Global Civil Society Unites to Support Black Alliance for Peace’s International Day of Action on AFRICOM

Organizations from across the Americas and most of the world have endorsed and plan to participate today—the 12th anniversary of the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM)'s launch—in the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP)'s International Day of Action on AFRICOM.

In an article published September 30 in Black Agenda Report, BAP's Africa Team states: “The International Day of Action on AFRICOM aims to raise the public's awareness about the U.S. military's existence in Africa, and how the presence of U.S. forces exacerbates violence and instability throughout the continent.”

BAP National Organizer Ajamu Baraka says AFRICOM is a key global command structure the U.S. state has set up to coordinate its colonial project of continued global domination through military aggression. "Through its regional commands and more than 800 military bases, the United States is able to project offensive military actions in support of its objective of 'Full Spectrum Dominance,' a cornerstone of U.S. geopolitical strategy.”

BAP, along with the organizations and individuals who have signed on to support this day, sees AFRICOM as an instrument of U.S. military and political domination. Hence, it threatens peace.

Margaret Kimberley, a member of BAP’s Africa Team and BAP's Coordinating Committee, says, “The U.S. never had a good reason to establish a formalized military presence in Africa. Today, it is clear the United States coordinated with European countries like France to militarily counter the growing influence of China to ensure Africa remained firmly tethered to Western economic interests.”

The International Day of Action on AFRICOM supports our campaign to shut down AFRICOM.

This campaign demands: 1) the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) oppose AFRICOM and conduct hearings on its impact on the African continent with the full participation of members of U.S. and African civil society, 2) a complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from Africa, 3) supporting calls for Africa to be demilitarized and established as a zone of peace, and 4) along with AFRICOM, all U.S. global command structures and bases be closed down.

We call on everyone who believes in peace and self-determination to join us in our campaign to shut down AFRICOM by supporting this International Day of Action on AFRICOM.

MEDIA CONTACT:
(202) 643-1136 (United States)
info@blackallianceforpeace.com

Black Alliance for Peace Condemns Trump Administration Deploying Federal Forces Into Major U.S. Cities

The repressive U.S. state's chickens have come home to roost with President Donald Trump announcing federal troops will be deployed to several U.S. cities. This comes after federal agents reportedly disappeared protesters last week off the streets of Portland, Oregon.

When we launched the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP), we had stated the ruling class would eventually rely on violence and repression, as well as assault traditional liberal rights, to maintain control as the United States continued its dive into an economic and political morass.   

What we also have related in our years of work is the tactics being deployed in Portland are not new. They have been perfected by U.S. forces and repressive states trained for decades by U.S. police, military and intelligence agencies. Now, because the ruling elite increasingly see liberal democracy and the rule of law as an impediment to their minority rule, the repressive practices normally reserved for the natives of the global South and for Black and Brown communities in the metropole are being used against insurgent white dissidents in Portland—and soon coming to a community near you.

That is why we say blowback is the inevitable consequence when social forces in the United States are silent or have the luxury of not being aware of the criminality of the U.S. state abroad.

No compromise with evil and no retreat from the enemies of collective humanity are the watchwords and slogan of BAP’s campaign work. We had recently stated that we expect many more Portlands. But we also expect fierce opposition from the people, as we have already seen with thousands of people beating back federal agents into a Portland courthouse. That is why we are organizing and building alternative power.

Media contact: info@blackallianceforpeace.com

Photo credit: Nathan Howard / Getty Images

The Black Alliance for Peace Expresses Deep Sorrow and Outrage at the Murder of Ahmed Erekat

The Black Alliance for Peace expresses its deep sorrow for the senseless murder of Ahmed Erekat by Israeli authorities in the occupied Palestinian territory on June 24th.

The soils of occupied Palestine continues to be soaked in the blood of Palestinians whose only crime is being Palestinian occupying land that a vicious white supremacist colonial state wants to seize as part of its own version of a God-given “manifest destiny.” We send our special condolences to Noura Erakat, a fighter for human rights for Palestinians and all oppressed who is the cousin of young 27-year-old Ahmed who was left to bleed for over 90 minutes after being shot. And our condolences extend to Ahmed's entire family.

This cowardly act is another fiendish act by a morally corrupt state in a long line of unbelievable atrocities experienced by Palestinians at the hands of Israeli colonialism since 1948.

The Black Alliance for Peace condemns this criminal act and pledges to redouble our efforts to mobilize Black public opinion in the U.S. and globally to oppose the organized barbarity of the Israeli state.

Black Alliance for Peace Calls on United Nations to Address U.S. Human Rights Crisis

The extrajudicial murders of African/Black people, such as Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd, by agents of the U.S. government and armed civilians have sparked urban rebellions in cities across the United States. Yet these murders cannot be understood outside of the context of the U.S. state’s ongoing assault on the human rights of African/Black people.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s tweet demanding lethal violence—“...when the looting starts, the shooting starts...”—requires the United Nations to intervene.

Trump’s threat comes as the U.S. state has tragically failed during the COVID-19 pandemic to recognize and protect the human right to health of poor and working-class people, including Africans and undocumented migrants.

African/Black people comprise 13 percent of the U.S. population, yet represent one-third of COVID-19 related deaths. In some areas, the death rate has been as high as 70 percent.

Yet, the Trump administration, the U.S. Congress and state governments have responded by driving African/Black workers—who occupy the lowest rungs of the U.S. labor force—back to work with little or no protection. An inadequate for-profit healthcare system that discriminates against the poor ensures disproportionate death rates for African/Black people will continue.

Police authorities have been documented abusing their power while enforcing COVID-19 mitigation efforts such as social distancing, which has been impossible for overcrowded African/Black communities and households to maintain.

Despite various United Nations bodies—such as the Committee on Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), the Human Rights Committee (HRC), the Universal Periodic Review Process (UPR), and various special human-rights rapporteurs and special representatives—calling several times on the Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump administrations to protect the human rights of African/Black people, what remains is a precarious situation that borders on genocide. 

Media contact: info@blackallianceforpeace.com



Photo credit: Carlos Gonzalez, Star Tribune

On African Liberation Day, the Black Alliance for Peace Demands U.S. Shut Down AFRICOM

On the 57th anniversary of African Liberation Day (ALD), the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) calls on international civil society and progressive states to “Rise Up to Shut Down AFRICOM.”

“Today, U.S. bases, as well as military-to-military relations between 53 out of the 54 African countries and the United States, characterize the aggressive strategy of the U.S. to preserve the interests of the Pan-European, white supremacist colonial/capitalist project on the African continent,” says Netfa Freeman, organizer with Pan-African Community Action (PACA) and member of BAP’s Coordinating Committee. “The U.S. and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) represent an existential threat to African independence because these forces are committed to the use of violence to maintain control over the land, resources and labor of African people.”

