The Greene County Democrat

Category: World News

  • President Obama defends Colin Kaepernick’s right not to stand for National Anthem at NFL games

    By: Roland Martin NewsOne

     

    colin-kaepernick-takes-a-knee
    SAN DIEGO, CA – SEPTEMBER 1: Eric Reid #35 and Colin Kaepernick #7 of the San Francisco 49ers kneel on the sideline during the anthem, as free agent Nate Boyer stands, prior to the game against the San Diego Chargers at Qualcomm Stadium on September 1, 2016 in San Diego, California. The 49ers defeated the Chargers 31-21. (Photo by Michael Zagaris/San Francisco 49ers/Getty Images)

    Colin Kaepernick joined by teammate Eric Reed take a knee during playing of National Anthem before NFL pre-season game

    President Barack Obama has weighed in on the Colin Kaepernick National Anthem protest controversy and backed the NFL quarterback’s right to protest as being covered under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.

    San Francisco 49ers quarterback, Colin Kaepernick, is vowing to sit during the national anthem in protest over police killings of African-Americans. Is he being anti-American by expressing his right to protest which is covered under the First Amendment of the Constitution?

    Despite the endorsement, Kaepernick’s detractors continue to harbor animosity against him.

    During Monday’s edition of NewsOne Now, Roland Martin and his panel of guests discussed the ongoing Kaepernick saga and the protest action that seems to be slowly picking up momentum amongst other pro-athletes after U.S. Women’s Soccer star Megan Rapinoe, who is a lesbian, also took a knee during the National Anthem before a recent soccer match.

    To add to the support, Kaepernick’s football jersey is the top-selling jersey on the NFL’s www.nflshop.com website.

    Martin said Kaepernick’s protest is resonating with many Americans because “he is making a point that is critically important and he’s not some guy who is clueless” on the issues of racism and police brutality.

    Michelle Bernard, President and CEO of the Bernard Center for Women, Politics & Public Policy, said she was disgusted by many of the comments posted on social media by those who do not agree with Kaepernick’s chosen method of protest.             She explained there is a contingent of Americans who have expressed outrage by saying, “How dare you? You make so much money in the NFL, this is not a problem, you shouldn’t be speaking out on this. Take your money, be happy, and this is so unpatriotic.”

    Bernard then refuted those claims: “We live in a country where you are able to speak your mind and if you’re White … not get shot because you’ve done it.”

    Ralph Chittams, Senior Vice Chairman of the Washington, D.C. Republican Party, said Kaepernick is “well within his Constitutional rights. “He has the right to stand, sit, kneel [or] not even come out of the locker room for the National Anthem,” Chittams said. “We’ve gotten to a point in this country where we don’t value dissenting opinions; we demand agreement and uniformity.”

    Bernard added: “The nation pretends that Black men don’t have minds of their own, that they can’t speak and that if you speak on an issue that is important to you, it means that you’re not patriotic and you don’t like the country.”

    Martin reminded viewers Kaepernick is “ticking folks off” because “America never wants to discuss the why of the protest; they only want to discuss the protest.”

    Before delving into the controversy surrounding the football star, Dr. Jason Johnson gave the NewsOne Now audience a little historical context about the Star-Spangled Banner that many may not know.

    In The Root, Dr. Johnson said: The Star-Spangled Banner, written by Francis Scott Key, because he was bitter about the fact that he had lost to a group of Black soldiers and then those same Black soldiers were coming in and trashing Baltimore on behalf of the British.”

    Johnson continued, “The British had offered runaway slaves — if you come and fight for us against the country that enslaved and oppressed you, we will give you your freedom.”

    The whole song, in essence, according to Johnson, “is basically a diss track about a bitter, rich, pro-slavery White man saying ‘I don’t like that Black people are coming for freedom.’”

  • ANC, the party of Mandela in South Africa, losses several local elections

    Mmusi Maimane

    Mmusi Maimane, leader of Democratic Alliance in South Africa

    Zuma

    Jacob Zuma, President of South Africa

    Aug. 8, 2016 (GIN) – It was a long night for the African National Congress party faithful as a popular revolt in the cities of Tshwane (Pretoria) and Port Elizabeth upended the ANC’s long-held power base in those two key municipalities.

