sábado, 28 de abril de 2012

April 24th, 2012 -Letter by the Libyan workers and militia to the meeting in Tunisia in solidarity with the Syrian revolution

Protest in Tunisia

Different organizations, such as the Tunisian UGTT –central union of that country- PCOT (Workers Communist Party of Tunisia), the UIT-CI (International Workers Unity) who have groups in Bolivia, Argentina, Venezuela, Brazil, etc., are convening to a meeting this May Day in Tunisia in order to “debate the situation in Syria and which task it is to be taken in solidarity with the Syrian masses”.

We write this letter to you in our character as militiamen in the Revolutionary Brigades of Libya and in the Internationalist Volunteer Movement. We fought in the civil war against Qadafy, and today our martyrs, leaving from Benghazi, Tripoli or Misratah, have spilled their blood fighting alongside the Syrian masses against murderous Al Assad.
In Tripoli and Benghazi streets our women are mourning the martyrs who died fighting in the streets of Homs.

Our militias have just held a General Assembly with the dock workers of Tripoli. Together with them we voted this letter addressed to the meeting in Tunisia. The war cry of the Libyan workers and their militias who do not surrender to the TNC and its Qadafyist Generals, is simple: “The spark that set Tunisia on fire and the weapons we rose up in Libya in order to conquer bread won’t be able to succeed unless we, alongside the Syrian exploited masses smash Al Assad the Jackal. We are one nation, that of the workers, the exploited and oppressed, and we are one revolution, which only as such can win”.

This May Day, in different countries “public meetings”, “ceremonies” are being held by people that speak on behalf of the workers and even of “socialism”. Most of them don’t mention the revolutionary Syrian masses, slaughtered by Al Assad on behalf of imperialism. A huge wall of silence comes from those organizations that all over the world, call themselves of the working class, but have erected that wall to encircle and help cover one of the biggest counterrevolutionary massacres against the exploited ones committed in the last few years. This silence tries to be concealed and disguised with “socialist slogans”, but for the fate of the tormented Syrian masses it means and will ever mean that those organizations are disguising the murderous and bloodsucking boss Al Assad with the title of “a socialist and an allied of the workers worldwide”. They did the same with Qadafy, the representative of ENI, British Petroleum and other oil companies in Libya, a murderer who stained socialism and in its name exploited and starved the Libyan workers.

A meeting that doesn’t set up, in this May Day, side by side with the slaughtered workers of Syria, and that doesn’t become actually a day for fighting in the streets, surrounding and protesting against the Syrian embassies -which are real shelters of the murderers of Al Assad in the world- is a meeting that won’t have the honor of paying tribute to the struggle of the martyrs of Chicago, who on May 1st, 1886 fought in the streets and went on a general strike for the demand of the 8 hours shift with a result of tens of them being killed by the repressive forces of the US bourgeoisie.

We have left martyrs like the ones of Chicago in the streets of Northern Africa and Middle East. Martyr Bouzazi killed himself so we could fight; he was the spark that pushed us to start our revolutions. We have seen the workers in USA, Europe and the entire world taking the streets with the war cry of “we must fight like in Egypt and Tunisia”, or as the Nigerian workers shouted in their general strike “Out Jonathan or you will die as Qadafy”. That is the war cry to unite the world working class that some people want to see silenced this May Day.

Comrades, May Day is a day of international struggle for the working class. We insist, it is not about public meetings, celebration parties or debating. There was and there will be time for that. This is a day for fighting; it is a fighting day for the world working class. The US workers are teaching us, with their example, how to fight this May Day. The workers that occupy Wall Street together with the workers committees in more than 115 US cities are calling to the general strike for this May Day in USA. This is the way! They say: no buy, no banks, no work. In Misratah, as we state in our statement, we are staging a general strike of workers and our militias. We fight for bread and a decent health system, against the inflation and against those who want to expropriate our fight: the TNC.

 It is a May Day where the 99% (as they call workers and exploited ones) make clear that the 1% are all bloodsucker bankers that have ruined the working class both in the US and the world.
There, in USA, it is not a day of celebration or public holiday. It is a fighting day. That moves us, since they have raised up as first demand the unconditional defense of the immigrant workers in USA. There millions of Latin American workers are treated as slaves by US imperialists.
We wonder, in this May Day, why don’t unions and worker organizations in Europe call for a day of struggle and for taking the streets in solidarity with the millions of immigrants from Africa and Middle East that go to work there to build the imperial Europe of Maastricht?

There is no doubt that if the European workers followed the example of their class brothers of USA, today the Syrian workers wouldn’t be isolated and our struggle for bread would’ve already succeeded. In that case, the European workers would’ve fought as in Tunisia or Libya, overthrowing their governments, which loot and exploit the entire world, and are so much killers and as starvers as those we have overthrown in the North of Africa.

 The workers of Europe aren’t responsible for this situation. We have seen with our own eyes how thieves and traitors act who, as Qadafy, speak in behalf of workers, the people and “socialism”, while all they do is starving us and killing us when we rebel against them.
We, workers and militiamen from Libya, are greeting your meeting in Tunisia, because indeed Syria is the key point. This is a big step forward. It breaks the silence. But it is not enough. The organizations that represent us, the workers and people from the North of Africa and Middle East, haven’t let us yet settle accounts of solidarity from our entire region with our Syrian working class and exploited brothers and sisters.

