To the
People of Bangladesh
- Statement by
the Committee of the
Revolutionary
Internationalist Movement.
13th May 1991.
On behalf of the entire
Revolutionary Internationalist Movement, we send our heart-felt
sympathy to the masses of people in Bangladesh in this hour of untold
human suffering.
Cyclones are a massive
natural force which mankind has not yet been able to harness. But
the massive death toll and destruction from this cyclone is not
mainly a result of the natural forces but from the fact that a reactionary
social system is in place in Bangladesh and that the world is dominated
by the ruling classes of a handful of imperialist states.
In the imperialist countries,
also, natural disasters strike. But these countries have grown wealthy,
largely through squeezing the life out of the countries of Asia,
Africa and Latin America, and the casualties in such disasters are
usually low.
First these imperialist
powers who were so quick to dispatch hundreds of thousands of soldiers,
thousands of airplanes and helicopters and billions of dollars of
weaponry to massacre the Iraqi people found their pockets empty
in the face of the Bangladeshi disaster. Then the U.S. imperialists
decided to divert thousands of troops from the Gulf, blood still
dripping from their hands, to Bangladesh. This was done to reinforce
their self-proclaimed "right" to intervene anywhere at
will and to give a "human face" to their man-eating "new
world order". This shows once again that imperialist "aid"
is just one more weapon they use against the oppressed peoples,
to turn on or off according to cold-blooded imperialist self-interest.
In order for the people
to use their collective energy, wisdom and heroism to conquer the
power of cyclones and floods, it is first necessary for the people
to conquer political power. This was proven in practice when the
workers and peasants held power in revolutionary China and, under
the leadership of Mao Tsetung and relying on their own efforts,
were able to combat natural disasters and tame rivers which earlier
had periodically wreaked havoc on the country. The hundred million
people of Bangladesh are its greatest treasure, an inexhaustible
source of strength that, once unleashed, will vanquish the armies
of reactionaries and the imperialists and even the terrible force
of cyclones. The Revolutionary Internationalist Movement stands
with you, not only in the painful days of today, but in the revolutionary
struggle that will surely pave the way for the bright red Bangladesh
of tomorrow.
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