Matthew Hoh for Senate statement on the Democratic Party's voter intimidation campaign

This statement was originally posted at www.matthewhohforsenate.org/hoh-slams-democratic-partys-voter-intimidation-campaign/ and includes links to some media coverage, though the media coverage is biased against third parties.  Democratic Party operatives are reportedly making harassing phone calls, sending text messages, and going to people's homes to pressure them to rescind their signatures on petitions requesting that the NC Green Party be granted state recognition, so that it can appear on ballots in the same way as the Democratic and Republican parties, what the local NPR station calls the "headline contenders."  Apparently it is very unusual for a bourgeois democracy such as the USA to have this kind of first and second class treatment of political parties, among other US electoral oddities ( cosmonautmag.com/2022/06/the-long-crisis-of-democracy/ ), and North Carolina was one of the more restrictive states until recently, at least in part to prevent Marxist and left parties from ever again gaining ballot access, and it still isn't easy to get on to the ballot here.  The operatives have also impersonated Greens.  People who receive this harassment are encouraged to report it to the campaign or to the NCGP.  Apparently the Elias Law Group, lead by Marc Elias, general counsel for Hillary Clinton in 2016, John Kerry in 2004, among other Democratic Party groups and a key figure in promoting the Democrats' "Russiagate" conspiracy theory, received the petition documents from the State Board of Elections, working for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.  This action is apparently about the 2022 Senate race and 2024, but if successful would prevent any Green candidate from being listed as a Green on the ballot, assuming they could run at all, and the Democratic Party portrays itself as the defender of "our democracy" (or should that be "Democracy?") against Trump and the Republicans.  County and State boards of election are also possibly intentionally dragging their feet on granting state recogntion to the NC Green Party.  For State party recognition and ballot access, 13,865 signatures, or a quarter of 1% of the total number of voters in the last guberatorial election, are required, and the NCGP presented more than 22,500, and legally can't submit additional signatures at this point.  There are allegations about the NCGP having worked with First Choice Contracting to gather signatures, but apparently the company collected only 109 signatures, and the NCGP itself rejected half of those and then ended its relationship with the company, months before news broke about allegations of fraudulent signatures in Michigan.  It could be asked if this is the only plan the Democrats have to prevent Greens from even being able to run for office, local, State, or Federal, in NC.  

Currently the US Senate race in North Carolina officially includes a Democrat, a Libertarian, and a Republican, while the Greens intend to run a candidate; I haven't heard about a candidate from the rightist NC Constitution Party, another party that lost ballot access in 2020 (the Libertarians might also have lost access then).  

Matthew Hoh, Green for US Senate, Slams Democratic Party's Massive Voter Intimidation Campaign to Sabotage NC Green Party Ballot Drive

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday June 29, 2022
Contact: Rose Roby, Matthew Hoh for Senate Campaign Manager rose [at] matthewhohforsenate [org]

Today Matthew Hoh, who is seeking the North Carolina Green Party nomination for US Senate, condemned the Democratic Party for launching a massive and deceptive voter intimidation campaign attempting to bully North Carolina voters into removing their names from a petition to qualify the Green Party for ballot access.

“We’ve been hearing from folks across the state that they’re being bombarded with phone calls, text messages, and even people coming to their houses demanding to remove their signature from the Green Party petition,” said Rose Roby, Campaign Manager for Matthew Hoh. “We have recorded evidence of these callers falsely representing themselves as calling on behalf of the Green Party, while making misleading to outright false claims to pressure people to remove their names from a petition they already signed. Our campaign team has seen a lot of dirty tricks from the establishment parties over the years, but none of us has ever seen such a massive, deceitful, and shameless campaign of voter intimidation to try to sabotage a successful grassroots petition drive.”

As reported by the Raleigh News and Observer and CBS 17, after the Green Party submitted over 22,500 signatures, of which nearly 16,000 passed the rigorous county verification process, the Elias Law Group, headed by former general counsel for Hillary Clinton Marc Elias, demanded all documentation related to the petition drive from the State Board of Elections on behalf of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC). Shortly after that, the DSCC began harassing petition signers with barrages of unsolicited phone calls, text messages, and even operatives showing up to their doors after they said they weren’t interested.

One such example is Janet Nagel, a petition signer who contacted the Hoh campaign after she received at least four unsolicited calls in one afternoon. According to Nagel, the caller “said she was calling for the Green Party” but then “launched into a diatribe about how voting for the Green Party would take votes from the Democrats.” When Nagel disagreed and pointed out that there are more unaffiliated voters than Democrats or Republicans, the caller replied: “So you would like to remove your name from the petition?”

Another recipient of the deceptive calls was Tony Ndege, Co-chair of the North Carolina Green Party, who recorded a caller who claimed multiple times that he was with the Green Party before asking Ndege to remove his name from the petition. After Ndege asked why the Green Party would want his signature removed from its ballot access petition, the call was abruptly hung up.