African development, national sovereignty and self-determination is impossible as long as the U.S. and its European allies are allowed to prop up neocolonial states run by the comprador bourgeoisie who use their countries’ militaries to stay in power to serve U.S. and European colonialism.

BAP recognizes the crucial role of ALD in revitalizing internationalism and anti-imperialism as a bedrock of a reconstituted Black liberation project committed to an authentic process of decolonization.

However, BAP Coordinating Committee member Margaret Kimberley points out, “Imperialism will only be defeated through the sustained actions of the organized people throughout the world. To defeat imperialism, we must target all of the repressive transnational and national state structures and institutions that prop up the ongoing colonial/capitalist project.”

BAP campaign’s, U.S. Out of Africa: Shut Down AFRICOM, is the organizational instrument to build a transnational mass movement that targets U.S. militarism, war, and subversion on the continent.

The campaign and its organizational arm, the U.S. Out of African Network (USOAN), calls on Africans throughout the continent and the diaspora as well as anti-imperialists to mark June 16, Soweto Day, with actions in the spirit of the African youth who rose up against the white supremacist South African government on June 16, 1976. We call for all to “Rise Up to Shut Down AFRICOM.”

“‘Rise Up to Shut Down AFRICOM’ is in the spirit of the courageous youth of South Africa who elevated the resistance to the criminal South African state in 1976, using intensified and sustained blows against the regime,” says Tunde Osazua, coordinator of USOAN and member of BAP’s Africa Team. “Imperialism will not be defeated by shouting at it, no matter how elegant the denunciations. Imperialism will only be defeated through struggle.”

BAP calls on all who are celebrating ALD 2020 to consider highlighting in their actions the importance of defeating U.S. and Western militarization of the continent, which has been used to tighten the pan-European imperialist grip on Africa.

BAP calls on participants of ALD 2020 to re-dedicate themselves to building structures of cooperation and coordination between Africans in the diaspora and on the continent to engage and defeat the enemies of Africa, both foreign and domestic. 

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Media Contact: info@blackallianceforpeace.com



Photo credit: People of the Republic of the Congo, celebrate independence, July 7, 1960 — one of 17 states in Africa to gain independence that year. (Bettman)

Alianza Negra para la Paz (BAP) Declaración por el Día de África 2020, “Levantémonos para acabar con AFRICOM”

Cincuenta y siete años después de la fundación del Día de la Liberación de África (ALD por sus siglas en ingles), la necesidad apremiante de la unidad africana es más evidente que nunca.

La Alianza Negra para la Paz (BAP) reconoce el papel crucial de la ALD en la revitalización del internacionalismo y el antiimperialismo como base de un proyecto de liberación negra reconstituido y comprometido con un auténtico proceso de descolonización. A nivel mundial, la clase obrera africana está encerrada en un combate mortal contra las fuerzas del capitalismo neoliberal que se concentra en los intereses geoestratégicos de las clases dominantes de los Estados Unidos.

Para preservar estos intereses, los Estados Unidos están involucrados en una agresiva reconquista militar de África a través del Comando de África de los Estados Unidos, AFRICOM, formado en el 2008 con el objetivo de imponer una mayor influencia estadounidense en todo el continente africano. AFRICOM ha convertido a las naciones africanas en estados vasallos siguiendo los dictados de las políticas exteriores de los Estados Unidos, que son contrarias a las necesidades de los pueblos africanos.

Hoy en día existen 46 bases estadounidenses en territorio africano, así como relaciones militares entre 53 de los 54 países del continente y los Estados Unidos. Las tropas de las Fuerzas Especiales de EE.UU. ahora operan en más de una docena de naciones africanas. Utilizando la cobertura política y moral de un falso papel antiterrorista, los políticos estadounidenses de todos los orígenes raciales y étnicos validan esta presencia estadounidense en África.

La BAP pide que se ponga fin a AFRICOM y a toda injerencia extranjera en los asuntos de los países africanos. La guerra, los ataques de drones y las sanciones han devastado naciones y millones de personas. Es preciso forjar un movimiento de masas para poner al descubierto su propósito y los verdaderos objetivos de AFRICOM y hacerlo inseparable del movimiento de resistencia a la represión policial militarizada en las comunidades africanas (negras) de los Estados Unidos.

La campaña de la BAP para “Cerrar AFRICOM” es el instrumento organizativo para construir un movimiento de masas transnacional que tiene como objetivo acabar con el militarismo, la guerra y la subversión de los Estados Unidos en el continente. La campaña “Cerrar AFRICOM” es parte de una campaña más amplia para cerrar todas las bases de EE.UU. y la OTAN en todo el mundo.

La campaña y su brazo organizador, la Red EE.UU. Fuera de África (USOAN), hace un llamado a todas y todos los africanos en el mundo y a todas y todos los antiimperialistas para que se unan a nosotros en otro día histórico de resistencia el 16 de junio, el día de Soweto, para “levantarse por el cierre de AFRICOM” con acciones en el espíritu de la juventud africana que se levantó contra el gobierno sudafricano de supremacía blanca en 1976.

África y la nación africana mundial deben ser y serán libres. Pero el imperialismo no será derrotado gritándole, por muy elegantes que sean las denuncias. El imperialismo sólo será derrotado a través de la lucha. La campaña “Cerrar AFRICOM” es un punto de concentración que apunta al componente militar del imperialismo estadounidense y occidental.

Aprovechemos la oportunidad del ALD 2020 para volver a dedicarnos a crear estructuras de cooperación y coordinación entre los africanos en la diáspora y en el continente para enfrentar y derrotar a los enemigos de África, tanto extranjeros como nacionales.

¡África debe ser libre!
¡Levantémonos para Cerrar AFRICOM
¡Derrotemos al supremacista blanco paneuropeo, al patriarcado colonialista/capitalista!

Crédito de la foto: Biblioteca Pública de Washington DC Star Collection / The Washington Post

Black Alliance for Peace African Liberation Day 2020 Statement: “Rise Up to Shut Down AFRICOM”

Fifty-seven years since the founding of African Liberation Day (ALD), the pressing need for African unity is more apparent than ever.

The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) recognizes the crucial role of ALD in revitalizing internationalism and anti-imperialism as the bedrock of a reconstituted Black liberation project committed to an authentic process of decolonization. Globally, the African working class is locked in mortal combat against the forces of neoliberal capitalism, which is concentrated in the geostrategic interests of the U.S. ruling classes.

