UNAC Action Plan 2015

United National Antiwar Coalition Action Plan adopted by UNAC Conference May 8-10, 2015

Against a background of seemingly endless U.S. wars abroad and growing domestic movements against racist police killings, low wages and devastating climate change, more than 400 activists gathered just outside New York City May 8-10 for a “Stop the Wars at Home and Abroad!” conference that ratified an Action Plan addressing both domestic and international issues.

Sponsored by the United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC), the conference, held at a hotel in Secaucus, New Jersey, brought together a wide range of activists, from those who primarily concentrate on international issues to mostly younger activists in the emerging movements such as Black Lives Matter, Fight for $15 and environmental change.

Conference delegates came from 29 states, as well as Canada, Britain, Germany and Ukraine. A number of now-U.S.-based activists represented struggles in their home countries of Colombia, Haiti, Honduras, Iran, Mexico, Palestine, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Syria and Venezuela also attended.

Solidarity messages were received from Cuba, Ireland, New Zealand and Russia.

A total of 116 organizations participated in the conference. There were more than 100 speakers, more than half of whom were people of color and women. There were six plenary sessions, 31 workshops and a Saturday night “Tribunal on the Militarization of the Police and Structural Racism.” —From a report by the UNAC 2015 Organizing Committee

Political Goals, Objectives and Mission

The United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) opposes all U.S. wars, whether they be in the form of direct military intervention with troops on the ground, privatized death squad wars, drone wars on every continent, sanctions and embargo wars, U.S.-backed military coups, “humanitarian interventions,” the U.S.-backed and-financed Israeli wars against the Palestinian people and the myriad of other modes of intervention and conquest that deny oppressed peoples the right to freedom and self-determination. We demand an end to it all: the war machine, the weapons of mass destruction, the trillions spent on advancing imperialist interests and the associated devastation perpetrated on poor and working people the world over. We demand: U.S. Hands Off and Out Now—from the Middle East to Africa to Latin America to Iran, Ukraine and Beyond. Bring All the Troops Home Now and Dissemble Weapons of War! Trillions for Human Needs—Not One Penny for War!

UNAC similarly opposes the ongoing and deepening wars against poor and working people at home, including the militarization of the police; the racist mass-incarceration criminal “justice” system; the war-profiteering military-industrial complex; the ever-privatized, for-profit and slave labor prison-industrial complex; the deepening racist attacks and mass deportation of immigrants; racist persecution of Muslim communities; vicious and virtually unpunished racist police murders of African-American, Latino and Native American peoples; massive ever-intensifying austerity—assaults on wages, massive cutbacks of social services, massive student debt, unending tuition hikes, deterioration and re-segregation of public education—union busting; the oppression, exploitation and brutality waged against women; the government-promoted homophobic attacks on the LGBT community; the fossil-fuel, war-induced global warming and associated looming climatic catastrophe; and the wholesale police-state-like surveillance measures that increasingly obliterate civil and democratic rights. The U.S. needs a national urban policy that promotes sustainability of human life, rather than the profits of finance capital.

The U.S. wars abroad and the wars at home are inseparable aspects of a society that requires the subordination of human needs to the private profit interests of the bailed-out and enriched (at public expense) banks, corporations and multibillionaire elite. We hail the emergence of new anti-racist and working-class forces that have demonstrated vibrant leadership capacities, from Black Lives Matter and the myriad of other anti-racist fighters to the ever-resurgent Palestinian community mobilizations against the Israeli slaughter of Palestinians to the recent International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 10 work stoppage in solidarity with their Black and Brown sisters and brothers who have been the prime victims of rampant police brutality and murder.

Our method of struggle looks to the broad mass of working people and their allies as the primary agency of social change. The history of all social movement victories is a history of the unification of the working masses and oppressed to advance their own needs and interests. UNAC strives to advance the unity of the antiwar and social justice movements in united, independent, inclusive and democratically planned mass actions to demonstrate the power of the working masses to achieve fundamental social and political change. We support a broad range of actions, including nonviolent direct action, lobbying and petitioning and we stand in solidarity with community resistance and rebellion against race and class oppression.

