Afro-Descendants Facing the Energy Transition and Racial Justice

  Afro-Descendants Facing the Energy Transition and Racial Justice: In context of the First Conference Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels

At the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels, we – Global Afro Descendants (GAD) – are confronting interconnected systems of oppression and fighting for REAL solutions to the climate and ecological crises

29 APRIL 2026, SANTA MARTA, COLOMBIA: For the first time in history, Afro-Descendant peoples have been formally recognized and included as an official delegation within a global climate process.

Participating alongside other sectors of civil society as an invited constituency group by the host governments, the GAD engaged in a series of collaborative dialogues to identify key barriers, articulate solutions, and advance pathways toward a just transition away from fossil fuels. Co-stewarded by The Chisholm Legacy Project, Black Alliance for Peace, and Terra40, the GAD delegation included 11 organizations representing seven countries (but not limited to): Colombia, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Canada, and the United States. 57 Afrodescendants organizations registered to participate in this historic conference, and through a collective process, we arrived at 11 delegate representatives. For Afrodescendants, this process builds from ongoing efforts such as the International Afrodescendant Coalition for Land, Territories, Climate Change and Biodiversity in Latin America and the Caribbean (CITAFRO) and the Global Afro-Descendants and Climate Justice Policy Platform (GADCJC). Together, in this conference process and space, we developed key recommendations grounded in lived experience, ancestral knowledge, and political analyses rooted in our global liberation.

While this moment marks a critical milestone in global climate justice efforts, it was also marred  by serious contradictions.

Despite coordination with the Government of Colombia, the co-host government of the Netherlands obstructed the participation of several African comrades through visa denials and delays. These actions reflect ongoing patterns of violent anti-Blackness and structural exclusion that undermine the integrity of international climate processes. Further, Afro-Descendants were excluded as a sector in the closing plenary remarks for this First Conference and steps toward the Second Conference.

This contradiction is further underscored by the Netherlands’ position among the 27 nation-states of the EU that have refused to formally recognize the Transatlantic Slave Trade as one of the gravest crimes against humanity while simultaneously positioning itself as a partner in climate leadership. Hosting a conference in Colombia, home to the third-largest population of Afro-Descendants globally, while perpetuating such harm, exposes a profound inconsistency that cannot go unchallenged.

A just transition that meaningfully transitions away from fossil fuels requires confronting and dismantling interconnected systems of oppression and centering the experiences of those who are at the helm of impact, which is consistently our communities. Without this, proposed solutions will continue to perpetuate the very harms they claim to address.

As GAD spokesperson, and Founder of The Descendants Project, Jo Banner stated:
“We reject false solutions that continue to harm our communities via the cause and the proposed ‘solution’” This includes the continued subjection of Afro descendant communities to extraction of critical materials and the systems that turn that extraction into profit. These solutions are often proposed as ‘necessary’ for the transition away from Fossil Fuels.”

We are explicit in naming the root cause of a sustained fossil fuel industry and how its dependence is coupled with global imperialism: The fossil fuel industry is built on the legacy of plantations and on stolen Indigenous lands. Enslaved Africans and the plantation systems founded the so-called United States and other colonial powers. African/Black peoples, communities, nations – from the Gulf South of the United States to the Niger Delta, to the Colombian Pacific to the nation of Haiti – endure extraction, displacement, and violence because of the richness of their lands, waterways, and cultures – and the insatiable desires and demands of those in power. Our ancestors became the “capital” in “capitalism.”

As our People(s) were forcibly relocated and forced to work on lands brutally stolen from Indigenous peoples of Abya Yala, we affirm the unique relationship between our peoples. Both Afro-Descendant and Indigenous peoples, nations, and communities face increasing militarism, racism, and oppression globally and domestically. We maintain that it remains imperative to be in constant development of global Afro/Indigenous solidarity efforts.

The GAD delegation stands united in dismantling both historical and ongoing injustices that continue to shape global systems and harm our communities. Through systemic change and self-determination, we envision a radical restructuring of global trade, finance, and migration systems away from exploitative practices rooted in colonialism, white supremacy, and racial capitalism.

We are working toward:

• An end to the plantation and capitalist system that the fossil fuel economy and militarist domination are built on and maintained through various forms of violence.

• An economy of care that is the antidote to this extractive economy and establishes protection and support from the perspective of ancestral and traditional ecological and knowledge systems.

• Just Transition from a Peoples-Centered Human Rights perspective, which does not pretend to be neutral or objective but takes a perspective of the masses of people who are oppressed toward bringing about a revolutionary change in this world in order to realize human rights as the basis of our legitimacy.

• Transformation of global climate governance, including establishing an independent governing body for Afro Descendant peoples in the UNFCCC; this would be based on fundamental recognition of Afro-Descendants at a legal level.

• Legal recognition and protection of collective spaces for Afro Descendant/African/Black peoples and communities as essential to a just transition, including the development of authentic self-determining local economies and collective land titling, building off Colombia’s Law 70 as a framework for nation states where Afro Descendants reside and call home.

• Alignment of financing, cooperation, and accountability with a just transition based on territories, traditional knowledge, and historical justice, with the guarantee and fulfillment of substantive and expansive reparations for Afro-descendant peoples.

The only path forward from fossil fuel dependency and an extractive economy is the defeat of those interlocking systems of oppression through a unified, protracted struggle and social revolution. Anything less is ultimately a false solution to the climate and ecological crises, and an abdication of our radical movement’s vision for self-determination and human dignity. As the First Conference for the Transition Away from Fossil Fuels “High-Level Conference” sessions end today, we as GAD will continue to engage the institutions of power and decision-making ability, including this summer’s convening in Bonn, Germany, and the Second Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels in Tuvalu in 2027.

Relevant Documents:

● Afro-Descendant Concept Paper: First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels by the Global Afro-Descendant Sector

● Summary of the proposal Afro-descendant Communities [DRAFT] elaborated during Assembly of the Peoples

● People’s Declaration for a Rapid, Equitable, and Just Transition for a Fossil-Free Future by the People’s Summit for a Fossil Free Future

● “Global movements unite in Santa Marta to launch “People’s Declaration for a Rapid, Equitable, and Just Transition for a Fossil-Free Future” ahead of historic climate conference” Press Release, 26 April 2026

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Afrodescendientes frente a la Transición Energética y la Justicia Racial: En el contexto de la Primera Conferencia para la Transición más allá de los combustibles fósiles

En la Primera Conferencia sobre la Transición para Abandonar los Combustibles Fósiles, nosotros —Afrodescendientes Globales (GAD)— nos enfrentamos a sistemas de opresión interconectados y luchamos por soluciones REALES a las crisis climática y ecológica

29 DE ABRIL DE 2026, SANTA MARTA, COLOMBIA: Por primera vez en la historia, los pueblos afrodescendientes han sido reconocidos formalmente e incluidos como una delegación oficial en un proceso climático global.

Participando junto a otros sectores de la sociedad civil como grupo constituyente invitado por los gobiernos anfitriones, GAD participó en una serie de diálogos colaborativos para identificar barreras clave, articular soluciones y avanzar en el camino hacia una transición justa para dejar atrás los combustibles fósiles. Coorganizada por The Chisholm Legacy Project, Black Alliance for Peace y Terra40, la delegación del GAD incluyó a 11 organizaciones que representaban a siete países (entre otros): Colombia, Brasil, República Dominicana, Ecuador, Canadá y Estados Unidos. 57 organizaciones de afrodescendientes se inscribieron para participar en esta conferencia histórica y, mediante un proceso colectivo, elegimos a 11 delegados. Para nosotros afrodescendientes, este proceso crece sobre otros esfuerzos como Coalición Internacional Afrodescendiente sobre Tierra, Territorios, Cambio Climático y  Biodiversidad de América Latina y el Caribe (CITAFRO) y la Plataforma Global Afrodescendiente sobre las Políticas de Justicia Climática (GADCJC). Juntos, en el proceso y espacio de esta conferencia, desarrollamos recomendaciones clave basadas en la experiencia vivida, el conocimiento ancestral y los análisis políticos arraigados en nuestra liberación global.

Si bien este momento marca un hito crítico en los esfuerzos globales por la justicia climática, también se vio empañado por graves contradicciones.

A pesar de la coordinación con el Gobierno de Colombia, el gobierno coanfitrión de los Países Bajos obstaculizó la participación de varios compañeros africanos mediante denegaciones y retrasos en la concesión de visas. Estas acciones reflejan patrones continuos de violencia contra los negros y exclusión estructural que socavan la integridad de los procesos climáticos internacionales. Además, los afrodescendientes quedaron excluidos como grupo en las observaciones de la sesión plenaria de clausura de esta Primera Conferencia y en los preparativos para la Segunda Conferencia.

Esta contradicción se ve aún más subrayada por la posición de los Países Bajos entre los 27 Estados-nación de la UE que se han negado a reconocer formalmente la trata transatlántica de esclavos como uno de los crímenes más graves contra la humanidad, al tiempo que se posicionan como socios en el liderazgo climático. Organizar una conferencia en Colombia, hogar de la tercera población más grande de afrodescendientes a nivel mundial, mientras se perpetúa tal daño, pone de manifiesto una profunda inconsistencia que no puede quedar sin respuesta.