To preserve these interests, the U.S. is involved in an aggressive military re-conquest of Africa through its United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) formed in 2008 with the goal of imposing an enhanced U.S. influence throughout the African continent. AFRICOM has made African nations vassal states following the dictates of U.S. foreign policies, which are antithetical to the needs of African people.

Today, there are 46 various forms of U.S. bases as well as military-to-military relations between 53 out of the 54 African countries and the United States. U.S. Special Forces troops now operate in more than a dozen African nations. Using the political and moral cover of a phony counterterrorism role, U.S. politicians of all racial and ethnic backgrounds validate this U.S. presence in Africa.

BAP calls for an end to AFRICOM and to all foreign interference in the affairs of African countries. War, drone strikes and sanctions have devastated nations and millions of people. A mass movement must be forged to expose AFRICOM and its purpose and make it inseparable from the movement to resist the militarized police repression in African (Black) communities in the United States.

The BAP campaign, U.S. Out of Africa: Shut Down AFRICOM, is the organizational instrument to build a transnational mass movement that targets U.S. militarism, war and subversion on the continent. The U.S. Out of Africa: Shut Down AFRICOM campaign is part of the broader campaign to close all U.S. and NATO bases world-wide.

The campaign and its organizational arm, the U.S. Out of Africa Network (USOAN), is calling on all Africans everywhere and all anti-imperialists to join us on another historic day of resistance June 16, Soweto Day, to “Rise Up to Shut Down AFRICOM" with actions in the spirit of the African youth who rose up against the white supremacist South African government in 1976.

Africa and the world-wide African nation must be and will be free. But imperialism will not be defeated by shouting at it, no matter how elegant the denunciations. Imperialism will only be defeated through struggle. The U.S. Out of Africa: Shut Down AFRICOM campaign is one point of concentration that targets the military component of U.S. and Western imperialism.

Let us take the opportunity of ALD 2020 to re-dedicate ourselves to building structures of cooperation and coordination between Africans in the diaspora and on the continent to engage and defeat the enemies of Africa, both foreign and domestic.

Africa Must Be Free!
Rise Up to Shut Down AFRICOM!
Defeat the Pan-European White Supremacist, Colonial/Capitalist Patriarchy!
No Compromise, No Retreat!

Media Contact: info@blackallianceforpeace.com

Photo credit: D.C. Public Library Washington Star Collection/The Washington Post

BAP: Acusación de Maduro es un preludio de la agresión racista al estilo panameño

La Alianza Negra para la Paz considera la acusación de Maduro como un preludio de la agresión racista al estilo panameño

Debemos hacer recordar a nuestra gente que más de 150 millones de africanos viven en las llamadas Américas. Sobretodo debemos realzar esta realidad en momentos críticos como éste, cuando los medios corporativos y la opinión establecida están legitimando un gangsterismo estadounidense capaz de matar a miles de personas en Venezuela. (La Clase Obrera Negra Jamás Abandonará a Venezuela.)

El apoyo de la Alianza Negra por la Paz (Black Alliance for Peace—BAP) hacia el pueblo venezolano y su proyecto de establecer la paz, los derechos humanos y el desarrollo para su pueblo, no se verá detenido por el último ataque sobre esa nación, a saber, la acusación sin sustancia o credibilidad que lanzó la administración Trump en contra de Nicolás Maduro.

El uso de la guerra de drogas y armas biológicas contra poblaciones colonizadas insurgentes ha sido un rasgo característico del proyecto colonial EEUU/Europeo desde 1492. Como pueblo africano en los Estados Unidos, tenemos una historia larga y tortuosa de ser blanco de la narco-guerra de EEUU contra nuestro pueblo como arma de subversión contrarrevolucionaria.

Se ha documentado que la disfusión amplia de heroína que ocurrió en las comunidades Negras durante el periodo de la guerra estadounidense contra Vietnam fue facilitada por la Agencia Central de Inteligencia de EEUU (CIA), y la misma se volvió arma conveniente dentro de la estrategia multifacética de contrainsurgencia que desató el Estado en contra del Movimiento de Liberación Negra de los 1960 y 70.

Durante los 80, periodistas valientes como Gary Webb documentaron la introducción de cocaína “crack” en nuestras comunidades. Webb estableció la relación entre las diversas agencias de inteligencia—primordialmente la CIA—y los narcotraficantes, quienes utilizaban a Nicaragua como punto de tránsito para drogas en ruta a Estados Unidos. La relación se dio para poder asegurar ingresos para comprar armas en apoyo a los contrarrevolucionarios en Nicaragua, quienes estaban trabajando con EEUU para derrocar al gobierno sandinista ascendido al poder en 1979. Los aviones aterrizaban en EEUU llenos de cocaína, y se volvían a Centroamérica con armas destinadas a Nicaragua.

Por tanto, el narcoterrorismo no es nada nuevo para nuestras comunidades. Después de introducir drogas peligrosas a nuestras comunidades, el Estado procedía a desatar una llamada guerra en contra de las drogas. La guerra en contra de las drogas en EEUU, al igual que la “guerra contra el delito” (war on crime) en general, siempre tuvo por intención ser arma para hacer la guerra contra los elementos más organizados del movimiento de resistencia Negra. Del mismo modo, la acusación contra el Presidente Maduro se está utilizando para socavar el proceso revolucionario en Venezuela.

El cargo lanzado en contra del dirigente venezolano puede tener semblanza de credibilidad para algunos sectores de la población estadounidense, y será utilizado por la prensa corporativa para legitimar aún más los objetivos ilegales y asesinos del imperialismo de EEUU. Sin embaro, en BAP estamos muy clarxs acerca de quiénes son los verdaderos narco terroristas.

La recompensa ofrecida por Maduro nos recuerda la expansión de la recompensa puesta sobre la cabeza de nuestra querida hermana luchadora por la libertad, Assata Shakur, quien fue agregada por la administración de Obama a “la lista de los terroristas más buscados.”

Aquella movida no nos detuvo ni nos confundió, y esta agresión actual contra el pueblo venezolano tampoco nos confundirá.

Hay que levantarse en solidaridad con los pueblos y las naciones del mundo que están en lucha por la paz, por los derechos humanos centrados en los pueblos, y por una nueva visión de la humanidad, más allá de la explotación capitalista y el dominio imperialista.

No Retroceder, No Transigir
Comité Coordinadora, Black Alliance for Peace

BAP: Maduro Indictment is a Prelude to Panamanian-Style Racist Aggression

We must remind our people that over 150 million Africans live throughout the so-called Americas. We especially must raise this reality at critical moments like this when the corporate media and establishment opinion is legitimizing U.S. gangsterism that could kill thousands of people in Venezuela. (Black Working Class will Never Abandon Venezuela) 


BAP’s support for the people of Venezuela and its project for establishing peace, human rights and development for its people will not be deterred by the latest attack on that nation with the flimsy and incredible indictment of Nicolas Maduro by the Trump Administration. 

