We dedicate this newsletter to our dear brother and Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) member, Abdusshahid "Baba" Luqman (pictured below), who suddenly passed away on June 15. He and his partner, Jacqueline, hosted independent talk show "Luqman Nation" on Blog Talk Radio starting in 2014, and later on Facebook, YouTube and on Black Power Media. Baba's devotion to his people inspires us to keep going. Rise in power, brother.
BAP's U.S. Out of Africa Network, the organizing arm of the U.S. Out of Africa sub-campaign, and BAP member organization Horn of Africa Pan-Africans for Liberation and Solidarity (HOA PALS) recently issued a joint statement condemning what appears to be the United States setting the foundation for a so-called "humanitarian intervention" in the Tigray region of the Horn of Africa. The joint statement on Tigray has since been re-printed in Africa, Ghana, Ethiopia and in the United States.
This development is troubling for BAP because we recall the consequence of NATO's so-called "humanitarian intervention" in Libya that destroyed the most prosperous and socially equitable African nation on the continent.
Therefore, BAP will not stand by while another imperial endeavor finds its footing in the false humanitarian concerns of the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination.
During the 1990s, BAP National Organizer Ajamu Baraka witnessed the creation of the "humanitarian intervention" argument in U.S. human-rights circles. "Humanitarian intervention provided the U.S. state the perfect ideological cover and internal rationalization to continue as the global 'gendarme' of the capitalist order," he wrote in 2013 during the height of the U.S. intervention in Syria. "By providing the human rights rationale for the assertion that the 'international community' had a moral and legal responsibility to protect a threatened people, mainstream human-rights activists effectuated a shift in the discourse on international human rights that moved the [Responsibility to Protect] R2P assertion from a contested legal and moral argument to a common-sense assumption. And because of their limited perspective, it did not occur to any of these theoreticians that what they propagated was a thinly updated version of the “white man’s burden.”
BAP considers the humanitarian intervention argument the 21st-century White Man's Burden, which we discussed in the April 19 newsletter, "Who Will Save the World From the Saviors?" The audio version of the newsletter can be heard here.
While the United States finds a way to intervene in certain places, others remain humanitarian disasters the United States could easily end. Such is the case in Palestine, which the United States helps terrorize by funding Israel, and in Haiti, where the Biden-Harris administration upholds a dictator, who has stayed well past his term in office (something Trump threatened to do that Democrats were in an uproar about). The hypocrisy is clear to us.
The most recent AFRICOM Watch Bulletin relayed the importance of a people's-centered struggle that centers working-class African women: "If we listen to African women’s perspectives on security, forged in the midst of conflict and military rule, we hear that these include economic and livelihood security as much as safety from violence, safety in their own homes as much as safety from military men."
And so, BAP remains clear that any conflict the Pan-European colonial-capitalist project internationalizes as a human-rights concern worthy of an invasion must be opposed sharply and swiftly.
PRESS AND MEDIA
On the June 22 episode of WPFW (89.3 FM-Washington, D.C.)'s “Voices With Vision,” co-hosts Craig Hall and Netfa Freeman, who represents BAP member organization Pan-African Community Action (PACA), paid respects to BAP and PACA member Abdusshahid Luqman, who passed away recently. They then spoke with BAP member and attorney Mark Fancher about his recent Black Agenda Report article challenging the self-delusion of African/Black activists who think freedom can be obtained within the racist U.S. capitalist system. In the second half, Netfa chopped it up with Kamau Franklin of Community Movement Builders and Black Power Media's Renegade Culture Podcast about the "operationalizing of Juneteenth" by the oppressors and the concept of "movement capture." Next week's show will cover the kidnapping of Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab last year in Cabo Verde at the demand of the U.S. government. Saab has been imprisoned and tortured as part of the ongoing U.S. policy targeting Venezuela.
BAP Coordinating Committee member Margaret Kimberley discussed on RT the hypocrisy of the U.S. state declaring a federal holiday to celebrate Juneteenth. Margaret also discussed the U.S. Supreme Court absolving U.S. corporations of liability in child slave labor in African countries.
BAP member Julian Kunnie published articles in South Africa's Cape Times on the Soweto uprising's legacy and the Black Liberation Movement in South Africa, Colombia and Brazil as well as on homelessness in South Africa.
Yohana Beyene of BAP member organization Horn of Africa Pan-Africans for Liberation and Solidarity (HOA PALS) and PACA's Netfa Freeman spoke to Radio Sputnik's "Political Misfits" 42 minutes into the show about the ongoing violence in the Tigray region, Ethiopia and the role of U.S. imperialism in the conflict.
