Many struggles linked at L.A. forum
By
Page Getz
Scott Scheffer
Los Angeles
Published Feb 13, 2005 4:39 PM
The
right of the people to determine their own destinies, from South Central L.A. to
Iraq and Korea, was the common theme at an International Action Center forum
held here on Feb. 5. Featured spea ker Ramsey Clark, a former U.S. attorney
general, was joined by solidarity activists representing struggles from around
the world in a program that attracted about 250 people to Southwes tern
University School of Law. John Parker, West Coast Coordinator of the
International Action Center, chaired the meeting.
The audience cheered for
Palestine, Korea, Haiti, Iraq--and for Pedro Baez. Baez is a representative of
the Committee to Save King/Drew Hospital. King/Drew, located in the African
American community of Watts, is being eyed for closure, and a vigorous
counter-struggle is being waged to save it.
Ramsey Clark supports self-determination, from Watts to Iraq.
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Clark mentioned being part of
a task force that went to Los Angeles in response to the 1965 Watts rebellion,
charged with the responsibility of "making sure that South Central had a
first-rate hospital. That the hospital would close is a powerful symbol of how
this country is going in the wrong direction."
Clark said U.S.
militarism by far exceeds that of any other country, and that "We don't just
have to end the war in Iraq, but end U.S. wars altogether." On the U.S. role in
Iraq, Clark said that in Falluja, the U.S. carried out the "21st-century version
of Guernica, ... the pre-World War II symbol of superior military technology
destroying a people village by village." He compared the recent Iraq election to
elections forced on the progressive government of Angola in the 1970s, and the
election the U.S. funded and organized to defeat the Sandinistas in
Nicaragua.
Zahi Damuni, founder of Al-Awda, Palestine Right to Return
Coalition, received a standing ovation and chants of "Free, Free Palestine,"
after his talk. Of Palestine he said, "It is not enough to have an election.
That's not democracy by any definition. Show me one country in the world that
has borders it doesn't control, that has air space it doesn't control, that has
water it doesn't control, or a banking system, telephone lines it doesn't
control. Tell me one country in the world that you call sovereign that is like
this." Damuni linked the struggle of the Pales tinian people with the struggle
of working and poor people in the U.S. "Imagine how many schools and hospitals
could be built and staffed with the money that the U.S. sends to fund the
Israeli war against Palestine." Damuni also announ ced the national Al-Awda
conference to be held in Los Angeles on April 15-17, 2005.
Hyonchong Kim
of One Korea L.A. Forum traced U.S. intervention in her country back to 1866,
when the armed merchant ship General Sherman sailed up the Daedong River. The
Bush administration and U.S. media, however, try to portray the North Korean
leadership as a military aggressor, a human rights abuser, and a nuclear threat
to the world.
Kim read a quote touching on the most important aspect of
the United States' posture toward North Korea: "... imperialist countries have
always used human rights as an issue to justify intervention of other countries
and to take away the right to self-determination from its people. Human rights
cannot be separated from the issue of independence and self-determination and
the countries dominated by foreign powers cannot guarantee human rights." The
quote was from North Korean Pre sident Kim Jong Il.
Noluthando Williams of
the Coalition in Solidarity with Haiti explained how that country, once France's
richest colony, was stripped of its resources and suffered two centuries of
brutal colonization. Williams pointed out that the Haitian people, whose 1804
revolution established the first Black republic, don't want sympathy or
pity--they want the kind of solidarity that will help them rebuild a sovereign
Haiti and get the U.S. off their back.
Harold Green of the West Papua
Action Network denounced behind-the-scenes U.S. support for the Armed Forces of
Indo nesia and efforts by the State Department to lift the ban on U.S. training
of the Indonesian military. Indonesia is trying to stamp out the movement for
West Papuan independence.
Julia La Riva, whose photographs often appear
in Workers World, appealed for support of the Cuban Five, who are serving
sentences in U.S. jails for trying to defend their country from U.S.-sponsored
terrorism.
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