Organizations covering a wide ideological spectrum representing a myriad of issues protested the NATO Summit May 20 and 21, decrying a behemoth military industrial complex that has grown with NATO’s transformation into the world’s police.

“We want to bring an end to the war machine,” said John Beacham coordinator of the Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER) Coalition in Chicago, “It’s causing so much destruction around the world,” he added.

NATO is being used to protect the same financial interests of many nations involved in the trans-Atlantic slave trade who used profits from slavery to become members of the powerful global elite. A swarm of activist groups came to protest, believing those global financial interests, and determination of military targets to be related.

“NATO is a colonial operation. I think it’s very directly related and the U.S. is the most powerful colonial or neo-colonial country to ever exist,” Mr. Beacham told The Final Call. “The European powers of NATO really can’t do anything without the U.S. All the strings are being pulled here, all the decisions are being made here about which country to attack next, and whether it is possible.”

With their own countries facing severe economic woes and still reeling from the effects of costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, The United States and the United Kingdom rank first and second in terms of NATO financing. There are nearly 40 other nations—though not actually a part of the Alliance—that work with NATO, on a variety of issues of common interest, such as the development of more lethal military weapons systems, and Western Europe’s relationship with East Asia, the South Pacific and North Africa.

British Prime Minister David Cameron having just left Camp David after attending the G8 Summit was among those in town for the NATO summit. Newly-elected French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Italian PM Mario Monti were also with Pres. Obama at the G8 Summit and joined him for the NATO Summit. Although Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev was present at the G8 Summit, a tense relationship exists between NATO and Russia, therefore no Russian representatives attended the NATO Summit.

Robert G. Bell, Senior Civilian Representative of the Secretary of Defense in Europe and the Defense Advisor to the U.S. Ambassador to NATO Ivo Daalder, was very clear regarding what he thought was most important during the weekend summit. “When we talk about capabilities in a military alliance like NATO, we are talking about the hardware that make up a military: the fighter jets, helicopters, ships, and other systems,” wrote Mr. Bell on the U.S. State Department’s official blog. “The United States and our 27 NATO Allies make up the most effective alliance in human history,” he continued, adding summit topics included “discussion of the Alliance Ground Surveillance system, an Alliance Missile Defense capability.”

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen addressed the Chicago Young Atlanticist Summit May 19, which ran parallel with the NATO Summit. Organized by the United States Atlantic Council and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, the “Atlanticists Summit” included students from NATO member nations, high-level NATO officials, scholars and think-tank analysts.

“We face a wide range of security challenges,” Mr. Fogh Rasmussen told the students. “And we will take the necessary decisions to ensure that our alliance can meet those challenges.”

Then, sounding a paranoid alarm that could have been spoken verbatim by any Israeli right-winger or American neo-con, the NATO Secretary General said, “In today’s world, threats know no borders and respect no country’s sovereignty.”

Mr. Fogh Rasmussen’s words ignore NATO’s continued global military actions, which impinge upon the sovereignty of other nations. It is precisely the type of rhetoric causing NATO’s critics to label them “warmongers.”

A May 14 Human Rights Watch report titled “Unacknowledged Deaths: Civilian Casualties in NATO’s Air Campaign in Libya,” was highly critical of NATO’s air strikes in Libya which were responsible for dozens of civilian deaths, including women, children and other non-combatants in the externally instigated civil conflict. HRW charges NATO with failure to investigate unlawful attacks, and ignoring those civilian deaths.

In a June 2011 press conference, Minister Louis Farrakhan sharply condemned the NATO-led “coalition of demons” as they unleashed brutal bombing raids during their regime change operation in Libya. NATO’s punishing air assault decimated the Libyan cities of Tripoli, Sirte, and ultimately led to the assassination of long-time Libyan leader Col. Muammar Gadhafi.

Many observers believe had it not been for the American government’s outside interference and NATO acting as the de facto Air Force for the Libyan opposition, Col. Gadhafi and Libya’s Bedouin tribal leaders could have resolved amongst themselves whatever disagreements existed prior.

