BAP Remarks at Nicaragua Electoral Companion Press Conference

Managua, Nicaragua

Netfa Remarks at Press Conference, Nicaragua, 9 November 2021:

US policy toward Nicaragua is connected to their policy against Cuba, and in Haiti, and against Venezuela and in Columbia. They Talk about political prisoners or people being prevented from participating as candidates in the process when this is completely untrue and the US has the longest-held political prisoners on the planet, some of them are now dying in prison. We saw firsthand the vibrance, freedom, and fairness of the process on the Caribbean Coast. Indigenous and Black people went to the polls in a humble and orderly fashion. 

Their gains… They spoke of their gains since 2007 when the Sandinistas came to power, and what they are trying to ensure through their process of voting is the continuation of the process of roads, water, education, health care. What they experience is nothing comparable to what we have in the United States, where politicians haggle over the price tag of providing these things, human rights for all its citizens.

Most of the people on the Caribbean coast in Bluefields and other places expressed their faith in their government because of the fact that it provides agency for them. Not things being given to them, but that they actually enjoy an autonomy that is statutory, that is enshrined in the law. And is also behind how they carry out their election process in those regions. The black power that we fight for in the United States, they are realizing through autonomy. Autonomy is Black Power. And they say it is ensured through the Sandinista revolution.

The US policies are based on racism. The outrageous assumption that the US has the right to determine the leadership of other nations, when it cannot even provide basic human rights to its own citizens and residents is obscene. We are here because we are anti-imperialist internationalists, opposing the common global system of oppression. Thank you.

QUESTION from Camilla Escalante from Kawsachun News based in Bolivia:

WE have a selection of people here from Canada and the United States. Today Luis Almagro tweeted that the OAS has their own report, despite that the Organization of American States was not on the ground. We did not see them here. They don’t know what is going on. They actually said that this is a, they’re asking for a response to this clear violation of the democracy, despite their lack of presence. They actually called for and demanded an annulment of the election and the holding of a new electoral process; we’ve heard this before, because they say “guarantees electoral observation and true electoral competition.”

So, everyone here, unless you’re from Cuba or Venezuela, is from a country that are part of the Organization of American States. So what can we do, what can you guys do, going forward, given that we are represented within that body that continues to be interventionist, and that, where I live, carried out a coup exactly two years ...? 

NETFA: I think that’s a very good question, an important question. I think that we first have to realize… the short answer to your question is that I think we have to build an anti-imperialist, united front that is global. The OAS has lost its legitimacy a long time ago, if it ever even had any. So, like you pointed out, it blatantly supported a coup in Bolivia and now it is attempting to discredit a process that is free and fair, when itself, is discredited. I think what has to happen is that we have to build an anti-imperialist front that only recognizes legitimate popular human rights or people-centered human rights processes. I think that also goes for looking internally to the United States, where the US pulls the strings of the OAS, like those for Almagro, and all of them, they carry the water for US imperialism. When we look to also expose the blatant contradictions and hypocrisy that US domestic policy has, its connection with the foreign policy it has, then I think that is the beginning of us building an anti-imperialist united front. And that’s essential, and it also means that we have to look for processes of power. We have to build power on the local level. There are places where the people don’t have state power. It’s still in the hands of an elite, like for example in Haiti, where they supported a dictator Jovenel Moïse in spite of these massive demonstrations against Moise. They fund the police there. They fund repression and then after his assassination they legitimized people assuming themselves in power, and actually hand picking the next leader. There is a lot of hypocrisy that the US has and the Organization of American States reflects that same hypocrisy. 

CONT’…

I agree with everything that everybody says. It is important for us to realize what the US does in terms of its propaganda is not to target the Nicaraguan people. They are known. They read the polls just like us. Their attempts in the media to discredit it before it even happens is to target outside, particularly the US public. It’s to get support for their programs of “regime change” or the change of governments.

So, it is incumbent upon those of us who are anti-imperialist outside of Nicaragua, to recognize the reality; to see through the lies and to do our work in exposing the United States government. And not just the U.S. but we’re also the OAS, NATO; all of these institutions are really nothing but the Pan-European, capitalist, patriarchy. They represent the US-EU-NATO axis of domination. That’s what the OAS is… it’s part of that. So we have to realize that we already know that the Sandinista people… and the FSLN, like one of the young people told me, “it’s not just a party. We’re a social movement.” So they know they can’t do anything against that. But what they are trying to do is to intoxicate our thinking and to get people on the ground in the US to have pre-judgments about the kinds of things that we are expressing here.

