Black Alliance for Peace Timeline Demonstrates United States Responsible for Chaos in Afghanistan

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SEPTEMBER 7, 2021—The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) Solidarity Network’s Afghanistan Committee has produced a detailed timeline demonstrating the United States is responsible for the crisis in Afghanistan, and that the mainstream media helped fuel the situation.

This resource for the media, activists and the public traces the events from July 2019 to August 2021 that led to the poorly executed U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, which further wreaked havoc for the Afghan people and violated their right to self-determination. 

“U.S. leaders and media act as if the social crisis and reactionary violence in Afghanistan is something new,” says Afghanistan Committee member Zach Kerner. “But the reality is this turmoil is a direct result of U.S. aggression and policies over the past 40 years.”

Less than a month before U.S. military forces were set to “withdraw” from Afghanistan, the U.S.-backed government collapsed and the Taliban assumed control, establishing the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Then U.S./NATO military forces all but fled the country and a major refugee crisis ensued. Unfortunately, the U.S. mainstream media only began focusing its attention on Afghanistan in August.

“Members of the Afghanistan Committee have been collectively committed to understanding and keeping up-to-date with U.S. warmaking and meddling in Afghanistan, well before the recent withdrawal,” says Afghanistan Committee member Frances Hasso. “This is why we do not believe U.S. ‘forever wars’ will end here. This recent timeline of U.S. statements regarding its role in Afghanistan provides much needed historical context.”     

The BAP Solidarity Network encourages activists and organizations to study this timeline to help them further understand why the United States and its allies bear responsibility for the situation. The network hopes the developments in Afghanistan will inspire more resistance to the U.S. occupation in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere around the world.

Since February, the Solidarity Network’s Afghanistan Committee has produced monthly newsletters, as well as press releases, fact sheets and a well-received webinar, all of which can be found on BAP’s Afghanistan resources page.

Banner photo: U.K. armed forces work with the U.S. military to evacuate eligible civilians and their families out of the Afghanistan. (MoD Crown Copyright via Getty Images)

BAP-Atlanta Demands End to Cop City Project

For Immediate Release
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Atlanta Organizations Demand End to Cop City Project
Atlanta officials to further militarize city with new police training facility

SEPTEMBER 3, 2021—Black Alliance for Peace-Atlanta condemns Cop City, a proposed police training facility on the city-owned Old Atlanta Prison Farm. That is why BAP-Atlanta joins several organizations today to protest at the site of the proposed construction, using the slogan #StopCopCity. The march and rally will take place from 6-8 p.m. starting at 25 Peachtree St SE, Atlanta, GA 30303.

Participating organizations include Community Movement Builders, Community Movement Builders Affiliate Group, Showing Up for Racial Justice, A World Without Police, The S.O.U.L, Endstate ATL, In Defense of Black Lives ATL Coalition, ATL Radical Art, Friends of the Congo, The Atlanta Homeless Union, Sol Underground, and the Sunrise Movement. 

Artist’s rendering of the aerial view of Cop City, a proposed police training facility in Atlanta, Georgia.

To put Cop City in context, Atlanta uses the 1033 program, through which the U.S. Department of Defense transfers military equipment to local state and federal law enforcement agencies. Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange (GILEE) is the local manifestation of the “Deadly Exchange” program, in which  U.S. and Israeli police and Israeli military share hyper-militarized policing techniques and technology and physically travel to zionist Israel to engage in this exchange.

“Police are called to colonize 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,” says BAP-Atlanta member Khamansha Raphael. 

Black people in the United States have a colonial relationship with the larger society. It is a relationship characterized by institutional racism. This colonial status operates in three areas: Politically, economically and socially. We are politically stunted, with our political decisions made for us due to a lack of power. We are economically disenfranchised, depending on larger society. This is maintained by a social order that designates police in our communities as occupying forces.

In this regard, we can see how domestic and global imperialism are counterparts.

“Police are used to enforce the status quo of white power and colonial control over the lives of Black, Brown, and other oppressed groups of people,” says BAP-Atlanta member Salome Ayuak.

We can’t trust elites’ promises to abolish or defund police—policing and incarceration are big business and managed by Democrats and Republicans. Therefore, state violence has no opposition party. Communities that want to dismantle police departments will need to build the collective power to do that work themselves. This is how we can fight efforts like Cop City and defeat the war on African/Black people.

Banner photo: Police officers brutalize protesters near the CNN Center in Atlanta on May 29, 2020. (Mike Stewart/AP)

Who Rules Haiti? Black Alliance for Peace Condemns Undermining of Haitian National Sovereignty

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Who Rules Haiti?
Black Alliance for Peace Condemns Undermining of Haitian National Sovereignty

JULY 23, 2021—Who rules Haiti? Certainly, neither the Haitian people nor Haitian civil society. Instead, in the two weeks since President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated, the absence of Haitian sovereignty and the hollow nature of Haitian independence has been cynically exposed. 

“A rogue’s gallery of international actors—supposed “friends” of Haiti—have intervened in the republic’s internal political affairs, handpicking the face of Haiti’s government, while determining who best can serve Haiti’s imperial masters,” says Jemima Pierre, Haiti/Americas Coordinator for the Black Alliance for Peace.

First, the day following the July 7 assassination, Helen La Lime, head of the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (or BINUH) declared interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph would lead the Haitian government until elections were scheduled.

Then, a few days later, the Biden administration sent a delegation to Haiti to meet with both Joseph and Ariel Henry, a figure who Moïse had designated as prime minister. The U.S. delegation convinced Joseph and Henry to come to an agreement over Haiti’s governance. The delegation also met with Joseph Lambert, the man chosen to succeed Moïse by the majority of those 10 officials in Haiti who had actually been elected (yes, there are only ten), and convinced him to stand down.

