Just seven days after her release, heroic transgender activist and military whistleblower Chelsea Manning was jailed again on May 15 in Virginia for refusing to testify before a second grand jury in the WikiLeaks case. Manning could be jailed for up to 18 months. The judge also imposed Draconian fines for every day past 30 that she refuses to testify.

Manning declared, “I would rather starve to death than change my principles.” The government knows she will not cooperate with their biased grand jury. There is no reason to keep her in jail, except as continued punishment for daring to expose U.S. war crimes.

The Prisoners Solidarity Committee urges you to join the fight to free Chelsea Manning and all prisoners of the U.S. empire. You can help her continue to resist by writing letters of support to Chelsea Elizabeth Manning, A0181426, William G. Truesdale Adult Detention Center, 2001 Mill Road, Alexandria, VA 22314. Follow @ResistsChelsea on Twitter for updates.

“My battle is a ‘homeland or death’ battle, of gratitude to life; a battle in order to uphold dignity. Only cowards surrender and betray. When the difficulties get worse, the real revolutionaries fight to the death.”
— Jesús Santrich, April 11, 2018

The safety and well-being of a leading and respected figure in the Colombian revolutionary movement — Jesús Santrich — is now surrounded in mystery. After a year in prison, Santrich was released from jail in a semi-conscious state on May 17 and then rearrested within minutes. His health is said to have worsened after being put back in jail.

Explanations vary. His jailers first reported his condition to be the result of a suicide attempt, but there are reports that he suffered beatings before his release and again after his rearrest, and still others indicating a heart attack, or perhaps even poisoning by his captors.

Santrich had been sent to La Picota prison in Bogotá in April 2018 based on sham charges from the Southern District Court of New York that he had tried to traffic cocaine into the U.S.

In 2016, as part of an agreement between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People’s Army (FARC-EP) and the Colombian government, signed after long negotiations in Havana, a tribunal called the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) was set up.

Among the many components of the agreement, there was to be broad immunity for those who participated in the 50 years of civil war, and no extraditions would be allowed as punishment for anything that occurred before the agreement was signed.

It was this tribunal, the JEP, that rejected the bogus charges by the U.S. and finally ordered Santrich released more than a year after his arrest. His immediate rearrest was most certainly at the behest of Washington.

Colombian President Iván Duque and former President Álvaro Uribe are both close allies of the U.S. and are leading a right-wing campaign against the 2016 agreement, which they view as being too soft on the former guerrilla fighters.  

U.S. war on Colombian people

Santrich was one of the leading negotiators who represented the FARC in talks that led to the agreement with the Colombian regime.

He fought hard in the negotiating sessions for improvements in the rural areas where the FARC’s 20,000 fighters had driven out the military and death squads and defended campesinas and campesinos from right-wing paramilitaries. For a long time, the FARC held territory equal to the size of Switzerland.

The FARC’s goal was to build a socialist society in the South American nation of 38 million. But from 1999 until the agreement was signed, the reality that their struggle was, in fact, a war with U.S. imperialism was more clear than ever.

Under “Plan Colombia,” initiated by the Clinton administration, the U.S. and allies sent billions of dollars, mostly used to train and equip the Colombian military. Its stated goals were to end violence on all sides, and promote economic development in order to stem the flow of cocaine.

But while the war against the FARC and a second Colombian guerrilla organization, the National Liberation Army (ELN), was stepped up, when it came to paramilitaries and death squads funded by U.S. corporations like Coca-Cola, the Colombian military and its U.S. backers looked the other way.

Deaths squads assassinated homeless people and targeted LGBTQ people in the cities. Paramilitary forces as well as the official military launched murderous campaigns against campesinas and campesinos that they saw as sympathetic to the guerrilla fighters, along with rural Afro-Colombian and Indigneous communities.

Since 1992, 51 journalists have been assassinated in Colombia, with 39 of those murders carried out with impunity. Colombia has also earned the dubious distinction of being the most dangerous country in the world for trade unionists.

Government promises unfulfilled

Under the 2016 agreement, the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) dissolved as an army and refounded itself as FARC (Alternative Revolutionary Force for the Common People), a civilian electoral party.

