Solidarity statement from BAYAN U.S.A. to Tribunal on Katrina and Rita

The U.S. Chapter of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan, or BAYAN USA, wishes to send its warmest and most militant greetings of solidarity to the organizers and participants of the International Tribunal on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in New Orleans this Aug. 29.

As a national alliance of over 12 Filipino organizations in the United States, we grieved and stood indignant along with the rest of the nation and the world as the Bush administration embarked on state terrorism and martial law tactics against the predominantly African-American communities devastated by both Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

We believe venues such as this historic tribunal are the muscles of the people’s movement in full flex when government and its social services have failed its people, and we support the broadening mass movement led by the most oppressed and disenfranchised from the region to demand accountability from the U.S. government for the devastation and forced impoverishment of their communities. We believe this will ultimately push for concrete change in a system [that] continuously fails the economically marginalized inside the world’s most powerful imperialist country.

Imperialism is still at the heart and root of the so-called natural disasters that struck the innocent people of the Gulf Coast. While the Bush administration is playing the natural disaster card, the truth is the devastation against the people could have been prevented. It was the Bush administration’s choice to protect and uphold multinational corporate interest over the safety of families that created the unsafe conditions that eventually struck the people of New Orleans. The government-approved development aggression that saw big oil companies occupying the wetlands surrounding the Mississippi delta weakened natural barriers needed to moderate flooding in the area.

While corporate greed destroyed the safety and security of the living areas of the Gulf Coast, the negligent state answered disaster by pounding even harder on the evacuees once flooding got underway, with militarization and absence of genuine relief efforts.

As an alliance of mainly Filipino immigrants and U.S.-born Filipinos, our own dislocation from our homeland is also brought about by similar factors like corporate interests over people’s interests. The Bush regime that turned rifles on the evacuees is the same Bush regime that allocates millions in U.S. tax dollars to Philippine soldiers that turn their rifles on the Filipino people back home, and sustains the most terroristic U.S. puppet regime our people have seen in years.

The state militarization of New Orleans parallels the undeclared martial law under de facto Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, a martial law that surpasses the state terrorism of the former U.S.-Marcos dictatorship and has claimed nearly 900 lives and 200 abductees since 2001.

The national struggle of the majority of our people for land under a feudal agricultural system in the Philippines parallels the struggle of the people of New Orleans for land that has been seized from them.

We unite with the objectives of the Tribunal and hope this creates a broader and expanded movement to further isolate the Bush regime for its crimes against humanity.

We especially congratulate the organizers—Peoples Hurricane Relief Fund, the Mississippi Disaster Relief Coalition, the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, and the U.S. Human Rights Network—for their lead initiative in building and strengthening a powerful and significant struggle from within the belly of the beast. Your struggle is our struggle.

Justice for the People of the Gulf Coast Now!
No to Undeclared Martial Law in the Philippines!
Long Live International Solidarity!
Down with U.S. Imperialism!