Without Solidarity, the Left Has Nothing

The aims of the Left are impossible to achieve without community of purpose. Socialists organize around economic justice for a reason: it is the essential foundation for building a sense of solidarity broad enough to drive meaningful change.


By Eóin Murray
June 2, 2024
Source: Jacobin



Review of Solidarity: The Past, Present, and Future of a World-Changing Idea by Leah Hunt-Hendrix and Astra Taylor (Pantheon, 2023)

Just after the 2004 Tsunami, I enjoyed lunch with friends in Jabiliya refugee camp in the northern Gaza strip. At that time, the camp was densely populated and deeply impoverished, often prone to flare-ups of excitement that could sometimes turn violent. After lunch, a bullhorn and a ringing bell from outside interrupted our chat. My ears pricked up, alert to any potential danger, but my host quickly resumed his relaxed posture. I inquired about the commotion. “Oh, they’re collecting for the victims of the big wave,” he told me. “It’s happening all over.”

I was — naively — astonished. Here were folks with almost nothing organizing on behalf of those with even less. Years later, I learned about a similar gift, collected by the Choctaw Nation, just after the Trail of Tears, for those facing famine in Ireland. The act is celebrated in the song by Irish singer and activist Damien Dempsey. “Choctaw Nation,” he sings, “I am in your debt. Chocktaw Nation, I just want to thank you.”

Solidarity as debt is a foundational frame for activists Leah Hunt-Hendrix and Astra Taylor in their book Solidarity: The Past, Present, and Future of a World-Changing Idea. One of the earliest instances of this idea is recorded in an ancient Hindu poem which states that “being born is a debt.” The first written mention of solidarity appears in Emperor Justinian’s legal code, which establishes a debt held in solidum as one held collectively. This means, for example, that if a group of farmers band together and one cannot pay rent due to illness or a bad crop, the others cover the debt.

Justinian’s legal code, from the early 500s CE, also heavily influenced French jurisprudence. Louis Bourgeois developed the first comprehensive theory of solidarity by arguing that each of us is “born a debtor to humanity.” This idea of solidarity as a social debt places a particular responsibility on the wealthy to address inequality and to act for the common good.

The idea of our debt to fellow human beings is the start of a sweeping journey through the annals of solidarity. The authors are both veterans of the Occupy movement, and the lessons of that experience are felt throughout. Hunt-Hendrix and Taylor show that broad-based platforms gain real strength through the active participation of large numbers of people. They also highlight that without vision and strategy, movements are more likely to stagnate than progress. Movement building, they emphasize, is a collective process grounded in a secular sacredness that recognizes the inherent worth of every human being.

What’s So Funny About Friendship, Love, and Community?

Philosophically, the book draws heavily on Émile Durkheim, the first sociologist, who wrote extensively on the concept of solidarity. Durkheim’s writings left a significant intellectual legacy and influenced the French legal and social systems, reflecting his commitment to the construction of social cohesion.

Although he wrote during a time when the impact of the Industrial Revolution and the exploitation of labor by capital were still emerging, his arguments against social alienation seem prescient in today’s consumerist society, with its ethos of rampant individualism. “Nothing” Durkheim argued as he surveyed the rise of the modern state, “remains but the fluid mass of individuals.” The counter-possibility, arising from solidarity, is what Hunt-Hendrix and Taylor propose as “friendship, love, and community.”

Although rooted in a democratic socialist tradition, their call echoes that of John P. Clark’s communitarian anarchism, arguing for an “impossible community . . . at the intersection between universality and particularity . . . endlessly working itself out.” It is within this perpetual evolution that we find meaning in our relationships with each other and with our environment. For Hunt-Hendrix and Taylor, acts of solidarity must be bolstered by a solidaristic vision to deliver the possibility of meaningful change, a process they label “transformative solidarity.”

Solidarity’s transformative potential stands in stark contrast to the narrow and closed solidarity of contemporary right-wing politics. However, to harness these possibilities, individuals and collectives, such as labor unions, need to rise above their own narrow interests to engage in campaigns with universal impact. Durkheim argued that “mechanical” solidarity operated in small, homogenous communities, while “organic” solidarity, forming in larger, more complex societies, became achievable when economic and cultural differences were merged to foster cohesion. Hunt-Hendrix and Taylor quote Audre Lorde, who argued that “we must allow each other our differences at the same time as we recognize our sameness.”

