Communiqué of the Executive Committee of the WPC
Goa, India 26-28 November 2014
The Executive Committee of the WPC took place in the Indian city of Goa from 26-28 November 2014. The meeting, hosted by the All India Peace and Solidarity Organisation (AIPSO), concluded after discussions on the threats to peace in different parts of the world with the following statement:
The World Peace Council, in its 65th year of struggle, salutes the peace loving forces of the world and calls upon them to fight together with the WPC and its member organizations, against imperialism and its brutal wars, for Peace.
The WPC identifies today the enemy of peace in the world to be imperialism in all its forms of expression, ideologically, politically, militarily and economically. Despite the economic crisis the military expenditure last year (2013), according to SIPRI, has reached worldwide in 2013 the $1,474 trillion, which constitute the 2,4 % of the global GDP. We underline that 37 % of this sum is spent by the USA alone and that altogether the military spending of the USA, NATO and its allies constitute the vast majority of world spending. The WPC demands the drastic cuts in the military budgets and the respective dedication to social welfare.
In a period of deep capitalist crisis, which is entering its 6th year, more and more people are getting impoverished around the world. At the same time the profits of the big monopolies and multinational corporations, particularly the war industries, are growing. Labor rights and achievements of one century are being attacked and liquidated; the unemployment rates are at their record highest.
The same forces which benefit from the crisis are launching new wars against other sovereign nations. The USA, its allies from the EU, using NATO as their common war machinery, are using old and new pretexts in order to secure the control of energy resources, markets and spheres of influence in different parts of the world. The wars that we see today are a consequence of such policies.
The imperialist forces and their allies are also promoting violent regime changes, or “colored revolutions” against other sovereign nations. In their attempts to break up or weaken mineral rich states, they are creating and using, or indirectly supporting, extreme-right and xenophobic groups, including religious fundamentalist armed groups, in the world. These policies are being supported by the global corporate media, which hide the truth from the people in the interests of imperialism.
Asia and Pacific
In Asia and the Pacific, the peoples are witnessing the USA’s “Pivot to Asia” as a part of its plans for the “containment” of China. It plans to deploy 60% of its military forces and equipment in the area, with grave consequences to the peace and stability of the region. The USA has signed bilateral agreements with a number of countries, has opened new Military Bases, stationed the 7th Fleet in the Pacific and is planning the deployment of its Missile Defense Shield. It plans to deploy 5,000 Special Forces in Australia by 2015 and maintains 28,000 troops in South Korea. The USA is interfering in the existing disputes in the East China Sea and South China Sea. The WPC supports the resolution of all disputes on the basis of the UN Convention of the Law of the Seas of 1982 and calls upon all sides and especially upon the people of the region to be guided by the principle of the friendship of the peoples, and against any foreign interference.
The WPC denounces the escalation of the aggression against the Korean people reflected in the recent UN resolution against the DPR Korea and expresses its solidarity with the Korean people. It calls for the removal of the US troops from South Korea and on end to the provocative military exercises of USA with Japan and South Korea in the area and expresses its solidarity with the Korean people aspiration to peaceful reunification.
The US continues its war in Afghanistan, stationing its military forces there, and is using drone attacks in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Its armed attacks and use of drones are killing a large number of civilians, and remain the single largest source of destabilisation in the region.
The WPC notes with concern the increasing alignment of India with the US foreign policy in the region.
The WPC also condemns the actions of the Japanese government which is re-interpreting the Article 9 of the Constitution of Japan to allow the revival of Japanese militarism through the deployment of Japanese troops abroad as part also of the US-Japan military agreements.
Middle East
The most tense situation remains in the Middle East, with its rich reserves of oil, and at the same time, the theatre of operations of US, EU and NATO imperialism and its regional allies, as Israel. Most of the current problems of the region stem from past and continuing imperialist interventions, in which imperialism combined with the most reactionary feudal and fundamentalist forces, have acted against the peoples and the anti-imperialist forces. All coups and interventions in the past till its military invasion in Iraq, have led to continued instability and wars in the region. It is the same policy that led to the US in building Al Qaeda and Taliban against the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan that received the support of the Soviet Union.
