May 1: Making International Workers' Day a Day of Action Against Imperialism

May 1: Making International Workers’ Day a Day of Action Against Imperialism

End the War in Afghanistan, Shut Down AFRICOM, Resist the Militarized Occupation of Black and Brown Working-Class and Colonized Communities

War, repression, and imperialism characterize the objective plight of billions of humans still gripped by the vicious colonial-capitalist world system. May 1 is the day laboring classes claim for themselves as International Workers' Day to reaffirm the struggle against the dehumanization and degradation of the global capitalist order kept in place by state violence and war. May 1 also is the deadline the United States agreed to last year to pull out of Afghanistan to end the suffering of that nation of workers and peasants. It also is the day the workers and poor of Haiti have chosen to revolt against the puppet government imposed on them by the Biden-Harris administration, a duo that has proven in its first 100 days its commitment to Black life does not extend beyond domestic public-relations stunts.

Over a million Black working-class and poor people rot in the gulags of the United States as a surplus population, unneeded by capital except as an income generator for prison custodians and slave labor. And for the rest of the Black and Brown working class and poor, the domestic army referred to as the police are tasked with the responsibility to protect and serve the capitalist extraction of surplus value from labor through coercion and, when needed, terror.

This is the domestic expression of a global system that produces billions of people living in abject poverty in nations ruled by a contemptible neocolonial ruling class, usually supported by the United States or one of the other European colonial powers. These neocolonial puppets have no hesitation in using unimaginable violence to keep the people in line.

But the people are in resistance.

In Haiti, the people have fought for their collective dignity against a U.S. stooge for over a year. Having taken to the streets in the thousands, they have sustained the resistance to the point that the state has turned to increasingly desperate, escalating violence in its goal to contain the people.

In the United States, hundreds of wildcat strikes have occurred, demonstrating that even in the midst of a pandemic, the spirit of working-class resistance finds expression.

And in Venezuela, the Bolivarian process is still holding firm against all measures of U.S. provocations and cruel sanctions meant to punish the people, who refuse the indignity of surrender to Yankee imperialism.

The inability of capitalist states to protect the fundamental human rights of its citizens, revealed by the COVID-19 pandemic, has resulted in a new consciousness among workers and laboring classes globally. It now is clear the interests of the global capitalists are different from the interests of the rest of collective humanity. And because of that understanding, the warmongers are finding it a little more difficult to mobilize the public to protect imperialist interests.

On May 1, the Black Alliance for Peace stands in solidarity with the workers of the world and pledges our commitment to do our part to confront the capitalist dictatorship.

We say without hesitation or concern for retaliation on this International Workers' Day that we will intensify the opposition to imperialism. From the streets of Atlanta, Detroit and Baltimore, to Cuba, Haiti, Libya, and Venezuela, we will “turn imperialist wars into wars against imperialism.”

Banner photo: A sea of Cubans march under the slogan, "Preserve and Perfect Socialism," in Havana on May 1, 2012, to mark Labor Day. (Adalberto Roque)

Black Alliance for Peace Organizes International Webinar to Debunk U.S. Logic to Continue to Occupy Afghanistan

For Immediate Release

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

The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) is hosting a webinar at 7 p.m. ET to help raise the consciousness of the U.S. public on the contradictions surrounding U.S. President Joe Biden's recent announcement that he would pull all U.S. troops from Afghanistan by September 11.

As we have stated in previous statements, the United States is violating an international peace agreement signed with the Taliban by not abiding by the May 1 deadline for a troop pullout. Further, the September 11 date once again is symbolically tied to the September 11 attacks that had nothing to do with Afghanistan.

The U.S. war is part of its 40-year-long attempt to prevent other global powers from rising—namely, China, Iran and Russia. Keeping the region destabilized may hinder China's Belt and Road Initiative. Encircling Iran by destabilizing countries around it is another reason for the United States to stay in Afghanistan. And keep the neighbor of former Soviet satellites in a flux would keep Russia on its toes. In fact, the United States used Afghanistan as a proxy battleground against the former Soviet Union during the 1980s when it aided and armed reactionary mujahideen forces who fought against the government of Afghanistan, which was then supported by the Soviet Union.

"U.S. involvement in Afghanistan is nothing new," says National Organizer Ajamu Baraka. "U.S. officials already have indicated their plans for staying in Afghanistan past September 11 via military personnel and mercenaries known as 'private contractors.'"

