That was the conclusion of many of the participants in the August 8–16 event, especially those organizations and individuals that, since the previous world festival, held in Havana four years ago, had been working to hold another anti-imperialist gathering.

According to the festival's International Organizing Committee, nearly 6,700 youth from 143 countries took part in the gathering, which was held in Africa for the first time ever.

The international festival was marked by the political tone and content of groups and individuals engaged in popular struggles for national liberation, worker and peasant struggles, and student protests. Those who came to Algiers wanted to speak about their struggles, learn about those of others, and discuss how to advance the fight against the imperialist plunder of the world.

This character of the festival was registered at the Anti-Imperialist Tribunal, held August 13–14. One of the most popular sessions of the festival, it was set up as a mock trial of the imperialist system.

Dozens of delegates testified on the crimes perpetrated by Washington, London, Paris, Tokyo, and other imperialist powers against the toilers of the world. The presentations also shed light on many struggles for national liberation--from Korea to Western Sahara to Kanaky (New Caledonia).  
 
Twenty-six years since Vietnam War
Summarizing the conclusions of the Anti-Imperialist Tribunal August 14, Otto Rivero, first secretary of the Union of Young Communists (UJC) of Cuba, said there is one fact above all that has the greatest weight in world politics: "That's the existence of imperialism."

As part of the determined resistance to this imperialist reality around the world--from Palestine to Puerto Rico, "the Cuban Revolution offers an example to all humanity," Rivero said. "Cuba will continue its struggle against imperialism."

Among the first speakers in the tribunal was Bui The Giang of the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union of Vietnam. "Twenty-six years ago the world saw the end of a war in my country that has often been called 'the Vietnam war,' yet as victims and victors of this war, we Vietnamese call it 'the American war in Vietnam,'" said Giang, who fought in the Vietnamese liberation army as a teenager.

"We emerged victorious from that war due to, among other things, the solidarity and support extended to us by youth, students, and people the world over.... We are eternally indebted to you for that."

Giang went on to describe how, between 1964 and 1975, Washington used 14.5 million tons of ammunition to try to crush the Vietnamese people--seven times the tonnage used during all of World War II. In this war 3 million Vietnamese died, 4 million were injured, and about 10 million unexploded bombs and land mines have continued to maim and kill people, he said.

Some right-wing groups in the United States are still "making big noises about some 2,000 Americans missing in action in Vietnam," Giang noted. "Although my people consider and treat this as an issue of a humanitarian nature, I am obliged to remind you that in Vietnam today my people continue searching for the remains of some 300,000 missing Vietnamese."

Giang also referred to the ongoing effects of the use of the chemical defoliant Agent Orange, which has contributed to higher than normal rates of cancer and birth defects among Vietnamese and has had devastating effects on the health of many U.S. soldiers. He pointed out that John F. Kennedy was the first U.S. president to order the massive use of chemical weapons against the Vietnamese people four decades ago.

"Twenty-six years have passed since the end of that imperialist war in Vietnam. However, we have seen dozens of smaller wars, conflicts and disputes inflicted by imperialist forces...from the decades-long undeclared war against Cuba to the war against Iraq, to the recent war against Yugoslavia--a country in Europe itself, where many had thought peace was firmly and deeply rooted," Giang stated in conclusion. "Cherishing peace, we understand that as long as imperialism exists, it is impossible to avoid war and destruction."  
 
Exposing various imperialist powers
The U.S. government, which many speakers described as the number one enemy of humanity, was the main target of numerous presentations. In addition, a range of other delegates testified about struggles against other imperialist powers.

Son Kyong Nam represented the Kim Il Sung Socialist Youth League of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea at the opening of the Tribunal. He focused his remarks on Washington's role in dividing the Korean peninsula and the struggle today to get the 37,000 U.S. troops out of south Korea and reunify the country.

Kim Song Ho, speaking for the same organization later in the program, aimed his fire at Tokyo. "There are some countries in the world that once committed disgraceful crimes against history and humanity," he noted. "Japan is an enemy state that committed unpardonable crimes against the Korean and other Asian peoples in the past." Song Ho explained that during the 40 years of colonial domination of Korea, Tokyo forcibly drafted 6 million Korean youth and working people into its army or into labor camps in Japan, more than 1 million of whom "were cruelly killed by the Japanese imperialists." He also stated that the Japanese colonizers "drafted more than 200,000 Korean women, including 13- and 14-year-old girls, and reduced them to 'comfort women' for the army--sexual slaves for the Japanese aggressor troops."

