Margaret Kimberley and Ajamu Baraka, published on Black Agenda Report, September 18, 2024
State repression increases as the so-called democracies continue in a state of crisis. Only a people-centered human rights struggle can bring true justice and peace.
“Instead of prosecuting the Ku Klux Klan, the anti-Semites, and reactionaries, the government is arresting anti-fascists.” (Claudia Jones)
Margaret Kimberley: I’m joined by Black Agenda Report contributing editor, Ajamu Baraka. And we will discuss many important events that are taking place nationally and internationally. Our first topic will be the trial of the Uhuru 3. Omali Yeshitela, Penny Hess and Jesse Nevel, were found guilty of conspiring to be foreign agents in a federal case in Tampa, Florida involving the African People’s Socialist Party and its Solidarity Network. The 3 were accused of being foreign agents. The jury acquitted them on that charge, yet convicted them of this conspiracy charge, which seems to be odd until we realize the history of how the Black left are targeted, going back to the McCarthy era of the 1950s. Ajamu, talk to us about your thoughts on the case of the Uhuru 3 and what it tells us.
Ajamu Baraka: It’s important for people to understand the importance of this case, because it’s quite clear to me that the indictment and the aggressive prosecution of the Uhuru 3 was meant to be a shot across the bow, if you will, to intimidate left opposition, progressive opposition in the US that is emerging and solidifying, in opposition to not only Gaza, but in opposition to the broader agenda, warmongering that is at the center of US policy from Ukraine to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and on the African continent. And so this, this prosecution, which was basically a prosecution of thought crimes, of speech, was meant, and is meant to ensure that this growing opposition to US warmongering and imperialist projects would intimidate people into either silence or to begin for them to censor how they, in fact, confront this war machine in the US. So the charges that this organization, Omani Yeshitela, specifically, and the African People’s Socialist Party, by implication, were acting as agents of Russia in their opposition to the Ukrainian war and US imperialism was clearly a calculated, strategic move on the part of the state.
The implication, of course, is that you know, Black people are not supposed to be concerned with and engage in opposition to US foreign policy. And if they do, it must be at the instruction of some smart white people someplace, in this case, the Russians. We know in other cases it will be the Chinese, or whoever the official enemy is at the moment. But internationalism has always been a centerpiece of the Black radical tradition. Why? Because we’ve always understood that we could not confront and deal with the contradictions of the colonial capitalist project in the US without understanding domestic issues as part of the global system of white supremacist imperialist power that has national expressions but emanates from one common source of power. Therefore, understanding the truth of the global nature of the Western imperialist project has always been fundamental to Black opposition, Black radicalism, to Black politics in the United States of America. So this notion that opposition to what we refer to as Biden’s proxy war between itself and Russia is an objective analysis and an objective position based on our understanding of how this empire moves and operates, and its objective and its agenda.
It’s quite clear that the second phase of the war first began in 2014 when the neo-Nazi government that the U.S. helped bring to power attacked its own citizens in Eastern Ukraine who opposed the coup, broke out in February of 2022 was avoidable if the Biden administration had taken more seriously the negotiations that the Russian Federation was attempting to engage the US with around what they saw as their legitimate security concerns regarding the expansion of NATO and the possibility of the official incorporation of Ukraine into the NATO framework. It was quite clear to them that Ukraine was being de facto incorporated into the NATO military alliance with the equipping and training of what became one of the most formidable armies on the European continent. So an analysis of this conflict from this perspective is something that many people have engaged in around the world.
So to target the Uhuru movement, was, in fact, to target the Black liberation movement, because I think that the state recognizes that if there is opposition to policies like the Ukrainian war emanating from the Black liberation movement, from Black radicals and leadership that Black radicals have traditionally provided to the anti-imperialist and progressive movement in the US that it would represent a real political threat, a real internal, political and ideological threat to U.S. policies. Therefore, the Uhuru movement found itself in the crosshairs of prosecution.
