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US
Imperialist Plunder And War And the People’s Resistance
The
crisis of the world capitalist system is rapidly worsening. All major
contradictions are sharpening. These are between the oppressed nations and
people on one hand and the imperialist powers spearheaded by the US,
between countries and governments assertive of national independence and
the imperialist powers, among the imperialist powers themselves and
between the proletariat and monopoly bourgeoisie in the imperialist
countries.
By
Prof. Jose Maria Sison*
General Consultant
International League of Peoples” Struggle
Fellow Activists,
May I thank first BAYAN-USA and the Philippine-U.S. Solidarity
Organization (PUSO) for inviting me to be the keynote speaker of this
conference which is meant to promote the participation of US-based mass
organizations in the Second International Assembly (SIA) of the
International League of Peoples’ Stuggle (ILPS).
The ILPS appreciates your efforts to encourage mass organizations of
various classes, sectors and nationalities in the US to send delegations
to the SIA. They shall have full opportunity to discuss and decide
important issues in the plenary sessions and workshops of their interest.
I presume that the registration forms and information material on the
assembly have been disseminated among you.
I stand in solidarity with all the delegations attending this conference
on the people’s struggle for liberation and democracy against
imperialist plunder and war. I admire your resoluteness and courage in
standing up and acting against the No. 1 imperialist power and No. 1
terrorist, right within the bloated belly of the beast.
It is quite fitting and proper that we recall the time in Seattle in 1999
when I delivered the keynote speech at the People’s Conference Against
Imperialist Globalization (whose main slogan was No to the WTO!) and
announced the forthcoming foundation of the ILPS.
The announcement spread with reports about the battle in Seattle and the
marked failure of the imperialists to paper over their contradictions
within the WTO at the expense of the third world and retrogressive
countries. Many mass organizations began to see the ILPS as the rallying
point for the growing mass movements for liberation and democracy against
imperialism and all reaction.
Since the Battle of Seattle, the ILPS has gathered 247 participating
organizations on a global scale. The First International Assembly was held
in May 2001 in Zutphen, Netherlands. And we are now preparing and are
close to holding the Second International Assembly on November 10-14, 2004
in Eindhoven, Netherlands
Imperialist plunder and war
Since the founding of the ILPS in 2001, the crisis of the world capitalist
system has worsened in a big way. No less than the United States has been
struck hard by the global crisis of overproduction and by financial crisis
of unprecedented proportions. These crises have brought about round after
round of economic and social devastation throughout the world, in the
underdeveloped and dominated countries as well as in the imperialist
countries.
The Bush regime has merely aggravated the crisis by further squeezing the
American proletariat with policies that have brought about the current
high unemployment rate, reduced incomes and cutbacks on social spending.
On the other hand, the same policies have favored the monopoly bourgeoisie
with tax cuts and pushed military production. The regime has launched wars
of aggression such as those against Afghanistan and Iraq to acquire
sources and supply routes of oil and other raw materials, markets, fields
of investment and spheres of influence.
The attacks of September 11, 2001, involving the killing of 2,800
civilians, have been used by the US imperialists as the pretext for their
own grand-scale terrorism, killing so many times more civilians and
destroying the social infrastructure and livelihood of millions of people
in wars of aggression. The US terrorizes entire peoples with high-tech
weapons of mass destruction and push the repression of the people in its
own homegrounds, in other imperialist countries and in dominated
countries.
The rulers of the US are big war criminals. They have invaded and occupied
Iraq and destroyed the lives and properties of the Iraqi people in wanton
violation of the UN charter which prohibits preemptive wars, wars of
aggression and wars without the explicit and clear decision of the UN
security council to carry them out for reasons of collective security.
Even the UN secretary general Kofi Annan, an old trustee of the US, has
been compelled by circumstances to declare that the US war against Iraq is
illegal
The Bush regime lied and misled the American public about the presence of
weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in order use its own weapons of mass
destruction against Iraq and the Iraqi people. The US attacked Iraq
precisely because it knew that this country had no weapons of mass
destruction to counter US aggression. And its overriding objectives are
the seizure of the oil resources and the so-called reconfiguration of the
entire Middle East in order to further control the global oil market and
the flow of oil to Western Europe and to the East Asia. In both global
regions are the countries that the US imperialists fear most as their
current and potential rivals. Thus, the US drive to further control the
flow of oil to these regions.
The US is obsessed with maintaining its global hegemony, its sole
superpower role, through the possession of high technology and high-tech
weaponry and through the control of oil which it describes as the
lifeblood of the global economy. It does everything to prevent the flow of
oil to Central Europe and China from their sources by far more direct
pipelines beyond US control.
The US has dubbed the Philippines as the “second front” of its
so-called war on terror because it wants to fortify its position in this
country for the purpose of grabbing and controlling all the oil resources
of Southeast Asia. Together with its Brtish and Dutch allies, the US has
started to exploit the gas and oil resources of the Philippines. You are
of course aware of the Malampaya project, controlled by the
Texaco-Chevron-Halliburton combine and the Royal Dutch Shell. The US
imperialists find it convenient to use the Abu Sayyaf as the pretext for
military intervention. In the same way that the chieftains of Al Qaida
were in the hire of the CIA in the 1980s so were the Abu Sayyaf in the
first half of the 1990s.
The people’s resistance
The crisis of the world capitalist system is rapidly worsening. All major
contradictions are sharpening. These are between the oppressed nations and
people on one hand and the imperialist powers spearheaded by the US,
between countries and governments assertive of national independence and
the imperialist powers, among the imperialist powers themselves and
between the proletariat and monopoly bourgeoisie in the imperialist
countries.
