Marco Rubio - Ultrafascist Not Welcome in The Dominican Republic

MARCO RUBIO - ULTRAFASCIST NOT WELCOME IN THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

A Statement by Community Organizations of the Dominican Republic

On February 6th, 2025, social, political, and community organizations in the Dominican Republic held a press conference and read a statement denouncing the presence of U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in their country. Calling for 'U.S. Out of the Dominican Republic'. In addition to rejecting Rubio's presence, the groups call for Dominican President Luis Abinader to stop selling out the Dominican people and their lands to U.S. imperialism. They issued the following call to their fellow Dominicans: 'We call on the Dominican people to remain steadfast in defending their country’s independence, sovereignty and dignity, and to demand the implementation of integrationist policies with our sister countries within CELAC and ALBA-TCP. These alliances promote peace in Latin America and the Caribbean based on respect for each nation’s sovereignty and the well-being of the region's people. We demand that the United States end the arms trafficking that supports the paramilitary groups in the Republic of Haiti, end the destabilization of our neighbor, and respect Haiti’s sovereignty.'

The statement and press conference clips are available on Instagram (@afrodominica). The English translation can be found by clicking the button below:

Banner photo: Representatives of organizations from the Dominican revolutionary left and progressive sectors express their repudiation of visit by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, courtesy Prensa Latina.

Police Repress Protests in Panama!

Movement News - Panama - 2/10:
"Amidst the Trump administration's assertion of claim over the Panama Canal, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio's visit to Panama was met with protests organized by workers' unions and students from Juventude Revolucionarios These protests were held throughout the city in defense of Panamanian sovereignty. The police reacted to this with violence, threats, and attacks on organizers. Organizers in the University Reform Student Association of the University of Panama [Asociación Universitaria Reforma Estudiantil] are asking for attention and support in calling out government repression and U.S. imperialist machinations (English translation below). BAP member organization AfroResistance and several Panamanian organizations have also expressed solidarity with student organizers."

Banner photo: Man holding Panamanian flag with fist other fist high in the air, courtesy Roberto CISNEROS / AFP.

The Black Alliance for Peace Welcomes New Leadership!

New National Coordinators, Austin Cole, Erica Caines, Tunde Osazua, and new Coordinating Committee Chaitperson, Jacqueline Luqman

Dear comrades and supporters,

The Black Alliance for Peace is proud to announce that we are entering a new stage in our struggle to defeat the war on Africans/Black people in the U.S. and abroad!

Beginning on March 1, 2025, BAP will experience a new change in leadership. We are honored to have a new BAP Coordinating Committee Chair, Jacqueline Luqman; Coordinating Committee Vice-Chair, Jaribu Hill; and our new National Co-Coordinators, Erica Caines, Austin Cole, and Tunde Osazua!

Please join us as we congratulate our new BAP leadership!

Jacqueline Luqman – Coordinating Committee Chair

“No compromise, no retreat must be more than just a slogan. It must become a mindset and a guide along with our Mission and Principles of Unity. These will keep us on the path to ultimate victory over imperialist domination and liberation for our people.”

Jaribu Hill – Coordinating Committee Vice Chair

"I am honored to be selected to serve as co-chair of the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP). BAP's work as a revolutionary, anti-imperialist formation is exactly what we need to move our struggle for liberation forward. As an elder in this movement, I am inspired by BAP's inter-generational leadership model. I look forward to working with my comrades to advance our work that stands in opposition to all unjust wars and global oppression."

Erica Caines – National Co-Coordinator

“The Pan-European war on Africans can only be combatted through organization against systemic oppression rooted in colonialism, racism, and economic exploitation. We are organizing for Peace, which is not the absence of conflict but rather the achievement—through popular struggle and self-defense—of a world liberated from the interlocking systems of global injustice. True liberation demands collective action and our unwavering resistance.”

Austin Cole – National Co-Coordinator

"With the escalating crisis of U.S.-led imperialist capitalism across the globe, the need for Black radical unity has possibly never been so urgent. Meeting this moment requires not only struggling toward ideological clarity, but also sharpening our individual and collective organizational practices so that we can build real power and fight together more effectively in this generational struggle for Black/African and collective liberation."

Tunde Osazua – National Co-Coordinator

"The anti-colonial Black radical tradition, rooted in resistance, self-determination, and the fight against imperialism, is a guide for our liberation struggle. Reviving this tradition means rejecting reformist illusions, organizing for power, and forging unity among African people across the planet to defeat the systems that oppress us. Our future depends on it."

We are excited by these changes and the future of the Black Alliance for Peace.

“This marks an incredible moment in the continuation of the formation and the commitment to intergenerational revolutionary leadership.” (Ajamu Baraka, Founder and Coordinating Committee Chair)

The Coordinating Committee would like to acknowledge brother Ajamu Baraka for his many years of service to African people, the working class, and all colonized people, and his leadership in this revolutionary organization. That work will continue as Ajamu will continue as a member of the Coordinating Committee as the Director of The North-South Project for People(s)-Centered Human Rights.

Some members of the BAP Coordinating Committee and professional Meeting Facilitator, Janvieve Williams

The Lobito Corridor: US imperialism's latest plot against the Democratic Republic of Congo

The Lobito Corridor: US imperialism's latest plot against the Democratic Republic of Congo

“…The latest imperialist scheme against the DRC is the Lobito Corridor also known as the Lobito Atlantic Railway. This railway was originally built between 1902 and 1929 by the colonial governments of Belgium and Portugal to transport copper and cobalt stolen from the DRC and Zambia towards Europe. In September 2023, at the G20 summit in New Delhi, India, the U.S. government and the European Union signed an agreement to revive this old colonial railway linking the DRC to Zambia and the port of Lobito in Angola, to export critical minerals to Europe via the Atlantic Ocean.”