Una transición justa que se aleje de manera significativa de los combustibles fósiles requiere enfrentar y desmantelar los sistemas interconectados de opresión y centrar las experiencias de quienes están en el centro del impacto, que son consistentemente nuestras comunidades. Sin esto, las soluciones propuestas continuarán perpetuando los mismos daños que pretenden abordar.

Como declaró Jo Banner, portavoz de GAD y fundadora de The Descendants Project:

«Rechazamos las soluciones falsas que siguen perjudicando a nuestras comunidades tanto por la causa como por la ‘solución’ propuesta». Esto incluye la continua sujeción de las comunidades afrodescendientes a la extracción de materiales críticos y a los sistemas que convierten esa extracción en ganancias. Estas soluciones a menudo se proponen como ‘necesarias’ para la transición lejos de los combustibles fósiles».

Somos explícitos al señalar la causa fundamental de una industria de combustibles fósiles sostenida y cómo su dependencia está ligada al imperialismo global: la industria de los combustibles fósiles se basa en el legado de las plantaciones y en las tierras indígenas robadas. Los africanos esclavizados y los sistemas de plantaciones fundaron los llamados Estados Unidos y otras potencias coloniales.

Los pueblos, comunidades y naciones africanos/negros —desde el sur del Golfo de los Estados Unidos hasta el delta del Níger, pasando por el Pacífico colombiano y la nación de Haití— sufren la extracción, el desplazamiento y la violencia debido a la riqueza de sus tierras, vías fluviales y culturas, y a los deseos y demandas insaciables de quienes están en el poder. Nuestros antepasados se convirtieron en el “capital” del “capitalismo”.

Dado que nuestros pueblos fueron reubicados por la fuerza y obligados a trabajar en tierras brutalmente robadas a los pueblos indígenas de Abya Yala, afirmamos la relación única entre nuestros pueblos. Tanto los pueblos, naciones y comunidades afrodescendientes como los indígenas se enfrentan a un militarismo, un racismo y una opresión crecientes a nivel mundial y nacional. Sostenemos que sigue siendo imperativo desarrollar constantemente los esfuerzos de solidaridad global afro-indígena.

La delegación de GAD se mantiene unida para desmantelar las injusticias tanto históricas como actuales que siguen configurando los sistemas globales y perjudicando a nuestras comunidades. A través del cambio sistémico y la autodeterminación, vislumbramos una reestructuración radical de los sistemas globales de comercio, finanzas y migración, alejándonos de las prácticas de explotación arraigadas en el colonialismo, la supremacía blanca y el capitalismo racial.

Trabajamos para lograr:

• El fin del sistema de plantaciones y capitalista sobre el que se construyen y mantienen, mediante diversas formas de violencia, la economía de los combustibles fósiles y la dominación militarista.

• Una economía del cuidado que sea el antídoto contra esta economía extractiva y establezca protección y apoyo desde la perspectiva de los sistemas ecológicos y de conocimiento ancestrales y tradicionales.

• Una Transición Justa desde la perspectiva de Derechos Humanos Centrados en los Pueblos, que no pretende ser neutral u objetiva, sino que adopte la perspectiva de las masas oprimidas para lograr un cambio revolucionario en este mundo con el fin de hacer realidad los derechos humanos como base de nuestra legitimidad.

• Transformación de la gobernanza climática global, incluyendo el establecimiento de un órgano de gobierno independiente para los pueblos afrodescendientes frente a la UNFCCC; esto se basaría en el reconocimiento fundamental de los afrodescendientes al nivel jurídico.

• Reconocimiento legal y protección de los espacios colectivos para los pueblos y comunidades afrodescendientes/africanos/negros como elementos esenciales para una transición justa, incluyendo el desarrollo de economías locales auténticas y autodeterminadas y la titulación colectiva de tierras, partiendo de la Ley 70 de Colombia como marco para los Estados-nación donde residen y se sienten en casa los afrodescendientes.

• Alineación de la financiación, la cooperación y la rendición de cuentas con una transición justa basada en los territorios, los conocimientos tradicionales y la justicia histórica, con la garantía y el cumplimiento de reparaciones sustantivas y amplias para los pueblos afrodescendientes.

El único camino para salir de la dependencia de los combustibles fósiles y de una economía extractiva es la derrota de esos sistemas entrelazados de opresión a través de una lucha unificada y prolongada y de una revolución social. Cualquier cosa menos que eso es, en última instancia, una solución falsa a las crisis climática y ecológica, y una renuncia a la visión de nuestro movimiento radical de autodeterminación y dignidad humana. A medida que las sesiones de la “Conferencia de Alto Nivel” de la Primera Conferencia para la Transición Fuera de los Combustibles Fósiles concluyen hoy, nosotros, como GAD, continuaremos interactuando con las instituciones de poder y capacidad de toma de decisiones, incluyendo el encuentro este verano en Bonn, Alemania, y la Segunda Conferencia para la Transición de los Combustibles Fósiles en Tuvalu en 2027.

Documentos relevantes:

● Documento conceptual de los afrodescendientes: Primera Conferencia sobre la Transición para Abandonar los Combustibles Fósiles por el Sector Global de Afrodescendientes

● Síntesis de la propuesta de las Comunidades Afrodescendientes [BORRADOR] elaborado durante la Asamblea de los Pueblos

● Declaración Popular para una Transición Rápida, Equitativa y Justa hacia un Futuro Libre de Combustibles Fósiles, de la Cumbre Popular por un Futuro Libre de Combustibles Fósiles

● Movimientos globales se unen en Santa Marta para lanzar la “Declaración Popular para una Transición Rápida, Equitativa y Justa hacia un Futuro Libre de Combustibles Fósiles” antes de la histórica conferencia sobre el clima Comunicado de prensa, 26 de abril de 2026

Documents of Disaster and Conferences of Calamity: Rhetorical Questions, Questions of Rhetoric and the Transition from Fossil Fuels

Documents of Disaster and Conferences of Calamity: Rhetorical Questions, Questions of Rhetoric and the Transition from Fossil Fuels

By: Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright

The First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels produced a People's Declaration. There have been many such statements over the years, yet the climate crisis continues unabated.

“Words that do not match deeds are unimportant” - Che Guevara  

250 years ago, a collection of disgruntled white men - many of them wealthy landowners, slaveholders, and white supremacists - declared their independence from a king and what they believed to be an iniquitous tyranny that exercised interdiction from the pursuit of “life, liberty, and happiness.” This so-called Declaration of Independence (DOI) may very well be the most hypocritical, contradictory, and incomplete document and proclamation in the HIStory of the world. According to the historical society, American Battlefield Trust, 41 of the 56 DOI signers were slaveholders, with Thomas Jefferson, the lead author of the document, himself owning over 600. This one man, who began a sexual relationship with one of those enslaved people, Sally Hennings when she was just 14 years old,  further elucidates the toxic tartuffery of the DOI, while also surfacing a whole new meaning to the idea of “unalienable rights,” as well as who they belong to and who they don’t. 

And while the aforementioned white men may have declared independence from a King and the government of Great Britain, when it came to upholding racial capitalism they bent the knee. Their pledge of allegiance to racial capitalism required them to maintain slavery as well as continue brutal land theft from and systemic and sanctioned genocide of Indigenous peoples. The contradiction of declaring themselves free while keeping others in a bondage of forced labor, forced fecundity, and general dehumanization set the stage for a series of subsequent documents that vindicate the sage words of Che Guevara, “words that do not match deeds are unimportant.” 

Some 240 years later, another curious document emerged from a cauldron of Pan-European, western mode of thinking in one of Jefferson’s favorite cities in the world, Paris. Much like the white men who patted themselves on the back for bestowing upon the world a historic document that would forever alter its course, in 2015 195 nations signed the Paris Agreement, which, according to the United Nations (UN), is a "legally binding agreement to combat climate change and unleash actions and investment towards a low carbon, resilient and sustainable future.” Additionally, the UN declared, “The Paris agreement for the first time brings all nations into a common cause based on their historic, current and future responsibilities.” And like the  DOI, the Paris Agreement was also littered with ubiquitous contradictions and abject hypocrisy that both still adversely impact the planet and the most vulnerable people and species who call it home. 

The list of nation states who signed the Paris Agreement include many whose entire economies are reliant on the extraction, trade, and perpetual exploration for fossil fuels including, but not limited to, Azerbaijan, Guyana, the Russian Federation, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. Yet the signature of the United States, under the direction of President Barack Obama, contained a duplicity that was arguably more toxic than fossil fuels while also forming a miasma that could rival some of the more potent mercaptans. 

The United States did not become the world’s premier petrostate overnight, it became this way over years - years of neoliberal policies ratified from Republican and Democrat party administrations alike and Barack Obama, who was once described by Dr. Cornel West as “a Rockefeller republican in Blackface” was a catalyst. It’s fitting that Dr. West used a family that made its fortune on fossil fuels to describe Obama as the former president's approach to climate change and fossil fuels policy demonstrates why the U.S.’s Paris Agreement signature is the equivalent of someone writing and signing a check they know is going to bounce. 

