GUADELOUPE
Travayè é peyizan
TO THE WORKERS, YOUTH AND PEOPLE OF GUADELOUPE :
Since January 20 our country has undergone an unprecedented upheaval that everyone describes as an historic movement.
In response to the call of 49 organizations -- unions, political, cultural associations, consumer protection groups, and organizations representing environmental activists, workers, youth, persons with disabilities, retirees, artists and creators, farmers and peasants, fishermen, artisans and small businesses - the people burst onto the political scene, showing that Guadeloupe is ours.
After watching the first 3 days of negotiations on radio and television, they understood the game quickly. They witnessed the irresponsibility and disregard of the employers, elected officials and the representative of the French government. They saw immediately the reality of the profiteer's camp, the camp pwofitasyon, the camp of the criminals, Kan Yo.
Faced with this situation, in response the call of the collective Liannaj Kont Pwofitayon, which they recognized as their leadership in the struggle, they demonstrated by the tens of thousands: 25,000 then 40,000, and then 100,000 the week of February 16 to 20. They rose up against the aggression by the thousands of mobile police and special troops deployed in Guadeloupe by the French government, with the complicity of certain elected officials.
They organized to address and demand immediate solutions to the dire situation: the shortages of certain commodities, gasoline. The population kept up production, at the request of the LKP and under its control, to feed and sustain the population during the strike.
Promoting new social relationships
Today, the mobilization continues, though the general strike has been suspended. The mobilization forced the French government and local officials to sign, on February 26, an agreement increasing the minimum wage by 200 euros.
The mobilization went on to impose the signing of a general memorandum of agreement, on March 4.
The goal is to promote new social relations, which is expressed in the preamble to the Jacques BINO agreement :
"Considering that the economic and social conditions existing in Guadeloupe follow the model of the plantation economy. Considering that this economy is based on the abuse of dominant positions, which generates injustice. Considering that these injustices affect both the workers and internal economic growth. ...
Considering the need to break down these barriers by creating a new economic order, calling for an adjustment of the appreciation of the work of each (owners and employees) and promoting new social relationships ..."
Nothing will be like before
Everyone acknowledges that nothing will be like before, nothing can be like before.
This feeling, this liyannaj, finds its origin in the struggle that workers in Guadeloupe with the support of the population have been driven to take to maintain the independence of trade unions, to resist the anti-union repression, the racial discrimination, the lay-offs ....
This resistance was manifested in particular by :
- The struggle for the independence of the working class, the unions in particular, against the social dialogue of compromise, against class collaboration through the social forums ;
- The struggle for respect for May 27, symbolized by the struggle for the release of Michel Madasssamy in late May and early June 2001 ;
- The long and difficult conflicts such as the struggle at Destrelland Carrefour, Danone, where workers and their organizations are still faced with the contempt békés patterns supported by the colonial power which did not hesitate to systematically use the dozens of the police and mobile gendarmes at their disposal.
- The struggle of the former employees of the Farm Campeche to preserve their livelihoods and the preservation of farmland in Guadeloupe.
- The fight for the Free Union of Free Peoples of the Caribbean driven by the Association of Workers and Peoples of the Caribbean, ATPC, created in December 2002 in Guadeloupe, in particular through the struggle for the sovereignty of the people of Haiti (In Defending Haiti We Defend Ourselves)
- The revolution in South America, Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador, ....
LKP : PLIS KI LIYANNAJ, ON LESPWI
This has been expressed today in the mobilization that we've seen for two months and through the unity of these 49 organizations, through this communion between people and the LKP.
This imposes a responsibility on the elected officials :
"We are not heard in Parliament. ... The movement initiated by LKP has managed to achieve what parliamentarians in vain have tried to ask of the French Government, in particular in relation to the greater control over fuel prices ..." These were the words of MP and Chairman of the Region Victorin Lurel, at a signing of Memorandum of Agreement to suspend the general strike on March 4, 2009, as quoted by the newspaper France Antilles, March 6, 2009.
In recent weeks, ever since the President of the French State raised on February 19, the idea of the Estates General initially launched by the Presidents of the General and Regional Councils of Guadeloupe, we have witnessed a political offensive on this point from the Minister of Colonies, the prefect, and also certain political organizations.
All of them spend their time scorning the workers and youth. They demonstrate their inability to solve the problems facing the masses, then they support the colonial institutions based on racial discrimination over the past 400 years, and now suddenly they want to concoct a "future" through their Estates General, their congress, their consultations, -- that is, through the French colonial institutions.
And they continue to do everything like before.
Do they not understand the message ? Do they have short memories ? What right do they have to do this ? Who has given them a mandate for that ?
But how can they do otherwise, they are subordinated to the colonial institutions.
It is the RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE of Guadeloupe to decide their own future !
The militants of Travay é Peyizan argue that what has been happening since January 20 is a genuine movement of class struggle. The platform of demands developed by the LKP collective with the masses expresses the will of the people of Guadeloupe to end social oppression and national oppression.
It is up to the people to define the shape, pace and time of any change! And we reiterate that only we the people of Guadeloupe can say what we want, through institutions created by us and for us.
The movement that began on January 20 shows that the people and workers need to have elected representatives at their service, elected officials accountable to them, that they can monitor and revoke at any time. Activists of Travay é Peyizan believe that only a National Constituent Assembly can meet this need. And they believe that to carry out the fight for the Constituent Assembly it is necessary to have a tool that works for this: an organization, a party, a front, ...
These militants are raising the perspective of building an independent workers party, independent of the institutions, a party that struggles for the independence of the working class and for the unity of the peoples of the region -- for the Free Union of Free Peoples of the Caribbean. ....
They submit this proposal for discussion.
(Abymes, Guadeloupe -- March 23, 2009)
