Under the
guidance of the International Working Men’s Association,
the worldwide labor movement undertook the struggle for the
eight-hour day. The strike of Chicago workers in pursuit of
this conquest exploded with great force on the First of May,
1886. The brutal police repression caused the deaths of six
strikers and dozens of injuries and arrests.
The
workers’ leadership called a meeting at Haymarket Square.
The police fired indiscriminately into the crowd and in
response someone threw a bomb that killed eight cops. The
bloody repression left many victims and hundreds under arrest,
among them eight leading workers.
In an arbitrary
manner and without bothering with evidence, these leaders were
accused, tried and condemned in a sham trial. On November 11,
1887 August Spies, George Engels, Oscar Neebe, Adolph Fisher
and Albert Parsons were executed on the gallows. Louis Ling,
also condemned to die, committed suicide in his cell. Samuel
Fielden and Michael Schwab were condemned to life
imprisonment.
In 1889, on the
anniversary of the French Revoloution, the Second International
at its founding congress agreed that Mayday would be a day of
worldwide mobilization by the working class to demand the eight-
hour day.
Since then
Mayday has been celebrated around the world, except in the
United States, as International Workers Day.
In the year of
the anniversary of the firing squad execution of the Cholo
guerilla Victoriano Lorenzo, this Mayday finds us in a world
undergoing convulsions in which the forces of international
capital are imposing their neo-liberal globalization and
attempting the recolonization and subjugation of Latin America
through the Free Trade Area of the Americas, which can only
sink us in the mire of hunger, unemployment, overexploitation
and misery. And they’re doing this consciously, as Wall
Street counts us as surplus population. It’s what some
call “savage capitalism,” that is to say, returning
us to the early days of the capitalist system, which arose
“oozing blood and mud from its pores.”
As political
and economic complements to the neo-liberal economy, Yankee
imperialism declares “preventive wars,” won’t
recognize treaties, ignores laws, doesn’t accept
international tribunals and tramples on international accords,
norms and organizations when they don’t go along with its
wishes.
On the national
level we find national sovereignty shackled by the Treaty of
Permanent Neutrality of the Panama Canal, the Salas-Baker anti-
drug accord, the agreements between the Panama Canal Authority
and the US about canal security, and the shameful Operation New
Horizons in our Centennial Year as a republic. The policy of
cooperating with Plan Colombia is dangerous, not only for the
population along the border in the Darien, but also because it
involves the Panamanian government in the social and military
conflict of our brother country.
The socio-
economic situation is critical for the popular sectors and the
nation, as the multinationals and the big national businessmen
accumulate enormous wealth by using illicit and immoral means.
The unemployment rate exceeds 20 percent and if that’s not
enough the taxes people pay increase, along with the cost of
living (food, housing, clothing, shoes, education, health,
electricity, transportation, telephone, etc.). For some items
the price has tripled in recent years, but meanwhile the
government and business deny wage increases that would allow
the great majority meet the higher cost of living, and moreover
they’ve made the privatization of the Social Security Fund
the order of the day. The national economy remains stagnant,
with a growth rate of less than one percent over the past two
years.
In the
political field, the partisan set-up hinders all possible
public participation in the Panamanian bourgeois democracy,
which is rigged by the so-called “political class” of
frontmen for the oligarchy and the multinationals.
Corruption
corrodes every branch of government: the executive (nepotism,
Panama Ports), legislative (CEMIS, "mameyes"),
judicial (Supreme Court nominations, impunity), autonomous and
semi-autonomous institutions (the Public Utilities Regulation
Board with respect to the electric and phone companies).
Private enterprise, with all of its greed, is corrupt and
corrupting (BANAICO, Banco DISA, Grupo ADELAG).
The picture we
describe reflects a situation of economic, social, political
and moral crisis that in the medium run can only lead to chaos,
desperation and ungovernability. This means that the dominant
classes find themselves in crisis and, although their
preoccupation with the accumulation of often ill-gotten wealth
and property may not let them see it, they are going to run out
of manuevering room and drive the republic over a cliff.
Faced with this
panorama it’s up to the working class to raise its own
program that breaks with the present system and proposes a new
society that’s just and dignified for working people; to
along with farmers and other popular sectors build their own
alternative political power, with its own organic expression;
and to determine the ways and means by which to achieve its
strategic objective.
All proposals
to correct or perfect the system, or to attempt to make use of
it, amount to propping it up, sanctioning it and playing the
enemies’ games instead of pushing for the just, necessary
and possible social justice to which the working class’s
emancipation leads.
We conclude
with the words of George Engels, one of the Chicago Martyrs,
spoken to the court that condemned him to death.
“Of what
did my crime consist? In having worked for the establishment of
a social system in which it will not be possible for some to
hoard millions... while others fall into degradation and
misery.... Your laws are opposed to nature and by means of them
you rob the masses of the right to life, liberty and
happiness.... The members of this association [the
International Working Men’s Association, or First
International] are convinced that only by force can we free the
workers, in accordance with history’s teachings.”
Come to the
march to pay homage to the Cholo guerrilla Victoriano Lorenzo,
which will demand an increase in the minimum wage and will
oppose the privatization of the Social Security Fund and
increase on taxes on items of popular consumption, on May 15,
2003 at Parque Porras, with the rally at Las Bovedas.
Hail to the
Chicago Martyrs!
Honor and glory
to Yito Barrantes and Rufino Frias!
Long live the
Panamanian working class!
In the path of
Victoriano, workers and farmers to power!
May 1, 2003
SUNTRACS:
united, class conscious, combative and revolutionary
(The
Sindicato Único de Trabajadores de la Industria de la
Construcción y Similares, or SUNTRACS, is Panama's
militant leftist construction workers' union, which maintains a
Spanish-language website at http://www.suntracs.org)
Also in this
section:
ISCA, Proposed Mining Code changes
Girvan, US-Central
America free trade talks
RSF, Freedom of the press
in Panama
Jackson, Alemán
and the torture ship
Hartmann, Never-ending
"War on Terrorism"
SUNTRACS, Mayday
message
