African/Black people in Haiti sit in darkness because the United States is blocking oil shipments. More than 40,000 of mostly our people have died in Venezuela because the United States is blocking medicine. Trump, with the support of the Democratic Party, has requested a war budget of $750 billion and is threatening another war in the Middle East that the working class and poor will be deployed to fight.

But what are the media elites doing?

They are still talking about the Mueller report, which Ann Garrison unpacks in this Black Agenda Report piece.

The latest in the line of Russian bogeyman fake news is that the Rooskies have gotten into our people’s heads, and convinced them to travel to Africa to get arms training, so they can overthrow the U.S. government and establish a Pan-African state in the U.S. South. Clearly, we are incapable of thinking for ourselves. Now, it is true that some folks aim to develop an African state in the South. And it is true that our people have long struggled for our liberation. But this Russian connection? Laughable. Yet this fake news isn’t new at all. It is, in fact, part of the thread of anti-communist and now anti-Russia propaganda the U.S. state has used since the early 20th century to attempt to repress African/Black people's struggle for liberation. Black Agenda Report executive editor Glen Ford tears this narrative apart in his latest piece. Then BAP Coordinating Committee member Netfa Freeman discusses the danger of this narrative with RT’s “Watching the Hawks.”

What the U.S. state doesn’t want is what has been happening in Colombia, where African/Black women leaders (“lideresas”) are in the center of resistance. Many have paid the ultimate price, but even more continue to provide leadership to our collective struggle for self-determination, dignity and the construction of a new world. Check out this report by the Proceso Comunidades de Negras (Black Communities Process) to understand the connections between the struggles in Colombia, Venezuela, Haiti and the rest of the African diaspora.

Because of escalating tension between marginalized groups, such as Afro-Colombians, and the right-wing state led by Ivan Duque, the U.S. Peace Council released a statement. The group 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 U.S. government, to begin immediately to fulfill its obligations under the peace agreement, including the protection of human rights, and to recommit to working for peace.”

The struggle to oppose U.S. intervention in Venezuela continues. But let’s be clear: What has kept Venezuela free has been the people—organized and ready to struggle—not the country's military. That's what BAP National Organizer Ajamu Baraka tells RT’s “The World According to Jesse.” Watch the interview.

A week after the U.S. government broke into the Venezuelan embassy in Washington, D.C., with a battering ram, and illegally entered and arrested remaining members of the Embassy Protection Collective, puppet ambassador Carlos Vecchio moved in. However, he cannot issue legitimate visas or passports. The people made sure to make Vecchio feel unwelcome. A few days before that, the government of elected Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced it had signed a Protecting Power Agreement with Turkey. The relationship must be recognized by the United States in order for Turkey to take temporary control of the building. Such agreements are put in place when countries cease diplomatic relations. Protecting powers allow embassy functions to continue. In early April, Switzerland signed a Protecting Power Agreement so it could be the custodian of the U.S. embassy in Caracas. We don’t know how this will work out, with the U.S. state having exposed its gangsterism over the last few months, beginning with recognizing little-known Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido as the “interim president” and going on to violate international law. But we now ask you to sign this petition demanding the U.S. Department of State recognize the agreement. Popular Resistance, in collaboration with other groups, is also organizing a mass rally at the United Nations General Assembly in New York City on September 15 to demand an end to the gangsterism.

Finally, in the city of Rio de Janeiro, more than 400 Afro-Brazilian men have been killed by military police in 2019. This comes on the heels of neo-fascist President Jair Bolsonaro taking office. A Brazilian professor in New York City calls Brazil a “killing field” for African/Black people.

No compromise.

No retreat.

Struggle to win,
Ajamu, Jaribu, Margaret, Netfa, Paul, Vanessa and YahNé
Coordinating Committee
Black Alliance for Peace

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