Afro-German politicians are pushing for change

In January, unknown assailants shot at the office of Senegalese-born German politician Karamba Diaby.

Germany was shocked by the brazen attack.

 But Afro-German politicians are otherwise rarely in the spotlight.

IN THE HEART OF THE BEAST; THE HOMELAND OF ARYAN SUPREMACY


AS WELL AS BEING AFRO GERMANS THREE OF THE FOUR ARE WOMEN


Pierrette Herzberger-Fofana is used to being the first. The first Afro-German city councilor. The first Afro-German member of the European Parliament. She was born in Mali, grew up in Senegal and came to Germany to study for her doctorate degree. She worked as a teacher and lecturer at the university in Erlangen and entered politics 20 years ago. But not everyone was supportive of her chosen career path.

"Back then, there were people who were enthusiastic, but most were very skeptical," 

Herzberger-Fofana told DW. But her decision paid off. She was elected to the European Parliament a year ago — at the age of 70. Many other people her age take a step back from their careers to focus more on family or traveling the world. But Herzberger-Fofana wants to fight for the issues that are close to her heart: education, development and bringing an end to female genital mutilation (FGM).

Read more: What's life really like for black people in Germany?

These issues are well received by her voters, she says. Especially among the young people. "The current generation is different from 20 years ago," she explains. "They accept a lot of things that were considered strange at that time."

However, she's aware that Afro-German politicians aren't considered the norm. "If someone comes to me and asks me three times, 'Are you a German politician?' then the person is insisting on [another answer]," she says. "If someone asks where we come from and how long we've been here — these are the kinds of things we experience as politicians, as well as citizens who have a different origin."

Pierrette Herzberger-Fofana is one of just five black women in the European Parliament "Five women for 500 million European citizens," Herzberger-Fofana says. More than 1 million people of African origin live in Germany, but very few of them are in political office.

Aminata Touré is one of the most well-known Afro-German politicians. She was elected to the state parliament of Schleswig-Holstein in 2019 at the age of 26 as a representative of the Greens party, becoming the youngest state deputy speaker in German history.
In the current parliamentary term, the Social Democratic (SPD) MP Karamba Diaby is the only Afro-German among the 709 members of the Bundestag. "I don't want to be famous for being black," he once told Die Zeit. But he is still rarely asked about education policy – his area of expertise.

Racism a part of everyday life

In January, strangers opened fire on Diaby's office in the eastern city of Halle. His fellow politicians expressed their shock and outrage at the attack: Chancellor Angela Merkel, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and numerous other MPs made it clear that they stood behind Diaby. But insults and threats from the right-wing are part of everyday life for the 58-year-old politician, who was born in Senegal and came to former East Germany to study chemistry.

Diaby reacted remarkably calmly to the attacks and thanked his supporters for their many good wishes. "We are not living in an age of anger, but one of solidarity and compassion," he said in a speech to the Bundestag.

Bullet holes can be seen in the office of Bundestag MP Karamba Diaby

Sylvie Nantcha has also had to deal with multiple threats during her political career. In 2009, she was elected to the municipal council in the southern city of Freiburg, making her the first African-born CDU councilor in Germany.

"I decided that our society may be diverse, but this diversity is not reflected in our parliaments and committees," she told DW. "I am a person who likes to get things moving and I saw this political commitment as an opportunity to shape our future."

Read more: From hair care to racism, Afro-Germans share experiences online
'It was absolutely amazing'

Nantcha was born in Cameroon and came to Germany at the age of 17 to study. After earning her degree, she worked at the university, started a family and founded a consulting company with her husband. In 2009, she became a member of the CDU regional board in Baden-Württemberg — becoming the first African-born woman to hold such a position in Germany.

"How the population was able to reach that point was absolutely amazing," she recalls today. "A friend of mine told me to search my name on Google — there were 89,000 results!"

Sylvie Nantcha faced some booing when she stood for the position on the CDU state executive committee 

NOT UNEXPECTED THE CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATS CDU ARE RIGHT WING 

After 10 years in the Freiburg municipal council, Nantcha decided not to stand again for the position. She is now fighting for the issues which matter most to her as the chairwoman of the African Network of Germany (TANG), which claims to represent around 800 African-German organizations. She advises the federal government on issues concerning migration and works to support the Afro-German community.

"I am very happy and proud of my home country Germany that I have the opportunity to use my history, my experience and my knowledge to advance these topics," she says.

But she also knows how ugly things can get: "Our society has a problem: racism," she said at the federal government's integration summit in March. Chancellor Merkel was sitting next to her at the time (top photo). When Nantcha was first elected to the CDU state executive committee in 2009, she was bombarded with threatening letters, hate mail and even death threats.

"I was afraid, especially for my children," she says. For a time they were no longer allowed to play outside and her family moved to a new address that was kept secret.

Read more: Young Afro-Germans look for role models

Njeri Kiyanjui hopes other migrants to Germany will follow her into politics

'Many migrants are afraid to go into politics'

Njeri Kiyanjui is probably the only German city councilor to have been interviewed on Kenyan TV during prime time. Kiyanjui came to Germany in 1983 when she was 20 years old. She studied economics in Berlin and the southern city of Tübingen. But after she graduated, she struggled to find a job. So she went freelance. She now sells homemade chutneys, spreads and jams through her company, Hottpott-Saucesmanufaktur.

She has also been a member of the Reutlingen city council representing the Greens since 2014 as the first councilor to have been born outside of Europe. She sits on the Integration Council and the Committee on Economic and Financial Affairs.

"I have a lot of skills," she told DW. "I am perceived as someone who is not only here for integration purposes, but who can have a say in lots of different areas. After all, I am an entrepreneur, so I see a lot of things differently."

But as an Afro-German, does she have a different view of local politics? "I've been living here for a long time," she laughs. "I don't get up in the morning and think 'Oh, I'm African. How am I going to be perceived?' I have my own agenda in my head, what I want to change."

She has one big wish for the future of politics in Germany: "Many migrants are afraid to go into politics. I hope that they become more politically involved. Politics in Germany affect every stage of life for everyone who lives here. From the cradle to the grave."

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AUDIOS AND VIDEOS ON THE TOPIC

Germany's only African-born MP faces racism

Date 10.05.2020
Author Daniel Pelz
Related Subjects European Parliament
Keywords Pierrette Herzberger-Fofana, Sylvie Nantcha, Njeri Kiyanjui, Aminata Touré, Karamba Diaby, Afro-Germans, German politics, racism, European Parliament

Permalink https://p.dw.com/p/3bybK

TRUMPETTE'S IN GERMANY

Germany: Thousands of protesters slam isolation measures

Demonstrators gathered in Berlin, Munich, Stuttgart and other German cities to decry coronavirus-triggered restrictions imposed by the government. A right-wing protester attacked a team of reporters in Dortmund.
Over 3,000 people rallied in Munich and thousands more gathered in Stuttgart and across Germany on Saturday to demand the lifting of restrictions ordered by the German authorities. Many of the protesters defied the guidelines which call for a limited number of participants and for social distancing to be maintained during such events.

The protesters accuse politicians and medical workers of spreading panic and infringing on the population's rights with the prolonged lockdown. Some of the rallies included anti-vaccination activists.