“It certainly appears to us, and to many concerned North Carolina voters who have gotten in touch with us, that the DSCC – aided and abetted by the Elias Law Group – is engaging in fraud, voter intimidation, an aggressive spamming campaign and even showing up at people’s houses trying to sabotage a hugely successful grassroots petition drive through intimidation and fraudulent representation.” said Roby. “It’s a shocking abuse of public records to harass voters and attempt to suppress political opposition.”

“This massive, dirty, and obviously well-funded voter intimidation scheme to undo the success of our grassroots petition drive shows how far the Democratic Party will go to prevent someone who actually represents working people from being on the ballot,” said Hoh, a disabled Marine combat veteran who resigned his post in 2009 to protest the escalating war in Afghanistan. “The establishment is terrified that Green Party organizers were able to succeed in clearing their ballot access hurdles, because they know that the people are hungry for a political movement that will deliver healthcare, housing, living wages, and a sustainable economy for all.”

“This blatant attack on democracy highlights the corporate Democratic Party’s utter hypocrisy, whether they’re claiming to fight for democracy, stand for working people, care about climate crisis, or any other of countless issues where their actions fly in the face of their rhetoric,” said Hoh. “The hardest thing I’ve ever seen the Democrats fight for is to keep a disabled Marine combat veteran off the ballot. But the Democratic establishment’s heavy-handed attack on our grassroots campaign will only inspire more and more people across North Carolina to stand with us as the only campaign fighting for working people, the planet, peace, and real democracy.”

The Matthew Hoh for Senate campaign encourages all North Carolina residents who are targeted by the Democratic Party’s voter intimidation campaign to contact the campaign about their experience at https://www.matthewhohforsenate.org/contact/

Democratic Party working to keep Green candidates off the ballot in North Carolina

After the 2020 election the NC Green Party lost its hard won ballot access and had to collect thousands of signatures again, during the pandemic closures, but it expects to regain state recognition later this week.  About 22,500 signatures were gathered, around 160% of what is required for state recognition.  Several years ago the number of signatures required was reduced.  Over the last few days there have been reports that agents of the Democratic Party were able to access the ballot access petitions and are contacting signers, asking them to request that their signatures be invalidated by the State.  At this point the NCGP is apparently legally unable to add additional signatures.  I haven't seen any news about how the Democrats gained the signer lists, whether any signatures have been disavowed, or whether signatures can even be invalidated this way.  

Democratic Party-allied media have been talking about Republican gerrymandering, actions to prevent people from voting, and the attempted "coup" in Washington, but are mostly silent about what the Democrats do, including their own gerrymandering (and also about issues with the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, the role of the Supreme Court, Republican street tactics, and electronic voting machines without voter-verifiable paper records).  In past years I have heard reports about direct attempts by the Democratic Party to block Greens from running for office in other states, but now it is happening here.  There are also indirect attacks, such as election laws that make it very hard for third parties and independent candidates to appear on ballots and have votes they receive counted in some states.  There have been concerns that votes for Green candidates haven't been properly counted in NC. 

In the 2020 election some prominent leftists argued that people should vote for "lesser evil" Biden this time, and they would oppose him next time - except that it would be difficult to organize credible opposition in just four years, and I don't see these people working on a new left opposition party and they would have trouble getting onto the ballot in every state if they did.  Alternatively, they aren't organizing street actions large enough to threaten the bipartisan neoliberal imperialist order either.  The anti-war movement during the Bush administration and Occupy under Obama failed to seriously worry the government, and these were large movements and very active across the country.  

Maybe if the Democrats did more for their voters and Biden followed through on his campaign promises electoral prospects for the Republicans wouldn't be so bright in 2022 and '24.  Instead the Federal government seems to be focused on things like Trump's "Big Lie" campaign, reducing inflation at the expense of the working class, fighting left governments in Latin America (one cause of the massive migrant caravans moving north, along with US economic policies and climate change), and going to the brink with Russia and China at the same time, while offending long-standing allies such as the French and Mexican governments and causing global crises.  What happened to taking action on climate change and domestic economic inequality?  Climate change already seems to be worsening the food crisis caused by the US-Russia conflict over who gets to dominate Ukraine.  There might be less of an energy crisis if the Biden administration gave up on trying to overthrow the governments of Iran, Venezuela, and Syria and the "green energy" industry seems to be suffering because of the cold war with China.  The BBC portrayed Macron's recent losses to leftists in the French legislative elections as pushing the French government not left but right, and eight years of Obama-Biden and the Democrats in Congress not governing from the left empowered Trump.