International Organizations Condemn the Ecuadorian Government in the Guayaquil Four Case

La traducción al español está más abajo

International Organizations Condemn the Ecuadorian Government in the Guayaquil Four Case

Justice and Reparations for Steven, Josué, Ismael, and Nehemías“…We are like the straw on the moor that is pulled out and grows back.” Dolores Cacuango

The Solidarity Roundtable for the Guayaquil 4 (MSL4 GYE), is a space created by the National Ecuadorian Afro-descendant Movement (MANE), the Permanent Committee for the Defense of Human Rights (CDH), the Pueblo Negro organization, the Center for Rural Promotion (CPR), the Association of Popular Artists, and countless civil associations, community organizations, and individuals are the signatories of this international complaint.
The MSL4 GYE denounces before an international audience the arbitrary detention and then the subsequent extrajudicial execution of the 4 children from Malvinas, Guayaquil, on December 8, 2024.

The MSL4 GYE demands from the Ecuadorian State, before international opinion, total transparency in the handling of the case and of the 16 detained military personnel as the material authors of the detention and subsequent execution of the four children from Malvinas, Guayaquil, Ecuador - Steven, Josué, Ismael and Nehemías.

The MSL4 GYE demands justice, transparency, and a speedy trial that is being carried out, and demands that the intellectual authors of the detention and subsequent extrajudicial death of the four children from Malvinas, Guayaquil, Ecuador - Steven, Josué, Ismael and Nehemías be identified.

The signatories of this document fully support what is expressed, and adhere with their signature to this international denunciation and to the Manifesto for the four children of the Malvinas, Guayaquil, Ecuador.

[See those signed on below]

———————————————- En español ———————————————-

Organizaciones Internacionales Denuncian el Gobierno Ecuatoriano en el Caso de los Cuatro de Guayaquil

“Justicia y reparación para Steven, Josué, Ismael, y Nehemías.”

“… Somos como la paja del páramo que se arranca y vuelve a crecer.”  Dolores Cacuango.

 La Mesa de Solidaridad por los 4 de Guayaquil (MSL4 GYE), es un espacio creado por el Movimiento Afrodescendiente Nacional Ecuatoriano (MANE), el Comité Permanente por la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos (CDH), la organización Pueblo Negro, El Centro de Promoción Rural (CPR),  la Asociación de Artistas Populares, y un sinnúmero de asociaciones civiles, organizaciones comunitarias, y personas naturales son los firmantes de esta denuncia internacional.

La MSL4 GYE denuncia ante la opinión internacional la detención arbitraria y luego la posterior ejecución extrajudicial de los 4 niños de las Malvinas, Guayaquil, el 8 de diciembre del 2024.

La MSL4 GYE exige al Estado Ecuatoriano, ante la opinión internacional, total transparencia en el manejo del caso y de los 16 militares detenidos como los autores materiales de la detención y posterior ejecución de los cuatro niños de la Malvinas, Guayaquil, Ecuador, Steven, Josue, Ismael y Nehemias.

La MSL4 GYE demanda justicia, transparencia, y celeridad, en el juicio que se está llevando a cabo, y exige que se identifique a los autores intelectuales de la detención y posterior muerte extrajudicial de los de los cuatro niños de la Malvinas, Guayaquil, Ecuador, Steven, Josue, Ismael y Nehemias.

Los firmantes de este documento están en total apoyo de lo expresado, y se adhieren con su firma a esta denuncia internacional y al Manifiesto por los cuatro niños de las Malvinas, Guayaquil, Ecuador.  

Firmado | Signed on

Black Alliance for Peace / La Alianza Negra por La Paz

Diáspora Pa’lante Collective - Puerto Rico, EEUU

Movimiento Evita - Argentina

AfroResistance - Panama, EEUU

Red de Organizaciones AfroVenezolana - Venezuela

Caribbean Movement for Peace and Integration - Barbados, Caribe

Assembly of Caribbean Peoples - Trinidad & Tobago, Caribbean

Oilfields Workers Trade Union - Trinidad & Tobago

Kallpawan - EEUU, Perú

Observatorio de Derechos Humanos de los Pueblos - México, regional

Acción Afro-Dominicana - Dominican Republic, regional

Red Barrial Afrodescendiente - Cuba

Alliance for Global Justice

Organization for Caribbean Empowerment

World Beyond War/Un Mundo Más Allá de la Guerra - regional

Proceso de Comunidades Negras (PCN) - Colombia

Coordinadora Política de Mujeres Cotopaxi - Ecuador

Frente de Migrantes Organizados de la Republica de Argentina - Argentina

Mujeres Luminosa de Napo - Ecuador

SOS Violencia Loja - Ecuador

Red de Guardianes del Patrimonio Cultural y Natural de Manabí - Ecuador

Asamblea de los Pueblos - Argentina, regional

Federación de Estudiantes Secundarios del Ecuador - Ecuador

Fundación Rehabilitación Desde El Corazón - Ecuador

Comuna Rio Santiago Cayapas - Ecuador

Colectivo Entretejidas - Ecuador

Fundación Servicios Integrados para el Desarrollo SIDE - Ecuador

Asociación Madre Sabia - Ecuador

Esmeraldas Libre - Ecuador

Fundación Semillas hacia el Futuro - Ecuador

grupo cultural ORISHA la bomba - Ecuador

Equipo Docentes, Capitulo Ecuador - Ecuador

Junta Patriótica del Ecuador - Ecuador

La Cubeta Batucada Feminista - Ecuador

Fundación Chapil - Ecuador

Centro de Documentación en Derechos Humanos "Segundo Montes Mozo S.J." (CSMM) - Ecuador