Now, the fact that the evidence suggested that there was no material basis for not only the charge but of course, for a conviction of the Uhuru 3 being agents of Russia is significant. People need to understand how significant that is. The acquittal was a defeat for the state. But while that charge was defeated the most threatening element of this trial was the conviction of the Uhuru 3 on this vague notion of conspiracy. It’s almost like there was no evidence to suggest they were, in fact, Russian agents. But the implication of the conspiracy charge, the conviction is that they wanted to be, that they were conspiring with various forces to, in fact, become agents of Russia. Of course, it is a spurious and contradictory position, but it’s one that the state took and was validated, if you will, by a jury.
Clearly, the jury was not instructed in such a way that they could make that distinction between the evidence that exonerated the Uhuru 3 on the charge of being foreign agents and the notion of conspiracy. If there was no evidence to suggest that they were, in fact, foreign agents, then what is the basis of some conspiracy? A conspiracy to do something that was already validated as non-existent? So, we think that there’s going to be a very strong basis for an appeal. That’s one reason why it appears that the judge delayed the sentencing process because I think that the judge sees also that this was a specious case brought by the prosecution that’s not going to be upheld, and so therefore it appears that the defense has some time to prepare motions of appeal.
MK: And what does this case say about human rights in the West? The Western nations, the US and its allies, Europe, Canada, and so on, the Five Eyes countries, always brag about being democracies, about being the nations that have freedom of speech, and freedom of expression, that are superior to countries like Russia and China, or any other country we’re not supposed to like. What does this case tell us, though, about the reality of human rights in the West?
AB: That human rights have been instrumentalized, that they have been used primarily as a weapon by the US and by Western nations to advance their interests, to undermine the sovereignty and the national dignity of peoples and states around the world, it was always an instrument, and with the deepening crisis that the West is experiencing and the US in particular, the supposed commitment to human rights has now become a joke, something that is undermining the ability of these Western powers to aggressively assert their hegemony, and they have decided that they’re going to assert their hegemony outside of the bounds of international law, outside of international human rights. What’s interesting about the Uhuru 3 in terms of human rights is that the prosecution and the intimidation being directed at the Uhuru 3 and other dissidents in the US is a clear violation of US law and international human rights standards. The Uhuru 3 defense was framed as one that was in defense of their right to speech, the right to speech and assembly and the right by implication of information, to receive and impart information. The implications of those kinds of rights are clearly stated in the US Constitution’s First Amendment.
However, when it comes to the state, and when it comes to the state targeting dissidents, particularly Black dissidents, we have seen over and over again that those supposed constitutional rights are violated. We must recall the series of prosecutions of Black radicals in the immediate post-war years between 1948 and the early 50s where dozens of Black radicals were prosecuted, jailed and deported. Dr. W.E.B. Dubious was prosecuted as a foreign agent of the Soviet Union because of his advocacy for peace and the great Paul Robison human rights defender and author of the famous “We Charge Genocide” had his passport confiscated and was blocked from earning a living.
It is clearly stated in international human rights standards and laws, beginning with the principles articulated in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and then the legal covenant, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, again in Article 19, that people have a human right to information, to expression, to speech, and that these human rights should be protected by states.
Yet, in this case, as in other cases where U.S. dissidents are being harassed and even prosecuted by the state, human rights standards are not enough to protect when a state decides to operate as an outlaw. So this says, this exposes the lie of human rights when it comes to this kind of case, when one connects this with the unfolding atrocities taking place in Gaza that are clearly in violation of all of these standards of human rights, the crimes against humanity, war crimes, genocide, everything that’s supposed to be part of the objective human rights framework and laws, it is clear that there was no real commitment ever on the part of Western powers to something called human rights, and that’s why it’s important for that framework to be transcended by a framework of human rights grounded in the people that represents the aspirations of people in struggle that we refer to as the people-centered human rights framework.
