Resolution of the International Anti-Fascist Forum, May 8, 2021, Donetsk:

In February 2014, a coup d’état took place in Ukraine. Nationalist forces came to power, for whom fascism became their state ideology.

The residents of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions of Ukraine did not recognize the new government and its ideology.

On April 7, 2014, a congress of representatives of territorial communities, political parties and public organizations of the Donetsk region proclaimed the Act on the establishment of the Donetsk People’s Republic and adopted the Declaration of Sovereignty.

On April 14, 2014, the illegitimate Kiev regime launched a full-scale war against the people of Donbass, who had chosen the path of self-determination. The war led to thousands of civilian casualties in the region and large-scale destruction of production facilities and infrastructure.

The people’s republics of Donbass have been living in incessant hostilities for seven years already. Systematic violations of the truce by the Ukrainian side indicate that Kiev and the Western imperialists behind it are not interested in a peaceful resolution of the conflict.

With the aggravation of the general crisis of capitalism in the world, the bourgeoisie applies the most stringent measures in the struggle against the working people, up to and including the use of fascist methods. Denying the masses even the minimum legal guarantees of protest against capitalist exploitation, the workers’ right to fight for their economic and political interests, the bourgeoisie proceeds to openly suppress the protest movement by armed force.

It is necessary to resist all attempts to rehabilitate fascism, it is also necessary to prevent its political and ideological revenge in the modern world!

Only together will we, the working people of the whole world, be able to counter the fascist threat.

The participants in the Anti-Fascist Forum call upon the workers of all countries:

— to strengthen international solidarity in the fight against all forms of fascism;

— for all progressive forces of the world to cooperate in support of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics;

— for the recognition of the will of the people of Donbass to create peaceable People’s Republics;

— for the creation of an international tribunal to bring to justice the military and political criminals of Ukraine.

We, the participants in the Anti-Fascist Forum, demand:

— from the Ukrainian authorities – to stop the war in Donbass, to begin negotiations with the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics on the establishment of peaceful relations;

—  from the European Union and the United States – to stop funding the military spending of the Ukrainian government and supplying arms to it;

—  from the governments and parliaments of all states – to recognize the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics as sovereign states, being guided by the UN Charter, the basic principles of international law, the peoples’ right to self-determination, respecting the will of the people of Donbass confirmed in a national referendum; to establish a peaceful, friendly and mutually beneficial relationship with them.

No to the war in Donbass!

Yes to the self-determination of the DPR and the LPR!

Long live international anti-fascist solidarity!

Signatures of the participants in the action:

1. Communist Party of the Donetsk People’s Republic
2. German Communist Party (DKP)
3. New Communist Party of Britain
4. Socialist Workers’ Party of Croatia
5. Communists of Serbia Party
6. Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain
7. Communist Party of Venezuela
8. Communist Party of the Philippines
9. Socialist Unity Party (U.S.)
10. Socialist Popular Front (Lithuania)
11. Communist Party of Mexico (Marxist-Leninist)
12. Interbrigade of the Moscow City Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation
13. French Communist Party (Riez City Committee of PCF, Venice City Committee of PCF, Pas-de-Calais Regional Committee of PCF)
14. Anti-Imperialist Front (international organization)
15. Save Donbass anti-fascist organization (Greece)
16. Donbass Association (Sweden)
17. Anti-Nazi Donbass Committee (Rome, Italy)
18. Antifascist Ukraine Committee (Bologna, Italy)
19. Coordination Center for Anti-Fascist Ukraine (Naples, Italy)
20. No Pasarán anti-fascist organization (Hamburg, Germany)
21. Young Socialists of Croatia
22. Democratic Youth Federation of India (Tamil Nadu State)
23. Lenin Communist Youth Union of the Russian Federation (Penza Region)
24. Okay Deprem, Labor Party (Turkey)
25. Gheorgita Zbeganu, Romanian Socialist Party
26. Vladimir Bessonov, deputy of Communist Party faction in State Duma VI convocation (Russian Federation)

Presentation at the online International Anti-Fascist Forum hosted by the Communist Party of the Donetsk People’s Republic on May 8, 2021. The annual event included participants from the Donetsk People’s Republic, Russia, Belarus, Lithuania, Italy, Spain, Croatia, Serbia, the Philippines, Britain and the U.S.

Comrades, it’s an honor to be with you this weekend, when workers around the world celebrate the Soviet Union’s great victory over fascism in 1945.

I want to speak about the information war surrounding Donbass. In all the Western countries, especially in the United States, there is a nearly complete blockade of truthful information about the war in Donbass. 

Most of the time, the capitalist media ignore Donbass completely. When they do talk about it — as they have recently — they turn the situation completely upside down. The aggressors, Ukraine and the United States, are portrayed as innocent victims. The targeted countries, the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics and Russia, are portrayed as the aggressors. 

We have had a clear demonstration of how it works this week. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Kiev May 6 and laid flowers at a memorial to Ukrainian troops who, he falsely claimed, were killed fighting Russia to defend Ukrainian democracy. 

Blinken and the media made no mention that just a week before, neo-Nazis marched openly in the streets of Kiev to honor the World War II SS Galicia Division, or that those same groups are armed by NATO countries to commit war crimes daily against civilians in Donbass. 

Nor did Blinken mention the 7th anniversary of the slaughter of more than 40 anti-fascists in Odessa, which has gone unpunished, or how the Western powers dismissed the testimony of Odessa survivors at a special U.N. hearing May 5.

