Author: justpeace87

APRIL 4, 2023—Today, the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) will launch a collective campaign for a Zone of Peace in Our Americas with organizations throughout our region in Washington, D.C.; Havana, Cuba; and Port-au-Prince, Haiti.


The “Zone of Peace” concept emerged from the January 29, 2014, meeting of the heads of state and governments of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), all of which declared Latin America and the Caribbean should be seen and respected as a “Zone of Peace.” BAP is leading an effort to activate the popular movement element of this state-centered declaration by building support for its
implementation across the region.


Organizations and key allies such as SOLI of Puerto Rico; Asociación de Trabajadoresdel Campo (ATC) (Nicaragua); MOLEGHAF (Haiti); the Task Force on the Americas; the Organisation for Caribbean Empowerment; Observatorio de Derechos Humanos de los Pueblos (México); the Black Is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations; the U.S.-based United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC); Alliance for Global Justice; and others, have signed on to support a collective campaign for a
Zone of Peace in Our Americas.

The effort to build a region-wide campaign to expel the forces that bring death, political destabilization and destruction to our region will be informed by the principles of the Black Radical Peace Tradition. The Black Radical Peace Tradition asserts that peace is not the absence of conflict, but rather the achievement by popular struggle and self-defense of a world liberated from the interlocking issues that contribute to global conflict. This would be accomplished through the defeat of the global systems of oppression that include colonialism, imperialism, patriarchy and white supremacy.

This call for peace is an appeal to the peoples and states of the Caribbean and Latin America to resist the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination, as well as the increasing militarization of the region and U.S./NATO soft power practices in Our Americas.

“The people want peace,” says Erica Caines, Black Alliance For Peace Haiti/ Americas Team Co-Coordinator. “The Zone of Peace means strengthening alternative, people(s)-centered systems through coordinated anti-militarist and anti-imperialist struggle.”

Through a multi-phase campaign, we will build awareness and political education around the necessity and purpose of a Zone of Peace, as well as initiate the formation of an anti-militarist, anti-imperialist network anchored by popular, mass-based organizations.


“Establishing the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace will be an important achievement for the peoples of the region, removing military bases of former and current colonial powers, and abolishing the regular military exercises and other forms of interference would be a significant contribution to creating the other world of peace, development and cooperation that is possible and attainable,” says Shaun
Ajamu Hutchinson of the Caribbean Organisation for People’s Empowerment.


Initial Core Demands
1. Dismantle SOUTHCOM. Shut down the 76 U.S. military bases in the region
2. End U.S./NATO military exercises. Close foreign military bases, installations and
enclaves, as well as withdraw foreign occupation troops
3. Disband U.S.-sponsored state terrorist training facilities. Shutter the “Western
Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation” (WHINSEC)—formerly the School of the
Americas—in Fort Benning, Georgia, United States, and terminate U.S.—as well as
foreign—training of police forces
4. Oppose military intervention into Haiti. Support the people(s)-centered movement
for democracy and self-determination
5. Return Guantánamo to Cuba. The United States must give back to the Cuban people
and their government the territory it illegally occupies
6. Sanctions are war. End illegal sanctions and blockades of regional states,
including all economic warfare and lawfare, and recognize their sovereignty

Lifting up as a popular demand that our region be free of internal and
externally-imposed state violence is even more important today as it was when the declaration was issued in 2014. From the assault on democracy in Haiti to the subversion and illegal sanctions directed at Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, the states in Latin America and in the Caribbean continue to find themselves in an existential battle against the geo-strategic interests of the hegemon to the North—the United States of America.

BAP believes it is only through the concentrated efforts of the people that the Americas will free itself of the anti-human, anti-democratic and violent policies that wars, subversion and militarism have brought to the peoples and nations in our region.

comunicaciones@blackallianceforpeace.com

(202) 643-1136

As a show of global solidarity, the International League of Peoples’ Struggle joins the International People’s Front in the upcoming People’s Summit and Mass Actions from May 18-20 in Kyoto and Hiroshima, Japan. We call on all member organizations, country chapters, and allied networks to participate in the International Days of Action Against the G-7 on the said dates. 

Monopoly capitalist greed, imperialist competition, and wars of aggression have brought the world’s people and the planet to the brink of unprecedented existential crisis. In this context, the US, especially with its imperialist allies and agents in the Group of 7 (G7), relentlessly wage wars of aggression in many forms against competitor powers and against the peoples of the world.  Bearing the brunt of the horrors of war are the people, especially the working class, who are killed, displaced, malnourished and starved, and left to deal with the poisoning, plunder and destruction of land, food systems, and natural resources in the aftermath.

The US-imperialist alliance of the world’s largest western economies, which alone account for only 10% of the world’s population but over half of global net wealth at over $200 trillion, will gather to pursue their economic agenda, while attempting to whitewash the history of war and nuclear annihilation. The G7 countries represent the rich and powerful minority over the poor and less powerful majority of the world.  It is an institution of global economic and political supremacy.

The objectives of the activities are:

1. Expose and oppose how the G7 promotes militarism to facilitate economic expansionism in the multiple fronts of US-led war in the world
2. Highlight and generate support for people’s resistance to the G7, imperialist war and militarism
3. Build the movement against US-led wars; military bases, troops and exercises; weapons and weapons testing including drones and nuclear arms; and all manifestations of the pivot to Asia

The series of mobilizations will peak on May 20 with a protest march in Hiroshima. 

The Armed Forces of the United States and the Philippines will be holding the 2023 Balikatan Exercises from April 11 to 28, 2023 in various provinces of the Philippines. These exercises are nothing but a blatant display of US imperialism’s military intervention and aggression in the country and region. They are aimed at strengthening the US domination and control over the land, resources, and people of the Philippines, and undermining the Filipino people’s sovereignty and self-determination.

This year’s Balikatan will be the largest joint military exercise between the Philippines and the US to date, with over 17,600 troops participating. This shows the escalation of US militarism and warmongering in Asia-Pacific, especially amid the rising tensions and conflicts with China and other rival powers. The US is using the Philippines as its pawn and base for its hegemonic interests and schemes, while trampling on the country’s national dignity and independence.

The Balikatan is also a violation of the human rights and democratic rights of the Filipino people. The presence of foreign troops in local communities poses a grave threat to safety, security, and welfare of the people. We have witnessed how these exercises have resulted in environmental destruction, displacement of indigenous peoples and peasants, sexual abuse and exploitation of women and children, extrajudicial killings, torture, harassment, and intimidation of activists and critics.

