Our Time PressThe Local Paper with the Global View

Last month, Assemblywoman Annette Robinson reminded us of the crises being faced by such community landmark institutions as The Bed-Stuy Volunteer Ambulance Corps and the Stuyvesant Heights Senior Citizens Center.  The organizations are in need of financial support, resources and services from the community and individuals.
Yet, if a recent study by the Chronicle of Philanthropy is accurate, those organizations will gain the support it needs and, as Assemblywoman Robinson points out, the real problem for these organizations is lack of publicity.
Last spring, a Chronicle study reporting on giving at all income levels found that black people give 25 percent more of their discretionary income to charity than do others.  An average of $528 annually is given by black people who make between $30,000 and $50,000, compared with $462 donated by their “white counterparts” in the same income range.  A lot of that giving is focused on education initiatives.
Two decades ago, Emmet D. Carson, who has written several books and articles on black philanthropy, conducted the first national study on charitable giving and volunteering in the black community. “It’s no longer an issue if African Americans give,” he said in an interview with the Memphis Commercial Appeal, May 2003.  “They do and always have because they had to give because society was not geared to support the development of the African-American community.”
“So if you were locked out by government and the social sector of society, you had to build your own network.  The African-American churches really were the first community foundations.”
Now entering its fourth year, Washington, D.C. -headquartered National Center for Black Philanthropy, Inc., was established to promote and strengthen African-American participation in all aspects of philanthropy, giving and volunteerism.
The Twenty-First Century Foundation, New York’s first endowed black foundation, has given nearly $3 million to more than 250 nonprofit programs since 1971.
Corporations have established foundations that fund and support African-American philanthropic efforts. Washington Mutual Bank’s Community and External Affairs division is building new business relationships with nonprofit organizations through their corporate giving and community development initiatives.  The AT& T Foundation is approaching its 20th year of matching employees’ contributions to the educational and community organizations. 
An important link between corporations and the black religious institutions that are so pivotal in community development and sustenance is The Faith Center for Community Development helmed by the Rev. Fred A. Lucas, the founding president and CEO.  The Faith Center is a national, nonprofit organization that provides training, technical assistance and funding for church -based community development. Headquartered at 120 Wall Street in the heart of Manhattan’s financial district, the Faith Center also “assists financial institutions and socially-concerned investors in accessing business and investment opportunities in underserved neighborhoods through collaborations with community-focused religious institutions.”
Earlier this summer, at the invitation of     Rev. David Cousins, pastor of Bridge Street Church, Rev. Dr. Fred Lucas, Cousins’ pastoral predecessor, returned to Bridge Street Church. He came with a “giving” message and a check for $25,000.  In previous weeks, the Faith Center, through Lucas’ work securing funds from various institutions and corporations, donated $25,000 each to Emmanuel Baptist Church and other area religious institutions.

Medgar Evers College/CUNYThird Annual Legacy Awards Gala & Dinner benefit fundraiser at the Brooklyn Marriott Hotel on Thursday, October 2, 2003, it was announced last month by Dr. Edison O. Jackson, president of the college.
“The annual black-tie event serves as the college’s principal fundraiser for its scholarship endowment fund which guarantees future students a chance for a higher education,” said Dr. Jackson.  The gala also celebrates the work of community, business, corporate and global leaders who have made tremendous contributions to higher education and youth empowerment and who embody the values of the distinguished civil rights leader, Medgar Wiley Evers, the college’s namesake.
This year’s honorees are: Attorney Willie E. Gary, entrepreneurs and youth motivators Russell and Joseph Simmons, top banking executive Donna Wilson and television jurist Judge Joe Brown.
The event program will also feature the inspirational singing of Broadway actress and renowned singer Melba Moore.  The Tony Award-winning actress will perform two selections, including her signature “Lift Every Voice” and an original song written for the honorees entitled “On These Shoulders.”
The evening will be co-hosted by WNBC-TV News Channel Four’s John Noel and Fox Political News Analyst Angela McGlowan. It also will showcase the college’s Imani Singers and Dancers, a spoken-word performance, and include a silent auction, reception and special video presentations.
Attorney Willie E. Gary is known as “The Giant Killer” because he represents regular people in major cases, and wins. Forbes magazine listed him as one of the top 50 attorneys in the United States and he has been profiled in such publications as The New York Times and Black Law Journal.  He was also profiled on CBS’s 60 Minutes.  He is chairman and CEO of Major Broadcasting Cable Network (MBC), which provides family-oriented programming.
