Joint Statement of the Partido ng Manggagawang Pilipino
(PMP) and Sosyalistang Partido ng Paggawa (SPP)

NO TO WAR! FOR PEACE AND AGAINST MILITARISM!

We condemn the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre
and the Pentagon which has resulted in the loss of thousands
of lives. Those who have suffered the most from these
attacks are ordinary US working people.

We also salute the courage and even heroism of ordinary US
workers who have taken great risks to save lives and
minimize the damage. We note the heroism of some 200 New
York firefighters who lost their lives while attempting to
rescue people trapped in the wreckage. Such acts of bravery
by ordinary workers are in stark contrast to the behavior of
leading US government officials, such as US President George
Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell, who went into
hiding soon after the attacks. While George Bush hid in a
bunker and stayed safe, ordinary people bore the brunt of
the attacks.

The attacks have been linked to the Islamic fundamentalist
movement led by Osama bin Laden. However, the US
administrations' campaign against Laden, is a glaring
example of US imperialism's hypocrisy.

Islamic fundamentalist parties were funded and trained by
the CIA as a counter force to the rise of anti-imperialist
and revolutionary movements in several Muslim Third World
countries. The Muslim Brotherhood (Egypt), Hamas (Syria),
Sarakat ul Islam (Indonesia), Islamic Salvation Front
(Algeria) and Jamaat Islami (Pakistan) were funded and
supported by the CIA.

This support reached its peak in the 1980s when thousands of
so-called Mujahideen were trained and sent to Afghanistan to
overthrow the progressive regime in that country. In the
Afghan war, thousands of fundamentalists fought against the
Afghan revolution at the command of the CIA and the
Pentagon. Osama bin Laden was then a US hero. Now the US and
the imperialist countries pose as enemies of Islamic
fundamentalism.

The fact is that Osama bin Laden and the Taliban controlled
government of Afghanistan are the Frankenstein monsters
created by the US and these chickens have now come home to
roost.

We oppose these right-wing fundamentalist organizations. The
Taliban and groups led by Osama bin Laden are profoundly
anti-communist and are enemies of the left organizations in
the countries they operate in. These organizations are an
obstacle to the advancement of the anti-imperialist movement
and the international working class struggle.

However, we oppose any attempts by the US to attack any
sovereign nation, including Afghanistan, under the guise of
"retaliation". There have been reports of low-level attacks
on Kabul, the country's capital. Despite the reactionary
character of the Taliban regime, any attempts by US
imperialism to attack Afghanistan and its people, must be
condemned and opposed.

The ultimate responsibility for the terror attacks on
ordinary working people in the US must lie with the US
government. US imperialism, with its record of overthrowing
popularly elected regimes and its backing for dictators such
as Suharto in Indonesia, Pinochet in Chile, has time and
again used the full-force of its military might to protect
its economic interests, such as in Vietnam. US imperialism
enslaves countries and squeezes them dry through debt
repayment and aggressively enforces the agenda of neoliberal
globalization. It is thus is responsible for the
impoverishment and murder of millions of people. Its
blockade of Iraq alone has resulted in the death of some two
million people, many of them innocent children. Today
hundreds of Palestinian children and youth die as a result
of the policies of the US-backed and armed Israeli regime.

It is this system of state terrorism enforced by the US,
which creates desperate and unendurable conditions for the
majority of the world's peoples, that is the root cause of
desperate terrorist attacks. The US government and state
administration must bear full responsibility for this.

Recently we have seen the revival, by President George Bush,
of the Reagan administration's SDI (Star Wars) military
program. US imperialism will use the recent attacks to
militarize the international situation under the cover of
retaliation. President Bush has stated that the US
government "will make no distinction between the terrorists
who committed these acts and those who harbor them",
i.e. whole nations of people will be considered culpable and
will be held responsible for the attack. The official line
is that the attack is an "act of war" and that the US will
retaliate by "going to war".

Any attempt to militarize the international situation will
only serve to advance US imperialism's interests and must be
opposed. It will be a return to the pre-1950s "gun-boat
diplomacy" style of enforcing US foreign policy-the naked
use of US military might to protect and advance its economic
interests around the world.

