Dear Pan Africanists,

The Pan Afrikan Organizing Committee supports and
advocates any positive action and effort towards the
unification and the redemption of Africa and its
Diaspora. Essentially, the PAOC stands for Up With
Respect for Africa and African descendants, Down with
disrespect, and Forward Ever with Resurrecting the
Dignity and Integrity of being Black and African on
this planet.

With that foundation, it is with great reluctance that
we have to seriously challenge a sophisticated and
well-presented effort that, on the surface, seems to
advocate and follow the same principles stated above.
That effort is disturbingly flawed..

We are referring, of course, to the document presently
circulating on the Internet entitled, "The Petition
to Support Dual Citizenship for Black Americans In
Africa." There is a website link in the document, and
accessing it will get you the further announcement,
"Welcome to the website of "The Petition to Support
Dual Citizenship for Black Americans In Africa. Dual
Citizenship for Black Americans In Africa is an
Initiative created by the African Union and the Leon
H. Sullivan Foundation....."If you're unfamiliar with
the initiative or you would like to read more about
the African Union's proposal and other issues related
to the dual citizenship initiative, please visit the
"Dual Citizenship" section of our site for more
information...."

"We are aware that the proposal has been in the making
for nearly four years now, and we urge the
African Union and the leaders of the Summit to
complete the legislation that will grant African
Americans legal citizenship throughout Africa,
creating a concrete social, economic, and political
bridge between Africans and African Americans."
...."We are signing this petition to make you aware of
the massive support that exists in the African
American community for the dual citizenship proposal."


Repatriation and dual citizenship on the African
continent for Africans in the Diaspora is a long-held
dream and desire among thousands, possibly millions,
of us. Repatriation is the foundation pillar for both
Pan Africanism and one of its primary corollaries, the
Reparations Movement.To see a well-written public
announcement that this dream/desire may become a
reality and that we can help to accomplish it stirs
the African spirituality and adrenaline in a large
number of us.

Unfortunately, however, this most recent public
announcement is nothing but a tease. It may be
deliberately intended to tantalize and frustrate us,
or it may be an inadvertent, naive effort by someone
who has not thought out the negative consequences of
his/her actions. At this point, we are not sure
exactly why the public announcement was made, and
particularly why it was made so soon. Here are our
main concerns with the petition proposal:

(1) In modern Pan Africanism, focusing on African
Americans as if we represent the essence of the
Diaspora is inappropriate, at best, and arrogantly
ill-informed at worse. Although our $700 billion
dollar plus annual spending may rank us first in
access to financial resources, we are clearly not the
largest population of Africans in the Diaspora (that's
Brazil), we are neither self-autonomous nor
self-sufficient (Central Americans are far ahead of
us), and we are not the most organized (again, Central
American Afro descendants are). Any proper proposal
has to focus on the Diaspora, not just African
Americans.

(2) The petition for dual citizenship is not an AU
initiative, and to call it such is misleading and
reckless. Clearly, there were AU representatives
present at the July, 2006 Abuja, Nigeria Sullivan
Summit which is the recent basis of this proposal.
Several of those representatives even supported the
idea and concept of Diasporan dual citizenship on the
continent. But in fact, the African Union, which is a
governmental and deliberative body, has not--to
date--addressed in any significant way the issue of
repatriation and dual citizenship for Africans in the
Diaspora. The issue has not been agendized by the AU
Secretariat, no proposal addressing this issue has
been prepared by that body, nor have there been any
policy decisions motioned, floated or voted upon by
any of the AU commissions regarding that issue.

(3) The African Union currently has neither the
mechanism nor the political will to address that
issue. Citizenship in any African country (currently
54 of them) is still totally controlled by each
African country, not the AU, and as of the end of
2006, no African country (including Liberia, which
used to do it) offers dual citizenship to African
Americans or other members of the Diaspora. The Pan
African Parliament, which is a very distinctive part
of the AU, would be the appropriate body to handle
this issue, but until at least 2008-2009, the PAP
exists in an advisory capacity only. The Assembly
Commission (heads of state), the Executive Council
Commission (foreign ministers) and the African Union
Commission (the secretariat) currently have far more
leverage, clout and decision-making authority and
neither of those entities is capable currently of
deciding the repatriation/dual citizenship issue for
the whole of Africa.

(4) The petition proposal ignores the most effective
way currently to get the issue of repatriation/dual
citizenship before the AU and to keep it there until
it is properly handled. That method is for each
sub-region of the Diaspora, as presently defined by
the AU (i.e., Canada, USA, the Caribbean,
Central/South America, Brazil, and Europe) to elect
its AU Representatives so that we can accept the AU's
invitation to the Diaspora to join the AU as voting
members (the AU has designated the Diaspora as
Africa's Sixth Region). Presently, the public Town
Hall/Caucus method developed by the Pan Afrikan
Organizing Committee out of a Roundtable Discussion
Conference in Los Angeles in 2006, in association with
PANASTRAG and WHADN, is the best and most productive
approach in use to get those elections accomplished.
Once the Diaspora shows up to the 2007 AU meeting (the
ECOSOCC Commission) organized and prepared to
participate at the AU level of diplomacy, the Diaspora
can put the repatriation/dual citizenship issue on the
table and relentlessly advocate it until the issue is
properly addressed and voted upon by the
decision-makers in the AU.

