International
Inform@tions
November
27th Number 2
Weekly dossier
edited by the International Liaison Committee of Workers and Peoples
87, rue du Faubourg St-Denis. 75010 Paris. France.
Summary
Introduction
Caribbean Conference, December 2002
85th anniversary of October Revolution, in Ukraine
Appeal to the youth around the world: No to war!
Burkina Faso: For the unity of workers and peoples against common enemy
Preparation of the International Conference in Defence of Public
Education
Publications of the ILC
Introduction
The
preparation of military action against Iraq is more and more clearly
outlined. So, we deem necessary to make known to everybody the Youth
Appeal Against War, signed by young people from 13 countries.
We publish also the stand taken by the General Labour Federation of
Burkina Faso (CGT-B) calling "the workers of Burkina Faso [Š],
the peoples of the region, particularly those of Burkina Faso and Ivory
Coast to an active solidarity in the common struggle against common
exploiters".
You will find also in this issue the editorial of Caribbean Open
Forum preparing a Caribbean conference in December against the Free
Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).
You will certainly be interested, as a piece of free debate, in the
address adopted in Kiev (Ukraine) by the participants in the
international conference on the 85th anniversary of the October
Revolution.
Finally, we have considered necessary to publish some excerpts of the
first bulletin preparing the International Conference in Defence of
Public Education.
We invite you to send your contributions to this bulletin, to
communicate the initiatives contributing to further resistance against
war and exploitation.
This bulletin, like all our international conferences, will be
self-financed through its diffusion and the subscriptions.
Please, send us the addresses of militants and organizations who could
be interested to receive this bulletin.
Caribbean Open Forum
(September, 2002)
Provisional address: office of the MPTPG. 4, rue de l'Assainissement
nº 25. 97190 Pointe-à-Pitre. Guadeloupe. Tel/Fax 05 90 88 70 07. E-mail:
kristela@wanadoo.fr
Toward the Caribbean Conference of December 2002
As we can read in this first issue of the new form of "Caribbean
Open Forum", on December 12th and 13th in Guadeloupe a Caribbean
conference will be held around the following topics: against
deregulation, for the defence and the reconquest of workers' rights, for
trade unions independence, against the free trade agreement of the
Americas and the free trade agreements that make bankrupt the economies
of small countries already destroyed by three centuries of colonization,
for the right of the peoples of the area to govern themselves.
It is not a coincidence that this conference is held in Guadeloupe.
Guadeloupe, thanks to the trade union called the "General Union of
Guadeloupe Workers" (UGTG), co-organizer of this conference, can be
considered as the capital of trade unions independence. The complete
independence of UGTG toward Guadeloupe and foreign employers, toward the
colonial State and the territorial communities, its refusal to surrender
to the call of the social dialogue, made it able to achieve considerable
victories that won UGTG the confidence of the workers, and more
generally, of the oppressed part of the population. One example is the
victory of the workers of the national agency for employment, which
created a precedent that their colleagues in France want to use as a
case of jurisprudence.
The capitalist exploiters have understood the importance of the
independence of workers' organizations that they try to destroy by
making them collaborate to the implementation of their plans in the name
of "the humanization of globalisation".
We will see in the article called "the European Union and the
promotion of the social dialogue in the Caribbean" the place that
the European Union has in this plan of action.
For several years, a resistance around the International Liaison
Committee of Workers and Peoples, around the Californian Federation of
the AFL-CIO (the most powerful federation of this trade union) in the
US, and around a series of unions, workers and democratic organizations
of all the continents opposes this worldwide offensive. This resistance
acts in particular by the organization of regular worldwide conferences
against deregulation, in favour of the defence and the reconquest of
workers' rights, for unions' independence. The last one was celebrated
on February 2002 in Berlin, Germany, gathering delegates of 51 countries.
Its complete report has been published in a book issued in French,
English, Spanish and German.
