Dr. Stella Nyanzi (left) and Hon. Betty Aol Ocan, Gulu Woman Member of Parliament, (center) before the Parliamentary Committee on Health.

“We don’t know her parents. She was found dumped in a dustbin. A Good Samaritan took her to Mama Maliam, then keeping orphans and abandoned children like Apici. Mama Maliam, who is my paternal aunt, then brought her here. We have since, been keeping her”

“Nobody knows the fathers of her children. She is very aggressive towards boys and we believe that someone waylays and rapes her on her way home from Laliya Trading Center late in the evenings. We only notice her pregnancies when they are in advanced stages”

GULU-UGANDA: “You are a very lucky woman to have two babies; unlike me who has no child nor husband!”, Ms. Anne, a social worker from Hungary who deals with human rights of people with mental disabilities worldwide, tells seventeen-year Ms. Millie Apici (not real names).

“Nobody knows the fathers of her children. She is very aggressive towards boys and we believe that someone waylays and rapes her on her way home from Laliya Trading Center late in the evenings. We only notice her pregnancies when they are in advanced stages”, explains Ms. Evelyn Abalo.

Watoto Church Orphanage took custody of the first child, Joyce Lagum but refused to take on the second child, Angel Lakica; born a few months after the first child

Ms. Millie Apici a beautiful young girl lives in Oguru village, Laliya parish which is located just on the outskirts of Gulu city in northern Uganda. She has lived with mental disability since childhood.

Her parents are not known. She was found abandoned and dumped by her unknown mother in a dustbin in Gulu City during the height of the insurgency in northern Uganda about seventeen years ago.

 “We don’t know her parents. She was found dumped in a dustbin. A Good Samaritan took her to Mama Maliam, then keeping orphans and abandoned children like Apici. Mama Maliam, who is my paternal aunt, then brought her here. We have since been keeping her”, Ms. Evelyn Abalo explains.

“We began to see her mental abnormality right from childhood and this prevented us from sending her to school. Our challenge as a family is how to ensure that her two children are sent to school”.

Ms. Anne, who flew into Uganda from Hungary recently, learnt about the plight of Ugandans like Ms. Apici who suffer from mental illness through Mental Health Uganda, a local Non-Governmental Organization which works with people with mental disabilities.

Anne is worried that a person who cannot make informed decision on her sex life like Apici can easily get infected with HIV/AIDS since there is apparently no law which protects people like her.

The law governing mental health, The Mental Treatment Act, was last updated in 1964. It does not take into account modern knowledge and discoveries regarding the treatment and care of mentally ill persons and is not Human Rights based.

It was basically custodial, to remove people with mental disorders from society and keep them confined without much considerations of clinical care.

There is a new law in the offing called The Mental Health Bill, 2014, which is currently before the Parliamentary Committee on Health.

The object of the new law/bill is to provide for care and treatment for persons with mental illness, at primary health centers, to ensure that persons with mental illness are enabled to seek treatment voluntarily; to ensure the safety and protection of persons with mental illness and the protection of their rights and the safety of the people who come into contact with then; among other objects.

One of the Ugandans who appeared before this committee on Wednesday, February 7, 2018, is renowned scholar and critics of the regime, Dr. Stella Nyanzi of Makerere University, who was charged with cyber harassment and offensive communications against the president of Uganda.

“In my first week at Luzira Women’s Prison, two strangers who identified themselves as government psychiatrists intruded upon my mandatory health checkup (where I was testing for HIV). They attempted to commence an involuntary mental examination to which I strongly objected in the strongest terms possible”, says Dr. Nyanzi.

“In spite of several delays in the process of enacting the Mental Health Bill (2014), the legislation provides an opportunity for mental health law reform aimed at re-writing a progressive law that protects one of the most vulnerable social groups, namely people with mental disabilities and mental illness”.

According to another scholar, Professor Seggane Musisi, a Senior Researcher in the Department of Psychiatry at Makerere University, the proposed new bill has four major omissions; namely that it does not address itself to the issue of rehabilitation and chronic care of mentally disabled individuals; it has no section specifically dealing with children and adolescents.

“Often the mental health problem of children and adolescents stem from family dysfunction including neglect, abuse and violence. The bill should address itself to the treatment needs of families and minors (Children and Adolescents) afflicted by mental health problems”, says Professor Musisi.

He says the bill also misses out on the ill-health of drugs and alcohol which cause physical, mental and social health problems; and that it does not address itself to offending mentally ill individuals.

According to the State-Owned New Vision newspaper of February 5, 2018, Uganda has only 32 psychiatrics for 34 million people. 20% (percent), 6.8 million people have some degree of mental illness, ranging from anxiety, depression and severe madness. 5% (percent) of children in Uganda have epilepsy.  

Obama. Photo--Flickr.

Obama Foundation seeks to identify a group of emerging African leaders from all sectors -- government, civil society, and the private sector -- who have demonstrated a commitment to advancing the common good.

The objective of the program is to build a growing network of innovative and ethical changemakers, who seek to drive positive change in their communities. Successful candidates will have a demonstrated potential for impact, a clear commitment to integrity, and a commitment to stay engaged with the Obama Foundation throughout the year and beyond.

We are interested in talented individuals who are on the right trajectory at earlier stages of their journey, as well as those who have already attained success.

The inaugural class of the Leaders Africa Program will convene in Johannesburg, South Africa from July 14 through July 18, 2018, as well as participate in robust online activities throughout the year. The Obama Foundation will cover costs related to economy class travel, lodging, and meals throughout the July 14-18 portion of the program.

Applications should be submitted via the link below, no later than 6:00 PM ET (11:00 PM GMT) on March 25, 2018. We will notify applicants of their status via email on a rolling basis beginning on April 27, 2018.

https://apply.obama.org/leadersafrica/

Candidate Criteria

Citizen of an African country
Fluent in English (verbal and written)

Emerging leaders from all sectors approximately between 24-40 years of age.

Available to travel to Johannesburg, South Africa from July 14 through July 18, 2018.

Civically minded with a track record of impact.

A clear commitment to integrity.

A commitment to stay engaged with the Obama Foundation throughout the year and beyond.

Ability and inclination to positively transform the future of Africa or their community.

