Ukraine: Biden Administration’s “Wag the Dog” Diversionary War?

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January 27, 2022. The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) along with the ANSWER Coalition, CODEPINK, Maryland Peace Action, Popular Resistance, and many other organizations will gather in Washington today at noon in front of the White House as part of an emergency mobilization of anti-war activists to express opposition to the unnecessary and extremely dangerous possibility of war in Ukraine.

With a 39% job approval rating, more deaths from covid than during the Trump administration, and a failure to deliver on most of promises made during the 2020 presidential campaign, the intentional escalation of tensions by the United States with Russia appears as a clumsy attempt by the Biden administration and the Democratic Party to divert attention from the historic failures of the administration’s domestic policies.

There could be no other rational explanation for why the Biden administration would encourage the Ukrainian coup government to reject the Minsk II agreement that provided a diplomatic framework for peacefully resolving the internal struggle between the Ukrainian government and regions that declared themselves independent of that government, unless, according to BAP National Organizer, Ajamu Baraka:

“The manufactured crisis with Russia over Ukraine, demonstrates once again the incredible recklessness and outrageous opportunism that the U.S./NATO/EU Axis of domination is prepared to pursue in order to achieve its geo-strategic objective of full-spectrum economic and political global domination.”

Whatever the explanation, it is clear that for African peoples, the U.S./NATO/EU Axis of Domination continues to represent the greatest threat to peace, human rights, and social justice on the planet today. That is why it is so absurd to see the Black Misleadership class lining up to demonstrate their support for war with Russia while Black people still face the structural violence of capitalism and the terror of state violence from the domestic army occupying our communities that are referred to as the police.

BAP says that it is irrational for any African to embrace the agenda of empire by giving credence or legitimacy to the crude mobilization of public opinion for conflict on behalf of NATO, a structure created to perpetuate white power and the colonial/capitalist project.

We are clear: we say once again, not one drop of the blood from Black workers, the colonized and nationally oppressed in defense of the U.S. capitalist oligarchy.

Banner photo: The Pentagon has put 8,500 troops on high alert as the U.S. escalates tensions with Russia over Ukraine. (Stefani Reynolds/The New York Times)

Black Alliance for Peace Condemns the Policies of the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination in Ukraine

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Black Alliance for Peace Condemns the Policies of the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination in Ukraine

The Manufactured Crisis in Ukraine Confirms Why NATO Must be Dismantled

January 12, 2022 — The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) concludes that the full responsibility for the dangerous crisis unfolding in Ukraine has its genesis in the illegal policies of the U.S./EU/NATO “Axis of Domination” beginning in 2014. As the corporate press presents a one-sided presentation of event in Ukraine as part of a massive propaganda effort to mobilize public opinion to support the reckless positions of the Biden administration, BAP believes that the public must be presented with a counternarrative of the chronology of events in Ukraine. BAP National Organizer; Ajamu Baraka summarizes some of those events: 

“During the latter part of 2013 until February 2014, the Obama/Biden administration gave material support and encouragement to anti-democratic right-wing elements in Ukraine to execute “regime change” against the democratically elected government of Victor Yanukovych. This plunged Ukraine into crisis because substantial sectors of Ukrainian society did not support the coup, especially sections of predominantly Russian speaking Ukrainian citizens in the Eastern portions of the nation. Those Ukrainian citizens rejected the legitimacy of the coup government and began to voice support for independence from the neo-Nazi government that took power. And what was the response from the illegal coup regime? It attacked their citizens in the East. In other words, they attacked their own citizens – a crime that the Obama administration pretended was the excuse for U.S. subversion in Syria. “ 

The conflict that ensued as a result of the invasion of Eastern Ukraine by the Ukrainian government with the full support of right-wing paramilitary forces like the neo-Nazi Azov battalions, did not succeed in forcing the republics that subsequently referred to themselves as the Donbas Peoples’ Republic to submit to the coup government.  An agreement between Donbas and the coup government was arrived at that became known as the Minsk II agreement. Terms of the agreement included a commitment to a ceasefire along with relative autonomy for Donbas. The agreement avoided all-out war and provided some degree of “stability” until the Biden administration came back to power. 

