Abbreviated Report from the    International Tribunal on Reparations for Black People in the U.S.
Edited by Omali Yeshitela
NOW!
REPARATIONS
©1983 Burning Spear Publications
Reparations Now! Abbreviated Report of the International
Tribunal On Reparations For Black People In The U.S. may
be re-printed in whole or in part or used in other ways to
forward the anti-imperialist struggle with permission from
the:
African People's Socialist Party 7622 MacArthur Boulevard Oakland, California 94605
Typeset, Layout and Design by Burning Spear Typesetting Center
Contents
1.  Introduction
2.  U.S. Found Guilty of Crimes Against Africans in the U.S.
3.  Opening Statement
4.  Indictment of U.S. Imperialism
5.  Oppression of Blacks In Prison
6.  The Role of the White Population
7.  A Black Mother On Housing Conditions
8.  Explanation of the Judges Ruling
9.  Summation of The World Tribunal
10.  African People's Socialist Party General Program
11.  About the African People's Socialist Party and the African National Reparations Organization
12.  Also Available From Burning Spear Publications
i. 1.
29.
41.
63. 83. 95.
101. 107. 121.
137. 141.
Introduction
On November 13, 1982, a two day World Tribunal On Reparations for Black People in the U.S. was held in New York City. The full significance of that Tribunal will ultimately be summed up in history by the process of black struggle which continues to unfold and which will itself be influenced by the Tribunal: such struggle as that which will be generated by the demand for reparations being generalized within the oppressed and colonized African community in the U.S.; such struggle as that which will be influenced by the development and leadership of the African National Reparations Organization (ANRO) founded on the two days immediately following the World Tribunal, and such struggle as that which will occur under the leadership of the African People's Socialist Party, the advance forces of the colonized African working class in the U.S.
However, while we must leave much to history's judgement as to the full significance of the World Tribunal, there are some things which we can say today, such a short time after the occurrence of the World Tribunal.
One thing the World Tribunal did do was to establish a process wherein the issue of the oppression of African people in the U.S. will have to be taken seriously again by the international community. It is hard to believe that within the short period of ten or eleven years the plight and just cause of the domestically colonized African community in the U.S. has receded from the active consciousness of the peoples in the world.
It was not so long ago that the heroic cause of our people was recognized worldwide, that the courage of our militants and revolutionaries was world renown. Because of their prominent roles in providing leadership for our people against our most formidable enemy and oppressor, Malcolm X., Dr.

Martin Luther King, the leadership of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and the Black Panther Party traveled the world with other great international figures who sought the end of human oppression and the creation of just social systems.
These were the heady days of world-wide mobilization—the days of Che, Ho Chi Minn, Mao and the Cultural Revolution. These were the days of the Tupamaros, of Cabral, of Black Power and Black Panthers.
Much has changed since that time. One of the most significant things to happen was the brutal suppression of our movement, such vicious military suppression as that which evinced the murders of Dr. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, Mark Clark and tens of members of the Black Panther Party, along with those from less influential organizations throughout the U.S. This suppression resulted in forced exile for many and frame-ups and imprisonment for many more. Today, it may be argued, that more of our militants and revolutionaries languish behind prison walls than among us within the colonized African communities of the U.S.
Geronimo Pratt, Sundiata Acoli, Herman Bell, Albert Washington, Dhoruba Moore, Anthony LaBorde, James York, Bernice Jones, etc., etc., are no longer on the streets of the U.S. Assata Shakur, free only because of a daring prison escape, is hunted like an animal throughout the U.S. by officers of the U.S. colonialist State who surely intend to end her life as they have attempted to do in the past.
Subsequent to this brutal attack on our movement and its leaders, the U.S. government has worked diligently to convince the world community of its changed character as it relates to black people, a changed character which the U.S. government alleges has resulted in the "Americanization" of its African population which has now achieved its basic aspirations. To do so was not as difficult as some might think. As a result of the terror and carnage strewn throughout our oppressed, colonized communities, resulting
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in the imprisonment and murder of our leaders and the destruction of our militant organizations, our people were temporarily "pacified," their voices stilled and the U.S. government and the international community were relieved of the terrible din caused by 40 million African people who were demanding Bread, Peace and Black Power.
And, if the quiet which now prevailed within our communities was not enough to convince the peoples of the world that black people had become finally free and no longer needed to rise up in opposition to the U.S. government, several other ploys succeeded in quelling any suspicions. One ploy was dependent on the election of James Earl Carter as U.S. president in 1976. Carter's election was one which saw more than 90 percent of the black vote go to a plantation owner from the deep South which was the immediate origin of the black movement so recently crushed by the U.S. government. Was this not evidence of a reconciliation between the interests of the black population and the U.S. government? If not, Carter's selection of Andrew Young as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations surely served the purpose. Thus, the world community was misled as were our own nearly leaderless people.
But no longer! The World Tribunal not only exposes to the international community that the oppression of African people is alive and well in the U.S., it also exposes the fact that our oppression has existed along one long continuum, that there has never been any cessation of our oppression.
This is one significance of the World Tribunal, but not the only one. Another significance of the World Tribunal was the process it initiated in summing up our history of oppression and struggle for African people ourselves who are the victims of our oppression. Now, the victims of U.S. terror within and without its borders can be better armed in our attempts to overthrow this terror.
This pamphlet represents only a tiny portion of the testimony and documentation presented at the World Tribunal on Reparations for Black People in the U.S. The entire

Tribunal proceedings will be published in the immediate near future. However, even this inadequate representation of the World Tribunal should serve to alert the reader to the historical significance of the World Tribunal. The precedents provided by the Tribunal will have an impact on people's struggles for years to come: for the first time in its history the U.S. government has been put on trial for its crimes against black people by black people ourselves. Moreover, the World Tribunal On Reparations for Black People in the U.S. established precedents in international law which has previously been treated as the sole property of those with the benefit of State power.
Finally, the World Tribunal took the concept of law and raised it as having significance for those other than the propertied class. The Tribunal smashed the bourgeois concept of "one justice for all peoples and classes" and raised the truth that the justice of the oppressed will result in the destruction of the justice of the oppressor, a justice which legitimizes oppression. The World Tribunal occurred as an initiative of the African People's Socialist Party, an organization of black workers by ideology and actual composition. Therefore, we can correctly say that the World Tribunal was an initiative of the African working class itself. The fact that 94 percent of the African population of the U.S. belongs to the black working class, whose heroism has only been recently forgotten, will soon provide the most magnificent testimony of the significance of the World Tribunal On Reparations for Black People in the U.S. throughout the streets of this United States of America whose very wealth and very existence has come at the expense of the life, liberty, and well-being of millions of African people.
Omali Yeshitela, January 1983
The Burning Spear newspaper, December 1982
U.S. Found Guilty of Crimes Against Africans in the U.S.
The People's Advocate read through the charges one by one and asked the Panel of International Judges for their verdict. A silence fell over the hall. "Charge number one: Is the United States guilty of genocide against African people in the U.S. as defined by the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide?" "Guilty, by unanimous vote."
"Charge number two: Is the United States guilty of violation of the United Nations Charter as it relates to its (the U.S.) treatment of Africans in the United States?" "Guilty, by unanimous vote."
"Charge number three: Is the United States guilty of violation of the spirit and intent of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination?" "Guilty, by unanimous vote."
"Charge number four: Is the United States guilty of violation of the spirit and intent of the International Bill of Human Rights?" "Guilty, by unanimous vote."
The audience made up largely of African people broke out in spontaneous and sustained applause, probably the first time a guilty verdict in a legal proceeding inside the U.S. had been greeted with joy by African people in the last 400 years. After being restored to order, the court proceeded with the judgement of the panel on punishment and/or rectification:
"1. Are African people in the U.S. due reparations from the U.S. government? (This had been estimated in the course
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of the Tribunal as $4.1 trillion in stolen labor alone, with damages to be determined later.)" "Yes, by unanimous vote."
"2. Should imprisoned black revolutionaries be granted political prisoner and prisoner-of-war status based on the Geneva Convention and other United Nations determinations?" "Yes, by unanimous vote."
"3. Does the U.S. treatment of Africans in the U.S. represent a serious enough breach of the United Nations Human Rights Charter to justify eviction of the U.S. from the United Nations?" "Yes, by unanimous vote."
"4. Does the testimony and documentation presented at the Tribunal justify the establishment of a permanent international body to monitor U.S. treatment of African people in the U.S.?" "Yes, by unanimous vote."
Again applause swept the auditorium, along with a feeling of satisfaction at the collective achievement that had been reached in proving beyond a doubt the just case of African people for reparations, of anger at the endless tales of suffering and injustice that had been related in the past 2 days of testimony, and of strong determination to take the judgement of the Tribunal out into the world, to build a people's struggle that will make the conclusions recognized as law, as the fair judgement of history and of the people of the world.
The International Tribunal on Reparations for Black People in the U.S. was a precedent setting and mobilizing legal hearing, the first time in history that the U.S. government has been formally put on trial for crimes against black people in the U.S. This Tribunal was conducted with the utmost seriousness, adhering to the rules of evidence to support the charges that the U.S. had violated international law. Many of these laws, such as the International Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, have never been ratified by the U.S. Senate precisely because the U.S. government fears it will be brought before a world court to answer for its treatment of
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African people and Native peoples in the U.S. The task of the hearings, then, has been to amass evidence while at the same time pressing for the U.S. to be called to accountability for its historic crimes, and fighting for the right of African people, who do not possess state power, to have a hearing before international panels on human rights. This is the work that Malcolm X was just beginning to bring to fruition when he was assassinated to silence his leading voice.
The Tribunal had been in the building stages for the past year, as the African People's Socialist Party established committees across the U.S. to build awareness of the upcoming Tribunal, to gather thousands of Reparations Claims by individual Africans to be presented at the Tribunal, to assemble evidence and international support for the Tribunal. Participants from these committees arrived from Seattle, Maryland, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Oakland, St. Petersburg, and New York, while other committees who intended to come ended up unable to for logistical reasons, including people from Miami, Chicago, and Memphis. The breadth of African organizations and other colonized peoples who endorsed the Tribunal was truly inspirational and showed the great support which the reparations demand can win. And participation in the Tribunal itself was equally as broad. Queen Mother Moore, of the Association of Ethiopian Women and an activist in the struggle for reparations since her days working in the Garvey Movement, sat in the front row of the auditorium with a number of her associates from across the U.S. during the entire two days of hearings. Members of the National Black United Front, Black Vets for Social Justice, Grand Jury Project and many other community groups fighting for African freedom were in attendance, along with unaffiliated Africans and some progressive North Americans.
Notably absent were the white ideological imperialists and professors of revolution who clog up so many progressive events, for this was a Tribunal established by African people on our own terms.
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But working class and struggling African people predominated. On the first day, over 200 people signed in, not as many as hoped for, but representing a strong cross section of our people. Coverage from the African media, from the Amsterdam News to the APSP's The Burning Spear, helped to amplify the impact of the Tribunal.
The International Panel of Judges, as well as the International Observers, were primarily African people, reflecting the solid international solidarity which Garvey first mobilized with the slogan, "Africa for Africans, Those at Home and Those Abroad." Among the Observers was Kaseam Ashbourne of the Black American Law Students Association, Ike M'Foli of the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania, a representative of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (Garveyites), and Sue Velez who works with the solidarity movement with Chile. As for the International Judges, two of them had travelled considerable distances, and faced harassment and repression from the U.S. repressive forces for their work on the Tribunal—the important figure in the African struggle in the Caribbean, Piankhy Ladepoo Salankey, Chairman of the National United Movement of Barbados, and the representative of the revolutionary Senegalese community in exile in France, Samba Mbuub; in addition, a representative of the Congolese National Liberation Front which is waging armed struggle against the puppet Mobutu regime, Serge Mukendi was in attendance as a judge, along with a representative of North American progressive people, Rick Ayers, the Chairman of the Committee in Solidarity with African Independence. Two other African representatives who were eager to attend as judges, Rosie Douglas, Secretary General of the United Labor Party of Dominica, and M.W.K. Chiume, Chairman of the Congress for the Second Republic of Malawi, were prevented from entering the U.S. by visa denial in the first case and by economic constraints of the travel from Africa in the second.
Unfortunately,  it was never possible to get a firm
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commitment for a representative judge from Native People in the U.S. or from Colombia, and the promised participation by a representative of the Puerto Rican Socialist Party and the New York Casa El Salvador Farabundo Marti fell through in the last days. The importance of international participation and international solidarity from these and other peoples struggling against U.S. imperialism must be won, as African people have always demonstrated a high degree of internationalism and sacrifice in the common struggle against imperialism. These and other international allies of our struggle will have an opportunity to come forward to participate in future Tribunals which our people will sponsor.
With all of these different peoples present, as well as the range of activists and witnesses to genocide from the African community who brought forth testimony, truly the Black Liberation Movement was fully represented at the International Tribunal. And while our movement has many different tendencies and contending strategies, something profound occurred over the two days of the Tribunal. As the testimony was unravelled, as the depths of the crimes of U.S. imperialism were laid before those assembled, the continual focus provided by the People's Advocate, APSP Chairman Omali Yeshitela, brought forth again and again that the anti-colonial struggle of African people, the struggle that targets the U.S. government as our enemy and unites with the anti-colonial struggles around the world, the demand for Reparations Now, is the unifying, mobilizing, and militant cry which will put our movement back on the offensive. The Tribunal built unity in our movement, not a liberal unity based on nothing but accommodation and passivity, but a unity borne out of a common focus and a growing commitment to join together to boldly advance our struggle against the U.S. government.
The Tribunal was opened on Saturday, November 13, with a procession of the Judges and opening remarks by People's Advocate Omali Yeshitela. He explained that the Tribunal would be held under international law, that the