Cuban director Enrique Pérez Mesa, maestro of the National Symphony Orchestra of Cuba and the Chamber Orchestra "Nuestro Tiempo, is taking advantage of a brief stay at Lehman Center for the Performing Arts in the borough of the Bronx, located at 250 Bedford Park Boulevard West, where he will conduct his National Symphony Orchestra of Cuba on Sunday afternoon at 4:00 pm giving the Bronx an afternoon of culture they wont soon forget.

Direct from Cuba the 75-member orchestra returns by popular demand.  Aficionados of the orchestra were overwhelmed when the Orchestra took the United States by storm via their stunning performance debut during their 2012 tour. The orchestra under the guidance of Musical Director Enrique Pérez-Mesa will feature a Latin-flavored classical program that includes Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, Roldan's Three Little Poems, Mozart's Clarinet Concerto, De Falla’s The Three-Cornered Hat and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7.

Formed in 1960, The National Symphony Orchestra of Cuba, was then known as the Havana Symphony. It has gone on to develop and introduce exceptional Cuban and Latin American music to the international classical music community via its vast symphonic and chamber repertoire.  A repertoire which ranges from baroque to contemporary music. The National Symphony Orchestra of Cuba has conducted international tours delighting audiences in countries such as Russia, Poland, Yugoslavia, Mexico, Nicaragua, Spain, Peru and Argentina.

Pérez Mesa is a graduate of the National School of Arts specializing in the violin.  He studied orchestral conducting at the Higher Institute of Art of Cuba. In addition he holds a master's degree in orchestral conducting from the University of the Arts of Havana. He was musical director of the Matanzas Symphony Orchestra and has collaborated with prestigious artists such as the guitar quartet Los Romeros, Víctor Pellegrini, Ney Rosauro, and Frank Fernández. He has participated in important festivals such as the Guitar International of Havana, Morelia, the Autumn Festival "Eduardo Mata", Symphony Orchestra,  The famed Perez-Mesa has led performances in prestigious concert halls all over the world. He has collaborated with well-known soloists including Alexandra Ferri, Francesco Manara, José Manuel Carreño, Frank Fernández, Roger Woodward, Konstantin Cherbakov, Alexander Braginski, Joaquín Clerch, The Romeros Quartet, Jorge Luis Prats and Víctor Rodríguez.

His recordings include a Grammy Award Nomination for Salmo de Las Americas, in the category of Classical music; his DVD recording with the Cuban pianist, Frank Fernandez, was nominated for the Cubadisco 2007.

Tickets for the National Symphony Orchestra of Cuba range from $45, $40, and $25, with a special $10 ticket price for children 12 & under. Tickets can be purchased by calling the Lehman Center box office at 718-960-8833 or via going on line at www.LehmanCenter.org. Lehman Center is accessible by the #4 or D train to Bedford Park Blvd., and is off the Saw Mill River Parkway and the Major Deegan Expressway. Low-cost on-site parking is available for $5. 

Attorney Antonio Moore discusses the wealth data surrounding Black American families. Moore looks closer at Harvest Boxes being proposed by President Trump to replace Food Stamps.

Click to Read More Here: Brandon Lipps, administrator of the Food and Nutrition Service at USDA, said the idea was partially inspired by rapidly changing models for how people get their groceries. The USDA last year launched a pilot program that allows SNAP recipients to order provisions online using their EBT, or Electronic Benefit Transfer, cards, which function like debit cards but can only be used to purchase groceries.He said in an interview that it was designed to streamline the process of getting healthy food into the hands of those who need it most. State administrators, he said, would be responsible for figuring out how to package and distribute the boxes themselves.But SNAP administrators say the proposal is riddled with holes.Bhanot had a broad list of questions, ranging from delivery of the boxes, especially during hurricanes, to ensuring that recipients were getting the right type of nutrition. "We'd have to ramp up staff. Where will the money come from?" he asked.In Minnesota, Chuck Johnson, acting commissioner of the Department of Human Services, called the proposal "a significant step backward in our nation's effort to ensure all Americans have access to nutritious food." He said it would be a major burden on states, which would have to figure out how to deliver the food boxes.Tom Hedderman, director of food and nutrition policy at the New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, said there are about 1.25 million SNAP recipients in his state who get more than $90 in benefits each month — the threshold that would trigger a food box. He criticized the proposal for its lack of detail and direction.

[From The Archives]

Julius Malema on the floors of South African Parliament. Photo-YouTube Excerpts from Julius Malema's November 26,  2015 comments at Oxford University 

We want to create a society where all of us exist as human beings and not as White and Black. We want to restore the dignity of the African continent and position Africa as an equal partner in the world economy and international politics. 

We want Africa to be like Europe. We don't want Europe to treat Africa like it is it's own subject. Africa's time is now. No one should continue with the exploitation of our minerals without our involvement. Not even China will be allowed to recolonize Africa.

We are called Economic Freedom Fighters because we want any foreign direct investment to come and invest in Africa through our own terms and to the benefit of the people of Africa. It might be a dream. Some might think it's not real.

But we know we are going to achieve it. Because this dream is not just a dream by the generational mission; as a generational mission we are not prepared to sell out. We want to restore the dignity of African people. We want to ensure that African people are equal partners in trade, in politics, in every subject that the world is debating. 

We want to follow in the footsteps of Nelson Mandela. Because Nelson Mandela when he left his term as a president, he said the struggle continues. He said so because he knew political freedom without economic freedom is incomplete.

People cannot eat their cross. People want to put bread on the table. So like many African leaders we are committed not to betray the dreams of those who came before us. Like many African leaders we want to unite the people of Africa to have a common agenda and common purpose.

We want Africa to unite and Africa to reclaim its land and its resources. The EFF speaks of expropriation of land without compensation because we know that when the land was taken in Africa it was through genocide. Why would we reward genocide?  We cannot reward genocide. But we want land because land guarantees us of the sovereignty of South Africa and the African continent.

We cannot claim to be Africans yet we have nothing to show as proof that are indeed Africans because we do not even have title deeds to prove that we are the owners of the land. We have nothing to show.  When you go into mines, it's multinational companies. When you go into banks, it's multinational companies. When you go into monopoly industries it's multinational companies.

We cannot even own and protect our own agricultural sector with our fertile land in Africa because Europe and the entire developed countries use Africa and South Africa as a dumping site. Every lower-grade food gets to be dumped in our countries undermining our own agriculture. 