The current lawlessness on the part of the U.S. and Western states demonstrates that there are real limitations and contradictions with the Western, liberal human rights framework. People and nations outside of the West are not only questioning the liberal human rights framework but moving away from it. It is obvious that the structures and institutions set up within the United Nations framework to protect human rights have been a failure. The bias of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and its failure to deliver the indictments of the Israeli war criminals and genocidists and the apparent paralysis of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to render a judgment on the genocidal nature of what is occurring in Gaza has undermined confidence in all of those structures and institutions and exposed their politicized bias in the service of Western white power. So the exposure of the biases and limitations of the human rights project is an opportunity.
MK: Human rights also include the ability, not just to speak freely, but to associate freely, to read and listen to what one wants. But this is another clearly problematic area. Secretary of State Blinken recently declared that the RT network, which had already been removed from many platforms in the US, was going to be subjected to even more sanctions. So RT America was taken off of YouTube. It was basically destroyed already. You can go online and see RT, but now you won’t be able to go on Facebook and read RT. They have removed it.
He also mentioned by name, the Berlin-based outlet Red and African Stream, saying they were all Kremlin propaganda outlets. And it’s interesting to me, that no one, Secretary Blinken and others like him, no one ever mentions the right of people to see and read and listen to what they want. No one is watching RT at gunpoint. But that’s something that is never mentioned. And this shrinking and continued shrinking of available outlets, this destruction, in many cases of independent media is very dangerous and could impact Black Agenda Report as it has others.
AB: It really can and at one point, Margaret, you know, liberals used to confront the practices of some states where they said the authorities were attempting to monitor and to determine the kind of information might be circulated in their national environments. The liberals would say that the way you deal with the issue of speech is more speech, that any attempt to constrain speech was something that was a violation of speech. And so this was the liberal perspective that, you know, it is not about the correctness of information, but it was about the freedom of information and analysis to have the ability to freely flow.
That is an ancient position. Liberals today are at the cutting edge of justifying all kinds of measures to allow powerful forces in the state and the private sector to determine the range of information and speech. This development should be troubling for traditional liberals. But we see with cases like the Uhuru 3, where the left was almost completely silent and progressives disappeared from any commentary on this case, and now with this these moves being made against RT, the naming of these specific outlets as Kremlin agents, this is a very, very dangerous development that needs to be opposed.
But these developments are not receiving the kind of critical response that one would think they deserve, especially when you look at the trajectory of politics and the trajectory of the consolidation of the repressive apparatuses in the US and across Western Europe, this notion that there’s a contrast between the authoritarianism in global South nations and liberal democracies in the West is nonexistent. That contrast is basically mythological. There’s no difference. In fact, one would argue that what makes the repression and growing totalitarianism in the West more effective is this notion that they are, in fact, defending freedom. It is an ironic and paradoxical kind of opposition that the absence of free expression, the undermining of civil liberties and human rights are taking place in the West under the guise of protecting freedom.
So it’s a very dangerous situation that is threatening to all of us, all of us who are attempting to provide our alternative analysis to the power of the state and corporations because they are moving now to not only deny us the ability to engage with information and to impart information, but they are doing it in ways, not just in terms of denying us access to the platforms and channels of information. But they are actively criminalizing opposition.
We’re seeing not only the naming by people like Blinken here in the US, but right now they’re debating new legislation, a piece of legislation in Europe coming out of the EU where they are going to attempt to, in essence, develop standards, to judge what information is acceptable to be disseminated across Europe. This is fascism, and the notion that it does not exist and that we have to be concerned about it coming only under the form of a Donald Trump is absurd and disarming, and one of the reasons why we don’t have effective opposition to these moves being made by the liberal state is that those sectors of the population, those movements and political tendencies that normally would be opposed to this kind of activity if it was coming from the more recognizable right-wing elements, is that again, liberals have a cover.