The WPC condemns the ongoing occupation of Iraq and the multiple interferences in the domestic affairs of Syria with the tens of thousands of mercenaries, funded, trained and instructed by the USA, NATO and EU aiming at the violent regime change and redrawing of borders. We note in this context with concern the active role of Turkey and the oil monarchies of the Gulf in the framework also of the US-led “alliance of the willing”.
The WPC is following closely the current 5+1 negotiations with Iran. The US has successfully exploited the disastrous impact of sanctions, which have seriously harmed the Iranian economy, in order to advance its imperialist “New Middle East” plan. It is reconfiguring its policies in the region with the fundamental objective of enhancing its economic and political hegemony over the region and controlling its strategic energy resources.
The Palestinian issue is being called not without reason the “core issue” in the Middle East. The slow ongoing genocide through the Israeli occupation of Palestine is creating new sufferings for all the Palestinian people, particularly in the Gaza strip. The Palestinian people have been deprived of the right to a sovereign viable Palestine state. They have been oppressed and harassed, killed and jailed. If Israel did not have the full support of successive US administrations and the EU, the state of Israel and its army would not be able to carry out its occupation of Palestine for so long.
During the recent, unilateral aggression of Israel in the Gaza strip (July/August 2014), the Israeli war machine killed by air, sea and ground invasion more than 2.194 people, 40% of them women and children. More than 500.000 people are homeless, living in shelters and schools. 5 millions tons of construction materials are needed to build again all that has been destroyed, for the third time in five years.
We demand and support the establishment of an independent State of Palestine within the borders of June 4, 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and its recognition by the UN as a full Member State. The genocidal siege of Gaza has to end immediately. The Palestinians need to have port and airport facilities and free movement between the Palestinian territories immediately. The WPC also demands the release of all Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails and the right for the return of the Palestinian refugees based on the UN Resolution 194.
The WPC underlines its demand for the end of the occupation of the Syrian Golan heights and the Lebanese Shebaa farms by Israel.
Europe
The peoples of Europe are facing the consequences of the economic crisis with the highest ever unemployment rates since WW II, with the youth as its worst victims. The governments of the EU countries, together with the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the IMF, are imposing new anti-peoples policies, attacks on social services and rights, education and democratic freedoms. The EU, a political and economic Union, has turned also into “Military Union” acting in tandem with NATO. The WPC opposed always NATO from its founding and is categorically against its expansion, and its plans to affiliate Georgia and Ukraine, as decided in its recent summit in Wales. Likewise the peoples of the region are threatened by the growing extreme-right, Fascism and Neo-Nazism, as in Ukraine, nurtured by the systemic economic crisis and in order to safeguard through oppression the exploitation of the workers and the peoples.
The WPC denounces the imperialist intervention of the USA, EU and NATO in the Ukraine with the coup last February and the installation of a reactionary government which included fascist and neo-Nazi forces. We also condemn the murderous bombing of the civilian populations in the East Ukrainian region and the chauvinistic attacks on linguistic and ethnic minorities in Ukraine.
Due to the imperialist wars and aggression, there is a serious concern about the growing waves of refugees and migrants especially in EU member States, which is a humanitarian issue but often being used for cheap labour for the enterprises.
We denounce the open violation of the sovereignty and Exclusive Economic Zone of the Cyprus Republic by Turkey. We express our solidarity with all Cypriots to end the occupation of the island and for a solution that ensures the unity of the Republic of Cyprus, on the basis of a bi-zonal,bi communal Federation, free from foreign military bases and troops. The WPC rejects the plans of the government of Cyprus to affiliate the island into NATO through its “Partnership for Peace” program.
We denounce the plans for recognition of the EU/NATO Protectorate in Kosovo/Metohija, which is the result of the murderous aggression against Yugoslavia by NATO 15 years ago.
The WPC expresses serious concern about the militarization of the Arctic Zone as an area of inter-imperialist antagonisms.
