Lawmakers in Peru have taken advantage of ousting President Pedro Castillo as a chance to secretly pass a bill into law that would take away the 2006 law protecting “uncontacted” Indigenous people, which would also risk reserves and spaces they call home.

Modifying the 2006 bill is aimed at impeding the creation of new reserves and eliminating existing ones – currently, there are seven in Peru’s Amazon. This poses a grave risk for up to 25 “uncontacted” peoples living in the Amazon rainforest, which is the second-largest following Brazil’s.

Beatriz Huertas, an anthropologist working with Orpio, the Indigenous federation in Loreto, Peru’s largest Amazon region, said, “I’ve never seen such a nefarious bill in 30 years working for the protection of isolated Indigenous peoples.”

Outright genocide

This comes swiftly as the country remains knee-deep in the crisis after President Castillo was ousted, leaving at least 22 people killed in violent clashes and protests with security forces. On Tuesday, Congress agreed to move forward with early elections, but a second vote is required to finalize it.

Peru’s Indigenous federation Aidesep said the bill “would cause genocide” and noted that their “brothers and sisters” were “highly vulnerable and threatened by the increasing pressures on their territories” from matters ranging from infrastructure projects, logging, and illegal mining to drug trafficking.

The proposal seems to be backed by a group of businessmen in Peru who have already financed a campaign in an effort to deny the existence of “isolated peoples” wholly.

The business group, which names itself the Loreto Sustainable Development Coordinator, claims that Indigenous reserves are a sham and impede development in the region that sizes larger than Germany.

In a separate yet recent context, a large majority of Indigenous Canadians protested in the streets of Montreal amid the final negotiations of the UNFCCC’s COP15 event on biodiversity, which was posing risks of threatening Indigenous peoples and homes.

“The people are trying to speak, trying to say you can’t just talk, you have got to act,” said Sheila Laursen, a member of the activist group Raging Grannies.

Member of a tribe that calls the Ecuadoran Amazon home, Helena Gualinga, commented, “Let’s not forget that… to protect biodiversity we need to protect Indigenous people first, Indigenous people are protecting biodiversity.”

‘It is suicidal’

Secretary-General of the Indigenous Federation of Orpio, Pablo Chota, is continuously fighting and has been for 19 years for the creation of the Napo-Tigre Indigenous reserve on Peru’s border with Ecuador. He expressed, “[The isolated people] are our brothers and sisters, we are protecting life.” The Napo-Tigre region has been subjected to oil drilling by the Anglo-French oil company Perenco.

According to Julia Urrunaga, director of the Environmental Investigation Agency in Peru, civil society groups in the country expressed grave concern about the bill, which may be passed in light of current circumstances. “Peru can’t take more conflict,” she said.

“In a world where we each day have more evidence of the role of Indigenous peoples in the protection of the world’s last remaining natural forests, it is suicidal to attempt to eliminate protections for Indigenous peoples and their forests,” she relayed.

Source: Al Mayadeen English

Robert Scola, a federal judge in Miami, ruled that the Colombian-Venezuelan businessman Álex Saab, described in most corporate media as a frontman for the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, is not entitled to diplomatic immunity, so he should be tried on charges of money laundering.

In his 15-page ruling, Scola argued that Maduro’s government has been deemed ‘illegitimate,’ so any claim of diplomatic immunity will be classified in the same way.

Dan Kovalik, lawyer and human rights activist in the US, maintained in a conversation with RT that today’s ruling is “unfair” and “the result of political pressure on the court” by the US Executive. He also believes that the decision will affect relations between Caracas and Washington and between the Maduro government and the opposition.

Saab’s arrest

The businessman was arrested in 2020 during a stopover in Cape Verde when he was on his way to Iran on a diplomatic mission to negotiate oil agreements and acquire medicines and food for Venezuela. The official’s plane made a technical stop on the African island to refuel, but local authorities detained him, despite his diplomatic status. He was subsequently extradited to the US.

After the detention, the diplomat’s defense described the act as arbitrary and denounced that he was a victim of abuse, torture, and violation of his human rights. Furthermore, he insisted that Saab cannot face charges in the U.S. because he has enjoyed diplomatic immunity since before his arrest.

Venezuela has called Saab’s extradition to the U.S. a kidnapping in violation of international and diplomatic law and insists that his arrest in Cape Verde was made “illegally,” without even an arrest warrant, “violating the laws of the country and the Vienna Convention.”

