REPORT
ON THE
'STOP
THE WARS AT HOME & ABROAD!'
NATIONAL
CONFERENCE
May 8-10, 2015,
Secaucus, N.J.
By the 2015
Conference Organizing Committee
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Against a background of
seemingly endless U.S. wars abroad and growing domestic movements against racist
police killings, low wages and devastating climate change, more than 400
activists gathered just outside New York City May 8-10 for a “Stop the Wars at
Home & Abroad!” conference that ratified an Action Plan addressing both
domestic and international issues.
Sponsored by the United
National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC), the conference, held at a hotel in Secaucus,
New Jersey, brought together a wide range of activists, from those who primarily
concentrate on international issues to mostly younger activists in the emerging
movements such as Black Lives Matter, Fight for $15 and environmental
change.
Conference delegates came
from 29 states, as well as Canada, Britain, Germany and Ukraine. A number of
now-U.S.-based activists represented struggles in their home countries of
Colombia, Haiti, Honduras, Iran, Mexico, Palestine, the Philippines, Puerto
Rico, Syria and Venezuel also attened.
Solidarity messages were
received from Cuba, Ireland, New Zealand and Russia.
Linking up the
issues
While
UNAC conferences have always addressed domestic issues, this one was unique in
that it was the first time a national antiwar gathering so clearly took up the
need to oppose the war being waged against oppressed communities in the United
States. A central theme of many panels and workshops was support for the
resistance of Black youth standing up to the epidemic of police brutality.
In the
opening plenary session, Jaribu Hill, founder of the Mississippi Workers’ Center
for Human Rights, delivered a stirring call for solidarity with young activists.
Declaring that resistance to the status quo is the only way forward, she called
the youth who rebelled in Baltimore “young Steve Bikos and Harriet Tubmans.”
Another especially
dynamic speaker was Lawrence Hamm, founder and Chair of the People’s
Organization for Progress (POP) in Newark, N.J. Explaining that we are really
fighting one war on many fronts, Hamm called on those present to oppose “all
U.S. boots on the ground, defeat the Trans-Pacific Partnership, fight union
busting and other attacks on the working class at home and challenge
white-supremacist attacks on Black and Brown people!”
As
part of the conference's Action Plan, participants endorsed the POP-initiated
“Million People’s March Against Racial![]()
Injustice and Economic Inequality”
planned for July 25 in Newark.
Other
New Jersey organizations with speakers at the conference included Action 21, the
Jersey City Peace Movement and New Jersey Peace Action.
Opposing the wars
abroad
On the
international front, conference participants heard from longtime antiwar
activist Kathy Kelly of Voices for Creative Nonviolence, who recently completed
a three-month prison sentence for protesting U.S. drone warfare. Kelly compared
the reaction of the U.S. public to reports of beheadings by the extremist group
ISIS to its muted reaction to the murder of thousands of surrendering Iraqi
soldiers in 1991 and the deaths of more than a half-million Iraqi children from
U.S.-imposed sanctions.
Other
antiwar speakers included Kazem Azin of Solidarity Iran; Medea Benjamin of Code
Pink; Maurice Carney of the Friends of the Congo; Bruce Gagnon of Global Network
Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space; Malachy Kilbride of the National
Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance; Ed Kinane of the Upstate (N.Y.) Drone Action
Network; Ray LaForest of Haiti Support Network; David Swanson of
WarBeyondWar.org; and Kevin Zeese of PopularResistance.org.
The
conference also heard from retired U.S. Col. Ann Wright, former CIA analyst Ray
McGovern and former U.S. State Department official Peter Van Buren, all of whom
are now prominent opponents of U.S. wars.
A Message from
Cuba
The
entire conference was exciting, but there were several especially high
points.
