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London Statement of Common Purpose - Reparations & Decolonisation (ICPF)

Representatives of invaded and enslaved First Nations Peoples have met in London for a four day Forum to forge a global alliance focusing on building unity of Peoples who are still subject to colonial oppression, enslavement and genocide.
 
Input into the 'London Statement of Common Purpose' was provided by First Peoples and the Reparatory Justice movement from across the globe through skyped discussions, written submissions, and the representatives who attended the Forum.

International Consultative Preparatory Forum (ICPF) London meeting working group
International Consultative Preparatory Forum: 1. Ghillar, Michael Anderson, 2. Oni Kirwin, 3. Fleet Street meeting venue, 4. Esther Stanford-Xosei, 5. Marlene Ellis, 6. Althea Gordon-Davidson, 7. & 8. Kofi Mawuli Klu, 9. Martin Crook GALLERY

London Statement of Common Purpose

 
19 October 2016

International Consultative Preparatory Forum (ICPF)

11-14 October 2016
for
the Spearhead Pacific Alliance and BOOMERANGCIRCUIT
2017 Pacific Alliance Gathering of Colonised Peoples & Sovereign Peoples Union for Global Justice through Decolonisation and Reparations

Summary

From this historic International Consultative Preparatory Forum (ICPF) on Decolonisation and Reparation held in the May Day Rooms, Fleet Street, London from 11 - 14 October 2016, the following London Statement of Common Purpose establishes the Common Purpose of Global Justice, focusing on:

  • building a principled unity of Peoples who have suffered under colonial oppression and enslavement;
  • effecting Global Justice through Reparations and Decolonisation
  • re-energising the responsibility of leadership of Peoples who have been colonised;
  • reducing despair by learning from each other's pockets of resistance in order to form a global liberating front towards a post-colonial and post-reparation world order;

Common Purpose

In Black History Month (UK) we are pleased to announce the London Statement of Common Purpose arising from a momentous event, which continues in the best Black radical traditions in our Peoples making of world history.

This historic International Consultative Preparatory Forum (ICPF) was initiated by the First Nations Spearhead Pacific Alliance (SPA) on Decolonisation and Reparations. SPA an alliance of Tribal Chiefs, Rulers, Lawmen and Law women and includes the Sovereign Union of First Nations and Peoples in Australia; the Union of British Columbian Chiefs (UBCIC) who are non-Treaty Nations; and colonized Pacific Nations, including the Fiji Native Government-in-Exile.

This is a significant and collective journey for our Peoples of the lands and waters around the world. With the inherent ownership of our land/waters the Creator provided teachings and responsibilities for our Peoples in caring for Mother Earth. Out of these come our values, principles, laws, practices and way of life that has endured since time immemorial.

ICPF was hosted by the BOOMERANGCIRCUIT of the Global Afrikan People's Parliament (GAPP); the Momentum Black ConneXions (MBC) and the Global Justice Forum (GJF), who are currently the most active groups crystallising and building the umbrella organisation of the Peoples' Reparations International Movement (PRIM), in which local organisations, Peoples and Nations retain their autonomy while building unity through dialogue. The BOOMERANGCIRCUIT symbolises solidarity among people whose giving is reciprocated with receiving.

From the ICPF, held in the May Day Rooms, Fleet Street, London from 11 - 14 October 2016, the following London Statement of Common Purpose establishes the underlying principles for Global Justice, to which we are all together committed.

These principles are based on International Law and the Statement of Purpose from Pan-Afrikan Reparations Coalition in Europe (PARCOE), which can also be globally applied to virtually all situations of the colonised First Nations Peoples (Native/Indigenous)

PARCOE Statement of Purpose:

Our struggle for Reparations is not asking anyone to give us anything, or do anything charitable for us. Rather, it is a long overdue demand for what, by all the tenets of Justice, is rightfully ours. We are demanding complete economic, political, social, cultural, and spiritual Justice, that is Justice in its true holistic meaning. Receiving the financial component of Reparations will be meaningful only if it serves the holistic purpose and strengthens the integral whole of our self-repair process. Although no sum of money could ever erase our pain, or wash away the blood our glorious ancestors shed at the hands of their enslavers and colonisers, we must have all that is necessary for restoring ourselves and future generations through our sovereign inherent right to be self-determining in every aspect of our lives in order to attain meaningful Global Justice for all.