QUESTION: Do any of you think there is any chance for a US or OAS coup attempt in Nicaragua.

They’ve already done that. In 2018 they already attempted a coup. This is part of the US playbook; to find the delinquent forces, the susceptible citizens of a country and co-opt them. They either pay them or whatever to create destabilizing attempts. And these are viscously violent attempts that are passed off in the media as if they are some legitimate uprising against a supposed dictatorial government. They’ve done that already. We should always expect that they will do that. If they will drop bombs on innocent babies anywhere in the world, that means they’re committed to full spectrum dominance by any means necessary. So we have to be committed to decolonization, anti-capitalism, and anti-imperialism. And I’ll say this to indigenous and Black people one of the things they’re trying to make us believe is… 

You know it’s hard for us to say, (many of us in the Black Alliance for Peace) that this is ours… this is not our government. We are colonized victims of their violence inside the United States. We’re not trying to “convince” them of anything. We’re fighting for decolonization and liberation against these global imperialist pigs. And that is what we’re struggling for. So, one: we don’t put anything past them. They’re gonna do whatever they can. They’re going to continue to do it until their last breath. So we have to be just as determined to get our liberation and our freedom.

 Margaret Remarks at Press Conference, Nicaragua, 9 November 2021

“My name is Margaret Kimberley and I am a member of a seven-person delegation from Black Alliance for Peace. We have been here in Managua and in Blue Fields on the Caribbean coast on election day. That region is the home of a variety of ethnic groups, Afro-descended Garifuna and Creole communities, Miskito, Olwas, Mayagna, and Rama indigenous people, and Mestizos.

We saw four different polling places in the town of Blue Fields and on Pearl Lagoon. We saw a well managed process, a ballot which is clearer than any I have seen in my home in New York, and people from all of the communities I mentioned participating as voters.

What we saw is not what the corporate media and US politicians tell the public about Nicaragua. Newspapers and television networks in the US claimed that only the governing party was allowed to campaign and that other candidates are in prison. This is not true. None of the six presidential candidates were incarcerated. Large campaign signs representing all parties were clearly displayed. All Nicaraguans were aware of who is running and which parties they represent. There was no confusion about the process or about the electoral choices available. In short, what we saw is in direct contradiction to what people in the US are being told about the Nicaraguan election.

The presence of our group and other companions has been vital in telling the people of the world about events here. I don’t mean to be boastful in making that statement. My goal is to point out the degree of manipulation being orchestrated around the world by the US government and others who would deny the Nicaraguan people their rights to self determination. The US congress passed the RENACER act, imposing sanctions on the government, sanctions that will harm the people who freely exercised the franchise, all under the guise of helping them. The Black Alliance for Peace delegation is grateful to have participated in this process of witnessing the will of the people in this country and having the opportunity of sharing what we have seen. Thank you very much.”

Black Alliance for Peace Condemns RENACER ACT on Nicaragua as Bipartisan Criminality

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Black Alliance for Peace Condemns RENACER ACT on Nicaragua as Bipartisan Criminality
Black Alliance for Peace To Send Delegation To Nicaragua Ahead of General Election 

NOVEMBER 5th, 2021 -- The Black Alliance for Peace condemns the efforts of Congress to manipulate the electoral process in Nicaragua through illegal sanctions, subversion and the coordination of a deliberate misinformation campaign meant to delegitimize the country’s elections even before they take place. 

As part of that effort the U.S. House of Representatives passed the “RENACER ACT” 387-35 that is meant to impose more sanctions on the country’s President Daniel Ortega but is really a punitive act against the Nicaraguan people for continuing to support their own political project. 

“It is white supremacist, colonial hubris that on the same day that the so-called progressives in the House of Representatives indicated they might abandon their insistence on passing the  minimum human rights provisions in the Build Back Better legislation, those same progressives voted to impose more economic sanctions on the second poorest country in the region that, despite its poverty, guarantees universal healthcare and free education, two human rights guarantees that workers in the U.S. are still denied,” states Ajamu Baraka, BAP’s National Organizer

On November 7th, the people of Nicaragua will go to the polls to reaffirm the commitment to their revolutionary democratic project, a project that began in 1979 when the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) defeated a vicious, neocolonial, gangster regime of Anastasio Somoza that was put in power by the United States only to have those efforts reversed by a U.S. imposed counterrevolutionary war that resulted in the electoral defeat of the FSLN in 1990.  

