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20th September 2016, 18:26
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Newsletter preparing the Mumbai (India) Conference against war, exploitation and precarious labour
November, 18 to 20, 2016
Contact address: [email protected]
No. 9 September 15th 2016
BELARUS
“Denounce the IMF and those who are really responsible for the crisis”
Yuri Glushakov, independent candidate (1) in the legislative elections in Gomel (Belarus) and delegate to the Mumbai conference
Yuri, you are an independent candidate in the legislative elections in Gomel (Belarus).
In your campaign, you denounced the privatizations and the pressure that the IMF exerts on the government. Why?
After the restoration of capitalism, the authoritarian bourgeois regime deprived the workers of the possibility of deciding freely; elections are often falsified. So taking part in these elections is first of all a means of propaganda for our socialist ideas. It is not a dogmatic way to do so, but one that is understandable for the workers, in spite of the liberal propaganda. But we are fighting to win! Denouncing the IMF and those who are really responsible for the serious economic crisis that is also hitting Belarus is indispensible. The neoliberals are claiming that it is the “Soviet heritage” – which they say has been maintained intact here in Belarus – that is the cause. Yet Belarus has been committed to capitalism for a long time now. The unprecedented measures increasing rents, extending the age of retirement, freezing wages and retirement pensions are all the result of the IMF demands, which the power in place has implemented because it needs more loans. Thus it was our duty to reveal the real reasons for their impoverishment to the workers - because no one talks about that. In the name of “national unity” and the fight against the autocratic regime of Alexander Lukashenko, the so-called parties of the “left” have rallied to the capitalist economic programme of their liberal and conservative allies, i.e. the enemies of the working class. In order to impose the deregulating and the liquidating of social gains, capital uses two vehicles: not only the president and his advisors but also the opposition of the right and the NGOs that it handsomely financed.
You will be the Belarus delegate to the Mumbai conference “Against war and exploitation, against exploitation and precarious employment”. Does this have any meaning for the workers of the ex-Soviet Union?
The Mumbai conference is of major importance for the workers of the ex-Soviet Union. In the conditions of a State which, although being a Soviet State, was deformed, they were confronted with serious problems. But they only learned what real exploitation was after the capitalist restoration in the 1980s and 1990s. And at the same time as exploitation came, so did war. The clans of the bureaucracy and the oligarchy, in the different Republics, engaged in a fight to the death for the pillaging of property, including by military means. The conflicts between nationalities and wars have been provoked by western imperialism and by certain of the reactionary regimes of the Middle East. The return to the domination of the bourgeoisie in ex-USSR took us decades backwards. Just to give one example: the average purchasing power of a Belarus worker today has fallen back to its 1947 level, i.e. two years after the end of the Second World War. The cliques that are currently in power have concentrated their energy in the frenzy of nationalism. The Ukrainian tragedy, which has destabilized the whole region, has shown the danger of these neo-fascist and nationalist groups, backed by the oligarchies of NATO. Co-ordinating our labour struggles, sharing our experiences and narrowly reinforcing the links between all the national sections of the global working class is more necessary than ever.
(1) One thousand citizens of the town signed an official form enabling him to stand in the elections.
ORGANISING COMMITTEE FOR THE MUMBAI CONFERENCE .
MARCH 9, 2016 .
AFGHANISTAN
Nasir Loyand, Left Radical of Afghanistan.
BRAZIL
Claúdio Ribeiro, labour lawyer, former trade unionist in the Bank sector and founding member of the Workers Party (PT) in Brazil.
BURUNDI
Paul Nkunzimana, Workers Party for Democracy (Parti des travailleurs et de la démocratie - PTD).
FRANCE
Daniel Gluckstein, national secretary of the Democratic independent workers Party (POID).
Bernard Saas, trade unionist.
GREAT-BRITAIN
Ian Hodson National President BFAWU ( Bakers Food Allied Workers Union )
INDIA
Nambiath Vasudevan/Franklyn D’Souza, Joint Convenors, Trade Union Solidarity Committee (TUSC), Mumbai.
M. A. Patil, President;
SarvaShramikSangh, President; New Trade Union Initiative, Maharashtra State, Mumbai.
