I really work hard on this blog to make sure the information I put out is documented and supported to the point of being ill-refutable.  That's why I have to be totally upfront right here and say that I have no actual proof to substantiate the question I'm posing in this post.  In spite of that, there are enough unanswered questions to make the discussion worth having. 

With the recent death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez from an undisclosed form of cancer, many people around the world began asking the question, why is it that so many revolutionaries are recently being afflicted with cancer?  There's not only Chavez's case, but Cuban leader Fidel Castro was forced to step down from his position as Secretary General of the Cuban Communist Party in 2006 because of colon cancer.  Castro and Chavez aren't the only revolutionary/progressive leaders from that region of the world to be afflicted by this disease.  Argentine president, Nestor Kirchner (colon cancer) Brazil’s president Dilma Rousseff (lymphoma cancer), her predecessor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (throat cancer), and Bolivian President Evo Morales (throat cancer) have also suffered from the disease.  This could all be considered simple coincidence, but it was Chavez himself who posed the question about the CIA weaponizing cancer when he was first diagnosed.  He admitted then that he had no hard proof, but that "it would probably be another 50 years before that proof would be revealed."  Since we have the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) sabotage in Guatamala in 1954, the Congo in 1960/61, Ghana in 1965, Dominican Republic in 1965, Indonesia in 65, Haiti in 1994, and numerous other case studies that were never confirmed until public pressure forced the CIA to only recently admit it's role in each of those scnearios, Chavez's statement carries an ominous warning for all of us who are concerned about justice.

The above is especially true since there is one piece to this that we do know.  Wikileaks has reported that the Paraguay Embassy to the U.S. admitted that in 2008, the CIA requested that they collect and turn over to them the biometric data of all presidential candidates in the upcoming election in that country.  Oh, and it should be noted that Paraguayan president Fernando Lugo also was diagnosed with lumphoma.  This theory is of essential importance to me personnally because Kwame Ture (formally Stokely Carmichael) was diagnosed in 1996, and died in 1998, of prostate cancer.  Kwame declared repeatedly, up to his last breath, that "the CIA gave me cancer!"  Then, in 2001, Sister Mawina Kouyatte, the person some considered the spirit of the All African People's Revolutionary Party and the All African Women's Revolutionary Union, reportedly died from cancer.  This is significant because Kwame and Mawina represented probably the two most influential A-APRP members during their life and truthfully, the party is still reeling in many ways from losing them.  I know some of you may say that besides knowing about Stokely Carmichael and what you read here, you never hear anything about the A-APRP so why would the CIA be that concerned about this organization and it's leaders?  If you think that way, just remember Gil Scott Heron's words that "the revolution will not be televised (and we'll update that and include that it won't be on Facebook either)."  Just because you don't know something doesn't mean it isn't happening.  A hard fact that the CIA certainly would be very well aware of, is that when Kwame moved to Guinea-Conakry in 1969, he became the A-APRP's only fulltime organizer in Africa.  In 2013, the A-APRP and it's revolutionary Pan-Africanist message and organization has strong foundations and work being carried out in Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Gambia, Senegal, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Azania, South Africa, and Tanzania, well as Europe, and the Americas.  You may have missed this, but we can bet the CIA hasn't.  

I believe the CIA has been weaponizing whatever they can for decades, but say Chavez's cryptic statement is true and the CIA is weaponizing cancer?  What can we do about it?  The answer is that it is the masses of people who possess the power, not individuals.  Yes, Chavez is gone in the physical sense, but I believe the Venezuelan people will move forward with their Bolivian socialist revolution.  Yes, Fidel has transitioned out of active political life, but Cuba is moving forward with socialism.  Yes, Kwame and Mawina have physically left us, but the A-APRP is here and building everyday from their examples.  So for each one of us they take away we must replace them with multiple soldiers.  That's the answer.  I just hope we won't have to wait 50 years for the information here to come out "officially" before many of you decide to start doing something.

So you just gave an interview to AllAfrica.com in preparation for your visit to Ghana this weekend.  The focus of your interview was the message that Africa cannot blame colonialism for the current poverty and suffering throughout the African continent.  You said in the interview that the blame for Africa's current state of affairs belongs to the last 50 years of "corrupt rule" in Africa, not the  500 years of colonialsim and neo-colonialism that preceded, emcompasses, and directs everything that happens in Africa.

