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TSHWANE, SOUTH AFRICA: 12TH INTERNATIONAL MEETING OF COMMUNIST AND WORKERS` PARTIES
December 3-5, 2010, Tshwane, South Africa
TSHWANE DECLARATION
THE 12th international meeting of Communist and Workers` Parties took place in Tshwane, South Africa from December 3-5, 2010 with the theme "The deepening systemic crisis of capitalism. The tasks of Communists in defence of sovereignty, deepening social alliances, strengthening the anti-imperialist front in the struggle for peace, progress and Socialism".
102 delegates representing 51 participating Parties from 43 countries and from all continents of the world came together in order to take forward the work of our previous meetings, and to promote and develop common and convergent action around a shared perspective
THE DEEPENING CAPITALIST CRISIS
The international situation continues to be dominated by the persisting and deepening crisis of capitalism. This reality confirms the analyses outlined in the declarations of our 2008 Sao Paulo and 2009 New Delhi 10th and 11th international meetings. The current global crisis of capitalism underlines its historical limitations and the need for its revolutionary overthrow. It shows the intensification of the basic contradiction of capitalism between the social character of production and the private capitalist appropriation.
The crisis is systemic - despite pre-2008 capitalist illusions to the contrary, capitalism cannot escape its in-built, systemic tendency to go through cycles of boom and bust. The current global crisis is a particularly severe manifestation of a capitalist downturn occasioned by capitalist over-production. Now, as in the past, there is no answer, within the logic of capitalism, to these periodic crises other than crisis itself, marked by the massive and socially irrational destruction of assets - including mass job lay-offs, factory closures, and the wholesale attack on wages, pensions, social security and erosion of people`s livelihoods. This is why, at our previous two meetings, we correctly asserted that the current crisis was not merely attributable to subjective failings, to the greed of bankers or financial speculators. It remains a crisis embedded in the systemic features of capitalism itself.
The persisting crisis is compounded by significant shifts in the international balance of forces. In particular, there is the on-going relative decline of US economic global hegemony, general productive stagnation in most advanced capitalist economies, and the emergence of new global economic powers, notably China. The crisis has intensified the competition between the imperialist centres and also between the established and emerging powers. This includes the US-led currency war; the concentration and centralisation of economic and political power within the EU deepening its character as an imperialist block led by its main capitalist powers; a distinct sharpening of the inter-imperialist struggle for markets and access to raw materials; expanding militarism, including the strengthening of aggressive alliances (for example, the NATO Lisbon Summit with its "new" dangerous strategic concept), the profusion of regional points of tension and aggression (notably in the Middle East, Asia and Africa), coups in Latin America, the intensification of neo-imperialist tendencies of fanning ethnic conflicts and the increasing militarisation of Africa through, amongst other things, AFRICOM.
At the same time it has become clear that capitalism`s trajectory with its profit-maximising, headlong destruction of natural resources, and of the environment in general poses a grave threat to the sustainability of human civilization itself. The political elites in the dominant capitalist states with their various proposals for "green technologies" and carbon trading at best represent adjustments which increase the profitability of capital while deepening the commodification of nature, and the transfer of climate change crises onto less developed countries. The crisis of the capitalist system that we face as humankind is directly linked to capitalism`s inability to reproduce itself except through a voracious pursuit of compound growth. It is a crisis that can only be overcome through the abolition of capitalism itself.
Faced with these realities, everywhere capital fights back, seeking to preserve profits and to transfer the burden of its crisis onto the working class by intensifying exploitation based on gender and age, the urban and rural poor, and a wide range of middle strata. Exploitation is intensified, the state is used to rescue private bankers and financial houses while exposing future generations to unsustainable levels of debt, and there are intensified efforts to roll back social gains.
