A WORLD TO WIN    #17   (1992)

 

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.