The U.S. ruling class has worked methodically for the last three decades to encircle and eventually dismember Russia through the expansion of NATO. This plan has continued under both Democratic and Republican regimes in Washington, though each has its own approach. 

Donald Trump used a carrot-and-stick method. He legalized direct sales of offensive weapons to Ukraine and ended U.S. participation in nuclear arms agreements with Russia, while also trying to coax Moscow away from its alliances with Iran, Syria and Venezuela. His approach failed to achieve the desired results, and Joe Biden has returned to the hardline militarist policy of his predecessors.

As the global capitalist crisis deepens, the U.S. becomes ever more prone to lash out. The more sober Ukrainian generals and politicians might realize they cannot win a war. But they are not the ones who will ultimately decide. They are merely tools. Washington will not hesitate to sacrifice the lives of Ukrainian troops or people in Donbass to advance its interests.

As anti-imperialists, anti-fascists and revolutionary opponents of war, we have to have a long-term vision, just as our enemies do. That means solidarity with the people of Donbass has to be built into all of our work among the people in our countries, as we work toward our ultimate goal of socialist revolution to overthrow imperialism.

On April 10 in New York, we organized a protest after the Ukrainian drone killing of 5-year-old Vladik Shikhov in Donetsk. It was a small gathering. But it caught the imagination of groups in many countries. The following weekend, protests were held in several European cities, and a statement we initiated was signed and translated by groups in many countries. This shows the possibility for joint work across borders to expand our reach and influence. 

The increased media attention to the situation in Donbass, although mostly negative, also provides us with new opportunities to present an alternative message. Last weekend we held a memorial for the victims of Odessa. New people joined us, and we had good conversations with several people who had questions about the situation in Ukraine, Russia and Donbass. 

There is little consciousness about the struggle in Donbass, and many misconceptions about it, among leftists in the U.S. and other Western countries. One idea we are considering to address this problem is to hold educational events that bring together different solidarity movements that aren’t well known. We could begin by sharing information and building solidarity among these movements. If those of us who champion the struggle in Donbass, Haiti and Korea, for example, can build solidarity and joint work, then perhaps we can all expand the scope of our outreach. 

I know that everyone who is participating today feels the Donbass struggle deeply in their bones. We have kept the anti-fascist banner flying through difficult times, often in isolation, inspired by the resistance of the people in Donetsk and Lugansk. Now let’s look toward building outward, toward new alliances at home and abroad, to strengthen our solidarity with the people of Donbass and the workers of the world.

We thank the Communist Party of the Donetsk People’s Republic for hosting this event, and its publication, Vperyod (Forward), for providing honest information about the situation in Donbass that we can share with workers here.

May 7 — For the past 10 days, the people of Colombia have flooded the streets of their cities, towns and villages to demand that their most basic needs be met amidst the pandemic and a deep capitalist economic crisis. 

And in response, the oligarchs who rule this Latin American country of 50 million have responded to their demands with brutal violence — including a bloody massacre of protesters by police in the city of Cali on May 3 that left over 20 people dead. 

As of May 6, government forces had killed 37 protesters in all and committed 1,708 acts of police brutality, according to human-rights organization Plataforma Grita.

At the forefront of the violence is the U.S.-funded and trained Mobile Anti-Disturbance Squadron (ESMAD), founded in 1999 at the direction of U.S. President Bill Clinton, to repress movements for social justice in Colombia. ESMAD works hand-in-hand with the Colombian Army, which has been deployed to occupy Cali and other cities.

But far from crushing the protests, the bloody reprisals have unleashed a popular uprising that stretches from the poorest neighborhoods and university campuses of Bogotá to the most isolated rural villages in the mountains, from the Afro-Colombian communities on the Caribbean coast to Indigenous homelands in the jungles, and everywhere in between.

The protests began April 28 in opposition to a plan of President Ivan Duque’s government to privatize the healthcare system and “reform” Colombia’s tax system to benefit the rich and big corporations. The protests forced Duque to withdraw his tax plan, at least for now.

After the Cali massacre, the Central Union of Workers (CUT), Colombia’s biggest trade union federation, joined in a series of national strikes during the first week of May.

But underlying the immediate demands of workers and communities reeling from the lack of government support during the pandemic crisis are decades of Draconian rule, directed from the true seat of power in Washington, D.C. Subservience to Washington made the whole country prey to the whims of foreign capitalists and big landowners, their death squads, and politicians reliant on narco-trafficking money for their positions.

For decades, Colombia’s rulers and their U.S. masters have done all they can to divide the people — especially fomenting divisions between city and country. They encouraged city-dwellers, especially among the middle classes and students, to identify with U.S. imperialism and to disdain the peasants, Afro-Colombian and Indigenous communities. 

They falsely branded revolutionary guerrilla movements based in rural areas, like the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People’s Army (FARC-EP) and the National Liberation Army (ELN), as “narco-terrorists” — while themselves profiting handsomely from the drug trade.

Today the phony walls erected between working people of city and country are rapidly collapsing.

Colombia and the U.S. military

Israel is sometimes described as a big U.S. military base because of the role it plays as a loyal proxy for U.S. domination of the West Asian/North African region. Colombia plays a similar role in Latin America.

How much does U.S. imperialism rely on its domination of Colombia? A few examples tell the tale. 

