Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières
Messages of solidarity
1. Friends of South Asia USA
2. Fourth International
3. Communist Party of India (ML)
4. Communist Party of Bangladesh-ML
5. The Committee of Progressive Pakistani-Canadians
6. Socialist Alliance Australia
7. Nouveau Parti anticapitaliste (NPA), France
8. Scottish Socialist Party
9. Solidarity Party of Afghanistan
10. Professor Chaman Lal (JNU) Delhi
11. Swedish Left Party
12. Labour Education Foundation
13. Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM)
14. Gefont Nepal
15. The Workers’ International Network (UK)
16. Left Unity (UK)
17. Japanese Revolutionary Communist League (JRCL)
18. Socialist Alternative Australia
19. Sammilita Samajik Andolon (United Civil Society Movement) and the Jangibaad Birodhi Mancha (Forum Against Religious Intolerance and Fanaticism) Bangladesh
20. Vame Handa (‘Left Voice’) Sri Lanka
21. The Dutch Socialist Party (SP), Netherlands
22. Asian-American Network Against Abuse of Human Rights (ANAA)
23. Solidarity (USA)
Friends of South Asia
Dear Comrades of the First Federal Congress of the AWP,
Friends of South Asia would like to congratulate the Awami Workers Party (Pakistan) for holding its First Federal Congress in Islamabad on 27-28 September 2014. In the chaotic political situation prevailing in Pakistan, Awami Workers Party (AWP) is holding its first federal congress to highlight the real issues being faced by the 200 million people of that country. The congress is taking place in an environment where millions of people are fed up with the televised squabbles of the parties representing the ruling classes; abusing the language of the Left, raising false hopes, and then crushing them, because their actual agenda has nothing to do with their revolutionary rhetoric.
We are sure that the AWP will continue its effort in consolidating the Left in Pakistan. This important Congress will be a major step towards creating true representative of Peasants, workers, women, national and religious minorities and other oppressed people in Pakistan.
Friends of South Asia (FOSA) is a California, United States-based social and political activist organization. Founded jointly in 2001 by Americans of Pakistani and Indian origin, FOSA activism has touched upon issues inside South Asia, as well as outside South Asia such as those relating to Israel and United States policy in Cuba and Venezuela among others.
Friends of South Asia has been involved with several campaigns inside India and Pakistan, including the Lawyers movement against the dictatorship of General Musharraf in 2007, Pakistani military actions in Baluchistan, Pakistan, and the 2006 bombings in Varanasi, India, as well as support for victims of the Bhopal disaster, advocacy for the civil rights of immigrants to the United States, support for the Right to Information movement in India, opposition to the 2002 Godhra riots, and the proposed expansion of reservations (quota-based affirmative action) in higher education for members of Indian castes defined as Other Backward Classes.
FOSA has also specifically focused on highlighting art and activism linked to social change movements in Pakistan, including issues like peace with India, ending the Indo-Pak nuclear race, opposition to censorship and
ending religious intolerance against the Ahmadiyya Muslim minority who have been victims of pogroms in Pakistan.
Friends of South Asia (FOSA) pledges support for the AWP and congratulates the leadership, members and supporters for organizing the First Congress.
IJAZ SYED
Fourth International
25 September 2014
Message of solidarity from the Fourth International with the first Congress of the AWP
Dear comrades,
At the time of your first congress, we find it important to communicate our complete solidarity to you.
We have just been informed that Baba Jan was condemned, with eleven other people, by an antiterrorist court at the life imprisonment. We are deeply shocked by this iniquitous judgement. The “crime” of Baba Jan is to have supported populations struck by devastating floods, in the territory of Gilgit. At the time, our international movement mobilized to win his release prison, where his life was in danger. It is necessary to be mobilized again!
The progressive forces in Pakistan have to face many dangers: systematic use of the antiterrorist laws against social movements, trade unionists, the left; legal or extra-judicial recourse to the charge of blasphemy; exactions by the hired men of the possessing classes; a state apparatus capable of the worst repression; fundamentalist religious sects nuns using assassinatios and terrorism… –all of this in a region of wars and conflicts, stoked up notably by the intervention of the American imperialism.
You fight with courage for the rights of workers, peasants, women, the oppressed, young people, the victims of climatic catastrophes or earthquakes…
In this difficult combat, international progressive forces must bring all their solidarity to you.
