Justice for Odessa fire martyrs!

 by New Worker correspondent

NEW COMMUNIST Party leader Andy Brooks and Gerry Downing from the Socialist Fight movement joined other anti-fascist picketers outside the Ukrainian embassy in London last week. The protest, called by the New Communist Party, Socialist Fight and the British Posadists was part of an international commemoration of the workers who died when Ukrainian fascists torched the Odessa Trade Union House on 2^nd May 2104.

Other events included tributes and demonstrations in Odessa itself, Sevastopol in the Russian Federation, Vienna, Berlin, Copenhagen, Dublin, The Hague, Stockholm, New York and Richmond, Virginia.

On 2nd May 2014, only two weeks after the US-NATO backed fascist coup in Kiev, scores of anti-fascist activists were massacred by a fascist mob who set fire to the Odessa Trade Union House and then murdered people trying to escape in cold blood.

On that day violence erupted on the streets on Odessa between anti-fascist demonstrators and the fascist gangs that had overthrown the legitimate government of Ukraine. Later in the day, a mob of fascists and football hooligans marched on Kulykove Square to break up the anti-fascist camp in the heart of the old city. The anti-fascists were beaten with baseball bats and iron chains and their camp was set ablaze, forcing many to seek refuge in the Trade Union House. That too was torched.

Dozens of people were trapped in the flames. Some jumped from the windows of the second and third floor and were shot at as they fell. After they fell to the ground, some were beaten to death. Others died from suffocation or were burned alive.

Unfortunately, it is not known how many persons really died. Some eye witnesses say the number could be over 100. But the Kiev regime claims that only 48 perished which is conveniently is below the 50 mark that would have triggered an automatic United Nations investigation. Needless to say not one of the thugs responsible for the murders has been arrested or charged.

Stop deportation flights!

CAMPAIGNERS from Black Activists Rising Against Cuts (BARAC) demonstrated outside Jamaican High Commission on May Day calling for an immediate halt to forced deportation charter flights; one such flight to Jamaica is scheduled to leave this Friday.

And people from the Windrush generation are still being booked on these flights in spite of Prime Minister Theresa May’s apologies last week over the horrendous injustices of treating people who have lived and worked many decades in Britain and who arrived here as British citizens when Jamaica was still a British colony.

Former Home Secretary Amber Rudd has resigned over the scandal of these elderly people who have worked and paid taxes in Britain all their lives but have had their right to citizenship taken away from the by changes in immigration law unless they can provide documentary proof for every years that they that they have lived here and a hefty fee for a special identification document.

They are not only threatened with sudden deportation from their families and settled lives but immigration laws passed by Theresa May when she was Home Secretary have forced employers, landlords and public services to become proxy immigration police be demanding documentary proof of immigration status from employees, tenants and service users. This mean those without the documentation have lost jobs, lost homes and been refused various services, including NHS care.

Zita Holbourne of BARAC said: “It’s astonishing that charter flights would be continuing at this time in the midst of the Windrush debacle.

“The Government has not set out a clear policy on who is covered from Commonwealth countries, so it makes no sense for this to be happening.

“Most people being deported in this way to Jamaica will be part of a Windrush family who, if not of Windrush generation themselves, will likely be the children or grandchildren of people who are.”

Ms Holbourne said a woman with British siblings, children and grandchildren was booked on the flight, served a removal notice and told she does not have enough family ties in Britain.

"She has subsequently been taken off the flight and released from Yarl’s Wood but there are likely to be more such examples.

“This injustice must be stopped and [everyone affected] properly compensated.”

A 63-year-old grandmother who has been held in Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre for nine months is among those told she will be put on the plane alongside an unknown number of fellow deportees.

Yvonne Smith, who has been diagnosed with diabetes since her arrival at Yarl’s Wood, had lived in Birmingham while caring for her 92-year-old father.

He arrived in 1957 as one of thousands of Windrush migrants, but Ms Smith moved to Britain two decades ago after her grandmother died in Jamaica.

“I have no one there, I have nowhere to go, I would be on the streets,” she told the {Independent} from inside Yarl’s Wood, where detainees have recently been on hunger strike over their treatment.

 “I have no family there, my dad is here, my siblings are here, my mum is dead. I have four grandchildren of my own, two sisters and four brothers, but the Government says I have ‘no ties’.”

Ms Smith said she had been caring for her 92-year-old father, who now faces being taken into NHS care against his wishes, and “just cries” every time she speaks to him on the phone.

On the day Theresa May issued a formal apology to Caribbean leaders the treatment of the Windrush migrants, Ms Smith was sent a letter from the Home Office announcing she “has no basis to remain in the United Kingdom”.

It said she was “to be removed on a specially chartered flight to Jamaica” code-named PVT070 at any time from 22 April, but the {Independent} has been told the Government will not be chartering a flight in May.

Another Jamaican woman, 58-year-old Yvonne Williams, was served with the same notice before being abruptly freed from Yarl’s Wood last Friday.

