Archive for the ‘Nibbling on The Empire’ Category

Free Speech for Peace

Posted: April 6, 2023 in Nibbling on The Empire, Peace, War, Winnipeg
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Free Speech for Peace was presented by Ethnorama News Winnipeg and Al Cafe and recorded at Winnipeg’s historic Ukrainian Labour Temple on March 31, 2023.

The event arose out of a need to raise money to sustain this alternative publication when key advertisers (local NDP Members of Parliament) opted to stop advertising because they disagreed with some of its content. (If you want to know more, watch the video.)

The Ukrainian Festival Choir

Speakers emphasized the need to support media that provide informed alternatives to the mainstream news media in their role as stenographers to the ruling class. But, of course we knew all of that; that’s why we were there. The evening was well attended, entertaining and informative — and featured excellent performances by the Ukrainian Festival Choir, the Quedel Dancers, Rodrigo Muñoz of Papa Mambo fame, and the ever popular Raging Grannies of Winnipeg.

At the close of the evening, journalist, lawyer and peace activist Dimitri Lascaris spoke to the audience in a pre-recorded video about his upcoming fact-finding mission to Russia and the ever-present need for people to find ways to speak with their adversaries.

Listening to Dimitri reminded me of how much better Canada’s Green Party’s politics would have developed had he succeeded in becoming party leader in 2020. Maybe the party would have continued to support nonviolence. But I digress . . .

Proceeds of the evening went to support the publication of Ethnorama News Winnipeg. Sponsors included Las Americas and Chilean Human Rights Council, Peace Alliance Winnipeg, the Association of United Ukrainian Canadians, Migrante Manitoba, Al Cafe, the Solidarity Committee for Ethiopian Political Prisoners, and Philippine Advancement through Arts and Culture.

The Raging Grannies of Winnipeg

Stop the War!

Posted: February 25, 2023 in Nibbling on The Empire, Peace, War
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Joining with peace groups across Canada and around the world, Peace Alliance Winnipeg marked the first anniversary of the war in Ukraine with an information picket in Winnipeg’s Osborne Village. Here’s a bit of video I shot at that less-than-toasty-warm action.

Negotiate Peace in Ukraine

Posted: January 21, 2023 in Nibbling on The Empire, Peace, War
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Winnipeg, January 21, 2023: Members of Peace Alliance Winnipeg distributed literature in Winnipeg’s Osborne Village calling for an immediate ceasefire and negotiated peace agreement to end the Ukraine War. Following is the statement they distributed. Please share widely.

More war and weapons are not the way to peace!

Statement of Peace Alliance Winnipeg, January 21, 2023

On January 18 NATO’s secretary general said “Weapons are the way to peace” in Ukraine and this was echoed by Canadian Defence Minister Anita Anand as she announced Canada will send more weapons to Ukraine.

The world has been gripped by the dangers and repercussions of the war in Ukraine for almost one year. There have been disruptions to food and energy supplies and soaring inflation as a result of the war.

The cost of the war is mounting as Canada and NATO countries spend billions of dollars to fuel the war. Canada alone has spent $5 billion on this war, $1 billion of which has been for weapons. With NATO weapons and support for Ukraine there is the ever-present danger the war will escalate into a direct confrontation between NATO and Russia.

As the war has progressed various facts have emerged and none of them support this war or pouring more Canadian supplied weapons into Ukraine.

First, a peaceful, united Ukraine is not the goal of Zelensky and the reactionary Ukrainian nationalist ideology that predominates in the Kyiv government. One year ago, the Kyiv government was engaged in an eight-year civil war with its population in the Donbas that killed 14,000 and forced one million to flee the region. That conflict stemmed from the 2014 Maidan coup organized by the US to ensure Ukraine would be in its sphere of influence.

Second, as recently revealed by Merkel, Poroshenko and Macron, the Minsk Agreements, signed in 2014 to end the civil war in eastern Ukraine were but a diplomatic ruse to prepare Ukraine for war with Russia. This war, though maybe not to the timing of NATO and the West, was long in the works.

Third, the Canadian government is not interested in peace in Ukraine. One year ago, Deputy PM Chrystia Freeland described the lead up to the war as a battle between ‘democracy and autocracy.’ Clearly, this war is motivated by the ideology of the Cold War. Ukraine is the proxy to wage that war. Thus, Canada continues to pour weapons into Ukraine with recent announcements of $400 million for a US missile defence system and $90 million for 200 armoured vehicles.