We acknowledge the wisdoms of the Nigerian Professor Chinweizu who wrote:

Money is not even one percent of what reparation is about. Reparation is mostly about making repairs, self-made repairs, on ourselves: mental repairs, psychological repairs, cultural repairs, organisational repairs, social repairs, institutional repairs, technological repairs, economic repairs, political repairs and educational repairs, repairs of every type that we need in order to recreate and sustain Black societies... More important than any monies to be received; more fundamental than any lands to be recovered, is the opportunity the reparations campaign offers us for the rehabilitation of Black people, by Black people, for Black people; opportunities for the rehabilitation of our minds, our material condition, our collective reputation, our cultures, our memories, our self-respect, our religious/political traditions and our family institutions; but first and foremost for the rehabilitation of our minds... the most important part of Reparation is our self-repair; the change it will bring about in our understanding of our history, of ourselves, and of our destiny; the change it will bring about in our place in the world.

We agree upon the use of the term Black in such instances to mean to us what outstanding exponents of Black Power Internationalism like Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah meant in their axioms such as:

What is Black Power? I see it … as part of the vanguard of world revolution against capitalism, imperialism and neo-colonialism which have enslaved, exploited and oppressed peoples everywhere, and against which the masses of the world are now revolting. Black Power is part of the world rebellion of the oppressed against the oppressor, of the exploited against the exploiter.

Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah, 'The Spectre of Black Power', 1968

Accordingly, we share the conviction that as much as we are our own liberators, we are also the very ones that must play the leading role in effecting decolonisation and reparatory justice to work successfully for us in our own best interests. That is why, in addition to raising our voices higher globally in making legitimate demands for what the colonising powers must do, we are also encouraging each other to boldly and proactively take positive action that will demonstrate our collective agency in supporting each other to effect decolonisation and reparatory justice by our own people's power. This is particularly important for steps of action we can jointly take such as reciprocally using concepts and terms from our own languages and knowledge systems to give cognitive justice expression to our own creativity in thought and action relevant to our own self-education for liberation, recognising the true names our own Peoples have given to themselves, places and everything else in our environs, promoting our own forms of still viable independent governance, statecraft, democratisation and interpretations of and respect for all human, peoples and Mother Earth rights in plenipotentiary sovereignty.

Global Justice principles of Reparations and Restorative Justice embody the five fundamental principles that have been accepted by the United Nations to guide our endeavours that are embodied in the Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law [A/C.3/60/L.24 ]

Restorative Justice (Reparation) is the holistic application of five principles:

  • Restitution
  • Compensation
  • Rehabilitation
  • Satisfaction
  • Guarantee of non-repetition, in which decolonisation is a fundamental process

The principles of Reparation are now being incorporated into International Law through the UN General Assembly resolution 65/19 Responsibility of States for Internationally Recognised Wrongful Acts, e.g.

Article 26
Compliance with peremptory norms

Nothing in this chapter precludes the wrongfulness of any act of a State which is not in
conformity with an obligation arising under a peremptory norm of general international law.

. . . . . . . . . .