Nina sonkoy musica andina - Argentina

Comuna Ancestral Afrodescendientes e Indígena de Tapiapamba  - Ecuador

Colectivo Mujeres de Asfalto  - Ecuador

Observatorio Ciudadano de Servicios Públicos - Ecuador

Red Nacional de Feministas por kos derechos Humanos, Ecuador - Ecuador

Asociación de Artistas de la Economía Popular y Solidaria - Ecuador

Fundación Educativa Ecuador Sisakuna - Ecuador

Tejido Violeta Galápagos  - Ecuador

Acción Antiprohibicionista Ecuador  - Ecuador

Batuka Candelabras Galápagos  - Ecuador

La María Verde - Ecuador

Coordinadora Política de Mujeres Ecuatorianas de Chimborazo - Ecuador

FUNTUVRISA Ecuador F.Talentos Unidos por la Vida y la Familia RISA - Ecuador

Transformar Argentina - Argentina

Maestros por la Revolución - Ecuador

Movimiento de Mujeres de El Oro - Ecuador

Hood Conmunist Blog - United States

Asamblea Nacional Ciudadana-Guayas-Ecuador - Ecuador

ANC Santa Elena - Ecuador

Red de Maestros y Maestras por la Revolución Educativa  - Ecuador

Fundación Ali Primera por la Patria Buena - Venezuela

Bolivarianos Alfaristas de la RC5 - Ecuador

Frente de Defensa Petrolero Ecuatoriano - Ecuador

Partido Comunista del Ecuador - Ecuador

Instituto Cultural Nuestra América - Ecuador

Centro de Promoción Rural  - Ecuador

Unión Nacional de Periodistas Núcleo del Guayas  - Ecuador

Observatorio Sociolaboral y del Diálogo Social en el Ecuador OSLADE  - Ecuador

Foro del agua Santa Elena - Ecuador

La Esquina de la Resistencia - Ecuador

Arte Por La Vida - Ecuador

Casa de la Abuela Jaguar - Ecuador

Comité Proparroquialización de Monte Sinahí  - Ecuador

Colectiva de Mujeres Tejedora Manabita  - Ecuador

Mujeres Luna Creciente Ecuador - Ecuador

Fundación e-comunicar - Ecuador

Consejo Consultivo de Diversidades Sexo-genéricas del DMQ - Ecuador

Mesa Autónoma Representativa MAR LGBTIQ sede Quito DM  - Ecuador

Revolución Cultural - Ecuador

Centro Cultural Café Galeria Barricaña - Ecuador

Colectivo de Unidad Democrática  - Ecuador

Fundación Derecho al Buen Vivir - Ecuador

Danza Zoomorfa Ancestral - Ecuador

Colectivo Cultural la Vereda - Ecuador

Consejo Nacional de Derechos Humanos y de la Naturaleza del Ecuador - Ecuador

Colectiva de Antropólogas del Ecuador  - Ecuador

MUCT - Ecuador

Colectiva de Antropólogas del Ecuador - Ecuador

Confederación Comarca Afro ecuatoriana del Norte de Esmeraldas - Ecuador

Fundación Semillas hacia el Futuro (ORISHA)

Firmantes individuales

Marjorie Lopez Merchan - Ecuador

Marco Vargas - Ecuador

Gloria Zabala - Ecuador

Piedad Ortiz - Ecuador

Dr. Cinthia M. Campos-Hernandez - EEUU

Luis Vicente Pachacama Guallichico - Ecuador

Dolores Bolaños - Ecuador

Isabel Iturralde - Ecuador

Janneth Moreano - Ecuador

Byron Joel Castillo Tenorio  - Ecuador

Network of Afro-Venezuelan Organizations Reaffirm Sovereignty with President Nicolás Maduro

Statement from the Network of Afro-Venezuelan Organizations (ROA)

Reaffirming Our Sovereignty with President Nicolás Maduro

Today, January 10, 2025, President Nicolás Maduro Moros is sworn in as the leader of all Venezuelans.

We denounce the climate of tension deliberately created by racist, Zionist, and fascist elements within the national and international opposition. These forces, acting against the will of the Venezuelan people, have sought to destabilize our nation since July 28, 2024, when President Maduro was democratically reelected in accordance with the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. His victory was legally reaffirmed by the Supreme Court of Justice, the same institution tasked with resolving electoral disputes in Venezuela and elsewhere, as recently demonstrated in Mexico.

Since its founding in June 2000, the Network of Afro-Venezuelan Organizations (ROA) has stood in steadfast support of the Bolivarian Process initiated by Commander Hugo Chávez Frías and continued by President Maduro. We remain unwavering in our commitment to defending Venezuela’s sovereignty.

Today, we confront the geopolitical ambitions of American imperialism, its complicit governments in Latin America and the Caribbean, and certain sectors of Europe. These entities seek to seize our nation’s resources and undermine the most sacred principles of any nation: sovereignty and dignity.

Our Call to Action:

We urge the Afro-Venezuelan people and our sister organizations to resist any attempt to delegitimize our sovereignty. At the same time, we encourage active participation in the Constitutional Reform process, as announced by President Maduro. This reform aims to ensure the inclusion of Afro-descendants for reparative justice, a historic step toward recognizing and addressing centuries of oppression.

We also raise awareness about Zionism, which we identify as a form of 21st-century colonialism, and call for vigilance against its influence.

Our Commitment:

ROA will continue its work across the regions of Caracas, Miranda, Yaracuy, Carabobo, Sucre, Vargas, Zulia, Guárico, Falcón, and Aragua, while maintaining strong ties with Afro-descendant organizations across Latin America and the Caribbean, including in the Dominican Republic, Curaçao, Colombia, the United States, Bolivia, Ecuador, Haiti, Argentina, Puerto Rico, Mexico, and Cuba.

Together, we stand firm in defense of our sovereignty, justice, and dignity.

