GAPP Emerging Position on CARICOM Reparations
This gallery contains 19 photos.
This is a link to some other position papers on CARICOM Reparations which predate but compliment the GAPP Position Paper.
Opposing the USAFRICOM base of Maangamizi in Ghana: Globalising Pan-Afrikan Resistance for Reparatory Justice is the way to victory!
“if we do not unite and combine our military resources for common defence, our individual [African] States, out of a sense of insecurity, may be drawn into making defence pacts with foreign powers which may endanger the security of us all”.
Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah, ‘Africa Must Unite’ (1963)
We in the Global Afrikan Peoples Parliament (GAPP), in partnership with the ‘Stop the Maangamizi: We Charge Genocide/ Ecocide!’ Campaign (SMWeCGEC), join the progressive forces of Freedom, Justice and Peace, in the once proudly inspiring Black Star nation-state founded by Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah, in expressing their outrage and vehement opposition to the shocking endorsement by the Government of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and his so-called New Patriotic Party (NPP) majority in Parliament, of the completely unjustifiable Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on defence cooperation between the Republic of Ghana and the United States of America on March 8, 2018. It is unimaginable that, 61 years after the declaration of Ghana’s independence, the very Euro-Amerikkkan imperialist superpower of the West, whose Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) masterminded the violent February 1966 coup d’état which shattered the Pan-Afrikan Liberation dreams and efforts of Ghana’s first visionary head of state, is now supposed to be the country’s key security ally. For the sake of the serious lessons that must be critically learnt by us all, we must not lose sight of the fact that this current Akuffo-Addo-approved MOU is supposed to be the enhancement of two previous agreements that were signed with the USA without public discussion, scrutiny and parliamentary endorsement in Ghana in 1998 and 2015 by the preceding governments of President Jerry John Rawlings and President John Dramani Mahama respectively.
We therefore urge you to keep up your resistance as you did with the 2008 attempts to establish an AFRICOM military base in Ghana until this manifestation of the Maangamizi (Afrikan Hellacaust of chattel colonial and neo-colonial forms of enslavement) is stopped. For, contrary to assertions that the USA Government is not establishing an American military base, the agreement indicates that the USA Armed Forces will have the use of a designated area in Ghana to set up their own camp inaccessible to anyone else, in other words a ‘base’ by another name. The presence of this enduring base will increase the militarisation of the state and society leading to increased hostilities directed against the people of Ghana for being in cohoots with the US Empire in committing crimes against Humanity.
Just like in 1844 when Fante Chiefs were outmanoeuvred into signing an agreement on behalf of the Gold Coast with the British colonisers, similarly today, we have a Government and its majority in parliament surrendering the sovereignty, dignity and territorial integrity of the people of Ghana, undermining their national interests and security. However, as in the past the people of Ghana at no time have ceded their sovereignty, which is what makes this agreement so injurious to the interests of Ghanaians; the implications of such will be felt for generations to come. The agreement had been drafted in a manner which does not state a termination point. Article 6 of the MOU states that: “Buildings constructed by United States forces shall ….be used by United States forces until no longer needed by United States forces”. If read literally, this agreement will in actuality bind all successive governments in Ghana.
Furthermore, regarding the settlement of disputes between the parties, article 18 stipulates that: “Any dispute regarding the application, implementation, or interpretation of this Agreement, or its Implementing Arrangements…shall not be referred to any national or international court, tribunal, or similar body, or to any third party for settlement, unless otherwise mutually agreed”. Rather, the agreement reinforces USA military immunity from international law and imposes Euro-Amerikkkan law on the people and Government of Ghana in the settlement of claims arising out of the operations of the base, including death, destruction of property or injury. It is likely that such arrangements will increase covert military and security operations both in Ghana and across Afrika.
We support you, the progressive forces of Ghana, in seeking to ensure that all your combined efforts to stop this manifestation of the Maangamizi succeed in making such affronts to Ghana’s sovereignty and the Pan-Afrikan dignity of Ghanaians to not occur again. Such resistance must keep us firmly on the path of Pan-Afrikan Reparations for Global Justice through first and foremost arresting these continued violations of Ghanaian sovereignty and self-determined nationhood. Given the increasing expansion of neo-colonial tentacles of revanchist coloniality by Euro-Amerikkkan imperialism throughout the Continent of domestically and externally re-colonised Afrika, it is vital to recognise the need to accelerate the building of Maatubuntujamaas – Afrikan Heritage Communities for National Self-Determination (AHC-NSDs) in the Diaspora to connect with their equivalent Sankofahomes on the Continent to achieve Maatubuntuman (Pan-Afrikan Union of Communities). Clearly, the Afrika that currently exists is being sold out by one neo-colonial government after another. It follows that organising to actualize Maatubuntuman, a globally superpowerful participatory democratic anti-imperialist polity of Maat which practices Ubuntu in relation to her people and all of humanity and the cosmos rooted in the indigenous nation-building practices of Afrika and her people, is the only force which can make the global apartheid racist agenda and structures of recolonization by White Supremacy ungovernable.
Unlike in the past when Founding father of the Republic of Ghana, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, called for unified armed forces (an Afrikan High Command), and a common Afrikan foreign policy, we have a situation where the current Defence Minister Dominic Nitiwul is seeking to hoodwink the people of Ghana into accepting overt military domination; arguing that the USA Government has such defence cooperation agreements “in over 50 countries”. However, what Nitiwul and the misruling so-called New Patriotic Party (NPP) of President Akufo-Addo are refusing to admit to the people of Ghana is that these arrangements are part of what Chalmers Johnson in his 2004 book, ‘The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic’, called an “empire of bases” which advance US geopolitical interests, not those of so-called host countries.
