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August 1, 2020 - No. 28 Federal Government Promotes Powerful Private Interests |
The
government rationale in partnering with Shopify is
that the company's
ecommerce platform already exists for retailers to
buy and use and no
alternative public infrastructure at nominal cost
is possible. People
should say 
As private
interests seize control of governments, the public
interest and common
good become overwhelmed and suppressed. The narrow
private interests of
the most powerful oligarchs become the cornerstone
of government
policy. No discussion of an alternative can be
found in the halls of
power as the political system itself blocks the
working people from
representing themselves and giving their views on
the direction of the
country's economic and political affairs and
taking actions that favour
their interests.
The government's
guidelines for school re-entry include both
requirements for school
boards, and recommendations which are optional.
Students and staff must
perform hand hygiene (either washing or
sanitizing) when entering and
exiting the school and when entering each
classroom. Schools must have
procedures for increased cleaning of high-contact
surfaces. Students
and staff must check themselves for symptoms of
COVID-19 and stay home
if they have any. Rules exist around the
consumption of food,
procedures exist for when students become ill at
school, and so on.[
Of concern to
many is the fact that there are no requirements
for physical
distancing. Two metres is recommended, but where
this is "not possible
between desks the greatest possible spacing, is
recommended." In this
way, the reality of class sizes, which have been
unacceptably large for
years, is dismissed. In the vast majority of
schools in Alberta,
students will be nowhere near two metres apart.
While not the norm,
there are classrooms in Alberta where there is not
room for each
student to have a desk, yet the Premier speaks
about "social distancing
where possible." There are no limits on class
sizes in Alberta and at a
press conference following the announcement on
school reopening, it was
confirmed that this would remain the case.
By announcing
that students will return to school in September
without the active
participation of teachers, educational assistants,
custodial and
maintenance staff in sorting out how this can be
done safely, the
Kenney government is declaring a return to
business as usual. The
decision comes from on high, and schools are
supposed to just "make it
work." If they cannot, it is evidence of the
failure of public
institutions and a pretext to place more of public
education under the
control of private interests. The government
acknowledges there will be
cases of COVID-19 in schools as a result of this
approach. The
immediate reaction of many parents is to weigh the
risks and benefits
of sending their children to school and make an
individual decision.
This suits Kenney just fine -- "choice" in
education is one of the key
pieces of the United Conservative Party agenda.
Putting the right
to education along with actually stopping the
pandemic in first place
as the aim, and not just a policy objective, will
open up prospects and
bring forward viable solutions. A government with
this as its priority
would examine all the available options. Qualified
teachers who have
left the profession could be encouraged to return.
What alternate
spaces can be used to allow for smaller classes?
Can empty offices or
other suitable spaces be converted into
classrooms? What transportation
capacity exists in cities and how can it be
expanded? How can nurses
and other public health personnel be brought into
schools? How can
testing be done regularly and in a widespread
manner? How can the
education workers, students and parents be
empowered to take control
over the decisions that will affect their lives?
With
this framework, one of the first things that must
be tackled in
reopening schools is when to open and how to
know when the
time
is right. Different areas of Canada and different
regions of provinces
have varying degrees of community transmission.
With stopping the virus
as the aim, the reopening of schools has to be in
keeping with the
conditions. In an area with relatively high
community
transmission it would make sense to have students
taught remotely until
community transmission is brought under control
and then physically
reopen schools gradually with all the necessary
safety protocols in
place to ensure the virus stays under
control. 
These committees
should be empowered to oversee the reopening and
to be the link between
the school and the school board and local public
health authorities. In
all of this, students, staff and parents or
guardians must be empowered
to have a voice at their local school so they can
work out how to
achieve the aim.
The Ontario
government's plan for reopening has been made
without the participation
and input of the various unions and federations
that represent teachers
and education workers across the province, and
without any input from
students or parents' groups on any objective
basis. In fact, in the
name of "Reopening Ontario" the government is
using emergency powers to
impose its agenda to eliminate funding from
education through an
emphasis on high class sizes and "choice" in
education that
emphasizes online elective courses which have
larger class sizes in
high school.
The government is
also recommending -- not requiring nor funding --
that school boards
plan that students with special needs for whom
adapted timetables or
remote learning may be challenging, be able to
attend school full-time.
Again school boards are being left to fulfill
their requirement to
affirm the right to education of the youth without
the necessary
funding, which means that violating this right is
being put into their
hands so the government can pass the blame to
them.|
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On the very sad
anniversaries of the U.S. nuclear attacks against
the Japanese cities
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, on August 6 and 9, 1945
respectively, the
Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist)
expresses its deepest
respects to the survivors of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki and their
families.
To this day, the U.S. claims that its actions on the morning of August 6, 1945, when it dropped an atom bomb on Hiroshima and on August 9 when it dropped another one on Nagasaki, were righteous, moral and proper, as if anything could justify committing such crimes against humanity. The bomb the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima was made of uranium and killed about 140,000 people in the initial blast and ultimately more than 237,000 in total. The bomb it dropped on Nagasaki was made of plutonium and killed 85,000 people in the initial blast and eventually resulted in the deaths of more than 70,000 additional people due to exposure to radiation and injuries. Thousands suffered their entire lives, as have the generations that followed, from the crimes committed on those days.
Prior to this, on March 9, 1945, 334 B-29 bombers firebombed Tokyo with napalm in an operation called Meetinghouse. They killed more than 100,000 people that day and many more were injured.
These were unprecedented war crimes which had nothing to do with the fight against Japanese militarism. Japan was suffering defeats everywhere and its surrender was imminent. But irrespective of that, such war crimes and mass murder are impermissible no matter the excuse.
This mass murder of civilian populations in Tokyo and then Hiroshima and Nagasaki served as a threat to the peoples of the world, especially the Soviet Union, that the U.S. had the monopoly on the use of force. Following the Korean War in 1950, the U.S. engaged the world in "nuclear politics" to blackmail the peoples into doing what the U.S. wanted.
The U.S. considered the use of nuclear weapons to settle the Korean War and wipe out China, but instead declared their use "unthinkable" and "taboo." In this way, the U.S. claimed such weapons were nonetheless necessary to act as a deterrent and that this was the main factor for peace in the world.
The slogan was raised to "Ban the Bomb," while crucial work to establish the conditions required to preserve the peace was abandoned. Post-war demands for denazification and to develop a peace economy were lost within the clamour to "Ban the Bomb!"
