The internationalists

(Statement of the International Bureau for the Revolutionary Party) · With the clinical sharpness of a laser beam, Hurricane Katrina has opened up a whole series of issues about the nature of today’s class society, the level of the economic crisis, the culpability of capitalism for ecological disaster, and also the fact that capitalist rule is neither as powerful nor as permanent as many believe.

Workers! · Only the politicians' and media's hypocritical propaganda could pretend that the reasons for the present attack on Iraq are Saddam's arms or his dictatorial and bloody regime. · In reality, the American bourgeoisie wants to secure for itself control over the oil of Iraq, which has the richest deposits in the world, as well as those of Saudi Arabia.

515 workers have been on strike since June 18, 2002 at the Horne smelter in Rouyn-Noranda, a small mining town of 27,000 located 400 miles north of Montreal. The workers accepted the CSN union proposal to strike because of a thinly veiled threat on seniority and job security in the new contract company 'offers'. However, the strike was launched without any real discussion about its timeliness.

Nearly 2200 workers have been locked-out since May 2002 by Vidéotron, a Quebec-based telecommunications company. The conflict comes from the proposed transfer of 664 jobs (which would entail the actual loss of 300 more) to another communications company, Entourage Solutions. Workers transferred would lose over 30% of their present wages and their entire pension plan.

East Timor, hailed as the first democracy of the millennium, and established with the aid of the US state, with the assistance of the Australian regional satrap as the local gendarme has shown it's true colors. No clearer an illustration can be made of the reactionary nature of national liberation than in East Timor.