Americas
The struggles of the peoples of Latin America continue on many fronts. The Cuban Revolution in its 56th year continues to be a source of inspiration for the peoples of the region and the world. The WPC denounces the inhuman US blockade, the reinforcement of its extraterritorial laws and subversive plans against Socialist Cuba. It also demands the release and return to their homeland of the 3 remaining Cuban antiterrorists in jail who are for 15 years suffering the separation from their country and their families. The WPC will continue its struggle and initiatives for the closure and removal of the US Base in Guantanamo, which continues, amongst others, to serve as a concentration camp and military enclave against the will of the Cuban people and government.
We express our solidarity with the peoples and the anti-imperialist forces in the countries of Latin America who are defending their sovereignty and their right to decide their own path of development. We condemn the subversive actions of the US administration and other imperialist forces against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Honduras and others, and strongly demand the closure and removal of all foreign military bases from the American continent, which constitute, along with the 4th US Naval Fleet, a daily threat to peace and stability.
The WPC salutes the declaration of CELAC for a Region of Peace, free of foreign military bases and fleets and calls upon the peoples of the area to strengthen their anti-imperialist actions and struggles.
We express our solidarity to the people of Argentina in their demand for the removal of the British troops from the Malvinas islands in the Pacific Ocean. A matter of concern remains also the presence of foreign troops of MINUSTAH in Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the world, for supposed humanitarian purpose.
The WPC is following the peace talks taking place in Havana between the Colombian government and the insurgency and expresses our solidarity with the Colombian people and their desire to reach a just and durable peace.
The WPC expresses its deep concern about the increasing police violence against minority population and the United States, especially African American. The recent unjustified killing of a young black man in Ferguson, Missouri and the absence of an indictment of his killer, a member of the local police force, is just one example for the increased repression in the US. The WPC expresses its solidarity with the struggles of the people in Ferguson and nationwide for social justice and civil liberties and freedoms.
Africa
In Africa, brutal exploitation by multinational corporations continues with the full military support of the US and EU. The newly created Africom and new US bases in Africa (e.g., Chad), the military interventions of France in Francophone Africa, are a part of imperialism’s direct interventions in Africa. Imperialism is also fostering divisions and proxy wars there to make it easier to plunder Africa’s mineral resources.
The US’s, EU’s and NATO’s interventions in Somalia and Libya have resulted in the collapse of these states, leading to local insurgencies and their spilling over into neighbouring countries.
France has repeatedly intervened – either directly or covertly – in its erstwhile colonies such as the intervention in the Central African Republic, in Burkina Faso, Mali, Cote d’Ivoire, Chad, etc. In Burkina Faso, it helped overthrow the progressive government of Thomas Sankara in 1987 and install the French stooge Blaise Campaore. The WPC salutes the people of Burkina Faso who have recently overthrown the brutal Campaore regime and calls on the people to unite against French government’s attempts to install another puppet regime there.
West Africa, particularly Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, is facing the huge challenge of the Ebola epidemic, in which thousands have died. Ebola is not a difficult disease to control provided there is a functioning public health system. It is the resource wars imposed by imperialism– two of the three countries worst affected had civil wars until recently – and the neoliberal economic forces that have dismantled the public health system in these three countries that has prevented the containment of the Ebola epidemic.
In the absence of profits, the global pharma industry completely ignores the diseases of the poor such as Ebola, Tuberculosis, etc. The WHO, with its now donor driven agenda and tied funds, has insufficient resources for addressing such outbreaks. Socialist Cuba’s remarkable internationalist efforts in the Ebola fight by sending 256 health personnel to West Africa, not only requires emulation but to also puts pressure on governments across the world to respond to such crisis with doctors and not with soldiers.
The WPC reaffirms its solidarity with the people of Western Sahara. We condemn the occupation of Western Sahara by the Kingdom of Morocco and underline our solidarity with the just struggle of the Saharawi people, for their inalienable right to self determination under a free and democratic referendum.
