Socialist media project based in Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia
John Edmundson
During the lead-up to the 2008 US election, Barack Obama made much of his plans to end the war in Iraq. His bold declaration – that “on my first day in office, I would give the military a new mission: ending this war”. Across the world, many people pinned their hopes on this promise.
Obama’s policy was never really about ending America’s imperialist war policy. It was always about managing the US war effort more effectively. [Read more…]
Below we republish a statement put out recently by the Christchurch Cuba Friendship Society calling for the release of the 5 Cuban government agents currently incarcerated in the USA for spying on right-wing Cuban exile groups in Miami who are guilty of engaging in terrorist attacks against the island nation:
Meeting calls on President Obama to release the Cuban Five
The Christchurch Cuba Friendship Society (CCFS) has called on President Barack Obama to free the Cuban Five.
The CCFC meeting, held in the city Thursday night, welcomed President Obama’s decision to close the Guantanamo torture camp and urged that he take the next logical step and abandon the facility altogether to its rightful owner the people of Cuba.
The meeting also resolved to write to Mr Obama seeking justice for the five Cuban anti-terrorist fighters held in US prisons for the past 10 years.
“Much has been said on the issue of change by President Obama now is the time for action” CCFS spokesperson Paul Piesse (above) said. “Guantanamo should not simply be closed but returned to the people of Cuba along with the anti-terrorist fighters unjustly imprisoned in the US.” Mr Piesse added.
The five, Gerardo Hernández, René González, Antonio Guerrero, Ramon Labañino and Fernando González were gathering information about terrorist groups that operate on US soil “Their actions” Mr. Piesse noted “helped prevent terrorist acts and protect innocent civilians. Their continued imprisonment is a travesty of justice”
The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has ruled that the men’s imprisonment is in breach of article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
“Mr Obama” Piesse noted “is now in a position to demonstrate his commitment to ‘honesty, courage and fair play’ – it’s time to walk the talk.”
The meeting also called on Unions, Churches and all those who seek justice to also petition the new US President for the Cuba Fives immediate release.
Below we publish the text of a talk given by Mike Walker at a recent Workers Party public forum in Christchurch.
If we are to believe the hype true liberation and self determination for the Palestinian people will be forthcoming with what is commonly referred to as the “two state solution”. This supposed “solution” would leave the racist structures of the Israeli state in place and therefore the fundamental cause of the ‘conflict’ also in place. This proposal would confine Palestinians to less than twenty per cent of the land mandated by the British in 1947 and would leave the situation of Palestinians driven from their homes in what is now Israel unresolved. It would render invisible the alienated enclaves divided by checkpoints, barriers, the annexation wall and a brutal military occupation in the West Bank; combined with the Gaza strip, which has been called the largest concentration camp in the world. This represents the Palestinian Bantustan.
It is crucial as we look at the current situation in Palestine to keep in mind the “two state solution” and to contextualise the history with an emphasis on the history of Zionism and the conduct of Zionist leaders since the creation of the state of Israel.
– Don Franks
The son of murdered black civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. has often been asked: did you think you’d ever live to see a black US president?
“People are surprised when I say yes”, says Martin Luther King III. “But I’m sure my father would have said the same if he was alive today. Without that faith and that sense of possibility he would have had no reason to fight in the first place.”
A spirit of faith and hope has accompanied Obama’s election campaign. A Gallup poll on announcement of Obama’s victory shows that a massive 70% of Americans believe they will be better off by the time the new president finishes his term in four years time.
Seldom has the election of a capitalist politician aroused such euphoric public celebration. Obama’s inaugural speech drew a record crowd of close on two million. In the afterglow of the inauguration ceremonies floods of Obama memorabilia continue to be snapped up at three times the volume of the previous record setter Bill Clinton. [Read more…]
-Philip Ferguson
The current brutal invasion and occupation of Gaza have raised, yet again, the question of the nature of the Israeli state. For us in the Workers Party the horrors rained down on the people of Gaza are the logical result of an exclusivist-Zionist state set up at the expense, and through the dispossession, of the Palestinian people. Campaigning for an immediate Israeli withdrawal is the chief priority right now, but such a withdrawal does not even begin to address the wider denial of the rights of the Palestinians as a people – the very thing which ensures that actions like the attacks on Gaza will continue.
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