Aotearoa: Spilt coming in Maori Party?

At the rank and file level within the Maori Party, there has been disquiet and concern expressed at some of the actions of its co-leader Tariana Turia. In March, she accepted an invitation to the ACT Party’s annual conference in Wellington. The only dissent among the 4 Maori Party MP’s against her going to the conference came from Tai Tokerau member, Hone Harawira. This was consistent with his rejection of support for a parliamentary review of the 90-Day probation period bill for workers introduced by National’s Wayne Mapp. On that occasion yet again, Harawira went against the decision of his other 3 colleagues to support the parliamentary right wing. Does this signal an impending split in the Maori Party?
 
The Maori Party’s rightward shift away from its natural political ally the Labour Party, is a reactionary move in response to Labour’s anger at losing a significant part of its past support base. For a Party consisting of disillusioned castaways from the political mainstream, it’s only a matter of time before there is a clash between its pragmatic leadership and the more principled working class rank and file. The kaupapa (basic platform) that the Party and its constitution rests on, is being exposed as a weak excuse to accommodate political rivals.

The question being considered by members in many of the local branches is; are these early signs of an inevitable future split within the Maori Party centred on a breakaway led by Hone Harawira? From his earliest days in Nga Tamatoa, He Taua, Patu Squad, Kawariki and so on, Harawira has demonstrated an independent sense of leadership that has been at odds with many of his Maori political contemporaries. More importantly, he has an urban background that has not been entirely tainted by the backward politics of rural isolation.

His reluctant decision to enter Parliament shows a suspicion for an institution he regards as representing only one side of the Treaty deal. His passion is still the establishment of an independent Maori Parliament. In his time as an MP, Harawira has clearly identified with the grassroots rank and file by holding regular dialogue and consultation that has kept him away from much of the superficial parliamentary activity except crucial voting.

As his Party’s spokesperson for employment, discussions with workers and union leaders in the North have clearly put him on a path that focuses on the practical issues facing an area with the highest number of unemployed in the country. Central to that dialogue, has been his regular contact with workers at JNL Tri-Board in Kaitaia where he lives. In 1997, JNL workers were involved in one of the most significant strike actions that challenged both the ECA and the companies draconian work proposals for a new contract.

Maori Party support for striking meat workers at Ngaraunga Gorge in February this year bore more the hallmarks of Harawira’s genuine concern for people as workers rather than constituents. Regular contact with workers has forced him to face up to the limitations of the nationalist rhetoric of his youth. He increasingly has come to recognise that internationalising indigenous struggles as workers’ struggles, has more to offer in terms of strength and unity than the empty promises of misleaders governed by bourgeois nationalist class interest.

Politically, it is too early to see if he has matured to the point that he is able to make a clean break from the more limiting aspects of his past. His entry into a Parliamentary institution that he openly describes as cynical and representative of the ‘Settlers’, falls short of what could be described as the higher level of serious politics, that is ‘revolutionary’. To that end, he must engage with struggles where consciously, the break with ‘Indigenousness’ has had to be made by indigenous people. Without sacrificing their unique regional identities, they have come to realise that their battles cannot be fought alone.

In Latin America, struggles are being waged and led by native peoples who are at the head of the most politically advanced workers in the world. Their organisations are built on the ‘rank and file.’ For example in Bolivia landless indigenous peasants have united with workers to fight for the nationalization of gas against Evo Morales whose ‘Indigenous’ government is trying to do a deal with the oil companies. These struggles are in a frontline face-off against the most murderous anti-indigenous/anti-worker force ever assembled; ‘The Imperialist capitalist USA.’

In Aotearoa, the Maori fight for independence has tended to identify with a romanticised version of the past replicated in modern times by reactionaries such as George Speight in Fiji. By supporting Speight, some Maori nationalists such as Tame Iti, put themselves in opposition to Fijian workers because their ‘Indigenous’ perspective disorientated them from recognising the greater class struggle.

When Hone Harawira entered Parliament in 2005, he was in many ways going to be a cat loose among the pigeons even in his own Party. His belief in the power of the Maori Party branches to formulate policy has put him at odds with the non-parliamentary Party hierarchy. To stretch his workload even more, he has become the proxy-member for Tainui, a seat narrowly lost by left-leaning Maori Party co-candidate and Mana Maori (temporarily in recess) leader Angelline Greensill, daughter of legendary activist Eva Rickard. As a reluctant candidate herself, Greensill was perhaps going to be Harawira’s most valuable ally.

