Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire
  • omnibus

‘Zone of Peace’ Campaign Launched In 3 Countries to Build ‘People(s)-Centered Movement’ in the Americas
Julie Varughese
12 Apr 2023
‘Zone of Peace’ Campaign Launched In 3 Countries to Build ‘People(s)-Centered Movement’ in the Americas
MOLEGHAF, a grassroots anti-imperialist organization in Haiti, held a day of activities on April 4 in the capital of Port-au-Prince, as part of a multi-country launch of the Black Alliance for Peace’s Zone of Peace campaign. (Photo: MOLEGHAF)

The Zone of Peace campaign is a "people(s) centered" grassroots effort to end imperialist domination throughout the Americas.

Originally published in Towards Freedom.

The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP), along with partner organizations, held events April 4 in three countries across the Americas to launch an effort to activate popular movements in the region in support of a call for a “Zone of Peace.”

The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) declared the Americas region a “Zone of Peace” in 2014. This came in response to centuries of oppression at the hands of Europe and, later, the United States. U.S. policy has related to Latin America and the Caribbean as the United States’ “backyard” ever since the Monroe Doctrine was announced in 1823.

“The U.S. declared the European states must stay out of the hemisphere, which meant the United States was claiming the entire region as its own,” said Margaret Kimberley, a BAP Coordinating Committee member, who spoke at a BAP press conference held April 4 in Washington, D.C. She added CELAC exists to counter the Organization of American States (OAS), a multilateral organization based in Washington, D.C., and known for backing U.S. policies in Latin America and the Caribbean.

After years of struggle and U.S. sanctions that have been linked to the deaths of 40,000 people in 2018, socialist-led Venezuela completed its withdrawal from the OAS in 2020. Meanwhile, another socialist country, Nicaragua, announced it was exiting in 2021.

“Biden says it is the ‘front yard’ in a clumsy attempt to be somewhat progressive,” Ajamu Baraka, chairperson of BAP’s Coordinating Committee, told Jacqueline Luqman and Sean Blackmon on the day after the launch, April 5, on “By Any Means Necessary,” an afternoon talk show on Radio Sputnik.

Launch events were held in Port-au-Prince, Haiti; Washington, D.C., USA; and in Havana, Cuba, where the call for a Zone of Peace was initially made in 2014. The event in Port-au-Prince involved eight hours of activities, ranging from performances, talks, exchanges, and graffiti and sign-making.

The launch took place on BAP’s 6th anniversary, which is the 55th anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Exactly one year prior to his murder, King had publicly denounced the U.S. war on Vietnam, as well as what he identified as the three pillars of U.S. society: Materialism, militarism and racism.

“This campaign will be informed by the Black Radical Peace Tradition,” reads BAP’s press release. “With its focus on the structures and interests that generate war and state violence—colonialism, patriarchy, capitalism and all forms of imperialism—the fight for a Zone of Peace is an attempt to expel all of these nefarious forces from our region.”

BAP describes the reason behind the use of “Our Americas” on its website:

Nuestra América is a term revolutionary forces in the Americas have used to assert themselves against colonialism and imperialism by claiming one contiguous land mass stretching from Canada to Chile for all of the historically oppressed peoples of the region. BAP has translated the singular Nuestra América (Our America) into the plural “Our Americas” to help bridge the gap between the U.S. usage, “America,” that describes the United States as the only “America” and the concept put forth by revolutionary forces.

However, Baraka distinguished the campaign’s target.

“We’re not talking about the people of the U.S.,” he told “By Any Means Necessary.” “We’re talking about this settler-colonial state. We know [the United States] cannot exist as a settler-colonial state if it gave up its militarism.”

BAP also issued six “initial core demands”:

  1. Dismantle SOUTHCOM. Shut down the 76 U.S. military bases in the region
  2. End U.S./NATO military exercises. Close foreign military bases, installations and enclaves, as well as withdraw foreign occupation troops
  3. Disband U.S.-sponsored state terrorist training facilities. Shutter the “Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation” (WHINSEC)—formerly the School of the Americas—in Fort Benning, Georgia, United States, and terminate U.S.—as well as foreign—training of police forces
  4. Oppose military intervention into Haiti. Support the people(s)-centered movement for democracy and self-determination
  5. Return Guantánamo to Cuba. The United States must give back to the Cuban people and their government the territory it illegally occupies
  6. Sanctions are war. End illegal sanctions and blockades of regional states, including all economic warfare and lawfare, and recognize their sovereignty

Yet, BAP is clear the method for going about this work must be different than what has emerged from predominantly-white organizations based in the United States.

“This work must be de-colonial, anti-imperialist, advance a People(s)-Centered Human Rights (PCHRs) framework, and be conducted across at least five languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese, French and Haitian Creole,” BAP states on its website.

