More extensive government regulation would not prevent a recurrence of the financial crisis that has struck the world over the past year, the leader of the Czech Republic told the General Assembly today, urging policy-makers to be cautious about increasing global governance of the economy.

The drought crisis in war-torn Somalia is turning increasingly acute and spreading to regions previously spared, with half the country’s 7 million people in need of aid, an increasing risk of deaths, and insufficient international donor response, a senior United Nations official said today.

Chinese President Hu Jintao called for greater multilateralism and cooperation in international relations in his speech today before world leaders gathered for the annual high-level debate at the General Assembly.

Latin American leaders have today called for a return to power of José Manuel Zelaya following the recent coup d’état in Honduras, stressing that political will is vital to confronting and overcoming threats against peace, development and democracy.

Former Grenada Prime Minister Maurice Bishop With President Fidel Castro in Cuba
Originally uploaded by panafnewswire

Vol. 73/No. 37 September 28, 2009

Leaders of 1983 Grenada coup released from jail

BY DOUG NELSON

Former Grenadian deputy prime minister Bernard Coard and six other organizers of the 1983 counterrevolutionary coup in Grenada were released from prison there September 5.

The seven were the last of the “Grenadian 17” to be released. They had been jailed for their roles in the assassination of Prime Minister Maurice Bishop and five other revolutionary leaders—Fitzroy Bain, Norris Bain, Jacqueline Creft, Vincent Noel, and Unison Whiteman.

Bishop was a leader of the mass movement of the workers and farmers in Grenada and became the foremost leader of the New Jewel Movement (NJM), formed out of the struggle against imperialism and capitalist exploitation in 1973.

The NJM was inspired by the Black Power movement in the United States and anticolonial struggles in Africa. Before long its leading cadre sought to emulate the example of the Cuban Revolution and began to develop a Marxist perspective.

On March 13, 1979, the NJM led by Bishop overthrew the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Eric Gairy and ushered in a popular anti-imperialist democratic revolution. The new People’s Revolutionary Government expanded trade union rights, advanced women’s equality, instituted free medical care, established free public education and adult literacy programs, lowered the prices of necessities, and took measures to benefit small farmers and farm workers.

In the early 1970s, Coard, originally from Grenada, was a professor in Jamaica and worked closely with the Organization for Research, Education and Liberation, a student-based organization that was critical of the NJM. In 1976 he returned to Grenada and was brought into the leadership of the NJM as part of a fusion of the two organizations. From the beginning, however, he worked to consolidate a secret faction loyal to himself within party, the military officer corps, and government agencies.

Coard was trained in the political school of Stalinism. In their aims and methods the Coardites shared much in common with the privileged bureaucratic layer led by Joseph Stalin that organized a bloody counterrevolution in the Soviet Union some eight decades ago. Cuban president Fidel Castro correctly likened the Coard faction to the murderous Khmer Rouge led by Pol Pot in Cambodia.

Draping themselves in ultraleft demagogy, the Coardites portrayed their efforts to maneuver against Bishop and his supporters as a fight by orthodox “Marxist-Leninists” led by Coard against a “petty-bourgeois” current. The opposite was the case.

In stark contrast to Bishop’s efforts to reach out and involve the broadest layers of the toiling majority in the work to advance the revolution, the Coard clique pressed for a course aimed at strangling the revolutionary energies and growing self-confidence of the Grenadian masses.

In the course of the 1979-83 revolution, the Coardites carried out a number of undemocratic repressive measures opposed by Bishop and others.

In the name of “Leninist standards of discipline,” the Coard faction drove through exclusionary membership policies aimed at keeping the party and its proletarian element as small and weak as possible.

On more than one instance Coard used his position as acting head of state when Bishop was abroad to reverse government policies. On one such occasion beginning in late September 1983, the Coard faction began to organize the coup. Over the course of two weeks, they moved to disarm the popular militia and increased the salaries of the army.

On Oct. 13, 1983, five days after Bishop returned to Grenada, he was placed under house arrest. The Grenadian masses opposed the coup and began to organize. A popular uprising to restore the government shut down the country on October 19. As many as 30,000 people—out of a total population of 110,000—freed Bishop. The people and Bishop then marched to the army headquarters and took it over.

Heavily armed forces opened fire on the demonstrators, killing many, including revolutionary leader Vincent Noel. The army reoccupied the headquarters and murdered Bishop and the other four revolutionary leaders with him.

The coup overthrew the revolutionary government, but had not yet defeated the working class. Working people attempted to reconquer power and organized the largest revolutionary mobilization in Grenadian history. The people’s resistance was met with guns. The coup leaders then instituted a four-day shoot-to-kill curfew on the entire population, imposing hardship and hunger.

“No doctrine, no principle or position held up as revolutionary, and no internal division, justifies atrocious proceedings like the physical elimination of Bishop and the outstanding group of honest and worthy leaders,” declared the Castro the next day. He warned that the coup would embolden Washington to invade Grenada and “subject it once again to neocolonial and imperial domination.”