In many ways, Greensill and Mana Maori, reflect a cautionary cynicism that is aimed at the Maori Party as much as Parliament; a view not too dissimilar to that of Hone Harawira. At a meeting in Pukekohe, South Auckland before Christmas 2005, Harawira was challenged by a local worker as to the Maori Party’s industrial policy, to which he replied, “That matter is in your hands as rank and file members.” That challenge probably more than any at this stage, is going to be a sign of his future trajectory in the Maori Party.

Te Taua Karuwhero 



From Class Struggle 66 April/May 2006

HANDS OFF THE SOLOMONS! NO TO THE KHAKI GREENS!

From Class Struggle 51 July-August 2003

The recent invasion of the Solomon Islands by a force led by Australia and New Zealand represents a new stage in the recolonisation of the Asia-Pacific region. Like Iraq, the Solomons has been occupied in the name of humanitarianism, but in the interests of imperialism. The Facilitation of International Assistance 2003 legislation provides the 2,000-strong military force with both wide-ranging powers and immunity from prosecution under local law.

The legislation was drawn up not in Honiara but in Canberra and Wellington. Such was the contempt in Canberra for the parliamentary deliberations in Honiara that the documents were leaked to sections of the Australian media before they were even tabled in the Solomon Islands. The invaders have tried to argue that their actions are legitimate because they are backed by the people of the Solomons and by the Pacific. But the Solomons parliament which approved the invasion is notoriously corrupt and unrepresentative, and the invaders are lying when they say that other Pacific governments are united in support of their actions.

Green Party MP Keith Locke's disgraceful speech to parliament justifying the invasion showed up the hypocrisy of the pro-invasion left. Locke argued that the invasion was justified because Solomons political leaders like Prime Minister Kamakeza supported it...then went on to acknowledge the corruption of the Solomons political system and to urge its reform!

While corrupt MPs voted for invasion, the Fijian-based Pacific Concerns Resource Centre (PCRC) pointed out that the invasion flatly contradicted the wishes of the National Peace Conference held in August 2000 by representatives of dozens of organisations drawn from many sectors of Solomons society. This conference had called for the demilitarisation of Solomons society, not an invasion led by an Australian army recently responsible for war crimes in East Timor and Afghanistan. The PCRC recognised the blatantly imperialist nature of the invasion, condemning plans for "a governing council of about 12 people led by a chief executive with a light infantry company on standby, a judicial team of 20, prison staff, a group of accountants and other financial managers to administer the economy".

Others have pointed to the presence of small numbers of Fijian and Tongan troops in the invasion force as 'evidence' for Pacific peoples' consent. It's true that, desperate to avoid being the next targets for intervention, Fiji and Tonga have joined the invasion force, but neither of these countries can be called even a bourgeois democracy - one government runs an apartheid system, and the other is an absolute monarchy! Proponents of the invasion do not mention the deep uneasiness of Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu, larger countries with closer ties to the Solomons and traditionally more independent foreign policies.

It’s about imperialism

In 'An Un-Natural Disaster?', an article in Class Struggle #48, we exposed preparations for the invasion in the mass media, the Australasian political establishment, and Australia’s intelligence services. We also pointed out that the social crisis in the Solomons has been caused by the super exploitation of the islands by imperialism, and by the intensification of this super exploitation over the past few years by the ANZAC suits who run the IMF in the South Pacific.

Last November, at the insistence of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Solomon Islands government sacked 1,300 employees – that’s about 30 percent of the public sector workforce. The number of government employees had already been halved from 8,473 to 4,337 between 1993 and 1999.

As part of last November’s ‘reforms’, the Solomons government gave control of its finances to an Australian, Lloyd Powell, for whom the post of Permanent Secretary of Finance was created. Powell is the executive director of the New Zealand-based company Solomon Leonard, which has a proven track record in overseeing austerity programs in the Cook Islands, Vanuatu and Tonga.

Is it any wonder that the slash and burn policies of the IMF and Powell have created economic and social crisis in the Solomons? John Howard and Helen Clark are now using the crisis as an excuse to force neoliberalism on the Solomons at the point of a gun.

Humanitarian Aid - for ANZAC profits

The attempt by the Australian government and media to dress up the Solomons intervention as an act of humanitarian charity is a sham. Australia and New Zealand are interested in the Solomons for economic and strategic reasons.