In our Caribbean region, the Berlin conference has been preceded by some
sittings celebrated in Martinique in December 2001 with some militants
of organizations from Martinique, Guadeloupe and Dominique. The
Caribbean delegates who were present in Berlin, in front of the danger
represented for the entire region by the extension of NAFTA (North
America Free Trade Area between the US, Canada and Mexico) in FTAA (Free
Trade Area of the Americas) between the US and all the countries of the
continent including the Caribbean) have thought it necessary to
organize, before the celebration of an American conference against FTAA
planned for the beginning of 2003, a special conference for the
Caribbean at the end of 2002.
As a conclusion, we have a meaningful anecdote. On February 7th 1994, an
international delegation led by the International Liaison Committee goes
to the headquarters of the International Monetary Fund and of the World
Bank in Washington in the name of an Open Worldwide Conference
celebrated on June 20th 2003 in Paris, which had gathered workers' and
farmers' delegates of 70 countries. The debate is pretty animated
between Brazil, France, Switzerland, Algeria, Bangladesh, South Africa,
Mexico, Greece, Spain, Haiti. They are the spokespersons of the
requirement for the debt cancellation, the cancellation of the
structural plans of adjustment, the defence of the entire workers'
social conquests, the abolition of fallow lands, the independence of
workers' organizations toward employers and governments.
Dramatic turn: at the end, one of the two representatives of the IMF
takes in private the chief of the delegation to thank him: "This
kind of debate being very useful to the Fund, we need to know the state
of mind of the peoples, of wage earners and of their organizations, to
understand better their reactions in order to be able to elaborate our
politics".
And this representative suggests to give the Organization a
permanent office in Washington with permanent representatives, that is
to say to turn it into the information office of the Fund in the
international workers movement!
The strong attachment of all the members of the delegation to the
principles of independence of the Organization, starting with the
complete financial independence toward the imperialist institutions made
them refuse unanimously this offer of collaboration. The one who pays is
the one who decides! We cannot serve two chiefs!
The leaders of the conference of December stand on the firm position of
worker' organizations independence. The context of this conference is
the one of "the Roseau Declaration" published in this issue
based on the auto-financing of all the delegates.
Ukraine
Appeal of the participants to the international conference in
commemoration of the 85th anniversary of the October revolution (Kiev,
Ukraine November 8th - 10th 2002)
Comrades, the world is on the brink of a new war sparked by the
capital. Peace, equality, fraternity and social justice are trampled.
85 years ago, the Russian working class, by the Russian revolution, was
opening the way to mankind's future development, that is to the building
of a society exempt of private ownership, exempt of exploitation.
Despite terrible difficulties and the bureaucracy-induced deformations,
October brought important social conquests:
The right to work.
The right to leisure.
Free education and health protection.
The defence of workers' social rights (though the right to strike did
not exist)
October put an end to illiteracy and cultural backwardness.
But the bureaucracy's policy led to the collapse of the system based on
social property. For want of independent working class organisations,
the regime of private ownership was in fact re-established.
Privatisation, wage freezes, mine closures, factory closures, blows
dealt to the labour laws, such are the results of the policy that
imperialism imposes on the whole world through its international
institutions (IMF, WTO, World Bank, NATO, European Union, and so on. )
They are all instrumental to enable the American protectorate to spread
world-wide. That protectorate even threatens the very existence of
historically constituted nations.
That same policy is leading to the destruction of the working class
organisations.
This is why it is more than ever important to defend what remains of the
October conquests in order to fulfil in practise the demands that are
essentially the same as those of workers and peasants in Russia in 1917.
Fifty two million inhabitants of Brazil voted for the fulfilling of
those demands, against the IMF's dictates and for genuine national
sovereignty.
In the USA, workers and intellectuals are mobilising against the war in
Iraq. In numerous other countries, people voice their rejection of the
war, their refusal of the American protectorate.
The October revolution is alive, it means that today as in 1917, we have
to fight.
- Against the private ownership of the means of production
- Against imperialism's international institutions, i.e. today, the IMF,
the World Bank, NATO Š
- To unite the efforts of workers across the globe to prevent the war in
Iraq
- To uphold genuine national sovereignty
- To build up independent working class organisations and to defend them
- To nationalise or re-nationalise the means of production
- To strengthen the working class movement worldwide.
