Today, the world monopoly capitalist system is caught up in one of its biggest
crises since the Great Depression. This is principally due to the unravelling
of the imperialist policies of "neoliberal globalization" and
"global war on terror." The US, which is the core of the system, is
afflicted by a grave economic and financial crisis and is generating waves of
economic and social ruin in all imperialist countries, in the largest so-called
emerging markets and worse than ever before in the general run of semi-colonies
and dependent countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
At the base of this global crisis is the crisis of overproduction in the real
economy. New technology has raised higher the social character of production
but has also increased the private monopoly character of appropriation. "Neoliberal
globalization" has accelerated the concentration and centralization of
capital in the US and a handful of monopoly capitalist countries through the
denationalization of the economies of the less developed countries,
liberalization of investments and trade, privatization of public assets and
deregulation at the expense of the social rights of the working people, women,
children and the environment.
The maximization of monopoly profit by reducing the wage fund and social
spending in the
The current socio-economic crisis in the world capitalist system is expected to
be prolonged because it is the result of so many decades of abusing domestic
and foreign credit for the benefit of the imperialist powers and at the expense
of the oppressed peoples and nations of the world.
Even before the current severity of the crisis, the dependent countries of
Asia, Africa and
Under the auspices of
The crisis of the imperialist system and the crisis in each imperialist country
is driving the imperialist powers to re-divide the world and expand their
respective sources of raw materials and cheap labor, markets, fields of
investments and spheres of influence.
The European Union has growing economic interests that clash with those of the
The
The severe socio-economic and political crisis of imperialism and the ongoing
so-called global war on terror have laid the ground for fascism. In fact, the
enactment of so-called anti-terrorist laws in the wake of 9/11 has intensified
repression and spawned state terrorism within the imperialist countries and on
a global scale.
The monopoly capitalists reap their profits at the expense of the world's
working people and of the planet's fragile ecology. The rapacity of the
monopoly firms has been principally responsible for the widespread destruction
of the environment bringing about such phenomena as global warming with dire
consequences to the future of humanity.
The removal of global investment barriers under “neoliberal globalization” has
resulted in the effective doubling of the global cheap labor force that
capitalism can prey on. Unions have been attacked to bring about declines in
real wages and social benefits. Welfare systems are being privatized and
dismantled. Since 1980, the share of labor's wages and benefits in national income
in the imperialist countries has fallen by 4 percentage points even as
corporate profits as a percentage of GDP increased by the same amount to reach
historical highs.
Backward agricultural and industrial producers in the dependent countries have
been overrun at the same time as scarce natural resources have been exploited
to the utmost by monopoly corporate mining and agri-business firms. Millions of
peasants and indigenous people and national minorities have been economically
and physically displaced.
Global unemployment and poverty are massive. Some 3 billion people, or more
than half of humanity, struggle to survive on US$2 or less a day most of them
in the dependent countries. Over 750 million people are without jobs worldwide.
And even among the 2.8 billion employed labor force, one half are unable to
earn enough to bring their families above the US$2 a day poverty line. Nearly a
billion people are undernourished worldwide most of whom are in Asia, Africa
and
"Neoliberal globalization" has resulted in unprecedented inequality.
The richest two percent of adults worldwide own more than half of global
wealth, while the poorest 50 percent own barely one percent. Meanwhile,
nine-tenths of the richest one percent of adults worldwide lives in the
imperialist countries. Indeed the net worth of the richest 500 monopoly
capitalists of US$2.6 trillion is equivalent to the annual output of the
world's 48 poorest countries or to the income of the world's poorest 416
million people.
In the face of the intensified exploitation and oppression by the imperialists
and their reactionary puppets, the people have intensified their resistance.
Throughout the world, the broad masses of the people have engaged on varying
scales in protest mass actions and strikes to resist imperialist plunder and
aggression. The largest mass mobilizations on an international scale have
involved tens of millions of people in hundreds of cities against the
In the US, Western Europe and elsewhere, strikes and protest marches have
broken out against attacks on the rights of working people, deteriorating
working conditions, racial and minority discrimination, the criminalization of
migrant workers and discrimination against the youth in employment. In the
former Soviet bloc countries, struggles between the exploiting and exploited
classes and between the dominant nationality and the minorities are
intensifying. In
The peoples of
There are revolutionary movements for national and social liberation and
struggles for democracy led by revolutionary forces in
The International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS) is more than ever
determined to promote, support and develop the anti-imperialist and democratic
struggles of the people of the world especially of the workers, peasants,
women, youth, national minorities, indigenous people and other sectors of
society against the ideological, political, military, economic, social and
cultural domination and attacks of imperialism and reaction. The ILPS is also
ever vigilant and committed to struggle against all forms of reformism and
opportunism which serve as props to imperialism and reaction. The ILPS will
continue to propagate radical democracy, consistent anti-imperialism and
tireless internationalism.
After seven years since its founding in 2001, the International League of
Peoples' Struggle is now in an excellent position to expand its ranks and build
anti-imperialist and democratic united fronts at the level of national
chapters, global regions and the whole world. The daily worsening conditions of
oppression and exploitation require the ILPS to intensify its efforts to
arouse, organize and mobilize the people in their millions in building a new
and better world of greater freedom, development, social justice and global
peace.
Resolution of Workshop
1: The cause of national liberation, democracy and social liberation against
imperialism and all reaction
The imperialist policy
of “free market globalization” has wrought extreme poverty, misery,
backwardness and social degradation on the world’s peoples. This has especially
affected the exploited and oppressed in semicolonies and dependent countries of
Asia, Africa and
Contrary to the claims
of the imperialists and their apologists that the end of the Cold War would
bring peace, the world has been pushed toward unprecedented militarization and
build-up of arms by the imperialist powers.
Everywhere imperialism
has set back the historic gains of the toiling people in the struggle against
capitalist exploitation and oppression. It has negated the historical struggles
of oppressed and exploited nations and nationalities that fight for liberation,
sovereignty and self-determination.
The broad masses of
the people throughout the world have been roused by the exploitative character
of “free market globalization” and by the oppressive character of “the new
world order.” The peoples’ resistance to imperialism is spreading and
intensifying. The resistance from the toiling masses of workers and peasants is
the strongest, most inexhaustible and most important challenge to imperialism.
There are the
revolutionary armed struggles for national and social liberation such as in
Armed resistance to
The massive protest
actions in the imperialist countries against the US-led invasion of
Struggles between the
exploiting and exploited classes and between the dominant nationality and the
minorities are intensifying. The workers, peasants and the lower petty
bourgeoisie across the world are frequently rising in large numbers against
intensifying exploitation and oppression.
Monopoly capitalism is
in the throes of an extremely deep crisis of overproduction and destructive
financial collapse. It is passing on this crisis to the world’s peoples through
its policies of liberalization, deregulation and privatization. The bankruptcy
of the imperialist policy of “neoliberal globalization” manifests itself
sharply in the recent financial meltdown.
The
Monopoly capitalists
have whipped up financial speculation far beyond the real economy in the
imperialist countries and the rest of the world. Unregulated financial markets
where speculators are reaping huge profits on the skyrocketing prices of oil,
grain and other commodities impact heavily on the world’s peoples.
Since the collapse of
the Soviet Union, the
While the imperialist
are united in exploiting and oppressing the world’s peoples, their divergent
and conflicting interests and priorities, under conditions of extremely deep
crisis of imperialism, drive them to compete with each other to acquire, keep
and control sources of raw materials and cheap labor, markets, fields of
investments and spheres of influence. The inter-imperialist contradictions are
showing up breaches in the anti-people front of the imperialist powers.
Furthermore, there are
other contradictions in the international sphere which revolutionary movements
for national liberation, democracy and social liberation and peoples and
nations struggling for democracy and for their rights to freedom and
self-determination can effectively utilize to amplify their independent
strengths based on their mass support and their revolutionary integrity.
The
There are
contradictions between the
Under pressure of the
crisis of the world capitalist system, imperialist countries can engage in
proxy wars among their client states or back different conflicting parties
within a client state. Another major potential cause for hostility among
imperialist powers would be the rise to power of fascist forces within any or
some of them. The severe socio-economic and political crisis of imperialism and
the so-called global war on terror have laid the ground for fascism and
inter-imperialist wars.
So long as imperialism
exists, the people’s struggle for national liberation, democracy and socialism
will continue.
Calls to action
1. 1.
Consolidate and broaden the international anti-imperialist united front by
supporting the struggles for national liberation, democracy and social
liberation. Extend support and solidarity to the struggles of oppressed nations
and nationalities and uphold and defend their right to self-determination.
Undertake internationally-coordinated campaigns against imperialist war and
plunder. Undertake sustained and widespread anti-imperialist education
campaigns as well.
2. 2. Expose
and oppose the
3. 3. Oppose
direct military intervention and threats of military invasion by imperialist
countries led by the
4. 4. Oppose US
and other imperialist-instigated armed conflicts especially in
5. 5. Oppose
the drive of the imperialist powers and
6. 6. Condemn
and campaign against the demonization as “terrorist’ and blatant fascist
attacks against anti-imperialist and national liberation movements and their
leaders and organizations. Call imperialist powers and their client regimes to
account for using state terrorism to suppress the people. Condemn
7. 7. Continue
to fight the imperialist corporations and banks, the IMF, World Bank and World
Trade Organization (WTO) as tools of neocolonialism and the U.S.-instigated
neoliberal policy of imperialist globalization and unbridled plunder. Struggle
to dismantle the WTO, regional free trade agreements and intensify the
campaigns against bilateral economic agreements as new means to push the
neoliberal agenda against weaker countries and peoples.
8. 8. Fight for
the right of the people to affordable and safe food, to self-sustaining and
self-reliant food production against the superprofiteering and market manipulation
of the agro-chemical, seed and food processing cartels and financial
speculators in grain and other foods. Expose and oppose the imperialist policy
of “neoliberal globalization” behind the worsening global food crisis.
9. 9. Persist
in exposing and opposing the various types of pseudo-reformers and
imperialist-funded non-government organizations and other formations that seek
to undermine and frustrate the people’s just struggles.
10. 10. Continue
to seek out and foster greater unity, cooperation and coordination with all
forces desirous of a broad anti-imperialist united front nationally, in global
regions and worldwide.#
Resolution of Workshop
2: Socio-Economic Development for Oppressed and Exploited Countries and Nations
and Social Equity for all Working People
The deep problems of
the imperialist-dominated world capitalist system have worsened and are in very
sharp focus today. The majority of humanity has long suffered unremitting
poverty and exploitation. But the people are being pushed into even greater
difficulties by the current episode of intense economic and financial crisis
which is feared to be the worst since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The
current descent into greater socioeconomic turmoil doesn’t just underscore the
inevitability of crisis under capitalism – it also exposes how imperialism’s
dogged and vicious efforts to secure profits are precisely what create the
conditions for ever greater instability. All this affirms how there can never
be true socioeconomic development or equity for the people under this
oppressive and exploitative capitalist system.
The global capitalist
system has seen a generalized growth slowdown in the nearly four decades since
the early 1970s. The relatively high finance and speculation-driven growth of
recent years hasn’t been able to reverse this trend and is anyway short-lived
and unsustainable. The masses are further and further away from the false
promises of prosperity through neoliberal “globalization”. The number of those
living on a conservative $2 (PPP) or less a day has doubled in the last three
decades and reached 2.8 billion people or nearly half the world’s population. A
billion people go hungry everyday and two billion do not even have clean water.
The current explosion
of crisis appears to begin from financial excesses in the United States (US)
leading to domestic troubles with subsequent repercussions on the rest of the
world. Yet while the sub-prime loan crisis in the
In its effort to
maintain its profits, monopoly capital forced greater trade and investment
liberalization on the neocolonies to exploit their cheap neocolonial labor, to
plunder their raw materials, and to capture their markets. But these been less
and less effectual and so it has relied more and more on paper profits and
digitally conjured capital. The financial crisis manifesting first of all in
the
The people are also
now severely burdened by rapidly increasing food and energy prices. Neoliberal
“globalization” of agricultural production and trade has destroyed backward
rural food systems and depleted food supplies aside from worsening poverty of
agricultural producers. Subsidized food imports flooded domestic markets at the
same time as producers were ever more tied to overpriced inputs from big
foreign agri-business. The giant transnational oil corporations have used their
monopoly control to drive prices up, which has even been exacerbated by
speculation in oil futures markets. Rising energy prices have driven food
prices up even further.
Imperialist
“globalization” thoroughly exposed
Imperialism has become
increasingly aggressive in seeking to relieve its crisis and maintain its
superprofits. The intensification of the global crisis in the 1970s and the
severe profit squeeze on the advanced capitalist powers drove them to seek
deeper in-roads into neocolonial markets through their “globalization”
offensive.
Backward agricultural
systems were overrun and vast numbers of the peasantry thrown into greater
hardship. At the same time there were more vicious attacks on labor even in the
advanced capitalist countries. This economic assault continues to press down
wages, salaries and benefits across the globe while political assaults pummeled
unions and other organized workers in systematic trade union repression.
