Reckless Nuclear Pollution by British Government

Workers' Daily Internet Edition: Article Index :

Reckless Nuclear Pollution by British Government
Sellafield Radioactive Pollution 100 Times Higher than Thought
Britain Pressured over Radioactive Discharges
How Britain Reneged on Sellafield Discharge Pledge
Irish Government Anger over Suspension of Sellafield Court Case

Statement of Solidarity with Democratic People’s Republic of Korea

Intervention of the Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB) in the Meeting of the Communists and Workers Parties

Sellafield Radioactive Pollution 100 Times Higher than Thought

The pollution of the Solway Firth by plutonium from the Sellafield nuclear complex is 100 times higher than previously thought – and it could be moving northwards, it was reported on June 29 in an article by Michael Russell in the Scottish Sunday Herald.

A new study, to be published by University College Dublin, will reveal levels of plutonium in the sediment under the sea far in excess of those highlighted by the government's green watchdog, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa).

The researchers also discovered that, instead of staying trapped in the sediment, the plutonium was breaking loose and being carried north by currents. "What we found was in keeping with a high level of remobilisation," the study's main author, Julie Lucey, told the Sunday Herald.

Plutonium is one of the most toxic metals known, and even the tiniest amounts inside the body can increase the risk of cancer. Julie Lucey said that, along with another toxic radioactive isotope, americium-241, it can be kicked up by storms, trawlers and even minute changes in the acidity of seawater.

This challenges the official view, long held by Sellafield's state-owned operators, British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL), that heavy particles of plutonium sink to the bottom of the Irish Sea and are not disturbed. It means that the quarter of a tonne of plutonium dumped in the sea by Sellafield over the past 50 years will carry on contaminating the Scottish coast for many years to come.

The study was commissioned by the Scottish and Northern Ireland Forum for Environmental Research, of which Sepa and the Scottish Executive are members. It was supervised by former NATO consultant, Professor Peter Mitchell, and is due to be published within weeks.

Julie Lucey and her team collected samples of sediment on a research cruise around the firths of Solway and Esk last summer. When analysed, they turned out to be contaminated by up to 15,000 becquerels of radioactivity per kilogram from plutonium and americium-241. This compares with levels of plutonium recorded by Sepa in 2001 as part of the annual Radioactivity in Food and the Environment report showing levels of only 100-150 becquerels per kilogram in the Solway Firth.

Nuclear engineering consultant, John Large, who was in charge of hazard assessment during the recovery of Russia's Kursk nuclear submarine, said the study's findings were "staggering". He dismissed Sepa's assertion that radiation levels are higher deeper in the sediment. "Sampling from the surface is dodgy because there are always day-to-day changes due to tidal currents," he said. "This study suggests that plutonium is much more mobile that hitherto thought. It is an enormous finding and would suggest that the previous assessment carried out by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is totally wrong." John Large also urged Sepa to extend its monitoring programme to more northerly waters to determine how far the pollution had spread. Julie Lucey, from University College, said it was "very likely" that similar findings would emerge if samples were taken in the Minch, between the Isle of Lewis and the mainland.

The University College study is entitled Solid speciation and remobilisation of caesium, americium and plutonium in the northern Irish Sea and south west coast of Scotland. Levels of caesium, and radioactive technetium-99, were lower than expected. But technetium-99, a by-product of reprocessing spent nuclear fuel at Sellafield, is known to reach its highest levels in bladderwrack seaweed and lobsters, neither of which were sampled. Recently technetium-99 was also discovered at low levels in farmed Scottish salmon on sale in supermarkets.

Despite opposition by the British government to head off criticism at an OSPAR meeting in Bremen, Germany, on June 26, Britain was forced to accept the concerns of member states over radioactive discharges from the nuclear reprocessing plant at Sellafield. The dispute at OSPAR resulted from Britain’s failure to meet its commitments over the past five years to reduce radioactive discharges. The OSPAR Convention (Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic) deals with marine pollution of the North East Atlantic and North Sea. Member states are: Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the European Commission.

Five years ago in Portugal OSPAR Ministers agreed to "work towards achieving further substantial reductions of discharges, by the year 2000" and to "progressive and substantial reductions in radioactive discharges to achieve by the year 2020 close to zero concentrations in the marine environment above historic levels". The discharges from Sellafield have increased since 1998 and are set to double in the coming years.

