Statement of the Marxist-Leninist Parties of Latin America

From En Marcha,
Central Organ of the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Ecuador
#1589, August 10-16, 2012

Statement of the Marxist-Leninist Parties of Latin America

(Extract)

We have united the Marxist-Leninist Communist Parties of Latin America to discuss various points, in particular the follow-up of the situation in our respective countries and on the international plane, as well as to define the commitments stemming from the meeting. After various exchanges of opinions and discussions, we reached the following conclusions:
The crisis of the capitalist system is continuing and will get worse, in spite of all the measures that the governments in the service of finance capital and the imperialist monopolies are adopting to avert it. They are continuing to take measures that affect the working class, the working people and the people in general.
In this sense, they are continually reducing salaries and making them more precarious, carrying out massive dismissals in private enterprises and public institutions, reducing retirements and pensions, cutting budgets for education, health care, security among other areas of services to the working class and people in general; at the same time they are raising taxes on goods and services of consumption of the great majority, all in order to get money to pay the national debt and also to save from bankruptcy the private banks, which they have given thousand of million dollars and Euros taken from the working class and peoples.
The summits of the heads of government and State have taken place since 2008, to try to promote economic growth, create jobs and overcome the crisis. But despite the agreements adopted and money made available to the private banks, the awaited growth still has not taken place and more companies and banks are going bankrupt.
The governments in the service of finance capital and the imperialist monopolies are persisting in making the working class and peoples pay for the crisis.
In their eagerness to escape the crisis, finance capital and the monopolies are looking for new sources for capital accumulation, and here we must emphasize the sell-out, anti-national and anti-popular attitude of most of the governments of Latin America and the Caribbean, which are handing over the mining and natural resources of all kinds to foreign companies.
In addition to draining the resources of the people, these concessions are having a severe impact on the environment and the communities in which they are located, adding one more item for the popular indignation and revolt.
The working class, the working people, the youth and peoples do not accept these policies of the governments. In every continent the struggles of the workers and peoples in general are developing, which are taking the form of active strikes, street demonstrations and seizures of buildings, among other things.
... We stated that together with the economic crisis and its consequences, in our countries there are the repressive attitudes of the governments that criminalize protests, accusing and even punishing with jail the popular and revolutionary, trade union, educators, student neighborhood and peasant fighters, who are demonstrating in resistance to the policies and measures of the governments in office. Serious blows to public freedoms and democratic rights are taking place, which are added to the old problems from which the working class and peoples are suffering.
Faced with this general situation of the capitalist system and particularly that of our countries, our communist parties stand up for and reiterate our will to push forward the workers’ and popular struggles in general for social and political demands, as well as for democratic and revolutionary changes and for socialism.
We call upon our members to continue encouraging the organization and struggle of the oppressed and exploited, to put themselves at the head of these struggles no matter the consequence.
To the slogan of making the rich pay for the crisis, one must add the systematic denunciation of the demagogic and populist governments that conceal their servile attitude to the oligarchies and imperialism by declaring themselves left-wing and even socialist; as well, the defense of public freedoms and democratic rights, the rejection of the criminalization of protests, the demand that the governments respect the rights in those Constitutions that as a result of the popular struggles recognize important demands for the peoples, among those are the right to protest and the free unionization of the working class and working people; it is also necessary to push forward the struggles of the masses for the progressive reform of the political and social regimes by way of the Constituent Assembly, in those countries where an obsolete political and social system denying the fundamental rights of the peoples predominates.
An important place in our struggles must be given to the defense of water, the rejection of the handing over of minerals and natural resources of the people, and to solidarity with the movements are currently protest strip mining. Outstanding cases of this are the ones being developed by the peoples of Cajamarca in Peru, of Catamarca in Argentina, Oaxaca in Mexico and Cerrejon in Colombia.
We are protesting against the systematic bombings that have resulted in hundreds of dead, wounded and displaced by the Colombian army against various civilian and defenseless communities, under the pretext that they are fighting the guerrilla insurgency of the FARC, (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), the Army of National Liberation (ELN) and the Peoples Liberation Army (EPL), which have not renounced their postulates to fight together with the people for national and social liberation.
With energetic indignation, we also repudiate the coup by the Paraguayan oligarchy and Yankee imperialism against President Fernando Lugo, fact that clearly expresses their determination to depose governments who do not totally respond to their interests and aims. In Paraguay, before the Lugo’s election, during his government and after his overthrow, the peasants and workers have lived in the poverty, without access to land, health and education. We decidedly support the peasants, workers, teachers and youth in their struggle for land and the right to organize and strike, the patriots, democrats and revolutionaries who atr fighting for the social and national revolution.
As we reaffirm ourselves as communist parties, of the working class, determined to place ourselves at the front of each of their fights and of the popular sectors, with the goal to seize political power, to carry out the revolution, towards socialism, we challenge ourselves to become large parties that are, influential in the political and social life of our countries, an indispensable condition to be able to lead the revolutionary process. Therefore we call on our members to work with determination and clarity of goals within the working class and the popular masses in general, to develop the closest possible organizational links and of struggle, and to recruit from among these for our ranks the most advanced elements and dedicated to the popular and revolutionary struggle.
Ordinary meeting of the Marxist-Leninist Parties of Latin America
Revolutionary Communist Party – Brazil
Communist Party of Colombia (Marxist-Leninist)
Communist Party of Labor of the Dominican Republic
Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Ecuador
Communist Party of Mexico (Marxist-Leninist)
Communist Party of Peru (Marxist-Leninist)
Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Venezuela
Ecuador, July 2012