BAP Atlanta SAYS FREE THEM ALL!

BAP Atlanta SAYS FREE THEM ALL

Statement on Cop City Indictments

On September 5th, 2023, Georgia's Attorney General Chris Carr issued RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) indictments against 61 individuals who they allege to be part of a “criminal” conspiracy related to the Stop Cop City Movement.  Many of those indicted face concurring charges related to domestic terrorism or money laundering. 

At the core, these charges are both fraudulent and tyrannical. In the indictment, these charges were indicated as beginning on May 25, 2020 – the day George Floyd was murdered. How can that be anything but a warning shot to not only local Atlantans, but to everybody across the country fighting against police and state terror. Our history tells us that the State, when threatened, will drop all pretense of “rule of law” in order to crush resistance. Our current moment tells us this.

Compared to two years ago, the Stop Cop City Movement has spread far and wide into a burgeoning popular mass movement, no longer confined to the city limits of Atlanta, and our fire is getting bigger and they are doing everything to snuff it out! We must be vigilant if we are to stand against these tried-and-true methods of oppressions. We must be determined in freeing all of the political prisoners created from this struggle. 

And we won’t let anyone off the hook. Reports are saying that the same grand jury used to indict Donald Trump was also used to indict these activists. While we are not distracted by the Trump Trials, this context must be investigated. Therefore one must ask what level of collusion was there between Fani Willis, the Fulton County DA, State AG Carr, and of course the City of Atlanta? Grand juries are selected by prosecutors to virtually guarantee indictments. This must mean the Fulton County DA and State AG agreed to use the same group of people to rubber stamp both the Trump indictments (indicted under the same Georgia RICO statute) and these Cop City indictments.

We will not be distracted from what's happening in front of our eyes. It wasn’t just the Georgia State Patrol who carried out the extrajudicial murder of Manuel “Tortuguita” Teran in the Weelaunee Forest this past January, a murder they continue to cover up in these very indictments! And we can’t forget the City of Atlanta with Mayor Andre Dickens at the helm, spending the better part of his summer trying to sink a constitutional and legal referendum against Cop City with bogus legal challenges, leveraging some of the same legal tactics he slams his Republican opponents for!

The soldiers of the pan-European, patriarchal white supremacist system are in a United Front against Us, the People. It is imperative now more than ever that we strengthen our United Front against them. 

• BAP Atlanta demands that all charges against Stop Cop City protestors are dropped,

• BAP Atlanta demands that the Mayor Andre Dickens resign and the City of Atlanta cancel the Cop City lease,

• BAP Atlanta demands that all political prisoners incarcerated in the state of Georgia be pardoned and released. FREE THEM ALL!

No Compromise, No Retreat!

BAP-Atlanta

bapatl@blackallianceforpeace.com

Banner photo: Marching protesters in Atlanta, Georgia holding banner that says “Stop Cop City” , Friday, March 10, 2023. (Courtesy Camila Cuevas/Latino Rebels)

No to Blackface imperialism. Yes to Haitian Sovereignty

OPPOSE FOREIGN INTERVENTION IN HAITI

No to Blackface imperialism. Yes to Haitian Sovereignty.

On August 1, 2023, the United States stated it would “put forward a U.N. Security Council resolution that will authorize Kenya to lead a multinational police force to help combat gangs in Haiti.” While Kenya has offered to deploy a contingent of 1,000 police officers to help train and assist Haitian police, ostensibly to “restore order” in the Caribbean republic,” their proposal is nothing more than military occupation by another name. An occupation of Haiti by an African country is not Pan-Africanism, but Western imperialism in Black face. By agreeing to send troops into Haiti, the Kenyan government is assisting in undermining the sovereignty and self-determination of Haitian people, while serving the neocolonial interests of the United States, the Core Group, and the United Nations.

For the last two years, these imperialist forces have been pushing for further armed intervention into Haiti to forcefully uphold the illegitimate “government” they have installed to maintain their control. The occupying entities of the US, United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH), and the Core Group have been desperately searching for any multilateral institution to lead this intervention, be it the UN Security Council, Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), and others. The goal is the continued denial of Haitian sovereignty.  

Haiti’s occupiers, the Core Group and BINUH, along with their puppet government, are incapable of ensuring healthcare, food, security, and access to basic needs for the people. We are told that the interest of the U.S. is humanitarian, that it wants to protect the Haitian people from “gang violence.” But we know that Haiti’s imperial occupiers have created the crisis and have fueled the violence against Haitian people.

The Black Alliance for Peace stands in solidarity with the Haitian’s people’s constant call for disbanding the Core Group, for an arms embargo against the Haitian and U.S. elite who import guns into the country, for the end of support for Haiti’s installed puppet government, and for the reinstatement of the fuel subsidies removed by order of the IMF.  It is curious that the Core Group and US/UN are calling for military intervention while not making calls to build either hospitals or schools, or to build the infrastructure for power and clean water. Yet, BINUH and the Core Group cooperate with the oligarchs who establish monopolistic domination through intimidation and force.

The ongoing occupation of Haiti and calls for increased foreign military presence in Haiti have been justified as the only solution to political or economic crises. Yet, the true ongoing crisis in Haiti is a crisis of imperialism. The country's economic and social situation has reached a critical stage, allowing for  increased political instability.

BAP demands that Kenya rescind their proposal to send 1,000 police to Haiti, and calls on the Kenyan people to join the Haitian masses and radical voices worldwide in condemning the continued occupation and governance of Haiti by the Core Group and the UN.

BAP calls on individuals and organizations in the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean and Central and Latin America, especially those member states of CELAC and CARICOM, to demand that their elected representatives SAY NO to any resolution at present or in the future to militarily intervene in Haiti.

BAP calls on individuals and organizations on the continent of Africa, particularly Pan-African organizations, to denounce African governments participation in present or future armed intervention into Haiti, and demand leaders of their countries seek true Pan-African alliances with the people and grassroots organizations of Haiti, in support of their sovereignty and self-determination – in line with demands of 60+ Haitian civic and social organizations in their letter to the African Union, dated 6 August 2023  (English | Francés).

BAP calls for popular movements in the Americas in support of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) 2014 call to make the Americas region a Zone of Peace.

SIGN HERE

Call, tweet, and email these demands to: 

Kenya: Ambassador William Ruto 

(202) 387-6101

Email: information@kenyembassydc.org or complaints@kenyaembassydc.org

Twitter: @KenyaembassyDC or@ForeignOfficeKE or @StateHouseKenya

Jamaica: Ambassador Audrey Patrice Marks

(202) 452-0660

Email: contactus@jamaicaembassy.org

Twitter: @USEmbassyJA

The Bahamas: Ambassador Wendall K. Jones

(202) 319-2660

Email: EMBASSY@BAHAMASEMBDC.ORG

Twitter: @bahamasembassy

CARICOM: CARICOM Secretariat

Turkeyen Georgetown, Guyana

Email registry@caricom.org or communications@caricom.org 

 +1(592) 222-0001

Twitter: @CARICOMorg

UN: UN Secretary-General António Guterres 

(212) 963-7160

Twitter: @antonioguterres

No to occupation. No to foreign intervention. No to Blackface imperialism. 

