Dmitry Puchkov delivers a hilarious and brilliant summary of the situation in the Ukraine. His analysis drips with sarcasm and is full of valuable insights. He speaks in Russian but you can turn on English (or German) subtitles by pressing the cc button on the bottom right hand side of the screen.
Category: International
14/3/2014
The KKE from the very first moment denounced the imperialist intervention of the USA-NATO-EU in Ukraine and the coup carried out by reactionary forces, with the participation of Nazis, which creates major dangers for the Ukrainian people. The stance of these forces and their criticism in relation to the developments in Ukraine and the referendum in the Crimea are a monument of hypocrisy. As these are the same forces that played the leading role in the dismemberment of Yugoslavia, in the secession of Kosovo, in the imperialist interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, in the organizations of coups against governments that are not to their liking. They attempted to do the same in Syria as they are doing now in Ukraine.
Having as our criterion the interests of the people, we consider that the assimilation of the Crimea into Russia does not deal with this intervention effectively, nor does it solve in essence any of the real problems of the Crimean people, nor does it mean any normalization of the situation or long-term solution of peace and cooperation for the peoples of the region with prosperity and progress. The majority of the people are suffering both in Russia and Ukraine, living inside conditions of capitalist barbarity, which were brought about by the counterrevolutionary changes in 1991.
We understand that the people of the Crimea, who to a great extent are of Russian and Tatar background, are worried about the acquisition of governmental power by nationalist and fascist forces, which amongst their first acts was the targeting of minorities and communists, abolishing with a law the “regional languages†and destroying anti-fascist monuments. Nevertheless, the withdrawal of Crimea for the Ukraine and its assimilation into Russia will not solve the problem of changing the correlation of forces against the reactionary and fascist forces.
It would be different if Russia was a socialist country and the people of the Crimea had made the choice and demanded accession to a socialist union together with Russia, as occurred with the accession of countries to the USSR.
The secession of the Crimea and its assimilation in Russia will further strengthen the nationalist current, both in Ukraine and in Russia. It will entrap millions of workers in a confrontation on the basis of nationality, concealing the real causes of the conflict, as well as the only alternative solution, which exists for the workers and is found on another path of development, socialism.
There is also the danger of opening “Pandora’s Box†in other regions as well, especially in the Balkans, leading to other regions being assimilated e.g. the assimilation of Kosovo into the so-called “Greater Albania†which is linked to the annexations of the territories of neighbouring countries. There are in any case examples from the dismemberment of Yugoslavia which, in the name of the self-determination of the peoples, paved the way for border changes.
The developments confirm the superiority of socialism in dealing with related problems. All the administrative changes in the Crimea, from its declaration as an autonomous republic in 1921, in the framework of the USSR, until its administrative assimilation in Ukraine in the 1950s, occurred smoothly and peacefully, because socialist relations of production were prevalent and consequently the criterion was the interests of the working class and people.
The Crimean people, the Ukrainian people, the Russian people have historical memories and positive experiences from the years of socialism, which are not erased even if over 20 years have passed since the overthrows. The Crimean people have intense memories of the anti-fascist struggle of the Soviet people, who wrote history in the siege of Sevastopol. The fact that in various regions that are seeking union with Russia they are demonstrating with, amongst other things, red flags expresses such a memory or expectation, despite the fact that such an expectation is not realistically based on today’s reality and development. Because today Russia is a capitalist country, which is in competition with the other imperialist centres, and its people are also suffering.
The historical experience teaches that in the conditions of socialism is that the peoples and the nationalities in the USSR lived fraternally and progressed with peace, while now the nationalist-divisive poison is being spread. These peoples, all the peoples, must follow this path today.
Weekend Edition March 21-23, 2014
Ukraine and Yugoslavia
by DIANA JOHNSTONE
Via: http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/21/ukraine-and-yugoslavia/
“I sometimes get the feeling that somewhere across that huge puddle, in America, people sit in a lab and conduct experiments, as if with rats, without actually understanding the consequences of what they are doing.â€
– Vladimir Putin, 4 March 2014
Paris.