Below are two Democratic Party messages released by the NCGP and four messages, allegedly from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, released by Matthew Hoh's Green US Senate campaign ( twitter.com/MatthewPHoh/status/1540745516169961472 ; this is the first NCGP Senate campaign; campaign site:  www.matthewhohforsenate.org ; he sometimes writes for outlets such as Counterpunch):

On the 140th anniversary of Georgi Dimitrov's birth (June 18th)

En Marcha #2003, June 1-7, 2022

Central Organ of the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Ecuador [ pcmle.org ]

[Posted May 31st at:  pcmle.org/EM/spip.php?article11862  See also:  pcmle.org/EM/spip.php?page=recherche&recherche=dimitrov , neodemocracy.blogspot.com/search?q=dimitrov , www.marxists.org/reference/archive/dimitrov/index.htm , and the Dimitrov archive at www.revolutionarydemocracy.org  For a more negative view see:  ml-review.ca/aml/index/subject.html#d  Some relevant books are available from redstarpublishers.org ]

The creation of the United Front to confront fascism

June 18 marks the 140th anniversary of the birth of Georgi Dimitrov, a communist who gave his life to the cause of popular liberation and the establishment of socialism. Born in [1882 in] the Bulgarian city of Radomir [other sources say he was born in nearby Kovachevstsi, later moving to Radomir], from 1910 he was part of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Bulgaria, and from 1935 to 1943 he served as General Secretary of the Communist International and was a member of the Supreme Soviet from 1937 to 1945. In 1946, the Bulgarian people held a referendum to establish themselves as a republic, and the following year the Bulgarian Communist Party (BKP) came to power. Georgi Dimitrov assumed the head of government and the general secretariat of the BKP until his death in 1949 [July 2nd at a sanatorium near Moscow].

His life was devoted to fighting against fascism and laying the foundations for the struggle of the international communist and workers' movement. At a historical moment when fascism was on the rise, the discussion was to get the national and world anti-fascist forces to unify. The Seventh Congress of the Communist International, held in 1935, received the report of Comrade Dimitrov entitled "The Offensive of Fascism and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle for the Unity of the Working Class against Fascism", which set out the tasks that the youth, workers and peoples had to carry out in order to defeat it.

Dimitrov maintained that "fascism is war", it is a terrorist dictatorship of imperialism and financial capital, represented by its most reactionary and backward elements, who seek to stabilize the internal economy of their countries through wars of aggression against other peoples, to achieve a new redivision of the world. In each country, it creates conditions of persecution and terror on the working class, peasants and intellectuals; and it develops if there are no revolutionary forces to stop its advance, intensifying violence and terror against the social forces and parties that oppose it.

In the midst of World War II, the Report of the Seventh Congress established the policy of the United Front and the Anti-Fascist and Anti-Imperialist Popular Front, in which the fundamental task of the workers and peoples is the unmasking and defeat of fascism. Confronting fascism requires developing political collaboration with parties and organizations that allow the accumulation of revolutionary forces to confront reaction. At present, the validity of these approaches is sustained, to confront the fascist groups that have appeared in Europe and in several countries of the Americas.

Dimitrov established that the "united front of the proletariat would exert an enormous influence on all other strata of the working people, on the peasants, on the urban petty bourgeoisie, on the intellectuals. The united front will instill in the wavering sections faith in the strength of the working class." In this way, Dimitrov laid the foundations on which the workers and peoples must act to confront reaction, strengthen their struggle against the bourgeoisie and achieve definitive emancipation, the only condition of which is unity. Only with the development of the United Front will the working class and the peasantry succeed in becoming the force that defeats fascism and capitalism.

Unity and Struggle issue #44 published

A new issue of Unity and Struggle, journal of the International Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organizations (ICMLPO, cipoml.net/ ; in English, Spanish, and Turkish) has been published and can be ordered from Red Star Publishers for $7 dollars (orders from outside the USA will cost more).  To pay via PayPal, check, money order, or cash see:  www.redstarpublishers.org/  Back issues might also be available.

Tambien disponible en español.

In this issue:

Bangladesh: From the Congress to the BJP: Communist Party of Bangladesh (Marxist-Leninist)  

Bolivia: Notes for an Analysis of Crypto Assets and the Blockchain from the Viewpoint of Marxist Political Economy: Revolutionary Communist Party – PCR – Bolivia  

Brazil: Capitalism and War: Revolutionary Communist Party – PCR – Brazil  

Burkina Faso: The War in Ukraine: A War of Imperialist Aggression and Redivision of Territories for World Hegemony: Revolutionary Communist Party of Volta – PCRV  

Colombia: Lessons of an Ongoing Electoral Process: Communist Party of Colombia (Marxist-Leninist)  

Denmark: Healthcare Professionals – A Global Commodity: Workers’ Communist Party APK  

Dominican Republic: On the Question of Democracy in the Dominican Republic: Communist Party of Labor (PCT)  

Ecuador: The Class Nature of the Communist Party: Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Ecuador – PCMLE  

France: A New Issue of Our Journal Rupture: Communist Party of the Workers of France – PCOF  

India: Some Questions of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat and the People’s Democracies: Revolutionary Democracy  

Italy: Ecological Crisis, Capitalism and Scientific Socialism: Communist Platform – for the Communist Party of the Proletariat of Italy  

