The Return of "Mario Africa"

(Mario and Mumia apologist Sonia Sanchez)

"How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning."

There are some people who just personify the word "cynical".

The man occasionally known as "Mario Africa" is one of those people. Although he has several other aliases, for the sake of clarity, I will stick with this one for now.

Mario is truly one of the most sordid people I met while I was involved with MOVE. He manages to be a pimp for, as well as a prostitute of, one of the foulest cults of modern times. But the taint of collusion and corruption extends much further than his pathetic figure, and one day, slowly but surely, we shall find out the whole disgusting truth about his involvement in the most wicked of MOVE’s affairs.

For instance, the murder of John Gilbride, if Mario didn’t pull the trigger, I have no doubt he knows who did. Yet that secret, as well as many other things about MOVE are items of fact that Mario would rather keep to himself.

Recently, I had the opportunity/misfortune to watch him speak on behalf of a current death-row inmate (not Mumia), who faces imminent execution. And while I don’t know the facts of this case and oppose the death penalty anyways, I would be remiss if I did not mention that involving someone like Mario in your cause is not a good way to lend it an air of credibility.

For while Mario likes to present himself as an advocate of justice, etc...He is but a shallow opportunist with an apparent and un-quench able desire for acceptance, the sound of cheap applause, and a true capitalist at heart. The evidence of which is all over his "speech" as well as his My Space page in where he writes "will SOMEONE PLEASE shoot dog, the fucking bounty hunter?!?!?". Quite an astounding statement from a man claiming reverence for life.

But his speech is where Mario really shines. He is announced as a "MOVE activist" and proceeds to regress into the typical MOVE victimization routine and than manages to plug Mumia, "The Peoples Army", as well as obliquely mentioning his t-shirt making business etc...

The truth is however, that Mario is no more a MOVE member than I am.

What he is doing is walking that pathetic tightrope wherein he teeters on the brink between illusion and reality. He is using the residual attachment to the group as a means of self-aggrandizement when he must, and his endearing, yet savagely disingenuous, charisma when he can.

One can speculate as to why Mario continues to occasionally play the role of a MOVE member, whether it be his more-than-likely involvement in the death of John Gilbride, the two children he abandoned to the cult, or perhaps some other hidden motivation.

Whatever the precise cause for his duplicity remains unknown, but what is self-evident is that Mario is a man deficient of character, who has honed manipulation into a kind of art form, and who will say or do just about anything to further himself.

That much became horribly clear to me as the drama that culminated in the death of John Gilbride played out before me. Mario was up to his fat neck in MOVE’s vulgar displays of propaganda, as was I and many others. But unlike the rest of us, he was in MOVE’s inner circle and took the terror campaign against Gilbride to the next level. He reportedly threatened John’s life and participated in Alberta Africa’s campaign of terror waged against Gilbride and his loved ones with a macabre kind of enthusiasm that is reserved for either sadists or psychotics.

Now, it has been reported that MOVE members have not cooperated with the investigation of John’s murder and that certainly includes "Mario Africa". That he has yet to come clean with what he knows about John’s death, coupled with the fact that he has left the fate of his two innocent children to a cult that he knows is going to, at the very least, deprive them of any semblance of an education, convinces me that he is a man with no sense of self, true

compassion for others, or any semblance of a conscience.

But than again, he is a busy man. There are hip-hop records to be reviewed, political rallies to attend, t-shirts to sell, poetry dedicated to his new girlfriend to be written, weed to be smoked, and a massive ego to be stroked.

How could anyone expect a man like this to have time to save his children or do his part to solve a murder?

There are, after all, priorities.