MAY DAY 2001

Workers, toilers, oppressed of the Balkans and the Middle East,

Comrades,

In this May Day 2001, all the workers and popular masses in our region, in this zone of the historical tempests face the greatest challenge. May Day is the great Day of proletarian internationalism, of international solidarity in revolutionary struggle for bread, peace and freedom; but our common enemies, imperialism and all the local ruling classes try now as never before to impose on us barbaric conditions of starvation, war and slavery.

The entire area from Yugoslavia and Romania to occupied Palestine and Kurdistan has been transformed to a vast social disaster area. The masses suffer from savage attacks against their already dramatic living conditions, repression and new war dangers.

We demand bread; and "they" reply with sanctions and blockades in the Territories or in Iraq, with IMF imposed draconian measures, the EU "Stability Pact" in the Balkans, privatizations, and globalization of misery in the name of the "transition to the market economy".

We demand peace; and "they" reply with NATO’s continuing aggression and the Zionist State terrorism, with occupation, with the creation of protectorates in Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Albania or Bantustans in Palestine. The new clashes in Tetovo and Kosovo, the Zionist Army invasion in Gaza, the attack on the Syrian targets in Lebanon, the continuing IDF aggressions by missiles, tanks and helicopters against the Palestinian population etc. are signs of the preparations of NATO as well as of the Sharon-Perez government of war criminals for a new round of wars.

We demand freedom; and "they" reply with the F-type prisons in Turkey, the new "anti-terror" law and the ban on demonstrations in Greece, the pogroms against the Palestinian and Kurdish populations, the denial of the right to return to millions of refugees from Palestine, or from the devastated areas of the wars in Yugoslavia.

All these are manifestations not of the strength but of the historical decline and the insoluble crisis of world Capitalism. The myth that "globalization of capital" means the end of the epoch of the struggles for national and social emancipation of the oppressed and the exploited, the end of Socialism and Communism, the "end of History", is already exposed as the new Big Lie. The finance globalization of the last decades led not only to pauperization of millions in the world, both in the centers and in the periphery, but also to the globalization of all the contradictions of Capital, their exacerbation and explosion. Last year even the myth of the so called "new American paradigm" has collapsed together with the NASDAQ and the Dow Jones and the downturn under the way in the American economy, threatening the whole world economy, particularly as Japan cannot emerge from the decade long recession and the European Union is in crisis.

The globalization of the contradictions of Capital led to the globalization of social resistances and a new wave of international radicalization of social struggles, from Seattle to Prague and now Quebec, from Brazil and Argentina to Russia, Korea and Japan.

In our region, the heroic intifada of the Palestinian people is in the forefront of this new stage of revolutionary struggle. It toppled the Oslo Accords trap and all the U.S. / Zionist strategy in the Middle East. Now the popular masses in other countries in the region join them, challenging as well the plans and dictates of imperialism and Capitalism: the hunger strike to the death of the political prisoners in Turkey and the social revolt under the way against the IMF and the Turkish government anti-popular starvation measures; the General Strike of the Greek working class on April 26 against the EU imposed plans of the Greek government destroying the pension system etc.

The need to coordinate and unify all these struggles regionally and internationally, to develop them to the point to become a global counter-offensive against imperialism and all the local ruling classes, for a complete social and national emancipation of all the oppressed, is more urgent than ever. For this reason the Balkan Socialist Center "Christian Rakovsky" was found on January 2000, to unify all revolutionary forces in the region on the basis of internationalism and Socialism. On March 2001, the Second International Conference on the Balkans and the Middle East, held by the "Christian Rakovsky" Center in Athens, Greece brought together organizations and activists from twelve countries to discuss and develop solidarity in action, an international strategy and a Program of action against NATO, the IMF/World Bank, the American and European Union imperialists, against Zionism and all the local bourgeoisies and nationalist militarist ruling cliques.

On the basis of the conclusions and of the Political resolution of this International Conference, we call in this May Day 2001 all the oppressed in our region to fight against imperialist- Capitalist barbarism:

• All NATO and other imperialist troops and military bases out from the Balkans! Down with U.S. and European Union imperialism!
• No to the IMF, World Bank, European Union dictates! No to the starvation programs, privatization and the misery spread by capitalist restoration! Defend all the social rights of the working people, including the right to work, to a free health service, to real and early pensions, against mass unemployment, destruction of national health services and pension systems and destitution! Re-nationalization of all privatized companies under workers control! Expropriate the old and new expropriators!
• No to the fragmentation and pulverization of the Balkans! Ten years are enough! Down with chauvinism, racism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia! For the right to return to their homelands of all the refugees victims of the wars in former Yugoslavia! Down with all capitalist and restorationist governments! All power to Councils of workers and of the urban and rural poor! For a Balkan Socialist Federation!
• No to the F-type prisons, freedom to all political Turkish and Kurdish prisoners!
• For the right of self-determination of the Kurdish people! For a free, united Socialist Kurdistan!
• Smash the Zionist Apartheid regime, full support to right of self-determination of the Palestinian people! Victory to the Intifada!

• The Israeli Army and settlers out of the Occupied Territories! For the return of the stolen lands and the full implementation of the right to return of the Palestinian refugees!
• For the creation of a Secular, Democratic and Socialist Republic in the whole territory of historic Palestine within the framework of a Socialist Federation of the Middle East!

To develop our resistances and struggles beyond their local limitations to a real revolutionary counter-offensive that will transform from bottom to the top the entire region we need to develop collectively a common revolutionary strategy, program, and organization. In other words we need a real Workers’ Revolutionary International! This is the historic task posed in this May Day 2001 to all vanguard workers and freedom fighters.

The Balkan Socialist Center "Christian Rakovsky"