HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------- ----- Original Message -----
From: Adolfo Olaechea
Cc: cana.london
Sent: Sunday, January 20, 2002 7:26 PM
Subject: Speech at Symposium on "war on terrorism" 1) Introduction
Dear Friends:
I would like to thank CANA and the Campaign Justice
for the People's of Yugoslavia for inviting me to say a few words on behalf of
Justice International in relation to the pregnant international situation
we are all confronting now.
Since many would say that the world is now facing
woes of biblical proportion, let me then begin with a story from the Bible. The
story of Samson and the Philistines. We are told that the philistines
having made, by guile and wile, of the famous Jewish warrior Samson their
prisoner, proceeded to gouge out his eyes, and then to chain him heavily to the
columns of their temple, where they assembled in their thousands to mock the
fallen hero, insult him and humiliate him beyond all human or divine
endurance.
Driven to desperation, Samson committed an act of -
in Mess's Bush/Blair/Sharon language - "cowardly and unjustifiable
terrorism" against the Philistine people. Samson called upon the resources of
every sinew and every muscle of his entire body and mind in a mighty effort to
pull down the temple of his enemies' god, killing himself along with all his
torturers, and no doubt many an innocent bystander as well. Thus was
Samson revenged. And down the centuries his dying plea to his god still rings in
our ears: "Yahweh! Let Samson die along with all the Philistines".
On 11 September this year, some of the many Samsons
generated by the abuses and tortures the imperialist system has been
increasingly inflicting on the humiliated and chained small nations of the
world, brought down a few Philistine temples in New York, and nearly demolished
that modern temple of Moloch established in the shores of the Potomac river in
Washington, the American Pentagon. Many innocents were killed along with
the Muslim Samson and his enemies.
Before any of our opponents jumps to the conclusion
that we endorse Samson's biblical way of dealing with his unendurable plight, we
shall remind them that the freedom loving peoples of the world have been
enduring for millennia similar conditions of oppression, exploitation and
humiliation, including genocide, and no one responsible within the democratic
camp has ever thought it wise, or advocated, the bringing of the temple down
upon our own heads and the heads of the innocent masses so as to get at a
handful of Philistine priests and their gentry. Nihilism is not and has never
been the way of the revolutionary people.
Our enemies, the enemies of Justice, know this very
well. And therefore, when they recovered from their frightful panic and finally
came out of their bunkers casting beady eyes of suspicion and looking around
among all those they have tortured and humiliated in the world for a likely
culprit for their own humiliation, they could not but focus themselves upon
their own creatures, the reactionary theocratic forces they had trained,
nurtured, financed, and armed to the teeth to bring death and destruction upon
the peoples of the East in the name of the most medieval and backward looking
ideologies. Like knows like!
They knew well what their own creatures were
capable of, since they have been nurturing them since back in the 50s John
Foster Dulles came up with the brilliant idea of enlisting the "forces of
religion" - meaning here the backward, institutional forces of religion linked
to feudalism and the reactionary classes of society, for the fight against
"godless communism", meaning here of course all that is progressive, all that is
humane and opposed to their ruthless system of exploitation and oppression in
the world.
And so, taking the events of September 11 as an
excuse, and making the utmost political capital of the mountain of corpses left
behind by the nihilist action in New York, the very people responsible for the
world having come to that state of affairs embarked upon another expedition to
gouge eyes out and load people with chains before bringing them back in
"triumph" to tie them in to the few columns left of their temples.
They set out to avenge themselves on their
rebellious servants like Romans of old hot on the trail of escaped Colesseum
gladiators. Not even bothering to prove anything whatsoever, the "leaders
of the world" have declared war upon all peoples that may dare question their
rule, and plunged us, the citizens of this planet - whether we wanted or
not - into another war of aggression against the small nations that is in fact
billed quite candidly as merely an "appetizer".
They have too, in their rage, pulled down a mighty
but already vastly corroded temple upon their own heads, and for all of us to
see there lay the tattered columns of the American Republic and its hallowed
Constitution, and the very foundation stones of Anglo Saxon liberties lie buried
there in the sands of this lawless wilderness they claim to be their New World
Order just as well, together with the marbles of the French revolution and the
solemn inscriptions of the Declaration of the Rights of Man.
