The website of the far left Worker’s World Party has reported on an event which celebrated the 85th birthday of former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark and that included diplomatic officials from Cuba, Venezuela, and Iran as well as a leader in the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood who is accused of committing war crimes in his home country. According to the report:
The event at historic Riverside Church’s Assembly Hall the evening of Jan. 12 will long be remembered. Over 350 political, community and anti-war activists, along with U.N. diplomats and consular officials from Cuba, Venezuela, Peru, Iran and Serbia, celebrated both the 85th birthday of human-rights lawyer and former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark and the 20th anniversary of the International Action Center, an anti-imperialist, anti-racist organization that Clark founded in 1992. The evening reflected a broad leftist spectrum of respect and admiration for Clark and his principled stances throughout his life. The gala event began with a delectable buffet of mainly Latin American, South Asian and Middle Eastern hors d’oeuvres and dishes prepared and donated by IAC staff and other activist volunteers. The evening’s program was co-chaired by gala coordinators LeiLani Dowell, an IAC organizer, journalist and lesbian, gay, bi, trans, queer activist; and Sara Flounders, an IAC co-director and United National Antiwar Coalition organizer. Father Miguel D’Escoto Brockmann — former Foreign Minister of Nicaragua’s Sandinista government, former U.N. General Assembly president and chair of the gala host committee — sent a videotaped message praising Clark’s humanitarian works. One of the IAC’s first tasks was to oppose the first U.S.-led Gulf war against Iraq and subsequent U.S. government sanctions, which eventually killed an estimated 1 million Iraqis, the majority of them children, and destroyed Iraq’s infrastructure. Over the years Clark led numerous U.S. solidarity delegations to Iraq to bring medicines and crucial aid. The IAC started out as ‘an experiment,’ said Flounders. ‘Could we put the greatest focus on the most oppressed? Some were uncomfortable with this approach, even good and skilled people. But some embraced it. And we moved forward. The experiment continues, while we keep focusing on unity, on building and rebuilding unity. Because unity is what is needed.’
Read the rest here.
The report goes on to identify other participants in the event including:
- Abdeen Jabara, past president, American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
- Gloria La Riva, Answer Coalition, National Committee to Free the Cuban Five and Party for Socialism and Liberation
- Imam Ashrafuz Zaman Khan, Islamic Circle of North America
- Larry Holmes, first secretary of Workers World Party
In November 2009, the Investigative Project reported that Ashrafuz Zaman Khan, a former Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) president and secretary general, was under federal investigation regarding his past ties to a paramilitary group in his home country. In March, U.K. media reported that Khan was facing imminent prosecution by the International Crimes Tribunal in connection with the charges. The Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) is a less well-known part of the Muslim Brotherhood network in the U.S., generally thought to be closely tied to the Jamaat-e-Islami organization of Southeast Asia, itself known to be allied with the Muslim Brotherhood. ICNA is particularly close to the Muslim American Society and the two organizations have been holding joint annual conventions for many years. Previous posts have discussed ICNA ad campaigns intended to present Islam to the U.S. public. The New York campaign drew national media attention when it was reported that Siraj Wahajj, an American Islamic convert associated with the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood and an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, was behind the New York campaign.
Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, is the founder of the International Action Center which and has its roots in the far left Worker’s World Party. Previous posts have detailed the close relationship between Clark, the antiwar group known as A.N.S.W.E.R and the Muslim American Society (MAS), a part of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood group. Clark was also in Cairo in 2007 to protest the Egyptian military trial of Muslim Brotherhood leaders there. In April 2009, a post reported on a a conference that bought leaders of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood together with Ramsey Clark and other far-left/antiwar political figures and foreign activists as well as Congressman Keith Ellison (D-MN), the first Muslim Congressman.