Jozef Bossuyt | Communist Party of Belgium
PALESTINE, ARAB COUNTRIES, UKRAINE, KOREA, CHINA: 5 ANTI-NATO WAR FRONTS
World War III has begun. It was planned, launched, organized, financed, coordinated and armed by NATO, the main instrument of US imperialism. The NATO war is one (1) war, which is taking place on 5 fronts: Ukraine-Donbas, Palestine, Arab Countries, Korea, China-Taiwan.
In response to the genocidal attack by the fascist state Israel in October 2023, a new—fifth—front is opened from Arab countries as Yemen.
Officially, Israel, Ukraine, South Korea and Taiwan are not part of NATO.
In fact, however, these regimes are implementing NATO’s unified policy.
But, NATO is losing allies and losing the war.
Even it is losing the support of the people within the USA themselves.
The students of US (even elite) universities, revolt against the Gaza genocide of Israel and demand from president Biden to stop his support of Israel and US capital to stop to invest in enterprises linked with the Israeli occupation policy. They refer to the mass struggle in 1968 in Vietnam, that forced the US to withdraw their occupation troops and leave the country.
The example was followed in the whole world. In Belgium the students of the university of Ghent occupied during 40 days the University Forum. They only left the building, on June 13th, after the rector of the university promised to end to all collaborations with Israeli universities, companies and governments that support the genocide. They left a slogan in the building “We will be back! You can’t stop the revolution”.
Against this NATO war offensive, the anti-imperialist coalition, built around countries as China, the DPR of Korea and Russia is gaining allies over the world. Countries as Vietnam, Laos, Cuba, and Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Eritrea, South Africa, Venezuela, Nicaragua joined this anti-imperialist front.
On the level of organizations the World Anti-imperialist Platform was created two years ago, with the aim of uniting the anti-imperialist organizations all over the world against the US-NATO led war. More than 40 organizations, present in all continents, signed the Platform Manifest held conferences in Paris, Belgrade, Athens, Caracas and Seoul, and organize common demonstrations and actions against the war. See www.wapnews.org
PALESTINE
In the aftermath of 2023, October 7, NATO defense ministers invited Israeli Defense Minister Yoaf Galant to a video conference. The terrorist and genocidal state of Israel is not officially a member of NATO. But Israel has the status of an “individual partnership” with NATO and even has an office at NATO headquarters in Brussels. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told the conference that “NATO condemns the terrorist attack (by Hamas), that Israel has the right to defend itself”. Several NATO countries have made it clear that they will support Israel in a practical way. This support consists mainly of the supply of American weapons to Israel. Planes operated by the Israeli airline El Al commute between the United States and Israel and stop in Belgium. The trade unions CNE, UBT, Setca and Transco have called for no arms shipments to be allowed at Belgian airports. We see the same thing in the port of Antwerp. Ships belonging to the Israeli company ZIM, which has a military logistics contract with the Israeli government, pass through it weekly.
ARAB COUNTRIES
Since the start of the Israel genocide campaign against Gaza in October 2023, more and more the Arab countries have taken position against US-imperialism and joined actively the anti-imperialist anti-NATO war alliance. This is a new phase in the anti-Nato war struggle.
YEMEN
In protest against Israel’s genocide, Yemen’s army has been blockading ships delivering equipment to Israel in the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait since December. This strait separates Djibouti and Eritrea, and ends in the Red Sea, towards the Suez Canal. This route is strategic for the transport of oil and gas. Ships have been captured and attacked by ships and drones, backed in technology by Iran. The government of Yemen (north) is called Ansar Allah (Supporters of God). It brings together several peoples, including the Houthi people.
This front has expanded through Yemen, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon.
The U.S. military has 57,000 troops in the region, but is losing one by one its allies there.
IRAQ
In protest of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, a drone in Iraq wounded three U.S. servicemen at the U.S. military airbase in the city of Erbil on Dec. 25. A few hours later, the U.S. military attacked various cities in Iraq. The Iraqi government called the U.S. attacks “a hostile act that damages bilateral relations” and in which civilians were also injured.
JORDAN
On the weekend of January 27-28, a drone strike killed three U.S. service members in Jordan. President Joe Biden vowed to “respond to this attack.”
LEBANON
Israeli airstrikes hit Hezbollah targets in Lebanon on February 26, 2024.
