PDF of whole issue - Uhuru News

November-December 2007 

The Burning Spear 

 

Voice of the 

International 

African Revolution! 

Volume 25, Number 5 · November-December 2007 

African People’s Socialist Party • P.O. Box 11281 • St. Petersburg FL • 33733-1281 • www.apspuhuru.org 

Voir la page 21 pour la plate-forme du Parti Socialiste du Peuple Africain. 

Con La Plataforma del Partido Socialista del Pueblo Africano En Espanol — P.20 

See Story 

Page 3 

Zim’s Mugabe lambasts U.S. and 

UK leaders at UN session 

(page 4) 

Africans in Chad call for removal 

of French military 

(page 6) 

African People’s Solidarity Day 

wins unity with African revolution 

(page 7) 

New leadership, new terms, new 

era for InPDUM 

(page 8)



WE ARE THE 

AFRICAN PEOPLE’S 

SOCIALIST PARTY 

Basic Line of the 

AFRICAN PEOPLE’S 

SOCIALIST PARTY 

“All our work is guided by our understanding that 

our struggle for national liberation within U.S. borders 

is an integral part of the whole African Liberation 

Movement; that the African Liberation Movement 

itself is a part of the great contest between 

the ever-emerging forces of international socialism 

and the dying, but not yet dead forces of imperialism; 

that the particular character of the African 

Liberation Movement within the U.S. is a struggle 

against U.S. domestic colonialism; that the destruction 

of colonialism, led by a conscious black 

revolutionary socialist party, will constitute the critical 

blow in the struggle for socialism within U.S. 

borders.” 

— Chairman Omali Yeshitela 

RULES OF PARTY DISCIPLINE 

At the June 2, 1974 Central Committee meeting the following 

rules were drafted so that Party members would have a guide to 

develop and strengthen our discipline. 

ANY PARTY MEMBER WHO: 

1. Does not consciously strive to elevate his or her political 

understanding has broken Party discipline; 

2. Does not strive to unite our Party with the masses has broken 

Party discipline; 

3. Reveals Party business without authorization has broken 


4. Discusses a Party member negatively to non-Party members 

has broken Party discipline; 

5. Exploits or oppresses African women through action or 

statement has broken Party discipline; 

6. Exploits or oppresses African people through action or 

statement has broken Party discipline; 

7. Fails to initiate constructive criticism or self-criticism has 

broken Party discipline; 

8. Uses words or actions to divide the Party has broken Party 

discipline; 

9. Refuses to recognize and follow Party leadership through 

words or actions has broken Party discipline; 

10. Discards or weakens Party leadership as opposed to 

strengthening Party leadership has broken Party discipline; 

11. Helps to divide and circumvent international African unity 

through words or actions has broken Party discipline; 

12. Uses criticism to divide and not unite the Party has broken 


13. Uses criticism or self-criticism on a personal level and not a 

political level has broken Party discipline; 

Huey P. Newton (l), co-founder of the Black Panther Party, and Omali 

Yeshitela, chairman and founder of the African People’s Socialist Party 

14. Uses criticism or self-criticism to hide her or his own shortcomings 


15. Does not carry himself worthy of emulation by the masses 


16. Displays arrogance through actions or words has broken 


17. Displays negativism and reluctance in carrying out Party 

tasks has broken Party discipline; 

18. Does not strive to bring more Africans into the Party or Party 

organizations has broken Party discipline; 

19. Engages in adventurous and individualistic acts has broken 


20. Fails to carry out Party policy as manifested by the Party 

constitution, Party documents, and the Central Committee 

has broken Party discipline. 

— From the Central Office 

African People’s Socialist Party 

www.uhurunews.com 

www.apspuhuru.org



Africa 

 

Thomas Sankara Lives! 

20 years after his assassination, Africans commemorate his leadership! 

Thomas Sankara was a great revolutionary leader who gave Burkina Faso the 

name that meant "land of upright people" and struggled to make it so. 

By Ousainou Mbenga 

This year, October 15, 2007 

will mark the 20th anniversary of 

the assassination of Thomas Sankara, 

the short-lived president of 

the African country that became 

known as Burkina Faso, the “land 

of upright people.” 

His assassination was a concerted 

effort of the surrounding 

“neocolonial States”, particularly 

Ivory Coast, Mali and the authoritative 

command of their imperialist 

masters who saw him as a threat 

to their easy access and control 

of the resources of Burkina Faso 

and Africa in general. 

The assassination of African 

revolutionaries with impunity 

will continue to happen as long 

as we keep fighting in isolation; 

separated from each other by the 

imposed senseless borders that 

continue to suffocate Africa. 

It’s been 20 years since that 

eventful day in 1987 when the 

traitorous Blaise Compaoré and 

his gang of thugs aborted the revolutionary 

new State of Burkina 

Faso and reinstated the neocolonial 

State of indignity. 

The Compaoré regime first 

succeeded in overturning the revolution 

and continues to survive 

for 20 years without any meaningful 

resistance to defend the 

revolutionary achievements made 

under Sankara’s leadership. The 

mere fact that Compaoré survived 

this long reveals the weakness of 

our revolutionary movement for 

total liberation. 

Within four short years, the 

Burkinabé people struggled to 

shake off the neocolonial fetters 

and created the program for local 

initiatives for cultural, political and 

economic advancement. These 

programs for local initiatives propelled 

women into the forefront of 

the struggle as a mighty force for 

the revolution. 

There was truly a revolutionary 

process in motion as the 

masses began to discover their 

revolutionary potential in production 

to solve our problem through 

our own personal sacrifices. 

“Fortunately, the 

more that we have 

discovered how 

dangerous an enemy 

imperialism is, the 

more determined 

we have become to 

fight and beat it. 

And each time we 

find fresh forces 

ready to stand up 

to it.” — Thomas 

Sankara 

Our revolutionary movement 

must be self-critical to understand 

what happened in Burkina Faso 

20 years ago and the continuing 

existence of the Compaoré regime, 

which claimed victory over 

our movement. 

How and why did Compaoré 

survive for 20 years? What lessons 

have we learned from the 

Burkinabé revolution? 

Compaoré’s survival rested on 

two major factors: the incomplete 

development of the revolutionary 

forces within Burkina and their 

isolation from other revolutionary 

forces within the continent. 

Secondly, the concerted efforts 

of its reactionary neighbors 

— the governments of Mali and 

Ivory Coast — and the imperialist 

onslaught from France 

weighed heavily on the 

Burkinabé revolutionaries’ 

ability to fight back. 

A coup is not a 

revolution 

Thirdly, the most important 

lesson learn from the 

Burkinabé experience is that 

a coup doesn’t constitute a 

revolution. The Burkinabé 

coup was an unusual coup 

in that Sankara and his few 

comrades attempted to transform 

the coup into its opposite 

— revolution. 

Fundamentally, there is 

nothing inherently revolutionary 

about coup d’etats. Almost 

always, a coup is hatched by 

a group of soldiers that make 

up the army, the most vital organ 

of the State that suppresses 

the aspirations of the mass population. 

Within the neocolonial armies 

are found the most treacherous 

gang of bandits who, while serving 

the elite in power, always aspire 

for the taste of power to enjoy 

the decadent privileges the neocolonial 

elite wallow in. It didn’t 

take Sankara long to understand 

the forces he was dealing with. 

Upon attaining revolutionary 

political consciousness, a rare attribute 

to an African soldier, Sankara 

made a keen observation that 

led to his prophetic statement: “a 

soldier without political education 

is a virtual criminal”. This criminal 

behavior is not solely limited to African 

soldiers. In fact, it is best exemplified 

by the imperialist armies 

that train them in France, the USA 

and England. 

Notwithstanding the internal 

contradictions in Burkina, the 

“undeclared war” against Sankara 

by Ivory Coast president Félix 

Houphouët-Boigny and Togo 

president Étienne Eyadéma, the 

instigated five-day war in December 

1985 between Mali and Burkina 

and the vacillating pseudo-revolutionary 

rhetoric from president 

Jerry Rawlings 

in Ghana, 

the Burkinabé 

r e v o l u t i o n 

m u s t e r e d 

enough courage 

to jolt 

imperialism, 

particularly 

French imperialism 

from 

its comfort 

posture in Africa. 

But a mild 

makes it more monstrous; what 

imperialism requires from us Africans 

is a massively explosive 

jolt that it can never recover from. 

Only a “One Africa, One Nation! 

Touch One Touch All!” is capable 

of delivering this fatal blow to imperialism. 

Again Sankara came to terms 

with the fact that petty bourgeois 

radicalism such as Thabo Mbeki’s 

timid challenge against the “AIDS 

industry” won’t pose any threat 

to imperialism, let alone make it 

tremble. 

Mbeki backed down from his 

challenge when the corporate 

predators such as the pharmaceutical 

drug dealing industry 

expressed their disappointment 

at Mbeki’s “misguided actions” 

to help Africans afflicted by AIDS 

and privately gave him a stern 

warning not to act on his threats. 

Sankara’s commemoration 

must be about revolution’s 

completion 

In one interview, Sankara 

was asked what were the greatest 

problems and difficulties facing 

the revolution. He answered 

in this order: “the bourgeoisie, the 

petty bourgeoisie and the biggest 

being imperialism.” He went on to 

say, “As a revolutionary I understood 

what imperialism is in theoretical 

terms. But once in power, 

I discovered other aspects of imperialism 

that I had not known. I 

think there are still other aspects 

to discover. 

“There is quite a difference 

between theory and practice. I 

have seen in practice that imperialism 

is a monster — with claws, 

horns and fangs that bite — that 

has venom and is merciless. No. 

It’s determined. Imperialism has 

no conscience. It has no heart. 

“Fortunately, the more that we 

have discovered how dangerous 

an enemy imperialism is, the more 

determined we have become to 

fight and beat it. And each time we 

find fresh forces ready to stand up 

to it.” 

See Sankara, page 5 

Blaise Compaoré (left), pictured with former French 

president Jacque Chirac, came to power and remains in 

power as a tool of French imperialism. 

jolt at imperialism 

only 

www.apspuhuru.org www.uhurunews.com African People’s Socialist Party



Africa 

Mugabe: 

“Bush and Brown are mischievous 

outsiders who should keep out!” 

Zimbabwe's President, Robert Mugabe 

The following is a statement 

made by Zimbabwe President 

Robert Mugabe at the 62 nd 

Session of the United Nations 

General Assembly in New York on 

September 26, 2007. Zimbabwe 

has been under serious assault 

from the imperialist powers since 

the people of Zimbabwe began 

reclaiming land stolen through 

a genocidal colonial legacy. 

While Zimbabwe suffers from an 

absence of political leadership 

based in the African working 

class who can complete the 

revolutionary process tied to the 

strategic aims of the International 

African Revolution, it is important 

to unite against the imperialist 

attempts retake African land for 

colonial white settlers. 

Your Excellency, President of 

the 62nd Session of the United 

Nations General Assembly, Mr. 

Srgjan Kerim; Your Majesties; 

Your Excellencies, Heads of State 

and Government; Your Excellency 

the Secretary-General of the 

United Nations, Mr. Ban Ki-Moon; 

Distinguished Delegates; Ladies 

and Gentlemen. 

Mr. President, allow me to 

congratulate you on your election 

to preside over this August 

assembly. We are confident that 

through your stewardship, issues 

on this 62nd Session agenda will 

be dealt with in a balanced manner 

and to the satisfaction of all. 

Let me also pay tribute to your 

predecessor, Madame Sheikha 

Haya Rashed Al-Khalifa, who 

steered the work of the 61st Session 

in a very competent and impartial 

manner. 

Her ability to identify the crucial 

issues facing the world today 

will be remembered as the hallmark 

of her presidency. 

Mr. President, we extend our 

hearty welcome to the new Sec- 


retary-Gen- 

eral, Mr. Ban 

Ki-Moon, who 

has taken up 

this challenging 

job requiring 

dynamism 

in confronting 

the global 

c h a l l e n g e s 

of the 21st 

Century. Balancing 

global 

interests and 

steering the 

United Nations 

in a direction 

that 

gives hope to 

the multitudes 

of the poor, 

the sick, the 

hungry and 

the marginalized, 

is indeed 

a mammoth task. 

We would like to assure him 

that Zimbabwe will continue to 

support an open, transparent and 

all-inclusive multilateral approach 

in dealing with these global challenges. 

Mr. President, climate change 

is one of the most pressing global 

issues of our time. Its negative 

impact is greatest in developing 

countries, particularly those on 

the African continent. We believe 

that if the international community 

is going to seriously address 

the challenges of climate change, 

then we need to get our priorities 

right. 

In Zimbabwe, the effects of climate 

change have become more 

evident in the past decade as we 

have witnessed increased and recurrent 

droughts as well as occasional 

floods, leading to enormous 

humanitarian challenges. 

UN serves colonial powers 

Mr. President, we are for a 

United Nations that recognizes the 

equality of sovereign nations and 

peoples whether big or small. We 

are averse to a body in which the 

economically and militarily powerful 

behave like bullies, trampling 

on the rights of weak and smaller 

States as sadly happened in Iraq. 

In the light of these inauspicious 

developments, this organization 

must surely examine the 

essence of its authority and the 

extent of its power when challenged 

in this manner. 

Such challenges to the authority 

of the UN and its Charter 

underpin our repeated call for the 

revitalization of the United Nations 

General Assembly, itself the most 

representative organ of the UN. 

The General Assembly should be 

more active in all areas including 

those of peace and security. 


The encroachment of some 

UN organs upon the work of the 

General Assembly is of great concern 

to us. Thus any process of 

revitalizing or strengthening of the 

General Assembly should necessarily 

avoid eroding the principle 

of the accountability of all principal 

and subsidiary organs to the 

General Assembly. 

Mr. President, once again we 

reiterate our position that the Security 

Council as presently constituted 

is not democratic. In its present 

configuration, the Council has 

shown that it is not in a position 

to protect the weaker States who 

find themselves at loggerheads 

with a marauding super power. 

Most importantly, justice demands 

that any Security Council 

reform redresses the fact that Africa 

is the only continent without a 

permanent seat and veto power in 

the Security Council. Africa’s demands 

are known and enunciated 

in the Ezulwini consensus. 

Berlin Conference’s legacy 

lives stronger than Universal 

Declaration of Human Rights 

Mr. President, we further call 

for the U.N. system to refrain 

from interfering in matters that 

are clearly the domain of member 

States and are not a threat 

to international peace and security. 

Development at country level 

should continue to be country-led 

and not subject to the whims of 

powerful donor States. 

Mr. President, 

Zimbabwe 

won its independence 

on April 

18, 1980, after 

a protracted war 

against British 

colonial imperialism, 

which 

denied us human 

rights and 

d e m o c r a c y . 

That colonial 

system which 

s u p p r e s s e d 

and oppressed 

us enjoyed the 

support of many 

countries of the 

West who were 

signatories to 

the UN Universal 

Declaration of 

Human Rights. 

Even after 1945, it would appear 

that the Berlin Conference 

of 1884, through which Africa was 

parceled to colonial European 

powers, remained stronger than 

the Universal Declaration of Human 

Rights. It is therefore clear 

that for the West, vested economic 

interests, racial and ethnocentric 

considerations proved 

stronger than their adherence to 

Let [George Bush] 

realize that both 

personally and in 

his representative 

capacity as the current 

President of 

the United States, 

he stands for this 

“civilization” which 

occupied, which 

colonized, which 

incarcerated, which 

killed. 

principles of the Universal Declaration 

of Human Rights. 

The West still negates our sovereignties 

by way of control of our 

resources, in the process making 

us mere chattels in our own lands, 

mere minders of its trans-national 

interests. In my own country and 

other sister States in Southern 

Africa, the most visible form of 

this control has been over land 

despoiled from us at the onset of 

British colonialism. 

That control largely persists, 

although it stands firmly challenged 

in Zimbabwe, thereby triggering 

the current stand-off between 

us and Britain, supported 

by her cousin States, most notably 

the United States and Australia. 

Mr. Bush, Mr. Blair and now 

Mr. Brown’s sense of human rights 

precludes our people’s right to 

their God-given resources, which 

in their view must be controlled by 

their kith and kin. I am termed dictator 

because I have rejected this 

supremacist view and frustrated 

the neocolonialists. 

Mr. President, clearly, the history 

of the struggle for our own 

national and people’s rights is 

unknown to the president of the 

United States of America. He 

thinks the Declaration of Human 

Rights starts with his last term in 

office! 

He thinks he can introduce to 

us, who bore the brunt of fighting 

for the freedoms of our peoples, 

the virtues of the Universal Declaration 

of Human 

Rights. What 

rank hypocrisy! 

Mr. President, 

I lost 11 

precious years of 

my life in the jail 

of a white man 

whose freedom 

and well being 

I have assured 

from the first day 

of Zimbabwe’s 

independence. I 

lost a further 15 

years fighting 

white injustice in 

my country. 

Ian Smith 

is responsible 

for the death of 

well over 50,000 

of my people. I 

bear scars of his 

tyranny which Britain and America 

condoned. 

I meet his victims everyday. 

Yet he walks free. He farms free. 

He talks freely, associates freely 

under a black government. 

We taught him democracy. We 

gave him back his humanity. He 

would have faced a different fate 

Continued on next page 

www.apspuhuru.org



Africa 

 

Continued from previous page 

here and in Europe if the 50,000 

he killed were Europeans. 

Africa has not called for a 

Nuremberg trial against the white 

world, which committed heinous 

crimes against its own humanity. 

It has not hunted perpetrators of 

this genocide, many of whom live 

to this day, nor has it got reparations 

from those who offended 

against it. 

Instead it is Africa which is 

in the dock, facing trial from the 

same world that persecuted it for 

centuries. 

U.S. government has no 

moral authority! 

Let Mr. Bush read history correctly. 

Let him realize that both 

personally and in his representative 

capacity as the current 

President of the United States, he 

stands for this “civilization” which 

occupied, which colonized, which 

incarcerated, which killed. 

He has much to atone for 

and very little to lecture us on the 

Universal Declaration of Human 

Rights. His hands drip with innocent 

blood of many nationalities. 

He still kills. He kills in Iraq. 

He kills in Afghanistan. And this is 

supposed to be our master on human 

rights? 

He imprisons. He imprisons 

and tortures at Guantánamo. He 

imprisoned and tortured at Abu 

Ghraib. He has secret torture 

chambers in Europe. Yes, he imprisons 

even here in the United 

States, with his jails carrying more 

blacks than his universities can 

ever enroll. 

He even suspends the provisions 

of the Universal Declaration 

on Human Rights. 

Take Guantánamo for example. 

At that concentration camp 

international law does not apply. 

The national laws of the people 

there do not apply. 

Laws of the United States of 

America do not apply. Only Bush’s 

law applies. 

Can the international 

community accept being 

lectured by this man 

on the provisions of the 

Universal Declaration 

of Human Rights? Definitely 

not! 

Mr. President, we 

are alarmed that under 

his leadership, basic 

rights of his own people 

and those of the rest of 

the world have summarily 

been rolled back. 

America is primarily 

responsible for rewriting 

core tenets of the 

Universal Declaration 

of Human Rights. We 

seem all guilty for 9- 

11. Mr. Bush thinks he 

stands above all structures 

of governance, 

whether national or international. 

At home, he apparently 

does not need the 

Congress. Abroad, he 

does not need the UN, international 

law and opinion. 

This forum did not sanction 

Blair and Bush’s misadventures 

in Iraq. The two rode roughshod 

over the UN and international 

opinion. 

Almighty Bush is now coming 

back to the UN for a rescue package 

because his nose is bloodied! 

Yet he dares lecture us on tyranny. 

Indeed, he wants us to pray him! 

We say no to him and encourage 

him to get out of Iraq. Indeed 

he should mend his ways before 

he clambers up the pulpit to deliver 

pieties of democracy. 

U.S. and Britain want to have 

Zimbabwe 

Mr. President, the British and 

the Americans have gone on a 

relentless campaign of destabilizing 

and vilifying my country. They 

have sponsored surrogate forces 

to challenge lawful authority in my 

country. 

They seek regime change, 

The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) is an opposition group created by the 

imperialists to forward their interests in regaining complete control over the land 

and resources of Zimbabwe. 

placing themselves in the role of 

the Zimbabwean people in whose 

collective will democracy places 

the right to define and change regimes. 

