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La Ligue internationale des luttes des peuples (LILP) salue l’esprit combatif et la détermination des étudiantes/iants du Québec, qui, depuis 11 semaines, mènent une grève historique, secouant les échelons les plus élevés du pouvoir, s’opposant au programme néolibéral du gouvernement et mobilisant des milliers d’étudiantes/iants et de sympathisantes/ants dans une bataille épique pour le droit à l’éducation. Les étudiantes/iants dénoncent les tentatives du gouvernement libéral du Québec de revenir sur les promesses passées et d’augmenter les frais de scolarité post-secondaires de 1 625 dollars canadiens au cours des cinq prochaines années, doublant ainsi les taux actuels. Une puissante bataille des forces populaires est en cours alors que les étudiantes/iants et les sympathisantes/ants organisent de grandes manifestations de rue, des occupations et d’autres actions créatives.  200,000 manifestent à Montréal le 22 mars 2012 pour le droit à l'éducation (Photos Le Devoir) Le 22 mars 2012, plus de 200 000 personnes ont manifesté à Montréal, la plus grande ville du Québec, en appui à la grève, et, au cours des deux derniers mois, la ville a connu un roulement continu de protestations quotidiennes devant des édifices gouvernementaux, des banques et la bourse. Partout le long des rues, les manifestantes/ants portent le symbole de la grève, un carré d’étoffe rouge fixé par une épingle anglaise à leurs vestes, écharpes, bonnets et sacs à dos. Lors du récent rassemblement du «Jour de la Terre», qui a réuni une foule record de plus de 250 000 personnes à Montréal, les carrés rouges étaient fièrement arborés par des participantes/ants tout au long du défilé, montrant que la grève des étudiantes/iants allume le flambeau de la résistance dans toute la province. Après avoir refusé, de façon répétée, de rencontrer les étudiantes/iants, le gouvernement libéral de Jean Charest a finalement été contraint de négocier avec les représentants des trois plus grandes organisations étudiantes. Le gouvernement avait essayé de diviser les groupes d’étudiants en exigeant que l’aile la plus militante du mouvement dénonce, avant tout, la soi-disant “violence” étudiante. Pendant ce temps, le gouvernement de Jean Charest a envoyé la police attaquer et arrêter des dizaines de manifestants, des professeures/eurs, des enseignantes/ants et des sympathisantes/ants au cours des actions de grève, alors que les directions des universités ont engagé des forces de sécurité privées pour tenter de forcer les étudiantes/iants et les professeures/eurs à assister aux cours. Actuellement, 180 000 des 475 000 étudiantes/iants collégiaux et universitaires du Québec sont en grève illimitée. Trois organisations y participent : la Fédération étudiante collégiale du Québec (FECQ), la Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec (FEUQ) et l’ASSÉ (Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante), organisation la plus militante, constituée d’associations étudiantes indépendantes. L’ASSÉ a réunis des étudiantes/iants sous l’égide de la CLASSE (Coalition large de l’ASSÉ), front uni temporaire de lutte contre les hausses des frais de scolarité et de coordination de la grève générale proposée. Leur slogan est «Ensemble, bloquons la hausse!» Lire la suite / Continue reading ILPS salue les étudiant-e-s du Québec en grève contre la hausse des frais de scolarité Issued by the Office of the Chairperson The ILPS salutes the fighting spirit and determination of the students in Quebec presently involved in an historic 11-week strike which has shaken the highest echelons of power and their neoliberal agenda and has mobilized thousands of students and supporters in an epic battle for the Right to Education. The students are targeting moves by the Québec Liberal government to go back on past promises and to hike post-secondary tuition fees by CAD $1,625 over the next five years, doubling present rates. A powerful grassroots battle is underway as students and supporters hold major street protests, sit-ins and other creative actions. 200,000 demonstrate in Montreal, Quebec on March 22, 2012 for the Right to Education (Photo Le Devoir) Over 200,000 people marched through Quebec’s largest city, Montréal on March 22, 2012, to support the strike, and there have been daily rolling protests for the past two months hitting government buildings along with banks and the stock exchange. Walking along the city’s streets the symbol of the student strike, red squares, are everywhere, attached to people’s jackets, hats, bags and backpacks. At the recent Earth Day rally attended by a record crowd of 250,000+ in Montréal, again the red squares were evident throughout the throng as the student strike seems to be lighting fires of resistance across the province. After repeated refusals to meet with the students, the Liberal government of Jean Charest has finally been forced to negotiate with representatives of the three major student organizations. The government had been trying to split the student groups by demanding that the most militant wing first denounce so-called student “violence”. Meanwhile, the government of Jean Charest sent in the police to attack and arrest dozens of demonstrators, professors, teachers and supporters during the strike actions while private security forces were hired by the universities to try to force students and professors to attend classes. There are presently 180,000 students out of the 475,000 university and college students on unlimited strike across Quebec. Three organizations are involved; the Federation of University Students, the Federation of College Students, and Assé, or l’Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante (Association for Student Union Solidarity), the most militant organization made of independent student associations. Assé has united students under the umbrella of the smartly named CLASSE in French (Coalition large de l’ASSÉ – Class in English), a temporary united front to fight the tuition fee hikes and to coordinate a proposed general strike. Their slogan is Ensemble, bloquons la hausse / Together Stop the Hike! Lire la suite / Continue reading ILPS salutes striking students in Quebec and supports fight for right to education Towards a Strategy for Confronting Canada’s ‘War on Terror’ & Resisting the Criminalization of People’s Struggles at Home and Abroad Click here to download this strategy document as a PDF file The following document is the first draft of a campaign strategy document being developed by the International League of People’s Struggles-Canada and its member organizations, which we hope will lead to the convening of a conference in late 2012 to official launch a campaign to confront Canada’s war on terror and resist the criminalization of people’s struggles.