WPC calls and basic campaigns
- Continuing to commemorate its creation 65 years ago (1949/50), the WPC will contribute by its action to enlarge and strength the peace movement, appealing to all peace and anti-imperialist solidarity forces, as well to all peace lovers – without any ideological, religious or political discrimination – to strive for the achievement of the common goal: the creation and strengthening of a secure and just peace for all the peoples of the world.
- The battle for the abolition nuclear weapons we launched in 1950 with the “Stockholm Appeal”, which was signed by hundreds of millions of people, still continues. As a part of this struggle, the WPC will observe in 2015, the 70th anniversary of the brutal bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
- The WPC also expresses our solidarity with the Vietnamese people for the horrific consequences of the toxic “Agent Orange” used by the USA in its dirty war in Vietnam. We will observe the 40th anniversary of the liberation of South Vietnam (Ho Chi Minh City), which marked the end of the war and the national reunification of Vietnam.
- The WPC will mark the 65th anniversary of the beginning of the imperialist aggression of the USA to Korea (1950/53), demanding the removal of the US troops from South Korea and the end of the provocative military exercises of USA with Japan and South Korea and the expression of its solidarity with the aspiration of the Korean people for peaceful reunification of the peninsula.
- In 2015, in the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Victory of the Peoples against Fascism, the WPC shall take up initiatives to highlight the lessons and conclusions from the glorious struggle of the peoples against fascism, the causes from which it derived and the heroic battles and sacrifices of the peoples of the USSR which had more than 20 million victims.
- The WPC will mobilize for the success of the III. International Seminar for the abolition of Foreign Military Bases in Guantanamo province of Cuba in November 2015.
- The WPC will rally forces and unite forces for the recognition of the Independent State of Palestine within the borders 4/June ’67 as independent member state of the UN.
- The WPC will observe the 70th anniversary of the UN charter (1945) and 40th anniversary of the Final Act of the Helsinki Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (1975), stressing the timeliness and the need to respect its principles.
- The WPC will observe the 60th anniversary of the Bandung conference which led to the birth of the Non-Aligned Movement.
The WPC Secretariat shall explore the conditions for holding of Secretariat and EC meetings within the year 2015
The Executive Committee expresses its sincere thanks to the people of Goa, the Goa unit of All India Peace & Solidarity Organisation for hosting this meeting and providing warm hospitality to all participants.
WPC resolutions of the Executive Committee Goa 26-28 November 2014
Nuclear weapons threaten the existence of civilization.
70 years after the murderous nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki the world today is facing crises of wars and the confrontation between nuclear weapons powers. Russia on the one side and the United States of America and its NATO allies on the other are facing war in Ukraine. Without the massive, forceful and insistent actions of the world’s peoples, nuclear war may be the outcome.
In the Middle East, the U.S. and its NATO allies threaten war on Iran over that country’s nuclear energy program, even while Israel and the U.S. maintain the only nuclear arsenals in that region. The WPC is well aware of the imperial, economic and geopolitical basis for the threats.
Since 1970, 189 states have joined the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. A 5-year review of this Treaty will take place at the UN in New York City in April 2015. The Treaty includes the specification that non-nuclear states will not acquire nuclear weapons, and that the acknowledged nuclear weapons states will negotiate nuclear disarmament. It also specifies the conditions for access to and transfer of nuclear technology.
Currently the NPT regime is recognized by many nations and NGOs to be severely threatened because the nuclear-armed states have refused to negotiate nuclear disarmament, the U.S. is violating the Treaty by transferring nuclear technology to non-signatory Israel, and the U.S. unilaterally cancelled the UN conference to create a zone free of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East that was to be held in Helsinki, Finland, in 2012.
During past NPT Review Conferences, again and again Peace organizations throughout the world have together organized NGO conferences, marches and delivered millions of petition signatures calling for nuclear disarmament as required by the NPT. Far back in the 1950‘s the WPC itself organized the Stockholm Appeal and collected hundreds of millions of signatures calling for universal nuclear disarmament. We have to continue on this path actively. Actions shout louder than words.
