YOUNG WINNIE‘S LIBERATION VISION

One of South Africa’s leading liberation icons, Winnie Mandela(1936-2018), died this week in 2018 (2 April). Mama Winnie’s life was marked by her commitment to the struggle against the brutal apartheid system in her homeland.

She became an anti-apartheid activist early in her life, long before she met her future husband and liberation-struggle leader, Nelson Mandela. She continued her activism after marrying Mandela in 1958. A few months after the wedding, she helped organise the 1958 Johannesburg protest against the racist, so-called ‘pass laws’ that restricted the movement of Black people. She and dozens of other women were arrested and detained for about two weeks. The apartheid regime also fired her from her job as a social worker at a government hospital.

Continued……However, this did not break her resolve - rather, it strengthened it. Following Nelson’s arrest in 1961 and subsequent imprisonment, Winnie remained a key figure in the liberation struggle and the campaign against the imprisonment of her husband and other political activists. This put her in the spotlight of the brutal apartheid ‘security’ system. The next three decades of Winnie’s life would be characterised by harassment and frequent arrests at the hands of the regime.

Not one to be deterred, Mama Winnie marched on in her quest to free her people from the yoke of apartheid. In this undated video, a young Winne Mandela explains her vision for a liberated, future South Africa.

Credit: Chris Austin

Sources

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/02/winnie-madikizela-mandela-obituary

VOA PROPAGANDA AGAINST AFRICAN STREAM

Unions representing Voice of America employees are suing the Trump administration for shutting down the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), the organization used by the government to fund VOA and other U.S. propaganda outlets.

In a 14 March executive order, Trump axed the USAGM for allegedly being a propaganda outlet.

Filed by journalists and their union in the New York Federal Court on 21 March, the lawsuit claims that Trump’s decision to turn off the tap funding VOA infringes upon their First Amendment right to free speech.

As a media organisation ourselves, we at African Stream strongly support freedom of speech and freedom of the press. However, in regards to VOA, we shed no tears. Effectively, VOA has been devoured by the beast they have fed and coddled for decades and one whose bidding they didn’t hesitate to fulfil.

Continued…….. In September 2024, reporting at the behest of imperialist powers led by the US, VOA targeted us with its venom. This real deal propaganda arm published two hit pieces that tried to portray African Stream as a foreign-funded propaganda outlet that was whitewashing terrorist organisations.

In an apparent, well-choreographed sequence of attacks, VOA’s unfounded allegations were soon followed by similar claims by the former US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Ultimately, African Stream was put on the chopping block, banned without prior notice from prominent social media platforms such as Google, Meta (Facebook, Instagram and Threads) and TiKTok.

In this video, produced just days after VOA’s slander against us and, consequently, the right of our viewers to be informed, we push back at their propagandistic report.


Sources

https://www.reuters.com/legal/voice-america-employees-sue-trump-administration-over-shuttered-us-funded-news-2025-03-21/

Today we commemorate Black Panther member Bobby Hutton, who was murdered in cold blood on 6 April 1968. Born Robert James Hutton in Jefferson County, Arkansas, on 21 April 1950, his family moved to California during the Great Migration, during which six million Black people moved from the US south to the North, fleeing racist acts of t*rrorism and legal discrimination. He became known as Lil’ Bobby after he became the very first recruit for the Black Panther Party for Self Defense (BPP) in Oakland, California. At the young age of 16, he served as the first treasurer of the revolutionary socialist Black Power organisation. He was murdered by Oakland Police officers just two days after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. He was just 17-years old when he was shot over twelve times by the officers. He had already stripped himself naked before them to prove that he was unarmed at the time of his murder.

Continued…. Hutton joined the Black Panther Party because he was committed to its 10-Point Programme which included demands such as,

“We Want Freedom. We Want Power to Determine the Destiny of Our Black Community,” “ We Want An End to the Robbery By the Capitalists of Our Black Community” and “We Want An Immediate End to Police Brutality and the Murder of Black People.”

Today, “Lil’ Bobby Hutton Day” has been commemorated every year in DeFremery Park, Oakland since 1998.

Did you know about the history of this young freedom fighter?

Sources

https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/hutton-bobby-1950-1968/

https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/murder-of-bobby-hutton/

https://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/migrations/great-migration

https://www.pbs.org/hueypnewton/people/people_hutton.html

https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/black-panther-party-ten-point-program-1966/

What’s a coup attempt worth these days? If you’re American, apparently, just your passport! President Felix Tshisekedi of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has commuted the death sentences of three U.S. citizens involved in a failed coup attempt last year, changing their sentences to life in prison. The decision was announced on 1 April 2025 by presidential spokesperson Tina Salam, 6 months after the US nationals, along with 34 others, were sentenced to death for “terrorism” and “criminal association.” The commutation came at a telling moment - as Congolese officials work on a minerals agreement with the US, aiming to secure support to combat M23 rebels in the troubled eastern region.

Continued……. The coup attempt, which occurred last May and was led by relatively unknown opposition figure Christian Malanga, resulted in the deaths of six people. Malanga and a group of armed associates targeted the presidential palace in Kinshasa and a close ally of Tshisekedi. Malanga was shot and killed while trying to evade capture shortly after he broadcast the attack live on social media, according to the Congolese military. Among those convicted for taking part in the coup was Malanga’s 21-year-old son, Marcel Malanga, who is also a US citizen.

Also convicted was Tyler Thompson Jr., 21, a high school friend of the younger Malanga, who claimed to have travelled from the U.S. state of Utah to DR Congo on the assumption that he was going on a free vacation, along with Benjamin Reuben Zalman-Polun, 36, who knew Christian Malanga through a gold mining venture. Most of those found guilty in the rebellion attempt were Congolese, but the group also included individuals from Britain, Belgium, and Canada.

In March 2024, the DRC announced it would resume executions, after a 20-year hiatus. On 5 January 2025, Justice Minister Constant Mutamba said that over 170 people, allegedly linked to criminal gangs known as “Kuluna” or “bandits”, were transferred from Kinshasa to Angenga prison for execution. So how do US coup plotters get life, while poor Congolese accused of banditry face the gallows?

Sources

https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/02/africa/americans-death-sentence-commuted-drc-intl/index.html https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/01/drc-president-tshisekedi-must-halt-plans-to-carry-out-mass-executions/

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/4/2/dr-congo-spares-three-convicted-us-coup-accomplices-of-capital-punishment

https://www.newsweek.com/trumps-mineral-deals-could-bring-peace-congo-opinion-2048698

BOY RECOUNTS HORRORS OF RSF OCCUPATION

In this video, filmed right after the liberation of Khartoum, a boy relates what life was like under occupation by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary - and the atrocities he witnessed. It’s a story no child should ever have to tell - one of r*pe, torture and m*rder. These have become the hallmarks of the genocidal Saudi- and UAE-backed group. The Sudanese army was able to fully drive the RSF out of the city on 26 March - a cause for celebration, but also too late for the paramilitary’s many victims in Khartoum.

Credit: @MohanadElbalal (X)

Hear Us Roar: https://news.1rj.ru/str/AfricanStream