Diego Maradona 1960-2020: ‘a comrade-in-arms with the oppressed’
On 25 November, four years to the day after Fidel Castro’s death, Diego Maradona passed away at 60 years old. Magnificent and awe-inspiring on the pitch, internationalist and anti-imperialist off it. One of the greatest players to have ever graced the game, Maradona stood alongside the oppressed and those fighting for sovereignty. After the 1986 World Cup Quarter Final, when the infamous hand of God incident took place and Argentina beat England 2-1, he described the match as revenge for the Falklands War.
Maradona was a staunch defender of the Cuban Revolution, had the images of both Che and Fidel inked onto his body, and credited Fidel for saving his life from drug addiction. He supported all socialist and anti-imperialist struggles in Latin America, including the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela: ‘I believe in Chavez, I am a Chavista. Everything Fidel does, everything Chavez does, for me is the best’. In 2017 Diego swore to take up arms to defend the Chavista movement in Venezuela stating ‘When Maduro orders, I am dressed as a soldier for a free Venezuela, to fight against imperialism and those who want to take our flags, which is the most sacred thing we have. Viva Chavez! Viva Maduro! Long Live the revolution!’ Bolivian socialist leader Evo Morales called Maradona ‘a comrade-in-arms for the oppressed and for just causes’.
A true internationalist, his solidarity went beyond the shores of Latin America: ‘In my heart I am Palestinian, I am a defender of the Palestinian people.’ Words that we could never dream of hearing the British left and the Labour Party say!
Maradona’s example will live on, from Argentina to Naples. We will remember you. Rest in Power Comrade!
Billy Rapley
NORTH LONDON
Solidarity with Basque political prisoners
The question of the Basque political prisoners has come back to the political stage in Euskal Herria (the native name for the Basque nation). Meanwhile, the Spanish and French states are reinforcing their power through repression. In the last few months, the prisoners Patxi Ruiz and Iñaki Bilbao ‘Txikito’, who have been imprisoned for more than 20 years, went on hunger, thirst and communication strikes that ended with both of them being admitted to hospital near death. With this they have taught us a lesson in militant commitment.
All this has served to agitate the streets and put the value of amnesty for prisoners and exiles on the table, a struggle that has been abandoned by the official Basque nationalist Abertzale Left. However, it is being picked up by a section of the proletarian organisations. So long as control over territory is in the hands of the bourgeoisie, repression of the working class will continue in infinite different ways. To stand for amnesty is to fight for a society without oppressions, something that in our case passes through the construction of the Basque Socialist State; this way we can invert the regime of capitalist power.
I also want to send a big hug to Valentina Morisolli and to Gizka Astorkizaga, who have recently been detained for showing solidarity with the prisoner Iñaki Bilbao.
Aieru
NORTH LONDON
Fighting for the Intifada on the streets of Manchester
It is crucial to note, as comrade Wesam does in FRFI 277, that solidarity with the Palestinian Intifada brought RCG supporters and allied campaigners into confrontation with the forces of reaction in Britain.
In Manchester, the Victory To the Intifada campaign faced the power of the state, the local Labour-run council, organised street fascists, and the hired pens of all three, writing in the Manchester Evening News and pro-Zionist Jewish Chronicle. Comrades faced attacks from Zionist thugs. From the beginning of the uprising, our weekly picket of Marks and Spencer attracted anti-war, socialist, anarchist, Muslim and a range of other supporters. Reactionary opposition to our campaign included:
- An attempt by the city council to ban the pickets during December 2004, leading to the arrests of 10 protesters. Police stated openly that their real concern was the 300% increase in shoppers over the Christmas period. Our campaign took the ban to Judicial Review at the High Court in London and the picket continued.
- During protests in August 2014 against Israel’s renewed onslaught on Gaza, more than 15 activists were arrested, with some banned from the city centre. The police crackdown on our mass pickets was led by Manchester Labour council leaders Pat Karney and Richard Leese, who labelled demonstrators ‘extremists and revolutionaries.’ All but one of the comrades was found not guilty – for the one conviction, we raised £850 in less than 24 hours to pay their fine.