US rulers' are now shedding crocodile tears for the
thousands dead. The US ruling class has no qualms whatsoever
in sending tens of thousands of US citizens to their death,
in wars pursued to protect the interests of US imperialism,
as they did when they waged war against the national
liberation movement in Vietnam. So let us not be fooled by
their hypocrisy. They will cynically use the current
disaster to pursue their pro-big business agenda.

In the US, the campaign against terrorism will be used to
undermine democratic rights. Already there are stories of
FBI agents arresting people merely on the basis that they
might have useful information. The emerging
anti-globalization movement in the imperialist countries
will be a sure target of such a campaign. As Genoa showed,
the imperialist rulers want to smash this movement. The
"campaign against terrorism" will be used to do just that.

Now we are being told that the attacks will drive the US
economy and the global economy more quickly and sharply into
recession. This is also a signal that the jobs, wages and
living conditions of working people and the poor will come
under attack in the US and internationally. Any attempts to
resist these attacks by the working class movement will be
ferociously countered. The "campaign against terrorism" will
be used to attack the working class and progressive
movements inside the imperialist countries and
internationally.

The US rulers are now whipping up nationalist and xenophobic
sentiments. There are reports that the Arab-American
population in the US will almost certainly face increasing
racist attacks and are living in fear in anticipation of
such attacks. Imperialist nationalism will be used to divide
and weaken the working class movement nationally and
internationally.

The "campaign against terrorism" will be used to undermine
solidarity between the peoples of the imperialist countries
and the Third World which has deepened as a result of the
anti-globalization movement. It will be used to justify US
attacks, including military intervention, against Third
World countries such as Iraq, revolutionary governments such
as Cuba whose people also suffer the consequences of the US
economic blockade which is a weapon used by US imperialism
to strangle the Cuban revolution, and against powerful
national liberation movements such as the FARC in Columbia.

The "campaign against terrorism" is a signal to the national
liberation and progressive movements in the Third World that
they are all immediate targets of imperialism's military
might. This, along with imperialist nationalism, will be
used to win the support of the working class people inside
the imperialist countries for imperialist military
intervention around the world.

Therefore, international solidarity amongst the struggling
masses around the world and between the progressive and
working class movements is of the utmost political
importance today. It is in this spirit that we reassert our
solidarity with the working people and the working class
movement in the US. It is in this spirit that we campaign in
solidarity with the anti-globalization movement around the
world. We must not and will not allow imperialism to divide
us and strengthen its rule.

We reassert that the mass mobilization of the oppressed
peoples and exploited workers of the world is the most
effective form of struggle to defend and advance the fight
against imperialism. The mass mobilizations at Seattle and
Genoa are the way forward, not terrorist attacks. We oppose
terrorism as not only ineffective-the terror attacks have
not even dented the imperialist machinery and state-but
extremely detrimental, as it has provided imperialism with
an opening to assert its military might.

The Philippine ruling class and the GMA government will
continue to slavishly fall behind US imperialism's
agenda. It is one of US imperialism's most obedient servants
and is slavishly mimicking the state department's line
supporting US terror retaliation. It will especially use the
"campaign against terrorism" to escalate its war against the
people of Mindanao and the Moro national liberation
struggle. Flimsy excuses, such as Osama bin Laden's wife
being a Filipina, will be used to step up state terrorism
against the liberation movement in Mindanao. We will do our
utmost to expose and oppose this agenda of the GMA regime
and the US imperialists.

We are also on alert to the fact that the "campaign against
terrorism" will be used against the progressive movement in
the rest of the country. We will resist this with all our
might.

Against imperialism's war cries, we raise the banner of
peace and anti-militarism and the international solidarity
of the oppressed masses and the working class movement. We
will organize mass actions and mobilize our base and the
Filipino people around this anti-imperialist banner in the
days and weeks ahead.

For Peace and Against Militarism!
No to US Retaliation!
Solidarity with Working People in the US!
No to US Attacks on the People of Afghanistan!
Condemn GMA Government's Support for US Retaliation!
For a Genuinely Independent Foreign Policy!


September 18, 2001
Partido ng Manggagawang Pilipino (PMP)

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The PMP is an underground revolutionary party of the
Filipino working class established last January 30, 1999,
whose founding General-Secretary was the late Ka Popoy
Lagman.