 Those who occupied Tahrir Sq. let their voices be heard in Egypt. Week after week they carry on, from the Square they have recovered, rallies to the Syrian Embassy at the war cry of “US, NATO, Al Assad and Hezbollah watch out the Zionist borders”. We, who have taken as our own the cause of Syria, in the facts instead of with words, can’t understand why the deliberations on how to support the heroic masses of Syria are still going on after months of massacres, torture and repression against them.

 Maybe because you still have doubts on what is the better way for fighting for Syria, you haven’t invited us to your meeting. But we do have clarity on how to fight, like the Egyptian workers in Tahrir Sq. They have overthrown the wall of Rafah, set on fire the Zionist Embassy and occupied several times the embassy of murderous Al-Assad in El Cairo.
In the barricades of Damascus our comrades speak the same language and have the same sufferings as the poor people of Syria who see how their women and children die as a result of the bombings by Al-Assad, the assassin.

 We know that in your meeting worker organizations from the entire world -and especially from Tunisia- are participating. Even more, your meeting in solidarity to Syria is supported by the Tunisian UGTT.
You state in your call that “our revolutionary processes are living one of their most critical moments, with what is happening in Syria”. You state that “Bashar keeps murdering his people; meanwhile the big world powers want to take advantage of this situation”.
Thus, you end up calling to do a meeting of Regueb Tunisia, on May Day to “discuss the situation” and “to organize a campaign in solidarity with the Syrian revolution”. You denounce correctly that the “Friends of Syria” chose a month ago Tunisia to give support to Al Assad. Such a truth! … You state that “they are the same that supported Ben Ali with their weapons and money as well as every dictator in the region”. We say, Qadafy too.

Comrades, you know, as well as we do, that over a month ago the Arab League left from its visit on Homs and Damascus. The imperialist powers turned the blind eye, the same as the NSC in Qatar, a den of deserters of the cause of the Syrian masses. Meanwhile Al-Assad, armed by Putin and Hu Jintao, launched a counterrevolutionary attack of flattened land, razing men, women and children in every worker and popular district in every city in Syria.
Comrades, the Syrian masses have rebelled for months and in the last two months a fascist and counterrevolutionary offensive started against them. From the Assembly of the workers of Libya and its militias we state before the workers of the world in this May Day, it is already too late to held meetings and discuss the “solidarity” in the future with the isolated masses of Syria. You will hold a big meeting. But the over 400 thousand exploited people, the Syrian prosecuted who suffer the cold and the snow in the borders of Lebanon and Turkey, the blood of over 30 thousand martyrs slaughtered by Al-Assad, don’t need meetings and discussions to see what to do in the future. No comrades. You are holding a meeting that represents organizations of hundreds and hundreds of thousand workers of Tunisia and the world. Your forces to carry on a strong action in support of the Syrian masses are already huge enough.

We can’t keep wasting time. We have witnessed bloody slaughtering going on for months and the UGTT, which represents hundreds of thousand Tunisian workers, hasn’t called yet to a single action in solidarity with the exploited masses of Syria.
Those who call that meeting in Tunisia today have a huge advantage if compared with the rest of the workers of Northern Africa and Middle East. This advantage is precisely that UGTT will be there; it leads millions of Tunisian workers. Today the UGTT leadership don’t have a single argument to stay away from calling the Tunisian workers and exploited masses to win the streets and face the ravenous government of Tunisia in a big mass action and to carry on a militant solidarity in the deeds with the tormented Syrian masses.
Too much blood has ran and UGTT hasn’t called yet to that heroic and militant Tunisian working class (we know they have fought with pickets, demonstrations, setting on fire police stations and clashing with the police, against the government that came to expropriate the revolution) to fight in support of the Syrian workers and exploited masses. What are the leaders of UGTT going to do? How much longer are they going to wait? How many more martyrs do we need to mourn on so they decide to start an action to help our Syrian brothers and sisters? Comrades, enough of talking, it’s high time to do the walking. Now you have the floor.

We insist. In your call you denounce those who gathered a month ago in Tunisia to support the imperialist plan in Syria and correctly denounce those who supported Ben Ali and the dictators of the REGION with money and weapons. For the same reason comrades, your meeting (even if you haven’t invited us to unite our forces in a common struggle) won’t be at the same level of the heroic fight of the Syrian masses unless it is put at the service of all worker organizations for collecting money and weapons for the Syrian masses among the worker organizations of Tunisia and the world. This is what the “friends” of the dictators of the region did and it is what we have to do with our friends, the exploited people of Syria.

UGTT and tens of Tunisian worker organizations that will participate in your meeting represent the workers of Tunisia who know a lot about solidarity. Your men and women fed our women, our children and our fighters when they escaped from the fierce prosecution of murderous Qadafy. Every Tunisian worker remembers what they shouted in their combats: “If Libya is defeated, they will come for us”. Our militia men were treated by your doctors in the hospitals around the borders.
On this May Day we can’t forget this, we can’t be looking for going to struggle divided. Together we have to take the streets now with the war cry: “if Syria is defeated, they will come for us in Egypt, Libya and also in Tunisia”. If that happens, the workers of the world will suffer a huge defeat. We can’t allow that.

We must merge in a single fight, because if we don’t do that, in your public meeting in Tunisia we will waste a great opportunity to join forces and hit as one fist Al-Assad the assassin.
We, the workers from Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, North of Africa and Middle East, have put thousands of martyrs in the road and spilt our blood and our children’s so that the revolution succeeds. We don’t deserve this failure.

