Message to the Organizations
Forming the ILPS-Australia Chapter
By Prof. Jose Maria Sison
Chairperson, International Coordinating Committee
International League of Peoples' Struggle
June 9, 2007
We, in the International Coordinating Committee, express to all of you
warmest greetings of solidarity. We acknowledge the original custodians
of your land, the Australian Aboriginal People. We are elated to know that
various organizations are forming the Australian national chapter of the
International League of Peoples' Struggle (ILPS). We congratulate the
Initiating Committee led by Len Cooper, member of the ILPS International
Coordinating Committee, Migrante-Australia, Communications, Electrical and
Plumbing Union of Australia [CEPU] - Telecommunications Branch (Victoria),
Migrante-Melbourne, Spirit of Eureka Committee, Bolivarian Circle and others
for successfully preparing and convening this assembly.
We appreciate that you have the experience of alliance work and mobilizing the masses in workplaces and communities in the period before the US invasion of Iraq. You have proven that you can mobilize over 500,000 people within a week of protests. We admire that your fight against the changes in the Industrial Relations Law has brought together unions, families and the larger community in mass mobilizations of hundreds of thousands in the whole of Australia.
You dare to struggle for the rights and interests of the people in a country where the monopoly bourgeoisie reigns. You can take up practically all major issues that affect you as citizens and residents of Australia. Such issues may be distinguishably within the ambit of this country or necessarily related to the rest of the Asia-Pacific region or to the world at large.
The Australian bourgeois state and monopoly firms oppress and exploit the people. They are notorious for carrying out the rapacious policy of "neoliberal globalization". They erode the wage and living conditions and social rights and benefits of the working people (especially the aboriginal people and the immigrants of various nationalities). Changes are made on the Industrial Relations Law in order to attack the trade union movement. Migration regulations are also being changed to place skilled migrant workers under undue restrictions and to press down their wages and prevent them from unionizing and benefiting from collective bargaining agreements. The flow of cheap labor is assured under short-term work visa and individual work contracts. Deceptive rhetoric and repressive measures are being used to suppress the just demands of the working people.
The Australian state has no respect for the national sovereignty of the Australian people and has a perverted sense of priority. It diverts funds from health, education and other social services to huge military training exercises. It boasts of theTalisman Sabre 2007 as the biggest military training exercise in Australian history, involving nearly 14,000 US and 12,000 Australian troops at Shoalwater Bay, near Rockhampton, Queensland. It implicates Australia as a launching base of US aggression and as a partner of the US in wars of aggression abroad.
The Australian state and monopoly firms collaborate with various neocolonial regimes in various projects in order to gain political influence and reap economic advantages. Australian mining firms have long been notorious for plundering the natural resources and spoiling the environment in the region of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and elsewhere. They take advantage of the difficulties of Timor Leste, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Solomon Islands in order to tighten their hold on natural resources and maintain the link between Australia and the Pacific islands as the strategic rear base of the US vis a vis the Asian mainland.
The Australian state and monopoly firms connive with the most powerful imperialist powers, including the US, European and Japanese, in exploiting the people of the Asia-Pacific region through "free trade", investment, financial and security agreements and arrangements. The tripartite partnership of the US, Japan and Australia is the core for controlling the region and running the Asia-Pacific Economic Conference (APEC). The Australian government follows the baton of the US on all major issues, including climate change, global warming, coal mining, nuclear energy and water shortage.
The Australian state is a rabid supporter of the US-instigated "global war on terror". It has participated in the invasion, occupation and destruction of Iraq. It has collaborated with the US in pushing state terrorism and repression in the name of anti-terrorism. Australia is considered as the huge rear base of the US in challenging its opponents in East Asia and as far as the Middle East. It is in fact being used by the US as a major center for its satellite communications system. Pine Gap is one of the largest and most important US satellite ground control stations in the world, serving the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency. The Australian state has made itself conspicuous as a running dog of US imperialism by engaging in various types of bilateral and multilateral military agreements with other countries in Asia for purposes of military training, delivering war materiel, intelligence exchange, joints war exercises, joint operations, visiting forces and military intervention.
Recently, Australia made a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with the Manila government in exchange for a grant of AUD 100.6 million in military aid, which includes 28 gunboats, large joint military exercises and training supposedly to pursue "terrorists". A measly amount of AUD 250,000 is for some supposed human rights projects, even as the far bigger "aid" for so-called anti-terrorism is a huge incentive for human rights violations by the Arroyo regime. The US has its own military agreements with the Philippines but uses Australia to make doubly sure that the Philippines is under control and can serve as the base for military intervention or aggression in Southeast Asia and as an important part of the frontline facing the Asian mainland.
You are engaged in a struggle against powerful forces. You face tremendous odds. But you are undaunted. You dare to fight because you are sure of the justness of your cause and because you rely on the people. The people are far more powerful than all the forces of imperialism and reaction if you succeed in the work and struggle to arouse, organize and mobilize the people. You must strengthen the fighting will and capabilities of your present organizations and attract many more organizations to join the alliance. In every period, you can build on your achievements in the previous period. You can sum up and analyze your experience in order to draw lessons and set the tasks for advancing further.
You can draw inspiration from the struggles of other people in other countries. We face common adversaries and we need to unite and stand in solidarity, learn from each other, give support to one another and cooperate and coordinate our struggles. Thus, we can contribute what we can to the common struggle and raise to a new and higher level the struggles and successes of the anti-imperialist and democratic movement on a global scale.
We hope that the formation of ILPS-Australia will contribute to the advance of the anti-imperialist and democratic struggle in Australia, Oceania, Asia-Pacific region and in the entire world. So long as we fight for a just cause and rely on the people, we can hope and look forward to a bright future of national and social liberation, development, social justice and world peace.
Long live the ILPS-Australia national chapter!
Onward with the anti-imperialist and democratic struggle in Australia!
Long live the International League of Peoples" Struggle!