By Netfa Freeman | Black Agenda Report
The US waged unprovoked war against Libya and has militarily occupied Africa, but is still singing its old song that Russia is the aggressor on the continent.
Despite its diminishing global heft, the US remains a superpower of hypocrisy. These days when it comes to Russia one can get a case study on US imperialism simply by inversing the accusations Washington levels against that country. READ MORE
By Glen Ford | Black Agenda Report
Abolition of the police begins with community control, in which community representatives not only hire, fire and oversee the cops, but decide the nature of the policing that is necessary and acceptable.
The wave of people’s protests across the nation, backed by solidarity actions in cities around the world, has caused the corporate oligarchy and its servants to make promises they can’t keep and give lip service to programs they have always resisted. READ MORE
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 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.
“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
By Ajamu Baraka | Black Agenda Report
Trump’s prosecutors are trying to suppress the facts of the US attempted coup in Venezuela, and railroad the Embassy Protectors to prison.
As the trial approaches, the lawyers for the Trump Administration’s prosecution of the four Venezuelan Embassy Protectors who were arrested last May are asking the court to make sure the jury is kept ignorant about the facts and circumstances surrounding the actions of the protectors.
In a recently filed motion by government lawyers, state prosecutors are seeking to severely restrict what can be discussed during the trial scheduled for February 11, 2020. Judge Beryl Howell will hear arguments on the motion at the pre-trial hearing on January 29. READ MORE
By Ajamu Baraka | Black Agenda Report
A black, Obama-appointed judge intends to hide key facts from the jury and referred to the embassy protectors as a "gang."
On Friday, December 13, Judge Beryl A. Howell, the chief judge of the US District Court, denied the discovery motions requested by the four embassy protectors who were arrested on May 16 after staying in the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington, DC for 37 days to prevent it from being handed over to coup-leaders in violation of the Vienna Convention. This denial will severely restrict the scope of the trial, currently scheduled for February 11, 2020, of Adrienne Pine, David Paul, Margaret Flowers, and Kevin Zeese. They face federal charges punishable by up to a year in prison, a $100,000 fine each and restitution to the government for police time and damages. READ MORE
By Nida Khan | Black Agenda Report
A brutal New Jersey police chief who routinely spouted racist slurs and threats was fingered by his own officers, but exonerated in court.
In the barrage of endless breaking news, you wouldn’t be alone if you likely missed a recent important story: the federal hate crime trial of a former New Jersey police chief. For three weeks a jury in Camden, NJ, listened and deliberated over the fate of Frank Nucera Jr., who served as chief of the Bordentown Township Police Department until his resignation in 2017 upon learning of the FBI probe. Nucera faced three counts: a federal hate crime charge, deprivation of civil rights under color of law and lying to the FBI. Back in 2005, when Nucera was deputy chief, I tried to have this very same police department investigated for what I said was a culture of racism, negligence and corruption after my dad’s death. Too bad nobody listened then. READ MORE
The U.S. Peace Council strongly condemns the illegal incursion of the Turkish forces into Syria with the approval of the Trump Administration and in direct violation of the United Nation’s Charter and international law.
Immediately after Turkish incursion, the US war establishment, Republican and Democrat alike, went on a broad attack on Trump’s decision to “withdraw” US forces from Syria, calling it a disaster for US foreign policy. According to the New York Times (October 14): “Mr. Trump says his decision to pull American troops out of the way of the Turkish advance was part of his effort to extricate the United States from ‘endless wars’ in the Middle East and elsewhere.” For the New York Times and many others in US foreign policy circles, the extrication of the US from its many foreign adventures represents a grave threat to the bipartisan commitment to US policy of global “Full Spectrum Dominance.” READ MORE
Originally Released by Embassy Protectors Defense Committee
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 20, 2019
PRESS CONTACT: +1 856 219-0203
admin@defendembassyprotectors.org
The newly formed Embassy Protectors Defense Committee created in response to the arrest and bogus charges leveled by the Trump Administration against the last four remaining activists of the Embassy Protective Collective that occupied the Venezuela Embassy for 37 days, has launched an international campaign to demand that the Trump administration drop all Federal charges against the protectors.
