• International Women’s Day 2004:
  Women must fight alongside the workers, peasants and all the oppressed, with the aim of becoming the malik of India!

• Massive All India General Strike:
  Working class asserts its right to strike as part of the mounting struggle against privatisation, liberalisation and the attack on rights of labour

• Two years after the Gujarat genocide

• Interim Budget of the NDA Government:
  Serving the big capitalists while promising what the people want

• Iraqi people will decide their own destiny

• Violation of sovereignty sought to be justified in the name of "war against terror"

International Women’s Day 2004:
Women must fight alongside the workers, peasants and all the oppressed, with the aim of becoming the malik of India!

Conditions and causes of women’s oppression

In spite of the growth of the Indian economy, in spite of enactment of laws for the protection of women, and several years of implementation of government programs for their empowerment, women of India continue to face discrimination and oppression on a daily basis. The birth of a female child is not met with the same celebration as the birth of a male child in most parts of the country; in many cases, the female child is not even allowed to be born. The sex ratio remains below 950 women per 1000 men, one of the lowest in the world. The proportion of women who die during childbirth is among the highest in India (see chart below).

Indian women remain victims of patriarchy, of domestic violence and sexual assaults, and of medieval barbaric customs and practices including sati and the caste system. They are victims of state terror, of communal and other forms of organised political violence unleashed by parties in power. They are faced with growing insecurity of life and livelihood, ill health, illiteracy and grinding poverty. Women in the labour market face super-exploitation and denial of basic labour rights.

Why is it that the conditions facing Indian women remain so terrible, in spite of the fact that all the parties in power swear by the noble objective of women’s empowerment and have even accommodated women as Chief Ministers? Why do the numerous legal changes and government programs fail to produce any significant results? Is it only a matter of the politicians and parties in power being corrupt and self-serving, or is there a deeper reason? Why do women remain powerless and excluded from the decision making process, in spite of being the largest section of voters?

The problem of the oppression of women has deep roots in the socio-economic system, and in the political institutions that maintain this system.

The women of India face multiple forms of oppression because Indian capitalism has grown and continues to grow by preserving every form of oppression from the past, including caste based oppression and bonded labour. It has grown through an alliance of the big capitalists of India with foreign capital and with the big landlords and feudal forces at home. It has today reached a stage when the monopoly business houses of the Tatas, Birlas, Ambanis and others collaborate and compete with foreign monopoly capitalists to dominate and plunder the whole of India, and seek to expand their markets and spheres of influence abroad.

The oppression of women is rooted in the capitalist system, which is growing in India alongside the preservation of the remnants of feudalism. It is this capitalist system that is responsible for the preservation and reproduction of the oppression of women, of dalits, of different nations, nationalities and tribes within India, alongside the exploitation and oppression of the working class and peasantry. The political institutions are designed to keep decision making power in the hands of the propertied classes who have a stake in keeping this rotten economic system alive.

Capitalism is a system of production that is geared towards the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a propertied minority, based on the exploitation of the labouring majority. Capitalism continually produces and reproduces the relationship of subordination of those who work, to those who own the means of production as their private property. Within the family, it reproduces the relationship of patriarchy and the subordination of the woman to the male ‘head of the family’.

Capitalism has reached its highest and final stage of imperialism. It has become a parasitic system that perpetuates all forms of oppression in society, old and new, because this serves the interests of the monopoly capitalists to reap the maximum rate of profit.

Even in the most developed capitalist countries, such as in the United States, women occupy a secondary position in society. In the US economy, women are largely concentrated in so-called ‘women’s jobs’ that are geared to serve male bosses. They are employed on the shop floor when there is an economic upturn and the capitalists want to expand production. They are paid less than their male counterparts. They are the first to be thrown out of their jobs whenever there is a downturn in the capitalist economy.

Only a very small minority of elected representatives in the US and other advanced capitalist countries are women. Crime against women, including domestic violence and attacks on the streets, are extremely high and on the rise. So are prostitution, the commercialization of sex and the degradation of the female human form to a commodity.

