T.O. Weekly Special: Organizing the Antiwar Fightback – Reports from Our Correspondents
The ORGANIZER Weekly Newsletter
Special Supplement – April 15, 2022
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IN THIS SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT
• Please Endorse the Final Appeal of the April 3 Emergency International Meeting Against War! (The Final Appeal with endorsers from 47 countries is attached)
• Chronicles of Russia at War – by our correspondents
• Ukraine: Putin, Johnson and Biden for an All-Out War
• Meanwhile in Palestine …
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Please Endorse the Final Appeal of the April 3 Emergency International Meeting Against War!
We call upon our readers and supporters to endorse the Final Appeal issued by the 200-plus unionists and activists from 47 countries who participated in the online April 3 Emergency International Meeting Against War. The meeting was initiated by the International Workers Committee Against War and Exploitation, For a Workers International (IWC). Its message needs to be heard far and wide in the labor and antiwar movements.
You will find attached the text of the Final Appeal with the initial list of signatories. Please fill out the endorsement coupon below; add your name to this growing list. A full report on the April 3 meeting can be accessed at:
Why is this appeal so important?
The mass grave of hundreds of corpses in Bucha (Ukraine) has revolted the workers and peoples of the world. It is barbarism, with its procession of massacres and destruction In Ukraine … as in Afghanistan, Yemen and throughout Africa.
The workers know it instinctively: this war, like the others, is bound up with the system of capitalist exploitation. The Putin regime is responsible for it, but so are the U.S. administration, its armed wing (NATO), and the European governments.
This war has already had dramatic consequences for the peoples of the world: The soaring prices threaten to plunge hundreds of millions of human beings into famine. It is a pretext for increasing military budgets and accelerating the capitalist governments’ attacks on the workers.
Should the labor movement give in to the siren calls of “national unity” with the war-mongering governments? Should it give up its independence? Or, more than ever, should it raise the banner of the Workers’ International – of the united struggle of the workers of the world against war and exploitation?
These questions were at the center of the Emergency International Meeting Against War, convened on just a few days’ notice by the International Workers Committee (IWC), whose two coordinators, Daniel Gluckstein and Nambiath Vasudevan, had provided the meeting’s framework:
“It is up to the working class all over the world to take charge of the fight for peace. Russian troops, out of Ukraine! U.S. and NATO troops out of Europe! Dismantle NATO! No “national unity” with the war-mongering governments! Down with war! Down with exploitation!”
In the United States and around the world, activists are signing up new endorsers in support of the Final Appeal. Please join us in this effort. Please endorse the appeal.
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FINAL APPEAL ENDORSEMENT COUPON
[ ] I endorse the Final Appeal of the April 3 International Emergency Meeting Against War
[ ] I endorse in an individual capacity. You can list my organization and title for id. only.
[ ] I endorse on behalf of my organization.
NAME:
TITLE:
UNION/ORGANIZATION:
CITY / STATE:
EMAIL:
[Please fill out the coupon and return it to <theorganizer@earthlink.net>. Thanks.]
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Chronicles of Russia at War
Denying any “war crimes” by the Russian army in Ukraine, Putin’s spokesperson, Peskov, nevertheless declared that the losses of the Russian army were “significant” … “a tragedy” (Sky News, April 7). The ultra-chauvinist publication Readovka immediately denounced Peskov, accusing him of “demoralizing” the troops.
But the dead soldiers can be counted in the thousands. In Buryatia alone – a small Siberian republic with a population of less than one million – more than 70 people have died in combat, according to the People of Baïkal media outlet. Its editor-in-chief explains:
“In Buryatia, there are many military units; the region is in decline. Young men from villages and poor families have nowhere to work; the army offers them a salary of 45,000 rubles (US$540), which is a big opportunity. Military experts doubt the figures on Russian casualties given in Russia and Ukraine. But in any case, we are talking about several thousand dead.”
In addition to the enlisted men, many conscripts have been sent to Ukraine. But more and more regiments are refusing to fight. The local newspaper Pskovskaya Gubernaya reports that 60 servicemen from Pskov refused to go to war. After being sent back to Belarus and then to Pskov, they were dismissed and threatened with criminal prosecution. Others before them also had refused to be sent into battle. They are members of the Russian Guard in Krasnodar, special police forces in Khakassia, and soldiers from the Kaliningrad region.
