Vigils For Tortuguita: Land Defenders Erupt In Solidarity

Land defenders and justice movements everywhere will not be terrorized into silence. They will not let the story of their sibling’s murder be controlled by their killers, nor by the powers who hide behind the killers.

On the evening of January 21, a couple dozen people came out in the rain and grouped together in a circle outside of Whatcom District Court, in Bellingham, Washington. These members of the Bellingham Forest Defenders, a group working to defend a public forest called “Box of Rain”, peacefully gathered to mourn the death of a fellow forest defender on the other side of the country.

The vigil was held to mourn the death of Tort, a protestor in Atlanta, Georgia who was killed on January 18 by police while defending the Weelaunee Forest from clearcutting and construction of a massive police training facility, known as Cop City, to those who oppose it.

A Georgia Bureau of Investigation spokesperson claims that Tortuguita, a nonbinary person who had been a vocal proponent of nonviolence, refused orders to leave a tent and shot a state trooper. Other law enforcement officers then returned fire, killing them. No body cameras captured the event. “Although we have bodycam footage from the day of the operation, we do not have bodycam footage of the shooting incident. The law enforcement officers wearing bodycam were not close enough to the shooting itself to capture it,” GBI’s Nelly Miles said. Calls for an independent investigation are growing.

Forest defenders, like Tort, are occupying the forest by living in trees and destroying equipment to resist the building of the campus. The city calls them “domestic terrorists” and police treat them like enemy combatants.

Cop City will be a $90 million state-of-the-art police training facility into which major corporations are investing millions of dollars and financially pressuring politicians to push the plan forward. Though the land designated for Cop City is owned by the City of Atlanta, the nonprofit Atlanta Police Foundation is working to raise millions from private sector companies to fund over 80% of its construction. The Atlanta Police Foundation’s Board is filled with executives from nearly all of Atlanta’s big-name companies like Delta, Waffle House, the Home Depot, Georgia Pacific, Equifax, Carter, Accenture, Wells Fargo and UPS, among others. It reads like a ‘who’s-who’ of corporate Atlanta.

defendtheatlantaforest.org

Thousands of miles away, at the edge of another precious forest ecosystem endangered by capital’s encroachment, Bellingham’s vigil participants did more than grieve. They honored their comrade by learning about the movement work being done in Atlanta and shared stories, songs, and poems of love and grief for protestors, for the forests, and for their communities. Information was also shared about ongoing local work to protect old, ecologically significant forests in Whatcom County and Western Washington.

One member of the Bellingham Forest Defenders, Hayley, commented, “While none of us knew Tort personally, his death by police has certainly hit many of us hard. We offer public solidarity with the movement in Atlanta while reminding ourselves of why we actively struggle to protect public forests here in Whatcom County. We hope that folks in Atlanta might see this coverage and know they are in our hearts and minds.”

Over the last few days, a growing number of such solidarity vigils have been held across the US, from Cincinnati to New Orleans to Los Angeles, by organizations and communities on the front lines of ecological destruction and racialized violence, where brutal, militarized police response to protesters has become commonplace. Declarations of international solidarity have come from as far as Germany, the UK, and Kurdistan. Tort’s death has made it clear that there is no place left on Earth where people do not share the pain and rage of ecocide and murder carried out on behalf of corporate and state powers.

These are just some of the multiplying events now sprouting up in cities and towns across the world…

Cincinnati

New Orleans

Knoxville

Los Angeles

Akron

Dallas

New York City

Chattanooga

Miami

Tallahassee

Massachusetts

Philadelphia

Pontiac

St. Louis

London

Berlin

Anonymous

Rojava

Solidarity Vigil Images Courtesy of @DefendAtlantaForest

The international outpouring of rage and solidarity at this most recent act of police brutality has a common thread – that land defenders and justice movements everywhere will not be terrorized into silence. They will not let the story of their sibling’s murder be controlled by their killers, nor by the powers who hide behind the killers. The Atlanta Forest Defenders and other local organizations like Community Movement Builders have begun publicly demanding an independent investigation into Tort’s death, into the charges of domestic terrorism for arrested forest defenders, and into the wider police raid of January 18th.

