[Note from Mauirice Bazin and Jim Cockcroft:
you can mail your signature to [log in to unmask]]
02 Nov 2003
Not one more request for your signature I am Angel Guerra, a member of
the Organizational Committee of the International Conference In Defense
of Humanity, held in México City the past 24th and 25tht of October. I
know that people very frequently receive messages like this one asking
for their signature in favor of different issues. I shall assure that
this is not one more among many other such requests you may receive.
This Conference, despite "being humble could be historical" as James
Cockcroft has stated to the Mexican newspaper La Jornada. Not only, I
add, because of its goals but also because those who organize it and
those who have attended it. The group who organized the Conference is
the same one that written and delivered last April’s statement To the
Conscience of the World, which played an important role in dismantling
the plans of the Bush Administration to deliver an aggression against
Cuba by manipulating the defensive reaction of the Cuban government,
according to Cuban laws, toward the fifth column previously organized
inside the island by the U.S.A.´ s government. The debate stimulated by
To the Conscience of the World permitted the clarification of who is
who in the Cuban-American conflict, who is the aggressor and who is the
offended and why the offended -the Cuban people- has been able to stand
victoriously for so many decades in front of the blockade and
harassment of the greatest military power of history. By evaluating
this experience in the defense of Cuba we got to the conclusion that we
could try to generalize it to stand in defense of all those peoples of
the world and communities also offended or menaced of aggression by the
current group who has seized power illegally in Washington and has
already started two wars of aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq,
poor nations of the Third World, and is menacing many others to apply
the same medicine -"preemptive war"- against the so called terrorism, a
phantom is never found nowhere and multiplies by the application of
Bush’s policies in violation of international law and even the most
elementary common sense. Among those who are offended and menaced we
also think in the American people being ransomed even its right to
decide through the vote who rules their lives, being lied about the WMD
-supposedly the reason to attack Iraq, being deprived of its
Constitutional rights by the so called Patriotic Act and also the young
Americans dieing right now in Iraq and Afghanistan for the oil
interests and dreams to dominate the world of a click of corporations.
Not to mention the steady looses of jobs, the cut of budgets for
schools, Medicare and Medicaid, a situation, indeed, which is being
suffered likewise in the Third World, only that in even worst
conditions of poverty, hunger and giving up by the states of their
public duties, according to the neoliberal policies. We couldn’t gather
in Mexico all the people we have wished because the shortage of funds
we were able to get in only three months. Neither could we wait any
more because of the dangers the international situation and current
world order is posing to the very existence of the human species. It
was only a starting point of many other actions to be taken and
statements to be written that will improve ours for sure. Nevertheless
we were joined by several remarkable intellectuals from Latin America,
the USA and Europe as well as social leaders as Evo Morales, from
Bolivia and Luis D´Elía, the most important leader of piqueteros from
Argentina. We also listen to a message specially written to the
Conference by subcomandante Marcos, from Chiapa´s EZLN. You may listen
to it in Spanish as well as the main presentations to the Conference if
you enter our website(see address below). Our proposal is to organize
by regions, countries -and worldwide- a net of nets among
intellectuals, artists, professors, communicators and social activists
with our aim in supporting the social movements in putting and end to
this unfair and messy world order and rethinking it as it is now to
shape a new one as one of solidarity, peace, real democracy and
fraternity among human beings. If you wish to know more about our idea,
please, read carefully the following Declaration and if you agree with
its principles and Strategies of action to be taken in the near future
by you and many others like you, send an e-mail with your signature to
[log in to unmask] or either enter the webpage
www.defensahumanidad.org where you will find more info. Regrettably,
most of it is in Spanish as far as we haven’t yet been able to
translate it into English, as is our purpose to be accomplished within
two or three weeks. Your signature really counts. We are aware a
radical change like the one we are proposing may not be accomplished
without the solidarity and active participation of the American people.
Sincerely, Angel Guerra, on behalf of my colleagues.
Note: after the original list of signatories (below the text) was
issued, other people -among 500- have added their signatures, as Howard
Zinn, Samir Amin, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Martha Harnecker, Saul Landau
and James Petras.