The big capitalists in our country are dreaming of making India into an imperialist big power like the United States. In pursuit of this dream, they want a free hand to intensify the exploitation of all those who labour. They want the working men and women to be available for super-exploitation, to be hired and fired at the will of the minority of propertied men in society, and deprived of all rights. This is the essence of their program of privatisation and liberalisation, which they call economic ‘reforms’.

The tendency of capitalism to convert all social products into commodities is currently being stretched to its ultimate limit in the name of these economic reforms. Big monopoly corporations, Indian and international, are demanding that everything – from drinking water, irrigation, electric power, health and education – must be converted into means for delivering the maximum rate of private profit in the hands of the monopolies.

The main ruling parties, both the BJP and the Congress Party, are implementing what the big monopoly capitalists want. When out of power, such parties pretend to oppose this ‘reform’ program. But their performance in power, both at the centre and in various states, has shown that both the BJP and the Congress are committed to one and the same program of the ruling class.

The economic program of the big bourgeoisie is being accompanied by the political tactics of inciting communal hatred, organising communal violence and unleashing state terrorism in the name of fighting individual terrorism. These criminalised political tactics, which have become the trade mark of both the Congress Party and the BJP, are aimed at diverting and dispersing the forces of resistance to capitalism. They are aimed at eliminating all opposition to the drive of the monopoly capitalists towards their imperialist ambitions. They are aimed at turning people against each other rather than against their common enemy. Women are among the worst victims of communal violence and state terrorism, as the Gujarat 2002 genocide, the November 1984 massacres and the numerous other atrocities including army rule in Kashmir and the Northeast, have starkly revealed.

The economic program of market oriented reforms, the criminalised politics of diversion, division and repression, and the tactics of the ‘ballot and bullet’ – all of this together constitute the anti-social offensive of the ruling bourgeois class. The aim of this offensive is to block the path to social progress and revolutionary transformations, so as to keep alive and further expand the space for capitalism and imperialist plunder.

Capitalism as a system has become outdated and parasitic. The shrinking minority that benefits from this system is keeping it alive at an enormous cost to society. The cause of the emancipation of women requires that women play their role in the movement to halt the anti-social offensive, and to uproot capitalism from the soil of India. This movement can be carried out successfully only by the working class in alliance with the peasantry, women and youth of all nationalities and regions within India.

The most important lesson is that the way forward for the women’s movement lies in joining hands with the working class and all the oppressed, to fight with the aim of becoming the masters of Indian society, dislodging the capitalist class from this position.

Unite to defeat the anti-social offensive of the bourgeoisie!
Fight with the aim of uprooting capitalism from the soil of India!

Women’s Movement in India

Women have played an important role in major social movements in Indian history, including the Bhakti movement and the anti-colonial movement. The movement of women emerged as an important political force in its own right, especially in the 1980s. Women raised their voices against state terrorism, against communal violence and the criminalisation of politics. They united on the basis of their common interests as women, cutting across language, caste and party barriers. They expressed their stand on the major issues confronting society.

Indian women asserted that they had inviolable rights, as human beings and as women, on account of the special role they play in the reproduction of human life. They exposed the fact that the so-called ‘socialistic pattern of society’ that had been championed by Nehru and his daughter had failed to guarantee the rights of Indian women.

The ruling bourgeois class manipulated the discontent of the masses of Indian people with the consequences of capitalist growth under socialistic labels and slogans such as "garibi hatao!". Using the mass discontent with this hybrid system and deceitful slogans, the bourgeoisie dumped the ‘socialistic pattern’ in the 1990s and adopted the mantra of globalisation through liberalisation and privatisation. Narsimha Rao and Manmohan Singh claimed that the aim of their New Economic Policy was to lift India out of the crisis. Women were among the first to call this bluff and express their resolute opposition to this so-called reform program, based on the notion that the state has no responsibility to anyone excepting big business interests.