Usurious debt burdens have also been used to directly extract surpluses from
the neocolonies on a massive scale. Neocolonial external debt has already
reached US$3.4 trillion as of 2007.
The 1980s and 1990s
saw the expansion of global labor markets for capitalism to exploit. In
particular the opening up of China, the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and
the greater openness of various Southeast and South Asian economies effectively
doubled the number of people for exploitation. Imperialism tapped these
hundreds of millions both through setting up investment enclaves overseas as
well as by directly bringing in migrant labor or exploiting displaced refugees.
Social services and public utilities were turned into sinister opportunities
for profit.
However the limits of
these wide-scale efforts to supporting capitalists’ profits and deepen misery
on a global scale, were quickly reached. The economic dispossession of large
swaths of humanity further constricted opportunities for investments which in
turn further accentuated the glut of finance capital. By the 1990s imperialism
increasingly relied on getting its profits from purely financial schemes
disconnected from any productive activity. Parasitic capital took advantage of
advances in information and communications technology not just to facilitate
its global production networks but also to fashion complex financial
instruments for creating profits outside of any actual productive activity.
Previously unseen
levels of profits were made from sheer speculation. But while seemingly
increasing the capital stock these huge amounts of capital existed only
digitally and were greatly diverging from real economic values. The economic
impact upon massive financial losses are however very real. Imperialism sought
to surmount its crisis with a bewildering array of financial instruments that
are innovative only in creating unprecedented debt- and speculation-driven
illusions of prosperity and growth. Global financial assets have bloated
sixteen-fold from US$12 trillion in 1980 to US$190 trillion in 2007, over a
third of which are in the
The self-limiting and
destructive nature of this conjured economic dynamic was however soon exposed.
The constriction of global markets continued and could not for long be
compensated by increasingly debt-driven and unavoidably shallow growth in
construction, real estate, commercial trading and finance sectors. Real
economies are dragged violently down when financial crises erupt.
Peoples’ resistance
Hundreds of millions
of the people across the imperialist countries and in the neocolonies have
risen up to expose and resist imperialism’s economic aggression. The ranks of
the oppressed working people that are mobilizing have broadened and prevented
imperialism and neocolonial governments from easily pushing through with their
plundering agenda. This strengthens the ability of the people to face the great
challenges in the struggle against the oppression and exploitation intrinsic to
capitalism.
Since the Second
International Assembly, peoples’ movements have been advancing and waging
successful struggles against imperialist “globalization”. The ILPS and its
organizations have been among those at the forefront especially of the most
important struggles and in many cases have been their leading formations. Among
the peoples’ major achievements in recent years have been contributing to the
paralysis of the World Trade Organization (WTO) including through massive
protests against its 6th ministerial in Hong Kong, the discrediting of the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (WB) and exposing its
burdensome debt offensive against the peoples of Africa, and the scores of
peasant struggles against the distorting of agriculture in the countryside of
neocolonies in South and Southeast Asia.
Challenges
continuing
Imperialism’s
international mechanisms for the domination of world trade, investment and
economic life continue to set global rules and distort national economies. They
establish exploitative economic relations between advanced capitalist powers
and neocolonies. The international finance institutions of the WB, IMF and
other regional banks are thoroughly discredited but remain influential. Even if
the talks at the WTO remain stalled it remains imperialism’s most potentially
expansive mechanism for pushing its plundering agenda. And particularly
important in the last few years are the bilateral and regional free trade
agreements (FTAs) that the US, European Union (EU) and
In the neocolonies and
other dependent nations these are done with the compliance of increasingly
subservient governments. They craft the domestic economic regimes most
favorable for imperialism and its need for profitable opportunities and outlets
for its capital. They maneuver to deliver labor and natural resources to
imperialism at the cheapest possible price. They wield state force to stifle
peoples’ resistance and to try and make the masses docile and submissive.
General resolutions
The majority of
humanity is chronically deprived with generation upon generation going through
lifetimes of hunger and destitution. The world’s working people have less and
less options for decent living, they are losing jobs and livelihoods, and their
incomes are collapsing on a massive scale. Some 1.5 billion people do not have
or are otherwise lacking jobs in 2007 – the 190 million unemployed and 1.3
billion so-called “working poor”. Farmers, workers, indigenous communities,
especially women and children, are driven into deeper misery. It is urgent for
the people to achieve socioeconomic development, social equity and justice.
We people of the
exploited countries and nations reaffirm our commitment to confront imperialist
systems of plunder, exploitation and oppression. We assert our sovereignty and
independence. All grossly unequal imperialist trade and investment deals and
policies must be outright rejected. We shall begin to build alternative
international relations of cooperation and solidarity between peoples. Our
efforts to build more progressive and democratic economies will be all the more
effective the more peoples there are working together on a regional and global
scale.
Our domestic economies
must be built where our countries’ natural resources and our peoples’ labors
serve the needs of the masses most of all. This means a socioeconomic program
serving and thus wholeheartedly supported by the people. This shall
redistribute wealth to peasants and workers and other basic sectors, beginning
with true agrarian reform and development that breaks feudal backwardness in
the world’s vast countryside. There must be genuine national industrialization.
The people’s basic and vital needs for education, health and housing must be
assured. We will take approaches as appropriate depending on the sizes,
resources and economic strengths of our economies.
We shall chart a
humane, equitable and just path that does not exploit other peoples and
economies and that is ecologically sound. Here the masses will be decisively in
control of their lives, as well as at the center of building just and peaceful
societies. The need to continue building and strengthening democratic mass
movements is as urgent and vital as ever as well as underpins our movements for
national liberation. The accelerating economic deterioration points in the
direction of an upsurge in social and revolutionary movements worldwide.
Specific
resolutions
The peoples’ struggle
for socioeconomic development against imperialism is integral to our overall
struggle for national liberation, democracy and social liberation. We resolve
to operationalize the Commission towards being able to:
1. Launch
coordinated global and national campaigns to restore national food systems
ravaged by “globalization” and address deepening rural poverty, to confront
global oil monopolies and profiteering, and to tackle the excesses of monopoly
banks and financial institutions.
2. Launch,
coordinate or otherwise support anti-imperialist struggles by social and mass
movements against neoliberal “globalization” and in particular against the WB,
IMF, WTO and the increasingly aggressive FTAs as well as link with other
movements in a broad campaign against imperialist globalization.
3. Further
deepen international peoples’ solidarity and strengthen coordination among
social movements in launching anti-imperialist struggles on socioeconomic
issues. Build a broad anti-imperialist front on peoples’ socioeconomic issues
in particular confronting plundering imperialist economic deals.
4. Launch,
coordinate or otherwise support national campaigns and struggles by social and
mass movements for the defense of jobs and livelihoods, increases in incomes
and benefits, and securing social services and welfare services.
5. Launch a
global campaign for genuine development cooperation premised on solidarity
among peoples and equality, mutual cooperation and benefit among countries,
involving the mobilization of solidarity, financial and other support from
anti-imperialist groups in industrialized countries to those in the
neocolonies.
6. Fulfill the
Commission’s study objectives: exchange experiences and knowledge on
international, national and theoretical political economic issues as well as on
the features of each of our social systems; share information on specific
socioeconomic struggles in our different countries; continually monitor
maneuvering by imperialism and neocolonial governments in the economic field.
7. Propose,
discuss, coordinate and implement, as necessary, Commission action plans for
research, advocacy, campaigns, forums and conferences. Among others this
includes developing and maintaining a website to support the Commission’s work.
Resolution of Workshop 3: Human rights in
the civil, political, economic, social and cultural fields against state
violence, national oppression, class exploitation and oppression, gender
oppression, fascism, castism, racism and religious bigotry.
Contemporary
imperialist aggression has taken on the face of “globalization” and “war on
terror.” It is an excuse for
The so-called fight
against terrorism has been used and abused by imperialist countries as a tool
for aggression. The US-led “war against terror” as illustrated in
Civilian victims of
imperialist wars of aggression have been labeled as “collateral damage,” which
in reality reveals the treatment of peoples as obstacles to be eliminated.
Revolutionary, anti-imperialist and national liberation movements on the other
hand are labeled as “terrorists” because the objective of this global war of
terror is to eliminate every resistance to
The
Reactionary
governments, most often installed or supported by imperialism, conspire with
their imperialist masters in using vicious methods, both subtle and overt like
“development” and military aid, to dominate the world and heap suffering on
people’s lives and human rights.
These methods also
include the use of the law and the coercive state powers as an instrument of
repression by the ruling class against those who get in the way of unbridled
imperialist greed.
It is, therefore, with
more reason that oppressed peoples and nations of the world defend and fight
for their rights, strengthen the struggle, unite and build a new world against
imperialist aggression, state terrorism, plunder and social destruction. It is
a fundamental right that cannot be denied or deprived peoples desiring to be
free from all forms of exploitation.
Everywhere in the
world, the dispossessed and exploited peoples have been transformed from being
victims to defenders and they have responded to oppression with resistance.
The hundreds of
thousands of people from different nationalities and ethnic groups in
In the
In
In imperialist
countries like
Resistance is the
defense of our lives, liberties and land. Resistance is destroying the old and
building the new.
We must resolve to
establish democratic governments, break free from foreign domination, change
exploitative economic systems and pursue the path to genuine development for
all, free from foreign interference.
We - the ILPS
Commission on Human Rights in the civil, political, economic, social and
cultural fields against state violence, national oppression, class exploitation
and oppression, gender oppression, fascism, casteism, racism and religious
bigotry - recognizing the urgent need to consolidate and ensure that this
Commission is active and contribute in the ILPS mission to challenge
imperialism and all reaction in an international scale, resolve to:
n
Monitor, document
and expose in the international community the gross violations of human rights
resulting from the US-led ‘war on terror’ and its localized versions in the
various countries.
n
Compel legal
institutions of states to account for their human rights violations —
investigate, prosecute, penalize or hold accountable the perpetrators and make
indemnification, compensation, restitution and rehabilitation for the victims.
n
Campaign for the
junking of security/”anti-terror” laws imposed by the US and its puppet states
in the name of ‘war on terror’ that grossly trample on fundamental rights and
liberties.
n
Sustain and
intensify international campaigns to demand immediate and unconditional freedom
for all political prisoners.
n
Pursue the
campaign for the de-listing of liberation groups and movements and progressive
leaders like ILPS Chairperson Jose Maria Sison from the “terrorist” lists
instigated or at the behest of the
n
Expose and oppose
military aid from imperialist countries and their allies (e.g.
n
Support
initiatives of lawyers to participate in resistance movements developing in
many countries and encourage them and other groups in other countries to also
organize, strengthening resistance to imperialists’ use of law against the
people.
n
Launch internationally-coordinated
protest actions to denounce and demand an end to fascist rule, imperialist wars
and plunder.
n
Support national,
regional and global struggles against fascism and militarization by projecting
ILPS action alerts on outstanding cases of human rights violations.
n
Initiate efforts
in building an international network of organizations that will undertake work
such as documentation, monitoring, international fact-finding missions and
immediate assistance to the victims.
n
Actively
propagate the ILPS general declaration and specific calls/actions on the human
rights agenda in all relevant international, sub-regional, regional, national
and local campaign networks.
n
Further develop
and strengthen international cooperation and regional solidarity for the
defense of people’s democratic rights.#
Resolution of Workshop 4: The cause of
just peace and struggles against wars of counterrevolution and aggression and
against nuclear, biological, chemical, missile and other weapons of mass
destruction
Expose and Oppose
Imperialism as the Main Source of War and the Deadliest Wielder of Weapons of
Mass Destruction in the 21st Century
Barely a decade into
the 21st century, imperialism has clearly proven itself as the main source of
war and the deadliest wielder of weapons of mass destruction. It remains the
greatest threat to genuine peace and the all-rounded development and well-being
of the peoples of the world. As the crisis of the world capitalist system
deepens, the rivalry among imperialist powers intensifies even as they
collaborate to further exploit and oppress the world’s peoples for greater
profit.
The conversion and
expansion of mission of the US Strategic Command indicates the intention of
The “war on terror”
has long been exposed as a mere pretext for blatant aggression and military
intervention in violation of international law, and for
The
The
More and more, the
designs and schemes of
Amid increasingly
intolerable hardships due to the intensification of the global crisis of
imperialism, the peoples’ struggles against imperialist war, plunder and social
destruction are gaining in strength and scope. Peoples’ resistance and
opposition has been an important political constraint to US and other
imperialist designs for aggression and intervention.
The Iraqi and Afghan
armed resistance against US-led occupation exacts the heaviest toll on US lives
and resources, and weakens
In
In Australia, Greece,
Japan, Philippines, Turkey and other countries where ther are US military bases
and activities , the people of these host countries protest and demand the
dismantling of these bases, the halt to US military operations and withdrawal
of all foreign troops.
General
Resolutions:
1. Initiate
global and regional coordinated actions on specific cases and issues against
imperialist war of aggression, military intervention and against weapons of
mass destruction.
