March 24, 1997
HAVANA — More than 130 people from 55 countries met here for the Second International Coordinating Committee meeting for the 14th World Festival of Youth and Students.
The festival, which will be held in Cuba July 28-August 5, will discuss and debate a range of political questions confronting the working class, including: anti-imperialist struggles, the environment, the fight for women’s liberation, national liberation struggles, employment, education, labor resistance, and how to fight against fascism.
The meeting reaffirmed the slogan of “Anti-imperialist solidarity, peace and friendship” as the theme of the event.
Preparatory committees have formed in over 40 countries so far. The U.S. Organizing Committee is holding a national preparatory meeting March 15 that will discuss the organizing efforts for the U.S. delegation.
March 24, 1972
The reverberations of the Bangladesh national liberation struggle continue to shake both India and Pakistan as other oppressed nationalities demand their national rights. The most significant motion is among the Pathans of Pakistan. Occupying the Baluchistan and NorthWest Frontier provinces, the Pathans are excluded from many areas of Pakistani life by the dominant Punjabi minority.
Pathan complaints include demands for language rights — the Pathans speak Pushtu, while most official business is done in Urdu, a tongue spoken by a small minority.
On Feb. 27 an armed demonstration was held in Peshawar, calling for the end of martial law and for Pathan self-government within Pakistan. The Pathans are traditionally a military people and even in normal times highly armed with modern weapons made in small factories in their country.
March 22, 1947
Wall Street’s offensive against the American working class is part and parcel of U.S. imperialism’s intensified drive toward war and subjugation of the rest of the world. [President] Truman’s proclamation of economic and military intervention against the Greek people has brought with it the immediate threat of further militarization, regimentation and repression at home.
This need to regiment the workers for war and to foist on them new onerous economic burdens dictates the need of American capitalism to cripple the labor movement. The standard of living of the masses must be driven down further to feed the war machine.
Wall Street’s war against the revolutionary peoples of other countries who are fighting capitalist reaction, is being waged simultaneously against any attempts of the American workers to break the rule of monopoly capital.