The Soviet Union developed nuclear weapons initially to hold the U.S. in check. However, by the 1960s, instead of the peoples' cause for peace being made the centre of the foreign policy of the big powers, an arms race replaced the striving of the peoples of the world for peace. Expenditures on weapons soared. All five members of the UN Security Council also developed nuclear weapons and gave the green light for some of their allies to do the same.
The U.S.
imperialists never accepted anything less than a
nuclear advantage over
all other countries, fueling the nuclear arms race
and, along with
other big powers, subjecting the world's peoples
to nuclear blackmail.
The nuclear politics of the imperialist powers, especially those of the U.S. and British imperialists, were fueled by their Cold War anti-communism and wars of aggression and coups d'état against the Greek, Iranian, Guatemalan, Korean, Vietnamese, Indonesian and other peoples of the world. This politics underscores the depths of depravity and criminality to which the U.S. is willing to sink to establish its domination and to which Canada both directly and through NATO has adhered ever since World War II.
The U.S. failure to render account for its criminal actions against the people of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and its reckless drive for domination under the pretext that it is the "indispensable nation" means that the threat they pose still looms large. The U.S. imperialists' feigned concern for nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation has always been tempered by the determination to retain strategic advantage and first-strike capacity in nuclear weapons over all other countries. The same is the case today. Every so often declarations are made about reducing nuclear stockpiles or leaving nuclear treaties but all of it is based on cynical calculations designed to contain the peoples' striving for peace, freedom and democracy under the sway of their nuclear politics.
Canadians' repudiation of nuclear weapons is such that in 1984 the U.S. had to remove its nuclear weapons from Canadian soil. Reports indicate that between 1963 and 1972 there were between 250 and 450 nuclear warheads on Canadian bases. Some 108 Genie missiles armed with 1.5 kiloton W25 warheads were present from 1963 to 1984 and Canada played a key role in the U.S. nuclear weapons program from its beginning, including in the weapons used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Demonstration against nuclear weapons in Canada
outside NATO
ministerial meeting in
Ottawa in 1963.
The U.S. expansion of its anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems marked a dramatic escalation of the nuclear arms race as the aim of such systems is to neutralize nuclear and conventional missiles launched by other countries and maintain an advantage in any possible scenario, including where the U.S. exercises NATO's first-strike policy. Moreover, the weapons of war have become so sophisticated that in a few years they have rendered practically obsolete the ABM defence systems inside the U.S., in the Pacific, aboard naval craft in the Baltic Sea and the Mediterranean, and in eastern Europe and even the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system in south Korea.
A serious concern for Canadians remains the intentions of subsequent governments for Canada to contribute to the U.S. war preparations under the hoax of dealing with "changing technologies and threats."
Subsequent
governments betray the call of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki Never
Again! by continuing to collaborate with the
U.S., including
by allowing testing of nuclear weapons delivery
systems and permitting
vessels and aircraft carrying nuclear weapons
inside Canadian territory.
On the occasion of this solemn anniversary,
CPC(M-L) calls on Canadians to stand against the
U.S. imperialist war
preparations and Canada's integration into the
U.S. imperialist war
economy and its appeasement of U.S. aggression and
wars.
CPC(M-L) calls on Canadians to militantly oppose Canada's participation in NATO and U.S. criminal sanctions' regimes.
Repudiation of the crimes at Hiroshima and Nagasaki contributes to the profound sentiment of Canadians to Make Canada a Zone for Peace. Let us make the slogan Hiroshima and Nagasaki Never Again! a reality by uniting in action to build the organizations required to establish an anti-war government that makes Canada a Zone for Peace!
Oppose Spending Another $19 Billion to
Support U.S. Aggression
The Justin Trudeau Liberal government plans to spend $19 billion buying 88 fighter jets from a not-yet-chosen foreign war contractor to replace Canada's aging CF-18 fighter fleet. This works out to about $216 million per aircraft. The war contractors had until the end of July 2020 to submit their bids, a deadline first extended from May 2019 to March 2020, then to June 2020. So far Boeing (U.S.), Lockheed Martin (U.S.), and Saab (Sweden) have entered the competition. The Trudeau government is expected to announce the chosen contractor by 2022, with the first aircraft delivered by 2025. On July 24 vigorous protests against the purchase plan were held at 18 MPs' offices across Canada.
Since entering
the jet age, the Canadian air force has never
flown a jet-powered
fighter aircraft designed outside of the United
States. The CF-86
Sabre, the CT-133 Silver Star, the CF-101 Voodoo,
the CF-104, the
CF-116 Freedom Fighter and the CF-188 (CF-18
Hornet) all came from the
U.S. While many of these were license-built in
Canada, the designs came
from giant U.S. war contractors like Lockheed
Martin, Boeing and
McDonnell Douglas. The intention to keep Canada's
own fighter design
business alive with the amazingly innovative
CF-105 Avro Arrow met a
sad end in 1959 with the Diefenbaker government's
secretive
cancellation of the project, likely due to U.S.
pressure. Canada has
been tightly tied to the U.S. for fighter aircraft
ever since.
The proposed jet purchase, which is in essence another giant pay-the-rich scheme, has already been marked by hypocrisy. When the Harper government was in power the Liberal opposition railed against its plan to buy Lockheed Martin-made F-35 fighter jets without competitive bidding. Once elected, Liberal government officials proposed that Canada buy another U.S.-built plane without competitive bidding, the Boeing Super Hornet. Now the bidding process has been added to try to give the purchase plan a façade of legitimacy. Throughout this farce the phrase "joint continental defence with the U.S." has been repeated, making it clear that the principles guiding Canada's next fighter jet purchase have to do with the needs of the U.S. imperialists, NATO and NORAD, not the needs of the people of Canada.
Whatever contractor wins the bidding, the critical point is that it is the Canadian people who must exercise real control over our fighter jet supply and air defence. It is a matter of sovereignty. When it comes to Canada's integration into the U.S. military apparatus, it is well known who gives the orders; the North American Air Defence Command (NORAD) has a U.S. commander and a Canadian deputy commander. Important decisions regarding the defence of Canada should be made by the Canadian people, not U.S. monopolies and imperialist institutions. The Liberals and their U.S. masters are using fearmongering about the need for joint defence against a non-existent threat from Russia or from "rogue states" to claim that not buying new fighter planes will somehow be a threat to Canadian sovereignty, when it is exactly the opposite that is the case.
