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Bu-lat-lat (boo-lat-lat) verb: to search, probe, investigate, inquire; to unearth facts Issue No. 39 November 11 - 17, 2001 Quezon City, Philippines |
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Bu-lat-lat (boo-lat-lat) verb: to search, probe, investigate, inquire; to unearth facts Issue No. 39 November 11 - 17, 2001 Quezon City, Philippines |
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Democratic
Space INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE OF PEOPLE'S STRUGGLES (ILPS)
The
International League of Peoples’ Struggle extends its warmest and most
militant greetings of solidarity to BAYAN and affiliated mass organizations on
the occasion of the mass protest actions that you are carrying out against
imperialist globalization to coincide with the 4th ministerial
meeting of the WTO in Doha, Qatar on November 9-13. We are one with you in
raising the slogan and calling on the peoples of the world, “Intensify the
resistance against imperialist plunder! Junk WTO!” Once
again the undemocratic WTO dominated by the big powers will hold its meeting
behind closed doors to determine the course of world trade. On the agenda
of the dominant governments are the extension of liberalization on a broader
range of products and services. They are imposing such one-sided
agreements as the Agreement on Agriculture (AOA), the General Agreement on Trade
and Services (GATS) and the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS).
These cover such issues as the privatisation of health, education and water,
forcing GMO foods and seeds on member countries and patents on life forms. The
aim of the WTO is simple, to pry open the economies especially of the
underdeveloped countries for plunder by the giant monopolies. While the
imperialist countries protect their own industries and agriculture through
subsidies and credit, they dictate on others to remove so-called barriers to
“free trade” such as tarrifs and foreign exchange controls. Five
years under the WTO regime has spelled havoc on the economies of the oppressed
countries of the third world, wiping out local industries, ruining their
agriculture, destroying food security, displacing millions of peasants and
agricultural workers and intensifying general misery among the toiling masses of
workers and peasants. Today,
we have a world of widespread poverty, wasteful consumption by a few and ever
widening gap between the rich and the poor. We face a world where nearly
three billion people live on less than two dollars a day. The GDP (Gross
Domestic Product) of the poorest 48 nations or a quarter of the world's
countries is less than the wealth of the world's three richest people combined.
Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign
their names. 20% of the population in the developed nations consume 86% of the
world's goods. More than 800 million people in the backward countries are
chronically undernourished. Seven million children die each year as a result of
the debt crisis. The
imperialists led by the lone superpower, the US, have launched a new war on a
lowly country Afghanistan. It is one more exercise of big power bullying
to impose the imperialists’ will and dominance on the world and to impress on
others who is boss. It is also one more way of creating hefty profits for
their military-industrial bourgeoisie who are enriched by every war that the
imperialists embark on. Wars like these are occasions for the big powers
to display their latest high-tech weapons of mass destruction to the ogling eyes
of arms buyers. And yet, even if only one per cent of what is spent every year
on weapons were spent on education, this would have been enough to put every
child on this planet through school. The
WTO is nothing but the tool of the imperialists in intensifying their
exploitation and oppression especially of the backward and poor countries.
The people of the world must unite and intensify their struggle against the WTO
and other imperialist instruments of economic domination and control such as the
IMF and WB, and against military alliances such as the NATO, US-Japan Security
Agreement and so on which the imperialists use to force others to submission. The
rising opposition to imperialist globalization in many parts of the world
including the home-grounds of the imperialists is a positive sign of the growing
consciousness of the world’s peoples and working masses on the evils and
bankruptcy of imperialism and the capitalist system. The International
League of Peoples’ Struggle, which is composed of 218 democratic and
anti-imperialist mass organizations worldwide, is committed to support and
actively work for the unity and the struggle of the world’s peoples and
working masses against imperialism and all reaction. Expose
and oppose the imperialist-dominated WTO! No
to the US-led imperialist war against the people of Afghanistan! Advance
the struggle of the world’s peoples against imperialism and reaction! Long
live international solidarity!
INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE OF PEOPLES' STRUGGLE We want to know what you think of this article.
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