Five years ago, I wrote a paper for a Belgrade conference commemorating the tenth anniversary of the start of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. In that paper I stressed that the disintegration of Yugoslavia had been used as an experimental laboratory to perfect various techniques that would subsequently be used in so-called “color revolutions†or other “regime change†operations directed against leaders considered undesirable by the United States government.
At that time, I specifically pointed to the similarities between the Krajina region of former Yugoslavia and Ukraine. Here is what I wrote at the time:
Where did the wars of Yugoslav disintegration break out most violently? In a region called the Krajina. Krajina means borderland. So does Ukraine – it is a variant of the same Slavic root. Both Krajina and Ukraine are borderlands between Catholic Christians in the West and Orthodox Christians in the East. The population is divided between those in the East who want to remain tied to Russia, and those in the West who are drawn toward Catholic lands. But in Ukraine as a whole, polls show that some seventy percent of the population is against joining NATO. Yet the US and its satellites keep speaking of Ukraine’s “right†to join NATO. Nobody’s right not to join NATO is ever mentioned.
The condition for Ukraine to join NATO would be the expulsion of foreign military bases from Ukrainian territory. That would mean expelling Russia from its historic naval base at Sebastopol, essential for Russia’s Black Sea fleet. Sebastopol is on the Crimean peninsula, inhabited by patriotic Russians, which was only made an administrative part of Ukraine in 1954 by Nikita Khrushchev, a Ukrainian.
Rather the way Tito, a Croat, gave almost the whole Adriatic coastline of Yugoslavia to Croatia, and generally enforced administrative borders detrimental to the Serbs.
As the same causes may have the same effects, US insistence on “liberating†Ukraine from Russian influence may have the same effect as the West’s insistence on “liberating†the Catholic Croats from the Orthodox Serbs. That effect is war. But instead of a small war, against the Serbs, who had neither the means nor even the will to fight the West (since they largely thought they were part of it), a war in Ukraine would mean a war with Russia. A nuclear superpower. And one that will not stand idly by while the United States continues to move its fleet and its air bases to the edges of Russian territory, both in the Black Sea and in the Baltic, on land, sea and air.
Every day, the United States is busy expanding NATO, training forces, building bases, making deals. This goes on constantly but is scarcely reported by the media. The citizens of NATO countries have no idea what they are being led into. (…)
War was easy when it meant the destruction of a helpless and harmless Serbia, with no casualties among the NATO aggressors. But war with Russia – a fierce superpower with a nuclear arsenal – would not be so much fun.
So, now here we are five years later, and I am about to attend another commemoration in Belgrade, this time of the fifteenth anniversary of the start of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. And this time, I really have nothing to say. I have already said it, over and over. Others are saying similar things, with more authority, from Professor Stephen Cohen to Paul Craig Roberts. Many of us have warned against the dangerous folly of seeking endlessly to provoke Russia by enlisting her neighbors in a military alliance whose enemy could only be… Russia. Of all Russia’s neighbors, none is more organically linked to Russia by language, history, geopolitical reality, religion and powerful emotions. The U.S. Undersecretary of State for Europe and Eurasia, Victoria Nuland, has openly boasted that the United States has spent five billion dollars to gain influence in Ukraine – in reality, in order to draw Ukraine away from Russia and into the U.S. military alliance. It is now no secret that Ms Nuland intrigued even against America’s European allies – who had a less brutal compromise in mind – in order to replace the elected President with the American protégé she calls “Yatsâ€, who indeed was soon installed in a far right government resulting from violent actions by one of the very few violent fascist movements still surviving in Europe.