The truth of the matter is that it has been shown in practice time and time again that the U.S.-NATO-NORAD conception of air defence is not defence at all but aggression -- attacking any country which exerts its own independence and refuses to knuckle under to imperialist dictate. Since the Second World War Canadian fighter jets have not once "defended Canadian sovereignty." Instead, they have participated in the U.S.-led aggression and bombing of the sovereign nations of Iraq, Serbia, Libya, and Syria. Asserting the "right" to conduct preemptive strikes and the actual bombardment of cities are key features of the doctrine of all three recent U.S. presidents; Bush, Obama and Trump.
Reducing
questions of Canada's defence to a phony argument
over "which jet" is
another indication that the Liberals have no
intention of defending the
security of the Canadian people but rather of
placing Canadians in
serious danger. The 1957 Distant Early Warning
(DEW) Line, built by the
U.S. on Canadian soil to detect enemy bombers far
enough away for the
U.S. to retaliate, is a perfect example. The
ludicrous scenarios of a
fictitious Russian air attack, dredged out of Cold
War comic books,
have been designed to sow confusion among the
Canadian people and smash
their opposition to warmongering, and have no
basis in fact. On the
contrary, the source of any threats to Canadian
sovereignty has always
been our so-called ally, the U.S.
The Liberal government is pushing for further integration into the U.S. war machine precisely at a time when Trump and the U.S. ruling elite are organizing to launch further aggression against the world's people. The path is clear. Our real security lies not in buying the "right" U.S. jet fighter to further enrich the U.S. war monopolies and support U.S. aggression but in standing as one with the world's peoples in defence of their right to oppose U.S. imperialist preparations for another world war. Canada should get out of NATO and NORAD and all aggressive military bodies. Canadians must continue to fight for an anti-war government that will say no to foreign control of Canada's air defence, end interference in the affairs of sovereign countries, and become a staunch force for peace in the world.
Day of Action: "Strike for Climate Peace,
No New Fighter Jets"
On July 24, there were 18 demonstrations held in 13 cities across Canada for the National Day of Action, "Strike for Climate Peace, No New Fighter Jets" organized by Voice of Women for Peace, World Beyond War and other anti-war activists demanding that the Canadian government abandon its plan to buy 88 fighter jets.
Halifax, NS
Montreal, QC
Ottawa, ON
Toronto, ON
Hamilton, ON
Collingwood, ON
Waterloo, ON
Kitchener, ON
Regina, Saskatchewan
Vancouver; Victoria BC
Sidney, BC
(Photos: TMLW, Canadian Voice of Women for Peace, K. Winkler, Brent Patterson, Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War)
Government Hoists Flag of
Vietnam's Defeated Colonial
Powers on Parliament Hill
CPC(M-L) Condemns Government's Promotion
of Division and Hatred
Shameful ceremony held on Parliament Hill, July 30, 2020 to mark "Journey to Freedom Day."
The Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) unequivocally condemns the ceremony held on July 30 on Parliament Hill to mark the reactionary and illegitimate "Journey to Freedom Day." The event was postponed from April 30, a date that has long been celebrated in Vietnam and the world over as Vietnam's Reunification Day. The ceremony included the raising of the old colonial flag of the reactionary and collaborationist regime that the Vietnamese people deposed in 1975.
On that day CPC(M-L) put out a statement which reads as follows:
This is an unacceptable event that seeks to rewrite the historic verdict of the U.S. defeat in Vietnam, undermine relations with Vietnam and sow divisions among Canadians of Vietnamese origin today.
The Government of Canada calls April 30 "Journey to Freedom Day"[1] to portray all Vietnamese who live in Canada as those who have escaped tyranny. It is as self-serving as it is false. In fact, some of the people escaped because of the crimes they committed on the side of the U.S. imperialists. They are the ones behind the promotion of the flag of the old colonial regime.
The ceremony seeks to cover up that it was not the communists who divided Vietnam, dropped agent orange and committed all the other crimes against the people. It was the U.S. imperialists.[2]
Hoisting the old colonial flag on Parliament Hill is for purposes of giving free rein to the hatred of these dregs from the U.S. imperialist regime in Saigon. The rendering in Vietnamese of "Journey to Freedom" translates back into English as "national hatred day." It goes against everything Canadians value and stand for.
Canada has no business enabling attempts to foment hatred and anti-communism against the Government of Vietnam and to divide Canadians on this basis.
This is a time when monuments and symbols which
exalt
slavery and genocide are being brought down all
over the world,
including in Canada whose own history and
foundation are tainted with
countless acts of genocide, slavery and inhuman
treatment which
continues to this day. It is beyond the pale to
hoist flags which exalt
the use of napalm and agent orange against the
Vietnamese people under
the hoax that it can be justified in the name of
"freedom from
communist tyranny." And this is done on the eve of
the 75th anniversary
of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by
the United States
which were crimes against humanity of like kind,
also committed in the
name of freedom, peace and democracy.
Furthermore, those who support this so-called Journey to Freedom Day are the same forces behind the construction of an anti-communist memorial in Ottawa which is a pathetic attempt to rehabilitate Nazi collaborators as freedom fighters, to promote hatred of the Soviet Union and Soviet peoples who bore the brunt of the sacrifices made by the peoples of the world, including many Canadians, to achieve peace, freedom and democracy during World War Two, as well as to oppose all those who fought for national liberation and to decide their own way of life without outside interference.
Canada and Vietnam have nearly 50 years of ongoing diplomatic relations. How does it strengthen the bonds of friendship between our two countries and our two peoples to exalt symbols of colonial oppression and genocide? How does it bring honour to Canada at home or abroad?
Canadians from coast to coast, from all walks of life, stood second to none along with peace- and justice-loving peoples the world over, in opposing the U.S. aggression against Vietnam. Many Canadians came to this country to dodge the draft or escape the punishment meted out to those who deserted the U.S. armed forces because their conscience would not permit them to commit the crimes which they were ordered to carry out by the U.S. against the Vietnamese people.
CPC(M-L) expresses deep regret that the Government of Canada thinks it has the right to hoist the flag which represents the regime that collaborated with the U.S. warmongers in their war of aggression against Vietnam.
