Category: Analysis
La Riva in solidarity with Standing Rock
| November 3, 2016 | 7:44 pm | Analysis, class struggle, environmental crisis, political struggle, Struggle for Native American equality | Comments closed

http://icp.sol.org.tr/americana/la-riva-solidarity-standing-rock

Within the context of Vote Socialist in 2016 campaign, Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) issued a statement in soldarity with the water protectors at Standing Rock.

ICP, 2 November 2016

The Gloria La Riva for President Campaign of the Party for Socialism and Liberation issued a statement in solidarity with the water protectors at Standing Rock, demanding an end to the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The campaign also demanded the release of all those who have been arrested at Standing Rock and that all charges be dropped.

“As protectors continue to stand up for clean water and energy, the voices of Native people have been heard across the world. The UN has called for the United States to end the Dakota Access Pipeline and people in many major cities are gathering in support of the NO DAPL stance of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. We can’t drink oil, keep it in the soil!” says the statement.

For the full statement see the link.

Ghana: New Debt Trap
| October 18, 2016 | 7:51 pm | Africa, Analysis, Economy, political struggle | Comments closed

AfricaFocus Bulletin
October 18, 2016 (161018)
(Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor’s Note

“Ghana is in a debt crisis. Despite having had significant amounts
of debt canceled a decade ago, the country is losing around 30% of
government revenue in external debt payments each year. Such huge
payments are only possible because Ghana has been able to take on
more loans from institutions such as the International Monetary
Fund (IMF), which are used to pay the interest on debts to previous
lenders, whilst the overall size of the debt increases. ”

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The downward spiral of debt, whether for individuals or for
countries, is commonly driven by loans that are risky and
unrealistic, a phenomenon for which both lenders and borrowers bear
responsibility. Structural vulnerability and misleading expectations
fuel a cycle in which interest payments increase the debt while
payments become increasingly difficult. A new report from the
Jubilee Debt Campaign, UK, with a coalition of non-governmental
organizations in Ghana, provides a clear illustration from a country
that is in many other respects a positive model for African
political and economic progress.

Nevertheless, the report documents, Ghana is again falling into a
debt trap. The causes include 1) continued dependence on primary
commodities with volatile pricing on international markets and (2)
bad judgement by both the Ghanaian government and by international
lenders pitching high-interest loans which can only be paid under
optimistic and unrealistic economic scenarios for the period of the
loan. For example, according to the report, there were three
successive $1 billion bond issues from 2013 to 2015, the latest at
an interest rate of 10.75%. Strikingly, the World Bank provided a
guarantee for the latest bond despite its own rules blocking such
risky loans.

This AfricaFocus Bulletin includes selected excerpts from the press
release, executive summary, and full report. The full report is
available at  http://tinyurl.com/zb8rm7u

For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on Ghana, visit
http://www.africafocus.org/country/ghana.php

For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on debt and related issues of
international capital flows, visit
http://www.africafocus.org/intro-iff.php

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor’s note+++++++++++++++++

“World Bank broke its own rules over high-interest loans to Ghana,”
Excerpt from Jubilee Debt Campaign, UK, press release, October 9,
2016

http://tinyurl.com/hcgx8mg

According to Sarah-Jayne Clifton, Director of the Jubilee Debt
Campaign, UK:

“The underlying causes of Ghana’s new debt crisis are that neither
borrowers nor lenders have learned from past mistakes, and that its
economy remains reliant on primary commodities, leaving it extremely
vulnerable to the recent global commodity price crash. The people of
Ghana should not have to suffer through yet another debt crisis
while lenders who speculated on their economy reap huge profits out
of high interest loans guaranteed by the World Bank.

Ghana’s debts need to be reduced or restructured to escape another
prolonged debt trap, while regulation of lending, more responsible
borrowing, and tax justice are essential to end this cycle of debt
crises once and for all.”

******************************************************

The fall and rise of Ghana’s debt : How a new debt trap has been set

October 2016

Integrated Social Development Centre Ghana, Jubilee Debt Campaign
UK, SEND Ghana, VAZOBA Ghana, All-Afrikan Networking Community Link
for International Development, Kilombo Ghana and Abibimman
Foundation Ghana.

[Full report and executive summary available for download at
http://jubileedebt.org.uk – direct URL:  http://tinyurl.com/zb8rm7u]

Executive Summary [excerpts]

Ghana is in a debt crisis. Despite having had significant amounts of
debt canceled a decade ago, the country is losing around 30% of
government revenue in external debt payments each year. Such huge
payments are only possible because Ghana has been able to take on
more loans from institutions such as the International Monetary
Fund (IMF), which are used to pay the interest on debts to previous
lenders, whilst the overall size of the debt increases.

Ghana’s crisis is the result of a gradual increase in lending and
borrowing off the back of the discovery of oil and high commodity
prices. More money was then borrowed following the fall in the
price of oil and other commodities since 2013, to try to deal with
the impact of the commodity price crash, whilst the relative size
of the debt also grew because of the fall in the value of the
Ghanaian currency (the cedi) against the dollar ($).

The underlying causes of the return to a debt crisis are therefore
the continued dependence on commodity exports, as well as borrowing
and lending not being responsible enough, meaning that new debts do
not generate sufficient revenue to enable them to be repaid.

At the moment, all the costs of the crisis are being born by the
people of Ghana, and none by the lenders. This is unfair. Lenders
should carry their share of the cost of any irresponsible lending,
and of the change in circumstance caused by the fall in commodity
prices.

Additional action is also needed in order to prevent a repeat of
Ghana’s crisis, including changes on the part of the government and
lenders to ensure that loans are well used, and that more of the
revenue generated by the economy is turned into government revenue
by taxation.

Commodity dependence

Ghana’s dependence on commodities dates back to colonialism. …
[almost 60 years after independence] the country’s economy remains
dependent on the export of just three primary commodities – gold,
cocoa and now oil, which together make up over 80% of Ghana’s
exports.

Debt crisis and debt cancellation

This dependence on commodities was the central factor underlying a
debt crisis which was common to much of the global South in the
1980s and 1990s. Global commodity prices fell at the start of the
1980s, rapidly increasing the size of foreign debt payments which
could only be paid out of foreign earnings such as exports. As
commodity producers across the world expanded production in order
to pay debts, on the advice of the IMF and World Bank, commodity
prices stayed low for over 20 years.

From the mid-1990s the global Jubilee movement called for debt
cancellation, which led to the creation and enhancement of two debt
relief schemes run by the IMF and World Bank, the Heavily Indebted
Poor Countries initiative and Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative.

As a result of this debt cancellation, Ghana’s government external
debt fell from $6.6 billion in 2003 to $2.3 billion in 2006.
Significant improvements in education and healthcare followed, due
to money being saved and invested, alongside good government
policies, enhancing basic service provision. …

Commodity and lending boom, and manufacturing decline

However, Ghana’s dependence on commodities continued, and as prices
rose, this created more willingness for lenders to give loans off
the back of a growing economy.

Gold and cocoa prices began to increase from the mid- 2000s, as part
of a global boom in primary commodity prices heavily influenced by
Chinese growth and demand, on top of continued high consumption in
rich North American, European and Asian economies. Furthermore,
Ghana discovered oil, and began to produce and export it from 2011.
Collectively these changes led to a booming economy. Between 2006
and 2013 Ghana’s GDP per person grew by 44%. However, over the same
time period the number of people living below the national poverty
line only fell by 10%, a slower rate than in the previous seven
years when growth had been far lower. The reason was that much of
the proceeds of growth went to those with the highest incomes. For
every 1 cedi increase in income for the poorest 10%, the incomes of
the richest 10% increased by more than 9 cedi.

This rapid economic growth led to an increased willingness and
desire of various institutions to lend to Ghana, with a
corresponding willingness to borrow. Loans increased steadily from
2008 to 2011. In total, between 2007 and 2015 there were $18.2
billion of external loans and $8.7 billion of debt payments,
leaving $9.5 billion of the additional borrowing to be spent within
Ghana.

There is little transparency on what the loans were used for, from
both the government and lenders. The IMF figures on public capital
formation show no relationship with the increase in lending,
suggesting that whilst some loans could have been used for
investment, the increase in lending did not lead to an increase in
investment.

One of the more transparent lenders is the World Bank. Whilst they
provide little information before loans are agreed – preventing
civil society, media and politicians from holding the government
and the World Bank to account – they do publish details during and
after projects. Our analysis of these reports shows that 25% of
outstanding debt from Ghana to the World Bank is for projects where
the World Bank judged its own performance to be less than
satisfactory.

Moreover, between May 2007 and February 2015 Ghana was assessed by
the IMF and World Bank to be at moderate risk of debt distress, and
since March 2015 of high risk. The World Bank is only meant to give
half its support to moderate-risk countries as loans, and the other
half as grants; to high-risk countries it is only meant to make
grants. Yet between May 2007 and February 2015, 93% of World Bank
funding to Ghana was in the form of loans. And since March 2015
when the World Bank was meant to stop giving Ghana loans, it has
agreed $1.16 billion of new loans or loan guarantees.

With high commodity prices and the beginning of oil production,
export revenues increased rapidly from 2008 to 2012. Yet there is
evidence that manufacturing was crowded out. As a share of GDP,
manufacturing production halved from over 10% in 2006 to 5% by
2014.

Commodity price crash and the new debt trap

A combination of the recent fall in the price of commodities and the
loans not being used well enough to ensure they could be repaid has
now pushed Ghana back into debt crisis.

In early 2013 the price of gold fell significantly, as did the price
of oil from the start of 2014. Since the start of 2013 the value of
the cedi against the dollar has fallen by 50%. This has caused the
dollar-denominated size of Ghana’s economy to fall from $47.8
billion in 2013 to $36 billion in 2015.  Because external debts are
owed in dollars or other foreign currencies, this has in turn
increased the relative size of the debt and debt payments. External
debt has grown from $14.7 billion in 2013 to $21.1 billion in 2016
(an increase of 44%), yet because of the depreciation external debt
has gone up from 30% of GDP in 2013 to an expected 56% in 2016 (an
increase of 87%). One response to these economic shocks has been
for the government to borrow more money, most visibly through $1
billion of bond issues each in 2013, 2014 and 2015, all under
English law. This money has mainly been used to make external and
domestic debt interest and principal payments, and to fund ongoing
government costs, plugging the gap created by dollar revenue being
lower than expected. Less visibly, there has also been significant
borrowing directly from external financial institutions.

The interest rates on the new debts are high, rising from 7.9% for
the 2013 bond issue to 10.75% for the October 2015 one. For the
October 2015 bond issue, the World Bank once again broke its own
rules by guaranteeing $400 million of payments if the Ghanaian
government fails to make them. The World Bank is not meant to give
such guarantees for governments assessed as at high risk of debt
distress, which Ghana had been for the previous seven months. The
high interest rate and guarantee mean that if the Ghanaian
government were to pay the interest every year until 2024, then
default on all other payments from 2025, including the principal,
the bond speculators would still have made $90 million more than if
they had lent to the US government. This means that the speculators
lent to Ghana believing that there was a high chance they would not
be fully repaid.

