BAP: The Biden Administration fails to win imprisonment of the Uhuru 3 + UNC and Stop Cop City legal cases

A local NPR headline the morning of December 20th says that the prosecution of the remaining 2024 UNC pro-Palestine protesters has been dropped (as often has often happened when protesters at UNC have been charged with crimes over the past 20 years??).  The report mentioned that many people had already taken plea deals, and had been sentenced to community service, etc.  They said nothing about whether the people no longer being charged have been expelled, fired, lost scholarships, etc.  How did the prosecution derail their lives, even if it has now been dropped?  I wasn't listening closely, but there was something from an authority about universities being held to high Constitutional standards -- then why did UNC Chancellor Lee Roberts ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Harriss_Roberts ), etc. have them charged to begin with?  I don't know the details of how these prosecutions came about, but months ago it sounded like UNC was working with Orange County to have people prosecuted, while pretending that UNC would merely defer to Orange County's judgement about whether any crimes had been committed by the protesters.  I have a lot of anger at the UNC administration over its local collaboration with Biden-Harris and Netanyahu, and any government body that is working with UNC on this, or collaborating with the warmongers independently (the Town of Chapel Hill?  the Chapel Hill Public Library?  Orange County authorities in Hillsborough?).  I'm looking into what I can do beyond the petitions, GoFundMe appeals ($50,530 were raised at:  www.gofundme.com/f/support-for-unc-palestine-encampment-arrestees ; $5,950 has been raised at:  www.gofundme.com/f/support-for-disabled-student-activist-being-targeted-by-unc ; still open), etc. and I will get to it, even if it might be 'late' for 2024.  The 2023-2024 protests weren't well advertised for people who aren't on Campus regularly or on Instagram, and I don't know of any related continuous protests going on in Chapel Hill today.  I haven't done enough, but I'm also not in the UNC area very often these days.  I heard something about pro-Palestinian sentiment in the NCDP, but I don't get the impression that the State Democrats are much better than those in Washington, though maybe they would make somewhat better appointments to UNC's Board of Trustees.  I might have missed statements, but I don't recall any defense of the protesters or support for the rights of the Palestinians from Governor Roy Cooper, governor-elect Josh Stein, Congresswoman Valerie Foushee, other local Democrats, etc.

The statement below notes that 60 anti-Cop City protesters are still facing RICO prosecution in similiarly Democratic Party-dominated Atlanta, which I need to look into.  See:  stopcop.city (no longer being updated?), en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Cop_City , etc.

This was sent out December 17th in the morning and is posted at:  blackallianceforpeace.com/bapstatements/2024/12/16/the-biden-administration-fails-to-win-imprisonment-of-the-uhuru-3 --

The Biden Administration Fails to Win
Imprisonment of the Uhuru 3

The Black Alliance for Peace welcomes the sentence of three years probation and community service which were imposed in the culmination of the baseless charges and trial of the Uhuru 3, Omaili Yeshitela, Penny Hess, and Jesse Nevel, which were initiated by the Biden Administration Justice Department.  

“The attack on the African Peoples Socialist Party and Uhuru movement was intended as an attack against the Black liberation movement in a pathetic move to intimidate into silence and non-resistance the most consistent anti-imperialist force in the United States of America - the revolutionary African working class, stated Ajamu Baraka, Chair of the Coordinating Committee of the Black Alliance for Peace. “What the state did not understand was that no matter what the outcome would have been in the sentencing of the Uhuru 3, the resistance efforts on the part of our movement were going to intensify in 2025. Our movement cannot be intimidated by state actions.”

The government’s weak case was punctuated by its own witness admitting under oath that no evidence was found that proved the three were agents of the Russian government, but the overwhelming volume of that meaningless “evidence” also confused the jury into finding the three guilty of conspiring to do something that they also found they did not ultimately do. This is not logical, but logic is never the goal of the government when it comes to silencing dissent, and that certainly was the goal of the Biden Administration in this case.

It is interesting to note that it was a Trump-appointed judge who exposed the glaring contradiction of that trial in his sentencing, declaring that despite how one might respond to the rhetoric or ideas of the defendants, their actions were protected political speech that caused no harm, which he said must be allowed “or it gets chilled.” While any “punishment” handed down from imperialist courts for actions that are supposed to be legally protected are in themselves illegitimate in our eyes, the refusal of the judge to incarcerate the Uhuru 3 is a victory in the fight against a repressive regime regardless of which wing of the finance capital bird leads it. The irony of a Trump appointee defending free speech in a trial meant to imprison Africans for exercising it should be lost on no one.

