San Salvador, El Salvador – Participants from over twenty countries met here for the International Gathering in Solidarity and for Peace in Colombia and Latin America, July 20-22. People from across Latin America, Europe, Canada and the United States came together for three days, giving their solidarity to the popular movement and rebel forces of Colombia. Speakers included revolutionary leaders, union activists, indigenous activists, academics, and leftist politicians.
On Sept. 29, an important demonstration will take place in Washington D.C. In conjunction with the protests surrounding the meeting of the International Monetary Fund, thousands will raise their voices against U.S. intervention in Latin America and the Caribbean. What follows is a reprint of the call to the protest. We urge the readers of Fight Back! to build for, and attend the demonstration.
Washington, D.C. – Jessica Sundin, of the Colombia Action Network, spoke at the Sept. 29 protest, “There are over 100 of us here from Minnesota, and we are the face of the anti-war movement. With us, we have Palestinians, Afghanis, Latinos and African Americans, and we are led by students. We've got to unite to fight against this war and end the racism here at home. The Colombia Action Network has been fighting for years to oppose the U.S. military aid to and involvement in a brutal regime in Colombia. It is one of the many crimes around the world for which the U.S. bears responsibility. Every year, thousands die in Colombia by U.S. paid-for weapons. In Palestine, hundreds of thousands are plowed down by U.S. paid-for tanks and machine guns. In Iraq every month 5,000 people die. This is the case around the world. While we grieve the loss of people in New York and D.C., we refuse to forget the deaths of our brothers and sisters around the world. From Colombia Action Network, we ask you to join us in saying, for Colombia, Afghanistan, and the Middle East, we demand justice, we demand peace!”
Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has ordered the Israeli army to intensify its attacks. The result – a wave of assassinations, armed incursions into Palestinian towns and villages and more operations to arrest activists in the Palestinian resistance. Using any means at hand to achieve these goals, Bush’s ‘war on terrorism’ serves as a pretext and cover. More than 17 Palestinians have been killed since Christmas, including three children under the age of 11 who were shot in the head.
Stratford, CT – Shortly before dawn, Feb. 12, 100 protesters came together here at the gates of the Sikorsky Aircraft factory to protest the manufacture and sale of Blackhawk helicopters to Colombia. 25 demonstrators risked arrest and blocked the gate, trying to prevent employees from entering or exiting the plant, thus slowing down or halting production. No arrests took place.
The Bush administration knows nothing about peace. The administration backed Israel's brutal, right-wing Sharon government from day one, and waged a cowardly military attack on Iraq. In the aftermath of militarily defeating the Iraqi government, the Bush administration is trying to reshape the Middle East, dominate the entire region and eliminate all opposition to the United States. While the attempt to put down the Iraqi resistance continues, Washington is now taking aim at the Palestinian liberation struggle. Central to the struggle for freedom in the Middle East, the battle of Palestinians for Palestine serves as an example and an inspiration to all the Arab peoples of the region.
Chicago, IL – Around one hundred people gathered in Chicago April 7 and 8, for a historic meeting of Colombia solidarity activists from across the U.S. The Colombia Action Network (C.A.N.) is the first national network to bring together a true diversity of people to oppose U.S. intervention in Colombia and to support the self-determination of Colombian people struggling for peace with social and economic justice.
Fight Back! interviewed the imprisoned General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Ahmad Saadat, on May 20. At a time when the eyes of the world are focused on the Middle East, we are grateful for the opportunity to bring you, our readers, the thoughts of one of the key leaders of the Palestinian resistance in his own words.
The Colombian people are fighting for liberation against a government that only serves the interests of the rich. The South American country has been involved in this civil war for decades, but, until recently, it has gone on unnoticed by the American public. In summer 2000, the U.S. Congress approved a $1.3 billion aid package, part of Colombian President Andres Pastrana's “Plan Colombia.” Its purpose is to fight the civil war in the name of a war on drugs. This aid will send military weapons and equipment, as well as U.S. Army personnel, to train Colombian soldiers.
Fight Back! is publishing the following statement criticizing the Geneva Accord – which purports to be a framework for achieving peace in Palestine. Like Bush’s ‘road map for peace,’ the Geneva Accord does not square with the aspirations of the Palestinian people for justice and liberation. When the text of the Accord was released Dec. 1, thousands protested in Gaza and other Palestinian cities.
Palestinian Prisoners' Day, commemorated throughout Palestine and by solidarity activists the world over, April 17, is a day to bring attention to the plight of all Palestinian political prisoners held in Israeli jails and to demand their immediate release.
The ‘Wall’ which the Israeli government began constructing in June of 2002, and which lies well within the borders of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank, is devastating fertile Palestinian land, cutting off even more Palestinian water resources and destroying Palestinian villages – in some cases enclosing them on three sides. Israel is illegally, according to international law set out by the United Nations, snaking its apartheid Wall up to 3.8 miles inside the West Bank’s ‘Green Line,’ the internationally recognized borders for the West Bank.
New York, NY – Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition, held its second international convention here April 16, entitled “Sustainable Struggle: The Road to Palestine.” Several hundred Palestinians and supporters, hailing from Canada, the U.S., Europe and Palestine, held a series of informational and strategy workshops aimed, in general, at advancing Palestinian rights, and, in particular, at the right of Palestinian refugees’ to return to their homeland.
Abu Dis, Palestine – Inside a Hunger Strike Solidarity Tent, one of the many erected across Palestine to back the 4500 political prisoners on hunger strike who are demanding decent treatment from Israeli authorities. These women are refusing food in solidarity with their imprisoned husbands, sons and brothers. Many of the women have more than one family member in prison. In almost every city or village, five to fifteen people participated in the hunger strike. The strike came to a successful end in early September when the Israeli authorities gave in to a number of the demands.
Fight Back! News Service is circulating the following statement demanding the release of Palestinian political prisoner Ahmad Saadat. Saadat is the General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
Before the death of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, Nov. 11, there had been an enormous amount of speculation raised, and analysis offered, concerning the issue of succession. And now that the speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Rawhi Fattouh, has been named the interim president, the speculation will continue for at least 60 more days.
Freedom Road Socialist Organization mourns the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat (1929-2004). We regret the loss of a freedom fighter who worked tirelessly for the emancipation of Palestine.
An upsurge of armed resistance to the U.S. occupation has swept across Iraq over the past six weeks. Most of the fighting was initially concentrated in the southern port city of Basra, and then in the densely populated Sadr City, an impoverished suburb of the capitol Baghdad. The fighting in Basra and Sadr City is significant in that it represents a decisive rejection by the masses of Iraqi Shiites of the occupation government’s ‘political process.’
