IV414 - July 2009

The headway made by globalised capitalism, especially in Latin America,
has set this region in the eye of the hurricane of social protest and
the convergence of different anticapitalist struggles.

Right after the June 12 elections in Iran, the Campaign for Peace and Democracy issued a statement expressing our strong support for the masses of Iranians protesting electoral fraud and our horror at the ferocious response of the government.

There is a broad consensus on left—from those who actively campaigned on his behalf, through those who sat out the election, to those of us who supported the independent candidacies of Cynthia McKinney and Ralph Nader—that the election of Barack Obama represents an important opening for anti-capitalists and radicals in the US.

In his January 2009 speech commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, President Raúl Castro, known popularly as Raúl, repeated Fidel’s oft-quoted 2005 speech to University of Havana students: “This nation can self-destruct… those who can’t destroy it are them [the U.S. imperialists]; we, yes, we can destroy it and it would be our fault.”

China’s thirty years of nearly uninterrupted high growth has encountered great challenge as global economic crisis has hit China’s export hard. Since China’s trade as a percentage of GDP is as high as 70%, the export-led growth mode has practically ended. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is aware of this.

The recent coup in Honduras is part of a growing trend for the oligarchy in Latin America to resort to sabotage and vioence against popular movements and left leaning governments.

At dawn on Sunday, June 28 the Honduran army invaded the Presidential Palace. The putschists produced a false letter of resignation by President Zelaya and designated Roberto Micheletti as president.

The two “traditional” Communist parties — the CPI and the CPI-M — suffered serious defeats in the Indian parliamentary elections which ended on May 13, 2009 and which were won by the Congress Party. Given the place the CPI-M has today among the parties originating in the pro-Soviet or "Eurocommunist" current this question has an international dimension.

On June 5, 2009, world environment day, Awajun and Wami defenders of the environment were massacred in Peru.

One week after the coup against President Manuel Zelaya, the popular mobilizations continue and could defeat it. International solidarity must be broadened. Once again, Latin America is at the centre of the international news. Once again, unfortunately, a military coup d’etat affects one of its countries: Honduras.