In Munich, police used loudspeakers to urge the protesters to minimize the infection risk. While the participants failed to heed the instructions, the police decided not to disperse the gathering "on the grounds of proportionality" as the participants were not violent. However, the authorities dispersed a separate right-wing demonstration which gathered around 25 people in the same city, according to the Germany's public broadcaster ARD.

The Stuttgart event also saw thousands of participants take part. Most of them respected the distancing rules, according to the police. Two separate protests were recorded in Berlin, including a smaller one in front of Germany's parliament that ended with the security forces detaining around 30 protesters in order to determine their identity. The larger one saw hundreds of people gather at the Alexanderplatz, in spite of the order which limits the maximum of 50 protesters per rally.

Stuttgart protester holds a sign reading: 'Dictatorship in the guise of health. Wake up.'

Journalists attacked — again
About 150 people, including a group of known right wing extremists, also gathered in the western city of Dortmund, according to the DPA news agency. One of the right-wingers insulted and subsequently attacked a team of reporters, lightly injuring one of them, according to the police. The 23-year-old was arrested. This assault follows an attack of on a crew working for the satirical Heute-Show at a similar protest on May 1 in Berlin, and a separate attack on another team of journalists on May 6 in the same city.

Germany has been slowly easing restrictions introduced in mid-March, with states opening various businesses and public sites starting this Monday. However, a new report by the country's official Robert Koch Institute indicated a steep rise in infection rates on Saturday, possibly prompting the politicians to respond with even more caution.

Over two-thirds of German residents support the need for social distancing, according to the latest research published by the official BfR Institute. However, this still marks a sharp drop from the numbers reported in March, when 92% supported the restrictions.

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Stuck on cruise ships during pandemic, crews beg to go home

By ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON and GUILLERMO GARAT May 8, 2020

In this undated photo made available by Dr. Mauricio Usme, he is on board the Greg Mortimer, a ship operated by the Australian firm Aurora Expeditions and owned by a Miami company. Dr. Usme said he was pressured by the captain and other executives from the cruise operator and owners to change the health declaration to be admitted into ports. More than half of the passengers and crew tested positive for COVID-19, including Dr. Usme. (Mauricio Usme via AP)

MIAMI (AP) — Carolina Vásquez lost track of days and nights, unable to see the sunlight while stuck for two weeks in a windowless cruise ship cabin as a fever took hold of her body.

On the worst night of her encounter with COVID-19, the Chilean woman, a line cook on the Greg Mortimer ship, summoned the strength to take a cold shower fearing the worst: losing consciousness while isolated from others.

Vásquez, 36, and tens of thousands of other crew members have been trapped for weeks aboard dozens of cruise ships around the world — long after governments and cruise lines negotiated their passengers’ disembarkation. Some have gotten ill and died; others have survived but are no longer getting paid.

In this April 28, 2020 photo provided by Melinda Mann, she shows the empty deck on board the Koningsdam, a Holland America cruise ship off the coast of Ensenada, Mexico. Mann, a youth program manager for the cruise line, has been stuck on board for 50 days as the CDC and the cruise ship companies negotiate terms to disembark crew and passengers in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. (Melinda Mann via AP)

Both national and local governments have stopped crews from disembarking in order to prevent new cases of COVID-19 in their territories. Some of the ships, including 20 in U.S. waters, have seen infections and deaths among the crew. But most ships have had no confirmed cases.

“I never thought this would turn into a tragic and terrifying horror story,” Vásquez told The Associated Press in an interview through a cellphone app from the Greg Mortimer, an Antarctic cruise ship floating off Uruguay. Thirty-six crew members have fallen ill on the ship.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said last month that about 80,000 crew members remained on board ships off the U.S. coast after most passengers had disembarked. The Coast Guard said Friday that there were still 70,000 crew members in 102 ships either anchored near or at U.S. ports or underway in U.S. waters.

The total number of crew members stranded worldwide was not immediately available. But thousands more are trapped on ships outside the U.S., including in Uruguay and the Manila Bay, where 16 cruise ships are waiting to test about 5,000 crew members before they will be allowed to disembark.

As coronavirus cases and deaths have risen worldwide, the CDC and health officials in other countries have expanded the list of conditions that must be met before crews may disembark.

In this undated photo provided by Carolina Vasquez, she rides a tender in the Falkland Islands, as a crew member on board the Greg Mortimer, a ship operated by the Australian firm Aurora Expeditions and owned by a Miami company. Vasquez has been stuck in a cruise cabin with no windows and COVID-19. The ship is floating off the coast of Uruguay. Vasquez, 36, and tens of thousands of other crew members worldwide, including U.S. citizens, have been confined to cabins aboard ships, weeks after governments and cruise lines negotiated disembarkation for passengers arriving in vessels with infections. (Carolina Vasquez via AP)

Cruise companies must take each crew member straight home via charter plane or private car without using rental vehicles or taxis. Complicating that mission, the CDC requires company executives to agree to criminal penalties if crew members fail to obey health authorities’ orders to steer clear of public transportation and restaurants on their way home.

“The criminal penalties gave us (and our lawyers) pause,” Royal Caribbean International President and CEO Michael Bayley wrote in a letter to crew members earlier this week, but he added that company executives ultimately agreed to sign.

Melinda Mann, 25, a youth program manager for Holland America, spent more than 50 days without stepping on dry land before finally disembarking from the Koningsdam ship Friday in Los Angeles. Before she was transferred to the Koningsdam, she tried to walk off another ship with other U.S. crew members last week but the ship’s security guards stopped them.

For 21 hours a day, Mann remained isolated in a 150-square-foot (14-square- meter) cruise cabin that is smaller than her bedroom in her Midland, Georgia, home. She read 30 books and was only able to leave her room three times a day to walk around the ship. Her contract ended April 18, so she was not paid for weeks.

“Keeping me in close captivity for so long is absolutely ridiculous,” Mann said in a telephone interview.

Earlier this week in Nassau, Bahamas, crew members from Canada aboard the Emerald Princess were told to prepare to be flown home in a charter plane. But the Bahamian government did not allow the ship to dock in the end.

Leah Prasad’s husband is among the stranded crew members. Prasad said she has spent hours tracking down government agencies to help her husband, a Maitre D’Hotel for Carnival.

“He is getting discouraged. He is stuck in a cabin,” Prasad said. “It is not good for his mental health.”

Angela Savard, a spokeswoman for Canada’s foreign affairs, said the government was continuing to explore options to bring Canadians home.

For those aboard the Greg Mortimer in Montevideo, desperation is setting in, crew members told the AP.

The Antarctic cruise set sail from Argentina on March 15, after a pandemic had already been declared. The ship’s physician, Dr. Mauricio Usme, said that when the first passenger fell ill, on March 22, he was pressured by the captain, the cruise operator and owners to modify the health conditions that had to be met for the ship to be admitted into ports.

Dr. Usme refused. The boat anchored in the port of Montevideo on March 27. More than half of its passengers and crew tested positive for COVID-19. Finally, on April 10, 127 passengers, including some who were infected, were allowed to disembark and fly home to Australia, New Zealand, the U.S., Canada and Europe. Crew members were told to stay on board.

The doctor was hospitalized in an intensive care unit in Montevideo, along with a Filipino crew member, who later died.