Mexico: The Struggle of the Masses towards Their Sovietization: A Task on the Order of the Day: Communist Party of Mexico (Marxist-Leninist)  

Morocco: The Situation in Morocco: Democratic Way  

Serbia: Is the War in Ukraine Only an Inter-Imperialist between the USA and Russia or Is It Also a National-Liberation War of the Ukrainian People?: Revolutionary Alliance of Labour of Serbia  

Spain: The Intellectuals and Communism: Communist Party of Spain (Marxist-Leninist) – PCE(ml)  

Tunisia: Address of the Central Committee to the Activists of the Party on the Situation Prevailing in the Country: Workers’ Party of Tunisia  

Turkey: The Fallacy of “Green Capitalism”: Party of Labour (EMEP)  

United States of America: We Reject Biden’s and Putin’s War: American Party of Labor  

Uruguay: Breaking with the Two-Party System: a Task of Historical Perspectives: Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Uruguay – PCMLU  

Venezuela: A Time of Wars and Revolutions: Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Venezuela – PCMLV 

The Fraud of the "Testament of Lenin" by Grover Furr and repression in Poland

The Fraud of the "Testament of Lenin" described on Amazon:  

"The canonical accounts of Lenin’s last writings accept the version that Lenin left a 'testament' that included a number of negative remarks about Joseph Stalin, and that Lenin wished to remove Stalin from the position of General Secretary of the All-Union Communist Party (bolshevik). This version stems partly from Trotsky, who embraced it eagerly in his campaign to replace Stalin as Party leader; partly from Lenin’s wife Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya; and partly from Nikita Khrushchev and the Khrushchev-era fifth and last edition of Lenin’s works, the Polnoe Sobranie Sochinenii ('Compete Collection of Writings'), or PSS.

The present book is largely based on the research of Professor Valentin A. Sakharov of Moscow State University. His 2003 book, Lenin’s 'Political Testament,' published by Moscow State University Press, is the result of years of access to and study of many of the archival copies of Lenin’s works, drafts of those works, and originals of other important documents related to the question of Lenin’s 'testament.'

The present study draws the same conclusion: Lenin’s so-called 'Testament' is a fraud. The present book includes chapters that examine the role in these falsehoods of Leon Trotsky and the errors and falsehoods in the book Lenin’s Last Struggle by the late historian Moshe Lewin, as well as individual chapters on the role of Lenin’s wife Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya and that of Lenin’s sister Maria Il’inichna Ulyanova."

Until June 18th copies can be ordered in the USA for $25 dollars (by check or money order) sent to:

Grover Furr, English Department,

Montclair State University, Montclair NJ 07043-1624

It is also available on Amazon, possibly with $5 added for shipping:  www.amazon.com/dp/0578284995/

The Mystery of the Katyn Massacre

Furr's argument that the Katyn Massacre of April - May 1940 was carried out by Germany, not the USSR, is apparently banned in Poland as a crime "against the Polish nation," as is communist propaganda, and stores are afraid to sell his 2019 book.  People face arrest for making these arguments (and the situation for Ukrainian leftists under the government created by the 2014 coup is apparently similar, with parties and common symbols banned).  The book's Polish title is Tajemnica Zbrodni Katyńskiej: dowody, rozwiązanie and it is available online at:   

www.erythrospress.com/bookstore/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/polish-081621-01.pdf

Apparently Amazon will not publish books in Polish, but physical copies can be bought at:  

www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/grover-furr/tajemnica-zbrodni-katy%C5%84skiej-dowody-rozwi%C4%85zanie/paperback/product-envd6d.html

A flyer listing Furr's books on Soviet history:  msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/research/fourteen-book-flyer.pdf

Rightist and police attack on The People's Forum in New York City

A statement just sent out reporting a rightist attack, supported by the NYPD, on The People's Forum ( peoplesforum.org ).  It doesn't say how the NYPD's show of force was justified, though it sounds reminiscent of the police support for rightists seeking to seize the Venezuelan embassy in Washington.

The PSL [Party for Socialism and Liberation] urges all progressive organizations to show their support for The People's Forum which was targeted tonight [June 3rd] by a right wing physical assault on its offices. The NYPD were fully involved in this coordinated assault. The following is a statement issued by the The People's Forum following the attack. Please share widely.

NYPD and Far-Right forces collude in physical assault on a socialist and anti-racist space

The People’s Forum in New York City attacked by the far-right, enabled by the police

Since our founding in 2018, our space, The People’s Forum (TPF) has been the target of multiple attacks by the far-right on both social media and in our location. We have managed to defend our space which operates on values and principles of social justice and people power. Most recently a coalition of anti-vaxxers, Cuban and Venezuelan anti-communists, and other far-right reactionaries have increased their attacks on TPF. Today, over a dozen officers of the New York Police Department (NYPD) entered TPF, uninvited, and acted as security for the far-right who carried out an illegal attack on our space.

