissed without explanation. I have confronted the U.S. State Department concerning state-sanctioned ethnocide against the Balanta people it enslaved in the U.S. Fifth Periodic Review under the ICCPR at the US Permanent Mission to the UN. Nothing came of that. I have tried to bring the case on behalf of all Afro Descendants, and particularly those identified as New Afrikan citizens of the Republic of New Afrika, into the world court by requesting an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice only to discover that the entire system is set up to prevent me and all subjugated African people suffering alien domination, from accessing the highest court on planet earth.
Meanwhile, a few weeks ago I submitted a Request for Arbitration at the Court of Arbitration for Sports for the perjury, fraud, discrimination and theft committed by the Guinea Bissau National Olympic Committee, the Guinea Bissau Ministry of Sport and World Aquatics (the international governing body of aquatic sports) that prevented me from competing in the Olympics in Tokyo and prevents me from competing in the upcoming Olympics in Paris and has resulted in the loss of $300,000 in payments, endorsements and potential sponsorships, the loss of a Hollywood movie deal, and much anguish resulting from becoming impoverished and unable to see my sons after three years. My 49-page Request for Arbitration, meticulously documented, was erroneously rejected.
With good-faithed, thoroughly documented efforts to seek justice, I have exhausted all local, state, domestic and international legal jurisdictions. This is why I have concluded there is no moral authority, at least on planet earth. If I am incorrect, I challenge anyone to inform me where I can go today and have justice in my case enforced. Here
3) so-called leadership is defunct
Despite decades of reporting and millions of pages submitted to United Nations organs, no one with power and authority has saw fit to initiate a case at the International Court of Justice seeking reparations for the victims of the Dum Diversas war and the resulting 100 million deaths and trafficking of 12 million prisoners of war, and the resulting Maangamizi suffered by African people. No one even saw fit just to request an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice concerning the fundamental legal questions pertaining to the perpetual servitude effected by the Dum Diversas declaration of war.
The African Union has no positive sovereign power and therefore is not and can not produce justice.CARICOM has even less power.
By virtue of #1) no one has integrity, vision and power, I do not see anywhere where competent individuals or groups are issuing clear, step-by-step instructions leading to effective coordinated actions that result in the cessation of the perpetual servitude effected by the Dum Diversas apostolic edict and subsequent war. There are individuals and groups which are indeed taking action, but it amounts to nothing more than a rocking horse - there is movement but no forward motion. We are left in the same place at the end of it.
Because of the United States war conducted against New Afrika (see below), New Afrikan Leadership has been completely neutralized and/or discredited.
4) Unity of African people based on Ubuntu is not possible now
Perhaps I should have said “unobtainable” instead of “possible” because of course, “anything is possible.” I need not recount all the current examples of dis-unity among African people at home and abroad. I will just give just one main reason why I have concluded that the unity of African people based on Ubuntu is not possible now.
In 2003, I was at the African Union when it amended its Constitution with the Article 3(q) amendment 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 that time until now, I have championed this cause and have been met with nothing but hypocrisy, excuses, denials, misdirections, and ignorance at all levels from African Union officials to my African brothers and sisters in the streets struggling to survive at home and abroad. After twenty-years, Article 3(q) has not been realized, we are not embedded in Au structures, and the AU 6th Region has not organized itself under a single Ubuntu 6th Region High Council. NONE of the substantive components that have been discussed at every conference, symposium and summit have materialized simply because #3 so called leadership is defunct and unable to reconcile the divisions among us despite decades of Pan African teaching and preaching. About a week ago, this point was brought home to me when Pan African elder Baba Baye told me that he had a conversation with John Henrik Clarke in 1993 in which our greatest Pan African Historian said that he was seriously worried that there was only a 50 year window of opportunity for Pan Africanism and that if we didn’t get it together and truly unify and put into place effective Pan African government (A United African States) and appropriate institutions, we will be defeated without prospect of recovery. The point was that we African people are not acting with the appropriate sense of urgency. We are so fractured and intentionally miseducated and distracted that, with our current defunct leadership, Unity of African people based on Ubuntu is unobtainable now. The key word here is now.
5) integrity is no protection against misfortune
My father taught me the power of personal excellence as a protective defense against misfortune. Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie taught me that,
“To embark successfully in a career involving leadership demands a courageous and determined spirit. Once a person has decided upon his life’s work and is assured that in doing the work for which he is best endowed and equipped he is filling a vital need, what he then needs is faith and integrity, coupled with a courageous spirit so that no longer preferring himself to the fulfillment of his task he may address himself to the problems he must solve in order to be effective. . . . Leaders have to submit themselves to a stricter self-discipline, and develop a more exemplary moral character than is expected of others. To be first in place one must be first in merit as well. . . . How noble and great a deed is the act of sacrificing one’s wealth, land and money, to one’s needy community instead of for selfish purposes! . . . Your conviction to help the country must be demonstrated in your determination to work. To do that, you must, instead of working for personal ends, toil for the community and common results. . . . We remind you, therefore, that you utilize all your thoughts and knowledge to the ultimate objective of moral satisfaction and the pride of your countrymen, regardless of your personal interest. Your job takes care of you and there will not be any need to concern yourselves with your personal affairs.”
As I stated, my primary occupation since leaving Yale and becoming a REVOLUTIONARY has been seeking justice. My swimming career, interestingly, has become directly a part of this. Think Arthur Ashe and Muhammad Ali. However, in spite of my demonstrated personal excellence acknowledge by friends and foe alike, I have suffered great misfortune and become impoverished. This has happened to many before me, like Marcus Garvey and John Henrik Clarke and countless others unnamed or unknown. I now understand that it doesn’t matter how developed I become or how much integrity I have, or how well I perform my duty to my people: integrity has NOT protected me from misfortune. In fact, it could be said that it has created misfortune. As Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie I himself said, “In every significant event in history you will find a courageous and determined leader, an inspiring goal or objective, and an adversary who sought to spoil his efforts.” My adversaries have been having the upper hand since the moment I was born into perpetual servitude.
6) to succeed in this world I must become someone I don’t want to be
The key word here is “THIS” world…. Nelson Mandela once said, “When a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw.”
I was raised to have a patient and gentle, non-violent spirit. I was taught to be forward looking, not to make decisions based on strong emotions, especially anger. I was taught to respect everyone, hurt no one, play fair, and that in case of conflict and violations against me, I could appeal for and expect to receive justice. As I have concluded that there is no moral authority and I have exhausted appeals to all levels of judicial systems, I am forced now either to take justice into my own hands or abandon the quest for justice. Since this world respects power, I with little power am at a disadvantage. Since this world respects money, I with little money am at a disadvantage. Since this world respects violence and war, it is against my nature to conduct them. Dr. Kly explained my predicament well:
"The revolutionary individual does not come to be so because that individual chooses to accept or expound revolutionary ideology or actions but rather because certain keenly sensitive and intelligent individuals perceive societal injustices to such a point that they are trapped in a situation wherein their personal morality and rationality is threatened by having to accept the injustices perceived. The result is the Franz Fanon concept of mental contradictions arising within the individual to the point whereby the rationality-saving way is to 'act out' against oppression and injustices. The only way out of the dilemma then is national liberation or revolutionary change. The revolutionary individual thus is nothing more than the product of environmental factors. He or she is a natural outgrowth of a situation wherein the peoples' ideals and the societal written law differ too greatly. After attempting to straddle these contradictory laws (supported by hope of reform), the revolutionary individual then finds himself mentally unable to envision a reform that is adequate to bridge the gap between the societal law and structures that are out of step with the desires and needs of the people. He thus declares the former unjust and unjustified, and falls back on the ideals of the masses to sustain his humanity and rationality. In this way, he is an automatically-produced potential intellectual, statesman or soldier of the people. According to Franz Fanon, if such an individual refused to reject the oppressor's institutions, he is likely to suffer from an unresolved mental conflict, or from some form of serious psychosis. The essential understanding is that a revolutionary individual is the natural product of a situation wherein severe collective oppression dominates, which he cannot accept, and he has no choice other than to become revolutionary or mentally ill, whether he realizes it or not."
I have been both intellectual and statesmen for my people. I must now become a soldier. When I say that to succeed in this world I must become someone I don’t want to be, I mean that I must become someone who is now willing to use all the military arts, including espionage, camouflage, combat, etc. in order to secure the justice denied to me by this world. It’s either that or continue to suffer indignity resulting in mental illness or psychosis, OR, LEAVE THIS WORLD.
7) personal excellence is no match against witchcraft
In my attempt to escape the perpetual servitude of the Dum Diversas Apostolic Edict, I left the United States and took up residence in my ancestral homeland of Guinea Bissau with the intention of reconnecting to my Balanta culture and divesting myself of my Western, colonial mindset, habits and behavior. Immediately, I suffered misfortune upon misfortune and I have come face to face with the Balanta reality of Befera - Witches who gain fortune and elevate themselves above their peers by harming those around them. Had someone launched a witchcraft attack against me? Was I the victim of djanfa, the evil eye? It was starting to feel like it. I needed, I wanted, my Balanta ancestors to step in and help me, protect me. In Balanta fashion, I consulted a diviner or healer called “sik”. I then asked, “Since I came to Bissau in May, I have suffered great misfortune. What is the nature of it?” The b’sika answered, “You have a lot of things from your past that have attached to you. You attempt to do great things, and right at the moment that you are near to achieve them, they get blocked.” The b’sika then said that I needed to cleanse myself of these blockages that were clinging to me.” I did what he prescribed. I also went to two Balanta villages and consulted my ancestors with the help of the village elders. In each instance, I was told that all I would do would succeed and that I would be protected. Yet the misfortunes continued. I was betrayed by the people closest to me. I was betrayed by my sport. I was betrayed by my government. People stole money. People stole laptops. Access to funding was blocked. Access to justice was blocked. High level conspiracies continued to ruin my swimming career and my ability to earn a living. And nearly everyone familiar with my situation in Guinea Bissau said it was clearly the case of witchcraft. Was this because my placenta was destroyed and I received no spiritual protection against this sort of thing, and now that I was in my ancestral homeland, it was open season on me to be the target of Befera - Witches who gain fortune and elevate themselves above their peers by harming those around them? Christians told me I should pray to the very same Jesus Christ whose authority and church was used to reduce our family to perpetual servitude. Muslims, who unsuccessfully tried to enslave my family before the Christians, told me to pray to Allah. I chose to consult my ancestors the best way I knew how. But I was totally unprepared for this experience. Once again, I was brought to the point of suicide - WANTING TO LEAVE THIS WORLD.