The use of drug and biological warfare against insurgent colonized populations has been a consistent feature of the U.S./European colonial project since 1492. As an African people in the United States, we have a long and tortured history of being on the receiving end of the U.S. state’s narco-war against our people as a weapon of counterrevolutionary subversion. 

The widespread expansion of heroin that occurred in Black communities during the period of the U.S. war against Vietnam was documented as having been facilitated by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and became a convenient weapon as part of the multipronged counter-insurgency strategy of the state against the Black Liberation Movement of the 1960s and 70s. 

In the 80s, the introduction of crack cocaine into our communities was documented by courageous journalists like Gary Webb, who established that there was a relationship between the various intelligence agencies — once again primarily the CIA — and drug dealers using Nicaragua as a transit point for drugs into the U.S. The relationship was established in order to secure revenue for arms purchases to support counterrevolutionaries in Nicaragua, who were working with the U.S. to overthrow the Sandinista government that came to power in 1979. Planes would land in the U.S. full of cocaine and leave with arms for delivery back to Central America, destined for Nicaragua.    

Therefore, narco-terrorism is nothing new for our communities. After introducing dangerous drugs into our communities, the state would then wage a so-called war on drugs. The war on drugs in the U.S., as the general “war on crime,” was always intended as a weapon to wage war against the most organized elements of the Black resistance movement, just as the indictment of President Maduro is being used to undermine the revolutionary process in Venezuela.  

The charge leveled at the Venezuelan leader might have some semblance of credibility for some sectors of the U.S. population, and it will be used by the corporate press to further legitimize the illegal and murderous objectives of U.S. imperialism. However, for BAP we are quite clear about the real narco and state terrorists. 

The bounty placed on Maduro reminds us of the expansion of the bounty placed on the head of our dear sister and freedom fighter Assata Shakur and her addition as the first woman ever to the U.S. “most wanted terrorists list” by the Obama Administration. 

We were not deterred or confused by that move and we will not be confused by this one against the people of Venezuela. 

Stand in solidarity with the struggling peoples and nations of the world for peace, with people(s)-centered human rights, and a new vision of humanity beyond capitalist exploitation and imperialist domination.


No Retreat, No Compromise
Coordinating Committee, Black Alliance for Peace

Photo: BAP Coordinating Committee members in Venezuela

Black Alliance for Peace – Baltimore Demand End to Policing "Surge"

Immediate Release:

Black Alliance for Peace – Baltimore Demand Public Officials Reject Trump Military “Surge” for Baltimore

JANUARY 7, 2020—Baltimore City is one of 7 cities, including Detroit, Albuquerque, Cleveland, Kansas City, Memphis and Milwaukee, selected for the Trump Administration’s “Operation Relentless Pursuit” which is intended to “surge” federal, state and local resources into cities where violent [horizontal] crime rates remain high.

“This newest version of the so-called war on crime must be seen for what it is – the latest incantation of the State’s relentless war on Baltimore’s Black working class and poor and should be categorically rejected by Baltimore’s public officials,” according to BAP organizer Vanessa Beck. 

At the end of October, during the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference in Chicago, President Trump announced, “In coming weeks, Attorney General Barr will announce a new crackdown on violent crime—which I think is so important—targeting gangs and drug traffickers in high crime cities and dangerous rural areas.”

In Detroit, right before the holidays, Attorney General Barr was joined by leaders of the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and U.S. Marshals Service at a press conference to unveil what amounts to a new domestic military surge. 

In an op-ed written in Detroit News, Barr says,

“Operation Relentless Pursuit will surge an unparalleled amount of federal backing to Detroit and the other most dangerous cities in the United States. It will build on the Justice Department’s successful Project Safe Neighborhoods, which encouraged community-based solutions to sew violent crime. It will also complement Project Guardian and DEEP (Disruption and Early Engagement Program), agency initiatives focused on reducing gun crime and preventing mass shootings. 

With Operation Relentless Pursuit, local law enforcement will have access to state-of-the-art technology and our nation’s top federal agents, who will be tasked with investigating and taking down the most violent offenders and their criminal organizations. We’re matching our rhetoric with resources by committing significant manpower and up to $71 million in additional funding for our federal, state, and local partners.”

BAP-Baltimore demands that public officials reject this blood money. 


BAP-Baltimore is clear when we say, “Police are used to enforce the status quo of white power and colonial control over the lives of Black, Brown, and other oppressed nations of people.” 4 of the 7 targeted cities have majority Black populations – Baltimore, 62.8%; Detroit, 79.12%; Cleveland, 50.41%; and Memphis, 63.9%. Increased militarization of police departments leads to increased numbers of civilians murdered by police, in addition to the everyday terror experienced by residents in occupied communities.

Baltimore, Detroit, Albuquerque, Cleveland, Kansas City, Memphis, and Milwaukee all participate in the Department of Defense (DoD) 1033 Program. Through the 1033 Program, military equipment gets transferred to civilian law enforcement agencies. Related is the “Deadly Exchange” program, which is a massive exchange between the U.S. and Israeli police and Israeli military where hyper-militarized policing techniques and technology are shared.

The Black Alliance for Peace – Baltimore says No Compromise, No Retreat when calling for the demilitarization of local police departments. There should be no confidence in any imperialist parties or state institutions to address the horizontal violence plaguing our communities. The behavior of police departments in this state and across the U.S. shows us the role of the police is to protect private property, sectors of the middle-class community, and the ruling-class interests. Police are called to colonized communities of ALL oppressed folks to carry out the standard imperialist orders, with every intent to do more harm on behalf of the state than actually serving any positive purpose.

BAP-Baltimore intends to resist this latest assault on the human rights of the Black and Brown poor and working class.

Media contact: blackallianceforpeacebaltimore@gmail.com

If you Believe in Peace, Commit to Defeating the Warmongers! No War with Iran!

No Retreat, No Compromise is the call the grassroots members of the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) proclaim as we face the dogs of war, exploitation, and criminal imperialism. We fully expect the crisis of neoliberal capitalism to intensify as the rulers desperately attempt to salvage a world order that is rapidly changing to their disadvantage. 

But we know that in their desperation they will fall back on the one instrument that has been primarily responsible for their global hegemony - naked violence. 

It is imperative that the people of the U.S. Empire take clear moral and political positions in opposition to U.S. warmongering. The illegal and reckless attack on Qassem Soleimani, head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards of Iran, represents a dangerous escalation of rogue actions by the U.S. government that have been increasing in frequency over the last two decades, at home and abroad.

