Northattan

The unusual decision to charge a 20-year-old Dominican immigrant with the crime of “self-abortion” has sent shock waves through Washington Heights, where a dead fetus was found discarded in an alleyway just after Thanksgiving.

Some, like Washington Heights resident Miguel Antonio Vasquez, support the decision. “They should throw her in jail, or worse. The baby was practically fully formed,” he said.

But others are more reluctant to judge. “We don’t know what sort of situation she might have been in,” said fruit vendor Rafael Piñero. “The only one that can judge her and that knows why she did what she did is God.”

The fetus, about six inches long with its umbilical cord still attached, was found in a bucket wrapped in a plastic bag on the 600 block of 191st Street on November 29th. Emergency responders pronounced the unborn baby girl dead on the scene, and New York City police arrested Aribely Almonte on the rarely-used charge of “self-abortion in the first degree,” a misdemeanor under New York state law for which Almonte could serve up to a year in jail if convicted.

San Miguel Alcancel is one of more than a dozen "Botanicas" in Washington Heights that carries teas capable of inducing abortion. Photo by Russ Finkelstein/Northattan.

According to The New York Times, New York State’s Division of Criminal Justice Services said Almonte’s case is only the fifth time since 1980 that self-abortion charges have been brought in the state, where abortion is illegal after the 24th week of pregnancy, unless a doctor certifies that the mother’s life is at risk.

Though the charge is rare, some in the largely Dominican neighborhood of Washington Heights say cases of self-induced abortion are probably more common than is publicly acknowledged.

New York City police have confirmed that they are trying to determine whether Almonte terminated her pregnancy by drinking an herbal tea said to induce abortion, though they couldn’t release more specific information due to the pending investigation.

Teas like the one police suspect Almonte may have used are sold over the counter at more than a dozen Dominican “botanicas” or Santeria shops in Washington Heights. One is roble, which is the Spanish word for oak. In traditional Dominican medicine a tea is made from the bark and is prescribed as a digestive aid. When taken in high enough doses, it is also capable of causing an abortion, according to Al Guervaz, a Dominican nutritionist and herbalist practicing in New York City.

“Herbal-induced abortions are not very common in New York,” said Guervaz, who said they are more common in the Dominican Republic, “where there’s a high incidence of very young women becoming pregnant.”

But women in the neighborhood do share information about which herbal medicines are capable of causing abortions, and in what doses, according to Katerine Lopez, who works at Liberty Nutrition, a natural food supplement store catering to the Dominican community in Washington Heights.

Botanicas don’t sell roble or another herb, called tua tua, as abortion agents. But they are available at $3 an ounce for other uses (tua tau is an anti-parasitic that may cause an abortion at high enough doses), so a female customer can “ask for something specific that will work, but say that you need it for another ailment,” said Lopez. “Someone I know who was thinking of having an abortion recently found information on a Mexican website that told her which herbs she would have to take,” she said.

The use of such products for clandestine, potentially dangerous home abortions might seem an anomaly in a city like New York, which has a range of resources for women seeking to have a legal abortion. But Guervaz said women who use the teas for that purpose may be unaware of other options, or unable to use them because their families would object if they knew they had gone to an abortion clinic.

“People might not know about places like Planned Parenthood if they are recent immigrants that are unfamiliar with the laws and resources available to them,” he said.

Almonte is currently staying with her father away from Washington Heights, to avoid the scrutiny of neighbors and the media. Her family has said that she will return for her Jan. 3 court appearance, when she will likely be thrust once again into the spotlight.

Street cleaning in Washington Heights may soon be reduced from two days a week to only one, after a vote by Community Board 12 on Nov. 24. Councilmen Robert Jackson and Ydanis Rodriguez both voiced support for the board’s resolution.

St. Nicholas Avenue in Washington Heights. Photo by Celeste Owen-Jones/Northattan.

It is the first time such a decision has been made by a community board in Manhattan. It comes after the City Council voted last April to give Community Boards with clean streets the choice to drop one day in alternate side parking in residential areas. In April, CBS quoted City Council Speaker Christine Quinn as saying,  “We’re not saying to a neighborhood you have to have less street cleaning and less alternative-side-of-the-street parking. We are saying you have that option.” And CB 12 has chosen that option.