We can win, we can defend the October conquests only by uniting together
in struggle.
That Conference was organised by the French section of the 4th
International and the Union of the Ukrainian Youth "Borotba"
Ukrainian section of the 4th International
Appeal to the youth around the world
No to war!
A new war is threatening Iraq. After being starved and smothered by
eleven years of a murderous embargo that has decimated 1.6 million of
its citizens, mostly children, the Iraqi people is today being
threatened by a war of annihilation through Bush's warlike declarations.
Who today would dare to say that this is about anything other than a war
aimed at pillaging Iraq's oil? Every day, the US press publishes more
about the Pentagon's plans, which talk openly of dividing Iraq into
three "ethnic" provinces and moving large groups of the
population, in order to justify a long-term military occupation by the
US. The stakes are clear: if they manage to get hold of Iraq's oil, the
US multinationals will control 64 percent of the world's oil reserves.
We the undersigned, youth from all over the world, acting on the
initiative of individual youth and youth organisations supporting the
Revolutionary Youth International, therefore send our fraternal
greetings to the tens of thousands of young Americans who from New York
to San Francisco are demonstrating to say: "No blood for oil!",
"Not in our name!", "We don't want to die for Texaco!"
No blood for oil!
The youth of the whole world knows that a new war against Iraq would
not only amount to a massacre of an entire people, it would also be a
war against all the peoples. Every day, people in Palestine, young and
old, women and children, are being killed with weapons stamped "Made
in USA". Nothing seems to be stopping the onslaught by the butcher
Sharon, who is engaged in a vicious circle of endless massacres.
We say: this massacre must stop! The Palestinian people, like all the
peoples of the world, must have the right to live in peace on their own
land, on all their own land! The discrimination and oppression must stop!
The refugees must be allowed to go home!
A war against Iraq would be a clarion call for unleashing new wars, new
acts of pillage. It would mean even more war in Africa, with the sole
purpose of pillaging even more a continent that has already been bled
dry, crushed by the foreign debt and the interference of the
multinationals and big powers, as can be seen today in Ivory Coast, the
Congo, and all over Africa, from the north to the south.
A war would risk setting off a hellish spiral in Asia, a war between
India and Pakistan, both of them armed by the United States, threatening
to drag into chaos peoples who's only aspiration is to live in peace
with each other.
A war would be an extra burden for the nations and peoples of Latin
America, who in their hundreds of thousands are shouting in the streets
of Buenos Aires, Montevideo and Sao Paulo: "Enough of the debt and
the IMF plans that are driving us into poverty!"
That is the meaning of Bush's «total war »
War against Iraq would be, as Bush has said, a "total" war,
a war that would justify a real "internal war" against the
youth and the working class in the United States themselves and
throughout Europe. It would mean the overturning of democratic freedoms,
repressive measures against the youth, a worsening of superexploitation,
a speeding up of the privatisation of universities and public education
systems.
We know that war will serve as a justification for every attack on our
rights. To begin with, the military budget has devoured hundreds of
billions of dollars stolen from social budgets, from the education
budget. The US military budget stands at 383 billion dollars, at a time
when 33 million Americans are living below the poverty line.
This is what Bush's "total" war really means!
This is what hundreds of thousands of youth are opposing by
demonstrating in New York, San Francisco, in Madrid, in Paris, in LondonŠand
all over the world.
The youth of the whole world want peace. They want their rights, they
want a future.
They do not want war and exploitation, they do not want the peoples to
be pillaged.
With or without the UN, they do not want an embargo or a massacre of the
Iraqi people, which has the right to live in peace, like every other
people, like the Palestinian people.
On the initiative of supporters of the Revolutionary Youth International,
we call on youth and youth organisations, on student unions in every
country of the world to take appropriate action to mobilise the youth in
initiatives so that, although expressed in different languages, a single
cry can ring out around the world:
… No to war! No blood for oil!