The Filipino people reject the false claims of the US and Philippine governments that the Balikatan is for their benefit and development. These exercises are not for humanitarian assistance or disaster relief, but for advancing the interests of the US military-industrial complex and its local lackeys. They are not for enhancing the Philippines’ defense capabilities or security cooperation, but for subverting the country’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity.

In addition, we join the Filipino people in denouncing the Mutual Defense Treaty, Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) and the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), which serve as legal bases for the Balikatan exercises and other forms of US military presence and intervention in the Philippines. The VFA is a one-sided agreement that grants special privileges and immunities to US personnel who commit crimes in their country, while depriving them of jurisdiction over them. The EDCA is an unconstitutional agreement that allows the US to establish de facto military bases in their territory without any rent or compensation. These agreements are detrimental to their national interest and security, and must be abrogated immediately.

With the recent announcement of four new locations, the US will gain access to Philippine military bases under the EDCA. These locations are strategically situated near Taiwan and the West Philippine Sea, where China has been asserting its expansive claims and militarizing disputed islands. The new locations are:

● Balabac Island in Palawan, which is close to the Spratly Islands where China has built military outposts on artificial islands

● Naval Base Camilo Osias in Santa Ana, Cagayan province, which is only 500 kilometers (310 miles) from Kaohsiung, Taiwan’s third-largest city

● Lal-lo Airport in Cagayan, which can accommodate large transport aircraft and serve as a staging area for US forces

● Camp Melchor Dela Cruz in Gamu, Isabela, which is home to the Philippine Army’s 5th Infantry Division and can host US ground troops

These new locations will increase the US military footprint and influence in the Philippines and the region, while exposing the Filipino people to greater risks of conflict and violence. The Filipino people do not want their country to be used as a pawn or a base by any foreign power that seeks to dominate and exploit them. We demand that the US respect their sovereignty and territorial integrity, and stop meddling in the country’s internal affairs.

The International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS) calls on all  democratic and progressive forces around the world to oppose the upcoming Balikatan Exercises and demand its immediate cancellation. We urge all peace-loving peoples to join the Filipino people in resisting US imperialism’s intervention and aggression in their country and region. We affirm our solidarity with all oppressed and exploited peoples who are fighting for liberation and emancipation from imperialist domination.

Down with US imperialism!
Long live international solidarity!
Advance the people’s struggle for self-determination!

Signed:

Len Cooper
ILPS Chairperson
10 April 2023

For further discussion on the coming US-China war, check out this discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdq2urNA2GE

ILPS Chairperson Len Cooper’s Statement on the Anniversary of the Ukraine War March 15, 2023 

The current military action in Ukraine has reached its 12 months mark. Over that time the people of the world have been the subject of an extraordinary and ongoing barrage of U.S.-NATO propaganda in the mass media, underpinned by the usual nonsensical claims that they are fighting for the freedom, democracy and independence of Ukraine. 

This military action in Ukraine began many years ago due to U.S.- NATO expansionism. The U.S.-NATO propaganda covers up the long history of U.S. aggression, military base building around Russia and deliberate breach of agreements particularly by the U.S. and NATO. It makes no mention of the illegal overthrow of the pro-Russian elected President of Ukraine by the U.S. in 2013 and 2014. 
The U.S.-NATO war mongers have deliberately generated this unacceptable military outrage by using Ukraine. They are prepared to use their puppet Government in Ukraine as a proxy to engulf the region and potentially the world in war to further their Imperialist ambitions. 

To quote our dear departed Comrade Joma Sison, from a report he wrote last year:  

Is the special military operation of Russia simply a unilateral and unprovoked act of aggression? Or is it after 8 years of Kyiv puppetry to US and NATO, and brutal fascism against Russian Ukrainians, a delayed response of counter-aggression by Russia to the prior NATO expansion in violation of the Minsk Agreement of 1991? 

Is it not a fact that Russia followed international law by first recognizing the people’s republics of Donetsk and Lugansk and co-signing with them treaties of mutual security and defence before Russia acted accordingly?” 

Are not the majority of the people of Russian nationality in Donbas region entitled to the right of national self-determination against anti-Russian chauvinism and fascism, which has resulted in the death of 14,000 people of Russian nationality, the devastation of Donbas and Lugansk and the exile of 3 million Russians from Ukraine since 2014? 

The US and NATO and Western propaganda completely ignore the rights of the Russian nationality within the pre-fascist as well as pre-2022 context of Ukraine. 

We must not forget or ignore this above history cited by Prof. Sison as it is a main driving force in creating this conflict surrounding Ukraine. 

It is important for the world’s people to examine the cause of each and every war and military outbreak in order to analyze just who is responsible for it. 

Even if one is dubious about who is to blame for this latest military conflict, just examine the history of the world since the second world war at least, in the context of U.S. imperialism and its record. 

Judge the self-styled defenders of “freedom and democracy,” by their illegal, inhumane, vicious and despicable conduct in overthrowing and/or attempting to overthrow governments in Iraq, Libya, Venezuela, Syria, Vietnam, Nth Korea, Cuba, Afghanistan, Somalia, Chile, Yugoslavia, Nicaragua, and many others. 

They act illegally under international law, and they act totally in their own self- interest, in their own imperialist interests which have nothing to do with so-called freedom and democracy of the people, but everything to do with their constant drive for more profit and more super profits. 

Are we to accept that despite the horrific record of U.S. Imperialism since at least the Second World War, they have now changed their spots and are acting in Ukraine and the region in the interests of peace, democracy and human rights, etc? Please spare us this nonsense. 

To quote the International Peoples Front (IPF), “Many have predicted that NATO expansion would lead to this war. They were ignored. Western leaders had once assured the erstwhile Soviet Leadership that NATO would not move an inch eastward, after German reunification. By 2004 NATO had reached Russia’s border. NATO expanded into Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria and even into former parts of the Soviet Union, such as Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. American rockets were placed in Poland and Romania, and Ukraine armed with Western weaponry. Separatists were provoked in Georgia.” 

