DEM VOLKE DIENEN

Thousands of people in at least eight different cities under the government of Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq in December went on the streets to protest against their unpaid salaries and the widespread governmental corruption. In the course of the protests offices of five mayor parties in the region were attacked with stones, stormed and, in some cases, burned to the ground.

On the 28th of December, a hundred people protested outside the Peruvian embassy in Santiago de Chile against the pardon of the genocidal Fujimori , granted by the PPK pro-Yankee in a deal with Fujimori parliamentarians.

The action began with speeches by Peruvian migrants and political organizations present, and then took the streets until Special Forces attacked them.

In the midst of it, students of the FERP joined the mobilization and raised the international campaign in defense of the life and health of Chairman Gonzalo, imprisoned for 25 years in the dungeons of the old Peruvian State, with a banner that read "Neither Fujimori nor PPK, long live Chairman Gonzalo and the People's War "and harangued against the old State that keeps the revolutionaries prisoners, making a firm defense of Chairman Gonzalo and his thought.

We reproduce the homage notes for comrade Remís Carla – revolutionary militant and student of pedagogy who was cowardly murdered in December 2017 – from Popular Women’s movement (MFP) and Revolutionary Popular Student’s Movement (MEPR).

See also

Comrade Remís: This crime will not go unpunished!
Guitar in moon night
In sertão is like a sword,
Hope of revenge.
The same foot that dances samba
Goes to fight if needed,
Capoeira.

Since December 17th, comrade Remis Carla was missing after being seen for the last time in the house of her ex-boyfriend, Paulo César, in the neighbourhood of Nova Morada, Recife. In December 19, 48h after her last telephone contact with her mother, with a lot of insistence, Remis family managed to register the Police report. A strong campaign in search of news of her whereabouts had already began by her family, comrades and friends. Today, December 23th, we found her body wrapped in a blanket, buried in a cove 10 meters away from the house of her ex-boyfriend who was arrested in the beginning of the night and confessed this coward crime.

As already reported in November, the Chilean people and the revolutionary organisations in Chile struggle against the renewed electoral farce in this country.

On the 17th of December, the second phase of the presidential election took place, where the people were supposed to chose who is going to be the representative of their exploitation and oppression. Not more then 49% of the people went to the voting booths, the thief Piñera being the winner of the count. Even though Opportunism made a campaign to deceive the masses, to get them to vote “against Piñera”, to defend the conquered “social rights”, the people refused to be part of this event.

Going against the current of all opportunism (new and old) that tried to delude the masses with their rotten thesis of the lesser evil, different organizations launched a great campaign of agitation, propaganda and sabotage throughout the country during the last two months against the electoral farce, with slogans of “Do not vote, struggle” and “The people only advance by struggle”.

The 17th of December was transformed into a combative day of protest, barricades were built in La Florida, Maipú, Milipilla and other areas in Santiago de Chile. In La Araucanía, roadblocks were created and propaganda against the election spread. Polling stations were attacked with stones and pyrotechnics. A combative demonstration was attacked by the police, but still marched on.

The Chilean comrades of the FERP (Frente de Estudiantes Revolucionario y Popular – Revolutionary Popular Student Front) evaluate correctly:

“[…] different analyses can be carried out on what this new management of this thief Piñera will be: more repression, more imperialist plunder, more cuts to the rights of the people etc. However, we should not fall for the game of opportunism that will try to show itself as “opposition on the streets” with the sole objective of returning to their rotten posts in 4 years.

On the contrary, as long as the old State exists, there will be these struggles between the factions of the big bourgeoisie and their electoral farce, there will be fascism as a tool to combat the revolution, there will still be hunger and misery, and as long as the old State exists, the people will conquer and defend their rights with class struggle and combative, popular protest.”

Therefore, the path of the people to achieve their liberation will not be, nor has it been, to choose the “lesser evil” or the calm and graduate “reforms”, but the path of the new democratic revolution, the path which the campaign to boycott the election enlightens with concrete actions."

Since three days the Iranian government is faced with a series of demonstrations, that erupted and spread to various other parts after some thousand people took to the streets of Masshad, Iran's second-largest city, on Thursday. Denouncing the surge in the prices for basic foods, the high unemployment and the inflation, protesters have repeatedly clashed with Iranian riot police over their demands.