Let us unite with the people of Vietnam and build genuine friendship between Canada and Vietnam!
Notes
1. At the instigation of reactionary elements who collaborated with the U.S. aggressors in Vietnam and were given refuge in Canada when they escaped, the government of Stephen Harper declared April 30 "Journey to Freedom Day" despite the formal protest of the Government of Vietnam and its embassy in Ottawa, along with the expressed opposition of many Canadians who supported the Vietnamese people during the Vietnam war, including those who found refuge in Canada from the U.S. draft and crimes against humanity it was committing in Vietnam. Canadians continue to hold dear the relations of friendship between the peoples of Canada and Vietnam.
2. The anti-communists who promote the yellow flag collaborated with the U.S. regime, themselves committed crimes against the people, and then went all out to save themselves, calling their exit "a journey to freedom." Some were major drug lords or were those who trafficked women and children and conciliated with heinous crimes against the people.
(Photo: Senator Ngo official twitter page)
NO to the Promotion of Hatred!
YES to the Promotion of Friendly Relations
with the People of Vietnam!
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The spectacle held today, July 30, 2020, on Parliament Hill to mark the occasion of so-called "Journey to Freedom" day is shameful. It is promoted to Canadians as honouring the "incredible contributions that Vietnamese refugees have now made to building our great country" but the Vietnamese slogans on the banners of those assembled literally promote hatred against all that Vietnam is today: its people, its government, its social and economic system. "Journey to Freedom" is rendered in Vietnamese as "Tưởng niệm Quốc Hận 30-4." It refers to April 30 which is the day when National Liberation of Vietnam is celebrated in Vietnam and around the world. The rendering in Vietnamese of "Journey to Freedom" translates back into English as "national hatred day."
Slogans of hatred do not belong here. The yellow flag of the former colonial occupation regime should not be hoisted on Parliament Hill by the collaborators and agents of that foreign imposed colonial regime. It is as disgraceful and insulting as it would be to fly the flag of Vichy France or the Confederate flag on Parliament Hill.
The Canada-Vietnam Friendship Society calls on the Government of Canada to stop hosting this event, stop inciting divisions and conflict within the Canadian-Vietnamese community and stop encouraging, funding and making Parliament Hill available to those who promote hatred against Vietnam.
"Journey to Freedom" Day was established in 2015 by the government of Stephen Harper. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic it was postponed by three months this year to July 30.
For more information, please contact: media@c-vfs.com.
Visit the Canada Vietnam Friendship Society webpage here.
(July 30, 2020)
Statement by Canadian-Born Vietnamese Youth
Andy Tran is a member of the Toronto Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines. He can be contacted at info@c-vfs.com.
I am a Canadian-born Vietnamese youth. My parents fled southern Vietnam in the early 1980s. My parents raised me to believe that the three-striped flag of South Vietnam was the only genuine flag of Vietnam. South Vietnam, the puppet regime of the United States raised from 1955-1975 to resist our people's revolutionary movement, was the only genuine Vietnam to them.
For a long time, I didn't understand this conflict. I didn't know why my family hated the one-star flag of Vietnam so much. I didn't know why all the pagodas we attended flew this flag when the official flag of Vietnam is something different.
Now, having studied the history of my people and our long struggle for freedom, I understand why that three-stripe flag is flown here in Canada. I understand which people fly it, and why. That flag represents a class of Vietnamese who benefitted more from the U.S. puppet regime of South Vietnam than [they would from] a country built upon principles of independence, sovereignty, and a socialist perspective.
Those people quickly fled when the tide turned against them, and here they are now, fifty years after losing the war, flying the flag of a failed U.S. puppet regime that barely benefitted them compared to the horrors it ravaged against the masses of our people.
The fact that the three-stripe flag of the failed U.S. puppet regime is being flown in Canada's capital city doesn't surprise me. It does outrage me, as does the one-sided narrative that justifies ceremonies like the Journey to Freedom Day. I find it two-faced and shameful for Canada to openly promote a division among my people while at the same time benefitting from its political and economic relationship with Vietnam. My people deserve the unity we fought for, and we deserve for our history to be shown truthfully. We deserve our flag.
Vietnam’s official flag is proudly raised on
National
Reunification Day on April 30, 2020 at the
historic site Hien Luong-Ben
Hai.
Vietnam’s official flag is raised in Hanoi, April
30, 2020. (VNA)
Official Monuments to Racists and Nazi-Fascists
Canadian People Oppose Nazi Memorials
On July 6, unknown individuals spray-painted "Communism will win" and three hammer and sickle symbols on a barrier at the future Ottawa site of the long-delayed so-called "Victims of Communism Memorial." Various reactionaries howled that the spray-painting was a hate crime which is ludicrous and a feeble attempt to obscure that the proposed memorial itself is the hate crime. In fact, it is based on the Hitlerite definition of communism as the main enemy of humanity that must be destroyed. Thus while it purports to memorialize so-called victims of communism, the memorial is actually a monument honouring the Nazis and fascists who fought against the communists, the same communists who led the liberation of the world from the Hitlerites and their allies and who have made many other indelible contributions to a better world.
Around June 21, in a similar incident, the words "Nazi war monument" were spray-painted on a cenotaph located in Oakville, Ontario's St. Volodymyr Ukrainian cemetery, commemorating soldiers in the 14th Waffen-SS division. (There is also a statue dedicated to the 14th Waffen-SS Division in an Edmonton cemetery.) The post-war military tribunal at Nuremberg declared the Waffen-SS, which was ultimately under the command of Heinrich Himmler, a criminal organization. However, in 1950, at Britain's request, Canada still let in almost 2,000 members as immigrants, without regard to their sinister backgrounds. In 1985 a so-called commission to investigate war criminals in Canada was launched by the Mulroney government. In the end, the ridiculous conclusion of the Deschênes Commission investigation was that not a single war criminal was successfully prosecuted, even though a number of them could actually be identified by name.
Oakville regional
police at first declared the June 21 spray
painting of the cenotaph to
be a "hate crime" but had to apologize when
questioned by human rights
exponents as to how opposition to Nazism could be
considered a hate
crime. On Twitter, the local police chief agreed
with a post calling
for the monument to be removed. Oakville Mayor Rob
Burton stated: "It
is personally repugnant to me, I have family who
died fighting Nazis.