Further outrage and support is coming from diverse groups beyond land defenders and social movements. It turns out, you don’t need to be a police abolitionist or even an environmentalist to oppose Cop City – but Cop City is creating more police abolitionists and environmentalists. On Jan 23, Doctors from Emory’s School of Medicine published this scathing condemnation:

“As health care workers, we strongly condemn the repeated escalation of police violence in their interactions with members of the public protesting the construction of Cop City. On various instances, in both the streets of Atlanta as well as in the Weelaunee Forest/Intrenchment Creek Park which is under threat of destruction, police have used violence including reports of toxic chemical irritants such as tear gas, rubber bullets and now live ammunition which most recently resulted in the police killing of one of the forest defenders, Manuel ‘Tortuguita’ Teran. A year after police in the U.S. killed more people than any prior year since records started to be tracked in 2013, we recognize violence perpetrated by police to be harmful to public health. We are also concerned by the detentions and the charges of domestic terrorism levied at individuals arrested while protesting the destruction of the forest. This fits within the context of a disturbing pattern and threat to public health whereby the USA has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world; perpetuated by a judicial and legislative system that targets Black and Indigenous peoples, migrants, those living in poverty, those who are unhoused, as well as environmental and social activists.

The construction of Cop City will not solve a government’s failures to listen to the wishes of members of the community, its failure to stop the widening gap between rich and poor, the lack of affordable housing, the negative effects of gentrification and racism, or the poor and unequal access to nutritious food, healthcare and mental health services. As physicians, we recognize that these failures have negative consequences on the public’s mental and physical health. Instead of strengthening community health, Cop City will be a dangerous attempt to invest in harmful and violent solutions, strengthening the corporate and political powers that seek profit over the well-being of the people, while simultaneously eroding and transforming natural and public spaces into privately owned property. The public health evidence for developing healthy and thriving communities strongly opposes the expansion of policing and its subsequent violence. All Atlanta communities deserve more life affirming investments, not those that value private property over human life.

For the well-being of the city and its residents, it is imperative that all police forces cease their continued escalation and violent activity by permanently withdrawing from the forest. We call on Georgia State University to end its support of the Cop City project and also the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange (GILEE) project. We also call on Atlanta mayor Andre Dickens, the Atlanta city council and the Dekalb County government to withdraw from all plans regarding the construction of Cop City; and for the Dekalb County government to withdraw from the land swap with Ryan Millsap and instead keep Intrenchment Creek Park a public park. We also call on Brasfield & Gorrie to end their contract with the Atlanta Police Foundation and cease all construction that furthers the destruction of the forest which has and will harm the community and the public health.

Signed,
Michel Khoury, MD, Co-director of Georgia Human Rights Clinic
Amy Zeidan, MD, Co-director of Georgia Human Rights Clinic
Mark Spencer, MD, Co-Leader, Internal Medicine Advocacy Group
Suhaib Abaza, MD, Co-founder, Campaign Against Racism ATL chapter
Social Medicine Consortium”

Weelaunee Forest Defenders “tree-sitting”

If one life might become a beacon to galvanize a movement, we owe it to that life to pause and mourn their death. Rejoining the circle of forest friends holding hands in the rain, the below speeches were shared during Saturday’s vigil by Bellingham Forest Defenders in memory of Tort and in solidarity with all who are on the front lines of direct-action…

Carly, Bellingham Forest Defender:

“In the anarchist group Invisible Committee’s piece To Our Friends, they say:
“’Friend’ and ‘free’ in English … come from the same Indo-European root, which conveys the idea of a shared power that grows. Being free and having ties was one and the same thing. I am free because I have ties, because I am linked to a reality greater than me.”

Forest defense movements in Bellingham have given me freedom through my friends. My friends have shown me how radical love can be fuel for movements. In bowls of homemade soup, in tightly linked arms on frontlines, in holding my hand when news like Tort’s death comes. My friends trust each other to keep momentum building, to bring each other along, especially when we falter in the face of everything working against us. I want to share with you some words from Tortuguita’s friends and comrades in hopes that by sharing parts of their love and grief, we can help carry everyone touched by Tort’s death along with us as we keep building momentum for a more just future, one that Tort lived and died fighting for.

The first reads:
“I remember Tortuguita as one of the softest and most generous people in the woods, a perpetually positive presence, ready with a smile and anything else they could offer to brighten your day. They were an optimist, assuming the best of people and demonstrating through their own actions just how good humans can be. I miss them already. Condolences and solidarity to all their family, friends, and comrades. We lost one of our best.”

The second reads:
“I didn’t know Tort for very long, but I am honored to have met them. In the short time I knew them, they were constantly putting a smile on my face, they had a laugh that was so infectious and always wanted to help others however they could. They had a deep love for music and would send me whatever their favorite song was at the moment. They were sweet, kind, and believed in a better world for all and the generations that will come after us, free from violence, destruction, and evil. Their love for the forest should be instilled in all of us, and their passion for protecting human life is an example we should all look up to. You fought hard, friend, and brought so much good to this world; now it’s time for you to rest, we will carry on your legacy and ensure you are never forgotten.”

