Report of the Chairperson to the Fifth International Assembly of the International League of Peoples’ Struggle,
By Jose Maria Sison,
Chairperson,
International Coordinating Committee
Manila,
November 14, 2015
Introduction
Dear Colleagues and Friends,
Warmest greetings of solidarity!
On behalf of the International League of Peoples’ Struggle and its International Coordinating Committee, I thank the presidium, all the distinguished speakers of the plenary session and workshops, the delegations from various countries and continents, all solidarity guests and the Philippine chapter of the ILPS as host for coming together in this Fifth International Assembly of ILPS.
The objectives of our assembly are to hear the views of colleagues and solidarity friends, receive the reports and recommendations of territorial organs and commissions on various concerns, sum up and analyze the international situation and the performance of the ILPS in various aspects, amend the Charter if necessary, make new decisions, resolutions and the General Declaration and elect a new International Coordinating Committee in order to further strengthen the ILPS and the anti-imperialist and democratic movement in the world.
The Fifth International Assembly is timed to oppose the summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Conference and the neoliberal economic policy of imperialist globalization which continues to brutally exploit the working people and plunge the world further in an ever worsening economic and social crisis. The thematic call of the assembly is urgent: “For a Socially Just World, Strengthen the Peoples’ Solidarity and Intensify the Struggle Against Imperialist Plunder, Crisis and War.”
I. Global Situation and Trends
The neoliberal economic policy of unbridled profit-taking and rapid accumulation of finance capital continues to govern the world capitalist system. Since the adoption of the policy in 1980, it has brought about a series of worsening economic and financial crises leading to the crisis of 2008 and the now prolonged global depression. In the name of a mythical free market, the states and the monopoly firms have carried out the policies of wage squeeze, social welfare cutbacks, investment and trade liberalization, privatization of state assets, deregulation of social and environmental protection and denationalization of underdeveloped economies.
The combination of profit maximization and use of higher technology has relentlessly raised the organic composition of capital, increasing constant capital and decreasing the variable capital for wages, pushed the overaccumulation and overvaluation of the assets of a few, hastened the recurrence and worsening of the crisis of overproduction, overplayed the role of finance capital and generated one big financial bubble after another that inevitably bursts to the detriment of the real economy, employment and the people.
The adoption of higher technology for private profit has speeded up the overconcentration of capital in the hands of the monopoly bourgeoisie in a few countries, the recurrence and aggravation of economic and financial crises, the plunder of human and natural resources, the degradation of the environment and the most extravagant forms of up scale consumerism.
It has produced for the imperialist powers, especially the US, the most powerful weapons of indoctrination, police surveillance and state terrorism and worst of all the weapons of mass destruction. Some of these weapons have been unleashed in recent wars of aggression to massacre the people and destroy social infrastructure. The most destructive weapons are kept in reserve for effecting a balance of terror among the imperialist powers and threatening the very existence of humankind.
The US is conspicuously in general decline and is losing its position as No. 1 imperialist power because it is being undermined by its complementary policies of neoliberalism and neoconservatism and by the growth of other capitalist powers. Neoliberalism has never solved the problem of stagflation, caused by the crisis of monopoly capitalism and excessive spending on war production and wars of aggression. The neoconservative policy of full spectrum dominance, especially with the use of high tech military weaponry, has guaranteed the misallocation of US resources.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the full restoration of capitalism in revisionist-ruled countries, the US has boasted of being the sole superpower and of having supposedly ensured the death of the socialist cause and the end of history in capitalism. It has proceeded to unleash wars of aggression against Iraq, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia and Libya, to engage in blockades, military intervention and war provocations against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and to instigate counterrevolutionary wars in Syria, Ukraine and other countries. In the meantime, it has gone for the financialization of its economy, built up its high tech military production and reduced its manufacture of consumer goods.
In reacting to the economic and financial crisis that started in 2008, the US has relied excessively on public debt and quantitative easing or printing money, bailing out the banks and the big corporations in the military-industrial complex and keeping public money away from the revival of production and employment. Thus, the US economy has declined and has generated socio-economic and political turmoil in the US and throughout the world.