Kathy Dawkins of the Department of Sanitation said that to be eligible, “each section of CB 12 must have a two-year street cleanliness rate of 90 percent,” which was the case for CB 12. This is measured by a scorecard from the Mayor’s Office of Operations, where inspectors rate the cleanliness of a district monthly.

The manager of Community Board 12, Ebenezer Smith, said that the board members were divided on whether to reduce street cleanings, the issue, with some even requesting “a return to street cleaning three days a week as it used to be some years ago.” But the board voted, 25-12-1, in favor of the resolution. Smith said some members argued that beyond the parking relief, it could also improve the air quality, since fewer people would be moving their cars around.

In addition to parking relief, Smith said the cleaning cutback could also save the city money. For instance, cleaning trucks will need less gasoline.

Smith himself was skeptical that the benefits would outweigh the detriments, though. He said that cutting street cleaning “might work in the area of Cabrini / 181^st Street, but might not work in other areas, like St. Nicholas and 170^th Street.” Indeed, St. Nicholas Avenue is said to be dirtier than, for instance, Broadway, due to a higher number of street vendors.

Vanessa Caballos, who lives on 173^rd Street and St. Nicholas Avenue, said that so far the streets are clean because the sanitation trucks come frequently. But she is strongly against the new resolution. “Where is the garbage going to go? There are eventually going to end up on the streets,” said Caballos. She doesn’t own a car, but said that making parking easier for residents is not a good excuse “People who own a car in the city have to expect rules and regulations to be in place,” said Caballos. “Mass transit is the way to go.”

Now that Community Board 12 has voted to reduce street cleaning by one day, the Department of Sanitation will review the mechanical broom routes in each section of District 12. Dawkins said “this process can take up 12 to 18 months.” Once all changes are approved, the Department of Transportation will have to change the alternate side parking signs. And some residents can sleep in another day.

NAACP members support residents and protest against any voter ID requirements. Photo by Xian Bu/Northattan.

“I’m here today simply because there’s an expiration date on my rights,” said Lionel Richards, choking back tears. Standing in a sea of people about 500 strong holding signs that read “Voter Suppression is Unamerican” and “My Vote, Our Rights, Our Fight,” he used his one day off from work to protest in the Stand for Freedom march against proposed state election laws requiring photo identification at the polls.

After a slow moving march 10 blocks, from midtown Manhattan to Dag Hammarskjold Plaza across First Avenue from the United Nations, Richards, a 57-year-old customer service representative from Harlem, found a bench to rest on as the event’s sponsor, leaders from the NAACP and elected officials took to a stage to rally the crowd that had gathered.

This year, 34 states introduced legislation requiring government issued photo identification to vote. Seven of those states passed the proposals into law, adding to Georgia and Indiana, where voter ID was already required. Republicans, the lead sponsors of voter ID laws, say the measures are aimed at preventing voter fraud. Democrats say those laws suppress the votes of the poor, legal immigrants, minorities and young people. And even though such laws are unlikely to pass in New York, those attending the Stand for Freedom march wanted to add their voices in solidarity with those states where ID requirements have been passed or are being considered.

For many at the march, the situation evoked the voting rights movement of the 1960s. “I came out to continue to protect my civil rights that I protested for 40 years ago,” said Richards. “I’ve been telling people for years that any day now, black folks can be back picking cotton, so you better get aware of that.” An African-American, he’s not the only one who some say could be disenfranchised by legislation mandating photo ID.

For Belinda Martinez, the 2012 presidential election will be the first time she gets to vote. Yet, the 19-year-old said she’s already wondering if she will have a problem when she signs in with the poll workers. That’s why she came to the rally. “It’s like I get hit twice,” said the Washington Heights resident and City College of New York student. “I was born in the Dominican Republic; my parents don’t even know where my birth certificate is. I live in New York City. I don’t drive, I don’t have a license. The only thing I have with my face on it is my school ID. And, trust me, I don’t have any extra cash money on me to go pickup another ID in some office somewhere.”

As long as she stays in New York, Martinez may never need to seek that extra ID anyway. In April, New York State Assemblyman Steve Katz, a Westchester County Republican, sponsored a bill that would “require a government issued photo identification card to be presented when casting a ballot” and was referred to the Committee on Election Law, where it is expected to die.

Northattan residents march against voter identification. Photo by Xian Bu/Northattan.