On March 12, 2012 - just three years before allowing the U.S. to be a signatory of the Paris Agreement he gave a speech  at a fossil fuel pipeline manufacturing facility in Cushing, Oklahoma. As part of his remarks, Obama proclaimed, “...the fact is that my administration has approved dozens of new oil and gas pipelines over the last three years -– including one from Canada.” He continued,  “And as long as I’m President, we’re going to keep on encouraging oil development and infrastructure and we’re going to do it in a way that protects the health and safety of the American people.” One month later, Obama defended his energy record by suggesting, “We've quadrupled the number of operating rigs to a record high. We've added enough new oil and gas pipelines to circle the Earth and then some.” But the tip of the iceberg - that, statistically, is now rapidly melting due to a rapidly warming planet - is what Obama did before the ink on the Paris Agreement was even dry. In December 2015, just weeks after the conclusion of the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP) - the UN’s annual global climate change summit - that produced the Paris Agreement Obama signed a law ending the U.S.’s prohibition on selling crude oil on the international market. By some estimates, this move resulted in the addition of 73 to 165 million metric tons of global greenhouse gas emissions.  

The only difference between the singers of the DOI and Obama signing the Paris Agreement is that the former were hypocrites for owning slaves whereas the latter is a hypocrite for cynically calling himself a climate champion while putting policies in place that continue to make the masses slaves of a fossil fuel oligarchy that continues to treat the planet like its own plantation where natural resources, the atmosphere, self determination of nations and communities, and public health are tied to racial capitalism’s whipping post and beaten into submission. Worse yet, similar to the DOI, the Paris Agreement is also a fallacy and has proven to be both anemic and inadequate as it pertains to reducing global greenhouse gas emissions, holding the nations most responsible for the climate crisis to account,  and delivering even a semblance of climate/environmental justice. James Hansen, a former NASA scientist who some consider “the father of climate awareness” did not mince words when expressing his chagrin for the Paris Agreement, “It’s a fraud really, a fake,” he says, rubbing his head. “It’s just bullshit for them to say: ‘We’ll have a 2C warming target and then try to do a little better every five years.’ It’s just worthless words.”

While interrogating the sham of the U.S. 4th of July holiday, Frederick Douglass declared, “We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and to the future.” It's been six months since COP 30 in Brazil, which can only be characterized as yet another failed opportunity to secure global cooperation for confronting the climate crisis at the requisite scale, another example of the inability and unwillingness of the petty bourgeois apparatus that controls the guild of environmental civil society organizations (CSOs) to organize and mobilize for climate and environmental liberation. So the question, to Douglass’ sage words, remains - what have we learned from past failures of the UN, CSO, lawmakers and the nation states they preside over as well as the anodyne and insouciant documents, declarations, and un-enforceable agreements they sign. 

As part of their statement on COP 30, Black Alliance for Peace noted, “And while it’s encouraging that we’re leaving Brazil with a Just Transition framework for the first time in the COP’s history, [we] wonder how this framework can commence if there’s no commitment to phasing out fossil fuels - what are we ‘transitioning’ from exactly…it’s kind of like aiming to play a soccer match without any balls.”  To this end it was encouraging to learn of the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels hosted by the governments of Colombia and the Netherlands in the coastal city of Santa Marta. Per the conference’s website, “The Conference is designed as a space for countries, subnational governments and other stakeholders that recognize the need to implement a transition away from fossil fuels in a just, orderly and equitable manner, in line with climate goals and the best available science.” Time, rather than subjective opinions of CSOs and certain anointed climate “leaders” will tell if the goals of the conference were actually met and what will come from it. After three days the conference did produce a People’s Declaration for a Rapid, Equitable, and Just Transition for a Fossil Free Future. The document includes 15 principles as well as four concrete actions: 

• A complete equitable and just phase-out of fossil fuels aligned with meeting the goal of keeping warming below 1.5°c and reach global real zero emissions by 2050;

•  A rapid, direct, equitable, and just transition to 100% renewable energy; ensure equitable and universal access to renewable energy;

• An end to barriers to the transition and pursue solutions; and 

• A comprehensive just transition 

And while the document certainly contains some fine and salient elements, the key questions that remain are: 

1. A “Just Transition” to what exactly; and 

2. What is to be done/Where Do We Go From Here?

Both questions require deep cogitation, principled debate and analysis, and, yes, even some very loud discussions and disagreements that actually forms the foundation of a movement rather than a select collection of CSOs who continue to demonstrate that winning the climate fight to sustain the planet is not as much a priority as maintaining the illusion of a fight. To this end, it’s the second question When Lenin asked the question, “What is to be done,” he prescribed what will be necessary to vanquish the fossil fuel oligarchy and the racial capitalist dictatorship it serves and upholds, "Give us an organization of revolutionaries, and we will overturn Russia!" And Martin King did the same when he asked the questions, “Where do we go from here,” explaining, “The great majority of Americans are suspended between these opposing attitudes. They are uneasy with injustice but unwilling yet to pay a significant price to eradicate it.” Both ideas were not adroitly addressed or considered during the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels. Until these truths presented Lenin and King are put in kinetic motion - not via reports, documents, panel discussions, social media posts, and press statements - there will be no “Just Transition,” only  just - a - transition to the next set of conferences that continue a circular path that is the equivalent of travelling without moving.  

Amilcar Cabral was clear, “…we are not going to eliminate imperialism by shouting insults against it.” He’s correct, for we can do all the panels, we can regurgitate the obligatory, "capitalism sucks” rhetoric - ironically while benefiting from it - we can continue to get all the snaps and claps for pithy one liners during speeches to the same people you already speak to all the time - like eight times a week at least on various zoom calls -and  do all the interviews and panels that lead to more reports, policy position papers, and documents that will likely be collecting digital dust in a few weeks after the next document, report, and position paper is released. None of these exercises have anything to do with climate/environmental liberation, just the illusion in which we are tricking ourselves even more than the masses, many who do not have the privilege of rubbing elbows with the petit bourgeois while wearing revolutionary costumes. 

The questions What is to be done/Where do we go from here - unlike how we approach the climate crisis through a series of questions so that our think tanks and CSOs can, somehow, convince their philanthropic masters to give them more money/resource to ask yet even more questions as part of the next batch of documents, position papers, and reports - cannot be theoretical or many more people will die and otherwise continue being oppressed by the racial capitalist dictatorship. Because the irony is that even while the signers of the DOI were white supremacist charlatans, they were revolutionary in their intention to be so and took up arms in support of their evil deed  - whereas the guild of climate/environmental formations and individuals barely put up a real fight to advance the truth of climate catastrophe and ecocide. As such, Douglass may as well have been speaking to the climate CSOs when he denounced the 4th of July holiday, “...your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to [the masses], mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy - a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.”

At the end of the day, organizers, including the CSOs and governments, who put the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels have a gargantuan, yet warranted and principled task to ensure the documents and declarations they produced are not yet another Declaration of Independence, another Paris Agreement, another set of documents, proclamations, and demands that just lead to more discussions about documents, proclamations, and demands for people and organizations that can afford to attend them. Next week we will analyze how the global Afro-descendant delegation at the conference put a foundation together to do just that. 

Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright is a son of Sierra Leone, an international climate and environmental liberation advocate, a racial justice practitioner, a writer and policy expert residing in the United States with his family and their mischievous cats, “Evil” Ernie and MalaChai the Mischievous. He is a proud and active member of the Black Alliance for Peace and the North South Project for People(s)-Centered Human Rights. His radio program, “Full Spectrum with Anthony Rogers-Wright,” airs on the Mighty WPFW network every Tuesday at 6:00 PM EST.

Black Alliance for Peace New York City/New Jersey Endorses the Anti-Fascist Football Coalition’s Campaign to Move the World Cup from the U.S.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

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Black Alliance for Peace New York City/New Jersey Endorses the Anti-Fascist Football Coalition’s Campaign to Move the World Cup from the U.S.

April 23, 2026 — The FIFA World Cup 2026 is scheduled to begin in the United States, Canada and Mexico on June 11, 2026. The Black Alliance for Peace New York City/New Jersey Citywide Alliance (BAP NYC NJ) is announcing its participation in the Anti-Fascist Football Coalition that has launched a coordinated campaign demanding that FIFA move these matches away from the United States. 

In 2026 alone, the U.S. kidnapped the president of Venezuela, waged a war of aggression against Iran, continued its genocide and war crimes against Palestinians in Gaza, and, in an effort to implement regime change, created a humanitarian crisis in Cuba. In addition to these violations of international law, a mass deportation campaign has imprisoned thousands of people held in inhumane conditions, and athletes from countries such as Iran, which have qualified for the World Cup, have no assurance of safety while in the U.S. 

FIFA’s granting of World Cup hosting privileges lends an air of respectability to the winning nation and implies its compliance with international laws and norms of ethical behavior. The U.S. should not be granted even a symbolic seal of international approval when it is actively instigating what could become a world war and subjecting thousands of people to surveillance and incarceration, and even killing its own citizens, as ICE agents did during the Minnesota protests. ICE will bring that ability to use force to World Cup matches, making them unsafe for the participating athletes, spectators, and the community at large. MetLife Stadium, renamed the New York-New Jersey stadium for the World Cup, will host eight matches, including the final on July 19.

“FIFA is asking the world to celebrate in the shadow of the Delaney Hall immigration detention center,” said BAP Northeast Co-coordinator, JP Sloan. “The games are set to be hosted just a short 16-minute car ride away from Delaney Hall, the very location where a Haitian detainee, Jean Wilson Brutus, died while in ICE custody, and who still has not received justice. This is not a coincidence we are willing to ignore.” 