If Ontario laws permitted me to have it removed it
would have been gone
14 years ago."
The Guardian, in a July 17 article about the Oakville cenotaph, noted clear connections between the Waffen-SS and war crimes: "The 14th Division was made up of Ukrainian nationalists who joined the Nazis during the Second World War. Members of the division are believed to have murdered Polish women and children, as well as Jewish people." Numerous researchers validate those assertions.[1]
In Alberta,
two statues commemorating Ukrainians who fought
with Nazi Germany's
forces exist in Edmonton. One of them, partially
funded by taxpayers,
is of Nazi collaborator Roman Shukhevych, erected
in the mid-1970s. On
December 9-10, 2019, unknown individuals spray
painted "Nazi scum" on
the Shukhevych statue.
Previously on November 15, 2019, Daniel Moser had provided important facts on Shukhevych in the Alberta Jewish News: "After his formal association with Nazi Germany had ended, Shukhevych's anti-Semitic murders continued. In 1943 declaring independence, but maintaining allegiance to Nazi Germany, Shukhevych was supreme commander of the newly formed Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), where creating an ethnically Ukrainian country was priority one. The UPA was responsible for the mass killing of 60,000-100,000 ethnic Poles, thousands of Jews, and many more."
Of course, those who want to falsify history and whitewash their own crimes deny all this and insist on venerating Shukhevych as a freedom-fighting hero.
Another significant and related prior incident was the March 2017 outing of Deputy Prime Minister Freeland's grandfather Michael Chomiak as a Nazi collaborator and propagandist in wartime Poland from 1940-45. Much could be said about this.[2] What is important to note here is that Freeland covered up the fact that he was a collaborator and that she still calls him a "freedom fighter." When questioned, she chose to deflect and instead blamed the Russians for supposedly spreading fake news to derail Canadian democracy. What was even more nauseating was how a vocal cabal of journalists, professors, and pundits of various kinds issued apologies for her. Avoided at all costs was the opportunity for Canadians to assess what kind of government Freeland's Liberals stand for, whether this is the democracy Canadians want, and if it is the democracy they shed their blood for fighting in World War II against the Nazis and their collaborators.
The Ottawa "Victims of Communism" memorial project which the Liberals are so gung ho to complete was said to have been first proposed to the Harper government in 2008 when Jason Kenney, then Harper's Secretary of State for Multiculturalism and now Premier of Alberta, was approached by Czech Ambassador Pavel Vosalik. Not coincidentally, in 2009, Canada's House of Commons unanimously adopted a resolution to designate August 23 as the national day of remembrance in Canada for the victims of Communism and Nazism. It should also be noted that the U.S. completed its own anti-communist memorial in 2007, dedicated by war criminal George W. Bush. Due to continued opposition from the people, the Canadian memorial has been repeatedly delayed, as well as scaled back both in size and location. Following the fall of Harper in 2015, the Trudeau government revived the project and a design was chosen in June 2018. The memorial is currently being built in the architect's studio and will be shipped to the site in the Garden of the Provinces and Territories when completed, forever tainting that Garden if its placement there is permitted.
The shadowy group behind the memorial is known as Tribute to Liberty (TTL), whose treasurer and ex-chair is Alide Forstmanis, aided by her husband Talis. TTL's links to Latvian collaborators with the Nazis and their hatred for the communists and Jews are verifiable. During the Nazi occupation of Latvia, Talis Forstmanis' father Fricis was technical editor at an anti-Semitic, anti-communist publishing house called Zelta abele and like Freeland's grandfather Michael Chomiak he worked for a Nazi newspaper called Tevija (Fatherland). Tevija was the only paper published in Nazi-occupied Latvia from July 1941 to October 1944. The cover of the first issue bore a photo of Adolf Hitler, with the statement, "Henceforth Latvia is free from communists and Jews." Subsequent issues featured anti-Semitic, anti-Soviet and anti-communist propaganda and quotations from Hitler and Goebbels. Today, Talis Forstmanis is treasurer of the Canadian branch of Daugavas Vanagi, an organization founded by and for Latvian veterans of the Waffen-SS who fought for Nazi Germany and escaped to areas of Nazi Germany later controlled by the U.S. Now Latvia is a centre of Europe's neo-Nazi revival.
TTL at first attempted to raise money from the
people of
Canada to fund the vile memorial project but this
was an utter failure
due to opposition from Canadians from all walks of
life. The whole
fund-raising campaign was an abject failure even
though proponents
tried to claim that Canadians were all for the
memorial. In the end,
the project was so unpopular that the Government
itself started
donating money to keep it going. Cost for the
memorial planned by the
Harper regime was originally projected at more
than $5 million, then
cut to $3 million in 2015. The Trudeau government
cut the cost even
further and then handed over $1.5 million to
the private
project,
as well as another $500,000 "for design." TTL is
still unable to raise
popular support and on its website it is begging
for donations.
The final design for the memorial resulted from a
competition among
five architects which ended in June 2018 with the
selection of a group
headed by Toronto architect Paul Raff.
It is important to ask the question, who are the so-called victims of communism that the monument in Canada will supposedly commemorate? Will they include all those so-called nationalists and "freedom fighters" who actively collaborated with the Nazis in the occupied countries to fight against the Soviet Union and who massacred civilians in those countries during the anti-fascist war? Will they include Hitler, Goebbels, Himmler, and their minions, who slaughtered more than 50 million people in the name of opposing the "Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy" only to be soundly defeated in the end by the Soviet Union, the communist resistance, and the occupied peoples? Or will the so-called victims remain nebulous and unnamed but consist simply of the standard list of ever increasing fictitious numbers that populate the tirades of Trump, Johnson, and others of their ilk?
The "victims of communism" memorial proposed for Canada takes its cue from that already built in the U.S. It is part of the ongoing campaign in Europe and North America that is aimed at falsifying history, blocking society's path to progress, preventing democratic renewal and concealing and continuing the crimes of Anglo-American imperialism against the working class and peoples of the world. This is not just an attempt to build a single memorial but an organized campaign to reverse the people's verdict which long ago condemned Nazism, fascism and militarism to the dustbin of history. The people who should be commemorated by a monument in Canada are the countless millions of victims of cold war democracy worldwide who have been slaughtered by those in power to protect and advance their anti-people interests. It is certainly not in the interests of either the Canadian or world's people to have monuments to the alleged "victims of communism" which are cynically designed to cover up a despicable revanchist attempt to rehabilitate avowed enemies of the peoples.
