Justin Hansford's Remarks at the Opening of the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent (PFPAD)

JUSTIN HANSFORD’S OPENING REMARKS TO PFPAD2

excerpt:

“Why can’t those grassroots citizens begin to determine their own terms for what reparations should look like? . . . . 

So whenever reparations is framed not as justice, not as repair. . .  but as charity, as a gift, the terms will always be self serving. It wouldn’t make sense for a bank robber to determine how much of the heist he will return or a selective panel of experts to dole out the stolen money according to its own vision of what's fair. 

So this is perhaps the most appropriate legal question to ponder - crimes against humanity, governed by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court adopted in 1988 is one perhaps interesting legal concept that we could apply to what happened to our people. Genocide, determined by the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide adopted by the General Assembly in 1948 shortly after the Holocaust is another interesting legal claim that could be brought. But so far we have left it to the scholars of the past, the lawyers of the past, the white scholars, white lawyers, to determine the bounds of our legal imagination, to determine the narrow structures that we will use to determine what justice looks like for our own people. 

So I come to you today with a novel proposal, that we begin to think our own thoughts, propose our own vision of justice, and implement that justice, as part of the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent. 

So I also propose today that we create a new Bar Association, including lawyers and non-lawyers, to discuss what it means to be repaired in 2023 for crimes that have been done to us and continue to be done to us for over 500 years. . . . 

So for your consideration, Madam Chair, I propose that today we create a new community of legal thinkers that is not limited to lawyers, but includes anyone who is passionate about justice. And we come together and demand that many of the states in this room that have benefitted from the legacy of our oppression start the process of apology and reparation, but not on their terms, but on our terms. 

Thank you.”

SIPHIWE BALEKA’S COMMENTARY

The first example of Justin Hansford’s charge to “think our own thoughts, propose our own vision of justice, and implement that justice, as part of the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent” is the  MANDATE FROM THE AFRO DESCENDANT PEOPLE ISSUED TO THE PERMANENT FORUM ON PEOPLE OF AFRICAN DESCENT TO REQUEST AN ADVISORY OPINION FROM THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE ON THEIR STATUS AS PRISONERS OF WAR UNDER THE GENEVA CONVENTION. This is yet another interesting legal claim, like the ICC and Genocide examples that Justin Hansford mentioned, that is perhaps the most promising at this moment.

Many of the opening statements at the 2nd Session urged PFPAD and the United Nations system to “concrete action.”

Fortunately, that can be achieved by PFPAD President Epsy Cambell Barr signing the

Request for an ICJ Advisory Opinion.

We are thankful that Justin Hansford is in full support of this effort.

Statement to the 2nd Session of PFPAD: Mandate to Request an Advisory Opinion from the ICJ

Attorney Maynard Henry, who serves as the 𝐏𝐥𝐞𝐛𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐞 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐍𝐂𝐎𝐁𝐑𝐀 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐀𝐟𝐟𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐬 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 calls on the 2nd Session of the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent to take "Concrete Actions" by urging PFPAD President Epsy Campbell Barr to sign the MANDATE FROM THE AFRO DESCENDANT PEOPLE ISSUED TO THE PERMANENT FORUM ON PEOPLE OF AFRICAN DESCENT TO REQUEST AN ADVISORY OPINION FROM THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE ON THEIR STATUS AS PRISONERS OF WAR UNDER THE GENEVA CONVENTION

8PAC1 Conversations: Curtis Murphy on the Fihankra Repatriation and CIA Sabotage

⁣⁣Curtis Murphy, Fihankra Coordinator and Special Assistant to the Chair (Odikrohene) for the Greater Accra Governing Council reveals explosive new allegations of CIA involvement in sabotaging the Repatriation movement. Curtis and Siphiwe also discuss some of the agenda for the upcoming 8th Pan African Congress Part 1 in Harare, Zimbabwe.

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HISTORICAL BLACK CONTENT CREATORS (HBCC) is the platform created by Michael Thompson to give the Global Afrikan Community of Black People everywhere its own youtube. Let’s be about Pan Africanism and exercise self determination and build and use our own social media and support our own, independent content creators!!!

CIA IN GHANA

THE CIA GUIDE TO DESTROYING ORGANISATIONS*

*In the 1970s, all cells and chapters of the All-African People's Revolutionary Party (A-APRP) had to study and discuss this together with the DESTRUCTION OF BLACK CIVILIZATION by Chancellor Williams.*

One of our colleagues of the Washington, D.C. chapter, who was a lecturer at Howard University, exposed attempts by the CIA to recruit her. Kemba Maish paid dearly for her bravery but she and her son remained loyal to the PanAfrican revolutionary cause. Kemba always attended Work/Study classes with her young son, Nicholas.