While FIFA placates the U.S. by making President Trump the first winner of the FIFA Peace Prize, the U.S. continues to kill workers and fishermen in the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean regions bordering South America in order to manufacture a pretext for the illegal war against the nation of Venezuela. FIFA has made itself a partner in the active aggression against the Palestinian people by participating in the sham Board of Peace, which covers for the U.S./Israeli occupation of Gaza.  FIFA allows the U.S. to present itself as a country that respects civilized norms when, in fact, it violates them. Adding insult to injury, FIFA has pledged $50 million for a new stadium in Gaza, completely sidestepping the fact that Israeli military operations are the source of the crumbling football infrastructure and that over 800 athletes have been murdered since the start of the Gaza genocide.

Ewan, a BAP NYC NJ co-coordinator, pointed out the hypocrisy and the damage to FIFA and to the sport followed by millions of people throughout the world. “How does FIFA gain the authority to award a Peace Prize to the U.S. President while U.S. forces kill unarmed fishermen and workers in the Caribbean? It is not lost on any of us that this organization has gone out of its way to be an active participant in this malevolent whitewashing of war criminals.”

The United States is not an appropriate nation to host the World Cup or the Olympic Games in 2028. Nor should apartheid Israel be allowed to participate in these or any other international sporting events. It should be banned from these competitions, just as apartheid South Africa was banned.

As the World Cup begins in 51 days, the BAP NYC NJ Citywide Alliance strongly supports the demand to move the games. Keeping them in the U.S. would legitimize repression, genocide, human rights violations, and war crimes.  FIFA must move the games and boycott the U.S. until it has demonstrated that it is prepared to act as a responsible member of the world community.

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U.S. Global Lawlessness and Security Concerns for Non-White Nations and Their Fans Intensify Concerns that the U.S. is Not Appropriate Venue to Host World Cup

U.S. Global Lawlessness and Security Concerns for Non-White Nations and Their Fans Intensify Concerns that the U.S. is Not Appropriate Venue to Host World Cup

For Immediate Release
Contact: communications@blackallianceforpeace.com
(201) 292-4591

On April 6th, the Anti Fascist Football Coalition, a group of grassroots organizations in the three World Cup host countries - the U.S., Mexico, and Canada - delivered a petition to FIFA (signed by prominent individuals and organizations from every part of the planet) asking that FIFA and the International Olympic Committee demonstrate their stated positions on universal human rights and, as such, ban the United States and Israel from hosting or participating in international sporting events.

The Coalition is collaborating to implement shared strategies to demand that FIFA immediately remove the 2026 World Cup matches from the United States, and also calls on the international community to boycott the U.S. as a host nation for international sporting events.

Prior actions by the Coalition, including additional communications to FIFA, highlight the hypocrisy of their so-called “human rights statutes” when, historically, qualifying countries have been banned from participation in the Games for far less, such as the disqualification of Mexico in 1994 for incorrect paperwork. And yet, FIFA continues its shameless complicity with the U.S. agenda of global domination, no matter the cost of human and environmental life.

Brianna Alvarado Ramos, representing Diaspora Pa’lante Collective in the Anti Fascist Football Coalition, states that “The disqualification of the U.S. as both a host and participant is the bare minimum when we look at the U.S. warpath of barbaric and lawless acts of violence, repression, and genocide domestically and abroad - from the escalating economic strangulation of Cuba, the attacks on Venezuela and the kidnapping of its President, the ongoing U.S. occupation of Haiti, its brutal war on Iran, the subjugation and genocide of Palestinians, as well as the murder of working class people in the U.S. through both physical militarized forces and economic warfare.”

The past weeks have seen a clear build in momentum, internationally, with the demands to move the 2026 World Cup Games from the U.S. and hold FIFA accountable for its unwavering complicity in U.S. repression, lawlessness, escalating violence, and normalization of genocide. Dutch groups have collected nearly 200,000 signatories supporting their call to “Boycott the Trump World Cup.” Germany’s Fairness United is circulating their campaign and petition to “Love Football/Hate Fascism” with serious considerations to boycott matches held in the U.S. After the Trump administration openly disparaged Spain for its opposition to the US-Israeli war on Iran, the Spanish government announced on March 3 that its national team’s withdrawal from World Cup participation is under consideration.

These actions echo the calls from several other countries, including Sweden, France, Switzerland, and, of course, Iran, where the Trump administration openly threatened the safety of their players should they choose to travel to and compete in the U.S.

The evidence as to why the World Cup Games must not be held in the U.S. continues to grow and there is nothing covert about the agenda of the U.S.state to use these mega events as direct pathways for militarized entities to further disappear and neutralize colonized and oppressed populations -  not just those living in the U.S., but also for international fans and players hoping to attend the matches. Just recently in Dallas, Texas, Iraqi football fans were physically and verbally harassed with threats to call ICE. In response, a countless number of fans reiterated that the U.S. is dangerous for anyone attending the Games.

The Coalition will continue to build resistance to FIFA’s complicity in U.S. lawlessness and genocide and invites the public to join in the Coalition’s Campaign to Boycott the World Cup and Boycott the U.S. at bit.ly/EndorseNow and learn more at https://peoplescenteredhumanrights.com/move-the-games/.

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Coalition of Seventeen Organizations Demands Immediate Release of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and First Combatant Cilia Flores

RELEASE DATE: March 26th, 2026

COALITION OF SEVENTEEN ORGANIZATIONS DEMANDS IMMEDIATE RELEASE OF VENEZUELAN PRESIDENT NICOLÁS MADURO AND FIRST COMBATANT CILIA FLORES

New York City, NY, March 26th — A coalition of seventeen anti-imperialist, anti-war organizations has gathered today to demand the immediate and unconditional release of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and First Combatant Cilia Flores, who were wrongfully abducted by the United States government to face what the coalition describes as an illegitimate trial. 

President Nicolás Maduro and First Combatant Cilia Flores were taken nearly three months ago. The coalition acknowledges that as part of the illegal abduction, the US also bombed dozens of sites throughout Venezuela, killing civilians and destroying critical infrastructure. 

“US crimes are escalating, but everywhere they are challenged,” said Sara Flounders of Workers World Party. 

“To those who hurl slurs at me and then ask if I am Venezuelan– yes, I am, I am Cuban, I am Sudanese, I am Congolese, I am Palestinian, I am Iranian. Our shared identity is one of resistance to imperialist violence,” said a representative of Arm the Dollz.

The coalition condemns these actions in the strongest terms and has gathered to show solidarity with the Venezuelan people.

WHO: Our solidarity coalition includes the All African Peoples Revolutionary Party, Workers World Party, Brooklyn Against War, Bronx Anti-War Coalition, Black Alliance for Peace, CUNY for Palestine, PALAVER, Code Pink, Arm the Dolls, Diaspora Pa’lante Collective, US Peace Council, Prolibertad Freedom Campaign, Compas De La Diaspora, Black Panther Party Panther Power, Crown Heights Bites Back, Prolibertad Freedom Campaign, and Venezuela Solidarity Network

DEMAND:

Immediate and unconditional release of President Nicolas Maduro and First Combatant Cilia Flores   

FREE NICOLAS MADURO AND FIRST COMBATANT CILIA FLORES

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Image: Jane Rosenberg/Reuters

Castro, Cuba, and Pan-African Commitments

Castro, Cuba, and Pan-African Commitments

by D. Musa Springer in Hood Communist

The first section of this essay looks at the military aid Castro’s Cuba provided to several African movements on the continent, in the Caribbean, and in Latin America. The second section focuses on the broader Cuban commitments to equipping the Global South with tools of development that often go overlooked, specifically medical diplomacy and mass education and literacy initiatives.

While this specific article does not go into it, an entire additional section could be written focusing specifically on the asylum Cuba gave to dozens of Black revolutionaries — from Assata Shakur and Robert F. Williams, to Walter Rodney and Puerto Rican revolutionary William Morales. Comrade Ahjamu Umi does a great job covering this in his article. Another section could highlight the multitude of ways that Castro specifically supported Africans in Cuba, from affirmative action reforms in healthcare, housing, labor, education, and political representation.

Military Aid As Material Commitment To Solidarity
Fidel Castro was a man ahead of his time, not only leading the Cuban Revolution and bringing about sweeping revolutionary changes across his island, but also playing a significant role in several African liberation movements. His contributions to these movements were multifaceted and demonstrated his commitment to improving the lives of Afrodescendent people and helping us achieve self-determination, a commitment which would evolve into a core principle of the Cuban Revolution itself.

Possibly most important is the military aid which Castro’s administration provided to various African countries during their struggles for independence. In 1975, he famously sent at least 35,000 Cuban troops to Angola to help the MPLA (People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola) in their fight against South African colonial forces attempting to maintain control over the country. The Cuban intervention was pivotal in preventing the Apartheid-backed and armed FNLA and UNITA foces from defeating the MPLA and seizing power, the prevention of South African annexation.

Castro also provided support to a number of other African countries, including Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau, helping them fend off invasions or rebellions backed by Western colonial powers. In this regard Castro’s fiery words about African solidarity, Cuba being an ‘African island’, and an internationalist politic were not just rhetoric: they were mandates, commitments of the highest order. This includes the complicated, perhaps controversial, intervention in Ethiopia as well.

