02/18/2012 Letter of a Egyptian worker: A Suez Channel worker’s view about the Revolutionary socialists in Egypt

In the city of Giza you can find the premises of the Revolutionary Socialists, an actively intervening party in the Egyptian revolution, since the end of January 2011.

A few days ago I had a chance encounter with one of its militants. In a brief conversation he summed up what his party is developing in Egypt and what are its future prospects.

The first thing mentioned on the present time of the revolution in Egypt is that a battle between two great fronts is being waged: the Revolutionary Front (composed by themselves, the April 6th Movement, the National Front for Democracy and Justice, independent labor unions and social movements), and the opposite front (composed of the military corps and the Islamic forces).

He added that today Egypt has two challenges: how to continue with life through an equitable distribution of wealth, and how to get democracy.

The way to achieve this, for him, is that all the revolutionary forces are organized in a single front and establish good contacts in the labor movement. Ahead, he sees that there are two challenges: presidential elections and elections to the constituent.  They are currently discussing whether to participate or not, under what program, what candidate, etc.

One of the steps, he said, is to continue with the organization of labor committees. He said that before the revolution, State control of the labor movement was total. But two years ago they began organizing independently. Already there are about 300 worker committees, in which about 2,000,000 workers are grouped.

To this militant of RS, the workers were organized to fight for a distribution of wealth, by throwing down the bosses and the corrupt people and for wage improvements. But the political fights are in the hands of parties, movements and social organizations, so it remains the task of uniting workers with political struggle.

"Political struggle" under RS, is to establish a program, (according to them "of the people"), based on five points:

-Nationalization of the large factories (paying compensation or either, mentioning that these factories have already made a lot of profit and that was their compensation)

-Rise of the Minimum Wage

-Establish a front of all those who were in combat

-Hold a revolutionary trial to Mubarak and his regime

-Ending the military Governmen

When I consulted him about his vision of the revolutionary processes in other countries, he said that his party supported the revolutions in the Middle East and around the world, when they are anti-imperialist, to which all the support had to be given.

He pointed out that while it seemed a great gesture of internationalism the fact that among Libyan militia there were hundreds of Egyptian combatants, he justified this by saying that the borders were open at the time of the Libyan uprising, but that today with Syria it is different. To support this revolution he saw as effective measures, such as a protest to the Embassy, or international meetings between various parties who call themselves revolutionaries of the area to discuss what actions proceed, to help the people martyred by Bashar al - Assad.

He finally told me that still not have discussed any plan of measures or future fights, but while there is no single agency that gathers all the revolutionary forces, they are in contact within the various parties and movements to take forward new actions.

 My vision, as revolutionary worker is that RS’s policy clearly shows to be a reformist one, and we should not lose sight that this organization is a section in Egypt of the British SWP. So that they not only have a reformist program for expropriation with compensation and only of the large factories (without saying anything about oil, gas, land, etc.), but it does not raise a prospect of power with the masses fighting for self-organization (soviet-like) organs,. They are not even given a policy to stand them up, having all the possibilities to do so as they lead or influence two million workers and stay in touch with the rest of the movements which aim at youth and other social sectors. I think that they could very easily call a Congress in Tahrir Square of all combatants of the revolution, the Revolutionary Youth and organized workers and this Congress would take place, but they refuse to do so. Their policy reveals that what they want is rather a single front of parties, "from the top” to avoid any vestige of self-organization and direct democracy.

 I categorically maintain that they remain with its policy of having the worker's movement well separated and divided, subjected to an economic struggle, without any intention that it rises to a political struggle.

This is also expressed in that there is no mention to follow the path of our class brothers and sisters in Libya, of dividing the army and disarming it, defeating the armed forces, setting up committees of soldiers and militias, which ultimately was what remained outstanding in our revolution. For them it is just a matter of democracy, so that the military Junta does not govern. Not to speak of brigades for going to combat in Syria. Peaceful rallies, yes, but please, not international brigades!

Long live the fight of the Tripoli dock workers!

The Libyan working class starts to uprise against the NTC and the chief autonomist bourgeoisie, as it is the case of the heroic Tripoli port workers that three months ago they are carring on a general strike for their fair demands and had set up their factory committies and armed strike pickets.