The living conditions of the working class and people of color have severely deteriorated due to unemployment, reduced real incomes, rising costs of basic necessities, homelessness, racial discrimination, religious bigotry, state terrorism and wars of aggression. The economic and social malaise that afflicts the US has spread to the other global centers of capitalism as much as the current prolonged economic and financial crisis has spread from the US.
With the US as the world’s largest consumer market in stagnation, China has had to close down many of its sweat shops or reduce their production and has engaged in public borrowing to a far greater extent than the US in order to spend for public and private construction. The more developed countries in the European Union are also suffering from high public debt, slump of exports and austerity measures. The less developed countries of the EU like Greece, Spain and Portugal are reeling from high public debt, austerity measures and severe unemployment. Japan has continued to stagnate since 1990. Russia is hard hit by the fall of oil income and sanctions. China and Russia are being pushed to combine and make their economies complement each other in the face of US maneuvers to keep them subordinated. Thus, inter-imperialist contradictions are surfacing.
We focus the principal attention on the US because it is the most bellicose power and is the biggest destabilizing factor in the world. It has a war-driven economy, with the military industrial complex always pushing the government to spend more for war production and wars of aggression. It is determined, together with the NATO and Zionist Israel, to weaken and bring down any regime that supports the struggle of the Palestinian people and the cause of national independence of the the Arab peoples. It is responsible for training, arming and using the Daesh (Islamic State) to attack Syria. But since the Daesh engaged in the sensational beheading of Western journalists, the US and other Western powers have pretended to move against it. At any rate, Russia has become the key force in bombing and destroying the positions of the Daesh in Syria.
The US has relentlessly pushed the expansion of the NATO to the borders of Russia, has instigated and assisted so-called color revolutions to pressure Russia and has financed so-called nongovernmental “civil society” organizations to subvert Russia. Most recently, it has directed, funded and armed the neofascist forces in Ukraine in order to seize power and launch a war against the Russian-speaking people there. In response, the people in Novorossiya and Crimea have fought back and established people’s republics. The people of Crimea have reintegrated themselves with Russia.
The US and its NATO allies, including a reluctant Germany which has interest in energy supply from Russia, have imposed sanctions on Russia and suspended it from the G-8. Russia has promoted a Eurasian economic bloc and undertaken its own counter-sanctions. It has strengthened its economic and security relations with China. It supplies China with energy and some industrial equipment and China in turn supplies it with manufactures and food products and makes investments in infrastructure building and consumer manufacturing. The two countries have vowed to cooperate in realizing China´s initiatives of the new Silk Road and economic belt (SREB) and the maritime silk road (MSR) from Chinese ports across the Indian Ocean to Africa and the Mediterranean – all of which are driven by China´s need to export its production overcapacity, especially in such areas as steel production and consumer goods.
The US has been offended by the establishment of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as a security alliance to counter the US-NATO alliance as well as the establishment of the BRICS economic bloc to counter the worst economic, trade and financial impositions of the US. It has become even more offended by the establishment of the BRICS Development Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. It regards all these as challenges to the US-controlled global financial system. But some close US allies like the United Kingdom are among the first to join the AIIB.
China’s economy and military capabilities have grown in collaboration with the US and other capitalist powers. China espouses multipolarity in world affairs and has become wary of the detrimental consequences of the crisis within the US and the world capitalist system. Thus, it has adopted measures in its national self-interest. The US maintains its dual policy of engagement and containment towards China but in recent years it has engaged in more containment measures in the face of China’s big power ambitions, closeness to Russia and claim over the entire South China Sea. Thus, despite the annual US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue, the US has pushed the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement and the strategic pivot to East Asia.
The addition of China and Russia to the top circle of capitalist powers has resulted in the intensification of economic competition and political rivalry. In this new developing global context, the US is desperately trying to retain and assert its position as the No. 1 imperialist power. Any significant move of the US to revive its manufacturing power , tighten its control of the sources of energy and other raw materials and use its multilateral and trade agreements for such purpose will upset the existing balance of the capitalist powers.
