Welcome to the CPGB-ML's weblog. We are for communism and against imperialism.
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Cuban mural depicting the Miami Five
Via the Cuban embassy in London
Human rights
• The UN General Assembly declared 10 December to be ‘Human Rights Day’ in remembrance of the adoption and proclamation of the Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.
• Cuba shows remarkable progress and achievements in the realisation of human rights for all its citizens.
• Cuba has a long and honorable history in cooperation with all mechanisms of human rights, which are applied on the basis of universality and non-discrimination.
• Cuba has ratified a considerable number of international instruments related to human rights.
• The constitution of the Republic of Cuba establishes the rights, duties and fundamental safeguards of citizens, as well as the foundations for its enforcement, realisation and protection.
• All churches and religious beliefs are respected without discrimination. There are four thousand religions and religious institutions.
• Freedom of opinion and speech has in Cuba its full realisation.
• Information and Communications Technologies is a commodity service for all the people and the training in its use is free of charge.
• Access to the internet is promoted by means of centres and institutions of social and community interest, and also taking into account the restrictions imposed by the blockade and our economic capacity.
• Cuba has health indicators similar to those of developed countries.
• All Cubans have access to quality basic services without discrimination, namely: education, health, social assistance and security.
• Education is universal and free of charge at all teaching levels.
• The Cuban people has made significant progress and continues to further its revolutionary transformations aimed at building an increasingly just, free, independent, equitable, democratic, comradely and participatory society.
Counterrevolutionary Flotilla from 9 December
• The so-called Democracy Movement based in Miami is a terrorist and provocative organisation, which was established on July 1995.
• This movement promotes the so-called flotilla, which has violated Cuba’s territorial waters.
• The so-called Maritime Operation will begin on 9 December, which, in spite of being promoted with a humanitarian content, has assumed a military training.
• This will be the 17th flotilla organised by the provocative Democracy Movement.
• Cuba, in turn, has decided to use diplomatic channels to warn the American government about this dangerous event.
• We have condemned the terrorist and provocative record of their organisers.
• Cuba warns about the incapability to control those ships and their crews involved, some of whom opt for violent confrontation between both nations.
• The tacit approval of the provocation by the American government highlights its subordination to the whims of the Cuban-American mafia in Miami.
• The forthcoming 9 December will go down in history without significance. It will be another day of public peace for Cubans; one of those days which help them forge a better life through their work and
effort.
• The provocative day is intended to create tensions between the United States and Cuba and support internal mercenary groupings.
• We firmly condemn the US government interference in Cuba’s domestic affairs.
Ladies in White
• The so-called Ladies in White are family members of counterrevolutionary prisoners, who were duly prosecuted by Cuban laws, with full due process.
• They receive financing and supplies from officials of the Interest Section, diplomats of some European embassies and anti-Cuban groups based in Miami.
• They go on political demonstrations under the close surveillance of diplomatic officials of the Interest Section and European embassies.
• These ladies claimed they were not politicians, that they were just demanding the release of their relatives in prison.
• Currently, these ladies’ husbands are free but they continue to receive resources and instructions from the US Interest Section as well as funding from notorious terrorists.
• During political demonstrations that take place in the streets of the capital city, these ladies are accompanied by other women who do not have any relative in prison but follow them for the payment they receive.
• The so-called Ladies in White have not been denied the right to go on political demonstrations and they have been doing so for almost two years. The Cuban government will never prevent its people from going out to defend their streets.
The Cuban Five heroes
• The five Cubans unjustly imprisoned in the United States are antiterrorist fighters.
• They were not seeking information related to US national security.
• They were trying to prevent the actions by the terrorist groups who act with impunity against Cuba from Florida.
• It has been proven that the nature of the case brought against the Cuban Five is, in essence, politically motivated.
• There have been numerous violations during trial and throughout the whole legal process.
• They have been imprisoned for 13 years already, which is a too long.
• The case of the Cuban Five has the support of governments, parliaments, religious, legal and human rights organisations.
• Personalities from all over the world, including 10 Nobel prize winners, have supported this cause.
• The habeas corpus presented in favor of Gerardo Hernández is the last legal resource within the US judicial system.
• The will of the US government to reject the habeas corpus in favor of Gerardo, will condition the decision that may be arrived at regarding the case.
• The new injustice being committed against the Cuban Five heroes, by imposing an additional punishment on René and make him remain in US territory, jeopardises his personal security.