When we say those things we are called communists, we are called anarchists, we are called radicals because we must continue to bow before White Supremacy. We are refusing that. We are refusing to bow before imperialism and colonialism. We want total control of our own country and our own land. We in South Africa, Black and White, we co-exist as people. When we fight colonialism we do not fight White people.

We come from a bad history of apartheid where White people have exploited us for far too long, yet we have extended a hand of friendship. There are many others who are still refusing and still wanting to act as if we live in the apartheid era. Those do not deserve to live amongst those who want a United South Africa, Black and White. It is of their own problem.  

We are not going to be an international home of racists. We are not going to be an international capital city of racism. We refuse that Black people must still bow before White people and that does not mean you must go away. We are going to reverse the legacy of apartheid through robust engagement and not through pretentious arrangement. We are still hated. We are seeing people dying before us.  

We have seen many, many children killed by apartheid regime yet we came out and said we remain brothers. But there are those who are refusing to show remorse and wanting to perpetuate that which happened during apartheid time.

We owe no one no apology when we say South Africa is no home of racists and racism must be fought everywhere including here in Oxford. It must be fought everywhere else, in New York, where Black people get to be shot at by police and we see no serious action.  We want a world which recognizes human beings and not color. It starts with me. It starts with me.

Particularly if you are White you need to stand up and say 'not in my name.' We are a new generation. We need to usher in a non-racial international society. Racism has got no place, where democracy, prosperity, has to take place.  

South Africa we want to lead by example, in the same way we led by example and accepted that the colonizer and the colonized must share territory. Even beyond the defeat of the colonizer we did not seek to pay revenge we continued to share territory with those who colonized us because we believe strongly that there is a place for everyone in South Africa. 

But let us transform the economy to benefit all. We cannot protect White privilege at the expense of the majority of African people in South Africa and the whole entire African continent. We are hated for saying that. We are hated for demanding that we must all be treated as equals.

We would rather die for a dream that is going to be realized by many generations after us even if we don't realize it ourselves. We have made a commitment to lay a firm foundation for generations to come.  We seek to inspire confidence among many, many African masses that they must stand on their own. In this day and era you still have a situation where there are African states paying colonial tax to France. France, it is what it is because of those African states. You have the reserve banks of African states in France and not in Africa itself? And we must accept that and say it is acceptable, it is in the interest of Africa? It is not.  

We want Africans to have control over their own currency. Once Africans have control over their own economy and what constitutes their own economy.  Our struggle seeks to inspire. Our struggle seeks to inspire accountable African leaders not dictators, not unaccountable leadership that turns a public purse into a personal purse.

Some leaders in Africa when you ask them for money they go and fetch from a Reserve Bank and give it to you because they treat a Reserve Bank as a personal bank account. It can't be. We want leaders who are responsible. We want leaders who are accountable.

We want leaders who will go to elections and be elected through democratic means. Let people determine their own leadership and not because leaders are torturing them and intimidating them and imposing themselves on the people.  We were happy when South Africa became one of the last liberated country because we thought we would learn from many failed African states and not repeat similar mistakes. But it looks like we are traveling in the same direction that was traveled by failed African states.

In the whole of Africa, I met some of the students earlier, some are doing research in Africa. You must go and check the facts; in every failed state it became so, because of an individual called the President. The President takes over the country and everything gets to be designed around the individual called the President.  They move from a democratic rule to personal rule. They respect the individual more than the state institutions.

If a president does not like a red beret, a law is passed that all red berets are banned in this country. If the president in South Africa does not like a corruption-fighting institution called Scorpions, they go and close down that Scorpions so that he can steal more than 250 million Rands, I don't know what that is that in pounds.  Because he doesn't want to to prison.

Every institution that wants to take him to prison for corruption, he destroys that institution. The Scorpions, he closed it down because that was going to cause him problems.  Now we've got a beautiful lady called a Public Protector fighting corruption, the president is after her. Because anyone fighting corruption in South Africa is the enemy of the president; and if that president is left alone, South Africa will become one of the failed African states.  

Not under our watch. The EFF has arrived. The EFF is going to protect the sovereignty and the democracy of South Africa. The EFF is going to revive correct politics in Africa and position Africa at a correct path in the international politics.  It is possible.

We have taken that position and many in Africa are willing to follow.    

Ben Crump, attorney.

The military is one of our nation’s most revered and essential institutions, filled with courageous men and women who willingly sacrifice so much for our nation’s greater good.

It is a point of pride among African Americans that Black soldiers have served in the military since the American Revolution and the War of 1812 – long before they were even recognized in law as full-fledged people.

So I was particularly touched to be selected as recipient of an award given in the name of one of the first true Black military heroes, Colonel Charles Young. Born in neutral Kentucky while the Civil War was still raging, Charles Young in 1889 became only the third African American to graduate from West Point and, later, the first Black U.S. national park superintendent and first African American to achieve the rank of colonel in the U.S. Army. We also share a brotherhood through the same fraternity, Omega Psi Phi.

In March, the Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument will mark his 154th birthday, where it will be my great fortune to receive the Trailblazer Award. This will be presented during festivities at the National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center in Ohio.

Every award, every honor, is something to be cherished. But it is particularly humbling to be recognized in the name of such a trailblazer. I have spent my career working to bring justice to African Americans and all people of color, just as Colonel Young spent his life dispelling common myths about what blacks were capable of — or, more accurately, what most folks figured they were not capable of.

In Colonel Young’s day, it was simply an accepted fact that blacks would not receive the same kind of opportunity as their white counterparts. For example, Colonel Young was denied becoming the first Black general of the military, even though he was more than qualified, simply because White superior officers did not want to take orders from a Black general. They claimed that he was not medically fit enough to receive such a promotion – in true Colonel Young fashion, he rode his horse over 100 miles to prove his fitness for duty.

Just like Colonel Young, the Buffalo Soldiers heroically showed just what Black soldiers were capable of contributing through hard work, dedication and service at a time when half the country did not want to even acknowledge they were whole citizens.

In the end, Colonel Young died 26 years before President Harry Truman issued an executive order officially ending racial segregation in the military. At least, that was the idea. The reality is that racism continues to infest all branches of our military, even if more subtly.