As usual, U.S. Imperialism-NATO lie about their intentions and their ambitions. Although on rare occasions they do blurt out their real intensions. A White House press briefing on January 25, 2022, before the Russian intervention, stated that “the U.S., in concert with its European partners, will weaken Russia to the point where it can exercise no influence on the international stage.” 

To quote Mike Whitney, author at the Global Research Centre, “The war in Ukraine is not about Ukraine. America’s articulated strategic objectives are as follows: To weaken Russia, topple its leader, take control of its vast natural resources and move on to containing China. Simply put, Washington’s escalating aggression in Ukraine is a Hail Mary pass aimed at containing emerging centres of economic power in order to preserve its waning position in the global order.” 

Capitalism and its expansionary ambition always mean war or threats of war. It is clearly evident today that U.S. imperialism is by far the main global aggressor and has been so for a long time now. 

The other problem for the world’s people is that Russia, since the overthrow of socialism in the U.S.S.R., has become a capitalist country and is also part of the global imperialist system. 
There is conflict and competition between the U.S. Imperialist block of capitalist nations, and a developing block of capitalist nations to which Russian capitalism is a part. 

This block of nations is known as BRICS, and includes Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. 

Since the start of the military action in Ukraine there has been no substantial talk of ceasefire and negotiations, particularly not from the U.S.-NATO side. 

Today, however, the BRICS countries have recently underlined support for “multilateralism” and the principles of the United Nations Charter which includes respecting the “legitimate” security concerns of all countries. 

The BRICS nations have now called for negotiations between Russia and Ukraine to resolve the Ukraine crisis. 

The U.S. camp has so far believed that making war through a proxy protagonist such as Ukraine, heavily armed and supported by the Western nations, is a winning formula. At the same time the Russian Government has believed it can prevent U.S/NATO encroachment by military force against Ukraine. 

As it stands there is a constant threat of a wider war and even the possible use of nuclear weapons. The impact of the conflict on the people of Ukraine, the people of Russia, and the people of the world, as usual in capitalist warfare, is of little or no concern. 
The world’s people must demand that military action in Ukraine and the region be replaced by a ceasefire and urgent negotiations to achieve security guarantees and peace in Ukraine and Russia. The people must unite in the struggle against U.S./NATO wars and aggression. 

As the International People’s Front (IPF) recently stated,“We cannot beg governments for peace, but we can win it through grass roots action”. 

Scrap NATO! 
Oppose imperialism and imperialist wars! 
(The ILPS website can be accessed through ilps.info or through our new domain —peoplesstruggle.org) 

END THE US-NATO WAR IN UKRAINE!



STATEMENT OF THE INTERNATIONAL PEOPLES’ FRONT

The world is marking one year since the start of the war in Ukraine, and the people living at every corner resolutely demand an end to the carnage and crisis. The International Peoples’ Front calls on the people to unite, organize, and militantly struggle to end the US-NATO war in Ukraine!

This is a war initiated by the US via its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance, and despite taking place in Eastern Europe, the US has vested interests in the outcome of the conflict and has been actively instrumenting and influencing its development. The US used covert operations to enact a coup to install a US and EU-friendly president in 2013 and began massively arming the Kyiv military against Russian-speaking separatists in the Eastern Donbas, an iron and chemical-producing region key to the US’s desired supply chain. When Ukraine actively sought NATO membership, Russia took military action. Even before, CIA advisors have advised Kyiv and its fully Western-supplied military against Russian forces, with no end in sight. The recent decision by Germany, Poland, Denmark, the Netherlands and other countries to send tanks to Kyiv marks a dire sign of escalation to come.

In this way, the Russian military operation has been defensive as its government moves to halt NATO expansion, given that NATO’s mission has been to counter strategic threats to the US such as Russia. For Moscow, this preemptive strike has been necessitated by the US and NATO’s decisive plans to destabilize Russia into submission and sweep all of Eastern Europe into its sphere of influence. Nonetheless, Russia’s operation has been one of counter-aggression since its defensive nature has not spared attacks against the people and infrastructure of Ukraine.  

This US proxy war must end. Various sources indicate a death toll over a hundred thousand, not to mention the thousands of displaced and suffering civilians due to incessant shelling on border territories. As bad as it currently is, the conflict can still escalate to catastrophic levels considering that both the US and Russia have access to nuclear arms.  But even without nuclear fallout, the conflict has significantly contributed to the global economic crisis which affects millions all over the world. This has included skyrocketing prices of food and fuel due to severe economic sanctions and the arbitrary decisions of monopoly capitalists to cut off production to influence the war but keep prices high to attempt to retain a profit. This has also led to what could have been an avoidable energy crisis in which industrialized countries have deregulated their caps on carbon emissions to maintain production in direct opposition to UN-agreed mandates on the climate crisis.

The call to end the war does not fall solely on the shoulders of the people of Russia and Ukraine – that daunting task belongs to all of us, regardless of our distance from the conflict’s epicenter.  Governments, organizations, and institutions have been demanding for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, but a year of lobbying has proved that it is not enough. Fierce speeches fall on deaf ears, while sanctions just add to the suffering of the innocent.

Without militant pressure from below, the powers that be can simply ignore our demands for peace and justice. Because of these governments’ desire to keep the conflict going, diplomacy will not work. The people must pressure and force NATO governments to end the alliance’s eastward march and dismantle it entirely.

In the face of governments assembling their military alliances such as NATO, then the people must organize themselves to overcome and defeat the US-led war machine. Our shared aspiration for just and lasting peace must translate into concrete action to end all wars and conflicts of aggression

The people say no more!  The International Peoples’ Front carries the call to end the US-NATO proxy war in Ukraine! Peoples of all countries, unite and struggle militantly against the forces that engender endless war!  We cannot beg our governments for peace, but we can win it through grassroots action!

peoplesstruggles.org

FB: ILPSOfficial

By Sara Flounders posted on December 28, 2022 (Workers’ World http://www.workers.org)

Okinawa is the largest of the Ryukyu islands.

The Dec. 16 announcement by Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of a new defense strategy, while doubling military spending by 2027 to implement it, is the largest defense shake-up in decades and a wake-up call to the antiwar movement. 

The decision includes openly acquiring offensive weapons and reshaping its military command structure for its expanded armed forces. On Dec. 23, the draft budget was approved by Kishida’s cabinet.

Japan’s dangerous military expansion should set off international alarm bells. This major escalation is taking place based on intense U.S. imperialist pressure. It is the next step in the “Pivot to Asia,” aimed at threatening and surrounding China and attempting to reassert U.S. dominance in the Asia Pacific. 