ROA - Network of Afro-Venezuelan Organizations

Articulation of Afro-descendants of Latin America and the Caribbean

El Chorrillo: Living memory and Black resistance 35 Years after the U.S. invasion

The Author, Argelis Wesley, Circa 1989

El Chorrillo: Living memory and Black resistance 35 Years after the U.S. invasion

“December 20, 1989, is a date I will never forget. It was a Tuesday, an ordinary day, until something in the air warned me that the calm was about to shatter. After an appointment with the dentist, I noticed birds flying erratically, making strange noises. I wondered, Why are they so restless? What are they foretelling…?”

Banner photo: Black and white photo of White male soldier frisking a Black man with a line of more Black people fo follow him. (Courtesy afroresistance.org)

Western Powers Have Exposed Human Rights and International Human Rights as a Sham

Western Powers Have Exposed Human Rights and International Human Rights as a Sham

What is Needed is a new framework – a Non-Western, People(s)-Centered Human Rights Framework

For Immediate Release

Media Contact
press@blackallianceforpeace.com
(202) 643-1136

December 10, designated as International Human Rights Day has become a hackney, disingenuous ritual in which the United States and European imperialist powers, the main violators of human rights globally over the last five hundred years, speciously proclaim their commitment to human rights and what they define as “freedom” while simultaneously and continuously subverting democracy, starving, torturing, burning, raping, and imprisoning human beings around the world.

Baraka Obama referred to the United States as an “exceptional nation,” and it is. Exceptional as the nation responsible for engendering more egregious human suffering than any other nation or empire in human history. Yet, leaders of the United States, in their psychotic delusions, believe that the brutal history of U.S. conquest, slavery, subversion, wars, and racist violence visited on its own citizens, and countless peoples world-wide, somehow would not be noticed. But it was noticed, because U.S. policies have harmed so many around the world. So, with quiet bemusement around the world people would listen to the surreal declarations by U.S. politicians on their unwavering commitment to human rights and something they called democracy – until the genocide in Gaza, which lifted the veil and changed everything.

The images of Israeli atrocities, in what could only be honestly described as a savage rampage against humanity, has been justified by U.S. lawmakers with the most execrable, racist language that generated nods of agreement from their vile, racist allies in the government and across all institutions of “America,” finally stripped away any semblance of respectability for the white West, while also revealing the moral bankruptcy and hypocrisy that has always been at the core of its civilizational project.

At that moment of degenerate moral convergence, the Western human rights project expired. In its place, quietly but with a fierce determination to transcend the limitations and contradictions of the false universalization of Western human rights, activists and revolutionaries grounded in the Black radical tradition were producing an alternative approach to human rights. A decolonized, and therefore, relevant human rights framework for individuals, collectives, peoples and nations able to envision and work toward a new humanity guided by the highest ethical standards and principles.

“…liberated from the liberal, individual, legalistic, and state-centered apparatus that emerged at the conclusion of World War II as a ‘Western’ human rights regime that became, and continues to be, a conservative weapon for enforcing the geopolitical interests of Western imperialism… rejecting the ideological mystification of a neutral and objective human rights framework, the Project, through educational activities, building transnational cooperative structures and supporting popular struggles, will link oppressed communities, classes and peoples from the Global North and South that are moving toward developing movements committed to national and global anti-capitalist, de-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles for social justice, ecological sustainability, national liberation and authentic self-determination.” (taken from the mission of North-South Project)

The institutional and political systemization of this approach is the mission of BAP’s North-South Project for People(s)-Centered Human Rights.

“For those of us fighting from the margins for a new social reality in the U.S. and globally, we declare without apology that it is only through the radical transformation of society based on an alternative set of ethics and social relationships that the full potential of the human rights idea can be realized. For us, the fight for human rights is a life and death struggle with the future of our communities and peoples at stake. It is a fight that we have no other choice but to wage and to win, knowing that we are on the right side of history and in reciprocal solidarity among people around the world who understand that human rights and dignity are not granted but lived.”
(Ajamu Baraka, Project Director)

Therefore, unlike the phony proclamations of the fidelity to human rights led by the nations of the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination, let this December 10 th be the day that the people reclaim the idea of human rights and refashion this idea into a theoretical weapon that completes a new dialectic of revolutionary human rights praxis, for the people and centered by the people.

###

African Stream coverage of the Africans In Solidarity With Sahel Revolutions At Niger Conference

During 19-21 November, Pan-Africanists, anti-imperialists, and friends of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) flocked to Niamey, Niger, for the Conference in Solidarity with the Peoples of the Sahel.

The AES is a revolutionary confederation consisting of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, West African countries that have made enormous strides toward ending neo-colonialism in recent years since their people-backed military coups d’état.

The conference, organized by the West Africa Peoples Organization, Pan-Africanism Today and Nigerien civil society organizations, marks a turning point for global solidarity with Africa’s new self-determining bloc. Delegates representing political and workers’ organizations came from Zambia, Kenya, Ghana, Brazil, Cuba, Venezuela, the US, India, China and other countries.

From day one, African Stream was on the ground in Niamey to interview Nigerien locals, those involved in organizing the event and foreign delegates. In this video, we hear from people after the event’s opening ceremony.

PART 1 from African Stream

PART 2 from African Stream

DROP THE CHARGES AGAINST UHURU!

Black Alliance for Peace Condemns the Federal Indictments of the Uhuru 3 and Denial of their Fundamental Human Rights to Speech, Association, Information and Political Dissent

 Tampa, Florida — The process of jury selection on September 3rd, 2024, will mark the beginning of the federal trial of Omali Yeshitela, Chairman of the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP); Penny Hess, Chair of the African People’s Solidarity Committee (APSC); and Jesse Nevel, Chair of the Uhuru Solidarity Movement (USM), together known as the Uhuru 3.