True, Western media do not report all the facts at their disposal. But the internet is there, and the facts are on the internet. And despite all this, European governments do not protest, there are no demonstrations in the streets, much of public opinion seems to accept the notion that the villain of this story is the Russian president, who is accused of engaging in unprovoked aggression against Crimea – even though he was responding to one of the most blatant provocations in history.
The facts are there. The facts are eloquent. What can I say that are not said by the facts?
So up to now, I have remained speechless in the face of what appears to me to be utter madness. However, on the eve of my trip to Belgrade, I agreed to answer questions from journalist Dragan Vukotic for the Serbian daily newspaper Politika. Here is that interview.
Q. In your book Fools’ Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO, and Western Delusions, you have brought a different stance about NATO bombing of Yugoslavia than many of your intellectual colleagues in the West. What prompted you to make such an unpopular conclusion?
A. Long ago, as a student of Russia area studies, I spent several months in Yugoslavia living in a student dormitory in Belgrade and made friends there. I turned to such old friends for viewpoints rather than to the sources consulted by Western reporters. And I have a lifelong interest in US foreign policy. I began my inquiry into Yugoslav conflicts by reading key documents, such as speeches of Milosevic, the Serbian Academy memorandum and works by Alija Izetbegovic, noting the inaccuracy of the way they were represented in Western media. I was never under instructions from editors, and indeed my editors soon refused to publish my articles. I was not the only experienced observer to be excluded from Western media coverage.
Q. Although subsequent events have confirmed that the operation of illegal bombing of one country without permission of the Security Council was completely wrong, the mainstream western media and politicians still refer to successful „Kosovo model“. Can you please comment on this matter?
A. For them, it was a success, since it set a precedent for NATO intervention. They will never admit that they were mistaken.
Q. When it came to the preparation of the “humanitarian intervention†against Syria, Obama administration reported they were studying “the NATO air war in Kosovo as a possible blueprint for acting without a mandate from the United Nationsâ€. (Please comment on this)
A. This is not surprising, since setting such a precedent was one of the motives for that air war.
Q. In one of your articles you asked the question about what the ICC stood for in the case of Libya. You recalled the “familiar pattern†with the case of ICTY and Yugoslavia. What do you really think of those instruments of international justice and their role in international relations?
A. In the context of the present world relationship of forces, the ICC like the ad hoc tribunals can only serve as instruments of United States hegemony. Those criminal tribunals are used only to stigmatize adversaries of the United States, while the main role of the ICC so far is to justify the ideological assumption that there exists an unbiased “international justice†that ignores national boundaries and serves to enforce human rights. As John Laughland has pointed out, a proper court must be the expression of a particular community that agrees to judge its own members. Moreover, these courts have no police of their own but must rely on the armed force of the United States, NATO and their client states, who as a result are automatically exempt from prosecution by these supposedly “international†courts.
Q. What is, in your opinion, the main purpose of declaring the so-called humanitarian intervention? Does it have more to do with the domestic public opinion or with the international partners?
A. The ideology of Human Rights (a dubious concept, incidentally, since “rights†should be grounded in concrete political arrangements, not on abstract concepts alone) serves both domestic and global purposes. For the European Union, it suggests a “soft†European nationalism based on social virtue. The United States, which is more forthright than today’s Europe in proclaiming its national interest, the ideology of Human Rights serves to endow foreign interventions with a crusading purpose that can appeal to European allies and above all to their domestic opinion, as well as to the English-speaking world in general (Canada and Australia in particular). It is the tribute vice pays to virtue, to echo LaRochefoucauld.
Q. You often use the term “US and its European satellites“. Please explain.
A. “Satellites†was the term used for members of the Warsaw Pact, and today the governments of the NATO member states follow Washington as obediently as the former followed Moscow, even when, as in the case of Ukraine, the United States goes against European interests.
