Why Human Rights in China and Tigray, But Not in Haiti, Palestine or Colombia?

Why Human Rights in China and Tigray, But Not in Haiti, Palestine or Colombia?

U.S. President Joe Biden and the Democrats have been playing the "Black Lives Matter" tune on their fiddle. Biden even raised the issue of Black Lives Matter during his presidential campaign. But, just days after Biden was sworn into office, his administration lent support for the Haitian dictator, Jovenel Moïse, who stayed in office past his term to the dismay of the Haitian people, who flooded the streets in protest.

Now, Moïse is dead and the United Nations has decided who will be the new president of Haiti. We see the racist irony. The people of Haiti have not been allowed to weigh in. The white rulers have made their decision, as the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) stated in its July 9 press release.

And while the director of Colombia's National Intelligence Agency and the director of its national police's Intelligence Division are in Haiti to investigate the role of Colombia in the assassination, those agencies have not launched investigations into police forces and paramilitary elements involved in the recent killings of peaceful protesters in Colombia, a client state of the United States.

Western Humanitarianism Is a Weapon Against Humanity

Western Humanitarianism Is a Weapon Against Humanity

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.

G7, Ilhan Omar and White Supremacy

G7, Ilhan Omar and White Supremacy

Fear of a rising China has gripped the supposedly “global elites” of the world. G7 member states agreed on Saturday that all wifi connections be dismantled around the room they convened in because they worried China would eavesdrop, part of a years-long narrative that China’s private tech companies are conducting surveillance on its behalf.

At the meeting, U.S. President Joe Biden pitched to G7 member states an alternative project to contend with China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), an 8-year-old program involving the construction of railways, ports and roads, along with cultural exchange. Already, dozens of countries have signed onto it.

But G7 leaders didn’t seem enthused as talks ended Saturday. Countries like Germany and Italy are heavily invested in the Chinese supply chain. In fact, Volkswagen and BMW cars are top sellers in China. Even though Italy pulled out of the BRI, its officials remember China's generosity when it provided personal protective equipment and medical professionals during the height of Italy's COVID-19 outbreak in 2020. The rift within the Pan-European colonial-capitalist project is obvious.

All Eyes on Calí, Colombia

All Eyes on Calí, Colombia

Saturday morning, the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) got word the neoliberal, right-wing Colombian state was deploying its military into the predominantly Afro-Colombian city of Calí. To top it off, the internet was not working. That prompted us to put out an alert on Twitter.

Later in the day, we heard from our folks that the internet appeared to be up and running again. But we remain vigilant because the national government had deployed the military to Calí and other cities after issuing a decree on Friday forcing governors and mayors to cooperate with the militarized response to the national strike.

This move came after a month of unrest and severe state repression sparked by opposition to the government’s attempt to impose an austerity plan that would have transferred the economic crisis created by neoliberalism onto the backs of the working class.

Linking Palestine Solidarity with African Liberation

Linking Palestine Solidarity with African Liberation

"The managers of the colonial/capitalist world understand the terms of struggle, and so should we. It must be clear to us that for the survival of collective humanity and the planet we cannot allow uncontested power to remain in the hands of the global 1%. The painful truth for some is that if global humanity is to live, the Pan-European white supremacist colonial/capitalist project must die." -Ajamu Baraka, Black Alliance for Peace National Organizer


Like Indigenous people throughout the world, the Palestinian people demand a life of dignity, sovereignty and self-determination.

What prevents Palestinian national self-expression is the constructed state of Israel. The United Kingdom helped settle the first Zionists in Palestine in 1922 after the Balfour Declaration. Later, a brutal Nakba took place when the U.K. aided the newly created state of Israel's settler-colonization. Meanwhile, the United States has armed and funded Israel for years. But lately, that support has come at a cost of $3.8 billion per year, plus an additional $8 billion in loan guarantees.

100 Days of Biden's Bait and Switch

100 Days of Biden's Bait and Switch

U.S. President Joe Biden and the Democrats pretended to support an increase in the minimum wage to $15 per hour and a stimulus payment of $2,000 per person. They also claimed to be outraged by former President Donald Trump's moves to dismiss the result of the 2020 election and remain in office no matter what. Then last week, with full support from the corporate media, Biden released “The American Jobs Plan" and "The American Families Plan,” both meant to revive the so-called “American dream” by bringing Keynesianism back from the dead, along with FDR!

