World News & Views

Marc Lamont Hill, a professor at Temple University and a fierce advocate for equality, was perhaps the strongest, most articulate and most passionate voice against racism and bigotry among CNN’s regular contributors. On Nov. 29, CNN fired him because he believes Palestinians, too, fit into a vision where all people deserve equal rights. For CNN, that was just too much. Marc was targeted by what can only be described as an organized campaign to silence his principled and consistent advocacy against racism and for the equal treatment of all people, including Palestinians.

As chairman of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), I hereby call upon Indonesian President Joko Widodo to immediately withdraw all Indonesian military personnel from West Papua. The world is currently witnessing the escalating crisis in the Nduga region as just one example of the deteriorating human rights situation in West Papua. It is time for the Indonesian president to show real leadership and genuine concern for human rights by withdrawing the Indonesian military from all corners of West Papua, a country under illegal Indonesian occupation.

Of the more than 330,000 U.S. students studying abroad, only 6.1 percent are African American and 10 percent are Latino. This is one in a series of articles by students of color who are breaking down barriers by studying abroad thanks to the Frederick Douglass Global Fellowship, which awards 10 full scholarships a year to students at minority serving institutions. These students will periodically share their stories, hopefully inspiring others to apply. My name is Chiagoziem “Sylvester” Agu.

October 2018 marked the 50th anniversary of the historic and remarkable organizing initiative to boycott the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. Dr. Harry Edwards led the boycott efforts, as well as the creation of the Olympic Project for Human Rights, in which he involved countless Black activists from throughout the country, including H. Rap Brown. On Oct. 21, 2018, I was fortunate to interview Dr. Edwards about his 1968 organizing efforts and his affiliation with H. Rap Brown (now Jamil Al-Amin) who also played a leading and inspirational role in this historic 1968 event.

“What is wrong with Haiti?” is provocatively offered as a question, along with apologies to the great essayist, G.K. Chesterton. The answer to what is wrong with Haiti is that the hand wringers, meaning those of goodwill who profess undying love for the tiny island nation never seem to ask what is right. Nor do they attempt to discern the source of wrongdoing. For over two centuries, Haiti has balanced on a fulcrum. Heaven and hell hang in the balance and only God knows the outcome.

As I write this, on Jan. 8, Congolese are on edge, fearing fraudulent presidential election results and state violence to suppress mass protest. In nearby Gabon, U.S. combat troops are poised to cross borders and invade to protect U.S. citizens and interests as needed. Are they there to make sure that Joseph Kabila, the president they installed and kept in power for 18 years, cedes power to former Exxon-Mobil executive Martin Fayula, their new horse to ride? That’s just my best guess.

On Dec. 10, 2018, dozens of people, mostly high school and college students, held a protest at the busy intersection of San Antonio Road and El Camino Avenue in Mountain View, California, to condemn the corruption, brutality and killings by the U.S.-backed regime of Jovenel Moise in Haiti. Protesters made and carried enlarged posters of unarmed Haitian students who have been killed by the Haitian police. The demands of the protest were straightforward: Stop the repression and killings of student activists in Haiti! Stop U.S. support for the corrupt regime of Jovenel Moise! Support the struggle of the Haitian people for education, human rights, and democracy!

Haiti Action Committee is honored to circulate this statement from Fanmi Lavalas, the people’s party in Haiti. Fanmi Lavalas issued the statement in solidarity with the massive upsurge of protest against the corrupt regime of Haiti’s current president, Jovenel Moise. The statement comes in the wake of violent state repression, including the horrific massacre of over 60 people in Lasalin, a center of popular grassroots activism. This Dec. 16 was the 28th anniversary of the election of Jean-Bertrand Aristide as Haiti’s first democratically elected president. The date was marked in Haiti with continued mobilizations for democracy and an end to the brutal attacks on the population.

Most UN Security Council (UNSC) meetings are so stuffy that they’re hard to watch without wishing someone would open a window, turn on the ventilator or take the august ambassadors off life support. Norman Finkelstein couldn’t have been more apt than when he called Secretary General Ban Ki-moon a “comatose puppet of the United States.” I went through an entire pot of strong coffee just listening to last week’s three-hour UNSC meeting about the Dec. 30 election in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The ambassadors spoke in code, without naming key players and perpetrators.

With regard to foreign conflict, Ajamu Baraka has said: “You have to ask yourself when has the U.S. intervened on the side of the people. And the answer is: Never.” That’s my own rule of thumb regarding U.S. “interventions” and no doubt that of most Bay View readers. However, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) poses a consequent dilemma: What if the U.S. is supporting the candidate, Martin Fayulu, who most likely won the Dec. 30, 2018, election in DRC?

For five decades, people across the U.S. have been travelling to Cuba on Venceremos Brigades. They’ve defied travel bans to see first hand how the Cuban people are building a society where gross inequality and exploitation are gone, where all health care, childcare and education are free. They’ve met with ordinary Cubans who enthusiastically travel overseas whether it’s to defeat apartheid or the ebola virus. The Venceremos Brigade invites you to learn more about the Brigade, which will be travelling to Cuba this summer.

Venezuela and the Bolivarian Revolution that has empowered the country’s poor and working class is under assault by a U.S.-orchestrated coup effort. Join us for a forum on Tuesday, Jan. 29, at 7 p.m., to learn the facts about Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution, the U.S. attempts at overthrowing the democratically elected government of Nicolás Maduro and what we can do to fight back. A video of the San Francisco March in Solidarity with Venezuela will be shown at this event.

FDU-Inkingi, the United Democratic Forces of Rwanda, a coalition of groups opposed to the current Kagame regime, condemns the murder of five prisoners in Huye Prison in the night of Jan. 23, 2019, allegedly for their attempt to escape. It calls on the government to end this barbarism that has become common in detention at police stations and government prisons.

On New Year’s Eve, the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) went to the polls to choose their next president, parliament and provincial governments. I spoke to Maurice Carney, executive director of Washington, D.C.-based Friends of the Congo, about the results.

It is clear now that the 45th president of the United States is knowingly or unwittingly a tool of the Russian government. But for many years before the dumpster fire in the White House came into office, the Kremlin has been wielding a secret weapon against the “land of the free.” This weapon is “secret” not because it is hidden, but because a large segment of the American public refuses to acknowledge its existence.

The U.S. Mafia State (USMS) is still trying to bump off another sovereign state – Venezuela. Meanwhile, WikiLeaks retweeted the USMS regime change handbook, more formally known as Army Special Operations Forces Unconventional Warfare Field Manual 3-05.130, whose authors reveal that major global financial institutions like the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and Organization for Economic Cooperation are all part of the mob, whose specific assignments include extortion, infiltration, fraud, racketeering, loan sharking and corruption of public officials.

As the Declaration of the Revolutionary Government of Cuba emphasizes, “the escalation of pressure and actions of the United States Government to prepare a military adventure disguised as a humanitarian intervention” not only constitutes a real threat against the Bolivarian Revolution, but it entails a real danger for continental peace.

The people can smell the miasma surrounding U.S. intervention in Venezuela and Haiti – and they know more than ever that the fate of both nations is directly tied to global struggle against U.S. contemporary colonialism and imperialism. That’s why Haitians have taken to the streets.

Thirteen youths were killed by police in the Fallet-Fogueteiro favela in Rio de Janeiro in early February 2019.

In this time of rebellion, crisis and repression, we send our support to the people of Haiti. It is a time for our voices to be heard, for the silence around Haiti to be broken, and for a dramatic increase in solidarity. Stand with Haiti Saturday, March 2, 3-5 p.m., Eastside Arts Alliance, 2277 International Blvd, Oakland.