Press Conference by Rui Fernandes, Member of the Political Committee of the CC, Lisbon
It is around this date – 6th and 9th August – that are signalled the 67 years of the launching by the US of atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The PCP, in signalling this tragic event that claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people, not only pays tribute to the victims of the nuclear horror, but also reaffirms the importance of the struggle for peace and disarmament, a peaceful resolution of conflicts, in a framework where there is a growing danger of war with unpredictable consequences.
In an international context marked by a deepening of the structural crisis of capitalism, an intensification of the exploitation of workers and peoples, by growing anti-democratic threats and attacks on sovereignty, life shows that war and aggression continue to be instruments of the imperialist strategy of economic and geostrategic domination. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are a concrete example of how far this soaring ambition and its tragic consequences can go.
The PCP expresses its concern on the various sources of tension that characterise the international situation, inextricably linked to the policy of interference by the US and NATO. It is so in the Middle East, with the continued support of Israel, as well as the growing threats, pressures and search of excuses to heighten the climate of tension regarding Iran. It is so regarding Syria, with its people undergoing terrible times, with the supply, from outside its borders, of war material and other aid to the so-called free Syrian army, in fact supported by imperialism and its allies in the region, and the stated support of the Obama Administration, and increasing declarations by North American and European Union political leaders and military aimed at a military intervention.
The PCP warns that it was based on similar campaigns and arguments that are now under way regarding Syria, that brought aggressions against Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq or Libya, where hundreds of thousands of people lost their lives, thousands more turned refugees, new sources of tension were created, new fodder was given to feed terrorism. Wars of aggression always justified in the name of “democracy” and “human rights”, conceal the real economic and geostrategic interests of NATO’s major imperialist powers and the profits of the military-industrial complex and the associated multinational corporations. Moreover, the Pentagon has just completed tests on yet another conventional weapon, on which it invested 300 million dollars, a missile/bomb able to perforate the soil, while talking on cuts in military spending.
If the US was really interested in pursuing its disarmament plan, it would begin by putting an end to its pursuit of more weapons and adopt measures to cut down its own nuclear power. However, the truth is quite different from the continuous propaganda spread by the chief international media under its control, and spread uncritically around the world.
On this occasion of the 67 years since the terrible events of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the PCP calls on the workers and the Portuguese people to intensify their action in defence of peace and the national rights of the peoples to choose their own way, and make their voice heard against war, for peace and cooperation among peoples.