Jonathan Brater, counsel with the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, said that in a heavily Democratic state like New York, there isn’t much hope that voter ID laws will pass. “Legislation has been introduced in the majority of states,” he said. “I don’t think it’s necessarily surprising it’s been introduced in New York, but I don’t know that it reflects any popular support for it. It just takes one legislator to support a policy and a bill.”

Though census data shows New York City does have higher numbers of racial and language minorities and other people without appropriate photo identification, Brater said the larger area of concern is probably in the so-called swing states. A report issued by the Brennan Center found that both new and proposed voter ID laws “could make it significantly harder for more than five million eligible voters to cast ballots in 2012.”

Even though New York may not be at risk, the Rev. Al Sharpton of Harlem-based National Action Network says those five million votes are worth fighting for. “Didn’t nobody donate us the right to vote. Didn’t nobody just throw the vote at us. We’ve fought to get it and we gonna’ fight to keep it!” Sharpton shouted at the march.

As one of New York City’s largest immigrant populations, Latinos traditionally vote Democratic. Lillian Rodriguez Lopez of the Hispanic Federation said that because of their voting history, her people are targets too. With 54 million Latinos in the country and another half million who will turn 18 years old every year for the next 20 years, Lopez said it’s no surprise that Republican lawmakers are hiding behind voter ID laws. “All of these bills around the country, we hear that it’s voter fraud, that they’re trying to protect us against crime,” she told the marchers. “There is a crime. It’s a crime against our community that they would believe they could stop us from voting.”

With a stiff wind whipping across the plaza and the chilling bite of winter in the air, U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel, a Democrat representing upper Manhattan and part of the Bronx, acknowledged that New Yorkers could have an impact on the national stage: “We thought it was over, marching, civil rights, voting rights. But the evil people in this world, they never go away. Thank God people who are united today are prepared to take our country back.”

No matter the politics, the states or the influences involved, Moretta Negawi, a self-described warrior of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, says today is not the day for the generation of her 14 grandchildren  to start moving backwards. “To vote, I don’t want us to lose that right. We’ve paid too much for it.”

Jose Pimentel, accused of plotting to bomb New York City, in court. Photo by Jefferson Siegel/AP

While downtown officials revealed more details today about the investigation that led to Saturday’s arrest of a Dominican Northattan resident on terrorism charges, uptowners worried about how the arrest might affect two of the city’s large minority populations: Dominicans and Muslims.

“I’m his mother, how do you think I’m feeling right now?” sobbed Carmen Sosa, the distressed mother of Jose Pimentel, whom police have charged with plotting to bomb city post offices and police stations, as well as soldiers returning from war.

Sosa was addressing the media circus camped in front of her son’s apartment in Hamilton Heights early Monday morning. “I would like to apologize to the city,” said Sosa.  “I love New York, I’ve been here, since 1987. I’m very disappointed with what my son’s doing. I did not raise my son that way.

Pimentel, originally from Dominican Republic, is a naturalized U.S. citizen who recently converted to Islam, according to police. Officials in Northattan today praised the police investigation that led to his arrest. Among them was State Senator Adriano Espaillat, who commended the actions of the New York Police Department for “their swift and rapid response” to Pimentel’s alleged bombing plans that threatened the lives of city residents.

Ebenzer Smith, district manager of Community Board 12, joined in the praise, suggesting that the Pimentel case might help the community overcome some of its longstanding hostility toward police.

“We need to be vigilant in our neighborhood and work with the police department and give them any tips,” said Smith. “Not only terrorist but any criminal action cannot be tolerated in this community.”

Police allege that Pimentel planned to build bombs that can be easily made at home, with simple ingredients such as powder, Christmas lights and flashlights. The powder was made from scraped material off of match heads and used Christmas lights as the detonator. Pimentel bought the ingredients from a Home Depot on Exterior Street in the Bronx according to The New York Times.  Amelia Belucci, an employee at the store, said today that the allegations against Pimentel made her nervous.

“Nothing in the world is safe,” said Belucci. “What happened on 9/11 can happen anywhere. He’s not there in his head. Maybe he wants to hurt somebody,” she said.

Simon Islam, a software engineer who just moved to New York from Texas, lives a floor below Pimentel’s uncle’s apartment on 137^th Street in Hamilton Heights.  According to police, Pimentel was living with his uncle at the time of his arrest.