2. Activate,
expand and strengthen ILPS global and regional campaigns against
3. Oppose
imperialist-sponsored and supported state terrorism,counterrevolutionary wars
and intervention in the domestic affairs of sovereign countries. Demand a stop
to foreign military aid, especially to repressive regimes.
4. Undertake a
campaign for the disarming and destruction of all nuclear, chemical, biological
and other weapons of mass destruction. Oppose the development and production of
new weapons and weapons systems such as space-launched weapons, tactical
nuclear weapons and anti-ballistic missiles.
Specific
Resolutions (submitted or intent to submit)
1. Resolution
Calling for the Dismantling of
2. Resolution
in Solidarity with the People of Iraq and the Withdrawal of all
Other
Foreign Troops and Mercenaries from
3. Resolution
Opposing the
4. Resolution
on the Militarization of
5. Resolution
Supporting the Actions of the West Coast Dockworkers in US and
6. Resolution
Condemning the Imperialist Threat of Using Nuclear Weapons and
Weapons of Mass Destruction
7. Resolution
Calling for Campaign to Oppose US-sponsored Joint Military
Exercises
8. Resolution
on the Right to Return of the Palestinian People on the 60th
Anniversary
of Al Nukbeh (expulsion of Palestians from their homeland)
9. Resolution
Supporting the Resistance of the People of
10. Resolution
Condemning the US-Israeli and other Imperialists plans against
11. Resolution on
12. Resolution
for Withdrawal of US troops from
Resolution of Workshop 5: Promotion of
trade union and other democratic rights of the working class
Preambular part
Working people
everywhere are sentenced to a life of insecurity and, for the great majority,
deprivation, even as they create the wealth for today’s globalised, volatile
and increasingly crisis-ridden capitalism. Under imperialist globalisation,
workers worldwide have been facing determined attacks on their rights and
living standards over the last three decades. Now, a global economic recession
is unfolding from the heart of capitalism in the
Hard-won wages,
benefits and social services have already been eroded through policies of
‘labor flexibilisation’ in the name of ‘free trade’ and ‘international
competitiveness’ – this is the neo-liberal agenda of the multi-national
corporations. Even workers’ solidarity is being criminalised and the right of
workers to unionise and to fight collectively for their legitimate rights is
under attack. In some cases, attacks on workers’ rights to organise are being
justified by ‘anti-terrorism’ hysteria.
In the imperialist
countries, many workers suffer from low wages, high unemployment and job
insecurity, and millions of migrant and guest-workers with few rights are also
now part of these economies. The worker’s democratic rights to form unions and
to strike are being restricted. Pension schemes now directly connected to the
share markets mean that retired workers no longer have company paid guaranteed
pensions and are highly vulnerable to the developing global recession.
All this could get
much worse in the next few years, in both poor countries and imperialist
countries, because of the unfolding global recession.
The workers and other
toiling people of the world, especially those in the poor countries of Asia,
Africa and Latin America are subjected not only to the overt violence of the
neocolonial state, they suffer even more from the daily violence of the
exploitative and oppressive system of imperialism.
Through neo-liberal
policies of trade and investment liberalisation, deregulation and privatisation
imposed by the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and World Trade
Organisation, the economies of oppressed and poor nations are further
impoverished and maintained as perpetually backward, export-oriented and
import-dependent. WTO agreements and hundreds of bilateral free trade
agreements today function as instruments of monopoly capital in their economic
attacks on the working class.
Governments and
multinational corporations prevent workers from exercising their fundamental
rights to organise at the workplace, bargain collectively and to strike. More
and more forms of labor flexibilisation, along with labor sub-contracting
schemes like outsourcing, are pushed to go along with the implementation of
neoliberal economic policies of liberalisation, privatisation and deregulation
against working people. Unions are undermined when contractual employees – who
are stripped of their rights to form and join unions and to participate in
strikes – comprise a large part of the total workforce.
With the erosion of
job security, there are fewer jobs and work opportunities available due to the
implementation of these imperialist globalisation policies which pull down the
wages of workers overall. Workers have suffered a reversal of union rights in
Even more vulnerable
and under attack are immigrant, migrant, guest-workers and undocumented workers
whose numbers are only increasing and whose exploitation is intensifying.
Cheaper, more mobile and flexible guest workers, migrant and immigrant labor
are used to fill the relentless demand for cheap labour, especially under the
deepening crisis of imperialism and its never-ending pursuit of private profit.
The rise of repression
of workers’ rights is also seen in outright violence against picket lines and
even the murder of labor leaders and unionists, in attempts to dampen the assertion
of labor rights. Union activity is considered to be a ‘subversive activity’
because it challenges corporate profits. Harassment, abductions and killings of
union leaders and trade union members coincide not only with ongoing labor
negotiations, but also during campaigns exposing human rights violations and
political repression.
There is an urgent
need to sharpen our understanding of the global attacks against working people.
In this period of imperialist globalization, the overarching challenge is how
can the international working class strengthen its resistance, promote trade
union and other democratic rights of the working people, improve wage and
living standards in the face of intensifying exploitation of labor and prevent
the destruction of working class organizations.
The workers workshop
highlighted the sustained attack on working class communities in all countries
by capitalists who try to crush union organization and ignore workers’ basic
right to collective bargaining. Governments attack working class communities,
in particular their own employees, through privatization and application of new
forms of anti-worker labor laws. Privatization of social services has a big
impact on women because caring and reproductive work that was once socialized
is thrown back on individual families and domestic workers.
Capitalists are using
a barrage of flexibilization techniques to increase exploitation and crush
unions.
Added to these
assaults, capitalists demand access to temporary migrant labor and these women
and men are meant to have even fewer rights than workers in the host country.
New labor laws today
give employers greater power then ever over the lives of workers. These laws
are backed up by harsh legal penalties against militant action, strikes, rallies,
pickets, and even basic organizing. If these laws still fail to repress the
workers, then abduction and murder is often the next resort of the capitalists.
The bottom line objective is higher profits.
This drive against
workers and their families is integrated with the objectives of the hundreds of
free trade agreements and the trade and investment negotiations in the World
Trade Organization (WTO).
The capitalists also
use ideology to crush trade unions and working class struggles. They constantly
claim the ‘death of ideology’ and the ‘death of class struggle’. By this means,
revisionists and reformists try to assert their hegemony over class
organizations and argue for them to destroy themselves. It is important to
struggle against all forms of this ‘liquidationism’.
Just as the peasant
movement in poor countries has paralyzed the WTO, the workers everywhere have
been organizing, resisting, and fighting back against the capitalist offensive.
These struggles need greater coordination, deeper organizing and more clarity,
if we are to win our rights in a world of justice and peace.
All of these threats
arising from flexibilization, extended use of migrant labor, privatization,
repressive labor laws, and violent repression will now be amplified as the
global recession continues to develop under the
New challenges arising
from the impact of global warming and the economic crisis are sharply
increasing costs of food and fuel. Workers everywhere need higher wages to cope
with these impacts and employers and governments will vigorously resist these
demands.
Action plan
We will consolidate
study commission no. 5 and its steering committee, and propose that it meet
four times a year by skype conference.
Publish the papers of
workshop 5 at the TIA to promote the ILPS more broadly in the global trade
union movement and recruit more unions to the ILPS.
Create a website and
communications for ILPS workers study commission to alert our members to
incidents of repression, promote our publications and events, and provide
educational material for workers and to promote the ILPS.
Participate in the
alternative activities against the U.N. Global Forum on Migration and
Development to be held in
Day of action against
trade union repression on November 16, the anniversary of the Hacienda Luisita
massacre. Organize participation from beyond the trade union sector.
Organize strategy
meetings and annual international conferences between now and the fourth
international ILPS assembly on the following topics: wages, privatization,
repression on workers, and job securiy.
Resolution of Workshop 6: Agrarian reform
and the rights of peasants, farm workers and fisherfolk
The last
decades of the 20th century have seen the gravest crises of imperialism and in
response to these crises, the rapacity of monopoly capitalism. While wealth and
resources, including land, water and forests are increasingly concentrated in
the hands of a few, the vast majority of the world’s population is being
subjected to the demands of imperialist globalization. They are facing
increasing domination and exploitation by monopoly capital and its domestic
lackeys resulting in their further impoverishment and marginalization.
The peasants,
farm workers, peasant women, fisherfolk, dalits, herders and pastoralists who
make up the majority of the world’s population, are hit hard by the nefarious
consequences of imperialist globalization. In agriculture, the imperialist
monopolies are imposing high prices for farm inputs while pushing farm-gate
prices down. Big commercial fishing is plundering the seas depriving the
majority of small fisher folk from their livelihoods.
The policies of
import liberalization, privatization and deregulation, principally authored and
engineered by the
Peasants, farm
workers and fisher folk alike are driven from their lands and main source of
livelihood, and the massive displacement is being carried out to pave way for
bogus industrial and destructive commercial projects funded by financial
monopolies, foreign and local big businesses. And now even water is being
privatized.
At the same
time, imperialist globalization has continued the feudal bondage that keeps the
majority of the world’s peasantry, dalits, fisher folk, agricultural workers,
peasant women, herders and pastoralists enslaved. Indeed, the age-old problem
of landlessness is still the principal problem of the vast majority of farmers,
especially in the underdeveloped countries. Big landlords, who monopolize the
ownership of land, are intensifying their exploitation of the peasants.
Besides, peasants, agricultural workers and fisherfolk suffer from usury,
resulting in indebtedness, and unfavorable market prices.
Even public,
tribal and communal lands are being privatized. Land and water use conversions
carried out by transnational corporations (TNCs), big agro corporations and
local big landlords, in connivance with the government, in the name of
export-bane industrialization had already displaced millions of farmers,
agricultural workers and fisherfolk and this has further aggravated the
condition of rural poor and intensified land reconcentration in the hands of
TNCs and big feudal lords in the countryside.
The
institutions of imperialist globalization like the International Monetary Fund
(IMF), the World Bank (WB), regional banks and financial institutions like the
Asian Development Bank and Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund (OECF), the World
Trade Organizations (WTO) and the transnational corporations (TNCs) are
brazenly conniving as they share the same interests. The imperialist camp
headed by the United States also utilizes regional trade formations like Asia
Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA) and Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) to ensure and
perpetuate their dominance over the world’s economy and satisfy their endless
thirst for super profits at the expense of exploited peasants, farmworkers,
peasant women, fisherfolk and other rural producers across the globe. The
failure of the Doha Round and the stalled 6th WTO Ministerial Meeting in Hong
Kong in 2005 prompted US and other centers of world capitalism to pursue
bilateral talks in the form of free trade agreements (FTAs) as well as the ‘Aid
for Trade’ which was meant to be a complement to the Doha Agenda. Worst, WTO
claims that the
While
exploiting and making life difficult for their own working people, imperialist
countries, the resurgence of bilateral free trade is ushered and intensified by
the persistence of the United States, Japan and the European Union to
comprehensively exploit the working people and available resources for super
profiteering, and for passing the burden of the global crises to working people
in Third World countries and underdeveloped nations.
Farm workers
also suffer from low wages and substandard and unacceptable living and working
conditions, unacceptable even to international labor standards. It also comes
to a point that many of them are forced to migrate to have a better living.
Farmers and
farm workers in Europe and
The
reprehensible and destructive effects of imperialist globalization are largely
felt among the poor and exploited people of the world—bringing billions of
rural producers and the world’s working population to the deepest quagmire of
poverty. Prices of food and other basic commodities and services are on their
sky high rates, bringing poverty to unprecedented levels, which are higher and
incomparable to the last decades of the last century.
High food
prices compounded by sky rocketing prices of oil and other petroleum products
instigated by the US through massive speculation and all-out privatization,
monopolization and destruction of natural and human resources contributed
further to super destruction of rural labor and working population all over the
world. The intensifying resistance put up by farming people and workers is a manifestation
of the irreversible and incurable crisis of imperialism and the dawn of
people’s victory against imperialist globalization and exploitation the world
over.
Organizations
of peasants, farm workers, peasant women, and fisherfolk the world over are
braving increasing state repression to rise against these obnoxious trends.
Puppet and anti-farmer and anti-people states and governments launch all-out
war and large-scale military operations to repress farmers and other toiling
masses in the rural areas fighting massive landlessness, injustice, poverty and
hunger. Even the joint US-national military exercises are meant to suppress and
repress farmers fighting imperialist globalization, war and plunder. They are
opposing the further onslaught of the agents of imperialist globalization on
their lives and livelihood while they are striving to cast off the feudal ties
that are restraining them.
They are
actively campaigning for their democratic rights to land and fishing grounds as
only genuine agrarian and fisheries reform can give them their due. They are
forging ties with the other oppressed sectors of society, especially the
workers and indigenous communities, in a joint campaign for development and
industrialization that is geared toward the needs of the people.
