The cause of national liberation, democracy & social liberation against imperialism & all reaction

Full Resolution on Concern No. 1:
The cause of national liberation, democracy & social liberation against imperialism & all reaction

We are currently witnessing an unprecedented and ever-worsening crisis of imperialism and the upsurge of worldwide peoples’ resistance to imperialist plunder and wars of aggression.

The Sept. 11 attacks in the U.S. were used by the neoconservatives in the U.S. ruling elite, led by George W. Bush, to unleash a so-called “war on terror” through unilateral and pre-emptive actions in order to topple governments opposed to U.S. imperialism, expand U.S. military presence in all corners of the world, and strengthen its bullying tactics against rival capitalist countries. It continues to threaten wars of aggression against Iran, Syria, North Korea, Cuba and other countries asserting their independence and intervene everywhere in the Third World to prop up its client states and thwart national and social liberation movements.

 

The invasion of Iraq in early 2003 and its continuing neocolonial occupation by U.S. and British imperialism, backed by very few countries in “Coalition of the Willing,” demonstrates in unmistakable terms the use of military might by an arrogant superpower to establish global hegemony.

The war against Iraq and its occupation has sparked the biggest international resistance to imperialist war in recent history. At one time, more than 15 million people marched around the globe in protest. The peoples of the world are seeing through the outright lies and deception and are waging resolute struggle against imperialist aggression.

Imperialist crisis and war

The re-election of U.S. President Bush and Republican control over both houses of the U.S. Congress, places the neo-conservative, war-mongering clique firmly in power. Bush’s electoral victory will be used by the ruling clique as “political capital” to continue, with even harsher measures, U.S. policies of his first term that have caused unspeakable suffering on the peoples of the world.

Matched only by its worldwide military expansion after World War II, U.S. imperialism has in the last three years set up dozens of new military bases in an arc of aggression stretching from Eastern Europe to Central Asia, the Middle East and the Horn of Africa.

The current U.S. imperialist wars and armed interventionism in the Middle East and Asia, Latin America and other regions constitute the biggest threat to world peace today. These are being pursued under the Bush regime’s unilateral and pre-emptive doctrines and are in gross violation of the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of many countries. With overweening arrogance, U.S. imperialism defies international law and casts aside the United Nations as well as undermines the International Criminal Court. It now boasts of establishing a truly global American Empire. This is nothing but state or superpower terrorism in its most brazen form.

This rabid militarism and bullying by the U.S. is the inevitable result of the ever-worsening and irresolvable crisis of U.S. imperialism. Driven by its own internal contradictions and the relentless drive to make more and bigger profits by exploiting more people, U.S. imperialism needs to expand its empire. Recent wars of aggression have been driven by the monopoly capitalist pursuit of relief from its rut of economic and financial crisis.

The crisis of the world capitalist system continues to worsen. While all kinds of goods have been overproduced, the global market continues to shrink because of bankruptcies, production cutbacks, mass unemployment and reduction of the people’s incomes. Imperialism under the signboard of “free market globalization” has accelerated the extraction of superprofits from the working people, the privatization of public assets, the plunder of the national patrimony and the destruction of national industries especially in oppressed and dependent countries and the concentration and centralization of capital in the imperialist countries, chiefly the U.S.

The U.S. can only remain plunged in economic crisis because even its much vaunted high-tech military production cannot generate employment to make up for the huge unemployment resulting from the general industrial decline. A big percentage of the American people have been robbed of their savings and pension funds as a result of the collapse of the high-tech driven “new economic” bubble in the stock market. The U.S. is at a loss as to how to revive its market in the face of rising budgetary and trade deficits. The American people are hurt by cutbacks on social spending while the ruling clique pours billions of dollars into the war machinery and into wars of aggression.

In order to shift the burden of the crisis upon the workers and oppressed peoples of the world, imperialism has relied on the imperialist-backed institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank (WB) and World Trade Organization (WTO) for the renewed plunder of the colonial, semi-colonial and dependent countries.