Over the past 25 years, Russell Simmons has championed hip-hop as not only a music form, but a lifestyle and culture.  His empire includes Def Comedy Jam, HBO’s Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry, the 2002 Tony-Award winning  Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry Jam On Broadway, Phat Farm men’s clothing line, Baby Phat-women’s clothing line, Phat Farm Boys and Baby Phat Girlz. Simmons, publisher of One World magazine, gives back to the arts and African-American community through Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation, which he and brothers Danny and Joseph began in 1995. He also organized and serves as the chairman of the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network (HSAN).
Joseph Simmons, music icon, entrepreneur and spiritual leader, received world fame as “Run” of the famous rap group Run-DMC, the first rap group to be featured on MTV, to have an album (“Run-DMC”) go gold, and to appear on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. Run-DMC was also the first hip-hop crossover group, the first rap group to win a Grammy, and the first to appear on American Bandstand and Saturday Night Live. Today, Joseph Simmons is an ordained minister.  His businesses include Run Athletics, a clothing company, and Phat Farm Sneakers. He is popularly known as Rev. Run.
Donna Wilson is Northeast President of Washington Mutual’s Community and External Affairs, a group dedicated to strengthening the company’s community-related activities.  In this role, she oversees all aspects of corporate giving and community development initiatives, government affairs, affordable multifamily lending and investment and employee volunteerism. She was cited by The Network Journal last year as one of its “25 Influential Black Women in Business” and in Crain’s New York Business magazine’s lists of “Top 100 Minority Executives” and “Top 40 Under Forty.”
When the cameras are off on his popular Paramount Domestic Television broadcast JUDGE JOE BROWN, the nontraditional, no-holds-barred presiding judge (and sought-after motivational speaker) talks to young people in schools, at lecture halls and on street corners to impress positive messages of self-esteem and self-empowerment. Brown is an honors graduate with a law degree from UCLA.  He is also the first African-American prosecutor for the city of Memphis, where he served as a judge for the Shelby County Criminal Court. He was honored at the Kennedy Center with the Olender Foundation’s Advocate for Justice Award, one of many in recognition for his innovation and service as a jurist and a community leader and his successful efforts to demonstrate the law to millions of Americans via his daily half-hour broadcast. 
Medgar Evers College, located at 1650 Bedford Avenue in central Brooklyn, first opened its doors in 1971. Its graduates have gone on to careers in business, government, the arts, science and education. The alumnae include New York State Senator Carl Andrews and motivational author and television personality Iyanla Vanzant.  More information is available on the CUNY Web site (www.mec.cuny.edu) . For tickets, please call: 718-270-6971.

By: Marlon McRae
The race for city council in District 41 has intensified. Incumbent Tracy Boyland and challenger David R. Miller seem like promising choices, but choosing one candidate might be as tricky as playing a game of three-card monte.
On Aug. 13, citizens of the East New York and Brownsville sections of Brooklyn had a “Candidates Night Out” at The Salvation Army (Brownsville Corps). The forum was created by residents to give the city council candidates for Districts 41 a chance to address issues of concern: crime, education, housing and employment.
    Miller was present, but Boyland was absent. At the end of the program Miller let it be known that he is a strong advocate of better education, improved police response and adequate health care. However, Miller also spent most of the night attacking Boyland instead of addressing the issues. He accused Boyland of absenteeism and labeled her a beneficiary of nepotism.
When reached for a comment exactly two weeks later, Boyland claimed that she didn’t know about the event.
    “I was not invited to the candidates night,” said Boyland. “The sponsors or whoever sponsored it did not contact my office to even inform me that they were having a candidates night. Therefore, I was not there.”   When reached for a comment later that evening, Miller dismissed
Boyland’s accusations as false.   “Tracy Boyland knew about the meeting,” said Miller. “She had a newspaper [Our Time Press] with the schedule circled a month before. Tracy Boyland chose to go to a social function. She went to a party instead of showing up for her people.”
    “She was notified,” said Javonn Johnson, who helped to organize the event. “I took a letter there personally and delivered it to the people at her office. If she wants we can do it again. The primary is on Sept. 9; we can do it again on Sept. 8.”
    Whether or not Boyland knew about the “Candidates Night Out” in Brownsville is debatable, but she willingly shared her stance on crime, education, employment and housing.