International Panel of Judges had a legal responsibility to weigh the evidence in coming to their verdict, and that African people do have a right to call such a Tribunal. Even though we do not have state power,, we are a people who have been wronged and have a right to petition for redress, as well as to struggle for state power in order to achieve that redress.
Following this, the first witness was called in order to establish that a crime has been committed by showing that African people were in a positive state of existence before the kidnapping of African people which began in the 15th century. Dr. Leonard Jeffries, Chairman of the Black Studies Department of the City University of New York, spoke for an hour and a half, giving the greatest detailed account of African history that could be condensed into that time period. He defied the question raised by the patronizing academics of the West as to whether Africans had made any contribution to civilization by asserting that, "Civilization itself is African." The very beginnings of human pre-his-tory, as well as the proto-historical period in which social organization and production were begun and the classical period in which the basic sciences and humanities were developed, were all African. What bare civilization that did exist in Europe was all derivitive from Africa in the Ancient era and in subsequent historical periods.
Dr. Jeffries drew out in great detail the seven periods of African history, and described the techniques used by the Europeans, first the Portuguese and Spanish, later the English, to assault and bleed the African continent. He points out how Europe in the 15th Century, being "land poor, resource poor, and people poor" pursued piracy and theft from other peoples as the primary way of moving beyond subsistence economy, and found the richest civilization in Africa. Unable to penetrate the strong societies on the Continent, they settled on the beaches and began a process of kidnapping individuals which eventually weakened and subjugated the whole Continent. In 1482 the Portuguese
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established their first slave military fort on the coast of Ghana at Elmina of St. George. One of the builders of this fort was Christopher Columbus. Over the next decades, Portugal set up 50 fortified ports and castles on the coast of Ghana alone. The slave trade was the basis for the establishment of a world economy and provided the basic capital for the industrialization of Europe and later the U.S.
After documenting the four hundred years of degradation and exploitation at the hands of the Europeans, Dr. Jeffries concluded by describing the years from 1900 to today as the period of the African Renaissance and Revolution, in which African people on the Continent and around the world have moved to seize back our destinies and our resources. Following his presentation, Dr. Jeffries followed the Tribunal format by answering questions from the People's Advocate and the Panel of Judges which would explain areas needing fuller detail for the judges' deliberations.
Following a lunch recess and press conference, the Tribunal resumed with the Statement of Charges/Indictment of the U.S. Government. At this time, People's Advocate Omali Yeshitela reviewed the pertinent international law, law which was designed to prevent the barbarity of genocide and colonialism, law which underscored the justice of our struggle for liberation. He read the law which had been provided in the Judges' packets and the press packets: The International Bill of Human Rights (which includes the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights), the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the Charter of the United Nations, the Statute of the International Court of Justice, and the Foreign Relations Law of the U.S.
Anticipating the testimony that was to follow, the People's Advocate summed  up in  broad strokes the case

against the U.S. government. Wherever there are African people in the U.S., there is forced sterilization, high infant death rates, disproportionate imprisonment, police terror, subhuman housing. These are just some of the conditions that make up the conditions of domestic colonization which Africans suffer in the U.S. This oppression is historic, as is the struggle against such conditions. And clearly the present condition of African people has a direct relation to the loss of self-determination, as the conditions of African people today have their origin in the trade in African flesh.
Following the statement of charges was supposed to be testimony from SNCC founder Ella Baker on the Southern Struggle for Democratic Rights. Unfortunately, the comrade was not able to attend because of heath reasons, so she sent her greetings and solidarity.
The next witness was Gwen Wilson of the National Black United Front who put forth evidence on the case of Eddie Carthan, the progressive black mayor of Tchula, Mississippi. Eddie Carthan was elected in 1977 because of strong black community support, and immediately began to defy the white power structure by refusing a $10,000 bribe and working to save the city medical clinic which was being cut back. When Carthan tried to fire racist police chief Clark, the rightists on the city council decreased his pay to $60 a month and began setting him up for legal charges. First they charged him with assaulting the police chief, and later began trying to connect him with any robbery or killing that occurred in Tchula. Because of national and international support, Mayor Carthan was acquitted of the recent murder charges, but is still in prison over the alleged assault. The National Black United Front representative explained that the organization is involved in struggles for the rights of black people all over the U.S. She pointed out that the attack on Eddie Carthan is part of a political repression seeking to destroy meager black gains of the Civil Rights Movement, just as the Black Reconstruction gains were smashed after the Civil War. Any illusion of gradual pro-
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gress for Africans in the U.S. is refuted by the statistics on black education, employment, pay, imprisonment, and by such stories as that of Mayor Eddie Carthan of Tchula,
Following Sister Wilson, Professor Del Hunter of Medgar Evers College of the City University of New York,
came forth to give testimony on the struggle for African education. Professor Hunter had worked as an assistant dean for a year, but was removed when he came down on the side of the African students who were fighting over the last year to remove a reactionary black petty bourgeois president and establish a progressive administration. Medgar Evers College represents the typical type of educational institution reserved for African students. Located in the heart of Brownsville in Brooklyn, the college is underfunded and allows no control by the immediate African community.
Professor Hunter pointed out that it is always necessary for an oppressive ruling class to control knowledge and values. The purpose of universities is first the discovery, production, and distribution of knowledge and, second, to reproduce a class of people with responsibility to see that knowledge is passed on. When Africans were first brought to the new world, we were not allowed to read or study or develop the arts. With the end of chattel slavery, the ruling class came up with the strategy of creating the "negro" out of Africans in an attempt to internalize our subjugated status. The U.S. ruling class has set up a black petty bourgeois class of intellectuals and mediocre schools like Medgar Evers College so that African students are not engaged in institutions that discover and produce knowledge related to our needs. Instead we are required to simply repeat the point of view and values handed down by the dominant North American powers. Although African students won some Black Studies departments during the Black Power wars of the 1960's, they have been under-financed and undermined so that black people still do

¦\
not have our own institutions, have not been able to redefine our mission. It will require a revolution of all U.S. society before Africans can get a real education, and part of the struggle for revolution is African people creating our own base of knowledge.
During questioning by the People's Advocate and the Judges, Professor Hunter reviewed the role of the black church, the struggle by the oppressors to suppress African heritage and cosmology, and stated that black intellectuals can and must make a contribution to the struggle of African people in the U.S. for nationality.
Next to testify was the honorable Job Mashiriki, Chairman of the Black Veterans for Social Justice. Comrade Mashiriki spoke representing the thousands of Africans who have been sent to wars by the U.S. ruling class since the War for Independence against Britain, who have been promised their freedom on each occasion, and have only suffered the highest casualties, lowest benefits, and constant armed harassment. He opened his remarks thus:
Mr. Chairman, it is an honor to be among such a noble and august body. We know that you have travelled far and inconvenienced yourself to be present here on this historic occasion, to give our organization and our people an opportunity to vent our long-standing grievances against this government. We hope our short testimony will contribute to your inevitable conclusion that the U.S. government is guilty of mass genocide and degradation against Africans here in America.
Our organization has known this fact for centuries. History has taught us. Historically, black people have always fought for this country inside and outside of the military. The economic wealth and development of this country was built on the backs of black slave labor. All persons who enjoy the fruits of so-called democracy today enjoy it at the expense of black blood, sweat, tears, and lives.
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As an organization of black veterans from World War II to the Vietnam War, who fought in these wars, our motto is, "Blacks fight no one else's war no more." We have adopted this motto because of our experience in this country. However, this motto doesn't exclude us from fighting our own war, I want to be clear on that, such as in Azania, Namibia, Mississippi, or New York. In the course of reviewing the criminal history of the U.S. government's treatment of Africans in the U.S. military, Comrade Mashiriki brought out many profound facts to underline his argument. For instance, while black Gl's suffered disproportionate casualties in Vietnam because the officers placed us in the line of withering fire, Vietnam veterans face the highest unemployment rate in the U.S. for that age group, and African veterans have the highest rate among   these;   the   military   gave   257,000   "Less   Than Honorable" Discharges to Vietnam vets in order to punish the defiant or strong and deny them all veteran benefits; of these, 3/4 are black and Latin. Africans have always had to fight on two fronts, overseas and in the U.S., as the suppression of African soldiers in Brownsville, Texas testifies to; in fact, prior to World War I, more black people had been killed by the KKK than in U.S. wars. Many statistics are hard to uncover, and in fact members of Black Veterans for Social Justice were barred from the Pentagon when they went there seeking statistics on black casualties, tours of duty, and discharges. Finally, in response to questions, Comrade Mashiriki pointed out that Africans in the military have always provided the backbone of resistance to imperialist military ventures, and gave real heart of the slogan "Hell No, We Won't Go!"
The next witness was African Revolutionary Health Activist Ebun Adelona. Sister Adelona pointed out forcefully the ways health is too often neglected or looked at from a narrow perspective. She stated:
We are involved in the struggle for the health of

