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President Obama has told Congress he will remove Cuba from a U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, clearing a major obstacle to restoring diplomatic relations with Havana for the first time in a half-century. Obama’s move comes just days after he and Cuban President Raúl Castro sat down at a summit in Panama for a historic meeting. Cuba was placed on the terrorism list in 1982 at a time when Havana was supporting liberation struggles in Africa and Latin America. While Cuba is being removed from the terrorism list, the trade embargo remains in effect. To discuss the thawing of U.S.-Cuban relations, we are joined from Havana by former Cuban diplomat, Carlos Alzugaray Treto.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: President Obama told Congress Tuesday he intends to remove Cuba from a U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, clearing a main obstacle to restoring diplomatic relations with Havana for the first time in half a century. Obama’s move came just days after he and Cuban President Raúl Castro sat down at a summit in Panama for the first meeting of its kind since Dwight Eisenhower and Fulgencio Batista met in 1958 before the Cuban Revolution.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: This shift in U.S. policy represents a turning point for our entire region. The fact that President Castro and I are both sitting here today marks a historic occasion. It is the first time in more than half a century that all the nations of the Americas are meeting to address our future together.
AMY GOODMAN: At their meeting, Cuban President Raúl Castro urged Obama to remove Cuba from the terrorism list.
PRESIDENT RAÚL CASTRO: [translated] We have expressed, and I repeated it again here to President Obama, our willingness for respectful dialogue between both states within our profound differences. I see as a positive step his recent statements that he will quickly decide to remove the existence of Cuba from a list of countries that sponsor state terror, and on which we should never have been included.
AMY GOODMAN: Cuba was placed on the terrorism list in 1982 at a time when Havana was supporting liberation struggles in Africa and Latin America. In his letter to Congress, President Obama wrote the Cuban government, quote, "has not provided any support for international terrorism," quote, in the past six months, and has, quote, "provided assurances that it will not support acts of international terrorism in the future," unquote. Once Cuba is officially removed from the list in 45 days, Iran, Sudan and Syria will become the only countries on the list.
Josefina Vidal, Cuba’s top diplomat responsible for dealing with the U.S., said, quote, "The Cuban government recognized the fair decision made by the president of the United States to eliminate Cuba from a list that it never should have been included on, especially considering our country has been the victim of hundreds of acts of terrorism that have cost 3,478 lives and maimed 2,099 citizens," she said.
For decades, the United States has supported anti-Castro militants who have carried out airline bombings, assassinations, attacks on hotels. In 1976, militants blew up a Cubana Airlines flight, killing all 73 people on board. The mastermind of the attack was a CIA operative named Luis Posada Carriles, who’s still living in Florida.
While Cuba is being removed from the terrorism list, the trade embargo remains in effect. Since 1962, companies have been banned from doing business with Cuba.
To talk more about the thawing of U.S.-Cuba relations, we go directly to Havana, Cuba, where we’re joined by the former Cuban diplomat, Carlos Alzugaray Treto. He served as ambassador to Belgium and Luxembourg, and head of the Cuban Mission to the European Union. He’s also taught at the University of Havana and serves on the editorial board of Temas, a leading journal of social sciences and the humanities.
We welcome you to Democracy Now! Can you start off by talking about the announcement that Cuba will be taken off the U.S. terrorism list? What is your response?
CARLOS ALZUGARAY TRETO: Amy, thank you for having me. I think this is a major step by President Obama. I think it is probably the major step in concrete acts that he has taken since he announced his decision, together with President Raúl Castro, to normalize the relation. We can say that this is a first step to normal relations, taking Cuba out of a list where Cuba shouldn’t have been, never. I mean, in 1982, when Cuba was included in the list, it was a Reagan administration searching for some kind of excuse to attack Cuba. As a matter of fact, Secretary of State Alexander Haig said at the time that they wanted to go to the sources. Now we know he told President Reagan in private, "Give me the order, Mr. President, and I will turn Cuba into a parking lot."
So, this is fair that this is being done, but it opens the way for the re-establishment of diplomatic relations and the opening of embassies. It’s not—there are still some small steps that have to be taken, like, for example, facilitating that the future Cuban Embassy in Washington and the mission at the United Nations can have a bank with which to deal, which has been something that over the last two years has been a problem, and also the question of what’s going to be the embassy in Havana going to do. An embassy in Cuba is a problem, because American embassies sometimes tend to interfere in the internal affairs of the countries to which they are accredited, something that they shouldn’t do. So, obviously, we have to still work on a lot of things, but I think this is a big step. We are moving forward. And hopefully we will have diplomatic relations and eventually walk the path, the long path, towards normalization.
AMY GOODMAN: And what about the embargo? While Cuba is being taken off of the U.S. terrorism list, the embargo is not being lifted. Can you talk about the significance this has had on the people of Cuba?
CARLOS ALZUGARAY TRETO: Oh, it’s a major problem for Cuba. President Raúl Castro mentioned it at the summit. And, in fact, President Obama recognized that the embargo had caused suffering. Remember, when the embargo was established in 1962, the logic behind it was really clear in a document from the State Department that basically said we have to bring—to put sanctions in place that will bring about hunger, desperation and the overthrow of the Cuban government. So, the embargo has been there to cause us damage, and it has. It has been very difficult for Cuba, for example, to acquire medical equipments in different—even not only in the United States, but in different countries, because sometimes the companies that sell those equipments are subsidiaries of American companies. It is a long list. We suffer the embargo. And hopefully it will be totally lifted.