HOA PALS organizing members Filmon Zerai & Red Sea Socialist/Sebs were interviewed on Franc Analysis to discuss U.S. sanctions imposed on Ethiopia and Eritrea over the Tigray conflict. Then Horn of Africa Leftists interviewed Filmon and Red Sea Socialist on the lack of Tigray coverage in the left media.
Margaret Kimberley and Danny Haiphong of Black Agenda Report's "Left Lens" spoke to Camila Escalante of Bolivia-based Kawsachun News to break down Perú's recent election and developments in Latin America's ongoing struggle against imperialism.
Solidarity Network Coordinator Julie Varughese joined Radio Sputnik's "The Critical Hour" to discuss a Pentagon spokesman announcing the United States may slow the withdrawal of forces from Afghanistan because the Taliban has been gaining control over territory in recent weeks. Julie also appeared on Talk World Radio to speak with David Swanson about the U.S. war continuing in Afghanistan, the ramped-up aggression against China and why the Solidarity Network started a newsletter on Afghanistan. Finally, Black Agenda Radio re-purposed Julie's talk on a Green Party webinar that delved into the United States' war against China.
BAP Research and Political Education Team Co-Coordinator Nakita Rahel Joseph co-organized "A Black Lens on Palestinian Liberation," an online convening of Black Palestinians, Black Jews, Black organizers and scholars. BAP member Asantewaa Nkrumah-Ture was a featured panelist.
BAP National Organizer Ajamu Baraka was quoted on a Guardian article on Black Lives Matter protesters making the Palestinian struggle their own.
BAP members in Atlanta as well as the Atlanta chapter of BAP member organization Friends of the Congo participated in a rally at Atlanta's city hall, calling for an end to the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange (GILEE), in which apartheid Israel trains Atlanta police in brutal, racist policing. The Demilitarize Atlanta 2 Palestine Coalition hosted the event. BAP's U.S. Out of Africa Network Coordinator Tunde Osazua (pictured above, third from left) spoke to the crowd about the connections between the GILEE and 1033 programs.
Netfa discussed on PressTV former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin receiving a 22.5-year sentence for killing George Floyd last year. Netfa also spoke at the "Justice for Tamir Rice" rally held June 25 in front of the so-called U.S. "Justice Department" on what would have been Tamir's 19th birthday.
BAP members Jared Ball, Margaret and Netfa, explored during a June 17 webinar, "Voices Against Empire: A Discussion on Black Radical Media," the radical traditions in Black emancipatory journalism and how media that shares a vision for liberation can support revolutionary struggle.
EVENTS
June 29: Join the Claudia Jones School for Political Education for “Claudia Jones, Afro-Asian Solidarity & Black Left Feminist Visions of Peace,” featuring scholar Zifeng Liu. This event is part of a series of events titled "Radical Black Women," which is a collaboration between the Claudia Jones School for Political Education, Black Women Radicals and the Paul Robeson House & Museum that will pay homage to radical Black women throughout history. Register here.
July 14: PACA's next Assata Shakur Study Groups (ASSG) event on Community Control of the Police will be held at 7 p.m. ET. Register here.
TAKE ACTION
Sign BAP petitions calling for an end to the 1033 program and peace in Afghanistan.
Dedan Waciuri, who represents Black Workers for Justice on BAP’s Coordinating Committee, is being charged for inciting a riot and damaging government property. Sign this petition to demand charges be dropped.
The Black Latina Girls and Women Fund was created by BAP member organization AfroResistance, a Black Latina women-led organization in the service of Black Latinx women in the Americas. This fund offers financial support by giving money directly to Black Latin womxn, girls and femmes who are experiencing severe financial need across the region, especially due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Whether in Brazil, Colombia, United States or Panama, Black Latina girls, women, and femmes are organizing in their local communities in the fight against several forms of state violence. You can donate here and people are encouraged to use the hashtag #BlackLatinaGWFund.
Sign up to join BAP’s U.S. Out of Africa Network to receive the bi-weekly AFRICOM Watch Bulletin in your inbox.
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No Compromise, No Retreat!
Struggle to win,
Ajamu, Charisse, Dedan, Erica, Jaribu, Margaret, Netfa, Nnamdi, Paul, Rafiki
P.S. Freedom isn’t free. Consider giving today.
Banner photo: Ethiopian refugees in Sudan waited near a U.N. facility for hours to receive supplies last December. (Tyler Hicks/The New York Times)