Self-Determination

UNC – Chapel Hill Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) stands in solidarity with the people of Gaza who are currently under attack.  We strongly support the right of self determination for the Palestinian people and their right to resist against Israel's illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories.  The state of Israel is currently responsible for murdering over 1,000 and wounding over 4,000 Palestinians in under three weeks.  These numbers are grossly disproportionate to the 13 Israelis that have died since Israel began its ground assault on Gaza. We are appalled to know that the United States unflinchingly supports this genocide and continues to spend billions of our tax dollars to fund and arm the attack on Gaza. We also condemn the actions of Representative David Price, who voted for a resolution which blames the victim and does nothing to stop the massacre of Palestinians.

• We demand that the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert halt the bloody assault on Gaza immediately.
• We demand that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak open the borders between Egypt and Gaza and allow medical professionals to help the Palestinian people.
• We demand that Israel allow reporters and media into Gaza so that the world can view firsthand the terror it is inflicting on the people of Gaza.
• We demand that Israel immediately withdraw its illegal settlements in the Palestinian territories which have been built on top of bulldozed Palestinian homes.
• We demand that our tax dollars go toward furthering our communities in the US rather than be sent to aid in the genocide of an indigenous people.

Free Palestine- End the Apartheid Now!

US out of the Middle East!

Five years ago, George Bush, the Democratic and Republican Parties and the United States government committed what the Nuremberg Court called the “supreme international crime.” They waged a war of aggression against a sovereign nation, and they justified it with lies. They claimed Iraq possessed and was actively developing weapons of mass destruction. But it did not take long for the truth to surface: Bush and big oil interests had been planning this war for years. The real motives of this war are not defensive, nor are they altruistic; they are imperial. The U.S. aimed to ensure its domination of the region by striking down an anti-imperialist government in the heart of the oil-rich Middle East.

Five years later, more than one million Iraqis lie dead. Over four and a half million have become refugees. Entire cities have been reduced to rubble. Basic infrastructure destroyed in the massive “shock and awe” bombing campaign has left 70% of Iraqis without access to safe drinking water and millions without access to effective sanitation. Vast areas of Iraq lack sufficient electricity, with many neighborhoods in Baghdad receiving only 5-6 hours of power a day. Ten million Iraqis maintain a precarious existence through a sanctions-era food rationing system – which the Iraqi puppet government soon plans to eliminate. Unemployment stands at 60-70%. 800,000 children did not go to school last year. Hospitals lack basic medicines and staff. U.S.–sponsored death squads roam the streets. Religious sectarianism, an important tool the U.S. employs in its divide-and-conquer strategy, has led to tens of thousands of murders and kidnappings.

But five years of occupation has also meant five years of struggle. The Iraqi people are not passively standing by while their sovereignty is dismantled in the name of a colonial-style puppet government in the Green Zone, and while the United States and the giant multi-national corporations loot Iraqi oil.

Dear friends and allies at UNC,

This March will mark a grim milestone: the U.S. occupation of Iraq will enter its fifth year. After five years of war and occupation, over 1.2 million Iraqis and 4,000 U.S. troops have lost their lives, and more that $500 billion has been poured into the failing occupation, money that should have been spent making education more accessible to millions of young people in this country who cannot afford it, to provide healthcare, housing and jobs to all Americans, and to rebuild the Gulf Coast, which is still suffering from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina more than two and a half years later.