US steps up anti-Russia Campaign, Takes Black Socialist Uhuru Group to Trial in Florida By Malik Miah and Barry Sheppard

Hands off Uhuru! Washington has said for some time that Russia and China are its two main enemies.          The U.S. anti-Russian campaign took a big leap forward when it put on trial the leader and activist supporters of a Florida-based Black socialist and Pan-Africanist groups on trial September 2, and a few days later “announced a broad effort to push back on Russian influence campaigns in the 2024 election, as it tries to curb the Kremlin’s use of state-run media and fake news sites to sway American voters,” according to the New York Times.         

The attack on the Florida-based group began years ago, long before Russia’s  invasion of  Ukraine in 2022 when the US and its European NATO allies applied massive sanctions against Russia and sent billions of dollars of weapons to Ukraine.

Omali Yeshitela, longtime chairman of the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP), also known as the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement, along with white supporters Penny Hess and Jesse Nevel, were indicted in 2023 for allegedly working on behalf of Russia in a multiyear foreign “malign influence campaign” in the United States.

Uhuru and the APSP have long opposed US foreign policy. They have supported popular struggles in Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America and Europe and Asia. The leaders opposed the US government’s attacks on Russia for years prior to and since the collapse of the Soviet Union. It opposed US policy toward Ukraine and opposed US support to Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

According to the Tampa Bay Times, where the trial is taking place, “One day in 2015, Omali Yeshitela sent an email to fellow leaders in the African People’s Socialist Party about a Russian organization that had hosted him at a conference in Moscow.

“He wrote that the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia was most likely using ‘forces inside the United States’ to sow discord.’

“’It is clear that it is an instrument of the Russian government,” Yeshitela wrote. ‘That does not disturb us.’

That’s a crucial point. One can know the Russian or other government’s objectives, but you can still collaborate with them because of political alignment. For example, the US government has long criticized Cuba revolution supporters as tools of the Cuban Communist Party.

The same is true for China and Iran, or Venezuela and Nicaragua today.

The following is based on the Tampa Bay Times account:

“The four are on trial,” the government prosecutor opened,  “for charges that they were involved in a conspiracy to act as unregistered agents of the Russian government, part of that country’s effort to meddle in U.S. politics and foster social divisions.

“They failed to be transparent, as federal law requires them to be,” prosecutor Menno Goedman told the jury.

He asserted that the defendants were not being prosecuted for their political beliefs.

But that is exactly what the defense says the case is all about.

“This is a case of censorship,” said defense lawyer Ade Griffin, who represents Yeshitela. “The evidence will show that this case is a direct attempt by the United States of America to censor the views of the (African People’s Socialist Party).”

The trial began a little more than two years after FBI agents executed a stunning predawn search at the group’s St. Petersburg, Florida,  headquarters, known as the Uhuru House.

The Uhuru Movement, long based in St. Petersburg, operates as the activist arm of the African People’s Socialist Party. Yeshitela, 82, has led the group since the 1970s, advocating for freedom and reparations for African people worldwide.

Jesse Nevel, 34, and Penny Hess, 78, who lead branches of the group’s white allies, are also charged in the case, along with Augustus C. Romain Jr., 38, who left the Uhurus in 2018 and started his own Atlanta-based group called the Black Hammer.

Goedman, of the Department of Justice’s counter-intelligence section, walked the jury through what he described as a seven-year scheme of Russian meddling in U.S. politics that ensnared the Uhurus.

It began, he said, in May 2015, when a Russian man named Aleksandr Ionov invited Yeshitela on an all-expenses-paid trip to Russia to “communicate on future cooperation.”

Ionov, 34, leads the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia, which is funded by the Russian government. He offered to pay the Uhurus in return for a series of actions and events, the prosecutor said. It was later that year that Yeshitela attended a “Dialogue of Nations” conference hosted by Ionov’s organization.

Goedman quoted Yeshitela in an email saying he “assumed the meeting was being convened by forces of the Kremlin.” He said their discussion centered on the shared interests of their respective groups, and that Ionov’s organization meant to sow division in the U.S.

Goedman listed several examples of things he claimed without proof that Ionov directed the Uhurus to do. They included preparing a petition to the United Nations accusing the U.S. of committing genocide against African Americans. He directed them, according to the prosecutor, to publish pro-Russian articles in their community newspaper, the Burning Spear, including one in support of Russia’s Olympic team after a doping scandal.

In 2017, Goedman alleged, that Ionov gave the Uhurus $12,000 for a multi -city protest tour focused on the genocide of African Americans, the prosecutor said. He also meddled in local elections, including Nevel’s 2017 run for St. Petersburg mayor.

Romain also communicated with Ionov after starting the Black Hammer. The Russians paid for Romain’s group to visit California for a protest at Facebook’s headquarters, the prosecutor said, and that Ionov even helped design some of the signs they carried.

Video of another protest at the Georgia state Capitol showed Romain’s group waving Russian flags.

“I’m not ashamed to say that the Black Hammer Party has relationships with the Kremlin,” Goedman quoted Romain saying in the video.

All the while, Ionov reported regularly to intelligence officers in Russia’s Federal Security Service, known as the FSB. He communicated directly with two FSB officers, Aleksey Sukhodolov and Yegor Popov, about his work with the Uhurus and efforts to interfere in American elections. The three Russians are not in US custody.

The Uhurus don’t deny that they’ve spoken favorably of Russia. But they reject the notion of being controlled by any foreign entity.

They’ve been consistent since the 1970s in their calls for reparations and freedom from colonialism, the defense argued.

“Omali Yeshitela has dedicated his life to the liberation of all Black people,” Griffin, his attorney, told the jury. “He has not and never will work at the direction of anyone other than himself.”