Contradictions intensifying worldwide

The current global crisis is pushing the U.S. and other imperialist powers to intensify the oppression and exploitation of the peoples of the world and to take the road of fascism and war. While U.S. imperialism is the number one terrorist and war-monger, the European Union and Japan are pursuing their own imperialist interests. In their drive to strengthen themselves economically, politically and militarily, they are increasingly exploiting and oppressing the workers at home and the people in the dominated nations. But the drive of the U.S. to unleash wars of aggression and monopolize the spoils of war is fuelling the contradictions among the imperialist powers and intensifying their struggle for a new redivision of the world.

The U.S. has seized the sources and supply routes of oil and gas and other major advantages in connection with the wars against Iraq, Yugoslavia and Afghanistan. In 2003 it has been at loggerheads with France, Germany, Russia and China because it seeks to monopolize the spoils consequent to the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

In the Middle East, through the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the U.S. seeks to tighten its control on the oil reserves and supply and intensify its political domination in the whole region. As the biggest recipient of military aid, Israel is its strategic ally in the region with disastrous consequences for the Palestinian people.

In Latin America, U.S. terrorism is the hidden weapon behind the imperialist globalization blueprint that seeks to expand free trade by including other countries in the continent the plan for a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) Agreement. The U.S. has of late increased its military presence in the region and enlarged its Southern Command. Not only has the U.S. increased the number of its bases in the continent since 9/11, it has also intensified its covert operations, infused more military aid to client regimes, and conducted war exercises and the training of proxy armies.

In Africa after 9/11, U.S.oil corporations have urged a push for oil expansion in the continent, which has 76.5 billion barrels of oil reserves. As a result, the U.S.-European Command has increased its military presence particularly on the west coast. Bush’s “war on terror” has been used by the U.S. military to step up its force deployments. The U.S. has threatened to attack Somalia, Yemen, Sudan and other countries by hyping allegations that these countries are coddling “terrorist” groups.

Subject to the so-called new redeployment or repositioning of U.S. forces in the region, Japan along with South Korea host the basing of some 100,000 American forces. Japan has been encouraged by U.S. imperialism to play a more aggressive role not only in the region but throughout the world by extending financial and military support to U.S. wars of aggression, most recently in Iraq. The U.S. military presence and expansion in the Asia-Pacific region is aiming to contain and encircle China.

For several decades, Australia has been part of the U.S. agenda to strengthen its imperialist hegemony in Southeast Asia; currently, it is an important partner for the U.S. new missile defense (NMD) system in Asia Pacific. By collaborating with the U.S. military, Australia also reaps huge profits as the region’s top arms manufacturer and exporter. Australia is U.S.imperialism’s junior policeman in the region to entice or whip governments into line to support the global “war on terror.”

U.S. imperialism has increased basing and other complementary agreements with many countries in the region; it has also increased its Acquisition and Cross Servicing Arrangements (ACSAs) to 10 in the Far East alone. The Philippines, aside from serving as the purported “second front” in the U.S. “war on terror” has also begun to serve as a semi-permanent forward deployed base, a stepping-stone for U.S. interventionism in the region and beyond.

Since 9/11, wars of aggression and intervention have been U.S.imperialism’s weapon not only in toppling and taking over independent states that the U.S. demonizes as “rogue” but also in sucking the lifeblood and destroying the economies of former colonies, semi-colonies and dependent countries. U.S. imperialist terrorism exacerbates the oppression and exploitation of peoples who have long suffered poverty, unemployment and hunger owing to prolonged imperialist economic impositions. U.S. terrorism props up repressive governments, trains and funds proxy armies and promotes the use of the ideological construct of “anti-terrorism” to suppress democratic rights and civil liberties as well as to demonize national and social liberation movements.

But workers and other oppressed peoples in capitalist countries including the U.S. suffer as well in the worsening crisis of capitalism through unemployment and underemployment, frozen wages and reduced social services. Especially oppressed communities such as Africans, Latin Americans, Asians, Mexicans and other indigenous people in the U.S. experience the brunt through the government policies of economic quarantine, police violence and mass imprisonment.