• We make the US government responsible for the security and physical integrity of René González.
• By forbidding René to visit places visited by terrorists and violent persons in Miami, the US government acknowledges the presence of terrorists in its territory, which reveals once more, the double standard of the US policy in its struggle against terrorism.
• The only just and human decision that the US government should arrive at is to send René back to his homeland.
• The Cuban people appreciate the international solidarity, which is instrumental in the solution to the case of the Cuban Five.
• The Cuban Five maintain their unwavering resistance, unyielding resolve, optimism and conviction for victory.
• The US President Barrack Obama can use his constitutional prerogatives and release the Cuban Five.
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From the International Report delivered to the CPGB-ML’s central committee on 3 December
American Airlines has filed for bankruptcy, although this apparently will not affect its orders for 260 Airbus A320s and 200 Boeing 737s announced in July.
US bankruptcy law enables companies to write off their debts and obligations to employees while still continuing to trade. AA’s rival Delta filed for bankruptcy a few years ago, which enabled it, for example, to rewrite its employment contracts, increasing the workload on pilots.
As a result of the changes it was thus able to effect, its costs per available seat mile now come out as only 90 percent of AA’s, which naturally put the latter at a competitive disadvantage.
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From the International Report delivered to the CPGB-ML’s central committee on 3 December
China has announced that it will be spending £1.1tr over the next five years on developing green energy and clean technology hi-tech manufacturing.
In the meantime, the China Investment Corporation, China’s sovereign wealth fund, has announced plans for investment in UK infrastructure in the belief that this will bring “stable and sound financial returns”.
Osborne’s strategy for rescuing the economy now seems to revolve round spending some £30bn on infrastructure projects, for which purpose he is hijacking £20bn of pension funds, which will no doubt bear the brunt of any losses.
Projects to be included in Britain’s national infrastructure plan include upgrades to the M1 and M25 and new railway lines, including reopening an Oxford-Cambridge line that fell victim to the Beeching cuts.
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From the International Report delivered to the CPGB-ML’s central committee on 3 December
India is intending to allow foreign supermarkets to compete in its national markets, eg, Walmart, Carrefour and Tesco. Foreign companies are to be permitted to buy a 51 percent stake in supermarkets and to own single-brand retailers outright.
In this way, the government is hoping to control food price inflation, which has been averaging double-digit rises over the last year. It hopes that introducing foreign competition will help improve the efficiency of the supply chain and bring down consumer prices.
Small shopkeepers are not, however, welcoming this competition with open arms, and the decision is causing considerable political uproar.
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From the International Report delivered to the CPGB-ML’s central committee on 3 December
Relations between Pakistan and the US continue to sink below rock bottom.
First there has been a scandal (‘Memogate’) surrounding allegations that President Asif Ali Zardari (‘Mr Bhutto’) sought help from the US in asserting control over his own country’s military in the wake of the outrage caused by the US raid on a house in Pakistan in which Osama Bin Laden was killed.
It is claimed that in return for this support Zardari offered to sack various generals and introduce a civilian-led security team.
In the midst of the Memogate furore, a Nato helicopter air raid took place over the weekend of 26-27 November on two separate border posts operated by the Pakistani army in the Mohmand tribal region.
At least two dozen Pakistani soldiers were killed in the raids. After the bombing started, one of the posts fired back against the helicopters that were attacking them.
This renewed assault on Pakistani sovereignty forced the Zardari government to retaliate by closing supply routes to Afghanistan relied on by Nato (as it has done at least twice before) and to order the CIA to vacate the Shamsi base used to launch drone strikes.
Pakistan has also pulled out of a major international conference that had been called to discuss Afghanistan’s security and future development.
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The article below is an opinion piece written by a CPBG-ML member as part of a wider discussion. The party does not currently have an official policy on this issue.
As far as I am concerned the right to choose to die is on a par with the right to abortion. It should be there but nobody should be required to opt for it.
As someone fast approaching the infirmity of old age, I neither want to spend months in useless agony that can only end in my dying naturally anyway nor to sit around in some appalling nursing home that stinks of people’s unchanged soiled garments and costs £3,000 a month that should be going to the education of my grandchildren.
I don’t have the right to choose, but I jolly well should have. Which is not to say that it would be a choice I would exercise except in extremis.