Now we have to state for the record that your absurd comments don't surprise us one bit.  Minister Louis Farrakhan was correct when he stated recently that the primary role of any U.S. president, regardless of his or her ethnicity, is to uphold white supremacy.  So, we understand your job is to be the international spokesperson for the U.S. led capitalist/imperialist network and in doing so, you are always going to be 100% in lockstep with the logic of imperialism e.g. the oppressor class you represent.  Plus, we know you will never read this letter anyway so our purpose for writing it has absolutely nothing to do with you personnally.  We are writing this because there are millions of Africans worldwide (all people of African descent are Africans and belong to the African nation) who sincerely, yet naively, look at you as the symbol of African empowerment and the beginning of the end of systematic racism.  There are also millions of other peace loving peoples who share that same optimistic, but incorrect, vision of you and your presidency.  So, it's for those people that we write this letter because these sincere souls have the right to know the truth.

That truth is your comments about Africa have absolutely no basis in reality.  From Cairo to the Cape, Accra to Asmara, and from South Africa to South Central L.A. for that matter, wherever Africans are it's quite clear that the fact we are on the bottom of every society we inhabit has everything to do with colonialism and neo-colonialism today!  You know damn well that the purpose of colonialism in the first place was the create riches for Europe.  Since we know that, it will be quite easy to use the history of the Congo to demonstrate how utterly stupid your logic about currupt leadership is.  The Congo, like virtually all of Africa, was "awarded" primarily to Belgium and France in the 1884 Berlin Conference that divided Africa like a pie for the European powers (before that, European powers just took what they wanted where they wanted...Like what happened here in the U.S.).  The Congo, particularly the Kinshasa region (formally known as French Leopoldville during colonialism) possesses an abundance of gold, diamonds, uranium (produces nuclear power), titanium (to construct jet engines), zinc (the metal used to mold the shape of cars), and other valuable minerals.  The European powers, desperate to protect their control and interests over those minerals, ruled the Congo from 1884 through the late 1950s with brute force, terror, and no regard for African dignity or human rights.  Tired of this oppression, the Congolese people, inspired by the emerging independence movements in Africa, and efforts like the 5th Pan-African Congress in 1945, came out of the 1945 meeting with the Congolese National Movement (MNC) as an organizing instrument to run the Belgiums, French, and their corporate dominance through companies like Union Minerale, out of the Congo.  Patrice Lumumba emerged as the leader of the MNC.  A young man in his mid thirties, Lumumba participated enthusiastically in 5th PAC in 1945 and left considering himself a student of Kwame Nkrumah - the first president of Ghana, the country you will unfortunately be visiting the weekend of June 22nd, 2013.  Ironically, Nkrumah was the leader of the Pan-Africanist movement which sought to bring about African self-determination and an end of European control and exploitation in Africa.  So Lumumba and the MNC went to work to fulfill Nkrumah's Pan-Africanist manifestation in the Congo.  In 1960, the MNC's work saw fruition with a national election that gave them 97% of the legislative seats in the country.  Lumumba was elected Prime Minister of the country and all of Africa rejoiced at the potential of this new rich republic that Lumumba and the MNC declared, in the same vein Nkrumah did regarding Ghana three years previously, that the independence of the Congo was nothing without the liberation of all of Africa.  Once the legislative representatives from the MNC took office they immediately went to work nationalizing the industries that were controlled and enriching Europe while keeping Africa poor.  Still, Lumumba never sought to antagonize the U.S. and Europe.  The MNC always attempted, in the spirit of Nkrumah's leadership, to maintain a non-aligned position as it related to the cold war between the U.S. and Western Europe, against the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.  Unfortunately, the MNC's independent and principled position meant nothing to the imperialists who feared losing their grip on the Congo's vast resources.  In late 1960, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency engineered a move by reactionaries to sabotage the MNC by raising up and supporting an illegal band of thugs led by Moise Tshombe who led an effort to lead Kinshasa in seceding from the Congo.  A civil war became imminent to keep imperialism from spitting the country and the U.S. used its influence over the United Nation troops to use them to remove Lumumba from office in a Coup against the democratically elected government of the Congo.  On January 17, 1961, CIA thug Joseph Mobuto shamefully led the effort to murder Patrice Lumumba and Mobuto, later to become Mobuto Sese Seko, was installed by colonial interests and the CIA as the ruler of the Congo.  