Final Declaration of the International Conference
IN DEFENSE OF HUMANITY
We, intellectuals from the sectors of academia, the media, culture,
and social movements in diverse regions of the world, participants in
the international conference In Defense of Humanity, have gathered in
Mexico City to reflect on the extremely grave situation facing the
world today. We are aware of our responsibility, and have therefore
adopted the following:
Declaration
The human race has reached a critical point rife with serious dangers.
A new age of barbarism looms before us. It is not merely that a
minority has accumulated an enormous proportion of the world’s wealth,
while the impoverished masses are barely able to survive. Moreover, the
hegemonic system functions like an apparatus of social exclusion.
An ever growing number of human beings have been declared dispensable
within this currently spreading model, while the prevailing philosophy
is that state bodies should ignore the fate of those excluded by
globalization.
If the fate of those excluded is of little concern, even less
important are their values and cultures, their identities and
communities, unless they are reduced to market imperatives. Under this
exclusionary model, distinctive human communities or ways of life are
destined for extinction. Suffering with them are millions of
overexploited workers, subjected to the injustices of the capitalist
system and the constant erosion of their rights.
The environment, biodiversity and ecosystems that have coexisted with
the human race for millennia are being transformed into commodities of
trade and accumulation, at the service of private interests. Water and
other resources essential for human life are the prey of these same
interests. Consumerism and squandering of resources are the norms
promoted by neoliberal capitalism.
The human race is confronting dangers that directly attack its social,
cultural and environmental foundations. These threats do not emanate
from natural forces, but rather from the economic and political powers
that negate the highest values formed throughout human history and
exalt greed and selfishness.
Diversity is inherent to human society and has survived all attempts
at homogenization. Nevertheless, the goal of imposing sociocultural
uniformity serves the goal of domination. Human plurality can become a
source of conflicts, confrontations between peoples, fundamentalisms
and ethnic hatreds. In line with exclusionary globalization, the
so-called laws of the market require an undifferentiated and uniform
human race. But despite the effort to convert human society into a
homogenous whole, the linguistic and cultural differences and diversity
among peoples and nations continue to flourish. In fact, contrary to
the hopes of the ideologues of globalization, and despite the
neoliberal siege, we are witnessing a rebirth of ethnic and nationalist
struggles throughout the world, with new and promising horizons of
liberation, alongside the social struggles underway.
The centers of power strive to impose their own sociocultural model on
all of humanity, under the premise that it constitutes the only true
path to a full life. We oppose this tendency and assert that the
world’s diversity is of value in itself and part of the shared wealth
of humankind.
At the dawn of the 21st century, imperialism – with its different
expressions, alliances and internal contradictions – has become a
political and military mega power in which national states have
relinquished their public responsibilities.
The “sovereign equality” of the members of the United Nations, as
established in the first article of the 1945 founding charter, has been
placed in question. More than a half century after the end of World War
II, this organization is violating its own legal framework: “to
suppress acts of aggression or other breakings of the peace” (Art. 1);
the “peaceful settlement of conflicts” (Art. 3); the rejection of “the
use of force against territorial integrity” (Art. 4); “non-intervention
in the internal affairs of States” (Art. 7); and other resolutions that
assert the “inalienable right of peoples to the integrity of their
territorial rights” (1960).
In this regard, the validation of the military attack and occupation
of Iraq by the United States (through UN Security Council resolution
1511) casts doubt on the hopes for peace that the world’s nations had
placed in the United Nations.
The ideological messianism that characterizes the political team in
charge of the White House today represents a grave threat to world
peace. The U.S. government freely attacks and harasses any nation that
refuses to bow down to its imperial policy, while the world is facing
the threat of endless military confrontations as a result of its
doctrine of “preemptive” strikes.
For the U.S. government, the only valid “international law” is the law
dictated by its own Congress and executive power. Any other
interpretation runs the risk of being linked to “terrorism”.
Nevertheless, the UN itself, in its own documents, differentiates
between terrorism and national resistance against foreign occupation
and the right to rebel against the same, rights that are also
established in many of the world’s constitutions.