The Uhuru 3 were indicted by the U.S. government in April 2023 on the absurd charges of being “agents of a foreign government.” — charges very similar to the indictment of W.E.B. Dubois, the internationally known Black scholar and human rights defender. Dubois was eighty-one at the time of his indictment as a supposed agent of the Soviet Union for his anti-nuclear and pro-peace advocacy. Omali Yeshitela is similarly eighty-one with an international standing as a human rights and anti-imperialist fighter for more than 60 years. The African Peoples’s Socialist Party and Uhuru Movement that he helped to found have been organizing and advocating for African people and colonized peoples for over 50 years. 

Ajamu Baraka, Chair of the Black Alliance for Peace’s (BAP) Coordinating Committee who will be an official observer of the trial states that: 

“It is only in the imagination of white supremacists that African people would need smart white people from Russia to guide our people and movement to oppose the U.S./EU/NATO proxy war against Russia and analyze and comment on all aspects of U.S. foreign policy. Internationalism has always been a core principle of our movement from the Garvey Movement and anti-fascist struggles of Africans in America and in Spain in the form of the Abraham Lincoln Brigades, as well as the International Friends of Ethiopia that opposed the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, to our support for the liberation movements in Cuba, Haiti, Africa, Central America, and Vietnam. 

Omali Yeshitela is an outstanding product and an example of that tradition, which, among many other reasons, is why BAP gives its inexorable support to chairman Yeshitela, as well as to Penny Hess and Jesse Nevel, who embody the highest example of revolutionary solidarity with African people. Hess and Nevel have stood with us, and we intend to stand with them against the criminal repression that the Uhuru 3 are targets of.”

BAP recognizes that the ridiculous charges leveled at the Uhuru 3 represent a shot across the bow of the radical Black movement. The U.S. understands that if it is successful in containing Black opposition to the increasingly aggressive militarism abroad and repression within the borders of the U.S., the broader movement in the U.S. will be more easily controlled.

BAP and our movement will not be intimated. We recognize that the complete abandonment of constitutional and human rights by the U.S. and other Western states represents an irreversible crisis of legitimacy. We will continue to stand in support of the right to resist as a core human right.

DC’s 2024 Crime Bill Is More War on the Black Working Class

“The ‘Secure DC’ Omnibus bill is the latest attempt by DC’s local government to impose law and order, while ignoring the root issues that lead to street-level crime and advancing the war against the Black working class…

Crime bills are a national phenomena in the U.S. and are nothing new. They are a means of enforcing punitive policies against the dispossessed and a way to feed the national security industrial complex in response to crises such as homelessness, poverty, and gentrification. We cannot confront this issue of the crime bill with the tunnel vision that confines us locally and keeps us disconnected from other domestically colonized Africans within the U.S. settler state.”

READ MORE.

Eric Adams and the NYPD Repress Dissent

John Chell is Chief of Patrol of the New York Police Department (NYPD). Chell has made news lately because of his threatening social media posts directed at a judge, journalists, and even City Council Members. His language was of such concern that the City Council Speaker requested that the Department of Investigation’s Inspector General conduct an official investigation.

Chell is also a white police officer who shot and killed a Black man in 2008. He shot Ortanzso Bovell in the back, claiming that he did so accidentally. In usual fashion he was never charged with a crime and the case was quickly closed. But a jury in the civil case found his version of events not credible and the city paid $2 million to Bovell’s family. Oddly, Chell ended up investigating the murder of Bovell’s surviving brother in 2022.

Despite being a killer, Chell continued to climb the ladder in successive mayoral administrations and he now has a prominent position in the department which is under the jurisdiction of a Black mayor, Eric Adams. A killer cop is one of Adams’ right hand members of the police top brass… FULL ARTICLE CONT’D

The Crisis of Liberalism

EACH strand of political praxis is informed by a political philosophy which analyses the world around us, especially, in modern times, its economic characteristics. On the basis of this analysis, the particular political philosophy sets out the objectives which have to be struggled for, and the political praxis informed by it carries out this struggle. The objective may be difficult to achieve, more difficult in certain contexts than in others, and this difficulty may act as a hurdle for political praxis; but this does not constitute a crisis for that political philosophy. The sheer difficulty of achieving an objective does not constitute a crisis. A crisis of a political philosophy arises when it has an internal contradiction, when the objective it puts forward is logically in conflict with some other feature in which it believes… FULL ARTICLE CONT’D

Introducing Black Alliance for Peace’s New National Coordinator, Max Rameau

The Coordinating Committee of the Black Alliance for Peace is happy to introduce BAP’s new National Coordinator Max Rameau. Max will assume responsibilities from Brother Ajamu Baraka, BAP’s Interim Coordinator since January of this year, on April 1st part-time and will assume full-time responsibilities May 1st. Ajamu will continue as BAP’s Coordinating Committee’s Chairperson and the coordinator of BAP’s North-South Project for People(s)-Centered Human Rights that will be launched in the Fall. 

Max Rameau is a Haitian born Pan-African theorist, campaign strategist, movement scientist and organizer.

While a student in the Washington, DC area, Max was introduced to Black Nationalist and Pan-Africanist thought. After moving to Miami, Florida in 1991, he began organizing around a broad range of human rights issues impacting low-income Black communities, including Immigrant rights (particularly Haitian immigrants), economic justice, LGBTQ rights, voting rights, particularly for ex-felons and police abuse, among others.

As a result of the devastating impacts of gentrification taking root during the housing "boom," in the summer of 2006 Max helped found the organization which eventually became known as Take Back the Land, to address 'Land' issues in the Black community. In October 2006, Take Back the Land seized control of a vacant lot in the Liberty City section of Miami and built the Umoja Village, a full urban shantytown, addressing the issues of land, self-determination and homelessness in the Black community. In October 2007, Take Back the Land initiated a bold campaign that sparked a national movement: "liberating" vacant government owned and foreclosed homes and moving homeless families into them in pursuit of the human right to housing and community control over land.

Max Rameau continues to develop movement theory, working with organizations and movements to develop impactful organizing models and campaigns. Max is an organizer with Pan-African Community Action (PACA) based in Washington D.C. and a member of the Black Alliance for Peace.