In this regard, we echo the sentiments of the Coalition Against US Foreign Military Bases, which held its inaugural event January 12-14, 2018 at the University of Baltimore in Maryland, in the USA where it operates; we reiterate to you what they expressed in their Unity Statement: “U.S. foreign military bases are the principal instruments of imperial global domination and environmental damage through wars of aggression and occupation, and that the closure of U.S. foreign military bases is one of the first necessary steps toward a just, peaceful and sustainable World.” It is indeed alarming that the United States maintains the highest number of military bases outside its territory, estimated at almost 1000 (95% of all foreign military bases in the World).
The ‘No Foreign Military Bases’ Coalition further asserts that: “These bases are centres of aggressive military actions, threats of political and economic expansion, sabotage and espionage, and crimes against local populations. In addition, these military bases are the largest users of fossil fuel in the world, heavily contributing to environmental degradation”. We concur with the coalition’s assertion that US foreign military bases represent the interests of the “dominant financial, political, and military interests of the ruling elite” and agree with their conclusion that: “Whether invited in or not by domestic interests that have agreed to be junior partners, no country, no peoples, no government, can claim to be able to make decisions totally in the interest of their people, with foreign troops on their soil representing interests antagonistic to the national purpose”.
This is the time for the Pan-Afrikan essence of our Reparatory Justice struggles all over the world to take concrete shape by working in cooperation with all Freedomfighting peoples around the World in order to galvanise the Internationalist Solidarity of allies of Afrikan people at home and abroad, to reinvigorate the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), and to win the hearts, minds and spirits of Peoples of Conscience for a just World of Peace for all. This is one of the surest ways to ensure that Imperialism in all its forms and guises is exposed, effectively counteracted and completely eradicated throughout the World.
Accordingly, we identify with all the modes of legitimate Resistance being adopted in multifarious opposition to this disgraceful deal of treasonable sell-out to the USA not only by various organisations, networks and campaigns in and outside the homeland of founding father Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah, but also by the conscientious chiefs and other true leaders of the indigenous communities that make up the authentic Afrikan polity of Ghana and who are upholding her independent Afrikan Personality in all its sovereignty, dignity and integrity. We support the calls from all the progressive forces of Civil Society, admirably including various youth, student, women and labour groupings, that are being echoed by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) minority in the Ghanaian Parliament, and even some voices of sanity in the NPP, demanding an immediate withdrawal of the agreement, pending the holding of broad consultations and a thorough national discussion involving all relevant stakeholders. May we emphasize the salient point that our GAPP and all others involved in the SMWeCGEC and their affinity organisations, networks and campaigns all over the World see such stakeholders as including those Afrikans abroad who lay claim to Global Pan-Afrikan citizenship and who are, in this United Nations International ‘Decade for People of African Descent’ (UN-IDPAD), asserting their ‘Right to Afrika’.
We are in consultations with Ghanaian progressive forces at home and abroad engaged in planning appropriate Global Actions of Internationalist Solidarity with Ghana Against Foreign Military Occupation. In this connection, we urge all those in Ghana to glocally face up, with enlightening global broad-mindedness, to the seriousness of the very dangerous geopolitical intrigue-weaving, malevolence and War-games which this agreement is drawing them into to descend further into the abyss of the World military-industrial-prison complex of the USA. This MOU will only worsen your Maangamizi plight of Neocolonialism by the Global Apartheid way of White Supremacy racist Recolonization by opening you up to suffer more crimes of Genocide and Ecocide. The narrow-mindedness of parochial obscurantism will not do in successfully rallying to defeat the war-mongering reactionary forces of USAFRICOM that very well master anti-people games of divide and misrule. That is why the necessity cannot be overstated now for United Front-building among all progressive forces unflinchingly committed to defending Sovereignty, eschewing sectarianism, ethnocentrism, egocentrism and similar vices, advancing together in Principled Unity to champion human, peoples’ and Mother Earth rights, while firmly upholding uncompromising Anti-Imperialism, Self-Determination, National Liberation, Social Justice, Participatory Democracy and holistic Pan-Afrikan Reparations for Global Justice. That is why, now more than ever before, is the time to seize in globalising Pan-Afrikan Resistance for Reparatory Justice forward ever onward to total victory!
GAPP Leadership Facilitation Team in association with the ‘Stop the Maangamizi: We Charge Genocide/Ecocide!’ Campaign (SMWeCGEC) Spearhead Team of the SMWeCGEC International Steering Committee (ISC-SMWCGEC)
05/03/18
Endorse this statement
If you are willing to endorse this statement please contact the Global Afrikan Peoples Parliament (GAPP) by emailing your name, organisation and position (if relevant) to globalappuk@gmail.com. You can also private message us on FB https://www.facebook.com/globalappuk/.
An Open Letter from recent times – Getting Afriphobia on the Agenda
http://l-r-c.org.uk/news/story/call-it-by-its-name-afriphobia-is-racism-against-african-people/
Call It By Its Name: Afriphobia Is Racism Against African People
26th May 2016
Call It By Its Name: Afriphobia Is Racism Against African People
An Open Letter To Labour Party’s Chakrabarti Inquiry From A Group Of Africans Concerned About The Inquiry’s Focus & Language
We the undersigned note that the Labour Party has set up the Chakrabarti Inquiry (Inquiry) to investigate “Anti-Semitism and other forms of racism”.
We are of the view that the terms of reference: ‘Anti-Semitism and other forms of Racism’ are unwittingly discriminatory, as racism against Jewish people is set apart from racism and prejudice against other peoples, particularly Africans (Afriphobia) and Muslims (Islamophobia).
Even though there is only one race, the human race, a more appropriate title could be on the lines of ‘Investigation into Racism, which includes Afriphobia, Anti-Semitism, and Islamophobia’.
We note that over the years there have been allegations of racism towards Africans (Africans from the continent of Africa and Africans from the Diaspora) and Asians within and outside the Labour Party, but no independent public inquiry has been set up to investigate these allegations.
