Black Alliance for Peace Organizes Rallies in United States to Demand Biden Administration and Western Organizations End Meddling in Haiti

For Immediate Release

Media Contact: info@blackallianceforpeace.com, (202) 643-1136

Members of the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) in Chicago and Washington, D.C., will rally today to demand the Biden administration and Western entities, such as the Organization of American States (OAS), end decades of interventions that have violated the right of the Haitian people to transparent democratic processes and sovereignty.

While the Chicago rally will take place in front of the Haitian consulate at 11 E. Adams Street, the Washington rally will convene at the Organization of American States (OAS), 200 17th Street NW, because the OAS has played a key role in manipulating Haitian elections in order to keep right-wing neocolonial regimes in office in Haiti and throughout the so-called “Americas.” These rallies build on the March 1 rally that took place in front of the Haitian embassy in Washington, D.C. BAP plans to build momentum for the March 28 international day of action organizations in Haiti have called non-Haitian organizations to participate in.

“The OAS was created by the United States as a way to enforce the 19th-century Monroe Doctrine, a policy of white-supremacist U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere to ensure corporate profits and geopolitical advantage,” said BAP National Organizer Ajamu Baraka. “Therefore, the OAS is not an independent entity, but an extension of U.S. power, and it has no place in the affairs of the global working class.”

Haitian dictator Jovenel Moïse, whom the Biden administration supports, refused to step down on February 7, the final day of his term. That sparked weeks of new protests against the U.S./UN/OAS interventionism that put Moïse into power. Moïse has attempted to violently quell these protests. Despite tens of thousands of people pouring into the streets of Haiti, the Western mainstream media has refused to cover the crisis.

“Moïse has ruled by decree and inflicted terror on the Haitian working class by deploying U.S.-trained Haitian police and foreign military entities,” said Dr. Jemima Pierre, a BAP member and an associate professor of Black Studies at the University of California Los Angeles. “The Haitian people demand their right to national sovereignty be respected.”

BAP is in solidarity with the Haitian masses. We understand uprisings are not new for Haiti, the first Black republic that has fought for decades against the white-supremacist dominance of the United States and its Western partners.

BAP will be joined by allied organizations, including the Black Alliance for Peace Solidarity Network, made up of non-African organizations and individuals who support BAP’s mission.

Banner photo: twitter.com/DannyShawCUNY

Black Alliance for Peace Solidarity Network Demands NATO Support Peace Process in Afghanistan and Withdraw Its Forces

For Immediate Release

Media Contact:
(202) 643-1136
info@blackallianceforpeace.com

MARCH 11, 2021—The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) Solidarity Network, made up of allied organizations and individuals, demands the North Atlantic Treaty Organization end its imperialist endeavor in Afghanistan and calls on the United States to abide by the 2020 U.S.-Taliban agreement by exiting Afghanistan by May 1.

The BAP Solidarity Network encourages anti-imperialist, anti-war people and organizations to sign a petition to demand the Biden administration exit Afghanistan. It also has developed a template to help the U.S. public write letters to the editors of news organizations to demand an end to the U.S. intervention.

The BAP Solidarity Network has uncovered through its research that although 2,500 U.S. troops occupy Afghanistan, 11,000 NATO troops representing 36 countries are in the war-riddled country. At a December 16, 2020 meeting, NATO allies agreed to a $1.94 billion 2021 military budget and a $312.5 million 2021 civil budget—all for its Afghanistan operations.

Tod Wolters, commander of the U.S. European Command—one of 11 global command structures the United States uses to dominate every inch of the world—also is NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe. He said, "Everything we do is about generating peace. We compete to win… and if deterrence fails, we're prepared to respond to aggression, primarily through NATO." That indicates NATO does not merely advise or train Afghan troops.

Today, the U.S. European Command and NATO, along with the Afghan Forces they finance, are shifting their objectives from the so-called anti-terrorist campaign to “peace building in Afghanistan."

"The BAP Solidarity Network understands this is only a cover for the real objectives, namely fighting the New Cold War against Russia, China and other countries not aligned with the U.S.-European imperialist consensus," says Zach Kerner, member of the BAP Solidarity Network.