“We always saw him in the corner smoking all the time, like maybe late nights, at 1 or 2 in the morning,” said Islam, who – like police – described Pimentel as a loner. “He’s always standing and smoking,” he said.

Pimentel’s mother said that after his conversion to Islam, her son worshipped at the Islamic Cultural Center of New York, the city’s largest mosque at 96^th Street and Third Avenue.

The imam there, Omar S. Abu Namous, worried today that Pimentel’s actions could raise a new wave of  “Islamophobia.”

“People don’t understand Islam,” said Namous. “We should not judge a person from their religion. You could be anything: Religion is one thing, and your character is another thing,“ he said.

Simon Islam, a fellow Muslim, said he also worried that the allegations against Pimentel could hurt Muslims.

“Islam is not about all of this. Definitely not,” he said. “Nowhere is Islam telling people to go do jihad on people who are innocent and not involved with anything.”

Equally distressed today were many Dominicans, who make up the majority in Washington Heights, and who wonder if now they will be objects of suspicion, as Muslims were after the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington.

While there was no real evidence of an anti-Dominican backlash, there was plenty of bewilderment among the Dominicans of Washington Heights.

“I never heard of a Dominican bomber before,” said 15-year-old Ariel Sanchez.

“That guy is crazy,” said Johnny de Jesus. “I don’t think any Hispanic does something like that.”

Pimentel is being held without bail, and his lawyer was not available for comment.

Ydanis Rodriguez at a press conference on Wednesday. Photo by Tania Rashid/Northattan.

A day after he was arrested as part of the city’s crackdown on Occupy Wall Street, City Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez demanded that New York City authorities investigate police treatment of the protesters who were cleared from Zuccotti Park early Tuesday.

Rodriguez, who represents Washington Heights, Inwood and Marble Hill, was among some 200 people arrested as the Occupy Wall Street camp was dismantled by police, on the order of Mayor Michael Bloomberg. He was released Tuesday evening but did not speak in detail about his detention until a press conference on the steps of City Hall Wednesday.

Rodriguez, sporting minor scratches above his eyes, told media and dozens of supporters who assembled for the press conference that he had been pushed to the ground by a police officer and beaten in the head with a baton just before his arrest.

While acknowledging that police need to “guarantee order in the city,” Rodriguez said police were heavy-handed in their treatment of protesters Tuesday morning.

“What happened yesterday morning didn’t have to happen,” he said. “I think participating in civil disobedience is the right of the citizens.”

Rodriguez said he went to Zuccotti Park at 1 a.m. Tuesday, after a text message alerted him that police had begun an operation to clear the park. He said that when he arrived, he saw police punching some protesters in the stomach. Protester Rhadames Rivera said he watched Rodriguez ask a police officer to act with restraint.

“Why did they run this operation like a military? This is not acceptable,” Rodriguez told the crowd outside of City Hall, in calling for an investigation of how police treated him and the protesters who were evicted from the park.

When Rodriguez himself was grabbed by police and pushed to the ground, he said he identified himself as a City Council member. Rodriguez said police ignored him and threw him in a van, where he was held for two hours before his transfer to One Police Plaza. He was one of only two city officials arrested, along with protesters who have occupied the park for three months.

Rodriguez said that despite requests he was not allowed to see a lawyer for 12 hours. “I didn’t want to be treated different, I just wanted to be treated with the rights that I know that I have,” he said, noting that though he and many others arrested were released before the end of Tuesday, some remained in police custody on Wednesday.

Rodriguez has been a strong supporter of the Occupy Wall Street protest. Last week he and other Northattan officials led union members, activists and other residents on an 11-mile march from Washington Heights to Zuccotti Park to express solidarity with the protesters. At his press conference, he called on supporters to rally behind a “Day of Action” march on Thursday, to help show that, despite the raid on Zuccotti Park, the OWS movement is still alive.

A sole protestor faces police at Zuccotti Park this morning. Photo by Isha Soni.

To occupiers at Zuccotti Park, Monday night seemed like any other during their two-month-old live-in protest; that is until they were awakened by bright lights and loud ruckus just after 1 a.m. Tuesday morning.