“People are exhausted and mentally drained,” said Dr. Usme, now recovered and back on the Greg Mortimer. “It’s a complex situation. You feel very vulnerable and at imminent risk of death.”

CMI, the Miami-based company that manages the boat, said it has been “unable to get the necessary permissions” to let crew members of 22 nationalities go home, but said they were all still under contract receiving pay.

Marvin Paz Medina, a Honduran man who works as the ship’s storekeeper, sent a video to the AP of his tiny cabin of about 70 square feet (6.5 square meters), where he has been confined for more than 35 days. “It’s hard being locked up all day, staring at the same four walls,” he said.

Paz Medina says his children keep asking him when he’s coming home, but he doesn’t have an answer.

“We are trapped, feeling this anxiety that at any moment we can get seriously ill,” said Paz Medina. “We do not want this anymore. We want to go home.”


In this May 8, 2020 photo, people aboard the Norwegian Epic cruise ship docked at Port Miami in Miami, sit on their balconies. Tens of thousands of crew members, including U.S. citizens, remain confined to cabins aboard cruise ships, weeks after governments and companies negotiated disembarkation for passengers in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. Most crew members are stuck in ships with no confirmed cases but are rejected by governments because of new rules to avoid importing more virus cases. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)
_____

Garat reported from Montevideo, Uruguay. Associated Press writers Dee-Ann Durbin in Detroit, and Rob Gillies in Toronto, contributed to this report.

President Trump congratulates UFC for restarting sports

GLADIATOR SPORTS SHADES OF ANCIENT ROME

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — President Trump congratulated UFC for restarting the sports world Saturday night after a nearly two-month hiatus.

Trump’s taped message was played during ESPN’s broadcast of the UFC 249 undercard from a fan-free arena in Jacksonville.

“I want to congratulate (UFC President) Dana White and the UFC,” Trump said. “They’re going to have a big match. We love it. We think it’s important. Get the sports leagues back. Let’s play. Do the social distancing and whatever else you have to do. We need sports. We want our sports back. Congratulations to Dana White and UFC.”

BUT NARY A WORD FOR THE DEAD FROM COVID-19 HIS SO CALLED WARRIORS IN THE WAR COMMANDER IN CHIEF BONE SPURS IS CONDUCTING ON THIS INVISIBLE ENEMY (YOU CAN SEE IT WITH AN ELECTRONIC MICROSCOPE)

UFC 249 served as the first major sporting event to take place since the global pandemic shut down much of the country nearly eight weeks ago. It was originally scheduled for April 18 in New York, but was postponed in hopes of helping slow the spread of COVID-19.

The mixed martial arts behemoth is holding three shows in eight days in Jacksonville, where state officials deemed professional sports with a national audience exempt from a stay-at-home order as long as “the location is closed to the general public.

”The UFC came up with a 25-page document to address health and safety protocols, procedures that led to Jacaré Souza testing positive for COVID-19 on Friday. His middleweight bout against Uriah Hall was canceled late Friday. Souza’s two cornermen also tested as positive, the UFC said in a statement.

“All three men have left the host hotel and will be self-isolating off premises, where UFC’s medical team will monitor their conditions remotely and will provide assistance with any necessary treatment,” the UFC said.

The positive results surely increased the focus on the event. Every other sport is watching closely to see how it plays out.White previously said Trump wants the event to serve as a blueprint for the return of live sports.

White didn’t want to postpone any fights. He tried to host the event on tribal land in California and still hopes to create a “Fight Island” for future cards.

He settled for Jacksonville for at least a week — with no fans and social-distancing rules in place.

Judges and broadcasters were separated. Fighters, trainers, referees, judges, UFC staff and even outside media had to undergo COVID-19 testing to get inside Veterans Memorial Arena.

But not everyone followed the rules. White mingled and bumped fists with nearly every fighter during official weigh-ins held inside a hotel ballroom Friday.

Ronaldo Souza's positive coronavirus test hangs over controversial UFC return

GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP / Michael ReavesBrazil's Ronaldo Souza was dumped from the UFC's Florida event after the middleweight tested positive for Covid-19

The controversial mixed martial arts card scheduled for Saturday in Florida will go ahead as planned despite one of the undercard fighters testing positive for coronavirus.

Ronaldo 'Jacare' Souza was dropped from the Jacksonville event after he was diagnosed with COVID-19 on Friday. He arrived in Florida earlier in the week.

Two of Souza's cornermen also tested positive.

"UFC's medical team examined Souza and his two cornermen and found them to be currently asymptomatic, or not exhibiting the common symptoms of COVID-19," organizers said in a statement late Friday night.

"All three men have left the host hotel and will be self-isolating off premises."

Middleweight Souza, of Brazil, was scheduled to fight Uriah Hall on the undercard of the televised Ultimate Fighting Championship 249 event which is being held without spectators.

Souza attended the weigh-in wearing a protective mask and was kept at a distance from Hall who also had a mask and gloves on.

Although Souza -- who is not showing symptoms -- will not fight, the other 11 bouts will go ahead. Officials said the other 23 fighters on the card have tested negative.

"Brother I know it sucks. I'm sorry you have to go through this. I am beyond devastated for the missed opportunity," Hall tweeted on Friday night.

The card is UFC chief Dana White's attempt to drag the mixed martial arts series out of coronavirus quarantine.

White, who has also announced cards for May 13 and 16 in Jacksonville, insisted before Souza tested positive the production won't put anyone at risk.

"Listen, we have families, too," White told CNN Sport. "I have a family; I don't want to hurt my family. I don't want to die.

"This isn't just some crazy, this is a well thought-out plan. We've had very, very smart people, doctors and people that have been involved with the UFC for a very long time working on this thing non-stop since it started.

"We believe that we have this thing in a place where it can be as safe as it can possibly be."

AFP/File / JIM WATSONThe card is UFC chief Dana White's attempt to drag the mixed martial arts series out of coronavirus quarantine

White's controversial plans to stage a fight card in April on an Indian tribal reservation in California were thwarted.

But he got the green light in Florida to hold bouts without spectators from Veterans Memorial Stadium in Jacksonville, headlined by an interim lightweight title bout between Tony Ferguson and Justin Gaethje.

Both fighters made weight on Friday at a weigh-in where media members and most UFC staff were kept at a distance, those closer to the fighters wore masks and the scale was sanitized.

Bantamweight champion Henry Cejudo and former champ Dominick Cruz both made weight for their title bout as well.

With the National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League and Major League Soccer all on hold -- along with the US PGA Tour and LPGA -- White touts the return of UFC as a step toward normalcy and a boon for sport-starved fans.

And he said US President Donald Trump would be watching, in a conference call with US sports league leaders back in April.

"The president's take on it was we have to get live sports back first," White told the Los Angeles Times.

"Show everybody how to do it safely. Give people who have to stay home some entertainment so they're not bouncing off the walls."

"From there, we can figure out how we get people back to work and how we get kids back to schools," he added.

He said by going first, he hoped other leagues might also reopen.

White attempted to avoid California's lockdown measures when he planned the April 18 event on Indian casino land, but Walt Disney Co -- owner of UFC broadcaster ESPN -- later asked him to postpone.

