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On the Gulf Crisis
By the
RedWorker Communist Organisation
For two weeks
now a massive bombardment, far more powerful than Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, has been rained down upon Iraq by the imperialist alliance
headed by the U.S.A. This barbarous, unprecedented aggression has
probably killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi men, women and children,
and brought about destruction and disaster. Some people say it may
constitute one of the worst crimes against humanity ever committed.
We are in
solidarity with and on the side of the masses of Iraqi people, as
are also the Arab masses, with the Palestinians in the forefront.
We will struggle, and we call on everyone to struggle, ever harder
and stronger against this imperialist aggression.
We do not
approve of the occupation of Kuwait by the Saddam Hussein regime.
But this is simply a pretext for the imperialist alliance, and for
the U.S. in the first place. They have arrogantly and hypocritically
raised the banner of "international law". How can they
talk about international law, when they themselves invaded Vietnam,
Grenada and Panama, and whipped up aggression against Nicaragua
and every country that has sought to liberate itself from imperialist
domination? The U.S. and their allies are using the figleaf of carrying
out UN resolutions, as if the UN were not merely a tool in the hands
of the imperialist powers, in which the people count for nothing,
as if UN resolutions were not merely pieces of paper to be torn
up and discarded when it comes to the rights of the Palestinians
and other peoples oppressed by imperialism.
The only thing
the U.S. and European governments are out for is absolute, gangster
control of the oil they consider theirs and the protection of their
economy at the price of the hunger of the proletarians and peoples
who produce that oil. This is what their war is all about, this
is what they are seeking to strengthen and extend with their presence
in the Middle East and their aid and support for regimes that are
certainly no better than that of Saddam Hussein, such as those of
Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait. This is a war to assert a "new
world order" for which the proletarians and the peoples are
to pay the costs.
But this war
is tending to prove it will be more than a quick little stroll,
that it is aimed above all at the aspirations for national and social
liberation of the Arab proletarians and masses, and therefore it
will lead to an intensification and spreading of the anti-imperialist
struggle throughout the Middle East, alongside the Palestinian intifada.
Italian imperialism,
through the decisions of the Andreotti government, has chosen to
play a front-line role in this war. Twisting the Constitution and
putting their warships and troops under American command, the Italian
government is now an accomplice and a participant in the massacre
of the Iraqi people. Italian forces, using Tornado bombers, are
echoing the criminal deeds of Italian fascism, using phosphorous
bombs against the population of Iraq, according to Bishop Molfetta
Bello.
The parliamentary
political parties and their newspapers and television channels,
whether these be the parties of the government or the opposition,
are all united in solidarity with "our boys" at the front.
But this is a big litmus test permitting one to distinguish between
those who defend Italian imperialism's interests and those who fight
against those interests.
The government
is militarising the country, gagging the press and television and
turning them into tools of the open consensus around the war, censuring
dissenting voices and criminalising the most consistent opposition.
They are trying to suffocate the broad mobilisation developing in
this country against the war and against Italian participation in
it. They are relying on the repression being marshalled by the
police, Carabinieri and the Army, but above all, at this moment
they are counting on the servile support of the trade union apparatus,
to avoid a general strike. Marini, Benvenuto, Del Turco, Trentin
and their stooges in every city and workplace at this moment represent
the MAIN ENEMY of the development of a real movement against the
war.
Who is to
pay the cost of this filthy war, publicly put at 80 billion lira
a month? Certainly not Andreotti, Craxi, De Michelis, La Malfa,
certainly not the financiers and industrialists, the journalists
and generals, but once again the labouring people and the masses
who are to make yet further sacrifices. They seek to incite the
masses against Saddam Hussein to hide their own real, personal responsibility
for the war, for the high cost of living, for unemployment, for
the restriction of democratic rights, for cutbacks in social services
in our country.
Therefore
we call for, and will fight for, the proletariat, the youth, the
masses of people, not to let themselves be fooled, to desert, and
to oppose this filthy war on every level. We must organise in every
city, every school, factory, workplace, in committees, collectives,
united rank and file groups and mass organisations, to overturn
the imperialist government that has dragged the country into war,
that is unleashing reaction and attacking living standards and working
conditions.
This can and
must be the highest contribution we can make to our Iraqi brothers
and sisters being massacred by bombs, and to the liberation of the
Palestinian people and all the Arab masses.
Redworker
Communist Organisation
January 1991
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