Forty-three people attended the weekend conference hosted by the Communist League and Young Socialists (YS). They came from five countries in the Pacific, including several cities in New Zealand. They included a number of young people, including six high school students interested in the Young Socialists; four of them came after meeting socialists selling revolutionary literature at an antiwar protest in Auckland during the first day of the conference.

Welcoming the participants on behalf of the organizers, Felicity Coggan introduced a number of special guests: Simon Koumac, representing the Kanak Liberation Party (Palika) and Evette Huitema, the Oceania Democratic Assembly (RDO), both from New Caledonia; Christopher Embil, a representative of the Tertiary Socialist Students from Papua New Guinea (PNG); Grant Hawke, a leader of Ngati Whatua, the main Maori tribe in Auckland; members of the Communist League and Young Socialists in Australia, and representatives of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and Young Socialists in the United States.

Tucker, a member of the League’s National Committee and a garment worker, presented a feature talk on "Campaigning for Communism; against imperialism, depression and war." Conference participants applauded enthusiastically when Tucker began by announcing that Róger Calero, associate editor of Perspectiva Mundial and a staff writer for the Militant, had just been freed from custody by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) in Houston after a campaign of protest messages from around the world. Coming out of the conference, his supporters continued to win broader support for the ongoing fight to stop the INS from deporting Calero.

"Communists, and all revolutionary and working-class fighters," Tucker said, "need to act on the understanding that the world we live in is marked by an unfolding economic depression and the march towards a series of imperialist wars, beginning with the impending assault on Iraq." This brings "disastrous new economic conditions" for working people and "fuels a sharper nationalism that reinforces every reactionary prejudice and trend that capitalism upholds."

"In New Zealand right now the capitalist business cycle has been going through its strongest upturn in 20 years. But you have to look beyond the business cycle and see the overall trends," Tucker said, pointing to the long-term economic stagnation and decline that marks capitalism today.  
 
New Zealand imperialism
Tucker noted that as Washington and London have accelerated preparations for war on Iraq, the New Zealand government promotes the image that it is keeping its distance. "But it is already part of the war," he said. The government in Wellington "is part of the weapons inspections that are a ploy for preparing the assault. It is part of the imperialist naval forces raiding vessels on the high seas in the region. And it is preparing to send troops--except it calls these medical and logistical support units, to imply they have some ‘humanitarian’ purpose."

"The New Zealand rulers will march to war not because they are subservient to Washington or London, or because they are looking for trade deals as a payoff," Tucker said. "They will march to war in order to advance their own imperialist interests as a class."

He noted that "Wellington, alongside the Australian government in Canberra, is also preparing for military interventions and wars in neighboring countries. Already we see them using their forces in Bougainville, in the Solomon Islands, and in East Timor, which was their biggest military deployment since the Korean War 50 years ago."

Tucker pointed to the New Zealand nationalism that shapes the perspectives advanced by liberal, pacifist, and centrist forces calling antiwar actions today, noting that this often takes the form of anti-Americanism or identifying with the rulers’ "war on terrorism." This "reinforces the patriotic war propaganda," he said, "not class political clarity and proletarian internationalism." Communists need to take on these reactionary views and explain the need to build a movement of working people against the capitalist government in Wellington, including for its defeat in wartime. "We are for a revolution of the workers and farmers to overthrow the imperialist rulers," Tucker said.

The first question following Tucker’s presentation kicked off a lively discussion. One participant, a high school student, asked whether "we" have a responsibility to help East Timor, which was previously occupied by the Indonesian military.

"Understanding who ‘we’ are and who ‘they’ are is the starting point of all wisdom," Tucker responded. "As the imperialists go to war, this becomes vital--to see that we as working people have no interests in common with them, the bosses and their government, but are part of a working class that is international and has common class interests." The New Zealand rulers do not act on behalf of working people or to aid the toilers anywhere, he said.

A second feature talk, "The Cuban Revolution; an example for working people," was presented by National Committee member Janet Roth, a meat-packing worker. "The Cuban revolution demonstrates the tremendous capacities of working people," she said, and is "an answer to the tendency of working people to underestimate ourselves and what we can accomplish."

The Cuban Revolution is an example for women fighting against second-class status reinforced by capitalism, she added. "Fundamental advances for women, such as those won in Cuba over the decades since the 1959 revolution, can only occur as working people in their majority act to break the stranglehold of the propertied classes, who are the beneficiaries of the second-class status of women." Roth pointed to the forthcoming Pathfinder title, Marianas in Combat: Teté Puebla and the Mariana Grajales Women’s Platoon in Cuba’s Revolutionary War, 1956–58, an interview with the highest-ranking woman in Cuba’s revolutionary armed forces today, Teté Puebla.  
 
Resistance by working people
On Saturday evening a Militant Labor Forum on working-class resistance featured communist and young socialist leaders from Australia and the United States. Adrian MacGregor, a member of the Young Socialists and Communist League in Australia, spoke about a recent rally he attended by 3,000 sugar cane farmers in Townsville, Australia, protesting the decline in sugar prices and government plans to deregulate the industry. Many farmers face the prospect of losing their land.

