Ex-KKK Leader: Whites ‘Have Lost Control’ Of America

PEARL, Miss. — They’re not exactly rooting for him, but prominent white supremacists anticipate a boost to their cause if Barack Obama becomes the first black president.

Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, of Louisiana, said Democrat Obama would be a “visual aid” to the idea that whites have lost control of America.

Duke, once a Democrat who became a Republican in 1988 and served in the Louisiana House of Representatives, posted an essay on his Web site in June titled, “Obama Wins Demo Nomination: A Black Flag for White America.
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Obama “will be a clear signal for millions of our people,” Duke wrote. “Obama is a visual aid for White Americans who just don’t get it yet that we have lost control of our country, and unless we get it back we are heading for complete annihilation as a people.
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Richard Barrett, a 65-year-old lawyer who traveled the country for 40 years advocating what he perceives as the white side in racial issues, is convinced Obama will defeat Republican John McCain in November.

One of the leaders in the Nationalist Movement, Barrett told The Associated Press in an interview at his rural Mississippi home that, “Instead of this so-called civil rights bill, for example, that says you have to give preferences to minorities, I think the American people are going — once they see the ‘Obamanation’ — they’re going to demand a tweaking of that and say, ‘You have to put the majority into office,’” Barrett said.

While most Americans have little or no direct contact with white supremacists, organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center keep close tabs; the law center estimates some 200,000 people nationwide are active in such groups.

Source: Wnbc.com

France took part in 1994 genocide

France played an active role in the 1994 Rwanda genocide, a report unveiled Tuesday by the Rwandan government said, naming French political and military officials it says should be prosecuted. The damning report accused a raft of top French politicians of involvement in the massacres, threatening to further mar relations between the two countries, which severed diplomatic ties in November 2006. “French forces directly assassinated Tutsis and Hutus accused of hiding Tutsis. French forces committed several rapes on Tutsi survivors,” said a justice ministry statement released after the report was presented in Kigali. The 500-page report alleged that France was aware of preparations for the genocide, contributed to planning the massacres and actively took part in the killing. It named former French prime minister Edouard Balladur, former foreign minister Alain Juppe and then-president Francois Mitterrand, who died in 1996, among 13 French politicians accused of playing a role in the massacres. Dominique de Villepin, who was then Juppe’s top aide and later became prime minister, was also among those listed in the Rwandan report. The report names 20 military officials as being responsible.

France refused to comment directly on the report’s findings, saying the inquiry had lacked legitimacy or impartiality. A Defence Ministry spokesman instead referred reporters to the government’s position as set out in a statement from February 2007. That original statement declared that the Rwandan inquiry had no “independence or impartiality” because its stated remit was to “gather evidence of the involvement of the French state” in the Rwandan genocide. The inquiry, it stated, had “no legitimacy nor competence” to conduct interviews on French soil because it had broken off diplomatic relations with France in November 2006.

France has acknowledged making “mistakes” in Rwanda but denies any responsibility for the killing spree. The 1994 genocide in the central African nation left around 800,000 people — mainly minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus — dead, according to the United Nations. “The overwhelming nature of France’s support to the Rwandan policy of massacres shows the complicity of French political and military officials in the preparation and execution of the genocide,” the statement said.

Justice Minister Tharcisse Karugarama presented the report to the press in Kigali, more than two years after a special commission tasked with probing France’s role in the genocide began its work. The statement said the military and humanitarian Operation Turquoise carried out by the French in Rwanda between June and August 1994 abetted the killings perpetrated by the extremist Interahamwe Hutu militia. The French military “did not challenge the infrastructure of genocide, notably the checkpoints manned by the Interahamwes.”They clearly requested that the Interahamwes continue to man those checkpoints and kill Tutsis attempting to flee,” the statement added. “Considering the seriousness of the alleged crimes, the Rwandan government has urged the relevant authorities to bring the accused French politicians and military officials to justice,” the statement said.

Karugarama hinted that Rwanda could launch a legal challenge against some of the officials named in the report. The release of the report comes against a backdrop of tense relations between France and Rwanda. Kigali severed diplomatic ties with France after French investigating magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguiere accused Kagame and his entourage of involvement in the death of the then president, Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu. Habyarimana’s plane was shot down above Kigali airport on April 6, 1994, sparking the genocide. In July, Kagame had threatened to indict French nationals over the genocide if European courts did not withdraw arrest warrants issued against Rwandan officials.

Source: Yahoo News

Civil liberties union sues NYPD

NEW YORK (AP) — The New York Civil Liberties Union has sued the New York Police Department seeking records identifying the race of everyone shot by city police officers since January 1997.

The NYCLU says the lawsuit filed Monday in Manhattan Supreme Court is part of its effort to determine if race has played an inappropriate role in police shootings.

The group says that about 90 percent of people shot by police in years past were black or Hispanic. The NYPD says the finding comports with the fact that 98.6 percent of all shooting suspects in the last six months and 97.5 percent of shooting victims were black or Hispanic.

The city’s Law Department says it hasn’t received the legal papers but would review them upon receipt.

Source: The Associated Press

Army Apologizes for Convictions of Black Soldiers

SEATTLE (AP) — The Army formally apologized Saturday for the wrongful conviction of 28 black soldiers accused of rioting and lynching an Italian prisoner of war in Seattle more than six decades ago. “We had not done right by these soldiers,” Ronald James, assistant secretary of the Army for manpower and reserve affairs, said Saturday. “The Army is genuinely sorry. I am genuinely sorry.” Relatives of the soldiers joined elected officials, military officers and one of the defense lawyers to hear James give the apology before hundreds of people in a meadow near the old Fort Lawton parade grounds and chapel in Discovery Park.

In addition, the soldiers’ convictions were set aside, their dishonorable discharges were changed to honorable discharges and they and their survivors were awarded back pay for their time in the brig. All but two of the soldiers are dead. One, Samuel Snow of Leesburg, Fla., planned to attend the ceremony but wound up in the hospital instead because of a problem with his pacemaker. The convictions were overturned in October at the prodding of Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Seattle, largely based on the book “On American Soil” published in 2005 by Jack Hamann, a CNN and PBS journalist, and his wife Leslie about the riot on the night of Aug. 14, 1944, and subsequent events at Fort Lawton.

Dozens were injured in the melee that started with a scuffle between an Italian prisoner of war and a black soldier from the segregated barracks near the POW housing. A POW, Guglielmo Olivotto, was found hanged at the bottom of a bluff the next day. The Army prosecutor was Leon Jaworski, who went on to become special prosecutor in the Watergate scandal of the early 1970s. Forty-three black soldiers were charged with rioting and three also were charged with murder. Two defense lawyers were assigned to the case and given two weeks to prepare without ever being shown an Army investigation criticizing the way the riot was handled.

Hamann also wrote that at least two soldiers were threatened with lynching by Army detectives. When one witness said a “Booker T.” was present at the riot but couldn’t give any more detail, the Army charged two men by that name. Another was charged with rioting although white, black and Italian POW witnesses all said he tried to quell the disturbance. In the ensuing trial 28 men were convicted. One of those attending the ceremony Saturday, Arthur Prevost of Houston, said his father Willie, one of the convicted soldiers, never talked about what had happened. “I think he was embarrassed,” Prevost said. “I wished he had told us.” Snow’s son, Ray Snow, told the gathering his father felt no animosity for the long-ago injustice. “He was so honored” by the tribute, Ray Snow said. “We salute you for remembering a travesty that took place.”

Source: Associated Press