Outline This document advances an understanding of the criminalization of people’s struggles as the means by which imperialism maintains its control and extend its domination in the midst of deep economic crisis, particularly through the ‘War on Terror’; and proposes a strategic orientation and plan of work for resisting and beating back the criminalization of people’s struggles and their classification as terrorist. The first sections of this paper address the general economic context driving the criminalization of the people’s struggles, with a brief summation of the impact and function of the ‘War on Terror’ in Canada over the last ten years. The final sections discuss a possible strategic orientation and tactics for confronting imperialism’s criminalization of the people’s struggles, followed by a proposed plan of work for building unity around our strategic orientation amongst the member organizations of ILPS-Canada and other mass organizations and networks we hope to unite with. The need and demand for such a campaign has been years in the making, and was one of the main campaigns taken up at the May 2011 Founding Assembly of the Canadian chapter of the International League of People’s Struggles. With it, we hope to unite sectors of Canadian society most effected by this criminalization – the struggles of workers and youth that come into conflict with the economic and political interests of the Canadian ruling class, the anti-colonial struggles of indigenous peoples, the immigrant communities connected to national liberation and anti-globalization struggles back home. Lire la suite / Continue reading IT’S RIGHT TO REBEL Statement for IWD 2012 from Alliance for People’s Health (Vancouver)
Now more than ever it is urgent that we declare our opposition to imperialist globalization; that we decry capitalism as a corrupt and fundamentally unjust system. It is imperative that we join the progressive forces of the world in commanding a serious consideration of socialism as a viable and a necessary solution. As oppressed and exploited women, we know that economic exploitation and capitalist patriarchy underpins the crisis women face today. Capitalism promotes patriarchal policies and practices, thriving on the cheap labour of women. In Canada women comprise the vast majority of migrant workers from Asia, forced to migrate by neoliberal economic policies increasing the global wealth divide between the imperial north and the global south. Canadian migrant women form a source of cheap labour, often providing privatized health care and modern-day domestic slavery to the Canadian middle and upper classes. Migrant women in Canada face a double-burden of racist and profit-driven state and corporate practices designed to extract maximum profits from marginalized women. Women’s reproductive labour continues to form the basis of capitalist profits. After a life-time of work in the home and raising children and caring for our families, the only compensation working class women receive for our labour are the occasional flowers and chocolates on Mother’s Day. Are flowers and chocolate enough to compensate for a life-time of struggle? Lire la suite / Continue reading Women Be Brave, Stand on the Side of Justice! Afghanistan Resists! Report Back from a supporter of people’s struggles on the ground
WEDNESDAY MARCH 7th 5:30 PM. Join us for an evening of music, food & discussion on the rising popular resistance to the occupation, and how anti-imperialists and the Afghan diaspora can together build meaningful solidarity.
We call on all who support justice, peace and an end to the devastating control of the 1% over our planet, to stand up and refuse to be fooled by the warmongering cries to attack Iran coming from Washington, Tel Aviv, Ottawa and beyond.[1] Such an assault would kill thousands of Iranians and create region-wide destabilization. It would cause an unbridled, speculative hike in oil and gas prices and could lead to a global conflagration. We have already seen Russia and China, which imports a third of Iran’s oil exports, manoeuvering to defend their interests in the face of the U.S.-led military threats.
