[This document is an excerpt of the document with the same title. The beginning presents the situation in Bangladesh - from the economic situation to the huge strike of may-june of the year, with 4.000 factories on strike, till the arsenic-rich water drunk by people because of the UNO "work". Here the end of the document, dealing with Yunus and the principle of microcredit.]

Zidane, as a symbol of the imperialist culture, offended by his visit the history of the popular masses living in Bangladesh, their huge wave of workers struggles, which, even kept under imperialism’s hat, is a great contribution to to new wave of world revolution.

In like manner, the historical background of revolutionary struggle in Bangladesh can’t be ignored if one wants to understand the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Muhammad Yunus, a banker advocating capitalism in the countryside. Besides, the UN declared 2005 International Year of Microcredit.

Imperialism, not satisfied with exploiting peasants by depriving them of their lands, uses persons like the banker Yunus in order to chain them further with « microcredit », a modern usury, since the interest rates are between 20% à 30% per year!

The profits of this tiny local capitalism, which doesn’t question in the slightest way the domination of multinationals over the resources, go to infrastructure serving the imperialists: the Grameen Bank for instance serve the construction of phone lines (whereas the great majority of the 85.000 villages in Bangladesh don’t have any), insomuch that Grameen Phone is the main supplier with cellular phones and that Grameen Telecom supplies the villages with cellular phones!

All this microcredit:

1. serves the build-up of proprietaries or familial capitalistic companies, in order to implant more and more capitalism; the Columbia Business School isn’t mistaken in naming its survey « Grameen Bank: Taking capitalism to the poor »; 2. serves the build-up of  bureaucratic economical units taking technological development in charge, serving the global interests of the imperialist domination over the country.

Zidane’s thus didn’t visit Bangladesh at random: he inaugurated a new factory producing « cheap yoghuts for the millions of the land poors » (according yo Yunus himself) which is precisely traditional capitalism.

Half the food factory belongs to Danone, the other half to Grameen Bank, Yunus’s microcredit institution, that is to say it is shared between imperialism and local bureaucratic capitalism.

This factory is the first of fifty factories planned in the next ten years, which will have to reorganize the local capitalistic economy (purchase of local products, local sales), that is to say Danone wouldn’t sell any yoghurt if Grameen Bank and microcredit weren’t to help cattle raising, production of factory equipment, paying the 2000 « Grameen ladies » serving the supply as relays…

The local management is to be carried out by students in the main business school in France, HEC, which besides awarded Yunus a Honoris Causae Professor degree in October 2005…

In June 2005, i.e. over a year earlier than his Nobel Peace Prize awarding, Jacques Chirac saluted  Muhammad Yunus’s work in his speech at Paris international conference on microfinance.

In bourgeois economic language, the whole process is explained as following: « The Grameen Danone Foods model will rely on the creation of independent business and job opportunities in the farming, processing and sales and distribution sectors. To ensure the sustainability of the initiative, special emphasis will be put on providing appropriate micro-financing solutions together with adequate professional training to the members of the local communities that will engage business with the project. » (Danone statement on March 16th, 2006).

It clearly means that the rural areas, totally deserted but full of workforce, have to be reconquested at all costs and taken back from the influence of revolution; for this purpose, they have to be led to « share profits » with capitalism and to mingle with the restructuration of bureaucratic capitalism, which serves imperialism.

Danone can thus pretend that their goal isn’t profit, but actually, they don’t aim at today’s profit, it is a long term plan, a strategy in order to extract capital where there is still capital, however lean it may be!

Besides, Franck Riboud, Danone CEO, is clear about it: « I am utterly convinced that our future depends on our ability to explore and invent new businesses and new types of enterprise. »

All this imperialist project has thus no future and will be crushed.

The attempts to save capitalism by enlarging it to the « storms area » within the poorest masses in the semi-colonial and semi-feudal countries can’t meet the real needs of the masses. What they want is the power.

What serves the people is people’s war to carry out land revolution, to annihilate the urban and rural tyrants, to destroy the state serving imperialism, feudalism and bureaucratic capitalism.

84% of children under five suffer from malnutrition.

Will their situation change with some Danone factories?

No. In Bangladesh, the poor peasants (under half an acre) represent 65% of the peasantry, 21% own only between 0.5 and 1.5 acres, whereas 16,7% of rich peasants own les two thirds of the land (and 75% of the parliamentaries are landlords): here are the facts about the land issue.

Solving the land issue is making the new democracy revolution possible, and only this can crush the fascistic islamist forces and imperialism.   Long live world people’s war!

For the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist),
November 2006