It is with hope that we had learned of the creation, in 2012, of the Awami Workers Party, with the regrouping of Awami Party, the Labour Party and Workers Party, to build a left alternative in a country in crisis like Pakistan. Two years later, the AWP is holding its first regular congress: we wish you every success in its work.
We also wish in the future to develop the best relations of solidarity with your party.
Receive, dear comrades, our internationalist greetings ,
Philomena
For the Bureau of the Fourth International
Communist Party of India (ML) CPIML
Dear Comrades,
It gives us great pleasure to know that the newly formed Awami Workers Party of Pakistan is holding its First Congress in Islamabad on 27-28 September. We appreciate your endeavour to unite and strengthen the Left movement in the difficult conditions of Pakistan. We are sure the First AWP Congress will successfully carry forward the process and help you expand and consolidate the movement of the Pakistani people for a better tomorrow. We wish you every success in this direction.
The May 2014 Lok Sabha election outcome saw a marked ascendance of rightwing conservative and majoritarian forces in India with serious implications for the future of democracy and pluralism. The democratic opinion In India and the CPI(ML) and other fighting Left forces are fully alive to this threat and determined to defeat it, and recent by-election results from different parts of the country clearly indicate that the Indian people strongly resent the prospect of communal strife and authoritarian rule in India.
We in CPI(ML) look forward to close cooperation with the AWP and the entire progressive democratic opinion in Pakistan to carry forward the shared agenda of the people of India and Pakistan. We cherish peace in the subcontinent and friendly ties with all our neighbours so we can devote undivided energy and attention to our common struggle against global capital and the geo-political design of US imperialism and against our respective ruling elites and their disastrous policies.
Your congress is taking place on the birthday of Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh who remains not only the most unifying and inspiring icon of the anti-colonial struggle but also an embodiment of our revolutionary communist dream. We wish the First AWP Congress every success.
Long live India-Pakistan people’s friendship.
Down with imperialism and imperialist war.
With warm revolutionary greetings,
Comradely,
Dipankar Bhattacharya
General Secretary
CPI(ML)
Kavita Krishnan
Solidarity Message from Communist Party of Bangladesh-ML
We, the Communist Party of Bangladesh-ML feel very excited to hear that Awami Workers Party holds its first congress in Islamabad, Pakistan on 26/27 September 2014.
We explicitly expressed our strong and deep solidarity with comrades of Awami Workers Party who are fighting for genuine change in Pakistan for the people’s cause. We feel firm oneness at your fighting spirit against capitalism, patriarchy and religious fundamentalism and so on.
We appreciate your long and continued efforts to join forces and build left alternative in Pakistan society through galvanizing and catalyzing the different sections of people . We have been following for long your dedication to the people’s cause and commitment to the food sovereignty. Your efforts to give the party an intellectual mass base from the class viewpoint is also striking.
We hope you will focus on organic intellectuals who could contribute to the transformational and revolutionary change in society, and that the question of historic bloc for a hegemonic state apparatus based on people’s consent will be highly prioritized for the interest of peasants, workers and toiling masses.
We strongly believes that AWP will be able to establish very strong counter proletariat-peasant hegemony with genuine power socially, politically, culturally, economically and psychologically to the bourgeoisie hegemony in Pakistan. Hegemonic power is finally a response to the imperialism which has no alternative to dying someday.
Finally we wish the congress a great success. No matter we are not physically present in the congress at this moment, we are always with you in the struggle ideologically. Your struggle is our struggle from the international point of view. Power is finally with the people belonging to you. And we are the people everywhere in the world with the fight-back for a common goal, a dignified and humanitarian society which is a must and possible.
And long live international solidarity!
Badrul Alam
Convener
Communist Party of Bangladesh-ML(CPB-ML)
Committee of Progressive Pakistani-Canadians
The Merger of Three Left and Democratic Parties
Committee of Progressive Pakistani-Canadians, Statement, Nov 15, 2012
The Committee of Progressive Pakistanis of Canada welcomes the announcement of the merger of three left and democratic parties, namely the Awami Party, Labour Party and Workers Party, into the unified Awami Workers Party (People and Workers Party) of Pakistan.
