United National Antiwar Coalition Action Plan
Adopted by UNAC Conference May 8-10, 2015
Political
Goals, Objectives & Mission
The
United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) opposes all U.S. wars, whether they be
in the form of direct military intervention with troops on the ground,
privatized death squad wars, drone wars on every continent, sanctions and
embargo wars, U.S.-backed military coups, “humanitarian interventions,” the
U.S.-backed and -financed Israeli wars against the Palestinian people and the myriad
of other modes of intervention and conquest that deny oppressed peoples the
right to freedom and self-determination. We demand an end to it all: the war
machine, the weapons of mass destruction, the trillions spent on advancing
imperialist interests and the associated devastation perpetrated on poor and
working people the world over. We demand: U.S. Hands Off
& Out Now – from the Middle East to Africa to Latin
America to Iran, Ukraine & Beyond. Bring
All the Troops Home Now & Dissemble Weapons of War! Trillions for Human Needs – Not One Penny for
War!
UNAC
similarly opposes the ongoing and deepening wars against poor and working
people at home, including the militarization of the police; the racist
mass-incarceration criminal “justice” system; the war-profiteering
military-industrial complex; the ever-privatized, for-profit and slave labor
prison-industrial complex; the deepening racist attacks and mass deportation of
immigrants; racist persecution of Muslim communities; vicious and virtually
unpunished racist police murders of African-American, Latino and Native
American peoples; massive ever-intensifying austerity – assaults on wages,
massive cutbacks of social services, massive student debt, unending tuition
hikes, deterioration and re-segregation of public education – union busting;
the oppression, exploitation and brutality waged against women; the
government-promoted homophobic attacks on the LGBT community; the fossil-fuel,
war-induced global warming and associated looming climatic catastrophe; and the
wholesale police-state-like surveillance measures that increasingly obliterate
civil and democratic rights. The U.S. needs a national urban policy that
promotes sustainability of human life, rather than the profits of finance
capital.
The
U.S. wars abroad and the wars at home are inseparable aspects of a society that
requires the subordination of human needs to the private
profit interests of the bailed-out and enriched (at public expense) banks,
corporations and multibillionaire elite. We hail the emergence of new
anti-racist and working-class forces that have demonstrated vibrant leadership
capacities, from Black Lives Matter and the myriad of other anti-racist
fighters to the ever-resurgent Palestinian community mobilizations against the
Israeli slaughter of Palestinians to the recent International Longshore and
Warehouse Union Local 10 work stoppage in solidarity with their Black and Brown
sisters and brothers who have been the prime victims of rampant police
brutality and murder.
Our
method of struggle looks to the broad mass of working people and their allies
as the primary agency of social change. The history of all social movement
victories is a history of the unification of the working masses and oppressed
to advance their own needs and interests. UNAC strives to advance the unity of
the antiwar and social justice movements in united, independent, inclusive and
democratically planned mass actions to demonstrate the power of the working
masses and achieve fundamental social and political change. We support a broad
range of actions, including nonviolent direct action, lobbying and petitioning
and we stand in solidarity with community resistance and rebellion against race
and class oppression.
Actions
initiated and endorsed by UNAC
UNAC
INITIATED ACTIONS
- October
4-10, 2015, National: UNAC will initiate and collaborate with
all interested organizations and groups in organizing a week of united and
broadly sponsored local and regional activities (rallies, marches,
teach-ins, vigils, etc.) to advance the above goals and objectives during
the week of Oct. 4-10 and culminating on Saturday, Oct. 10. This time
period corresponds to the beginning of the now-14-year-old U.S. war
against Afghanistan, which with the U.S. wars in Iraq, Libya and so many other
countries have caused enormous suffering abroad while draining this
country of the resources critically needed to address problems here at
home. In this effort we welcome the emerging and critical layers of
youthful anti-racist activists who have served to revitalize today’s
social struggles and who will be planning campus and community-based
actions in collaboration with UNAC.
- UNAC
tour to Cuba: UNAC will
consider organizing a tour to Cuba to exchange ideas with Cuban and
international antiwar and social justice activists.
- UNAC
National Tour: UNAC will explore possibilities of organizing a
national tour of prominent antiwar and social justice leaders as we did
with Malalai Joya in 2013.
ACTIONS ENDORSED BY
UNAC
- May: UNAC offers full support to the Red
Crescent Society of Iran sailing a rescue mission to Yemen to bring
urgently needed supplies of medicine, rice and flour to the people of
Yemen under siege and blockade by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries
and fully backed by the U.S. The
ship’s crew of 50 men includes internationals from the U.S., France, and
Germany. We demand that the ship be
allowed to reach the desperate Yemeni population to deliver its supplies
intact and that the ship and its crew are allowed to arrive safely. Any interference and/or violence would
be a criminal act in violation of international law.