The active participation of the WPC and its member national Peace Councils in the Planning Group and Committees would strengthen the positions and demands of the anti-nuclear movement. It is essential that the WPC participate in and mobilize its national member organizations to participate.
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Therefore,
1. The WPC will participate in the upcoming NGO preparations for and actions around the NPT Review Conference. These actions will take place from 24-26 April 2015 in New York City.
2. The WPC will work for the closer involvement in the preparations
3. The WPC will immediately send this resolution to its national Peace Council member organizations.
4. The WPC will coordinate global actions of national Peace Councils, including but not limited to informing its member organizations of proposals and actions of the organizers of the events around 2015 NPT.
5. The WPC will urge each national Peace Council to carry out the following efforts to the extent possible:
a. Send representatives to the NGO actions in New York.
b. Organize actions within the member’s national boundaries in coordination with global actions and actions in New York.
c. Pressure its national government to
i. Express in strongest terms the nation’s insistence that nuclear-armed nations begin and quickly conclude the process for total nuclear abolition;
ii. Demand that the NPT signatories and all nuclear-armed states plan and organize within the year the Helsinki conference to promptly create a Middle East Zone free of nuclear and all weapons of mass destruction.
iii. Work with the Non-Aligned Movement as appropriate to coordinate its actions.
Institutional and militia violence in Mexico
The World Peace Council acknowledges with great concern the institutional and the militias’ violence in Mexico, especially since the disappearance of 43 students from the Rural College “Raul Isidro Burgos”, Ayotzinapa, on September 26.
We join the social organizations and the Mexican people demanding information on the students’ whereabouts, since they add to the thousands of citizens already disappeared or murdered. The 43 young men had gone to the College, in the Guerrero state, to demonstrate against the Government’s discrimination when hiring professors or financing Schools, but they were intercepted and violently confronted by the municipal police, and possibly handed over to the “Guerreros Unidos” cartel.
We demand an end to actions such as the repression that took place in Ayotzinapa and against the protests that ensued calling for the students’ return. The actions by criminal groups’ linked to drug trafficking are still overwhelming, the result of an aggressive policy of repression and of the so-called “war on drugs”, which only serves to strengthen a police State, taking stances that directly contradict the Mexican people’s demands for a fairer and inclusive country. These stances have militarization as an alleged policy against drug trafficking, but it only ends up strengthening the criminal activity.
In this context, the US’ role is crucial for the push it gives to militarization in the entire American continent, under the pretext of a “battle” already proven as failed against drug trafficking through weapons, and strengthening State institutions with repressive powers, as well as the military and paramilitary groups in many countries. This policy’s primary characteristic is precisely repression and the massacre of civilians, especially in the rural areas.
The World Peace Council stresses its solidarity with the Mexican people in their struggle for a fairer and safe country, in their demands for civil, political and social rights and for information on the whereabouts of the 43 students, victims of enforced disappearance, kidnap or murder.
Enough with the militarization and violence disseminated by the aggressive policies and repression in Mexico!
We demand the kidnapped students’ return!
The WPC condemns fundamentalist and terrorist forces as a threat to world peace
The Executive Committee meeting of the WPC, in Goa, India from 26th to 28th Nov 2014 notes with concern the serious developments which threaten to polarise and divide societies along religious and sectarian lines, paving the way for and reinforcing intervention by the US, EU and NATO.
The activities of Islamic fundamentalist and sectarian groups and their violent military campaigns are not only directed against other sections of society based on religious and ethnic identity. They also aim at regime change, fragmentation of society and redrawing the map of the region. This has facilitated the reconfiguration of US policies in the Middle East, aimed at securing its vital interests and those of its allies.
In the overall context, this gives rise to grave concern about the US “New Middle East Plan”, particularly with reference to the future of Libya, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
The emergence of Al Qaeda and Jabhat al-Nusra and now the establishment of ISIS and its announcement of the Islamic Caliphate, are qualitatively new developments that seek to take back the whole region to the Middle Ages. Similar groups, such as Boko Haram in Nigeria and al-Shabaab in Somalia, accentuate this danger elsewhere in the world.