Florida governor Ron DeSantis opened the door when he gave "essential services" status to employees at pro sports and media productions with a national audience.

9MAY2020

 

   

USA
Small tribes seal borders, push testing to keep out virus

GENOCIDE BY ANY OTHER NAME By MORGAN LEE 5/9/2020

1 of 14
Ashley Pyne, right, helps her son, Elijah, complete a nasal swipe for COVID-19 testing in Picuris Pueblo, N.M., Thursday, April 24, 2020. Small Native American pueblo tribes across New Mexico are embracing extraordinary social distancing measures that include guarded roadblocks and universal testing for the coronavirus in efforts to insulate themselves from a contagion with frightening echoes of the past. (AP Photo/Morgan Lee)
PICURIS PUEBLO, N.M. (AP) — On a dusty plaza in a Native American village that dates back nearly a millennium, a steady trickle of vehicles inched through a pop-up coronavirus testing site.

From the bed of a pickup truck and backseats of cars, wide-eyed children stared from behind hand-sewn masks and then sobbed as testing crews in hospital gowns swabbed their noses. The workers packed the samples into a plastic travel cooler for a return trip past the tribe’s guarded roadblock to a state lab.

The mandatory testing — under the threat of fines by the tribal council in Picuris Pueblo — was being performed by the state Health Department and U.S. Indian Health Service as they strive to identify potential infection hot spots and contain the virus that’s ravaged other Native American communities. The order covered everyone from visiting construction workers and homebound seniors to the clerks at the pueblo’s sole general store, where candy, jerky, liquor and cigarettes are now sold only through a slot in the front door.


Small Native American pueblos across New Mexico are embracing extraordinary isolation measures that turn away outsiders as well as near-universal testing to try to insulate themselves from a contagion with frightening echoes of the past.

“If the virus does reach us, that could be the end of Picuris,” said Wayne Yazza, the pueblo’s lieutenant governor.

A hundred miles (160 kilometers) west, the coronavirus has rampaged across the vast Navajo Nation, one the most populous tribes in the U.S. whose boundaries extend from northwestern New Mexico through portions of Arizona and Utah. That outbreak has public health officials concerned that Native American communities may be especially susceptible to the pandemic because of underlying health issues, including high rates of diabetes, obesity and heart disease.


Vaughn Tootsie helps the Native American community of Picuris Pueblo, N.M., screen vehicles as they enter and exit tribal property on Thursday, April 23, 2020. Small Native Americs that include guarded roadblocks and universal testing for the coronavirus in efforts to insuan pueblo tribes across New Mexico are embracing extraordinary social distancing measurelate themselves from a contagion with frightening echoes of the past. (AP Photo/Morgan Lee)

For most, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia and death.

New Mexico’s 19 indigenous pueblos — communities that range from several thousand members to just 300 — view the coronavirus as an existential threat after early infections raced through San Felipe and Zia pueblos, propagated in one instance by people attending a funeral.

“You hear about all these other big towns that are losing 10, 50, 100 — that’s already half of our whole tribe,” Picuris Gov. Craig Quanchello said. “We’ve got to do everything we can to protect our race here.”


Native Americans accounted for more than 55% of confirmed COVID-19 infections in New Mexico as of Friday, though they’re only 11% of the general population.

The stark discrepancy in part reflects extensive testing in the heavily Native American northwest part of the state, a hot spot for infections. Tribal leaders also say the surge of Native American infections and related deaths reflects chronic underfunding of health care services and basic infrastructure such as household plumbing.


A sign at the Native American community of San Idefonso Pueblo, N.M., urges visitors to stay away as small Indian pueblos throughout the state seek to shield themselves from COVID-19 infection, Thursday, April 23, 2020. San Ildefonso was invited to participate in universal testing by state health officials. (AP Photo/Morgan Lee)

The pueblos, whose homelands trace the upper Rio Grande as the river descends for 150 miles (241 kilometers) from Taos to Albuquerque and extend west near the Arizona line, have closed down cultural attractions, casinos and hotels.

Roadblocks against nonessential visitors extend to villages atop mesas in Acoma Pueblo’s “sky city” and on the Hopi reservation in Arizona, which is encircled by the Navajo Nation.

In Picuris Pueblo, roughly 200 residents in the core settlement have all tested negative for the virus. It’s been more than a month since the tribe erected a roadblock and guardhouse with video surveillance to intercept unannounced tourists. Tribal members also are screened for coronavirus symptoms, such as fever, by taking body temperature readings from each passing car and the occasional bicycle.

Among New Mexico’s pueblos, ceremonial rites and political meetings in compact subterranean kiva rooms have been upended, as have preparations for annual feast days — mass gatherings with traditional dancing and regalia.


Members of the Native American community of Picuris Pueblo, N.M., including Vaughn Tootsie, right, screen vehicles as they enter and exit tribal property Thursday, April 23, 2020. Pueblo leaders including Gov. Craig Quanchello see COVID-19 as a potentially existential threat to the tribe of roughly 300 members and have implemented universal testing for infection. (AP Photo/Morgan Lee)

In Picuris, preschool lessons in the native Tiwa language are on hold and children can’t exit the pueblo’s boundaries, even with parents. Families are encouraged to send one person for groceries — a 50-mile (80-kilometer) round trip.

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has extended through mid-May an aggressive stay-at-home order that bans gatherings larger than five people and requires arriving air travelers to self-quarantine, while allowing some nonessential businesses to start offering curbside service after a weekslong closure. The northwest part of the state is on full-fledged lockdown as infections increase.

Pueblos are going further with their own curfews, and Picuris is vowing to stay on lockdown for an additional two weeks before considering any changes.

The pueblos have dealt with devastating contagions in the past. Bouts of smallpox — brought by Spanish conquistadors in the late-1500s — cut the Picuris Pueblo’s population from roughly 2,500 to 500 by 1650 in the first of several close brushes with annihilation, said Michael Adler, a professor of anthropology at Southern Methodist University. He leads a satellite campus outside Taos and has worked with Picuris Pueblo to explore its ancestral history.

In the 20th century, the pueblo’s population fell below 150 after brutal raids; it’s unclear whether the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 played a role.

“It’s a story of decimation in spades — and resilience,” Adler said. “It amazes me that they’re still here.”

State officials say the coronavirus crisis was foreshadowed by the H1N1 swine flu pandemic in 2009. Native Americans experienced fatalities at four times the rate of the general public, according to a 12-state study — including New Mexico, Arizona and Utah — published that year in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

“The reason I believe we saw this spike (in coronavirus infections) is that tribal communities live in largely rural areas and they live in large family units, multiple-family units, and they engage in community support, community activities,” New Mexico Health Secretary Kathy Kunkel said at a state PBS forum. “The very qualities that make tribal communities unique are the very qualities that put them at risk.”

Quanchello, the Picuris governor who covers late-night shifts at the roadblock, hopes to keep his people safe, even if it means loneliness, financial hardship and warning potential visitors to keep away.

“We don’t get a second chance here,” he said. “The endgame is death.”

