Category: Uncategorized

As the US increases its presentation and the militarization of the Asia-Pacific, it is increasing the number and size of multinational military exercises, which are destabilizing international relations and stirring up fears of regional wars. Canada is not only an enabler, but an eager predator looking for action. 

After the US President, President Obama, introduced the Pivot to Asia foreign policy in 2008, US and allied military activities and alliances began to escalate. The US-ROK Team Spirit exercises were conducted annually from 1976 until 1994. The DPRK responded with its own military drills, missile testing, satellite launching and nuclear power development. The US-ROK exercises temporarily ended when the Republic of Korea and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea announced their Joint Denuclearization Declaration in 1992. This declaration was followed by an agreement between the DPRK and the USA in 1994 in which the former would freeze its nuclear program, but allow the US, ROK and Japan to construct light-water nuclear reactors in the DPRK over 10 years. 

There was renewed hope in the early 2000s while South Korea had a centrist government, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and a peace and reunification process that had slowly begun. The coming to power of the US-backed Lee Myung-Bak in 2008, however, dashed that hope. Then US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, took a pronounced aggressive stance against the DPRK (also known as North Korea), issuing threats regularly.  

During spring 2012, the US-ROK Combined Forces Command began its annual exercises called Key Resolve and Foal Eagle. In addition, the ROK took part in Cobra Gold, a multi-national exercise in Thailand that included the U.S., Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. The DPRK was thus put under more stress. The International Crisis Group, a group much appreciated by the imperialist Western nations, reported a DPRK state official claiming that the excercises were an “unpardonable grave military provocation to the sovereignty of the DPRK and a wanton challenge to the international community’s desire for peace and stability in the Korean Peninsula.” The Group also reported the Korean Central News Agency saying, “Key Resolve is a nuclear war rehearsal for aggression on the DPRK” and was testing test “nuclear war to invade the DPRK through a surprise attack.” 

Readers must remember also that the UN Security Council imposed multiple sanctions on the DPRK in 2006 and increased them in 2017, measures that have caused drastic shortages of imported food and medical care and thereby mass suffering and unnecessary deaths in the DPRK. 

Young South Korean men continued to be conscripted into 21 months of service and US required most of its armed forces personnel to serve one year in South Korea. South Korea is thoroughly militarized, to the point where a Korea arms industry can compete globally. The ROK Air Force sends fighter jets and personnel to Nellis Air Base in Nevada to participate in the Red Flag exercise in. The US has over 80 military installations including bases, training camps, watchtowers, supply depots, launch pads and the like in addition to its agreements to share ROK facilities and personnel. It keeps around 30,000 military personnel in the region. 

In the meantime, despite mass resistance, the foreign policy of the government of Japan has turned aggressive. When Japan committed itself to join the US war games around Korea in 2017, it was the first time its military had ventured beyond its own borders. With mixed feelings and against a wave of mass protest in her own country, the Rightist ROK President Park Geun-hye accepted a watery apology from the late Japanese PM Shinzo Abe, which accommodated the desire to enter into military agreements in so-called defense against the DPRK. Subsequently, Abe agreed to the expansion of the US’ Iwakuni air and naval base, and the construction of two more US bases in the Okinawa Islands. 

Tensions calmed down somewhat when US President Trump took a conciliatory tone with the DPRK and talked about nuclear de-escalation. The Biden presidency, on the other hand, is back to escalation and provocation. The new “Ulchi Freedom Guardian” war games of the US and ROK from August 22 to September 1, 2022, featured live fire on a “total war” premise. The latest affront is the Vigilant Storm air drills of the US, Japan and ROK from October 31 to November 4, 2022. The Diplomat reports that 240 F-35 and other warplanes were deployed for them. 

Protests against the November 2022 US-ROK “Vigilant Storm” air drills [courtesy TML)

The formation of the US, Australia and UK (AUKUS) alliance and prospects of a US, Japan, India and Australia alliance (QUAD), in addition to the build-up of the US military in Australia as part of the ANZUS deal (Australia and US), bring more danger. Meanwhile, NATO’s 2022 strategy claims the Indo-Pacific as its global center. This change will demand that NATO members contribute to the militarization and intensifying menacing activities against China and the DPRK. 
 

Canada’s part 

Despite US President Trump’s softer words with DPRK, Canadian and US hawks were circling above, ready to pounce on the peace negotiations that the ROK had initiated with the DPRK without the US. Clearly, the Canadian government wanted to disrupt the peace process. The US and Canada organized the Vancouver Foreign Ministers’ Meeting on Security and Stability on the Korean Peninsula in early 2018. This was one of Chrystia Freeland’s most outrageous moments. 

Though invited by her, then Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland shut the door on peace groups such as Korean Women Cross the DMZ and rallied the ministers to increase their hostility against the DPRK. The hostile rhetoric hurled at the DPRK was ratcheted up further than before. Her reason? — the “global challenge” posed by “the grave and growing threat posed by North Korea’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.” While stating she wanted to find a diplomatic solution, she insisted that the DPRK would have to abandon its ideology and own way forward before there could be a peace settlement, implying the goal of regime change. Then she announced enforcement of sanctions against NK’s “sanctions evasion” in partnership with the US, pledging $3.25 million for that purpose. [Her interventions seemed to be a spiteful response to South Korea’s independent initiative to hold talks with the DPRK in this period.] 