Ron Poulsen, also from the Communist League in Australia, described a growing number of protests against Australian imperialism taking place throughout Asia and the Pacific, from the Philippines, to East Timor, to Indonesia. Fueling many of these protests were recent statements by Australian prime minister John Howard asserting that his government had the right to take "preemptive action" against "terrorism," a pretext for the Australian rulers’ increased probes toward military intervention in the region.

The final speaker on the panel was Ernie Mailhot, a National Committee member of the Socialist Workers Party in the United States. Mailhot pointed to the "important victory won today with the freeing of Róger Calero" on parole. Many of the participants at the conference had been campaigning over the previous week to organize letters and petitions to demand the INS release Calero and drop its moves to deport him.

Mailhot outlined the next challenges in the fight, noting that the threat of deportation facing Calero, despite having permanent resident status in the United States, is a situation affecting tens of thousands of working people there.

The next day Simon Koumac and Evette Huitema spoke on the independence struggle in New Caledonia. In introducing them, Roth explained that the Young Socialists and Palika had collaborated to build participation in the 2001 world youth festival held in Algiers. In September a team of three Young Socialists representatives from New Zealand, Canada, and the United States had visited New Caledonia to meet fellow fighters and participate in a seminar on the fight against imperialism hosted by Palika.  
 
Struggles in New Caledonia, PNG
"Since the 1853 seizure of New Caledonia by France the Kanak people have been resisting," said Koumac. During the 1980s the independence struggle against French colonial rule faced fierce repression and many Kanaks were killed. In 1988 and 1998, the Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS), a federation of the pro-independence parties, signed agreements with the French government and the main French colonial-settler party in New Caledonia, Rally for Caledonia within the Republic (RPCR). These accords outline a process of increasing autonomy leading to a referendum on independence between 2014 and 2018.

But the National Assembly is dominated by the RPCR, Koumac said, and it is "not respecting the spirit of the accords." In fact it is trying to exclude the FLNKS from bodies set up under the agreements. This is what underlies a growing political crisis in New Caledonia today and sets the framework in which the struggles of Kanaks unfold.

Huitema explained that her organization is based among Polynesian immigrants from the islands of Wallis and Futuna, who make up 10 percent of the population of New Caledonia. Wallis and Futuna are also ruled by Paris. She described how in the past immigrants from these islands were largely aligned with the RPCR against the Kanak struggle, but this began to break down in the early 1990s.

We are "fighting for a society that is more egalitarian." That is why "we support the Kanak people’s demand for restitution of their sovereignty," Huitema explained. "We advocate a state that is independent, democratic, and multiethnic."

The conference ended with a panel on "Building a worldwide movement against imperialism."

Annalucia Vermunt, a National Committee member of the Communist League in New Zealand, pointed to the resistance unfolding among working people today and the "expanding openings to work with others in the fight against imperialism and its wars." She outlined some of the practical activity that young socialists and communist workers will be engaged in as 2003 gets underway. This includes joining workers’ picket lines and protests for Maori rights; working with others to tour speakers on the Cuban Revolution and other revolutionary struggles; campaigning with the Militant and Pathfinder books in working-class districts, at factory gates, and at antiwar actions; and organizing study classes on Marxist writings.

Christopher Embil, a 22-year-old university student in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, spoke about resistance to imperialist domination in that country today. While Australian colonial rule formally ended in 1975, he said, "what kind of independence did we get?" He pointed out that PNG is very rich in resources and yet the people are very poor. "We are still controlled by Canberra and its imperialist friends in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank," Embil said, describing how protests in 2001 by thousands of students had been violently suppressed, with four students shot dead.

The final speaker on the panel was Diana Newberry, a member of the SWP National Committee and of the Young Socialists in the United States. Resistance by working people in response to the brutal conditions generated by capitalism--from dock workers to coal miners to working farmers--is at the heart of the growing opportunities to build the communist movement worldwide, she said. Pointing to the importance of the lessons and revolutionary continuity contained in the books published by Pathfinder, she said these are "real tools for revolutionists and fighters everywhere."  
 
Socialist summer school
Rebecca Broad from the Young Socialists in Christchurch, who co-chaired the panel, reported that nine YS-age participants attended a meeting earlier that day which discussed the campaigns of the communist movement that young socialists could be active in. For example, she and another youth will be taking part in socialist summer school classes, while getting a summer job in industry and participating in political activities together with socialist workers.

A number of classes were held over the two mornings of the conference. Topics included, "The Jewish Question: why anti-Semitism arises out of the decay of capitalism"; "The reactionary history of New Zealand imperialism"; "Karl Marx’s Value, Price and Profit: the struggle between capital and labour"; and "Chomsky and the anarchist perceptive: an obstacle for the workers’ movement."

Attractive large displays prepared by supporters of the Communist League illustrated the work they carry out as part of an international effort to help produce the books and pamphlets published by Pathfinder and their efforts to promote these titles to bookstores and libraries.

A Pathfinder literature table was a focal point of many informal discussions over the two days. Altogether NZ$250 worth of books were sold, including a number of copies of Lenin’s Imperialism, several titles in French, and many titles at sale prices picked up by first-time participants (NZ$1.00=US$0.50).

To help finance the work of the communist movement, a six-week fund appeal was launched at the Militant Labor Forum, where more than NZ$2000 was raised.  
 
 
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