U.S.-POLITICS: One Year After March, Farrakhan Decries Violence/UPDATE

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 16 1996 (IPS) - Black nationalist leader Louis Farrakhan angrily denounced the world arms trade and violence in the United States as black leaders staged a rally outside the United Nations a year after their Million Man March on Washington, D.C.

Speaking before an estimated crowd of 50,000 people Wednesday, Farrakhan, head of the Nation of Islam (NOI) organisation, assailed governments which buy and sell arms for their “investment in death.”

“It takes more and more of the taxpayers’ money to feed the arms merchants,” Farrakhan said. “The whole world of human beings lies before us, desolate and wasted.”

The NOI leader singled out Saudi Arabia as “number one in buying weapons of war,” pegging Saudi arms purchases at some 240 billion dollars over the past decade. But he also criticised the United States, Britain and Germany, among others, as the world’s leading arms exporters.

Such arms sales, he argued, have contributed to wars in more than 50 nations over the past five years as well as the proliferation of arms and violence in the United States itself.

“It is as easy for you to get arms as it is for you to go to the corner store” in the United States, Farrakhan argued, noting that nearly 30,000 people were murdered last year in the United States.

One in five children in the United States lives in poverty, he added, noting that 26 countries outrank the United States in health indices and 27 others have a better record in education.

Black America also suffers from police brutality, added the Rev. Al Sharpton, a New York activist who intends to run for mayor next year. Citing a report by Amnesty International, Sharpton said New York City has “the highest rate of police brutality” in the nation. The Amnesty report studied some 90 cases of alleged excessive force by the police in the past 15 years.

Referring to recent reports in ‘The San Jose Mercury News’ that some U.S.-backed Nicaraguan ‘contras’ sold crack cocaine in Los Angeles, Sharpton urged further investigation of any possible Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) links to the urban drug problem.

One year after Farrakhan took centre stage at the Million Man March in Washington, where more than 700,000 black men gathered for a declared “day of atonement,” the rally outside the United Nations brought black leaders together for a “World Day of Atonement” to focus on violence.

“We are here to atone for violence, murder and war,” Farrakhan said. The black nationalist organisation asked African Americans to observe the day by forgoing all purchases.

As with the Million Man March, however, the rally’s strongest message was the symbolic display of unity and peace among the largely African American crowd.

In a statement read at the rally, South African activist Winnie Mandela confirmed that message. “To me, this is the greatest symbol of the World Day of Atonement that so many people can be as one,” she wrote.

In that respect, the rally outside the United Nations, although smaller in scale, recalled the Million Man March. “Last year, (the march) was not only the largest mobilisation in American history, it was also the safest,” the Rev. Ben Chavis, organiser of both last year’s march and the Wednesday rally, noted.

The dignity of the Washington march helped establish Farrakhan, who drew less complimentary headlines earlier this year for meeting with Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, and Nigeria’s head of state, Gen. Sani Abacha, as one of the nation’s most influential black leaders.

While he lauded the U.N. in his speech Wednesday, he also chided the world body for maintaining sanctions against Iraq. “You’ve already beaten Saddam Hussein,” Farrakhan argued, adding there is no further reason for the six-year-old U.N. embargo of Iraq.

Of U.N. sanctions against Libya, imposed three years ago after Tripoli refused to extradite two suspects in a 1988 plane bombing, he said, “You should be ashamed of yourselves for placing sanctions on Libya on the basis of allegations which have not been proved.” During a later press conference, which was sponsored by Libya, Farrakhan lauded Qadhafi as a “freedom fighter,” saying he has used Libya’s oil profits “to aid the liberation struggles of people all over the world.”

In addition to his ties to foreign leaders which Washington has repeatedly denounced, Farrakhan has for many years evoked concern over his penchant for making anti-Semitic and inflammatory comments.

But the fact that Farrakhan and his supporters spoke just around the corner from the national headquarters of the Anti- Defamation League (ADL), the nation’s leading Jewish anti- discrimination group which has often spoken out against Farrakhan, was an uncomfortable reminder of the group’s often hostile stance.

Although Farrakhan denied he is an anti-Semite in the latest issue of ‘The Final Call,’ the official NOI newspaper, the minister alleged that “twelve presidents of the major Jewish organisations” had urged U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros- Ghali to ease U.N. criticism of Israel’s attack on Lebanon last April.

In the same statement, Farrakhan also argued, “The Federal Reserve must come back under Congress” — a seeming reference to several anti-Semitic works which allege that Jews control the U.S. banking system. An editorial in the Oct 8 ‘Final Call’ referred to the ADL as “the Enemy of the People.”

The ADL, however, declined to criticise the Day of Atonement, and its director, Rabbi Abraham Foxman, told the New York daily ‘The Forward’, “I take the rally for what it is.”

“I have never known him to be anti-Semitic,” Chavis said of Farrakhan. “We have asked to have a meeting with the leaders of the Jewish community” to resolve their differences, he added.

The demonstrators did not gather in front of the ADL headquarters, and police described the rally as peaceful.

Farrakhan’s criticism of Muslim nations that are major arms buyers, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Turkey, should bolster his contention that he favours atonement by all peoples rather than singling out scapegoats.