The quiet conflict between Hezbollah on Lebanese territory and the Israeli army on the other side of the border since the aftermath of October 7 has gone beyond the border area.
On Tuesday, February 27, northern Israel was hit by the largest number of rockets ever fired from Lebanon since the start of the war—102 in the space of a day.
Since 7 October, 3,000 rockets have been fired into Israeli territory, as well as 620 anti-tank missiles.
Hezbollah has conditioned the cessation of its operations against Israel, in support of Hamas, on the cessation of hostilities in the Palestinian enclave.
UKRAINE
After the overthrow of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States encouraged conflicts and wars between former Soviet republics, such as Russia and Ukraine. The United States moved to keep the nascent Russian capitalist state weak. In November 2013, the United States financed and organized the pro-fascist Maidan uprising in Kiev against Yanukovych’s pro-Russian government. The United States therefore mobilized the most reactionary nationalist forces, supporters of the Nazi collaborator of World War II, Stepan Bandera. In February 2014, these gangs destroyed government buildings, offices of communist and labor organizations, monuments to Lenin and commemorating the Soviet Union, and overthrew the government. The newly installed regime was essentially fascist, Ukrainian in its forms, and American in its aims and policies. Especially in eastern Ukraine (Донбасс, Мариуполь, Одесса) the resistance grew. Порошенко, президент of Ukraine since May 25, violently suppressed that growing resistance. On May 2, 2014, fascist gangs burned 40 people alive in the trade union building in Odessa. In the Donbass, a popular uprising ousted the fascist representatives. The working class, especially miners and metalworkers, confiscated the weapons of police stations and army barracks, and erected barricades around the government buildings. In May 2014 in Donbass (east of Ukraine) in a referendum (with 95% and 89%) the people of the people of the district of Lugansk and of Donetsk decided no longer to be part of Ukraine and founded the Peoples’ Republic of Lugansk and the Peoples’ Republic of Donetsk. Порошенко launched a military campaign against Donbass, bombing schools, hospitals, homes and power plants there, killing 14,000 people between 2014 and 2022. But neither he nor future President Zelinskyy were able to take the capitals of Donetsk and Lugansk from the people of Donbass, who were fighting in a just, defensive, legitimate war of liberation. The intervention of Russia in 2022 positive insofar as Russia supports this war of liberation on the territory of Donbass.
The NATO-Ukraine Council met on Wednesday, January 10, 2024. NATO allies had already provided Ukraine with a wide range of weapon systems, and on January 10, they reaffirmed their determination to further strengthen Ukraine’s army. In January 2024, Ukrainian drone strikes began targeting oil and gas terminals in Russia. April 2024. 2 April: Ukrainian drones struck industrial facilities in the Russian republic of Tatarstan, more than 1,300km (807 miles) from the Ukrainian border.
On May 31th president Biden announced that the Ukrainian army is allowed to fire with American missiles to military targets in Russia.
On the nights of 29/30 and 30/31 May, the Ukrainian army carried out a series of combined attacks on Crimea and Krasnodar krai using ATACMS ballistic missiles.
A missile attack on residential buildings in Kharkov on the night of 30–31 May killed at least nine civilians.
On June 12th Nato general-secretary Jens Stoltenberg announced that Nato from now on will coordinate all support, from all Nato-members, to Ukraine. June 13th the G7 decided to give a loan to Ukraine of 50 billion dollars, mostly paid by the US. On that day Joe Biden signed an agreement with Zelenski that in the coming 10 years the US will help Ukraine to build a military industry, will instruct the Ukrainian soldiers, and exchange information.
The War Conference in Switserland June 2024
In November 2022, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced a 10-point “peace” plan, including his proposal of a “peace” conference, to discuss his plan. Four such conferences were held. On 24 June 2023, the first meeting was held in Copenhagen, The fourth in Swiss on June 2024.
Point 5 of Zelensky’s proposal: Restoration of the Russia–Ukraine border to that prior to the 2014. Point 6: Full withdrawal of Russian military forces from Ukraine and cessation of hostilities.
Zelensky’s proposal is not a peace proposal. Restoration of the Russia-Ukraine border means that Ukraine conquers the territory of Crimea and Donbass, though the population there has voted in referenda in 2014 to quit the fascist state of Ukraine, on the basis of the right of the peoples for self-determination. Zelenskyy sought international support for his actual military aggression against Crimea, Donbas, Russia.