With the return of the FSLN to power in 2007, it once again became a target for U.S. aggression and electoral subversion. The U.S. and its European allies questioned the legitimacy of the FSLN despite its overwhelming electoral victories that the U.S. characterized as fraudulent. 

Therefore, since it is impossible to get fair and accurate information on Nicaragua from the propaganda organs pretending to be news outlets in the U.S. The Alliance is sending a delegation to observe the process for itself and report back to its membership and the Black communities across the U.S. 

Netfa Freeman, member of BAP’s Coordinating Committee who will be on the delegation provided the explanation for why BAP is involved with the process in Nicaragua in the article, “Why Black Revolutionaries Must Stand with the People of Nicaragua,” that “for Black revolutionaries, committed to People(s)-Centered Human Rights (PCHRs), that center decolonial self-determination, social justice and socialism, support for these struggles was not an issue of “solidarity” but of a common struggle.” 

The U.S. should concentrate on reversing the genocidal policies in the U.S. that has resulted in hundred of thousands of unnecessary deaths from conditions and consequences of Covid in Black and Brown communities and the anti-democratic practices of economic elites that have been systematically looting the public coffers since the economic collapse of 2008-09. 

But instead, the U.S. meddles in the internal affairs of countries around the world confirming its international reputation as the number one threat to international peace and number one violator of human rights on the planet. 

The “democratic” fascism that the U.S. oligarchy imposes on global South nations  is both flagrant and insidious, knowing no geographic boundaries. Instead of repression, BAP demands that the U.S. state adhere to international law and respect the sovereignty of Nicaragua and its right to self-determination. By cooperating with the people of Nicaragua, U.S. authorities just might learn something about human rights and civilization.

Banner Photo: Sandinista followers gather at the Juan Pablo II plaza, to celebrate the 39th anniversary of the Sandinista revolution in Managua, Nicaragua, Thursday, July 19th, 2018. (AP Photos/Cristobal Venegas)

Black Alliance for Peace & the U.S. Out of Africa Network Stand with the People of Sudan

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Media Contact: Tunde Osazua
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Black Alliance for Peace & the U.S. Out of Africa Network Stand with the People of Sudan

October 25, 2021 — We are clear that the training of African police and military by the US and its NATO allies, in counter insurgency measures to confront the mass uprisings against repression, as taking place  right now in Sudan using violent suppression, is right out of the imperialist playbook. For decades the U.S. Africa Command, or AFRICOM, the E.U., and Israel have assisted in the training, financing, and arming of the militias and forces within Sudan. We must call for an end to the training of African defense and security forces by imperialists and neo-colonial entities and for the demilitarization of the African continent.

The Black Alliance for Peace and the U.S. Out of Africa Network express solidarity with over a million Sudanese people who have taken to the streets in cities and towns across Sudan to resist the military coup that took place the morning of October 25, 2021. Trade unions and people’s movements have called for international solidarity, strikes, and mass protests in response to the coup by the Sudanese military. The coup takes place as Sudan was nearing a transition to civilian rule from the joint military and civilian government that was installed following the deposition of Omar al-Bashir.

The U.S. did not directly come out in support of the military government. We believe that this is so they can more easily manipulate the situation like they did with Tigray. In a recent tweet, U.S. Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa Jeffrey Feltman lays the blame for the coup squarely on the shoulders of Sudan. His statement fails to mention the role of the U.S. in fueling conflict in Sudan to control its energy resources, cement access to the Red Sea which links the Mediterranean to Asia and is one of the world’s busiest waterways, and take advantage in the struggle against China and Russia’s geopolitical ascendancy. 

The Black Alliance for Peace and the U.S. Out of Africa Network, calls for return to Sudan’s popular process of transition.

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: Sudan has been gripped by discontent and political rivalries since the fall of autocrat Bashir in 2019 [source: Getty]

Black Alliance for Peace Launches International Month of Action Against the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) and Imperialism on the African Continent

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Black Alliance for Peace Launches International Month of Action Against the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) and Imperialism on the African Continent

SEPTEMBER 30, 2021—The Black Alliance for Peace's Africa Team and the U.S. Out of Africa Network are organizing an international month of action to raise the public's awareness as a contribution to the effort to build a popular movement for demilitarization and anti-imperialism on the African continent. This month’s events will focus on raising the public's awareness about the use of western military power to impose western control of African land, resources, and labor on behalf of the world’s corporations.