Ex-Green Beret led failed attempt to oust Venezuela’s MaduroBy JOSHUA GOODMAN

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FILE - In this Aug. 4, 2018 file photo released by China's Xinhua News Agency, security guards surround Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro with protective gear as an unidentified drone interrupts his speech in Caracas, Venezuela. An exiled Venezuelan national guardsman accused of partaking in this drone attack on Maduro is among voluntary combatants in three safe houses of former soldiers plotting a military incursion from neighboring Colombia, according to an Associated Press investigation. (Xinhua via AP, File)

MIAMI (AP) — The plan was simple, but perilous. Some 300 heavily armed volunteers would sneak into Venezuela from the northern tip of South America. Along the way, they would raid military bases in the socialist country and ignite a popular rebellion that would end in President Nicolás Maduro’s arrest.

What could go wrong? As it turns out, pretty much everything.

The ringleader of the plot is now jailed in the U.S. on narcotics charges. Authorities in the U.S. and Colombia are asking questions about the role of his muscular American adviser, a former Green Beret. And dozens of desperate combatants who flocked to secret training camps in Colombia said they have been left to fend for themselves amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The failed attempt to start an uprising collapsed under the collective weight of skimpy planning, feuding among opposition politicians and a poorly trained force that stood little chance of beating the Venezuelan military.

“You’re not going to take out Maduro with 300 hungry, untrained men,” said Ephraim Mattos, a former U.S. Navy SEAL who trained some of the would-be combatants in first aid.

This bizarre, untold story of a call to arms that crashed before it launched is drawn from interviews with more than 30 Maduro opponents and aspiring freedom fighters who were directly involved in or familiar with its planning. Most spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing retaliation.

When hints of the conspiracy surfaced last month, the Maduro-controlled state media portrayed it as an invasion ginned up by the CIA, like the Cuban Bay of Pigs fiasco of 1961. An Associated Press investigation found no evidence of U.S. government involvement in the plot. Nevertheless, interviews revealed that leaders of Venezuela’s U.S.-backed opposition knew of the covert force, even if they dismissed its prospects.

Planning for the incursion began after an April 30, 2019, barracks revolt by a cadre of soldiers who swore loyalty to Maduro’s would-be replacement, Juan Guaidó, the opposition leader recognized by the U.S. and some 60 other nations as Venezuela’s rightful leader. Contrary to U.S. expectations at the time, key Maduro aides never joined with the opposition and the government quickly quashed the uprising.

A few weeks later, some soldiers and politicians involved in the failed rebellion retreated to the JW Marriott in Bogota, Colombia. The hotel was a center of intrigue among Venezuelan exiles. For this occasion, conference rooms were reserved for what one participant described as the “Star Wars summit of anti-Maduro goofballs” — military deserters accused of drug trafficking, shady financiers and former Maduro officials seeking redemption.


Among those angling in the open lobby was Jordan Goudreau, an American citizen and three-time Bronze Star recipient for bravery in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he served as a medic in U.S. Army special forces, according to five people who met with the former soldier.

Those he interacted with in the U.S. and Colombia described him in interviews alternately as a freedom-loving patriot, a mercenary and a gifted warrior scarred by battle and in way over his head.

Two former special forces colleagues said Goudreau was always at the top of his class: a cell leader with a superb intellect for handling sources, an amazing shot and a devoted mixed martial arts fighter who still cut his hair high and tight.
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At the end of an otherwise distinguished military career, the Canadian-born Goudreau was investigated in 2013 for allegedly defrauding the Army of $62,000 in housing stipends. Goudreau said the investigation was closed with no charges.

After retiring in 2016, he worked as a private security contractor in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria. In 2018, he set up Silvercorp USA, a private security firm, near his home on Florida’s Space Coast to embed counter-terror agents in schools disguised as teachers. The company’s website features photos and videos of Goudreau firing machine guns in battle, running shirtless up a pyramid, flying on a private jet and sporting a military backpack with a rolled-up American flag.

Silvercorp’s website touts operations in more than 50 countries, with an advisory team made up of former diplomats, experienced military strategists and heads of multinational corporations -- none of them named. It claims to have “led international security teams” for the president of the United States.

Goudreau, 43, declined to be interviewed. In a written statement, he said that “Silvercorp cannot disclose the identities of its network of sources, assets and advisors due to the nature of our work” and, more generally, “would never confirm nor deny any activities in any operational realm. No inference should be drawn from this response.”

`CONTROLLING CHAOS’

Goudreau’s focus on Venezuela started in February 2019, when he worked security at a concert in support of Guaidó organized by British billionaire Richard Branson on the Venezuelan-Colombian border.

“Controlling chaos on the Venezuela border where a dictator looks on with apprehension,” he wrote in a photo of himself on the concert stage posted to his Instagram account.

“He was always chasing the golden BB,” said Drew White, a former business partner at Silvercorp, using military slang for a one-in-a-million shot. White said he broke with his former special forces comrade last fall when Goudreau asked for help raising money to fund his regime change initiative.

“As supportive as you want to be as a friend, his head wasn’t in the world of reality,” said White. “Nothing he said lined up.”

According to White, Goudreau came back from the concert looking to capitalize on the Trump administration’s growing interest in toppling Maduro.

He had been introduced to Keith Schiller, President Donald Trump’s longtime bodyguard, through someone who worked in private security. Schiller attended a March 2019 event at the University Club in Washington for potential donors with activist Lester Toledo, then Guaidó’s coordinator for the delivery of humanitarian aid.

Last May, Goudreau accompanied Schiller to a meeting in Miami with representatives of Guaidó. There was a lively discussion with Schiller about the need to beef up security for Guaidó and his growing team of advisers inside Venezuela and across the world, according to a person familiar with the meeting. Schiller thought Goudreau was naive and in over his head. He cut off all contact following the meeting, said a person close to the former White House official.

In Bogota, it was Toledo who introduced Goudreau to a rebellious former Venezuelan military officer the American would come to trust above all others — Cliver Alcalá, ringleader of the Venezuelan military deserters.

Alcalá, a retired major general in Venezuela’s army, seemed an unlikely hero to restore democracy to his homeland. In 2011, he was sanctioned by the U.S. for allegedly supplying FARC guerrillas in Colombia with surface-to-air missiles in exchange for cocaine. And last month, Alcalá was indicted by U.S. prosecutors alongside Maduro as one of the architects of a narcoterrorist conspiracy that allegedly sent 250 metric tons of cocaine every year to the U.S.

Alcalá is now in federal custody in New York awaiting trial. But before his surrender in Colombia, where he had been living since 2018, he had emerged as a forceful opponent of Maduro, not shy about urging military force.

Over two days of meetings with Goudreau and Toledo at the JW Marriott, Alcalá explained how he had selected 300 combatants from among the throngs of low-ranking soldiers who abandoned Maduro and fled to Colombia in the early days of Guaidó’s uprising, said three people who participated in the meeting and insisted on anonymity to discuss sensitive conversations.

Alcalá said several dozen men were already living in three camps he maintained in and around the desert-like La Guajira peninsula that Colombia shares with Venezuela, the three said. Among the combatants in the camps was an exiled national guardsman accused of participating in a 2018 drone attack on Maduro.

Goudreau told Alcalá his company could prepare the men for battle, according to the three sources. The two sides discussed weapons and equipment for the volunteer army, with Goudreau estimating a budget of around $1.5 million for a rapid strike operation.

Goudreau told participants at the meeting that he had high-level contacts in the Trump administration who could assist the effort, although he offered few details, the three people said. Over time, many of the people involved in the plan to overthrow Maduro would come to doubt his word.

From the outset, the audacious plan split an opposition coalition already sharply divided by egos and strategy. There were concerns that Alcalá, with a murky past and ties to the regime through a brother who was Maduro’s ambassador to Iran, couldn’t be trusted. Others worried about going behind the backs of their Colombian allies and the U.S. government.

But Goudreau didn’t share the concerns about Alcalá, according to two people close to the former American solider. Over time, he would come to share Alcalá’s mistrust of the opposition, whose talk of restoring democracy was belied by what he saw as festering corruption and closed-door deal making with the regime, they said.

More importantly to Goudreau, Alcalá retained influence in the armed forces that Maduro’s opponents, mostly civilian elites, lacked. He also knew the terrain, having served as the top commander along the border.

“We needed someone who knew the monster from the inside,” recalled one exiled former officer who joined the plot.

Guaidó’s envoys, including Toledo, ended contact with Goudreau after the Bogota meeting because they believed it was a suicide mission, according to three people close to the opposition leader.

Undeterred, Goudreau returned to Colombia with four associates, all of them U.S. combat veterans, and begin working directly with Alcalá.

Alcalá and Goudreau revealed little about their military plans when they toured the camps. Some of the would-be combatants were told by the two men that the rag-tag army would cross the border in a heavily armed convoy and sweep into Caracas within 96 hours, according to multiple soldiers at the camps. Goudreau told the volunteers that — once challenged in battle — Maduro’s food-deprived, demoralized military would collapse like dominoes, several of the soldiers said.

NO CHANCE TO SUCCEED

Many saw the plan as foolhardy and there appears to have been no serious attempt to seek U.S. military support.

“There was no chance they were going to succeed without direct U.S. military intervention,” said Mattos, the former Navy SEAL who spent two weeks in September training the volunteers in basic tactical medicine on behalf of his non-profit, which works in combat zones.

Mattos visited the camps after hearing about them from a friend working in Colombia. He said he never met Goudreau.

Mattos said he was surprised by the barren conditions. There was no running water and men were sleeping on the floors, skipping meals and training with sawed-off broomsticks in place of assault rifles. Five Belgian shepherds trained to sniff out explosives were as poorly fed as their handlers and had to be given away.

Mattos said he grew wary as the men recalled how Goudreau had boasted to them of having protected Trump and told them he was readying a shipment of weapons and arranging aerial support for an eventual assault of Maduro’s compound.

The volunteers also shared with Mattos a three-page document listing supplies needed for a three-week operation, which he provided to AP. Items included 320 M4 assault rifles, an anti-tank rocket launcher, Zodiac boats, $1 million in cash and state-of-the-art night vision goggles. The document’s metadata indicates it was created by Goudreau on June 16.

“Unfortunately, there’s a lot of cowboys in this business who try to peddle their military credentials into a big pay day,” said Mattos.

AP found no indication U.S. officials sponsored Goudreau’s actions nor that Trump has authorized covert operations against Maduro, something that requires congressional notification.

But Colombian authorities were aware of his movements, as were prominent opposition politicians in Venezuela and exiles in Bogota, some of whom shared their findings with U.S. officials, according to two people familiar with the discussions.

True to his reputation as a self-absorbed loose cannon, Alcalá openly touted his plans for an incursion in a June meeting with Colombia’s National Intelligence Directorate and appealed for their support, said a former Colombian official familiar with the conversation. Alcalá also boasted about his relationship with Goudreau, describing him as a former CIA agent.

When the Colombians checked with their CIA counterparts in Bogota, they were told that the former Green Beret was never an agent. Alcalá was then told by his hosts to stop talking about an invasion or face expulsion, the former Colombian official said.

It’s unclear where Alcalá and Goudreau got their backing, and whatever money was collected for the initiative appears to have been meager. One person who allegedly promised support was Roen Kraft, an eccentric descendant of the cheese-making family who — along with former Trump bodyguard Schiller — was among those meeting with opposition envoys in Miami and Washington.

At some point, Kraft started raising money among his own circle of fellow trust-fund friends for what he described as a “private coup” to be carried out by Silvercorp, according to two businessmen whom he asked for money.

Kraft allegedly lured prospective donors with the promise of preferential access to negotiate deals in the energy and mining sectors with an eventual Guaidó government, said one of the businessmen. He provided AP a two-page, unsigned draft memorandum for a six-figure commitment he said was sent by Kraft in October in which he represents himself as the “prime contractor” of Venezuela.

But it was never clear if Kraft really had the inside track with the Venezuelans.

In a phone interview with AP, Kraft acknowledged meeting with Goudreau three times last year. But he said the two never did any business together and only discussed the delivery of humanitarian aid for Venezuela. He said Goudreau broke off all communications with him on Oct. 14, when it seemed he was intent on a military action.

“I never gave him any money,” said Kraft.

`WE KNEW EVERYTHING’

Back in Colombia, more recruits were arriving to the three camps — even if the promised money didn’t. Goudreau tried to bring a semblance of order. Uniforms were provided, daily exercise routines intensified and Silvercorp instructed the would-be warriors in close quarter combat.

Goudreau is “more of a Venezuelan patriot than many Venezuelans,” said Hernán Alemán, a lawmaker from western Zulia state and one of a few politicians to openly embrace the clandestine mission.

Alemán said in an interview that neither the U.S. nor the Colombian governments were involved in the plot to overthrow Maduro. He claims he tried to speak several times to Guaidó about the plan but said the opposition leader showed little interest.

“Lots of people knew about it, but they didn’t support us,” he said. “They were too afraid.”

The plot quickly crumbled in early March when one of the volunteer combatants was arrested after sneaking across the border into Venezuela from Colombia.

Shortly after, Colombian police stopped a truck transporting a cache of brand new weapons and tactical equipment worth around $150,000, including spotting scopes, night vision goggles, two-way radios and 26 American-made assault rifles with the serial numbers rubbed off. Fifteen brown-colored helmets were manufactured by High-End Defense Solutions, a Miami-based military equipment vendor owned by a Venezuelan immigrant family.

High-End Defense Solutions is the same company that Goudreau visited in November and December, allegedly to source weapons, according to two former Venezuelan soldiers who claim to have helped the American select the gear but later had a bitter falling out with Goudreau amid accusations that they were moles for Maduro.

Company owner Mark Von Reitzenstein did not respond to repeated email and phone requests seeking comment.

Alcalá claimed ownership of the weapons shortly before surrendering to face the U.S. drug charges, saying they belonged to the “Venezuelan people.” He also lashed out against Guaidó, accusing him of betraying a contract signed between his “American advisers” and J.J. Rendon, a political strategist in Miami appointed by Guaidó to help force Maduro from power.

“We had everything ready,” lamented Alcalá in a video published on social media. “But circumstances that have plagued us throughout this fight against the regime generated leaks from the very heart of the opposition, the part that wants to coexist with Maduro.”

Through a spokesman, Guaidó stood by comments made to Colombian media that he never signed any contract of the kind described by Alcalá, whom he said he doesn’t know. Rendon said his work for Guaidó is confidential and he would be required to deny any contract, whether or not it exists.