Foreign monopoly capitalism and the feudal and semifeudal forms of exploitation generate mass unemployment, widespread poverty and underdevelopment. These are perpetuated and aggravated by the nexus of neocolonial and neoliberal policies for the benefit of the multinational firms, the local compradors and landlords and the corrupt bureaucrats. Under the neoliberal policy of imperialist globalization, the economic and social crisis has recurred more often and more gravely in underdeveloped countries.
The problems of mass unemployment and poverty afflict not only the underdeveloped countries but also the long acknowledged developed countries. At the moment, China and the European Union are conspicuously in a similar state of crisis and stagnation as the US. These dismal conditions result from the capitalist system of exploitation, aggravated by the neoliberal economic policy and the use of high technology to press down wages and lay off workers, thus effectively constricting the market and causing the crisis of overproduction.
The finance capitalist device of rapidly expanding money supply and credit to buoy up the economy has served to favour the financial markets and generated financial bubbles that keep on bursting and causing worse financial and economic crisis. The public debt bubbles are expected to have the most disastrous results when they burst. The austerity measures being used to reduce public deficits and hold down the public debt are relentlessly making the people suffer.
Under current circumstances, the proletariat and oppressed nations and peoples of the world need to struggle more resolutely, more militantly and more self-reliantly than ever before within their respective national borders for greater freedom, democracy and socialism against the imperialist powers and the local reactionary forces. The escalating plunder and wars unleashed by the imperialist powers inflict terrible suffering on the people but at the same time incite and drive them to resist and engage in revolutionary struggles to overthrow the unjust system and establish the just system.
The broad masses detest and want to change the system in which the imperialist powers and their agents engage in unbridled exploitation under the policies of neocolonialism and neoliberalism, in state terrorism and all forms of oppression, in counterrevolutionary wars and aggression, in the use of weapons of mass destruction, in threats of nuclear war and in the relentless destruction of the environment. The social degradation of the working people and the political turmoil are generating the growing resistance of the people. The unbridled attacks on the people are the prelude to their revolutionary rising.
The revolutionary parties of the proletariat and the revolutionary mass movement of workers, peasants, youth, women, professionals and cultural activists keep on developing in both the industrial capitalist countries and in the underdeveloped countries. Among these revolutionary forces, those in the Philippines are demonstrating that they can preserve themselves and further gain strength in waging a protracted people’s war in an archipelagic country that has long been a stronghold of US imperialism and its big comprador-landlord agents.
Even as the revolutionary forces and people of the world must struggle more resolutely than ever before within their respective national borders, they must continue to communicate with each other, learn from each other, hold meetings bilaterally and multilaterally and reach agreements of unity, cooperation and coordination.
The imperialist powers are ultra-national and global forces of exploitation, oppression and war. It is therefore necessary to strengthen further the international workers’ movement and the anti-imperialist and democratic solidarity of the peoples of the world. It is imperative for the International League of Peoples’ Struggle to develop these further.
II. Role and Accomplishments of the ILPS
Since its founding by the International Initiative Committee in The Netherlands in 2001, the International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS) has excelled as an anti-imperialist and democratic formation. It is in fact the biggest and strongest global alliance of people’s organizations with an anti-imperialist and democratic character and line of action.
It promotes, supports and develops the anti-imperialist and democratic struggles of the peoples of the world against imperialism and all reaction. It has a broad mass character and is not subordinate to any political party, government or religion and affords equality to all participating organizations. It strives to realize the unity, cooperation and coordination of anti-imperialist and democratic struggles throughout the world.
The ILPS has held the international assembly as its sovereign gathering. In order to mark the development of the ILPS from period to period, make new decisions and resolutions, elect a new International Coordinating Committee and further strengthen the ILPS and the anti-imperialist and democratic mass movement on a global scale. We are now holding the Fifth International Assembly. Previous assemblies were held in Zutphen, Netherlands in 2001, Eindhoven, Netherlands in 2004, Hong Kong in 2008 and Manila in 2011.