    The ANC was beaten in working-class “black township” areas such as Mamelodi in Tshwane, and Motherwell in Port Elizabeth.

    The party’s numbers fell even when they managed to eke out a victory. In ward 21 in Mabopane, north-western Tshwane, for example, ANC support fell from 82% at the last municipal elections to 59%. The opposition Democratic Alliance, on the other hand, doubled their vote total to just short of 20% and the Economic Freedom Fighters picked up 19% itself.

    Final results released by the Electoral Commission of South Africa on Saturday night confirm the ANC will need a coalition to govern Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni and Rustenburg.

    The ANC’s performance raises fears about the 2019 general election. Party officials have circled the wagons around their leader. ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe blamed voters: “Black people do not appreciate the value of voting,” he said in a radio interview, adding he saw a noticeable difference between the energy with which people in the “suburbs” and people in the “townships” went about things on Election Day.

    In the primarily white suburbs, he observed, long lines formed early Wednesday, while voters in the townships took their time getting to the voting stations.    Those who blame President Jacob Zuma cite his failure to rein in corruption including spending taxpayer dollars for upgrades at his private home and luxury cars for his four wives, allowing needs for basic services to go unmet, and generally failing to prioritize the needs of the poor.    By Monday, Gauteng ANC leaders were calling for Zuma to step down. Besides costing them votes because of the corruption allegations and many scandals associated with his administration, they fault him for racially divisive statements towards the Democratic Alliance (DA). “Confused Black people” voted for the DA but are now coming back to the ANC, Zuma said, adding that the DA is the brainchild of apartheid and does not have the interest of Black people at heart.

    Meanwhile, Mmusi Maimane, the first black leader of the Democratic Alliance, is being compared to President Barack Obama. Holding a Master’s degree in theology, his stirring oratorical skills and cerebral aloofness recall the U.S. president, writes Aryn Baker of Time magazine. “From the moment he entered politics, he proved an electrifying speaker.”Maimane vows to fight to fulfill Mandela’s vision of a “rainbow nation.” “It’s upon all of us as South Africans to fight for that ideal of non-racialism,” he says.  The ANC has two short years before presidential polls to turn the tide. Without taking action quickly, the party has little hope of reinventing itself. It is not a long road from 54% to 44% — just ask the dazed and confused ANC leaders in Nelson Mandela Bay, wrote an opinion writer in Business Day Live.

  • 1. Federation holds 49th Annual Meeting – August 18-20, 2016

     FSC

    The Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund will hold its 49th. Annual Meeting next week, from August 18 to 20, 2016. The Federation is the primary organization working with Black farmers and landowners in rural communities across the South. The Federation operates a Rural Training and Research Center near Epes, Alabama, in Sumter County.

    The theme of the meeting is “ A Legacy of Hope, Vision and Collective Wealth Building”. According to Cornelius Blanding, Federation Executive Director, “Our theme speaks to almost half a century of work and progress in developing cooperatives and credit unions in economically distressed communities, assisting Black farmers and landowners to retain and utilize their land, and advocating for progressive public policies to improve the lives of our membership in rural communities.”

    The Annual Meeting begins on Thursday, August 18, 2016 at the Sheraton Civic Center Hotel in Birmingham, Alabama with a Board of Directors meeting, roundtables of supporters and the 15th annual Estelle Witherspoon Lifetime Achievement Award Banquet.

    “This award is named for a founding member of the Federation, who was Manager of the Freedom Quilting Bee in Wilcox County, Alabama. This year we are honoring three veteran civil rights workers:

    Robert “Bob” Moses, Hollis Watkins and David “Dave” J. Dennis, Sr. These three played an instrumental role in organizing, guiding and implementing the ‘1964 Freedom Summer Project’ in Mississippi. They also helped to develop local Black community leaders who formed some of the cooperatives that were part of organizing the Federation in 1967,” said Blanding.