We live in a world beset by capitalist and imperialist domination, unending wars, growing poverty and inequality and social injustice. In the specific case of Pakistan, national oppression – especially of the Baloch people - fundamentalism, discrimination against religious minorities and women, authoritarian rule, hostility toward India, servility to American policies and rank exploitation have been the bane of its existence since its creation in 1947. While the ruling alliance of the feudal/capitalist elite, the army and high-level bureaucracy is to blame for this state of affairs, opposition to its injurious rule has been weakened by disunity amongst left forces.
Many mergers have taken place previously; the CPPC hopes that this one will be long lasting, indeed permanent. The pooling of organizational strength by these three parties into one will, we hope, lead to a more effective fight-back against the ills that plague Pakistan. While the Committee of Progressive Pakistani-Canadians and the Awami Workers Party work in different situations and circumstances, the people of both Canada and Pakistan have many problems in common and, hence, the aims of the CPPC in this country are somewhat similar to those of the AWP in Pakistan.
We wish the AWP success in its stated aims of struggling consistently against imperialism and for the genuine rights of the people and workers of Pakistan and in achieving a democratic, secular, egalitarian, peaceful, prosperous and, eventually, a socialist society free of foreign domination.
We further believe that in Pakistan, as in Canada, a common front in which all genuinely democratic, progressive, socialist and communist parties and forces cooperate with each other will be helpful in achieving the above goals.
A message of solidarity from The Committee of Progressive
Pakistani-Canadians to the Awami Workers Party, Pakistan.
Dear Brothers and Sisters, Friends and Comrades,
The Committee of Progressive Pakistani-Canadians was formed in the early 1980s with a dual objective:
1) to extend solidarity to the democratic forces in Pakistan battling against military rule and
2) to work on socio-economic and political issues affecting Pakistani-Canadians in particular and working people in Canada generally.
The values that we share with the Awami Workers Party are:
– Secularism – i.e. where state and religion are separate.
– The necessity of a voluntary federal system where all constituent nations have equal rights and own and control their natural resources.
– Equality of men and women and of all citizens regardless of religious belief or ethnicity.
– A truly democratic system in which there is social justice; where people come before profits.
– Peaceful relations with neighbouring and other countries, without being subservient to foreign powers.
– Opposition to the domination of the world by imperialism and its instruments like the World Bank and the IMF; its wars and exploitation of less developed countries.
At the founding of the AWP we had sent you our statement of Nov. 12, 2010 welcoming the merger of the three left parties with wishes of every success for the future. It is with great pleasure that we extend our warmest solidarity to you on your first convention. May you, and all democrats, progressives, socialists and communists everywhere meet with success in establishing a just social order and a peaceful world.
Omar Latif
National Coordinator
Committee of Progressive
Pakistani-Canadians
Dated: September 25, 2014
The Socialist Alliance Australia
September 26, 2014
Greetings to the 1st congress of the Awami Workers Party Pakistan
Dear Comrades,
The Socialist Alliance in Australia sends its warmest comradely greetings to the first congress of the Awami Workers Party of Pakistan to held on September 27-28, 2014 in Islamabad. We wish you a powerful and successful congress and rally.
Members of the Socialist Alliance have followed with great interest and admiration the progress of the unity process between the Awami Party, Labour Party and Workers Party which finally merged in November 2012 to form the Awami Workers Party (AWP).
It was an historic achievement to unite major parties in the left in your country and one that sets a great example to the left around the world. The Socialist Alliance itself was formed in 2001 out of a left unity process in Australia but we are very conscious that this unity process is still unfinished.
The success of your left unity process inspires us to continue our efforts to unite more of the left in our own country. Both our parties share a deep commitment to socialism, international solidarity and mutual exchange of experiences and lessons from the struggles we are engaged in.
In this regard, we want to offer a special message of solidarity to the AWP in relation to the shocking news that your leading comrade Baba Jan has just been sentenced to life imprisonment by a so-called anti-terrorism court – simply for standing up for the rights of the people of occupied Gilgit Baltistan. We will, once again, be adding our voices and efforts to the international campaign to free Baba Jan and the other comrades who have been so unfairly jailed.
Here in Australia, the working class and other oppressed sectors of the population are facing many serious attacks from a conservative Liberal-National government. This government is trying to slash hard-won gains in workers rights, social welfare, public health and public education. Tens of thousands of people have mobilised several times this year against these attacks. Now we are facing new attacks on our civil rights in the form of new so-called “anti-terrorism” laws. These laws are increasing the powers of surveillance of the public by the secret police, increasing their powers of “preventative” detention, the immunity from criminal prosecution of the secret police, the criminalisation of visits to so-called political “hot spots”, restrictions on media coverage of “anti-terrorist” police actions, among others.