Yesterday the Trump regime established a military "surge" against the “enemy” in Afghanistan. Today it is bringing a military surge to the U.S. to fight the domestic enemy – the Black working class and poor - under the guise of fighting crime. We are clear, the real crime that the Trump surges are intent on fighting is the crime of resistance that historically has emerged from the African American peoples and the other colonized and nationally oppressed peoples. 

We will be ready. 

BAP is clear: we will not fight for the rich. We understand our objective interests as an oppressed people and will not be moved by appeals to national chauvinism meant to galvanize the poor and working class to support wars of choice initiated by the white supremacist colonial/capitalist oligarchy.  

BAP opposes war with Iran and is supporting the national mobilizations this weekend demanding No War on Iran and the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq. 

And BAP also calls on all progressive forces to join us to fight the domestic military surge, to oppose the training of U.S. police forces by the Israeli state, to struggle to shut down AFRICOM, to demand the closing of the over 800 U.S. bases worldwide, to advocate against the normalization of nuclear war, and to expose the collaboration of  self-defined "progressive and radical" forces with the U.S. war-state. 

The Trump Administration along with the Democrats are united in their objective interests, despite the impeachment charade, to support white power in the form of their imperialist agenda. But they need us – the people – as the cannon fodder and the passive supporters. 

They cannot have us. We will struggle against them, for ourselves and for humanity. 

Dr. King warned about the spiritual death of the U.S. with its addiction to war and militarism, its materialism and extreme social alienation, but he was wrong. 

The spiritual death of what became the United States occurred in 1619 when the settlers imported the first Africans and decided to expand beyond the coast of the country by force resulting in the monstrosity called the United States today.  

We who believe in freedom - in the possibilities of real democracy, of people-centered human rights, of peace and a livable planet - cannot wait. We must understand that our aspirations must be translated into concrete struggle. We must be clear: we cannot win without a sharp understanding of the forces of oppression that must be defeated. For BAP, it is obvious when we look in the mirror “while driving as Black” that the enemy is not the Iraqis, Russians, Syrians or Venezuelans.  

U.S. Out of Iraq and Afghanistan

Oppose the Trump Domestic Surge Targeting Black People

Stop the Department of Defense 1033 Program that Militarizes Police Forces

Shut Down AFRICOM and ALL U.S. and NATO bases

Cut Obscene Military Budget by 50%

YahNé, Paul, Jaribu, Vanessa, Netfa, Margaret, Brandon, Dedan and Ajamu

Black Alliance for Peace, Coordinating Committee

On International Human Rights Day, the Black Alliance for Peace Calls for Congressional Black Caucus to Oppose U.S. Coup in Bolivia and Global Lawlessness

Immediate Release:

December 10, 2019, on this day 71 years ago the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was launched by the United Nations. The Declaration reflected the agreed-upon principles that were expected to usher in a new period in which this new global institution would be committed to recognizing the inherent dignity and equal and “inalienable rights of all members of the human family.”

Therefore, December 10th is recognized and celebrated as International Human Rights Day in various parts of the world but, unfortunately, with little acknowledgement or celebration in the United States. Over 90% of the U.S. public has never heard of the UDHR and even fewer of the existence of Human Rights Day.

However, as internationalists, the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) takes the occasion of Human Rights Day seriously and attempts to educate the U.S. public on its existence. BAP is celebrating Human Rights Day this year by visiting the U.S. Congress to deliver a letter from a Black member of the Movement for Socialism in Bolivia (MAS) that is calling on members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) to oppose the U.S. supported coup in Bolivia.

BAP is calling upon the CBC to reassume its traditional opposition to U.S. interventionism and warmongering. A delegation of BAP members will visit the offices of CBC representatives, including CBC Chairperson Karen Bass. The delegation will also visit the co-chairs of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) calling on both of the caucuses to become stronger opponents of the increasing lawlessness of U.S. state in the form of murderous sanctions, support for coups, illegal wars, military agreements and anti-democratic destabilization campaigns in nations across the planet. These actions represent a massive assault on the dignity and fundamental human rights of peoples and nations across the planet, resulting in unimaginable sufferings and the ultimate violation of human rights – the right to life, as millions of deaths have been recorded just over the last two decades.

BAP believes that the lack of awareness of Human Rights Day, and more importantly human rights principles, accounts for the lack of accountability for U.S representatives in relationship to the U.S. public and the ability of the U.S. officials to take the position of upholding human rights. Consequently, the U.S. public is unaware of the extent of the U.S. state’s failure to recognize, protect and fulfill the human rights of its own citizens and residents, while many in the world see the U.S. state as the number one human rights violator on the planet.

This is why human rights education is key for the Black Alliance for Peace and why the Alliance is committed to the radical Black human rights tradition that upholds a vision of human rights that is comprehensive and not centered on states as guarantors of human rights but on organized people as the only effective guarantors. This is an essential principle of the “people(s)-centered human rights framework (PCHRs).

In BAP’s view, the human rights idea must be liberated from the narrow and reactionary framework of U.S. policymakers. On this day, BAP is calling on all people of conscience to reject the liberal, legalistic and state-centered framework that reduces the human rights idea to an instrument of Western imperialist expression in the form of “humanitarian interventionism.”

On this day, BAP reiterates that human rights are never given but must be fought for. BAP stands in solidarity with the people of this planet who are in struggle to realize their collective human rights and self-determination and say without any equivocation that resistance to oppression is a human right from Baltimore to Bolivia.

Media contact: Ajamu Baraka: info@blackallianceforpeace.com

Photo: BAP members Netfa Freeman and Queshia Bradley, along with friend of BAP Craig Hall, outside the office of Rep. Karen Bass.

Black Alliance for Peace Condemns NATO “Leadership Meeting” as Cabal of White Supremacist Militarists

Immediate Release:

The meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization that is taking place in London should be seen as a threat to global humanity. However, the foreign policy community in the U.S., corporate media and both political parties continue to perpetuate the myth that NATO is a force for good. The Black Alliance for Peace, however, disagrees and has consistently called for the dismantling of NATO as a member of what the Alliance calls the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of domination.

NATO, according to Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) National Organizer Ajamu Baraka, “was never a security arrangement for the defense of Europe but a rational for the U.S. occupation of Europe and subordination of European militaries to the interest of U.S. imperialism. Today it is the militarized arm of the declining but still dangerous Pan- European Colonial/capitalist project, a project that has concluded that the stabilization of the world capitalist system and continued dominance of U.S. and Western capital can only be realized through the use of force.”