Ideology is no doubt a motivator. Just as NATO clearly states it is defending the economy, though, Canada’s interest is primarily economic. Global Affairs released an article about the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement on Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), which Canada made with 11 countries in East Asia and South America on January 23, 2018. This press release writes, “In 2016, Canada’s bilateral trade with these seven partners totalled $71.3 billion.” Already enjoying one with South Korea, Canada was making Free Trade Agreements with all those states.  

Later, the Canadian Department of National Defense launched Operation Neon to enforce sanctions using frigates and surveillance aircraft [Hill Notes, July 27, 2021]. Military machinery is being used in peacetime against civilian targets such as freighters and merchant vessels to keep civilians from receiving daily necessities. 

Consistent with the DND’s current policy of seeking “engagement”, Canada has participated in Exercise Talisman Sabre off the coast of Northeast Australia with Australia, New Zealand, ROK, US and the UK in July of 2021. It also joined in the massive annual war games in the Pacific Rim known as RIMPAC, which launched from the Jeju base in South Korea and involved 22 countries in 2021 and was even bigger in 2022. Moreover, RCAF 407 Squadron joined in Exercise Sea Dragon in Guam in early 2021, winning a prize for tactical efficiency. 

Meanwhile, in November 2021, the Canadian government backed HanVoice, a CIA-front (National Endowment for Democracy) funded group based in Canada, by supporting its project to allow Canadians to privately sponsor refugees from the DPRK. HanVoice has worked to demonize the DPRK since its founding in 2007, with the then-Conservative government having Secretary of State (Multiculturalism and Canadian Identity) Jason Kenney, speak at HanVoice’s opening event. HanVoice has received assistance from both the Trudeau and Harper governments.  

While eyes are being diverted to the tensions over Taiwan province, readers should acknowledge that the Korean Peninsula is still a hot spot. The Korean war is not officially over; neither is the Korean revolution. Russia and China remain supportive of the DPRK, however tentatively, so a serious escalation has the potential to involve them. The DPRK’s possession of nuclear weaponry is certainly a key safeguard against a wholesale invasion by the US and friends including Canada, with Iraq and Libya showcasing the fate that countries which lack nuclear weapons, and oppose US geopolitical interests, have faced. At the same time, the danger of nuclear war on the Peninsula is real. 

What is urgently needed for security in the Korean Peninsula is a signed Peace Treaty, and that should be Canada’s foreign policy focus. Canada should urge the US to withdraw all troops from South Korea and Japan (along with occupied Okinawa), and stand out of the ROK and DPRK’s way, to let them hash out a peace treaty. Canada needs to give up its bellicose rhetoric towards the DPRK (and China) and adopt a peaceful foreign policy and stand back from the US position. Peace is possible between the ROK and DPRK, but not until the West ends the militarization of Korea and genuinely supports peace in the region. 

Editor’s note: The Canada Files has spent nearly three years doing critical investigative reporting on Canada’s imperialist foreign policy. … 

https://www.thecanadafiles.com/articles/what-is-canadas-involvement-in-military-exercises-targeting-the-dprk-destabilizing-asia

October 20, 2022 ilps-canada.ca http://www.facebook.com/ILPSCanada

CANADA, HANDS OFF HAITI!

The Canadian chapter of the International League of Peoples’ Struggles thoroughly condemns Canada’s military aid to and interference in Haiti. Canadian and United States military aircraft delivered “security equipment”, including tactical and armoured vehicles and others supplies to Haiti on October 15.

On October 17, hundreds of thousands of Haitians marched under the banner of “Occupation is Over, Long Live Our New Independence” in the streets of Port-au-Prince, Les Cayes, Jacmel, Cap-Haïtien, Jérémie. Gonaïves and elsewhere protesting foreign intervention along with chronic gang violence, poverty, food insecurity, inflation and fuel shortages, and demanding the unequivocal resignation of de-facto President Ariel Henry.

Though the pretext for the delivery of Canadian military machines is to assure drinking water and assist the national police in controlling criminal gangs, the foreign presence is resulting in more upheaval and harm to the people. The crisis in Haiti is clearly a crisis of imperialism. The national police of Haiti, long armed and trained by foreign predators, operates against the people’s struggle for liberation and a decent standard of life. The oppressed and working people of Haiti say, “No to Canada and the US in Haiti!”. The ILPS in Canada thus demands that Canada, the US and other foreign forces get out of Haiti and that there be an end to the unending meddling in Haitian affairs.

Haiti was a colony of Spain and then France until a people’s revolution overthrew French colonialism and declared independence in 1804, the only slave uprising that led to the founding a state which was both free from slavery and rule by former slaves their captives.

