Members of the Bronx Green Party joined the Bronx Anti-War Coalition on March 20 to protest against U.S. Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes and Adriano Espaillat hosting a “student services fair” that prominently featured U.S. military service branches at the Renaissance High School for Musical Theater and the Arts in the Bronx, NY / credit: Bronx Green Party / Twitter
Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in Workers World.
Dozens of Bronx public school parents, teachers, students and community activists gathered on March 20, the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, to oppose a military recruitment fair, hosted by U.S. House Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and Adriano Espaillat, at Renaissance High School in the Bronx. The grassroots Bronx Anti-War Coalition organized the demonstration.
The protesters aimed to educate students and parents about the violence and dangers that Black, Brown and Indigenous youth face entering the military. “A third of women in the military experience sexual harassment and assault,” said Richie Merino, a Bronx public school teacher and community organizer. “The rates are even higher for women of color. We demand justice for the families of Vanessa Guillén and Ana Fernanda Basaldua Ruiz,” two 20-year-old Latinas who were sexually assaulted and killed after speaking up at Fort Hood U.S. Army base in Texas.
Outside the AOC-endorsed military recruitment fair, Mohammed Latifu of the Bronx spoke to a group of community members. The group had gathered in memory of Latifu’s 21-year-old brother, Abdul Latifu, who was murdered on Jan. 10 at Fort Rucker, a U.S. Army base in Alabama. Abdul had been in the Army for only five months when he was bludgeoned to death with a shovel by another soldier.
Through tears, Mohammed shared how he and his family have been kept in the dark by military investigators and still await answers. He said their parents can’t sleep at night due to the senseless murder of their son Abdul.
“We really want to hear what happened,” Latifu said. “What took place? What transpired? Until today, no answers. No phone calls. We still don’t have any updates. Anybody who was thinking about enlisting their kid in the military, I think you better think again. Don’t do it. I wouldn’t dare ask my kid’s friends or anybody to join the military.”
Outside the @aoc sponsored U.S. military recruitment event at low-income public high school in the Bronx, we invited Mohammed Latifu to speak, who is seeking justice for his 21yo brother, Abdul Latifu, who was murdered in Jan at Fort Rucker, a US Army base in AL #JusticeForLatifupic.twitter.com/29xA7VZaTY
— U.S./NATO = State Sponsors of Terrorism (@bxcommie) March 21, 2023
‘They’re Killing Their Own’
“They say they ‘protect’ the country,” Latifu continued. “They’re killing their own. They’re molesting these women that go over there. These kids, young men and women that go over there, they’re sexually harassed, and then they kill them and try to cover it up.
“They’ll tell you, ‘sorry for what happened, our condolences.’ No, keep your condolences! We want answers. What we really want is justice — justice for everybody who has had to endure this and their families,” Latifu concluded.
Outside the event, representatives from IFCO (Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization)/Pastors for Peace informed students about alternative ways to “travel and see the world” without the military. They spoke about how to apply to the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM) in Cuba and receive a free medical degree. Chants of “Cuba Sí, Bloqueo No!” broke out in the crowd.
Claude Copeland Jr., a Bronx teacher and member of About Face: Veterans Against the War, shared his experiences as a victim of the poverty draft. He spoke about how recruiters pitched the military as the only way to advance economically and secure safe, independent housing. They never told him about alternatives or other options. If you have no resources, “you have to sign your life away,” he said.
Community members criticized Ocasio-Cortez for abandoning her antiwar campaign promises to oppose predatory recruitment tactics by U.S. military recruiters, who target young, low-income Black and Latinx children.
“Only three years ago,” Merino said, “AOC introduced an amendment to prohibit military recruiters from targeting kids as young as 12 through online gaming. She understands the U.S. military preys on vulnerable, impressionable kids. For AOC to now use her celebrity status to headline a high school military recruitment event, in the Bronx, signals that she has turned her back on the Black, Brown and migrant working-class community that elected her into office.”
“We don’t want our children to train to kill other poor, Black and Brown people like themselves. The best thing we can do now is to grow the movement to completely remove police and military recruiters from our schools,” Merino concluded.
Editor’s Note: This video report was originally published by People’s Dispatch.
As Panamanians enter week three of national strike against the cost of living crisis, the government has responded with heavy repression. On July 19, the anti-riot units brutally repressed the protesters, who have been blocking the Inter-American highway over the past three weeks. However, within hours, the protesters returned to block the road.