Since 2000, when Washington enacted “Plan Colombia,” supposedly to fight the drug trade but in reality to crush the growing revolutionary guerrilla insurgencies, the U.S. has pumped nearly $11.6 billion into Colombia to build up its repressive forces. 

Today that money is on display for the world to see as Colombian police and troops use advanced weaponry to shoot out the eyes of protesters and straif poor neighborhoods from helicopter gunships.

Did you know that Colombia is a member of NATO — the “North” Atlantic military alliance dominated by the U.S.? It is the only Latin American member — the better to serve as a base of U.S. power in a part of the world Wall Street considers its “backyard.” 

The Pentagon is deeply embedded in directing Colombia’s military. Along with “radar bases” staffed by Pentagon troops and a 2009 agreement allowing U.S. soldiers to be stationed on seven Colombian military bases, last May “the U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) announced the deployment of the U.S. Security Force Assistance Brigade (SFAB) to Colombia to advise and train Colombian units in anti-narcotic missions. Colombians have spoken out against the security agreement, and the U.S. role in the country’s militarized drug policy,” NACLA reported.

“As a human rights defender and as a defender of the environment, the arrival of gringo troops to Colombia isn’t only a violation of our sovereignty, our constitution, and our nation’s laws,” said Isabel Zuleta, leader of the organization Rios Vivos, who lives near one of the areas where U.S. troops may be deployed. “It doesn’t take into account the whole history of armed conflict and socio-political violence that we’ve lived through.”

This latest growth of U.S. military presence comes years after the 2016 Havana peace agreement signed between the Colombian government and the FARC guerrillas, which was supposed to bring an end to the decades-long civil war and allow left and progressive forces to peacefully join the political system.

Instead, while the guerrillas followed the agreement and laid down their weapons, the Duque government reneged on its obligations and continued to terrorize people’s movements. Nearly 300 former guerrillas and 1,000 activists, community leaders and trade unionists have been killed since the peace accords were signed. 

Target: Venezuela

So why the new Pentagon build-up? 

For years, Colombia has been used to attack its neighbor, Bolivarian Venezuela. When the Trump regime tried to stage a coup in Venezuela in early 2019, under the guise of bringing “humanitarian aid” across the border, it used Colombia as a staging ground. It failed.

Since then, Duque — first at Trump’s direction, now at Biden’s — has continued to threaten direct military intervention against Venezuela. 

This year, tensions have escalated again, as Colombian mercenaries have engaged in a series of attacks on civilians and soldiers along Venezuela’s northwestern border in Apure state. Most recently, on April 28, 12 Venezuelan soldiers were killed in an ambush. Once again U.S. officials and media have falsely claimed that “leftist guerrillas” are responsible.

It’s clear that the iron grip of U.S. imperialism and Colombia’s treacherous oligarchy has brought nothing but pain and misery to the people, while threatening the peace and stability of the entire region. The current uprising is the cry of a people determined to end decades of suffering and demand a new Colombia based on social justice and peaceful relations with its neighbors.

Victory to the Colombian people! Down with Duque! U.S. out now!

On April 28 there was a national strike and march in rejection of President Iván Duque’s tax reform and a health reform bill that seeks to deepen the failed model of privatization established in the health system.

The tax reform would impose a 19 percent VAT on eggs, meat, fish, coffee and salt, and proposes to tax salaries over 2.4 million pesos per month and pensions over 7 million pesos, to freeze for five years the salaries of public employees and even a scandalous tax on burials. The protesters had to overcome two factors. First, the third peak of the pandemic. The Ministry of Health reported that day an accumulated death toll of 72,725, one of the highest in the world per million inhabitants, higher than that of India and the United States.

A second factor was the judicial prohibition of the protest, which was not heeded by either the organizers or the local authorities. Despite being rejected by the government and the mainstream media, the marches were massive taking place in at least 600 of the country’s 1,100 municipalities.

In a previous survey, 73 percent of the population expressed their support for the strike and 35 percent said they would be willing to take that position to the streets. Seven million people took part in the strike and marches, with mobilization in Bogotá, Medellín, Cali, Barranquilla, Bucaramanga, Manizales and Pereira standing out. Clashes with riot police were severe in Cali and Bogotá. Mirar al Sur reported that there were eight deaths due to police repression.

The crisis in Colombia is very deep, has been going on for a long time, but has deepened with the pandemic. Income poverty increased 6.8 percent and reached 42.5 percent, which means that 21.2 million Colombians cannot meet their basic needs. Extreme poverty now impacts 7.4 million people. To make matters worse, the government is trying to take the country back to war and more and more people are opposing it. The assassinations of social activists and former FARC combatants who have joined the peace process continue unabated.

Source: La Jornada, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English

Several activists gathered in New York’s Union Square this May 2 to pay tribute to more than 40 anti-fascists killed in the multinational port city of Odessa, Ukraine, seven years earlier. The event was called by Solidarity with Novorossiya and Antifascists in Ukraine.

The Odessa massacre of May 2, 2014, was carried out by neo-Nazis and far-right nationalist groups that played a key part in the U.S.-backed coup in Kiev earlier that year. The new heads of Ukraine — pro-Western oligarchs and politicians, and their backers in Washington — were frightened by the powerful anti-fascist resistance that had emerged in Odessa and other cities of eastern Ukraine.

So on May 2 ultra-right goons were bussed into Odessa from western Ukraine. Progressive protesters were attacked and driven from their encampment on Kulikovo Field into the nearby House of Trade Unions. The fascist mob set the building on fire, then shot, bludgeoned and beat to death people trying to escape the blaze.