Let these sinister governments 

be told here and now that 

Zimbabwe will not allow a regime 

change authored by outsiders. We 

do not interfere with their systems 

in America and Britain. 

Mr. Bush and Mr. Brown have 

no role to play in our national affairs. 

They are outsiders and mischievous 

outsiders and should 

therefore keep out! 

The colonial sun set a long 

time ago — in 1980 in the case of 

Zimbabwe. Hence, Zimbabwe will 

never be a colony again. Never! 

We do not deserve sanctions. 

We are Zimbabweans and we 

know how to deal with our problems. 

We have done so in the past, 

well before Bush and Brown were 

known politically. We have our 

own regional and continental organizations 

and communities. 

In that vein, I wish to express 

my country’s gratitude to President 

Thabo Mbeki of South Africa who, 

on behalf of SADC, successfully 

facilitated the dialogue between 

the ruling party and the opposition 

parties, which yielded the agreement 

that has now resulted in the 

constitutional provisions being finally 

adopted. 

Consequently, we will be holding 

multiple democratic elections 

in March 2008. Indeed, we have 

always had timely general and 

presidential elections since our 

independence. 

Mr. President, in conclusion, 

let me stress once more that the 

strength of the United Nations lies 

in its universality and impartiality 

as it implements its mandate to 

promote peace and security, economic 

and social development, 

human rights and international 

law as outlined in the Charter. 

Zimbabwe stands ready to 

play its part in all efforts and programs 

aimed at achieving these 

noble goals. I thank you. 

Sankara 

Continued from page 3 

It is from this correct line of 

thought that fresh forces such as 

the Africanist Movement in West 

Africa are emerging from every 

corner of the African world to 

stand up to this monster, imperialism. 

Therefore, all our efforts to 

commemorate the assassination 

of one of Africa’s upright sons, 

Thomas Sankara, must be about 

completing the African revolution 

by bringing African people back 

into political life. 

The exemplary character of 

such martyrs as Sankara led to the 

founding of the International Committee 

of African Martyrs (ICAM), 

a mass organization charged with 

the task of upholding the legacy of 

our African martyrs. 

Blaise Compaoré remains 

reactionary 

In contrast to Sankara, Blaise 

Compaoré remains a stooge to 

imperialism by returning Burkina 

Faso back into neocolonial bondage. 

In addition, Compaoré has 

been a key player in further destabilizing 

the neocolonial States 

in West Africa through actions 

such as his criminal dealings with 

another gangster name Charles 

Taylor as well as the buffoonery of 

the crises in Ivory Coast. 

In his desperate efforts to 

pacify and distract the Burkinabé 

people from his crimes against 

Africa, the Compaoré regime lavishly 

spent millions of dollars to 

build an “upscale” neighborhood 

for the impotent Burkina elite in 

Ouagadougou and inaugurated 

it as WAGA 2000 (Waga deux 

mille) while the vast majority of 

Burkinabé are homeless or live in 

horrible housing. 

But the Burkinabé people who 

had a taste of what the revolution 

did to resolve the housing crises 

under comrade Sankara coined 

an appropriate word for this neighborhood 

— “WAGA DA,” which in 

More (the language of the Mossi) 

means thieves. 

The African revolution must 

be completed! 

The Burkinabé people, and indeed 

Africa, suffered a temporary 

setback following the coup d’etat 

by Compaoré and French imperialism, 

but the taste for revolution 

is still in our hearts. Our people 

in Burkina Faso saw the potential 

the revolution had in changing 

their wretched existence. 

As African Internationalists, 

we have internalized the lessons 

learned from the Burkina experience 

with Comrade Thomas Sankara, 

Amilcar Cabral in Guinea 

Bissau, Patrice Lumumba in the 

Congo, Samora Machel in Mozambique, 

the Black Liberation 

Movement in the USA and in 

many other fronts of the African 

revolution. 

We strongly believe that the 

theoretical question has been settled. 

The missing ingredient in the 

struggle for our total liberation is 

practice. 

In commemoration of the 20th 

anniversary of the assassination 

of Comrade Thomas Sankara, we 

will hold a demonstration at the 

Burkina Faso embassy in Washington, 

D.C. on October 15, 2007 

from 10:00am- 12:00pm and November 

17, 2007. 

One Africa! One Nation! 

Touch One! Touch All! 




By Ahamat Hassan 

CHAD — “Africa doesn’t need 

protection from Europe. Africa 

needs recognition of the crime 

which Europe committed in Africa.” 

When the former French colony 

of Chad, gained so-called independence 

on August 11, 1960, 

French imperialism obviously had 

its own economic and political interests 

in maintaining some form 

of its illegal activities in its former 

occupied land in Africa. France 

left division and hatred between 

Muslims in the North and Christians 

in the South. 

François Tombalbaye, the first 

president of Chad, was forced by 

France to sign a defense cooperation. 

That agreement gave France 

the power to set up military bases 

in Chad. This mechanism allowed 

France to have a huge number of 

troops well-trained and ready to 

intervene anywhere in Africa to 

defend its imperialist interests. 

In 1990, French president 

François Mitterrand legitimized 

the regime of Chad’s current president, 

Idriss Déby. This was not 

done because Hissène Habré’s regime 

before it was a dictatorship, 

but because he had questioned 

the benefits expected by Elf Petroleum 

when oil was discovered 

in Chad since the mid-70s. 

The crimes that French troops 

have committed are well documented. 

It was a French military 

base that gave orders and support 

to Idriss Déby to send our troops 

to Congo-Brazzaville where they 

carried out the massacre of thousands 

of civilians. 

It was a French military base 

that was involved in regime change 

in the Central African Republic. 

French military bases in Africa are 

involved crime and genocide in 

Rwanda. The list goes on. 

The true face of Chad’s 

neocolonialism 

According to France, Chad is 

a democratic republic, and it must 

be protected from any military 

coup d’etat. In fact, Déby and his 

cohorts monopolize power and 


Africa 

Africans in Chad call for removal of French 

troops; French military base not welcome 

Idriss Deby is a puppet for French 

imperialism and is held in power by 

France. 

suppress any suggestion 

of a challenge. 

Since November 

2006, the regime has restored 

the state of emergency 

and restrictions in 

most of the country and 

has jailed several journalists 

and members of opposition. 

To criticize this 

parody of democracy, the 

political oppositions had 

boycotted the presidential 

election on May 3, 2006. 

They had also rejected 

Déby’s fraudulent victory. 

In all actuality, the regime is 

not working for the interests of African 

people in Chad. It survives 

only through military support from 

France. 

France armed and legitimized 

the Déby regime because Déby 

works for French interest. Therefore, 

French military bases in 

Chad are illegal. 

French troops occupy Chad (top). african African people demonstrate 

demanding justice for the French kidnapping 

of African children in Chad (immediately above). 


Imperialist-imposed Darfur 

crisis impacts Chad 

The conflict of Darfur is war 

over resources between China 

and Europe with its ally America. 

Everything in the region of Darfur 

— the country, the people, the animals 

— is affected by the crossfire 

of these powerful imperialists. 

The term of Arabs against 

non-Arab tribes is also a myth. 

Darfur has become cinema and 

theatre for the world. It 

has also become a place 

of business. 

Western food programs 

exported countless 

Westerner’s products including 

rice, milk, millet 

and oils to East of Chad. 

The local farms closed 

their business because 

they cannot compete with 

the subsidized westerner 

products. 

Food being imported 

from the United States 

and delivered to the refugees 

of Darfur is unacceptable. 

The United Nations World Food 

Programme should buy food from 

Africa’s farms if it wants to help 

refugees in Africa. 

France wants the 

deployment of the 

EU and UN force because 

its aim is to 

control the areas of 

oil in Darfur on the 

border with Chad 

[and] the uranium 

and diamond mining 

areas North of 

the Central African 

Republic. 

French’s traditional evil behavior 

contributes much to the crisis 

of Darfur. On one hand France 

supports the rebels of Darfur via 

its agent Idriss Déby. On the other 

hand, the Sudanese government 

responds back aggressively to 

rebels. 

France’s citizens are even 

playing their part in deepening the 

crisis. Last Thursday, a French 

plane loaded with more than a 

hundred children was arrested 

by Chadian police at Abeche Airport. 

A French association called 

L’Arche de Zoe (or Zoe’s Arc) 

tried to illegally smuggle the 103 

children from Darfur to France. 

European Union would 

deepen crisis in region for 

its own interests 

French foreign minister Bernard 

Kouchner’s suggestion to 

deploy European Union (EU) 

troops to East of Chad is nothing 

more than the enforcement of 

French military bases in 

Chad. While the protection 

of refugee camps in 

Darfur is relevant, history 

does not tell us that the 

European Union and the 

UN are working for the 

security of this world. 

Where were they 

during the genocide in 

Rwanda? Where were 

they during the genocide 

in the Balkan countries 

of Bosnia, Kosovo and 

Albania? Why don’t they 

protect civilians in Iraq? 

If the EU and UN can 

prevent the conflict of 

Darfur it is only because they are 

the creators of the conflict. Sending 

EU and UN troops to East 

Chad is not an option to prevent 

conflict in Dafur. Instead, it will put 

more woods into the fire. 

France wants the deployment 

of the EU and UN force because 

its aim is to control the areas of oil 

in Darfur on the border with Chad. 

It also intends to control the uranium 

and diamond mining areas 

North of the Central African Republic. 

French troops out of Chad! 

The Chadian oppositions, civil 

servants, trade unions, students 

and all Chadian workers are tired 

of the menace of foreign troops. 

What Chadian people want is to 

have the French troops out of 

Chad. Foreign military bases are 

not welcome here. 

The myth that says Africans 

cannot help themselves is out of 

time. Africa is suffering because 

former colonizer countries are still 

exploiting via their lazy agents. 

Africa’s poverty, conflict and 

disease are artificial and man 

made. These crises can only be 

ended when European countries 

stop their traditional looting. 

We ask French citizens to 

urge their government to withdraw 

French military bases from Chad 

and everywhere else in Africa. We 

ask all Africans to join our struggle 

against the illegal French military 

base in Chad! 

www.apspuhuru.org



North America 

 

Solidarity, not Charity! 

APSD wins unity with African Revolution 

Each APSD event featured presentations from Chairman Omali Yeshitela 

and comrades Mfanelo Skwatsha, Chernoh Alpha M. Bah and Penny Hess 

(l to r) and more. 

With the slogan “Solidarity, 

not Charity,” the African People’s 

Solidarity Committee’s (APSC) 

second annual African People’s 

Solidarity Day (APSD) events targeted 

the white communities, exposing 

to them the current crisis 

of imperialism through the eyes of 

the African working class. 

The solidarity day events from 

October 13-21 were held in Oakland, 

California, St. Petersburg, 

Florida and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 

Among the featured 

speakers were Mfanelo Skwatsha, 

Executive Secretary of the 

Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) of 

Azania (South Africa); Chernoh 

Alpha M. Bah, Leader of the Africanist 

Movement of Sierra Leone 

and West Africa and Omali Yeshitela, 

Chairman of the African People’s 

Socialist Party (APSP). 

The three-city whirlwind tour 

also included Gaida Kambon, National 

Secretary of the APSP; Ivory 

Muhammad, President of the 

International People’s Democratic 

Uhuru Movement (InPDUM); 

Pierre LaBossiere, leader of the 

Haiti Action Committee and Penny 

Hess, Chairwoman of APSC. 

With the message that Africans 

are one people worldwide, 

that Africa and all its resources 

are the birthright of African people 

everywhere, and that the 500 year 

assault on Africa and the enslavement 

of African people is the cornerstone 

of American wealth and 

power, APSD brought the white 

community face to face with its 

genuine interest in solidarity with 

the liberation of African people. 

To most white people in Europe 

and North America, the poverty, 

war and oppression experienced 

in Africa and by African people everywhere 

are disconnected from 

the reality of European enslavement, 

colonialism, genocide and 

the theft of African resources that 

make up the pedestal on which all 

white people sit. 

Africa is portrayed as a charity 

case that needs the help of 

rock musicians, missionaries and 

movie stars to keep from sinking 

in the ocean. 

The African People’s Solidarity 

Day events showed that there 

is a powerful, growing movement 

of African workers all around the 

world united with the African Socialist 

International (ASI) and its 

mission to liberate Africa and its 

resources under the leadership 

of African workers. This emerging 

African liberation movement 

demands true solidarity from the 

white world, not favors from wellwishers. 

Neocolonial reality in South 

Africa exposed 

As the National Executive 

Secretary of the Pan Africanist 

Congress of Azania, Mfanelo 

Skwatsha’s participation in the 

in 2004. 

APSD events represented the 

APSC Chairwoman Penny 

first official PAC tour in the United 

Hess gave PowerPoint presentations 

exposing the Party’s under- 

States in more than 20 years. 

The PAC was founded by 

standings that white people sit on 

Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe as a 

the pedestal of African oppression 

break-away organization of the 

and that African liberation is key 

African National Congress (ANC) 

to peace on the planet. 

in 1959 after the ANC issued its 

As Chairwoman Hess stated 

infamous “Freedom Charter” stating 

that South Africa belonged to 

Solidarity Day is part of our work 

of the events, “African People’s 

all who lived there, white colonizers 

and African people alike. 

wealth is founded on slavery, 

to rectify the reality that white 

PAC was the organization responsible 

for winning international 

the leadership of the African Peo- 

genocide and colonialism. Under 

As the keynote speaker at all 

support for the African liberation 

ple’s Socialist Party, we as white 

three events, Chairman Omali 

struggle in Southern Africa after 

people can begin to experience a 

Yeshitela gave powerful presentations 

that were both moving in 

it launched mass protests against 

principled relationship to African 

the pass laws in the early 1960s. 

people — in the U.S., in Africa 

their passionate call to action and 

The African People’s Socialist 

and around the world. 

educational for both white and African 

participants. 

Party had a close organizational 

“Working in the white communities 

we are able to win others 

relationship with the PAC in the 

Chairman Yeshitela called 

1970s and ‘80s and Chairman 

just like ourselves to recognize 

on white people to begin to open 

Omali Yeshitela was the keynote 

that a world of peace and security 

themselves to seeing the world as 

speaker at the PAC’s 8th Congress 

in 2002. 

and all oppressed peoples are 

can only be possible when African 

African and other oppressed workers 

experience it. He also called 

Comrade Skwatsha emphasized 

his organization’s historic 

is about solidarity with the African 

free and self-determining. APSC 

on them to recognize that the 

genuine interest of all white people 

lies in abandoning allegiance 

relationship with the Party and 

struggle, not self-serving charity 

announced that PAC had voted to 

work. We stand for victory to African 

people everywhere!” 

with white power and standing in 

join the African Socialist Interna- 

www.apspuhuru.org www.uhurunews.com African People’s Socialist Party 

tional earlier this year. 

Secretary Skwatsha also exposed 

that the poverty and oppression 

for the majority of African 

workers in South Africa today are 

worse than they were under the 

colonial period and the apartheid 

system before Mandela and his 

ANC came to power in 1994. 

Africans fight for One Africa! 

One Nation! 

Chernoh Alpha M. Bah, former 

child soldier from Sierra Leone 

and Director of the Africanist 

Movement with over 100,000 

members across West Africa, returned 

to the U.S. to participate 

in APSD, his third Uhuru Movement-sponsored 

tour in less than 

two years. 

Comrade Bah discussed the 

U.S.-manipulated elections in 

Sierra Leone in August and the 

importance of the general strike 

earlier this year in Guinea-Conakry, 

which was given heightened 

significance by the revolutionary 

national democratic platform 

issued by the African Socialist 

International. [The platform can 

be viewed at http://asiuhuru.org/ 

guinea/] 

African People’s 

Solidarity Day 

is part of our 

work to rectify 

the reality that 

white wealth 

is founded 

on slavery, 

genocide and 

colonialism. 

solidarity with the movement for 

one united and liberated Africa. 

The Chairman also addressed 

Africans in attendance, calling on 

them to unite with the strategy and 

political basis for African liberation 

by joining the Uhuru Movement. 

Ivory Muhammad, the new 

President of the International 

People’s Democratic Uhuru 

Movement, gave dynamic PowerPoint 

presentations laying out 

the InPDUM platform, a program 

addressing the conditions of African 

people in the U.S., Africa and 

around the world. 

As a young person committed 

to shouldering the responsibility 

to lead this revolutionary mass organization, 

President Muhammad 

is representative of the young Africans 

who are coming forward 

in this period to join the African 

People’s Socialist Party and lead 

the struggle to liberate Africa and 

African people everywhere. 

Gaida Kambon, National 

Secretary of the African People’s 

Socialist Party and veteran organizer 

of numerous campaigns led 

by the Party over the years, also 

gave moving presentations including 

a powerful history of the 

Party’s work and campaigns over 

the past 35 years. 

Haiti Action Committee leader 

Pierre LaBossiere laid out the 

struggle of African people in Haiti 

who are facing military occupation 

by the United Nations following 

the U.S. and French-backed overthrow 

of democratically elected 

President Jean Bertrand Aristide



A new corner turned: 

InPDUM 

InPDUM Convention sets new terms 

From one president to the next, from one era to the next: Comrade 

President Chimurenga Waller passes the presidential sash on to 

Comrade President Ivory Muhammad. 

By Nyabinga Dzimbahwe 

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama — 

When I stepped into the Convention 

of the International People’s 

Democratic Uhuru Movement 

(InPDUM) on the morning of September 

29, I had already read the 

Point of the Spear in the last issue 

of The Burning Spear where 

the Chairman stated that it would 

be an “historic, indeed critical” 

event. 

In fact, I had remembered previous 

conventions described as 

historic, and while they were, this 

one just seemed to be a bit different. 

There was an air of genuine 

significance in the room. 

People entering the hall at 

Alabama A and M University were 

greeted with the sound of African 

drums reverberating through the 

hall, seemingly calling us all to 

action. 

The convention was then 

opened with a welcome from the 

outgoing President of InPDUM, 

Chimurenga Waller. President 

Chimurenga gave a brief history of 

the InPDUM from its 1991 founding 

by its mother organization, the 


(APSP), to its development from 

the National People’s Democratic 

Uhuru Movement to the International 


Movement with the development 

of a branch in London, England 

in 2001, and finally to this convention, 

where a new corner was 

turned and a new president was 

to be appointed. 

The floor was then turned 

over to the chair of the convention, 

Oakland InPDUM Branch 

President Bakari Olatunji. The 

chair began by recognizing the 

convention participants who were 

at the founding convention of InP- 

DUM in Chicago, Illinois in 1991, 

and then the convention organizing 

committee. 

Then representatives from 

contingents from London, England, 

Brooklyn and Queens, New 

York, Oakland and San Diego, 

California, Baltimore and Frederick, 

Maryland, Atlanta and Savannah, 

Georgia, St. Petersburg, 

Florida, the Gambia, West Africa, 

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 

Mobile, Alabama, Louisiana and 

Washington D.C. stood to state 

where they had traveled from. 

Contingents from Orlando and 

Miami, Florida and Dallas and 

Paris, Texas were on their way, 

but had not yet arrived. 

After explaining some of the 

convention proceedings for the 

day, Comrade Bakari introduced 

Nigeria-born musical artist Black 

ened Light. Sister Blackened Light 

then took the stage with guitar in 

hand and painted the room red, 

black and green with a powerful 

performance of her original song, 

“RBG.” 

President Chimurenga Waller 

then introduced an amazing video 

produced by Burning Spear Productions 

that will be used around 

the world to promote InPDUM. 

If you have not seen this video, 

then you need to scramble right 

now and contact your local InP- 

DUM branch or go to www.burningspearmarketplace.com 

to get 

your copy. Immediately after the 

video, several convention participants 

insisted on getting an InP- 

DUM membership. 

The political significance of 

InPDUM 

Whenever Chairman Omali 

Yeshitela takes the stage, people 

who have heard him before prepare 

for impact. Anyone who was 

still not familiar with the African 

People’s Socialist Party’s Chairman 

may not have expected 

the intensity and clarity of vision 

brought in the overview he presented 

next. 