The organizers of that meeting in Tunisia have plenty of forces to march over the Embassy of Syria like the Egyptian exploited did, and they also can call all the Tunisian workers to win the streets with the claim that if Syria is smashed, we will be defeated.
There are plenty of forces to break the isolation of the Syrian masses. In our country the murderous regime of the shameless puppets of the TNC, settled on the Qadafyist officers, is trying, through blackmailing, oppression and even corruption, to prevent the workers and militias of Libya from being at the same level that our class brothers and sisters. They haven’t got it and they won’t. From our hearts have already left the brigades of Libyan exploited who are fighting against the murderous Al-Assad troops and hitmen, in Homs and in the borders of Turkey and Lebanon. Long live our martyrs who died fighting in Homs and Deraa! For their honor and for the honor of the heroic Tunisian workers we, together, must state that the talking time is over and it is time for the walking, for the truth, for concrete solidarity with our brothers of Syria. Concrete action is at the tip of our fingers.

TNC hasn’t prevented us from continuing our fight. In Misratah we have already rebelled, even yesterday we held a revolutionary general strike. We have started to fight to recover the revolution that those thieves of the TNC (guarded by the Qadafyist Generals) expropriated us.
Misratah received those injured during the war that were supposed to be sent abroad to receive treatment. Then we found out the horror. They were sent… actually expelled from Libya, so they die in the surrounding countries. That is why they were the first ones who won the streets of Misratah.

 Facing this situation our people was shocked. They went out because of them the mistreated wounded and because wages weren’t enough to live even a week, due to the inflation which has started in Libya. The prices of our food are already too high; they are as expensive as or more than in Qadafy’s time.

 Workers went on strike and occupied downtown Misratah with their weapons. They are the militias and they are the ones who support our brigades in the fights. They are the armed people. It is the people who expelled TNC from Misratah and with their missiles set on fire the den of hidden bandits who starve the people, just like Qadafy hided from our justice.
The heroic Syrian people sell their houses, their furniture, and their few belongings to buy bullets for their rifles and fight again. Around mid April, just 10 days ago, they conquered the streets again among the rubble in Homs, Deraa and an even in Damascus. We cannot waste more time. All the organizations that will meet there, as the ones from Libya who are fighting and are against this infamous regime of TNC and its Qadafyist Generals must unify our forces in a day of fighting on this May Day to shout to our class brothers and sisters of Syria that they are not alone; that they will have bullets for their rifles, they will have doctors in the hospitals placed at the border where their children are dying of the extreme cold of winter.
Nothing prevents us from organizing a vast fundraising drive in all the unions and worker organizations of Libya and Tunisia and among our brothers and sisters of Tahrir Square to send money, weapons, medicine and also to list volunteers to form international brigades, together with the militias from Libya who are already there, together with our class brothers and sisters of Syria.
This is what they need this May Day, not only the workers of Syria but also us, all the exploited people of Maghreb and Middle East, if we want to save the revolution that we started.

Together we have to call all the worker organizations who speak on behalf of the European working class, to put their whole forces to the service of collecting money, medicines, food for the rebel masses of Syria. Convoys are leaving England with food to break the fence of the tormented Palestine masses. Let’s do the same from Tunisia, from Tripoli and Egypt, and let’s call to the European workers and the entire world to organize a convoy to reach Syria and break the blockade imposed by murderous Al-Assad to the fenced and tormented masses of Homs and Deraa.

 You have the chance, like us, to reach Syria. It will be enough if UGTT pose it to themselves and call all worker organizations in the north of Africa together with us the militias of Libya that don’t surrender to TNC, to make this come true.

 Comrades, just a meeting? Why don’t you call to fence and fight against the Embassy of Syria in Tunisia? There are plenty of forces. We know the militant Tunisian workers have fought the police and the salafist gangs who were setting on fire the most militant offices of the UGTT. Four thousand Tunisian workers took the streets and fought with pickets and worker self-organization against the murderous police and they forced many leaders, who were in their comfortable chairs, to go out to fight. We know that despite the electoral fraud held by your government and your ruling class, the fire of revolution isn’t extinguished yet among you because the fire of martyred Bouzazi is still burning our skin and flesh.

 May Day is a day of fighting and your meeting needs to be at the level of the ones who fight in Homs and our brothers and sisters of the militias who are leaving their life there. In your hands you have powerful tools and a very powerful weapon to fight, which is the representation of hundreds of thousands and why not millions of workers. It is up to you using them to shoot against murderous Al-Assad.

 Workers organizations that claim being in solidarity with the Syrian workers will be attending your public meeting. But they have two different speeches. They speak by the two sides of their mouth. Contrariwise, we use to speak clearly among workers and fighters. We don’t hide the truth.

There are organizations that on one hand they say they defend the masses of Syria and Libya and they call to participate in your public meeting. But in their countries they hold public meetings where the Syrian masses don’t exist. This happens in Argentina with the so called “Front of Left and Workers”, which Izquierda Socialista (member of UIT-CI) is part of and also one of those convening to your meeting.
For what we know they do the same in Bolivia. There they sign agreements to build unified parties with bureaucrats like Solares. He is the one who in a Congress of our mineworker brothers and sisters called to support Qadafy and to smash the Libyan militias. How can these people do something for Syria?
Also in Venezuela, ruled by “Qadafy” Chavez, there are sectors of the left who claim being with Syria, but they lead unions, like wide sectors of the UNT (Venezuelan Trade Union) and worker organizations to which they haven’t called to win the streets in support of the Syrian masses. Meanwhile Chavez and his state have mobilized in that country and have traveled around the world celebrating the massacre of Al-Assad in Homs, and also send fuel to his tanks.