Ronaldo Ortíz of the National Front for the Defense of Economic and Social Rights (FRENADESO) spoke to Peoples Dispatch about the ongoing struggle and attempts to negotiate with the government on their demands.
The United Nations General Assembly in September 2022 / credit: United Nations
Editor’s Note: The following represents the writers’ analysis.
We have spent the past week reading and listening to speeches by world leaders at the UN General Assembly in New York. Most of them condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a violation of the UN Charter and a serious setback for the peaceful world order that is the UN’s founding and defining principle.
But what has not been reported in the United States is that leaders from 66 countries, mainly from the Global South, also used their General Assembly speeches to call urgently for diplomacy to end the war in Ukraine through peaceful negotiations, as the UN Charter requires. We have compiled excerpts from the speeches of all 66 countries to show the breadth and depth of their appeals, and we highlight a few of them here.
African leaders echoed one of the first speakers, Macky Sall, the president of Senegal, who also spoke in his capacity as the current chairman of the African Union when he said, “We call for de-escalation and a cessation of hostilities in Ukraine, as well as for a negotiated solution, to avoid the catastrophic risk of a potentially global conflict.”
While NATO and EU countries have rejected peace negotiations, and U.S. and U.K. leaders have actively undermined them, five European countries—Hungary, Malta, Portugal, San Marino and the Vatican—joined the calls for peace at the General Assembly.
The peace caucus also includes many of the small countries that have the most to lose from the failure of the UN system revealed by recent wars in Ukraine and West Asia, and who have the most to gain by strengthening the UN and enforcing the UN Charter to protect the weak and restrain the powerful.
Philip Pierre, the Prime Minister of Saint Lucia, a small island state in the Caribbean, told the General Assembly,
“Articles 2 and 33 of the UN Charter are unambiguous in binding Member States to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state and to negotiate and settle all international disputes by peaceful means.…We therefore call upon all parties involved to immediately end the conflict in Ukraine, by undertaking immediate negotiations to permanently settle all disputes in accordance with the principles of the United Nations.”
Global South leaders lamented the breakdown of the UN system, not just in the war in Ukraine but throughout decades of war and economic coercion by the United States and its allies. President Jose Ramos-Horta of Timor-Leste directly challenged the West’s double standards, telling Western countries,
“They should pause for a moment to reflect on the glaring contrast in their response to the wars elsewhere where women and children have died by the thousands from wars and starvation. The response to our beloved Secretary-General’s cries for help in these situations have not met with equal compassion. As countries in the Global South, we see double standards. Our public opinion does not see the Ukraine war the same way it is seen in the North.”
Many leaders called urgently for an end to the war in Ukraine before it escalates into a nuclear war that would kill billions of people and end human civilization as we know it. The Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, warned,
“… The war in Ukraine not only undermines the nuclear non-proliferation regime, but also presents us with the danger of nuclear devastation, either through escalation or accident … To avoid a nuclear disaster, it is vital that there be serious engagement to find a peaceful outcome to the conflict.”
Others described the economic impacts already depriving their people of food and basic necessities, and called on all sides, including Ukraine’s Western backers, to return to the negotiating table before the war’s impacts escalate into multiple humanitarian disasters across the Global South. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh told the Assembly,
“We want the end of the Russia-Ukraine war. Due to sanctions and counter-sanctions … the entire mankind, including women and children, is punished. Its impact does not remain confined to one country, rather it puts the lives and livelihoods of the people of all nations in greater risk, and infringes their human rights. People are deprived of food, shelter, healthcare and education. Children suffer the most in particular. Their future sinks into darkness.
My urge to the conscience of the world—stop the arms race, stop the war and sanctions. Ensure food, education, healthcare and security of the children. Establish peace.”
Turkey, Mexico and Thailand each offered their own approaches to restarting peace negotiations, while Sheikh Al-Thani, the Amir of Qatar, succinctly explained that delaying negotiations will only bring more death and suffering:
“We are fully aware of the complexities of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and the international and global dimension to this crisis. However, we still call for an immediate ceasefire and a peaceful settlement, because this is ultimately what will happen regardless of how long this conflict will go on for. Perpetuating the crisis will not change this result. It will only increase the number of casualties, and it will increase the disastrous repercussions on Europe, Russia and the global economy.”
