Statement by the International Workers’ Unity-Fourth InternationalÂ
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Statement by the Internationalist Socialist Group (GSI-France)
On the night of 14 November there was a series of bombings in Paris, the capital of France. The victims number about 150 people. The terrorist attacks were carried out indiscriminately on the defenceless population, killing people in an artistic performance or in a football stadium. A reprehensible and unacceptable criminal action.
The socialists of the IWU-FI repudiate this terrorist action that pollutes and weakens the legitimate cause of the Arab peoples, especially of the Syrian or Palestinian people fighting against imperialism and its reactionary allies like Bashar al-Assad or the Zionist Benjamin Netanyahu. And because, once again, this will be used by French imperialism, by its government of social democrat Hollande, to strengthen the repression on its peoples and its youth.
The origin of this attack is the conflict in Syria and the repeated imperialist intervention of the so-called coalition against terrorism headed by the US and which France is part of, carrying out bombings of Syrian territory. In the same way as Russia and Iran do it.
The dictator Bashar al-Asaad came out to declare the French government is also responsible for what happened because it “endorses†terrorism against his “legitimate governmentâ€. This is false. Both Bashar as well as France and US imperialism have their share of responsibility for these attacks. Firstly, the government of Bashar al-Asaad is not “legitimateâ€, but a dictatorship which faces since 2011 a popular rebellion that was part of the “Arab Spring†began in Tunisia and Egypt. Since then he has been slaughtering his people with tanks, bombs and chemical weapons. With the open support of reactionary Putin it is indiscriminately bombing civilians opposing the dictator. Secondly, also France, England, Turkey and the US with their “coalition†bomb rebel areas, coordinating with Bashar and Russia, with the same argument to fight the “terrorism†of ISIS. That is, they all objectively hold Bashar or seek a negotiated solution with the dictator. As they have been discussing in Vienna and at the meeting of the G20 in Turkey.
In the war of Syria there are three fronts: 1) the one headed by the dictatorship al-Asaad, 2) the reactionary ISIS (Islamic State) and 3) the remains of the armed rebel people which had started the popular revolution of March 2011, which includes the Free Syrian Army (FSA) militia and various independent Kurdish brigades from Kobane and elsewhere. ISIS, which has claimed to be the author of the criminal attacks in France, is a splinter of Al Qaeda; it is an ultra-reactionary jihadist militia that was created in 2013 and funded in the beginning by oil and pro-Yankee monarchies Saudi Arabia, Qatar and by Turkey. It is suspected that Bashar let them run, even releasing many of its militants who were prisoners in his jails. They play the role of fifth column to defeat the popular revolt against Bashar with the project of creating a “caliphateâ€, i.e. a new dictatorship but of a theocratic type. Therefore their terrorist actions in France or elsewhere must be repudiated, because they are at the service of a reactionary cause and contribute to create even further confusion in the masses about who their real enemies are, i.e. imperialism, Russia and their agents such as Bashar and all the reactionary governments in North Africa and the Middle East, including, among them, Israel and also ISIS.
Now France, USA, Germany and the whole imperialism and its allies will want to present themselves as “victims†when in fact they are, historically, those most responsible for this debacle.
French imperialism has a long history of colonial violence in Africa. Now they are part of the coalition that systematically bombs Iraq and Syria. Along with Germany and the US, they support the warmongering policy of NATO. And they support the Zionist crimes against the Palestinian people. They are insensitive to the plight of hundreds of thousands of refugees coming to Europe to escape capitalist poverty and hunger and the wars they cause.
From the IWU-FI we repudiate, once again, these new terrorist attacks that taint the cause of peoples in struggle and objectively help imperialism to continue its policy of repression and bombings in Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan. Only the struggle of the peoples of the world will be able to end the imperialist aggressions and genocidal dictators like Bashar al-Assad.
We repudiate the attacks of the ISIS in France! Enough of Bashar al-Assad! No to ISIS! Stop the bombings by Russia, the US and France! Long live the struggle of the rebel Syrian people. Long live the Palestinian struggle! Full solidarity with the refugees!
International Workers Unity-Fourth International (IWU-FI)
November 14, 2015
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