Hunt-Hendrix and Taylor recognize the potency of identity politics in fueling localized campaigns. However, to move from collective action to mass politics, the authors advocate for a unifying principle centered on economic justice. This focus on the near-universal experience of economic exploitation allows movements to build by “calling in rather than calling out,” cultivating a shared sense of “us.”

To build this inclusive “us,” Hunt-Hendrix and Taylor cite Saul Alinsky’s model of “no permanent friends, no permanent enemies.” They offer a hypothetical case study involving a Catholic congregation collaborating with a feminist group on a living-wage campaign, despite being on opposite sides of the abortion debate. The book provides numerous case studies of how such transformative alliances can effectively operate in practice.

A noteworthy instance occurred in the Polish winter of 1970, when workers in cities along the Baltic coast began organizing for rights. At the behest of the Soviet Union, the Polish army intervened to quell the workers’ strikes, resulting in the “Black Thursday” massacres. Horrified by the brutality, groups of intellectuals, trade unionists, artists, and leaders from the Catholic Church began to organize. Ultimately, this organizing laid the ground for Poland’s independent trade-union movement, Solidarność (or Solidarity). Solidarity partially originated in the repression of 1970, but it took decades of determination and messy organizing to finally topple the Polish People’s Republic. The movement’s success did not happen overnight, and there were many complex interests to navigate — lessons that contemporary organizers ought to remember.

Charity Is Not Solidarity

At Zuccotti Park, Hunt-Hendrix met a group of like-minded friends who had inherited considerable wealth, each searching for a way to distribute their resources for maximum impact in support of social movements. Hunt-Hendrix is candidly honest about her family history and the way her wealth was earned by her forebears (spoiler: not always with the highest standards of ethical integrity). Her examination of conscience leads to a powerful critique of the ways the wealthy use philanthropy — leveraging the guise of solidarity and altruism — to drive their sectional and financial interests.

One recipient of this critique is the Gates Foundation for its efforts to restrict the intellectual property rights to COVID-19 vaccines. Another egregious example of philanthropic power is a mechanism called a Donor Advised Fund (DAF), which enables the storage of capital assets away from taxes in “charitable” funds. DAFs require donors to provide minimal annual transfers into charitable causes, but often these funds simply transfer money from one DAF to another. For instance, Fidelity Charitable, a DAF, earned $94 million in fees for its services in 2021, yet between 2016 and 2021, it sent $1.5 billion to other DAFs, allowing donors to receive income tax deductions for each “gift.” As a counterbalance to what she perceives as the abuse of philanthropy, Hunt-Hendrix helped established Solidaire, a movement-based organization committed to providing financial support to radical causes.

In the wake of Occupy, Taylor organized a “Rolling Jubilee” of crowdfunded debt elimination, focused on supporting students at Corinthian College who had been defrauded into assuming massive loans. The primary aim was to raise public awareness about the crippling impact of debt on human potential and to advocate for systemic solutions. By 2015, the Debt Collective had organized a student debt strike.

Despite numerous setbacks, the collective slowly built a movement that culminated in the Kamala Harris’s historic announcement that the Biden administration would discharge $6 billion of debt for half a million people. While the outcome fell short of the initial promise and was flawed, it nonetheless provided massive relief for huge numbers of people. The victory has enabled campaigners to focus on funding of higher education as a right, not a market transaction.

Solidarity and the “Secular Sacred”

The book is firmly rooted in a secular perspective. However, the final section of the book is given over to exploration the sacred within a secular framework, termed the “secular sacred.” The authors are clearly familiar with religious traditions, which provide much of the global ethical grounding for solidarity, but they are keen to avoid anything that rings of theology. There is significant room for future exploration of solidarity from inside different traditions as a means of widening social movements.

Pope Francis’s advocacy for “fraternity for all” builds on years of Catholic social teaching, in which solidarity is a core principle. Similarly, the Quran’s call for “a community among you that calls for what is good, urges what is right, and forbids what is wrong” is as powerful a call as that of Rabbi Arik Ascherman, who places his body on the line in defense of Palestinian olive farmers, noting that “there’s nothing quite like getting beaten up together” to forge the bonds of solidarity.