Between international assemblies, the ICC directs the work of the International Coordinating Group, the General Secretariat, the commissions on concerns, the global region committees, the national or country chapters and the member-organizations, especially when these are not yet in any chapter. As Chairperson, I have presided over meetings of the ICC and the International Coordinating Group, made reports and recommendations to such meetings and issued the timely memoranda to guide the work of the executive officers of the ICC, and all organs and organizations below the ICC in accordance with the ILPS Charter, standing policies and fresh decisions of the ICC and the ICG.
On behalf of the ICC, I have guided the formation of national chapters and global region committees of the ILPS and have sent the internal memoranda or executive notes as well as messages of solidarity during their assemblies and other public events. I have facilitated the exchange of information, meetings, cooperation and common actions of the member-organizations of the ILPS.
I have urged the ILPS as a whole and its organs and organizations to propagate the anti-imperialist and democratic line, arouse the masses accordingly, attract mass organizations to join the ILPS and mobilize the masses on various issues through campaigns and activities related to the concerns of the ILPS and in alliance with other possible forces.
On behalf of the ICC, I have promoted and encouraged activities to stimulate, facilitate and coordinate common lines of action and undertake definite actions on the concerns and issues; to cooperate with all possible organizations, institutions and personages in the attainment of the aims and purposes of the League; and undertake advocacy, research, publications, conferences, seminars and social and political action.
As chief representative of the ILPS, I have made representations to external entities and authorized representatives to the same. As chief spokesperson, I have issued statements on major current events and issues in the anti-imperialist and democratic struggle in accordance with the ILPS Charter, General Declaration and decisions of the International Assembly and the ICC. To emphasize that I belong the ICC as a collective and to the ILPS as a whole, let me proceed by using the editorial ”we”.
1. On the cause of national liberation, democracy and social liberation against imperialism and reaction. We have issued the strongest statements and called for militant actions in solidarity with and support of oppressed and exploited peoples and nations fighting against imperialist domination, blockades, war provocations, wars of aggression, counterrevolutionary wars and state terrorism. The statements and calls to action have been in support of the peoples of Palestine, Cuba, Venezuela, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and the people’s republics in Ukraine against blockades, provocations, military intervention and wars of aggression by the US, Zionists and NATO.
We have denounced the wars that have the potential of resulting in larger wars, such as the relentless Zionist attacks on the Palestinian people, the imperialist use of the ISIL or Daesh and other counterrevolutionary forces against the people of Iraq, Syria and Kurdistan, the provocative war exercises against the DPRK and the US-NATO instigation of the neofascist forces in Ukraine. We have also denounced the US strategic pivot to Asia, China’s claim over 90 per cent of the South China Sea and the US-NATO expansion and provocations on the borders of Russia.
We have exposed and opposed the neocolonial and neoliberal policies carried out by the imperialist powers and by such multilateral agencies as the IMF, World Bank and the WTO to exploit the people of the world, plunder their natural resources and degrade the environment. The Fifth International Assembly now confronts the APEC, which is directed by the imperialist powers in the Asia-Pacific.
We have initiated or joined the mass actions initiated by other anti-imperialist and democratic formations of varying geographic scales. We have initiated and participated in conferences, seminars and forums to clarify issues of national liberation, democracy and social liberation and to arrive at common courses of action. We have called for and joined global days of action. We have co-sponsored the Sankara Memorial Day in Dakar to celebrate and propagate the exemplary revolutionary struggle of Thomas Sankara for national and social liberation. We have cooperated in many ways with the Asia Wide Campaign, the International Action Center, the United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC), the Bolivarian Movement and the Beirut Conference participants.
2. On socio-economic development and social justice. We have made researches and issued publications regarding the causes and conditions of socio-economic exploitation, crisis and underdevelopment and the urgent demand for social justice. Thus we are well-grounded in making our advocacy of socio-economic development and social justice. Since January 2009, we have been enlightened by the ILPS seminar in Amsterdam on the neoliberal policy, the 2008 financial crisis and further crises to come.