However, for the moment those speculators are being paid, in part
because since April 2015 the IMF has been lending more money which
is being used to meet debt payments, effectively bailing out
previous lenders. In return, the Ghanaian government has to cut
government spending and increase taxes, a process which is expected
to intensify further after the December 2016 elections. Under
current plans, government spending per person (adjusted to account
for inflation) will fall by 20% between 2012 and 2017.

The IMF estimates the Ghanaian government’s external debt payments
in 2016 will be 29% of revenue, well above the 18-22% it normally
regards as the upper limit of sustainability. Payments are expected
to stay well above 20% of revenue until at least 2035. This is only
considered possible due to a combination of very optimistic
expectations and requirements for large spending cuts and tax
increases, the very things the IMF has been criticising the
European Union for in the case of Greece.

The IMF predicts:

* Dollar GDP growth averaging 8.2% a year from now until 2035. Yet,
from 2008 to 2015 Ghana’s economy grew at less than half this rate
despite the discovery of oil. * Growth in government revenue in
line with GDP, collecting 19-21% a year. Yet, Ghana has only once
collected 19% of GDP in government revenue in a year (in 2011)
since IMF records began in 1980. …

* A fall in the average interest rate paid on external debt from
5.1% to 4.1%. Yet, interest rates on external private and
multilateral debt have been increasing, and dollar interest rates
are expected to increase as and when the US Federal Reserve
continues to raise rates. * A large primary budget surplus by 2017,
and continuing surpluses from then on. Yet, this will mean
continuing government spending cuts and tax increases, and will
take demand out of the economy, thereby reducing growth and risking
a classic debt trap where austerity leads to less growth, which in
turn increases the relative size of the debt, which leads to more
austerity and less growth, and so on.

Escapes from the trap

Debt is already placing a significant burden on Ghana’s economy and
society, and the country is at risk of falling back into an
extended debt trap, with an economic stagnation and possible
increases in poverty rates and failure to implement the Sustainable
Development Goals. Today’s crisis has resulted from a multitude of
factors: failure to diversify away from commodities, the government
and lenders failing to ensure loans were used productively enough,
falling global commodity prices, particularly gold and oil, and the
opportunism of speculators lending at high interest rates seeking
large profits.

The people of Ghana should not have to bear all the suffering of a
crisis caused by government policy, irresponsible lenders, and
global economic shocks, especially when speculators continue to
extract large profits from the country.

…

Additional excerpts from full report

Slowing progress in reducing poverty and increased inequality

During the ‘boom’ up until 2013, progress in reducing poverty slowed
down, and inequality increased.

The most recent data on poverty and inequality in Ghana comes from
the Ghana Living Standards Survey in 2013. This shows that the
number of people living in poverty fell from 7 million in 2006 to
6.3 million in 2013. The proportion of people living in poverty
fell from 31.9% to 24.2%. Poverty is defined as not having enough
income to meet all basic food and non-food needs, and was set at
1,314 cedi per adult per year for 2013 ($1,460 a year in Purchasing
Power Parity terms, 32 or $4 a day). According to a report for
Unicef, this means the average annual rate of poverty reduction
slowed to 1.1 percentage points a year from 2006 to 2013, down from
1.8 percentage points in the 1990s.

In total, the number of people living in poverty fell by 10% between
2006 and 2013. In contrast, over the same time period GDP per
person grew by 44%. In the previous seven-year period from 1999 to
2006, the number of people living in poverty fell by 14% whilst the
economy only grew by 18%. There has been an increasing divergence
between the pace of economic growth and the pace of poverty
reduction.

This divergence is because more of the financial benefits of growth
have been going to richer people. Average adult consumption for
Ghana’s richest 10% increased by 1,246 cedi between 2006 and 2013,
almost ten times more than the increase of 135 cedi for the poorest
10%. The ‘richest’ 10% is still a relative term however – the
average income of the richest 10% in 2013 of 5,789 cedi a year was
equivalent to $6,500 in Purchasing Power Parity terms. Within the
richest 10% there are still huge disparities in income and wealth.
Overall, inequality has been increasing on almost all measures (see
Table 1 below).

…

The New Debt Trap

Ghana is now at risk of entering an extended debt trap in which
government spending continues to fall with negative impacts on
poverty, inequality and economic growth, while debt stays high.
Meanwhile, high interest rates on private loans mean speculators
continue to take large profits out of the country.

The fall in oil prices from the middle of 2014 led to significant
falls in expectations of government revenue collection in Ghana, on
the part of the government, foreign speculators and the IMF. This
in turn led to sharp falls in the value of the cedi against the
dollar, thus increasing the relative size of debt payments.

Meanwhile, external debt payments began to increase from 2012 as
interest payments needed to be made on the recently taken out
private external debt, whilst interest and principal payments on
the multilateral and bilateral loans increased because of the
increase in such debts, and because grace periods 80 on loans given
after HIPC and MDRI came to an end (see Graph 14 below).

Initially these increased debt payments were met by more borrowing
of both external and domestic debt. In addition, in April 2015, an
agreement was reached with the IMF for $930 million of loans from
2015 to 2018, all of which are effectively being used to help meet
debt  payments, including the interest to private speculators.
These have been added to by other similar loans from the World Bank
and African Development Bank.

…

Projections beyond 2017.

The IMF is only able to predict that Ghana will be able to keep
paying its debt by making very optimistic predictions about the
future.

The IMF and World Bank DSA projects that external debt service will
continue to stay high for many years, still being almost one-
quarter of government revenue in 2035. However, it also projects
that overall external debt and total public debt will gradually
fall as a percentage of GDP. This assumes that growth in GDP
measured in dollars is high, averaging over 8% in nominal terms. It
also assumes there is a primary surplus every year, from a height
of 2.3% of GDP in 2017 to 0.9% by 2025 and 0.1% in 2035.

However, the predictions for dollar-GDP growth in the DSA have
already proven over-optimistic compared to the more recent April
IMF World Economic Outlook for 2016 and 2017, which, as noted
above, indicates that external debt will continue to rise.

The only way the IMF can predict Ghana’s debt will keep being paid
is by assuming:

* high growth in dollar GDP, averaging 8.2% a year

* the government collecting around 19-21% of GDP in revenue every
year, ie, revenue growing in line with GDP

* a fall in the average interest rate paid on external debt from
5.1% to 4.1% over the medium term

* a large primary surplus by 2017 of 2.3%, and continual surpluses
after, albeit at a falling proportion of GDP

Any significant failure in these assumptions could cause debt to
increase further out of control, ultimately costing the people of
Ghana more if it continues to be paid. Yet all of these assumptions
are either optimistic or require significant sacrifices.

…

Escapes from the debt trap

Urgent action is needed to ensure Ghana does not fall into a debt
trap in which government spending continues to fall with negative
impacts for poverty, inequality and economic growth, while debt
stays high.

To avoid this trap debt payments need to be cut. At the moment, all
the costs from irresponsible lending and borrowing, and the decline
in oil and other commodity prices, are falling on the people of
Ghana, and none of them on the lenders. Below we make
recommendations on how the debt trap can be avoided through lenders
sharing in the burden of failed lending and the external economic
shock of falling commodity prices.

In addition, to prevent this trap being created again, there needs
to be greater transparency and accountability in relation to debt
on the part of the government of Ghana and lenders, tax justice to
ensure that more of the revenue generated in Ghana stays in the
country and is available for social spending and public investment,
and a reorientation of the Ghanaian economy away from reliance on
primary commodities.

Below are proposals which we believe the government, political
parties and lenders should discuss with civil society both before
and after the elections in December 2016.

Conduct a debt audit

In this report we have attempted to identify how much debt there is,
who the loans were given by, what they were for and on what terms.
However, the lack of transparency with many loans means this is
difficult to do and much information is not publicly available.
Both the government and all lenders should release details of how
much is owed, to whom, on what terms, and what the money was meant
to be used for (if specified). This could be done through
establishing an independent debt audit commission.

…

Make lending and borrowing more productive and accountable

Ghana’s debt has increased rapidly without it being clear what the
loans were for, and how projects they were funding were being
monitored and evaluated.

…

Make adjustment fair

Any reduction in debt payments from measures below will help prevent
Ghana getting further stuck in a debt trap. But government finances
will still need to be improved to ensure sustainable finances which
allow poverty and inequality to be reduced and the Sustainable
Development Goals to be met.

The Ghanaian government should:

* Protect all vital public spending, such as on healthcare and
education, social services and welfare protections, and key
economic infrastructure.

* Increase tax revenues from large companies and rich individuals,
including by ceasing to grant tax waivers, including for public-
private partnership projects, and increasing the capacity of tax
collection authorities to ensure existing laws relating to issues
such as transfer mispricing are implemented.

…

Hold a debt conference

The change in oil price means that Ghana cannot make debt payments
wthout significant cuts in vital government expenditure, high
economic growth and continued high borrowing. It is unfair for the
suffering caused by the change in global economic conditions to be
born entirely by the people of Ghana and none by the lenders.

The Ghanaian government could call a conference of all its creditors
to negotiate the debt down to a level consistent with meeting the
Sustainable Development Goals. A UN body such as UNCTAD could be
contracted to advise on what a sustainable level of debt would be.
Negotiations have been held between the government and local banks
and some power sector debts, 98 but a much more comprehensive
approach is now needed across external debt.

…

Default or threaten to default on some of the debt

The Ghanaian government could stop paying some or all of the debt.
For most if not all creditors, it is the threat (or reality) of not
paying which will incentivise them to renegotiate the terms of the
debt. For instance, if some lenders did not respond to requests for
a debt conference, threatening to default or defaulting could make
them more willing to do so. Defaults on different types of debt
come with different implications which we discuss below.

…

Cancel unjust debts

The details of many loans are unknown, so no assessment can yet be
made of how well the money was spent and how responsibly the
lenders acted to ensure it was invested well. However, this report
has uncovered that the World Bank broke its own rules by disbursing
93% of its money to Ghana as loans when it should have been giving
half grants and half loans. Furthermore, at least $540 million of
debt owed to the World Bank is for projects where the World Bank
itself has said its performance was less than satisfactory (25% of
debt where there is an assessment).

…

*****************************************************

AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication
providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with a
particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus
Bulletin is edited by William Minter.

AfricaFocus Bulletin can be reached at africafocus@igc.org. Please
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USA/Africa: The State of Black Immigrants
| October 11, 2016 | 8:46 pm | Africa, Analysis, Immigrants' Rights, political struggle, Struggle for African American equality | Comments closed

AfricaFocus Bulletin
October 11, 2016 (161011)
(Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor’s Note

“The high proportion of immigrants with criminal records who are
targeted for immigration enforcement is the result of an intentional
and pervasive reliance on the machinery of the criminal enforcement
system to identify people for deportation. The criminal enforcement
system–each stage of which has been shown to target Black people
disproportionately–has become a funnel into the immigration
detention and deportation system. ” – The State of Black Immigrants
2016

For a version of this Bulletin in html format, more suitable for
printing, go to http://www.africafocus.org/docs16/migr1610.php, and
click on “format for print or mobile.”