In Ethiopia, Castro provided military advisors and at least 11,000 Cuban troops to support the government of Mengistu Haile Mariam in repelling a US-backed Somali invasion of the Ogaden region in 1977. By the time of the conflict, Haile Selassie had already been deposed in a 1974 military coup, and it was the new Ethiopian government that received Cuban and Soviet backing. This intervention was a significant factor in Ethiopia’s ability to resist the invasion and maintain territorial integrity, while at the same time it divided many among the Pan-African left. The conflict emerged from longstanding border disputes over the Ogaden region. But the involvement of outside powers, with the Soviet Union and Cuba supporting Ethiopia while the U.S. backed Somalia, gave it broader implications for the shifting alignments of the Cold War and the emerging struggle for a multipolar world. Other socialist nations, including the DPRK and South Yemen, also contributed military and technical support to Ethiopia during the conflict.

In Guinea-Bissau, following the legendary 1966 Tricontinental Conference, Castro provided military support to the PAIGC (African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde) as they fought against Portuguese colonial forces in the 1960s and 1970s. This support included the deployment of Cuban military advisors and the provision of weapons and other military assistance. This also crucially included providing training from Cuban guerilla fighters to PAIGC combatants, which proved decisive in battle. The PAIGC ultimately gained independence from Portuguese colonizers in September 1974, and Castro’s support was a significant factor in their success.

In addition to his support for African liberation struggles on the continent, Fidel Castro also provided support to Africans in the Caribbean during their struggles for independence and liberation. One notable example of this support was in Grenada, where Castro provided military and logistical support to the socialist government of Maurice Bishop in the 1980s. This support was a key factor in the government’s ability to develop socialist social service institutions, including a robust healthcare system that alleviated longstanding class and gender-differences on the island, which is documented greatly in Dr. Patricia Rodney’s “The Carribean State: Healthcare and Women.”

Cuban support also helped Grenada resist a bloody US-led invasion of the tiny island nation in 1983, though the U.S. forces would ultimately succeed. Dozens of Cubans were viciously murdered by the U.S. during the invasion, including many Grenadans who the U.S. “suspected were Cuban.” In her essay “Grenada Revisited”, Grenadian-American writer Audre Lorde illustrates the immediate impact of this violent invasion of the island, stating:

“Unemployment in Grenada dropped 26 percent in four years. On October 25, 1983 American Corsair missiles and naval shells and mortars pounded into the hills behind Grenville, St. Georges, Gouyave. American marines tore through homes and hotels searching for “Cubans.” Now the Ministries are silent. The state farms are at a standstill. The cooperatives are suspended. The cannery plant in True Blue is a shambles, shelled to silence. On the day after the invasion, unemployment was back up to 35 percent. A cheap, acquiescent labor pool is the delight of supply side economics. One month later, the U.S. Agency for International Development visits Grenada. They report upon the role of the private sector in Grenada’s future, recommending the revision of tax codes to favor private enterprise (usually foreign), the development of a labor code that will ensure a compliant labor movement, and the selling off of public sector enterprises to private interests. How soon will it be Grenadian women who are going blind from assembling microcomputer chips at $.80 an hour for international industrial corporations? “I used to work at the radio station,” says a young woman on the beach, shrugging. “But that ended in the war.””

Castro’s support for Grenada was part of a wider effort to promote socialist revolution in the Caribbean and Latin America, especially among the masses of working class African and Indigenous peoples throughout the Americas. He saw the struggles for independence and liberation in these regions as part of the global struggle against colonialism, imperialism, and capitalism, and made a commitment to support the right of self-determination against the whims of imperialist capital.

In addition to his support for Grenada, Castro also provided military and logistical support to other Caribbean and Latin American countries during various liberation struggles. This included Nicaragua and Venezuela, where he supported socialist governments and movements that were staunchly opposed by the U.S. and other Western powers. Cuba supported the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua in 1979, which resulted in the overthrow of the brutal U.S.-backed Somoza dictatorship and the establishment of a socialist people’s-government led by the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN). The Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, led by Hugo Chávez, took place in the 1990s through the early 2000s and also received support from Castro. This resulted in the establishment of Bolivarian socialism and the adoption of a number of progressive social and economic reforms, with Cuba specifically providing funding and technical assistance to help the Chávez government establish a network of community clinics and other healthcare facilities, similar to Cuba’s own successful neighborhood polyclinic system, as well as to support the development of the country’s education system.

In a speech to the UN General Assembly in 1979, Castro stated:

“It was indispensable to stress that the colonialist and imperialist powers were continuing their aggressive policies for the purpose of perpetuating, recovering or expanding their domination and exploitation of African nations. The dramatic situation in Africa is none other than that. The non-aligned countries could not avoid condemning the attacks on Mozambique, Zambia, Angola, Botswana, the threats against Lesotho, the attempts at permanent destabilization in that region, and the role of the racist regimes of Rhodesia and South Africa. […] To condemn South Africa without mentioning those who make its criminal policy possible would have been incomprehensible. From the sixth summit there emerged with more strength and urgency the need to end a situation which involves the rights of the people of Zimbabwe and Namibia to their independence and the unpostponable need for the black men and women of South Africa to achieve a status in which they are considered equal and respected human beings, as well as that the conditions of respect and peace for all countries of the region be insured.”

This quote is one of many that demonstrates Castro’s belief in the importance of fighting against colonialism, racism, and imperialism; immersed in supporting liberation struggles across the continent, he shook the UN with unshakeable ideological clarity and material solidarity. His support for the global African liberation movement was a crucial factor, during an extremely complex and contentious historical period, in the eventual independence of these countries and a testament to his commitment to the well-being of people of African descent around the world.

Fidel Castro and the Cuban revolutionary state’s military support for African liberation struggles on the continent, in the Caribbean, and across Latin America demonstrate his material commitment to the global anti-colonialism and anti-imperialism struggles, and that commitment in itself presented the contradictions of the West — with all their development, so-called power, and money — and the difference between their rhetoric and actions.

Beyond Military Aid: The Fundamental Tools for Development

Castro’s support for African liberation movements extended far beyond just military aid, leaving a lasting and expansive imprint on the cuban state to this day. He also recognized the importance of access to education and healthcare in the development of independent, self-determined African states. Cuba’s revolutionary support for African and Caribbean nations in the areas of education and healthcare are key parts of Cuba’s commitments, and to that end, Castro sent thousands of Cuban doctors, medical professionals, educators, education professionals, and social scientists to African countries to provide support in a multitude of ways.

He also funded scholarships for African students globally to study in Cuba free of charge, giving them the opportunity to receive a world-class education. By providing access to education and healthcare, he sought to give these countries the tools they needed to build strong, self-sufficient societies which could eventually break away from Western-dependence for self-development. A seemingly impossible, but not unimaginable, task.

One of the most significant ways in which Castro supported African and Caribbean nations in the area of education was through the provision of scholarships for students to study in Cuba for free, particularly in fields most relevant to development: medicine, engineering, and agriculture. Havana’s Latin American School of Medicine (Escuela Latinoamericana de Medicina) has trained over 20,000 doctors from 120+ countries since 1999, prioritizing students from underdeveloped regions, including many from over 36 African nations.

The scholarship program was highly competitive and attracted top students from across the African and Caribbean diaspora, but was also designed to be inclusive, with a particular emphasis on providing opportunities to women, indigenous people, and Africans. This was designed to model Cuba’s domestic affirmative action policies, which attempted to reverse centuries of African slavery and colonialism by giving specific focus to specific groups in the education sector, such as Afro-Cubans.

In addition to helping Africans study in Cuba, the Cuban government also established programs to send Cuban educators and educational professionals to various countries to provide training and support to native workers. These programs focused on improving the quality of education in areas such as teacher training, curriculum development, and school infrastructure.

In How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Guyanese historian Walter Rodney explains how education itself can act as a tool of colonial domination across Africa and its diaspora, stating that education can either be for the purpose of subjugation and underdevelopment or, conversely, progressive development. Castro’s orientation towards ‘education for development’ internationally is in part inspired by Cuba’s own revolutionary literacy campaigns, launched in 1960 immediately after the Cuban Revolution’s triumph in 1959. A key part of the Cuban Revolution’s efforts to promote education and improve the lives of the Cuban people, Castro sought to eliminate illiteracy in Cuba and provide universal access to education for all Cubans, ideals which had been long denied by former colonial regimes.

[Image: the famous photo by photographer Liborio Noval shows the final march closing out the highly successful Cuban literacy campaign in December 1961; the campaign was famously supported by thousands of teenage girls and women.]

To achieve this goal, the Cuban government mobilized tens of thousands of volunteers, including teachers, students, and medical professionals, to go out into previously excluded rural and majority African neighborhoods to teach literacy to those previously denied the opportunity to go to school. The campaigns were highly successful, and by the end of the 1960s, Cuba had achieved a literacy rate of nearly 100%. This made it the first country in Latin America to eliminate illiteracy and one of the first countries in the world to do so.