Thus, those responsible for the most heinous of state terrorism in
history label the patriots who fight for the freedom of their peoples
as “terrorists”. Covert actions, the use of mercenaries, the violation
of human rights, the application of extraterritoriality to prisoners of
war, and the incitement of assassination of heads of state, as in the
case of Israel and Palestinian leaders, make up the current political
scenario.
In 1989, the imperialist powers claimed that with the fall of the
Berlin Wall, the world would enter into an era of understanding and
prosperity. Nevertheless, other walls impede this goal: walls on the
border between Mexico and the United States and around the occupied
Palestinian territories; legal and racial walls in the legislations of
the countries of the European Union, which establish degrading
treatment of immigrants from poor countries; economic walls of
protectionism that block access to the “free market” preached by
neoliberalism; walls that violate the rights of women and children;
walls of intolerance of the sexual orientation, the tastes, habits and
ways of life of different human beings; political-economic walls that
marginalize the African continent.
In Latin America, the United States continues to harass Cuba, with the
threat of a direct military intervention against a revolution that has
survived 45 years of countless destabilization campaigns, aggressions
and an economic blockade, thanks to the support of the people and the
determination to build another kind of society. We must therefore
strengthen solidarity and forge closer ties with the besieged island,
and oppose all aggressive actions on the part of the U.S. government.
“America for the Americans” (of the United States) is once again the
banner held aloft by the hawks ruling in Washington. Through the Free
Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), whose first chapters have been the
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Puebla-Panama Plan,
imperialism aspires to impose its own “laws” of the market. The
discourse that preaches “spreading democracy and freedom” has its
counterpart in the growing militarization of Latin America. It has been
demonstrated time and time again that democracy has an instrumental
value for imperialism: it supports the formal aspects of democracy when
it suits its interests, but conspires against it if popular forces
reach power through democratic means. This concept becomes null and
void when it is used by leaders allied with neoliberalism as carte
blanche to hand over resources to transnational capital.
This is illustrated by the fact that within the framework of “Plan
Colombia”, and under the pretext of fighting “narcoterrorism”, the
Pentagon has installed a large military base in the port of Manta,
Ecuador, facilitating interventionist missions in all of the countries
of the Andean subregion. Likewise, the governments of the Southern Cone
have found themselves obliged to carry out frequent joint military
maneuvers with the United States, under the presupposition that there
could be Islamic terrorist groups based on the “triple border”
(dividing Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay).
Neoliberalism stigmatizes social conflict and strives to dismantle
community action. It suppresses political awareness, foments cultural
alienation, responds to poverty with philanthropy, and crushes popular
discontent through police or military repression.
In opposition to these policies, a whole new generation of socially
committed intellectuals and activists is rising up around the world,
fighting back against the machinations of corrupt professional
politicians.
Pushed to the breaking point of indignity and armed with the
invincible weapons of awareness and organizational capacity, the
Bolivian people rose up in defense of their natural resources and
ousted a government totally subordinated to the United States.
The popular rebellion in Bolivia coincides with the civil and
political resistance in Haiti against the authoritarian power of Jean
Bertrand Aristide; with the resistance in Puerto Rico demanding the
withdrawal of the U.S. naval base in Vieques; with the resistance in
Argentina, where the unemployed are protesting and blocking traffic;
with the resistance of the indigenous people of Ecuador, who are rising
up against racism and discrimination; with the resistance in Brazil,
where the demands of the landless peasants continue to go unmet; with
the resistance in Mexico of those who are defending their strategic
resources from the voracious greed of the transnationals, and the
Zapatistas expanding their struggle for autonomy; with the resistance
in Venezuela of the activists fighting to defend the Bolivarian
revolution; and finally, with the resistance in Chile, where the young
are fighting back against a sophisticated model of social exclusion.
Today, the imperial forces are seeking to combine, through more
refined methods, the ruthless use of military power with control of the
hearts and minds of the people. They purport that the world of
neoliberal globalization is the only one possible, that there are no
viable alternatives, and that the only possible attitude towards life
is that of conformity and resignation. Supposedly, the neoliberal
regime is not the creation and practice of national and international
interest groups, but rather the natural result of the development of
things. In accordance with this philosophy, any change in this way of
organizing the world would simply worsen the situation. There is a
single economic and political line of thought that all governments must
implement, they say.