Milind Ranade, General Secretary
KachraVahatuk-ShramikSangh (KVSS), Mumbai.
PAKISTAN
Rubina Jamil, All Pakistan trade union federation APTUF.
RUSSIA
Mark Vassilev, historian and activist.
USA
Alan Benjamin, executive committee member,
San Francisco Labor Council (AFL-CIO)
Baldemar Velasquez, President, Farm Labor
Organizing Committee FLOC (AFL-CIO).
Nancy Wohlforth*, OPEIU, Secretary treasurer Emerita.
*For id. only.
MAURITIUS
Campaign against Diego Garcia US military base
The Mumbai Conference is taking place at a crucial moment when the question of the struggle against war and against military Bases is on right on the agenda all over the world. For Lalit (a Mauritian political organization professing socialism), December 2016 marks the end of the 50-year illegal lease by the UK of Diego Garcia to the US for its massive Indian Ocean military base. Diego Garcia is part of the Chagos Archipelago, which is part of Mauritius that the British against all international law and against the Charter of the UN, excised and kept as an illegal “condition” for granting Independence.
The Mauritian State has finally, after nearly 50 years of struggle to force it to do so, begun the process of putting a case before the International Court of Justice at the Hague, by way of a resolution at the General Assembly of the UN, which meets from mid-September. It is Item 88 on the Provisional Agenda.
So, what has for 50 years been a “secret site” from which B 52s have taken off to bomb civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq, at which the Pelindaba Treaty for a Nuclear Arms Free Africa is flaunted on a daily basis, and on which illegally detained prisoners were held, tortured and “rendered”, Diego Garcia is suddenly being exposed to public scrutiny
It is at this time that we in Lalit will be holding our International Action Conference on 1 and 2 October. And it is now, at this time, that we are calling for support from you. [...]
What happened is that in 1965, Britain literally “stole” the Chagos Archipelago in order to sub-let part of it, Diego Garcia, to the power that is literally the “receiver of stolen goods”, the USA for the purposes of its planned secretive military base.
Families were cruelly divided.
There were Mauritians living there, Mauritius being a State made up of many Islands. They had been living there from at least 1814, working on coconut plantations, living their lives, generation after generation, coming to the main island for medical treatment or for buying goods. The UK and USA state apparatus secretly removed all the inhabitants from there, first denying them return ship tickets from 1963 onwards when they visited Mauritius main island, then forcibly removing them. Families were thus cruelly divided.
The final shipload were transported, like slaves in the hold of a ship called the Nordvaer. That was in 1973. The base was already being constructed on Diego Garcia. [...]
This history of struggle began in resistance on Chagos, and then in people’s refusal to disembark from the Nordvaer. Since then there has been continuous struggle. Petitions, marches, hunger strikes, candle-light vigils, forums, street demonstrations by Chagossian and Lalit women, sit-ins on the public roads, arrests of Lalit and Chagossian women. We joined and became part of the leading team in the NO BASES movement. [...]
Now, finally the Mauritians State is acting. And the British State is in a corner. The lease to the US for the military base ends in December. But the Mauritian State had put in (under pressure from mainly LALIT for it to act) a case against the British State under the Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) for its illegal declaration of a Marine Protected Area around Chagos, and won the case. In the judgment, which is binding, it was declared that Britain can do nothing without consulting Mauritius. So, how does the UK re-new its illegal lease with the USA? Especially if we can get everyone to know about it?
The UK and USA were horrified
At the same time – and this is dangerous – the UK state seems on the verge of granting the right to return for some Chagossians, on the condition that they accept continued colonization as subjects of BIOT, the British Indian Ocean Territory – the illegal colony set up in 1965. [...]
The Mauritian Prime Minister elected in December 2014, Sir Aneerood Jugnauth, is finally doing what Lalit has been formally demanding in all our struggles since 1985: fed up with being strung along by the British State, he is finally going to the UN General Assembly for a Resolution to put a case for an Advisory Opinion before the International Court of Justice at The Hague.
The UK and USA were horrified. In June 2016, they said in a rare joint UK-USA communiqué: “Referral of this matter to the International Court of Justice would cause lasting damage to Mauritius’ bilateral relations with both the UK and the USA.” [...]