The Venezuelan government has repeatedly demanded the release of the businessman, while the National Assembly has organized mobilizations to show, as even the president of the parliamentary body said, solidarity with a man who “in the first instance was kidnapped in Cape Verde, violating all norms, laws and international precepts.”

Source: Cuba en Resumen

DEFEND DRAG STORY HOUR IN NYC!
Help protect queer spaces and expression under threat from the far right.

When? Thursday, 12/29, 3pm
Where? Jackson Heights Library, 35-51 81st Street, Queens (7 train to 82 St)
What to wear? Regular clothes and a mask

SATURDAY, JANUARY 21, 2023, AT 2:30 PM
Eyewitness Ukraine – US/NATO Out of Ukraine!
New Orleans Public Library – Nora Navra Branch

Event by Workers Voice Socialist Movement

We were lied to about Iraq, about Vietnam, about Libya… We’re being lied to about Ukraine. We deserve to know the truth.

Louisianans are suffering as the owners of oil and gas companies, war-profiteering corporations, and banks rake in billions from another bloody war for profit.

Join Workers Voice Socialist Movement for a forum at the Nora Navra Library on Saturday, January 21, to learn the truth about the war in Ukraine. Hear from John Parker who has visited Ukraine and seen what is truly going on. A member of Socialist Unity Party, founder of the Harriet Tubman Center for Social Justice, California Senate Candidate for the Peace & Freedom Party, and a member of Black Alliance for Peace, John has been organizing against imperialist war for decades.

Fight for healthcare, housing, and higher wages; fight to end all US economic and military wars for profit. Join us:

Eyewitness Ukraine – US/NATO Out of Ukraine
Saturday, January 21, 2:30 PM
Nora Navra Library
1902 St. Bernard Ave.
New Orleans, LA

U.S. military exercises have come within 400 miles of China’s mainland in the South China Sea (called the South Sea in China and the East Sea in Vietnam). The provocations have increased year after year since former President Obama’s imperialist “pivot” towards Asia.

Imagine if China had military exercises right on the doorstep of the U.S. mainland in either the Pacific or Atlantic oceans – close enough for a passenger cruise ship to come into contact with the exercises. And not just your typical military exercises, but ones that were in preparation for a coastal invasion. Imagine if China did this with three other countries, some of whom were promised nuclear weapons.

It’s hard to imagine such a scenario targeting the U.S. because it doesn’t exist. But for the people of China, the U.S. is very much at the doorstep on a daily basis. And on Nov. 29, the situation escalated.

According to a report in the Nov. 30 China Daily, a U.S. guided-missile cruiser illegally entered Chinese waters near the Nansha Islands on the morning of Nov. 29, a spokesperson from the People’s Liberation Army said.

“Without the approval of the Chinese government, the guided-missile cruiser USS Chancellorsville illegally entered the waters near the islands and reefs of China’s Nansha Islands on Tuesday,” Senior Colonel Tian Junli, spokesman for the PLA Southern Theater Command, said in a statement.

“The theater command has organized naval and air forces to track, monitor and warn it off,” he said.

The colonel added that the warship’s move, which seriously infringed on China’s sovereignty and security, is more “hard proof “that the United States is seeking maritime hegemony and militarizing the South China Sea.

According to the South China Sea Data Initiative, a project of Emory University and the University of California, in 2017, the USS Dewey warship held a “maneuvering drill” less than 400 miles from the mainland of China. In that same year, the USS Stethem came within 200 miles of China’s southernmost province, Hainan Island, with a population of about 10 million people.

The U.S. travels over 10,000 miles in the Pacific Ocean to go poking around in the waters of China. Yet if you look 2,000 miles out from the shores of the U.S. on either the Pacific or Atlantic oceans, you see no Chinese military exercises. In fact, you won’t find any hostile military exercises anywhere within thousands of miles of U.S. shores.

But Washington arrogantly says China is the guilty party threatening the U.S.

Strategy of provocation

The fact is that, like the strategy to provoke Russia exposed three years ago in the Rand Corporation Plan, this plan to target and provoke China is exposed in the 2022 National Defense Strategy document from the U.S. Secretary of State and blessed by President Joe Biden in its introduction. 

The plan was written before this latest provocation in the South China Sea and reveals that these altercations are pre-planned to solicit one result – war with China. 

China Daily reported March 29 that a study “by the South China Sea Strategic Situation Probing Initiative, a Beijing-based think-tank tracking U.S. military operations with open source data, said the U.S. carried out at least 95 military exercises in the South China Sea last year, ten more than in 2019.”

