New Communist Party of the Netherlands

Contribution to International Communist Conference Athens
May 1999

Dear Comrades,

The New Communist Party of the Netherlands strongly
supports this type of international gatherings to exchange
political views and find ways for common struggle.
Therefore we thank the KKE again for their hospitality.

Comrades,

The Balkan war is not an isolated phenomenon. It is the
face of today's imperialism. The world is moving towards
global recession. Economical growth rates in many countries
are below 2%. The imperialists, the imperialist system, is
unable to fulfil the needs of millions suffering from
poverty, deprivation and unemployment. This developments
take place parallel on the increase of the imperialist
powers to re-divide the world market on the basis of
economic, political and military might. Now we see both:
new trade disputes between US and the EU on one side and on
the other side the imperialist nations as a whole are
preparing to pressmise developing nations into a new
Millennial Trade Round, including such proposals that try
to weaken the control of states of developing countries on
foreign capital in their economies. One of the ways
imperialism tries to overcome its own problems is the
production of weapons and weapon-systems. The USA is
setting up a multi-billion dollar missile defense system
over its territory to protect itself from attacks. The
British Imperialists are the second biggest arms dealer
after the USA. In 1990, overseas sales represented 65% of
British Aerospace �now the third largest armaments
manufacturer in the world turnover�. One of the reasons
that the bombings will continue is the fact that this bombs
are computer-steered and the systems will not work after
the end of this year. So the British want to drop their
wastrels materials, as the USA does by throwing their
Depleted Uranium all over Yugoslavia, as they did in Bosnia
and Iraq before. British imperialism has gaily shared in
the bonanza of arms sales abroad, especially to the Middle
East. In 1980 OPEC funds amounted to an unprecedented $350
billion. Third world countries than spent $60 billion on
arms, with half the weapons sold to countries in the Middle
East. 1987 was the cold war peak year of arms exports with
sales reaching $88.5 billion. Since then arms sales have
halved and as a result the competition for export arms has
become more fierce than ever before. With the halving of
the arms export market not everyone has lost. In 1997,
while the USA increased its share of arms exports to 45%
with sales of $20.g billion, Britain remained the second
largest arms exporter. France, the third largest arms
exporter increased its sales to $7.4 billion.
Also in Asia there are similar developments. All new
conflicts - attacks by the imperialist countries on
developing nations - only cover the inter-imperialist
competition. The USA firmly tries to hold and even increase
their hegemony. The objective of the war in Iraq is the USA
control of Iraqi oil reserves, which are 10% of the global
reserves, and denial of access to the reserves to rivals
like Germany, France and Russia. A similar war between �the
allies� takes place in Yugoslavia.
The NCPN noticed in practice, by taking initiatives,
organizing demonstrations against the NATO- war in
Yugoslavia, that the Dutch peace-movement does not combine
peace struggle and production and selling of weapons. In
the contrary the so-called peace movement in our country
only tries to find political answers on the peace questions
and the NATO war against Yugoslavia. Many discussions only
are referring to ethnic questions and are questioning the
role of Milosevic, without even mention the geo-political
position of Yugoslavia and even without taking into account
the rich mines in Kosovo.
The Draft resolution on the criminal bombings of NATO
against the people and government of Yugoslavia therefore
has to be added with two points:
A short analyze about the main economical reasons of the
attack and
Analyzing why the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is -apart
from the direct- economical interests for the imperialists
in Yugoslavia, the country is a bridge to oil, as well in
the Middle East as also in the Former Black Sea Soviet
republics.

Comrades,

The NCPN hopes that this meeting will be very successful.
We think that being successful means also that we are able
to make economical analyses, as well as political ones. In
my country it is absolute necessary to get influence in the
peace movement and to reach the common people, that are
infected by CNN-NATO news every hour of the day, by giving
priority, show the people, what's all about: Imperialist
economical interests.
The only item not a single bourgeois paper or the
television is speaking about is the topic of economical
reasons for this war. All is about so-called political
questions.
So let us make proper and strong economical analyses and
let us find ways to exchange such analyses to use them in
our national struggle against our own imperialists, because
globalization is there but all imperialists still have
their own basis in the USA, in Japan and the European
Countries.

Workers of all countries unite, ideological, political,
economical and to practice common struggle.