Notes
1. See Littman, Sol, Pure Soldiers or Sinister Legion (Toronto: Black Rose, 2003).
2. See entire issue of TML Weekly, March 18, 2017.
No Racist and Colonialist Monuments Protest
On July 18 a protest was held in downtown Toronto calling for the removal of colonialist and racist monuments. Statues of Egerton Ryerson, one of the main architects of the residential school system; Canada's first Prime Minister John A. Macdonald, who implemented a policy of land theft and starvation to quell Metis dissent; and King Edward VII, which was given to Toronto in 1969 by India, in the process of getting rid of reminders of the days of British rule, were covered in pink paint.
Police surrounded and arrested three protestors. They were held for nearly 16 hours, while protestors outside 52 Division demanded their release. All three protestors were denied legal counsel and one was denied medication for hours. They all refused to sign papers imposing conditions on them.
Support actions and protests of symbols of colonialism and racism continue.
Supporters outside 52 Division demand release of
detained activists,
July 18, 2020.
No More Criminalizing Black Dissent, No More Monuments to Racists and Racism
An Open Letter in Support of Black Lives Matter Toronto, the Arrestees and Artists
We, a group of artists, arts administrators, curators and arts professionals, are writing to express our concern and anger over the criminalization of peaceful protest, artistic intervention, dissent and Black action. Black Lives Matter Toronto recently organized a peaceful intervention to call attention to the ways that Canadian society pays tribute to racism and colonial violence through the statues of Egerton Ryerson, John A. Macdonald, and King Edward VII. This protest was met with an egregious amount of police harassment and intimidation tactics.
It resulted in over 20 police officers kettling three of the attendees, arresting them, and holding them for over 16 hours without explanation, or confirmation. Access to legal counsel was not provided for over five hours. The artists were detained without access to medical attention and without vital medication. When questioned, the police misled the public and changed their story multiple times throughout the day. BLM called for a 6:00 pm rally to call for the release of the artists. At 5:24 pm the police issued a press release stating that two out of the three artists had been released. BLM members were unable to reach their 'released' colleagues. After the press left, some time around 8:00 pm, the police changed their story and stated that all three were still detained.
The statues are unquestionably racist. Egerton Ryerson was a principal architect in the development of the Residential School System in Canada, a genocidal system that terrorized generations of Indigenous children and their families. He also supported segregated schooling that separated Black children from white children.
Sir John A. Macdonald created and promoted genocidal policies, and oversaw the intentional starvation of Indigenous communities, resulting in the deaths of more than 10,000 people between 1800-55. Macdonald had close ties to the Maafa, commonly referred to as the slave trade, in the Americas and was a vocal supporter of the pro-slavery Confederacy during the American Civil War.
The statue of King Edward VII was a colonial monument originally installed in a public square in Delhi, India. Removed by the Indian people after Independence, it was brought to Canada by a private interest, and was installed, even against the wishes of the then City Council, in one of Toronto's most well-loved public spaces.
Artistic interventions on monuments have a long and well established history. Monuments are not symbols of history but rather, symbols of intentional emphasis. Artistic responses to the existence of these monuments is both protected political speech and a recognized artistic practice.
We affirm our position that these monuments honour legacies of racial violence, segregation and genocide, and that their presence in public space emphasizes that the lives and histories of Black and Indigenous people are not valued in spaces that we all share. These monuments are physical embodiments of state-sanctioned systems of oppression and contribute to the ongoing endangerment, imprisonment and murder of Black and Indigenous people.
These monuments must be removed. We affirm that the action by Black Lives Matter Toronto and their allies on Saturday was an artistic intervention to bring attention to and disrupt these narratives of white supremacy. There is no place for these monuments in our society and criminalizing those that attend protests calling for their removal and the defunding of police reinforces the deep rooted anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism in the Toronto Police force.
Together with BLMTO we demand:
- a removal of these monuments
- an end to criminalizing of peaceful protest and an end to the continued surveillance of BLMTO
- all charges be dropped against those detained in connection with the intervention: Jenna Reid, Danielle Smith and Daniel Gooch
- an immediate reduction of the existing $1.1 billion Toronto police budget by a minimum of 50% (as opposed to the 10% cut proposed by Toronto city councillors)
- The establishment of Black and Indigenous-led, Mad- and disability-informed mental health crisis support and response teams
Black Lives Matter Toronto are people, mostly young people, who choose to engage because they believe in the values of decency, democracy and justice. We demand leadership in a critical moment that is evolving into a social justice movement -- one that is truly reflective of communities of care, and that is grounded in integrity, love, compassion and true equality, for all.
To add your name as a signatory to this letter please email artistsXforXblackXlives@gmail.com.
To see full list of signatories click here.
(July 23, 2020)
30 Years of the São Paulo Forum
Message of Greetings of CPC(M-L)
The São Paulo Forum was founded in July 1990 when revolutionary and progressive parties from Latin America and the Caribbean came together in Brazil to discuss the new international scenario after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the consequences of the neo-liberal policies that a majority of the region's governments had been pushed to adopt. Fidel Castro and former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva played a decisive role in its development.
On this occasion, TML Weekly is posting the message of greetings sent to the Secretariat of the São Paolo Forum by National Leader Anna di Carlo and Secretary of the Department of International Affairs of the Central Committee Claude Brunelle, as well as the speech delivered by Miguel Díaz-Canel, President of the Republic of Cuba, on July 28 at the virtual Meeting of Leaders in celebration of the 30th anniversary of the founding of the São Paulo Forum.
Message of Greetings of CPC(M-L)
The Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) sends revolutionary greetings and congratulations to the São Paulo Forum on the occasion of its 30th anniversary.
Today, more than ever, the struggle of our peoples for sovereignty, well-being and peace requires the development of a strong anti-imperialist movement, in which all peoples, based on unity in action, develop an all-sided struggle against the common enemy represented by U.S. imperialism and its national and international allies.
Thirty years ago,
thanks to the vision of Comandante Fidel and the
initiative of
President Lula, it was possible to break with the
imperialist assertion
that the end of history had been reached with the
fall of the USSR and
the socialist bloc in Eastern Europe. From this
unwavering statement
that there are alternatives for the creation of a
better world, a
formidable energy arose from all the
revolutionary, progressive and
democratic forces in Our America to make the
aspirations of the peoples
to exercise their sovereignty, raise their
well-being and to realize
peace, prevail.