In exchange for the rebels disarming, the government agreed to the institution of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP,) and what was supposed to be a broad immunity or amnesty. The former guerrillas were guaranteed 10 seats in parliament, and Jesús Santrich was to have one of them. They were also able to run candidates like any electoral party.

Santrich and others at the Havana talks also wrested commitments from the government for a variety of rural development projects, including universal education from preschool through secondary school, access to clean drinking water and extensive infrastructure projects. Since the agreement was signed, none of these promises has been fulfilled and violence against progressives has increased — particularly against progressive candidates, many of whom are former guerrilla fighters from the FARC.

It’s no wonder that Santrich has been targeted by imperialism. His roots in the communist movement are deep and go back decades. He was a member of the Central Staff of FARC’s army, considered one of its most important leaders, led their communications and propaganda efforts, and was a proud admirer and close ally of President Hugo Chávez while the U.S. fumed at Chávez’s popularity in neighboring Venezuela.

Solidarity messages and demands for Santrich’s release have come from the leadership of the ELN, from Cuba, from organizations throughout the Caribbean and Latin America, from Sinn Fein of Ireland and many others.

It is time for progressive people — especially in the United States — to close ranks with the Colombian people’s struggle and call for freedom for Jesús Santrich!

On May 14, several dozen tenants held a sit-in at the office of New York State Assembly member Tremaine Wright in Albany, N.Y.  As part of the statewide coalition called Housing Justice for All, they demanded universal rent control for all residents of the city and state of New York.

The protesters also presented Wright with a 30-day eviction notice, as it was then 30 days before New York City’s rent-stabilization law is set to expire. Wright is a Democrat from Brooklyn who represents part of Bedford-Stuyvesant, a traditionally African-American, working-class neighborhood that is now being heavily gentrified. Wright has opposed strengthening the rent control law, which many tens of thousands of her constituents depend on to stay in their homes.

For months, tenant groups have sent representatives to Albany to meet with politicians about the urgent need to defend tenants’ rights, following up on mass meetings in Harlem and other areas. So far, Wright has refused to meet with tenants’ groups.

Those occupying the office chanted, “Which side are you on?” echoing the labor and civil-rights song.

Other militant actions were held in the state Capitol building by the thousands who came from all over New York State, including labor and immigrant rights organizations, and groups representing the homeless and public housing residents.

A dozen of the state’s union leaders sent a letter to Gov. Andrew Cuomo and legislators supporting sweeping reforms to New York’s rent regulations, changes that would close the loopholes that landlords and developers have used for decades to drive up rents and evict tenants.

As some tenants applied pressure with people’s eviction notices for pro-landlord politicians, hundreds of others took over the building’s huge, four-floor-high staircase after Capitol police locked them out of the Senate chambers. Tenants then flooded the third floor, chanting in several languages, “The rent is too damn high!”

After the 2014 U.S.-backed coup in Ukraine, longtime Russian communist activist Alexey Markov organized aid for grassroots militias conducting armed resistance in the Donbass mining region, which declared independence and formed the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR).

With his comrade Petr Biryukov (military codename Arkadich), he soon founded the Volunteer Communist Detachment and joined the anti-fascist struggle. Today Markov, under the codename Dobri, commands the Ghost Battalion, successor to the legendary Ghost Brigade founded by Commander Alexey Mozgovoy.

Struggle-La Lucha asked Markov for an update on the situation at the front line five years after the U.S.-Ukraine war on Donbass began, at a cost of more than 10,000 lives so far. This interview was conducted before the April 30 runoff that saw Vladimir Zelensky selected to replace Petro Poroshenko as president of Ukraine.

Struggle-La Lucha: It’s been five years since the Maidan coup in Ukraine, the beginning of the war against Donbass and the massacre in Odessa. You started out by bringing aid to the people’s militias in Donbass. How did you get from there to your current situation, as commander of the Ghost Battalion?

