JCP sends message to PCF 32nd Congress

The following is a message from the Japanese Communist Party Central Committee to the French Communist Party on the occasion of its 32nd Congress which was held in Saint-Denis from April 3-6.

The Japanese Communist Party Central Committee offers you its heartfelt greetings on the occasion of the 32nd Congress of the French Communist Party (PCF).

We hope that your Congress will significantly contribute to further advancing your struggle to defend world peace and protect the living conditions and rights of the French people.

The international community is facing an ordeal due to the U.S.-British war on Iraq. This war, which is a flagrant rejection of the international peace defined by the U.N. Charter, is nothing less than a war of aggression running counter to recent history that has outlawed war.

But many governments, including those of three permanent U.N. Security Council members, have opposed this war and seriously worked to have the problem resolved in accordance with international rules of peace. In Japan, France, and in many other countries throughout the world, calls for an immediate halt to the war are increasing. The foreign minister's meeting of the League of Arab States issued a declaration condemning the U.S.-British military aggression. Even in the United States and Britain, large anti-war demonstrations are being held. The Japanese government, in a move subservient to the United States, has expressed support for the war but a majority of the Japanese people are opposed to the war. The JCP strongly condemns this war of aggression and demands an immediate halt to the war.

The international peace based on the U.N. Charter is an important achievement that humanity has made in the 20th century. It is important that the rules for peace be defended and developed through strengthening international cooperation, setting aside differences of political positions.

We hope exchanges will be further developed between our two parties in the common effort to defend world peace, establish an equitable international economic order, get nuclear weapons abolished, and achieve other important objectives. (end)