NY ‘GRANNIES’ SAY ‘NO’ TO AFRICOM
Mar 31 (GIN) – Longtime activist Vinie Burrows and poet Sonia Sanchez, speaking to other ‘grannies’ at a church-based Teach-In on Africom, made it clear that proposed U.S. funding for a military command in Africa would be misguided and probably lead to war on the continent, not peace.
“How would Martin Luther King respond to Africom?” queried Burrows to almost 100 senior grandmothers and others at the Unitarian Church of All Souls in upper Manhattan on Sunday. Many were wearing bright yellow buttons of the Granny Peace Brigade organizers.
Teach-In attendees heard distinguished Africa experts criticize the command, already rejected by most African leaders, as too expensive (between $389 and $600 million) and unhelpful.
Speakers were Emira Woods of the DC-based Institute for Policy Studies where she co-directs Foreign Policy in Focus; Frida Berrigan of the NY-based New America Foundation’s Arms and Security Initiative, and Horace Campbell, professor of African American studies at Syracuse University and author of numerous books.
Africom, a proposed military command, was announced last year to direct U.S. military and civil relations with 53 countries, except Egypt, from a base in Stuttgart, Germany. According to the Dept. of Defense, its mission is to fight terrorism, protect access to Oil and other resources, and counter China’s growing economic involvement on the continent.
“Terrorism is what we faced from the colonialists’ civilizing missions,” said Campbell. “Then there’s the economic terrorism of the World Bank, IMF and Wall St… The U.S. is fabricating terrorism in Africa in order to justify military intervention,” he charged.
“Don’t forget that in the 1980s, (Nelson) Mandela was a terrorist and (Osama) Bin Laden was a freedom fighter,” he observed.
Woods noted that Africom would put the Defense Department first in running health programs, drilling wells, building schools and other social programs in Africa – displacing the traditional State Dept. role.
“We must de-fund Africom,’’ said Woods, urging the audience to contact NJ Rep. Donald Payne, chair of the Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health. Payne’s office said the congressman objected to parts of command including failure to consult with his and other departments.
“Pres. Bush called his trip ‘a mission of mercy,’ said Berrigan skeptically. “Our government officials refer to killing as ‘kinetic engagement.’
Sonia Sanchez, a playwright, poet and social activist, closed the meeting with a call for cultural understanding and a long poem on war and peace.
“All we are simply saying is let us begin this discussion of peace,” Sanchez said in a recent interview. “Let us begin to invigorate this earth with peace. Let us begin again the whole idea of people being able to live on this earth in a peaceful fashion. Let us begin again the beginning work that must be done that says, simply, that peace is necessary.”
* please credit photographer Rachel Eliza Griffiths.
Mar 31 (GIN) – Longtime activist Vinie Burrows and poet Sonia Sanchez, speaking to other ‘grannies’ at a church-based Teach-In on Africom, made it clear that proposed U.S. funding for a military command in Africa would be misguided and probably lead to war on the continent, not peace.
“How would Martin Luther King respond to Africom?” queried Burrows to almost 100 senior grandmothers and others at the Unitarian Church of All Souls in upper Manhattan on Sunday. Many were wearing bright yellow buttons of the Granny Peace Brigade organizers.
Teach-In attendees heard distinguished Africa experts criticize the command, already rejected by most African leaders, as too expensive (between $389 and $600 million) and unhelpful.
Speakers were Emira Woods of the DC-based Institute for Policy Studies where she co-directs Foreign Policy in Focus; Frida Berrigan of the NY-based New America Foundation’s Arms and Security Initiative, and Horace Campbell, professor of African American studies at Syracuse University and author of numerous books.
Africom, a proposed military command, was announced last year to direct U.S. military and civil relations with 53 countries, except Egypt, from a base in Stuttgart, Germany. According to the Dept. of Defense, its mission is to fight terrorism, protect access to Oil and other resources, and counter China’s growing economic involvement on the continent.
“Terrorism is what we faced from the colonialists’ civilizing missions,” said Campbell. “Then there’s the economic terrorism of the World Bank, IMF and Wall St… The U.S. is fabricating terrorism in Africa in order to justify military intervention,” he charged.
“Don’t forget that in the 1980s, (Nelson) Mandela was a terrorist and (Osama) Bin Laden was a freedom fighter,” he observed.
Woods noted that Africom would put the Defense Department first in running health programs, drilling wells, building schools and other social programs in Africa – displacing the traditional State Dept. role.
“We must de-fund Africom,’’ said Woods, urging the audience to contact NJ Rep. Donald Payne, chair of the Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health. Payne’s office said the congressman objected to parts of command including failure to consult with his and other departments.
“Pres. Bush called his trip ‘a mission of mercy,’ said Berrigan skeptically. “Our government officials refer to killing as ‘kinetic engagement.’
Sonia Sanchez, a playwright, poet and social activist, closed the meeting with a call for cultural understanding and a long poem on war and peace.
“All we are simply saying is let us begin this discussion of peace,” Sanchez said in a recent interview. “Let us begin to invigorate this earth with peace. Let us begin again the whole idea of people being able to live on this earth in a peaceful fashion. Let us begin again the beginning work that must be done that says, simply, that peace is necessary.”
* please credit photographer Rachel Eliza Griffiths.
No comments:
Post a Comment