Building strong community ties and a deep connection to place is vital in standing for the protection of old forests across the country and in Western Washington. We would love to have you along in this work, which involves seeking out threatened forests and standing up for them in front of decision and policy makers. This momentum for forests and for the communities that depend on them for clean water and air, connection to place, and habitat support is building. Moments like this, when we lose a comrade, however far away, offer time to pause, grieve, and gather ourselves to keep the fight going. Thank you for being here.”

Weelaunee Forest

Sophie, Bellingham Forest Defender:

“Tortuguita was a friend, lover, street medic, mutual aid organizer, and forest defender. They were loved and cherished deeply by the people in their lives and the movements they were a part of. Known as Manual Teran, they chose the alias ‘Tortuguita’ for themselves because it means Little Turtle, and is a nod to the Indigenous man who led victorious Native American resistance to white settlement in the Ohio river valley.

On January 18th, Tortuguita was tragically killed at the hands of the police while camped in the Welaunee forest in Georgia, where they and other protestors had been living in community since November of 2021 in order to stop the development of what is nicknamed “Cop City”. Cop city is proposed to be the largest police training facility in the United States, which plans to include military-grade training facilities, a mock city to practice urban warfare and riot control, and dozens of shooting ranges – it’s not a coincidence that cop city is being built in Atlanta, a city that lost two thirds of its police force in the midst and wake of the BLM riots.

The death of Tortuguita is a heart wrenching and brutal reminder that the work people do to preserve and generate life can be dangerous, traumatizing, and sometimes even fatal – especially when it’s effective, especially when we are winning. We mourn the death of Tortuguita because they were a kind, brave, and loving person who did not deserve to die, and we also mourn their death so that the work they did and the example they set is not forgotten, so that we remember the power and importance of resistance and relationship. The protests in the Welaunee forests are not just about stopping one violent project or saving one forest, they are about the collective power and responsibility we have to implement, for ourselves, the systems of care and community that will sustain our world.

In Tortuguita’s honor, we will keep creating poetry and art, participating in mutual aid, fighting for abolition, mending, knocking down borders, transitioning, putting our bodies in between the state and its victims, and building radical models of care and community. At the foundation of all this is deep and loving support for one another, until the systems in place become irrelevant. The state’s interests are not and have never been the preservation of life, equity, or prosperity. The state’s aims are to maintain power and generate capital, and in its attempt to do this it does not care about who or what is hurt along the way.

Today and everyday we remember those who were killed at the hands of the police. The following names are a few of those who have died because they were either working to rebuild a faulty nation, or simply surviving in it. May they inspire us to continue to work towards a world where there are no police and no need for cop cities or coal terminals or prisons.

George Floyd
Breonna Taylor
Trayvon Martin
Fred Hampton
Mark Clark
Oscar Leon Sanchez
Keenan Anderson
Dante Wright
Andre Hill
Manuel Ellis
Aura Rosser
Atatiana Jefferson
and Manual Teran, or Tortuguita

Please join me in a minute of silence. In this time, if you would like to speak out a name to add to this list, please feel free to do so.”

Reach out to Weelaunee Forest Defenders or Community Movement Builders in Atlanta, to bellinghamforestdefense@gmail.com or the Center for Responsible Forestry in Bellingham, or to an organization close to home. 

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Follow me on Twitter at @_CharlesBrooks   

What can be learned from the legacy of Amilcar Cabral?

“Tell no lies. (…) Claim no easy victories”

(Amilcar Cabral, 1965) 

 

If there was ever such a thing as a practical philosopher, then Amílcar Cabral would have stood as one of the first of such kind. Amílcar Cabral, born in 1924 in Cape Verde and assassinated in 1973, is remembered first and foremost as the leader of the liberation wars in Cape Verde and Guiné Bissau. A brilliant strategist, diplomat and guerrilla tactician, Amílcar Cabral was further notable for his profoundly humane and uniquely independent political vision.  Though frequently approached as a thinker through his published speeches, it is difficult to assemble a picture of Cabral’s thought with no reference to his life, and the gestures with which he filled it (c.f. Chabal, 1983).