The discharge of the radioactive waste technetium-99 (Tc-99) was, in particular, the subject of intense negotiation at the meeting. In the last week, after six months of prevarication, British Environment Minister Margaret Beckett was pressured into writing to the state-owned company BNFL to ask them for a nine-month moratorium on Tc-99 discharges. It is expected that research and development will take place over these months to see if technology is feasible to stop the discharges by March 2004.

"This decision may come back to haunt the UK", said Greenpeace's Simon Reddy at OSPAR. "The UK Government will be dreading March 2004. They either have to ensure the technology is in place or announce a resumption of the radioactive technetium discharges."

Britain only moved on this issue because a coalition of countries (Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Ireland, The Netherlands and Sweden) refused to allow Britain to go unchallenged. "The lack of progress in reducing discharges, due to the intransigence of the UK and, to a lesser extent, France, meant that this OSPAR meeting was not able to celebrate significant reduction in radioactive discharges to European waters," Reddy concluded.

At a meeting last month between the then environment minister, Michael Meacher, and his Norwegian counterpart, Borge Brende, the Norwegians had been told that discharges would not be halted. The new proposal reflects mounting embarrassment about Britain's isolation over Sellafield. The Irish government is already suing Britain over the plant's radioactive discharges. Norway and Ireland point out that the radioactivity accumulates in fish and lobster, threatening their fishing industries and the health of consumers. They are worried about the environmental consequences of the BNFL's plans to release 2000 cubic metres of Tc-99 into the sea between now and 2007. But the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs warned that BNFL and Nirex, the government's radioactive waste disposal agency, still had to find a way to solidify the waste for long term storage. Greenpeace and the Nuclear Free Local Authorities group denounced the offer because Britain would continue pumping other radioactive wastes – breaching a promise in 1998 to stop doing so. "This is a cynical attempt by the UK to distract attention from their failure to do anything for the last five years on overall discharges of radioactivity. In fact, it's going up," said Pete Roche, a Greenpeace spokesman.

Pete Roche, anti-nuclear campaigner with Greenpeace UK, writes in the Irish Times on May 19, that in 1998, when Joe Jacob, then Minister of State at the Department of Public Enterprise, attended the last ministerial meeting of the OSPAR Convention in Sintra, Portugal, radioactive pollution of the north-east Atlantic was high on the agenda.

Britain’s Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant was seen as the main culprit. The outcome of the meeting was hailed a success, and Britain’s Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, famously declared: "I was ashamed of Britain's record in the past but now we have shed the tag of the Dirty Man of Europe and have joined the family of nations."

However, Britain is in danger of acquiring the tag "Dishonest Man of Europe", writes Pete Roche, because of its attempts to claim progress when it has done nothing in five years to deal with the problem.

At Sintra, Britain committed itself to "progressive and substantial reductions of discharges, emissions and losses of radioactive substances". It was supposed to work towards further substantial reductions by the year 2000, and ultimately "close to zero" concentrations in the marine environment by 2020. Progress was to be reviewed after five years.

However, there is no progress to review, according to Pete Roche. In five years OSPAR has:

Failed to agree a "baseline" from which to measure whether reductions in radioactive discharges have actually taken place;
Failed to come up with a definition of exactly what "close to zero" means; failed to review the national plans on discharges presented by each member-state, which are supposed to be the core of the programme to meet the objectives;
Simply deleted the commitment to work towards substantial reductions or eliminations of discharges by 2000.

And all the time, discharges from Sellafield have been going up and are set to increase further over the next few years – 1998, 95.67 TBq; 1999, 123.12 TBq; 2000, 84.28 TBq; 2001, 136.61 TBq; 2002, 146.26 TBq.

Under the UK Strategy for Radioactive Discharges 2001-2020, discharges are likely to increase considerably over the next few years.

Britain and France (the only member-states with nuclear waste reprocessing plants) have actively been obstructing OSPAR's progress on radioactive discharges to ensure business as usual for nuclear reprocessing.

It has been clear from the outset from Britain’s national plan that the large increases planned in throughput for Sellafield's reprocessing plants will cause radioactive discharges to go up.