    Robert “Bob” Parris Moses was the leader of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) who established SNCC Mississippi Project in 1961. He was a Co-Director of COFO, which developed the 1964 Mississippi Summer Project and helped to form the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, which challenged the all-white Mississippi Delegation to the 1964 Democratic Convention. More recently Bob Moses developed the nationwide Algebra Project to enhance teaching of mathematics to minority students based on broad based community organizing and collaboration with parents, teachers and students.

    Hollis Watkins is also a SNCC activist in Mississippi. He was involved with the 1964 Freedom Summer and Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party activities. He was a founder of Southern Echo, which shared office space with the Mississippi Association of Co-ops in Jackson, MS. He is also the founder and President of Mississippi Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement.

    David “Dave” J. Dennis, Sr. from Louisiana was the Director of the Mississippi Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and Co-Director with Bob Moses of COFO and the Mississippi Summer Project.

    After working in the civil rights movement in Mississippi and Louisiana, he received a law degree from the University of Michigan Law School. He opened a law office in Lafayette, Louisiana. Father A. J. McKnight and the Southern Cooperative Development Fund were among his clients. At a SNCC reunion in 1989, he reunited with Bob Moses and set up the Southern Office of the Algebra Project.

    On Friday and Saturday, August 19 and 20, the Annual Meeting shifts to the Federation’s Rural Training and Research Center near Epes, Alabama.

    On Friday there will be a series of workshops on agriculture, forestry and cooperative development, including participation by representatives of USDA agencies explaining their programs and services. The Friday sessions will end with a fish fry, auction and entertainment.

    Saturday’s program begins with a Prayer Breakfast and continues with board reports, the Executive Directors report, state caucuses and a membership business meeting to chart the future directions for the organization.

    Blanding said, “As we complete this meeting, we will begin planning for the Federation’s Fiftieth (50th) Annual Meeting in August 2017. This will be a great milestone for our organization and we welcome suggestions from the membership, supporters and the public on how to make it memorable and successful.”

    For more information about the meeting and registration details or the events, go to the Federation’s website at www.federation.coop or contact our offices in Epes (205/652-9676) or Atlanta (404/765-0273).

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Federation announces new director of Training Center in Alabama Dr. Marcus Bernard

    M Bernard

    The Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund has hired Dr. Marcus Bernard as the new Director of its Rural Training & Research Center in Epes, Alabama. He will officially begin on August 1, 2016 and will work closely with John Zippert during his orientation and transition. John Zippert, who has been our director of the Training Center for decades, will still be very much engaged in the work of the Federation, but will start to decrease his time toward a part time position and focus more on resource development and documentation of the organization.
    “I look forward to working with Marcus and continuing to move the organization forward,” said Cornelius Blanding, Executive Director.
    A native of Supply, North Carolina, Marcus grew up working in his family’s produce operation located in southeastern North Carolina, where he came to value and understand the importance of family as well as the strong sense of pride and independence associated with living in a tightly woven rural community. During his eduational career, he has worked with numerous rural-based organizations such as the Concerned Citizens of Tillery, Cedar Grove Improvement Association, Operation Spring Plant, the Black Farmers and Agriculturalist Association, the North Carolina Black Farmers Association and the Black Belt Justice Center.
    Additionally, Marcus has worked with the Black Male Working academy on numerous urban agriculture and community gardening projects in Lexington, Kentucky. His professional experience includes working as a Cooperative Development Officer in the International Trade Center at North Carolina A&T State University and a Produce Sales Officer for Glory Foods. He earned his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in Agricultural Economics from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. He earned a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Rural Sociology from the University of Kentucky where his dissertation research gives immediate voice to the story and struggle of Black farmers in North Carolina by focusing on ideas of family, manhood, farm wives, building community, and the far reaching consequences of the politics of farming. As the new Director of the Rural Training and Research Center (RTRC), his goal is to build onto the standing legacy of the RTRC and contribute holistically to the growth of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund.