The colonialist and now imperialist powers have done all in the power to never let Haiti live truly free. In their crudely ambitious desire to control the Caribbean and its people so as to exploit them, Western imperialism has persisted in making Haiti a neocolony at their service. Gaining financial footing there by the 1890’s, US Marines occupied Haiti directly from 1915 to 1937. The US and its allies in Canada and Europe, in collaboration with the local elite and criminal elements, have been able to install dictators, though the people’s resistance continually struggles for independence and democracy. The perpetual turmoil and successive dictatorships have made Haiti poor and unable to manage natural disasters and build a truly independent economy.

Western imperialism facilitated the collapse of nation-building and democratic order by backing the vicious and corrupt Duvalier Presidents, father and son, and their most feared police, the Tonton Macoutes, who terrorized the people through the 1950s into the 1980s. The people’s movement caused “Baby Doc” Duvalier to flee, with US assistance, in 1986.

The US, Canada and Western Europe were hostile to the leftist President Jean-Paul Aristide, legitimately democratically elected in 1990, and his pro-people reforms. They sided with the Haitian elite, forced Aristide to flee and imposed a trade embargo which triggered the exodus of thousands of Haitians. The coup was soon defeated, but the United Nations soon stepped in and, with the US, began constructing a new police force. The progressive figure René Préval took over the presidency in 1995, only to dissolve the Parliament under pressure in 1999. Aristide was once again elected by a large majority, but the West imposed aid sanctions and challenged his authority.

Allegedly sent to stabilize the subsequent societal unrest, the UN (MINUSTAH mission) and US forces caused more instability and deprivation. The US, as well as Canada, again trained the national police, who tried to put down the people’s struggle. Chaos is preferable to independent, democratic, local governance, it seems.

Canada organized the Ottawa Initiative on Haiti that was held in Meech Lake, Quebec in 2003. No Haitian government officials were invited, only representatives of Canada, France, the US and some Latin American officials. Journalist Michael Vastel reported that the conference put forward the need for regime change in Haiti. On 29 February 2004 Aristide was essentially kidnapped with Canadian military assistance and flown against his will to exile in Africa.

Préval was re-elected in 2006, but the burgeoning economic crisis, largely due to foreign interference and external dependency, caused more unrest. Hurricanes followed by a huge earthquake combined with the 2008 global financial crash and another hurricane in 2010, brought the Haitian people into abject ruin. COVID-19 caused more devastation. More imperialist-backed presidents came and went. The US-backed President Moise’s term was contested; he was mysteriously assassinated on July 7, 2021. Interim President, Claude Joseph, declared martial law soon after.

Neither the US nor the UN nor Canada are helping. No more funds or training for the cruel national police, no more military interventions or imperialist meddling in Haiti’s affairs. On the contrary. ILPS in Canada calls on Canadian and other foreign forces to leave and let the Haitian people decide their future.

#FundPeaceNotWar Canada Week of Action

Across Canada, the U.S. and around the world, peace activists will be on the streets from October 15th to 23th, demanding an end to imperialist wars, occupations, sanctions and military interventions. This call to action was initiated by the United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) in the U.S. and has been taken up by the Canada-Wide Peace and Justice Network, a coalition of 45 peace groups across Canada.

No to imperialist wars

For over 30 years, we have witnessed the acceleration of brutal imperial wars by the U.S. and their allies, including Canada, against the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Haiti, and other countries. These wars have killed millions, turned tens of millions into refugees, laid waste to infrastructure, impoverished citizens through sanctions, and overthrown governments. With the full support of the governments of the U.S. and Canada, the Zionist Israeli regime has continued to occupy Palestine, brutally kill and imprison Palestinian people, including children and journalists, demolish Palestinian homes and routinely bomb Gaza.

When fleeing homelands that have become war zones, refugees are subjected to harrowing and dangerous journeys and met with racism and discrimination in the very countries responsible for the destruction of the refugees’ original homes.

From October 15th-23rd, activists will be saying NO to imperialist wars, occupations, economic sanctions, and military interventions, and YES to self-determination!

Stop arming Saudi Arabia.

Today, the United Nations deems Yemen the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, after seven years of Saudi-led, U.S.-backed and Canadian-armed war. This war has killed over a quarter of a million people, and has displaced an additional four million people. The Saudi-led coalition has bombed Yemeni markets, hospitals, and civilians, and yet Canada has exported over $8 billion in arms to Saudi Arabia since 2015, the year the Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen began. The Trudeau Government continues to profit from its controversial $15 billion arms deal for armoured vehicles–killing machines which have been used against people in Yemen and in Saudi Arabia.

From October 15 to 23rd, activists will be calling for an end to the Saudi-led war on Yemen and demanding that Canada Stop Arming Saudi Arabia!

Fund human needs, not destruction

While Canada is gaining ill-repute as an arms dealer to the world’s most despicable war-mongering governments, the Trudeau Government is also bolstering its own arsenal. Since 2014, Canadian military spending has increased by 70%. Last year, the Canadian government spent $33 billion on the military, which is 15 times more than it spent on environment and climate change. Defence Minister Anand announced military spending will increase by another 70% over the next five years on big-ticket items such as F-35 fighter jets, (lifetime cost: $77 billion), warships (lifetime cost: $350 billion), and armed drones (lifetime cost: $5 billion).