Discharge of Tc-99 will remain higher than in 1998 until it falls in 2006. Even then, overall discharge levels could remain higher than 1998 levels until 2014. The UK Strategy also allows Sellafield's newest reprocessing plant, THORP, to remain open until 2024, which means that Britain cannot possibly achieve "close to zero" concentrations in the environment by 2020, Pete Roche concludes.

A UN tribunal in The Hague has cut short a legal challenge by the Irish government to shut down Sellafield. This followed a major legal dispute over jurisdiction. The tribunal adjourned proceedings in early June until the end of the year to see if the European Court of Justice is instead the proper court to hear the action. The unexpected move followed four days of opening submissions by the Irish side, led by Attorney-General Rory Bray, who outlined fears over the radioactive discharges into the Irish Sea, lack of any proper environmental assessment of Sellafield's MOX plant, and terrorist attacks on shipments. The Irish Environment Minister Martin Cullen expressed disappointment at the decision on June 15, and said that he would continue to press for an end to "outrageous" radioactive pollution of the marine environment from Sellafield discharges, irrespective of the final outcome of court challenges. In his decision to suspend the case until December, the UN tribunal's president said there was "a serious difficulty" about the extent to which the points of law at issue fell within EU competence.

Just three days before Britain was due to open its case, the Permanent Court of Arbitration suspended hearings to await clarification from the EU on who had jurisdiction. The EU has been opposed to Ireland's legal action at UN tribunal level, believing it should adjudicate on the dispute. The sudden move followed appeals by the British government’s legal team to have the case thrown out on the grounds that the tribunal had no jurisdiction, and it was exclusively a matter for the EU. But the Irish team won an adjournment. According to the Irish Independent, the Irish Environment Minister launched a blistering attack on the British for allowing Sellafield pollution to continue to contaminate Ireland's marine environment, and warned that the Irish government would step up its fight, irrespective of the case's outcome. Martin Cullen declared: "There is no moral, environmental or economic justification for discharges into the Irish Sea."

He said that he would be meeting the Norwegian government at its invitation and that he planned to raise the Sellafield pollution at every possible forum. Defending the separate decision to vote against the EU's environmental liability directive, Martin Cullen said that while many of its measures were very worthwhile, it excluded nuclear discharges to the sea.

The following participants at this meeting of Communist and Workers Parties in Athens June 2003 express their solidarity with the government, party, people of the Democratic People s Republic of Korea, which are faced with imperialist threats and aggressiveness.

Tension is rising on the Korean peninsular creating an imminent danger to peace in the region. This is due to the aggressive designs and provocative actions of US imperialism that has divided the country since 1945.

We condemn imperialism s recent actions intended to sabotage the dialogue and reunification process between the DPRK and the south Korean authorities.

We note with growing concern the threats of US imperialism against other countries, which are deepening imperialism’s new world order.

We reaffirm our commitment to fight alongside the global peace movement against all imperialist aggression and in support of independence, sovereignty and the right of any state to defend its way of life and social system.

Athens, 20th June 2003

The Parties:

Communist Party of Albania, Algerian Party for Democracy and Socialism, Communist Party of Armenia, Communist Party of Australia, Democratic Progressive Tribune Bahrein, Workers Party of Belgium, Communist Party of Brazil, Communist Party of Britain, New Communist Party of Britain, Bulgarian Communist Party «Georgi Dimitrov», Communist Party of Canada, Colombian Communist Party, Communist Party of Cuba, Communist Party of Bohemia Moravia, Communist Party in Denmark, Communist Party of Denmark, Communist Party of Egypt, Communist Party of Greece, Hungarian Workers Party, Communist Party of India, Communist Party of India (Marxist), Tudeh Party of Iran, Communist Party of Israel, Workers Party of Korea, Socialist Party of Latvia, Lebanese Communist Party, Popular Socialist Party of Mexico, Party of the Communists of Mexico, New Communist Party of the Netherlands, Communist Party of Norway, Romanian Communist Party, Union of Communist Parties-CPSU, Communist Party of Russian Federation, Communist Workers Party of Russia - Party of Communists of Russia (RKRP-RPC), Communist Party of Slovakia, Communist Party of Peoples of Spain, Sudanese Communist Party, Communist Party of Sweden, Syrian Communist Party, Syrian Communist Party, Communist Party of Turkey, Communist Party of Ukraine, Union of Communists of Ukraine, Communist Party, USA, Communist Party of Vietnam, New Communist Party of Yugoslavia

