Portside

We are here as BAYAN USA, an alliance of 26 progressive and anti-imperialist Filipino organizations, on International Human Rights Day, to be in solidarity with thousands of Central American refugees as well as Mexican and Haitian migrants and refugees at the border.

We are in the worst refugee crisis the world has ever seen with 69 million refugees fleeing their homelands, and each day worsens as millions are forced to migrate not by choice, but as a result of the neoliberal policies and free trade agreements the US has imposed on Central America.  These policies have created the most inhumane and unlivable conditions for the people of Central America, including Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and El Salvador. We see similar policies and destruction in the Philippines such as the privatization of water and housing, the militarization of rural communities, the genocide of indigenous people and widespread landgrabbing, and the bloody drug wars where corrupt, US-backed governments are funded and trained by the US to destroy our homelands.

We are here today to honor the human rights defenders, the everyday farmers, workers, mothers, youth, LGBTQ, and indigenous people forced off their land, forced into poverty, and chained to US foreign policies that create unbearable living conditions and human rights violations.

We honor their fight for survival, their fight for freedom, and their fight against US imperialism. Like indigenous leader Berta Caceres, like the refugee mothers who launched a hunger strike in South Texas, like Vicente Caceres, age 46 from Honduras, who died during his imprisonment, and like the indigenous youth from Guatemala fighting for their survival.

This fascist government continues to  scapegoat immigrants and refugees for the economic crisis we are in, but the reality is the real criminals are President Trump, Obama, the private prison contractors like GEO and CCA, and the richest 1% made up of politicians and corporations that profit from the suffering of refugees and migrants.

Are we gonna let the US government and corporations destroy our communities?  Are we gonna let them continue to criminalize the poor for profit? Are we ready to organize and fight for the freedom for all refugees and migrants?

This is why we stand with the Central American community, and all communities affected by US intervention and militarization.  We, in the belly of the beast, have an important role to stand together to hold the US government accountable, to organize, and fight back against this US war machine.  Together we can defeat this US empire, because we are willing to unite and struggle for genuine freedom and liberation for all oppressed communities and fight for a better world where people are not forced to migrate, but where our people are truly liberated from the chains of US imperialism.

The people united, will never be defeated!

El pueblo unido, jamas sera vencido!