The book’s narrative concludes with Durkheim, whose life was tragically cut short by a broken heart after his son’s death in the trenches of World War I. In his later writings, Durkheim called for a focus on the sacred, rooted in the intrinsic value of each human being. Hunt-Hendrix and Taylor argue that the secular sacred is cultivated by collective action. In the act of coming together, people imbue the ongoing struggle for economic and environmental justice with meaning.

With chapters focused on disability rights, taming the leviathan of the welfare state, and analysis of the anti-globalization movement and indigenous-led ecology movements, the book is a tour de force history of social movements and the lessons of organizing. Its exploration of the possibility and promise of solidarity is a vital tonic for the days when the world feels bleak and it seems like things will never get better.

South Africa: Hanging On

By Michael Roberts

June 2, 2024

Source: New Politics

This article was written before the results of South Africa’s election were known. It now appears that the ANC’s share of the vote has declined to about 42 percent. The country is now facing a period of political turbulence as the political parties in parliament maneuver to form a coalition government. –NP editors

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South Africa has a general election today [May 29] with 28m citizens registered to vote.  Since the end of the apartheid regime three decades ago, the African National Congress (ANC) has won all the elections with substantial majorities.  But this time there is the possibility that the ANC will poll less than 50% of those voting.

The loss of the ANC majority, if it happens, will not be due to any increase in the vote share of the main opposition party, the mainly white-led liberal Democratic Congress (DC), whose strength is concentrated in Cape province.  The DC’s vote share is stuck at about 23%, more or less the same as in the last election in 2019.

The potential loss of votes by the ANC is to two supposedly more radical parties, split-offs from the ANC. First, there is the party of ex-President Jacob Zuma called uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK) that is polling about 10% and would take votes away from the ANC in the eastern Zulu heartlands.  Zuma has been indicted for corruption and abuse of power when president.

The real worry for the ANC and behind them, South Africa’s business elite, is the rise of Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF).  The EFF appeals to younger voters with its program to strip land from the wealthy, seize assets from the mining companies and spend the proceeds on education, free WiFi and electricity and 24-hour doctors’ clinics.  Both the MK and the EFF are showing around 11% of the vote in the opinion polls.

Why is there the possibility that the ANC, the party of South Africa’s overwhelming black majority with the historic legacy of Nelson Mandela, will poll less than 50% of the vote for the first time?  When I covered the 2019 election in a post, I wrote that “In those 25 years, the majority have not seen any startling improvement in their living standards, education, health and public services.  Indeed, for many, particularly young blacks, things are even worse.  Inequality of incomes, wealth and land is extreme; corruption in government and in the party of the black majority, the African National Congress (ANC), is rife.”

Now in 2024, the situation for most South Africans is even worse than in 2019.  Since 2019, there has been the brutal experience of the COVID pandemic, the ensuing economic slump and a feeble recovery since.  Economic growth has continued to slow almost to a stop. Indeed, real GDP per person is lower than in 2019 and even 2012.

The official unemployment rate is still well over 30% (8m people) and near 60% for job-seekers between 15 and 24 years old.

Manufacturing output is contracting and the deficit on international trade is widening.  Government debt to GDP after the experience of COVID has reached a record near 70% of GDP.

In general, life for the majority of South Africans has worsened since 2019.  The World Bank has what it calls a Human Development Index (HDI) which measures key factors like life expectancy, health, education etc.  South Africa’s HDI has dropped sharply since 2019.

Indeed, South Africa’s HDI level has been rapidly surpassed or equalled by its economic peers globally, like China, Brazil and even Indonesia.

Only the high level US HDI has grown more slowly than South Africa since 1990, when the apartheid regime was coming to an end.

		Growth
US		5.9
Russia		10.8
China		63.5
Mex		17.3
Braz		22.6
S Afr		12.9
Indo		35.6
India		48.4

Growth in HDI index since 1990

And then there is inequality and poverty.  On World Bank levels, some 64% of citizens are living in poverty.  Progress on extending access to basic services (such as water, electricity, and refuse collection) has stalled. Vulnerability to hunger has increased since the COVID-19 pandemic. An estimated 12.9 percent of the population was at risk of hunger in 2022, despite the expansion of social grants.