Athens, June 19-20, 2003

José Reinaldo Carvalho

Vice-president, responsible for International Relations

Dear Comrades,

The Communist Party of Brazil greets all the present delegations and especially the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Greece for holding this seminar, an event of high political and ideological meaning with an outstanding influence on the articulation of communist and labour parties all over the world, on the co-ordination of their actions, on stimulating its strengthening and promoting unity. Events like this have historical repercussions. They are part of a prolonged process of recovery that the communist and labour movement is presently undergoing after the defeat resulting from the downfall of socialism in the majority of countries where it was being developed. Thanks to the initiative of the KKE, our parties have the opportunity to carry out a fruitful exchange of ideas that will support concrete action. The Communist Party of Brazil values highly such meetings and reaps important benefits from them. From the reflections developed here, we extract important inspiring political indications of movements along with the masses and broad political sectors with which it is indispensable to work – in a united-front perspective – for the cause that unites the peoples in the present sombre period humankind is going through: peace. Therefore, it seems adequate to persist in what we were doing much before we took other steps. Our preoccupation in the present stage of building our movement and our unity has more to do with delivering results than with the form of organisation. Rigidity, precipitation and artificialism may lead us to political isolation and, instead of furthering unity and strengthening communist and labour parties, it could curb advances. The Seminar of Communist and Labour Parties that is held every year in Athens under the auspices of the Greek comrades, with a character of consultation, without rigid or hierarchical levels, seems to be the most adequate form to further the efforts for strengthening the political and ideological unity and for promoting the activity of international solidarity among our Parties.

The subject we approach here could not be more opportune: the struggle for peace.

The great global-scale mass demonstrations for peace and against the imperialist war and the broad movement condemning the US attack on Iraq is one of the greatest events of our time. Its true meaning will be understood with historical time and its results will be felt in many other political and social struggles. We have the clear impression that the movement for peace tends to acquire permanence and will be at the core of the political actions carried out by the communist and labour movement for a long time. In our reflections and analyses, February 15 and March 15 of the present year will always be an important reference. In that moment the peoples wrote an unprecedented page of contemporary history. They were the protagonists of a transcendental episode, they inaugurated a new moment in the anti-imperialist fight, they set the milestone of a new movement, they unleashed a force that was up till then refrained and latent, with an internationalist character that is consistent with proletarian internationalism. The joint and simultaneous action of broad popular masses under the flag of peace is a sign of a new time, a kind of internationalism of the peoples, of the forces fighting barbarism, with a flexible form and revolutionary – although imprecise – meaning. We think that this is an objective progressive trend as the oppression resulting from capitalist globalisation is generalised and war of aggression is the only way imperialism can find to face its crisis.

The mobilisation of the masses against the imperialist war is an important factor in the presently evolving political scene and it has a strategic meaning. It contributes decisively to isolate the US imperialism and stimulates the creation of poles of contestation regarding the US hegemony. The fact that millions took the streets to wave the flag of peace has influenced several governments that opposed war and also the contestation that took place within the United Nations.

We are witnessing a great phenomenon – waving a flag of struggle that is both broad and radical, the political movement of the masses is once again playing a leading role in our time. It turns the struggle for peace into a revolutionary flag to be waved, a flag able to gather broad sectors around it, able to unleash refrained energies, to mobilise broad popular contingents, to define fields.

The struggle for peace signals for the creation of a broad international front against imperialism. Should it be conducted well, that struggle may take proportions never witnessed in any other historical period. It is a movement that involves not only the political and social organisations of revolutionary character, but also a broad range of sectors with diversified origins, constitutions and orientations. Exclusivism, hegemonism and preconceived points of view will have a harmful effect on the movement and will only contribute to divide and isolate it. In that sense, the World Social Forum is the convergence point for movements of diverse orientations and opens the way for the mobilisation of broad masses. Despite the hegemony of social-democratic sectors and other points of view that are different from and even antagonistic to the ones the communists have, the WSF presently furthers the struggle for peace and contributes objectively to the formation of the anti-imperialist front.