A week later, on July 17, the Core Group, a self-appointed council of foreign ambassadors and special representatives from the UN and the Organization of American States (OAS), issued a statement calling for the formation of a “consensual and inclusive government,” directing “Prime Minister designate Ariel Henry to continue the mission entrusted to him.” 

Two days later, on July 19, Joseph announced he would step aside, allowing Henry to assume the mantle of prime minister. The Office of the Prime Minister then published a list of cabinet appointees and announced Haiti’s new government would be sworn in on July 20. This “new” government and cabinet is composed mostly of Haitian Tèt Kale Party (PHTK) members, the political party of Michel Martelly, and of Moïse. 

The U.S. State Department, the U.S. embassy in Haiti, the Core Group and the OAS then released similar statements applauding the formation of a new  “consensus” Haitian government. “We welcome efforts by Haiti’s political leadership to come together in choosing an interim prime minister and a unity cabinet,” stated U.S. Secretary of State Anthony J. Blinken.

Haiti’s civil society organizations, which had been meeting to find a way to resolve Haiti’s political crisis, were entirely left out of the international community’s decision making process. They have rejected the new government formed by foreigners and imposed on Haiti. And they have roundly criticized the actions of the international community as a blatantly colonial move.

It is. And it demonstrates that Haiti, like other colonies in history, is ruled from afar. 

So, who rules Haiti? The US, the UN, the OAS and the Core Group—with the eager support of the supplicant members of some of the Haitian political elite. 

The Black Alliance for Peace stands with the Haitian people against colonial rule. We condemn the Core Group, the UN, the OAS and especially the United States, for continuing to undercut Haitian independence and undermine Haitian sovereignty as part of the ongoing project of foreign intervention in Haiti.

Banner photo: People waiting for days to apply for U.S. visas react after learning that the U.S. Embassy will continue to be closed in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Monday. (Matias Delacroix / AP)

Biden's Commitment to U.S. White Power Is the Real Race Issue in Cuba!

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The Biden Commitment to U.S. White Power Is the Real Race Issue in Cuba!
Black Alliance for Peace condemns new sanctions imposed on Cuban officials

JULY 22, 2021—The Biden administration that greenlighted dictatorship, violence and repression in Haiti as one of its first acts in office and has yet to call for accountability from its ally, Colombia, for the dozens of deaths and disappearances during the ongoing national strike, imposed additional sanctions today on Cuban government officials. And how are the justifications for sanctions being framed? In language calling for the protection of human rights, democracy and freedom!

In imposing these sanctions and in its Cuba policy since taking office, the Biden administration has demonstrated it is more clear on its motivations and interests than U.S.-based progressive forces, including so-called “radicals,” according to Black Alliance for Peace National Organizer Ajamu Baraka.

“Biden understands upholding the power of the pan-European, colonial-capitalist white-supremacist patriarchy requires the judicious use of state violence, subversion, and the denial of democracy and national sovereignty for the millions who reside in the Americas region,” Baraka said. “The only challenge for Biden—and any other U.S. president—is how to frame the message to obscure from the U.S. public the imperatives of U.S. imperialist policies.”

The protests that erupted on July 11 helped to re-introduce race as a centerpiece of the propaganda offensive, the real intent of which is to suffocate the Cuban socialist project. 

We understand contradictions of race exist in every national context that has grown out of the colonial construction of nations. In those national projects, white-supremacist ideology is at the core of national identity and economic productive relations. Cuba does not escape that knotty reality, even within the context of a revolution. But the race issues in Cuba are qualitatively different from the systemic brutality and structural racism in the United States that kills hundreds of African/Black people every year in police encounters. The U.S. system also has killed tens of thousands of people, who died due to the COVID-19 pandemic that was exacerbated because of the social conditions created by capitalism. 

That is why U.S. policy makers actually caring about racism in Cuba defies history and common sense. But what is truly bizarre is academicians, the Black liberal intelligentsia and elements of the broad left have given political cover and legitimacy to a well-oiled propaganda campaign that has highlighted the “racial” problem in Cuba.

The Black Alliance for Peace will not allow itself to be used as cannon fodder in the immoral war on Cuba and its revolutionary process. We condemn the sanctions, the embargo, the attempts at subversion, and the denial of Cuba’s national liberation and sovereignty.

We say to all those who pretend to be concerned about Cuba to demand an end to the embargo and to respect the right of the Cuban people to work through their own problems. As the first republic established on the basis of race and subsequently invented apartheid, the United States should be the last on the planet to lecture anyone on race relations.

Banner photo: Cuban supporters of the government of President Miguel Diaz-Canel at a demonstration in Havana on July 17, 2021. (Yamil Lage / AFP)

The Black Alliance for Peace Stands with Black Lives Matter on Cuba!

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JULY 16, 2021—The Black Alliance for Peace stands in solidarity with the sentiments and positions the Black Lives Matter coalition recently expressed on U.S. policies on Cuba. The moral hypocrisy and historic myopia of U.S. liberals and conservatives, who have unfairly attacked BLM’s statement on Cuba, is breathtaking. 

Their reaction comes on the heels of another in a series of annual votes in the United Nations, when most of the world’s countries—except for the United States and Israel—overwhelmingly supported ending the murderous six-decade-long economic embargo against Cuba.

Not only do Democrats and Republicans join hands to defy the world by refusing to lift the embargo. U.S. congresspeople as well as the anti-communist and anti-Black corporate press display their duplicity by continuing the subversion against Cuba. This only demonstrates for oppressed working-class and colonized people—once again—that the U.S. ruling class remains united in its hostility to any socialist project and sees all such attempts by global South nations as existential threats to the rule of capital.