And South Africa remains the most unequal country in the world, having seen a widening gap between the haves and have-nots since the end of apartheid in 1994, according to the World Bank.  The bank’s report, titled Inequality in Southern Africa: An Assessment of the Southern African Customs Union (Sacu), released this week, shows that the union is the world’s most unequal region with a consumption inequality over 40 percent higher than the averages for both sub-Saharan Africa and other upper-middle-income countries, the report found.

The World Bank report notes South Africa is characterised by “high wealth inequality and economic polarisation (particularly across labour markets)”. Wealth inequality is higher than income inequality, with estimates showing that the top 10% of the population hold 71% of its wealth, whereas the bottom 60% hold only 7%. This compares with 50% and 13% respectively for the OECD. No other country in the world can compete with South Africa’s inequality of income and wealth.

That inequality isn’t only seen in income and wealth distribution; it also manifests itself in unequal access to opportunities—education, health, and jobs—and regional disparities. When the HDI is adjusted for inequality of income and wealth, South Africa looks even worse.  The World Bank’s HDI reduces South Africa to the level of India!

The bottom line is that South African capitalism presided over by the ANC has failed.  It is decrepit and corrupt, generating power shortages and widespread crime.  Crime is estimated to reduce annual GDP levels by 10%.

South African capital may have some large mining companies that make good profits, but the overall profitability of capital is low and falling. The big gains in profitability that arose after the end of apartheid have faded since the Great Recession of 2008 and ensuing Long Depression experienced globally.  South African capital is heavily dependent on world economic growth and trade and is being strangled accordingly.

Source: Penn World Tables 10.01

South Africa’s business elite is desperately hoping that the ANC under President Ramaphosa will manage to survive with a majority in parliament that avoids any forced coalition with the radical EFF.  The government is now claiming that it has resolved the electricity power outages, a perennial scourge for the daily lives of South Africans.  Eskom, the state electricity provider, has now been able to keep the power on for 50 days.  The government plans privatisation of power and transport on the grounds that this will ensure supply. After the election, the business elite will be pushing for more ‘business friendly’ measures on taxes, deregulation etc.

For its part, in an attempt to reduce voter support for the radical parties, the ANC has taken the plunge to win votes with a promise to introduce state health insurance for all citizens and a ‘basic income’ grant for the unemployed (but only within four years of winning the election).  This would cost $17bn a year, which the ANC says will be funded by higher taxes, without specifying.

There is certainly room to raise taxes on the wealthy.  An individual with a taxable income of ZAR100 000 used to pay tax at an effective rate of 33.8% in 1995; they paid tax at 19.8% in 2011 and 18% in 2022, on what the Alternative Information & Development Centre (AIDC) calls “the corporate income tax race to the bottom”. According to AIDC, a progressive net wealth tax of between 3% and 7% on the top 1% of the richest people in the country could raise more than R143 billion in revenue each year, which would cover most of the cost for a universal basic income grant.

However, the ANC seems reluctant to go down that road to fund any basic income, in case the wealthy and foreign investors desert the country.  These measures will indeed worry the business elite and foreign investors.  But then big business’ own proposed policies of privatization, tax cuts and deregulation are anathema to the electorate.

Indeed, the hopes of business for the improved health of South African capitalism are illusory.  The South African economy cannot progress on a capitalist basis, with its massive inequalities, weak productive investment and trade deficits.  The best forecasts for annual real GDP growth are for only 1.3% over the next parliament.  That will never create enough jobs for unemployed youth (even if they get some ‘basic income’) and nothing is proposed to deal with the massive inequalities. The trade deficit is expected to widen. Public investment is projected to fall further while the government debt ratio will rise to near 80% of GDP.

Current President Cyril Ramaphosa is a former trade unionist who turned himself into a ‘businessman’ to make millions. He now presides over a corrupt administration in a weak and stagnant economy and a society with extreme poverty and inequality. South African capitalism is a basket case.  How long can it hang on without a massive reaction from its people?

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First published on Michael Roberts blog.

Michael Roberts worked in the City of London as an economist for over 40 years. He has closely observed the machinations of global capitalism from within the dragon’s den. At the same time, he was a political activist in the labor movement for decades. Since retiring, he has written several books. The Great Recession – a Marxist view (2009); The Long Depression (2016); Marx 200: a review of Marx’s economics (2018): and jointly with Guglielmo Carchedi as editors of World in Crisis (2018). He has published numerous papers in various academic economic journals and articles in leftist publications.