The workers and socialist revolution that started giving new steps forward. They must double them developing the self organization of the working class and the exploited ones, alongside the militias, breaking the NTC and the imperialism politic that seeks to prevent the development of the masses dual power, to drive the revolution to the triumph imposing the power of the Libyan working class and exploited ones.

This is the fight to stop the NTC, servant of imperialism, with their Ghadafy politicians and generals from disarming, co-opting and corrupting layers of the militias. Their aim is to disarm the masses. They tried to do it first with an ultimatum so that the masses get disarmed as very late on 20^th of December. But the heroic Libyan masses refused to disarm themselves. That is why, the NTC is trying to co-opt and corrupt layers of the militias, giving different kind of compensations at each militiaman and offering a wage of U$S 500 for anyone who is willing to make a military guard one day per week, with the aim to rebuild an army under the command of the Khadafy officers of the NTC and advance in defeating the dual power that the armed masses conquered all around Libya.

It is necessary to convene right now a National Congress of the militias and the workers and popular organizations of the entire Libya! Following the example of the dock workers, the working class and all the exploited must stand up a list of demands to take in their own hands the solution of all their demands. Not a single day can pass without the Libyan militias go back with the working class and the poor people. There is from which they came and in this way they will be able to avoid the NTC disarming, corrupting and disintegrating them, seeking to defeat the revolution that has started!

Long live the armed dual power of the Libyan masses! Long live the revolutionary working class and the exploited ones! Long live the socialist revolution of the entire North of Africa and Middle East!

Port correspondent: THE FIGHT OF THE PORT WORKERS OF TRIPOLI

The port workers of Trípoli, with their fight and demands, show to be a hundred time bolder than all the world reformist left currents

Today we see the left currents from the West to be sorry for the “concience backwardness” of the revolutionary masse of North of Africa and Middle East. The cynism of these “socialist” currents have no limits.
What type of consciousness does they pretend the exploited ones have? If in “the socialist” companies of Libya de Khadafy, like the “Port Socialist Company”, the workers worked twelve hours per day, they do not have bonus, holidays nor security materials, but they count on a refrigerator for 2000 workers and only outdoors changing rooms.

Why the heroic Libyan workers and from the entire region are going to have “socialist” conscious? If Khadafy - the greater agent of imperialism in the region- speaking about “socialism”, he only overexploit, kill and subjugate the working class and the masses to give all the wealth from Libya to the imperialist oil companies. If today on behalf of socialism, the Castro brothers are restoring Capitalism in Cuba, dismissing a million workers and restoring the inheritance right in the island. If Ju Hintao and all the mandarins of the Chinese PC, the spokesmen of the “market socialism”, guarantee to the imperialist transnational millions of Chinese enslaved workers who produce in the worse conditions of maquila, while together with Putin, they fully arm, on behalf of imperialism, the so called “anti-imperialist” and “Socialist” of Al-Assad, so that he does the imperialist “dirty work” smashing the revolutionary masses of Syria.

The demands and the fight of the dock workers of Tripoli demonstrate that the conscious of these workers is million times more accurate and superior than the reformist demands of these leaderships, that in Europe, facing the ferocious attack by the governments and imperialistic regimes against the working class and the masses, called to put pressure for “moderate the attacks” as they did in Greece, and also in Spain, where now they launched “campaigns of awareness” against the labor flexibility that tries to impose Rajoy government and Spanish crown.
The working class and the exploited ones of Libya must defeat to the NTC and their Khadafy generals, and the tribe chiefs and impose their power to solve the crisis of Libya, expropriating without payment and under workrer control all the oil companies, ports, banks, factories and other properties of the imperialist transnational and their native junior partners the native bourgeoisie. This one will be the best help to the revolutionary masses of Syria that today are brutally massacreed by the jackal Al-Assad, on behave of  imperialism.

This is the real way out for the workers and exploited ones of Libya: a Republic of the Worker and its militias Counsil. Otherwise, the other alternative will be a bourgeois republic under the command of the NTC or the millionaire regional chiefs, with the oppressed nation tied with doubles and triples chains to the imperialism.

