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In the
Spirit of Mandela, an unprecedented U.S. alliance of attorneys, academics,
and organizers from the movements for Black lives, civil rights, Puerto
Rican decolonization, immigrant rights, and Indigenous sovereignty/Earth
protection, will put the U.S.,
state, and local governments on trial for crimes against people of color.
From Oct. 22 to 25, the International Tribunal on U.S. Human Rights Abuses
Against Black, Brown, and Indigenous Peoples will convene, both in person at
a Manhattan historic landmark and virtually via live stream.
"This proceeding will establish overwhelming
evidence that this country and its settler-colonial predecessors have
committed genocide, as defined by the United Nations, against Black, Brown,
and Indigenous Peoples for over 400 years," said Jihad Mabdulmumit,
spokesperson for the coordinating committee of the In the Spirit of Mandela
Coalition. "As we've seen most recently with the George Floyd street
uprisings, only a strong grassroots movement from below can expose these
crimes and do the work that can end them."
Presiding will be an independent nine-member Panel
of Jurists, some with international stature. The majority are women and are
Global South-rooted from India, Eritrea, Haiti, France, the U.S., and
elsewhere. These jurists will oversee two days of testimonies from impacted
victims, expert witnesses, and attorneys with firsthand knowledge of
specific incidents raised in the charges/indictment. They will then deliver
their verdict to the U.N.
The Tribunal will consider charges of human and
civil rights violations for racist police killings of Black, Brown, and
Indigenous peoples; hyper/mass incarcerations of Black, Brown, and
Indigenous peoples; and political incarceration of Civil Rights/National
Liberation-era revolutionaries and activists, as well as present-day
activists. It will also take up environmental racism and its impact on
Black, Brown, and Indigenous peoples, and public health racism and its
traumatic impacts on Black, Brown, and Indigenous peoples.
Based on all the above, the overarching charge
will be argued that the U.S. has committed genocide against Black, Brown,
and Indigenous peoples, in violation of 18 USC 1091 and the 1948 United
Nations Convention on the Prevention of Genocide. Legal aspects of the Tribunal
will be led by Attorney Nkechi Taifa, along with a powerful team of
seasoned attorneys from all the above fields.
The In the Spirit of Mandela Coalition, created in
2018, is a growing group of organizers, academics, clergy, attorneys, and
organizations committed to working together against the systemic, historic,
and ongoing human rights violations and abuses committed by the U.S.
against Black, Brown, and Indigenous Peoples. The coalition recognizes and
affirms the rich history of diverse global activists, including Nelson
Mandela, Winnie Mandela, Graca Machel Mandela, Ella Baker, Dennis Banks,
Cesar Chavez, Fannie Lou Hamer, Fred Korematsu, Lolita Lebron, Rosa Parks,
Ingrid Washinawatok, and many more in the resistance traditions of Black,
Brown and Indigenous Peoples.
The year 2021 marks the 70th anniversary of the
campaign in which African-American human rights leaders Paul Robeson and
William Patterson, with the support of eminent sociologist Dr. W.E.B.
DuBois, presented the "We Charge Genocide" petition to the
burgeoning U.N. headquarters in 1951. Then in 1964, Minister Malcolm X (El
Hajj Malik el-Shabazz) formed the Organization of Afro-American Unity, in
part to bring the case of U.S. human rights abuses to the attention of the
U.N.
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