We have been asked by other affiliates of the ICT, as well as sympathisers, to clarify our position on the resignation of MS and his comments on the problems in the Canadian affiliate of the ICT, the Groupe Internationaliste Ouvrier (GIO).

MS cites two reasons for resigning. One is the real reason, which is his refusal to recognise the difference between negative sniping and comradely criticism. But this was hardly a serious or heroic position on which to base a resignation. As a result he has chosen to pre-empt any statement the ICT was preparing on the problem of the GIO by pretending that it was our inaction on that issue which prompted him to resign. This is less than convincing. Within half an hour of the CWO discussion over what we would recommend to the ICT’s International Bureau (IB) on the situation in Canada he asked to become a full member of the CWO! Contrary to his invented account, there was no shouting down of his opinion that we should expel the GIO from the ICT. In fact this is a view shared by others and which had already been voiced at our April meeting not attended by MS. So his opinion was by no means a lone one.

Indeed that would be the easy solution but the issue with the GIO, as MS well knows, is much more complex. The ICT is not a centralised organisation. Our Canadian affiliate has taken the decisions internally with regard to these events. However the ICT does not take such matters lightly and has attempted to advise the GIO rather than expel them. The brief history of events which follows clarifies what has occurred and our own attitude to what has happened.

In March 2013 the GIO (which at the time was effectively 2 people) admitted a comrade (A) who confessed to having been accused of rape in 2011 when he was 17 years old but the police had not pursued the charge as the young woman who he admits he “hurt” had gone to bed with him and not specifically withdrawn her consent. Whatever the truth of the matter we know who would have been more traumatised by the event and our sympathies are with her.

Comrade V, who admitted him into the group, told no-one at the time but because he had a well-deserved reputation as a defender of women from violent men in Montreal, assumed he could also defend this comrade from the rumours that pursued him. Comrade V at no time informed the ICT of this decision. Neither were we told when A came to the UK and we arranged a speaking tour for him. We were not even told when a CWO comrade went to Canada to give three talks in June 2014 although apparently all members who joined the GIO at that time had been informed. At that time the group had many women sympathisers and not one of them gave the slightest hint of A’s reputation.

We only found out about A’s past in November 2015 at the International Bureau (IB) meeting in Rome when he himself briefly announced that he had done something in his past which had “hurt” a woman and that he now regretted. He apologised for not informing us previously but said that this was because he was ashamed. He had however told the GIO before his entry into the group.

In Rome, realising we were only getting one side of the story, our immediate response was to delegate a French-speaking comrade of the IB to write to V asking for details of both past and present accusations. He wrote three times via email to him but the comrade did not reply to anything. In February 2015 Comrade V then went on Facebook and, again without previously informing anyone, announced his resignation from the GIO denouncing A as a serial “rapist” and attacking another comrade for refusing to accept his point of view.

This triggered the next response of the ICT which was to ask the GIO to suspend A as a member pending investigation of any new information V might furnish. The GIO and A himself agreed to this. In the event V admitted he had no proof that A had in fact done anything further after 2011and could not even come up with a specific accusation we could investigate. The limbo situation for both the ICT and A has been unnecessarily prolonged by our waiting for the promised "dossier" which would be ready at the latest by September. By then we had long since realised that no document would be forthcoming. We had begun our own investigation via Skype with female sympathisers of the GIO. They substantially confirmed the picture that, as the GIO still maintain, A has not committed any new act against women since 2011 but also that the weight of opinion against him because of his past was so great that A’s presence in the GIO was untenable. Communists stand for the liberation of all the class and the small nuclei which do exist cannot credibly maintain they stand for all of the class under such a burden.

However, the new comrades of the GIO who had not been party to the original decision decided to stand by it with the aim of clearing his name and not bowing to what they call the “rough justice” of the local rumour machine. In June they issued a statement in French which we have translated to sit alongside this one. The ICT delayed its publication because we considered it was not robust enough and hoped to get it further amended. It is a brief announcement of where they currently stand.

Neither the ICT nor the CWO had any intention of letting this episode be quietly swept under the carpet but, as the chronology of the last 10 months demonstrates, we have been faced with a continually shifting issue which is now reaching its dénouement. The purpose of the CWO discussion in September was to prepare our delegate to contribute to a final statement in November. We discussed the effect of this crisis for the ICT and what it means for our organisations. We are currently a political tendency of affiliated organisations united by the key political positions we have in common. Each affiliate has its own way of working in the geographical area they live in. That means the International Bureau is a coordinating body and cannot instruct an affiliate on how to act. The CWO has advised the GIO that their position would be stronger if A was permanently suspended or expelled. We are not the state and this is not about legal crime and punishment. It is about the seriousness of our aims and whether his presence is compatible with them.