The nonprofit advocacy group Protect Our Defenders carefully examined almost 10 years of data to identify racial disparity in the military. Not surprisingly, they found it in abundance. Their report last year found that across every branch, Black service members are as much as 2.5 times more likely to face military justice or disciplinary action than their White counterparts.

“Military leadership has been aware of significant racial disparity in its justice process for years, and has made no apparent effort to find the cause of the disparity or remedy it,” the organization declared. The report also showed that the problem was progressively getting worse, not better.

The example of men like Charles Young show us that people of color can endure, and even thrive, within the nation’s military despite a culture of racism, whether official or otherwise. But it’s equally clear that people of color should not have to face such racism, in the military and in society in general.

I am committed to doing everything within my power to see that the oppressed find justice wherever possible. That is why it is such a tremendous honor to be recognized in Colonel Young’s name.

It is time for our nation to live up to the promise that Charles Young saw when he looked at America.

Ben Crump is a nationally known civil rights attorney and advocate, and is the founder and principal of Ben Crump Law, www.bencrump.com

Mojoless Trump-- once again his candidate was defeated. Photo Gage Skidmore-Flickr 

Julius Malema. Photo: YouTube I wish to comment on two articles, one about Julius Malema and African unity and the other about African Americans in the U.S. military.  Mr. Julius Malema dares to expose the shortcomings of the ANC regime which has basically replaced Whites faces in government with African faces a danger which the Black intellectual Steve Biko, who was later murdered by the apartheid regime, warned could happen.  Prosperity hasn't trickled down to the people who sacrificed much to make a change. The ruling elite of course is uncomfortable with Malema's continuing revolt against the status quo and even Cyril Ramaphosa the billionaire new president has invited him to return to the ANC. Unfortunately this trend is general among African leaders who once advocated revolution but once in office dared not to challenge the international financial and banking order. In fact once in power these former revolutionaries had no problem supporting the U.S. no-fly zone over Iraq and the subsequent invasion.  These same former revolutionaries had no hesitation in supporting a no-fly zone over Libya even after seeing how this was used against Saddam Hussein. What could they possibly be thinking other than not having friction with the former colonial powers?  Did they only want political offices without any benefit for the masses but enormous economic benefits for themselves like Mr. Ramaphosa? For anyone who favored decolonization and African nationalism the current state of African affairs is dismal. Julius Malema will hopefully force the real issues to the forefront of the national agendas. With respect to Black soldiers in the U.S. military; these soldiers have been used and abused in every action that the U.S military has engaged in.  They have never fought for their  own agenda but were, and are, simply a black clog in a white machine. Black soldiers have repeatedly hoped that by risking their lives in the national defense they would be recognized as worthy of full citizenship rights. This hope has never materialized.  Black soldiers fought against the British, fought in many Indian wars, the Mexican War of 1846, Spanish-American War, World War I and II, Korean War, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Afghanistan, Iraq, and on and on.  Where are the benefits of full citizenship after all these involvements for over 200 years of fighting? Many Black people see Colin Powell as a role model but he only went around the world fighting for White Supremacy and U.S. domination. Will he or any Black veterans fight against the terror that local police inflict upon our communities or do they only go to war when the White man tells them to?   

Another hot NFL season ahead. Photo: nfl.com

The 2018 Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza Democracy and Peace Prize was awarded on Saturday, 03.10.2018, in Brussels, Belgium. The prize honors Rwandan political prisoner Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza. Despite the African Court of Human and People's Rights' 2017 ruling that her imprisonment is unjust and that Rwanda should free her, she remains behind bars.

Charles Onana and Phil Taylor

This year's Victoire Prize went to Cameroonian French journalist Charles Onana and Canadian radio broadcaster Phil Taylor. Onana is the author of many books including The Secrets of International Justice, Secrets of the Rwandan Genocide, and The Tutsi Killers at the Heart of the Congolese Tragedy. None of Onana’s books have been translated from French to English, and his life has been threatened for challenging historical orthodoxy about Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Phil Taylor is the host of The Taylor Report on CIUT 89.5 FM at the University of Toronto. He was an investigator for defense attorneys at the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda, where they challenged the court’s a priori assumptions about what had actually happened in Rwanda in 1994. For many years his CIUT-Taylor Report was the only North American broadcast outlet giving voice to dissident Rwandans and ICTR defense attorneys. His Taylor Report website offered the only English translation of Robin Philpot’s book, Rwanda 1994: Colonialism Dies Hard, until the book was updated and finally published in English in 2013 as Rwanda and the New Scramble for Africa: From Tragedy to Useful Imperial Fiction.

Victoire

Victoire left her family, her professional achievements, and her comfortable life in the Netherlands to return home to Rwanda and attempt to stand against President Paul Kagame for the presidency in January 2010. She knew that she was likely to be assassinated or imprisoned, and she was imprisoned seven months later. She had said that she was going home because she couldn’t bear to see her people continuing to suffer under Kagame’s regime, and by that she meant her Rwandan people. Her former lawyer, Iain Edwards, said that it was a joy to represent her and that “She loves her Rwandan people. She makes no distinction whatsoever between Hutu, Tutsi, or Twa.”

Since most Americans find her African names challenging to pronounce or remember, I ask them to simply call her “Victoire,” as her supporters do.

Victoire’s own dissident voice can be heard, in Kinyarwanda, in The Song for Madame Victoire Ingabire on SoundCloud:

Let me tell all Rwandans that what we wish for is that all of us work together to make sure that such a tragedy will never take place again. That is one of the reasons why the political party FDU made a decision to return to the country peacefully, without resorting to violence, though many people think that the solution to Rwanda’s problems is to resort to armed struggle. We do not believe that shedding blood should resolve problems. When people shed blood, the blood comes back to haunt them.

For all of us to reach reconciliation, we need to empathize with everyone’s sadness. For the Tutsis who were killed, those Hutus who killed them must be punished. For the Hutus who were killed, those who killed them must be punished as well. Furthermore, it is important that all of us, Rwandans of different ethnicities, understand that we need to unite, respect each other, and build our country in peace.

