The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) is an organization that associates itself with the “radical Black movement.” [1] BAP is closely tied to far-left groups such as Code Pink and the Coalition Against U.S. Foreign Military Bases. The group advocates dramatically reducing military spending and sympathizes with socialist and Communist dictatorships in Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea. [2] [3]
Background
Black Alliance for Peace states that it views U.S. history and current political debates from the “the Black radical perspective.” [4] It claims that the United States is “the first White supremacist republic in the history of human societies.” [5] The group also claims that “not one decade of peace has existed between African descendants and white authorities.” [6]
Support for Far-Left Groups
Black Alliance for Peace is a co-sponsor of Code Pink’s campaign Divest from the War Machine (DWM) campaign. [7] In 2017, the group opposed the Trump administration’s proposal to increase military spending and its policy toward North Korea and China. [8] The Trump administration’s rhetoric, according to BAP, was putting the U.S. on a war footing in order to increase support for military spending. [9] BAP called military spending an “ongoing theft of public funds” that “goes straight into pockets of the 1%.” [10]
Another extreme-left group supported by Black Alliance for Peace is the Coalition Against U.S. Foreign Military Bases. [11] BAP is a founding member and BAP’s national organizer Ajamu Baraka is an executive committee member of Coalition Against U.S. Foreign Military Bases. [12] Other organizations whose officials have endorsed the coalition include Communist Party USA, Green Party of the United States, Friedrich Engels Institute for Marxist War and Military Analysis, and 9/11 Truth Action Project. [13] BAP contributes to the coalition’s cause through the “U.S. Out of Africa! Shut Down AFRICOM” campaign, which opposes the existence of United States Africa Command. [14] BAP expresses disapproval of the 2011 U.S. and NATO intervention in Libya, framing deposed dictator Muammar Gaddafi as Libya’s “leader” and calls his death a “murder.” [15]
Baraka and other BAP members participated in the Women’s March on the Pentagon in October 2018. The Women’s March on the Pentagon was started in response to the Women’s March not including an anti-war stance in its platform. [16] In its “Anti-Imperialist Pledge” the Women’s March on the Pentagon refers to the U.S. and its military as “The Empire.” [17] According to the group, the military and capitalism should be replaced with spending on environmentalist projects and socialized healthcare. [18]
Policy Stances
Black Alliance for Peace opposes the 1033 Program, which allows the Department of Defense to transfer excess equipment to local law enforcement in the United States. [19] While the Obama administration curtailed the program, BAP claimed the changes did not go far enough. When the Trump administration announced it would roll back those restrictions Baraka said that Trump “intends to make war on Black and Brown people in the United States.” [20]
Baraka wrote an article titled “North Korea Issue is Not De-Nuclearization But De-Colonization” for the extreme-left website Black Agenda Report. [21] The article labels the Democratic Party, Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and liberal cable news outlets MSNBC and CNN as “right-wing neoliberals.” [22] Baraka blames the U.S. for making North Korea feel threatened and forcing it to pursue nuclear armament as a deterrent. According to Baraka, white supremacy and “the rule of whiteness through the dominance of the Western capitalist elite” is the reason that the U.S. feels it can bring about a peaceful solution on the Korean Peninsula. [23]
BAP stands with the Venezuelan regime the socialist dictator Nicolas Maduro. [24] The group characterizes any U.S. intervention in Venezuela is just another attempt to “subvert and overthrow Black and Brown countries targeted for regime change.” [25] In April 2019, BAP members joined those “demonstrating solidarity” outside the Venezuelan embassy on behalf of the Maduro regime. [26]