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This is an invitation to an event co-hosted by the Peace & Solidarity Commission, Communist Party USA and the Claudia Jones School for Political Education on Monday evening titled What Is AFRICOM? featuring organizers from the Friends of the Congo and Black Alliance for Peace. This event will be held virtually via Zoom.
(From Black Alliance for Peace, U.S. Out of Africa! website):
The United States African Command (AFRICOM) was established October 1, 2008. The purpose of AFRICOM is to use U.S. military power to impose U.S. control of African land, resources and labor to service the needs of U.S. multi-national corporations and the wealthy in the United States.
When AFRICOM was established in the months before Barack Obama assumed office as the first Black President of the United States, a majority of African nations—led by the Pan-Africanist government of Libya—rejected AFRICOM, forcing the new command to instead work out of Europe. But with the U.S. and NATO attack on Libya that led to the destruction of that country and the murder of its leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, corrupt African leaders began to allow AFRICOM forces to operate in their countries and establish military-to-military relations with the United States. Today, those efforts have resulted in 46 various forms of U.S. bases as well as military-to-military relations between 53 out of the 54 African countries and the United States. U.S. Special Forces troops now operate in more than a dozen African nations.
This event will feature:
Maurice Carney is a co-founder and Executive Director of the Friends of the Congo. He has worked with Congolese for over fifteen years in their struggle for peace, justice and human dignity.
Ajamu Baraka is a geopolitical analyst, organizer, writer, and human rights defender with over 48 years of movement work in the U.S. and internationally. Ajamu is on the Executive Committee of the U.S. Peace Council, the leadership body of the United National Anti-War Coalition, the steering committee of the Black Is Back Coalition and National Organizer for Black Alliance for Peace. He is an editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report and contributor to a number of news and opinion outlets. He was awarded the U.S. Peace Memorial 2019 Peace Prize and the Serena Shirm award for uncompromised integrity in journalism. In 2016, Baraka was the Green Party's Vice-Presidential candidate with Jill Stein in the 2016 presidential race.
Nnenna Amuchie is a diehard Black non-binary and queer Black feminist who draws their revolutionary spirit and understanding from abolition, communism and anarchism. They are a community organizer, facilitator, writer, and attorney. They believe in Black liberation where Africans globally have the resources, land and freedom to explore joy and pleasure free from violence, where reproductive justice and autonomy is actualized, without police and prisons, which would necessitate the destruction of capitalism and imperialism.
Henry Lowendorf achieved a Ph. D. in biology, carried out lab and field research for 20 years before spending over 2 decades in technology evaluation, patenting and licensing all the while pursuing half a century as a grass-roots peace activist. On the executive of the US Peace Council, he chairs the Greater New Haven Peace Council and co-founded the Connecticut Peace & Solidarity Coalition. He represented the peace movement on a State Commission to convert Connecticut’s militarized economy and continues organizing to move the US from a military to a green, peace economy. In 2016, Henry led a peace delegation to Syria. He has represented the USPC at numerous international forums of the World Peace Council and is chair of the Peace & Solidarity Commission of the Communist Party, USA.
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Photo credit: AP Photo/Charles Dharapak