BulletinN° 28 octobre 2022 The European Union: human rights, their universality and geography! Brazil: a hard class battle according to the Brazilian Communist Party.
The European Union: human rights, their universality and geography!
The leaders of the European Union have only the qualifier "Universal" to characterize "human rights" .
They do not fail to refer to it when it comes to Ukraine, supporting their speeches with direct intervention in the conflict, the object of which they affirm is the restoration of the right of a sovereign and recognized state. However, it is clear that this universality stops where the interests of the capitalist monopolies in Europe begin.
Thus, despite the permanent violations of the rights of the Palestinians, which are also internationally recognized, committed by the State of Israel, the EU is renewing a political dialogue with the latter at the highest level. This is the very meaning of the EU/Israel Association Council which was held on 3 October and this after ten years of shelving with the participation of the Israeli Prime Minister, Yaïr Lapid, of Josep Borrell, the high representative of the EU, Commissioner Oliver Varhelyi, in charge of neighborhood policy, as well as the foreign ministers of the member countries. In other words, France supports this highly political initiative to support Israeli policy. Omar Shakir of Human Rights Watch points out in the newspaper Le Monde that:"Despite the multiplication of human rights violations by Israel in the occupied territories, the European Union is rewarding [this country] with this association agreement" [...] There is no pressure for Israel is modifying its illegal, amply documented practices in the Palestinian territories" . the government that will emerge from the ballot box" .
We write it regularly, whatever the governments that lead Israel, their policy is a policy of apartheid which aims at the total colonization of Palestine. It denies the legitimate and recognized rights of the Palestinian people to a state and to the return of refugees. For this, all means are good, ranging from the expulsions of more and more Palestinians to install new colonies, to a fierce repression which can be counted in dozens of assassinations, passing through the systematic destruction of Palestinian infrastructures, including those ( rare) financed by the EU and the maintenance of a blockade against the Gaza Strip.
So why this willingness of the EU and France to support Israel in the face of such human rights violations? Quite simply to defend the interests of the capitalist monopolies in Europe. Israel is pampered as a faithful ally of the Atlantic bloc which maintains imperialist order in the Middle and Near East and, moreover, in the midst of the war in Ukraine, Europe needs to diversify its gas supplies. From this point of view the discovery and exploitation of deposits in the territorial waters of Israel are obviously a godsend.
Henry IV said Paris was worth a mass, EU leaders now say maintaining the capitalist system, profiteering and accumulation is worth trampling on human rights... in Palestine!
Brazil: a hard class battle according to the Brazilian Communist Party
The results of the elections in Brazil are now known. Foiling the polls which gave him far behind Lula, or even gave the latter winner in the first round, outgoing President Bolsonaro is hot on his heels. With a large turnout of 79%, Lula gets 48.4% of the vote against his opponent 43.2% and they will meet for a second round on October 30. The elections associated with the presidential election highlight the fact that support for Bolsonaro remains strong. They seem able to win the majority of seats in Congress and in the states of the federation requiring, in the event of Lula's victory, cohabitation giving them the political means to counter any desire to change direction. This all the more so as Lula, far from a campaign calling into question the responsibilities of the dominant classes, endeavored to reassure financial circles and Brazilian capitalism. This is underlined in a statement by the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB), whose candidate, S. Manzano, led an active campaign and obtained some tens of thousands of votes:"With the first round of elections closed, the possibility of presenting an independent proletarian program also ceases. Now the broad masses of the Brazilian people will be forced to choose between two projects, neither of them communist. The PCB is clearly positioning itself in this second turn: by voting for Lula to defeat Bolsonaro. We are absolutely convinced that the depth of the crisis we are experiencing cannot be resolved by seeking to reconcile the interests of the bourgeoisie with those of the workers, as proposed by the candidacy of the Workers' Party " . And he adds:“We know that even in the event of an electoral defeat, Bolsonarism will not disappear from the scene, it will continue to be a political threat to the working class in the years to come, as long as it is not disarmed and crushed. methods of conciliation do not prepare the working class to truly confront the threat of the bourgeois military coup, nor are they capable of putting an end to the economic and political crises that we are going through, to the strengthening of chauvinism and militarism in Brazil and in the The answer to this crisis is the construction of People Power and the implementation of an anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist program, a task to which the PCB and our organized and combative militancy will devote themselves at all times in the next period, whatever happens".
It is therefore a tough class battle that is in perspective whatever the outcome of the election.