Protests against power cuts and price hikes are continuing in Pakistan. Here we have a report from Rawlakot where thousands came out on the streets and were faced with the police firing live ammunition on the crowds, injuring several, among them Marxists from the Jammu Kashmir National Students Federation, JKNSF.

The latest news coming in from Pakistan indicates how tense the situation has become. Spontaneous protest rallies broke out yesterday, continuing today, sparked off by increased transport costs, but also against the long power cuts the people have to endure. The police have responded in some cases by firing on the protestors.

Further to our article on the movement of the workers in Burma, we republish this report from the daily Irrawaddy.

We also publish an excerpt from a monologue written by Ratna Sarumpaet (translated to English by Robyn Fallick). This monologue was written in her memory in 1997 and it has since become a tradition to perform the monologue at every May Day celebration. “Marsinah Accuses” has also been performed in many other countries.

Marsinah (1969-1993) was an Indonesian worker who was kidnapped by the army and brutally murdered on May 8^th 1993 because of her involvement in the strike action at her workplace. She led a strike with 500 of her fellow workers, knowing full well that under the dictatorship of Soeharto her life was in danger. Marsinah has since become a symbol and inspiration for the workers’ struggle in Indonesia. Let us celebrate International Working Women’s Day and remember Marsinah by rolling up our sleeves to fight for socialism, the only way out of the misery of capitalism.

When the process of capitalist restoration in China started, some 30 years ago, Deng Xiaping issued the slogan “to get rich is glorious” and he added “let some get rich first”. And some have certainly gotten themselves obscenely rich.

An important strike wave erupted recently in the Burmese textile industry. The workers have been resisting the brutal response of the military regime.

In an area heavily dominated by the presence of Taliban forces, the Marxists in Pakistan organized a meeting of the PTUDC, with the participation of several important trade union leaders, with guest speaker Lal Khan, the editor of the Asian Marxist Review, speaking on the world crisis of capitalism and how it affects the South Asian subcontinent.

In a Taliban dominated area of Pakistan a Marxist lawyer has defeated the candidate of the Islamic fundamentalists. In spite of a Fatwa being issued against him, comrade Ahad stood firmly on the ideas of revolutionary socialism and won the position of President of the Malakand District Bar Association.

The Annual convention of Unemployed Youth Movement, BNT (Berozgar Naujawan Tehreek), was held on Sunday, January 17, 2010, in which 70 youngsters from all over the district participated with full devotion and revolutionary enthusiasm.

As a result of the great struggle and pressure of PTCL workers, a referendum is being conducted. The management wants to use this referendum to ensnare and divide the workers, but the workers have to use this democratic process to organize and unite in the struggle for their rights. If the privatization of PTCL (Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited) is retracted then workers from all over the country will follow their footsteps and end privatizations in their own institutions. We publish here a leaflet by the PTUDC which was distributed throughout Pakistan.

The crisis in Pakistan is becoming more complex and severe. Corruption is not the cause of failure of this system, rather it is the fundamental necessity and creation of this system. The class contradictions are also expressing itself in the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party. The country is moving to an inevitable social explosion.

The Editor of the Asian Marxist Review comments on the growing turmoil in South Asia, the Iranian revolution, the tensions in Israel/Palestine and highlights how all this is inevitably preparing the ground for a resurgence of class struggle.

The battle for universal health access for every Pakistani can only be won through joining it with the struggle for a socialist transformation of the society. So it is time for the doctors and nurses to join the struggle because now it’s the struggle to save the medical and healthcare system as well.

After years of military dictatorships followed by sham democracy, the situation in Pakistan has reached such a point that the masses are yearning for radical change. Their suffering is immense as the people at the top continue to enrich themselves at the expensive of the workers and peasants, collaborating with imperialism as it rides rough-shod over the people of Pakistan. Everything is moving to an inevitable revolutionary explosion.