Year 2000 No. 55, March 24, 2000

Fifth Plenum of Central Committee of RCPB(ML) Takes Important Decision

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Fifth Plenum of Central Committee of RCPB(ML) Takes Important Decision

First Anniversary of NATO Bombing of Yugoslavia

Commemorative Rally – One Year after NATO Started Bombing

Vieques "Aid" Package Linked to Arrest of Protesters

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Fifth Plenum of Central Committee of RCPB(ML) Takes Important Decision

The Central Committee of the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist) recently held its Fifth Plenum on an enlarged basis.

The Enlarged Plenum took an important decision by resolving to adopt the report on The Millennium Press Project in the Context of Consolidating RCPB(ML) on the New Historical Basis. The participants in the Plenum further resolved that collectively and individually, they would become centres for the implementation of the decision.

The report to the Plenum further elaborated the thesis of the Party’s 3rd Congress on consolidating RCPB(ML) on the new historical basis and the features of the line of march to a new society. It put the work of the Party and its work to create the subjective conditions for revolution in the national and international context. The report brought out the logic and rationale of the Party's Millennium Project, which had been announced on January 8, when the book The Line of March to a New Society was publicly released, and demonstrated its necessity at this stage of the work. The report and the subsequent lengthy discussion on it put flesh on the bones of this important programme, and generated enormous enthusiasm for this very ambitious project.

The Enlarged Plenum was held in the context of the Party’s 21st anniversary and the 29th anniversary of Workers’ Weekly, and to mark the occasion, the proceedings of the Fifth Plenum concluded with a celebratory meal.

The full implications of the Enlarged Plenum will reveal themselves in the coming months in the work of the Party to organise the working class to lead society out of the crisis and to unite all who aspire to a new society along the line of march to a socialist Britain.

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First Anniversary of NATO Bombing of Yugoslavia

Today, March 24, is the first anniversary of the commencement of NATO’s bombing of Yugoslavia.

During the criminal aggression against Yugoslavia and since, the leaders of the big powers, from Bill Clinton to Tony Blair, have promoted the Hitlerite lie that they were acting in defence of humanity and human rights. This was a prexext to justify the unjustifiable. The US, as well as Britain, demonstrated that for such powers the principles of international law are there only to be flouted.

These same leaders claim a "moral imperative" to intervene. This "moral imperative" rests on the big lie that the peoples of the world are incapable of controlling their own affairs. This insistence on a "moral imperative" has since been developed by Robin Cook and others to the extent that they claim that there are "universal values" which should be imposed globally. Only the deepest reactionaries and medievalists dare speak of "universal values".

The imperialist powers’ contention for outright control of Europe which gave rise to the war in the Balkans is still intensifying, as a component part of preparing the ground for hegemony over Asia and other continents of the globe. Troops of the big powers still occupy Kosova and intervention is being stepped up by these powers throughout the globe, as with the genocidal sanctions against and the bombing of Iraq, the enlargement of the EU, the new "scramble for Africa", the claims of "human rights abuses" in China, the interference in South Asia, the bellicose threats against North Korea, and so on.

At the same time, it is important to realise that these big powers have feet of clay, they are not able to impose their dictate just as they please, but that the people and their struggles are an important factor in the world situation. The working class and democratic forces in Britain must step up their opposition to imperialist intervention and to British interference throughout the globe and to the chauvinism of the English bourgeoisie which attempts to line up the working class and people behind their aims. They must do this on the basis of their own strength and with the conviction that it is the people who are decisive in establishing peace. They must conduct their own struggles for their rights shoulder to shoulder internationally with all the peoples fighting in defence of their sovereignty and for a new society.

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Commemorative Rally – One Year after NATO Started Bombing

The Committee for Peace in the Balkans is holding a Commemorative Rally on the first anniversary of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia tonight, March 24, at 7.00 pm.

It is being held under the slogan: "One year after NATO started bombing – Speak out against NATO war crimes in Yugoslavia". The venue is Friends House, Euston Road, London NW1.

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Vieques "Aid" Package Linked to Arrest of Protesters

According to the terms of a special appropriations bill approved on March 9 by the US House of Representatives Appropriations Committee, the distribution of the aid package to the Puerto Rican island of Vieques depends on the removal of the group of protesters camped out on land there appropriated by the US Navy. The $9 billion supplemental appropriations bill includes $40 million in "aid" for Vieques, as well as the £1.7 billion earmarked for the so-called "war on drugs" in Colombia.

The $40 million for the residents of Vieques is part of an agreement reached between US President Clinton and the governor of Puerto Rico, Pedro Rosello. It is intended to resolve the long-running dispute over the use of a large segment of Vieques as a bombing range by the US Navy.

The legislation specifies that most of the aid "shall not become available until the Secretary of the Navy has certified" to the director of the Office of Management and Budget "that the integrity and accessibility of the training range is uninterrupted, and trespassing and other intrusions on the range have ceased". The money is scheduled to be spent on economic development projects, a health study and environmental protection on the Puerto Rican island, according to reports.

Jose Serrano, the only Puerto Rican on the House Appropriations Committee, voted against the bill. "The Appropriations Committee should not be involved in making decisions as to when protesters should leave that site," Serrano said.

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