Article 31
Reparation

  1. The responsible State is under an obligation to make full reparation for the injury caused by the
    internationally wrongful act.
  2. Injury includes any damage, whether material or moral, caused by the internationally wrongful act of a State. [extract]

Decolonisation is a process that brings an unconditional end to the scourge of colonialism 'in all its manifestations' and is prescribed in the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, which was adopted by General Assembly resolution 1514 (XV) of 14 December 1960. This is one of the major foundation stones of international law relevant and indispensable to the Peoples' Reparations International Movement (PRIM):

The General Assembly,
… Recognizing the passionate yearning for freedom in all dependent peoples and the decisive role of such peoples in the attainment of their independence
… Recognizing that the peoples of the world ardently desire the end of colonialism in all its manifestations …

And to this end

Declares that:
… Armed action or repressive measures of all kinds directed against dependent peoples shall cease in order to enable them to exercise peacefully and freely their right to complete independence, and the integrity of their national territory shall be respected...[extract]
 
Reference

Colonised Peoples are developing our own definitions and understandings of ‘decolonisation’ and ‘decoloniality’ from grassroots lived experiences. As the Siddi Community from India summaries:

Decolonisation is not an eloquent public speech. Decolonisation is not a battle of superiority of academic theories. Decolonisation is not catchy slogans which then become keywords, hashtags in the age of Twitter and Facebook, only to be misinterpreted by Colonialism to suit its purposes of the neocolonial perpetuation of the Coloniality of Power of European Imperialism.
 
Our Decolonisation is, and should continue to be, the collective effort of the overwhelming majority of all peoples to transform the living colonial reality, to improve the concrete situation i.e. the daily lives of masses of peoples in India and all over the World. Let the universities not write decolonial theories from their ivory tower concrete buildings, erected by colonising the environment; but practice Decoloniality of Action in the open commons of the Environment through Decolonial Living.
 
Reference

Dr. Claude Alvares from Goa, India, comments on the way, us, colonised people tend to intellectualise:

The intellectual centres are located in the West, and they supply the categories and terms for all intellectual debates. We play along. They remain the center, while we keep ourselves at the periphery. They create; we copy and apply. We do not challenge the underlying assumptions. We blandly copy because these disciplines are apparently "well-tested" and "precise," an officially-recognised body of knowledge. Replication is safer than attempting something different.

Reference

Self-determination, governance and the right to independence of Peoples and Nations however small or large are based on foundational covenants of the United Nations. Despite our many and varied views on the colonisers' United Nations, we must hold them to account for the exercising of the humanitarian laws that have been developed through global diplomatic consultative processes. In respect of our position the international community, through the United Nations, is obligated to ensure adherence to the United Nations Charter, which began in 26 June 1945:

WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS …

… in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small … [extract]

Reference

Accordingly, we must also be reminded of and reiterate to all, the basic purposes and principles of the UN Charter, ' … based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples … '

Guiding Principles

We acknowledge that each People, First Nation, nationality, community or group, which has been affected by colonialism has their own respective priorities based on their needs, wants and aspirations in terms of reparations.

This International Consultative Preparatory Forum (ICPF) of the Spearhead Pacific Alliance (SPA) recognises the distinctiveness of each and does not profess that solutions for all can be found in a one-size-fits-all model of decolonisation and reparations. We each have our own understanding of our needs, aspirations and wants to achieve our satisfaction. This forum establishes a base of commonalities from which we have now progressed towards establishing an international unity of common purpose, which will achieve general as well as distinctive outcomes for those concerned.
Through a global unified network we are assured of international support for each other's desires and ambitions to achieve restorative justice. Unity in diversity is our power and through this global unifying process we are committed to ensuring support globally.

Reference

At this particular time, it is vital for all to take greater notice of the UN Resolution 1542 (XV) Transmission of information under Article 73e of the Charter:

Recognising that the desire for independence is the rightful aspiration of people under colonial subjugation and that the denial of their right to self-determination constitutes a threat to the well-being of humanity and to international peace, [extract]

 
This London Statement of Common Purpose of the ICPF accepts and recognises the similarities as well as distinctiveness in the vision, hopes and aspirations of all First Nations'/Natives' based on their own priorities, needs and wants.

