People's Democracy

TWENTY YEARS AFTER THE GULF WAR

The Importance of the Struggle for Peace,

Against Imperialist Exploitation & Oppression

The following is the joint-statement issued by more than 34 Communist and Workers' parties on the twentieth year of the Gulf war. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) is one of the signatories to this statement

TWENTY years have elapsed since the beginning of the Gulf War. On January 17, 1991, the armed forces of the USA, NATO and its allies unleashed -with the ratification of the Security Council of the United Nations -their first large-scale war in the Middle East, despite widespread anti war opposition in several countries Being inseparable from the profound and negative changes associated with the liquidation of socialism in the Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe, that war was a prelude to 20 years of large-scale aggressions, invasions and imperialist interferences.

From the Gulf to Yugoslavia, from Afghanistan to Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine, imperialism has tried to impose its domination in each country and over the globe, seeking to impose the direct control of the world's main energy resources, to annihilate the peoples’ sovereign rights and to submit the entire planet to the exploitation and interests of the big capital. This militarist and war-mongering offensive has been developed hand in hand with the attacks against the workers’ and peoples' social, economic and political rights – even in the centers of imperialism -and contributed to sharpen the contradictions among imperialist powers.

Thanks to the peoples' resistance and struggle – first and foremost, that of the peoples who were the victims of aggression – imperialism's offensive has faced obstacles and suffered important setbacks. But the dangers for peace and the peoples have not disappeared. On the contrary, capitalism's profound economic crisis, and the ruling classes' powerlessness to overcome it, is leading – as in the past – to an attempt to ensure their power through violence, authoritarianism, war and brutal offensives against the workers’ and peoples' rights and living standards.

The threats of war and aggression are evident in the attacks against workers’ and peoples’ movements that struggle against imperialism, labeling it as an “internal enemy”; in the recent NATO Summit and the new strategic concept of this militaristic and aggressive imperialist organisation– which the Lisbon Treaty considers its armed wing thus deepening the process of affirming the European Union as an imperialist economic, political and military block ; in the constant imperialist threats of war, provocations and interferences in numerous parts of the globe; in the increasing expenditure on military and security apparatuses.

The signatory Parties call upon the workers and peoples of the world to strengthen the struggle for peace and against imperialism's plans of war and aggression, to strengthen the struggle against capitalist exploitation and in defense of sovereignty and of the rights of all peoples of the world. They stress that the struggle for peace, cooperation and progress is an inseparable element of the struggle for the overthrow of capitalism and the construction of socialism.

They express their solidarity with the peoples and to the national-liberation, revolutionary and progressive anti-imperialist forces who are struggling against the imperialism's aggressions, interferences and threats. In particular, they express their solidarity with the communists and other anti-imperialist forces of the Middle East and especially with the Palestinian people in their struggle for the right to establish an independent State of Palestine in the pre-1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital

The Parties:

Algerian Party for Democracy and Socialism, Communist Party of Bangladesh, Communist Party of Brazil, Worker's Party of Belgium, New Communist Party of Britain, Communist Party of Canada, AKEL, Cyprus, Communist Party in Denmark, Communist Party of Finland, Communist Party of Greece, New Communist Party of the Netherlands, Hungarian Communist Workers Party, Communist Party of India (Marxist), Communist Party of Ireland, Workers' Party of Ireland, Party of the Italian Communists, Workers' Party of Korea, Lebanese Communist Party, Communist Party of Luxembourg, Communist Party of Mexico, Communist Party of Norway, Palestinian Peoples Party, Peruan Communist Party, Philippine Communist Party PKP-1930, Portuguese Communist Party, South African Communist Party, Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Communist Workers Party of Russia - Party of Communists of Russia (RKRP-RPC), Communist Party of Spain, Party of the Communists Catalonia, Spain, Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain, Communist Party of Turkey, Communist Party of Venezuela, New Communist Party of Yugoslavia