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https://www.migrante.eu/international-migrants-alliance-usa-ima-usa-statement-may-day-2017/

Migrant Workers and Refugees Rise Up!

Build solidarity with workers and oppressed and exploited peoples of the world!

The International Migrants Alliance-USA Chapter (IMA-USA) stands with all the workers of the world on May 1st, International Workers’ Day.

Ironically, it was in the United States where International Workers’ Day was initiated. Workers in Chicago started a general strike on May 1, 1886 to demand an 8-hour work day. A few days later, some workers were killed by state forces, prompting the bombing at the Haymarket Square, also known as the Haymarket Massacre. Around the world, International Workers’ Day has been commemorated on May 1, except for North America — the United States and Canada.

In recent years, the workers and migrants rights movement in the United States has reclaimed May 1 as International Workers’ Day. In December 2005, the Border Protection, Anti-Terrorism and Illegal Immigration Control Act, also known as H.R. 4437 or Sensenbrenner Bill, was proposed in the 109th United States Congress criminalizing working-class undocumented migrants and those who would be found helping them. This prompted the mobilization of millions of migrant workers into the streets in different parts of the country on May 1, 2006.

As the United States of America enters a new period under the Trump administration in 2017 — a brazenly fascist, racist and anti-im/migrant president — within his first 100 days in office, we have seen his administration attack immigrants, migrant workers, and working-class people of color through his proposed Executive Orders.

Banning of Muslims, heightened raids in communities, profiling people of color in different parts of the country, continuous deportation of migrants and his plans of building the wall at the Mexican border are only the beginning of his open anti-im/migrant attacks. Trump has also made clear in his pronouncements that refugees are not welcome to the United States.

As migrant workers and refugees, we have long been forcibly displaced victims of the ravages of U.S. Imperialism. With its huge demand for cheap labor to sustain its capitalist needs, to the imperialist and proxy wars that the U.S. has been waging all over the world, displacing peoples from their home countries and resulting in forced migration and the current refugee crisis, Trump has only intensified the U.S. imperialist crises in different global regions. We can expect Trump to continue the horrendous legacy of past U.S. presidents, but we predict he will only worsen these problems, including the climate crisis as a professed climate change denier.

In this light, we call on all migrant workers and refugees to stand up against this new face of U.S. imperialism, still the most powerful among the world super-powers. Trump has pitted the U.S. working class against migrant workers and refugees, and so we must strive to create bridges, not bans or walls, to connect our struggles together.

We must build the broadest alliances and mass movements with the working-class peoples and the most oppressed and exploited communities around the world, forging strong international solidarity to resist the neoliberal policies advanced by U.S. imperialism and its representatives across the globe.

This May Day 2017, just like when it was called for in 1886, we support the calls for a general strike and to shut down businesses who do not support the struggles of the working-class, whether migrants, people of color and/or U.S.-born.

A tyrant can only be defeated by the people’s collective voices, efforts and power. Let us march together as IMA-USA and advance people’s movements and struggles to greater heights!

Migrant workers, refugees, and workers of the world unite!

No to deportations! No bans! No walls! No to U.S. imperialist wars!

Anakbayan-Europe,

November 26, 2016

Our generation has been spared from the dark days of Martial Law declared by the Dictator Ferdinand Marcos four decades ago. To permit Marcos to be buried at the Heroes Cemetery is a great insult to the martyrs of the Martial Law days who fought for what we, especially millennials are practicing today.

On November 8, 2016 the Supreme Court of the Philippines rejected the protests and petitions of the Filipino people that the Dictator Marcos is inapt to be buried at the Heroes Cemetery. In a 9-5 split decision, the SC proves where its loyalty lies.

During the 10 years of military rule in the country, oppositions have been witch-hunted that resulted to 70,000 Filipinos arbitrarily detained, an estimated number of 34,000 were odiously tortured, extra-judicial killings numbered to 3,240 and thousands remained missing.

Having plundered the wealth of the nation and collaborating with the imperialists forces, the father of the Labour Export Policy (LEP) has now been buried as ‘hero’.

Anakbayan-Europe decry the treacherous decision of the Supreme Court and the support of President Rodrigo Duterte. Marcos exported not only the country’s natural resources but as well as its citizens, paving way to the 10% of the Filipino people working abroad.