Undoubtedly the Jewish holocaust (properly known among the Jewish people as Shoah) is a terrible blight on human history, but we must remember that there were holocausts before and after. The Congolese holocaust in the name of King Leopold II, is said to have claimed 10 million lives.
The holocaust perpetrated on Africans, also properly known by African people by the Kiswahili words Maafa or Maangamizi, led to the deaths of tens of millions of Africans in holding cells on the continent of Africa, in the process of capture and kidnappings, in the Middle Passage, in enslavement and plantation systems in the Americas, Caribbean, and in the German-governed death camps in Namibia.
The survivors of the Middle Passage suffered unimaginable torture and hardships at the hands of enslavers and plantation owners, and their descendants continue to suffer acute deprivation and are the object of discrimination and racism in America and in the UK, where they are under- represented at every level of public life, including in the Labour Party, and over-represented on all indices of social deprivation and criminalisation.
It is for this reason that pan-African Reparation organisations continue to work on repairing the damage to Africans and Africa caused by the trafficking of enslaved Africans, colonialism and neo colonialism. This damage is still being experienced by people of African heritage today.
How is it that commentators can freely blame Africans for the atrocities they suffered with little understanding of the context of the Maangamizi or Maafa without any public uproar? In addition, the school curriculum does not currently teach sufficiently about non-European civilisations, the contributions of non-Europeans to world civilisation or the uncomfortable truths about the British Empire. This in itself contributes to the structural racism which is in society in general, including the Labour Party, where ignorance of the history of the peoples of Africa pervades.
Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia are recognised as challenges that need to be addressed, but Afriphobia is so ingrained in our society that it is not acknowledged as an issue that needs to be challenged, or called by its specific name.
People of African heritage can be vilified and even blamed for the genocide they suffered without any public inquiry or calls for a public inquiry. However when comments perceived to be negative are made about Zionism or the state of Israel, this is perceived at times to be anti-Semitic by those who do not like the comments, whether or not these claims are supported by evidence. This often results in suspensions from the Party and other unfair censures.
We reject the idea that opposition to Zionism or the Israeli government is necessarily anti-Semitism.
The United Nations has declared 2015-2024 as the International Decade for People of African Descent, and has recognised that Africans represent a distinct group whose human rights must be promoted and protected.
We therefore call upon the Inquiry to investigate and accord equal importance to Afriphobia and its manifestations within and outside the Labour Party.
We also ask the Inquiry not to unwittingly promote discrimination by the exclusion of the Afriphobia* terminology, and advocate the use of the AAEM (African, Asian, Ethnic Minority) terminology instead of BAME (Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic) which excludes the African identity.
* We define Afriphobia as: The prejudice or discrimination against; fear, hatred, or bigotry towards people of African heritage and things African.
Awula Serwah, Africans For JC Values
Kwaku, RE:IMI (Race Equality: In Music industry)
Dr KB Asante
Matilda Asante
Adekayode Oke (AFRIKAATUUU Convention for Afrikan Networking (AFRIKAATUUU-CAFRINET), Nigeria)
Adwoa Oforiwaa Adu (All-Afrikan Students Union Link in Europe (AASULE))
Althea Gordon-Davidson (Pan-Afrikan Community Educational Services (PACES))
Beverley Wong (Momentum Black ConneXions)
Blema Etrey
Boucka Stephane Koffi (Pan-Afrikan Fora International Support Coordinating Council (PAFISCC))
Chris Jones (Africans For JC Values)
Esther Stanford-Xosei (Global Afrikan Peoples Parliament)
Darla Migan (Vanderbilt University)
Delia Mattis (Momentum member)
Dr Barryl Biekman (Europe-Wide NGO Consultative Council on Afrikan Reparations (ENGOCCAR), Holland)
Enigye Adjoa Ayebea, Grassroots All-Afrikan Women’s Internationalist Solidarity Sisterhood (GAAWISS), Ghana)
Explo Nani-Kofi (Kilombo Centre for Citizens’ Rights and African Self-Determination, Ghana)
Glenroy watson (RMT London Transport Regional Council, Global Afrikan Congressuk)
Jackie Walker (Momentum, South Thanet Labour Party (suspended), LRC Executive and Labour Briefing Editorial Board)
Kofi Mawuli Klu (Pan-Afrikan Reparations Coalition in Europe)
Kwame Adofo Sampong (Trade Unions and the Pan-Afrikan Community Link (TUPACOL))
Kwame Dede Akuamoah (NKRUMAHBUSUAFO Kwame Nkrumah Convention Family Movement, Ghana)
Leanard Phillip
Linda Bellos (Linda Bellos Associates)
Maatyo Dede Azu (ADZEWAGBETO Pan-Afrikan Women’s Liberation Union (ADZEWAGBETO-PAWLU), Ghana)
Mawuse Yao Agorkor (VAZOBA Afrika and Friends Networking Open Forum (VAZOBA-AFNOF), Ghana)
Nana Asante (Momentum)
Omowale Ru-Pert-em-Hru (Pan-Afrikan Society Community Forum)
Nehemie Zeguen Toure (Mouvement Social Panafricain pour le Development Integral (MSPDI), Cote d’Ivoire)
Ngoma ‘Silver’ Bishop (Bema Arts)
Opeyemi Araromi (Pan-African Congresses-United Kingdom Organising Committee (PACs-UKOC))
Professor Lewis Gordon (University of Connecticut, Rhodes University, Birkbeck School of Law, Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès)
Professor Paget Henry (Brown University)
Prophet Kweku & Jendayi Serwah (Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March Committee (AEDRMC))
Samantha Asumadu (Media Diversified)
Shemi Leira (Momentum Black ConneXions)
Simeon Stanford (Afrikan Reparations Transnational Community of Practice (ARTCoP))
Sumana Nandi (Grassroots Women’s Internationalist Solidarity Action Network (GWISAN), India)
Toyin Agbetu (Ligali Organisation)
Marlene Ellis (Momentum Black ConneXions)
Wedam Abassey (Forum of Nkrumaist Thought and Action (FONTA), Ghana)
Xolanyo Yawa Gbafa (EDIKANFO Pan-Afrikan Youth and Students Internationalist Link (EDIKANFO-PAYSIL), Ghana)
Share this. If you want to add your name, go to africansfor@gmail.com
GAPP supports the Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March and the Stop the Maangamizi Campaign
The Global Afrikan Peoples Parliament would like to echo the Call to Action to join this show of strength and to bring a message to the white power structures who are historically and currently responsible for inflicting the Maangamizi. We ask you to join us in the march to Downing St to charge the British Government with Genocide and Ecocide!
