Antiwar Protesters Reject US Claims Of Missions Against Piracy, Illegal Fishing, Drug Smuggling

southern africa | imperialism / war | non-anarchist press Tuesday October 07, 2008 22:21 by Cape Town Anti-War Coalition capetownantiwar at gmail dot com

The Anti-War Coalition rejects the Commanding officer of the USS Theodore Roosevelt's claims that they are here to counter piracy, illegal fishing and drug smuggling:

1. The illegal and predatory invasion of Iraq in 2003 was nothing else but oil piracy of the worst order. This piracy is confirmed by the recent multi-billion dollar oil contracts awarded by the puppet Iraq regime to Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP and Chevron;

2. The worst culprits of depleting the world's fish resources are the fish monopolies; they are responsible for over-fishing and exploiting workers as well; in the name of acting against 'illegal fishing' the might of the military is being put against the survivialist fisher, whose catch is negligible compared to the damage the monopolies are
causing;

3. It has been well documented that the CIA has long been involved in drug smuggling, the proceeds of which they use for their nefarious and dubious activities.

The true aim of the trip is now exposed: it is a public relations exercise to start a new phase of open US imperialist -SA military co-operation. This shows not the strength of US imperialism but its weakness. Revealed now is the status of the SA government as a puppet of imperialism. This is the start of a new phase of open military colonization of the African continent.

We have also seen that a number of the soldiers on the US warship are from Chile. How short their memories are! Back in 1973, it was US imperialism that overthrew the democratically elected Allende regime and the bloody era of dictator Pinochet started.

We call for the soldiers to refuse orders from their commanders, for them to join the antiwar movement and to turn their power against the US imperialist regime which bails out the profits of the greedy banks but dumps the American worker on to the street, with less health care and greater suffering.

We will continue to picket every day at 11am at the Waterfront (opposite Waltons at the traffic intersection) until the warships of imperialist plunder leave.

for further comment:

Anti-War Coalition
Shaheed Mahomed
ph 0822020617

Earthlife Africa
Keenan van Wyk
ph 0763870620