  • Slavery reparations sought in first Black Lives Matter agenda

    By Eric M. Johnson

    Black Lives Matter

    (Reuters) – A coalition affiliated with the anti-racism Black Lives Matter movement called for criminal justice reforms and reparations for slavery in the United States among other demands in its first policy platform released on Monday.

    The six demands and roughly 40 policy recommendations touch on topics ranging from reducing U.S. military spending to safe drinking water. The groups aim to halt the “increasingly visible violence against Black communities,” the Movement for Black Lives said in a statement.

    The agenda was released days before the second anniversary of the slaying of unarmed black teen Michael        Brown by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. Brown’s death, along with other fatal police shootings of unarmed black men over the past two years, fueled a national debate about racial discrimination in the U.S. criminal justice system.

    Issues related to race and violence took center stage at the Democratic National Convention last week, though the coalition did not endorse the party’s platform or White House candidate, Hillary Clinton.

    “We seek radical transformation, not reactionary reform,” Michaela Brown, a spokeswoman for Baltimore Bloc, one of the organizations that worked on the platform, said in a statement.

    “As the 2016 election continues, this platform provides us with a way to intervene with an agenda that resists state and corporate power, an opportunity to implement policies that truly value the safety and humanity of black lives, and an overall means to hold elected leaders accountable,” Brown said.

    Baltimore Bloc is among more than 50 organizations that developed the platform over the past year, including Black Alliance for Just Immigration, the Black Youth Project 100 and the Black Leadership Organizing Collaborative.

    This is the first time these black-led organizations linked to the decentralized Black Lives Matter movement have banded together to write a comprehensive foundational policy platform.

    The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights organization, was not listed among them.

    The agenda calls for an end to the death penalty, decriminalization of drug-related offenses and prostitution, and the “demilitarization” of police departments. It seeks reparations for lasting harms caused to African-Americans of slavery and investment in education and jobs.

    The Movement for Black Lives said in a statement that “neither mainstream political party has our interests at heart.”

    “By every metric – from the hue of its prison population to its investment choices – the U.S. is a country that does not support, protect or preserve Black life,” the statement said.

     

  • Michael Jordan speaks out on deadly police shootings of Black men

    By Frederick H. Lowe

     

    Michael-Jordan

    Michael Jordan

          Saying he can no longer remain silent in the wake of deadly shootings of unarmed Black men by police and the shooting deaths of police officers, NBA great Michael Jordan, who is also owner of the Charlotte Hornets of the NBA, announced on Monday that he has donated a total of $2 million to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and the Institute for Community –Police Relations for the purpose of building trust and promoting best practices in community policing.

    “To support that effort, I am making contributions of $1 million each to two organizations, the International  Association of Chiefs of Police’s newly established  institute for Community-Police Relations and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, ” Jordan said. “My donation to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the nation’s oldest civil rights organization, will support its ongoing work in support of reforms that will build trust and respect between communities and law enforcement. Although I know these contributions alone are not enough to solve the problem, I hope the resources will help both organizations make a positive difference.”

    “I am so pleased and honored that Michael Jordan will be making this donation to LDF in support of our policing reform efforts,” said Sherriyln Ifill, president and director counsel of LDF, which was founded by Thurgood Marshall.

    “It is an act of true leadership that Mr. Jordan has chosen to use his stature to highlight the importance to all Americans and by taking a personal stance in support of organizations directly engaged in addressing this crisis in our nation. We are grateful for this support, which will allow to deepen our engagement on the issue of policing reform at this critical time in our country.”

    Although Jordan, a member of the NBA Hall of Fame, donates money to various projects, he rarely speaks out on issues, but he said he was moved by the spate of deadly police shootings of unarmed black men and the deadly shootings of police.

    “As a proud American, a father who lost his dad in a senseless act of violence, and a back man. I have been deeply troubled by the deaths of African Americans at the hands of law enforcement and angered by the cowardly and hateful targeting of police officers. I grieve with the families who have lost loved ones, as I know their pain all too well,” Jordan said.

