Declaring that socialism was the only alternative for the future of mankind, the 11th International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties on Sunday asked its representatives to launch broad struggles for the rights of the people against the capitalist system.

Reiterating that the current global recession was a systemic crisis of capitalism, the meeting, through its Delhi Declaration, observed that political representatives of capital tried to conceal the contradiction between capital and labour which could not be resolved, and lay at the heart of the crisis.

It said military and political solutions were being pursued across the globe and NATO was promoting a new aggressive strategy, while political systems were becoming more reactionary in curtailing democratic, civil liberties, trade union rights etc.

It said the crisis was “no aberration based on the greed of a few or lack of effective regulatory mechanism. Profit maximisation, the raison d’etre of capitalism, has sharply widened economic inequalities both between countries and within countries in these decades of globalisation… Our struggle for an alternative is thus against the capitalist system. Our struggle for an alternative is for a system where there is no exploitation of people by people and nation by nation.”

The three-day meet also decided that concrete action needed to be taken in all countries in a coordinated manner on six issues: protesting against the NATO and its global expansion; observing November 29 as solidarity day in support of the Palestinians’ struggle; observing 2010 as the 65th anniversary of the defeat of fascism; strengthening popular mobilisations in defence of workers rights in coordination with trade unions; intensifying international solidarity for the release of the Cuban Five (held by the U.S.); and strengthening popular movements, pressing governments in respective countries, demanding the right to work.

The meeting accepted the request of the Workers’ Party of Bangladesh to be part of these international meetings and decided that the South African Communist Party will host the 12th edition of the meeting at dates, venue and theme to be decided.