From: "Walter Lippmann" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 06:27:50 -0700 To: "CubaNews" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [CubaNews] Socialist Alliance (Australia) 9-11 statement From: DSP To: Links Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 9:40 PM Subject: Socialist Alliance (Australia) statement on September 11 terrorist attacks on US Dear Comrades, Attached below is a statement from the Socialist Alliance in Australia on the September 11 terrorist attacks on the US and the US push for war. Nine socialist organisations and many individual activists have formed the Socialist Alliance in Australia to contest the next federal election. The initiating organisations are: the Democratic Socialist Party; the International Socialist Organisation; Workers Liberty; the Freedom Socialist Party; Workers Power; The Worker Communist Party of Iraq (Australia); the Workers League; Socialist Alternative; and Socialist Democracy Supporters include Craig Johnston, Victorian state branch secretary of the AMWU, Melbourne University academic Verity Burgmann, comedian Rod Quantock, union and environmental activist Jack Mundey, former Labor Party minister Ken Fry, Victorian Fairwear organiser Annie Delaney and Victorian Trades Hall women's and equity officer Ellen Kleimaker. The alliance will stand in every state and territory. For more details, email: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> or visit <www.socialist-alliance.org> Comradely greetings, John Percy National Secretary Democratic Socialist Party Australia [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- Oppose Bush's drive to war! Oppose racism! The Socialist Alliance shares the horror felt by human beings across the planet at the devastation and suffering unleashed in New York and Washington on September 11. We condemn these acts of indiscriminate violence, which can only serve to destroy solidarity among working people and for which there can be no justification. Working class people in the United States have borne the brunt of this atrocity, and we stand in solidarity with them and in particular with the public sector workers and trade unionists. They performed the most dangerous and difficult tasks in rescue and recovery, in the course of which hundreds gave their lives. However, with many millions around the world, Socialist Alliance also shares the fear that the United States government and its allies, including the Australian government, will compound this tragedy by taking yet more innocent lives. Washington's looming open-ended war against "terrorism" will expose millions of innocent people to death, injury, destruction and social disruption. Bush's vendetta could plunge humanity into a global cycle of extreme violence and mindless vengeance. Here in Australia the Howard government has again rushed to give unconditional support for the US to use lethal force. Yet state terrorism of any kind is not an acceptable response to these events-in cooperation with others the Socialist Alliance will do its utmost to stop it. We remember that only three years ago, a previous US president, with the vociferous support of John Howard, exacted revenge for a terrorist attack by bombing a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan, with huge loss of life and destructive consequences for the people of that country. There proved to be no connection whatsoever between the factory and the alleged perpetrators of the terrorist attack. The US bombing, and Australia's shameful support for it, became yet one more sharply felt grievance in the Third World, and another spur for the types of people who may have committed the outrages in the USA. The Socialist Alliance condemns the hypocrisy and arrogance of the US political leadership and its allies in Australia. These people are themselves complicit in appalling acts of terrorism and violence against civilian populations, and in general of imposing policies of inhuman brutality across much of the Third World. Their policies are the root cause of the terrorist response against symbols of US power like the Pentagon. Among their human costs have been the deaths of more than half a million children in Iraq, hundreds of thousands in East Timor, and many others in the Balkans, Palestine, the Congo, Central America, and of course Afghanistan. There, indeed, the USA armed, trained and funded both Osama Bin Laden-the supposed author of the terrorist attacks-and the reactionary Taliban rulers of the country. The most fitting memorial to those who died or suffered in New York and Washington would be the complete reversal of Washington's policies of exploitation of the Third World, and their replacement by policies that promote peace, democracy, co-operation and sustainable and egalitarian economic development. The Socialist Alliance also condemns those politicians and forces in the media who have seized on these terrifying events to promote their own self-seeking agendas of increased military and intelligence spending, curbs on civil liberties, and racist attacks on asylum seekers, immigrants or members of religious or ethnic minorities. Liberal government ministers cynically used the horror of the attack on the World Trade Centre to strengthen opposition to refugees. Already there have been instances of racist attacks on Muslims and ethnic minorities. The Socialist Alliance will be in the frontline in the struggle against this racism and xenophobia. The Socialist Alliance calls on all who have shared our horror at the scenes in the USA to join us in acting now to prevent the proliferation of violence across the world. We are ready to play our part in mobilising the broadest possible opposition to any attempt by US politicians and their global allies to use this tragedy as a pretext for military aggression. Labor and the Coalition appear united in their support for US foreign policy, however dangerous it may prove to the people of the planet. Once again, the Liberal and Labor response to the terrorist attacks in the US demonstrate that working people in Australia need an independent voice that will speak out against the elite corporate interests that now dominate the main parties. To eradicate violence, it is necessary to eradicate social and economic injustice. Global capitalism is creating a world of ever more pronounced extremes of wealth and poverty, power and powerlessness. As long as this process continues, we will live in a violent and unstable world. The Socialist Alliance says it is absolutely vital that we stand together against the war-makers, the arms-dealers, the giant corporations, the racists, and all the highly-placed hypocrites who would exploit fear, grief and uncertainty for their own ends. The Alliance calls for, and will participate in, broad and representative groupings of all those who are determined to organise against the war threat. In particular, we believe that the trade unions have a vital role to play in building opposition to Bush's drive to war. The Socialist Alliance is determined to play the fullest part in this struggle for humanity and life against money, power and death. For comment contact: National Convenors: Dick Nichols 0413 031 108 Ian Rintoul 0417 275 713 Riki Lane 0400 877 819 ################################ Socialist Alliance National Executive PO Box A2323 Sydney South 1235 Ph: 02-9690 1230, 02-9211 2600 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.socialist-alliance.org ################################ _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki Phone +358-40-7177941 Fax +358-9-7591081 http://www.kominf.pp.fi General class struggle news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Geopolitical news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________