We ground and pride ourselves in organizing our own safety and coordinating with other organizations to defend and protect each other. Today, as many of TPF staff and leadership are in Los Angeles building The People’s Summit for Democracy, this far-right coalition attempted to forcefully occupy our space as part of a larger strategy against TPF’s politics and mission. The NYPD facilitated the attempted occupation by objectively preventing us from ejecting these far-right reactionaries. They allowed for the occupation attempt to continue for over an hour, while our staff and guests were physically assaulted and verbally harassed, and anti-vaxxers vandalized our space. 

Today, this far-right coalition was driven out of the space by the strong stance and resistance of TPF staff and fellow comrades who protected the space. Rest assured, we will continue to uplift our socialist values and be a welcoming space for working people and all those who want to transform society for the better.

Share this on Twitter

ANSWER on government repression of the People's Summit for Democracy, June 8 - 10 in LA

Below are some statements and notices sent out by the ANSWER Coalition ( www.answercoalition.org ) on government acts against the People's Summit for Democracy, to be held next weekend as the popular answer to the 9th Summit of the Americas, June 6 - 10th, which so far will exclude Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, and is being competely or partially boycotted by Mexico and several other countries, many as a protest of Biden's bans, supposedly over "democracy."  Apparently these summits of OAS member countries usually exclude Cuba, though it was part of the last two meetings, in 2015 and 2018.     

May 30, 2022 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

LAPD refuses to grant permit for march against the Summit of the Americas

Organizers from the People’s Summit for Democracy have raised the alarms in response to the move by the US government to block permit for mobilization

Los Angeles - The Los Angeles Police Department has refused to grant a permit for a legal mass march scheduled to coincide with the Summit of the Americas on Friday, June 10, 2022. Organizers for the People’s Summit for Democracy say that, “the LAPD conduct constitutes an illegal denial of constitutional rights for those engaged in first amendment protected activity.” They vow to demonstrate regardless on June 10.

Organizers of the People’s Summit filed a permit request on February 25 for a free speech protected activity. 95 days have passed, and the LAPD has dragged its feet and not responded with any concrete steps to move forward in the application process. The LAPD has attempted to shift the blame about the delay in issuing the permit to the Secret Service and the Federal Government, but we know this is a stalling tactic.

This egregious violation of free speech and the infringement on our democratic right to protest goes against the very values that Joe Biden and the US government claim to uphold in the Summit of the Americas. Further, the maneuver threatens to undermine a principal avenue for progressive people in this country to advocate for social justice.

Angelica Salas, Executive Director of CHIRLA expressed, “The People's Summit will lift up all those issues important to our people but left out of that other presidential summit across town: the rights of immigrants, women and workers, the rebuilding and protection of democratic norms, the security of families. We will present a different vision of the Western Hemisphere as a place of peace, freedom and prosperity for all that excludes no country, no faith, no race, and no gender."

Regardless of the outcome regarding the permit request, the people of the Americas will march on the streets of Los Angeles on June 10 to Biden’s Summit of Exclusion and make our voices heard. We will see you at Los Angeles Technical Trade College from June 8-10 and in the streets on June 10!

Follow @PeoplesSummit22 on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook
For press inquiries and interview requests contact: press [at] peoplessummit2022 [org]

Let Them In! Stop the Exclusion of Cuban Artists & Academics

The ANSWER coalition, alongside many other organizations, is helping to convene the People's Summit for Democracy 2022 in Los Angeles (June 8,9,10). You can register for the people's summit here!

The People’s Summit for Democracy is outraged by the decision of the United States government to deny visas to a 23 person delegation from Cuban civil society. The denial of their visas is an affront to the same democratic values that the US government and its “Summit of the Americas” pretends to uphold. With this decision and Cuba’s exclusion from Biden’s official Summit, Cuba has been denied a voice in vital discussions about democracy, integration, and regional cooperation.

Sign the petition calling on the US to reverse their decision

Among the 23 people set to travel to Los Angeles to participate in the People’s Summit for Democracy were renowned Cuban scientist and medical doctor Tania Crombet Ramos a member of the World Academy of Sciences who contributed to the development of several life-saving vaccines, Reineris Salas Pérez an Olympic wrestler who won the Bronze medal in Tokyo, Jorge González Nuñez a queer Christian student leader, and many others including journalists, artists, trade unionists, and community leaders.

The participation of these diverse representatives of Cuban society would have given people in the US, particularly young people, an important opportunity to learn more about the island and build people to people relationships. It is an affront to the very necessary dialogue and normalization of relations between the people of the United States with the Cuban people who have been unjustly separated by the six-decade illegal US blockade. 

Manolo De Los Santos, one of the organizers of the People’s Summit said: “The US government’s policy is cruel towards the Cuban people, but also towards the people of the United States who are being denied the right to not only relate with the people on the Island, but also to be able to speak and dialogue directly with them.”

