17 IMCWP, Contribution of the CP of Brazil [En]

Comrades,

1 – While we hold our 17h Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, the armed wing of the US and the European Union's imperialism, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) holds in Europe – especially in the territories of Italy, Spain and Portugal – gigantic military exercises baptized as the Trident Juncture. These maneuvers mobilize 36 thousand soldiers, over 230 land, aerial and naval unities, besides other artefacts of the military industries from 15 countries, so NATO can evaluate which weapons it needs, in the process of “renewal” it has been developing. One of the proclaimed goals for the current maneuvers is to test the high-readiness joint task force, to extend ever more the Alliance's area of influence and intervention, from Europe to Africa and Asia, with a global perspective. This for itself is revealing of the level of militarization reached by the great imperialist powers, using their bellicose powers, including nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, besides the conventional ones, to blackmail the peoples and impose policies that are harmful to the majorities' rights and to national sovereignties. The US and its allies promote the growing militarization of the planet, disseminate military bases surrounding all continents, dominating Seas, continents and the space, besides controlling and promoting the nuclear escalation. It is in this landscape that NATO's role is expanded and its strategic concept is updated, in which the so-called collective defense is centered on interventions in other regions of the planet. In Latin America, the United States maintain its military bases and its Fourth Fleet, threatening a region that has recently proclaimed itself, solemnly, as a “zone of peace”. The same occurs in the African and Asian continents.

2 – Life has confirmed the communists' opinion about the development of the international situation. The imperialist powers' aggressive policies are intensified, which puts world peace and international security in harm's way, violating the rights of peoples and nations.

3 – A conditioning aspect of the international situation is the systemic, structural, and multidimensional crisis of capitalism. The supposedly corrective policies for the economy and the finances have failed completely, promoted by conservative Governments and also by Governments that, self-proclaiming “center-left”, have put in practice the orientations of the monopolist-financial and international oligarchy. These measures constitute, in their essence, a systematic attack against the workers' and peoples' economic and social rights, as well as against the sovereignty of countries little or averagely developed. Capitalism's crisis, extending for many years, aggravated traces of capitalism's decadence and relative historical decline of US imperialism. By liquidating humanity's historical achievements, the capitalist system reveals itself as incapable of assuring economic and social development, democracy, peace, justice and environmental sustainability.

4 – The world lives a grave and dangerous situation. A new division of the world is at stake, the plundering of national wealth, the occupation of territories, and the implementation of an imperial order that, besides having globalized economy, aims to uniform political regimes, cultural life, and the bourgeois' ideology as unified thought. The ferocious and offensive voice of the US and its allies prevails, to impose their dictates to the world, which pushes for more interventionism, threats and aggressions, in a frontal attack against freedoms and fundamental rights, sovereignty and self-determination of peoples and nations

5 – International Law and the institutions created to assure the exercise of democratic international relations based on equality are instrumentalized by unilateral interests of hegemonic powers that exercise dominance through policies of force. The United Nations, to cite the most import, created 70 years ago to promote peaceful coexistence among sovereign nations, guarantee world balance, assure the enforcement of International Law norms, placate international conflicts and promote world peace, is acting under the pressure exerted by the imperialist powers, growingly imposing their dictates to the world through the use of force. Often, these powers use the Security Council to legitimize military interventions configured as actual aggressions against sovereign peoples and nations.

6 – The world is going through important geopolitical transformations: alterations on the correlation of forces, evolution of the inter-imperialist contradictions, military interventions, the rise on militarization. But the situation is also telling of possibilities for transformation and the awakening of new hopes. New geopolitical poles emerge, as reflex of the emergence of new economic blocs, and the peoples' resistance is growing, in a still unstable and uncertain framework. The aggravation of the crisis brings forth a new geopolitical situation in opposition to the prevailing distribution of power in the world. It opens a transitional period with contours that are not yet defined, manifesting as a salient phenomenon the relative decline of the US imperialism, which, however, still holds the greatest economic and military power, as well as the greatest political influence, being an empire that tries through every means to assure its world hegemony, the main factor for instability and fuel for aggressions against the peoples of the world.