The organizers of this meeting that supports Syria should ask for their class passports to those organizations at the entrance of the meeting.
The meeting must define if it has been convoked to fight or just to send a talking solidarity to the Syrian masses and thus let them keep fighting alone.
Because today one can’t be with Syria only with the talking, after months of torture, repression, common graves, slaughters and razed land, where Homs and Deraa have become “a new Gaza”, as that one devastated by Obama and the Zionists with their Cast Lead Operation.

This My Day your meeting would have to convene, together with the UGTT, to fighting actions in the streets fr the Syrian exploited and for the victory of the revolutions that together we have started for bread, for dignity and against the looting of our nations; because May Day is a fighting day. Thus we Libyan workers have learnt to consider after 42 years of a dictatorship by Qadafy.
You and we ought not to allow those that claim to speak for the sake of the Syrian people, to shut up about Syrian people’s martyrdom on this May Day- This would amount to expelling from your rallies and meetings the Chicago Martyrs of today. For example, in Brazil hundreds of unions and worker organizations from all over the world meet… from France, Brazil, Bolivia, Haiti, Ecuador, UK, Germany and some of the so called “independent unions” from Egypt. All of them are saying they “want to coordinate the struggles of the working class all over the world”.
But how dare these organizations claim to be uniting the fight of the workers of the world, while in their own countries they neither fight like the Syrians nor fight for the martyred Syrians? Alas, they are not fighting as in Egypt, where the oppressed people are going from Tahrir Square and surround the Syrian Embassy, shouting "US, NATO, Assad and Hezbollah are caretakers for the Zionist boundaries" to make it heard around the world!

How dare we say we want to unite the workers of the world if we do not fight as the “indignados” of Occupy Wall Street, fencing the bankers? Or if we don’t combat like the Libyan masses that are bombing the CNT?
How can these people speak about "unity of the workers”, while they are actually breaking with the rebellious masses in Syria? What unity they speak of? If yesterday they left us isolated when Qadafy and NATO were butchering us in Brega and Misratah? Because those who claim to be "anti-capitalist" in France did nothing yesterday against French imperialism, neither we saw them fighting here in Libya when Sarkozy's Government sent tanks to Qadafy for us to be massacred when we wanted to enter Tripoli. Who talks about uniting workers when none of those organizations fought, or even called to fight alongside us …and today they still elude to put all their strength to the service of breaking the siege surrounding the Syrian masses?
Perhaps they tell us that this could not be done. Please, don’t tell nonsense. The insurrection of the masses in Libya opened the borders. Here there was a rifle and a piece of bread for everyone who would like to come to fight alongside us. And the internationalist workers who are in our teams and our factories are witness of that. They unfortunately came under the worst conditions, however, they could and arrived on their own, as our comrades are going today to fight and die in Damascus. When there’s a will there’s a way!

If both of us unite, you from your meeting and we, the revolutionary fraction of the working class and militias from Libya, if we unite we have in our hands the conditions so that we can now break the siege around the Syrian masses and go to combat in Syria in the best conditions.
Also from Brazil we have received a statement in favor of struggling in support of the Syrian masses and committing the militant Brazilian working-class to break the silence of their leaders; that statement has been edited by the International Committee for the support to the revolutionaries of Libya, Syria and the rest of North Africa and the Middle East in Brazil, formed by the comrades of Revolutionary Movement (member of the International Revolutionary Current) and the Committee for the Re-foundation of the Fourth International - Sao Paulo (member of the FLTI - International Leninist Trotskyist Fraction). Such a courageous Declaration calls all worker organizations worldwide and, in particular, in Brazil to perform "unitary actions against Syrian embassies in our countries to demand an end to the massacre and for the victory of the (Syrian) revolution in progress"; it also calls to develop "an extensive network of solidarity, both through financial campaigns and international convoys for the shipment of food to the Syrian revolutionaries", as well as for "organizing international brigades that can join the militias and the resistance that today calls for international support"; the statement ends up raising: "It is high time to break the siege and end the isolation descended on the Syrian people. This is the only way to put an end to the bloodbath. Enough of silence and failure! Long live the Syrian revolution! Out with Al - Assad! ". This is a great example to follow.

Comrades, passivity and solidarity of words only are no longer enough. The mass graves in Deraa have been there for a while. Homs has already fallen. But from its ruins and from dynamited borders, the masses will return to combat.
We who are for real and effective solidarity with Syria must denounce these Qadafyist that call themselves "Socialists" as the Chávez, Morales, etc. who are trying to get their people to the streets in support of the murderer Al Assad. But we all know that they fire hundreds of workers without mercy, beat them up with clubs, massacre them, and in the name of "socialism" apply the same plans of hunger that Qadafy and Assad, who did not have anything to envy to his friends Ben Ali and Mubarak.
It even turns out now the Castro brothers themselves, with rosaries and crucifixes, have already blessed Assad and condemned to hell to the exploited of Homs and Deraa. To join them and with the executioners of the Syrian masses is to break the unity of the workers of the world.

It is not possible to remain silent before the massacre which the exploited in Syria are suffering. We must break this wall, but it must be broken in the streets. Enough with meetings that with good intentions become diplomatic, and that when they end, everyone returns to their countries without committing to do anything. Enough of words. There's no time to lose. Martyred Syria cannot be defeated.