BAP welcomes the principled stance taken by BLM and hopes BLM will continue to be a visible force in the ongoing struggle against war, subversion, militarism, intervention and the economic exploitation that is at the center of U.S. imperial policies. Too often, BAP has been a lone voice in opposition, a position fundamental to the Black Radical Tradition.

Progressive Black forces are making the connections between the U.S. reaction to Cuba, Haiti, Colombia and the United States deploying its military on the African continent in the form of the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM). That connection links back to the United States when we understand these policies are directly related to the militarization and violence of police forces in the United States and to the economic and social crisis of the capitalist system.

It is only by making those connections and building an effective unified Black working class-based opposition that real leadership can be given to the movement for substantial social change in the United States. BAP sees this as the historic task of the current Black revolutionary movement. Going forward, BAP hopes we will be able to find a way toward the unity of all Black, colonized, working-class and poor people in the United States.

Banner photo: Doctors and nurses of Cuba's Henry Reeve International Medical Brigade pose on March 21, 2020, with a portrait of late leader Fidel Castro before travelling to Italy from the Central Unit of Medical Cooperation in Havana. (Yamil Lage/AFP via Getty Images)

Haiti's White Rulers Have Spoken on Haiti's Political Future

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JULY 9, 2021—The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) condemns the arrogance and illegality of United Nations Special Envoy for Haiti Helen La Lime’s July 8 statement that Haitian Prime Minister Claude Joseph will be the new president, just one day after the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.

The decision was announced to the press after a closed-door UN Security Council meeting had been called on Haiti. But BAP asks: Who gave the United Nations special envoy the power to make that kind of determination for the people of Haiti?

This sounds like a play right out of the old regime-change book. As BAP stated in its July 7 press release, BAP smells a rat.

BAP is concerned the political situation the United States created by supporting a dictatorship in Haiti is quickly replicating the moment when the United States swept in to colonize the predominantly African/Black country after the 1915 assassination of Haiti’s president, Vilbrun Guillaume Sam.

“The Black Alliance for Peace remains steadfast in our call against foreign intervention and occupation of Haiti,” says Jemima Pierre, BAP’s Haiti/Americas Coordinator. “We call on all anti-imperialist and Black internationalist forces to stand with the Haitian people and oppose U.S. and European interventions deployed under the guise of the ‘Responsibility to Protect.’”

What Haiti needs is authentic national sovereignty and self-determination.

“When people say Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, they fail to understand it is the Pan-European colonial powers that have kept Haiti with its hands tied behind its back,” says BAP National Organizer Ajamu Baraka. “We say time out on white Western powers causing destruction in the global South.”

Shortly after Democrats wrung their hands over the possibility of Donald Trump staying past his term in office, Biden came into office and immediately lent his support to Moïse to stay beyond the February 7 term limit. That decision sent thousands of Haitians protesting in the streets week after week.

“The Haitian people clearly understood that the United States, the United Nations, and the Organization of American States were behind this,” says Chris Bernadel, a member of BAP’s Haiti/Americas Committee. “During these massive protests, they called for all of these Western powers to exit Haiti.”

While Biden expressed support for Black Lives Matter and for democracy during his campaign for president, true support would have meant ending U.S. meddling in Haiti’s affairs. This assassination relieves the Biden-Harris administration of the embarrassment of having to reconcile the contradiction between pretending to respect Black lives and democracy and supporting a dictator who had reigned after his term had ended on February 7.

That is why for BAP, it doesn’t matter who pulled the trigger to kill Moïse because the Pan-European colonial-capitalist powers are responsible for the suffering of the Haitian people.

BAP vigorously opposes any and all foreign institutions and structures intervening in Haiti. The Haitian people must be allowed to exercise self-determination and address their internal political situation without interference, as BAP noted in its July 6 press release.

Banner photo: Haiti’s President Jovenel Moïse and first lady Martine Moïse sit during his swearing-in ceremony in Port-au-Prince on February 7, 2017. (Dieu Nalio Chery/AP)

On Assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse: Black Alliance for Peace Smells a Rat

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JULY 7, 2021—Unknown assailants overnight assassinating Haitian President Jovenel Moïse was a horrific act that should be condemned in no uncertain terms. Unfortunately, such violence is unsurprising. As the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) noted in its July 6 press release, Moïse’s actions since usurping power have brought Haiti to a boiling point, with heavily armed gangs being unleashed, both supported by and enabled by the Haitian elite and those international “friends” of Haiti, including the United States, the United Nations, the Core Group and the Organization of American States.

What happens now is the question. Will the Biden administration and other political players use this moment as the pretext for military intervention, as was done in 1915? Will interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph attempt to consolidate power under the pretext of the current state of siege? Will the Core Group find a new willing puppet, more pliable than Moïse, to bring “stability”?

Whatever happens, the Black Alliance for Peace remains steadfast in our call against foreign intervention and occupation of Haiti. And we call on all anti-imperialist and Black internationalist forces to stand with the Haitian people and oppose U.S. and European interventions deployed under the guise of the “Responsibility to Protect."

Banner photo: Haiti's President Jovenel Moise (center) left the National Pantheon museum during a ceremony in Port-au-Prince, Haiti in 2018. (Dieu Nalio Chery/AP)

Black Alliance for Peace Condemns Increasing Human Rights Violence in Haiti and the Continued U.S./OAS/UN Support for Unconstitutional Actions by Haiti’s Illegitimate Government

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JULY 6, 2021—Over eight days, from June 25-30, Haiti had been subjected to increasing state-sponsored, imperial and gang violence. Massacres killed almost 60 people in Port au Prince, including in Cité Soleil, Delmas and Pétionville, as well as on on Rue Magloire Ambroise. Prominent human-rights activist Antoinette (Netty) Duclaire and journalist Diego Charles were two of the victims.

In light of this violence, the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) once again affirms its support for the Haitian people and condemns the continued US/UN/OAS backing for the illegitimate Jovenel Moïse administration. Not only do we repudiate the continued violations of human rights in Haiti, we denounce the attempts by the Moïse government and its handlers—especially the Organization of American States (OAS) and the U.S. State Department—to force legislative and presidential elections and an illegal constitutional referendum under an undemocratic voting structure.

Moïse, who has been ruling Haiti by decree since January 2020, has been attempting to pass a referendum to re-write Haiti’s 1987 constitution.

“We support the Haitian people, who have maintained that there is no chance for credible elections to be held while Jovenel Moïse is in power,” says BAP member and Haitian Chris Bernadel. “We stand in solidarity with the Haitian people against the corrupt and illegitimate regime of Jovenel Moïse, which has been enabled through the support of the U.S., OAS and the United Nations.”

Illegal, according to Haitian law, the proposed referendum has been rejected by every sector of civil society, and opposed by the majority of Haitians.

Yet, a recent OAS report on Haiti not only supports the constitutional referendum, the organization also is pushing for Moïse to single handedly appoint a new prime minister, cabinet, and Provisional Electoral Council in order to move forward with both the referendum and presidential, municipal, and local elections.

These elections will be neither credible, nor legal. The current government is illegitimate. And currently, no clear path exists for free, fair and transparent elections under these conditions.

Yet, the white overseers of Haiti—the United States, the United Nations and the OAS—continue to push for this illegal referendum and elections. The United States has continued its material, logistical and political support of Moïse’s administration. It has spent at least $12.6 million since Moïse was elected in support of dubious elections and bogus political processes. Although the United States acknowledges that thus far, preparations for the referendum “have not been sufficiently transparent or inclusive,” Joe Biden’s administration has not come out against the referendum. Instead, the Biden-Harris administration has focused on the primacy of holding elections in the fall. At the same time, the UN and the OAS also have provided support for Moïse. The OAS has helped by revising the text of the proposed constitution, apparently to remove some of the more controversial aspects from the first draft. The UN also is advising the national police on an electoral security strategy.

Since February 7, when Moïse’s mandate as president had expired, BAP has been calling for the U.S. government and the rest of the so-called “international community” to respect Haitian sovereignty and the will of the Haitian people. We have consistently condemned Western imperialist meddling in Haiti, and BAP members have rallied in Chicago, Washington, D.C. and New York to demand the Biden-Harris administration and Western entities—such as the Core Group and the OAS—end decades of interventions that have violated the right of the Haitian people to transparent democratic processes.

We continue to support the Haitian masses, and express solidarity with the Haitian peoples in their quest for sovereignty and freedom. We condemn the continued imperial violence in Haiti that has been dismissed as merely gang violence.

Banner photo: Demonstrators marched in Port-au-Prince on February 14, 2021, to protest against the government of President Jovenel Moïse. (AFP)

Black Alliance for Peace Condemns U.S. Attempt to Continue War on Afghanistan As Afghan President Visits Biden

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JUNE 25, 2021—As Afghan President Ashraf Ghani makes his rounds this week in Washington, the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) opposes any effort to prolong the U.S. war on the Afghan people, including efforts to keep the United States engaged in any form in Afghanistan.

While Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby has insisted withdrawal plans for September 11 remain unchanged, BAP doubts the sincerity of a full U.S. disengagement. Evidence indicates talks will prominently center around the likely collapse of the government in Kabul, the continued operation of U.S. special forces and mercenaries (or contractors) in Afghanistan, as well as U.S.-pledged support for Turkish military defense of Kabul International Airport, a site that has continued to be a major U.S. military stronghold to support its imperial presence. This, of course, would violate the U.S.-Taliban agreement the Taliban and the Trump administration signed in February 2020.

Based on the evidence, BAP believes points of discussion between Ghani and U.S. President Joe Biden will include reassurance of increased material and mercenary support for the Afghan security forces—still heavily dependent on the United States and now rapidly losing ground to Taliban forces—and facilitating evacuation for translators who worked for the U.S./NATO militaries. 

The Biden administration publicly has stated that during the meeting with Ghani, it intends to “highlight the enduring partnership between the [United States] and Afghanistan” and its commitment to the Afghan government, which the United States has spent billions of dollars to support. But privately, many in the U.S. ruling class are anticipating the U.S.-backed government’s eventual collapse, possibly as soon as the end of the year.

In April, BAP criticized Biden for extending the troop withdrawal date from the agreed-upon May 1 to September 11. As BAP has previously stated, choosing the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks as the official withdrawal date perpetuates the false claim that the Taliban government was involved in the 9/11 attacks.

In the two decades of U.S.-led war on Afghanistan, well over 100,000 Afghans have died, with over 47,000 of them civilians. BAP continues to demand that the United States and NATO remove all foreign troops and mercenary contractors, and end all aggression against and interference in Afghanistan, in adherence with the initial 2020 Doha agreement and the principles of sovereignty as outlined in the UN Charter and international law. We also continue to call on the United States to respect the human rights of the Afghan people and the rights of all colonized people the world over, including inside its borders.