     

     

  • Celebrate ‘Nelson Mandela International Day’ with service and volunteerism

     

    Graca Machel, Nelson Mandela's wife speak with students

    Graca Machel, Nelson Mandela’s wife speaks
    with students

    Jul 11, 2016 (GIN) – “Nelson Mandela International Day” – formalized by the U.N. General Assembly in November 2009 – recalls the former South African President’s contribution to the culture of peace and freedom on his birthday – July 18. It comes as Americans reflect on a wrenching week of race-related violence and the undeniable evidence of the persistence of intolerance that Mandela devoted his life to oppose.
    The Nelson Mandela Foundation promotes acts of service to humanity on that day in his honor.
    In December 2015, the General Assembly extended the scope of Nelson Mandela International Day to raise awareness about persons in detention and to call for humane treatment of the incarcerated.
    In South Africa, the 7th annual Bikers for Mandela Day will take the call for service to remote areas.
    “We have crossed over 12 000 kilometers since the inception of this initiative in 2010 and assisted over 20 charitable organizations through Bikers for Mandela day.  We look forward to paying tribute to Madiba’s unwavering legacy once again.  We believe that every small action of goodwill leads to a larger movement in the right direction,” said organizer Zelda la Grange, formerly Madiba’s personal secretary.
    In 2015, UN staff volunteers in New York, partnered with GreenThumb, East New York Farms, and the UN Food Garden, to plant seedlings, pull weeds, and water plant beds in community gardens across the city.
    In Geneva, the Permanent Mission of South Africa and Serve the City Geneva have mobilized volunteers to help the poor and marginalized in the city.
    Mandela’s wife, Graca Machel, speaking to students this month at the Dr Mathole Motshekga Primary School in Tembisa, said: “Mandela Day gives us a way to energize our collective commitment, and it helps to know you are not doing this alone – there are millions of us. This helps build the movement of doing something good for someone else, selflessly caring for others, and remind ourselves that we belong to a global, human family.”
    Also in South Africa, RACE (against time), a song against racism written and co-produced by Katlego Maboe, David Harmse and Ntokozo Mkhize will raise money for Anti-Racism Network South Africa (ARNSA).
    Developed by The Nelson Mandela and Ahmed Kathrada Foundations, it takes a thoughtful look at the roots of racism. Maboe explains the title of the single: “There is a deliberate play on words. The issue of race is a matter of urgency for all of us and we all stand to lose and suffer the consequences if we don’t solve the problem in time.”
    For more about the single, go to http://www.mitracks.fm/preorder/race-against-time

  • Crisis erupts over police-linked killing of Kenyan human rights lawyer

     

    Kenya protest

    July 5, 2016 (GIN) – Four police officers have been arrested in the torture/murder of a noted Kenyan human rights lawyer and two other men.
    The Law Society of Kenya called it “a dark day for the rule of law” and a countrywide boycott of the courts has been called.  The respected lawyer disappeared with his client and a taxi driver after filing a charge of police brutality. The officers are being held without bail while an investigation is underway.
    Lawyer Willie Kimani, his client Josephat Mwenda, and their driver disappeared on June 23 after making the court filing. Their bodies were found on June 30, floating in the Oldonyo Sabuk river. CapitalFM, a local media group, said the men had been tied up with ropes and their bodies mutilated.
    A government pathologist said their deaths were the result of beatings with a blunt object and strangulation. The incident has outraged the legal community where the rise of police killings has been a matter of concern.
    “These extrajudicial killings are a chilling reminder that the hard-won right to seek justice for human rights violations is under renewed attack,” said Muthoni Wanyeki from Amnesty International.
    “Police are there to protect Kenyans and not to kill them,” said Yash Pal Ghai, director of the Katiba Institute, a Kenyan legal group promoting social transformation through the constitution.
    This week, hundreds of Kenyans including lawyers, human rights activists and taxi drivers held a peaceful protest as lawyers began a week-long walkout that will paralyze court operations around the country.
    The Department of Public Prosecutions issued a statement assuring the public and legal fraternity that any rogue elements in the department “do not represent what the National Police stands for.”
    But activists replied that extra-judicial killings were creeping back, and the Inspector General of Police should “pack and leave if he cannot assure Kenyans of security.”
    Mr. Kimani had been working at the International Justice Mission (IJM), a U.S.-based rights group, when he was killed. An online petition calling for justice for Kimani, his client, and their driver Joseph Muiruri had 24,594 signatures at press time. The petition can be found at http://www.IJM.org/JusticeinKenya
    “In Kenya,” it reads in part, “it is far too easy for a corrupt or incompetent police officer to frame and imprison an innocent person, who must then wait in jail, often for years on end, for a chance to prove his or her innocence. This corrupt system has packed Kenyan prisons full of innocent men and women with no way out and no lawyer to fight for their release – and the police who abuse their power are not held accountable.
    “Willie Kimani was working to protect the innocent from such abuse, and he was murdered while courageously pursuing that mission.”

