Statement from ILPS-Canada – 11 September 2011
The International League of People’s Struggle – Canada, with 22 member mass organizations across the country, joins with millions of working people around the globe in commemorating the tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks which claimed the lives of 3000 people, including 24 Canadians. It condemns this horrific attack on civilians and stands with the families of the victims and all working people in denouncing this terrorist act.
ILPS-Canada is a country Chapter of the International League of Peoples’ Struggle, made up of more than 200 organizations from 40 countries promoting, supporting and developing the anti-imperialist struggles of the peoples of the world. It has a broad mass character and is not subordinate to any political party, government or religion and affords equality to all participating organizations.
ILPS-Canada also firmly condemns the U.S.-led “war on terror” that was unleashed over the past decade, using 9/11 as a pretext, by the most powerful military force in the world and its allies including Canada, against all those who stand opposed to imperialist expansion and oppression. This war has led to thousands of times the number of deaths in New York, along with the most massive military spending the world has ever seen. It has become a world war without an apparent end, replacing the previous “Cold War” against Communism.
A decade after 9/11, following the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan and all the other “anti-terror” operations including the killing of Al-Qaeda mastermind, Osama Bin Laden, the world should be, according to Washington and Ottawa, a safer and quieter place. Instead, we find ourselves in a world of political turmoil, catastrophic wars and ecological and economic crisis, with U.S. imperialism vainly attempting to halt its decline and the crisis of monopoly capitalism that is rapidly deepening.
During the opening decade of the 21st century we have seen Canada’s role shift internationally from that of an imperialist “peace keeper” into a front-line war maker and military occupier. And internally, in the same vein of supposedly fighting “terrorism”, the Canadian government has been stepping up repression, particularly against Muslims, those opposed to the crimes and exploitation of imperialism, the indigenous peoples, and the poor. The majority Conservative government is about to re-institute repressive “anti-terror” laws that expired in 2007, a move sure to please the U.S. “Republicrats”.
With U.S. forces overstretched in Iraq, Afghanistan and other such areas, the Canadian government and ruling elite have been stepping in to take up the slack. Billions of our dollars is being spent on military armaments, fighter planes, and new troops instead of schools, health care and job creation at home. The Canadian military is now planning to set up permanent military presence in up to seven countries including Senegal, South Korea, Kenya, Singapore and Kuwait, along with Germany and Jamaica. In our back yard, more billions are being spent on expanding the police forces and prisons, at a time when all experts agree that major crime is decreasing.
In Haiti, Canadian troops are clearly seen as “occupiers” and around the globe Canadian mining companies are confronted by people’s movements, especially indigenous populations, for their aggressive actions and destruction of the environment for short term profit. Some 80% of new mining operations world-wide involve Canadian companies. Canada is now home to the most polluting industrial operation in the world in the Alberta oil sands, oil which flows south to feed the U.S. war machine. Our government’s best friends are brutal regimes like Israel and Columbia, and Ottawa supports coup d’états in states like Honduras and genocidal attacks against the Tamil population in Sri Lanka. Now a Canadian military man has led the NATO attack and occupation of oil-rich Libya, a form of imperialist expansion referred to as “humanitarian imperialism” that is becoming more and more prevalent. All these actions come with almost no noise from the so-called opposition parties, including the New Democratic Party.
Enough is enough; we say no to Canadian imperialism, we say no to attacks on millions of innocent civilians by NATO and other imperialist groupings in the name of this false “war on terror”. We say no to what is in fact a war of terror without end. Almost ten years ago, one hundred and fifty thousand people took to the streets of Montreal, joined by hundreds of thousands of other protesters across Canada and around the globe in similar and related actions, during preparations for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. In the face of such mass mobilizations and resistance, the Canadian government was forced to back down from participating in that specific imperialist aggression.
It is time to build a mass anti-imperialist movement against the Canadian government’s new role as a front-line imperialist aggressor, war maker and occupier. ILPS-Canada signals its intent to work with all working and freedom loving people to expose, oppose and fight against imperialism, and particularly Canadian imperialism. However, we do not target just one element of Canadian imperialism, but expose and target clearly the systemic roots of this militarism and expansionism in Canada’s monopoly capitalist system.
We oppose the terrorists who took the lives of innocents in 2001, but we also firmly oppose the even bigger danger to the world’s peoples, the imperialist terrorists, including the government of Canada, who are destroying and endangering the future of the toiling people of the entire globe.
On this solemn occasion we remember those who died on September 11, 2001. ILPS-Canada says:
Down with Canadian imperialism!
Down with all imperialism!
Canada out of NATO!
Canada, withdraw troops and stop military involvement in Afghanistan, Libya, Haiti and other countries around the globe!
We stand for a world in which there is peace with justice and true democracy and freedom from all forms of exploitation and oppression.
ILPS-Canada Coordinating Committee, September 11, 2011
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