The United States also has indicated other ways it sees to keep an eye on the country and be in close range for missile strikes, as BAP has laid out in its latest fact sheet. All of these plans are yet another violation of the U.S.-Taliban agreement of 2020, which stipulates no military attacks or threats of attacks on Afghanistan.

"The United States long ago privatized the war in Afghanistan with a current 7-to-1 ratio between private contractors and U.S. military personnel," says Solidarity Network Coordinator Julie Varughese. "The conversations taking place out in the open make it clear this war now will be completely privatized."

BAP's Principles of Unity include the Right to Self-Defense, Self-Determination and Anti-Imperialism. It is based on these principles that we call on the U.S. public to demand the U.S. government completely end all involvement in Afghanistan.

For decades, the United States has used disingenuous humanitarian interventions and the Responsibility to Protect as reasons for invading and occupying country after country. BAP demands an end to this policy and an end to all U.S. wars, subversions and sanctions from Latin America to the borders of Russia to the African continent and the Indo-Pacific region.

We invite members of the public to register for a 7 p.m. ET webinar, #MayDayAfghanistan: Building a People's Movement to End U.S. Imperialism in Afghanistan and Around the World. BAP has chosen to draw the connection between May 1, International Workers' Day, and the troop pullout deadline for that same day. We call on the working masses of the world to rise up to demand true democracy, transparency and self-determination for the people of Afghanistan.

Banner photo: U.S. Marines board a transport aircraft headed to Kandahar, Afghanistan, as British and U.S. forces withdraw from a complex in Helmand province in 2014. (Wakil Kohsar/AFP/Getty Images)

Black Alliance for Peace Criticizes Biden Administration's September 11 Withdrawal Plan as Violation of Peace Agreement

For Immediate Release

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

Members of the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) criticized U.S. President Joe Biden's announcement Wednesday that he would pull troops from Afghanistan on September 11, 2021, thereby violating a key component of a peace agreement negotiated by the previous administration.

A September 11 withdrawal—landing on the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attack—reinforces the false impression that the Taliban government had something to do with the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.

BAP is concerned the attempt to move the date of U.S. withdrawal past the agreed-upon May 1 deadline will give hardliners in the Biden-Harris administration the opportunity to create the conditions for continued U.S. occupation of Afghanistan by baiting the Taliban into renewed attacks.

"The Taliban now has announced it will not participate in any peace talks because the United States is not abiding by the 2020 U.S.-Taliban agreement hammered out in Doha," said National Organizer Ajamu Baraka. "Talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government were set to take place this month in Turkey. Now those talks are an impossibility."

BAP has detailed how powerful forces within the administration and among the foreign policy elite are trying to find ways to keep a U.S. military presence in Afghanistan to support broader geostrategic objectives, primarily countering Chinese influence.

NATO coalition forces also are expected to begin withdrawing from Afghanistan, but it is unclear when all NATO forces would leave.

As an internationalist organization, BAP wonders where else U.S. troops will be sent as the cold war on China is ramped up, Russia continues to be agitated and Africa remains a hotbed for U.S. military activity. We question if devastating sanctions would be slapped on the people of Afghanistan after a U.S. pullout, as in the cases of 1970s Vietnam and Iraq after the 1990s bombing campaign.

While Biden only acknowledged U.S. casualties, we will raise up the 100,000 Afghan deaths, and countless injuries and permanent disabilities. Many Afghans had been forced to flee their country because of the war, while others have been internally displaced.

BAP has consistently demanded U.S. adherence to the Doha peace agreement. BAP even organized an International Day of Action on Afghanistan on April 8 to help raise the public's awareness on the issue.

"We understood the Biden-Harris administration probably had made up its mind about withdrawal before April 8," said Solidarity Network Coordinator Julie Varughese. "But the point was to help raise the public's awareness, so a movement could begin to develop in the United States that could end U.S. imperialism in its tracks."

BAP continues to demand the United States and NATO pull all troops and contractors, and end all involvement. And we insist the United States respect the human rights of the Afghan people and colonized people the world over, including inside its borders.

U.S./NATO Out of Afghanistan!

