Reactionary State Campaign ahead of May Day

A campaign of disinformation and hysteria has been embarked on by the state and the monopoly-controlled media in the run-up to the May Day demonstrations on May First.

Lurid stories of "violent activists" and tactics of "overrunning the police" are appearing in the press at the same time as Scotland Yard is declaring that it will adopt an approach of "zero tolerance" to the May Day protests in London.

As well as this, the significance of May Day as the day of the international working class, the day of unity in struggle of all peoples fighting for national and social liberation, is being passed over in silence in favour of the focus on "radical groups intent on violence". The traditional May Day march from Highbury Fields to Clerkenwell Green is not referred to, nor any other activity around the country to celebrate May First.

The state is building on its campaign of last year, when following disinformation such as that Reclaim the Streets were stockpiling illegal weapons, the police forcibly moved in after a MacDonald’s was provocatively trashed and trapped thousands of people in Trafalgar Square, keeping them there for the rest of the afternoon, and keeping apart the workers and the youth. This year it is being promoted that the police will not be caught unawares, as they allegedly were for Mayday 2000. This is being used to justify the build up to criminalising the whole of the protest activities on May Day, focusing especially on the youth whose sentiment against the globalisation agenda of the financial oligarchy and the big imperialist powers is justly finding expression on May Day.

In this atmosphere of hysteria and disinformation, first of all, all attention if being focused on "extremism" with the aim of marginalising and criminalising legitimate political activity and protest against the broad offensive taking place on society. Furthermore, the state is attempting to fragment the movement against this offensive by identifying it with violence and anarchy, which is actually the characteristic of imperialism and capitalist production. In these circumstances, discussion on what people need to do to open society’s path to progress is made the victim of this hysteria and disinformation. The workers’ movement is kept completely sidelined, while the right of the youth to take control of their own future is denied, and the message that there is no alternative to the status quo is promoted loud and clear. The right to form organisations, the right to freedom of assembly – these and other rights are made the target of draconian legislation and state repression.

WDIE condemns the campaign of the state ahead of May Day to criminalise the people’s struggles in defence of their rights and against the anti-social offensive. Let all join together to affirm their vision of a society fit for human beings on May First!

Around 400 people gathered opposite Downing Street on April 14 to protest against the US "Son of Star Wars" National Missile Defence (NMD) System. The demonstrators also demanded that the British government dissociate itself from NMD, which signals the escalation of a dangerous new arms race, and not allow bases in Britain to be utilised for it.

The demonstration was called by CND, and was joined by people of all ages and by supporters of a number of political organisations as well as individual activists. Speeches were made condemning the NMD and pointing out that it has nothing to do with defence but is part of the strategy of US imperialism to impose its dictate throughout the world in the service of neo-liberal globalisation. Speakers said that Tony Blair must not use British bases in the service of this dictate, and pointed out that those who profit are such corporations as Boeing, TRW, Lockhead Martin and Raytheon which produce the technology.

Tribute was paid to CND and other activists and groups who have been campaigning at Fylingdales, at Menwith Hill and the women's campaigns.

The protest ended with a march up Whitehall to Trafalgar Square, despite police intimidation, where more speeches were given.

Forty years ago, on April 16, 1961, as thousands of Cubans accompanied the coffins of seven men killed during the US bombardments of two Cuban airports, Fidel Castro in an improvised speech affirmed the socialist character of the Cuban Revolution. He said it was "of the poor, by the poor and for the poor".

The air strikes against Havana's Ciudad Libertad airport and Santiago's San Antonio de los Banos airport were the prelude to Washington's Bay of Pigs invasion, launched two days later. The invasion was defeated in less than 72 hours as hundreds of thousands of Cuban militia and soldiers took up arms to defend the country.

This year, more than 100,000 people converged at the corner of 12th Street and 23rd Avenue in Havana, a block away from the cemetery where the victims were buried and where Fidel Castro delivered his historic speech. The Cuban people seized the occasion to reaffirm socialism as the only alternative for humanity in the face of a unipolar, neo-liberal and unjust world. The official call for the demonstration pointed out that the event was a strong response to the "cynical and hypocritical provocations and manoeuvres of the US government and its accomplices in the fruitless quest to destroy the Cuban Revolution".

Addressing the gathering, Eduardo Bernabe Ordaz, head of the Psychiatric Hospital of Havana and a commander of the Revolutionary Army, proclaimed, "Socialism is the only choice in the world to fight against neo-liberalism and globalisation that is threatening us, where the rich get richer and the poor poorer."