From October 15 to 23rd, activists will be demanding NO new fighter jets, warships, or drones! We need billions for housing, health care, jobs and climate, NOT for war profiteering!

Canada out of NATO

The Canada-wide Peace and Justice Network opposes the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a U.S.- led military alliance of 30 countries, which undermines global peace and human security and is responsible for the deadly and destructive interventions in the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Libya. For years, NATO has
been provoking conflict with Russia. NATO’s expansion to Russia’s border and its training and arming of Ukrainian security forces have contributed to growing tensions in the region. NATO’s demand that allies buy new interoperable weapons is leading to a costly arms race. Carbon-intensive weapons systems like fighter jets, tanks, drones, and warships are exacerbating the climate crisis. Canada is complicit in U.S. wars and is pursuing an imperialist agenda. 

From October 15 to 23rd, activists will be demanding that Canada adopt an independent foreign policy free of all military alliances, including NATO.

Stop Provoking China

NATO’s provocative war exercises and extension into the Asia-Pacific region are raising tensions with China and destabilizing the region. As if that weren’t bad enough, the governments of the U.S. and Canada are further inflaming diplomatic relations with China. For example, Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, recently visited Taiwan, soon to be followed by a Canadian delegation led by MP Judy Sgro. These belligerent moves contradict the U.S. and Canada’s previous respectful and neutral stance regarding the Chinese position that Taiwan is an integral part of China.

Read & share the Network’s statement about MP Judy Sgro’s visit to Taiwan.

From October 15 to 23rd, activists will be demanding that Washington and Ottawa stop provoking war with Russia and China, and asking that MP Judy Sgro cancel her planned trip to Taiwan!

Take action!

The Canada-Wide Peace and Justice Network encourages peace-loving people across Canada to join demonstrations and activities across Canada for the Week of Action from October 15-23 or to organize your own actions. Together, let’s end imperialist wars and build a loving and peaceful world!

To view actions in the U.S. and around the world visit www.unacpeace.org

 Statement of ILPS Commission 4  

UN International Peace Day on September 21, 2022 

JOIN THE FIGHT !! 

Organize people’s actions for International Peace Day, September 21! SUPPORT THE STRUGGLES OF THE PEOPLE FOR JUST AND LASTING PEACE EVERYWHERE!  

US-led imperialism is in decline and on a disastrous path. The cases of Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria and Ukraine reveal the state of anarchy and furious panic it has sunken into and total disregard for human suffering and human rights. The US and its allies persist in propping up the worst states including Israel, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine and the Philippines as fascists consolidate themselves. Provocations against Russia and China are flirtations with global disaster. After having facilitated the Right in Ukraine and threatened Russia, the US and company is blocking the possibilities of ceasefire and negotiations in favour of prolonging the carnage and destroying Ukraine. Taunting China over the Chinese territory of Taiwan and interfering, it is setting the stage for a similar tragedy there in which China may mobilize its forces to integrate Taiwan into the People’s Republic of China, the US may mobilize for control of Taiwan, and the people of Taiwan will suffer extreme hardship and mass death. It is all about domination and plunder. 

Building its military alliances and expanding its 100s of bases, installations and shared spaces, the US still dominates militarily. In fact, though, it has not won a war since WW2. It has orchestrated coups to bring in dictators, supported occupations that serve it or invaded regions to take direct control (Grenada, Iraq, Afghanistan). The profit motive dominates most aspects of state affairs so that the war profiteers can benefit. The US righteously violates international laws, standards and norms all the time, still ridiculously clinging to the line of self-entitlement (“exceptionalism”) and is engaging of multiple forms of aggression including economic, cyber, misinformation and manipulation, collaboration with terrorists and reaction. The worldwide militarization and preparations for war must be stopped!  

The people of the world are becoming more politically aware and engaged in grassroots organizing. They are getting active, taking up the cause for just peace, liberation and real democracy. Fundamental change that benefits the people will take a united, global movement that understands the exploitative and plundering nature of the global system of monopoly capitalism, its armed aggression, policies of neo-liberalism and hostility to any non-compliant nation or state. The imperialist powers will not simply give up unless the working people and oppressed, actively and as a whole, face them and stop it. Organized masses around the world united in coordinated action can block imperialism and fascism and move towards socialism. The people cannot gamble that capitalism will develop a heart or that new faces in the capitalist countries signify signs of care. They must extend and carry on their struggles. 

Imperialism as defined by Lenin is the contemporary form of global capitalism, with its monopolies dominated by financial oligarchs that economically and geographically divide the world in their quest for exponential growth and ceaseless, forceful, worldwide expansion. Military and industry are tied. They work in tandem mostly outside the political processes and even beyond the scope of the law designed to protect the rule of monopoly capital. Imperialism is an inherently irrational, violent system that operates without concern for human welfare and that has abandoned social development and human rights altogether.  

The system plummets into high unemployment, inflation and slow production and hence slow purchasing every few years. The capitalist class of the US and Europe have tried again and again to resolve each crisis by social austerity measures, deregulation, increased lending and increased investment in military-related industry and war, to no avail. The result is always mass suffering, perpetual warring, various conflicts, ruin and unrest. The oppressed and socialist states pit themselves against the most powerful states, classes war and inter-imperialist rivalries go on. Now stagflation is occurring, as happened in the late 1970s. Neo-liberalism, instituted in the 1980s, could not avoid this inevitability. Brute force is the only means remaining to US-led imperialism, which will not solve anything. Its aim to gain tighter control over lands, markets and working people. 