The article quotes Hu Bo, director of the think-tank, who said the U.S. military has maintained a fairly strong presence near China since 1949, but in recent years it has considerably ramped up its operations in the region and made them more public.

As the National Defense Strategy outlines, these provocations will be carried out with the assistance of other collaborators of U.S. imperialism. 

“In August 2021, the U.S., along with Australia, Britain and Japan, carried out ‘Large Scale Exercise 21,’ its largest naval exercise in 40 years, involving around 25,000 military personnel operating across 17 time zones from Europe to Asia,” says China Daily.

Hu warned that Washington’s reckless escalation in military activities severely stretched personnel and machinery, leading to a greater risk of accidents and friction in the South China Sea. 

For example, the USS Connecticut nuclear submarine recently collided with an uncharted seamount (underwater mountain) in the South China Sea last year, and an F-35C fighter jet crashed on an aircraft carrier operating in the region in January.

“In an era of peace, if one country maintains such a powerful military presence close to another country, it is hard for the former to convince people that it is doing it for peaceful purposes,” Hu said.

Driven by profits

What is the U.S. economic interest in the South China Sea? 

According to a 2018 CNBC report, the South China Sea has $5.3 trillion worth of trade going through its waters each year, or one-third of all global maritime trade.

It’s been estimated that between 11 billion and 125 billion barrels of oil and between 190 trillion and 500 trillion cubic feet of natural gas lies beneath. 

But for the U.S., grabbing control has become even more of an uphill battle since it has no NATO forces in the region. Many of the countries it would like to conspire within these provocations toward war have growing beneficial trade relations with China. This includes South Korea.

Moon Chung-in, chairman of the Sejong Institute in the Republic of Korea, quoted by China Daily, mentioned that the U.S. has been implementing its “Indo-Pacific” strategy, a strategy to isolate China economically, but this would hurt South Korea.

“China is our biggest trade partner so we cannot join the U.S. in decoupling with China, but meanwhile, we share similar values with the U.S.,” Moon said. “… Thus, we must return to the principles of multilateralism that Beijing has proposed.”

China’s economic and cultural ties have increased with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which was formed to create a more powerful force for maintaining the sovereignty and independence of its member nations. It consists of Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.

According to Shi Zhongjun, secretary-general of the ASEAN-China Centre: “… two-way trade has grown by 85 times from 1991 to 2021, maintaining a robust growth momentum … bilateral trade increased by 15.8% year-on-year in the first ten months of this year to 5.26 trillion yuan ($737.6 billion), accounting for 15.2% of China’s foreign trade. And China has become the second-largest investor in ASEAN, with its investment in 2021 touching $14 billion, up 96% year-on-year.

“The two sides have also maintained frequent people-to-people exchanges … with mutual visits exceeding 65 million and the total number of flights between the two sides being more than 4,500 a week in 2019. …

“Chinese universities are offering majors in the official languages of all the ASEAN member states, and the two-way flow of students was more than 200,000 a year before the pandemic broke out.”

The reckless strategy laid out in the U.S. National Defense Strategy has little hope of unifying an anti-China conspiracy amongst the ASEAN nations, and without that, the plan will ultimately fail.

What the anti-war movement must do now is hasten that failure. We must build the understanding of who the real provokers of war are instead of allowing the vilification of Russia and China to distract us from stopping all manifestations of U.S. imperialist war strategies.

On Oct. 16, Judge Lucretia Clemons of the Common Pleas Court of Pennsylvania dismissed all the claims that political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal and his lawyers presented – critical evidence, withheld for over 40 years, that could overturn his 1982 conviction, exonerate him and bring him home to his family. 

Mumia has been in jail for over 40 years – 30 of those years spent on death row. This may be his last opportunity to prove his innocence and gain his release. Mumia’s health is rapidly deteriorating, and he is not a candidate for compassionate release in the state of Pennsylvania. 

By dismissing these claims and refusing to grant Mumia a new trial, Judge Clemmons is sentencing him to death through incarceration. Noel Hanrahan, legal director at Prison Radio, told Counterspin, “These were critical documents (just discovered 2 years ago) that many other people have gotten relief on.” 

A video entitled “Healing the Wounds of Racism” by Judge Lucretia Clemons was released after the October hearing and posted on LoveNotPhear.com. The call from #LoveNotPhear was for people to listen to this six-minute video and send an audio message, an email post, or write a letter in response – what you wanted to tell Judge Clemons – to be presented to her on Dec. 16, when she was scheduled to make her final decision as to whether Mumia would have his day in court.