The movements opposing endless U.S. wars must begin to prepare material and draw mass attention to this ominous threat.

The plan to double military spending will add $315 billion to Japan’s defense budget over the next five years and make Japan’s military the world’s third largest, after the U.S. and China. Defense spending will escalate to 2% of gross domestic product, equal to the goal the U.S. sets for its NATO allies. Japan’s economy is the world’s third largest. 

The Japanese government plans to buy up to 500 Lockheed Martin Tomahawk missiles and Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles (JASSM), procure more naval vessels and fighter aircraft, increase cyber warfare capabilities, manufacture its own hypersonic guided missiles and produce its own advanced fighter jets, along with other weapons. The plan shifts from relying solely on missile defense to also embracing “counterstrike” capabilities. 

Three key security documents — the National Security Strategy (NSS), as well as the National Defense Strategy (NDS) and the Defense Buildup Program (DBP) — shed some of the postwar constraints on the Japanese military.

Article 9 – a class struggle against military rearmament

Although the U.S. occupation force, after defeating Japan’s military in World War II, imposed a “pacifist” constitution on Japan, for decades now U.S. strategists have pressured Japan’s government to aggressively rearm, and especially to buy U.S.-made weapons, to act as a junior partner to U.S. efforts to dominate the Asia-Pacific region. 

Article 9 of the imposed Japanese constitution prohibits Japan from maintaining an army, navy and air force. To get around this, the “Japanese Self-Defense Forces” (JSDF) have since 1952 been treated as a legal extension of the police and prison system. The U.S. occupiers considered the JSDF an essential repressive tool defending capitalist property relations against the workers’ movement.

The decision for aggressive military expansion is in open violation of Japan’s supposedly pacifist constitution. 

The effort to “reinterpret” Article 9 has been a continuing political struggle inside Japan. Mass rallies of hundreds of thousands have mobilized many times in defense of Article 9, which offers a clear prohibition of Japan’s maintaining a military force. The widespread opposition to the Japanese military and to constitutional change comes from working people, mobilized by the unions and the communist and socialist movements. 

This movement pointed out to everyone how the wartime militarist regime of the 1930s and 1940s carried out brutal repression and led Japan into WWII. The people know from bitter experience that these ultrarightist forces, whose roots are in historic Japanese colonialism, are the real threat to their rights and the social gains they have made.

The present doubling of the defense budget will be funded by raising taxes. A huge military budget will inevitably mean severe cuts to the country’s limited social spending. 

The Liberal Democratic Party, which has held power almost continually since the 1950s, is right-wing, pro-military and allied to U.S. imperialism, especially against China and the DPRK. They have been pushing for an end to the constitutional and legal restrictions on the country’s military. 

The assassination of retired President Shinzo Abe on July 8, 2022, just two days before Japan’s election, brought additional votes to the LDP. It was able to win the two-thirds supermajority in Parliament, needed to move forward aggressively with its military plans. 

Targeting China

Japan’s military expansion fits in with Washington’s aggression aimed at China, the DPRK and Russia. U.S. strategists’ goal is to use the U.S. alliance with Japan, South Korea and Australia, just as it uses the U.S.-led NATO alliance in Europe.

The doubling of NATO’s membership and NATO’s targeting of Russia have led to war in Ukraine, when the U.S. government imposed thousands of new sanctions against Russia, and the U.S. has ruptured the European Union’s mutually beneficial trade with Russia. 

China is Japan’s largest trading partner in both imports and exports. Previous National Strategy Documents said Japan was seeking a “mutually beneficial strategic partnership” with China. Suddenly Japanese strategists started labeling China “the greatest strategic challenge in ensuring the peace and security of Japan.” (U.S. Institute of Peace, Dec. 19)

Japan had expanded trade with Russia in gas, oil, autos and machinery. Previously Japan’s Dec. 17, 2013, National Security Strategy document called for “enhanced ties and cooperation with Russia.” Now Japan considers Russia a “strong security concern.” (USIP, Dec. 19)

A U.S.-Japan alliance is now defined as a “cornerstone” of Japan’s security policy. (Japan Times, Dec. 17)

U.S. praise of Japan’s rising militarism

The U.S. media praised Japan’s new security strategy document as a “bold and historic step.” U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan praised the defense spending hike, which “will strengthen and modernize the U.S.-Japan alliance.” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Japan an “indispensable partner” and cheered that the changed security documents reshape the ability to “protect the rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific region and around the world.” (quotes, whitehouse.gov, Dec. 16)

U.S. corporate power is the immediate beneficiary of this sharp turn in policy, built on military threats and economic sanctions. 

Foreign Affairs Magazine calls the announcement “a profound transformation” and states: “The new national security strategy, however, represents a stunning change. … [T]he government is enacting policies that have been debated for decades but were always blocked. Until now … Japan’s new national security strategy should be applauded. ” (Foreign Affairs, Dec. 23)

U.S. needs collaborators

U.S. policy toward the defeated capitalist class in Germany, Italy and Japan was remarkably similar. At the end of WWII, many of the industrial leaders who had backed these fascist regimes were quietly protected and rehabilitated in Japan, Germany and Italy, along with the fascist collaborators who fled from workers’ control in Eastern Europe. 

The U.S. and later NATO used the rehabilitated fascists against a rising workers movement in West Europe and against socialist construction in Eastern Europe. U.S. corporations, who had aggressively moved into the defeated Axis countries, needed insurance that their investments would be protected from the strike waves. 

By 1950 the U.S. was at war on the Korean peninsula and, while using U.S. troops in Korea, needed a military force for “peacekeeping and self-defense” of capitalist property relations in Japan. Germany, Italy and Japan began to rearm during that period. 

The impact on Okinawa

A chain of 150 islands called the Ryukyu Archipelago, of which the largest island is Okinawa, 400 miles from the Japanese mainland, is in reality a colony of Japan. Its population of 1.74 million people suffers from Tokyo’s rule and from the occupation by U.S. military bases. Okinawa is geographically closer to Taiwan than it is to the main islands of Japan.

Upgrading and strengthening Japanese ground units on Okinawa is part of the new National Security Strategy (NSS). Other islands, which are part of the chain southwest of Japan, will be further militarized. 