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A report from the Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI) and
the Immigrant Rights Clinic, New York University School of Law,
released in September, provides new well-documented data and policy
analysis on Black immigrants in the United States, primarily
Caribbean and African immigrants. Based on the latest available
statistical data and a careful analysis of migration policies and
their implementation, this report is a basic resource for scholars
and for activists. It includes an informative and detailed glossary
that is essential for those of us who are not specialists in
immigration law and related issues.

This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains brief excerpts. The full report,
including footnotes, tables, and more detailed analysis and specific
policy recommendations, is available in two parts on-line in pdf
format (http://tinyurl.com/jvaqolo and http://tinyurl.com/jzg9d97).

Two recent articles with related reflections on African immigrants
in the United States are:

“Intersecting Criminalization: What Killed Ugandan Refugee Alfred
Olango,” Michelle Chen, Truthout, October 6, 2016
http://tinyurl.com/h3y6vhg

“African immigrants and race in America,” Anakwa Dwamena, Africa is
a Country, October 9, 2016 http://tinyurl.com/j2z2wvj

For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on migration issues, visit
http://www.africafocus.org/migrexp.php

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor’s note+++++++++++++++++

The State of Black Immigrants

Black Alliance for Just Immigration

Immigrant Rights Clinic, New York University School of Law

Juliana Morgan-Trostle, Kexin Zheng, and Carl Lipscombe

[Brief excerpts only: full text available at
http://tinyurl.com/jvaqolo (Part I) and http://tinyurl.com/jzg9d97
(Part II)]

Introduction

In an era where #BlackLivesMatter and #Not1More have become rallying
cries for racial justice and immigrants’ rights activists
respectively, it’s important that we uplift the common challenges
that cross both movements – mass incarceration, policing, immigrant
detention, deportations, deprivation of civil rights and civil
liberties, economic inequality, and the destruction of families and
communities. These problems are prevalent in all communities of
color in the U.S. But unlike Black Americans and immigrants of other
backgrounds, Black immigrants face the aforementioned challenges in
ways that are unique and consequential.

For over a decade, the Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI)
has sought to raise the public consciousness around issues impacting
Black immigrants through education, advocacy, grassroots organizing,
and storytelling. Despite our successes, which include consolidating
Black immigrant power and mobilizing the Black diaspora around the
human rights issues that transcend our communities, Black Americans
and Black immigrants remain at the margins of society.

When it comes to Black immigrants, terms such as “marginalization”
and “oppression” understate the difficulties faced by this
community. Simply put, Black immigrants are invisible. They are
absent from the mainstream and media representation of immigrants.
Their narratives are merged with the stories of other communities of
color in the United States. Research and readily available data on
Black immigrants is scant.

Even the notion of “Black immigrants” as an identity group is
foreign to most. For this reason, we recognized that any research
report about Black immigrants – and this report in particular – must
serve two purposes: (1) to provide basic demographic information
about Black immigrants and (2) to highlight the unique social and
economic challenges facing this immigrant group.

This report confirms our hypothesis: Black immigrants, one of the
fastest growing demographic groups in the U.S., face a myriad of
challenges that parallel those of Black Americans. While this report
is substantive, it is only the beginning. Our hope is that we will
be able to build on the body of research available on the Black
immigrant experience in the U.S. and that this report, in particular
the recommendations toward the end, will lay the groundwork for a
Black immigrant policy agenda over the coming years.

**************************************************************

Part I: A Statistical Portrait of Black Immigrants in the United
States

The last four decades have represented a period of significant
demographic change in the United States. Now more than ever, Black
immigrants compose a significant percentage of both immigrant and
Black populations in the U.S. overall. This report presents a
statistical snapshot of the Black immigrant population, drawing upon
recent studies and original analysis.

I. Size and Growth of Black Immigrant Population

Size and growth of the overall population.

The number of Black immigrants in the United States has increased
remarkably in recent decades. Population data on Black immigrants is
difficult to ascertain, as the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration
Services does not track immigration data by race. Some studies
suggest that there are as many as 5 million Black immigrants in the
U.S. According to our analysis of the 2014 American Community Survey
(ACS) data, a record estimate of 3.7 million Black immigrants live
in the United States. While this analysis is conservative, it still
represents a four-fold increase when compared to the number of Black
immigrants who lived in the U.S. in 1980 (which was only about
800,000) and a 54% increase from 2000 (roughly 2.8 million).

Percentage of Black population.

The overall growth of the Black immigrant population represents a
significant change in the demographics of both the Black population
and the immigrant population more broadly in the United States.
First, Black immigrants represent an increasing percentage of Black
people in the United States as a whole. The ACS data shows that
while Black immigrants accounted for only 3.1% of the Black
population in the U.S. in 1980, Black immigrants now account for
nearly 10% of the nation’s Black population. This growth is
particularly significant in states with the largest number of Black
immigrants. For example in New York, Black immigrants make up almost
30% of the total Black population in the state, making it the top
state for Black immigrants in the U.S. Florida seconds the list with
over 20% of its Black population being foreign-born. The Census
Bureau projects that by 2060, 16.5% of America’s Black population
will be foreign-born.

Percentage of the foreign-born population.

Second, Black immigrants make up a significant portion of the
overall immigrant and non-citizen population in the U.S. According
to the 2014 one-year estimates from ACS, the estimated total of
foreign-born population in the U.S. was 42 million, within which
8.7% were Black immigrants. In addition, about 22 million of the
U.S. foreign-born population were non-citizens, among whom 7.2% were
Black.

II. Characteristics of the Black Immigrant Population

Diversity based on country or region of origin.

While Black immigrants in the U.S. come from diverse backgrounds and
regions of the world, immigrants from African and Caribbean
countries comprise the majority of the foreign-born Black
population. According to the 2014 ACS data, Jamaica was the top
country of origin in 2014 with 665,628 Black immigrants in the U.S.,
accounting for 18% of the national total. Haiti seconds the list
with 598,000 Black immigrants, making up 16% of the U.S. Black
immigrant population.

Although half of Black immigrants are from the Caribbean region
alone, African immigrants drove much of the recent growth of the
Black immigrant population and made up 39% of the total foreign-
born Black population in 2014. The number of African immigrants in
the U.S. increased 153%, from 574,000 in 2000 to 1.5 million in
2014, with Nigeria and Ethiopia as the two leading countries of
origin. Besides African and Caribbean regions, an estimated 4% of
Black immigrants are from South America, another 4% are from Central
America, 2% are from Europe and 1% from Asia.

Length of residency in the U.S.

Black immigrants tend to have lived in the U.S. for long periods of
time, although there are some regional differences in length of
residency. As more African immigrants are recent arrivals, those
from the Caribbean have generally lived in the U.S. longer. …

Geographic dispersion in the U.S.

The geographic dispersion of Black immigrants is highly
concentrated. New York State is home to 846,730 (23%) Black
immigrants, making it the top state of residence. Florida has the
second largest foreign-born Black population (18%), followed by
Texas (6%) and Maryland (6%). Some Black immigrant communities tend
to cluster together around certain metropolitan areas. For example,
according to the Pew study of 2013 ACS data, New York City is home
to nearly 40% of all foreign-born black Jamaicans in the U.S.; Miami
has the nation’s largest Haitian immigrant community; Washington
D.C. has the largest Ethiopian immigrant community; and Somalian
immigrants concentrate in metropolitan areas of Minnesota and
Wisconsin.

III. Educational Background of Black Immigrants

A significant percentage of Black immigrants have obtained degrees
through higher education, but the percentage remains lower than the
U.S. population as a whole. According to the ACS 2014 data, more
than a quarter (27%) of Black immigrants age 25 and older have a
bachelor’s degree or higher, three points below the percentage of
the overall U.S. population. However, the proportion with an
advanced degree is similar among all Americans (11%) and Black
immigrants (10%). When comparing Black immigrants with Asian and
Hispanic immigrants, the differences are more apparent. About 30% of
Asian immigrants age 25 and older have completed at least a four-
year degree, whereas only 11% of Hispanic immigrants have done so.
Within Black immigrants, educational attainment also varies among
different regions of birth. About 34% of African immigrants age 25
and older have at least a bachelor’s degree, including 14% with an
advanced degree. In comparison, only 6.2% of Caribbean immigrants
age 25 and older have an advanced degree. Nonetheless, education
attainment for Black immigrants from Africa is still lower than
those from Europe and Asia, with 16.7% and 18.6% of them have an
advanced degree respectively.

IV. Economic Snapshot of Black Immigrants Household income.

Black immigrants have a lower median annual household income than
the median U.S. household and all immigrants in the U.S. Based on
the Pew study of ACS 2013 data, the median annual household income
for foreign-born blacks was $43,800. That’s roughly $8,000 less than
the $52,000 median for American households and $4,200 less than that
of all U.S. immigrants. While the median household income for Black
immigrants is higher than it is for Hispanic immigrants ($38,000),
both groups’ numbers are substantially below that of Asian
immigrants, whose median household income is $70,600. …

According to a 2011 study by the Economic Policy Institute,
Caribbean women earn 8.3% less than U.S. born non-Hispanic white
women; African women earn 10.1% less. When we consider subsets of
Black immigrants, the differences become even more dramatic. For
example, Haitian women earn 18.6% less than U.S. born non-Hispanic
white women.

Similarly, Black immigrant men earn lower wages than U.S. born non-
Hispanic white men. Caribbean men earn 20.7% less than U.S. born
non-Hispanic white men and African men 34.7%. Notably, as of 2011
Black immigrant men also earned lower wages than African American
males. While earnings for Caribbean men were just 1% less than those
of African-Americans, African men earned nearly 15% less than US
Born Black men.

Black Immigrants in the Workforce.

Black immigrants are more likely to participate in the labor force
than the overall immigrant population. The Bureau of Labor
Statistics reports that 70.8% of Black immigrants participate in the
civilian labor force.

Black immigrants maintain higher rates of employment in service and
sales positions than their counterparts of other immigrant
backgrounds. Other areas of employment for Black immigrants include
management, finance, and construction.

Unionization.

The percentage of unionized Black immigrants has nearly doubled over
the last 20 years from 7% in 1994 to 15.4% in 2015. Black immigrants
are more likely than Black Americans to be unionized. 16.9% of Black
immigrants are union members, compared to 13.8% of Black Americans.
Unionization has proven to have a positive impact on the livelihood
of Black workers. On average Black union members, earn nearly $7
more per hour than non-union Black workers. 71.4% of Black union
members have employer-provided health care, compared to 47.7% of
non-union Black workers. 61.6% of Black union members have employer-
sponsored retirement plans, compared to 38.2% of non-union Black
workers.

V. Immigration Status and Means of Entry

The majority of Black immigrants are living in the U.S. with formal
immigration authorization. According to a Pew study, about 84% of
the Black immigrant population are living in the U.S. with
authorization. This section of the report presents details about
Black immigrants by immigration status.