As before, capitalist states crack down on the people, turn over more land to plunderers and wreck ecology at the behest of foreign and local corporations, violating indigenous lands and rights more and more, destroying nature and farmlands, displacing communities, causing starvation, pandemics and other hardships, to which the people must respond with resistance. Misinformation is spread and racism, communal and gender bias incited to hold onto power. Cruel economic blockades that deprive working people of daily necessities are exacted to strangle societies that do not conform.  US-based capitalism is sinking into permanent warring and mayhem, providing fertile ground for fascism to grow. 

Comprehending the motivations, relations and machinery of the imperialist system, one sees why the questions of, for instance, Palestine’s or the Kashmir’s independence, peaceful reunification between North and South Korea, a resolution for Russia and Ukraine and social equality and guarantees of home and livelihood, are never settled. Despite the people’s hopes, this has been the case no matter who gets into power or what narrative they tell.

When informed and aroused, the people take action to support a clear peoples’ agenda that on one hand challenges imperialism and, on the other, stakes their clear rights on decent livelihoods, a sustainable planet, social justice and equity that would ensure a classless society that would yield a just and lasting peace. They must ENSURE THAT THEIR ISSUES AND DEMANDS BE ADDRESSED BEFORE GIVING UP THEIR FIGHTS. To the ILPS and Commission 4, peace does not mean acquiescence and silence. Humankind would be doomed were we to be passive and quiet as the world becomes increasingly dangerous and unsustainable and human life more precarious. Let’s deepen our commitment to struggle against imperialism for just peace on September 21 and make Peace Day meaningful. The UN is ineffective; in fact, it is often a springboard to launch aggression. Build a unified struggle for a better world! The people are struggling to win and defend their rights and future. They do not stand by as the chaos, excess, violence and suffering burn up the planet. Voting periodically is not enough. Join the movement for change to preserve life and avoid extinction.  

JUST PEACE NOW! CEASEFIRES AND NEGOTIATIONS NOW!  

DISMANTLE NATO, AUKUS AND ALL IMPERIALIST MILITARY ALLIANCES!       

SOCIAL, NOT MILITARY SPENDING! 

NO MORE WAR GAMES! CLOSE US AND NATO BASES! NO MILITARY AID! 

NO MORE HIROSHIMAS!    END THE ARMS TRADE! NO TO FASCISM! 

SIGN THE TREATY FOR THE PROHIBITION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS! 

Peoplesstruggles.org peace4@vcn.bc.ca http://www.facebook.com/ILPSOfficial

In Memory of the Victims of Nazism,  
Fascism and Japanese Militarism [by Pauline Easton, TML Daily No. 9, August 31, 2022] 

During September, we commemorate several important anniversaries related to World War II. We recall the death-defying deeds and courage of the peoples of the occupied countries and the Allied nations who joined their fight to vanquish Italian fascism, German Nazism and Japanese militarism. We pay deepest respects to the victims of these scourges of humankind. 

On September 1, 1939, the German Nazis invaded Poland. The Nazi invasion of Poland signalled the beginning of World War II and of the European holocaust. In China on September 2, the people celebrate the defeat of the Japanese occupation of China in 1945. The Japanese invaded China on July 7, 1937. Their invasion unleashed the Asian holocaust about which Canadian media remains largely silent. Since 1962, the International Day of Memory of Victims of Fascism is also marked on the second Sunday of September every year. This year it will be marked on September 11. 

The Whole World Honours the Victims of Fascism 

World War II involved 61 nation-states and over 80 per cent of the world’s population, taking a toll of more than 55 million people. Hostilities occurred on the territories of 40 states and the vast basins of the Atlantic, Arctic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. The Soviet Union sustained the biggest losses in people and material resources. Some 27 million of its people lost their lives, in addition to losses to its armed forces of some 8.7 million . China is estimated to have endured the second highest number of total casualties in World War II. As many as 20 million people died in China in the Asian Holocaust, including up to 3.75 million military deaths and 18.19 million civilian deaths. 

The Nanjing Massacre, also known as the Rape of Nanjing, was the mass murder of Chinese civilians by the Imperial Japanese Army in Nanjing, the capital of the Republic of China, immediately after the Battle of Nanjing in the Second Sino-Japanese War. Beginning on December 13, 1937, the massacre lasted for six weeks. The Japanese militarists committed atrocities such as permitting mass rape, looting and arson. The massacre has gone down in history as one of the worst atrocities committed in the twentieth century. 

In their maniacal drive to condemn Russia and the People’s Republic of China as “authoritarian regimes,” Canada’s Prime Minister and the government of Canada and media remain silent about who liberated China from these monstrous deeds and the role of the Soviet Union in liberating Europe. Despite the tremendous sacrifices endured by the peoples of the occupied countries and their liberators, the government of Canada and the media in the service of the U.S. striving for world domination are purveyors of criminal disinformation about what actually took place and its significance today. 