A trend that is leading inexorably towards the further entrenchment of
this philosophy is the conversion of public universities into
instruments of the neoliberal economic, political and cultural project.
This trend results from the current logic of the neoliberal process of
accumulation, leading to the privatization and “elitization” of
education and the gradual suppression of the humanistic branches that
foster critical thinking and “subversion”.
Imperialism is using religious beliefs to legitimize its neocolonial
military expansion, co-opting the leaderships of majority religions,
stripping them of their role as voices for protest and social
commitment.
This military and ideological combination must be exposed in all of
its manifestations, with all of its destructive and dehumanizing power,
and subjected to rigorous and forceful criticism. Here the role of
intellectuals is more vital than ever. To achieve this, we must
strengthen or revive, depending upon the specific case, the critical
role of all intellectuals in defense of humanity. The battle against
the current system must also be fought on the intellectual, cultural
and moral fronts. The fruit of intellectual labor is knowledge, but its
strength lies in its critical and demystifying powers. Social thought,
and the social sciences in particular, find their true meaning when
they reveal the deceptions and real interests that underlie certain
ideologies, and uphold their commitment to the truth and the interests
of society.
We are fully aware that over the recent years, under the influence of
neoliberal thinking, some intellectuals have forgotten their critical
capacity, and at times have even jumped on the bandwagon of a single
way of thinking. What is more, in our countries we have a supposed left
that upon assuming power adopts the same precepts and implements the
same neoliberal formulas.
In this current phase, we value intellectual labor that is based on
rigorous procedures and at the same time is sensitive to the injustice
of the world we are living in; that learns from the sectors in all
regions, nations and continents that are rising up against the
established order. We are referring to those intellectuals, formed
within the walls of academia or in the heart of social movements, who
are fighting on so many fronts against war and against an economy in
which the benefits are monopolized and exploitation and exclusion grow
ever greater; intellectuals who struggle for peace and comprehensive
human rights (individual, collective, civil and political, but also
social and cultural), who defend the free determination of the peoples,
the right to autonomy of indigenous peoples throughout the world, and
the equality of all languages; intellectuals committed to economic and
gender equality, and to the belief that dignity, freedom and respect
for the cultural wealth of all humankind must prevail over capital.
Based on this political declaration we adopt the following:
Strategies in Defense of Humanity
To establish an international coordinating committee made up of the
organizing committee of this conference and any national and
international guests who wish to join in this effort.
To create support committees in unity with the social movements that
work in defense of humanity in the countries, regions and cities linked
to this coordinating committee, which would have full autonomy to
implement their own initiatives and forms of organization.
To establish a network in defense of humanity that will be linked with
other existing networks and initiatives. This network would be aimed at
coordinating the efforts of intellectuals working in academia,
scientific and humanities research centers, universities and other
educational institutions, as well as those who work in the media and
culture, and those who form part of social movements and civil society
organizations.
To establish a committee that covers a wide spectrum of themes and
countries and that could respond immediately to any emergency situation
that calls for a position from our network and the necessary
mobilizations.
The specific objectives of our network would be: a) to analyze the
reality in order to contribute and disseminate knowledge, exposing that
which is not immediately obvious; b) to delegitimize the dominant
system, through critical analysis of the single way of thinking; c) to
propose alternatives based on the actions of the social movements and
processes of our peoples and the analysis of their experiences in
resistance and innovation; d) to identify the common denominator of
resistance struggles in order to link local actions with the global
struggle; e) to promote resistance to the dominant power though the use
of alternative power, the creation of intercultural networks and the
dissemination of the many and diverse voices of humanity.
To examine and when necessary promote the reformulation of programs of
research, teaching, communication and dissemination in order to reveal
the causes and effects of imperialist action among our peoples and to
stress the true and historically valid meanings of democracy,
liberation and socialism, taking into account the diversity of thought.
We should concentrate on the following priority areas: a) the new forms
of imperialist militarization; b) in addition to the deregulation of
work and precarious work, new frontiers of accumulation (peasant
agriculture, biodiversity and water, public services and culture); c)
disseminating, promoting and supporting the exercise of autonomy by
indigenous peoples and of the basic rights of peasant organizations, in
order to establish and enforce, from the bottom up, the autonomous
powers of communities, resistance movements and alternatives. The
website will publish the texts of members of the network and other
authors on these priority areas.