Once in office, though, Biden, who was put in place by neoliberal finance and corporate transnational capital, dutifully began the process of scaling back on his “progressive” stances. The $15/hour minimum wage proposal was scrapped using a shady parliamentary device that gave cover to Democratic Party backtracking. Then the $2,000 check became $1,400. Plus, although Democrats loudly condemned Trump's anti-democratic moves, the Biden-Harris administration gave the green light to its puppet in Haiti to ignore the requirement to leave office February 7. This came despite thousands of Haitians marching in the streets in opposition.

Who Will Save the World from the Saviors?

Who Will Save the World from the Saviors?

The ruling class has long deployed propaganda meant to obscure the rule of capital and normalize capitalist interests as the general interest of society. But lately, the liberal Western intelligentsia has elevated that deployment to a science.

The concept of humanitarian intervention and its logical derivative, the Responsibility to Protect, have proven to be one of the most innovative ideological weapons ever produced. By combining normalized assumptions of white Western civilizational superiority and the liberal anti-authoritarianism encoded in the DNA of the liberal project, imperialism has been able to win broad support for everything from direct military interventions and drone warfare to punitive sanctions against whole societies. These actions are framed as defending human rights, and even as “democracy.”

Afghanistan: Demand an End to the Second Longest U.S. War

Afghanistan: Demand an End to the Second Longest U.S. War

War was the primary instrument used to establish the U.S. settler state and expand U.S. hegemonic global power after the end of the Second World War. War has become so normalized that the U.S. state's two-century-long horrific war of conquest against the Indigenous peoples of the landmass that eventually became known as the United States, as well as the war with North Korea that technically has not ended, have been erased from the U.S. public's awareness.

The two-decade war on Afghanistan, therefore, is the second longest continuous war. That fact increasingly is being lost because of the corporate press's lack of coverage, resulting in vast swaths of the U.S. public being completely unaware of the peace process initiated in 2020 and the Biden-Harris administration's subsequent moves to undermine or completely gut that process.

That is why the Black Alliance for Peace is once again attempting to bring attention to this issue. We are organizing an International Day of Action on Afghanistan on April 8 to demand the Biden-Harris administration adhere to the agreement and withdraw U.S. troops from the country by the May 1 deadline. Find out how to get involved.

We Must Say to Biden and Democrats: 'NO War!'

We Must Say to Biden and Democrats: 'NO War!'

The reactionary character of U.S. politics is on full display as the corporate media—in alignment with the military-industrial complex—the lunatic elements of the foreign policy community and right-wing neoliberal Democrats seem committed to conditioning the public to accept yet another insane military confrontation. This time, with a real opponent—China!

What makes this situation even more absurd is the public voted for Biden and the Democrats because they were led to believe the United States and the world would be a safer place with them in charge. This comes even though the historical evidence has always demonstrated the opposite. Outside the disastrous decision by the Bush administration to attempt to wage imperialist war in two theaters, almost every other major and minor conflict that the United States engaged in since the end of the Second World War took place during a Democrat Party administration.

On International Working Women's Day, Re-dedicate to Ending War and Imperialism

On International Working Women's Day, Re-dedicate to Ending War and Imperialism

International Working Women’s Day is being celebrated today in various parts of the world to bring attention to the plight of non-men. But very few of these commemorations address the relationship between women, war and imperialism, particularly how non-European, colonized and working-class women are impacted.

Therefore, Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) member organizations are using this day to remind the world that—in the spirit of the original International Working Women’s Day actions, where women took to the streets of Saint Petersburg, Russia, calling for “Bread and Peace”—this day must center the fight against war and imperialism.

Erica Caines, member of BAP-Baltimore and BAP’s Coordinating Committee, organized a webinar last year that highlighted how militarized policing domestically and U.S. global military aggression conspires to limit and degrade the fundamental human rights of African and colonized women. According to Caines, “In the last 10 years, as U.S. imperialism expanded—coinciding with the increase of police repression backed by Department of Defense programs—there has been a deliberate attack on internationalism. That makes it harder for colonized people in the United States to understand why and how what happens abroad directly affects us here—especially working-class Black women in the binds of triple oppression."

‘Building Back Better’—Via Neoliberal Warmongering

‘Building Back Better’—Via Neoliberal Warmongering

It is the white rulers who spent millions building prisons in Haiti and funding and training the Haitian police and military. It is the white rulers who have turned a blind eye to the atrocities of the Moïse administration. It is the white rulers who have condoned the lack of parliamentary elections, the ruling of the country by decree, and the rewriting of the Haitian constitution. Most importantly, it is the white rulers who have affirmed Moïse’s illegal extension of his ruling mandate. —Jemima Pierre, “Haiti: Black Despots and White Rulers”

After the “anti-democratic” Trump forces were defeated, the Biden-Harris administration assured it would re-commit to neoliberal orthodoxy in both domestic and foreign policy with its slogan, “Build Back Better.” That promised a return to the “traditional” U.S. values of decency, democracy and human rights.