And while Jihad clashes swords with Crusade, the
rest of us are hurled into a "war against terrorism" which everyone can see is
nothing but a war against the poor, a war of the palaces against the cottages,
as even, General Musharraf, the President of Pakistan - who has involved
himself - whether willingly or unwillingly - up to his ears in this adventure -
could not but notice. We are promised a war with no end - "infinite
justice", but we are delivered in fact an unlimited military dictatorship
all over the world. They say this is a necessary means for
"defending freedom and civilization" but, in its opening act, it begins by
abolishing whatever freedom and civilization, the product of so many struggles
of the revolutionary people in the past, was left there in present day society
to start with!
There is no question that this is an abusive and
imperialist war. Neither international law, nor any sense of Justice or right
can justify the orgy of blood the war mongers have unleashed in launching their
aggression upon the heads of the long suffering people of Afghanistan. If in
Gaza, our imperialist Samsons are found to be eyeless before the criminal acts
of their Israeli puppets, in Kabul they have found themselves toothless in their
desire to get to grips with their islamicist ex-proxies. They have found
themselves in need of borrowing an old and previously discarded set of
bloody wolf's dentures that goes by the name of the Northern Alliance, also
their former cut throats. Acting as the air force for a bunch of terror
mongers, they have managed to help them dislodge another set of terror mongers
from a few ruined urban conglomerates and this cynical and irresponsible action
has been billed and sold as a "victory".
Despite all their dance of "victory" so reminiscent
of the German Fuhrer's jig upon hearing about the fall of Paris, the truth is
that the "leaders of the world" have only succeeded in bringing about the one
and only thing that can possibly be worse for the Afghani people than Taliban
rule: Anarchy
You have asked me to give my views on the current
situation of the world. What do I think of this situation? I think that
despite the enormous sufferings of the Afghani people, and all the untold crimes
we can be sure imperialism will commit before it lays quietly forever in the
grave it is digging for itself with so many daisy cutters, from the standpoint
of the people this is really a brilliant situation.
To be sure, there is danger. Tremendous
danger. Whenever the gangster of the world come together to pledge each
other undying love, friendship, support and peaceful cooperation, whenever you
hear of gangsters standing together "shoulder to shoulder" to carve any turkey -
and for them the oppressed nations are nothing but some many turkeys in their
backyard - you can be sure that their carving knifes are already seeking
each other's backs, and a mighty fall out among themselves for a share on the
spoils is not far off. The more they talk of peace, the closer they are to
war.
In that respect, we have only this to say. We are
against imperialist war. We are struggling and will continue to struggle against
imperialist war. However, we always raise the point that you cannot merely "stop
the war" as far as imperialism is concerned, because imperialism is war, and
there cannot be any peace under this system of the maximum profit. Therefore we
hold that only the revolution, the overthrow of the imperialism system and its
replacement by a world order of the people, based on the principles of the very
democracy and international law the imperialists are now so eager to cast into
the all consuming fire of their ambitions, can prevent the war. Moreover,
we hold that if the revolution, because of the stubborn blindness and reckless
behavior of the imperialist rulers, and the insufficiency of the democratic and
progressive forces to do so, actually fails to prevent the war, the war will
undoubtedly give rise to the revolution and the imperialist system will
nevertheless be done for ever on this occasion.
George Bush and his cheerleaders - trying to cover
up their own criminal responsibility for the crimes committed by their own
creatures against the defenseless American people - we mean here the people who
have no nuclear bunkers to flee to when the flames of the havoc their masters
are unleashing on the world jump across the oceans to burn their flesh in the
same manner as it has long been burning out to cinders countless nations and
peoples - have presented us with a crass ultimatum. In this abusive war you are
with us or you are against us! You will help us to bully all nations, or else we
shall brand you as "terrorist lovers" and jail and murder you at will as
traitors to "world civilization"! What arrogance! What cynicism!
The revolutionary people, the progressives and
genuine democrats of this world, have long been combating medievalism and
obscurantism and need no lessons from the paymasters and trainers of Al Qeida,
the Taliban, the Northern Alliance, and all other similar reactionary forces in
Afghanistan and the entire world, to know how to defend democracy, world
culture, and the principles of civilized life. We have been doing it and will
continue to do it, since time immemorial.