Victoire’s Challenge to Historical Orthodoxy

Upon her return to Rwanda in January 2010, Victoire went to Kigali’s genocide memorial museum and, surrounded by press, asked, “Where is the memorial for the Hutus who died?” She was soon placed under house arrest and ordered not to speak to the press, but that didn’t stop her. Despite the court’s order and her confinement to the city of Kigali, she spoke to any press who dared speak to her—meaning mostly foreigners, like myself, who called her on the phone. At least one Rwandan journalist was murdered that year, and more fled to neighboring Uganda and beyond. Speaking to Victoire as journalists would have been like signing their own death warrants.

Victoire clearly stated that neither she nor her party have ever denied the Tutsi genocide, but the world should understand that before, during, and after the Tutsi genocide, Hutu people were killed, and those who killed them must also be charged and prosecuted. She said that for the nation to heal, Rwandans who had lost loved ones, Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa, must all be allowed to openly mourn their dead.

The orthodox, Manichean oversimplification of the Rwandan Genocide is that the majority Hutu government executed a long-planned genocide by arming and enabling extremist Hutus who massacred between 500,000 and 1,000,000 Tutsi civilians in 100 days, between April 7 and July 4, 1994. It is fiercely defended by Wikipedia editors, and by President Kagame’s minions in Western academia and media. It became Kagame’s excuse for invading, occupying, and plundering Rwanda’s neighbor, the Democratic Republic of the Congo; every time his troops have crossed the border since 1996, he has said they’re hunting down Hutu genocidaires who had fled to Congo.

The orthodox account is also written into official documents and polemics to justify so-called “humanitarian intervention” by the US to “stop the next Rwanda.” These include Mass Atrocities Response Operations: A Military Planning Handbook produced by the Pentagon and Harvard’s Carr Center, with financial support from tech billionaire Pierre Omidyar’s “Humanity United” foundation. Since the Pentagon is never underfunded and currently has more money than it can figure out how to spend, it seems safe to say that Omidyar’s contribution had more to do with putting his “Humanity United” stamp on the handbook than with any need for money.

So Victoire Ingabire is not only up against Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who had her locked up and sentenced to 15 years. She is also up against the ideological infrastructure of humanitarian intervention. If the Western powers were to revise their good Tutsi-evil Hutu, “Hotel Rwanda” account of what happened in 1994, or to acknowledge that President Kagame commands those whom Charles Onana identifies as The Tutsi Killers at the Heart of the Congolese Tragedy, they would have to rewrite their humanitarian war handbook and more.

Victoire no doubt knew the enormity of what she was challenging beyond Rwanda’s own borders, but she didn’t take it upon herself to criticize the US. I once asked her whether she wanted to say anything about US involvement in the Rwandan and Congolese tragedies on Pacifica airwaves. Her answer was the briefest, “No,” but her meaning was clear. She was risking her life to challenge the Kagame regime, and any challenge to our own government was up to us.

A good starting point is reexamining the account of the Rwandan massacres that we’ve all been asked to believe as though it were inscribed on the stone tablets that God reportedly handed down to Moses in the Sinai.

Ann Garrison is an independent journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2014, she received the Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza Democracy and Peace Prize for her reporting on conflict in the African Great Lakes Region. She can be reached at @AnnGarrison or ann@kpfa.org.

The National Rifle Association's Wayne LaPierre--students say 'enough.' Photo: Gage Skidmore-Flickr

On March 14th, Americans witnessed a remarkable scene as tens of thousands of students across our country walked out of their classrooms to honor the tragic and preventable loss of 17 students and staff members killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida one month earlier and to demand that adults, especially political leaders, take common sense and life saving steps against epidemic gun violence in our nation.

Students from Washington, D.C. and surrounding areas demonstrated outside the White House and marched on the U.S. Capitol to get politicians to protect them. In city after city across our country young people gathered on campuses, held lie-ins on sidewalks, and took to the streets begging adults to do something to help keep them safe and to protect children, not guns.

One high school student said she and her friends can no longer stand feeling “hunted” just going to school. Another said she wanted to tell Congress, “We need fewer prayers and more action.” What kind of values drive political leaders to think the NRA and guns are of higher value and importance than precious children?

I have written in this space far too often about children whose lives and futures have been snuffed out by guns – some as infants. A few weeks after the December 2012 massacre of 20 six- and seven-year-olds and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School, I wrote what shamefully still remains true today: “Gun violence saturates our children’s lives and relentlessly threatens them every day.

It has romped through their playgrounds; invaded their birthday parties; terrorized their Head Start classrooms, child care centers, and schools; frolicked down the streets they walk to and from school; danced through their school buses; waited at the red light and bus stop; lurked behind trees; run them down on the corner; shot them through their bedroom windows, on their front porches, and in their neighborhoods. Gun violence has taught, entertained, and tantalized them incessantly across television, movie, and video game screens and the Internet. It has snatched away their parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, brothers, sisters, friends, and teachers; sapped their energy and will to learn; and made them forget about tomorrow . . .

“It has nagged and picked at their child and youthful minds and spirits and darkened their dreams, day in and day out, snuffing out the promise and joy of childhood and inflicting them with post-traumatic stress disorders – often chronic. It has caused them recurring nightmares and made them afraid to go outdoors or to the movies. It has made them want to or feel they have to get a gun or join a gang to protect themselves because adults can’t or won’t protect them. It has made them plan their own funerals because they don’t think they’ll live to adulthood . . . It terrifies them and makes them cry inside and wonder if and when enough adults are ever going to stand up and make it stop and make children safe.”

In a nation obsessed with guns and unwilling to give up easy access to weapons of war, this generation has quickly learned a sad truth many adults already knew: There is no safe space in America. Not an outdoor concert. Not a dance club. Not a church or temple. Not an office party. Not a movie theater. Not a military base. Not a college campus. Not a first grade classroom, and not what should have been an ordinary day at an ordinary American high school. Bullets have no boundaries and gun violence against children and teens cuts across race, ethnicity, age and location. But unlike many adults who seem to have become numb to the violence, changed the channel, and shaken their heads thinking nothing was ever going to change, courageous and visionary young people are standing up to say: Enough. No more. No more in our schools or our communities. Do something – now. Children are leading irresponsible uncaring adults!

