the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Jun 6, 2022
This article is translated from the May 26th issue, #2808 of Lutte Ouvrière (Workers Struggle), the paper of the revolutionary workers group of that name active in France.
The planet today has more than 100 million displaced people, forced to flee far from their homes because of the increasing and protracted conflicts.
This is the first time that such a figure has been reached, denounces the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the UN agency which has been taking care of them since 1951.
In Ukraine, eight million people have had to seek refuge in other parts of the country. They are in addition to the six million who have taken refuge abroad. But this war is only the latest. Elsewhere, other conflicts have ravaged the planet for decades, and have thrown their share of men and women onto the roads. Ethiopian refugees are crowded into the camps in Sudan, driven out by the army of Abiy Ahmed, this Prime Minister who received the Nobel Peace Prize to the applause of the great powers. In Burkina Faso, more than a million people have left their villages under the combined blows of jihadist groups, ethnic militias, or abuses by the army of the regime supported by French imperialism.
A vast zone of instability covers the center of the African continent, from the Central African Republic to the Democratic Republic of Congo or Nigeria. International corporations plunder what they can of the national wealth, leaving it to armed gangs and predatory governments to terrorize the population.
To this must be added the refugees from the wars waged by the great powers in Afghanistan or the Middle East. Because, behind all these dramas, we find the hand of imperialism, its criminal ability to exacerbate opposition, to divide and conquer, supporting criminal regimes even if it means eliminating any possibility for the peoples to profit from the wealth of their country.
The number of displaced persons therefore continues to increase. More and more of them are crowding into UNHCR camps, or taking shelter as best they can where they find refuge. Few end up returning home, as ongoing conflict and ongoing instability prevent them from doing so. As for the borders of the rich countries where they could hope to rebuild their lives, they remain closed.
It’s a balance sheet that says a lot about the state of this world dominated by imperialism.