A. Undocumented Community Members

When compared with the overall share of undocumented immigrants in
the country–about a quarter of the total immigrant population–
Black immigrants are less likely to be in the U.S. unlawfully. An
estimated 575,000 Black immigrants were living in the U.S. without
authorization in 2013, according to the Pew Research Center study,
making up 16% of all Black immigration population. Among Black
immigrants from the Caribbean, 16% are undocumented immigrants and
as are 13% of Black immigrants from Africa. …

When compared with the increase of undocumented immigrant population
from other regions of the world, African and Caribbean unauthorized
immigrants are growing at a lower rate since 2000 than those from
Central America (194% without Mexico) and Asia (202%), but faster
than those from South America (39%) and Europe (62%).

************************************************

Part II: Black Immigrants in the Mass Criminalization System

I. Targeting Immigrants with Criminal Convictions

“Good” vs. “Bad” Migrants

In creating a “good” versus “bad” migrant binary, President Obama
sought to justify a detention and removal campaign that oversaw the
deportation of a record 438,421 immigrants in fiscal year 2013 –an
increase that has led some to refer to President Obama as “deporter-
in-chief.” Since the start of Obama’s administration in 2008, 2.9
million immigrants have been deported from the United States, a
majority of whom (58%) have a criminal record.

“Felons” vs. “Families”

In a national address in November 2014, President Obama announced
that he would focus immigration enforcement resources on individuals
with criminal records–“felons, not families.” This phrase has been
widely criticized as devaluing and dehumanizing individuals with
criminal convictions. After all, “felons” have families, too.

Anti-Blackness

The government’s increasing focus on immigrants with criminal
records disproportionately impacts Black immigrants, who are more
likely than immigrants from other regions to have criminal
convictions, or at least to be identified through interactions with
local law enforcement, because of rampant racial profiling.

Tougher Enforcement

President Obama’s address to the nation coincided with the
Department of Homeland Security’s release of a memo outlining new
immigration enforcement priorities. DHS noted that it would continue
to prioritize national security, border security, and public safety,
and went on to rank certain classes of immigrants in order of
enforcement priority, with a significant focus on targeting people
with criminal records.

Intensification of ICE Removals

Following the November 2014 DHS memo, ICE implemented the revised
Civil Immigration Enforcement Priorities (CIEP) in FY 2015, which
intensified the focus on removing people with criminal convictions
and recent entrants. The highest priority for enforcement resources,
known as “Priority 1,” groups together immigrants “engaged in or
suspected of terrorism or espionage” along with individuals
“apprehended at the border while attempting to unlawfully enter the
United States.” This includes asylum seekers, immigrants convicted
of a felony offense and immigrants convicted of an “aggravated
felony” as defined in section 101(a) (43) of the Immigration and
Nationality Act. The term “aggravated felony” includes offenses that
are neither aggravated nor felonies and has been expanded over time
to include, for example, a single theft offense with a suspended
one-year sentence involving no actual jail time. The memo’s second-
highest priority for detention and deportation, “Priority 2,”
includes immigrants convicted of three or more misdemeanor offenses,
individuals with a “significant misdemeanor” including drug
“distribution” offenses, and people who entered the United States
unlawfully after January 1, 2014. The final category, “Priority 3,”
includes immigrants who were ordered deported after January 1, 2014.
ICE continues to remove individuals who do not fall under these
revised categories if their removal would serve an important
“federal interest.”

Blacks are Disproportionately Represented in the Criminal
Enforcement System

Black people are far more likely than any other population to be
arrested, convicted, and imprisoned in the U.S. criminal enforcement
system–the system upon which immigration enforcement increasingly
relies. Black people are arrested at 2.5 times the rate of whites.
They are more likely than whites to be sentenced to prison, and less
likely to be sentenced to probation. According to the FBI Criminal
Justice Information Services Division, of the total individuals
arrested in 2014, 69.4% were white, 27.8% were Black or African
American, and 3% were of another race. These arrest rates
demonstrate that Black and African American individuals are arrested
at a higher rate than their overall percentage in the population.
These disparities exist even when crime rates are the same; for
example, although Blacks and whites use marijuana at roughly equal
rates, Black people are 3.7 times more likely than whites to be
arrested for marijuana possession.

Targeting Immigrants with Criminal Records

Despite racial disparities in criminal enforcement, the federal
government prioritizes the deportation and detention of individuals
with criminal records. In FY 2015, ICE deported 139,368 people with
criminal convictions, which represented 59% of all ICE removals. The
percentage of people targeted for deportation by ICE based on their
criminal records rose from 82% in FY 2013 to 91% in FY 2015. Many of
their records involved drug-related convictions. In FY 2003-2013,
drug offenses, including simple drug possession, accounted for
almost a quarter of all criminal removals.

Three federal agencies are tasked with enforcing immigration laws:
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), U.S. Customs and
Border Patrol (CBP), and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
(USCIS).

Although immigration law is federal, the U.S. government has
instructed state and local law enforcement agencies to assist with
immigration enforcement.

The high proportion of immigrants with criminal records who are
targeted for immigration enforcement is the result on an intentional
and pervasive reliance on the machinery of the criminal enforcement
system to identify people for deportation. The criminal enforcement
system–each stage of which has been shown to target Black people
disproportionately–has become a funnel into the immigration
detention and deportation system.

Stops

Immigrants are exposed to more risks and vulnerability when they are
stopped by the police for minor offenses, such as broken taillights
and traffic violations. When the police decide to take on the duties
of federal immigration enforcement, they often use these stops to
question people about their immigration status and to turn
immigrants over to ICE. Several federal programs have made it easier
for police to expose immigrants with past criminal records.

Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act authorizes the
Department of Homeland Security to partner with state and local law
enforcement agencies. The 287(g) Program’s Jail Enforcement Teams
interview arrestees regarding their immigration status. … The
National Fugitive Operations Program (NFOP) was established on
January 25, 2002. Immediately following the events of September 11,
2001, the Justice Department increased efforts to deport immigrants
with old removal orders.  … Many individuals identified and
deported through this program lived in the United States for many
years and have significant family and community ties. NFOP also
dispatches Fugitive Operations Teams (FOTs) across the country to
arrest “fugitives” and specifically focuses on “residential
operations.” In late 2006, FOTs began conducting raids more
aggressively and demanding document checks on long-distance buses
and trains. They also arrest people on the streets, in their homes,
and at their workplaces if they cannot produce status documents. FOT
practices have been challenged, especially for home raids, based on
the lack of judicial warrants or probable cause. The program was
still in effect at the time of this report’s publication.

Arrests

When an individual is arrested and booked by a police officer, his
or her fingerprints are sent to the FBI. Through the Priority
Enforcement Program (PEP), state and local law enforcement agencies
share data with immigration enforcement. PEP replaced its
predecessor program, Secure Communities, in July 2015. Under PEP,
this same information is sent to the Department of Homeland
Security, which checks its own databases to determine whether the
individual is a “priority for removal” as described in Secretary Jeh
Johnson’s November 20, 2014 memorandum. ICE will then ask the law
enforcement agency to notify ICE of the individual’s release–or
detain the individual past the time that he or she otherwise would
have been released–so ICE may pick the individual up, resulting in
his or her immediate transfer to ICE custody. …

Many jails and prisons also participate in the Criminal Alien
Program (CAP), which seeks to identify, arrest, and deport
individuals who are incarcerated in federal, state, and local
prisons and jails, as well as “at-large criminal aliens that have
circumvented identification.” Law enforcement agencies notify ICE’s
office of Detention and Removal Operations, which administers CAP,
of foreign-born detainees in their custody. ICE then attempts to
secure their final orders of removal before they are released from
criminal custody.

The programs described in this section employ the use of
“detainers,” also known as “immigration holds,” to facilitate ICE’s
capture of the immigrants that the agency identifies. Detainer use
peaked in March 2011 and then fell steadily; however, it stabilized
as of October 2015, with ICE issuing approximately 7,000 detainers
per month. …

Criminal Charges and Disposition

Immigration enforcement is increasingly present in local jails.
Often, an ICE officer will try to interview noncitizens while in
custody and then initiate paperwork for the removal process if an
individual is determined to be deportable. After an individual or
person charged with a crime, he or she may be confronted with a
choice to plead guilty to a lesser offense. Immigrants are
particularly vulnerable to guilty pleas that may later lead to
removal proceedings. …

A criminal conviction could trigger mandatory detention, deportation
and ineligibility to reenter the United States. It may also serve as
a bar to U.S. citizenship, eligibility to obtain a green card, and
various forms of relief from deportation, such as asylum or
withholding of removal. A conviction will remain permanently in an
individual’s immigration file unless it can be “vacated,” that is
removed, by a judge on the basis of some error in the underlying
criminal proceeding.

Post-Conviction

Serving a sentence may result in further immigration scrutiny or
even removal prior to release. The Institutional Removal Program
(IRP) is a nationwide Department of Homeland Security initiative
that purports to identify removable immigrants who are incarcerated,
ensure they are not released into the community, and remove them
upon completion of sentences. IRP has the effect of forcing
incarcerated noncitizens into deportation proceedings from within
the very prisons to which they are confined, often in the form of
“video hearings” that take place from a room within prison. As a
result, inmates are isolated from all other parties, including the
judge, the prosecutor, the interpreter, witnesses, and sometimes
even their own lawyer. …

IV. Recommendations

W e have concluded from the overwhelming amount of data that the
racialized criminalization evident in the immigration enforcement
system has an acute impact on the state of Black immigrants in the
U.S.. This result is partially due to discriminatory policing
practices and criminal penalties that adversely affect all Black
people. Simultaneously, our analysis of the data suggests that
racial inequities, evidenced by disproportionate, negative outcomes
for Black people, in removal proceedings, also persist in the
immigration enforcement system.

It is the Black Alliance for Just Immigration’s view that the
immigration system must be upended and redesigned to ensure that
those entering the U.S. seeking work, refuge or reunification with
their families and communities, are treated fairly and with dignity.
This transformation can begin by divorcing the U.S. mass
criminalization and immigration enforcement regimes. For this
reason, the repeal of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant
Responsibility Act (“IIR-IRA”) and Anti-terrorism and Effective
Death Penalty Act (“AEDPA”), commonly known as the “1996 immigration
laws,” in favor of policies that shift the focus away from criminal
contact as the deciding factor as it pertains to one’s immigration
status in the US by Congress, is BAJI’s primary policy
recommendation.

The 1996 immigration laws expanded the grounds for deportation,
broadened classes of mandatory detention, stripped away judicial
discretion and the right to due process and retroactively punished
those who already served time for their offenses. As this report has
highlighted, Black immigrants have been disproportionately affected
by these laws. The 20th anniversary of IIR-IRA and AEDPA, along with
the current political climate, presents an opportunity to
reinvigorate the movement to upend the nation’s immigration
enforcement system.

V. Conclusion

Just as African-Americans suffer disproportionately high arrest,
prosecution and incarceration rates, so too are Black immigrants.
This occurs despite no evidence that they engage in more
criminalized activities in comparison to any other racial group.
Black immigrants are also disproportionately impacted by the
compounding impact of the immigration enforcement system. Numerous
federal agencies and programs work in conjunction with local law
enforcement to criminalize, detain and deport immigrants. The racism
present in the criminal legal system spills over and informs the
immigration enforcement system, and thus it naturally and unjustly
targets Black immigrants at all stages of the process. As the number
of Black immigrants living in the United States continues to rise,
debates around immigration must acknowledge and rectify the
injustice inherent in these enforcement and deportation systems.