Canada is marching in lock-step with the United States, Britain and various European countries and NATO allies to spread historical falsifications to justify what cannot be justified as concerns U.S./NATO warmongering and crimes against humanity in the name of Canadian values, peace, freedom and democracy. The restoration of the Nazism, fascism and Japanese militarism will not solve any crisis they are facing as they plunge the world into the abyss of wars of destruction with unknown consequences. 

They are erecting monuments intended to equate Nazism and communism for purposes of complying with the U.S. striving for world hegemony. This includes the rehabilitation of neo-Nazi and militarist forces in positions of power and enabling private armies and paramilitary forces to maraud, plunder and commit crimes on their behalf. 

The claim that Canada is not honouring Nazis but “freedom fighters against the communists,” fools no one. To its utter shame, the Government of Canada no matter which cartel party has been in power, with the NDP in tow, participates in this perpetuation of historical fraud. All read from the same playbook which seeks to shamefully cover up the betrayal committed when the Munich Agreement was concluded on September 30, 1938, by Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy which gave Hitler the green light to first occupy Czechoslovakia in March 1939 and then invade Poland on September 1. 

The German-Soviet non-aggression pact signed August 23, 1939, was forced on the Soviet Union because Britain and France refused to enter into a defense alliance in Europe to stop the Hitlerites from invading other countries. These countries had already signed the Munich Pact with Germany on September 30, 1938. This outrageous act of appeasement and collaboration permitted Germany to annex the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia, ordered the Czechs not to resist Nazi aggression and gave the Nazis the green light to launch further attacks across Europe. 

Since 2005, on Russia’s initiative, every year the UN General Assembly has approved resolutions urging an end to the glorification of Nazism and urging member states to combat practices that exacerbate contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance. 

The General Assembly through these resolutions has expressed its deep concern over attempts to glorify Nazism, neo-Nazism and former members of the Waffen-SS in any form, including the construction of monuments and the holding of public demonstrations. The resolutions express concern over the “recurring attempts to desecrate or demolish monuments erected in remembrance of those who fought against Nazism during World War II, as well as to unlawfully exhume or remove the remains of such persons,” and noted an alarming increase in racist incidents and violence globally. 

Today, even the United Nations is being used to push the Anglo-American historical fraud called a rules-based international order. May the memory of those who gave their lives in the fight for freedom, peace and democracy live on in the battle of current generations for a world free of the scourge of the aggression we see today carried out by the Anglo-U.S. and European powers in the name of regime change and “responsibility to protect.” It is said more people are losing their lives today as a result of the current imperialist striving for domination of the world’s resources, labour, zones for investment and influence than during World War II. 

The need to establish anti-war governments all over the world has never been greater. Let us do our duty to the victims of Nazism, fascism and Japanese militarism.

STOP WAR! STOP THE INDUSTRY OF DEATH! 

SHUT DOWN THE ABBOTSFORD AIRSHOW! (Aug. 5-7, 2022)

As peace loving citizens and residents of Canada who want an end to war, we oppose the arms trade, aggressive military policies, growing military budgets and aggressive military engagements. In this spirit, we are demanding the end to arms trade shows and displays. 

It is especially troubling that the Abbotsford Airshow, which runs at the Abbotsford Airport from August 5 to 6, is taking place on the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, August 6. Rather than committing to such a display and promotion of weaponry and war, public administrations and businesspeople should be organizing mass commemorations of the victims of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear explosions and denouncing war and all weapons of mass destruction. Instead, Canadian and US military air forces are celebrating the technology of war and military action at this show. 

The Abbotsford Show is advertised as a family-friendly event where young children are to admire the machinery of death by air. It teaches them to overlook the destruction of life that is escalating around the world as tensions between the biggest powers grow and militarization is being ramped up. There should be mass events to express the desire for world peace, demilitarization, cease-fires in Palestine, Yemen, Ukraine, and all conflicts and negotiations to end them. 

In addition to the Canadian Snowbirds and the USAF Thunderbirds, the show is featuring the Canadian Skyhawks (parachutists) and demonstrating the RCAF CF-18 Hornet jet fighter. The website boasts 300,000 sq. Ft. of a range of sitting military and other aircraft from around the world. With the Aviation S.T.E.M. Zone, technology and science for war is promoted. Disturbingly, McDonald’s is hosting a Kid Zone at the show’s site.  

We oppose the arms trade and policies and actions of military aggression. We are campaigning to stop the Canadian government’s acquisition of 88 fighter jets and the sale of light armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia, which is waging war with its partners against Yemen. We stand against the purchase of armed drones, too.  

Just as we staunchly protested the CANSEC arms trade fair, we adamantly protest the Abbotsford Airshow, as it is characteristically a military exhibition intended to promote Canada’s military materials and engagement. No more blood and tax dollars for war! 

Signed: Members of the Canada-Wide Peace and Justice Network 

[Message to Just Peace Committee and other activists who organized commemorative protests on August 6 and August 9.]