Responding to Western pressure on the Global South to actively support Ukraine’s war effort, India’s Foreign Minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, claimed the moral high ground and championed diplomacy,
“As the Ukraine conflict continues to rage, we are often asked whose side we are on. And our answer, each time, is straight and honest. India is on the side of peace and will remain firmly there. We are on the side that respects the UN Charter and its founding principles. We are on the side that calls for dialogue and diplomacy as the only way out. We are on the side of those struggling to make ends meet, even as they stare at escalating costs of food, fuel and fertilizers.
It is therefore in our collective interest to work constructively, both within the United Nations and outside, in finding an early resolution to this conflict.”
One of the most passionate and eloquent speeches was delivered by Congolese Foreign Minister Jean-Claude Gakosso, who summarized the thoughts of many, and appealed directly to Russia and Ukraine—in Russian!
“Because of the considerable risk of a nuclear disaster for the entire planet, not only those involved in this conflict but also those foreign powers who could influence events by calming them down, should all temper their zeal. They must stop fanning the flames and they must turn their backs on this type of vanity of the powerful which has so far closed the door to dialogue.
Under the auspices of the United Nations, we must all commit without delay to peace negotiations – just, sincere and equitable negotiations. After Waterloo, we know that since the Vienna Congress, all wars finish around the table of negotiation.
The world urgently needs these negotiations to prevent the current confrontations—which are already so devastating—to prevent them from going even further and pushing humanity into what could be an irredeemable cataclysm, a widespread nuclear war beyond the control of the great powers themselves—the war, about which Einstein, the great atomic theorist, said that it would be the last battle that humans would fight on Earth.
Nelson Mandela, a man of eternal forgiveness, said that peace is a long road, but it has no alternative, it has no price. In reality, the Russians and Ukrainians have no other choice but to take this path, the path of peace.
Moreover, we too should go with them, because we must throughout the world be legions working together in solidarity, and we must be able to impose the unconditional option of peace on the war lobbies.
(Next three paragraphs in Russian)
Now I wish to be direct, and directly address my dear Russian and Ukrainian friends.
Too much blood has been spilled – the sacred blood of your sweet children. It’s time to stop this mass destruction. It’s time to stop this war. The entire world is watching you. It’s time to fight for life, the same way that you courageously and selflessly fought together against the Nazis during World War Two, in particular in Leningrad, Stalingrad, Kursk and Berlin.
Think about the youth of your two countries. Think about the fate of your future generations. The time has come to fight for peace, to fight for them. Please give peace a real chance, today, before it is too late for us all. I humbly ask this of you.”
At the end of the debate on September 26, Csaba Korosi, the president of the General Assembly, acknowledged in his closing statement that ending the war in Ukraine was one of the main messages “reverberating through the Hall” at this year’s General Assembly.
You can read here Korosi’s closing statement and all the calls for peace he was referring to.
And if you want to join the “legions working together in solidarity… to impose the unconditional option of peace on the war lobbies,” as Jean-Claude Gakosso said, you can learn more at peaceinukraine.org.
Indigenous people protesting on February 8 in the streets of Perú against the parliamentary coup that ousted President Pedro Castillo Terrones / credit: Clau O’Brien Moscoso
Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in The Canada Files.
Two months on from the coup against Peru’s democratically-elected President, Pedro Castillo, Canada is providing key support for a regime responsible for the deaths of 58 civilians (as of February 6, 2023).
There is a dramatic contrast between Canada’s chummy relationship with Peru’s de facto authorities and its increasingly hostile treatment of socialist Nicaragua.
President Pedro Castillo’s December 7, 2022 ouster and political imprisonment was followed by threemassacres, with teenagers among the dead. 1,229 reported civilians have been wounded, according to Peruvian health authorities, and an unknown number of arbitrary and mass arrests.
Protests are ongoing, with 72 active roadblock points on national roadways, and an indefinite strike which began on January 4, 2023 in regions of southern Peru continues. A recent poll by the Institute of Peruvian Studies showed the Congress with 9 per cent approval rating and 71 per cent disapproved of Dina Boluarte’s presidency. The unrest ignited throughout the country in rejection of the removal and imprisonment of Castillo, and subsequent installation of Dina Boluarte, as well as in rejection of the right-wing Congress, has not gone unnoticed by Canada. Global Affairs Canada has published several travel advisories since the start of the anti-coup mobilizations.
