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International Tribunal on Human Rights Abuses Against Black, Brown and Indigenous Peoples -- New York City, October 22-25 Opening CelebrationThe important International Tribunal on U.S. Human Rights Violations was held in New York City from October 22 to 25. The initiative brought together the most experienced forces involved in the fight for justice within the United States. Its spirit was positive and forward-looking. Informative and moving testimony permitted warranted conclusions to be drawn, which will now be taken to the United Nations charging the U.S. with genocide.
There were poems and music, all with a theme of resistance and liberation of Black, Brown, Indigenous and all oppressed people. An Indigenous drummer played and spoke of the brutal incarceration of Leonard Peltier, still in jail after more than 44 years at the age of 77. Like other political prisoners, Peltier refuses to renounce his stand in defence of the rights of Indigenous peoples and all those fighting for justice. A trailer for a two-hour documentary, Radical Conversations, was introduced by the director Edwin Stokes. It will be released at the African Diaspora International Film Festival online from November 26 to December 12. It includes conversations with former political prisoners, a number of them present in the room. There was a video message from Pete and Charlotte O'Neal, former Black Panthers who have been in exile in Tanzania since the '70s, with a song and a tribute to all political prisoners. There was a powerful series of readings from works by U.S. political prisoners, titled Through the Walls. Several speakers, including two of the emcees, Dequi Kioni-Sadiki and Matt Meyer, emphasized the fight to free all political prisoners and to put an end to police brutality, state oppression and genocide against Black, Brown and Indigenous peoples. They also spoke of the international crimes against Cuba and Venezuela in particular. Oscar López Rivera spoke about the history of U.S. colonization and repression in Puerto Rico and of his experience in U.S. maximum security prisons with Puerto Rican and Black prisoners. He made clear that despite solitary confinement and efforts to take everything from him, as also occurred with other political prisoners, he persisted by ensuring the state could never take his mind and spirit. He spoke to his work in Puerto Rico and the U.S. alongside U.S. fighters for justice for a free, independent and sovereign Puerto Rico. Pam Africa, advocate for Mumia Abu-Jamal and other political prisoners, spoke about the effect people outside the prisons have on changing conditions and letting the public know about the conditions and attacks on prisoners. She gave the example of securing treatment for hepatitis C, which was won through national and international demands on the U.S. prison system. She brought out that political prisoners often work to assist and educate other prisoners, something they are punished for, using solitary confinement. She and Dequi Kioni-Sadiki vigorously denounced the U.S. state, state governments like New York, and the prison system at all levels for protecting police killers and torturers while criminalizing and imprisoning freedom fighters. There was an audio message from Mumia Abu-Jamal, still in prison, who applauded the holding of the Tribunal. He spoke of the iron grip of slavocracy, which sees to it that the many efforts at legislative progress, against lynchings and police impunity, die in Congress. The government's white supremacy today wears the face of neo-liberalism, which wages war on the poor and Black communities, he said. Neo-liberalism has brought new life to the industry of oppression, where the Clinton period saw the greatest increase in the building of jails for youth. He called for increased resistance inside and outside of the prisons. All of them spoke of the Tribunal as an opportunity to expose state repression, call for freedom of Black, Brown and Indigenous peoples, an end to mass incarceration and the abolition of the prison system. The main speaker was Jihad Abdulmumit of the National Jericho Movement (to free all political prisoners) and the Spirit of Mandela Coalition, and a political prisoner himself for 23 years. He said that the Tribunal is going to do what Paul Robeson and William L. Patterson did in taking a petition opposing U.S. genocide to the UN. His main theme was "We are our own liberators." Colonialism is real and oppression is normalized until every once in a while, like with the killing of George Floyd "it pricks our dead consciousness" and we are in the streets, he said. With other genocides, such as the Holocaust, there was a beginning and an end, Jihad pointed out, but the genocide in the U.S. has been going on for 400 years, today in the form of political repression, mass incarcerations, lack of health care and social services. He said that the imperialists "have taught us how to hate each other" and, in spite of changes in various laws, the system is still the same. We hold meetings and rallies -- which we should -- but we also have to do things differently, starting from the point that we are our own liberators. We are not fighting for the slave masters to treat us better but to do what Malcolm said, to clean our own house. Jihad said that this Tribunal, two years in the making, is an opportunity to do that because there is organization, a disciplined process. In the spirit of "Dare to Struggle, Dare to Win," he said, "I dare you," to participate in establishing the People's Senate and join work to build new institutions by building the movement with family and neighbours and communities. He called for rejecting the institutions of the slave masters and their constitution because what we need is our own new constitution. The emcees, performers and speakers all set a militant tone for the weekend program and in various ways affirmed that there is no doubt of the genocide being committed by the U.S., revealed in the testimony over the following days. They emphasized the need to keep fighting together.
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The opening
celebration introduced members of the coordinating
committee of the
program and representatives of the Malcolm X and
Dr. Betty Shabazz
Memorial and Educational Center, the main venue
for the proceedings.
Organizers spoke to the role of the Tribunal as an
organizing tool to
unite forces and develop new institutions of the
people, like the
People's Senate that is planned as part of
continuing the Tribunal's
work. Holding the event at the Center was part of
honouring the life
and work of Malcolm X who, like Paul Robeson,
William L. Patterson and
W.E.B. Du Bois, also brought the charge of U.S.
genocide. As the
Tribunal's banner emphasized, "We Still Charge
Genocide."