The expansion of NATO through cooperative agreements and associated states well beyond its supposed regional concern for providing “security” in Europe reveals its true mission as an instrument of blunt force for advancing Western interests.

BAP calls on all who support human rights and a demilitarized planet to oppose NATO and reject all attempts by ruling elites to give respectability to this structure of dominance.

The colonized, non-white victims of NATO aggression are calling on the people of the U.S. and Europe to oppose war and imperialism that results in their deaths and the destruction of their societies. It is time that those voices were heard.

BAP says that U.S. public must demand from their representatives that they work to dismantle NATO, shut down AFRICOM, ban nuclear weapons, stop the international arms trade, end state to state military agreements – and choose life over death!

Media contact: Ajamu Baraka: info@blackallianceforpeace.com

Black Alliance for Peace Stands in Revolutionary Solidarity with the People of Bolivia Against the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination

November 11, 2019

The Black Alliance for Peace condemns the U.S. sponsored counter-revolutionary coup in Bolivia. The right-wing ruling elite of Bolivia with the full support of the bipartisan right-wing U.S. government is attempting to reimpose the anti-people authoritarianism that was the norm throughout “our Americas” during the period of unchecked U.S. hegemony. 

The people of Bolivia entered a new historical era when the largely indigenous Movement for Socialism (MAS) with Evo Morales in the leadership disrupted this history of unchallenged U.S. hegemony. 

However, with the forced resignation of Morales and the physical assaults against leaders of the MAS, the progress made by indigenous and working-class people of Bolivia is under serious assault. 

BAP is not surprised by this desperate attempt on the part of the global reaction led by the U.S. to stem the tide of progressive development. This attempt only confirms why there can be no authentic peace without social justice, and for justice the oppressed must fight for it. 

But to fight it, the enemy must be named. 

Political subversion, killer sanctions, drone death from the skies, mass incarceration, genocide, slavery, white supremacist ideology, ecocide, social degradation, and dehumanization characterize the policies and character of the hegemonic Pan-European colonial/capitalist white supremacist patriarchy and the reasons why for the sake of our collective humanity it must be defeated.

The assault on Bolivia is no more than the project’s latest criminal offense. The silence, lack of visible opposition, and outright support for the coup from across the Western world is yet another example of the cross-class white supremacist commitment to the imperialist project. Like the silence that greeted the Trump Administration’s announcement that it would, without any legal foundation or pretense to humanitarian issues, use the sons and daughters of the U.S. working class to steal the oil of the sovereign state of Syria, the truncated morality of U.S. exceptionalism is revealed once again for what it has always been – parasitic white supremacy. 

The Black Alliance for Peace is further steeled by the latest turn of events in Bolivia. As African internationalists ensconced in the belly of the racist colonial beast, the energy from the bones of the indigenous peoples and enslaved Africans buried beneath the soil of this stolen land provides us with an antidote that resists the obscurantist fairy tales of the “American dream” and U.S. exceptionalism. 

We know what the colonialists can never understand and that they may win a temporary victory today in Bolivia, but tomorrow belongs to the peoples of the world who are casting off any illusions about what it will take to liberate humanity from the grip of their global colonial/capitalist nightmare. 

Across the planet, the people are in motion against the nightmare and BAP stands with them. We are clear, we say not one drop of working-class blood to defend the capitalist dictatorship in the U.S., and we demand that all people of conscience in the West join us to defeat the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of domination for the good of humanity. 

People of Bolivia, you are not alone. Victory to the oppressed,

No Compromise, No Retreat,

Struggle to Win!

Black Alliance for Peace: A People(s)-Centered Project Against War, Repression and Imperialism

Photo credit: Xavier Granja Cedeño - Cancillería del Ecuador

Black Alliance for Peace Calls on Public to Demand All Candidates Address War, Militarism and U.S. Intervention

The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) believes that along with the issue of climate change, the interlocking issues of war, militarism and normalized, illegal U.S. interventionism represent the main existential threats to global humanity. However, both mainstream elite political parties and the corporate media continue to minimize the impacts of morally indefensible and lawless interventions by the U.S. state, as well as the militarization of police forces nationwide and the obscene theft of public resources in the form of the Pentagon’s annual budget.  

During the series of Democrat party “debates,” a mere 22 minutes were devoted to these issues under the rubric of foreign policy.

To address this dereliction of public responsibility, BAP is launching a petition campaign and candidate pledge process to demand that these issues receive the critical attention they deserve.  Going straight to the public, BAP is asking that the public demand that their representatives and all candidates for office address these issues by adopting a set of demands that we  believe represents a commitment to a “people(s)-centered human right framework.”

CLICK HERE TO SIGN THE PETITION AND DOWNLOAD THE PLEDGE.

The BAP petition is calling on the public and all endorsing and participating organizations to demand that every candidate running for elected office, at every level of government,  sign our candidate pledge form that commits them to:  

Support efforts to cut the military budget by 50% as a first step in reducing military spending, and reallocate government expenditures to fully fund social programs to realize individual and collective human rights in the areas of housing, education, healthcare, green jobs and public transportation;

Oppose the militarization of the police and specifically the Department of Defense 1033 program that transfers millions of dollars’ worth of military equipment to local police forces;

Promote the closure of the more than 800 U.S. foreign military bases and the ending of U.S. participation in the white supremacist NATO military structure;

Call for and work to close the U.S. African Command (AFRICOM) and the withdrawal of all U.S. military personnel from Africa;

Demand that the Department of Justice document and investigate all instances of the use of lethal force by domestic police officers and agencies against non-white populations as demanded by various United Nations human rights treaty monitoring bodies;

Commit to passing resolutions at every level of government that commit the U.S. to upholding international law and the United Nations Charter, and to opposing all military, economic (including sanctions and blockades that are acts of war) and political interventions in the internal affairs of sovereign nations regardless of the political party controlling the office of the presidency; and

Sponsor legislation and/or resolutions at every level of government calling on the U.S. to support the United Nations resolution on the complete global abolishment of nuclear weapons passed by 122 nations in July 2017.

BAP believes that candidates who refuse to sign the pledge reveal to their would be constituents their complicity in upholding the U.S state as the premier interventionist of the global community, while also revealing their refusal to emancipate U.S. residents from militarized police states across the nation.

Black Alliance for Peace Declares It Strongly Opposes War on the People of Iran!

Our struggle is for our collective human rights in the United States

JUNE 19, 2019—The Black Alliance for Peace categorically rejects this specious and insulting attempt to manipulate public opinion into becoming co-conspirators in another immoral and illegal act of international gangsterism by the world’s premier rogue state and number one violator of human rights on the planet—the United States of America.