 The Syrian masses fight isolated and under the worst conditions, but their struggle lives on. We have to pound on the table and tell the truth. Assad can get away with massacring the exploited in Syria because many of those who speak in our name, that of workers, have quarantined their struggle and while claiming to be with them, only do so in words. If it wasn't so, Governments of the dominant powers who support the murderer Al Assad, would feel firsthand the rigour of workers preventing them to support him not even for a day longer, at the risk of them falling with him.
We call on you to conquer a joint and centralized struggle of the workers of the world to crush Al Assad and break the siege of the Syrian masses. We call on you to break the wall of silence, that unworthy and cynical silence that arose while Assad massacred the people of Homs with his guns and his bombings.
Fighting thus we will create the best conditions to rid ourselves of the [Libyan] CNT's; of Egypt’s military Juntas, of the Governments which have expropriated our revolutions. This is the way to ensure that the workers of Europe stop the attack suffering from the same dominant powers that send Al Assad to do the "dirty work" for them in Syria. This is the way to ensure that the workers of United States, of Europe and Japan, i.e. of the dominant powers, stop the attack that they exercise in a harsh and violent way against their own workers.
We must break the wall of silence, because otherwise all that the workers of the world will hear this may 1 will be insults, attacks, slander and lies against the Syrian masses. That is what happened to us, when this same people who call themselves "leftist" supported Qadafy (the exploiter and slave-owner friend of the Queen of England and a member of the European oil companies). We were told that we were "agents of NATO and the CIA", and threw us other attacks in the back while we gave our lives in Brega, Misratah, Tripoli and Benghazi, including when meted out justice with the Qadafy, that dog.

 And they dare tell that to us, to workers that like the stevedores have missing fingers in the hands and missing toes on our feet for having to work barefoot in the dead of winter in "Socialist" Qadafy enterprises, a single bathroom for 1,500 of our own, with directors who call themselves "Socialist" who earned millions of dollars while hungry workers earned $200 a month.
We, in our factories and our ports, count the martyrs who gave their life fighting the killer Qadafy. Sure, to slander and shoot combatants in the back and isolate them from their brethren in the world they have many "Qadafy" that pay them. So have divided and confused the workers of the world; that is why Assad can kill with impunity until now.
The division of the world's workers is leaving the masses of Syria outside the ranks of the working class. That is why the call for your meeting: we cannot allow one more day that this situation continues deepening between the workers and the world's poor. It is that fight against the masses of Syria is to divide the workers of the world, and to silence their struggle is being an accomplice of Assad. Say you are with the struggle of the exploited Syrians, but let them fight and die alone every day, is NOT to be with them and is NOT to be for the crushing of Assad.

No more words, the time has come for a unified, effective and concrete action.
That is why we are speaking to you from the militias of Libya that do not surrender, that do not allow ourselves to be corrupted by the CNT, that do not return our weapons, we who fought in Misratah, and that have already evicted the CNT from there, and that are regrouping so not to stop our revolution until we conquer our bread by overthrowing the CNT in all Libya. We are those who seek to expropriate the oil companies who take our wealth and who will force them to give back all the billions that were stolen. We are addressing you on behalf of the gritty port, metallurgical, and construction workers, many of them brothers from Egypt and Tunisia (whom we propose to organize and struggle alongside them in the first place for their demands, as do American workers with immigrants), in this May Day we shout: weapons, doctors, medicines and food so that the resistance in Syria may succeed!

We propose your meeting to demonstrate to the Syrian masses that they are not really alone. The UGTT must win the streets; call our Tunisian class brothers and sisters to besiege the Embassy of Syria in Tunisia and to put themselves at the head of a call, together with us, to organize brigades from the Maghreb and the Middle East to fight alongside the Syrian masses.
We propose you to welcome together the general strike of our American brothers struggling for their demands for jobs, against dismissals and in support of the immigrants walling the 1% of parasites of Wall Street that oppress all our peoples. We call you to rise up with us around the world what are already writing our children in the streets of Misratah: "today in Libya, tomorrow in Wall Street!"

 In the meetings and rallies of this May Day peoples are fighting while they vote resolutions to redouble the fight from May 2nd on. Therefore we propose to call together to set up an International Committee comprising all the worker combat organizations that are really for the defeat of the dominant powers and the exploiting national bosses to ensure the arrival of weapons, medicine, ammunition, and arms that carry them on so that our brothers and sisters in Syria succeed and can throw down Assad, because if we have effectively the will nothing can stop us. You are well aware that if we want it, nothing can prevent it. We insist, there’s no time to lose.
And if you still insist on having a meeting to only debate, we invite you to send a delegation from the meeting to come with us to a place that together we could agree on to coordinate an unitary and centralized action for the sake of the martyred masses in Syria.
You say in your call to your meeting, to which we have not been invited, that you are interested in "discussing the tasks and solidarity due to the Syrian masses". We are handing you this proposal in writing. Surely you will be able to enrich it and contribute many more actions to take. We are kindly waiting for your response.
We affirm that our struggle ought not to stop, until Al Assad dies and the revolutions that we started succeed with the power of the exploited. Our struggle will not stop until the flag of Palestine does not fly high in Jerusalem and until the 99% has expropriated the 1% of Wall Street parasites and substitute the power of the exploited where the financial oligarchy and parasites of international financial capital now govern.