FOR IMMEDIATE ACTION: Campaign to Open the National People’s Assembly (ANP) in Guinea Bissau

FOR IMMEDIATE ACTION!

Campaign to Open the National People’s Assembly (ANP) in Guinea Bissau

The All-African People’s Revolutionary Party calls all organizations, movements, individuals, A-APRP members, contacts, friends, allies and supporters to put pressure on the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in solidarity with the struggle being waged by the African Party of Independence of Guinea Bissau (PAIGC), and the duly elected PAI Terra Ranka Coalition. The People of Guinea Bissau demand the opening of the National People’s Assembly (ANP)!

We ask each of you to contact the ECOWAS structures listed below by email and by phone, where possible, on 1st, 2nd and 3rd of February 2024. The objective is to put diplomatic pressure on ECOWAS to open the National People’s Assembly (ANP) in Guinea Bissau. Contact as many of those listed below as often as you can.

Our emails and calls to ECOWAS structures on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd of February 2024 will synchronize with actions of the PAI Terra Ranka and the PAIGC on the ground, in Guinea Bissau.

The language of these communications should vary, but the essence is as follows, but do not simply copy and paste, but rather use your own language:

'The doors to Guinea Bissau’s National People's Assembly (ANP) should be opened immediately to allow the democratically elected representatives (Deputies) to fulfill their constitutional responsibilities. We encourage the ECOWAS Permanent Commission to guarantee that the Guinea-Bissau Constitution is respected to avoid unforeseen negative consequences.'

FURTHER INFORMATION FOR ACTION

Link to background information about the situation in Guinea Bissau.

Campagne d’ouverture de l’Assemblée populaire nationale (ANP) en Guinée Bissau

Campanha de Abertura da Assembleia Nacional Popular (ANP) na Guiné Bissau

Banner photo: National Assembly building in Guinea-Bissau, courtesy Wikimedia.

South Africa's Case at ICJ Also Exposes the US and the West

South Africa's Case at ICJ Also Exposes the US and the West

By Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist, 17 Jan 2024

South Africa's charge of genocide against Israel proves that this very serious word should be used more often instead of being treated as a rarity. The U.S. and the nations of the west have committed countless genocides and their actions must be labeled as such.

On January 11, 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) began hearing the Republic of South Africa’s charge of genocide made  against the state of Israel. Israel ratified the Genocide Convention  and as such it is duty bound to uphold its precepts. The definition of genocide is not hard to find nor is it difficult to understand.

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

Killing members of the group;

1. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

2. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

3. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

4. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group

Cutting off water and electricity, bombing hospitals, and withholding food and medical aid all clearly fall within this definition. Not only has Israel publicly committed these acts, but its officials openly and publicly brag about having done so, and make South Africa’s case easy to prove.

But if there is another point which is made obvious by this definition and that is that the United States has and is committing genocide domestically and internationally. Of course Black people played the biggest role in making this case beginning in 1951 when the Civil Rights Congress published the pamphlet, “We Charge Genocide ,” and documented the case against the U.S. government. The charges are still valid as Black people have been the group primarily victimized by mass incarceration and all the other impacts of racial capitalism, from denial of housing rights to decent medical care.

If Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, the United States did the same and assisted others in Libya and Syria and Somalia and Yemen and Haiti. This long list of criminality is one of the reasons that Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other officials call South Africa’s charge against Israel “meritless.” If they acknowledge Israel’s genocide it would not only expose U.S. culpability but they would have to acknowledge their own misdeeds as well.

The term genocide must not be thought of as having some sort of high bar that can only be used in rare circumstances. On the contrary, it should be used much more often so that U.S. guilt can be exposed. The U.S. practice of imposing economic coercive measures, commonly known as sanctions, prevent the people of Cuba, Iran, Zimbabwe, Venezuela and 30 other countries, from securing their basic needs of food and medical care. Economic coercive measures are a war crime by definition as they impose collective punishment  on civilians.

The Republic of South Africa has done the world a great service, not only because it is revealing the seriousness of Israel’s crimes, but because it also reveals how these crimes have been normalized around the world. Of course U.S. allies like Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom join in denying South Africa’s claim. First they do as they’re told because they are reliable and good little vassal states, but they have joined in U.S. crimes and they also have their own histories of genocide.

The first genocide of the 20th century took place in Namibia, then a German colony, from 1904 to 1908, when thousands of the Herero people were murdered as they attempted to free themselves from imperial rule. The sun never set on the British empire because of its brutality committed as recently as the 1950s in Kenya’s revolutionary struggle when mass killings and concentration camps were used to put down the rebellion. The systematic destruction of records  which documented these atrocities is proof of Britain’s guilt in committing genocide.

The attention brought to the ICJ case in the Hague is an opportunity to lift the veil of secrecy and complicity and make the world aware that normalized practices are in fact genocidal. Every war and intervention ranging from regime change in Haiti to the full scale invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan were committed with the intent to destroy national groups. The response should not be to stop using the word genocide, but instead to make its usage more common. Doing otherwise allows the guilty to act with impunity.

South Africa has created a crisis for the world and should be applauded for doing so. Now millions of people know how genocide is defined and know that their nations are guilty of the practice. There is now less fear about naming names and a greater willingness to speak truthfully about what is accepted far too often. The nations of the Collective West as they call themselves, have written history and exculpated themselves despite being perpetrators for centuries. Israeli officials are genocidaires but they are not alone. All of those who aid and abet must be called to account too.

————————————————— 

The article was first published in Black Agenda Report.

Margaret Kimberley is Executive Editor of Black Agenda Report, the author of Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents, and on the Coordinating Committee of the Black Alliance for Peace.

