Twenty years after the Gulf War
The importance of the struggle for peace, against imperialist exploitation and
oppression
Twenty years have elapsed since the beginning of the Gulf War. On January 17, 1991, the
armed forces of the USA, NATO and its allies unleashed - with the ratification of the
Security Council of the United Nations - their first large-scale war in the Middle East,
despite widespread anti war opposition in several countries .Being inseparable from the
profound and negative changes associated with the liquidation of Socialism in the Soviet
Union and in Eastern Europe, that war was a prelude to 20 years of large-scale
aggressions, invasions and imperialist interferences.
From the Gulf to Yugoslavia, from Afghanistan to Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine, imperialism
has tried to impose its domination in each country and over the globe, seeking to impose
the direct control of the world's main energy resources, to annihilate the peoples’
sovereign rights and to submit the entire planet to the exploitation and interests of the big
capital. This militarist and war-mongering offensive has been developed hand in hand with
the attacks against the workers’ and peoples' social, economic and political rights – even
in the centers of imperialism - and contributed to sharpen the contradictions among
imperialist powers.
Thanks to the peoples' resistance and struggle – first and foremost, that of the peoples
who were the victims of aggression – imperialism's offensive has faced obstacles and
suffered important setbacks. But the dangers for peace and the peoples have not
disappeared. On the contrary, capitalism's profound economic crisis, and the ruling
classes' powerlessness to overcome it, is leading – as in the past – to an attempt to
ensure their power through violence, authoritarianism, war and brutal offensives against
the workers’ and peoples' rights and living standards.
The threats of war and aggression are evident in the attacks against workers’ and peoples’
movements that struggle against imperialism, labeling it as an “internal enemy”; in the
recent NATO Summit and the new strategic concept of this militaristic and aggressive
imperialist organization– which the Lisbon Treaty considers its armed wing thus deepening
the process of affirming the European Union as an imperialist economic, political and
military block - ; in the constant imperialist threats of war, provocations and interferences
in numerous parts of the globe; in the increasing expenditure on military and security
apparatuses.
The signatory Parties call upon the workers and peoples of the world to strengthen the
struggle for peace and against imperialism's plans of war and aggression, to strengthen
the struggle against capitalist exploitation and in defense of sovereignty and of the rights
of all peoples of the world. They stress that the struggle for peace, cooperation and
progress is an inseparable element of the struggle for the overthrow of capitalism and the
construction of socialism.
They express their solidarity with the peoples and to the national-liberation, revolutionary
and progressive anti-imperialist forces who are struggling against the imperialism's
aggressions, interferences and threats. In particular, they express their solidarity with the
communists and other anti-imperialist forces of the Middle East and especially with the
Palestinian people in their struggle for the right to establish an independent State of
Palestine in the pre-1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital
January 2011
The Parties:
1. Algerian Part for Democracy and Socialism
2. Communist Party of Bangladesh
3. Communist Party of Brazil
4. Worker's Party of Belgium
5. New Communist Party of Britain
6. Communist Party of Canada
7. AKEL, Cyprus
8. Communist Party in Denmark
9. Communist Party of Finland
10.Communist Party of Greece
11.New Communist Party of the Netherlands
12.Hungarian Communist Workers Party
13.Communist Party of India (Marxist)
14.Communist Party of Ireland
15.Workers Party of Ireland
16.Party of the Italian Communists
17.Workers' Party of Korea
18.Lebanese Communist Party
19. Communist Party of Luxembourg
20.Communist Party of Mexico
21.Communist Party of Norway
22.Palestinian Peoples Party
23.Peruan Communist Party
24.Communist Party of Philippines
25.Portuguese Communist Party
26.South African Communist Party
27.Communist Party of the Russian Federation
28.Communist Party of Spain
29.Party of the Communists Catalonia, Spain
30.Communist Party Peoples of Spain
31.Communist Party of Turkey
32.Communist Party of Venezuela
33.New Communist Party of Yugoslavia