Although these acts were caught on numerous videos and photographs, and many of the killers have been identified, none have been prosecuted or punished. Many survivors, however, were jailed or driven out of Ukraine under threat of arrest or death.

The role of the U.S. government in the illegal 2014 coup, the right-wing terror that swept Ukraine, and the subsequent war against the Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, is little known in the U.S. Those who gathered in New York to mark the anniversary distributed leaflets and held conversations with passersby to share this important information.

They held signs demanding, “Stop the cover-up,” “No U.S.-Ukraine war on Donbass and Russia,” and “U.S. out of Ukraine.” A small memorial was erected with the names of the murdered activists from Odessa and photos of some of the young people who died. The youngest, Vadim Papura, was just 17.

In Richmond, Va., some 20 people gathered outside the Federal Building to honor the martyrs of Odessa and oppose the U.S.-sponsored war in Donbass, at the call of the Odessa Solidarity Campaign. The New York and Richmond events were among at least 20 held that day in cities across the former Soviet Union, Europe and North America as part of an international day of solidarity.

Following is the statement distributed at the New York event:

Martin Luther King said in 1967: “The bombs in Vietnam explode at home: they destroy the hopes and possibilities for a decent America.” His words are still true today.

To expand its military and economic power, the U.S. government supported a violent coup in Ukraine in 2014. Racist neo-Nazi groups led this coup. It was a lot like the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by white supremacist supporters of Donald Trump.

Ukraine began a war against the residents of the Donbass region which has killed 14,000 people in seven years. Armed neo-Nazi battalions are involved. Fascists invaded the Ukrainian city of Odessa and massacred over 40 anti-fascists and trade unionists on May 2, 2014.

Violent white supremacists here in the U.S. have received training from Ukrainian neo-Nazi groups. That includes fascists who participated in the 2017 Charlottesville KKK riot where anti-racist Heather Heyer was killed.

Democratic and Republican leaders of Congress supported the coup in Ukraine. Joe Biden was Washington’s point person on Ukraine as vice president. Trump began direct arms sales to the Ukrainian fascists. Today Biden continues U.S. military, economic and political support. Why? U.S. support for Ukraine’s attacks on civilians in Donbass threatens to ignite a war with Russia.

More U.S. wars are not in the interests of poor and working people here. Not only are billions of dollars wasted that could be used to house the homeless, provide free quality healthcare, safe jobs and schools for all. The growing military budget fuels militarization of the police. War propaganda encourages police brutality and violent racist attacks.

Young people and elders are the first victims of U.S. wars both at home and abroad. The U.S. war on children must end!

For Ashish Yechury (1986-2021), journalist.

It is difficult to overstate the grip of COVID-19 on India. WhatsApp bristles with messages about this or that friend and family member with the virus, while there are angry posts about how the central government has utterly failed its citizenry. This hospital is running out of beds and that hospital has no more oxygen, while there is evasion from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Cabinet.

Thirteen months after the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that the world was in the midst of a pandemic, the Indian government looks into the headlights like a transfixed animal, unable to move. While other countries are well advanced on their vaccination programs, the Indian government sits back and watches a second wave or a third wave land heavily on the Indian people.

On April 21, 2021, the country registered 315,000 cases in a 24-hour period. This is an extraordinarily high number. Bear in mind that in China, where the virus was first detected in late 2019, the total number of detected cases stands at less than 100,000. This spike has raised eyebrows: is this a new variant, or is this a result of failure to manage social interactions (including the 3 million pilgrims who gathered at this year’s Kumbh Mela) and to vaccinate enough people.

At the core is the total failure of the Indian government, led by PM Modi, to take this pandemic seriously.

Disregard

A glance around the world shows those governments that disregarded the WHO warnings suffered the worst ravages of COVID-19. From January 2020, the WHO had asked governments to insist on basic hygiene rules—washing hands, physical distance, mask wearing—and then later had suggested testing for COVID-19, contact tracing and social isolation. The first set of recommendations do not require immense resources. Vietnam’s government, for instance, took those recommendations very seriously and slowed the spread of the disease immediately.

India’s government moved slowly despite evidence of the dangerousness of the disease. By March 10, 2020, before the WHO declared a pandemic, the Indian government reported about 50 COVID-19 cases in India, with infections doubled in 14 days. The first major act from India’s prime minister was a 14-hour Janata Curfew, which was dramatic but not in line with the WHO recommendations. This ruthless lockdown, with four hours’ notice, sent hundreds of thousands of workers on the road to their homes, penniless, some dying by the wayside, many carrying the virus to their towns and villages. Prime Minister Modi executed this lockdown without checking with his own departments, whose advice might have warned him against such a precipitous and unnecessary act.

Prime Minister Modi took the entire pandemic lightly. He urged people to light candles and bang pots, to make noise to scare away the virus. The lockdown kept being extended, but there was nothing systematic, no national policy that one can find anywhere on the government’s websites. In May and June of 2020, the lockdown kept getting extended, although this was meaningless to the millions of working-class Indians who had to go to work to survive on their daily wages. A year into the pandemic, there are now 16 million people in India with detected infections, with 185,000 people confirmed dead from the pandemic. One has to write words like “detected” and “confirmed” because mortality data from India during this pandemic has been totally unreliable.