Jemima Pierre, co-coordinator of BAP’s Haiti/Americas Team, said at the press conference that the United States uses multi-lateral organizations like the OAS to oppress the peoples of the Americas. And, so, of the initial approximately 25 organizations that had signed onto the campaign before it had been launched, more than half are based outside the United States and Canada. Some of the partner organizations that will help coordinate the effort include:

  • MOLEGHAF (Haiti)
  • REDH (Network In Defense of Humanity) (Cuba)
  • Caribbean Organisation for People’s Empowerment
  • African People’s Socialist Party (Bahamas, Jamaica, United States)
  • Proceso de Comunidades Negras (PCN) (Colombia)
  • Asociación de Trabajadores del Campo (Nicaragua)

“Our homelands are not playgrounds for the U.S. to launch its wars of aggression,” said Nina Macapinlac, secretary general of BAYAN USA, an anti-imperialist alliance of 20 organizations dedicated to the liberation of the Philippines. Macapinlac spoke at the Washington, D.C., press conference as a member organization representative of the United National Antiwar Coalition, one of the organizations that BAP has partnered with for the Zone of Peace campaign.

BAP invites organizations and individuals to endorse the Zone of Peace campaign and activate the popular movement element in what they describe as a “multi-phase campaign that aims to build a united-front opposition to liberate our Americas from the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination.” A U.S./NATO Out of the Americas Network will be launched as the mass-based structure of this campaign.

Julie Varughese is editor of Toward Freedom.

zone of peace
Black Alliance For Peace
People Centered Human Rights

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles. Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


Related Stories

Black Alliance For Peace
From George Floyd Back to the Structural Violence of Capitalism
28 May 2025
With the ritualistic murder of George Floyd by the occupation forces referred to as the police that roam the streets and barrios of the Black a
​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
Malcolm X and Human Rights in the Time of Trumpism: Transcending the Masters Tools
21 May 2025
This piece was originally published in Black Agenda Report i
​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
Malcolm X Presente!
19 February 2025
Every year, people around the world honor Malcolm X. Though he was taken from us prematurely, his memory and impact remain.
Austin Cole
Demanding More in the Struggle for Collective Liberation – A Conversation with Nicholas Richard Thompson, Part II
30 October 2024
As part of his research on grassroots economic projects toward Black Liberation, Austin Cole spoke with Nicholas Richard-Thompson about his com
Ajamu Baraka in Iran
​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist , Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
From the Phony Debate and Gaza to the Uhuru 3: The U.S./EU Commitment to Human Rights is and Has Always Been a Lie
18 September 2024
State repression increases as the so-called democracies continue in a state of crisis.
Ethiopian migrants
Black Alliance For Peace
From the Rivers to the Seas of the world, the Peoples’ of this Planet Must be Liberated from U.S. and European Domination If We Are to Survive
27 March 2024
The peoples of this world will never see true liberation and peace until we are free of the shackles of U.S.
Austin Cole
Roberto Sirvent , Austin Cole
Black Liberation and Anti-Imperialism: An Interview with Austin Cole
14 February 2024
Book Forum Editor, Roberto Sirvent, interviews Austin Cole about his community organizing work and political writing.
Black Alliance For Peace
On this Human Rights Day, Let Us Remember that the U.S. is the Greatest Violator of Human Rights in the World
13 December 2023
The U.S. routinely violates human rights domestically and internationally.
The State Repression of U.S. Settler Colonialism in The South: BAP ATLANTA STATEMENT
Black Alliance for Peace Atlanta City-Wide Alliance
The State Repression of U.S. Settler Colonialism in The South: BAP ATLANTA STATEMENT
25 January 2023
The plan for an Atlanta police training facility known as "Cop City" is the latest phase of state repression in that region. 
The ‘Collective West’ Declares War on the World
Black Alliance For Peace
The ‘Collective West’ Declares War on the World
09 November 2022
The U.S.

More Stories


  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Ukraine Terrorism and the Question of U.S. Involvement
    04 Jun 2025
    The U.S has been involved in every aspect of Ukraine’s military activity against Russia. The recent drone attacks and sabotage were likely committed with U.S. help. Of course, is possible that…
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    MEMOIR: The Making of a Rebel, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, 1980
    04 Jun 2025
    “We cannot write in foreign languages unspoken and unknown by peasants and workers in our communities and pretend that we are writing for…those peasants and workers.”
  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    The Struggle for a Somali Nation
    04 Jun 2025
    Despite shared language, culture, and religion, Somalis still struggle to become a cohesive nation.
  • Jon Jeter
    Pizza Goeth Before a Fall? Changes in Americans’ Eating Habits Foretell a Deep Recession
    04 Jun 2025
    Wages can't keep up with prices, debt is crushing workers, and racial capitalism keeps us divided over shrinking slices. This isn't just inflation—it's collapse.
  • Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
    Rising Temperatures and the Rising Need for a Black Radical Lens in the Climate Change Discourse.
    04 Jun 2025
    Liberal climate movements keep bargaining with capitalism, but the Black Radical Tradition knows survival requires its destruction. Environmentalism must adopt principles of abolition and anti-…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us