On the occasion of the 77th anniversary of the atomic bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we AWC-Japan express our heartfelt solidarity to all our friends in Vancouver and the rest of the world who are fighting for nuclear abolition and world peace. We are also holding an anti-war and anti-nuclear rally today, August 6, in front of the Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima.

The two atomic bombs killed so many people. More than 210,000 people in the two cities died by the end of 1945. Survivors have suffered from severe aftereffects. It is a horrendous crime against humanity.

Surprisingly, the U.S. government, which dropped the atomic bombs, has neither apologized for nor compensated the victims until today. In addition, it continues to build up its nuclear capability, including the development of small or tactical nuclear weapons. We strongly denounce the U.S. atrocities 77 years ago as well as present expansion of its nuclear posture.

A-bomb victims were not only Japanese. For example, around 40,000 Koreans died instantly in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They were the dual victims of Japanese imperialism’s forced transport to Japan and the U.S. imperialism’s atomic bombings. We must not forget such kind of historical facts.

We have second and third generation of A-bomb survivors in our membership. The genetic effects of radiation have not been “proven” but cannot be denied. They are standing on the front lines of the anti-war and anti-nuclear struggles in Japan, despite their health concerns. For them and us, the atomic bombings are not a matter of the past, but of the present..

In an aspect, the U.S. atomic bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were a misery result of inter-imperialist war. Therefore, after the World War II, many Japanese people have demanded nuclear abolition and world peace, not war. Japanese government’s attitude, however, is the exact opposite.

The Japanese government has not ratified the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The reason is that ‘Japan must be protected by the U.S. nuclear umbrella’. This is really shameful attitude. Furthermore, the Japanese government is now drastically developed its own military posture under the nuclear-armed U.S.-Japan military alliance. It includes planned double increasing of military budget and moves toward amendment of Article 9 or a peace article of the Japanese Constitution. We also point out that one of the reasons why the Japanese government try to maintain nuclear energy despite the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011 is to keep technical capability for Japan’s own nuclear armament.

We fight against imperialist wars of aggression and expansion of nuclear posture in solidarity with peoples of the world. We believe that only people can stop war and war crisis. Let us fight together for lasting peace in the world.

August 6, 2022

AWC-Japan

* The AWC-Japan or formally ‘Asia-Wide Campaign against the US-Japanese domination and aggression of Asia’ is a people’s organization in Japan, which has long committed people’s campaign against war, nukes, US bases and neoliberal policies. The AWC-Japan is a member organization of the ILPS.

BREAK THE US IMPERIALIST WAR DRIVE!

Statement of Commission 4 of the International League of Peoples’ Struggles

The International League of Peoples’ Struggles thoroughly condemns the global gendarmerie known as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the brutal enforcer of US-based monopoly capitalism and interests world wide. A member of the International Coordinating Network which just launched the “Fight against Imperialist War” on May 21st, the ILPS has joined the united international mobilization to confront and expose NATO with calls to have member states withdraw and the entire Organization to be dismantled.

NATO is meeting in late June to launch its new global strategy and execute plans for expansion. The people are protesting the proposals to have more countries join NATO (Finland, Sweden and Ukraine).

Faced with the profound crisis of monopoly capitalism, an imperialist system of exploitation, plunder and domination, and the loss of its status as top dog in the multipolar world today, the US is dragging its closest allies in Europe and Canada into stepped up expansion and militarization, demanding more state funds and development and trade of arms. It is aligning more profoundly with fascism and terrorism in a desperate attempt to achieve its anti-social and destructive goals. It has even renewed a commitment to the use of nuclear weapons rationalized by the deterrence argument.

NATO’s support for the extreme right of Ukraine and interventions to use Ukraine against Russia is a case in point. The US is draining its taxpayers’ treasury instead of addressing its own internal problems and providing for its people to the point where its financial commitment to the war in Ukraine exceeds Russia’s yearly military budget. Through NATO, it is demanding that its military allies follow suit. NATO is also having its members commit to more donations of arms for Ukraine while it pushes arms production and trade. NATO is an institution of the military industrial complex serving the big arms producers such as Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Boeing. In fact, Lockheed Martin executives were expressly activated to hussle European states and Canada to form NATO in the first place. NATO activity guarantees markets, which motivates NATO to extend and perpetuate conflicts.

Arguments that NATO defends democracy and human rights are totally bankrupt. Neither does it intervene to save lives and end conflicts. NATO is an apparatus intended to thwart democracy and liberation struggles. That is one of its intentions in the Ukraine conflict: overcoming the independence struggles and controlling all of Eastern Europe while it seeks to bring Russia to its knees. An instrument to curb communism from the post-WW2 period through the Cold War, it was later mobilized to marshal Eastern European nations as the Soviet Union collapsed. One aim has been to break imperialist Russia’s influence and markets in Europe and beyond.

NATO member countries have long been deployed to defend US-led imperialism around the world, despite NATO’s ostensible label as a “European and North American organization”. It and its members run bases in the Caribbean and South America. It plays a role in aggressive interventions and US military expansion in Africa. Recently, NATO formally announced it was engaging in confronting China. This follows its 20-year occupation of Afghanistan and its aid to Saudi Arabia’s campaign to destroy Yemen, its involvement in attacks on Syria and its support to Israel’s occupation of Palestine. It has mainly aimed to conserve the international imperialist world order since its formation in 1949. All its activities and policies contribute to sharpening rivalries, militarism, military interventions and perpetual war; it is thus a factor for war setting the stage for another world war.