Yes to sovereignty. Yes to a true Pan-African alliance between the people of Haiti and Kenya.  

#HandsOffHaiti

Banner photo: Painting of French colonizing soldier being hung from trees by Haitian rebels. (courtesy PBS Documentary - Egalite for All: Toussaint Louverture & The Haitian Revolution)

All Africans Should Condemn the Call for an ECOWAS-led Military Invasion of Niger

All Africans Should Condemn the Call for an ECOWAS-led Military Invasion of Niger

The Africa Team of the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) and the U.S. Out of Africa Network (USOAN) condemn the threats of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to lead a military intervention into Niger. We believe this would be an act of subservience to U.S./EU/NATO interests. As Western imperialism seems to be losing its neo-colonialist grip on Africa, it is trying to expand its use of puppets and proxies to undermine resistance.

The military coup in Niger on July 26 deposed President Mohamed Bazoum and installed General Abdourahamane Tchiani as the country's new leader. In power since 2021, Bazoum and his party were reliable servants of French and U.S. imperialism. This may help explain why the United States and its NATO allies seemed overly concerned about this particular coup.

The West’s hypocritical claims of standing for “democracy” in Niger fall flat when compared to its response to the military coup in Sudan as well as the political repression faced by the popular movement in that country. The United States (and its Western partners) has had a hand in orchestrating countless coups in Africa, such as those against democratically elected leaders Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Patrice Lumumba of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso, to name a few.

The objective of the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination is colonial control of Niger and the Sahel region. France and other EU countries rely on Niger for 15-30 percent of their uranium imports, critical to Europe's nuclear energy sector. Meanwhile, the majority of Niger’s population doesn’t even have access to electricity. Furthermore, Niger is the last state in West Africa where a large number of Western soldiers are stationed under the U.S. “War on Terror” regime. The $100 million U.S. base in Agadez, Niger, is where the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) operates its drones, and is just one such AFRICOM facility in that country.

As Ezra Otieno, member of the Revolutionary Socialist League in Kenya and BAP’s U.S. Out of Africa Network Steering Committee, says:

“For all of these factors, France, the EU, and the U.S. are keen to maintain control over Niger. They aim to push the new authorities to restore their puppet Bazoum or to reach an arrangement with General Tchiani to maintain his predecessor's pro-Western stance. If these preparations fail within the next few days, Western imperialists want to intervene militarily with the support of their foot soldiers in the Nigeria-dominated ECOWAS bloc.”

It is clear that the United States and France have decided to draw a line here before France is expelled and U.S. interests are threatened. Without NATO, the United States or France, ECOWAS would not be able to intervene. It is telling that, of all the coups in Africa, ECOWAS is ready to intervene militarily in Niger. This is because their masters in the West demand it. Apparently, ECOWAS member states have chosen servitude to imperialism over the people's will.

In Haiti, the imperialists use Kenya and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) as cover for their intervention. To do the same for the coup in Niger, they have the President of Nigeria, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and ECOWAS. Now they are facing a united front composed of Burkina Faso, and Mali, whose leadership have all expressed support for Niger’s sovereignty. While the CNRD of Guinea, Comité national du rassemblement et du développement (National Committee of Reconciliation and Development) is not part of the front, their Spokesperson, Aminata Diallo said that if “…requested by ECOWAS to send troops that we would refuse…”

ECOWAS is working as a comprador structure, along with the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA), which has levied financial sanctions against Niger and the coup leaders. The situation in Niger demands an African response, not the imperialist-led and anti-people militarized one suggested by members of ECOWAS.

The Black Alliance for Peace October 2023 International Month of Action against western militarization of the African continent, demanding that the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) is shut down, will be more important than ever before. The annual Month of Action is an opportunity for political education and action that links the domestic war being waged against African peoples in the United States with the war that the United States wages on the continent of Africa and globally.

From Haiti to Niger and beyond, we must build an understanding of Pan-Africanism and illuminate the interdependent geo-political and economic interests among African/Black people in Haiti, the Americas, the African continent, and among those domestically colonized in the enclaves of the imperialist countries.

No to imperialism in Black face. Yes to Pan-African self-determination. U.S. Out of Africa!

Banner photo: Supporters of Niger's ruling junta gather at the start of a protest called to fight for the country's freedom and push back against foreign interference in Niamey, Niger, Thursday, Aug. 3, 2023. (Courtesy AP Photo/Sam Mednick)

In Haiti, Kenya Chooses Imperialist Servitude Over Pan-African Solidarity

ESPAÑOL ABAJO

In Haiti, Kenya Chooses Imperialist Servitude Over Pan-African Solidarity

For Immediate Release

Media Contact:

(201) 292-4591

communications@blackallianceforpeace.com

AUGUST 3, 2023—The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) condemns in the strongest possible terms Kenya’s proposal to lead what amounts to a foreign armed intervention in Haiti. 

Kenya has offered to deploy a contingent of 1,000 police officers to help train and assist Haitian police, ostensibly to “restore order” in the Caribbean republic. Yet, their proposal is nothing more than military occupation by another name; an occupation of Haiti by an African country is not Pan-Africanism, but Western imperialism in Black face. By agreeing to send troops into Haiti, the Kenyan government is assisting in undermining the sovereignty and self-determination of Haitian people, while serving the neocolonial interests of the United States, the Core Group, and the United Nations.

There is an urgent need for clarity on the issue of occupation in Haiti. As described in a recent statement on Haiti and Colonialism, Haiti is under ongoing occupation. No call for foreign intervention into Haiti from the administration of appointed Prime Minister Ariel Henry can be considered legitimate, because the Henry administration itself is illegitimate. BAP has repeatedly pointed out that Haiti’s crisis is a crisis of imperialism. Haiti’s current unpopular and unelected government is propped up only by Haiti’s de facto imperial rulers: the unseemly confederacy of the Core Group countries and organizations, as well as BINUH (the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti), and a loose alliance of foreign corporations and local elites. 

Henry and the UN have made a mockery of sovereignty by mouthing the slogan “Haitian solutions to Haitian problems,” yet finding the only solution in violence through foreign military intervention. After repeated failed attempts to organize an occupying force to protect their interests and impose their will on the Haitian people (including appeals to the multinational organization, the Caribbean Community [CARICOM] for troops), they have now found a willing accomplice in Kenya, an east African country with its own set of internal problems. 

As Austin Cole, co-coordinator of the BAP Haiti/Americas Team, argues: “At best, Kenya is allowing itself to be used in a violent line of neocolonial puppetry that will inevitably result in more death and imperial plunder for the masses of Haitians. At worst, Kenya sees this as an easy opportunity to serve the colonial ‘masters’ and win favor for political and financial needs.” 

Indeed, what’s in it for Kenya? An opportunity to both train and enhance the salaries of local police forces and garner a patina of prestige, or at least bootlicking approval, from the West. And for Haiti? White blows from a Black hand and a further erosion of their sovereignty.