Banner photo: U.S. President Joe Biden announced April 14, 2021, his intentions to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan, beginning in May. (Pool photo by Andrew Harnik)

Black Alliance for Peace Questions Reports Claiming Biden Pulling Afghanistan Troops September 11

For Immediate Release

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

Press reports were circulating April 13 that the Biden-Harris administration will not abide by the Doha agreement with the Taliban to withdraw U.S. forces by May 1, violating a key component of the peace agreement negotiated by the previous administration. It appears the Biden-Harris administration is floating September 11—the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attack—as a likely date to end the second longest U.S. war.

The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) has consistently demanded U.S. adherence to the Doha peace agreement. BAP even organized an International Day of Action on Afghanistan on April 8 to help raise the public's awareness on the issue.

While BAP continues to gather information on this reported proposal, we are concerned that what is being floated by the corporate media will result in increased hostilities between the Taliban and U.S. forces, providing a pretext for increased U.S. military involvement. BAP has detailed how powerful forces within the administration and among the foreign policy elite are trying to find ways to keep a U.S. military presence in Afghanistan to support broader geostrategic objectives, primarily countering Chinese influence. Some of these issues were laid out during the April 13 episode of "Voices With Vision" on WPFW (89.3 FM in Washington, D.C.).

As an internationalist organization, BAP wonders if U.S. private contractors and NATO coalition forces from other countries—both of which outnumber U.S. military personnel—will remain in Afghanistan. What role would the United States play once troops are removed? We also ask where else U.S. troops will be sent as the cold war on China is ramped up, Russia continues to be agitated and Africa remains a hotbed for U.S. military activity. We question if devastating sanctions would be slapped on the people of Afghanistan after a U.S. pullout, as in the case of 1970s Vietnam and Iraq after the 1990s bombing campaign.

For all of these reasons and as we gather information on what appears to be an attempt to test the U.S. public's reaction, BAP continues to demand the United States and NATO pull all troops and contractors, and end all involvement. And we insist the United States respect the human rights of the Afghan people and colonized people the world over, including inside its borders.

U.S./NATO Out of Afghanistan!

Banner photo: U.S. Army soldiers return from a nine-month deployment to Afghanistan on Dec. 10, 2020. (John Moore/Getty Images)

Black Alliance for Peace Demands Biden-Harris Administration Comply with May 1 Deadline to Withdraw from Afghanistan

For Immediate Release

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

APRIL 8, 2021—The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) demands the Biden-Harris administration adhere to the U.S.-Taliban peace agreement signed in February 2020 in Doha, Qatar, under which the United States committed, among other things, to withdraw U.S. and allied military forces, non-diplomatic civilian personnel, private contractors, and other advisors from Afghanistan by May 1, 2021.

As an African/Black-led internationalist organization with Principles of Unity such as the Right to Self-Defense and Self-Determination, BAP calls on organizations and individuals who oppose the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination to participate in the International Day of Action on Afghanistan being held today to demand an end to the war in Afghanistan.

"This is part of BAP's effort to help revitalize the U.S. anti-imperialist movement, so it can become a force formidable enough to stop the U.S. war machine," said BAP National Organizer Ajamu Baraka.

As we approach the 20th anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Afghanistan—and in outright defiance of the U.S.-Taliban peace agreement—President Joe Biden has stated he “can’t picture” the United States leaving Afghanistan anytime soon.

The blunt end of the war is not felt by the politicians in Washington spearheading it. Nor is it felt by the financial, political and foreign-policy elites of the Afghanistan Study Group, which has advocated for the continuation of this bloody war. Weapons companies (such as U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s former employer, Raytheon), and the investment banks and private equity firms that back them, continue to profit.

Rather, the pernicious effects of the war are felt by the Afghan people, especially the majority living in the countryside, where violence is expected to surge. People in neighboring countries also feel the impact as they are forced to mitigate the “spillover effects” of mass displacement as Afghans flee violence and destruction.

U.S.-led forever wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, Pakistan and other countries across the world have led to millions of deaths, countless injuries and permanent disabilities, and millions of refugees and internally displaced people. Trillions of dollars of U.S. public funds have been spent to support these military operations that enrich the elites, while the poor and working masses in the United States and around the world continue to suffer.

That is why the Black Alliance for Peace calls on all justice-seeking people to join the International Day of Action on Afghanistan today. Social-media graphics and materials are available for download to help the public write letters to the editor and op-eds as well as organize teach-ins. Signatures also are requested for a petition.