While increasingly under threat of a global war, the people of Afghanistan continue suffering the immediate brunt of imperialist and capitalist interests in the region. To date, the U.S. empire and its European allies are complicit in the deaths of over 100,000 Afghan adults and children, leaving thousands more injured or permanently disabled. Two decades of dropping 50,000 bombs on a country the size of Texas has left Afghanistan with catastrophic levels of poverty, an economy in shambles, and health care workers struggling with the added burden of the pandemic. Nearly 3 million Afghans refugees have fled their country to escape the violence, making Afghanistan one of the world’s biggest sources of refugees, and over 2 million Afghans have been internally displaced. Two decades of war has cost the U.S. public more than $1 trillion.

Within days of taking office, the Biden administration signaled it would not abide by the U.S.-Taliban agreement, citing the importance of supporting a “stable, sovereign, democratic, and secure future for Afghanistan.”

"This is the same language we hear whenever the United States and NATO conspire to destabilize foreign countries hostile to U.S. and European capital," says Danny Haiphong, co-coordinator of the BAP Solidarity Network. "But we condemn the threat of the New Cold War and the continued war and occupation of Afghanistan, as we condemn the use of state violence and militarism against poor and working-class people of all nations. That is why we demand the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. and NATO forces as well as the financing of the war machine in Afghanistan and the region."

No to the New Cold War!
U.S./NATO out of Afghanistan!

Photo: The International Security Assistance Force color guard marches during the ISAF Joint Command (IJC) and XVIII Airborne Corps colors casing ceremony, Dec 8, 2014 at North Kabul Afghanistan International Airport, Afghanistan. ISAF is a NATO-led military mission in Afghanistan. (ISAF/Public Domain)

Black Alliance for Peace Supports African/Black Workers from Alabama to Haiti

WORKING-CLASS FOUNDATION: BAP identifies the Black working class as the main social force of any reconstituted Black Liberation project.

SOUTHERN ROOTS: The South is the base of U.S. military infrastructure. It is also where 55 percent of Black people happen to live. BAP identifies this region as a priority for collective learning, organizing, and mobilizing the power and influence of Black workers and the poor to oppose militarism, war, and imperialism. —BAP’s Principles of Unity

Led predominantly by Black workers, the struggle for worker dignity and power is at a critical stage in Bessemer, Alabama. That is where Amazon workers are voting to determine if they will be represented by the Retail, Wholesale Department Store Workers Union (RWDSU) against the behemoth transnational corporation.

Understanding the power of organization, these courageous workers formed the BAmazon Union over the last few months to fight back against the failure of the company to protect the elementary human rights of workers to a safe work environment and to be free of inhumane working conditions and treatment.

In the spirit of the militant Black working class, this fight promises to be a historic turning point in the efforts to organize the U.S. South.

As we stand in support of Black workers in Haiti fighting against U.S. imperialism, we must make the connections. We are in a life-or-death fight against the ravages of a vicious global colonial/capitalist system that will use whatever means it has at its disposal to maintain the ability to extract value from the land and labor of African/Black people and all who are forced to sell their labor just to put food on their tables. 

BAmazon workers and the Haitian people currently protesting U.S.-backed Haitian dictator Jovenel Moïse share in common their African ancestry and their struggles against colonial-capitalism. We are in solidarity with the BAmazon Union and Haiti's poor and working class.

For more information, please check out the Southern Workers Assembly Home and Black Workers for Justice (BWFJ), a BAP member organization represented on BAP’s National Coordinating Committee.

In the fight for People(s)-Centered Human Rights, self-determination, and social justice there will be No Compromise, No Retreat!