BAP demands that Kenya rescind their proposal to send 1,000 police to Haiti, while calling on the Kenyan people to join the Haitian masses and radical voices worldwide in condemning the continued occupation and governance of Haiti by the Core Group and the UN. 

No to occupation. No to foreign intervention. No to Black face imperialism. Yes to sovereignty. Yes to a true Pan-African alliance between the people of Haiti and Kenya.

Banner photo: Police officers patrol a street in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince (courtesy Marvens Compère/Haitian Times)

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En Español

En Haití, Kenia Prefiere la Servidumbre Imperialista a la Solidaridad PanAfricana

Para Publicación Inmediata

Contacto de Prensa:
(201) 292-4591
communications@blackallianceforpeace.com

3 de AGOSTO de 2023—La Alianza Negra por la Paz (BAP) condena en los términos más enérgicos posibles la propuesta de Kenia de liderar lo que equivale a una intervención armada extranjera en Haití.

Kenia ha ofrecido desplegar un contingente de 1.000 policías para ayudar a capacitar y ayudar a la policía haitiana, supuestamente para "restaurar el orden" en la república caribeña. Sin embargo, su propuesta no es más que una ocupación militar con otro nombre; una ocupación de Haití por un país africano no es panafricanismo, sino imperialismo occidental de rostro negro. Al aceptar enviar tropas a Haití, el gobierno keniano está contribuyendo a socavar la soberanía y la autodeterminación del pueblo haitiano, al tiempo que sirve a los intereses neocoloniales de Estados Unidos, el ‘Core Group’ y las Naciones Unidas.

Urge aclarar la cuestión de la ocupación en Haití. Como se describe en una reciente declaración sobre Haití y el colonialismo, Haití está bajo una ocupación continua. Ningún llamado a la intervención extranjera en Haití por parte de la administración del nombrado Primer Ministro Ariel Henry puede considerarse legítimo, porque la propia administración Henry es ilegítima. BAP ha señalado en repetidas ocasiones que la crisis de Haití es una crisis del imperialismo. El actual gobierno de Haití, impopular y no electo, solo es sostenido por los gobernantes imperiales de facto de Haití: la indecorosa confederación de países y organizaciones del ‘Core Group’, así como la BINUH (Oficina Integrada de las Naciones Unidas en Haití), y una vaga alianza de corporaciones extranjeras y élites locales.

Henry y la ONU han hecho un desprecio a la soberanía al repetir el eslogan "soluciones haitianas para problemas haitianos", pero encontrando la única solución en la violencia a través de la intervención militar extranjera. Después de repetidos intentos fallidos de organizar una fuerza de ocupación para proteger sus intereses e imponer su voluntad sobre el pueblo haitiano (incluidos llamados a la organización multinacional, la Comunidad del Caribe [CARICOM], para enviar tropas), ahora han encontrado un cómplice dispuesto en Kenia, un país de África Oriental con sus propios problemas internos.

Como argumenta Austin Cole, co-coordinador del Equipo Haití/Américas de BAP: "En el mejor de los casos, Kenia se está dejando utilizar en una violenta línea de títeres neocolonial que inevitablemente resultará en más muertes y saqueo imperial para las masas de haitianos. En el peor de los casos, Kenia ve la intervención como una oportunidad fácil para servir a los 'amos' coloniales y obtener favor político y financiero."

¿Qué gana Kenia con ello? Una oportunidad para formar y mejorar los salarios de las fuerzas policiales locales y obtener una pátina de prestigio, o al menos la aprobación de Occidente. ¿Y para Haití? Golpes blancos de una mano negra y una mayor erosión de su soberanía.

BAP exige que Kenia rescinda su propuesta de enviar 1.000 policías a Haití, mientras hace un llamado al pueblo keniano para que se una a las masas haitianas y a las voces radicales de todo el mundo en la condena de la continua ocupación y gobernación de Haití por parte del Core Group y la ONU.

No a la ocupación. No a la intervención extranjera. No al imperialismo con rostro negro. Sí a la soberanía. Sí a una verdadera alianza panafricana entre el pueblo de Haití y Kenia.

Fotografía del encabezamiento: Agentes de policía patrullan una calle de Puerto Príncipe, la capital haitiana (cortesía de Marvens Compère/Haitian Times)

Black Alliance for Peace Once Again Calls on International Community To Reject U.S./U.N./CARICOM Plan for An Armed Intervention of Haiti

Black Alliance for Peace Once Again Calls on International Community To Reject U.S./U.N./CARICOM Plan for An Armed Intervention of Haiti

No to Foreign Militarism, Yes to Self-Determination!

For Immediate Release July 17, 2023

Media Contact: 

info@blackallianceforpeace.com 

(201) 292-4591

The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) is alarmed that representatives of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) are at the forefront of the call for armed intervention in Haiti calling on Rwanda and Kenya to help lead the charge. Once again the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) calls on the international community to reject U.S., UN, and CARICOM plans for an armed intervention in Haiti. We have been consistent in our support for Haitian people who view the presence of the United Nations Integrated Office (BINUH) and the Core Group as a foreign occupation. Since 2004, they have suppressed Haiti’s independence and sovereignty. A U.S./UN-led armed foreign intervention in Haiti is not only illegitimate, but illegal. 

CARICOM has caved in to pressure from the Biden administration and now supports the US/UN plan to violently attack Haiti under the racist guise of humanitarian intervention. This stance reverses a position that many members of CARICOM held early this spring; at that time, the organization’s president and Prime Minister of Bahamas, Philip Davis, said that the Caribbean countries had no intention of sending forces to Haiti. BAP condemns CARICOM’s betrayal of the people of Haiti and their complicity in surrendering regional sovereignty to the U.S. and the Core Group’s undemocratic and imperialist aims.

And what was the argument advanced by U.S. officials concerning Haiti? We are told that the interest of the U.S. is humanitarian, that it wants to protect the Haitian people from gang violence. Yet, no mention has been made of the Haitian people’s constant call for the disbanding of the Core Group, for an arms embargo against the Haitian and U.S. elite who import guns into the country, for the end of support for Haiti’s installed puppet government, and for the deep financial crises placed on the people by the IMF-led move to remove fuel subsidies. There are no calls to build either hospitals or schools. And there are no efforts to provide asylum for the thousands of Haitians in the United States, Mexico – and the CARICOM countries themselves.

The call for an armed intervention of Haiti is not about humanitarianism. Indeed, as Erica Caines, co-coordinator of BAP’s Haiti/Americas Team, argues:

 “It is an ahistorical absurdity that U.S. officials would have any concerns about the lives of the Black people of Haiti. The U.S. has one agenda, and one agenda only, and that is to maintain its hegemonic control over the peoples and territories of the Caribbean and Latin America. The real reason for the violent intervention into Haiti by the U.S. with its European allies, is to shore-up the undemocratic and illegitimate government of Ariel Henry.”