7 – The backdrop for the geopolitical changes is the conflict among two objective tendencies. On one hand, the US imperialism and the European Union are protagonists in a struggle to maintain dominance over the world and to concentrate even more power. On the other hand, the tendency for the emergence of new poles of political, economic and military power develops, and the greatest expression of this trend is China's vertiginous ascension, with a prodigious development of productive forces, continuous and accelerated economic growth, and the perspective of becoming, in the coming years, the main economic-financial power in the world. It is part of this phenomenon the strengthened national power of Russia, after a moment of disaggregation and economic-financial crisis, and the emergence of medium-dimensioned powers such as India, Brazil and South Africa – which brought BRICS into being, a relevant factor in the development of the economic and political situation in the world. Within this same configuration of geopolitical and economic-financial contradictions, and of struggle for a new order, such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Common Market of the South (Mercosur), the Union of South-American Nations (Unasur), the Community of Latin-American and Caribbean States (CELAC), among others. These processes are developing amidst aggravating class conflicts, contradictions between countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America and imperialism, and the incidence of inter-imperialist contradictions within a dynamic in which cooperation and rivalry alternate turns.

8 – The effectuation of the strategy for building the so-called “new Middle East”; the aggression against Libya and its ensuing mutilation; the continuous presence of US troops in Afghanistan; the intervention in Syria; the Fascist coup in Ukraine, with the support of the Western powers and the threats of intervention in this Eastern-European country; the advancement of the policies of occupation, colonization, ethnic cleansing and terrorism by the State of Israel against the Palestinian people, with the explicit support from the US imperialism; the adoption of a military strategy for Asia; the coup attempts to reverse democratic, patriotic and social achievements in Latin America – those are the most evident traces of what we call a brutal imperialist offensive against the peoples, main causes of instability and uncertainty in the contemporary world.

9 – The communists express their solidarity with the heroic struggle of the Palestinian people against the State of Israel's genocidal and oppressive policy, usurping their lands and imposing on them a cruel form of neocolonialism. We defend this people's sacred right to the constitution of their independent and sovereign State, within the borders previous to the 1967 war, with East Jerusalem as its capital and the return of refugees, according to the determined by the UN. We salute the Palestinians' recent diplomatic victories in the United Nations fore.

10 – Likewise, we manifest our solidarity with the Syrian people, torn apart by the terrorist actions of gangs financed and armed by the imperialist powers that keep threatening the country with a military intervention, cynically raising the “human rights” and democracy flag. We salute the countries and political forces that, by request of the Syrian Government, give it support, including military, to counter the terrorist gangs. It is but hypocritical the imperialist powers' criticism of the Russian intervention and their veto to Iran's participation in the negotiations for a political way out of the conflict in Syria, in the framework of a quest for an appropriate geopolitical solution in the Middle East.

11 – We salute the Iranian people, victorious in their efforts to defeat the policies of sanctions and to actualize their rights, to develop a nuclear program with peaceful and civilian goals.

12 – We support the struggle for national independence and the right to their territory by the people of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic and call for the complete de-colonization of the world, for the independence of Puerto Rico and the devolution of Islas Malvinas to our brothers and neighbors, the people of Argentine.

13 – In Latin America – geopolitical landscape in which the progressive changes in Brazil are developed – the economic and political contradictions have generated a scenario of resistance and struggle with historical peculiarities, against dictatorships, imperialist dominance, neoliberalism, conservativeness, national and class' oppression, resulting in political and electoral victories of progressive, democratic and popular forces, which created a tendency for achievements in the realms of democracy, of social rights and of the affirmation of patriotic aspirations, as well as of integration with sovereignty.

Latin America has been experiencing, for almost two decades, an unprecedented phase in its political History, a period in which many political and electoral victories occurred, including in Brazil, resulting from the accumulation of forces by the peoples, who led progressive coalitions to power. Nowadays, a great part of the countries in the region is directed by democratic, popular and anti-imperialist governments, which are contributing to alter the world geopolitics. The essential meaning of the ongoing phenomena in the region is the formation of a transformation chain and of the accumulation of victories in terms of independence, sovereignty, democracy, mechanisms for popular participation, justice, development and social progress.

Mechanisms for regional integration are being built to allow for independent positioning in a world scenario of economic crisis and escalated conflicts, opening up the possibility for edifying new alternatives for development and for building a geopolitical pole that can produce new correlations of forces. The greatest expression of this phenomenon is the Community of Latin-American and Caribbean States (CELAC), whose foundation, in December 2011, in Caracas, Venezuela, was an event of such a dimension that the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, said it was the most important institutional happening in the region in a century. And president Raúl Castro, while making his address in the foundational meeting, underline the transcendental character of the forum, claiming “over two centuries of struggles and hope.” Still according to the Cuban leader, the region had “persevered in its goals of independence, sovereignty, development and integration; knowing that without social justice and a more equal distribution of wealth, it would not be possible.”

The economic and political ongoing phenomena in the political Latin-American context are part of the transitions in the contemporary world, and keep direct relation with the search for new balances, for the achievements of a new political and economic order, for justice, progress and peace.

