VOICES OF RESISTANCE
JENNIFER WAGER
IFCO/Pastors for Peace
"When I look around this room and see all of you, I can feel
the energy and the spirit that's been building and building
against the Bush war drive. We're here to continue building
this movement."
CHUCK KAUFMAN
Nicaragua Network
"Why weren't we paralyzed like so many others in the peace
movement? Because the groups that formed ANSWER have a clear
understanding of the U.S. imperialist objectives, a clear
understanding of the nature of corporate globalization, a clear
understanding of what the right of self-determination means to
the oppressed peoples of the world."
LARRY HOLMES
International Action Center
"We need to build a movement that is based on solidarity
with the people of the world who are struggling against
national oppression and imperialism, both outside the borders
of the U.S. and inside. We don't want a self-absorbed, timid,
modest, conservative and meek movement. We want a radical
movement. We want a movement that reaches out to the oppressed,
the poor and the working people."
ELIAS RASHMAWI
Free Palestine Alliance
"There is a Palestine that has nothing to do with the
imperial designs of anything. It has to do with hopes and
fears; with the olive trees and the sky and the sea. It has to
do with how we plant our vegetables and then eat them. It has
to do with how we die and get buried. It is that Palestine. It
is that South Africa. It is that El Salvador. It is that U.S.
It is our inner cities. It is your family. It is mine. That is
what we call Palestine."
RICHARD BECKER
International Action Center
"The Palestinian people have shown through their heroic and
determined struggle over more than half a century that they
will not be defeated. At the same time, the Palestinians by
themselves cannot triumph over the combined power of the U.S.
and Israeli states. Their struggle needs the solidarity of
people from all over the world, and most importantly from here
inside the U.S. That is what makes the Commission of Inquiry on
U.S.-backed Israeli Crimes of Occupation such an important
initiative."
MARA VERHEYDEN-HILLIARD Partnership
for Civil Justice
"We've fought the FBI in the past and won. The reason they
are unsuccessful is because of our ability to mobilize."
YOOMI JEONG
Korea Truth Commission
"In Bush's 'axis of evil' speech, North Korea, along with
Iran and Iraq were accused of supporting terrorism and
manufacturing weapons of mass destruction. Such a statement
comes from the president of a country that is the largest
manufacturer and exporter of weapons of mass destruction, and
one that supported the terrorist regime of the Taliban for
years with millions of dollars."
TERESA GUTIERREZ
Committee to Stop U.S. War in Colombia
"You don't have to be a guerrilla in the jungles of Colombia
to earn the ire of Washington. You can be a democratically
elected president in Venezuela or an activist for peace in
Chicago."
LARRY ADAMS
New York City Labor Against the War
"NYCLAW asserts the view that here in the belly of the
beast--where we're the so-called victims of terrorism--there is
opposition to the immediate reaction of our ruling class; that,
like you, we see 9/11 as a pretext to unfold an overall global
agenda of pillage and plunder of the world that's particularly
aimed at destroying the national liberation movements of
oppressed peoples and to promote an agenda of reaction at
home."
RANDA JAMAL
Al-Awda NY-NJ and the Free Palestine Alliance
"The situation in Palestine is very critical and everybody
needs to take part in it. It's a universal issue."
CARL MESSINEO
Partnership for Civil Justice
"While we know that it's Israeli fingers that are pulling
the triggers, what they're aiming [at Palestinians] are
U.S.-made and U.S.-paid-for weapons and, under international
human rights law, that places an equal amount of culpability on
the steps of the U.S. just as well as that of the Israeli
government."
DR. HILLEL COHEN
epidemiologist
"What became apparent is that, while the crisis of immediate
epidemic in Palestine under Israeli reoccupation was ostensibly
averted, there is another, much deeper crisis. And perhaps
crisis is not the best word because it's a continuous
degradation. A continuous attack on the health standards of the
people."
SARA FLOUNDERS
International Action Center
"The one thing that first impresses you about the strength
and the capacity of the Palestinian movement is that you can
really see and feel the ability of a political mobilization of
the entire people. And a political consciousness that truly is
a more powerful weapon than the overwhelming force of the
Israeli military machine."
BRENDA STOKELY
AFSCME District Council 1707
"I live in a community where there's a lot of Arab brothers
and sisters and I was concerned after 9/11 about finding that
some of those people had been dragged off in the dead of night
and then jailed without any due process. I was concerned that
Latino, Asian and African American and other brothers and
sisters were going to be whipped off to go and fight someplace
else. When I went to our board, which is made up of all people
of color, the majority women, I thought I was going to have to
struggle to convince them. I didn't have to raise any struggle.
They immediately said, my brother, my husband, my uncle, my
cousin is not going over to fight that war as long as there is
racism and exploitation here in this country."
ARTURO GARCIA
Bayan International-USA
"When the United States invaded the Philippines in 1898 and
occupied Manila and initiated a war against the Filipino
people, they said the war will be over in one week. But the war
lasted for 16 years. The U.S. sent 126,000 troops and killed
more than a million Filipinos. But our struggle went on. And
now they are repeating history once again."
GLORIA LA RIVA
Committee to Free the Five Cuban Political Prisoners Held in
the U.S.
"Nothing exposes the hypocrisy of Bush's so-called war
against terrorism so much as what the U.S. government has done,
especially in recent years, against Cuba with its special
groups of terrorists in Miami, which the CIA and FBI have fed,
nurtured, trained and armed for 43 years."
WILLIAMS CAMACARO
Centro Civico Venezuela
"The U.S. State Department could not hide its joy to the
coup of April 11. In the first coup, the countries that
participated were the United States, Colombia, Spain and the
Israeli secret services. And all the same elements are still
operating and co-operating against the democracy in
Venezuela."
LESLIE FEINBERG
author and lesbian/gay/bi/trans activist
"Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are an
integral part of every human society. So the left wing of our
movement understands the truth that the union movement was
built on, that an injury to one is an injury to all. ... As a
gay, secular Jewish revolutionary, I greet my Muslim sisters
and brothers here today as an ally. I fight shoulder to
shoulder with you against the state terrorism that is emanating
from the White House, the Pentagon, and the Justice Department.
Don't let the Zionists fool you when they say they speak for
all Jewish people. I fight for Palestinian freedom."
MAHMOUD AHMAD
Free Palestine Alliance
"My parents and I have yet to meet the rest our family in
Palestine, like so many other millions of Palestinians around
the world. Like so many other millions of Palestinians around
the world we continue to live our lives as Palestinians, living
in the Diaspora, waiting to execute our inalienable,
un-negotiable right to return to live in a democratic, secular
Palestine."
--Compiled by Gery Armsby
Reprinted from the June 13, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Subscribe wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net
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