Sudan: Communist assess latest agreements
The Sudanese Communist Party, in its latest bulletin updating the world on the dramatic events that have roiled that African country since the beginning of a mass uprising which gained strength in December of last year and which led to the fall of long time dictator Omar Hassan al Bashir, is sounding an optimistic note.
Earlier, the broadly based movement for democracy in Sudan, called the Alliance for Freedom and Change, in which the Communist Party, alongside professional, student, women’s and other groups, had clashed with the military group which pushed out Al Bashir but then repressed, with more than 100 fatalities, protests aimed at replacing the military with a democratic civilian government.
The Communists continue to warn that the Transitional Military Council, and its close allies in the Rapid Support paramilitary forces, famous for “Janjaweed” atrocities in the Darfur region, is capable of much violence. But the Communists’ optimism is fueled by the continued willingness of the Sudanese masses to protest on a very large scale, by the success of negotiations to bring other opposition groups around the country into a broad united front against military rule, and by international support.
Chile: Communist Party offices looted
During the weekend of July 13-14, persons yet unidentified carried out raids of the offices of the Communist Party of Chile. The headquarters of the Central Committee in the capital, Santiago, and of the local party in Calama in the far North of the Country were both hit.
The Communist Party reported to the public that although some money and other valuables were taken, the persons who carried out the raid also carried out an “exhaustive and meticulous search of documents, computers, desk drawers and lockers, including the offices of the president and the general secretary, the National Organizational Commission, of finances, of the electoral commission, press and others”.
The Communist Party of Chile has called for a united front in opposition to the neo-liberal policies of the right wing government of President Sebastián Pineira. The party is demanding firm and immediate action by the police and other authorities in response to the attack on its offices.
Ukraine: Court declares communist symbols illegal
On July 16, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine ruled that a 2015 law which proscribes and criminalizes communist symbols such as the hammer and sickle and the red star is constitutional. The Communist Party of Ukraine has denounced this decision and the tortured logic that underlies it, and pointed out that both the law and the court’s decision fly in the face of international law and decisions of the European Court of Human Rights.
The rationale for the law and for the Constitutional Court’s ruling is that communism and Nazism are essentially the same, and anti-Ukrainian. In the words of the court decision: “the Nazi regime and the communist regime had the same human essence”, and denied the right of the Ukrainian people to have their own country.
The Communist Party of Ukraine warns that this court decision will be used by the right wing government in Kiev, which is allied with modern-day descendants of fascist groups which collaborated with Hitler in World War II, to “unleash a new wave of repression against the Communist Party, its members and supporters”. The party is calling for international support for its rights.
India: Communist leader passed away
On July 4, comrade Shameem Faizee, a distinguished journalist and long time leader of the Communist Party of India, died after a months long battle with cancer.
Comrade Faizee was born in 1946 in Nagpur District, Maharashtra State in the West-Central part of India, and joined the Communist Party of India in 1965. He soon became a major force in the party’s journalistic activities, writing in Hindu, Urdu and English. He became the editor of the party’s journal New Age and Managing Director of the People’s Publishing House in 1996, to name just a few of the important roles he fulfilled with great distinction and ability.
Join Now