World

Daniel Bensaid was a veteran French socialist activist and theoretician. A member of the New Anti-capitalist Party (NPA), he was also a leader of the Fourth International. In the article below, slightly abridged from www.internetionalviewpoint.org Francois Sabado, an NPA activist and FI leader, pays respect to his friend and comrade.

Any large city in the world would have suffered extensive damage from an earthquake on the scale of the one that ravaged Haiti’s capital city on January 12. But it's no accident that so much of Haitian capital Port-au-Prince now looks like a war zone.

The terrible devastation caused earthquake in Haiti, the worst to hit the Caribbean half-island in 200 years, is a combination of natural and human-made catastrophes.

Thousands may have been killed and tens of thousands left homeless. This is a moment in which your solidarity is of critical importance.

The UN COP15 Climate Summit in Copenhagen has dramatically revealed a growing divide between the poor and rich countries, whose development has depended on exploitation of the Third World and the environment.

The article below is a December 17 column by former Cuban president Fidel Castro

"Can a finite Earth support an infinite project? The thesis of capitalism, infinite development, is a destructive pattern, let’s face it. How long are we going to tolerate the current international economic order and prevailing market mechanisms? How long are we going to allow huge epidemics like HIV/AIDS to ravage entire populations? How long are we going to allow the hungry to not eat or to be able to feed their own children? How long are we going to allow millions of children to die from curable diseases? How long will we allow armed conflicts to massacre millions of innocent human beings in order for the powerful to seize the resources of other peoples?" — Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, speaking at COP15, December 16, 2009

It is has become clear that First World leaders are unwilling to commit to what current science indicates we need to do to avoid extremely damaging climate change. Representatives of the poor countries have become increasingly angry and vocal at their marginalisation by the rich governments.

The press conference by Ecuador’s delgation to the United Nations climate change summit in Copenhagen can be viewed here. Also, the join press conference of representatives nations from the Latin American anti-impieralist bloc, the Boliviarian Alliance of the Americas (ALBA) can be veiwed here. Representatives from Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua took part.

“The Copenhagen climate summit was pretty much summed up in the high-level segment yesterday when [Australian climate minister] Penny Wong's speech was interrupted by whistles and chanting and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez got a standing ovation”, Lenore Taylor wrote in the December 17 Australian.

A 28-year-old Tasmanian who’s never been to El Salvador or experienced civil war, I interviewed veteran Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) activist David Rodriguez.

As I write, there are two Copenhagens. One is the Copenhagen swamped with 100,000 protesters demanding climate justice, social justice, solidarity and community before corporate profit.