On July 29, 2022, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) publicly announced one of their targets of U.S. counterinsurgency with a simultaneous pre-dawn raid of the African People’s Socialist Party’s offices in St. Petersburg, Florida and St. Louis, MO, along with the home of our leadership, Chairman Omali Yeshitela.
The justification for the attack, which came with flashbang grenades, assault rifles and drones, was the accusation that Chairman Omali and the Party are working as pawns of the Russian government.
The absurdity of these claims not only shows the desperation of this dying colonial-capitalist social system, clinging on to age-old anti-Russia propaganda, but it presupposes that African people don’t have the capacity to think for ourselves, to identify our enemies and lead our own struggle without the intervention of someone else.
The fact is, our Party was founded in 1972 on the heels of the defeat of the Black Revolution of the 1960s.
Since this time, Chairman Omali Yeshitela has led a dynamic process of winning African people throughout the world to join the ranks of the African Revolution, all the while developing his theory of African Internationalism, which has accurately explained how the world came to be this way.
This required no intervention from Russia or any other force for that matter.
The African working class is able to express its own aims and aspirations through the work of our Party.
The Chairman’s analysis has circulated throughout the globe with countless writings, publications, tours and events, interviews, videos and audio recordings.
African Internationalism continues to assert itself in every arena, on every question.
With our own theory and revolutionary organization, Africa has been able to speak for itself for fifty years!
What is more accurate to say is that Chairman Omali Yeshitela’s leadership, along with the anti-colonial struggle led by the African working class, has gone to inform the consciousness of millions of people, including Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin.
For the remainder of this article, we will present a timeline as well as excerpts of presentations to show how the Chairman and the theory of African Internationalism has come to influence the discussion about Russia.
Russia/Ukraine war declared February 20, 2022
The war, defined by the imperialists, as between Russia and Ukraine, was announced in late February of this year.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela immediately began to provide an analysis of the event for the entire African world.
He used the history of aggression against Russia by the U.S. government and world colonial powers to show that Ukraine was just a front for NATO and U.S. hegemony.
It was this understanding that helped to define this issue as Russia’s defensive war against world colonial powers.
We took a definitive position in support of Russia against colonial powers early out because of our strategic interests as the African Nation.
Party publishes official position on February 26, 2022
The following is excerpted from the Party’s official position on Russia’s defensive war, published six days following its outbreak, to the online version of The Burning Spear newspaper:
“The situation in Ukraine today also follows the wave of U.S.-backed ‘color revolutions’ throughout the territories that had been part of the former Soviet Union, including the ‘Rose Revolution’ in Georgia in 2003, the ‘Orange Revolution’ in Ukraine in 2004, the ‘Tulip Revolution’ in Kyrgyzstan in 2005, or the ‘Arab Spring’ in Asia and Africa in 2011, among many other counterinsurgencies against anti-colonial movements and struggles for independence around the world and inside the U.S. as part of what Chairman Omali Yeshitela has termed, the colonial mode of production.
“The U.S. bourgeois media paints the narrative that Biden, the U.S. and their partners are the champions of democracy, while slanderously depicting the Russians as the aggressors.
“This lie is meant to obscure the fact that it is U.S. imperialism, built and sustained by the enslavement and oppression of African people and theft of our resources, which has been responsible for the violence in Ukraine over the past eight years or more.
“A U.S.-backed coup ousted the democratically elected president in Ukraine in 2014.
“This CIA coup in 2014 paved the way for the ascendancy of the reactionary, white nationalist government of Volodymyr Zelensky, former professional comedian.
“Zelensky is tied to the para-military, anti-Russian, pro-U.S. Svoboda Party.
“He has also expressed ambitions for Ukraine to join NATO.
“U.S. and Europe are denouncing Russian troop movements, meanwhile funneling billions of dollars and arms into Ukraine, on top of more than 150 military advisers including Special Ops forces.
“Since the 2014 coup, the U.S.-backed Ukrainian military forces have slaughtered over 14,000 people in the Donbas region of Eastern Ukraine where the majority of the residents support and identify with Russia.
“As one online article stated, ‘Ukraine has already been massively weaponized by the United States since the CIA-backed coup d’état in Kiev in 2014 brought to power a Neo-Nazi regime obsessed with antagonizing Russia.
“The Biden administration has boosted inventories for anti-tank missiles and other lethal weaponry with plans for further increases.
“Now it emerges that additional supplies are on the way from both the U.S. and Britain. Britain is to send anti-tank weapons to Ukraine along with ‘military advisors.”
“The same U.S. imperialism that was built on slavery, genocide and colonialism is now posturing as the moral and political authority of the world.
“The U.S. colonial-capitalist State murders African people inside the U.S. every single day, including George Floyd, Amir Locke, Breonna Taylor and millions of others.
“It is the same State that occupies and wages genocidal mass murder and terror throughout the world such as in Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Somalia, Haiti, Congo, Yemen.
“Only Chairman Omali Yeshitela and the theory of African Internationalism can make sense of the situation today and show the way forward under the leadership of the African Revolution.
“It is only the profound analysis of the world and world economy that Chairman has termed ‘colonialism as the mode of production’ that we can begin to understand the dialectical relationship that connects all events in the world within the colonial mode of production built on the enslavement and colonial domination of African and oppressed peoples.”
FBI attacks Party on July 29, 2022
Prior to the FBI’s assault on our movement, Chairman Omali had participated in countless interviews, Sunday studies, events and conferences to present the African Internationalist analysis on Russia’s defensive war.
The attack on our Party, in the context of a social system fighting for its life, prompted the Chairman to write a piece titled, “U.S. identifies three strategic enemies”, which we published in the September 2022 issue of The Burning Spear.