Numerous anti-war groups have ramped up calls for NATO leaders to be charged with sponsoring and carrying out war crimes. In his writings, Gerald Perreira, who served as an executive member of the World Mathaba based in Tripoli, refers to NATO as the “North Atlantic Terrorist Organization” describing them as neo-colonial enforcers on a global crusade.

“Originally created to check the spread of Soviet Communism into Western Europe, this European organization has now reinvented itself as an enforcer and defender of White supremacy,” writes Mr. Perreira. “Since the onset of colonialism, hundreds of years ago, West Europeans have carried out a policy of genocide and plunder throughout the world. NATO comprises these same old tribes of Europe organized under a modern day umbrella.”

Rev. Jesse Jackson echoed the concerns of many protesters regarding NATO’s growing reach.

“NATO is going to be challenged to change its policies,” said Rev. Jackson. “Bombing Libya was just wrong, and they are going to other African countries and they shouldn’t,” he added.

Brock Macintosh, 23, and a veteran of the Afghanistan War is a vocal opponent of the growing military actions of NATO and the war profiteers.

“It’s a shame that because 3,000 civilians died in New York City, the response was to go to war in Afghanistan where now 33,000 civilians have died,” he said. Afghanistan exit?

Also present in Chicago at the NATO Summit for high-level talks was embattled Afghan President Hamid Karzai. U.S. President Barack Obama said by 2014, Afghans would largely be in charge of their own security. American troop withdrawal has already begun.

“Our mission will change from combat to support,” the president said in a recent speech dealing with Afghanistan’s future. “By 2014, this process of transition will be complete, and the Afghan people will be responsible for their own security.”

Mr. Fogh Rasmussen echoed his sentiments stating, “By the end of 2014, Afghans will be fully in charge of their own security. That is when our ISAF mission will come to an end. This does not mean the end of our commitment,” he said. NATO’s only goal is aiding in the establishment of “freedom, democracy and the rule of law,” he added.

President Obama came to Chicago for the NATO summit after hosting the Group of Eight (G8) Summit at Camp David May 18, and 19. Originally, the G8 Summit was also scheduled for Chicago, however, in a surprise move, the president announced in March his decision to change its location. Talks surrounding the financial crisis gripping the eurozone dominated G8 discussions, along with the continued pressure apparently designed to instigate military aggression directed at the Islamic Republic of Iran.

While the president maintains his decision to change locations was not based on security concerns, the switch caused considerable embarrassment for Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, and Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy.

Supt. McCarthy, who leads the country’s second largest police force, is also the city’s highest paid employee with an annual salary of $260,000. He was seen throughout the weekend walking amongst the protesters, freely accessible, and directly delivering commands to the officers on post throughout the downtown area.

“This is an international city people came here to protest,” Supt. McCarthy told reporters. “I expect that the organizers are going to be true to their word and I expect that other people are going to engage in spontaneous protests and that’s okay. We’ve prepared for it, we’ve drilled for it, we’ve paid for it, we’re ready for it, we just have to go and execute it.”

Several days before and during the NATO Summit, heavy parking and traffic flow restrictions were put in place. Chicago residents experienced numerous traffic problems and disruptions in the public transportation system, which carries on an average weekday 1.64 million riders to various destinations in the Chicago metropolitan area. Bomb-squad units were also called upon to detonate a suspicious package on one of the rail lines.

Angered by NATO’s continued involvement in Afghanistan and subsequent destabilization of Libya, organizers with the ANSWER Coalition maintain the movement towards war with Iran and military intervention in Syria should be vociferously and vehemently opposed. For months, anti-war organizers stated they planned to “hit the streets to protest the warmongers at the NATO summit in Chicago” and they backed up their words with actions.

Numerous protests broke out on the days leading up to the NATO Summit, the largest taking place May 20, the day of the official beginning of the summit. Several smaller protests were also held in front of the home of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

Snipers were perched on rooftops around the site of the NATO Summit to secure that area, as well as Soldier Field, the location where the NATO leaders posed for their group photograph.

When asked if he would continue working to facilitate the protests, specifically the planned veteran’s protest in which they sought to return their medals to NATO leaders, he said the CPD would continue to assist the law-abiding protesters to the best of their ability.

