Czech CP says:
Call off NATO meeting, us funds for flood relief
By John Catalinotto
Are the floods devastating Central Europe and South Asia a
result of global warming? No proof yet, but these record
floods--which have killed hundreds in Asia and brought as much
as $20 billion in damage to the Czech Republic, Austria,
Hungary and eastern Germany--have already had political
repercussions.
The floods have aroused protest of the next major summit
meeting of NATO ministers, scheduled for Prague on Nov. 20. At
that meeting, NATO plans to increase its membership by adding
at least a few more formerly socialist Eastern European
countries, tightening the grip of the Western imperialists on
this region.
The meeting will require a substantial outlay of funds by
the pro-capitalist Czech government, which brought the Czech
Republic into NATO in 1999. Not everyone in the country thinks
this is a good idea.
According to the newsletter Postmark Prague, on Aug. 15 the
Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia demanded that the
government call off the NATO summit and use the $560 million
saved to help the victims of the catastrophic floods.
"Party Vice-Chair Miloslav Ransdorf (MP) told journalists
that official estimates of the damage caused by the flood were
too low. Reports from the CPBM's regional and district
organizations suggested that the real cost would be nearer"
$2.8 billion, Postmark Prague reported.
In recent national elections, the CPBM made substantial
gains, increasing its vote from 11 to 18.5 percent and its
seats in Parliament from 24 to 41.
The experience of living under real capitalism--with its
unemployment, cuts in social services, economic instability and
foreign domination--has turned a larger portion of the
population back to communist and pro-socialist parties in the
Czech Republic, as it has in other former socialist
countries.
The Western powers look to integrating these countries into
NATO in order to ensure that they remain under imperialist
domination, with de facto military occupation by NATO
forces.
Reprinted from the Aug. 29, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
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