Iran and Venezuela speak truth to power

From Havana to New York to Beirut, the voices of resistance to U.S. imperialism and the Bush administration took center stage in mid-September. With clarity and militancy, world leaders in the struggle laid out the crimes of Washington and other “great powers,” especially aiming their oratory at the institution of the United Nations Security Council.

While leaders from Cuba, Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, Zimbabwe, Lebanon, Syria and other countries persuasively presented the arguments of the oppressed against a world dominated by oppressors, it was not just the logic of these presentations that compelled the media and the politicians in Washington, London, Paris and Berlin to pay attention. It was that these voices represent hundreds of millions of people in struggle who are steadily weakening the grip of world imperialism, headed by the U.S. ruling class.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of Iran, which the Bush administration had branded as part of its “axis of evil” in 2002, riveted the attention of the UN General Assembly summit when he laid out the case against the Security Council.

“By causing war and conflict, some are fast expanding their domination, accumulating greater wealth, and usurping all the resources, while others endure the resulting poverty, suffering and misery,” said Ahmadinejad.

“Just watch what is happening in the Palestinian land. People are being bombarded in their own homes and their children murdered in their own streets and alleys. But no authority, not even the Security Council, can afford them any support or protection.

“At the same time, a Government is formed democratically and through the free choice of the electorate in a part of the Palestinian territory. But instead of receiving the support of the so-called champions of democracy, its Ministers and Members of Parliament are illegally abducted and incarcerated in full view of the international community.”

Referring to the bombardment of Lebanon, the U.S. government’s campaign against Iran’s legal right to have nuclear energy, and other examples, Ahmadinejad then put the issue before the world body.

“The question needs to be asked: if the Governments of the United States or the United Kingdom, who are permanent members of the Security Council, commit aggression, occupation, and violation of international law, which of the organs of the UN can take them to account? Can a Council in which they are privileged members address their violations? Has this ever happened?”

As a partial corrective, he proposed that the Non-Aligned Movement, the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the African continent each have a representative as a permanent member of the Security Council with veto privilege. This would “hopefully prevent further trampling of the rights of nations,” he concluded.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez was widely covered for calling George W. Bush “the devil,” a characterization that drew open sympathy, not only in the General Assembly but around the world. But what the capitalist media did not want to focus on was his rejoinder to Bush, who had come before the General Assembly the day before and lectured the countries of the world, rating them, warning them and spreading lies.

Chávez mocked Bush’s statement “to the population of the Middle East” in which Bush said, “My country wants peace.”

“It wants peace,” said Chávez. “But what is happening in Iraq? What happened in Lebanon? In Palestine? …What’s happened over the last 100 years in Latin America and the world? And now threatening Venezuela—new threats against Venezuela, against Iran?”

He characterized the war against Hezbollah and Hamas as “imperialist, fascist, assassin, genocidal, the empire and Israel firing on the people of Palestine and Lebanon.” And as far as Bush speaking “to the people of the world,” Chávez asked, “What would those peoples of the world tell him if they were given the floor? … I think I have some inkling of what the peoples of the South, the oppressed peoples think. They would say, ‘Yankee imperialist go home.’”

Chávez also called for the General Assembly, which is now a mere deliberative body with no power, to take charge of reorganizing the United Nations, and for poor countries to be added as permanent members of the Security Council with full rights.

Choe Su Hon of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea also condemned the crimes of imperialism in the Middle East, as evidence of the bankruptcy of the Security Council. “The fact that the Security Council remains indifferent to the infringement of sovereignty and massacre of civilians committed in the Arab territories, such as the U.S. invasion of Iraq and Israel’s aggression of Lebanon, represents typical examples of irresponsibility, unfairness and double standards,” said Choe.

He also described how the U.S. government has a policy of “preemptive strike” against the DPRK, which Bush also branded as part of his “axis of evil.” Washington carries out “adventurous military maneuvers” and economic blockade, he said, which are tolerated while “routine missile test fires of our army for self-defense have been picked up to be condemned as ‘a threat to international peace and security.’”

Robert Mugabe, president of Zimbabwe, pointed out the most glaringly racist, colonialist aspect of the Security Council. He cited “the core issue of democratization of international governance. Africa remains the only continent which does not have a permanent seat with veto power in the Security Council. The situation is unacceptable. It needs to be corrected and corrected now. The position of the African Union on this issue is very clear. Africa demands two permanent seats, complete with veto power, plus two additional permanent seats. We will not compromise on this matter until our concerns are adequately addressed.”

President Mugabe raised the question of the great powers skimping on funds for combating AIDS/HIV and of using those funds selectively to punish governments. He also condemned the “collective punishment of the Palestinian and Lebanese people and the intrusion into their territories in violation of international law.”

The UN meeting came in the wake of the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Havana. Cuba’s delegate to the General Assembly, Esteban Lazo, reported on the NAM conference. He also condemned the Bush administration’s publicized plan “aimed at overthrowing the Cuban Revolution” and the “unprecedented build-up in the financial and material support to subversive actions aimed at overthrowing the constitutional order freely chosen by the Cuban people.”

He condemned as “the height of hypocrisy” the presence in the U.S. of the CIA assassin Luis Posada Carriles, who openly boasts about blowing up a Cuban airplane killing 73 people and who has been involved in numerous assassination plots against Fidel Castro.