- May
12, Orange , NJ: UNAC calls for the reinstatement and contract
renewal of Marilyn Zuniga, the Orange, NJ teacher suspended from her third
grade classroom at the behest of the Fraternal Order of Police for
forwarding her students’ get well letters to Mumia Abu Jamal. We endorse and encourage efforts to this
end, including a mobilization at the May 12th meeting of the
Orange Board of Education.
- May
13, Philadelphia, PA: UNAC will support the program and mass
rally to mark the 30th anniversary of the police bombing of MOVE.
Sponsored by the MOVE organization, which is still fighting for the
release of the MOVE 9. http://onamove.com
- May
19, Detroit: UNAC endorses the Michigan Emergency
Committee against War and Injustice and other groups’ action at the
shareholders meeting of the J.P. Morgan Chase Bank and
other actions targeting the Bank.
J.P. Morgan Chase is playing a leading role in home foreclosures
nationally, causing senseless destruction in Detroit most of all.
- May
21, 2015 National: Black Lives Matter and others anti-racist
youth and social justice groups have set May 21 as a national action day
for women, trans and LGBTQ victims of police violence. UNAC will help
publicize and support these events and will continue to support other
actions against racism and police violence.
- May 26, National: UNAC supports the demands raised by people in Germany that the German government close the
Satellite Relay Station at the U.S. Air Base Ramstein in Germany, which
plays an essential role in all U.S. drone surveillance and drone strikes
in the Middle East, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Africa and elsewhere, and close
the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) in Stuttgart, which is the Pentagon's
central command responsible for planning and carrying out all U.S.
interventions, including drone killings, in Africa. UNAC will endorse the
German call for vigils (on May 26th in the U.S. and on May 27th in Germany)
in solidarity with the bin Ali Jaber family of Yemen, two of whose members
were killed by a U.S. drone in 2012; the family has filed a court case
against the German government for allowing Ramstein to be used for the
illegal U.S. drone strikes. UNAC will also support further actions in the
Ramstein/AFRICOM campaign in coordination with German activists.
- May
30, New York, NY: March and
rally to free Oscar Lopez Rivera, beginning his 34th year of
imprisonment on that day for his participation in Puerto Rico’s
independence movement. May 30th
Coalition to Free Oscar Lopez www.freeoscarnycmay30.org.
- July
25, Newark, N.J.: Million People's March Against Police Brutality, Racial Injustice &
Economic Inequality. Sponsored by the People's Organization for Progress.
UNAC will endorse and support this mobilization. http://njpop.org/wordpress/?p=1896
- September,
Richmond, VA: UNAC will support
the local call for a national presence in Richmond to demand the
reclamation and memorialization of sites central to the U.S. slave trade.
Sponsored by the Sacred Ground Historical Reclamation Project of the
Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality. http://www.sacredgroundproject.net
Contact: Ana Edwards - ourrosewood@gmail.com
- September,
Cincinnati: UNAC supports the call for Justice for
Palestinian-American community leader Rasmea Odeh. The appeal of her
conviction will take place in Cincinnati in September. We join with the Committee to Stop FBI
Repression, the U.S. Palestinian Community Network, and the Rasmea Defense
Committee to pack the courthouse when the appeal occurs. www.stopfbi.net; www.uspcn.org
- November
– December, International: International actions are being planned
to protest the expected and tragic failure of the U.N. Climate Change
Conference (COP 21 or Conference of Parties) set for Paris, France, where
no binding agreements are anticipated to stop Planet Earth from reaching a
2-degree Centigrade mean temperature rise wherein the disastrous results
will be irreversible. UNAC will support and help build U.S.-based actions
on this critical question and will speak to the endless oil wars being
fought over the very fuel whose continued use spells doom for humankind.
ONGOING ACTIONS
ENDORSED BY UNAC
- National: Support
campaign to stop the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal that threaten
jobs, wages, the environment and more in our communities and around the
world. Tell Congress NO on Fast
Track!
·
National: UNAC supports the
courageous efforts fighting the war on workers by low wage workers fighting for
$15 and a union and will help mobilize for the next Fight for $15 general
strike and all efforts to win a livable wage, both domestically and internationally.
UNAC realizes that a true livable wage would exceed $15 per hour.
- National: UNAC will continue its solidarity with
Mumia Abu-Jamal in his struggle for freedom and for the immediate medical
attention today required to remediate the prison medical neglect that has
placed Mumia’s very life in immediate jeopardy. UNAC supports the work of organizations
working to free all political prisoners in the United States.
- National: UNAC will support and participate in
acts of resistance in immediate response to police murders and
anniversaries of murders.
- National: UNAC acknowledges the role that media
plays in political organizing and calls on all supporters to find ways to
coordinate their activities to amplify the value of them and to make the
media more useful to the efforts of the movements we support.
- National: Support actions calling for an end to
the Cuba embargo blockade and to close the U.S. base in Guantanamo.