This war could have been averted. Time to say enough is enough, drop the cold war ideology and end the use of Ukraine as a US/NATO proxy. The urgent need is for a de-escalation of the conflict, a ceasefire and negotiations for peace.

Canadian MPs need to hear this message. We urge you to contact your MP and urge them to support a ceasefire and peace negotiations.

No to NATO! Peace in Ukraine!

Posted: October 29, 2022 in Nibbling on The Empire, Peace, Winnipeg
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Winnipeg, Oct. 28, 2022: Members of Peace Alliance Winnipeg picketed outside Winnipeg’s Delta Inn, site of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress conference, attended by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Defence Minister Anita Anand.

Canada’s ongoing betrayal of Haiti

Posted: November 13, 2021 in In Solidarity, Nibbling on The Empire
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In this webinar, viewers discuss the film Haiti Betrayed with director, Elaine Brière, and the current Haitian situation with activist Jennie-Laure Sully. The webinar was hosted by Peace Alliance Winnipeg on Nov. 13, 2021.

Background

In 2004, Canada collaborated with the U.S. and France to overthrow Haiti’s elected president, Jean Bertrand Aristide, who enjoyed widespread support among the poorest Haitians. Since then, with Canada’s support, a series of right-wing governments have overturned Aristide’s reforms and violently repressed his supporters.

Released in 2019, Elaine Brière’s documentary, Haiti Betrayed, exposes the role Canada played in the 2004 coup. You can watch it here, in English or French.

Biographies

Elaine Brière

Elaine Brière is a Canadian filmmaker and photojournalist. Her first documentary, Bitter Paradise: The Sell-out of East Timor, won Best Political Documentary at the l997 HOT DOCS! festival and Production Excellence award at Seattle Women in Film in l998. Bitter Paradise aired on TVO, CBC Radio-Canada, CFCF-12 Montreal, BC Knowledge Network, SCN, WTN, PBS and Swedish National Television.

The Story of Canadian Merchant Seamen, released in 2006, aired on SCN and Knowledge Network and toured extensively in New Zealand, the UK and Australia.

Elaine’s photographs have been collected by the visual arts section of the National Archives of Canada. Her work has appeared in The Globe & Mail, the New York Review, Canadian Geographic, Carte-Blanche, and the Family of Women. East Timor, Testimony, was published in 2004. She is the founder of the East Timor Alert Network and received the Order of Timor-Leste in 2016 for her contribution towards the liberation of East Timor from Indonesian occupation.

Her current feature documentary, Haiti Betrayed, on the role of Canada in the 2004 coup d’état in Haiti, was released in late 2019. It was translated into French in the summer of 2020 and aired on TV5 in Québec and France.

Jennie-Laure Sully

Jennie-Laure Sully is a researcher at the Socioeconomic Research Institute (IRIS) and a community organizer at CLES, a center for sexually exploited women.

She studied anthropology and public health and has a master’s degree in biomedical sciences from the University of Montreal. She has worked as a research coordinator in hospitals and as a psycho-social caseworker in rape crisis centers.

Jennie is very active in the women’s movement and in the movement for the human rights of migrants. She was born in Haiti and moved to Quèbec with her family when she was 2 years old. Among the many causes she cares about, the fight against imperialism and for the sovereignty of Haiti is among her top priorities.

The Decline of the American Empire

Posted: October 18, 2021 in Nibbling on The Empire
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Speaking at the Ukrainian Labour Temple in Winnipeg, Professor Henry Heller discusses the state of the American Empire in light of its defeat in its 20-year war against Afghanistan and the rise of China. His talk was sponsored by the Winnipeg chapter of the United Jewish People’s Order.

Stop the Canada-US hybrid war against Venezuela!

Posted: September 12, 2021 in In Solidarity, Nibbling on The Empire, Socialism
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The lack of any discussion of Canadian foreign policy during this election is shocking and shameful — almost as shameful as Canada’s foreign policy itself. Take the case of Venezuela. For the past two decades the United States has been waging a war of sanctions and other dirty tricks to overthrow the democratically elected socialist governments of Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro. Ever Washington’s poodle, Ottawa has joined in with disgusting enthusiasm. Liberal governments or Conservative ones — it has made no difference.

María Páez Victor

To gain a deeper understanding of Canada’s foreign policy, Peace Alliance Winnipeg (of which I am a member) has organized a series of webinars that, so far, have looked at Canada’s international mining industry, Canada’s military deployments since 1867 and Canada’s policies with regard to Palestine.