Working women have been active in the growing struggle against privatisation and its consequences – such as the job losses and increasing insecurity of livelihood among industrial workers, bank employees, teachers, health and other public service workers. Women’s organisations and prominent women personalities have resolutely opposed the privatisation of education and health care. They have opposed the cut backs in the Public Distribution System and the withdrawal of state support to agriculture in the name of trade liberalisation.

Following the communal violence that followed the destruction of Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, women were active in roundly condemning both the BJP and the Congress Party, as being responsible for the criminalisation and communalisation of politics. They have continued to play an active role in the struggle against state terrorism and communal violence to this day.

The events of 1992 and the gruesome tragedy of Gujarat in 2002 have starkly revealed the inhuman and anti-social nature of the political arrangements in India. Parties in power act as powers unto themselves, accountable to nobody in society except to the business interests that finance them. The women’s movement has recognised the necessity for the political empowerment of women. It has recognised that women need power in order to change their intolerable conditions.

Women gained the right to vote when the 1950 Constitution of the Indian Republic was adopted, incorporating universal adult franchise. However, the right to vote has not meant any say in deciding the course of India or the orientation of her economy. Under the party dominated system and process of elections and ‘Cabinet rule’, decision making powers are concentrated exclusively in the hands of the trusted agents of the capitalist class.

The political process ensures that the people get to vote but they do not get to decide what kind of government is formed and what course it will follow. These vital decisions are made by a minority of big business interests. Elections are organised to fool the people, to resolve the contradictions within the ruling class, and decide which party of the bourgeoisie is better suited to fulfill its interests at a particular time.

Rival parties of the bourgeoisie have been promising to accommodate one third quota for women in all the elected bodies, from the Parliament to the panchayats, while quarreling among themselves on the exact modalities and quotas, to include caste categories or not, and so on. This debate and rivalry in Parliament has become the biggest ruse and source of diversion and division in the women’s movement. The debate over reservation of quotas is designed to marginalise women and their struggle against oppression and injustice. It is aimed at reducing women into a ‘special interest group’ that can be accommodated within the existing system and political process.

Women do not constitute a special interest group, nor is the aim of the women’s movement to seek accommodation within the status quo. What women need is political power to break with the status quo. Women need to be able to send their best fighters to the decision making bodies, and enjoy the right to be able to recall the person they elected at any time.

The women’s movement can overcome the divisions within its ranks and regain its potential strength if, and only if, women activists expose, oppose and reject the path of seeking accommodation in the existing political arrangements through reservation of quotas. Women must reject the parliamentary path, and unite around the demand and program for fundamental changes in the system and political process of Indian democracy.

There is an alternative to the existing capitalist democracy and its party dominated political process. The alternative is a socialist democracy – the rule of workers and peasants – with a political process where parties will not control the government but will play their role to organise, educate and enable the people to govern themselves.

There is an alternative to market oriented economy and policies. The alternative is to re-orient the economy and state policy towards ensuring security and prosperity for all members of society.

There is an alternative to the unprincipled imperialist foreign policy of the Indian State. The alternative is a principled anti-imperialist foreign policy, based on peaceful and friendly relations with all neighbours and uncompromising opposition to any outside interference in South Asia.

The reorientation of the economy, the renewal of the political process and redirection of foreign policy together constitute the program for the Navnirman of India. Women have a central and leading role to play in the struggle for the implementation of this program, whose political content is the empowerment of workers, peasants, women and youth.

The interest of women lies in building the revolutionary united political front of workers, peasants, women and youth against capitalism and the anti-social offensive, and around the program for the Navnirman of India. It does not lie in tailing behind any of the parliamentary fronts that are contending to control the existing political power so as to defend the status quo.