To undertake an inventory of the network’s intellectual resources, in
order to effectively take advantage of the specialties and fields of
each of its members and make these available to social movements.
To support existing initiatives, such as the Permanent Tribunal of the
Peoples, contributing legal and historical arguments for the
prosecution in cases of genocide, ethnocide and crimes against
humanity. We also support the World Social Forum, the regional social
forums, and the World Alternatives Forum, as well as the anti-war
networks, the Jakarta Consensus and other networks against neoliberal
globalization.
To undertake an inventory in order to disseminate and take advantage
of the existence of more than 200 alternative publications and the
community radio network, electronic publications and e-mail lists,
based on the belief that the battle lost by the mass media is that of
credibility.
To propose the creation of an international university whose goal will
be to bring together humanists, scientists and artists from around the
world, to dedicate their knowledge specifically to education, research
and cultural dissemination, with the aim of achieving peace and a more
free and just world. This university will bring together all
intellectuals who pursue these objectives from democratic and socialist
anti-imperialist perspectives. It will strive to establish communities
of dialogue, with the participation of intellectuals of so-called high
culture and intellectuals organically linked to the social movements of
our time. It will be organized in the form of a network with autonomous
campuses, whose members will cooperate on both a personal and
long-distance basis in common projects.
At the current juncture, to condemn United Nations Security Council
resolution 1511 on Iraq, in view of the fact that it violates that
founding charter of this organization.
To support the worldwide resistance and massive demonstrations against
the war in Iraq on February 15, 2003.
To join in the summit proposed by Evo Morales, understood as a meeting
of leaders and social movements that struggle in defense of humanity.
Mexico City, on the 200th anniversary of the Independence of Haiti.
Original signatories
Adoum Jorge Enrique
Albertani Claudio
Altesor Ivan
Alvarez Federico
Álvarez Miguel
Alzaga Luciano
Arguedas Sol
Bañuelos Juan
Barnet Miguel
Belafonte Harry
Borón Atilio
Bowman Elizabeth
Brenner Philip
Brom Juan
Campione Daniel
Cardenal Ernesto
Castellanos Alicia
Cerutti Horacio
Ceseña Ana Esther
Cockcroft James
Colchero Ana
Concha Miguel
Cueva Héctor de la
D’Elia Luis
Diaz-Polanco Hector
Dieterich Heinz
Dos Santos Theotonio
Drucker René
Dunbar-Ortiz Roxanne
Fazio Carlos
Fernández Paulina
Ferrer Miguel Ángel
Flores Olea Victor
Fuente Gerardo de la
Gabriel Leo
Gallardo Francisco
Gerassi John
Gilly Adolfo
Gómez Alberto
Gómez Haro Claudia
Gonzalez Casanova Pablo
Gonzalez Oscar
Guerra Ángel
Houtard Francoise
Ibarra de Piedra Rosario
Katsantonis Adamos
Labastida Horacio
Leal Eusebio
López Nayar
López Ali
Lopez y Rivas Gilberto
Mariñez Pablo
Martinez Daniel
Martínez Heredia Fernando
Melgar Ricardo
Montedónico Rubén
Morales Evo
Morales Pérez Salvador
Muriente Julio
Olivé León
Ordorika Imanol
Ortega Manuel
Otero Lisandro
Peredo Osvaldo "Chato"
Pérez Rocha Manuel
Pierre-Charles Gerard
Rajo Alfredo
Regino Adelfo
Rodriguez Lascano Sergio
Roitman Marcos
Sala Lucia
Salinas Darío
San Giácomo Osvaldo
Sánchez Consuelo
Sanchez Vazquez Adolfo
Santana Adalberto
Sastre Alfonso
Serrano Pascual
Solís Morales Edgar
Sosa Raquel
Steinsleger Jose
Stolowicz Beatriz
Stone Robert
Turner Jorge
Valdés Nelson
Vargas Lozano Gabriel
Velázquez Marco
Villoro Luis
Wald Karen