Yet, the Biden-Harris administration, as well as most U.S. policymakers and political representatives, employ a double standard: While expressing concern for oppressed people and rhetorically supporting “democratic” processes and human rights in their domestic and foreign policies, they inflict harm on millions of people around the world through their wars, subversions and sanctions.

The Biden Administration: The Return of Neoliberal Madness?

The Biden Administration: The Return of Neoliberal Madness?

The picture had started to form in Biden’s first 48 hours, but now it is crystal clear: The Biden-Harris administration intends to pick up exactly where the Obama-Biden administration left off in 2016, with an aggressive assertion of U.S. military power to offset its declining global economic, political and moral position.

All signals appear to be heading in that direction. The Atlantic Council, a right-wing structure that is a mouthpiece for NATO and the Western alliance, issued a 26,000 word screed against China, arguing for eventual war if regime change and other “containment” polices fail to coax China into surrendering to the United States. This is utter madness.

But it continues. In another highly publicized comment, Admiral Charles A. Richard warned, “There is a real possibility that a regional crisis with Russia or China could escalate quickly to a conflict involving nuclear weapons.”

Biden’s First 48 Hours Affirm U.S. ‘Greatest Purveyor of Violence’

Biden’s First 48 Hours Affirm U.S. ‘Greatest Purveyor of Violence’

Every year, we fight a battle on the birthday of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

On one side is the U.S. state. Forced to offer a concession to the middle-class elements of the Black civil-rights movement in the form of a birthday observance for Dr. King, the state has suspended Dr. King from the movement that produced him and reduced his legacy to banal statements made by Black misleaders like Barack Obama, which only reinforce the fantasy of U.S. exceptionalism.

On the other side is the Black resistance movement. We counter with a Dr. King in transition, one who was being influenced by the analysis and politics of the radical Black Liberation Movement that was grounded in the realities of the urban and rural working classes and poor.

January 6th: Blowback and the Ongoing Crisis of Legitimacy

January 6th: Blowback and the Ongoing Crisis of Legitimacy

Two Januarys ago, an obscure politician from a minor political party named Juan Guaido assumed a one-month chairmanship of the Venezuelan National Assembly. Then he promptly declared himself the interim president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

The bizarre declaration had no legal standing. But that did not stop the Trump administration and later, the European Union, from recognizing this fictional presidency.

For most in the world, this was yet another in a series of illegal U.S. efforts to control the politics of countries in the global South. Supporting dictators, overthrowing governments with violence and destroying nations have been at the center of each of the U.S. global policies since the United States became the leader of the colonial/capitalist Western alliance in 1945.

But as Malcolm X once said, “The chickens have come home to roost.”

People(s)-Centered Human Rights: Reasserting the Black Radical Human Rights Tradition

People(s)-Centered Human Rights: Reasserting the Black Radical Human Rights Tradition

The global economic crisis of neoliberal capitalism—exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic—has exposed the ethical, moral and political contradictions of the liberal interpretation of human rights that contends these rights can be viewed separately from the political economy, global structures and power relationships. Operating from the false premise that human rights are objective and politically neutral, neoliberals began weaponizing the framework in the 1990s as an instrument that rationalized naked imperialist interventions. Humanitarian interventionism and the “responsibility to protect” became the contemporary white-supremacist expression of the “white man’s burden” that involved “saving” natives in the global South from their autocratic rulers.

It had escaped most people that the rulers to be deposed usually were in nations that attempted to resist U.S. domination with the help of European allies. From Cuba, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Iran to North Korea and Venezuela, subversion, direct military interventions, proxy wars, and sanctions were all deployed to “save” the people from their oppressive rulers. It did not matter that hundreds of thousands would die in the process, even being denied medicine amid COVID-19. The white West had determined in capitals thousands of miles away that these losses were acceptable collateral damage to preserve “democracy” and “human rights.”