“A mass of police came in riot gear with big flood lights and ordered an eviction on the grounds of fire hazard, but I didn’t see any fire department there,” said 50 year-old C. J. Phillips, who has spent the past month camped out in a tent in Zuccotti Park.

About 200 protesters have been arrested in the crackdown, including New York City Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez, who has been a vocal supporter of the Occupy Movement in recent weeks.

Many of those arrested were said to have chained themselves together as police closed in on the center of the camp, though such details, which were widely disseminated on the Internet and social media, were hard to confirm because police barricades prevented press and protesters alike from coming within two blocks of Zuccotti Park even into daylight hours earlier this morning.

The crackdown was ordered by Mayor Michael Bloomberg who expressed a shared concern with Brookfield Properties, the park’s owners, regarding the park’s sanitary and security conditions.

“Unfortunately, the park was becoming a place where people came not to protest, but rather to break laws, and in some cases, to harm others,” Bloomberg said in a statement released Tuesday morning. “There have been reports of businesses being threatened and complaints about noise and unsanitary conditions that have seriously impacted the quality of life for residents and businesses in this now-thriving neighborhood. The majority of protesters have been peaceful and responsible. But an unfortunate minority have not been – and as the number of protesters has grown, this has created an intolerable situation.”

Many of the protesters complained that they weren’t given fair warning to clear the park, and that many of them were forced to leave belongings behind, including tents and sleeping bags, which were hauled off in trucks shortly after the eviction.

By 2:15 a.m. most of the occupiers were scattered in groups of between 50 and 100 on all sides of the police barricades. One faction of about 50 people was motivated to march towards Foley Square around 3 a.m. following impromptu suggestions by organizers like Wes Drexler.

“We’re going to march to Foley Square with our brothers and sisters. If you would like stay here,” shouted Drexler, referring to the police barricade on Broadway two blocks north of Zuccotti Park, “feel free to do so, but stay peaceful.” His message was echoed by the 50 or so around him.

As the crowd marched toward Foley Square, several dozen new arrivals blended in with the rest of the group, including Chris Cimi, a 20-year-old Pace student who heard about the eviction via social media.

“I haven’t stayed in the park overnight, but I’ve been down here a few times before,” Cimi said. “I thought it was important to come here tonight though and witness what was going on with my own eyes.”

By 3:45 a.m., the group had grown to roughly 200 people and began to settle in at Foley Square. Police helicopters circled overhead, while on the ground some 50 officers encircled the protesters as they began organizing an impromptu meeting to decide on their next course of action.

Around 5 a.m., several crates of bottled water appeared with newly arriving protesters and were distributed to the crowd. People began to make appeals for everyone present to tweet, text and email everyone they knew to come down and support the protesters.

By 5:30 a.m. the crowd had at least doubled in size, to roughly 400 people, many of whom had just arrived from other boroughs, New Jersey and Connecticut. Many said they had rushed to the area after hearing the pleas for support from the Occupy Wall Street’s live Web feed, posts on Facebook and Twitter and via text message alerts.

At one point there was a motion to move back toward the police barricades to confront police there, but after much debating, the crowd came to a consensus that it would be more productive to stay put in Foley Square until a more cohesive decision could be made.

“I think they just want to build a base here, which is good because everyone is just getting arrested” at the barricades surrounding Zuccotti Park. said Kaitlin Phillips, an English major at Columbia University. “I’d rather stay here because I can’t get arrested. I’ve got papers due.”

Altagracia Guzman Vargas is 81 years old, and on Monday she took part in an 11-mile march in support of the Occupy Wall Street movement. “ I am going to walk,” said Vargas, her small eyes sparkling behind circular glasses. “I am going to try my best for the future of the United States.” She brandished a pink and green “Health not Profit$ — Salud no Riqueza$” sign that she drew herself.

Vargas was one of the many Washington Heights residents who gathered this morning on 181^st Street and St. Nicholas Avenue, the start of the march, billed as “End to End for 99%,” and ending at Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan, the base of the Occupy Wall Street protests. If enthusiasm was present from the very start — with people playing drums and blowing whistles — it made up for the size of the crowd,  at most 60 people. Indeed, before the march began, journalists probably outnumbered protesters, a reminder that the Occupy Wall Street movement has also become a huge media attraction.