Viewed from this perspective, the Lok Sabha elections in 2004 is an occasion to be used in favour of building the revolutionary anti-capitalist front. Women must resolve to vote only for such candidates who will fight steadfastly and uncompromisingly for the rights and interests of women, with the aim of political empowerment of all the toilers and tillers of the land.

Long Live International Women’s Day!
Don’t vote for BJP, Congress or any party that pursues liberalisation and privatisation!
Unite around the Program for the Navnirman of India!

Massive All India General Strike:
Working class asserts its right to strike as part of the mounting struggle against privatisation, liberalisation and the attack on rights of labour

The strike was called by India’s trade unions to protest the Supreme Court ruling banning strikes. Different sections of the working class also marked the day for stepping up the struggle against privatisation, liberalisation and the attack on their rights. Apart from the common opposition to the ban on strikes, the working people put forth their specific demands as well.

Workers in heavy industry, defence, petroleum, working intellectuals in schools and universities, working intellectuals in hospitals, workers in rail, road, sea and air transport, financial sector workers, as well as workers in agriculture and light industry participated in this strike. According to the capitalists and their court, as well as their government, strikes created hardships for the common people. The All India General strike did indeed create hardship for the 5 crore workers as well as tens of crores of other people. However, the organised working class, as well as the mass of people affected by the strike, did succeed in getting a message through to the people at large as well as the government of the capitalists, which was the aim of the political strike.

This message was loud and clear. We the workers and working people of India, will not bow down to your threat that we must submit to liberalisation and privatisation and all the anti-worker, anti-peasant, anti-national attacks of the ruling class and its government of the day. We will defend our livelihood and rights, no matter what the personal sacrifice. We will defend the rights of our peasant brothers, no matter what the sacrifice. Moreover, we will defend the interests of our country, no matter what the sacrifice.

Financial sector services — banks, insurance, credit institutions — were completely shut down as the federation of financial sector workers, the sector that is the key to economy in the conditions of imperialism, revealed their strength and determination. The strike encompassed the private multi national owned financial sector as well, where working conditions are abysmal.

Air transport on the eastern sector was heavily affected. So was rail transport in the Eastern, and North Eastern and South Eastern Sectors. Road transport too was heavily affected. As we go to the press, we can report that, apart from the states of Bengal and the North East, and Kerala, Inter and Intra State transport came to a grinding halt in the Northern states of Delhi, Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan. The strike by dockyard workers affected the ports of Kolkotta, Haldia, Kochi, Gujarat, Paradip, Tutikodi and Mumbai.

Coal miners in Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Orissa, Bengal and Andhra, PSU workers in Bangalore, Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam, as well as over 15 lakh civilian employees in the defence production sector participated in the strike. So did steel plant workers in Salem, Durgapur, Burnpur and other steel cities.

Agricultural workers and plantation workers in different parts of the country also registered their protests, as well as raised their demands.

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Two years after the Gujarat genocide

Jawaharlal Nehru also preached tolerance and harmony after the bloody partition and promised that it shall not happen again. Indira Gandhi added the word ‘secular’ in the preamble to the Indian Constitution after having declared a National Emergency and thrown all her opponents in jail. Her regime ordered the army to attack the Golden Temple in Amritsar. Rajiv Gandhi amended the laws to require all political parties to pledge that they would defend the ‘secular foundations’ of the Indian State. He did this after having justified the communal slaughter of Sikhs in 1984 and having swept the polls with the slogan, "Hindu, Hindi, Hindustan!" In December 1992, the Congress Party at the centre and the BJP in Uttar Pradesh colluded in the demolition of Babri Masjid and unleashing communal violence all over the country. This signalled the acceleration of the full frontal anti-social offensive of the bourgeoisie.