On
Saturday afternoon, the conference received a message from Kenia
Serrano Puig, President of the Instituto Cubano de Amistad con los Pueblos
(Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples, or ICAP), an ![]()
NGO established in 1960 soon after the Cuban Revolution. The message
opened by stating “The work UNAC does in USA in the struggle for social
justice and against military interventions in other nations is a topic of utmost
importance.” (click here for the full message from
Cuba)
Several Ukrainian
activists attended, including three from Odessa who brought a photo display of
the murderous, right-wing attack on the House of Labor in that city. The
Ukrainians spoke at a plenary session and in a workshop on the expansion of NATO
and the situation in Ukraine.
On
Saturday evening, the “Tribunal on the Militarization of the Police &
Structural Racism” heard from Michelle Kamal, whose son was murdered by police.
Other tribunal presenters included Manzoor Cheema of Muslims for Social Justice
in Raleigh, N.C.; Larry Holmes from the People’s Power Assemblies; and the Rev.
Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou from Ferguson, Mo.
Solidarity with the
struggles at home
The
theme of “Stop the Wars at Home & Abroad” was first used by UNAC at its
founding conference in 2010 to oppose attacks on the Muslim community that were
part of the phony U.S. “war on terror.” Today this war at home is
increasingly![]()
impacting Black and Brown communities, working people and their unions and the
civil liberties of everyone.
By
featuring voices from communities under attack here at home, UNAC and the
antiwar movement made an important political turn that solidly places us in the
camp of those fighting the militarization of the police, mass incarceration,
climate disaster and attacks on civil liberties, while drawing the connections
between those struggles and the increasing U.S. wars and U.S. proxy wars abroad.
In
keeping with this central theme of the conference, domestic issues were
well-represented.
Clarence Thomas of
International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 10 spoke about how his local
shut down San Francisco-area ports this past May Day in support of the urban
rebellions against police killings. In the past, the local has gone out on
strike against the U.S. war in Iraq, apartheid in South Africa and in support of
U.S. political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal.
And
attending the conference were several members of United Steelworkers Local 8751,
which represents Boston school bus drivers. This union had recently beaten back
a vicious company-inspired frame-up of several of its leaders, who then went on
to win re-election in a landslide victory. Recently-elected local President
Andre Francois addressed the conference, surrounded by union members.
Marilyn Zuniga, a teacher
from Orange, N.J., who was recently fired after some of her students wrote
get-well cards to ailing Mumia Abu-Jamal, won support from the conference for
her fight to regain her job.
Other
speakers addressing important domestic issues were Gerry Condon of Veterans for
Peace; Glen Ford of Black Agenda Report; Imani Keith Henry of The Equality for
Flatbush (N.Y.) Project (E4F); Cheri Honkala of the Poor People’s Economic Human
Rights Campaign; climate change author and activist Antonia Juhasz; and John
Parker, a leader in the Los![]()
Angeles ballot initiative to win a $15 minimum wage.
As in
past UNAC conferences, Muslims fighting for social change played important
roles. These included Malik Mujahid of the Muslim Peace Coalition and Chairman
of the Parliament of World’s Religions; Sharmin Sadequee of the National
Coalition to Protect Civil Freedoms; Manzoor Cheema, founder of Muslims for
Social Justice; as well as members of Project SALAM, which works on issues of
pre-emptive prosecution of Muslims. Joe Iosbaker, a member of the Antiwar
Committee-Chicago, himself a target of FBI repression, spoke about the case of Palestinian-American political
prisoner Rasmea Odeh.
The “Free Political Prisoners” panel heard about the cases
of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui of Pakistan; Simon Trinidad of the FARC (Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia); and Puerto Rican nationalist Oscar Louis Rivera, who
for four years was a U.S. prison cellmate of Fernando Gonzalez, one of the Cuban
5.(click here for the message
Rivera wrote to Gonzalez in solidarity with Cuba)
Also speaking on this panel was attorney and former
political prisoner Lynne Stewart. Pam Africa
spoke about the 30th anniversary of the bombing of the MOVE commune in
Philadelphia and the continuing case of U.S. political prisoner Mumia
Abu-Jamal. The conference endorsed MOVE's May 13 rally on the anniversary of the
bombing.