Right now, President Obama, he has been the first president who actually said the embargo has failed. I would have liked him to add, "And it is wrong that we had an embargo on a small neighbor." But, well, OK, I’ll take it. And then, he obviously is interested in lifting it, which is only fair. I mean, there shouldn’t be, between two neighborly countries who have so much in common, this kind of relationship, which are basically dependent on unilateral actions by the United States. And this is one of the big problems that we face.
AMY GOODMAN: At a business forum alongside Summit of the Americas, Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg mentioned plans to spread the social network into Cuba.
MARK ZUCKERBERG: Now, there are some countries that don’t have open econmic policies today and where it’s not possible for us to operate. But, you know, one day, as Cuba starts opening up, it will be something that we might consider over time, and it definitely fits within our mission. But I just don’t have much more specifically to say about that today.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg. Can you talk about the significance of what he said, Carlos Alzugaray, as well as the other companies that are pushing for a lifting of the embargo—I mean, not to mention the U.S. Chamber of Commerce?
CARLOS ALZUGARAY TRETO: Well, the embargo has been one of the most important obstacles in the way of connecting Cuba to the Internet. It’s not the only one, of course, but it is a very important one, because it makes it very expensive for the government to develop the necessary infrastructure to produce it. The government has said, and it’s the official policy of the Cuban government, to bring Internet to everyone at an affordable price. It’s going to be difficult. It’s going to be a tough way to do it. But, obviously, the political will of the Cuban government is there. Now, the problem is: Can we connect, for example, to the cables that pass close to Cuba which connect the rest of the Americas? We haven’t been able to do that, and then we are forbidden to have access to the technologies that exist in the United States.
So—but let me tell you, social networking is increasing in Cuba. I, myself, have a Facebook account, a Twitter account. I know a lot of my colleagues who have it. We need to have a better access, but there is no prohibition or censorship in what we do in the social networks. And that’s increasing at a very fast rate. It should increase at a faster rate. So, I like what Mr. Zuckerberg—his intention of facilitating the steps. Let’s work on it. But the embargo has to be lifted so that we can work on that as best we can.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to break, but when we come back, I want to ask you, Dr. Carlos Alzugaray, about why you think President Obama has made this decision, why U.S. policy is thawing towards Cuba for the first time in 50 years. We’ll be back with the former Cuban diplomat, as we speak to him in Havana, Cuba, in a moment.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: We’re speaking to Dr. Carlos Alzugaray Treto, a former Cuban diplomat who served as ambassador to Belgium and Luxembourg, head of the Cuban Mission to the European Union, scholar and writer and former Havana University professor. I wanted to ask you why President Obama, you believe, made this decision. Do you think pressure from other Latin American countries played a role? Benjamin Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, said, "Our Cuba policy, instead of isolating Cuba, was isolating the United States in our own backyard." Can you talk more about this?
CARLOS ALZUGARAY TRETO: Well, I think basically what Mr. Rhodes said is right. Cuba has a relation with most countries in the world. Recently, for example, the Solomon Islands opened an embassy in Cuba. The Solomon Islands, a small country in the Pacific who might probably have five or 10 embassies and opens an embassy in Havana, this is a signal of how out of step the policy of the United States towards Cuba was. The United Nations has condemned the embargo for—since 1992; it’s every year. So, I think it made sense.
And I think President Obama, besides what Mr. Rhodes said—obviously, the international community, and specifically the Latin American and Caribbean region, had been saying, "You have to fix the relation with Cuba; otherwise, the relation with us won’t be better." And it has been a problem, even with relation with allies of the United States, like the European Union, like Canada. But I think President Obama is a person who, in the past, when—in 2004, as a senator, he spoke against the embargo. In 2008, during the presidential campaign, he said he was ready to talk to Raúl Castro. In 2009, already president, at the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago, he said he wanted a new beginning. So I think he had it in his mind to do it. But, of course, the problem in the United States system was that this small minority of right-wing Cuban Americans and other conservatives were blocking him by—by, one might say, political terrorism, basically, political terrorism tactics. So I think he realized that it was arriving to the last two years of his presidency, and he hadn’t moved in the direction that he wanted.
At the same time, the Latin American and Caribbean countries had said at the summit of Cartagena in 2012, "If Cuba is not present at the summit of Panama in 2015, we are not going." So here you had the United States facing a major diplomatic setback, because the Summit of the Americas process was created by the administration of President Clinton back in 1994. So, you had a number of things. And it was obvious that the policy was wrong, was not getting anywhere. Most people recognized that it was—it had failed. President Clinton, himself, in private, had said so. So, I think he actually did something that was right and was the correct thing to do.
AMY GOODMAN: So, Dr. Alzugaray, talk about the substance of the meeting between the two leaders, between President Obama and President Raúl Castro. Again, they were meeting for the first time in more than half a century, a U.S. and a Cuban leader, since President Eisenhower met with Batista.
CARLOS ALZUGARAY TRETO: Well, that’s two different—two different meetings. I am surprised that people compare them. I mean, in 1956, when President Eisenhower met with Batista, Batista was what FDR said once of the Nicaraguan dictator, "You’re a SOB," the SOB that had been serving the purposes of Cuba. So that meeting didn’t have a really real significance, because it was the hegemon talking to the guy who was representing U.S. interests in Cuba at the time.