Photo: Demonstrators shout slogans and hold placards during a protest at the Amazon fulfillment center in Shakopee, Minnesota, Dec. 14, 2018. (Kerem Yucel/AFP/Getty Images)

For Biden Administration, Black Lives Don’t Matter in Haiti!—A BAP Statement on Haiti

The people of Haiti have been demanding freedom from the succession of U.S.-imposed dictators for decades. One such dictator, Jovenel Moïse, refused to leave office February 7, which marked the end of his term four years after an illegal election. This move catapulted yet another intense episode in the historic struggle of the Haitian masses against colonial intervention. Tens of thousands of Haitians went to the streets demanding democracy and an end to dictatorship. And what was the response from the U.S. puppet regime? Bullets, paramilitary terror, curfews, house raids, beatings and the imprisonment of opposition leaders.

With the election of U.S. President Joe Biden, folks believed this so-called “champion” of fair elections and the rule of law—who had expressed a commitment that “Black Lives Matter”—would rally to the side of Haitians and end U.S. support for the dictatorship.

But that did not happen.

When Moïse announced he would stay in office past February 7, and continue to rule by decree, the Biden administration signaled it supported that decision. Moïse’s rule by decree was made possible because elections were postponed in 2019, which allowed the mandates of most of the representatives to the National Assembly—Haiti’s parliament—to expire.

It did not matter that Moïse ruled by decree, that he violated the rights of his people and that the majority of the people wanted him gone. What mattered to the Biden administration was the purpose Moïse served in U.S. plans for the Caribbean and Latin American region.

In other words, the people must be sacrificed for the larger interests of the U.S. imperial project. These interests that could not be bothered with the trifle concerns about democracy, legitimacy or the rights of the people. Those rhetorical terms are only evoked as expressions of the United States’ so-called “values” when directed at an adversary like Russia, Venezuela, China or any other country the United States is actively attempting to destabilize. But those values cannot be allowed to complicate U.S. interests in Haiti or even in the occupied Black and Brown communities within the United States.

We ask Joe Biden and his supporters, who claim Biden cares about African/Black people: Why does it seem like the lives of African/Black people in Haiti do not matter? Is it that Black lives only matter when they are supporting U.S. and European colonial white power?

In the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP), we know the answer to that rhetorical question. Both parties and the U.S. state have demonstrated the lives of non-Europeans mean extraordinarily little. And the values that the United States and Western Europeans pretend to uphold—like democracy and human rights—are dead letters when it comes to the fundamental human rights of the peoples of the global South.

The United States and the United Nations armed and trained Haitian police. Moïse has the full support of these armed paramilitary forces, who are committed to upholding the rule of the Haitian ruling class that serves international capital. That is why the Biden administration supports Moïse. Therefore, Moïse has no legitimacy.

Haiti emerged as a free society in the greatest revolution in human history in 1804, when the people of Haiti established the first Black Republic after fighting and defeating first the Spanish and then the French, at the time the greatest military power on the planet. Since then, the West has tried to destroy Haiti.

Invasions, occupations, death squads, economic plunder, attacks on their culture, political isolation and U.S.-backed dictatorships have exacted a severe price on the people of Haiti. Yet, they have never surrendered. That spirit of resistance is on display today in the streets of Haiti.

We, in the Black Alliance for Peace, will continue to support those efforts by organizing actions throughout the United States in solidarity with the Haitian people.

We are not confused. There is nothing exceptional about the United States, except perhaps its hypocrisy. Declarations made by white-supremacist politicians and heads of imperialist corporations that “Black Lives Matter” have rung hollow, opportunistic and completely in contradiction to the lived experiences of African/Black people in the United States from 1619 to the present.

Stripped of the veneer of liberal-rights discourse, the true core values of the U.S. settler-colonial project are obvious: Glorification of violence, white supremacy, patriarchy, social Darwinism, materialism and extreme individualism. These core values facilitated the land theft that allowed for the creation of the United States, enslavement and the most rapacious forms of capitalist accumulation on the planet.

The abandonment of the people of Haiti affirms once again the United States is committed to white power. Subversion, war and brutal sanctions are just some of the instruments employed to maintain the structures of white colonial-capitalist power.

So, our appeal is not to the conscience of Biden and the neoliberal imperialist Democrats—they only have objective interests. Instead, we call on the people of the United States to demand an alteration both in U.S. policies regarding Haiti and in its relationship with Haiti as well as with all nations that currently find themselves in the crosshairs of U.S. imperialist reaction.