It is understandable that unprincipled servants to white power like Hakeem Jeffries, the leader of the U.S. House Democrats who attended the CARICOM meeting along with the warmongering U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, would advocate for an imperialist military assault into Haiti to prop-up its unelected puppet regime. But it is a sad day for the Caribbean that a majority of the Black heads of state in CARICOM have agreed to give political cover to this white power intervention against the dignity and rights of the Haitian people. As we said in our earlier letter to CARICOM, “We call on your countries to respect Haitian sovereignty and to support the Haitian masses in their stand against the ongoing occupation of their country by foreign powers.”

BAP, once again, is also compelled to call on the representatives of the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation to vote against any UNSC resolution sanctioning military force to Haiti.

In our initial communication with the representatives from Russia and China, we made it clear that, “in alignment with the wishes of the Haitian masses and their supporters, [we] absolutely stand against any foreign armed intervention in Haiti.” We further demand a stop to the unending meddling in Haitian affairs by the United States and Western powers. We hope that the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China will stand with the people of Haiti in its fight for liberation by voting NO on another military invasion to brutalize the long-suffering Haitian masses.

No to Occupation! No to Foreign Militarism! No to CARICOM Neocolonialism!

Yes to Self-Determination!

Banner photo: A man waves a red flag during a protest against fuel price hikes. [AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph]

Abolish the GILEE Program and Stop Cop City: A Statement From the Black Alliance for Peace Atlanta Citywide Alliance

The Black Alliance for Peace Atlanta Citywide Alliance (BAP-Atlanta), rooted in the legacy of anti-imperialist, anti-war, and pro-peace movements within the African/Black community, firmly denounces the ongoing exchange between the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange (GILEE) program, the Atlanta Police Foundation’s Atlanta Police Leadership Institute, and the Israeli Occupying Forces, scheduled May 14-22nd, 2023—and the urban warfare training facility, Cop City.

As an empire conceived in settler-colonial violence, the United States continues to impose systems of militarized control upon African/Black, Indigenous, and Palestinian communities. This oppressive reality manifests itself through international interventions, such as the GILEE program, as well as domestic initiatives, like the proposed $90 million police-training facility, Cop City. Local residents and activists have been demanding an end to GILEE for many years.

GILEE's training exchange with the Israeli Occupying Forces disrespectfully falls during the 75th anniversary of the Nakba, the violent displacement of more than 750,000 Palestinians during the 1948 invasion of Palestine by Zionist settlers, an event marked by the bloody, brutal, destructive ethnic cleansing and occupation of more than 500 Palestinian villages. This violent occupation continues today with the complete and unwavering support from the United States military-industrial-complex, particularly in military assistance. According to the 2022 Congressional Research Service Report:

“Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign assistance since World War II. To date, the United States has provided Israel $150 billion (current, or noninflation-adjusted, dollars) in bilateral assistance and missile defense funding. At present, almost all U.S. bilateral aid to Israel is in the form of military assistance; from 1971 to 2007, Israel also received significant economic assistance.” 

The continued mass settler violence against Palestinians, and the proxy state supported by the United States for geopolitical reasons, has established an enduring legacy of conflict and injustice in the region, amid escalating violence against Palestinians. This disturbing reality illuminates the web of global imperialism and racial oppression that stretches from the occupied West Bank to Atlanta's neighborhoods.

Simultaneously, we face the Atlanta city government's insidious plot to lease 381 acres of stolen Muscogee (Creek) land, known as Weelaunee Forest, to the Atlanta Police Foundation. This massive proposed police training facility, Cop City, funded predominantly by taxpayers, is a brutal example of colonial-capitalist fascism in action. Designed to refine the tactics of urban warfare and repression, Cop City epitomizes the connections between white supremacy-fueled genocide, militarism and oppression. It threatens to expand the cycle of state-sanctioned violence and political repression upon working-class African/Black and Indigenous communities, and would further expand the GILEE program’s resources and capabilities. 

BAP-Atlanta asserts the unwavering link between the liberation struggles of African/Black and Indigenous peoples. We stand against the oppressive forces of white supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy and colonization. We demand the immediate abolition of the GILEE program, a halt to the construction of Cop City and accountability for all acts of state-sanctioned violence.

Our collective human rights, our dignity and our very lives are at stake. We demand justice, transparency, and the immediate cessation of all activities contributing to the operation of GILEE and Cop City.

Abolish the GILEE program! 

Stop Cop City!

No Compromise, No Retreat!

BAP-Atlanta

bapatl@blackallianceforpeace.com

Banner photo: Senior GA police and public safety executives post for photo upon return from Police Executive Training in Israel (courtesy of news.gsu.edu)

BAP-DC Statement on Haitian Flag Day

First delivered on May 18, 2023, during a Haitian Flag Day demonstration in Washington, D.C., to answer the Haiti Action Committee’s call

BAP-DC, a citywide alliance in Washington, D.C., of the Black Alliance for Peace, extends warm and revolutionary greetings to the resilient working-class and poor people of Haiti on this 220th commemoration of Haitian Flag Day. We understand it was on this day, in 1803, that the Haitian people adopted their flag. Just six months later, the Haitian people defeated the enslavers and colonizers, ensuring their place in history as the first republic of African people in the world.

We understand the colonizers have persisted in oppressing Haiti, despite the Haitian people's victory 219 years ago. The people of Haiti have been forced to *quote* "repay" the slaveowners they defeated. Then they lived through coups, coup attempts, international bodies slapped together to claim authority over the island and over the Americas, as well as an insidious collaboration between the comprador class and Haiti's white elite. Despite all this, Haiti's poor and working-class people have stood on all ten toes, remaining vigilant in their quest for total liberation.

We also understand the role of the U.S. government in the oppression the Haitian people face today. It is why images of thousands of Haitians in the streets demanding an end to U.S./Canada/EU domination do not appear in the media that the people of the United States are mostly exposed to. It is why we only hear reports of so-called "gangs" made up of poor people, who somehow get access to guns, while being unable to afford shoes for their feet.

But that is why BAP-DC is here: To expose the contradictions and the hypocrisy of the Pan-European colonial-capitalist project from within the belly of the biggest empire in human history. We do this because we understand Haiti as the source of inspiration for liberation struggles throughout our Americas. And that is why BAP is spearheading an effort with key forces throughout the Americas to build a people(s)-centered Zone of Peace in our Americas.

And so we say: Hands off Haiti! Make our Americas a Zone of Peace! No compromise! No retreat! Forward ever! Backward never!

Banner photo: Battle of Vertières by Ulrick Jean-Pierre

BAP Demands a Thorough Investigation Into U.S. Involvement in the Assassination of Former Haitian President Jovenel Moïse

BAP Demands a Thorough Investigation Into U.S. Involvement in the Assassination of Former Haitian President Jovenel Moïse

MAY 11, 2023—The Haiti/Americas Team of the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) and BAP member organization, MOLEGHAF, request the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) launch a serious and in-depth investigation into the assassination of former Haitian de facto President Jovenel Moïse. We demand to know the truth concerning U.S. and other foreign countries’ complicity in plotting to kill Moïse, as well as to assassinate activists and ordinary Haitian citizens.