We have issued timely statements against the persistence of the imperialist powers in clinging to the neoliberal policy, in extracting superprofits under all circumstances, in shifting the burden of crisis to the working people in the developed and underdeveloped countries and in finding no solution to the worsening crisis despite so many types of summits staged. We have initiated and participated in joint publications and in conferences, seminars and forums to demand development and social justice for the oppressed and exploited peoples and nations.
Under the auspices of the ILPS, the Indonesian chapter has been waging a campaign against the WTO. IBON International and other member.-organizations of the Philippine chapter have conducted study workshops on neoliberal globalization and financialization in Nairobi and Hong Kong, and on the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) in Jakarta and Bangkok. We observe that trade agreements are further being made to continue the neoliberal offensive. These include the TPP, the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).
3. On human rights in the civil, political, economic, social and cultural fields. We have issued statements and undertaken militant mass protests against the violations of human rights in the countries subjected to wars of aggression, counterrevolutionary wars and naked state terrorism. We have also condemned specific repressive measures and campaigns in various countries, including India, Mexico, Palestine, the Philippines, Kurdistan, Turkey, Syria, Libya, Egypt, the US, France, Ukraine. We have encouraged our member-organizations to undertake legal and political actions against human rights violations. In this regard, we have linked up with the victims, the national and international lawyers’ organizations and other justice-seeking forces to assert, defend and exercise human rights.
We have sponsored and supported the Villatoro Foundation in Guatemala to memorialize the martyrs of repression and educate the people on human rights. We have also sponsored the recent International People’s Tribunal in Washington against the Obama and Aquino regimes for crimes against the Filipino people attended by human rights advocates from various countries. They include member-organizations of the ILPS. We cooperate with the International Association of Democratic Lawyers and many national lawyers associations and many individual legal luminaries.
We stand firm in upholding civil and political rights, which under current circumstances are being curtailed to serve the foreign monopoly firms and the local exploiting classes, to suppress the opposition and to deceive the people. The systematic and gross violations of civil and political rights are interconnected with super profit-seeking exploitation which involves the vicious violations of economic, social and cultural rights. This is clearly seen where monopoly mining firms trample upon the rights of the indigenous peoples and other communities.
We demand justice and indemnification of the victims of human rights violations, including those subjected to illegal arrest and detention, torture and murder. We have encouraged and supported the work of human rights organizations and foundations in various countries. We have sponsored people’s tribunals against wars of aggression and human rights violations. Our member-organizations, especially the Philippine human rights organization, Karapatan, have initiated and participated in conferences, fact finding missions and joint political actions to support the victims of human rights and condemn the perpetrators.
4. On the cause of just peace. We stand up for the cause of just peace. We strongly oppose the long running aggressive policy of the US, its current neoconservative policy of full spectrum dominance, its overseas deployment of military bases and forces and its acts of military provocations and intervention and its wars of aggression unleashed unilaterally or in combination with the NATO and the Zionists. We likewise oppose imperialist support for fascist puppet regimes, instigation of counterrevolutionary wars and the training and deployment of mercenary troops.
We stand up for the cause of just peace by upholding the right of oppressed peoples and nations to wage revolution against their oppressors and exploiters and to engage in peace negotiations and agreements on just grounds for the benefit of the people. We have initiated and joined marches and rallies against wars of aggression and in conferences, seminars and forums on wars of aggression and revolutionary civil wars. We have issued statements condemning the resurrection of fascism in the developed countries, such as the neo-Nazi state in the Ukraine and the militarist revival in Japan.
5. On Independent trade union and workers’ and toilers’ rights and reduction of working hours at full pay against mass unemployment and decreasing wage levels. We have always stood in solidarity with and supported the international working class movement as well as any trade union, labor federation or labor center in the world that fights for basic democratic rights and trade union rights, better wage and living conditions, job security, and reduced working hours at full pay and against all the anti-worker presumptions and impositions under the neoliberal economic policy. We have always supported the International Solidarity Affair hosted by the Kilusang Mayo Uno – the May First Movement – of the Philippines. We also encourage the further development of WORKINS, which was established in Bali in 2013 as a broad network of anti-imperialist and democratic trade unions under the auspices of the ILPS.
