Click here and scroll to pages 6-7 for an interview in Turkish with BAP National Organizer Ajamu Baraka.
By Tunde Osazua and Netfa Freeman | Black Agenda Report
Rep. Omar recently commended the US war machine for increasing the “transparency” and “accountability” of its bombing of her native country.
United States representatives, no matter their racial or ethnic backgrounds, appear unable to perceive the inherent white supremacy in the notion that the US has some altruistic responsibility to police the continent of Africa with military troops and supervisors. As a result, "people of color," such as the Somali-"American" Congresswoman IIhan Omar provide political and moral cover to the presence of the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) and the dubious claims about “US interests” on the continent. READ MORE
By Erica Caines | Black Agenda Report
Colonized people, with a horrific historical connection to both science and medicine in this country, must examine science in service of the state.
As the days of the pandemic tick by, we are witnessing overwhelming evidence that the U.S. is using COVID-19 as an instrument to institute a capitalist dystopia. But this is no blockbuster Hollywood film. This is today’s new potential reality through the national security state apparatus. While there is no denying that people are suffering (and dying) from COVID-19 and neoliberal austerity, we must be acutely aware that the state’s reaction is not protecting us from the virus. READ MORE
Read and sign the petition here.
Open Letter to the Government of the United States and the United Nations
Mr. Donald J. Trump
President of the United States
Mr. António Guterres
Secretary General of the United Nations
The global spread of COVID-19 has exposed the illegal and immoral practice of imposing unilateral coercive measures (economic sanctions) by the United States government against more than thirty nations. The government of the United States is now using the public distraction caused by the pandemic to intensify its military actions against the targeted nations.
The economic war against those nations had already resulted in unimaginable suffering of the people in the targeted nations even before the COVID-19 pandemic.
With the devastation of the global pandemic, the targeted countries — especially Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, Syria and Zimbabwe — are finding it prohibitively difficult to protect and save the lives of their citizens in the face of the ongoing global emergency. These sanctions constitute crimes against humanity.
As a concerned citizen of the world, I call upon the United States government to:
1. End its economic sanctions against all targeted countries immediately.
2. Unfreeze the financial assets and bank accounts of the targeted countries so that they can purchase and receive the necessary food, medicine and medical equipment and supplies needed to combat the pandemic.
3. Stop all military threats and actions against the targeted countries, including the removal of U.S. Navy warships dispatched to Venezuela under the false pretense of “War on Drugs.”
4. Drop the baseless charge of “Drug Trafficking” against President Nicolás Maduro and other officials of the government of Venezuela.
5. Respect the call issued by the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, for a global ceasefire.
I call upon the Secretary General of the United Nations and the leading bodies of the United Nations to invoke the articles of the UN Charter to demand respect for international law by the government of the United States.
I also call upon the UN Security Council to lift all UN-imposed sanctions against those countries as well.
On April 11 and 12th, the Black is Back Coalition for Peace, Social Justice and Reparations will host a national Zoom-based webinar to build resistance to both the short-term COVID-19 crisis and the longer-term struggle to defeat the colonial/capitalist system that reproduces the conditions and relations of exploitation and oppression generation after generation.
BAP is a member of the Black is Back Coalition, and our National Organizer, Ajamu Baraka, will be a featured speaker. The event will be over two days and will begin at 10am EST on April 11th and 12th. You can register for the Zoom webinar here and find more information here.
Sanctions Kill!
Sanctions are War!
End Sanctions Now!
Sanctions are imposed by the United States and its junior partners against countries that resist their agendas. They are a weapon of Economic War, resulting in chronic shortages of basic necessities, economic dislocation, chaotic hyperinflation, artificial famines, disease, and poverty. In every country, the poorest and the weakest – infants, children, the chronically ill and the elderly – suffer the worst impact of sanctions.
US imposed sanctions, violate international law and are a tool of regime change. They impact a third of humanity in 39 countries. They are a crime against humanity used, like military intervention, to topple popular governments and movements. They provide economic and military support to pro-US right-wing forces.
The US economic dominance and its +800 military bases worldwide demands all other countries participate in acts of economic strangulation. They must end all normal trade relations, otherwise they risk having Wall Street’s guns pointed at them. The banks and financial institutions that are responsible for the devastation of our communities at home drive the plunder of countries abroad.
Many organizations have been fighting Sanctions and Economic War for some time. NOW is an opportunity to combine efforts to raise consciousness on this crucial issue. This broad campaign will include protests and demonstrations, lobbying, petition drives and all forms of educational efforts.
As an initial step for this campaign we encourage mobilizations and educational efforts to be organized for the International Days of Action against US imposed Sanctions and Economic War on March 13-15.
Please add your endorsement and help spread the word.
“We must raise the issues of war and imperialism in electoral politics in this country,” even if the Democrats don’t, said BAR senior columnist Margaret Kimberley, speaking at the annual conference of UNAC, the United National Anti-War Coalition. “In the debates, foreign policy is discussed very little, and when it is they all sound the same, even those who are supposed to be progressive,” said Kimberley. READ MORE
Orinoco Tribune
The Swiss-American historian and Human Rights expert, Alfred de Zayas, said that more than 100,000 Venezuelans have died as a result of the sanctions implemented by the United States government and that such deaths were due to the impossibility of timely access to medicines.
De Zayas, who served as an independent expert for the United Nations Human Rights Council for the promotion of an international democratic and egalitarian order, participated on Wednesday in the forum “Unilateral Coercive Measures as a crime against humanity: The case of Venezuela”, held in Geneva, Switzerland, and which was attended by Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza, as well as other academics specializing in international law. READ MORE
By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers | Black Agenda Report
American troops in Iraq are at increasing risk every day the US stays in that sovereign nation.
The world is saying no to war with Iran and US out of the Middle East. Hundreds of protests were held in the United States and around the world on Saturday with a unified voice of “No War.” These protests are in solidarity with massive protests in Iraq calling for the US to get out, where it is now an occupying force as the government has asked it to leave.
These protests and the uprising over the US remaining in Iraq are not being covered in the US corporate media. Millions of people participated in the memorials for General Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandes after the US assassinated them. Now, millions have protested the refusal of the US to leave Iraq. The Pentagon knows the reality is that US troops in Iraq are at increasing risk every day the US stays in that sovereign nation. READ MORE
