Britain’s communists have welcomed Barack Obama’s victory in the US presidential election, while warning that ‘US imperialism remains the world’s most powerful force for exploitation and oppression’.Communist Party national women’s organiser Liz Payne said that the defeat of Republican Party candidate Mitt Romney was ‘good news’ for the poor, the unemployed, women and black and ethnic minority people in the USA. ‘But there are no celebrations in Syria, Iran, Pakistan or Palestine, where US foreign policy promotes fear, misery, war and the threat of war’, she told the Communist Party of Britain’s political committee.

  Ms Payne contrasted President Obama’s belligerent and reactionary foreign policy, backed by a huge escalation of military spending, to his relatively progressive social and economic policies at home.The latter include support for manufacturing and job creation which – unlike in Britain – have ensured almost 18 successive months of economic growth.’The real question now is whether the progressive coalition of women, trade unionists and black and Hispanic people that secured Obama’s re-election can be mobilised in support of peace and justice abroad’, Ms Payne remarked. She warned in particular that Western attempts to unite the Syrian opposition were the prelude to US-led military intervention to topple the al-Assad regime in Damascus.
‘The next step could be the proclamation of a NATO-backed “no-fly zone” which, as we saw in Libya, will turn into a NATO “free-fire zone” to bomb government forces and their civilian supporters’, Ms Payne cautioned.The CPB political committee urged the peace movement in Britain and elsewhere to prepare to campaign against outside military intervention in Syria.
Britain’s communists also decided to:
  * Protest against Turkey’s suppression of Kurdish and other minority languages and to express solidarity with 700 Kurdish hunger strikers in Turkish prisons and elsewhere.
  * Urge support for appeals to aid Cuba following the recent hurricane devastation ignored by the Western media.
  * Send greetings to the 18th congress of the Communist Party of China with best wishes in its efforts to pursue ‘social justice, sustainable development and peace’.
Image courtesy : Grace Matthews’ blogg