(5) The public announcement for the petition asks
folks to sign up to support a proposal that has not
yet been written, publicly vetted, nor submitted. That
is clearly putting the cart before the horse. Even if
the petition becomes a useful tactic in helping to get
repatriation/dual citizenship for Diasporans
accomplished, strategically, this is not the time for
it. Hopes are being raised too far in advance of any
chance for satisfaction. Who exactly is supposed to
write this proposal? When? Can the public see it and
make comments on it?

Because it is well-written, the petition announcement
sounds like a very good idea to a lot of people. It is
deceptively simple and can and will confuse a whole
lot of us. At this point, however, we must urge
extreme caution regarding it--in fact, we urge you to
withhold your participation in this project-- until
some more basic questions are answered and more proper
information offered.

Stay strong. Stay progressive. Stay informed.


Forward Ever, Backward Never,

DLH for the PAOC

And dear gentlemen, permit me to complicate the issue of "dual citizenship"
even further. You have to be a citizen to begin with in order to have a
"dual citizenship". I present documentation below that we U.S. African slave
descendants are under the illusion of U.S. Citizenship, but, in fact, only
have granted Civil Rights which can be revoked at any time. I have no
opposition to the quest to re-actualize our African citizenships. I simply
object to the notion that we are U.S. citizens when we are not. Let's at
least deal with the facts of our legal status.
Thanks!
Omowale Za
African Reparations Activist


The 14th Amendment as Panacea for Slaves

The 14th Amendment is showcased as a document that overrules the Slave
Clauses in the original Articles of the Constitution of the United States.
The U.S. postured the 14th Amendment to the world as a solution for U.S.
slavery during a highly politicized ad revolutionary period in U.S. History.
John Brown at Harper's Ferry was a culmination of anti-slavery zeal. This is
not to detract from previous slave-led revolts.
The world standard for resolving conflicts involving war and abuse is that
the warring parties meet face-to-face as human beings to reach a solution or
settlement, surrender, truce or whatever. The U.S. missed an historic
opportunity to resolve the issue of slavery in such a manner. The 14th
Amendment was a White unilateral act. Slaves were not consulted. There was
no request for a slave plebiscite, referendum nor representative body of
slaves. The same party who had made slavery U.S. Public Law, the U.S.
Congress, now made slaves its so-called citizens. But how can you make your
slave your citizen without meeting with your slaves? You do it as your
slaves continued slavemaster, who continues to determine his legal status
and identity. Hence, you can call your slave a free negro. You can call him
emancipated or free black. It doesn't make any difference what you call him
so long as the master-slave relationship of power, domination and control
are still intact.

One central impact of U.S. Slavery was to strip from us our nation-building
skills. Hence, law to us is what the slavemaster or slavemaster class
decides, i.e. supposedly on our behalf. This is still our basic thought
mode, in that we still accept as "law" unilateral White acts such as the
14th Amendment. The alternative in 1865-66 could have been what the
Anti-slavery Abolitionist Movement was fighting for, a meeting between the
U.S. and slaves and a settlement for the abuses of war involving
Reparations, or Repatriation back-to-Africa or to anywhere the slave so
chose, but with Reparations, and a say in our identity and legal status,
i.e. self-determination. Some, probably about half of us, would have chosen
to be U.S. Citizens based upon mutuality to the law, but with Reparations.
As it occurred, slaves had to lease lands under the Freedman's Bureau and
were forced off the land by the U.S. Cavalry, and the land given back to
former White slavemasters as White Reparations. The U.S. Congress continues
to determine our legal status to this very moment because we are under
granted Civil Rights which can just as easily be ungranted and must be
renewed by the signature of the U.S. Attorney General who deals with issues
of war and wards of the State. So if U.S. African Slave Descendants have a
President, it is the U.S. Attorney General.

The 14th Amendment is "the largest adhesion contract in the world."
(Attorney Dr. Robert L. Brock) An adhesion contract as a "standardized
contract form offered to consumers of goods and services on essentially a
'take it or leave it' basis without affording consumer realistic opportunity
to bargain and under such conditions that consumer cannot obtain desired
product or services except by acquiescing in form contract. Distinctive
feature of adhesion contract is that weaker party has no realistic choice as
to its terms." (Black's Law Dictionary)

By appearing to resolve the issue of U.S. Slavery before the world with an
adhesion contract, the U.S. Congress was able to delay the emerging issue of
Black Reparations in 1866 from entering into the international limelight.
What rights did slaves have left for the U.S. to "protect" with the 14th
Amendment. We had already been stripped b force of arms and law to which we
were not party of our human rights, i.e. language, religion and culture. We
are a People who do not exist on a world standard as being ourselves,
because the records were not kept. This is a fundamental part of our
Reparations complaint. Who are we? When are we going form a legal compact
around whoever we are. Certainly we can compact as U.S. African slave
descendants. Imagine the transformation in consciousness that could bring
about. That would win Reparations. That would get the attention of the
world. The sleeping giant finally awoke and demands justice. we wanted the
"protection" of the U.S., this would have presented the opportunity for
those amongst us who so desired, to say no. Those saying no could easily
have been more than half of us. The others were too conditioned to risk
leaving the plantation, with what? Free to do what? Free to continue
servitude under "sharecropping". Indeed, the dynamic indication from our
history is that those who had not been made mental slaves simply wanted
their own land, to raise their own families in peace and to be rid of White
People. The 14th Amendment did not overrule any of the original slave
clauses and was not contractual with slaves, but unilateral.