Q. How do you see current goings on in Ukraine and Crimea, especially in terms of US-Russia relations?
A. US-Russian relations are determined primarily by an ongoing U.S. geostrategic hostility to Russia which is partly a matter of habit or inertia, partly a realization of the Brzezinski strategy of dividing Eurasia in order to maintain US world hegemony, and partly a reflection of Israeli-dominated Middle East policy toward Syria and Iran. Between the two major nuclear powers, there is clearly an aggressor and an aggressed. It is up to the aggressor to change course if relations are to be normal.
Simply compare. Is Russia urging Quebec to secede from Canada so that the province can join a military alliance led by Moscow? Evidently not. That would be comparable, and yet mild compared to the recent U.S. gambit led by Victoria Nuland aimed at bringing Ukraine, including the main Russian naval base at Sebastopol, into the Western orbit. The material reality of this political orbit is NATO, which since the end of the Soviet Union has systematically expanded toward Russia, which stations missiles whose only strategic function would be to provide the United States with a hypothetical nuclear first strike capacity against Russia, and which regularly holds military manoeuvers along Russian borders. Russia has done nothing against the United States, and recently provided President Obama with a face-saving way to avoid being voted down in Congress in regard to military action against Syria – action which was not desired by the Pentagon but only by the fraction of Israeli-oriented policy makers called “neoconsâ€. Russia professes no hostile ideology, and only seeks normal relations with the West. What more can it do? It is up to Americans to come to their senses.
Diana Johnstone is the author of Fools’ Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO, and Western Delusions. She can be reached at diana.johnstone@wanadoo.fr
by James Thompson
There has been much discussion of the crisis in the Ukraine in the press across the world. The recent coup d’état in the Ukraine has been characterized by the U.S. Press in general and Secretary of State John Kerry in particular as being an orderly, democratic process being conducted by the “freedom loving” people of the Ukraine. Russia Today has played images of Kerry speaking alternated with videos of the destructive coup d’état in the Ukraine and which many people were hurt or killed and there was much destruction of property. These clips may be called Russian propaganda by the Western media, but they clearly illustrate and instruct us on the gross hypocrisy of US propaganda.
Stench of fascism detected in the US.
As it turns out, the mendacity of this outrageous propaganda is starting to stink. The stink we are all smelling is the stench of fascism.
The BBC http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957  and other news sources http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37599.htm  have exposed the lies and prevarications of US government officials and their sordid support of the open fascists who now control the government of Ukraine. Victoria Nuland, Assistant Secretary of State, openly announced that the US has invested $5 billion to support the fascists. This is, of course, an outrageous expenditure of precious taxpayer money that is not in the interest of the working people of the United States of America.
What is Fascism?
Before this article goes any further, “fascism” should be clearly defined since it is often used and poorly understood. George Dimitrov in his book “Against Fascism and War” clearly defined fascism on page 2: “Fascism in power was correctly described by the 13th Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International as the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital.” He continues on page 7 “But whatever the masks that fascism adopts, whatever the forms in which it presents itself, whatever the ways by which it comes to power–
Fascism is a most ferocious attack by capital on the mass of the working people;
Fascism is unbridled chauvinism and predatory war;
Fascism is rabid reaction and counterrevolution;
Fascism is the most vicious enemy of the working class and of all working people.”
Dimitrov should know. He was a Bulgarian in Germany who was accused by the Nazis of firebombing the Reichstag. He defended himself in a Nazi trial and won.
What is the USA doing?
Supporting fascists is what the US government, the best cheerleaders for capitalism that money can buy, is doing. The US government has and is supporting, encouraging, defending and funding fascists in the Ukraine.
Marxists generally believe that fascism is a political tool of capitalism that is used during times of economic crises especially when there is a threat from the left. The world capitalist system has been in a state of acute crisis since 2008. The crisis has been extreme in the Ukraine and many have noted that the country is near economic collapse.
Ushering in and cavorting with the fascists is none other than Communist fighting Sen. John McCain. He has been photographed in meetings with the fascists, but even president Obama has met with the fascist leader of the Ukraine who is also the head of the Ukrainian Fatherland Party.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world is holding its nose in disgust.