Upgrading of Japan’s 15th Brigade on these islands for future electronic warfare, cyber warfare and joint operations of the ground, maritime and air forces are clearly a sign of plans to intervene in the Taiwan Straits.

In recent years, Japan has deployed anti-ship and air-defense missiles on its southwest islands of Amami Oshima, Okinawa Main Island, Miyako Island and a missile base on Ishigaki Island, the island closest to Taiwan.

More than 50,000 U.S. troops remain as an occupying force in Japan, at present the largest U.S. occupation force in any country. More than half of U.S. troops are based on Okinawa.

Okinawa residents, the Indigenous Ryukyu people, have spent decades protesting the constant presence of the U.S. military in their daily lives. There are now 31 U.S. military installations on the island prefecture of Okinawa, which accounts for 74% of the area of all U.S. military bases in Japan, although Okinawa only constitutes 0.6% of Japanese territory.

The U.S. maintains 73 military bases and 28,500 troops in South Korea. Both South Korea and Japan are forced to pay for “hosting” these troops of occupation.

‘Using North Korea threat as cover’

Japan has previously justified its remilitarization by claiming North Korea is a threat. However, retired Maritime Self-Defense Force (MSDF) Admiral Tomohisa Takei told the media that China has been the main target for which Japan has been preparing, “by using North Korea’s threat as cover.” (AP, Dec. 17)

Both Japan and South Korea engage on a regular basis in coordinated military drills under U.S. command threatening Korea DPRK. Massive demonstrations in South Korea and missiles fired from targeted North Korea respond to these military provocations.

This cynical admission of the planning and preparation for war, while claiming self-defense, is similar to former German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Dec. 8 admission that the signing of the 2014 Minsk Agreement was not a peace treaty with Russia. Merkel confirmed that NATO wanted war from the start but needed time to prepare Ukraine militarily. (interview in Die Zeit, Dec. 7)

Having goaded Russia into an invasion of Ukraine in a bid to weaken and fragment Russia, the U.S. is next seeking to turn Taiwan into a military quagmire for China. The Biden administration is facilitating Taiwan’s purchase of advanced weaponry from the U.S. and greater diplomatic ties with the island.

As the US increases its presentation and the militarization of the Asia-Pacific, it is increasing the number and size of multinational military exercises, which are destabilizing international relations and stirring up fears of regional wars. Canada is not only an enabler, but an eager predator looking for action. 

After the US President, President Obama, introduced the Pivot to Asia foreign policy in 2008, US and allied military activities and alliances began to escalate. The US-ROK Team Spirit exercises were conducted annually from 1976 until 1994. The DPRK responded with its own military drills, missile testing, satellite launching and nuclear power development. The US-ROK exercises temporarily ended when the Republic of Korea and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea announced their Joint Denuclearization Declaration in 1992. This declaration was followed by an agreement between the DPRK and the USA in 1994 in which the former would freeze its nuclear program, but allow the US, ROK and Japan to construct light-water nuclear reactors in the DPRK over 10 years. 

There was renewed hope in the early 2000s while South Korea had a centrist government, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and a peace and reunification process that had slowly begun. The coming to power of the US-backed Lee Myung-Bak in 2008, however, dashed that hope. Then US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, took a pronounced aggressive stance against the DPRK (also known as North Korea), issuing threats regularly.  

During spring 2012, the US-ROK Combined Forces Command began its annual exercises called Key Resolve and Foal Eagle. In addition, the ROK took part in Cobra Gold, a multi-national exercise in Thailand that included the U.S., Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. The DPRK was thus put under more stress. The International Crisis Group, a group much appreciated by the imperialist Western nations, reported a DPRK state official claiming that the excercises were an “unpardonable grave military provocation to the sovereignty of the DPRK and a wanton challenge to the international community’s desire for peace and stability in the Korean Peninsula.” The Group also reported the Korean Central News Agency saying, “Key Resolve is a nuclear war rehearsal for aggression on the DPRK” and was testing test “nuclear war to invade the DPRK through a surprise attack.” 

Readers must remember also that the UN Security Council imposed multiple sanctions on the DPRK in 2006 and increased them in 2017, measures that have caused drastic shortages of imported food and medical care and thereby mass suffering and unnecessary deaths in the DPRK. 

Young South Korean men continued to be conscripted into 21 months of service and US required most of its armed forces personnel to serve one year in South Korea. South Korea is thoroughly militarized, to the point where a Korea arms industry can compete globally. The ROK Air Force sends fighter jets and personnel to Nellis Air Base in Nevada to participate in the Red Flag exercise in. The US has over 80 military installations including bases, training camps, watchtowers, supply depots, launch pads and the like in addition to its agreements to share ROK facilities and personnel. It keeps around 30,000 military personnel in the region. 

In the meantime, despite mass resistance, the foreign policy of the government of Japan has turned aggressive. When Japan committed itself to join the US war games around Korea in 2017, it was the first time its military had ventured beyond its own borders. With mixed feelings and against a wave of mass protest in her own country, the Rightist ROK President Park Geun-hye accepted a watery apology from the late Japanese PM Shinzo Abe, which accommodated the desire to enter into military agreements in so-called defense against the DPRK. Subsequently, Abe agreed to the expansion of the US’ Iwakuni air and naval base, and the construction of two more US bases in the Okinawa Islands. 

Tensions calmed down somewhat when US President Trump took a conciliatory tone with the DPRK and talked about nuclear de-escalation. The Biden presidency, on the other hand, is back to escalation and provocation. The new “Ulchi Freedom Guardian” war games of the US and ROK from August 22 to September 1, 2022, featured live fire on a “total war” premise. The latest affront is the Vigilant Storm air drills of the US, Japan and ROK from October 31 to November 4, 2022. The Diplomat reports that 240 F-35 and other warplanes were deployed for them. 

Protests against the November 2022 US-ROK “Vigilant Storm” air drills [courtesy TML)

The formation of the US, Australia and UK (AUKUS) alliance and prospects of a US, Japan, India and Australia alliance (QUAD), in addition to the build-up of the US military in Australia as part of the ANZUS deal (Australia and US), bring more danger. Meanwhile, NATO’s 2022 strategy claims the Indo-Pacific as its global center. This change will demand that NATO members contribute to the militarization and intensifying menacing activities against China and the DPRK. 
 