(At the Dec. 16 hearing, Judge Clemmons announced that she would put off her final ruling for another 60 to 90 days. Read Struggle-La Lucha’s report from Philadelphia here.)

The Black Alliance for Peace, Harriet Tubman Center for Social Justice and San Diego Coalition to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal and All Political Prisoners joined with thousands worldwide to answer the call by #LoveNotPhear to act on this gross miscarriage of justice. The groups shared #LoveNotPhear’s website on social media and organized letter-writing sessions in libraries and bookstores. 

Activists also organized events leading up to the hearing. A rally was held in Los Angeles on Dec. 15, and a political prisoners teach-in was held in San Diego on Dec. 16.

Southern California actions

Activists demanding a new trial for Mumia Abu-Jamal gathered for a speakout at Leimert Park in South Central LA Dec. 15. They brought literature on the latest news and historical background of his case. 

Speakers included former Black Panther Harold Welton; Matyos Kidane of Stop LAPD Spying Coalition; John Parker of Harriet Tubman Center for Social Justice; and Sylvester of The Love We Don’t See. 

Natalie Matos of Black Alliance for Peace, who MC’d, began the rally with updates on Mumia’s case and opportunities to continue the struggle. Names were collected from community members interested in volunteering or receiving more information and updates on planned solidarity activities.

The San Diego letter-writing workshop was held on Dec. 6 at the Malcolm X Library and Performing Arts Center. The teach-in, hosted by the San Diego Coalition to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal and All Political Prisoners, was held at the San Diego Justice Center on Dec. 16.

The teach-in began with an email message received from Philadelphia announcing that Judge Clemons had postponed her decision, followed by a video of the rally outside the courthouse, where the crowd chanted “Brick by brick, wall by wall, free Mumia Abu-Jamal.” In the video, Professor Johanna Fernandez announced that no decision being made sends the message that we won, and this is the moment to fight harder and make sure that light and justice prevail.

Speakers at the teach-in included Justine Mann of Party for Socialism and Liberation; Mary Lou Finley of Leonard Peltier Défense Committee; John Parker of Socialist Unity Party; Natalie Matos of Black Alliance for Peace; and Denzel Draughn of Hands Off Uhuru/Hands Off Africa Defense Campaign. 

Participants discussed the fact that the U.S. has political prisoners and why we believe all prisoners are political prisoners because of the racist, profit-motivated prison-industrial complex. 

We discussed why we need to support political prisoners and become active in the fight to free them all, shut down the prison-industrial complex, end mass incarceration and abolish the death penalty, including death by incarceration.

The teach-in ended with another letter-writing session to continue urging Judge Clemmons to do the right thing. We have two to three months to continue to organize, mobilize, educate and spread the truth about Mumia Abu-Jamal.  

The San Diego Coalition to Free Mumia and All Political Prisoners also hosted a screening of the film “Mumia Abu-Jamal: Long Distance Revolutionary” on Dec. 17 at the Malcolm X Library.

Mumia will be released. It’s up to us to make that happen.

#LoveNotPhear – spread love and challenge fear!

Release Mumia! Free them all!

Mary Lou Finley, Natalie Matos and John Parker contributed to this article.

The United States flew nuclear-capable bombers and advanced stealth jets in a show of force aimed at socialist North Korea, the Associated Press reported.

The B-52H strategic bomber and F-22 stealth fighter jets were used in joint military drills over South Korea on Dec. 20. The B-52H is the primary strategic nuclear bomber for the U.S., capable of carrying large payloads at high speeds over long distances. The nuclear-capable F-22 jets were deployed in South Korea for the first time in four years.

In its first two years, the Biden administration’s foreign policy has been marked by increasing militarization, a report in Responsible Statecraft noted. The new $858-billion military budget now before Congress includes plans to develop a sea-launched nuclear cruise missile that former President Donald Trump initiated in 2018.

Biden’s nuclear expansion plans, outlined in a summary released in March, omit a “no first use” policy. The U.S. is now engaged in the most extensive military buildup in history. 

“The root reason for the current tension [in Korea] is the U.S.’s increasing pressure on North Korea, Lü Chao, an expert on the Korean Peninsula at the Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.

“Lü noted that the U.S. had organized several military drills with its allies South Korea and Japan, and with more new weapons and aircraft carriers being involved,” the Global Times reports.

At the end of October, the U.S. and South Korea conducted one of their largest joint military air drills, with hundreds of warplanes from both sides staging mock attacks 24 hours a day for a week, the report continues.

