Venezuelan Communists: Revolution’s social conquests are non negotiable
The Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV) is expressing its support for proposed dialog, but warns that the advances gained by the Venezuelan people since the election of President Hugo Chavez in 1998 should not be negotiable as part of that dialog. Oswaldo Ramos, a member of the Central Committee of the PCV, noted as positive the failure of the Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS) to use that organization as a mechanism for destabilizing Venezuela. But he also noted that outside interference has not ceased. He singled out the political right in Spain, which is facing a hard electoral test on June 26, and has been using Venezuela’s economic troubles as a mechanism for electioneering in its own country, with right-wing Spanish politicians coming to Venezuela and grandstanding with the Venezuelan right. Ramos emphasized that decisions about Venezuela’s future are a matter for the Venezuelan people alone to decide without outside interference.
Australian Communists reject neo-liberal health care reform
The Communist Party of Australia is strongly rejecting the government’s plan to privatize aspects of Medicare, the government run health care system and the Pharmaceutical Benefits System. The plan of the conservative government of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who heads a coalition of the Liberal Party and the National Party, is to begin means testing access to Medicare and to make copayments obligatory for all patients, while increasing patient contributions for prescription medications. These changes would follow sharp budget cuts to health care implemented in 2014. The Communist Party said in a statement: “Health care is a basic human right, not a commodity to be bought and sold on the markets to those who can afford it. Yet that is what the government is planning to do if re-elected”. Australia will have general elections on Saturday, July 2.
Indian Communists denounce weakening of laws on foreign direct investment
The Communist Party of India (CPI) has denounced plans by the right-wing government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, of the Bharatiya Janata Party, to alter India’s laws concerning Foreign Direct Investment in such a way as to open up the Indian economy, including agriculture, to even greater penetration by foreign transnational corporations. The government’s announced changes followed a visit to President Obama by Modi, and would affect not only agricultural enterprises but also defense, pharmaceuticals, civil aviation, broadcasting and other fields. India has required companies to adhere to rule of 30 percent local procurement, and this will be relaxed. With Modi’s changes it will be possible to have 100 percent foreign investment. Although Modi says this will bring more investment and thus create more jobs, the Communist Party of India says that instead of this, massive invasion by foreign capital will harm Indian industry as well as seriously impinging on the country’s national sovereignty.
Guyana: Walter Rodney remembered amid warnings of repression
The People’s Progressive Party (PPP), Guyana’s communist party, reminds the Guyanese people and their friends around the world of the 26th anniversary of the murder of Walter Rodney, and expresses its interest in the results of a National Assembly (parliamentary) investigation into the circumstances of Dr. Rodney’s assassination by means of a car bomb on June 13 1980. Rodney was an outstanding Guyanese historian of Africa and the African diaspora, as well as a charismatic activist of the left. He is perhaps best known for his book “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa”. His assassination has been blamed on the government of then Prime Minister and later President Forbes Burnham, of the People’s National Congress, which Rodney had been actively opposing. The PPP reminds Guyanese that some of the repressive tendencies which characterized the Burnham regime may be returning with the new government of President David A. Granger, of the People’s National Congress, who was elected by a narrow margin in 2015.
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