The US sanctions essentially prevent any business with Iran’s Central Bank or the purchase of Iranian oil – which constitutes half of Iran’s GNP – under threat of losing access to the US banks, corporations and markets. It adds up to a de facto economic blockade of Iran by Washington, which will cause even more suffering to the Iranian people, and by international law could already be considered ‘an act of war’. On Washington’s coattail, Ottawa has now also enacted further sanctions against Iran under the Special Economic Measures Act. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is a hawk on Iran, calling it the “single biggest threat to the world’s security”. Meanwhile, Ottawa has staunchly defended Israel, watering down resolutions urging peace talks at last year’s G8 summit, opposing efforts to have a Palestinian state recognized by the UN and threatening critics of the Israeli government here in Canada. Iran has been called a “geopolitical pivot”—a country whose fate can shape global geopolitics. Four times the size of Iraq, the country dominates the Persian Gulf geographically with 1,000 miles of coastline. Iran borders the energy-rich Caspian Sea and stands between Russia and the oil fields of the Middle East, and links the Middle East and Central Asia. It has the world’s third largest oil reserves[2]; tankers carrying 20% of the world’s oil pass out of the Persian Gulf through the narrow Strait of Hormuz between Iran and Oman. The United States ruled Iran for 25 years starting in 1953 when it supported the violent overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh who, backed by 99.5% of the population, had dared to nationalize British Petroleum, then called Anglo-Iranian. Washington governed through a tyrant called the Shah who handed the country back to a cartel of oil monopolies that included five American oil giants, while the regime murdered hundreds of thousands of people and crushed all progressive opposition. The 1953 coup profoundly impacted Iranian politics and consciousness for decades afterward and planted seeds that grew into the 1979 revolution that brought Ayatollah Khomeini to power. I bring you warm greetings today in the name of The International League of Peoples Struggle. The ILPS unites over 300 organizations from more than 40 countries in all regions of the world and we’re here today with you in front of the Embassy of India We know that at the heart of the just struggle of the people of India is the plunder of their land, forests, hills and rivers by Indian and multinational corporations, including Canadian imperialists. As you know, in late 2009 the Indian government unleashed massive war against its own people under the code name “Operation Green Hunt”. It deployed over 100,000 military and paramilitary troops in the so-called “Red Corridor” that runs across several Indian states. This is the region where millions of adivasis – the indigenous or tribal peoples – were pushed by waves of invaders. As Indian writer Arundhati Roy said, “This is a war waged by the army and paramilitary forces for the super rich corporations against the super poor of India, who have been driven to rebel and resist by years of injustice and mistreatment. … The Government doesn’t give the people anything else than violence and disrespect. And now they want to take away from them the last thing they have, their land”. These women and men are today on the front lines of the revolutionary armed struggle in India. They provide a shining example among the several peoples’ liberation movements around the globe responding to wars of aggression and extreme forms of oppression and exploitation. They are the leading edge of a growing anti-imperialist united front that includes the mass uprisings which have spread across the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia and Latin America and the growing resistance in Europe, North America and beyond. We join with you here today to support the Indian people who are demanding by armed struggle and other means an end to the looting of their country by Canada and other imperialist in cahoots with local exploiters… and the creation of a new India where true justice and genuine equality will prevail. We join with you today to say: Stop imperialist globalization and plunder! Canadian imperialism, out of India! Long live the courageous struggle of the people of India! Ottawa, Canada - January 21, 2012 This Feature Analysis is reprinted with the kind permission of BASICS Community News Service, an ILPS-Canada member organization by Aiyanas Ormond*  Click image to download article in PDF While the political elites meticulously avoid any kind of coherent action on housing – beyond paying lip service to ‘homelessness’ – the Provincial government is implementing its housing plan for the poor: two new remand centers with 700 cells between them. The expanded jail capacity is the lynchpin in the mass incarceration agenda – the new approach to dealing with the ‘surplus population’ as the welfare state continues to be dismantled and economic crisis mounts. Incarceration rates are already rising after a decade of decline and the federal “Omnibus Crime Bill” will significantly ramp up this process. Meanwhile, the Vancouver Police Department, and other forces across Canada, are ready and willing to dig the criminals out of the poor urban neighbourhoods, expanding their bloated budget and building successful police careers as they go. The number of police in Canada – and the expenditure on policing, over $12 billion in 2009 – have been increasing steadily despite a falling crime rate. This paper starts with examining the components of the mass incarceration agenda – federal legislation, provincial construction of private prisons and the on-the-ground practices of police. The second section focuses on the structural factors shaping the mass incarceration agenda, as a new form of social control in the wake of the declining welfare state and as a successor system to the colonial residential schools. The Ominous Crime Bill The Conservative Omnibus Crime Bill (OCB) is the legislative component of the mass incarceration agenda in Canada. It will significantly increase the number of incarcerated people in Canada, at a huge cost – billions of dollars that could be spent on housing, health care or other social programs to improve conditions in communities. The OCB targets groups that are vulnerable to labeling and vilification: ‘drug dealers’, ‘terrorists’ and ‘human traffickers’. In reality the people who will fill the new jail spaces are the poor, Native folks already over-represented among incarcerated people, people who are addicted to drugs and criminalized immigrants and refugees. The major mechanism will be the new mandatory minimums for drug sentences, and limits on conditional or alternative sentencing for ‘serious’ crimes’. This has special significance for Native people going through the courts because alternatives to incarceration such as sentencing circles, community justice committees and healing lodges have been proposed as the main strategy for addressing the over-representation of Native people in the prison system. The OCB also contains laws limiting the discretion of judges and stiffening penalties for ‘violent young offenders’ including expanding the definition of a violent crime to include ‘reckless behaviour endangering public safety’. The section on immigrants and refugees strengthens ministerial power and will be used in conjunction with other legislation to criminalize and incarcerate immigrants and refugees. The mass incarceration of Tamil refugees arriving in B.C. in 2010 stands out as a singular example of this ‘new approach’. Lire la suite / Continue reading The Mass Incarceration Agenda in Canada: The View from Vancouver |
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