Our organizations urge you to join us in a National Day of Action to Confront US Militarism in the Americas on Monday, October 11, 2010. October 11 is the day the United States “celebrates” the beginning of the European invasion of the Americas and when indigenous peoples mark as the 518th year of resistance to invasion and colonialism.
We represent Latin America solidarity and peace groups. We are initiating and urge others to undertake the formation of local and regional coalitions – across movements for indigenous rights, immigrant justice, fair trade, peace, human rights, labor rights, gender justice, drug policy reform and other urgent goals – to confront the growing militarism of our culture and budget, the increasing propensity to commit national resources to wars of aggression, and the militarization of U.S. foreign policy, especially in Latin America.
We are calling on local coalitions to organize creative, strong actions consistent with these themes and issues of concern in your area. In border regions, actions might focus on militarization of the border and immigration policy. In urban areas, actions might focus on the militarization of law enforcement and prisons. In areas with major military contractors, actions might focus on war for profit, and in areas where there are military bases that act as staging areas for troop deployment to other countries, actions could focus on de-funding war and bringing the troops home now.
There is no city, town, or hamlet in the United States that does not have some connection to the war machine. We urge and support the organizing of myriad creative, coordinated actions on October 11 to draw attention to that fact and to imperative to redirect resources to meet domestic needs left wanting due to our nation’s expenditures on war.
To list and promote your local action [click here to add to our calendar]. For organizing materials you can adapt for your local needs go to LA Solidarity. To have your local organizing materials posted so that others can adapt them, send them to info@lasolidarity.org.
Background
The United States spends as much on its war-making capabilities as the rest of the world combined. It has nearly 1,000 military facilities on foreign soil. It is engaged in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and supporting armed conflict in Pakistan, Somalia, Philippines, Mexico, Colombia, Palestine, and other countries. And it is threatening war against Iran.
The Obama administration has accelerated the militarization of US relations with Latin America, virtually erasing the goodwill with which Latin Americans welcomed the change of government in Washington. In June the United States signed an agreement with the government of Costa Rica – a pacifist nation that outlawed its army in 1948 – allowing unrestricted access for 7,000 Marines from 46 ships, armed with missiles, 200 helicopters, and other assault weapons; numbers totally disproportionate and inappropriate for official claims that it is to fight the drug war. This mobilization follows a basing agreement with Colombia for the use of seven bases; the recognition of a coup government and construction of a new naval base in Honduras; continued expansion of the U.S. military base in Curacao just over the horizon from Venezuela’s oil fields; and the military response to Haiti’s devastating earthquake in January 2010.
The goals for the Oct. 11 Day of action are to support:
- Cancellation of the threatening and unnecessary U.S. military exercises in Costa Rica.
- Closing the School of the Americas (now Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation).
- Ending the U.S. military presence on bases in Colombia, Honduras, Guantanamo, and elsewhere in hemisphere.
- Ending the Merida Initiative and the increased militarization of the US border with Mexico.
- The proposal by Rep. Barney Frank to start reducing the social debt by cutting the US military budget immediately by 25%
Local coalitions are invited include their own goals for planned actions.
This Call is issued by members of the Latin America Solidarity Coalition and other organizations working for peace and justice. To add your organization to the list of co-sponsors go to LA Solidarity.