*****************************************************

AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication
providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with a
particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus
Bulletin is edited by William Minter.

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Day of the Heroic Guerilla
| October 8, 2016 | 9:57 pm | Analysis, Che Guevara, Cuba, political struggle | Comments closed

Today, October 8, the world recognizes the most famous and prominent revolutionary of the 20th century, Ernesto “Che” Guevara de la Serna. In Cuba, the site of his final resting place, this day is known as “The Day of the Heroic Guerilla.” Argentinean born, the doctor met Cuban revolutionaries in exile in Mexico. After meeting Dr. Fidel Castro, he signed up to be the 2nd member of Castro’s revolutionary army (the 1st was Castro’s brother, Raul Castro) and returned to Cuba in a poorly equipped ship called the Granma in 1956 to wage a guerilla war.

They set up a rebel base in the Sierra Maestra Mountains. At first, Che was the field unit’s doctor but after volunteering for some of the more daring missions, he grew in prominence. Despite his severe asthma, Che grew from a soldier to a military commander. In the final stages of the revolutionary war, he captured the strategic city of Santa Clara which facilitated the fall of Havana to the rebel army. A true internationalist, he resigned from the Cuban government to go fight for revolution in first Africa and then Bolivia. On October 8, 1967, he was captured alive by Bolivian armed forces, who were trained in anti-guerilla warfare by the American CIA. Anyone who knows Guevaran history can conclude that he was not one to be taken alive. In fact, his rifle had become incapacitated and thus, he did not have the option to die fighting and was captured alive. He was executed the next day.

The Bolivian authorities buried his body in a secret location because they feared that people would build a shrine on his final resting place and that it would turn into a pilgrimage site. His martyrdom, nevertheless, survived and his revolutionary message grew to be bigger in death than in life, so much so, that they even made songs dedicated to him on the other side of the globe. After restoring diplomatic ties with one another, Cuba sent an excavation team to Bolivia in 1997 and retrieved Che’s body and brought it back to Cuba and buried it in the city that he captured in the revolutionary war, Santa Clara. 38 years after his death, his tomb is Cuba’s main tourist attraction and is an international pilgrimage site. Che certainly left behind a living legacy of resistance.

Farewell letter from Che to Fidel Castro

Year of Agriculture

Havana, April 1, 1965.

Fidel:

At this moment I remember many things: when I met you in Maria Antonia’s house, when you proposed I come along, all the tensions involved in the preparations. One day they came by and asked who should be notified in case of death, and the real possibility of it struck us all. Later we knew it was true, that in a revolution one wins or dies (if it is a real one). Many comrades fell along the way to victory.

Today everything has a less dramatic tone, because we are more mature, but the event repeats itself. I feel that I have fulfilled the part of my duty that tied me to the Cuban revolution in its territory, and I say farewell to you, to the comrades, to your people, who now are mine.

I formally resign my positions in the leadership of the party, my post as minister, my rank of commander, and my Cuban citizenship. Nothing legal binds me to Cuba. The only ties are of another nature  those that cannot be broken as can appointments to posts.

Reviewing my past life, I believe I have worked with sufficient integrity and dedication to consolidate the revolutionary triumph. My only serious failing was not having had more confidence in you from the first moments in the Sierra Maestra, and not having understood quickly enough your qualities as a leader and a revolutionary.

I have lived magnificent days, and at your side I felt the pride of belonging to our people in the brilliant yet sad days of the Caribbean [Missile] crisis. Seldom has a statesman been more brilliant as you were in those days. I am also proud of having followed you without hesitation, of having identified with your way of thinking and of seeing and appraising dangers and principles.

Other nations of the world summon my modest efforts of assistance. I can do that which is denied you due to your responsibility as the head of Cuba, and the time has come for us to part.

You should know that I do so with a mixture of joy and sorrow. I leave here the purest of my hopes as a builder and the dearest of those I hold dear. And I leave a people who received me as a son. That wounds a part of my spirit. I carry to new battlefronts the faith that you taught me, the revolutionary spirit of my people, the feeling of fulfilling the most sacred of duties: to fight against imperialism wherever it may be. This is a source of strength, and more than heals the deepest of wounds.

I state once more that I free Cuba from all responsibility, except that which stems from its example. If my final hour finds me under other skies, my last thought will be of this people and especially of you. I am grateful for your teaching and your example, to which I shall try to be faithful up to the final consequences of my acts.

I have always been identified with the foreign policy of our revolution, and I continue to be. Wherever I am, I will feel the responsibility of being a Cuban revolutionary, and I shall behave as such. I am not sorry that I leave nothing material to my wife and children; I am happy it is that way. I ask nothing for them, as the state will provide them with enough to live on and receive an education.

I would have many things to say to you and to our people, but I feel they are unnecessary. Words cannot express what I would like them to, and there is no point in scribbling pages.

Written: April 1, 1965 *********************************************

On the Day of the Heroic Guerilla, we remember Che Guevara

Oct 09, 2012 http://pflp.ps/english/2012/10/09/on-the-day-of-the-heroic-guerilla-we-remember-che-guevara/

On October 8, 2012, the Day of the Heroic Guerilla, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine remembers Comandante Ernesto “Che” Guevara, revolutionary leader, fierce fighter, and principled struggler whose true commitment to internationalism and liberation lives on in the struggles of peoples around the world for freedom, justice and socialism.

Following the revolutionary victory in Cuba in 1959, Che’s commitment to international revolution did not diminish, and he joined Bolivian revolutionaries in 1966. On October 8, 1967, Che and his comrades were captured and surrounded by the US-backed Bolivian military, and executed.

Nine days later, Fidel Castro spoke, memorializing Che and commemorating October 8 as the Day of the Heroic Guerilla, saying “Che died defending no other interest, no other cause than the cause of the exploited and oppressed of this continent. Che died defending no other cause than the cause of the poor and humble of this earth. Before history, people who act as he did, people who do and give everything for the cause of the poor, grow in stature with each passing day and find a deeper place in the heart of the people with each passing day.

In Palestine, Che’s spirit, his commitment to liberation, rises in the streets of our occupied homeland. We mourn and honor our Guevara Gaza, Mohammad al-Aswad, and the thousands of Palestinian Guevaras, the eternal martyrs, who have struggled, fought, sacrificed and died for the liberation of Palestine, and the thousands of Palestinian Guevaras still to come, to hold high the banner of the resistance until the day of victory is ours.

On the 45th anniversary of Che’s death, we remember him as one of the martyrs of Palestine, a great martyr for the freedom of the oppressed of the world. And we continue to live his words: “Let us sum up our hopes for victory: total destruction of imperialism by eliminating its firmest bulwark: the oppression exercised by the United States of America and if we were all capable of uniting to make our blows stronger and infallible and so increase the effectiveness of all kinds of support given to the struggling people, how great and close would that future be.” Wherever death may surprise us, let it be welcome, provided that this, our battle cry, may have reached some receptive ear and another hand may be extended to wield our weapons and other men be ready to intone the funeral dirge with the staccato singing of the machine-guns and new battle cries of war and victory.

Che Guevara Presente! Viva viva Palestina!

— Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org

West Africa/Europe: Toxic Fuels for African Markets
| October 5, 2016 | 8:15 pm | Africa, Analysis, political struggle | Comments closed

West Africa/Europe: Toxic Fuels for African Markets

AfricaFocus Bulletin
October 4, 2016 (161004)
(Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor’s Note

European commodity trading companies in Switzerland, using petroleum
‘blending’ plants in the Netherlands and Belgium, are exporting
toxic fuels to Africa in large quantity. “Their business model,”
according to a new report from the Swiss organization Public Eye,
“relies on an illegitimate strategy of deliberately lowering the
quality of fuels in order to increase their profits. Using a common
industry practice called blending, trading companies mix cheap but
toxic intermediate petroleum products to make what the industry
calls ‘African Quality’ fuels.”

For a version of this Bulletin in html format, more suitable for
printing, go to http://www.africafocus.org/docs16/dd1610.php, and
click on “format for print or mobile.”

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The findings come from a three-year study by Public Eye (formerly
the Berne Declaration), in which researchers collected and analyzed
samples of fuel from petrol stations in eight countries: Angola,
Benin, the Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali,
Senegal and Zambia. The problem is particularly intense in West
Africa, which imports half its refined petroleum products despite
being a significant producer of crude oil.

The full 164-page investigative report is available on the Public
Eye website (https://www.publiceye.ch/en/campaigns/dirtydiesel/),
with extensive background material, audiovisual resources, and a
petition targeting the key Swiss companies involved, linked to
campaigns in the West African countries affected. This AfricaFocus
Bulletin contains excerpts, including the executive summary.

The fuels exported from the “ARA Hub” of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and
Antwerp, which supplies approximately half of fuel exports to West
Africa, include diesel with sulphur content “at least 100 times the
European standard.”

The Public Eye campaign in Switzerland, called “Return to Sender,”
calls for African governments to set stringent fuel quality
standards, for Swiss trading companies to stop abusing the current
weak standards, and for European governments to prohibit the export
of any health-damaging fuels that would not be allowed under their
own domestic standards. See, in particular, the short video and
other resources at
https://www.dirtydiesel.ch/en/campaign/?section=intro

This expose of trade in “African Quality” fuels is one of the most
dramatic illustrations of structural environmental racism at the
international level. It is also a clear illustration of why
combating such abuses effectively requires an international
response.

For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on environmental issues, visit
http://www.africafocus.org/intro-env.php

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and commentary, please follow the page.

Now, however, these same resources are conveniently available  on
the web to those of you who don’t use Facebook regularly. Go to
http://www.africafocus.org and just look on the right-hand side of
the home page, where you can see the latest AfricaFocus posts, and
scroll down for earlier posts.

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor’s note+++++++++++++++++

Dirty Diesel. How Swiss Traders Flood Africa with Toxic Fuels

A Public Eye Investigation, September 2016.

http://www.publiceye.ch

by Marc Guéniat, Marietta Harjono, Andreas Missbach, Gian-Valentino
Viredaz

[Public Eye (formerly the Berne Declaration) is a non-profit,
independent Swiss organisation with around 25,000 members. Public
Eye has been campaigning for more equitable relations between
Switzerland and underprivileged countries for more than forty years.
Among its most important concerns are the global safeguarding of
human rights, the socially and ecologically responsible conduct of
business enterprises and the promotion of fair economic relations.]

Executive summary

Swiss commodity trading companies take advantage of weak fuel
standards in Africa to produce, deliver and sell diesel and
gasoline, which is damaging to people’s health. Their business model
relies on an illegitimate strategy of deliberately lowering the
quality of fuels in order to increase their profits. Using a common
industry practice called blending, trading companies mix cheap but
toxic intermediate petroleum products to make what the industry
calls “African Quality” fuels. These intermediate products contain
high levels of sulphur as well as other toxic substances such as
benzene and aromatics. By selling such fuels at the pump in Africa,
the traders increase outdoor air pollution, causing respiratory
disease and premature death. This affects West Africa, in
particular, because this is the region where the authorised levels
of sulphur in fuels remain very high. West Africa does not have the
refining capacity to produce enough gasoline and diesel for its own
consumption, and so it must import the majority of its fuels from
Europe and the US, where fuel standards are strict.