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Banner photo: President Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan met with U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on June 24, 2021. (Sarahbeth Maney/The New York Times)

Don’t Allow Another U.S.-NATO Libya in the Horn of Africa: A Statement by BAP’s U.S. Out of Africa Network and Horn of Africa Pan-Africans for Liberation and Solidarity

Paternalistic U.S. government political posturing toward Africa has a history of turning into fatal consequences for the masses of African peoples. A decade ago, several of the same individuals who now hold positions in the Biden administration were accomplices in the U.S.-led NATO decimation of Libya, which was rationalized under the guise of protecting “pro-democracy” activists from massacre by the so-called dictator Colonel Muammar Gadaffi. Hiding behind a modern-day version of the "White Man's Burden," otherwise known as “Responsibility to Protect” or R2P, the United States and its NATO allies killed and maimed thousands of Libyans, with U.S. leaders like Secretary of State Hillary Clinton taking special satisfaction in the sadistic video recording of Gaddafi’s murder.

Given the catastrophic effects of the U.S.-NATO intervention in Libya, the Black Alliance for Peace’s U.S. Out of Africa Network (USOAN) and BAP member organization Horn of Africa Pan-Africans for Liberation & Solidarity (HOA PALS), condemn, under no uncertain terms, any and all forms of intervention and meddling in the conflict in Ethiopia. As it did against Libya, U.S. imperialism is weaponizing disinformation and misinformation to exploit and distort the complexity, historical context and political realities in the Horn of Africa to create the pretext for more direct intervention.

“Should those responsible for undermining a resolution of the crisis in Tigray fail to reverse course, they should anticipate further actions from the United States and the international community. We call on other governments to join us in taking these actions.” —U.S. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, May 23, 2021 press statement

The attack on the federal base by the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) that started the conflict is now being used as a de-facto instrument of U.S. policy in Ethiopia to justify "humanitarian intervention." In this way, the primary contradiction in the Tigray region reflects broader dynamics in the Horn of Africa as a whole and can be boiled down to the common denominators of global capitalist hegemony and Western imperialism by way of its proxy actor, the TPLF. Western powers only curtail the right of self-determination for the Horn of Africa and Global South states.

We condemn all military violence, extrajudicial killings, sexual violence, displacement, theft, discrimination, harassment and intimidation perpetrated on innocent Tigrayans, as well as any and all unnecessary violence perpetrated on other Ethiopians and Eritreans in the ongoing conflict as a result of their ethnic, religious, or national identity, refugee status or political affiliation. We unequivocally support and uplift mutual cooperation, solidarity, and peace among all parties and people in Ethiopia, Eritrea, and the broader Horn of Africa region.

We support African-led, localized conflict resolution that is not tied to advancing imperialism, neo-colonialism or any other nefarious Western agendas. We believe in the inherent agency and ability of Africans on the continent to reach a resolution to the conflict peacefully and independently of Western aggression, destabilization, and extractive and exploitative economic interests.

The United States and its EU-NATO allies know no compassion or genuine concern for the Black lives in Ethiopia, the Horn of Africa or anywhere else Black people are in the world. Their true concerns are always selfish, racist and reflective of their objective geopolitical interests. In Ethiopia and Eritrea, their interests are:

• To control or have undue influence over the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a chokepoint critical to securing global energy;

• to challenge the robust presence of China; and

• to impose AFRICOM in the only country left in Africa that has evaded its control, Eritrea.

Africa is not underdeveloped and fraught with militarized instability because there is not enough involvement by Western Europe and its evil settler-colonial spawn, the USA. Anyone who believes that must also believe Africans are inferior savages. The fact is Africa is underdeveloped and destabilized precisely because of centuries of European colonialism and decades of U.S. and Western European neocolonialism. Any disposition held by Africans that lends legitimacy to intervention, sanctions, or the fake moral or altruistic dominion of Pan-European, white supremacist capitalist interests in Africa are based either on severe ignorance or treacherous opportunism.

U.S. foreign policy in Africa always involves enveloping any part of the continent that poses a threat to its geostrategic interests into its sphere of forever wars. In 2011, Black anti-imperialist forces were unable to effectively counter the plan by the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination to destroy the revolutionary Pan-Africanist nation of Libya. This was partially because the action had the political cover of the first Black president, which confused and disarmed left opposition and made them objective collaborators with U.S. reaction.

BAP’s U.S. Out of Africa Network and Horn of Africa Pan-Africans for Liberation & Solidarity refuse to allow this fatal mistake to be made again.

Hands off Ethiopia and Eritrea!
#ShutDownAFRICOM!
#USOutofAfrica!

For more information, read HOA PALS’ report.

Banner photo: People walk from a rural area towards the town of Agula in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia, where the Relief Society of Tigray was distributing food. (Ben Curtis/AP)

Black Alliance for Peace’s Haiti/Americas Committee Statement on African Liberation Day

In recognition of African Liberation Day, May 25, 2021, the Black Alliance for Peace’s Haiti/Americas Committee salutes the historic and ongoing struggles for emancipation, independence and autonomy of African people world-wide. 

On this African Liberation Day, we give thanks to those past generations of Africans who battled against slavery, colonialism and white supremacy. We recognize the current generation of toilers, strugglers, insurgents, and revolutionaries who continue the fight against neocolonialism and neoliberalism, and against the Black misleadership classes who have betrayed the revolutionary struggles of the African people. 

We recognize the origins of African Liberation Day in the First Conference of Independent African States—convened by Dr. Kwame Nkrumah in 1958 in Accra, Ghana—and with the formation of the Organization of African Unity in 1963. We acknowledge the first efforts of organizing African Liberation Day in North America in 1972, and its message of solidarity with the armed struggle against settler colonialism and its corporate backers in southern Africa. We also support the longstanding work of the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party to continue the radical tradition of African Liberation Day.