The U.S. left also played a role in this two-year ordeal by acquiescing to the threat of Democrat-led government repression with little resistance and deafening silence. Whether due to fear of being next, because of their belief in the Democrat-created lie of Russiagate or because of their own internal Russophobia, or worse anti-communism (even though Russia is not a communist country any longer), the lack of support given to the Uhuru 3 reminds U.S.-based African anti-imperialists that we are largely on our own. Therefore, our greatest strength is found in international solidarity with like-minded and focused peoples around the world.

BAP reiterates its unwavering support for the Uhuru 3, and congratulates them on this outcome. We also recognize that this is but one small victory in a larger, ongoing battle against imperialist repression that we must continue to fight as the 60 Stop Cop City protesters facing RICO charges in Atlanta are next on the firing line of the same repressive Democrat-led government. We should not merely hope for a sympathetic judge, Trump-appointed or otherwise, to stand between the people exercising our rights and the state trying to deny them and criminalize us.

BAP declares that we are at war, so we must fight against this system and whomever is the face of it, and in doing so we will never fight alone. We fight with the entire anti-imperialist world already engaged in that struggle against this government that represses us all.

No Compromise, No Retreat

[###]

Statements on the Uhuru 3 verdict and foreign intervention in Haiti

The FBI raids against the Uhuru Movement and the APSP were July 29, 2022, a Federal indictment was revealed April 18, 2023, the relatively short trial was in Florida in early September, and sentencing will be November 25th :  handsoffuhuru.org/news-and-analysis/ , en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uhuru_Movement , and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_People%27s_Socialist_Party  Also note the annual Black People’s March on the White House on November 2nd.  APSP chairman Omali Yeshitela was born October 9, 1941 in Saint Petersburg, Florida:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omali_Yeshitela

This was originally posted at handsoffuhuru.org/the-uhuru-3-verdict-is-in-we-work-for-black-people-not-russia-the-u-s-government-lied-and-lost-the-uhuru-movement-told-the-truth-and-won/ on September 14th.

Official statement by Chairman Omali Yeshitela on behalf of the Uhuru 3, including Penny Hess and Jesse Nevel

On September 12, 2024 a jury in the federal courthouse in Tampa, Florida repudiated the more serious charge of the U.S. government’s frame-up of the Uhuru 3 by finding myself, along with Penny Hess and Jesse Nevel, NOT GUILTY of being agents of the Russian government.

The prosecutors unleashed a barrage of lies and distortions of the law, along with deliberately confusing jury instructions, to mislead the jury into returning an inconsistent verdict, convicting us on the lesser charge of “conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States,” which we intend to appeal and are confident we will win. But more importantly, the jury’s “not guilty” verdict on the “Russian agents” charge means that the jurors agreed with the legitimacy of our efforts to advocate for the liberation of Africa and African people.

We congratulate the jury for their ability to see through the U.S. government’s attempt to criminalize criticism by the African Liberation Movement of U.S. government treatment of African people in the United States.

The jury rejected the bogus charge that African people require leadership from Russians or groups characterized as “white” to define and lead our struggle to end domestic colonialism.

We salute the people’s multi-faceted and ubiquitous movement for anti-colonial free speech and democratic rights whose tireless and heroic organizing contributed profoundly towards this massive victory.

The U.S. government did not intend to lose their case on the charge that the Uhuru Movement was working for the Russians. Their political goal was to use the “foreign agent” charge to deny the legitimacy of the Black Liberation Movement when we criticize the U.S. government for its treatment of African people. Their charge that we are “foreign agents” was meant to mute the significance of our criticisms of the killings of Black men and women by police, the mass incarceration of our people, the gentrification and other forms of colonial terror in our communities, by saying that it was actually the “Russians who told us to say it.”

The U.S. government expended a tremendous amount of resources, at least tens of millions of dollars and hundreds of FBI agents and other government personnel to carry out this sham trial. They stole from our properties at least 13 terabytes of data, the equivalent of two and a half million books’ worth of information. They put 14 witnesses on the stand to present their “evidence,” all of them FBI agents except for two “expert witnesses” who admitted they knew nothing about our case and claimed they couldn’t remember how much the government had paid them to testify.

We defeated them without calling any witnesses to the stand. Instead, our incredible legal team used their opening and closing arguments along with their withering cross-examination of the government’s witnesses to educate the jury about who we are and what our struggle is about. Our attorneys told the jury that Chairman Omali Yeshitela is a revolutionary who is not for sale. We showed evidence of Burning Spear newspapers and other political documents by our Party dating back to the 1970s illustrating that we have fought for more than 50 years for the liberation of our people.