In the entire capitalist world, labour, social, economic, political and social security rights are being abolished. At the same time the political systems are being made more reactionary, restricting democratic and civil liberties, especially trade union rights. The retrenchments, including major spending cuts in the public sector are having a devastating impact on workers, especially women workers. There are also attempts to divert popular distress and insecurity into reactionary demagogy, racism and xenophobia, as well as to legitimise fascist forces. These are expressions of anti-democratic and authoritarian tendencies also marked by the escalation of anti-communist attacks and campaigns in many parts of the world. In Africa, Asia and Latin America we are witnessing the imposition on our peoples of new mechanisms of national and class oppression, including economic, financial, political and military means as well as the deployment of an array of pro-imperialist NGOs.
However, for the mass of peoples, in particular in Africa, Asia and Latin America, it is important to remember that, even before the current global economic crisis, life under capitalism was a continuing crisis, a daily struggle for bare survival. Even before the current global crisis, one billion people were living in squalid slums, and half of the world`s population was surviving on less than $2 a day. With the crisis these realities have been massively aggravated.
Most of these urban and rural poor, along with family members working as vulnerable migrants in foreign countries, are the displaced victims of the accelerated capitalist agrarian development under-way in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Global capitalism, spear-headed by the major corporates in the agro-industrial sector, has declared war on nearly one-half of humanity - the three billion remaining rural people in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
At the same time, inhuman barriers are being set up against immigrants and refugees. There is an ever-increasing mushrooming of urban and semi-urban slums populated by desperate marginalised masses typically involved in a variety of activities for survival. The accelerated capitalist agrarian transformation in countries with a lower level of capitalist development has genocidal implications.
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE RESISTANCE STRUGGLES OF THE WORKING CLASS AND POPULAR FORCES
Across the world, capital`s attempts to load the burden of the crisis onto workers and the poor is being met by working class and popular resistance.
Over the past year the anti-people assault on labour rights, social-security rights and wages provoked an escalation of popular struggles notably in Europe.
Imperialist aggression in the Middle East, Asia and Latin America continues to meet resolute popular resistance.
In Africa and Latin America, anti-imperialist forces, trade unions, and social movements have escalated their struggles for the rights of the people and against the plunder by the multinational corporations. These struggles have, in some cases, led to the emergence of progressive, popular national governments that declare programmatically for national sovereignty, social rights, development and for the protection of their natural resources and biodiversity, giving renewed impetus to the anti-imperialist struggle.
In the current reality, it is an historic imperative that as Communist and Workers` Parties we participate, to strengthen and transform these popular defensive battles into offensive struggles for the acquisition of broader workers` and people rights and for the abolition of capitalism.
In advancing this strategic agenda, communists stress the significance that the organisation of the working class, and the development of the struggles of the labour movement in a class-oriented direction, have in the struggle for the acquisition of political power by the working class and its allies.
Within the framework of this struggle we attach particular importance to:
The defence, consolidation and advance of popular national sovereignty
The deepening of social alliances
Strengthening the anti-imperialist front for peace, for the right to full-time stable work, labour rights and social rights such as free health and education.
THE DEFENCE, CONSOLIDATION AND ADVANCE OF POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY
In the face of the intensified aggression of transnational capital, the struggle against imperialist occupation of countries, against economic and political dependency and to defend popular sovereignty has become increasingly salient. In these struggles it is important for communists to integrate these struggles with the struggle for social and class emancipation.
Communists, fighting against imperialism, struggle for equitable international relations between states and peoples on the basis of mutual benefit.
The defence, consolidation and advance of popular sovereignty is of particular importance in Africa and for other peoples that have experienced decades and even centuries of colonial and semi-colonial oppression. 2010 marks the 50th anniversary of the commencement of the formal de-colonisation of Africa. Yet everywhere, including in the African diaspora, the grim legacy of the slave-trade, of colonial dispossession and plunder persist. Notwithstanding 50 years of formal de-colonisation, everywhere imperialist interventions are reinforced, the dominance of the monopolies is being strengthened with the aid of domestic capital. The struggle against them requires the active protagonism and unity of the popular masses, and the broadening of popular democratic rights.