Global Affairs warns of a “volatile” political situation and acknowledges “many casualties”, attributing deaths to “clashes between protestors and the security forces”. In December 2022, mobilizations intensified to the point where Canadians became stranded and at least four humanitarian flights were organized to evacuate Canadian nationals.
Canada expressed ‘deep concern’ in a tweet by Ambassador Louis Marcotte on the day of President Castillo’s removal and its recognition of Dina Boluarte, who was sworn in within hours of Castillo’s arrest, was made known shortly after. Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly then ‘reiterated’ her administration’s “support for the transitional government of President Boluarte” during a call with Peru’s Foreign Minister, Ana Cecilia Gervasi.
Ottawa’s actions closely resemble those of 2019, when the Trudeau government and other CORE group members were first to recognize the coup regime of Jeanine Añez in Bolivia and silent before the brutal repression which accompanied the coup. The similarities between the two cases are countless and it’s worth noting that Canada has the same ambassador for both Peru and Bolivia.
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
The state terror unleashed on protesters and civilians prompted an observation visit to Peru by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). Canada acknowledged the visit and report to the Organization of American States (OAS) by the IACHR at a Special Meeting of the OAS Permanent Council. The IACHR is currently drafting the relevant report but published a press release on January 27, 2023, previewing its findings.
The Commission “condemned violence in efforts to disperse demonstrators” and “mass arrests” during the raid on the National University of San Marcos, in Lima. It noted reports of “excessive use of force by law enforcement” by civil society organizations, arbitrary arrests and complaints of “verbal attacks including the use of intimidating, derogatory, racist, and humiliating language” by police who impeded lawyers’ ability to access their clients. Amid reports of sexual violence by officers against women detainees, the IACHR stressed categorical condemnation of the practice as a tool to exercise control. The statement also issued a reminder on the rights of persons deprived of liberty.
Ottawa’s relative silence on the Peruvian state’s widely reported abuses is particularly eyebrow raising given Canada’s good graces towards the IACHR, which derives its mandate from the OAS — an intergovernmental body dominated by the United States and Canada.
OAS
The OAS has in no way contributed positively to the situation in Peru and should be investigated for its role in the December 7, 2022 coup. A High-Level Group delegation of the OAS Permanent Council visit just two weeks prior to Castillo’s ouster failed to avert the crisis. Castillo himself had gone directly to the Secretary General in search of support from the organization.
Fast forward to January 30, 2023, and with no end in sight for Peru’s turmoil, a Special Meeting of the OAS Permanent Council to address the situation was held, at the request of four member countries.
The brief remarks delivered before this council by Canada’s representative to the OAS, Ambassador Hugh Adsett, referred to the IACHR’s “conclusions” but avoided elaboration. Adsett offered no condemnation of the crimes committed against the Peruvian population, as Canada has on many other occasions, particularly when the OAS Permanent Council has met to address the political situations in Nicaragua and Venezuela. Adsett also participated in the gutting and re-writing of a draft declaration, which in its final version received the approval of all members of the aforementioned council, including the United States, the Peruvian regime itself, and with the blessing of OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro.
A call for prompt, supervised elections in Peru is central in the final document, as well as a call for the Peruvian Public Ministry to investigate, prosecute, and punish “those responsible for violations of human rights” — with no mention of security forces and their use of repression against the population. The “excessive use of force by security forces” was cited in the earlier version first drafted by Colombia and Antigua and Barbuda, but was modified in the carefully-worded final version. This version purposely omitted all reference to security forces and didn’t attribute violence or human rights violations to the state, leaving the declaration open to interpretation.
In the face of a mountain of irrefutable evidence of flagrant human rights violations by the Boluarte government, the OAS has expressed its “full support” for Peruvian President Dina Boluarte, a position it shares with Canada and the United States.
Canada and the OAS Target the Sandinista Revolution
During October 2022, just two months before the coup in Peru, Lima was the host of the OAS General Assembly. ‘Human rights’ in Nicaragua topped Foreign Minister Melanie Joly’s agenda at a peculiar time, given the absence of any significant political development in the Central American country that would warrant special attention.
Canada assumed the lead in the coordinated attack on Nicaragua’s Sandinista government in 2021, similar to the shift in U.S.-provided tasks in 2018 when then-Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland led the charge against the Bolivarian government of Venezuela through the now defunct ‘Lima Group’.