Alexey Markov: In May 2014, after the killing of peaceful people in Odessa and shootings in Mariupol, my friend from Stakhanov [in the Lugansk People’s Republic] addressed me with a request to assist Pavel Dremov’s detachment. To my surprise, a lot of people responded to my request for help, and Dremov’s group of 45 people was fully equipped with uniforms, body armor, kevlar helmets and walkie-talkies.

After the success of this action, acquaintances told me: “You are good at motivating people. You must continue this work.” This is how the Coordination Center for Assistance to Novorossiya (CCPN), which still provides assistance to the units of the People’s Militia of the LPR and DPR, was born. All the founders of the CCPN were united by leftist or communist convictions.

During the summer battles of 2014, we expected that one of the communist organizations of the Russian Federation or Novorossia would create its own communist unit, which we could join. Unfortunately, the communists in Novorossia were disunited both militarily and organizationally, so we decided to create our own squad to go to defend the Donbass from the neo-Nazis.

At the beginning of September 2014, I and Arkadich drove around the units we provided with assistance in order to more accurately determine their needs and select the location of the future Volunteer Communist Detachment (DKO). We spent three days at the headquarters of the Ghost Brigade in Alchevsk. During repeated conversations with Alexey Mozgovoy, we very much liked his position regarding the future of Donbass, which was to become socialist and free from oligarchs. I promised him that we would soon return with the squad.

Early on the morning of November 6, 2014, the first DKO team from Moscow arrived in Alchevsk and joined the Ghost Brigade as a separate unit, number 404. Two weeks later, having acquired the first weapons and some training, the detachment conducted its first combat operation in the village of Komissarovka, five kilometers from Debaltsevo. The personnel of the detachment led by Arkadich actively participated in the operation to free Debaltsevo in the winter of 2015, as a result of which, by order of Mozgovoy, Arkadich was appointed his deputy for combat training, and I as deputy for the rear.

After the tragic death of Mozgovoy [on May 23, 2015], his place was taken by the chief of staff of the brigade, Yuri Shevchenko. In the winter of 2016, the Ghost Brigade was reorganized into the 14th Separate Battalion of the People’s Militia of the LPR under the command of Arkadich. In October 2016, Arkadich was promoted and became deputy commander of the 4th Brigade, and I was appointed to his position as commander of the Ghost Battalion, where I am today.

SLL: What was unique about the militia organized by Alexey Mozgovoy that drew you and other communists from around the world?

AM: Alexey Mozgovoy openly declared that the war in the Donbass should not be interethnic, but a class war. He openly spoke for the socialist future of Donbass, built on democratic principles, and called on Ukrainians to unite to oppose the oligarchs who had seized power. This attracted many leftist people to the ranks of his brigade, although very different people served in the brigade, from anarchists and communists to nationalists and monarchists.

Mozgovoy also conducted active work on the internet, arranged teleconferences with the Ukrainian side, and was always open to the press, which made him a very popular figure in the Donbass. Many viewed him as the most influential national leader and a possible future head of the republic.

Support from the left and anti-fascist forces has always been very important for the Ghosts. A lot of journalists and volunteers visited the brigade. This allowed us not only to attract new fighters, but also to convey information about what was happening in the Donbass to residents of other countries. Also, material assistance turned out to be very important and made it possible to somewhat fix the catastrophic shortage of equipment and weapons in the young army of Novorossiya.

SLL: The Minsk peace negotiations have been stalled for a long time. There have been big buildups of armaments by Ukraine in the war zone, but so far no new military offensive. How do you view the military situation of the republics today? What is the situation of the Ghosts stationed at the front line?

AM: In fact, the military situation in the republics has greatly deteriorated. Over the past year and a half, Ukraine has seriously re-equipped its army, filling it with modern types of weapons, and also conducted mass training of soldiers with the help of Western instructors. Now, the Ukrainian armed forces have not only quantitative, but also qualitative superiority over the army of the people’s republics. Instead of a major offensive, which could lead to a response from Russia, they chose a strategy of constant pressure along the entire front line, which leads to small but permanent losses on our part.

