MAY DAY IN BELGIUM: BEN BELLA HONORED AT WORKERS PARTY FEST

MAY DAY IN BELGIUM: BEN BELLA HONORED AT WORKERS PARTY FEST

By John Catalinotto
Brussels, Belgium

May 10, 2003--Some 2,500 activists and workers from around Belgium filled a building outside Brussels on May 1 to celebrate the workers' holiday with the Workers Party of Belgium.

The day had two major themes: the struggle to "stop U.S. aggression," with emphasis on the Pentagon's crimes during the invasion and occupation of Iraq; and an effort by the WPB to elect some special activists as representatives to the Belgian Parliament in the May 18 elections.

Keynote speaker for the anti-war theme was the leader of Algeria's liberation struggle from France, former Algerian President Ahmed Ben Bella. The 86-year-old Ben Bella described the war on Iraq as "a war decided by the group of oil barons who lead the United States today.

"But it concerns more than Iraq and its oil," he said. "It's also a struggle for the domination of the world. The United States sees Europe as a growing power that it wants to control." But an even greater danger, he said, is the U.S. plan to restrict China's access to energy resources.

Ben Bella also described "people like Rumsfeld, Ashcroft and Cheney" as being "part of a Christian religious current that represents a fundamentalism much more dangerous than that of Bin Laden.

"After his war on Iraq," Ben Bella continued, "Bush plans to hit Syria, Iran, Korea. It's an endless war. This system is no longer tenable. There must be another way. We live in the time of the beginning of the end of the capitalist system. We have to change it."

About Palestine he said: "Sharon is the little cousin of Bush! The United States supports Israel unconditionally because this country plays the role of regional gendarme for the Americans." He added that "the Iraqi people will also make their Intifada."

Ben Bella also linked the struggle against the war with that against capitalist globalization. He called attention to the large demonstrations in London and other European cities against the war.

Regarding the Belgian parliamentary elections, WPB Secretary General Nadine Rosa Rosso focused on three leading candidates who represent different sectors of the Belgian working class.

One is Dyab Abou Jahjah, a dynamic young man of North African origin who has been a leader of the anti-racist struggle and for immigrant rights.

Another is Maria Vindevoghel, who has been a leader of the struggle of the workers at Sabena Airlines, laid off when the state-owned company declared bankruptcy, to fight to regain their jobs and rights. Vindevoghel wrote a book about the Sabena workers called "I Accuse."

The third was Dr. Colette Moulaert, who had just returned from Iraq. There she, along with three other doctors from the Belgian progressive movement, had both cared for the injured and wounded in Iraqi hospitals and confronted U.S. tanks in the streets of Baghdad.