Back in power, Biden and the democrats who have now become the party of war, begin to encourage Ukraine authorities to ignore Minsk and to forcefully take back control of Donbas. Even more dangerously, the U.S. and some European powers began to indicate that Ukraine might be invited to become a member of NATO. That could allow NATO with its nuclear weapons to be positioned right on the borders of Russia and with its nuclear arsenal. 

BAP regards NATO as an illegitimate offensive force in the service of Western imperialism. Therefore, we call on all social forces committed to peace to join us in demanding that NATO be dismantled. In the meantime, and specifically on Ukraine, BAP is calling on the international Anti-war movement to demand that the U.S. and NATO deescalate the situation. Concretely this means demanding that: 

1. All parties to the conflict adhere to the provisions reflected in the Minsk II agreement

2. And that the Ukrainian situation is taken up by the United Nations Security Council, the only body by international law tasked with the responsibility to address international threats to peace – not the arbitrary and illegal activities of the United States and its allies. 

The undermining of international law by the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination committed to maintaining Western imperialist hegemony by operating outside the framework of international law, is now seen by much of the non-European world as the primary threat to international peace, security, and human rights. 

BAP shares that assessment and pledges to continue to oppose U.S. policies, understanding that today as it was more than fifty years ago when Dr. King first uttered these words – “the U.S. is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world.” 

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(Banner Photo: US president Joe Biden and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office in September 2021 — Image by The White House)

Black Alliance for Peace Condemns the U.S. National Guard deployment to Horn of Africa

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Kyle Kidd 

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Black Alliance for Peace Condemns the U.S. National Guard deployment to Horn of Africa

On International Human Rights Day, BAP calls for the U.S. to end its military occupation of the African continent

December 10, 2021 -- The US Africa Command, AFRICOM, has launched “Task Force Red Dragon,” which includes more than 2,000 Virginia National Guard (VNG) personnel (by January), the largest VNG deployment since WWII. Added to that will be National Guard Soldiers from Maryland and Kentucky which totals the most soldiers the division has mobilized since 1942. While Maj. Gen. Timothy P. Williams, the Adjutant General of Virginia said, “The soldiers of Task Force Red Dragon are great examples of citizen-soldier service.” The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) rejects the idea that there is any useful service to be had in the continuing U.S. interference in the affairs of sovereign nations on the African continent or elsewhere. BAP demands not only the withdrawal of all U.S. troops in Africa, but the closure of all U.S. bases throughout the world.

According to BAP National Organizer Ajamu Baraka, “U.S. president Joe Biden is exploiting International Human Rights Day with his farcical and exclusionary “Summit for Democracy” in an attempt to advance the obscene notion that the U.S. and by extension the colonial states of Western Europe are somehow the defenders of democracy and human rights. This is despite the increasing lawlessness of the U.S. state in the form of murderous sanctions, support for coups, illegal wars, military agreements and anti-democratic destabilization campaigns in nations across the planet. These actions represent a massive assault on democracy and the dignity and human rights of colonized and racialized peoples and nations across the planet.” 

AFRICOM is responsible for all US Department of Defense operations, exercises, and security operations on the African continent, its island nations and surrounding waters. AFRICOM initially began in 2007 and became fully operational on October 1, 2008. AFRICOM maintains relations with 53 African countries. AFRICOM’s role is to support and work in tandem with US foreign policy in Africa to support its national interests. 

 As Netfa Freeman, co-cordinator of BAP’s Africa Team, reminds us, “the real purpose of AFRICOM is to enable terrorism while at the same time prosecuting the “war on terror” in Africa. This contradictory action ensures that Africa is in a constant state of war and instability. In doing so AFRICOM nurtures and justifies its own reason for being while developing a dependence of African states on AFRICOM for their defense.`` 

BAP believes that this is done to comply with  US and its European allies ‘strategic interests and objectives to have unfettered access to Africa’s natural resources via their comprador neocolonial “partners”. The dependency on AFRICOM by partner African states also facilitates the training of most of Africa’s military by US or NATO forces thereby increasing  their allegiance to US imperialist interests. Research also shows that since the founding of AFRICOM there has been a marked increase in militant extremist groups operating in Africa.