U.S. Centrism: The Radical Betrayal of Global Solidarity

U.S. Centrism: The Radical Betrayal of Global Solidarity

“… Somebody must say to America, America if you have contempt for life, if you exploit human beings by seeing them as less than human, if you will treat human beings as a means to an end, you thingafy those human beings. And if you will thingafy persons, you will exploit them economically. And if you will exploit persons economically, you will abuse your military power to protect your economic investments and your economic exploitations.” —Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Where Do We Go From Here?” (1967)


In the United States, a liberal or a self-identified radical can rationalize supporting a candidate who throws Palestinians under the bus in order to get elected to the U.S. Senate. These same people can remain silent on murderous U.S. economic sanctions. They also can avoid any comment on U.S. imperialist aggression. They can do all of these things and their “progressive” or “radical” credentials would not be questioned.

That is why Joe Biden can 1) fill his cabinet with neoliberal war hawks, 2) signal obscene spending on the U.S. military will continue, and 3) tell the rulers they can rest assured knowing he is committed to the imperialist agenda of “Full Spectrum Dominance” that has been the U.S. state’s bipartisan-supported national security policy for the last two decades—and what amounts to “the left” shrugs its shoulders.

How Do the Dead Celebrate? The Bipartisan Culture of Death

How Do the Dead Celebrate? The Bipartisan Culture of Death

It is becoming more and more evident that despite the strengthening calls to ‘Free Palestine’ and more recent actions to ‘End Sars,’ internationalism will again become a backburner issue. How will Africans in the US combat this and re-establish the anti-war internationalism politics that cemented the Black Radical Tradition and politics of the past? —Erica Caines, Hood Communist


Like most political formations in the United States, Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) members and supporters represent different tendencies. For BAP members, however, elections have always presented a strategic question. That is, the intent is to understand how the election might facilitate or impede our organizing and power building processes.

That is how we have avoided much of the emotionalism and irrationality that seems to infect so many in the United States. For our alliance, a question that helped us maintain a sober perspective was considering the impact of the election of any candidate on the lives of colonized peoples and nations in the global South.

The Contours of Resistance Beyond the Election

The Contours of Resistance Beyond the Election

No matter which party wins the White House on November 3, one thing is certain: The objective crisis of the system will force the winning political party to be guided by a logic that concludes domestic repression and warmongering abroad are necessary.

From occupied Philadelphia to occupied Palestine, the people in the colonized spaces of empire will find it hard to discern a difference between how Democratic and Republican oppressors treat them. In Philadelphia, Trump’s Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecutors borrowed a page from the Obama administration’s DOJ playbook. If folks recall, after the Baltimore uprisings in 2015, Obama’s DOJ slapped federal charges on the resisters Obama had referred to as “thugs and criminals.” Just last week, the Trump DOJ swept into Philly and nationalized a local law enforcement by arresting and slapping federal felony charges against four African activists.

Candidate Accountability: Demand a Commitment to a Peace-and-Human-Rights Agenda

Candidate Accountability: Demand a Commitment to a Peace-and-Human-Rights Agenda

The novel coronavirus pandemic both revealed and accelerated the irreversible crisis of the global capitalist system and, consequently, the domestic conditions shaping the 2020 U.S. presidential election and every level of U.S. governance.

The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) asserts the deepening structural crisis is causing unprecedented forms of capitalist structural violence that can be measured in unnecessary deaths, sickness, hospitalizations, mass hunger, homelessness and collective trauma. This crisis, along with climate change and the interlocking issues related to imperialist war, militarism and domestic repression, are the main challenges facing the public.

Yet, the diversionary psychodrama passing itself off as politics in the United States has consigned these issues outside of the pre-approved range of items for public discussion.

However, BAP took on the task to raise the issues that others have avoided during this election season to suggest the people must demand from public officials a minimum program that opposes war, repression and imperialism.

We launched the Candidate Accountability Pledge as part of our broader campaign, No Compromise, No Retreat: Defeat the War Against African/Black People in the U.S. and Abroad, to say public officials coming to our people for support must embrace an agenda that in the words of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., addresses the ongoing issues of “racism, materialism and militarism” that characterize the politics of the United States as the “greatest purveyor of violence on the planet.”