DEEPENING SOCIAL ALLIANCES
The ongoing crisis of capitalism and its anti-civilisation fight-back are creating the conditions to build broad social, anti-monopolistic and anti-imperialist alliances capable of gaining power and promoting deep, progressive, radical, and revolutionary changes.
Working class unity is a fundamental factor in ensuring the construction of effective social alliances with the peasantry, the mass of urban and rural poor, the urban middle class strata and intellectuals. Particular attention needs to be paid to the aspirations of, and challenges confronting youth.
The land question, agrarian reform and rural development are important issues for the development of popular struggle in lesser developed countries. These are inextricably linked to food sovereignty and security, sustainable livelihoods, the defence of bio-diversity, the protection of national resources, and the struggle against agro-industrial monopolies and their local agents.
In these struggles, the legitimate and progressive aspirations of indigenous peoples in defence of their cultures, languages and environments have an important role.
THE ROLE OF COMMUNISTS IN STRENGTHENING THE ANTI-IMPERIALIST FRONT FOR PEACE, ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY, PROGRESS AND SOCIALISM
Imperialism`s crisis and counter-offensive are leading to the broadening and diversification of the forces that objectively assume a patriotic and anti-imperialist stand. Everywhere, in our diverse national realities, Communists have a responsibility to broaden and strengthen the anti-imperialist political and social front, the struggles for peace, environmental sustainability, progress, and integrate them in the fight for socialism. The independent role of Communists and the strengthening of the Communist and Workers` parties is of vital importance to ensure a consistent anti-imperialist perspective of broader movements and fronts.
Special attention must be given to the existing relation between various resistance struggles and the necessary ideological offensive for the visibility of the alternative of socialism and to the defence and development of scientific socialism. The ideological struggle of the communist movement is of vital importance in order to repulse contemporary anti-communism, to confront bourgeois ideology, anti-scientific theories and opportunist currents which reject the class struggle, and combat the role of social democratic forces that defend and implement anti-people and pro-imperialist policies by supporting the strategy of capital. We have a key role to play in drawing the critical links in theory and above all in practice between different arenas of popular struggle in the development of internationalist class solidarity.
We are living in an historic epoch in which the transition from capitalism to socialism has become a civilisational imperative. The all-round crisis of capitalism once more underlines the inseparable nature of the tasks of national liberation and social, national and class emancipation.
In the face of deepening capitalist crisis, the experiences of socialist construction demonstrate the conditions of the superiority of socialism.
The strengthening of the cooperation among Communist and Workers` Parties and the strengthening of the anti-imperialist front, should march side by side.
We, the Communist and Workers` parties meeting in Tshwane, in a situation marked by a massive onslaught against workers and popular forces, but also with many possibilities for the development of the struggle, express our profound solidarity with workers and peoples and their intense struggles, reiterating our determination to act and struggle side by side with working masses, youth, women, and all popular sectors that are victims of capitalist exploitation and oppression.
We reaffirm our appeal to the widest range of popular forces to join us in a common struggle for socialism which is the only alternative for the future of humankind.
We point to the following main axes for the development of our joint and convergent actions:
With the capitalist crisis deepening, we will focus on the development of workers` and peoples` struggles for labour and social rights, the strengthening of the trade-union movement and its class orientation; the promotion of the social alliance with peasants and the other popular strata. Particular attention will be given to the problems of women and youth who are among the first victims of the capitalist crisis
In the face of the all-round imperialist aggression and the sharpening of the inter-imperialist rivalries, we will intensify the anti-imperialist struggle for peace, against imperialist wars and occupation, against the dangerous "new" NATO strategy and foreign military bases, and for the abolition of all nuclear weapons. We will extend active internationalist solidarity with all people and movements facing and resisting oppression, imperialist threats and aggression.