The arrival of progressive governments with pro-social policies, the creation of important institutions such as UNASUR, CELAC and ALBA among others, all aimed at achieving regional integration, maintaining the sovereignty of each people, marked in a concrete way the will to establish Latin America and the Caribbean as a zone of peace, free from foreign interference.
We have also seen how during these 30 years, the empire and its allies never abandoned their claims to dominate the peoples of Our America and control their human and natural resources for their own benefits. They never accepted that the will of the people to decide their future for themselves and to live in peace existed. Thus they never went on the defensive, only changed their strategy and developed new methods such as constitutional coups and the judicialization of politics to remove progressive leaders from executive power, while not giving up the old methods either, such as funding treacherous internal reactionary forces to provoke chaos, violence and assassinations to justify armed intervention, espionage and interference by the OAS where they count on their lackeys like Canada to attack the credibility of progressive governments and the democratic right of people to freely choose their governments and the policies to direct the development of their future.
During these 30 years of intense struggle, the São Paulo Forum has been a centre of debate to develop plans and actions to continue advancing on the path of peace, integration and well-being of the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean. It is to the honour of the Executive Secretariat of the São Paulo Forum to have constantly maintained that the Forum is a place of exchange of organized progressive forces, where the concrete problems we face can be examined in the light of the experiences and needs of the present moment.
Thirty years ago, our Party was present at the first meetings, and throughout these 30 years we have always participated in unity with the peoples of Our America, from Canada, in contributing to the advancement of the great objectives of peace and the sovereignty of the peoples, so that Canada will no longer serve as a base for U.S. aggression against other nations and peoples. We were present 30 years ago, and we are present today, to continue the struggle for unity in action of all the peoples of Our America in the anti-imperialist struggle for sovereignty, peace and the well-being of all.
Revolutionary greetings,
Anna Di Carlo
National Leader
Claude Brunelle
Secretary of International Relations
Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist)
Anti-Imperialist Unity Is the
Tactic and Strategy of Victory
Speech delivered at the virtual Meeting of Leaders in celebration of the 30th anniversary of the founding of the São Paulo Forum on July 28. Also participating in the meeting were President Nicolás Maduro of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, President Daniel Ortega and Vice-President Rosario Murillo of Nicaragua and Monica Valente, Executive Secretary of the São Paulo Forum as moderator.
Dear Nicolas, Daniel, Rosario and Monica,
Brothers and sisters of the political forces following this videoconference with interest:
I am accompanied by compañero José Ramón Machado Ventura, second secretary of our Party Central Committee, and compañero Bruno Rodríguez, Foreign Minister of the Republic of Cuba and member of our Political Bureau.
Thank you, Daniel, for your words; thank you, Maduro, for your words, for the book and the beautiful video about Chávez.
Thirty years ago, doomsayers of despair, enthusiasts of the market, advocates of a single thought, would have the world believe that history had ended.
And here we are, the intransigent defenders of hope and another possible world, celebrating 30 years of an embrace that is now history.
Today we celebrate the 30th anniversary of the São Paulo Forum, an idea born from the political genius of Fidel and an exceptional protagonist of this unifying accomplishment: Brother Lula, former President and leader of the Brazilian and Latin American left.
Fidel Castro Ruz and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
When the Soviet Union and the socialist camp in Eastern Europe collapsed and their gravediggers set out to bury the emancipatory ideas of the left on this side of the world, the creation of the São Paulo Forum provided a sharp shove to a ship that seemed to be drifting.
The revolutionary, progressive and democratic political forces of Latin America and the Caribbean converged in this organization of legitimate consensus to construct unity of the left for the emancipation and integration of our peoples, challenging the Monroe Doctrine and its allies on the continent.
The march of history could not be stopped. Socialist ideals have reared their heads in the empire's backyard with their own personality and strength, and today it is only right to recognize compañero Lula and the leaders of Brazil's Workers' Party for their performance leading the Executive Secretariat of the São Paulo Forum.
This celebration also allows us to thank the São Paulo Forum for their unwavering support to the Cuban people and especially the solidarity campaign, undertaken this year, calling for an end to the blockade against Cuba.
This virtual meeting is taking place on the 66th birthday of a dear friend of Cuba, who Fidel described as the best friend of Cuba and of all peoples who struggle, Comandante Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías, who at the São Paulo Forum in 2012 invited us to lay "the cornerstone of South American, Latin American, Caribbean and world liberation, without fear."
The invincible example of Chávez now summons us to continue the struggle, with firmness and optimism, convinced that there are no obstacles, however difficult they may seem, that our peoples, united, cannot overcome, as Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba demonstrate today.
"Doctors, not bombs," Fidel said one day, responding to the ridiculous imperial pretension of subjugating peoples with wars and threats of intervention against 60 or more "dark corners of the world."
And today we are witnessing the confirmation of his words, amidst the most complex human drama on the planet in real time.
Not even the most powerful and sophisticated weapons have been able to stop the new coronavirus pandemic. On the contrary, now the true, anti-human essence of capital has become more visible and more terrifying, with its insistence on the market and its uncontrolled rise under ruthless neo-liberal policies: governments that are helplessly witnessing the collapse of their health systems, unable to save millions of lives, even those that were thought to be out of danger in the chaotic, brutal northern empire that despises us.
The region of the Americas is today sadly the epicenter of the pandemic. The neo-liberal policies of many governments, bent on placing the market above human lives, make it impossible to predict the moment when a definitive control of the disease will be possible. The spread of the virus is a fact, if we consider that the first million cases were confirmed over 96 days, but the latest million were counted within only 16. Neo-liberal paradigms have fallen into absolute disrepute. Whether their credulous followers like it or not, the history of their economic experiment is about to end, or human existence will be further compromised.
Despite the indisputable emergency the pandemic has created for everyone, the United States government has not desisted in its hegemonic plans for the region, reactivating the Monroe Doctrine and McCarthyism, escalating interference, threatening the use of force, and promoting a policy of legal attacks on leftist and progressive leaders and organizations.
While thousands die every day within the empire's territory, the current tenant of the White House maintains continuous pressure on governments that are not to their liking, while receiving support from regional lackeys who operate in their interests.