What is the history of the US support of fascism?
Here is one article that details a list of 35 countries where the USA has supported fascists and other degenerates to further the interests of the wealthy, capitalist class: http://www.stopwar.org.uk/news/ukraine-is-latest-of-35-countries-where-the-united-states-has-supported-fascists-drug-lords-and-terrorists#.UyZOPRROVFI
How has NATO been involved in the spread of capitalism?
It must be remembered that NATO was founded in 1949 and its first Secretary-General, Lord Ismay, stated that the organization’s goal was “to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.” NATO’s foundation initiated a long series of imperialist wars during the Cold War and has continued since the end of the Soviet Union. NATO has intervened in Bosnia, Herzegovina and Kosovo from 1992 until 1999. Those interventions started as the Soviet Union ended and resulted in the destruction of the Yugoslavian socialist state which was a former ally of the USSR. NATO intervened in Afghanistan in 2001 and this still continues. This intervention which was preceded by the US support of the Mujahideen and Osama bin Laden who succeeded in bringing down the socialist government of Afghanistan, which was an ally of the USSR. NATO has been involved in the Iraq war and Iraq has been a traditional ally of Russia. NATO intervened in Libya and provoked a coup d’état against Moammar Gadhafi which ultimately resulted in his death. Gadhafi had supported socialism in Libya and revolutionary movements around the world. Libya was at one time an ally of the USSR.
Starting on March 12, 1999 membership in NATO has been granted to many former socialist countries, former allies of the Soviet Union and former republics of the Soviet Union to include the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Albania and Croatia.
What is the relationship of the Russian Federation with the Ukrainian crisis?
Lenin taught us that the definition of a revolution is the passing of state power from one class to another. The Russian counterrevolution of 1991 resulted in the passing of state power from the working class to the capitalist class. The current Russian government is clearly a capitalist controlled government. Before the coup d’état in the Ukraine, the democratically elected government headed by Victor Yanukovich was clearly a capitalist government. So, by this definition, the crisis in the Ukraine is not a revolution or counterrevolution. State power has remained in the hands of the capitalists. The fascists who head the current Ukrainian government are still cheerleaders for capitalism. They are merely the more extreme sectors of the population in the Ukraine and represent a tiny minority of the Ukrainian people. Apparently, they are espousing anti-Semitic, anti-communist and anti-Russian laws which would give members of certain groups a different set of rights from “real Ukrainians.” We all know that the German Nazis started this line of thinking and it ended in vicious wars of occupation and large segments of the German population being relegated to concentration camps and mass executions.
One can easily see that both the Russian capitalists and Russian working class in both Russia and the Ukraine have been backed into a corner of sorts by the Western capitalists. The Western capitalists are using their fascist puppets in the Ukraine to terrorize Russians.
It is important to consider the history of the relationship between Russia, the Ukraine and Germany. Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union on June 21, 1941. German soldiers first entered the Ukraine during the invasion. Ultimately, they were defeated by the Soviets and were driven back to Berlin in defeat. This happened after millions of people were slaughtered. The goal of the German invasion was to exterminate Communists and seize the natural resources of the USSR and the neighboring region.
It should be remembered that the Ukraine has for a long time been considered “the bread basket of Russia.” Russian oil and gas is piped through the Ukraine to the EU. It is easy to see the importance of close economic ties between Russia and the Ukraine for their respective peoples. It is also easy to see why Russians would be sensitive to the presence of Western fascists on their borders.
Just after World War II, in 1954, Nikita Khrushchev, a Ukrainian and leader of the Soviet Union, gave the Crimea to Ukraine. It had formerly been part of Russia. Recent research has discovered that Khrushchev propagated much of the anti-Communist lies about the Soviet Union which have become standard propaganda for US capitalists.
Why fascists must be stopped.