Chairman Omali Yeshitela explained 

why it was necessary to 

build an InPDUM following the 

military defeat of the Black Revolution 

of the Sixties at the hands 

of the U.S. government. He explained 

the need to have an organization 

capable of bringing 

African people — who, as a result 

of this defeat, suffered a serious 

demoralization — back into political 

life in order to affect the world 

in our own interests. 

The Chairman’s presentation 

explained how all of African 

people’s problems come from 

Europe’s attack on Africa and the 

slavery and colonialism that solidified 

the parasitic relationship between 

imperialist white power and 

Africa and her dispersed people. 

Chairman Omali made it clear 

that African people cannot be free 

without revolutionary transformation 

and that InPDUM’s founding 

under the slogan “Self-Determination 

is the Highest Expression 

of Democracy!” was a necessary 

part of that revolutionary process. 

When the convention broke 

for lunch, participants were already 

full and energized from the 

high level of political content of the 

convention so far. This was clear 

for anyone who listened to discussion 

during lunch that included 

everything from the definition of 

the dispersed African nation to the 

significance of Thomas Sankara, 

revolutionary leader of Burkina 

Faso whose assassination happened 

20 years ago on October 

15 (read article on page three). 

A steadying hand for InPDUM 

When the convention reconvened, 

the room was full of 

excitement and anticipation. It 

would be only moments before 

the new President of the International 


Movement was appointed and introduced. 

The election session began. 

Chairmanship of the process was 

handed over to Brooklyn, New 

York InPDUM Branch President 

Orande Tacuma, who introduced 

Chairman Omali Yeshitela. 

APSP Chairman Omali Yeshitela 

was brought up because, as 

a mass organization of the revolutionary 

African People’s Socialist 

Party, InPDUM’s president is 

appointed by the Chairman of 

the APSP in consultation with 

InPDUM’s International Executive 

Committee (IEC). 

Before appointing InPDUM’s 

new president, Chairman Omali 

took some time to note the immense 

contribution of the outgoing 

president, Chimurenga Waller. 

Chimurenga Waller — who 

has been in the Uhuru Movement 

since he was 17 years old — took 

on the leadership of InPDUM in 

2000 and brought a stability to the 

organization at a critical time in its 

history, and as its leadership, he 

has brought it to the point where 

it is now. 

Former President Chimurenga 

Waller was moved to tears when 

the IEC presented him with a lifetime 

membership award for his 

great contribution and leadership 

to InPDUM. 

An emotion-filled Chimurenga 

Waller stated, “I believe I had the 

greatest job in the world. Service 

to the people is what we should 

be doing. I wasn’t doing something 

for the organization, it did 

something for me.” 

Chairman Omali Yeshitela 

stated, “It is easy to be united with 

the revolution when things are going 

well. It is those times when 

It’s not just 

a matter of 

holding the fort 

anymore. Now 

we are about to 

go out and win 

the world. 

there is struggle and you come 

under severe criticism… and you 

are still able to maintain your unity 

that is the test. The thing that has 

made Chimurenga so valuable to 

us… is that Chimurenga has been 

the most significant, stabilizing, 

calming force in the process. He 

brought us process and organization 

when we needed it, but he’s 

also someone who would answer 

the call. If the call was to come 

and take up the job, Chimurenga 

did it, and he took every job like it 

is the most serious task.” 




www.apspuhuru.org


“I believe I had the 

greatest job in the 

world. Service to 

the people is what 

we should be doing. 

I wasn’t doing 

something for 

the organization, 

it did something 

for me.” — Former 

InPDUM President, 

Chimurenga Waller 


A new era, a new leadership 

Perhaps the most symbolic 

part of the convention was the 

passing of the presidency. The 

presidential sash and spear were 

passed from Comrade President 

Chimurenga Waller to Comrade 

President Ivory Muhammad. 

Perhaps Chairman Omali Yeshitela 

said it best when he said, 

“This is the President for whom 

Chimurenga has kept our organization 

in place and stable. This is 

representative of the new era that 

we are about to enter with her acceptance 

of this new office… It’s 

not just a matter of holding the fort 

anymore. Now we are about to go 

out and win the world.” 

Our new President Ivory Muhammad 

reinforced this understanding 

when she made her presentation 

giving a vision of where 

InPDUM was going. She stood 

before her organization and told 

us of the determination to have 

the branches of InPDUM more 

connected to each other, to build 

a branch in Ghana, and to raise 

the standards for the kind of work 

done throughout the organization. 

She gave concrete expression 

to this higher standard when 

she reported on the incredible 

amount of work that the Huntsville, 

Alabama branch of InPDUM 

had done in the past year under 

her leadership. The Huntsville 

branch, which was just consolidated 

in April 2006, had organized 

the Second Annual African 

Student Leadership Conference 

out of which the African Internationalist 

Student Organization that 

will be holding its founding Conference 

on November 9 and 10 

was formed. 

The Huntsville branch had 

also sponsored and organized 

the Alabama leg of the tour of Africanist 

Movement Director Chernoh 

Alpha M. Bah. Bah is a West 

Africa-based revolutionary leader, 

journalist and former child soldier 

whose organization has joined the 

African Socialist International. 

The Huntsville branch had 

also organized and sponsored the 

Alabama leg of the All Diamonds 

are Blood Diamonds Tour featuring 

Dr. Aisha Fields, coordinator 

of the All African People’s Development 

and Empowerment Project 

(AAPDEP), exposing the imperialist 

diamond industry’s brutal 

operation that steals $60 billion of 

diamond wealth annually from our 

Africa while African workers digging 

the diamonds up make less 

than 30 cents a day. The AAPDEP 

is a project of the APSP. 

While not organizing such 

large events, InPDUM’s Huntsville 

branch was organizing campaigns 

in the community like the 

Elmore Village campaign where 

African residents were organized 

to end the slum conditions they 

lived in as well as the slumlord’s 

regular sexual harassment of African 

women. 

After the police murder of 27- 

year-old Lorenzo Horton who was 

found hung in a Madison County 

Jail and after Huntsville police 

gunned down Wallace Mitchell 

while his hands were in the air, 

the branch took on a campaign 

against State murder. 

Even now, the Huntsville 

branch is leading a Know Your 

Rights campaign teaching African 

people what to do when stopped 

by police as well as HUD housing 

and public housing resident rights. 

It is also leading Keep Your Black 

Eye on Killingsworth, a campaign 

against police brutality in general 

that brings attention to some of 

the tactics of some local Huntsville 

cops including Killingsworth, 

a cop known for his brutal tactics 

against African people. 

In the midst of doing all this 

work in the interests of our people, 

InPDUM’s Huntsville branch 

has been holding forums, leading 

mobilizations, held a tribunal, built 

committees to meet some of the 

needs in our community and carried 

out a number of fundraisers. 

After hearing the report about 

all this, conference attendees 

were amazed. Just holding the fort 

is no longer an option, indeed. 

InPDUM IEC develops 

After making her report, our 

President announced that InP- 

DUM is moving from a 12 Point 

Platform to a National Democratic 

Program, a program addressing 

African people worldwide. This 

program includes a 13 th point that 

states, “We demand the removal 

of borders, including immigration 

laws, that hold the African community 

hostage and debilitate 

the movement of African people 

throughout the world.” 

She also announced additions 

to the structure of InPDUM’s 

International Executive Committee. 

The IEC’s Department of International 

Organizing retained 

Diop Olugbala as the International 

Organizer and now included a 

Secretary, Sister Oshun Cornelius, 

and a Director of Outreach, 


InPDUM 

Brother Keenan Jenkins. 

Comrade President also announced 

the IEC’s additions in 

the form of the Department of 

Economic Development and the 

Department of Information and 

Education. 

The Department of Economic 

Development will be responsible 

for bringing resources into InP- 

DUM so that it can be capable 

of fulfilling its objectives. To carry 

out that task, Brother Samora Sobukwe 

was appointed as International 

Vice President of Economic 

Development and Sister Ona Yeshitela 

was appointed as the Economic 

Development Advisor. 

The Department of Information 

and Education will be responsible 

for presenting the face of In- 

PDUM to the world. Appointed to 

the position of International Vice 

President of Information and Education 

to lead that work was Rich 

Piedrahita, an African hailing from 

Colombia, South America. 

These appointments were 

consistent with InPDUM’s Constitution, 

which states in Article Eight 

that the IEC has the power to appoint 

other vice presidents. 

Next came the elections of 

the rest of InPDUM’s IEC. A slate 

was presented consisting of Comrades 

Baye Moye as International 

Treasurer, Carla Harris as International 

Secretary and Kobina 

Bantushango as International 

Membership Coordinator, all incumbents. 

There were no challenges 

from the floor, and after brief presentations 

from the candidates, 

a unanimous vote completed our 

new International Executive Committee. 

Struggles and appeals 

After the elections, a place 

was on the agenda for an appeal 

to be made by former member 

Abasi Baruti. Baruti’s membership 

in InPDUM was terminated 

after his participation in a televised 

wife-swapping fiasco where 

he attempted to present InPDUM 

against the explicit objection from 

the IEC. 

Baruti neither appeared to 

make the appeal, nor did he send 

a written one. 

The agenda continued to a 

session to discuss and vote on 

two Constitutional amendments. 

The first amendment was to Article 

Four, Section One, and it would 

change InPDUM’s annual membership 

fee from $15 — which 

had been the fee for seven years 

— to $35. 

There was healthy struggle 

around the membership fee 

change. Some argued that the 

fee would be too much for African 

workers to pay. 

Others struggled that payment 

of the $35 was not a financial 

question but a political one. It was 

argued that InPDUM could not exist 

and do the immense work that 

it must do with only $15 from its 

members while organizations that 

do nothing for our people collect 

much larger membership fees. 

It was argued that in cases 

where African workers are not 

able to afford the fee that we find a 

way to help them afford it through 

fundraisers and other ways. 

The majority of the Convention 

agreed with this argument 

and decided that the membership 

fee would be raised to $35. 

It was also decided that the fee 

for Africans in Britain, where the 

currency is valued at almost twice 

the U.S. dollar, would be £15. The 

membership fee would be designated 

for Africans in other countries 

around the world based on 

local currency value. 

The second amendment was 

to Article Five, Section One. It 

stated, “The International Executive 

Committee shall be empowered 

to terminate the membership 

of any individual for gross 

violations of InPDUM policies and 

bylaws or actions harmful to the 

unity or functioning of the organization 

in the struggle for national 

democratic rights and self-determination 

of African people everywhere. 

The IEC shall initiate an 

investigation and inquiry to determine 

the validity of allegations 

of policy violations by any of its 

members worldwide. 

“These investigations and inquiries 

will be conducted in a manner 

as to provide due process to 

the member(s) facing allegations 

of misconduct. Investigations of 

misconduct and the resolution 

of these cases shall be completed 

within 90 days. The accused 

member who is the subject to an 

investigation may be suspended 

or removed from participation in 

InPDUM activities until the completion 

of the investigation. Upon 

completion of the investigation, 

the IEC will render a decision that 

may include a range of options 

up to termination of membership. 

Determinations of disciplinary actions 

shall be made by a majority 

vote of the IEC.” 

There was more struggle 

around this amendment to the 

constitution, though much of it 

seemed to be around a separate 

issue somewhat unrelated to the 

termination of anyone’s membership. 

The struggle centered around 

a contradiction where, as explained 

by those making the struggle, 

two members felt uncomfortable 

doing the work and opted out 

of participating in the work. 

This struggle consumed some 

time before it was clarified that 

not only did the IEC already have 

the power to terminate a person’s 

membership or even liquidate a 

branch, but also that an appeals 

process is made available at each 

annual convention where the 

whole membership is able to decide 

whether the decision was the 

www.apspuhuru.org www.uhurunews.com African People’s Socialist Party 

 

See InPDUM, page 13

10 The Burning Spear 


By Sateesh Rogers 

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama — I 

joined the International People’s 

Democratic Uhuru Movement (In- 

PDUM) in the year 2000 because 

I was struck by the integrity of the 

organization. Quite literally, it dedicates 

every hour of its existence 

to the achievement of self-determination 

for African people. 

In my search to find an organization 

that addressed the real 

root of the problem that African 

people faced, I had explored virtually 

every option available to 

me. It eventually became clear to 

me that InPDUM was the place to 

be because it had the substance, 

power and potential to elevate our 

people from our current condition 

that is marked by an absence of 

freedom, land (i.e. Africa) and political 

independence. 

Be that as it may, I have always 

felt that I had a responsibility 

to contribute to the best of my 

ability. 

But standing in the hall of Alabama 

A and M University for the 

2007 InPDUM Convention and 

observing the leadership of the 

organization putting the finishing 

touches on their preparations for 

the day, I could not help but be 

impressed and inspired. Young 

people that were my age (in their 

20s and 30s) aggressively taking 

responsibility for uplifting the African 

nation. 

This Convention’s second day 

was marked by a number of significant 

elements and presentations. 

President Ivory Muhammad 

provided an insightful overview of 

the day’s events within the overall 

context of the newly refined trajectory 


Democratic Uhuru Movement. 

With her administration, President 

Muhammad has implemented 

a higher level of accountability 

and generated greater expectations 

of success. 

Keep the Change to Make a 

Change 

One key element, illustrated 

by Economic Advisor Ona Yeshitela, 

was the notion of financial 

sustainability. Her multimedia 

presentation, which combined 

PowerPoint and a comedic short 

video, helped to win people to the 

necessity of nurturing our organization 

with the resources to realize 

our goals and objectives. 

The campaign entitled “Keep 

the Change to Make a Change” 

drove home the importance of economic 

self-reliance. The program 

of InPDUM — which is funded by 

its members and serves its members 

and the masses of African 

people — revolves around selfdetermination 

and this campaign 

allowed everyone to take immediate 

responsibility for that concept 


by contributing to the economic 

foundation for the movement. 

Sister Ona provided small 

change banks to encourage everyone 

to take the small amount 

of money that they accumulate 

throughout the day and week and 

invest it in building an organization 

capable of moving African 

people forward. 

It is a campaign with the potential 

to bring a constant flow of 

resources in, which is necessary 

to be able to take on the day-today 

work of the organization. More 

info on the Keep the Change to 

Make a Change campaign can be 

found at www.keepthechangeuhuru.org. 

Self-criticism: the glue that 

holds organization together 

Another vital part of the day’s 

events was the self-criticism made 

by InPDUM International Organizer 

Diop Olugbala. 

Self-criticism is a concept in 

our movement that allows members 

to take responsibility for errors 

made. By doing so the process 

of criticism and self-criticism 

helps to lead others to a better 

understanding of the error so that 

it is not repeated. 

During this process, Comrade 

Diop brought forth how the method 

he used for addressing serious 

contradictions in the movement 

work in Philadelphia and New 

York had inadvertently caused 

unity among members there to 

suffer. 

His self-criticism helped the 

entire convention understand how 

to analyze problems and solve 

them in such a way that the organization 

was left in the best possible 

position to move forward. 

Immediately after this presentation, 

Baye Moye, the InPDUM 

Treasurer, led a call for resources 

that met the pre-determined financial 

goal for day two. Our ability 

to meet our goals really revolved 

around the serious and palpable 

excitement and unity people had 

InPDUM 

Africans leave InPDUM Convention with future in own hands 

InPDUM's new IEC: (bottom row, left to right) Diop Olugbala, Kobina 

Bantushango, Ivory Muhammad, Baye Moye, Carla Harris; (top row, 

left to right) Oshun Cornelius, Chimurenga Waller, Ona Yeshitela, and 

Samora Sobukwe 


for pushing the organization forward 

in this new period. 

People came to the convention 

from all over the United States 

and across the world. There were 

attendees from Gambia in West 

Africa, the islands of the Caribbean 

and the United Kingdom. 

Upon simply hearing of the convention 

on the Internet, one sister 

simply jumped in her car and traveled 

hundreds of miles across the 

country to be part of the process 

to define the future for Africa and 

African people. 

These factors simply indicate 

that African people are ready 

and willing to struggle and that 

we must focus on building our 

strength by building our organizational 

capacity. 

U.S. government attacks 

revealed in campaigns 

Some of the most powerful 

moments of the convention were 

still to come however in the form 

of two cases of African families 

fighting for their children’s lives. 

Shaquanda and Creola Cotton 

presented their case first. When 

Shaquanda was 14 years old, she 

was falsely accused of pushing a 

hall monitor at her school in Paris, 

Texas. 

The result of that incident was 

an indeterminate sentence, not to 

exceed her 21st birthday in the 

Texas Youth Commission (TYC) 

jail facilities. The TYC is notorious 

for guards that rape and molest 

young children. 

Interestingly, the same judge 

that sent Shaquanda to prison 

sentenced a young white girl, who 

virtually burnt her parents’ home 

to the ground, to a slap on the 

wrist in the form of basic probation. 

Shaquanda’s mother Creola 

worked day and night trying to get 

her daughter’s case heard. 

Creola Cotton detailed her 

organizing work and relentless 

efforts to free her daughter from 

the TYC, which continually forced 

medication upon Shaquanda that 

studies have proven to stimulate 

thoughts of suicide in young people. 

Eventually, Shaquanda’s resilience 

and Creola Cotton’s determination 

and skills as an organizer 

led to Shaquanda’s release. 

However the entire ordeal, which 

lasted several months had nearly 

wiped out the family’s financial 

solvency, and to this date, the offense 

remains on Shaquanda’s 

record. 

The Hands Off Shaquanda 

Cotton Campaign steering committee 

— which includes members 

like Dallas-based InPDUM 

leaders Talib Aatiq and Angela 

Green — represents the best of 

Africa and has led a courageous 

and inspiring struggle to elevate 

the consciousness and organizational 

capacity of Africans in Paris, 

Texas. 

In response, convention participants 

raised money to help 

support the family’s recovery and 

its search for an attorney. In that 

moment, you could feel the sense 

of unity and power that we have 

when our convictions are deep 

and our determination steady. 

Though she did not speak 

very much during the convention, 

through her actions, Shaquanda 

had inspired people in Paris, Texas 

and far beyond. 

Afterward, we heard Elizene 

Phanor and Julia Olibrice, mothers 

of two of the Liberty City Seven, 

address their children’s case. 

The case of the Liberty City Seven 

(LC7) is a story that revolves 

around seven young African men 

in Miami, Florida who were set up 

by the FBI on terrorism charges. 

The men, who worked in the 

community advocating measures 

of basic self-sufficiency, were later 

entrapped by an agent provocateur 

sent by the FBI, who through 

his work gave the FBI a very weak 

pretense to arrest the LC7. 

Since then, the men have languished 

inside of a U.S. prison on 

terrorism charges, and are on trial 

as this newspaper goes to press. 

After the mother’s tearful stories 

had been shared with the audience, 

Chairman Omali Yeshitela 

described the case as one where 

“the United States government 

is trying to paint terrorism with a 

black face.” 

When taken in sum total, the 

Shaquanda Cotton case told us 

of the type of victories that were 

possible, while the LC7 case told 

us of the type of struggles that are 

only now at their cusp and require 

swift and strong action. 

The 2007 InPDUM Convention 

was quite an experience and 

signaled the launching of a new 

period where African people are 

equipped with an organization 

more ready than ever to fight for 

See Convention, page 13 

www.apspuhuru.org


The following presentation was 

made on September 30, 2007 at 

the Convention of the International 


Movement by Creola Cotton whose 

daughter, Shaquanda Cotton, 

was imprisoned in retaliation for 

Ms. Cotton’s defense of African 

children in the school system in 

Paris, Texas. 

You know, when I first started 

in this type of work it was from 

going to the schools complaining 

about silly write-ups that my 

children were getting. There were 

some that became major, and I 

thought I needed help. 

So I contacted the local 

NAACP there. The vice president 

was a black man who was also 

assistant superintendent in the 

superintendent’s office. So he told 

us not to come to them complaining 

about the school. 

So from that point, Brenda 

Cherry and I organized our own 

organization, and we started having 

protests for things that were 

done to our children in schools 

and helping families who didn’t 

know how to file complaints to do 

that. 

All of this led to them getting 

pretty mad at me, and they retaliated 

by sending my daughter to 

prison. 