In these last few weeks of this effort, we highlight our demands. They go beyond the election because we know the state is increasingly relying on the use of violence domestically and abroad, and that both Democrats and Republicans are committed to this strategy to maintain the power of the capitalist dictatorship. So, we suggest the people demand their elected officials and candidates:

  • Oppose the militarization of U.S. police through the Department of Defense’s 1033 program

  • Oppose Israeli training of U.S. police forces

  • Call for and work for the closure of the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM)

  • Advocate for the closure of 800+ U.S. foreign military bases

  • Oppose Trump’s “Operation Relentless Pursuit”

  • Commit to opposing all military, economic (including sanctions and blockades) and political interventions

  • Advocate for an end to U.S. participation in NATO

  • Support efforts to cut the U.S. military budget by 50%

  • Demand the U.S. Department of Justice document and investigate the use of lethal force by domestic police officers

  • Commit to passing resolutions that commit the U.S. to uphold international law and the U.N. Charter

  • Sponsor legislation and/or resolutions to support the U.N. resolution on the complete global abolition of nuclear weapons

Over the last few weeks, we have attempted to raise the visibility of these demands. 

For example, our September 24 webinar, “Full Spectrum Dominance: From AFRICOM to Indo-Pacific Command”, focused on our ongoing work to shut down AFRICOM, but we also drew attention to another U.S. command structure, the Indo-Pacific Command, which is being used to strengthen U.S. offensive capabilities against China.

Then on October 1, over 300 organizations from global civil society joined us by endorsing and taking action in support of the International Day of Action on AFRICOM. For that day, we asked organizations and individuals to call on the U.S. Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) to investigate the impact of AFRICOM on the African continent. The effort to sign onto that letter continues.

We are disseminating an especially important conversation BAP members hosted and presented on October 7 on Black Women and Anti-Imperialism. 

On October 14, BAP co-sponsored and National Organizer Ajamu Baraka participated in a discussion on policing in Nicaragua and the Caribbean that is receiving international attention.

BAP member organization Friends of the Congo yesterday launched “Congo Week in Harlem”, an annual 7-day event that draws attention to the ongoing struggles in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and to its rich history and culture. Many believe the DRC would be one of the richest countries if it was allowed to exercise real national sovereignty, free from predatory U.S. and Western companies.

BAP is a member of the Black is Back Coalition (BIB), which is organizing the “Black People’s March on the White House” on November 7-8. For BIB, the election’s outcome will not change that Black and Brown colonized workers in the United States and abroad have no choice but to resist the U.S. state’s criminal activity as it desperately attempts to shore up the capitalist order.

And we are still moving toward our fundraising goal of $30,000, so we can continue to work for peace and People(s)-Centered Human Rights. Help us.

 

PRESS AND MEDIA


On the October 6 episode of WPFW’s “Voices With Vision”, Netfa Freeman, who represents Pan-African Community Action (PACA) on BAP’s Coordinating Committee, and co-host Craig Hall, interviewed Qiana Johnson, a core organizer with Black Lives Matter-DC and executive director of Life After Release, about a model for challenging mass incarceration called “Participatory Defense.” That model was highlighted with the song "New Tribes" by Dahk Matter (PACA's Ahmed Malik Braxton). PACA organizer Max Rameau discussed the presidential debate and the mention of Community Control of Police (CCOP). Netfa and Craig spoke to Rwandan genocide survivor and African Great Lakes Action Network (AGLAN) Executive Director Claude Gatebuke about Congo Week (October 18-24) and the case of Paul Russesabagina—hero of the film, "Hotel Rwanda"—recently kidnapped by the Rwandan government and being held as a political prisoner for criticizing the Rwandan occupation of the DRC and its culpability in atrocities there. As is customary on "Voices With Vision", political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal provides commentary. This time, on Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis.

The October 13 episode of “Voices With Vision” featured an interview with Erica Takeo, who coordinates the solidarity network for the Asociación de Trabajadores del Campo, or the Rural Workers Association, in Nicaragua. Takeo spoke about Friends of Latin America’s October 14 webinar that delved into the Nicaraguan experience with CCOP.

For The Real News Network, BAP member Jacqueline Luqman interviewed Dr. Akinyele Umoja, professor in the African-American Studies Department at Georgia State University and author of the book “We Will Shoot Back: Armed Resistance in the Mississippi Freedom Movement,” about armed self-defense for Black people. 

Netfa was featured 9 minutes into KPFA’s Evening News to break down the Trump/Biden debate mentioning CCOP. Plus, Dedan Waciuri, who represents Black Workers for Justice on the BAP Coordinating Committee, spoke about the need for CCOP on Black Agenda Radio. Mapinduzi, an organization Dedan belongs to in Greenville, North Carolina, held an online panel discussion October 17 on the role of police.

KPFA's “Flashpoints” interviewed Netfa about militia groups caught plotting to kidnap Michigan’s governor and the white-supremacist roots of militias and U.S. police.