Against all these “socialist” fast chatters, the single and true socialism will be able to set up with the internacionalist Trotskyist, fighting to demonstrate every day to the working class who are their allies and who are their enemies, and defeating all these leadership of the reformist left in order to untie the hands the world working class and that it can conquer the triumph  taking power.

Tripoli port, oneof the biggest in the country

 The “Socialist Port Company”

In one of the most important ports of the country located in Tripoli, capital of the recently insurrected Libya, you can find the Socialist Port Company, which has been known worldwide by the protests workers made three months ago.
You have to pass through a table of entry located at the main entrance to the port, whose bureaucracy demands you to go through more than 5 offices, in 3 different buildings, to obtain an entry permit; there you find officials in each of them denying or minimizing the actions of protest by the workers, and at the same time you can get around a very simple guard, lost at the bottom of the harbor between old trailers and rusty scrap, workers of that undertaking are fulfilling their exhausting working hours.
Three months after having made an exemplary strike, which was echoed around the world, the 300 workers that paralyzed the port of Tripoli are today in a desperate situation. After their claims and petitions, including demands over unemployment, they have not received answers to their requests.
The workers operate within the port 11 hours a day (from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.). But when there are many loads entering the port they must stay there until the end of the work, which often takes weeks.
We shall then proceed to play the requests raised by these workers in the days of strike, adding details expressed orally by the same workers. It should be noted that the majority of these demands are conquests of the working class that they had been deprived of.

“Praise be to God, prayer and peace on the Prophet of Allah (Mohammad)

From the spontaneous port workers Assembly, meeting on 19 November 2011, we ask the general manager of the port the following basic rights to make this a better place to work:

1)     Salary increase (because their salary round the $400 per month, which only meets the minimum needs of a single person or less, due to the great inflation) and that lower interest rates should be charged on loans that workers had to draw (granted by the same company) to feed their families. We demand the already charged interest to be calculated again according to that lesser rate and the difference returned to them, followed by an increase in the funds available for lending.
2)     That the port administration building be given back and running at the service of this activity, because it has been held for other purposes. The demand in question comes from the lack of infrastructure and offices for an optimal management of the port.
3)     That the company provides workers a decent meal and a spacious accommodation as a dining room with good service and a staff assigned to the task. This would generate more jobs and improvements in working conditions, because today, during their workdays of 11 hours, the port workers do not receive any meals. At the same time we require clarifying the fact that the dining room has been previously closed by an external consultant, who made an accounting balance and without giving out the results in ciphers stated that the service in the dining room should be suspended.
4)     The luxurious building previously belonging to Saif al - Islam (the son of the executed dictator), which operates a yacht club, should be transformed in a clinic that provides quality medical care to all workers of the port (not only to those in the Socialist Port Company).
5)     Payment of a percentage bonus due to the unfavorable area and risky task, since they are exposed to the corrosion of sea salt and a hostile climate.
6)     The payment of prizes in percentage according to the cargo downloaded and that it is paid of in time and due form. Fairly enough, when the load is a great deal, workers should receive a prize. But it happens that the same is very low, almost negligible, and they are paid it three months later, when they should receive it at most three days later.
7)     After the fall of Gaddafi a Commission came to investigate the expenses carried out from February 17, 2011 (since Benghazi and Tripoli staged their uprising) until August 30, 2011. Very mysteriously, those documents with the signatures of the authorities disappeared without any explanation.  This is why we are requiring the appearance of these documents, as well as the regular and honest operation of a Commission of control of the expenses of the port, able to present its reports without any sort of interference.
8)     Many offices in poor condition were demolished to be rebuilt, but up to today their place shows only rubble. Port workers call for the quick reconstruction of these offices, with appropriate physical conditions.
9)     An improvement in their bedrooms. Their homes in the port are in very precarious conditions. The workers have taken refuge in abandoned trailers. The cabinets to store their belongings are outside of those trailers, exposed to the rain and corrosion. It is worth clarifying that in the days of intense rain, trailers show to be as permeable as colanders, leaving water to get in.
10) Architectural improvements that incorporate baths and, above all, a network of clean water, as they do not have even with the vital element to make "wudu" (ritual Muslim ceremony consisting of washing themselves, a prerequisite to be able to pray).
11) Payment of a 13^th month per year, since they had it but was wrested from them. This bonus should be fair regarding to the amount; it must never be less than a monthly salary.
12) Registering of unregistered workers in the permanent payroll; those workers are only used by the company, in exchange for coins, when there are many loads and they need extra arms. These workers are usually at the port waiting for well loaded vessels to come to get working. So if the vessels entering the port fail to have cargo, they do not work and are not paid.
13) Clothes for laboring and security features. The port workers do not have the same and suffer damage to their health. They are not equipped with a system of prevention of fires, or elements to counter a casualty of these features. In fact the present fire truck does not work. To this day, if the workers want to have some of these elements, they must buy them from their meager pay.
14)  That people for the managerial posts are appointed based on their skills. That the right person is named in the proper place, able to solve the problems of each Department. Enough with the selection of these applicants by "finger", only because they have friends or contacts with people in power. That is why the workers call for the resignation of the Treasurer and other officials who served the Gaddafist regime. If the President of the company sacked from their posts people from a Department staff alleging that they worked under Gaddafi, then make it fair and do the same with all those who are in the same situation..
15) Reverse the allocation of utility cars, which were delivered to administrative officers who, contrary to what it should be, use them for personal purposes and not as a means of work at the port. It is worth remarking that the distances within the same are extensive. Therefore having facilities for mobility is a necessary condition for a good performance.
16) Immediate payment of overtime, when workers must be working after hour due to the large amount of cargo.
17) Cessation of free granting of fuel for the cars for personal use, used by officials of the administration.
18) Put a limit to the free distribution of phone cards for cell phones, except for those who really need it, because 330 cards were delivered, 10 Libyan dinars each, which fell into the hands of people that already had phone line in their offices, with the possibility to make international calls.