We recognise that all efforts must be made to establish a mutually supportive base of internationalist solidarity to globally drive our efforts to realise full decolonisation, self-determination and reparatory justice.

This forum highlights for the awareness of all, the perspective of Pan-Afrikan Reparations for Global Justice, the Sovereign Union of Aboriginal Nations and Peoples in Australia, Fiji Native-in-Exile and other First Nations.

Pan-Afrikan Reparations for Global Justice perspective stems from the self-determined Afrikan overstanding of what they see as their own distinctive Maangamizi experiences of the continuum of chattel, colonial and neo-colonial enslavement. It is such an overstanding that has gone into shaping their own unique responses of the International Social Movement for Afrikans (ISMAR) from which all those interested in the PRIM can learn. For example, the Stop the Maangamizi: We Charge Genocide/Ecocide campaign and its petition.

Significantly, such an overstanding also explains why initiatives such as the All-Party Parliamentary Commissions of Inquiry for Truth & Reparatory Justice at the levels of the UK and European Parliaments (APPICTARJs), the Ubuntukgotla Peoples International Tribunal for Global Justice and the 1st August Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March are vital to their vision, strategy and tactics of Pan-Afrikan Reparations for Global Justice. Of relevance in fully comprehending the practical steps being taken towards the realisation of such vision, strategy and tactics is the work of the Global Afrikan People's Parliament the Afrikan Reparations Transnational Community of Practice (ARTCoP) and ISMAR.

Reference

Native/First Nations Peoples' liberation

We are working on the cognitive justice unity of all the relevant principles developed by humanity, embracing those whose humanity had been denied by European colonisers such as the colonised First Nations/Indigenous/Native Peoples of Afrika, Abya Yala, Asia and Oceania. Such principles include those that our own Peoples have developed long before such as Maat, Ubuntu and the Mandeacute; Charter of 1222 of the Mandinka nationality of West Afrika, which predated European efforts such as the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia.

We urge acknowledgement of the fact that each First Nations of every region of the earth has their own national identity, which must be accepted by all parties and thereby ensure that each Nation pursues their own pathways to decolonisation, self-determination and reparations.

The avowed aim of this current movement is to restore the inherent sovereign rights of the First Nations Peoples to territorial and all other forms of integrity and we further commit each other to lending support for the realisation of sovereign independence of one and all through genuine decolonisation and reparations.

Our efforts are based on the process of grassroots People to Peoples internationalist solidarity and ground-up diplomacy to which we are committed as a matter of developing Peoples-centred international relations from below in order to ensure the truly inclusive, genuinely participatory and egalitarian achievement of positive outcomes of Global Justice for all.

Way Forward: Organisational Developments

We identify with and regard ourselves as part of the broad array of Reparations-demanding Communities of Resistance, and the formally and informally constituted groups within and beyond such Communities of Reparations Interest (CORIs) all over the World, including the wide diversity of other forms of organisations, networks and campaigns through which they express themselves, that are altogether recognisable as, loosely at present, making up the PRIM.

We agree upon the need to draw our own organisations closer together with other formations that can make sound contributions to the building of the local, national, countrywide, continental and other blocs to stand alongside the ISMAR as part of the major transnational columns of the PRIM.

We deem it necessary to have, under the auspices of the PRIM, various formations through which its multiform organisational work can be more concretely advanced among specific groups of stakeholders, such as:-

  1. Spearhead Pacific Alliance (SPA) an alliance of Tribal Chiefs, Rulers, Lawmen and Law women, which includes the Sovereign Union of First Nations and Peoples in Australia, the Union of British Columbian Chiefs (UBCIC) who are non-Treaty Nations; and colonized Pacific Nations including the Fiji Native Government-in-Exile. SPA is part of the global Decoloniality International Council of Chiefs and Elders for Reparatory Justice (DICCERJ);
  2. the Pluriversity International Network of Reparatory Justice Action Learning (PINORJAL) that will develop organically from the Global Academy Commons collaboration of educational networks. [see below - Further network developments]
  3. the World Youth, Students and Communities of Resistance Internationalist Solidarity Connexions (WYSCORISC), a joint initiative of the Planet Repairs Youth Positive Action Campaign (PRYPAC) and the GJF for the youth-led educational promotion of Action Learning in Grassroots People-to-Peoples' Internationalist Solidarity and Groundup Diplomacy.