Among the Russian people, the effect of sanctions is being felt. According to Rosstat, the Russian official statistical service, the price of cabbage has increased by 85%, sugar and carrots by 53%, and medicines by 15 to 20%. The “war effort” is hitting the workers.
Mosgortrans (Moscow transport) bosses have broken all records in this area. Refusing to pay the thirteenth month and COVID bonus to which ambulance drivers are entitled, they shamefully distributed a bar of soap and a roll of toilet paper to each one. In an address to the city authorities, the ambulance drivers wrote: “All the money is used for the war with Ukraine, and those who protest are threatened with dismissal. The authorities are threatening to hire refugees from the Donbass in our place.”
The ambulance drivers earn 35,000 rubles (US$420) per month and estimate that they would need twice that amount to be able to live properly.
So little by little, support for the war is crumbling. …
– Report from our correspondents
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Ukraine: Putin, Johnson and Biden for an All-Out War
After the mass grave of Bucha, the bombing of the Kramatorsk train station, and now the offensive against the Donbass, Putin’s war against the Ukrainian people brings every day its share of horrors and barbarism. [1]
By putting General Dvornikov – who has been active in Syria and Chechnya – in charge, Putin hopes to have found the “strong man” who will give him the victory he has been deprived of until now.
But is Putin the only one pushing for all-out war?
Two weeks ago, Biden announced to the U.S. troops in Poland that they would “soon” be in Ukraine.
On April 9, it was the British Prime Minister’s turn to make the headlines. Boris Johnson visited Kiev, his arms loaded with armor and anti-ship missiles. “The United Kingdom is the leader in military support of Ukraine,” Zelensky’s office boasted.
Johnson’s and Biden’s actions are in no way motivated by concern over the fate of the Ukrainian people.
The Economist magazine, which expresses the interests of U.S. and British finance capital, explains “why Ukraine must win” (April 2): It [a victory] would allow “Russia, following the example of Ukraine, to implement domestic reforms” and the “United States would be freer to deal with its growing rivalry with China.” And let the Ukrainian people be damned; the heinous massacres are the price they will have to pay!
The only political stance that is consistent with the interests of the workers and peoples is this: Immediate ceasefire! Withdrawal of Russian troops! Dismantling of NATO! No Putin, no Biden: No “national unity” with the war-mongering governments! – Jean Alain
ENDNOTE
[1] This is the case of the U.S., British and French imperialist wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Africa… which do not make the headlines.
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Meanwhile in Palestine …
At the beginning of Ramadan, the Israeli army stepped-up its attacks against the Palestinian people. On April 1, in the village of Qaryut, the young Shamseddine Amin Azim, suffering from cancer, was beaten and kidnapped by the army.
On April 2, four Palestinians were murdered in the Jenin area. In the evening, the army brutally intervened at the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem, where Palestinians traditionally gather. Same scenes took place the next day, the day after and every night thereafter. The army made dozens of arrests.
On April 9, Mohammed Mtour, a teenager from Al-Ram (north of Jerusalem), lost an eye after being shot with a flash ball. On the same day, young Ahmad Al Saadi was shot twice in the head in Jenin, after the Israeli army entered the refugee camp. On April 10, in Tulkarem, a gang of settlers beat up an 80-year-old shepherd, Mahmoud Hussain Faqha.
On the same day, in the Fawwar refugee camp, south of Hebron, the army banned access to the water well. The same day, the army opened fire and wounded several residents of the Nour Chams refugee camp (Tulkarem). A teenager, Mohamad Abdullah, was kidnapped.
Also on the 10th, Ghada Sabateen, 38, a widow and mother of six, was shot dead by the army while visiting cousins in the village of Husan (Bethlehem). A few hours later in Hebron, Maha Kazem Awad Alzatari (24) was shot dead at the entrance to the Ibrahimi mosque.
On the same day, the young Mohammad Ali Ahmad Ghnaim, from Alkhader (Bethlehem), was also shot. Shortly after, Mohammad Zakarnah, 17 years old, seriously wounded in the attack on Jenin, died of his wounds. …
On April 6, Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said, “Russian forces committed war crimes against a defenseless civilian population.” Can the crimes of some make us forget the crimes of others? — Dominique Ferré
Socialist Organizer 