“I have incredible respect for anybody who served this country on that level and I think we have an obligation to do that for John Q. Citizen and certainly in the case of veterans, we owe them probably a little bit more,” said Supt. McCarthy.

In a particularly moving demonstration, over 40 veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq returned their “War on Terror” medals and other commendations as they denounced NATO, the United States government, and the military industrial complex that sent them to fight war. Many protesters could be seen crying as one by one, the soldiers told their stories then hurled their medals into the street.

All remained spirited and generally peaceful until a group of protesters described by other protesters as Anarchists began to surge towards police in an attempt to gain access to the main area surrounding McCormick Place, where the high-level government officials were meeting.

A tense hour-long standoff began. Waves of riot police in full armor with helmets, batons and shields moved towards the crowd. Additionally, two sonic weapons called “sound cannons” were moved into position, as the protesters were surrounded. According to CPD officials, they are capable of emitting pain-inducing sonic output of up to 150 decibels, protesters and journalists quickly scrambled to grab earplugs, however, the sound cannons were not used.

At one point, officers removed their helmets and briefly placed their gas masks on, presumably in preparation for chemical dispersants to be released in efforts to disperse the crowd. None were used however, the stalemate did end in violence with several protesters being beaten bloody, arrested, and carried off. After about two hours, the crowd had largely dissipated.

Although they would not reveal their identities, masked members of the so-called Black Bloc told The Final Call they believed that it was time to “take the next step” since in their view, the protest were not getting the results they desired. When asked what results were sought, they were unclear, repeating criticism of capitalism and the “NATO-led war machine.”

Later that evening, another protest was held on Michigan Avenue in front of the Art Institute of Chicago where First Lady Michelle Obama held an exclusive dinner and tour for NATO officials. More arrests occurred with officers reportedly being doused with urine and feces by protesters. Four police officers were wounded in various melees.

Mr. Beacham told The Final Call that by having NATO in Chicago, President Obama and U.S. officials were solidifying the relationship with the European “junior partners” in global gangsterdom, and the heavily armed police units brought in to maintain order are supporting them.

“These are the real gangsters there’s no doubt about that,” said Mr. Beacham pointing in the direction of the NATO Summit’s meeting place. “The real gangsters are meeting right there—NATO—and they are protected by tens of thousands of gangsters in blue.”

Ashahed M. Muhammad: We’ve always known you as a political activist, but how did you feel when you were asked by Cynthia McKinney to take it to the next level, to join her ticket as her VP?

Rosa Clemente: I was honored but overwhelmed. When she called me I thought she wanted me to consult on the campaign, not be her VP, not saying that I am not ready. I wasn’t overwhelmed with the task, I was more overwhelmed with… this is a historical moment for the hip-hop generation and it’s not an ego thing, it’s just the truth and that means a lot. That means that things that I’ve always valued, especially in hip-hop activism and organizing and our generations and accountability, I think that we let too many cats that look like us, be in these offices and have no accountability to what is happening on the ground.

AMM: You bring a whole different perspective as you talk about being a veteran organizer even at a young age and now you are into the political system. Many young people have become disgruntled with the general political system and its process, may even see you and Cynthia’s run as symbolic. Can you explain why you think this is important for you to be on this ticket with Cynthia McKinney?

RC: Yes, I think symbols are great and again it’s history and it is a symbolic thing too but you know like if I am going to be involved in using the electorate or using the vote, I am going to try and follow what my hero, Malcolm X talked about in his speech, “The Ballot of the Bullet.” It’s really how are we going to come together to formulate public policies, policies about self-determination for a people. I think young people want to do that. They know that what the Democrats are bringing or what the Republicans are bringing are destroying. I think many of the people that get talked to, are middle class, not young Black and Latino people who are in college; who have gone through college, who live a kind of suburbia life but nobody is really talking to the average brothers and sisters on the street, the real working class, the real people that work two jobs and still fall under the poverty line. Military people who are discussed with the war and those people exist and I think the Green Party reflects that.

AMM: Presumably you were looking to support somebody for President right?

