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Written by Dennis O'Neil
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Thursday, 04 February 2010 04:51 |
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| A poor neighborhood in Port au Prince Haiti after the quake |
1. The US government's response to the crisis has been military, not humanitarian. This is the most important single thing to understand about what is happening in Haiti today.
The Obama administration has ordered a massive armed intervention in Haiti in the guise of carrying out a rescue and relief mission. The goals of this intervention are to enforce US interests in Haiti, both immediate interests (preventing earthquake refugees from coming to the US—see point 3) and longer term ones (continuing US dominance of Haiti's government and economy—see point 8).
2. US military intervention is blatant.
Flights into Port-au-Prince's small and damaged airport are being directed by an emergency flight control center at a US military base in Florida to insure that 20,000 US troops are in place in country. Non-military flights have been given second priority for landing.
US naval vessels have played a similar role in Port-au-Prince's damaged port facilities. The US aircraft carrier Carl Vinson sailed into the Haitian waters amid reports hailing it as a "floating airport." This is a colossal lie—the only planes that land on and take off from aircraft carriers are fighter jets. Giant cargo planes or smaller planes bringing aid from around the world need not apply.
Haiti is already under occupation by a United Nations-sponsored stabilization force called MINUSTAH, which was set up with the active approval of the Bush administration. Its commander, a Brazilian, has complained that this UN-recognized occupation force has been pushed to the side by the US.
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Last Updated on Tuesday, 16 March 2010 02:40 |
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Written by Patrick Ryan
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Thursday, 04 February 2010 04:39 |
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Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) Leader, Prachanda
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Nepal is one of the most poor and economically underdeveloped countries in the world. It sits between the nations of India and China and within these conditions a broad and astonishing revolutionary movement is being developed. Beginning in 1996 the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)—also known as the Maobadi—launched a popular armed guerrilla struggle against the feudal monarchy, headed by King Gyanendra.
The Maoists based themselves initially from the remote villages of Rolpa and Rukum, following the “Protracted People’s War” strategy originally developed by Mao Zedong. That was the defining strategy that won the Chinese Revolution, which involved encircling the cities from the countryside. The Maoists formed the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) which would militarily confront the monarchist forces, while revolutionary activists in the cities encouraged general strikes and talk of insurrection.
There are many notable things about this revolution that distinguish it from others, but prominently the issue of democracy, or as the Maoists call it “proletarian democracy,” has come to the forefront. After successfully building base areas and mobilizing both the rural peasantry and urban working classes, the revolutionaries of Nepal entered into a Seven Party Alliance to strip King Gyanendra of his crown, officially denouncing his position of “living god” and effectively abolishing the system of monarchy in Nepal. The Maoists have stated that they believe that the process of socialist construction should necessarily see competing parties as desirable.
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Last Updated on Sunday, 04 July 2010 17:20 |
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Written by Dennis O'Neil
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Thursday, 14 January 2010 04:40 |
As this is being written, there is no way to tell how bad the catastrophe that has hit Haiti will get. The government there is estimating the earthquake has caused an almost unbelievable 100,000 deaths!
There are important political lessons to be drawn, and already analyses and denunciations of US imperialism's culpability are flooding the left blogosphere. This is well and good--important work--but it is not the main task before us for the next few days.
Millions of folks in this country, and around the world, are filled with horror and sympathy and want to respond. When Katrina hit, people all over took up collections of food and supplies, threw everything in the biggest truck around, popped the clutch and headed towards NOLA. Communities opened their homes to the displaced. That stuff is not so easy to do in Haiti's case and the main thing that people are doing, besides praying, is giving money.
Several charities have set up phone numbers one merely has to dial or text to make an automatic $5 or $10 donation. Oxfam and the Red Cross and other big dogs in what we might call the NGO-industrial complex are spamming and phonebanking like crazy. So are religious charities.
The immediate task for progressives and revolutionaries for the next couple of days is to try and capture some of this flood of resources for the grassroots organizations of the Haitian people (and of course to do some education in the process).
One such group is the Haiti Emergency Relief Fundestablished by a group of folks in the US who have been doing Haiti solidarity work since 1991, working closely with Haitians to build and support mass-based civic groups on the ground there--unions, peasant cooperatives, schools, women's organizations and more.
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Last Updated on Friday, 15 January 2010 20:43 |
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Written by the National Executive Committee of FRSO/OSCL
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Friday, 18 September 2009 03:13 |
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Honduras Esta Presente!
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The military coup that ousted democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya must not only be denounced but must be overturned.
The circumstances surrounding this coup are eerily reminiscent of those
in connection with the ouster of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide. In both cases, democratically elected presidents were
kidnapped and removed from the country. In both cases, wild
accusations were made against the democratically elected chief
executives in an attempt to defame their character and justify the
illegal operation.
The Honduran coup must be seen as a reactionary response to the wave of
popular, progressive activity that has been sweeping Latin America for
the last several years. Such activity is not only to be seen in the
electoral victories of center-left and left-wing candidates for office,
but as well in unsuccessful electoral struggles (e.g. Mexico with the
candidacy of Lopez Obrador) and in mass actions (e.g. the landless
workers movement in Brazil, the recent upsurges by indigenous
populations in Peru, and the emergence of an Afro-Latino movement in
Central and South America). This weekend the forces of reaction in
Honduras struck back and aimed to eliminate further steps towards
popular power in Honduras and efforts at redressing the demands of the
poor.
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Last Updated on Friday, 18 September 2009 04:10 |
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Written by National Executive Committee of FRSO/OSCL
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Friday, 18 September 2009 02:51 |
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| Tehran Protestors |
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It is no easier for FRSO/OSCL to understand and respond to the dramatic events now shaking Iran than anyone else. The situation there is confused and fluid, shifting daily. The basic assumptions of Shi’ite society under the Islamic Revolution differ in important ways from our own. The US media is a disgrace, producing simplistic banalities when it bothers to comment at all. Still, we have an internationalist obligation to do our best to understand, to support the masses in struggle, to undercut bids by our own rulers to take advantage of the situation and to draw lessons for our own struggle.
Download a Printable PDF of this Statement
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Last Updated on Friday, 18 September 2009 03:10 |
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