We call on the US government and its Embassy in Havana, to reverse the decision to deny their visas.

Introducing the first ever People's Summit for Democracy—this summer in LA!

The ANSWER coalition is proud to be a convening organization of the People's Summit for Democracy 2022 in Los Angeles!

In June, the Biden Administration is hosting the 9th Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles, California. The Summit of the Americas, convened by the Organization of American States (OAS), has long been an arena to push U.S. economic and political interests in Latin America and the Caribbean, without regard for the peoples of our shared continent. The Biden administration has stated that this ninth summit looks to “further advance this administration’s agenda in Latin America and the Caribbean.”

The Biden administration explicitly disinvited the governments of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua from the Summit of the Americas. In protest of the exclusion of these governments, nearly two dozen invited countries across Latin America and the Caribbean have announced that they will not send their head of state or will not participate altogether. Recently Mexico joined this list, and the list of boycotting countries continues to grow. Currently only five countries have committed to attending, including the United States.

In the tradition of each Summit of the Americas since the 2005 Mar Del Plata Summit [the 4th meeting], we unionists, activists, grassroots organizations, and progressive people of the Americas are calling for a People’s Summit on June 8th, 9th, and 10th to counter the Summit of the Americas.

The People’s Summit will host three days of art, music, speakers, debates, workshops, panel discussions, performances—all which uplift the voices of the people and imagine a new world; one that puts people’s democracy first.

At this time, you can support this historic effort to convene the first ever People's Summit for Democracy in 2022 by making a donation today.

Register to join us in Los Angeles for the People's Summit here!

Anti-war struggles in Denmark and Northern Europe

This is a statement from the Workers' Communist Party of Denmark (APK; apk2000.dk/en/welcome-to-apk/# ), originally posted at kpnet.dk/2022/06/03/arbejderklassens-modstand-mod-regeringens-eus-og-natos-krigspolitik-maa-styrkes/  There are some related articles on the Denmark's relationship with US imperialism at covertactionmagazine.com/?s=denmark

The struggle of the working class against the war policy of the government,
against the EU and NATO must be strengthened  

Under the guise of the inter-imperialist war in Ukraine, militarization and the influence of the US/NATO and the EU are dramatically increasing in the Nordic countries. This is taking place in an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty that the war in Ukraine and the 24/7 war propaganda have created.  

The Danish Yes in the referendum June 1 to remove the former No to participation in the EU's military process (so-called defence cooperation) was a majority of the votes cast, but less than half of those entitled to vote actually voted. The Yes is not a backing for more war and the military build-up of EU imperialism. It was made a matter of ‘for or against Putin’ by the political establishment, the bosses and the top leadership of the Trade Union bureaucracy and the state and private media.   

In recent weeks, the Swedish and Finnish governments have applied for membership in the US imperialist military alliance NATO. Denmark, which is a member of NATO and the EU, now also becomes a member of the EU's military build-up and apparatus. The Norwegian government is about to sign an agreement with the United States for US soldiers at military bases in Norway. The Danish government is on its way to making a similar agreement with the United States.  

This is a dangerous development that is escalating the danger of war. The North has a strategic importance for control of the Baltic and Arctic seas in the increased rivalry between the imperialist big powers, the US, Russia and China.  

It is a development that means increased military build-up for the benefit of the war industry. This means large increases in national, NATO and EU military budgets – to be paid for by the working class and people with new social cuts and deteriorating living conditions. It means another major sell-off of the sovereignty of the countries and their ability to pursue an independent foreign and security policy –dictated by the big monopolies and capital for which the strengthened military alliances of the EU and NATO must protect their investments and markets.  

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has made it clear that the US and NATO need a strengthened EU military union with increased war budgets, increased investment to strengthen the competitiveness of the EU war industry, and greater military capabilities and technological development in the EU, if it is under the control of US imperialism. At the same time, the EU has its own imperialist interests and purposes.  

The Social-Democratic governments of Denmark, Sweden and Finland have once again proved themselves immensely useful as guarantors of the interests of the monopolies, warmongers, bourgeoisie, and imperialism. Through their traditional ties to the leaders of the Trade Union and workers' movement, arm in arm with the employers, they have worked intensively for the participation of the countries in the imperialist military alliances, in direct contradiction to the national and international interests of the working class.  

However, the people’s opposition is too big for the Social Democrats alone to have been able to stop it from developing in its full force. This has only been possible with the help of the opportunist parties supporting the Social-Democratic governments. The Left League, which sits in the Finnish government, is now in favour of NATO membership. In Sweden and Denmark, the governments' supporting parties, the Left Party and the Red-Green Alliance, play a double game. They are officially opposed to NATO but have effectively and in practice abandoned this position. Instead, they have actively worked to curb, narrow and divide both the popular opposition to NATO membership and the struggle to stop the war in Ukraine and stop the governments' war-prolonging arms deliveries and support for Zelensky's regime. In relation to the Danish referendum on removing the former NO to participation in the EU's military project, the Red-Green Alliance has played the same role. With a small lukewarm NO vote, only to secure their own place in the European Parliament on the votes of the opponents of the EU, the leadership of the Red-Green Alliance has effectively slowed down the EU resistance from being united and visible. Over a third of the population did not vote at all in this poll.  

