Hands off Uhuru! Hands off Africa!

NO JAIL, NO FINE FOR UHURU 3 What started with FBI raids in 2022 that ransacked and destroyed the African People’s Socialist Party’s (APSP) properties in Saint Petersburg, Florida, and Saint Louis, Missouri, and proceeded with chants of ‘Not one day, not one dime,’ ended with federal judge William Jung ruling against prison time on 16 December for party founder and chairman Omali Yeshitela, African People’s Solidarity Committee (APSC) Chairperson Penny Hess and APSC mass organisation Uhuru Solidarity Movement National Chair Jesse Nevel. The ‘Uhuru 3,’ as they came to be known, each faced five years behind bars and a $250,000 fine following convictions in September for conspiring to act as foreign agents. They had been acquitted on the charge of acting as Russian agents. The judge deemed prison time unnecessary in a free-speech case, instead sentencing each person to three years of probation and 300 hours of community service. The court banned the Uhuru 3 from contacting Russian nationals during probation. They are appealing the conviction, saying it violates their freedom of speech. ‘When they indicted us, they expected us to fold. They expected us to run or to take a plea, which is mainly how they achieved their 99 per cent conviction rate in federal criminal cases,’ Yeshitela’s granddaughter told the WFTS TV station in Tampa Bay (@abcactionnews on X). ‘We didn't fold. We didn't run.’ The party’s anti-war and self-determining position has made them a prime target for the US state. The group has worked toward reparations for descendants of enslaved Africans, the unification of African states under a single socialist government and the release of political prisoners. In the United States, they have built institutions for Africans, including a prisoner-transition programme and a doula school.  Last week, the judge sentenced a fourth defendant, Augustus C Romain Jr, to five years’ probation. Romain, better known as 'Gazi Kodzo,' was the party's secretary-general until a 2018 expulsion. Romain was prosecuted on similar charges while running another organisation they founded, Black Hammer. The judge ordered them to participate in mental-health treatment and submit to random drug tests. You can follow the Uhuru 3 and their organisations on X: @apspusa, @omaliyeshitela, @PennyAPSC, @uhurusolidarity, @realJesseNevel

UHURU MOVEMENT FOUNDER SHOW’S WEST’S HYPOCRISY ON HAITI The Uhuru Movement will avoid jail time following trumped-up charges of them being Russian agents. The movement is characterized by its antiwar position, which has put it at odds with the US empire. The movement also agitates for reparations for Black people whose ancestors built the wealth of the United States, the unification of Africa under socialism and the release of Black political prisoners. In this video from August 2023, we had the honour to speak to the founder, Omali Yeshitela. Using Haiti, he points to the hypocrisy of the US attempting to put him behind bars for his activism when the real criminals, France and the U.S, still posture as vivacious actors. France forced Haiti to pay reparations for decades to enslavers for the loss of ‘their property’. The US, on the other hand, is responsible for multiple regime change operations and the theft of Haiti’s gold, all while painting Haitians as somehow unable to govern their affairs.