This was, the conversation between Raúl Castro and Barack Obama, was a conversation among equals. And this is very important. For Cubans, it is very significant that the president of the United States did what he promised, by the way, in the election of—in the campaign of 2008, which was talking to our president in respectful terms. And I see a movement in that direction. I think—whenever I have been asked in the past, "What do you want from the United States?" is respect—I answer, "Respect." Well, this is it. President Obama is treating the Cuban president with respect, and I think the spirit of that was very well—has been well signaled by President Raúl Castro. He said, "We want a civilized relationship where we learn the art of accepting our differences."
And as a matter of fact, there are a number of regions in which Cuba and the United States can cooperate for the benefit of both countries—on counternarcotics; on protection of marine life; on environment; on cooperation on disaster or cooperation, for example, of—demonstration of what both countries did on Ebola in Africa. We can have a good relationship even if we have differences, if we do what both presidents are signaling they want to do. They want to cooperate on those issues that are of common interest, and then try to contain the differences to the reasonable, civilized level. People should talk to each other about their differences.
AMY GOODMAN: Last—
CARLOS ALZUGARAY TRETO: And I think that’s what they are signaling. And hopefully—yeah, sorry, I get a little bit passionate about these issues.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, last week in Panama at the summit, Cuban delegates protested over reports that former CIA-backed paramilitary officer Félix Rodríguez, who was sent to kill Che Guevara in Bolivia in 1967, was meeting with opposition groups in Panama City. The last picture of Che Guevara alive has Félix Rodríguez standing next to him. What is your understanding of this?
CARLOS ALZUGARAY TRETO: Well, it was obvious, an insult for Cuba to have a guy like Félix Rodríguez, who was a CIA operative, who actually was present when Che Guevara was murdered. And, well, the versions are different. Somebody said that he gave the order. Somebody said that he actually shot Che Guevara after he had been killed. This is a very significant thing for Cubans. It’s an insult to us. It’s a humiliation that the organizers at Panama accepted that this guy should be there. It was a clear provocation. And as Eusebio Leal, one of Cuba’s most significant intellectuals, the historian of the city of Havana, said, it’s like throwing mud into our faces. So, the reaction of our people in Panama may be a little bit over the top, but it’s perfectly understandable when you realize what the presence of this guy—this guy represented everything that the United States did against Cuba in the ’60s, that persecution of Che Guevara. Anyone who knows how the United States intelligence agencies persecuted Che Guevara until they got him killed can—must feel very bad about what happened.
AMY GOODMAN: On Tuesday, Republican presidential candidate Senator Marco Rubio blasted the Obama administration’s plan to remove Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.
SEN. MARCO RUBIO: Well, the decision made by the White House today is a terrible one, but not surprising, unfortunately. Cuba is a sponsor of terrorism. They harbor fugitives of American justice, including someone who killed a police officer in New Jersey over 30 years ago. It’s also the country that’s helping North Korea evade weapons sanctions by the United Nations. They should have remained on the list of state sponsors of terrorism. And I think it sends a chilling message to our enemies abroad that this White House is no longer seriously—serious about calling terrorism by its proper name.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who himself is Cuban-American. He has just announced for president of the United States, throwing his hat into the Republican primary. Your response to this, Dr. Carlos Alzugaray?
CARLOS ALZUGARAY TRETO: Well, in the first place, Mr. Rubio is not Cuban-America. He was not born in Cuba. He is the son of Cuban immigrants, and he doesn’t know anything about Cuba.
Secondly, he should worry about having terrorists, a terrorist like Luis Posada Carriles, living in Miami. He has the terrorism not 90 miles from Florida; he has it, one, in Miami. He doesn’t complain.
And, you know, he’s lying. He’s basically lying, saying that—all these things that he said. Cuba has never—Cuba has been the victim of terrorist attacks. And that should worry—if he is really Cuban-American, he should be worried about that. He claims to know Cuba. He doesn’t know anything about Cuba. And I think, at the same time, he—I believe he said a few months ago, at the beginning in December, that even if 99 percent of the people were for normalization of relations, he would be against it. Is that democratic? Is that a sign of being a democrat? I don’t think so. I think he is—and the other thing, I might add, he is accusing Hillary Clinton of being someone from the past, and he is repeating accusations and allegations, not proven, by the way, from the past. Come on. Come on. That’s crazy.
AMY GOODMAN: Will Cuba be calling for the extradition of Luis Posada Carriles, who lives in Florida? And for an audience in the United States who doesn’t know who he is, if you could explain, Dr. Alzugaray?
CARLOS ALZUGARAY TRETO: Well, he is the guy who was behind the bombing of a Cubana Airlines plane in 1976. He said so to Ann Louise Bardach at The New York Times. He said, "I am not sorry." He was behind the bombings of Havana hotels in 1997. He tried to bomb the University of Panama because Fidel Castro was talking there. He has been arrested and convicted in Venezuela and Panama. This guy is a terrorist, no doubt about it, and the U.S. government knows that he’s a terrorist. There are even documents of the Justice Department accepting that. And yet, he is free in Miami. This guy simply shouldn’t be on the streets. He should pay for everything that he has done. What was the second part of your question about Posada Carriles?
AMY GOODMAN: Would Cuba call for his extradition?