(scroll down for another announcement by LASC)
Original Co-Sponsors:
Latin America Solidarity Coalition
Alliance for Global Justice
School of the Americas Watch
Campaign for Labor Rights
National Immigrant Solidarity Network
Nicaragua Network
United for Peace and Justice
INTERCONNECT
U.S.- El Salvador Sister Cities
Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES)
Guatemala Human Rights Commission
CODEPINK
ANSWER Coalition
Witness for Peace
SOA Watch – Oakland
Mary Seat of Wisdom Parish
Committee on US-Latin America Relations (CUSLAR)
Illinois SOA Watch
Latin America Solidarity Committee, Milwaukee
Colectivo Morazan
Nicaragua Center for Community Action, Bay Area
School of the Americas Watch – Puget Sound
Syracuse Caribbean Latin America Coalition
Central New York S.O.A. Abolitionists
Nicaragua Solidarity Committee – Chicago
Call for an Organizers’ Strategy Conference on U.S. Militarization – Nov. 18, 2010, Columbus, Georgia
from the Latin America Solidarity Coalition (LASC)
We have seen US policy tilt more and more toward military options in its relations with Latin America and the Caribbean and the world. Support for the Honduras coup, the military response to Haiti’s earthquake, seven new bases in Colombia and four in Panama, continued restoration of the mothballed Fourth Fleet, all provide support for statements heard at the SOA Watch vigil in November 2009 that “Obama’s policies are more dangerous for Latin America than were Bush’s.” At the same time, the US government continues to prefer military solutions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan and continues to escalate tensions with Iran, Venezuela and other countries which assert independence from US hegemony.
In the United States we are witnessing the militarization of our borders and law enforcement in our cities — aimed at immigrants, Muslims, and, as always, African-descended people. Desperately needed social programs such as health care and education are being short-changed while the Pentagon budget continues to grow beyond any rational need for defense.
In the last decade Latin America has moved toward integration and out of the US imperial orbit, while the US government has been tied down in its wars for oil in the Middle East. With the passing of the Bush regime, US policy-makers are again looking to this hemisphere and are moving aggressively to recover lost hegemony by upgrading military options and increasing covert and overt efforts to undermine Latin American and Caribbean democracies through the National Endowment for Democracy and US Agency for International Development.
It is time for the Latin America solidarity movement – in coordination with other movements — to examine its current strategies and develop new ones to support our partners in the South and to expose and oppose US government and corporate strategies to undermine Latin American and Caribbean sovereignty and its steps toward political and economic integration in the goal of a multi-polar world. SOA Watch is taking the first step in this necessary re-evaluation with its encuentro which will bring leaders of the bases in 15 Latin American countries and an equal number of US SOA Watch activists together in Venezuela in June to discuss strategies for closing the School of the Americas (renamed Western Hemisphere Initiative for Security Cooperation) and respond to US militarization.
In order to build a strong and successful movement to reverse our government’s dangerous militarism abroad and militarization of our own communities, it is necessary that we act, not just as the Latin America solidarity movement, but in unity with other movements that are fighting militarization of the borders, militarization of our police forces and the obscene share of our national wealth spent on the military industrial complex. The LASC will use its participation in the US Social Forum in Detroit, June 22-26 to begin the discussion and to build alliances.
This is a call for all Latin America solidarity groups, whether or not currently members of the LASC, as well as all US community-based grassroots movements fighting militarization of our culture, to continue that effort in a one-day organizers’ strategy conference on November 18, 2010 in Columbus, GA the day prior to SOA Watch’s annual vigil at the gates of Ft. Benning.
The purpose of the conference will be to examine current and proposed strategies to oppose US militarism and anti-democracy campaigns and the militarization of our communities with the goal of coming out of the conference with movement-wide strategies and campaigns that we can take back to our organizations, bases, and communities. We will present many of the ideas raised in workshops and plenaries during the SOA Watch vigil and at a follow-up conference in the Spring of 2011. It is recognized that each participating organization, national and local, has its own mission and program. The objective of the LASC strategy conference would be to propose framework strategies and campaigns that inform, but do not supersede, the program priorities of individual organizations.
The conference will draw on the experiences of our Southern Partners, front-line struggles in our own communities, the SOA Watch June encuentro in Caracas, Venezuela, the US Social Forum and the on-going work of US Latin America grassroots solidarity organizations. While the conference may benefit by some of the work of policy NGOs, the conference will be of, by, and for grassroots organizations and organizers. It is anticipated that a successful organizers’ conference will develop strategies and campaigns that Latin America solidarity organizations and US anti-militarization organizations will find useful to their own work, and will result in a larger, more effective movement to oppose war and injustice. For registration and information about how your organization and organizers can participate in this important conference, send an email to: info@lasolidarity.org. To register go to: http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/727/t/5959/signUp.jsp?key=4993
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