The WPC is alert to this new threat created by the US and its allies to provide a pretext for direct militarist and interventionist policies. In particular, the WPC takes note of the financing of ISIS by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies and abetment by Turkey.
Apart from suiting and complementing the imperialist game plan, the dangerous development and proliferation of this fundamentalist / sectarian violent militarisation also reinforces other divisions /communal/fundamentalist/ sectarian mobilisation, which end up by completely disrupting and undermining the people’s unity.
Therefore, the WPC, while reaffirming its opposition to US led intervention and military aggression, pledges unflinchingly to oppose the forces of fundamentalism and their campaign of violence and bloodshed and attempt to impose their narrow vision of religion on society.
“Ban all Cyberweapons and Tools of Mass Surveillance”
As the Internet becomes more and more important in our lives, its safety and integrity has become critical. This is not only for preserving the privacy of our communications and our data but also to protect our vital infrastructure – the electrical grid, critical resources such as banks, water systems, steel plants, etc. — that uses or is connected to the Internet. Essential services and systems in the financial, education, health, transport, media and communications sectors are increasingly based on the Internet, relied upon by all governments and billions of organizations and individuals.
All such vital infrastructure today can be attacked using the Internet. The National Security Agency (NSA) of the US, along with spy agencies of the other 5-Eyes countries (the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand), has been conducting mass surveillance of almost all global communications and has endangered the safety of the Internet itself.
Other governments are also militarizing the Internet and creating their tools of mass surveillance as well.
The Stuxnet attack on an Iranian nuclear facility demonstrated the potential impact cyber weapons could have on infrastructure and equipment, as well as the danger that such malware could reproduce through civilian networks. Stuxnet also raised questions of whether a nuclear catastrophe could result from an attack on an operating nuclear power plant or weapons facility.
Edward Snowden has revealed that the NSA carried out over 230 offensive cyber operations in just one year (2011) and that 50,0000 Computer Network Exploitations (CNE), software implants, have been established in other countries’ telecoms networks. CNEs have the ability not only to tap into the data streams of these networks but also to disable them, armed and activated with a single command.
The Snowden revelations has also brought out that the NSA and its allies have been conducting pervasive surveillance on almost all the Internet users and also using it to spy on the global leaders such as Dilma Roussef, Angela Merkel and delegations to major international negotiations such as Climate Change and WTO.
The USA attacks Cuba, for subversive purposes, by means of technologies of the information and the communication. The Agency of The United States for Development Assistance (USAID) financed for example the project “ZunZuneo”, a messaging network created with the aim to overthrow the Cuban government. By means of this network private data of Cubans were used for political purposes, which constitutes a violation of the International Law and of the Cuban sovereignty.
It is imperative that we stop this mad race for militarisng the Internet and using it as a tool of mass surveillance. There is an urgent need to ban all offensive cyber weapons and ensure that the telecommunication and the Internet networks are not used for offensive military purposes.
The World Peace Council’s Executive Committee meeting in Goa, 26-28 November, 2014 demands an international treaty to ban all cyberweapons and all tools of mass surveillance. The Internet should be declared as a zone free of weapons the same way we have declared the outer space as a weapons free zone.
Ban Drones and Drone Strikes
The US is increasingly resorting to drone strikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and in North Africa. Likewise the EU started the process to develop and obtain Drones. In a number of countries, such strikes are being conducted without the approval of the countries concerned. Christof Heyns, a South African law professor, who is the UN’s special rapporteur on extra-judicial, summary or arbitrary executions has given a report holding such strikes as assassinations and violative of international law. His report stated, “The expansive use of armed drones by the first states to acquire them, if not challenged, can do structural damage to the cornerstones of international security and set precedents that undermine the protection of life across the globe in the longer term.”