While the Black Alliance for Peace is committed to peace, we understand there can be no peace without justice, and we will stand in solidarity with all peoples (and nations) who strive to liberate themselves from all forms of neocolonial oppression. BAP takes a resolute anti-colonial, anti-imperialist position that links the international role of the U.S. empire to the domestic war against poor people and working-class Black people within the United States. 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. 

The U.S.-EU-NATO axis of domination will ultimately find its deathbed in Africa at the hands of the Pan-African masses. We support African-led, localized conflict resolution that is not tied to advancing imperialism, neo-colonialism or any other nefarious Western agendas. 

International human rights day is a perfect opportunity to reaffirm our commitment to authentic democracy and People(s)-Centered Human Rights. 

The deployment of U.S. troops to Africa and the phony democracy summit are a reminder that we must remain vigilant against all efforts to confuse the real intent of the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of domination. All of our organizing and mobilizations must have one objective- to  forge transcontinental public cooperation that will save ourselves from the greatest threat to peace and stability on the planet, the U.S. government. 

(Banner Photo: American special forces training with West African soldiers in 2018 in Agadez, Niger. Credit: Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times)

Black Alliance for Peace Condemns Trial of Black Activist Dedan Waciuri as a Violation of Human Rights

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Kyle Kidd

press@blackallianceforpeace.com

202 643-1136        

Black Alliance for Peace Condemns Trial of Black Activist Dedan Waciuri as a Violation of Human Rights

December 6, 2021 -- After a number of delays and questionable prosecutorial behavior in their attempts to force a plea-deal because of the weakness of their case, Dedan Waciuri, a resident of Greenville, North Carolina is scheduled to be tried December 7th in the city of Greenville on two charges: “damage to government property” and “inciting a riot.” These charges stem from a protest organized in Greenville on May 31, 2020, in relation to the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and police violence directed at members of the Black community in general.

The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP), a national anti-war and human rights organization believes that the charges against Dedan, a member of BAP’s Coordinating Committee, are a blatant attempt to send a message to the Black communities in Eastern North Carolina that resistance to oppression and the fight for human rights will result in confronting the full weight of the power of the state.

According to Ajamu Baraka, internationally recognized human rights activist and spokesperson for BAP, “It is no accident that Dedan is one of over thirteen thousand activists arrested across the country during the anti-police violence demonstrations sparked by the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. The response to those protests across the country resulted in massive human rights violations by U.S. authorities. Therefore, it is not ironic but consistent, that Dedan is facing imprisonment for defending the collective human rights of his community and people three days before International Human Rights Day.”    

Activists and human rights organizations from around the country have been contacting the Pitt County prosecutors demanding that they stop the charade and drop the charges against Dedan.

Background to Governmental repression targeting Black activists:

Domestic political repression is considered by many to be a relic of the past with examples like the FBI’s COINTELPRO, but it continues to this day as a valuable tool of the state to attack liberatory movements.  

There are also numerous changes and attempted changes in state laws across the country with the intent to criminalize protest and silence dissent.  In May of this year, the NC House of Representatives attempted to pass HB 805, a measure that would impose harsh penalties for protesters who are charged with “rioting.”

In Greenville and other communities in Eastern North Carolina, police and other state agencies have continuously made targets out of activists who speak up for Black lives. Dedan’s case is the city’s response to a community organizer and the people’s democratic rights to speech, resistance, and justice.

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(Banner Photo: Dedan Waciuri of CAR leads a canvassing group educating about the Sterling Point neighborhood that black people have been forced to move to because of the gentrification and policy violence causing displacement and dispossession.)

The News From the Venezuela Election? Victory for the People of Venezuela and Defeat for the U.S.

Black Alliance for Peace Statement on Venezuelan Elections

The news out of Venezuela related to the elections is that there is no news. All attempts to attack and delegitimize the process failed and the people of that beleaguered nation once again chose independence and dignity over surrendering to the imperialist gangsterism of the United States and their white supremacist, European colonial allies.

