The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (MXGM) stands in solidarity with the Afro-Colombian community in support of the "No More Victims" March in Washington, D.C. Saturday, March 6, 2008. We condemn the systematic violence and displacement of Afro-descendent communities in Colombia at the hands of all the partisan parties – including government, paramilitary, and rebel forces – to the long-standing civil conflict in Colombia.

We are particularly sensitive to the issues of forced internal displacement taking place in the constitutionally recognized Afro-Colombian communities at the hands of the Uribe government and the paramilitary forces. We understand that these communities are being displaced as part of a program of ethnic cleansing to secure the strategic natural resources of the Afro-Colombian collective communities for private appropriation and profit realization on the world market. Our sensitivity grows from our own struggles against forced displacement and ethnic cleansing of majority Afro-descendent communities in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast states of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. We therefore stand opposed to the proposed Free Trade Agreement between the United States and the Uribe government and to US military initiatives like Plan Colombia, both of which underscore the displacement of Afro-Colombian communities.

The right of Afro-Colombian self-determination must be respected by all the forces of Colombian society and the Colombian government must do all it can to ensure that the human rights of Afro-Colombians, including observing the rights of internally displaced persons and the international covenants against structural racism that permeates Colombian society.

From one oppressed Afro-descendent community to another, the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement says, "Free the Land and Stop the Genocide of Afrikan peoples!"

Malcolm X Grassroots Movement
www.mxgm.org