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IS THE UN PERMANENT FORUM ON PEOPLE OF AFRICAN DESCENT THE LATEST REFINEMENT OF SCIENTIFIC COLONIALISM?

SCIENTIFIC COLONIALISM: EXAMINING THE 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

As stated in the Analysis by the Republic of New Afrika of Legal Issues Requiring an Advisory Opinion from the International Court of Justice submitted to the UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent (PFPAD) the CARICOM Reparations Commission, and the African Union Commission, 

“It has been 298 days since [Forum] President Barr stated she would sign the Request and 274 days since she announced that analyzing the request “jointly” would be an agenda item at the just concluded 3rd session of the Forum. But there still has been no joint analysis of the legal considerations. Perhaps this is why Fourm Secretary Niraj Dawadi, immediately following the closing session, felt it necessary to approach me to tell me that the Forum believes requesting an advisory opinion from the ICJ is very important but that due to shortage of resources and time, the members have not had proper opportunity to discuss it yet have concluded that because of its importance, the Request must have broad support. More interesting, however, was the admission that the Forum is concerned that if they exercise their mandate as I have suggested, and the Forum goes directly to the ICJ, that it will, according to Mr. Dawadi, “open the flood gates to petitions.” The concern is that this would set a precedent and every group will then expect the forum to act on their petition. It should be noted this was the very issue that both the League of Nations and the United Nations faced at their establishment - the question of receiving petitions from non-state actors. It was also the contentious subject at the Expert Side Session on Reparatory Justice held on April 17, 2024 in Geneva - whether or not Afro Descendant who are ‘stateless’ will be accorded the same status within the UN as states and how.”

THE ISSUE IS THE QUESTION OF OUR PETITIONS BEING RECEIVED AND CONSIDERED

In 1917, Cyrl V. Briggs petitioned to establish self-governing New African colonies, calling for “Colored Autonomous States”. This seemed to be the appropriate application of President Woodrow Wilson's calls for self determination under his “14 Points”.  By the time of the Paris Peace Conference and in its aftermath in 1919, the League of Nations decided to use Scientific Colonialism as the foundation of its Mandates System. 

It is of supreme importance to understand the concept of “scientific colonialism” and the history of petitioning in the League of Nations and the United Nations in order to understand the role of the recently established PFPAD, and in particularly, the issue provoked by the 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 at the first session of the Forum. The history is expertly provided by Ananda V. Burra in her work, Petitioning the Mandates: Anti-colonial and Anti-racist Publics in International Law. Burra writes,

“This dissertation is the first systematic legal-historical study of how transnational anticolonial and antiracist solidarity movements shaped the international law of non-state activism in the Mandates System of the League of Nations. In particular, this dissertation examines how anticolonial activists, colonial officials, and members of the newly-formed international bureaucracy in the League negotiated a language of grassroots international protest, one based around the practice of individuals and social movements petitioning international organizations about colonial abuse. African American activists were particularly active in this field, framing their involvement in the Mandates as a protest against racial discrimination, turning a mirror on the United States’ own racial politics while embodying a new stateless subjectivity. Petitioning in the interwar and immediate post-war years shows us how intercontinental forms of protest could be deployed in fighting what states saw as primarily local battles. These battles spanned the period from 1920 until at least 1956, when the International Court of Justice engaged with the history and jurisprudence of the right to petition in international law. This dissertation traces the origins of petitioning in the Mandates System to grassroots activism in 1918 and 1919, far earlier than other works on the League have suggested. . . . What was it about the Mandates System that, despite its marginal position in international colonialism, made it a key battleground for determining the role colonized peoples would play in the UN? How did Pan-African petitioning in the League shape the possibilities for individuals to participate in the UN after the Second World War? How did these battles become a focus for post-Second World War and Cold war debates over international rights and political participation? . . . 

[T]he Mandates System started its life as a legal and political anomaly. It had been created to address one of the most serious post-First World War territorial question: what to do with German and Ottoman colonies after the war. These territories - in the Middle East, Africa, and the Pacific - had been captured during the war, and several different states had advanced claims to occupy them its end. Ottoman territories in the Middle East - Syria, Palestine, Transjordan, and Iraq - had been captured by the British and the French, with help from local Arab allies and troops from India (in the case of the British) and sub-Saharan Africa (in the case of the French). French troops had captured parts of what was then German West-Africa in Togo and Cameroon, and British troops from the Gold Coast and Nigeria had effectively disarmed German defenses in the area. British and Belgian troops in East Africa defeated German forces in Rwanda-Urundi.

The white British Dominions of South Africa, Australia and New Zealand had asserted their newly strengthened sovereign status within the British Empire through their participation in the war. South Africa, under the Boer generals Botha and Smuts, had overcome local white sympathy for Germans in South-West Africa and defeated German troops with the aim of incorporating the territory into South Africa. Australia and New Zealand did the same for most German possessions in South-East Asia and the South Pacific, as did Japan for German islands north of the equator. The Dominions were eager to have colonies of their own as proof of their emerging semi-sovereignty in the new century. In terms of the civilizational logic of early twentieth century, when a state aquired colonies (with the concomitant responsibility to impart civilization to them), this signaled its arrival into the community of nations. In South Africa, in particular, the messianic vision of Cecil Rhodes - to bring black Africa under white power and towards salvation - expressed itself in the campaign to take control of South-West Africa. Thus, for many states on the winning side of the war, this symbolic aspect of acquiring new colonies made the disposition of captured territories all the more important.

Yet the optics of fighting a world war to increase colonial holdings were not good, especially in the United States. Outright annexation of enemy territories arguably violated President Woodrow Wilson’s promises in his “Fourteen Points'' speech of 1918. For the British, the main architects of the League of Nations’ Covenant, asserting British superiority in the field of colonial governance over both the German and the French militated against allowing other states to annex territories outright. . . . As Manela argues, Wilson’s persona became a talisman that several anticolonial activists latched on to as a ‘herald of a new era in international affairs.’ This was even though Wilson never imagined that his call for universal self determination would apply in the colonial world. More than anything else, Wilson’s rhetoric was borne of his wish to outflank any more radical views on international reorganization and governance. Wilson may have provided the political justification restraining colonial empires from annexing the German and Ottoman colonies, but it was British lawyers and diplomats who took the lead in shaping the post-1918 international legal order. The  intellectual roots of the Mandates can be traced back to the late nineteenth century and the rise of ‘developmentalism’ as a core tenet of liberal imperial planning in Britain. Colonial states were beginning to deploy new ways of intervening in the everyday lives of their colonial populations at this moment.

With the rise of social science research and the production of statistical analysis, states were much more capable of monitoring their domestic and colonial populations on a large number of metrics. As Timothy Mitchell has observed, ‘as Britain and other colonial powers faced a harder task in justifying the continuation of colonial occupation, new statistical work could clarify the purpose and authority of imperial government.’ Academics like Alfred Zimmern and colonial diplomats like Lord Milner theorized the British Empire as a family of states and state-like entities, some more mature than others, some possessing more international legal autonomy than others. Zimmern, one of the drafters of the League of Nations Covenant, described the British Commonwealth as a ‘procession’: ‘It consist[ed] of a large variety of communities at a number of different stages in their advance towards complete self government.’ Scientific colonialism supplied a logic of development, suggesting the possibility that territories could move from one category to another. The challenge as these thinkers saw it, particularly in Africa, was to promote a form of colonial rule that would both uplift the natives and provide for international free trade. British colonies and protectorates in India and Africa were taken as models, and Milner’s disciples had already suggested that such governance systems be exported to other colonial areas. . . .”

Additionally, Antony Anghie writes in Imperialism, Sovereignty and the Making of International Law:

“In the Mandate System, however, the problem of sovereignty took a very different character. In the final analysis, the League was subordinate to the will of sovereign states. In the mandates, this relationship was radically altered. Here, international institutions, rather than being the product of sovereign states, were given the task of creating sovereignty out of the backward peoples and territories brought under the mandate regime. The emergence of international human rights law during the UN period is axiomatically characterized in virtually all the literature on the subject as a revolutionary and unprecedented moment in the history of international law because it undermined the fundamental principle of territorial sovereignty, which had been in existence since the emergence of the modern European nation-state and the writings of Vattel. It was only because of the emergence of the UN system of international human rights law that international law and institutions can regulate relations between a sovereign and its citizens. It is in this context that the truly extraordinary character of the Mandate System project, when put at its highest, becomes more apparent. It did not seek merely to qualify the rights of the sovereign, but rather to create the sovereign . . . . Nevertheless, the interior of the state remained outside the control or even scrutiny of international law, which could address state behaviour only when it emerged into the conscious sphere, as it were, when it manifested itself in the external actions of the state and thereby became a properly international issue. The frustration for inter-war jurists was that, while they could vaguely conceptualize the interior in various ways, they were unable to act upon it.

The discovery of interiority is central to the phenomenon of modernity as a whole. The great literature of modernity -- the works of Joseph Conrad, T. S. Eliot, Henry James, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf -- are preoccupied with mapping the interior, with tracing and examining the workings of an inner consciousness. International jurists sensed that access to the interior of the state would revolutionize their discipline in much the same way that Joyce had revolutionized the novel and Freud had revolutionized our understanding of human nature. And yet, this inquiry was precluded by sovereignty doctrine. We might understand the monumental significance of international human rights law in these terms: it enabled international law and institutions to enter the interior, to address the unconscious, and thereby to administer ‘civilizing therapy’ to the body politic of the sovereign state.