CARLOS ALZUGARAY TRETO: Oh, yes, the extradition thing. Well, we have let Venezuela ask for the extradition, because in Venezuela he was actually tried and convicted for the Cubana bombing of 1976. By the way, that process was the result of a common investigation between Cuba, Barbados, Guyana and Venezuela. And it was not the Venezuela of Hugo Chávez; it was the Venezuela of Carlos Andrés Pérez. And they found him guilty. But he got out of jail. In 1999, he was convicted in Panama. And later, President Mireya Moscoso, who has been receiving money from Miami, pardoned him. This guy shouldn’t be on the street. He’s a danger, even though he’s very old now. But obviously, he has not paid for his crimes. He cold-bloodedly murdered Cubans, and he’s simply around. And he laughs about that. It’s terrible. It’s something that is—it gets you very mad that a guy like this has been protected by the United States.
AMY GOODMAN: So, what will normalization look like? What—on the ground, what kind of difference will it make for the Cuban people? What are we going to see over the next months?
CARLOS ALZUGARAY TRETO: Well, Amy, this is not going to happen very quickly. There are a lot of things to solve—the embargo being one; the old policy of subversion that the U.S. government has in place, including, for example, the transmissions, the TV transmissions of Tele Martí and Radio Martí, which are propaganda stations in the Cuba, that nobody sees or watches in Cuba, and unfortunately the American taxpayer pays.
There is a question of Guantánamo. We want Guantánamo back. We want the territory. We are ready to talk with the United States about how can we get Guantánamo back, even with an American presence in Guantánamo. In the 1970s, during the Carter administration, we started to negotiate that, and the Americans said, not without reason, that they wanted some guarantees that Cuba would not hand the base to the Soviets. And we said, "OK, let’s establish there a research center for tropical disease, manned together by Cuban and American health workers under Pan American Health Organization sponsorship." And the American side said that that is a great idea.
So, as you can see, we can turn these bad things into good things. President Raúl Castro said the other day in Panama, "We can disagree today on something, and maybe next week we will agree." I think the most important thing is that we are talking to each other. It’s going to be a long way, because these are—there are all these issues. There is the Cuban Adjustment Act, that is—that is a stimulus for a brain drain from Cuba, and we want that repealed. As a matter of fact, in 1994, 1995, when we negotiated that with the American—with the Clinton administration, it was agreed that the United States will try to get the Cuban Adjustment Act repealed. That’s the act that allows Cubans to stay in the United States, a privilege that nobody else has. So, there are also many issues that have to be discussed. Eventually, we should have trade, maybe a large trade. We can export a lot of things to the United States. We can import a lot of things from the United States.
But I think the most important thing will be tourism. What I have seen shows that probably there is a market for about three million, five million Americans to come to Cuba. It is a challenge, a big challenge. We are getting right now two million tourists, mainly from Canada. Canada is our best market. So, three or five million Americans coming to Cuba, that’s going to be interesting. That’s going to be very significant. Raúl Castro, himself, he said, "We are looking forward to our people visiting each other." I, myself, have a daughter and two grandsons in New York, so I would like to see more connection, more interconnection, to flights to be cheaper, visas to be easier, so that we can connect between the two countries. I think this will be a great thing, even though I am aware of the problems of tourism. Tourism can be a problem, but if we handle correctly—Americans want to come to Cuba. That’s my experience with the ones that I am talking to now. They want to come to Cuba to see our culture, to see the places that they have read in history books. They have read in history books about San Juan Hill and the Battle for Santiago de Cuba. Well, they could come and visit San Juan Hill and see everything that is there. By the way, they will know that there were three armies in San Juan Hill—the Cuban army, the American army and the Spanish army. And Santiago de Cuba is a beautiful city. I believe that most Americans will be very happy with that.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Carlos Alzugaray Treto, we thank you for being with us, former Cuban diplomat who served as Cuban ambassador to Belgium and Luxembourg, head of the Cuban Mission to the European Union. He’s a scholar and writer, former Havana University professor, speaking to us from Havana, Cuba.
This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. When we come back, we’ll talk about the issue of police brutality, mass protest around the country yesterday. We’ll talk with the head of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Khalil Muhammad. Stay with us.
Protests were held from coast to coast on Tuesday in a day of action against police violence and racial profiling. The protests came as the sheriff’s reserve deputy, who fatally shot Eric Harris in Oklahoma, turned himself in to authorities. Robert Bates said he thought he was using his Taser instead of his gun when he killed Harris earlier this month. Bates is a wealthy insurance executive and heavy donor to the Tulsa Police Department, who gets to volunteer on the force as a reserve. Meanwhile, the South Carolina police officer charged with murder for fatally shooting Walter Scott will probably not face the death penalty if he is convicted. Prosecutors say Michael Slager would still be eligible for a sentence of life in prison. We are joined by Khalil Muhammad, author of "The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America," and director of the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: On Tuesday, protests were held from coast to coast in the United States in a day of action against police violence and racial profiling. The protests came as the sheriff’s reserve deputy who fatally shot Eric Harris in Tulsa, Oklahoma, turned himself in to authorities. Robert Bates said he thought he was using his Taser instead of his gun when he killed Harris earlier this month. Video of the incident was released over the weekend. Major Shannon Clark of the Tulsa County Sheriff’s office said the shooting was a mistake.
MAJ. SHANNON CLARK: Mr. Harris fled. He disobeyed the orders of law enforcement. He attempted to flee from capture. And when he was attempting to be subdued and still in a ground combat with deputies, this Deputy Bates approached, and he attempted to use a less lethal device. Inadvertently, he used his handgun instead.
AMY GOODMAN: Robert Bates has been charged with second-degree manslaughter. He was released on $25,000 bond. If convicted, he faces a maximum of four years in prison, a fine of $1,000. On Tuesday, Andre Harris, questioned the police version of his brother Eric’s death.
