THE LEFT FRONT-UNITY (FIT-U) CALLS A VIRTUAL LATIN AMERICAN AND US CONFERENCE

30, 31 July, and 1 August 2020.

● Let the capitalists pay for the crisis.

● Out with Latin American Imperialism.

● Out with the IMF, non-payment of foreign debts.

● Long live the struggles of workers and precarious youth. No layoffs or wage cuts. Down with racism, violence and police repression.

● For a way out for the workers in the face of the pandemic and the capitalist crisis

The parties of the FIT-U in Argentina have agreed to hold a virtual Latin American and U.S. Conference on 1 August. The Conference will be preceded by three discussion tables, which will be held on 30 and 31 July. This Conference takes up again the initiative agreed at the beginning of the year by the FIT-U parties and which was suspended because of the pandemic crisis. On this occasion, given the process of rebellion unleashed in the United States, the Conference will also welcome organisations of struggle from the US.

The political and programmatic bases on which we reconvene this Conference are expressed in the declaration “A new scenario in Latin America and the need for a socialist and revolutionary solution”, in the text “The Latin American Conference convened by the FIT-U is postponed”, in the “FIT-U Declaration for the International Workers Day”, and in the present text. There we expressed the important agreements and the nuances and differences we have between the convening organisations. The new framework created gives the continental initiative promoted by the FIT-U parties a renewed relevance. The rebellion in the United States, which has shaken the planet and cornered Donald Trump has a favourable impact on the masses of the world, generating solidarity actions and conditioning the international scenario. The outrage and repudiation of police violence and racism that erupted in the face of the brutal murder of George Floyd is coupled with the growing discontent and despair of the masses, because of the combined effect of the pandemic and a deep recession. The impact of the biggest capitalist crisis in the US led to nearly 49 million workers applying for unemployment insurance in just 16 weeks. Meagre wages and a private health system push homeless, unemployed, precarious and informal workers to their deaths. All this has been the breeding ground for the great popular rebellion taking place there. The Democrat Party is trying to divert this massive protest movement into voting for Joe Biden in the November election, the establishment candidate, to prevent it from becoming radicalised. The rebellion not only represents a huge blow to the Trump government, but it also shows all Latin American governments they should get ready for the worst, as they are beholden to US imperialism, and it is a call to action and struggle for all the people of the subcontinent. The pandemic has highlighted the antagonism between the health and life of the workers and popular masses on the one hand, and the capitalist system on the other. The multi-million-dollar bailouts have privileged to rescue capital. The economic aid to the population has been reduced to a marginal proportion. The world has faced the coronavirus with plundered and deteriorated health systems, victims of drastic cuts because of years of austerity plans applied by all governments, while allowing and encouraging private health care profit. What has been prioritised in the midst of the pandemic is capitalist profit, forcing workers to produce, with total disregard for their lives and physical integrity. This is aggravated in Latin America where conditions of poverty and extreme deprivation create a fertile field for the spread of the virus, which has been wreaking havoc in popular neighbourhoods. The outbreak of the coronavirus has aggravated a capitalist crisis that was already underway. The world is heading for a depression, only comparable to the one that followed the crash of 1929. The ILO already speaks of 480 million unemployed. The rescue of big business, banks and multinationals is intended to be financed by further austerity, layoffs, growing poverty, social inequality and unprecedented environmental disaster. We are facing a deep crisis of capitalism that has its roots in the Great Recession of 2008. Large sectors of workers and youth around the world are beginning to draw the conclusion that this system is no longer working. The new speculative cycle that followed the bailouts has not stopped capital flight in Latin America, which is combined with fraudulent and usurious debt payments by governments and goes hand in hand with austerity plans under the aegis of the IMF to give creditors guarantees of repayment. Within the framework of the commercial war promoted by US imperialism, particularly against China, the US seeks to reinforce its domination in our continent, not only through economic extortion but also through direct interference, as has been seen in the aggressive policy against Venezuela, a fact that we repudiate beyond our deep differences with the Maduro regime. At the same time, we denounce that, in their dispute, both the US and China seek to take over the natural and strategic resources of our region through partnerships with extractive capitalist corporations. Within this framework, Latin America has become another centre of the pandemic crisis and also of the social crisis. Under the government of the ultra-right-wing Bolsonaro, Brazil is one of the countries most affected by the pandemic. Chile, Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador have also suffered this scourge on a large scale, under right-wing governments located. In Mexico and Argentina, the ‘national and popular’ governments have been far from touching the interests of the big employers to confront the situation of a gutted health system and the social crisis. On the contrary, they have maintained a line of subordination to imperialism, as Lopez Obrador showed in his meeting with Trump, and Alberto Fernandez by submitting to the precepts of the vulture funds and the IMF. The latter is also looking for a “social pact” with the business chambers that will mean the workers will be the ones to pay the costs of the crisis. In the light of this panorama, it is clear that all the social contradictions that motivated the popular Latin American rebellions in 2019 have become more acute. Therefore, the opening of a new phase of great struggles and rebellions of the exploited is being reconsidered, as revealed by the new national days of protest in Chile, the demonstrations in Ecuador against the pro-IMF Lenin Moreno and the growing discontent of the Bolivian masses with the coup plotter Añez, the expressions of anger against Bolsonaro in Brazil, the reaction of the student movement in Colombia, the new situation in Paraguay since 22 June, the resumption of still-molecular protests in Nicaragua, and the developing workers’ and youth resistance in Argentina. The virtual Latin American and US Conference is thus framed in a moment of historic characteristics, which poses gigantic challenges for the workers, calling to fight for emergency measures to combat the pandemic and the austerity plans that are hitting the working people, to fight so that the capitalists pay for the crisis in the perspective of a workers’ and socialist world. We invite the left that claims to be classist, the combative workers’ movement, the youth that rebels, the feminist and environmental activism, and the committed intellectuals, to be part of this Conference to debate the bases to fight under the guidelines of class independence, for workers’ governments and for the Socialist Union of Latin America.

Schedule:

● Table-debate: “World crisis and rebellion in the empire”. Thursday 30 July, 18:30 (GMT-3)

● Discussion table: “The Latin American labour movement in the face of the capitalist crisis and the pandemic”. Friday 31 July, 17:00 (GMT-3)

● Discussion table: “The Latin American situation”. Friday 31 July, 19:30 (GMT-3)

● Latin American and US Virtual Conference Saturday, 1 August, 14:00 (GMT-3)

Left Front-Unity (FIT-U)

PTS – PO – Socialist Left – MST