In a pro-invasion ‘analysis’ called 'Our Failing Neighbour', the Australian Strategic Policy Institute noted: “Prior to the 2000 coup there were about 100 Australian companies doing business in Solomon Islands, with about 30 having operations there. Since the breakdown in law and order this has declined to only a handful having operations on the ground. This amounts to significant economic loss for Australia.”

Howard and Clark are also worried about instability spreading west from the Solomons to the mineral-rich island of Bougainville, where ANZAC troops only recently helped quench a decade-long independence struggle.

Anti-war movement, unions should act

The movement opposing imperialist war and occupations in the Middle East must focus some of its attention on the invasion of the Solomons. If we can’t oppose imperialism on our own doorstep, then we have no chance of helping to defeat it farther afield.

The anti-war movement should demand that all foreign forces stay out of the Solomons, and that Lloyd Powell and the rest of the IMF be kicked out of the country. The New Zealand and Australian governments should forgive the debts they are ‘owed’ by the Solomons, and should fund the recreation of the public sector jobs that the IMF destroyed last year.

The people of the Solomons have a right to defend themselves against the ANZAC invaders. Because of its isolation and underdevelopment, the Solomons lacks a strong workers’ movement, and has no socialist movement at all. Opposition to the invaders may be led at first by tribal or religious forces, but this will not make it illegitimate.

The anti-war movement in wealthy countries like New Zealand has no right to condemn oppressed people in super exploited nations who turn to religious ideas and tribal organisation in an effort to understand and combat their oppression. It is up to the left and the workers’ movement of Australasia to aid the people of the Solomons, and in doing so advance progressive and pro-worker ideas in the country.

The Australasian union movement has a shocking record of support for ANZAC imperialism in the Asia-Pacific region. In 1999, for instance, Aussie trade unionists gave money and labour to build the walled compound that became the headquarters of the UN army of occupation in East Timor. It was from these headquarters that ANZAC thugs launched attacks to crush workers’ and students’ protests with guns and batons, once the reality of occupation had set in for the 'liberated' East Timorese.

Today Australasian unions should aid the victims of imperialism, not the bullies. Strikes and blockades should be organised to stop the movement of supplies and reinforcements to ANZAC troops in the Solomons. The struggling trade unions of the Solomons should be aided, so that they can defend their members against continued IMF cuts and the restrictions on civil liberties which the ANZAC occupiers will introduce.

Khaki Greens hail invasion

Across Australasia, the anti-war movement while united in opposing a US invasion of Iraq is divided over a US-backed invasion far closer to home. The Green and social democratic politicians who tried to dominate the movement against an invasion of Iraq are amongst the loudest supporters of John Howard's latest military adventure. Bob Brown, the leader of Australia's Khaki Green Party, has actually criticised Bush and Howard for not being keen enough, saying that the invasion of the Solomons was 'long overdue'.

Here in New Zealand, the Khaki Greens have shown similar enthusiasm. Greens Foreign Affairs spokesman Keith Locke gave pre-emptive backing to the invasion in a July the 1st speech to parliament. Locke told MPs that he was “not really concerned about the New Zealand troops operating in an insensitive way because they have a very good record internationally”. Does Locke know anything about history? Does he think that the murder of civilians in Vietnam and Korea and the mass execution of POWs in North Africa counts as ‘very good’? Locke went so far as to identify the Greens with the National Party's attitude to the Solomons, saying "I think Bill English was right" in a reference to the National leader's earlier statement to parliament.

Like his friend Bob Brown, Locke has spent years urging the Australasian political establishment to launch an invasion of the Solomons. He’s also been a cheerleader for military intervention in Bougainville, East Timor, Kosovo, and (under UN auspices) Afghanistan and Iraq. It’s doubtful whether any other sitting MP has been such a wide-ranging advocate of the use of New Zealand armed forces overseas as Keith Locke.

Impressed by the size of protests against the invasion of Iraq, some people have argued that the anti-war movement is also an anti-capitalist movement. But the pro-war position of many 'peacenik' liberals and Greens and the gutless silence of the Alliance tell us otherwise.

How can we understand the pro-invasion stance of the Greens? Are they contradicting themselves by opposing New Zealand occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan but supporting a New Zealand occupation in the Solomons? We don’t think so. The Greens are a pro-capitalist organisation rooted in the least efficient section of the New Zealand capitalist class – struggling and small businesses that have nothing to gain from the continued globalisation of the New Zealand economy supported by their more prosperous cousins who back National and ACT.

