Statement of the Workers' Communist Party of Denmark (APK), October 5, 2002
Danish F16 fighters costing billions of DKr. are vomiting fire over Afghanistan. Denmark is at war, and if cold war warriors like Anders Fogh Rasmussen (the Liberal Prime Minister of Denmark, translator's note) and Major Helge Adam Moeller (leading MP of the Conservative Party, the other party in the government coalition, translator's note) are not stopped, Denmark will not hesitate to participate in the imminent US aggression against the Iraqi people, who have been suffering for so many years under the US-led UN sanctions that have cost more than one million lives, and among them, more than half a million children.
In reality, the Social Democratic opposition party is not better. If we remove the veil a bit, the words of Poul Nyrup Rasmussen (former Social Democratic Prime Minister, translator's note) following September 11 remain: "We support the Americans all the way."
While the whole military aggression is developing and being concretely prepared, social welfare is under attack from every possible side. Ordinary people must pay in two senses of the word: both those who are exposed to the horrors of the war and those who pay for such militarization and anti-social policy.
Right dress and pay! This is the solution of Fogh Rasmussen and Co., who are
cutting the educational system and deteriorating the conditions for the children
in day care and after school centres, who are saying that young people waste
their time if they go to continuation schools, only problem children should
go there in the future, who are launching smear campaigns against the unemployed
instead of creating jobs, and so on.
"Take care of yourself!" seems to be the general slogan.
The Budget Proposal for 2003 follows the same dark and destroying course as last year's Budget, which caused big protests from many sectors in society. It gives military and business a higher priority at the expense of social expenses. It redistributes from the great majority to the rich.
In relation to the elderly, myths about "the pensioner's bomb" saying that "we cannot afford all the pensioners and therefore we have to make cuts here and there" are being propagated. This is both a fraud and impudence.
Hospitals shall be centralized by creating super big hospitals. The smaller hospitals are being sold, and we will not be surprised if - maybe even in the same buildings - special and private hospitals, where rich people can skip the waiting lists, will be set up.
Also the unemployed must keep paying as the creation of an extensive labour force of slave workers, that is, workers with no rights at all, has been accelerating. Farum Municipality has been in the lead in that process, and numerous other municipalities have followed its course. Unemployed are working for wages far below the ones agreed on in the collective agreements. Despite being illegal according to existing law, this cannot be stopped without struggle. With its new labour market law, the government is even trying to legalize this abuse of the unemployed.
Any government that bases itself on the EU of the monopolies, which some people
want to officially call "The United States of Europe", and the continuing
development of the EU with its demands for privatisation, budget cuts, etc.,
is an anti-social and anti-popular government.
Any government that follows the terror dictates of the US is a militaristic
government of rearmament.
Such governments - like the one of Fogh Rasmussen - that are trying to push
the burdens on ordinary people cannot avoid causing storms.
And storm is exactly what is under way. Nothing is indicating that the right-wing
government will brake just a little. Reaction will march forward if we do not
stop it.
All over Denmark we have seen a large-scale opposition to the budget cuts of
the provinces and municipalities, which are consequences of Fogh Rasmussen's
policy.
We must say No to the EU and its demands for privatisation and social cuts.
We must say No to the EU and its construction of an EU army, which is developing
with heavy German participation and is being put into action for the EU all
around the world. This is reality. Now, thirty years after the referendum on
Danish EU membership on October 2, 1972, and after having been declared "stone-dead"
as a political union or supranational cooperation numerous times by EU supporters
in order to calm down the anti-EU movement, the EU state is becoming the United
States of Europe, really and formally.
Here and now, facing the upcoming EU summits, it must be said loud and clear:
Denmark must get out of the EU - the sooner the better!
One must note that things are connected with each other to a scary extent:
If you say war policy and EU policy, you cannot avoid saying privatisations,
social cuts, terror laws undermining democratic rights, and slave labour market
with no rights. This is militarization instead of social development.
But most Danes are saying with us: Invest in life and care - not in war!
We absolutely want that the government faces storm, but we have not forgotten that the former Social Democratic government was a warlike, pro-EU government, too, and wants to be that again. We want that the right-wing government falls as a result of the growing opposition to the war, the EU and the crisis, reaching a point where the government is not able to govern any longer.
No to social cuts - all together against capital!
The Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Workers' Communist Party of Denmark (APK)