Chicago attorney Leonard Goodman, who represents Hess, told the jury, “The government’s position is somewhat puzzling. Even though this group has been saying the same thing for 50 years, after 2015 they’re saying it for Russia?”

Their real crime, Goodman explained, was holding positive views of Russia at a time when the US government was telling people to “hate and fear” the nation.

Nevel’s attorney, Mutaquee Akbar, noted that the word Uhuru means freedom in Swahili. The freedom to speak on issues that might not be popular, he said, is at the heart of the case.

“Freedom,” he said. “That’s what this case is about.”

The broader attack Washington is directing

“Attorney General Merrick B. Garland detailed [on September 4] the actions taken by the Justice Department,” the Times reported. “The actions include sanctions, indictment and seizing of web domains that U.S. officials say the Kremlin uses to spread propaganda and disinformation about Ukraine, which Russia invaded more than two years ago.”

So, any American who disagrees with the U.S. actions in Ukraine are suspect, not only the African People’s Socialist Party.

The actions  the DOJ has taken include “the indictment of two Russian employees of RT [Russian Television], the state-owned broadcaster, who used a company in Tennessee to spread content, and the takedown of a Russian malign influence campaign known as Doppelgänger.

“ ‘The American people are entitled to know when a foreign power engages in political activities or seeks to influence public discourse,’ Mr. Garland said.

“The Treasury Department imposed sanctions on ANO dialog, a Russian nonprofit that helps run the Doppelgänger network, as well as the editor in chief of RT, Margarita S. Simonyan, and her deputies.

“The State Department has offered a $10 million reward for information pertaining to foreign interference in an American election….”

An open enticement for Americans to denounce other Americans, much as Americans were encouraged to denounce “communists” in the McCarthy witch-hunt of the 1950s and early 1960s.

The Times continues “the State Department also said it would designate five Russian state-funded news outlets, including RT, Ruptly, and Sputnick, as foreign government missions and restrict the issuance of visas to people working for Kremlin-supported media institutions.

“American officials have stepped up their warnings about Russian election influence efforts. American spy agencies have assessed that the Kremlin favors former president Donald J. Trump over Kamala Harris in the November contest, seeing him as more skeptical of U.S. support to Ukraine.”

Recently, Russia’s President Putin said he prefers Harris. He and other leaders have said US policy towards Russia will not change whoever wins.

So, who is seeking to influence the election?

The charges against RT of interfering in American politics is rejected by RT.

“If they kick us out completely, how will they conduct the next elections?” a representative wrote sarcastically in a follow-up post on Telegram. “They don’t have any other strategies except to scaremonger about the almighty RT.”

The fact is extremely few Americans have even heard of RT or know how to access it.

The whole charge about Russia (and China and Iran), are influencing  anyone how to vote by more than a tiny bit by spreading their opinions is nonsense.

On the other hand, the U.S. government is all in favor of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) already spending almost $100 million in the primary elections to defeat any candidate who expresses criticism of Israel.

Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, said  that the Kremlin will act against U.S. media in the wake of the formal accusation, according to Reuters. She called the indictment a “witch hunt” and said it was designed to scare Americans.

“There will be a response to the actions of the United States authorities which directly contradict their obligations in the areas of providing free access to information and media pluralism,” Reuters quoted Zakharova as saying.

Meanwhile the anti-Russia witch-hunt campaign includes former UN chief arms inspector in Iraq Scott Ritter whose home was raided by the FBI. The agents took all his computers and files even those having nothing to do with Russia or RT. It happened in August at his upstate New York home.

Before the raid Ritter had his passport seized by the US Department of State as he tried to fly to Russia for a conference. He said it was a spiteful move against his analysis of Russia and criticism of the US nuclear arms policies.

Ritter is a regular contributor to RT and many other news outlets including Consortium News.

U.S. NATO allies are also conducting their own witch-hunts. One example: The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and UK’s National Union of Journalists (NUJ) have condemned the recent arrest in the United Kingdom of reporter Richard Medhurst. In a joint letter addressed to New Scotland Yard anti-terrorism head Matt Jukes, the unions said they were “shocked” and “concerned” over what they consider “efforts to stifle press freedom.”    A British citizen of Syrian descent, Medhurst was arrested at London’s Heathrow Airport on August 15. According to his own account provided to several media outlets, he was pulled off a plane and taken to a police station, where he was held for over 24 hours. His phone and work equipment were seized, while Medhurst himself was subjected to a search and a questioning.         He was told he was arrested under Section 12 of the UK’s Terrorism Act on charges of “expressing an opinion or a belief that is supportive of a proscribed organization.” He was eventually let go, but said he does not yet know whether he will be charged with an offense.

Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ general secretary, and Anthony Bellanger, IFJ general secretary, said Medhurst’s arrest “will likely have a chilling effect on journalists in the UK and worldwide,” as they would now fear arrest by UK authorities “simply for carrying out their work.”

A second longtime  independent journalist was also arrested because of their honest Palestinian coverage. Each could face up to 14 years in prison.

The DOJ’s broadside attacks on US enemies includes Hamas, viewed as a terrorist organization tied to Iran.     Federal prosecutors filed criminal charges against senior Hamas leaders for the deaths of at least 43 American citizens in Israel on October 7, 2023, according to charging documents unsealed on September 3.

As occurred for more than a decade against the Australian journalist and publisher Julian Assange, the long repressive arm of Washington targets foreign groups and individuals.

The US ruling class plays by its own rules and bypasses the UN and  international laws when they get in its way.     It historically has gone after Black militants like Uhuru. Defense of the Uhuru defendants is  crucial as the first test in a court of a new period of political prosecutions