We support the right to abortion because we recognise the reality that capitalism drives people to it. With abortion a young new life is being terminated. With voluntary euthanasia an old and no longer useful life is being terminated. No contest.
OF COURSE there would be attempts to use it as a cost saving measure and grasping relatives who try to pressurise people into it, but there is plenty of that surrounding abortion too. Were voluntary euthanasia to be legalised there would have to be serious safeguards built in.
But so long as capitalism is there to heap misery upon misery on the elderly, then I support the right to die.
For an alternative view on this topic, read Viva la vida.
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From the International Report delivered to the CPGB-ML’s central committee on 3 December
The Iraqi government, which depends on Iraq’s plentiful oil reserves for much of its income, is putting its foot down over the question of oil companies signing deals with the ‘Kurdistan Regional Government’. This applies in particular to Exxon, which has interests in oil fields in southern Iraq as well as seeking to expand into Kurdistan (where 40 percent of Iraq’s proven reserves are situated).
The Iraqi government takes the views that such deals are illegal until rules can be worked out as to how oil revenues should be divided among Iraq’s various regions. It would be possible for Exxon’s interests in the south of the country to be repudiated in retaliation for moves to sign unauthorised deals in the north, although it is thought the Iraqi government is too dependent on Exxon’s knowhow in its aim of increasing production for it to be able to risk alienating it.
Be that as it may, only a few days later Shell found it politic to pull out of oil development talks with the Kurdistan regional government so as not to risk its lucrative investments in southern Iraq, including a potential $17bn natural gas deal.
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From the International Report delivered to the CPGB-ML’s central committee on 3 December
Britain and Iran have closed each other’s embassies.
The Iranian parliament voted to expel the British ambassador and downgrade diplomatic relations to the level of chargé d’affairs after the British government joined in with further US-led economic sanctions against Iran. On the spurious pretext of Iran’s nuclear development, Britain has been targeting Iranian financial institutions including the Central Bank of Iran.
The decision had to be ratified by Iran’s Guardian Council of clerics and lawyers that vets parliamentary activity. However, so enraged are the Iranian people by the unjust measures taken to pauperise their country that on 29 November hundreds of students laid siege to the British embassy in central Tehran, as well as to the embassy’s residential compound in a Tehran suburb.
Buildings were badly damaged and official and personal possessions seized or destroyed. Six British embassy staff were briefly held by the protesters, but were freed following intervention by the Iranian police.
Apparently, although the embassies have been closed, and Britain has both withdrawn its diplomatic personnel from Iran and expelled all Iranian diplomats from the UK, Britain has not actually broken off diplomatic relations with Tehran.
More on this issue here.
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From the International Report delivered to the CPGB-ML’s central committee on 3 December
Yemen’s president Ali Abdullah Saleh has finally resigned, transferring power to his vice president, Abed Rabbo Mansour al-Hadi, in the hope that this will help bring an end to the unrelenting mass street protests that have been going on now for the best part of a year.
However, there was virtually no public response in Yemen to the news of the president’s resignation. He was, after all, absent from the country for many months, yet everybody saw how the country continued to be run by the same elite that he represented. Yemenis understand full well that the purpose of the resignation is to enable to same elite to retain their control over the country’s economic and political affairs.
The ink had not dried on the resignation papers when gunmen (who included uniformed members of the security services) opened fire on protesters occupying ‘Change Square’ in Sana’a, the country’s capital, killing at least five people.
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From the International Report delivered to the CPGB-ML’s central committee on 3 December
The Arab League has allowed itself to be persuaded to announce sanctions against Syria, as have Turkey and Jordan. Syria has been expelled from the Arab League, and international sanctions are in place designed to make sure it is unable to export its oil or import essentials.
The justification for these sanctions is supposedly that the Syrian regime is ‘killing its own people’, which is especially rich coming from the likes of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, which have both been drowning the Bahraini protesters in blood.
China and Russia are resisting allowing any resolution to pass the UN Security Council that opens the way for military intervention in Syria by imperialist forces, but it is clear that the so-called ‘rebels’ in Syria are being given armaments and military support from outside.
On 20 November, the so-called ‘Free Syrian Army’ launched a rocket-propelled grenade attack on the headquarters of the ruling Arab Ba’ath Socialist Party in the heart of Damascus. Three days earlier they had attacked an air force intelligence complex in a Damascus suburb.
The myth of ‘peaceful protesters’ has been well and truly exploded – and it turns out that most of them are not even Syrian!