A recent report by Reprieve (Guardian: Nov 24, 2014) after analysing data has shown that in order to kill 41 targets, the US drone strikes killed 1,147 people, with a large number of women and children among those killed. The above figures do not include what are called “signature strikes” where there are no specific targets but based on a pattern of behaviour regarded as suspicious.This gives a lie to the claims of the Obama administration that drones are “precise” weapons and only kill their targets.
The CIA is now urging the White House to significantly expand the agency’s fleet of armed drones to continue such lethal air and drone strikes and expand the endless “war on terror”. The USA has already more than 10,000 dronesThose who operate the drones do so with complete impunity “hiding” in their facilities in Nevada and other such facilities, while thousands of innocent civilians get caught in the crossfire.
This killing by remote control is against all canons of international law that prohibit extra judicial killings. It is inflaming the sentiments of the people and creating a fertile ground for forces such as the Taliban, Da’esh (ISIS), etc.
The Executive Committee of the World Peace Council calls on the international community to ban drones and other such weapons of targeted assassinations. Likewise the WPC condemns the use of drones for surveillance and violation of national airspace in various countries. The US and its allies are ushering in a world where such weapons are bound to proliferate creating an enormous threat to world peace.
On global resource and environment changes and threats
The Executive Committee WPC took serious note of the negative consequences of the impact of ongoing unruly or greedy corporate and human activities upon the local and the global environment, reaching planetary level, namely the misuse or depletion of natural living and mineral resources and the undue or reckless release of emissions and dumping of wastes, which threaten the access to vital natural goods – fresh water, fertile soil, terrestrial biomes such as tropical rain forests and grasslands, marine biomes and fisheries, clean atmosphere and oceans, healthy habitats and environments – all of which are vital to the wellbeing and progress of present and future generations.
The WPC EC cannot be silent spectator to these impending dangers and therefore appeals to the international community, governments and civil society organisations to be vigilant and take necessary steps to save the precious planet earth – on the way to an equitable and peaceful world.
On the trial of war criminals in Bangladesh
The WPC stands by the Bangladeshi people in their trial of the war criminals, responsible for mass killings, indiscriminate rapes, murdering of scientists and intellectuals and crimes against humanity during the liberation war of Bangladesh in 1971. We are aware of the sinister campaign by some quarters in the international arena spreading misconception and confusion about the trial. While defending the international law and rules for conducting these trials we support the individual human rights of all persons involved, including the right to appeal.
Statement of the President of the WPC on the release and return of the three Cuban patriots
The World Peace Council receives the news, with triumphal joy, from the revolutionary island of Cuba, that the five Cuban heroes and anti-terrorists returned home. After 16 years away from their homes and their homeland, arbitrarily and illegally incarcerated in the USA, the release of the remaining three patriots Tony, Ramón and Gerardo coincides with the moment in which the relations between the US and Cuba are being re-evaluated.
The commercial, political and economic blockade imposed by the US’ imperialism against Cuba is an anachronism and a retrograde policy. It puts in evidence the US violation of the peoples’ right to self-determination, to choose their political and economic system.
We are aware that the criminal embargo imposed by the US and the illegal imprisonment of the five Cuban anti-terrorists had purely political reasoning, of direct imperialist interference in the national affairs of the Cuban people. The liberation of the three remaining patriots detained in the US is a great victory for the social movements in the whole world, engaged in the solidarity with the heroic Cuban people in this great and just cause.
We transmit to the Cuban State and the Cuban people our great joy with the news about the Five patriots’ return home. We reiterate our unrestricted solidarity with the Cuban people in their exercise of their self-determination, for peace and freedom, against the aggressive and retrograde policies conducted by the US imperialism. We hope that these news and the commitment expressed today by US President Barack Obama, in conversation with Cuban President Raúl Castro, are important steps towards the actual normalization of relations based on the respect for the Cuban sovereignty, for the end of the blockade and of the US’ interferences.
To Gerardo, René, Tony, Fernando and Ramón, our fraternal hug and our cheers!
Long live the heroic Cuban people!
Socorro Gomes,
President of the World Peace Council
17 December 2014.
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