Canada’s part 

Despite US President Trump’s softer words with DPRK, Canadian and US hawks were circling above, ready to pounce on the peace negotiations that the ROK had initiated with the DPRK without the US. Clearly, the Canadian government wanted to disrupt the peace process. The US and Canada organized the Vancouver Foreign Ministers’ Meeting on Security and Stability on the Korean Peninsula in early 2018. This was one of Chrystia Freeland’s most outrageous moments. 

Though invited by her, then Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland shut the door on peace groups such as Korean Women Cross the DMZ and rallied the ministers to increase their hostility against the DPRK. The hostile rhetoric hurled at the DPRK was ratcheted up further than before. Her reason? — the “global challenge” posed by “the grave and growing threat posed by North Korea’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.” While stating she wanted to find a diplomatic solution, she insisted that the DPRK would have to abandon its ideology and own way forward before there could be a peace settlement, implying the goal of regime change. Then she announced enforcement of sanctions against NK’s “sanctions evasion” in partnership with the US, pledging $3.25 million for that purpose. [Her interventions seemed to be a spiteful response to South Korea’s independent initiative to hold talks with the DPRK in this period.] 

Ideology is no doubt a motivator. Just as NATO clearly states it is defending the economy, though, Canada’s interest is primarily economic. Global Affairs released an article about the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement on Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), which Canada made with 11 countries in East Asia and South America on January 23, 2018. This press release writes, “In 2016, Canada’s bilateral trade with these seven partners totalled $71.3 billion.” Already enjoying one with South Korea, Canada was making Free Trade Agreements with all those states.  

Later, the Canadian Department of National Defense launched Operation Neon to enforce sanctions using frigates and surveillance aircraft [Hill Notes, July 27, 2021]. Military machinery is being used in peacetime against civilian targets such as freighters and merchant vessels to keep civilians from receiving daily necessities. 

Consistent with the DND’s current policy of seeking “engagement”, Canada has participated in Exercise Talisman Sabre off the coast of Northeast Australia with Australia, New Zealand, ROK, US and the UK in July of 2021. It also joined in the massive annual war games in the Pacific Rim known as RIMPAC, which launched from the Jeju base in South Korea and involved 22 countries in 2021 and was even bigger in 2022. Moreover, RCAF 407 Squadron joined in Exercise Sea Dragon in Guam in early 2021, winning a prize for tactical efficiency. 

Meanwhile, in November 2021, the Canadian government backed HanVoice, a CIA-front (National Endowment for Democracy) funded group based in Canada, by supporting its project to allow Canadians to privately sponsor refugees from the DPRK. HanVoice has worked to demonize the DPRK since its founding in 2007, with the then-Conservative government having Secretary of State (Multiculturalism and Canadian Identity) Jason Kenney, speak at HanVoice’s opening event. HanVoice has received assistance from both the Trudeau and Harper governments.  

While eyes are being diverted to the tensions over Taiwan province, readers should acknowledge that the Korean Peninsula is still a hot spot. The Korean war is not officially over; neither is the Korean revolution. Russia and China remain supportive of the DPRK, however tentatively, so a serious escalation has the potential to involve them. The DPRK’s possession of nuclear weaponry is certainly a key safeguard against a wholesale invasion by the US and friends including Canada, with Iraq and Libya showcasing the fate that countries which lack nuclear weapons, and oppose US geopolitical interests, have faced. At the same time, the danger of nuclear war on the Peninsula is real. 

What is urgently needed for security in the Korean Peninsula is a signed Peace Treaty, and that should be Canada’s foreign policy focus. Canada should urge the US to withdraw all troops from South Korea and Japan (along with occupied Okinawa), and stand out of the ROK and DPRK’s way, to let them hash out a peace treaty. Canada needs to give up its bellicose rhetoric towards the DPRK (and China) and adopt a peaceful foreign policy and stand back from the US position. Peace is possible between the ROK and DPRK, but not until the West ends the militarization of Korea and genuinely supports peace in the region. 

Editor’s note: The Canada Files has spent nearly three years doing critical investigative reporting on Canada’s imperialist foreign policy. … 

https://www.thecanadafiles.com/articles/what-is-canadas-involvement-in-military-exercises-targeting-the-dprk-destabilizing-asia

October 20, 2022 ilps-canada.ca http://www.facebook.com/ILPSCanada

CANADA, HANDS OFF HAITI!

The Canadian chapter of the International League of Peoples’ Struggles thoroughly condemns Canada’s military aid to and interference in Haiti. Canadian and United States military aircraft delivered “security equipment”, including tactical and armoured vehicles and others supplies to Haiti on October 15.

On October 17, hundreds of thousands of Haitians marched under the banner of “Occupation is Over, Long Live Our New Independence” in the streets of Port-au-Prince, Les Cayes, Jacmel, Cap-Haïtien, Jérémie. Gonaïves and elsewhere protesting foreign intervention along with chronic gang violence, poverty, food insecurity, inflation and fuel shortages, and demanding the unequivocal resignation of de-facto President Ariel Henry.

Though the pretext for the delivery of Canadian military machines is to assure drinking water and assist the national police in controlling criminal gangs, the foreign presence is resulting in more upheaval and harm to the people. The crisis in Haiti is clearly a crisis of imperialism. The national police of Haiti, long armed and trained by foreign predators, operates against the people’s struggle for liberation and a decent standard of life. The oppressed and working people of Haiti say, “No to Canada and the US in Haiti!”. The ILPS in Canada thus demands that Canada, the US and other foreign forces get out of Haiti and that there be an end to the unending meddling in Haitian affairs.

Haiti was a colony of Spain and then France until a people’s revolution overthrew French colonialism and declared independence in 1804, the only slave uprising that led to the founding a state which was both free from slavery and rule by former slaves their captives.

The colonialist and now imperialist powers have done all in the power to never let Haiti live truly free. In their crudely ambitious desire to control the Caribbean and its people so as to exploit them, Western imperialism has persisted in making Haiti a neocolony at their service. Gaining financial footing there by the 1890’s, US Marines occupied Haiti directly from 1915 to 1937. The US and its allies in Canada and Europe, in collaboration with the local elite and criminal elements, have been able to install dictators, though the people’s resistance continually struggles for independence and democracy. The perpetual turmoil and successive dictatorships have made Haiti poor and unable to manage natural disasters and build a truly independent economy.

