Italy:  Communists demonstration against red baiting

On Saturday October 7, the Communist Party of Italy, one of several heirs to the historic communist movement in that country, organized a protest demonstration in the town of Sorogna, in the Province of Parma in Northern Italy.  The demonstration was in protest to the Sorogna town council’s having passed a resolution to “ban the communist ideology”.   Demonstrators included members of the Fronte della Gioventú Comunista , and the secretary general of the Communist Party, Marco Rizzo, who addressed the demonstrators.  “Anti-communism will not pass in Soragna….whoever wants to equate communism with  Nazi fascism is doing anti-historical work designed to discredit the only alternative to capitalism which has been able to win.  [Communism] counterposes to the dictatorship of the banks and the bosses a model based on the power of the workers, a socialist model that is more current than ever.  In the face of the crisis of the increase in social inequality, of war, of a system that is not sustainable, that generates unemployment, absence of rights, of [mass]  migration, socialism is the only answer”.

Colombia:  CP protests continued massacres

The Colombian Communist Party has been denouncing the fact that in spite of the fact that peace agreements have been signed between the Colombian government and the left wing guerrilla group the Armed Forces of the Colombian Revolution-People’s Army (FARC-EP) and now the same is going to happen with a smaller leftist guerilla group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), workers and peasants continue to be murdered in large numbers, including by elements of the security forces.
The latest outrage, according to the communists, happened on Thursday October 5 in the town of San Andres de Tumaco, in Nariño Province on Colombia’s Pacific Coast.  In recent years, the area, which has a large Afro-Colombian presence, had seen combat among the FARC-EP, the government security forces and right wing militias.    According to the Communist Party, local community groups blame the National Police for the killing of 8 small farmers who were protesting against the government’s program of forced elimination of the cultivation of coca leaf in the region.

Australia:  Communists oppose labor law change

The Communist Party of Australia is denouncing the government’s proposed labor law “reform:” as union-busting and “an affront to democracy”.  The Party says “The dishonestly named ‘Ensuring Integrity Bill”…is the most vicious attack on trade union and workers’ rights ever put before Parliament. It is not an exaggeration to describe this bill as fascistic. Its aim is to put the trade union movement out of action by targeting its leadership, leaving workers defenseless and strengthen the hand of employers to accelerate the present roll-back of wages and [working] conditions.”
The bill in question is proposed at a moment when employers are on a fierce offensive to push down wages and strip workers and unions of their rights.  The bill would greatly increase the authority of the government to intervene in internal union matters, removing union leaders and decertifying unions for real or imagined irregularities.  The Communist Party points out that unions could be crippled at the government’s whim, and that the employers would gain extra profits on the back of the workers in the circumstances it would create.

CP of Israel critique exploitation of Palestinian land

The Communist Party of Israel, or Maki, has pointed out that big profits are being made by stone quarrying activities in the West Bank, and that the profits and royalties are not going to the Palestinian inhabitants of the region but rather to private corporations, and the Israeli government, respectively. The party points out that it is far cheaper for Israeli purposes to quarry stone needed for building and other purposes in the Palestinian West Bank rather than importing it from overseas.  “Over 20 percent of the State of Israel’s general consumption [of stone] comes from the quarries (Israeli and Palestinian) in the occupied territories. Israel’s economic interests do not end there—between 2009 and 2015, the [Israeli] Civil Administration received royalties equivalent to 285 million New Israeli Shekels [about 81 million US dollars] from quarries in Area C in the West Bank.  [Area C, which is more than 60 percent of the West Bank, is the area where the Israeli government has most control.
Basing itself on a report by the NGO Yesh Din, the Communist Party points out that this constitutes “colonialist” looting and depletion of resources that should, by rights, belong to the Palestinian people. Unfortunately, the Israeli Supreme Court has ruled against objections to these practices.

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