NEW YORK CITY—Twenty-five PLP members and friends in the community from eight different countries  held a forum connecting Yemen, Venezuela and the rebellion in Charlottesville. For the first time, seven immigrants from Yemen participated. Together we read a leaflet about the theme. The discussion took place in English, Spanish, and Arabic.
We made the connections between these three places in different parts of the world. Forums like these are the basis of international working-class unity.
Yemen
Yemen has been destroyed by non-stop bombing by Saudi Arabia, backed up by U.S. bombing drones and billions of U.S. dollars in armaments to Saudi Arabia. Yemen has untapped oil and natural gas reserves, is located on an important oil shipping waterway and is directly across from Djubouti, where the U.S. has a new military base overlooking oil riches and oil routes from West Africa to the Middle East and beyond. As our Yemeni friends said, “It’s about power and oil.”
This genocidal war by the Saudis, backed by the U.S., against the Houthi rebels, backed by Iran, has killed more than 10,000 civilians and wounded over 40,000. By UN estimates seven million Yemenis out of a population of 25 million are facing starvation. According to the World Health Organization there are 777,229 cases of cholera, soon to surpass Haiti which reached 815,000 cases seven years after the outbreak there. It has taken only six months to reach those numbers in Yemen. More than half of the cholera victims in Yemen are below 18 years of age and 26 percent of those are under 5. The utter destruction of infrastructure and sewer systems has led to a near total absence of pure drinking water. In addition there is a near total blockade on the entry of any kind of aid. The Yemeni refugee crisis equals Syria’s resulting in many deaths; Yemeni refugees are among those targeted by the U.S. government’s anti-Muslim travel ban. We are learning more every day from our Yemeni friends.
Venezuela
    Like Yemen in Venuezuela it’s all about imperialist competition for control of oil. We talked about the growing tension between the U.S. and Venezuela, focusing on the rivalry between U.S. and Chinese imperialists over control of oil reserves. In Venuezuela the working class is facing shortages of food, medicine and basic services. The children and infant mortality rate has risen drastically. All this is due to the fall of oil prices, in great part designed by the U.S. and its Saudi partners. Furthermore the U.S. government has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund opposition groups to Maduro, leading to hundreds of deaths.
Charlottesville
    On August 11 and 12 300 Nazi terrorist and white supremacists invaded the small university town of Charlottesville to «defend» the Confederate statue of Robert E. Lee. Given the green light by the election of arch racist, fascist Donald Trump, they marched with no police interference attacking protesters, who fought back valiently, killing one and wounding 19.
    Everyone at the forum agreed that the deadly situation is Yemen and Venezuela are the consequence of inter-imperialist rivalry for power and control of oil that puts us closer to world war 3. In the U.S. the intensification of racism and nationalism is what the ruling class pushes to divide and win the working class to support racist terror and poverty as they force young people to be cannon fodder in wider wars.
Only the unity of the international working class and the building of a mass revolutionary communist PLP can make us stronger to confront the horrors of imperialist war and enable us to convert those wars into revolution for communism and workers power. We concluded our event with distribution of CHALLENGE and vowed to continue the fight for the working class of Yemen. All enjoyed a delicious lunch with food from Ecuador and Yemen. Power to the international working class!