Under cross-examination one FBI agent after another was forced to admit that there was no evidence that we ever agreed to work under the “direction or control” of Russia. The lead investigator from the FBI even had to admit, under oath, that the FBI and the DOJ knowingly lied to the people when they indicted us for “election interference” despite the fact that not a shred of evidence of anything of the sort was ever identified.

The jury saw right through it and was able to declare that the African People’s Socialist Party and Chairman Omali Yeshitela have never worked for the Russians; we have always worked for Black people.

This was a political trial. The colonial State’s goal was bigger than simply convicting me and putting me in prison; their failed efforts to convince a jury that we are “foreign agents” was part of a larger political goal to forever discredit speech by Black people and other colonized peoples against our oppression at the hands of the U.S. government.

The U.S. government told the jury that when we demanded reparations to our people, it was the Russians who told us to do that. The jury said no. They told the jury that when we fought to expose and end the genocide against African people in the U.S. and around the world, it was the Russians who told us to do it. The jury said no. They told the jury that when we go around the world to win friends and allies to our struggle for freedom, it was the Russians who made us do that. The jury said no.

The U.S. government lied, and they lost. We told the truth, and we won.

The jury saw the evidence, presented both by the prosecutors and by our attorneys, of our more than five decades of consistent, revolutionary work to free our people from colonial oppression. They saw that we are principled and passionate about freedom. The jury heard me speak through videos of presentations that were screened by both sides. Our legal team was brilliant.

We applaud the relentless work by our attorneys Ade Griffin, Mutaqee Akbar, Leonard Goodman, Angela Reaney and Tom Inskeep.

Here’s what we’re calling on everyone to do:

1. Submit letters to the judge as we approach our sentencing date scheduled for November 25, after which we intend to file a motion to appeal the conspiracy conviction.

2. Make plans to come to Tampa, Florida on November 25 to pack the courthouse for our sentencing hearing. Details will be announced soon. 

3. Mobilize for a massive anti-colonial free speech mobilization in Washington, DC on November 2, 2024, the annual Black People’s March on the White House sponsored by the Black is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations. This will be an anti-colonial march, led by Africans, Mexicans, Palestinians, Indigenous, Filipino and other colonized peoples.

4. Continue to stand with the Uhuru Movement and the African liberation struggle. Support, protect and defend our dual power programs for African working class economic development and self-determination. Donate to our work at APSPUhuru.org/Donate.

5. Finally, the most important thing you can do right now is to inform the world that the U.S. government lied and lost. The Uhuru Movement told the truth and won.

The verdict is in: Chairman Omali Yeshitela and the African People’s Socialist Party are not for sale. We have our own agency. We are our own liberators. We don’t work for the Russians; we work for Black people. And we will continue to do so until all African people and the oppressed peoples of the world are free.

Uhuru!

This was originally posted at blackallianceforpeace.com/bapstatements/condemnuhuru3conviction on September 13th.

The Black Alliance for Peace Condemns U.S. Convictions

of Uhuru 3 As A Fascist Farce

After being forced to acquit Omali Yeshitela, Jesse Nevel, and Penny Hess – the “Uhuru 3” – on being agents of Russia, a U.S. federal court jury resorted to the sham conviction of “conspiracy,” in what amounted to them being guilty of internationalism and the work of liberating African people. The state’s claim is that the defendants are guilty of “planning to sow discord and inflame American political tensions at the behest of Russia,” a charge carrying a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

Although the conspiracy charge is being regarded as the less serious of the two changes, it presents a threat to all anti-imperialists and internationalists working in the bowels of the capitalist, U.S. settler state. “Conspiracy” is a U.S. legal fiction that can mean almost anything. From the definition, it is clear that determining what counts as conspiracy is often left up to the creativity of prosecution. In other words, “conspiracy” should be understood as the state deploying anything vague and circumstantial to use against our movement when it cannot get a conviction on anything else.

The Black Alliance for Peace sounds the alarm about the danger this particular ruling represents – the severe undermining of the human right to free speech and the free flow of information. It is the creation of Orwellian, totalitarian legal precedence in support of “thoughtcrimes,” the offense of thinking in ways not approved by the U.S. settler state.

The trial of the “Uhuru 3,” members and supporters of the African People’s Socialist Party, is “proving to be one of the most important First Amendment cases thus far in the 21st century,” according to the group’s attorney Jenipher Jones. The case also exposes the fact that the U.S. has no regard for human rights. It violates Articles 19 and 20 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which protects the right to freedom of expression and opinion and freedom of association, as does Article 19 of International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

It is also significant that a small Pan-Africanist group is the first to face legal charges and other overt repression for speaking out against the racist and imperialist policies of the U.S. regime.