Criminally, the Labor party opposition has supported the government in these anti-democratic attacks, just as it has supported the racist, inhumane and illegal mistreatment of refugees coming to Australia from oppressed and war-devastated regions all around the world, including from Afghanisatan and Pakistan.
At the same time, since the Australian government joined the new US imperialist-led war coalition bombing Iraq and Syria, an unprecedented propaganda attack has begun on the Muslim section of the Australian community. In the last weeks, dozens of Muslim households around Australia have been raided, some 15 men have been detained but only one charged with alleged terrorism offences.
Then, just a few days ago, an 18-year-old Muslim youth of Afghan refugee background was shot dead outside a police station in Melbourne. It is far from clear what exactly happened but the capitalist media in Australia has branded the youth a “terrorist” and whipped up racist and Islamophobic sentiment to even higher levels.
As a result many Muslims in Australia are now facing daily abuse and assaults. Mosques have been vandalised with racist graffiti and at least one Muslim school has been attacked by a man wielding a knife. Muslim women who are identifiable because they wear the hijab, niqab or burka are taking the brunt of this abuse as they go about in public. As you would expect, the Socialist Alliance and other progressive forces are rallying to the defence of the Muslim minority under attack. Solidarity actions are being organised around Australia.
We must defeat this racist upsurge with working class solidarity and unity in struggle against the real oppressors, the capitalists and imperialists who have plunged our world into permanent war, unprecedented inequality and put it on a deadly course towards catastrophic climate change.
Only a successful socialist revolution around the world that brings the capitalism to its longdeserved end will avert a descent to barbarism and ecocide.
We salute the AWP’s first congress and an important step in our shared struggle for a socialist future and we wish you the best in the challenging struggles ahead.
Long live socialism! Workers of the world unite!
Comradely
Peter Boyle
on behalf of the Socialist Alliance (Australia
Nouveau Parti anticapitaliste (NPA), France
Solidarity Message by Nouveau Parti anticapitaliste (NPA), France
at the occasion of the First Congress of the Awami Workers Party (Pakistan)
Dear Comrades,
We are sending to you from France our warm-hearted greetings of solidarity.
We are following with great interest the construction of your new organization spurred by the regrouping of forces of the Awami Party, the Labour Party and the Workers Party.
We know that you have to struggle in extremely difficult situations, facing the permanent threat of fundamentalist sects, a repressive State apparatus, the goons of the powerful elite, in a region destabilized by the intervention of US imperialism.
We are aware of your involvement towards textile workers, peasants beneath the heel of big landowners and the army, communities gravely affected by humanitarian disasters (earthquakes, devastating floods …), women fighting for their rights, young people, oppressed communities, human rights defenders who have become the targets of repression…
We have just learned that Baba Jan, with 11 other persons, was sentenced to life imprisonment by an anti-terrorism court. We had participated in the campaign in his defense when he was imprisoned which permitted his release on bail. We now join you in the fight against this iniquitous judgement.
Alain Krivine
Nouveau Parti anticapitaliste (NPA), France
Scottish Socialist Party
The Scottish Socialist Party sends its warmest greetings to the first Congress of your party and wishes it every success for the future. Its continued growth is evidence of the forward march of socialism all around the world.
In Scotland we have had the recent referendum on independence was narrowly lost yet we believe the achievement of 45% vote for yes was a great triumph and that an independent Scotland is closer than ever.
The Scottish Socialist Party played a transformational role within the campaign and has been transformed in the process.
The SSP has more than doubled its membership, branches and activities. Since the referendum 1500 people have applied to join confirming the party’s status as the main force for socialism in Scotland.
Please send a report on your Congress which we will circulate and again we wish you every success.
Yours in solidarity
William Bonnar
International Secretary
Scottish Socialist Party
Solidarity Party of Afghanistan
First of all on behalf of SPA, I congratulate all AWP members for holding the first congress and I wish you success for the event.
Mr. Saidmahmood Hamrazm, member of leading committee of SPA, will participate in the event. He will arrive to Islamabad tomorrow (26/09/2014) around 17:00.
Please provide us with hotel address and contact number.