Boyland was excited about the decrease of crime in District 41, which encompasses sections of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Ocean Hill-Brownsville and East Flatbush.
“Crime in the 41st is lower than it has ever been in history,” said Boyland.  This statement did nothing to change Miller’s opinion about the job that Boyland has done.
“Crime is the lowest that it has been in New York City. District 41 is part of New York City. What is she saying?” said Miller. “Crime is down nationally, but it has nothing to do with a city council person or anyone else. It is a trend. She can’t take the credit for it without telling anyone else what she did to lower crime.”
Miller would not give Boyland credit for the decrease in crime, but he did take credit for improving the educational system in District 16, where he had been a Community School Board member for 20 years and the reigning president for the past decade. “We have the most improved district in education in New York City,” said Miller.  “I’m taking credit for it because when I came we had the worst district. Over the last four years with all these procedures of measuring districts, my district has gone up, at the same time all the other districts have not gone up, so I’m taking credit for it.”
The fact that Miller takes sole credit for this is interesting, considering that there were countless students, administrators and teachers involved in the turnaround. Boyland, a former teacher in District 23, also seems to have a genuine passion for education. “I firmly believe that education, educating our children is extremely important,” she said. “While in office, I have had the opportunity to construct and get computer and science labs in every school in our district.”  The city council member also seemed to be very proud of her efforts to improve housing. “I’m a staunch advocate of affordable housing,” said Boyland. “Within my tenure as council member, I have had the opportunity to build over 1,000 new houses. I have given black people an opportunity to own, not rent, but own their own property. So I’m very proud of what we have done, what my office has done.”
In regard to employment, Boyland believes that she began to tackle that problem when she commenced to tackle housing issues. “As I began to do the houses, I began to educate those that were in the houses and within the community,” said Boyland.  “[Educating them] on how to be a plumber, how to be an electrician.”
“I think we’re blessed on that half, that housing has been that shot in the arm that we need in order to improve our economic employment issues. We’re also working very closely with divisions such as HRA to do adult-help education programs that not only prepare people in terms of computer technology, but gears them for the workforce.”
    Miller dismissed Boyland’s claims of contributing to the development of housing and helping to create jobs as hogwash. “There is housing being built that Tracy Boyland takes credit for but these are plans carried out by investors who made these deals years ago,” said Miller. “She doesn’t take the blame for these places not hiring black people. We need to continue the housing plans but we need to couple that with employment for black folks.”
    Finally, Miller pointed to the fact that Boyland voted for a sales tax increase as a sign of disloyalty to the people she represents.    “She has the highest absentee rating,” said Miller. “She also voted for Bloomberg’s tax increase on poor people at 18.5 percent. She’s raised the sales tax when every economist will tell you – whether they are on the left or the right-that if you raise the sales tax the people that you kill are poor working-class people. That’s the most oppressive tax in the world.”
So just whom should the voters trust? It seems that it is time to get the candidates together for a debate to allow them to put all their cards on the table.

By Marlon McRae
Pass by Brooklyn’s Kingston Park on a summer Sunday and you will likely see men, young and old, in uniform, playing softball on two congested fields.  The crowds of spectators at the Brooklyn United Softball Association (BUSA) league games aren’t nearly as large as

those at major-league baseball games, but the players seem to be just as intense. They don’t receive million-dollar salaries, but play hard for the love of the game.
 “I play for the excitement and for my ego,” said Jerome “Speedy” Blackman, pitcher for the Mo’ Better team. “Everyone wants to win and the competition is good.”
In fact, Blackman’s teams have been very successful. Mo’ Better, founded by Blackman and teammate Chris LeGree, has won nine league championships since 1990.  With one team dominating for so many years you wouldn’t be surprised if the enthusiasm of the other league members began to dwindle. That has not been the case. The league remains extremely competitive, even though Mo’ Better got off to a 20-3 start to begin the season. In fact, Mo’ Better has some stiff competition this year with the newest addition to the league, Another Level. The first-year team, comprised mostly of players from other squads in the league, finished the regular season with a 26-1 record.
 “They’re a good team,” said Frank Evans, manager of T & F. “They have the best defense, good speed and their players are more dedicated than the rest of the players.”
Another Level infielder Vince Williams believes that there are more decisive factors that add to his team’s success.  “Our closeness,” said Williams. “We all get along. We hang out together. We
do everything together. We’re together during the week. Most guys just come out on the weekend and that’s it.”
