PARTIT KOMUNISTA MALTI: NO TO PRESIDENT OBAMA EXECUTIVE ORDER AGAINST VENEZUELA

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

NO TO PRESIDENT OBAMA EXECUTIVE ORDER AGAINST VENEZUELA

On Sunday the 19th of April the Communist Party of Malta and the Garden of Knowledge held a petition signing activity in Republic Street Valletta, in Solidarity with the people of Venezuela who are undergoing a siege from the opposition parties and are being threatened with a military invasion by the Obama Administration. Here under we are reproducing the leaflet that was distributed during the activity

The “Executive Order” signed by President Barack Hussein Obama, which declared the situation in Venezuela as an extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States”, represents an act of provocation and interference that threatens the sovereignty, the self-determination and Peace of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and all Latin America and the Caribbean.

Hugo Rafael Chávez Frias was a Venezuelan politician and the President of Venezuela from 1999 until his death in 2013. He was the leader of the Fifth Republic Movement from its foundation in 1997 until 2007, when it merged with several other parties to form the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), which he led until 2012. The time served as President Chavez was always elected in free and democratic elections. The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela resulted from the outcome of a democratic referendum to amend the Venezuelan Constitution. This caused a revolutionary change in favour of the vast majority of the people, where a very high percentage of the Venezuelan population are poor while Venezuela is a very rich country.

Stability in Venezuela is being threatened by the opposition parties who refuse to admit that fair and square they lost all elections since 1999. They went as far as perpetrating a coup in 2002 which eventually was unsuccessful. Even today under the Maduro Presidency they tried another abortive coup. The United State today is left with only one option, that of a flagrant aggression against the people of Venezuela.

These attempts to destabilise and put back the clock on the popular gains and advances in Latin America and the Caribbean in order to restore the hegemony and the geostrategic control that the United States had on this region should be condemned. We urge the United States President to retrieve his Executive Order against Venezuela, and seek other roads towards peace and stability.

Victor Degiovanni

Secretary Communist Party of Malta

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Some History

An organized Communist Party did not exist prior to 1969. Secret Communist cells existed in various periods from the 1920's onwards, but they were always small in number. Maltese communists militated either in the Communist Party of Great Britain, or in the Partito Comunista Italiano, or worked under cover within the Malta Labour Party, which was also infiltrated by the catholic clergy at that time, in an effort to prevent the Labour Party from taking a Marxist line, notably amongst these infiltrators was Mgr. Michael Gonzi, the future Archbishop of Malta and a faithful servant of the British Crown and a much bitter enemy of Malta’s Liberation Movement in Malta’s struggle for Independence in the late 1950's.
The Civil and ecclesiastical authorities were ever vigilant in their witch hunt, and this culminated in the 1933 sedition trails where a number of dockyard workers and intellectuals were imprisoned for the crime of possessing classical Marxist literature. This however proved to be a great setback for the progressive movement as it took years and years to get back on its feet again
. The major exponent of the bourgeoisie was the Nationalist Party, an irredentist party firmly believing that Malta was a part of Italy that had yet to be redeemed, from English occupation. Its leaders favored the Italian Language to Maltese, and openly shown sympathies towards Mussolini’s fascist Italian state. With the Second World War looming on the horizon the English colonial authorities sacked a Nationalist administration after winning an election with the aid of the Catholic Church who had imposed mortal sin on who ever voted for the Constitutional Party, a pro British Bourgeoisie party. This pro Italy position eventually led, to the internment of the Nationalist Party leadership on breakout of the war. After the Second World War it was the right wing turn now to suffer a setback. The Second World War changed completely the political scene in Malta; however the times were still difficult for the setting up of a Communist party.
At the Mayday celebrations of 1948, where in a dinner held by the Labour Party for the occasion. The English socialist anthem Scarlet Banner was sung by some leftists present of the at this event. This caused an incident which led to affidavits and statements by the leading members of the labour party in parliament and a witch hunt by the Catholic Church paper Lehen Is-Sewwa (The Voice of the Righteousness) and the British Colonial authorities.