ANDRE HARRIS: If he had as much training as he supposedly had, he would definitely know a .357 from a Taser. He didn’t have to. This is something that either he didn’t really think about, or he just—he just decided that he just wanted to shoot, and he would worry about it later.
AMY GOODMAN: Robert Bates is a wealthy insurance executive and heavy donor to the Tulsa Police Department who gets to volunteer on the force as a reserve. Meanwhile, authorities said the South Carolina police officer charged with murder for fatally shooting Walter Scott will probably not face the death penalty if he’s convicted. Prosecutors say Michael Slager would still be eligible for a sentence of life in prison. On Tuesday, several members of Congress took to the House floor to denounce police misconduct. Georgia Congressman Hank Johnson called for congressional action.
REP. HANK JOHNSON: It feels like open season on black men in America, and I’m outraged. In fact, all Americans are at risk when bad actors in law enforcement use their guns instead of their heads. Despite bipartisan, nationwide calls for action, and despite my bills to reform the broken grand jury process, hold police accountable and end militarization, and despite my colleagues’ bills to encourage body cameras, this Congress does nothing—no hearings, no blue ribbon commissions, no nothing.
I would like unanimous consent to enter this list of people killed by the police into the record so my colleagues will no longer ignore this crisis. Mr. Speaker, here are just a few names of our colleagues and neighbors and relatives: Walter Scott from North Carolina; Michael Brown from Missouri; Anthony Hill from Georgia; Tony Robinson from Wisconsin; Kevin Davis from Georgia; Nicholas Thomas, Georgia; Daniel Elrod, Nebraska; Antonio Zambrano-Montes, Washington; David Kassick of Pennsylvania; Jessica Hernandez, Colorado; Kevin Davis, Georgia; Dennis Grigsby, Texas; Rumain Brisbon, Phoenix; Tamir Rice, Ohio; Akai Gurley, New York; Carlos Perez, Nevada; Kajieme Powell, Missouri; Ezell Ford, California; Dylan Taylor, Utah; John Crawford III of Ohio; Naeschylus Vinzant of Colorado; Charly Leundeu Keunang of California. And the list goes on.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Georgia Democratic Congressmember Hank Johnson speaking on the floor of the House of Representatives.
For more, we’re joined by Khalil Muhammad, author of the book, The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America. He’s director of the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, also a visiting professor at the CUNY Graduate Center.
Welcome to Democracy Now! It’s great to have you with us, Khalil.
KHALIL MUHAMMAD: Thank you, Amy.
AMY GOODMAN: Hank Johnson, what he just said, this litany of names?
KHALIL MUHAMMAD: Reminds me of the roll call of the annual almanac of lynching victims. Tuskegee Institute, now University, used to publish it every year. And their primary goal was to acknowledge and provide data for the evidence of the unjustness and the lives taken by vigilantes, as well as state actors, every year, year after year, decade after decade. And so, here we are again, nearly a hundred years after the lynching era began, and we are faced with the same crisis, because we’ve not dealt with the underlying issues.
AMY GOODMAN: That connection that you see—you know, Bryan Stevenson just did a big report on lynching in America. What are the connections that you see? I mean, we’re talking about police in the United States.
KHALIL MUHAMMAD: Yeah, so most of the lynching era turned on both the personal responsibility of the individual who was lynched, their alleged criminality, and in some cases, their actual criminality. And in every instance, the mob was kind of an unfortunate response. It was a set of individual actors who took the law into their own hands. The system was never on trial in the way that it should have been, except for African Americans who led anti-lynching campaigns. In 1934, for example, Howard University students, as members of the NAACP, protested outside of the White House. Then, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, his attorney general had a National Commission on Crime. And for them, if they were having a national conversation about crime in America, which was ostensibly about bank robbers, should have also been about lynch mobs, and it wasn’t. And they pointed out then, in our contemporary moment about Black Lives Matter, that black lives do matter, and those students stood there with nooses around their neck to indicate this. There is no question that the failures of the lynching era were the failures to take systematic account that Jim Crow America legitimated the kinds of actions that we saw time and time again.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you not only about the shooter in the case of Michael Slager in South Carolina, or in the case of Robert Bates, who is 73 years old. And, by the way, The Daily Beast has an interesting piece on him. You know, he’s 73 years old. "Hours before the Tulsa County district attorney charged Bates with second-degree manslaughter ... Sheriff Stanley Glanz defended the deputy ... his longtime friend [who] served as his insurance agent and onetime election campaign chair. ... Glanz also showed a Tulsa World reporter cellphone photos of him fishing with Bates, a millionaire insurance executive. [He said, 'We] both love to fish. ... Is it wrong to have a friend?' Still, former officers with the sheriff’s department told The Daily Beast that Bates was a 'pay to play' policeman. The businessman donated thousands of dollars worth of vehicles and equipment to the force."
Now, when he shot and killed Eric Harris, he said, "I shot him. I’m sorry." After that, the police have him down. They are handcuffing him on the ground. And as he says that he can’t breathe, one of them says, "F— your breath."
KHALIL MUHAMMAD: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: So they know that he has been shot with a real gun. It’s not just the shooter. What about the other police officers? Same with Eric Garner. There’s the one who put him in a chokehold, Daniel Pantaleo—
KHALIL MUHAMMAD: Sure.
