An imperialist war against the people of Central America and the Caribbean has begun! Since the revolutionary overthrow of the hated dictatorships in Nicaragua and Grenada three years ago, led by the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) and the New Jewel Movement, the workers and peasants of Central America and the Caribbean have been on the march. Each day they are deepening their struggle against the imperialist domination that has brought nothing but decades of misery and suffering.
Faced with the revolutionary advances throughout the region, the U.S. ruling class has no choice but to use its massive military power to protect its imperialist interests.
In El Salvador, the people in arms, led by the Revolutionary Democratic — Front- Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FDR-FMLN), have continued to strengthen their political and military capacities and expand their international diplomatic offensive. Following the electoral farce of March 28, the new government of Alvaro Magafia was put together by the Yankee embassy. The number of massacres and tortures has increased. Even the miserable “land reform” of Duarte has been annulled. The latest batch of officers and special troops trained in the United States have returned. The level of U.S. aid has increased to the point where today only three other countries in the world receive more aid than the dictatorship of El Salvador.
In Guatemala, the newly formed unity of the revolutionary forces, and the broadening popular base of anti-imperialist struggle amongst the Indian majority of the Guatemalan people, has been met by the coup of last March that brought to power the military junta headed by Gen. Rios Montt. While the demagogic declarations about the necessity for Christian love and “civil peace” have multiplied, they have served only as cover for the resumption of imperialist aid. With this support, General Montt is carrying out new and even more brutal massacres in the rural areas, especially against the Quiché Indian people, and stepping up his military offensive against the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Union (URNG).
While the revolutionary forces of El Salvador and Guatemala are today fighting to overthrow bloody proimperialist dictatorships, the workers and peasants of Nicaragua and Grenada are mobilizing to fight to the last drop of blood to defend their revolutionary governments and the social, economic, and political advances they have achieved over the last three years.
As the May Day celebration in Managua proclaimed, “We will defend the revolution, building socialism.” Faced with these new advances, imperialist aggression against Nicaragua has already reached a qualitatively new level. Daily battles are now being fought with imperialist-armed counterrevolutionary units operating out of bases on two fronts: Honduras and Costa Rica.
A counterrevolutionary government-in-exile is being put together, trying to establish itself on Nicaraguan territory, where it can “legitimately” call for open imperialist intervention. Economic strangulation and sabotage, diplomatic isolation — all weapons are being used to try to weaken and divide the Nicaraguan people and bring down the first workers and peasants government in Central America, which is moving to abolish capitalist exploitation and oppression in Nicaragua.
In Grenada, a similar process is unfolding as the working people of that island nation deepen their economic and social gains
Destabilization efforts and other counterreyvolutionary operations, financed and directed by various imperialist interests, have been accompanied by massive naval maneuvers in the Caribbean, carrying out simulated landings on Grenada. In fact, the last months have seen a total of four naval maneuvers involving all the principal imperialist powers of NATO. Their goal has been not only intimidation but a dress rehearsal for a blockade and landings wherever in the region imperialism decides to strike.
The problem for Washington is clear.
Behind El Salvador and Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Grenada stands Cuba.
Imperialism’s military escalation is aimed at crushing the rise of revolutionary struggles throughout the region. Today it is the Salvadoran people who are suffering the harshest imperialist aggression in the region. But the ultimate objective must be the Cuban workers state, because imperialism knows that Cuba will support the struggles of the people of Central America and the Caribbean to the end. While the Cuban revolution lives, the current reactionary offensive cannot triumph.
The war which is today being waged by Anglo-American imperialism against Argentina is intimately tied to the imperialist offensive in Central America. It too is intended to intimidate the working people of Latin America and teach them that they dare not assert the right to 541 control their own lands, their own resources, their own destinies.
The Anglo-American imperialist aggression against Argentina, and its consequences throughout Latin America, has created difficulties for the war plans of the imperialists and their allies in the region. But the certainty of a larger and more direct Yankee intervention in Central America and the Caribbean has not changed.
U.S. imperialism will not renounce the use of a single weapon in its arsenal for blocking the extension of the socialist revolution in what it considers to be its own “backyard.”
We are living through a decisive moment. We must fight to prevent the imperialists’ war drive from achieving its objectives.
The revolutionaries of El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Grenada, and Cuba have not retreated a single step. On the contrary, each day their authority with the people and their capacity to take initiatives on all fronts increases. New revolutionary victories, new workers states are being born in Central America and the Caribbean.
United, fighting international solidarity with this forward march of the revolution will play a decisive role in the struggles that are coming. Our brothers and sisters on the front lines of battle in Central America and the Caribbean are fighting in the interests of working people the world over. Our struggle is one!
The solidarity committees must be strengthened. The World Front in Solidarity with the Salvadoran People, formed in March in Mexico City, shows the road to follow for the coordination of solidarity work.
The mobilization of the broadest forces in action against the escalating imperialist war moves in Central America and the Caribbean must be a central task.
The Fourth International commits its entire forces to continue and deepen this solidarity work.
No imperialist intervention!
International solidarity with the people of Central America and the Caribbean!