STATEMENT OF ILPS COMMISSION 4 ON THE QUESTION OF CEASING HOSTILITIES DURING THE PANDEMIC
PEACE WITH SOCIAL JUSTICE! END IMPERIALIST OCCUPATION AND AGGRESSION!
SUPPORT THE JUST STRUGGLES OF THE PEOPLES FOR SOCIAL AND NATIONAL LIBERATION!
Commission 4 of the International League of Peoples’ Struggles (ILPS), an anti-imperialist alliance of organizations engaged in mass struggles, is concerned with wars of aggression and counter-revolution and nuclear weapons and all weapons of mass destruction.
The Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, called for a global ceasefire in a statement issued on March 23, 2020. (https://www.un.org/press/en/2020/sgsm20018.doc.htm) He wrote, “The fury of the virus illustrates the folly of war. That is why today, I am calling for an immediate global ceasefire in all corners of the world. It is time to put armed conflict on lockdown and focus together on the true fight of our lives.”
We agree with the spirit of this call. However, we wish to defend and protect the peoples currently in struggle for their survival, basic rights, basic services including health care, lands and sovereignty. They fight in self-defence against deprivation and hostile governments. Ultimately, we aspire to realize demilitarization and a halt to aggression and occupation, state terror and human rights violations. With this objective in mind, we cannot advise the peoples, armed or not, to give up their life and death struggles.
We act according to the principles of just peace, that is peace through negotiations for a resolution to the issues that cause peoples’ revolutions and resistance. Only if and when social justice—land, political and social reforms—are seriously addressed and settled should the people cease their struggles.
Consider the views of V. I. Lenin, as interpreted and explained by S. Gnosh in 1960: “https://www.marxists.org/archive/shibdas-ghosh/1959/07/x01.htm, undated) “It would be possible to effectively preserve lasting peace if the significance of the principal characteristic features of the present-day changed international situation is properly understood and the task of conducting peace movement is grounded solidly in intensifying the national liberation movements in colonies and semi-colonies and the struggles for socialism in capitalist countries.”
Therefore, we issue the following set of calls. We make these recommendations in the light of the global pandemic and the sound emergency measures to (1) minimize travel and (2) adjust state priorities to address health, food and housing first, ahead of non-productive sectors such as the military. It is an opportune moment to act in the interest of the welfare of all the peoples of the world.
- cancel NATO missions, close NATO bases and send all NATO troops home
- send all foreign troops to their home countries, including US troops
- cancel all military exercises
- end all general economic sanctions
- free all political prisoners
- cancel all arms trade and call for arms and military contract related production to be converted to the production of human necessities related to health care, food and housing
- initiate a UN campaign to get states to reduce military spending and reprioritize their state responsibilities according to the UN Declaration on Human Rights, that on Indigenous peoples’ rights, and all universal standards set by the UN and other credible international bodies concerned with the rights and welfare of all
- restrain states with penalties for continuing occupations, aggressions, economic sanctions and interference including regime change and elections rigging
JUST PEAce COMMITTEE 