"This request closes in the following way:

“A meeting between Hasan Al - Ttanashy (the President of the Board), Mohammad Ahmeidan (Manager of Warehouses), Ali Abrik (Manager of the Legal Department), Suleyman Ben Iasa'ad (Manager General of the port of Tripoli) was held on November 27, 2011, with a group of workers. Everybody agreed on the legitimacy of these claims.

But then there was no response to what had been required, which is nothing but point to improve the port and the company itself.

We do not see this as a problem that should be elevated to the Department of Transportation or the national authorities, but it is a problem that must be resolved internally.
"Libya free forever! 
Assembly of workers in Tripoli Harbor"

Over Libya many other workers suffer the same conditions as for low wages, unhealthy working conditions, etc.  As for port workers, they are open to receive help from other sectors who want to fight alongside them for these demands. They know that the laws governing the North African country prohibit joint actions between workers and militia. But they still understand that this unity is the solution.

March 4, 2012

A newspaper of the revolutionary people and the oppressed in Libya

The Editorial Board of the newspaper "The Libyan Revolution day by day", integrated by the revolutionary fighters of the militias of Libya and the internationalist volunteer Committee around the world.

Introduction of the Editorial Committee 

We introduce here ourselves to the reader as the Editorial Committee of "The Libyan Revolution day by day", a newspaper edited by internationalists of the world and Libyan revolutionary fighters, members of the militia that overthrew Gaddafi, defeated his army and refuse to allow the CNT and the friends of Gaddafi to hijack the revolution.  Our goal is to fight for an independent Libya, free from any oppression and looting. We want a new Libya, where the wealth of the nation is in the hands of those who produce it, workers and poor people, who are really those who have fought and continue fighting to have a decent standard of living.
In Libya, after a revolution that threw Gaddafi as a result of a victorious war that cost thousands of martyrs, the people do not yet earn enough money to have a good standard of living. The Libyan wealth is being plundered by foreign oil companies which had juicy business with the Gaddafi regime and now with the CNT agreements. We need to stop this looting so that the money is in the hands of its real owners, those who work, and not in the hands of parasites living off the work of the Libyan people.
Therefore the revolution that has begun must be completed. It must pass to the real hands of who fought for her, of those who like us, gave our lives for her. “The Libyan Revolution day by day” is the newspaper of all those who want to share their experience in this fight of the revolution, and its pages are open to them.

The CNT, which is in the Government now, did nothing to defeat Gaddafi. It was the heaviest burden that the masses and the martyrs had to endure in this struggle.

