July 3, 2010

WFDY CONDEMNS G20!


The World Federation of Democratic Youth joins the international and cross-Canada condemnation of the recent G8-G20 meetings, and the sinister agenda of these imperialist, billion-dollar extravaganzas.

The WFDY calls upon the Canadian government and appropriate local authorities to immediately and unconditionally release all those arrested, drop all charges, and for a full, independent public inquiry into the events.The G-summits, which have placed the city of Toronto under siege with billion-dollar security, will deliver further austerity measures against the workers, the youth and the people in the name of ‘balanced budgets.’ However, was not the youth or the workers who created the economic crisis but rather the imperialists themselves. We ask the governments and world leaders — what should the billions of youth and students, women, aboriginal people and workers’ families should do, when they will not be able to pay the bills, fees, taxes, when they will not be able buy the necessary food for their families. What will the government do, will it send them all to prison?

Unrepresented in the corporate media, the majority of the demonstrations were peaceful. The week was characterized by lively, creative and democratic resistance, culminating in a mass rally of 25 to 30 thousand. However, we condemn the ‘police riot’ and repression tactics used at the protests such as use of police agents, political police or intelligence forces, deliberate provocation, tear gas and rubber bullets, and the historic violent arrest and detention under bad conditions of over 1,000 of demonstrators — including youth activists, random bystanders, and Québécois.

This police repression was not random but no doubt orchestrated in advance by all levels of the Canadian state. The goal was clearly to intimidate dissent and divert public attention from the real issues of the G-summits. However, youth should take heart for the economic crisis which also shows imperialism’s weakness. As long as the problems of imperialism remain unsolved — war, unemployment, genocide, misery, environmental injustice and climate change, oppression of women, racism, hunger, and other scourges — there will be resistance. We call on all the young people to grasp the depth of the global attack against them, and to boldly rally their forces in a united battle. The young people are at the front, united with the workers, of the resistance in Greece and Europe today, in Latin America, and around the world. The power of people’s forces is rising.

The world and mankind don’t need any sort of G’s (G8, G20, etc), but a policy of cooperation and solidarity among all peoples of the world, with no external interferences, guided by an economic model that is in favor of the peoples and not of the dominant classes, in other words, a world free of imperialism!

The young workers’ and students’ global resistance to economic crisis will be a major theme of the 17th World Festival of Youth and Students, to be held in Pretoria, South Africa, this December. At 30,000 young people, it will be the largest anti-imperialist gathering in the world. We welcome all progressive youth and students of Canada, Quebec and Aboriginal Nations to join us at this historic event!

Budapest, July 3rd

WFDY - World Federation of Democratic Youth

Fédération Mondiale de la Jeunesse Démocratique

Federación Mundial de la Juventud Democrática

WFDY is an International NGO with consultative status with UN (ECOSOC) and operational relation with UNESCO. Peace Messenger award by UN Secretary General in 1987 for solidarity with Palestine.

How are the young liberals fighting climate change?





Check out this fairly recent Young Liberal's poster contest. Not quite sure what some of them were smoking... but when you are a young liberal you probably have lots of time on your hands...

The contest was called "Anywhere but Copenhagen." "Our intent was to engage Canadians concerned about the Prime Minister’s reluctance to attend the climate change conference in Copenhagen." Okay.


Should RY do a poster contest? Comments are open.














Umm.... WTF???



July 1, 2010

Against the dirtiest methods of the capital


Against the dirtiest methods of the capital

Valuable experience form the hard class conflictation

The massive successful strike of PAME on 29th June acquires a much greater significance as it confronted one of the dirtiest operations against the workers’ movement. The 11th strike of the class oriented forces in a period of 6 months paralysed factories, workplaces, ports, train stations and airports throughout the country. Picket lines were mounted in front of numerous workplaces.

