Communist Students Supplement

CS sees light at end of tunnels

The group aspires to playing a role that contributes to starting progress in Lebanon

Communist Students (CS) is group of about 150 young activists that came together to form the group some three years ago. The story starts with the start of the second intifada in Palestine in Sep. 2000 when a group of young members form the Lebanese Communist Party (LCP) wrote and distributed a circular that spoke on behalf of Communist Students.

The launching of the gorup came as a response to a chronic need that the LCP youth express their different views on democracy and politics inside the party. These young members also sought to criticize democracy in Lebanon, to speak out against militarization of the state and against the government.

CS members sought to praise national reconciliation, which they believe must lead the Lebanese population to a democratic state.

A year later, four members of the Communist Students group were expelled from the party after they had participated in the conference for dialogue between various Lebanese parties in the Chouf village of Baaklin in July 2001.

The LCP leadership had earlier decided to boycott the conference under the pretext of passing on all conferences that include “sectarian parties.”

During that time, the group joined The National Campaign for National Reconciliation and participated in projects that defended ciivl liberties together with other leftist independent groups, the Progressive Youth Organization (PYO) and the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM).

The campaign came under heavy criticism from state officials and was one of the reasons which led to the clashes of August 7, 2001, when plaincloth security personnel cracked on supporters of the FPM and the disbanded Lebanese Forces and arrested many of them.

Other CS activities included their participation in protests against the nation’s deteriorating socioeconomic situation in Lebanon such as the demonstration that protested the Value Added Tax (VAT) during Parliament’s 2001 plenary session held to approve the annual budget.

On the international level, Communist Students marked a heavy participation in the World Forum against the World Trade Organization (WTO) which was held in Beirut as part of the anti-globalization movement.

The activity was held in Septemebr and November 2001 and coincided with the holding of WTO meetings in Doha, Qatar. “Subcampaigns” were launched in the aftermath of the Beirut meeting. One of these subcampaigns was the Anti-war on Iraq, Anti-Iraqi Dictatorship Campaign in early 2003.

The group was also active in defending the Palestine issue. In Sep. 2002, during the invasion of the West bank and the siege of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in his residence in the muqataa, Communist Students launched an open sit-in in Beirut’s Martyrs’ Square to announce their solidarity with the Palestinians in the West Bank and their support of the Intifada.

The sit-in lasted for a month and a half and was coupled with anti-American and anti-British demonstrations that targeted Arab embassies in Beirut. The protest activity also saw the sponsoring of awareness campaigns and related exhibitions.

Communist students participated in launching another major campaign that approached global and Arab issues. The No war, No dictatorship Campaign, for instance, was held before and during the war on Iraq.

The campaign, the group believes, was a unique activity in the Arab world since it dared blaming the different Arab regimes for the current miserable situation of the Arab people. It also broke the traditional political trend in organizing campaigns, which until then only denounced the West without blaming rulers of the East.

In Lebanon, the groups sought to focus on interlinked political and socioeconomic issues and mishaps of the Lebanese regime.

There is an urgent need for national reconciliation at all levels in the Lebanese society. Reconciliation helps scrapping the barriers that the civil war had implanted in this society. This reconciliation was promised in the 1989 Taef Agreement, but never became a reality afterward.

Communist students, together with the Independent Leftist Groups, established a youth political alliance with the PYO and the FPM under within the context of achieving national reconciliation in Lebanon, restoring liberties and freedom of expression, and decreasing Syrian influence in Lebanese internal affairs.

The alliance aimed at scrapping the civil war notion of “East and West Beirut” and succeeded in organizing many protests against state tax hikes, Aug. 7 arrests and later against the unfair closure of Murr Television in 2002.

Communist Students remain a major sector of the LCP opposition operating under the name of Forces of Reform and Democracy.

The group contributed to the launching of what is known as the Leftist Platform, comprised of independent leftist groups such as the American University of Beirut’s No Frontiers, the Lebanese American University’s Pablo Neruda and Direct Line.

The platform was active on issues pertaining to Palestine and Iraq as it launched the No War, No Dictatorship Campaign.

Communist Students now aim at bringing together all the leftist groups and activists, who have participated in the above mentioned activities and who endorse similar political platforms and rheotrics.

The group hopes this merger would lead to the emergance of a new left that can tackle issues of concern to people. They might be able to help in tresspassing “red lines,” and be a major part in the world’s process of change and progress.