Comrades, we propose you for this May Day to fight and raise our voices together:

That the global working class get up in a single, unique struggle this May Day in support of our Syrian brothers!
Now in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya we must also fight like in the United States. LONG LIVE THE GENERAL STRIKE! Down the TNCs! We want to subject to trial and punishment the murderous Egyptian Military! Out with the parties that participated in the electoral fraud in Tunisia; they are faithful followers of the plans of starvation and repression of Ben Ali! Death to Al Assad! That Greece gets again insurrected, where the spark was lit, as in Tunisia, to set fire to the Europe of the mighty!

 HONOR THE MARTYRS OF CHICAGO! HONOR THE MARTYRS OF SYRIA!

 Enough of slandering and backstabbing the Syrian workers! It is Al Assad who works as a NATO and the CIA agent, under the orders of all the powerful in the world! He and his family manage the Syrian banks; they are in control of all kinds of businesses, telecommunications, transport, construction, etc., associated to the millionaires of Hezbollah in Lebanon. We have had enough of slandering the heroic Syrian workers! The revolution in Tunisia began when even our engineers and programmers were out of work, when we could not even sell vegetables in a street stand to survive on our own hands and effort. That is why we took the Tahrir Square in Egypt. As our young people do not have work, we rose up in Bahrain, in Yemen, the same as the youth and workers in the Europe of the dominant powers. For this reason, people fight in Syria.

 In Libya we broke the army, workers and soldiers united and burnt the police stations of Qadafy’s because the price our food was increased a 200% while Qadafy, his family and friends lived surrounded by luxury and all kinds of magnificent goods. This happened and is still happening in Libya. Therefore the general strike and the destruction of the headquarters of the CNT in Misratah must be the beginning of the general strike and the defeat of the CNT and its Qadafyist Generals all across Libya. Now the time has come to set up and coordinate our own power. From all the Libyan factories and militias, along with the students of our schools and our hospitals’ doctors and nurses, we must stand up our power and coordinate and centralize it because it deserves to succeed so that our revolution succeeds.
 The liars must stop lying! Syrian revolution began when al Assad’s dictatorship in the name of “market socialism” applied on Syrian people attacks like those by Mubarak, Qadafy and Ben Ali. He privatized the state enterprises that rendered profits in partnership with the bankers of Wall Street, and laid-off 85,000 workers, closing up 187 factories so that a bunch of parasites of his entourage, allied to the bankers, could get huge benefits.

Workers and toilers all over the world: in Syria your brothers and sisters are dying, but also your hopes of justice and dignity may die if they are smashed. LET’S NOT ALLOW THAT TO HAPPEN!
Brothers and sisters in Tunisia, you have the floor…! Our weapons and our life have been already put to the service of the insurrected masses in Syria. We will fight and die alongside them. For bread, for our dignity, for the independence of our nations and for the power for the exploited all over the world! We are neither Big Oil businessmen, nor bosses and dictators: we are workers that have revolted like those on May Day, 1886, to get bread and dignity!

In Greece and the whole Europe, it is necessary to paralyze all the ports and ships that transport weaponry and food to murderous al Assad, and instead ship food and weaponry for the heroic Syrian resistance!
The Russian and Chinese working class has to revolt against the assassins Putin and Hu Jintao just now! It is urgent to stop the counterrevolutionary war machine of Putin and Hu Jintao’s that are arming to the teeth genocidal al Assad! It is urgent to send weapons, equipment and food to the masses that are fighting in Homs, Damascus, etc.!

Neither the Arab League nor the SNC, all of them lackeys to imperialism! Out with that den of bandits of the UNO in Syria!
For the destruction of the fascist Zionist State of Israel! For a single and united, free, secular, democratic, non racist Palestine under the government of the self-organized and armed masses! Out imperialists and their murderous troops from Iraq, Afghanistan, the entire Middle East and the North of Africa!
For a unitary meeting that coordinates the effective fighting with our class brothers and sisters in Syria!

Revolutionary Combatants of the Libyan Militia
Internationalist Volunteer Workers Committee

Adhering: Fracción Leninista Trotskista Internacional, integrated by:

Workers International League, Zimbabwe
Liga Trotskista Internacional, Bolivia
Partido Obrero Internacionalista – Cuarta Internacional, Chile
Grupo Socialista Revolucionario Trotskista Leninista, “Los Comuneros”, Colombia
Comité pela Refundacao da IV Internacional, Sao Paulo, Brazil
Liga Trotskista Internacional, Peru
Núcleo Obrero Revolucionario, Peru
Liga Obrera Internacionalista – Cuarta Internacional, Argentina

Statement of the Revolutionary Fighters from the militias, the Committee of Internationalist Worker Volunteers and the Movement of Workers Assemblies from Libya

Salute to the workers fighting in the world

May Day:

For an international fight day of the working class

Stand up side by side the workers and exploited in Syria tormented by the assassin Al-Assad for the sake of imperialism

They are the martyrs of Chicago today!

Long live the General Strike of US workers!

Long live the revolutionary General Strike of the Libyan workers and their militias that in Misarrata fighting for bread, health for the war disabled fighters and against the high cost of living overthrew the TNC of that city! 

