Organize to Defeat Trump’s Fascist Agenda! Build the Mass Movement and Advance Peoples’ Struggles!

A joint statement of ILPS-US, International Migrants Alliance, International Women’s Alliance

Fascism and the Second Trump Regime

On January 20, 2025, Donald Trump officially assumed the presidency of the US, putting the most dangerous faction of the ruling class and those most open about their anti-people intentions, at the helm of US imperialism. Trump’s first week of “shock and awe” policy directives shows how that faction plans to further its supremacy by not only neglecting the people but actively attacking the people.

The mere fact that Trump is a convicted felon sitting as President and acts as though he is above the law and U.S. Constitution exposes the corrupt rottenness of the system. His Cabinet picks and their selection being based on allegiance versus actual expertise continue this trend towards consolidating the power of the most repressive faction of the ruling class. Trump’s inaugural speech and Executive Orders during his first week in office show the intensification of outrightly attacking the majority of the people and expose that any “rights” from before were just temporary legal protections dependent on the whims of what faction of the ruling class is in power.

In his inauguration speech Trump spoke of unleashing the “golden age of America.” Just after that he made clear what he meant by this. The golden age of America is one of all-out fascism, of more war and militarization around the world affecting each of our homelands; where migrant communities – displaced from their home countries by the US’ own policies – are further displaced, militarized, and attacked; where women and LGBTQ people are subject to heightened violence, both through the normalization of sexual violence and at the hands of the state through state repression and the removal of reproductive rights, gender-affirming care, workplace protections, and more; where workers continue to be pushed into further suffering as the big business class flourishes off their exploitation; and where the resources of the land will continue to be plundered as environmental crises ravage the world.

For the defeat of the Burmese junta and a free and independent Burma!

 

(Above: BurmesePLA celebrate their arrival in a liberated township)

Very little coverage is given to events in Burma (Myanmar) by the Australian mainstream media.

However, recent developments show the military regime is increasingly besieged by a coalition of anti-regime armed forces, and has to rely on Chinese interference to maintain itself in power.

The various ethnic rebel forces and the Communist Party of Burma’s People’s Liberation Army are increasingly developing a united front and providing each other with mutual support and training.

The regime is losing large swathes of territory outside the three main cities of the Burmese capital, Naypyidaw, and Rangoon and Mandalay.

Its ability to move its army by land corridors is restricted, and it is relying on airstrikes and long-range artillery bombardment of towns under rebel control. Air-dropped troop reinforcements often fall into the hands of anti-junta forces.

Superpowers and their rivalry over Burma

Both superpowers are keen to direct the outcome of struggles within Burma.

The US imperialists have applied sanctions to the military junta since its takeover, have few direct investments to protect, but are trying to win over the democratic bourgeoisie and landlord forces through an encouragement of a return to a “democracy” within which they can meddle. The 2022 US Burma Unified through Rigorous Military Accountability Act, known as the BURMA Act, mandates sanctions against the junta, and authorises substantial humanitarian aid to support the rival, US-backed National Unity Government (NUG), but not the ethnic armed organisations (EAOs) or the People’s Defence Forces (PDFs).

Chinese interests are more substantial. Among the most important is Kyaukpyu Deep-Sea Port, a crucial part of the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC), which gives China direct access to the Indian Ocean, reducing reliance on the Malacca Strait from which it could be denied access in the event of war with the US. 

There are also the China-Myanmar oil and gas pipelines that run from the Bay of Bengal to China’s Yunnan province, providing Beijing with a shorter and strategically secure energy route, again bypassing the Straits of Malacca. China is financing and constructing key railway and road links to connect Myanmar with Yunnan province.

China has also invested in multiple hydroelectric dams, and built and operated several coal and gas power plants. It has a dominant presence in telecommunications and technology though Huawei and ZTE, and Alibaba and other Chinese platforms have expanded financial technology services in Burma. 

Chinese real estate companies are active in real estate projects, particularly in the junta-controlled cities of Yangon and Mandalay. China has developed industrial parks like the Kyaukpyu SEZ to attract Chinese and foreign businesses.

Imperialism, not proletarian internationalism

(Above: Villagers welcome the BPLA)

China claims that it is supporting Burmese sovereignty against threats of foreign (US) interference. A genuinely socialist country should support any state that is standing up to “outside pressure”, but it should not support a state that is oppressing its own people. 

In 2017, China supported Aung San Suu Kyi’s military offensive against the Rohingya. When she was overthrown by the junta in 2021, it flirted with support for the various anti-junta ethnic armies and allowed the return to Burma of members of the Burmese Communist Party’s People’s Liberation Army.

It has vacillated between maintaining relations with some of the ethnic anti-Junta armies and the regime, according to where it perceives its investments in Burma can be best protected.

For example, last September, fighters of the Kachin Independence Army, or KIA, seized control of a key military base from the junta at Chipwe township in Kachin State, close to a Chinese hydro-electric power station and a Chinese rare earth mine, prompting China to pressure insurgent forces along the countries' shared border to agree to halt their offensives against the junta, and closing border crossings through which medicines and food had flowed.

