What's new at Links: Tibet; Venezuela; Nepal; Communist Manifesto at 160; Kosova Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 00:25:54 -0500 (CDT) Subscribe free to Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal - at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373 Marx's call to liberation 160 years and still going strong By *Barry Healy*// Not many young authors can publish a work before they reach thirty years of age and have it remain in publication continuously for the following 160 years. Yet that is precisely the case with the /Communist Manifesto/, which was born in the middle of a Europe-wide revolutionary upsurge in February 1848. Moreover, the /Manifesto /still rings through the years to today's world with its promise of human liberty and fulfilment. * Read more Tension in Tibet: Political dialogue only key to lasting solution By *Kavita Krishnan* In the wake of the anniversary of the 1959 Tibet movement (March 10) and ahead of the Beijing Olympics, Tibet has once again emerged as a hot spot of ethnic tension. There are reports of violence against and killing of protesting Tibetan monks by Chinese forces; and also of ethnic targeting of Han Chinese and Hui Muslims by Tibetan protesters. Chinese authorities have straightaway blamed the Dalai Lama for provoking the violent protests. The [Chinese] Army has been deployed after more than a week of escalating tension. While there is little ``independent'' information to judge the actual nature and scale of the turbulence within Tibet and attempts by the Chinese state to suppress it, solidarity protests are being witnessed in many centres across the world and Tibetan refugees based in India are particularly vocal against the recent turn of events in Tibet. * Read more M|ller Rojas: United Socialist Party of Venezuela is a `political necessity' *Alberto M|ller Rojas*, first vice president of the of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), speaks to *Kiraz Janicke* of /Venezuelanalysis.com/ and to *Federico Fuentes* of /Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal/ about the significance of the formation of the PSUV for the Bolivarian Revolution -- debates within the new party, what its relationship with the government should be and the immediate tasks of the PSUV in the struggle for the socialist transformation of Venezuela * Read more For the right to self-determination of the Tibetan people By *Pierre Rousset * March 24, 2008 -- The Chinese army has Tibet and its provinces under tight control. The repression of the ``rioters'' who have descended into the streets these last two weeks has been severe. Solidarity and the effective recognition of the right of the Tibetan people to self-determination is urgent. Some on the left (rare in France, but more numerous elsewhere) refuse to commit to solidarity for fear of playing the game of the United States against China. Others, on the right, call for demonstrations against 59 years of Chinese occupation --- it was in 1950-1951 that the Peoples Liberation Army entered the country --- and denounce a ``communist'' dictatorship. These two positions ``mirror'' one another, attaching little importance to history: the ``Tibetan question'' arises in very different contexts according to different periods. * Read more Stop the bloodshed --- freedom for Tibet! By *Tony Iltis* March 28, 2008 -- A demonstration by Buddhist monks in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, on March 10 to commemorate the anniversary of China's crushing of the Tibetan independence movement in 1959 triggered protests for self-determination that, by March 14, had escalated into anti-Chinese riots in which 19 people were killed. Over 100 Tibetans are reported to have been killed, and hundreds more arrested, by Chinese occupation forces. This eruption of mass anger --- that spread to cities throughout the Tibetan Autonomous Region and the neighbouring provinces of Gansu, Qinghai and Sichuan, historically part of Tibet and with large ethnic Tibetan communities --- was a response not only to the 58-year-old Chinese military occupation of Tibet, but to the dispossession and marginalisation of Tibetans by an influx of both global capital and Han Chinese transmigrants. * Read more Nepal: The constituent assembly election and the revolutionary left By *Mahesh Maskey* and *Mary Deschene* As the elections to the constituent assembly draw near (April 10), the question in Nepal seems not to be whether there will be a democratic republic, but rather what kind of democratic republic it will be. ``Bourgeois democrats'' would want to preserve the country's capitalistic character, while the ``revolutionary left'' will make every effort to give it a transitional character to bring socialism on to the nation's agenda. ``The reformist left'' will vacillate between the two courses but predominantly forge alliances with the ``bourgeois democrats''. * Read more Imperialism's long-term opposition to Kosova's independence By *Michael Karadjis* The previous article of this series showed that the basis for Kosova's right to self-determination is real, and that there has been a genuine, mass-based striving for it all century. Yet some on the left have argued that Kosova's recent declaration of independence is merely an initiative of the imperialist powers, which allegedly have had a long-term aim to create an ``independent'' Kosovar state under their control. * Read more ************ /Links/ seeks to promote the international exchange of information, experience of struggle, theoretical analysis and views of political strategy and tactics within the international left. It is a forum for open and constructive dialogue between active socialists coming from different political traditions. It seeks to bring together those in the international left who are opposed to neoliberal economic and social policies. It aims to promote the renewal of the socialist movement in the wake of the collapse of the bureaucratic model of "actually existing socialism" in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Visit and bookmark http://links.org.au and add it to your RSS feed (http://links.org.au/rss.xml). 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