Whereas previously the internal character of the sovereign European state was immune from scrutiny, in the inter-war period it was precisely through the Mandate System that international law and institutions had complete access to the interior of a society. It was in the operations of the Mandate System, then, that it became possible for international law not merely to enter the interior realm, but also to create the social and political infrastructure necessary to support a functioning sovereign state. Here, then, sovereignty was to be studied not in the context of the problem of war and of collective security, but in a very different constellation of relationships that are central to the understanding of sovereignty in the non-European world.

It was in the Mandate System that international law and institutions could conduct experiments and develop technologies that were hardly possible in the sovereign Western world. It was in the Mandate System, furthermore, that many of the interests of jurists such as Pound, Alvarez and Hudson could find expression. This was because the task confronting the Mandate System involved far more than the granting of a simple juridical status. Rather, international law and institutions were required to create the economic, political and social conditions under which a sovereign state could come into being. In this sense, law had to be combined with sociology, political science and economics in order to achieve the goals of the Mandate System. [ Note: and hence the necessity of collecting statements/reports from all fields directly from the dependent people themselves to enter into the interiority of their consciousness]. It was through international institutions that such a task of synthesis could be addressed. . . . AT THE LOCAL LEVEL, THE DUTY, AS LUGARD CHARACTERIZED IT, TO DEVELOP MANDATE TERRITORIES REQUIRED LARGE INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS. THE COMPELLING NEED FOR ‘ARTERIAL RAILWAYS, WITH HARBOURS AND TELEGRAPHS, THE PUBLIC BUILDINGS AND HOUSES FOR STAFF’, IN LUGARD’S WORDS, ‘JUSTIFIED ANY SACRIFICE THESE PUBLIC WORKS FURTHER ASSISTED IN ELIMINATING THE SLAVE TRADE AND INTER-TRIBAL WARFARE; AT THE SAME TIME, THEY ALSO EXPANDED MARKETS. THIS FOCUS ON ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND EFFICIENCY HAD A RADICAL EFFECT ON COLONIAL POLICIES IN GENERAL; MORE PARTICULARLY, IT LED COLONIAL POWERS TO VIEW NATIVES IN TERMS OF THE LABOUR AND ECONOMIC WEALTH THEY REPRESENTED. SIMPLY PUT, THE NATIVE WAS NO LONGER MERELY TO BE CONQUERED AND DISPOSSESSED; RATHER, HE WAS TO BE MADE MORE PRODUCTIVE. . . .‘WELFARE’ THUS MEANT, FOR EXAMPLE, REQUIRING THAT WORK TOOK PLACE IN HYGIENIC CONDITIONS AND THAT THE PMC AND THE ILO SHOULD COLLABORATE IN ENSURING THIS. IN THIS WAY, THE NEW FORM OF COLONIALISM, BASED ON PRESERVING AND DEVELOPING THE NATIVE AND HER TERRITORIES AS PRODUCTIVE ASSETS RATHER THAN EXPLOITING AND EXHAUSTING THESE ASSETS, PRESENTED ITSELF AS AN EXEMPLIFICATION OF HUMANIST AND LIBERAL PRINCIPLES.”

Hence, the petitioning system was designed to be the mechanism for accessing the interior of the colonial subjects for the purpose of making them more productive and “civilized” in the colonial system!

All the statements sent to PFPAD are the latest inputs into the scientific colonial project at this stage.

During the early period, however, both Marcus Garvey and W.E.B. DuBois separately and simultaneously attempted to bring the New Afrikan and Afro Descendant claims to the Paris Peace Conference and make a claim for the former German colonies to be given as a New Afrikan/Afro Descendant Independent Nation. On November 10, 1918 Marcus Garvey, who was prevented from attending the Paris Peace Conference, nevertheless submitted the Resolution of the UNIA Peace Aims, which, among other things, stated, 

“Be It Resolved, That we, the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League of the World, representing the interests of the New Spirited Negroes of America, Africa and the West Indies, assembled in Universal Mass 

Convention in the Palace Casino, New York, on Sunday November 10, 1918, hereby beg to submit the following peace aims to the Allied Democracies of Europe and America, and to the people of democratic tendencies of the world.

And Be It Further Resolved, That we believe that it will only be through a proper recognition of the Negro’s rights and the rights of all weaker peoples at the Peace Conference that future wars will be obviated.

And We Further Pray That the Peace Conference to assemble will take cognizance of these our aims

  1. That the principle of self-determination be applied to Africa and all European controlled colonies in which people of African descent predominate.

  2. That all economic barriers that hamper the industrial development of Africa be removed.

  3. That Negroes enjoy the right to travel and reside in any part of the world even as Europeans now enjoy these rights.

  4. That Negroes be permitted the same educational facilities now given to Europeans

  5. That Europeans who interfere with, or violate African tribal customs be deported and denied re-entry to the continent.

  6. That the segregatory and proscriptive ordinances against Negroes in any part of the world be repealed and that they (Negroes) be given complete political, industrial and social equality in countries where Negroes and people of any other race live side by side.

  7. That the reservation land acts aimed against the natives of South Africa be revoked and the land restored to its prescriptive owners.

  8. That Negroes be given proportional representation in any scheme of world government.

  9. That the captured German colonies in Africa be turned over to the natives with educated Western and Eastern Negroes as their leaders.” [emphasis added].

Similarly, on November 17, 1918, W.E.B. DuBois, who was allowed to  attend the Paris Peace Conference and was received, submitted the Memoranda on the Future of Africa, that stated, 

“The barter of colonies without regard to the wishes or welfare of the inhabitants or the welfare of the world in general is a custom which this war should put to an end, since it is a fruitful cause of dissension among nations, a danger to the status of civilized labor, a temptation to unbridled exploitation, and an excuse for unspeakable atrocities committed against natives. . . If the world after the war decided to reconstruct Africa in accordance with the wishes of the Negro race and the best interests of civilization, the process might be carried out as follows: the former German colonies with one million square miles and twelve and one-half millions of inhabitants could be internationalized. To this could be added by negotiation the 800,000 square miles and nine million inhabitants of Portuguese Africa. It is not impossible that Belgium could be persuaded to add to such a state the 900,000 square miles and nine million natives of the Congo, making an International Africa with over two and one-half million square miles of land and over twenty million people. This reorganized Africa could be under the guidance of organized civilization. The Governing International Commission should represent not simply governments but modern culture - science, commerce, social reform, and religious philanthropy . . .  We can, if we will, inaugurate on the Dark Continent a last great crusade for humanity. With Africa redeemed, Asia would be safe and Europe indeed triumphant.”

And here then, is the origin of three phenomenon:

1) the deployment of scientific colonialism and the use of colonial subjects themselves to provide access to the interior of the colonial subjects and the information needed for development under colonialism; and

2) the continued privileged status of states and the secondary status of Afro Descendant people under alien domination in the international system; and

3) the discrimination against some non-state actors deemed unacceptable to the colonial powers.

With regard to the latter, for example, Marcus Garvey and the UNIA, who wanted African sovereignty for the former German colonies, were not received by the colonial powers in Paris while DuBois and the NAACP, considered to be more “respectable”, less black and desiring an “international mandate” for control of the former German Colonies, were received. And this is precisely what is taking place in PFPAD. 

Thus, PFPAD can be viewed as the most recent development to further scientific colonialism. Rather than have states provide reports, for example, as mandated on the Periodic Review system of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the Forum has become the premier place for Afro Descendant non-state actors to do the work of scientific colonialism by providing it the information and data it needs to simultaneously engage in development work while maintaining the status quo of neo-colonial domination and the process of “civilizing” the natives under alien domination. Moreover, we see within PFPAD that Afro Descendants from the territories still under alien domination, will not be afforded the same status, influence and support as the Afro Descendants represented by state delegations. This was made obvious during the third session of the Forum when, on the opening day, I received an overwhelming standing ovation after my presentation highlighting PFPAD’s inaction on the 

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. 

Though the Mandate for the Request was submitted with 248 signatures and received the overwhelming support from the floor at the Forum’s third session, the new PFPAD President Dr. June Soomer, who served as Chair of St. Lucia’s Reparations Commission, told TAG24 NEWS that she will not take independent action on the petition request and that the matter must first be discussed among all of the forum members, she said, and a decision will not be reached until all legal considerations are taken into account.

The day after my standing ovation, David Commissiong, Barbados’ Ambassador to CARICOM, gave a presentation on Panel #1: Reparations, Sustainable Development & Economic Justice. This is the same panel that I requested to be on as far back as January 24. David Commissiong was allowed on the panel to represent the privileged class and state interests in CARICOM while I, as Minister of Foreign Affairs of a non-recognized provisional government and representative of the people who had mobilized its civil society on this issue, was refused a space on the panel and relegated to addressing the Forum from the floor. 

