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Algeria - March 13th, 2019

The combat of the working class and the exploited that shakes Algeria, reached the heart of the imperialist Maastricht

In Algiers and on the streets of Paris, the cry is “Out with Bouteflika”
“Down with the regime”

We need to advance in coordinating the combats of the working class on both sides of the Mediterranean Sea
Out with imperialism and its lackey regimes!

New uprisings for bread and against the Maghreb and Middle East regimes run through the region. Algeria is part of this chain of uprisings, but this time it breaks into the heart of French imperialism: in Paris.
The most exploited sector of the French working class came on the scene. The Algerians emigrated to Europe, in particular to France, together with the rest of the immigrants from the French colonies and semi-colonies are the heart of the working class. With their children and grandchildren they live crowded in the poorest neighborhoods of the metropolis; they are the lest paid workers, condemned to unemployment, to precarious jobs or to being marginalized without papers. Their culture is oppressed and their children constantly persecuted by the police. Today they take to the streets expressing their hatred against Bouteflika but also against the living conditions imposed by the Fifth Republic.
The flame of the Algerian revolutionary struggle has extended to Paris. By late February, March and particularly on March 10, thousands of young Algerian workers and students, made the Republic Square (Paris) vibrate, swarming with Algerian flags they chanted against the regime with their banners: “murderous power”, “Out with the system”, “Only the mandate of the people”. The support for the Algerian people was also felt in Marseille, Toulouse, Bordeaux, even the first days of March people  manifested in Berlin, London, Valencia and other cities in Europe.
On February 22, in Algiers and other cities, thousands of Algerians won the streets in protest against the brutal regime of Bouteflika, agent of French imperialism, which for 20 years has been selling out the enormous wealth of this oil country (member of the OPEC) to the French Total, plunging the masses into hunger and misery. The straw that broke the camel’s back was the announcement of the presentation of his candidacy for a fifth term. The demonstrations were the biggest from thirty years ago. The vanguard of this process is the youth who have no future in Algeria, who are condemned to leave their land since they suffer a very high rate of unemployment. The government raised taxes and raised the cost of living, while in its soil huge wealth of gas and oil are concentrated.
Since then, in Algiers thousands of workers and young people have demonstrated who decided not to leave the streets until the president leaves, shouting “no to the fifth mandate”, “Out with Bouteflika”. Despite the rejection and indignation of the Algerians, Bouteflika presented his candidacy. The anger of the masses was immediate, thousands decided to spend all night on Sunday 3/3 to Monday, in the Maurice Audin Square, Algiers, surrounded by an important police deployment. There, they denounced the complicity of “Madame France with the Algerian regime, which it supports in the name of her own interests”. The same happened in other cities, as in Tizi-Ouzou, where hundreds of workers of appliance factories participated in the night march to which spontaneously joined.

General Strike for 5 consecutive days

On March 8th for the third consecutive Friday, an impressive mobilization, took place in Algiers, Oran, Constantine and Bejaia coinciding with the Day of the International Working Women. Meanwhile social networks called for “civil disobedience”, calling for a general strike for 5 days, starting on Sunday 10. Before this the Ministry of Education advanced university holidays for 10 days; but the students, along with the professors, occupied several universities, in rejection of these measures. The judges and deputies of 6 opposition parties joined the demonstrations, seeking to to take advantage of them for their own ends. The protest is not only against Bouteflika’s fifth term but against the corruption of a regime dominated by the Armed Forces and the secret services since the independence from France in 1962.
The threat to stop the entire economy of the country ran through all of Algeria. Trade closed in Algiers and also in other cities. The dock workers in Algiers and Bejaia joined the strike, they also stopped at the Mercedes Benz factory in the area of ​​Rouiba also stopped, as the two large public energy groups, Sonatrach and Sonelgaz. In addition, the workers of the oil company GTP and also the gas complex of Oued Ezzine, the main economic sector of Algeria, joined the strike too.

