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Overseas Appeal for the 39th International Antiwar Assembly in Japan Oppose the U.S. developing / deploying the
missile defence systems!
The spread of wars deriding the false 'peace' Today at the beginning of the 21st century the world is undergoing an intensifying crisis of the outbreak of another war everywhere. The danger of the spread of the current warfare is also growing. Look to the mid-air collision of a U.S. Navy spy plane with a Chinese F8 fighter that occurred above the South China Sea on April 1st! Here in East Asia even the danger of an armed conflict between the U.S. and China is rapidly increasing; the 'Taiwan issue' is the main focus of it. U.S. imperialist George W. Bush's new administration, openly taking a hostile attitude towards China, decided to sell U.S.-made high-tech weapons on a massive scale to the Chen Sui-bian administration which is seeking for the independence of Taiwan. This is not all. While condemning the former Clinton administration for its weak-kneed diplomacy towards North Korea, the Bush administration has adopted a hard-line policy towards North Korea by giving it the once-discarded brand of a 'rogue state'. In opposition to this aggressive posture of the U.S., the Jiang Zemin's state power, ambitious for becoming a 'superpower in the 21st century', carried out large-scale military manoeuvres over the Taiwan Strait by mobilizing 100,000 troops. By so doing, it demonstrated its resolute will to prevent 'Taiwan's independence'. The Kim Jong Il government of North Korea, also heightening its repulsion towards the Bush government, is crying out: 'A war for a war!' It goes without saying that the North Korean government is given political and military backup by rulers of China and Russia behind the scenes. In the Middle East or the Islamic world, U.S.-led peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine, i.e. an attempt to fabricate the outline of a fictitious 'peace', has been at a deadlock since September 2000. The Likud-led Sharon government is even resorting to extensive air strikes by F16 bombers to retaliate against the 'anti-Zionist / anti-American' Intifadah of the Palestinian people. Israel and Palestine have actually entered into a state of war. This may spark off a fifth Middle East War at any moment. Furthermore, this region is the focus of a clash of interests over petroleum and other natural resources between the imperialist states of the U.S / the EU / Japan and the 'enlightened' Stalinist states of China / Russia. Thus, the region is now coming to be a powder keg of the world that may ignite a Third World War. In the Balkans, the Albanian National Liberation Army (NLA) is repeating armed revolts against the Macedonian government forces; the antagonistic opposition between the two sides has turned into a tinderbox of another war in the Balkan Peninsula. Faced with this situation, the imperialist rulers of the EU, led mainly by Germany and France, are in trouble taking measures to settle the 'Macedonian issue', while attempting to obtain co-operation from Putin's Russia. New development of the nuclear arms race between the U.S. and China / Russia The aforementioned military conflicts now bursting out all over the world are connected with a new form of cold war between the imperialist U.S. and the Sino-Russian bloc. The former is repeating its armed interventions in the said conflicts and forcibly carrying out high-handed offensives to eliminate 'rogue states', and the latter two are strengthening their 'anti-American' ties under the banner of 'Stop the sole domination by the U.S.!' This is the very reason why the crisis of the outbreak of a global-scale war is brewing more than ever. The Bush government announced its plan for a 'missile defence system (MD)' on May 1st. This system aims at intercepting enemy missiles within a boost phase (minutes after launch). It is planned to clear major technological difficulties in targeting them in a midcourse (where they re-enter the atmosphere) from the mainland of the U.S. It is an attempt to conquer technological limitations in developing NMD and TMD. President Bush, like a rogue, explains that the MD system is 'aimed at a terrorist missile attack by a rogue state'. The true aim, however, is of course to make Chinese and Russian strategic nuclear weapons powerless. The central aim of the 'missile defence plan' includes at the same time the rebuilding of imperialist military alliances to contain China and Russia, for this missile defence system requires the deployment of interceptor missiles not only in the mainland of the U.S but also on the islands near enemy states or in allies' territories. Based on this missile defence plan, the U.S. government has formulated a new military strategy, which focuses its attentions on Asia; it is pressing its military claims on the Japanese government one after another in the name of 'power sharing'. On the basis of the strengthening of the U.S.