#MayDayAfghanistan
U.S./NATO Out of Afghanistan!
Down with U.S. Imperialism!

We Say Quite Clearly: 'U.S. Out of Haiti!' - A Statement from BAP Haiti Committee

To clarify on any confusion, the Black Alliance for Peace Haiti Committee briefly called itself the BAP Haiti Action Committee. We will continue as the BAP Haiti Committee.

On Wednesday, March 25th, the United States Embassy in Haiti tweeted, in Haitian Kreyol, the statement:

“Mwen ka di sa byen klè: pa vini.”
Prezidan, Joseph R. Biden, Jr.

The tweet, accompanied by a photo of the U.S. president, was followed with an English translation of Biden’s words: “I can say quite clearly: Don’t come over.”

"I can say quite clearly, don't come over." - @POTUS pic.twitter.com/awzbolMzU6

— U.S. Embassy Haiti (@USEmbassyHaiti) March 24, 2021

Without having to reprise the vulgar pronouncements by his predecessor about Haiti as a “shit-hole country,” Biden’s policy on Haiti is clear: Haitians are not welcome in the U.S. and they should not, under any circumstances, attempt to immigrate to the U.S.

Yet the intended audience of the tweet was not only Haitians. Biden’s public admonishment of Haitians also sends a message to U.S. citizens that he will be tough on immigration, doing whatever he can to prevent Black migrants from entering the country. Already, he has come through on this count. In his short time in office, Biden has broken records for the scope, speed, and scale of the deportation of Haitian immigrants currently detained in the U.S.

But there’s more to Biden’s message. The tweet, while utterly paternalistic, also fuels a long-standing and deeply racist U.S. vision of Haiti: A vision of Haiti’s dark and restless masses ready to burst the country’s borders, traverse the Caribbean Sea, and invade the peaceable sanctuary of the white Republic.

Remember: Biden’s statement comes at a moment of increased protest against the corrupt, dictatorial, and U.S. supported regime of Haiti’s Jovenel Moïse, and a growing Haiti solidarity movement in the U.S. Instead of acceding to the demands of the Haitian people, the U.S.—through the Core Group, the UN, and the OAS—have doubled-down on their support of Moïse. It is a sign of the effectiveness of protests inside and out of the country against Moïse that the U.S. State Department would, somewhat pathetically, take to social media to try to change the emerging public discourse surrounding US imperialism in Haiti.

Moreover, we cannot forget that while Biden is telling Haitians “Don’t come over,” Haiti and its allies have been saying “U.S. Out of Haiti.” If the U.S. had not consistently meddled in Haiti’s affairs, undermining Haitian democracy and undercutting the Haitian economy, there would be no need for Haitian immigration to the U.S.

Back in 1994, Biden stated, “If Haiti—a godawful thing to say—if Haiti just quietly sank into the Caribbean or rose up 300 feet, it wouldn’t matter a lot to our interests.” To suggest that the first Black Republic in the world is expendable is profoundly racist, but Biden also shows his profound ignorance of the history of U.S.-Haitian relations.

Much of Philadelphia’s early wealth came from the profits of plantations in Saint-Domingue. The Louisiana Purchase would not have happened without the Haitian Revolution and Napoleon’s defeat by the Haitian people. Haiti was a beacon of emancipation for enslaved Africans in the U.S., and throughout the Americas – becoming a constant cause of fear for white planters. The U.S. refused to grant diplomatic recognition to Haiti because of this fact, even as white American profiteers and carpet-baggers used Haiti as a personal source of profit.

In a strategic but cynical move by Abraham Lincoln, recognition was granted Haiti in 1862. For many U.S. politicians it was hoped that Haiti could become a solution to the “Negro Problem” in the U.S. and home to its population of newly-emancipated Africans. Near the end of the nineteenth century, the U.S. sent Frederick Douglass to Haiti on a failed (and for Douglass, humiliating) mission to secure a concession for a military base at Mole St. Nicolas for U.S. strategic purposes.

The U.S. military occupation of Haiti (1915-1934) occurred because of the needs of Wall Street interests in Haiti, as well as the strategic location of Haiti vis-à-vis the Caribbean and the Panama Canal. The U.S. used the Duvalier regime as a bulwark against the spread of Communism in the Caribbean during the Cold War. And the recent United Nations occupations of Haiti have been both to choke the development of progressive forces in the country and to protect U.S. and other foreign interests.