However, we understand our commitment to peace and People(s)-Centered Human Rights, social justice, democracy and self-determination cannot be realized without an organized people who are struggling for power.

The people of Haiti are fighting for power, for the ability to determine their own destiny. Stand with them. Stand with us. Fight for freedom and for a new reality in Haiti and the world.

No Compromise, No Retreat!

More resources on Haiti can be found here.

Photo credit: Chandan Khanna/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

BAP Solidarity Network Demands Biden End War in Afghanistan

For immediate release

Media Contact:
info@blackallianceforpeace.com
(202) 643-1136

In response to the Biden administration suggesting it will not complete the withdrawal of U.S. forces, per the Doha Agreement of February 2020, the Black Alliance for Peace Solidarity Network demands the United States end the war in Afghanistan.

The BAP Solidarity Network, comprised of non-African/Black people and organizations who support BAP’s anti-imperialist mission, released a petition (available in English and Spanish) today, calling on everyone committed to peace, human rights and common sense, to demand Biden re-start peace talks; immediately withdraw all U.S. forces, private contractors, and other mercenaries; close all U.S. bases; and respect the sovereignty of Afghanistan.

Nearly 20 years ago, the United States invaded the sovereign nation of Afghanistan, initiating decades of violence and occupation. To date, the war has resulted in the deaths of over 100,000 Afghan adults and children, leaving thousands more injured or permanently disabled.  

“As usual, it is the people of the United States who are forced to fund these imperialist endeavors,” according to Danny Haiphong, co-coordinator of the BAP Solidarity Network. “The financial cost to U.S. citizens has, so far, edged over $1 trillion, much of it lost in a sink-hole of corruption, or spent enriching military contractors and the financial elite.”  

After several months of negotiations, direct peace talks between the Taliban and the U.S.-installed Afghan government finally began this past September. The U.S. news media, Congress, the military-industrial complex, and the foreign-policy community immediately hit out in opposition against Trump’s brokered deal. Now, the Biden administration suggests it will not complete the withdrawal of U.S. forces, which the United States had agreed to when it and the Taliban signed the Doha Agreement in February 2020.

“It is time to stop the lies and for the Biden administration to end this bloody, trillion-dollar war,” says BAP Solidarity Network member Zach Kerner. “The U.S., the most violent country in the world, has been wreaking nothing but violence on the Afghan people for nearly 20 years. But now it is now claiming it cannot move forward on the peace process because of ‘violence.’” 

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The Black Alliance for Peace Solidarity Network is comprised of non-African/Black individuals and organizations that support the anti-imperialist, anti-war and pro-peace positions of the Black Alliance for Peace, an African/Black-led internationalist organization.

Photo credit: Jalil Rezayee/EPA, via Shutterstock

Black Alliance for Peace Demands Biden Administration Abolish 1033 Program

For Immediate Release

Media Contact:
info@blackallianceforpeace.com
(202) 643-1136

The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) calls U.S. President Joe Biden’s executive order to alter the Department of Defense’s 1033 program because of his supposed commitment to racial justice an affront. The gratuitous militarization of police forces across the United States through this program has helped to turn these agencies into brutal weapons of repression. Therefore, nothing short of complete abolition of this program is acceptable.

BAP has demanded abolition of the 1033 program since BAP’s 2017 founding. It now asks the public to sign a petition (available in English and Spanish) demanding the Biden administration and Democrats commit to abolishing this racist and brutal program.

“Here in the belly of the Deep South beast, we understand the harsh and irreversible effects measures like 1033 have had and continue to have on those who languish in poverty, forced to live in shanty shacks and tenements,” according to Jaribu Hill, executive director of the Mississippi Workers’ Center for Human Rights and member of BAP’s national Coordinating Committee. “Our communities are under siege and on dusty back roads, we are accosted and brutalized by the military militia known as the police.”

“Weapons of destruction are used to terrorize our people,” Hill said. “Therefore, we cannot accept band-aid solutions to institutionalized terror under the color of law.”