Fuels have been on the agenda for some time already. Beginning in
2002, the UN Environmental Programme (UNEP) conducted a ten-year
campaign that led in most countries to a ban on lead in gasoline.
However, fuels still account for other severe health issues. The
issue of sulphur content must be urgently addressed.

This report is the result of three years of research by Public Eye
(formerly the Berne Declaration). It highlights the contribution by
the commodity trading industry to outdoor air pollution in Africa
and the related health effects.

The Issue: Sulphur, A Ticking Bomb that Needs Defusing

African mega-cities such as Lagos or Dakar already have worse air
quality than Beijing. Rapid urbanisation, the growing numbers of
cars, and the poor quality of these cars, which are mostly second
hand, partly explains the worsening air pollution in African cities.

The crucial factor though is that most African countries still
permit the use of high-sulphur diesel and gasoline. On average,
African sulphur limits in diesel are 200 times above the European
limit, in some countries this figure is as high as 1,000.

Sulphur in fuels is crucial to air pollution because of its direct
health-damaging effects but also because it destroys emissions
control technologies in vehicles. As long as fuel sulphur content
remains so high, any efforts to reduce air pollution (for example,
by modernising Africa’s car fleet) will be in vain. Without rapid
and meaningful improvements in fuel quality, traffic-related air
pollution will soon be a major health issue (see chapter 3).
Respiratory diseases such as asthma, chronic obstructive lung
diseases, lung cancer and cardiovascular diseases will rise.

On the other hand the use of ultra-low sulphur fuels (10 parts per
million [ppm] sulphur) would immediately halve the emissions of
pollutants. If done together with the introduction of cars that use
existing emissions control technologies, the emission of pollutants
could be reduced by 99 percent.

The Players: The Swiss Trading Companies

The fuel business in Africa is very opaque. Over the past decade,
important shifts have happened, almost unnoticed. As oil majors
pulled out from Africa’s retail business, Swiss trading companies
moved in, expanding downstream to control key as sets such as
storage facilities and hundreds of petrol stations across Africa
(see chapter 4). Hidden from view by operating behind the Shell and
Puma Energy brands, two big Swiss trading companies Vitol and
Trafigura, together with smaller Swiss companies, have a dominant
position in the import and distribution of petroleum products in
many African countries, especially in West Africa. Other
heavyweights, namely Glencore, Mercuria and Gunvor, that don’t own
petrol station networks, are equally important in supplying African
markets. To access markets and increase their market share, they
often rely on dodgy local door-openers or other politically exposed
persons (see chapter 5).

The Test: Sampling at the Pump

Public Eye tested fuels sold at the pump by Swiss trading companies
(see chapter 6). Countries were selected based on their weak fuel
standards and on the presence of petrol stations owned by Swiss
trading companies. We analysed samples from eight coun tries:
Angola, Benin, the Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire,
Mali, Senegal and Zambia. The trading companies sampled were
Trafigura (operating through Puma, Pumangol, Gazelle trading, UBI),
Vitol (Vivo Energy with Shell brand), Addax & Oryx Group (Oryx) and
Lynx Energy (X-Oil).

More than two thirds of the diesel samples (17 out of 25) had a
sulphur level higher than 1,500 ppm, which is 150 times the European
limit of 10 ppm. The highest level of sulphur was in a diesel sample
from one of Oryx’s petrol stations in Mali, where the sulphur
content was 3,780 ppm. Almost half of the gasoline samples (10 out
of 22) have a sulphur level between 15 and 72 times the European
limit of 10 ppm. Worryingly, we also detected other health damaging
substances in concentrations that would never be allowed in a
European or US fuel. These substances include polyaromatics
(diesel), aromatics and benzene (gasoline). In a number of samples,
we found traces of metals that would also contribute to higher
emissions of pollutants and damage car engines too.

The Context: Toxic Fuels Brought to Africa

West Africa is a significant producer of crude oil. But due to its
lack of refining capacity, the region must import roughly half of
its diesel and gasoline, which is high in sulphur, mostly from
Europe and the US.

Around 50 percent of the fuels imported to West Africa come from
Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Antwerp, collectively known as the “ARA”
region (see chapter 8). Trade statistics show 80 percent of the
diesel exported from ARA to Africa has sulphur content at least 100
times above the European standard. This figure soared to an average
90 percent for West Africa, with Ghana (93 percent), Guinea (100
percent), Senegal (82 percent), Nigeria (84 percent) and Togo (96
percent) receiving the biggest volumes.

Based on specific cargoes, official documents from Ghana show that,
in both 2013 and 2014, diesel imports contained sul phur levels
extremely close to the legal limit. This all happened even as
specifications were changed between 2013 and 2014. This shows how
trading companies are able quickly to adapt to new standards,
sticking as close as possible to the limit (see chapter 7). Swiss
trading companies play a major role in transporting fuel from the
ARA region, and from the US, to West Africa. In the case of Ghana,
these companies delivered most of the known high sulphur cargoes in
2013 and 2014.

The Business: Blending Fuels

Contrary to what most people might think, fuels such as diesel or
gasoline tend not to come straight from refineries. Instead, the
refineries produce intermediate products, which are then mixed
together, occasionally with intermediate products from other sources
(such as the chemical industry). This process is called “blending”
(see chapter 9). To make matters more com plex, different types of
refineries produce different intermediate products or “blendstocks”.

Gasoline is always a blended product because vehicle engines require
a particular mix, which usually consists of between six and ten
blendstocks. By contrast, diesel does not need to be blended.
However, since blending is a profitable activity and since
refineries do not produce enough diesel by them selves, diesel is
also blended. It usually consists of between four and six
blendstocks.

Blending does not require a huge infrastructure. A few pipes and
tanks are usually enough to prepare a specific blend of diesel or
gasoline. It can be done in tank terminals, onboard ships, or at the
interface between the two while still in port.

Having become giants with revenues of hundreds of billions of
dollars, Swiss commodity trading companies have more oil tankers at
sea and own more storage capacity than the oil majors. Storage
capacity is key not only to trading but also to blending.

The Illegitimate Business: Making “African Quality” Fuels

As trading companies (and other blenders) explain, they “tailor”
fuels to meet the standards of the country they supply. They call
this blending “on-spec”, or according to required specifications.
This can refer to the required specification of sulphur content, or
to the content of any other regulated substances, such as ben zene
or aromatics.

Differences between national fuel quality regulations offer
opportunity for companies to profit from a form of regulatory
arbitrage. With weak standards, Africa is an excellent example. And
industry uses the term “African Quality” (see chapter 10) when
referring to low-quality fuels, characterised primarily by their
high sulphur content, although the term also refers to fuels with
other low-quality aspects.

Africa’s weak fuel standards allow traders to use cheap blendstocks,
dropping production costs and making the produc tion of low fuels a
lucrative business model.

These cheap blendstocks are also of poor quality and, most
importantly, they damage health through their high levels of
sulphur, aromatics and benzene. Such blendstocks could never be used
in European or American markets. Sometimes fuels also contain waste
and recycled blendstocks from the chemical industry and elsewhere,
posing additional risks.

Traders and other blenders, who have a below specification petroleum
product on their hands, will search the market for other blendstocks
(nicknamed “tasty juices”) that will enable the production of an on-
spec fuel. The closer to the specifica tion boundary the product
lies, the larger the potential margin for the trader. On the other
hand, if the trader has a product that is above the specification,
then it may be able to purchase cheap, low-quality “juices” to blend
in. The process of lowering product quality is known in the industry
as “filling up quality give-away”.

In principle, blending is a legitimate and necessary technical
process, but there is a large margin for abuse when it comes to
blending low-quality blendstocks – a practice we call “blend
dumping”. We consider this to be an illegitimate practice. Con
taminants present in any blendstock, such as sulphur and benzene,
should be minimised or fully eliminated by further refining, not
diluted to meet the weak standards of African countries.

The Hub: Where African Quality Fuels Are Produced

While African Quality fuels could never be legally sold in Europe,
they are produced in Europe nevertheless. The ARA region has become
the main hub for the blending and shipping of fuels, especially
diesel, to West Africa for a number of reasons, includ ing its
extensive refining and blending capacity, its strategic po sition
(which allows it to receive petroleum products and blend stocks from
the UK, Russia and the Baltic countries), and its geographic
proximity to West Africa (see chapter 11). The Swiss trading
companies own or hire extensive blending facilities in ARA and we
can prove for the first time that they dominate the export of
African Quality fuels to West Africa.

Besides Europe, the blending is also done offshore the West African
coast. Most West African ports are too small to receive a large
number of tankers or have limited draft, which prevents the larger
European tankers from entering. Mostly coming from the ARA region,
these oil product tankers sail across the Atlan tic Ocean and meet
in the Gulf of Guinea. Mostly in Togolese waters, they transfer
petroleum products from one vessel to an other in an operation known
as ship-to-ship (STS) transfer. The usually smaller tankers then
sail off, discharging the products to different countries in the
region. These STS operations are also a common way to blend
products.

The Conclusion: Ban All Dirty Fuels

Now is the time for African governments to act. They have the chance
to protect the health of their urban population, reduce car
maintenance costs, and spend their health budgets on other pressing
health issues. By moving to ultra-low sulphur diesel, Africa could
prevent 25,000 premature deaths in 2030 and al most 100,000
premature deaths in 2050. An examination of past experience, the
price structure of diesel, and recent developments on the continent
show that African leaders shouldn’t fear significant price increases
from improving the standards of fuel (see concluding chapter 12). In
January 2015, for example, five East African countries adopted low
sulphur fuels with no impact on prices at the pump, or on government
spending through subsidies. A limited increase of prices at the pump
should in any case be balanced with the health and associated
savings of reducing air pollution from high sulphur fuels. The
savings from better health are by far higher than the effects of the
potential costs of cleaner fuels.

Four different sets of actors should take decisive steps
immediately:

* African governments (and others with weak fuel standards) should
set stringent fuel quality standards of 10 ppm sulphur for diesel
and gasoline, and introduce European limits on other health damaging
substances. Whether or not they have sufficient refining capacity in
the country or can only import, governments should be strict with
implementing fuel standards. If not, their fuels will quickly
contain bad blendstocks. The blenders know exactly which standards
apply where, and how best they can dump their African Quality
blends.

* Swiss trading companies should stop abusing Africa’s low fuel
quality standards, recognize that if left unchanged their practices
will kill more and more people across the continent, and immediately
produce and sell to African countries only fuels that would meet
Europe’s high fuel quality standards.

* Governments of export hubs for African fuels (such as Amsterdam,
Antwerp or the US Gulf) should prohibit the export of any health
damaging fuels or blendstocks, which would never be used in their
own country.

* The Swiss government should implement mandatory human rights and
environmental due diligence requirements for Swiss companies,
covering the entire supply chain and including potentially toxic
products.

*****************************************************

AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication
providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with a
particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus
Bulletin is edited by William Minter.