Over 800 Organizations Globally Sign On To Letter Urging International Support For South Africa’s Genocide Case Against the State of Israel

*****FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE*****

Over 800 Organizations Globally Sign On To Letter Urging International Support For South Africa’s Genocide Case Against the State of Israel

New Coalition Calls for Global Mobilization As Hearing Before the World Court Begins on January 11

CONTACTS:

Adrienne Pine, Popular Resistance, 202-652-5601, adrienne@quotha.net

Lamis Deek, Palestine Assembly for Liberation,  212-226-3999, Deek@DeekDictorAdi.com

Genie Silver, WILPF US, 610-283-1376, rhsilver@comcast.net

United States - The newly-formed International Coalition to Stop Genocide in Palestine (ICSGP) issued a sign-on letter* on January 3, 2024 that garnered over 800 organizational endorsements from around the world in less than one week. In addition to the initiating organizations noted here, signing organizations represent broad social movements, including World March of Women and the International People’s Assembly, Palestinian-led and Palestinian solidarity movements such as Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions and the Palestinian NGO Network, as well as human rights and legal groups, unions, and religious organizations of all faiths.

“It is important for La Via Campesina to support the South African initiative. What is happening in Palestine is an atrocity. In particular, the use of starvation as a weapon of war is part of a strategy of genocide that we need to denounce. The expulsion of farmers and land grabs in Gaza as well as the West Bank, is also part of a strategy of ethnic cleansing,” said Morgan Ody of the Confédération paysanne (France) and General Coordinator of La Vía Campesina International. “La Via Campesina calls upon the governments of the world, and in particular progressive governments and those in the Global South, to do everything in their power to stop Israel’s apartheid and colonization. Those governments have the responsibility to coordinate their efforts in order to ensure a future for Palestine and for all Palestinian people, and to make sure that those responsible for Israel’s crimes against humanity are held accountable.”

The coalition letter urges all signing organizations to press their “governments to immediately file a Declaration of Intervention in support of the South African case against Israel at the International Court of Justice to stop the killing in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.” So far, Malaysia and Turkiye, and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which represents 57 member countries on four continents, have publicly supported South Africa’s case. Jordan reports that it intends to take the more legally substantive step of submitting a Declaration of Intervention. Members of ICGSP are working closely with a number of other countries that are in the process of doing the same.

“The South African filing before the ICJ marks a critical juncture which tests the global will to salvage the laws and systems which were designed to safeguard not merely human rights; but to preserve humanity itself,” emphasizes Lamis Deek, co-founder of The Global Legal Alliance for Palestine and the PAL Commission on War Crimes. “Genocide is the highest crime and none has been so publicly documented as the Israeli Genocide in Palestine. The sincerity of states' commitment to the principles of the Geneva and Genocide Conventions is now under heavy scrutiny. The very least states can do is to submit Declarations of Intervention as a small part of fulfilling their obligations under Article 1 of the Genocide Convention, to assure their people—and humanity—that they have lost neither their moral compass nor abdicated their obligations under international law.

The sign-on letter states:

“Many countries have rightly expressed their horror at the State of Israel's genocidal actions, war crimes and crimes against humanity being committed against Palestinians. Israeli Occupying Forces have bombed hospitals, residences, United Nations refugee centers, schools, places of worship and escape routes, killing and injuring tens of thousands of Palestinians since October 7, 2023. More than half of the dead are women and children. Israeli leaders have made brazenly genocidal statements openly declaring their intention to permanently and completely displace Palestinians from their own land.”

Despite the clear evidence of genocidal actions being committed daily by Israeli Occupying Forces, the State of Israel is actively soliciting nations to deny its atrocities and denounce South Africa’s case. At this moment, the United States, a major backer of the Israeli State that has vetoed three resolutions calling for a ceasefire in the United Nations Security Council, stands alone in denying that Israel is committing genocide.

Edith Ballantyne, former Secretary General and International President of Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, warns, “I write from my personal experience over ten decades, spanning two world wars and living through fascism, with the absolute conviction that the basis of the conflict must be solved in a legal, political and non-violent way as the only means to achieve permanent peace desperately needed by the world’s peoples and for the survival of our planet.” She adds, “Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom was involved in the Middle East conflict since the 1920s when it recognized that what was happening in Palestine was destined to be catastrophic. The genocidal war the government of Israel is waging in the Occupied Palestinian Territories against the Palestinian People must be stopped. I urge all to challenge their governments to live up to the principles of the UN Charter and international law, including human rights and humanitarian law.”

The International Court of Justice, also called the World Court, will hear South Africa’s case against the Israeli State on January 11 and 12, 2024. The ICSGP is calling on endorsing organizations to join actions of support at The Hague during the hearing and to hold local rallies and vigils, including expressions of gratitude and solidarity at South African embassies, this week. Details about the hearing and where to watch it are here: https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192/192-20240103-pre-01-00-en.pdf

*The full text of the letter and an updated list of signers can be found here: https://bit.ly/Genocide_Convention_Letter

The International Coalition to Stop Genocide in Palestine is currently building global support for this effort by circulating a sign-on letter, which already has over 800 endorsing organizations. The letter can be read and endorsed here.

International Coalition of Human Rights and Antiwar Organizations forms to Demand End to Genocide in Palestine

****FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE****

International Coalition of Human Rights and Antiwar Organizations forms to Demand End to Genocide in Palestine

Social Movements Call on Nations to Support the South African Petition to the World Court on Israeli Genocide with Declarations of Intervention.

Contacts:

Adrienne Pine 202-652-5601, adrienne@quotha.net

Ajamu Baraka  201-292-4591, ajamubaraka2@gmail.com

Suzanne Adely  773-510-7446, suzanne.adely@gmail.com

Lamis Deek  212-226-3999, lamisjamalesq@yahoo.com

United States - On December 30, the newly-formed International Coalition to Stop Genocide in Palestine convened around the urgent need for nations to invoke the Genocide Convention as a way to end the State of Israel’s devastating bombing campaign and additional war crimes being committed in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. That effort advanced on December 29 when South Africa submitted a well-documented case against Israel to the International Court of Justice.