The port of Piraeus once again became the field of hard class conflict. The class oriented trade unions of the lower engine crews and merchant maritime engineers and the forces of PAME resisted bravely and guarded their strike. Despite the intimidation exerted by the social democrat government, the ship-owners and the other bourgeois parties, the strike has been a huge success. Those forces used the dirtiest methods such as:

-court decisions that declared the strike illegal

-warrants of arrest against trade unionists of PAME, heads of the boards of the seamen’s trade unions

-terrorist bomb attack outside the house of the head of PAME in Thessalonica one day before the strike aiming at the intimidation of the class oriented forces

-terrorism, repression and chemicals by the repressive forces and the port police corps. Despite that they did not manage to prevent the class oriented forces from entering the port in order to guard the strike. The forces of PAME managed to block the vast majority of the ships. A few ships left the port “with the gun on the head of the crews” though without passengers and vehicles!! In fact they sailed aided by the repression forces that beat and wounded enough workers. The crews of the ships played a crucial role despite the extortions of the employers.

-the lies of the bourgeois media that it is PAME and strikes that allegedly damage tourism and not the poverty spread by the government’s measures.

These methods met the immediate response of the class oriented forces that guarded their strike successfully, with determination and discipline and the tens of thousands of workers who participated in the strike.

In addition, tens of thousands took part in the strike demonstration of PAME in Athens, that took place outside the parliament as well as in the demonstrations held in 60 cities throughout the country against the destructive measures that increase retirement ages, cut down salaries and pensions, deregulate the redundancy threshold, increase taxes, extend flexible labour relations, freeze wages for three years and abolish the 13th and 14th pension.

“They legitimate the crime against our social security rights, the plundering of a big part of our income. The plunderers are accusing their victims of resisting the plundering and blaming the plunders and those who commit the crimes. Our answer to their legitimacy is: law is the rights of the workers and not the profits of the capitalists. For that reason they will always have to confront us” stressed Yiannis Tassioulas, president of the Construction Workers’ Trade Union from the platform of the demonstration.

The strike demonstration of PAME in Athens addressed a class, internationalist appeal to the working class and the militant trade unions in Europe, to the European trade unionists who struggle against the severe anti-workers’ attack calling them to coordinate their struggle and reject the compromised ETUC and all the forces that have disarmed the workers’ movement through the policy of conciliation, of class collaboration and submission.
The experience from these struggles makes the struggle for radical changes even more urgent. The working class produces the wealth and must assert it. The means of production, the wealth must pass into the hands of the people. This goal can reinforce the struggle.

Contra los métodos más sucios del capital

La experiencia de la dura lucha de clases es valiosa

La exitosa huelga masiva del Frente Militante de Todos los Trabajadores (PAME) el 29 de junio adquiere grandísima importancia ya que se enfrentó a una de las operaciones más sucias contra el movimiento obrero. La 11ª huelga de las fuerzas de orientación de clase en un período de seis meses paralizó fábricas, centros de trabajo, puertos, estaciones de tren y aeropuertos en todo el país. Los huelguistas participaron en las guardias de huelga y formaron piquetes fuera de numerosos centros de trabajo.

No obstante, una vez más la atención se concentró en la dura lucha de clases en el puerto del Pireo. Los sindicatos de orientación de clase de las tripulaciones de motor inferior y de ingenieros y las fuerzas del PAME protegieron su huelga con valentía. A pesar de la intimidación de parte del gobierno de los socialdemócratas, los armadores y los demás partidos burgueses la huelga fue muy exitosa aunque emplearon los métodos más sucios como:

* Sentencias judiciales que declaraban la huelga ilegal
* Órdenes de detención contra los sindicalistas del PAME dirigentes de los sindicatos de los marineros
* Bomba terrorista en la casa de la cabeza del PAME en Tesalónica con el fin de intimidar a las fuerzas clasistas un día antes de la huelga
* Intimidación, represión y uso de gases químicos por las fuerzas de represión de la policía y del cuerpo de policía portuaria al final no consiguieron impedir las fuerzas de clase de entrar en el puerto y proteger su huelga. Las fuerzas del PAME consiguieron impedir la salida de la gran mayoría de barcos. Algunos barcos salieron del puerto “con la pistola apuntando a la cabeza de los miembros de la tripulación” pero sin pasajeros ni vehículos. De hecho, las fuerzas de represión facilitaron su huida e hirieron algunos compañeros de trabajo. Las propias tripulaciones de los barcos jugaron un papel crucial a pesar del chantaje de la patronal.
* Mentiras de los medios de comunicación que el PAME y las huelgas perjudica al turismo y no la expansión de la pobreza a causa de las medidas gubernamentales.