The frontline sector defended by the Ghost Battalion is considered to be the most difficult in the LPR. Daily battles with the use of artillery, mortars and armored vehicles are constant there. Despite the difficult conditions and constant shelling, the fighters of the battalion steadfastly hold their positions and do not intend to retreat.

SLL: Do you believe Ukraine will be allowed to join NATO?

AM: I don’t think that Ukraine will be able to join NATO any time soon. The main reason is that NATO does not accept countries with territorial claims, and Ukraine claims not only Crimea, but also part of the border regions of Russia. Also, Ukraine’s entry into NATO would entail a serious crisis in relations with the Russian Federation, which the European members are unlikely to be ready for. It’s more likely that NATO will confine itself to comprehensive military and organizational support of Ukraine.

SLL: How do you assess the upcoming presidential election in Ukraine?

AM: For us, the elections in Ukraine will not bring any changes. The main presidential candidates have common Russophobic and anti-communist views, and intend to continue the course of confrontation with Russia. Most likely, before the elections, Poroshenko’s regime will try to unite its supporters under the banner of “war with Russia,” so the situation at the front will be complicated, and after the election, the course towards a military solution to the conflict in Donbass will continue.

SLL: What similarities or differences do you see between what happened in Ukraine five years ago and the current situation in Venezuela and other Latin American countries targeted by the U.S.?

AM: The scenarios in all these countries are very similar: with political and financial support from the U.S. and Western Europe, local oligarchs organize mass unrest and seizure of government buildings, provoking the legitimate authorities into limited use of police forces, after which they loudly declare “thousands of peaceful protesters were killed” and call for overthrowing the government. The henchmen of the oligarchs are immediately recognized by the U.S. and Western Europe as the sole legitimate authorities.

I hope Maduro proves to be a more decisive leader than [deposed Ukrainian President Viktor] Yanukovych, and will not give his country away to the mercenaries of international capital.

SLL: How do you view the relationship between what happened in Ukraine and the spread of neo-fascist movements in the West?

AM: The world is entering a phase of another economic crisis, and for big capital it is very natural to try and channel the discontent of the masses by setting some nations against others. Uninformed people will sooner see the cause of their impoverishment in “illegal immigrants” or the machinations of treacherous neighbors, than realize that their poverty is a necessary condition for the further enrichment of a handful of super-rich.

This was already the case at the beginning of the 20th century, when global capital relied on the Italian and German fascists in their struggle against the world labor movement. So the current oligarchs set Ukrainians against Russians, Europeans against Asians, and white residents of the U.S. against African Americans in order to distract them from their real enemies.

SLL: What are the prospects for anti-fascist revival in Ukraine and the former Soviet countries?

AM: It’s difficult to talk about the prospects for the revival of the anti-fascist movement in the post-Soviet republics while there are openly comprador bourgeois regimes in power that hate the Soviet past. For them, the fascists and Nazi collaborators are far closer socially than the Soviet heroes of the war against Nazism.

But in general, among the masses, the memory of the heroism of the anti-fascist fighters and hostility to Hitler’s ideology remains at a very high level. We will do everything possible so that victory will be on our side this time too!

SLL: How can working people in the U.S. and the West aid the struggle of the people’s militias in Donbass?

AM: In the first place, of course, there needs to be constant pressure on the governments of their countries to cancel or limit support for the fascist regime in Ukraine. Without constant military and financial assistance from the West, the neo-Nazis in Kiev will not last long.

Second is the widest possible dissemination of information about what is happening in the Donbass among ordinary residents of the United States and Western Europe. This applies to both traditional media and the internet.

Last but not least is providing material and technical assistance to units of the People’s Militia of the LPR and the DPR, which are in a very difficult position due to lack of supplies.

Children, like the truth, are often the first casualties of war. And children are dying in the war being waged by Donald Trump and the boss class against migrants and asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Jakelin Caal Maquín, age 7. Felipe Gómez Alonzo, 8. Juan de León Gutiérrez, 16. A still-unnamed toddler, just two-and-a-half years old. Carlos Hernández Vásquez, 16. These are the casualties we know of — so far — since December. All were asylum seekers from Guatemala who died in U.S. custody.