- Local PSC and SWP leaders told their members to ignore the M&S pickets, even as we faced escalating attack. Others, who went on to found Manchester Palestine Action, went on trips to Palestine but came back and did nothing. They’d later attempt to steer rolling pickets clear of M&S and any potential confrontation, focusing on human rights and presenting the Palestinians as victims.
The lessons are clear: building an effective solidarity movement means putting up a real fight, placing resistance at the centre of our struggles.
Manchester RCG
Care homes: raise your voices!
A study by the University of Manchester estimates that 29,400 more care home residents, as a direct and indirect result of Covid-19, died in the first 23 weeks of the pandemic than expected from historical trends. This is equivalent to 6.5% of all care homes beds available in England. The excess is concentrated among large care homes providing services to older people and people with dementia affiliated to a branded chain of providers, with staff more likely to work in more than one place – they are underpaid, often agency, have to supplement their work and are not unionised.
Additional to the deaths are the thousands of older people who have deteriorated mentally, physically and emotionally having been kept away from their loved ones for months on end. The residents are suffering as well as those excluded on the outside, only able to shout through a window or suffer the frustration and alienation of trying Zoom and the like.
Care home residents, relatives and staff must raise their voices and we will stand with you!
Ana Lane
EAST LONDON
Cuba: where doctors can be doctors
I was on an NHS Picket line at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton during Jeremy Hunt’s tenure as Health Secretary. While there I met a young doctor who was in the process of moving to Cuba with his wife. This doctor told me that he was making this move so that ‘I can be the doctor I want to be’. I have never forgotten his words.
George Coombs
BRIGHTON
West Papua ‘becoming a hunting ground’
Months of fresh demonstrations have gripped Indonesian-occupied West Papua as thousands of Indigenous West Papuans renew calls for independence amid a deadly crackdown.
13 university students were injured in the Papuan capital Jayapura on 27 October, after Indonesian troops opened fire to disperse a peaceful rally. Then on 20 November the racist Indonesian forces killed five people, including three children, in cold blood.
I believe that Indonesia’s government used Covid-19 to continue implementing military operations and make West Papua into a hunting ground for the racist military and police. Indonesia’s government does not want the international community to know that it is committing genocide, in a similar militaristic occupation to Palestine, Kashmir, and Western Sahara, where illegal annexation is backed by western imperialists to colonise indigenous land for the interests of the multinationals. It is estimated up to 70,000 people have been displaced and 250 killed in the past two years of violence in West Papua.
Demonstrations call for independence and justice for the ‘Nduga Refugees’. During Indonesia’s operation in the Nduga district from December 2018 to February 2020 the civilian death toll among Indigenous West Papuans was 243 including 110 children. An official head civil servant, Yarius Gwijangge, was poisoned by the Indonesian government. Yarius is a great example of a leader who gave his life for the people of Nduga.
In November, North London RCG was out on the street of Dalston speaking to people against state racism with West Papua as a concrete example. We sent solidarity to all those killed by Indonesia’s military and police.
Serogo Tabuni
OXFORD
Hands off refugees in Paris!
On 23 November French cops carried out an unprovoked attack on a refugee camp in Paris. They used force to break up a tent city in Place de la République. It had housed hundreds of refugees, many of whom had arrived there from an earlier camp at Stade de France which was also broken up.
The tents were home to hundreds of mainly Afghan, Somali, and Eritrean refugees, and according to Médecins Sans Frontières they were waiting while their asylum cases were looked at, or in some cases they had been refused asylum and left destitute.
As people lay in their tents, often asleep, police lifted them up in the air and shook out their contents, so that people tumbled to the ground. Any resistance was met with batons and kicks by police. Solidarity activists were pushed back when trying to intervene to help, including the left politician Danielle Simonet. The official excuse was that the camp had ‘no official permission to exist’.
Footage of the attack has generated such outrage that the Macron regime has announced an ‘internal police probe’ led by Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin. Apologists for this state violence claimed it was necessary to reduce support for the far-right Front National, led by Marine Le Pen. Supporters of the refugees demand they be allowed to stay, have their cases fairly heard, and are granted real housing through the winter.
Martin Harrison
MANCHESTER