the people, and we see the struggle for health as one of the most basic and fundamental, because if you do not have a people that are healthy, you do not have a people that can engage in any kind of struggle in any of the areas that we struggle in. We cannot wage a liberation struggle without a people that are healthy; you cannot wage an armed struggle if you are not able to take care of the health of the people; you cannot in any way move forward if you are not dealing with health.
Comrade Adelona proceeded to bring forth the most extensive documentation on the health status of African people in New York and throughout the U.S. in order to demonstrate further our right to reparations. She pointed out that for African women negative pregnancy outcomes are highest and infant mortality rates are at least 36 percent higher than whites. In many cases, African activists have had to carry out independent research, block by block studies, to uncover the causes of African health oppression. Often such studies reveal the relations between health status and the environment. For instance, studies on the high asthma rates for African children suggest an association with the high incidence of roaches in apartments rented to Africans, and an allergic reaction to roach droppings in the children. Studies of people who freeze to death in the winter require extensive work since the Department of Health of New York masks such tragedies by listing the cause of death as "heart failure."
She testified abo'ut the ways that the multi-billion dollar health industry and the government are conspiring to provide less services to Africans while concentrating on the lucrative white middle class market, thus pushing the African population below the survival level, meaning genocide. For instance, bankruptcies of hospitals are the result of government pulling back funding sources. Of the 48 hospitals closing nationally this year, 39 served a predominantly black population. Of the $10.7 billion spent in
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New York City for medical facilities in 1980, more than 50 percent went to support a little string of hospitals in the wealthy East Side. In Manhattan, the city closed Sydenham Hospital in Harlem because it was allegedly operating at a deficit. You don't hear the term "deficit" in relation to the mammoth police department budget.
Comrade Adelona pointed out the ways struggle to save Sydenham Hospital had documented the state's complicity in genocide. This and other hospital closings mean death for African people, pave the way for gentrification of African neighborhoods by killing off the inhabitants, and create a captive population which must act at the will of the government planners. African people are in struggle to get decent health care for our people while breaking from the ideological definitions of health processes which have evolved by capitalism in the pursuit of profit. Much more documentation was provided in written form, including the important areas of mental health, sterilization, and abortion rights.
Unfortunately, Dr. John Boiling, Director of the Man-dala Center and member of the Association off Black Psychiatrists, was forced to leave for other commitments when the Tribunal testimony was running late. Unable to testify, Dr. Boiling submitted his testimony (in writing) on the effects of oppression in the U.S. on African psychology.
The last witness to appear before the International Tribunal on Saturday was Mafundi Lake, one of the founders of the heroic Inmates for Action in Atmore and Holman prisons in Alabama and a long-time African prison resister. Brother Mafundi came forward and remarked that this was the first time he had been before a judge when he wasn't on trial himself. He then proceeded to recount, through personal experience, the damning proof that prison functions as a form of genocide, that it, serves the same function as those terroristic slave-drivers known as "nigger breakers" because they were assigned the responsibility of breaking the will and resistance of Africans who would not submit to

slavery.
He exposed the ways the prisons of Alabama, and in the rest of the U.S., use terroristic violence and isolation to break the spirit. Mafundi himself served 13 years of a 13 year sentence for a 38 dollar robbery he did not commit.
In all, he showed how the prisons represent extensive behavior modification centers based on crude techniques of reward and punishment.
Comrade Mafundi also brought out the ways Africans have managed to fight back. In Atmore, the African prisoners formed Inmates for Action (IFA), which was both a military resistance formation committed to establishing conditions in which Africans could survive—by threatening and taking retaliatory measures against guards and white lackeys—as well as being a political and cultural formation which would raise the consciousness and sense of purpose among African prisoners.
IFA proved to be the strongest prison formation in the South, and organized work stoppages as well as ending the degrading "yessuh...nossuh" stance that African prisoners had been forced to take with the guards. Finally, with the overall decline of the Black Power Movement in the 70's because of government military assault, the prison authorities were able to break down IFA. They transferred leaders like Mafundi out of the prison, and brutally murdered many others, such as Frank X Moore. Those who took up the struggle in Atmore and Holman, however, have not been entirely wiped out and the struggling African people keep coming back. Although prison leaves physical and mental scars on all Africans who have been subjected to it, it also educates our people to the terms and the seriousness of the struggle.
International Judge Samba Mbuub asked Mafundi about the use of prisoners as involuntary laborers. Mafundi pointed out that Atmore prison, for example, is a multi-million dollar agricultural industry, producing all types of farm products which are marketed by capitalist businesses,
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even though the prisoners get to eat none of the fresh food oduced. Kaseam Ashbourne of BALSA asked if Mafundi tried to organize in his more recent period in prison and if he found some of the brothers to be unreachable. Comrade Mafundi, a true organizer and people's leader, said he never found anyone who was unreachable. He pointed out the fact that the movement is in a weakened state today, but there is always another battle to take on, and structures to rebuild and strengthen. During his entire testimony, you could hear a pin drop in the auditorium, so dramatic and moving was his story. When finished, the audience gave him the tribute of sustained applause, and he left the witness stand to handshakes from those present.
If one day had condensed so many aspects of our people's oppression and exposed so many aspects of our struggle for liberation, from health care to the prison system to the military to the schools, it was simply evidentiary over-kill to conduct an entire second day of hearings and testimony. In fact, however, many days could be conducted of this Tribunal, and it could be convened in every black community in the country and have lines of our people waiting eagerly to present testimony.
The second day of testimony at the International Tribunal on Reparations for Black People in the U.S. opened with an explanation by the People's Advocate, APSP Chairman Omali Yeshitela, of the Historical Brief which was being presented to the International Judges. This Historical Brief, 58 pages long, was prepared under the leadership of the African People's Socialist Party to summarize extensive research on the history of stolen labor and wealth from African people in the past 400 years. The brief looks at three historical periods: Chattel Slavery from 1619 to 1865, Southern peasant labor from 1865 to 1945, and urbanization and proletarianization of the African domestic colony from 1945 to today. This research explained in great detail how the primitive accumulation of capitalism was carried out on the backs of African people and the colonization of Africans

in the U.S. provided the basic wealth of capitalism in every period of history, and in fact the amount of wealth extracted from Africans has increased over the centuries. This research has proved that, even by conservative estimates, African people are owed $4.1 trillion (that's $4100 billion) by the U.S. government for stolen labor alone.
Following the Historical Brief, Kwame Brathwaite of the Patrice Lumumba Coalition and the African Jazz Art Studio (AJAZ) came forward to present testimony on the theft of African culture. Brother Brathwaite reviewed the capital offenses that were committed by the Europeans in kidnaping African people. He pointed out that the kidnapers did not just take laborers, but also scientists, teachers, and peoples' healers and leaders. In other words, they stole the culture by attempting to destroy it in Africa and outlawing the practice of African culture in the Americas. In addition, African cultural expressions such as jazz, blues, and other [ forms have been taken over by white capitalists, and even black practitioners are dependent on white promoters, club owners, and record companies to make a living today. Moreover, these capitalists set the terms for the type of culture that comes out, supressing such rhythm and blues songs as "Unity," "Wake Up Everybody," and "Don't Call Me Brother" while promoting contentless words like "I Love Music." He called for Africans to seize back our culture and develop self sufficiency so that we can build our own national identity and struggle.
The next witness called was Penny Hess of the Committee in Solidarity with African Independence, a North American (white) woman who was called to give testimony on the political stand of the white working class and the potential for internationalist solidarity between African and North American people. She gave testimony on her work over the last 6 years in campaigns led by the African People's Socialist Party which called for solidarity and support from the North American population, including the African National Prison Organization Solidarity Committee
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and the Dessie Woods Support Committee, as well as solidarity work for the International Reparations Tribunal.
She brought out the basic truth that African people are colonized inside the U.S. and therefore provide a buffer for the North American working class, since the brunt of the attacks and exploitation from the U.S. government is aimed at the African community. For this reason, there is no progressive movement possible in the U.S. without solidarity with the struggle of Africans for independence. In order to go beyond a cynical bargain with the capitalist class for the division of colonial spoils, North American workers must have the courage to build strong solidarity with the African people's demand for reparations. In giving thorough testimony on the real class interest of North American workers for revolution and the reactionary choices that have so often been taken by North Americans because of the material benefits they derive from colonialism, Comrade Hess strongly exposed the international importance of the African anti-colonial struggle.
While the African struggle for independence has so often been betrayed by North Americans, sometimes especially those who profess to come forward to give solidarity to our struggle, the honest and courageous testimony of Penny Hess was a welcome expression of solidarity. She was questioned at length by the international judges to learn of the kinds of U.S. State attacks the solidarity movement has suffered, the efforts that are being made to win North Americans to solidarity, the way the solidarity committee takes on the political expose7 of the so-called multi-nationalist leftist organizations, and how reactionary movements in the white community are being countered.
The next witness was Afeni Shakur, a former member of the Black Panther Party in New York who was jailed and tried in the COINTELPRO-led Panther 21 case in 1969-1971. She is working now in the Grand Jury Project to counter U.S. State attacks on the African struggle. After pointing out that she was testifying not as an expert but as a victim of COIN-

TELPRO, Sister Afeni proceeded to give the most detailed account of the functioning of the U.S. government's repressive apparatus against the Black Liberation Struggle. She exposed that the COINTEL Program of the FBI is a military operation with specific functions, goals, and objectives—to neutralize a hostile people's movement. Because of the mass resistance of black people in the U.S., the U.S. government has murdered thousands of our youth and attacked our community which resulted in such changing statistics as the fact that the New York prison population was 30 per cent African in 1956 and is 80 percent African today. In struggling to free such political prisoners and Prisoners of War as Sundiata Acoli, Geronimo Pratt, Safiya Bukari, Dhoruba Moore, Herman Bell, Nuh Washington, and Anthony Bottoms, the black movement has been trying for a long time to gain international support and awareness. The only international examination we have been able to get was from Amnesty International which issued the "Proposal for a Commission of Inquiry into the Effects of Domestic Intelligence Actions on Criminal Trials within the United States."
Comrade Afeni brought out information about some of the most notorious traitors and informers our movement has had to deal with. For example, Gene Roberts was a New York and Federal government informer when he worked with Malcolm X, even acting as his body guard and pretending to give Malcolm mouth-to-mouth resusitation at the Audubon Ballroom when he was assassinated in 1965. Roberts then went on to infiltrate the Black Panthers, using his credentials as a trusted security cadre for Malcolm X, and set up the arrest of the Panther 21. Likewise, the security cadre in the Chicago Panthers who set up the murder of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark was a pig named O'Neill who supplemented his informers pay with armed robberies he was never prosecuted for. When asked by Ladepoo Salankey of Barbados how she suggested we keep informers out of our organizations, Sister Afeni replied:
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I can't give the last word, I can only give this word. But it is really my opinion that in reality this is not something that can be prevented; that in the history of any people's liberation movement, I do not believe anyone has been able to eliminate this possibility. By the revelation of these things, people are made to be more careful. But my whole point about the case of Gene Roberts is that I'm not sure how much more careful anybody could have been around that particular person. And that to me is really a great example of how, even though most people should remember how paranoid the Panthers were—people would be searched before they could come in and when someone would be speaking there would be people here on all sides. But in fact what I have found to be true is that there is no way to prevent infiltration. What we have to have as our priority is first of all we have got to know that we are fighting a just war; we have got to know that our struggle is just; we have got to personally and individually be moral people. We can't be corrupt, you know, because it's in the areas of corruption that we are most vulnerable. It is in our areas of weakness where we have vices that we are most apt to be corrupted and thereby subverted. So for each one of us that is serious, we just really have to be a moral people. Not that we should not be concerned about agents, you know, but I know for me I'm sure that I come across agents every day of my life, and the only defense that I have is that I have made up my mind that I'm going to fight this until it's over and nobody's going to intimidate me and get me off my point. After extensive further testimony, covering the current grand jury investigating the Brinks expropriation of last year and the attacks on such freedom fighters as Sekou Odinga, Sister  Afeni   entertained   more  questions.   International Observer Ike Mfoli of the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania asked about the Panther community programs. He said:

It is clear the methods used here are the same as in South Africa, with the goal of the total physical liquidation of the movement. These are not short term, they are long term goals. Therefore we should also accept that our struggle is a long and protracted and arduous one. I would like to ask what happened to the Black Panther Party programs that built the mass movement, programs which were also adopted by the Black Consciousness Movement in Africa and which today gives a mass base and ongoing strength to the struggle.
He described how the dual power institutions of the African population in Azania were inspired by the Black Power movement in the U.S. and the Panther Breakfast for Children program, medical clinics, etc. and these dual power institutions allowed the African struggle to maintain continuity, to produce new leaders when Steve Biko and others were murdered.
Sister Afeni responded that "it is one of the sorrows of my life that we lost these programs. We don't do it enough and as forcefully as we should." She explained how the African revolution requires both a strong community institutional base and the capacity to defend it. The Black Panther Party was overwhelmed by a massive military assault, but the black movement continues to build all levels of the struggle.
Following a break for lunch, People's Advocate Omali Yeshitela called the court to session and welcomed formally Queen Mother Moore and put into evidence the reparations claim which African people had made in 1962 against the U.S. government. Then Akil Al-Jundi, an Attica Brother who was involved in the rebellion of 1971 at Attica Prison in New York and continues working today in the fight for black freedom was called to the witness stand. Comrade Akil greeted the Tribunal on behalf of the 61 revolutionaries who were tried for the Attica rebellion, and the 43 who were murdered by the military assault ordered by New York governor Nelson Rockefeller on September 13, 1971. He put
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forth for a matter of record the names of comrades killed at Attica and the cause of death as reported by the McCabe Commission, such dear and brave heroes as William Allen, L.D. Barkley, John Barnes, Alan Durham, William Fuller, Melvin Gray, Tommy Hicks, Immanual Johnson, Lorenzo McNeil, Ramon Rivera, Santiago Santos, and Rafael Vas-
ques.
Brother Akil Al-Jundi revealed that the widows of the
prison guards killed in the military assault on Attica recently won reparations of $1.6 million dollars from the State because they proved that excessive force had been used in taking the prison. He said that the families of the Attica victims are pursuing a $2.8 billion civil suit against the Rockefeller estate because of the wrongful deaths which have already been established by the white guards' families. Akil presented a copy of this suit to the International Body to be entered into the documentation to be taken before the world in African peoples' struggle for reparations. Comrade Akil testified that the Africans held in prisons in the U.S. stand in strong solidarity with the African and other colonized people in the world such as the revolutionary African people of Grenada, and that we join the people of the world in saying we will no longer be a colony. He concluded:
I want to say to the Chairman Omali Yeshitela, to the International Observers, to the International Jurists. We thank you for allowing us to be part of this Tribunal seeking reparations. The Germans have had to pay reparations to the Jews because of their dastardly acts against those people. The Japanese, raised the same question here in the United States of America seeking reparations from this government. No one, no one on the face of the planet earth has borne witness to the dastardly acts, the brutalizing acts, the hatred, the levels of racism, you can go from A to Z, no one has borne witness to it such as the African people who happen to occupy this part of the planet Earth, in

the United States of America. So if anyone on the face of the planet Earth has the right to seek reparations, then you know that we definitely should be on the top of the list. And so to those persons who assume responsibility to formulate the teach-ins that were being held throughout the United States, to raise the issue again in this part of the century, because we are at the end of the 20th Century, and Sister Afeni spoke of her young son and daughter whom I have the honor to know, we want them to know that the issue of reparations is a valid issue within the struggle for our liberation. So whenever there's a call around the issue of reparations, there's a need for all of us to be as supportive as we can, for us to try to bring our friends, people from our work place, our families, to an event such as this because it has historical significance. Yes, the auditorium is not filled up with 50,000 people, but each of us represents 50,000 people and more. So it's not always the quantity that determines the significance or the tenability of what people are attempting to do, it has to do with the quality, with the efforts that are put forth by the people that assume the responsibility to do that.
Brother Akil Al-Jundi was questioned by the Inter-] national Judges on the Attica rebellion and the police] attacks.
The Tribunal then moved on to testimony from committees, individuals, and organizations concerning the struggle for reparations and the evidence of the need for reparations from their communities. Makil Shakur from the San Francisco Committee to Build the Reparations Tribunal testified on the case of African children who were brutally murdered by a self-styled preacher who was outraged at the rejection he received from the African community. Malik also testified on the continuing struggles in Hunter's Point and other! neighborhoods of African people for survival and liberation.
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Then Lester Lewis, from the Caribbean People's Organization in London testified on the struggle of Africans in Britain and the Caribbean against imperialism, and revealed the feading impact that the African struggle in the U.S. has on Africans all over the world. Lewis pledged to carry out his duty to expand African Internationalism and the struggle for reparations.
Next, Shatahete of the St. Petersburg Committee to Build the Black Reparations Tribunal testified on the history of police attacks on African people in that part of Florida, such as the murder of Willie James Daniels in 1978 and the murder of Willie Grey in March of 1982. Wayman Earls from the Seattle Reparations Tribunal Committee testified on the conditions of Africans in the Northwest and refuted the myth that that region of the country is cleaner, safer, or less colonialist than the rest of the country; in proportion to the African population, Washington has more Africans in prison than the Eastern and Southern states. The bourgeoisie of Seattle is struggling to move Africans out of the Central Area in order to build white middle class housing; Comrade Wayman Earls also testified as to police murders such as Larry Ward, police harassment such as the arrest of Alice Smith, and the astronomical unemployment rate of Africans in Seattle.
Oronde Takuma, from the New York Reparations Tribunal Committee, testified on the work of the New York committee to gather evidence concerning the case of Africans for reparations, including three particular programs which were held: black workers, black political prisoners and prisoners of war, and the special oppression of African women. Comrade Oronde Takuma entered statistics and evidence on police terror and murders of African people in the New York region.
From the Oakland, California, Reparations Tribunal Committee, two people gave testimony. Calvin Evans testified on the case of the police murder of young Melvin Black in March of 1979, as well as other incidents of police

harassment. Feazzar brought forth testimony from the African women struggling for reparations in the Oakland committee, on the incidents of police terror, medical terror, and attacks on their survival; this included testimony from Dessie Woods on her imprisonment for defending herself and a companion against rape and murder at the hands of a cracker reactionary, Ronnie Home, in Georgia.
Next, Sister Akila Akuoko from the National Committee to Free Yusef Alhakk testified on the courageous struggle of this leading revolutionary of the Buffalo nationalist community who has been given 12 years on a framed charge of robbery in 1977. Because of the pressing time problems, the International Judges then retired to consider their verdict while further testimony was put forth from African people who have a claim for reparations, as well as thousands of filled out reparations claims certificates being submitted.
When the International Judges met in private, they had an opportunity, with the Observers present, to review the evidence and discuss the basis on which they would be making a judgement on the U.S. government. The Judges discussed the United Nations, the fact that the pressure of the masses of the world is required to make that body take any positive stands, and the reactionary role the U.S. had played in all international affairs, including trying to block any meaningful human rights action while pretending to be the world champion of human rights. The International Judges returned and let the People's Advocate read the ballots, which were unanimous for conviction of the U.S. government on all four counts charged and on the punishment. The International Panel had legitimized and formalized the right of African people to fight for reparations and an end to domestic colonialism. Following the verdict, each judge summarized his reasoning for the verdict rendered and explained the struggle in his own location.
Pianhky Ladepoo Salankey, Chairman of the National United  Movement of  Barbados,  led  off with  the  most
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thorough recounting of the testimony and how it applied to nternational law that had been violated. He concluded that the evidence has been irrefutable.
Rick Ayers of the Committee in Solidarity with African independence pointed out that North Americans had sat in judgement too long on African people, and the evidence of the Tribunal was not something for North Americans to pass judgement on. Rather, the Tribunal itself has passed judgement on North American society. The U.S. is clearly guilty as charged and the task of North Americans is to build militant solidarity with that judgement. Samba Mbuub of Senegal agreed with the guilty verdict and expressed enthusiasm for his opportunity to meet with so many African people here and deepen our unity internationally; he exposed the neo-colonial conditions in Senegal and how the French bourgeoisie, allied with the French left, has conspired to maintain colonialism just as happens in the U.S. Serge Mukendi, of the Congolese National Liberation Front (FNLC), added his guilty verdict, saying, "History has never recorded a slave who accepted his condition passively. We are held in bondage by force, so we fight for freedom by force." He explained the parallels with the Congolese struggle against the U.S. puppet Mobutu after the great African patriot Patrice Lumumba was murdered.
Following the summaries of the judges, the People's Advocate, APSP Chairman Omali Yeshitela, summed up the proceedings in a most powerful address which captured the overwhelming sense of African justice which two days of testimony had accumulated, and called on all Africans to take up the struggle for reparations. He began, "Sisters and brothers, Africans and peoples of the world, we've heard the testimony of some of the finest representatives of our people. We've heard testimony which confirms like nothing other than our very existence confirms, greatness, the greatness of this people who brought civilization to the earth and who, it is very clear, have the responsibility to bring civilization back to the face of this earth." This summary was the

mobilizing culmination of the entire International Tribunal! process, because it pointed out that "in the last two days we have set about creating another institution, and this institution at this juncture in history does not have a permanent place to rest except in us. This institution is a World Tribunal which brought the United States government for the first time in history to trial for the crimes it has committed against black people in this country."
This summary by the People's Advocate was greeted with the most enthusiastic applause, as the African people present paid tribute to the tremendous struggle that had been taken on to build the Tribunal and pledged to make it strong and legitimate by taking up the struggle for Reparations Now. Ultimately, the Tribunal was an overwhelming success because it drew together the honest sector, thej working class base, of our revolutionary movement forj national liberation. As has always been the case in the past, the working class of the African population is the class| which takes the initiative, which sets the terms for advancing our struggle against the real enemy and oppressor, thel U.S. government.
The International Tribunal brought out Africans from the communities all across the U.S., brought forth Africans! who have fought the close quarters combat known as thej prison system, brought forth African veterans, health workers, and laborers. This is who made it happen. Notably absent were the black petty bourgeoisie, the "talented ten-thers," who are always given the title of "black leaders" by the white press. Reparations is a revolutionary demand and demands an indictment of the U.S. government; you won't see the black petty bourgeoisie able to say, "could we please have a little reparations, boss?" Absent from the Tribunal were Jesse Jackson's PUSH, or the National Urban League, or the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People—and also absent were even such formations as the National Black Independent Political Party.j While individual members of the National Black United
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Front did come forth to help build the Tribunal, NBUF never did endorse or help build the Tribunal officially. No, the Reparations Tribunal consolidated the working class sector the revolutionary sector, of our people. Certainly, no white left so-called communist or socialist party endorsed or gave any support to the Tribunal.
These were the forces who stayed away in droves. The African working class, which had signed thousands of Reparations Claims, which had attended events to build the Tribunal over the last 6 months, which had raised funds and put forth testimony, were the people who made it happen, were the people represented at the International Tribunal. We will see the black petty bourgeoisie, which always tails and seeks to defuse the initiative of the working class, desperately try to take over the forward motion which the Reparations Tribunal has created. If they can't unite with the demand for Reparations Now, they will seek to hold tribunals on conditions in the black community, to bring forth their white media contacts and professionals, to wipe out the ongoing Reparations Tribunals which the African National Reparations Organization has called for. This pitiful competition which such forces put forth is only a desperate effort to protect the power of the imperialists which has granted the "talented tenth" their minor thrones. The Reparations Tribunal, and the national organization built in the following days, have taken the leadership, how ever, and demand that honest forces, working class forces, take up the struggle for justice, for a future, for independence and liberation in our lifetime. Reparations Now!