In short, Prezidan Biden, Haiti does matter to U.S. interests. It matters a lot. But now, the Haitian people are determined to center Haitian interests.

You can tell Haitians that they will be denied their internationally protected right to asylum because they are Black. You can continue to deport Haitians from the U.S. in record numbers. But you will not be able to reverse the historical momentum sparked by the spirit of the Haitian revolution. Haiti will prevail again.

In solidarity with the Haitian people, the Black Alliance for Peace, says quite clearly: U.S. out of Haiti!

Banner photo: A Haitian man kneels on the tarmac at the Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in late June. He, along with several other deportees on this flight, knelt on the ground in protest of their deportation from the U.S. (Dieu Nalio Chery/AP)

Black Activists Call Out Biden-Harris Administration's White Supremacy with Rallies Demanding U.S. and Western Organizations End Support for Dictatorship in Haiti

For Immediate Release

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

Members of the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) in Chicago and Washington, D.C., will rally in the coming days to demand the Biden-Harris administration and Western entities—such as the Core Group and 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.

These rallies come as news reports state U.S. President Joe Biden has—in his first two months in office—deported more Haitians than Donald Trump did in his whole term. Biden also made a racist call to the Haitian people, as the U.S. Embassy in Haiti tweeted Wednesday: "I can say quite clearly: Don't come over."

The latest phase of the crisis in Haiti was ignited when 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 protests against the U.S./UN/OAS interventionism that put Moïse into power. In response, Moïse deployed security forces to violently quell these protests.

"As Black radicals, we are compelled to call out the white supremacy and double standards of this administration," says BAP National Organizer Ajamu Baraka. "The Biden administration can not have it both ways. It can not pretend that Black lives matter and Black participation in democracy is important in the United States, while denying the value of Black life and democracy in Haiti."

While the Chicago rally will take place Sunday, March 28, in front of the Haitian consulate at 11 E. Adams Street, the Washington rally will convene Monday, March 29, at the U.S. State Department, at the corner of 21st Street NW and Virginia Avenue. The State Department is instrumental in spreading misinformation and manipulating Haitian elections in order to keep right-wing regimes in office in Haiti and throughout the so-called “Americas.” The upcoming rallies will build on the March 1 rally that took place in front of the Haitian embassy in Washington, D.C., as well as the dual March 15 rallies that took place at the Haitian consulate in Chicago and in front of the Organization of American States in Washington.

“The United States has backed Moïse to rule by decree and inflict terror on the Haitian working class by deploying U.S.-trained Haitian police and foreign military entities,” said Dr. Jemima Pierre, a Haitian-born BAP member and an associate professor of Black Studies at the University of California Los Angeles. “The Haitian people's right to national sovereignty must 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 and individuals from across the country.

Banner photo: On Valentine’s Day, thousands of Haitians gathered in Port-au-Prince to protest the government of President Jovenel Moïse. (Orlando Barría / EPA-EFE / Shutterstock)

Black Alliance for Peace Unveils Who's Behind Drive to Keep United States in Afghanistan

The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) Solidarity Network's Afghanistan Committee produced information on a group of high-powered individuals who are trying to keep the United States in Afghanistan past the May 1 deadline set out in the U.S.-Taliban agreement brokered in 2020.

The Afghanistan Study Group (ASG) appears to be driving for a prolonged U.S. occupation of Afghanistan. The ASG is a bipartisan group of financial, political and foreign policy elites:

- Former U.S. Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), who serves on the boards of Caterpillar and Newscorp;
- Retired General Joseph F. Dunford, Jr., who led U.S. forces in Afghanistan and now serves on the board of Lockheed Martin; and
- Nancy Lindborg, who worked for the U.S. Agency for International Development

The ASG recommends the United States abandon the peace agreement and disregard the May 1 deadline in favor of a conditions-based withdrawal. Its proposal would require at minimum a $50 billion/year economic support package until U.S. objectives are met.

"The ASG is attempting to keep the United States in Afghanistan because it represents big business, neocons and military contractors," says Zach Kerner, a member of the BAP Solidarity Network. "Keeping troops in Afghanistan means violence is likely to increase."

In fact, the Solidarity Network's analysis of the positions of the ASG concludes that if the U.S. fails to abide by the agreement it would almost inevitably result in military clashes between the Taliban and U.S. forces.