BAP member Erica Caines wrote in Hood Communist about the possibility of a Trump coup, the material purpose of the Supreme Court and the focus of Black collective organizing.

BAP Coordinating Committee member Margaret Kimberley appeared 60 minutes into Radio Sputnik’s “The Critical Hour” to analyze the Trump administration’s response to wildfires ravaging California and other western states, the Barrett nomination, and a Sentencing Project report showing nearly 5.2 million people will be disenfranchised in the 2020 U.S. elections because of felony convictions. 

A CodePink video showed Netfa breaking down how U.S. elections are used to misdirect the people’s struggle.

Erica hosted a forum, “Black Women and Anti-Imperialism”, featuring speakers Nnennaya Amuchie of #8ToAbolition⁣; Asantewaa Nkrumah-Ture of BAP and the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign in Philadelphia; and Onyesonwu Chatoyer of BAP member organization All African People’s Revolutionary Party-New Mexico, Anti-War Coalition of Albuquerque and the Hood Communist blog. The conversation aimed to show Black women in the United States why they should care about the symbiotic relationship that exists between the military industrial complex and militarized policing. The history of Black women radicals in anti-imperialist movements in the United States, domestic imperialism, internationalism and AFRICOM were also discussed.

BAP’s U.S. Out of Africa Network Coordinator Tunde Osazua spoke to Anticonquista’s L@s Hij@s de Fidel podcast—hosted by BAP member Kayla Pop and professor Danny Shaw—about the imperialist roots of the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) and its implications for Africans around the world. WORT’s “8 O’Clock Buzz” interviewed Tunde about how AFRICOM uses U.S. military power to impose U.S. control on African land, resources, and labor to service the needs of U.S. multinational corporations and the wealthy in the United States.

Popular Resistance interviewed Ajamu, who spoke about the history of AFRICOM and its impact on the continent. He also discussed why anti-imperialist and internationalist perspectives are necessary, the changing power dynamics in the world, the upcoming elections in the United States, and where activists should focus their time and energies.

Meanwhile, Netfa was interviewed for Press TV's “Africa Today” on the cost of terrorism on 18 African countries. 

 

EVENTS


October 18-24: Friends of the Congo is commemorating Congo Week XIII by hosting a series of virtual events this year with special presentations from the Andree Blouin Center in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

October 22: Stand with thousands across the country for National Day of Protest to express our collective outrage, creativity and resistance in response to the crimes of this system. Uphold the tens of thousands of lives stolen by U.S. law enforcement over the past quarter century. Join a National Day of Protest event in your area. Create one if you are in an area where no one is organizing. On October 22, “WEAR BLACK, FIGHT BACK!” To endorse this call, complete this form. For more information, visit october22.org. Provide details of an action by emailing oct22national@gmail.com.   

October 24: A march and caravan co-initiated by BAP member organization Ujima People’s Progress Party will demand housing justice in Baltimore, Maryland.

October 27: The Claudia Jones School for Political Education, along with the New Dawn Podcast, are hosting Dr. Charisse Burden-Stelly and Boots Riley to discuss anti-capitalism. Register here.

November 7-8: The Black Is Back Coalition calls on all to march, rally and convene in Washington, D.C., during the “Black People's March On White House.” Registration is requested. Read their article in Black Agenda Report.

 

TAKE ACTION

  • The Black Latina Girls and Women Fund was created by 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.

  • Ask your local, state and federal candidates to sign BAP’s 2020 Candidate Accountability Pledge. If you are a candidate, distinguish yourself from the other corporate warmongering candidates by signing the pledge.

  • Sign up to join BAP’s U.S. Out of Africa Network to receive the bi-weekly AFRICOM Watch Bulletin in your inbox.

  • Make sure you keep up with us throughout the week by subscribing to our YouTube channel, liking us on Facebook, and following us on Instagram and Twitter.

No Compromise, No Retreat!
 
Struggle to win,
Ajamu, Dedan, Jaribu, Margaret, Netfa, Nnamdi, Paul, Vanessa, YahNé

P.S. Freedom isn’t free. Consider giving today.

Photo credit: Robert W. Kelley/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

Is AFRICOM Moving to South Carolina?

Is AFRICOM Moving to South Carolina?

Individuals and organizations from around the world joined the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) on International Day of Action on AFRICOM, calling for the U.S. government to shut down its African command (AFRICOM) and withdraw its bases and military personnel from Africa.