The ILPS, especially Commission 4, fully supports the people’s counter summit and other mass meetings in Madrid on June 25 and their mass demonstrations to oppose NATO there and at locations around the world that are planned from June 26 to 30th. ILPS organizations and allies should join in or organize their own local mass actions and other expressions of opposition.

No to NATO! End the arms trade!

Stop the US war machine! No war in Ukraine!

Stop wars of aggression and counterrevolution! Negotiations, not military action!

Support the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons!

peace4@vcn.bc.ca

Why Canada must stop funding the Philippine counter-terrorism campaign

https://www.ichrpcanada.org/…/why-canada-must-stop…/

Press Release

May 18, 2022

Montreal, Quebec, Canada

The International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines – Canada (ICHRP-Canada) and 20 organizations, including Canadian churches, unions, non-governmental and solidarity organizations are calling on the Canadian Government “to stop funding so called counter-terrorism measures of the Philippine Government. In a brief, “Human Rights and Canada’s support for the counter-terrorism campaign of the Philippine Government,” submitted to the Canadian Government, ICHRP and the signing organizations recommend that the Philippines be excluded from Canada’s funding to counter-terrorism programs of the member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) provided through the Counter-terrorism Capacity Building (CTCBP) and other programs of Global Affairs Canada (GAC) and other departments.”

The call arises from concerns that the counter- terrorism activities are not conducted within international norms, standards, and obligations. The Philippine Government is using the counter-terrorism campaign to criminalize dissent, attack critics of the Government as enemies of the State and make them targets of its dubious counter-terrorism campaign. The counter-terrorism policies and measures amount to a declaration of war against human rights defenders, lawyers, journalists, political opposition, labour, peasant, environmental and Indigenous rights defenders, and other citizens who exercise their civil and democratic rights.

ICHRP and the signatories of the brief warns the Canadian Government that it is inadvertently enabling the Government of the Philippines to use the counter-terrorism campaign as a tool of repression by providing financial, programmatic, and technical support. Canada risks being complicit in the thousands of extrajudicial killings, arbitrary and irregular searches, arrests and detention, vilification and harassment campaigns and other severe human rights violations associated with the counter-insurgency campaign.

For more information about the Brief, the human rights consequences of the Philippine Government’s counter-terrorism campaign and Canada’s support for it, please contact:

Patricia Lisson

Chairperson of ICHRP Canada

1-514-241-9036

ichrpcanada@gmail.com

Statement on the Ukraine Invasion by the International League of People’s Struggles

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is the culmination of decades of imperialist competition for Ukraine and US-led aggression by Western imperialist powers since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The successor Russian Federation has developed easily into an imperialist power itself with its natural resources and own industrial-military base and starting with the former republics as its dependent vassal countries. Russian imperialism contends with the US-led Western imperialist powers in beating the war drums in Ukraine.

US imperialism seeks to maintain its military hegemony through the G7 Western imperialist alliance and NATO. It has succeeded to encircle Russia militarily through its troops and bases, and implement a policy of constriction through economic sanctions, political-economic initiatives in the former republics as well as the former East Bloc countries. All of these are the geopolitics of monopoly capital of all sides.

The turning point for Ukraine was 2014 when the US succeeded to prod a coup to topple the corrupt, undemocratic pro-Russian government utilizing neo-Nazi gangs in a bloody repression against the anti-fascist rebellion from the masses. The fascist Ukrainian government decided to ignore the Minsk agreement that was supposed to create self-governed regions and would have assured stability in the region. Violating the Minsk agreement, the Ukrainian US-controlled Zelenski government continues its war of aggression against the declared governments of Donetsk and Luhansk as well as Crimea which has voted to rejoin Russia. This war has killed more than 14,000 people in the last eight years.

Russia has remained defensive and used its economic and natural resources and military might as leverage to counter the US-NATO security and military constriction and economic sanctions. But the military intervention and invasion by Russia in Ukraine also violates the Minsk agreement, especially the self-determination and right to development of the Ukrainian people. This invasion is pushed by the Russian monopoly capital which faces threats of declining profits from sanctions and overall constriction policy by US-led G7.

Putin uses the Ukrainian peoples militant struggle against fascist and Western imperialism to assert their self-determination as an excuse for its invasion which is truly driven by the political-economic interests of Russian bourgeoisie. On the other hand, the Ukrainian working masses face the brunt of the war and will not make gains until they all fight to liberate themselves from Russian and US-European imperialist control, starting with the bourgeois government beholden to the Western imperialists.

Condemn US warmongering and aggression against Russia!

Condemn the Russian invasion and military intervention in Ukraine!

US-NATO out of Ukraine! Implement the 2014 Minsk Agreement!

Support the militant struggle of the Ukrainian people for democracy, social liberation and self-determination!

Signed:

Len Cooper

ILPS Chairperson

27 February 2022