With best regards,
Siar
Professor Chaman Lal (JNU) Delhi
I extend my warm fraternal greetings and best wishes for the success of first Congress of Awami Workers party
Regards
Chaman Lal,
Professor-Coordinator, Centre for Comparative Literature/Centre for Punjabi Language, Literature&Culture/Professor-Incharge, CUP, Library
Central University of Punjab, Bathinda.
Professor(Retired), JNU, New Delhi
Former President JNU Teachers Association(JNUTA)
Former Visiting Professor
Centre for Language Learning(CLL)
Faculty of Humanities and Education(FHE)
University of West Indies,St. Augustine Campus
Trinidad&Tobago(West Indies)
Swedish Left Party
Dear Friends,
On behalf of the Left Party of Sweden we would like to extend our warmest greetings to the 1st Congress of the Awami Workers Party Pakistan 27-28th September 2014.
We were very glad to receive news of your 1st Congress. We hope these victories will strengthen your party in building opposition to the right-wing agenda of the Pakistani government.
The recent passing of the fundamentalist movement supported by Imran Khan constitutes a very serious breach of basic human rights, marking a particularly ominous example of the attempts to undermine the democracy. The Awami Workers Party has an important role in keeping the flag of democracy and equality flying high, demanding human rights for all, men and women.
In Sweden we had general elections last week. The red-green parties (the Social democrats, the Green Party and the Left Party) didn’t gain enough votes to obtain a majority, but at least surpassed the right-wing alliance. The big winner was the an ultra-right, racist party the Swedish democrats, with almost 13 per cent of the votes.
The Social democratic party has decided not to include the Left Party in the new government, but instead wants to cooperate with some of the right-wing parties. This would make it very difficult to steer Sweden away from its current bourgeois agenda, even though Sweden would be led by a social democrat. We intend to put a stop to this in the general elections of 2018 and make sure the left side can reach a majority of the votes.
With our best regards and hopes of a fruitful Congress!
Ann-Carin Landstr?m
In charge of International policies for the Central Committee of The Left Party of Sweden
Hans Linde
Member of Parliament and Foreign spokesperson for The Left Party of Sweden
Labour Education Foundation
Dear Comrade,
On behalf of Labour Education Foundation, I would like to congratulate AWP on holding its first congress on 27, 28 September 2014 in Islamabad. This is a defining moment in recent times for left political forces in Pakistan. We believe that AWP is the only force of left politics in Pakistan which has potential to become a mass party.
Working class of Pakistan is facing huge challenges; rise of right wing political force, ever increasing control of military establishment over foreign policy decision making, increase in violence against religious minorities, suppression of women, suppression of national movements, increasing religious sectarianism and illusions created by so called new political forces.
In these times the left politics in Pakistan has to come up with a clarity for working among working class especially among workers of formal and informal sectors. I believe that having a very clear strategy for working together with trade unions and workers’ groups is very essential for AWP’s growth in future.
I am very much hopeful that Party will be able to discuss in detail and decide its strategies to challenge the capitalist system and this congress will lead us all to a democratic socialist revolution in Pakistan.
Long live working class of Pakistan!
Long live Socialism!
Comradely,
Director
Labour Education Foundation
Lahore, Pakistan.
Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM)
Solidarity Message to the First Congress of Awami Workers Party Pakistan
Greetings from Malaysia!
Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM) would like to express our solidarity and congratulations to the Awami Workers Party (AWP) Pakistan for having your first delegate congress on 27-28 September 2014, in Islamabad.
The formation of AWP in November 2012, as the result of the merger of 3 left-wing parties, has been a great effort of the left in Pakistan to unite and strengthen the political forces of the left, in order to confront capitalist onslaughts and to build an alternative for working people and the poor. The left unity is crucial to challenge effectively the current capitalist rule and all sort of crises arose from the savage capitalism, as well as reactionary forces which taken the advantage of these crises to gain influences.
Hence, your congress is important to discuss and draw the party’s future direction to advance the struggle of working class and the poor in Pakistan, as well as to strengthen left alternative.
The breakthrough and success of the struggles of the Left in Pakistan will be an inspiration for the Left elsewhere including us in Malaysia. We are connected in our aspiration to fight against capitalism, imperialism and religious fundamentalism, and the effort to build a socialist alternative.
We wish you to have a fruitful discussion in this meaningful congress, and hope you can communicate the outcome of the congress to us soon.
In solidarity,
Choo Chon Kai
on behalf of
Central Committee of the Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM)
International Bureau
Socialist Party of Malaysia / Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM)
Gefont Nepal
Warm greetings
Personally I extend my strong solidarity sentiments to AWP and best wishes from my side for grand success of the first Congress. Hope AWP will lead the future of Pakistan.
I will ask my colleagues of GEFONT Department of Foreign Affairs to send solidarity message. I will forward it to UML also.
Best regards
Umesh Upadhyaya
General secretary Gefont
Nepal
The Workers’ International Network UK
Dear Comrades,
The Workers’ International Network sends warmest comradely greetings on the occasion of your conference.
Every day, around the world, capitalism reveals that it has nothing to offer but war, repression, poverty, communal slaughter and environmental destruction. Marx’ warning that the alternative to socialism is barbarism is literally the nightmare imminently facing humanity. Throughout the world, workers are awakening to the urgent need to create a new society. From Athens to Cairo to Santiago to Seoul to South Africa, on every continent, men and women workers everywhere are beginning to rise to their feet again.
More than ever the situation cries out for the creation of a worldwide party of the working class. Every day, in every continent, we see new evidence that such a party is straining at every nerve to materialise. Mass communications and the “information revolution” have drawn the world together and a new global consciousness has arisen. For the first time ever, the proletariat is a majority of the world population.
The Awami Workers’ Party can shine a beacon to workers throughout Asia and the world. It is one of several new workers’ parties that are striving to mobilise the forces that can change the world. A new world workers movement is being born. We extend to you our solidarity and comradeship.
Forward to socialism!
Comradely greetings,
Roger Silverman
International Coordinator Workers International Network (WIN)
Left Unity (Britain)
Solidarity greetings from Left Unity the new party of the Left in Britain
Left Unity is the new party of the left in Britain – established to offer an alternative to the main parties’ agenda of blaming the poorest for society’s problems and destroying the welfare state. We are pleased to hear of your success in uniting disparate sections of the opposition to neo liberalism into a unified, democratic party We share these tasks in in the UK. We understand some of the stresses and strains this involves. By uniting the existing activists we hope to recruit a new generation fresh to the struggle and to enthuse the old hands to stay with the fight and gain new energy
The forces for socialism are precious indeed in this time which sees both reaction and revolt across the world
We salute especially your women comrades who carry the struggle to the dark heart of patriarchy and capitalism. We applaud your commitment to the needs of the children of Pakistan.
We share your commitment to working class struggles in the political arenas and your support of trade unions in the workplace and for those working in the home.
Poverty, Austerity, Restructuring and economic crisis are problems for all of us. The struggles to defend the environment and to feed our peoples are joint struggles too.
We send you best wishes for your meeting and hope that you are able to maintain your work in safety, recognising the complex and difficult situation you face with a pro capitalist government under attack from the right wing, from fundamentalists and from sections of the military.
We share your wish for peace, an end to drone attacks and for constructive settlements in Kashmir and other national territories within Pakistan.
Best wishes for good discussion good organisation and for the ongoing struggle. We look forward to hearing reports of your conference
Felicity Dowling
Principal Speaker
Left Unity
Japanese Revolutionary Communist League(JRCL)
Greeting Message to 1 st National Congress of Awami Workers Party
Dear comrades,
Japanese Revolutionary Communist League(JRCL), permanent observer organization of the Fourth International, send greeting message to the first congress of Awami Workers Party.
JRCL is very small organization with less than one hundred membership. But we are actively involved in not only trade union struggle against very harsh neoliberal offensive from capitalists but also against warlike policies of prime minister Shinzo Abe ‘s LDP(Liberal Democratic Party) government. Now Japanese imperialist under leadership of prime minister Abe are ready to join U,S led warfare in not only Asia Pacific region but also South Asia and Middle East.
Organizing mass struggle against nuclear plants,We also have concentrated our effort to support victims of tsunami and nuclear accident in Fukushima.
We are very much encouraged by AWP’s struggles against political and military oppressions and your brilliant initiative challenging reactionary religious fundamentalist offensive targeting democratic rights, particularly women’s rights.
We believe that AWP’s national congress will gain big success.
In solidarity with yours.
