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JRCL International Appeal
On November 15th, a week after the launch of an all-out assault on Fallujah, the US occupation forces declared they brought the whole area of the city under their control. After this bloody onslaught on Fallujah, they embarked in a war of extermination to conquer the whole area of the 'Sunnite Triangle' under the pretext of 'wiping out terrorists'. This state of affairs was brought about against the background of George W. Bush's hard-line strategy in the name of 'freedom and democracy', with the impetus of his narrow victory in the presidential reelection. Together with the occupation authorities, America's puppet, Iraqi interim government led by Iyad Allawi, carried out this operation, intending to bring Iraq's parliamentary elections scheduled on January 30th into effect, so as to keep up the appearance of the 'successful transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqi people'. We, the Japan Revolutionary Communist League (Revolutionary Marxist Faction), call on workers and toiling masses in Japan, on people all over the world. Denounce the inhuman atrocities in Fallujah! Condemn, with burning anger, this state terrorism by US imperialism! Now is the time to rise in a fight for a worldwide struggle against the continued occupation of Iraq by the militarist empire of America! (1) In the full-scale assault on Fallujah, US imperialists deployed over 12,000 troops, calling it 'Armageddon' to terminate the Satan (terrorists) in the name of Jesus Christ. The puppet government mobilized 3000 Iraqi troops. Upon the city with a population of 300,000 people, numerous cluster bombs were poured down, fires of napalm bombs spread, nerve gasses scattered, and white phosphorus bombs exploded. Its medical, communication, electric and water-supply facilities were completely destroyed, together with 120 mosques. 100,000 Muslims, who stayed within the city to put up vehement resistance, fell victim to the genocidal attack by the bloodthirsty US troops, 'today's Crusaders'. This we must call the crime of the century. The National Guards and the Iraqi Police mobilized in this military operation were hastily made up of those who had lost their jobs because of the dissolution, or privatization of state enterprises under US military administration and were enticed into enlisting in the units with 'high pay'. They were forced to shoot their fellow countrymen, the same Muslims, to let the US military occupation of their country continue. Against all this genocidal offensive, bold fighters, who stayed in Fallujah at the risk of their lives to defend their liberated area, carried out courageous resistance, together with mujahideen having rallied around them from other Arab countries. But then, Sunnite insurgents pulled half of their forces out of Fallujah. They adopted tactics of dividing US forces into small units while mounting an all-out counteroffensive against them in various places in Iraq. In concert with these indomitable fights waged by militant residents and armed Muslims in Fallujah, the angry Iraqi people have risen in a fight-back against US imperialism and its puppet, the Allawi government, overcoming religious antagonism between the sects. They have kicked US troops out of Ramadi, while attacking US bases and jerry-built police stations in Baghdad, Samarra, Mosul and other cities. The Association of Muslim Scholars, an influential Sunnite group, dauntlessly called on the members of the Iraqi National Guard: 'Beware! You are deceived that you are fighting against terrorists from outside the country!' Anti-American radical Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr was among those who issued the call. In response to this call, hundreds of Iraqi soldiers refused successively to carry out their combat missions against their brother Muslims. Genocide in Fallujah, another Guernica in the 21st century, is adding more fuel to the anger of Muslim people in Iraq and all over the Middle East. They will fight all the more furiously and courageously for the liberation of Iraq. (2) Supported by right-wing Christian fundamentalists, and even by resorting to rigged votes, George W. Bush barely won his second term. Elated with the reelection of his American patron, Zionist Sharon and his government in Israel seized the opportunity to organize a conspiracy to liquidate the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) on top of Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement). It is judged that the mysterious sudden death of PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, who had been receiving medical treatment under the protection of the French government since he had broken down at his Ramallah office besieged by Israeli troops, was a premeditated murder designed to break down the Palestinian National Authority (together with the PLO) by the Israeli Mossad in cahoots with the CIA or their agents (Mahmoud Abbas and Ahmad Qurei). Yet, no matter how desperately the Bush administration and Zionists may try to make crafty plans, US imperialists are already plunged into an inevitable defeat, a morass just like the Vietnam War. Despite the unanimous adoption of Resolution 1546 by the UN Security Council to authorize the presence of a multi-national force in Iraq, quite a few countries in the US-led 'Coalition of the Willing' have decided one after another to pull their troops out of Iraq. This is not all. Even British Prime Minister Tony Blair, calling himself Bush's closest ally, has started to mend his fences with France and Germany, the erstwhile 'opponents' of the Iraq War. He went so far as to submit a proposal to Bush to revise the US foreign policy towards the Middle East. Amid this situation, only the Japanese government led by Koizumi Jun'ichiro, another poodle of Bush wearing the collar of the US-Japan military alliance, remains faithful to the US unilateralist administration. The Koizumi government has disclosed its bare hostility towards the toiling people by expressing its full support for the bloody US operation in Fallujah. While the US-led 'Coalition of the Willing' has begun to collapse, this government is determined to extend the dispatch period of the Japanese military to Iraq (which expires on December 14th), and, worse still, to reinforce the units. This dispatch of the Japanese