Las fuerzas de clase con determinación y disciplina protegieron con pleno éxito su huelga y la participación masiva de decenas de miles de trabajadores en la huelga dio una respuesta inmediata.

Decenas de miles de gente participaron en la concentración del PAME fuera del Parlamento en Atenas, así como en las concentraciones en 60 ciudades en Grecia contra las medidas que aumentan la edad de jubilación, recortan los salarios y las pensiones, liberalizan los despidos, aumentan los impuestos e impulsan la flexibilidad laboral mientras promueven para los próximos 3 años la congelación de los salarios y la abolición de la 13ª y 14ª pensión.

En la concentración, Yiannis Tasioulas, presidente del Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Construcción de Atenas, mencionó: “Legitiman los crimen a expensas de nuestros derechos de seguridad. Legitiman el crimen de despojo de gran parte de nuestros ingresos y luego los ladrones acusan a sus víctimas porque reaccionan al robo y contra los ladrones y los criminales.

Nosotros respondemos a esta legitimidad que ley es lo que es justo para los trabajadores y no las ganancias de los capitalistas. Por eso siempre van a tener de confrontarnos.”

La concentración del PAME en Atenas dirigió una llamada clasista, obrera, internacionalista a la clase obrera y a los sindicatos militantes de Europa, a todos los sindicalistas europeos que luchan contra la ofensiva antiobrera feroz para la coordinación de la lucha y el rechazo de la CES pactista y de estas fuerzas que han desarmado al movimiento obrero a través de la política de conciliación con el capital, de la política de colaboración de clases, de sumisión.
La experiencia de estas duras luchas de clases hace que la lucha por cambios radicales sea más necesaria. La clase obrera produce la riqueza y debe reclamarla. Los medios de producción, la riqueza debe pasar a ser propiedad del pueblo. Este objetivo puede dar un nuevo impulso a la lucha.


Watch the video from the Strike Demonstration - Ver el video de la Manifestacion
http://www.youtube.com/user/kkemedia#p/u/1/q6uKBFxestk

More information on the websites - Mas informacion al sitio web
inter.kke.gr es.kke.gr


Comradely Greetings,
Saludos Militantes,

International Relations Committee of the CC of KNE
Comite de Relaciones Internacionales del CC de KNE

--
Communist Youth of Greece
www.kne.gr/english.html
Tel: 00302102592307
Fax:00302102592611

June 29, 2010

Defend the right to peaceful protest! For a full, independent inquiry into police repression now.



Young Communist League of Canada Statement on the G20 Demonstrations and Police Riots

On the weekend of June 26-27, 2010, the leaders of the top 20 capitalist economies met to devise an agenda for the interests of “private demand” (i.e. the very rich and major transnational corporations) including halving deficits by 2013. This translates into increasing the burden on, and cutting public services to, working people -- since neither will corporate profits be taxed more, nor will the military spending on wars be cut.

Over 30,000 people from across Canada (particularly from Quebec and Southern Ontario) and the world -- involved in the labour, womens', aboriginal, youth and student, migrant, environmental, international solidarity, socialist, and many other movements -- peacefully demonstrated against this criminal agenda. Most were able to participate from start to finish united, without any incident or attacks.

This democratic right and necessity to protest should have been enjoyed by all demonstrators. However in the last few days peaceful protesters as well as journalists, legal observers, and by-standers who had no involvement in the protests have been subjected to a police riot.

The mainstream media has endlessly played images of isolated incidences of mayhem, where the police were absent, occurring not because of insufficient security budgets but in spite of the $1 billion that should have gone for education, health care, and public services at a time when many are suffering from the economic crisis that is not over.