We encourage you to visit the campaign website and find out more about the aims of the Stop the Maangamizi campaign and petition. The march is a vehicle by which this petition is delivered and it has its own aims:
Supporting Reparations
So join us on Monday 1st Mosiah (August) as we continue to mobilise, educate and move towards the call for a Commission of Inquiry for Truth and Reparatory Justice as outlined in the Stop the Maangamizi Petition. And remember, Reparations is more than money and more than going back to Afrika. This crime against Humanity CANNOT be ignored. Justice is our right!
This is not a reaction. There are no alternative agendas. This is a Plan!! The march is funded through contributions from the Afrikan Heritage Community. You can help too:
If not us, then who?
Let Our Shared Values Drive The Fight To Win Substantive Representation for Afrikans in Britain
GAPP SPEAKS AT AFRICANS FOR JEREMY CORBYN VALUES CONFERENCE (AFJCV)
Solidarity Message from Esther Stanford-Xosei, Member of the Global Afrikan Peoples Parliament (GAPP) Leadership Facilitation Team.
An abbreviated version of this message was read out at the AFJCV Conference
30/04/16
Picture courtesy of Kwaku @BBM/BMC
Greetings Brothers, Sisters, Comrades & Allies
First of all, let me extend my thanks to Africans for Momentum for Momentum/ Africans for Jeremy Corbyn Values for inviting me to give this solidarity message on behalf of the Global Afrikan Peoples Parliament (GAPP)
I preface my comments with reiteration of the right to express freedom of political opinion and will.
About GAPP
GAPP is an emerging representative body of the Afrikan Heritage Community for National Self- Determination (AHC-NSD). We harmonise the voices of various Afrikan heritage communities towards reasserting nationhood and self-determination. We do not represent ALL Afrikan people. We represent those who are committed to our GAPP agenda of developing their national consciousness as a distinct Afrikan Heritage Community for National Self-Determination AHC-NSD. So in effect, GAPP exists as a form of substantive representation of the AHC-NSD and advocates for recognition of the fact that Afrikans are a distinct group who have a right to be regarded as a national minority, (rather than an ethnic minority), in the UK but is part of the global majority of Afrikan people, all over the world, exercising our rights of belonging to the continent of Afrika. At present there is no representation of Afrikan Heritage Community for National Self-Determination in all organs and institutions of the state machinery in the UK and all over Europe.
So our starting point for engaging in this conversation around the values we as members of the AHD-NSD share with Jeremy Corbyn and those in the leadership of the Jeremy Corbyn for Prime Minister Campaign is what and where are our own Afrikan values in relation to those of Jeremy Corbyn? We can only relate to Jeremy Corbyn’s values from a position of self- awareness, self-empowerment and self-assertion of our own Afrikan values. That is why in this respect, it is necessary do Sankofa in a journey of return to the source, so as to rediscover and bring into the present to light up the road to our future, our historical Afrikan values systems such as Maat and Ubuntu. For this reason, GAPP supports the standpoint and is working through Momentum Black ConneXions to find common grounds between our Afrikan values, the best values of Black humanity who happen to be the majority of the peoples of the world, and the values declared by Jeremy Corbyn. We are just at the initial stage of this ongoing work within and outside the Momentum Black ConneXions. We hope Africans for Jeremy Corbyn Values will take an active part in working out what are the common grounds that we can share in terms of values between Afrikan people and the Jeremy Corbyn support campaign. For example, a key question we have to address in terms of elaborating on the actual meaning of these values is that of What does equality, justice, freedom and solidarity mean for people of Afrikan ancestry and heritage in political terms?
Under International Law we, as a people, have an equal right to political representation. This consists of the right to be present (descriptive representation) and the right to representation of interests and perspectives (substantive representation). Descriptive representation relates to the presence of members of Afrikan heritage and other Black minoritised communities in parliaments (MPs). However, a descriptive representative does not need to act for his/her constituents and mere resemblance by gender, ethnicity, religion or other important group attribute is often deemed to be sufficient to make him/her a group representative. It follows that political representation for people of Afrikan heritage and other Black Majority World communities cannot be reduced to the descriptive. This is because a focus on descriptive attributes of representatives, distracts us from their actions and prevents us from holding such representatives to account. Such elected representatives, even Afrikan heritage MPs within the Labour Party do not have to account to Afrikan heritage communities for his/her actions or speeches nor are they compelled to include any action in the interests of Afrikan heritage communities.
On the contrary, true political representation requires substantive representation which means real or full equality (as opposed to mere formal equality) and recognition of the right to identify for Afrikan heritage communities. The right to identity refers to the various possible distinctive Afrikan community characteristics, like language, culture, religion and belief. It also incorporates obligations to differentiate between and among us as minoritised peoples. Accordingly, the right not to be discriminated against in the enjoyment of the rights guaranteed under Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights is also violated “when States without an objective and reasonable justification fail to treat differently persons whose situations are significantly different.” In effect, substantive equality requires having representatives that speak for, act for, and look after the interests of Afrikan heritage communities and do so in accordance with varying measures of accountability to us as Afrikan heritage communities. Although mere presence of Afrikan heritage and other Black Majority World MPs might have some symbolic benefits, members of Afrikan heritage communities, in general, and the more specific AHC-NSD primarily need representatives to act in our interests, and attempt to influence public policies from Afrikan perspectives and in Afrikan people’s self-determined interests. Let us not think that this is a pipedream for it happens with various national minority groups in Europe such as Jewish communities, some Roma communities, the Sami national minority in Switzerland, and the Cornish national minority in the UK.