After almost two decades of constant war, the thirst for more violence, more war, more death and the destruction of cities, peoples and despoliation of the planet has not been satisfied by the Doctor Strangeloves of U.S. foreign policy who are positioning the U.S. public to support yet another war, this time on Iran.

We call on all people of conscience to join us in condemning this latest provocation by the U.S. in placing offensive military assets off the coast of Iran and threatening the Iranian state and people with military aggression – all illegal under the United Nations charter and customary international law.

We are being told that the while the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was sitting in a meeting with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei in Tehran and acting as a backdoor channel for Donald Trump and the U.S. administration, Iranians launched an attack on a Japanese oil tanker.

While the irrationality of an act like that is quite apparent to most in the world not infected with the drug of white supremacist orientalism - the belief that there is a “natural” irrationality in the culture and thinking of non-Europeans – in the U.S., however, the corporate press accepts that explanation supposedly backed by “intelligence” and a grainy video.

We do not want young, working class sailors who have no interest in this naked imperialist move on the sovereign nation of Iran to be on the receiving end of SS-NX-26 Yakhont missiles that are targeted on U.S. forces – with a top speed of Mach 2.9; U.S. casualties are a certainty on those giant aircraft carriers. 

Nor do we want the thousands of innocent Iranians that will die if the U.S. launches air strikes. The U.S. has already demonstrated that it has no regard for innocent non-European life and Trump has threaten to wipe Iran off the map of the world.

The people are disgusted by the decades of war. As U.S. culture drowns in an orgy of irrational internally directed acts of violence, the cultural distortion that results from the normalization of violence that is required when a society is being constantly mobilized for war is never identified as an explanatory factor by social critics. But the direct connection between gun violence in the U.S. and the acceptance of gun violence in the form of state directed war is abundantly clear for BAP - both represent a social pathology.

Silence is not an option. The Black Alliance for Peace will do everything in its power to center a conversation on war and militarism as part of the national electoral debate. We will demand that all current elected representatives and all aspiring candidates declare where they stand.

The people of Iran, of Venezuela, of the world deserve a world free from bullying, institutional violence and attacks on their sovereignty. Since there are no international mechanisms that can put a break on the U.S. when it operates as a lawless rogue state, it falls on the people in the U.S. to act on behalf of humanity to say to the rulers who are only interested in “full spectrum dominance,” that we will opposed their systematic assault on life on our planet.

We must not be confused. The interests of the 1% in maintain their ability to continue to extract value from the earth and the people globally, are not our interests. Their interests are not the “national interests.

That is why we will oppose the bipartisan effort to sell the people on war. And say without any equivocation once again:

“Not one drop of blood from the working class and poor to defend interests of the 

 Media contact: info@blackallianceforpeace.com

Black Alliance for Peace Condemns Trump Administration’s Attempt to Impose U.S. Puppet Government on People of Venezuela

Not satisfied with the orgy of violence successive U.S. administrations have imposed on the world over the last two decades in the Middle East and North Africa, the Trump administration—with the full support of a majority of Democrats and the liberal establishment—gave the green light to a coup action in Venezuela that promises to cause untold suffering to the Venezuelan people in the Americas.

In response to the news that a military coup was unfolding in Venezuela, European Parliament President Antonio Tajani welcomed the move as “a historic moment for the return to democracy and freedom in Venezuela.” Liberal defenders of democracy and human rights across Europe have given enthusiastic support to U.S. counterrevolutionary efforts, affirming why the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) has identified the U.S./EU/NATO axis of domination as the principal enemy of collective global humanity.

The real possibility of more death and destruction at the hands of the United States in Venezuela, and that significant sectors of the U.S. population supports it, reflects once again the moral hypocrisy of a society that pretends to be concerned about gun violence in the United States while giving full support to the ultimate expression of gun violence in the form of war. The hypocrisy continues with the bipartisan support for increasing the U.S. military budget by an astronomical $750 billion.

The people of the world want peace. But peace and global social cooperation to tackle and defeat the collective challenges of climate change, poverty, economic exploitation and oppression will be impossible as long as some nation-states have the ability to impose their destructive will on everyone else.

We are confident the Venezuelan people will prevail because after 20 years of dignity, of attempting to build a new society based on equality, cooperation, and empowerment of the oppressed, they will never allow themselves to be returned to the days when a rapacious oligarchy was able to deny them a democratic voice and steal the fruits of their labor and national resources.

In the spirit of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Ella Baker, Claudia Jones, Malcolm X, Kwame Ture and Fannie Lou Hamer, BAP opposes the axis of domination and spreads the demand—Hands Off Venezuela!

Media contact: info@blackallianceforpeace.com

Photo credit: Reuters/Marco Bello

Black Alliance for Peace Delivers to Congresspeople Thousands of Signatures Opposing U.S. Militarism in Africa

APRIL 3, 2019—Members of the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) delivered about 3,500 signatures today, calling on the Congressional Black Caucus to hold hearings on the impact of U.S. militarization in Africa. Letters and petition signatures were handed to Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) Chairperson and U.S. Representative Karen Bass (D-CA) as well as to U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN), a CBC member and a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organizations. A letter was delivered to U.S. Representative Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), asking the CPC to partner with the CBC on a congressional investigation.  

BAP calls for an end to AFRICOM and to all foreign interference in the affairs of African countries. War, drone strikes and sanctions have devastated nations and millions of people—they must end now.

The letter to the CBC notes the U.S. government’s lack of consultation with all African peoples, a violation of the human-rights principles of self-determination and national sovereignty. “Despite fierce opposition from many African states and peoples, AFRICOM was established 10 years ago. And in those 10 years, our research indicates there has been very little oversight into the impact of AFRICOM on the people and states in Africa.”

Vanessa Beck, co-coordinator of BAP’s Research Team and a member of BAP’s Coordinating Committee, says the 60 percent of the U.S. budget that goes toward the military is the flip side of U.S. disinvestment in human-needs programs. “Whether we are talking about mass incarceration, police exchanges with the settler-colonial state of Israel, or the transfer of military weapons to local and state police departments, the most oppressed people suffer in genocidal conditions,” Beck says.

BAP National Organizer Ajamu Baraka says the CBC was once known as the anti-war conscience of Congress. “The collective voice of elected Black leaders has been muted and overtaken by war drums,” he says. “Not one drop of working-class and poor people’s blood should feed the capitalist dictatorship’s illegal wars abroad and in the United States.”

BAP kicked off the U.S. Out of Africa! campaign October 1, the 10th anniversary of AFRICOM.