Increasingly,
other progressive and democratic sectors and organizations are supporting the
just demands of the peasants, peasant women, dalits, farm workers and
fisherfolk as they are also opposing imperialist globalization. They are eager
to link arms with the organizations of peasants, peasant women, farm workers,
dalits and fisherfolk in a broad opposition to any kind of exploitation and
domination.
The
intensifying resistance put up by rural people and workers across the globe are
met with increasingly and intensifying state fascism backed up openly or
discreetly by imperialist powers like the
Disguising
state fascism or state repression supported by the United States and imperialist
powers as “war against terror,”, state puppets and clients of imperialist
powers dropped any pretension of democracy and went aboveboard in establishing
martial law and repressive regimes in suppressing the people’s resistance
against imperialism and imperialist globalization and their client governments
and states. Due to people’s resistance, fascist regimes resorted to all-out and
left-and-right militarization and violations of people’s human rights and civil
liberties not only in poor and underdeveloped countries, but as well in host
nations of imperialist powers and transnational exploiters.
The militant
struggle of the peasants, farm workers, peasant women and fisherfolk is already
bearing fruit through many initial victories. Despite increasing reign of state
terror characterized by violent break up of people’s protests, full-blown
militarization, political killings, persecution, liquidation of political
activists by state agents and enforced abductions, numerous farmers, supported
by militant peasant organizations, have been able to resist eviction from their
lands, to reduce the land rent or to improve the conditions of the farm
workers. They have resisted all forms of state fascism and confronted the
programs and policies of state fascism and campaign of terror and brutality.
Other organized
farmers have been able to carry out land occupations through militant assertion
of their rights. Militant protest demonstrations have confronted meetings of
pro-imperialist organizations like the WTO, Food and Agricultural Organization
(FAO), the regional trade blocs and one-sided, pro-imperialist free trade
agreement or FTAs.
In the
countryside where armed revolutions are taking place, the peasantry has
succeeded in implementing genuine agrarian reform programs from its minimum
program (e.g. the lowering of land rents, increase in prices of agricultural
products, etc) to maximum level of free land distribution.
We vow to
continue the struggle of the farmers, farm workers, dalits, peasant women,
pastoralist, herders and fisherfolk against all forms of imperialist and feudal
oppression and exploitation.
Therefore,
we put forward the following immediate calls and demands:
1. Implement and pursue
genuine agrarian and fisheries reform, a just and democratic demand of peasants
and fisherfolk. “Land to the tiller, land to the landless peasants” should be
its basic principle.
2. Expose and oppose the agrochemical and
agribusiness transnational monopolies and stop their development and promotion
of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Through their intensifying monopoly
on agriculture, these corporations are responsible for the destruction of the
environment and the livelihoods of farmers and fisherfolk.
3. End all forms of state repression and
continuing political persecution (local to global repression) against farmers,
farmworkers, dalits, peasant women and fisherfolk who pursue their democratic
rights through militant struggle. Free all peasants’ political prisoners.
Expose and oppose criminalization of agrarian cases.
4. Stop joint US-national military exercises
such as the RP-US joint military exercises (Balikatan or shoulder to shoulder)
in the Philippines and other countries which are directed against militant and
progressive organizations, anti-imperialist forces and national liberation
movements fighting for genuine democracy and national emancipation. These joint
US-national exercises also serve as tool for state repression and national
oppression.
5. Raise and intensify the world peasants’
resistance for the dismantling of WTO and the junking of all instruments of
imperialist globalization that wrought considerable havoc on all the farmers,
fisherfolk and rural people the world over.
6. Ban patents on life in the TRIPs agreement at
the WTO. TRIPs tramples on the rights of farmers and indigenous peoples to
save, conserve, exchange and develop genetic resources and preserve their
traditional knowledge. Fight terminator technologies and ban chemical
pesticides. Support the Farmers Rights at the UN FAO and the Indigenous
Peoples’ rights to their knowledge and resources at the World Intellectual
Property Organization (WIPO) and CBD.
7. Expose, oppose and resist all Free Trade
Agreements like AFTA, NAFTA, CAFTA, and APEC, as well as FTAs like
8. Stop the deceptive programs of the
International Monetary Fund-World Bank (e.g. the market-assisted land reform
and its mega-infrastructure projects) and other multilateral organizations that
are only meant to intensify the exploitation of the peasantry.
9. Cancel all unjust debts of peasants, farm
workers and fisherfolk. Stop all usurious practices against peasants.
10. Educate, mobilize, and organize farm workers to
analyze their situation and create a unified action against imperialist
policies.
11. Expose pseudo farmers’ organization and NGOs
masquerading as pro-farmers and pro-poor and which are serving as agents of
imperialism and reaction.
While we recognize the
importance of strong peasant movements in our own countries, we are also
resolved to forge firm solidarity among farmers, peasant women, dalits,
agricultural workers, fisherfolk, herders, pastoralist and the working people
and anti-imperialist forces all over the world to advance the democratic
demands and struggles of the peasants, peasant women, farm workers and
fisherfolk for genuine agrarian reform and against imperialist globalization
and plunder.
The broad peasant and rural
people alliances at the local and international levels shall solidify and
strengthen efforts and campaigns to intensify the resistance against
imperialist globalization, plunder and war, expose and oppose all the US-led
imperialist camp’s tools and instrumentalities that put farmers and the rest of
the toiling masses to slavery and worldwide exploitation by foreign monopoly
capital.
While mass education, solid
organizing and mobilizations of farmers, farmworkers, fisherfolk and oppressed
people in the countryside are primarily considered in building strong peasant
and rural organizations, the need to increase and expand the membership of
farmer, farmworker and fisherfolk organizations in the ILPS is a paramount
concern for all anti-imperialist and democratic forces.
We further resolve to
adopt the following plan of action:
1. Active recruitment of organizations,
especially peasant organization, for membership to ILPS. Further expand and
consolidate the ILPS, especially the ILPS study commission on concern number 6.
Unify, propagate and implement ILPS campaigns, programs and activities.
2. Consolidate and defend the gains of peasant
and rural peoples’ struggle for land, food, justice and their democratic rights.
3. Exchange information that can be useful in
our struggles. Encourage exchange visits where we can learn from each other’s
experiences. The Peasant Study Commission of the ILPS shall take the lead in
providing venue for a deeper understanding of all farmers and rural people’s
struggle, the situation they face and the challenges they confront through
education, collective discussion and exchange of information and literatures.
4. Coordinate campaigns at the regional and
global level in order to amplify their impact. The workshop group proposed to
support the year of rice action (YORA) that will culminate during the 50th
anniversary of the International Rice Research Institute in 2010; the permanent
peoples’ tribunal against agrochem TNCs in 2009; Asia-level Peoples’ Caravan on
Land and Livelihoods in 2008-2009; and other regional and international events.
5. Work for the global formation of the
anti-imperialist peasant alliance for the advancement of the peasant cause for
land, truth, justice and democracy and the world’s people’s fight against
imperialism.
6. Actively support and coordinate the
international campaign against global displacement of farmers and rural people
the world over to be led by anti-imperialist peasant formations. Right now
massive displacement of peasants and rural folks are widespread in India, the
Philippines and other third world countries to give way to the transnational
agenda of imperialist powers led by the US.
7. Launch an international campaign to expose
and oppose extra-judicial killings, political persecution, enforced
disappearances and other human rights violations under the guise of ‘war of
terror’. Utilize and maximize all appropriate venues, including the UN Human
Rights Council, to ventilate these issues and related calls and demands.
8. Lobby with the FAO Committee on Food Security
in relation to ICARRD. Maximize the UN FAO International Planning Committee as
a venue to discuss peasant issues and struggles.
9. Support each other’s national and local
campaigns as an expression of international solidarity.
Resolution of Workshop 7: The cause of
women’s liberation and rights against all forms of sexual discrimination,
exploitation and violence
Theme: Advancing Women’s Participation in the People’s
Struggle Against Imperialist Aggression of the World’s Food and Resources
WHEREAS, Imperialism is waging a war, not only through bombs
and bullets but more alarmingly through globalization policies and programs
that aggravate hunger and food insecurity worldwide.
WHEREAS, The United Nations estimates that out of 6 billion
people in the world close to 1 billion are hungry. And that this figure will
double if one includes people who are “food insecure”. Seventy percent of the
one billion are women and girls.
WHEREAS, The issue of hunger especially among the world’s poor
women is rooted in neo-liberal economic programs and policies implemented by
governments, cohorts of imperialist agencies such as the IMF and World Bank.
For the world’s poor women, this has been worsened by the feudal-patriarchal
culture that has fettered them for many years.
WHEREAS, As a consequence of the food crisis, millions of
women are forced to engage in economic activities that increase their
vulnerability to exploitation and violence. To date, there exists a million
dollar international prostitution syndicate selling women and children like
cheap burgers. Women in urban poor and rural communities are selling their
bodies in exchange for basic needs like a kilo of rice, a bushel of corn, a pail
of fish or a sack of flour. Domestic violence has become a norm as husbands
vent frustration/failure on their wives or children over their inability to
provide for the family. Rape has become a phenomenon ignored or worse tolerated
by the society as women became not just tools to sell products but as
commodities to sell.
WHEREAS, Hunger Mitigation Programs are not sustainable to
address in the long term the issues of hunger and poverty. Dole outs perpetuate
the culture of mendicancy and dependence among the poor women making them more
vulnerable victims to patronage politics. Livelihood projects fail to be
sustainable and only make the predominantly women beneficiaries unable to pay
back their loans.
WHEREAS, Imperialism has perpetuated commodification of food
and agriculture, and therefore commodifies life. It has created monopoly
control over land, seas and marine resources, water, livelihoods, seeds and
genetic biodiversity. Corporate agriculture, massive land conversion, expansion
of agro-fuel projects, setting up of Special Economic Zones, and intensive
industrial aquaculture are displacing thousands of women peasants, agricultural
workers and fisherfolk.
WHEREAS, Contractualization of labour has deprived women their
right to decent wages and sustainable livelihood adding more burden to them as
toiling women. Contractualization has also subjected women workers to greater
exploitation and abuse.
WHEREAS, Women from El Salvador, Ivory Cost, Haiti, Côte
d’Ivore, Palestine, Peru, Mexico, Philippines, Indonesia, Somalia, and other
crisis stricken countries are taking to the streets their empty pots and pans,
their starving children, confronting the police and military. They are not
begging for aid, but are demanding from their governments to immediately reduce
prices of basic commodities, increase wages, and provide more employment
especially for women.
WHEREAS, hungry and desperate women are breaking cultural and
religious taboos and patriarchal impositions to learn who their real enemy is
building and strengthening their own movement to fight imperialism.
WHEREAS, Women comprise half of the struggling peoples. Their
participation in the people’s struggle against imperialism has no other
recourse but to advance.
THEREBY BE IT
RESOLVED THAT THE ILPS
Hold actions against
Imperialist Plunder and Control of Food Resources and wars of aggression.
1. We demand an
end to trade liberalisation and privatisation, and fight for livelihood
security and decent work for all women.
2. We call for
genuine agrarian reform and women’s ownership and access to land and productive
resources. We demand the end of development aggression in indigenous peoples’
ancestral lands, state and corporate plunder of our resources and the right to
self-determination.
3. We call for
the removal of all
4. We demand an
end to forced migration perpetuated by governments. For migrant women workers,
we demand protection of all rights.
5. We demand an
end to all state-led and state-supported wars, the repeal of repressive laws on
security and anti-terrorism and we demand justice for all human rights defenders
and affected communities.
6. We affirm
our commitment to advance women’s resistance against imperialism that
perpetuates feudal-patriarchal structures and values that breed sexual
discrimination, exploitation and violence against women.
Specifically,
1. A Global Day
of Action To End Hunger and Poverty on
2. Solidarity
to and support of local campaigns on violence against women in
3. An
International conference of women on
4. Public
information campaign on the Latin American “maquiladoras,” women workers in
sweatshop who are victims of capitalist exploitation and repression.
5. Campaigns to
free women political prisoners such as Monica Tinto, a human rights lawyer who
is now in prison in the
6. Actions to
expose and oppose the commodification of women, the traffic of women including
sex exploitation, as in tourism and international sports/athletic events
including the Euro 2008.
Resolution of Workshop 8: The rights of
the youth to education and employment
The
life-depriving character of imperialism, which the world’s people are plunged
into, continuously worsens as the capitalism crisis of overproduction deepens.
Exploitation of labor, imperialist plunder and maximization of profit continues
wantonly at the expense of the working and oppressed peoples of the world.
In capitalist
countries, workers suffer attacks on their rights such as prolonged working
hours and cutbacks on wages and benefits, in order for the capitalists to
maximize their profit. While in poorer and semi-colonial countries, people are
bearing the brunt passed by imperialists through international usury, plunder
of the nations’ natural wealth and unequal trade policies. There is an
ever-widening gulf between the capitalist countries, which compose the minority
of the world, and the semi-colonial countries of the world, which compose the
majority.
