From IWU-FI
4 April 2022.
Debate on Ukraine at the University of Oporto
On Thursday 31 March, a debate lecture on the war in Ukraine was held at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Porto, Portugal.
The talk was chaired by Renata Cambra, spokesperson and president of the Portuguese Socialist Alternative Movement (MAS). With her at the table was Miguel Sorans, leader of IWU-FI and the Socialist Left (IS) in Argentina. The conversation is an integral part of the activities of the international campaign to reject Putin’s invasion and Russian troops in Ukraine, to support the resistance of the Ukrainian people and to reject NATO. The IWU-FI and MAS (P) are forming a liaison committee to carry out joint campaigns and deepen relations with a view to possible integration.
The event was well attended by students from the Faculty of Arts. The keynote speaker was former MP candidate Renata Cambra from MAS (P), who spoke about the activities being developed by the organisation, which is calling for unified action with the slogan “No to War”. Putin’s troops out of Ukraine and No to NATO. He explained that this was not an inter-imperialist war and that it was necessary to stand on the side of the Ukrainian people and their resistance, without politically supporting the Selensky government and ignoring the neo-Nazi groups that might be operating in Ukraine. Then Sorans spoke up in the same spirit, noting that the solidarity of the revolutionary left has nothing to do with the cynical “support” of Biden, Macron or Boris Johnson and that both the MAS of Portugal and the IWU-FI reject any imperialist interference in Ukraine, be it Russian, American or NATO.
There were several interventions and questions answered in the closing speeches by Miguel Sorans and Renata Cambra, who once again stressed the need to develop these debates in Portugal and the world as street actions with the slogans Putin out of Ukraine, Support for the Ukrainian people and No to NATO.
Action in the city of Braga
Lecture on feminism in Braga
On Saturday 2 April, lectures were held throughout the day at the MAS headquarters in the city of Braga, located in the north of the country, 50 km from Porto. The firstlecture in the morning was given by Miguel Sorans on revolution and counter-revolution in Cuba and Nicaragua and the current campaign that IWU-FI is leading together with the critical Cuban left for the freedom of political prisoners unjustly condemned by the dictatorial regimes of Diaz Canel in Cuba and Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua. This round table was coordinated by Pedro Castro, president of MAS (P). After lunch, Mercedes Petit, a leader of the Socialist Left (IS) and the Isadora group from Argentina, spoke about the global feminist women’s movement, socialist feminism and the Green Tide in Argentina.
