Many struggles linked at L.A. forum

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.

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.