From the period of 1961 through 1997 when Mobotu finally died after being run out of the Congo, the vast riches of the Congo continued to be dominated by U.S. and European corporations.  Efforts by the MNC and other groups to fight against efforts to steal their country created a violent instability in which hundreds of thousands of people were killed or disappeared never to be seen again.  Mobotu poisoned water supplies, tortured and killed tens of thousands, destroyed the school system, social services, roads, and any semblance of infrastructure in the Congo.  In fact, when the country finally had an election in 2007, one short year before you were elected in this country, that election in the Congo was actually the first national election that country saw since the election that put Lumumba in power in 1960!  

Today, while you sit on your throne and throw out worthless platitudes about what Africans should be doing, the Congo remains in disarray, disorganized, poor, and the people continue to suffer.  Take note: the period of 1884 through 1959 represents the period of colonialism in the Congo.  The period of 1960 represents the hope of Pan-Africanism and the period of 1961 through the present day represents the period of neo-colonialism in the Congo.  Neo-colonialism is the system where the capitalists, the Europeans, the U.S. and Europe, are no longer in the country, but they have put a system in place that continues to represent their interests long after they are gone.  The schools teach the colonial version of history.  The laws are set up to benefit the outside corporate interests and not the interests of the people.  The technical skills needed to rebuild the country after decades of sabotage are withheld unless those who possess them pledge allegence to imperialism.  This is the same blue print that's utilized all over Africa.  The history of Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and practically everywhere else has a very similar story, but you know that already.  You just can't say that because your corporate masters forbid you to speak in the interests of the masses of people and those masses are so unaware of the connection between African exploitation and U.S. comfort, that you don't even ever have to address that do you?

Of course, we have to ask the question - has there been corrupt leadership in Africa?  Absolutely, but most of that has come from the neo-colonial puppets that imperialsim installed  to replace the genuinely revolutionary leadership.  I know you don't need me to tell you that the Land and Freedom Movement in Kenya (more popularly known as the Mau Mau), the land where your family comes from, had courageous and uncompromising leadership in the person of people like Fred Botau and Dedan Kimathi, but imperialism placed it's support behind the more moderate elements of the Kenyan African National Union to support that segment coming to power in Kenya, so whatever corruption exists in Kenya, the finger has to point to U.S. and Europe sponsored neo-colonialism.  The same is true for Ghana, where the CIA overthrow the honest government of Kwame Nkrumah and replaced it with crooks who stole the country's riches and placed them in Swiss bank accounts.  The same with Guinea where after Sekou Ture's death, the Democratic Party of Guinea was overthrown and replaced by the brutal regime of Lasana Conte, a CIA man in the tradition of Mobotu in the Congo.  And, as we already explained, the Congo became "independent" in 1960, but every year from 1961 through 2013 has seen the country controlled by the neo-colonial interests installed and supported by the CIA so please tell me how the hell the people of Africa bear any responsibility for current conditions in the Congo?  Now, this point isn't being made to suggest everyone who was sincere hasn't made mistakes.  I'll be the first to agree that Gaddafi in Libya, Mugabe in Zimbabwe, and other respected leaders and political formations have much progress to make as it relates to dealing with dissent non-antagonistically, but we also have to wonder how much easier that process could be were it not for the constant subversive threats to overthrow these democratically elected governments that influence how these governments deal with dissenters?  

Of course you know all of that because you are making your contribution to neo-colonialism through your continued support for the trademark neo-colonialist policies of the U.S. controlled International Monetary Fund and your work to build the so-called African High Command or AFRICOM - the estabishment of 100 U.S. military bases in Africa to crush any potential for another Nkrumah, Ture, Lumumba, Cabral, Mugabe, Gaddafi, etc.  So, you know full well that neo-colonialism, the bastard child of colonialism, is still very much the reason for Africa's suffering because you and your predecessors have worked very hard to destroy anyone who sought to overcome neo-colonialism in Africa.  Meanwhile, you continue to play your role as chief house negro by actively and pubically criticizing African people.  Never once have you criticized White people for their unwillingness to acknowlege their benefits from living in a racist world, but you have plenty of time and energy to criticize African men for not being responsible fathers and African people for not saving Africa.  