 For many of the players the league is like a brotherhood. A fraternity.  Beyond the games there are cookouts and parties. Good times and lots of laughs, social drinking and socializing. For many, the league has become a major part of their life.  “I’ve been playing in this league about 30 years,” said Butch Nelson, shortstop for the Brooklyn team. “I started out when I was 14, a youngster, a rookie, now I’m one of the elder statesmen. I’m moving on now though. I’ve been
playing too long.”   
 So just where do the players go once they finally hang up their shoes?  Many can be seen in the same dugouts managing, or in the stands as spectators heckling their former teammates and opponents. Nelson didn’t waste much time doing the latter. In between a doubleheader on the final day of the regular season Nelson headed over to the other field to playfully heckle a member of the Mo’ Better team who also happened to be his former boss. Although Nelson claims he is retiring, don’t be surprised to see him back on the diamond next season giving it his all. It’s hard for players and community members alike to stop participating in something that has been a part of the community for so long.
The BUSA was founded in 1971 by Dan Williams. Williams, in his final year as a 32-year member of the league, currently serves as the assistant commissioner.  Through the years, Williams has participated as a league official and managed his own team, The Playboys, for many years.”Dan Williams is the history of the league,” said Commissioner John Calhoun.  The league was originally called the Brownsville Softball League and played its games in Bedford-Stuyvesant at Patchen Park. Renovations forced the league to move to Betsy Head Park and then Gershwin Park. Finally, the league settled in at Kingston Park in 1990, a move spearheaded by its then-commissioner Ray Haskins (he served from 1990-2000).
“The league voted to move the games to Callahan-Kelly Park. But it only has one diamond, it’s a very small field and when it got dark, it wasn’t amenable for a community event,” said Haskins. “My first act was to move the league to Kingston Park.  At Kingston, we had a whole litany of things.”
These various amenities included sprinklers, lights, bathrooms and barbecue areas. At this time, the association also changed its name to the Brownsville Community Softball League, a name that stuck until the league assumed its current identity in 2001. While Dan Williams founded the league, Haskins contributed with numerous innovations: doubleheaders; highly competitive night matchups; trimming team rosters to 18 players and the extra hitter (the softball equivalent of the designated hitter).
The BUSA isn’t the first adult league to play in Kingston Park. The B.I.S.A and the now-defunct Bar League played its games at Kingston in the 1970s and 1980s. In fact the Bar League was one of the largest leagues that this city has ever seen and once had 120 teams that played in sites all over Brooklyn. “The Bar League reached out to the community in the sense that most teams were sponsored by bars,” said Yogi McRae, a former bar league player. Yogi, a member of five Divisional Championship teams in the Bar League, witnessed the good and the bad effects that the league had on his community.
“The positive thing about the Bar League was that it brought out a lot of people in the community. The negative thing was that a lot of the teams would hang out in the bars. This led to a consumption of a lot of alcohol.”
While Haskins did not play in the Bar League he is well aware of the positive and negative effects that softball leagues can have on a community. “A lot of times people [in the league] overlook the community, but the community is important,” said Haskins. “[The league] serves as a source of entertainment for the community. A lot of people will come out to the park and see the basketball and softball games as opposed to seeing a professional game or staying home and watching a professional game on T.V.”
As for the future of the league, it continues to thrive, but corporate sponsors and youth participation might very well define the fate of the BUSA.
Each team puts up an entry fee of $860 that helps to pay for the park permit and league prizes. At the end of the season the league champions receive trophies and prize money.  The teams pay for other costs such as uniforms, umpire fees and equipment. 
“If there was a way we could get sponsors to help us out that would be a big boost to the league,” said Calhoun. The league would also get a major boost if young athletes in the neighborhood played softball. Many tend to gravitate toward basketball, as evidenced by the decreasing number of African-Americans in major-league baseball and as seen  in Kingston Park, where the Kingston Unlimited Classic, a popular basketball league, generates just as much interest as the BUSA.
Many that do play lack the fundamental skills that the veterans possess.  “Most of the young guys in the league now are in their mid-to-late 20s,” said Brian “Smooth” Jones, player/coach, Brooklyn. “We are trying to find that next generation. I haven’t seen the next generation to come up and replace us.”  “The young guys playing now aren’t as skilled now because they weren’t grounded in the fundamentals,” said Haskins.  For now, the members of the BUSA will shift their focus to the playoffs. It seems that most of the teams are focusing on one team in particular, Another Level. Brooklyn was the only team to defeat Another Level during the regular season. Smooth feels his team has a good chance of winning again should the two squads meet in the postseason.