… Stop the embargo against the Iraqi people!
… Money for school, for university, for work, for health, not
for war!
… Down with war! Down with exploitation!
First signatories
Algeria : Mourad Manseur (college student) ; Yaïche Rezki (college
student) ; Graïche Samia (college student) ; Chouiteme Nadia (college
student) ; Djouzi Idir (college student) ; Ahcene Amari (college student);
Gueddeche Khaled (college student) ; Gueddeche Djamel (college student)
; Djemil Mourad (college student) ; Gourmite Rezki (college student) ;
Meziani Saïd (worker, trade unionist) ; Meziani Hocine (unemployed) ;
Labechri Meziane (engineer) ; Baghdadi Mouloud (engineer) ; Manseur Ali
(high school student) ; Bouaziz Lyes (college student)
Argentina : Maria Emilia Hidalgo ;
Brazil : National Liaison Committee of Revolutionary Youth
(Juventude Revolução) : Reinaldo Cesar Diretor do Centro Acadêmico de
Física e do Diretório Central do Estudantes da UFSCar; Camila Prado
Souza; Stephanie Colin e Bruno Boito Turra ; Ademário Sousa Costa,
Vice-President of the National Union of Students (UNE) ; Faraj Hassan
Ali - Representative of the Palestinian youht-Brazil ; Ramon Szermeta ,Secretary
for the Youth of the Worlers' Party (Parti des travailleurs) of Sao
Paulo state; Érica Suruagy, President du of the central leading
committee of the students of theUPE (Pernambuco), militant of JR ; André
Castelo Branco Machado, Academic History College of Universidade Federal
do Paraná- Cahis-UFPR; JR; Flávio Almeida Reis ,JR-Grêmio Expressão
Estudantil/UEDC -Rio de Janeiro ; Oleg Abramov - member of the executive
board of the Students' Union of Minas Gerais state, Leonardo Vieira
Ruivo - Coordenador DCE FURG - RS. - São Paulo : Fábio Plut ,Diretor
do Diretório Central dos Estudantes da UFSCar - Militante da Juventude
Revolução e do PT ; Eduardo Valdoski, Membro do coletivo municipal da
Juventude do PT-SP ; Marcellus William Janes ,Assessor de Imprensa ;
Thiago Corberi Famá Ayoub Silva, estudante ; Roberta Strack Salomão,
Juventude/PT ; Danilo Heller Prates estudante ; Carolina Pinzan Dias de
Souza ,estudante; Núbia Cristina da silva ,estudante ; Joana
Pinho,estudante; Mariana Manieri da Silva, estudante ; Emerson C. Niide,
Juventude do PT ; João Carlos Ribeiro Jr, Membro do Coletivo Municipal
de Juventude do PT-SP ; Cássia E. Souza, jornalista, militante da JR
Campinas e do PT ; Alan Livan, Diretor de assuntos externos do Diretorio
Academico Manoel Bandeira IA Unesp ; Fabiana Xavier da Silva ,Diretora
do Centro Acadêmico de Serviço Social - FMU, militante da Juventude
Revolução e do PT ; Thiago Moratelli - Diretório Acadêmico de História
da USC/BAURU-SP, JR ; Pernambuco : Henrique Alves- Diretor da FEMECS
(Federação do Movimento Estudantil em Ciências Sociais) ; Alan Felipe
de Oliveira - Juventude do PSTU/PE. ; Alexander Cavalcanti Valença, -
estudante de Química/UFPE, militante da Juventude Revolução e do PT ;
Paula Renata - Estudante de Direito/UFPE. ; Alex Ribeiro ,Centro Acadêmico
Hornestino Guimarães ; Lamartine Peixote Junior, Diretor do Diretório
Central dos Estudantes UFPE ; Paraná : Ana Lúcia Canetti- Centro Acadêmico
de Psicologia da Universidade Federal do Paraná- CAP-UFPR; Gioconda
