PETITION TO THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS FOR PAYMENT OF REPARATIONS
TO AFRICAN-AMERICANS AND INDIGENOUS PEOPLE
WHEREAS, the New Panther Vanguard Movement believes
that it is critically important to restore ethical principles
to world civilization and that unless such an attempt is made
all human civilization is in mortal danger of coming to an
end;
WHEREAS, African and other indigenous peoples of color,
by virtue of their history of struggles against oppression
and exploitation of Man by Man, their vision of a world based
on cooperation and not competition, and their innate yearning
for freedom, justice and equality, are best qualified to bring
humanitarianism to the technical and materialistic concepts
of the Western World;
WHEREAS, the New Panther Vanguard Movement believes
that any objective analysis of the origins of the economic
and social problems confronting Africans, living in America
and on the Continent, as well as other people of color in
the so-called “Americas” and globally, must begin with the
historical facts as they existed nearly 500 years ago;
WHEREAS, in the 1400's the Spaniards discovered gold
and silver, rich and fertile land, in the so-called “New World,”
and that greed for this wealth was the original impetus for
their campaign of mass murder of Indigenous Peoples whom they
found living peaceably in what is now known as the Southwestern
United States, the Caribbean and Central and South America;
WHEREAS, during this same period the Portuguese found
gold and diamonds, rich and fertile land in Africa, and thus
began the mass enslavement of African peoples, in cooperation
with, and sanctioned by, almost every Euro-American Government;
WHEREAS, in the so-called “global economy” of the
21st Century there still exists the political and economic
legacies of the “primitive accumulation” of capitalist wealth
and development that was achieved primarily as the result
of the enslavement of Africans and the extirpation of the
land and resources of indigenous peoples, and the outright
murder of people of color in the ten’s of millions;
WHEREAS, in the absence of major changes in how the
world's wealth is distributed in this “new global economy,”
the vast majority of people on this planet, mainly People
of Color, will remain poverty-stricken and denied opportunities
to fulfill basic human needs and aspirations;
WHEREAS, the Demand for Reparations by the descendants
of African slaves, and also by indigenous people of color
whose cultures and resources have also been plundered and
whose human development inhibited by the criminal origins
of the Capitalist System. Is a legitimate demand for justice
and atonement for “crimes against humanity;”
WHEREAS, that the undersigned pledge our support to
the organizing of a truly “Intercommunal Campaign for Reparations”
with the ultimate objective of intervening into the political
processes of the Global Economy so as to redress, once and
for all, the historical injustices perpetrated against African
and other Indigenous People of Color;
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the undersigned also pledge
our support for the demand for “Payment of Reparation,” so
as to rebuild humane communities that meet the real needs
of all people; and -
BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED that the time has come to make
a serious demand for the “payment of reparations” and that
we hereby petition the United States Congress to pass legislation,
similar to H.R. 40, by Congressman Conyers [which has been
unable to be passed out of subcommittee for the past 10 years],
but which would establish a Reparations Commission to determine
1) whether there exists “continuing legacies” of slavery,
racial discrimination, and economic exploitation among Africans
living in America and Indigenous peoples, and 2) whether it
is both feasible and appropriate to consider the payment of
reparations in order to begin correcting such historical injustices
and present-day economic inequities.
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