China’s Customs Department said that China imported more than US$1.4 billion worth of rare-earth minerals from Burma in 2023, underscoring the importance of “stability” in regions close to its investments.

On November 6, the head of Burma’s military junta, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, travelled to China, meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang in Kunming.  China signalled that it desires the bare minimum stability to protect its interests and it felt the junta is the horse to back to achieve this. China has said that it will support the junta’s electoral process later this year, a clear indication that it will work to keep the junta in power.

Meanwhile, ethnic armies and the BPLA continue to take territory from the regime. The Kachin and Ta’ang, as well as the Arakan Army in Rakhine, continue to resist China’s pressure. 

Hostilities between the junta regime forces and the Ta'ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) have recommenced as of January 9, 2025, following the initiation of a new military operation by the junta in Naungcho township. 

The Arakan Army (AA) stated on Monday January 26 that it had seized control of the Moehti hilltop outpost in Bago Region on the previous day - five days after it launched its attack. The military outpost is located in the Arakan Mountains, known as the Rakhine Yoma. 

Of passing interest to Australians is the role of Julie Bishop as the United Nations’ Special Envoy on Myanmar. The former Australian Foreign Minister will no doubt pursue US strategic interests in Burma. It should not be overlooked that in March 2017, the government of PM Malcolm Turnbull rejected a Senate vote calling for a United Nations commission of enquiry into the persecution of the Rohingya.  

Several weeks later, it reversed its position and co-sponsored a resolution at the UN human rights forum for the UN to send a fact-finding mission to Myanmar.  The change was partly fuelled by an upsurge of reported atrocities against the Rohingya on one hand, and Australia’s hypocritical push for membership of the UN Human Rights Council from 2018.

Bishop can be expected to try to do deals to facilitate China’s acceptance of the pro-US National Unity Government should the regime fall to the united resistance front.

For now, we can only support the fight of the combined Burmese resistance for national liberation, independence and democracy, and oppose all outside superpower interference that runs counter to the aspirations of the Burmese peoples.

 Written by: Nick G. on 30 January 2025

 

Turkey: Imprisoned Partizans –info/solidarity

Glory to those who became immortal for the cause of the revolution!

published by Yeni Demokrasi:

The Imprisoned Partizans made a statement for the Week of Remembrance of the Martyrs of the Party and the Revolution.

The statement said, “We salute all the families of our martyrs and prisoners from prison”, commemorating those who were immortalized in the struggle for revolution and communism.

The statement of the Imprisoned Partizans is as follows:

“Dear Comrades, Our Valuable Families of Martyrs and Prisoners,

Until now, all exploitative tyrants have only been able to reign for a certain period of time. Eventually, the knife reaches the bone and the workers and toilers, the oppressed segments of the people, “they put their heavy hands on the ground”, overthrow thrones, shoot kings or overthrow bourgeois power. Today, the oppressed peoples live a life where the flesh passes, where the knife reaches the bone. On the horizon of the imperialists and their servants, the comprador-bureaucrat boss-lords, there is and cannot be anything other than imperialist wars of re-division and oppression of the oppressed nations, genders and faiths. Today, in the regions and countries from Europe to the Middle East, and especially in Turkey, the governments that are sought to be strengthened with the deception of “peaceful democracy” are nothing other than the anti-people governments.

The aggression carried out in the region by the Zionist Israeli State in line with the interests of the US and EU imperialists has also triggered the destruction of the reactionary regime in Damascus. The stones have been moved once again, and days worth many years are being passed.

Comrades, Our Self-Sacrificing Families,

Revolution and communism are a historical necessity. The sublime ideology of communism has risen in waves of social and national liberation almost everywhere in the world, defining the 20^th century. It will also define the 21^st century. The ruling classes’ most dangerous perceptions and greatest fears are not in vain. The masses that are more tightly united around the proletarian Parties that embody communism will carry out a triumphant march. But at the same time, the path of revolution is difficult and long. It is stormy and turbulent. As it is now, regression includes advances, as it did in the past. This dialectic of development will continue until it reaches the goal of power and communism.

Turkey is a land of revolution. The masses that carry blood and life to the revolutionary-communist ranks are the clearest proof and guarantee of this. The reality of the people who show up in factory occupations, while defending their villages, streams, forests and while shouting against national oppression and sexual exploitation, and who turn into action, is the clearest proof and guarantee of this. The martyrs, who are the building blocks of the revolution, are lined up with honor all over these lands. On the occasion of January 2025, we commemorate the martyrs of revolution and communism who made death meaningful. We salute all our martyr and prisoner families from prison. Glory be to those who dedicate every moment to developing the revolution and those who are immortalized in the name of the revolution.

Moreover, within the framework of the Week of Commemoration of the Martyrs of the Party and the Revolution, visits to the graves of revolutionary martyrs have been carried out. The graves of Sirma Boyoglu and Suzan Zengin in Tuzla were visited. Ismail Hanoğlu was also commemorated in Heybeliada.