In order to do this effectively in the present
context, we must also be clear ourselves on certain points. We are indeed at
war, since war has been declared over our heads and the spears of the enemies of
freedom, the fascists of the entire world are so obviously aimed at our own
hearts. War is the continuation of politics by means of violence, and we need
therefore to define the people's politics in the present era, we need to find
the organizational forms for defeating the people's enemies at all levels,
principally, we need particularly to win the battle for minds, and to prevent
the war mongers from enslaving the people to their war chariots. These must be
our objectives. And to achieve this objectives we must first and foremost
struggle for a united front of the people, combating all sectarianism, all
exclusivism, all forms of opportunism which seeks to exploit the peoples
dissatisfaction with the present system to bring grist to their own narrow
political objectives so pretext of "opposing the war".
The most important things to emphasize are the
positive points in today's international scene: Firstly, and as everyone can
see, there is growing discontent among the masses with the present world
situation and all attempts to defuse the protest movement on the part of the
hysterical fascists are doomed to failure, as the massive character of the
latest demonstrations "against the war" have shown, and even the media at the
service of the monopolists has been unable to hide. And secondly, the rulers,
confronted with the unwillingness of the masses to countenance their "world
dictatorship" have fallen upon themselves to paint a rose colored future, making
the most demagogic promises in all countries and at all levels. We must learn
how to take them at their word, and how to use their own promises and their
inevitable reneging on them, as living examples to raise the consciousness of
people to the necessity of doing away with the entire system that breeds wars
and brings terror to their lives.
Today, we are only able to outline some of our
thoughts. There is a lot of new and creative thinking to do on our part as well.
Even our enemies are compelled to try some of this, as Mr. Blair found out at
his own cost when confronted with the way the people of the Middle East received
his sanctimonious "anti-terrorist" cant! To be slapped in the face by
reality can never be a bad thing! The question is how one reacts to these
inevitable confrontations with the real world. We must be prepared to take these
challenges in our stride and to learn continuously from the experience of the
masses of the world, not just from their putative "leaders"!
On June 28, 2000, speaking on the launching of the
Campaign Justice for the Peoples of Yugoslavia in the British House of Lords, I
had opportunity to comment as follows:
"Recently, the Foreign Relations Committee of the
House of Commons came to the curious conclusion that "NATO's actions in
Yugoslavia were probably illegal but justifiable". This absurd assertion cannot
be and should not be allowed to go unchallenged. In practice, this opens the
doors - at the level of those who are supposedly in charge of formulating the
law - to the taking of the law in people's own hands and placing it directly at
the disposal of anyone.
Every criminal, big or small, always considers that
their crimes are justified in their own opinion, whatever the law may say. If we
are to accept this thesis, with its implied justification for the unleashing of
international war, all the democratic order and the law of nations is thrown out
of the window".
And this is what is has come to pass. Therefore our
struggle must be directed at the restoration of these principles and these laws,
under new conditions, since the old forms, the "old custodians" of these laws
and principles have proven themselves incapable of preventing them from being
trampled under foot by a cabal of ultra-reactionaries, a cabal of obscurantist
Mullahs with suits and military uniforms.
It is with this in mind that at the very onset of the present crisis, Justice International issued the following slogan: AGAINST FASCISM, CHAUVINISM AND THE IMPERIALIST
WAR!
FOR GENUINE DEMOCRACY, AND A WORLD OF SOCIAL AND INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE! It is around these concepts, around these pivotal
points, that a people's strategy to win this war against terror - a war against
war, since terror is a method of war, and today is practically the main method
of war as witnessed in Afghanistan , Yugoslavia, etc. can be evolved, formed,
organized and incarnated in the widest masses. This is our job, a job we cannot
shrink from nor are we about to shrink from! We must be better and better
everyday in raising consciousness around these points, and in uniting all the
healthy elements in today's society around this program, confronting the rulers
with their own demagogic promises and their inability to deliver them, until we
put an end to all these business of Jihad and Crusades and establishing the
power capable of achieving this undying goal of humanity, we shall bury war
itself from the face of the earth and have done with the war mongers and all
their works!
Thank you very much for your kind
attention.
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