On the 5th anniversary of the Iraq war, Iraqi Veterans Against War (IVAW) US veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan will be gathering in Washington today for 4 days of testimony on their experiences and feelings. The testimonies will be streamed on the internet and broadcast on satellite TV.

The veterans are not against the military and seek not to indict it – instead they seek to shine a light on the bigger picture: that the Abu Ghraib prison regime and the Haditha massacre of innocent Iraqis are not isolated incidents perpetrated by “bad seeds” as the military suggests, but evidence of an endemic problem. They will say they were asked to do terrible things and point the finger up the chain of command, which ignores, diminishes or covers up routine abuse and atrocities.

Former British special forces trooper, Ben Griffin banned from speaking in public

As of 1940hrs 29/02/08 I have been placed under an injunction preventing me from speaking publicly and publishing material gained as a result of my service in UKSF (SAS).

I will be continuing to collect evidence and opinion on British Involvement in extraordinary rendition, torture, secret detentions, extra judicial detention, use of evidence gained through torture, breaches of the Geneva Conventions, breaches of International Law and failure to abide by our obligations as per UN Convention Against Torture. I am carrying on regardless ”
Ben Griffin, Former UK Special forces trooper

Tags:

Iraq
Afganistan
USA
Iraqi Veterans Against War
extraordinary rendition
Battle for Haditha
Abu Ghraib

URGENT ACTION NEEDED.

The U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief is requiring organisations in the global south receiving US funding to sign an “anti-prostitution” pledge in order to receive funds. This is outrageous, discriminatory and will create even more problems for AIDS programmes and people living with HIV and AIDS. PEPFAR has now become a meaningless and restrictive programme as added to this latest condition are other conditions such as funding abstinence only programmes and supporting anti-gay organisations in Uganda

President Bush today announced he would be asking the US Congress to agree $30billion over the next 5 years. However in the past the US has tied HIV/AIDS funding to abstinence only HIV programmes and in Uganda they have supported anti-gay organisations that prevent access to treatment by members of the LGBT community. In 2006 56% of PEPFAR (Presidents Emergency Plan for Aids Relief) prevention funding (20% of PEPFAR) went to “abstinence until marriage programmes” and 44% went to other programmes such as avoidance and reducing risk behaviour along with condom use BUT no monies went to any condom only promotion programmes.

Help to fight PEPFAR’s restrictions is needed particularly from organisations working with HIV/AIDS the GLOBAL SOUTH. Advocates are asking people and organisations to please sign on to this letter to US Congress recommending that the pledge be removed.

To sign on, write to pepfarletter at taumail dot com. If you would like to add a sentence about the ways the pledge has affected your work, please send that too!

To Congress Re: PEPFAR
A Letter from the Field by
January 31, 2008
Dear Member of the US Congress:

We are members of non-governmental and community-based organizations from throughout the developing world. We are writing out of concern about the so-called anti-prostitution pledge within the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the ways it affects our work. The pledge requires organizations receiving U.S. funding to sign a pledge “opposing prostitution.” This policy has undermined
the work of many of our organizations and we must protest it.
[Read more…]

The US Africa Command, AFRICOM is reportedly on it’s way to the Gulf of Guinea. I am beginning to feel as if we’ve been projected back in a time machine to the day the Portuguese emissary, Diego de Azambuja landed in what was to become El Mina with the intention of building a “a storehouse” for all the gold and slaves they hoped to acquire in the name of the King of Portugal . The place which would become known as El Mina and which was later to become the infamous slave dungeon witnessed an event some* describe as “The Beginning” of slavery and it’s afterlife which continues today. On that day, January 19th, 1482, Diego de Azambuja landed with six hundred men on the shores of present day Ghana to meet King Caramansa. The Akan King was not happy about the idea of a permanent Portuguese presence but somehow he was persuaded. However it is not difficult to imagine what would have happened if he had refused and thus the trade in slaves began, a few hundreds at first and eventually thousands passed through Elmina.

And so 500 years later, another emissary from the West lands on the Gulf of Guinea ready to stake out their claim to the waters and lands of Africa in the name of the King of America and oil. Although Nigeria’s President, Yar’adua has given his support to AFRICOM he is now playing both sides by saying yes he supports it but not in his back yard. Well sorry Mr President, it doesn’t work like that and do not expect us to believe that you are so naive to think you can have your cake and eat it at the same time.

President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, during his visit to US President George W. Bush, late last year, said that the Federal Government was in support of AFRICOM.
The Special Assistant to the President (Communications), Mr. Segun Adeniyi, had clarified the President’s statement, which had generated controversy.
He had explained that President Yar’Adua’s statement negated what people thought he meant, adding that his support for AFRICOM did not mean that he wanted its headquarters sited in the country.

If as This Day reports, Africa is united in it’s rejection of AFRICOM then we need to ask why the US Navy about to set anchor off the Guinea coast (covering the waters of two oil producing nations - Gabon and Nigeria, whilst they and the rest of the continent’s leaders are doing nothing? Either because they are weak and simply lackey’s of the United States or they are liars and in fact have made the deal with the US and the rest is a pretence. As I reported a few days ago, part of the “brief of AFRICOM is to integrate the environment and other development issues and human security” in other words ARICOM will become a means to the militarisation of development and environmental issues from “natural” disasters to managing opposition to environmental destruction such as gas flaring in the Niger Delta. Despite the huge fan fare around Nigeria’s announcement that gas flaring would end in 2007 and any company not complying would be shut down. Nigeria shut down Shell and Exxon? Not surprisingly the multinationals have arrogantly ignored the ruling and the deadline has now been extended by a further 12 months to December 2008. Unless you have seen a gas flare especially those on the ground it is difficult to imagine the force, the intensity and heat emanating from flared gas and the soot and smoke that spreads far and wide over agricultural land, fishing creeks and villages.

It is no coincidence that AFRICOM’s naval forces are sailing towards the Bright of Bonny and the waters off both Gabon and the Niger Delta after all it is here to protect the multinationals and their interest and I do not for one minute believe that this is being done without the full cooperation of President Yar’adua. The militants are getting stronger and are more well armed that two years ago - we wait and watch as the end game begins.

It is also timely that Ike Okonta’s long awaited book “When Citizens Revolt: Nigerian Elites, Big Oil and the Ogoni Struggle for Self-Determination” has just been published.

Okonta examines the Ogoni struggle for Self-Determination, which has since been replicated by other nationalities in the Niger Delta. The book considers the “origins and implications of the emergence and persistence of ethnic identities and the communal politics they engender in postcolonial Africa.”

* Saidiya Harman “Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route”

Tags:
Nigeria
Niger Delta
AFRICOM
Shell
MEND
Okonta

Today in 1855, an enslaved 19 year old Black girl and mother named Celia was executed for murder after being found guilty by a jury of 12 white men. Melton McLaurin’s book Celia: A Slave is the story of her rape by her master and her trial for his murder. (Via Marian’s Blog)

The State of Missouri vs. Celia: A Slave officially began on June 25, 1855. Celia was charged with murdering her master and the father of her children; furthermore, she disposed of his body in her fireplace. In 1850, Robert Newsom, a widower, of Calloway County, Missouri, purchased Celia for the purpose of being his concubine. Newsom was 60 and Celia was 14. Five years and two children later, Celia wanted to end the relationship; of course, Newsom would not allow it. Therefore, Celia took matters into her own hands and struck Newsom over the head until he was dead. Despite the fact that she was pregnant again and ill, she dragged and shoved Newsom’s body into the fireplace in her cottage and destroyed the evidence of her crime. However, another slave with whom Celia was involved led the investigators to Celia’s door. Intense and lengthy interrogation followed, and Celia confessed to murdering Newsom. She was tried and sentenced to death by hanging. After exhausting the appeals process, she was executed in Calloway County, Missouri, at 2:30 p.m. on Friday, December 21, 1855. Celia was 19 years old. There are no records of where she was buried or what became of her children or other members of the Newsom family.

I just finished reading “I, Tituba” by Maryse Conde. Tituba was among the many women of Salem who were accused of witchcraft in 1692. The difference is that Tituba was a Black woman, a slave from the Caribbean who was like millions of other slave women, is lost to memory. Rescued by Maryse Conde from “historical silence”, Tituba comes back to life as the slave girl/woman who will not compromise. Though she spends much of her life chained and shackled, Tibuba remains persistent throughout in her refusal to be bound by the chains of mental slavery, racism and puritan ideals of sexuality.

Links:
A Citizen’s Reflections on Race, Violence and Power by Cynthia Boaz
Remembering Celia, 19 & enslaved: hanged Friday 21st, 1855

Tags:
Slavery
USA
Afrodescendant

Megan Williams is a 20 year old Black woman who was kidnapped, racially abused, sexually and physically assaulted for seven days last September in West Virginia. Her all white kidnappers included two mothers and their respective son and daughter and two others.

Among the allegations against the six people accused of holding Ms Williams are that they forced her to eat rat droppings and drink from a toilet.

They are accused of pouring hot water over her, choking her with a cable and cutting her ankle with a knife, while verbally abusing her.

Recently a FaceBook group was created to highlight the crimes committed against Megan and the silence of the mainstream media to report the case. The group “Students against the rape of Megan Williams and media that ignores her” presently has over 240,000 members. On Saturday one member of the group, Patrick Dyson posted this piece on the groups wall, “ARE BLACKS CURSED”.

Physical Features

You compare blacks nose, eyes, skin, hair, nose wide and bulbous, eyes dark and red, hair goose like, skin oily versus white nose straight and bi-symetrical, lovely different coloured eyes, lovely white skin, beautiful blonde , brunnette, redhead or silky black hair
IQ
The educational stats suggest that the IQ of blacks is at least 25% lower than the average white person. Others suggest its way more than that….. the piece continues in the same vein.

Posting this comment on a site created to support a Black woman who has survived multiple sexual assaults is Dyson’s way of raping her again. Not only has Dyson invaded and defiled the site, he has included a photograph of himself with three African women. This white supremacist travels all the way to Africa to have himself photographed with bare-chested African women - why? Dyson like so many white supremacist is obsessed with Blackness which is expressed by finding ways to invade Black spaces particularly those occupied by Black women. In this way he hopes to express his power as a white male and take control of our spaces and voices. With these two acts, Dyson has “attempted” to ridicule and degrade all Black women - in Africa, the US and other parts of the Diaspora. I say “attempted” because like most haters, his action and words expose him for what he really is - which is a powerless albeit despicable person and people like him cannot and will not succeed. The more he and others like him are exposed in this way the weaker they become. If you are a member of Facebook take action by writing to them. Use your networks and contacts to publicise this story in the blogosphere and the mainstream media in Africa and in the Diaspora.

Links:
Megan Williams Support Page
Petition to file Civil Rights charges against the 6 accused.

Tags:

Megan Williams
Violence against Women
Racism
Hate Speech