National&
international speakers, culture & resolutions
Other
speakers at the conference included former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney;
Born King Allah of the Nation of Gods & Earths; “Addicted to War” author
Joel Adreas; Palestinian author and activist Susan Abulhawa; Johnny Achi of Arab
Americans for Syria; Abayomi Azikiwe of the Pan-African News Wire; William
Camacaro of the Alberto Lovera Bolivarian Circle; Dr. Ghias Moussa of the Syrian
American Forum; and U.S-based Honduran activist Lucy Pagoada-Quesada, among others.
International speakers
included Elizabeth Byce of the New Democratic Party of Canada, Socialist Caucus;
Chris Nineham of the U.K. Stop the Wars Coalition; and Elsa Rassbach of the
German National Drone Campaign, which is demanding the closing of the Satellite
Relay Station at the U.S. Air Base Ramstein and the U.S. Africa Command
(AFRICOM) in Stuttgart. A Yemeni family that lost members from a US drone strike
has filed a law suit against the German government to be heard on May 27 for
allowing Ramstein to be used; U.S. solidarity protests have been called.
A statement of solidarity to the conference was received from the Mobilization![]()
Against War
& Occupation (MAWO) in Vancouver, Canada.
A statement of solidarity to the conference was received from the Mobilization
Also
addressing the conference were central UNAC leaders Judy Bello of the Upstate
(N.Y.) Coalition to Ground the Drones & End the Wars; Ana Edwards and Phil
Wilayto of the Virginia Defenders for Freedom, Justice and Equality; Bernadette
Ellorin of BAYAN USA; Sara Flounders of the International Action Center; Joe
Iosbaker of the Committee to Stop FBI Repression; Margaret Kimberley of Black
Agenda Report; Jeff Mackler of Bay Area UNAC; and UNAC Co-Coordinators Marilyn
Levin and Joe Lombardo.
People's culture was
represented by the Hip Hop duo Rebel Diaz, the Filipino dance group Potri Ranka
Manis and Syrian poet Avin Dirki. The conference was opened with a poem by
Raymond Nat Turner of Black Agenda Report.
A
full list of speakers can be found at the conference website: http://UNACconference2015.org.
From education to
action
The
conference was live-streamed by GoProRadio.com, enabling many more people who
were not able to attend to follow the proceedings. Much of the conference can
be seen on video from GoProRadio.com and provided below.
Videos
of many of the sessions can be found at: http://nepajac.org/conferencevid.htm
All
in all, the conference was unique for the antiwar movement. Not only was it the
most diverse antiwar conference in memory, it also helped bring the antiwar
movement together with the other developing movements for social change. In
doing so, it identified our common enemy and our determination to fight together
for justice and peace.
About
UNAC
Founded in 2010, UNAC is now the largest antiwar
coalition in the United States, with nearly 120 member organizations opposing
U.S. wars in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, South America and the
Caribbean.
UNAC's unifying principles are opposition to all
U.S. wars, interventions, sanctions, blockades or interference in the internal
affairs of other countries; opposition to the wars at home, as addressed at this
conference; support for the right of oppressed peoples to self-determination;
promotion of mass actions as the primary, but not only, method of struggle;
independence from the two major political parties; and a democratic
decision-making process.
(Click here for a message read at the conference
to the Cubans and his former cell mate Fernando Gonzalez of the Cuban 5 by
Polical Prisoner Oscar Louis Rivera.
For more information on UNAC, go here: http://UNACpeace.org
For videos of much of the conference, go here:
http://nepajac.org/conferencevid.htm
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We
will hear from two leaders of the nuclear abolition movement, Joseph Gerson and
John Loretz, who will give their perspectives on the outcome of the NPT review
conference and the strategies and next steps they propose for the nuclear
disarmament movement. The discussion will be moderated by Elaine Scarry, author
of Thermonuclear Monarchy.