During his presentation, Ambassador Commissiong called for the full support of the proposal for the establishment of a new, Special International Tribunal on Reparations to adjudicate reparations claims and quantify reparations remedies. Ambassador Commissiong then proceeded to explain, 

“We need such a Special International Tribunal on Reparations because at present, there is no international court properly equipped to deal with the reparations claim of the magnitude and complexity of our claim for our claim of reparations for hundreds of years of African enslavement. The closest that we have to such an institution is the International Court of Justice, but not only is the ICJ inadequate in terms of its design, it also suffers from the fact that many of the former enslaver nations have made reservations to the ICJ treaty, reservations that prohibit the ICJ from adjudicating crimes that they committed during the colonial era. The establishment of such a Special International Tribunal on Reparations will require a positive decision of the United Nations General Assembly. Let us resolve to portend the international advocacy work that will be required to successfully deliver the creation of this critical institution at the UN General Assembly.”

While the proposal for the Special International Tribunal on Reparations is a worthy proposal to be supported, let's look more closely on what happened. On the opening day, I successfully rallied the delegates at the PFPAD 3rd session to the idea, “Let’s end the 1st Decade of People of African Descent with a real accomplishment - initiating the case for reparations. It only takes the new Forum Chair June Soomer to sign the request and send it to the registrar of the ICJ. This can be done at the concluding session of this Forum if we the delegates demand it.”

This is an initiative led by the people and for the people requiring PFPAD to take action now under its mandate. Rather than support this, the Barbados Ambassador framed the issue as a choice between the Barbados proposal for the tribunal versus requesting an advisory opinion from the ICJ. He then confuses the issue by raising issues that concern actual litigation at the ICJ and NOT having anything to do with the advisory opinion process. He then concludes with a cry to rally around the Barbados tribunal proposal, thereby creating doubt as to the proper course of action and diluting the consensus momentum achieved on the first day by civil society delegates representing the people. 


Meanwhile, what the Barbados Ambassador didn’t say during the panel is that CARICOM, led by Barbados, recently decided that it was, indeed, going to file a Request for an Advisory Opinion from the ICJ!

So the Ambassador from Barbados attempted to discredit civil society’s effort to get access to the court while behind the scenes already planned to get such access in the name of the Reparations Movement!

And more than likely, when CARICOM makes its request for the ICJ opinion, it will be done in a way to further the agenda of CARICOM states rather than the agenda coming directly from the people themselves. It will be framed in such a way as to make it seem that CARICOM is leading the way in this arena while the people’s request will be ignored.  This is a blatant example of what is called elite capture, in this case, by CARICOM states. One must wonder if this is part of the strategy to have Barbados Prime Minister Mia Motley elected as the next UN General Secretary?

I ask, have we been duped once again by supporting the Forum which may only be an instrument of scientific colonialism? 

By any means necessary,


Siphiwe Baleka

Minister of Foreign Affairs

January 24, 58 ADM* (2024)

Ms. Epsy Campbell Barr, President

Permanent Forum of People of African Descent (PFPAD)

pfpad@un.org 

RE: CMA-O-009-2023 - REPLY TO JULY 18 LETTER/PGRNA#8/1/24/58 REQUEST TO PRESENT ON A PANEL AT THE PFPAD 3RD SESSION

President Barr, 

Once again, it was a pleasure to spend time with you during the Accra Reparations Conference and gain a better understanding of PFPAD’s development and position on the 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.

As you know, at the Forum’s first session on December 6, 2022, as President of the Balanta B’urassa History and Genealogy Society in America (BBHAGSIA), I invoked the mandate of UN Resolution 75/314 requesting an advisory opinion from the ICJ, consistent with our interpretation of the Durban Declaration Programme of Action, UN Charter 96, and Article 65 of the ICJ Statute. The Forum has already concluded in its recommendations to “promote an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice on the legal question of reparatory justice” and your July 21 letter to me 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 I launched an Input Form for lawyers and jurists in order to gather their opinions on the legal questions that have been submitted.

Therefore, as the father and leading figure of this initiative, and consistent with the IDPAD Coalition UK letter of support for the original PFPAD Request for an ICJ Advisory Opinion, I am requesting that I be included on any panel at the PFPAD 3rd session that will be discussing this agenda item.


Finally, I wish to inform you that on January 6, 58 ADM (2024), I was sworn in as the Interim Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika (PG-RNA) that was founded on March 31, 1968 at the National Black Government Conference hosted by the Malcolm X Society. The direct precursor to the PG-RNA was the Organization of Afro American Unity (OAAU) established by Malcolm X on June 28, 1964 and granted observer status to the Organization of African Unity (OAU) on July 17, 1964. I made mention of the Republic of New Afrika’s history in my July 18 letter to you, calling your attention to the NEW AFRIKAN INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENT AND HUMAN RIGHTS: Statement to the 20th session of the UN Intergovernmental Working Group on the Effective Implementation of the Durban Declaration and The African American Case for Independence at the International Court of Justice and emphasizing that:

3. At the end of the US Civil War, the United States legislated voluntary, compensated repatriation and ceded territory for New Afrikan self-governing territories in pursuit of independence;

4. The assassination of President Lincoln led to a campaign of fraud and terror to deny New Afrikan’s right to return to their homeland, reduce the status of the recently established self-governing territories, and deny the full recognition of the New Afrikan’s political rights

5. Cyril Briggs, W.E.B. DuBois and Marcus Garvey advocated for New Afrikan self-government and independence, the latter two petitioning the League of Nations for justice and for self determination. The United States, however, refused to sign a special treaty agreeing to the international protection of its internal domestic colonies. 

6. The United States failed its sacred trust obligation under the UN Charter Chapter XI Article 73 to promote New Afrikan well-being and to “develop self-government, to take due account of the political aspirations of the peoples, and to assist them in the progressive development of their free political institutions.” It further failed to declare New Afrikan territories as trust territories, under UN Charter, Chapter XII Article 77.1.c trusteeship system.

It is for this reason that PG-RNA, through the New Afrikan Diplomatic and Civil Service Corps (NADCSC), is conducting a Plebiscite campaign and takes special interest in the Request for an ICJ Advisory Opinion question:

(d) What rights do the Afro Descendants throughout the Americas and Caribbean have to exercise self-determination and conduct plebiscites to discern who wants to repatriate to their ancestral homeland, who wants to establish independent nation states of their own, and who wants to integrate into the states they currently reside?

Given the recent attention to South Africa’s case against Israel at the ICJ, now is the time for the case against “slow genocide” and reparatory justice for the victims of the Dum Diversas War and subsequent chattel enslavement to be raised at the ICJ.

By any means necessary,

Siphiwe Baleka

Minister of Foreign Affairs

*Letters of support attached.

Analysis by the Republic of New Afrika of Legal Issues Requiring an Advisory Opinion from the International Court of Justice

April 21, 59 ADM* (2024)

Members of the UN Permanent Forum 

on People of African Descent 

Members of the CARICOM 

Reparations Commission

Justice Blaise Tchikaya, Chair 

AU Commission For International Law

Analysis by the Republic of New Afrika of Legal Issues Requiring an Advisory Opinion from the International Court of Justice

Michael McEachrane, Rapporteur for the United Nations Permanent Forum on People of African Descent (PFPAD) stated in the Preliminary Conclusion and Recommendations of the Forum’s 3rd Session,  

“The Permanent Forum calls on all relevant stakeholders to continue to advance various methods in the pursuit of reparatory justice. This can be accomplished through the utilization of UN tribunals on reparations to document and resolve specific claims,(see endnote1) the return of artifacts and assets, the recognition of the right of return and diaspora citizenship, (see endnote 2) and the reform of laws, policies, structures systems, practices, as well as the creation of a Global Reparations Fund, the Presentment model, (see endnote 4) advocacy aimed at non-governmental actors, and the advancement of claims before the International Court of Justice.” [emphasis added]

Earlier during the 3rd session, the new PFPAD President Dr. June Soomer told TAG24 NEWS that she will not take independent action on the petition request. The matter must first be discussed among all of the forum members, she said, and a decision will not be reached until all legal considerations are taken into account.

Such legal considerations, however, is exactly what, civil society was expecting to conclude at the 3rd session since former President Epsy Campbell-Barr stated in a July 31 letter to Siphiwe Baleka, that “As president of this space, I have requested the incorporation of this item in the agenda of the next meeting, to proceed to analyze it jointly. I also informed the High Commissioner of the United Nations of this. . . .” [emphasis added] This followed her statement in an interview with New Afrikan youth leader DaQuan Lawrence that, 

“I’m going to sign the petition first because I know that this is the kind of thing that we have to do. . . . The role of civil society is enormous. We as the Permanent Forum, without civil society, we are nothing. Almost nothing. Because we have an isolated voice inside the UN. Because they gave us a little money. They gave us a big mandate without all the tools that we need to achieve all the goals that they gave us but that’s why I understand that the petition of Siphiwe Baleka is one of those things that we need because we need the International Court of Justice to take our own reality as a reality to deny rights of generations…” [emphasis added]

Thus it has been 501 days since I invoked the Forum’s mandate to REQUEST AN ADVISORY OPINION FROM THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE ON NEW AFRIKAN AND AFRO DESCENDANT STATUS AS PRISONERS OF WAR UNDER THE GENEVA CONVENTION AND THEIR RIGHT TO CONDUCT PLEBISCITES FOR SELF DETERMINATION.