Pointing to Tokyo's refusal to take responsibility for these and other crimes, the Korean youth leader proposed the tribunal demand a formal apology from Japan's rulers and compensation to the victims of these heinous acts.

Annalucia Vermunt spoke for the Young Socialists and the Communist League in New Zealand. She described the role of New Zealand and Australian imperialism in the Pacific--from the occupation of East Timor led by the Australian military in 1999 to the ongoing intervention with "peacekeeping" forces in Bougainville.

"The New Zealand government has also sent troops to Iraq and Yugoslavia over the last decade," Vermunt said. "This is an extension of the New Zealand rulers' domestic policy of attacks against not only the indigenous Maori people but all working people and exploited farmers. We have a common enemy and a common struggle."

Samuel Goromido from Kanaky (New Caledonia) explained how Paris has turned the Kanak people into a minority in their own country by importing settlers to maintain French colonial rule there. He described how his organization, the Kanak Liberation Party (Palika), is seeking allies among other fighters for national liberation and revolutionists, especially in the Pacific. Goromido also demanded an end to French nuclear tests in the Pacific.  
 
Lawful workings of capitalism
In addition to condemning imperialist military interventions around the globe, a number of delegates gave examples illustrating how the lawful workings of capitalism perpetuate the oppression and exploitation of the semicolonial world--the vast majority of humanity.

Several delegates from African countries, for example, described the effects of imperialist plunder and debt slavery on that continent. Agatha Bukari of the December 31 Women's Movement in Ghana said that "the imperialist nations call us poor, but they continue to bleed us, then they tell us we can't rule ourselves."

Mohammed, a delegate from Chad who asked to be identified only by his first name, elaborated further. "The imperialists make out that our nations are naturally poor. But the problem is that the prices we get on the world market for raw materials we export are lower than the prices of commodities that we are forced to import from the imperialist countries." He called for a common front against French imperialism by countries dominated by Paris.

Dimuthu Attigala, representing the Union of Young Socialists and the People's Liberation Front in Sri Lanka, painted a picture of "economic freefall" familiar in many semicolonial countries. She said 27 percent of Sri Lanka's Gross Domestic Product is spent every year on interest payments to service the country's foreign debt. Following an agreement foisted on that government by various imperialist powers through the International Monetary Fund, the government is privatizing national assets and industries, along with cuts in the welfare, health, and education systems, she said.

Spokespeople for imperialism often talk about development, Attigala stated, "but you have to defeat imperialism if you want to have development."

This discussion on imperialist oppression and the fight against it characterized many sessions. The final declaration adopted by the delegates includes the demand for "the cancellation of all foreign debts for the underdeveloped countries and implementation of measures of control over financial capital."  
 
Anti-imperialist struggles in Americas
Several delegates from Cuba addressed the Anti-Imperialist Tribunal. Yamilka Collazo of the UJC spoke early in the tribunal's first session. She described Washington's 40-year aggression against the Cuban Revolution, highlighting the effects of the trade and economic embargo, the maintenance of the U.S. military base on Cuba's Guantánamo Bay, and the history of military assaults, provocations, and assassination attempts against leaders of the revolution.

Daisy Palma Espinosa, also of the UJC, gave a supplementary presentation on the case of "the five Cuba patriots incarcerated by the empire for daring to defend our sovereignty by gathering information about terrorist groups in Miami that the U.S. government allows to operate freely from its territory to carry out attacks against Cuba." The five were convicted June 8 in Miami on trumped-up charges of conspiring to commit espionage. Throughout the festival, Espinosa and many others of the 750 delegates from Cuba explained the campaign being waged by the UJC, the Federation of University Students, other mass organizations, and the Cuban government to demand that the five be freed.

Jacob Perasso, organizer of the Young Socialists National Executive Committee in the United States, and Noel Rabinowitz of the Young Communist League USA spoke next in the tribunal for the U.S. delegation. Reading the frame-up charges against the five Cubans locked up in U.S. prisons, Perasso said their trial and convictions are not only an attack on revolutionary Cuba but a blatant assault on the democratic rights of all working people and youth in the United States. The trial was marked by attempts to intimidate the defendants, FBI break-ins at their residences, and manufactured evidence--all features of the U.S. "justice" system experienced regularly by U.S. residents.