At the NAM conference, Carlos Lage, vice president of the Cuban Council of State, had given a revolutionary, optimistic speech. When “the Soviet Union and European socialist bloc collapsed, we were practically alone, determined to hold on to our flag and to socialism,” he said. The U.S. government “stepped up the blockade ... undertook new terrorist actions and unleashed an unprecedented international diplomatic and media campaign against the Cuban revolution. ...

“A morally decadent empire attacked our small island with all of its hatred.” But Cuba survived “because of an even greater project of justice and dignity it had brought to fruition.”

He said that Cuba had lived through its “harshest and hardest years” and “today we are seeing the most promising time of the revolution.”

Words backed up by mass deeds

Along with the events in Havana and New York, massive mobilizations in Mexico and in Lebanon further underscored the growing resistance to imperialism and its puppets and the isolation of the U.S. government.

Over 800,000 people attended a “victory rally” organized by Hezbollah celebrating the defeat of the U.S.-Israeli invasion. Sheik Hassan Nasrallah defied Israeli assassination threats and spoke in person, declaring that “No power on earth can disarm us.” He called for national unity to overcome
imperialist machinations to divide the country. (See accompanying article.)

In Mexico City on Sept. 16 a million people declared their refusal to recognize Washington and Wall Street’s choice for president, Felipe Calderón, declaring the election a fraud and pledging to create a rival government headed by the popular Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Nov. 20. (See article in Workers World, Sept. 28)

These manifestations of resistance and defiance of Washington come at the very moment that Pentagon generals are issuing dire warnings about needing more troops in Iraq and NATO is demanding more troops in Afghanistan.

On many fronts the ground is shifting under the feet of U.S. imperialism. On the battlefields in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Palestine, Washington is unable to prevail. Iran and the DPRK, which were charted for “regime change,” have been steadfast and are gaining support worldwide. For example, the NAM conference unanimously endorsed Iran’s right to peaceful nuclear energy. The influence of the Cuban Revolution is growing in Latin America, as is the anti-imperialist influence of the Venezuelan Revolution.

At the UN Bush threatened Sudan and demanded entry of UN “peacekeepers” there. But Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir said that African troops would be the only forces permitted in the country and warned that Washington’s attempt to send UN forces was just a cover for “regime change.” In a show of resistance, Khartoum has restricted all U.S. officials to within 25 kilometers of the capital, because Washington puts similar restrictions on Sudanese officials in the U.S.

New ties are being forged among anti-imperialist forces. After the NAM summit, presidents Chávez and Ahmadinejad met in Caracas and worked out about 20 new commercial agreements, including plans to set up a joint petrochemical company; to produce bricks, cement, bicycles and cars; and for Iran to help train Venezuelan metallurgical workers. Venezuela and Iran have agreed to create a $200 million investment fund and Iran has agreed to build 10,000 homes in Venezuela. (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Sept. 17)

President Ahmadinejad met with Kim Yong Nam, chair of the Supreme People’s Assembly of the DPRK, on the first night of the NAM conference and “urged that mutual relations should expand in all fields.” (Islamic Republic News Agency, Sept. 16) Kim said, according to a news release, that “Iran-DPRK strategic ties are based on joint campaign against imperialism.” High-level Cuban and North Korean delegations also had an important meeting to strengthen solidarity and cooperation.

In a sign of the erosion of U.S. influence, even the president of Pakistan, a formerly loyal ally of Washington, has gone public with an exposure of U.S. government threats to bomb Pakistan “back into the Stone Age” if the government did not submit to Washington after Sept. 11. Pervez Musharraf, who has been scapegoated by the Pentagon for the resurgence of resistance in Afghanistan, rebelled against the growing attempts by Washington to dictate to him about how to handle the situation in Pakistan’s Northwest Provinces, going public on CBS’s 60 Minutes. He has subsequently denounced the war in Iraq on CNN.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, normally a subservient institution, issued a letter recently condemning a U.S. congressional report as “erroneous, misleading and unsubstantiated.” (Prensa Latina, Sept. 15) The report, which said that Iran was on the verge of producing nuclear weapons fuel, was issued by the House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and was aimed at stoking war against Iran.

Rallies, conferences and reports do not in themselves change the relationship of forces. Only the struggle can do that. But they can give a measure of the change in the political environment in terms of the advance of the oppressed in the struggle against imperialism and its various manifestations.

What is most important for the workers and the oppressed people in the U.S. is to pay attention to how the rest of the world is waging a just struggle against the government in Washington and to grasp how much this regime is hated for its wars, occupations and the exploitation carried out by giant U.S. corporations.

The government that is hated by the oppressed of the world for its aggression and bullying is the same government that watched with indifference as Katrina victims drowned. This is the government that taxes the poor to give to the rich, allows corporations to slash jobs and benefits, and spends hundreds of billions on militarism while poverty grows.

The struggle of the peoples of the world against oppression by Washington is a struggle against the enemy of the workers and oppressed here, too. This means not just the Bush administration but the entire capitalist political establishment, Republican and Democratic alike, who support U.S. imperialism abroad and capitalist exploitation and oppression at home.