“We feel good that we gave them that loss,” said Smooth. “When the playoffs start, that record doesn’t win championships. The better team will win.”   However, Another Level doesn’t seem to have any thoughts on getting revenge, their main goal appears to be winning a championship.
“We are our biggest competition,” said Vince Williams. “We don’t worry about no other teams. We go out there and do what we gotta do.  We come out there on Sundays and do what we gotta do and take it to another level.”

By Elombe Brath
(Part 2)

BUSH IN AFRICA: The U.S. Road Map For Globalization, Militarization, Recolonization and Depopulation
By Elombe Brath
(Part 2)
Bush’s visit to Senegal was followed by a trip to South Africa on Wednesday, July 9. South Africa, the last country in Africa to divorce itself from direct European domination, is the African country most saturated with Western capital and foreign corporations. Its population is 43,647,658.  It is overwhelmingly African (including the so-called Coloreds), with a minority of Europeans and Asians (mostly of Indian background). The country has one of Africa’s highest GDPs at $9,400, which is a deceptive and eschewed statistic because the vast majority of impoverished people in the country are the Africans and the wealthiest are the white minority. This ratio is also reflected in South Africa’s HIV/AIDS population, which is 19.9 percent. The most afflicted are, of course, Africans, and the least suffering from the disease, no doubt, are non-Africans. As I have maintained for over a decade, the real decoding of the acronym AIDS should be an Acquired Imperialism Dependency Syndrome!
 The Times reported that the purpose for Bush’s trip to South Africa was to “promote foreign investment and trade and urge President Thabo Mbeki to go all out to fight AIDS.” The false premise that Mbeki is insensitive and lax in responding to the HIV/AIDS crisis in South Africa is often used by the media to tweak him as a reminder that they can demonize his integrity anytime they desire if he continues to be what the United States feels is too stubborn in not cooperating with their agenda in southern Africa. This translates to mean that the United States is only interested in pursuing its objectives in Africa of further entrenching foreign capital and the continued extraction of exorbitant profits, as well as removing from state power those leaders they deem to be inimical to vested Western interests.
 In regards to Bush’s promise to authorize $15 billion within the next five years to eradicate AIDS, the Republican-controlled Senate voted to appropriate only $1.9 billion rather than the $3 billion expected for fiscal year 2004, refusing to add  $1.1 billion dollars that they claim had to be used in the defense budget to update and replace military equipment needed for the continued occupation in Iraq. One can look forward to the eventual downplaying of U.S. promises of serious consideration of South Africa’s request for U.S. financial assistance in its New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) and the Millennium Challenge Account, two major development projects slated to lift Africa out of poverty and reconstitute a long- overdue African Renaissance.
Unfortunately, U.S. assistance in eradicating HIV/AIDS from Africa in general and South Africa in particular is predicated on what is most rewarding for American pharmaceutical corporations – one of the Bush regime’s major financial benefactors – rather than what is best for the health-care considerations of impoverished people in Africa.
 If you don’t believe that, then explain the appointment which Bush made just before he left for Africa.  He chose Randall Tobias, a former CEO of Eli Lilly and a major Republican Party contributor, to become the head of the aforementioned $15 billion program – with the rank of an ambassador.  As CBS News reported, Tobias will coordinate the administration’s AIDS activities for all governmental departments and agencies, as well as faith-based community groups. His appointment is expected to be approved by the U.S. Senate in spite of the protests of Sen. Tom Harkins (D-Iowa), Sen. Robert Byrd (D-West Virginia) and 22 other mostly Democratic members.   This is the same Senate which just voted 76 to 24 to not increase the appropriation to the called-for first installment of  $3 billion for fiscal year 2004. If confirmed, Tobias will report directly to Secretary of State Colin Powell.  Appalled by such an arrangement, Dr. Paul Zeitz, a representative of the Global AIDS Alliance, described Tobias as a “henchman for the drug industry.”   
 Prior to Bush’s arrival in South Africa,  there was no prior mention in the Times about Bush continuing to exert pressure on Mbeki to persuade Robert Mugabe to step down from his presidency in Zimbabwe, much as he has been able to get Charles Taylor to do in Liberia. Besides the fact that the situation in Liberia is not similar to that in Zimbabwe, Taylor’s history is definitely not the same as that of Mugabe. Nor was there any confirmation of a rumor that the U.S. delegation, possibly either Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, was trying to arrange some sort of congenial rapprochement (or at least a photo-op) between Bush and former South African President Nelson Mandela, who had said that he had no intention of meeting with the American president and reportedly left the country to avoid any such chance encounter as Air Force One was arriving.