The last remaining 4 Embassy Proctors — Kevin Zeese, Margaret Flowers, David Paul and Adrienne Pine — were arrested in the Washington D.C. Embassy of Venezuela on May 16, 2019 having occupied the Venezuelan Embassy with as many as 100 other activists with the permission of the Venezuelan government over the course of those 37 days. The Embassy Protection Collective were welcomed into the Venezuelan Embassy in order to prevent it from being illegally taken by the unelected regime of Juan Guaidó that was being imposed on the Venezuelan people by the Trump Administration.
The Four are now facing misdemeanor charges of “Interfering with certain protective functions” of the Federal government that carries a maximum of one-year imprisonment and $100,000 fine for each of them. The United States Government is intent on making example of these citizens and is using its unlimited resources to make sure that they are penalized and incarcerated.
The Embassy Protectors Defense Committee, made up of a collection of human rights defenders, international law experts, journalists, labor activists, anti-war and social justice advocates, is involved in raising resources to help cover the enormous expenses of defending against the bogus charge and the outrageous fines that the government appears intent on imposing if the charges are not dropped and the case proceeds to trial.
This is a politicized case initiated by an administration that is unrestrained by accepted international law and recognized state relations as part of the international order established over last seven decades.
The Embassy Defense Committee is circulating a petition and launching a massive international campaign to have all charges dropped and to compel the Trump Administration to reenter the community of law-abiding states. For more information please visit: https://DefendEmbassyProtectors.org.
Background:
The United States Government, once again attempting regime change, has been, and still is, in clear violation of human rights by taking the whole of the Venezuelan population hostage through its illegal efforts to bring the Venezuelan government down, by imposing sanctions and threats of violence, by denying the citizenry much needed food and medicine and utilities — in parallel to the oppressive measures taken in Washington D.C., in our own nation’s capital, by denying the deliver of food and medicine and ultimately shutting off utility services of water and electric power as they did, in attempt, to drive out the Embassy Protection Collective.
Clear solutions were offered. The public must come to understand that the means of selection of a Protecting Power was formalized during the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961. In fact, on May 13, 2019, the Embassy Protection Collective issued a most salient statement calling for the implementation of Protecting Power Agreement.
The erosion of civil liberties — the abuse of human rights and the defiance of international laws when instituted by our own Government — must be addressed head on, at the time the actions or inactions are taken. Knowing full well that abusive power is a threat to absolutely everyone — when they grow comfortable enough in silencing the voices of the defenders, the next target for oppressive power is always the people in general.
Immediate Release
Contact: Netfa Freeman and Vanessa Beck
Phone: 301 938-4628
Email: diasporadelicas@gmail.com
We will never abandon people of Venezuela
August 6, 2019, Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) condemns the Trump Administration’s’ economic embargo as a racist assault on the people of Venezuela that will be disproportionately borne by Black working class Venezuelans and campesinos in general. BAP calls on all progressive elements in the U.S. and around the world to oppose this dangerous escalation by the Trump administration along with support from Congress to impose a right-wing counterrevolutionary government on the people of that nation through state terror.
National BAP Coordinating Committee members Netfa Freeman and Vanessa Beck just returned from Venezuela as part of the Embassy Protectors delegation that spend 10 days in the country meeting with community leaders, social organizations and government officials, including a private meeting with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
Freeman and Beck are prepared to speak on behalf of BAP and report on the conditions that they observed in Venezuela. With the national conversation centered on Trump’s racist agenda encouraging white nationalist violence in the U.S., Vanessa Beck asserts that “it is a contradictory position on the part of progressives in the U.S. and even the general public not to link Trump’s racism domestically with his foreign policies that clearly have no regard for the lives of people of color.”
BAP national organizer Ajamu Baraka, therefore, poses the question to progressive forces in the U.S. “How much more war, how much more death and destruction will you endure before you break with the capitalist duopoly of the U.S. and say no more war, no more subversion, no more killings in my name by a state that by every definition has become a rogue state and threat to global humanity?
Background on Embassy Protector Collective:
For 37 days, members of the Embassy Protection Collective heroically refused to hand over the control of the Venezuelan Embassy, with the permission of the legitimate government of Venezuela, to a representative of the US-appointed, self-proclaimed “interim President” of Venezuela, Juan Guaidó.
The arrested Embassy Protectors are now facing trials on the trumped-up charge of “interfering with certain protective functions” of the Federal Government, a misdemeanor charge that carries a maximum of one-year imprisonment and $100,000 fine for each one of them.