-Japan Security Alliance as an offensive and defensive alliance to contain both China and Russia, the Bush government is thus trying to build a military system that enables the U.S. to cope with 'an emergency in Asia or in the Middle East'. Against the U.S. government, which is rushing to develop and deploy its MD systems even by openly declaring that it would renounce the ABM Treaty, the rulers of China / Russia are, as a matter of course, showing furious repulsion. They have launched a major political offensive against NMD / TMD by involving the power holders of EU countries, who are reacting against the U.S. President's plan to develop and deploy the MD system. And, behind the scenes, they are desperately attempting to build up their nuclear armaments to counter the U.S. mainly by improving the performance of their multiple warheads missiles. Imperialist Japan's ambition to restore militarism The imperialist state of Japan is pushing on towards a 'military big power' under the newborn neo-fascist Koizumi government. Prime Minister Koizumi Jun'ichiro is making the most of the mass media to show him off as a 'true reformer to break Japan's impasse'. This government is setting the stage for 'Koizumi's high popularity' by means of a Nazi-like manipulation of the masses and, by making use of this popularity as leverage, preparing to launch all ultra-reactionary offensives at a stroke. This man, who is also the president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, is plotting to bring not only the other two ruling parties in his coalition (New Komei Party and the Conservative Party) but even opposition parties around and create today's version of the Imperial Rule Assistance Association. We appeal to the world of the danger of this 'friendly fascism'! The Koizumi government is now making preparations for war at a high pace according to the revised Guidelines for U.S.-Japan Defence Cooperation so that Japan can participate in a battle when the U.S. launches its warmongering in the Middle East or Asia. Taking advantage of the strong demand urged by the U.S. that the 'exercise of the right to collective self-defence' be made constitutional, this government is even scheming to revise the Constitution of Japan (known as the 'peace Constitution') which renounces war and war potential. Moreover, the government has given an official approval to those junior high school history and civics textbooks compiled by obvious fascists of the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform. These textbooks are so reactionary that they openly beautify the war of aggression and the colonial rule committed by the former Tennoist state power against Asia-Pacific countries. What is more, Prime Minister Koizumi is planning to visit Yasukuni Shrine (where relics of 'Class-A war criminals' are enshrined as 'divine spirits') in his official capacity as Prime Minister. This plan is undoubtedly based on his intention to hammer the 'Kamikaze spirit' into workers and people and make them say, 'We are ready to sacrifice our lives for our country!' The Japanese ruling class and their government are burning increasingly to restore the Japanese state as a military big power, casting a sidewise glance at Germany (a similar 'defeated imperialism' in the Second World War) which, at last, decided its participation in the war of aggression in Yugoslavia in 1999. As mentioned above, the Koizumi government is now directing all its energies to a drastic strengthening of the U.S.-Japan Security Alliance in cooperation with the Bush government, while inclined at heart towards independence from the U.S., as in the case of Germany and other states. The reason for this is that Japanese imperialism and American imperialism have common interests in containing China. Thus, the present world at the beginning of the 21st century is suffering from an intensifying crisis of the outbreak of another war besides the danger of the spread of the current warfare. Is it not crystal clear now that a vulgar view, which was once influential when the 'cold war' ended, a view that 'the world is moving along the stream of peace', is a sheer myth? Denounce the degradation to today's version of the 'defence of the fatherland' stand! Advance antiwar struggles resolutely! We call on our comrades fighting all over the world! Let us advance antiwar struggles against imperialist America's development and deployment of new missile defence systems together with its allies' cooperation and involvement! Oppose China and Russia's counter-military buildups against the U.S.! But look! Is it not true that all the antiwar struggles in the world have plunged into a serious ideological crisis? In 1999, Germany and other EU countries, whose governments were led by social-democratic parties (including the Italian PDS, of converted Stalinists), entered the war of aggression against Yugoslavia, which was started by the Anglo-American imperialist states in order to overturn the 'anti-American, pro-Russian' government headed by Slobodan Milosevic. Certainly these social-democratic governments decided to participate in this war to realize the 'security of Europe' aiming for its 'independence from the U.S.'