Asia

The gruesome nature of the capitalist system is being exposed by the heinous acts of businessmen, who like vultures are poaching and scavenging on the miseries of the victims of the Kashmir earthquake. All the local bosses can think of is that rehabilitation will boost economic growth as more products are consumed in the effort to rebuild the area.

The situation in Pakistan and Kashmir is becoming desperate. The UN has revealed that the current crisis may be the greatest disaster ever faced - even bigger than last year's tsunami.

We have received some photos from our relief camps in Kashmir. The photos show of the trucks that travelled with the PTUDC's solidarity caravan, our relief camps, as well as some of the destruction caused by the earthquake.

The magazine “New Popular Weekly” of the biggest Polish trade union federation, the OPZZ, has taken up the appeal from the PTUDC for help in relief work in the earthquake stricken zones.

The PTUDC Revolutionary Solidarity Caravan has arrived in Kashmir! We publish here a report of the caravan's journey and arrival, and explain some of the problems that the caravan has encountered.

As the Pakistani Marxists are taking part in relief operations in Kashmir, Alan Woods, on behalf of the International Marxist Tendency, has addressed a letter to the Kashmiri people, which is being read out in all the relief camps that have been set up.

We have received three press statements from left groups in the Philippines. Although we may not agree with every detail of these statements, we are publishing them for the interest of our readers together with an accompanying letter which helps to understand the context in which they are written.

We have received this report from Kashmir, detailing the PTUDC's growing relief efforts. Medical camps are now being established and our relief camps are awaiting the goods to arrive with the solidarity caravan.

This article from the English daily DAWN in Pakistan explains that the team of doctors coming with the Indian relief delegation to go along with MP Manzoor Ahmed and the Revolutionary Solidarity Caravan have been denied access to Pakistan. This clearly exposes the rottenness of the Musharraf regime and shows how little the dictatorship is concerned about the victims of the earthquake.

We have received this report from Pakistan containing information from the PTUDC teams on the ground in Kashmir. The comrades have been hard at work establishing Solidarity Relief camps and holding meetings to discuss an action plan for the relief effort on the ground.

On Friday, October 14, Comrade Manzoor Ahmed, Member of Parliament and PTUDC president, held a press conference at the Lahore Press Club announcing the launching of the PTUDC solidarity caravan, called “The Revolutionary Solidarity Caravan”. Manzoor also announced his programme of demands for the aftermath of the earthquake and criticised the Musharraf government's handling of the disaster.

The initial shock of the earthquake in Pakistan and Azad Kashmir is beginning to turn into anger as millions of people are left without shelter in the cold and rain. The PTUDC’s international solidarity campaign has swung into action raising well over £1000 over the last few days. The response to our appeal has been truly amazing, but we need to raise more money to pay for the supplies, convoys, and medicines that we will be sending to the worst affected areas of Kashmir and Pakistan.

Following on from the letter we published a few weeks ago, another reader in China has added his thoughts to the discussion. He highlights particularly the growing disparity between different social layers in Chinese society, a result of the development of capitalism, which is destroying all the gains of the past.

The introduction of the “market economy”, i.e. capitalism, in China is provoking massive social contradictions: extreme poverty at one end, extreme wealth at the other. But a gigantic proletariat is also being created, the “gravediggers” of capitalism, as Marx used to say.