The imperialist
globalization policies of liberalization, privatization and deregulation
imposed through multilateral agencies like IMF-WB and WTO have aggravated the
chronic crisis of semi-colonial countries. They spurn worse poverty and
deprivation as these under-developed countries suffer increasing unemployment
and underemployment rates, collapse of agriculture due to trade liberalization,
and abandonment of national government of the basic social services and welfare
of the people. This makes the future of the youth uncertain.
It is the youth,
especially from the peasant and working families, who intensely suffer from
imperialist attacks and exploitation. The diminishing state subsidy to schools
and privatization of education, on top of the intensifying commercialization of
tertiary education worsens the youths’ lot. In
In underdeveloped
countries, the majority of young people cannot reach secondary and tertiary
education due to poverty. There are also high dropout rates, which produces a
large youth labor reserve used by the capitalists to depress wages and deny job
security.
Education has been
used as an instrument to preserve the oppressive status quo. In most countries,
educational institutions are directly, or indirectly controlled by big
capitalist monopolies that exploit the skills and talents of millions of youth
and students. Furthermore, curriculum is determined by the current market
demand and not by the needs of the people. For example, in Europe, the European
Union imposes an Anglo-Saxon educational model— the
With the de-funding of
education, the military has continued its terror on campuses to enforce the
capitalist hand over student activities. The military has also used its
position on campuses to recruit students to join its rank while conducting
surveillance against progressive student organizations.
Many youth are forced
to work at an early age at the farms and factories to compensate their
families’ income. Worse, many from underdeveloped countries are driven to look
for menial, contractual jobs abroad in order for their families to survive.
Governments, both sending and receiving, are ensuring the smooth flow of cheap
labor through agreements and policies imposed by imperialist institutions like
the WTO.
In their host
countries, immigrants, migrant youth and undocumented workers experience
various types of discrimination and attacks on their democratic rights. In
industrialized countries, migrants are exploited through cheap, docile and
flexible labor with the capitalists’ continuous drive for profit.
In conclusion with the
framework provided above, we reaffirm the following resolutions:
1.
Fight for the
state to give priority to education and stop the privatization of
education.
2. Fight
against campus repression and for academic freedom and students’ rights.
3. To struggle
for the creation of decent secured jobs and a living wage for all
Youths.
4. Advance
international cooperation and solidarity among the oppressed and
exploited youth of the world in the
advancement of their common goals.
In addition, we also
resolve to:
1.
Struggle for
education rights and stand against the neo-liberal policies and
agreements such as the
2.
Strengthen our
network by activating the ILPS youth website and utilizing the
existing email group as the
primary means of communication. The website will be multilingual so that we
could communicate effectively and respond to the issues more rapidly.
3.
Organise the
second World Peoples’ Youth Conference by 2010 with a particular
youth-related theme.
4.
Coordinate days
of international action and common campaigns in solidarity of
youth around the world;
1. Anti-G8
Summits protests in
2. Launching
conferences and actions against Global Forum on Migration
and
Development (GFMD)
3. Protest against commercialization of
education.
5. Conduct
studies to deepen our analysis on issues of education, employment and
migration
in relation to its impact on youth.
Resolution of Workshop 9: On children’s
rights against child labor, sexual abuse and other forms of exploitation
The
current economic, political and social crises brought about by imperialist
plunder and super-profit pushes the oppressed and exploited peoples to join
liberation movements and wage revolutionary armed struggles. They seize upon
people’s revolution as the most effective means to improve their plight and
defend themselves against the brutal attacks on their communities. In the
process, they liberate themselves from feudal, capitalist and foreign
oppression, exploitation and domination. When whole communities participate in
the struggle for liberation, children become part of these struggles, not
necessarily as armed combatants. They participate in the spheres of culture,
education, and health.
The imperialists’ war
of terror is the number one violator of children’s rights. It kills, maims and
renders orphans and displaces millions of children globally. Imperialism
ferociously and unrelentingly attacks national liberation and revolutionary
movements and even legal mass movements because they embody the determined will
of the people to fight and build a better society.
On the ideological
plane, the
In 2007, the UN
adopted the Paris Principles and Paris Commitments that broaden the definition
of “child soldiering” to include indirect and non-armed contributions of
children to the people’s liberation movement. While claiming to provide the
most protective environment for children, such a broad definition in fact
expose children to attacks by State armed forces. Branding children as “child
soldiers” gives license to military and paramilitary forces to violate the
rights of children.
Situations have arisen
where State armed forces violate children’s human rights with impunity and
label them as “child soldiers” to escape accountability for such violations.
As freedom loving
peoples who are determined to fight imperialism and stand for the rights of
children of oppressed classes of society, the ILPS calls upon itself to
resolutely……
1.
Expose and oppose
the Paris Principles and Paris Commitments as anti-child
program guidelines of the UN
that do not serve the best interests of children in situations of armed
conflict, and in fact only serve the interest of reactionary States and
imperialism to undermine the just aspirations of oppressed people;
2.
Expose and oppose
other reformist concepts peddled by the UN and similar
imperialist-dominated or
imperialist-funded international agencies and NGOs; and
3.
Set up and
strengthen the ILPS Study Commission on Children (Concern No. 9)
that shall lead in undertaking critical studies and actions on various
issues and conditions of children affected and exploited by imperialists and
the local ruling classes in various parts of the globe, such as children in
armed conflict situations, child labor, abuse and all forms of child
exploitation.
Resolution of Workshop 10: Rights of
indigenous peoples, national minorities, and nationalities for
self-determination and decolonization against discrimination, racism, and
national oppression by imperialism and local reaction
Indigenous
peoples, national minorities, oppressed nationalities and nations around the
world today experience national oppression, racism and discrimination
perpetrated by imperialism and local reaction as manifested in:
Massive displacement from
their ancestral lands and territories by large-scale destructive projects of
imperialist corporations and puppet States including large-scale mining
operations, military bases, Special Economic Zones, monocrop plantations, dams,
logging, agroforestry, biofuels, protected areas and others;
n
Demonization and
criminalization of activists and leaders of indigenous peoples, national
minorities, oppressed nationalities and nations as so-called “terrorists” under
the US-led “war on terror” in retaliation for their resistance and struggles to
defend their rights. The imperialist “war on terror” has led to the passage of
national security laws and further been used as license to militarize and
bombard communities of indigenous peoples, national minorities, oppressed
nationalities and nations resulting in massacres, murder, rape, abduction,
injuries, harassment and other grave violations of their individual and
collective human rights;
n
Continuing
racism, discrimination and chauvinism against indigenous peoples, national
minorities, oppressed nationalities and nations as seen in State policies of
assimilation, integration, resettlement, and non-recognition as peoples with
equal status as citizens, resulting in their loss of identity and distinct
cultures, and leading to ethnocide;
n
National
oppression and non-recognition of distinct and customary socio-political
systems in violation of their right to self-determination – the right to freely
determine their political status and to freely pursue their own economic,
social, cultural and political development.
In spite of these,
indigenous peoples, national minorities, oppressed nationalities and nations
have struggled and achieved victories and advances in their own communities and
countries, some of which are:
n
In
n
In
n
In
n
In the
n
There are the
struggles of people of African origin who were brought to the
n
There have been
numerous other victories, big and small, in many countries.
On its Third
International Assembly, the International League of Peoples Struggle resolves:
n
To wage a
campaign against the imperialist-led “war on terror” and the national security
laws it spawned, with their particular impacts on indigenous peoples, national
minorities, oppressed nationalities and nations;
n
To militantly
resist displacement of indigenous peoples, national minorities, oppressed
nationalities and nations from their ancestral lands and territories and the
destruction and plunder of their resources by reactionary States and multinational
corporations;
n
To expose and
oppose the use of USAID, Official Development Assistance and other so-called
development packages as a deceptive and divisive tool against indigenous
peoples, national minorities, nationalities/nations;
n
To combat racism,
chauvinism and discrimination against indigenous peoples, national minorities,
nationalities and nations in all its forms and to recognize their distinct
identities and dignity;
n
To reach out to
other oppressed indigenous peoples, national minorities, oppressed
nationalities and nations around the world and build stronger solidarity with
them against imperialism and local reaction towards the realization of their
right to self-determination.
n
To continue to
deepen our study and understanding of the diverse situations of indigenous
peoples, national minorities, oppressed nationalities/nations; present-day
forms of national oppression, and the theory and practice of
self-determination; and to consciously link their struggles with the class
struggle against the common enemy, which is imperialism.
Resolution of Workshop
11: Rights of teachers, researchers and other education personnel and the
struggle against ideas and research directed against the people
We, the ILPS Workshop
on the Rights of Teachers, Researchers and Other Education Personnel and the
struggle Against Ideas and Research Directed Against the People, reiterate the
analysis put forward by the First International Assembly in 2001 that:
Imperialist
globalization has had a devastating impact on education all over the world.
Drastic cuts in public spending for education have become the norm. Teachers,
researchers, and other education personnel suffer deteriorating standards of
living as salaries fail to keep up with rising costs. Large numbers are being
laid off as governments close down schools and universities deemed inefficient.
As education becomes the flashpoint for popular struggles, schools and
universities are increasingly subjected to state repression.
Imperialist control of
education is a key element in imperialist domination of culture as a whole. The
Throughout the world
today, education workers respond to imperialist globalization through
solidarity and struggle to defend their rights and welfare and the people’s right
to education.
We likewise reiterate
the statement made in the Second International Assembly in 2004 that:
While education is
often used to promote dominant/imperialist interests, it also enhances the
particular role that teachers/educators play to change society as part of
organized mass action.
Education is a key
component to national liberation movements through which we can organize and
mobilize our societies.
We hereby reaffirm our
commitment to:
1.
Fight for the
basic rights as workers in education, which include full salaries and
benefits, security of tenure,
the right to professional growth, and academic freedom.
2.
Organize
teachers, researchers and other education personnel and launch popular
campaigns and struggles against
imperialist policies, particularly those that pertain to education.
3.
Demand an
increase in public spending for education in particular and for social
services in general most often
sacrificed in favor of debt servicing and military spending as well as other
means of state violence and repression.
4.
Establish and
strengthen solidarity ties among the many education workers’
organizations worldwide based on
a common anti-imperialist stand.
5.
Encourage and
support critical thinking and anti-imperialist activism among our
students at all levels.
6.
Undertake
simultaneous activities on October 5, World Teachers Day and ensure
the participation of teachers,
researchers, and other education personnel in anti-imperialist activities in
our respective countries on May Day and March 8, International Women’s Day.
Acknowledging the
inability to realize plans made in the past two assemblies, we reconstitute the
ILPS Working Group on Teachers, Researchers, and other Education Personnel to
take the lead in undertaking the following:
1.
Organize an anti-imperialist
international conference of teachers, researchers and
other education personnel to be
held in July 2009
2.
Publish an
on-line anti-imperialist journal for academics and other education
workers
3.
Set up an
international organization of anti-imperialist teachers, researchers and
education personnel
We call on member
organizations of the ILPS to help in the setting up of the Commission on this
concern by recommending anti-imperialist individuals and organizations in the
education sector to join the ILPS and be part of the Commission.
Resolution of Workshop 12: The right of
the people to health and the right of health workers
Theme: “Struggle
for Health within the Framework of the People’s Struggle to Build a
The crisis of the
world capitalist system is continuously worsening. The
Deteriorating living
conditions are detrimental to people’s health. Rising food prices, due to
monopoly control of TNCs on its production and market increases the deprivation
of millions of people of the most basic nutrition, thus sowing disease and
death. Unemployment and worsening labor conditions impoverish the workers and
peasants all over the world making it impossible for them to ensure their
families a healthy life.
Imperialist
globalization through agreements such as Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual
Property Rights (TRIPS) and General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS)
promote the commercialization of basic services and divest the people of the
much needed social services including health care. Medicines are discovered for
diseases, but millions have died because of lack of affordable, accessible,
necessary & essential drugs.
Through privatization
health become business for profit and no longer service for the people,
depriving the people of much needed health services. Governments in developed
and underdeveloped countries reduced their budget for health. Diverting
much-needed financial resources away from health and other basic needs have
caused deterioration of people’s health situation worldwide. Cases of
malnutrition increased, resurgence of infectious diseases were noted in
underdeveloped countries.
Due to economic and
political crises, hundreds and thousands of health workers from
During these times of
crises, only a few are amassing humongous wealth as they accumulate the fruits
of labor of the working class. Multinational companies that are still expanding
their monopoly power are increasingly dominating the markets. The competition
between the centers of capitalism is sharpening. Also contradictions between
the rich and the poor as well as those between the industrialized and the
underdeveloped countries are increasing. For those in power, war is the only
solution to continue the exploitation and oppression.
The
Under the auspices of
The peoples of the
world are not taking this sitting down. They are courageously resisting and
waging struggles to defend their rights. Some countries have stood up against
imperialist domination asserting their sovereignty. In other countries social
movements are uniting the basic masses with the middle classes, including
health professionals, to fight for freedom and democracy.
