Newcastle Demonstration and Rally - No to Privatisation

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Newcastle Demonstration and Rally - No to Privatisation

Over 1,000 in Brisbane Oppose War on Iraq

Good Friday Agreement:
Renegotiation Is Not an Option

The Prague NATO Summit

On Saturday, November 2, around 1,000 trade unionists and progressive people took part in a demonstration and rally in Newcastle organised by the Public Sector Alliance against the privatisation of public services. A leaflet distributed across the region calling on people to come to the demonstration pointed out that postal services are under threat, as well as council services, education and health care which are being privatised. The leaflet continued that rail services continue to collapse as profit is put before need and a protest movement is growing across Europe against corporate greed and privatisation, racism and the threat of war it brings.

The demonstrators marched from Times Square through the streets of Newcastle to Northumbria University headed by a banner Our City is Not For Sale. Also, prominent on the demonstration was another large banner, No War For Oil. The march was headed by a contingent of striking conductors and station staff in RMT and a contingent from the Fire Brigades Union. These were followed by local authority workers in Unison and GMB; teachers and lecturers in NATFHE and AUT; health workers in Unison; postal workers in CWU; members and supporters of the Tyneside Stop the War Coalition and contingents from the National Union of Students. The demonstration was very warmly received by the people of Newcastle who lined the route.

When the demonstration reached the University of Northumbria people streamed into the large Students Union Hall lining the walls with their banners before taking part in the rally. The rally which lasted for one and a half hours was one of the largest working class rallies to take place in Newcastle in recent years and significantly marked the developing unity and increased opposition of public sector workers to New Labour's Third Way programme. Noteworthy too was the increasing involvement of youth and students in the movement.

Chairing the rally Hilary Wainright made some thoughtful comments to further the unity and encourage people to think through how the movement can be advanced. She pointed out that coinciding with the demonstration and rally was the launching of the pamphlet, sold at the rally, "Our City is Not For Sale - The Impact of national, European and global policies". The pamphlet is produced by Newcastle City Council Trade Unions and in opposing Labour's modernisation programme puts forward an alternative modernising strategy which includes in its first three proposals increased public investment, revitalisation of public services, refocus on social justice, social needs and redistribution and radical democratisation and accountability. Hilary Wainright called on those attending the rally to get involved with the Public Sector Alliance whose next meeting is planned at the Unison offices in November.

The rally showed that the opposition to Tony Blair's Third Way programme to put public services in the service of paying the rich, play the racist card and impose the anti-social agenda of the global companies through interference and war is growing. That there is an alternative was reflected in many of the comments and contributions of the speakers, which were warmly applauded throughout the rally. Speakers included: Paul Mackney NATFHE, a speaker from the NUS, Derek Simpson amicus, Billy Hayes CWU, Gary Jarvis No Sweat, Heather Wakefield Unison, a Newcastle City councillor, a speaker from the FBU, a speaker from the RMT, and John Edmonds GMB.

More than 1,000 people took to the streets in Brisbane on Sunday to express their opposition to war against Iraq. The rally, involving peace groups, unions, politicians and ethnic groups, was held at Brisbane's Roma Street forum and was followed by a march through the city.

Rally spokesman Brian Sketchley said that an attack on Iraq is a frightening prospect. "The people of the region need to sort out the problems of that region and they need to be left alone to do that," he said. "Certainly any interference from the US or Britain with Australian support is just going to destabilise the region further."

Brian Sketchley said that Sunday’s protest was part of an ongoing anti-war campaign. "Basically it was just a public demonstration of the significant and growing numbers of people who are opposed to Bush's plans for war in Iraq and Howard's support of it."

Queensland Green Party convenor Drew Hutton addressed the rally. He said that people understand the difference between opposing terrorism and going to war with Iraq. "People aren't stupid, they can understand the difference between opposing terrorists, making sure terrorists don't come into our country or don't attack our citizens, and they see a war against Iraq as being something the United States is going on according to their own agenda," he said.

Sinn Féin Chairperson Mitchel McLaughlin speaking in Dublin on Saturday said that there was now a "serious concern that the British government were setting the scene for a renegotiation of the Good Friday Agreement".