The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) recently published information based on newly obtained evidence from the ongoing U.S. prosecution of the alleged assassins. It reveals the seeming complicity of foreign embassies in Haiti, including those of the United States, the United Kingdom, and Taiwan.

The Haiti/Americas Team and MOLEGHAF, in addition, strongly denounce the recent U.S. attempts to have Brazil lead another military invasion and the occupation of Haiti. We also denounce efforts by defense contractor Wesley Clark to work with the unelected and illegitimate Ariel Henry to organize a paramilitary group in Haiti to “rival [Russia’s] Wagner Group.” The Haiti/Americas Team and MOLEGHAF are against Haiti being used as a geopolitical chess piece for the United States’ new Cold War ambitions.

BAP has always insisted the “crisis” in Haiti is a crisis of imperialism. In the past, the UNSC has served U.S. and Western imperialism’s interest by leading and supporting various unpopular UN missions in Haiti. We argue the UNSC has the responsibility to the Haitian people to investigate the role of foreign governments in destabilizing Haiti and creating a threat to international peace. But, more importantly, the international community has a responsibility to respect the sovereignty of the Haitian people and uphold the principle that the Haitian people and nation have the right to self-determination.

Hands off Haiti, respect international law, and support the call for democracy in Haiti and to make the “Americas” a Zone of Peace!

Banner photo: Assassinated Haitian President Jovenel Moïse (photographer unknown)

No More Foreign Interference in Haiti: The United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH) and the Core Group Do Not Represent Haitian People!

NO MORE FOREIGN INTERFERENCE IN HAITI:
The United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH) and the Core Group Do Not Represent Haitian People!

APRIL 26, 2023—Today, the United Nations Security Council is holding consultations on the future of Haiti. No Haitian individuals or organizations will be present at the meeting. Instead, Haiti will be represented by its occupying entities: The Core Group and the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH), the mandate of which is set to expire on July 23.

The Haiti/Americas Team of the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) and BAP member organization in Haiti, MOLEGHAF (Mouvement National pour la Liberté et L’égalité des Haïtiens pour la Fraternité or National Movement for Liberty and Equality of Haitians for Fraternity), denounce the Core Group’s and BINUH’s continued occupation of Haiti as well as their ongoing actions to undermine Haiti’s democracy and sovereignty.

Over the past year, we have witnessed massive popular protests that have been part of a broader struggle for a Haiti free from suffocating foreign interference. That includes manufactured “gang violence” and the illegitimate government installed by the United States and the Core Group. Yet, those speaking on behalf of Haiti refuse to recognize the core demands of the people for democracy, sovereignty and a just life.

BINUH and the Core Group do not represent Haitian people. Haitian people consider these entities occupation forces. BAP and MOLEGHAF have consistently demanded the Core Group and the so-called “International Community” acknowledge and atone for their role in the continuing deterioration of the situation in Haiti today.

As we have continually stated, the “crisis” in Haiti is a crisis of imperialism, a crisis initiated in 2004 by the United States, France and Canada, and consecrated by the United Nations. No decision about Haiti should be made by those who not only do not represent the people, but have also consistently harmed them.

Once again, we demand the disbanding of the Core Group, the removal of the BINUH office from Haiti, respect for the sovereign rights of the Haitian people, and NO MORE FOREIGN INTERFERENCE IN HAITI!

Banner photo: Mass protest on February 28, 2021, demanding now-assassinated President Jovenel Moïse’s departure. (Reginald Louissaint Jr./AFP/Getty Images)

Indictment of African People's Socialist Party Is a Racist Assault on the Black Liberation Movement

Indictment of African People's Socialist Party Is a Racist Assault on the Black Liberation Movement

The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) unequivocally condemns and opposes the recent indictment of four members of the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP), alongside three Russian nationals. 

The unsealed indictment states that on Tuesday, April 18, 2023, a federal grand jury in Tampa, Florida, levied charges of “conspiring to covertly sow discord in U.S. society, spread Russian propaganda and interfere illegally in U.S. elections.” While no evidence of conspiracy, propagandizing, or interference has been presented, the APSP and its members have the right, as all U.S. citizens do, to freely criticize U.S. domestic and foreign policy. 

Not since the Palmer Raids of the early 20th century, nor since the indictment of W.E.B DuBois in 1951, or the confiscation of Paul Robeson’s U.S. passport during the anti-communist “McCarthyist” era, has there been such a hysterical response to African people asserting their rights and freedom of speech in the United States. This renewed attack against anti-imperialist Africans, framed within the absurd notion of “Russian influence,” comes as capitalism decays and U.S. global hegemony loses its hold on the world. The attacks on the APSP and the Uhuru Movement are part of a historical tendency to align African political activists with U.S. “adversary” states to marginalize African internationalism (including solidarity with Cuba and Palestine, for example) and to suppress Black radicalism. 

It is also an assault on the efforts of Africans organizing against the violence and murders suffered at the hands of the U.S. state. Indeed, Africans do not need Russia to tell them they are suffering the brunt of violence in the heart of the U.S. empire! 

BAP demands the indictment be dismissed, and Uhuru must be free!

For further reading on this case, please read BAP’s July 30 statement that commented on the initial FBI raid of the APSP’s properties.

BAP Coordinating Committee

Banner photo: Courtesy of Alex Wong/Getty Images

Open Letter to Institute of the Black World 21st Century (IBW21) President Ron Daniels

Dr. Ron Daniels

President

Institute of the Black World 21st Century

Dear Dr. Daniels,

The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) notes with interest the upcoming State of the Black World (SOBW) Conference in Baltimore, Maryland, to be held April 19-24.

As we have been working on launching our Zone of Peace campaign in recent months, we regret that we have not been able to engage you regarding this event until this late date. However, BAP’s Mid-Atlantic Region nonetheless believes it is important to convey our concerns regarding this event.

Particularly, as a formation of Africans, we understand that any solution to the problems that the African/Black masses in the domestic colonies of the United States, as well as throughout the diaspora and on the Continent, face will be led by those peoples who bear the brunt of that oppression in every aspect of life wherever we are. Therefore, BAP’s position rests on the historic Black Radical Tradition of anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist struggle to dismantle the global system of white supremacist, patriarchal, settler-colonial capitalism, and imperialist and neocolonialist oppression.

Naming the People’s enemy is an important aspect of the struggle against these systems as is organizing People to that struggle. In reviewing the conference’s program, we do not see where these aspects are named. 

The “American disease” of capitalism, as the late Glen Ford characterized it, is spread by a globe-swallowing superpower that insists on the right to penetrate every nook and cranny of the planet with its corporate spores, imposed on peoples around the globe at the barrel of this country’s 800-plus military bases and multinational “trade” treaties that obliterate governments’ abilities to resist. This imperialist aggression by the United States fuels the endless militarism around the world that affects Africans and our brethren of darker hue.