Conscious of the indispensable responsibility for agency of our own Peoples in driving our emancipatory efforts, but also mindful of the role of imperial Britain in making and assisting with our resolution of the problems confronting colonised Nations and Communities of Resistance, we highlight the significance of the strategic potential of the MBC and its affinity educational network, the Popular Educational Complex for Black Empowerment Action Learning (PECOBEAL), in galvanizing the building of new relations of mutually respectful, beneficial and reciprocal cooperation with the Jeremy Corbyn Support Campaign and the wider Labour movement in and beyond the United Kingdom.

We shall therefore be actively contributing from our communities all over the World to the efforts of the MBC and the PECOBEAL, enhanced by their collaboration with the GAPP and the GJF, in strengthening themselves in order to raise higher their profiles as vibrant instruments for the Black Power Internationalist amplification of our Peoples' voices.

We are in solidarity with the Sovereignty Movements of First Nations Peoples in Australia, Canada and Fiji and other liberation struggles, including but not limited to, the Indignados movement in Spain; those resisting neo liberal EU led counter revolution in Greece; the Indigenous Peoples in Dakota, US, to shut down the extreme energy pipeline ferrying tar sands oil from Canada; the movement for liberation and egalitarianism in Rojava autonomous region, a genuine, grassroots participatory democratic movement led by women Kurdish fighters on the border of Syria and Turkey,.

We are also committed to working together with all those interested in the establishment of a Peoples' International Commonwealth Dialogue Exchanges Programme Series (PICDEPS) that will contribute, under the joint auspices of the PECOBEAL, the Activism and Academia Fora International Movement (AAFIM) and the Global Citizenship Educational Campaign for Curricula of Pluriversality (GCECCOP), and in collaboration with relevant others like the Human Rights Consortium, to mutual critical education in enlightening international public opinion about the actual dynamics of human, peoples' and Mother Earth rights in the Commonwealth and related countries of the World. This PICDEPS will also serve as the conduit for our vigorous international promotion of work on the APPCITARJs as well as on the Peoples' International Tribunal for Global Justice (PITGJ).

Further network developments

The PINORJAL that will develop organically from the Global Academy Commons collaboration of educational networks, such as the ISMAR, including the ARTCoP, the Pan-Afrikan Community Educational Services (PACES) and the VAZOBA-Ubuntumafunzosa Popular Educational Campaign for Pan-Afrikan Global Citizenship Action Learning (VAZOBA-Ubuntumafunzosa), as well as the PECOBEAL, the Vidya Safari Moksha (VSM), the Our Communities Deserve Better Campaign (OCDBC), the AAFIM and the Global Citizenship Educational Campaign for Curricula of Pluriversality (GCECCOP).

Under the aegis of the PINORJAL, there shall be widespread education about the various experiences of holocausts such as the Maangamizi of Afrikan people, the massacres and Frontier wars and continuing genocide of First Nations and Peoples in Australia [www.sovereignunion.mobi], the Mango Island Gas Poisoning Native Fijians, etc, and the need for their memorialisation and commemoration.

The PINORJAL will also serve as one of the major partners for our annual organisation of the Decoloniality Open Concourse (DOC) series of programmes in collaboration with the CAFA Archival Resources Action Team (CARAT), PACES, ARTCoP, PECOBEAL and GJF among others.

Archive

We also agree upon working together with our co-hosting organisations and networks in supporting their collaboration with the CARAT in soliciting, gathering and collating relevant materials for the establishment of a World Indigenous Peoples' Resistance Archives of London (WIPRAL) in May Day Rooms.