Shaquanda spent over a year 

in prison for supposedly pushing 

a hall monitor. Like I said, the real 

reason was to get back at me for 

The following statement was 

made by Shaquanda Cotton 

on September 30, 2007 at the 

Convention of the International 


Movement. Shaquanda Cotton 

was imprisoned in Paris, Texas at 

14 years old as an attack on her 

mother who had been defending 

African children from the school 

system. 

all the little “nasty stuff” they said 

that I was doing to them. 

When they would see Brenda 

and I coming they would say, “Oh, 

here come these old ladies again.” 

But we were persistent in what 

we were doing, and that led to 

the imprisonment of Shaquanda. 

Shaquanda had no prior criminal 

history, so they used petty writeups 

for her criminal history. 

On March 12 of this year, 

Shaquanda’s story was placed in 

the Chicago Tribune. From that, 

people from many places wrote 

letters, made phone calls to the 

governor, the district attorney 

(DA) and the judge, and there 

was a large protest. Three days 

later they released Shaquanda. 

Now if Shaquanda had done all 

these awful things and deserved 

to be in prison they wouldn’t have 

let her out. 

After all that attention from the 

media, people left after the media 

left. 

The only organization that 

stood fast has been InPDUM. 

They have not left us. (Applause) 

When people did that, it just 

kind of left us out there on a ledge 

by ourselves. That put us in a bind 

because although Shaquanda 

was home, it wasn’t over. She still 

needs help. 

Pulling back that kind of support 

that was put out there to get 

her release made the DA and the 

judge feel confident that no one 

The Burning Spear 11 

InPDUM 

“We need community control of education... so we won’t have 

teachers like the ones who lied and conspired to send my 

daughter to prison!” — Creola Cotton 

was there 

anymore. So 

when we go 

out and protest 

and support 

these 

causes, we 

have to remain 

there. 

We can’t 

just go out 

there one day 

and then go 

back home 

and forget 

about it. It’s 

going to have Creola Cotton, mother of Shaquanda Cotton 

to be continued. 

The DA tells me that I’m not 

fit to keep my child because I file 

complaints. We can’t even file civil 

rights complaints against the people 

who are doing these things to 

us. 

That stuff was going on 50 

years ago. It shouldn’t be happening 

today in 2007. 

So I’m asking everyone to 

sign an online petition that will be 

coming out pretty soon. [Editorial 

note: the petition is available at 

www.handsoffshaquanda.org]. 

I also want to ask everyone to 

support Shaquanda’s trust fund 

that we have in place to raise 

money to get an attorney because 

what we have now is a court appointed 

attorney, and I don’t feel 

like he’s giving his all. 

So we need these two things 

to happen because we’re in the 

process of taking her case before 

the Supreme Court, and we are 

going to need a devoted attorney 

for her. 

Last, we need community 

control of education. (Applause) 

We also need an African curriculum 

so that our children can 

learn about their real culture; 

about the great contributions our 

people have given to the world 

and to be proud to be Africans. 

(Applause) 

We also need the ability to 

hire and fire teachers so that we 

won’t have teachers like the ones 

who lied and conspired to send 

my daughter to prison. 

Uhuru! 

(Uhuru! No Surrender! No 

Compromise!) 

”I want to thank InPDUM, the only organization 

that stood behind me” — Shaquanda Cotton 

So I want to thank InPDUM 

because they’re the only organization 

that stood behind me the 

whole time, and they didn’t leave 

me when the cameras left. So I 

just want to thank you. 

(Uhuru! Applause) 

So I want to thank 

InPDUM because 

they’re the only 

organization that 

stood behind me 

the whole time, 

and they didn’t 

leave me when the 

cameras left. 

Well, I didn’t prepare a speech, 

but I can say a couple of words. 

First I want to start off by saying 

that we are supposed to stick together 

and help, even when it’s 

not your child. 

Shaquanda Cotton, African child who at 14 was imprisoned for allegedly 

But you have people in Paris pushing a hall monitor. 

that say, “Oh, that’s not my child. 

I’m not gonna’ worry about somebody 

fought for other kids. 

for their kids. 

else’s bad kids.” 

There were people who said I just don’t understand that. I 

Well, you need to try to help they’re not going to help anyone think that black people should just 

everybody’s children like my else’s kids, but they want to call stick together because united we 

mother and Brenda Cherry. They your house and ask you to help stand, divided we fall. 

didn’t only fight for their kids. They 




Central Committee 

of the 

African People’s 

Socialist Party 

POINT OF THE SPEAR 

Chairman Omali Yeshitela speaks on 

Our struggle for democracy must be 

a struggle for State power! 

Omali Yeshitela 

Chairman 

Gaida Kambon 

National Secretary 

Ironiff Ifoma 

Director of Finance and 

Economic Development 

Luwezi Kinshasa 

Director of 

International Affairs 

Bakari Olatunji 

West Coast U.S. Regional 

Representative 


The following presentation 

was made by Chairman Omali 

Yeshitela on September 29, 

2007 at the Convention of the 

International People’s Democratic 

Uhuru Movement in Huntsville, 

Alabama. 

Uhuru! First of all, I’d like to 

express my appreciation to President 

Chimurenga Waller and to 

the leaders of the International 


Movement (InPDUM) and all of 

you who’ve organized to make 

this convention happen on this 

weekend. 

I’d really like to express my 

appreciation to those of you who 

came to this convention and who 

recognize the significance of African 

people having to be organized 

in this very critical period in 

human history. 

When we talk about it being 

such a critical time in history, part 

of what we recognize are signs 

that everybody can see, but may 

not necessarily be able to recognize 

what the significance of these 

signs are. 

Some people are actually demoralized 

by some of the things 

we see happening around the 

world. 

We see the U.S. government 

invading countries and terrorizing 

and murdering people with impunity. 

I’ve read someplace that they 

may have killed more than two 

percent of the Iraqi population. 

In Afghanistan, people were 

living in such primitive conditions 

that just getting bread for their 

children was a question, and you 

see the U.S. and other imperialist 

forces even now occupying that 

land after having attacked them 

without reason. 

So this terrifies some people. 

They’re terrified because they see 

things like PATRIOT Acts which 

are attacks on basic democratic 

rights for people throughout this 

country. 

They are frightened because 

they know that there are concentration 

camps throughout America 

today, where people have been 

stuffed into because they are 

Islamic or Arab. We don’t even 

know their names or how many of 

them there are. 

They are intimidated because 

they know that in today’s world 

it’s possible that the American or 

some other European government 

is subject to kidnap you and 

put you in a military base in Cuba 

that they have set up called Guantánamo 

for imprisoning anybody 


who disagrees with their views. 

We live in a situation today 

where you don’t even know if you 

go to the airport whether your 

name is on a special list that denies 

you the right to fly. So some 

people are really upset, frightened 

and demoralized by this. 

But I ask you how fragile this 

thing that they call the American 

government must be if they cannot 

even tolerate somebody with 

a different opinion speaking that 

opinion? 

This is not a sign of strength. 

This is a sign of weakness and 

cowardice. 

So it’s nothing to be afraid of, 

but it is something to recognize 

because these are serious times. 

Origin of imperialist crisis 

Amafrika, the reason the African 

People’s Socialist Party 

(APSP) came into existence is 

because we came to understand 

some time ago that African people 

can not be free without revolutionary 

transformation. 

We came to understand that 

this is not a matter of good feelings 

and bad feelings. It’s not a 

matter of so-called racism — the 

ideas that are in the heads of 

white people. 

It is a question of power. It’s 

about the right of a people to have 

power over its own destiny and to 

know that it’s children have a future 

— not because a good white 

man or white woman or even negro 

liberal is going to get elected 

next year, but because we have 

control of that future in our very 

hands. 

If you live anyplace in the world 

today and you cannot guarantee 

your own future, it means that you 

are not a free person. You cannot 

say that we came into a condition 

where on one day someone can 

make us their slaves, and then 

the next day they can make us 

their citizens. 

If they can make us their 

slaves one day and their citizens 

the next day, the reality is that we 

are still the slaves that they made 

us on the first day. We’ve come to 

understand that. 

African people didn’t pop up 

under a turnip leaf on some plantation 

in Mississippi. Someone 

came to our homeland and kidnapped 

us. 

They like to speak of America 

as some kind of nation of immigrants, 

but America is not a nation. 

It is a prison of nations, and 

we are not immigrants. We are 

captives! 

If they can make 

us their slaves 

one day and their 

citizens the next 

day, the reality is 

that we are still 

the slaves that 

they made us on 

the first day. 

So we don’t even want to entertain 

the discussion about being 

some kind of nation of immigrants. 

We don’t want to entertain 

some notion that African people 

catch hell in America because 

somehow America just hasn’t gotten 

it right yet. That it’s some kind 

of accident, but someday America 

is going to realize its errors and 

make everything right for us. 

We know that’s not the case. 

The reality is that there is a material 

interest in our oppression. 

America and the whole white imperial 

world built itself off of stealing 

the resources, both human 

and material, of the rest of the 

people on the planet earth. 

The capitalist world economy 

that Bush and others boast about 

being a pinnacle of civilized accomplishment 

has its birth in slavery. 

This country was born off of 

massacring the indigenous population 

here, capturing Africans 

and bringing us away from Africa 

to this place where we worked on 

somebody else’s stolen land and 

created all the wealth. 

If you look all around this 

country or the world where you 

see wealth, you see the evidence 

of someone having stolen the value 

of our labor. That’s the reality. 

They built a nation as a consequence 

of the theft of resources 

of other peoples. Their national 

identity and everything is closely 

integrated with that reality. 

So you see this imperial reaction 

because since the second 

imperialist war that they like to 

refer to as World War II, you saw 

the development of what they call 

struggles for national liberation all 

over the world. 

They used to tell us that these 

struggles happened because we 

went into the army for the white 

folks and got to Germany and 

See Spear, page 17 

www.apspuhuru.org



B 

A 

D 

C E F 

InPDUM 


correct one. 

What is perhaps most important 

is the fact that the leadership 

of an organization, democratically 

elected by its whole membership, 

must be given the power 

to carry out the mandate given 

to it by its membership between 

conventions. Otherwise, we find 

ourselves caught in an ultra democracy 

where there is no actual 

leadership and the leadership is 

completely immobilized waiting 

for voting from the whole organization 

on every decision. 

The amendment was passed 

by majority vote. Convention participants 

seemed to come out of 

that struggle with a deeper understanding 

of democracy and a 

deeper unity with our organization. 

Convention’s first day a taste 

of things to come 

Throughout the Convention, 

participants were asked to submit 

fundraising ideas into a drawing, 

so that at the close of each day, 

the written ideas would be drawn, 

and those whose ideas were 

drawn would read them before 

the Convention and win prizes. 

The first day of the Convention 

was closed with these drawings. 

This process, an idea thought 

up by newly appointed Advisor to 

the Department of Economic Development 

Ona Yeshitela, only 

exemplified the determination by 

this new administration to make 

everything in our hands work to 

serve the organization. 

The first day of the Convention 

ended, and any doubts about 

the future of InPDUM were laid to 

rest. From the moment I stepped 

in the room, it was clear that it was 

a new day, and every moment until 

the end of the day confirmed 

this a thousand times. 

I eagerly anticipated tomorrow 

where InPDUM’s leadership 

would deepen Convention participants’ 

ability to go back and build 

InPDUM in their particular areas. 

G 

A. InPDUM’s new president, Ivory Muhammad. B. LC7 mother Elizene Phanor, BSR 

Director Omavi Bailey, LC7 mother Julia Olibrice and musical artist Blackened Light 

pose after the convention. C. Cece and Oshae of the St. Pete, Florida Uhuru Street 

Team promote the Free the LC7 mixtape. D. InPDUM organizer Angela Green sits with 

Shaquanda Cotton, Creola Cotton and International InPDUM Organizer Diop Olugbala. 

E. Gambia-born Ousainou Mbenga discusses revolutionary politics over lunch. 

F. President Chimurenga Waller sheds tears as he accepts a lifetime membership award. 

G. Some of the Burning Spear Records family pose. H. InPDUM organizer Talib Aatiq 

holds down the sleeping young African. 

H 

Convention 


our right to be a free, self-respecting, 

self-governing people. 

The lesson that echoed 

through the halls of Alabama A 

and M University and that traveled 

back with everyone to their 

respective homes across the 

world was that the future was going 

to be what we made it. 

That is the meaning of selfdetermination. 

That is the meaning 

of InPDUM. 

This was the message and 

motivation that everyone was 

infused with, and we all expect 

significant development heading 

toward the 2008 InPDUM Convention 

because it is we who will 

make it. 




President Ivory Muhammad takes the helm! 

Forward with the revolutionary national democratic program! 

Comrade President Ivory Muhammad donning 

the presidential sash and spear. 

The following presentation was 

made by newly appointed InPDUM 

President Ivory Muhammad 

on September 29, 2007 at the 

InPDUM Convention. 

Uhuru! I am very happy to be 

here today with all the branches 


Democratic Uhuru Movement (In- 

PDUM) who I know are forwarding 

the struggle for democratic rights. 

I think this struggle is the most unselfish 

struggle that anybody can 

be involved in. 

It shows so much love and 

courage. I feel like everybody 

here is my family because of the 

work that you’re putting forth in 

the communities, and I appreciate 

it. 

We do the work that’s unpopular 

to do, but we do it because 

we see the overall vision of our 

freedom. Even when it’s hard; 

even in the trenches; even when 

we’re broke, we’re in the forefront 

everyday working. 

I appreciate this movement. 

It answered a question in my life 

in terms of where I was going to 

put my energy. I wanted to put 

my energy where it made sense, 

and this organization makes more 

sense than anything I’ve ever realized. 

(Applause) 

I’m very thankful to Chairman 

Omali Yeshitela and the Central 

Committee of the African People’s 

Socialist Party (APSP) for 

the theory and practice in action 

of African Internationalism and 

the vision to build an African nation 

that breaks down the artificial 

borders that keep us divided, incapacitated 

and unable to effectively 

struggle. 

African Internationalism is 

bringing a movement forward 

that clearly defines the question 

of class. It explains the difference 

between a petty bourgeois strug- 


gle and a struggle led by 

the masses of our people 

who are at the heart 

of oppression, police 

containment and lack of 

economic development. 

These are the forces 

that are holding diamonds 

while being unable 

to feed their family 

because these resources 

are being transferred 

to colonial nations. 

These are forces like 

Shaquanda Cotton who 

are in an education system 

designed to fail us 

and jail us. 

These are forces like 

the Liberty City Seven 

who are charged as terrorists 

because of their 

ability to effect positive 

change in the African 

community. These are 

the forces who walk out 

their door every day to go work for 

menial salaries and never get the 

profit from their work. 

I am so proud to be a part of 

a movement that will be participants 

in the struggles of the working 

class and the poor population. 

This is a movement that will help 

spark revolutionary action around 

the world to make sure that we 

never pick another diamond without 

receiving the profit nor pick up 

dirt on the highway for the prison 

system that creates wealth for 

white power. (Applause) 

I’ve served as the Huntsville 

InPDUM President for the last 

year. I grew up in the movement, 

but I’ve never worked so hard in 

my life. 

I realized I’d never really been 

a part of anything until I was a part 

of this organization because it 

wasn’t just words, it was practice. 

So I just appreciate it, and I look 

forward to the work. 

When the Chairman asked me 

to be the president of InPDUM, I 

wasn’t sure if that was something 

I wanted to do because I’m not the 

speaker, but I am the worker. 

But I couldn’t say no because 

I’m a member of the African People’s 

Socialist Party, and I believe 

in African Internationalism and 

that we have to answer the call 

whenever it’s necessary. 

So I’m here to answer the call. 

I’m going to have 60 days of training 

with President Chimurenga 

and we’re going to move forward 

in a powerful, unified way. 

Our organization is going to 

be tight. That’s what I’m looking 

for. 

I want our branches to really 

be connected in our struggle, feeling 

that we are all a part of each 

other. In Huntsville I want to know 

that the Huntsville front is holding 

it down for the London front and 

InPDUM 


the front in Ghana that Diop is going 

to put on the ground. 

I’m going to be calling for the 

International Executive Committee 

(IEC) of InPDUM to have a 

strategic intensive in November 

where we can really sit down and 

make sure that we understand 

where everybody is working. We 

have to be able to help each other 

maximize in the best possible 

way. 

I think it’s necessary with new 

forces and a new president coming 

in that we’re able to move forward 

quickly. 

I thank you, and I think that it is 

everyone in the room that makes 

InPDUM strong. 

A new and improved InPDUM 

InPDUM is an organization 

strategically designed to make 

sure we win democratic rights and 

gain self-determination around 

the world. It is imperative that we 

become more organized in every 

area of our work. 

We have to implement strategic 

methods of building branches 

and sustaining membership. We 

must develop ways to build relationships 

with the masses of our 

people. We have to implement 

programs in our community that 

will answer the call for community 

control and utilize the skills of the 

people in the community. 

InPDUM is becoming new and 

improved. With the new appointments 

to the IEC, we will have 

the ability to present InPDUM to 

the media and the masses of our 

people in a more vibrant and upto-date 

way. 

Our leaflets, brochures, and 

website will be more colorful, and 

will be presented in a way that 

grabs the masses. Our branches 

will now have a stronger way to 

connect to each other through our 

ability to promote branch campaigns 

on the website, to correspond 

more frequently with Uhuru 

News, and to inform every area 

through consistent newsletters 

through our implementation of a 

Department of Information and 

Education that will deal directly 

with the media image of InPDUM. 

(Applause) 

We will have a better capacity 

to connect the struggles of the 

international InPDUM campaigns 

through “days of unity” where all 

branches will collectively come together 

throughout the year to put 

forth demands in solidarity with 

every branch of InPDUM. 

We are going to become more 

efficient in the ability to economically 

sustain our organization and 

the international forces who stay 

on the grind organizing. We will 

also be able to present strategic 

economic development plans to 

our local branches so that we can 

begin to raise enough resources 

to support local campaigns and 

ventures. 

We will have IEC subcommittees 

that will help to keep In- 

PDUM grounded by helping keep 

databases of our international 

contacts. We will begin to see replications 

of IEC positions through 

regional organizers and regional 

membership coordinators. 

Tomorrow in the convention, 

we will see these different strategies 

that are being implemented. 

We will leave here with much more 

understanding of how to maintain 

strong InPDUM branches. 

InPDUM campaigns and 

programs in Huntsville 

I wanted to give a brief history 

of some of the work of the Huntsville 

Branch of InPDUM under my 

leadership and the leadership of 

the Local Executive Committee. 

We held the Alabama leg of 

the North American Tour of Chernoh 

Alpha M. Bah, award winning 

journalist, former child soldier and 

leader of the Africanist Movement 

of Sierra Leone and West Africa. 

We brought in International 

Organizer Diop Olugbala to help 

us strengthen our branch. He also 

presented a forum on how to organize 

a movement to defend the 

democratic rights of the African 

community. 

We held the second Annual 

African Student Leadership Conference 

here at Alabama A and M 

University in March of this year. 

This conference attracted students 

from throughout the country 

and focused on urging students 

to use the skills they acquire in 

school not just to make money, 

but to improve the overall conditions 

in the African community. 

We held the Alabama leg of 

the U.S.-wide “All Diamonds are 

Blood Diamonds” Tour which featured 

dynamic multimedia presentations 

APSP organizers including 

Aisha Field, the local InPDUM 

Secretary. 

This tour exposed the diamond 

industry’s brutal history and 

equally brutal current-day operation 

that literally steals $60 billion 

worth of diamonds per year from 

African people while forcing African 

diamond workers to labor in 

dangerous mines for 30 cents a 

day and a cup of rice. 

We were able to bring in President 

Chimurenga Waller who led 

up an event around how to end 

police brutality in the African community. 

From that event, we were 

able to consolidate a committee 

of InPDUM in one of our base locations. 

We’ve held community campaigns. 

We helped residents of 


www.apspuhuru.org



Elmore Village organize a campaign 

against slum living conditions 

and struggle to stop the sexual 

harassment of women tenants 

by the complex owner. 

We held a campaign against 

State murder addressing the murder 

of African men and women at 

the hands of the local and state 

government. 

This campaign focused primarily 

on the mysterious death 

of 27-year-old Lorenzo Horton, 

found hung in the Madison County 

Jail in August 2006, and the 

police murder of Wallace Mitchell, 

an African man gunned down by 

Huntsville police while his hands 

were in the air. 

The campaign included a candle 

light vigil to honor Lorenzo and 

Wallace and the countless African 

people who have been murdered 

by the State. A protest in front of 

the Madison County Courthouse 

demanded that the Madison 

County Sheriff’s office provide 

Lorenzo’s family with the death 

investigative report. Community 

meetings and forums to discuss 

strategies to end police brutality 

and containment in the African 

community were also held. 

We’ve held a consistent “Know 

Your Rights” Campaign. We developed 

and regularly distributed 

informational leaflets and walletsized 

cards in working-class African 

communities that addressed 

what to do if stopped by the police. 

It also addressed trespassing 

laws. They have a trespass law 

here in Huntsville that only affects 

public housing residents through 

which about 200 people per year 

have been arrested since its implementation 

in Huntsville. We 

also gave information on HUD 

housing residents rights. 

We held a campaign called 

“Keep a Black Eye on Killingsworth” 

who is a police officer who 

had been in the communities harassing 

and murdering folks. He 

was not alone, of course, but he 

was the ultimate example of what 

the police represent. 

This campaign also brought 

attention to the particular brutal 

tactics of some local Huntsville 

Police Officers. 

We organized a contingent 

representing Huntsville, Alabama 

to attend the 2006 ASI Conference 

in London, England. The 

purpose of the ASI is to build one 

cohesive worldwide organization 

of African people to collectively 

work to improve our conditions 

wherever we are located. Africans 

from the U.S., Europe, the Caribbean, 

South America and the continent 

of Africa itself were present 

at this historic conference. 

We mobilized residents from 

Huntsville to attend African Liberation 

Day 2007 in Washington D.C. 

The African Liberation Day mobilization, 

organized by the African 

People’s Socialist Party, brought 

black people from throughout 

the world together to build and 

strengthen African-led international 

institutions, organizations 

and programs working to address 

the lack of self-determination for 

African people. 

We organized a local tribunal 

— the Huntsville Tribunal for 

Reparations to African People 

— based on international law, to 

put the state of Alabama, Madison 

County and the City of Huntsville 

on trial for their public policy of 

police containment of the African 

community. 

This informal policy of police 

containment uses the guise of a 

war on drugs and crime to take 

advantage of the poverty found 

in our community by pumping millions 

of dollars into a police force 

that brutalizes us as well as building 

and maintaining prisons to 

contain us instead of using those 

millions for economic development 

in Huntsville’s African community. 

The community court found 

the state, county and city guilty of 

the crime of genocide against African 

people in Huntsville, Madison 

County. This tribunal was used to 

gather evidence that will be submitted 

to an upcoming International 

Tribunal for Reparations to 

African People (ITRAP). 

InPDUM’s Education Committee 

organized an educational 

summer program called the 

Sankofa Summer Program at the 

Butler Terrace Boys & Girls Club 

for children ages two to 16. The 

very successful weekly program 

featured fun, interactive African 

history lessons, dance, drumming, 

music, hands-on science 

lessons, arts and crafts and lots 

of healthy treats. 

We’ve been able to organize 


InPDUM 

an InPDUM Education Committee 

lead by Mama Vera, a seasoned 

educator and long-time mental 

health professional. Its members 

are concerned educators, parents 

and other community people who 

are dedicated to improving the 

education African children receive 

in Huntsville Public Schools. 

One of the primary focuses 

of the education committee is to 

make sure there is mandatory African 

history in Huntsville Public 

Schools. 

We developed a successful 

fundraising apparatus called Uhuru 

Cakes and Pies that delivers 

delicious homemade cakes (carrot 

cake and pound cake), pies 

(bean pie and key-lime pie) and 

banana bread throughout Huntsville, 

Birmingham and Georgia. 

This has helped to sustain us as 

an organization. 

InPDUM has organized a Butler 

Terrace sub-committee, comprised 

of residents who live in 

and focus their organizing efforts 

in the Butler Terrace community. 

Currently, this committee is involved 

in the Know Your Rights 

Campaign. 

Our organizers engage in almost 

daily community outreach in 

working-class African communities 

throughout Huntsville. 

We’ve gotten media coverage 

through Speak Out News, an African 

newspaper here. We’ve had 

radio coverage on all of the African 

radio stations here in Huntsville. 

We’ve appeared in the Birmingham 

Times and, of course, 

The Burning Spear. 

That’s a little bit about InPDUM 

here in Huntsville, and we’ve only 

been on the ground for a year and 

a half. (Applause) 

InPDUM’s program 

InPDUM is now moving from a 

12 Point Platform to a revolutionary 

national democratic program 

that includes a 13th point. This 

program broadens the 12 Point 

Platform of InPDUM and expands 

our movement to a place of speaking 

to working class struggles Africans 

experience outside the U.S. 

InPDUM is growing around the 

world to not only deal with the issues 

of African people in the U.S., 

but it looks at Africans worldwide 

and sees our worldwide struggle 

as one for self-determination and 

a struggle for our basic democratic 

rights so that we can determine 

our destiny and live life free from 

the colonial yoke. 

A national democratic program 

is necessary to win the worldwide 

struggle for democratic rights. 

When our program is presented 

in Ghana and the Caribbean, we 

want the African people in these 

places to be able to relate to our 

program. 

The new 13th point reads, 

“We demand the removal of borders, 

including immigration laws, 

that hold the African community 

hostage and debilitate the movement 

of African people throughout 

the world.” 

African people are risking and 

losing their lives to move from locations 

where there are dire living 

conditions to other areas they 

view to be safer. When doing this, 

they are greeted with barrels of 

guns, search and seizures, as 

well as denial of passports and visas, 

causing them the inability to 

better their conditions. 

You will notice these tactics 

only target a certain group 

of people, the majority of whom 

are African and brown peoples of 

the world. InPDUM will struggle 

for democratic rights around the 

globe and our platform reflects 

that continuous struggle. 

Appointments to the IEC 

I want to announce the new 

appointed members of the International 

Executive Committee. I 

would like to reappoint to the Department 

of International Organizing 

the International Organizer, 

Diop Olugbala. 

We are also appointing Sister 

Oshun Cornelius to the position of 

Secretary to the International Organizer 

and Brother Keenan Jenkins 

to the position of Director of 

Outreach. 

We now have a Department 

of Economic Development. Our 

International Vice President of 

Economic Development will be 

Samora Sobukwe. The Advisor 

to Economic Development will be 

Sister Ona Yeshitela. 

We also now have a Department 

of Information and Education. 

The International Vice President 

of Information and Education 

will be Rich Piedrahita. 

Again, I’m so pleased to be 

here and to be accepted as the 

InPDUM President. I look forward 

to working with everyone. 

Uhuru! 


The Working Platform of the African People’s Socialist Party 

WHAT WE WANT — WHAT WE BELIEVE 

Adopted September 23, 1979. Revised and adopted at the First Congress of the African People’s Socialist Party, September 6, 1981. 

7 

We want peace, dignity, and the right to build a prosperous life through 

1 our own labor and in our own interests. 

We believe that the U.S. North American government and society were founded on the 

genocide of Native people, the theft of their land, and the forcible dispersal, enslavement, 

and colonization of millions of African people. We believe that the present condition of 

existence for African people within current U.S. borders is colonialism, a condition of existence 

where a whole people is oppressively dominated by a foreign and alien state power 

for the purpose of economic exploitation and political advantage. We believe further that 

this colonial domination is the primary basis of the problems of African people within the 

U.S. and that we shall know neither peace, prosperity, nor human dignity until this colonialist 

domination is overthrown and the power over our lives rests in our own hands. 

We want the rights to economic development and creative and productive 

employment which promote the needs and well-being of our entire 

2 

people. 

We believe that colonialism is a blood-sucking system which causes all economic development 

to benefit the colonialist ruling class state and society at the expense of our 

colonized people. We also believe that the massive, habitual unemployment and underemployment 

of our people benefit the U.S. colonialist ruling class and capitalist system and 

that a struggle by African people for jobs must be combined with a struggle for socialism 

and independent economic development. 

We want an end to all local, state, federal, and other taxation of black 

3 people by the U.S. government and any of its agencies. 

We believe that such taxation is illegitimate, that black people have no real or meaningful 

authority within the U.S. government, and that U.S. taxation of African people is therefore 

taxation without representation. We believe that in the absence of such real or meaningful 

authority we have nothing to say about how such monies are used, and that therefore the 

taxes taken from black people are often used against us and other oppressed and exploited 

peoples within the U.S. and around the world. 

We believe that the use of taxes extracted from the African population to build more prisons 

to stuff us in and to hire more police to kill us with is criminal, as is the use of these 

taxes to hire soldiers to intimidate and plunder peoples oppressed by this same system 

internationally. We also believe African people must refuse to pay taxes to a government 

which uses such taxes to prop up and support brutal dictators around the world who keep 

their own peoples oppressed and living in squalor in order to maintain U.S. and Western 

imperialist economic and political domination. 

4We want the right to free speech and political association, a guarantee 

of the right to work for the betterment and emancipation of black 

people without fear of political imprisonment and the loss of life, limb, and 

livelihood. 

We believe that the liberation of African people throughout the world will come primarily 

as a result of our own efforts. We believe it is our duty to our mothers and fathers, our 

children and ourselves, to organize ourselves to overcome our oppression. We believe that 

the rights to organize and speak out against our oppression are basic human rights and 

that the U.S. government must discontinue its attempts to smash these rights and must 

discontinue criminal attacks on those African patriots who work for the betterment and 

emancipation of our people. 

5We want the right to international political and economic association 

with Africans and all other peoples anywhere on the face of the Earth. 

We believe that all black people are African people and are a part of a single national 

entity. We believe that the genuine freedom of African people everywhere is irreversibly 

linked to the creation of an independent, united, and socialist Africa. We believe the struggle 

of African people within the U.S. represents the U.S. front of the worldwide movement 

of African people for African liberation, political independence, and socialist democracy. 

We believe that the worldwide struggle for African liberation is in unity with the struggles 

being waged by the majority of the peoples of the world to end the oppression of nations 

by nations and to create a new world, within which the toiling masses will end the system 

of workers and bosses and slaves and masters and will own and benefit from the means 

and products of our labor and will have political authority over our own lives. We believe 

that the natural, objective friends of our struggle for African liberation, independence, and 

socialist democracy are all the toiling masses of the world — the people of the Middle 

East, the Asian and Latin American peasants and workers, the democratic forces throughout 

Eastern and Western Europe and the U.S., and the truly socialist states of the world, 

and that we must therefore have the absolute right to free political and economic international 

association. 

6We want the immediate and unconditional release of all black people 

who are presently locked down in U.S. prisons. 

We believe that all the African men and women who are locked down in the U.S. concentration 

camps commonly known as prisons are there due to decisions, laws, and circumstances 

which were created by aliens and foreigners for their own benefit and as a means 

of genocidal colonialist control. We believe that these decisions, laws, and circumstances 

were created and are enforced without our consent and are therefore illegitimate. We believe 

that the African men and women who are locked down in these concentration camps 

are victims of U.S. colonialist ruling class justice which maintains our enslavement and 

terrorizes our people, and that they should therefore be released immediately to the just 

representatives of our struggle for liberation, independence, and socialist democracy. 

We want complete amnesty for all African political prisoners and prisoners 

of war from U.S. prisons or their immediate release to any friendly 

country which will accept them and give them political asylum. 

We believe that U.S. prisons are also used as the illegitimate tool for torturing, murdering, 

and holding captive those courageous daughters and sons of Africa who through their 

patriotic deeds or spoken or written words in support of the cause of our liberation have 

become political prisoners and prisoners of war. We believe, along with the majority of the 

peoples of the world, that it is the duty of the colonized and enslaved to resist slavery and 

colonialism and to fight for socialism and those who do so are patriots and heroines and 

heroes and should be held in the highest esteem. 

8 

We want the immediate withdrawal of the U.S. police from our oppressed 

and exploited communities. 

INDEPENDENCE IN OUR LIFETIME! 

We believe that the various U.S. police agencies which occupy our communities are arms 

of the U.S. colonialist state which is responsible for keeping our people enslaved and 

terrorized. We believe that the U.S. police agencies do not serve us, but instead represent 

the first line of U.S. defense against the just struggle of our people for peace, dignity, 

and socialist democracy. Therefore, we believe the U.S. police is an illegitimate standing 

army, a colonial army in the African community and must withdraw immediately from our 

community, to be replaced by our liberation forces whose struggles in defense of our community 

and against our oppression demonstrate their loyalty to our community and their 

willingness to serve in its interest. 

9 

We want an end to the political and social oppression and economic 

exploitation of African women. 

We believe in the absolute, unequivocal, political, social, and economic equality of African 

women and men. We believe that a fundamental test of the progressive or revolutionary 

character of any organization, party, movement, or society is its commitment, confirmed 

in practice, to the destruction of the special oppression of women and the elevation 

of women to the rightful place as equal partners and leaders in the forward motion of the 

development of human society and as leaders, makers, and shapers of human history. 

10 

We want the right to build an African People’s Liberation Army. 

We believe that true freedom, although often taken away, cannot be given to a 

people. We believe that African people are our own liberators, and that we have a right 

and obligation to build an African People’s Liberation Army to defend our political gains, 

our freedom fighters and communities, and to win our actual freedom from our oppressive 

colonial slave masters. We believe that neither meaningful freedom, nor guaranteed political 

and social gains, nor genuine liberation are possible without the assuring existence of 

an African People’s Liberation Army. We believe further that the only legitimate wars are 

wars of national liberation, and wars to oppose imperialist aggression, and that therefore, 

the only legitimate military forces for black people to serve with are military forces 

which defend liberty and repel imperialist aggression. Such a force would be the African 

People’s Liberation Army. 

11 

We want the U.S. and the international European ruling class and 

states to pay Africa and African people for the centuries of genocide, 

oppression, and enslavement of our people. 

We believe that U.S. and European civilization were born from, and are presently 

maintained by, the horrendous theft of human and material resources from Africa and 

its people. We also believe that this theft of human and material resources is responsible 

for the present underpopulation and underdevelopment of Africa and her people and the 

political servitude, material impoverishment, and cultural discontinuity and disintegration 

of African people throughout the world. We believe that Africa and African people are 

due reparations, just economic compensation, billions of dollars which must be paid to the 

Organization of African Unity or any other legitimate international organization of African 

people, for equitable distribution for the development of Africa. We also believe that reparations 

must be distributed to the various independent African states dispersed throughout 

the world, and to the legitimate representatives of African people forcibly dispersed 

throughout the world who have not yet won liberation. 

12 

We want an end to the vicious, self-serving U.S. and Western European 

political, economic, and military interference in the affairs of 

Africa and African people throughout the world. 

We believe that African people in Africa and elsewhere have a right and responsibility to 

solve our own problems, free from the unwanted, and self-serving interference of U.S. and 

Western imperialists. We believe that the U.S. and Western imperialist interference in the 

affairs of our people is designed to maintain the continuation of the theft of our human and 

material resources and our oppression and impoverishment. 

We believe that African people must be free to organize and struggle for an end to 

colonialism and neo-colonialism without interference from U.S. and Western imperialism 

which supports neo-colonialism and colonialism in Africa, the U.S. and elsewhere, and 

which has deposed progressive and revolutionary African leaders and replaced them with 

neo-colonialist stooges. 

13 

We want an end to U.S. colonial domination of African people within 

the U.S. 

We believe that the primary struggle of African people within the U.S. during this period 

is to throw off the alien U.S. colonial domination which is responsible for virtually every 

hardship imposed on black people by this government that is identifiable as a “black 

problem.” 

We believe that our problems with education — from our inability to control our own 

schools and determine the education of our own children, to the inferior and racist quality 

of the education we do receive — are caused by colonialism. We believe that our problems 

with health care — from the absence of black controlled and operated health clinics and 

institutions throughout our communities to the hazardous health conditions imposed on us 

by poverty and callous government decisions — are caused by colonialism. 

We believe that our problems with housing — from the unavailability of decent and 

adequate housing for the majority of our people, to the dilapidated and vermin-infested 

housing we are forced to live in — are caused by colonialism. 

We believe that our problems with food and clothing — from the terrible quality and 

quantity which are imposed on us by blood-sucking merchants, to our inability to produce 

and distribute them for and among ourselves — are caused by colonialism, where 

our whole people is dominated and oppressed by a foreign and alien state power for the 

purpose of economic exploitation and political advantage. 

14 

We want the total liberation and unification of Africa under an All- 

African socialist government. 

We believe that “the total liberation and unification of Africa under an All-African socialist 

government must be the primary objective of all Black revolutionaries throughout the 

world. It is an objective which, when achieved, will bring about the fulfillment of the 

aspirations of Africans and people of African descent everywhere. It will at the same time 

advance the triumph of the international socialist revolution, and the onward progress toward 

communism, under which every society is ordered on the principle of — from each 

according to his (her) ability, to each according to his (her) needs.” — Kwame Nkrumah



Spear 


Europe, and we found out what 

democracy was. Isn’t that something? 

According to this logic, the 

people who put us in slavery and 

under colonial domination are 

now teaching us what democracy 

is. They said that’s why all these 

struggles for national liberation 

began to happen in Africa, inside 

this country and in the rest of the 

world. 

I want to tell you the reason 

the struggles for national liberation 

escalated is because our colonial 

slave masters were so busily 

engaged in fighting each other 

over our stolen wealth that it allowed 

enough democratic space 

for us to engage in struggle for 

our freedom ourselves. 

In 1947, India became independent. 

In 1949, China became 

independent. 

You see struggles happening 

everywhere in Africa throughout 

the 1950s. There was the Mau 

Mau in Kenya. 

In 1957, Ghana becomes independent. 

In 1959, Cuba becomes 

independent. The whole 

thing is out of hand. 

Then, of course, there was 

the heroic Vietnamese people 

who fought American imperialism. 

First, they beat France and 

chased the French out of Vietnam, 

and then they fought America and 

chased America out. 

As a consequence of these 

incredible struggles, you begin to 

see people taking back their resources 

and challenging the ability 

of the whole white empire to be 

able to rest on a foundation of stolen 

wealth and stolen labor. 

This begins a serious crisis of 

imperialism, and that’s what we’re 

looking at today. 

if you’ve got all of those people 

who are unemployed it means that 

this thing reverberates throughout 

the entire economy. 

The subprime mortgage industry 

is something that built itself 

off of African people. It is a mortgage 

that they give to people they 

say don’t have good credit. That’s 

mostly African people. 

Even Africans who make 

$150,000 a year are more likely to 

have a subprime mortgage than a 

white person who makes $40,000 

a year. 

That means that all over this 

country, Africans are losing their 

homes when they thought that 

they had realized the American 

dream — and they had. This is the 

American dream for Americans. 

Homeless Africans is how it got 

started. They made us homeless, 

and that was the American dream 

that’s repeating itself again. 

Also, because Africans are 

losing their ability to have jobs, 

you see a growing radicalization 

of African students. We keep running 

into these Africans who are 

talking about revolution. 

They’re not interested in any 

Uncle Tom, Jesse Jackal, Reverend 

Sharpton kind of answers. 

Young people are looking for revolutionary 

solutions. 

Some people say, “What 

the hell is happening to the students?” 

What’s happening to the 

students, in part, is this rotten 

economy doesn’t allow students 

to see a future within this social 

system. They have to look elsewhere 

to find a future. 

This crisis is such that it’s important 

to have a Barack Obama 

because now is the time when 

people will look for revolutionary 

solutions — solutions that America 

has shown it cannot produce. 

So they have a negro pied piper to 

bring African people back into the 

safe embrace of the Democratic 

Party when they would be looking 

for the African People’s Socialist 

Party or the International People’s 

Democratic Uhuru Movement. 

That’s his function. 

His function in a very terrible 

North America 

time for America is to assure 

Americans that all we want to do is 

be a part of it. They love Barack. 

They give him all the money. 

They won’t elect him, but they 

love him anyway because it lets 

them sleep easy at night. 

He also becomes the model 

that all the rest of us have to live 

up to. We become extremists because 

we don’t want to be like 

Barack. 