The struggle for
health as a basic human right requires the struggle for social change, the
struggle for food, shelter, education, land, employment, equality, and just
peace. The full protection of health workers can only be attained if
fundamental social change is achieved.
We, members of the
health sector must go beyond fulfilling our humanitarian tasks. Together with
the peoples of the world, we must unite further against US as the No. 1
exploiter and terrorist in the world. Solidarity should be strengthened to
carry forward the struggle against imperialism and local reaction in order to
realize national liberation, democracy and justice.
With this, we hereby
agree on the following resolutions:
1.
Fight for health
as a basic human right. Struggle for affordable and accessible
quality health care for all!
Health is not a commodity for trade. Junk TRIPS & GATS! WTO out of health!
2.
Make governments
accountable whenever they abandon their responsibility for
peoples’ health. Governments
must focus their budget on social services & social programs.
·
Prioritize health
in the budget. No to re-channeling of government
budgets for debt service and
militarization.
·
Fight
privatization of health care.
·
Stop corruption!
3.
Promote the
rights & welfare of all health workers
·
Stop mass lay-off
and contractualization of health workers
·
Just wages,
benefits, safe working conditions and security of tenure for
all health
workers.
·
Recognition of
imperialist states of the credentials of foreign-trained professionals.
4.
Resist
imperialist wars
·
End wars of
aggression that contribute or aggravate ill health
and economic displacement.
·
Stop food,
economic and medical blockades and sanctions that cause
widespread malnutrition and
illnesses.
·
Oppose the
destruction of infrastructures that are vital to health.
5.
Struggle for
safe, affordable, necessary & essential medicines for the people. Put
an end to drug monopoly.
6.
Oppose unjust
& exploitative bilateral & multi-lateral trade agreements (i.e.
TRIPS, AoA, GATS, JPEPA, NAFTA). Expose and resist commodification of
health workers.
7.
Encourage
international cooperation among members of the health sector, health
organizations and individuals
against imperialist aggression.
8. Actively
participate in people’s mass struggle for freedom and justice.
PLANS
1.
Launch/intensify
international campaign on the following:
·
Safe, affordable,
necessary & essential medicines for the people
·
“WTO out of
Health!” No to Wars of Aggression! Fight for People’s Health!
·
“Health Now!”
Health workers call for peace and justice.
·
Campaign against
exploitative economic trade agreements.
2.
Campaign against
the commodification of health workers. Support migrant health
workers who are exploited and
oppressed.
3. Support
peoples initiative at the grassroots level.
4. Oppose trade
of kidneys and other human body parts that exploit the poor (
4.
Conduct
information & education campaign for deeper understanding & unified
stand against imperialist
impositions.
5.
Promote
international cooperation among members of the health sector. Identify
& establish contacts among
progressive groups & organizations.
6.
Launch
International campaign on the following concerns:
·
Migrant Health
Workers – August 2009
·
International
Conference – “Struggle for Safe, Affordable, Necessary & Essential
Medicines” (November 2009)
7.
Conduct
activities to demand governments to desist from implementing anti-
people/neoliberal policies.
Resolution of Workshop
13: Science and technology for the
people and development, environmental protection against plunder and pollution
and the destruction of the foundations of human life, the right to safe and
healthy food and water and opposition to manipulation of genetic technology for
imperialist profit;
Struggle for
people’s access to the world’s resources;
Banish
environmental destruction, imperialist plunder and war
Environmental hazards
and natural disasters are more often and more severely affecting the poor
throughout the world. While global warming is already having extreme impacts on
our climate, free market globalization policies have opened up the rest of the
world to pave the way for the unhampered entry, control and exploitation of raw
natural resources and of people. Atrocious campaigns of wars of aggression have
been waged by the world’s economic powers to expand their economic territories
and gain direct or tighter control of land and natural resources.
In this era of
monopoly capital, we continue to face a renewed, more rapacious and vicious
campaign of plunder that aggravates the already devastated and polluted natural
environment. Despite the great advances in information technology, robotics,
genetics, agriculture, and medicine, these are not being applied towards solving
fundamental problems of humankind. Instead every advance in technology through
unbridled globalization is used to open up and exploit third world resources to
generate profit for multinationals.
This plunder and
pollution of the environment has made victims of poor communities many times
over. Imperialist plunder of our forests, mineral and energy resources leaves
in its wake poverty and environmental backlashes, which come in the form of
floods, drought and other occurrences triggered or heightened by the prevailing
imbalances in the ecosystem. Women and children shoulder the greater cost of
these circumstances because of wider risks to their health, and added
complications to their productive and reproductive functions.
The environmental
damage caused by imperialist globalization disproportionately impacts poor
nations and costs them more than their combined foreign debt. These
environmental problems continue to ravage the third world as globalization
seeks more and more resources to feed its overproduction centered around making
profits and not around meeting basic human needs.
Climate change already
aggravates the other environmental problems that communities have to face as a
result of globalization’s ever increasing destruction of our ecology. Due to
global warming, there are increased risks to vulnerable ecological systems such
as polar and high mountain communities and ecosystems, biodiversity hotspots,
corals, and small island communities. Extreme weather events such as droughts,
heat waves, and floods are also expected to increase. Sea level rise lead to
loss of coastal area and associated impacts. Biodiversity, health, poverty,
rural livelihoods and food security are affected by global warming primarily in
underdeveloped and developing countries where mitigation is not affordable. In
general the most vulnerable to the impacts of global warming are the poor and
marginalized people in the poor countries in Asia, Africa and
While imperialist
countries and their transnational and multinational corporations, which are the
main contributors to the excessive global carbon emission, continue its
unsustainable production and consumption of fossil-based fuels and products.
The Unites States has cumulatively contributed the largest fraction of green
house gases (GHG) in the world being one of the biggest processor and
unregulated user of oil and petroleum products all over the world. Yet the
Basic human needs,
economic and social development need adequate energy and infrastructure. The
improvement of the lives and the development of peoples should not be denied
just to meet carbon emission reduction targets for the world. Carbon trading
effectively markets carbon emissions and essentially shuffles around
responsibility to curb emissions from imperialist countries to the third world.
While at the same time, imperialist countries control and prevent the use and
development of renewable energy resources and technologies.
With international
finance capital and the deliberate collusion of the national governments and
their elite, monopoly capitalism seeks to confuse and mislead us from its war
against the people and the environment. Instead of protecting the national
patrimony of the peoples of the world, these governments willingly implement
liberalization, privatization and deregulation policies that destroy all
national, social and environmental safeguards and allows the entry of foreign
firms to the detriment of its people, their health and safety. Monopoly
capitalism further promotes greenwashing that seeks to obscure and hide
monopoly capitalism’s grave liability in the plunder, destruction and pollution
of the world.
The escalation of
monopoly capital plunder have resulted in intensified resistance and struggles
of the people to defend our environment and uphold a future rid of the root
causes of a socially destructive system- of overproduction, overconsumption and
pollution for the motive of profit.
The people have
continuously and actively exposed and confronted all the deceptive schemes and
coercive machinations of monopoly capitalism. They have launched spontaneous,
organized and coordinated actions in various venues and arenas of struggle, and
used all forms of struggles and at different levels. They have organized
themselves in communities, established national organizations and alliances and
are forming regional and international issue-specific networks and formations
linked to other peoples’ issues and concerns.
The intrinsic and
practical value for human development of the environment and natural resources
call for a substantial redefinition of production to one that is truly based on
our needs from one that generates overproduction, overconsumption and pollution
for the profit motive for a few.
We have seen how
communities throughout the world remained resolute and determined to struggle
for their rights and defend their natural resources because it is not only
their present but also their future at stake.
We therefore
resolve to struggle and aim for a new world that truly provides for human needs
and cares for the environment.
1.
Struggle to
challenge and end monopoly capitalism and other forces that
appropriate control over the
means of production to the hands of a few. For as long as monopoly capitalism
and feudal forces control and dictate the use of the environment and science
and technology worldwide, poverty, underdevelopment and the degradation of the
environment will continue and intensify.
2.
Assert peoples’
control over the development and use of science and technology
for their needs and all-rounded
development. The high level of science and technology can provide people with
the knowledge and tools to judiciously use the material environment for
appropriate and sustainable development.
3.
Promote an
environmental mindset and ethics and scientific thinking that
integrate the care and
management of the environment with the advancement of the well-being of
communities that mostly depend on them.
4.
Work for the
reorientation of the views and attitudes of the science and
technology community of the
world to free them from being appendages”of monopoly firms, and prevent
corporate misuse of science and technology that leads to ecological, social and
ultimate human destruction. Motivate and instill dedication of scientists and
technologists to serve the people and participate in struggles against modern
imperialism and establish a world that is free, socially just and progressive.
5.
Demystify science
to allow people the opportunity of applying knowledge
systems and technologies for
their benefit and not for the generation of profits of a few. In addition,
promote the value of indigenous and local knowledge and its role in the
development of technologies to benefit the peoples of the world.
6.
Work for a
moratorium on the commercialization of genetically modified
organisms in food and
agriculture pending the resolution of scientific, social and ethical issues.
7.
Strengthen the
capacity of communities to respond to natural risks and disasters.
Advance national programs for
risk assessment and management, as well as mitigate impacts to highly
vulnerable communities.
We resolve to
undertake the following :
· Study
and develop the People’s Protocol on Climate Change. Develop a core
paper on Climate Change with specific focus on
the present environmental issues
such as mining, oil exploration deforestation
and biofuels.
· Set up
a “network for scientists, engineers and technologists for the people” and a
“broad, anti-imperialist environmental
network” on the regional and international
levels.
· Strengthen,
expand and develop regional/international linkages and cooperation
with individuals, institutions, organizations
and alliances especially of the
indigenous people, fisherfolks, peasants and
workers.
o Formation of alliance of
mining-affected communities
· Actively
participate in existing major international and regional conferences that
tackle science and environmental issues.
Expose the deception and collusion of
so-called
“environmental” groups that defend privilege, divide people and serve
directly the interests of monopoly capitalism.
o Participate in the climate
change discussion that will happen in
Conference of Parties 14 and 15 in
· Establish
and strengthen international alliance in launching campaigns to expose
and oppose
the control, mis-orientation and misuse of the environment and
science and technology by monopoly capitalism
with focus on the plunder of
mineral resources (i.e. MNC commercial mining
and oil). Launch a
internationally coordinated campaign against
mining giants or the biggest mining
TNCs and other issues such as deforestation,
biofuel, oil and gas exploration, etc.
· Hold
regional and international conferences and other forms on the subjects of
Concern 13 and/or on specific issues on
science and the environment particularly
on the issue of climate change and imperialist
mining.
· Develop
a system of support/assistance of science and technology institutions,
environmental groups and organizations with
people organizations and alliances.
· Monitor
and document developing environmental, scientific and technical issues
and concerns and set up a system of
information exchange and dissemination.
· Conduct
in-depth studies on issues of the environment, science and technology
confronting the world.
· Work
on common ground on science and environmental issues through bilateral
discussions with other study commissions in
the ILPS.
Resolution of Workshop 14: Arts and
culture and free flow of information in the service of the people and the
rights of artists, creative writers, journalists and other cultural workers
against imperialist and reactionary propaganda and oppression
Imperialism
in the twenty-first century—with U.S. imperialism as its concentrated
expression—has more acutely than ever brazenly controlled the realms of
culture, arts and the mass media in lockstep with its desperate drive to
perpetuate and preserve Empire for another entire century.
CULTURAL
IMPERIALISM
Ever since its
inception, modern imperialism in concert with the ruling elites in each country
have imposed their dominance in culture through the control of media, the flow
of information and institutions of culture and the arts (as the educational and
language systems) by means of which they prop up backward, colonial, feudal,
individualist, patriarchal, racist and even fascist cultures. This the
imperialists did, for one, to win the hearts and minds of the African, Latin
American and Asian peoples they subjugated and oppressed.
The imperialists and
reactionaries make sure that they control the instruments and institutions of
cultural and artistic production. They suppress cultural initiatives that are
liberating and which threaten the status quo.
In the emergence of
the
In the arena of
culture, arts and the mass media, the following few megamonopolies have emerged
the biggest:
· Time
Warner (US$90.7 B in Mar-Apr 2007 market value)
· Walt
Disney Co. (US$72.8B)
· News
Corp. (US$ 56.7 B)
· Viacom
(US$53.9 B)
· NBC
Universal (80% owned by General Electric Co. – US$390.6B)
· Yahoo
(US$ 40.1 B)
· Microsoft
(US$ 306.8 B)
· Google
(US$ 154.6 B)
· Sony
(US$ 76.201 B IN 2007 revenues)
These handful of media
hypertitans are in totalitarian control of what and how the world’s multitudes
read, watch, and listen. In obscene contrast, hundreds of millions across the
world, comprising an overwhelming swath of humanity, are mired in medieval
socio-cultural poverty, having yet to see a telephone, as well as learn to read
and write.