Medical professionals, including doctors and nurses, played a significant role in the revolutionary literacy campaigns in Cuba. In addition to teaching literacy, they also provided healthcare services to those living in rural and underserved areas where access to healthcare was very limited. The role of medical professionals in the literacy campaigns was part of a broader trend in the Cuban Revolution, which prioritized the integration of healthcare, social and natural sciences, and education as part of its efforts to improve the lives of the Cuban people. By bringing healthcare and education together, the Cuban government sought to create a more holistic approach to development that would address the needs of the population in a more comprehensive and integrated way. This approach was highly effective, and it helped to make the Cuban Revolution one of the most successful social and economic experiments of the 20th century.

Cuban psychiatrist Norma Guillard was a young nursing student when she volunteered in 1960 to join the literacy campaigns, and she has worked extensively to document the importance of these campaigns in all future public health endeavors on the island; the ideal of medicine being accompanied by social services and education is in fact the bedrock of Cuban public health. As she informs, a large percentage of those who received medicine and literacy training during these campaigns were Afrodescendant Cubans and, conversely, many of those who volunteered in the programs (who themselves received medical training to lead careers in medicine) were also Afrodescendant Cubans, both representing groups that had previously been disallowed from Cuban universities.

The revolutionary literacy campaigns were not just praised by underdeveloped countries around the world, but also inspired similar efforts in many newly liberated states. One country that was particularly inspired by Cuba’s literacy campaigns was Nicaragua, which launched its own literacy campaign in 1979 after the success of the Sandinista Revolution. The Nicaraguan literacy campaign, known as the “Battle of the Alphabet,” was led by a coalition of educators, students, and other volunteers, and was modeled on the Cuban literacy campaign, with the intention of collapsing lines between medicine and social services and social sciences. It was highly successful, and within a year, Nicaragua had achieved a literacy rate of more than 90%.

Ghana and Angola were also both deeply inspired by Cuba’s revolutionary literacy campaigns and sought to emulate their successes. In the case of Ghana, the government launched mass literacy campaign in the late 1960s, shortly after the success of the Cuban literacy campaigns, and then again in the 1980s. The Ghanaian campaigns were based on the flexible Cuban model developed by Cuban brigadista Leonela Relys, led by a coalitions of educators, students, and other volunteers. They were highly successful, and within a few years, Ghana had achieved a literacy rate of over 80%.

Angola’s post-independence education system was heavily influenced by its allies, particularly Cuba and the Soviet Union. Following independence, Angola re-founded its ‘University of Luanda’ as the Universidade de Angola, and while seeking to decolonize remnants of colonialism in their education system, invited hundreds of Cuban and Soviet teachers to Angola to teach; at the same time, thousands of Angolan students studied in Cuba and the Soviet Union. Ongoing external-backed insurgencies and internal issues disrupted the development of a complete, new education system in Angola and caused school enrollment to decline. In 2009 Angola’s Education Minister called for a ‘Cuban system of education’ in the nation, and formally invited dozens of Cuban educators to work with the African nation to re-develop its education system.

As Mark Abendroth details in his 2009 book ‘Rebel Literacy’, the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) awarded a King Sejong Literacy Prize to Cuba’s Latin American and Caribbean Pedagogical Institute (IPLAC) for its innovative work in literacy campaigns of over 15 countries. Despite imperialist lies and distortions emanating from the U.S. and other Western capitalist forces, Cuba’s contributions to global education initiatives, started at the direction of Fidel Castro, represent a vital line of support for formerly colonized nations. Even the West’s own institutions like the United Nations have been forced to recognize this.

Despite prevailing myths and misreadings of history, Fidel Castro’s support for Africa did not end in the 1970s, and in fact continues to this day through Cuba’s medical diplomacy and medical brigades. These programs send Cuban doctors and medical professionals to countries across the African diaspora to provide healthcare services and improve public health systems.

Cuba’s medical diplomacy and medical brigades have their roots in the country’s support for the African liberation movement in the 1970s, especially its previously mentioned support of Angola against Portuguese and South African forces. In addition to military aid, Castro also recognized the importance of access to healthcare in the development of self-determined African states, and sent medical professionals to Angola, beginning what would eventually be established as programs to send thousands of Cuban doctors and other medical professionals to African countries, providing critical healthcare services and improving public health.

These early efforts to provide healthcare assistance to African countries were just the beginning of Cuba’s commitment to medical diplomacy. In the following decades, Cuba has continued to expand its medical aid programs, and the medical brigades became a key component of the island’s foreign policy and international relations. The early days of the medical brigades were characterized by a strong sense of international solidarity, and an anti-colonial commitment to improving the lives of people in need. Cuban medical professionals were motivated by a desire to make a difference and to help those in need, and they worked tirelessly to provide quality healthcare services to Africans and others. They faced many documented challenges, including limited resources, difficult living conditions, and separation from their families and home country; many locations were grappling with conflict, poverty, and other challenges of development, and Cuban doctors had to adapt to these conditions in order to provide the best care. Despite these challenges, the medical brigades worked tirelessly to help people in need and to improve the health of the communities they served.

Cuba’s medical diplomacy has been particularly effective in addressing health crises and disasters across the African continent in particular, such as the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa. One of the most significant examples of Cuba’s medical diplomacy in action, the island’s response to the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa saw over 250 Cuban medical professionals sent to West Africa at the height of the crisis, effectively making it the largest medical mission in the country’s history. These professionals worked tirelessly to provide quality healthcare services and to help contain the spread of the virus, an act which public health professionals praise for halting what may have become a global health pandemic of similar proportions to 2020’s COVID-19 outbreak.

The Ebola response was just one example of Cuba’s commitment to global health and international solidarity. Over the past few decades, Cuba has also been a leader in sending medical professionals to countries affected by HIV/AIDS. Since the early 2000s, over 50,000 Cuban doctors have served in 66 countries, providing critical healthcare services and improving the lives of people living with HIV/AIDS.

Cuba’s response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic has been particularly notable due to the country’s own history with the disease. In the 1980s, Cuba was hit hard by the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and the Castro administration was forced to implement a number of innovative measures in order to curb the spread of the disease: widespread testing and counseling, the establishment of a national treatment program, the implementation of sex education programs in schools, and widespread education initiatives to deal with homophobic stigmas surrounding HIV/AIDS. As a result of these efforts, Cuba was able to effectively control the spread of HIV/AIDS and provide care and support to those affected by the disease.

This experience with HIV/AIDS made Cuba uniquely qualified to help other countries facing similar epidemics. In the early 2000s, Cuba began sending medical professionals to countries in Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean to help address the HIV/AIDS epidemic. These doctors were able to provide much-needed healthcare services, including testing, counseling, and treatment, and they also worked to build capacity in local healthcare systems. In addition to providing direct care, the Cuban doctors also worked to educate communities about HIV/AIDS prevention, helping to reduce the stigma surrounding the disease and encouraging people to get tested and seek treatment.

In addition to responding to emergencies, Cuba’s medical brigades also work to improve the overall health of African populations; they provide primary care in rural areas, as well as specialized care in fields such as ophthalmology and pediatrics. They also train local healthcare professionals, helping to build capacity in African countries to improve the overall health systems of the populations they serve.

Cuba’s medical diplomacy and medical brigades are a testament to the country’s commitment to global health and international solidarity. They have had a significant impact on the health of Afrodescendent people globally, and have helped to build strong relationships between Cuba and the countries it has assisted. Demonstrating the importance of international South-South cooperation, they are a transformative part of Cuba’s history and identity, a key component of Fidel Castro’s legacy, and a source of pride for the country and its people.

Socialist conceptions of material solidarity, in theory, are mutually beneficial where possible, and Cuban medical diplomacy in practice exudes this ideal: Cuba’s international medical diplomacy has brought numerous benefits to the country, both domestically and internationally. Cuba’s medical brigades have helped to improve the country’s reputation and standing on the global stage, directly combatting decades of imperialist propaganda and slander by the most powerful empire in human history, the U.S.. By providing medical assistance to countries in need, Cuba has demonstrated its commitment to global health and international solidarity, maintaining a positive reputation for the island internationally.

Cuba’s medical brigades have also brought economic benefits to the country, as the Cuban government has received payments for the services provided by its medical professionals, who are often sent by request of the needing country, which has helped to generate revenue for the country. In addition, the sale of Cuban-developed pharmaceuticals to other countries has also contributed to the country’s economy. In their socialist system, the majority of funding from medical diplomacy goes directly into the country’s own socialist healthcare system, which in turn is able to provide medicine to its citizens free of cost.

The medical brigades have had an obvious and significant humanitarian impact as well, improving the health and well-being of people in the countries where they have served, helping to improve healthcare systems and address health crises in these countries. Lastly, the medical brigades provide extensive opportunities for professional development for Cuban medical professionals themselves. By working in different countries and exposing themselves to different cultures and healthcare systems, Cuban doctors and other medical professionals have been able to expand their knowledge and skills, incorporate relevant advancements into their domestic practices, and improve the Cuban healthcare system to remain one of the best in the world, even despite a decades-long blockade harshly straining their economy. Therefore, Cuba’s African commitments through medical diplomacy have helped to improve the quality of healthcare in Cuba as well.

Castro’s material solidarity with African and African diaspora liberation movements remains one of the most concrete examples of internationalism in the 20th century. At a time when words of support were plentiful but boots on the ground were rare, Cuba put both resources and lives on the line for the cause of self-determination. And this commitment to self-determination, solidarity, and sovereignty has remained unwavering to this day.