Marcus Garvey set out to 

build African nation 

In the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s, 

terror was the main method that 

they used to control Africans. 

They had seen the incredible 

movement that was established 

by Marcus Garvey. 

I’m not talking about Marcus 

Garvey the mysterious or Marcus 

Garvey the messiah. I’m talking 

about a political genius. I’m talking 

about a political economist 

who understood society and the 

question of developing the African 

nation. 

He was no preacher. He was 

somebody who understood earth, 

the world and society. 

He didn’t say, “I looked around 

the world and didn’t see Jesus.” 

He said, “I looked around the 

world and I could not see black 

men of any kind of significance.” 

He asked, where are thy black 

presidents, thy black ambassadors? 

He said, “I could not see 

them so I set out to create them.” 

That’s the kind of task that’s 

before us — not to hold Garvey 

up and pray to him every year, but 

to carry out the mission that he 

set for himself that terrorized and 

upset imperialism so much. 

They were so upset that all 

the imperialists around the world 

ganged up on him, and they used 

a whole bunch of folks from our 

own communities like W.E.B. Du 

Bois. 

I mention Du Bois because I 

want to destroy this illusion that 

people have. They like to hold up 

Du Bois and Garvey as the epitome 

of the great Pan Africanists. 

Garvey was not a Pan Africanist. 

In fact, the modern Pan 

Africanist movement was created 

as a way of contending with and 

fighting to destroy Garvey. 

Not only was Garvey not a Pan 

Africanist, he said it over and over 

again. He said, we have nothing 

to do with that stuff that Mr. Du 

Bois and the NAACP created. 

Yes, the NAACP. Garvey used 

to call them the “National Association 

for the Advancement of Certain 

People.” It’s the same organization. 

It hasn’t changed a bit. 

(Applause) 

So this incredible movement 

that was lead by Garvey had up 

to 11 million Africans connected, 

either as members or followers, 

throughout the world. 

He talked about one Africa 

and one flag for all of Africa. He 

said it was Red, Black and Green, 

and African people voted on that. 

Somebody said if the black in 

the Red, Black and Green stands 

for black people, then what in the 

hell does the white in the red, 

white and blue stand for? We 

know it doesn’t stand for black 

people. (Laughter) 

In 1919, under the leadership 

of Marcus Garvey, they organized 

a steamship line. We haven’t had 

a steamship line since then. 

Now you have all these people 

who say they analyze Garvey, 

and they say the steamship line 

failed because Garvey inept and 

not a good businessman. 

Well, that was in 1919. In 1921, 

the first military aerial bombardment 

in the world was dropped 

in Tulsa, Oklahoma on so-called 

Black Wall Street. 

Was that ineptitude as well? 

No! America was not tolerating 

economic independence by African 

people. 

That’s why the African community 

in Tulsa was attacked. 

That’s why the first negro came 

into the FBI. The FBI integrated 

itself because they needed a negro 

who could infiltrate the Garvey 

movement so that they could 

destroy it. 

Of course, it’s easier to attack 

Garvey than it is the FBI. It’s 

easier to attack Garvey and say 

there was something wrong with 

Garvey if you are opposed to the 

idea of African independence. 

Garvey understood the concept 

of One Africa, One Nation. 

He was no Pan Africanist lickspittle. 

The Pan Africanist won’t build 

an all-African movement around 

the world. They’ve got these little 

groups where they come together 

because Pan Africanist organizations 

are middle class organizations, 

and the middle class can’t 

stand the submission that’s necessary 

to come and build one organization. 

In the middle class, 

everybody’s got to be the chief. 

Workers believe in leadership. 

Everything about the workers’ existence 

helps them to understand 

Imperialist crisis showing 

economic face 

The political manifestations of 

crisis were obvious, but today, the 

economic face of this crisis is beginning 

to expose itself. You see 

the collapse of the subprime mortgage 

industry. 

They say, don’t worry about it 

because it doesn’t affect anything 

but the housing, but you know 

that it affects more than housing, 

don’t you? 

Because if the housing industry 

is so bad and people are not 

buying houses, then that means 

the people who build houses don’t 

have any jobs, doesn’t it? Then 

that means that the people who 

sell refrigerators don’t have any 

place to sell refrigerators, doesn’t 

it? 

Well, if they can’t sell refrigerators, 

then that means that the 

factories that make the refrigerators 

lay off workers, doesn’t it? 

It means the same thing for 

the furniture and other kinds of industries 

that are connected to the 

See Spear, page 22 

housing industry, doesn’t it? Well, 




Build to Win 

Opinions · Analyses · Comments 

International monetary and financial systems are weapons of war 

Sbusiso Xaba, former president of PAYCO 

By Sbusiso Xaba, former 

President of the Pan 

Africanist Youth 

Congress (PAYCO) of 

Azania 

It is amazing that society never 

questions the ideological foundation 

of the concept of money, 

and the currency for private entities 

or fiscal policies for public entities. 

Society consumes the idea 

of economics as though it is as 

natural as drinking water. 

The serious crisis is that money, 

the most common medium of 

exchange that functions as legal 

tender, remains an unknown entity 

with value drawn from casual 

studies rather than science. 

Illogical theories 

Economists and financial experts 

will give a lot of explanations 

and present many theories 

including the supply and demand 

concepts. They go further to exaggerate 

issues by postulating 

unnatural theories of market behavior 

to attempt to cover the fact 

that money, since the abolition of 

the gold standard, remains the 

biggest scam on earth — as naïve 

as that may sound. 

Independent thinking and logic 

say that the value of money is actually 

based on nothing. It should 

be strongly said that money is not 

worth the paper it is written on. 

The value is said to be based 

on circulation, which is impossible 

to calculate. Thus, the assumption 

that money is representative 

of some wealth defies all reasoning. 

The history of money has always 

being directly related to the 

ruling class orientation and its 

values. The ruling class valued 

various metals used in exchange 

coins relative to the metals’ contribution 

to the sustenance of their 

military hegemony or the perceived 

prestige caused by availability. 

It is in this period in history 

that information systems have become 

the most powerful weapon 

of war. Therefore, gigabytes are a 

new coin metal. 

Similar to other weapons systems 

like missiles or ballistic systems, 

it makes the soldiers no 

longer have to strain their muscle 

to let mayhem take place. They 

make things happen by the touch 

of a button. Money is created, 

transferred or destroyed by the 

touch of a button. 

Ideological impurity of 

money 

The above argument has established 

that money is an ideological 

expression. Capitalist Henry 

Ford confirmed the ideological 

intricacies of currency when he 

said “I am not interested in money 

but in the things of which money 

is the symbol.” 

It is at this juncture that it 

becomes easier to examine the 

Zimbabwean war as being no different 

to the Iraqi war. Both wars 

are about the control of natural 

resources, namely, oil in the Persian 

Gulf and precious stones in 

the continent of Africa. 

The weaponry used is different, 

with the Iraqi war being fought 

through hardware while software 

— in the form of financial systems 

— has been deployed in the Zimbabwean 

war. The desired goal is 

one and weapons are matters of 

strategy and tactics. 

The victims of both wars are 

indigenous people who are owners 

of these resources so that they 

view their resources as a curse. 

Land war raging in Zimbabwe 

In his book, The Art of War, 

Sun Tzu taught generals from 

2,500 years ago that wars are 

won by deceit — by confusing 

your enemy. He emphasized that 

the enemy should not understand 

your formations and must not be 

able to predict your next move to 

guarantee victory. 

Is that not what is happening 

in Zimbabwe? The apparatus for 

deception in this war is the media, 

which is deployed to mobilize all 

the Europeans spread in all the 

corners of the planet and disorientate 

the enemy, i.e. the Africans. 

The economic meltdown is not 

fuelled by sudden change in the 

rate of production or any fundamental 

economic indicator in Zimbabwe. 

The misfortune is sponsored 

by the racist perceptions on 

currency markets, controlled by 

Europeans on the Zimbabwean 

dollar. 

It is no surprise that the currency 

fluctuation is the only problem 

in the Zimbabwean economy 

that causes the economy to be 

classified as in crisis by ordinary 

Africans. The conscious decision 

not to accept Zimbabwean negotiable 

instruments on the table 

of international trade — that destroys 

money at a click of a button 

—condemns Africans to economic 

depravation in Zimbabwe. 

This is done to effect regime 

change to re-establish security for 

European private property. The 

Europeans intend to destroy any 

aspiration for indigenization of the 

Zimbabwean economy, effectively 

crushing the logic of African workers’ 

desire for self-determination. 

War time inflation 

This phenomenon of war is 

then sugarcoated by many reasonable 

explanations including 

the concept of inflation. Inflation 

is a general and progressive or 

sharp increase in prices when 

the amount of money supply and 

business activity dramatically increase. 

Africans, including the government 

of Zimbabwe, do not own 

the means of production, therefore 

they cannot cause inflation, 

and there is no dramatic increase 

in business activity as per the definition 

of inflation. 

The prices are just increasing 

illogically. The explanation of this 

illogical trend in the neo-liberal 

media is always accompanied by 

the line that says the crumbling 

economy is caused by poor management 

of the economy epitomized 

by the removal of white 

commercial farmers. 

Fuel shortage and long 

queues to buy basic goods in Zimbabwe 

are all results of currency 

exchange systems referred to as 

money that must be recognized 

as the most effective weapons for 

the current world dominion. 

The concept of money wages 

has given power to the capitalists 

to think that money is the most 

important thing to give and to rule 

the lives of the toiling, oppressed 

masses in Africa and in the Diaspora. 



www.apspuhuru.org



Drum 

Spear 

& 

Letters to 

the Editor 

Dogs get reparations before humans? 

Mafundi Lake, political prisoner 

in Birmingham, Alabama 

— I wasn’t going to say anything, 

but I thank God that the times have 

changed. When I look at a country 

that had no problem with forcing 

Africans to work for them for free, 

killing, raping, beating, lynching, 

burning, drowning, torturing and 

literally stripping my ancestors of 

their pride, free will, and prosperity, 

to a country of today whose 

heart is so big that it reaches out 

to six or eight dogs that an African 

in America so brutally killed, it 

shows me that the American society 

does have a heart. 

See, my people have been 

those dogs and had no one to 

take up for them like today. All we 

had were each other and God to 

bring us out. No president lost his 

job; nor did the government lose 

funding because of what they did 

to my grandparents or even their 

parents’ parents. In fact, some 

of the same people who caused 

such injustice are still successful 

now. 

So, with such a forgiving country 

as this, surely we can get past 

the wrongful deaths of a few good 

dogs. Yes, the acts of Vick were 

sick, but do you mean to tell me 

that dogs get reparations before 

humans? 

And to those who still don’t get 

it or for those that this note went 

over your head: the main point 

intended is that God has finally 

softened America’s heart to care 

enough about the brutality and 

sickness that one can inflict on 

animals. If only we were so lucky 

to have been pit bulls. 

The Burning Spear welcomes your questions, feedback, criticisms and 

viewpoint. Please send all correspondence to: 


P.O. Box 11281, St. Petersburg, FL, 33733-1281 

editor@uhurunews.com 

Eager to be a moving force to 

help my people! 

Desi Donzelle Mills, Badin, 

North Carolina — Alafia! In the 

tongue of our Yoruba ancestors, 

peace! For the first time I’ve sat 

down and read The Burning 

Spear, and you tell it like it’s supposed 

to be told. As of now, I am 

incarcerated in one of the most 

racist states you could ever be 

on lockdown in. 

I see first hand the injustices 

being done to our people as the 

government turns a deaf ear and 

does nothing. My time is almost 

complete here but the struggle 

still ensues on the outside. 

Being an ex-gang member 

my heart bleeds even more 

when I see what’s happening to 

our youth at the hands of other 

gang members. Before my eyes 

were open, I took part in the 

genocide and didn’t think anything 

was wrong with my life. 

But now I see how I helped 

oppress my people, and I’m eager 

to be a moving force in helping 

build instead of destroy. 

I just wanted to submit this 

letter and let you know how 

much I got out of the June/July 

2005 issue. I hope one day soon 

to place an order for my own 

subscription. 

Could you please send me 

an order form for The Burning 

Spear as well as any books that 

may be on sale from Uhuru Publications? 

I saw a book by Bro. 

Omali Yeshitela that I’m going to 

order, and I was hoping that Uhuru 

had more books. 

I look forward to hearing from 

you soon and may you all stay 

strong in the struggle! 

Alafia! 

Overseer 

By Dee Allen 

In his uniform of midnight black, 

He storms into the urban landscape, 

Seeking to right society’s wrongs. 

His regular stomping grounds: 

The ghetto. 

It is here that he goes to mete out his 

Own brand of justice 

On the poor. 

Brandishing the ultimate equalizer, 

All six chambers, 

Locked and loaded, this self-proclaimed 

Protector shoots first, 

Asks no questions, 

Lies about the incidents later. 

His black oak stick swings, 

Batters skull and bone. 

All for approval. 

All for the dollars. 

Inner sense of superiority, good as fed. 

Repeated vulgar displays of power 

Excused by the piece of silver he wears. 

No different from the white Celtic 

Overseer of yesteryear, 

On horseback, toting shotgun and whip, 

Hovering over scores of slaves 

Working the cotton fields from 

Sunrise to sundown. 

One false move or none, it’s 

Whippings or death. 

The overseer enforces the will of 

Authorities greater than himself. 

Who better to please the wishes of white masters 

Than a cop, ready to betray 

His own black brethren? 


Plataforma de Trabajo del Partido Socialista del Pueblo Africano 

QUE QUEREMOS — QUE CREEMOS 

Adoptada el 23 de Septiembre de 1979. Revisada y adoptada en el Primer Congreso del Partido Socialista del Pueblo Africano, el 6 de Septiembre de 1981. 

1QUEREMOS PAZ, DIGNIDAD Y EL DERECHO A CONSTRUIR UNA VIDA 

PROSPERA A TRAVES DE NUESTRA PROPIA LABOR Y EN NUESTRO PRO- 

PIO INTERES. 

Creemos que el gobierno de los Estados Unidos de Norte América y su sociedad se fundaron 

en el genocidio de los nativos, el robo de su terra y la dispersión por la fuerza, la esclavitud y 

la colonización de millones de gente Africana. Creemos que la condición de existencia actual 

de la gente Africana dentro de los límites corrientes de los Estados Unidos es colonialismo, 

una condición de existencia donde todo un pueblo es opresivamente dominado por el poder 

extranjero y ajeno del estado con el propósito de la explotación económica y la ventaja política. 

También creemos que la dominación colonial es el base fundamental de las problemas del 

pueblo Africano dentro de los Estados Unidos y que no gozaremos de paz, prosperidad o dignidad 

humana hasta que esta dominición colonialista sea desterrada y el poder sobre nuestras 

vidas descanse en nuestras propias manos. 

QUEREMOS LOS DERECHOS AL DESARROLLO ECONÓMICO Y AL EMPLEO 

2 CREATIVO Y PRODUCTIVO QUE PROMUEVA LAS NECESIDADES Y EL BIEN 

ESTAR DE TODO NUESTRO PUEBLO. 

Creemos que el colonialismo es un sistema chupa sangre en el cual todo desarrollo económico 

beneficia a la clase colonialista que gobierna el estado y a la sociedad a expensas de nuestro 

pueblo colonizado. También creemos que el masivo desempleo habitual y bajo empleo de 

nuestra gente beneficia a la clase colonialista gobernante de los Estados Unidos y al sistema 

capitalista y que la lucha del pueblo Africano por trabajos se debe combinar con la lucha por el 

socialismo y el desarrollo económico independiente. 

QUEREMOS PONER FIN A TODO IMPUESTO LOCAL, DEL ESTADO O FED- 

3 ERAL SOBRE EL PUEBLO NEGRO POR EL GOBIERNO DE LOS ESTADOS 

UNIDOS Y CUALQUIERA DE SUS AGENCIAS. 

Creemos que tales impuestos son ilegítimos, que el pueblo negro no tiene autoridad real o significativa 

dentro del gobierno de los Estados Unidos, entonces son sin representación. Creemos 

que en la ausencia de autoridad real o significativa no tenemos nada que decir acerca de como 

se usa ese dinero y que consecuentemente los impuestos que se extraen del pueblo negro son 

con frecuencia usados en contra neustra y otras gentes oprimidas y explotadas dentro de los 

Estados Unidos y en el mundo. 

Creemos que el uso de los impuestos extraídos de la población Africana para consruir más 

prisiones donde hacinarnos y emplear más policia para matarnas es criminal, como lo es el uso 

de tales impuestos para emplear soldados para intimidar y saquear las gentes oprimidas internacionalmente 

por este mismo sistema. También creemos que el pueblo Africano se debe rehusar 

a pagar impuestos a un gobierno que usa tales impuestos para apoyar y mantener dictadores 

brutales en todo el mundo quienes mantienen a sus propios pueblos oprimidos y viviendo en 

la pobreza con el propósito de mantener la dominación económica y política de los Estados 

Unidos y el Oeste imperialista. 

QUEREMOS EL DERECHO DE LIBRE EXPRESIÓN Y ASOCIACIÓN POLíTICA, 

4 LA GARANTíA DEL DERECHO AL TRABAJO PARA EL MEJORAMIENTO Y LA 

EMANCIPACIÓN DEL PUEBLO NEGRO SIN TEMOR A LA PRISIÓN POLíTICA A 

LA PERDIDA DE LA VIDA, UN MIEMBRO DEL CUERPO O LA SUBSISTENCIA. 

Creemos que la liberación del pueblo Africano en todo el mundo vendrá primeramente como 

resultado de nuestros propios esfuerzos. Creemos que es nuestro deber hacia nuestras madres 

y padres, nuestros hijos y hacia nosotros mismos, organizarnos para vencer nuestra opresión. 

Creemos que el derecho a organizarnos y denunciar nuestra opresión son derechos humanos 

básicos y que el gobierno debe terminar sus ataques criminales a los patriotas Africanos que 

trabajan por el mejoramiento y la emancipación de su pueblo. 

QUEREMOS EL DERECHO DE ASOCIACIÓN INTERNACIONAL POLíTICA Y 

5 ECONÓMICA CON AFRICANOS Y CUALQUIER OTRO PUEBLO EN CUALQUI- 

ER LUGAR DE LA TIERRA. 

Creemos que toda la gente negra es gente Africana y que son una parte de una entidad nacional 

única. Creemos que la libertad genuina del pueblo Africano en todos lados está irreversiblemente 

unida a la creación de un Africa independiente, unida y socialista. Creemos que la lucha 

del pueblo Africano dentro de los Estados Unidos, representa el frente en los Estados Unidos de 

un movimiento mundial del pueblo Africano por su liberación Africana, independencia política 

y democracia socialista. Creemos que la lucha mundial por la liberación Africana está en unidad 

con las luchas libradas por la mayoriá de los pueblos del mundo para terminar la opresión 

de las naciones por naciones y crear un nuevo mundo, dentro del cual las masas trabajadoras 

pondrán fin al sistema de trabajadores y empleadores y esclavos y dueños y poseerán y se beneficiarán 

de los bienes y productos de nuestra labor y tendrán autoridad política sobre nuestras 

propias vidas. Creemos que los amigos naturales, objectivos en nuestra lucha por la liberación 

Africana, independencia y democraticia socialista son todas las masas trabajadores del mundo 

— los pueblos del Medio Oriente, los campesinos y trabajadores de Asia y Latino América, las 

fuerzas democráticas de Europa Oriental y Occidental y los Estados Unidos y los verdaderos 

estados socialistas del mundo, que por consiguente debemos tener el derecho absoluto a la 

asociación política y económica internacional. 

QUEREMOS LA LIBERTAD INMEDIATA E INCONDICIONAL DE TODA LA 

6 GENTE NEGRA QUE EN EL PRESENTE ESTA ENCERRADA EN PRISIONES DE 

LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS. 