 

Born in Guiné-Bissau and raised in Cape Verde, Cabral’s childhood was marked by both a love of learning and the witnessing of colonial injustices, in particular during the 1940s drought and famine (c.f. Villen 2013). In 1945, earning one of very few scholarships of its kind, Cabral secured a place to learn agronomy in Lisbon. The next seven years in the ‘Metropolis’ would be highly significant for Cabral in that it would provide access to the writings of pan-Africanist cultural/political movements; as well as with connections with fellow lusophone African students (e.g. Mario de Andrade, Marcelino dos Santos, Agostinho Neto). It would be during these years, and under the guise of the ‘Centre for African Studies’ in Lisbon, that all important bonds would be forged between key figures of the liberation struggles in Angola and Mozambique. Deeply impressed by Leopold Senghor’s and Aimé Cesaire’s Négritude as well as by Nkrumah’s political visions, Cabral’s emphasis on the need for re-Africanisation had its root at this time (see Rabaka, 2015). Parallel to this influence, Cabral would also be introduced to Marxist ideas, ideas he would use during the liberation struggles in a strongly pragmatic, creative and anti-dogmatic way. Lastly, but also significantly, Cabral’s seven years in Portugal made him deeply sensitive in his position towards Portuguese people. Retaining a position of open-heartedness and kindness to what he saw as misguided people, Cabral quickly identified Portuguese fascism and its renewed imperialist discourse as the greatest source of immediate political evil.

 

Returning to Guiné-Bissau in 1952, Cabral was engaged by the colonial Forestry and Agricultural civil service. In this role he would conduct a comprehensive census of the country, awarding him with a deep engagement with the social, environmental and economic conditions of Guiné. At this time, Cabral also began his political work mobilizing local populations to demand for a better status. This was soon noticed and culminated in the Colonial Governor asking for him to be ‘transferred’. Unwittingly, this would lead Cabral to further radicalise his struggles. Returning to Lisbon, Cabral found work, which, for five years, would send him on long missions in Angola. In these missions, Cabral would quickly tap into the underground networks agitating for liberation. Involved simultaneously in the underground anti-colonial networks in Lisbon, Cabral would in 1955 participate in the Bandung Conference. This participation, though poorly documented, is crucial to understanding Cabral’s emphasis on diplomatic mobilization as part of decolonial struggles. This mobilization was both in terms of coordinating and uniting anti-imperial struggles as well as mustering international legitimation and support. In Cabral’s own life, this was born out in uniting Lusophone African struggles under a common front as well as by tirelessly working on garnering diplomatic and popular support for Guinea’s liberation war (c.f. Gliejeses 1997, Dadha 1995).

 

Galvanized by the international momentum against (neo)colonialism, Cabral would, in 1956, establish the African Party for the Independence of Guiné and Cabo Verde (PAIGC). Having spent the first years doing political work in Guiné’s cities, PAIGC would after 1959 focus its efforts on the countryside. By 1963, PAIGC began its armed guerrilla insurgency and within ten years achieved control over most of Guiné’s territory and declared independence. Supremely successful in terms of guerrilla warfare, Guiné’s liberation was in no small part due to Cabral’s leadership and foresight into grassroots politics, diplomacy and livelihood improvement. Most significantly, in Cabral’s life, insurgency emerged as the most fertile site for theory. Drawing on practical problems in the politics and logistics of insurgency, Cabral regarded insurgency as the key context in which to conceive and form an African nationalism that would succeed in overcoming colonial legacies. In Cabral’s thought, national liberation relied on a unique process of cultural renovation, whereby military struggle would be actively subsumed under a deeper form of struggle towards the re-signification of local non-European cultures and the formation of social forms shorn of colonial subconscious.  Indeed, such was Cabral’s insistence on this, that Paulo Freire saw his pedagogical attitudes as uniquely inspiring (c.f. Pereira and Vittoria, 2012).

 

A man of action more than words, Cabral’s theories seem to be still fully understandable by reference to the extraordinary events of the liberation insurgency of Guiné-Bissau. Assassinated in 1973, before the fall of Portuguese fascism and colonialism, Cabral’s death left a tragic absence, a foreclosure, in the construction of independence in lusophone Africa.  Remembered as a moral paragon and political giant in the African liberation wars, Cabral continues to lack the scholarly appreciation his life and work deserves. Engaging with Cabral, however, remains a worthy, necessary and empowering project. In his poetry, in his speeches, in his party archives and in the oral memories of his life, Cabral offers a uniquely visionary and sensitive approach to the historical task of decolonisation. Living beyond the grave, Cabral’s incisive, humane, and pragmatic voice may well continue to teach us – if only we listen.

