Britain’s Communists Urge Solidarity Against Sectarian and State Terror

The Communist Party of Britain has condemned terrorist attacks in Paris and Beirut and warned against the danger of an upsurge in racism and state repression that might result.

Meeting over the weekend, the party’s executive committee agreed to send a message to the French Communist Party expressing condolence and solidarity with all those who lost loved ones in Friday night’s atrocities.

At the same time, Britain’s Communists warned that the killers in France and Lebanon were the “direct descendants of the terrorist groups supported, armed, funded and trained by the US, Britain and allied Middle Eastern dictatorships in Afghanistan in the 1970s and early 1980s”.

“It has been the strategic objective of the Western imperialist powers to maintain or re-establish their political and economic domination of the “Greater Middle East” region, using wars, coups and chaos to remove the obstacles in their way”, CP chair Liz Payne told the meeting. The results could now been seen in the mass migrations of refugees fleeing Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya and the further rise of fascist and far right movements in the Scandinavian countries, France, Germany, Poland and Turkey.

She insisted that the struggle for democratic freedoms was indivisible, whether in France, Britain, Saudi Arabia or Iran, just as the fight against sectarian and state terrorism should be supported whether in France, Lebanon, Palestine or Yemen.

“In particular, the NATO powers and their Middle Eastern allies should stop arming and funding terrorist groups in Syria and start supporting the Damascus regime in its desperate battle against ISIS and other sectarian forces”, Ms Payne demanded.

Instead, she reiterated the view of the Communist Party and its sister parties in the Middle East that political and humanitarian solutions are urgently required there, not more outside military intervention to promote Western imperialist interests.

Message to the French Communist Party

The Communist Party of Britain executive committee sends its solidarity to our comrades in the French Communist Party (PCF) in their endeavours to maintain the principles of internationalism and working class unity in the face of sectarian terror, state repression, racism and right-wing chauvinism.

We express through the PCF our condolences to all those who have lost loved ones in the atrocities of Friday, November 13.

We call for unity of all who face sectarian and state terrorism, imperialist oppression and capitalist exploitation and who strive to uphold democratic freedoms and the right to take collective action for social progress, whether in France, Britain, the Middle East or anywhere else.