Western imperialism facilitated the collapse of nation-building and democratic order by backing the vicious and corrupt Duvalier Presidents, father and son, and their most feared police, the Tonton Macoutes, who terrorized the people through the 1950s into the 1980s. The people’s movement caused “Baby Doc” Duvalier to flee, with US assistance, in 1986.

The US, Canada and Western Europe were hostile to the leftist President Jean-Paul Aristide, legitimately democratically elected in 1990, and his pro-people reforms. They sided with the Haitian elite, forced Aristide to flee and imposed a trade embargo which triggered the exodus of thousands of Haitians. The coup was soon defeated, but the United Nations soon stepped in and, with the US, began constructing a new police force. The progressive figure René Préval took over the presidency in 1995, only to dissolve the Parliament under pressure in 1999. Aristide was once again elected by a large majority, but the West imposed aid sanctions and challenged his authority.

Allegedly sent to stabilize the subsequent societal unrest, the UN (MINUSTAH mission) and US forces caused more instability and deprivation. The US, as well as Canada, again trained the national police, who tried to put down the people’s struggle. Chaos is preferable to independent, democratic, local governance, it seems.

Canada organized the Ottawa Initiative on Haiti that was held in Meech Lake, Quebec in 2003. No Haitian government officials were invited, only representatives of Canada, France, the US and some Latin American officials. Journalist Michael Vastel reported that the conference put forward the need for regime change in Haiti. On 29 February 2004 Aristide was essentially kidnapped with Canadian military assistance and flown against his will to exile in Africa.

Préval was re-elected in 2006, but the burgeoning economic crisis, largely due to foreign interference and external dependency, caused more unrest. Hurricanes followed by a huge earthquake combined with the 2008 global financial crash and another hurricane in 2010, brought the Haitian people into abject ruin. COVID-19 caused more devastation. More imperialist-backed presidents came and went. The US-backed President Moise’s term was contested; he was mysteriously assassinated on July 7, 2021. Interim President, Claude Joseph, declared martial law soon after.

Neither the US nor the UN nor Canada are helping. No more funds or training for the cruel national police, no more military interventions or imperialist meddling in Haiti’s affairs. On the contrary. ILPS in Canada calls on Canadian and other foreign forces to leave and let the Haitian people decide their future.

#FundPeaceNotWar Canada Week of Action

Across Canada, the U.S. and around the world, peace activists will be on the streets from October 15th to 23th, demanding an end to imperialist wars, occupations, sanctions and military interventions. This call to action was initiated by the United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) in the U.S. and has been taken up by the Canada-Wide Peace and Justice Network, a coalition of 45 peace groups across Canada.

No to imperialist wars

For over 30 years, we have witnessed the acceleration of brutal imperial wars by the U.S. and their allies, including Canada, against the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Haiti, and other countries. These wars have killed millions, turned tens of millions into refugees, laid waste to infrastructure, impoverished citizens through sanctions, and overthrown governments. With the full support of the governments of the U.S. and Canada, the Zionist Israeli regime has continued to occupy Palestine, brutally kill and imprison Palestinian people, including children and journalists, demolish Palestinian homes and routinely bomb Gaza.

When fleeing homelands that have become war zones, refugees are subjected to harrowing and dangerous journeys and met with racism and discrimination in the very countries responsible for the destruction of the refugees’ original homes.

From October 15th-23rd, activists will be saying NO to imperialist wars, occupations, economic sanctions, and military interventions, and YES to self-determination!

Stop arming Saudi Arabia.

Today, the United Nations deems Yemen the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, after seven years of Saudi-led, U.S.-backed and Canadian-armed war. This war has killed over a quarter of a million people, and has displaced an additional four million people. The Saudi-led coalition has bombed Yemeni markets, hospitals, and civilians, and yet Canada has exported over $8 billion in arms to Saudi Arabia since 2015, the year the Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen began. The Trudeau Government continues to profit from its controversial $15 billion arms deal for armoured vehicles–killing machines which have been used against people in Yemen and in Saudi Arabia.

From October 15 to 23rd, activists will be calling for an end to the Saudi-led war on Yemen and demanding that Canada Stop Arming Saudi Arabia!

Fund human needs, not destruction

While Canada is gaining ill-repute as an arms dealer to the world’s most despicable war-mongering governments, the Trudeau Government is also bolstering its own arsenal. Since 2014, Canadian military spending has increased by 70%. Last year, the Canadian government spent $33 billion on the military, which is 15 times more than it spent on environment and climate change. Defence Minister Anand announced military spending will increase by another 70% over the next five years on big-ticket items such as F-35 fighter jets, (lifetime cost: $77 billion), warships (lifetime cost: $350 billion), and armed drones (lifetime cost: $5 billion).

From October 15 to 23rd, activists will be demanding NO new fighter jets, warships, or drones! We need billions for housing, health care, jobs and climate, NOT for war profiteering!

Canada out of NATO

The Canada-wide Peace and Justice Network opposes the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a U.S.- led military alliance of 30 countries, which undermines global peace and human security and is responsible for the deadly and destructive interventions in the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Libya. For years, NATO has
been provoking conflict with Russia. NATO’s expansion to Russia’s border and its training and arming of Ukrainian security forces have contributed to growing tensions in the region. NATO’s demand that allies buy new interoperable weapons is leading to a costly arms race. Carbon-intensive weapons systems like fighter jets, tanks, drones, and warships are exacerbating the climate crisis. Canada is complicit in U.S. wars and is pursuing an imperialist agenda. 

From October 15 to 23rd, activists will be demanding that Canada adopt an independent foreign policy free of all military alliances, including NATO.

Stop Provoking China

NATO’s provocative war exercises and extension into the Asia-Pacific region are raising tensions with China and destabilizing the region. As if that weren’t bad enough, the governments of the U.S. and Canada are further inflaming diplomatic relations with China. For example, Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, recently visited Taiwan, soon to be followed by a Canadian delegation led by MP Judy Sgro. These belligerent moves contradict the U.S. and Canada’s previous respectful and neutral stance regarding the Chinese position that Taiwan is an integral part of China.

Read & share the Network’s statement about MP Judy Sgro’s visit to Taiwan.

From October 15 to 23rd, activists will be demanding that Washington and Ottawa stop provoking war with Russia and China, and asking that MP Judy Sgro cancel her planned trip to Taiwan!