 

Amílcar Cabral’s recorded speeches can be viewed here, here, and here.

 

Questions:

 

What was Cabral’s understanding of culture in the context of decolonial struggles?

 

What lessons can be taken from Cabral’s way of theorizing?

 

 

ESSENTIAL READINGS:

Cabral, Amilcar. Resistance and Decolonization. Translated by Dan Wood. Rowman & Littlefield International, 2016.

Cabral, Amilcar. Unity and Struggle: Speeches and Writings of Amilcar Cabral. (preview) Monthly Review Press, 1979.

Cabral, Amilcar. Return to the Source: Selected Speeches of Amilcar Cabral (pdf) Monthly Review Press, 1973.

Casa Comum’s Digital Archive

 

FURTHER READINGS:

Sousa, J. S. Amílcar Cabral (1924-1973): Vida e morte de um revolucionário africano. Lisboa: Nova Vega, 2013.

Chabal, P.  Amilcar Cabral: Revolutionary Leadership and People’s War. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1983.

Davidson, B. No Fist Is Big Enough to Hide the Sky: The Liberation of Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde: Aspects of an African Revolution. Zed Books. 1981.

Mario de Andrade, Amilcar Cabral : essai de biographie politique, F. Maspero, Paris, 1980.

Villen, P. A crítica de Amílcar Cabral ao colonialismo: Entre a harmonia e a contradição. São Paulo: Expressão Popular. 2013.

Manji, F. & Fletcher B. (Eds) Claim No Easy Victories: The Legacy of Amilcar Cabral, Codesria. 2013

Rabaka, R. Concepts of Cabralism: Amilcar Cabral and Africana Critical Theory. Lexington Books. 2014

Gleijeses, P. ‘The First Ambassadors: Cuba’s Contribution to Guinea-Bissau’s War of Independence’ , Journal of Latin American Studies, 29:1, 45-88. 1977

Dhada, M. ‘Guinea-Bissau’s Diplomacy and Liberation Struggle’ Portuguese Studies Review, 4:1, 20-36. 1995

Pereira, A. A., & Vittoria, P. The liberation struggle and the experiences of literacy in Guinea-Bissau: Amilcar Cabral and Paulo Freire. Estudos Históricos (Rio de Janeiro), 25(50), 291-311. 2012

Abdullah, I. ‘Culture, consciousness and armed conflict: Cabral’s déclassé/(lumpenproletariat?) in the era of globalization’, African Identities, 4:1, 99-112. 2006.

 

Additional Video Sources:

 

‘Cabralista’ Documentary Series (2011-). see here

BBC Four section on Cabral’s African War, see here

 

By António Ferraz de Oliveira

‘The most dangerous Negro’: 3 essential reads on the FBI’s assessment of MLK’s radical views and allies

Howard Manly, The Conversation  January 13th 2023

Left out of GOP debates about “the weaponization” of the federal government is the use of the FBI to spy on civil rights leaders for most of the 20th century.

Martin Luther King Jr. was one of the targets.

As secret FBI documents became declassified, The Conversation U.S. published several articles looking at the details that emerged about King’s personal life and how he was considered in 1963 by the FBI as “the most dangerous Negro.”

1. The radicalism of MLK

As a historian of religion and civil rights, University of Colorado Colorado Springs Professor Paul Harvey writes that while King has come to be revered as a hero who led a nonviolent struggle to build a color blind society, the true radicalism of MLK’s beliefs remain underappreciated.

“The civil saint portrayed nowadays was,” Harvey writes, “by the end of his life, a social and economic radical, who argued forcefully for the necessity of economic justice in the pursuit of racial equality.”

2. The threat of being called a communist

Jason Miller, a North Carolina State University English professor, details the delicate balance that King was forced to strike between some of his radical allies and the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.

As the leading figure in the civil rights movement, Miller explains, King could not be perceived as a communist in order to maintain his national popularity.

As a result, King did not overtly invoke the name of one of the Harlem Renaissance’s leading poets, Langston Hughes, a man the FBI suspected of being a communist sympathizer.

But Miller’s research reveals the shrewdness with which King still managed to use Hughes’ poetry in his speeches and sermons, most notably in King’s “I Have a Dream” speech which echoes Hughes’ poem “I Dream a World.”

“By channeling Hughes’ voice, King was able to elevate the subversive words of a poet that the powerful thought they had silenced,” Miller writes.

3. ‘We must mark him now’

As a historian who has done substantial research regarding FBI files on the Black freedom movement, UCLA labor studies lecturer Trevor Griffey points out that from 1910 to the 1970s, the FBI treated civil rights activists as either disloyal “subversives” or “dupes” of foreign agents.