But Dimitri Bakhroushin, one Washington Heights resident, was confident that the protest was “going to be like a snowball. We are going downhill and we are gonna grow and grow.”

The front line of the march with State Sen. Adriano Espaillat (far right holding banner), Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez (left of Espaillat) and 81-year old Altagracia Guzman Vargas. Photo by Céleste Owen-Jones/Northattan.

By the time the march reached 125^th and Broadway, around 300 people were chanting “We are the 99 percent” in a joyful party-like atmosphere.

Monday’s protest was the first organized demonstration from Northattan since the Occupy Wall Street movement started two months ago. State Sen. Adriano Espaillat, who walked the whole 11 miles with the crowd, said the mission was “to give this movement a new face.” Later, he said that “this is not just a Wall Street thing, this is a Washington Heights thing, this is a Harlem thing, this is an East Harlem thing. This is about communities that have been left behind for decades.”

Occupy Wall Street protesters have often been criticized for a lack of diversity, a perception that northern Manhattan residents were trying to change.  The crowd, in sex, in skin color and in age, was very different than the occupiers of Zuccotti Park, who tend to be white and under 30 years old.

“There is not enough representation of blacks, Latinos and Asians in this movement and we need to show our support,” said Councilman Robert Jackson, who joined the march in Times Square. Marisol Alcantara, the West Harlem Democratic leader, said: “We are all part of the 99 percent, especially communities of color, immigrants, and what is happening in West Harlem is happening to the rest of the city.”

Other politicians, from Northattan and beyond, joined the march, too, including State Sen. Gustavo Rivera of the Bronx, Councilmen Ydanis Rodriguez and Robert Jackson from Northattan. They repeatedly asked for the restoration of “the millionaires’ tax” and for social and economical justice: “We bailed out Wall Street, we bailed out the banks,” declared Espaillat when still on 181^st Street, “but these stores right here, they are shut down, haven’t been bailed out.”

With the sun shining and the temperatures unseasonably high, the march quickly turned into what looked like a celebration: As the crowd passed Columbia University and later Times Square, people danced in circles, played musical instruments and chanted slogans, to the delight of tourists and passers-by who took pictures from their phones and cameras.

Washington Heights resident at the meeting point on 181st and St Nicholas Avenue. Photo by Céleste Owen-Jones/Northattan.

While police were ever-present, they seemed relaxed and confident that the protest would remain under control. “We are working closely with the police to make sure that traffic doesn’t disrupt the march,” explained David Segal, one of the march’s organizers. For most of the time, protesters remained on the sidewalk and even respectfully stopped and got silent when an elderly woman was taken away in an ambulance, blocking the street they were about to cross.

Many protesters had taken a day off work in order to take part in the march. Lourdes Ernandez Coltera, a teacher in Washington Heights, was one of them: “Today I’m taking a day off, or I should say a community day off to be with my neighbors.” Coltera said she was particularly worried by the price of health care, which many couldn’t afford. “Inequality makes us sick,” read the colorful sign she was holding proudly. Three hours later, Coltera was still marching with energy and a smile, showing no sign of giving up.

As the protesters approached Zuccotti Park, their enthusiasm grew as drums rolled a welcome. It was 4:30 p.m. and getting dark when the protesters finally reached their destination, six hours after they left Washington Heights.

“We walked 11 miles,” Guillermo Linares, a New York State Assemblyman, told the crowd. “We walked as immigrants, as working class, as New Yorkers, and we are going to keep supporting the takeover of Wall Street,” he added.

If the crowd had decreased somewhat, with no more than 200 people entering the geographical heart of the movement, they still believed they had opened a new chapter of Occupy Wall Street, in which people from Northern Manhattan are to play a bigger role.

Additional reporting was provided by Frederick Bernas, Tomos Lewis, Dalal Mawad, Isha Soni and Benjamin Teitlebaum.

Protesters paying tribute to Gadhafi at a Harlem rally on Oct. 22. Photo by Khadijah Carter/Northattan.

The clock is ticking at Community Board 10’s November general meeting.

It starts spitting out its alarm, beeping to let the speaker know that his time – four minutes exactly – is up.

But Julius Tajiddin, a traditional Arab shawl draped over his shoulders, is standing firm at the lectern, and the small and scattered crowd in front of him doesn’t want him to stop either.