Yesterday, Peace Alliance Winnipeg turned its attention to Venezuela by hosting a webinar with Venezuelan-born, Canadian scholar and activist María Páez Victor. Dr. Victor is a sociologist, educated in Caracas, New York, Mexico City, and Canada who taught the sociology of health and medicine as well as health and environmental policies at the University of Toronto for many years. Now retired from teaching, she writes and is a frequent commentator on Latin American history and politics. As well, she has her own weekly radio program about Venezuela in the Spanish language community radio of Toronto.

Here is video of the webinar.

UPDATE, Sept. 16, 2021: In an article published on Sept. 16, 2021 by Peace Alliance Winnipeg, María Páez Victor reports on positive developments in the peace negotiations being held in Mexico between the Venezuelan government and the major opposition parties. The opposition has agreed recognize the Venezuelan State, political institutions, and the legitimacy of President Nicolás Maduro and to work with the government to have the United States rescind the devastating economic sanctions that have caused such misery throughout the country.

Free Julian Assange!

Posted: September 9, 2021 in freedom of the press, Human Rights, Nibbling on The Empire, Peace
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Dimitri Lascaris is an accomplished lawyer, journalist and activist. Among his many achievements, Dimitri ran for the leadership of the Green Party of Canada in 2020, finishing second out of eight candidates and demonstrating that there at least 10,000 eco-socialists in the Green Party of Canada.

Dimitri spoke at the Sept. 7, 2021 launch of “Through Pluripolarity to Socialism – A Manifesto.” He chose to focus on the struggle of Wikileaks leader and political prisoner Julian Assange, who continues to be imprisoned and oppressed by the British government (at the behest of the American state.)

Sept. 5, 2021: Dimitri Lascaris speaking at the online launch of “Through Pluripolarity to Socialism: A Manifesto.”

The launch itself was live-streamed and can be watched here. You can read and sign the manifesto here.

Just say “No!” to NATO

Posted: March 12, 2021 in Nibbling on The Empire, Peace, War
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The North Atlantic Treaty Organization has embarked on a dangerous plan to expand its reach and military strength by the year 2030. Not only does this increase the risk of world war, it promises to rob even more of the precious resources that member states would have available for social programs (or mitigating climate change, or heavens, tax cuts for working people!)

Speaking at a recent webinar organized by Peace Alliance Winnipeg, Tamara Lorincz detailed the magnitude of NATO’s plans and explained what this means for Canada. She also described some of the ways Canada’s peace movement is resisting increased military spending and other toxic aspects of Canada’s foreign policy.

Tamara is a PhD candidate in Global Governance at the Balsillie School for International Affairs (Wilfrid Laurier University). She is on the board of directors of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space and on the international advisory committee of the No to NATO Network. She is a member of the Canadian Voice of Women for Peace and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.

The New Cold War, Canadian Foreign Policy and Canada’s Peace Movement

Posted: March 7, 2021 in Act Locally, Nibbling on The Empire, Peace, War
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On Feb. 27. 2021, Peace Alliance Winnipeg hosted a webinar entitled “The New Cold War, Canadian Foreign Policy and Canada’s Peace Movement.”

It featured presentations by:

Radhika Desai, a Professor at the Department of Political Studies, and Director, Geopolitical Economy Research Group, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada. She is the author of Geopolitical Economy: After US Hegemony, Globalization and Empire and numerous other books and articles on political and geopolitical economy and world affairs.

Yves Engler, a Montréal-based activist and author who has published 11 books on various aspects of Canadian foreign policy. His latest book is titled House of Mirrors — Justin Trudeau’s Foreign Policy.

Tamara Lorincz, a PhD candidate in Global Governance at the Balsillie School for International Affairs (Wilfrid Laurier University). She is on the board of directors of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space and on the international advisory committee of the No to NATO Network. She is a member of the Canadian Voice of Women for Peace and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.

The webinar was moderated by Glenn Michalchuk, chair of Peace Alliance Winnipeg.

While the quality of the presentations was first rate, the audio quality of Radhika Desai’s presentation was less than optimal. Don’t let that dissuade you from listening. What she has to say makes it well worth the effort.

GET INVOLVED

If you feel inspired to get involved in changing Canada’s foreign policy for the better, here are some organizations that could use your energy.

Peace Alliance Winnipeg

Geopolitical Economy Research Group

New Cold War

World Beyond War

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