AFRICOM continues to militarily occupy Africa, with thousands of U.S. troops now stationed in some 30 African countries with dozens of U.S. bases across the continent, while it carries out bombings in places like Somalia. U.S. Special Forces roam the Sahel, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, South Sudan, and the Central African Republic. The command’s operations in Africa over the last decade, including hundreds of drone strikes, billions of dollars in “aid” and “development” projects, and countless massive military exercises including African Lion Exercise, Cutlass Express Exercise, Phoenix Express, Obangame Express, Justified Accord, and Flintlock, which have included participation from Europe, and from almost every African country. 

The ramping up of US militarism on the African continent - and the ensuing destabilization of communities and countries, correlate with a 500% spike in incidents of violence attributed to Islamist terrorist organizations. Part of AFRICOM’s stated mission is to “promote regional security, stability, and prosperity.” But its very nature precludes the development of any of these conditions and really brings about destabilization and the furthering of U.S. interests on the continent.

A mass movement must be forged to expose AFRICOM and its real purpose and make it inseparable with the concerns we have over the militarization of police in our communities in the United States. The recently passed National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) included billions for AFRICOM and the continuation of the Department of Defense 1033 program that transfers millions of dollars worth of military equipment to police forces across the country. Resources that are being squandered to support imperialist adventures must be seized by the people and used to address the human rights needs of African/Black people and other oppressed and exploited peoples for housing, healthcare, education, food and clean water, instead of on war on behalf of the corporations and the rich.

Join us for the launch of the international month of action by attending a webinar on October 1st, titled “AFRICOM at 13: Building the Popular Movement for Demilitarization and Anti-Imperialism in Africa.” Organizers and activists from the African continent and the diaspora will discuss AFRICOM and what we can do to expel imperialist forces from the continent. Following the webinar, events will take place throughout October organized by various organizations on the African continent, in the U.S., and around the world to demand an end to the militarization of Africa.

BAP makes the following demands:

1. the complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from Africa,

2. the demilitarization of the African continent,

3. the closure of U.S. bases throughout the world, and

4. the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) must oppose AFRICOM and conduct hearings on AFRICOM’s impact on the African continent.

We ask the public to join us in taking action to put an end to the U.S. and western invasion and occupation of the African continent by organizing an event and participating in the month of action on AFRICOM.

Visit blackallianceforpeace.com/usoutofafrica for resources.

Banner Photo: United States and Nigerian Army officers wait for the military demonstration, “Operation Silent Kill” to begin at the African Land Force Summit in Abuja, Nigeria, April 17, 2018 (Angelica Gardner, DVIDS)

The Resignation of Biden’s Special Envoy to Haiti Once Again Exposes the White Supremacist Foundations of U.S. Foreign Policy, No Matter Which Party Is In Charge

For Immediate Release

Media Contact:
Jemima Pierre
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The Resignation of Biden’s Special Envoy to Haiti Once Again Exposes the White Supremacist Foundations of U.S. Foreign Policy, No Matter Which Party Is In Charge

SEPTEMBER 23, 2021—Dan Foote’s career as a member of the U.S. foreign service and foreign policy community has been problematic. Yet, the blatant racism of Biden’s Haiti policies—in both controlling Haiti’s governance and the illegal and inhuman abuses of Haitian asylum seekers—was too much even for his special envoy to Haiti. In his resignation letter, Foote wrote the U.S. approach to Haiti was "deeply flawed" and that his advice had been "ignored."

Foote’s resignation letter is welcome, as are the statements from the Congressional Black Caucus and other Black formations that have been silent on Biden’s—and other Democratic Party—foreign policies on Haiti and the world, are welcome. But they are too late and too narrow.

As Black Alliance for Peace Haiti/Americas Committee Coordinator Jemima Pierre has commented regarding the spectacle of border patrol violence against Haitians at the U.S.-Mexico border:

“This latest racist treatment of Haitian people by the U.S. deserves our absolute condemnation and it is important to acknowledge how immigration impacts Black populations in ways that are distinct from other migrants. But we also have to place this wave of migration to the US-Mexico border within the broader context of U.S. and western imperialism in the region. To not do so is to continue to exceptionalize Haiti and Haitian people in ways that hide their connections to the rest of the western occupied world —and draw attention to the mere representation of Haitians, rather than the structural and historical causes of Haitian migration.”

The Black Alliance for Peace has consistently pointed out the uninterrupted racist and imperial policies of the Biden administration in Haiti and throughout the Americas. The support for Jovenel Moïse in Haiti; the illegal sanctions on Venezuela and recognition of the unelected Juan Guaidó as president; subversion of democracy in Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia; continuation of the ban on remittances from the United States to Cuba; support for the crackdown on demonstrators in Colombia; and the targeting of Nicaragua have reflected the bipartisan nature of imperial policy in the Caribbean and Latin America.