Creemos que los hombres y mujeres Africanos encerrados en los campos de concentración 

comunmente conocidos como prisiones están allí por decisiones, leyes y circunstancias que 

fueron creadas por desconocidos y extranjeros para su propio beneficio y como medio de control 

colonialista genocida. Creemos que tales decisiones, leyes y circunstancias fueron creadas 

y son implementadas sin nuestro consentimiento y son por consiguiente, ilegítimas. Creemos 

que los hombres y mujeres Africanas que están encerradas en tales campos de concentración 

son víctimas de la justicia colonialista de la clase gobernante la cual mantiene nuestra esclavitud 

y aterroriza a nuestro pueblo, y que por lo tanto deben ser inmediatamente liberados los 

representantes justos de nuestra lucha por la liberación, independencia y democracia socialista. 

QUEREMOS AMNISTíA COMPLETA PARA TODOS LOS PRISIONEROS 

7 POLíTICOS AFRICANOS Y PRISIONEROS DE GUERRA EN LAS PRISIONES 

DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS O SU LIBERACIÓN INMEDIATA A CUALQUIER PAíS 

AMIGO QUE LOS ACEPTE Y LES BRINDE ASILO POLITíCO. 

Creemos que las prisiones de los Estados Unidos son usadas también como el instrumento 

ilegítimo para torturar, asesinar y mantener cautivos aquellos valientes hijos e hijas de Africa 

quienes por su actuación patriótica o su palabra oral o escrita en favor de la causa de nuestra 

liberación se han convertido en prisioneros políticos y prisioneros de guerra. Creemos, junto 

con la mayoría de los pueblos del mundo, que la resistecia contra el colonialismo y esclavitud 

es el deber de los colonizados y esclavitud y el colonialismo y luchar por el socialismo y 

quienes lo hacen son patriotas, heroinas y héroes, que deben ser mantenidos en la más alta 

estima. 

QUEREMOS EL RETIRO INMEDIATO DE LA POLICIA NORTEAMERICANA DE 

8 NUESTRAS COMUNIDADES EXPLOTADAS Y OPRIMIDAS. 

Nosotros creemos que las varias agencias de policía que ocupan nuestras comunidades son 

ligos del Estado colonialista de los EE.UU. que es responsable por mantener nuestra gente esclavizada 

y aterrorizada. Nosotros creemos que las agencias policias no nos sirven pero que al 

contrario representan la primera línea de defensa norteamericana en contra de la justa lucha de 

nuestro pueblo por dignidad y democracia socialista. Por esto nosotros creemos que la policía 

de Estados Unidos es un ejército ilegítimo, un ejército colonialista en la comunidad Africana 

y debe salir inmediatamente de nuestra comunidad para ser reemplazada por nuestras fuerzas 

de liberación cuyas luchas en defensa de nuestra comunidad y contra la opresión, demuestra su 

lealtad a nuestra comunidad y su deseo de servir en el interés de ésta. 

9 

QUEREMOS TERMINAR CON LA OPRESIÓN POLíTICA Y SOCIAL Y LA EX- 

PLOTACION ECONOMICA DE LA MUJER AFRICANA. 

Nosotros creemos en la absoluta igualdad política, social y económica de las mujeres y los 

hombres Africanos. Nosotros creemos que una prueba fundamental del carácter progresista o 

revolucionario de cualquier organización, partido, movimiento o sociedad es su compromiso 

confirmado en la practica a la destrucción de la opresión especial de la mujer y la elevación de 

la mujer al lugar de compañeras y líderes iguales en la mocion del desenvuelto de la sociedad 

humana y como creadores, líderes y constructores, modeladores de la historia humana. 

10 

QUEREMOS EL DERECHO DE CONSTRUIR UN EJÉRCITO DE LIBERACIÓN 

DEL PUEBLO AFRICANO. 

Creemos que la verdadera libertad, aunque muchas veces quitada, no puede ser dada al pueblo 

Africano somos nuestros propios liberadores, y que tenemos el derecho y la obligación de crear 

un ejército de liberación del pueblo Africano para defender nuestros derechos politicos que 

han sido ganados, para defender nuestro liberadones, y para ganar del opresor colonial-esclavista, 

nuestra verdadera libertad. Creemos, que las unicas guerras legítimas son las guerras de 

liberación national y aquellas guerras que se oponen a la agresión imperialista, y por lo tanto, 

la unica fuerza militar legitima para que la gente negra se sirva son las fuerzas militares que defienden 

la libertad y repudian la agresión imperialista. Esa fuerza será el Ejército de Liberación 

del Pueblo Africano. 

11 

NOSOTROS QUEREMOS QUE LOS EE.UU. Y LA CLASE DOMINANTE IN- 

TERNACIONAL EUROPEA, REPAGUE a AFRICA Y EL PUEBLO DE AFRICA 

POR LOS SIGLOS DE GENOCIDIO, OPRESIÓN Y ESCLAVITUD DE NUESTRO 

PUEBLO. 

Nosotros creemos que los EE.UU. y la civilización europea nacieron y son actualmente 

mantenidos por el horroso robo de seres humanos y recursos naturales del Africa y su pueblo. 

También creemos que ese robo es responsable por la baja población y el sub-desarrollo de 

Africa y de su pueblo y de su servidumbre político, pobreza material, de su discontinuidad y 

desintegración cultural a través del mundo. Creemos que a Africa y su pueblo se le debe unas 

reparaciones, una justa compensación economica, billones de dolares que deben ser pagados 

a la Organización de Unidad Africana o cualquier otra legítima organización internacional del 

pueblo africano para que sean distribuidos en forma equitativa para el desarrollo de Africa. 

También creemos que reparaciones tienen que ser distribuidas a las varias naciones Africanas 

que estan dispersas por todo el mundo y los legítimos representantes del pueblo Africano que 

han sido dispersados a la fuerza a través del mundo y que aun no han ganado su liberación. 

12 

QUEREMOS DAR FIN A LA VICIOSA Y EGOíSTA INTERVENCIÓN DE LOS 

EE.UU. Y DE LOS PAíSES OCCIDENTALES DE EUROPA EN LOS ASUNTOS 

POLíTICOS, ECONÓMICOS Y MILITARES DE AFRICA Y DE LOS PUEBLOS DE 

AFRICA A TRAVÉS DEL MUNDO. 

Creemos que los pueblos de Africa en Africa y en otras partes tienen el derecho y responsabilidad 

de resolver sus problemas, libres de la indeseable y egoísta interferencia de los EE.UU. y 

de los imperialistas occidentales. Creemos que tal intervención esta disenada para mantener la 

continuación del robo de nuestros recursos humanos y materiales, para mantener la opresión y 

la pobreza. 

Creemos que los pueblos de Africa tienen que ser libres para organizar y luchar para poner fin 

al colonialsmo y neo-colonialismo sin interferencia de los EE.UU. y del imperialismo occidental, 

los cuales apoyan al neocolonialismo y el colonialismo en Africa y los EE.UU. y en otros 

sitios, y que ha derrocado líderes Africanos progresistas y revolucionarios reemplazandolos con 

títenes neocolonialistas. 

13 

QUEREMOS EL FIN A LA DOMINACIÓN COLONIAL ESTADOUNIDENSE 

DEL PUEBLO AFRICANO DENTRO DE LOS EE.UU. 

Creemos que la lucha principal del pueblo africano dentro de los EE.UU. es el derrocamiento 

de la dominación colonial de los EE.UU., la cual es virtualmente responsable por toda la 

penuria y privación impuesta sobre el pueblo negro que este gobierno identifica como el problema 

de los negros. 

Creemos que los problemas educacionales — desde nuestra inhabilidad para controlar nuestras 

escuelas y determinar la educación de nuestros hijos, hasta la educación inferior que recibimos, 

son causados por el colonialismo. Creemos que nuestros problemas en el área de salud 

— desde la ausencia de clínicas e instituciones operadas y controladas por el pueblo Africano, 

hasta los peligrosas condiciones de salud impuestas por la pobreza y decisiones insensibles 

gubernamentales — son causadas por el colonialismo. 

Creemos que nuestros problemas de vivienda — desde la escasez de vivienda adecuada para la 

mayoría del pueblo, hasta las casas deterioridas y llenas de piojos son causadas por el colonialismo. 

Creemos que los problemas de alimento y vestuario — desde la terrible calidad y cantidad que 

nos imponen los mercaderes chupa sangres hasta nuestra inhabilidad para producir y distribuirlos 

para nosotros y entre nosotros, son causados por el colonialismo. Todo lo nuestro está 

dominado y oprimido por un poder estatal foráneo y extranjero con el propósito de explotarnos 

económicamente y sacar ventajas políticas. 

14 

¡A construir para ganar la independencia en nuestro tiempo! 

QUEREMOS LA LIBERACIÓN TOTAL Y LA UNIFICACIÓN DE AFRICA 

BAJO UN GOBIERNO TODO-AFRICANO SOCIALISTA. 

Creemos que “la liberación total y unificación del Africa bajo un gobierno Africano socialista, 

debe ser el objetivo primario de todos los revolucionarios Africanos a través del mundo. Este 

objetivo, cuando sea alcanzado, llenará las aspiraciones de los Africanos y de los pueblos de 

descendencia Africana en todas partes. Al mismo tiempo avanzará el triunfo de la revolución 

socialista internacional, y del avance hacia el comunismo, bajo el cual toda sociedad será 

guiada en el principio de — cada uno de acuerdo a su habilidad, a cada uno de acuerdo con sus 

necesidades.” — Kwame Nkrumah

Le platforme de travaille du Partie Socialiste du Peuple Africain 

CE QUE NOUS VOULONS – CE QUE NOUS CROYONS 

Adopté le 23 Septembre 1979. Modifié et Adopté au premier congres du Partie Socialiste du Peuple Africain le 6 septembre 1981. 

1Nous voulons vivre dans la paix, la dignité et dans le droit de batir 

une vie prospère basé sur nos efforts et en fonctions de nos interêts. 

Nous croyons que le société et le governement des Etats Unis d’Amerique du Nord a été 

fondé sur le genocide de la population Indigène, le vole de leur territoire , la dispersion force, 

l’esclavage et la colonisation de million d’Africains. Nous croyons que la presente condition 

de vie des Africains a l’interieure du territoire des Etats Unis est le colonialisme, une condition 

d’existence dans laquelle une puissance exterieure domine oppressivement une population 

entière pour des besoins d’explopitation economique et politique . De plus nous croyons que 

cette domination coloniale est la cause principale des problemes des Africains aux Etats Unis 

et qu’en connaissance il n’yaura ni paix, ni prospérite ou ni dignité humaine jusqu’a ce que 

cette domination coloniale ne soie renversée et la responsabilité de notre vie entre nos mains. 

Nous voulons le droit au dévelopement économique et à des emploies 

créatif et dynamique qui promotionnent le besoin et le bien 

2 

être de notre peuple. 

Nous croyons que le colonialisme est un système suce-sang qui béneficie la classe dirigente, 

l’état et le société coloniale a un dévelopement économique au depend du peuple colonisé. 

Nous croyons aussi que l’enorme taux habituel de chômage et de sous-emploie de la population 

Africaine béneficie la classe dirigente colonialiste et le systême capitaliste des Etats Unis, de ce 

fait la lutte menée par le peuple Africain pour le travail doit être combiner avec la lutte pour le 

socialisme et à un dévelopement économique independante. 

Nous voulons la fin de toute forme de taxation locale, nationale ou 

3 féderale de la population noire menée par le governement des Etats 

Unis et par n’importe quel autre agence governementale. 

Nous croyons que cette taxation est illégitime, que le peuple noire n’a aucune véritable ou 

même un samblant autorite a l’interieure du gouvenement des Etats Unis et par consequence 

la taxation Americaine des Africains est une taxation sans représentation. Nous croyons donc 

qu’en l’absence de cette véritable ou semblant d’autorité nous n’avons aucuns mots-dit sur la 

manière dont cette argent est utilisée et de plus, ces taxes payée par le peuple noire sont souvent 

utlisées contre nous et contre la plupart des peuples oppressés et exploités a l’interieur des Etats 

Unis et de par le monde. 

Nous croyons que cette taxe extraite de la population Africaine est utilisé pour construire des 

centres d’incarceration pour les Africains, pour recruiter plus de policier qui nous criminellement 

assassine; tout comme cette taxe est utilisée pour le recruitement de soldats qui auront 

pour mission d’intimider et de piller les peuples du monde opprossés par ce systeme. Nous 

croyons aussi que le peuple Africains doit refuser de payer des taxes qui sont utilisées pour intaller 

et supporter à travers le monde des dictateurs qui continuent a opprimer et a negliger leur 

propre population afin de maintenir la domination politique et économique de l’imperialisme 

Americain et Occidentale. 

Nous voulons le doit a la liberté d’expression et d’association politique, 

à une guarantie du droit de travailler pour l’amélioration et 

4 

l’émancipation du peuple noire sans craindre l’enprisonment politique, la 

perte de vie, de membre ou de condition de vie. 

Nous croyons que la liberation du peuple Africain a travers le monde sera essentiellement le 

resulta de nos propre efforts. Nous croyons que c’est de notre devoir face a nos mères, nos 

pères, nos enfants et nous même de nous organiser pour supprimer l’oppression. Nous croyons 

que les droits de s’organiser et de denoncer notre oppression sont les bases des droits humain , 

de ce fait le gouvernement americain doit interrompres ses tentatives d’ecraser ces droits et doit 

interrompre les attaques criminelles menées contres ces patriotes Africains qui travaillent pour 

l’amelioration et l’émancipation de notre peuple. 

Nous voulons le droit de nous associer politiquement et économiquement 

avec les Africains et tout autre peuple n’importe ou sur la sur- 

5 

face de la Terre. 

Nous croyons que toute la population noire est africaine et donc de ce fait partie d’une seule et 

même entite nationale. Nous croyons que la liberation l’authentique du peuple Africain dans le 

monde est irreversiblement liée a la creation d’une Afrique unie, indépendante et socialiste. 

Nous croyons que la lutte du peuple africain aux Etats Unis represente le front des Etats Unis 

du movement globale du peuple Africain pour la liberation de l’Afrique, l’independance politique 

et la democratie socialiste. 

Nous croyons que la lutte de la liberation globale de L’Afrique est en unite avec la lutte menée 

par l’ensemble des peuples du monde pour en finir avec l’oppression de certaines nations par 

d’autre nations afin de créer un monde nouveau dans lequel la masse des travailleurs eradiquera 

le systeme patron–travailleur, maitre-esclave afin qu’ils puissent beneficier des produits de leur 

labeur et avoir une autorite politique sur leur vies. 

Nous croyons que les amis naturel et objectif de la lutte pour la liberation de l’afrique, de 

l’independance et la democratie socialiste sont :les masse de travailleur du monde – le peuple 

du Moyen-Orient, les travailleurs et paysants de l’Amerique latine et de l’Asie, les forces 

democratique a travers l’Europe de l’Ouest, de l’Est et des Etats Unis, et les véritable Etats 

socialiste de la planète, on doit par consequent avoir le droit absolue à la libre association politique 

et économique internationale. 

Nous voulons la liberation immédiate et inconditionnelle toute la 

6 population noire actuellement incarcérer dans les prisons americaine. 

Nous croyons que tout les hommes et femmes Africains qui sont actuellement incarcérer dans 

les camps de concentrations habituellement appellés prison sont là due à des decisions, des lois 

et des circanstances crées par des êtres étrangers pour leur benefices et pour des fins de contrôle 

coloniale genocidaire. Nous croyons que ces decisions, ces lois et circonstences ont été crées 

et appliquées sans notre consentement et sont par consequent illegitimes. Nous croyons que les 

hommes et femmes Africains enfermés dans ces camps de concentrations sont victimes de la 

justice de la classe dirigente coloniale americane qui nous maintient en esclavage et terrorise 

notre peuple, par consequence ils devraient etre libérés immediatement a des juste représentants 

de notre lutte pour la liberation, l’independance et la demcratie socialiste. 

Nous voulons l’amestie complète de tous les prisoniers politique et 

7 prisoniers de guerre africains des prisons americaine ou leur liberation 

et la remise immediate aux pays amis qui les accepteront et leur 

donneront l’asile politique. 

Nous croyons que les prisons des Etats Unis sont utilisées comme outils illégitime de toture, 

assassinat et de enfermement de ces fils et fille d’Afrique qui a travers leur actions patriotique, 

leur discours et ecritures en soutient de la cause de notre liberation sont devenue prisonnier 

politique et prisonnier de guerre. 

Nous croyons, paraillement aux autres peuples du monde, que la responsabilité des peuples 

colonisés et en esclavage est de resister a l’esclavage, au colonialisme et de combatre pour le 

socialisme ; ceux qui le feront seront des patriotes, des heros et heroines et seront devraient 

élevés au plus haut égards. 

Nous voulons le retrait immediat de la police americaine de nos communautes 

exploitées et oppressées. 

8 

Nous croyons que les differentes agences de police americaine qui occupent nos communautes 

sont des bras de l’etat colonialiste americaine responsable du maintien de notre peuple en 

esclavage et sous la terreur. Nous croyons que les agences de police americaine ne nous servent 

pas mais reprensentent leur premiere ligne de defense contre le juste combat de notre peuple 

pour la paix, la dignité et la democratie socialiste. Par conséquence, nous croyons que la police 

amerinaine est une armé, coloniale, illégitime a l’intérieure la communaute, qui doit etre immediatement 

retiree pour etre remplacer par notre force de liberation qui lutte pour la defense 

de notre communaute contre notre oppression en demontrant leur loyauté et leur desir de servir 

ses interêts. 

9Nous voulons la fin de l’oppression politique et de l’exploitation 

économique et sociale de la femme Africaine. 

Nous croyons a l’égalité absolue, unéquivoque, politique, sociale et économique de l’homme et 

de la femme africaine. Nous croyons que le test fondamentale de personalite de toute organisation, 

partie, movement ou société est dans la dévotion, confirmée par la pratique, à la destruction 

de l’oppression de la femme et a son élèvation a sa véritable place comme partenaire égale 

et dominante du development de la société humaine comme dirigeante,batisseur et creatrice. 

Nous voulons le droit de crée une Armee de Liberation du Peuple 

10 Africain. 

Nous croyons que la véritable liberte ne peut être donnée à un peuple. Nous croyons que 

le peuple africain est notre véritable liberateur et que nous avons le droit et l’obligation de 

construire une Armé de Liberation du Peuple Africain pour proteger nos gains politique, nos 

combattants de la liberté et notre communauté, et de gagner notre liberté contre l’oppressive 

colonisateur. 

Nous croyons que ni un samblant de liberté ou une garantie d’acquisition politique et sociale ou 

authentique liberation ne sont possible sans la sertiude de l’existence d’une Armé de Liberation 

de Peuple Africain. De plus nous croyons que les seule guerres legitimes sont les guerres 

de liberation nationale et les guerres d’oppositions aux aggressions imperialistes, et donc par 

consequent, les forces militaires legitimes dans lesquelle les africains peuvent servir sont les 

forces armés qui defendent la liberté et qui repoussent les aggressions imperialiste. Cette force 

est l’Armé de Liberation du Peuple Africain. 

Nous voulons que les Etats Unis et les classes dirigentes europeenne 

payent a l’Afrique et aux Africains pour les centenaires de 

11 

genocide, d’oppession et d’esclavage. 

Nous croyons que les Etats Unis et la civilisation Europeenne sont nées et presentement 

maintenues par l’effroyable vole des ressources humaines et materielles de l’Afrique et de son 

peuple. Nous croyons aussi que ce vole est responsable de l’actuelle depopulation et sousdevelopement 

de l’Afrique, de la servitude politique, de l’appauvrissement materielle et de la 

discontinuité culturelle du peuple Africain a travers le monde. 

Nous croyons que l’Afrique et le peuple Africain doivent obtenir reparation, une juste compensation 

econonique, des milliards de dollar qui doivent être repayés a l’Organisation de l’Unite 

Africaine ou n’importe quel autre organisation internationale legitime du peuple noire, pour 

une redistribution equitable et le development de l’Afrique. Nous croyons aussi que la reparation 

doit etre redistribuée a tout les autres etats independants africains et aux autre representants 

legitimes du peuple Africain, dispersé par la force a travers le monde, qui n’ont pas encore 

gagne la liberation. 

Nous voulons la fin de la vicieuse interference politique, 

12 economique et militaire des Etats Unis et de l’Europe de l’ouest 

dans les affaires de l’Afrique et du peuple Africain à travers le monde. 