Why is there a need for Substantive Afrikan Representation?
To redress and counter the civil and social death of Afrikans as a National Minority for Self-Determination. Civil death is a UN term used internationally; it can be interpreted to mean that one does not exist with political recognition as belonging to a people. Furthermore, that unless there is recognition of Afrikan group status and peoplehood, we are not able to access or secure collective human rights, except those rights that are given or granted us. This means that we are in existence, but we are not recognised politically as national minority groupings in the States in which we reside (e.g. in the use of conflating terms such as ‘BAME people or communities’). As we have no recognised geo-political identity in the world, we are in effect rendered a stateless people. This has been recognised by the UN Working Group of Experts of People of African Descent and in the proclamations of the UN International Decade for People of African Descent (DPAD); which has the themes, recognition, justice and development. At the launching of the DPAD, Deputy High Commissioner for Human, Rights Flavia Pansieri stated: “In proclaiming this Decade, the international community is recognising that people of African descent represent a distinct group whose human rights must be promoted and protected.”
Nevertheless, this substantive representation can never happen within the existing party political system and certainly not within the Labour Party as it currently is. The Labour Party remains a party that is Institutionally Racist like most of the European political organisations in this country. For this reason, we cannot support the Labour Party in an unqualified way! Granted, we have allies in the Labour Party. We will critically support those people politically, Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell and others. However, we should never make the mistake of thinking that the strategic interests of Afrikan heritage communities, such as the overthrow of White supremacy in all areas of people activity (economics, education, entertainment, labour, law, politics, religion, sex and war as theorised By Dr Frances Cress Welsing); the reestablishment of Sovereignty; and recognition of Afrikan people’s Self-Determination in and outside of Britain, can or will ever be realised within the Labour Party, today, tomorrow or even in the future. We should also take as a cautionary note, the current situation we see unfolding with the suspension of Ken Livingstone as it is indicative of what may very well happen to those of us seeking to uncritically support the Labour Party, seemingly closing our eyes to its White supremacy racist, very right wing and imperialist sections.
So as we in GAPP see it, part of the responsibility of groups such as Africans for Jeremy Corbyn Values is to defend the right to represent the authentic autonomous Afrikan heritage community interests and perspectives within Momentum and the wider campaign to support Jeremy Corbyn.
Our struggle at this time demands that we do not compromise with neocolonialism and that we as Afrikan progressive forces draw lines of demarcation between the masses of our people on the one hand and Afrikan elites and their paymasters who are enforcing neocolonialism at the expense of the masses of our people. As in Afrika, here in the Diaspora we also have people who support and work for neocolonialism. It is our duty as Afrikans to expose these Afrikan elitist quislings of neocolonialism wherever they exist. We should have representatives of our communities who express this wherever they are representing us. That is what the likes of of Olaudah Equiano, Ottobah Cugoano, Mary Prince, Robert Wedderburn, William Davidson, William Cuffay, Henry Sylvester Williams, Dadabhai Naoroji, Bhikhaji Rustom Cama, Kaka Joseph Baptista, John Archer, Shapurji Saklat Valla, Krishna Menon, Marcus Garvey, George Padmore, CLR James, Ras Makonnen, Amy Ashwood Garvey, Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah, Claudia Jones Walter Rodney, Yusef Dadoo, Bernie Grant and Lester Lewis did when they represented Black peoples.
There is a lot of educational work to be done to explain these matters and make them part of the conscientisation of our peoples to be able to properly use their vote in a meaningfully powerful way. This is what GAPP would like to see Africans For Jeremy Corbyn Values working together with Momentum Black ConneXions to do leading up to the 2020 General Elections.
That is why none of our Afrikan and Black structures, to be true to our community interests, can be subordinated to any White structures. This is a non- negotiable principle as far as we in GAPP are concerned. From this perspective GAPP contributed to the formulation of Momentum Black ConneXion’s self-description as the “independently self-organising, autonomous and self-determining Black Power constituency within the network of people and organisations to continue the energy and enthusiasm of Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign, committed to advancing Black Power perspectives on the 10 priorities that Jeremy Corbyn has identified as his own standpoint.”
So Momentum Black ConneXions, to us, is not a branch of Momentum and cannot be run according to the diktats of the overwhelmingly White structure that Momentum is. We in GAPP are requesting our Brothers and Sisters in Africans for Jeremy Corbyn Values to think carefully about these matters so as to clarify your own definition and positioning of your organisation in relation to Momentum, the Labour Party and the wider Labour Movement vis-a-vis the legitimate inalienable interests of Afrikan people within and beyond the UK. It has been a well-established maxim in Afrikan organising for centuries now that WE ARE OUR OWN LIBERATORS!!! The challenge of completing our liberation struggle against European imperialism; stopping the Maangamizi (Afrikan Hellacaust of chattel, colonial and neocolonial enslavement); and totally emancipating ourselves at home and abroad demands more than ever in this neocolonial phase of the Maangamizi, an amplification of this maxim that we are own liberators. No individual Messiahs from within and outside our own communities can set us free. Only the truth of our people’s power, manifesting itself in our own concerted glocal Afrikan peoples power at home and abroad, can set us globally free.