The people of the world know the history of global destruction and ruin brought to their doorsteps by fascists in the past. We remember the hateful ideology which led to genocide. We are hearing the same ideology espoused again and it is being openly supported by the government leaders of the United States.
Prior to World War II, if the Western nations and the Soviet Union had joined together and quashed the fascists in Germany and Italy, the world would be much more advanced today. Instead of vast resources being spent and destroyed in a vicious war, resources could have been spent on science, technology, healthcare and education and the world would be in a far better place than it is today. Millions of lives could have been saved. Families would not have been torn apart. Vast numbers of people would not have been tortured. Perhaps two cities in Japan would not have been incinerated by atomic blasts and a city in Germany would not have been reduced to ashes by firebombing. Many cities in the Soviet Union would not have been held in siege for years.
This is why working people across the globe must unite and fight the fascists both at home and abroad. There can be no excuse for people of conscience to support the use of fascism to oppress working people. The destruction that fascism brings affects people of all races, classes, sexes, political persuasion, etc. The fascists in Germany had horribly destructive weapons to use against the people of the countries that they invaded. However, what they had were mere slingshots compared to the nuclear weapons that are available today. As one famous antiwar song from the 60s proclaimed as sung by Pete Seeger “we can all be cremated equally.”
by: Communist Party USA
February 27 2014
Via: http://www.cpusa.org/communist-party-usa-says-hands-off-ukraine/
The Communist Party USA expresses its alarm at the fast moving developments in the Ukraine, and calls upon the people of the United States to insist that our government back off from a pattern of interference that does not serve the interests of either the Ukrainian or the U.S. people.
Since last fall, there have been demonstrations in Kiev and other cities against the Ukrainian government’s decision to back away from a trade deal with the European Union and instead explore new trade and aid relationships with Russia. Other grievances have also been raised.
Early on, some right wing extremist elements began to play an increasingly active role in the protests. These have included the “Svoboda” (“Freedom”) Party and other nationalists and fascists. They are not merely anti-communist and anti-Russian, but also anti-Semitic and anti-Polish. Some of them are the political descendants of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army of Stepan Bandera, an extreme right wing nationalist who, during and immediately after the Second World War, fought against the Red Army on the side of Germany, and carried out pogroms against Jews, Poles and others.
Unfortunately, some U.S. politicians and officials have seen fit to go to Kiev to be photographed alongside some of these extremist elements, including Svoboda leader Oleh Tyahnybok, whose anti-Semitic declarations are particularly vicious.
These fascist elements took over the town of Lviv, in Western Ukraine, and equipped themselves with weapons from the local armory. Immediately afterward came a sharp escalation of violence with deaths on both sides. Now the Ukrainian parliament (Rada), in a rigged vote, has illegally deposed President Victor Yanukovych and is ramming through right wing legislation, including a law which strips official recognition from the Russian language spoken by nearly half the population of the country. More right-wing nationalist measures, including one banning the Communist Party, are in the pipeline.
Attacks against Jews have led a prominent Rabbi to recommend that Jews now leave Kiev and perhaps the whole Ukraine. Attacks on the Communist Party of the Ukraine and its leadership have been escalating, including the seizing of the property of the party and its leaders.
There is strong opposition to these developments in the Eastern and Southern Ukraine, including the major cities of Kharkov and Odessa, and in the Crimean Peninsula. The Crimea contains, by agreement between Ukraine and Russia, the major Russian naval base at Sevastopol. So there is a danger that a civil war could break out in the Ukraine and draw in Russia and perhaps others. Inevitably, moves toward a conflict situation and a possible partition of the Ukraine would further sour relations between the United States and Russia.Unfortunately, statements of Victoria Nuland, Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, and other U.S. officials and politicians strongly indicate an agenda on the part of some in the Obama administration of “regime change” in the Ukraine.
The Communist Party USA demands that:
The United States government refrain from words and actions that infringe on the national sovereignty of the Ukrainian people.