For the first time in four years elements of the political opposition participated in elections that saw nearly 70,000 candidates representing 37 national political parties and 43 regional organizations for 23 governors, 335 mayors, 253 lawmakers, and 2,471 councilors.

Demonstrating once again that it is committed to open, fair, and clean elections, the Consejo National Electoral (CNE), the governmental body responsible for organizing elections in the country, issued credentials to over 300 international observers from 55 countries and institutions such as the European Union (EU), the United Nations (UN), and the Carter Center.

The result?

The “Great Patriotic Pole” (GPP), a coalition of parties and social movements organized by the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), won overwhelmingly including 20 out of 23 key governorships in the sub-national election.

According to BAP National Organizer Ajamu Baraka, “The support of the Venezuelan people for their process demonstrates once again, like what we just saw in the Nicaraguan elections and the failed revolt in Cuba on the 15th, that the white supremacists do not understand that when a people have tasted freedom, reconnected with their pre-colonial cultural traditions of knowledge production and independence, they become immune to the political, ideological and material attempts to drive them back into subordination.”

The elections in Venezuela and Nicaragua, the abandonment of reactionary forces in Cuba by the Cuban people, and the solidarity from progressive forces globally in support of the struggles for national liberation and self-determination in the Americas, represent the upsurge of popular opposition and the growing weakness and fragility of U.S. and European imperialism.

They all forcefully affirm that the colonial realities are being reversed. It is a victory for all oppressed, colonized, and working-class peoples when a people, working to build a new society for themselves freed from the dehumanizing effects of the colonial/capitalist system, are able to withstand the systematic assaults on their democratic process and national sovereignty. BAP stands firmly with all of these attempts and proudly salutes the people of Venezuela.

No compromise, no retreat! 

#NoMore U.S. in Africa: BAP Statement to Nov. 21st Rallies for Ethiopia

We in the Black Alliance for Peace stand in uncompromising opposition to the U.S.-led imperialist aggression against Ethiopia and by extension against her neighboring countries Eritrea, Somalia, and beyond. U.S. policy against Ethiopia cannot be understood without putting it within the broader context of U.S. imperialism’s geostrategic interest in the Horn of Africa in particular, and the whole of Africa in general. 

It is not lost on the Black radicals and revolutionary Pan-Africanists that the U.S. settler colonialist state is an extension of Western Europe and as such it is motivated by a white supremacist, imperialist worldview. 

In spite of its benevolent rhetoric, the U.S.’ unwavering commitment to full spectrum dominance reveals the only true intentions it has for Ethiopia and for our homeland, Africa. Since the 1950s African movements against colonialism and for continental unity, have been sabotaged by U.S. administrations of both parties. Leaders such as Patrice Lumumba of Congo were assassinated by the CIA, and Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana was overthrown in a CIA orchestrated coup. Ten years  ago, the U.S. led the NATO bombing of Libya  which decimated the country, killing not only the leader Muammar Gaddafi but also an untold number of Libyans. This was the first operation of its U.S. Africa Command, AFRICOM, that has since been responsible for thoroughly militarizing the continent of Africa, including waging an unmitigated drone war in Somalia.

The relative instability in Ethiopia can only be sustained through U.S. support. The empty rhetoric from officials like U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken represents the propaganda aspect of the hybrid war waged against Ethiopia.

It is important that we see the sanctions, media misinformation, and arrogant ultimatums by U.S. imperialism for what they are; the desperate machinations of a global power in crisis. 

Western imperialism is being confronted by people-centered expressions of resistance in Africa and globally.

This week a French military convoy from Ivory Coast transiting across Burkina Faso towards Niger (a source of uranium for France) was stopped by 10,000 demonstrators demanding that the French forces evacuate from the region. The convoy had already been stopped on November 17th in the Burkina Faso city of Bobo Dioulasso and on the 18th in the capital of Ouagadougou. The imperialist press won’t cover this resistance.

Now expressions of solidarity from around the world are standing up for the Horn of Africa. 

While the Black Alliance for Peace is committed to peace, we understand there can be no peace without justice, and we will stand in solidarity with all peoples (and nations) who strive to liberate themselves from all forms of neocolonial oppression. 