Photo of one of the hundred Libyan martyrs who fought against Al Assad pro-imperialist troops in Syria 
In this May Day from the revolutionary militias of Libya we state together with the assembly of the dock workers of Tripoli that our revolution doesn’t end up with the overthrow of Khadafy but it has just started.
It is the first time in 42 years the dock workers of Tripoli with the metallurgic workers of Misarrata have pronounced showing the way to all the Libyan workers and win the streets fighting during the May Day.
 The jackal Khadafy -that talked about a supposed “anti-imperialism”- with his companies called “socialist” exploit us with his friends, bosses and oil bosses, similarly or worse than any country of Africa where our class brothers are enslaved.
We send this statement and letter from Libya where it just finished a huge 3-day-revolutioanry strike in Misarrata. In this city workers and militias defeated the TNC. It has been set on fire the building of that then of thieves, of the Khadafist politicians and generals that came to expropriate our revolution for us not to conquer bread and a decent life. This is why we fight for and die thousands of workers, all militia-men, when we defeated Khadafy following the way marked by our comrades of Tunisia, Egypt and the entire North of Africa and Middle East.
 
In Misarrata 3 days of a great revolutionary strike has taken place. All those who have slander us in front of the eyes of the world workers and oppressed saying that we that fought Khadafy were “imperialism’ and NATO’s troops” today will have to silent their words. May Day, the International Workers’ Day, is a good opportunity for it.
Today, the high cost of living and the 200% inflation make unbearable to live in a decent way.
We are in the same conditions or worse than when Khadafy was.
The oil companies like the Italian Eni, British Petroleum and others continue plundering our wealth from our docks: the oil. It is in there-the plundered oil- our children’s food, the houses we don’t have, and hospitals and wreck schools.
As yesterday Khadafy did, today all the ex-khadafists in the TnC in partnership with transnationals steal the money that belongs to Libya. And with this money they increase abroad the fortune of Khadafy. The heads of all of them deserves to fall like the Khadafy´s head rolled down in Sirte.

We rebelled for bread and fought for a decent life for our families. Today, when this situation is in the same way or worse for us, Libyan workers have an advantage that the world working class has not conquered yet: on behalf of all of them we have weapons. We have the kalashnikov in our factories and we went on general strike in Misarrata and bombed the building to those usurpers, the khadafist generals of the TNC. And now they say that they want to negotiate with us. Now, they “remember” to negotiate; now they say to “remember” to our mutilated workers. Thus, now the only language they understand is that of the bomb impacting their roof.
The revolution that many considered dead, it is still alive. But it is alive because in Syria workers are resisting, those are the true martyrs of Chicago of the world working class today.
We know that workers in USA also call to a general strike for this May Day against the 1% of the suckblood bankers of Wall Street. Their name is “indignados”. We feel “indignados” (outrage) too, and suffer painfully the massacre against our class brothers in Syria. Thus, in the streets of Libya, our fighters paint on the walls “Today Libya, tomorrow Wall Street”.

Today we fight in Libya like in USA but all of us have a duty: in the rubbles of Homs Al-Assad must be buried who on behalf of Zionism and the dominant powers want to smash the starving poor and worker people rebelled and fighting in Syria.
Now we start to understand what the May Day means. But for it, we had to get rid of the murderous and starver Khadafy as our brothers of Tunisia and Egypt had done with Ben Ali, Mubarak and other bloody governments.
What do we understand? That today is a fighting day of all workers. It means the May Day. According to what we could read in many assemblies with thousands of Libyan workers, it is in honor to the event in 1886 when in USA workers were massacred when they were demanding bread, as we do today. In the streets of Homs, Deraa, Damascus, and all across Syria the fight is for bread and they die for it.
Our salute is for all the workers’ struggles in the world that fight as we do for dignity. We are with you. But if the May Day is a fighting day, so, let’s rise up together and march towards the Syrian embassies, a place of the assassins of Al Assad, since in there the executioners of the today-martyrs of Chicago are and because fighting side by side Syrian masses we’ll conquer the best conditions to attack the new lackeys of the dominant powers that in Libya today are the TNC and its court of khadafist friends. 
This is the May Day without Khadafy: there are assemblies in the factories with workers knowing how our ancestors fought; we carry out general strikes with our militias to gain bread and fight in the streets of Homs in a true “holy war” but against the oppressors, their generals, oil companies and all the slavers.

We know that all around the world there will be meetings, debates and in some places, celebrations for the May Day. Workers don’t have anything to celebrate today. It is the day of stoppage, strike, struggle, fighting in the streets. This is what we are learning and understanding.
In our cities we already have heroes. They are none of us; they are our brothers of Libya and the entire Middle East who have gone to fight and died in the streets of Deraa and Damascus and those who keep fighting there.
 This is our war cry in the May Day but it is also in our denounce to those who speak in the name of workers and in this May Day silence the massacre of Al Assad and leave in isolation the Syrian masses. We denounce them because they are leading their own workers’ organizations to the isolation and defeating. They throw dust over the working class’ eyes as Khadafy did with us that made us believe that he was our ally and not the poor of the world. He always was our enemy; we have him here. And we start to learn it when the youth sacrificed itself in Tunisia, get martyred in Egypt and pray but fight in Yemen. In this way we learnt what today we affirm: long live the unity and fight of the world workers!
This is our greeting to those who are fighting. From the steal factories of Misarrata, from the concrete companies in Bengasi and from the docks all around Libya, we raise the same demand of 8 hours of labor shift and decent salary for all the workers. Here we never had these gains. But according to what now we know to gain these demands is our aim.
For this, heaven and power must be for us. As the humble sacrificed Tripoli dockworkers have said in their assemblies- the dockworkers were the first ones taking the streets and giving their deaths in February 2011 when the assassin Khadafy and his sons massacred and crushed them violently: “Today in Libya we need another revolution and if we need to carry out 10 revolutions, we’ll do it. Either we live well or we’ll die fighting for it
We are learning. Khadafy and his friends of the world did not teach it since it would mean to teach us how to cut their head and do justice as we did in Sirte.
Our partners, the dockworkers, in their assemblies have also set a war cry that we are sure it is what workers fighting in the world feel and desire: Let it be known by all the managers, bosses and chiefs: we will not rest till we get our demands; and if we have to close the dock preventing the entry and departure of goods, we will do it; and if we have to go out with our riffles to settle accounts with all the bosses, we will also do it. We will not give away our martyrs’ blood.”