The United States became a major economic power through Black chattel slavery within its own borders, genocide of the natives on whose land the Republic stood, and expansion through the seizure and incorporation of its darker neighbor’s territory (Mexico), so certainly reparations—a major focus of your upcoming conference—is a discussion that must be continually engaged. However, how does a People properly assess what is needed to redress their centuries of harm under domestic colonization and international empire-building without naming capitalism, which is at the core of both domestic oppression and global imperialist domination

Kwame Nkrumah had already warned in his 1967 Challenge of the Congo that there were at least 17 air bases, nine foreign naval bases, three rocket sites and an atomic testing range operated by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in northern Africa, in addition to military missions in about a dozen other African countries, and called for the urgent need to counter the challenge of NATO in the strategy he outlined in his Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare, which included the call for a military high command and an All African People’s Revolutionary Army (AAPRA). Amilcar Cabral said that Portugal “...would never be able to launch three colonial wars in Africa without the help of NATO, the weapons of NATO, the planes of NATO…”

Therefore, it is clear NATO has a long history of undermining African sovereignty and colonial liberation. This was dramatically re-affirmed with the NATO-led destruction of Libya in 2011 and the brutal assassination of Gen. Muammar Gaddafi. That event plunged the most developed and prosperous nation on the African continent into an open-air slave market and turned it into a perpetually unstable state. It is a continuing assault on Africans in that country, an insult to Pan-Africanists abroad, and the validation of those revolutionary leaders’ warnings about that white-supremacist international military formation and its continuing threat to our People’s freedom.

Yet, we see IBW21 and speakers highlighted in the SOBW Conference’s program that are in clear alignment with NATO and the agenda of Western imperialism.  

We see no mention in the SOBW program of any opposition to the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), which is a direct product of NATO through the U.S. European Command that originally “controlled” 42 African states. Established in 2007, AFRICOM was expanded under U.S. President Barack Obama under the guise of fighting fundamentalist Islamic terrorism. But, not only has AFRICOM not made the Continent more secure, terrorism and instability have increased drastically with the command’s expansion, which renders the presence of NATO and AFRICOM on the Continent an enduring and existential threat to African self-determination, stability, and peace. The support for the U.S./EU/NATO-propelled proxy war in Ukraine that the leadership of the IBW21 signed onto has potentially clouded this issue. 

Signing onto the Ukraine Solidarity Network puts IBW21 on the same ideological side as NATO. Few of the featured speakers at the upcoming SOBW Conference have a track record of raising these existential issues that Africans are struggling against on the Continent and in connected struggles against militarized police terrorism in the domestic colonies of the United States. And some—like Bill Fletcher, Jr.—are practically wholesale apologists for NATO and imperialist domination through continued U.S. militarism. 

Further, we point to IBW21’s recent support of U.S. State Department statements on the conflict in Ethiopia and the role of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF). The State Department is using alleged genocide and the Ethiopian government’s reported aggression as a justification for supporting the TPLF, as well as a possible intervention via NATO and AFRICOM forces, which raises our concerns regarding IBW21’s ability to speak on behalf of the Black World. 

As one of the two African nations to have never been colonized and, in fact, had defeated fascists in World War II, subjugation of Ethiopia has long been a U.S. goal. Like Haiti, the United States and its allies in imperialist domination still want to make Ethiopia pay for its independence from imperialism. Threatening military intervention in Ethiopia to bring it under U.S. control using the “Responsibility to Protect” principle was the same blueprint used to “intervene” in Libya. But African problems should be solved with African solutions presented and worked out by African people, and any support of U.S. interference is not only tacit support of continued U.S./NATO gangsterism on the Continent, but is in opposition to the right to self-determination of African people everywhere.

We believe this historical moment demands we can no longer sugarcoat and ignore the nature of the enemy, and what tools the enemy deploys in denying true liberty for African people on the Continent and around the world. And, we can no longer pretend that liberal solutions to these problems will merit anything more than the continued capitalist domination and oppression that has gotten us to this point. We believe that revolutionary solutions must also be a part of this conversation to give the People the choice they deserve.

We believe these critical conversations are necessary among African people because we cannot talk about repairing what we will not name. In that spirit, BAP would hope that a resolution would emerge from this gathering that condemns all U.S. and NATO imperialist policies in Africa and throughout the African world. 

We stand ready to offer clear alternatives for how Africans must see and respond to the existential challenges Africans and colonized peoples face at this historic moment. But we must be clear. We are also ready to go into public opposition to those forces that collaborate with our enemies. 

We thank you for your consideration and await your response.

Mid-Atlantic Region, Black Alliance for Peace

Building a People(s)-Centered Zone of Peace in the Americas

DECLARATION: Building a People(s)-Centered Zone of Peace in the Americas

In Havana, Cuba, on January 29, 2014, the heads of state and governments of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) declared Latin America and the Caribbean should be seen and respected as a “Zone of Peace.” 

This declaration from government representatives, however, has not translated into a people(s)-centered movement across the region. The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) believes that it is only through the concentrated efforts of the people that the Americas will free itself of the anti-human, anti-democratic and violent policies that Western imperialist subversion and militarism have brought to the peoples and nations in our region.

Lifting up as a popular demand that our region be free of externally-imposed state violence is even more important today as it was when the declaration was issued in 2014. From the assault on democracy in Haiti to the subversion and illegal sanctions directed at Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, the nations in Latin America and the Caribbean continue to find themselves in an existential battle against geo-strategic interests of the hegemon to the North—the United States of America. 

Ending the Militarization of the Americas

Dictated by Monroe Doctrine directives and attempts to expand Western hegemony, the West uses both hard- and soft-power mechanisms in the Americas. These structures are forged through global capitalism, militarism and police violence, as well as the through multinational machinations of organizations that serve as proxies for U.S./Western economic and political power. 

Police and military training, arms sales, and increasingly intrusive activities of the U.S Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) structure in our region represent the military components of U.S. policies. And with the reformulated U.S. national security strategy that was articulated in 2018, which identified Russia and China as existential threats to the United States, militarization has developed with the emphasis on “great power competition,” moving Our Americas back into the center of international intrigue. 

Building up the Zone of Peace means prioritizing People(s)-Centered Human Rights (PCHRs) in the Americas by observing the principles of national sovereignty, equal rights and self-determination of peoples. This requires ending the foreign military presence and bases, as well as all structures and practices of regional militarization. 

Other aspects of the Zone of Peace include exposing the lie of benevolent and democracy-driven “humanitarianism” that fuels the soft-power imperialist projects of the United States and NATO, as well as the Core Group, the United Nations, United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Organization of American States (OAS).  Democracy and “human rights'' as dictated by the West must be understood as no more than ideological props.

Activating the Popular Movement Element of the Zone of Peace

The response to this militarism as well as to occupying forces must be built from the bottom-up through popular struggle, rather than relying on governments to act. Therefore, BAP, along with key partner organizations, is calling on the peoples and nations of the Caribbean and Latin America to build, grow and defend the Zone of Peace of the Americas. 

BAP is building a region-wide coalition to rid the Americas of warmongers and foster a network of popular-peoples’ struggles. Grounded and informed by the needs and aspirations of the oppressed, this network would anchor a unified comprehensive strategy for decolonization and radical social change.