‘No One Is Above the Law’—Oh Really, Mr. Biden?

Year after year and decade after decade, the courts have shielded presidents from accountability for perpetuated crimes committed either by the White House or by the president’s administration.

By Ralph Nader

June 2, 2024

Source: Common Dreams


President Joe Biden, joined by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, delivers remarks on continued support for Ukraine, Wednesday, January 25, 2023, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Cameron Smith)



After the jury came in with its verdict that Donald Trump was guilty of a scheme and coverup to illegally influence the 2016 election, the Biden campaign issued a statement saying that the judgment demonstrated that “no one is above the law,” not even a former President. The overwhelming truth is that the majority of criminal laws are not a deterrent to the serious violations of law committed by sitting presidents of the United States.

This includes the incumbent Joe Biden, especially with regard to foreign and military decisions.

At least five long-standing federal laws explicitly condition the shipment of weapons to foreign countries. It is legally impermissible for the U.S. government to provide weapons to countries that violate human rights or use these weapons offensively. Day after day, Joe Biden has become a co-belligerent with Netanyahu’s genocidal war crimes and mass slaughter of innocent children, women and men. He has violated all five of these federal laws. (See my February 16, 2024 column: Biden & Blinken – Rule of Illegal Power Over Rule of Law).


Presidents operate in a system of considerable sovereign immunity, and law that either can’t or has not breached this shielded impunity. They really are above the criminal laws.

As the military, diplomatic and political enabler of the Israeli government’s siege, with the unconditional shipment of weapons of mass destruction, along with civilian bombardment and starvation of defenseless Palestinians in Gaza, Biden is violating the UN Charter and other treaties that past Administrations have signed and that have been ratified by the U.S. Senate. Biden and other presidents act like they are above these and other laws.

One president after another has spent monies not appropriated by Congress, has defied subpoenas issued by Congress, launched wars undeclared by Congress, sent deadly weapons to nations that obstruct the delivery of U.S. humanitarian aid, and that do not protect civilian populations under foreign military rule. All violations of federal law.

Donald Trump in 2019 brazenly stated the lawlessness in one sentence: “ I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as President.” Trump got away with defying over 125 Congressional subpoenas, and with violating the criminal statute known as the Hatch Act by using the White House and other federal property to promote his re-election campaign. Then of course there was the January 6 insurrection, and the likely delay of his trial until after the election, if at all.

Joe Biden shuffles around unappropriated monies, continues to allow the violation of a 1992 federal law requiring the Pentagon to provide Congress with an audited military budget, and is constantly sending unlawful armed incursions into other weaker countries with impunity.

To make matters easier for presidents, there is the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel memo, from decades ago, that asserts there can be no criminal prosecution initiated against a sitting president.

As attorney Bruce Fein, who worked in the Office of Legal Counsel, has said repeatedly, this baseless opinion has no legal force and should be rescinded. (See, Letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, May 31, 2024).

The courts have shielded presidents from accountability for perpetuated crimes committed either by the White House or by the president’s administration. For example, citizens have no “standing to sue,” to challenge in court a variety of Executive Branch abuses says the Supreme Court, not even members of Congress. As for presidential violations of the Constitution and federal laws by launching illegal wars or armed attacks abroad, the courts dismiss such cases, saying they raise “political questions” outside the jurisdiction of the courts.

Being allowed to get away with crimes is what constitutional law specialist Bruce Fein calls “a way of life at the White House.” Obstruction of justice or deliberate non-enforcement of seriously violated laws marks every presidency. Trump just boasted about what he inherited and intensified it.

Again, presidents operate in a system of considerable sovereign immunity, and law that either can’t or has not breached this shielded impunity. They really are above the criminal laws. Only the very difficult political penalty of impeachment by the House of Representatives and conviction by two-thirds of the Senate can only evict them from office, after which they are free to enjoy life, and receive huge lecture fees and large book advances.

Philippines Found Guilty of Massive Human Right Violations

BY SIEGFRED DEDURO – MARY OCHS

 MAY 30, 2024
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Photograph Source: REY BANIQUET/PPD – Public Domain

Guilty of massive violations of international humanitarian law! That was the unanimous verdict handed down at the conclusion of the two-day International People’s Tribunal (IPT) regarding human rights in the Philippines held recently in Brussels, Belgium on May 17-18, 2024. On trial were the governments of past president Rodrigo Duterte, current president Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., and the government of the United States of America for its support and complicity with these regimes.