THE MEDIA
SUPERMONOPOLIES AND THE NEOCON BLOC
The biggest of these
media megaliths are part of the powerful neoconservative bloc that most
brazenly implemented and benefited from the advancement of imperialist
globalization and the global war of terror.
This neocon bloc is at
the core of the unbroken bipartisan
NEOLIBERAL
GLOBALIZATION AND CULTURE
This handful of media superconglomerates
immensely gained from the prime globalization/World Trade Organization (WTO)
agenda of corporate liberalization that broke down anti-cartel and anti-trust
impediments.
The immense power
accumulated by these media hypermonopolies have led both to the corporatization
and homogenization of culture in the world. Unleashed trade liberalization
across the world of cultural goods and services overwhelmingly produced by
these megacongloms lording over Hollywood, USA—coupled with the implementation
of various antinational economic programs and policies aimed against national
industrialization—has suffocated nascent film, music, publishing, broadcast, TV
and other cultural industries and sectors in the oppressed countries.
WTO-dictated agricultural liberalization has likewise devastated indigenous
communities and their cultures in these countries, dealing further lethal blows
to cultural diversity. Trade liberalization even mortally threatened
well-developed cultural industries of industrialized countries outside of the
This devastation of
entire cultural sectors hand-in-hand with the emergence of a few media
superconglomerates has led to wholesale violation of the economic and
intellectual property rights of cultural workers, semi-professionals and
professionals. The strike waged by the relatively-well-off members of the
Writers’ Guild of America (WGA) against these media supergoliaths early this
year dramatize the lengths to which the media behemoths push to extreme
deprivation the working people giving life to the cultural industries.
The rise of corporate
hyperpower in culture, arts and the media has likewise pushed the creative and
cultural commons to marginalization, subsuming mankind’s collective heritage to
superprofit ends. A burning concern along these lines are the multifarious
attempts to “privatize” or bring under corporate control the Internet, which
remains squarely a public cultural resource under public domain or the cultural
commons.
IMPERIALIST DECEITS
As imperialism mounts
aggression, it perpetuates a culture of deception and terror among the world’s
peoples.
The media
supermonopolies are the main purveyors of imperialist and reactionary
standpoints and viewpoints on global issues. They disseminate the propaganda, disinformation
and massive deceits of imperialist globalization and the U.S.-led global war of
terror.
Through these
hypermonopolies’ various outlets that overwhelmingly dominate print, the
airwaves, the entertainment media and the Internet, they continue to perpetuate
the lies forming the original pretext for Bush’s “war on terrorism”, as well as
the needed pretexts to justify an imminent war on Iran; to justify a future
invasion and armed intervention in Venezuela and the other Latin American
governments assertive of their independence from U.S. imperialism; and to
demonize other countries critical of the U.S. neocon agenda, such as China and
Russia, along with countries in Asia and Africa aligned with these two
countries.
With regard
imperialist globalization, these megacongloms perpetuate deceits as denying the
obvious bankruptcy of the globalization agenda following the successive
bursting of history’s biggest economic bubbles; obscuring the roots of and the
culprits behind the massive price speculation of oil, food and water; and
obfuscating the real criminal causes behind the current U.S.-driven
financial/credit/housing megamess.
With the help of the
most reactionary cultural forces in countries across the world, these media
superbehemoths insinuate the biggest among these lies even in the fields of
religion, computer games, entertainment fare, academic discourse, research and
materials for children.
The current blatant
recourse to manipulation, disinformation, misinformation and deceit to advance
Empire’s agenda is a grotesque enlargement of imperialism’s historical efforts
to incorporate media in subversive covert actions especially during the Cold
War. These subversive actions were revealed for example during the U.S.
congressional and media exposes of ties that bind major U.S. and international
media outfits to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in the wake of Watergate
and the U.S. debacle in Vietnam.
This blatant recourse
indicates imperialism’s disdain for and subversion of journalism and its fundamental
tenets to “tell it like it is,” to arm the citizenry within formation and the
truth, and to speak truth to power.
Such disdain for truth
and journalism finds expression as well in the rising suppression, leading
often to murder, of independent journalists, truth seekers, artists and other
cultural workers and professionals. That Iraq remains the most dangerous place
for journalists is intimately tied to desperate U.S. efforts to cover up its
war crimes and profiteering as well as its losing politico-military course in
that country.
The U.S.-led global
war of terror has also inflicted irreparable and incalculable damage to
invaluable cultural heritage sites in
RISING
ANTIIMPERIALIST CULTURAL RESISTANCE
Amid such blatant courses
of action by
The overt prostitution
of journalism in the biggest media outfits has brought about the emergence of
“blog” journalism, where writers, journalists and cultural workers and
professionals have found a space independent from imperialism and the media
monopolies to out the truth and have it reach the people.
An “indymedia”
movement has risen globally, where people’s organizations have come together
via the Internet to report the news that matters which is invariably distorted
and suppressed by Big Media.
The quite recent
maturation of Internet video technology has also seen the explosive growth of
“viral” documentaries and other film shorts exposing and opposing the various
crimes, anomalies, and scandals of imperialism’s biggest criminals. Political
documentaries have in fact mainstreamed in recent years, reaching millions
across the globe previously unexposed to hard-hitting revelations of nefarious
imperialist schemes.
The recent successful
strikes of the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Broadway stagehands
highlights rising assertion of mainstream cultural workers and professionals of
their basic rights and legitimate demands and the extreme greed and isolation
of the biggest media conglomerates. The ongoing negotiations between the
congloms on one hand, and the Screen Actors Guild and AFTRA on the other, could
break out into a similar strike as that waged by the WGA.
Imperialist efforts to
marginalize the cultural and creative commons, like the Internet, have been
squarely resisted by civil libertarians and Internet advocacy organizations as
the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
The deleterious impact
of trade liberalization and imperialist globalization on entire cultural
sectors and industries in both the oppressed and industrial countries has led
to the emergence of a robust global movement for cultural diversity. Cultural
professionals have banded together in national coalitions in many countries,
which coalitions have in turn fused into an international federation working to
effectively take culture out of the WTO/”free trade” regime. The media congloms
failed in their lobby to vote down the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and
Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, when the
In light of all
these, the League resolves to mount campaigns to:
1.
Expose and oppose
the handful of media supermonopolies that have a totalitarian
stranglehold on the flow of
information, and on what and how the world’s multitudes read, watch and listen.
Campaign against supercartelization in the media/cultural industries, as these
are blatant anathema to democracy and freedom.
2.
Demand taking
culture out of the WTO/”free trade” regime. Take part in the
campaign to approve new
international legal instruments aimed at countervailing and delegitimizing the
WTO/”free trade” regime. Expose and oppose corporatization and homogenization
of culture as a deleterious effect of neoliberal globalization on culture.
Promote and popularize artistic productions that counter individualism and consumerism;
3.
Demand the
immediate repeal of fascist laws as the USA Patriot Act and Human
Security Act in the
4.
Seek justice for
slain and incarcerated journalists, writers, artists and cultural
workers and professionals who
pursued and are pursuing the truth, freedom, and democracy. Defend the
democratic rights of independent and progressive journalists, writers, artists
and cultural workers and professionals everywhere. Expose and condemn the
active subversion of journalism by the media supermonopolies and imperialism.
Unmask and resist their attempts at deliberate disinformation, misinformation
and deceit.
5.
Breach the
monopoly on the flow of information by the imperialists and
reactionaries. Promote
alternative channels of information dissemination independent of monopoly
media. Turn into the people’s advantage technological developments in
media—such as online videos and the internet—in the production and propagation
of cultural materials that deepen commitment to anti-imperialist efforts.
6.
Expose and oppose
imperialist exploitation, oppression, discrimination and
repression of artists, writers,
and cultural and media workers and professionals. Promote their rights and
welfare. Engage in campaigns against censorship, deportation, torture and
imprisonment of artists and media workers and professionals.
7.
Assert cultural
self-determination and defend patrimony, especially of the poor
countries. Fight for the politico-economic liberation of the oppressed
countries. Press for the implementation of genuine land reform and national
industrialization in the oppressed countries as key to developing indigenous
and national cultural sectors and industries. Demand reparations for the
destruction of cultural heritage sites and artifacts in
8.
Encourage the use
of arts and culture as tools in countering imperialist and
reactionary propaganda. Advance
and promote the flowering of the people’s culture and arts. Promote the
progressive and liberative aspects of diverse cultures and ways of life
combined with respect for and assertion of the rights of peoples and nations to
cultural self-determination. Fight the dominance of imperialist, reactionary
and backward culture and arts in every arena where we may encounter them.
9.
Promote cultural
cooperation among protest movements, progressive
international and multicultural
productions and their wide distribution, and link-up with mass movement
struggles in less developed countries. Develop collective ownership of media
and other means of cultural production and distribution. Promote folk, ethnic
and indigenous art and cultural forms to express the visions and aspirations of
oppressed peoples. Support independent media and artists groups (to include
artist prisoners of conscience) that produce pro-people outputs, by way of
patronage of their works and provision of material and skills resources; and
10. Further invigorate the study of the core lessons and
tenets of successful
revolutionary, anti-imperialist
and anti-fascist mass struggles in history to fortify the content of
counterculture and to break the deep-seated rabid anticommunist ideological and
political deceits pervasive among the intellectuals ever since the end of the
Cold War.
Specifically, we
resolve to:
1.
Create spaces
such as websites to share creative works—graphics, posters,
murals, theatre productions,
poetry, songs, slogans, radio spots and list of resources including research
and theoretical works—that will be accessible from and linked to the ILPS
website;
2.
Collaborate,
disseminate and promote anti-imperialist cultural works and
promote cultural integrity and
diversity;
3.
Hold a two-day
international study conference and festival before or during the
4th International Assembly;
4.
Fight for justice
and freedom for Professor Jose Maria Sison, P. Govindan Kutty,
Abu Mumia-Jamal, Axel Pinpin,
Angie Ipong and other persecuted artists, journalists and cultural workers; and
5.
Assist the office
of the ILPS Chair in drafting more positions on urgent issues in
culture and the arts. ##
Resolution of Workshop
15: Justice and indemnification for the victims of illegal arrest and detention
(especially political prisoners), violations of due process, torture,
extra-judicial executions, disappearances, mass displacement, and other blatant
forms of human rights violations.
During the past
decades, thousands upon thousands of people are being arrested in many parts of
the world. Countless people are being brutally tortured, killed by security
forces [extrajudicial killings/fake-encounters] in countries like the Indian
sub-continent, the
There is a large
number of cases of enforced disappearances when people were abducted from
anywhere either in the dark of night or broad daylight, without being produced
in court.
Those who were taken
prisoners have been subjected to torture by the police, paramilitary and
military forces of the most sadistic nature. Women have become the particular
victims of rape, molestation and humiliation of various types. Many people have
been mentally deranged because of this torture in the lock ups or military
camps. Many died in the lock ups and there are numerous cases of suicide.
Political prisoners after they were brought to jail had again been subjected to
all forms of humiliation and torture. Thousands of political prisoners have
been incarcerated in the jails of the
These People have been
picked up and been subjected to state terror because these people have stood up
boldly against imperialist onslaughts, against evictions from their land and
habitat, against the policies of their respective states to sell out the
natural resources of their countries to the foreign MNCs and also to curb
inalienable rights of small nationalities for national self-determination.
Thousands have been arrested for their uncompromising struggle for national
liberation and the creation of a new society based on human values, such as the
Maoists in
The people belonging
to the Muslim community, particularly after 9/11 and in the wake of the Bush’s
“war on terror” have been especially targeted for their beliefs and branded as
“terrorists.” The Indigenous people of
There are also people
belonging to various democratic, political, human rights, women, peasants,
teachers, artists, cultural and minority organizations, whom the governments in
different countries regard as dissident voices.
All these people have
been arrested, detained, made to disappear or butchered for partaking in
struggles of political, social and economic significance in whatever form and
were guided not by selfish interests but by definite political views and
ideologies, catering to the common good, irrespective of the charges that the
states of different countries have put on them.
In the prisons, the
political prisoners are being denied the statues of political prisoners and
prisoners of war and are being treated as common criminals as the charges of
having committed criminal activities levelled against them would confirm. They
are compelled to live in conditions that turn human beings into animals. The
jails are nothing but prison houses which, by degrees, bring about mental and
physical deterioration and leads to a situation where all democratic and human
rights are being trampled underfoot by the government. Political prisoners are
being secluded and kept in solitary confinement so that they are unable to mix
with other prisoners.
Even in the face of
such heavy odds and loss of lives, the political prisoners did continuously
stand up resolutely in
Relatives of victims
of enforced disappearances, extra judicial killings and of political prisoners
also joined the struggle of their loved ones. They are now part of the struggle
for a just society.
In view of all these,
the ILPS at its third international assembly resolves that:
1.
To fight and to
put an end illegal arrest and detention, extra-judicial killings,
enforced disappearances and
political persecution;
2.
Fight for the
immediate and unconditional release of all Political Prisoners,
irrespective of their views and
the methods of struggle;
3.