But the Greens’ business backers oppose globalisation because of their bottom line, not out of concern for workers at home or the Third World. They disagree with Helen Clark not over support for imperialism, but over where exactly and under what banner the army should repress workers and peasants and help extract superprofits. The Greens’ patrons have no chance of competing with the hotshot multinationals carving up the Middle East under the banner of the US (as opposed to the French and Germans), so they naturally opposed the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and called New Zealand military support for these wars a waste of money. It is in the Asia-Pacific region that the green capitalists hope to mark their mark.

The invasion of the Solomons has exposed the politics of the Green Party just as surely as the war on Afghanistan exposed the Alliance. To be sure, the Greens have some honest, hardworking pro-worker rank and file activists, but this doesn't change the class location of the bulk of the party's membership and class nature of the politics their leaders push. By its very nature the Green Party is a futile avenue for pro-worker activism. Now's the time for lefty Greens to get out of this rotten organisation and become full-blooded reds!

Instead of busting their guts for careerists like Locke, they should join the revolutionaries around the world and mobilise the working class to take direct action against the wars of recolonisation which are the survival-mechanism of capitalism in the twenty-first century. The anti-war movement can only develop an anti-capitalist backbone if it attracts the support of the organised working class. Unlike their local capitalists, workers do not have an economic interest in wars of recolonisation.

Keith Locke's pro-invasion speech is online at http://www.greens.org.nz/searchdocs/speech6482.html

COUP: FIJI UNDER THE GUN

Another coup in Fiji once more shows the urgent need to build a revolutionary international and fight for class politics against racism and ethnic cleansing. While the coup is paraded as a nationalist bid to protect ‘indigenous rights’ its real motivation is the grab for power by a younger section of the Fijian bourgeoisie who have been held back by the Alliance Parties ruling bloc of old Fijian chiefs and the Indo-Fijian bourgeoisie. This naked struggle for power exposes the class nature of Fijian society and calls for the mobilisation of the working class and poor peasantry across racial lines as a force for permanent revolution.

Post-colonial ruling class.

Fiji is a tiny and poor semi-colony situated in the South Pacific between Vanuatu and Tonga. Since its ‘independence’ from Britain in 1970 it has tried to survive by fitting in with the plans of global capital. Fiji was ruled by the Council fo Chiefs which has always tried to balance Fijian paramountcy with the democratic rights of the Indians. Some have said that this balancing act was impossible because Fijian society was inherently despotic and that ‘democracy’ was not the ‘Pacific way’.

However, if you look at Fiji’s history since 1970, it is not ‘Fijian society’ that is despotic. Rather those chiefs who seek to exercise their authority as a capitalist class against all others –Fijians and Indians. In fact ‘Fijian society’ has been transformed by colonialism from a simple lineage society in which chiefs only ruled with the consent of the commoners, into a hybrid form of capitalism where the chiefs rule as a class. While they claim their right to rule on the basis of their traditional authority, their method of rule reflects their class interests in living off the rent from land leased to mainly Indian tenant farmers, or their role as politicians and administrators in the government.

But the chiefs have long been divided on how best to rule Fiji. Since 1970 there has been an ongoing struggle between those chiefs under Ratu Mara who tried to accommodate the Indians in the Alliance party, and the Fiji Nationalist Party that insisted that Indians should not have equal political rights. The Mara group represent those capitalist chiefs whose interests are to manage the state on behalf of the whole capitalist class, which includes Indians. This explains Mara''s and the Alliance's attempts to steer a moderate course between the interests of Fijian and Indian capital to form a national bourgeoisie.

On the other hand, the FNP/Taukei chiefs are motivated as landlords to increase their share of the rents from land and the exploitation of economic resources. This means controlling the state and excluding the Indian capitalists and tenant farmers to ensure that the landlord chiefs retain high rents on their land, and the ability to exploit resources such as native timber.

However, when both groups of chiefs are confronted with a greater threat –the mobilisation of Fijian and Indian workers –they are prepared to work together to maintain their authority under the principle of ‘Fijian paramountcy’ – Fijian control of land and the state. As early as 1977 there was an attempt to form an Indian led government when the Fijian vote was split between the Alliance and the FNP. But Mara ensured that parliament was dissolved. A second election returned the Alliance with much greater support.