Screenshot from a 1966 FBI memo regarding the surveillance of Martin Luther King Jr. National Archives via Trevor Griffey photo

As King ascended in prominence in the late 1950s and 1960s, it was inevitable that the FBI would investigate him.

In fact, two days after King delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, William Sullivan, the FBI’s director of intelligence, wrote: “We must mark him now, if we have not done so before, as the most dangerous Negro of the future in this Nation from the standpoint of communism, the Negro and national security.”

Editor’s note: This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives.

Howard Manly, Race + Equity Editor, The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

‘The Assassination of Patrice Lumumba Is One of the Most Important Assassinations of the 20th Century’

Janine Jackson interviewed Maurice Carney about the assassination of Patrice Lumumba for the January 21, 2022, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

      CounterSpin220121Carney.mp3

 

Twitter (1/20/20)

Janine Jackson: We saw a good amount of media attention to Reverend Martin Luther King this past week, including, yes, the FBI pretending with a straight face that they are honoring his legacy. But also some acknowledgement of a point that we at FAIR make, that celebration of King today is often a whitewashing, avoiding discussion of many of his actual views, and that the news media who are so full of bromides for King in his death were working hard at attacking and undermining him while he lived.

Meanwhile, another anniversary that offered opportunity for reflection was utterly overlooked. January 17 marked 60 years since the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the first elected prime minister of the post-independence Democratic Republic of the Congo, a crime in which the US played a significant role.

In August of 1960, CIA Director Allen Dulles told the agency’s station in Congo that: 

"it is the clear-cut conclusion that if Lumumba continues to hold high office, the inevitable result will at best be chaos, and at worst pave the way to Communist takeover of the Congo, with disastrous consequences for the prestige of the UN and for the interests of the free world generally. Consequently, we conclude that his removal must be an urgent and prime objective."

As corporate media bang the drums for a new or continued cold war in Africa today, the story of Lumumba seems especially significant. But telling it openly would require a dry-eyed examination of US actions and intentions that corporate news media are just not in the business of providing.

We’re joined now by Maurice Carney, co-founder and executive director of the group Friends of the Congo. He joins us now by phone from Washington, DC. Welcome back to CounterSpin, Maurice Carney.

Maurice Carney: It’s a pleasure to be back with you, Janine.

Patrice Lumumba

JJ: May I just ask you to talk a bit about January 1961, and the context for the assassination of Patrice Lumumba. The country is newly independent, but still in transition. Why was Lumumba considered such a danger?

MC: Lumumba was considered a danger for several reasons. One, he was a nationalist and a pan-Africanist. And as he articulated in his June 30, 1960, inaugural speech, he wanted the resources of the Congo to benefit the Congolese people. Anyone familiar with the creation of the Congo—it was created by European nations, it was created as an outpost for the extraction of natural resources to benefit Europe and the West. And Lumumba represented an end to that system. So that’s one reason.

Secondly, he was uncompromising in his critique of the colonial history in the Congo, and really contemporary imperialism. He was an anti-colonial fighter. So that also represented a problem.

And so those two reasons, and the critique that he brought against colonialism and imperialism, the uncompromising self-sufficiency, self-determination and pan-Africanism that he articulated, indicated that he was someone that couldn’t necessarily be controlled or owned or readily influenced by the West. So that posed a huge problem for the United States, and European powers as well.

JJ: I think the failure to even talk about the assassination today reflects in some ways just how important and how dangerous Lumumba was judged, so much so that we can’t even explore it now. But his murder was important and inspired action.

MC: Yeah, in fact, Professor Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja argued that the assassination of Patrice Lumumba is one of the most important assassinations of the 20th century. Professor Nzongola is now ambassador to the United Nations of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He has written a book entitled Lumumba. So he articulated  the significance of Lumumba’s assassination.

Maurice Carney: “We see the centrality of Lumumba to not only post-independence Congo, but a post-independence Africa.”

And, in fact, even the chief of station of the CIA in the Congo, Larry Devlin, in a book with the same title, Chief of Station Congo, laid out how critical Lumumba was, not only to the Congo, Janine, but to Africa at large. That is to say, Devlin shared and he intimated that we had to get rid of Lumumba because not only would we have lost the Congo if Lumumba were to stay and remain in power, but we would have lost all of Africa. So we see the centrality of Lumumba to not only post-independence Congo, but a post-independence Africa.

