UNAC at the Left Forum 2016

If you can help with the UNAC table at the Left Forum, please let us know by sending an email to UNACpeace@gmail.com

The Fight to End US Wars

Sunday, 12:00 – 1:50 PM, Room 1.123

During this election period, the US wars are not being addressed. US proxy wars, air wars, drone wars and more ground wars continue in many countries including: Syria, Ukraine, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and other areas of the world. We, as activists in the US, have an obligation to oppose these wars. Hear antiwar activists who oppose the US wars throughout the world speak.

Join the Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/981473995302155/

Chair: Sara Flounder,

Sara Flounders is Co-Director of the International Action Center. She is an editor and co-author of 10 books published by IAC and a regular writer for Workers World Newspaper Workers.org. She is a member of the UNAC administrative committee

Speakers:

Joe Lombardo:

Joe Lombardo is co-coordinator of the United National Antiwar Coalition. He is a lifelong antiwar and labor activist. He is a member of CSEA Local 999 and the Troy Area Labor Council. During the Vietnam War he worked as a full-time staff person for the National Peace Action Coalition, one of the two major antiwar coalitions during that time.

Phil Wilayto

Phil Wilayto is the editor of The Virginia Defender newspaper and co-founder of the annual Virginia People's Assembly for Jobs, Peace & Justice. He is the author of several books, including "In Defense of Iran: Notes from a U.S. Peace Delegation's Journey through the Islamic Republic" and has been interviewed by PressTV, Russia Today, NPR, Democracy Now! and many other media outlets. Phil is a member of the UNAC administrative committee.

Bernadette Ellorin

Bernadette Ellorin is the current chairperson of BAYAN USA, an anti-imperialist and democratic alliance of Filipino organizations across the US representing youth, women, workers, LGBT, cultural workers, and human rights activists. BAYAN USA is the oldest and largest overseas chapter of BAYAN Philippines, the main political center for the anti-imperialist movement in the Philippines. Bernadette is member of the UNAC administrative committee.

Glen Ford

Glen Ford is executive editor of Black Agenda Report, the weekly Black left magazine of news, commentary and analysis which he co-founded with Bruce Dixon and Margaret Kimberley in 2006. A lifelong activist, Ford has worked as a broadcast and print journalist since 1970. He is author of "The Big Lie: Analysis of U.S. Press Coverage of the Grenada Invasion."

The Wars Come Home

Sunday, 3:40 – 5:40 PM, Room 1.124

There is a domestic side of the phony "War on Terror." This includes attacks on Muslims in the US, militarization of the police, defunding human needs and racism. These and their connections to the wars abroad will be discussed.

Chair: Joe Lombardo

Join the Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1584010115262612/

Speakers:

Jaribu Hill

Jaribu Hill is the founder of the Mississippi Workers’ Center for Human Rights and the Southern Human Rights Organizers Conference. She is a human rights attorney, veteran community organizer, international human rights spokesperson and cultural artist.

Ana Edwards

Ana Edwards is chair of the Sacred Ground Historical Reclamation Project, a 2004 initiative of the Virginia Defenders for Freedom, Justice and Equality, a Richmond, Va.-based social justice organization which grounds its work in the principle of the right of oppressed peoples to self-determination.

Abayomi Azikiwe

Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of the Pan-African News Wire based in Detroit. He is an organizer for the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice (MECAWI) and the Moratorium NOW! Coalition. Abayomi is a member of the UNAC administrative committee

Margaret Kimberley

Margaret Kimberley has been an Editor and Senior Columnist of Black Agenda Report since its inception in 2006. She was a contributor to the recently published book “Killing Trayvons: An Anthology of American Violence.” She is a regular guest on radio talk shows and has appeared on Al Jazeera English, Russia Today, the Real News Network and GRITtv. She is also a member of UNAC's administrative committee

Christine Marie

Christine Marie is a long time member of CT United for Peace and serves on the Administrative Committee of UNAC. She is currently a member of 350CT and helped build the May 31 CT Climate Justice March.

The Situation in Ukraine

Saturday, 10:00 – 11:50 AM, Room 1.113

Fighting continues in Ukraine with rebels in charge of the Eastern areas of the country and declaring their independence from Kiev. Struggle also continues in other parts of the country against the draft and the right-wing government. On May 2, we reached the 2 year anniversary of the fascist attack on demonstrator at the Odessa House of Trade Unions, where 46 people were killed. A leader of the progressive movement from Odessa will join this panel

Join the Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1721151654768218/

Chair: Phil Wilayto

Speakers:

Irina Kovel

Irina Koval is a human rights activist from Odessa, Ukraine. She is a supporter of the movement for the organization of an international investigation of the right-wing attack on May 2, 2014, at Odessa's House of Trade Unions that resulted in the deaths of scores of people and injuries to many more.

Yuri Shakhin

Yuri V. Shakhin has a PhD in Historical sciences, historian-Marxism. He was an active popularizer of Marxism in Odessa, Ukraine where he worked at a local university. He is a member of a left group "Against the current". One year after the Maidan coup he emigrated from Ukraine.

Greg Butterfield

Greg Butterfield is coordinator of the Solidarity with Ukraine Antifascists Committee of the International Action Center. He has written extensively about the U.S. role in the civil war between Ukraine and Donbass for Workers.org and other websites. Greg will have just returned from an anti-fascist conference being held in Lugansk.

Bruce Gagnon

Bruce K. Gagnon is coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons& Nuclear Power in Space and a member of Veterans For Peace. Bruce lives in Bath, Maine and often protests at Bath Iron Works, where Navy destroyers are made outfitted with ‘missile defense’ systems. He has been been closely following the situation in Ukraine and has been interviewed on that issue by Press TV and Russia Today, among other media outlets.