Mitchel McLaughlin said, "The British government have said that they were going to implement the Good Friday Agreement in full. The Irish government has a joint and co-equal responsibility for this. We have sought from both of them an implementation plan to achieve this objective. They so far haven't produced one.

"There is now a very serious concern that the British government are attempting to set the scene for renegotiation at the behest of the leaders of unionism. This is not an option within the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. And it is certainly not within the gift of the British government or the unionists to unpick that Agreement.

"Last week we engaged in a series of meetings with both governments on the issue. This week Gerry Adams will travel to the US where he will meet with Ambassador Richard Haas to again push the case for the full and faithful implementation of the Agreement."

Statement of the Communist Youth Union of the Czech Republic

A North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) summit will be held in our capital city of Prague from November 20 this year. The Communist Youth Union (KSM) strongly protests against the organising of this summit.

NATO began as a US-led group of mainly West European countries which aimed to pose a military threat to the countries of the eastern bloc and the developing world. Its other no less important task was to protect western ruling classes against the people of NATO’s own countries. So when, for example, the workers and youth of France in 1968 decided to take their destiny into their own hands, President De Gaulle, then on his way out, was prepared to call on NATO troops based in Germany at Baden Baden to intervene militarily in his country.

The official propaganda tells us that NATO’s priority is to uphold and extend democracy. But this is pure hypocrisy. Turkey, for example, has always been a member of NATO, but it is notorious for its long list of human rights violations, torture and massacres of prisoners and the slaughtering of ethnic and national minorities. It was also Turkey which provoked armed conflict with Greece, another NATO member state, and it still occupies Cyprus. Other NATO members also included Salazar’s fascist Portugal, Greece under the rule of the "black colonels" and Great Britain, which uses terrorist methods to suppress freedom in Northern Ireland.

NATO’s aggression against Yugoslavia clearly showed its true nature. Its priority targets were not the Milosevic regime’s troops but infrastructure – factories, roads and bridges, and civilians (including children). Along with the military occupation of strategic parts of the former Yugoslavia, this is still the cause of a deep political, social and military crisis throughout the whole region.

The Communist Youth Union believes that, because of its imperialist character, NATO can never defend the interests of the ordinary people – the workers and youth. NATO does not in any way guarantee human rights and freedoms, not even for the citizens of its own member countries. It has legitimised terrorism, murders, invasions, putsches and embargoes as instruments of its policy.

One of the items on the Prague summit’s agenda will be NATO’s enlargement to include other states. This is fully in line with NATO’s strategic plans and will mean the creation of new dividing lines and a new iron curtain in Europe in the 21st century, increase security risks and oblige member states to locate nuclear and other weapons on their territory in the event of military conflict.

The Prague NATO summit will be held at a time when all preparations will have been completed for a new act of imperialist aggression against an Iraqi people which has already been pauperised by the economic embargo. It is they, and not Saddam Hussein, who will be the real victim of this further round of Bush’s "New War". The Communist Youth Union will work to ensure that demonstrations during the Prague NATO summit say another clear international NO! to a new war of aggression against Iraq.

The Communist Youth Union believes that, in today’s flood-stricken Czech Republic, the billions of crowns being spent on the summit are needed elsewhere. The people suffering from the effects of the August catastrophe need new homes and not a summit for George W Bush and his warmongering pals!

At present, because of this year’s floods, the transport situation in Prague, the summit’s venue, is in deep crisis. The NATO summit will cause a real collapse of Prague’s transport system and enormous problems for most Praguers. As well as the anti-militarist organisations, many of the Prague City Transport workers’ trade union branches have drawn attention to this and warned against it.

The Communist Youth Union is for a peaceful Europe which is part of a peaceful world and a system of collective security with equal rights for all of its members. The Communist Youth Union fully supports disarmament and the elimination and banning of all nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.

The Communist Youth Union is aware that peace and disarmament is in direct conflict with the very essence of capitalism, which profits from militarisation and attempts at imperialist domination and exploitation. The Communist Youth Union believes that peace and a world free from the threat of war can only be achieved in a socialist society. So all of its activities in the struggle for peace are directed against both NATO and all the forces which NATO represents.

Zdenk Štefek, Chairman KSM

Milan Kraj a, First Vice-Chairman KSM

Ludvík Šulda, Second Vice-Chairman KSM