BAP Remarks for the “Baerbock Resign” Press Conference: September 11, 2025
Today, September 11th, is a solemn day for many people and communities in the United States, in particular in New York City and Washington DC. It is made more so by the cynical presence of Annalena Baerbock in the presidency of the body that claims to represent the world's peoples and nations, in this city. Her appointment represents a continuation of the warmongering and imperialist domination that has claimed millions of lives. The blood of the Palestinian people that drips from Baerbock’s hands, and from the mouths of her U.S.-Israeli sponsors, is not nearly dry, yet she sits comfortably pretending to direct diplomatic debate and representation across the globe. It is a disgrace, an affront to our collective humanity.
We, in the Black Alliance for Peace, reject in the strongest terms the appointment of Annalena Baerbock as the President of the United Nations General Assembly. Her appointment is without precedent, and it clearly and intentionally makes further mockery of international institutions that were established to prevent the forms of genocidal murder and destruction that we have witnessed for almost two years in Gaza.
The Black Alliance for Peace is a People(s)-Centered Human Rights project against war and repression. We understand that the human rights that Baerbock and her colleagues in Germany, the European Union, and the Western ruling elite purport to uphold are not human rights but privileges of a white supremacist, capitalist, colonial, patriarchal system. While it was founded on honorable ideals, we must be honest today that the United Nations has never taken the humanity of the colonized, oppressed, working, poor, and racialized peoples and nations of the world seriously. Each year, the UN General Assembly decries oppressive structures and systems, like the genocidal blockade by the U.S. against Cuba, murderous sanctions, the continued existence of colonialism in direct and indirect forms, and the zionist occupation of Palestine. And each year these injustices persist because they have the full backing of U.S.-led imperialism and militarism.
Since Al-Aqsa Flood and the heroic defense of the Palestinian Resistance, the former liberal facade of European nations has been fully removed to reveal their true role in promoting and sustaining the death and destruction of much of the globe, at the hands of “western civilization”. The preponderance of repression and targeted violence in Germany, the U.S., the UK, and around the “west” is simply a reflection of the murderous imperialist violence that these countries and their capitalist class of wrought since European colonialists, genocidaires, and slavers touched the shores of West Africa and the Caribbean in the 15th Century. From Ayiti and Abya Yala to Namibia and the Congo to the Jewish ghettos of Europe to historic Palestine, the western liberal order has only ever ordered extermination and erasure for the masses of our peoples.
A true and just global governance system can only be developed once we have reckoned with and defeated the war-mongering and oppression of this current structure. True human rights must be centered in the material needs and collective self-determinative desires of our peoples. People(s)-Centered Human Rights are those non-oppressive rights that reflect the highest commitment to universal human dignity and social justice that individuals and collectives define and secure for themselves and Collective Humanity through social struggle. This is the Black Radical Peace Tradition’s approach to human rights. It is an approach that views human rights as an arena of struggle that, when grounded and informed by the needs and aspirations of the oppressed, becomes part of a unified comprehensive strategy for decolonization and radical social change.
The UN General Assembly should be a space for the debate and discussion toward such positive steps in human cooperation, sustainable development, and collective self-actualization, not a cynical facade to prop-up the perpetrators and enablers of genocide. The UN General Assembly should be fighting to make real and sustained the demands for clean water and clean air; accessible and healthy food; free quality education; healthcare and healthiness for all; housing; public transportation; family sustaining wages and socially productive employment that allow for a dignified life; ending of mass incarceration; universal free child care; opposition to war and the control and eventual elimination of the police; self-determination; and respect for democracy in all aspects of life. Anything less is further disrespect, destruction, and violence against our peoples and nations.
In response to the continued assault on our collective humanity and dignity, most especially the ongoing genocide in Gaza and occupation of Palestine, the less-publicized genocide in Sudan and unjust peace in the Congo, the continued occupation and militarization of Haiti, and the increasing encirclement and violent attacks against Venezuela, we demand that:
Annalena Baerbock must resign immediately from her post as President of the UN General Assembly
The UN Security Council and European Union impose immediate sanctions and consequences for Israel’s illegal acts, and institute an arms embargo.
The international community must expel Israel from the United Nations and condemn zionism in all its forms.
The United Nations must take immediate steps to resolve the denial of meaningful representation, governance, and enforcement from and by the majority of the world’s peoples and governments, in particular the Global South.
The ICC must indict and prosecute Israeli and U.S. officials for continued war crimes throughout West Asia, the lawlessness of genocide perpetuated against the Palestinian people, and the increasing militarization and murderous actions in this hemisphere.
In addition to this official diplomatic prosecution, we call on peoples-centered movements, human rights organizations, and all those who support justice and democracy to push for the banning of the states of Israel and the U.S. from international cultural and sporting events, including the upcoming 2026 FIFA World Cup and 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. We must isolate and oppose these rogue states, not condone their behavior. The people of the Americas, where these events will be hosted, and of Europe, who will send thousands of athletes, in particular must rise up against the U.S.-Israeli barbarity as well as their government’s own complicity.
History will remember the calculated genocide and wanton violence by the U.S. and Israel, as well as the barbarous domestic repression in Germany, the United Kingdom, the U.S., and throughout the “western world” as indelible and ignominious stains on so-called international “law” and cooperation, people(s)-centered human rights and the basic tenets of human dignity.
No compromise, No retreat!
Smash Zionism!
Free Palestine!