Translated "Avante!" article by Albano Nunes, Member of the Secretariat of the CC

The evolution of the international situation puts before every democrat and patriot, that fight to put an end to a destruction, impoverishment and national decline policy, and before all the peace and freedom lovers, demands considerable intervention. In Portugal to defend sovereignty and national independence, giving a firm combat against intolerable manifestations of national submission as those carried out by Cavaco Silva. In the worldwide scenario, to face the interference and aggression strategy led by the imperialism that is dragging the world to a war of catastrophic proportions. Thereof the importance and significance of the rally that took place last Saturday in Lisbon and the set of actions that mobilize thousands of people under the slogan «Yes to Peace, No to NATO military exercises» in which the struggles to defend national sovereignty and peace go hand in hand.

So important that imposed as news in some media which is very rare since the actions carried in Portugal against the militarism and against the war and of solidarity with the peoples victims of the imperialist aggression when they are not harassed and diminished, are simply silenced. It appears that the mainstream media intention is to hide from public opinion the great hazards that the international situation contains and hamper a mobilizing awareness concerning the causes and those responsible of such a situation, giving political and ideological framework to the overall destabilization strategy and imperialist worldwide domain, strategy in which precisely NATO, under the command of the EUA, plays the role of armed branch, in constant reinforcement, giving themselves the right to intervene anywhere in the world and create chaos, death and destruction in the name of «human rights» and of a nonexistent «humanitarian interference right».

In the very dangerous situation we live in — fast growth of racists and fascists forces, arms race, NATO’s ride to east of Europe to Russian frontiers, genocide in Palestine, tension scaling around Syria, resurgence of the Japanese militarism, destabilizing and recolonizing offensive in Africa, etc., — it's particularly grave the role of general media. Firstly because the simple news treatment has a clear class mark but mainly for the great propaganda operations that cover imperialism’s worst crimes. There is everything, from petty forgeries (remember the bottle shown by Colin Powell in the UN as “proof” of usage of chemical weapons by the Iraq government?) to the orchestration of real problems to justify the interference in intern issues of sovereign states. The extraordinary dimension given to the hunger strike made by an arrested Angolan citizen in Portuguese media gives us a lot to think about, especially if we take into consideration the countless cases of persecution, prison, torture and assassination that every day, like Palestine, reach millions of anonymous people. Yes, it is raised a real humanitarian issue which one hopes does not have a tragic ending. But it is clear that, under the pretext of a humanitarian matter, we are in front of yet another destabilization imperialist operation similar to many others. As our António Aleixo* taught us «for a lie to be strong and deep, is has to bring something true to the mixture»