The Rabuka Coups of 1987

Then in 1987 the workers and poor peasants voted in a Labour Party dominated coalition government under Timoci Bavadra. The new government was a popular front across classes and races and did not really pose a threat to the ruling class economic interests. However it did pose a threat to the hegemony of the Great Council of Chiefs as it was commited to stamping out cronyism and corruption. So the chiefly ruling class backed by the US staged a coup to remove it from office. Under the new dictator Colonel Rabuka, Fiji opened up to free trade to allow foreign capital to set up the garment industry and began selling off native timber etc.

But Rabuka’s dictatorship was outside the ‘rules’ of the US ‘new world order’, and the US and the Commonwealth pressured Fiji to return to ‘democracy’. The moderate wing of the Fijian ruling class under Ratu Mara once more moved towards reconciliation of the races. Rabuka became Prime Minister and made friends with the Labour Party. Paul Reeves the ex-Governor General of NZ headed a commission that re-wrote the racist 1990 Constitution in an attempt to move away from a racially divided government. The allocation of more Indian seats and general seats in the 1987 Constitution meant that a non-Fijian majority was possible.

So, in 1999, a majority of both Fijian and Indian voters elected a Coalition Government in which the Labour party was again the dominant partner. We had a repeat of the 1987 situation as the new Government began to ‘clean up’ the corruption and nepotism of the Fijian ruling class and their dubious links to their foreign masters, and spend more money on the poor. Once more, the intervention of a popular front government sought to put a stop to the corrupt business practices of elements of the Fijian ruling class in the name of ‘democracy’.

Enter George Speight

While this intervention was even less a threat to the rule of the chiefly class than the Bavadra government of 1987, it did hit at those Fjiian and Indian capitalists who were super-exploiting workers and resources. Among the casualties of this ‘clean up’ was one George Speight, a younger member of the Fijian capitalist class with business interests inside and outside Fiji. He was sacked from the Mohogany Board by the Government, and was charged with fraud. He and a number of other failed and frustrated businessmen cooked up the coup with the backing of the Taukei movement, the traditional hard-line Fijian nationalist movement based in the East of Fiji.

Speight was able to rally support from those chiefs who resented a multiracial government and in particular an Indian Prime Minister Chaudry ‘interfering’ with their freedom to super-exploit other Fijians of all ethnic backgrounds without discrimination! They mobilised suppport among the unemployed youth and villages claiming that the Government was about to take the land. The call went out to bring down the government and to go back to the 1990 racist Constitution that supposedly protected the interests of the ‘indigenous people’.

The outcome of Speight’s coup so far is a repeat of 1987 where the existing Government and Constitution have been overthrown and replaced by a dictatorship with significant backing from the landlord section of the Fijian ruling class. This time however, there is less support from other sections of the Fijian ruling class like Ratu Mara, and most of the Indo-Fijian ruling class, whose interests cannot be advanced by a military dicatorship that unleashes economic sanctions on Fiji. This explains why Speight was determined to rid the government of the moderates under Ratu Mara and replace them with a militant nationalist regime that will protect the interests of that section of the ruling class that wants to work hand in glove with imperialism to super-exploit Fiji’s economy.

Class against Race

There can be no progressive solution to this situation short of a return to democracy. Such a struggle is not futile. Dictatorship is not inevitable in Fiji. It is not the traditional despotism of Fijian society that explains the frequency of coups. Rather it is the rivalry between sections of the ruling class for control of Fiji’s few profitable resources. Each time the ruling class acts against the advance of democracy it declares its naked class interests more openly. Such is the case when George Speight himself a European-Fijian commoner uses force to join that ruling class.

Thus the appeal to indigenous rights that has drawn Maori activists like Tama Iti to support Speight is a total red herring. Unlike NZ, Fijian’s still ‘own’ about 83% of the land. Fiji is a unique capitalist country where the labour of most of its workers is exploited on the basis of commonly owned land. It is not the Indo-Fijians who exploit the Fijians, but their own Fijian landlord’s who pocket most of the rent paid out of the labour of tenant farm families. Because under capitalism they have become an exploiting class it is futile to expect the chiefs to distribute the rent fairly to their kin as they would have done before colonisation.