The Chairman publicly presented it on his show “#OmaliTaughtMe Sunday Study” on August 14, 2022. Below is an excerpt:
“What has become clear is that the United States government along with the so-called Western colonial powers under the sway and leadership of the United States government, has identified three strategic contradictions that represent an existential crisis for the colonial mode of production.
“This crisis revolves around the question of the continued hegemony of the United States and the end of the reign of the colonial powers that came into existence through the enslavement of African people initially and attacks on other peoples.
“What we can see without any element of controversy is that one component of this strategic threat named by the United States is Russia. This helps to explain the government’s attack on us.
“China is clearly another strategic threat that is perceived by the so-called Western Powers.
“We see the U.S. assault that’s currently being made on Russia through Ukraine.
“We see the war of ideas and the daily barrage of U.S. claims of atrocities and genocide being committed by the Russians in Ukraine.
“I also want to remind us that this war, this controversy, this contradiction with Russia is not new. It has taken on a different, more urgent character today but it is longstanding.
“There are some who are able to acknowledge the 2014 U.S. intervention in Ukraine that overturned the elected government there and that contributes to this crisis.
“Some are able to acknowledge the involvement of escalated aggression against Russia.
“Some can see the relationship of the current U.S. war on Russia to the role of the Carter Administration in the 1980s which went into Afghanistan in an initiative that was actually begun by Carter’s National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzesinski.
“Carter was determined to destroy and cripple Russia through creating this Jihad that would manufacture a ‘Vietnam’ for Russia by attacking the government in Afghanistan.
“Although I think it can be over emphasized, that government was supported by Russia.
“Women in Afghanistan had rights and major social and economic progress was being made in Afghanistan.
“But the U.S.-backed attack on Afghanistan, as I mentioned, was seen as providing for Russia its own Vietnam, a war that had been so crippling to the United States in terms of economics and political standing in the world.
“The U.S.-backed attack on Afghanistan was also using NATO, putting military forces closer to the Russian border.
“It is important to remember that the United States was among the various imperialist forces that invaded Russia in 1918, following the success of the 1917 Russian Revolution.
“People often refer to it as Soviet Russia because it was so designated by the revolutionary forces of the Soviet Union.
“This assault was made on Russia, initially by the United States and then what we might refer to as the West.
“While a lot of people are able to recognize the significance of the Russian Revolution, most people including Africans ourselves do not remember that the Russian Revolution was significant because it broke from the rest of Europe and that it came at a time when Europe was engaged in what’s often referred to as World War One.
“We refer to this war as the first imperialist world war that was being fought by colonial powers to redivide the world among themselves.
“As African people we have experienced this many times ourselves, including in Berlin in 1884 and 85, when the colonial powers got together to carve up Africa.
“Historically, you can see many other instances where the great powers of Europe have come together to reshape the world to make it something that satisfied their own particular interests.”
Putin’s speech influenced by African Internationalism
On September 30, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin presided over a ceremony and signed treaties on the accession of the Donetsk People’s Republic, the Lugansk People’s Republic, the Zaporozhye Region and the Kherson Region to the Russian Federation.
His remarks reflect the growing worldwide influence of African Internationalism. He said:
“Western elites are even shifting repentance for their own historical crimes on everyone else, demanding that the citizens of their countries and other peoples confess to things they have nothing to do with at all, for example, the period of colonial conquests.
“It is worth reminding the West that it began its colonial policy back in the Middle Ages, followed by the worldwide slave trade, the genocide of Indian tribes in America, the plunder of India and Africa, the wars of England and France against China, as a result of which it was forced to open its ports to the opium trade.
“What they did was get entire nations hooked on drugs and purposefully exterminated entire ethnic groups for the sake of grabbing land and resources, hunting people like animals.
“This is contrary to human nature, truth, freedom and justice.
“While we – we are proud that in the 20th century our country led the anti-colonial movement, which opened up opportunities for many peoples around the world to make progress, reduce poverty and inequality, and defeat hunger and disease.
“To emphasize, one of the reasons for the centuries-old Russophobia, the Western elites’ unconcealed animosity toward Russia is precisely the fact that we did not allow them to rob us during the period of colonial conquests and forced the Europeans to trade with us on mutually beneficial terms.
“This was achieved by creating a strong centralised state in Russia, which grew and got stronger based on the great moral values of Orthodox Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Buddhism, as well as Russian culture and the Russian word that were open to all.
“There were numerous plans to invade Russia. Such attempts were made during the Time of Troubles in the 17th century and in the period of ordeals after the 1917 revolution. All of them failed.
“The West managed to grab hold of Russia’s wealth only in the late 20th century, when the state had been destroyed. “They called us friends and partners, but they treated us like a colony, using various schemes to pump trillions of dollars out of the country. We remember. We have not forgotten anything.”
Africa leads the way
Chairman Omali’s leadership and analysis has undoubtedly influenced the consciousness of Russia in its struggle with the colonial powers of the world.
This alone is an example of why the FBI’s claims that the Chairman and APSP are pawns of the Russian government, is absolutely absurd.
The reality is, the state of the world, dictated by a social system derived from the colonial mode of production, is in severe crisis.
This comes as a result of the forces that make up the pedestal of this mode of production, colonized Africans ourselves, fighting to recapture our land, our resources and our dignity!
Never in the history of our struggle against the colonizer have we needed anybody to instruct us on who the enemy is, and how we need to go about achieving our freedom.
If history is to be corrected, it is more appropriate to assert that it is and will be the African Revolution that determines the way forward for the toiling masses of the world.
We saw this with the Haitian Revolution, the Garvey Movement and now, Chairman Omali Yeshitela and the African People’s Socialist Party!
Hands Off Uhuru!
Hands Off Africa!
We Are Our Own Liberators!
