The feds put the Kansas City 3 in prison for the same thing many other Americans do | Opinion By Lennox S. Hinds Special to The Kansas City Star
- anointed4greatness
- Sep 9
- 3 min read
Read more at: https://www.kansascity.com/opinion/readers-opinion/guest-commentary/article297933143.html#storylink=cpy
As a new administration begins the transition process in Washington, D.C., an apparent difference in treatment between Black and white Americans by the outgoing Department of Justice is entering the mainstream press for attention. The trial of three U.S. citizens known as the “Kansas City 3” is in federal court for the Western District of Missouri, Western Division. They have been jailed for more than two years.
Claude Chi, of the Kansas City suburb Lee’s Summit; Frank Chenyi of St. Paul, Minnesota, and Lah Nestor Langmi, of Buffalo, New York have been in jail at the federal prison in Leavenworth since November 2022. The three African Americans have been jailed on charges of material support of terrorism for the simple reason that they raised money in the U.S. to provide support for civilians in the Southern Cameroons, for their self-defense, against Cameroon’s military forces that attacked them.
We have all seen the outpouring of support and resources to those directly impacted by other global horrors, including Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks from Gaza and the resistance against Russian forces in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas. Requests for donations for military gear and supplies are posted on the internet almost daily, and Americans have responded with good intentions by providing funds and other resources to Jerusalem and Kyiv for use in their struggles. Dedicated websites have been set up by multiple sides for the sole purpose of harvesting U.S. donations for these overseas conflicts.
But what happens when you collect and send funds and resources to an African nation, as the Kansas City 3 did, to a conflict that is harming only Africans, not white Israelis or Ukrainians — or in other words, not for entities with well-funded lobbying efforts in Washington? The apparent double standard is that the African Americans are prosecuted under opaque federal statutes, while those paying millions to congressional coffers are not. U.S. citizens of Southern Cameroons origin, including a family man from the Kansas City area with an MBA from the University of Missouri-Kansas City, did precisely the same when Cameroonian forces attacked innocent civilians living in the Southern Cameroons, the English-speaking north and south west regions of Cameroon.
However, when these Cameroonian Americans provided communities in their nation of origin with support in the name of self-defense against hostile military forces, the United States judicial system responded differently. These three U.S. citizens were jailed for the simple reason that they raised money in America for civilians in Southern Cameroons. Now, American and international civil and human rights organizations advocates of the Kansas City 3 have begun a campaign calling on U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to dismiss the charges.
Their letter can be found at bit.ly/KC3Garland These Americans should not be treated differently from other immigrant diasporas in the United States for supporting their families and communities in the countries from which they came when they are attacked by hostile forces. We also call on the Congress — including the Congressional Black Caucus and Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri’s 5th District — to get involved in this injustice and bring attention to the case of the Kansas City 3. “With U.S. authorities turning a blind eye to — or even actively encouraging — financial and material support to beleaguered communities in Israel and Ukraine, critics are questioning the decision to prosecute the backers of separatist Anglophone militias in southern Cameroon.,” Julian Pecquet wrote in The Africa Report quarterly. The U.S. government is selectively deciding which individuals violate federal law. One group of Americans are treated differently from others based on whom they identify with. That is not supposed to be the American way.
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