7-13-06,11:00am
9 July 2006
‘The illegal invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan together with the brutal repression of the Palestinians have given Muslims and many others a burning sense of grievance against US and British imperialism’, Communist Party general secretary Robert Griffiths told the party’s executive committee at the weekend.
He was responding to Tony Blair's appeal to Britain's Muslims to oppose extremism in their midst by combating what the Prime Minister called their 'completely false' sense of grievance against the West.
'There is nothing false about Israel and the West's slow strangulation of the Palestinian people', Mr Griffiths insisted, condemning the 'racist values' whereby 'the life of one captured Israeli soldier is regarded as equivalent to 12,000 kidnapped Palestinians imprisoned without trial in Israel or to several million in Gaza whose power stations, schools and civic buildings have been bombed yet again'.
The CPB executive committee decided to draw up a plan of action in solidarity with the Palestinian people including greater assistance for the work of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign in Britain.
Mr Griffiths also pointed to Western hypocrisy towards Iran's civil nuclear energy programme and recent missile tests in People's Korea.
'New Labour leaders announce to big business audiences that Britain will develop a new generation of nuclear power stations and atomic weapons, while the Pyongyang regime is attacked for weapons testing which is routinely carried out by the US and other nuclear powers', he commented.
Britain's Communists welcomed GMB success in winning negotiating rights at anti-union company Wal-Mart, and urged people to pile the pressure on Peugeot by boycotting its products.
'The government should impose a punitive tariff on future imports of cars from Slovakia, if Peugeot goes ahead with the transfer of car production from its Ryton plant in Coventry', industrial organiser Kevin Halpin demanded.
The Communist Party leadership decided to issue a open letter to the labour movement on vital industrial and democratic issues, and urged full spport for the party's industrial aggregate on July 15 and the Labour Representation Committee conference on July 22.
The party's executive committee unanimously elected Robert Griffiths as general secretary, Anita Halpin chair, John Foster international secretary, Emily Mann women's organiser, Kevin Halpin industrial organiser, Mary Davis Communist Review editor and Geoff Bottoms as membership secretary.