  • New opposition in Zimbabwe launches campaign

    Joice Mujuru and Robert Mugabe

     Joice Mujuru and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe

    June 27, 2016 (GIN) – Zimbabwe‘s former vice president, Joice Mujuru, was the headliner at a rally this week in Matabeleland in one of the first public events of the new Zimbabwe People First opposition party.    The newly-launched campaign promptly took on the incumbent – President Robert Mugabe – in advance of elections in 2018.   Mujuru accused the government of being disinterested in the plight of the majority and promised to fight for the interests of ordinary citizens. “Zimbabwe People First is a new democratic, inclusive political party that accommodates every Zimbabwean… Please, get it from me, I am not going back to Zanu PF”.A year ago, Mujuru began stitching together a platform, publishing plans to relax security and media laws and review divisive black empowerment legislation. She pledged to push for a free press and repeal restrictive media and broadcasting laws that ban private television stations and bar foreign journalists from working permanently in Zimbabwe.

    Tough security laws that Mugabe has used against the opposition would also be removed, Mujuru said.

    A veteran of Zimbabwe’s independence war against white minority rule, Mujuru was once seen as one of Mugabe’s closest allies. However, she was dismissed from her government and ruling party posts in December on charges that she led a cabal that planned to topple Africa’s oldest leader.

    Meanwhile, a two-page Blueprint to Unlock Investment and Leverage for Development (BUILD) – has been circulated that reads like an election manifesto. “From the day we started, it was like we lit a matchstick at a gas station. Everyone was waiting for the formation of a party which is all inclusive even to those who were not interested in politics,” Mugabe’s former deputy said.

     

    “When people heard there was a political party called People First they were saying ‘Mai Mujuru we were blaming ourselves asking what we were doing [in Zanu PF] when madzana mbwanana achitambwa nemazidinga aya’ [fools were playing with people’s lives],” she said.      Political commentator, Khanyile Mlotshwa, said Mujuru had a good chance to make an impression through her rally in Bulawayo. “Her rally will be packed, as long as her political commissars appeal to the people on the basis of her stature… If they play the woman card, they are likely to draw a lot of women, some of whom have never been interested in politics, to her party… ”    The ruling ZANU-PF party has already chosen Mugabe as its candidate for the 2018 presidential poll, when he will be 94

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Have we forgotten the kidnapped school girls in Nigeria

    By D. Kevin McNeir (From The Washington
    Informer, NNPA Member)

     

    Nigerian girls
    Congresswoman Frederica Wilson (D-FL) speaks out on Nigerian girls