On 28 August, in the main bourgeois Sunday paper, the editorial calls on the Mauritian State to give a delay of 6 months (time for the illegal leasebetween the UK and US to be renewed on the quiet before the end of 2016?) and then to wait for “a dignified and sincere offer”, as they put it in the editorial. For this, read: some commercial advantage for the Mauritian bourgeoisie. [...]
In the context of the Mumbai Conference, we are making an appeal to you to support our campaign
In the context of the Mumbai Conference, we are making an appeal to you to support our campaign by:
1 - Writing us a letter of support in the coming days: [email protected] for our Conference on 1 and 2 October. Its theme is (sorry it is a bit long):
“50 years of destruction by the UK and USA on Diego Garcia & 50 years of resistance against this destruction. For the de-colonization and re-unification of Mauritius via a UN Resolution and a case before the International Court of Justice! After resistance leading to base-closures in Philippines and Equador, in Italy and Vieques, let’s get the Diego Garcia base closed down.
What social forces will bring this victory? Working people of Mauritius including Chagossians, working people of the UK and USA, people world-wide who are against war and militarism, states signatory to the Pelindaba Treaty for a Nuclear-Arms-Free Africa, States in favour of complete decolonization.”
2. Write to your President or Prime Minister (copy to us) calling on him to support the UN General Assembly Resolution proposed by the Mauritian State to take the issue of Chago and Diego Garcia to the ICJ. Your letter could read something like: “We call on you to support Mauritius’ UN General Assembly Resolution that the sovereignty dispute between Mauritius and Britain be considered by the ICJ. We also call on you to, in turn, call for the US and UK to withdraw from their illegal occupation of Chagos, including Diego Garcia.”
3. Include the Diego Garcia base closure in your anti-militarist struggles; re-publish this article in your publication or on your website. And let us know.
For details, please visit our web-site www.lalitmauritius.org You can use the search engine on our Home Page, using first “Chagos” and then “Diego Garcia” as keywords.
=> If you wish to receive more information, if you wish to get in touch, please send your contact details to : [email protected]
Newsletter preparing the Mumbai (India) Conference against war, exploitation and precarious labour
November, 18 to 20, 2016
Contact address: [email protected]
No. 9 September 15th 2016
BELARUS
“Denounce the IMF and those who are really responsible for the crisis”
Yuri Glushakov, independent candidate (1) in the legislative elections in Gomel (Belarus) and delegate to the Mumbai conference
Yuri, you are an independent candidate in the legislative elections in Gomel (Belarus).
In your campaign, you denounced the privatizations and the pressure that the IMF exerts on the government. Why?
After the restoration of capitalism, the authoritarian bourgeois regime deprived the workers of the possibility of deciding freely; elections are often falsified. So taking part in these elections is first of all a means of propaganda for our socialist ideas. It is not a dogmatic way to do so, but one that is understandable for the workers, in spite of the liberal propaganda. But we are fighting to win! Denouncing the IMF and those who are really responsible for the serious economic crisis that is also hitting Belarus is indispensible. The neoliberals are claiming that it is the “Soviet heritage” – which they say has been maintained intact here in Belarus – that is the cause. Yet Belarus has been committed to capitalism for a long time now. The unprecedented measures increasing rents, extending the age of retirement, freezing wages and retirement pensions are all the result of the IMF demands, which the power in place has implemented because it needs more loans. Thus it was our duty to reveal the real reasons for their impoverishment to the workers - because no one talks about that. In the name of “national unity” and the fight against the autocratic regime of Alexander Lukashenko, the so-called parties of the “left” have rallied to the capitalist economic programme of their liberal and conservative allies, i.e. the enemies of the working class. In order to impose the deregulating and the liquidating of social gains, capital uses two vehicles: not only the president and his advisors but also the opposition of the right and the NGOs that it handsomely financed.
You will be the Belarus delegate to the Mumbai conference “Against war and exploitation, against exploitation and precarious employment”. Does this have any meaning for the workers of the ex-Soviet Union?