6. On agrarian reform and rights of peasants, farm workers and fisher folk. We have always called for agrarian reform and upheld the rights of peasants, farm workers and fisher folk, especially in the underdeveloped countries where feudal and semi-feudal forms of exploitation persist and coexist with modern plantations and fishing operations of foreign and big comprador corporations. We support the just struggles of the peasants, farm workers and fisher folk in all countries. We have high appreciation for the Asian Peasant Coalition, in which the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas – the Philippine Peasant Movement – and other ILPS member-organizations in various Asian countries are involved.
7. On the cause of women’s rights and liberation. We are firmly and vigorously for the cause of women’s rights and liberation. We demand the equality of women with men in all social endeavours. The women must liberate themselves from patriarchy and patriarchalism, male chauvinism and sexism in their respective societies. They must participate fully and actively in the anti-imperialist and democratic movement to ensure respect for their rights and contribute their best for the benefit of the entire people. We are deeply pleased that the ILPS has been helpful in the activation of women’s organizations and in the formation of the International Women’s Alliance. This was founded in Montreal in 2010. We have maintained strong relations with many women’s organizations in the Asia-Pacific and on a global scale. We continue to support the One Billion Rising campaign, which for 2015 is billed One Billion Rising for Revolution.
8. On the rights of the youth to education and employment. We uphold and promote the rights of the youth to education and employment. The youth in the underdeveloped countries suffer the most hardship and frustration in seeking free and adequate education and getting jobs subsequently. Even in the developed countries, the youth are subjected to excessive school fees and onerous student loans and suffering the highest rate of unemployment. We have issued statements on the current situation and prospects for the youth movement, such as the speech delivered for the Youth Solidarity Festival in Bali, Indonesia in 2013 and on the neoliberal policies on education. We have expressed admiration and support for the massive student and youth strikes in Quebec, Paris and other cities in France and elsewhere in other countries. The youth are urgently needed for reinvigorating and strengthening the anti-imperialist mass movement in the interest of the youth themselves and the entire people.
9. Children’s rights against child labour, sexual abuse and other forms of exploitation. We support in the strongest terms the rights of children against child labor, sexual abuse and other forms of exploitation. Children’s rights are widely violated in the underdeveloped countries because of mass poverty. Even in the developed countries, children are becoming most vulnerable to the recurrent and increasingly worse economic and social crisis. Knowing no bounds to their malice, the imperialists and the local reactionaries are misrepresenting children as so-called child soldiers in areas of armed conflict and reactionary troops are using schools as barracks and depriving children of education. KABIBA – Alliance for Children’s Rights is taking a role in bringing together organizations for children’s rights within the ILPS.
10. On the rights of indigenous peoples, oppressed nations and nationalities against chauvinism and racism. We recognize and respect the rights of indigenous peoples, oppressed nations and nationalities to self-determination and preservation and development of their cultural heritage according to their best judgment. We oppose any kind of forcible or deceptive imposition on them, any discrimination, chauvinism and racism against them. At this very moment, ILPS member-organizations in the Philippines are in intense struggles in support of the Lumad, Bangsamoro and the people of Cordillera.
We are deeply pleased that in various countries member-organizations and chapters of the ILPS uphold the aforesaid rights and that, especially in North America, they do likewise in relation to the First Nations and other communities of varied national origins. ILPS member organizations of indigenous peoples, especially in Asia and Latin America, including those in the Philippines and India, that are now striving to build the Indigenous Peoples’ Movement for Self-Determination and Liberation.
11. On the rights of teachers, researchers and other educational personnel. Just as the youth have the right to education, without the encumbrances of high tuition fees, onerous student loans and lack of free public education, the teachers, researchers and other education personnel have definite rights to have better living conditions and be in a better position to provide education. They have the rights to organize themselves as a union, to demand job security and better wage and living conditions and to raise the level of their knowledge and teaching skills.