    It’s been two years, April 14th to be exact, since the world witnessed the abduction of 276 Nigerian schoolgirls from their dormitory rooms at the hands of Boko Haram – a West African terrorist group that has lodged atrocities against its own people including the burning of children alive and sending teenaged girls on suicide bomb missions. But one member of Congress, a former principal and mother now in her third term in office, said she refuses to rest until the remaining 219 girls still missing have been safely returned to their families.
    On Thursday, April 14, Congresswoman Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.) sponsored a press conference and panel discussion in the Cannon House Office Building in Southeast that included experts and advocates who offered their perspectives and solutions for addressing the ongoing crisis in the region. Several girls who escaped their abductors and now live in the U.S. also shared comments and expressed their thanks.
    Wilson has visited Nigeria several times along with other members of Congress where they’ve met with some of the victims and their parents. She remains a staunch supporter of the Bring Back Our Girls movement.“I was shocked and deeply saddened when I first learned that Boko Haram had abducted the Chibok girls to punish them for seeking to learn and better their lives,” she said. “My concern began with the girls but has since expanded because of the near-daily atrocities that Boko Haram commits, which has escalated since the girls were kidnapped. They’re trafficking girls and women as sex slaves and slaughtering boys.”
    “They have no conscience and they must be stopped. Even though Boko Haram has been ranked as the world’s deadliest terrorist group, it’s actually a group of cowards, which is why they send girls out, some as young as seven, to do their dirty work.”
    Panelist participants included: John Yearwood, moderator and executive board chairman, International Press Institute; Malcolm Nance, executive director, The Terror Asymmetrics Project on Strategy, Tactics and Radical Ideology; Jana Mason, senior advisor for government relations, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees; Tunde Odunlade, a Nigerian artist and activist; Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, senior fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies; Emmanuel Ogebe, international director, Education Must Continue Initiative; and Ernst Jan Hogendoorn, Africa deputy program director, International Crisis Group. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, assistant secretary of state for African affairs, also gave an update on actions initiated by the U.S. government.
    Wilson said building support among her colleagues has sometimes been a challenge. “Several congressional lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and in both chambers have introduced legislation and support my efforts like Wear Something Red Wednesday, the daily Twitter campaign and events like the forum and press conference that I recently hosted. But we’ve got to hold Nigeria’s government more accountable, keep the pressure on those lawmakers and let them know that if they don’t increase their efforts to find the girls and defeat Boko Haram, that they can be voted out of office.”
    Ogebe said U.S. officials and leaders from other countries initially failed to take Boko Haram seriously. “World leaders allowed Boko Haram to spread like a cancer. What’s needed is greater intelligence on the ground and the assistance of the U.S. with technology that can pinpoint where the terrorists are hiding. What’s happening in Nigeria should be deemed as an act of genocide,” he said.
    Hogendoorn believes the U.S. could do more but that Nigerian officials must take the lead. “Ultimately it’s a Nigerian problem — they’re a country that remains in crisis,” he said. “Their military, police and elected officials are all going through major reform and that process cannot be forced.”
    Odunlade said he won’t give up, even though Boko Haram continues to grow more powerful and dangerous. “These terrorists have to be fought on all fronts,” he said. “I just hope that Nigeria’s neighboring countries will provide more assistance. And the country’s youth must be supported. They’re talented and many are hungry for more education. They could be the real answer to the problem of terrorism.”
    Thomas-Greenfield said she remains optimistic but noted that defeating groups like Boko Haram requires long term determination. “The truth is Boko Haram only represents a minority of people among Muslims and Africans,” she said. “Many of the foot soldiers in their organization are young boys and girls who have been forced to participate. Those who want to leave must be supported and not ostracized. Nigeria also has to be willing to use more of its assets. They have had recent success fighting Boko Haram with the help of countries like Cameroon and that’s encouraging. Ultimately, the U.S. needs Congress to vote to give more financial assistance and America needs other countries to commit themselves to this fight.”
    “The bottom line – if I weren’t optimistic I would have given up long ago. We’re making progress but it’s going to be a long process. The question is whether world leaders, along with Nigeria, are willing to take on this fight for the long haul. That’s what it’s going to take,” she added.
    On Wednesday, April 20, Wilson led a candlelight vigil in front of the U.S. State Department in an effort to keep the world focused on the plight of the still missing girls. Last week, CNN released a “proof of life” video, obtained from a source “close to the negotiations,” in which several of the missing girls appeared to be in good health but anxious to return home. “We’re fighting to keep this in the news and keep it in the hearts and minds of people so it won’t fade away because we’ve got to bring those girls back,” Wilson said.
    Since the distribution of this article, the Nigerian government has found two of the kidnapped girls from Chibok in the Cameroons and returned them to their families.