AMY GOODMAN: —but then there’s all the others that are holding him down.
KHALIL MUHAMMAD: Well, I think it’s the culture, right? So, again, we want to either talk about rotten apples, in the case of Mr. Bates, who is the shooter, but we ignore, as you just pointed out, that the space in which policing happens is a space that looks much more like how we treat enemy combatants. If you’re an occupying army, then the rules of engagement are such that any perceived threat is a legitimate response for execution. We have police officers who not only are judge, jury and executioner, but also celebrate victory in the annihilation of people who have posed an ostensible threat to them. So, we really have to look at the contradiction between the coziness of an individual who pays to be on the police force and the total alienation of the police from the members of the community that they are there to protect and serve. That gap has grown greater than it has ever been.
AMY GOODMAN: Khalil, what do you think needs to happen?
KHALIL MUHAMMAD: Well, I think that, as so many have called for, we have to get past this need for commissions and data analysis, and really transform our political culture that makes this OK. We have a problem in America where majoritarian rule simply says that the 14th Amendment, that was established to protect black lives—not all lives; the 14th Amendment, that gave us civil rights, was established to protect black lives. If we don’t teach that and come to terms with that in our political culture, then we’re stuck with a generation after generation wrestling with this. There are no shortcuts to that. So that is political work, that is educational work. And we absolutely need to hold all police actors accountable for the crimes that they commit when they engage in criminal behavior.
AMY GOODMAN: Right now you have the protests that are taking place around the country. A number of people were arrested, feeling that there is no accountability. The issue of studies, even knowing who is killed by police in this country—often those who defend the police say, "We don’t even have figures on this." Is that an actual defense?
KHALIL MUHAMMAD: Well, it’s not a defense because, again, the search and chase for data, if we start to collect it, then people will—our criminologists and others and our state officials will say, "Well, last year, we saw a 5 percent reduction in police killings." So, on one hand, it seems commonsensical that we should know this number, and the fact that we don’t is evidence of the ideology that tells us what’s important and what’s not. But at the same time, once we establish it, then we’ll be debating whether there was a 5 percent increase or a 5 percent reduction, which, frankly, won’t change the underlying problem.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we are going to continue this discussion. And, Khalil Muhammad, I want to thank you for being with us, director of the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, author of The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America.
Protests are being held across the country today in what organizers call the "largest-ever mobilization of underpaid workers." Fast-food workers in 230 cities are walking off the job as part of the "Fight for $15" campaign, a push for a $15-an-hour minimum wage and the right to form a union. Hundreds of workers in Boston held their action one day early in deference to today’s anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombings. We hear from some of the workers who kicked off the day of protest this morning at a McDonald’s in New York City.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We move right now, speaking of protests, to just what has happened in the last few hours. Fast-food workers in 230 cities are walking off the job as part of the Fight for $15 and a Union campaign, a push for a $15-an-hour minimum wage. Organizers are calling it the "largest-ever mobilization of underpaid workers." Protests began this morning in Brooklyn, New York, outside a McDonald’s, just after 6:00 a.m.
PROTESTER: Are we ready to fight?
PROTESTERS: Yes!
PROTESTER: Are we ready to fight?
PROTESTERS: Yeah!
ASHLEY: Fifteen and a union!
PROTESTERS: Hey!
ASHLEY: No music!
PROTESTERS: Hey!
ASHLEY: Fifteen and a union!
PROTESTERS: Hey!
ASHLEY: Good morning, everybody. My name is Ashley, and I work at McDonald’s. Today, we have fast-food workers in 200 cities, 40 countries, and we also have strikers outside of the United States in Italy striking with us today.
KATHERINE CRUZ: My name is Katherine Cruz. I work at McDonald’s. And I’m here to fight for 15, for what we deserve. We’ve been working for 8.75, and it’s not enough to live off of. And we work really hard to make 8.75 and not be able to live. I feel like we should all—not only McDonald’s, not only fast-food workers—everyone that lives off minimum wage should make more, so we can all support our families, support ourselves.
PROTESTERS: We want justice and power and 15 an hour! We want justice and power and 15 an hour!
JAMES LANE: My name is James Lane, and I’m the Green Party candidate for District 11 in New York, and I’m here today in downtown Brooklyn supporting the 15 Now movement. Right now, the richest executives in this country are saying that they can’t afford to pay 15 now, when what they make in a single day is what they’re paying their workers for a whole year. And it’s just not right. We need to make some serious changes in this country. I’m running for a Green New Deal. I want to create public jobs and a living wage. And we think this can be done in this country, if we just stop the greed. This cycle of greed that goes on in this country has to end today. And that’s why I’m here supporting this movement.
PROTESTER: Whose city?
PROTESTERS: Our city!
PROTESTER: Whose city?
PROTESTERS: Our city!
CHAZ MACKEVICH: My name’s Chaz Mackevich [phon.]. We’re just fighting for workers’ wages out here, all workers—fast-food workers, construction workers, laundry workers—all workers. Workers are getting screwed in this country, and we can’t have that. We’ve got to stick together and get better wages, better living conditions, better life. Too many rich people not sharing the wealth. And we’re just working hard. We want our fair share, that’s all.
AMY GOODMAN: Some of the protesters outside a McDonald’s in Brooklyn. Fast-food workers in 230 cities are walking off the job as part of the Fight for $15 and a Union campaign, a push for a $15-an-hour minimum wage. Organizers are calling it the "largest-ever mobilization of underpaid workers."
