By M. Cook
The International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS) held its Fourth International Assembly (in Manila, Philippines from July 7 to 9, 2011.
The theme of the assembly was “Build a Bright Future! Mobilize the People to Resist Exploitation and Oppression Amidst the Protracted Global Depression, State Terrorism and Wars of Aggression”!
Marking its ten years of existence, the fourth assembly was by far the biggest ILPS assembly to date. The assembly was attended by more than 430 delegates and observers from 200 organizations.
The recently formed ILPS-Canada chapter was able to send over 20 delegates to attend the historic assembly, with BASICS Community News Service sending 3 delegates.
The assembly was also the most represented with delegates and observers from 43 countries, territories and autonomous regions; namely, Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Belgium, Canada, China, Denmark, Ecuador, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, Hong Kong (SAR), India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Macau, Malaysia, Manipur, Mexico, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Pakistan, Palestine, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Senegal, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Turkey, United States, Venezuela, West Papua and Zimbabwe.
The Chairperson of the ILPS, Prof. Jose Maria Sison proposed the important tasks in Political Education, Organization and Mobilization.
The ILPS calls on its members to intensify political education among the individual members of all the member-organizations of the League on the need for a broad anti-imperialist and democratic united front and international people’s solidarity.
Malcolm Guy, of the Immigrant Workers Centre in Montreal and the General Secretary of the ILPS, called for the consolidation and strengthening of the League by doubling its forces within the next three years, paying particular attention to Europe, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, and the establishment of more ILPS chapters worldwide.
“This growth is a good start but we need to expand even more boldly and widen the anti-imperialist united from into a truly global force capable of organizing against imperialism on all fronts”, said Malcolm Guy.
The general declaration of the ILPS assembly states “we must further develop our capacity to hold globally coordinated actions on major global issues as well as specific regional or national issues that have global implications.“
“We have had a number of positive experiences where a local struggle initiated or participated in by our member-organizations was augmented or bolstered by supportive actions by our member-organizations in other countries, thereby visibly manifesting the breadth and strength of our League and attracting more organizations to join us.”
While the assembly ended on July 9, those present know that the bulk of the work lays ahead in the countless grass roots organizers working to build a worldwide anti-imperialist united front.
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