And the president of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, articulated that and concurred with that. Within his book, The Challenge of the Congo, he shared how Congo would ultimately serve as the capital of Nkrumah’s project, the pan-African project, of the United States of Africa. So Congo, which is located in the heart of the African continent, arguably one of the richest countries on the planet in terms of natural resources, strategically located on the African continent, was vital to Nkrumah’s pan-African project. So it was a very critical country. And Lumumba was a pan-Africanist who accepted and acknowledged the role the Congo would play in a self-determined, independent Africa.

JJ: You and I talked at one point about how US officials were saying—and this is just a few years ago—US officials were saying and media were parroting the statement Congo hasn’t had a peaceful transfer of power since 1960, without even pretending to explore why that is and what the US role has been in that.

MC: Right.

JJ: And I just wonder if you could address the role of news media here in—I mean, it’s mainly what they haven’t done with regard to this, or what they have done, I don’t know.

MC: I think when we had a discussion that was around the role that—if I’m not mistaken, I think it may have been Time magazine—had played at the time in planting stories that were fed to them by the Central Intelligence Agency, in presenting Lumumba in a disparaging fashion, basically working hand in glove with US foreign policy in destabilizing the Congo. So the media, it was through its vocal means—and at the time of Lumumba, they did play a destructive role—and today through its silence.

We know, based on declassified documents that were recently published by the US State Department, that the United States played a critical role in the destabilization of the Congo, not only during the time of Lumumba, but right up until today. These classified documents from the State Department say that at the time, the covert action in the Congo was the largest in the world by the United States government. And that for the first 10 years or so of Congo’s independence, the Central Intelligence Agency had a role to play in who would lead the Congo. As you know, it went through several leaders. And, of course, the leader that wound up taking control of the country, Joseph-Désiré Mobutu in 1965, was installed, backed and maintained by the United States.

So to the extent that we see instability in the Congo, that we see corruption, that we see a lack of security, the role the United States played in uprooting the native democratic process that began in that country with the election of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, that role by the United States is central. And it’s something that, unfortunately, today’s media has not taken up and articulated and shared with the American public in the way that it ought to and that it should.

JJ: Finally, right now Patrice Lumumba’s family is fighting for the return of his remains, such as they are. Listeners may not know his body was dissolved in sulfuric acid. But the demands go beyond that important repatriation. If we heard the voice of the Congolese people, not just Lumumba’s family, but if we could hear the voice of Congolese people today, what would they be saying that we’re not hearing?

MC: We at Friends of the Congo honored the daughter of Lumumba, Jr. at Congo Week event, Juliana Lumumba, who has led the fight to have her father’s remains repatriated to the country. And in her acknowledgement speech, she had a message for the Congolese youth. That is, to continue the teachings, the ideas of Lumumba, to look at him as a model and example of sacrificing his life for a country and a continent.

And Congolese youth today embrace that sentiment, particularly through their music. There are a number of Congolese musicians, hip hop artists who bring Lumumba’s ideas and teachings to the current generation of Congolese. So they are actually embracing Lumumba’s ideas. They’re embracing Lumumba’s teachings, the ideas of self-sufficiency, self-determination, pan-Africanism. The Congolese youth have taken that up today, and they’re sharing it with the current generation, and they’re doing it through music, through art, through writing.

So he is, especially in light of the lack of strong leadership, not only in the Congo but throughout the African continent, Lumumba is being fully embraced, fully shared, and being held up as a model for future leaders. So he’s in good stead.

And we acknowledge Lumumba ourselves through our campaign that’s on Lumumba Day, LumumbaDay.org, where people throughout the world are joining up and saying, even if the media doesn’t speak about Lumumba and his importance and his significance, they’re going to do so. And they’re doing that from the platform of LumumbaDay.org. Every January 17, he’s being held up, along with the colleagues who were assassinated with him, Maurice Mpolo and Joseph Okito. So his legacy is in very, very good standing with not only Congolese youth, but people throughout the globe.

JJ: We’ve been speaking with Maurice Carney, co-founder and executive director of the group Friends of the Congo. You can find them online at FriendsOfTheCongo.org. Maurice Carney, thank you so much for joining us this week on CounterSpin.

MC: Thank you, Janine. It’s been my pleasure.

Originally published on FAIR.org, January 25th, 2022. Reprinted with permission.     