Resistance surges

The profound and severe crisis of imperialism coupled with the plunder of the economies of many countries and the renewed exploitation and oppression of workers and other oppressed classes have generated all forms of resistance in the capitalist countries as well as in dominated and oppressed countries. Worldwide resistance has become more widespread, vigorous and militant in the light of the recent imperialist wars of aggression and naked interventionism.

Moreover, certain countries and governments are defiantly assertive of their national independence in response to glaring impositions of the U.S. and other imperialist countries. Armed revolutionary movements for national liberation are spreading and gaining strength. They are progressing in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Turkey, Nepal, Philippines, Colombia, Peru and India to mention the most notable. While some are the scene of a fight against imperialism, in the other countries also local reactionaries are targeted along with their imperialist masters.

It is in Iraq and Afghanistan, however, where U.S. and British imperialism are trapped in a quagmire that may yet equal the debacle the U.S. suffered in Vietnam. Iraqi resistance has been dealing lethal blows to imperialism, tying down and stretching the forces of the U.S. in the Middle East.

Millions have been mobilized in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific against the invasion of Iraq. Much earlier, millions worldwide have joined anti-globalization protests that have been sustained over the past three years. There have been industrial strikes and protest actions as well against job cuts and massive loss of benefits for workers.

There is a resurgence of mass struggles for national and social liberation worldwide. Imperialism drives the broad masses of the world’s people to wage intense resistance to imperialist aggression and plunder and to seek an alternative to the present world order.

The ILPS has placed itself among those in the forefront of peoples’ struggles in the different regions of the world, serving as an effective anti-imperialist beacon and platform for mass campaigns and struggles.

We call on organizations and movements worldwide to intensify the struggle against imperialism and all reaction and for national and social liberation. Collective and militant struggle is the only weapon against the imperialist scourge that is ravaging the world today. And it is this struggle that is paving the road toward a just, egalitarian and progressive society, of genuine liberation for humankind.

In light of the challenges of the present crisis, and building on the gains that were achieved in the last three years, we resolve to do the following:

1. Arouse, organize and mobilize the people in various countries, especially the oppressed peoples and nations and the working class in the advanced capitalist counries, for national liberation, democracy and social liberation against imperialism and all reaction.

2. Engage in all forms of political struggle for national liberation, democracy and social liberation. Support the national and social liberation movements.

3. Unite, cooperate and coordinate with all forces that are desirous of a broad anti-imperialist united front.

4. Expose and oppose the various types of pseudo-reformers and imperialist-funded formations that seek to undermine and frustrate the people’s just struggles.

5. Fight the imperialist multinational firms and banks, the IMF, World Bank and WTO as tools of neocolonialism and imperialist globalization and unbridled plunder.

6. Stop the imperialists and their puppets from categorizing as “terrorist” revolutionary leaders, national liberation movements and governments assertive of national independence.

7. Expose and oppose the spread of repression and fascism under anti-terrorist laws, military intervention and wars of aggression being unleashed under the pretext of a permanent “war on terror” by the real terrorists, U.S. imperialism and puppet governments.

8. Condemn the doctrine of preemptive war as barbarism and flagrant violation of the UN charter. Intensify the campaign against the U.S. occupation of Iraqand Afghanistan and the U.S.-backed genocidal war of Israel against Palestine. Oppose the U.S. embargoes, blockades and further U.S.aggression in North Korea, Iran and Cuba. Launch coordinated regional and global actions on these issues.

9. Campaign against the U.S. for perpetuating aggressive bilateral and multilateral military agreements, for stockpiling weapons of mass destruction and establishing more military bases, forward positions and outposts throughout the world.

10. Fight the unilateral efforts of the U.S. as well as those of other imperialist powers to escalate the oppression and exploitation of the world’s peoples. Unite with all those forces fighting imperialism against the local reactionary puppet forces of imperialism.

11. Oppose the U.S. policy to step up war production to revive the U.S. economy and to equip U.S. military forces for wars of aggression and grabbing economic territory for plunder. Resist attempts of other imperialist powers like Europe and Japan to step up their own militarist and expansionist policies.

12. Support the growing demand by the international African community in Africa and elsewhere for reparations by the U.S. and Europe for centuries of slavery, colonialism and plunder and the national oppression necessary for their exploitation.