This is especially true in the current world situation where violence against women is rising dramatically everywhere. Whether it is in US colleges where a quarter of all women are “sexually assaulted” in their first term, or via the codified violence of states like Saudi Arabia and Iran who blame the victim for rape, there has been a culture of violence against women which we have to fight. The global crisis amplifies that violence over and over again. The breakdown of many states under the pressure of economic collapse and imperialist proxy wars in places like the Congo, Rwanda, Uganda, Sudan, the Central African Republic (the list goes on and on) means that rape has become a policy of war. This is also true for Boko Haram and IS who use rape against those they regard as unbelievers when they are not forcing them into “marriage” with their fighters as a perk of the job. As the feminist slogan from the 1980s has it “on war, men make it but women take it”. The same goes for female refugees and migrants fleeing the brutality and chaos of Syria, Somalia and Eritrea etc many of whom are raped before they even reach the Mediterranean.

Our basic position on the issue is quite clear.

The struggle against the oppression of women is for us no “affair purely for women”, but, on the contrary, equally a means and a pre-condition for the production of class unity. The revolutionary organisation must take all requisite steps to ensure the full participation of as many women as possible in the communist movement. There is no socialism without the liberation of women. For Communism: An Introduction to the Politics of the ICT

In the CWO (and ICT) there is certainly a sense that we have to prevent the repetition of an affair where another affiliate can take such an important and damaging decision not only without consulting us, but without even telling us for over 2 years. To this end our comrades also called for new statutes common to all members in all affiliates (to ensure no affiliate ever again takes any decision like this without knowing they have to inform the ICT). This inevitably will mean a further step in the centralisation of the ICT and has already been welcomed by other ICT affiliates.

This prolonged series of events has been partially a result of the way we have organised but at the end of the day it is much more about the failures of individual revolutionaries to recognise their responsibilities to the organisations they are supposed to be developing. There has been too much of an individualistic pattern to the behaviours we have seen but we are determined not to let it deflect us from the tasks we have set ourselves. This not only means resolving this crisis in a manner that revolutionaries should, but also putting our theory that

The emancipation of women is directly connected with the creation of a socialist society and the liberation of the working class as a whole. Nevertheless, the struggle against sexist discrimination cannot be postponed until day X after the revolution. For Communism

into more of our practice. This statement is not the end of the affair but simply to put the whole issue in its true context. There will be more to come.

Communist Workers’ Organisation

October 2016

Statement of the Internationalist Workers Group

Sexual assaults in our group

Our group is facing a serious problem. One of our members faces accusations which date back to 2011. These were charges of sexual assault, which seemed to us to have been resolved. This was not the case. Some actions have been carried out against our group and against one member in particular. The following statement is intended to clarify the situation.

We have already expelled a member for a case of domestic violence in the past. We did not make a public statement about it at the time. It was a mistake because we want to make clear to everyone that the establishment of communism is a collective act of the whole class to abolish all forms of exploitation and oppression. Thus a communist organization cannot tolerate any form of sexist or racist behavior and especially those that involve acts of violence.

The other comrade that we kept in our ranks had been accused of sexual assault, mainly for having physically hurt a woman during sex. The charges were rejected by the police.

However, at the time of these acts, the comrade was a minor who repented his actions and took therapy to monitor his behavior. A diagnosis of many mental health specialists stated it was a medical issue, the comrade not being, according to these specialists, responsible for his actions at the time. There has been no recurrence since. The comrade committed these acts before entering the group and was honest enough to declare us all his actions before wanting to join. We accepted him knowingly.

However his reputation for violence against women persisted in the militant milieu of Montreal and Toronto. A covering letter by him was also sent in 2014 to members of a political group in Ontario (Common Cause) to try to clarify the matter.

Our comrade spokesperson (who has since resigned) began to denounce the concerned member, thereby changing his original position. A meeting about these old allegations took place in our group in September 2015, a meeting that ended to the satisfaction of the members present. However, after the end of the meeting the comrade spokesperson said he had new facts that he had not brought up and would produce a text on the subject.

A year later, we still do not have the promised text and he is circulating new charges which nobody can verify.

Analysis

We believe now that it was a mistake not to publicly declare the inclusion of a member who was an assailant in the past but had since shown repentance, at least among activists in Montreal. We now believe it is a mistake to have put on the member in question the responsibility to disclose his troubled past to each militant and activist he met, or to any other person.

Would it have changed anything? We do not know, but we would have known at that time if there were criticisms. And the debate on how to solve the problem instead of going on behind closed doors would have taken place in public. We may well be talking of the actions of abusers and militant groups but we will one day find solutions to solve a problem that undermines the struggle of the working class.

The GIO by this publication intends to resume where the problem arises: can we accept as members past aggressors against women, however repentant and if so, under what conditions? Should we create a feminist court to resolve these cases? With what rules? What about the concept of "restorative / transformative justice" advanced by feminists? In addition, our group had already begun a study on the oppression of women; we are continuing. We undertake discussions with feminists. This study should lead us to take a political position as well as methods and practices for our activity.

Groupe Internationaliste Ouvrier

August 2016