Muammar Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi1
(Arabic:
معمر القذافي
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Mu‘ammar al-Qaḏāfī) (born 7 June, 1942) also known as
Colonel Gaddafi has been the
de facto leader of
Libya since a 1969 coup.[1]
Although Gaddafi has held no public office or title since 1979, he
is accorded the honorifics "Guide of the First of September Great
Revolution of the Socialist People's Libyan Arab
Jamahiriya" or "Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution" in
government statements and the official press.[2]
He is the fourth longest-serving
head of state currently in office and longest-serving
head of government.
In February 2009, upon being elected chairman of
the 53-nation
African Union in
Ethiopia, Gaddafi told the assembled African leaders: "I shall
continue to insist that our sovereign countries work to achieve the
United States of Africa
Vernon Bellecourt (1931-2007 R.I.P.) & Bob Brown. Vernon Bellecourt,
Indian name WaBun-Inini, (October 17, 1931 October 13, 2007)[1] was
a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe (located in Minnesota),
and a Native American rights activist. In the Ojibwe language his
name meant "Man of Dawn."[1] [2]
Bellecourt lived on the White Earth Indian Reservation until he was
sixteen when his family moved to Minneapolis. When Bellecourt was
nineteen he spent time in St. Cloud prison for robbing a Saint Paul
tavern.[3] When Bellecourt was released he became a hairdresser and
proceeded to open a series of beauty salons in Saint Paul.[3][4] In
the mid 1960s he sold his business and moved his family out to near
Aspen, Colorado.[4] Bellecourt was a long time leader in the
American Indian Movement. His brother, Clyde Bellecourt, helped
found AIM as a militant group in 1968, and Vernon soon became
involved as well. He co-founded the AIM chapter in Denver, and was
its first Executive Director. Bellecourt took part in the 1972 Trail
of Broken Treaties caravan, then served as a negotiator during AIM's
occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which took place
followng the caravan's arrival in Washington, D.C. Bellecourt was
present briefly during the 1973 Wounded Knee occupation in South
Dakota, serving mostly as an AIM spokesman and fundraiser during the
71-day standoff with federal agents.
After Wounded Knee, Bellecourt worked with the International Indian
Treaty Council, which advocates on behalf of Indigenous rights
throughout the Western Hemisphere. He became a leader of AIMs work
abroad, meeting with foreign leaders like Daniel Ortega of
Nicaragua, Muammar al-Gaddafi of Libya, and Palestine Liberation
Organization chairman Yasser Arafat.[3] Bellecourt was active for
many years in the campaign to free AIM activist Leonard Peltier, who
was convicted in 1977 of killing two FBI agents during a 1975
shootout on the Pine Ridge Reservation.
Bob Brown was a close friend and associate of Kwame Toure and
carr4ies on the struggle as a member and supporter of the All
African Peoples Revolutionary Party. The All-African Peoples
Revolutionary Party (A-APRP) is a socialist group founded by Dr.
Kwame Nkrumah. His goal in founding this party was to create and
manage the political economic conditions necessary to the emergence
of an All-African Peoples Revolutionary Army that would lead the
military struggle against settler colonialism, Zionism,
neo-colonialism, imperialism and all other forms of capitalist
oppression and exploitation. [1] The A-APRP has branches in several
countries and several US states. Kwame Toure Stockley Carmichael was
one of the party's leaders from the 1970s until his death. [2]. The
All-African Peoples Revolutionary Party promotes Pan-Africanism in
the form of the total liberation and unification of Africa under
scientific socialism. Scientific socialism is defined as a new
social synthesis in which an advanced technical society is realized
without the staggering social malefactions and deep schisms of
capitalist industrial society. [1] In support of this overall
position, the A-APRP believes that African Americans have been kept
ignorant purposely because capitalist and imperialist wanted Africa
to look like a savage nation, in an attempt to keep Africans
divided, disorganized, confused and live under stifling conditions,
so they can stop their progress towards total freedom. The
All-African Peoples Revolutionary Party holds the United States and
Israel accountable for the misery and suffering they cause for
people around the world, and additionally blames the United States
for allowing slavery and allowing African Americans to be treated
brutally. The A-APRP believe the UN is only interested in exploiting
Africa and its inhabitants, and should be banished from the
continent. The Party also venerates anti-imperialist leaders such as
Fidel Castro, Ho Chi Minh, and Yasser Arafat. The All-African
Peoples Revolutionary Party aims to form a United Socialist African
government. The party believes Africa must first be united before
they can accelerate economically and technologically. According to
the party, such maximum development would guarantee a balanced use
of the material resources and human potential of Africa along the
lines of an integrated economy, and within corresponding divisions
of production, eliminating all unnecessary forms of competition,
economic hostility and replication and resulting in true freedom.