On the conference of June 2024 Russia was not invited. China decided not to come, as China has launched his own peace plan, already approved by 45 countries. 92 countries were represented at the conference, 78 voted in favor of the final declaration, 14 refused, under which India, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, United Arab Emirates, Mexico, Indonesia, as they considered the conference not to be an equal and just peace dialogue. This reflects the growing opposition to the NATO-Ukrainian aggressive war.
One day before the “peace” conference, the Russian President Vladimir Putin promised on Friday to order an immediate cease-fire in Ukraine and begin peace negotiations if Kiev and its Western allies agree to a series of conditions. These include Ukraine withdrawing all of its troops from Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia; the West lifting all sanctions imposed on Moscow; and Kyiv dropping its NATO membership bid. This proposal is quite justified as people of these regions have expressed, for Lugansk and Donbass already in 2014, in referenda that they want no longer be a part of Ukraine.
From 10 to 15 May a delegation of the World Anti-imperialist Platform visited the Republic of Lugansk, and they sent us their report with videos and photos. Their conclusion is that the Ukrainian army acts in this war in the same way the Israel army acts in Gaza, bombing, killing the civilian population, destroying schools, hospitals, apartments, the same cruelty of a genocide.
May 15th they had an interview with Anna Borisovna Soroka, who is the counselor of the managing director of the People’s Republic of Lugansk, declaring:
“On June 2nd 2014, the Ukrainian army bombed the building of the Central Administration of Lugansk, which contains at the backside a children’s garden. Children were walking in the park around the building. Rockets from an Ukrainian airplane bombed the building and the park. 8 people were killed and 28 wounded. For us that was the day of no return, we started the armed struggle against the Ukrainian army. In this park we built a monument to commemorate the victims of that bombing. Two of them were journalists and we commemorate also all the journalists that were killed since 2014. Until 2022 in Lugansk around 5500 people were killed. We also built in Lugansk a monument on the place where from November 1942 the Nazis systematically killed the Jewish People, and another monument where the inhabitants of the city of Lugansk were killed. In 2014 our city was not occupied by the Ukrainian army, but surrounded and besieged. The surroundings were occupied, also the airport, to stop Russia sending humanitarian help. May 11th we held a referendum, and created the People’s Republic of Lugansk. Kiev accused us of separatism. But we have the right of self-determination, that is recognized by the United Nations, and applied for instance when Ireland split from Great Britain and became independent. We created a government, state bodies and our courts of justice. In 2022, as the Ukrainian army approached to the Russian frontier, we decide in a new referendum to become a part of Russia. As we knew that USA and NATO would fear to start an open war on Russian territory.
In March 2022, forced by the military intervention of Russia, the Ukrainian army had to withdraw from most territory of Lugansk. Before leaving, the Ukrainian army decided to destroy everything in a second vague of the genocide. They bombed houses, hospitals, schools, industrial plants in order “to leave nothing to the enemy”. Dead bodies were left on the streets or thrown one upon another in deep pits.
The first thing we did in the liberated territory was to contact the parents of the missing killed children and adults. A DNA-test was applied to every corpse we found or exhumed from mass graves, and collected in one list. All parents who missed their children or family members gave a DNA sample and the list of these was compared with the list of corpses found. Then we had to inform the parents and to organize a new funeral, this time in dignity. The names and ages were written on the graves. For instance, Takozika Kristina Alekseeva was born on 16/09/2011 and died on 22/03/2022. Besides that, the parents gave a photo of the child, and it was printed on cups as a souvenir and given to the family members. One cup with photo was placed on the grave.
