By Prof. Jose Maria Sison
Chairperson
International League of Peoples’ Struggle
October 29, 2013
The International League of Peoples’ Struggle condemns the auction of the Libra oil field in Brazil as neocolonial privatization, denationalization and imperialist plunder. Eighty per cent of the oil field, now known as the largest in the world, is auctioned off to foreign and private monopoly capital. At least 74 percent of the field is effectively owned and controlled by foreign monopoly capitalism.
Shell and Total grabbed 40 % of the field. .The Chinese CNCPC and CNOOC took 20 % . Petrobras ” bought ” 40 % of an oil field that belongs to the Brazilian people in the first place. The company Petrobras has been predominantly private, with 52 % of the shares in the hands of private capital and 48 % of the state. Most of the private capital is owned by US investors and the rest by private national capital , including dummies.
We firmly and vigorously support the broad masses of Brazilian people and the organized patriotic forces in militantly protesting and opposing the auction. The patriotic forces include the Front of Oil , General Workers Central of Brazil , Central Workers, some political parties, minority sections of the PT and PMDB and the Red Flag Movement and Reconstruction Communist Union.
It is reprehensible that Dilma Rousseff is a shameless agent of the US-instigated neoliberal economic policy. She is extremely submissive to the dictates of U.S. imperialism and has mobilized the reactionary National Army and the ” National Public Security Force” to suppress the striking workers and peasants and to shoot the Brazilians in order to serve the plundering interests of the gringos, the giant foreign oil companies and the comprador big bourgeoisie.
It is also perverse of the revisionists to describe the auction as an act that is justifiable under Lenin’s New Economic Policy. By all principled and practical considerations and calculations, Brazil and the people of Brazil are big losers in the grossly lopsided deal with the foreign oil monopolies. The PT government follows the treasonous line set by Fernando Henrique Cardoso in enacting Law 9478, selling out the national patrimony and propelling the privatization of Petrobras.
The auction is a gross violation of the national sovereignty and independence of Brazil. It is a brazen act of national betrayal, violating economic sovereignty and selling out the national patrimony. The foreign oil companies plunder the Libra oil field, proceed to further control the economic and financial resources of Brazil and further draw away Brazil from the course of national industrialization.
The broad masses of the Brazilian people must take the revolutionary road in opposing foreign monopoly capitalism, the comprador big bourgeoisie, landlord class and the bureaucrat capitalists. The working class must lead the basic worker-peasant alliance, the progressive alliance with the urban petty bourgeoisie and the patriotic alliance with the middle bourgeoisie.
We applaud all the efforts to build a genuine revolutionary party of the working class and united front of patriotic and progressive forces for the purpose of advancing and winning the stage of people’s democratic revolution and proceeding to the stage of the socialist revolution. With their capabilities and rich natural resources, the people of Brazil deserve a better future than the current society plagued by imperialism, latifundism and bureaucrat capitalism.
We agree with and support the following immediate demands of the people of Brazil:
1. nationalize Petrobras ;
2. restore Petrobras ‘s monopoly over the exploitation of oil and natural gas in Brazil;
3. Repeal Law 9478/1997;
4. Repeal all auctions of oil fields and natural gas already made by the Brazilian State through the National Petroleum Agency;
5. Use the oil exploited by Petrobras’ monopoly in the service of economic and social development in Brazil, contributing to building a strong and independent industrial base; and
6. Repeal all laws that benefit exporters of raw materials , agricultural products and semi- manufactured goods .
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