In the struggle for peace, one cannot underestimate the importance of the political and diplomatic position of democratic and progressive governments that, in their own constitutions, represent broad coalitions of political forces. In that sense, the position of the Brazilian government under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s administration is noteworthy. Even facing a very hard economic situation under the conditions and constraints imposed by international financial organisations, it has been able to maintain a foreign policy aimed at defending national sovereignty and the integration of Latin America, at the same time making clear and dignified statements against the imperialist war. The correct consideration of those new possibilities is essential to mobilise the masses, to strengthen and amplify the unity of popular forces, an effort that must be made in all countries while taking into account national peculiarities.

Moreover, it is important in building the front against the belligerent threats of the imperialist North American superpower and in exploring judiciously the contradictions among the imperialist forces – evidently without fostering illusions of alliances made with an imperialist force in order to fight another one. The important thing is to have discernment to distinguish the main target in the fight.

With that same sense of broadness and taking into consideration the concrete conditions of the struggle, we think that the fight for peace is closely knitted to the defence of international legality, of the self-determination of the peoples, of the juridical order, of the collective system of security and of multilateralism in the political order, which is the contrary to hegemonism. Despite all its limitations, it is important to fight for strengthening the UN as a field for the exercise of multilateralism.

That understanding of the need and broadness of the movement for peace derives from the characterisation we make of this grave moment and of the very serious threats looming over humankind.

We are facing the most brutal imperialist offensive against sovereign peoples and nations. The danger of a new totalitarianism, a new kind of fascism, looms over the world. Convinced of its predestinations, including by divine design, the leading core of US imperialism has designed a strategy of imperial rule that may have devastating effects to humankind.

The United States makes its moves in the international scene while prioritising its interests, what imposes all sorts of restrictions to the sovereignty of other countries and collides with the national interests of all nations that fight for room for self-determination or aspire to become regional or global powers. Based on the sensation of superpower and on its undisputed military superiority, including nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, the United States develops its new strategy of national security, the so-called Bush Doctrine that is supported by three pillars: to combat the terrorism and national states that grant shelter to terrorists and/or develop weapons of mass destruction, considered "outlaw states" – the unrestricted action in the name of the essential interests of the North American superpower and use of military force.

That obstinacy in prioritising the US interests and the repetition of the slogan "America in the first place" took the White House not only to an unprecedented militarisation and to the fulfilment of belligerent actions, such as in the cases of Afghanistan and Iraq, but also to the practice of an aggressive and voracious foreign policy that can be called unilateral only for diplomatic reasons. Convinced that the "infinite war against terrorism" by means of successive "preventive" wars against "outlaw states" is the only means of granting the US interests, the Bush administration keeps on maintaining the world under threat, even after the war against Iraq. Alternatively, new targets are being mentioned: Syria, Iran, North Korea and Cuba. Those strategic objectives are corresponded by a foreign policy that ignores the norms of international law, the self-determination of the peoples, the collective security system and also belittles multilateral organisations. The US wars have ruined the multilateral system, aggravating the world’s instability, creating a chaotic and threatening situation to peace and the security of all sovereign peoples and nations.

On the other hand, the evolving political scenario reveals the unprecedented international isolation of the United States and the open contestation of its policy. The loneliness with which Washington declared and waged war against Iraq, its blow against the UN and the disdain shown to the position of countries such as Germany, France, Russia and China reveal the intrinsic fragility of the political position of the United States. That is one of many signs that – paradoxically, in a moment when it shows the greatest power – the political leadership of the United States is declining and that its imperial rule is being supported more and more exclusively by its military supremacy. Paradoxically, the United States revels its vulnerabilities while is leaving the war as winner

As a result, a new geopolitical scene emerges with consequences to United Nations’ diplomacy and multilateral system, which may be marked by important realignments. Strictly, the struggle for a new international order is mandatory. After being considered irrelevant and irresponsible by the United States and having its fundamental documents turned into empty words, the UN will never be the same again. And after violating the international norms, making use of brute force despite the general disapproval, the US leadership will no longer be carried out with the same tranquillity as before. The isolation of the United States will correspond to the growing aggressiveness of its imperialism and the world will undergo a period of severe turbulence and disquiet.