Headlines:
Congress to Have Say in Iran Deal After Obama Backs Down
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has approved a measure that would give Congress a say in the final nuclear deal with Iran. The bill was passed by unanimous vote after President Obama withdrew his opposition. The White House says the bill was sufficiently modified to address its concerns, but the bill’s sponsors say the administration backed down rather than face a bipartisan rebuke. The measure calls for a Senate review of a final nuclear deal and a potential congressional vote on lifting sanctions. If Congress votes to reject the Iran deal, the Senate would need a 67-vote majority to overturn a veto from President Obama. Senator Bob Corker outlined the terms.
Sen. Bob Corker: "Congress stays involved if an agreement is reached. And if one is not disapproved, Congress stays involved. And every 90 days, the administration has to certify that, in every way, Iran is in compliance. And if there are violations within a 10-day period, they have to give that to Congress, so that we have the ability, if we wish, to quickly reapply the sanctions that, if a deal is approved, would be alleviated."
The full Senate is expected to approve the measure when it takes it up later this month. If Obama cannot override a veto of a measure rejecting the deal, he could become the only leader involved unable to fully honor the pledges made.
Obama to Remove Cuba from List of State Sponsors of Terrorism
President Obama has told Congress he will remove Cuba from a U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, clearing a main obstacle to restoring diplomatic relations with Havana. Obama’s move came just days after he and Cuban President Raúl Castro sat down at a summit in Panama for the first meeting of its kind in half a century. Cuba was placed on the terrorism list in 1982 at a time when Havana was supporting liberation struggles in Africa and Latin America. Once Cuba is officially removed from the list in 45 days, Iran, Sudan and Syria will be the only countries remaining.
U.N. Security Council Imposes Arms Embargo on Houthis in Yemen
The U.N. Security Council has passed a resolution imposing an arms embargo on Houthi rebels in Yemen. U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power said the measure targets those stoking Yemen’s violence.
Samantha Power: "The United States strongly supports the adoption of today’s resolution, which imposes consequences on the Houthi and former President Saleh, demands that the Houthi cease military operations, and calls on all sides to once again return to the negotiating table. The imposition of a global asset freeze and travel ban on Ahmed Ali Saleh and Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, as well as a targeted arms embargo, shows that this council will take action against those who continue to undermine efforts toward reconciliation."
Several Yemen analysts say the measure could intensify the siege of Yemen, which has choked off its economy and denied vital supplies to a country in crisis.
U.N. Warns of Civilian Toll in Saudi, Houthi Attacks; U.S. Increases Intelligence Sharing
The measure adopts no restrictions on the military campaign led by Saudi Arabia, and excludes an initial Russian proposal for a humanitarian pause in the Saudi-led strikes. According to U.N. figures, at least 364 civilians have been killed and more than 680 wounded since the Saudi strikes began three weeks ago. Both the strikes and Houthi rebel attacks have been blamed. On Tuesday, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights warned that both sides may have committed war crimes, and urged Saudi Arabia to avoid bombing civilians and public infrastructure. The Saudi-led strikes have hit hospitals, schools, a refugee camp and several neighborhoods. According to The Wall Street Journal, U.S. officials have privately voiced concerns to Saudi counterparts about civilian casualties and the operation’s broader aims. But they have also increased support for the strikes in recent days, "providing them with direct targeting support for sites the kingdom wants to bomb."
U.S. Drone Strike Reportedly Kills AQAP Leader in Yemen
In the other news from Yemen, the group al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula says one its senior leaders has died in a U.S. drone strike. Ibrahim al-Rubaish, a top Saudi figure in AQAP and a former Guantánamo Bay prisoner, was reportedly killed on Sunday. Al-Rubaish had a $5 million bounty on his head.
Study: U.S. Drone Strikes Continue to Claim Civilian Lives in Yemen
The latest U.S. drone strike comes as a new study by the Open Society Justice Foundation has found that these strikes have killed Yemeni civilians, despite President Obama’s vow to launch attacks only if there is "near certainty" no innocents will be harmed. Abdulrasheed al-Faqih, the report’s co-author, said: "In incident after incident, eye-witnesses told us of watching civilians being burned alive, or of losing parents, siblings and children in U.S. drone strikes. Civilians wanted to know why they had been targeted when they were not affiliated with al-Qaeda. They wanted justice."
Aid Groups Seek Global Effort to End Israeli Blockade of Gaza
A coalition of 45 aid groups is appealing for global pressure to end the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip. The Association of International Development Agencies says reconstruction is barely underway on the thousands of homes destroyed in last summer’s six-week Israeli assault. Meanwhile, living conditions have only worsened as Israel continues the siege and foreign aid is at a trickle. Just 26 percent of $3.5 billion pledged at a donors’ conference in October has arrived. The groups say that without open borders and a durable Israel-Hamas ceasefire, "a return to conflict — and the cycles of damage and donor-funded reconstruction that accompany it — is inevitable."
Egyptian Court Sentences 14 to Death, American to Life
An Egyptian court has confirmed the death sentences of 14 people, including Mohammed Badie, leader of the Muslim Brotherhood. Badie has been sentenced to death before, with those sentences later reduced to life imprisonment. The court also sentenced American citizen Mohamed Soltan to life in prison on charges of supporting the Brotherhood and transmitting false news. The defendants were tried for events surrounding the Rabaa massacre of August 2013, when Egyptian forces killed hundreds of protesters opposing a military coup. The verdicts will be appealed to Egypt’s highest civilian court. They come just two weeks after the Obama administration lifted a freeze on military aid to the Egyptian regime. In a statement, the White House condemned Soltan’s life sentence and demanded his immediate release.