Therefore the real issue is the legacy of colonialism and the persistent super-exploitation of the workers and poor peasants of both Fijian and Indian ethnicity. Indigenous rights are not the problem but rather workers’ rights. The majority of Fijians and Indians are not exploited because of their race, but because they are workers or poor peasants. It is reactionary to call for the unity of Fijian’s of all classes against the Indo-Fijian when it is the Fijian ruling class that is in power and which exploits its own kinfolk.

Similarly, it is reactionary to call for Indo-Fijians to unite across all classes as it is the Indian ruling class that has financially propped up the Alliance ruling party for generations. There can be no way out of this situation other than by means of the building of class solidarity across race lines between the growing worker and poor peasant majority in Fiji for the defence of democracy.

Nor is it in the interests of Fiji’s workers and poor peasants to appeal to the Commonwealth, the UN, Australia or NZ to take action to remove Speight. On June 5 the Fijian Council of Trade Unions put out an appeal to the Commonwealth Ministers Action Group to take action along the following lines:

• Continue to recognize the People's Coalition under the leadership of Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry as the legitimate Government of the Fiji Islands. This would be consistent with the principles of the Harare Declaration.

• Warn the Fiji Military Forces that its failure to restore the democratically elected People's Coalition Government and the 1997 Constitution in a reasonable time frame will result in the imposition of the full force of the Commonwealth and international sanctions against the illegal regime set up by the Fiji Military Forces.

• Impose an immediate ban on travel to any Commonwealth Country: · of Speight and all members of his interim government, · all members of the military's Council of Advisors · heads of public service.

• Specify that should the democratically elected government not be restored within two months, the sanctions will include: i) Fiji's expulsion from the Commonwealth ii) A unified suspension of diplomatic relations with the illegal regime set up by the Fiji military Forces by member states; iii) Suspension of technical assistance, development aid and other assistance or support by member states and the Commonwealth Secretariat; iv) Activating a comprehensive trade, sporting, travel, cultural and educational regime of sanctions; v) Total freeze on all links with Fiji Government, its public service, the military and other institutions; vi) A Commonwealth commitment to pursuing further diplomatic, political and economic isolation of the illegal regime through the United Nations and other international agencies; vii) A commitment to pursing leaders of any unconstitutional government and Speight and his supporters for human rights abuses under international law, a freezing of their assets in Commonwealth countries.

• We further ask that the CMAG call for the unconditional and immediate release of hostages.

• If the Fiji Military Forces does not restore the elected Government and the 1997 Constitution within 2 months, we ask that the Commonwealth take necessary measures in response, including the setting up and rapid deployment of a stabilizing/peacekeeping force.

Appealing to the capitalist governments of the Commonwealth to put pressure on the Fijian Military Government is like pouring fuel on the fire of nationalism. It can only have the effect of reinforcing the nationalism of indigenous Fijian’s who regard outside interference as the continuation of colonialism. Threatening to send in a "stabilizing/peacekeeping force" will be regarded by the Military Government as an act of war.

The reason that the coup has succeeded so far is that the Fijian working class has yet to organise itself independently of its own ruling class. Now that this ruling class has fallen out over who should rule Fiji and get the franchise to exploit Fiji’s resources, it makes no sense to appeal to those captalist states and the multinationals they represent, whose only interest is in exploiting those resources, to come to their aid.

The only demands that workers should put on their bourgeois states are those that break down national borders and strengthen the international ties of workers. In the case of the coups and military dictatorship our demands should be for immediate political asylum with no strings attached for all who want to leave Fiji.

International working class action

The international outrage among unionists is a healthy start to this process. Workers do not call on bourgeois governments to impose bans but mobilise internationally to impose their own bans directed at the capitalist class. The Fijian Council of Trades Unions has put out the call for a workers’ international boycott independent of their bourgeois states. Australian and NZ unions have declared a boycott and ban on handling trade with Fiji. Workers internationally must be prepared to back up this call with similar.

The unity of the Pacific region working class in the struggle for democracy will demonstrate that in Fiji (as elsewhere) there are only two courses ahead – either the constant threat of military rule sparked by the Rabukas and Speights playing the race card and threatening ethnic cleansing to keep the ruling class in power as the agent of global imperialism, or the struggle to forge unity across the racial divide and to fight for workers and farmers governments that will take power in the name of all the exploited regardless of ethnicity, nationality or gender.

For a Federation of Socialist Republics of the Pacific!

From Class Struggle No 33 June-July 2000