When AFRICOM was launched October 1, 2008, U.S. authorities—understanding the political ramifications—realized it would be impossible to house the command headquarters in Africa. Hence, the German city of Stuttgart was chosen as the base of operations.

The Obama administration and NATO attacked and destroyed Libya, whose leader, Muammar Gaddafi, chaired the African Union, the continent-wide structure committed to African unity and cooperation. But with Libya in disarray and no African leader to voice opposition, the U.S. Department of Defense has floated the idea of moving AFRICOM’s headquarters to Africa. Then this past week, it suggested placing it in the U.S. state of South Carolina because the Trump administration has plans to move thousands of U.S. troops out of Germany.

The arrogance involved in considering basing AFRICOM in South Carolina is exactly why an International Day of Action on AFRICOM and our ongoing campaign, U.S. Out of Africa: Shut Down AFRICOM, is so important. The hubris and psychopathology of white supremacy could easily lead it to make the error of attempting to bring AFRICOM to the Black-Belt South, where it would be met with ferocious opposition—all despite U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-South Carolina).

BAP is clear. We are not moved by paternalistic pandering from politicians, who pretend Black lives matter in the United States while they support racist U.S. subversion, sanctions, and warmongering against Africans and other non-European peoples and nations. 

We intend to shut down AFRICOM, close all U.S. foreign military bases, and dismantle the U.S. war machine for ourselves and for the world. 

 

PRESS AND MEDIA


On this week's episode of WPFW’s “Voices With Vision”, Netfa Freeman, who represents BAP member organization Pan-African Community Action (PACA), and his co-host, Craig Hall, interviewed Green Party presidential and vice presidential candidates Howie Hawkins and Angela Walker, who spoke about policing, healthcare, foreign policy, and why they want “progressives” to vote for what they believe in, and not throw their vote away on the “lesser of two evils.” Then Brother Jihad Abdulmumit of the National Jericho Movement discussed the good news that former Black Panther and political prisoner Jalil Muntaqim has won his parole hearing. The second half of the show featured remarks by Affiong L. Affiong, executive director of the Moyo Pan Afrikan Solidarity Center in Nigeria. Those remarks are from the U.S. Out of Africa Network’s Sept. 24 virtual symposium, “Full Spectrum Dominance: From AFRICOM to Indo-Pacific Command.” That event featured the music of Dee The Peacemaker.

Mark Fancher, a member of BAP's Africa Team and an organizer in the All-African People's Revolutionary Party (A-APRP), was interviewed on WRFG's RAP (Revolutionary African Perspectives) about the International Day of Action on AFRICOM BAP organized for October 1.

Tunde Osazua, BAP’s U.S. Out of Africa Network Coordinator, discusses AFRICOM and the situation in Somalia on WBAI News with Paul DeRienzo.

Netfa joined Sean Blackmon and BAP member Jacqueline Luqman on Radio Sputnik’s “By Any Means Necessary” to talk about the U.S. military’s recent attempts to expand its drone warfare campaign to Kenya, the CIA- and  MI6-backed "Rendition Operations Team" operating with impunity in Kenya, and the links between imperialism in Africa and oppression in the United States.

BAP Coordinating Committee member Margaret Kimberley and BAP Supporter Network Co-Coordinator Danny Haiphong discussed U.S. human rights abuses on Black Agenda Report’s The Left Lens. 

Netfa was on “By Any Means Necessary” to discuss the first U.S. presidential debate of the 2020 campaign season, Trump's suggestion that the Proud Boys should "stand down and stand by," and the refusal of the Kentucky attorney general to indict the Louisville police officer who killed Breonna Taylor.

WBAI News with Paul DeRienzo interviewed Netfa about community control of the police taking the stage at the debates. Meanwhile, Margaret discussed the European Union and the United States breaking on Venezuela 57 minutes into Radio Sputnik's “The Critical Hour” and the presidential debate 58 minutes into another episode of “The Critical Hour”. BAP National Organizer Ajamu Baraka also discussed the debate 58 minutes into KPFA’s “Hard Knock Radio”.

PACA organizer Max Rameau was a featured speaker for Freedom Inc.’s webinar, "A Righteous Rebellion,” which focused on Black Resistance.

Netfa was interviewed on “The Critical Hour” about U.S. sabotage of Cuba's efforts in combating COVID-19.

Ajamu wrote an essay featured in a new book, “Capitalism on a Ventilator: The Impact of COVID-19 in China & the U.S.”. Other authors included Margaret, political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal and the now-deceased BAP supporter Kevin Zeese.