Police had refused to provide assurances that they would not use provocateurs, despite being pressed on this point by Ontario Federation of Labour President Sid Ryan after such agents had been exposed in the 2007 demonstrations in Quebec against the so-called Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP).

What has been ignored is not only the main peaceful demonstration organized by the Canadian Labour Congress and Ontario Federation of Labour, but also the orgy of police violence with rubber bullets, indiscriminate mass arrests, acts of physical assault and intimidation, and night-time arrests of people simply sleeping in student residences.

Even corporate media personalities such as Steve Paikin have tweeted that the police assaults were more frightening than war zone reporting from “Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia, Lebanon, and Israel (Palestine)”. Youth and students, Québécois, as well as people of colour are being disproportionately targeted and need our support at this crucial time.

The Young Communist League stands in solidarity with and calls for on-going mobilizations against the G20 agenda and to support the rights of those who continue to be subjected to police harassment.

We support the Communist Party of Canada’s call for an full and independent inquiry into the police repression and the development of these operations by the Harper Tories, McGinty Liberals and Toronto police chief Blair.

The unleashing of the police on protesters and by-standards alike is an attack on our democratic rights, an attempt to demobilize us while we continue to be robbed by the G20's capitalist agenda.

Witness statements show that it is sufficient just to be young to be arrested and beaten, regardless of having no connection to the demonstrations. Baseless arrests have occurred not just in Toronto but as far as Vancouver. We demand an immediate end to police violence and a full public inquiry into police brutality, infringement on our human rights and where these repressive orders came from.

For many youth this is a time of new and renewed radicalization which demands leadership that will challenge the capitalist ruling class's assaults with a movement for socialism.

Read the YCL-LJC statement on the G8-G20

Read the Communist Party statement on the G8-G20

Read the Communist Party's call for an inquiry.

June 28, 2010

Truth leaches out: reports on conditions of prison camps among many



left and right: images from radicalgraphics.org






Follow the links for the full reports.

In the above article includes reports of physical sexual harassment, money stolen from prisoners by officers, diabetic shock and coma, kidney problems and hypothermia*, loss of artificial leg. Homosexuals were singled out for special harassment.
"One fully-uniformed TTC streetcar driver was arrested for hours. He had been ordered out of his streetcar by riot police and was immediately arrested" link here

Read the Toronto Media Co-op website for the latest.




June 27, 2010

Police Riot stampedes crowd on corner of Queen and Spadina


According to the lastest reports, After no warning was given (no reading of the riot act) blanket arrests of all at Toronto's Queen Street and Spadina was carried out. With police wildly swinging clubs and causing a stampede which resulted in the trampling of people. Injuries were extensive. More details are sure to come out in the coming days.



Above: beginning moments of attack

Fortress Toronto, the media and police


Police using secret intelligence to pick up key activists as a preventative pre-crime measure have been widely reported in the mainstream media as well as on the Toronto Media Co-op website. Such reports eerily sound like a plot out of Philip K. Dick's short story Minority Report.

Journalists have been routinely attacked. In addition to the usual targets of independent media reporters, a CTV producer was snatched. As reported on toronto media coop, and the Dominion, A reporter from the Manchester Guardian was " held by two cops while a third punched him in the stomach because he 'talked too much', then drove his elbow into the collapsed journalist's back." Four reporters, two from Reuters, and two from the National Post were arrested.

CCLA observers detained refused contacts

Mark Donald and Jon Pipitone, two observers with the Canadian Civil Liberties Association were arrested and has not yet had contact with lawyers to date. The CCLA had about 60 observers on the streets.

Innocent bystander has police sneak into house, wakes up with gun barrel in face

As reported in the Dominion, Toronto Media Co-op and the Toronto Star, Veterinarian John Booth awoke to find cops with their gun sights beaded on his head. Hanna Booth Awoke to find men entering her six month old baby's room. "...Not ringing the doorbell — they’re in my room. I’m in my panties and a tank top, my kid’s screaming his head off, he’s so scared, the tension in the house — it was just the most horrible and absurd thing."





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