If the experience of the past two years since the Gujarat carnage is summed up along with the entire experience since 1947 and before, what is clear is that communalism and secularism are two faces of one and the same method of rule. It is clear that the Congress Party and the BJP are two arms of the Indian bourgeoisie to divide and rule over the people. It is also clear that communalism, the periodic unleashing of communal violence including the organising of genocides, the tactics of the ‘ballot and bullet’, the criminalised politics of diversion, division and repression are all part and parcel of the anti-social offensive of the ruling bourgeois class. The criminalised political tactics, which have become the trade mark of both the Congress Party and the BJP, are aimed at diverting and dispersing the forces of resistance to capitalism. They are aimed at eliminating all opposition to the drive of the monopoly capitalists towards their imperialist ambitions. They are aimed at turning people against each other rather than against their common enemy. In short the aim of this offensive is to block the path to social progress and revolutionary transformations, so as to keep alive and further expand the space for capitalism and imperialist plunder through the economic program of globalisation, liberalisation and privatisation.

However there are still some within the Indian communist movement, including the leaders of CPI(M), who refuse to sum up and learn from history. They continue to propagate the illusion that the problem only lies with some communal parties and politicians. They wish to hide that it is the Indian bourgeoisie which wields ‘communalism’, ‘tolerance’, ‘fair play’ and ‘secularism’ to divide the working people. Commanding the mighty Indian State whose institutions such as the police, army and the bureaucracy are all communal to the core, armed with a pretentious constitution that promises equality, plurality and justice to all including the protection of minorities but violates the right to conscience of all, it is the Indian big bourgeoisie that has bettered its colonial masters in the art of divide and rule, in the military precision with which it can unleash the forces of genocide and thereafter swear that "it shall not happen again".

It is this bourgeoisie and their state that these communists call secular. They even go to the extent of repeating the lie that this State and its constitution are instruments for protecting the people from communal violence. This illusion mongering on the real nature of the Indian bourgeoisie and its state makes the people defenceless and unprepared in the face of the attacks that are organised by parties in power with the full complicity and collaboration of various state organs. To propagate such illusions is to conciliate with the social-democratic platform of the Congress Party and deviate from the principles of communism.

Such conciliators are calling upon the toiling masses, who hate communalism and communal violence, to defeat the BJP led alliance by bringing to power an alliance with the Congress party. This is nothing but manipulating the high ideals and aspirations of the people for extremely narrow aims. The anger of the people against communal massacres is being sought to be used for replacing one bourgeois party in power with another. The results of the Gujarat state elections in 2002 showed that such tactics only give further fillip to the communal forces, rather than restricting them or eliminating them from the polity.

The existing state power and political arrangements in India, far from providing protection to all citizens irrespective of caste or creed, is itself posing the biggest danger to the security of the people and their right to conscience. The struggle against communalism and communal violence must therefore be directed against this state power. It must be directed at transforming the existing political process, which enables parties in power to organise communal genocides to gather votes.

It is the duty of communists to enable the working class and people to draw the pertinent conclusions from their life experience. This duty includes waging stern ideological struggle to expose and defeat the harmful line of allying with the Congress and other bourgeois parties in the struggle to end communal violence and fight the "communal fascism" of the BJP.

The only way forward for the struggle against communal violence is to build the revolutionary united front against the anti-social offensive of the bourgeoisie. Communists must take the lead in building and strengthening the mass organisations of the people, which do not permit caste, communal or gender discrimination, in every workplace, residential area and student campus. The toilers and tillers, women and youth organised in their collectives to actively fight the forces of communalism is the only reliable source of protection. Such organisations of the people must intensify the struggle and build and strengthen the political unity of workers, peasants, women and youth with the aim of giving rise to a new political power and a new constitution which explicitly establishes that all Indians have rights by virtue of the fact they are human. Such a constitution must provide enabling laws for the affirmation of rights and make them all justiciable. At the same it must have laws which meet out exemplary punishments to those who discriminate on the basis of gender, caste, creed or lifestyle. This new political power, created by the fighting people themselves, will ensure that nobody is permitted to commit crimes against humanity, and the guilty are not permitted to go unpunished. This and only this is the way forward for the movement against communal violence. To advocate the path of tailing the Congress Party constitutes treachery!

