Statement of the ILPS Asia and the Pacific Regional Committee
The year 2025 will be a year of fighting together for our lives, fighting together against exploitation and plunder, fighting together for democracy to ensure our bright future.
Old and new challenges are with us. The working people and the other democratic forces in our countries continue to suffer. We are scrimping on every centavo, every rupiah, family wages and incomes continue to be eroded, hunger is prevalent, prices are skyrocketing, with the prices of basic necessities turning into luxury goods. More working people cannot find work, with the urban and rural youth unemployment at acute levels. Working hours are longer, and work becoming even more dangerous.
The imperialists and trans-national corporations (TNCs) are ravaging and plundering our resources. Wealth concentration is at its historical peak, with a mere handful of individuals gorging on the global wealth. Lands, seas and oceans are fenced-up by the State and its armed agents – dispossessing billions of rural people and denying them of their livelihood – to ensure the monopoly of natural resources for seamless extraction and plunder by the imperialists and TNCs, led by the Group of Seven (G7).
Those who stand up for basic rights, demanding a better life, are systematically silenced, with governments using fascist methods to stay in power, keep the people in check and protect the interests of the elite. Open fascist rule is becoming a common occurrence, with the remaining trappings of democracy discarded.
The sword of war is being raised over our heads by the imperialists to protect their spheres of influence in the Asia and the Pacific, and carve out new domains of control. The United States of America, beefed up by its allies in the region, is stoking the fires of war, hoodwinking the masses to accept a shooting war to revive the US as the sole global hegemon.
We must continue increasing our political awareness. We must study the root causes and inter-connections of events happening in our region and the world. We must continue increasing and broadening our ranks, especially among the working people, women and youth. Let us engage other democratic forces in our country and enjoin them to fight for our lives and our future.
Signed,
International League of Peoples Struggles – Asia and the Pacific Regional Committee