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Latinos in the US take Strong Anti-War Stand

Los Angeles, Sep 12 (Prensa Latina) The Latino Congreso held in this city from September 6-10 took a strong anti-war stand and was a sequel of the massive mobilizations of Latinos this spring in defense of immigrant rights, said Medea Benjamin of CommonDreams.org.

Cofounder of the human rights group Global Exchange and the peace group CODEPINK, Benjamin said that Mayor Antonio Villarraigos and a numerous Latino Congresspeople greeted the over 1,600 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).

Although war in Iraq was not high on the agenda, the first resolution to come up for discussion 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 text, says Medea, 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.”

Amendments were proposed from the floor to make the resolution even stronger, like calling on elected Latino officials to take leadership in promoting legislation to bring the troops home.

To the surprise of even Muñoz, not one delegate spoke out against the resolution, and when the voice vote occurred, a lone “nay” was overwhelmed by a sea of emphatic “ayes.”

Jose Carrillo from the Auto Workers Union with two sons in the military and Daniela Conde, a student at UCLA and a member of the student group MEChA, echoed the concern about the aggressive recruitment of Latino youth.

“I began to understand how the war has affected my community when I saw my friends being recruited into the military and how they became dehumanized. I want to see the high schools preparing Latino youth for college, not for war. And I want to see this country spending money on uplifting poor communities, not killing people overseas.”

Antonio Gonzales, one of the key organizers of the event and a heavy hitter in the Latino community, was delighted by the open expression of anti-war sentiment at the Congreso. “An unjust war will always be opposed by Latinos because our fundamental principle is justice for all,” he said.