The Black Radical Congress Opposes the Bombing of Yugoslavia.

International Committee of the Black Radical Congress, National Council of the Black Radical Congress

The following statement was adopted by the National Council of the Black Radical Congress (BRC) on April 18, 1999. [Originally drafted by the International Committee of the BRC].

For African Americans, the Latino community and other peoples of color in the USA the moral claims of the US in its intervention in Yugoslavia ring hollow. The mass opposition of peoples of color in the USA to police killings, mass imprisonment of youth and the militarization of the streets and communities ensures that the opposition to militarism is deep in the oppressed communities in the USA. The shooting of Amadou Diallo in New York City and the killing of Tyisha Miller in California brought home to the poor the coast to coast violence against blacks and poor people. This police violence is supported by the campaign against crime since black and brown peoples are supposed to be by nature criminals. Low intensity warfare that had been experimented in Nicaragua and El Salvador is now practiced on a daily basis in the poor communities by SWAT teams. The most overt expression of this militarization of the communities is the plan by the army to carry out exercises in the streets of Oakland, California. The ex ercises are part of the long-range plan of the Pentagon to fight urban guerrilla warfare in the USA. This leads us to the conclusion that a crucial way to oppose this war is to intensify the opposition to police brutality and militarism.

NATO was created as a military alliance between the capitalist powers of Europe, the USA and Canada. The justification for the existence of NATO ended in 1991 at the end of the cold war. In the past three months, the leaders of the US have declared that what is at stake is the "credibility of NATO." This is indeed the case since this military campaign should provide the catalyst for a worldwide campaign against aggressive military formations such as NATO. It is for this reason that one of the fundamental demands of the Black Radical Congress is for the dismantling of NATO. The bombing of Yugoslavia exposes the fact that organizations such as NATO will carry out illegal acts. The aggression in the Balkans undermines international law, undermines the United Nations as an organization dedicated to world peace and brings to the fore the need for alternatives to the present monopoly over force enjoyed by the USA. Since African Americans also feel the brunt of this force in the form of police violence, it devolves to organizations such as the BRC to lead the opposition to the military campaign of NATO.

In a major sense the war in the Balkans calls on the BRC to bring forth the...