With the latest developments, imperialism – the US, EU and NATO – stands stronger than ever in the Nordic countries.  There is no doubt that this is part of a comprehensive plan and coordination by those in power in the Pentagon and Brussels.  Or that the left-opportunist parties have chosen sides in favor of the governments and policies of their bourgeoisie against the working class and people.  

It is therefore clear that we must continue to strengthen and develop the struggle against imperialism and its EU and NATO alliances. We must do this with renewed strength. This applies to the struggle for Denmark to leave both the EU and NATO and against the Social Democratic government's participation in war and war policy. This applies to the struggle against US and NATO bases and troops in Denmark, and the struggle to end the inter-imperialist war in Ukraine.  

The government is hiding its reactionary economic and war policy behind a mask and demagoguery of "social peace – to ensure economic growth and peace". But the consequences of this and the imperialist war in Ukraine are becoming increasingly clear – and not only regarding heating and electricity bills, which parts of the population have difficulty with or can no longer pay.  

Crucial to the development of a broad popular movement is that these struggles and the struggle against the dangerous spiral of armaments, and the imperialist war and the danger of more war are closely linked to the demands of the working class and the struggle for better wages and working conditions, for more and better social, health and education conditions and the strengthening of the public sector. The need to develop the unity, consciousness, and organization of the working class in the struggle for political power is becoming more visible and urgent.  

This implies that the political struggle against reaction, social democracy and other forms of opportunism must be developed in its breadth and depth, as must the line of class struggle in the Trade Unions against class cooperation with the employers, and the strengthening of international solidarity.  

Workers' Communist Party, APK, June 2, 2022   

Denmark 

 

Toufan statement on the war in Yemen

 Yemen's humanitarian catastrophe and media censorship 

  

Yemen is a country that is fighting for its independence, and except for a small number of countries that support the struggles of the Yemeni people, including Iran, other countries, especially those claiming to defend human rights or to investigate war crimes, such as the expansionist European Union, or countries such as Sweden, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, have adopted the silence of death and deliberately turned a blind eye to this. This is because the human rights theme of these countries, which pretend to be "anti-war crime fighters," has a different narrative based on their imperial interests. The degree of incitement of their humanitarian sentiments depends on the degree of their colonial and marauding interests. One day, a reporter asked then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright about the sanctions on Iraq, which killed more than half a million Iraqi children: "Were the sanctions and the invasion of Iraq worth it?" This representative of U.S. "human rights" , who also approved and promoted the Iran-Yemen embargo and did not value the lives of Iranians, explicitly defended this crime. This is the opinion of all the leaders of the European Union, Britain and the entire Anglo-Saxon imperialist front. Their approach to human rights is purely business-like.  

In Yemen, the people are fighting against an occupying force. They have been able to put an end to the influence of Saudi Arabia, which ruled Yemen and considers it part of its territory. Saudi Arabia has set its greedy eyes on other countries on the Arabian peninsula, such as Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and even Oman. This is why the seeds of discord and conflict with Saudi Arabia is sowed everywhere. No one supports Saudi Arabia becoming a big power in the Arabian Peninsula. They rejoice at Saudi Arabia's weaknesses and failures in the Yemen war because it undermines the implementation of its intentions towards them. The lying imperialist media outlets are either silent about the struggles of the Yemeni people and the crimes committed by their collaborators in Yemen, or the fighting people of Yemen are considered agents of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The fact is that the influence of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Yemen is limited and with the iron wall that the savage governments have drawn around the Yemeni people, there is no possibility of helping these people, either with food or military.  The lying media claim that only “Houthis” are involved in the struggles. If at first this reference did not have a specific meaning, today it means that it is an ethnic and religious war against Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, a war between Shia and Sunnis, while this is not essentially the case. The fighting force, Ansarullah, is a front, including not only the Houthis, but also people with other ethnic and religious affiliations have the right to participate only if they fight for the freedom and independence of their country. Ansarullah is the united front of the Yemeni Peoples’ struggle.  

Saudi Arabia, which arrogantly wanted to stop the “Houthi activities” in a matter of weeks and crush their resistance, has been plagued by its aggression in Yemen for nearly eight years now, and with the most modern U.S., British, German, French weapons and Israeli and British and NATO advisors it is still unable to break the will of the Yemeni people. On the contrary, its imported mercenaries have been regularly defeated on the battlefield, and even among their allies, including the United Arab Emirates, there is a disagreement over the proportionality of their influence in Yemen. The will of the people who are fighting for their freedom and independence cannot be shattered. The U.S. experienced this in Vietnam, the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia in Yemen. Thousands of civilians, especially children, have been victims of the atrocities of the Saudi coalition since the Yemen war began. Saudi Arabia is bombing the residential areas, towns and the entire historic city of Sanaa in order to destroy the identity of the Yemeni people. This is a war crime, and UNESCO must take appropriate measures to prevent this crime.  