Kenji Kunitomi
on behalf of Japanese Revolutionary Communist League
Socialist Alternative in Australia
September 23, 2014
Message to the Awami Workers Party on the occasion of its first national congress
We send you comradely greetings on the occasion of your first congress.
We note that the Awami Workers Party is the most active force fighting for popular democracy and an improvement in the lot of the working masses in Pakistan. We note your steadfast commitment to socialism.
We wish you well in your campaigns against the various reactionary forces jockeying for power in Pakistan, whether civilian or military. We commend your struggle for land reform, for workers’ rights, for women’s rights and an end to imperialist meddling in Central and South Asia.
In Australia we too are facing attacks by a reactionary government which is attacking the working class with a harsh austerity budget. It is currently trying to divide opposition to its budget by mounting a big propaganda campaign against the so-called “Muslim terrorist threat”. In the name of “anti-terrorism”, it is introducing draconian attacks on civil liberties and has sent hundreds of federal police into Muslim communities to arrest and intimidate this sorely oppressed minority community.
The government is also using the so-called “terrorist threat” to send armed forces back into Iraq, including SAS soldiers and fighter bombers to fight alongside the US. In reality, our government is responsible for the chaos currently unfolding in northern Iraq as it was part of the original US-led occupation which wrecked that country. Shamefully, the opposition Labor Party is backing the government in its reactionary attacks on Muslims and its decision to send the military back to Iraq.
Despite these attacks, Socialist Alternative members have been in the forefront of fighting the government’s austerity budget, with our student members in particular repeatedly making headlines for their audacious protests against government ministers. We have also stood alongside the Muslim community and spoken out against the repressive security laws now being introduced. We also played a leading role in the recent demonstrations across the country against Australian support for Israel’s massacre in Gaza. For all these reasons, we have ourselves come under attack from the federal government, university authorities and Zionist agents.
We wish you well in your deliberations at your congress and trust that you are able to build and grow in the coming 12 months.
In the name of international solidarity, we would be pleased if you were able to attend the Marxism 2015 conference which will be held in Melbourne next April.
In all our struggles we must never forget that whatever rights we win are only temporary so long as capitalism rules the world. So our struggle is for socialism, a world run by the working class.
Long live international workers’ solidarity! Long live the fight for socialism!
Tom Bramble
On behalf of the National Executive, Socialist Alternative
23 September 2014
Sammilita Samajik Andolon (United Civil Society Movement) and the Jangibaad Birodhi Mancha (Forum Against Religious Intolerance and Fanaticism) Bangladesh
On the ocassion of the First Congress of The Awami Workers’ Party, Pakistan, your friends from the Sammilita Samajik Andolon (United Civil Society Movement) and the Jangibaad Birodhi Mancha (Forum Against Religious Intolerance and Fanaticism) sends you their heartiest felicitations.
We hope that your party will work in tandem with other civil society initiatives in South Asia so that fundamentalism and obscurantism are forced to go on the back foot and they are contained all over South Asia.
We would also like to felicitate the people of Pakistan for the constant battle that they are waging so that the fundamentalist forces retreat from our societies and so that democracy can have a firm and stable hold in Pakistan’s society. Like your organisation, we would like to see the governments and the people of all of South Asia to come closer.
Sincere Regards
Tariq Ali
Vame Handa (‘Left Voice’) Sri Lanka
Vame Handa (‘Left Voice’) in Sri Lanka, sends our revolutionary greetings and fraternal wishes for the inaugural congress of the Awami Workers Party in Islamabad between 27 and 28 September 2014, that will evaluate its perspectives and strategies; take important organisational decisions; and elect a new federal leadership for the next two years.
Amidst the ravages of US and NATO imperialism, religious fundamentalism, the military, and capitalist governments of industrialists and landlords financed by international institutions; the oppressed masses in Southasia daily endure the terrorism’ of hunger, illiteracy, ill-health, insecure and exploitative employment, and gender-based violence.
In this bleak situation, Vame Handa has been encouraged by the consolidation and expansion of the Awami Workers Party since 2012, which now reaches a milestone in its first delegate conference, elected by its members across the length and breadth of the multi-national state of Pakistan.
We are proud of your principled commitment to secularism, women’s liberation, the rights and freedoms of national and religious minorities, and to uprooting the capitalist system and its reactionary social institutions and practices; while striving to internalise ideological and organisational norms that uphold the emancipative promise of socialism.