Perasso also described other assaults against the democratic rights of working people in the United States, including the use of the death penalty and the quadrupling the size of the prison population over the last two decades.

Washington, he added, has "a long history of crimes against humanity. We need to look no further than the record of U.S. aggression against Iraq, including last Friday, when 50 U.S. and British warplanes bombed Iraq." He also noted the U.S. government's use of cluster bombs and history of using napalm in numerous assaults around the world, beginning in Korea and Cuba. The YS leader pointed to Washing-ton's support of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, the four decades of aggression against the Cuban Revolution, and the U.S. Navy's continued use of Vieques, Puerto Rico, as a bombing range.

Working people will most effectively fight against imperialist rule by building a revolutionary movement that can establish a workers and farmers government and overthrow capitalism, he concluded.

Rabinowitz called for fighting against the "new world order." He offered solidarity to Cuba, saying "we will not rest" until the five Cubans jailed in Miami are freed.

A number of other speakers addressed U.S. military intervention and domination in the Americas, from Colombia to Venezuela to Argentina.

The two delegates from Puerto Rico--Ismael Guadalupe, representing the United Youth of Vieques, and Elizabeth Santiago of the Socialist Front--addressed the tribunal. They both pointed to the indispensable example the Cuban Revolution has set in the worldwide struggle against imperialism. The fact they were able to travel to Algiers with the Cuban delegation, since they did not have the financial means to travel on their own, was another proof of the internationalism of the Cuban people, Guadalupe said.

He proposed the tribunal solidarize with the struggle in Vieques by demanding the "immediate end of U.S. military practices in Vieques, the prompt return of all Navy-occupied lands to the people of Vieques, and the dropping of charges against all those who have participated in the struggle against militarism in Puerto Rico."

Santiago referred to a message Puerto Rican independence fighter Rafael Cancel Miranda sent to the delegates, which she had read a few days earlier at a forum in solidarity with the people of Cuba, Colombia, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela (see text of message on this page).

The resolutions adopted by delegates at the tribunal and several other discussion centers included the proposals made by the two Puerto Rican delegates. The festival's final declaration also expressed solidarity "with the people of Puerto Rico in the struggle for their independence."

Among the dozens of delegates who addressed the tribunal, Fuldo Gimaldi, representing the Communist Refoundation party of Italy, pointed to the "antiglobalization" protests of the last two years, from Seattle to Genoa, as the harbinger of a new progressive movement in the struggle against imperialism. Only one other delegate, from India, expressed a similar view at the tribunal.

In contrast, several other delegates hailing from countries in the imperialist world pointed to struggles by oppressed nationalities and their interconnection with the broader class struggle in the countries where they live.

Natalie Chevrier, a leader of the Young Socialists in Canada, spoke on behalf of the delegates from Quebec. She described Canada as an imperialist state that has used its armed forces to advance the interests of its ruling class at the expense of the toilers and has levied economic sanctions against Brazil and other semicolonial countries for the same reasons. She called for the lifting of all these sanctions.

Referring to the Canadian state as a "prison house of nations," Chevrier explained why she supports independence for Quebec and the fight for the rights of Native peoples in Canada. Supporters of Quebec independence are natural allies of meat packers fighting against steep wage cuts and worsening job conditions as well as other workers and farmers resisting assaults by the employers and the government throughout Canada, she said.

Anne Howie from the United Kingdom described the progress in the struggle for Irish independence and unification in the 20 years since the 1981 hunger strikes in which 10 young Irish freedom fighters died, and the impact of that fight on the class struggle in Britain. "There are 6 million Irish people in Britain, the vast majority of them workers," she said. "Each step forward in Ireland increases their confidence to fight, not just for Irish independence but as part of the vanguard working-class resistance to the rulers in Britain."

Howie also referred to the recent mobilizations of youth in the United Kingdom, mostly of Bangladeshi and Pakistani origin, against police harassment and attacks by fascists. "As the workings of imperialism draw more and more workers, particularly from the old empire, into the imperialist heartlands, they are strengthening the working class in these countries in our resistance to the capitalists' attacks on wages and jobs, on our social wage, and against democratic rights."  
 