Nous croyons que le peuple africain en Afrique et n’importe où a le driot de resoudre ses 

propre problemes, sans craindre l’interference des Imperialistes americains et europeens. Nous 

croyons que ces interference dans les affaires de notre peuple à été designé pour maintenir la 

continuite du vole de nos ressources humaines et materielle, de notre oppression et appauvrissement. 

Nous croyons que le peuple africain doit être libre d’organiser la lutte pour la fin du colonialisme 

et du neo-colonilaisme sans l’interference de l’imperialisme americain et europeen qui 

supportent le neo-colonialisme et le colonialisme dans l’Afrique, aux Etats unis et ailleurs, et 

renverserent les direngeants progressiste et revolutionnaire africain pour les remplacer par des 

marionettes neo-coloniale. 

Nous voulons la fin de la domination coloniale du peuple africain 

13 aux Etats Unis. 

Nous croyons que la lutte principale du peuple africain aux Etats Unis en cette periode est 

de rejetter la domination coloniale americaine qui est responsable de chacune des difficultés, 

imposées a la population noire par ce governement, identifiées comme ‘le probleme avec les 

noires’. 

Nous croyons que nos problemes avec l’education – de notre incapacite de controler nos écoles 

et determiner l’éducation de nos enfants, à la qualité raciale et inferiore de l’education que nous 

recevons – sont causés par le colonialisme. 

Nous croyons que nos problemes avec le systeme de sante - de l’absence du contrôle et de 

la direction des hopitaux, des cliniques de soin et des institutions a travers la communaute, 

aux dangereuse conditions de sante imposées par la pauvreté et par la froideure des decisions 

gouvernementales- sont causés par le colonialisme. 

Nous croyons que nos problemes avec l’hebergement- du manque d’hebergement adequat pour 

la majorite de notre peuple, aux maisons dilapidées et infectees de vermines dans lesquelles 

nous sommes forcées de vivre - sont causés par le colonialisme. 

Nous croyons que nos problemes de nourriture et d’habillement – de la mauvaise qualité et la 

quantité imposée par des vendeurs suceur de sang, à notre incapacite de les produire et les distribuer 

entre nous – sont causés par le colonialisme, là où notre peuple est oppressé et dominé 

par une puissance etrangère pour des buts d’exploitation économique et d’avantage politique. 

Nous voulons la liberation et l’unification totale de l’Afrique dirigé 

14 par un gouvernement socialiste de tous les Africain. 

Nous croyons que ‘ la liberation et l’unification totale de l’Afrique sous un gouvernement 

socialiste doit etre l’objectif principale de tous les revolutionnaires Noire a travers le monde. 

C’est un objectif, lorsqu’atteint, apportera partout l’accomplissement des aspirations des 

Africains et des peuples de descendance Africaine. Cela le même temps avancera le triomphe 

de la revolution socialiste international, et le progres continue vers le communisme, sous lequel 

chaque société est organisée sur le principle– de chacun (chacune) en fonction de sa capacite, à 

chacun (chacune) en fonction de ses besoins’ – Kwame Nkrumah 

INDEPENDANCE DANS NOTRE TEMPS DE VIE!



Spear 


that you’ve got to have leaders, 

but not the middle class. 

So, they crushed the Garvey 

movement. They used people like 

the NAACP. They used W.E.B. 

Du Bois who actually went to the 

Attorney General of the United 

States and tried to get the U.S. 

government to give him a ship 

that he could bring into the Black 

Star Line and use it to destroy it. 

Garvey had purchased land in 

Liberia and had taken equipment 

there because he intended to establish 

a land base in Liberia to 

take Africa back from white power. 

Du Bois, working for the U.S. 

government, went to Liberia and 

worked with the Liberian government 

to make sure that Garvey 

could not get that land. 

Garvey was about self-determination. 

Garvey wasn’t trying to 

join the white folks’ thing. He was 

talking about our own constitution, 

our own capacity and selfdetermination. 

They defeated Garvey’s 

movement and promoted in its 

stead this kind of movement that 

held up the U.S. It validates the 

U.S. 

You’ve got a slave master 

who beats you, kicks you, rapes 

your wife and your children, works 

you from can’t see in the morning 

to can’t see at night, makes sure 

that you will never ever have any 

freedom, and today locks up one 

out of every 10 African men between 

the ages of 18 and 29 in a 

prison. 

If you’ve got that kind of system 

doing all these things to you 

and you’re still running behind it 

saying, “please, please, please, 

can I integrate with y’all,” you validate 

your own oppression. 

Resistance of the ‘60s and 

demoralization of defeat 

So, following the defeat of the 

Garvey movement what we had 

now is a movement based on a 

bourgeois democracy. Not the national 

democratic rights that the 

Garvey movement put forward, 

but the democratic rights of the 

U.S. government as interpreted 

by the African petty bourgeoisie, 

the middle class. These were the 

rights that they would fight for 

— the right to be a part of the oppressor. 

This lasted until the ‘60s when 

you saw this incredible new energy 

emerge. People began to put 

forward the same basic message 

for national democratic rights that 

was found in the Garvey movement. 

It wasn’t articulated in that 

fashion, but revolutionary national 

democratic rights is what we were 

struggling for. 

We saw the emergence of 

groups that you are familiar with 

like the Black Panther Party. 

There were others like the Republic 

of New Afrika (RNA), the Junta 

of Militant Organizations (JOMO), 


etc. These were organizations 

that were about the issue of selfdetermination. 

They said we want to be independent, 

self-governing people, 

free from white power. They had 

differences in what they meant by 

that, but all of them were talking 

about being self-determining, independent 

people. 

This movement was crushed 

as well. We people like Fred 

Hampton who was murdered in 

his sleep in 1969 by the U.S. government, 

and this was symbolic of 

the defeat of a revolutionary period 

that we had gone through. 

As far as the imperialists were 

concerned, they had destroyed 

our capacity to make revolution. 

Then the African People’s Socialist 

Party was born in 1972, right 

on the tail in of this defeat, and we 

have engaged in struggle since 

that time. 

You see, it’s not enough to destroy 

a people’s movement militarily. 

You can’t get rid of it with just 

military defeat. So an assault was 

made on the ideas of the African 

revolution. 

So there emerged these pseudo-communists. 

We call them Ku 

Klux Kommunists. These white 

left organizations claimed to have 

revolutionary insights unlike anything 

that had ever been seen before. 

They organized Africans into 

their organizations. They called 

themselves multi-national organizations, 

and while fighting for 

what they called freedom and socialism, 

they began to make an 

assault on the rights of African 

people to be a self-determining 

people. 

They began to characterize 

the struggle of African people for 

our own power as an attack on the 

solidarity of the working class. 

So this kind of thing began to 

happen, and the movement went 

through a lot of different difficulties. 

We had all kinds of contradictions 

inside the African Liberation 

Movement. People were underground 

or pushed out of political 

life. You’ll find some people who 

were members of the Black Panther 

Party who are still in Paris, 

France afraid to come back to this 

country. 

Some people just got back 

from places in South America 

where they were in exile for many 

years, and we were holding the 

line inside this country trying to rebuild 

a revolutionary movement. 

It was a very difficult period 

because you start talking about 

revolution, and the last thing people 

remember about revolution 

was tanks in the streets of this 

country. They remember the example 

of Malcolm X gunned down 

in public view. They remember 

how they murdered Fred Hampton 

and the picture of him laying 

in his own blood. 

They remember the Panthers 

who were attacked throughout this 


country. That’s their last memory. 

People were demoralized. You 

talk about revolution, and they’re 

telling you, “Well, it don’t make no 

sense to try to do this because every 

time we get a leader the white 

man kills him.” 

Then the government imposed 

a drug economy into our community. 

They would deny Africans a 

job in the legal capitalist economy 

and then imposed an illegal capitalist 

economy on the community. 

It was just an incredibly demoralizing 

situation. It was a serious 

counterinsurgency. 

So we were faced with the 

question of how to bring people 

back into political life. Nobody 

was interested in revolution, but 

people were interested in the fact 

that the police were still beating 

them up. Their children still 

couldn’t graduate or they were insulted 

and faced the worst kinds 

of psychological assaults in the 

school system. 

People were fed up with slumlords 

that charged us exorbitant 

rents and would never do any repairs 

where we lived. They were 

tired of filthy merchants in our 

communities who charged too 

much for bad goods. 

People were tired of that 

kind of stuff. They weren’t talking 

about revolution, but they wanted 

to make some changes. 

So we decided to build an NP- 

DUM that would bring people back 

into political life where they were 

— not because they believed in 

revolution, but because they believed 

in having a decent place to 

stay. Because they believed that 

their son ought to be able to go to 

the store and be gone for 15 minutes 

without them having to worry 

about whether he’s still alive or 

not. 

So we built NPDUM to deal 

essentially around the question of 

national democratic rights. 

This issue of national democratic 

rights is very important. 

We’ve come to understand subsequently 

that most people have 

not understood what we meant 

when we talked about national 

democratic rights. 

We say national democratic 

rights because we’re talking 

about our rights as a nation, not 

because it’s U.S.-wide or something 

like that. We’re talking about 

a colonized people, a nation of 

people who have been put into 

captivity and have lost our rights 

as national entity. 

When we’re talking about the 

struggle for national democratic 

rights we’re not just talking about 

rights according to the U.S. constitution. 

The only reason things 

like the U.S. constitution or the 

declaration of independence are 

important to us is because it’s 

something we can use to raise 

the contradictions between what 

America says it is and what it really 

is. 

There are some white people 

and even some negroes who actually 

believe in what America 

says it is. 

So we raise the questions like 

how they’ve got a law that says 

three strikes, you’re out on the one 

hand, but on the other hand, they 

have a constitution that says that 

a person should not be tried more 

than once for the same crime. 

Now that’s obviously a contradiction 

because if they say on the 

third time you’re out, that means 

that you’re not only getting tried, 

charged and sentenced for what 

you did this time, but for the other 

two times as well. That’s double 

jeopardy in anybody’s book. 

So we raise these questions 

to heighten the contradictions to 

help all the Africans to see that 

this constitution thing means nothing 

as far as we are concerned 

and also to help the white people 

— those who can see it and for 

whom it can be of some significance 

— to see it. 

We call it a kind of political 

jujitsu where we use the weight 

of the opponent against him. We 

take his own words and ideas and 

use it against him to raise and 

deepen the contradictions 

It’s not because we believe 

in American democracy. We’d be 

fools to believe in American democracy 

because this democracy 

is a democracy that is built on stolen 

land. 

The native people didn’t vote 

to be in concentration camps they 

call reservations. African people 

didn’t vote to be here. What kind 

of democracy are you talking 

about when in your constitution 

Africans are declared three-fifths 

of a person? 

That is no democracy. That 

constitution is as worthless as 

used toilet paper. The thing that 

gives it significance is because 

we can use this toilet paper and 

rub it in their faces to heighten 

and raise the contradictions to 

educate the masses of our people 

and anybody else who can be educated 

around it. 

We want to take advantage 

of it. We want all the democratic 

space that we can have. 

If they start trying to close it 

down over here, we can say, “your 

constitution says this.” We won’t 

say, “Marcus Garvey told us that.” 

We want to get to where Garvey 

was going, but we will walk on 

their constitution to get there to 

the extent that it is possible. 

We have a self-declared right 

to be free and independent people. 

They are never going to put 

that on the ballot. 

I don’t give a damn if they 

never put it on anybody’s piece of 

paper. We have a right and a responsibility 

as mature human beings 

to win our freedom. 

Democracy is a form of the 

State 

So when we talk about de- 


www.apspuhuru.org




mocracy, we want to extend the 

definition of democracy beyond 

what W.E.B. Du Bois and the rest 

of them understood. 

Democracy is nothing but a 

form of the State, and the State 

is organized coercion. The State 

is that thing that makes you rush 

down to the courthouse to pay the 

white people when you get a ticket 

on your car because if you don’t 

they will put a boot on your car or 

take away your driver’s license. 

You see the people standing 

on the underpass with the signs 

written on cardboard saying “Hungry” 

or “Help me with something 

to eat.” Well, if you go to your local 

supermarket, at night, they throw 

away what they call surplus food. 

Let that person put down his 

little piece of cardboard, go into 

that supermarket and try to get a 

piece of lettuce, and see what will 

happen to him. It is the State that 

will take him away and will feed 

him in jail for the next 30 days or 

so. 

That is the State. The State legalizes 

itself. White Power legalizes 

itself. 

It came here, stole this land, 

then stole another piece of land 

that used to be Mexico, put an artificial 

line there, called it the border 

and said that now the Mexicans 

who come across here are 

illegal aliens. The State legalizes 

itself. 

So when you talk about democracy, 

what you’re talking about 

is a form of the State. When you 

look at what they’re calling a democracy, 

you’re looking at a hidden 

dictatorship. The dictatorship 

is hidden with the democracy. 

What is a dictatorship? It is 

rule without regard for law. 

Rule without regard for law is 

when the constitution that says 

you can’t try a person twice for the 

same thing and in the real world 

it’s three strikes, you’re out. 

What they have done is kidnapped 

a whole bunch of people, 

held us in captivity and then set 

up a bourgeois democracy. In 

the bourgeois democracy, people 

vote. 

If the white folks had had been 

smart, they would have let us vote 

on the plantations. They would 

have let us vote about which plantation 

we were going to be. 

I can see the debate now 

with Jesse Jackal and Al Sharpton 

having a pray-in to get us to 

register to vote for the right slave 

master because “this slave master 

is better than that slave master.” 

(Laughter) 

Democracy is simply a form of 

the State, and what we have here 

is a bourgeois democracy. It is a 

white ruling class democracy, and 

this democracy founded itself at 

the expense of democratic rights 

for us. 

The peoples around the world 

have no democracy. They can’t 

tolerate us having any democracy 

because for us to have democracy 

means to end our relationship 

with them. 

If we had democratic rights, 

we’d take back the oil, the diamonds, 

the cocoa and our labor. 

So they can’t survive if we have 

what they call democracy. 

Our struggle for democratic 

rights is struggle for State 

power 

So when we talk about democracy 

and democratic rights 

we’re talking on a couple of levels. 

One, democracy for us is to place 

restrictions on what the bourgeois 

colonial State can do to us. 

We say the highest expression 

of democracy is self-determination, 

and the struggle for selfdetermination 

is a struggle for our 

own State power. 

It’s a struggle against colonialism 

and for our own State power. 

That’s what InPDUM is about. 

Just because we say it’s a 

mass organization doesn’t mean 

that it’s some kind of liberal, turnthe-other-cheek, 

get-with-thewhite-people 

kind of organization. 

We’re talking about self-determination. 

This is what gives us the ability 

to unite with the RNA, the New 

Afrikan People’s Organization 

(NAPO) and other groups that 

have a practical program for selfdetermination 

because the program 

for self-determination is a 

program for democracy. 

Now, the thing that distinguishes 

us — because we have 

differences — is that we are led 

by a revolutionary party that understands 

that the question for 

just democracy is not enough. The 

final the question is what class is 

going to be in power. 

We say the future belongs to 

the African working class. Not only 

must the African working class 

lead, but it also carries on its back 

the terrible burden of the emancipation 

of the whole nation. 

Our nation is a nation that is 

dispersed all over the globe, and 

for African people to be free in 

Huntsville, Alabama it’s necessary 

for African people to be free 

in Sierra Leone, West Africa. 

So, when we talk about a 

revolutionary national democratic 

program we recognize that our 

struggle has different phases, a 

minimum program and a maximum 

program. We recognize that 

the African working class in most 

places in the world right now does 

not have the strength by itself to 

come to power as a class and 

usher in socialist revolution. 

But there are other sectors 

of the population who are antiimperialist, 

who are revolutionary 

or progressive intellectuals 

or who are basic democrats. We 

can develop a revolutionary national 

democratic program to help 

all these forces come together to 

overturn the national oppression 

to free ourselves from colonial oppression 

and colonial existence. 

It’s up to the African working 

class Party, to take the revolution 

where it has to go. Only the African 

workers can take it to its final 

conclusion. 

The first step is to take and 

create a democratic State of the 

progressive, democratic revolutionary 

forces that comprise our 

nation, and the second step is the 

struggle for socialism. 

Critical time for InPDUM 

The Uhuru Movement is part 

of a movement that is fighting 


programs in different places in the 

world. 

Those of you familiar with The 

Burning Spear Newspaper, Uhuru 

Radio or Uhuru News know that 

our movement is waging incredible 

struggle in Guinea-Conakry in 

West Africa where a revolutionary 

national democratic program is 

being forged and fought for right 

now. In Sierra Leone, our forces 

are fighting and have initiated a 


program there. 

It doesn’t take much to see that 

we’re going to the same place that 

Garvey went to. We can create a 


program. InPDUM is part of the 

process to make this happen on a 

global level so that all of the struggles 

of African people everywhere 

can be fighting to make a democracy 

that overthrows colonialism, 

overthrows neocolonialism, takes 

back our resources and paves the 

way for the road to socialism. 

This is also a crucial time in 

the development of InPDUM. 

Chimurenga came into the 

presidency of InPDUM at a very 

critical time when InPDUM was 

going through incredible struggles. 

The first leader of InPDUM 

was someone who had been out 

of political life since 1969. 

So we went through various 

kinds of difficulties, and it was at 

the height of these difficulties that 

Chimurenga came through. 

Those of you who know 

Chimurenga know that he has a 

very calming presence, and that’s 

what he’s done. He’s been a very 

calming, stabilizing force for us. 

Now, however, we find that a 

whole new incredible era is opening 

up for our revolution. The Jena 

Six situation is representative of 

it. 

People don’t know what happened 

in Jena. It wasn’t like some 

revolutionary organization made 

that happen. This is an example 

of people wanting to resist. Young 

people on the Internet and what 

have you made Jena happen. 

People want to resist. People 

don’t want to live like this anymore. 

We’ve got a whole new generation 

of political forces entering 

into political life. The point now is 

not just to hold fort. Now it’s time 

to kick off into a whole new era. 

I think Sister Ivory represents 

this intent of our movement to go 

new places. I think you’ll see that 

when you look at some of the leadership 

that’s coming into InPDUM. 

You’ll see young forces who are 

not content anymore to talk about 

how wonderful the Black Panther 

Party was. 

I want to say that there are 

thousands of African people who 

want organization, who want freedom, 

and this InPDUM has as its 

mission to bring those thousands 

of people into political life. It cannot 

be satisfied not having those 

thousands of people into political 

life. 

They ought to be with InP- 

DUM. They ought to be fighting 

for Africa and African redemption. 

They ought to be recognizing that 

the struggle we’re involved in is 

not just to find a good place in 

America, but the emancipation of 

Africa and African people. 

We’re not some militant version 

of the NAACP. When people 

have an experience with us — 

whether it’s around a cop killing, 

an expulsion from school or what 

have you — as a consequence 

of having come in contact with 

us, they should now be another 

person who’s won to the understanding 

of the need for African 

people to be self-determining. 

They should be in the ranks of the 

movement for self-determination. 

We cannot build ourselves 

if the people can’t distinguish us 

from the NAACP except by the 

fact that we wear dashikis and 

say “Uhuru.” They need to be able 

to distinguish us because we’ve 

got a political line that recognizes 

what the fundamental contradiction 

is. 

We can’t be too cowardly or 

too timid to bring people to Africa 

and to a consciousness of their 

relationship to Africa. 

Even as reluctant as they are 

to come to terms with that today, 

they will be less reluctant tomorrow 

because white folks are going 

to make them understand who 

they are. 

Increasingly, as the economy 

of this country and the white world 

gets bad, you see this whole thing 

being dumped on immigrants and 

people like us who are not white 

folks. 

So increasingly you will see 

more and more people waking 

up to the realization that they’re 

Africans. Let’s help them come 

to terms with being Africans by 

showing them the glory of an Africa 

that is resisting and taking 

back its future for itself. 

Let’s help the masses of African 

people come to recognize the 

need to be associated with Africa 

because they can know what Africa 

has brought to the world. What 

African has brought to the world in 

the past, it can bring to the world 

in the future. 

Izwe Lethu! (I Afrika!) 

I Afrika! (Izwe Lethu!) 






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