A WORLD TO WIN    #16   (1991)

 

To the militant Arab people

Call Issued in the Tunisian Marxist-Leninist journal, Red Flag

To the militant Arab people: Neo-colonialism is once again trampling Arab land at the invitation of its lackeys. You once again are rebelling against this occupation with the slogan, "We must fight for our land, liberty and national dignity", and once again you are up against the reactionary Arab regimes, watchdogs of neo-colonial interests.

Oppressed masses, the world has not seen such a concentration of murderous weapons since World War 2. Why were not these arms and these war machines used to stop the Zionist occupation? Or when this enemy invaded "East Jerusalem" in 1968 or in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip or even the Golan Heights? Why didn't they so much as lift a little finger when the Shah of Iran annexed the Tunb Islands in 1974? How can the silence of these same armies, spokesmen of so-called detente, be explained when they occupy Panama or when Russian social-imperialism invades Afghanistan?

Labouring masses, neo-colonialism has agreed unanimously in its UN and Security Council institutions to impose its hegemony on the Arabian Gulf, a region which is very strategically located and contains more than 40% of the world's oil reserves. Neo-colonialism has also agreed to profit from the natural resources and to exploit the oil as though it were theirs. It plunders, sucks the sweat off your forehead and controls the economy by imposing its orders and will. It is imperialism and social-imperialism that are the cause of your poverty, while Arab reaction aids them in every way and executes to the letter the directives of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, directives aiming to starve you and keep you in slavery.

Toiling people, your struggle against neo-colonialism is a life-and-death struggle. Either you give in and it will skin you alive, or else you raise your head and conquer your land, liberty and dignity.

You have come to realise what fabulous wealth Al Saud possesses, the world's second largest billionaire. You have seen Al Sabah's bank accounts and the piles of money he puts at the service of neocolonialism, his only backers. You have denounced Mubarak's Camp David regime so many times. You have exposed the true nature of Assad, who abandoned Golan and collaborated with the enemy to support the Emirs, the real hypocrites who take advantage of your convictions and gorge themselves at your expense. Neither have you forgotten King Hussein, called Black September, nor the other Arab lackey regimes of imperialism whose political positions reflect how dependent they are on this or that imperialist power and how developed the class struggle is. All these regimes have unanimously agreed at the Algiers summit meeting to recognise the Zionist institution, on the basis of UN Resolution 242. Although unevenly, they have all applied the imperialists' directives aiming to starve the people. Saddam and the Iraqi Baathists are part of these servants. What have these regimes done since they took power and since 1967 and 1973? They have squandered enormous sums of money, your money, to buy arms and then they use them against you, and never against Zionism; they put down your rebellions and now break up your demonstrations against the occupation.

Masses of people, revolt against the occupiers, against the compradors and the traitors, against the Moslem Brothers who are servants of the imperialists, take your destiny in hand and join the camp of revolution under the banner of New Democratic Revolution, be loyal to the blood of the martyrs, for none of these regimes will come to your rescue. All of Arab reaction, including the Baathists, rely on demagogy to deceive you and use your aspirations in order to preserve their thrones.

Neither colonialists nor compradors, working people throw them out!

Down with the traitors and colonialists -- people's war is the only solution!

This call was distributed at a demonstration where the following chants were raised:

Sultans and presidents, servants of Yankee colonialists!

Stamp out, smash (Arab) reaction of the Moslem Brothers!

Down with imperialist interests on our land!

Down with American interests, take our destiny in hand!

Smash Mubarak and Saudi reaction!

People's war is the only solution against traitors and colonialists!

Price hikes are a scheme of the IMF!

In the Gulf the soldiers are there, in Tunisia cost of living has soared!

3 August 1990

Excerpt from an article in Red Flag:

"Detente -- The Lie Is Exposed"

...The polarisation between the Mubarak and Saudi clan on the one hand and the others aligned with Iraq on the other is the result of contradictions in the imperialist bloc. Even if the Iraqi Baath Party tries to use the masses' national aspirations for its own ends, the revolutionary forces understand the explosive situation, and the position they take remains decisive in exposing the lackeys and opportunist elements linked to them. Imperialism feels the danger of a mass uprising that would destabilise the region, and it is up to the revolutionary forces to be among the masses in order to demonstrate in a concrete way the need for proletarian leadership of their struggle -- true proletarian leadership that lays the ground for lighting the spark of people's war and begins to use methods of struggle that lead in this direction. It must wipe out the concept of war waged by the regimes and expose Saddam Hussein's reasons for making use of the people's national aspirations -- he who helps watch over imperialist interests in the region. The revolutionaries must listen to the masses and provide good answers while protecting them from the claws of Saddam Hussein and the opportunists; it is with the masses that we can develop real leadership. We must not remain on the edge of the class struggle while we work to expose this reactionary and reformist collaboration. It is up to the revolutionary forces to make the revolutionary alternative a concrete reality by giving convincing answers and exposing the reactionary nature of the lackeys and the opportunists trying to outdo them.

September 1990