BAP takes a resolute anti-colonial, anti-imperialist position that links the international role of the U.S. empire to the domestic war against poor people and working-class Black people within the United States.

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 must all transform our mobilizations into organized protracted struggle that forges a transcontinental cooperation that will save ourselves from the greatest threat to peace and stability on the planet, the U.S. government. 

The U.S.-EU-NATO axis of domination will ultimately find its deathbed in Africa at the hands of the Pan-African masses.

U.S. out of Africa!

Shut down AFRICOM!

No compromise!

No retreat!

Banner photo: Refugees, who arrived recently from Ethiopia, setting up their shelter in Sudan. (UNFPA/Sufian Abdul-Mouty)

Black Alliance for Peace Condemns U.S. Sponsorship of Reactionary Anti-government Protests Against Cuba

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Black Alliance for Peace Condemns U.S. Sponsorship of Reactionary Anti-government Protests Against Cuba

The US government continues to amplify its war on the Cuban people through political, economic, and media efforts. In their own words, the US State Department has announced its role in organizing reactionary protests in Cuba, scheduled for November 15 as a continuation of the #SOSCuba campaign that began in July. The US has also preemptively threatened to place even more sanctions on Cuba if it deems that the Cuban government has interfered with the protests. As we know, sanctions kill, and while these will be framed as supporting human rights, the 60+-year long blockade and recent Trump and Biden administration crackdowns are war tactics that represent violence against the Cuban people, particularly Afro-Cubans. 

The Black Alliance for Peace’s Haiti/Americas Committee recognizes these signals as part of a long-term concerted attempt to destabilize and delegitimize the Cuban government, whose socialist principles and decades-long defiance of US imperialism are unacceptable to the US white supremacist empire. As Mint Press News has reported, the US appears to be exerting a ‘soft power’ strategy to orchestrate a color revolution in Cuba, co-opting language around human rights and racial justice while simultaneously ignoring such concerns at home.

We condemn this interventionism by the US government, and call on all supporters to stand in solidarity with the Cuban people and against the broad US war on Cuba. We also recognize these acts as a continuation of US-sponsored regime change, capitalist exploitation, and military intervention in the region – from Haiti to Bolivia to Nicaragua and beyond. We must stay vigilant of US propaganda, such as false claims of “Havana Syndrome,” US State Department statements preemptively dismissing the democratic elections in Nicaragua, and the dubious deployment of charges of antiBlackness against Cuba. We must also condemn attempts by US liberals to co-opt and weaponize radical language to garner support from the US left. Included below are a few opportunities to show solidarity:

Rally in solidarity with the Cuban people: Monday, November 15th at 12p in front of the Cuban Embassy, 2630 16th St NW, Washington, DC. (Organized by Black Workers Center Chorus, DC metro Coalition, Code Pink, and BAP-affiliate, Friends of the Congo)

War on Cuba series: Belly of the Beast Cuba has recently launched the second season. Black Alliance for Peace’s Haiti/Americas Committee will co-sponsor a webinar with Belly of the Beast on Saturday November 20th at 5pm EST to discuss the US war on Cuba’s impact on Afro-Cubans and the connections to broader US militarism and imperialism in the Americas.

Political Education: As a starting point, we recommend BAP member organization Hood Communist’s Guide to understanding the US blockade on Cuba - Don’t Get Caught Slippin’. Belly of the Beast’s recent Instagram series of #FromUnderTheEmpire offers a brief overview of the history of Cuban struggle against imperialism, from 1800 to present.

The people of Cuba have endured decades of insults, attacks, and systematic subversion but their revolutionary moral has not been broken. The Black Alliance for Peace will never abandon the Cuban people. We remember how revolutionary Cuba responded to the call made by African comrades to help them confront the colonial occupations. BAP pledges to stand with Cuba today, ready to sacrifice and struggle until victory. 

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

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

For Immediate Release

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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

For Immediate Release

Media Contact: Tunde Osazua
(404) 771-2844
outreach@blackallianceforpeace.com

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

For Immediate Release

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

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
(202) 643-1136

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
(202) 643-1136

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)