However Libyan society is not challenging the dominance of the CNT, although the CNT is a weak government. We know that the Libyan people were subjected by a terrible dictatorship for almost 42 years. Some people say that we have to wait, we're learning, that a new Government will come, that we need to have faith, etc. To them we say that, we, the Libyans have waited enough, that too much blood has been shed; this is an excellent situation to fulfill our demands. The longer we wait, the harder will be to conquer dignified living conditions.

Most of the factories are closed. The CNT focused 100% of its forces on oil companies which export 60 per cent of which was exported before the fall of Gaddafi, as the ENI (Italian oil) does today from Brega. In numbers, their sales are valued US$ 135 million per day (according to the U.S. energy information administration and the world press).

The CNT and the former Gaddafist generals want us to be satisfied with miserable compensations which will be bread for today and hunger for tomorrow. They want to split our struggles, our militia, giving entitlements to some and removing them from others, so we fight each other, precisely those who get together our blood into a single body to crush murderous Gaddafi. They are not going to achieve that!
Paralyzed factories immediately raised the need to put them under direct control of the people working therein, to regain employment. The large amount of money stolen out of Libya raises the need to take the oil wells under control of those working in them and the militias. The amount of work that should be done here and the millions of Egyptians seeking work in Libya raise the need to open the borders so that everybody can work.

In Tunisia and in Egypt they were sacrificed, and fight desperately, engineers and technicians that the only thing they can do is sell vegetables or be unemployed in the streets of our countries. They are essential, along with Libyan workers, to operate our steelworks, our cement plants and our oil wells, under the control of the workers.

The people, workers, students and the same militias are dispersed, and this raises the need to set up a Congress of all militias and worker organizations in Libya, that takes place in the Plaza of the martyrs or the enormous and luxurious former palace of Gaddafi. This Parliament of the armed people and those that really produce with their hands all the riches of the country will be the only structure with the authority to define the fate of Libya, disarming the generals of the CNT, judging and punishing all the murderous politicians –every one of both groups an accomplice of Gaddafi-, and expropriating their property.
That government of the committees of workers and militia, expropriating the banks, ports and the oil companies without compensation would have a huge income, sufficient to get food for the workers and the people in Libya.

Weapons should not be given in to NATO or the CNT or the Gaddafists! All the weapons and combatants are to deal with the counter-revolution and the dictators either in Libya or in Syria!

They want to slaughter our brothers and sisters in Syria. They neither want that there be a new Libya in Syria, nor that murderous Al - Assad run the same fate as Gaddafi the dog. We are one with Homs, we are one with the martyrs of the Tahrir square, we are one with the oppressed in occupied Palestine, and together we must fight to open a corridor to prevent the isolation of our brothers and sisters in Syria as well as the victory of Al - Assad, killer of his own people.
Libya is an example for the peoples of the world. Let’s make a new Libya! is what the masses in Egypt felt when they returned to take the Tahrir square. This is the feeling of the people in Tunisia. It's what people in Syria need to defeat Bashar! It is what we all need to liberate Palestine and destroy the fascist Zionist State of Israel!
Long live the revolution in North Africa! US imperialists out of Iraq and Afghanistan! For the destruction of the fascist Zionist State of Israel!
Our allies are also fighting their own oppressive Governments in the world. As it is painted in the walls on the streets of Sirte: Libya today, tomorrow Wall Street!
Worldwide free working-class people unite against the oppression!

Revolutionary combatants from the militias in Libya

Committee of internationalist volunteers from all over the world

March, 2012

From Egypt

From Tahrir Square, the masses march to the Syria Embassy in Cairo against the massacre of Al Assad servant of imperialism, shouting:

“Bashar enemy of Allah”

“Bashar enemy of the people”

“US, NATO, Assad and Hezbollah are the ones who watch the frontiers of Zionism”

“Syria and Egypt are one”

“Out the Syrian ambassador from Egypt” “Assad, Assad you are going to end as Muammar (Khadafy)”

“Goodnight Bashar now, today your day is going to end”

“We will reach Syria as million of martyrs”

"From the Egyptian people to the Syrian dog: get out!”