DEMOCRACY DID NOT REALLY EXIST IN MALTA PRIOR TO 1971, not under the direct British Colonial rule, neither under the first Nationalist Administration after the 1964 independence. It was not possible to form a Communist Party. It was enough just to receive the "Soviet Weekly" from the United Kingdom, to find yourself watched and tailed by plainclothes policemen, and even taken to be interrogated by the Police. The Maltese Prime Minister in the early 1950’s took a film distributing company to court in order to stop the screening four Soviet films which the then, very harsh censors, had deemed them fit for viewing by the Maltese general public. Even Hollywood ran into trouble, if the story line included communists. One positive aspect was the cold war cinema films of the McCarthy era were banned in Malta. The Civil authorities went into hysteria at the word communist. The then regular Christmas tournament, organized by the Malta Football Association was stopped, because most the teams invited came from Eastern Europe. The catholic oligarchy led by the now Sir Michael Gonzi Archbishop of Malta with its’ network of Parish priests spying on each and every individual in each respective parish operating in a Gestapo fashion. The Main employment on the island depended on the Naval Dockyard, and on the other British Military Bases. The contradiction here was that, to declare oneself Communist would have been sheer madness, as these "devout" Catholics, would have starved you to death, while on the other hand Marxist Ideas spread amongst progressive workers, by the odd English Airmen or Sailors posted on the island.

In the last days of the Catholic hierarchy imposed Dr George Borg Olivier Nationalist administration, as in 1962 and 1966 general elections the church again made use of moral sanctions, now to safeguard its privileges it enjoyed during the colonial period, The Communist party was eventually set up, through the activism of Paul Agius who had returned to Malta, from Australia, who along with other Maltese comrades founded the Communist Party of Malta This event took place around 1969. The party for a short period operated underground but after 1971 when the Borg Olivier administration was finally defeated The Party came out into the open. The Party Membership started to grow Lillian Schiberras Anthony Vassallo, Anthony Baldachinno and others. Evarist Bartolo, Mario Vella, and Alfred Consiglio were amongst the early members
It is not possible to mention all here but many passed through party membership. During the 1970,s the party gave critical support from the left to the Dom Mintoff’s Labour Party administration progressive, anti imperialist policy. The Party supported the policy of neutrality and the demilitarization of Malta, At the time Malta was an important NATO Base. The Communist Party was not prepared to contest the General Elections in 1976 and in 1979 was in support of the closing down of all the military bases in Malta. In 1981.for various reasons, again the party could not contest in the general elections. During the 1980's the party embarked on the road towards electoral campaigns. The party started to publish a monthly newspaper "Zminijietna" and started to prepare for the evantuality of contesting. The Party was now going through its golden age as membership started to grow and things were looking up. On the eve of the 1987 elections Dom Mintoff now a backbencher in the Labour administration proposed amendments to the Maltese constitution, which were accepted unanimously. The electoral rules were changed to suit the two party system and it resulted that small parties now had no chance of surmounting the unofficial 17% threshold. The Central Committee failed to read the writing on the wall. Failed to withdraw from the fray, and contested the 1987 elections with disastrous results. After this debacle, the party went into a period of decline. The events in Eastern Europe of 1989 continued to give the party further blows, where now it was a struggle to survive and keep its archives.
In the mid 1990’s the party slowly started again on the road of being active once again.
NEWS FROM FRATERNAL PARTIES
Communist Festival in Copenhagen, Denmark
A Festival jointly organised by the Communist Party in Denmark (KPiD) and the Communist Party of Denmark (DKP) takes place on Saturday 15. August (12-23) and Sunday 16. August (12-18) in Norrebroparken in Copenhagen (near Nordbanegade). Bus 5A from Central Train Station. Lots of music, speakers from the 2 organising parties and from other organisations, political debates, displays, food, drinks and happiness - everything in favour of the 2 communist papers, Kommunist and Skub.
Everybody visiting Copenhagen are invited!

LINKS
http://www.icsbrussels.org/ICS/2009/Sci09_Available_Papers.htm
http://cubaveritas.blogspot.com/

http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=14368

http://wwwlavienglish.blogspot.com/2010/10/soviet-union-was-born-in-october-1917.html

http://aucpbenglishwebsite.blogspot.com/

http://inter.kke.gr/en/articles/Statement-of-77-Communist-and-Workers-Parties-against-the-Imperialist-Military-Attack-against-Syria/

http://communismgr.blogspot.com.mt

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PARTIT KOMUNISTA MALTI

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

NO TO PRESIDENT OBAMA EXECUTIVE ORDER AGAINST VENEZUELA

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