Before the ghost of revolution, Bouteflika “retreats”.
The bourgeoisie tries to give a way out within the regime

Given the forcefulness of the strike that planted the beginning of a crisis that blew out the whole regime, on Monday 11, Bouteflika protecting his regime, and seeking to prevent the path to revolution from being opened, resigned from the candidacy of his fifth term and postponed the elections that had been scheduled for April 18. The elections would be held at the end of a national conference, which will be in charge of reforming the political system and drafting a constitution from here until the end of 2019. These battles of the Algerian exploited (which as we said are part of this chain of uprisings by the Bread in the Maghreb and the Middle East) threaten to coordinate with the struggles of the European working class, particularly in France where Algerians and their descendants number in the millions. Today, in support of their brothers in Algeria, they win the streets of Paris, Marseille and some other cities in Europe.
And there is a latent coordination with the unstoppable struggle of the Yellow Vests, who for almost four months with their fight on the barricades have been fighting for Macron to fall.
And this is the reason why, the Algerian bourgeoisie tries to give a way out within the regime, to prevent the  opening of a revolutionary crisis that dislocates the power of the State at the hands of the exploited. Therefore, part of the “democratic” bourgeois opposition aims to ride on these mobilizations against the regime. For the bourgeoisie containing this situation before it leads to a revolution is a question of life and death. That is what Bouteflika’s “resignation” is about.

Let not the struggle of the Algerian exploited stop!

The resignation of Bouteflika did not stop the Algerian exploited who continue in the streets of Algiers, demonstrating against the prolongation of his fourth mandate. The masses show that they go for everything. In their hands is to solve all their demands, for this it is necessary to defeat Bouteflika, his infamous regime and the imperialism that oppresses Algeria.
The rebellious Algerian masses have to endorse the terrible experience of the revolutionary processes experienced by their brothers in Egypt in 2011, regarding the nefarious role of the Armed Forces. In Egypt in 2011, the military demonstrated that they are neither neutral nor are they there to help the exploited. On the contrary, they are the ones who are going to put order, but through blood and fire to stop the masses, just as they did in Egypt, with  a bloody military coup.
In Algeria, the Armed Forces are seen by a sector of the masses as prone to come to their aid. Nothing wronger. No confidence in the murderous caste of army officers! These are the same Armed Forces that in the 1990s staged a military coup to prevent the ISF (Islamic Salvation Front), which had won the elections by a large majority, from accesing power. Then, they unleashed a civil war that bloodied Algeria leaving close to 200 thousand dead. They are the same Armed Forces that are under the direct control of imperialism, and that since then have controlled the governments and the regime, although civilians assumed.

Union leaderships divide the struggles of the working class and the impoverished masses

The UGTA (General Union of Workers of Algeria) in a statement saluted the “civility and patriotism” shown in the demonstrations against Bouteflika’s fifth mandate, as well as the “responsible and exemplary attitude of the forces of order” and added that “the UGTA’s commitment to President Bouteflika’s side is the fruit of the multiple economic and social achievements reached by the workers in the course of the process of national reconstruction in peace”... They are cynics! This is the reason why the Algerian rebels have organized their struggle on the outside of this union center.
In France, the youth and the Algerian workers demonstrate against the Bouteflika regime, while the Yellow Vests have been fighting for almost four months. The exploited on both sides of the Mediterranean need the unity of their battles to succeed. And this is precisely what the bureaucracy of the trade union centrals prevents, because it separates and divides the struggle of the working class. The French union bureaucracy do not consider immigrants and their children born on French soil part of the French working class. They treat them as “second class citizens” the same as the imperialist bourgeoisie of the Fifth Republic does and label them as “vandals”, form security lines so that the children of immigrants do not demonstrate themselves together with the unionized workers.
The Algerian exploited, overcoming this division imposed by the leadership of the bureaucracy, took to the streets of Paris. With that treacherous leadership we can not fight: we have to expel the bureaucracy from the organizations of the exploited people!