By not taking the opportunist road of aligning with one capitalist party against another; or of being seduced by populist movements and their military backers; or of an infantile ‘anti-imperialism’ that surrenders to reactionary religious movements, the Awami Workers Party sends a resounding message of audacity and hope to the Left across South Asia.
Inspired by your example, and that of others from around the world, Vame Handa is an initiative of Fourth Internationalists in Sri Lanka for the dual purpose of contributing to the struggle for a mass social and political movement against neoliberalism and Sinhala-Buddhist nationalism; and to promote the regroupment and renewal of the Left across diverse political traditions and generations, while united in our vision of a non-patriarchal, non-exploitative, democratic and eco-socialist future for humanity.
Lal Salam to the 2014 Congress of the Awami Workers Party!
Long Live the Awami Workers Party! Long Live Socialist Internationalism!
Colombo – 24 September 2014
The Dutch Socialist Party (SP), Netherlands
The Dutch Socialist Party (SP) is very pleased that the Pakistani socialists have joined forces.
In our opinion it is very important for Pakistan as well as for the region as a whole that your efforts to establish a new party will be successful. We are fully aware of the difficulties you’re facing, as well as the effort and courage needed to make this new initiative work.
On behalf of the Dutch Socialist Party (SP) I wish you a very successful and fruitful congress.
With kind regards,
Hans van Heijningen,
General Secretary SP
mob: 00316-22101830
Solidarity Message from Asian-American Network Against Abuse of Human Rights (ANAA)
We would like to congratulate the Awami Workers Party (Pakistan) for holding its First Federal Congress in Islamabad on 27-28 September 2014. In the chaotic political situation prevailing in Pakistan, Awami Workers Party (AWP) is going to hold its first federal congress to highlight the real issues being faced by the 200 million people of the country.
The congress is taking place in an environment where millions of people are fed up with the televised squabbles of the parties representing the ruling classes abusing the language of the left, raising false hopes and then crushing them, because their actual agenda has nothing to do with their revolutionary rhetoric.
We are sure that the AWP will continue its effort in consolidating the Left in Pakistan. This important Congress will be a major step towards creating true representative of Peasants, workers, women, national and religious minorities and other oppressed people in Pakistan.
ANAA mission is to increase awareness about the existence of human rights abuses in Pakistan by educating Pakistanis and the international community about the existing discriminatory laws and practices in Pakistan. To initiate public debate about the means to eradicate discrimination and social injustice against women, minorities and other disenfranchised groups in Pakistan through organization of educational seminars and conferences designed to increase awareness. To help improve the human rights situation in Pakistan, an integral concern for the international community through collaboration with national and international groups engaged in the promotion of human rights in Pakistan. And to expose the legal, social and psychological obstacles, ostracism and alienation faced by victims of sexual violence in Pakistan and to confront the issue of sexual violence against women through publication of newsletters, research reports and public seminars.
Asian-American Network Against Abuse of Human Rights (ANAA) pledges its support to the struggle of oppressed and congratulates the leadership, members and supporters for organizing their First Congress
Solidarity (USA)
Greetings to Awami Workers Party
Dear comrades:
The U.S. socialist organization Solidarity extends comradely greetings to the Awami Workers Party on the occasion of your vitally important congress. We are writing on the very eve of U.S. president Obama’s speech in which he will announce that the United States has entered a new war in the Middle East, this time against the so-called “Islamic State.”
We are well aware that the people of Pakistan are faced with the combined scourges of brutal fundamentalist terror in the name of Islam, sharp political repression and the threat of dictatorship, and imperialist intervention – and that all of these make each other even worse. Now, these mutually reinforcing threats confront the people of almost every country from North Africa and Nigeria to the India-Pakistan subcontinent.
In our own country, the United States, the population is both sick of war – there is no support for putting U.S. “boots on the ground” anywhere – yet also incensed by the horrific atrocities reported daily from Iraq, Syria and elsewhere. There is certainly a danger of increasing attacks on Muslim and Arab American communities, both by racist fanatics and by government “homeland security” forces.
In standing for the rights of working people and against the forces of fundamentalism, dictatorship and imperialism, your party is carrying out a struggle of crucial importance for all of us. We send you our wishes for a most successful congress and a powerful boost to the struggle for peace, democracy and human rights for the people of Pakistan and the world.
Comradely regards,
The Political Committee of Solidarity
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