The Mumbai conference is of major importance for the workers of the ex-Soviet Union. In the conditions of a State which, although being a Soviet State, was deformed, they were confronted with serious problems. But they only learned what real exploitation was after the capitalist restoration in the 1980s and 1990s. And at the same time as exploitation came, so did war. The clans of the bureaucracy and the oligarchy, in the different Republics, engaged in a fight to the death for the pillaging of property, including by military means. The conflicts between nationalities and wars have been provoked by western imperialism and by certain of the reactionary regimes of the Middle East. The return to the domination of the bourgeoisie in ex-USSR took us decades backwards. Just to give one example: the average purchasing power of a Belarus worker today has fallen back to its 1947 level, i.e. two years after the end of the Second World War. The cliques that are currently in power have concentrated their energy in the frenzy of nationalism. The Ukrainian tragedy, which has destabilized the whole region, has shown the danger of these neo-fascist and nationalist groups, backed by the oligarchies of NATO. Co-ordinating our labour struggles, sharing our experiences and narrowly reinforcing the links between all the national sections of the global working class is more necessary than ever.
(1) One thousand citizens of the town signed an official form enabling him to stand in the elections.
ORGANISING COMMITTEE FOR THE MUMBAI CONFERENCE .
MARCH 9, 2016 .
AFGHANISTAN
Nasir Loyand, Left Radical of Afghanistan.
BRAZIL
Claúdio Ribeiro, labour lawyer, former trade unionist in the Bank sector and founding member of the Workers Party (PT) in Brazil.
BURUNDI
Paul Nkunzimana, Workers Party for Democracy (Parti des travailleurs et de la démocratie - PTD).
FRANCE
Daniel Gluckstein, national secretary of the Democratic independent workers Party (POID).
Bernard Saas, trade unionist.
GREAT-BRITAIN
Ian Hodson National President BFAWU ( Bakers Food Allied Workers Union )
INDIA
Nambiath Vasudevan/Franklyn D’Souza, Joint Convenors, Trade Union Solidarity Committee (TUSC), Mumbai.
M. A. Patil, President;
SarvaShramikSangh, President; New Trade Union Initiative, Maharashtra State, Mumbai.
Milind Ranade, General Secretary
KachraVahatuk-ShramikSangh (KVSS), Mumbai.
PAKISTAN
Rubina Jamil, All Pakistan trade union federation APTUF.
RUSSIA
Mark Vassilev, historian and activist.
USA
Alan Benjamin, executive committee member,
San Francisco Labor Council (AFL-CIO)
Baldemar Velasquez, President, Farm Labor
Organizing Committee FLOC (AFL-CIO).
Nancy Wohlforth*, OPEIU, Secretary treasurer Emerita.
*For id. only.
MAURITIUS
Campaign against Diego Garcia US military base
The Mumbai Conference is taking place at a crucial moment when the question of the struggle against war and against military Bases is on right on the agenda all over the world. For Lalit (a Mauritian political organization professing socialism), December 2016 marks the end of the 50-year illegal lease by the UK of Diego Garcia to the US for its massive Indian Ocean military base. Diego Garcia is part of the Chagos Archipelago, which is part of Mauritius that the British against all international law and against the Charter of the UN, excised and kept as an illegal “condition” for granting Independence.
The Mauritian State has finally, after nearly 50 years of struggle to force it to do so, begun the process of putting a case before the International Court of Justice at the Hague, by way of a resolution at the General Assembly of the UN, which meets from mid-September. It is Item 88 on the Provisional Agenda.
So, what has for 50 years been a “secret site” from which B 52s have taken off to bomb civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq, at which the Pelindaba Treaty for a Nuclear Arms Free Africa is flaunted on a daily basis, and on which illegally detained prisoners were held, tortured and “rendered”, Diego Garcia is suddenly being exposed to public scrutiny
It is at this time that we in Lalit will be holding our International Action Conference on 1 and 2 October. And it is now, at this time, that we are calling for support from you. [...]
What happened is that in 1965, Britain literally “stole” the Chagos Archipelago in order to sub-let part of it, Diego Garcia, to the power that is literally the “receiver of stolen goods”, the USA for the purposes of its planned secretive military base.
Families were cruelly divided.