"The ASG’s recommendation guarantees a huge increase in troops," says Danny Haiphong, co-coordinator of the BAP Solidarity Network. "This would lead to more war and instability in Afghanistan and throughout the region."

The BAP Solidarity Network encourages anti-imperialist, anti-war activists and organizations to use a fact sheet on the Afghanistan Study Group in teach-ins. It also asks people to sign a petition to demand the Biden administration exit Afghanistan. Beyond that, it 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.

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

Banner photo: Lloyd J. Austin III spoke with reporters on Sunday after meeting with the Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani. The defense secretary declined to comment on a withdrawal deadline for U.S. troops tentatively set for May 1. (Afghan Presidential Palace, via Reuters)

Black Alliance for Peace Condemns U.S. Imperial Arrogance on 18th Anniversary of Iraq Invasion

Eighteen years ago today—motivated by the arrogance of white invincibility and the absence of a countervailing power with the collapse of the Soviet Union—the United States launched its criminal attack on the people and the nation of Iraq. This would be the second assault in less than two years, with the other being in Afghanistan. Two wars in two theaters simultaneously was thought to be manageable because the psychopathology of white supremacy had informed and continues to inform the U.S. worldview.

But millions of lives later—with the destruction of ancient cities and millions displaced—the only thing the United States has achieved is exposing to the world that it is a paper tiger and a rogue state that deserves no respect.

Today, the U.S. rogue state, now under a different regime but with the same mission, is still in Iraq. But it is now under fire from the very people who it pretended it was liberating. And the people of the world saw through this effort to re-colonize the so-called “Middle East.”

But what about in the United States?

The United States is a country in which war has become normalized. The people in some ways appear to be numbed by war, as the corporate propagandists shift their attention to China—preparing the population again for yet another criminal assault.

But we, in the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP), will not surrender to apathy. We say today that the United States must leave Iraq, must leave Afghanistan, must leave Syria, and must close its global bases and command structures. The world demands peace. But we know there can be no peace without justice. For justice, the oppressed, the exploited and the nationally oppressed must be willing to fight for it. We stand with the people of Iraq and with all those who yearn for peace and a new world, free from the cult of death that the United States continues to uphold.

Banner photo: A convoy of U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) High-Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles (HMMVW), assigned to D/Company, 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, 1st Marines Division, arrives in Northern Iraq, during a sandstorm. USMC personnel are in Iraq in support of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM. Several vehicles are equipped with Tube-launched Optically-tracked Wire-guided (TOW) missile launchers. (LTCpl Andrew P. Roufs, USMC)

BAP-Chicago Statement in Solidarity with Haiti

“We stand with the Haitian people because it is our responsibility as believers in self-determination and people-centered human rights, to do so.”

“We will never retreat, even when they attempt to confuse us with intersectional imperialism and identity reductionism.”

The following remarks were delivered at a Black Alliance for Peace protest in front the Haitian consulate in Chicago, on March 15, by BAP member Charisse Burden Stelly, a Visiting Scholar in the Race and Capitalism Project at the University of Chicago and Assistant Professor of Africana Studies and Political Science at Carleton College.

The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) seeks to recapture and redevelop the historic anti-war, anti-imperialist, and pro-peace positions of the radical black movement. We fundamentally oppose militarized domestic state repression; the policies of de-stabilization and subversion abroad; and the permanent war agenda of the U.S. state globally. 

The reason we’re here today in front of the Haiti Consulate-General is simple: we stand in solidarity with the Haitian people against the corrupt and illegitimate regime of Jovenel Moïse, which is propped up by the Joseph R. Biden administration, the United Nations, and the Organization of American States. We understand the connections between the imperial occupation of Haiti and the police occupation supported right here in Chicago by Lori Lightfoot and her anti-people, anti-poor politics, and throughout the United States more broadly. Just like we can’t breathe here in the United States because militarized police forces continue to brutalize, suffocate, and murder us with impunity, neither can the people of Haiti breath as their sovereignty, self-determination, and livelihoods are snuffed out by Pan-European forces like the Core Group, the United Nations, and the International Monetary fund. 

“We understand the connections between the imperial occupation of Haiti and the police occupation supported right here in Chicago.”