Call for
surfacing/producing the victims of enforced disappearances and allow
human rights bodies or bodies of
concerned citizens to visit police stations, detention centres, military camps
and interrogation centres.
4.
To fight against
the criminalization of political acts and to demand that political
prisoners be given Political
Prisoners status.
5.
There should be
an end to solitary confinement and physical and mental torture
of political prisoners and prisoners
of war.
6.
To fight for the
rights and welfares of the political prisoners and for humane
prison conditions.
7.
To fight to end
the banning of political organizations and other democratic
organizations of various types
and to put an end to their terrorist listing.
8.
To oppose the
automatic and indefinite detention of people seeking political
asylum such as in
9.
To demand
compensation for the victims of human rights violations and
exemplary punishment to the
perpetrators.
10. To continue international campaigns to attain our said
calls such as continuing to
observe the International Day in
Solidarity of Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War on December 3 and the
International Day of the Disappeared on August 30.#
Resolution of Workshop 16: Rights and welfare of homeless persons, refugees and migrant workers displaced by imperialism and local reactionaries
The deepening crisis
of world capitalism leads to a more vicious exploitation and oppression of
millions of people in the world. Imperialist plunder, war and
terror victimize, kill and displace whole families, communities, and nations,
especially women and children. Desperate with the failure of “free-market
globalization” to ease their own crises, imperialist powers terrorize peoples
through wars of aggression and fascism.
As a result, forced
migration and displacement of peoples worsen. According to estimates of
the UN Population Division October 2006 report on International Migration,
there were 205 million people living outside their country of birth in 2005.
This is about three percent of the world’s population.
Sixty per cent of the world’s migrants are to be found
in developed regions. Most of the world’s migrants reside in Europe (64
million), Asia (53 million) and
The number of undocumented workers is increasing.
Various organizations have roughly estimated number of undocumented workers to:
12 million in Europe, 12-15 million in the
There are 13 million refugees in the world at the end
of 2005. The largest number of refugees is found in Asia, 7 million, followed
by
Even with their conservative estimates, we can surmise
how the explosive economic and political problems and conflicts in the world
have doubled the number of immigrants, migrant workers, political refugees and
homeless people since 1975.
Total remittances in the world amount to US$ 226
Trillion with 64% of it going to least developed countries. Without these
remittances, many of the already bankrupt economies of labor-exporting
countries would surely collapse.
The current
neo-liberal globalization strategies as implemented by neocolonial (dependent)
states and puppet regimes cause and exacerbate poverty, hunger, landlessness,
unemployment, economic and financial crises in many oppressed and
underdeveloped countries which in turn breeds unbridled forced migration and
displacement of peoples in the world. These internal conditions leave the
people of oppressed and underdeveloped countries, poverty-stricken and
persecuted, without any option: migrate or leave their country and family in
order to be safe and survive.
Being forced to
migrate and displaced, these peoples bear insufferable conditions and attacks
on their rights and welfare:
They are regarded as cheap labor and as a very
lucrative business for recruiters and governments of sending and receiving
countries. Through the various strategies of labor-export by sending countries,
migrants are turned into commodities for export in exchange for
foreign-exchange revenues to curb their countries’ trade and budget deficits
and pay for ever-increasing foreign loans.
In host countries, they are the most lowly-paid and
exploited workers. They are made targets of discrimination and hate.
Imperialist states tell their workers and people that im/migrants and refugees
are the source of their own domestic crises. They are made scapegoats of the
effects of ruthless neoliberal policies by claiming that migrants steal local
workers’ jobs and feed off welfare funds.
In general, migrants - whether legal or undocumented,
temporary or residents, guest workers and refugees - are subjected to threats
of and actual arrests, detention and deportation. The rights of undocumented
migrants, including their children, more so their existence, are not even
recognized. Making them the most vulnerable group of migrants, they are
criminalized and subjected to harsh and inhumane treatment in violation of
international labor and humanitarian standards.
Women migrants are often the most victimized and
abused. Being women, they experience added oppression – lower wages,
stereotyped work opportunities, first to be laid off, sweat-shop slavery,
deskilling, sexual harassment, rape, etc. They are the most vulnerable in the
human trafficking for forced labor, prostitution and other forms of slavery.
Asylum-seekers and refugees leave their homes to
escape danger. But because of wars of aggression, political persecution and
imperialist-sponsored ethnocide/genocide, a mass flight of peoples has been
observed in the past decade.
Migrants and refugees do not enjoy the full guarantee
of labor, health, social, and basic human rights as enshrined by international
conventions. In fact, they are targets of racism and discrimination and general
class exploitation.
The imperialist design of flexible and contractual
labor, internationally shared human resources and WTO agreements on trades and
services, free trade agreements (FTAs) and other bilateral agreements on
cross-border migration of peoples benefits only the government exporters of
labor, highly organized recruitment businesses and multinational corporations
and their subsidiaries and sub-contractors.
Under the global war on terror by the United States
and other imperialist governments, domestic and immigration laws including
recent “anti-terrorism” legislation restrict, attack and persecute many migrant
communities, militarize borders, violate internationally-recognized rights to
family reunification and foster hate, fear and xenophobia among the local
peoples. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered sections of migrants
experience additional oppression by receiving states.
This scheme of
neoliberal globalization and the “global war on terror” affect migrants
globally on a daily basis. It is therefore urgent and imperative for the
im/migrant communities to band together and mount a global resistance against
imperialist and racist attacks to our rights and welfare. While we seriously
tackle the need to create and strengthen our own nationally-based movements,
there is an equally important need to create a broad front of im/migrant groups
and organizations all over the world that will stand up against imperialist
globalization and their state-sponsored terrorism against the people and
im/migrants. A key part of this resistance is in support for and
coordination with the national liberation struggles of the countries dominated
by imperialism and especially by
Based on the basic
analysis and views stated above, we shall promote the following
objectives:
1. Empower migrant workers, immigrants, and refugees
through their self
organization, help in their program for
education, organization and mobilization, to struggle for their rights and
welfare, and to challenge imperialist globalization and their “war on terror”.
2. Full and strict implementation of UN and ILO
conventions and instruments for
the protection of the rights and welfare of
migrant workers and their families by sending and receiving countries
3. Full and strict implementation of conventions
protecting and upholding the rights
of women migrants,
women immigrants, women refugees, and addressing their specific needs.
4. Recognize and assert the rights of undocumented
migrant workers to full social,
economic and political
equality and security.
5. Recognize and assert the rights to asylum of political
refugees and the end of all
forms of restriction and persecution.
6. Oppose unjust and discriminatory state health policies
as a tool to discriminate
and regulate the
movement of people, especially migrant workers. We demand the abolition of
mandatory testing as a pre-employment requisite and as a term for deportation.
We also demand access for migrant workers, immigrants, refugees, and homeless
people to culturally appropriate health information and services.
7. Expose and oppose militarization of borders and remove
all unjust,
discriminatory and
violent state policies targeting im/migrants.
8. Expose and oppose labor export policies which
institutionalize the
commodification of labor and consequent
abuse of migrant workers. As well, we
demand for thorough going socio-economic
reforms that will create decent jobs
and
promote equity.
9. End all forms of human trafficking, including
sex trafficking.
10. The end to imperialist wars of aggression and
other fascist measures including
that of their client-states.
11. Resist military recruitment of migrants.
Resolution of Workshop
17: Rights of the elderly and differently-abled towards a life of dignity and
secure existence
The elderly and
differently-abled people deserve a life in dignity and secure existence.
However, society is not able to ensure the conditions to achieve this because
of discrimination and marginalization, which are enhanced by issues of class,
race and ethnicity in the context of imperialism and intensified by neo-liberal
policies.
The elderly are
confronted by discrimination, principally manifested through ageism. Elderly
people are considered expedient despite still being capable of productive work,
and are the first casualties in the event of lay-offs in their places of work.
The elderly are also offered less opportunities, and tend to be generally
marginalized.
Ageism is a salient
feature of capitalist societies because of the capitalist notion of labor power
as a commodity where it is held that one’s capacity for production goes down as
one grows older. This conception of lower ‘value-added’ provides the
justification for marginalization of the elderly.
Ageism is
class-determined and fulfills the interest of the ruling class. While the
elderly of the ruling class are revered, the old people of the toiling masses
are discriminated. This reality has prevented the development of cross-class
solidarity among old people.
Social services is an
important area to ensure that the elderly are to have a life in dignity.
Contrary to the notion of the elderly as having ‘special needs’, the elderly
have basic needs for social services that are sensitive to their particular
needs and conditions. This is an area where ageism intersects because it
results in the tendency not to pay attention to the elderly, especially those
from the toiling masses, from receiving full social services.
In the same vein,
differently-abled people face the problems of marginalization due to discrimination,
including the lack of sensitivity to their particular needs and conditions, as
well as how societies inability to provide adequate services.
These problems come
back to the issue of class and the social system. Imperialist plunder has
resulted in the inability of many resource-strapped countries to meet the needs
of the differently-abled. While rich societies may seemingly appear to be more
sensitive to the needs of the differently-abled, this is primarily because they
have the resources to do these. But while this may be so, infrastructure and
services provided to the differently-abled from the ruling class are different
from those made available to the toiling masses.
Imperialism and
reactionary regimes are mostly responsible for the high number of occurrence of
disability in the world. The imperialist wars, or any wars, create huge numbers
of disabilities. Even dealing with the war in the countries of Asia, Africa,
Imperialism is also
responsible for inborn disability of many people because of imperialist
policies and technologies resulting from toxic pollution, hazardous chemicals
and pesticides, drugs that cause deformities, nuclear weapons and others.
Poverty is
contributory to the birth of disabled people, and the huge occurrence of
poverty is due to class societies under imperialism.
Therefore, the League
resolves to:
· Demand
from governments guaranteed rights of the elderly and differently-abled
to a life of dignity and meaningful and secure
existence, including developing
infrastructure and services responsive to
their needs and conditions.
· Expose
and resist the privatization of health and social services that threaten the
quality of life of the elderly and
differently-abled.
· Develop
an increased understanding of the issues affecting the elderly and
differently-abled.
· Fight
imperialist policies and technologies that cause congenital disabilities.
· Develop
a movement of the elderly and differently-abled people. As long as
imperialism
and class society exists, it is not possible to have meaningful
solutions
to issues faced by the elderly and differently-abled.#
Resolution of Workshop
18: Rights of lesbians, gays, bisexuals
and transgendered people against discrimination, intolerance and homophobia.
We, lesbians, gays,
bisexuals, transgender (LGBT) and LGBT advocates, delegates of the Third
International Assembly of the International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS)
affirm our staunch anti-imperialist stand and offer our contribution to the
League’s just struggle against imperialism.
We, like other sectors
represented in this League, are primarily defined by our social class. Majority
of us come from the exploited and oppressed classes in society. But besides the
common economic and social problems that we encounter in society, we are
further burdened by a particular form of oppression called homophobia.
By the League’s
inclusion of the LGBT concern, the role of the LGBT community has been
recognized as a potential potent force in the anti-imperialist formations and
struggle, and the problem of homophobia is regarded as a peoples’ issue and not
just the exclusive domain and burden of the LGBT community.
In our pursuit of the
anti-imperialist struggle under the banner of the IPLS, we resolve to:
1.
Oppose the
exploitation, oppression and discrimination against LGBT and to
institute and pursue measures
and programs aimed towards the elimination of homophobia and discrimination;
2.
Actively pursue
the LGBT struggle within an anti-imperialist framework for the
eventual emancipation of the
majority from the tyranny of the few. Only the dismantling of the oppressive
structures will provide the condition for the majority of peoples, including
the LGBT community, to live in a just and humane society;
3.
Adhere to the
justness of the struggle of the peoples’ movement for the
attainment of a society free
from all forms of exploitation, oppression and discrimination. We join forces
with people who struggle for a free society, where every individual can be
productive forces of society and reach for one’s full humanity regardless of
one’s sexuality.
Working towards the
realization of our above resolutions, we shall undertake the following in the
coming three years:
1.
Launch an e-group
where we, the LGBT and LGBT-advocates delegates to this
Assembly can have a medium for:
a) idea-exchange and communication in order to sustain our above resolutions;
b) conceptualization and formation of concrete actions and programs to be
undertaken within the next three years; and c) sharing of particular cases and
LGBT issues that we face in our respective national and/or regional settings;
2. Organize
ourselves and share experiences on how to organize;
3. Make
ourselves and our organizations’ presence felt and known in gay pride and
anti-imperialist activities; and
4.
Increase our
numbers and our organizations for the next-scheduled assembly of
the League.
We call on member
organizations of the ILPS to set up support groups for LGBT members and
advocates within their organizations so as to strengthen the anti-imperialist
stand of LGBT individuals and to expand the struggle to end discrimination
against women and men with different sexual preference and sexual orientation.
We are out. We are
proud. We are queer. We will never disappear!
We are out. We are
proud to be in the anti-imperialist united front!
-end-