AfricaFocus Bulletin can be reached at africafocus@igc.org. Please
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or to suggest material for inclusion. For more information about
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http://www.africafocus.org

USA/Africa: From #BlackLivesMatter to #StopTheBleeding Africa
| September 22, 2016 | 8:45 pm | Africa, Analysis, political struggle, Struggle for African American equality | Comments closed

AfricaFocus Bulletin
September 21, 2016 (160921)
(Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor’s Note

The direct and indirect toll resulting from illicit financial flows
reflects the unequal value today’s world places on human lives by
race and place … Reflecting the legacy of the slave trade and
colonialism, the African continent and Black people around the world
are disproportionately located at the bottom of a global system that
systematically sucks wealth upward, toward the top “1 percent.” …
there can be no doubt that the number of deaths caused by these
structural economic inequalities rivals or likely even exceeds those
lost due to bombs, guns, or machetes.

For a version of this Bulletin in html format, more suitable for
printing, go to http://www.africafocus.org/docs16/iff1609.php, and
click on “format for print or mobile.”

To share this on Facebook, click on
https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=http://www.africafocus.org/docs16/iff1609.php

This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains an article published today in
Praxis (http://www.kzoo.edu/praxis/making-violence-visible/), an on-line publication of the
Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership at Kalamazoo College. The
article, written by Emily Williams and William Minter, seeks to do
the following: 1) introduce readers to the #StoptheBleeding campaign
and make the tremendous loss of resources from African countries via
illicit financial flows more visible; 2) begin to make the case for
linking #BlackLivesMatter and #StoptheBleeding with the
understanding that the same system of (mis)appropriation of wealth
is hurting people in Africa and elsewhere in the world including the
US; and 3) offer several domestic and global policy changes that
could make a difference on both sides of the Atlantic.

For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on illicit financial flows and
related issues, visit http://www.africafocus.org/intro-iff.php

In addition to links in the article below, additional newly
published resources include:

From the US-Africa Network

“Top 10 Questions About Illicit Financial Flows and Africa”
http://tinyurl.com/zz4xr53

“Resources about Illicit Financial Flows from Africa”
http://tinyurl.com/jsyg8el

From AfricaFocus Bulletin

Top Ten Books on Illicit Financial Flows, Tax Justice, and Africa
http://www.africafocus.org/iff-books.php

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor’s note+++++++++++++++++

Making Violence Visible: From #BlackLivesMatter to #StoptheBleeding
Africa

By Emily Williams and William Minter

[Emily Williams is an educator and organizational development
consultant. William Minter is the editor of AfricaFocus Bulletin (
http://www.africafocus.org) and author of numerous books and other
publications on African issues and international relations. Both
authors are members of the coordinating committee of the US-Africa
Network (http://www.usafricanetwork.org). The authors are grateful
for the skillful editing of Alice Kim, which has contributed
immensely to the development of this article.]

In June 2015, a coalition of six Pan-African activist networks
launched #StoptheBleeding Africa (
http://stopthebleedingafrica.org/faqs/) in Nairobi, Kenya to curb
the hemorrhage of resources from the African continent. As the
#BlackLivesMatter movement continued to gain strength in the United
States, this Pan-African coalition came together to expose and
mobilize global support to end illicit financial flows – money that
is illegally earned, transferred or used. Estimates of illegal
transactions in Africa show a loss of at least $50 billion to $80
billion in wealth every year, a figure that would be incalculably
more if transfers made legal by loopholes and unfair treaties were
included. Some flows are only seen as “legal” because the laws are
written and interpreted by those profiting from the system.
Nevertheless, even the outflow of clearly illegal  funds is far
greater than the estimated $40 billion a year that Africa receives
in official development assistance. As explained in this 16-minute
video from the United Nations Economic Commission on Africa (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lenH1SaOcIA), the #StoptheBleeding
campaign includes official commitments by African governments.
However, implementing these commitments depends on large-scale
mobilizations within Africa and around the world.

Unlike the pillage of Africa in earlier periods of the slave trade
and colonial rule, these illicit financial transactions are most
often hidden from public view. They happen through fraudulent
invoicing of trade, “creative accounting” by multinational
corporations, tax giveaways by African governments, and the use of
shell companies based in tax havens around the world including
Delaware, Luxembourg, Panama, the British Virgin Islands, Liberia,
and Mauritius. Despite repeated revelations, notably the recent
#PanamaPapers (https://panamapapers.icij.org/) scandal, the public
eye glazes over at billions of dollars cited alongside obscure
company names and a complex web of financial links across national
and continental borders. This article seeks to do the following: 1)
introduce readers to the #StoptheBleeding campaign and make the
tremendous loss of resources from African countries via illicit
financial flows more visible; 2) begin to make the case for linking
#BlackLivesMatter and #StoptheBleeding with the understanding that
the same system of (mis)appropriation of wealth is hurting people in
Africa and elsewhere in the world including the US; and 3) offer
several domestic and global policy changes that could make a
difference on both sides of the Atlantic.

The Looting Machine

As South African student activist Pearl Pillay noted, “it is a
common error of thought that violence is only what you can see”
(http://tinyurl.com/jtk3hzy). Violence that stems from decisions
made in boardrooms, city halls, and the offices of high-paid
international accounting and law firms can be harder to see than
violence on the streets but is deadly nonetheless.

In the US, economic violence is carried out through systemic public
disinvestment in health and education as we’ve seen in Flint,
Michigan’s water crisis and the closure of public schools in Chicago
and Detroit, not to mention below-poverty-level wages paid by
corporations such as Wal-Mart and McDonald’s.

In African countries, capitalist enterprises suck resources out of
the continent via traditional industries like oil and minerals and
rapidly expanding economic sectors like telecommunications and
retail:

* In Nigeria, Shell, Chevron, and other companies from Europe and
China share oil profits with corrupt Nigerian officials. The Panama
Papers reveals that “three oil ministers, several senior employees
of the national oil company and two former state governors” were
“convicted of laundering ill-gotten money from the oil industry” (
https://panamapapers.icij.org/20160725-nigeria-oil-mogul.html). One
prominent Nigerian oil trader is accused of cheating the Nigerian
government out of 1.8 billion dollars in oil sales.

*In Angola, an oligarchy headed by the president’s family presides
over oil riches in alliance with companies including Chevron,
ExxonMobil, BP, and a Hong Kong-based international network of
companies known as the Queensway Group (http://tinyurl.com/n5bn5gn).

* In South Africa, the mobile phone company MTN is able to avoid
paying taxes on hundreds of millions of dollars from its
subsidiaries in Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, and other African countries,
it was revealed last year, by channeling most of its profits through
“management fees” to its subsidiary tax haven in Mauritius (
http://www.africafocus.org/docs15/td1510.php).

* Walmart, which has controlled the South Africa-based Massmart
since 2011, hides an estimated $76 billion of its foreign earnings
through subsidiaries in Luxembourg, where it owns no stores (
http://tinyurl.com/hmhg24t). By hiding these earnings stored in
Luxembourg, Walmart avoids paying taxes on the funds.

These financial practices can be as, if not more, deadly than police
violence due to the sheer number of people impacted as resources
needed for health, education, and other public services, as well as
for private and public investment in development, are siphoned out
to multinational corporations and overseas bank accounts. The
ensuing competition for scarce resources fuels local and national
conflicts, often heightened by demagogues channeling the frustration
into hostility toward ethnic “others.”

The direct and indirect toll resulting from illicit financial flows
reflects the unequal value today’s world places on human lives by
race and place; and, in fact, not only parallels the violence of
terrorism but also reflects its disproportionate toll on the Middle
East, Africa, and Asia than in Europe and the Americas (
http://tinyurl.com/hlsbj8b). Reflecting the legacy of the
slave trade and colonialism, the African continent and Black people
around the world are disproportionately located at the bottom of a
global system that systematically sucks wealth upward, toward the
top “1 percent.” Whether this system is best called capitalism,
neoliberalism, global apartheid, white supremacy, kleptocracy, or
something else, there can be no doubt that the number of deaths
caused by these structural economic inequalities rivals or likely
even exceeds those lost due to bombs, guns, or machetes.

+++++++++++

Stop the Bleeding (4-minute music video)

++++++++++++

Financial Flows and Tax Losses

With the #PanamaPapers leak in April 2016, illicit financial flows
momentarily gained international media attention. This is in part
because rich as well as poor countries are affected. A recent
calculation (http://tinyurl.com/holnnc5) estimated that illegal
tax evasion costs US taxpayers $35 billion a year, with an
additional $130 billion a year lost to technically legal “tax
avoidance.” Even without any changes in tax rates for the rich,
these “lost” funds could add $165 billion a year more in public
funds and be invested in health, education, and other public goods
that benefit Americans.

The losses to sub-Saharan Africa from illicit flows, however, have
an even more significant impact given the smaller size of African
economies and the urgent need for investment in basic services.
According to World Bank estimates (http://tinyurl.com/hw7b8t3) for
2014, while the United States and other rich countries on average
spend over $9,000 a year per person on public health, South Africa
spends a little less than $600 a year per person. Meanwhile the
average for all African countries together is less than $100 per
person per year. As the wealthy evade taxes in both richer and
poorer countries, it is always the most vulnerable in society who
suffer most from budget cuts. On a global scale, African countries
and African people suffer disproportionately, reflecting the global
hierarchy of wealth and power
http://www.africafocus.org/iff-inequality.php).

Watch this 3.5 minute video on how Zambia Sugar evades taxes.

Making Connections Across Geographic and Mental Distance

Although #BlackLivesMatter and #StoptheBleeding were born out of
distinct geographic contexts, highlight apparently different social
problems, call for varying solutions, and have diverging levels of
visibility in the global media, they are inextricably and deeply
linked.

Thanks to #BlackLivesMatter the pervasive systemic violence against
Black people by police and the criminal justice system in the US is
now more visible. Names like Trayvon Martin, Mike Brown, Sandra
Bland, Rekia Boyd, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Alton Sterling, and
Philando Castile have not been forgotten because activists have
strategically used social media, street protests, and behind-the-
scenes organizing to force the media, the public, and politicians to
pay attention.

In the U.S., increasing economic inequality has led to the
criminalization of the poor and can be directly connected to police
violence. For example, in the cases of Alton Sterling and Eric
Garner, their attempts to make money in the street economy (selling
cd’s and loose cigarettes respectively) is what preceded their
interaction with police that ultimately ended in the loss of their
lives. U.S. activists are intentionally making economic justice fundamental to the message of #BlackLivesMatter in initiatives like the Agenda to Build Black Futures (http://agendatobuildblackfutures.org/) released by Black Youth
Project in January 2016 and the Vision for Black Lives (https://policy.m4bl.org/) released by a coalition of Black
organizations in August 2016. Notably, #BlackLivesMatter
interventions in numerous cities were integral to pushing Bernie
Sanders’ presidential campaign, which appealed to a growing segment
of the American population because it called for a more progressive
and populist economic agenda, to (belatedly) acknowledge the
relationship between racial justice, gender justice, and economic
justice.

But the violence plaguing Africa remains far too invisible to most
Americans. It is more difficult to #saytheirnames when the report is
of 44 killed at the #Marikana mine in South Africa, 147 students at
#Garissa in Kenya, or hundreds of men, women, and children at #Baga
in northeastern Nigeria, places most Americans have never visited
and can’t find on a map.