These sectors have been corrupted by their political affiliation and their political alignment with these powerful neoliberal forces. So there’s no independent domestic human rights movement anymore in the US, labor has been corrupted. The civil rights organizations have been incorporated and corrupted. There’s no effective opposition at all for the climate justice movement. They all have been corrupted. Their association with and the surrendering of their principles and their programs to the democrat party. So it is a troubling and dangerous situation we are facing in this country and throughout the West.
This is reflective of the deepening crisis of the West, one in which the alternative to this deepening crisis has to be more effective opposition, a clear articulation of alternative values and principles and the commitment to building structures that will concentrate the power of the people in order for us to be able to effectively resist, but also to advance the alternative models that we are developing to take the place of this dying Western colonial capitalist system.
MK: We are just about seven weeks away from a presidential election here in the United States. Last week, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris held a debate, apparently it will be the only one, but you were abroad at the time. What are your thoughts about their debate, and what is it like to watch that from another country?
AB: Well, it was very interesting. And you’re right, I was abroad. I was actually in Iran. We were there on a mission of peace and sharing of information. And we had a chance to look at that debate in that environment, in an environment in which the people of that country are very much concerned about what happens in the U.S. because they understand the implications for their nation and their people, a nation and a people that basically would like to live in peace with the US and the Western European powers, but that has not been allowed since the Iranian revolution in 1979 when the puppet Shah was overthrown by progressive forces in that country.
So watching that debate, in that context, where people are looking for evidence that there may be some relief to the aggressive policies that have been pursued by the state. For decades, it was quite clear that in terms of US foreign policies, the commitment to full spectrum dominance, the use of the military to advance the interest of the ruling elites, economic elites from the west and the US specifically, that it didn’t really matter much who won the election or who will win the election in November.
Both of the two major parties that monopolize the political environment in the US are both firmly committed to continuing with the repressive repression and isolation of Iran. They’re both committed to using the military to advance their interests. Kamala Harris is quite clear in her speech at the DNC that she is committed to ensuring that the US remains the most lethal military force on the planet. If we have a lethal military force you are almost compelled to use that force. That force has been used very consistently over the last few decades, and it’s clear that under a Harris administration, they will continue with that. It came out in the discussion around the debate that one of the most egregious comments that she made regarding militarism was this notion that there are no US military forces in any theater where those military forces are being threatened, or they engage in an armed conflict. And clearly, either she didn’t understand where military forces are now deployed, or she has a different concept of what a military conflict theater might look like, because we have US military personnel in places like Syria, still in Iraq, that are engaged in actual combat. There was a raid just a few weeks ago by Special Forces in Iraq.
So you know, this notion of the Biden-Harris administration providing some degree of stability is absolute nonsense. Because, not only is the instability in terms of West Asia, so-called Middle East, but across the African continent, throughout Latin America, the continuation of the hostile acts directed toward the Chinese regarding the right of navigation and the situation with Taiwan, the ongoing conflict, and Ukraine, with the possibility of the US providing a green light to the right-wing government, and Ukraine being able to use long-range missiles against or into the Russian Federation, all portends a dangerous continuation of military prison.
And so all of these things were looked at and discussed coming out of that debate in terms of what the implications for the world may be, regardless of concern of who sits in the White House in November. And you know, people were appalled by some of the implications in terms of domestic policy. They debated this obsession that Donald Trump has with immigrants, and the way he characterized immigrants and his commitment to a massive deportation scheme, it just sort of reinforces a perspective that people have on the US, that people in the US don’t really understand exists, and that as people see US culture, US politics as being quite barbaric, quite backward. And so this notion of the US being this place where, you know there’s freedom of speech and freedom to develop one’s human capacities, and that repression doesn’t really exist, is something that people around the world are no longer buying.
In fact, it is reflected in global polls every year when the question is asked, for example, “What state do you see as representing the greatest threat to international peace?” And every year, the US is identified as that state, that nation that represents the greatest threat to international peace. So, you know, the jig is up in terms of how people see the world, and that debate, you know, just sort of solidified how corrupt and backward politics are, how superficial politics are in the US.