There were Mauritians living there, Mauritius being a State made up of many Islands. They had been living there from at least 1814, working on coconut plantations, living their lives, generation after generation, coming to the main island for medical treatment or for buying goods. The UK and USA state apparatus secretly removed all the inhabitants from there, first denying them return ship tickets from 1963 onwards when they visited Mauritius main island, then forcibly removing them. Families were thus cruelly divided.
The final shipload were transported, like slaves in the hold of a ship called the Nordvaer. That was in 1973. The base was already being constructed on Diego Garcia. [...]
This history of struggle began in resistance on Chagos, and then in people’s refusal to disembark from the Nordvaer. Since then there has been continuous struggle. Petitions, marches, hunger strikes, candle-light vigils, forums, street demonstrations by Chagossian and Lalit women, sit-ins on the public roads, arrests of Lalit and Chagossian women. We joined and became part of the leading team in the NO BASES movement. [...]
Now, finally the Mauritians State is acting. And the British State is in a corner. The lease to the US for the military base ends in December. But the Mauritian State had put in (under pressure from mainly LALIT for it to act) a case against the British State under the Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) for its illegal declaration of a Marine Protected Area around Chagos, and won the case. In the judgment, which is binding, it was declared that Britain can do nothing without consulting Mauritius. So, how does the UK re-new its illegal lease with the USA? Especially if we can get everyone to know about it?
The UK and USA were horrified
At the same time – and this is dangerous – the UK state seems on the verge of granting the right to return for some Chagossians, on the condition that they accept continued colonization as subjects of BIOT, the British Indian Ocean Territory – the illegal colony set up in 1965. [...]
The Mauritian Prime Minister elected in December 2014, Sir Aneerood Jugnauth, is finally doing what Lalit has been formally demanding in all our struggles since 1985: fed up with being strung along by the British State, he is finally going to the UN General Assembly for a Resolution to put a case for an Advisory Opinion before the International Court of Justice at The Hague.
The UK and USA were horrified. In June 2016, they said in a rare joint UK-USA communiqué: “Referral of this matter to the International Court of Justice would cause lasting damage to Mauritius’ bilateral relations with both the UK and the USA.” [...]
On 28 August, in the main bourgeois Sunday paper, the editorial calls on the Mauritian State to give a delay of 6 months (time for the illegal leasebetween the UK and US to be renewed on the quiet before the end of 2016?) and then to wait for “a dignified and sincere offer”, as they put it in the editorial. For this, read: some commercial advantage for the Mauritian bourgeoisie. [...]
In the context of the Mumbai Conference, we are making an appeal to you to support our campaign
In the context of the Mumbai Conference, we are making an appeal to you to support our campaign by:
1 - Writing us a letter of support in the coming days: [email protected] for our Conference on 1 and 2 October. Its theme is (sorry it is a bit long):
“50 years of destruction by the UK and USA on Diego Garcia & 50 years of resistance against this destruction. For the de-colonization and re-unification of Mauritius via a UN Resolution and a case before the International Court of Justice! After resistance leading to base-closures in Philippines and Equador, in Italy and Vieques, let’s get the Diego Garcia base closed down.
What social forces will bring this victory? Working people of Mauritius including Chagossians, working people of the UK and USA, people world-wide who are against war and militarism, states signatory to the Pelindaba Treaty for a Nuclear-Arms-Free Africa, States in favour of complete decolonization.”
2. Write to your President or Prime Minister (copy to us) calling on him to support the UN General Assembly Resolution proposed by the Mauritian State to take the issue of Chago and Diego Garcia to the ICJ. Your letter could read something like: “We call on you to support Mauritius’ UN General Assembly Resolution that the sovereignty dispute between Mauritius and Britain be considered by the ICJ. We also call on you to, in turn, call for the US and UK to withdraw from their illegal occupation of Chagos, including Diego Garcia.”
3. Include the Diego Garcia base closure in your anti-militarist struggles; re-publish this article in your publication or on your website. And let us know.
For details, please visit our web-site www.lalitmauritius.org You can use the search engine on our Home Page, using first “Chagos” and then “Diego Garcia” as keywords.
=> If you wish to receive more information, if you wish to get in touch, please send your contact details to : [email protected]