Today’s children still don’t know whether adults are ever going to stand up and make them safe, so now some are starting to take matters into their own hands. Every child has a right to live and to dream and to strive for a future that is not destroyed in a second because we cowered before a seemingly incorrigible special interest lobby and refused to protect them. We will not pass the test of the God of the prophets or New Testament or all great faiths if we do not protect all of our sacred children against repeated and preventable gun deaths and injuries. Now is the time to do whatever is necessary to protect our children’s right to live and grow up to adulthood. Our children are telling us they are tired of waiting and are showing us the way. Let’s follow and support them!

In just over a week, thousands more children and teens will come to our nation’s capital for the March For Our Lives – a fight for their lives. We must stand with them and demand Congressional action to break up the uniquely evil and irresponsible American love affair with guns and stop the scourge of gun violence that is everywhere today and end the epidemic numbers of homicides, suicides, and accidental deaths fueled by too-easy access to firearms. In 2016, 3,128 children and teens died from guns in the United States, one every 2 hours and 48 minutes – the greatest number of child and teen gun deaths since 2006. As many children and teens died from guns every two days in 2016 as died in the Parkland massacre. More preschool children died from gun violence than law enforcement officers in the line of duty. What is the matter with us that we are so spiritually dead about protecting lives only God can give?

To protect children, not guns, we must insist on common sense approaches to gun violence prevention: banning assault weapons and high capacity magazines; closing loopholes in the current background check system and holding accountable those responsible for reporting records to the background check system; raising the age for the purchase of long guns; raising red flags when law enforcement and family members’ concerns warrant denial of gun purchases; banning devices like bump stocks that allow shooters to increase the rate of fire in their semi-automatic weapons; protecting victims of domestic violence by extending gun restrictions on perpetrators; and ending the ban on federally-supported research on gun violence. Call for action now to Protect Children, Not Guns and vote for those who support safety for all our children now.

Marian Wright Edelman is President of the Children's Defense Fund whose Leave No Child Behind® mission is to ensure every child a Healthy Start, a Head Start, a Fair Start, a Safe Start and a Moral Start in life and successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities. For more information go to www.childrensdefense.org

Attorney Antonio Moore and Political Commentator Yvette Carnell discuss the Myth of Black Buying Power.  Grio.com

According to a new Nielson report called African-American Women: Our Science, Her Magic, the businesses run by and the brand loyalty of Black women is driving part of the economy, so much so that total Black spending power is expected to hit a record $1.5 trillion by 2021.

Gulu-Uganda:Judicial officers in Gulu High Court Circuit on Friday asked stake holders and local leaders to sensitise the community on the benefits of mediation to reduce case back logs and hatred among people in Acholi sub region. This comes at a time when judicial officers and local leaders are battling land conflicts which leaders say has stifled agriculture in the region as most time is spent fighting and using witchcraft to win favors.

Speaking during an interface meeting between the formal and informal justice structures at Doves’ Nest Hotel in Gulu, the Grade one magistrate Selsa Biwaga says court is overwhelmed with cases that could be successfully concluded through mediation at lower levels before reaching the formal court. The meeting was organized by Action Aid Uganda, Gulu Cluster through Support from Action Aid Australia with funding from Australian government to implement a three year project in the districts of Amuru and Nwoya to enhance women’s rights to land, peace and justice.

Biwaga believes that court is overwhelmed by land related cases because mediation has not been embraced to serve its purpose to peacefully resolve conflicts.

“I have about 600 cases to hear and 90 percent are land related. But there are people who come to court when they are very negative about mediation. We are supposed to hear at least one witness per case but you find a case having 10 witnesses. That means 10 adjournments. This causes delay in justice and a huge backlog for the judicial officers since we are few.” Says Biwaga.

Gulu High court circuit has two Grade one Magistrates handling civil cases at the Gulu court division that serves the entire 8 districts of Acholi sub region.

Biwaga adds that such perception can only be handled through constant community outreach programs to educate people about how court processes may take long to deliver justice due to procedures involved.

Biwaga articulate that the formal court system may not favor the poor in attaining justice.

“A lot is paid in court which can be avoided through mediation. People who go through mediation are happier. So Organisations and leaders should help sensitize on mediation. “

Meanwhile, Matthew Otto, Kitgum district senior land management officer, says there is a ‘clash’ between the legal and traditional understanding of land which is causing conflict among the educated and the uneducated class of people in Acholi.

“In customary land ownership (the land tenure system for the Acholi), clans own the land and it is used under the clan structure and management. A clan is abstract, it owns people in the clan. That means the 3 Acholi categories, the living dead, living and those to be born in future own the land. In Acholi land is not sold because who would sign as the owner?” Otto asserts.

He says though leaders in Acholi are promoting registration of Customary land to have documents, the Certificate of Customary ownership, it will only put Acholi land on market and breed more conflict.

“Certificate of Customary land Ownership is a World Bank Project. Why are leaders promoting what will make Acholi become landless since this is to enable Acholi land come to the market for anybody to buy from an individual. In Acholi, no individual owns land but the clan. We just use the land and leave for those yet to be born. If Acholi sell all their land to aliens, shall we not become squatters?” Otto wondered.

He argues that the legal system that recognizes land sales in the name of an individual with a document is a concept causing confusion among the community because agreements are signed with ignorance.

Thomas Oloya, a resident of Amuru centre in Amuru district told the meeting that there are tricksters in the community who are surviving on the ignorance of locals to get money during land related conflicts.

“There are many trickster lawyers in the villages persuading people to go to court. We are treating insecurity in courts because people do not understands the court system and the language the lawyers use is too confusing for a lay man to understand.”

Oloya adds that some poor people are resorting to witchcraft and violence because they do not understand the court system and many land cases take too long to end yet land is the major source of production for the majority poor in the villages.

“Since 2006 when we started returning to the camps, court cases are not ending and people are killing each other. You find families, relatives, with spears and pangas, fighting because of land.”

Oloya advised the legal officers to have precedents in Acholi land matters to avoid community misunderstanding of cases in court.

“Have precedents in Acholi land matters because our tenure system is different and our culture operates differently from the West where most of the precedents in land matters are set.”

Patrick Okello Oryema, Nwoya district Local Council V Chairman urged the judiciary to strengthen mediation as a strategy so that communities understand that even court allows mediation. He adds that mediation processes should be strengthened from grass roots by empowering the chiefs in the community who also have a vital role traditionally in mediating conflicts.

Oryema called for truth telling among elders for smooth mediation in land matters since they often act as key witnesses.