Although the Nigerian-launched campaign to #BringBackOurGirls won
international fame, few Americans (beyond African immigrants and
others with close personal links to the continent) are attentive to
other struggles in Africa. Hashtags like #StoptheBleeding,
#OccupyNigeria, #MinersShotDown, #FeesMustFall, and #RhodesMustFall
echo faintly, if at all, across the Atlantic.

Making the connections between what is happening “here” and what is
happening “there” is not easy – #StoptheBleeding can feel less
tangible because the violence being contested is hidden in a tangle
of economic statistics, anonymous shell companies, and accounting
tricks – but it is fundamental to addressing the obstacles that must
be overcome to make a different world possible. It is imperative to
address the roots of injustice that connect #BlackLivesMatter and
#StoptheBleeding by fostering a collective process that builds
solidarity between movement forces in the US and Africa.

Follow the Money

When policymakers—in Chicago, Washington, Pretoria, Nairobi, or
anywhere else —ask “Where is the money?” to pay for health,
education, and infrastructure, the answer should be, in the words of
the African Union Panel on Illicit Financial Flows: “Track it! Stop
it! Get it!” (http://tinyurl.com/zvwn5p5) The debate must go beyond
the very real issues of setting different budget priorities to
raising the basic question of who pays and who is evading their duty
to pay their fair share. The first step is to ensure that there is
full information available on income and wealth of those who have
the most money, including the ultra-rich, the well-known giant
companies, and also the obscure shell companies that both use to
hide their wealth from public view.

The United States and other rich countries are the home countries
for the majority of multinational corporations involved in the
looting of the African continent. They also provide convenient
facilities for African elites to hide their riches. In a report
published in January 2016, Global Witness documented with video
interviews their undercover investigation of 13 leading New York law
firms (https://www.globalwitness.org/shadyinc/). “We said we were
advising an African minister who had accumulated millions of
dollars, and we wanted to buy a Gulfstream Jet, a brownstone and a
yacht. We said we needed to get the money into the U.S. without
detection. … the results were shocking; all but one of the lawyers
had suggestions on how to move the funds.”

On the African continent, #StoptheBleeding activist groups and many
public officials at continental and national level are working to
identify the money that pours out of the continent. They have
identified specific measures to improve tracking of fraud in trade
invoices and are campaigning against tax treaties with foreign
investors with massive giveaways. They are working with
international partners to train journalists in investigations such
as those in the Panama Paper, and with tax specialists to improve
capacity to track overseas bank accounts. Implementation depends on
mobilization of public pressure and political will in each
individual country. Since the system is global, however, it also
depends on international collaboration, particularly from the
countries where the money is hidden.

And that’s where the connection to the United States becomes
essential, and the agendas of #BlackLivesMatter and #StoptheBleeding
Africa potentially converge. The ultra-rich and multinational
corporations operate on a global playing field. Using secret bank
accounts, lawyers, and accountants spread around the world, money
can be transferred with a click of a mouse from Nairobi or Chicago
to the British Virgin Islands to London, with stops along the way in
Panama, the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean, Singapore, and Samoa in
the Pacific. If tax authorities are going to track down the money
they should be getting, activists and honest public officials around
the world must also find ways to collaborate to change the laws and
implement them (see the text box for a few examples of key policies
that could make a difference).

++++++++++++++++

Key Policy Changes Needed for Tax Justice

1. Beneficial ownership in the US

Over two million corporations, LLCs, and other business entities are
formed in the United States every year—and almost every state
collects less identifying information from the individuals forming
these entities than from people applying for a driver’s license or
registering to vote. Indeed, many states rank among the easiest
places in the world in which to form “anonymous shell companies” or
“phantom firms” – business entities that exist solely on paper with
no obligation to list the real people who actually own or control
them, otherwise known as the “beneficial owners.” If they remain
hidden, it is not possible to find and to tax the assets, whether
they come from drug dealing or simply from rich people trying to
avoid paying taxes.

Relevant federal legislation proposed: The Incorporation
Transparency and Law Enforcement Assistance Act (S. 2489 and H.R.
4450)

2. Public Country-by-Country Reporting

Currently, multinationals are able to exploit loopholes in domestic
and international tax laws to shift profits from one country to the
next, often through tax havens (or “secrecy jurisdictions”), with
the end goal of reducing or even eliminating the tax they pay to
governments. Without leaks and whistleblowers, even governments only
see a small window into the inner workings of companies, which makes
proving tax avoidance or evasion nearly impossible. Although MNCs
report on their profits, revenue, taxes paid, and number of
employees, the global numbers they provide are for the operations of
all of their subsidiaries bundled together.

Multinational corporations should be required to submit individual
reports with basic financial information such as revenue, profits,
taxes, and number of employees for each jurisdiction in which they
operate. These country by country reports should be made available
to the public. Public country-by-country reporting strengthens the
financial system for everyone.

New regulations on country-by-country reporting by corporations were
issued this year by the Treasury and the IRS, and are also under
consideration by the Security and Exchange Commission. However,
these do not yet meet the standard of public disclosure demanded by
tax justice advocates.

3. Financial Transaction (Robin Hood) Tax

Simply put, the big idea behind the Robin Hood Tax is to generate
hundreds of billions of dollars, through a small tax of 0.5% on all
financial transactions such as sales of stocks and bonds. That money
could provide funding for jobs to kickstart the economy and get
America back on its feet. It could help save the social safety net
here and around the world, and it will come from fair taxation of
the finance sector. The revenue raised would be enough to protect
American schools, housing, local governments and hospitals, to pay
for lifesaving AIDS medicines, to support people and communities
around the world, and to deal with the climate challenges we’re
facing.

Relevant federal legislation proposed: The Inclusive Prosperity Act
(H.R. 1464), introduced in the House of Representatives by Rep.
Keith Ellison and 36 co-sponsors and in the Senate (S. 1371) by Sen.
Bernie Sanders, with 1 co-sponsor.

+++++++++++

Action at the federal level can have the widest effect, given the
size of the U. S. economy and the impact of U.S. policy on
international action. But given that corporations are registered at
the state level and also pay corporate taxes at the state level,
states also have the capacity to take the lead and set a precedent
for national action. If the political will and the technical legal
and financial expertise are available, similar laws could possibly
even be implemented at city levels, as were divestment measures in
the anti-apartheid era.

Solidarity between #BlackLivesMatter and #StoptheBleedingAfrica is
crucial. Via weak corporate tax law, the U.S. gives license to
corporations to hoard profits and withhold their fair share of taxes
from the societies and countries which allow them to become
prosperous. By standing in opposition to tax injustice, activists
can push back against an aspect of U.S. capitalism that contributes
to increasing wealth inequality. By staying informed, building
relationships, and working in solidarity, we begin to create better
conditions for Black lives across the globe.

Incremental policy change will not be enough. We must confront the
legacy of centuries of systemic injustice and end society’s denial
that this past still shapes the present. The violent inequality of
today’s world is not new, despite dramatic changes in the
technologies of both physical and economic violence. Making that
violence visible also requires making full use of new technologies,
from cellphone videos to big-data journalism. But above all, it
depends on forging links between activists engaged on these
different fronts in different places, who together can build the
political will to act and thus make new futures possible.

For More Information

Africa-specific

Tax Justice Network – Africa
http://www.taxjusticeafrica.net/en/blog/

AfricaFocus Bulletin
http://www.africafocus.org/intro-iff.php

US-Africa Network
Stop the Bleeding Africa

USA and Global

FACT (Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency) Coalition
https://thefactcoalition.org/blog/

ActionAid International
http://www.actionaid.org/tax-power

Global Alliance for Tax Justice
http://www.globaltaxjustice.org/en/resources

Tax Justice Network
http://www.taxjustice.net/reports-2/

*****************************************************

AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication
providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with a
particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus
Bulletin is edited by William Minter.

AfricaFocus Bulletin can be reached at africafocus@igc.org. Please
write to this address to subscribe or unsubscribe to the bulletin,
or to suggest material for inclusion. For more information about
reposted material, please contact directly the original source
mentioned. For a full archive and other resources, see
http://www.africafocus.org

In Memoriam of Orlando Letelier: How the US Helped to Kill Pinochet Rival
| September 22, 2016 | 8:30 pm | Analysis, Discrimination against communists, Imperialism, political struggle | Comments closed
03:52 23.09.2016(updated 03:57 23.09.2016)
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Forty years ago, a bomb exploded in downtown Washington, DC. Its target, Orlando Letelier, was a Chilean diplomat and Foreign Minister in the administration former president Salvador Allende. The bombing was sanctioned by Augusto Pinochet, who subsequently came to power in a CIA-orchestrated coup d’etat. Victor Figeuroa Clark, a Chilean historian and author of the book Salvador Allende: Revolutionary Democrat, joined Radio Sputnik’s Brian Becker to talk about the events of that time. According to Clark, Letelier was assassinated because he was an extremely effective voice against Pinochet, both in Washington and at the UN. Some months before he was killed, Letelier was a key figure in lobbying to pass an amendment limiting US aid to Pinochet’s CIA-installed regime. But Letelier was also a political threat, Clark explained. The well-liked diplomat had contacts among political elites, and at the time of his death, he was the only person who could lead an organized opposition to Pinochet. Blowing up a car in the middle of the US capital is the opposite of clandestine. According to Clark, Pinochet dared the public killing because he was receiving mixed signals from the US. “Like with other right-wing and extremist regimes at the time and ever since, US institutions have given confusing signs on human rights, and the length of lead they can be given. The State Department might have given a “red light” while the CIA could have given the green light,'” Clark said. “Pinochet and the junta felt like they were on a global crusade against the evil as they thought it communism or marxism. They thought that they were representing the best interests of the US and the free world, and that therefore they would be understood and forgiven.” Letelier is one of the most famous victims of Operation Condor, a communist-hunting network orchestrated through a joint effort by intelligence services of Latin American dictator regimes, alongside the United States, to share intelligence information on left-wing organizations and their leaders. In 2001, former US State Secretary Henry Kissinger was named a suspect and defendant in a case regarding Operation Condor and related assassinations. After a visit to an investigator, Kissinger immediately left France and refused to travel to Brazil. “The US were fundamental in establishing of these intelligence services,” Clark said. “[The assassination of Letelier] was a fruit of the long-term policy of working with intelligence services and governments in order to repress the left-wing groups across the Latin America,” he added. The bombing was carried out by US citizen Michael Vernon Townley, a professional assassin, and an operative of the Chilean DINA secret police. Later, he confessed and was convicted of the assassination of Letelier, serving 62 months in prison. He is currently thought to be living in the United States under the US federal witness-protection program. “Townley’s case isn’t unusual,” Clark says. “This is one of the problems that the United States has with other countries in the world, which is not going to be remedied by the release of the classified document from over 40 years ago.” “If you hide the perpetrators of those crimes, then there is no real justice and the diplomatic problems will continue,” Clark stated.

Read more: https://sputniknews.com/latam/20160923/1045612970/orlando-letelier-car-bombing-assassination.html

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