Opinions

 

 

RE: The MAWO “US/UN Troops
Hands Off Africa!” Campaign

Nicole Burton, OP Contributor

A: a student activist with

the Vancouver anti-war coalition
Mobilization Against War and
Occupation (MAWO), I'd personally
like to thank my fellow OP writer, JJ
McCullough, for choosing to focus on
the organization’s new “US/UN Troops
Hands Off Africa!” campaign in a
recent Right Hook column. I appreciate
that, despite our political differences
on the topic, the column acknowledges
(on several occasions) the success
MAWO has had in publicizing the work
of the campaign, which was launched
after the December 2006 US-backed
Ethiopian invasion of Somalia, and at a
time of growing threats of UN military
intervention in Sudan.

Two conclusions come to mind
after reading your column, JJ. I believe
that you’ ve either been misinformed
about who/what MAWO is, or you’re
criticizing MAWO from a purely
ideological perspective.

An anti-war coalition that opposes
military interventions in Afghanistan,
Iraq, Sudan, and Somalia invariably
supports the Taliban, Saddam Hussein,
Sudanese president Al-Bashir, and
the recently overthrown Somali
government, the Union of Islamic
Courts? Are you saying that, if ’m
against intervention, I’m supporting
a government? Where does this logic
come from?

What if I’m against the
Conservatives’ recent 40% funding cut
to women’s services in Canada? Does
this mean that I support the Liberals
or the NDP by default? Why are the
options so limited? Is it possible for
me to oppose military intervention
simply because it contradicts and
undermines the self-determination of an
independent nation?

I admit that I’m not looking into
a crystal ball at the moment, but I
believe you’re interested in attacking
MAWO just because you think
we are a “left-wing” or “socialist”
organization. What is so “left” about
MAWO? We’re actually a coalition
of more than 50 different member
groups and individuals. The voices of
the organization are those of students,
senior citizens, working people,
women, indigenous people, immigrants
and refugees, Muslims, Christians
(from Catholic to Unitarian), Jews, and
human rights activists of many stripes.
From this diverse array of political,
cultural and religious backgrounds,
we unite around simple and common
demands: we are against colonial wars

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and occupations, and we demand self-
determination for all oppressed nations.
Hardly an “abstract socialist point.”

Your hasty political characterizations
are not the only things that you should
consider double-checking in the future,
JJ. My other suggestion to you is to
look at the facts concerning the era of
war and occupation that we are living
in today.

According to a 2005 UN status
report on Afghanistan under the US/
Canada/NATO military occupation,
the Afghan people now have a poorer
education system, poorer access to
electricity and potable water, medicine,
and food than before the US invaded in
2001. Afghan children now risk a 1 in
4 chance of dying before the age of 5;
life expectancy has dropped to around
42 years of age. Violence against
women and girls has gone up, along
with female suicide. Already a country
impoverished for a century by war and
colonial rule before 2001, it has literally
been bombed back into the Stone Age,
thanks to occupation.

Since the 2003 US-led invasion of
Iraq, more than 655,000 people have
been killed, according to the highly
prestigious Lancet Medical Journal
(hardly a bastion of “leftist” thought).
Since the December 2006 Ethiopian
invasion and US bombing of Somalia,
an estimated 30,000 people have been
displaced, and unknown thousands

of Somalis have been killed. My
conclusion? Based on the facts of the
last 6 years alone, I am against war and
occupation.

JJ, it’s clear that you strongly
disagree with this—so, what’s your
point? Is everything okay in Iraq and
Afghanistan right now?

One of the biggest questions now is:
With 6 years of invasions and war in
Iraq, Afghanistan, Haiti, Lebanon, and
Somalia, do we really think US or UN
troops have the interests of Sudanese
people at heart when they push for
military intervention in their country?
Are world powers so benevolent (and
blind) to not see Sudan for what it is:
Africa’s largest country, incredibly rich
in oil, high-purity uranium, copper, and
other resources?

I think the carelessness with which
most of your inaccuracies were written
shows a lack of real concern over the
issues presented. Overall, your political
conclusion is very similar to the
thinking of imperialists themselves: a
conclusion that so arrogantly presumes
that people within oppressed nations
cannot take care of themselves to
solve their own problems. Based
on this backwards thinking, foreign
intervention is the “burden” of the
world’s chief military and economic
superpowers: “only the US, Canada and
NATO forces can keep different tribes
from killing each other in Afghanistan”;

“only US soldiers can ‘reconstruct’
Iraq’s destroyed social system” (Iraqis
need help building a healthcare system?
That’s interesting; they were the first
people on Earth to build hospitals —
7,000 years ago!).

And after 500 years of brutal colonial
dictatorships, the former conquerors of
Africa—France, Italy, Belgium, Britain,
as well as the US —are looking over the
map again (this time wearing the blue
helmet of the UN), seeing where they
can “help out” some more.

March 17"-18", 2007 marks the forth
anniversary of the US-invasion of Iraq.
In Vancouver, thousands of people will
march on Saturday to demand an end
to the occupation; this will be followed
by an all-day anti-war conference the
next day. Building up to the weekend,
students are organizing activities
at their high schools, colleges, and
universities — including here at Douglas.
The week is a time when we join
millions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon,
Haiti, Somalia, Sudan, and beyond to
voice our opposition to the war and
occupation that has killed nearly 1
million people in Iraq since 2003. You
may write us off “leftist fanatics,” but
facts have made us a majority in the
world against war and occupation.

I encourage students and others
interested to find out more on these
upcoming events and the MAWO Africa
Campaign at: www.mawovancouver.org