The WAP-delegation visited many such cemeteries and many villages in the region. In the village of Rubezn they saw a sport-school, that was destroyed but now being reconstructed. A grain storage was bombed in 2023. In Severodonetsk they saw a plant of fertilizers, destroyed when the Ukrainian army withdraw, and a destroyed apartment bloc. The Ukrainian army had also inundated the biggest coalmine of Lugansk, in Lisitsansk, that until now cannot function. In Toshkovka, which is close to the actual war front, the delegation spoke to Andjel:
“We still have no gas or electricity in our apartment. Many cities have been rebuilt by the authorities, but ours not yet. It takes time to reconstruct a whole country. We have helped to build the graveyards and now are helping to build our village again. We receive food packets and medicine. Once a month the doctor comes. We have suffered 8 years from the Ukrainian army.” When they left, they demanded that all people would come with them to Kiev. My mother refused: “Never I will come to Kiev, you are fascists. I will stay here.” They said: “then we will kill you”. The next day they bombed her apartment. She lived on the third floor. The bomb destroyed the 5th and 4th floor, that fell on the 3th floor, and my mother was buried under the big stones. Until now her body is still there, as in our village we have not the heavy materials necessary to repair the building and exhume her.”
KOREA
NATO was founded on April 4, 1949. Since its inception, NATO has never been Nordic or Atlantic, but an instrument for the perpetual consolidation of the world colonial system and the global hegemony of US imperialism. NATO’s first war began a year after its founding, in Korea. In 1950, seven NATO countries (including Belgium) invaded Korea under the flag of the United Nations. In that war, they killed 4 million Koreans. This war is still going on. There was an armistice in 1953, but never a peace agreement, the U.S. refused to sign one.
The NATO Summit 12 July 2023. In Vilnius, Lithuania, in Europe! From left to right: Albanian (Australia), Kishida (Japan), Jens Stoltenberg (NATO), Hipkins (New Zealand), Yoon Suk-yeol (President of South Korea).
NATO and the Republic of Korea (South) have been formally cooperating since 2005. Since 2012, cooperation between NATO and the Republic of Korea has continued under an individual partnership and cooperation programme. Currently, the cooperation is led by a tailor-made partnership programme agreed between NATO and the Republic of Korea in July 2023. In November 2022, the Republic of Korea established a diplomatic mission to NATO. Since 2021, the Republic of Korea has participated in NATO’s annual cyber defense exercise, Locked Shields. It also cooperates with the Alliance at NATO’s Centre of Excellence for Cooperative Cyber Defence in Tallinn, Estonia.
At the 2021 NATO Summit in Brussels, NATO Allies reaffirmed NATO-Korea’s practical cooperation. This is confirmed in NATO’s 2022 Strategic Concept, the Alliance’s bottom-up policy document, which states that it wants to confront China and Russia. From 2010 to 2013, the Republic of Korea, as part of the NATO-led International Force in Afghanistan, led 470 military personnel in Parwan Province, to strengthen the provincial government’s capacity in health, education, rural development, and governance. The Republic of Korea has also contributed $319 million to the NATO-managed Afghan National Army (ANA) Trust Fund. In 2020, the Republic of Korea co-chaired the ANA Trust Fund.
Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol has participated in the last two NATO summits. On August 18, 2023, the JAROKUS Pact between the U.S., Japan, and South Korea was announced at Camp David, USA. The pact provides for annual joint military exercises by the U.S., Japan and Korea.
CHINA
In China, the National Liberation War, led by Mao Zedong, liberated mainland China from the occupation of Japanese imperialism on October 1, 1949, and began the socialist revolution and the transformation of the country into a socialist country. Chiang Kai Shek’s Kuomintang, which has been backed by the U.S. since 1945, retreated to the island of Taiwan, along with the country’s gold and dollar reserves and tens of thousands of troops. From 1950 to 1979, U.S. armies (in 1958 there were more than 9,000 U.S. troops) occupied Taiwan as a base for attacks on the Chinese mainland. In 2017, the “U.S. National Strategy” defined China as a “long-term strategic adversary”. In 2019, the NATO summit in London declared that “the alliance must respond to the challenge of China as an alliance”. The NATO 2030 report then formulated “the need to tackle the Chinese challenge”. Those who follow football know that “tackles” often result in the opponent being carried off the field and eliminated from the game.
In practice, this was reflected in the visit of Nancy Pelosi, leader of the US House of Representatives, to Taiwan, where she expressed US support against China. This manifests itself in the supply of American weapons to Taiwan, a country that the US does not even officially recognize, and that no one recognizes. On Oct. 28, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen confirmed that U.S. military personnel are present in Taiwan and train Taiwanese military personnel there.
To achieve peace in the world, the Communist Party of Belgium appeals:
Dissolution of NATO! NATO out from Belgium! Belgium out from NATO!