The IPT is a quasi-judicial mechanism whereby evidence is presented to a panel of jurors to render judgment on specific charges, in this instance war crimes committed in the conduct of the civil war in the Philippines. The Jurors included: Lennox Hinds, Professor of Law at Rutgers University and former legal counsel for the African National Congress; Suzanne Adely President of the National Lawyers Guild (U.S.); Severine De Laveleye, member of the Chamber of Representatives of Belgium; Julen Arzuraga Gumuzio, member of the Basque Parliament; and Archbishop Joris Vercamen, former member of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches.

Along with the distinguished panel of jurors, we had the opportunity to be present to hear harrowing testimony from 15 witnesses detailing widespread human rights abuses and violations of international humanitarian law committed by the Philippine government and its military forces. We heard first-hand accounts of extrajudicial killings, torture, enforced disappearances, harassment, and indiscriminate aerial bombing of indigenous communities defending their ancestral lands from mining and corporate plunder. These included testimony from Brandon Lee, a U.S. citizen activist in Ifugao province who was shot by suspected state agents after being “red-tagged” (labeled as a communist without any proof), threatened, and surveilled. Lee survived and is now a quadriplegic, but in his words, “while I can no longer use my body, I can continue to use my voice” to speak up for justice. Ariel Casilao spoke of the brutal murder of Peace Consultant Randall Echanis in his home while he slept in August of 2020.

Jonila Castro, along with a colleague Jhed Tamano, both environmental activists working to save Manila Bay testified she was forcibly abducted by the military in September 2023. After 17 days of interrogation and cruel torture the two were paraded by the military as captured operatives of the New People’s Army insurgency at a public press conference. It was here that the two recanted their forced confessions and exposed their kidnapping by the military. This was another example of civilian activists being targeted by the military. Also documented in graphic detail was the murder of nine indigenous leaders who opposed a massive dam project that would have destroyed the livelihoods of the people of Panay Island. (Panay is where Siegfred hails from.)

Many of the victims testified that there is a failure to distinguish between civilians and combatants in the conduct of the Philippine government’s war on the revolutionary movement. The counterinsurgency campaign deliberately targeted civilians resulting in systematic harassment. The Tribunal found the Philippine Government acted with impunity and complete disregard for International Humanitarian Law and the Geneva Conventions.

Siegfred Deduro, an author of this report, is also a victim of the Philippine Governments disregard for human rights. A long-time activist and former Member of Congress, Deduro and his family were red-tagged, with death threats so constant and serious that they had to hide for seven months and ultimately flee the Philippines. Recently the Philippine Supreme Court ruled that red-tagging was a violation of human rights in a landmark case which Deduro was a plaintiff.  The high court rules that linking red-tagging and guilt by association jeopardizes a person’s fundamental right to life, liberty, and security.  While the Supreme Court ruling is welcome, the threats continue and it remains unsafe for Deduro to return to the Philippines.

A health worker and human rights activist, Zara Alvares, who earlier filed a petition for a writ of amparo (protection from extrajudicial killing or disappearance), was nonetheless murdered. Even development workers and organizations working with government institutions are not spared from red-tagging and harassment by methods such as the freezing of bank accounts.  Such draconian and brutal tactics are being widely used by the Marcos, Jr. regime. The question remains, will the Philippine military and police comply with the ruling?

While political in nature, a People’s Tribunal is both an important venue for airing legitimate grievances of human rights victims as well as laying important groundwork for future legal actions while also gaining support from allies. In 2009, the International People’s Tribunal regarding Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange found the U.S. military guilty of ecocide and provided key documentation ultimately leading to justice for some victims. The verdict of the Philippine Human Rights IPT has been delivered to those on trial plus numerous international bodies demanding future actions by bodies such as the International Criminal Court.

The U.S.’s moral, political, and financial support for the Philippine Military and its security forces have enabled these crimes against the Filipino people, to persist and proliferate.  The U.S. cannot claim to be a country that cherishes human rights while turning a blind-eye to these horrific human right abuses.