We will resolutely fight anticommunism, anti-communist laws, measures and persecution; to demand the legalisation of CPs where outlawed. We will defend the history of the communist movement, the contribution of socialism in advancing human civilisation.
We affirm our solidarity with the forces and peoples engaged in and striving for socialist construction. We reaffirm our solidarity with the Cuban people and their socialist revolution, and we will continue vigorously to oppose the blockade and to support the international campaign for the release of the Cuban Five.
We will contribute, within the specific context of our national realities, to the reinforcement of international anti-imperialist mass organisations like WFTU, WPC, WFDY, WIDF. We particularly welcome and salute the 17th World Festival of Youth and Students to be held in South Africa from December 13-21, 2010.
Courtesy: People’s Democracy
Thursday, December 9, 2010
AGARTALA, TRIPURA: HARIPADA DAS ON TO THE CIVIC POLL IN TRIPURA
ELECTIONS to the Agartala Municipal Council (AMC) and 15 Nagar Panchayats are scheduled to be held on December 11. As the phases of nomination, scrutiny and withdrawal have been completed, the pattern of contest is amply clear now. A total of 533 candidates are in the fray, seeking election to 229 seats out of a total of 230. One Left Front sponsored CPI (M) candidate has been declared elected unopposed in Khowai Nagar panchayat, following the withdrawal of nomination by the opposition Congress candidate. In most of these urban bodies, the contest is straight between the Left Front and the Congress.
In the last civic elections held in 2005, the Left Front had decisively won all the 13 bodies, including the Agartala Municipal Council. As three new Nagar Panchayats were constituted in the interim, for the headquarters of three newly created subdivisions, the total number of civic bodies now stands at 16.
To ensure women’s representation in the due proportion, the Left Front government amended the State Municipal Act to provide 50 per cent reservation for women on rotation basis. This has been given effect from the coming polls themselves. This 50 per cent reservation for woman takes care of the statutory reservation for the scheduled tribes and scheduled castes in each body, in proportion to their respective populations.
The Left Front is unitedly contesting in all the 229 seats while the Congress could manage to field its candidates in all seats but one only after shameful factional bickerings. Though the BJP and the Amra Bengali parties are contesting in 57 and 10 seats respectively, most of their candidates are nowhere in the reckoning and the only objective of their contest is to show that they are still in existence. Both the parties are, however, tacitly supporting the Congress. The Trinamul Congress (TMC) has abstained from the contest and is lending support to the Congress. Over the time, the Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura (INPT) has been gradually losing its relevance in the state politics because of the open secret that it is the overground outfit of NLFT extremists. Now it has declared its unconditional support to the Congress, which has since long been allied to them. Thus the Left Front has to fight against the Congress that now represents all the anti-communist, communal and secessionist forces and has the blessings of a large section of the rabidly anti-Left Front print media.
LF’S ISSUES FOR THE POLLS
This election is being held in the backdrop of consecutive landslide victories of the Left Front right from the last assembly election in 2008, followed by the parliamentary elections, the rural panchayat elections in 2009 and, lastly, the TTAADC election earlier this year when the opposition bagged nil.
The main thrust of the Left Front’s poll campaign is focussed on the pro-people development oriented programmes of the state government, peace, harmony and transparency.
In a pamphlet, the Tripura Left Front Committee has appealed to the urban people to maintain the tradition of high political consciousness by electing the Left Front candidates in all the civic bodies, including the Agartala Municipal Council, in order to make Tripura a flourishing state in all respects, sustain the large number of ongoing developmental schemes and preserve the prevailing atmosphere of peace, harmony and tranquility which are prerequisites for any growth and advance.
