June 3rd statement of the Young Communist League (Ontario)
Protests called this weekend by the Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War
against the visit of Colin Powell to Canada, at the behest of the
Jewish National Fund, sends an important message rejecting the US war
agenda in Canada. Youth, students, and all peace and democracy-loving
people should support this protest, and call for Powell's arrest for
crimes against humanity.
The war banner Powell's gang in suits carries is saluted by the Harper
Conservatives in Canada. For youth, the stakes are high. With
cutbacks, privatization and massive military spending going to
Canada's dirty war in Afghanistan, they are replacing the chance of
good jobs and accessible education with military recruitment, racism,
and boot camps. It is time to demand a life with a future!
POWELL - ENEMY OF DEMOCRACY, AGENT OF IMPERIALISM
Colin Powell has hard-earned reputation as a spokesperson for
imperialism and enemy of democracy and sovereignty. For his role in
orchestrating many crimes against humanity Powell should be arrested
and brought to justice.
Perhaps the most infamous act of the former US Secretary of State was
his justification of the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003. Powell's
testimony (contradicting earlier statements he himself had said) about
the presence of Weapon's of Mass Destruction in Iraq played an
important role in camouflaging the true reasons for the war – oil
profits and the strategic location of Iraq.
Today, that illegal war and occupation has killed over six hundred of
thousand Iraqi civilians. This monstrous crime shows the danger US
imperialism posses to humanity. Recently, Powell has stated that Iran
also possesses Weapon's of Mass Destruction, in a move widely
denounced by progressive people as potentially justifying another war.
Powell helped organized the illegal coup of democratically elected
President Aristide from Haiti. ''[W]hether or not he is able to
effectively continue as president is something that he will have to
examine," Powell told the international media three days before a
CIA-organized raid kidnapped Aristide and flew him secretly to the
Congo. Since then, massive bloodshed has resulted from the murderous
actions of US, Canadian and French police forces in Haiti.
Powell also serves on several corporate boards including Gulfstream
Aerospace and America Online (which later merged with Time Warner).
The former general earned a $4 million windfall when AOL merged with
Time Warner in 2001. Powell's son, Michael, was the only commissioner
at the Federal Communications Commission who advocated letting the
AOL-Time Warner deal go through without scrutiny. Perhaps this is
what Powell means when he talks about bringing "Free-market
Democracy'' to Iraq.
WHO INVITED WAR CRIMINAL POWELL?
Powell was invited to this thousand-dollar plate dinner by the Jewish
National Fund, supposedly to raise money to restore a forest in
Israel. This at exactly the time when a growing movement across Canada
is condemning that country, and the JNF. Last year Ontario's biggest
union, Canadian Union of Public Employees - Ontario, resolved to
boycott, divest
from, and sanction Israel (bds) until it recognizes the Palestinians
right to self-determination and complies with international law,
including the right of refugees to return.
The Jewish National Fund, which is able to give tax-deductible
receipts to Canadian donors (meaning that all tax-payers are in effect
subsidizing Israeli apartheid), does charitable work like constructing
"Canada Park." It is a travesty that this park, built over the ruins
of three Arab villages (Amwas, Yalu, and Beit Nuba) from which the
residents were forcibly expelled during the 1967 war, is named after
our country, which implicitly condones the shameful expulsion of First
Nations, Metis and Acadian nations in Canada.
The State of Israel reserves 93% of all property inside the green line
for Jews only. In apartheid South Africa, 87% of all property was
reserved in law for whites only. The infant mortality rate in
Palestinian areas is almost 5 times that of Jewish areas. Israel's
ruling party Kadima has openly stated that the strategy of withdrawing
from Gaza and building a wall in the West Bank, cutting off
Palestinians from each other, is to maintain a Jewish majority in
Israel, originally achieved by expelling and terrorizing Palestinians.
It is no co-incidence that Powell is speaking on the behest of the
JNF. US-Israeli policy in the Middle East is to repress the Arab
national liberation movement, which nationalized the Suez Canal and
kicked British colonialists out of South Yemen, establishing the first
Arab communist state. The face of George W. Bush and Colin Powell in
Canada is that of PM Steven Harper and General Rick Hillier.
ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE, AND WE NEED TO FIGHT FOR IT!
This nightmare must not continue forever. Instead of towing the line
of the Bush Republicans war agenda, Canada must assert our own
independent foreign policy, based on peace and disarmament.
We must defeat the Harper Conservatives, who have extended the mandate
of the Afghanistan mission to 2009 and have launched a sophisticated
public relations blitz to try to twist around public opinion on this
unpopular war. Calling to bring the troops home is critical in that
struggle, to confront and drive out Harper. The fight outside
parliament will be decisive, and will lead the battle which must occur
in the House to dump the Conservatives.
Ending the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, and preventing new
imperialist aggressions against Iran, Sudan, or any other country, are
the key tasks of the day. To win a better world, to achieve social
justice and environmental sustainability, humanity needs peace and
disarmament.
The main source of danger and global injustice is not terrorism, as
Powells' crew claims, but US imperialism. The YCL (Ontario) therefore
joins with the Communist Party of Canada in calling for an independent
foreign policy of peace and disarmament for Canada, based on the
following alternative policies:
- Withdraw immediately Canadian and all NATO forces from Afghanistan
- End the occupation of Iraq; prosecute those responsible for the
invasion of Iraq as war criminals
- No imperialist aggression against Iran! Seek a peaceful, negotiated solution
- Respect the United Nations' Charter and international laws that
uphold state sovereignty and national self-determination
- Oppose "preventive" war, the "first use" of nuclear weapons and
other imperialist military doctrines
- Reject attacks on civil and democratic rights carried out under the
racist and imperialist "war on terror"
- End Canada's boycott of the elected Palestinian Authority; dismantle
Israel's illegal wall built in occupied territories; support a
Palestinian state and the right of return of all Palestinian refugees,
consistent with U.N. resolutions
- Oppose the sanctions against Cuba; free "The Cuban Five" jailed in
the U.S. for fighting terrorism
- Withdraw all occupying forces from Haiti
- Oppose the dangerous U.S. Missile Defence program
- Abolish all weapons of mass destruction and negotiate global
disarmament treaties
- Ban the international arms trade; ban arms sales to regimes
responsible for genocide and crimes against peace
- Welcome war resisters to Canada and allow them to stay permanently
- Withdraw Canada from the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation; support
dismantling all military alliances
- Abrogate "free trade" deals which undermine Canada's sovereignty,
close factories, and fail to protect Canada from unjust sanctions
- Promote trade relations between Canada and all countries on the
basis of equality, sustainability and mutual social benefit; cancel
the debt of Third World countries; increase unconditional aid by
imperialist countries as compensation for centuries of slavery,
colonial oppression and exploitation.
- Support the right of self-determination for all nations which now
are denied that right, including in Canada; promote equal and
voluntary relations between nations deciding to remain in the same
state
Contact the YCL Ontario
290A Danforth Ave, Toronto
ycl_ontario@ycl-ljc.ca
416 469 2446
www.ycl-ljc.ca
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