As part of this work, we in the United States, and all of North America, must cease to see ourselves as fundamentally different from people in “Latin America and the Caribbean.” We, the oppressed and colonized living within the heart of empire, see it as our duty to confront the empire from within. We ask all colonized people to join in the struggle to end imperialist domination and to build collective self-determination in Our Americas. 

We aim to build awareness about the idea of a “Zone of Peace” across the Americas. This means, first and foremost, opposing the stronghold of the interlocking issues of global conflict, nuclear armament and proliferation, unjust war, as well as subversion. This is only possible through the defeat of Western-led global systems of oppression that include colonialism, imperialism, patriarchy and white supremacy. 

The Work of Peace

Building out a people-to-people network for a “Zone of Peace” in the Americas would involve developing public education, advocacy, grassroots organizing and social-media campaigns. These activities would build awareness on the idea of a “Zone of Peace” across the Americas, as well as create avenues for communication to connect organizations and individuals in areas where imperialist violence is most intense. 

Heightening the contradictions of the “rules-based international order” through region-wide, non-state campaigns, would build capacity for a more effective strategic engagement. 

Coordinating among anti-imperialist organizations, political parties, labor and social-justice organizations, as well as movements across our region, we will move the region toward building alternative institutions and centers of power.

This work must be de-colonial, anti-imperialist, advance a People(s)-Centered Human Rights (PCHRs) framework, and be conducted across at least five languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese, French and Haitian Creole.

We declare Our Americas to be a Zone of Peace. And we resolve to organize, engage and fight for our right to peace. 

Join the call to build a Zone of Peace in Our Americas! We invite organizations and individuals to endorse the Zone of Peace campaign and activate the popular movement element in this multi-phase campaign that aims to build a united-front opposition to liberate our Americas from the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination. Endorse here.

Banner photo: Haitian male youth standing proudly in front of a mural by Bungy Baka, that says “MOLEGHAF, Black Alliance for Peace”; courtesy unknown photographer.

On Anniversary of the Assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Black Alliance for Peace Launches a People(s)-Centered Campaign for a Zone of Peace in the Americas

On the Anniversary of the Assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Black Alliance for Peace Launches a People(s)-Centered Campaign for a Zone of Peace in the Americas

For Immediate Release

Media Contact

communications@blackallianceforpeace.com

(202) 643-1136

APRIL 4, 2023—Today, the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) will launch a collective campaign for a Zone of Peace in Our Americas with organizations throughout our region in Washington, D.C.; Havana, Cuba; and Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

The “Zone of Peace” concept emerged from the January 29, 2014, meeting of the heads of state and governments of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), all of which declared Latin America and the Caribbean should be seen and respected as a “Zone of Peace.” BAP is leading an effort to activate the popular movement element of this state-centered declaration by building support for its implementation across the region.

Organizations and key allies such as SOLI of Puerto Rico; Asociación de Trabajadores del Campo (ATC) (Nicaragua); MOLEGHAF (Haiti); the Task Force on the Americas; the Organisation for Caribbean Empowerment; Observatorio de Derechos Humanos de los Pueblos (México); the Black Is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations; the U.S.-based United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC); Alliance for Global Justice; and others, have signed on to support a collective campaign for a Zone of Peace in Our Americas.

The effort to build a region-wide campaign to expel the forces that bring death, political destabilization and destruction to our region will be informed by the principles of the Black Radical Peace Tradition. The Black Radical Peace Tradition asserts that peace is not the absence of conflict, but rather the achievement by popular struggle and self-defense of a world liberated from the interlocking issues that contribute to global conflict. This would be accomplished through the defeat of the global systems of oppression that include colonialism, imperialism, patriarchy and white supremacy.

This call for peace is an appeal to the peoples and states of the Caribbean and Latin America to resist the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination, as well as the increasing militarization of the region and U.S./NATO soft power practices in Our Americas.

 “The people want peace,” says Erica Caines, Black Alliance For Peace Haiti/ Americas Team Co-Coordinator. “The Zone of Peace means strengthening alternative, people(s)-centered systems through coordinated anti-militarist and anti-imperialist struggle.”

Through a multi-phase campaign, we will build awareness and political education around the necessity and purpose of a Zone of Peace, as well as initiate the formation of an anti-militarist, anti-imperialist network anchored by popular, mass-based organizations.

“Establishing the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace will be an important achievement for the peoples of the region, removing military bases of former and current colonial powers, and abolishing the regular military exercises and other forms of interference would be a significant contribution to creating the other world of peace, development and cooperation that is possible and attainable,” says Shaun Ajamu Hutchinson of the Caribbean Organisation for People’s Empowerment.

Initial Core Demands

1. Dismantle SOUTHCOM. Shut down the 76 U.S. military bases in the region

2. End U.S./NATO military exercises. Close foreign military bases, installations and enclaves, as well as withdraw foreign occupation troops

3. Disband U.S.-sponsored state terrorist training facilities. Shutter the “Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation” (WHINSEC)—formerly the School of the Americas—in Fort Benning, Georgia, United States, and terminate U.S.—as well as foreign—training of police forces

4. Oppose military intervention into Haiti. Support the people(s)-centered movement for democracy and self-determination

5. Return Guantánamo to Cuba. The United States must give back to the Cuban people and their government the territory it illegally occupies

6. Sanctions are war. End illegal sanctions and blockades of regional states, including all economic warfare and lawfare, and recognize their sovereignty

Lifting up as a popular demand that our region be free of internal and externally-imposed state violence is even more important today as it was when the declaration was issued in 2014. From the assault on democracy in Haiti to the subversion and illegal sanctions directed at Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, the states in Latin America and in the Caribbean continue to find themselves in an existential battle against the geo-strategic interests of the hegemon to the North—the United States of America.

BAP believes it is only through the concentrated efforts of the people that the Americas will free itself of the anti-human, anti-democratic and violent policies that wars, subversion and militarism have brought to the peoples and nations in our region. 

View the DC press conference here.

Banner photo: Panelist at the press conference launchng the Zone of Peace campaign in Washington DC at the Institute for Policy Studies.

Black Alliance for Peace Supports National Day of Action Against Police Terror

Black Alliance for Peace Supports National Day of Action Against Police Terror

Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) member organization Community Movement Builders (CMB) is calling all organizations, organizers and community members to a National Day of Action Against Police Terror on March 9, 2023.

In the wake of the brutal killings of Tyre Nichols and forest defender Manuel Tortuguita, the city of Atlanta is going full steam ahead to build what activists have dubbed “Cop City.” Atlanta officials have proposed a $90 million complex be built on 85 acres of a forest. This would only arm and deploy more police—whom we refer to as the domestic army—in African and colonized working-class and poor communities. 

CMB has been at the forefront of efforts to defeat Cop City. CMB’s analysis suggests placing Cop City in the heart of a still-majority African city is an insidious reminder of the collaborative nature of the “Black misleadership class” that serves the white capitalist minority. It also makes clear this minority is preparing for the massive use of physical, repressive power to maintain control of its internal colonies. 