Consequences of privatization

The consequences of turning over health care to the private sector and underfunding public health have been diabolical. For years now, advocates of public health care, such as the Jan Swasthya Abhiyan, have called for more government spending on public health and less reliance upon profit-driven health care. These calls fell on deaf ears.

India’s governments have spent very low amounts on health—3.5 percent of GDP in 2018, a figure that has remained the same for decades. India’s current health expenditure per capita, by purchasing power parity, was 275.13 in 2018, around the figures of Kiribati, Myanmar and Sierra Leone. This is a very low number for a country with the kind of industrial capacity and wealth of India.

In late 2020, the Indian government admitted that it has 0.8 medical doctors for every 1,000 Indians, and it has 1.7 nurses for every 1,000 Indians. No country of India’s size and wealth has such a low medical staff. It gets worse. India has only 5.3 beds for every 10,000 people, while China—for example—has 43.1 beds for the same number. India has only 2.3 critical care beds for 100,000 people (compared to 3.6 in China) and it has only 48,000 ventilators (China had 70,000 ventilators in Wuhan alone).

The weakness of medical infrastructure is wholly due to privatization, where private sector hospitals run their system on the principle of maximum capacity and have no ability to handle peak loads. The theory of optimization does not permit the system to tackle surges, since in normal times it would mean that the hospitals would have surplus capacity. No private sector is going to voluntarily develop any surplus beds or surplus ventilators. It is this that inevitably causes the crisis in a pandemic.

Low health spending means low expenditure on medical infrastructure and low wages for medical workers. This is a poor way to run a modern society.

Vaccines and oxygen

Shortages are a normal problem in any society. But the shortages of basic medical goods in India during the pandemic have been scandalous.

India has long been known as the “pharmacy of the world,” since India’s pharmaceutical industry sector has been skillful at reverse-engineering a range of generic drugs. It is the third-largest pharmaceutical industry manufacturer. India accounts for 60 percent of global vaccine production, including 90 percent of the WHO use of measles vaccine, and India has become the largest producer of pills for the U.S. market. But none of this helped during the crisis.

Vaccines for COVID-19 are not available for Indians at the pace necessary. Vaccinations for Indians will not be complete before November 2022. The government’s new policy will allow vaccine makers to hike up prices, but not produce fast enough to cover needs (India’s public sector vaccine factories are sitting idle). No large-scale rapid procurement is on the cards. Nor is there enough medical oxygen, and promises to build capacity have been unfulfilled by the ruling party. India’s government has been exporting oxygen, even when it became clear that domestic reserves were depleted (it has also exported precious Remdesivir injections).

On March 25, 2020, Modi said that he would win this Mahabharat—this epic battle—against COVID-19 in 18 days. Now, more than 56 weeks after that promise, India looks more like the blood-soaked fields of Kurukshetra, where thousands lay dead, with the war not even at halftime.

This article was produced by Globetrotter. Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter. He is the chief editor of LeftWord Books and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He is a senior non-resident fellow at Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China. He has written more than 20 books, including The Darker Nations and The Poorer Nations. His latest book is Washington Bullets, with an introduction by Evo Morales Ayma.

Forty-one years ago the people of Zimbabwe won independence on April 18, 1980. Thousands of Africans died for it. For decades Zimbabwe’s people fought for freedom.

As a young man, Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa was sentenced to death for being a freedom fighter. He was tortured and spent years in prison after being reprieved from the gallows. 

Great Zimbabwe is the country’s most famous monument. Tall stone walls protected the ancient city that was nearly three square miles in size.

Capitalist robber barons lusted after the country’s 150,000 square miles of fertile land and mineral wealth. The fantastically wealthy diamond and gold mine owner Cecil Rhodes invaded Zimbabwe with British mercenaries in the 1890s.

They used an early machine gun, named the Maxim gun after its U.S. inventor, to murder Africans. This didn’t stop people from fighting back during the first “Chimurenga” or freedom struggle.

One of the Chimurenga’s leaders, Chingaira, was shot by a firing squad on Sept. 4, 1896. Facing his executioners, he declared, “It is all very well to call me a rebel but the country belonged to me and my forefathers long before you came here.” 

The British called Zimbabwe “Southern Rhodesia” after moneybags Rhodes, while they called neighboring Zambia “Northern Rhodesia.” White settlers stole most of the land while Africans were forced by a “hut tax” and systematic violence to work for them.

This led to more than 15 years of a Chimurenga against the white settler regime of Ian Smith during the 1960s and 1970s. Guerrilla warfare was launched. Smith responded with wholesale terror that included using the biological weapon anthrax against liberation fighters.

Smith was propped up by support from Britain. Big Oil outfits BP and Shell supplied petroleum to the Smith regime in violation of U.N. sanctions. 

The U.S. allowed imports of chrome from occupied Zimbabwe, which also violated U.N. sanctions. None of this prevented the white settler regime from being forced to surrender to Zimbabwe’s people.

Celebration in Brooklyn, N.Y.

The December 12th Movement held a rally in the Bedford-Stuyvesant community of Brooklyn, N.Y., on April 18 to celebrate Zimbabwe’s independence. The revolutionary organization has always defended the African country. Its leaders supported Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle for decades.

One of the D12 leaders, Field Marshal Coltrane Chimurenga, who passed away in 2019, is buried in Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital. He was interred in the Harare Provincial Heroes’ Acre and given a 21-gun salute by the Zimbabwean military. 