Of particular concern, within this deplorable scenario, are imperialism's interventionist actions in violation of international law against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, which we condemn and reject with the same vehemence with which we reaffirm our solidarity with legitimate President brother Nicolás Maduro Moros and the civic-military union that sustains the country's sovereignty.
We also reiterate our solidarity with the Sandinista government and people, led by Comandante Daniel Ortega, and reject unilateral coercive measures that threaten the peace, well-being, justice and development of the Nicaraguan people.
We reaffirm, once again, our strict adherence to the Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace, signed by the Latin American and Caribbean heads of state and government in January of 2014, in Havana, and confirm our unwavering commitment to the eradication of colonialism until the debt to the peoples still living under colonial status is settled.
Dear brothers and sisters:
I speak on behalf of a sovereign, revolutionary and solidary Cuba, which will never allow itself to be subjugated, either by seduction or by force: the homeland of Martí, Fidel and Raúl.
I am speaking on behalf of a heroic and noble people who for 60 years have resisted the most cruel and genocidal of blockades, an economic, commercial and financial siege by the world's greatest power, intensified as we battle the pandemic, with relentless, perverse persecution, insisting on a plan to force us to surrender with hunger and hardship.
Under the leadership of the Party, the government of our small, blockaded nation, along with political, mass and social organizations and our people, has controlled and is defeating COVID-19, without over-confidence.
This victory, which includes our commitment to make it sustainable over time, is the fruit of the will of a socialist state that places human beings at the centre of our policies, with a free, universal health care system and the coordinated and dedicated intelligence of professionals and workers in the arenas of health, science, biotechnology and pharmaceuticals.
After more than four months actively confronting the pandemic, Cuba regrets the loss of 87 lives, but we are consoled and encouraged by the fact that not a single child, no pregnant woman, doctor or health worker has died.
Unquestionable successes were achieved thanks to the coordinated action of our public health system and the country's network of scientific institutions, incorporating the accumulated experience of 60 years of revolutionary science and medicine in measures adopted by the government.
For the post-COVID-19 stage, a strategy was approved that should allow us to return gradually, step by step, in a differentiated fashion, to a new normality in our productive and social activities.
The Party Political Bureau, in a meeting led by its first secretary, Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, approved an economic strategy to address the negative effects of the pandemic, recover and reach adequate levels of development and well-being for our entire people, without leaving any citizen abandoned to fate.
As I expressed recently, those results seem to have made our adversaries very uncomfortable. The aggressiveness of the United States government against the island is growing, as are its plans for political and ideological subversion with actions meant to discredit Cuban leaders and the work of our government, along with constant attempts to provoke a social explosion and opposition within our institutions.
We are facing very well designed and heavily financed plans to act with unprecedented ferocity and impunity on multiple platforms within the complex contemporary media scene. We are not surprised. The strategies of manipulation, distortion of reality and deceit that are used daily to confuse and demobilize social movements and the peoples of our region are no different.
But we are a people raised by Fidel, who eliminated the word surrender from our political dictionary, very early on.
We know and face the openly aggressive enemy, without losing focus on our political and social priorities, without moving even one millimeter away from the vocation of solidarity, cultivated by Fidel and the Revolution, with the help of other sister peoples who, as Che said, clamor for the concurrence of our modest efforts.
A total of 45 Henry Reeve brigades specialized in disasters and major epidemics are now working in 38 countries and territories, with 3,772 members -- including 2,399 women -- who have assisted more than 250,000 COVID-19 patients and saved more than 8,000 lives. In addition, 28,000 health collaborators in 58 countries have joined national and local efforts to combat the disease, caring for more than 83,268 COVID-19 patients and saving 13,636 lives, to date.
The altruism of our health professionals irritates the empire which, instead of attending to the serious situation of its own infected citizens, has unleashed a campaign to discredit Cuban medical collaboration.
This useless war will not destroy or bury in oblivion the human work to protect life carried out by our professionals, earning the admiration, recognition and gratitude of millions around the world, which has led to a movement across the planet advocating the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the Henry Reeve contingent.
Worthy of note, in this battle, is the fraternal collaboration of the Bolivarian Revolution of Venezuela, the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua and the Cuban Revolution, three revolutions with governments fully dedicated to saving lives and providing well-being to their respective peoples; three revolutions that, facing the brutal onslaught of the empire and its allies in the neo-liberal right on the continent, have, with integration and firmness, defended themselves and preserved, under very difficult conditions, the independence, sovereignty and dignity of the homeland of Bolivar and Chávez, of Sandino and Carlos Fonseca, of Martí and Fidel.
This experience confirms that only cooperation and international solidarity will save humanity from this crisis, unprecedented in world history.
The preamble of the "Consensus of Our America," a document that emerged from the São Paulo Forum's experience in struggle, is dedicated to the leader of the Cuban Revolution and states: "Among the innumerable examples Fidel bequeathed to Latin America and the Caribbean revolutionaries, two stand out as decisive in the struggles of our peoples, our parties and movements. These are unity and consistent internationalism."
Faithful to his legacy, and given the challenging reality that we are facing, the Cuban people continue the construction of a prosperous and sustainable socialism, with the premise of what Army General Raúl Castro Ruz has stated: "Fidel's enduring teaching is that it is possible, that human beings are capable of overcoming the most difficult conditions, if they do not lose their will to triumph, correctly evaluate every situation, and do not renounce their just, noble principles."
Dear brothers and sisters:
Cuba will continue on the independent and sovereign path, with the people leading the way. There will be no pandemic, no blockade, no imperial pressure that will change our course.
To political forces in the São Paulo Forum, we call on you to mobilize in unity to face the new challenges, along with social and popular movements and intellectuals of the left.
The true, definitive independence of Our America depends on the character, strength and correctness for our current struggles.
We will continue, alongside the São Paulo Forum, to contribute to the unity and integration of Latin America and the Caribbean.
History is made by the people, even if it is written by others. No empire can decree the end of history as long as there are chains to be broken, walls to be demolished, exclusions and abuses to be fought.
For the life and independence of our peoples; for the legacy of our founders, who taught us that even in the most difficult conditions it was always possible, it is always possible and will always be possible; for the new generations giving continuity to the struggle, as Maduro explained; for anti-imperialist unity that is the tactic and strategy of victory: We will struggle, we will live and triumph!
(Granma, July 30, 2020)
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Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca