The News Line: Editorial
Wednesday, 23 April 2008
=91Put an end to capitalism=92 to solve the food crisis
WITH another 100 million people no longer able to afford the food they
need to live, two international meetings were underway in London and
New York yesterday.
In London, Prime Minister Gordon Brown hosted a international meeting
for the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) to address what it
described as a =91silent tsunami=92.
Before the meeting, WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran said:
=91We=92re seeing about 100 million people . . . who maybe did not need
assistance six months ago, but today simply cannot afford enough food
for their family.=92
She pointed out that the price of rice in Asia has more than doubled
since the beginning of March, going up from $460 a ton to more than
$1,000. Commodity traders say that, over the last year, rice has gone
up by 74 per cent, maize by 31 per cent, wheat by 130 per cent and
soya by 87 per cent.
With the imperialist powers desperate to boost energy supplies,
Sheeran commented on the EU=92s target of relying on biofuels for 10 per
cent of road trans****t fuel and the fact that 30 per cent of America=92s
maize crop will be used to make ethanol.
Sheeran said: =91Certainly, biofuel is one of those things that is
impacting (on food supplies) and we need the experts to sit down and
look at how much food is needed and to make sure people can get it at
an affordable price.=92
Brown said: =91Tackling hunger is a moral challenge to each of us and it
is also a threat to the political and economic stability of nations.=92
The maestro of cant and hypocrisy, a day earlier, had handed over
$50bn to the speculators running Britain=92s big banks, while insisting
that the 10p tax band had to be axed and that five million low paid
workers must tighten their belts and pay more tax.
Bolivian President Evo Morales and Peru=92s Alan Garcia, attending a UN
forum on the global impact of climate change on indigenous peoples,
were more forthright than Sheeran in challenging the =91green=92
imperialists and their multinational cor****ations involved in biofuels
production.
Morales said: =91If we want to save our planet earth, we have a duty to
put an end to the capitalist system.=92 Taking a side-swipe at Brazilian
President Lula da Silva, who has signed up to biofuel deals, Morales
said that some South American presidents talking about biofuels =91did
not understand what they were talking about=92.
Garcia from Peru, where 40 per cent of the people (12 million) live
below the poverty line and have been hit by soaring food prices, lined
up with Morales saying that the demand for biofuels was putting world
food production under threat.
Even Brown=92s statement revealed the concerns of the imperialist
leaders, when he spoke about rocketing food prices and starvation
being =91a threat to the political and economic stability of nations=92.
This is certainly the case. In a number of countries workers in the
cities have rioted over escalating food prices that are outstripping
their wages and their families are going hungry.
There has been unrest in Bangladesh, Burkino Faso, Cameroon, Egypt,
Haiti, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Mozambique and Senegal.
Last month four people were killed during food riots in Haiti and the
government fell. Ten workers died in riots in Egypt targeted at the
state bakeries.
Earlier this month, an estimated 50,000 textile workers took to the
streets of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, to protest against
soaring food prices, particularly rice. They engaged in pitched
battles with the police.
Those on the streets of Cairo and Dhaka were the big battalions of the
working class, the textile workers, fighting determinedly to defend
their families from starvation. It will not be long before those in
the leader****p of these working-class actions realise that capitalism
is the source of their poverty and hunger.
They will draw the conclusion articulated by Morales, that only a
socialist revolution to overthrow capitalism can deliver cheap food
for workers and poor farmers.
For such a struggle they must organise a revolutionary party, a
section of the International Committee of the Fourth International,
theoretically and practically prepared to lead the workers and
labouring m***** in a struggle for power.
http://www.wrp.org.uk/news/3108
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