|
The Fight for Our Movement: 10 Years After the Raids
In the early morning of September 24, 2010, 70 FBI agents raided the homes and an office of anti-war organizers and activists in Minneapolis and Chicago. All told, 14 people (one a leader of USPCN) from these two cities plus Grand Rapids, Michigan, were subpoenaed to a federal grand jury, under investigation for "material support of a foreign terrorist organization." Their only "crime" was organizing in support of national liberation struggles and against U.S. intervention and imperialism in Palestine, Colombia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and everywhere else in the world where the U.S. extends its evil tentacles; but their lives were nonetheless being threatened with possible arrests and indictments.
In December of the same year, nine more were subpoenaed in the same investigation - six of them Palestinian organizers with USPCN, and the other three Palestine solidarity activists. If we did not know then that the September 24th raids were targeting Palestine support organizing, we definitely did by December.
Collectively and unanimously, the 23 refused to testify to the grand jury, and instead did what they were trained to do - mobilize to fight back against injustice, while continuing to organize for peace an d justice and the promotion of international solidarity. Now, 10 years later, not one of the 23 was ever arrested or indicted, and almost all are still organizing for Palestinian liberation and racial and social justice!
Join the Committee to Stop FBI Repression (CSFR), the Minnesota Anti-War Committee (AWC), and USPCN on SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2020, at 1 PM PT / 3 PM CT / 4 PM ET as we virtually celebrate our victory against political repression! Today's organizers must learn about this struggle, how to defend our movements in general, and how we continue to organize despite continued attacks from the state.
This will be an online event streamed on CSFR's Facebook page. For more information, see the event page here.
USPCN in East L.A. for Chicano Liberation
On August 29th, 2020, members of USPCN’s Southern California chapter joined thousands of people marching on foot and hundreds of cars caravanning in East Los Angeles to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Chicano Moratorium against war, racism, and police brutality. Black, Indigenous, Arab, and other peoples united behind Chicano leadership as they celebrated the renewal of the collective struggle against injustice, called for the imprisonment of murderous police, demanded a true Civilian Police Accountability Council (#CPACNow), and reaffirmed a commitment to challenge U.S. imperialism overseas.
The day-long event was led by Centro Community Service Organization (Centro CSO), La Raza Unida Party, Brown Berets La Mesa, the Los Angeles Indigenous Peoples Alliance (LAIPA), the United Brown Coalition, and many others, and they facilitated an atmosphere of resistance against oppression alongside real community. At the forefront of both the march and rally were the families of Chicanos killed by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), historically one of the most murderous police forces in the country. The crowd paid love and respect to the parents, siblings, and friends of those killed as they shared their experiences. We learned the names Anthony Vargas, Cesar Rodriguez, Alex Flores, and others who were killed over many years of brutally racist and systemic repression by the LAPD against working class Chicanos.
Allies from Black Lives Matter emphasized the solidarity between Black and Chicano communities in L.A. and beyond, and Cecily Myart-Cruz, president of the L.A. teachers union, United Teachers Los Angeles, herself a Black Chicana, demanded justice for Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and Jacob Blake.
The Chicano Nation was popularized in the 60s and 70s, when people of indigenous descent living in the southwestern United States mobilized to defend themselves from racist white supremacist control of their original homeland. The August 29th, 1970, Chicano Moratorium saw 30,000 mostly Chicanos from across the country march in opposition to the Vietnam War, surveillance programs such as COINTELPRO (the counter-intelligence FBI plan that infiltrated organizations like the Black Panthers and the Brown Berets, the latter a group of revolutionary Chicanos that modeled itself after the Panthers), unequal conditions in L.A. high schools, and racism and inequality in L.A. and the entire southwest.
The LAPD attacked the peaceful protest, claiming that it was chasing a robbery “suspect” into the crowd, and then deemed the gathering illegal. The police killed four protesters that day - Gustav Montag, Lyn Ward, Angel Gilbert Diaz, and Rubén Salazar, the latter an award-winning journalist and columnist for the Los Angeles Times. During this commemoration, the four martyrs were honored, and the marchers maintained their demands for self-determination and liberation of the Aztlan Nation, and actively supported other liberation fronts, including Palestine.
Palestinians and Chicanos each have a cultural and national identity tied to indigenous land, which has been stolen by a settler colonial state. The U.S. and Israel have shown Palestinians and Chicanos how they prioritize property and economic control over people’s lives. Police killings in East Los Angeles frame Chicanos as violent gang members while the Israeli military shoot Palestinians dead, criminalizing our resistance and organizing as “terrorism.”
In contrast, Chicano and Palestinian liberation are about resisting white supremacy and settler-colonialism, fighting for national liberation and economic and social equality, and decolonizing our lands in the process.
This is why USPCN was invited by the legendary Carlos Montes to attend and speak at the 50th anniversary. Montes, co-founder of the Brown Berets and one of the leaders of both the 1968 East L.A. Walkouts and the 1970 Chicano Moratorium, also helped lead this commemoration. He has been a stalwart supporter of Palestinian rights for decades and understands clearly why our struggles are intertwined.
“Victory in the Chicano and Black struggles for national liberation in the U.S. will help lead to the social transformation that is needed to defeat U.S. imperialism and its domination over people in other countries, including Palestine,” said Montes, “and at the same time, Palestinian resistance strikes a blow against the U.S. proxy state of Israel, which ultimately helps support our Chicano cause.” The masses of Chicanos, Black people, Palestinians, and other oppressed peoples understand how critical unity is in this moment.
And as USPCN’s Kareem Youssef said at the rally, “That is exactly what we can do [directly confront racist and oppressive systems] as Arab, Chicano, Black, and other Indigenous peoples. We must continue to organize, and in time we will prove that these streets only operate when they abide by the will of the people. We marched with you last year in Boyle Heights and will march until we are all free!”
Viva viva Aztlan! Viva viva Palestina!
Until Liberation & Return,
USPCN
*************************************************************************
|