Now you are taking your minstrel show to Ghana, the fountainhead of Pan-Africanism according to Malcolm X, to arrogantly talk to our people about what they should be doing.  No thanks Mr. sellout.  Rest assured that we already know what we need to do.  We need to regroup, get organized, and build a worldwide Pan-African fighting force that cannot be overcome by you and the interests you represent.  We'll keep working.  We'll one day convince enough of our people that you are a fake and that the true liberation they seek is not in your office or your system, but is within their spirit and grasp.  I know you already know that.  I know that you know I am fully aware that this is the real reason you are talking the way you are about Africa in the first place.





  

On June 4th, 2013, Baba Chokwe Lumumba officially became the mayor of Jackson, Mississippi.  Now as Baba Lumumba himself correctly indicated in a youtube video where he was discussing his respect for the All African People's Revolutionary Party (A-APRP) and the late Kwame Ture; the A-APRP has never supported electoral politics in the U.S., but we have always stood principally with our comrades, allies, and brothers and sister organizations.  Our position on electoral politics is of course based in our core belief that electoral politics are dominated by capitalist politics and economics which we are convinced were built and are maintained on the backs of our people.  Therefore, we do not believe we can buy, vote, or negotiate our liberation from this system.  We believe our justice will only come through revolutionary change and we know that revolution will not only not be televised, but it won't be status updates on Facebook either.  Plus, for us, Africa is always primary and therefore it is she that is our political, economic, and social priority.

The above clearly represents the foundation of our position within the A-APRP, but that said, we have profound respect for Baba Lumumba and the organizations that he has produced his work through; the New Afrikan People's Organization (NAPO), the Republic of New Afrika (RNA), and the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (MXGM).  As a teenager, I first heard about the work of NAPO and RNA while being educated by the Pan-African Secretariat.  It was then that I first became familiar with Baba Lumumba and his work.  I was deeply inspired and once I joined the A-APRP I learned even more because of the A-APRP's long standing and mutually respectful working relationship with NAPO, RNA, and MXGM.  In fact, within the A-APRP's workstudy process, the educational process that I credit with most of what I know today, we formally studied the work of those organizations so that we could effectively understand why we should maintain principled relationships with them.  It was from those studies that I learned of NAPO and RNA's "Free the Land" strategy.  That phrase is widely used within housing justice work circles today, but it was NAPO and RNA that I first heard use the term decades ago.  Also, the "Right to Return" as a part of those organization's strategy to build African self-determination wtihin the Southern areas of the U.S.  I know those strategies are at the core of Baba Lumumba's mayoral campaign.  I also know that keeping in the tradition of their democratic tradition, the people's assemblies MXGM has built, and is continuing to build, in Jackson is at the core of the strategy to strengthen that self-determination. 

The fact that White people, many with probable direct historical links to slavery, are still in Jackson and Baba Lumumba's elected position requires him to serve as representative to those elements doesn't in anyway diminish the quality of the strategy.  MXGM, NAPO, RNA, like the A-APRP, have always sought to build democratic and human rights based societies, regardless of the ethnic and racial background of the people inhabiting the territory, whether it's in Mississippi or Africa.  We want democracy, but we know that democracy has to be built on justice and African self-determination since these socieites were built, and are maintained, on exploiting us.  Any White people who truly desire peace and justice not only understand that, but would wholeheartedly support those efforts.

So yes, I support Baba Lumumba 100%.  Do I understand completely how they will achieve the goals and objectives laid out in the Jackson Plan through his elected position?  No, but I believe, and I know the A-APRP supports, that a essential aspect of building principled relationships is trusting and respecting the sincere political work of comrades even when you may not agree with their approach.  This is the position we take as it relates to MXGM and Baba Lumumba's plan in Jackson, Mississippi.  We trust and respect our comrades down there and provide our complete support for the work they do because we know they do the same for us.  We go even further and say that MXGM's current work in Mississippi is a proud continuation of the work of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and the Loundes County Freedom Organization - the original Black Panther Party from Alabama. There is no division within the African liberation movement.  We are one with MXGM, NAPO, and RNA and we look forward to seeing them struggle successfully in Mississippi!