. However, their criminal nature is now disclosed as clear as day. Today in Germany, it has been brought to light that an alleged massacre of Albanian residents by the Serb government in a village in Kosovo (which was made the cause for Germany's participation in the war) was in fact a sheer frame-up. Terrible aftereffects of depleted uranium munitions on the battlefield have also been reported. Or rather, we should turn our eyes, in the first place, towards the present state of the Balkans, the 'power keg of the world'. The war shows no sign of settlement; on the contrary, it has spread to Macedonia and the danger of its further expansion is growing day by day. Furthermore, we must not overlook the fact that it is the NLA (which is openly backed by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), a guerrilla band supported and trained by NATO forces themselves including German forces) that is making military attacks against the Macedonian government. This fact plainly shows the criminal and hypocritical nature of the participation of the EU state powers in the Balkan war, which was carried out by branding the Milosevic regime that took the 'ethnic cleansing' policy as 'fascist' and stressing the need to defend 'human rights'. No matter how much the German and other social-democratic governments may try to justify their participation in the war against Yugoslavia, it would only amount to a fig leaf with which to conceal the fact that these Euro-socialist governments made the decision precisely for the interests of the ruling class (of financial monopoly bourgeoisie, in particular) in their own country, both in reality and in its essence. What would it be called if not a self-revelation of the class nature of those social democrats as 'imperialistic labour aristocrats', as V. I. Lenin aptly clarified. Following after the Euro socialism, which has disclosed its 'defence of the fatherland' stand (or patriotism) by participating in the aggressive war against Yugoslavia, the Social Democratic Party of Japan (SDPJ) and the Japanese Communist Party (JCP, Stalinist party having completed its social democratic conversion) have also degraded to the same position, i.e. today's version of the 'defence of the fatherland' stand. While stressing the need to 'defend the peace Constitution' which renounces all war potential, the SDPJ has accepted the 'security' of the state dependent on the military strength. Far more criminal is the Stalinists of the JCP. Today this party has abandoned for good and all their task of realizing the renunciation of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, i.e. the legal ground for the U.S.-Japan Security Alliance as an imperialist military alliance. What is worse, this party has gone so far as to declare that, in the event of an emergency, 'it is natural to practically use' the Self-Defence Forces, the violent apparatus of the imperialist Japanese state. This is precisely an open manifestation of the Stalinist JCP's degradation to today's version of 'defence of the fatherland' stand (i.e. anti-American nationalism). Comrades now fighting in the world! We call on every one of you! Let us create antiwar struggles all over the world! By squarely facing the world situation today in which it is more and more inclined towards a new cold war between the East and the West, we must resolutely oppose imperialist America's development and deployment of its missile defence systems, together with the drastic strengthening of NATO and the U.S.-Japan Security Alliance. Let us oppose, at the same time, China and Russia's counter-military buildups against the U.S.! Deliver a sweeping denunciation to all the social-democratic parties and Stalinist parties having converted to social democracy in the world, which have altogether degraded to today's version of 'defence of the fatherland' stand by positively approving even of the exercise of the military strength for 'ensuring the security' of their own countries! Let us overcome the degeneration of these official leaderships and resolutely advance struggles against war, against fascism, and against neocolonialism! Never let the Chinese Jiang Zemin government push its counter-military buildups further! Friends all over the world! Now is the time to rouse ourselves together and vigorously advance antiwar struggles in solidarity, aiming to create an Antiwar International in the midst of these struggles. June 15th, 2001
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