Cop City has been ostensibly framed as a neutral tool for fighting crime. But there is no neutrality when confronted with the asymmetrical power of the settler-colonial state in relation to poor and working-class communities. In that relationship of power, the police are instruments of control and containment, with Cop City being a part of the growing infrastructure for increased police terror in the United States, as well as in the U.S. state of Georgia and in the city of Atlanta.

For CMB, as well as for all of BAP’s member organizations and individual members, Cop City is part of the effort by city, state and federal governments to militarize the lives of African and poor people in the United States and around the world. This local, national and international military-police structure wages war in Ukraine, sends U.S. and NATO troops to Africa, advocates military intervention in Haiti, sanctions progressive governments in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and threatens humankind with nuclear annihilation. 

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! LET OUR VOICES BE HEARD!

Join us in the fight against police terror. 

#StopCopCity, end the 1033 Program and end U.S. sanctions against progressive governments. We are asking everybody to organize one or more of the following actions:

• Marches

• Rallies

• Civil disobedience actions

• Direct actions

• Banner drops

• Teach-ins

• Petition drives 

In addition, we want to flood social media with the hashtag #STOPCOPCITY.

Find an action near you.

Register for BAP’s March 9 webinar, “Countering Colonial Policing in U.S. Domestic Colonies.”

Use BAP’s resources on the 1033 program to hold a teach-in.

Defeat the War on Africans in the U.S. and Around the World!

We Are an African People and We Are at War!

New Maryland Governor Wes Moore: Another ‘First Black’ In a Colonial System

BAP-Baltimore Statement on New Maryland Governor Wes Moore: Another ‘First Black’ In a Colonial System

Recently, Maryland swore in its first Black governor, Wes Moore, in a “historic” ceremony cemented with a tearful introduction by Oprah Winfrey and a hand on Frederick Douglass’ Bible. The Black elite flocked to fill the rooms of the inauguration to witness the third elected Black governor in U.S. history. Yet, this “first Black” gubernatorial win is history repeating itself. 

African/Black communities have witnessed “first Blacks” consistently continuing over-policing, surveillance, criminalization and austerity policies. 

As Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) member organization Ujima People’s Progress Party understands, 

“The Black middle-class’ allegiance to capitalism, and not Black liberation, has largely led the Black political leadership class to function as a comprador misleadership class over the Black majority of working peoples on behalf of the capitalist parties, and political machines they are members of.”

For nearly a century, radical African/Black people have criticized elements of the African/Black community as being designed to serve as buffers to ruling class elements. Whether discerned as “neocolonial,” “the comprador class,” or “the Black Misleadership Class,” this sector has evaded accountability to the masses of African/Black people, while using their Black identity as cover for self-serving opportunism.

Moore first became famous for his 2010 bestselling memoir, The Other Wes Moore, an inspirational story of two boys with the same name and ties to Baltimore City. In interviews, Moore is depicted as a Black boy from an economically struggling background who became formally educated, rising to become a U.S. military veteran, and thus a socioeconomically developed Black man. The framing of his “life story,” as told through the book, not only helps manufacture an Obama-like image, politically. But in juxtaposition to the “other Wes Moore,” it leaves room to question how this narrative will affect his policies.

It remains unclear if Moore had been raised in Baltimore City. Yet, as the backdrop of Moore’s life story, the city has been central to his platform on crime. The Public Safety and Criminal Justice page on wesmoore.com states, “Violent crime is on the rise across Maryland and people are dying in our streets.” The solutions presented, however, will be nothing short of a plan to continue what former Governor Larry Hogan started in his campaign to “refund the police,” which increased resources for state law enforcement agencies following the 2020 uprisings. 

Citing an “ineffectiveness of leadership,” Moore ignores that not only is Baltimore City already occupied with an array of federally funded police directives, it has just received an additional $7.9 million in federal funds to “fight crime.” This funding is a part of the Biden administration’s $350 million American Rescue plan to “fund the police,” as he enthusiastically announced in his 2022 State of the Union address. Unsurprisingly, in 2022, 1,192 people were killed by police, exceeding any other year in U.S. history. Also, Moore has ignored the existing consent decree issued in 2017, acknowledging the Baltimore Police Department (BPD) engaged in a pattern and practice of conduct that violated the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth amendments to the United States Constitution, and specific provisions of federal statutory law. 

“The BPD has access to the Department of Defense (DOD) 1033 program budget. They also train with the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) through the ‘deadly exchange program’ and continue to receive federal agents through Trump’s 2020 Operation Relentless Pursuit policy,” says Petros Bein, member of the Baltimore City Wide Alliance of the Black Alliance For Peace (BAP-Baltimore). “This is in addition to the approved privatized policing for universities, like Johns Hopkins, engulfing Black communities.”

These continued failed approaches to “crime” have only proven that added resources, as well as changes in policy or the law, will not contribute to public safety. Moore cannot “rebuild and strengthen relationships between communities and law enforcement agencies” by “increasing accountability and transparency” in a city in which the police department constantly violates its consent decree. Nor should funding community-policing initiatives that “recruit diverse officers that reflect the diversity of communities they serve” be taken seriously. The recent death of Tyre Nichols in Memphis, Tennessee (a city also operating under Operation Relentless Pursuit) has been the most illuminating example of the fallacy of Black faces occupying these spaces to the benefit of the African/Black community. 

Policies that address crime in an over-policed city cannot be presented in the abstract. As the country celebrates a “first Black” governor, Maryland continues to imprison more African/Black people, per capita, than any other state. Moore needs to provide more specifics to explain what will be done and how this builds or departs from existing efforts to return control of the Baltimore City Police Department from the federal government to Baltimore City.

“Wes Moore’s connections with Mayor [Brandon] Scott’s office and the city design/city planning committee will shape or harm what’s happening in Baltimore. With no control over the city's policing, Moore's decisions directly affect the most marginalized of us,” acknowledges BAP-Baltimore core member, Kimya Nuru Dennis. 

The Democratic Party has been able to  depict Moore as a trusting solution for Maryland, in general, and for African/Black people, specifically. His socioeconomic status, as well as that of his donors, indicates to BAP-Baltimore what will undoubtedly shape whose voices matter most in prioritizing health, education, and safety-based policies and laws.

The lack of equitable housing that causes displacement, as well as food deserts, and low wages, have been pressing issues in Maryland. African/Black elected officials have not resolved the economic and social crisis facing the African/Black working class of Baltimore City. Instead, their lack of solutions have resulted in the overt criminalization and over-policing of African/Black communities. Police are constantly and consistently well-funded and well-resourced. BAP-Baltimore understands police are used to enforce the status quo of white power and colonial control over the lives of African/Black and other oppressed nations of people. This comes as the city has increasingly privatized and priced out our people. More police funding, while ignoring the causes of crime, cannot resolve the ongoing dilemma facing the African/Black working class in Baltimore City.

No Compromise! No Retreat!

Banner photo: Wes Moore with Joe Biden at a gubernatorial campaign rally in Rockville MD, August 2022. (courtesy Dominick Sokotoff/Rex/Shutterstock)