On Monday, April 8, 2024 I received the straw that broke the camel's back. While teaching swim classes and fulfilling my national duty to the Republic of Guinea Bissau to develop a national swimming program - this is actually mentioned in the legislation granting my citizenship - a young man who was supposed to be working security at the pool, went into my back took my wallet, and stole 140,000 XOF (US $240). He was eventually caught by the police and the money was returned. I was allowed to interrogate the young man and when asked, “Why did you steal my money”, he said “The spirit of a dead girl entered his body and forced him to take the money and bring it to the baloba (sacred tree) along with three human heads.” The boy was visibly terrified. Apparently neither the Christian God, the Muslim God, nor my ancestors could prevent witchcraft from harming me.
THE UNITED STATES WAR AGAINST NEW AFRIKA
Pope Nicholas V - a high level befera - issued the Dum Diversas Apostolic Edict and declaration of war in the name of Jesus Christ reducing my people and myself to perpetual servitude. It granted authority to seize all our possessions. Christendom then enslaved my family in the North and South Carolina colonies. We suffered dehumanization and ethnocide. In the book, 𝑹𝒆𝒑𝒂𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒔 𝒀𝒆𝒔! 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑳𝒆𝒈𝒂𝒍 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑷𝒐𝒍𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒍 𝑹𝒆𝒂𝒔𝒐𝒏𝒔 𝑾𝒉𝒚 𝑵𝒆𝒘 𝑨𝒇𝒓𝒊𝒌𝒂𝒏𝒔 - 𝑩𝒍𝒂𝒄𝒌 𝑷𝒆𝒐𝒑𝒍𝒆 𝑰𝒏 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑼𝒏𝒊𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝑺𝒕𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒔 - 𝑺𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝑩𝒆 𝑷𝒂𝒊𝒅 𝑵𝒐𝒘 𝑭𝒐𝒓 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑬𝒏𝒔𝒍𝒂𝒗𝒆𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝑶𝒖𝒓 𝑨𝒏𝒄𝒆𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒔 𝑨𝒏𝒅 𝑭𝒐𝒓 𝑾𝒂𝒓 𝑨𝒈𝒂𝒊𝒏𝒔𝒕 𝑼.𝑺. 𝑨𝒇𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝑺𝒍𝒂𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚, former President of the Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika (PG-RNA), Imari Obadele, stated
"The central proposition of this paper and the draft bill for reparations which is annexed hereto is that our enslavement in the Thirteen Colonies and the United States was a matter of war - war conducted against Afrika under authority, initially, of the British government and the legislatures of the Thirteen Colonies and ultimately under authority of Clause One, Section 9 of the First Article of the United States Constitution. . . . It was a war conducted against Afrikan people - who grew into a nation, an oppressed nation, between 1660 and 1860 - within the United States under British and Colonial authority and, ultimately, the authority of Clause Three, Section Two of Article Four of the U.S. Constitution."
The war and slavery continued in the United States after the Emancipation Proclamation and 13th amendment under new forms. In 1964, the Campaign for New Afrikan Liberation intensified the war with the United States of America. In response, the United States revised its war strategy. On August 25, 1967, the United States government launched a new CounterIntelligence Program against “Black Nationalists” calling the “Hate Groups” instead of freedom fighters seeking justice. According to the The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) memo revising the United States’ war strategy,
“The purpose of this new counterintelligence endeavor is to expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit or otherwise neutralize the activities of black nationalist organizations and groupings, their leadership, spokesmen, membership, and supporters, and to counter their propensity for violence and civil disorder. The activities of all such groups of intelligence interest to this Bureau must be followed on a continuous basis so we will be in a position to promptly take advantage of all opportunities for counterintelligence and to inspire action in instances where circumstances warrant. The pernicious background of such groups, their duplicity, and devious maneuvers must be exposed to public scrutiny where such publicity will have a neutralizing effect.”
The policy was then expanded on March 3, 1968 in another FBI secret memo that listed the goals of the war against the New Afrikan people:
1. Prevent the COALITION of militant black nationalist groups. In unity there is strength; a truism that is no less valid for all its triteness. An effective coalition of black nationalist groups might be the first step toward a real “Mau Mau” [Black revolutionary army] in America, the beginning of a true black revolution.
2. Prevent the RISE OF A “MESSIAH” who could unify, and electrify, the militant black nationalist movement. Malcolm X might have been such a “messiah” he is the martyr of the movement today. Martin Luther King, Stokely Carmichael and Elijah Muhammed all aspire to this position. Elijah Muhammed is less of a threat because of his age. King could be a very real contender for this position should he abandon his supposed “obedience” to “white, liberal doctrines” (nonviolence) and embrace black nationalism. Carmichael has the necessary charisma to be a real threat in this way.
3. Prevent VIOLENCE on the part of black nationalist groups. This is of primary importance, and is, of course, a goal of our investigative activity; it should also be a goal of the Counterintelligence Program to pinpoint potential troublemakers and neutralize them before they exercise their potential for violence.
4. Prevent militant black nationalist groups and leaders from gaining RESPECTABILITY, by discrediting them to three separate segments of the community. The goal of discrediting black nationalists must be handled tactically in three ways. You must discredit those groups and individuals to, first, the responsible Negro community. Second, they must be discredited to the white community, both the responsible community and to “liberals: who have vestiges of sympathy for militant black nationalist [sic] simply because they are Negroes. Third, these groups must be discredited in the eyes of Negro radicals, the followers of the movement. This last area requires entirely different tactics from the first two. Publicity about violent tendencies and radical statements merely enhances black nationalists to the last group; it adds “respectability” in a different way.
5. A final goal should be to prevent the long-range GROWTH of militant black organizations, especially among youth. Specific tactics to prevent these groups from converting young people must be developed.
The war was then updated and expanded on March 17, 1978 with National Security Memorandum 46. The President directed that a comprehensive review be made of current developments in Black Africa from the point of view of their possible impacts on the black movement in the United States. The review considered “Appropriate steps to be taken inside and outside the country in order to inhibit any pressure by radical African leaders and organizations on the U.S. black community for the latter to exert influence on the policy of the Administration toward Africa.” The review also stated,
“An occurrence of the events of 1967-68 would do grievous harm to U.S. prestige, especially in view of the concern of the present Administration with human rights issues. Moreover, the Administration would have to take specific steps to stabilize the situation. Such steps might be misunderstood both inside and outside the United States. In order to prevent such a trend and protect U.S. national security interests, it would appear essential to elaborate and carry out effective countermeasures.
RECOMMENDATIONS
In weighing the range of U.S. interests in Black Africa, basic recommendations arranged without intent to imply priority are:
1. Specific steps should be taken with the help of appropriate government agencies to inhibit coordinated activity of the Black Movement in the United States.
2. Special clandestine operations should be launched by the CIA to generate mistrust and hostility in American and world opinion against joint activity of the two forces, and to cause division among Black African radical national groups and their leaders.
3. U.S. embassies to Black African countries specially interested in southern Africa must be highly circumspect in view of the activity of certain political circles and influential individuals opposing the objectives and methods of U.S. policy toward South Africa. It must be kept in mind that the failure of U.S. strategy in South Africa would adversely affect American standing throughout the world. In addition, this would mean a significant diminution of U.S. influence in Africa and the emergence of new difficulties in our internal situation due to worsening economic prospects.
4. The FBI should mount surveillance operations against Black African representatives and collect sensitive information on those, especially at the U.N., who oppose U.S. policy toward South Africa. The information should include facts on their links with the leaders of the Black movement in the United States, thus making possible at least partial neutralization of the adverse effects of their activity.”
It has now become clear that the war against my family and my people was continued by the United States government through a clandestine style of warfare utilizing espionage, sabotage, propaganda, and psychological operations in preparation for direct, overt military engagement that it had begun with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in World War II and continued under the title, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Because of the post-World War II rise in New Afrikan political consciousness and empowerment that culminated with the Black Liberation Movement and the March 28-31, 1968 National Black Government Conference which issued the Declaration of New Afrikan Independence and established the Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika (PG-RNA), the New Afrikan Independence Movement was perceived by the United States (oppressor state) as a direct proxy threat controlled by the COMINTERN (international communism). A mass movement of the former-slave descendant population underwritten by an armed New Afrikan-nationalist insurgency whose above-ground face was Malcolm X, constituted a military threat that could not be tolerated, and that required a military solution. US (oppressor state) law and purported legal ethics underlying its “state persona” prohibited using military forces for domestic policing (Posse Comitatus Act, etc.). Of more importance, a significant aspect of suppressing and destroying the “Black Nationalist’s” movement was the need for creating and maintaining the public perception and belief that the conflicts of interests were merely domestic issues with political solutions. This was necessary both for dissuading international recognition of New Afrikan national identity and struggle, as well as undermining and marginalizing slave-descendant popular support for New Afrikan Independence mobilization. Overt general military application was contrary to these goals. Solving this dilemma began with militarizing domestic policing. The development of SWAT teams and other police special operations concepts and capabilities was established. Additionally, the United States (as oppressor state) media propaganda narrative mis-identifies, defines and describes “African-Americans” in the context of “domestic policy” matters in order to prevent an New Afrikan national identity from taking root while actually treating them as a national security threat under foreign policy.
Thus, in fact (law) and practice, matters affecting the political existence of New Afrikans are calculated and acted upon as foreign policy and the United States now recognizes and institutionalizes a condition of permanent “counterrevolution” as a national security requirement. It’s a matter of national security because a politically independent and assertive New Afrikan social order inherently undermines the continued dominance and power of the established Anglo political construct, both domestically and internationally. Under the doctrinal theme of ‘continuity of government, the United States, as the oppressor-state, undertook the establishment of infrastructure designed to suppress rebellion against the “authority of the United States”. The focus of this national security doctrine is on domestic insurgency and the need to preemptively neutralize it. This has been a matter of policy beginning with, and since, the 1950 Internal Security Act (McCarran Act). War was declared on New Afrika, and has escalated successively in New Afrikan national territory and New Afrikan communities outside the national territory through the militarization of domestic police and infusion of special operations tactics, techniques and procedures in black communities under the Campaign Code name: War on Poverty; through the institutionalization of COINTELPRO concept and infusion of federal control and resources into State and local police agencies and prosecutorial offices at the tactical engagement level (Multi-jurisdiction Task Force) Campaign Code name: War on Drugs; through formalization of COINTELPRO policy goals and legalization of procedures into official National Security Doctrine, and establishment of a permanent, integrated agency management system - Department of Homeland Security/ U.S. Northern Command - Campaign Code Name: War on Terror (Countering Violent Extremism). The result of these wars have been the incarceration of millions of black people, a legally-permissible form of slavery under the U.S. 13th Amendment, including the specific imprisonment of New Afrikan political dissidents and leaders and the siphoning off of New Afrikan wealth into the prison industrial complex. Thus, there were more black slaves in US prison than there were slaves in 1850 before the start of the civil war.