It has been 298 days since President Barr stated she would sign the Request and 274 days since she announced that analyzing the request “jointly” would be an agenda item at the just concluded 3rd session of the Forum. But there still has been no joint analysis of the legal considerations. Perhaps this is why Fourm Secretary Niraj Dawadi, immediately following the closing session, felt it necessary to approach me to tell me that the Forum believes requesting an advisory opinion from the ICJ is very important but that due to shortage of resources and time, the members have not had proper opportunity to discuss it yet have concluded that because of its importance, the Request must have broad support. More interesting, however, was the admission that the Forum is concerned that if they exercise their mandate as I have suggested, and the Forum goes directly to the ICJ, that it will, according to Mr. Dawadi, “open the flood gates to petitions.” The concern is that this would set a precedent and every group will then expect the forum to act on their petition. It should be noted this was the very issue that both the League of Nations and the United Nations faced at their establishment - the question of receiving petitions from non-state actors. It was also the contentious subject at the Expert Side Session on Reparatory Justice held on April 17, 2024 in Geneva - whether or not Afro Descendant who are “stateless” will be accorded the same status within the UN as states and how. Towards that end, Dr. Barryl Biekman reminds us that, 

“In my conversation with some of the delegates I have noticed an interest to learn more about the UN decision making processes and as far it concerns the formal adoption into a Resolution for the Second Decade. . . . Take note of the important role of the HRC (Human Rights Council) as the HR mechanism, the UN Authority that has the last word in the sense of the responsibility regarding  the content of the Declaration to be adopted in a Resolution by the United Nation General assembly. Within this decision making process other HR mechanisms such as the WGPAD (working group of Experts on People of African Descent); The PFPAD; the Eminent Persons for the implementation of The DDPA has an important advisory voice. Important is also the Role of Civil Society Non State Actors with consultative ECOSOCC status. They have the right, asked and unasked,  to deliver input during the HRC Sessions. In the SAME LEVEL as the PFPAD.” [emphasis added]

Meanwhile, 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.

The Republic of New Afrika (RNA) has been both the leading and most marginalized voice in advancing the legal reparations claims. On June 25, 1973,  RNA President Imari Abubakari Obadele and Attorney Gaidi Obadele filed in the U.S. District Court For the Southern District of Mississippi, The Article Three Briefs Establishing the Legal Case for the Existence of the Black Nation The Republic of New Africa in North America. To this day it remains the most advanced legal analysis of the New Afrikan and Afro Descendant legal considerations. On November 21, 2010 the New Afrikan Military Science Institute MSI 2-2 Report reviewed, updated and restated the legal considerations which the PG-RNA Ministry of Foreign Affairs submitted to Justice Blaise Tchikaya, Chair AU Commission For International Law on February 21, 2024.

The PG-RNA is, therefore, in a unique position as an unrecognized sovereign government desiring access to the International Court of Justice for adjudication of reparations claims for war crimes and damages. It is for this reason that entities such as the African Union, CARICOM and the Forum, can and should recognize the PG-RNA and facilitate its access to the ICJ as stated in the Durban Declaration and Program of Action (DDPA). They can, as Ethiopia and Liberia did in the case of Ethiopia v. South Africa; Liberia v. South Africa, initiate advisory proceedings on behalf of the people living in those dependent territories. 

As stated in Part Three: The Existence of the New African Government As Distinct From the State in the Article Three Briefs:

“It is not uncommon for lawful governments to exist before such governments partake of full sovereignty. . . . The first precedent is, of course, the Mayflower Compact, which created the law and the government for Plymouth Colony. Drawn on shipboard on 11 November 1620, before the Pilgrims either had set foot on the land or had any title to it whatsoever, in other words, before they had sovereignty over any land - the Compact created the basic law of the Colony, and remained the basic law of the Colony for years, and also organized the men who signed the Compact into a Government. . . Conversely it is clearly manifest, keeping in mind the recent history of Europe [note: and I might also add the current situation in Haiti] that a state can exist without a government. . . . The fact is the United States has failed in a century of war [1868 to 1968] and other political action to extinguish the African nation in America even though, as in [Supreme Court] Mr. Justice Johnshon’s simile, we have from time to time been like the ‘Israelites while inhabiting the desert’  - ‘though without land they can call theirs in the sense of propriety their right of personal self government has never been taken from them, and such a form of government may exist though the land occupied be in fact that of another.’  Government may, then, be defined as a group or persons organized under law to lead the political life of the nation. . . . Apart from any consideration of the character of the New Afrikan State, the Government of the Republic of New Africa was duly created and enjoys a real sovereignty over citizens and land - though the land sovereignty may be said to be coincident with that of the United States. The Government of the Republic of New Africa can and has passed laws defining and protecting the rights of citizens and others who come within New African jurisdiction. . . . We submit that the citizens of the Republic of New Africa and the members of the Republic's Government do not owe a common allegiance with citizens of the United States or members of the United States government, and are, therefore, alien to the United States: an aggregate of aliens composing a State must be a foreign State; each individual being foreign, the whole must be foreign. An aggregate of aliens composing a Government must be a foreign government.” [emphasis added]

In the United States government’s response to the Article Three Briefs, it stated, 

“Every element of the limits of Sec. (b)(2) clearly exist, with the exception of Obadele showing that he is a person of foreign nationality. That question, however, is a matter of law and requires a decision upon the issue of whether black folks now within the United States have ever been converted, in accordance with settled principles of universally established law, into United States citizens, and divested altogether of their original foreign African nationality”. [emphasis added]

As a foreign government once recognized by the Lincoln Administration, we have not been able to have our claims against the United States government heard and the question of our status as either foreign nationals of African origin or citizens of the United States, answered. It is for this reason that I, as founder and President of the Balanta B’urassa History and Genealogy Society in America, a New Afrikan civil society organization, submitted 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 at the first session of the Forum.

Therefore, in the spirit of Ubuntu and goodwill, I attach both the Article Three Briefs and the PGRNA#10/2/19/58 BRIEF FOR THE AU LEGAL REFERENCE GROUP ON REPARATIONS containing A Matter of Law,  the excerpt from the  New Afrikan Military Science Institute MSI 2-2 Report. Together, they provides a complete analysis of the legal considerations that can only be answered using universally accepted principles of law at the International Court of Justice, as attested by both the Provisional government of the Republic of New Afrika and the United States government itself. 

Reparations by any means necessary,

Siphiwe Baleka

Minister of Foreign Affairs

Cc: H.E. Youssouf Mondoha Assoumani Chairman AU PRC; Dr. Namira Negm Legal Council AU Legal Team; William Carew Head Of Secretariat, AU ECOSOCC; The AU Citizens and Diaspora Organizations Directorate (CIDO); Barbara Reynolds, Chair Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent (WGEPAD); Dr. Hilary Brown, Programme Manager Culture and Community Development, CARICOM Secretariat; Accra Reparations Conference Secretariat; Dr. Barry Biekman, AUADS High Council

ENDNOTES:

  1. The Statement to the 20th session of the United Nations Intergovernmental Working Group on the Effective Implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action given in Geneva, Switzerland 10-21 October 2022 entitled NEW AFRIKAN INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENT AND HUMAN RIGHTS. That statement  detailed how the reparatory justice claims of the New Afrikan Independence Movement, headed by the PG-RNA, have been repressed pursuant to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) and the United States National Security Memorandum (NSC) 46 - dated March 17, 1978. https://www.balanta.org/news/new-afrikan-independence-movement-and-human-rights-bbhagsia-statement-to-the-20th-session-of-the-intergovernmental-working-group-on-the-effective-implementation-of-the-durban-declaration 

  2. See  https://www.balanta.org/news/pfpad-durban and https://www.balanta.org/news/towards-a-right-to-return-amp-citizenship-policy-for-descendents-of-people-taken-from-territories-in-africa-during-the-transatlantic-trafficking-and-enslavement-of-african-people 

  3. Based on the PRESENTMENT TO THE HOLY SEE IN FURTHERANCE OF REPARATIONS to Bishop Paul Tighe, Secretary of the Pontifical Council of Culture drafted by Balanta B’urassa History and Genealogy members Siphiwe Baleka and Kamm Howard https://www.balanta.org/news/the-board-as-i-see-it-developments-concerning-global-afrikan-strategic-litigation

THE POLITICAL-LEGAL HISTORY OF THE REPUBLIC OF NEW AFRIKA AND THE WAR WAGED AGAINST IT BY THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  1. JUNE 18, 1452 - THE DECLARATION OF TOTAL WAR AGAINST THE PEOPLE OF AFRIKA.

The Dum Diversas Apostolic Edict of Pope Nicholas V on June 18, 1452 states “we grant to you full and free power, through the Apostolic authority by this edict, to invade, conquer, fight, subjugate the Saracens and pagans, and other infidels and other enemies of Christ, and wherever established their Kingdoms, Duchies, Royal Palaces, Principalities and other dominions, lands, places, estates, camps and any other possessions, mobile and immobile goods found in all these places and held in whatever name, and held and possessed by the same Saracens, Pagans, infidels, and the enemies of Christ, also realms, duchies, royal palaces, principalities and other dominions, lands, places, estates, camps, possessions of the king or prince or of the kings or princes,

AND TO LEAD THEIR PERSONS IN PERPETUAL SERVITUDE, AND TO APPLY AND APPROPRIATE REALMS, DUCHIES, ROYAL PALACES, PRINCIPALITIES AND OTHER DOMINIONS, POSSESSIONS AND GOODS OF THIS KIND TO YOU AND YOUR USE AND YOUR SUCCESSORS THE KINGS OF PORTUGAL.” [emphasis added]

2. 1518 TO 1779 - ASIENTO WAR CONTRACTS

The Dum Diversas Apostolic Edict was followed up with monopoly contracts known as “Asientos'' that were variously granted by the Catholic Church to private merchants from 1518 to 1595, to Portugal from 1595 to 1640, to the Genoese (Italy) from 1662 to 1671, to the Dutch and Portuguese from 1671 to 1701, to France 1701-1713, the British 1713 to 1750, and the Spanish 1765 to 1779. Several British colonies became combatants to the Dum Diversas War when they legalized slavery: Massachusetts in 1641; Connecticut in 1650; Virginia in 1657 and Maryland in 1663. Other colonies followed and the United States of America officially entered the Dum Diversas War trafficking of people from Guine (Africa) after American independence in 1776; and that the Asiento contracts constituted the principal legal means of enslaving people of African descent;

3. JUNE 21, 1788 - THE UNITED STATES OFFICIALLY ENTERS THE WAR

The Constitution became the official framework of the government of the United States of America when New Hampshire became the ninth of 13 states to ratify it. 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 Us 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." [emphasis added]

4. 1861 TO 1863 - PRESIDENT ABRAHAM LINCOLN ISSUES WAR MEASURE CEASE-FIRE, RELEASING NEW AFRIKAN PRISONERS OF WAR AND RECOGNIZES CENTERS OF GOVERNMENT OF THE NEW AFRIKAN NATION 

Prior to the United States Confiscation Acts of 6 August 1861 and 17 July 1862 and the Emancipation Proclamation, which went info effect on 1 January 1863, “persons” - so denominated by Article One, section 2, Paragraph 3 of the United States Constitution; Article One, Section 9, Paragraph 1 and Article Four, Section 2, Paragraph 3 of the same Constitution - kept in slavery in the United States were legally held to be a class of property. Those held in slavery were of the African race, since, according to Mr. Chief Justice Taney of the United States Supreme Court, speaking for the majority in Dred Scott V. Sandford (1857) 19 How 393 “the traffic in slaves in the United States had always been confined to them.”

However, in 1862, acting under his war powers and “as a fit and necessary war measure” for suppressing rebellion, United States President Abraham Lincoln issued an Emancipation Proclamation, which took effect on 1 January 1863. On that date, with that act, the Chief Executive of the United States significantly enlarged the new class of free men which had first been called into existence by the Confiscation Acts of 6 August 1861 and 17 July 1862 and which theretofore did not exist in United States legal contemplation.

Moreover, this new class of free men was not made United States citizens. President Lincoln received an island from Haiti, by cession, and here he attempted through the Secretary of the Interior, in 1863, to settle members of the new class in an independent state of their own, similar to Liberia. Four hundred members of that portion of the New Class which sought independent Statehood actually went to the island, but the project was ill-supported, many died, and the rest returned to rejoin their fellows in the struggle for full sovereignty for the independent New Afrikan nation. The activity of the American “Executive Government” was the first negotiation with the first Government created in the United States by the nationalist portion of the new class. In like manner, proceeding under powers granted by the United States Constitution and by Congress in the Confiscation Acts and by the President in the Emancipation Proclamation, other representatives of the United States Executive Government extended recognition to other centers of Government of the New Afrikan nation.

On January 12, 1865 the United States Secretary of War Edwin McMasters Stanton and United States Army General William Tecumseh Sherman met in Savannah, Georgia with a New Afrikan government council of twenty people representing the new class of free persons. In response to General Sherman’s Fourth request to “State in what manner you would rather live - whether scattered among the whites or in colonies by yourselves,” the spokesperson for the black Government council, Garrison Frazier answered: “I would prefer to live by ourselves, for there is prejudice against us in the South that will take years to get over; but I do not know that I can answer for my brethren.” The record shows that Mr. Lynch said he thinks they should not be separated but live together. All the other persons present, being questioned one by one, answer that they agree with Brother Frazier. As a result of these negotiations, the closest thing that New Afrikans had to a plebiscite to determine their will and aspirations as free men, General Sherman issued Special Field Order Number 15.

The commerce between U.S. President Lincoln and the representatives of the New Afrikan government which resulted in the Haitian-island project was an explicit U.S. recognition of the New Afrikan nation and government, as were the meetings between Secretary Stanton and General Sherman and the East Coast New Afrikan Government Council, which resulted in the Sea Islands Governments (population 40,000) as was the creation of the Davis Bend Government under Superintendent John Eaton in Mississippi (population 72,000). Here, then, was the establishment of self-governing New Afrikan communities under the protection of the United States on land to which the Americans claimed ultimate title but to which the New Afrikans had been given possessory title by General Sherman, acting lawfully for the Congress and the President. And the placing of the communities under United States protection with only possessory titles put the New Afrikan nation here on a footing with the various Indian nations. It is to be kept in mind that this center of the New Afrikan nation, while in a subject relationship to the United States, was nevertheless a center of free men possessed of the inalienable right to liberty, including self-determination, just as were the thirteen British colonies in America. However, the war and slavery continued in the United States after the Emancipation Proclamation and 13th amendment under new forms.

5. JUNE 1866 - WAR IN DISGUISE: THE 14TH AMENDMENT CAMPAIGN OF FRAUD CONTINUES THE WAR AGAINST THE NEW AFRIKAN NATION

Thus, by word and action, did the American government recognize the fledgling New African nation and the right of the new class, in exercise of its inherent liberty, to independent Statehood, voluntary repatriation, or emigration to Haiti and other territories. The status of the New Afrikan self-governing territories and voluntary, compensated repatriation was removed through a United States official campaign of fraud and terrorism resulting from the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. As noted by Imari Obadele, 

“Just as soon as the United States Government recognized the inalienable rights of the new class of free men - namely the right to seek admission, as citizens, to the American community; the right to return home, to Africa; the right to general emigration and the right to set up an independent State of its own; segments of American society began to narrow the options for the new class which it, the American community, as a matter of political action, would accept.

As early as December 1863 the United States Secretary of the Interior suggested that the new class of free men should not be sent away because they were needed in the United States Army. Also, in April 1865, General Butler replied to President Lincoln’s request for logistical information that ‘using all your naval vessels and all the merchant marine fit to cross the seas with safety, it wil be impossible for you to transport to the nearest place that can be found fit for them - and that is the Island of Domingo - half as fast as Negro children will be born here.’

In the report of the United States Congress’ Joint Committee of Fifteen, 18 June 1866, the Congress explains how this difficult logistical problem - meaning that the new class would stay in the United States and largely in the South - helped determine, from the viewpoint of the American community, that the new class should be given the vote and United States citizenship. The new class, as voters, could be counted upon to support the United States government in power, whereas that segment of the American community until recently denominated the Confederacy could be counted upon to oppose the government in power. If the new class remained voteless, as they were during slavery, when each slave was counted as only three-fifth a man in the basis of representation, their numbers as free men would nevertheless give the former Confederacy a huge increase in members in the House of Representatives and the Electoral College, because now, even if voteless, the free man would be counted as five fifths, instead of three-fifths, a man. Said the Committee: ‘The increase of representation necessarily resulting from the abolition of slavery was considered the most important element in the questions arising out of the changed condition of affairs, and the necessity for some fundamental action in this regard seemed imperative.’ Thus, the American community - reacting to its own need for black labor and reacting to what it believed to be a difficult logistical problem in emigration and reacting to a fear of increased political power for the Confederates - determined to limit the liberty of the new class of men, in the political arena, to the single option of the United States citizenship.

The Fourteenth Amendment, passed by Congress in June 1866 and ratified by the States in July 1868, was, then, the consecration of a campaign of war and fraud by the American community against the new class, wrongfully and illegally to prevent the new class from exercising the full range of political liberty that belonged to it. The new class was not to be barred from accepting membership in the American community - indeed, the Fourteenth Amendment attempted to order the new class into the American community - although that membership would be limited politically and socially. The new class would not be prevented from emigrating in small numbers and at its own expense. But it would be prevented - under this illegal campaign consecrated by the Fourteenth amendment - from establishing independent sovereignty over a land mass in what the American community deemed to be the actual and potential land of the United States. But the campaign was - and is - an illegal application of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Further, a full appreciation of the erroneous interpretation which lies upon the Fourteenth Amendment when it is conceived to have imposed citizenship upon the new class, either in 1868 or anytime since, or when it is conceived as being capable of doing so, cannot be had without a recognition of the role of fraud in leading many members of the new class to assume they were or are United States citizens and that, in 1868, we had no choices except United States citizenship or unprotected peonage. After the assasination of Mr. Lincoln, there is no evidence anywhere that the United States government or any of the private institutions that concerned themselves with the freedmen and Reconstruction attempted to inform the freedman of his rights under international law or worse, that either the United States government or those  private institutions did anything except promote the idea that the new class had only the two said options, U.S. citizenship or peonage . . . . 

This massive fraud, continuing today, constitutes almost certainly the most infamous such fraud and rape of the rights of free men in all history. Today New Africans, fully aware of their rights under international law and the fraud which has been perpetrated upon us, appear in American courts maintaining our nationality as New African and asserting our freedom and right to this nationality under the Confiscation Acts, the Emancipation proclamation, the Thirteenth Amendment, and Article Fifteen of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but are summarily told by prosecutor and Court that we are not New Afrikans, and are not possessed of inalienable liberty, and are - under the Fourteenth Amendment - United States Citizens. This is an invidious, illegal, and wrong interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment. . . . The Fourteenth Amendment could not operate upon a free group of people, constructed outside of the American community, without that group’s informed consent  . . . The Fourteenth Amendment represented a political decision by the American community. That decision - patently illegal since based on the Fourteenth Amendment - was to limit the new class largely to the option of a curtailed United States citizenship and to wage war against the nationalist portion of the new class. . . . 

President Johnson led in suppressing the centers of New African government. All of these centers - from the territory of Tunis Campbell, later State Senator in Georgia, and the South Carolina Sea Islands governments in the east, to Davis Bend and the Mississippi governments in the west - were put down by 1866 by the United States Army, the United States Courts and other United States functionaries. Significantly, the U.S. Army was resisted in several places by armed New Afrikan militia - a clear sign that these centers of New Afrikan government had opted for complete independence in the manner of the Thirteen colonies, and through this use of their right to independence, carried out on land to which they asserted sovereign rights, based on principles of long occupancy and reparations, while that land was still in territorial status, had given full subsistence to the existence of the New Afrikan nation. Yet the forms were put down. In addition, the meetings and conventions of both that segment of the new class pursuing citizenship and that segment seeking independence were harassed and subjected to terror. When, in 1867, Congressional Reconstruction came in, the segment of the new class willing to proceed along lines dictated by the U.S. Congress received some support of the U.S. Army against the widespread white violence to which it was being subjected. But the nationalist segment remained the object of suppression by the total white community, although that suppression never succeeded in eliminating the New Afrikan nation. It is not too strong to say that all this was - and is - war. The words of Mr. Justice Johnson, of the U.S. Supreme Court, writing in his concurring separate opinion in ‘Cherokee Nation v. The State of Georgia’ 5 Peters 25, BL. ed., at the Court’s January Term in 1831, come readily to mind. Said he: ‘What does this series of allegations exhibit but a sovereign independent State, and set out that another sovereign State has, by its laws, its functionaries, and its armed force, invaded their state and put down their authority. This is war in fact; though not being declared with the usual solemnities, it may perhaps be called war in disguise.’ Despite this war by the stronger community against the weaker, which took clear form in 1868, and has continued ever since, except for a brief respite in 1968, that portion of the new class of men which deemed itself to be a nation, has persisted in its nationhood down through the present. Its forms have not always been conventional, because of the necessity to be plastic in order to survive the war being waged against it. But the New Afrikan nation has persisted. . . . That at the present time the nationalists among the new class should be led by two major political states - the Nation of Islam and the Republic of New Afrika - is no derogation of the black nationalists. The United States itself was originally composed of not just two but thirteen sovereign States and ultimately added such disparate units as Louisiana and Puerto Rico. The emergence of the Nation of Islam and the Republic of New Afrika is the result of black nationalist efforts - despite the war being waged against us by the more powerful American nation - to create a more perfect political union and more conventional forms of government. All that has gone before represents a continuous evolution of the black nation in America, from the Haitian-island group through the Sea Islands and Davis Bend governments and the less conventional forms that followed, to the Nation of Islam and the Republic of New Afrika, in the face of a severe, illegal, and unrelenting war of extinction waged by the American nation. Through it all, the New Afrikan nation has continued to exist.” 

5. 1917 - 1919 - THE UNITED STATES CONTINUES THE WAR THROUGH FRAUD AT THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS: FAILS TO 

By 1917, Cyrl V. Briggs had reiterated Garrison Frazier’s petition to establish self-governing New African colonies, calling for “Colored Autonomous States”. This seemed to be the appropriate application of President Woodrow Wilson's calls for self determination under his “14 Points”.  By the time of the Paris Peace Conference and in its aftermath in 1919, the League of Nations decided to use Scientific Colonialism as the foundation of its Mandates System. 

The Mandates system was applied to the former German and Ottoman colonies after the war [First European tribal War aka “World War I”]. The broad outlines of which territories were to be included in the Mandates System had been clear after the Peace Conference, but no specific territories could be considered Mandates until the administering states had signed agreements to these selections. At the Paris Peace Conference the Supreme Council established the Committee on New States and for The Protection of Minorities. All the new successor states were compelled to sign minority rights treaties as a precondition of diplomatic recognition. The new treaties gave minorities the right to appeal directly to the League (and later, the UN General Assembly). Both W.E.B. DuBois and Marcus Garvey, as well as William Trotter, petitioned for self determination and independent statehood at the Paris Peace Conference. 

On November 10, 1918 Marcus Garvey, who was prevented from attending the Paris Peace Conference, nevertheless submitted the Resolution of the UNIA Peace Aims, which, among other things, stated, 

“Be It Resolved, That we, the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League of the World, representing the interests of the New Spirited Negroes of America, Africa and the West Indies, assembled in Universal Mass Convention in the Palace Casino, New York, on Sunday November 10, 1918, hereby beg to submit the following peace aims to the Allied Democracies of Europe and America, and to the people of democratic tendencies of the world.

And Be It Further Resolved, That we believe that it will only be through a proper recognition of the Negro’s rights and the rights of all weaker peoples at the Peace Conference that future wars will be obviated.

And We Further Pray That the Peace Conference to assemble will take cognizance of these our aims

  1. That the principle of self-determination be applied to Africa and all European controlled colonies in which people of African descent predominate.

  2. That all economic barriers that hamper the industrial development of Africa be removed.

  3. That Negroes enjoy the right to travel and reside in any part of the world even as Europeans now enjoy these rights.

  4. That Negroes be permitted the same educational facilities now given to Europeans

  5. That Europeans who interfere with, or violate African tribal customs be deported and denied re-entry to the continent.

  6. That the segregatory and proscriptive ordinances against Negroes in any part of the world be repealed and that they (Negroes) be given complete political, industrial and social equality in countries where Negroes and people of any other race live side by side.

  7. That the reservation land acts aimed against the natives of South Africa be revoked and the land restored to its prescriptive owners.

  8. That Negroes be given proportional representation in any scheme of world government.

  9. That the captured German colonies in Africa be turned over to the natives with educated Western and Eastern Negroes as their leaders.” [emphasis added].

UNIA Delegation to the League of Nations

Similarly, on November 17, 1918, W.E.B. DuBois, who was allowed to  attend the Paris Peace Conference and was received, submitted the Memoranda on the Future of Africa, that stated, 

“The barter of colonies without regard to the wishes or welfare of the inhabitants or the welfare of the world in general is a custom which this war should put to an end, since it is a fruitful cause of dissension among nations, a danger to the status of civilized labor, a temptation to unbridled exploitation, and an excuse for unspeakable atrocities committed against natives. . . If the world after the war decided to reconstruct Africa in accordance with the wishes of the Negro race and the best interests of civilization, the process might be carried out as follows: the former German colonies with one million square miles and twelve and one-half millions of inhabitants could be internationalized. To this could be added by negotiation the 800,000 square miles and nine million inhabitants of Portuguese Africa. It is not impossible that Belgium could be persuaded to add to such a state the 900,000 square miles and nine million natives of the Congo, making an International Africa with over two and one-half million square miles of land and over twenty million people. This reorganized Africa could be under the guidance of organized civilization. The Governing International Commission should represent not simply governments but modern culture - science, commerce, social reform, and religious philanthropy . . .  We can, if we will, inaugurate on the Dark Continent a last great crusade for humanity. With Africa redeemed, Asia would be safe and Europe indeed triumphant.”

The League of Nations replied that a procedure required the United States to sign a special treaty agreeing to the international protection of its internal minorities. The question of the New Afrikan/AfroDescendants non-self governing territories and status as an internal colony of the United States was ignored. By mid-1920, the UNIA’s Declaration of Rights stated that “we as a race of people declare the League of Nations null and void as far as the Negro is concerned, in that it seeks to deprive Negroes of their liberty.” 

6. 1962 TO 1967 - THE NEW AFRIKAN INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENT INTENSIFIES THE WAR OF RESISTANCE 

In 1962 Max Stanford (now Ahmad Muhammad) engaged with Malcolm X and told him he was a revolutionary interested in following him and the Nation of Islam. Malcolm X told Stanford that if he was truly revolutionary, he would be better off working outside the NOI. Stanford went forward to become a founding member of the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM).

RAM was the first group in the United States to synthesize the thought of Marx, Lenin, Mao, and Malcolm X into a comprehensive theory of revolutionary black nationalism. They combined socialism, black nationalism, and Third World internationalism into a coherent and applicable theory that called for revolution "inside the citadel of world imperialism," meaning the United States.

The Black Guard was a national armed youth self-defense group run by RAM that argued for protecting the interests of Black America by fighting directly against its enemies. The Black Guard, in Max Stanford's words, "[was] to stop our youth from fighting amongst themselves, teach them a knowledge of [black] history ... and prepare them ... to protect our community from racist attacks."  In 1964, Malcolm X became a RAM officer. At that time, they published 𝑺𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒃𝒐𝒐𝒌: 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑹𝒆𝒗𝒐𝒍𝒖𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒂𝒓𝒚 𝑱𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒏𝒂𝒍 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑩𝒍𝒂𝒄𝒌 𝑾𝒐𝒓𝒍𝒅. It was a radical black culture magazine edited by future black power activists Bobby Seale, Huey Newton, and Ernie Allen, among others.

Whitewashed history tried to brainwash people into thinking that the RAM/Black Guard/Black Liberation Army was a bunch of lunatic, violent black people. However, The Republic of New Afrika's First Vice-President Milton Henry (Gaidi Obadele) was a Tuskegee Airman and graduated from Yale Law School in 1950. He served as a City Commissioner of Pontiac, Michigan from 1954 to 1960. His uncompromising exploits in defense of freedom, justice, and equality for black people were frequently covered by Black newspapers throughout America as well as a few white newspapers. According to his own testimony,

"I was one of seven City Councilmen representing a District.... And I sat there and of course one out of seven [that was black and interested in assisting this community]. I could see very readily that we really didn't have any ability to do much more than just trade on particular items. . . [The] municipal court remained almost completely white. The fire department was completely white. The police department had about four or five blacks on it and they felt they were doing their job. And the racism was rampant in the attitude of the place and . . . these are the things that you couldn't do very much about. . . . I was just wasting time. I was a figurehead. I was there as a black man representing black people and I could see that in reality I had no power. I couldn't make any changes in the things that were important. They pulled me out for window-dressing. They'd have me sitting around at meetings talking, where most of the time they were trying to persuade me to vote for some nonsense that didn't have a damn thing to do with black people. So, I ultimately decided that I was going to walk off the Commission."

Where did he walk off to? Well, he went to Africa and traveled with Malcolm X to Cairo to meet with African leaders.

On April 12, 1964, Malcolm X returned to Detroit to support his friends, including Milton (Obadele) who had created the Freedom Now Party. That night, Malcolm X gave his famous "𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑩𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒐𝒕 𝒐𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑩𝒖𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒕" speech, stating,

"It is our intention to have a black nationalist convention which will consist of delegates from all over the country who are interested in the political, economic and social philosophy of black nationalism. After these delegates convene, we will hold a seminar; we will hold discussions; we will listen to everyone. We want to hear new ideas and new solutions and new answers. And at that time, if we see fit then to form a black nationalist party, we'll form a black nationalist party. 𝐈𝐅 𝐈𝐓 𝐈𝐒 𝐍𝐄𝐂𝐄𝐒𝐒𝐀𝐑𝐘 𝐓𝐎 𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐌 𝐀 𝐁𝐋𝐀𝐂𝐊 𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 𝐀𝐑𝐌𝐘, 𝐖𝐄'𝐋𝐋 𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐌 𝐀 𝐁𝐋𝐀𝐂𝐊 𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 𝐀𝐑𝐌𝐘."

The Afro-American Student Conference was held in Nashville, May 1-3, 1964. By its end, the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM) convinced the conference that young revolutionary nationalists were the vanguard of a Black revolution and liberation struggle in the United States which embodied cultural revolution, promoted Pan African socialism and was ready to form an organizational apparatus to 'translate' Nationalist ideology into effective action and whose members were willing to make the supreme sacrifices to build and sustain a dynamic Nationalist Movement. Based on a thorough assessment of the state of the struggle for Black America’s liberation in the North and South, a national organization - RAM - was created. Max Stanford was elected National Field Chairman, Donald Freeman was elected Executive Chairman, James Boggs, Ideological Chairman, Grace Boggs, Executive Secretary, and Milton Henry/Paul Brooks, Treasurer. RAM’s international representatives were El Hajj Malik Shabazz (Malcolm X), International Spokesman, and Robert F. Williams, International Chairman. Malcolm X then traveled to Ghana and met with representatives of liberation organizations, including the African National Congress of South Africa (ANC) and the South African Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC). After returning from Ghana, Malcolm X  and John Henrik Clarke formed the Organization of Afro American Unity (OAAU) on June 28th, 1964 to represent the African American liberation movement. The OAAU was the above-ground national liberation front while RAM served as its underground armed component.

In the book, 𝑭𝒓𝒐𝒎 𝑪𝒊𝒗𝒊𝒍 𝑹𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒔 𝒕𝒐 𝑩𝒍𝒂𝒄𝒌 𝑳𝒊𝒃𝒆𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏: 𝑴𝒂𝒍𝒄𝒐𝒍𝒎 𝑿 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑶𝒓𝒈𝒂𝒏𝒊𝒛𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒐𝒇 𝑨𝒇𝒓𝒐-𝑨𝒎𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒏 𝑼𝒏𝒊𝒕𝒚, William Sales, Jr. notes,

“Paralleling these discussions, and in as much secrecy, were discussions Malcolm X had with RAM through its field secretary, Muhammed Ahmed. As Ahmed remembered it, in June 1964 he and Malcolm worked out the structure of a revolutionary nationalist alternative to be set up within the Civil Rights movement. They also outlined the role of the OAAU in this alternative.

‘The OAAU was to be the broad front organization and RAM the underground Black Liberation Front of the U.S.A. Malcolm in his second trip to Africa was to try to find places for eventual political asylum and political/military training for cadres. While Malcolm was in Africa, the field chairman [Ahmed] was to go to Cuba to report the level of progress to Robert Williams. As Malcolm prepared Africa to support our struggle, ‘Rob’ [Robert F. Williams] would prepare Latin America and Asia. During this period, Malcolm began to emphasize that Afro-Americans could not achieve freedom under the capitalist system. He also described guerrilla warfare as a possible tactic to be used in the Black liberation struggle here. His slogan ‘Freedom by any means necessary’ has remained in the movement to this day.’

These discussions, in fact, reflected the impact of Malcolm’s interaction with the representatives of national liberation movements and guerrilla armies during his trip to Africa. He was very much focused on establishing an equivalent structure within the African American freedom struggle. On June 14, 1964, the Sunday edition of the Washington Star featured an interview with Malcolm X in which he announced the formation of ‘his new political group,’ the Afro-American Freedom Fighters. In this interview Malcolm X emphasized the right of Afro-Americans to defend themselves and to engage in guerrilla warfare. A change of direction was rapidly made, however. As Ahmed reported, Malcolm’s premature public posture on armed self-defense and guerrilla warfare frightened those in the nationalist camp who feared government repression. They feared giving public exposure to organizing efforts for self-determination and guerrilla warfare. Malcolm agreed, and the name of the new organization became the Organization of Afro-American Unity.

The OAAU was to be the organizational platform for Malcolm X as the international spokesperson for RAM’s revolutionary nationalism, but the nuts and bolts of creating a guerrilla organization were not to take place inside the OAAU. The OAAU was to be an above-ground united front engaged in legitimate activities to gain international recognition for the African American freedom struggle.”

Two days after the Civil Rights Act was passed on July 2, 1964, Milton's Group on Advanced Leadership (GOAL) took action. According to Milton's Brother Richard (Imari Obadele),

"The rifle clubs would be 'for going South in moments of siege' and for getting guns 'into the hands of willing and needy blacks in the fascist South, when the time comes.' The GOAL leader predicted that 'proportioned underground warfare' by Negroes would come to the South. When that happens, [he] said, the northern rifle clubs would 'back Negroes in besieged towns under attack by whites seeking to retaliate for the acts of the underground.'"

Then, in July, Malcolm, as Chairman of the OAAU, joined the other African liberation movements housed on the boat named Isis docked in the Nile River for the Organization of African Unity (OAU) Summit held in Cairo. Malcolm X was given observer status and on July 17, he circulated a memo to the African Heads of State, saying,

“The Organization of Afro-American Unity has sent me to attend this historic African Summit Conference as an observer to represent the interests of 22 million African-Americans whose human rights are being violated daily by the racism of American imperialists. The Organization of Afro-American Unity has been formed by a cross section of America's African-American community, and is patterned after the letter and spirit of the Organization of African Unity. . . .”

In an interview with Gaidi Obadele (Milton Henry) while in Cairo Malcolm X said, "It is true that at first there were stumbling blocks placed in my path in regards to being accepted into the conference, or into the meetings. But I'd rather not say what happened in specific details. 𝑻𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒌𝒔 𝒕𝒐 𝑨𝒍𝒍𝒂𝒉, 𝑰 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒂𝒅𝒎𝒊𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝒂𝒔 𝒂𝒏 𝒐𝒃𝒔𝒆𝒓𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑰 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒂𝒃𝒍𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒖𝒃𝒎𝒊𝒕 𝒂 𝒎𝒆𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒂𝒏𝒅𝒖𝒎 𝒕𝒐 𝒆𝒂𝒄𝒉 𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒕𝒆, which was read and thoroughly analyzed by them."