Letters from Egypt

February 20^th

HUNDRED OF WORKERS FENCED LIBYAN EMBASSY

On February 19th and 20th, the Embassy of Libya in Cairo was blocked and had to close its doors as hundreds of Egyptian workers were trying to get a visa to work in Libya. When workers strongly asked on the Embassy, the bourgeoisie authorities inside it got terrified and tried to escape. The day after, they didn’t show up. The workers rage was exteriorized and reflected on the doors and glasses of the Embassy, some of them got broken.

There are more than a million Egyptian workers working in Libya. There is their source of work, where they want to go back.

On February, 20th, a Libyan speaker, looking to the public, explained that everybody was going to get their visa and Libyan authorities ‘were happy to received the Egyptians in order to go to work in Libya’. But, if it is like that, then, why they put the condition of getting an entry visa and they don’t remove that restriction letting Egyptians cross, freely, the border to work? Why have they closed all factories in Libya? Why the Army control on the borders?
The truth is that the bourgeoisie denies the right to the workers to be able to work. The workers are the only ones who can defend it, as it was clear in Libya, when workers in arms (the militias) took the factories that boss closed, as in Egypt, too, where workers are the only interested ones in being able to cross to go to work.

 Open the Libyan borders now!

The workers organizations, social and youths militant movements of Egypt coordinate with the Libyan militias an employment service so Egyptian workers can get into the Libyan occupied factories, under armed workers control!
Expropriation without payment of all the factories and oil companies and the entire labor source in Libya under the militias and workers committee control!
The revolution in the North of Africa was for bread, work and freedom. Today, despite the shed blood, we haven’t got it. Out the Libyan TNC! Out the Military Junta in Egypt! For a worker and peasant government with the masses self organized and armed! For the United Socialist States of the North of Africa and Middle East!

Letter of workers from Tahrir Square

Letters from Egypt

February 16^th

A DAY IN TAHRIR SQUARE

An element used by the masses as an expression was to settle tents, as symbol to occupy the square.  In Tahrir Square, hundred of militants spend night and day there. Each tent symbolizes and represents some element of the revolution, specially the martyrs. Many of the martyrs are remember with their graves settle in the square itself.

In downtown it is possible to see the gallows reserved to the marshal Tantawi, the current chief of the Egyptian government and the entire military junta.
The fighters who are in the square know a lot of information, numbers and details which are not known at world level. But in the square people know very well that Mubarak was hosted in Sham el Sheikh (a touristic place full of luxury), where he was supposed to be in hospital. It was told that even the food he ate was brought from Egypt. This makes a general disappointment to the fighters.
The people in the square knew the wealth that the military junta had and the bad management of that.  The immense majority of the workers and people need to work for 12 hours and some extra hours in order to get 20 Egyptian liras a day (this is close to 3 dollars, 15 Argentinean pesos). This money is enough for one person expenses. Therefore, the wages are not enough to maintain the family.
In fact, the situation is so desperate that many Egyptians are looking for work in Libya.  Meanwhile the Egyptians see the Libyans as rich, as they were used as labor force by the Khadafy bosses. They feel the brotherhood and solidarity with Syria and obviously Palestine.

Egyptian masses in Tahrir Square

Another thing that is being told in the square is the control that the army has in the economy.  They control the textile factories, the arable land, gas, oil and the entire foreign commerce; this is the main things of the economy. It was in this way since Nasser and it continues. Their budget is a State secret; the top secret kept here. It is assigned by the governor, who is always part of the army and/or is under his order (Nasser, Sadat, Mubarak and Tantawi, all army Generals). Whoever assumes as “civil government” after the transition, will be under the army.
Demonstrations are organized from one day to the other, through social networks. Otherwise repression forces go beforehand and militarize the field. There are groups advocated to the diffusion role, via facebook. This immediately reaches all fighters and they fill the streets by thousands. Recently, there was a demonstration of 9000 people for the memory of the fallen of the football match massacre. The flag used in the march was the Ahly one (the popular team, which fans were attacked).
While people continue in the square, they haven’t unified their forces to all the revolutionary sectors, as their leaders remain split and this doesn’t let them see the perspective of their own power.

Letter of workers from Tahrir Square