The National Defense Authorization Act of 1997 that then-Senator Joe Biden (D-Delaware) supported and President Bill Clinton (D) signed into law created the 1033 program by expanding on a previous program.

Responding to outrage about the heavily militarized police response to protests after Michael Brown’s murder in Ferguson, Missouri, President Barack Obama enacted a policy in 2015 that appeared to limit the program, but made little difference in any department’s ability to acquire and use military weapons.

Even with the scale-back, the Obama administration managed to transfer a $459 million arsenal to police agencies.

In fact, during the Obama administration, the 1033 program expanded 24-fold (2,400%).

President Donald Trump came into office and reversed Obama’s cosmetic changes. What the Biden administration is now proposing by reversing Trump’s reversal to the Obama policy is not enough, as reverting the policy to Obama’s altered version is not justice.

BAP National Organizer Ajamu Baraka says what is needed is “demilitarization and an end to the police occupation of colonized Black and Brown communities.”

The Biden administration and Democrats do not admit this program is the latest form of militarized repression deployed to control and contain the Black and Brown colonized and working classes of the United States. If Biden and Democrats were really committed to racial justice, they would support abolition of the 1033 program.

Photo credit: Jeff Roberson/AP

On Human Rights Day the U.S. Celebrates with Death

Immediate Release                                                                                                                               

Contact: info@blackallianceforpeace.com                                     

December 10 is celebrated in most places as international Human Rights Day in commemoration of the day that the international community promulgated the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) — elevating the fundamental right to life, freedom of speech, participation in government and the elements like housing, health and education that should characterize a life of dignity — the document that served as the beginning point of a set of principles that would serve as foundation for the evolving human rights framework.

Therefore, since it is quite clear that the number one violator of human rights on the planet is the government of the United States of America, it is perhaps quite fitting that U.S. national authorities would celebrate this day by executing an individual, together with four additional Federal prisoners, scheduled to be submitted to this ritualistic process of state murder over the next few weeks.

In a statement issued on December 9th, Black Alliance member Aaron Greene said:

“The U.S. death penalty has always been a symbol of white supremacy and a violation of human rights law. Having already executed 11 people this year, the Trump administration plans to execute five people (four of them Black) during a lame-duck session. This would be the first time a president has carried out executions during a lame-duck session since the Cleveland administration carried out the execution of an Indigenous man in 1890.”

As Attorney Jaribu Hill, director of the Mississippi Workers’ Center for Human Rights and member of the BAP coordinating committee has stated:

“The death penalty is the ultimate human rights violation and can be carried out even beyond the ritualistic lynching unfolding today on Human Rights Day.”

The execution serves as a backdrop for structural violence in the U.S. that has resulted in death and hospitalizations from COVID-19 and the failure of the U.S. state to protect the human rights of its residents and citizens. The conscious decision to sacrifice workers health, allow critical support to elapse, and to commodify vaccine production for profit is consistent with the complete disregard of human life not only in the U.S. but globally. Reports have been circulating for months revealing the incredible level of suffering that the people of Iran and Venezuela are facing in trying to protect the lives of their people in the midst of crippling, inhumane sanctions that deny them vital equipment and medicines.

Understanding how ritualistic state murder can continue in the U.S. is impossible without understanding the cultural values of the U.S. settler state, where violence and de-humanization were the core values that allowed for the conquering of the land, enslavement, and brutal capitalist exploitation. “Violence and death as entertainment, incessant wars, a military budget that consumes 60% of Federal budget, mass incarceration, mass shootings, are all symptoms of a decadent and sick society,” according to Ajamu Baraka, National Coordinator of the Alliance.

That is why it should be impossible for any U.S. official to stand up in any public forum and declare the U.S. as a nation committed to human rights.

Below are five people that are scheduled to be executed:

• Brandon Bernard (Black Man) – Currently incarcerated in Terre Haute, Indiana. Brandon was 18 years old when first incarcerated and now is 40 years old. Brandon was only an accomplice to the alleged crime and five of the nine surviving jurors for his case no longer view the death penalty as a necessary punishment. Brandon would be the youngest executed in 70 years and his scheduled date of execution is December 10, 2020 (Human Rights Day).