Mediation is an alternative dispute-resolution mechanism that allows parties entangled in a dispute find a quick solution with the assistance of a neutral third party.

The introduction of mediation in Uganda court system in 2013 was expected to help in swiftly settling cases.

Video frame from March 12 ABC News report.

In the NY Times on May 25, 1999, Judith Miller reported that the Pentagon, in cooperation with the government of Uzbekistan in the former Soviet Union, would take charge of “demilitarization and decontamination" at the Nukus, Uzbekistan chemical weapons plant. The plant, she reported, had been the Soviets’ major research and testing site for a new class of secret, highly lethal chemical weapons called ''Novichok," the nerve agent reportedly used to try to kill former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia on March 4th in Britain.

However, it’s been widely reported that since Russia [the Soviet Union] manufactured Novichok, Russia must have been behind the attack." This text from a March 12 ABC News story was just one histrionic example.  

ABC News: And today Prime Minister Theresa May told Parliament the weapon was Russian made!!!

Theresa May: It is now clear that Mr. Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a military grade nerve agent of a type developed by Russia. It is highly likely that Russia was responsible.

Craig Murray, former UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan wrote on his blog that “The Novichok Story Is Indeed Another Iraqi WMD Scam.”  The fifth and last point of his argument is: The “Novichok” programme was in Uzbekistan not in Russia. Its legacy was inherited by the Americans during their alliance with Karimov, not by the Russians.”
 

Craig Murray is posting updates on the Novichok scam on his blog CraigMurry.uk.org. 

O.J. back in primetime. Fox screenshot

The recent Fox News airing, of a 2006 interview, has some White Americans again railing against the one man who they believe clearly got away with murder—unlike, in their twisted reasoning, any other murder suspect in contemporary American history.

No, that man is not George Zimmerman; who murdered Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida, on February 26, 2012. Nor is it Officer Howie Lake or Blane Salamoni; both of whom murdered Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on July 5, 2016. In fact, the man is one many White Americans once "loved"—primarily, because of his status as a token Uncle Tom: Orenthal James Simpson.

Why did Fox News decide to air this old video and fan the flames of reactionary racism? Do flies gather around excreta?

Anything to divert attention from the problems faced by Fox News' man in the Oval office.

There are currently many pressing neglected stories media should be addressing like the FBI’s reports regarding the infiltration of White supremacists into police departments. In October 2006, an FBI report—updated in 2015—warned of White supremacists “infiltrating law enforcement communities or recruiting law enforcement personnel.” The FBI labeled these individuals “Ghost Skins.”

Where are the news stories exposing this? Fox News' bigwigs don't lose sleep over a report like this.

Instead of focusing on this now irrelevant interview, why isn’t media digging into this “Ghost Skins” issue—especially, given the widespread nature of racist policing, which leaves so many dead Black bodies behind?

Hatred of O.J. has once again been become news through the recent emergence of the “If I Did It,” interview which recently played on Fox News, under the title “O.J. Simpson: The Lost Confession?”

TMZ also ran stories about White women who have been seen recently snuggling with O.J. for pictures. It’s hard not to notice that a certain amount of racist sexual jealousy has always permeated the hatred for O.J. He reminds many of boxing legend Jack Johnson who was also notorious for dating White women; while destroying men in the boxing ring.

This Fox interview, was originally slated for airing to coincide with a book, that has since been renamed: “If I Did It: Confessions of The Killer.” The change was made by the family of Ron Goldman, who along with Simpson’s ex-wife Nicole Brown, were killed on June 12, 1994. A judicial ruling gave possession of the book to the Goldman family to partially satisfy the findings from the civil trial against O.J.

The anger raised by the airing of this interview illustrates the hypocrisy of many who have concluded O.J.’s acquittal in the murder trial was the greatest miscarriage of justice ever in American jurisprudence. Somehow, the long list of Whites, who after having murdered African-Americans, then walked away scot-free after bogus trials, and all-White juries—from before Emmet Till’s murder trial to after Trayvon Martin’s murder trial—is never mentioned.

Truly two universes exist in these United States.

This duplicity is not helped when analysts—who engage in legal hair-splitting when we have hard video evidence of police killing Black people—decide to speak with absolute certainty when it comes to O.J. Simpson's guilt.

For example, CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin wrote in a recent article that “O.J. killed his ex-wife [Nicole Brown] and her friend [Ron Goldman] by himself.” What evidence does Toobin provide to justify such a specific statement?

According to Toobin, “the murders were rather straightforward in terms of evidence. The two victims were knifed to death in a small space in front of Nicole's townhouse... All of the evidence pointed to O.J. Simpson -- alone -- as the killer. A single set of bloody footprints were left at the scene. Simpson was photographed wearing a pair of the same kind of Bruno Magli shoes that left the prints. Drops of blood were found to the left of the footprints. DNA tests revealed that was Simpson's blood.”

Toobin also talked about other blood evidence, including the bloody gloves and socks, that were allegedly “found,” at the murder scene, in O.J.’s house, and in his Ford Bronco. He also talked about a bandage on O.J.’s “left hand.”

But there is one glaring omission from Toobin’s article, that tumbles his whole argument: the involvement of disgraced racist former L.A.P.D. Detective Mark Fuhrman—who found all the incriminating evidence that those like Toobin base their certainty of O.J.’s guilt on.

Nowhere in his column does Toobin mention Detective Fuhrman's compromised role. In fact, Toobin only superficially alludes to Fuhrman in his piece when he says “Of course, during the criminal trial, Simpson's lawyer claimed that that evidence, including blood, was planted at the crime scenes by racist police officers to frame Simpson. To me, at least, this theory was never believable.”

He is banking on the knowledge that many who agree with him have already forgotten about Fuhrman; or was this racist n-word spewing cops role edited out of the Toobin piece?

Why isn’t it believable given Furhman’s decision to invoke his Fifth Amendment—on advice of his lawyer—when asked whether he had planted evidence in the case? Shouldn’t Detective Furhman’s answer have been an unequivocal no? Why isn’t this odd to "experts", like Toobin—especially since Furhman, when he wasn’t under oath, claimed he didn’t plant evidence?