Briefly dealing with the history of the AMC, the pamphlet stated that since its inception through an election in 1951, the Congress did not hold any more election to it till 1977 when the Left Front routed it in the assembly elections. During this long period, there was no scope for the state capital’s people to air their grievances against the lapses in whatever limited civic amenities existed at that time. In 1978, the Left Front government fulfilled its electoral promise to convert the AMC into a body of elected representatives. But the story of the Congress-TUJS coalition regime during 1988-93 is still fresh in the minds of the urban citizens. Immediately after assuming power in February 1988 through large-scale electoral rigging, the Congress-led government dissolved all the elected local bodies including the AMC and the Nagar Panchayats, and handed them over to its touts who then got a free hand to misappropriate large chunks of the fund allotted to them. The Congress-TUJS government never conducted any election to these bodies during its tenure.
The Left Front pamphlet also elaborated the advancements that have taken place in the AMC and other Nagar Panchayat areas. These include construction of wider streets, linkage of all lanes and bylanes with the main roads, construction of concrete bridges, sewerage, development of markets and creation of modernised shopping centres, extension of power and drinking water amenities, shifting up of motor stands from the crowded areas in a town to its outskirts, provision of auto stands and rickshaw stands, disposal of solid waste, creation of parks, development of slum areas, provision of housing for the poor, and so on. In this connection, the Left Front has asserted that even the opposition parties cannot dispute the spectacular growth and extension of better civic amenities to the citizens during the last five years of the respective bodies. A comparative chart showing the status of civic amenities in 1998 and 2010 is given in the table below.
| S. No. | Parameter | Status in 1998 | Status in 2010 |
| 1 | Families | 1,04,827 | 1,71,650 |
| 2 | Population | 4,22,091 | 6,62,882 |
| 3 | Black-top roads | 442.03 km | 745.80 km |
| 4 | Pipeline for drinking water | 521.91 km | 1174.38 km |
| 5 | Domestic water connection | 23,091 | 47,186 |
| 6 | Electricity LT Line | 1560.10 km | 2753.18 km |
| 7 | Electricity consumers | 88,573 | 1,51,308 |
| 8 | Pucca drains | 491.14 km | 1006.99 km |
| 9 | Town Halls/Community Halls | 21 | 59 |
| 10 | Super markets | 5 | 23 |
| 11 | Fish markets | 23 | 39 |
| 12 | Vegetable markets | 21 | 46 |
| 13 | ICDS centres | 163 | 823 |
| 14 | Waste generated | 138.19 MT | 438.82 MT |
| 15 | Dwelling huts (under ULBs) | 1,882 | 4,411 |
The Tripura Urban Employment Project (TUEP) for the urban poor is a new addition to the series of pro-poor programmes of the Left Front government. Like the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in rural areas, the urban poor are guaranteed with at least 75 days of work in a year in the AMC and Nagar areas under TUEP. The government exchequer is bearing the entire expenditure for this project.
That apart, many proposals are pouring in for beautification of Agartala town and other urban areas. Appropriate measures are being taken to benefit from these attractive ideas to transform the urban into modern conglomerates.
CONGRESS BANKRUPTCY
Each of the civic bodies including the AMC has displayed exemplary accountability by furnishing printed statements of its performance in an open general meeting in each ward; these mentioned the funds received, the expenditures incurred and the assets created during the last five years. In these open meetings, anybody had the opportunity to make comments and suggest improvements.
In its poll campaign, on the other hand, the Congress has once more proved its utter bankruptcy and has failed to raise any genuine issue against the Left Front government. Instead of identifying any lapses in fulfilling the electoral plea that the Left Front had made, the Congress is banking upon its old tactic of labelling baseless charges of corruption, nepotism etc, and is crying on exaggerated figures of crime against women. Ironically, while they talk about corruption, they keep mum about the colossal scams in the 2-G spectrum, CWG and Adarsha Avasa Yojana etc, which are only tips of the iceberg of corruption that is going on in the Congress dispensation.
However, on the strength of its solid and internationally recognised contributions to urban development, the Left Front is confident that the urban people of Tripura would negate all the slanders, misinformation and exaggerations being made by the Congress and other opposition parties, and resolutely give the Left Front a bigger mandate in the coming elections.
Source: People’s Democracy
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
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