Today as the United States tightens its blockade, imposes destabilizing oil embargoes, and works tirelessly and systematically to strangle the Cuban people into submission, we are called to remember what Cuba gave to Africans when it did not have to give. The same internationalist spirit that sent Cuban troops to Angola and doctors to the Congo, Jamaica, and Venezuela demands that we meet this moment with equal resolve. Solidarity is not a sentiment. It is a practice, and Cuba practiced it for decades at enormous cost. The least we can do is raise our voices, organize our communities, and struggle for an end to the blockade now.

The blockade is not policy. It is punishment for Cubans having the audacity of self-determination. Those who claim the legacy of anti-imperialism cannot be silent. Now is the time to stand with the people of Cuba as fiercely as possible.

On the Precipice of Major DC Elections, Pan-African Community Action Demands Community-Based Control

For Immediate Release: Press Contact: paca@protonmail.com 

(609) 954-4741

On the Precipice of Major DC Elections, Pan-African Community Action Demands Community-Based Control

The organization advances a people’s platform for collective self-determination in Southeast D.C.

March 6, 2026 — The political landscape in the District remains evershifting; Mayor Muriel Bowser announced late last year that she will not be seeking reelection for a fourth term, leaving a mayoral vacancy in DC for the first time in over a decade. DC Councilmembers are experiencing a shake-up with At-Large Councilmember Anita Bonds stepping away from a bid for reelection and the resignation of At-Large Council member Kenyan McDuffie, as he plans to run for mayorship. 

As the city inches toward a heavy election campaign season, Black and working class communities in Southeast hold little power over their institutions of health, education, and safety. Pan-African Community Action (PACA) is actualizing power over community health needs  in DC’s Wards 7 and 8 through the People’s Pan-African Wellness Front, which launched in late February and has received local media coverage. This survival program, providing free medical supplies, glucose and blood pressure testing, and preventive health information, is one component of organizing toward long-term self-determination and holistic community control. 

PACA has, additionally, launched a new campaign to build independent, community-based power: the platform Community Control DC. This campaign acknowledges that access, representation or reform cannot adequately shape the living conditions of Black and Brown people, nor the working class for the better- only power can. The organization has issued a people(s)-centered platform that includes a list of demands to put this power into the hands of the most disadvantaged and disenfranchised. These twelve demands are:

1. The Youth Shall Govern Youth Resources

2. Our Communities Shall Have Community Control Over Policing and Public Safety

3. Our Communities Shall Not Be Subject to Surveillance or Military Control

4. The People Shall Control Public Resources

5. Health Systems Shall Serve the Community

6. The Land Shall Belong to the Community

7. No One Shall Be Punished for Being Unhoused

8. Environmental Decisions Shall Be Made by the Community

9. Transportation Shall Be Free and Accessible

10. Our Communities Shall Not Be Complicit in War and Empire

11. Education Shall Be Community-Controlled and Free

12. Workers Shall Have Power Over Their Labor

The demands establish a legitimate framework for accountability and action. Institutions would be democratically governed by neighborhood assemblies, community councils, and budgeting authorities- giving, first, Southeast residents the power and resources to mold their lives. With this structure serving as a model of self-determination that can expand across DC,  residents can hold power and retain authority over funding, resources, and implementation of officials and institutions.  

PACA requires that any institution, agency, official, or candidate that aligns with Community Control DC must demonstrate compliance through binding agreements, public reporting, and community oversight. 

The organization, through this platform, works to organize and build independent, community-controlled power that allows the people of Southeast to reshape their material conditions and dictate how their needs are met.

About Pan-African Community Action (PACA):

Emerging in November of 2015 in direct response to the killing of 27 year-old Alonzo Smith by DC Special Police, Pan African Community Action is a grassroots group of African/Black people organizing for community-based power. This organization, based in Washington, D.C., works to actualize this through political education and participatory programs of action.

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Mass Resistance in solidarity with Iran and Palestine: Al-Quds Day, March 13

Mass Resistance in solidarity with Iran & Palestine: Al-Quds Day, March 13

On February 28, 2026, US and Israeli forces launched joint military strikes against Iran, a criminal and reckless act of war following years of sanctions and hybrid warfare aimed at regime change. This display of US arrogance and aggression aims at imposing Western dominance and preventing the region’s resurgence. It comes during bad-faith negotiations by the US over manufactured “threats,”  the largest US military buildup in the region since 2003, and follows two and a half years of genocide against Palestinians, escalating violence in the West Bank, regime change in Syria, and assaults on Yemen and Lebanon. 

These are coordinated attacks aiming to crush resistance to imperialist domination across West Asia. 

This joint strike proves once again that the US settler colonial-Zionist entity alliance is the most dangerous, utterly fascist and genocidal force in the world today. Iran has been targeted because of its assertion of sovereignty and its opposition to US imperialist ambitions in the region. In response, we, the popular social movements and grassroots forces throughout the US and Canada, must mobilize and organize in full solidarity with Iran's unconditional right to resist. We must vehemently resist all forms of US war, aggression and intervention violating the self-determination of the Islamic Republic of Iran.    

We call on all forces and people to join local/regional/national mobilizations and actions on March 13, 2026, being organized for Al-Quds Day, and to organize their own where they do not already exist. 

On Al-Quds Day and in the lead-up, we call on all forces mobilizing to incorporate solidarity with Iran and opposition to all facets of imperialist-zionist war on Iran into their messaging and activities. Make the anti-imperialist connections between wars on Palestine, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, Sudan, Lebanon, Yemen, as well as the domestic repression and ICE kidnappings in the US

This call affirms that:

• Iran has been targeted for its independence and unwavering support for the Palestinian people for decades, including throughout the zionist-imperialist genocide that has taken over 100,000 Palestinian lives. 

• Iran has every right, including under international law, to defend itself and counterattack against US bases, outposts, and Israeli settler colonialism and occupation in the region.

• Iran’s resistance to this brutality is in defense of the whole of the Global South, from Palestine and Sudan to Cuba and Venezuela.

• Iran’s targeting of U.S. bases in the region underscores how Washington’s vast network of roughly 750 military installations across more than 80 countries and colonies—costing taxpayers at least $80 billion annually—serves as the global infrastructure of U.S. imperialist domination, and must be dismantled and shut down.

• Iran is defending its sovereignty against the same US imperialist war machine that, kidnaps and terrorizes migrants, targets working class, Black, Brown and Indigenous communities with its carceral and surveillance apparatuses, defunds healthcare, education, and other life-sustaining institutions, and is engaged in the McCarthyite repression of those resisting. The US remains the number one threat to peace in the region and in the world, inflicting death and destruction through military and economic warfare, including unilateral coercive measures, blockades, tariff wars, and currency manipulation.

We call on all popular forces to stand with Iran, reject imperialist-zionist aggression, uphold the right of resistance, continue to join emergency actions worldwide, and prepare for mass mobilizations and resistance to US war on Iran and ongoing genocide in Palestine on Al-Quds Day, March 13, 2026. Until then, we encourage all forces to issue statements and labor resolutions, organize political education events, walkouts, protests, strikes, pickets, and sit-ins and other actions, and prepare to SHUT IT DOWN in opposition to this criminal assault.

Sign on to the statement

Register your actions

Education and mobilization resources on Iran

In solidarity,

Black Alliance for Peace, United National Antiwar Coalition, US Peace Council, Diaspora Pa’lante Collective, PAL-Awda NY/NJ, National Students for Justice in Palestine, Resist US-Led War Movement, Veterans for Peace, Within Our Lifetime, National Lawyers Guild, Teaching Palestine: Pedagogical Praxis, The Indivisibility of Justice, Anti-Imperialist Scholars Collective, Fellowship of Reconciliation, Palestine Arab and Muslim (PAM) Caucus, USPCN, Red Nation, Westchester for Palestine, CUNY for Palestine, Metro Vancouver United for Palestine, Ohio Peace Council, Juche (MN), Greater New Haven Peace Council, NATIONAL JERICHO MOVEMENT AMNESTY 4 POLITICAL PRISONERS, Palestine, Arab and Muslim (PAM) Caucus of California Faculty Association, U.S. Palestinian Community Network (USPCN), Party for Socialism and Liberation - Omaha, Struggle for Socialism Party Harriet Tubman Center for Social Justice, People's Power Assembly

Standing with Iran

Standing with Iran

By: Margaret Kimberley in Black Agenda Report

The task of the left, of all anti-imperialists, is to oppose U.S. aggression around the world. A military attack against Iran is imminent and cannot be opposed on theoretical grounds. The people of Iran and their state must be supported without hesitation or apology.

The United States has been determined to crush the Islamic Republic of Iran ever since a revolution brought it to power 47 years ago. In the 1980s the U.S. made Iraq’s president Saddam Hussein their proxy as he unleashed a war against Iran that killed an estimated 1 million people. The chemical weapons that the U.S. later used as a pretext for invasion and occupation of Iraq were actually used against Iran. The U.S. navy shot down an Iranian civilian airliner and killed 290 people in 1988. Vice President George H.W. Bush famously responded with these words. “I'll never apologize for the United States of America, ever. I don't care what the facts are. I’m not an apologize-for-America kind of guy.”

Warfare and terrorism was followed by years of sanctions and economic sabotage now culminating in a full-blown regime change effort as a buildup of military assets in the region continues. Fighter jets have been sent to U.S. military bases in client states, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, ships in the Persian Gulf, and an aircraft carrier group in the region, while another is en route.