The U.S. government invaded the country less than one week later. Rapidly taking over the island, Washington set up a puppet regime and arrested Coard and his supporters. The new reactionary U.S.-backed government, tried and convicted Coard and 16 of this supporters. Fourteen were originally sentenced to death, which was overturned in 2007 by an appeals court in London.

The prison abuse, denial of legal rights, and death sentences meted out against the Coard faction were aimed at further intimidating those who would stand up to imperialism. Castro said Washington and its puppet regime had “no right to keep that extremist group in prison or try them, because no invading force has the right to run the courts and enforce the laws.”

United States President Barack Obama paid personal tribute today to the many United Nations personnel who have been killed worldwide in the line of duty since the Organization began operations in 1945.

The major international financial and economic arrangements are unfair and have not kept pace with a changing world, South Africa’s President told the United Nations today, calling for the reform of key institutions so that poorer countries have a greater say in how they are run.

Former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, who was the Green Party presidential candidate in 2008, is shown here speaking at the Critical Resistance conference in Oakland, CA. Prof. Soffiyah Elijah on left. (WW Photo).
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos

The Black Is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

September 21, 2009

Contact:
Chioma Oruh 202.320.5542 info@blackisbackcoalition.org
Rosa Clemente 646.721.7441 knowthyself@mac.com
Jared Ball 202.997.0267 freemixradio@voxunion.com

The Black Is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations

Rally/March November 7, 2009 Washington, D.C./Malcolm X Park 10a-6pm

Washington, D.C. – A newly-formed Black coalition has announced a rally and march on the White House to take place November 7, 2009 beginning in Washington, D.C.’s historic Malcolm X Park. The rally and march are to protest the expanding U.S. wars and other policy initiatives that unfairly target the well-being of the world’s peoples and the entire African diaspora. Known as the Black is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations, the coalition was decided upon on September 12, 2009 during a meeting in Washington, D.C. of more than fifteen activists from various Black organizations and institutions.

The rally and march intend to draw upon the support for a coalition comprised of many of the leading anti-imperialist organizations, journalists, activists, artists and scholars of the African diaspora and means to state clearly its intention to return this broad community to a tradition of progressive leadership or, as their call states, “a return of the Black world to politics despite the age of Obama.” Comprised of some of the African world’s most seasoned veterans of political struggle, consisting of members of the African People’s Socialist Party, the NAACP, the Green Party, Black Agenda Report and many other grassroots organizations and efforts, this coalition is perfectly situated to do just that.

“Many well-meaning people in this country and around the world are afraid to take more progressive political positions for fear of being seen as anti-Black,” the coalition contends. “We need to remind people of the absolute lack of ‘progress’ since new faces assumed leadership of this nation. Many o f the leading concerns of Black people, Latinos and working people in this country remain insufficiently addressed. Black and Brown people continue to suffer the brunt of un/under-employment and predatory loan scandal crises. Military spending under Obama has increased as have the warfare this nation continues to export to Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Venezuela and Colombia. Mass incarceration, police brutality and political imprisonment remain rampant and the most negatively impacted by the levee breech in post-Katrina New Orleans continue to be without homes, jobs or health care assistance. And to that point, these are precisely the communities who nationally will be the most negatively effected by yet another myth of health care ‘reform.’”

The political paralysis now being experienced by all left-of-Obama political efforts themselves suffer from a lack of Black-led anti-imperial movements. Black Is Back is not simply a slogan for the African diaspora but for all progressive struggles which have historically always benefited from such coalition. On November 7, 2009 all are welcome to participate in a rally and march which will include many coalition partners in song, dance and political solidarity announcing the return to leadership of the world’s most reliably anti-war and pro-social justice communities. As the coalition says, “To free our people’s hopes and dreams from oblivion, we need a coalition dedicated to the proposition th at Black is Back.”

A summary of coalition partners includes:

Omali Yeshitela, African Peoples Socialist Party (APSP)
Dorothy Lewis, NCOBRA
Cynthia McKinney, Green Party
Ayesha Fleary, APSP
Chimurenga Waller, APSP
Stic Man, Dead Prez
M-1, Dead Prez
Ousainou Mbenga, APSP
Abdul Alim Musa, Masjid al-Islam
Ona Zena Yeshitela, APSP
Omawale Kefing, Burning Spear
Curtis Gatewood, NAACP
Raheal Rayza, University of Toronto
Norman Richmond, Toronto
Luwezi Kinshasa, APSP
Chakanda Gondwe, APSP
Pam Africa, Free Mumia Campaign
Brother Riley, Uhuru Radio
Rich Piedrahita, APSP
Jared Ball, VoxUnion Media
Chioma Oruh, APSP
Sister Olevette
Rosa Clemente, Green Party
Glen Ford, Black Agenda Report.
Efia Nwangaza, Malcolm X Center for Self-Determination
Kali Akuno of MXGM
Omowale Adewale of G.A.M.E

The United Nations today harnessed the powers of cyberspace to enable the ordinary global citizen to join the scores of presidents, kings and other leaders now gathered at the General Assembly in proposing solutions for the planet’s problems.