The Haitian people have taken to the streets because they demand rule by the people and for the people; they have organized a general strike because they demand economic and material conditions that support their needs and livelihoods and not the profits and enrichment of the global elite. Their struggle is connected to the labor struggles right here in the U.S., like the one that’s currently underway in Bessemer, Alabama, for an Amazon Union.

BAP is here today, despite the snow and wind and cold because we see the protests of our Haitian brothers, sisters, and siblings against the Moïse regime as intimately linked to the End SARS struggle in Nigeria, to the Uganda people’s demand for an end to the Museveni dictatorship—the Uganda PEOPLE, that is, and not so-called opposition leaders who are in cahoots with the US State department—to getting Africa Command (AFRICOM) off of the Continent and especially out of the Horn of Africa, and to the demand for an end to brutal sanctions against Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Iran, and other racialized nations that reject U.S. imperialism. 

“The Haitian people demand economic and material conditions that support their needs and livelihoods and not the profits and enrichment of the global elite.”

BAP is also here today because we understand that the U.S. funding and training of the Haitian police to undermine the people’s protests is linked to the U.S. 1033 program that militarizes local police departments so they can defend property and the interests of the ruling elite against poor, working, oppressed, and marginalized peoples. We know that this process is linked to the prison industrial complex that tortures and confines political prisoners like Mumia Abu Jamal, Mutulu Shakur, Sundiata Akoli, Imam Jamil Al-Amin, Rev. Joy Powell, and Russell Maroon Shoatz. We say free ‘em all! And this also means freeing all Africans from the yoke of U.S. imperialism.

At Black Alliance for Peace we say NO COMPROMISE, NO RETREAT because unlike the petit bourgeois Negroes who take every opportunity to compromise with the ruling elite to oppress and repress us, we will NEVER compromise with imperialism, colonialism, neocolonialism, warmongering, and capitalist exploitation. And unlike the liberals who think that just because the troglodyte Donald Trump is out of office that we no longer have anything to struggle against, we will NEVER retreat from holding any administration accountable for their crimes against humanity even when they attempt to confuse us with intersectional imperialism and identity reductionism. 

“We will never compromise with imperialism, colonialism, neocolonialism, warmongering, and capitalist exploitation.”

In the spirit of chairman Fred Hampton, who said “peace if you’re willing to fight for it,” in the spirit of the freedom fighter Amilcar Cabral who said “tell no lies and claim no easy victories,” in the spirit of mama Ella baker who said  “Remember, we are not fighting for the freedom of the Negro alone, but for the freedom of the human spirit--a larger freedom that encompasses all mankind,” we protest, in the belly of the beast, in the heart of empire, the tentacles of U.S. imperialism, funded by our tax-payer dollars, that brutalize African, oppressed, and poor people throughout the world and here at home. Today we stand with the Haitian people not because they need us to free them—because the Haitian people, since at least 1791, have proven that they are more than capable of liberating themselves—but because it is our responsibility as African people, as anti-imperialists, as anti-war activists, and as believers in self-determination and people-centered human rights, to do so.

The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) seeks to recapture and redevelop the historic anti-war, anti-imperialist, and pro-peace positions of the radical black movement. Through educational activities, organizing and movement support, organizations and individuals in the Alliance will work to oppose both militarized domestic state repression, and the policies of de-stabilization, subversion and the permanent war agenda of the U.S. state globally.  

Banner photo: Black Alliance for Peace: We Fight for Haiti Because We Are Haiti. People rally in front of the Haitian consulate in Chicago demanding the U.S./UN/OAS end its interference in Haiti at an action in solidarity with Haiti organized by BAP-Chicago.

Black Alliance for Peace Activists in Chicago Call on Biden Administration to Stop Supporting Repression in Haiti

For Immediate Release                                                                   

Contact: Vichina Austin, (773) 676-4535

MARCH 15, 2021—Members of the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) in Chicago will rally today at the Haitian consulate at 11 E. Adams Street to demand the Biden administration end decades of interventions that have violated the right of the Haitian people to transparent democratic processes and sovereignty.

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 with the full support of the Trump and now apparently the Biden administration,” said Vichina Austin, a Chicago-based BAP member. “The Haitian people demand their right to national sovereignty be respected and the Biden administration that pretends that all Black life matters should respect that demand.”

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: Opponents of Haitian President Jovenel Moise demonstrate in Port-au-Prince on Jan. 15. (Valerie Baeriswyl/AFP/Getty Images)

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.’” 

###

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.)