And now there is Darlyn Valle, age 10.

A young refugee from El Salvador, Darlyn was trying to reach her mother in Nebraska when she was captured by the Border Patrol. The U.S. government held her in custody from March to September 2018, despite a chronic heart condition that required surgery. Darlyn was forced to undergo surgery without her mother or other family at her side.

She was finally sent to a facility in Nebraska — three days before her death on Sept. 29.

In all the months since, U.S. officials never revealed Darlyn’s death — until they were forced to, probably by the threat of whistleblowing, after the death of Carlos on May 20 at a Border Patrol station in Weslaco, Texas.

CBS News broke the story about Darlyn on May 22, reporting: “Manuel Castillo, Consulate General of El Salvador in Aurora, told CBS News his office had no knowledge of the girl’s death. Castillo said the office was caught off guard by the news, and was hoping the CBS News report would help him track down the family. Castillo said concerned local residents called him, saying, ‘We can’t let this happen again.’”

Nor can we forget the names of other migrants and refugees killed by the enforcers of Trump’s “Build that wall” incitement, like Roxsana Hernández, a 33-year-old trans woman who was abused and denied proper treatment for HIV, and Claudia Gómez González, 20, who was shot in the head and killed by a Border Patrol goon.

Over 80 people have died at the hands of the Border Patrol since 2010, according to the Southern Border Communities Coalition.

The media now routinely publish pictures of families living in increasingly squalid conditions in “camps” run by the Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE): children fenced in under bridges or sleeping in piles of garbage under makeshift tents. The Trump administration is planning to vastly expand detention facilities, imprisoning still more refugees and migrants, including children and families.

It didn’t start with Trump

The reports are coming more frequently. They can seem overwhelming, especially to working-class parents struggling to keep their children healthy and safe in a country gripped with economic insecurity, poverty and racist terror.

It’s important to understand that this war on children didn’t start with Trump. The Obama administration and previous governments, both Republican and Democrat, laid the groundwork.

According to a newly released report by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the International Human Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School, “Migrant children under the care of United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) were allegedly beaten, threatened with sexual violence and repeatedly assaulted while in custody between 2009 and 2014.

“Border authorities were accused of kicking a child in the ribs and forcing a 16-year-old girl to ‘spread her legs’ for an aggressive body search. Other children accused officers of punching a child in the head three times, running over a 17-year-old boy and denying medical care to a pregnant teen, who later had a stillbirth.”

This happened during the presidency of Democrat Barack Obama, who was known as the “Deporter in Chief” for the record-high rate of raids and deportations that took place under his watch. Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden were both high officials during that time.

While no children were reported to have died in immigration custody under the previous administration, the trend leading toward today’s crisis is clear.

But it’s more than that. In his war-mongering campaign against Venezuela, Trump’s National Security Adviser John Bolton recently invoked the imperialistic Monroe Doctrine, which stated that all of the Western Hemisphere was the U.S.’s “backyard.” While that overtly racist statement drew some self-satisfied snorts from the corporate media, the truth is, U.S. authorities and the wealthy ruling class they serve have never stopped living by this doctrine.

Decades of U.S.-instigated coups, wars and economic strangulation are driving the exodus of refugees from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and other countries.

And the war on children doesn’t stop at the border. It continues on the streets of the U.S., in the denial of health care, the decimation of public education, and by homegrown death squads, including racist police and vigilantes. The casualties include familiar names like Tamir Rice, Aiyana Jones, Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, and lesser known ones, like 14-year-old Antonio Arce, who was shot and killed by police in Tempe, Ariz., in January.

Unite to fight

Who can stop the war on children at the border?

Whistleblowers are courageously coming forward, despite the danger exemplified by the U.S. persecution of Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange and others. There are congressional committees and lawsuits aplenty.

All of these tactics can be useful for furthering the struggle. But by themselves, they amount to stopgap measures at best, which cannot solve the fundamental problem.

To give one example: Despite loud crows of victory from Trump’s congressional competitors like Nancy Pelosi, the crisis of family separations has continued as it has receded from the headlines.

Meanwhile, children are dying.

