The National Lawyers Guild International Committee is an endorser of Black Alliance for Peace’s call for an international month of action against AFRICOM, the U.S. military command in Africa, along with many organizations. To learn more about the month of action, endorse the call and download social media materials, visit BAP at this link: https://blackallianceforpeace.com/africom2023

The call to action is below: 

We demand:

• The complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from Africa;

• The demilitarization of the African continent;

• The closure of U.S. bases throughout the world; and

• The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) oppose U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) and conduct hearings on AFRICOM’s impact on the African continent, with the full participation of members of U.S. and African civil society.

October 1, 2023 is the 15th anniversary of the launch of the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), a command structure with bases that are now in dozens of African nations. Yet, the existence of AFRICOM has escaped the awareness of not only the general public in the United States, but also of the world. When four U.S. soldiers were killed in the small African nation of Niger, even members of the U.S. Congress were unaware of the U.S. military’s presence in the country and the extent of the U.S. military presence throughout Africa.

The International Month of Action Against AFRICOM, launching October 1, 2023, aims to raise the public’s awareness about the U.S. military’s existence in Africa, and how the presence of U.S. forces exacerbates violence and instability throughout the continent.

The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) has taken up the task of educating the public on AFRICOM and the extensive basing networks in Africa and throughout the world. Our campaign on AFRICOM is an integral element of our general opposition to U.S. global militarization, with its offensive command structures, approximately 800 to 1,000 overseas bases, and the United States’ status as the number one arms merchant on the planet.

We are calling on our friends and allies around the world to join us in calling for the United States to respect the wishes of African people to de-militarize the African continent, so Africa can begin to be a “zone of peace.”

We say the brutality, violence and systematic degradation of Black life in the colonized zones of the United States against Black people by the domestic police is replicated in Africa by the U.S. global police represented by the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies.

Over $150 billion of the people’s resources are being spent on U.S. bases in Africa and around the world to police people on behalf of the U.S. corporate and financial elite.

The African peoples who find themselves on the receiving end of the violence—because of corrupted African leadership in alignment with the U.S.—are saying to the people in the United States to demand U.S. troops and U.S. money are withdrawn. It is clear the introduction of AFRICOM has resulted in less security, less democracy and diminished human rights for African peoples who are in conflict with their own neo-colonial governments.

BAP supports that call and adds the people’s resources that are being squandered to support imperialist adventures must be seized by the people and used to address the human rights needs of African/Black people and other oppressed and exploited peoples for housing, healthcare, education, food and clean water, instead of on war on behalf of the capitalist dictatorship.

We call on our friends to endorse this month as an individual or organization. Beyond that, we are calling on you to organize an educational event that day, for which we have provided materials on our webpage.

• End the War on Africa and African People in the U.S. and Abroad!

• Stand with the People—Oppose War and Militarism in Every Part of the World!

• Close All U.S. and NATO Bases!