Blood diamonds tour seeks indigenous control of diamonds and other resources

Dr. Aisha Fields, physicist, and Omavi Bailey, independent media activist, will tour the U.S. this spring, speaking to campus and community groups about the growing movement for African control over Africa’s vast natural resources. The “All Diamonds are Blood Diamonds” events follow on the heels of the Uhuru Movement’s 2006 tour of Africanist Movement leader Chernoh Alpha M. Bah, a former child soldier from Sierra Leone.

Author Penny Hess, “Overturning the Culture of Violence”, will join Bailey and Fields as a presenter at some of the events and teach-ins. The program utilizes dynamic multi-media presentations and expert testimony to show that even the so-called legitimate diamond trade is dripping in the blood of African people. They are calling for individuals to donate their diamonds and for corporations to relinquish profits from the diamond and other industries based in Africa’s resources, to be used to fund basic needs in Africa, such as clean water, electricity and health care.

Dr. Fields coordinates the All African People’s Development and Empowerment Projects, working with people throughout the African world to develop sustainable, renewable electrification and water purification programs in their communities. The projects seek to address the extreme poverty and lack of development in resource-rich parts of Africa like Sierra Leone. That country exported $141 million worth of diamonds in 2005, while diamond workers earn 30 cents or less per day, and whole communities face extreme poverty and early death.

Fields contends that, “Africa’s crisis cannot be cured through charity or ‘relief’ efforts. Only African workers ourselves, using Africa’s vast natural resources as our birthright, will solve Africa’s problems.”

Omavi Bailey agrees. Director of Burning Spear Media, a news and information service that presents the views and aspirations of African working people worldwide, he states, ‘“Blood diamonds did not begin or end with the civil war in Sierra Leone. The entire diamond industry is based in the colonial legacy of 500 years of European plunder of the African continent. It has enriched the Western world to the exact extent that it has impoverished African people.”

The “All Diamonds are Blood Diamonds” tour is sponsored by the Uhuru Movement, an organization that works to unite African people worldwide in a coordinated effort to regain control of Africa and its wealth.

For tour dates, locations and more information, visit http://www.burningspearuhuru.com or call (727) 894-6997.