In Gratitude

We are grateful to the PACES, the PECOBEAL and the GJF for utilising their cordial working relationship with the CARAT to gain access to May Day Rooms for our 11 to 14 October 2016 sessions of the ICPF.

We sincerely thank the co-hosting organisations in the United Kingdom: GAPP; MBC and GJF as co-builders of the PRIM.

We express special gratitude to both the Sovereign Union of the First Nations and Peoples in Australia the Fiji Native Government-in-Exile and the Union of British Columbian Indian Chiefs (UBCIC) for their exceptional role in ensuring representation of the voices of the Pacific Alliance and the initiatives of the First Nations Peoples of Oceania in conceptualising, planning and launching these endeavours of the SPA for the ICPF.

Contacts:
Ghillar, Michael Anderson ghillar29@gmail.com
Esther Stanford-Xosei estherstanford19@yahoo.co.uk
Kofi Mawuli Klu mawusafo@yahoo.com

Glossary

AAFIM - Activism and Academia Fora International Movement
APPICTARJs - All-Party Parliamentary Commissions of Inquiry for Truth & Reparatory Justice at the levels of the UK and European Parliaments
ARTCoP - Afrikan Reparations Transnational Community of Practice
CAFA - Committee for Academic Freedom in Africa
CORIs - Communities of Reparations Interest
CARAT - CAFA Archival Resources Action Team
DICCERJ - Decoloniality International Council of Chiefs and Elders for Reparatory Justice
DOC - Decoloniality Open Concourse
GAPP - Global Afrikan People's Parliament
GCECCOP - Global Citizenship Educational Campaign for Curricula of Pluriversality
GJF - Global Justice Forum
ICPF - International Consultative Preparatory Forum
ISMAR - International Social Movement for Afrikan Reparations
MBC - Momentum Black ConneXions
OCDBC - Our Communities Deserve Better Campaign
PACES - Pan-Afrikan Community Educational Services
PARCOE - Pan-Afrikan Reparations Coalition in Europe
PECOBEAL - Popular Educational Complex for Black Empowerment Action Learning
PICDEPS - Peoples' International Commonwealth Dialogue Exchanges Programme Series
PINORJAL - Pluriversity International Network of Reparatory Justice Action Learning
PITGJ - Peoples' International Tribunal for Global Justice
PRIM - Peoples' Reparations International Movement
PRYPAC - Planet Repairs Youth Positive Action Campaign
SPA - Spearhead Pacific Alliance, an alliance of Tribal Chiefs, Rulers, Lawmen and Law women, which includes the Sovereign Union of First Nations and Peoples in Australia, the Union of British Columbian Chiefs (UBCIC) who are non-Treaty Nations; and colonized Pacific Nations including the Fiji Government-in-Exile
VAZOBA-Ubuntumafunzosa - VAZOBA-Ubuntumafunzosa Popular Educational Campaign for Pan-Afrikan Global Citizenship Action Learning
UBCIC - Union of British Columbian Indian Chiefs (non-Treaty Nations)
VSM - Vidya Safari Moksha
WYSCORISC - World Youth, Students and Communities of Resistance Internationalist Solidarity Connexions
WIPRAL - World Indigenous Peoples' Resistance Archives of London

Links:
https://www.change.org/p/stop-the-maangamizi-we-charge-genocide-ecocide
https://stopthemaangamizi.com/2015/10/12/about-the-commission-of-inquiry...
https://stopthemaangamizi.com/2016/01/31/the-ubuntukgotla-peoples-intern...
http://www.reparationsmarch.org/
https://globalafrikanpeoplesparliament.org/about/
https://www.facebook.com/ARTCoP4Repairs/
www.sovereignunion.mobi

19 October 2016
May Day Rooms, 88 Fleet Street, London