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Interim Budget of the NDA Government:
Serving the big capitalists while promising what the people want

The broad shape of the government’s finances did not change very much between 2002-03 and 2003-04. In both years, interest payments and defence expenditure – both of which do not add any material values and are entirely unproductive – consumed about 70% the total revenues collected.

While revenues are collected from the broadest sections of the population, in the form of taxes and non-tax levies, expenditures are not geared towards fulfilling the needs of the majority. Interest payments fill the coffers of money lending institutions, including Indian and foreign banks. Defence spending yields profits for many capitalist corporations and arms dealers.

In both years, the government’s total expenditure exceeded its revenues, and the resulting fiscal deficit was financed by additional domestic borrowing. Such additional borrowing was not matched by productive investments; planned capital expenditure was less than one-third the size of the fiscal deficit.

What this means is that the Central Government has been piling up additional debt on the backs of the Indian people, year after year, without adding adequately to the stock of productive assets.

A week before presenting the Interim Budget, the Ministry of Finance had announced major cuts in customs duty rates on non-agricultural imports. As a result, the average non-agricultural tariff rate is now estimated to be in the range of 20%-25%, as compared to about 35% in 2002-03. This was clearly a measure aimed at pleasing the capitalists, Indian and foreign, who want cheaper imports.

In his budget speech, the Finance Minister announced a number of promises addressed to the majority of voters. The promises include cheaper and easier bank credit and crop insurance for farmers, extension of PDS coverage under the Antyodaya Anna Yojana by an additional 50 lakh poor families, new central medical institutes in six states, and revision of standard deduction in income tax for salaried employees. Overall, the working people have received mainly promises, without any guarantee that these will be carried out once the elections take place.

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Iraqi people will decide their own destiny

News reports indicate that all over Iraq, the patriotic forces are targeting the occupation forces and their Iraqi quislings and collaborators, inflicting heavy damage. The guerilla attacks by patriotic forces on the occupation forces and the traitors are fueling the protests in the countries whose governments are part of the US led coalition. Demands for the immediate withdrawal of occupation forces from Iraq are mounting. In the middle of February, over three lakh people marched through the streets of Madrid, Barcelona and other towns of Spain calling for the withdrawal of Spanish forces from Iraq.

Eleven months ago, on March 20, 2003, the US imperialists together with Britain launched the war of occupation of Iraq. On May 1, 2003, the US President George Bush officially declared that "hostilities were over". Over 150,000 heavily armed coalition troops are occupying Iraq today. But the Iraqi people are far from having been subdued, their opposition to the occupation forces has mounted with each passing month. Fearful for their lives, the occupation authorities have barricaded themselves in a most heavily armed and fortified area of Baghdad, called the "green zone". The so-called "Governing Council" of Iraqi collaborators set up by the US occupation forces under its command, has zero credibility. The struggle of the Iraqi people is making it extremely difficult for the US imperialists to implement its "nation building" plans against the Iraqis.

In the background of the mounting Iraqi resistance, the US imperialists have announced that "they will hand over power to the Iraqis" by end of June. In Washington, a senior U.S. official said that the Bush administration was prepared to hand over power to an expanded Governing Council. Paul Bremer, the US administrator in Iraq, has declared in a press conference on February 19 that "there are literally dozens of ways to carry out this complicated task." he said.

The US plans to create its largest "embassy" in the world in Baghdad, with a staff of more than 3,000, as part of the "handover". The US and Iraq have not had diplomatic relations since 1990. International law defines the establishment of diplomatic relations and the setting up of "embassies" as something done "by mutual consent" between sovereign, independent states. But the US, in violation of the treaty governing the role of embassies, says that "the real challenge for the new embassy" would be getting Iraq ready for "full elections and full constitution" in 2005! Meanwhile the deputy head of the US armed forces said that US military operations in Iraq were "independent of the process that’s ongoing now for elections". One proposal under discussion is to have a small building in Baghdad as the official US "embassy", but with most American occupation personnel, renamed as "diplomatic staff", remaining inside the "green zone".