Ghiggi- Centro Acadêmico de Pedagogia da Universidade Federal do Paraná-
CAAT-UFPR; Juliano R. Torres- Diretório Centarl dos Estudantes da
Universidade Federal do Paraná-DCE -UFPR; Milena Pessoa-Diretório
Centarl dos Estudantes da Universidade Federal do Paraná-DCE -UFPR e
Thiago Toniolo-Diretório Centarl dos Estudantes da Universidade Federal
do Paraná-DCE -UFPR - Rio de Janeiro : Rodrigo Augusto JR - Grêmio
Expressão Estudantil Diogo Breda JR, Grêmio Expressão Estudantil ;
Aaron Pereira JR, Grêmio Expressão Estudantil ; Glaucia Almeida Reis
JR, Grêmio Expressão Estudantil ; Wellington Luna, estudante ; Brasília
: Hilvany Araújo Pinheiro - Vice-Presidente do Centro Acadêmico de
História da Universidade Federal de Goiás ; Aline Miklos - Presidente
do Centro Acadêmico de História da Universidade Federal de Goiás ;
Abdel Karajha - Sociedade Árabe-Palestina do Brasil ; Shawqi Nasser -
Président de la Société Arabe-Palestine du Brésil ; Santa Catarina :
Pablo Sebastian; Eni Belegante; Sueli Lopez; Carlos Castro; Maria
Stoltz; Dailson Umbelino; Daniel Damiani; Osvaldo França; Lucas Scherer;
Zôe Bianca; Evandro Pinto; Jarian Bittencourt; Marcelo Pomar. Minas
Gerais : André Morato - Coordenador do Diretório Central dos
Estudantes da Universidade Federal de Uberlândia - DCE-UFU - Rio Grande
do Sul : Paulo Roberto Guadanin - história UFRGS - RS ; Agnaldo Gonçalves
Silva - história FURG - RS ; and hundreds of others.
France : Thomas Cholet (Tolbiac University) ; Florian
Gibert-Abensour (Université Tolbiac University) ; Aminata Tembély (La
Sorbonne) ; Aurélie Jammet (Nanterre University) ; Annabel Gluckstein (La
Sorbonne) ; Emmanuel Brandely (La Sorbonne) ; François Rivrin-Rique ;
Aude Delfosse (Jussieu) ; Brieg Laz (Jussieu) ; Olivia Payan (La
Sorbonne) ; Hélène Aurigny ; Nadège Habti El-Idrissi (Jussieu) ;
Sarah Gardent ; Maryline Rejchman (Tolbiac University) ; François
Trinquet (Créteil University) ; Lyamoudi Majda (IRJ) ; Nadia Remali ;
Julien Borne-Santoni ; Florian Lapert (Rouen) ; Marie Chailloux ; Rabah
H. (JR) ; Tamouza Rahila Leïla (Jeunesse Révolution) ; Laurie Laguian
(JR) ; Philippe Béguin (JR) ; Rémy Béguin (JR) ; Sofiane Kadi (Jeunesse
Révolution) ; Mikael Gardent (JR) ; Dominique Vincenot (JR) ; Jorge
Roberto Silva, étudiant IHEAL ; Silvio de Barros, association of
Brazilian students and researchers in France, Claudia Pétry, Véronique
Ducandas (JR).
Great Britain:
Hocine Nedjari,young worker; Mohamed Daouda, London Metropolitan
University ; Manish Baghmar, University of Glasgow ; Nuno Reis,
translator
Guinea-Bissau : Miguel Marcos José de Barros, Tiniguena.
India : Rupam Jyoti Das
Ireland : Mairead Cronin, University of Cork ; Thomas McConnell,
University of Cork, Maria Haverty, University of Galway
Ivory Coast: Flan Zran Senan, trade unionist, deputy general
secretary SYNASEG
Mexico : Chiapas : Cupertino Camera, Pascual Yuing, Mrlix Roblero,
Angel Yuing ; Baja California : Liliana Plumeda ; Districto Federal :
Jeronimo Mateos, Juan Carlos Vargas, Genaro Godez, Alejandra Hernandez,
Alberto Morales, Mea Correa, Hector Cerecero, Ethel Juavez, Manuel
Otero, Eduardo Galaviz, Jorge Vergara, Eleazar L., Celia Valdez, Gaby
Vargas.
Portugal : Diana Dias, college student; Celinas Marques
dos Santos, Acçao Jovem para a paz ; Pedro Jorge Perreira, Terrazul-APN
; Mara Carolina Carvalho Sé, GAIA ; Ana Sofia Rodrigues da Silva Montes
Palma, Bloco de Esquerda ; Isabel Cristina Kuster Sant'Anna ; Catarina
Isabel Caldeira Martins, teacher, Sergio Rebelo, estudante, Lisboa ; José
Manuel Silva Santos Marinho, Bloco de Esquerda ; Marcos Borga,
journalist ; Ana Cansado, Jovens do Bloco, Bloco de Esquerda ; José
Soeiro, Bloco de Esquerda.
Rumania : Aurela Milena Tudor ; Marcel Radut ; Paul Vasile ;
Robert Trica-Mavrodin
Spain: Efrén Ferre (Juventud Comunista) ; Esteban Pérez (Juventud
Revolucion-IRJ) ; Héctor Martín (Juventud Socialista) ; Iagoba Alvarez
(Juventud Socialista) ; Silvia Martinez (Juventud Revolución-IRJ); Igor
Hernández (Juventud Socialista) ; Luis Arias de Reyna (Juventud
Revolución-IRJ) ; Miguel Villena (Juventud Comunista, Getafe) ; Ismael
Cruz (Juventud Comunista, Getafe), David Fernández Fernández.
Togo : Alphonse Lawson (Revolutionary Dynamic of the Togolese
Youth)
Ukraine : Vitaly Koulik (Union of the Youth-Borotba) ; Andreï
Michine (Union of the Youth -Borotba) ; Vladimir Vedmedev ; Olga Michina
; Tatiana Kouzma : Sergueï Glibko ; Vassili Viltsaniouk ; Viatcheslav
Khoropov ; Andreï Koulik ; Vladimir Tchornyi ; Sergueï Kouzka ; Olena
Vessel
United States: Melea Carvlin (Madison, Wisconsin) ; Patto Cash ;
Veronica K (Michigan) ; Krista Husar ; Zev Kvitky (San Francisco,
California), vice-president, Service Employees International Union,
Local 715 (for id. only).
I endorse this
appeal.
Name:
Organisation (personal capacity):
Addresses
ŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠ
mail ŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠ.
phone ŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠ..
fax ŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠ...
...
Please, forward your signature to: irj@wanadoo.fr IRJ 87 rue du
Faubourg St Denis 75000 Paris France
At the end of December 2000, 150 youth from 10 countries (Brazil, Mexico,
United States, Spain, Portugal, France, Great Britain, Germany,
Switzerland, Ukraine) met in Sao Paulo, Brazil and decided to set up a
Liaison Committee of Youth and Youth Organisations for a Revolutionary
Youth International.
Burkina Faso
Statement of the General Confederation of Labour (CGT-B) on the
events in Ivory Coast
An attempted coup took place in Ivory Coast on September 19th 2002.
It was sparked by a motley group composed of opponents to the Gbagbo
regime. That coup is the result of the long political, economic and
social crisis that has rocked the Ivory Coast for over a decade.
The CGT-B , its structures, activists and sympathisers state that the
situation could have been foreseen; so do our country's progressive and
revolutionary democrats if one takes into account the century-long bonds
that link us to our sister country, but also the ensuing consequences,
especially for the peoples of the sub-region , above all, those of the
Ivory Coast and of the Burkina Faso.
How have we come to that?
The meaning and causes of the September 19th events.
The Ivory Coast used to be French imperialism's private turf;
because of its economic weight in the sub-region; it used to be shown as
a case of neo-colonialist success story. Since 1990 it has been hit
head-on by the crisis of the world's imperialist capitalist system.(Š)
In 2002, our country was one of those singled out by the UN Council for
weapon-, diamond- and oil- trafficking, for conniving with rebels in
Sierra-Leone, Liberia and Angola.
The CGT-B had, in the framework of the COBMPP organisation co-ordination
spoken against such dead-end foreign policy bred by greed that
jeopardises the lives our fellow-citizens living abroad while it is
fraught with misfortunes for the sub-region peoples.
Today, those in power and their cronies are seeking to build a holy
alliance around Blaise Compaore and his government; they would like us
to forget and discard all the harm that the 4th republic power caused to
Burkina people living in the country as well as abroad.
The CGT-B is a responsible organisation; it will not give in to such
blackmail.
The consequences of the crisis in the Ivory Coast on the political,
economic, social levels.
1. What are the major facts that can be observed in the Ivory Coast:
- The country is de facto severed into two
- A xenophobic campaign, skilfully upheld by the supporters of the
existing power is developing against migrant workers,
- Murders, calls for murder, for destruction of properties and racketing
foreigners
- An overwhelming number of foreign troops that unblinkingly witness
murders and slaughters, which proves they have come just to defend
interests other than those of the Ivory Coast people and of foreigners.
- Economic activity has slowed down to a snail's pace, worsening the
social situation of the Ivory coast, Burkina and other country's peoples
2. In Burkina-Faso
A covert jingoistic campaign is under way; it is upheld, supported and
developed by those who side with the powers and their cronies (for
instance, the march organised by Nana Thibault against the Ivory Coast
embassy, the Prime Minister's October 10th 2002 declarations at the
National Assembly, President Blaise Compaore's declarations in "Le
Monde" dated October 30th 2002) and so on.
An attempt by the government to pretend for public opinion's sake that
they are worried by the fate of Burkina people living in the Ivory Coast.
Yet, to this day, they have never lifted a finger to get the three
million or so Burkina expatriates living in the Ivory Coast interested
in the country's political life. As a proof, the fact that they have
been held at arm's length from elections. They have never cared about
how their policy would bear on our fellow-citizens living abroad.
Besides how can one believe that a government cares for the fate of our
fellow-citizens living abroad when it brutally represses the people at
home, uses its members of parliament, its ministers and their henchmen
to pursue people inside the country, destroys their properties and
expels citizens from the towns where they work with the excuse that they
are foreigners.
In fact, the power is obviously using this crisis as a means that can
send working people barking up the wrong tree instead of facing their
vital problems, bury unsolved questions and send the country on an
adventurous course abroad.
Besides, the crisis of the Ivory Coast is beginning to bear on the
economic and social levels: commodities are getting scarce, and prices
are soaring, labour contracts are ended especially in borderline towns
etc. All that goes along with a massive flow of our countrymen in the
Ivory Coast, or of neighbouring countries which heralds a humanitarian
catastrophe.
In front of such a grim situation for the sub-region peoples (Ivory
Coast, Burkina-Faso, Mali, Niger and others) the CGT-B leading council
Denounces:
1. The reactionary civil war as a plot of the bourgeoisie and of
imperialism scheming against our brothers, the people of the Ivory Coast
2. The xenophobic campaign of man-hunt, targeting foreigners led by
President Laurent Gbagbo, the enemies of the Ivory Coast people and the
peoples of the sub-region;
3. Destruction of properties belonging to foreigners
4. The foreign policy of the power of the 4th republic of President
Blaise Compaore that hangs like a threat over the heads of our
fellow-citizens living abroad.
The leading council disowns the covert jingoistic campaign under way
throughout the country; it considers that the problem cannot be solved
by a conflict between our two countries whose peoples, faced with the
same exploiters, share the same interests
It appeals Burkina-Faso people, and more widely, working masses, to
pause and think and to work in solidarity. It asks workers and generally,
the sub-region peoples, especially the peoples of Burkina-Faso and the
ivory Coast to active solidarity for common struggle against the same
exploiters, those who cause the problems, the bourgeoisie and
imperialism
It demands that the Ivory Coast and Burkina-Faso's authorities protect,
both physically and morally all those who live in their respective
countries and those who have to travel.
The Executive Council asks the CGT-B branches to launch an
all-encompassing work to inform and explain on the stand our
organisation has taken on this serious crisis; it has also given the
National Committee a mandate to take every initiative to show
fellow-citizens the solidarity of the CGT-B activists and sympathisers.
Bobo-Dioulasso
November 15th 2002-
The Executive Council of the General Confederation of Labour of
Burkina-Faso
The first bulletin that prepares an International Conference in
defence of public education, organised under the sponsorship of the
International Liaison Committee of Workers and Peoples just before the
next yearly ILO meeting.
In this bulletin, we publish several documents that may start discussion
and debate on the international level on those issues flowing from the
struggle in favour of public education.
We wish to recall that the current onslaught of
privatisation-dismantlement against education, including universities is
launched within the framework of the general agreement of WTO on trade
and services. During the latest WTO summit that met in Doha at the end
of 2001, the issue was raised and, a free-for-all onslaught was launched
on the basis of this general agreement.
The interest of dismantling education, universities included lies in the
economic stakes of privatising education especially universities.
These last months, people have massively mobilised against the
privatisation of education. The two latest mobilisations have been:
October 29th strike in Portugal appealed by the main Portuguese teachers'
trade union against the Portuguese government budget slashing. The
government toes the line of European Union directives; one of the
consequences will be that 30 000 teachers will be kicked from civil
services.
On the same day, a general strike was taking place in Spain in all the
sectors of education; all the trade unions had jointly appealed the
strike against the latest Aznar government law, so-called "quality
law" that actually privatises secondary education.
As we publish this bulletin, we wish it helps in starting discussions
and we ask that you forward contributions in preparation of this
conference.
We particularly attract your attention on that point and we publish a
contribution on the on-going revision of recommendation 150 and
convention 142 on training. Therefore, we consider that this campaign
and the preparation of this conference is part of the follow-up work of
the struggle waged by the International Liaison committee of Workers and
Peoples on the international scale in defence of ILO norms.
Proposed place and date:
We think that the most advisable date would be May 31st - June 1st
weekend in Paris.
Would you please send your remarks and your suggestions on those.
Publications of the International Liaison Committee of Workers and
Peoples
The report on the International Berlin Conference
Price 10 euros (180 pages)
Special price of 6 euros per copy for 5 copies or more
Bulletin N° 11 of the Working Women sub-Committee of the ILC,
the report of the delegation to the ILO in Geneva and of the answer
of M. Manuel Simon, chairman of the ACTRAV about the ILO conventions
that protect women.
Price: 1 euro
The memorandum, report on the International women's Conference in
Berlin,
Price: 5 euros
Special price of 3 euros per copy for 5 copies or more.
The information Bulletin
published under the aegis of the follow-up committee of the Berlin
Conference, report of the 9th meeting organised by the ILC on June
16th 2002 in Geneva "in defence of ILO conventions and of the
independence of trade unions".
Price: 2 euros
Special price: 1 euro per copy for 5 copies or more
Subscription to International Informations
10 issues: 10 euros
20 issues: 20 euros
30 issues: 30 euros and so on
Support to the international circulation of that bulletin included
The two first Bulletins of the European Alliance of Workers (AET)
reporting on the conference held in Geneva on June 15th 2002 and on
the preparation to the conference initiated by the AET in the Autumn of
2003
Price: 1.5 euros
Special price: 1 euro per copy for 5 copies or more
The bulletin for the power sector,
gathering the contributions worldwide in the struggle against
privatisations
Price: 1 euro
Bulletin in preparation of the international conference in defence of
public education
Price: 1.5 euros
Special price: 1 euro per copy for 5 copies or more
Railway workers bulletin
preparing a new international conference against privatisation and
for re-nationalising railways
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The Manifesto of the "Five hundred endorsers" for trade
union independence (France):
a monthly devoted to discussion and information of the political
movement of the Manifesto for Trade Union Independence
Price: 1.5 euros
Subscription price: 15 euros (Available in French)
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