14 – The development of the Brazilian political situation is inseparable from the Latin-American political course. In our country, amidst harsh disputes with the retrograde dominant classes, of which the right-wing, neoliberal and conservative opposition is the political and ideological expression, the progressive forces – amongst them the communists and other expressions of the consequent left – are seeking to open way and accumulate forces in a prolonged process of struggle for the national and social emancipation. In the current, intense and ongoing political dispute, in which the coup attempt by the right is evident, communists and the consequent left have no doubt about the side they are aligned with. We do not play the game played by the internal class enemy or by the external imperialist forces.

15 – In current the framework of Latin-American political life, one of the most relevant facts is the development, thus far successful, in a sinuous and complex process, of the dialogues between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the national Government. Peace in Colombia is one of the main demands of popular, democratic, patriotic and anti-imperialist movements in Latin-America, such as FARC themselves. If achieved, this will be a victory of these forces and a defeat for the militarist, Fascist, para-military, drug-trafficking and other agents of imperialism in Colombia and in Latin-America.

16 – Solidarity with Venezuela's Bolivarian Revolution is our undeniable duty. Bolivarian and Chavist Venezuela has become a reference of struggle for all Latin-American peoples and a reference for the anti-imperialist struggle. Chavism is essentially anti-imperialist, which is a reflection of the spirit of our times, the symbol of tenacious resistance of peoples against the neocolonialist offensive of international potentates under the aegis of US imperialism. Bolivarian Venezuela has taken important steps towards the construction of a popular, participative democracy, of popular unity, and has become an important base for unity among Latin-American and Caribbean peoples, a banner of struggle, a goal to be achieved, and its first results are in evidence in the current democratic and patriotic achievements, as well as in the real of sovereign integration and solidarity. Likewise, Venezuela has moved forward building welfare and elevating the political consciousness of the people.

17 – The struggles of the Latin-American and Caribbean peoples are deepened in great geopolitical importance and are a stimulated in their development by the recent achievements of the Cuban Revolution – the liberation and return to their homeland of the five heroes that were imprisoned in the United States, the update of the socialist economic and social model and the re-establishment of diplomatic relations with the US, an important step to end the hateful economic blockade. A new phase is opened for the Cuban Revolution in the relations with the superpower, which underlines the demand for an end to the blockade, the devolution of territories illegally occupied by its naval base in Guantánamo and the elimination of programs directed at promoting subversion and internal destabilization, including illegal radio and TV broadcasts, besides the compensation to the Cuban people for the human and economic damages caused by the US policies.

18 – Currently, in the world, struggles of various types and intensities are underway, in the most diverse scenarios. These struggles reveal the revolutionary potentialities of the process of accumulation of forces under way. Although in a framework of strategic defensive, of political, ideological and organic difficulties in the communist and revolutionary movement, workers and the peoples rise against capitalist oppression and exploitation, defending their rights, against interventionism, militarism and warmongering, occupying the political landscape as unavoidable protagonists of the struggle for national and social emancipation.

19 – Communists face with historical optimism and confidence the perspective for development of the workers' and peoples' struggle defending their rights, democracy, progress, justice, national sovereignty, peace and socialism. Just as the historical leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, has said, “humanity has no alternative but to change its course.” This change will result from resistance, social mobilization and the struggle in multiples lines and scenarios already en route, and in which the protagonists are socialist, revolutionary, progressive, and leftist governments, vanguard political parties, social movements, revolutionary and national liberation movements, in which the irreplaceable role of the workers' class, of the youth, the women, the progressive intellectuals, the rebellions of popular masses, the movements of resistance to imperialist wars of aggression and occupation of countries, of national liberation struggles.

20 – In the course of these struggles' development, international solidarity emerges and is strengthened, as well as proletarian internationalism, the peoples' and popular masses' internationalism as essential feature of the ethics and the political line of the communist movement, of popular and progressive movements. The fundamental content defining internationalist action today is class solidarity and anti-imperialism. The main goal is to defeat US imperialist strategies, its war policy, its conservativeness and neoliberal dogmas, the brutal offensive it wages against peace, national sovereignty, democracy and the peoples' rights. Within this framework, we invest our endeavors for unity of action among communist and workers' parties, renewing or commitment with the Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties. Likewise, we consider indispensable to consolidate multilateral spaces for convergence and unity among democratic and anti-imperialist forces and movements, at the Latin-American and world level, as well as the mass organizations and peace movements.

Long live the peoples' struggles for national and social emancipation!

Long live proletarian internationalism!

Thank you very much,

José Reinaldo Carvalho
Secretary of Politics and International Relations
Communist Party of Brazil