Open Letter to 15th World Festival in Algeria

('binary' encoding is not supported, stored as-is)

Open letter to the International Preparatory Committee of the 15th World Festival of Youth and Students in Algeria

Dear comrades,

Please accept our fraternal greetings to you and all the participants of the forthcoming international festival. We welcome the festival as one expression of the struggle against imperialism which is suffocating the peoples of the world and even threatening the very existence of humanity. In order to defeat our common enemy all the anti-imperialist forces around the world must co-operate and strive to join hands in this struggle for life and death. This is why we propose that we mutually exchange delegation between the World Festival, August 8-16, and the Anti-imperialist Camp, Assisi, July 28-August 5.

However, we have some burning questions regarding the most urgent necessities of the global anti-imperialist struggle:

Why have you chosen Algeria as the place to meet? You must have been aware of the civil war raging in this tortured county since one decade during which the regime has proved to be a “model pupil of the IMF”? (as your German preparatory committee admits it openly; see http://weltfestspiele.online.de/kabylei1.html, May 29, 2001) You refer to the glorious Algerian liberation struggle but these times have definitely gone. Already in 1988 the Algerian youth has been protesting against the austerity programme imposed on them by the regime servile to imperialism and was crushed violently. Non of the popular demands have been met and in the early 90ies a military dictatorship has been erected in order to keep the pro-Western regime in power against the free will of the overwhelming majority of the population. And why you keep insisting in this emergency situation? Today the regime is about to repress another legitimate social rebellion blaming it to be separatist. But this is simply !
!
a pretext as the movement in Kabylia has met strong echo in the poor arabophone youth and has explicitly stated to defend the national unity of Algeria as a gain of the liberation struggle. Do you really think that an anti-imperialist gathering can take the support of such a regime and thus support it politically?

And what about the solidarity with the Palestinian people? Their new Intifada is a cry for international solidarity. With no word you mention the necessity to stop the Zionist massacre and that all democratic and peace-loving forces of the world urgently have to rally behind this sorely afflicted people to defend their most elementary human right against the Israeli and Western “humanitarian” crusaders: the right of self-determination.

We also have to insist on the solidarity with the Colombian people. One of the most powerful popular movements of the world is defending itself in arms against a cruel war unleashed by the narco-oligarchy backed by US imperialism. Millions have lost their land and have been displaced, tens of thousands of militant peasants and workers have been killed by the death squads. With the Plan Colombia imperialism is stepping up its aggression. Therefore we have to take immediate action.

We hope that you will consider our suggestions and will choose a different place for the festival. We would be happy if we could reach commitments for common action not only referring to the solidarity with the most outstanding anti-imperialist struggles but also for a more general and systematic co-operation which should be the concrete outcome of our  international gatherings.

With the most fraternal anti-imperialist greetings
The political committee of the anti-imperialist camp
June 19, 2001



************************************
Antiimperialist Camp
PF 23, A-1040 Vienna, Austria
Tel&Fax +43 1 504 00 10
camp@antiimperialista.com
www.antiimperialista.com/en
************************************




To unsubscribe from: Antiimperialist Camp News, just follow this link:
http://www.antiimperialista.com/cgi-bin/mojo/mojo.cgi?f=u&l=Antiimperialist_Camp_News&e=wai-wcag-editor@w3.org&p=22252
Click the link, or copy and paste the address into your browser.