The United States government, and individual U.S. politicians and officials, cease to associate themselves with fascists and anti-Semites in the Ukraine, or anywhere. Rather, they should denounce them and their works.
The United States cease to carry out policies that could well lead to a dangerous confrontation in the Black Sea area, and not give aid or comfort to politicians who wish to create trouble between the Ukrainian and Russian peoples.
Furthermore, the CPUSA expresses its total solidarity with the Communist Party of the Ukraine, with the Ukrainian Jewish community and with all others who are endangered by the fascist upsurge.
REGION AMERICA
AMERICA`S REGION
STATEMENT
OF THE WORLD FEDERATION OF TRADE UNIONS (WFTU) REGARDING THE CREATION OF THE COMMUNITY OF LATIN AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN STATES (CELAC)
With great satisfaction, WFTU welcomes the creation of CELAC as a process of extraordinary strategic meaning for the sake of our region, by recognizing the basis identifying us, without the mediation of foreign hegemonic interests, and as an expression of the need for claiming people´s sovereignty.
Beyond the diversity of creed and ideologies, there has been recognition that the economic model and policies imposed from Washington are already exhausted, and the necessity of prioritizing the most significant interests of the country by a systematic effort, in a coordinated and committed way according to the people´s desires.
We are very concerned with the way in which the world economic situation is endangered, in the middle of the economic crisis, the turbulence of the financial markets and the difficulties with tax policies in many places. The volatility of prices in basic goods and the pressures exerted against food security are key problems to be solved.
We are aware that worldwide consequences of these problems fall mainly in the working class, and especially in poorest people. Although Latin America and the Caribbean, according to key international organizations, is not the most affected region, the main records of labor market, inequality and poverty, are showing that vulnerability and the region´s main problems have not been solved yet.
Again and again it is repeated that Latin America and the Caribbean is the most unequal region on Earth, but still we have a lot to do in order to break the vicious circle of inequality and poverty.
In this environment, we are conscious that in nations facing such facts, with sociopolitical models more radicals and leaning to change, their people and governments suffer from an increasing aggressive actions on the part of United States government and its allies, which adopt new and assorted ways, ranging from the allocation of big amounts of money for subversion, to the increase of military installations, with the evident proposal of pushing for setbacks, and in order to intervene militarily in case they feel that their interests and greed over the natural resources of all kind, are at stake; particularly oil and natural gas, all of which provoke war of pillage in other regions.
Because of all above mentioned issues, today more than ever, the appeal for unity of the working class takes validity, facing the attempts for subversion and lulling of our struggle, by mean of a conciliating and compromising speech, with neoliberals’ ideas, that already demonstrated their failure and have been rejected, because, among other facts, the labor policies regarding the so called flexibility in employment, make it precarious, and the same happens with wages, the workers´ living conditions and the limitations of the freedom to organize themselves.
Neoliberal policies have not solved any of the problems that are the core of people´s aspirations.
♦ We have to strengthen the class oriented trade union movement, in order to encourage unity of action of workers and their people, in favor of mobilization and conformation of proposals beyond the eminently vindicating and economic union framework, generating alternative programs and proposals where aspirations of the whole population be reflected.
♦ It is unavoidable for us to oppose an attempt to criminalize the trade union movement, due to its positions defending national wealth, social transformations leading to respect and promote actual human rights, social and environmental justice, fostering full and dignified employment, sustainable way of living, basic health services, education, housing, among others.
Likewise, we cannot forget our opposition regarding violence by organized crime, but also of the use of the State´s armed forces against the population.
♦ It is necessary for us to override the root causes which limit a greater degree of workers´ participation in the process leading to regional integration, even with the diversity of our positions and affiliations, and under the key premise around unity, common points permitting us to go ahead in a joint and articulated way.
♦ We should insist that every country must adopt its own decisions in an environment of peace, stability, justice, democracy and respect for human rights.