Debates on anti-imperialist struggle
On a number of occasions, delegates expressed divergent views on how to wage the struggle against imperialism. In virtually every such instance, an open and civil political discussion was held.

During the Anti-imperialist Tribunal, for example, a delegate from the National Democratic Youth Organization (EDON) of Cyprus described the role of British and U.S. imperialism in dividing the island and fueling the process that led to complete segregation between Greek- and Turkish-speaking Cypriots since the Turkish army invaded Cyprus in 1974. "We recognize that today the United Nations finds it hard to implement many of its own resolutions because the UN is disregarded by the American government and other big powers," he said. "But we are still pressing for a peaceful solution, a peaceful reunification for Cyprus, within the framework of adopted UN resolutions. The UN is the only collective and democratically constituted world body," he argued.

Bouatrous Nordin, a university student in Jijil, eastern Algeria, took the floor after the delegate from Cyprus. He condemned the imperialist powers' use and control of the United Nations. "How can we talk of peaceful solutions within the UN," he asked, "when our Palestinian brothers are being killed by Israeli jets, with help from the U.S., despite countless UN resolutions? When Cuba faces a relentless economic war, despite many UN resolutions to lift the embargo? When Iraq is bombed again and again?" We can only talk of the masquerade of the UN, he said, "just as France masquerades as a 'supporter' of the peoples' just demands in Kabylia."

Nordin condemned the intervention by French imperialism in Algeria to try to use popular discontent in that country for its own aims. At the same time he expressed support for the protest demands of the Berbers and pointed to the need to wage a struggle against imperialism.

Kabylia is a region east of Algiers where Berbers, the indigenous people of northern Africa, comprise the overwhelming majority. Many protests have taken place there since April to press demands for expanding the cultural and language rights of the Berber people and to oppose police repression.

Many workshops and forums in solidarity with national liberation struggles took place during the festival. Some were organized on an impromptu basis. The first session on "Globalization and Development" turned into a rally against Tel Aviv's use of F-16 warplanes to bomb Palestinian towns in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Hundreds of delegates poured into the Houari Boumédienne university campus after that meeting for a demonstration to back the struggle for a Palestinian homeland.

A forum in solidarity with the people of East Timor took place August 10. Filomena Hennique was the main speaker on the panel. She was one of six East Timorese students attending university in Portugal. The Timorese waged a hard-fought battle for independence against a military occupation by the Indonesian regime.

"We are now preparing for the first free elections in East Timor," Hennique said. She expressed support for the role of the Portuguese government in East Timor and backed the "humanitarian" intervention by foreign troops under the auspices of the United Nations, which has been spearheaded by the government of Australia.

Under discussion, Linda Harris from Australia expressed a different view. "Australian imperialism has no progressive role in East Timor or anywhere else in the world," Harris said. "A special TV program prepared by a team of investigative reporters three months ago revealed Australia's complicity with the Indonesian army in the massacres that followed the pro-independence referendum in 1991. An intelligence officer in the Australian army, who had been stationed in East Timor then, explained to reporters how Australian officials had encouraged East Timorese freedom fighters to come down from the mountains and stay in an area controlled by Indonesian police and UN supervisors. Then the UN and Australian officials withdrew, and left the East Timorese to be slaughtered."  
 
Sahrawi independence struggle
One of the national liberation struggles that received prominent attention and support at the festival was that of the Sahrawi people. Two rallies of more than 400 delegates each took place in solidarity with the struggle for independence of Western Sahara, which is occupied by the Moroccan regime with imperialist backing. Discussion on the history and current stage of this fight was part of many workshops and forums. Delegates from the Ujsario, the youth organization of the Polisario Front, the organization leading this national liberation struggle, organized many informal dinners and discussions with youth from around the world at solidarity tents they had set up at each of the four campus dormitories for delegates.

On August 10, the 150-person delegation from Morocco, which was led by the youth groups affiliated to the Socialist Party and Communist Party in that country, walked out of the festival and boarded a plane back home. All major political groups in Morocco, from the Socialist Party in the government to opposition formations, call Western Sahara a Moroccan territory and strongly oppose the struggle led by Polisario.

During the August 8 inauguration of the festival, a small verbal confrontation took place between delegates from Morocco and Western Sahara, which the Moroccan group used as the pretext to walk out. The king of Morocco called a press conference in Rabat to declare that the Moroccan delegation had been assaulted, that he was sending a plane to Algiers to pick up its members, and that the Moroccan government would provide emergency care for the injured. These claims were a fabrication.

The truth was that the Moroccan delegation had been unable to find a single person among the thousands here who would defend their position that Western Sahara is part of Morocco. No one backed their demands to share the platform equally with leaders of Ujsario, although they were guaranteed that they could take part and speak at all the festival events on Western Sahara.  
 
Open political discussion and debate
During this year's festival, the ability of delegates representing different organizations and viewpoints to hold open political discussion--a gain that was first established at the 14th world youth festival held in Cuba, in a break with previous such gatherings--was advanced further. Participants were largely able to speak in workshops and solidarity meetings without discrimination by the chair or presidium. Only a couple of incidents took place in which attempts were made to limit free political debate, and these were dealt with by conference organizers.

One move to undermine the festival involved the Front of Socialist Forces (FFS) of Algeria, a social democratic organization affiliated to the Socialist International that has been leading antigovernment protests in Kabylia since April. According to many Algerian students, including several among the 50 Berbers from Kabylia who were delegates at the festival, the FFS is supported politically and financially by the Socialist Party of France, which dominates the imperialist government in Paris.

Several of these students said the French rulers are particularly angry at the government of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria because it has opened more and more of the country's vast natural resources to exploitation by U.S. capitalists. Some 80 percent of Algerian oil drilling and refining operations that have been opened to foreign capital are now owned by U.S.-based companies, according to these sources.

The FFS, together with some other groups in Kabylia, issued a call to boycott the festival, following a similar call by the youth groups affiliated to social democratic parties around the world. The same forces called a demonstration against the festival to take place during the August 8 inauguration of the youth gathering in Algiers. The Algerian government banned the protest. The Algerian press reported the following day that the police had stopped thousands at the outskirts of the capital city who were coming on buses and trucks for the action. The major media in France made a big deal of this incident. The August 9 Le Figaro, a major daily, for example, featured it in a front-page banner headline.

Days prior to the opening of the festival, the Movement of the Communist Youth of France (MJCF), affiliated with the French Communist Party, which has ministers in the SP-led government in Paris, published its call for boycotting the festival. Until February the MJCF had participated in meetings to prepare the festival.

The August 9 issue of Le Matin d'Alger, a French-language daily in Algiers, published the MJCF statement titled, "Why we boycott the festival." The group stated that its leadership had decided to not take part in the gathering because of "unsafe conditions" in Algeria, repressive actions by the Algerian government, and the decision of a number of organizations in France, including trade unions led by the SP and Communist Party, to stay away from the Algiers gathering.

A month prior to the festival, Giovani Comunisti, the youth group affiliated with Italy's Communist Refoundation party, sent an "open letter" to all organizations around the world building the event. For reasons similar to those stated by the MJCF, Giovani Comunisti, which had hosted the third international meeting to prepare the festival in Rome in February, called for postponing the festival for a year. The overwhelming majority of organizations building the festival, however, did not heed these calls.

The fact that the 15th World Festival of Youth and Students took place, and its political character, represented an important victory for those forces seeking to hold a meeting of anti-imperialist youth from around the world.

"We won, we are doing it," Im Song Sun, a leader of the Kim Il Sung Socialist Youth League, told Militant reporters at the ceremony launching the festival.

"It's a victory we held it, especially given all the odds against us," said Harchand Singh, a leader of the All India Youth Federation, at the conclusion of the meeting. Singh is also general secretary of the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY), the main international organization sponsoring the Algiers meeting.

Organizers said an international meeting to draw the lessons from this festival will be called by WFDY within six months. That gathering will also consider initial proposals on when and where to hold the next world youth festival.
 
 
Related articles:
Palestinians: Israel out of occupied territories!
Youth bring solidarity to Sahrawi struggle
Back the Palestinian struggle
The Comintern and the fight for free Palestine, 1920
'By fighting today, you sow seeds of future'
 
 
 
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