VANGUARD - Expressing the viewpoint of the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist)
For National Independence and Socialism • www.cpaml.org
(Photo supplied)
On Tuesday 6 October, thousands of Perth workers took to the streets to protest the city hosting a conference for the buyers and sellers o
f tools used to kill workers overseas, known as the Land Forces Defence Exposition.
The workers on the street were furious that the city would spend millions of dollars to provide a ‘safe space’ for arms dealers that are profiting from ongoing genocide and imperialist conflict. From its outset, this protest was always marketed as a peaceful demonstration aimed at disrupting the dealings of war profiteers and showcasing to the world that WA workers won’t be complicit in fuelling the death of their comrades overseas.
However, this didn’t stop the WA Government and WA Police from boasting of their heavy-handed response to ‘show their force’ against the people. In the weeks leading up to the protest, the WA Government bragged of passing draconian anti-protest laws, allowing the police to utilise AI facial recognition on citizens with no privacy restraints, excluding Western Australians from parts of their own city, and a massive expansion of police detention powers. The WA Police loudly boasted of the $11.5 million spent on their ‘largest police operation in WA history’.
This ‘largest police operation in WA history’ was targeted against peaceful protesters marching in their own streets, allowing lazy cops to sit in their trucks just to make merchants of death feel safe. $11.5 million was spent on a show of force against the people, all while more WA workers are going homeless, more WA kids are living in cars, and regional WA towns are sinking further and further into crises.
On Wednesday 7 October, the International League of Peoples’ Struggle held a ‘Peoples’ Expo’ alongside other organisations including Stop AUKUS WA and the Anti-War Collective. At this event, the host discussed how the same weapons that were being bought and sold at Land Forces in Perth were used against people in the Philippines, while other speakers talked to Australian workers becoming caught up in genocidal wars of U.S imperialism without our consent.
In response to the blatant oppressive measures the WA Government used against the people, and their willingness to spend millions of dollars against a peaceful protest while kids go hungry, participants at the Peoples’ Expo discussed expanding the fight against the capitalist class across a number of organisations.
The WA Government and international imperialists were ready to dish it out, but workers are ready to give it back. WA workers that want to join the fight against capitalists profiting from genocide are encouraged to contact the WA branch of the CPA (M-L) or the International Leage of Peoples’ Struggle.
The following Sunday, a crowd numbering in the thousands gathered in Boorloo to unify their voices in calling for support of the Palestinian people, an end to diplomatic relations with the Zionist regime of “Israel”, and an end to a horrific genocide that has been perpetrated for 78 years.
Unionists and students, teachers and mothers, workers of many stripes all across WA came together once again to protest the brutal crimes of the state of “Israel” and the support of the Albanese Labor government.
The CPA (M-L) continues to support the Palestinian struggle — we cannot and will not rest until the people of Palestine and all those oppressed and toiling masses across the world are free from the yoke of imperialism-capitalism.
Free free Palestine, from the river to the sea.