A memorandum issued issued on April 27, 1971 - thirteen days after I entered the earth in this body - captioned “Counterintelligence Programs” listed seven sustained and overarching operations involving collaboration with local police to establish special units, with FBI “assistance” and “influencing” street gangs and criminal enterprises through infiltration and undercover activities. Street gangs and drug-gangs became the proxy forces employed to effect and control de-politicization of the youth in the communities with special police elements created to “combat” them (the public narrative was to “combat crime” but the special police function was to manage it.) Hence, the drug-task force, gang task force, street-crimes task force, gang intelligence units, etc. While the stated targets of under-cover infiltration were gangs and criminals, the actual practice of operations was directed at all organizations and group activity of New Afrikans, either through placement of an agent, or development of an asset (confidential informant). The language used for indoctrination narratives directed at police personnel and organizations characterized the “threat” as “Black nationalist hate groups,” however in practice, the policy of infiltration, disruption and suppression included any and all groups advocating for “Black empowerment,” “equal justice,” or any other socio-political interest of New Afrikans.
It is important to understand that, the oppressor-state regime decision-makers and controllers have never had any illusions of expectation that the idea of New Afrikan national independence will just evaporate in the near term. Therefore, it has been planned from the beginning to prosecute this war to completion which ensures eradication of even the mere notion of a national identity among the African-slave descendant population. To say that “war” is being waged against New Afrikan people is not rhetoric, nor is it imaginary. Again, the COINTELPRO long term goals are:
Prevent unity
Prevent rise of a leader
Identify and neutralize [warriors]
Alienate the concept of nationalism from the people
Prevent nationalism from embedding in youth and future generations
These goals are no different than those of King Ramses the Second in Egypt who was advised to eradicate all potential threats to his throne and came up with the idea of killing all male newborns born at that time. In a small village, southern Egypt, there was a pregnant woman who feared for the safety of her newborn son, Moses, and so “God” instructed her with the idea to let her son, Moses, go with the tide of the Nile with the promise that God will keep him. The mother was in profound anguish that she would do that to her son, but she believes in God and His word of protection and watching over Moses. Moses is then given the best education at the “Yale” of Egypt and decides to rise up a nation and lead them out of so-called captivity. I’m not going to go into the historical analysis of the story, but I make note of it here because most people are familiar with the story and its meaning.
On January 2, 1971 the Black Panther Black Community News Service Volume V, #27 (Berkeley, CA) declared 1971 as the year of the youth and depicted “The Year Of The Youth” issue, with back cover artwork by Emory Douglas depicting a young girl handling a rifle with the caption “Death To The Fascist Pigs”. One hundred and two (102) days later I entered the earth in this body. Thirteen days later the FBI issued its “Counterintelligence Programs” update memo involving collaboration with local police to establish special units, with FBI “assistance” and “influencing” street gangs and criminal enterprises through infiltration and undercover activities.
ON JANUARY 27, 1997 THE NKRUMAH-WASHINGTON COMMUNITY LEARNING CENTER WAS RAIDED BY THE CHICAGO POLICE, THE BUREAU OF ALCOHOL, TOBACCO AND FIREARMS (ATF), THE SECRET SERVICE AND SPECIAL GANG TASK FORCE. I WAS DETAINED AND EVENTUALLY RELEASED.
On Friday August 6, 1999 I was ticketed for parking on city property, driving without insurance and failure to produce a driver's license. I was also arrested and charged with 839 grams of cannabis sativa, a violation of Illinois Criminal Statute 720550/4 of the Cannabis Control Act.
On January 7, 2024 I was sworn in as the Minister of Foreign Affairs for the Interim Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika.
And in just a few hours, I will be boarding a plane for Geneva, Switzerland to attend the third session of the Permanent Forum on People of Afrikan Descent (PFPAD)and continuing my campaign to bring the case of Afro Descendants and New Afrikans before the International Court of Justice. The former President of PFPAD, Ms. Epsy Campbell Barr, in her July 21, 2023 letter to me stated, “Dear Siphiwe. I have carefully read your letter addressed to me, in my capacity as Chairperson of [PFPAD].... I would like to indicate that your request will be brought to the attention of the plenary at the next session of the plenary. . . . As president of this space, I have requested the incorporation of this item in the agenda of the next meeting . . . I also inform the High Commissioner of the United Nations of this. . .”
And thus it is, at this moment, on the occasion of the completion of 53 revolutions around the sun and the start of the 54th, I am contemplating my life and my destiny. Last night, I hosted a Zoom Town Hall meeting with the Coordinator of the 9th Pan African Congress. Tomorrow I will be engaging the international community as the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of New Afrika. The United States government has considered this a national security threat and has tried to prevent it for the past 56 years, 7 months and 22 days.
It is not delusions of grandeur which afflict me, it is the very real understanding of the responsibility I have been entrusted with and the weight of the forces allied against me, both supernatural witchcraft and official U.S foreign policy which identifies me as a national security threat. I am now, more than ever, at the mercy of destiny.
BBHAGSIA Dafana Institute Quebo Project Update
BBHAGSIA Raises $4,000 for the Dafana Institutue/Quebo School Project
Exactly one year ago, BBHAGSIA introduced Daniel Nabicamba, the NGO-QUITACARE and the Dafana Institute. At that time BBHAGSIA successfully fundraised over $5,000 to launch the Dafana Institute which has been up and running and teaching students Monday through Friday. Last year at this time, we were planning our first visit to Quebo and published pictures from the construction achieved by February 16, 2023.
In January of 2024, BBHAGSIA and NGO-Quitacare submitted the Quebo School Development Project upon reuqest of the US Embassy office in Guinea-Bissau. As the proposal states,
“In response to the community need in Quebo, Tombali Region, South of Guinea-Bissau, NGO QuitaCare started building a school using its own funds and that of the community and friends, including the “American Brothers”of the Balanta B’urassa History and Genealogy Society in America (BBHAGSIA). . . .To support the Quebo School Development Project, NGO-Quitacare through its promoter Daniel F. Nabicamba recruited the help from BBHAGSIA to establish the Dafana Institute, an English-learning school in the busiest section of Bissau, as part of BBHAGSIA´s Decade of Return Program. Under the program, DNA-tested descendants of the various ethnic groups of Guineans living in America as a result of the Trans-Atlantic trafficking and enslavement of their ancestors are returning to their ancestral homeland. Due to the language barrier, it was determined that a major priority for those African Americans of Guinea-Bissau ancestry needed “guides” who could speak English and Guinean Kriol and the various ethnic languages in order to facilitate their acceptance and reintegration into Guinean Society. These guides would serve as translators and as ambassadors during visits to villages throughout the country. The income generated from Dafana Institute would be used to help finance the construction and operation of the school in Quebo. In return Quebo would become a host of Decade of Return visitors, providing opportunities for them to leave Bissau and travel to the off-neglected Tombali region for people-to-people micro-development. In this way, a strong relationship would be nurtured between African American citizens of Guinea-Bissau dissent and communities in the south and particularly in the community in Quebo.”
In February 2024, the Decade of Return hosted BBHAGSIA Member Felicia B on her first visit to her ancestral homeland. Felicia was escorted by BBHAGSIA President Siphiwe Baleka and NGO-Quitacare President Danial Nabicamba to the Balanta Village of Tchokmon that has “adopted” BBHAGSIA members. There, Felicia took part in the BBHAGSIA tradition and she received her Balanta name, Abebenan.
Abebenan escorted by BBHAGSIA President Siphiwe Baleka to pay homage to BBHAGSIA Spiritual Founder, Ngadesa Tchokmon).
Upon return, Abebenan sent the following message,
“I wanted to receive your blessing and support in leading this specific project to free up some of your time to raise funds for all other projects you have allowing me to work in conjunction with BBHAGSIA by leading this initiative.”
When she launched the GoFundMe campaign, she wrote,
“NGO-QUITACARE continues to work with the Balanta B'urassa History and Genealogy Society in America (BBHAGSIA) to fund various projects for Dafana Institute in Bissau; specifically teaching english to locals to guide DNA-tested descendants of the various ethnic groups in Guinea-Bissau living in America as a result of the transatlantic slave trade. This is how I came to meet Daniel and work with NGO-QUITACARE.”
We are happy to announce that with Abebenan’s help, BBAGSIA has been able to raise and transfer $4,000 for the Quebo School Project. It is an example of the Lineage Restoration Movement’s model of development. As I explained it in a Whats app forum for government officials and activists who attended the Accra Reparations Conference,
“I'm a champion of economic liberation for Africa and the role the diaspora can play. But economic investment follows NATURALLY after the stong ancestral re-connection is made. Africa needs rural development, not high-end luxury resorts and coffee shops. My experience as a leader in the lineage restoration movement is that when people take the African Ancestry DNA test and find out WHO they come from, then they eventually come to visit. When they come to visit, they LEAVE THE CITY to go reconnect with one of their ancestral villages and when they go to the village, the SEE AND FEEL the need, and then they return and start doing fundraising to meet the needs of the village. This is exactly what happened just a few weeks ago with our last client. So we need to use the framework of LINEAGE RESTORATION that I have been promoting and demonstrating.”
DEFENDING THE INTERIM PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF NEW AFRIKA DURING THE SPECIAL ELECTION
The Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika was founded on March 31, 1968. Both the current Interim President Krystal Muhamad and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Siphiwe Baleka (who is the President of the Balanta B’urassa History and Genealogy Society in America), are both descendants of the Balanta who were captured from their ancestral homeland (modern day Republic of Guinea Bissau) and trafficked to the Americas where they suffered chattel enslavement and U.S. state sanctioned ethnocide. The Balanta are known as “those who resist” and it is no coincidence that the two have risen to the leadership of the New Afrikan Independence Movement which is aiming to conduct a plebiscite for self determination.
On Wednesday, March 13 59 ADM (after the death of Malcolm X), Siphiwe Baleka, sent an email to the RNA email list entitled REFLECTIONS Re: PGRNA SPECIAL ELECTION VOTING LOCATIONS. (see below). The message was described by one person as his “usual competent and compassionate description of what has happened and where we stand as a ‘dueling PG-RNA’". Indeed, his intention was reconciliatory and he invited open comments. In response, Asinia Lukata Chikuyu sent the following message entitled BURNING BRIDGES within the Revolutionary Movement that stated in part,
“Can we afford to burn bridges among our small conscious/revolutionary community? Creating a rogue/second government, the interim republic of new afrika, is burning bridges and fits right into the Willie Lynch Syndrome. . . . .”