Take action!

The Canada-Wide Peace and Justice Network encourages peace-loving people across Canada to join demonstrations and activities across Canada for the Week of Action from October 15-23 or to organize your own actions. Together, let’s end imperialist wars and build a loving and peaceful world!

To view actions in the U.S. and around the world visit www.unacpeace.org

 Statement of ILPS Commission 4  

UN International Peace Day on September 21, 2022 

JOIN THE FIGHT !! 

Organize people’s actions for International Peace Day, September 21! SUPPORT THE STRUGGLES OF THE PEOPLE FOR JUST AND LASTING PEACE EVERYWHERE!  

US-led imperialism is in decline and on a disastrous path. The cases of Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria and Ukraine reveal the state of anarchy and furious panic it has sunken into and total disregard for human suffering and human rights. The US and its allies persist in propping up the worst states including Israel, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine and the Philippines as fascists consolidate themselves. Provocations against Russia and China are flirtations with global disaster. After having facilitated the Right in Ukraine and threatened Russia, the US and company is blocking the possibilities of ceasefire and negotiations in favour of prolonging the carnage and destroying Ukraine. Taunting China over the Chinese territory of Taiwan and interfering, it is setting the stage for a similar tragedy there in which China may mobilize its forces to integrate Taiwan into the People’s Republic of China, the US may mobilize for control of Taiwan, and the people of Taiwan will suffer extreme hardship and mass death. It is all about domination and plunder. 

Building its military alliances and expanding its 100s of bases, installations and shared spaces, the US still dominates militarily. In fact, though, it has not won a war since WW2. It has orchestrated coups to bring in dictators, supported occupations that serve it or invaded regions to take direct control (Grenada, Iraq, Afghanistan). The profit motive dominates most aspects of state affairs so that the war profiteers can benefit. The US righteously violates international laws, standards and norms all the time, still ridiculously clinging to the line of self-entitlement (“exceptionalism”) and is engaging of multiple forms of aggression including economic, cyber, misinformation and manipulation, collaboration with terrorists and reaction. The worldwide militarization and preparations for war must be stopped!  

The people of the world are becoming more politically aware and engaged in grassroots organizing. They are getting active, taking up the cause for just peace, liberation and real democracy. Fundamental change that benefits the people will take a united, global movement that understands the exploitative and plundering nature of the global system of monopoly capitalism, its armed aggression, policies of neo-liberalism and hostility to any non-compliant nation or state. The imperialist powers will not simply give up unless the working people and oppressed, actively and as a whole, face them and stop it. Organized masses around the world united in coordinated action can block imperialism and fascism and move towards socialism. The people cannot gamble that capitalism will develop a heart or that new faces in the capitalist countries signify signs of care. They must extend and carry on their struggles. 

Imperialism as defined by Lenin is the contemporary form of global capitalism, with its monopolies dominated by financial oligarchs that economically and geographically divide the world in their quest for exponential growth and ceaseless, forceful, worldwide expansion. Military and industry are tied. They work in tandem mostly outside the political processes and even beyond the scope of the law designed to protect the rule of monopoly capital. Imperialism is an inherently irrational, violent system that operates without concern for human welfare and that has abandoned social development and human rights altogether.  

The system plummets into high unemployment, inflation and slow production and hence slow purchasing every few years. The capitalist class of the US and Europe have tried again and again to resolve each crisis by social austerity measures, deregulation, increased lending and increased investment in military-related industry and war, to no avail. The result is always mass suffering, perpetual warring, various conflicts, ruin and unrest. The oppressed and socialist states pit themselves against the most powerful states, classes war and inter-imperialist rivalries go on. Now stagflation is occurring, as happened in the late 1970s. Neo-liberalism, instituted in the 1980s, could not avoid this inevitability. Brute force is the only means remaining to US-led imperialism, which will not solve anything. Its aim to gain tighter control over lands, markets and working people. 

As before, capitalist states crack down on the people, turn over more land to plunderers and wreck ecology at the behest of foreign and local corporations, violating indigenous lands and rights more and more, destroying nature and farmlands, displacing communities, causing starvation, pandemics and other hardships, to which the people must respond with resistance. Misinformation is spread and racism, communal and gender bias incited to hold onto power. Cruel economic blockades that deprive working people of daily necessities are exacted to strangle societies that do not conform.  US-based capitalism is sinking into permanent warring and mayhem, providing fertile ground for fascism to grow. 

Comprehending the motivations, relations and machinery of the imperialist system, one sees why the questions of, for instance, Palestine’s or the Kashmir’s independence, peaceful reunification between North and South Korea, a resolution for Russia and Ukraine and social equality and guarantees of home and livelihood, are never settled. Despite the people’s hopes, this has been the case no matter who gets into power or what narrative they tell.

When informed and aroused, the people take action to support a clear peoples’ agenda that on one hand challenges imperialism and, on the other, stakes their clear rights on decent livelihoods, a sustainable planet, social justice and equity that would ensure a classless society that would yield a just and lasting peace. They must ENSURE THAT THEIR ISSUES AND DEMANDS BE ADDRESSED BEFORE GIVING UP THEIR FIGHTS. To the ILPS and Commission 4, peace does not mean acquiescence and silence. Humankind would be doomed were we to be passive and quiet as the world becomes increasingly dangerous and unsustainable and human life more precarious. Let’s deepen our commitment to struggle against imperialism for just peace on September 21 and make Peace Day meaningful. The UN is ineffective; in fact, it is often a springboard to launch aggression. Build a unified struggle for a better world! The people are struggling to win and defend their rights and future. They do not stand by as the chaos, excess, violence and suffering burn up the planet. Voting periodically is not enough. Join the movement for change to preserve life and avoid extinction.  

JUST PEACE NOW! CEASEFIRES AND NEGOTIATIONS NOW!  

DISMANTLE NATO, AUKUS AND ALL IMPERIALIST MILITARY ALLIANCES!       

SOCIAL, NOT MILITARY SPENDING! 

NO MORE WAR GAMES! CLOSE US AND NATO BASES! NO MILITARY AID! 

NO MORE HIROSHIMAS!    END THE ARMS TRADE! NO TO FASCISM! 

SIGN THE TREATY FOR THE PROHIBITION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS! 

Peoplesstruggles.org peace4@vcn.bc.ca http://www.facebook.com/ILPSOfficial