We denounce the national disgrace of the SC, Pres. Rodrigo Duterte and the Marcos’ family against the Filipino people. Ferdinand Marcos deserves not to rest in peace as thousands of family still grieve their martyrs and disappeared, as thousands of Martial Law survivors still suffer from traumas and emotional wreckage from his atrocities. The Marcos family should not have victory over the decision of the SC, they are as accountable as Ferdinand himself.

Anakbayan-Europe supports the Filipino people in the Philippines and around the world as different sectors of the Philippine society staged protests and campaigns to revise the order of the SC and not the history. We support the Filipino migrants whose family has been wrecked due to the LEP that Marcos implemented. We support the millennials whose 10% grew up with [n]either one of their parents. We recognize that these are the Filipino people who overthrew the Dictator Marcos, that the victims of the Marcos’ military rules were mostly patriotic youth.

We denounce the continuous revisions of our history!

WE WILL NEVER FORGET!

WE WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER!

MABUHAY ANG MGA BAYANI NG MARTIAL LAW!

MABUHAY ANG MGA KABATAANG LUMALABAN!

Anakbayan-Europe

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Anakbayan-Europe condemns the brutal attacks by the Manila police forces on national minorities and supporters.

Anakbayan-Europe·Friday, October 21, 2016

Anakbayan-Europe condemns the brutal attacks by the Manila police forces on national minorities and supporters- calls for international support to justice demand victims of the human rights violation.

For immediate release

October 21, 2016

Anakbayan-Europe calls for international support to demand justice for the victims of the human rights violations committed by the Manila Police District (MPD) against the national minorities and their supporters during a protest staged in front of the U.S Embassy in Manila last 19th of October.

The brutally dispersed protest was led by Sandugo, a newly formed alliance of Indigenous groups and Moro to oppose the militarization and plunder of their ancestral lands. The demonstrators were waiting for the last speaker when the brutal dispersal was ordered by Col. Marcelino Pedrozo, deputy director of MPD.

We condemn the unjustifiable used of the police van driven by PO3 Franklin Kho that rammed through the demonstrators. Truncheons, water canons and teargas were also used during the dispersal of the protests. Four of the fifty injured protesters were hospitalized including Katribu Sec. General and Sandugo convenor, Piya Malayo and the driver of the jeepney used by the protesters as a service. The said jeepney driver have been mercilessly beaten by the police and dragged out of his vehicle. He was brought to the hospital two times due to blood vomiting.

Anakbayan-Europe also condemns the illegal arrest of 29 activists including minors, medics, media and indigenous people.

On October 18, 2016, protesters marched to Camp Aguinaldo, Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) headquaters. Protesters were sieged with water canons. They demanded to end the Oplan Bayanihan or the government’s counterinsurgency operation partnered with US military forces. The said operation continues to terrorized their communities. We denounce the command of Pedrozo to defend and serve the interest U.S [Embassy] instead of the welfare of the Filipino people. We hold him accountable for the police brutality committed this police unit.

We decry the denial of the Philippine National Police (PNP) before the media and the Filipino people of the human rights violations they committed against the protesters. We support the campaign of the national minority to uphold their right to self-determination, ancestral land and development, under the slogan Lakbayan ng Pambansang Minorya para sa Sariling Pagpapasya at Makatarungang Kapayapaan (Caravan of National Minorities for Self-Determination and Just Peace). Indigenous groups and Moro people from across the nation travelled to the capital to oppose the presence of the US troops in their ancestral lands, terrorizing their communities, impeding their right to livelihood and development and the children’s right to education. We stand in solidarity with the Moro and Indigenous people in calling the immediate pull out of [US] military troops. We support the call for an independent foreign policy.

Furthermore, Anakbayan-Europe recognizes that the state atrocities prevails in Western countries as well and the discrimination and oppression experienced by our national minorities is not isolated from the discrimination and oppression experienced by the African-Americans, Native-Americans in the United States. Or the racial profiling of the Blacks in Europe and the discrimination of the Roma people.

We call for the international support and unity to demand the U.S aggression throughout the globe!### US TROOPS OUT NOW!!! STOP MILITARIZATION!! END OPLANBAYANIHAN!!! ###

Photo from the internet