Milwaukee, WI – On the evening of December 10, more than 40 people packed into the community room at Zao MKE Church to listen to a lineup of speakers commemorating the 64th International Human Rights Day. A highlighted speaker was Sarah Wunderlich of the Oneida Nation who joined the program to talk about the current Supreme Court case trying to undermine the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), including some history about the system of boarding schools, the effects this still has on the present, and how these things relate to the broader struggle for indigenous rights.

“General Richard Pratt coined the phrase, ‘Kill the Indian, save the man,’ you know, ‘take their children away.’ That’s our future. As Oneida people, as Haudenosaunee people, we don’t just make decisions for ourselves or for our children. We make decisions for the seventh generation,” Wunderlich said. “They tried to take that from us, and they were successful to some extent, but not completely because we’re still here.”

Wunderlich continued, “After boarding schools ended, other things took their place. The next thing they start doing is sterilizing our women without them knowing it. Then, when what was happening came to light, they just started taking our children. Social workers, ISC, they would come in and say, ‘You’re poor, you’re unfit,’ ‘You live on the reservation, you’re unfit.’ Up to 30% of our kids were lost to the foster system. It’s all under the same system – ‘Kill the Indian to save the man.’ You take our language away, you take our families away, you take away our connection to Mother Earth.”

“If there came to be an enrolled indigenous child that needed to be adopted, ICWA made it so that that child would be kept within the same nation, or if no one could be found, at least with other indigenous people,” said Wunderlich. “Gibson Dunn are the attorneys for Chevron, Walmart. What is their interest with a custody case like with the Brackeens? That’s been the big question. Now they’re saying ICWA is unjust, that ICWA is racist against white people. So they wanna do away with it, that it shouldn’t be decided at the federal level but by the states. If you start looking at ICWA and some of its foundational pieces, it touches on fundamental issues of sovereignty. It’s not just about Indian babies, it's about sovereignty and our right to self govern.”

Wunderlich went on, “ICWA is personal for me. I have my boy here, and my baby at home, but they’re my sister’s kids. I have them because of ICWA. They’re not living with strangers, they’re not living in a strange town; they’re at home in their community, right where they belong. So it’s not just my sovereignty; it’s my children. My kids go to tribal school, they participate in tribal ceremonies, they learn their language, but someone’s gonna come in and try to take that away from them because they thought they were treated unjustly. They’re going to try to talk to indigenous people about being treated unjustly.”

Patricia Fish of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization told the crowd, “Everyday, Americans battle police brutality, the oppression of indigenous peoples, immigrants are demonized if they aren’t white, hate crimes against the LGBTQ community happen on a daily basis, the U.S. has taken away a person’s right to bodily autonomy and the U.S. has some of the weakest labor protections for its workers. I could go on and on about the human rights violations that occur in the U.S., but that won’t solve anything.”

Fish also stated, “All of us here know that the enemy is capitalism. Capitalism doesn’t care about people, it cares about profit and nothing is more profitable than oppressing people. What we need to do is to organize, to stand up and to fight back!”

The program wound up with the presentation of the very first Lucille Berrien Humanitarian Award, named in honor of one of Milwaukee’s most dedicated community organizers. Brian Verdin, another long-time Milwaukee organizer in the movements for peace and justice and also longtime associate of Berrien herself, was the inaugural recipient.

Other organizations present that put forward speakers included the Milwaukee Anti-war Committee, Reproductive Justice Action – Milwaukee, the Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, Students for a Democratic Society at UW-Milwaukee, Veterans for Peace, and the Wisconsin Coalition to Normalize Relations with Cuba. Sponsor organizations included Peace Action of Wisconsin, Assange Defense MKE, Jewish Voice for Peace, Never Again MKE, and Students for Justice in Palestine at UW-Milwaukee.

#MilwaukeeWI #IndigenousPeoples #InternationalHumanRightsDay #IndianChildWelfareAct

We strongly deplore the simultaneous raids of residences and the consecutive arrests of trade union organizers, Dennise Velasco of Defend Jobs Philippines, Romina Astudillo, Deputy Secretary-General of Kilusang Mayo Uno-Metro Manila, Mark Ryan Cruz, Regional Executive Committee of KMU-Metro Manila, Jaymie Gregorio Jr. of KMU-Metro Manila, Joel Demate of Solidarity of Labor Rights and Welfare (SOLAR), Rodrigo Esparago of Sandigang Manggagawa sa Quezon City (SMQC) and journalist Lady Ann Salem, Communication officer of the International Association of Women in Radio and Television, and editor for online news site Manila Today. Astudillo and Cruz were recently elected as officers of KMU Metro Manila Chapter in its Regional Congress held last November 29.

