Labour Party Pakistan endorses Fifth Socialist International process

The Labour Party Pakistan's National Committee meeting on December 26-27, 2009, held in Islamabad agreed to endorse the declaration for the fifth international. The LPP leadership discussed in detail the different aspects of the declaration and found in agreement on the issues.

The National Committee is the highest body of Labour Party Pakistan, elected at the national congress every two years. The fifth LPP congress is taking place from January 27-29, 2010, in the industrial city of Faisalabad. On January 29, an international conference of the workers and peasants is aiming to mobilise over 30,000 people at a main political centre used by Bhuttos and other main leaders in Pakistan.

The Labour Party Pakistan (www.laborpakistan.org) is a left-wing socialist party formed in 1997 by several different trends of the left movement, trade unions and peasant organisations. It is the main left party in Pakistan in terms of its membership and influence within social and class movements.

It prints regularly a weekly paper called Weekly Mazdoor Jeddojuhd (workers' struggle) in the Urdu language (www.jeddojuhd.com), the only regular weekly trade union based paper in the country.

The LPP has helped developed different social movements including Pakistan Social Forum, whcih is part of World Social Forum.

The LPP has supported the Bolivarian revolution from the begining and has hosted several speakers coming from different international friendly organisations on the importance of Venezuela socialist process, including Jim McIlroy of Socialist Alliance Australia, Pierre Rousset of New Anticapitalist Party of France.

We tried to attend the [International Encounter of Left Parties] in Caracas, November 2009, through the Socialist Alliance in Australia, which had forwarded our request to Venezuelan ambassador in Sydney. Unfortunatly, we could not participate.

We would very much like to be part of the process and will be happy to coordinate the work of the fifth International in Pakistan.

Comradely,

Farooq Tariq, spokesperson Labour Party Pakistan