Unity 2.

0 Conference
Gerald LeMelle is the Executive Director of Africa Action. He
served as the Deputy Executive Director for Advocacy at
Amnesty International USA. For twelve plus years, Gerald
was responsible for the following programs: Business and War, dictatorship, underdevelopment, famine…
Human Rights, National Campaigns, Casework, Country
Specialists, the Domestic Human Rights Program,
Despite the hopes and aspirations of the
Government Relations, International Justice and decolonisation era, the chances of Africa digging
Accountability, Just Earth!, OUTfront, the Program to Abolish herself out of the economic abyss into which she
the Death Penalty, Refugee Program, Urgent Actions, and has plunged in the last half century is practically
the Women's Human Rights. Under his supervision the
Advocacy Department produced over 1600 actions a year. zero. The Africa shown to us by the media does not
Prior to working at Amnesty International USA, Gerald evoke any optimism.
served as the Director of African Affairs with the Phelps-
Strokes Fund. He is a member of the New York, District of However, a large group of Africans and non-
Columbia, and Supreme Court Bar Associations, and, a Africans who have tried to dig a bit deeper than the
member of the Council for Foreign Relations. He has
appeared on radio and television numerous times and has cliché media reporting refuses to accept this
been published in newspapers across the country. He lived hopeless media picture of Africa, and the media
in Africa for ten years, primarily in Kenya and Tunisia." conclusion that blames the plight of the continent
on the inabilities of its citizens.
M. Tayoba Ngenge is a professor at West Virginia State
University with teaching assignments in African literature, The research of these activists reveals an Africa
English and logic. He is a member of the Middle States
African Studies Association and of the Diopian Institute for where a majority of the people has fought and
Scholarly Advancement. His activism began in1966 at the continues to fight for their freedom and dignity,
Cameroon College of Arts, Science and Technology in against pillage and muzzling of free speech.
Bambili in what was then West Cameroon. At the University
of Texas at Austin he got seriously involved with the then
anti-apartheid movement and the movement for the
liberation of Namibia.

Africa-Wants-To-Be-Free Panel
Friday August 7, 2009, 6:00-8:00PM
The Youth Centre Church of the Resurrection,
Way Forwards
Network
3315 Greencastle Rd, Burtonsville, MD 20866
Telephones: 304-932-0077, 612-388-8861 or
240-988-3212 .Email: wfn@riseup.net
An Africa that wants to be free!
Free from predatory multinationals and from almighty
neo-colonial powers like France; free from questionable
debt from financial institutions with questionable
histories; free from international arms dealers,
mercenaries "contractors", politico-Mafiosi networks like
the French club 89. And let's not forget: free from the
dictators who have killed the hopes of the millions who
sacrificed themselves in the independence struggles;
and free from the Western governments that have
supported these dictators to ease the pillage of African
resources.
Reflecting some of this research, the Panel will discuss
ways for pro-Africa advocates to breaking through the
fatalistic US media caricature of Africa to reach out to
ordinary Americans for political and moral support for
African people.
Panelists are Valentine Eben, Corinna Gilfillan, Bahati
Ntama Jacques, Evelyn Joe, Gerald LeMelle and M.
Tayoba Ngenge (moderator).
Fiscal Sponsor: US-SCF
Organized By: The Way Forwards Network
Panelists' Bios
Valentine Eben is a Formal Consensus (a non-violent social
change organising method) trainer and an alternative media
activist. He facilitated the creation of the Indymedia-Africa
Working group (2000), organised the International Alternative-
Media/Indymedia Conference in Dakar-Senegal (2004) and
organised the Convergence Media Center at the 2007 World
Social Forum in Nairobi-Kenya. He was an Alternative Software
Trainer with the Berlin-based SO36.NET for a while and is the
Editor of the New Media Manual for Alternative/Community
Reorganising "The IMC a New Model."
Corinna Gilfillan is the director of the Washington DC office of
Global Witness. Prior to working for Global Witnesses Corinna
was a United Nations Environment Programme Associate
Program Officer for several years.
Bahati Ntama Jacques is a Policy Analyst at Africa Faith and
Justice Network (AFJN) office in Washington. He has wide
experience in pastoral ministry with youth in parishes and in jails
in Chicago. Bataki is originally from Goma in the North Kivu
province of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where he
witnessed the 1996-2000 invasion of the DRC by Rwanda,
Burundi and Uganda, and he worked in the field of post-war relief.
He is the co-founder of Association des vieullards Abondonnes
(AVA) that addressed the increased number of elderly begging on
the streets of Bukavu during the long war in DRC.
Evelyn Joe is a freelance writer and a life-long political activist.
She is the founder of Continental African Community, USA which
focuses on the incorporation of African perspectives and
contextual realities in US-Africa policies. Ms Joe is the
chairperson of NAACP's Committee on African Affairs in
Montgomery County Maryland.