Washington, DC, September 30—Today the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) held a rally, march, and protest in solidarity with the oppressed workers of Myanmar (formerly Burma), in particular against the genocidal campaign by the military against the Rohingya Muslim minority workers and farmers. The army has driven hundreds of thousands of Rohingya off their land into neighboring Bangladesh, where they meet rejection of refugee status by the Bangladeshi rulers. Ostensibly the army is acting in response to terrorist attacks on Burmese police stations by an organization of Rohingya jihadists, but the masses are made to suffer.
Refugees from many countries meet similar rejection in Europe and elsewhere, leaving them homeless and without livelihoods, as warring imperialists from the U.S., Europe, Russia, and China fight each other for oil, natural gas, and minerals over the dead and dying bodies of workers and farmers whom they mislead into believing that these wars are in their interests.
Despite the pretense that the root of this genocide is religious oppression against Muslims in a predominantly Buddhist nation, it is mainly the backing by contending imperialists, who cynically jump on any bandwagon to appear to support one group of workers over another, that drives the attacks. Land theft by the military from Rohingya farmers is an additional motivation, but many poor Buddhist farmers have also been subject to the same thefts of land, making unity between both groups against this oppression an absolute necessity for survival. Unity among all groups of workers everywhere is the only possible way to defend ourselves, while capitalists use all kinds of divisions—racism, sexism, nationalism—to set us against each other and destroy our ability to resist.
PL’ers launched our action with a bullhorn rally in a busy commercial area, handing out over 200 flyers and 50 copies of CHALLENGE. We spoke with passersby about the crisis, as well as the mission of the PLP for revolution to rid the entire world of capitalism and imperialism.
PLP members then marched to the Myanmar (Burmese) Embassy (just blocks away from Obama’s $8.1 million-dollar residence and the $5.5 million home of Trump’s daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner). We left our leaflets condemning the genocide on the spikes of the fences surrounding the embassy, to put the fascist regime of Myanmar (Burma) on notice that we are fully determined to build support for their Muslim and Buddhist victims and to organize millions of workers and farmers for the day that we can drive fascism, imperialism, and capitalism from the planet.
This modest demonstration is the beginning of a resistance campaign against this genocide and against the reactionary capitalist forces from China and U.S. who seek to exploit, by proxy, ethnic strife and conflict as their imperialist interests clash (see CHALLENGE, October 11, 2107). In particular, we are determined to build sufficient support around the world to force the government of Myanmar and its imperialist backers to allow the Rohingya, clinging to life in refugee camps in Bangladesh, to return to their homes and farms.
The lead speaker declared “We must remember that the source of this genocide, and indeed of every genocide, is economic imperialism. Every ethnic cleansing can be traced to attempts by capitalists to appropriate the land of workers for their own ends, and to rally one part of the working class against another to maintain the dominance of the bourgeoisie [capitalists]. Even if we can stop this genocide, and save the Rohingya from annihilation, we will see further genocide around the world until the reactionary capitalist forces are crushed, and global worker solidarity is achieved.”
We urge all workers, students, and soldiers to join this campaign by contacting the D.C. chapter of PLP at revolution500@gmail.com.