For the past four minutes, Julius has been listing the achievements of a former world leader, not usually a fixture on the agenda at Harlem’s monthly community forum.

But this is someone Julius admires, someone, he says, who gave free housing to his people, free health care, free higher education, and offered assistance to impoverished nations across sub-Saharan Africa.

“Long live Gadhafi!” he says firmly, the clock still beeping, raising his voice and lifting his monologue to its crescendo.

The crowd splutters its applause; lone voices here and there say “Thank you, brother” as Julius leaves the stage and retakes his seat.

Moammar Gadhafi may seem like an unlikely hero, but to Julius and handfuls of like-minded people across New York, the former Libyan leader embodied the struggle against Western authority, and offered a profound voice to Africans, and African Americans, everywhere.

For Julius, a music producer and former New York City Council candidate,  Gadhafi wasn’t the dictator the West characterized him as.

“Gadhafi adores people that struggle for righteousness,” he said, claiming that the late colonel, killed on Oct. 20 after a seven-month NATO-led campaign severed his 40-year hold on power, emancipated Africans more than any other modern leader. “Gadhafi was representing black nationalism, or pan-Africanism,” Julius said, “Gadhafi wanted to bring Africa together as a United States.”

The December 12^th Movement, a grassroots black-rights group, has been equally vocal in its lament for the death of Gadhafi. It claimed that the NATO-imposed no-fly zone over Libya was only “the most recent assault on African people’s right to self-determination.”

For those in New York angry at Gadhafi’s demise, Harlem has become a natural pedestal on which to remember “The Lion of Africa,” as many of his supporters here call him.

Just two days after his death, a small but noisy crowd filled the plaza outside Harlem’s State Building, their placards bobbing in the air. “Murderers Out of Africa” some read, referring to NATO and the United States; other protesters unfurled the emerald green flag of Gadhafi-era Libya.

But when New York’s Gadhafi-supporters were accused of naïvety for canonizing the former leader, especially given the West’s accusations that Gadhafi’s armed forces were killing nonviolent protesters as the popular uprising began in March, Julius bridled.

“How do they know he was doing this?” he asked.

Gadhafi supporter Julius Tajiddin at the Nov. 2 Community Board 10 meeting. Photo by Khadijah Carter/Northattan.

It’s a question that Gadhafi-supporters, and critics of the NATO campaign like Julius, often raise. The grim evidence emerging from post-Gadhafi Libya, of government-sanctioned torture and mass graves, hasn’t cooled the supporters’ admiration for the late leader.

Julius made the trip to Brooklyn on Thursday night where over 100 other supporters gathered at Sista’s Place, a Bed-Stuy jazz cafe, to pay tribute, and to discuss the ramifications of “Brother” Gadhafi’s death.

The three-hour meeting was billed as the official tribute to Gadhafi, organized by the December 12^th Movement.

“The death of Moammar Gadhafi gives us the greatest opportunity,” said Abdul Akbar Muhammad, international representative of the Nation of Islam. Shunning the established political order was the legacy Gadhafi left behind, Akbar Muhammad said: “Western democracy doesn’t work in Africa.”

Speaker after speaker attacked the United States and NATO countries and their “colonial” motives for taking action against Libya.

Viola Plummer, a December 12^th member, tried to rebuff Western rhetoric surrounding Gadhafi. She barked a question at the audience, asking it where Libya was; “Africa!” was the roar in reply, not “some place… called the Middle East” as the West would have it, she said.

December 12^th co-founder Coltrane Chimurenga was equally forceful in his address to the crowd.

“How the hell can you sit here in the belly of the beast?” he shouted, referring to the United States and it actions in Libya.

The December 12^th movement is galvanizing its supporters, the culmination of which they hope will be a criminal tribunal against the United Nations, the US and other NATO countries for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Columbia University Law School, December 12^th hopes, will be the venue for the first session of the tribunal process, on Jan. 14. The next step they say, if they get enough signatures, will be the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands. Their aim is to secure the support of at least 400 people.

Julius says that Gadhafi’s shadow will continue to linger over those fighting for African rights, and serve as a source of inspiration. Transforming their anger, even grief, at Gadhafi’s death into action is the next step, he says.

But for now, Julius says, eyes wandering, “I’m still broken up over it.”

Russ Finkelstein contributed reporting.