Speaking in front of Sistas’ Place on Nostrand Avenue at Frederick Douglass Square, D12 Chairperson Viola Plummer talked about the liberation struggle in Zimbabwe.

She stressed the need for unity and praised two leaders of the Chimurenga: Robert Mugabe, leader of the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), and Joshua Nkomo, who led the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU).

These freedom fighters, both of whom have joined the ancestors, came together to form the Patriotic Front. Cuban leader Fidel Castro supported this effort and the military struggle. 

After achieving independence, ZANU and ZAPU merged their organizations to form ZANU-PF (Patriotic Front) in the late 1980s.

For big capitalists in the U.S. and Europe — who’ve enslaved and exploited Africans for over 500 years — Zimbabwe’s unforgivable sin was taking back the land. Starting in 2000, President Robert Mugabe led the restoration of the land to Africans that had been stolen by white farm owners and ranchers.

That’s what should have been done in the United States in 1865. The plantations should have been given to the Africans who worked on them — from “no see” in the morning to “no see” at night — and to Indigenous nations that the land was stolen from. 

Fighting COVID and sanctions

The U.S. government, which openly violated U.N. sanctions to help Ian Smith, has imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe for 20 years for liberating their land. According to a D12 leaflet, Zimbabwe lost $42 billion because of this cruel economic blockade. 

Importing medical supplies and agricultural implements has been hindered. The African Union’s 54 nations have demanded the lifting of sanctions. So has AU Chair and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, and the U.N. Secretary General.

Despite these sanctions, the country’s economy is expected to grow 7.4% in 2021. In his Independence Day speech, His Excellency President  Mnangagwa reported on the new roads, bridges, dams and electrical plants being built. The country’s “look East” policy has encouraged trade with the People’s Republic of China, Iran and the Russian Federation. 

Zimbabwe has the highest literacy rate in Africa. Before independence, there was only one high school for Africans. Now there are many and every province has a college.  

At the Brooklyn rally, Colette Pean, a D12 leader, explained how Zimbabwe was able to beat back the coronavirus pandemic. With ZANU-PF party members rooted in the countryside, as well as in the cities, the country was able to mobilize against the virus.

Zimbabwe shut down to stop the spread. As of April 17, the country of 14 million people had 37,980 cases of COVID-19 with 1,555 deaths.

In contrast, the nearly 13 million people in Pennsylvania have had over 1.1 million cases and suffered nearly 26,000 deaths.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa reported that Zimbabwe launched a national vaccination program to contain the virus. Vaccines have been obtained from China, the Russian Federation and India.

Despite the slander in the corporate media, Zimbabwe is moving forward. Forty-one is a prime number. Lift the sanctions on Zimbabwe!   

Protests were held in at least seven cities across Europe from April 16-20 against the escalation of Ukraine’s war crimes in the Donbass region and the danger of a U.S.-NATO war with the Russian Federation.  

The Anti-Imperialist Front (AIF), an alliance of revolutionary organizations including groups from Turkey, Europe and the former Soviet republics, called for an International Day of Solidarity with Donbass on April 17. Their call was joined by others, including the Red Square-Molotov Club and the Communist Party of the Donetsk People’s Republic.

AIF was inspired by the April 10 protest in New York, initiated by the U.S.-based Solidarity with Novorossiya & Antifascists in Ukraine, and the statement “No U.S.-Ukraine war on Donbass and Russia,” which has gathered numerous endorsements and been reprinted in several languages. 

Borotba, a Marxist organization banned by the U.S.-backed Ukrainian government and a member of the AIF, emphasized the importance of international solidarity with people in the independent Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. People there face an escalation of the 7-year-long war waged by Ukraine with U.S.-NATO support. 

On April 3, 5-year-old Vladik Shikhov was killed by a Ukrainian drone in the yard of his home in a Donetsk village. He is the youngest of several civilians killed and wounded since Ukraine’s military buildup began in January.

‘Peace to children of Donbass’

Actions kicked off April 16 in Košice, Slovakia. “Communists, anti-fascists and peace fighters held a protest on Main Street in Košice,” reported the organizers. “Residents … expressed their disagreement with war and anti-Russian propaganda in the main media of Slovakia and Europe.

“They expressed solidarity with the persecuted citizens of Ukraine, with wounded and killed citizens of Donbass, with all the people in eastern Ukraine who are victims of the current fascist regime.”

Signs and banners declared, “Stop the U.S. war in Donbass” and “We don’t need NATO bases in Slovakia.” A hand-drawn poster made by students at a local primary school said, “Peace to the children of Donbass.”

In Vienna, Austria, anti-fascists and left activists rallied at the Red Army Memorial on April 17 “For Peace in Ukraine.” “In addition to the red flags of anti-fascism, a poster with the national flowers of Ukraine with the inscription ‘Fascism — never again’ and several posters with slogans against war and fascism were displayed during the rally,” reported the AIF.

Speakers noted that the Western media ignores Ukraine and NATO military threats to the region, only accusing Russia for concentrating its armed forces within its own borders. 

“No one asks about the Ukrainian Army that attacks daily and just killed a 5-year-old boy and other civilians in violation of the Minsk ceasefire agreements,” explained one speaker. “And no one mentions that it was not Russia that moved all its warships to the U.S. borders, while U.S.-NATO troops continue their maneuvers in the Black Sea, which clearly increases tensions.”

Anti-Fascist Action and International League of Peoples Struggle (ILPS) joined AIF at the protest.

NATO bases out!