The fundamental problem is capitalism. All the defenders of the profit system — left, right and center, Democrats and Republicans alike — have a stake in Trump’s divide and conquer tactics. They don’t want the workers and oppressed communities here to unite with our class siblings across the border and around the world.

They will not take the fundamental steps needed to end the crisis of children dying at the border, just as they have done nothing to end the epidemic of police murders. Defenders of a system based on the idea that fundamental human needs like jobs, health care, education, housing and food are privileges, not rights, will not solve the problem.

But there is another group in society: one that plays a fundamental role in the economy and has an inherent stake in uniting across borders to fight its common enemy. That is the working class.

We can look at the recent wave of teachers’ strikes in defense of public education as an example. In state after state, education workers and communities have united to push back attacks on students and the right to education, and made important gains.

Remember, too, how the threat of airline workers to withhold their labor — and hit the bosses’ pocketbook! — quickly ended the long “government shutdown” earlier this year.

What if the workers’ and community organizations, including unions, threatened to withhold their labor until the war on children and all migrants and refugees was ended? What if they reached out to workers’ organizations in the countries that people are fleeing from? What if they organized caravans from all over the country to go to the border and bring aid and solidarity to those trapped in Washington’s prison camps?

On May 21, women, trans and non-binary people, and other workers rallied in hundreds of cities and towns across the U.S. to #StopTheBans and defend reproductive rights. Activists from Struggle-La Lucha joined actions in various cities, including Baltimore (pictured here).

The day of action was called by a broad coalition after the passage of Alabama’s abortion ban. The law, signed by the governor on May 15, would jail doctors who perform the procedure for up to 99 years and criminalize women and others who seek abortions, even in cases of rape or incest.

Seven other states have passed extreme anti-abortion laws this year in a coordinated effort to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that legalized abortion, following Donald Trump’s appointment of ultraright misogynist Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Fight back! We won’t go back!

Struggle-La Lucha’s John Parker appeared on the “Liberated Sisters” webcast hosted by Sister Charlene Muhammad May 28 to talk about the crisis in Venezuela and the need for solidarity against U.S. war and sanctions.

https://www.facebook.com/charlene.muhammad/videos/10205864161119511

More than a hundred people demonstrated in Washington, D.C., on May 25 — African Liberation Day — to demand justice for Zimbabwe. They marched from the African American Civil War Memorial to the White House, which was built by enslaved Africans.

Their message to Donald Trump was “Lift the sanctions on Zimbabwe!”

As Omowale Clay, a member of the International Secretariat of the December 12th Movement, noted at an earlier news conference: “Nearly two decades ago, the U.S. passed the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act of 2001 [ZIDERA] to punish Zimbabwe for having had the audacity to return to the people the land stolen by white colonial settlers.

“The goals of the sanctions imposed by ZIDERA were to make the Zimbabwean economy ‘scream’ — to make conditions so bad for the masses of the people that they would overthrow the ZANU-PF-led government and stop the confiscation of land from white settlers. President Trump has just renewed the sanctions for another year.”

‘Sanctions are an act of war’

The December 12th Movement and the Friends of Zimbabwe initiated this action. As people marched down 14th Street in military order, drivers honked their horns in support.

Viola Plummer, chairperson of the December 12th Movement, chaired the rally in front of Trump’s White House. Dr. James McIntosh from the Committee to Eliminate Media Offensive to African People (CEMOTAP) opened the speakout.

Dr. Frenk Guni, chairperson of ZANU-PF (Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front) USA, described how neighboring African countries also suffer from the sanctions on Zimbabwe.

Dr. Guni also paid tribute to Coltrane Chimurenga, field marshal of the December 12th Movement, who passed away on May 13. Field Marshall Chimurenga was considered a national hero in Zimbabwe because of his support of the liberation struggle there.

Tohouri Toutoukpeu, from African Diaspora for Democracy and Development, voiced support for Zimbabwe and described how his country — Côte d’Ivoire — was still a French colony despite formal independence.

Pam Africa and Razakhan Shaheed from the MOVE organization and the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal came to support Zimbabwe.

