Photo: Omali Yeshitela, Chairman of the African People’s Socialist Party. Screenshot.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation recently did a series of raids on several properties owned by the Pan-African political group the African People’s Socialist Party. One of the FBI raids was on the home of the party’s chairman, Omali Yeshitela.
The African People’s Socialist Party is Black liberation and is a vocal critic of U.S. foreign policy.
In May of 1972, Yeshitela founded the APSP. It was formed by the merging of three organizations–the Junta of Militant Organizations (JOMO), the Black Rights Fighters, and the Black Study Group. Today, the APSP is an African Internationalist organization. The pro-reparations group identifies ideologically with African internationalism and African socialism.
Recently, Yeshitela spoke to Amy Goodman and Juan González of Democracy Now! about the raid.
According to Yeshitela, the FBI performed a violent raid with flash grenades and drones on properties in St. Louis, Missouri, and St. Petersburg, Florida, with ties to APSP.
The raids came as the Justice Department indicted a Russian man living overseas named Aleksandr Ionov using U.S.-based groups to spread Russian propaganda, said Goodman.
Yeshitela said he was zip-tied while his home was raided and denied the FBI’s implication was that the APSP group was taking orders from Russia.
“My wife and I were awake. We were sitting at the dining room table discussing how we were going to be moving for the day…And then we heard this loud racket outside, this noise from loudspeakers demanding that the residents of this property should come out with our hands up and nothing in our hands. And as this was being said, loud flashbang grenades were exploding all around the house,” he recalled.
Yeshitela said he remembered seeing “these laser dots from automatic weapons were bouncing off my chest. And I heard these commands to move toward them, toward the light. There was a large armored vehicle in front of my house.”
When he and his wife got outside, he said he “was zip-tied at the side of the house” and his wife was handcuffed.
The FBI informed Yeshitela they were executing a search warrant. They also questioned him about Yeshitela and took cell phones, laptops, iPads, and “something like 40 years of archives.”
Photo: Omali Yeshitela, Chairman of the African People’s Socialist Party. Screenshot.