Meanwhile, Alcalá has offered no evidence and the alleged contract has yet to emerge, though AP repeatedly asked Goudreau for a copy.

In the aftermath of Alcalá’s arrest, the would-be insurrection appears to have disbanded. As the coronavirus spreads, several of the remaining combatants have fled the camps and fanned out across Colombia, reconnecting with loved ones and figuring out their next steps. Most are broke, facing investigation by Colombian police and frustrated with Goudreau, whom they blame for leading them astray.

Meanwhile, the socialist leadership in Caracas couldn’t help but gloat.

Diosdado Cabello, the No. 2 most powerful person in the country and eminence grise of Venezuela’s vast intelligence network, insisted that the government had infiltrated the plot for months.

“We knew everything,” said Cabello. “Some of their meetings we had to pay for. That’s how infiltrated they were.”

___

Investigative researcher Randy Herschaft in New York and investigative reporter James LaPorta in Delray Beach, Florida, contributed to this report

Joshua Goodman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/APjoshgoodman

Georgia man’s death raises echoes of US racial terror legacy

By AARON MORRISON and RUSS BYNUM 5/9/2020

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 https://apnews.com/f5e06bb8e51cd0db9679d465157064e7/gallery/88f53051e6df4a4785d057d29bf57873
People react during a rally to protest the shooting of Ahmaud Arbery, an unarmed black man, Friday, May 8, 2020, in Brunswick Ga. Two men have been charged with murder in the February shooting death of Arbery, whom they had pursued in a truck after spotting him running in their neighborhood. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)


BRUNSWICK, Ga. (AP) — Many people saw more than the last moments of Ahmaud Arbery’s life when a video emerged this week of white men armed with guns confronting the black man, a struggle with punches thrown, three shots fired and Arbery collapsing dead.

The Feb. 23 shooting in coastal Georgia is drawing comparisons to a much darker period of U.S. history — when extrajudicial killings of black people, almost exclusively at the hands of white male vigilantes, inflicted racial terror on African Americans. It frequently happened with law enforcement complicity or feigned ignorance.

The footage of Arbery’s death was not the only thing that rattled the nation’s conscience. It took more than two months for his pursuers — who told police they suspected he was a burglar — to be arrested and taken into custody. That is fueling calls for the resignation of local authorities who initially investigated the case and reforms of Georgia’s criminal justice system.

A memorial at the spot where an unarmed black man was shot and killed is shown Friday, May 8, 2020, in Brunswick Ga. Two men have been charged with murder in the February shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery, whom they had pursued in a truck after spotting him running in their neighborhood. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

“The modern-day lynching of Mr. Arbery is yet another reminder of the vile and wicked racism that persists in parts of our country,” said the Rev. James Woodall, state president of the Georgia NAACP. “The slothfulness and inaction of the judicial system, in this case, is a gross testament to the blatant white racial privileges that permeates throughout our country and our institutions.

The case appeared frozen as it was handled by police in the small city of Brunswick.

After the video emerged on social media this week, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation took one day after launching its probe Wednesday to arrest Gregory McMichael, 64, and his son, Travis McMichael, 34. They are jailed on murder and aggravated assault charges and did not have lawyers as of Friday who could comment on their behalf.

Several hundred people crowded outside the Glynn County Courthouse on Friday to mark what would have been Arbery’s 26th birthday, with many saying it’s too soon to celebrate because the case must still go before a grand jury that will decide whether to indict the McMichaels.

WHITE SUPREMACY RULES IN AMERIKA

ADDS THAT THE AP HAS NOT BEEN ABLE TO VERIFY THE SOURCE OF THE VIDEO - This image from video posted on Twitter Tuesday, May 5, 2020, purports to show Ahmaud Arbery stumbling and falling to the ground after being shot as Travis McMichael stands by holding a shotgun in a neighborhood outside Brunswick, Ga., on Feb. 23, 2020. The AP has not been able to verify the source of the video. (Twitter via AP)

Arbery’s killing reminds some of Emmett Till, a black teen from Chicago who was kidnapped in 1955 in Mississippi, lynched and dumped in a river after he was falsely accused of whistling at a white woman. An all-white jury acquitted the white men accused of killing Till, who was 14. His death helped fuel the civil rights movement and brought about the eventual passage of federal civil rights protections.

During Friday’s protest, demonstrator Anthony Johnson said he sees echoes of Till and others. Arbery “died because he was black like the rest of them did. For no reason,” Johnson said.

FILE - An undated photo shows Emmett Till, a black 14-year-old Chicago boy, who was brutally murdered near Money, Miss., Aug. 31, 1955, after whistling at a white woman. The Feb. 23, 2020, shooting of Ahmaud Arbery is drawing comparisons to the dark period of U.S. history and reminds some of Till. (AP Photo/File)

Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper Jones, has said she thinks her son, a former high school football player, was jogging for exercise before he was killed.

Gregory and Travis McMichael told police they suspected Arbery was the same man recorded by a security camera committing a break-in. When they saw Arbery running on a Sunday afternoon, the McMichaels grabbed guns, got into a pickup truck and pursued him.

Video footage shows a runner grappling with a man armed with a shotgun. Shots are fired and the runner staggers and falls. A Georgia Bureau of Investigation statement said the McMichaels confronted Arbery with two firearms and that Travis McMichael fatally shot Arbery.

Arbery’s death has drawn sharp reactions and expressions of sadness across the U.S. A Change.org petition calling for justice hit over 700,000 signatures on Friday, President Donald Trump called the video “very disturbing” and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said it was like seeing Arbery “lynched before our very eyes.”

The Players Coalition, a racial justice group made up of professional athletes, sent a letter Friday to the FBI and prosecutors requesting a federal investigation into Arbery’s death.

“The absence of justice is ever present,” said Malcolm Jenkins, a safety for the New Orleans Saints and the foundation’s co-founder. “Another black life has been taken by a bullet and the slaying justified by white fear.”

In this Friday, May 8, 2020 photo, a group of around 30 to 40 people participated in a 2.23 mile walk for Ahmaud Arbery in Ypsilanti, Mich. It was a symbolic gesture for Arbery who was shot and killed while running in Brunswick, Ga., on Feb. 23, 2020. (Nicole Hester\/Ann Arbor News via AP)

Others joined demands from Arbery’s family for the resignations of local law enforcement authorities. Before the case was turned over to special prosecutor Tom Durden, Glynn County District Attorney Jackie Johnson and Ware County District Attorney George Barnhill recused themselves because of their connections to the McMichaels. Gregory McMichael was an investigator for Johnson’s office before retiring last year and before that served as a local police officer.

Lee Merritt, a lawyer representing the family of Ahmaud Arbery, poses for a photo by a mural in the likeness of Arbery painted by artist Theo Ponchaveli in Dallas, Saturday, May 9, 2020. Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper Jones, has said she thinks her son, a former high school football player, was jogging for exercise before he was killed on Feb. 23. After a video of the shooting emerged on social media, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, on Wednesday, arrested Gregory McMichael, 64, and his son, Travis McMichael, 34, and they were jailed on murder and aggravated assault charges. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)

Johnson and Barnhill “must be held accountable for their shameless dereliction of duty,” said Vanita Gupta, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and a former head of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division during President Barack Obama’s administration. She also called on the Justice Department to investigate Arbery’s killing under the federal hate crimes statute.