Officially pacifist Japan has meanwhile announced its largest military budget since World War II, unveiling a $320-billion plan, which will involve developing long-range offensive missiles.

The Socialist Unity Party and Struggle-La Lucha newspaper join revolutionaries and partisans of labor in the Philippines and around the world in mourning the passing of Comrade Prof. Jose Maria Sison. 

We send our deepest solidarity and revolutionary love to Comrade Julie de Lima, to all of Prof. Sison’s family, companions and loved ones, and to all comrades of the Communist Party of the Philippines, the National Democratic Front, and the New People’s Army on this sad occasion.

Ka Joma was a warm and humble man. He loved poetry and song, karaoke, and culture. He had a wonderful sense of humor and a kind, grandfatherly presence. And he was a revolutionary giant in word and deed, a true communist leader whose work inspires and is studied by millions in the Philippines and on every continent. 

In his amazing life, from the University of the Philippines to the streets of Metro Manila, from the forests of Cagayan to the dungeons of the Marcos dictatorship, and in decades of exile from his beloved homeland, he forged and guided one of the most enduring revolutionary movements in the world today.

The rebirth of the Communist Party of the Philippines and the Philippine national liberation struggle was a mighty chapter in the revolutionary tide that swept the world in the mid-20th century. Later that tide receded. There were many setbacks, compromises, and betrayals. But under Ka Joma’s guidance, the comrades of the CPP, NPA, and NDF held the red flag high. 

Your perseverance in the cause of the workers and oppressed in the battle for national liberation and socialism remains a beacon to revolutionaries everywhere. This is Ka Joma’s legacy.

We will sorely miss Ka Joma’s beautiful presence, his wisdom and counsel, and his company. But he lives in the hearts and minds of millions in the Philippines and around the globe. He lives in the dedicated and heroic cadre of the CPP. He lives among workers fighting for their rights, peasants and Indigenous peoples fighting for their land, the urban poor fighting for their homes, youth and students fighting for the future of our planet, and in heroic Red fighters who have taken up the gun in the people’s democratic revolution that continues in cities and countryside. 

He lives in the hundreds of mass organizations on every continent he guided in the International League of People’s Struggle. He will live forever in an independent, socialist Philippines in a free and socialist world.

Long live the spirit and legacy of Comrade Jose Maria Sison!

Long live the Communist Party of the Philippines!

Long Live the National Democratic Front of the Philippines!

Long live the New People’s Army!

Long live international solidarity!

Workers and oppressed people of the world unite!

Los Angeles: Harriet Tubman Center for Social Justice founder John Parker addressed shoppers and passers-by Dec. 18 in the first of a planned series of street meetings about the national wave of price-gouging by oil companies, grocery chains and other corporate thieves. 

The Harriet Tubman Center joins activists from Baltimore’s People’s Power Assembly in calling for President Joe Biden to issue an executive order to roll back prices. Biden has been quick to spend some $70 billion in weapons and other aid for the U.S. proxy war in Ukraine this year – but millions of people here at home need relief. 

The failure by the White House to do anything about price hikes is making the holidays particularly hard for workers across the U.S.

Activists in San Diego are also planning street meetings.

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The Socialist Unity Party condemns the coup d’etat orchestrated on Dec. 7, 2022, by the ruling elites of Peru with the backing of the U.S.-dominated Organization of American States (OAS) and the U.S. State Department. On that date, President Pedro Castillo Terrones was ousted, jailed and replaced by Dina Boluarte.  

President Castillo, a rural school teacher and leftist strike leader, was clearly sabotaged and undermined by the Peruvian oligarchy, the far-right parties in Peru’s Congress, and the U.S.  

We demand an immediate end to the brutal violence against the people’s movement of Peru, which is demanding the release and return of President Castillo and the establishment of a constituent assembly to restructure the economy in favor of the workers, peasants, Indigenous people and poor. The right-wing neoliberal Alberto Fujimori imposed the current constitution on the Peruvian people in 1993. 

As of Dec.18, 25 people have been killed and hundreds injured by the military and police, who are attempting to stop the massive protests that erupted after the coup.

The Socialist Unity Party demands respect for the self-determination and sovereignty of the people of Peru and an end to the violence by the authorities of the Boluarte regime.  

End covert and overt intervention by U.S. imperialism! Defend the genuine democratic rights of the poor, working class and Indigenous peoples of Peru! Hands off President Pedro Castillo!