The Coalition—which includes Progressive International, the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, Black Alliance for Peace, Popular Resistance, CODEPINK, the National Lawyers Guild and numerous other groups—strongly supports the call issued on January 2 by the Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Coordinating Committee (PAACC) urging governments to support South Africa’s complaint with Declarations of Intervention, which can be filed before or after the hearing, scheduled to take place on January 11 and 12, 2024.

Declarations of Intervention in support of South Africa’s invocation of the Genocide Convention against Israel will increase the likelihood that a positive finding of the crime of genocide will be enforced by the United Nations such that actions will be taken to end all acts of genocide and those who are responsible for the acts will be held accountable.

“It's imperative that more states follow South Africa's historic leadership demanding Israel is held accountable under international law,” said Suzanne Adely, president of the National Lawyers Guild and member of the Bureau of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. She added, “One clear and immediate way to do that is to file Declarations of Intervention supporting South Africa's filing in the ICJ under the Genocide Convention. The increasing global isolation of Israel and the US and their European allies is an indicator that this is a key moment for popular movements to move their governments in the direction of taking these steps and being on the right side of history.” Adely led an international delegation to Cairo last November to demand the opening of Rafah border crossing.

Ajamu Baraka, chair of the coordinating committee of the Black Alliance for Peace, which has repeatedly condemned Israel’s ongoing genocidal campaign in occupied Palestine, stated, “The action by the South African government is a courageous attempt to do no less than salvage the credibility of the international mechanisms that were meant to protect human rights and international law. The South African petition is a reminder that it is a legal and moral imperative for states and international civil society to oppose impunity. Genocide has been identified as one of the most egregious international crimes. If the Israeli state and its backers are allowed to escape justice and international condemnation, it will strip the current international system of justice of any legitimacy.”

Lamis Deek, a Palestinian attorney based in New York, whose firm convened the Palestinian Assembly for Liberation's Commission on War Crimes Justice, Reparations, and Return and co-launched the Global Legal Alliance for Palestine, added that "This is the rare case where collective social pressure urging governments to support the South African case can be a sharp turning point for Palestine. Through the ICJ, South Africa is poised to strike a decisive blow against this brutal genocide and torture campaign led by Israel in coordination with the United States. We need more states to file supporting interventions-  and we need the court to feel the watchful eye of the masses so as to withstand what will be extreme US political pressure on the Court.   International Humanitarian Laws and institutions are meant to be, and must be seen as, tools for the people, not distant abstractions. People can- and should-  play a strategic and powerful role by integrating this advocacy into their solidarity work, not only until their governments file supporting interventions but until the ICJ delivers justice."

The International Coalition to Stop Genocide in Palestine urges human rights, labor, anti-colonial, anti-imperialist and other groups to increase public pressure by mobilizing to demand that their respective countries immediately submit Declarations of Intervention to the International Court of Justice. No matter how the World Court decides South Africa’s case, the coalition is committed to ending the genocide in Palestine and will continue to take action to make this the reality.

The International Coalition to Stop Genocide in Palestine is currently building global support for this effort by circulating a sign-on letter, which already has over 100 endorsing organizations. The letter can be read and endorsed here.

The A-APRP Condemns the Attack on the PAIGC and the PAI Terra Ranka Coalition

The All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (A-APRP) and the African Party of Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC) are one!

“When the PAIGC and its PAI Terra Ranka Coalition democratically won the absolute majority on 4 June 2023, we sent our message of congratulations after the official results were published. We also congratulated the inauguration of the PAI Terra Ranka Coalition government and the election of brother and comrade Domingos “DSP” Simões Pereira as the President of the National People’s Assembly (ANP), the second figure in the state of Guinea-Bissau.”

READ MORE FULL STATEMENT: The Cause of Violence and Imprisonment on 30 November – 1 December 2023…

Banner photo: Man walking on a dirt road by a sign that says ““La Guinee – Bissau, veut et merite la paix” (English “Guinee - Bissau, wants and deserves peace". (courtey africanliberty.org).

U.S. Peace Council Calls for No Fly Zone over Gaza

U.S. Peace Council Statement: End the Israeli-US Attack on the Palestinians of Gaza!

October 30, 2023

Wave upon wave of Israeli aircraft and missiles have been battering the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip. This violence — the most brutal for decades — has already expended more firepower than the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima and has already taken more lives of civilians in a week than have died in Ukraine. It is as if the Israeli government — backed fully by the United States — wants to turn Gaza into a ruin so as to remove the Palestinians in another act of ethnic cleansing, mimicking the Nakba (Catastrophe) of 1948.

The United States government vetoed UN resolutions to allow for a humanitarian ceasefire; the US president has joined the Israelis in an information war about the numbers of war dead; the US military has moved a massive naval strike group into the Eastern Mediterranean; and the US defense establishment — in contravention of the Leahy Law (1999) that proscribes arming militaries that are committing gross human rights violations — has sent military aid to Israel.

Both the Israeli and the US governments have violated humanitarian law, and the government of Israel has committed both war crimes and crimes against humanity against the Palestinians.

We call upon the government of Brazil, which holds the presidency of the United Nations Security Council, to table either an emergency resolution or to release a president’s statement calling for a ‘no-fly zone’ over Gaza. The Egyptian air force, billeted nearby at Abu Suweir Air Base, can enforce a ‘no-fly zone’ to prevent continued bombing of Gaza and allow the UN and other aid agencies to bring humanitarian relief to the beleaguered Palestinians.

The U.S. Peace Council calls upon all people to stand up against this violent crime against humanity. Join the November 4th national mobilizations against this genocide by Israel, and against the US role in this war.

Banner photo: ….