Diane Abbott, the Shadow Home Secretary, said the planned flight showed why the Windrush generation feel unable to trust the Government’s promises.

“So much for all the assurances and the apologies from the prime minister and the home secretary,” she added.

David Lammy, the Labour MP for Tottenham, called for a wider review of “hostile environment” immigration policies and for the rights of Windrush citizens to be guaranteed in law.

“Warm words from ministers are not enough. We need legislative guarantees,” he told the Independent. “I have long been of the view that the Home Office should cease the inhumane practice of deportation charter flights.”

One world, one breath – World Tai Chi Day

By New Worker correspondent

FOR NEARLY two decades, a quiet, subtle phenomenon has grown across the planet. Each year, on the last Saturday of April, in hundreds of cities in over 80 nations, spanning six continents, World Tai Chi and Qigong Day events have been held.

In Charlton, south-east London, people from many different groups gathered last Saturday to practice tai chi together in the open air in different styles and to celebrate Chinese culture.

In addition to the tai chi there was Chinese food, a Chinese tea ceremony, a demonstration of Chinese calligraphy, Chinese music and of course a Chinese dragon, who took part in an enactment of a Chinese traditional fairy story.

The event attracted attention from many people who happened to be passing through the park at the back of Charlton House, and one or two toddlers were inspired to join in with the tai chi exercises for a while.

Advanced practitioners held onlookers spellbound with dramatic sword exercises, backed with dramatic Chinese music.

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Victory over fascism in Italy remembered

By New Worker
correspondent

Theo Russell speaking

Comrades from Greece, Italy, Spain and Britain came together at a meeting organised by the Communist Party (Italy)  last Saturday to remember the victory over fascism in Italy on 25^th April 1945, at London’s historic Marx Memorial Library in Clerkenwell Green.

Mikhail Monocholias, of the Greek communist KKE, said that in Greece the KKE had led the anti-fascist struggle, which became the greatest mass movement in the nation’s history. He recalled the many atrocities carried out by the Nazis, such as the extermination of the entire male population and the total destruction of the town of Kalavryta in which 700 civilians were executed.

He noted the recent rise of the fascist Golden Dawn in Greece, its links with the state’s forces of repression and criminal organisations, and said that neither the bourgeois state nor bourgeois anti-fascist groups could defeat fascism.

David Delgado, speaking on behalf of the Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain (PCPE), said that in Spain the fight against Franco turned into a mass democratic movement that united the working class.

He pointed out that the fascists had never actually been defeated in Spain, but had changed their organisation names and tactics. As a result, the anti-fascist struggle in Spain is still continuing.

Alain Fissore, of the Communist Party (Italy), said that the victory over fascism could not be celebrated in the same way as bourgeois parties, but in the spirit of the resistance, which fought for a better Italy free from social and economic exploitation.

He said capitalism is moving factories and jobs to more convenient countries to do business, destroying jobs, whilst across Europe the working class is under attack from employers. “Today’s resistance means attacking such a capitalist agenda by reinforcing the idea of a much-needed control of the workplace by workers, defending our jobs and getting rid of bosses who exploit the workers.”

Theo Russell delivered greetings on behalf of the New Communist Party of Britain (NCP), praising the active and dedicated support of CPI members in Britain for anti-fascist and other actions.

He said that the victory over fascism in the Second World War, led by the Soviet Union, in which millions participated around the world, had paved the way for major advances for national liberation movements in the struggles against colonialism and imperialism, and led to the emergence of new socialist countries that supported and protected the sovereignty of small developing nations.

The common message was that whilst the struggle against fascism continues today, the only guarantee of total victory would be by destroying capitalism itself.

London rallies for May Day

Andy Brooks at Clerkenwell Green

by New Worker correspondent

NCP leader Andy Brooks and other London comrades joined thousands of  militant workers outside the Marx Memorial Library in Clerkenwell Green for the annual May Day march to Trafalgar Square in central London. The NCP Central Committee banner was there, amongst hundreds of other red banners and flags held aloft by supporters of the unions, left, socialist and communist parties that took part in the traditional parade, along with with the colourful turnout from the capital’s Turkish and Kurdish communities.

This year the march focused on racism in society, following the Windrush scandal and other Tory government efforts to play the race card in the run up to the local elections later in the week.

The rally also paid tribute to Mehmet Aksoy, a British-Kurdish film-maker who was killed by ISIS gunmen in Syria last year. Aksoy, who was a regular speaker at the May Day rallies in Trafalgar Square, was covering the struggle of the Kurdish YPG militia to drive ISIS out of Raqqa in northern Syria when he was killed during an ISIS attack on Kurdish positions on 26^th September 2017. Last November thousands of members of the Kurdish community turned out for the funeral service in London. Many then followed the cortège to Highgate ceremony where the coffin was laid to rest near the tomb of Karl Marx.