Statement from the International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement

Stop the Genocidal War on the African Community Now! Economic and Social Justice for the African Community!

Published Mar 24, 2009

The covered badge represents police killed while carrying out the colonial occupation of the African community. Just like the resistance of Nat Turner and Gabriel Prosser, enslaved Africans once vilified and today considered heroes, African people in Oakland have a right to struggle against this government-imposed terror.

The following is a statement from the International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement.

The International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement (InPDUM) calls on all progressive-minded people to stand against the brutal, long-standing, publicly-supported policies of police containment that keep the African community under the grip of a colonial occupation for which the Oakland Police Department (OPD) is the front line of assault.

We call for support for the African community demands for genuine economic development and social justice for the African community.

The deaths of four members of the OPD on March 21, 2009, were the result of these relentless policies, which are manifested daily in the cold-blooded police murders, brutality and harassment of African men and women, youth and elderly by the heavily armed, military style Oakland police force;

In draconian laws such as Three Strikes that discriminatorily lock up tens of thousands of African people for life in the multi-billion dollar California prison industry;

In the hostile, substandard education system that profiles African male children as young as six years old as criminals and “super-predators,” and feeds the shameful juvenile prison industry that violates every principle of international law;

In the highly-documented government-imposed illegal drug trade which is often the only last-ditch source of employment in a community whose own economic infrastructure has been destroyed by “urban renewal” and gentrification;

In the specific targeting of African homeowners for predatory subprime mortgages, thousands of which are now in foreclosure;

In the cruel foster care system that turns African babies and children, victimized by this system, into profitable commodities for the lucrative white foster-care industry.

It was the historic brutality of the Oakland Police Department that gave rise to the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense in the 1960s.

We recognize that African communities of Oakland and throughout the U.S. are locked down under a deadly colonial occupation no different than the conditions imposed on the Iraqi and Afghani people under the U.S. military occupation and the near genocidal colonial assault on the Palestinian people by the illegitimate settler-state of Israel.

We believe that all oppressed and colonized peoples have a right to struggle for liberation and to resist, as Malcolm X said, by any means necessary.

Just like the resistance of Nat Turner and Gabriel Prosser, enslaved Africans once vilified and today considered heroes, African people in Oakland have a right to struggle against this government-imposed terror. This is exactly what our brother Lovelle Mixon did.

We believe the actions brother Lovelle Mixon took were in fact a direct response to a system that upholds itself and protects itself through the imposition of a police state within the African community to enforce systematic harassment, torture, death and destruction on the African community, so that it can continue to thrive.

Africans have come to the conclusion that if you do not resist oppression from the police, you will end up unjustly murdered by them, all criminal charges will be dropped against them, hence injustice within the system perpetuates itself while Africans continue to die.

Knowing the history of how the police treat Africans, Lovelle Mixon felt he had to defend himself in the face of the oppressive police state. And he did so, honorably. Like the missiles launched from Gaza and the Iraqi resistance forces, African people will rightfully fight to free themselves against oppression in every form.

We call on the citizens of Oakland to unite with the demands raised by the Uhuru Movement for genuine economic development to the African working class community, for reparations for the families of victims of police violence, for a community controlled police review board with subpoena powers and for an immediate end to these failed public policies of police containment which have brought so much suffering to the African community for so long.

We call on Oakland citizens to join us in rejecting the knee-jerk criminalization of the oppressed African community by the city and state governments, and in recognizing that in order to go forward as a city we must unite in the quest for economic and social justice for the African community.

Uhuru!

The International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement is an organization led by the African working class to defend the democratic rights of the African community.

~ Uhuru News ~


Uhuru Movement releases statement on Lovelle Mixon's shooting of four Oakland police

Video Coverage of Lovelle Mixon Vigil

'Swedish pirates say that the battle for freedom of information is to be fought in the European Union'

The Swedish Pirate Party is to stand in this summer's European elections to battle for the freedom of information.

By Christian Lindhardt
17 Mar 2009

Restrictive rules for patents and copyrights result in the detrimental monitoring of citizens, according to the Swedish Pirate Party, which is fielding 20 candidates in this summer's European elections.