People's Advocate Omali Yeshitela
Opening Stateme
Sisters and Brothers; Africans, and Peoples of the World:
On today, we are initiating a two-day process which is remarkable and historic in its implications for the use of international law as a means of addressing the crimes against oppressed peoples who do not have the benefit of state power and the use of national and international courts which are traditionally only available to those groups who do possess state power. On today we are initiating a two-day trial of the U.S. government for crimes it has committed against the black or African population of the United States.
This two-day World Tribunal will be conducted in the most serious manner possible. Indeed, the seriousness with which we conduct ourselves during these proceedings will be one of the factors which will contribute to our ability to establish the important precedents in international law. These precedents will allow, from this day forward, other peoples who also do not have state power to bring those who do possess state power and are responsible for oppression and violation of commonly held principles of international law, before the world community to be held accountable for their crimes.
The seriousness of this World Tribunal ought to therefore be clear to all who are present here today.
At this juncture it seems important to establish the authority of this Tribunal to conduct this World Tribunal on Reparations for Black People in the U.S. We would therefore like to assure this panel of international judges, as well as all

the official observers and the people attending this World Tribunal, that every effort has been made to insure that the| conduct of this World Tribunal will be fair and that it wi||| meet with the highest standards of justice as is understood throughout the world. In those instances where such stand-ards have suffered, it has only been due to the conditions! from which we suffer due to the crimes and conditions im-posed on us which have made this World Tribunal neces-sary. For example, we have given serious consideration to the need for representatives of the U.S. government, past and present, to be here for these proceedings and to give testimony as to their role and responsibility for the charges being brought against the U.S. government on this day.
To this end serious consideration was given to the idea of subpoenaing former U.S. presidents Gerald Ford, Richard Milhouse Nixon, and James Earl Carter, as well as the cur-rent U.S. President, Ronald Wilson Reagan, along with the entire Congress of the United States. However, as the result of much discussion, which included the views of those licensed to practice law by the U.S. government, it was decided that such subpoena would more than likely result in the loss of license by any participating attorney at these pro-ceedings who received their authority to practice law within] the U.S. from the U.S. government. We are therefore con-fronted with the contradiction of such a hearing as this one being able to effectively bring to trial those who are charged with breaches of international law when they are in posses sion of state power and are being charged by those who dd not possess state power.
Nevertheless, we have made it possible for represen-tatives of the U.S. government to attend these hearings should they so decide, and we declare today at this public hearing that should there be representatives of the U.S. government or those who are willing to speak in its defense, this World Tribunal is open to such participation. Moreover, this World Tribunal has been widely publicized throughout the U.S. through announcement posters, more than seven
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thousand of which were posted in this city alone; through announcements and articles in black newspapers; through widely listened to radio talk programs and announcements; through leaflets distributed at mass meetings, and through public community hearings organized by the National Committee which organized this World Tribunal. Therefore it should be clear that nothing about this World Tribunal has been secretive; there has been no attempt made to exclude the participation of the U.S. government from these hearings.
Sisters and Brothers; Africans and Peoples of the World:
We are confident that we will be quite capable of establishing the rules and principles of international law which will give legitimacy to these proceedings. I will deal with these shortly. However, the fundamental legal questions we are confronted with regarding the authority of this World Tribunal is tied to the question of state power. We are not aware of an historical precedent where those who do not possess state power have been able to make a legal judgement against oppressors who do hold state power which has been accepted by the world community.
Sisters and Brothers; Africans and Peoples of the World:
Never before has the United States of North America been brought before a world court to answer for its crimes against our people. On those occasions where it was attempted at the United Nations, we were confronted with the obstacle of these requirements: 1) the necessity to possess state power; or 2) the agreement of the U.S. government to allow such charges to be brought against it; or 3) the willingness of some other member state of the United Nations to act in our behalf. Being unable to meet any of these procedural requirements, the oppressed African population has been therefore relegated to the authority of the U.S. government and crimes by it which have become legendary in notoriety and proportion.

Sisters and Brothers; Africans and Peoples of the World:
This matter of state power demands a precedent in international law. We must establish this precedent with these proceedings at this World Tribunal on Reparations for Black People in the United States. To do otherwise makes a mockery of international law and its intent. For it may very well be that the crime being protested is the actual denial of] self-determination and state power, such as we contend is the case with the oppressed, domestically colonized African population of the U.S.
Sisters and Brothers; Africans and Peoples of the World:
I would bring your attention to the Charter of the United Nations, which in its preamble declares its purpose to be, among other things:
To save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrows to mankind, and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and
to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and
to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom. We should also pay attention to Chapter I, Article 1 of] the Charter of the United Nations, which reads: The purposes of the United Nations are:
1. To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts and aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by
peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;
2.  To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determinations of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace;
3.  To achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion; and
4.  To be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends.
Sisters and  Brothers; Africans and  Peoples of the World:
These excerpts from the United Nations Charter are important in that they clearly reveal the intent of that great body. All members of the United Nations are bound to the principles which are explicit in this intent found in the preamble and first article of the United Nations. However, after having established the intent of the United Nations, procedures have been introduced in the Charter which contradict the ability of the United Nations to realize the purposes for which it was explicitly established. For the questions of peace and self-determination spoken of in the United Nations Charter are but so much paper which mocks the oppressed peoples of the world if those who are struggling for self-determination have no recourse except the revolutionary dispossession of the oppressors as a means of achieving legal status in the eyes of the international community of nations.
Finally, as regards this matter of the intent of the United Nations, it is our contention that implicit in its founding and in its preamble are clear indications that the United
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Nations was founded in part as a means of challenging the ability of those holding state power to make prey of the oppressed and powerless who do not have possession of state power. It should be remembered that the United Nations was founded on June 26, 1945, two months prior to the official conclusion of the second world war and the defeat of Nazism which saw 6 million Jews brutally mur-dered by fascists who held state power over the lives of the] Jewish people. This fact, along with the Preamble to the United Nations Charter, as well as the references made in respect for human rights and freedoms for all without regard for race, religion and language—references made near the conclusion of a war which achieved much of its reknown because of the genocide against the Jewish peo-ple—must necessarily be considered while addressing the questions of the right of the powerless to conduct these pro-ceedings today.
Sisters and Brothers; Africans, and Peoples of the World:
The German Nazis were able to murder 6 million Jews who were not in possession of state power, this notwith-standing the fact that the Jewish people made constant pleas to the international community as have we Africans here in the U.S. and elsewhere. It was only subsequent to the defeat of Germany that the Nuremberg Trials were held which resulted in the trials of some of the Nazi perpetrators of the genocide of the Jewish people. While the Nuremberg Trials may have given some satisfaction to the living, there was nothing it could do for the 6 million dead. We should also mention that the establishment of the Nuremberg Trials after the defeat of Germany to try Nazis for war crimes committed prior to the establishment of the U.N. and the World Court presupposes a belief in the existence of inter-national law which does not receive its legitimacy from of-ficial pacts between consenting states.
The importance of the question is to be seen today in the peace-shattering dispossession of the Palestinian peo-
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ple and the constant aggression against the Arab peoples in
the  Middle East by the illegitimate state of Israel, which was
established in bloodshed, using as an excuse the inability
of the international community to address the needs of the
Jewish people when they did not possess state power. And
what about the dispossessed Palestinian people? In the
bsence of the possession of state power, aren't they com-
pelled to utilize armed struggle to realize their just aims? Is
this the world peace spoken of so hopefully in the United
Nations Charter?
This World Tribunal must give a resounding "no" to the answer of this last question. This World Tribunal, the people present and our international observers must affirm the authority and legality of these proceedings, otherwise there will be no peace on the face of this earth, for the oppressed and colonized African community in this country has demonstrated over and over again that we will fight for our freedom. Indeed, U.S. prisons are filled with the sons and daughters of our struggle for freedom. This World Tribunal must affirm the legality of these proceedings in order to validate within the international community those whose love of freedom is so great that they would put their lives and limited liberty on the line in its pursuit and defense.
Sisters and Brothers; Africans, and Peoples of the World:
To do less than this, to withhold the right to justice to the powerless, to those whose greatest victimization has been the forced theft of liberty, of self-determination, of state power, is to give countenance to international piracy and brigandage. To withhold the right to justice and international legality to the powerless, oppressed African people in the United States would be to validate the most cynical concept that "might makes right." It would give credence and validity to the awful concept of the right of the powerful to make and enforce international law. Such law as that is no law at all. It is accepted tyranny. Therefore, this World Tribunal  must determine whether international  morality
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might prevail in the interests of the powerless. This Tribunal will determine whether, even in the absence of state power] the rights of the oppressed will be recognized as rights] which may be respected in the form of applied international law, whether they may be respected in the form of an inter-national trial of an oppressor state power.
In order for international law to operate effectively, it must be law which is respected by the international com-l munity as a body of jurisprudence. This World Tribunal isl well aware that when  much of the  law that today isl respected as international law was recognized, the vast majority of the world's population was under some kind of I colonial bondage. Of the more than 150 recognized existing] nations today, there were only 55 member nations of the United Nations upon its founding, some seventy-five percent of the other recognized nations existing under a state of colonialism. This meant that some seventy-five percent of the world's population had nothing to say concerning the development of this international law. Clearly this state of affairs could not promote a respect for international law, law which was determined and interpreted by those who held state power.
This World Tribunal must establish a respect for inter-national law by contributing to its further development; it must do this by establishing the precedent which gives legal sanction for these proceedings. In the first place this will be done by the active participants on this international panel who with your findings will validate these proceed-ings. Secondly, the legality of these proceedings will be established depending upon the seriousness with which we all treat the findings of this World Tribunal subsequent to its completion.
This World Tribunal will adhere to general international law in making its determination. We will utilize the defini-tion of international law as that provided for in Article 38 of The Statute of the International Court of Justice, which defines international law in the following manner:
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a.  international conventions, whether general or particular, establishing rules expressly recognized by the contesting states;
b.  international custom, as evidence of a general practice accepted as law;
c.  the general principles of law recognized by civilized nations;
d.  ...judicial decisions and the teachings of the most highly qualified publicists of the various nations, as subsidiary means for the determination of rules of law.
In addition to this general international law under which this World Tribunal will function, especially paragraph c of Article 38, this World Tribunal is being asked to rule on four specific documents which have become widely accepted as having the weight of law in the international community. These documents are the United Nations Charter itself, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 9 December, 1948; the International Bill of Human Rights, and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.
This Panel of International Jurists of the World Tribunal on Reparations for Black People in the United States will be asked to indicate "yes" or "no" on ballots already in your possession as to whether the U.S. has violated any of these basic documents on international law, with a majority decision indicating the will of the court. In order to facilitate this procedure, the International Panel of Jurists has been distributed copies of these documents so as to make them available for careful reflection during your deliberations concerning the testimony and evidence to be provided at these proceedings.
Having made your rulings on the law, the International Panel of Jurists will then be asked to mark "yes" or "no" on a ballot to determine a remedy. This ballot will require a rul-