Asante Sana/ Thank you
Esther Stanford-Xosei,
Member of the GAPP Leadership Facilitation Team
GAPP Engages in ‘New Black Politics’
Launch Of Momentum Black Connexions (MBC) – Birmingham Saturday 2nd April 2016
Saturday 2nd April was a significant day for members of the GAPP Leadership Facilitation Team who were strongly engaged in the launch of Momentum Black ConneXions (MBC) that took place in Birmingham, UK.
MBC is a grassroots structure which stands for Black Power politics via Black communities of resistance within the UK and abroad. Noting the principled organising and political formations of Black people around the wider labour movement in recent centuries, various black activists have grouped together, seeing that the current political landscape within the UK and upcoming 2020 elections as being an opportune time for awareness building around the issues we face as a global community.
For what could near enough be the first time within the Westminster (UK) voting system, an observation like never before has been made of the current Leader of the Opposition, Jeremy Corbyn (Labour Party). This is in relation to his 10-point policy, to which it’s felt our Black Power perspectives can be accelerated. Beyond words, Corbyn’s socialist principles place him beyond any political candidate vying for votes; given a track record that demonstrates his:
- ongoing action affecting communities in struggle
- sentiments, statements and engagements with black activists over multiple decades
- swooping up of the leadership of the Labour Party with what stands as the largest political mandate of any party leader in UK politics
Through the contributions made by GAPP members during this MBC political interaction, we highlighted the importance of Sankofa, the African principle within multiple Akan based knowledge systems that looks into ‘visiting the best of our past actions in helping craft a fruitful future’ for Africans worldwide. This was also accompanied by works of the MBC’s youth wing (which GAPP support), who in their grouping conducted primary research analysing the political views, opinion and intent of Black youth.
An added benefit of our input to the event, was having John McDonnell MP (Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer) present. He not only listened to and noted our community concerns, but also highlighted in writing the internal conflicts within his political party. In bringing about the ‘new politics’ that both him and comrade Jeremy Corbyn are pushing, John extended his comments around the importance of Black Labour Party members to be in attendance at branch meeting to influence and steer issues pertinent to their advancement; alongside the selection of candidates they deem best suited to promote their interests. Not directly using the words ‘self-determination’, John also spoke of how change must come from and be led by the black community first and foremost, and not so much via the advocacy of ‘middle aged, predominantly male and white’ politicians.
Speaking on the ‘How do we see our new Black politics’ panel, a PARCOE (Pan-Afrikan Reparations Coalition in Europe) spokesperson introduced the ‘Stop the Maangamizi: We Charge Genocide/Ecocide’ Petition elaborating its relevance to the work of MBC and Momentum, the network of people and organisations to continue the energy and enthusiasm of Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign. The PARCOE spokesperson drew attention to Jeremy Corbyn’s expression of willingness to continue engaging with the issue of Afrikan reparations. John McDonnell was asked about which existing organisational processes within the Labour Party need to be engaged with to further action on the demand for an All-Party Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry contained in the SMWCGE Petition, what steps of action he recommended to progress action on this?, and what steps he would as an MP take now that he has been made formally aware of this proposal? Mc Donnell’s response was that even this is a difficult issue to get the Labour Party to engage with, the position of himself and Jeremy Corbyn in support of reparations is clear because they have been engaging with activists of the Afrikan reparations cause for quite some time. He reiterated the importance of Afrikan people pressing on with their work and finding various ways and means of engaging with the Labour Party and the wider Labour Movement on this issue and providing himself and Jeremy Corbyn with the necessary information on the relevant activities.
GAPP Signs Solidarity Statement in Condemnation of a Brutal Assassination in Azania
150 Civil Society Organisations Condemn the Assassination of Sikhosiphi Bazooka Rhadebe, Chairperson of Amadiba Crisis Committee
We are shocked and outraged to learn of the brutal murder of the chairperson of Amadiba Crisis Committee, Sikhosiphi Bazooka Rhadebe. As chair of the ACC, Bazooka Rhadebe was helping lead the struggle of Amadiba residents on the Wild Coast in opposing open-cast titanium mining by the Australian mining company MRC.
According to Amadiba Crisis Committee: “The hitmen came in a white Polo with a rotating blue lamp on the roof. Two men knocked at the door saying they were the police. Mr Rhadebe was shot with 8 bullets in the head.”
This is not the first case of intimidation or violence against those who have opposed mining in the area.
Our hearts go out to Bazooka’s family and community.
The assassination of Bazooka is a painful reminder that from abaHlali baseMjondolo to the Helen Suzman Foundation, there is an existing pattern of criminal attacks on civil society formations, especially those in townships, informal settlements and rural areas. For years, poor people’s movements in different parts of the country have experienced regular harassment, intimidation, detention and violence against their members. It is worst felt when the media are far away and the victims are poor, black or rural, and when major industries stand to make billions in profit.
We cannot afford to remain silent in the face of any of these attacks. Every one of them is an attack on democracy itself.
1. We call for the speedy arrest and successful prosecution of the killers of comrade Bazooka.
2. We further call on the Human Rights Commission to investigate the systematic process of intimidation that has been orchestrated against those who have stood up against MRC and its lackeys in the area.
3. We demand that the Minister of Mineral Resources suspends all mining applications until there has been a full and independent investigation of Rhadebe’s murder!
4. We demand protection for all members of the Amadiba Crisis Committee and their families!
5. We call on all progressive forces to stand up in defence of democracy. End the attacks on our activists and movements!
We will not be bullied and intend to speak out even more strongly than before. The key thing when civil society is being intimidated is to show no fear.
Contribute to the Solidarity Fund: The Amadiba Crisis Committee (ACC) urgently requires funds to assist Bazooka’s family, for transport, and for continuing the struggle and protecting activists in this dangerous moment. You can make donations to the following bank account. Please include the reference as ‘Bazooka Cause’. Please also forward this request for financial assistance on to your networks as well as funding agencies that may be willing to support the ACC.