The raids happened dawn of December 10, International Human Rights Day, which allegedly generated an armory of high-powered rifles and explosives in each of the residences searched. Velasco, Esparago, Astudillo, Cruz, Demate, Gregoria Jr and Salem may be facing obviously manufactured charges of illegal possession of firearms and explosives on this account –the same criminal charges filed against trade union activists who were arrested before them. Just a few days before Human Rights Day, Jose Bernardino of Workers Alliance in Region III (WAR III-KMU), an organizer of workers in industrial zones and jeepney drivers, and former President of the Young Christian Workers, was also arrested on the same made up criminal charges. With the Anti-Terror Law in effect, it has been an open season for arrests of activists, and it will not come as a surprise that these trade union organizers will be labelled as communist-terrorists.

This is yet another blow to the trade union movement in the Philippines. Trade union activists are being criminalized, illegally arrested and detained, as the government’s way of preventing them from organizing workers into unions and associations and depriving them their freedom of thought and expression as translated into their activities among the workers. The intensified crackdown is precisely aimed at stifling dissent and organized action among the people. Killings among activists and rights defenders, as a way of instilling fear and silencing the people, have not ceased.

We call on the Duterte government to immediately release the HRD7 workers and journalist, drop the trumped-up charges against them, and stop this detestable practice of filing manufactured criminal charges against unionists and activists.

We also call on international bodies – the UN Human Rights Council and the International Labor Organization (ILO) – to consider as an emergency the deteriorating human rights condition in the Philippines and employ all official and diplomatic venues available, including sending their missions to investigate human rights and trade union repression in the country and help reverse the situation.

We likewise call on trade unions and freedom-loving people all over the world to continue the fight for trade union and human rights in the Philippines. We shall hold to account all those responsible in these brazen human rights violations. Together we shall continue our struggle for justice, for our rights and freedoms.

#Philippines #Asia #PeoplesStruggles #KMU #InternationalHumanRightsDay #Duterte

Minneapolis, MN – Over 150 people marched on International Human Rights day, Dec. 10, in south Minneapolis demanding an end to Trump’s wars and his administration’s attacks on immigrants. The Anti-War Committee and the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee co-sponsored the community march, which started at Powderhorn Park.

Marchers took over half of Lake Street, one of the busiest streets in Minneapolis, and marched past its immigrant-owned businesses chanting “No ban, no wall, sanctuary for all!” The Unlawful Assembly band brought up the rear of the march.

After the march there was a closing rally in the Powderhorn Park building. The program began with a performance by the Calliope Women’s Chorus.

Christine Hauschildt, from Anti-War Committee, spoke to the crowd, “The U.S.’s foreign policy and immigration policy are interwoven, creating a racist, xenophobic system where the same people that the U.S. is displacing with war are the people banned from entering the country. The Muslim ban is now in full effect. This Muslim ban – which the current administration has insisted is a ban to protect U.S. citizens – is nothing more than an attack on and stigmatization of Muslim people around the world.”

Hauschildt continued “The U.S.’s endless wars are an assault on human rights. These wars are often justified by ‘human rights abuses’ in other countries, when in fact the U.S. is the largest violator of human rights by being the largest perpetrators of wars and occupations. The endless wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria traumatize, displace and kill human beings every day. After such wars, the countries we claim to have ‘liberated’ never end up in a better position than before U.S.’s unwelcome military intervention.”

She concluded, “Human rights, and any real social change, can only be won by people’s movements. As an anti-war movement in the U.S., we must build an anti-racist, peace and justice movement that stands in solidarity with the peoples of the world, that sees that our liberation is linked to the liberation of others.”