Ajamu also discussed 57 minutes into Radio Sputnik’s “By Any Means Necessary” the consistent failure of the Democratic Party to offer serious solutions to the COVID-19 crisis as the virus appears to spread rapidly among their GOP counterparts, the vital importance of alternative media outlets and educational platforms in a hegemonic capitalist cultural environment, and the long history of shared struggle between revolutionaries in racialized communities both within and outside the United States.

BAP members Asantewaa Nkrumah-Ture and YahNé Ndgo represented at “Fists Up! Fight Back!”, a Philadelphia rally and teach-in held in solidarity with the people of Louisville, Kentucky, and the late Breonna Taylor. Asantewaa can be heard 54 minutes in and YahNé appears after her.

EVENTS

October 7: Register for an 8 p.m., EST, webinar, “Black Women and Anti-Imperialism: Forum on the Importance of Internationalist Politics For Black Women in the U.S.”

October 12: The All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (GC) is holding an outdoor rally at 12 p.m., EST, in Washington, D.C., for Indigenous People’s Day.

October 14: PACA's Assata Shakur Study Group will be held online at 7 p.m., EST. PACA requests non-Africans who wish to attend bring an African.

October 14: Ajamu will speak on a Friends of Latin America 7:30 p.m., EST, webinar, “Power to the People! Policing & Caribbean Autonomy in Nicaragua,” where he will help draw the connection between repression and people’s struggle in Nicaragua and in the United States. Simultaneous English and Spanish interpretation will be available.

October 15: Join BAP member organization AfroResistance for a 1 p.m., EST, conversation on police brutality and the invisible war against Black Women and Girls, as well as strategies to target and dismantle the systems that produce them. Register here.
 
Una conversación sobre la brutalidad policial y la guerra invisible contra las Mujeres y Niñas Negras, así como estrategias para atacar y desmantelar los sistemas que las producen. Jueves, 15 de Octubre, 2020. 1 p.m. EST / 12 p.m. Colombia. Registrarse aquí.
 
Uma conversa sobre a brutalidade policial e a guerra invisível contra as Mulheres e Meninas Negras, assim como estratégias para desmantelar os sistemas que as produzem. Quinta, 15 de Outubro de 2020. 1 p.m. EST / 2 p.m. Brasil. Registre-se aqui.

October 18-24: BAP member organization Friends of the Congo is commemorating Congo Week XIII by hosting a series of virtual events this year with special presentations from the Andree Blouin Center in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

October 22: Stand with thousands across the country for National Day of Protest to express our collective outrage, creativity and resistance in response to the crimes of this system. Uphold the tens of thousands of lives stolen by U.S. law enforcement over the past quarter century. Join a National Day of Protest event in your area. Create one if you are in an area where no one is organizing. On October 22, “WEAR BLACK, FIGHT BACK!” To endorse this call, complete this form. For more information, visit october22.org. Provide details of an action by emailing oct22national@gmail.com.   

October 22: Join "A Call for Unity of the National Black Liberation Movement in the Age of Capitalist Decline,” at 7 p.m., EST. This first in a series of national webinars will open a national dialogue on the state of the National Black Liberation Movement, how to establish national unity of all forces seeking Black Liberation, and how to rebuild a national movement that has earned the trust and support of the African American people in our 400-year historic struggle to end oppression. This webinar is sponsored by BAP, BAP member organization Black Workers for Justice, Cooperation Jackson and Community Movement Builders. This is an invitation-only event.

November 7-8: The Black Is Back Coalition calls on all to march, rally and convene in Washington, D.C., during the “Black People's March On White House.” Registration is required. Read their article in Black Agenda Report.

 

TAKE ACTION

  • The Black Latina Girls and Women Fund was created by 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.

  • Ask your local, state and federal candidates to sign BAP’s 2020 Candidate Accountability Pledge. If you are a candidate, distinguish yourself from the other corporate warmongering candidates by signing the pledge.

  • Sign up to join BAP’s U.S. Out of Africa Network to receive the bi-weekly AFRICOM Watch Bulletin in your inbox.

  • Make sure you keep up with us throughout the week by subscribing to our YouTube channel, liking us on Facebook, and following us on Instagram and Twitter.


No Compromise, No Retreat!
 
Struggle to win,
Ajamu, Dedan, Jaribu, Margaret, Netfa, Nnamdi, Paul, Vanessa, YahNé

P.S. Freedom isn’t free. Consider giving today.

Photo credit: Senior Airman Joshua R. Maund/JBC