Sustaining the Wild Coast
First National Bank
Randburg
Acc no: 62157997639
Code: 254005
Swift: FIRNZAJJ
Physical address: cnr Main Ave/Republic Rd, Randburg
Reference: ‘Bazooka Cause’
What else can you do: Appeal to your networks and to the general public to contact the highest offices of the DMR and inundate them with demands to intervene to stop the mining right application process and to protect the anti-mining activists and communities. Here are the contact details of the highest offices of the DMR:
Minister of Mineral Resources: Mr Mosebenzi Zwane
Tel: 012 444 3999
Fax: 012 444 3145
Email: Queen.Poolo@dmr.gov.za (PA)
Deputy Minister of Mineral Resources: Mr Godfrey Oliphant
Tel: 012 444 3956
Fax: 012 341 2228
Email: Kefilwe.Chibogo@dmr.gov.za (PA)
Acting Director-General: Department of Mineral Resources: Mr David Msiza
Tel: 012 444 3000
Fax: 012 341 2228
Email: david.msiza@dmr.gov.za / Nwabisa.Qwanyashe@dmr.gov.za (PA) / Khayalethu.Matrose@dmr.gov.za (Director: Office of the DG)
#StandWithAmadiba #StandForDemocracy
Endorsements:
350Africa.org
ActionAid SA
African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB)
Afrikan Reparations Transnational Community of Practice (ARTCoP)
Alternative Information & Development Centre, (AIDC)
Bench Marks Foundation
CATAPA
CEE-HOPE Nigeria
Centre for Civil Society (CCS)
Centre for Environmental Rights (CER)
Centre for Human Rights, Unversity of Pretoria
Co-operative and Policy Alternative Center (COPAC)
Coalition for Environmental Justice (CEJ)
Coastal Links
Colombia Solidarity Campaign, UK
Common Frontiers – Canada
Community Media Trust (CMT)
Democracy Works Foundation
Democratic Left Front
Economic Justice Network of FOCCISA/AMI
Ekogaia Foundation
Equal Education (EE)
Food Soverninty Campaign
Fossil Free South Africa
Global Afrikan People’s Parliament (GAPP)
Global Justice Forum
Health of Mother Earth Foundation
International Socialist Movement (SA)
Johannesburg Anglican Environmental Initiative (JAEI)
KeepLeft (Socialism from Below)
Khanyisa Education and Development Trust
Kingston University, London
Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR)
Left Students’ Forum
Marikana Support Campaign
Masifundise
Media Monitoring. Africa (MMA)
MEJCON-SA
Mineral Policy Institute
Ndifuna Ukwazi
Network of Eastern Cape Rural Organisations (26 organisations)
Noordhoek Environmental Action Group (NEAG)
OilWatch Latinoamérica
Open Secrets
Operation Khanyisa Movement (OKM)
Oxfam South Africa
Oxford Women for Justice and Peace
Pan Afrikan Reparations Coalition in Europe (PARCOE)
Parliamentary Monitoring Group (PMG)
People’s Assembly
Public Service Accountability Monitor (PSAM)
Right2Know Campaign (R2K)
Salva la Selva /Rettet den Regenwald
Social Justice Coalition (SJC)
Socialist Group
Socio Economic Rights Institute (SERI)
South Durban Community Environmental Alliance
Southern African Faith Communities’ Environment Institute (SAFCEI)
STEPS
Sustaining the Wild Coast
SWC
The Gaia Foundation
Thembelihle Crisis Committee (TCC)
Treatment Action Campaign (TAC)
Unemployed People’s Movement
Unemployed people’s organisation KZN
United Front
United Front Western Cape
War on Want
Women’s Legal Centre
WoMin African Gender and Extractives Alliance
GAPP Lends Support to the ARTCoP Solidarity Message for the Rhodes Must Fall Campaign
ARTCoP Solidarity Statement in Support of the Rhodes Must Fall Oxford March (RMFO) March on 09/03/16
We of the ARTCoP send you greetings in salutation of your initiative in organising the Rhodes Must Fall March in Oxford. The ARTCoP deems it imperative to express critical support for your laudable initiative, more so since we see ourselves as developing grassroots community academic spaces into glocal sites of the unity of theory and practice to serve the liberation pedagogical purposes of the International Social Movement for Afrikan Reparations (ISMAR). As scholar-activists engaged in the battles of ideas about what kind of post-decolonisational reparations world order the ISMAR is trying to usher in, we have taken a keen interest in the work of the campaign to see Rhodes and his legacy fall at Oxford University in addition to your list of 7 demands.
We wholeheartedly support and commend those of you who have had the courage to question the status quo in these elite institutions of White Privilege. We are encouraged and hopeful given that you have taken the call for decolonisation from our Afrikan heritage communities and other Majority World peoples, and are now echoing them in these establishment miseducational spaces. However, in order to strengthen your efforts we invite you to consider how you can best connect your efforts to the wider decolonial movement beyond the campuses to effect and secure reparatory justice. We therefore urge that you seriously reflect on what you are trying to achieve and how you are trying to achieve it. In order to maximise impact, success and ultimately to embed your commendable efforts in the heart of those forces within and beyond the UK who can ensure that the critical mass is built it is important to sustain the campaign beyond reforms in the university establishment and on the campuses.
We invite you to consider what can be learned also from the efforts of the RMF Movement in Azania/South Afrika. For Azania/South Afrika is a place where student campaigners and organisers have extended their movement-building from the campuses to organically connect with communities of resistance that are the bedrock of the movement to ‘Stop the Maangamizi’ by accelerating the challenge to global apartheid and rectifying the harms of colonial and neocolonial forms of enslavement. In addition to effect and secure the redistribution of wealth and power within and beyond the broader Azanian/South Afrikan society. We would similarly urge that RMFO extend its demands and operations beyond securing educational reform in universities divorced from the wider context within and beyond the UK of ISMAR and its allied internationalist solidarity efforts of constituencies within the broader Peoples Reparations International Movement (PRIM).
