Lebanese Communist Party
by Dr. Hassan Hamdan

Dear Comrades,

I'd like to extend to you, and especially to the comrades
of the Greek Communist Party, the greetings of all the
Lebanese Communists. I'd like to extend to you he high
appreciation of our people for your solidarity with Lebanon
and its progressive forces and resistance against the
Israeli occupation. As I thank you for this solidarity I'd
like to kindly ask you for more support until we liberate
the rest of our occupied land in Shebaa farms in south
Lebanon and gain back our full independence and
sovereignty.

We also look forward for solidarity with the Palestinian
people and its uprising against the Israeli occupation and
for your support to regain its national rights in returning
home and building its independent state and its capital
Jerusalem.

Also, we kindly ask your support for the just struggle of
the Syrian people to impose the Israeli withdrawal from the
Syrian occupied Golan Heights and the implementation of the
U.N. resolutions that form the basis of a full and
comprehensive peace in the region.

I'd like to ask is the Trade Union movement in its best
situation today? No it is not. Does it suffer a crisis? Yes
it does. But it is not an unsolvable crisis. Is the Trade
Union movement a necessity today? Yes it is if it could
overcome its crisis. What is this crisis? It is mainly the
problem of how does the trade union movement understand the
trade union action? What are the instruments and the
organisation of this action? And what are the role and task
and relations with the workers and the forces of change in
the society in addition to the relations with the political
forces in general and leftist groups in particular?

This crisis was strengthened after the collapse of the
Soviet Union and countries of the socialist bloc. It came
also as a result of the newliberal policies and the
globalisation policy of the transnational companies and the
decisions imposed on governments by the world fiscal
institutions like the World Bank, the World Monetary
Institution, and the World Trade Organisation.

These policies increased the unemployment all over the
world, widespreaded poverty, and the widened the gap
between poors and workers on one side and rich people and
capitalists on the other side. It also widened the gap
between the rich north and the poor south.

The Capitalist forces in power used the opportunity of the
crisis to grasp the freedoms and trade union rights and
imposed new conditions on the syndicate movement.

Dear Comrades,
Some of the elements of the Trade Union movement crisis go
back to the splits that were imposed by governments of this
country or that. Other elements are results of the
isolation policy practised by the trade union movement
itself and the bureaucracy of its organisation, in addition
to some priviledges of some trade union leaders who reject
any attempt to renew the blood of their movement relying on
the absence of Democracy in the internal relations.

As far as there is a competition between the capital and
the labour we need the trade unions. As far as there is
exploitation by man to his brother we need the Unions. As
far as the ugly exploitation of the global capital for
nature, peoples and nations exist as far as we need unions.

To solve the crisis of the trade union movement we need to
find answers for some problems:
how should we deal with the modern issues produced by
economic and social changes of globalisation in the world
of labour? What are our demands and slogans?
hoe to return to the basics of the trade union
understanding, the relation with the workers. How to defend
the interests of the working class?
what kind of relations the trade union movement should have
with Communist and leftist parties.
what kind of relations the trade union movement should have
with the non-governmental organisations and the
organisations of civil society.

As we try to find answers and solutions for these questions
and problems we need to have a critical review for our work
in the international unions after the catastrophic failure
of some of them.

Dear Comrades,
Finding these solutions might put us back on the track of
our humanitarian dream and of the project of social change.
Capitalism is not the solution. We are able to make the
alternative.