PRESS STATEMENT
27/07/17

“We Still Charge Genocide and Ecocide!”:

Thousands to March in London on 1st August to counter Maangamizi denial and demand holistic reparatory justice for the Afrikan Hellacaust

Thousands of Afrikan people and their allies from across all communities will March in London next week for the 1st August Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March to demand justice for the crimes of the Maangamizi (Afrikan Hellacaust) and the harmful effects its legacy still has on people today.

10 Downing Street will also be served with the ‘Stop the Maangamizi: We Charge Genocide/Ecocide’ petition which lists 12 manifestations of the modern-day Maangamizi including brutality by police and security agents including deaths in custody; mentacide of Afrikan heritage youth and adults through the state miseducation system; racist immigration patrols and policies; extractive industries, abuse natural resources in Afrika, free trade agreements and privatisation schemes, including private finance initiatives (PFI’s), public-private partnerships (PPP’s), and Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA’s) of the European Union (EU) being forced on Afrikan, Caribbean & Pacific countries; as well as the proliferation of HIV/Aids, ebola and other bioweapons of mass destruction. It is intended that the petition and continued campaigning will contribute to building public support for kick-starting the All Party-Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry for Truth & Reparatory Justice (APPCITARJ) in the UK and European Union Parliaments.

People of Afrikan heritage continue to suffer from the effects of the Maangamizi which reduces their quality of life and freedom to be self-determining. Esther Stanford-Xosei, spokesperson for the Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March Committee said: “The reparations march will help to raise awareness of the current manifestations of the Afrikan Hellacaust and the resistance that Afrikan heritage people are engaged in to repair the damage for ourselves because we are not begging the British state to repair us!; at the same time we must continue to expose their crimes and force accountability for their continuing perverting the cause of justice in failing to address their own obligations of redress under international law”. The Reparations activist says the British establishment’s commitment to relentlessly continuing its genocide/ecocide crimes of the modern-day Maangamizi is evidenced by ‘War on Want’ in their report ‘The New Colonialism: Britain’s scramble for Africa’s energy and mineral resources’. The ‘Honest Accounts 2017: How the world profits from Africa’s wealth’ report also confirms this. These reports show how 101 companies listed on the London Stock Exchange, most of them British have mining operations in Afrika and collectively control over $1trillion worth of Afrika’s most valuable mineral and energy resources and that Afrika the countries of Afrika are collectively net creditors to the rest of the world, to the tune of $41.3 billion.

The ‘Stop the Maangamizi: We Charge Genocide/Ecocide’ petition will also be used to help establish glocal sittings of the Ubuntukgotla Peoples International Tribunal for Global Justice (U-PITGJ). The International tribunal, a true world court, will deal with the reparations cases of Indigenous, First Nation and people of Afrikan heritage as part of a series of actions that will seek to implement holistic and transformative reparations for all acts of Genocide/Ecocide, where the victimised also get to use their own law in defining the landscape of reparatory justice in such a way that brings about global justice for all.

This year’s March will start and finish with a Rally at Windrush Square in South London with many well-known guest speakers and organisers active in the International Social Movement for Afrikan Reparations (ISMAR) before heading to Parliament Square where a three minutes silence will be observed in commemoration of those ancestors, martyrs and contemporary resistors who are engaged in resistance against the Maangamizi, or who have otherwise campaigned for freedom, equity and justice for people of Afrikan heritage. There will also be a ‘Peoples Open Parliamentary Session on Afrikan Reparations’ at Parliament Square seeking to expose British state complicity in Black on Black self-annihilation in service of white supremacist domination (so-called Black on Black violence), which is also deemed to be a manifestation of the Maangamizi.

International delegations of Afrikans involved in reparations activism to compel state accountability in other European countries, including the Netherlands and Germany, will be joining the people’s March, represented by the Europe-Wide NGO Consultative Council for Afrikan Reparations (ENGOCCAR). Esther Utjiua Muinjangue, Chairperson of the Ovaherero Genocide Foundation (OJF) will headline the March, the OGF is seeking redress for the Ovaherero-Nama Genocide, the first genocide of the 20th century; conducted by the former Imperial German colony of South West Africa between 1904-1908, in which an estimated 100,000 people were killed, leaving just 15,000 survivors.