According to the US Secretary of State, the US was "working … to see that transition is as smooth as possible and that we have the right kinds of command structures, both civilian and military". The spokesman for the occupation authority said "the status of the American security in Iraq will move in a matter of months from occupational force to invited guest."

The US imperialists occupied Iraq in order to plunder the natural wealth of that ancient land and to advance their plans for conquest of Asia as a step to conquer the whole world. They gave the excuse of hunting for WMD’s to justify this—that excuse lies in tatters. Then they advanced the excuse of establishing a "democratic" regime in Iraq. 150,000 occupation forces who have killed at least 50,000 Iraqis and rape and plunder the land and people are supposed to be bringing in "democracy" to Iraq, and the peoples of the world are supposed to swallow this. Now, behind the plans of "handing over power to Iraqis" lies the evil designs of the Anglo-American imperialists to destroy the Iraqi nation by fomenting religious ethnic conflicts. All the "dozens of methods" that Paul Bremer has referred to, aim at achieving these nefarious aims. They want to implement the experience of British colonial "nation building exercises" such as in Ireland, Palestine and India. They want Iraqis to fight amongst each other for a share of crumbs of power from the occupation forces, while mortgaging their sovereignty to the imperialists.

The Iraqi nation has existed for thousands of years. Its sovereignty has been brutally violated by force of arms. The Iraqi people will regain their sovereignty through the heroic resistance struggle they are waging to throw the occupation forces out, and by their merciless attacks on the collaborators and traitors. They have before them, the glorious experience of the Vietnamese people who feared no sacrifice to regain their homeland and decide their own future. They have the full support of the Indian people in this just struggle.

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Violation of sovereignty sought to be justified in the name of "war against terror"

The dust has settled, or so it seems, in the matter of the Hutton Report and the matter of the suicide of the weapons expert, Dr. Kelly. We are now told that Mr. Tony Blair and members of his Government are 'exonerated' in the accusation that they wilfully misled public opinion in the run-up to the war, and in the threat posed by the weapons of mass destruction. We are now told that the Government sincerely believed that Saddam Hussein's weapons posed a threat to the security of Britain, and indeed to that of the world based on various intelligence gathering agencies' information and reports. As a result of the Hutton report now the public is expected to believe that Mr. Blair's Government acted in the best interests of the people of Britain, and the war had nothing to do with Iraq having 11% of the world's proven petroleum resources and that Britain and America have no colonial ambitions in the region. Furthermore, the fact that no weapons of mass destruction have been found is supposed to be a small aberration in this war of principle and in the containment of terrorism, and that Britain is nothing more than a sincere partner in the 'war against terrorism.'

The reality, of course, is something completely different. The United States of America and its allies and so-called 'coalition of the willing' have never been so disgraced in the eyes of all peace loving and principled peoples across the world as it is now. Indeed, Bush and Blair are probably some of the most reviled persons imaginable in recent memory. However, in the philosophical plane, what is being projected is that nothing succeeds like success. While it was always clear that any military action by superpowers against small unarmed nations is going to be 'succesful' in its aims of toppling Governments and in installing puppet regimes, the main point that needs to be debated is that of principle. The main principle is that the people of Iraq, just as the people of any sovereign country should decide how they are to rule themselves. If indeed the Government of Mr. Hussein was to have been replaced, it was the people of Iraq who should have done it. The so-called Governing Council of Iraq appointed by the USA appears to have no legitimacy nor prestige in the eyes of the people of Iraq. It is indeed this principle that the ruling classes of Britain and USA wish to suppress and create phony debates around issues such as the Hutton report, etc. The progressive forces in Britain and around the world must organize themselves to prevent a complete sabotage of principles that are subverted by Governments in name of 'security' and 'war against terror.'

B. Khanna,
Leicester, United Kingdom

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