Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) members spent a day and a half last weekend re-considering our programmatic work and re-organizing our leadership structure, so we can build our capacity for liberation. We left Atlanta energized about our soon-to-be launched U.S. Out of Africa! campaign, as well as related campaigns on demilitarizing the world, and closing U.S. and NATO military bases.
Fortunately, Africans around the world are organizing themselves, too. Hundreds of delegates who met in Ghana for a Pan-Africanist conference held discussions to advance the struggle against capitalism and imperialism.
This week marked a historic visit to the United States by Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel, who spoke at Riverside Church in New York City after addressing the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on the inhumane U.S. blockade against the Caribbean island. Then Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro Moros made a surprise appearance. Watch the video of the whole event documented by our friends at Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.
The U.S. state has been openly involved in criminal aggression against the Venezuelan state, with almost no opposition from 'progressive forces' in the United States and Europe. It is yet another example of the class-collaborationist character of so much of the Western and U.S. left—and why it is political suicide for radical Black forces not to be independently organized.
Maduro said in his address to the UNSC: "I bring the truth of a country that has not surrendered, a historic people that resisted colonial empires in centuries past, I bring the voice of a people who have the honor of being the birthplace of the Liberator Simón Bolívar … Our nation is a country that is harassed and attacked. Yesterday, in this very spot, the President of the United States of America spoke once again against the noble people of Venezuela."
Even Bolivian President Evo Morales looked Trump directly in the eye and recalled that the United States had orchestrated a coup in Iran back in the 1950s to stop that country’s quest for self-determination.
In a further repudiation of the United States, North Korea and South Korea jointly declared the end of the war on Korea and announced their joint bid to host the 2032 Olympics. They also pledged to create rail and road links between the North and the South within the next year, stop military drills aimed at each other along the military demarcation line that divides the North and the South by November 1, among other moves that express cross-border solidarity. China and Russia called for U.S. sanctions on North Korea to be eased as well. All of this points to the diminishing position of the United States in an increasingly multilateral world.
China even came out with a new party line: It is trying to save the world from the United States, which at this point can only boast of its military prowess while its people go hungry and homeless at alarming rates.
The World Peace Council that BAP National Organizer Ajamu Baraka attended released a final declaration on its 5-day meeting in the Dominican Republic. This document is unlike the final declaration released by the Trilateral Peace Conference, which was held during the same week.
Please also attend these events:
BAP has endorsed an October 7 rally in New York City to commemorate the 17th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan: From Afghanistan to Yemen, End the Wars: NY Tour
BAP Coordinating Committee members Jaribu Hill and Ajamu Baraka will join esteemed revolutionaries as jurists at the International Tribunal on U.S. Colonial Crimes on Puerto Rico, being held October 27 in New York City.
Participate in a national conference call October 18 on militarism featuring Ajamu Baraka and anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, who is organizing the Women’s March on the Pentagon during #AntiwarAutumn.
Now that Trump’s military parade is canceled due to mass pressure, BAP is helping organize Peace Congress: End All U.S. Wars at Home and Abroad, being held November 10 in Washington, D.C.
Join BAP Coordinating Committee members Margaret Kimberley and Ajamu Baraka at the First International Conference Against U.S./NATO Military Bases, being held November 16-18 in Dublin, Ireland.
No compromise.
No retreat.
Struggle to win,
Ajamu, Jaribu, Margaret, Netfa, Paul, Vanessa and YahNé
Coordinating Committee
Black Alliance for Peace
P.S. Help us organize our people against the U.S. empire by contributing today.