Stop the Imperialist Escalation in the Caucasus

Communiqué of the Communist Party of the Workers of France (PCOF)

For several days, the situation in the Caucasus is again becoming dangerously inflamed.

Pushed by the US imperialism, the Georgian reactionary regime began the hostilities with a military operation whose stated goal was to retake control of the "separatist" territory of South Ossetia supported by Moscow. The Russia of Medvedev and of Putin responded with a military counter-offensive of great scope. The bombs of the two camps have fallen on the civil population in South Ossetia, but also in Abkhazia and various towns of Georgia, leading to many casualties and hundreds of thousands of refugees.
This is not a "thunderbolt in a cloudless sky," but the result of a long escalation that has as a backdrop the struggles between the great imperialist powers for control of a region rich in hydrocarbons. Georgia represents for the Caucasus what Afghanistan represents to the Middle East: a transit zone to transport Azerbaijani oil from the Caspian Sea to the Black Sea. As most of the former republics of the south of the Soviet Union, it is the instrument of a policy of destabilization used by US imperialism against Russia. This policy, which has already set fire and sword on the Balkans, took a more and more aggressive and provocative turn with the installation of the infamous "anti-missiles shield" in Eastern Europe and the pressures to accelerate the integration of Georgia into NATO.
Let us not be deceived; just as with Kosovo, it is not a matter of the United States and its allies defending democracy and the rights of peoples to run their own affairs! At the bottom of the energy crisis and the economic recession, it is a matter of a war of imperialist redivision! The violence of the Russian response, called "disproportionate" by the Western powers, is a sign by Moscow of limits that it will not allow anyone to overstep.
Sarkozy and his Minister of Foreign Affairs have gone to play mediators in the name of the 27 countries of the European Union. If the positions of the governments of the EU are far from being unified, it is become some do not want an open conflict with Russia, nor a too unstable situation, where they would be on the front line.
Our Party denounces this war between two reactionary camps, of which the peoples of the Caucasus are paying the price.
This confirms, if it was need, the danger of the "Atlantist" policy developed by Sarkozy. This policy, which was recently shown by a reinforcement of the French presence in Afghanistan - in response to Bush's expectation - and by the reintegration of France into all the structures of NATO, is a aggressive and warmongering policy.
Stop the imperialist provocations! Stop the bombardments!
Work to reinforce the international solidarity of the peoples in their struggles against the imperialist warmakers!

Paris, August 12, 2008