Like the bureaucracy, the former Trotskyists support the regime of the Fifth Republic and its oppression over the colonies

The former Trotskyists of the NPA, Lambertites, Lutte Ouvrière, were also walloped by the combats of the Yellow Vests and, like the bureaucracy, were forced to support this revolutionary struggle.
These leaderships support the infamous regime of the Fifth Republic and in Algeria, they support the Bouteflika regime. Both the Workers Party (Lambertites) and the “anti-capitalists” of the Socialist Workers Party legalized the military regime when they took part in the 2007 elections, when the FIS, a Muslim movement representing a large sector of the oppressed Algerians, was proscribed. It was an election where the abstention was very high: 64%.
In those elections, the Workers’ Party drew 26 deputies and the “anti-capitalists” won 1 seat. That is, while the masses boycotted the elections and challenged more than 1 million votes, these currents, which call themselves Trotskyists, legitimized that electoral farce against the masses. To this day they uphold the regime and the starving government that are puppets of the military, which the exploited masses hate and want to throw down.
Conclusion, both in the colonies and semi-colonies, these currents play the same role as in the Metropolis, they support their own bourgeoisie. We cannot allow them to usurp and dirty the clean flags of Trotskyism to hide their betrayals! Get out the hands of the ex-Trotskyists from the the fighting organizations of the working class!

To succeed in Algeria and France: WE MUST EXPROPRIATE THE EXPROPRIATORS!

In order to eat and achieve a decent life: we must break with imperialism, conquer the land and the generalized armament of the exploited in struggle!
We must expropriate without compensation and under workers control their transnationals, their banks that oppress and plunder the nation! They are the same ones who super-exploit the immigrants in the metropolis as cheap labor force and who today want to deepen their plans of flexibilization to the whole of the working class.

Expropriation without compensation and under workers control of Total, of Renault, of PNB Paribas, of Societé Générale and of all transnationals! In Algeria and in France, out with the Imperialism!
In Algeria, one of the most democratic tasks together with the expulsion of imperialism is the dissolution of the murderous officer caste, which massacred more than 200,000 exploited in the service of imperialism.
In order to conquer better conditions to fight, it is necessary to set up committees of rank-and-file soldiers and armed workers. For the generalized armament of the masses!

To conquer the true power of the exploited, we must set up the self-determination organisms of the masses in struggle!
The French working class has an enormous task and opportunity in their hands, to make a reality the scream of the Yellow Vests, of “Macron Resignation”! For this it is necessary to unify their combat with that of the exploited Algerians to the cry of THE ENEMY IS AT HOME. On both sides of the Mediterranean, the same enemy, the same combat.

Long live the struggle of the Algerian exploited on both sides of the Mediterranean! For the unity of the Yellow Vests and the exploited that rise up against imperialism and the regime in Algeria.
May Paris become the center of this revolutionary combat! Let there be coordinated the revolutionary struggles throughout Europe, along with those of the colonies and semi-colonies, Maghreb, Africa and Middle East. Down with Maastricht!

Let the workers’ organizations take this fight in their hands and forge the combat unity of the French and Algerian working class. But, for that we must expel from our organizations of struggle the trade union bureaucracy and the treacherous leaderships, which have separated and diverted the combats of the exploited.

In Paris and in Algiers: THE PEOPLE WANT THE FALL OF THE REGIME!

Today, the French working class, with its vanguard of yellow vests and immigrant workers must organize a revolutionary general strike until Macron falls! Down with the imperialist Fifth Republic! Down with Macron!

Out with all the French troops and military bases from the entire Africa!

Let the revolution start! Down with the murderous regime of Algeria!

For a Provisional Workers ‘and Peasants’ Government, based on the organizations of self-organization of the armed masses!

Faced with the total decay and rottenness of this system ... We must put on foot the power of those from below, the power of the working class and the exploited masses!

Ana Negri

 

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