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Over 7,000 Nurses On Strike In New York City. Here’s Why

Nurses, organized by the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) are demanding safe patient-to-staff ratios, fair wages, and to maintain existing healthcare benefits

By Natalia Marques, People's Dispatch

On Monday, January 9, over 7,000 New York City nurses from Mount Sinai and Montefiore hospitals in Manhattan and the Bronx, respectively, went on strike. Nurses, organized by the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) are demanding safe patient-to-staff ratios, fair wages, and to maintain existing healthcare benefits.

Nurses, who authorized a strike on December 21 with an overwhelming vote of 98.8% in favor, have been in contract negotiations with hospital administrations across the city. Initially, the number of nurses set to strike was around 16,000, at eight hospitals: NewYork-Presbyterian, Montefiore, Mount Sinai Hospital, Mount Sinai Morningside and West, Maimonides, BronxCare, Richmond University Medical Center, and Flushing Hospital Medical Center. However, hospital bosses scrambled to reach tentative agreements with the nurses to avert a strike at all hospitals save Montefiore and Mount Sinai Hospital.

The mood outside of Mount Sinai Hospital, in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, was fiery, despite negotiations being tense for the past few days. The picket line swelled with a crowd of hundreds of nurses, bisected by a road of slow-moving vehicles, many honking in support.

Mount Sinai management has claimed that NYSNA walked out of negotiations, while NYSNA has claimed the same of the hospital bosses.

“It is deeply unfortunate that instead of agreeing to either of these solutions and rescinding its strike notice, Mount Sinai’s NYSNA leadership has made the decision to ask nurses to leave patients’ bedsides during a tridemic,” claimed Mount Sinai on January 9.

Montefiore also made similar implications regarding the commitment of NYSNA nurses to their patients. “Despite Montefiore’s offer of a 19.1% compounded wage increase—the same offer agreed to at the wealthiest of our peer institutions—and a commitment to create over 170 new nursing positions, and despite a call from Governor Hochul for arbitration, NYSNA’s leadership has decided to walk away from the bedsides of their patients,” wrote the hospital in a statement.

Again and again, hospital bosses and their representatives have hammered in the point of how disastrous a strike by nurses would be. A strike would be a “public health calamity,” claimed Ken Raske, of the Greater New York Hospital Association.

Nurses are indeed essential, as evidenced by hospital executives’ costly efforts to make up for the losses of the strike by transferring infants to other hospitals or hiring travel nurses, who are paid more than a regular nurse. Union nurses have pointed out the incongruency of these decisions, as the millions of dollars required to prepare for a strike could be used to simply pay nurses more. And, as striking nurses have emphasized consistently, the picket line is the last place they want to be.

“We would rather be in there, doing what we love,” Diane, a nurse at Mount Sinai, told Peoples Dispatch, referring to the hospital building behind the picket line.

“We don’t wanna leave our patients. This is the last thing that we ever want to do. But unfortunately we’re pushed to this point,” said Jessica, also a nurse at Mount Sinai. “Management left their patients, not us. We’re here fighting for our patients.”

These nurses are referring to one of the primary concerns of unionized nurses: the lack of safe staff-to-patient ratios at New York City hospitals. New York state actually has existing staffing laws, which were passed in 2021 to address precisely the issue of hospitals using understaffing to cut costs. However, since then, New York state has failed to enforce these laws. Mount Sinai currently has 500 staff openings and Montefiore has 700, according to NYSNA.

Julia, another Mount Sinai nurse, told Peoples Dispatch: “When there’s too many patients being taken care of, then it compromises safety, and at the same time, it compromises your license. So that’s why we’re here. It really is safety for the patients as well as for the nurses.”

“Who were [the ones] here during the pandemic? Who is actually at the bedside?” Julia continued. “So if it is [the hospital executives’] family being taken care of, how could you expect me to really be addressing all of the issues of the one patient, if there’s maybe 17 other patients being taken care of in the emergency room in or in the ICUs or as inpatients.”

Hospital bosses claim that understaffing is due to a shortage of nurses. In reality, nurses are leaving the profession at increasing rates due to low wages and high stress. Union nurses argue that by investing in hiring more staff, which will decrease stress, and paying nurses more for their work, hospitals will be able to address a shortage of nurses. Instead of making these investments, the union has pointed out that hospital executives paid themselves tens of millions in bonuses during the height of the pandemic.

“We want New Yorkers to be taken care of. We stayed with you during COVID. You clapped for us with pots and pans,” said Nella Pineda-Marcon, nurse at Mount Sinai and NYSNA secretary, at a January 9 press conference at the Mount Sinai picket line. “Our loyalty is with New Yorkers. Our loyalty is with the community. It’s never profit over patients.”