♦ Our uncompromising rejection to the presence of military installations requires firmness from CELAC, and also in relation to extortion on the part of rich countries conditioning economic assistance to the acquisition of military equipment. Money that is allocated for weapons should go for the solution of problems related to services and social protection, needed by people and workers.
♦ The integration of our countries should help in the commitment to build an international order more just, equitable and harmonic, founded in the respect for international law and the principles of the United Nations Charter, among them the sovereign equality of States, and the peaceful solution of conflicts, favoring justice, peace, development and understanding among peoples.
♦ CELAC needs to stay away from Bretton Woods agreements, by creating, more than a common account unit, and a regional monetary, commercial and financial system incorporating a chamber of payments compensation with a financial fund for the development of entities like Banco del Sur (Bank of the South).
♦ Member Governments of CELAC should reject IMF mechanisms and other international financial institutions that impose programs going against interests and rights of the working class, by mean of astringency, privatization and pillage policies of wealth belonging to our people.
♦ We condemn the implementation of Free Trade Agreements and other ways of association with United States, Canada and the European Union, which have removed jobs, and have subjugated our national economies to uncertainties and imbalances of international markets.
♦ In the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), we have to influence in order to get fundamental structural changes for the transformation of the whole world economic and financial system, trying to avoid another crisis like the one we are facing today.
♦ The external debt should be canceled. It has been already paid many times.
♦ We hope that CELAC will encourage coordinated investment policies, technological innovation, rational use of natural resources and the environment, fiscal, tax, commercial, migration, educational, health and security and social prevention measures, towards the creation and stabilization of jobs, and the protection of jobless people.
♦It is very important for CELAC to guide national economic policies towards productive investments, according to national interests, urging investors to comply with labor rights and be subjected to national courts in case of violations.
· Promote a wage policy which greatly increases payments to all workers, and by that means to push the consumption of goods and services, and encouraging at the same time investments and jobs.
♦ We demand CELAC to sponsor a free and public education, in order to forge characters based upon culture in its broadest meaning, with values such as, identity, solidarity, reciprocity, and to develop scientific knowledge according to workers’ and people´s needs.
♦ We urge each country to have a high quality and free health care system, covering all the requirements of people.
♦CELAC should impose itself since the beginning, going ahead in the formation of alternatives regarding food, energy and financial sovereignty, in the defense of environment and against the effects of climate change; claiming the need for the existence of peace, against the militarization and State terrorism, and where the attention and the search of solutions to the serious social problems we are facing, be the base of our determination.
CELAC governments should assure:
· Rights for a free and democratic trade union organization, facing violators of rules of Covenant 87 of ILO.
· Tutelage for representatives and trade union activists against any reprisal affecting their families, their jobs or labor conditions.
· Prohibition and nullification of high-handed or unprovoked firing
· Guarantee for labor justice, specialized in the Law of Labor
15 January 2014
Peace activist Margaretta D’Arcy, who was arrested at her home in Galway City today (15th January) and brought to Limerick Prison to serve a three-month sentence. Ms D’Arcy suffers from Parkinson’s disease and is also being treated for cancer.
She refused to sign an undertaking that she would keep away from unauthorised zones at Shannon Airport, as a result of which her three-month suspended sentence has been activated.
Margaretta D’Arcy and Niall Farrell were sentenced in Ennis District Court in December 2013. Each received a three-month prison sentence, suspended on condition that they enter into a bond to uphold the law for two years and stay out of unauthorised zones at Shannon Airport.
Shannon Airport is a major hub for US warplanes on their way to sow death and destruction in Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries in the Middle East. It is also a transit point for aircraft carrying US military drones, and it is believed that victims of “extraordinary rendition†were transported through the airport.
We would request upon all peace and democratic forces around the world to write to the Irish Government demanding her release.
Alan Shatter, Minister for Justice:
e-mail: info@justice.ie
Send messages of support to Galway Alliance Against War :
galwayallianceagainstwar@gmail.com
or
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