After the verdict Omali Yeshitela said:

“The most important thing is that they were unable to convict us for working for anybody except Black people, that's the most important thing. They could not convict us for working for anybody except black people. They had to say we were not working for the Russians and I am willing to be charged and found guilty of working for black people.”

But BAP suspects that this is a test case for what is to come from the racist U.S. settler state. All activists and anti-imperialists should be concerned about what has happened to the “Uhuru 3.”

As we declared in our September 10th statement: “BAP and our movement will not be intimated. We recognize that the complete abandonment of constitutional and human rights by the U.S. and other Western states represents an irreversible crisis of legitimacy. We will continue to stand in support of the right to resist as a core human right.”

No Compromise!
No Retreat!

BAP Coordinating Committee

This was originally posted at blackallianceforpeace.com/bapstatements/haiti910 on September 10th.

BAP Condemns U.S. Plans for Yet Another UN Military Occupation of Haiti

We urge people of conscience around the world to stop another United Nations invasion of Haiti.

Once again, the Haiti/Americas Team of the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) strongly denounces the latest attempts by the U.S. to push for yet another UN military occupation of Haiti. We condemn this action and the relentless assaults on Haitian self-determination by the US and its criminal allies. We also urge Caribbean and Latin American governments to stand in solidarity with Haiti – just as they have stood with one another against violations of national sovereignty in Venezuela, Cuba, Honduras, etc. – as the Haitian people continue to bear the brunt of U.S. imperial policies and actions in the region.

On September 5th and 6th, the U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Haiti and the Dominican Republic. In Haiti, Blinken met with members of the US- and CARICOM-imposed “presidential council” and the illegitimate Prime Minister of Haiti to discuss support for the Kenyan and U.S. occupation forces currently present in the country.

On September 5, 2024, a group of Haitian and Dominican organizations released a statement denouncing Blinken’s visit to the island (English translation here). The statement titled, “Repudiation of the Presence of the Representative of Yankee Imperialism in Haiti and the Dominican Republic,” declared:

“This interventionist visit will bring no good to the Haitian people, nor to the Dominican people. Rather, it will seek to consolidate the neocolonial domination imposed on Haiti since the first U.S. military occupation (1915-1934) and on the Dominican Republic (1916-1924). In fact, Blinken’s only mission is to protect the interests of imperialism in Haiti and those of Haiti's small, repugnant elite class. He will do the same in the Dominican Republic.”

Soon after Blinken’s departure from the island, Western media revealed the true U.S. objective of his visit: transforming the illegal, unpopular, and inept U.S.-led Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission of 400 Kenyan police officers into a full-scale UN occupation (cynically referred to as a “peacekeeping operation.”). This was further confirmed by reports that the UN Security Council is considering a resolution to deploy a military force to Haiti.

BAP’s position has been consistent and unwavering: we support Haitian self-determination. We will continue to struggle against foreign invasion and occupation of the country. Since 2021, we have advocated against U.S. imperial machinations in Haiti, including the continuing renewal of the mandate of the UN office in Haiti (BINUH), which Haitian people see as an occupation force, and the establishment of the MSS. BAP challenged the narrative of “gang violence” as a pretext for occupation and argued that it is the U.S.’s own puppets and Haitian oligarchs that are arming young men in Haiti. We warned that the MSS was a temporary cover for a more permanent military occupation of Haiti through proxies, and with the blessing of the UN. And we continue to remind people of the brutal repercussions of the two decades-long 2004 UN intervention and occupation of Haiti.

In solidarity with Haitian and Dominican organizations opposing U.S. imperialism, and in defense of Haitian self-determination and sovereignty, the Haiti/Americas Team of the Black Alliance for Peace demands an end to the current occupation of Haiti, calling for the closure of the BINUH office in Haiti, and the removal of Kenyan and U.S. militarized police from the country. We also demand that the UNSC cease its interference in Haitian affairs on behalf of the U.S.

We urge people of conscience around the world to help stop another UN invasion of Haiti and, we also warn leaders of the Caribbean and Latin America – who have either remained silent or are actively participating in the U.S. usurpation of Haitian sovereignty  – that if Haiti is not free from U.S. bullying and imperial control, no other country in the region will be free.

DEFEND HAITIAN SOVEREIGNTY!

U.S. OUT OF HAITI AND THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC!

END THE U.S./EU/NATO AXIS OF DOMINATION!