Solidarity with the victims of the Tsunami

//WORLD REVOLUTION //International Coordination Comittee //2005-01-18

On the December 26th 2004 the world witnessed a horrific natural disaster. An earthquake of 9.1 on the Richter scale struck the Indian Ocean. From that earthquake a tsunami wave preceded to devastate 11 countries in the region at the speed of a jet. Thousands of dead bodies were found as the massive killer waves subsided. The death count now stands at 150,000 people, with many more missing and a further 5 million made homeless, leaving them vulnerable to starvation, water borne diseases and malnutrition. The final death toll is still impossible to predict. WORLD REVOLUTION expresses its complete sympathy and solidarity with the victims of this disaster and our commitment to work alongside our section in Indonesia to deliver practical relief and aid.

The victims of the Tsunami aren’t just victims of a natural disaster. They are victims of a system in which early warning systems are built for military bases but not for large fishing communities – imperialism. This is a system based upon the economic exploitation of the so-called 'third world' by the world's strongest and wealthiest powers, backed up by military force. Many of the Far Eastern countries affected are ‘golden children’ of IMF policy: Their economies were ‘opened up’ to Western companies. Chances are the clothes you are wearing as you read this were made in a Far Eastern sweatshop where workers earn less than a dollar a day so that Western multinationals can generate profits of billions.

Indonesia: A typical semi-colony

While these corporations pay hardly any tax or labour costs countries like Indonesia have to pay massive debt repayments to Western states and finance institutions. Indonesia’s debt alone now stands at 132.7 billion dollars, and to service that debt the country will have to pay 3 billion dollars this year – nine times what the US has promised in aid! Indonesia is a classic example of a semi-colony – nominally independent with its own government and political institutions but completely at the mercy of the imperialist powers. The Indonesian government itself, like many other governments in the region, is used as an instrument of imperialism. It is the body that both enforces the repayment of the collosal debt and the opening of its markets to Western companies. This is particularly true of the oil rich province of Aceh in Northern Samatra, the region most affected by the Tsunami dissaster. Aceh has for the past 25 years been brutally oppressed by the old military dictatorship in Indonesia and today's 'democratic government’.

REVOLUTION believes that the people of Aceh should have the right to self-determination from this oppressive regime and we stand in solidarity with the struggle to achieve this goal. We call on all Indonesian workers and anticapitalists to organise the fight back against all attempts to re-establish military control under the disguise of helping the victims of the tsunami. In fact it has been very clear that the regime has delayed help and assistance to the region. The workers and the poor of Indonesia - in solidarity with their brothers and sisters in Aceh - should not rely on the regime to carry out the relief work that is now urgently needed to help the victims of the Tsunami. The workers movement and the trade unions, together with active students and other progressive organisations, should take a lead in independently organising the mobilisation of aid and rebuilding of infrastructure and housing in Aceh. We call on them to immediately stop all aid being channelled into the pockets of businesses and corporations and for mass action and blockades to halt a military intervention by the Indonesian state.

The Western Powers: No friends of the masses

The disaster of the Tsunami is not merely a natural dissaster based on the shifting nature of the Earth’s plates but is compounded by the brutal realities of the present global economic system. A striking example of this "imperialist disaster" is the US and UK occupation of Iraq, which has led directly to the deaths of a 100,000 Iraqis. The Tsunami disaster, unlike this act of human savagery, has received a great deal of coverage in the Western press. Bush and Blair, imperialists guilty of this mass murder, are shown to be benevolent global leaders who care about the plight of the world’s poor.

This is a lie. Bush's promised aid to the region of 350 million dollars is what the US spends on just 36 hours of war in Iraq. Private donations to the relief effort from workers in the US and Britain already exceed the amounts promised by the Bush and Blair governments. If Bush and Blair cared about the world’s poor they would immediately cancel third world debt, they would dismantle the imperialist institutions that bleed the third world dry (the IMF, World Bank and WTO), they would introduce a punitive tax on the rich to fund a massive public works schemes in the Global South. Bush and Blair don’t do this because it would threaten the harmony of their system – Capitalism.

Bush, Blair, Schroeder, Chirac and co are not friends of the workers and poor of the Far East – they are agents of imperialism. It is the workers and youth of the West who are the real friends of the oppressed peoples of the third world. We have shown this by the huge donations we have made out of our own pockets. Our task as internationalists is to build links with the peasants' and workers' organisations of the Far East so that we can be sure this money is going to the people that need it most and not lost in black hole of a corrupt capitalist bureaucracy.

WORLD REVOLUTION will fight for:

* Send money, rescue equipment and medical aid directly to those in desperate need.

* Make the rich pay! Our billionaire rulers must cough up – for a punitive tax on the rich to fund a massive programme of public works in the region.

* Immediate cancellation of all third world debts.

* For the re-construction process to be under the direct control of the workers and peasants of South East Asia. Send aid direct to the Trade Unions, Peasant and Fisherman organisations. No aid to the business and corporations of the Far East.

* For unconditional aid not tied to ‘market restructuring’ and the further ‘opening up’ of Far Eastern economies to Western corporations.

* For mass action and blockades to halt any military intervention by the Indonesian state in Aceh.

* For a massive mobilisation against the G8 when it comes to Britain to shut down this institution of imperialist robbery.