The International League of Peoples' Struggle (ILPS) calls on our participating organizations and their partner organizations the world over to carry out protest actions on January 20, 2005, the day that George W. Bush is inaugurated for his second term. As Bush takes the oath of office for his second presidential term, thousands of people will protest Bush's war in Iraq and his entire right-wing program.
The A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) has called for people to line the inaugural parade route, so that as Bush rides in his limousine down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC, he and the world will hear opposition from people in the U.S. loud and clear. Thousands more will gather to repudiate his imperialist agenda from San Francisco and Los Angeles on the U.S. West Coast, to Brussels, Belgium, and in many countries in Latin America, including Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica as well as many other cities around the world. More than 8,000 organizations and individuals have endorsed the Jan. 20 demonstrations.
The Bush regime has made clear that it intends to continue the occupation of Iraq indefinitely, as well as continue unlimited support for Israel's war against the Palestinian people. The administration is determined to maintain U.S. occupation and aggression against Cuba, Haiti, Afghanistan, Korea, the Philippines, Sudan, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Colombia, and other countries.
Their aim is to deepen and widen U.S. imperialist domination of Asia, Africa, Latin American and the former Soviet bloc countries. It is escalating its aggression and intervention in countries where there are oil and strategic natural resources to be plundered, such as those in the Middle East, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, Latin America and Africa.
The capitalist establishment has been emboldened in its attacks on the working class and oppressed peoples within the U.S. — on women and reproductive rights, on immigrants and people of color, on equal marriage rights and the LGBT community, on education, on social programs and workers' rights. Working people in the U.S. are facing layoffs, low wages and loss of benefits. Over 50 million people in the U.S. do not have health care. At the top of the Bush agenda is the privatization of Social Security, really a plan to transfer trillions of dollars to the big banks and investment houses.
At the same time, people all over the world are intensifying their resistance in many diverse forms to these assaults. Inside Iraq, the resistance to imperialist occupation has qualitatively deepened and broadened, causing a crisis for the U.S. rulers unlike any seen since the time of the war against Vietnam. January 20 can become a day remembered not for being the second coronation of G.W. Bush, but as the beginning of a revived popular movement. It will be followed two months later, on March 19-20, by days of global protest marking the second anniversary of the U.S./ British invasion of Iraq.
The ILPS urges its participating organizations and all progressive forces to join in building the January 20, 2005 protests as widely as possible.
Approved and Issued by the Office of the Chairperson Jose Maria Sison, International League of Peoples' Struggle
19 January 2005