Solidarity from Peru for the Tekel workers

We have recently, despite the cordon sanitaire imposed by the bourgeoisie and its supposed "means of information", learnt about your struggle to improve working conditions and wages, a struggle in which the crisis of capitalism can clearly be seen. The bourgeoisie throws us into poverty while they live off the blood and sweat we leave on their machines (which we also build, from raw materials which is also extracted at the cost of our lives). The bourgeoisie and its media have done all they can to stop us finding out about the struggle of our class at the international level. Here in Peru there has not even been the smallest report of the struggle you have been waging for a month; faced with this the class has to keep its eyes open, doing all we can to spread information about all our struggles, all our victories and also denouncing the opportunist union organisations and their bureaucratic bosses who play with our lives. We have to support each other across the world, since as the old saying goes "the emancipation of the working class is the task of the workers themselves". We value and welcome your struggle, because it has animated you through your assemblies and the autonomous organisation that you have used in your struggle.

Here in Peru we are also part of the immense world-wide class and are suffering as you suffer in Turkey. Maybe we are exploited more or less than you, more openly or in a more hidden way, from one region to the other, but we can be sure we are all equally exploited, that we live in poverty at the cost of our labour. We are an international class, the class that creates the world's wealth. We therefore have no nationality but are united by our class interests. At the moment we do not have an international class party to represent us, therefore we in Peru can only send you, with these words couched in proletarian emotion, our solidarity, our sense of being united with you from here.

We want to reinforce our links: against the increased repression of the bourgeoisie we oppose our solidarity and self-confidence, and now more than ever this strike in Turkey has made us aware of our responsibility to group together on a class basis. We are not looking for alliances with the bourgeoisie. We are not going to fall for the lies that the unions in Turkey and throughout the world try to sell us, because they are enemies of the working class, an arm of the capitalist system to keep us from entering into direct struggles, to abort strikes and sit down at the bosses' table asking for charity, for the crumbs that belongs us, for bread that the proletariat made in the first place. We are not taken in by our supposed leaders and callers of strikes, stoppages and struggles. Despite our youth we can see that they are nothing but wolves in sheep's clothing who don't represent the working class but the ruling class. Therefore we trust in you, we trust in the struggle that you are carrying out against exploitation, for a better future, showing what we can achieve when united, stopping production and causing the representatives of the bourgeois state to tremble in their shoes.

Today we all have to be aware that it is not important whether firms are in the hands of private or state ownership; they represent the interests of the ruling class, the bourgeoisie. Despite the fact that Tekel is in the hands of the state the Tekel workers have always been exploited.  We know and re-affirm that the bourgeois state will never solve the problems of capitalism. The bourgeoisie is always telling us that the state is neutral, impartial; that it defends us; they say it is independent of social class, when it is nothing else than a bourgeois tool for ensuring the continuation of capitalist exploitation. The bourgeoisie talks through the mouth of the state. Therefore we salute you and are very enthusiastic to see that your struggle has destroyed this bourgeois illusion; your autonomous struggle shows what we must do at a world-wide level, to regain confidence in our own struggle as the working class and to win society's riches for ourselves. We know about shortages, the fight against the cold, tear gas, police repression, lack of job security and the other expressions of this bourgeois system. Your struggle is a burning light of hope for us, and we fully identify with you. So don't give up comrades! Your struggle has to overcome bourgeois confines, the road will be difficult, but our aims are justified: the state has to be pushed back by the strength that you have demonstrated. Your struggle is an example for the international proletariat.

These bourgeois parasites: how much do they think they will be able to exploit us? How much more of our blood do they think they can drain? How much longer do they think they can live off of us? Our struggle is historical, the class has thousands of experiences. Proletarian brothers: we must not miss this opportunity to draw lessons and apply them to our struggles. We must learn from history and understand that the world is made by us, and therefore belongs to us. The bourgeoisie want to repress you, to stop your struggle, and divide us through fear. They do the same here. How many are they? We are millions, our strength is the confidence that we have in each other. Our united fists raised against one point will make the earth shake and transform it.

We are happy to know that internationally our class has taken up again method of struggle inherent in it. We know comrades that you have joined together in assemblies where you debate and take decisions (there is no better way of discussing the action to take). We also know that our best friend "the strike" is present in your struggle. This is the historical weapon of the class and we have to try to spread it, calling on other sections of the exploited, as we know is happening on the railways and public sector. We are millions, the bourgeois are few. Nobody can stop us!

Your demands are completely just, we hope that they are won, that the struggle goes further, we insist that our class is the only one that can free humanity from the capitalist yoke and get rid of the burden of class society.

This first step is not only yours but part of an immense human tide with the same interests. Your struggle is our struggle; its victory, which we are confident in, will also be our triumph. The international proletariat (of which we are an expression) has its eyes on you, the unfolding of your struggles provides us with lessons, thus we hope that the proletariat's solidarity, organisation and autonomous struggle will take root.

Comrades we are all one, we all have to push forwards the struggle against capitalism. Our lives have already been turned in to commodities. What more can we lose? Only our chains! On the other hand we have everything to win. We are condemned to victory.

Down with the unions that negotiate away workers lives!

Long live the struggle of the international proletariat!

Forward with the struggle comrades!

Nucleo Proletario in Peru, 15/2/10

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