Gaidi Obadele replied, "Malcolm, I think you are to be greatly applauded because actually you were the only American recognized as a participant of the conference, and of course 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒉𝒂𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒃𝒂𝒅𝒈𝒆 𝒘𝒉𝒊𝒄𝒉 𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒎𝒊𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒂𝒄𝒄𝒆𝒔𝒔 𝒕𝒐 𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒓𝒐𝒐𝒎𝒔 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒔𝒐 𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒕𝒉. 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑨𝒎𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒏𝒔 𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆, 𝒊𝒏𝒄𝒍𝒖𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒎𝒚𝒔𝒆𝒍𝒇, 𝒅𝒊𝒅 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒊𝒍𝒆𝒈𝒆, 𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒉𝒂𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒊𝒍𝒆𝒈𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒂𝒄𝒕𝒖𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒚 𝒃𝒆𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒃𝒍𝒂𝒄𝒌 𝒃𝒓𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒔. I had the feeling that there will be a great change in emphasis because you have been here, and because you presented our position the position of the black man in America so well, in a way that no one but an American could.”

On October 10, 1964 Malcolm X arrived in Dar Es Salaam and over the next seven days, met with the African Liberation Committee headquartered there as well as with Presidents Nyere of Tanzania, Obote of Uganda and Kenyatta of Kenya.

Malcolm X in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania in 1964

In 𝑹𝒆𝒇𝒍𝒆𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝒂 𝑹𝒆𝒔𝒐𝒍𝒖𝒕𝒆 𝑹𝒂𝒅𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒍, Donald Freeman writes,

"In December, 1964 Doug Andrews, Paul Brooks, Tom Higginbotham, Max Stanford, and other members met in Cleveland to refine RAM’s 1965 priorities and strategy. . . . We discussed how to galvanize the energy of young urban African Americans, thereby enhancing the applicability of Rob Williams’ explosive advocacy in the United States and 𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒄𝒐𝒐𝒓𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝑬𝒍 𝑯𝒂𝒋𝒋 𝑴𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒌 𝑺𝒉𝒂𝒃𝒂𝒛𝒛’𝒔 𝑶𝒓𝒈𝒂𝒏𝒊𝒛𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒐𝒇 𝑨𝒇𝒓𝒐-𝑨𝒎𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒏 𝑼𝒏𝒊𝒕𝒚 (𝑶𝑨𝑨𝑼).

I was pleased with our youth and young adult penetration among college students stemming from the spring 1964 Nashville conference and gangs, which was a byproduct of my work with others in Chicago during the summer. I hoped that this progress was the prelude to a significant conversation of young Black men and women to RAM’s ranks in 1965.

As January 1965 began, Malik Shabazz was busy seeking the backing of Ghana, Algeria and more African governments to bring about the condemnation of the United States’ oppression of Black America in the UN. Such internationalization of the African American liberation struggle as a human rights issue was a principal objective of the OAAU.

By that time Max Stanford had become one of Malik Shabbazz’s constant Harlem companions. Their communication was continuous. Hence RAM’s agenda was an integral part of his activities.

Then a series of ominous events beset El Hajj Malik Shabazz. In late November 1964 he had been invited to speak in France and Great Britain. February 8, 1965 he spoke again in London, but was not allowed to return to France the next day. On February 14th, his East Elmhurst, New York home was firebombed.

A further foreboding misfortune was the February 16th, 1965 New York City arrest of Walter Bowe, Robert Collier, Khaleel Sayyed, and Michelle Duclos, a French-Canadian woman, for allegedly plotting to bomb the Statue of Liberty.

What these menacing omens portended was actualized by the assassination of El Hajj Malik Shabazz at the Audubon Ballroom, on Sunday afternoon, February 21, 1965. The bourgeois (capitalist) mass media claimed that the Nation of Islam perpetuated that heinous crime. However, RAM asserted that its perpetrators were the CIA and FBI. . . . The arrests of Walter Bowe, Robert Collier, Khaled Sayyed, and Michelle Duclos in the so-called bombing of the Statue of Liberty plot and the murder of Malik Shabbaz marked the prelude to the CounterIntelligence Program (COINTELPRO) of the FBI, which eventually engineered the liquidation of Fred Hampton, the head of the Black Panther Party (BPP) of Chicago."

In August of 1965, Robert F Williams, living in exile in Cuba, published an analysis on the 𝑷𝒐𝒕𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒂𝒍 𝒐𝒇 𝑨 𝑴𝒊𝒏𝒐𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒚 𝑹𝒆𝒗𝒐𝒍𝒖𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑼𝑺𝑨.

On June 17, 1966, Stokely Carmichael, then Chairman of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) which was organized in April 1960 by Balanta activist Ella Baker, formally announced Black Power as a political slogan during a speech in Greenwood, Mississippi. Afterwards, the Malcolm X Society was organized in 1967.

After the 1967 riots, the FBI and their COINTELPRO program targeted RAM for political destruction. However, RAM was just one of many civil rights or black nationalist groups targeted because of their politics.

The New Afrikan liberation struggle, however, continued. On March 31, 1968, at the National Black Government Conference sponsored by the Malcolm X Society, the New Afrikan Declaration of Independence was declared and the Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika was established.

On May 31, 1968 about 30 leaders of the RNA met at 40 North Ashland Avenue in Chicago to address some of the biggest issues facing the new government. Among them was,

“the legislative act that established the Black Legion, the RNA’s military. Similar to the income tax, the creation of this body was supposed to resolve another perceived problem - this time not just for the RNA but for the larger African American community as well. Specifically, the RNA tried to address the heightened security threats to the black community by the overt behavior of racist police as well as other members of the white community.  This addressed a longer historical problem as well.

The creation of the Black Legion was also tied to the greatest repressive fear of the organization: being directly hit by an overt, aggressive assault like that waged [upon] nonviolent civil rights activists (from whites in general and the police in particular). The RNA vowed that it would never be hit in such a direct manner without preparation. Two reasons existed for this. On the one hand, the RNA vowed never to put themselves in a position where they were vulnerable to this type of attack (i.e., being out in the open, unarmed and unprepared). Instead, the RNA would try to build themselves in the minds of black folk and then step forward to claim the nation en masse. On the other hand, the RNA would prepare to defend themselves by creating an armed wing, trained in shooting, hand-to-hand combat, and diverse survival skills. This was the essence of the organization’s reappraisal - armed self-defense from overt general assault, both immediately after the attack and a ‘second strike,’ which would be delayed after the initial attack as retribution. The plans for the former were pretty straightforward, whereas the plans for the latter were never quite clear, seemingly on purpose. For example, there was always reference to people being ‘underground’ but nothing concrete - across source material.

As conceived, the Black Legion would be composed of selected citizens between the ages of sixteen and fifty, the men and women being in separate units for reasons that were not provided in detail. All were to engage in two hours of training per week, and once a month there would be practice on a field training site. In addition to this, all male citizens between the ages of sixteen and fifty and all female citizens between the ages of sixteen and thirty (without young children) were mandated to join the Universal Military Training Force. Similar to the state of Israel, in an effort to have as many soldiers as citizens, this force involved at least two hours of military training a month, when individuals would learn how to shoot, dress wounds, and otherwise take care of themselves in a conflict situation. Finally, to prepare RNA members as soon as possible and engage the whole family, there was to be a Junior Black Legion composed of all children between the ages of nine and fifteen. In these units, youth would undergo a less rigorous but largely similar program.“

7. AUGUST 25, 1967 - COINTELPRO REVISES THE US WAR STRATEGY: THE NEW AFRIKAN/BLACK NATIONALISTS BECOME THE NUMBER ONE UNITED STATES NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT

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.

Tactics used to suppress RAM were also used to suppress and target Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the Black Panther Party, the Nation of Islam, the National Welfare Rights Organization, Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement (DRUM), Republic of New Afrika (RNA), Congress of Afrikan People, black student unions at universities all over the country, and black churches and community organizations. In this context of government repression, RAM transformed itself into the Black Liberation Party, and by 1969 had practically dissolved.

At the second RNA Conference, on March 29, 1969, police raided the Detroit New Bethel Baptist Church. The police attempted to assassinate Gaidi Obadele and fired on conference participants with nearly a thousand rounds of ammunition.

A memorandum issued on April 27, 1971 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.

8.MARCH 17, 1978 - US NATIONAL SECURITY MEMORANDUM 46 UPDATES AND EXPANDS THE WAR AGAINST THE NEW AFRIKAN LIBERATION MOVEMENT

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.”


9.THE UNITED STATES LAUNCHES NEW FORMS OF CLANDESTINE WARFARE AGAINST THE NEW AFRIKAN NATION: WAR ON POVERTY, WAR ON DRUGS, WAR ON TERRORISM

It has now become clear that the war against New Afrikans 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.


It is important to understand that the United States 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:

  1. Prevent unity

  2. Prevent rise of a leader

  3. Identify and neutralize [warriors]

  4. Alienate the concept of nationalism from the people

  5. 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.

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."

Free the Land! Reparations by any means necessary,

Siphiwe Baleka

Minister of Foreign Affairs

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:

  1. Prevent unity

  2. Prevent rise of a leader

  3. Identify and neutralize [warriors]

  4. Alienate the concept of nationalism from the people

  5. 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!