Latino Congreso takes strong anti-war stance...

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Published on Monday, September 11, 2006 by CommonDreams.org
Historic Latino Congreso Takes Strong Anti-War Stand
by Medea Benjamin

Billed as the most comprehensive gathering of Latino leaders in the US in three decades, over 1,600 delegates and observers attended the Latino Congreso in Los Angeles from September 6-10. The Congreso grew out of the massive mobilizations of Latinos this spring for immigrant rights, and was a forum to discuss not only the status of immigration reform, but also a wide range of issues from how to best use Latino voting power to global warming to the economic empowerment of Latino communities. Mayor Antonio Villarraigosa and numerous Latino Congresspeople greeted the participants, who represented a diversity of labor, student, environmental, health and community development groups.

The convention was organized by some of the largest Latino advocacy groups in the nation, including the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), the William C. Velásquez Institute and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC).

The war in Iraq was not high on the agenda. Of the dozens of workshops and plenaries, only one session was dedicated to the war—a panel that included Fernando Suarez del Solar, a man who lost his son Jesus in Iraq and has been speaking out against the war ever since. But the elected officials who addressed the crowd—Congresspeople, mayors, city council members—failed to mention the war, and when Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez spoke at a reception for Latina leaders, she advised Latinos to enroll in schools like West Point and the Naval Academy so they could get good jobs in the military.

When the delegates convened in a plenary session to discuss proposed resolutions, however, the first to come up was an anti-war resolution proposed by Rosalio Muñoz, coordinator of a group called Latinos for Peace and a veteran of the Chicano Moratorium against the war in Vietnam. The resolution represented a radical position for a Congress sponsored mainly by organizations that have never taken a public stand on the war, in part because many of their members are military families and they don’t want to appear disrespectful to the soldiers.

Entitled “US Withdrawal from Iraq War”, it condemned the aggressive recruitment of Latino youth into the military, the spending of billions on war instead of much-needed community services, and the post-9/11 racial profiling that has hurt all people of color. It called for a withdrawal of troops from Iraq and a foreign policy focused on diplomacy and peaceful development.

“Polls show that 70% of Latinos oppose this disastrous war,” said Muñoz, “but few Latinos have been speaking out. It’s time for that to change.”

The complete article is at: http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0911-21.htm