Since history is best qualified to reward our research, we do not believe that that the Oxford University establishment will be compelled to make any significant changes and the demands you have made can be achieved by only organising on university campuses within Britain or across the world. In order to force the British/European establishment to concede significant measures of democratisation of education and more importantly to challenge Oxford for its maintenance of forms of structural and epistemic violence against the Majority Peoples of the world, much more linking needs to happen with the many and varied complimentary forces within and beyond the UK who must be mobilised to support your efforts.
The fight for decolonisation is going on in our communities across the world, and so to increase impact and the likelihood of success, it is important for you as mainly students activists and organisers to connect the fight you have taken up back into the glocal communities of decolonisational and reparations interest also located and represented here at the grassroots of Afrikan heritage communities of resistance in the UK. We urge you to more systematically undertake forms of community engaged activism and movement-relevant research by qualitatively strengthening outreach from the campuses into communities. By doing so, you will be able to tap into the yet untapped mass potential of decolonial communities of reparations interest from below organising as part of the ISMAR and the PRIM, which is where the potential for securing your goals of decolonisation actually lie. By making these connections you will be able to maximise your impact by harnessing the power to effect decolonisation on our people’s terms rather than just what the Oxford University establishment is prepared to accommodate.
We humbly suggest that if this is not done your laudable efforts may become reduced to simplistic tokenistic gestures of diversifying the coloniality of White Power with cosmetic reforms, that leaves its genocidal substance intact. Ultimately, decolonisation is a matter of power and the coloniality of power will concede nothing unless it is counteracted with the overwhelming counter power of the masses of the colonised that you can be part of marshalling within and beyond the UK. For us it is a matter of counteracting the colonising White power with the liberating Black Power of the Wretched of the Earth. Ultimately, the fight you are waging is a political struggle which has to be waged by highly politicised and for that matter well-conscientised and dynamically mobilised social forces in order to help destabilise the status quo of structural and epistemic violence and compel progressive change in meeting the demands you have set.
We invite you once again to see yourselves as part of the building the ISMAR and the PRIM and for this movement-building to be victoriously consolidated in deploying the totality of our progressive forces against the bastions of the coloniality of power in and beyond the University of Oxford. We must never lose sight of the fact that decisions about Oxford University are not just made in Oxford or just by their so-called donors. These elitist universities are established in hegemonic forms of British law; by charters of parliament and run as state institutions. Accordingly, you should consider extending your campaigning efforts by linking up with others reparatory justice forces also seeking to challenge the British State who ultimately own and govern Oxford University as one of its most vital weapons for perpetrating not only mentacide but genocide and ecocide across the world. We invite you meet with us as the ARTCoP to deepen discussion around the issues we are raising in this statement so as to harmonise our efforts for more effective glocal impact.
We would also like to facilitate linking up your efforts with those formations that we think can be most helpful to achieving your purpose. We would like to highlight for your attention some of the formations that we think will be most helpful to you in this direction. They include, PARCOE, (Pan-Afrikan Reparations Coalition in Europe), GAPP (Global Afrikan Peoples Parliament), the PASCF (Pan-Afrikan Society Community Forum), ENGOCCAR (Europe-Wide Consultative Council for Afrikan Reparations) and the 1st August Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March Committee (AEDRMC). This year there will be, among others, a students and allies bloc on the 1st August Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March. We expect to see Rhodes Must Fall Oxforders and organisers join the various blocs that are most appropriate to you and also embed yourself in these wider struggles within and beyond Britain that are challenging state power. It is our view that only by doing so will victory be assured to us all.
In Solidarity: Ubuntumandla!
Jackie Lewis (Chair)
Esther Stanford-Xosei & Kofi Mawuli Klu, Co-Vice Chairs
On Behalf of the Afrikan Reparations Transnational Community of Practice
09/03/16
Coming soon! Reparations Interactive Workshop
We encourage all Afrikans who are looking for a way to play their part in the International social movement for reparations (ISMAR) to attend this workshop as part of their preparation towards the Reparations march on 1st August 2016. If you would like a workshop in your city on online, please contact the organisers. Outside the UK? Contact them and ask for the ‘International Call to Action’ information.
GAPP Strengthens Role in Internationalist Soldarity Networking with the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) of AZANIA/SOUTH AFRICA
The Global Afrikan People’s Parliament in United Kingdom (GAPP-UK) was strongly represented at an Internationalist Solidarity networking meeting with a visiting Leadership Delegation of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) of South Africa at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, on Saturday, 28th November 2015. The meeting, which resulted from discussions and planning going on for some considerable time between interested parties, was presided over by Brother-Fighter Dali Mpofu, the EFF Chair, Brother-Fighter Floyd Nyiko Shivambu, the EFF Vice-President and Member of both the South African Parliament and the Pan-African Parliament (PAP), as well as Sister-Fighter Nkagisang Poppy Mokgosi, an EFF Member of the South African Parliament. It was facilitated by Kofi Mawuli Klu, a Co-Vice-Chair of the Pan-Afrikan Reparations Coalition in Europe (PARCOE) and a member of the Leadership Facilitation Team (LFT) of GAPP-UK. After kick-starting propositions by Dali, Floyd, Nkagisang, Brian Kwoba, Esther Stanford-Xosei and Kofi, followed by discussions involving a good number of participants, the meeting endorsed the establishment of an Economic Freedom Fighters Internationalist Solidarity Action Command (EFFISAC), to be organised and coordinated from London, United Kingdom. It was agreed that a South African-led EFF Support Group that is organising itself in Britain into a local party branch of the EFF Abroad will also be an autonomous integral part of the EFFISAC.
Global Afrikan People's Parliament 
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