Actions initiated and endorsed by UNAC

UNAC initiated actions

October 4-10, 2015, National: UNAC will initiate and collaborate with all interested organizations and groups in organizing a week of united and broadly sponsored local and regional activities (rallies, marches, teach-ins, vigils, etc.) to advance the above goals and objectives during the week of October 4-10 and culminating on Saturday, October 10. This time period corresponds to the beginning of the now-14-year-old U.S. war against Afghanistan, which with the U.S. wars in Iraq, Libya and so many other countries have caused enormous suffering abroad while draining this country of the resources critically needed to address problems here at home. In this effort we welcome the emerging and critical layers of youthful anti-racist activists who have served to revitalize today’s social struggles and who will be planning campus and community-based actions in collaboration with UNAC.

UNAC tour to Cuba: UNAC will consider organizing a tour to Cuba to exchange ideas with Cuban and international antiwar and social justice activists.

UNAC National Tour: UNAC will explore possibilities of organizing a national tour of prominent antiwar and social justice leaders as we did with Malalai Joya in 2013.

Upcoming actions endorsed by UNAC

• July 25, Newark, New Jersey: Million People’s March Against Police Brutality, Racial Injustice and Economic Inequality. Sponsored by the People’s Organization for Progress. UNAC will endorse and support this mobilization. http://njpop.org/wordpress/?p=1896
• September, Richmond, Virginia: UNAC will support the local call for a national presence in Richmond to demand the reclamation and memorialization of sites central to the U.S. slave trade. Sponsored by the Sacred Ground Historical Reclamation Project of the Defenders for Freedom, Justice and Equality. http://www.sacredgroundproject.net Contact: Ana Edwards: [email protected]
• September, Cincinnati: UNAC supports the call for Justice for Palestinian-American community leader Rasmea Odeh. The appeal of her conviction will take place in Cincinnati in September. We join with the Committee to Stop FBI Repression, the U.S. Palestinian Community Network, and the Rasmea Defense Committee to pack the courthouse when the appeal occurs. www.stopfbi.net; www.uspcn.org
• October 4-10, National: UNAC will support the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space that has set the same week, October 4-10, for coordinated protests. (http://www.space4peace.org—Contact: Bruce Gagnon: [email protected])
• November-December, International: International actions are being planned to protest the expected and tragic failure of the U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP 21 or Conference of Parties) set for Paris, France, where no binding agreements are anticipated to stop Planet Earth from reaching a two-degree Centigrade mean temperature rise wherein the disastrous results will be irreversible. UNAC will support and help build U.S.-based actions on this critical question and will speak to the endless oil wars being fought over the very fuel whose continued use spells doom for humankind.

Ongoing actions endorsed by UNAC

• National: Support campaign to stop the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal that threaten jobs, wages, the environment and more in our communities and around the world. Tell Congress NO on Fast Track!
• National: UNAC supports fighting the war on workers by low wage workers fighting for $15 and a union and will help mobilize for the next Fight for $15 general strike and all efforts to win a livable wage, both domestically and internationally. UNAC realizes that a true livable wage would exceed $15 per hour.
• National: UNAC will continue its solidarity with Mumia Abu-Jamal in his struggle for freedom and for the immediate medical attention today required to remediate the prison medical neglect that has placed Mumia’s very life in immediate jeopardy. UNAC supports the work of organizations working to free all political prisoners in the United States.
• National: UNAC will support and participate in acts of resistance in immediate response to police murders and anniversaries of murders.
• National: UNAC acknowledges the role that media plays in political organizing and calls on all supporters to find ways to coordinate their activities to amplify the value of them and to make the media more useful to the efforts of the movements we support.
• National: Support actions calling for an end to the Cuba embargo blockade and to close the U.S. base in Guantanamo.