 In any event that was a meeting that many of us had wagered would not happen, more so because of the principles of Mr. Mandela rather than any lack of opportunism by George Bush. However, the media did imply that Bush tried to convince President Mbeki to agree with the White House’s stated plan to engage South Africa’s complicity in convincing Mugabe to step down from his presidency.  They offered $10 billion to rebuild the Zimbabwean economy if he agreed. How much of this was reported accurately is not known, but the fact remains that the plan was a dismal failure.  However, the public discussion of the issue during a press conference did reveal an uneasy and embarrassing televised attempt to insinuate an agreement on a resolution of  the crisis-in-the-making in regards to Zimbabwe.  The action would be spearheaded by South Africa because the problem was in Mbeki’s  “neighborhood.”
 Bush tried to jokingly mask his disappointment that there was nothing that he could report that would satisfy his obsession and avowed attempt to remove Mugabe from office and have him replaced with Morgan Tsvangarai, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader, in a fashion much like that during the transition period between the Eisenhower and Kennedy  administrations which took place four decades ago when the CIA deposed Patrice Lumumba, the democratically-elected prime minister of the newly independent Democratic Republic of the Congo, and replaced him with Washington’s choice of  Col. Joseph-Desire Mobutu  (later Mobutu Sese Seko).  Tsvangarai and the MDC are also backed by Britain, the European Union, Australia, the former Rhodesian Commercial Farmers Union, former Rhodesian Front racist leader Ian Smith and his good friend, former North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms, and his Dixiecrat confederates in the United States. As a matter of fact, Bush’s attempts to promote the MDC leader’s case became so obnoxious that Tsvangarai had to alert him to back off because his close association with the Western cabal was becoming very detrimental to his credibility and more and more people were viewing as an agent of Western imperialist interests. This is supported by the fact that in spite of the Western media refusing to report unbiased information on the situation in Zimbabwe that does not correspond with Western interests, Tsvangarai was defeated  in his own constituency in the June 2000 parliamentary elections and therefore was not able to become a member of parliament as a part of the opposition.
Add to this the fact that Tsvangarai was arraigned in February of this year on the charges of  treason and has been on trial since the MDC leader was shown on a videotape conspiring to assassinate President Mugabe.. The six-hour videotape was made in Montreal, Canada, on December 4, 2001, by Ari Ben-Menashe, a former renowned Mossad agent hired by a Canadian political consultancy firm of  Dickens & Madison that was damaging to Tsvangarai’s aspiring career. Thus, it is understandable why Mugabe’s opponents are now contemplating a sort of  regime change within the MDC itself and are now fishing around for a popular religious personality  to replace Tsvangarai as the new figurehead leader to continue the destabilization of the ZANU-PF government.  
 The major media chooses to chase any planted negative story defiling Mugabe while ignoring documented evidence that exposes the desperation of their candidate Tsvangarai and the comparative weakness of the Bush-Blair campaign to oust Mugabe. The fact that the U.S.-U.K. case is supposedly based on an alleged rigging of the 2001 Zimbabwe presidential elections is  
ironically being leveled with the beneficiary of the most notoriously fraudulent election in the history of the U.S. and his main foreign supporter would be hilarious if it didn’t place the lives of billions of people around the world in jeopardy. In my view, only New African magazine has been consistent in its coverage of  Zimbabwe, as well as the bitter legacy of the trans-atlantic slave trade and its requisite restitution measure to repair the historical damage, reparations, along with its general coverage of Africa at large from a progressive perspective that is based on alleviating the suffering of the masses of African people around the world.
 I must include the fact that the MDC is also supported  by a considerable number of disgruntled Zimbabweans who, unfortunately, have been inveigled into believing that all of the problems which Zimbabwe is currently undergoing has nothing to do with the pressure of international financial institutions and donors but are merely the problem of incompetence, corruption and poor governance of the government of the day. Many frustrated members of the opposition seem to have chosen to ignore historical precedents where a number of  leaders have been totally undermined by covert activities initiated by the U.S., in league with Britain and other western European countries, by which authorities in Washington can make the economies of targeted countries scream.  Such is the current situation in Zimbabwe.
