What is a Just and Lasting Peace?
Presentation for ILPS forum
Vancouver, March 19, 2006

By Ning Alcuitas, Grassroots Women and ICC representative

Introduction

On behalf of the Vancouver-based participating organizations of the International League of People’s Struggle (ILPS), I’d like to welcome you and thank you for coming out to this forum tonight.

This is an important forum as we mark the 3rd anniversary of the U.S.-led war of aggression and occupation in Iraq as the U.S. continues its largest air assault of the past three years under “Operation Swarmer” and as thousands across the world protested yesterday against the war in Iraq and the war of occupation in Afghanistan. There is also a growing call in Canada for Canadian troops to be pulled out of Afghanistan.

This forum is also important as we build up to our international conference in June that carries the theme of tonight’s forum, “Towards a Just and Lasting Peace.”

As noted in the ILPS Declaration made at the Second International Assembly in November 2004, “a new world situation has surfaced [since the founding of the League in 2001], with US imperialism brazenly taking the path of militarization, war and fascisation…involving the far worsened crisis of the world capitalist system, the aggravation of imperialist oppression and exploitation.” But not only did the League recognize the current crisis in imperialism, the League also noted “the vigorous upsurge of the people’s resistance throughout the world.”

Tonight, we hope to explore further the questions of what are the conditions that are generating war and given those conditions, how do we understand the need to build a just and lasting peace in our societies. For our organizations, we firmly believe that peace is not just the absence of war, but a genuine peace addresses the fundamental, root causes of war and reflects a society based on the fundamental needs and aspirations of people for national liberation and social emancipation.

The current global reality

In understanding the root causes of war, we must look at the economic realities facing the peoples of the world today. Since the year 2000, the crisis of the world capitalist system has worsened. It has undeniably reached the US economy, which has continued to spend gross amounts of their surplus on military spending, rather than people’s needs. According to the ANSWER Coalition in the U.S., the US military budget is now $500 million (more than any other country in the world). As the U.S.-led coalition began “Operation Swarmer” last Thursday, the U.S. Congress also approved a new emergency spending package which included $67.6 B U.S. for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

While the war in Iraq costs $250 million per day, the US is cutting $15 billion from education, housing and other social programs. Yet even the UN reports that 45 million Americans have no basic health insurance. Together with its allies, including Canada, US military spending accounts for 75% of all military spending in the world.

Using the pretext of the September 11 attacks, the US has fomented anti-terrorist hysteria to help justify its wars of aggression and increasing military intervention. But behind this expansion of the permanent and borderless war on terrorism, is US imperialism’s strategic goal to dominate the economies of other countries by tightening control over sources of oil, energy and other raw materials. Yet even this increasing military spending and intervention cannot overcome the deep crisis of overproduction wracking the system of imperialism. The myth of the benefits of “globalization” is already shattered.

But while we face a new situation today, in terms of the unprecedented level of crisis in the imperialist system, we must also try to understand how deeply violence, brutality and economic terrorism are embedded in the system of imperialism. To develop the productive forces, capitalism continues to engage in brutal forms of exploitation and oppression of those who dos not own the means of production. Even at this highest stage of capitalism or modern imperialism, the extraction of surplus from workers becomes more intense and the exploitation and plunder of the cheap labour and raw materials of colonies, semi-colonies and dependent countries continue unabated.

According to the ILO, 1.4 billion workers live on less than $2 U.S. per day and 550 million on less than $1 U.S. per day. Yet the richest 20 percent of the world own 85 percent of the world’s income. The assets of the three wealthiest persons in the world are greater than the GDP of the world’s 48 poorest countries.

This brutal reality is not only maintained by imperialism through economic instruments like the IMF-WB-WTO, imperialism is increasingly willing to use political pressure and military force to maintain the colonies, semi-colonies and dependent countries in this situation of exploitation.

Imperialism means war

At the ILPS, we believe that we need to shatter the myth that imperialism brings peace and prosperity. We instead see the opposite – that in the words of ILPS Chair Professor Jose Maria Sison, “imperialism means war and terrorism.” There is the undeniable daily violence of poverty, landlessness and joblessness. As well, there is the destructive record of US imperialism in carrying out wars. Professor Sison estimates that the US has been responsible for killing at least 12 million people since the start of the Cold War through wars of aggression and massacres carried out by U.S.-backed reactionary puppets. Aside from helping the US to secure control of strategic areas and resources, the US has also profited from war. It is estimated that the U.S. earned $13 billion alone in 2001 from the export of war material to 170 countries. In Iraq, there have been more than 2300 U.S. military deaths, at least 17,000 U.S. military wounded and an estimated 100,000 civilian deaths.

For us in the ILPS it is very important to grasp that the system of imperialism generates the conditions for war. Without understanding what is the root cause of war, we will have difficulty in understanding the need for building a just and lasting peace and how to support and be in solidarity with people who are struggling for that peace.

Crisis generates resistance

Yet, at the same time that the crisis of the imperialist system generates the conditions for war, it also generates the conditions for resistance.

As noted in our 2004 declaration, “…the overall contradiction between imperialism on the one hand and the proletariat and oppressed peoples of the world on the other hand is intensifying.”

As well, in our educational efforts, we also try to understand the main contradictions that are also intensifying:

· Between the imperialist powers and the oppressed peoples and nations;
· Amongst the imperialist powers themselves; and
· Between the monopoly bourgeoisie and the proletariat in the imperialist countries.