Since receiving the baton from Washington in 2021, Joly has made numerous statements aimed at Nicaragua’s democracy and has sought to escalate the regional and international campaign of aggression. This comes in addition to the illegal sanctions regime first introduced by Ottawa in June of 2019. According to Global Affairs, sanctions have been enacted “in response to gross and systematic human rights violations that have been committed in Nicaragua.”
The result of the October OAS General Assembly meeting in Lima was a strongly-worded resolution with a long list of action items to address a non-existent political and human rights crisis in Nicaragua.
Canada has arbitrarily and illegally imposed three rounds of unilateral sanctions against the country which has enjoyed years of political stability, and whose citizens feel the most peaceful out of all countries of the world, according to a Gallup poll.
Canada’s Interests in Latin America
Canadians ought to question why Canada is harassing a country at peace, with the lowest levels of violent and transnational crime in Central America while leading the world in gender parity, as it rubber stamps the excessive use of force and extrajudicial killings by the widely-hated regime in Peru.
The reality is that Canada never wanted Pedro Castillo in power to begin with and saw better allies in his neoliberal opponents. With CAD $9.9 billion in assets, Canadian companies are Peru’s largest investors in mineral exploration. The country’s mining and resource extraction firms are always attentive to political shifts in Latin America because of the direct effect of policy changes on their ability to operate and secure contracts. The ambassador himself made an appearance alongside his constituents of the mining industry, including Hudbay Minerals, at the Canada Pavilion at the PERUMIN 35 Mining Convention.
Post-coup, Louis Marcotte, Ambassador of Canada to Peru and Bolivia, was quick to meet with Peru’s Mining Minister, Oscar Vera Gargurevich, to promote investment by Canadian firms in mining and hydrocarbon, as well as in the development of electromobility. Vera Gargurevich confirmed his ministry’s participation in the infamous PDAC mining convention in Toronto, Ontario, to be held in March, where Peru will seek new foreign investors.
The president of the Peruvian delegation to PDAC 2023, Óscar Benavides, has said that his country’s representatives will be reassuring investors at the Toronto convention and explain the situation in his country and what’s being done to solve it.
Ottawa’s actions amid flagrant abuses by the Peruvian state are consistent with its track record of legitimizing unpopular neoliberal regimes despite overt and well-documented violent repression (Ivan Duque, Juan Orlando Hernandez, Lenin Moreno, Guillermo Lasso, Jeanine Añez). At the same time, it has worked to undermine the governments of Evo Morales, Daniel Ortega, Nicolas Maduro, and Manuel Zelaya, all of which guarded the sovereignty of their respective countries and resources against foreign exploitation. These leaders, through nationalization, have insisted that resources be used to the benefit of their own populations and not for corporate profits.
Similarly, Castillo ran on a campaign which promised to reassert popular control over Peru’s natural resources through nationalization. Despite the difficulties Castillo encountered once in office, his opponents feared that he would renegotiate contracts to the benefit of the Peruvian state over foreign companies—which would affect Canadian plunderers.
Canada Out of Peru
Canada is currently urging Peru to hold new elections which appear likely to be organized by an illegitimate administration and Congress, with involvement of the OAS. In any such scenario, Castillo’s former Peru Libre party may face obstacles in running a candidate, as the party continues to be a target of political persecution and media smear campaigns.
Despite the absence of rule of law and countless human rights violations, it’s unlikely that Trudeau will cease support for Peru’s unelected regime, particularly given his track record in propping up Jeanine Añez and the make-believe Juan Guaido administration. But like Añez, Boluarte could be swapped out any day. A more permanent enemy of the Peruvian people is the Canadian government, Trudeau himself and Canadian financiers in natural resource extraction, who unabated will continue to conspire and sacrifice lives, in order to plunder Latin America and the Caribbean.
However severe the situation becomes in Peru, declarations or intervention shouldn’t be welcome from the human rights-violating Canadian government, which in addition to its historical and ongoing crimes against Indigenous peoples, maintains death sanctions on two dozen countries, at the direction of Washington.
Camila Escalante is a Latin America-based reporter and the editor of Kawsachun News. Escalante was reporting in Bolivia through the year of resistance to the Añez coup regime, which culminated in the presidential election victory of Luis Arce in October 2020. She can be followed on Twitter at @camilapress.