Today, we extend that message of Pan-African solidarity to Africa and to Africans in the Americas. In particular, we salute the people of Haiti. As a liberated African territory, Haiti nurtured the struggles against slavery, imperialism and white supremacy thoughout the Americas; the Haitian people have continued to pay the price for doing so. We acknowledge the mocambos, palenques, quilombos, and the cimarrón, mawon, and maroon communities throughout the Americas that have been necessary for Black survival. And we salute the African peoples of Brazil, Colombia, the United States, and elsewhere who suffer from economic austerity and deprivation, who are victims of legalized discrimination and targeted incarceration, and who are assailed by relentless police and militarized violence. 

On this African Liberation Day, we stand in struggle with all African peoples against capitalism, imperialism, neocolonialism and white supremacy. Our time will come.

No compromise! No retreat!

Banner photo: African Liberation Day event in 1977 in Handsworth Park, Birmingham, U.K. (Vanley Burke)

BAP's U.S. Out of Africa Network Statement on the Latest Zionist Genocidal Assault on Gaza and Palestinian People

As the zionist occupier unleashes another round of genocidal violence against Gaza, the Black Alliance for Peace stands firmly with the Palestinian people in their long and just struggle against the depravities of settler colonialism. Over the past week the zionist occupier has brutally bombed homes, schools, media houses, killing at least [200 people, including 59 children] since the writing of this statement and still climbing. We know that the latest escalation comes after a series of illegal, immoral, and racist acts initiated by the zionist occupiers: the attempted forced evictions of Palestinians from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem; and the assault on the Al Aqsa Mosque (the third holiest site in Islam) during Ramadan and one of the holiest days in Islam, a day before Eid al Fitr.

We also know that May 15th marked the 73rd anniversary of the Nakba or “The Catastrophe,” when the zionist occupiers drove more than 700,000 Palestinians off their land, with hundreds of thousands landing – and remaining until this day – in refugee camps. Today, there are more than 4 million registered Palestinian refugees worldwide. Since then, the constant land grabbing and state-sponsored terror by the occupation illegal government, have left Palestinians as refugees in their own land, separated from family and friends by road blocks and walls, cramped in the open air prison that is the Gaza strip, under constant surveillance, and brutalized by military force, including bombing, assassinations, and indefinite detentions.

The latest attacks represent the ongoing Palestinian Nakba.

But we know that the ongoing Nakba is only possible because of the Pan-European white supremacist and imperial support for the crimes of the zionist entity. The settler colonial state of the U.S., for example, supports this entity with $3.8 billion a year in military aid. It also continues to support the settler’s land expropriation, and provides legal cover for zionism’s atrocities through its undemocratic veto power on the UN Security Council.

Revolutionary Africans must stand with the Palestinian struggle against settler colonialism. We know that this settler colony was planted in the Middle East by imperialism to serve the dictates of the Pan-European white supremacist colonial/capitalist project. It is why we must also understand the ways that zionism has and continues to work against African liberation. The zionist occupier of Palestinian lands and people gave political, economic, and military support to the racist apartheid regime in Azania/South Africa to further the oppression and exploitation of African people. And currently, Jewish Africans from Ethiopia serve as cheap, exploited labor and suffer from the most egregious racism at the hands of their fellow “Jews” from zionist Israel in occupied Palestine. There is also the continuing racist treatment of Black migrants (from Eritrea, Sudan, and Ethiopia) in the settler colony.

The zionist occupier in Palestine currently poses an existential threat for African and other oppressed communities. Israel Defense Forces (IDF) commandos train security forces in more than a dozen African nations in tactics they use to control, colonize, incarcerate and terrorize Palestinian people. Israel also engages in policing exchanges with local U.S. police forces to promote and extend some of the most violent policies, behaviors, and tactics of the U.S. settler state disproportionately used against African (Black) and indigenous people.

A stand against zionism is a stand against colonization and a demand for the return of the land to Palestinians. It is a call for the end of settler genocide. It is also part and parcel of the African people’s struggle for true liberation. African People must be a part of the struggle against zionism. We must see, therefore, that the zionist dehumanization of Palestinians and its culture of anti-Blackness depend on the same system - white supremacy.

The Palestinian resistance against zionist expansion and genocide is a just struggle. Palestine will be free because its struggle is supported by the majority of the people of the world.  The Black Alliance for Peace stands with Palestine, and its call for self-determination!

Support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

No compromise! No retreat!

The U.S. Out of Africa Network (USOAN) is a network of volunteers committed to strategizing around creative and radical tactics for the complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from Africa, the demilitarization of the African continent, the closure of U.S. military bases throughout the world, pressuring the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) to unequivocally oppose AFRICOM and conduct hearings on its impact on the African continent. The USOAN is the driving force for the U.S. Out of Africa! Shutdown AFRICOM! campaign of the Black Alliance for Peace.

Sign up to join the U.S. Out of Africa Network.

Banner photo: Iraqi protestors in Baghdad wave Palestinian flags during a protest in solidarity with the Palestinian people. (Thaier al-Sudani/Reuters)

In Colombia, Black Lives Also Matter!: A Black Alliance for Peace Statement

Gruesome reports have emerged of systematic repression in various cities in Colombia since the April 28 call for a national strike to protest U.S.-ordered neoliberal changes in the Colombian tax system. In response to the strike, the Escuadrón Móvil Antidisturbios (ESMAD, or Mobile Anti-Disturbances Squadron)—the Colombian riot police—and regular police units have been beating, shooting, tear gassing and murdering people across the country.

For the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP), it is important that as the public is just becoming aware of the situation in Colombia, they understand two elements. First, the context of the strike in Colombia had been shaped by decades of right-wing government actions in the forms of vicious state wars against the people using paramilitary structures and death squads, all in service of the national and comprador Colombian bourgeoisie and their capitalist masters in the United States and Europe. And secondly, along with Indigenous peoples, Afro-Colombians have disproportionately suffered during the 60-year-long armed conflict and paramilitary terror in Black-held territories.