The policy of systematic, well-coordinated campaigns of demonizing political leaders that former colonial powers feel will not prioritize and/or secure vested foreign interests, or others they have had a falling out with, has long been applied by the U.S. to undermine and  successfully bring down political leaders of  legitimate administrations. The U.S.-Britain duo and their embedded media refuses to cite the well-known cases of  Presidents Dr. Mohamed Mossadegh in Iran (1953), Jacobo Arbenz Guzman in Guatemala (1954), the aforementioned case of Lumumba in the Congo (1960-61), Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana (1966) and Salvador Allende in Chile (1973), who are only a few of the most notable “regime changes”  in the last 50 years, as well as the most recent example of  Iraq, the character and personal conduct of Saddam Hussein, notwithstanding. 
 The targets were usually those who had self-determined, noncapitalist development priorities that the United States and its Western imperialist allies felt were in conflict with the unfettered exploitation of supposedly poor, undeveloped countries of the world, whose natural resources and cheap labor pools are, to say the least, inviting.

 Bush arrived in Botswana, a large geographically landlocked southern African country, on Thursday, July 10. Botswana is a major diamond exporter that lies just north of South Africa, with its western border next to Namibia, whose Caprivi Strip [all diamond exporters] and Zambia share adjacent borders and cover Botswana’s northern border. Zimbabwe and a part of South Africa make up its eastern border. The country’s area  is 231,805 square miles, not a small country by world standards but with a population of 1,591,232 people makes it one of Africa’s most sparsely populated states. Botswana used to be derided as a country that had more cattle than people. Neither the Batswana or the San (or Khwe) people think this is funny – and neither do I. Nor should anyone else who take Africa’s current plight very seriously.
Because of  its brisk diamond industry and small population, the country’s GDP per capita is $7,800, one of the higher GDPs in sub-Saharan Africa. But its HIV/AIDS rate is 35.8%, which seems quite high since with its financial statistics, one would anticipate that the country should have a more adequate health-care system, as well as expenditures to develop a first-class research and development program in regards to the social needs of such a small population.
 According to The New York Times, Bush’s reasons for going to Botswana was to “promote trade and urge environmental conservation in one of Africa’s most vibrant economies.”
But how does urging environmental conservation correspond with the possible pollution from militarization of one’s natural environ. The Times – allegedly the U.S.’s “paper of record” – has been lapsed in its duty to report all of the relationships between the U.S. and certain countries in Africa and Botswana is an example.
 Even before the post-9/11 tragic events and more so after Bush’s declaration of  his alleged “war against terror”, the U.S. government had been trying to shape new leadership in Africa that it considers favorable to globalization and privatization.  In other words, shaped to corporate interests and the need to protect those interests with a network of forward-positioned military bases to be used for possible missions.
A couple of issues most readily come to mind, particularly in Africa and specifically southern Africa. First, the U.S. is interested to see the leadership in the region replaced, particularly those   leaders who achieved state power as the head of political parties who had engaged in protracted armed struggles which were guided by following a path of noncapitalist – i.e., socialist-oriented – development. The U.S. views the announcement by President Jose Eduardo dos Santos of Angola that he will not run for reelection in his country, and a similar indication by President Joaquim Chissano in Mozambique, as an opportunity to disrupt the domination of the MPLA and FRELIMO, the  governing political parties that defeated imperialist aggression and intrigue to establish governments in the respective territories of the two former Portuguese colonies.
Bush is also interested in trying to get a similar accommodation in  the case of President Sam Nujoma in Namibia. And once again, I must reiterate that it is no secret that one of the main reasons that Bush went to South Africa was his continuing effort to try to get member states of  SADC to assist the campaign that he orchestrated along with British Prime Minister Tony Blair to terminate the presidency of  Robert Mugabe.  Mugabe’s successful final reclamation of the land in Zimbabwe and restoration of that fundamental resource for the broad masses of African people to develop, as well as his decision as the head of SADC’s Committee on Politics, Defense and Security to intervene against the invasion of the Democratic Republic of  Congo by Uganda and Rwanda to change the government of President Laurent Kabila, thwarted Washington’s plan to reinstall a Mobutuist regime in Kinshasa during 1998 after the death of Mobutu Sese Seko.
 These issues are the real reasons for the U.S. chagrin and invective against Mugabe, not any genuine interests of election results [Let’s be real], alleged human rights violations, corruption, good governance, etc. Mugabe is considered a very bad example, as well as an even worst omen for those whites in other African countries still trying to retain the colonial status quo 45 years after the era of decolonization.
This should be fairly self-evident for anyone following the internationally coordinated systemic campaign to promote the idea that radical land reform is incompatible to the interests of globalization and its large international agribusiness sector.  But I am surprised that Bush did not  look into a joint project that the U.S. has with Botswana, unfortunately a project that does not seem to be on the political radar of most Black Congressional representatives and many self-promoting pseudo-Pan-Africanist scholars and NGOs concerned with civil society, but is a key concern of the futuristic warmongers in Washington, D.C., and  the military industrial complex. 
It is hard to believe that Bush’s trip to Botswana did not provide him with an opportunity to review the development of the U.S. role in building a military base in Botswana.  As quiet as it has been kept, since 1994 Botswana has collaborated with the U.S. in  the building of  “Contract 15”, a large multimillion-dollar military air base located in Mapharangwane, a desert [and deserted] area near the town of Molepolole, some 55 miles northwest of Gaborone, the country’s capital. It is an important story that the major media has paid little attention to, but not  Wayne Madsen, a  Washington, D.C.-based  investigative journalist who specializes in national security and intelligence issues.
Madsen clinically exposed this U.S. covert action in his 1999 book Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa-1993-1999.  Known to some as “Operation Eagle” and “Project Eagle,” because of its U.S. origins, this development was simply not what is derisively called a  “white elephant.” It is an important project that consecutive administrations have lent their support to. It stands to reason that if a country with as small a population as that of  Botswana had requested millions of dollars from the United States for its own defense, then the IMF, the World Bank or the U.S. Treasury and Commerce Departments, all with their structural adjustment program (SAP) conditions, would never have approved such an undertaking.  Many people felt that “Contract 15”, which the project was officially called, was  “much too large for Botswana’s defense needs.”
Dr. Theo-Ben Gurirab, Namibia’s foreign minister at  the time (today he is the country’s prime minister), was very clear in his country’s suspicions when he stated, “We have seen reports which suggest that it is a huge military base which, on the face of it, goes beyond the needs of Botswana as a country. Some people even suggest it goes beyond the needs of southern Africa as a region. If it is confirmed beyond any doubt that it is a huge military base, that creates suspicion. What is the purpose? Whom is it intended for? Who is going to use it? Then we would be very much concerned, because we want to close the chapter of  militarization in southern Africa.”
Dr. Gurirab’s concern was not out of  paranoia, although Namibia and Botswana have serious irredentist claims and counterclaims that concern  things like having equal access to water in a region that affects both countries which have large desert areas. Gurirab is a longtime representative of  SWAPO, the Namibian national liberation movement which waged a 24-year national liberation armed struggle against the racist regime of  South Africa and which has dominated  the government in Namibia since its independence in 1990. Thus, he also knew full well that it was the U.S. which surreptitiously gave military support to apartheid South Africa, Rhodesia, Jonas Savimbi’s UNITA and the then-fascist Portugal in their attempts to block the people of southern Africa which took up armed struggles [e.g., Namibia, South Africa,  Zimbabwe, Angola and Mozambique] to gain their independence from those forces whom never intended for them achieving their liberation. And Gurirab also knew that the U.S. tried its utmost to make sure that the former colonial regimes got the best deal it could get when they were forced to surrender power to the African majorities in the respective territories they ruled, as was later exposed in a National  Security Study Memorandum 39, authored by Dr. Henry Kissinger and bore the pejorative nom de guerre as “the Tar Baby Memorandum.”
Nor was the criticism only from members of  the SWAPO-led government. Geoffrey Mwilima, the leader of the opposition Democratic Turnhalle Alliance, which the former apartheid regime supported against SWAPO, raised questions as to what the Namibia’s Intelligence Service was doing to forestall a potential military threat from Botswana. As Madsen wrote,  Mwilima, the DTA representative said,  “We can only hope they are providing the government with useful and accurate information about any possible military build-up in Botswana, as has been suggested by that country’s big air base funded by the United States.” And even several members of the Botswana opposition had their own criticism as to “why should we [the Botswana people] put up such a sophisticated and costly facility when people are starving?”
It still is hard to believe that the only thing that Bush saw in Botswana that really  tickled his fancy were two elephants in the act of mating at a game reserve. Was anybody from the Bush party sent to assess the development of  “Contract 15”?