While likening Arbery’s death to a lynching may seem like an apt comparison, doing so isn’t sufficient for understanding why the man’s death is a tragedy, said Bryan Stevenson, executive director of the Alabama-based Equal Justice Initiative. The organization has cataloged more than 4,400 racial terror lynchings in the U.S. that took place between Reconstruction and World War II.

“Law enforcement did nothing about lynchings for a century,” Stevenson said. “It should be a national priority to eliminate this kind of racial terror so that we do more, not less, when someone like Ahmaud Arbery is killed in this manner.”

He added: “Our nation continues to underestimate the painful burden that has been placed on black people and the traumatic injury we continue to aggravate when our justice system refuses to hold accountable perpetrators of unnecessary violence if they are white and invoke some public safety defense.”

The shooting of Arbery has also been compared to the 2012 case of Trayvon Martin, the unarmed black Florida teenager shot and killed by a neighborhood watch volunteer.

The shooter, George Zimmerman, who is white and Hispanic, suspected without evidence that Martin was casing the area for burglaries. Zimmerman was not charged initially after claiming self-defense under Florida’s “stand your ground” law, which provides immunity to people who use lethal force out of fear for their lives.

Phillip Agnew, an organizer with the Movement for Black Lives, said vigilantism involving black victims has been “driven by hate, resentment and generations-old racial anxiety.”

“We need to make people afraid to do something like this to other people,” Agnew added. “And until we do that, this is going to continue to happen.”

___

Morrison reported from New York and is a member of The Associated Press’ Race and Ethnicity team. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/aaronlmorrison.

USA 

A distinct possibility: ‘Temporary’ layoffs may be permanent --- CANADA TOO 

By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER 5/8/2020

1 of 5In this Thursday, May 7, 2020 photo, Nelis Rodriguez poses at her home in Chicago. Rodriguez has worked at the same restaurant for 21 years and in that time she never had to so much as think about getting another job. So, while she knew that much of the money she earns comes from tips and not the her $10-an-hour salary, she did not really appreciate what that meant until it was time to apply for unemployment. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)


WASHINGTON (AP) — In late March, Britney Ruby Miller, co-owner of a small chain of steakhouse restaurants, confidently proclaimed that once the viral outbreak had subsided, her company planned to recall all its laid-off workers.

Now? Miller would be thrilled to eventually restore three-quarters of the roughly 600 workers her company had to let go.

“I’m being realistic,” she said. “Bringing back 75% of our staff would be incredible.”

Call it realism or pessimism, but more employers are coming to a reluctant conclusion: Many of the employees they’ve had to lay off in the face of the pandemic might not be returning to their old jobs anytime soon. Some large companies won’t have enough customers to justify it. And some small businesses won’t likely survive at all despite aid provided by the federal government.

If so, that would undercut a glimmer of hope in the brutal April jobs report the government issued Friday, in which a record-shattering 20.5 million people lost jobs: A sizable majority of the jobless — nearly 80% — characterized their loss as only temporary.

That could still turn out to be the case for some. The federal government may end up allocating significantly more financial aid for people and small businesses. And more testing for the coronavirus, not to mention an eventual vaccine or an effective drug therapy, would make more Americans comfortable returning to the restaurants, shops, airports and movie theaters they used to frequent. That, in turn, would lead companies to recall more laid-off workers.

Yet Congress remains sharply divided about additional aid, with some Republicans expressing concern about escalating federal debt. President Donald Trump’s top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, said Friday that negotiations have “paused.”

If most layoffs become permanent, the severe recession the economy has slid into would likely last longer, the recovery would be slower and the toll on laid-off workers would be harsher, economists say. Unemployment soared to 14.7% in April — the highest rate since the Great Depression — and analysts predict it will rise still further in May. It could remain in double-digits into next year.

“For a lot of those furloughed workers, a non-trivial number will have no job to go back to, because the company they worked for will have failed or will need fewer workers than they used to,” said Claudia Sahm, a former Federal Reserve economist who is now director of macroeconomic policy at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth.

In March, MGM Resorts let go 63,000 employees and described them as furloughed, meaning temporarily laid off. Yet this week, the company acknowledged that many of those people will become permanently laid off by Aug. 31. The hotel and casino operator didn’t provide precise figures.

“We were optimistic at the time of the initial layoff in March that we would be able to reopen quickly,” Laura Lee, head of human resources, said in a layoff notice letter to the state of Michigan. “However, we have had to reassess our reopening date, given the duration and severity of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

In some ways, Miller, the restaurant owner, is more hopeful than she was when the shutdowns began: The states her company operates in — Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee — have begun to gradually reopen portions of their economies. Customers are phoning to see when they can make reservations. She hopes to reopen the five Jeff Ruby’s Steakhouses and two other restaurants the company operates by early June.

Yet business won’t be returning to what it was before. In Kentucky, the restaurants will be limited to 33% of capacity. They are putting six feet between tables in all their restaurants, thereby limiting seating. Miller estimates that the company’s revenue will plunge by half to three-quarters this year.

And expenses are rising because the company must buy face masks and other equipment for the workers it does recall and restock its food, drink, and equipment supplies.

If many of the job losses do prove only temporary, it would raise the possibility of a relatively swift economic recovery. It’s much easier for someone out of work to return to a former job than retrain for a new one or shift to a new industry. After the previous three recessions, the vast majority of people who were laid off lost their jobs permanently. Some were essentially replaced by new software or factory robots. In other cases, their employers folded or entered new lines of business.

After those recessions, the unemployment rate took so long to fall back to normal levels that economists began applying a chilling label: “Jobless recoveries.”

If a substantial number of small businesses are forced into bankruptcy, a similar dynamic could emerge this time, economists warn. Most job cuts by small companies in this recession have occurred because the business has shut down, whether by government order or from lack of demand, according to research released this week by Tomaz Cajner at the Federal Reserve and seven other economists. If those companies can’t reopen, those layoffs will become permanent.

Research by the JPMorgan Chase Institute has found that only half of all small businesses have enough cash on hand to last a month without revenue.

Even after government closure orders are lifted, many consumers won’t likely be comfortable shopping, eating out or attending concerts, movies or sporting events, especially as they used to — as part of tightly seated crowds. Not until the virus is well under control can a full economic recovery likely happen, economists say.

In the meantime, structural changes in the economy might help make many temporary layoffs permanent. It’s not clear, for example, when restaurants will need anywhere near as many workers they did before the virus struck.

Nelis Rodriguez has worked as a server at the M Restaurant & Lounge in the Warwick Hotel in downtown Chicago for 21 years. But revenue at the restaurant steadily disappeared as conventions that are critical for spring sales were canceled. She received two days’ notice of her layoff before the restaurant closed March 15th.

Rodriguez, 45, never thought she’d be thrown out of work, so she’d never thought about finding another job. But now she fears that as the coronavirus lingers, she might be laid off again and again.

“I think I will try to get out of the restaurant business altogether because I am afraid now,” she said.

___

AP Writer Don Babwin in Chicago contributed to this report.