RC: Well I’m a Green Party member. I’ve been an activist, but I’ve known about the Green Party since I was up in Albany, New York. The Albany Greens have been around for a minute. I’m a registered Green Party member. I lived in Maryland and I couldn’t vote because they weren’t on the ticket. I think it has shocked a lot of people like… ok what is that about? But I’ve always known about the Green Party.

AMM: Now, switching gears to on the political scene, there is a movement for Puerto Rico to become it’s own independent nation. Many Puerto Rican nationalists don’t want Puerto Rico to become another state or part of the United States, give us your perspective on that.

RC: Well first and foremost, I am Puerto Rican and that’s my people; that is where I come from. When I went to school that was one of the first classes I took where I began to learn the history of Puerto Rico and America’s colonization of the island. Now there has always been an independence movement and in fact we did win independence. The United States just came and took away that right of independence and for 50 years had us under governors and this crazy system that ended up making the majority of the people on the island dependent on the American government. In 2008 we said to Puerto Ricans, that you are American citizens. Puerto Ricans, since 1917, have been American citizens, a lot of people may not know that, but we are Americans, we were born American citizens.

AMM: Interesting…

RC: If I live in New York, I can vote in the national presidential election, if I live on the Island of Puerto Rico, I can’t. So the fact that we have a system that allows almost 1.7 million people to be disenfranchised every four years is a problem. It’s a complete disenfranchisement of an entire group of American citizens. Puerto Rico is one of the last few colonies of America that the United Nations every year puts through decolonization committee hearings, because it is a colony of the United States.

We hear about neo-colonialism in Africa, but you know in Puerto Rico we are at the colonial state still. I think Puerto Ricans—in this larger group of so-called Latinos—we have a vastly different experience than our other brothers and sisters who for the most part were either brought here on a boats during slavery or immigrated here. I don’t think the Democratic Party has ever been serious about what’s going on in Puerto Rico. In fact, when the FBI three years ago killed Commandante Filiberto Ojeda Rios, former Machatero movement leader—he was a 74-year-old man that the Feds shot in his house and let him bleed to death. Why would they kill a 74-year-old Machatero? Because they know that the fervor on the Island for independence is great. When we won the Vieques victory in May 2003 and we kicked the United States Navy off, the United States loses something. You lost one of the biggest command posts you got right there in the Caribbean. So they have to keep Puerto Rico so they can initiate almost every war. Not because they want the people to be Americans, they want our island to be the strategic command zone in the Caribbean, and even now with the rhetoric around (Venezuelan President) Hugo Chavez, they need a base in the Caribbean and Puerto Rico is that base. You don’t hear anything about that in this mainstream election, you don’t even hear about it in most progressive Left circles. It is not a conversation, but that’s my country and I understand it intimately. That is where my family still lives and I see how they are struggling with unemployment, increasing police brutality. The fact is that Black Puerto Ricans suffer at every level. We have hoods in Puerto Rico where the police come and beat and kill young Black Puerto Rican men just like in Brooklyn or Chicago or anywhere in the United States.

AMM: Talk to us about that. That is a very important issue, the parallel existence of the Puerto Rican people. There is much that brings our peoples’ destinies together.

RC: I think in this country the way identity is played out or the way language is used is tricky. The English language is tricky. Puerto Ricans are (considered) a race—and I am a hard core Puerto Rican to the death—but we Puerto Ricans are not a race. Dominicans are not a race. Jamaicans are not a race. When we talk about ‘What is Black?’ that’s a very different conversation you have in the United States than you have in Puerto Rico or Peru or in Jamaica or Haiti.
Once I learned who I was and that being Puerto Rican is definitely a cultural-national identity but that obviously I am this skin color, my father has an Afro and my grandmother was Black for a reason. Africans were brought over and dispersed in the Caribbean. Many Africans who were taken from the continent were dispersed in the Caribbean or Central and South America. Many of them didn’t come to the United States. So we are African descendant people and how racism played out in Latin America has always been class stratification. With all that being said I consider myself a Black person, I consider myself an African descendant. I have a different experience than maybe an African-American or Jamaican but I have an overall general experience of us being oppressed and that oppression being racial. Institutional racism and structural racism and it plays out in our communities, no matter if you are Puerto Rican, Dominican or Haitian and I think one of the best tools the enemy always uses is to divide and conquer. We are still under that. We know that we are being divided and conquered but we still fall into a trap and we are doing that for many reasons. I don’t think that we really have strong leadership in this country that is Black or Latino—if you want to say that term—that is saying ‘enough is enough!’ We have more in common than we are different. How are we going to solve these collective problems for the young people who are going to inherit this?