Spokespeople from the National Black United Front and the United Negro Improvement Association, which was founded by the Honorable Marcus Garvey, denounced the sanctions on Zimbabwe. So did Monica Moorehead from Workers World Party.

Andre Powell, from Struggle-La Lucha and the Socialist Unity Party, declared that “Sanctions are an act of war. … The United States and European imperialists have committed acts of war against so many governments in the continent of Africa. …

“When you sanction a country, you interfere with that country’s ability to give food and medicine to its people so that they die,” continued Powell.

In just the last 13 years, sanctions have cost Zimbabwe $42 billion. The struggle against the HIV-AIDS pandemic has been harmed.

Powell pointed out that Venezuela, Iran and Cuba were also victimized by U.S. sanctions but refuse to surrender their sovereignty. He declared, “We stand with Zimbabwe! To hell with Trump!”  

Malcolm X Library honored El Hajj Malik Shabazz on May 18, the eve of his 94th birthday. This Fourth Annual Malcolm X Day Community Celebration was organized by the Malcolm X Day Organizing Committee, chaired by San Diego visual artist Kim Phillips-Pea.    

The African American Museum of Fine Arts joined in the celebration by hosting its Third Annual Food Festival in the library’s parking lot, serving the best Southern cuisine and foods of the African Diaspora in San Diego.

The program included informational workshops, artistic displays, poetry, books, pictures and quotes from Malcolm X displayed throughout the library. Local authors, powerful speakers, inspirational performers, community businesses and organizations were given time to speak about what they are doing in the community.

The celebration began with drumming and libations to honor and thank our ancestors, whose shoulders we stand on. Menuhati Kemma’atahb asked everyone to include the names of family members, grandmothers and grandfathers, aunts and uncles, who are our personal unsung heroes and sheroes, during this traditional African ceremony honoring the ancestors.

Phillips-Pea’s purpose every year is to educate our youth about Malcolm X — to dispel the many myths and spoken untruths about Malcolm X.

A large part of the program was devoted to the children. Many youths recited Malcolm X quotes. Students of capoeira, an Afro-Brazilian martial art that incorporates dance, music and acrobatics, filled the stage with demonstrations featuring many youth from the community.

It’s important to remind people that the children of Southeast San Diego named this library after Malcolm X. This was not readily accepted by officials of the city of San Diego. Councilman George Stevens and many other community members pushed the San Diego City Council to acknowledge that the community had spoken and to officially rename Valencia Park Branch Library to Malcolm X Library and Performing Arts Center. The resolution was passed in January 1996.

The Friends of Malcolm X Library presented a pamphlet entitled “Insights of Malcolm X,” a gift to the library from longtime member Eusi Kwayana. Elder Kwayana, who celebrated his 94th birthday in April, will be pleased to know that his pamphlet was presented to the library and community in honor of the 94th birthday of Ancestor Malcolm X.  

One passage in Elder Kwayana’s pamphlet reads: “What is noteworthy about the man, after whom the Southeast District of San Diego renamed a renovated Public Library in 1996, is not the variety of experiences life dealt him. His merit is rather his ability to rise above the negatives, to break free of limitations and take up and sustain a campaign for deep social change and new structure relations of equality hostile to domination.”

The day’s festivities ended with a panel discussion chaired by professor Mychal Odom on the topic, “What It Means to Be a Revolutionary Today.”

On May 19, the San Diego Committee Against Police Brutality screened a film by director John Singleton, who passed away in April, at the Malcolm X Library. While many in the film industry see “Boyz N the Hood” as Singleton’s masterpiece, CAPB choose to show his film “Rosewood,” about the 1923 Rosewood massacre, when a white mob lynched Black residents and destroyed that Florida town.

The film was followed by a discussion of the one hundred years of resistance against racist terror and violence since the Chicago white supremacist riot and Red Summer lynchings of 1919, as well as four hundred years of resistance from 1619, when the first African slaves arrived in Jamestown, Va., to the present.

For more information and photos, check out Friends of Malcolm X Library on Facebook or at friendsofmalcolmxlibrary.org.