Address to:
Dr. Blade Nzimande
General Secretary
South African Communist Party
The International Action Center's Labor Community Section in the United States wholeheartedly endorses the joint statement of COSATU, the SACP and SANCO concerning the upcoming World Conference Against Racism. We express our unconditional support for your Aug. 16 protest at the U.S. embassy in Pretoria.
Your joint activity will serve as a beacon of truth for all those in the world who are fighting U.S. government-backed injustice, from the brave Palestinian youth battling Israeli apartheid to people of color in the United States resisting racist oppression that continues to this day.
The vast wealth of the Wall Street bankers and corporate giants who stand behind the plans of Bush regime, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization is rooted in the genocide of the transatlantic slave trade and other horrific crimes against the people of Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean and their descendants in the United States. They continue to profit from both racist oppression inside the United States and from the neocolonial looting of the majority of the world's nations by Western financial institutions. They also stand behind the brutality of the racist Israeli state. Yes! They owe reparations!
The legacy of slavery lives on in the United States today in the mass incarceration of people of color behind the walls of the slave-labor prison industrial complex and the racist application of the death penalty. The racist U.S. establishment is now trying to execute imprisoned political activist Mumia Abu-Jamal, an award-winning radio journalist falsely charged and unfairly convicted of murder because he dared to expose police corruption and brutality. Mumia will be in court in Philadelphia Aug. 17. He needs the world's solidarity.
The arrogance of Corporate America is being challenged by emerging movements of youth and workers from Seattle to Genoa to Papua New Guinea who have braved jails, tear gas and bullets to say no to its "globalization" dreams.
Your resistance to the bully threat of the Bush regime that it will not participate in the forthcoming UN World Against Racism and Xenophobia unless it controls the agenda is a giant step forward in the battle for global economic, political and social justice. Those who produce the world's goods and services by their collective labor power must ultimately become the collective owners of the wealth they create.
The International Action Center and the International Concerned Friends and Family of Mumia Abu-Jamal will be sending delegations to take part in the upcoming conferences in Durban. We look forward to meeting you there.
Johnnie Stevens
International Action Center
International Action Center
39 West 14th St.
Suite 206, New York, NY 10011
(212) 633-6646
F: (212) 633-2889
Email: iacenter@iacenter.org
Web page: http://www.iacenter.org