And we together with them and from their assembly affirm: we will not leave Syrian workers alone. Their revolution is our revolution, as well as of Tunisia, Egypt and the entire Magreb and Middle East. We know that many people have left them alone, not us. Our rifles and ammunitions are already shooting in Syria. As yesterday they shot Khadafy, today they shoot against Al Assad.
We are part of a single revolution that will not end till we conquer bread, overthrow the power of rulers and recover the control of our oil by expropriating without payment and charging compensation to all the oil companies that plundered our countries and expropriating our wealth from the hands of the bloodsuckers as it is said in Wall Street. We will not end it till the banner of Palestine waves in Jerusalem and stop Zionism and all its lackeys as all of us dreams- the Arab and Magreb Peoples-. 
 In the streets of Misarrata shaken by the general strike, the vanguard of the struggle that settled accounts with Khadafy has go out to fight again as they did yesterday.  Today they are who gave the first step forward to overthrow the TNC and its khadafist generals in that city.
There, the militia-men have also painted on the streets: “Today Libya, tomorrow Wall Street”. Today the revolution keeps alive in Libya, in Syria we are resisting and fighting and in Wall Street we are fighting by the general strike.
Our call on the world working class is to set up international brigades from the worker organizations to go to Syria to fight against the assassin Al-Assad. We call on them to get rebelled against the governments that sustain the jackal’s hand in Syria that massacres his own people.  We call on them to collect money, collect medicine, and send doctors and nurses for the refugee camps and the heroic combatants of the Syrian masses.
They sell their possessions even their houses to buy weapons and ammunitions to fight. In this way, the exploited combat to win the war against the exploiters. They neither sell out nor sell their factories, banks, or companies to win the war. Thus, don’t leave isolated -not even one more second- the workers of Syria.
The siege over the Syrian masses must be broken and the world working class must be rebelled side by side them!
Long live the May Day!

Revolutionary Combatants of the Libyan Militia
Internationalist Volunteer Workers Committee
Adhering: Fracción Leninista Trotskista Internacional, integrated by:
-Workers International League, Zimbabwe
-Liga Trotskista Internacional, Bolivia
-Partido Obrero Internacionalista – Cuarta Internacional, Chile
-Grupo Socialista Revolucionario Trotskista Leninista, “Los Comuneros”, Colombia
-Comité pela Refundacao da IV Internacional, Sao Paulo, Brazil
-Liga Trotskista Internacional, Peru
-Núcleo Obrero Revolucionario, Peru
-Liga Obrera Internacionalista – Cuarta Internacional, Argentina

Statement of the Tripoli (Libya) dockworkers on the International May Day

April 25th, 2012

We, the dockworkers of Tripoli port, want to voice our unconditional support for the Syrian masses. We call on them to follow our steps, defeating Bashar al-Assad as we defeated Mua'ammar al-Qadafy by fighting physically to confront the army till defeating it, accompanied by prayer. As for us, we would give our blood and also our eyes for a victorious revolution in Syria as well as in Libya, Tunisia and all around the region.
This revolution is one single revolution all over the entire region. Libya was the place where this revolution reached a further level, the revolution in Tunisia and Egypt has to reach there too. But now we see that we need another revolution in Libya.
All the revolutions carried out by workers (like those in France in the 19th C, or in Russia in early 20th C, or these ones in the Arab countries) are for need. There is no food; no decent housing, and no decent salary, so, workers carry out revolutions to solve it.

Today in Libya we need another revolution, and if we have to carry out 10 revolutions, we will do it. And if we need 20 revolutions in Libya and Syria, we will do it too. Either we live well or we die fighting for it. Let it be known by all the managers, bosses and chiefs: we will not rest till we get our demands; and if we have to close the dock preventing the entry and departure of goods, we will do it; and if we have to go out with our riffles to settle accounts with all the bosses, we will also do it. We will not give away our martyrs’ blood.

 We welcome all of them who for this May 1st get organized to fight alongside the worker revolutions of Libya and Syria, we salute those who raise the demands of the workers. In Libya it’s difficult to convene an event for this day since we have suffered a dictatorship of 42 years that only allowed official meetings organized by the Qadafists and this is the first time we get organized on our own.

But we know that in Tunisia for this May Day, some meetings have been organized. We also know that this meeting is not calling to do something for our brothers and sisters in Syria –actually, it is for doing nothing- or for us or the revolution across the region. We call on you for not leaving all these struggles isolated, as all of us need coordinating the combats of Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Syria. We need to coordinate with the workers in Tunisia to advance in our own organization and combat, and for them also to advance in their fights and in the struggle for fighting alongside the Syrian exploited. The revolution is not only taking place in Tunisia. There, the revolution has started -when an engineer sacrificed himself -that we are carrying out here in Libya; and this revolution, which is all over the region- has today the urge of taking a step forward.

We salute and welcome all those who got organized last year to support the combats we launched here in Libya and that today keep fighting for the victory of the revolution in Syria and all across the region. This is the way to get a decent life for all the workers.

General Assembly of Tripoli dockworkers