AMM: What will it take, more and more beatings will it get to a point where people just get sick of getting beaten, sick of too many ‘Shawn Bells’ too many ‘Jena 6′ situations, too many ‘Megan Williams’ episodes. Is it going to get that point, what will it take?

RC: I don’t know what it’s going to take. Look at the war, look at the gas prices, look at people not only losing their homes when we talk about sub prime mortgage crisis, we also have to think about all the affordable housing that is being taken away, the rent destabilization in every city—gentrification.

I can’t predict it. Anything can happen to make anything spark. You know how it’s often the person that is real quiet and gets bullied and bullied for years and then one day it’s like ‘that’s it!’ So I can’t predict that, but what I do know is that people are looking for something so outside of the two major parties. The lesser of two evils is a conversation that we can’t tolerate anymore especially as it relates to young people of all races.

We are inheriting a world where most of the outer world hates us. Where 50% of Black and Latino men are unemployed. You have to get into debt to go to college. We have no health care, our food is poisonous, our environment is being destroyed and maybe that’s why what it will be like (when) our American Indian brothers and sisters say ‘Mother Earth is just going to give up.’ I know that the Green Party is for me. I’m not going down without a fight and I am not trying to get in a ring with an enemy that—I don’t even want to fight the Democrats or the Republicans I don’t want to one day open their eyes and (then they) embrace us. I want to do what Dr. John Henrik Clarke taught us, that by using their tools, you can never build your own house. I’m not going to be a Democratic junkie, most of African-American, Latinos in the Democratic Party are junkies that can’t get off of it. It is like an addiction and every time they let us down. You let us down John Conyers! Nancy Pelosi let women down! It’s just like they let us down not in 100 days, in less than 30 days! And look at Obama already gone right to the Right—FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) and the rhetoric on Hugo Chavez, never saying he’s Black always this personal responsibility of Black people, never talking about structural racism. I think there is a majority of young people that are not feeling that and they want to see something different, something innovative. I could be a person. I could say it’s not worth it, but I’m not that person. I could say that the Green Party is majority White yet—so are the Democrats, but at least in the Green Party we are talking about dealing with a multi-racial organization that at least has valued social justice, democracy and livable wages. So I’d rather go in this ring and fight.

AMM: Last we want to address the Hip-Hop community, the cultural reality. If we can send something to everybody who reads this newspaper, everybody who embraces hip-hop what would you say about this election and the candidacy of Cynthia McKinney?

RC: I think that hip-hop was created in the poorest congressional district in America, the south Bronx, where I was born and grew up. These were young people who had nothing and have created not only a multi-billion dollar industry but have created an international way that we can all speak to each other. I think the fact that we have that and that hip-hop can be found in Palestine, in Ghana, in Venezuela in Cuba, in Brooklyn and American Indian reservations, speaks to the power of it, it also makes me understand why we are always being attacked and why they are always attacking the hip-hop community and not differentiate in between (individual) rappers and the entire culture. 35 years ago every person who hated hip-hop was talking about how hip-hop would never last, hip-hop is going to die and asking, ‘what is that music about?’ saying hip-hop is never going to be in a museum, it’s never going to be in a book, there’s going to be no hip-hop professors. Look at us now. The Smithsonian has a whole (hip hop) exhibit. Over 200 books on hip-hop being written. We have White people talking about racial injustice within hip-hop.

We have hip-hoppers being one of the only few people of color on the ground during Hurricane Katrina reporting the truth. So they said hip-hop was going to die in 1978 and it’s 2008.