  • Learn more about Brandon’s Case: https://www.helpsavebrandon.com

• Dustin Higgs (Black Man) – Currently incarcerated in Terre Haute, Indiana. Dustin was sentenced to death on January 3, 2001. Dustin was convicted as an accomplice to three murders in 1996, even though he actually did not pull the trigger, but was guilty by association under the so-called law of party’s theory. He is scheduled to be executed on January 15, 2021, which would be the last federal execution carried out by the Trump Administration. January 15, 2020, is the birth date of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther, King, Jr.

  • Learn more about Dustin’s Case here: http://www.savedustinjhiggs.com

• Lisa Montgomery (White Woman) – Currently incarcerated in Fort Worth, Texas. Lisa was sentenced to death on October 22, 2007. Lisa suffers from severe mental illness and experienced relentless physical, emotional, and sexual abuse including being trafficked by her own mother. She is the only woman under a federal death sentence and would be the first woman executed in 70 years. Execution date of January 12, 2021.

  • Learn more about Lisa’s case here: https://www.deathpenaltyworldwide.org/project/savelisa

• Cory Johnson (Black Man) – Currently incarcerated in Terre Haute, Indiana. Cory was sentenced to death in 1993. His lawyers have continuously argued that he suffers from an intellectual disability, which should prohibit him from being executed under federal law. Cory is one of the longest serving people now on federal death row. His execution date is January 14, 2020.

  • Learn more about Cory’s case here.

• Alfred Bourgeois (Black Man) – Currently incarcerated in Terre Haute, Indiana. Alfred was convicted and sentenced to death in 2002. Alfred is intellectually disabled and should be constitutionally ineligible for the death penalty. He is scheduled to be executed on December 11, 2020.

  • On December 2, 2020, Alfred Bourgeois attorneys asked the U.S. Supreme Court for a stay of Dec. 11 scheduled federal execution and review of intellectual disability claim. Read the press release, cert petition, stay motion here.

Photo credit: Leonard Freed/Magnum Photos

Black Alliance for Peace Calls on All U.S. Elected Officials to Support the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW)

BAP's Call to Support TPNW Is Cornerstone of Its Candidate Accountability Campaign

Global humanity made a significant step toward addressing one of the most intractable and irrational issues it faces—the production, potential use and normalcy of nuclear weapons—with the ratification by Honduras of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) on October 24, bringing the number of ratifications to 50 nations and triggering the 90-day period in which the treaty will enter in force as international law on January 22, 2021.

Adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on July 7, 2017, the TPNW is the first legally binding international agreement to prohibit nuclear weapons. The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) embraced this call and made support for the treaty’s ratification an integral element of its public educational work related to its anti-war campaign work.

“With the passage of the TPNW just a few months after BAP was launched in 2017, we understood this treaty and opposition to nuclear war had to be centered in our efforts to re-awaken the movement against war of all types, which had fallen into a slumber under the pro-war, right-wing administration of Barack Obama. Demanding that U.S. public officials at every level of government support the TPNW is a cornerstone of BAP’s current Candidate Accountability Campaign,” according to BAP National Organizer Ajamu Baraka.

BAP’s Candidate Accountability Campaign is a mass-based effort to present a set of anti-war and pro-peace demands to candidates and public officials that they must embrace in order to win the support of the public.

Along with the demand that candidates and public officials “sponsor legislation and/or resolutions to support the U.N. resolution on the complete global abolition of nuclear weapons,” BAP also demands that elected officials:

• Oppose the militarization of U.S. police through the Department of Defense’s 1033 program

• Oppose Israeli training of U.S. police forces

• Call for and work for the closure of the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM)

• Advocate for the closure of 800+ U.S. foreign military bases

• Oppose Trump’s “Operation Relentless Pursuit”

• Commit to opposing all military, economic (including sanctions and blockades) and political interventions;

• Advocate for an end to U.S. participation in NATO

The bipartisan commitment to use illegal force to maintain U.S. global hegemony must be challenged by the U.S. public. The fact that the U.S. operates today as a rogue state, completely ignoring international law and basic morality as it subverts governments, imposes murderous sanctions, supports anti-democratic regimes from Israel to the United Arab Emirates, and desecrates the concept of human rights, means it is up to the U.S. public to reign in the U.S. state. BAP's demands are a first step toward that goal.