This last point is particularly important as the Colombian conflict is being reported in the corporate press in ways that have almost erased the reality of Black Colombia, the third-largest group of African people outside of Africa after Brazil and the United States.

The violence unleashed by ESMAD has taken place where large numbers of Afro-Colombians reside, most of whom already were internally displaced because of the armed conflict in other parts of the country. 

That component of the strike actions must be considered to correctly understand what is unfolding in Colombia.

Black people in Colombia have been displaced because the government did not provide protection to Afro-Colombian and Indigenous communities. Why do they deserve these rights? Unlike in the United States, where the legal system only recognizes African/Black people as individuals, Afro-Colombians are recognized as a people. Both Afro-Colombian people and Indigenous peoples occupy resource-rich lands. That is why the violence increased in the territories where Afro-Colombians lived, despite a “peace process.”

And what interests benefit from the violence that caused dispossession? U.S., Canadian and European transnational companies, along with elements of the Colombian ruling class.

So, while BAP stands in solidarity with the workers, campesinos, women and Indigenous peoples in their fight against neoliberal capitalism and U.S. imperialism, we will not allow the realities and physical presence of African peoples in Colombia to be erased.

We note with some degree of irony that the international community has showered Colombia with deserved attention and mobilizations in solidarity, while they are relatively silent on the Haitian people's struggle.

And we ask: Why the difference?

BAP will not make distinctions. We stand against imperialism in all its forms, including its white-supremacist, ideological expressions that violate the spirit of solidarity and anti-imperialism.

We recognize effective anti-imperialist struggle requires an organized opposition in the United States that is connected to radical and revolutionary forces throughout the so-called “Americas” region. This is not an easy task that can be accomplished tomorrow or only through dramatic mobilizations.

We are sure to hear all kinds of calls for various kinds of reforms coming from groups and individuals who just yesterday discovered the struggle in Colombia and who will move on to the next popular mobilization tomorrow. However, we say for those who are serious and want to support the people of Colombia, they should ground themselves in understanding how the struggle in Colombia relates to Venezuela, Haiti, the southside of Chicago and all of the radical struggles unfolding in the Western Hemisphere. And we ask them to be prepared to fight like their lives depend on it. Because for the oppressed and colonized, it does.

¡En Colombia, las vidas de los negros también importan!: Declaración de Black Alliance for Peace 

Han surgido informes espantosos de represión sistemática en varias ciudades de Colombia desde el llamado del 28 de abril a una huelga nacional para protestar contra los cambios neoliberales ordenados por Estados Unidos en el sistema tributario colombiano. En respuesta al paro, el Escuadrón Móvil Antidisturbios (ESMAD o Escuadrón Móvil Antidisturbios) —la policía antidisturbios colombiana— y unidades policiales regulares han estado golpeando, disparando, lanzando gases lacrimógenos y asesinando a personas en todo el país.

For the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP), Es importante que, dado que el público recién se está dando cuenta de la situación en Colombia, comprenda dos elementos. En primer lugar, el contexto de la huelga en Colombia había sido moldeado por décadas de acciones gubernamentales de derecha en forma de feroces guerras de estado contra el pueblo que usa estructuras paramilitares y escuadrones de la muerte, todo al servicio de la burguesía nacional y compradora colombiana y su capitalista. Masters en Estados Unidos y Europa. Y en segundo lugar, junto con los pueblos indígenas, los afrocolombianos han sufrido de manera desproporcionada durante los 60 años de conflicto armado y el terror paramilitar en los territorios controlados por negros.

Este último punto es particularmente importante ya que el conflicto colombiano está siendo informado en la prensa corporativa de maneras que casi han borrado la realidad de la Colombia negra, el tercer grupo más grande de africanos fuera de África después de Brasil y Estados Unidos.

La violencia desatada por la ESMAD ha tenido lugar donde residen un gran número de afrocolombianos, la mayoría de los cuales ya eran desplazados internos debido al conflicto armado en otras partes del país.

Ese componente de las acciones de huelga debe ser considerado para comprender correctamente lo que se está desarrollando en Colombia.

Los negros en Colombia han sido desplazados porque el gobierno no brindó protección a las comunidades afrocolombianas e indígenas. ¿Por qué merecen estos derechos? A diferencia de los Estados Unidos, donde el sistema legal solo reconoce a los africanos / negros como individuos, los afrocolombianos son reconocidos como personas. Tanto los pueblos afrocolombianos como los pueblos indígenas ocupan tierras ricas en recursos. Por eso la violencia aumentó en los territorios donde vivían los afrocolombianos, a pesar de un “proceso de paz”.

¿Y qué intereses se benefician de la violencia que provocó el despojo? Empresas transnacionales estadounidenses, canadienses y europeas, junto con elementos de la clase dominante colombiana.

Entonces, mientras el BAP se solidariza con los trabajadores, campesinos, mujeres y pueblos indígenas en su lucha contra el capitalismo neoliberal y el imperialismo estadounidense, no permitiremos que se borren las realidades y presencia física de los pueblos africanos en Colombia.

Observamos con cierto grado de ironía que la comunidad internacional ha colmado a Colombia con merecidas atenciones y movilizaciones de solidaridad, mientras guarda un relativo silencio sobre la lucha del pueblo haitiano.

Y preguntamos: ¿Por qué la diferencia?

BAP no hará distinciones. Nos oponemos al imperialismo en todas sus formas, incluidas sus expresiones ideológicas supremacistas blancas que violan el espíritu de solidaridad y antiimperialismo.

Reconocemos que la lucha antiimperialista efectiva requiere una oposición organizada en los Estados Unidos que esté conectada con las fuerzas radicales y revolucionarias en toda la región llamada “América”. Esta no es una tarea fácil que se pueda lograr mañana o solo mediante movilizaciones dramáticas.