MK: And lastly, let’s talk about this gunman who was discovered near Donald Trump’s golf course while Trump was there. This has been a very strange election year, the incumbent president was chased out of the campaign and replaced by his vice president, who no one voted for in the usual primary process. Trump actually did go through a primary process, and Republican voters chose him. There was a shooting in July, a gunman in Pennsylvania shooting at Trump and actually shot other people before being shot himself. Very suspicious circumstances where many people in the crowd attempted to point out, or did point out that there was a shooter on a rooftop, and now we see this man who apparently lay in wait for Trump, who was on the property for many hours. He’s now in federal custody. What are your thoughts on this incident and, well, actually, on both of them?
AB: Well, you know, I think Republicans have a legitimate position, you know that they say that the rhetoric of this electoral cycle is such that it is encouraging these kinds of actions on the part of these individuals, to to take violent actions against Donald Trump. If you perceive this individual to be the very embodiment of evil, a threat to democracy and everything that you believe the US stands for, then you are opening up that individual for all kinds of not just political opposition, but in the case of the last couple of months, physical assault with people believing that they are carrying out some kind of patriotic duty if they’re the ones that can take out this threat to to to the US homeland. So I think that is a very legitimate position, and people have to remember that this is not something new. I mean, for the first time in US history, when Donald Trump won the election in 2016 you had people, who claimed that he was, in fact, a Manchurian Candidate, that he was representing the interest of a foreign power, and the Democrats were the ones that said quite clearly and boldly saying he’s not our president, and this was the impetus for this fraud that we referred to as Russiagate, and the attempt to completely delegitimize that administration and to make it difficult for Trump to govern, unless he governed, and eventually did, govern as a neoliberal. And that’s in fact, what he did.
And so you know this rhetoric, this uncivil rhetoric if you will, has become more normalized in US politics and with the result being volatility in US politics, an aggressiveness that we have never seen at this level, at least not in the open. And so, you know, these next few days, a few weeks of this campaign will still be quite volatile, this notion of a civil war, depending on who wins, and all of this again, these are our ideals that are primarily being pushed by the liberals. I mean, of course, Trump’s rhetoric doesn’t help, and the idea of massive deportations of human beings who are in the US for economic and political reasons does not portend well for the kind of political environment that will exist in the US.
So all this reflects the crisis of legitimacy of the system and the quite clear reason for why many of us believe that we cannot continue politics and the political economy in the same way that basically, the situation cries out for fundamental change, a fundamental alteration of the power relationships. It cries out for a real, authentic, democratic movement developing from the bottom up that’s grounded in a commitment to social justice and people-centered human rights. It suggests that the only way we’re going to be able to solve the ongoing and deepening crisis of this global system, this global, western-dominated, colonial capitalist system, is through struggle, through a revolutionary change.
Now many people are not prepared for that, but either we shift power away from this corrupt, decadent ruling class in the US and in Europe, or we are risking the real possibility of collective annihilation. Ukraine is creating the situation of a potential nuclear confrontation. None of these Western nations are prepared to deal effectively with the challenge of climate change, the kind of cooperation that we need as a collective humanity just won’t be achieved as long as we have disproportionate power in the hands of a maniac ruling class that seems to be committed to either maintaining their hegemony or basically blowing up the world. So that the task and the responsibilities have become more clear to all of us, that if we don’t make this change, we don’t commit ourselves to building this new movement, then basically we are all facing a real existential threat.
MK: Thank you so much Ajamu.
AB: My pleasure
Ajamu Baraka is the Chairman of the Coordinating Committee of the Black Alliance for Peace and an editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report. Baraka serves on the Executive Committee of the U.S. Peace Council and leadership body of the U.S.-based United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC) and the Steering Committee of the Black is Back Coalition.
Margaret Kimberley is the author of Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents . You can support her work on Patreon and also find it on the Twitter , Bluesky , and Telegram platforms. She can be reached via email at margaret dot kimberley at blackagendareport dot com