National liberation movements in Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, Turkey, Nepal, India, Philippines, Colombia, Peru and other countries are strengthening. Mass movements in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the former Eastern bloc countries are also building up. Despite US threats against the so-called “rogue states,” including Iran, Cuba and North Korea, the peoples of those nations continue to assert their national independence and freedom. Here, in the belly of the beast, there are signs of growing mass movements resisting the destructive impacts and manifestations of the crisis of imperialism. Even the recent strikes in B.C. last summer (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Telus, Hospital Employees Union, B.C. Teachers Federation) are increasingly exposing the bankruptcy of the neo-liberal globalization agenda of liberalization, privatization and deregulation.

Towards a genuine peace

Thus, to understand the root causes of war and the growth of people’s resistance against imperialism, we have to look deeply into the historical development and laws of capitalism. We have to acknowledge that genuine peace remains elusive under the dominance of the imperialist system. Without grasping the systemic roots of why there is no peace in the world today, we can easily be deceived by the unprincipled use of the slogans of “peace, freedom, democracy and security” espoused by US imperialism.

In President Bush’s radio address yesterday, he was forced to acknowledge the setbacks in the Iraq war yet he continued to claim that the war would bring peace and security to the Iraqi and American people. He said, “More fighting and sacrifice will be required to achieve this victory, and for some, the temptation to retreat and abandon our commitments is strong. Yet there is no peace, there's no honor, and there's no security in retreat. So America will not abandon Iraq to the terrorists who want to attack us again. We will finish the mission. By defeating the terrorists in Iraq, we will bring greater security to our own country.”

Another example is the US’s attempt to set up a UN Peacebuilding Commission in line with the so-called International Decade for a Culture of Peace (2001-2010). The supposed mandate of the Peacebuilding Commission is to bring together "all stakeholders in and outside" the UN to "marshal resources and advise… comprehensive strategies for peacebuilding and conflict recovery" concerning "countries emerging from conflicts." But in an ILPS September 2005 statement, the ILPS analysed that commission as seeking “ to provide the United States with a political and economic mechanism that allows it to appear as exiting from Iraq but at the same time to retain military bases for directing the puppet regime and controlling the oil resources and all major business enterprises and contracts.”

We also need to further study and understand Canada’s role in helping to perpetuate conditions of exploitation and oppression through its aid programs, arms exports, military troops and programs purportedly for human security and peacebuilding. This is now a critical debate given Canada’s role in Afghanistan, which the government would have us believe can be glossed over as “diplomatic, defence and development contributions to the stabilization and reconstruction of Afghanistan.” There are now 2,300 Canadian troops in Afghanistan under “Operation ARCHER” as part of the U.S.-led coalition’s “Task Force Afghanistan.” Aside from the deployment of troops, Canada has spent the following in Afghanistan according to the Canadian government website devoted to the Afghan “mission”:

· Contributed close to $33 million to the “democratic process” in Afghanistan
· In March 2004, CIDA renewed its commitment to Afghanistan development, with $250 million in new funds for development assistance in Afghanistan, totalling more than $616 million between 2001 and 2009. Afghanistan is the largest single recipient of Canadian bilateral aid.
· I could not find any material from the Department of National Defence giving a figure of how much the military mission in Afghanistan is costing us, although reports that the general military budget is close to $13 B.

Canadians are beginning to ask the critical questions, not just about Canada’s role in combat in Afghanistan, but the larger question of Canada’s role as world “peacekeeper.” We need to confront the question of whether a foreign state can truly “bring” or “keep” the peace in another sovereign nation.

We have to critically examine the conditions generating war and conflict in various counties and be in solidarity with the people’s resistance. At its core, the people’s inalienable right to exercise their own sovereignty means that oppressed peoples and nations will choose their own forms of struggle to resolve the root causes of war and conflict and achieve the basic demands of their people in all fields (economic, political, social, cultural). By understanding those demands in a historical, global and systemic context, we can then more fully be in solidarity and support with the struggle for peace. The peace movement must not just be an attempt to gain an abstract or idealist vision of peace where the oppressor and oppressed join hands in reconciliation. Peace is not just the absence of war. Peace is also not just a reform of the existing system. A genuine, just and lasting peace must respect people’s dignity, sovereignty and right to struggle for national and social liberation, even if this means the need to take up arms and engage in a just war for that liberation. Historically, this is very clear in the successful struggles of such countries as China, Cuba, Korea and Vietnam. It is increasingly clear today in the need to support the Iraqi resistance against occupation and recolonization by the US and its allies. We must build on the momentum garnered during the mass protests against the war and occupation of Iraq, by moving to a critical discussion of and explicit support for the Iraqi people’s resistance.

At the ILPS, we hope that our efforts to first educate ourselves and raise our level of political consciousness will help us to educate, organize and mobilize other progressive individuals and organizations to take up the cause of working towards a just and lasting peace by building an anti-imperialist and democratic movement that fights imperialism as the source of war, devastation and plunder and is in solidarity with the struggles of oppressed peoples and nations the world over for their national liberation and social emancipation. In terms of the ILPS mandate, there are specific concerns that we take up and our efforts tonight and in building up towards the international conference in June 2006 are in line with Concerns #1 (The cause of national liberation, democracy and social liberation) and #4 (The cause of just peace against wars of counter-revolution and aggression).