By 1865 Black Reparations had positioned itself as an alternative to
"protection" as a solution to U.S. Slavery, but an alternative the U.S.
needed to snuff. The American Colonization Society had already returned
numerous Africans back to Africa though without Reparations. As with Cinque,
they met war and emerging Colonialism upon their return. The 14th Amendment
made it possible for the U.S. to dupe the world into believing that the
issue of slavery had been resolved.

But how do you make your slave your citizen without a meeting of the minds?
You do so as your slave's continued master. To treat your slave as an human
being with rights in which your slave has a say in the his legal status
would be a move in the direction of ending the condition of enslavement.
This was the Human Rights opportunity that the U.S. missed in 1865.
This brings us to Article I, Section 9, Clause 1: "The Migration or
Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think
proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year
one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on
such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person."

The Constitution was careful to safeguard the importation of slaves long
enough to establish a strong slave economy. So there was to be no
suppression of the importation of slaves prior to 1808. Indeed, the U.S.
guaranteed income off the top with a $10 per head tax or duty. The U.S.
slave economy reached economies-to-scale by 1830. By this time the supply of
slaves was more than sufficient. Additional supply could be maintained
through forced breeding, like breeding animals. Slaves were are still are
the prime stock of the U.S., an annual value of $650 Billion, more than
$10,000 per head per year, a People without a social system of their nor
infrastructure to benefit from our own value. Capture in a War of
Enslavement, illegal transport and made physical slaves eliminated such
infrastructure; the world's largest liquid slave economy. Slavery ends when
the master-slave relationship ends. A slave is one whose value goes to
another. The modern mechanisms by which this occurs have developed out of
physical slavery. Yet, we are still physical slaves; we are being charged
twice for our labors. Slaves were not paid for their original labor. Now we
have to work again in order to earn inferior wages. On what basis could the
Freedmen's Bureau lease land to slaves who had already worked without wages?
President Johnson, who seceded Lincoln, then forcibly removed slaves from
their leased land with Federal troops, returning the leased land to former
White slavemasters as White Reparations.

The error is in viewing slavery in a static system, as in chattel slavery.
Slavery has always been and still is dynamic, changing as the slave economy
becomes more vibrant and sophisticated. The commodity phase of slavery was
active up to 1830, by which time economies-to-scale had been achieved
through importation and forced breeding. There was now the fear of too many
slaves.

In 1796 the New York legislature on the same day, voted to "free" all slaves
residing in the State and started the New York State Prison System. The
system of U.S. Slavery is adaptive, developmental, not static.

The U.S. Supreme Court in 1839 could laud the rights of the Amistad Africans
(Cinque et al) since Britain had beat the U.S. to the draw in abolishing
slave "trade", Britain having already made its mint. The Court could afford
to appear liberal in releasing the Amistad Africans. Economies-to-scale had
already been reached. There were too many slaves and slave inventions were
key in spiraling the U.S. into its industrial phase from the agricultural
phase. We became legislated slaves with the unilateral White acts of the
U.S. Congress in 1865 and in 1868 with the 14th Amendment. Only slave
ownership had changed, not the master-slave relationship. We became U.S.
Congressional property who determines our legal status to this very day.
With an annual value of $650 billion, we are now the biggest consumer slaves
on earth.

The original Slave Statutes that have been rescinded are:

Article I, Section 9, Clause 1; Article IV, Section 4; Article IV, Section
2, Clause 3; Article I, Section 8, Clause 15; Article V; Article I, Section
9, Clause 4; Article I, Section 2, Clause 3. Add to these, the Amendments of
the U.S. Constitution.
Omowale Za
Black Reparations Activist

when you post all of this stuff do you think that someone is going to work their way through it all - it has nothing to do with intelligence or levels of - this is long t'ings.

Apedemak wrote:

I dont like this idea



I amgine Lee Jasper claiming same rights in Jamaica...

.lol. True.

Even worse... people who can't be assed to read up on it in the first place! Shock! Horror! .lol.

Not sure where Mr Jasper is from but this is to do with issuing disporansan Africanpassportfor whatever state/s which would boost the economy and give the AAs a place to at least try and call home.It was/is a good idea in my opinion, depending on how its done. Shemshi had a topic going on thedebate a while ago, thought this would be relevant, should have brought the topicup again and posted this there. The second post is a follow up regarding the first.

@MBA - Feel free to print and read it if its easier.

HTP

RL