Seguramente escucharemos todo tipo de llamados a reformas de diversa índole provenientes de grupos e individuos que ayer mismo descubrieron la lucha en Colombia y que pasarán mañana a la próxima movilización popular. Sin embargo, decimos para aquellos que son serios y quieren apoyar al pueblo de Colombia, que deben basarse en comprender cómo la lucha en Colombia se relaciona con Venezuela, Haití, el lado sur de Chicago y todas las luchas radicales que se desarrollan en el hemisferio occidental. . Y les pedimos que estén preparados para luchar como si sus vidas dependieran de ello. Porque para los oprimidos y colonizados, lo hace.

Banner photo: Afro-Colombians mobilizing to defend their territory in the North of Cauca (@renacientes on Twitter)

Black Alliance for Peace Statement of Solidarity with Haitian Workers on International Workers’ Day

On May 1, 2021, on International Workers’ Day, the Black Alliance for Peace salutes the Haitian worker and applauds their long history of struggles for Black freedom and the universal rights of workers.

Haiti is often derided as the “poorest country in the American hemisphere.” Yet, we know it was the enslaved labor of Africans in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (now the Republic of Haiti) that contributed to the wealth of the European world, fueling the emergence of capitalism.

The resistance of those Africans against slavery and capitalism also provided a beacon of hope for the enslaved, peasants, and workers—both Black and non-Black—throughout the world. From small acts of subversion to slow-downs, Africans resisted slavery from the moment they arrived in the New World. In the 17th and 18th centuries, escaped Africans—maroons, or mawons in Haitian Creole—formed insurgent communities in remote, mountainous areas. Among the most famous mawon was François Mackandal, an African who in 1757 devised a plot to poison the white planters and burn down the plantations. He was captured and publicly executed as a warning to other Africans.

In 1791, a plot against slavery led by Boukman Dutty and Cecile Fatiman was launched at the famous Bois-Caiman ceremony. In the short term, their plot would fail, but it lit a fire that could not be extinguished. It sparked 13 years of revolt and counter-revolt that we now know as the Haitian Revolution. The Revolution’s heroes—Toussaint Louverture, Jean Jacques Dessalines and others are well known—but its success depended on the struggle of the Haitian masses. Tens of thousands of unknown enslaved Africans defeated Napoleon’s forces, ended slavery and established the Republic of Haiti: the first Black Republic in the Hemisphere, a place where all enslaved Africans would be granted freedom, and a potent symbol of pan-Africanism.

Yet, Haiti’s resistance did not end in 1804. With the establishment of the Republic, Haiti’s Black elites became the primary obstacle for freedom, dignity, democracy and economic sovereignty for Haiti’s African peasant classes. Peasant insurgencies occurred in 1807 and 1811. In 1844, a “suffering army” of peasants in southern Haiti were at the forefront of the Piquet Rebellion’s demand for social equality, radical democracy and the rights of small landholders.

In the 20th century, Haitian peasants initiated the armed resistance against the U.S. military occupation (1915-1930). A brief insurgency led by peasant insurrectionists, known as cacos, lasted from July to November 1915 before it was crushed by the Marines. Despite U.S. Marine efforts to arrest or assassinate suspected cacos, their insurgency was renewed under the leadership of Charlemagne Péralte and later Benoît Batraville. Péralte was assassinated on November 1, 1919—and, like Makandal, his corpse was used as a deterrent to future rebellion. Batraville was assassinated on May 20, 1920, his death effectively marking the end of the caco insurgencies. Rebellion against the occupation would be taken up by Haitian students whose protests in 1929 led to a general strike combining both workers in Port-au-Prince and other cities and peasants throughout the country. These new protests led to the withdrawal of U.S. troops in 1934.

In 1934, the Haitian Communist Party was formed by writer Jacques Roumain (author of the magnificent, fictional homage to Haitian labor, The Masters of the Dew) and others. Inspired in part by Roumain, Haiti Marxists, including Jacques Stephen Alexis, René Depestre and Gérald Bloncourt were behind the “Revolution of 1946” that saw the overthrow of the tyrannical regime of Élie Lescot, after student protests and nationwide strikes. During this period the Parti Communiste Haïtien was revived and the Parti Socialiste Populaire was organized, as was the Mouvement Ouvrier et Paysan, the largest labor organization in Haiti’s history led by the charismatic Daniel Fignolé.

While the United States and Haiti’s military forces remained powerful influences in Haiti’s political life, this movement of workers and peasants led to a brief, progressive period in Haiti’s politics before the emergence of the dictatorship of Francois and Jean-Claude Duvalier (1957-1986). In 1961, communist Jacques Stephen Alexis led a coup against Duvalier that ultimately failed. Alexis was brutally tortured and murdered for his efforts. The Duvalier regime would not fall for another two decades, after riots against poverty and student protests in the early 1980s led to a 1986 grassroots uprising. This unseated the Duvalier regime and eventually led to the coming to power of Famni Lavalas and Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

In the decades since, Haitian workers and peasants have continued a ceaseless fight against both the Haitian aristocracy and the imperial powers for sovereignty, dignity and freedom. Today, Haiti’s laboring masses continue this tradition of protest in their attempts to unseat Jovenel Moïse and to destroy the imperialism of the United States, the Core Group, the OAS and others.

To mark International Workers’ Day, the Black Alliance for Peace expresses its solidarity with the modern-day struggle of the Haitian worker—and our gratitude for Haiti’s history of resistance.

Banner photo: Illustration depicting combat between French and Haitian troops during the Haitian Revolution. (Histoire de Napoléon, by M. De Norvins, 1839)

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)