If the politicians want to prevent ordinary citizens from sharing films, music and other forms of culture, they have to constantly expand the ability to monitor – because as soon as the authorities close down one culture-sharing facility, another pops up very quickly,« says Christian Engström, who is the primary candidate for the party.

Monitoring has already gone too far, Engström feels.

There is a law on the way in Sweden which is already in force in Denmark. Rights owners to a film, for example, can demand the name of the person who pays for an internet connection if they are able to track a person uploading or downloading films illegally, Engström says.

EU battle
The Swedish pirates say that the battle for freedom of information is to be fought in the European Union because: “It is here that most of the legislation in this field comes from.”

The party does not, however, want to get rid of all forms of rights to books, music and film. The dividing line should be between commercial and non-commercial use.

Companies should be able to take out a patent on a television advertisement, but private citizens should be able to use books or music for their own use,« Engström explains.

Choose Swedish government
The Pirate Party also intends to act on the national Swedish political agenda, where it hopes to be the deciding factor in choosing a new government. In other words the party hopes to be able to decide which wing of the Swedish Parliament it should board, and which wing should be able to raise governmental flag.

The issues that we represent are unfortunately not represented – or only marginally represented - as a result of ignorance, and we hope to be able to tow the legislative groupings in Sweden into the 21st century,« the party says on its home page.

In its first national elections in Sweden in 2006, the party became the third largest party – that is third largest below the electoral threshold – with 0.63 percent of the votes.

Polska Partia Piratow
Sweden is not the only country where pirates have gone marauding. There are pirate parties already established – or in the process of being established – in 20 other countries. Partido Pirata Español is the Spanish version. Piratenpartei Deutschland is found in Germany and the Polish pirates are called Polska Partia Piratow.

The Swedish party was founded in 2006 under its current chairman Rickard Falkvinge.


~ see also: Pirate Bay to launch VPN service ~

Tool - 'Parabola'

'The death of the ferrets meant the H5N1 virus in the product was live'

From Baxter: Product contained live bird flu virus by Helen Branswell

"...The contamination incident, which is being investigated by the four European countries, came to light when the subcontractor in the Czech Republic inoculated ferrets with the product and they died. Ferrets shouldn't die from exposure to human H3N2 flu viruses.

Public health authorities concerned about what has been described as a “serious error” on Baxter's part have assumed the death of the ferrets meant the H5N1 virus in the product was live. But the company, Baxter International Inc., has been parsimonious about the amount of information it has released about the event.

On Friday, the company's director of global bioscience communications confirmed what scientists have suspected.

“It was live,” Christopher Bona said in an email.

The contaminated product, which Baxter calls “experimental virus material,” was made at the Orth-Donau research facility. Baxter makes its flu vaccine — including a human H5N1 vaccine for which a licence is expected shortly — at a facility in the Czech Republic.

People familiar with biosecurity rules are dismayed by evidence that human H3N2 and avian H5N1 viruses somehow co-mingled in the Orth-Donau facility. That is a dangerous practice that should not be allowed to happen, a number of experts insisted.

Accidental release of a mixture of live H5N1 and H3N2 viruses could have resulted in dire consequences.

While H5N1 doesn't easily infect people, H3N2 viruses do. If someone exposed to a mixture of the two had been simultaneously infected with both strains, he or she could have served as an incubator for a hybrid virus able to transmit easily to and among people.

That mixing process, called reassortment, is one of two ways pandemic viruses are created.

There is no suggestion that happened because of this accident, however.

“We have no evidence of any reassortment, that any reassortment may have occurred,” said Andraghetti.

“And we have no evidence of any increased transmissibility of the viruses that were involved in the experiment with the ferrets in the Czech Republic.”

Baxter hasn't shed much light — at least not publicly — on how the accident happened. Earlier this week Bona called the mistake the result of a combination of “just the process itself, (and) technical and human error in this procedure.”

He said he couldn't reveal more information because it would give away proprietary information about Baxter's production process..."

~ more... ~