Middle East and Central Asia, the stages to the last US military actions, are regions where sovereign countries are turned into protectorates by means of military occupation in the name of imperialist interests of controlling the oil fields and ruling regions of strategic importance to the exercise of international power and are still at the epicentre of those turbulences – and all signs indicate that they will remain in that situation for a long time.

The US occupation in Iraq is not being easy. The fear in the eyes of the soldiers, the massacres and atrocities they are committing are showing that probably the cost of old Mesopotamia transformation into a US military protectorate will be very much expensive. It was relatively easy to unseat Saddam Hussein and militarily occupy the country. Practically, there was no resistance by the regular Iraqi army. But the facts are showing that the US occupation is not going to be easy as we can tell by the irregular demonstrations of resistance and the high number of violent incidents. Up till now, the United States was not able to convince the Iraqi people of the "freeing" character of its occupation action.

In the same region, the instability in the relation with Syria, Saudi Arabia and Iran and especially the insurmountable difficulties to "draw the map" and follow a "path" that leads to peace for Israelis and Palestinians reveal the permanence of explosive factors. The perspective is not one of mitigation, but one of aggravating problems.

In Latin America, a different process of political and social struggle resulting in the strengthening of the struggle against North American imperialism is taking place. Despite the difficulties implied in political transitions aimed at consolidating new democratic forces in the government in countries such as Brazil, Venezuela and Ecuador, there has been a doubtless advance in the continent’s progressive forces. They are living a new political situation. The next stage will be characterised by the US offensive to impose the FTAA and the resistance of the countries and peoples to that neo-colonialist action.

The contradictions among imperialist forces and the unstable political situation are also related to the international crisis of capitalism. All main countries are showing decreased economic activity without perspectives of growth. All forecasts of international organisations point to stagnations and, in some cases, to recession. War did not stimulate economic activity. Much to the contrary. The estimated growth of the US economy was of 2.2% to the present year, but the first quarter resulted in only 1.6%. Starting from the United States, the world’s largest economy and the core of international life, a crisis of vast proportions is being irradiated. There is a perspective of world stagnation, of decreasing demand and of decreasing growth rates in the world’s most important economies. Also in the case of dependent and averagely industrialised countries such as Argentina, Mexico and Brazil, to mention only the paradigmatic cases, the perspective is one of bankruptcy resulting form the application of neo-liberal policies.

The US economic decline is a historical process that started three decades ago. That decline determines its political, diplomatic and military actions. It is the background to the present international political crisis, to the trend towards militarisation, to the contradictions among imperialist forces. The world’s largest economy is also the country with the largest foreign debt, 7 trillion dollars (more than 60% its GDP), and with a record current account deficit of about 500 billion dollars and a similar deficit in its trade balance.

A new geopolitical scene that may be characterised by new realignments emerges from such a situation of belligerent threats and economic crisis. There is an urgent need for a new international order, since new poles are being formed in a long-term geopolitical dispute.

The disagreement between, on the one hand, Germany and France, and, on the other hand, the United States regarding the latter’s aggression to Iraq will repeat in other episodes and will be present in new international crises. Great imperialist interests are at stake in the relations among those powers, interests that are often confronted and that eliminate the illusions regarding the existence of a power in the globalised world that is able to clear the contradictions and conflicts between imperialist forces.

In such a complex background of international conflicts, one cannot lose sight of the strategic role of socialist China, which economically and militarily strengthened national power will may show its influence on the events as a progressive factor, favouring the peoples.

In the evolution of the international situation and in the trend of strengthen of continental and half-continental countries, as Brazil, Russia, India (despite the administrations of the latter two) as the possibilities which are being opened to new partners and alliances are new phenomena to be take in account and analysed with a deep sense of observation, that may act as countertendencies to the hegemonic US unilateralism.

The present international situation is complex to the peoples of the world and especially to communist parties. There are no readymade or paved paths to follow. Instead, what we have ahead are impenetrable rocky crossroads. We think that the great task is to resist and find the most adequate ways in each country to an accumulation of forces by means of taking safe steps that allow us to reach victories in the struggle for democracy, peace, national independence and social progress, having always presented the perspective of socialism.