We in the ILPS have always asserted that education is a basic social service that should not be commodified and made an object of profit-making. A major and increasing part of state revenues must be allotted to free education at all levels. We commend the German people for realizing free education for all. The Alliance of Concerned Teachers, an ILPS member-organization, is intent on inviting other teacher’s organizations under Education International to join the ILPS.
12. On the right of the people to health care and the rights of health workers. We have always asserted the right of the people to health care and the right of health workers and demanded that health care is a social service that must be provided to the people under a socialized health care system and must be free to all working people and the indigents. We have brought together in the ILPS organizations of health workers who run people’s clinics and provide affordable health to the working people and free services to the indigents. Among the most active ILPS member organizations in health work are the Health Alliance for Democracy, Alliance of Health Workers, People’s Health Movement, Fil-Am Health Workers Association and the Alliance for People’s Health in Canada.
13. On science and technology for the people and development, and environmental protection. We advocate the use of science and technology for the industrial development of the underdeveloped countries and for the benefit of the people and not for super profit making by the monopoly capitalist firms. Science and technology can be used wisely to advance economic development without the wanton plunder and destruction of the environment. Economic development can be harmonized with the protection of the environment. The AGHAM, an ILPS member-organization in the Philippines, is playing an exemplary role in promoting science and technology for the people.
The ILPS has brought together the organizations of scientists and technologists for economic development and environmental protection. They have spoken out in international conferences and street mass actions against the monopoly capitalists for causing global warming with the wanton use of fossil fuel and plunder of the environment, especially mining. The ILPS member-organizations in the International Women’s Alliance participated in organizing a Women and Mining Workshop in the framework of the Permanent People’s Tribunal on Canadian Mining Companies in Latin America held in Montreal in June 2013.
With the ILPS member-organization Kalikasan – People’s Network for the Environment, playing the key role, the ILPS participated in Rio + 20 environmental activity in Brazil in 2012 and co-sponsored the International Mining Conference in 2015. It also participated in the recent People’s Climate March in the US. It is preparing to initiate or participate in people´s campaigns on the occasion of the Conference of Parties or COP21 on Climate Change in Paris this December 2015
14. On the Arts and culture and free flow of information in the service of the people. We promote the arts and culture that reflect the suffering, struggles and aspirations of the people for a better life in a just society. Such arts and culture must dignify the people and inspire them to achieve higher levels of social development, instead of glorifying and justifying the oppressors and exploiters. There must be a free flow of information to enlighten the people and move them to end the conditions of oppression and exploitation. The oppressive state and the exploiting classes must not control and use information for their own narrow self-interest.
We have brought together organizations of artists, creative writers, journalists and cultural workers that serve the people and are striving to build the International Conference on Progressive Culture. We have formed an international organization to promote people’s art and culture, the People’s Art Network, which has launched a website and participated in promoting and uniting progressive cultural workers and media practitioners and we aim to create the ILPS TV, radio and news wire. To that end, we have cooperated with the New World Academy and other institutions and organizations to promote progressive art and culture. In this regard, the ILPS member-organization, the Concerned Artists of the Philippines has played a key role.
15. On the rights and welfare of homeless persons, refugees and migrant workers displaced by imperialism and local reactionaries. We fight for the rights and welfare of displaced homeless persons, refugees and migrant workers. The imperialist powers plunder and keep countries underdeveloped and compel many of the unemployed to become migrant workers within their own countries, within global regions, in some oil producing countries and in developed countries. They support fascist regimes and state terrorism that displace people and make them political refugees.
Worst of all, they unleash wars of aggression or instigate counterrevolutionary wars. All these generate overnight millions of refugees. In recent years and months, we have witnessed the flood of refugees from Central Asia, West Asia and North Africa or the Middle East because of the US wars of aggression and the deployment of US trained terrorists like the Daesh. We have upheld the rights of refugees. The ILPS is proud of having encouraged and supported through Migrante International the formation of the International Migrants Alliance (IMA) and International Assembly of Migrants and Refugees (IAMR) and having opposed the misleading claims of the Global Forum on Migration and Development.