The United States Peace Council (USPC) calls on the Colombian government to uphold the peace agreement that it signed with the FARC-EP and to stop the move towards war and implementation of more repressive political measures.
Since signing the peace agreement, in November of 2016, the Colombian government has failed to meet its obligations under this agreement, and the US Peace Council notes with alarm that it now appears that this government is actually planning for further war and social conflict, rather than working for peace.
Pursuant to the long-negotiated peace agreement, the Colombian government agreed to carry out many reforms that would benefit Colombian Society. These reforms included the promise
to forego the use of force for political ends,
to stop the use of the poisonous weed killer glyphosate to eradicate sources of drugs,
to invest in infrastructure in the countryside including a system to assist campesinos to gain title to their land,
to invest in projects designed to assist the reincorporation into civilian life of former guerilla combatants,
to release political prisoners and prisoners of war as part of the transitional justice system called the Special Peace Jurisdiction (JEP),
to take responsibility and to be held accountable for its own violation of international humanitarian law and human rights law and
to protect members of the opposition, among other promises. The USPC notes with alarm that there have been attacks on Afro-Colombian and Indigenous communities to have state protection while the authors of the attacks have not been held to account.
It is widely accepted that the Colombian government has only completed 30% of their responsibilities under the peace agreement. The Colombian government continues to use glyphosate in drug eradication endangering the environment and the lives of its rural inhabitants. The Colombian government has failed to invest in needed community-oriented infrastructure in the countryside. The Colombian government has failed to protect leaders of the opposition with approximately 700 hundred social leaders and 135 former guerilla combatants assassinated since the signing of the peace agreement. There are still over 500 political prisoners languishing in prison who have not been granted conditional release as part of the Special Peace Jurisdiction as called for in the peace agreement.
One of the most concerning issues is described in a recent article in the New York Times detailing from the highest echelons of the Colombian Military to increase the killing of the opposition and “‘criminals,” (“Colombia Army’s New Kill Orders Send Chills Down Ranks”, by Nick Casey, May 18, 2019). “The head of Colombia’s army, frustrated by the nation’s faltering efforts to secure peace, has ordered his troops to double the number of criminals and militants they kill, capture or force to surrender in battle” stated the New York Times. If these orders are to be put in effect, it breaks the promise to renounce the use of force for political ends and marks a move towards intensified social conflict and war.
This chilling order reminds one of the “false positive” policy in effect under the government of former president Alvaro Uribe. The military were given monetary and other incentives to increase their body count. This resulted in over 3,000 additional deaths including innocent civilians who were assassinated and then dressed up in military fatigues to increase body counts. These assassinations are considered extra-judicial killings, and are international crimes under the Geneva Convention and international humanitarian law.
The USPC is concerned that Colombia is on the precipice of renewed conflict. The peace agreement of 2016 was a brave attempt to end 54 years of civil war. The USPC calls on the Colombian government , and its ally the US Government, to being immediately to fulfill its obligations under the peace agreement, including the protection of human rights, and to recommit to working for peace.
Yesterday, February 27, 2019, a press conference was held at the United Nations press room in New York City to announce that leaders of the U.S. peace movement will be going to Venezuela to speak with government and civic groups about what is really happening in that country and how we can add our voices to stop any coup attempts or moves towards war. A number of United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) people will be on the trip, which has been organized by UNAC affiliate, the U.S. Peace Council.
Four members of the 13 person peace delegation spoke at the UN press conference including:
Joe Lombardo, Co-Coordinator of the United National Antiwar Coalition
Ajamu Baraka, National Organizer, Black Alliance for Peace
Bahman Azad, Organizational Secretary of the U.S. Peace Council
Sara Flounders, Co-Director of the International Action Center
Besides speaking about their trip, the participants urged support for the national rally in Washington, D.C., on March 30 when NATO will be coming to the US Capital to celebrate their 70th anniversary. The newest NATO partner and the first in Latin America is the country of Colombia, which has been acting as a U.S. proxy in the region to intervene into the affairs of Venezuela. Information on the March 30 action can be found here: http://no2nato2019.org.
If you would like to help finance the trip to Venezuela, please make a donation to the United National Antiwar Coalition here: https://www.unacpeace.org/donate.html. All money that is donated to UNAC between now and March 9, when the delegation leaves for Venezuela, will go to support the delegation.
Statement released by UNAC