Multiple witnesses verified Detective Furhman as being a rancid racist who was proud of beating up “niggers,” during his time as a police officer. When the recorded tapes of one witness, writer Laura McKinney, who interviewed Furhman while working on a screenplay about female cops, was analyzed Furhman was counted as using the word nigger 41 times.

Another witness, Kathleen Bell, said Furhman expressed his hatred for interracial couples by saying, "If I had my way, all the niggers would be gathered together and burned." Yet another witness, Natalie Singer, stated Furhman once told her "The only good nigger is a dead nigger,” and talked about how police officers, like him, would “take one of these niggers, drag 'em into the alley and beat the shit out of them.”

Much of this evidence was suppressed from the jurors. However, during the trial, one racist excerpt jurors heard was Furhman saying "We have no niggers where I grew up.”

Furhman was later given a job on Fox News as a forensic crime scene “expert.”

Why didn’t the esteemed CNN analyst Toobin mention any of this anywhere in his article? By dismissively ignoring racist police like Furhman a fundamental question gets overlooked: how many other Mark Furhmans are there presently working in police departments?

In New York, former NYPD Detective Louis Scarcella railroaded multiple Black men into prison. Some have since had their convictions overturned. Retired NYPD Sergeant Michael Race engaged in similar wrongful convictions of Black men. How many cops are out patrolling like these?

Instead of talking about O.J., why aren’t these pundits talking about the fact that Louisiana cops, Officer Howie Lake and Blane Salamoni are still walking free, in Baton Rouge—even though they are clearly seen murdering Alton Sterling, on video? These murderers discarded their body-cams, before killing Sterling, but, were recorded by civilian videos.

Where’s the outrage against these killer-cops?

In Chicago, Officer Jason Van Dyke is still roaming the streets as well—although, he was videotaped killing Laquan McDonald. Apparently, these killings don’t bother those who hate O.J.

Last year, in a rare instance of partial justice, Officer Michael Slager was given 20 years for murdering Walter Scott. But we should remember this: Slager was not convicted, but plead guilty, fearing the outcome of another trial. Given the fact he was acquitted, in the first trial, can we say with any degree of certainty he would’ve been convicted in a second trial?

Not surprisingly, media pundits are hardly ever honest in any conversation regarding race, including discussions about entrenched institutional racism in policing.

This year marked the 50 anniversary of the 1967 Kerner Commission Report, which in examining the reasons for the widespread race riots of that year, singled out, among other societal factors—like racist policing—America’s mainstream media, saying "The press has too long basked in a White world looking out of it, if at all, with White men's eyes and White perspective."

Yes, America’s White media is still “shockingly backward" as the Kerner report concluded 50 years ago.

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro. Photo--Wikipedia

[Commentary]

We, people from the United States, join the people and government of Venezuela, and people and their governments across Latin America, Canada, and the Caribbean in calling on the U.S. government to cease interference into the independent, sovereign, and self-determined affairs of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. 

We call on all people and governments to support peaceful debate and negotiations and to urgently and unequivocally denounce violent opposition, economic sabotage, biased media critiques, calls for foreign military intervention and regime change supported by U.S. rightwing politicians and the Trump-Administration State Department and military. 

We make this urgent appeal in full acknowledgement that the people of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela are in the midst of an intense internal and conflicting self-defining moment. One that runs across ideological and political lines to determine constructive pathways forward in crafting their own national citizen-centered democracy and social justice development project. The process was launched by a majority vote under the mandate of the Bolivarian Revolution, the leftist political process, initiated by late Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, and led by the current elected President Nicolas Maduro. Their internal differences are great and serious and are of profound importance for their nation’s future and for the future of participatory democracy and social justice development throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.  

The government and people of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, guided by the philosophy and practice of participatory democracy established in1999, achieved in less than two decades unprecedented levels of development in the active exercise of citizenship by its most marginalized, discriminated, and impoverished citizens. At one point under the Bolivarian Revolution Venezuela achieved the status of the country in the region with the lowest inequality level (measured by the Gini Coefficient) having reduced inequality by 54%, poverty by 44%. Extreme poverty was reduced from 40% (1996) to a very low level of 7.3% (2010). UNESCO recognized that under the Participatory Democracy citizen-government collaboration illiteracy was eliminated in Venezuela. Venezuelans became the 3rd county in the region whose population read the most. Governmental policies instituted tuition free education from daycare to university; 72% of children attended public daycares and 85% of school age children attended school. Venezuela became the 2nd country in Latin America and 5th in the world with the greatest proportions of university students.

Those admirable national humanistic achievements have been undermined mainly by the global economic crisis that diminished social spending and economic sabotage by U.S. led economic sanctions and limitations on the Venezuelan government’s normal access to global finance protocols.

We respect the right of people outside of Venezuela to express and to debate sincere and intense critical opinions about Venezuela’s internal affairs as long as they do not interfere with or compromise the rights and obligations of Venezuelans to mediate their own differences and to unite through their constitution around issues of mutual interests to establish their sovereign will and national development. The efficacy of the Maduro elected government, which the U.S. government is constantly maligning and attempting to overthrow, is solely a matter of evaluation and decision at the ballot box by the Venezuelan people. Therefore we support the Venezuelan constitutional mandate for the upcoming presidential elections in May and call a halt to U.S. imperial condemnation of the election before it takes place. 

There is no justification based in international protocols between nations or of ethical solidarity among progressive and peace loving people for such illegal, injurious outside interference, threats of invasion, or regime change now dangerously underway by the U.S. government in Venezuela.

In the interests and integrity of the Venezuelan nation and for preservation of stability, respectful lawful engagement, mutual interests, and peace in the Americas we must support the negotiation process between Venezuelans of widely varying ideological and political perspectives to achieve self-determined resolutions. We must support the upcoming May presidential elections and implore the U.S. government to halt interference in Venezuelan people’s decisions to express their will—-as they have peacefully done in accordance with their Constitution and respectfully accepted as majority will at the ballot box time and time again since 1998.  

Network of Intellectuals, Artists and Social Movements in Defense of Humanity, U.S. Chapter

We invite all other national chapters and nodes of the Network in Defense of Humanity, as well as any other intellectual, artist or social fighter who agrees with this statement, to join us by sending an email to: indefenseofhumanity.us@gmail.com 

This urgent call was endorsed by: Network of Intellectuals, Artists and Social Movements in Defense of Humanity, Cuba Chapter