It was revealed to me three years ago that there are over 100,000 CIA human assets in Ghana and mostly it is Ghanaian who volunteer information to curry favour. CIA and US military penetration in Ghana is now an open secret and such is the Dukadaya foreign policy of subservience to the US, its NATO allies and Israel: the very nations who combined their intelligence and security to undermine and eventually overthrow the Nkrumah regime. Such is the duplicitous and subversive character of the ruling Dukadaya Mafioso Cabals.”

The Unfinished Business of Malcolm X and Imari Obadele: Taking Our Claim to the International Court of Justice

“Wow! I don’t know about all of you all on this call, but I’m in tears. The level of scholarship, commitment, insistency, to produce this report, with all those details, weaving this tapestry of incredible observation and study is remarkable . . . is remarkable. . . . I am in awe. Nothing less . . . this brilliance we have just witnessed together . . . You have witnessed something phenomenal.” - Dr. Onaje Muid, NCOBRA Health Commission Co-Chair

“I came here to learn! And I have just been learning and smiling. . . . As someone who sat at the feet . . . of Imari Obadele, it’s just so nostalgic listening to Brother Siphiwe because it sounds like brother Imari reincarnated! . . . Give me marching orders! . . . All this is passed on to y’all’s generation.” -Nkechi Taifa, Executive Director, Reparation Education Project, Inc. and author of Reparations on Fire: How and Why It’s Spreading Across America

“Brother, that’s very powerful and dynamic information. . . . that we need to share with our people to make us more concsious of what our rights and possibilities are, even to help us imagine. I applaud you and salute you on carrying the work of our ancestors to a new level and educating us all.” - Akinyele Omowale Umoja, New Afrikan Independence Movement Strategist and author of the book, We Will Shoot Back: Armed Resistance in the Mississippi Freedom Movement

“We will do what is necessary if the international bodies do not do what is necessary.” - Maynard Henry, Esq. Member of NCOBRA International Affairs Committee and Plebiscite Committee Chair

Saturday, May 27, 2023 - The 𝐍𝐞𝐰 𝐖𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐜 𝐑𝐞𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐄𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 sponsored by the NCOBRA Health Commission and the NCOBRA Education commission discussed the new opportunities in international forums to pursue reparations and advance Afro Descendant people’s struggle for justice and repair using the interrelated and interdependent arguments derived from genetic testing, transgenerational epigenetic, ethnocide and prisoner of war status under the Geneva Convention.

Siphiwe Baleka, a scholar activist and New Afrikan/AfroDescendant Diplomat, who is fast becoming recognized as the “peoples’ expert” on these issues, presented the first workshop entitled, The Unfinished Business of Malcolm X and Imari Obadele: Taking Our Claim to the International Court of Justice

Outline: 1. Malcolm X and the Unfinished Business at the World Court; 2. What is the ICJ?; 2. Why go to the ICJ?; 3.What is PFPAD?; 4. Why is PFPAD important?; 5. Our Prisoner of War claim under the Geneva Convention; 6. What if we get a favorable opinion? 7. What if we don’t get a favorable opinion?

Future workshops include,

Ethnocide: Genocide’s Twin Sister & Making Your Ethnocide Claim

Transgenerational Epigenetics and Siphiwe Baleka’s Case at the IACHR

Understanding the History and Requirements of a Plebiscite

WATCH THE FULL PRESENTATION

ILLINOIS PASSES HR292 RESOLUTION TO PROVIDE DNA TESTING AND REPARATIONS FOR VOLUNTARY REPATRIATION TO ANCESTRAL HOMELANDS IN AFRICA - HIGHLIGHTS BALANTAS FROM AMERICA

Declares the State of Illinois should take the lead on issues of Pan-Africanism, citizenship in Africa, and reparatory justice, and the State should champion the Eighth Pan-African Congress Part 1 (8PAC1) and its agenda to develop a continental-wide diaspora citizenship plan, establish the African Diaspora as the 6th Region of the African Union (AU), and determine a permanent headquarters for the 6th Region. Calls upon the State to immediately, through its African Descent-Citizens Reparations Commission (ADCRC), provide matrilineal and patrilineal DNA testing through African ancestry to determine the ancestral lineages and territories of origin of its Black residents so that they can seek citizenship in their ancestral homelands, if so desired. Calls upon the State to become the first to conduct a repatriation census in preparation for honoring President Abraham Lincoln's desire for voluntary repatriation with compensation and to make conducting the repatriation census its immediate priority.

MoAC Biss – Art and Culture Exhibition of Guinea-Bissau May 2023

Balanta Society Statement to the 32nd Session of the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent Economic Empowerment of People of African Descent Geneva, Switzerland, May 1-5, 2023

COMPLETE FORMAL SATEMENT WITH DOCUMENTATION

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