We share this sad news from Brazil, where the comrade Remís Carla was found dead on the 23^th of December, wrapped in a sheet and buried in a hole, 10 meters away from the house of her ex-boyfriend. The latter confessed his murder the same night.
The comrades from the MEPR (Movimento Estudantil Popular Revolucionário – Revolutionary Popular Students Movement) and the MFP (Movimento Feminino Popular – Popular Womens Movement) organised a search campaign for Remis Carla starting on December 19, two days since her last telephone contact with her mother.

Fury of the masses after the uprising in November 2 in a facility for irrigation.

An important and combative popular uprising against the monopoly of water took place in the city of Correntina¹ in November 2 this year, the media monopoly tried to criminalize the movement by calling it criminal and terrorist but, as a result, a bigger demonstration took place in November 11, where around ten thousand people from different neighbouring municipalities were on the streets of Correntina in solidarity to the struggle for the right to water and against the reduction of Arrojado river’s level because of the actions of the landlords and the consent of the environmental organs of the old State. “Igarashi go away!”² and “we are not terrorists! We defend our rivers!” were slogans that marked the event. In December 1^st around five thousand people attended to discuss the water problem in a public audience, and the people made denounces against the actions of the companies and the state concerning the water.

Public audience in December 1st

Also, in a city of Ceará in December 7, the people organized a roadblock with trunks and burning tires and occupied the construction site of the project to redirect the water of the lagoon afterwards. This project aims to supply the Industrial and Port Complex of Pecém and also two municipalities in the outskirts of Fortaleza city. It was denounced that the project doesn’t have an environmental impact study and violates the right to water for the local population.

The monopoly over the water is part of the problem of monopoly of land, as the landlords change the course of rivers to supply agribusiness that increases in the region since the 1970s but especially with the recent policies by the last governments to impulse the agribusiness occupation, counting with imperialism participation. This sharpens the contradiction between the people and latifundium, 156 conflicts concerning water involving 25.579 families were held in Bahia state in the period of 2002 until 2016, being 24 only in 2016, according to CPT³ data.

The dry Northeast has a total area of approximately 700 thousand square kilometres and approximately 23 million people (4 million landless peasants among them), one of the most populated semiarid regions between the tropics. The ground has a low capacity of storing water, the base is solid rock of gneiss or granite and has no space to store water and has a very shallow layer of soil over it, around 1 meter deep. There are some big cracks and openings that sometimes has water in a 60 meters depth, but most times does not worth to dig for it, because it is not proper for consumption.

But the geological and meteorological factors are not the only ones, nor the main reason for the restriction to water in the region. Most of the rivers are seasonal, the exception is São Francisco river, the biggest in the region, and very important for the peoples of Northeast. Most of the water in the region is being destined to agribusiness and mining activities, and the new project of transposition of the river, formulated by opportunism management of the state, were destined to deepen this situation.

It is clear that the situation the right to water is deeply linked to the right to land, with the struggle against latifundium and bureaucratic capitalism in service of imperialism, that restricts the people of the access to natural resources, steals all the natural resources from the people and leave only poverty behind. The struggle is sharpening and is each day clearer that only an Agrarian Revolution to seize all the lands of the landlords, a New Democracy Revolution to seize the big companies to serve the people’s interests and expel imperialism can secure that the peoples will have water, food and dignity.

1 – Correntina is a city in Bahia state, in the north-eastern region of Brazil.

2 – Igarashi is an agribusiness company which has Japanese capital that owns farms in the region.

3 – CPT – Comissão Pastoral da Terra – is a catholic organization that acts in the countryside of Brazil.

On the 23^th of November, the ExNEPe (Executiva Nacional de Estudantes de Pedagogia - National Executive of Pedagogy Students) made several actions on the National Day of Struggle in Defense of Public and Free Education. In the cities of Rio de Janeiro (RJ), Guarulhos (SP), Belo Horizonte (MG), Petrolina (PE), Dourados (MS), Porto Velho (RO) and Itaberaba (BA), demonstrations were held. In other places, like Recife (PE), Montes Claros (MG), Nazaré da Mata (PE), Juazeiro (BA), Luzilândia (PI), Arapiraca (AL), Goiânia (GO) and União dos Palmares (AL), leaflets were spread and other actions executed.In the following, we document pictures and a video of the comrades in Brazil: