Ota Benga Alliance For Peace, Healing and Dignity

From Cité Soleil (Haiti) to Durban (South Africa)
…where Freedom Day is now being seen as Unfreedom Day

April 30-May 4th 2008.

This is a brief report from a visit to Durban, specifically to see for oneself places like Kennedy Road, Motala Heights, to meet with people like S’bu Zikode and Shamita Naidoo whose words continue to impact us in a way which is still generating new thinking. We were on our way to meet people who can be described as the staunchest defenders of the poor, and, by extension, of humanity.  read more »

Aimé Césaire, Bien Aimé de l’Humanité,
Mal Aimé des dirigeants politiques de l’Afrique

Après avoir parlé haut, fort, inlassablement pour l’émancipation de l’humanité, Aimé Césaire s’est éteint sans pouvoir être témoin de ce qu’il était en droit d’espérer après avoir tant essayé de guérir de ce qu’il avait décrit de mille et une façons, et que ses vers suivant (extrait du Calendrier Lagunaire dans Moi, Laminaire, 1982) résument admirablement:

J’habite une blessure sacrée
J’habite des ancêtres imaginaires
J’habite un vouloir obscur

En ces 3 petites lignes notre Bien Aimé Césaire
respirait, inspirait et expirait mieux que quiconque, son rapport à une souffrance présente, passée et future.  read more »

For Immediate Release: May 5, 2008

Berkeley, Ca.—Within the context of an elusive peace in the eastern part of the D R Congo and an ongoing assault by the government against the fundamental rights of the people of the Lower Congo Region, it has come to our attention that Professor Ernest Wamba dia Wamba and the Honorable Deputy Kiakwama have been targeted for assassination.  read more »

At the time of writing, Jacques Depelchin, Executive Director of the Ota Benga Alliance, was a visiting Professor at the Centre for Afro-Oriental Studies at the Federal University of Bahia, Salvador, Brazil in the fall of 2007. Reprinted from Pambazuka News December 11, 2007.

Jacques Depelchin reflects on the growing economic, political and cultural relationship between Brazil and the Africa and urges for a solidarity from below that is cognizant of black revolutionary history.  read more »

The following review appeared in African Studies Review, 50:2 (2007) 214-219. A PDF version is attached.

Victor Dreke. From the Escambray to the Congo: In the Whirlwind of the Cuban Revolution. New York: Pathfinder Press, 2002. 182 pp. Photographs. Maps. Notes. Glossary. Index. $17.00. Paper.

Armando Choy, Gustavo Chui, and Moisês Sío Wong. Our History Is Still Being Written: The Story of Three Chinese-Cuban Generals in the Cuban Revolution. New York: Pathfinder Press, 2005. 216 pp. Photographs. Maps. Charts. Notes. Glossary. Index. $20.00. Paper.  read more »

Dear All,

I am responding to Ernest's [Wamba dia Wamba] message upon his return from Lower Congo and the sense of urgency he conveyed--especially with regard to the work of healing the country and his involvement with a network of people eager to figure a way out of the catastrophic situation in which the country finds itself.  read more »

Letter to Pambazuka News, August 8, 2007.

Mukoma wa Ngugi's article is still resonating inside me, but I did not know what to say at the time. But on this anniversary of Hiroshima (August 6th 1945), it hit me again.

Significant anniversaries come upon us now and again like flood
waters and we are caught speechless, and then, the very thing you
point out happens: "Oh well, next time we shall speak up", thus  read more »

Dear Friends,

I am writing this from Brazil, but I was born in the DRCongo, in the land that was violated to provide uranium for the bombs which were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing more than 350,000 people. To this day, no one really knows what happened to the miners of Shinkolobwe. The colonial record was painted as nicely as possible for those who continue to think that the colonial enterprise was mostly altruistic.  read more »

For an English translation, click here.

MONSIEUR LE PRESIDENT,

Nous vous écrivons suite au traitement récemment infligé par les organisateurs du Festival Pan Africain de Musique au groupe de pygmées invités à y participer. Nous espérons qu’en lisant cette lettre vous comprendrez les raisons qui nous amènent à vous adresser ainsi, faisant fi des pratiques protocolaires.  read more »

In the name of humanity, the desecration of all lives in Haiti must cease. In the name of our organization, the Ota Benga Alliance for Peace, Human Dignity, and Healing in the DR Congo and the USA, we call for an end to the never-ending suffering of the Haitian people.

The Haitian people are like the Hibakusha of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We are all victims/survivors, some without knowing, some very conscious, of a chain reaction which started exploding with more and more force around the Planet since 1492.  read more »