A second campaign will educate the public on the connection between domestic repression and U.S. wars abroad. It will be announced at BAP’s second-anniversary event, “No Compromise, No Retreat in the Fight to End Militarism and War”, at 7 p.m., April 4, in Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ, 5301 N. Capitol St., NE, Washington, D.C.

STOP U.S. SUBVERSION AND LAWLESSNESS!
CLOSE U.S. AND NATO BASES!
U.S. OUT OF AFRICA—SHUT DOWN AFRICOM!

Media contact: info@blackallianceforpeace.com

Photo credit: Mid East News

Black Alliance for Peace Says Struggle in Haiti and Venezuela Connected

FEBRUARY 18, 2019—The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) remains in steadfast solidarity with the people of Haiti, whose revolutionary spirit in 1791 showed the world what is possible when Africans organize and struggle together to remove their shackles and dispose of their oppressors.

The recent revelation that Haitian President Jovenel Moïse embezzled nearly $4 billion Venezuela had loaned the island nation a decade ago caused the popular uprising taking place in the country. And this is where we see where U.S. interventions in Venezuela and Haiti connect.

Moïse is nothing more than a puppet controlled by the U.S. government to disallow Haitian self-determination.

The Haitian people are no strangers to the tentacles of U.S. interventionism, which has been in place since the 19-year occupation commenced by President Woodrow Wilson in 1915. The occupation included the seizure and relocation of Haiti’s financial reserves to the United States, as well as a re-write of the nation’s constitution, which allowed foreign entities to enjoy land-owning rights.

Over time, the actors associated with the U.S. stranglehold on Haiti and its right to self-determination may have changed—from Wilson, to Clinton, to Obama—but the strategy and modus operandi have remained consistent. The method involves financial manipulation, election rigging and racketeering. We are witnessing a parallel between 1929—when U.S. military forces suppressed a nationwide strike in Haiti and peaceful demonstrations by firing live ammunition on 1,500 people—and recently as Haitians have protested, demanding the ouster of U.S.-backed Moïse.

Moïse’s grip on power is being pried from his fingers as police officers continue to defy his orders, stand down and refuse to fire on protesters.

Continued U.S. oppression of Haiti was most recently demonstrated when U.S. sanctions against Venezuela made it impossible for Haiti to repay their loan as part of the PetroCaribe deal, thereby ending the arrangement in 2017. Moïse further demonstrated his loyalty to the United States when he directed his ministers to support a U.S.-engineered vote at the Organization of American States (OAS) that declared the illegitimacy of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

As internationalists who understand the interconnectedness of oppressed peoples’ struggles, BAP declares its solidarity with the people of Haiti in the struggle to end U.S. imperialism in Haiti, Venezuela and all republics of the Caribbean and Latin America. The people of Haiti are once again attempting to win back their nation. All who believe in principle of self-determination should stand with them.

Media contact: info@blackallianceforpeace.com

Photo credit: Hector Retamal/AFP

Black Working Class Will Never Abandon Venezuela!

“The struggles of the Black working-class, united around a national program must have international solidarity and must be understood within the context of an anti-imperialist struggle against global capitalism and the US-led imperialist global economic, military and political infrastructure. For the Black working-class and the Black liberation movement not to struggle against capitalism, is not to be engaged in a struggle for Black liberation.” —Saladin Muhammad, Black Workers for Justice

We must remind our people that over 150 million Africans live throughout the so-called Americas. We especially must raise this reality at critical moments like this when the corporate media and establishment opinion is legitimizing U.S. gangsterism that could kill thousands of people in Venezuela.

Afro-Venezuelans contacted Black Alliance for Peace to ask us to remind our people in the United States that military forces will target Afro-Venezuelans if a military intervention occurs because they represent a core constituency of the Bolivarian revolutionary process in Venezuela.  

When a so-called opposition takes down the flag of its own country and raises the U.S. flag—after also displaying the Israeli flag on its podium during a demonstration—the true nature and interests of this element are exposed. This is an opposition that burnt Afro-Venezuelans alive because they assume all Black people support the government.

We know what will happen if a U.S.-led military intervention takes place. It will be a re-play of the 1989 invasion of Panama, where U.S forces turned the Black community of El Chorrillo into a “free fire zone,” resulting in the complete destruction of the community and the deaths of over 3,000 Panamanians.  

The U.S. state has demonstrated repeatedly that it has no regard for non-European life, from Iraq through Libya to Yemen and a dozen nations in between.

It is imperative we separate our folks from this naked imperialist move on Venezuela. It is important for African/Black people to be clear where we stand on these kinds of issues. The war and militarism being waged against us by the domestic military we call “the police”—along with the mass incarceration complex—is part of the global Pan-European Colonial/Capitalist White Supremacist patriarchy that is now conspiring against the Bolivarian revolutionary process in Venezuela. The European Union Parliament’s decision to recognize the puppet government being imposed on the people of Venezuela demonstrates why we have a common enemy in the U.S./EU/NATO “axis of domination.”

There can be no confusion—despite the sectoral fights inside the capitalist class that is currently playing out in their struggle against Trump, they are united when it comes to projecting the dominance of the Pan-European imperialist project. They are prepared to fight to the last drop of your blood and mine to defend their privilege.

That is why the Black Alliance for Peace is clear: We say “not one drop of blood from working class and poor to defend the interests of the capitalist oligarchy.” We want peace and People(s)-Centered Human Rights, but we recognize that there is no peace without justice. Real social justice, which requires radical structural change, cannot be realized without struggle. And there can be no effective social change without clearly identifying the enemy—the source of our oppression—and being able to imagine an alternative.

The people of Venezuela have made a choice. We will not debate the merits of their process—its contradictions or problems. Our responsibility as citizens/captors of empire is to put a brake on the U.S. state’s ability to foster death and destruction on the peoples of the world.

BAP is calling on all African/Black organizations to oppose U.S. intervention in Venezuela. Create public educational materials for the groups you are working with. You can pull from BAP’s statement on Venezuela, which raises the important principles we must defend: https://blackallianceforpeace.com/bapstatements/defendvenezuela

We are also joining with organizations from across the country to support a national day of action against U.S. intervention February 23. We will share more information on that on our site as that information is produced. If you might be interested in organizing actions on that day, please get in contact with us at info@blackallianceforpeace.com.

Also feel free to distribute this information on Venezuelan actions: https://blackallianceforpeace.com/newsletter/whitesupremacyofusinterventions

HANDS OFF VENEZUELA!

STOP U.S. SUBVERSION AND LAWLESSNESS!

CLOSE U.S. AND NATO BASES!

U.S. OUT OF AFRICA—SHUT DOWN AFRICOM!

Media contact: info@blackallianceforpeace.com