Coming on the heels of the boycott of the United Nations Meeting on Race yesterday by most of the white colonial nations, led by the U.S. and the U.S./U.K./Australia racial pact against China, the underlying white supremacy of Western imperial policy is quite transparent to anyone who chooses to see.

Banner photo: Border Patrol agents on horseback push Haitians back from the U.S. border in September 2021. (Reuters)

Black Alliance for Peace Condemns Biden Administration’s Order to Deport Haitians as Illegal and Racist

UPDATED on September 20, 2021, in the second paragraph

For Immediate Release

Media Contact:
Jemima Pierre
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Black Alliance for Peace Condemns Biden Administration’s Order to Deport Haitians as Illegal and Racist

SEPTEMBER 18, 2021—When a white Fox News reporter used a drone to film the thousands of Haitian and other Black asylum seekers camped beneath a bridge spanning the Rio Grande and linking Del Rio, Texas to Ciudad Acuña, in the Coahuila state of Mexico, he immediately (and deliberately) brought a stereotypical image of Black migration: That of the teeming, African hordes, ready to burst the borders and invade the United States. Such images are as cheap as they are racist. And, typically, they erase the larger question: Why are so many Haitians at the U.S. border?

But before that question could be addressed, the Biden administration struck with a decisiveness not seen throughout its 9-month tenure in office in ordering Haitian refugees—many of them with legitimate asylum claims—to be summarily deported to Haiti. As of September 20, more than 300 Haitian asylum seekers have been forced to board deportation flights to Haiti. The Associated Press and other U.S. media outlets have reported the Haitians were flown back to their “homeland.” But few knew where the flights were going, and many would have preferred to return to Brazil and other places they had sojourned. Cold, cynical and cruel, the Biden administration promises more deportations in the coming days.

This rogue state action is both morally indefensible and illegal under international law. The United Nations 1951 Refugee Convention “recognizes the right of persons to seek asylum from persecution in other countries” and stipulates that states have an obligation to provide reasonable measures to allow for individuals to seek asylum.

“Seeking asylum by individuals who may be facing prosecution, imprisonment and even death because of political affiliation or membership in racial, national, sexual or religious groups is a recognized requirement under international law,” says Ajamu Baraka, national organizer for the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP). “That the Biden administration has ordered federal authorities to mass deport thousands of Haitians, which will probably have the effect of driving many of them who will resist deportation back into Mexico and Central and South America, is both unprecedented in its scope and fundamentally racist.”

What makes the Biden policy even more outrageous is U.S. policies have created the economic and political conditions in Haiti that have compelled tens of thousands to flee.

Janvieve Williams of BAP member organization AfroResistance points out, “Racist U.S. policies in Haiti, supported by the Core Group, the UN, and other international organizations, have created the situation in Haiti—and at the border.”

If successive U.S. administrations had not undermined Haitian democracy and national self-determination, there would be no humanitarian crisis in Haiti or on the U.S. border. George W. Bush greenlit the 2004 coup against elected president Jean Bertrand Aristide. The UN sanctioned the coup with a full-scale military occupation. The Obama administration installed Michel Martelly and the Duvalierist PHTK party. And the Biden administration upended democracy in Haiti by supporting Jovenel Moïse despite the end of his term. All of these imperialist interventions have ensured that thousands would have to seek safety and refuge outside of Haiti. The U.S. policy response? Imprisonment and deportation. The United States has created an endless loop of dispossession, depravity and despair.

The Black Alliance for Peace calls on the Congressional Black Caucus and all human-rights and humanitarian groups to demand the Biden administration live up to its responsibility under international law and give Haitians a fair chance to seek asylum. We also call on the Biden administration and the Core Group to stop their interventions into Haitian politics and allow Haitian people to form a government of national reconciliation to restore Haiti’s sovereignty.

Banner photo: Haitian migrants seeking asylum in September 2021 under the Del Rio International Bridge in Texas as a U.S. Border Patrol agent walks by. U.S. policies have created the conditions in Haiti that have compelled tens of thousands to flee. (Veronica G. Cardenas / The New York Times)

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
Media Contact: Tunde Osazua
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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!

For Immediate Release

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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!

For Immediate Release

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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

For Immediate Release

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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

For Immediate Release

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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

For Immediate Release

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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

For Immediate Release

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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)