William Martinez, from the MN Immigrant Rights Action Committee (MIRAc) also addressed the closing rally, saying, “The United States and its corporations have invaded, killed and raped the people of countries from South and Central America to the Middle East, causing a crisis of millions of migrants and refugees trying to come to the U.S. The Muslim ban, the criminalization of immigrants in the U.S., the murder of Blacks and natives at the hands of the police, are all violations of human rights, but they are not new. We must continue to fight these attacks on our communities and for our right to survive. On a cold day like today, it is the heart of the community that keeps us warm and gives us the power to take to the streets. Immigrant rights matter! Black rights matter! Native rights matter! Women's rights matter! LGBTQ rights matter! Trans rights matter! Homeless rights matter! Human rights matter!”

Sabry Wazwaz, a member of the Anti-War Committee and an outspoken Palestinian American activist, was the concluding speaker, “The state of Israel is important to the U.S. because it is a military base for them in the middle of the Middle East. And it keeps everything in the Middle East in chaos. The U.S. uses this chaos to control the resources of the region – especially the oil. Support for Israel is the one thing that Democrats and Republicans agree on.”

Wazwaz called out the U.S. for giving Israel $3.1 billion and for President Trump’s decision to call Jerusalem the capital of Israel. Wazwaz called for the U.S. to spend that money instead rebuilding inner city schools and the plumbing in Flint, Michigan.

Other speakers included JR Babick from Native Lives Matter, Daphne Brown from the Twin Cities Justice for Jamar Coalition, Gerardo Cajamarca, an SEIU organizer and Colombian trade unionist, and Maddy Henteges, a member of the Calliope Women’s Chorus.

The Anti-War Committee announced that their next action will be on Jan. 20, the one-year anniversary of Donald Trump’s inauguration as president, to resist his racist, sexist, xenophobic and pro-war agenda.

#MinneapolisMN #AntiwarMovement #ImmigrantRights #PeoplesStruggles #AntiWarCommittee #MinnesotaImmigrantRightsActionCommittee #InternationalHumanRightsDay

Minneapolis, MN – The Twin Cities-based Anti-War Committee marked the upcoming International Human Rights Day on Dec. 6 with a community march to highlight the U.S. government’s abysmal human rights record. Chants and speakers addressed the recent grand jury decisions in Ferguson and New York, the U.S. role in funding war and destruction abroad and the consequences of these policies here at home on social spending. Protesters rallied at Bryant Square Park, marched on Lake Street and then had a concluding rally at Karmel West.

Meredith Aby-Keirstead, an organizer with the Anti-War Committee, explained the importance of this year’s rally, “It’s important to talk about the U.S.’s horrible human rights record every year, but this year we have seen thousands of people in Minnesota take to the streets demanding an end to U.S.-sponsored human rights abuses in Palestine and to demand an end to police murders of African Americans in the U.S. There is a relationship between the warfare the U.S. sponsors abroad and what is happening in communities of color throughout this country and people want to take to the streets to demand social justice and real change.”

Laye Kwamina, a Minneapolis Southwest High School student, read an original poem which moved audience members to tears about the realities for African American men in the U.S. Kwamina is one of the organizers for the Dec. 8 student rally at the downtown Minneapolis Library against police brutality and he encouraged participants to continue protesting against police brutality.

Karmel Sabri, a Palestinian American activist with the Anti-War Committee explained at the closing rally how U.S. tax dollars sponsor Israeli military human rights abuses.

Jim Dimock, an anti-war activist and professor at Minnesota State University Mankato, spoke about human rights conditions in Colombia and the disastrous role that U.S. economic and military aid play in fanning the flames of Colombia’s civil war. The Anti-War Committee will be holding a more in-depth report-back with Dimock in January.

Mary Beaudoin, editor of the Women Against Military Madness newsletter, attended the recent trial of Rasmea Odeh and spoke out against the countless injustices visited on Odeh in her trial. Beaudoin called on the protesters to continue to demand #justice4Rasmea.

The protest was organized by the Minnesota Anti-War Committee and was endorsed by the Coalition for Palestinian Rights, the MN Immigrant Rights Action Coalition, the MN Peace Action Coalition, U of M Students for a Democratic Society, U of M Students for Justice in Palestine, Women Against Military Madness and the Welfare Rights Committee.

#MinneapolisMN #PoliceBrutality #TwinCitiesAntiWarCommittee #EricGarner #Ferguson #InternationalHumanRightsDay