16. On the rights of elderly and other differently-abled people to a life of dignity and secure existence. We condemn the austerity measures being undertaken by imperialist and reactionary governments to raise the retirement age of workers, reduce pension payments, health care and related social benefits and privatize or eliminate the social services for the elderly and other differently-abled people. We demand that the retirement age be lowered, that pension payments, health care and related social benefits be increased and all social services for the elderly and other diffrently-abled people be expanded and improved. The people should take actions against governments that do not provide adequate social services but use public funds to increase the private profit and wealth of a few and build up the military and police agencies.
17. On the rights of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and trans-gendered. In accordance with its policy of gender equality, we support the rights of gays. lesbians, bisexuals, transgendered and queer people (LGBTQ) and oppose all kinds of discrimination and oppression against them. We support the demands of LGBTQ people in the General Declaration of ILPS. Their formations are active as ILPS member-organizations. They have their own commission in the ILPS. They have participated in all assemblies, campaigns and other activities of the ILPS. They have undertaken public activities to uphold, defend and promote their rights and carry forward the anti-imperialist and democratic struggle.
III. Tasks of the ILPS
I am confident that the Fifth International Assembly will further open the way to greater accomplishments by the ILPS. The delegations from the different parts of the world bring with them the reports concerning the dire conditions and heroic struggles of the people and what the ILPS has done to respond to the situation and the people’s demands for a socially just world against the plunder, crisis and wars brought about by imperialism and its agents. Thus, the assembly is in a position to sum up and analyze the world situation, measure the level of strength of the ILPS and define what can be done to further strengthen the ILPS and the broad anti-imperialist and democratic movement of the people.
The ILPS must vigorously engage in information campaigns and political education for the purpose of enlightening and inspiring the broad masses of the people to strengthen their solidarity and to intensify their struggle against imperialism and reaction. We must avail of the new technology in order to facilitate research produce the publications and spread these rapidly and on a wide scale. In this regard, we must maximize the use of the ILPS website to stay connected to the ILPS on a daily basis. At the same time, we must use the methods that bring people together and allow them to discuss issues face to face. We must have indoor and outdoor meetings to discuss issues and decide what position and actions to take. We must have seminars, conferences and forums by which the leaders and experts can share their accumulated knowledge and recent findings on issues and events,
There is no point in undertaking political education if this is not meant to expand the membership of the ILPS. We must present the Charter, General Declaration and current decisions and resolutions of the ILPS to organizations that are not yet members of the ILPS. And we must invite them to participate in meetings for the discussion of issues that are of interest to them and further meetings to raise their level of political education. The membership of the ILPS can be expanded only through information campaigns and work of political education. Often times, the organizations being prospected for membership have already a position or tendency to oppose imperialism and reaction.
The ILPS must take the initiative in mobilizing the people on the burning issues. There is no point in having a strong organization if we do not reach the masses in greater numbers. We must adopt and carry out campaign plans on major issues. These plans must include the aspects of mass information, forms of mass gathering and the cooperation of organizations and institutions that do not belong to the ILPS but which have an interest in the issue. The ILPS is capable of undertaking campaigns prioritized by the ICC and ICG on a global scale as well as campaigns defined by lower territorial levels of the ILPS and by the various commissions. The ICC or ICG must play well the role of orchestral coordination, giving full play to the interest, talents and strength of every concerned part of the ILPS.
The imperialist powers and their agents are hell bent on escalating the exploitation and oppression of the toiling masses of the people of the world in a delusional bid to override the ever worsening crisis of the world capitalist system. They are also hell-bent on escalating their economic competition and political rivalry as they strive to redivide the world. They inflict intolerable suffering on the people and they themselves drive the people to fight back. The International League of Peoples’ Struggle must do everything in its power to contribute to the strengthening of the solidarity of the people and to the intensification of the revolutionary struggle against imperialist plunder, crisis and wars in order to realize a socially just world.
Thank you.
