[van-announce] Reminder.... Operation Enduring Resistance (Sep 9-11)

[harsha at resist.ca]

OPERATION ENDURING RESISTANCE: REMEMBERING NINE-ELEVEN

Commemorating the "9/11's" of resistance against occupation, racism, and
imperialism in Chile, Attica, South Africa, Gustafsen, Palestine, the
Philippines, Somalia, and all around the world



FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 9TH  @ 6:30 PM
DOGWOOD CENTER (706 Clark Drive).
CAFE RESISTENCIA: DINNER, SPEAKERS, MUSIC.
Dinner from 6:30-7:30 pm
Speakers: Junie Desil (Haitian activist and poet) and report-back by
Andrea Pinochet on The World Festival of Youth and Students held in
Venezuela.
Followed by performers, band and DJ's.


SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 10TH: PUBLIC FORUMS FROM 2-6 PM
SFU HARBOUR CENTER (515 W. HASTINGS)
Speakers including:
* Sunera Thobani: outspoken and well-known activist and UBC professor. *
Splitting the Sky: survivor of the Attica Rebellion, formerly listed as
America's number one political prisoner, and Sundance Chief during
Gustafsen Lake siege.
* Lorena Jara: known Chilean human rights activist, journalist and
free-lancer
* Aweis Issa: African activist and intellectual from Somalia
* Imran Munir: Senior reporter for National English daily newspaper in
Pakistan, currently PhD candidate at SFU and board member of SANSAD * Hana
Kawas: Palestine Community Center and chairperson of
Canada-Palestine Association
* Cecilia Diocson: co-founder of Phillipine Women's Center
* Tamineh Sadeghi: political activist in exile from Iran
... and introduced by Hari Sharma: Professor Emeritus at Simon Fraser
University and President of South Asian Network for Secularism and
Democracy (SANSAD) and opening by Lorelei Hawkins of Stepping Stone Vision

Childcare and bus tickets available on site. ASL and translation from
English into various languages.


SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 11TH  @ 2 PM
A COMMUNITY COMMEMORATION AND MARCH
GATHER AT MAIN STREET SKYTRAIN STATION (THORNTON PARK)
Bring banners and placards of resistance.

Bus tickets available on site and vehicles will be traveling with the
march for those prefering transportation through the long route.

Organized by an anti-imperialist coalition of community-based
organizations fighting for justice for peoples of the global South and for
such migrant communities in Canada. Organizers and supporters- La Surda
Latin American Collective, South Asian Network for Secularism and
Democracy, No One is Illegal, Vancouver Association of Chinese Canadians,
Committee for Solidarity with Colombia, Iranian Federation of Refugees,
Filipino-Canadian Youth Alliance, Filipino Nurses Support Group,
Philippine Women Centre of BC, SIKLAB Overseas Filipino workers'
organization, Vancouver Status of Women, Iranian Refugees BC, Café Rebelde
Coalition, Salaam Vancouver, Grassroots Women.

For more information, visit http://vancouver.nooneisillegal.org, email
noii-van at resist.ca or call 778-552-2099


==============================


9-11 should never be forgotten. One of them happened only four years ago,
with about three thousand human lives as collateral damage. The American
people became victims of the kind of terror and grief experienced by
hundreds of thousands of innocent people around the world for many
decades. But George Bush and his cohorts quickly turned the genuine grief
of the people into a "crusade" of his own. A unilateral war, a global war,
the "War on Terrorism", was instantly declared - unleashing terror here,
there, everywhere. The "9-11" of 2001 became a landmark, dividing the
world between the war-ravaging US government and its allies - a handful of
reluctant, coerced or bought-out governments - on the one hand, and the
people of the world on the other.

But there was another "9-11", going back to 1973. It was precisely on
September 11 of that year that the US government staged the military coup
in Chile, gunning down the democratically elected president, Salvador
Allende, in his own office - and turning the whole country into a
decades-long dark night of brutal repression, unremitting exploitation,
and a laboratory for neo-liberalism.

In a lesser known piece of history, but closer to home, September 11 of
this year marks the 10th anniversary of the Gustafsen Lake Siege of 1995,
the largest paramilitary operation in Canadian history with over 77,000
rounds of ammunition fired at 18 traditional Ts'Peten defenders. On the
weekend of Sep 10-11, 2005, Ts'Peten defenders will gather in a ceremony
of honour and remembrance on Secwepemc territories as we gather on Coast
Salish territories.

Then there is September 12, 1977 when Steven Biko, first president of the
all-Black South African Students’ Organization, also became the
forty-first person in South Africa to die while being held in the custody
of the apartheid regime.

On September 13th, 1971, the U.S government ordered a shooting in the
Attica Prison in New York.  At least 450 rounds of ammunition were
discharged with 29 inmates dead. The Attica Rebellion, organized by
predominantly political prisoners from the American Indian Movement, the
Black Liberation Army, and anti-war activists, was the most well-organized
prison uprising in U.S. history.

And we must never forget September 14th, 1992 in Somalia when the United
Nations Security Council first began its “humanitarian” intervention.

Palestinian sisters and brothers mark September 16 of every year in memory
of the 1982 massacres of Palestinian refugees in the Sabra and Shattila
refugee camps of Lebanon.

And as we return full circle, we remember September 21 of 1972, with yet
another US-backed regime, this time the Marcos regime in the Philippines
declaring martial law over the entire country by virtue of Proclamation
1081.

What happened on that 9-11 in Chile, or that 9-13 in Attica, was not
unique. For decades the US-led system of imperialism has been doing
exactly that: in Asia, Middle-east, Africa, Central and South America;
ruthlessly suppressing people's aspirations for democracy, social justice,
economic well-being and genuine independence; and imposing brutal,
despotic tyrants in one country after the other.

On 9-11 of this year, 2005, we call upon all the people of goodwill, as
lovers of peace, equality and social justice, to come together to
commemorate the memory of the people who died in America four years ago,
and the countless thousands who before that day and since that day have
lost their lives, their limbs, their dignity and their homes in the wars
and imperialist greed undertaken by the USA, currently under the cover of
"War on Terrorism".

And when we commemorate, we also resolve to build solidarity among the
people of the world in their just struggles against imperialism.