military, the Self-Defence Forces, is a violation of the Constitution of Japan, to begin with. The Koizumi government is making full use of this opportunity as a stepping-stone to revise the existing war-renouncing Constitution. Although suffering terribly from total bankruptcy in the occupation of Iraq, the Bush administration, supported by the Japanese government working in cooperation with it based on the US-Japan military alliance, has started up a scheme to realize its ambition to colonize Iraq and other Islamic countries in the Middle East by resorting to arms and plunder their oil resources. Exactly this is the essence and reality of the 'US-Japan alliance in a global context'. American imperialism is about to throw the whole 21st century world into pitch darkness. We must resolutely advance our struggle against the Iraq War, against the US-Japan military alliance. (3) In the process of the intensive presidential election campaign in the United States, public opinion was sharply divided over the estimation of the war on Iraq and the ensuing military occupation. The political and ideological polarization of the US people became conspicuous. Among workers and the toiling masses, there was a growing tendency to oppose Bush because of their sense of crisis about warmonger Bush's possible reelection to the presidency. Nevertheless, the leadership of the AFL-CIO continued repressing the voice of the rank-and-file against the Iraq War, saying, 'All you have to do is gather votes for John Kerry!' Because of this degenerated official trade union leadership, antiwar struggles of the working class in the US have been stifled. In Britain, people staged active demonstrations against the assault on Fallujah in over 25 cities, shaking the foundations of the Blair government. Thus, there is considerable resentment flaring up against the war and the jingoist Bush administration in various countries. In Japan, however, official opposition party leaders still have not made any effort to organize mass struggles against the US military occupation of Iraq. The Democratic Party of Japan is making only lip demands for pulling out the SDF troops from Iraq, and is even arguing in favour of the amendment of the Constitution, particularly war-renouncing Article 9, saying that 'Japan must be authorized to use force provided that a relevant UN resolution is adopted'. The labour aristocracy in Rengo [Japan Trade Union Confederation] is forcing its rank-and-file members to support this party. The case of the Japanese Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party of Japan is no less miserable as that of those advocates of constitutional amendment: while emphasizing their 'difference' from the latter, they are merely seeking for 'cooperation inside the House' with the DPJ to demand the government to withdraw the SDF from Iraq. Overcoming this collapse of struggles against the Iraq War led by the official leadership in Japan, we, the JRCL (RMF), together with militant workers and revolutionary students fighting under our leadership, are striving to create resolute struggles against the Iraq War and the US-Japan military alliance in each of their workplaces and campuses, in solidarity with Iraqi people putting up persistent resistance against US imperialism and its occupation. (4) We call on working people in Japan! Let us fight under the slogan, 'Oppose the military occupation of Iraq by US imperialism! Pull Japanese troops out of the Iraqi battlefield!' The central leadership of the JCP is pleading with the Japanese and other foreign governments to adopt a policy of supporting 'Iraqi people's sovereign independent nation building in a truly UN-based framework'. But Allawi's interim government existing in actuality in Iraq is merely a puppet government of the US. 'Sovereign independent nation building' is nothing but a daydream. Because the bureaucrats of this party have no understanding of this plain fact, they never make it clear that they will fight in solidarity with Iraqi people now engaged in struggles in reality against US imperialism and its occupation. Their abandonment of struggles against the Iraq War is closely related to the fact that they consider anti-American guerrilla attacks by Iraqi people 'terrorism' and negate the liberation struggle of the Iraqi nation regarding it as 'violent'. They are awfully afraid of defections, as well as revolts against their leadership, growing within the party touched off by our criticism. Denounce the JCP central leadership's abandonment of its struggle against the Iraq War! Bring to light the criminal nature of their proposal for Iraqi people's nation building right in the middle of the war! We appeal to workers and toiling people in the US, Britain and all over the world. We call on every one of you, working people in the US! Rise in a resolute fight, based on proletarian internationalism, to oppose the war of aggression against Iraq, to oppose the Bush administration! Disclose the corruption of the AFL-CIO leadership who yielded to the Bush administration instilling USA patriotism and propagandizing 'war on terrorism'! Overthrow, on your own initiative, and together with workers in the world, the warmonger Bush administration that is sending your compatriots, above all, Hispanic and Afro-American youths suffering poverty, to the battlefields! We make a strong appeal to the Muslim people all over the world, especially those in Iraq and in the Middle East. Now is the time to organize a struggle against US imperialism on the basis of Islamic inter-nationalism! The continued occupation of Iraq by the multinational force under the command of the US army and the resistance by the Iraqi people against this occupation, against the US puppet government, have the significance of being an accusation against the weakness of the working class in the developed countries. The working class in the US, Europe and Japan must not tolerate the brutalities by the militarist empire of America, the 'sole superpower' in the world. We call on the working people all over the world to fight for an explosive worldwide struggle against the Iraq War in support of and in solidarity with Iraqi Muslims' resistance now flaring up. The Japan Revolutionary Communist League (Revolutionary Marxist Faction) is resolved to fight in the forefront of the struggle against the Iraq War. November 16th, 2004 L |