“It is an irrational and immoral use of public funds to spend over a trillion dollars to upgrade the U.S. nuclear arsenal that both the Obama and Trump regimes committed to," according to Baraka. “This criminal use of public funds and the outrageous theory that the U.S. can launch a first strike against Russia or China, and catch their missiles in their silos, demonstrates that the U.S., no matter who occupies the White House, is an existential threat to collective humanity.”

Contact: Ajamu Baraka
(202) 643-1136

Photo credit: United States Department of Energy, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Pan-African Community Action and Black Alliance for Peace Suggest U.S. Connection in Nigeria Violence

Washington, D.C.-based Pan-African Community Action (PACA) and the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP)’s U.S. Out of Africa Network (USOAN) issued a joint statement condemning what appears to be illegal police and military violence committed against unarmed, peaceful protesters in Nigeria. 

PACA and the USOAN assert, however, a U.S. connection to the violence that many are not making. The Nigerian police forces and military have long histories with the United States through the U.S.-led International Police Training School and the military-to-military relations between U.S. and Nigerian militaries, a part of the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM).  

The joint PACA-USOAN statement said, “The U.S.-led International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, is “the world’s largest and most influential professional association for police leaders,” with more than 31,000 members in over 165 countries. Nigeria's police are among its members, and hard evidence exists that Nigerian police forces receive training from U.S. police officers through the IACP’s International Police Education and Training (IPET) program.”

The joint statement went on to say, “Nigeria’s relationship to the U.S. and its military to military relationship with the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) must be seen as indirectly if not directly culpable for the October 20th massacre of unarmed protesters by the military.” 

“The U.S. is not a benevolent power,” according to Tunde Osazua, coordinator of BAP’s USOAN. “When the U.S. extends police training and establishes military-to-military relations, it is not doing so out of any commitment to democracy and human rights, but out of self-interest. It provides assistance to those governments that are aligned in upholding the interests of the U.S. and the other colonial powers.” 

This position is echoed by the Nigeria-based Joint Action Front (JAF): “The latest act of massacre of Nigerians brings to fire once more the point we in JAF have consistently made that: *"... there is a very tiny group of Nigerians who have cornered the wealth that belong[s] to the working people and the poor, who are in majority. They loot the Treasury and use their stolen wealth to sustain themselves in power through their political parties. They use their power to get richer and richer while the poor get poorer and poorer.  This is the system of exploitation and oppression. It is the system that brings out the army and the police to kill poor people when they protest against exploitation and oppression. We want to change that system and replace it with a system where the working people and millions of people who are suffering under the system of exploitation will win power and ensure that the wealth of Nigeria is used to ensure a good life for the majority of the people who are now exploited and oppressed.”

The neocolonial nature of Nigerian and other African states’ leadership mirrors the neocolonial role of the Black misleadership class in the United States that white power has doled out responsibility to for managing the poor and working classes of the U.S. domestic colonies. Unfortunately, Black misleaders have not hesitated in unleashing brutal and often deadly force against Black and Brown life in spaces under their control. 

For PACA and USOAN, Black lives are just as precious in Nigeria as they are in the United States, France, Colombia, Venezuela and everywhere African/Black people now find themselves. Nigeria’s Black rulers’ disregard for Black lives is a graphic reminder that white supremacy and the act of upholding European colonial/capitalist power cannot be reduced to a black/white binary. 

We say the pigmentation, race, gender, and nationality of the perpetrators occupying institutional power is irrelevant when state actions are committed to protecting and advancing the Pan-European white supremacist colonial/capitalist patriarchal project.

Contact: Netfa Freeman, (301) 938-4628 (U.S.)

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. 

###

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