INTERVENTION BY GERRY GRAINGER, INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT,
THE WORKERS' PARTY OF IRELAND AT THE INTERNATIONAL MEETING
OF COMMUNIST AND WORKERS' PARTY, ATHENS, GREECE, 21 23 MAY
1999.

Dear Comrades,

On behalf of the Central Executive Committee of The
Workers' Party of Ireland I would like to extend warm
fraternal greetings to all the communist and workers
parties assembled for this important meeting and also to
extend our sincere thanks to the Communist Party of Greece
for its work in organising and facilitating this meeting.

Capitalism is currently experiencing a severe crisis. In
Japan, Russia, Brazil and Asia the severe effects of that
crisis have become apparent. This is a crisis of the entire
capitalist system.

When we last met at our preparatory meeting in January, we
were concerned by the implications of the Multilateral
Agreement on Investment. Arising from the corpse of that
agreement, we now have further attempts to dismantle what
capitalism perceives to be barriers to foreign investment,
throughout the world, in pursuit of a deregulated single
global economy despite the evidence that increased capital
mobility benefits the multinational corporations at the
expense of the working peoples of the world which has led
to unemployment, poverty and the violation of social and
economic rights.

Globalisation represents a threat to the power of
independent and sovereign states to control their own
political, social, economic, and even cultural affairs.
This process will effectively transfer power from
individual nation states, including developing countries,
to powerful transnational corporations which will be able
to act with virtual impunity within these states.

Many countries throughout the world have had to struggle
for their political independence. In Ireland the
right-wing and social-democratic parties are attempting to
abandon our traditional position of military neutrality and
to drag our country into NATO.

Ireland is now on the verge of joining the NATO-sponsored,
military, so-called �Partnership for Peace�. Despite the
election promises of the main government party that it
would not participate in NATO, and despite its promise that
it would not bring Ireland into �Partnership for Peace�
without a referendum, it has changed its position in
government and is now in the process of actively pursuing
membership of PfP.

The right-wing and social democratic parties are attempting
to move Ireland away from its position of neutrality and
towards gradual incorporation into NATO and the WEU.

Economic globalisation is even more insidious. This
development dangerously undermined national, democratic and
sovereign rights. Economic globalisation interferes with
the ability and right of peoples to follow their own path
to economic and social development. It prevents countries
imposing conditions on important matters such as the
location of investments; the terms of investment; trade and
currency measures; foreign ownership of land and national
resources.

Capitalism is seeking to create a global economy in which
market forces are subject neither to regulation nor
constraint. Globalisation proposes to permit transnational
corporations to seek compensation from national governments
which they allege fail to adequately provide an environment
for de-regulated profit making.

The single global market promotes instability and further
impoverishes the poor and dispossessed. Globalisation
seeks to permit transnational corporations to seek
compensation from states for loss of profits as a result of
disruption to their activities.

These provisions will be used to force governments to
introduce anti-worker legislation and to suppress workers'
struggles as and where they arise.

The goal of globalisation is to restrict a national
government from pursuing its own path to development and
restricting its right to legislate on vital issues, such as
the environment; trade union and labour rights; employment
conditions; culture; media; communications and all areas of
social policy, including health, education and indigenous
rights.

Of course, capitalism does not restrict its activities to
globalisation. The capitalist military industrial complex,
through its overt imperialist military strategies and the
economic role of its transnational corporations in
subverting trade unions and national economies is waging an
ideological war, while at the same time stating, falsely,
that we have reached the end of history.

We, in the communist and workers' parties recognise that we
are far from the end of history. The historical struggle,
so fundamental to our concept of liberation, is set to
continue. For so long as the capitalist class seeks to
exploit and expropriate the fruit of workers' labour and to
deprive the nations and peoples of the world of the right
to freely determine their own future, that struggle will
continue.

Of course, this meeting cannot pass without a condemnation
of the criminal war being waged against Yugoslavia by NATO.

Since the beginning of the NATO bombing attacks on
Yugoslavia, The Workers' Party of Ireland has been active
in the campaign against these attacks. Long before now
imperialism has sought to undermine and dismantle the
Yugoslav Federation.

The criminal war waged by NATO is a gross violation of the
principles of the United Nations Charter and the norms and
principles of international law. These attacks have been
characterised by barbarity. NATO has consistently attacked
and destroyed civilian targets in Yugoslavia, without
regard for life. Hospitals, apartment blocks, civilian
factories and public utilities are cynically bombed.
Journalists are deliberately killed by NATO air attacks.
NATO attacks trains, buses, bridges and public roads
without regard for life.

Every effort at diplomatic dialogue and each attempt to
reach a peaceful solution has been immediately and without
consideration rejected by NATO.

This war is not about humanitarian objectives. It is a
front for U.S. aggression. It is the USA, supported by its
hawkish British puppet, which is at the forefront of this
slaughter. They ignore indeed they support oppression
against Palestinians, Kurds and East Timorese. They
support, either directly or indirectly, the occupation of
Cyprus and Lebanon

This war by NATO is about power and domination, and given
the historical nature of NATO a collection of states, most
of which have long and brutal histories of colonial
subjugation and imperial rule and long-standing hostility
to socialism, this will hardly be a surprise.

We have no lessons in morality to learn from the United
States or NATO.

If a small nation dares to stand alone, dares to choose its
own social, economic and political path towards development
if it refuses to be drawn into the so-called �new world
order� and asserts its national independence and
sovereignty, it will be ruthlessly attacked by NATO.

The Workers' Party of Ireland condemns the military and
propaganda campaign by NATO against Yugoslavia, which must
stop immediately.

We support the principle of the sovereign equality of
states and the associated principle of non-intervention, as
set out in international law.

We support the right of Yugoslavia to protect its
sovereignty and territorial integrity. As
internationalists, we extend our support and solidarity to
the peoples and government of the Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia and the Republic of Serbia. The people of
Yugoslavia will not be defeated.

In conclusion, The Workers' Party of Ireland welcomes this
meeting as an opportunity for a new beginning. We stand at
the centre of the call for all workers of the world to
unite.

Inspired by the recent 150th Anniversary of that great
proletarial call to action, - Marx and Engels' �Communist
Manifesto� we must organise our activities and redouble
our efforts. We must increase our contacts and
co-operation between the communist and workers' parties.
We must continue our solidarity with the progressive forces
and genuine national liberation movements throughout the
world. In particular, we must increase our solidarity with
the socialist countries with Cuba, the Democratic Peoples'
Republic of Korea, Peoples' Republic of China and Vietnam.

We must work towards the end of exploitation, oppression,
militarism and war; towards the destruction of aggressive
military blocs such as NATO; the elimination of foreign
military bases from the territories of sovereign,
independent states and the reinforcement of the principle
of non-interference in the internal affairs of those
states.

These are among the many tasks facing the international
labour movement.

Thank You.

G. Grainger
Chair,
International Affairs Committee
The Workers' Party of Ireland