April 17 was the day of an important protest in Athens, Greece, against NATO military bases. A contingent organized by AIF-Greece carried a banner in the 500-strong march which declared “From Turkey to Greece, from Palestine to Donbass, unite to defeat imperialism!”

A statement from one of the participating groups, Communist Revolutionary Action, quoted U.S. President Joe Biden’s pontifical declaration that “America is back.” The group explained: “The war on the part of Kiev and its imperialist patrons is an unjust, imperialist war. 

“It was Western imperialism that started the unrest, that financed and orchestrated the 2014 coup [in Ukraine] spearheaded by fascists. The coup d’état and the rise to power of the American-backed reactionaries degraded the Russian-speaking population to second-class citizens, directly threatening their very existence and forcing them to take up arms.

“The war on the part of the People’s Republics is just and anti-imperialist. A possible Russian involvement will not change the nature of this war at all.

“The fundamental global task for all who take a stand against oppression and exploitation, and a prerequisite for any positive world development, is the defeat of Western imperialism on all fronts in which it is involved. For those living in the West, this task is even more imperative – as it is the bloc of ‘their’ bourgeoisie which is embroiled in an unjust war.”

On that day in Rome, Italy, a solemn commemoration and march was held to mark 100 years since the first units of anti-fascist partisans were formed to combat the ultra-right. The event was initiated by Patria Socialista (Socialist Homeland) and attended by several communist and anti-fascist organizations. 

Among the featured speakers at the Partisans Monument in Verano Cemetery was Alberto Fazolo of the Donbass Anti-Nazi Committee, who spoke about the current Ukrainian escalation and the important role of internationalists who traveled to Donbass to join the anti-fascist militias. 

In Berlin, Germany, several hundred people gathered to honor the 135th birthday of Ernst Thälmann, a German communist leader murdered in 1944 by the Nazis in the Buchenwald concentration camp. Supporters of the German Communist Party (DKP) called for solidarity with the people of Donbass, and a banner was displayed from organizers of the movement “No Staging Area Against Russia,” which opposes NATO’s war buildup.

The DKP said: “Ukraine’s aggressive policy is openly supported by the USA and NATO. The Federal Republic of Germany, which together with the Russian Federation and France is one of the guarantor states of the Minsk agreements between Ukraine and Donbass, sides with the Ukrainian government; instead of condemning the artillery attacks on the civilian population, it blames the Russian Federation, as it has done so often. 

“In the eyes of the German government, Russia should not station its troops in its own country, while at the same time NATO troops are stationed in ever greater numbers on the Russian border. The danger of war in Europe is increasing considerably as a result of this policy.”

‘The war must stop’

On April 18 in Sofia, Bulgaria, the organization Bulgaria Stronghold held a protest against the war in Donbass outside the U.S. Embassy. Protesters delivered an appeal to the U.S. ambassador, which was read aloud during the demonstration. It said in part:

“The people of Bulgaria disagree in their vast majority with the decisions and laws adopted by your government. Thus, we do not share the recently-signed military minister Karakachanov’s ‘military cooperation road map,’ which marks the continuous development of military preparedness and military capacity of Bulgaria. This is aimed at engaging the Republic of Bulgaria in the war against its alleged and already-designated opponent — Russia, and with it both China and Iran.

“Unfortunately, Bulgaria also contributes [to Ukraine’s war in Donbass] — weapons and ammunition are transferred there. The war must stop!”

In Zagreb, Croatia — part of Yugoslavia before that country’s NATO-instigated breakup — an action in solidarity with Donbass was held on April 20, organized by the Socialist Workers’ Party of Croatia and the Young Socialists of Croatia. Participants demanded an end to NATO military aggression.

Solidarity with Odessa and Donbass

More actions are being planned. May 2 will mark the seventh anniversary of the Odessa massacre. On that day in 2014, in the multinational Ukrainian port city, at least 48 anti-fascists and labor activists were killed when neo-Nazis set fire to the House of Trade Unions and butchered people trying to escape the blaze.

At the initiative of the U.S.-based Odessa Solidarity Campaign, the Red Square-Molotov Club has initiated an international call for actions on May 2 to demand justice for the victims of the Odessa massacre and an end to the U.S.-Ukraine war in Donbass. 

In the U.S., actions are planned in Richmond, Va., and New York City. To endorse or hold an event in your city or town, contact DefendersFJE [at] hotmail [dot] com.

Ecuador woke up with the news that Guillermo Lasso will be the new president. None of the crisis scenarios or disputes about the results happened: the candidate of the right wing won with 52.48%, 4,599,003 votes, 435,366 votes more than Andres Arauz (47.60%). The latter accepted the defeat, called Lasso, as did several Latin American and world presidents who congratulated the next Ecuadorian president.

Through his social networks, the future president thanked those who wrote to him, such as Arauz himself and the candidate for vice president, Carlos Rabascall, in the construction of one of his main campaign ideas: the Ecuador of the encounter where everyone wins. “We must be united and respect our differences to move Ecuador forward, this is a work of all, which starts from today” he wrote on his Twitter. During the day he was in Guayaquil, where he went to visit the grave of his parents.

Meanwhile, on Monday, Andres Arauz called for “peace and reconciliation based on absolute respect for human rights, political persecution must end, we must treat each other as opponents and not as enemies”.