ing on the following questions:
1.  Are African people in the U.S. due reparations from the U.S. government?
2.  Should imprisoned black revolutionaries be granted political prisoner and prisoner of war status based on your understanding of international law?
3.  Does the U.S. treatment of Africans in the U.S. represent a serious enough breach of the United Nations Charter to justify eviction of the U.S. from the United Nations?
4.  Should there be created an international body to permanently monitor U.S. treatment of African people in the U.S.?
Affirmative answers in this area will serve to give inter-national sanction to the struggle of black people to pursue these aims, some of which are embedded in the tradition of our struggle for freedom and self-determination.
Finally, I would like to explain my role as People's Advocate in these proceedings. In the final analysis, I am simply a facilitator for this court, acting in the interests of the oppressed, domestically colonized African population. It is my responsibility to present the testimony, the witnesses and the evidence before this body so as to facilitate the discovery of truth in order that justice may be done. I make no pretense at impartiality, for I am partial. I am par-tial to truth and justice as exemplified in the intemationa law which guides these proceedings. Therefore, the fact that I am acting as an advocate of the interests of the oppressed, domestically colonized African population of the U.S. should not be seen as evidence of any predetermin-ation that justice cannot be done.
We reject any notion that one nationality cannot do justice by another nationality. We shall hold true to th notion that international law shall be the property of the peoples of the world, and that when adhered to in spirit, principle, and fact, shall represent a truth and justice which
38
are inclusive of the interests of all of humanity.
Having so determined, let us proceed with the hearing at this World Tribunal on Reparations for Black People in the U.S.
















40
People's Advocate, Omali Yeshitela
Indictment of U.S. Imperialism
Sisters and Brothers; Africans and Peoples of the World:
Today we are charged with the most serious responsibility of bringing charges against the United States government for crimes it has committed against the oppressed African people in the United States.
In the name of the oppressed and domestically colonized African population in-the United States, this World Tribunal on Reparations for Black People in the United States charges the United States government with crimes against our people which constitute a violation of international law, such law being defined for the purpose of this World Tribunal, as:
(1) General International Law;
By General International Law we mean that law which is defined in Article 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice as:
a)  international conventions, whether general or particular, establishing rules expressly recognized by the contesting states;
b)  international custom, as evidence of a general practice accepted as law;
c)  the general principles of law recognized by civilized nations;
d)  ...judicial decisions and the teachings of the most highly qualified publicists of the various nations, as a subsidiary means for the determination of rules of law.

(2) The Charter of the United Nations;
The World Tribunal is requested to pay particular atten-tion to the following areas of the Charter of the United Nations:
a)  The Preamble, which determines that the United Nations is committed to "reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and...to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.''
b)  Article 1, sections 2,3, and 4, which explain the Purpose and Principles of the United Nations as:
Section 2. To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace;
Section 3. To achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion; and
Section 4. To be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends.
c)  Article 6, which states:
A member of the United Nations which has persistently violated the principles contained in the present Charter may be expelled from the Organization by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council.
d)  Articles 55 and 56, respectively, which read as follows:
Article 55
With a view to the creation of conditions of stability and well-being which are necessary for peaceful and friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principles of equal rights and self-determination of
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peoples, the United Nations shall promote:
a)  higher standards of living, full employment and conditions of economic and social progress and development;
b)  solutions of international economic, social, health and related problems; and international cultural and educational co-operation; and
c)  universal respect for, and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion.
Article 56
All members pledge themselves to take joint and separate action in co-operation with the Organization for the achievement of the purposes set forth in Article 55.
(3) The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment off the Crime off Genocide. This Convention reads in part:
Article I
The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish.
Article II
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
a)  Killing members of the group;
b)  Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
c)  Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
d)  Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
e)  Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Article III The following acts shall be punishable:
a)  Genocide;
b)  Conspiracy to commit genocide;
c)  Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
d)  Attempt to commit genocide;
e)  Complicity in genocide.
(4) The International Bill of Human Rights which is comprised of four related documents entitled: Universal Declaration of Human Rights; International Covenant on] Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and Optional Protocol. J While the entire International Bill of Human Rights] represents a milestone in the development of international principles of law and morality, we are asking the World Tribunal to pay particular attention to these specific articles] of each specific document comprising the International Bill] of Human Rights: A. Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Article 14
1. Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution. We'll have some testimony from Africans from Haitil regarding this particular article.
Article 15
1.  Everyone has the right to a nationality.
2.   No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.
Article 19 Everyone has the right of freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and j regardless of frontiers.
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Article 23 1. Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.  2. Everyone, without any discrimination, has the riant to equal pay for equal work.
3. Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
Article 25
1.   Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
2.  Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
Article 26
1.   Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be made compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.
2.  Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious Groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.
3.  Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.

Article 27
1.  Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.
2.   Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scien-tific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.
Article 28 Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this 1 Declaration can be fully realized. B. International   Covenant   On   Economic,    Social   And Cultural Rights
PART1
Article 1
1.  All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.
2.  All peoples may, for their own ends, freely dispose of their natural wealth and resources without prejudice to any obligations arising out of international economic co-operation, based upon the principle of mutual benefit, and international law. In no case may a people be deprived of its own means of subsistence.
Article 10
The State Parties to the present Covenant recognize that:
1.  The widest possible protection and assistance should be accorded to the family, which is the natural and fundamental group unit of society, particularly for its establishment and while it is responsible for the care and education of dependent children...
2.  Special protection should be accorded to mothers during a reasonable period before and after childbirth. During such period working mothers should be accorded paid leave with adequate social security
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benefits.
Article 12
1.  The State Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental
health.
2.  The steps to be taken by the State Parties to the present Covenant to achieve the full realization of this right shall include those necessary for:
(a) The provision for the reduction of the stillbirth rate and of infant mortality and for the healthy development of the child;...
(d) The creation of conditions which would assure to all medical service and medical attention in the event of sickness. C. International Covenant On Civil And Political Rights
Article 1 A State Party to the Covenant that becomes a party to the present Protocol recognizes the competence of the Committee to receive and consider communications   from   individuals   subject   to   its jurisdiction who claim to be victims of a violation by that State Party of any of the rights set forth in the Covenant. No communication shall be received by the Committee if it concerns a State Party to the Covenant which is not a Party to the present Protocol. (This is exactly why we must at this World Tribunal establish the precedents of the ability of a people without possession of state power to bring before the International community those states, those forces, organizations who do possess state power and who are responsible for its oppression.)
Article 2
Subject to the provisions of Article 1, individuals who claim that any of their rights enumerated in the Covenant have been violated and who have exhausted all available domestic remedies may submit a written communication to the Committee for consideration.

D. International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination Article 4 State Parties condemn all propaganda and all organizations which are based on ideas or theories of superiority of one race or group of persons of one colour or ethnic origin, or which attempt to justify or promote racial hatred and discrimination in any form, and undertake to adopt immediate and positive measures designed to eradicate all incitement to, or acts of, such discrimination and, to this end, with due regard to the principles embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the rights expressly set forth in Article 5 of the Convention, inter alia:
(a)  Shall declare an offense punishable by law all dissemination of ideas based on racial superiority or; hatred, incitement to racial discrimination, as well as all acts of violence or incitement to such acts against any race or group of persons of another colour on ethnic origin, and also the provision of any assistance to racial activities, including the financing thereof;
(b)  Shall declare illegal and prohibit organizations, and also organized and all other propaganda activities, which promote and incite racial discrimination, and shall recognize participation in such organizations or activities as an offense punishable by law;                   
(c)  Shall not permit public authorities or public institu-tions, national or local, to promote or incite racial discrimination.
Article 5 In compliance with the fundamental obligations laid down in Article 2 of this Convention, State   Parties undertake   to   prohibit   and   to   eliminate   racial discrimination in all its forms and to guarantee the right of everyone, without distinction as to race, colour, or national or ethnic origin, to equality before the law, notably in the enjoyment of the following rights: (a) The right to equal treatment before the tribunals and all other organs administering justice;
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lb) The right to security of person and protection by the State against violence or bodily harm, whether inflicted by government officials or by any individual group or institution;
(c)  Political rights, in particular the right to participate in elections—to vote and to stand for election—on the basis of universal and equal suffrage, to take part in the Government as well as in the conduct of public affairs at any level and to have equal access to public service;
(d)  Other civil rights in particular:
(i) The right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of the State;
(jj) The right to leave any country, including one's own, and to return to one's country;
(iii) The right to nationality;
(iv) The right to marriage and choice of spouse;
(v) The right to own property alone as well as in association with others;
(vi) The right to inherit;
(vii) The right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion;
(viii)The right to freedom of opinion and expression;
(ix) The right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association;
(e)  Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, in particular: (i)   The rights to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work, to protection against unemployment, to equal pay for equal work, to just and favourable remuneration;
(ii)   The right to form and join trade unions;
(iii) The right to housing;
(iv) The right to public health, medical care,
social security and social services; (v) The right to education and training; (vi) The right to equal participation in cultural
activities;


(f) The right to access to any place or service intended for use by the general public, such as transport, hotels, restaurants, cafes, theatres and parks.
Article 6
States Parties shall assure to everyone within their jurisdiction effective protection and remedies, through the competent national tribunals and other State institutions, against any acts of racial discrimi- nation which violate his human rights and fundamental freedoms contrary to this Convention, as well as the right to seek from such tribunals just and adequate reparations or satisfaction for any damage suffered as a result of such discrimination.
Article 7
States Parties undertake to adopt immediate and effective measures, particularly in the fields of teaching, education, culture and information, with a view to combating prejudices which lend to racial discrimination and to promoting understanding, tolerance and friendship among nations and racial or ethnic groups, as well as to propagating the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United Na-tions Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, and this Convention.
Brothers and Sisters; Africans, and Peoples of the World:
I have only read excerpts from the various principles and documents which will provide the basis in international law for the legality of this World Tribunal. The fact that excerpts were read which highlight various aspects of these principles and documents should not be interpreted as meaning the full body of these principles and documents should not be considered. Rather, I have been merely exerj cising my responsibility as People's Advocate to provide a minimum of leadership for this World Tribunal. The Honorable Panel of International Jurists have been provided with the full text of the principles and documents from
50
which the previously read excerpts were extracted. However, it is also the responsibility of this World Tribunal to facilitate the understanding of those attending these proceedings. Therefore, this People's Advocate was obligated to put forth this elaboration of principles and documents so as to make it possible for this entire assembly to make a judgement as to the legality of this World Tribunal on Reparations for Black People in the United States.
Sisters and Brothers; Africans, and Peoples of the World:
The black population of the United States of North America constitutes an oppressed domestic colony, subjected to the most brutal conditions of existence. Wherever there are African people in this country there is political and social oppression and the most severe forms of economic exploitation. Wherever there are African people within this country there is forced sterilization of our women. Wherever we are there are disproportionately high death rates for our babies. Wherever there are African people in this country there is criminal imprisonment of our men, there is police terror, dilapidated housing and unsanitary living conditions and rates of unemployment which are genocidal.
Sisters and Brothers; Africans, and Peoples of the World:
According to reports from the National Urban League, more than fifty per cent of all the Africans in the U.S. South live below the government's officially established poverty line. The average physician ratio in this country is one to 700. For black people within the so-called inner city areas, the ratio is one to every 3,000. Of some 350,000 medical doctors in this country, only 1.7 per cent, or 6,048 are Africans; of 150,000 dentists only 3,000 are black; of 800,000 registered nurses, only 60,000 are African.
In its report on The State of Black America 1981, the National Urban League revealed that 47 out of every 100 black babies are born into poverty, compared to fewer than


one in eight white babies. The report continues by stating that:
From birth through young adulthood, blacks still face staggering obstacles as they struggle to achieve decency, dignity and success in America.-
Twice  as   many   black  as  white  women   lack prenatal care at almost every stage of pregnancy. This imbalance persists despite high correlations between lack of prenatal care and infant mortality and illness.
Black mothers die in childbirth three times as often as white mothers. Of those who survive, one in 40 must then watch her baby die in the first year of life.
Growing up, black children are more likely to be sick because they are more likely to be poor: one out of seven black children under the age of 15 lacks a regular source of health care. Partly as a result, black children aged one to four die of heart disease 100 per cent more often than white children and die from acci-dents 50 per cent more often than white children. New tuberculosis cases occur five times as often among black as among white children.
Less than half of all black children live with both parents; the majority live within single-parent families or with other relatives. Black children are more likely than white children to live without or away from any family and are disproportionately represented in institutions that typically serve the young (e.g., children's homes, psychiatric facilities), where twice as many non-whites as whites have no families at all.
The black child's mother goes to work when her child is younger, works longer hours and earns less than a white child's mother...
Once a black child enters public school, he or she is twice as likely as a white child to be held back a grade, three times as likely to be placed in classes for the educable mentally retarded, and twice as likely to be suspended from school. It should be no surprise
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therefore, that in any year, for every two black students who graduate from high school, one drops out-Sisters and Brothers; Africans, and Peoples of the
VVorld:
I have put forth this long quote in order to provide a glimpse of what life is like for African people here within the United States of North America. These are irrefutable facts, and represent only a glimpse of the reality of poverty and oppression we are confronted with. They do not deal with the rate of police murder or the growing white mob violence we are confronted with. The task we have before us, that of revealing 400 years of bloody terror and oppression, mandated and/or allowed by the U.S. government, is Herculean enough as it is. Therefore, I will not be able to expose every detail of this 400 years. However, much of this information will be put before this World Tribunal by others who will testify from New York City and from throughout the U.S.
There is one thing we must reveal, however, and that is notwithstanding the obviously reactionary character of the present U.S. administration, and the tendency of each generation of our people to be born into social circumstances which give the impression of being particular to it, the oppression of African people as revealed in the previously stated data is not new. It did not begin recently. Rather it is historic, and anyone who wishes to understand the nature of our oppression and the motive force of our struggle, needs to understand that our oppression is historical; the struggle is one we have been making since we have been in this country. Indeed, our struggle began before we arrived in this country; it began on the very first day that a European businessman put his foot on the Continent of Africa and forced an African to do something against her/his will.
We have heard the testimony from a noted black historian which served to dispel the notion, quite prevalent within the United States and Europe, that the enslavement °f African people served to rescue us from a state of savagery. You have heard the testimony revealing that
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African civilization was a great civilization which made fun-damental contributions to the development of human civilization. This testimony clearly revealed that as a people we were better off while free in Africa than we have been since the loss of our freedom due to the European invasion of Africa and our subsequent enslavement in the United States. This testimony should prove, without a shadow of 1 doubt, that there is a direct relationship between our loss of self-determination, our loss of a capacity for self-serving production, and our current condition of existence which is characterized by foreign and alien domination, by poverty and State-sanctioned terror by white mobs and para-military organizations which hold highly publicized armed training sessions throughout the U.S.
Sisters and Brothers; Africans, and Peoples of the World:
The truth of the matter is that the oppression of African people in the United States is part and parcel of that oppres-sion which began more than 500 years ago for all African people in this world. It is a part of that oppression in history which robbed the African Continent of the power of self-rule and self-serving production. The history of the oppression of African people in the U.S. is part and parcel of the history of the oppression of African people worldwide, that part of history which saw millions of our people enslaved—drag-ged from Africa like cattle and deposited on the shores of foreign lands throughout the world. The history of the op-pression of African people in the U.S. cannot be understood without understanding its historical connection to the history of oppression of our people throughout the world, for it was this history which gave birth to the present oppressive world economic and political system which defines the context of our oppression and our struggle.
If we are to charge the United States government with crimes against our people which have become traditional over nearly 400 years, we must begin with the origin of the problem, and there is no way we can possibly do this
54
without showing the connection between the attack on Africa, the initiation of the slave trade, and their fundamental decisive role in the development of the capitalist system and the loss of freedom for black people throughout
the world.
The looting and pillage of Africa by Europe gave birth to the world capitalist system, and the trade in African flesh qave birth to the world economy which even now defines the conditions of existence for most peoples of the world. Karl Marx, historian, economist and philosopher of the 19th century, made these telling remarks concerning the development of European and U.S. capitalism:
The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of the aboriginal populations, the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black skins, signalised the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production. These idyllic proceedings are the chief momentum of primitive accumulation, the necessary conditions for capitalist production. Marx also noted:
Direct slavery is just as much the pivot of bourgeois industry as machinery, credits, etc. Without slavery you have no cotton; without cotton you have no modern industry. It is slavery that has given the colonies their value; it is the colonies that have created world trade, and it is world trade that is the precondition of large-scale industry. Thus slavery is an economic category of the greatest importance.
Without slavery North America, the most progressive of countries, would be transformed into a patriarchal country. Wipe out North America from the map of the world, and you will have anarchy—the complete decay of modern commerce and civilization. Cause slavery to disappear and you will have wiped America
off the map of nations.
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Finally, we have Marx making this statement:
While the cotton industry introduced child-slavery  . in England, it gave in the United States a stimulus to the transformation of the earlier, more or less patriar-chal slavery, into a system of commercial exploitation. In fact, the veiled slavery of the wage-earners in Europe needed, for its pedestal, slavery pure and simple in the New World.
Sisters and Brothers; Africans and Peoples of the World:
These proceedings on today and tomorrow constitute the World Tribunal on Reparations for Black People in the United States. Such being the case, it is absolutely essen-tial that we reveal the basis of our claim for reparations. Consequently, I must say a bit more about the origin of our claim, such origin being tied to the European invasion of Africa and the world trade in African bodies. It was this inva-sion and trade which got us here in the U.S. and began the struggle we are involved in now—in Miami, Florida; Brooklyn, New York; Norfolk, Virginia; Oakland, California; Birmingham, Alabama, and throughout the U.S. It was this invasion and trade which are the source of U.S. and Euro-pean wealth and the poverty and oppression of African peo-ple throughout the world.
The remarks I make concerning this matter will be rather brief and perfunctory. However, a more detailed historical and economic analysis has been made available to the Honorable International Panel of Judges as well as the Official Observers. This document will also be useful to the Judges and Observers during the entire historical and economic presentation which will occur on tomorrow, and that economic presentation will be broken down into three periods:
1.  The period of chattel slavery from 1619-1865;
2.  The period of the rise of U.S. colonialism from 1865-1945;
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3  The period of the adaptation of neo-colonial forms
to the domestic African colony, from 1945-1982.
In the meantime, I would like to submit this lengthy
quote from one of Africa's greatest historians, Dr. W. E. B.
DuBois. It should deepen our understanding of the role the
slave trade played in the development of the present world
economy which enriches a few and exploits and oppresses
the vast majority:
The rebirth of civilization in Europe began in the fifteenth century. At this time African and Asiatic civilizations far outstripped that of Europe. In the black Sudan nations, civilization had risen and fallen even earlier. Melle, which flourished in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, fell before the empire of Song-hay, which in the fifteenth century became a vast, organized government two-thirds the size of the United States, with trade and commerce and cultural connections, through its University of Sankore, with Spain and Italy, and the Eastern Roman Empire...
It was here that the rape of Africa began and transformed the world. There can be little doubt but that in the fourteenth century the level of culture in black Africa south of the Sudan was equal to that of Europe and so recognized...What changed all this? What killed the Sudanese empires, brought anarchy into the valley of the Nile, decimated the thick populations of East and Central Africa, and pressed the culture of West Africa beneath the ruthless heel of the rising European culture...?
In 1660 the upheaval of civil war in England was at an end, and England was ready to embark on the slave trade for the benefit of her sugar and tobacco colonies. The British increased the import of slaves to America, raised sugar, indigo, and cotton, and began to bring these goods to England for processing. Then they exported some of these goods to Africa to buy more slaves. Trade began to change from a gambler's search
57
for treasure to investment for permanent income; and this income consisted of goods for sale which were in practice found more valuable than treasure for hoarding. To perfect this arrangement slaves and more slaves must be had...
While the British were fighting ostensibly for dynastic disputes in Europe, they were really, in the War of Spanish Succession and the Seven Year's War, fighting for profit through world trade and especially the slave trade. In 1713 they gained, by the coveted Treaty of Asiento, the right to monopolize the slave trade from Africa to the Spanish colonies. In that century they beat Holland to her knees and started her economic decline. They overthrew the Portuguese in India, and finally, by the middle of the century, overcame their last rival in India, the French. In the eighteenth century they raised the slave trade to the greatest single body of trade on earth.
The Royal African Company transported an average of five thousand slaves a year between 1680 and 1686; but the newly rich middle-class merchants were clamoring for free trade in human flesh. Eventually the Royal African Company was powerless against the competition of free merchant traders, and a new organization was established in 1750 called the "Company of Merchants Trading to Africa."
In the first nine years of this "free trade," Bristol alone shipped 160,950 Negroes to the sugar plantations. In 1760, 146 ships sailed from British ports to Africa with a capacity of 36,000 slaves. In 1771 there were 190 ships and 47,000 slaves. The British colonies between 1680 and 1786 imported over two million slaves. By the middle of the eighteenth century Bristol owned 237 slave vessels, London 147, and Liverpool 89.
...The slave trade brought Liverpool in the late eighteenth century a clear profit of 300,000 pounds a year...The proportion of slave ships to the total ship-
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ping of England was one in one hundred in 1709 and one-third in 1771.
By 1750 there was hardly a manufacturing town in England which was not connected with the colonial trade. The profits provided one of the main streams of that capital which financed the Industrial Revolution...The British Empire was regarded as a magnificent super-structure of American commerce and Naval power on an African foundation.
William Wood said that the slave trade was the "Spring and parent whence the others flow." Postlethwayt described the slave trade as "the first principle and foundation of all the rest, the mainspring of the machine which set every wheel in motion..."
Sir Dalby Thomas declared that every person employed on the sugar plantation was a hundred and thirty times more valuable to England than one at home. Professor Pitman has estimated that in 1775 British West Indies plantations brought in four million pounds as compared with one million from the rest of the world. Sisters and Brothers; Africans, and Peoples of the World:
Most historians of the United States and the world will concede that the enslavement of African people was of major significance to the development of capitalism in Europe and the U.S. However, most historians in Western Europe and the United States would argue that what happened in Africa and with the slave trade is past history, that it has no significance for the economic situation of today. They would argue that the many years since then have somehow diminished or liquidated the significance of the economic impact of the invasion of Africa and the slave trade on today's world. We will prove just the opposite. We will prove that the unifying thread which runs through the annals of history subsequent to the attack on Africa and the enslavement of our people is the continuing oppression of
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African people throughout this world.
This World Tribunal on Reparations for Black People in the United States will prove not only that the current state of our existence stems from the slave trade which gave birth to capitalism in Europe and the United States, but we will also prove that the rate of economic exploitation from our labor and our presence in this country is greater in 1982 than it was in 1619, and for this exploitation we demand reparal tions now.
But first, let me briefly sum up what has already been-put before this World Tribunal and then we'll move with the testimony that's going to contribute to our ability to make a determination, a judgement, based on the law that has been quoted before.
The struggle of African people within the U.S. is as old as the United States of North America itself. Indeed, it is older than the United States of North America, as it is a struggle which really began with the attack on Africa by Europeans who initiated the sale of black bodies into slavery throughout the world, the slavery which played a critical role in the economic and political development of the United States of America.
The history of our relationship with the U.S. is documented in blood, gore and humiliation. The number of us who perished in the passage from Africa to the Americas during the slave trade are in the millions. Various historians estimate that from 50 to 200 million African people were kidnapped from Africa and forcibly dispersed throughout the
world.
The history of African people in the U.S. is a history
which has seen us forcibly removed from Africa, our Mother Country, and subjected to a brutal existence in the U.S. as slaves and colonial subjects in a land stolen from its indigenous population which has barely survived attacks upon it which continue up to this very day.
The history of African people within current U.S. borders is also a history of struggle and resistance against
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brutal conditions of existence imposed upon us by an alien and foreign power whose only interest in our people has been our capacity to provide wealth and profits for our oppressors.
In the first place this struggle and resistance was directed at the invaders and kidnappers on the African Continent itself, where heroic battles were fought to prevent the theft of Africa's most precious resources, her sons and daughters as well as the land and its abundant wealth.
Secondly, the struggle and resistance of African people has been directed at the attempt to smash and fragmentize our national identity—both in Africa and the U.S., as well as in other lands to which we were forcibly dispersed, enslaved and colonized.
Thirdly, the struggle and resistance of African people within the United States and throughout the world has been directed at overturning our oppression and exploitation. This oppression and exploitation has its origins in the initial attacks on Africa which led to our conditions of existence within the U.S. and to the colonialism, neo-colonialism, underdevelopment and imperialist hegemony in Africa.









				
				
				
				
				
				
				
				



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Testimony of Mafundi Lake
Oppression of Blacks in Prison-
Atmore/Holman,
Alabama
To the People's Advocate, distinguished panel of judges, I'd like to say this: this is the first time I've been before a panel of judges where I wasn't on trial myself. To those who are supportive and involved in the struggle for total black liberation, I bring greetings from the deep South, in particular the freedom fighters in that part of America.
We all know how bad prisons are, so I won't waste too much time talking about how bad prisons are and particular incidents, but there are some things I would like to discuss. I would like to share with you some of my personal experiences, in and outside of prison. I would like to share with you some of my impressions of the functions of prisons and their methodology and how prison functions as a form of genocide; and prisons are indeed a form of genocide. I would like to take the time and elaborate on how prisons function to destabilize the black family and its community.
Before I tell you my personal experience, I'd like to say this, something that Frederick Douglass said a long time ago. He illustrated the fact that there was a person in the slave community who was known as the professional nigger breaker. That meant that any slave that rebelled, or was unru-ly. couldn't be controlled, had the wrong attitude or whatever, that there was a person in the slave community that the slave owners would farm this particular rebellious

slave to. He would farm him out for a period of 6,12 months, whatever particular time it took to break the slave, to bring him around to accepting his slavery and degradation pas-sively. I would like to say that the prison institution today serves as a professional nigger breaker, and that any black man or woman that refuses to conform, that dares to expect humane treatment out of this society, find themselves a vic-tim of these prison institutions.
One of the things that it does, as I said before, is destab-ilize the black family. It destroys the black man. And I want some of you to listen very carefully to what I'm about to say. Maybe I shouldn't say it, but I've always been a student of the truth; if I can't tell it like it is, I won't tell it at all. What hap-pens to black men in prison, the emasculation. I can only speak of Alabama prisons, but from everything I've learned, through reading and discussion of other prisons, I think to a large degree what I'm about to say is true in most prison institutions. Ninety percent of the men in Alabama prison are engaged in some form of homosexual activity. Ninety percent of the men in Alabama prisons—now I think that is a significant number, are homosexuals, engaged in homosexual activities around the country. Now to me, that's a very serious matter. That's genocide. I said genocide is very serious because 70 to 80 percent of these people are forced into homosexual activities. Not because of their inclination, but they are forced into homosexuality as a method of breaking and destroying them as potential freedom fighters.
One of the ways this happens is when a young prisonei goes into a prison institution, particularly a black one, he is; confronted by other older hardened prisoners. Most of the time these are the reactionary prisoners who are given the young prisoners; and when I say given, I mean that the prison authorities (again I emphasize that I think that this is the pattern throughout the country, not just Alabama), so when the young prisoner goes in, a lot of times the prison officials will give the young prisoners, or put him into a kind of compromising circumstance where he can be exploited
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sexually by older prisoners. This happens especially if one is a political prisoner, or a prisoner that refuses to compromise his integrity. They are prisoners who serve, and
they are just as bad as the prison custodians, but they are prisoners who by definition are there in prison to act as a buffer and serve as an instrument of oppression of particularly young prisoners. That is something that must be stopped. Young prisoners, young guys that go to prison, and if they stand up, and if they try to organize, and try to rebel against the inhumane conditions that are found in any of the prisons that are in America, and perhaps in the world, then they are taken advantage of. They are isolated in cells with older and more hardened prisoners.
In Atmore, where I was, we have two prisons, Atmore and Holman prison which are about a mile apart. Knives are as common there as six shooters were in the old western days. When a young prisoner comes into prison, he is approached by other prisoners, and the other prisoners are influenced by the prison custodians. They are used by the prison custodians to break and emasculate other younger prisoners. Now if a younger prisoner goes to the prison custodian and tells him that he has a problem with some older prisoner because of his homosexual advances towards him, he can find no help from the prison custodian. So he's forced with a choice, a young kid, 18, 19 or 20 years old that has never made a real decision in his life—his family made his decisions for him, the preacher, the teacher, whoever made decisions for him all of his life—then all at once he is thrown into a situation where he has to make a decision of life and death. He can either submit to homosexual advances or he can fight for his manhood, with the possibility of him being killed, or the possibility of him killing someone where he will receive additional time. Now I said these young prisoners are given to these older prisoners for a purpose, as a reward in addition to stripping the young prisoner of his manhood, which effectively eliminates him as a potential threat to the administration and the conditions that he finds there, and

as a reward for the older prisoners. Most of them are inform ers; most of the older prisoners that take advantage of the young guys are informers who work hand in hand with the prison administration, just like the dope pushers in our com-munity today. Ninety-nine and one-half percent of the dope pushers in our communities are snitches and informers, and they are allowed to push their dope in our community because they set up the freedom forces in the community they keep tabs on the freedom forces, they give false testimony against the freedom forces in the community, so this is why they are allowed to push their drugs with impunity in our communities. So the same thing applies in prison. Well,   I'm   just   giving   you   an   indication   of   the methodology that destroys black men in the prison institutions. In attendance with that is the fact that each time a black man goes to prison, that also destabilizes the family and  it does  something  psychologically to  his wife or children. Wife, family, friends and supporters have to suffer some very dehumanizing experiences when they visit the prison. For instance in Atmore, there was a time when women were strip searched in order to visit the prisoners, and they had to stand over a mirror with their clothes off. It was a very dehumanizing experience. The only alternative to that was to not visit the prisoner, which would have been very cruel. So, out of a sense of love and devotion to their family member or friend, they had to submit to this dehumanizing procedure.
I don't want to just go over a whole list of things; I want to touch on what I think are some of the most important things for people to understand about the oppression within prisons and how it comes about, how it is maintained, and get a better understanding of the function of prison, what is its function in society.
One of the most humiliating things for me, as a black | man and father, the last time I was in prison was that my wife used to come to tell me about my daughter. I have a five year old daughter, she was four at this particular time, and
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my wjfe used to tell me how she cried all night, she couldn't sleep. My daughter had never slept in a baby bed, she always slept with me and my wife. That was the first time I had ever been away from her and she couldn't handle it, she used to cry all night and ask for me in her sleep. When my wife used to come and tell me that, that was a very sad experience for me. Not so much for me, for my daughter, because I feel it will leave a psychological scar on her for the rest of her life. That is one of the things that it does, not only to mv family, my daughter, but to every person who is in these prison institutions.
I'd like to also say how the prison authorities use such programs as religion, and once again, some of you might not like what I'm about to say, but I've got to say it anyway. One of the most offensive things to me is how the Muslims (again I say Alabama, because that's where my experiences are, in Alabama, but I think it might be true throughout the country), because I know the particular time that I was in prison, one of the things that bothered me the most was that Elijah Mohammed asked that all Muslims be model prisoners and don't participate in any kind of disruptions, any so-called rebellious behavior. What the administration does is use that. He uses the religious programs, the Christian, in the same way, but mostly the Muslims in my particular case, in Alabama. What they would do is allow them to have special diets; they would allow them to receive their papers; they would allow them special privileges on condition that they act as a buffer and keep control of the population. Now in my particular area, that causes a lot of conflict between the prisoners because a lot of the prisoners there had an advanced revolutionary consciousness, and they were dedicated to the struggle to eliminate the type of degradation and oppression there in Alabama prison.
Also, using the same method they have a lot of black study programs, a lot of educational programs, and a lot of vocational programs. All of these programs are used as a sort of reward to the prisoners that conform and help con-

trol the prison population. In fact, I came here to New York, and I won't call the prison, I won't call the people that were involved, but I was up here in 75, I believe, 75 or 74, and | visited a particular prison. When I entered the visiting room, a Puerto Rican brother asked me who I was visiting. I told him who I was visiting and he said, "Well, you talk to the brothers." I said, "Talk to them about what?" He told me about the black cultural program, how it was that they were so engrossed in this program that they were acting as a buffer and wouldn't allow the other prisoners to struggle. Which I understood because I came from that same environment out in Alabama.
So what I'm saying, I don't have first-hand information about what happens in other prisons, but I think the methodology is the same, I think the objective is the same. If you study behavior modification, the fundamental principle is reward and punishment—they reward you for the desired behavior and punish you for undesired behavior. So they use all of these programs. If you go into any prison in-stitution, most of the people who have tried to uphold their dignity and struggle against the oppression in the prison do not benefit from any of these e