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.