Iran’s technological infrastructure has been deeply infiltrated by the U.S. and Israel and allows for psychological warfare to be added to the ships, planes, and bombs. Millions of people there received this anonymous text message, “The American president is a man of action. Wait.” The ability for Iran’s enemies to directly interact with the public is a very bad sign for the security of their people. The CIA acts both covertly as with the texts, and overtly, as it posted instructions on social media to those Iranians willing to undermine their state with a message written in Persian.

Yet no one knows what the impact of a U.S. attack will be. The so-called 12-day war with Israel in June 2025 proved that Iran was vulnerable but also that it had more military power than anticipated. The drive to attack Iran is bipartisan, with Democrats being largely silent because they are in agreement with Trump and the Republicans. They share the desire to destroy the Iranian state and put a compliant regime in place and/or to break it up into smaller regions which would also be obedient to the U.S. and to the West. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made seven trips to Washington ever since Donald Trump’s January 2025 inauguration. He wants to make sure that any questions about the feasibility of a strike are ignored in case Trump should get cold feet. A sane government would ask if the Iranian state has popular support and, regardless of whether it does or not, is the possible destruction of that state what the people there want? Would a decapitation strike on political and military leadership undo the revolution? Can a bombing campaign actually lead to a devastated government that could easily be overthrown? Americans should also ask how Iran is a threat to the US. All of these questions are logical and reasonable, but the U.S. and Israel believe that the time to strike is at hand and like George H.W. Bush, they are not interested in what the facts may indicate.

In all likelihood, Netanyahu has little reason to be worried about U.S. resolve. The plans for aggression are completely bipartisan. Trump and the Republican Party are not alone in pushing this scheme. Democrats make noises about wanting congressional authority before any attack takes place but few of them have said clearly that they are opposed to war. The only straightforward Democratic Party message is from those who oppose even the tepid War Powers Act resolution and who openly state their support for the regime change effort. Democratic leaders Senator Chuck Schumer and Congressman Hakeem Jeffries are trying to delay a vote on the resolution. They don’t want their members to go on record as supporting what their voters oppose. They hope that Trump starts a fight that voters don’t want but, in the process, helps them win the November mid-term elections. 

The likelihood of success and examination of the forces supportive of aggression are important questions but they limit an important discussion that should be taking place more often. Where does the left stand on the issue of the regime change effort? In short, whose side are we on? 

This moment is one that calls for an uncompromising anti-imperialist stance. There can be no waffling, fence sitting, or “both-sidesing.” The United States and Israel have no right to attack Iranian civilians, soldiers, or political and military leadership. Liberal arguments about supporting the people but not the state are gobbledegook, which makes the case for intervention, whether its proponents will admit their complicity or not.

The hostility towards Iran is unrelenting. Both Israel and the U.S. openly reveal what they are doing to undermine that nation. Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent has publicly confessed to the U.S. role in destabilizing Iran. Bessent first owned up to the U.S. role in creating economic havoc in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos.  "President Trump ordered Treasury ... to put maximum pressure on Iran, and it's worked. Because in December, their economy collapsed. They are not able to get imports, and this is why the people took to the streets." He later gave congressional testimony and admitted to creating a dollar shortage in Iran. “The central bank had to print money, the Iranian currency went into free fall, inflation exploded.” While Bessent gave accounts of how the Trump administration created economic and social chaos, a former Trump official was also spilling the beans. Mike Pompeo served in the first Trump administration as CIA Director and Secretary of State. He bragged on social media, “Happy New Year to every Iranian in the streets.  Also, to every Mossad agent walking beside them.”

While current and former high-ranking officials reveal how they are creating an environment to facilitate regime change, confused liberals wonder whether they should condemn the U.S. or spend their time railing against the Iranian government. As is usually the case, they are taken in by war propaganda which posits that women are treated badly and that protest isn’t allowed in Iran. They either don’t know or don’t care that most university students in Iran are women or that the initial protests after the economic collapse were met with discussions with the government, not with violent suppression.

They also don’t bother to educate themselves about the outright lies that are being told in western corporate media, such as reports of 30,000 people killed by that government. There is no rational explanation for a fashion blogger to suddenly become relied upon by media in the west.  These so-called sources are agents of the west, backed by intelligence cut-outs USAID and the ironically named National Endowment for Democracy (NED). 

The extent of U.S. involvement in what we're told is spontaneous popular action became clear in a congressional hearing. Damon Wilson, President and CEO of the NED revealed the extent of U.S. interference in what we're told was an uprising against a hated government. He testified that the U.S. "began supporting the deployment [and] operation of about 200 Starlinks early on.” Starlink was used by those Iranians who are working with Israel and the U.S. to communicate with their accomplices. Wilson's revelation risked upending war propaganda, and he was immediately told to be quiet. Congresswoman Lois Frankel, the ranking member of the House Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs, told Wilson, “You know what, I’m going to interrupt you – we’d better not talk about it.”

Many people who ought to know better have fallen prey to propaganda, notions of western white supremacy, and beliefs in orientalism. These otherwise well-informed so-called leftists need little prompting to start questioning the Iranian government and joining in condemnation of non-existent oppressions. If they so chose, they could have honest discussions about Iran and the U.S. and determine which one was most oppressive.

Which country has more people imprisoned than any other? That would be the United States. Which country is holding immigrant children in jails across the country? Again, that would be the United States. Which country is bombing fishermen in the Caribbean to make the case for regime change in Venezuela? Well, that’s the United States. Which country provides the means to support Israeli apartheid and genocide. Of course, the United States is the perpetrator. Where do immigration enforcement agents shoot people to death in the street? That happens in the U.S.  Which country’s constitution calls for support of all “oppressed people” and mandates support for Palestine in particular. The answer, of course, is Iran.

To be blunt, white supremacy infects the West to such a degree that there are very few people who are able to discern the most basic facts that might force them to be open-minded about their country and about others. Even so-called leftists believe that Iranians are backward people who need to be saved. They give them no credit for being able to practice self-determination and decide what sort of state they want to live in. They don’t even care that years of destabilization and war have limited the ability of Iranians to work for the changes they may want to see realized. In the final analysis, lazy liberalism and orientalism are as responsible for the crimes being planned against Iran as much as obedience to zionism and imperialism are. 

The task of the left is to fight against U.S. imperialism and to denounce it in the strongest terms possible. The United States, with its dollar domination and military prowess, is the biggest danger to life on planet earth and the most likely to promote suppression of dissent within its borders and around the world. Believing that denunciation of Washington’s plans to destroy the Iranian must include criticism of Iran’s system is the height of arrogance and ignorance.

An Iran free of threats from the west will be best able to determine its future. In any case, western liberals should be minding their own business and should be figuring out how to fight an increasingly autocratic U.S. The armchair “both-siders” are a threat to the people of Iran. Anyone who claims to care about them must stand firmly on the side of the Islamic Republic of Iran. That state is able to withstand U.S. sanctions and wars and provides needed multipolarity and that is why democrats and republicans alike want to destroy it. Wishy and washy fence sitters can help no one and, even if they are doing so inadvertently, provide succor to Trump as he plans to kill thousands of people. There is no choice. Anyone calling themselves anti-war, pro-peace, or anti-imperialist should be standing with Iran.

Image: Iranians Commemorate the 47th Anniversary of the Islamic Revolution Image: Majid Asgaripour/WANA/Reuters

Solidarity with Booker Omole

Solidarity with Booker Omole at Mavoko Law Courts

Call to Action from the Communist Party Marxist - Kenya

Comrades, workers, peasants, students, and all progressive and democratic forces, we issue this urgent call to assemble in firm and militant solidarity with Comrade Booker Ngesa Omole, General Secretary of the Communist Party Marxist Kenya, who is being unlawfully detained and persecuted by the state.

‘Booker is accused of attempting to kill the police, assaulting the police and having connections with the now jailed President of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, in the US drug cartel. This is as a result of organising a demonstration at the US Embassy demanding the release of Nicolás Maduro.’

This grotesque slander is a political fabrication and a transparent attempt to criminalise dissent and political struggle. After abduction, torture, and illegal confinement, Comrade Booker is now being brought before the courts under heavy police control. They deny access. They isolate him. They attempt to break his spirit and intimidate the movement. But they forget one truth. A revolutionary is never alone. The people stand behind him. This is not a legal matter. This is political repression. This is an attack on the organised working class. This is an attempt to silence the voice of the poor and the oppressed.

An injury to one is an injury to all. Touch one communist, and you awaken thousands. We therefore call upon all comrades and democratic forces to gather at the court in numbers, with discipline and unity, to:

Demand his immediate and unconditional release.
Demand an end to police brutality and harassment.
Defend democratic rights and the right to organise.
Expose the lies and political machinations of the state.
Show the state that the Party stands firm and the masses stand taller.

Let them see the people. Let them hear the people. Let them know that fear has changed sides.

Where they isolate one, we gather many.
Where they threaten, we resist.
Where they repress, we advance.

Come early. Come organised. Come united.

Solidarity is our weapon. Victory belongs to the people.

Signed, Central Committee Communist Party Marxist Kenya
Solidarity forever. Forward to people’s power.

Photo: Booker Ngesa Omole after his abduction. Photo: _James041/X