9-Year-Old Victim Reportedly Pregnant After Rape in ISIS Captivity
A nine-year-old girl is reportedly pregnant after being gang-raped in captivity by the militant group Islamic State in Iraq. The girl is one of more than 200 Yazidi Christians released by ISIS last week. She has been flown to Germany for medical treatment. Aid workers say she is so young, she could die if she delivers the baby.
Clinton Backs Constitutional Amendment on Campaign Finance
Hillary Rodham Clinton has kicked off her bid for the Democratic presidential nomination with her first formal campaigning in Iowa. Outlining her agenda, Clinton told supporters she backs a constitutional amendment to get "unaccountable money" out of politics.
Hillary Rodham Clinton: "We need to build the economy of tomorrow, not yesterday. We need to strengthen families and communities, because that’s where it all starts. We need to fix our dysfunctional political system and get unaccountable money out of it once and for all, even if that takes a constitutional amendment. And we need to protect our country from the threats that we see and the ones that are on the horizon. So I’m here in Iowa to begin a conversation about how we do that."
2 Charged for Sexual Assault on Crowded Florida Beach
Two college students have been charged for a sexual assault that Florida police say was witnessed in broad daylight, but that no one tried to stop. Cellphone video shows the suspects surrounding an incapacitated woman on a crowded beach filled with college students on their spring break. Police say the victim was then gang-raped while a large crowd stood around. A third suspect is being sought. The woman says she believes she was drugged and does not remember the incident.
Former Educators Sentenced for Atlanta School Cheating Scandal
Former educators in Atlanta, Georgia, have been given prison sentences of up to seven years for their roles in a massive cheating scandal at public schools. Prosecutors say teachers were forced to modify incorrect answers, and students were even allowed to fix their responses during exams. Twenty-one other defendants avoided trial with plea deals, but the nine sentenced to jail rejected sentencing agreements so they can appeal. It is said to be one of the largest school cheating scandals in U.S. history. Donald Bullock, an educator who reached a plea deal, apologized for his role.
Donald Bullock: "I, Donald Bullock, do hereby sincerely apologize to the students, my fellow staff members, parents and the Atlanta Public School System, as well as the greater metropolitan Atlanta community, for my involvement in the 2009 CRC Administration, resulting in cheating or other dysfunctional acts."
The case has fueled new scrutiny of the education system’s reliance on standardized testing, which critics say incentivizes cheating. According to The New York Times, "cheating has grown at school districts around the country as standardized testing has become a primary means of evaluating teachers, principals and schools."
New York Students Stage Mass Boycott of Standardized Tests
In a mass show of opposition to standardized testing, tens of thousands of parents in New York state had their children boycott the annual English Language Arts exam. The action is seen as a major challenge to the education agenda of Gov. Andrew Cuomo and to standardized testing nationwide.
World Bank Chief Calls for Carbon Tax; Harvard Sees Protests over Fossil Fuel Divestment
The head of the World Bank has endorsed calls for a carbon tax and an end to subsidies for fossil fuels. Speaking to The Guardian, Jim Yong Kim said poor countries are feeling "the boot of climate change on their neck," adding: "We need to get rid of fossil fuel subsidies now." This comes as students at Harvard University are holding "Harvard Heat Week," a bid to pressure the school to divest from the fossil fuel industry. Actions are taking place including an occupation of the Harvard Alumni Association and a blockade of administration buildings.
Dozens Arrested in Protests Against Police Violence, Racial Profiling
Protests have been held from coast to coast in a day of action against police violence and racial profiling. In New York City, some 250 people with the Stop Mass Incarceration Network marched across the Brooklyn Bridge.
Protester: "I just want to stop the police brutality against my Latinos and my black people, because 99 percent of the time the cops are in Bushwick, East New York, Harlem, everywhere, committing violence against Spanish people, black people. Well, we can’t have this, you know, because it’s like, why they gotta abuse us?"
Dozens of people were arrested as scuffles between demonstrators and police broke out and traffic was disrupted for several hours. Activists were also detained in Los Angeles after a large crowd blocked a Metro track during Tuesday rush hour. The protests follow the recent police killings of unarmed African Americans Walter Scott in South Carolina and Eric Harris in Oklahoma. Each incident was caught on video.
Fast-Food & Other Low-Wage Workers Stage Nationwide Day of Action
Protests are being held across the country today in what organizers call the "largest-ever mobilization of underpaid workers." Fast-food workers in 230 cities are walking off the job as part of the "Fight for $15" campaign, a push for a $15-an-hour minimum wage. Hundreds of workers in Boston held their action one day early in deference to today’s anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombings. In New York City, the day of protest kicked off this morning at a McDonald’s in Brooklyn. Students will also walk out at more than 200 schools in what is being described as the "biggest campus protests since the anti-apartheid movement." The students and fast-food workers will be joined by low-wage employees from other fields and businesses, including home care, child care, airport and Wal-Mart.
Study: Low Wages Force Reliance on Over $150 Billion in Public Assistance
Organizers say the actions are being held on Tax Day to highlight the public assistance needed to support underpaid workers. A new study says low wages are forcing working families to rely on more than $150 billion in public assistance. According to the University of California Center for Labor Research and Education, more than half of combined state and federal spending on public assistance goes to working families.
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