   Esther Utijiua Muinjangue

The Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March (now in its 4th year) has consistently attracted thousands of people from across the UK, as well as overseas, to take part. The 1st of August was chosen as the date of the march to commemorate ‘Emancipation Day’ in the Caribbean and some parts of Afrika marking the passing of the Abolition of Slavery Act in the British Empire, on 1 August 1833. However, the passing of this act however did very little to truly emancipate enslaved Afrikans; but rather compensated the enslavers; and contributed to the unjust impoverishment, dispossession and social displacement of Afrikans and their descendants; who are still impacted today. For people of Afrikan heritage within and beyond Britain, the Maangamizi is worsening in the aftermath of BREXIT with official reports showing an increase in Afriphobic hate crime. These and other reasons expressed are why the ‘Stop the Maangamizi’ Campaign affirms that Parliament is itself a crime scene.

Marching under the theme: ‘Promoting the Reparatory Justice Change We Are Organising to Bring About,’ this march unlike previous years will call attention to the reparatory justice programmes and activities that various sections of the Afrikan Heritage Community are working on. In this regard, Prophet Kweku, Co-Chair of the Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March Committee said: “As Afrikan people are taking responsibility for bringing about our own Afrikan Heritage Community Self-Repairs, it is our intention that the march, the petition and the ‘Stop the Maangamizi’ campaign will increase public pressure to ensure that the UK Government also acknowledges and takes steps to address its role in redressing the social, political and economic legacies of enslavement and colonialism on current generations of people of Afrikan heritage“.

The March has been recently highlighted in the documentary ‘Preparation for Reparations’ broadcast on Made in Bristol TV which premiered on 23rd July 2017.
The Ovaherero delegation are also here promoting the documentary film ‘Skulls of My People’ on the struggle of the Ovaherero people in Namibia taking on the German government to provide reparatory redress for the Ovaherero-Nama genocide. It also highlights their fight for the rightful return of the 3000+ skulls of their people taken by the Germans for racial science experimentation in their universities after the genocide.

ENDS

For media enquiries, or photos, please contact Dulani, Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March Committee Media Officer: 07930 875 012 or media@reparationsmarch.org.

For interview requests or requests to host a screening of ‘Skulls of My People’ contact Esther Stanford-Xosei: info@estherstanford.com or 07751143043.

Notes to Editors

The meaning of reparations
https://stopthemaangamizi.com/2016/04/21/overstanding-reparations/

Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March Committee.
https://stopthemaangamizi.com/category/aedrmc/

Aims of the Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March
http://www.reparationsmarch.org/

Programme for the 1st August Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March
https://stopthemaangamizi.com/2017/07/24/reparations-march-2017-programme/

Aims of the ‘Stop the Maangamizi’ Campaign
https://stopthemaangamizi.com

Stop the Maangamizi Petition
https://www.change.org/p/stop-the-maangamizi-we-charge-genocide-ecocide

Other European language versions of the ‘Stop the Maangamizi’ Petition
https://engoccar.wordpress.com/smwecge-petition/

People’s Reparations March Calls to Participate, Mobilise & Take Action
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6U6qzMmtvO8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=as8OjyFrh44
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZVtRyT9vsE

All-Party Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry for Truth & Reparatory Justice
https://stopthemaangamizi.com/2015/10/12/about-the-commission-of-inquiry-appcitrj/

Ubuntukgotla – Peoples International Tribunal for Global Justice see here:
https://stopthemaangamizi.com/2016/01/31/the-ubuntukgotla-peoples-international-tribunal-for-global-justice-pitgj/

Herero and Nama Genocide
https://soundcloud.com/kayafm959/karibu-with-mike-siluma-16-march-2017-herero-and-nama-genocide

Trailer for ‘Skulls of My People’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCzqszCCtgE

The New Colonialism: Britain’s scramble for Africa’s energy and mineral resources
http://www.waronwant.org/resources/new-colonialism-britains-scramble-africas-energy-and-mineral-resources

Honest Accounts 2017: How the world profits from Africa’s wealth
http://jubileedebt.org.uk/reports-briefings/report/honest-accounts-2017-world-profits-africas-wealth