According to the International Division of Tasnim News Agency, the Saudi-led Arab aggressor coalition has besieged Yemen by sea, air and land for seven years, bombing residential areas every now and then, resulting in thousands of civilian victims, especially innocent children, as well as the destruction of residential areas, Infrastructure and markets.  

Even al-Mayadeen news publication in Beirut reported that Taha al-Mutawakkil, Minister of Public Health and Population in the government of Sanaa, said that the number of Yemeni victims had reached 47,000.  

This number has clearly increased today. The sea blockade of Yemen to prevent food and medicine from reaching the Yemeni people is an inhumane crime  

The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Mr. Guterres, in order to carry out his political duties of giving service to the United States , immediately made his way to Kiev, Ukraine, to talk  with the murderer Zelensky and declare his support for Zelensky's crimes. But he is useless for the people of Yemen. He has not travelled to Yemen even once during the past several years to see the scope of Saudi Arabia’s atrocities and to witness what the war has done to the Yemeni people, who are one of humanity's oldest ethnic groups and have an ancient civilization.  

As of November 18, 2021, the U.S.-Saudi aggression has killed more than 3825 and injured 4175 children from the beginning of 2015 to the end of November 2021. The human rights report said that the number of children with various disabilities caused by the attacks of the aggressor coalition has reached 5,559; more than 3 million Yemeni children are suffering from malnutrition, while more than 300 children die daily and more than 3,000 have suffered congenital malformations. The Saudi aggressors, by bombing residential areas, a clear crime against humanity, have destroyed 1,128 primary schools and educational centers, 8,326 farms, 136 sports centers, 250 archaeological sites and 50 media centers.  According to a report recently published by the United Nations Development Program, by the end of 2021 the number of Yemeni victims was estimated to be about 377,000, 60% of whom are indirect victims of war who have died from starvation, outbreaks of diseases and a lack of medical or health facilities. Last week, it was announced that half a million Yemeni children are at risk from food shortages. According to this report, in al-Mughraba district, a remote area in Yemen's northern Hajjah province, families have turned to eating the leaves of a local tree in order to survive, boiling them to form a bitter paste and make it a little more digestible. Al-Mughraba is one of 11 regions in Yemen that were identified with famine conditions in late 2020. Mothers who themselves suffer from starvation have dry breasts and cannot feed and save their children. No country in the world, or UN officials, is trying to open Yemen’s ports to food so that civilians do not die. Boycotting and starving people, killing them by lack of food, are part of the Saudi-Western strategic policy of bringing the Yemeni people to their knees. They are intentionally violating their human rights, but they are loudly pretending to defend them. Efforts must be made to deliver food supplies to Yemen and to pressure international agencies to find legal and globally regulated ways to deliver supplies to the Yemeni people.  

The Role of the United Arab Emirates  

Geopolitically, the UAE intends to monitor and influence the southern part of Yemen and the port of Jeddah, as this important area of shipping and global sea transport is very sensitive from the perspective of political geography. In competition with Saudi Arabia, the UAE is willing to take control of southern Yemen by dividing Yemen into north and south, controlling the south and ending Saudi Arabia's influence in the south in the Arabian Sea. The cooperation of the invading forces in Yemen is a calculated partnership and coalition. With its policy, the UAE intends to make Saudi Arabia responsible for all the costs of aggression, but to take a greater share in the looting of Yemen, and not to get involved openly but be an important actor behind the scene. In this regard, UAE officials, who have always feared Saudi expansionism, have entered into negotiations with French imperialists and Israeli Zionists and reached agreements with them. The control of the Arabian Sea gives the UAE an important role in controlling the Bab al-Mandab and the Red Sea.  

Partisan warfare on the ground and in the air  

The Ansarallah Front, along with its victories in partisan warfare on the ground and even moving the war into Saudi Arabia, achieved a kind of partisan warfare in the air by developing new technology and purchasing arms from Iran. All the soft and vital facilities of the UAE and Saudi Arabia, western companies, construction and financial monopolies and the entire tourist industry etc. in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, Hijaz, Aramco, and other cities are in the range of Yemeni drones and missiles. These major blows by Yemenis have brought the Saudi and UAE governments to their knees and have made them exercise caution. The pleasant breeze that is now coming is the crushing of the current world order. This break-up of the current order greatly diminishes the power of NATO, the United States, Israel and their collaborators in the region and opens a window for the freedom and independence of the Yemeni people. This geopolitical change in the world will change our entire Region and will help the Yemeni people.  

(Taken from Toufan No. 267, June, 2022, the Organ of the Party of Labour of Iran)