Sunday’s result contradicted what most pollsters indicated, something that is not atypical in electoral processes. The candidate of the Citizen Revolution had favorable numbers after his victory in the first round, with almost 13 points of difference over Lasso, a distance that, according to the polls, was reduced as the weeks of the campaign for the second round advanced. The curves showed a rise for Lasso, a high percentage of null and blank votes, and the slow growth of Arauz staying in first place. What few anticipated was the final result.

There are several reasons that may explain why Lasso won, having been defeated in 2017 by Lenín Moreno and in 2013 by Rafael Correa, reasons that have to do with the strategies of each campaign, the characteristics of the political forces confronted, as well as the scenario in which the contest took place. Each independent part, in turn, is related to the other.

In the first place, Arauz’s candidacy itself was a product of the situation faced by Correaism: political persecution with the main leadership exiled in Belgium. The political movement led by Correa came to the race after facing several years of legal cases in a deep process of lawfare, with leaders out of the country, others under threat of sentences, in jail, or retired from political activity as a result of the political, judicial and media unloading against the citizen revolution.

Secondly, correismo faced a campaign with scarce organizational structures. The absence of a political party -not only electoral- in the citizen revolution, as well as of social, territorial, workers, feminist or indigenous movements is perhaps one of its central characteristics, particularly when considered in perspective with other progressive processes in the continent. This situation can be understood in terms of political considerations, as well as Moreno’s betrayal and its internal impact.

Thirdly, the campaign itself presented difficulties, in a persecuted movement, with little political structure, and the complexity in the construction of the figure of Arauz, particularly in the relationship -in terms of campaigning- with Correa. How could the strong vote of the Citizen Revolution be achieved and at the same time be extended to the majority? That was one of the main questions, in a political scenario marked by the correismo/anti-correismo cleavage and the difficulty to transfer it to another cleavage, such as neoliberalism/anti-neoliberalism, or banking/country.

The correismo/anti-correismo cleavage was one of the points around which Lasso was able to expand his electoral flow until he reached the majority. The anti-correismo, present in society as a result of several reasons -among them the systematic campaign of corruption accusations- allowed Lasso to attract votes from those who would not vote for the citizen revolution. It was also a determining element to understand the positioning of political forces, particularly Yaku Perez and Xavier Hervas, third and fourth respectively in the first round.

Arauz called for the formation of a progressive, plurinational and social-democratic bloc, i.e. the Citizen Revolution, the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (Conaie), and the Democratic Left. However, the divide in anti-correismo reduced this possibility, and both Perez/Conaie and Hervas chose not to position themselves directly for either candidate. In the case of the indigenous movement, with internal disputes regarding alliances, the decision was to call for the “ideological null vote”, which influenced the 1,739,870 null voters out of the total of 10,675,362 voters. The last minute support of Vargas, president of Conaie, for Arauz did not seem to have changed this situation.

Lasso also counted on two central elements for his campaign: the support of the main media of the country, and a communication strategy that got his message across, with significant financing, and the deployment of dirty campaign strategies. He thus constructed a discourse and aesthetics, a fiction of his history and political-economic proposal for the country that will be progressively uncovered as his government advances.

The horizon that opens with his victory is that of neoliberal deepening, particularly the dominance of financial capital, of which he is a part. The dynamics of resistance to this agenda will be marked, in part, by how Conaie positions itself according to its internal disputes -it will have an election of authorities in May-, as well as how correism thinks and projects its strategy for this new stage.

The Latin American map will continue, for the time being, with the same chessboard of forces. Lasso’s victory indicates that the continent is in a context of disputes between projects without clear hegemonies. The next presidential elections, in Peru, Chile and Brazil, will yield more conclusions to consider the present time, complex, with reversals, determining national particularities, uncertain.

Source: Internationalist 360°

“Stop the bombing, stop the war, hands off Donbass! USA, CIA out of Ukraine!”

On April 10, anti-war activists rallied at the U.S. Armed Forces Recruiting Center in New York’s Times Square to demand justice for 5-year-old Vladik Shikhov, killed April 3 by a Ukrainian drone strike on his Donetsk village. They called for an end to the U.S.-NATO war buildup against the Donbass republics and Russia.

Protesters chanted, held signs and passed out informational leaflets to people passing by on this warm spring day. Next to the U.S. military site, they displayed a large banner that read: “From Donbass to Palestine, from Chicago to the U.S.-Mexico border: Stop the U.S. war on children!”

It was a modest first step toward building a movement to challenge the next imperialist war and educate workers in the U.S. about a critical conflict that has been systematically hidden from them.

“President Joe Biden has a long history of supporting the far-right government in Kiev, dating back to his term as vice president and the 2014 U.S.-backed coup that overthrew the legally elected government of Ukraine,” said Greg Butterfield, coordinator of Solidarity with Novorossiya & Antifascists in Ukraine. 

“Biden, like Donald Trump before him, is acting on behalf of Wall Street and U.S. Big Energy companies that are determined to stop the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project from bringing Russian gas to Western Europe.

“Washington considers Donbass civilians, like 5-year-old Vladik, expendable. We do not,” Butterfield said. “We don’t believe that poor and working people in the U.S. would support risking war with Russia for Wall Street profits if they were informed of the facts.”

The New York emergency protest has inspired the Anti-Imperialist Front and other groups to call for an international day of solidarity with Donbass on Saturday, April 17. 

The call to action, “No U.S.-Ukraine war on Donbass and Russia,” has been endorsed, shared and translated by groups in several countries, and is being used as an organizing tool. Follow the link to see the latest list of endorsers and add your group.