Then, on Thursday, March 14, Shujaa Alkebulan sent the following message “PCC Response to the "Interim Government”
“a few disgruntled citizens of the Republic of New Afrika (RNA) began patching together an "Interim government.” They are doing so by copying the name, symbols, and general formats of the very Government they claim they are breaking away from. Stated more bluntly, these citizens are forging a counterfeit Government in an attempt to pass it off as the historically authentic, and duly-elected, Government founded on March 31, 1968 — the Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika (PG-RNA). It seems they seek to legitimize their efforts through illegitimate means. From the beginning, these disgruntled citizens chose to work outside of New Afrikan Law, and have deceptively projected the false impression that what they are doing is legal. The truth is, what they're doing is not only illegal under New Afrikan Law but also unethical and without substance. . . . The duly-elected People's Center Council calls on all RNA citizens to not only beware of this group and their deceptions, but to join us in denouncing their counterfeit "Interim Government"; its preceding "People's Convention"; and its toxic leadership which has set out to fool as many people as they can.”
BBHAGSIA President Siphiwe Baleka’s name was then listed as one of “those publicly associated with this ‘Interim Government’”. It is because narratives matter that he wrote the document below for all to read, but also for posterity’s sake, since there is a concerted effort from the above to distort the truth with false and negative propaganda.
For the record, the “Interim Government” was not an attempt to “break away” from the PGRNA or create a “rogue/second government”. Neither was it “illegal, unethical and without substance” as will be seen from my personal testimony below.
The Interim Government was the product of an electoral and constitutional crisis created by a failed PG-RNA and a sham election.
New Afrikan citizens stepped in with the Code of Umoja to ensure continuity of the legitimate PGRNA. There was never an attempt to set up an alternative or second government but only an attempt to save the one government black people in America have. It is not very much different than what is occurring in Haiti right now where the people demand the removal of the unelected Acting Prime Minister who is running the country by decree. The people got fed up and are now in the process of setting up an Interim Transitional Government for Haiti. That is not a rogue/second government - it is the proper re-establishment of Haitian self determination and the Haitian government. As long as it is led by a social contract accepted by all stakeholders among the Haitian people, it is a legitimate government. Likewise the New Afrikan People’s Convention and the establishment of the Interim Government.
People may disagree and have different opinions, but the level of animosity, pompousness, vitriol, slander, hypocrisy, negative pathology and self-righteousness from some individuals claiming to be patriotic New Afrikan citizens is alarming and should be exposed and corrected. Siphiwe Baleka believes that a fair reading of his testimony will show this and, in particular, his participation in the Interim Government as Minister of Foreign Affairs and serving as the Chief Justice of the People’s Court, is neither unethical nor without substance.
REFLECTIONS Re: PGRNA SPECIAL ELECTION VOTING LOCATIONS
FREE THE LAND!
I write to you all as a conscious New Afrikan Citizen. The fundamental problem of New Afrikans is POWERLESSNESS. The agreed solution is A SOVEREIGN NATION. The function of national and local government units is TO WIN SOVEREIGNTY FOR THE NATION! i.e. FREE THE LAND!
We all know that a regular PG-RNA election was held last November that suffered from charges of voter suppression and other irregularities that resulted in just 4 certified districts out of 30+ voting. It was seriously contested that the election was NOT free and fair and no adequate explanation or resolution of the various charges were given. As a result, New Afrikan people held a Convention and was given a mandate to establish an Interim government whose primary concern would be to hold a proper free and fair election, much like the mandate given yesterday in Haiti to establish a transitional government. Currently, the PG-RNA is faced with the problem of "dueling PG-RNA's" that has divided the active New Afrikan population and discouraged many others from getting involved.
The intent of the upcoming Special Election was to correct the defects of the regular election from last November in hopes of having broad participation that could end the "dueling PG-RNA" crisis. YOUR participation in the election will determine if this can happen. I understand that there are many fundamental issues and grudges (for lack of a better word) and perhaps even vendettas..... How will we move past this to WIN SOVEREIGNTY FOR THE NATION? As long as there is a write-in option on the ballot, all New Afrikans can feel that their voice will be counted and their voice heard. We expect a substantial turnout of voters at the voting locations and the voice and will of New Afrikan people will be given. But what will be the result after the vote? Apathy won't help us. Dueling PG-RNA's, as a dialectical process, can only help us if the result is synthesis or a more developed, more advanced understanding of the PG-RNA. The special election could be a means to synthesis. Or not. Ultimately, however, it is not the Hegelian/Marxist European concept that governs this - rather, it is the African principle of Ubuntu. The sad fact is that, outside of the PG-RNA, there is no entity focused on WINNING SOVEREIGNTY FOR THE NATION. There is no organized nationalist entity or voice in the current reparations movement and discussion. This can change if the PG-RNA becomes stronger, and that can only happen within a few weeks with a large and broad voter turnout for the special elections.
Just like the world is talking about how to solve the problem in Haiti and form a transitional government that will lead to a strong, popularly supported government in Haiti, I'd like to hear from PGRNA veterans on this thread their thoughts about the upcoming Special Election and/or the prospect of reconciling the dueling PG-RNAs...
Siphiwe Baleka, writing as a New Afrikan citizen.....
The United Nations Permanent Forum of People of African Descent (PFPAD) 3rd Forum Denies Sponsorship for AfroDescendant Activist Requesting Advisory Opinion from the ICJ
SEND BBHAGSIA PRESIDENT SIPHIWE BALEKA TO THE UN PERMANENT FORUM ON PEOPLE OF AFRICAN DESCENT THIRD SESSION!
March 11, 2024 - The Secretariat of the United Nations Permanent Forum on People of African Descent (PFPAD) informed Mr. Siphiwe Baleka, who serves as the President of the Balanta B’urassa History and Genalogy Society in America (BBHAGSIA) and was recently appointed as the Interim Minister of Foreign Affairs for the Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika, that his request for financial assistance to attend PFPAD’s 3rd Session was denied. The announcement stated,
“we regret to inform you that your application for financial assistance was not successful. The selection process was extremely competitive, owing to a very high volume of applications and few seats available for financial support, while also taking into account geographic and gender considerations in the selection process.”
The decision is both puzzling and disappointing. On October 27, 2022, the PFPAD Secretariat announced,
“We are pleased to inform you that you have been selected to be supported to participate in the first session of the UN Permanent Forum of People of African Descent, scheduled to take place in Geneva, Switzerland from 5-8 December 2022.”
At that first PFPAD session Mr. Baleka, made a satement from the floor on behalf of the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (NCOBRA). He made a second statement representing BBHAGSIA on behalf of Afro Descendant people in which he stated,
“we call on this Forum to vigorously request an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice on our status as prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention as well as our right to conduct plebiscites for self determination including the right to secede from the jurisdictions of colonial successor states in the Western hemisphere and form our own independent governments.”
After invoking the PFPAD mandate to request the “preparation and dissemination” of information from UN organs, which would include the International Court of Justice (ICJ), Mr. Baleka sustained a campaign to hold PFPAD accountable to the people of African Descent and this necessary legal action for global African reparatory justice. The campaign included a A MANDATE FROM THE AFRO DESCENDANT PEOPLE ISSUED TO THE PERMANENT FORUM ON PEOPLE OF AFRICAN DESCENT TO REQUEST AN ADVISORY OPINION FROM THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE ON THEIR STATUS AS PRISONERS OF WAR UNDER THE GENEVA CONVENTION signed by 256 supporters from around the world, many of them delegates to the PFPAD 1st session including a letter of support from H.E. Ambassador Arikana Chihombori Quao.
Mr. Baleka made a second STATEMENT TO THE 2ND SESSION OF PFPAD: MANDATE TO REQUEST AN ADVISORY OPINION FROM THE ICJ that was followed by AN OPEN LETTER TO EPSY CAMPBELL BARR IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING THE CLOSE OF THE 2ND SESSION OF THE PERMANENT FORUM ON PEOPLE OF AFRICAN DESCENT. This resulted in PFPAD President Epsy Campbell Bar Agreeing to sign a Request for an Advisory Opinion from the International Court of Justice on the Status of Afro Descendants Enslaved in the Americas and PFPAD President Epsy Campbell Barr’s Official Response to the Mandate Requesting an ICJ Advisory Opinion in which the PFPAD President stated, ““I have requested the incorporation of this item in the agenda of the next meeting, to proceed to analyze it jointly. I also inform the High Commissioner of the United Nations of this, . . .” To assist in the joint analysis, on November 20, 2023 Mr. Baleka launched an Input Form for lawyers and jurists in order to gather their opinions on the legal questions that have been submitted.
In addition, A Letter Urging PFPAD President Epsy Campbell Bar to Immediately Fulfill the Mandate Given by Civil Society to Request an Advisory Opinion from the International Court of Justice was sent to PFPAD that stated,
“We, therefore, takE this opportunity to reaffirm our commitment to this ICJ initiative and to make absolutely clear that our Brother Siphiwe Baleka of the Balanta B’urassa Society must represent us at the highest level of engagement with the ICJ.”
“It is therefuore puzzling,” said Mr. Baleka, “that the PFPAD would discontinue its sponsorship of BBHAGSIA and refuset to respect the wishes of Afro Descendant people who want me to represent them at the PFPAD third session in this most important matter. Given the incredible amount of work I have done to push this issue which is now being considered independently by both the AU and CARICOM, on the one hand, and given the fact that I am pursuing this as a citizen of Guinea Bissau, one of the poorest countries in Africa with NO participation from any other NGO at PFPAD, I fail to see how I am not among the most competitive, most qualified and most deserving of such sponsorship. I can only suspect the decision is political.”
SEND BBHAGSIA PRESIDENT SIPHIWE BALEKA TO THE UN PERMANENT FORUM ON PEOPLE OF AFRICAN DESCENT THIRD SESSION!
Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika Advises African Union Legal Reference Group
Free the Land!
The African Charter on Human and People's Rights, Article 20 Section 3 states, "All peoples shall have the right to the assistance of the States Parties to the present Charter in their liberation struggle against foreign domination, be it political, economic or cultural."
The Accra Proclamation on Reparations calls for the formation of a Legal Reference Group to provide “legal advice on the question of reparations, including best practice on the law, practice and litigation of the reparation’s agenda.” It also calls for the Amplification of marginalized voices in the reparatory justice movement and Increased role for the United Nations in the Exploration of legal and judicial options for reparations.
Today, the Interim Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika delivered to the office of the AU Commission For International Law (AUCIL) a 𝐁𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐅 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐀𝐔 𝐋𝐄𝐆𝐀𝐋 𝐑𝐄𝐅𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄 𝐆𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐏 𝐎𝐍 𝐑𝐄𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒 (see attached) regarding the New Afrikan Independence Movement's struggle for liberation and the Request for an ICJ Advisory Opinion that is on the Agenda for the next session of the UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent.
We look forward to assisting the AU Legal Reference Group in this matter.
By any means necessary,
Siphiwe Baleka,
Minister of Foreign Affairs
A Balanta Homecoming: Abebenan Visits Tchokmon Village In Guinea Bissau
February 8, 2024 Tchokmon, Guinea Bissau -
Another Balanta descendant returned to the Tchokmon tabanca in what has become a ritual pilgrimage for the members of the Balanta B’urassa History and Genealogy Society in America (BBHAGSIA). Felicia B. made the pilgrimage after visiting the slave museum at the port of Cacheu yesterday.
“One of the most powerful physical reactions I have ever had. It was physical and it was familiar,” said Felicia of her visit where her maternal ancestor most probably last saw her homeland. “Coming to Tchokmon means I am able to reconnect with the culture I thought I lost because of the TransAtlantic trafficking. I now want to share my experience to encourage others to make the pilgrimage.”
“Ancestor Day is probably the most important part of the Decade of Return tour as it is the moment one goes to the village to participate in the village life and reconnect with one’s ancestral culture,” said BBHAGSIA President. “We have been coming to Tchokmon and following in the footsteps of the first Balanta to return, Richard Curtiss, who received the name Ngadesa Tchokmon and was subsequently laid to rest in the tabanca.”
Once again Tchokmon feasted on “cumbe” and after, Felicia received the name “Abebenan” which means “we want it like this” referring to the good vibes of the homecoming.
The next group tour is scheduled for May 14-21. For more info go to: https://www.repatbissau.com/en/tour-mai
The Interim Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika Applies to Renew Observer Status at the African Union
See full letter of application below
February 3, African Union, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia - On the 21st anniversary of the historic African Union Article 3(q) Ammendment 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.”, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Interim Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika (PG-RNA), Siphiwe Baleka, announces that on February 1, the PG-RNA applied at the African Union Commission through its Bureau of the Chairperson to renew the Observer Status that was originally granted to Malcolm X and the Organization of Afro American Unity, (OAAU), the precursor to the current PG-RNA.
“This is a historic occasion for all the ancestors who struggled to defend their freedom and sovereignty since Pope Nicholas V declared total war and invaded our ancestral homelands and trafficked our ancestors across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas as prisoners of war . Through the process of ethnogenesis in the Spanish and Anglo Saxon colonies that eventually became the United States of America, we, the admixture of various African peoples, also developed into our own New Afrikan Nation. Since self determination is enshrined as a fundamental principle of universal law, it is appropriate that the African Union recognize the Republic of New Afrika and assist in its final liberation just as it did for the liberation struggles on the continent and culminating with the release of Nelson Mandela and the establishment of the post-apartheid government of the Republic of South Africa,. We are now preparing to conduct a New Afrikan & Afro Descendant Plebiscite for Self Determination as the necessary procedural step in our campaign,” said Minister Baleka.
ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALIST TERRORISM COMES TO BALANTA PEOPLE IN TINKA VILLAGE, BISSORA SECTOR, OIO REGION, NORTHERN GUINEA BISSAU
January 23, 2024 - Republic of Guinea Bissau
NÔ RAIZ COLLECTIVE OPEN LETTER TO THE PRESS
“Coletivo NÔ RAIZ, is a civil entity, focused on the restoration of African knowledge and ancestral values, non-profit, non-partisan, constituted for a period indeterminate, whose foundation is based on the emancipation and affirmation of Africanity.
The aforementioned Collective became aware through the social network of the Guinea-Bissau National Television (TGB) of a divisive video with precepts of Islamic fundamentalism. It is worth mentioning that (TGB) covered the conversion ceremony to Islam for the people of the Tinka village, Bissorã sector, Oio Region, northern Guinea-Bissau.
The ceremony was carried out by members of the Dhawa Barriga do Povo Foundation, on the occasion, the president of the foundation Mohamed Gomes stated that the objective of his organization is essentially to transform the village of Tinka into a Muslim community and those who oppose the Islamic faith will be expelled from the village, even he stressed that they will build the mosque, water holes, also monitor the food and contribute to ensuring that men and women have sustainability funds in the name of Allah.
In view of the above, Coletivo Nô Raiz expresses its deep displeasure with the messages given by the president of the Dhawa foundation, taking into account that it harms seriously the Constitution of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau with regard to secularism and at the same time the principles of good coexistence postulated in different diverse communities throughout the national territory.
We would like to remind the chairman of the Dhawa foundation that the construction of the Nation State of Guinea-Bissau emerged in the context of diversity, which is why the charter Magna adopted a plurality of religious and spiritual manifestations, in this order of idea it is necessary to encourage respect for different cosmoperceptions, in which there is reciprocal consideration between Bissau-Guineans who practice the most different forms of religious and spiritual practice, therefore, logic does not prevail patent of the colonizer that is based on expulsion, humiliation and division, in this way, No citizen can be expelled from their place of birth for not accepting the Islamic faith or any other religion.
Therefore, the NÔ RAIZ Collective comes through this note to denounce the indecent and hostile behavior of the president of the Dhawa Barriga do Povo foundation and hold him responsible for any incident. We also hold Guinea-Bissau Television (TGB) responsible for broadcasting the matter contrary to the press law that puts national unity at risk.
Therefore, we appeal to the Order of Presidents of Journalists and Journalists Unions and Social Communication Technicians (SINJOTECS) to take action against media bodies that disseminate information that incites violence and that also violates the press law.
Likewise, we appeal to the Government of Guinea-Bissau, Guinean League of Rights Human Rights (LGDH), Association of Young Promoters of Human Rights (AJPDH) and the Imams to intervene in the matter.
NÔ RAIZ repudiates all actions of religious fundamentalism that jeopardize good coexistence among Bissau-Guinean citizens.
Below is the attached video.”
On Wednesday, January 24th, Balanta B’urassa History and Genealogy Society in America President Siphiwe Baleka attended the Coletivo NÔ RAIZ press conference to express solidarity on behalf of the estimated 30,000 Balanta descendants in the United States. Information provided by the Collective indicates that the Islamic Organization instructed the converts to expel from their homes or villages all those who did not agree to convert.
“Because they refused to convert, they are being threatened with expulsion from the tabanca. They are forcing converted brothers to expel their brothers who refused to do so,” Mr. Pereira said.
“We applaud the Collective’s strong stance against the religious supremacy, religious cleansing and terrorism being brought against the Balanta people in the Tinka village. It amounts to terrorism and it is a violation of human rights and international law. The Balanta Society in America stands with you in opposing this evil and we will use our networks to attract international attention,” said Mr. Baleka.
After the press conference, arrangements were being made to visit the village in a few days. Already, several Balanta representatives have traveled to the region to investigate.
NÔ RAIZ COLLECTIVE press conference, January 24, 2024.
Siphiwe Baleka with Carlos Peirera (right), Coordinator of Coletivo NÔ RAIZ”
Siphiwe Baleka with Ncanande Ca
On Wednesday morning, January 25, Carlos Peirera was scheduled to appear on the national television program Bom Dia Guinie. However, minutes before the live interview, TGB suspended the program. It should be noted that earlier this year, the President of the Republic, Umaro Sissoco Embaló, dismissed the Managing Director of TGB, journalist Tengna Na Fafe, and replaced him with the new Director General of TGB, Dr. Amadú Djamanca who took office just two days prior on January 23.
Is the President of the Republic, Umaro Sissoco Embaló CONNECTED TO THE Dhawa Barriga do Povo?
While there is no evidence connecting the President to the Dhawa Barriga do Povo Foundation, the fact that his hand-picked national TV Director canceled the interview with Mr. Pereira, raises suspician. Why is the President protecting terrorists?
First, we need to understand some aspects of his background. Embalo is a member of the Fulani ethnic group who studied social and political science in Spain and Portugal.During his service in the military, he trained in National Defense Studies at the National Defense Center of Spain, and underwent further studies on National Security in Brussels, Tel Aviv, Johannesburg, Japan and Paris. A reserve brigadier general, he retired early in the 1990s and and launched an investment fund set up by the then Libyan government. etween 2016 and 2018, he serves as Prime Minister under President Jose Mario Vaz. At the time of the elections, 47-year-old Embaló favoured wearing a red-and-white Arab keffiyeh headdress. During the election run-off, Embaló formed alliances with the other defeated candidates, including the outgoing President Vaz, to win 53.55 percent of the votes.
It is important to remember how the President came into office. According to the BTI Guinea Bissau Country Report 2022,
“The outcome of the presidential election, which eventually took place in November and December 2019, was highly contested. Former Prime Minister Umaro Sissoco Embaló of the pro-Vaz Movement for Democratic Change (MADEM-G15) emerged victorious from the elections. Meanwhile, the PAIGC argued that the elections were manipulated and took the case to the Supreme Court. Following the confirmation of the results by the electoral commission, Embaló declared himself president in February 2020. That way,
Embaló bypassed both the Supreme Court and the parliament. The army secured the ceremony by deploying a significant number of soldiers.
Gomes and the PAIGC have described this as a putsch. Although the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) ultimately recognized Embaló as president, many international actors such as the European Union only “took notice” of the takeover without formally recognizing Embaló. Fourthly, after Embaló’s self-inauguration, troops invaded the Prime Minister’s Office while Embaló sacked Gomes. Gomes fled to the French embassy, then stayed at the U.N. headquarters in Bissau. The same day, Embaló nominated Nuno Gomes Nabiam (Assembly of the People United–Democratic Party of Guinea-Bissau, APU-PDGB) to be the new prime minister. Gomes and the PAIGC questioned the legitimacy of Embaló and Nabiam.
The army also occupied other state institutions, including state-owned radio and TV stations, the Supreme Court, and the parliament, as well as the home of leading PAIGC officials and former government members.
The brief interim presidency of Speaker of the Parliament Cipriano Cassamá (PAIGC) ended when Cassamá resigned following alleged threats by the army. Intimidation and repression have increased.”
Two years ago journalist Eduardo Campos Lima reported that Bishop José Lampra Cá, a priest in Guinea-Bissau, received death threats after he posted critical comments about President Umaro Sissoco Embaló on social media on January 2, 2022. Lima warned,
“That is an unacceptable attempt of intimidating and silencing people with a critical view of the government. They [Embaló and his supporters] want to implant an authoritarian and absolutist regime, so they have difficulties to deal with discordant opinions,” Bubacar Turé, the Bissau-Guinean League of Human Rights Vice President, told Crux.
Turé accused Embaló of human rights violations against journalists, members of civic organizations, and religious leaders.
“He is waging war against everybody. He is totally isolated now, that is why he attempts to manipulate people from his ethnicity, the Fulani, and from his religion, Islam. But only small segments support him,” he said.
About 45 percent of the 2 million Bissau-Guineans are Muslim and 22 percent are Christian. Turé said that the country has a religious atmosphere of tolerance and that Embaló will not succeed in his effort to create inter-faith conflicts.
“He tried to manipulate Islamic organizations after the bishop’s comments, with the intention of making them publish a statement against the Church. But they refused to do so. Only a small group did it,” Turé said.
Tamba said that the Catholic Church has a great moral authority in the country, something that displeases the President.
“By attacking a bishop or threatening a priest, he thought he would be able to silence us. But that is not true,” the priest said.
The priest added that Embaló, who once compared himself to the Philippine leader Rodrigo Duterte – notorious for his zero tolerance on crime policies and the object of several accusations of human rights violation – will not be able to consolidate a dictatorial regime in Guinea-Bissau.
“But he will keep trying to do so. His tactics is dividing to conquer,” Tamba said.
As ethnic Fulani, Embaló is the first Muslim to occupy the presidential office. At his inauguration, attended by only two foreign representatives, the ambassadors of Gambia and Senegal, Sissoco Embalo vowed to be president of all "regardless of their ethnicity or religion." The new President stated “I have no role model, I admire no one,” and that his governing style is that of "Embaloism", which he defines as "order, discipline, and development", asserting that "there is neither small state nor small president".. Filipino Rodrigo Duterte , a populist leader who has distinguished himself since his election in 2016 by serious human rights violations in the name of the fight against drug trafficking and the defense of national security. “In three months, he put an end to many institutionalized practices” , says President Embaló. One of the first acts of the President Embaló was ordering the installation of CCTV surveillance cameras across the country.
Indeed, the reign of President Embaló has seen increased attacks on the media, as documented by the Committee to Protect Journalist (CPJ). On March 12, 2021 in the capital, Bissau, five armed men in plain clothes attacked and tried to abduct Adão Ramalho, a reporter for the local broadcaster Radio Capital FM, while he was covering the return of exiled opposition leader Domingos Simões Pereira. The men beat Ramalho with their rifles, punched and kicked him, and tried to shove him into an unmarked vehicle, he said. He resisted, and bystanders intervened and pulled him away from the attackers. Previously, on March 9, a group of four unidentified men abducted, robbed, and beat journalist António Aly Silva in Bissau, as CPJ documented at the time. Silva told CPJ that he suspected the attack may have been linked to a recent article he had written criticizing the administration of President Umaro Sissoco Embaló.
On July 21, 2021, a Guinea-Bissau Coast Guard officer assaulted and detained Emerson Gomes, a presenter and trainee journalist at Djan-Djan Community Radio in Bubaque, a town in the country’s Bijagos archipelago, accusing the outlet of spreading false news.
On February 8, 2022, a group of about four unidentified men fired guns at the headquarters of privately owned Radio Capital FM, a critical outlet that covers politics and social issues in Bissau, the capital, and then broke into the office and ransacked it. The attackers, some in military uniforms and others in civilian clothes, shot and destroyed broadcasting equipment throughout the office. The station often reports critically on the government of President Umaro Sissoco Embaló, and that morning had hosted a call-in show for listeners to comment on the country’s failed February 1 coup attempt.
President Embaló’ dissolved the National Assembly in May 2022 after falling out with lawmakers, describing the legislature as a "space for guerrilla politics and plotting".
On October 10, 2022, armed men in police uniform arrived at privately owned Rádio Galáxia de Pindjiguiti in Bissau to arrest Tiano Badjana, the station’s acting director. The incident followed the station’s broadcast of a news report that day about the disappearance of a large amount of drugs seized in a police operation that implicated the Public Order Secretary of State, Augusto Kabi.
On November 29, 2022, a group of men including the head of security for Guinea-Bissau’s president abducted Marcelino Intupe from his home and assaulted him. Intupe, a lawyer and political commentator for the privately owned broadcaster Radio Bombolom, had criticized a rally attended by Tcherno Bari, the head of the president’s security force.
In a January 9, 2023 letter, the Ministry of Media ordered the privately owned Radio Capital FM to cease broadcasting immediately - the only outlet to have its license revoked under the pretext of not paying licensing fees.
The above, by no means exhaustive, demonstrate President Embaló’s dictatorial intolerance of free speech and political dissent and opposition. On January 8, 2024, President Embaló ordered the use of hot water and tear gas on peaceful protestors. BBHAGSIA President Siphiwe Baleka was detained and had his cell phone seized..
Then, on January 16, Botche Cande, in violation of the Constitution, prohibited all public demonstrations. Two days later, Decade of Return Coordinator Diana Taborda Gomes was captured by armed security forces and detained.
So what does any of this have to do with Mohamed Gomes and the Dhawa Barriga do Povo Foundation? Nothing as of yet. However, last year, President Embaló used security forces against the will of the people to demolition Bissau’s only protected green space, the Lagoon of Mbatonh in order to build a mosque.. This caused outraged from civil society. As one commentator put it, “DESTROY A NATURE PARK LIKE M'BATONHA TO BUILD A MOSQUE AND SCHOOL FUNDED BY TURKEY??? IS THERE ANY MORE ROOM FOR THIS?” The project is implemented by the Bissau City Council, in partnership with Monte – ACE with funding from the EU and the Camões Institute.
Sociologist, journalist and university professor Diamantino Domingos Lopes, also secretary of SINJOTEC, the Guinean media organization, said he could not remain silent in the face of the extermination of the Parque Mbatonha lagoon.
"I can't stay silent. It's hard to believe that this is happening, true environmental destruction. Just comparing the images, it is easy to see that we are facing total ignorance, for all that is sociocultural, traditional and environmental value. . . . They simply decided to murder the animals that live there and compromise all interests and visions focused on ecological protection. Located in the city center, the lagoon is the only surface freshwater reservoir in the region, where more than 100 species of birds come to feed or nest. . . . Some questions for the Bissau City Council, the city's management entity, what is the reason for this extermination of the lagoon, which guarantees life for many living beings? Who is the owner of this project, or rather what they intend to build in this location, which gives rise to this vile environmental crime?”
President Embaló’s respone? “development outweighs environmentalism”. The immediate judgement from God and the answer from nature was to flood the city!
Are we witnessing the Islamization of Guinea Bissau? Are Mohamed Gomes, the Dhawa Barriga do Povo Foundation, and President Embaló all part of some plot? According to Aid to the Church in Need (ACN),
“The long-standing cordial relationship between Christians and Muslims in Guinea-Bissau is under threat with the ongoing religious-based intimidation that targets churches, the Catholic Pontifical and charity foundation, Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), has said.
According to the charity foundation that supports the people of God in countries experiencing extremism, recent activities in Guinea-Bissau, including a church vandalization, bribing Christians to convert to Islam, as well as the springing up of Mosques in every part of the country casts a dark shadow over the future of Christianity in the West African nation.
“First was the attack, never seen before in Guinea-Bissau, on a church. It was in July. Then, in September, the government decided to suspend tax exemptions for the Catholic Church. In the middle of all this and for some time now, the construction of new mosques has been proliferating throughout the country,” ACN says in a Friday, December 9 report.
The Catholic charity spoke to Casimiro Jorge Cajucam, the Director of Sol Mansi, a Diocesan radio station supported by the foundation, who warned of the worrying signs that the Portuguese-speaking African country will become an “Islamic state”.
In the interview with ACN, Casimiro Cajucam warned about
the risk of Guinea-Bissau ‘falling into the clutches of religious extremism.’. . . In the last ten years, hundreds of mosques have been built. There is a proliferation of mosques in Guinea-Bissau that are financed by very rich Arab countries. There are people in the villages, Christians, and non-Christians, who are funded to convert to Islam. We are facing that threat,’ Casimiro Cajucam says. . . . ‘There are politicians who are trying everything to transform Guinea-Bissau, to take it from a secular state to put it as an Islamic state. There is that trend and that is a threat.’
The Director of Sol Mansi radio speaks of a ‘rehearsal’ for a terrorist attack when referring to the incidents at the church in Gabu, adding, ‘What happened in the parish in Gabu, for many, is the first rehearsal for a terrorist attack. It has never happened before.’”
To be sure, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation reports on its website:
“The President of the Republic of Guinea Bissau, H.E. Umaro Sissoko EMBALÓ, who is visiting Saudi Arabia, received on 12 April 2023 at Makkah Al-Mukarramah, the Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Mr HisseinBrahim Taha.
The meeting discussed cooperation between the OIC and the Republic of Guinea Bissau and the ways and means of strengthening it, particularly on issues of mutual interest, notably peace and development in the world, in general, and Africa, in particular.
The Secretary-General praised Guinea Bissau’s contribution to joint Islamic action as well as the efforts deployed in West Africa by President UmaroSissoko EMBALÓ in his capacity as Chairman-in-Office of ECOWAS.”
Now consider the Bring Islam to Guinea Bissau project that is supporting new Muslims in Guinea Bissau through Zakat eligible donations. (Zakat is the third pillar of Islam; it’s also an obligatory act of worship payable each year to those in need by every able Muslim. In His generosity, Allah (swt) gives the donor the beautiful opportunity to purify their wealth and their souls through Zakat.).
BBHAGSIA President Siphiwe Baleka, who has written a three-volume history of the Balanta people, warns,
“Brassa people existed for tens of thousands of years before the birth of the Prophet Muhammad. They knew God and had their own spirituality. they did not need any religious doctrine or rigid religious devotions like praying five times a day in order to live in harmony with nature, God’s creation. It’s ironic that Brassa became known in history as ‘Balant” becuase of their resistances to Islamic domination by the Mali Empire during the 10th to the 14th century. In this sense, Balanta literally refers to ‘those who resist Islamic imperialism’. I am very certain the Balanta communities understand that with forced conversion comes learning Arabic at a time when the Balanta language is at risk of being lost. Forced conversion means no more cumbe (pig). Can you imagine an important event with out cumbe? Amilcar Cabral warned us about foregin domination. It means the loss of one’s culture. Portuguese domination, American domination, Islamic domination. It doesn’t matter. You don’t need more bibles or qurans. You do not need more churches or mosques. What you need is a New Afrikan Education that teaches your children how to harness New Afrikan technologies so that they can continue their sovereign existences as God iintended. Anyone that comes to your village and fails to ask what YOU need or show you how to build upon your own understanding of your envrionment is not for you. They are for themselves! Don’t be tricked by smooth talking Priests or Imams. They can help with development without requiring your conversion!”
A Matter of War: Imari Obadele, Our Enslavement in the 13 Colonies and the United States, the Republic of New Afrika and Reparations
Excerpts from REPARATIONS YES! A Suggestion Toward the Framework of a Reparations Demand and A Set of Legal Underpinnings
by
Imari Abubakari Obadele, Chairperson, The People’s Center Council (National Legislature) of the Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika, September 1987
“The central proposition of this paper and the draft bill for reparations which is annexed hereto is that our enslavement in the Thirteen Colonies and the United States was a matter of war - war conducted against Afrika under authority, initially, of the British government and the legislatures of the Thirteen Colonies and ultimately under authority of Clasue One, Section 9 of the First Article of the United States Constitution.
[Clause One, Secion 9, Article One, states: “The Migration or Importation of Such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person.”]
It was war conducted against Afrikan people - who grew into a nation, an oppressed nation, between 1660 and 1860 - within the United States under British and Colonial authority and, ultimately, the authority of Clasue Three, Section Two of Article Four of the U.S. Constitution.
[Clause Three, Section 2, Article Four, states: “No person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.”]
The conditions of our degradation, a subordinated and exploited people denied liberty by force, are too well known to be re-documented or chronicled here. Justice Harlan, writing his dissent in the Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3, at 29, said that the provisions of the 1850 ‘Fugitive Slave Act…. placed at the disposal of the master seeking to recover his fugitive slace, substantially the whole power of the nation.’ The U.S. Army under Andrew Jackson destroyed the New Afrikan states in Florida. Militia and White civilians carried war to all our communities in the woods. The U.S. military and White civilians put down the attempts of first, Gabriel Prosser and then Denmark Vesey and John Brown and Osborne Anderson to seize land and build New Afrikan states. For these state-builders the U.S. courts authorized bloody executions, corporal punishment, and transportation beyond U.S. shorees. . . .
It is the position of this paper, embracing propositions enunciated by the Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika sixteen years ago, that the United States conducted war against the New Afrikan nation on this land throughout the era of slavery, that the war was authorized by the United States constitution and carried out in aggressive military actions against the efforts of our people to seek freedom individually and to build New Afrikan states collectively, by the United States government itself, by the various State Governments and by civilians mobilized against the New Afrikan People and nation.
It is the proposition of this paper that reparations must be part of a general settlement of the war which the United States has waged against us.
In keeping with settlements consummated at the end of World War I and World War II, and with the precedents in International Law created by these settlements, the settlement for New Afrikan people must include not simply money reparations but exercise of the freed and informed right to self determination by our people, and the release of our militants, soldiers, prisoners of war, now in U.S. jails, who were taken in defense of our nation against the United States.
In summary, the money damages are due, of coure, for labor stolen from our forebears, for cultural assault, and for unjust war, with accumulated interest. But the money portion of our reparations must be a significant contribution toward rehabilitation: repatriation for those who wish and can achieve citizenship in an Afrikan state, rehabilitation of the New Afrikan states and incipient states, and their successors, destroyed on this soil during the war which was slavery and afterwards. There must be reparation payments for rehabilitation of us as a people, our social structure in the United States, and culture, in recognition of the design followed in the United States to make us into a race of ignorant subservients, unable to revolt, and forgetful that We had a duty to do so. . . .
There are reparations due to certain Afrikan states for the war which the United States authorized against them; to us, as well, for our states that were weakened or destroyed in Afrika during the course of America’s war there, which resulted in our enslavement.
(A state, with its army, protects the people. People cannot be harmed by outsiders unless the army is destroyed, rendered ineffective, or co-opted) And it is also tru that discussions must be held with Nigeria and other states on reparations for us. These could involve not simply trade arrangements but substantial political and diplomatic assistance for those of us who want indpendent statehood.
Those discussions ar separate, however, from the claims against the United States - and the subject of this paper.
The precedents for the claims described above are to be found in
1) the agreements which concluded World War I and World War II;
2) the U.S. Supreme Court case, The United States v. The Libellants and Claimants of the Schooner Amistad, 15 Peters 518 (1841);
3) the New International Law Regime, which took rise with the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, United Nations General Assembly Resolution 1514, 14 December 1960; and
4) the principles involved in the work of The Indian Claims Commission, Title 25, U.S.C.A., Sections 70 et seq.
With respect to the lapse of time between the United States initial ceasefire agains us (The Thirteenth Amendment of December 1865) and Queen Mother Moore’s proffer of the Ethiopian Women’s complaint against the United States and petition for reparations to the United Nations in 1965, three comments are particularly appropriate. First, Queen Mother Moore’s efforts were not a beginning; at no substantial period during the era since slavery have our people neglected wholly the campaign for reparations. Second, it has been the power of the United States and its refusal to consider reparations for New Afrikans which has frustrated our efforts heretofore, not any failure on our part to pursue these demands. . . .
WAS IT WAR AND DO WE HAVE SELF-DETERMINATION RIGHTS?
Two essential questions should be addressed. First, was it war? Second, do New Afrikans have self-determination rights? Also implicated is the question as to whether New Afrikans in the United States constitute a ‘nation.’ We turn now to the first question.
In general, ‘war” has been traditionally of two types, conflicts between states, which are governed by international law and practice, and civil wars, in which part of a state contends for sovereignty over territory claimed by the parent- state. Lately, conflicts of liberation movements, including conflicts like that in South Afrika at the present time, where the liberation forces are unable to place armies openly in the field or to hold and govern territory openly, have gained status under the international law. The 1977 Protocol to the Geneva Conventions of 1949, states in Article One:
4. The situations referred to in the preceding paragrah include armed conflicts in which peoples are fighting against colonial domination and aliean occupation and against racist regimes in the exercise of their right to self-determination, as enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations and the Declaration of Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among states in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.
The record is replete with instances of armed conflict and armed suppression of suspected miltants by the United States, during and after slavery. Moreover, the general conditions of slavery make clear also that We were subject during the slavery era to ‘colonial domination and alien occupation.’ . . .
Professor von Glahn notes that ‘a British report in 1870 showed that between 1700 and 1870, a total of 107 conflicts had been initiated without the formality of a declaration of war.’ He goes on: ‘The United States, too, has conducted wars without a declaration: an undelcared war with France from 1798 to 1801, the invasion of Florida in 1811 under Generals Jackson and Mathews, the brief Mexican invasion in 1916, the undeclared war with the Soviet Union in 1918-1919, and, of course, the vietnamese conflict from 1947 onward (for the United States, from March 7, 1965, to March 29, 1973).’
The effort of some New Afrikans to form an indpendent state has been an almost continuous effort from the time of our first fights and revolts in this land to the present. . . . If the level of U.S. military attacks against New Afrikans and the New Afrikan nation receded in the period following the Civil War, our colony was nevertheless subject to a racially conscious policing by sheriffs and local police. The army, too, would appear to suprpress us during uprisings such as those in 1919, the 1940s and the 1960s. The reason for the reduction in naked military attacks lay mainly in our resort to parliamentary means of struggle after the Civil War. But there was no abandonment of the drive for independent New Afrikan statehood - nor for the other two objectives toward which some of our people had striven traditionally: (1) full citizenship in the United States, and (2) return to Afrika.
It is relevant to the charge of war agianst the United States that we were still an occupied and oppressed nation in this period between the Civil War and 1968. We were a colony living on territory claimed by the United States, subject until 1968 to a body of legislation and court decisions which defined our subordination to the White nation and facilitated the Whte nation’s economic and cultural exploitation of us, and our social degradation.
Even the Malcomites, who after March 1968 led the struggle for independent statehood and were resolute practitioners of armed self-defense, eventually supported by the Black Liberation Army, pursued a strategy of attempting to organize, peacefully, an independent plebiscite. This parliamentary strategyy was in accordance with the precepts of the New International Law Regime, ushered in by the United Nations’ Declaration On the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, supra, in 1960. When the organizing of the armed, self-defensing cadres of the Provisional Government accelerated in Mississippi in 1971, however, the United States turned to its military option. At dawn on Wednesday, August 18, 1971, a force of FBI agents and Jackson city police, accompanied by an armored truck, attacked the official RNA Provisional Government Residence. They shot it up and then charged the seven occupants of the house, along with the four who had spent the night at the office several blocks away, with murder of the police lieutenant who died in the attack and with assault of the FBI agent and the policeman who were wounded. In the fall of 1981 the United States brought massive military force to bear in McComb County, Mississippi, to arrest Sister Fulani Sunni Ali, a longtime RNA officer, who was quietly conductin a summer camp for children in the country. The pretext was the New York Brinks incident, during which Black Liberation Army members were implicated, some arrested and some jailed, and one murdered in cold blood by the police as he lay helpless on the ground.
If it is possible to argue that the form of the war against us cahanged after the Civil War, from military activity to occupation duties, the United States kept the military sanction always ready - and, from time to time, used it.
The question was land. The United States Government, unable to export us en masse after the Civil War, was not especially concerned that U.S. policies had fueled our growth as a separate people - giving us our own perspective and history and common gene pool, raising up, between 1660 and 1860, a vastly numbered New Afrikan nation on this soil. Our status as a nation, despite our numbers, posed little more problem for the United States than the many Indian nations - so long as We did not focus overly on our separateness and nationhood, and so long as We did not seriously act for statehood, for sovereignty over land.
The international law, in our era before 1960, was shaped by Europeans and their conquests. This included the question of sovereignty over land, national title to land. And the law was clear. For instance, the principle of prescription sitll means that a state may acquire title over land originally belonging to another state, by occupation over a long period of time. How long is a ‘long’ time? There seems to be no generally accepted international standard. One U.S. court decision, dealing with awards to Indian states, determined that title to land could be recognized for a group which had occupied it ininterruptedly for 50 years. The United States’ objective with respect to the RNA Provisional Government (PG-RNA) was to prevent undisturbed occupation for any period of time.
There is little doubt that the United States realized that a form of the prescription principle is embedded in the New Afrikan Creed, which today is part of the Republic’s constitution, the Code of Umoja, and which is recired by gathered Provisional Government cadre at meetings and all imporant occasions. ‘I believe,’ runs the paragraph from the Creed, ‘that all the land in America, upon which We have lived for a long time, which We have worked and build upon, and which We have fought to stay on, is land that belongs to us as a people.’ . . . There is little doubt that the United States understoon that the PG was acting upon this principle in Mississippi.
The partiuclar problem for the United States was that the Provisional Government had been created at a founding convention and then regularly elected, by popular vote since 1975. Although the voting has always taken place in several cities, the totals. so far, have always been small - the largest being 5,000 votes cast in 1975. But the fact of the vote and the potential for it becoming a widespread institution among New Afrikan people, despite the perpetual press ‘white-out’ of New Afrikan activities, posed and pose a serious problem for United States policy-makers. To begin with, the United States is a party to the 1933 Convention on the Rights and Duties of States, done at Montevideo, Uruguay. This convention’s definition of the ‘state’ is in fact the definition which has entered into the principles of United States law, repeated in numerous contexts. Article one of the convention states:
‘The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: (a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territtory; (c) government; and (d) the capacity to enter into relations with the other states.’ [Siphiwe note: here is the rationale for having a strong and effective Ministry of Foreign Affairs within the PG-RNA].
The Provisional Government was (and is) a democratically elected government; it was voted for in Mississippi, which testified to representation of a permanent population, and it carried on various nascent forms of relations with China and Cuba (and, in the days since the Mississippi effort of the 1970s, is continuing to broaden these relations with other states). What was lacking, then, to convert this state-building entity, the Provisional Government, into a state was uninterrupted possession of land. [Siphiwe note: now, after almost 58 years, what formal relations or support does the PG-RNA have with other governments? What presence does it have as an observer to the African Union or United Nations? What diplomatic communications history does it have with other states? This is the missing element today that a strong and visionary Ministry of Foreign Affairs can correct.]
The United States’ attack on the Provisional Government in Mississippi and the subsequent major de-stabilization of the Provisional Government by the jailing of some of its leaders and a continuation of the FBI’s disinformation campaign (the COINTELPRO) were simply consistent with the attacks in former days on Gabriel Prosser, Denmark Vesey, John Brown, and Osborne Perry Anderson, the New Afrikan states in Florida, and the state of Tunis Campbell. The rationale was simple and obvious: the United States . . . was not prepared to abide the creation of an independent New Afrikan state in North America. Thus, the attacks, the recurrent hot war.
But there was a difference in the international law regime under which the military actions against the New Afrikan states and state-builders before 1960 were carried out and the international law regime under which U.S. military attacks against the Provisional Government were carried out after 1960. The Decolonization Declaration (U.N. General Assembly Res. 1514) said, simply, that ‘All peoples have the right to self-determination; . . . .’ This language has been carried over into the human rights conventions. It was a victory of the Afro-Asian bloc in the General Assembly, achieving numerical prominence for the first time in 1960, and it marked a revolution in the international law. The Declaration states also:
‘4. All armed action or repressive measures of all kinds directed against dependent peoples shall cease in order to enable them to exercise peacefully and freely their right to complete independence…’
Therefore the international law that counted had been written and accepted by the United States and European powers. It served the ratification of their conquests of the rest of the world and codified practices which they had found to be mutually convenient. The Versailles Treaty of 1920, ending World War I, joins the Berlin Treaty of 1885, as a leading statement of the international law as the White and powerful states of the world saw it and enforced it. This document provided for our degradation: it left the Afrikan and Asian colonies of the world War I victors in place and, instead of freeing those held by the defeated Germany, gave our hapless countries and peoples to the mandated ‘care’ of Britain, France and Belgium - at the same time that this treaty was concretizing self-determination as a right for Czechs and Poles and several other people in Europe.
The Afro-Asians in 1960, with the assistance of Canada and a few other states, re-wrote the international law. From that point, not only Europeans but all peoples had a right to self-determination. A subsequent, relatively rapid development of the new law followed. The Principle of self-determination was incorporated in United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2625, The Declaration on Principles of International Law, on 24 October 1970.
The United States abstained from voting on the 1960 Declaration, objecting to the word ‘independence’ in the title, arguing that independence was not the only possible result of an act of self-determination by a people. This was true but irrelevant. Neverheless, the United States Representative, James J. Wadsworth, speaking to a plenary session of the U.N. General Assembly on 6 December 1960 made the following extraordinary remarks - which, of course, under U.S. constitutional principles, are deemed to be the words of the U.S. President and an authoritative statment of international law as the United States sees it:
‘First let me say what we mean by colonialism…. It is the imposition of alien power over a people, usually by force and without the free and formal consent of the governed. It is the perpetuation of that power. It is the deniel of the right of self-determination - whether by suppressing free-expression or by withholding necessary educational, economic, and social development.*** Obviously not all colonial regimes have been the same…. But, however important these differences, the fact remains that colonialism in any form is undesirable. Neither the most benevolent paternalism by a ruling power nor the most grateful acceptance of these benefits by indigenous leaders can meet the test of the charter or satisfy the spirit of this age.
The Declaration on the Principles of International Law in its ‘principle of equal rights and self determination of peoples,’ states, inter-alia:
‘Every State has the duty to promote, through joint and separate action, the realization of the principle of equal rights and self-determination. . . bearing in mind that subjection of peoples to alien subjugation, domination and exploitation constitutes a violation of the principle, as well as a denial of fundamental human rights, and is contrary to the Charter of the United Nations.
The establishment of a sovereign and independent State, the free association or integration with an independent State or the emergence into any other political status freely determined by a people constitute modes of implementing the right of self-determination by that people.’ . . .
To sum up, I have argued here that the United States has waged war against us, as individuals and as a nation. (I have deferred the question of whether We are a nation under international law.) My central and underlying point is that our reparations, based upon slavery claims, are best presented in the context of the United States’ having denied us the exercise of our right to self-determination.
This is because the most fruitful precedents for our reparations claims are those which have arisen out of the reparations payments and the self-determination arrangements made in settlement of World War I and World War Ii. It is also because the fact is the United States did wage a most heinous war against us.
In appraiding the situation of New Afrikans in the United States it is important to keep in mind that We have, almost from the beginning, followed simultaneously three - not one - strategies of struggle. (This is to say that simultaneously some of us have followed each of the strategies.) Those strategies have been, first, a return to Afrika (Paul Cuffee through Garvey to the Hebrew Israelites); second, to change the United States and join it as full citizens (Richard Allen through Frederick Douglass to Marin Luther King), and, third, to build an independent state on land claimed in North America by the United States (Gabriel Prosser through Tunys Campbell to Malcolm X and the Provisional Government -RNA). Throughout our three hundred years of struggle on this soil We have, from at least 1660, been evolving into and have become a Black Nation, a New Afrikan nation, even with the simultaneous pursuit of three strategies. . . .
For clarity on the difference between ‘nation’ and ‘state’ it is perhaps helpful to call on Professor Robin Alison Remington in her discussion of Yugoslavia. She writes: “A country is the piece of real estate occupied by the state. Neither a country nor a state is a ‘nation.’ Rather, a ‘nation’ is a group of individuals united by common bonds of historical development, language, religion, and their self-perceived collective identity.*** According to the 1971 census, the Yugoslav population is 20.5 million, including five official ‘nations’ and a variety of nationalities. The nations are the Serbs, 8.4 million; Croats, 4.8 million; Slovens, 1.7 million; Macedonians, 1.2 million; and Montenegrins, 608 thousand.’
Elsewhere I have made a contribution toward (I hope) clarity.
‘People live in states. The United States is a state; all the fifty states make one United States, and in international law the entire United States (with its 50 constituent states) is known as a state. A state has people land and government. The government, acting for the state, protects the people and the land from outside attack by means of diplomacy and its army; government controls conflict among its own people by education and indoctrination and by means of law, courts, and the police. The government, representing the state, has final control over the lives of people. Only the state, through its government, can lawfully jail people or kill people - either by executing them or sending people to war.
But people come before states. This is to say that nations exist before states. States are created to protect nations. For, a nation is the people and their beliefs and their perspective (their way of looking at themselves and the world) and their way of life - their social structure and their economic struacture. These have arisn out of a people’s own special history, over time. States can be created suddenly, by declaration, by new constitutions, by military coups and successful revolution and by treaty. But nations can only be created by time: nations are people brought together by common history and common mission and common struggle, cemented by common values and a common way of life, on a given land mass, over time. Nations must evolve. They come into being by growing over decades.
The United States began as a white nation, a new English nation, which grew up between 1607 and 1776 in a land away from England. In England the people were having a different experience and history than the English in America. In America the Whites, led by the English, fought Indians and Afrikans for that in which they, the Whites, believed: they believed in the superiority of Whites over Indians and Afrikans and the righ of Whites to take all the land and oppress and exploint Afrikans and Indians.
These Americans, the Whites, built a state, a Republic, to protect the American nation. They did not build this state to protect Indians or Afrikans; in fact, it was built to help Whites better oppress and exploit Indians and Afrikans. It was built to protect the white nation.
Meanwhile, We, the Afrikans, were forming into a new nation also, a new Afrikan nation. This happened between 1660, when the English in America decided definitely to hold us in slavery, and 1865, when our work and sacrifice in the Civil War brought an ende to slavery. In those two hundred years We who had come from different nations in Afrika, where our states had been weakened or defeated altogether, fused into a new people, a new Afrikan people. Struggle against the oppression of the White nation in North America, the United States, fused us. Over the course of 20 decades.’ . . .
So the proposition of this paper and the annexed draft reparations legislation is that the United States waged long, cruel, and unjust war against us as a nation, and for that there is responsibility. . . .
Today the New Afrikan nation, still pursuing simultaneously its three strategies of struggle, has no victorious armies to compel compliance, only the international law - and the strength and ingenuity of the uses to which We and our allies may put the politics of the American state. . . .
In brief, the terms of the attached draft legislation reflect practices which are not unknown to the United States and other states which particpated in or observed the arrangement which followed the two world wars. The plan would provide reparations to the state-building Provisional Government but reparations would go, as well, to individuals and to organized, serving community groups. . . .
As a teacher of young people, I am also convinced that part of the strategy must be to alter the textbooks and our conventions in teaching the American experience - and to alter kindred conventions in movies and literature - so that Americans and New Afrikans, living now, may come to a deep appreciation of the nature of the war waged against us and Indians in America and of the military occupation We have suffered here, as well as the creative, persistent, courageous, and often brilliant struggle Indians and New Afrikans have waged in response.
In the end, history makes clear that to win reparations We must be prepared to take this righteous struggle into the streets. We must be prepared to stop all the machinery of America, if need be, until the just debt of reparations is paid.
FREE THE LAND!”
