Say NO to Left Forum’s Promotion of Ajamu Baraka — Apologist for Assad’s Genocidal Regime in Syria
A Left worthy of the name must stand in solidarity with victims of exploitation and oppression everywhere. But the organizers of the Left Forum this year have chosen to honor as a featured plenary speaker Ajamu Baraka, whose solidarity with the oppressed is selective. He stands with victims of U.S. imperialism, but when it comes to the victims of Russian imperialism and its allies, he stands with the oppressor. Similar views all too commonly pass as leftism today.
Most outrageously, despite his self-identification as a human rights activist, Baraka whitewashes the Assad regime’s monstrous genocide in Syria. And at home as the Green Party’s vice-presidential candidate, Baraka made clear that compared to the “smiling neo-fascist” Obama and the neo-liberal Clinton, he preferred to see Donald Trump in the White House. The Left Forum should not normalize and promote this two-faced and treacherous fraud.
Apologizing for Assad
Baraka does backflips in order to justify the carnage of the Assad government. Well before the chemical weapons attacks, he rejected any report of government atrocities out of hand. He claimed that Assad attempted to “address the first protests demanding democratic reforms through peaceful means,” despite hundreds of videos of demonstrators being massacred in the first days and weeks of protest, and despite the repeated insistence of top officials that there will be no compromise.
According to Baraka, simply the fact that atrocities were reported in the West was proof that they were “propaganda efforts geared to generate support for intervention.” For example, when the BBC aired interviews with witnesses of one of the Assad regime’s earliest atrocities, the 2012 massacre in the village of Houla massacre, Baraka insisted that it was preposterous that there were Syrians who could speak English and that the BBC refused to reveal the names of women who had witnessed government death squads execute scores of civilian and even slit the throats of babies — an atrocity that has been confirmed by journalists on the ground as well as by human rights organization like Amnesty International.
In 2014 Baraka celebrated the re-election of Assad, who claimed over 92% of valid votes, after 21 of 23 would-be opponents were arbitrarily disqualified, leaving only two loyalists running ‘against’ him. At the time only a fraction of the country was under government control, hundreds of thousands had been killed and millions driven into exile. Amnesty International, the organization whose board of directors Baraka once sat on, assessed the situation: “tens of thousands of men, women and children across Syria are struggling to survive in inhumane conditions… under constant threat of deadly attacks and lacking access to basic necessities such as food, water and medicines.” Baraka’s view was different: “tens of thousands of ordinary Syrians went to the polls to cast a vote that was more about Syrian dignity and self-determination than any of the candidates on the ballot.”
Not even Assad denies that his forces have killed hundreds of thousands of people over the last seven years. Yet he insists the victims are not genuine Syrians but terrorists (presumably the infants as well) sent by foreign governments intent on overthrowing his rule. Baraka shares this view, claiming to have found the proof in an absolutely nonsensical conspiracy theory. He wrote in July 2016 that President Obama’s goal in Syria was “to bolster Islamic jihadist forces” “leading to the establishment of a ‘Salafist principality’.”4 This absurdity Baraka took whole-hog from the then-head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Michael Flynn, whose anti-Muslim conspiracy theories got him removed from his position by the Obama administration, only to briefly return to power with Trump before his lies and links to Russia forced the latter to accept his resignation.
Tolerating Trump
In 2016 as the vice-presidential candidate of the Green Party, Baraka made it clear that he preferred to see Trump in power compared to either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. According to Baraka, Obama was a “smiling neo-fascist,” so his successor could hardly be worse; “expecting people of color to fear Donald Trump…is absurd”; “I’m more concerned about another 8 years of neoliberal policies than I am with Trump.”
It’s one to thing to abhor Clinton because of her neo-liberalism and war-mongering. But it’s another to be complacent towards Trump’s racism and his encouragement of white supremacists — as if Trump was not a grave threat to people of color. These dangers were obvious well before and throughout the campaign, so the indifference toward Trump on the part of supposed human rights and racial justice activist is as absurd as it is criminal.
Baraka’s toleration of Trump fits with his enthusiasm for Assad, since Assad’s main backer, Vladimir Putin, has been shown to have assisted Trump’s campaign. Baraka even opposed the Green Party’s Jill Stein when she called for a recount of swing-state votes that gave Trump the election. And despite massive Republican gerrymandering and racist voter suppression that were essential to Trump’s capture of power, and regardless of reports that Russia went so far as to hack voting technology and databases, Baraka insisted that no defense of democracy in the U.S. is necessary since none exists!
The fact that Baraka is a consistent advocate of Putin’s foreign policies the world over can be seen with his promotion of the conspiracy theory that Malaysian Airlines Flight 17, now proven to have been shot down over Ukraine by pro-Russian forces in 2014, was actually a false flag operation. From the genocidal slaughter in Syria to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and military adventures elsewhere in Ukraine — and even to Russia’s support for Trump in the last elections — Baraka aids and abets Putin’s crimes.
The Left’s opposition to genocide, to imperialism, and to attacks on democratic rights must rely on principle, not on crackpot conspiracy theories or geopolitical allegiances. Every failure to oppose the horrors of the decaying global capitalist system, and to stand in solidarity with working-class and oppressed people all over the world, is a weapon that the Right will not fail to use. We call on attendees at this year’s Left Forum to repudiate and protest the selection of Ajamu Baraka as a featured speaker.
Issued by the League for the Revolutionary Party in support of the protest organized by Syria Solidarity NYC:Stand with Syria @ the Left Forum John Jay College, 899 10th Ave (59 St) Sunday, June 3, 2018, 3:30–6:00 pm
