IV337 - January/February 2002

The Bush war on terrorism has taken a new turn. It is possible that a real war could erupt between the two nuclear powers, Pakistan and India. It is not going to be one way traffic as was the case of the American Afghanistan war.

IN his televised address yesterday, President Musharraf has come out strongly against religious fundamentalism and terrorist violence. He has banned Pak-based militant organisations like Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad and has once again called for a negotiated political settlement of the Kashmir problem. We call upon the Vajpayee government to make a positive response and engage Pakistan in a serious and comprehensive dialogue.

On December 5, 2001 elections to Sri Lanka’s 12th Parliament concluded - marred by unprecedented violence that tragically claimed the lives of at least 50. The single worst incident was on the day of the election itself, when ten Muslim youth accompanying ballot boxes to the counting station were pursued and then gunned down by hirelings of a senior Cabinet Minister.

The advances made by the left in the Argentine elections of October 14, 2001, along with new successes in the university elections and the achievement of the first united demonstration with a common programme for the crisis, confirms that the left, in the form of a coalition, may be beginning to take shape as an alternative focus in the current crisis.

Thirty dead, more than 439 injured, 3273 arrested, has been the price of a popular rebellion by the traditionally unrecognised, ordinary people of Argentina. For the first time in our history, a democratically elected government was toppled, not by a military coup d’etat but by the direct action of the working and popular masses.

THE European Union’s intergovernmental summit, held in the Brussels suburb of Laeken on December 14-15, 2001 did not mince its words. The "democratic deficit" has been replaced by the "democratic challenge".

WITH more than 120,000 demonstrators over three days the Laeken counter-summit showed the continuing strength of opposition to neo-liberalism and capitalist globalisation.

The European Union, which is itself a motor of globalisation, is in full complicity with the US government. After some initial hesitations, it is participating in the war with its own objectives as a secondary imperialist power.

The introduction of the euro has generated its first political crisis. Italy’s foreign minister Renato Ruggiero, has resigned following anti-euro pronouncements by several ministers in the Berlusconi government.

ON January 5, 2001 over 150 people spent an afternoon in Conway Hall, London celebrating the life of Charlie van Gelderen who died last October after over 60 years in the Fourth International.