On the initiative of the Portuguese Communist Party, various Communist and Workers Parties from around the world issued today, February 1, a common position on "20 years after the Gulf War, the importance of the struggle for peace and against imperialist exploitation and oppression " until now signed by 48 parties/ organizations
Twenty years have elapsed since the beginning of the Gulf War. On January 17, 1991,the armed forces of the USA, NATO and its allies unleashed - with the ratification of the Security Council of the United Nations - their first large-scale war in the Middle East, despite widespread anti war opposition in several countries .Being inseparable
from the profound and negative changes associated with the liquidation of Socialism in the Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe, that war was a prelude to 20 years of large- scale aggressions, invasions and imperialist interferences.
From the Gulf to Yugoslavia, from Afghanistan to Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine, imperialism has tried to impose its domination in each country and over the globe, seeking to impose the direct control of the world's main energy resources, to annihilate the peoples’ sovereign rights and to submit the entire planet to the exploitation and interests of the big capital. This militarist and war-mongering offensive has been developed hand in hand with the attacks against the workers’ and peoples' social, economic and political rights – even in the centers of imperialism - and contributed to sharpen the contradictions among imperialist powers.
Thanks to the peoples' resistance and struggle – first and foremost, that of the peoples who were the victims of aggression – imperialism's offensive has faced obstacles and suffered important setbacks. But the dangers for peace and the peoples have not disappeared. On the contrary, capitalism's profound economic crisis, and the
ruling classes' powerlessness to overcome it, is leading – as in the past – to an attempt to ensure their power through violence, authoritarianism, war and brutal offensives against the workers’ and peoples' rights and living standards.
The threats of war and aggression are evident in the attacks against workers’ and peoples’ movements that struggle against imperialism, labeling it as an “internal enemy”; in the recent NATO Summit and the new strategic concept of this militaristic and aggressive imperialist organization– which the Lisbon Treaty considers its armed wing thus deepening the process of affirming the European Union as an imperialist economic, political and military block - ; in the constant imperialist threats of war, provocations and interferences in numerous parts of the globe; in the increasing expenditure on military and security apparatuses.
The signatory Parties call upon the workers and peoples of the world to strengthen the struggle for peace and against imperialism's plans of war and aggression, to strengthen the struggle against capitalist exploitation and in defense of sovereignty and of the rights of all peoples of the world. They stress that the struggle for peace,
cooperation and progress is an inseparable element of the struggle for the overthrow of capitalism and the construction of socialism.
They express their solidarity with the peoples and to the national-liberation, revolutionary and progressive anti-imperialist forces who are struggling against the imperialism's aggressions, interferences and threats. In particular, they express their solidarity with the communists and other anti-imperialist forces of the Middle East and especially with the Palestinian people in their struggle for the right to establish an independent State of Palestine in the pre-1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital
The Parties
1.Algerian Part for Democracy and Socialism
2.Communist Party of Argentina
3.Communist Party of Australia
4.Communist Party of Bangladesh
5.Worker's Party of Belgium
6.Communist Party of Brazil
7.Communist Party of Britain
8.New Communist Party of Britain
9.Communist Party of Canada
10. Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia
11. AKEL, Cyprus
12.Communist Party in Denmark
13.Communist Party of Finland
14.Unified Communist Party of Georgia
15.German Communist Party
16.Communist Party of Greece
17.New Communist Party of the Netherlands
18. Hungarian Communist Workers Party
19.Communist Party of India
20.Communist Party of India (Marxist)
21.Communist Party of Ireland
22.Workers Party of Ireland
23.Party of the Italian Communists
24.Workers' Party of Korea
25.Lebanese Communist Party
26.Communist Party of Luxembourg
27.Communist Party of Macedonia
28.Communist Party of Mauritius
29.Communist Party of Mexico
30.Popular Socialist Party of Mexico
31.Communist Party of Norway
32.Palestinian Peoples Party
33.Peruan Communist Party
34.Communist Party of Philippines
35.Communist Party of Poland
36.Portuguese Communist Party
37.Romenian Communist Party
38.Romanian Participatory Socialism Party of Romania
39.Communist Party of the Russian Federation
40.Communist and Workers Party of Russia
41.South African Communist Party
42.Communist Party of Spain
43.Party of the Communists Catalonia, Spain
44.Communist Party Peoples of Spain
45.Communist Party of Turkey
46.Communist Party of Venezuela
47.New Communist Party of Yugoslavia
Also endorsed this position the
Galician Peoples Union