We can simply speak of a single contradiction in the world, one between
the proletariat and peoples on one hand and the imperialist powers headed
by the US on the other hand. The ILPS is conscious of such contradiction.
But it is necessary to recognize and understand the major types of
contradictions because they involve various types of social conditions and
relations, various degrees of exploitation and oppression and various
types of resistance. The ILPS thereby knows where lies the main
contradiction and where are the weakest points of imperialism.
To know different circumstances in different parts of the world under the
single law of uneven development is to know what strategy and tactics can
be adopted and applied in certain categories of countries. The extreme
conditions of exploitation and oppression and chronic crisis in certain
countries, such as those that obtain generally in third world and
retrogressive countries, allow protracted people’s wars for national
liberation. In imperialist countries, the conditions for protracted
people’s war do not exist. But at the moment, neither are there
conditions of urban insurrection in the imperialist countries, although
militant mass protests are spreading.
In stating clearly what are the major contradictions in the world, we can
point out what is the main contradiction in terms of the severity of
oppression and exploitation, the scale of those oppressed and exploited,
the magnitude of profits extracted by the imperialists and the intensity
and effectiveness of resistance. At this point, we can identify as main
contradiction that between the imperialist powers and the oppressed
peoples and nations in the third world and retrogressive countries.
In this type of countries, so many kinds of resistance are now running. It
is important for the ILPS to know and understand these even as it is
determined to develop the legal forms of struggle along the
anti-imperialist and democratic line. Most of the struggles are legal
forms of struggle by the organized masses. But sometimes there are
spontaneous outbursts of the hungry and outraged masses. The mass protests
are spreading and mounting in various continents and countries because of
the worsening crisis. But the armed forms of resistance are the ones that
address most directly the question of national liberation or social
revolution, which is the question of seizing political power.
There are armed movements for national liberation such as those in Iraq,
Afghanistan, Colombia, Nepal, India, Philippines, Palestine, Turkey and
Peru . Some are led by Maoists and others are not. At any rate, their
resistance objectively helps each other, even as each armed movement has
its own strategy and tactics and its own immediate and long-term goals.
Among the current armed struggles, the most focal is that between the
Iraqi people on the one hand and the US and its puppets on the other hand.
In this struggle, US imperialist troops are getting killed and wounded in
significant numbers. The stakes for each side are high. The US expects to
keep the oil resources of Iraq and use its military bases in Iraq to
control the entire Middle East. The Iraqi people have no choice but to
fight for their own national salvation, dignity and liberation. The
governments and peoples in neighboring countries also feel the threat of
recolonization by the US.
The US imperialists can effect the massive destruction of lives and
properties in the most cowardly manner with the blitzkrieg use of cruise
missiles, airplanes, tanks and like. But for the US to get the spoils of
war, it must deploy on the ground troops and related personnel who are
vulnerable to rifle fire, grenades, rocket-propelled grenades, roadside
improvised explosive devices, mines, mortars, artillery and so on. After
the blitzkrieg of invasion, the fixed positions and supply lines of the
occupying power become vulnerable to guerrilla warfare. Moreover the Iraqi
people can repeatedly disrupt and destroy the oil pipelines and other
facilities. Thus, the US occupation and the use of the puppet government
are rendered unprofitable.
Whether Bush remains in power or Kerry replaces him, the US will continue
trying to maintain US military bases in Iraq and own the oil resources of
Iraq. The Iraqi people will have no choice but to inflict severe
casualties on the US and puppet troops and blow the oil pipelines and
other facilities until the US realizes and decides that it is unprofitable
economically and politically to occupy Iraq under any pretext.
In addition to developing their own strength, the armed movements for
national and social liberation can benefit from the anti-imperialist
resistance of countries and governments that are assertive of national
independence (especially China, North Korea and Cuba). They also benefit
from the contradictions among the imperialist powers. Contradictions with
France, Germany and Russia plus China have exposed the extreme greed and
aggressiveness of the United States. The exposure of the contradictions
and weaknesses of the imperialist powers have encouraged the proletariat
and people to carry out anti-imperialist mass actions in imperialist
countries and elsewhere.
Conclusion
The national liberation movements, the countries and governments assertive
of national independence, the proletariat and people in the imperialist
countries can take advantage of the sharpening contradictions of the
imperialist countries over economic, finance, trade, security and other
issues. As the anti-imperialist struggles in the third world and
retrogressive countries advance, so can those of the proletariat and
people in imperialist countries. They can build their own strength and use
it to fight for democracy against racism, fascism, plunder and war.
At this time, the US is still heading the imperialist powers in
misrepresenting and attacking as “terrorist” movements for national
liberation, countries and governments assertive of national independence,
peoples engaged in revolution and their anti-imperialist leaders. By
intensifying oppression and exploitation, US imperialists are the very
ones most active in rousing the people to fight ever more resolutely and
vigorously for their own national and social liberation.
The important role of the International League Peoples’ Struggle is to
advance the solidarity of all peoples struggling for liberation and
democracy against imperialist plunder and war. In the whole world and in
any part of the world, the sovereign will and organized strength of the
people are the main driving force for all kinds of resistance against
imperialism and all reaction. The broadest possible united front of the
organized forces of the people can be developed in order to mobilize the
greatest numbers of people who are as yet unorganized. Posted by
Bulatlat
*
Keynote Speech to the Conference of Bayan-USA and PUSO, Seattle,
Washington State, October 9, 2004.
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