The UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent must uphold the 2001 Durban Declaration and Programme of Action (DDPA). A recently written mandate affirms the importance of DDPA and the need to protect and strengthen it.
"Ever since the Europeans snatched the first African off the African continent, Africans have used every available mechanism, and then some, to get free and back home--- literally and/or figuratively."
Chokwe Lumumba, Esquire, RNA Vice President, Mayor of Jackson MS
From making a home with or joining the fight against indigenous peoples, standing neutral and forming palenques, maroon colonies in swamps and jungles, fighting one set of whites on the side of another, repatriating to Africa or attempting to integrate into an illusory "reconstructed, democratic U.S.," creating and governing all Black post-holocaust of enslavement/maafa settlements, towns, and districts, to filing, exercising, or reframing from exercising rights or filing this or that paper, WE, Afrikan people, have never given up the fight to be free, self-determining, and hold our place in the global struggle for justice and human dignity.
From the Pan African Congresses and the League of Nations, W.E.B. Dubois and the NAACP at the door of the UN's first Secretary General, the 1951, 1996-97 Petitions, "We Charge Genocide . . . For Relief From the U.S. Government's Crimes Against the Negro/Black People," the World Conferences Against Racism dismissed by the colonizer/enslaver's minion, Colin Powell, and now the West's most recent boondoggle... the Permanent Forum ON People of African Descent (PFPAD), briefly distracted, we have tested and exposed their "authenticity," usefulness, and moved on. Paraphrasing Queen Mother Audre Lorde, we may not be able to dismantle the enslaver's house with his/her tools, but we can momentarily rearrange it.
And so it is with the recent effort of Comrade Siphewe Baleka, President of the Balanta B'urassa History & Genealogy Society (BBHAGSIA). He is standing in the shadow of the most brilliant and militant of our recent ancestors who "struck a blow for freedom," Malcolm X, Imari and Gaidi Obadele, Queen Mother Audley Moore, Robert and Mabel Williams, and many more whose names are unknown but have kept the fire burning and the struggle alive.
The Permanent Forum (PFPAD) was created in August 2021 by the UN General Assembly purportedly, as a "consultative" body "FOR people of African descent AND other relevant stakeholders as a platform for improving the safety and quality of life and livelihoods of people of African descent." Its 1st Session, in Geneva, December 5th, introduced its representatives and confirmed suspensions. It is a continuing effort to displace the DDPA by taking advantage of youthful ambition and lack of historical contact. (See report published in January, 2023.)
Baleka invites us to study and sign the mandate he's drafted and circulated, after community consultation. With sound historic and legal basis, it demands that the UN's Permanent Forum ON People of African Descent (PFPAD) simply use its much-vaunted status to unite and serve people of African Descent by requesting an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice on the prisoner of war status of persons/peoples of African Descent under the Geneva Convention. Furthermore, that the PFPAD not be used to discount, undermine, and bury the most revolutionary modern freedom document since those of the 1954 Bandung Conference and formation of the Non-Aligned Nations Movement- - - The 2001 World Conference Against Racism's Durban Declaration and Programme of Action (DDPA). See "Durban 400" documentary on global consensus building---self-respect, self-defense, self-determination.
The DDPA is a global consensus blueprint against white supremacy and patriarchy, manifestation of self-determination, and a declaration of independence. The Balanta Mandate affirms the power of the people as represented by the DDPA and advances steps already taken in anticipation of future challenges, plans to end this 500+ year old war, reap just remediation and full satisfaction for ourselves and our posterity, and assure planet safety for humanity and all therein.
To THIS End, sign the Mandate, protect and promote the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action, register and attend the 2nd Session of the UN Permanent Forum ON People of African Descent. It will be held at UN Headquarters, New York, May 30 to June 2, 2023. JOIN: UNARC.org for information.
Contact: Efia Nwangaza, Esq, mxcentergvl@gmail.com
BLACK POWER IS IN OUR HANDS, Let's use it!!!
Efia Nwangaza is a South Carolina based attorney. She is Director of the Malcolm X Center for Self-Determination and Founder and Coordinator of WMXP-LP Radio. She is also a member of the Black Belt Human Rights Coalition, Black Alliance for Peace, a veteran of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, and a proud daughter of Garveyites.
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The following article was authored by Glen Ford when he was editor of The Black Commentator.
