Monday, November 30, 2009

Govt offensive will make us stronger: Indian Maoists


Posted by Rajeesh on Indian Vanguard on November 30, 2009

New Delhi: Weeks before the government launches one of its biggest offensive against Maoists, the Maoists have welcomed it saying this will strengthen their movement in tribal areas.

The Maoist think tank believe that the government’s stand is responsible for their success in Jharkhand, West Bengal and Chhattisgarh. "The more destruction they (security forces) cause, the faster will our people’s army grow and our guerrilla war spread to other parts of the country. Thanks to the Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh, our war has achieved in four years what would have taken two decades. Now, thanks to home minister P Chidambaram, our war will expand to wider areas, mobilise more people and gather momentum," said Azad, the spokesperson of the CPI (Maoist) in a document made available to DNA.

"Maoism teaches us that self-preservation is possible only through war. You cannot defend yourself against a powerful and extremely cruel enemy by submitting to him meekly. You have to choose the appropriate method to fight a relatively superior and powerful enemy and only by this can you ensure the preservation of your forces," he said.

Targeting prime minister Manmohan Singh and Chidambaram for not doing enough for the tribals of mineral-rich areas, the Maoist leadership says the government is only interested in these areas because of resources but is doing nothing to develop them. The rebels are clear there’s no question of getting down to talks if laying down arms is a pre-condition.

"Never, not even in our dreams can we think of laying down arms. We have taken up arms to defend the rights of people and to liberate them exploitation and oppression. Laying down arms would be betraying the m," Azad said.

"We may lose some forces in this brutal offensive by the enemy. But you must keep in mind that when the people’s war began we had only a handful of committed cadre.

Today, it has grown into a big mass movement with a people army and a countrywide presence. Even if we lose some forces, we will rebuild the movement as we are now doing in Andhra Pradesh. You will see the results of our underground work soon," said Azad.

Hinting at more attacks against policemen, Maoists said they have asked their cadre not to use brutal tacticssuch as those used on Francis Induvar, the slain policeman from Jharkhand

Source DNA

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Meeting in London addresses question of Maoist led Tribal Struggle in India


A packed public meeting called by the Co-ordination Committee of the Revolutionary Communists of Britain in London examined the origin and roots of the caste system in India and the class and caste contradictions that has led to the oppressed Tribals or Adivasi people being attacked by the Indian State with ferocious military force under Operation Green Hunt.

The Adivasi and Maoist resistance movements were discussed and the meeting explored ways in which the multinationals of British or European origin should be exposed for their complicity in the savage attacks by The Indian Government on the Adivasi people.The Multinationals are the benificaries of the land grab MOU's signed by the Indian Government.

Solidarity with the Maoist led Adivasi struggle was expressed at the meeting with a determination to expose all those responsible from Multinational's to the Indian Government responsible for the slaughter of democratic forces of resistance to oppression.

A statement was read to the meeting stating that Saibaba of the RDF had never agreed to speak at this meeting and the previous announcement was a case of mis communication.




G N Saibaba of the RDF speaks on Tribals in India , Ecological disaster and Political Prisoners at London meeting


G N Saibaba of the RDF spoke to a meeting in London organised by Committee for Solidarity with Political Prisoners on the question of the Indian State's War on its own indigenous Adivasi or Tribal people.

He pointed out the the areas of Forest inhabitated by the Tribals are the lungs of South Asia and should be a Green conservation area for the planet along with other forest areas like those in Brazil.

The struggle of the Adivasi people is our struggle and not just their's said Saibaba has the implications of the rapacious plunder of Adivasi lands by imperialist capitalist monopolies endangers the survival of the planet.

Saibaba also pointed out that India has the undeserved reputation has the worlds largest democracy - the reality is that India has the largest number of political prisoners in the world but the Indian Government refuses to recognise political prisoner status. India also has the highest rate of custodial deaths.

He called at the meeting for a campaign to recognise political prisoner status for those who have fought for social justice in India and have found themselves repressed and behind bars.

He received a standing ovation by those present at the meeting campaigning for the freedom of political prisoners throughout the world..

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Democracy and Class Struggle TV Focus on Struggle in India

Watch live streaming video from democracyandclassstruggle at livestream.com

LONDON SOLIDARITY MEETINGS IN SUPPORT OF INDIA'S TRIBAL'S STRUGGLE



FRIDAY MEETING

Friday 27th November 7pm
Merchmont Community Hall
62 Marchmont Street London.
WC1N 1AB, near Russell Square Station


SATURDAY MEETING

Program starts at 6:00 pm on Saturday

28 November 2009
Central Library
Large Hall
2 Fieldway Crescent
London N5 1PF

Holloway Road (Piccadilly Line) or
Highbury and Islington (Victoria Line)

Video: Anger against Narayanpatna killings




23 November 2009

Podapadar Village

Narayanpatna Block

Koraput District

Orissa.

Tribal leader K Singana and Andru’s funeral, where thousands of people have gathered.

They were killed on 20 November by Orissa police and Indian Reserve Battalion in front of the police station during a peaceful demonstration against molestation of woman by armed forces.

Thanks to Indian Vanguard for posting this video

Monday, November 23, 2009

Nepalese Maoists declare third Janaandolan is about to begin



The deadline exteded to the govt by the UCPN (M) has expired. The third wave of the Maoist protests, the third Janaandolan, is about to begin. It will include a three day nationwide general strike, a series of actions by the sister wings of the party (women, labourers, teachers, students etc), a series of actioons by the regional and ethnic wings, and if the government remains undefeated the Maoists will declare an indefinite general political strike.

Baburam Bhattarai summed up the difference between this round and those before it - "in the second round of protests, we knocked n the door of the government. In the third wave we will knock the door down."

The Maoists also appear to have decided to let the budget pass, in order to prove to the masses that they, unlike the govt, care about their wellbeing. The inability of the govt to pass it's budget had meant that govt departments had run out of money and everything from prisons to the PLA cantonments could no longer recieve funding.

Events are moving quickly, and the brave revolutionary people of Nepal need our support and solidarity. Lal salaam!

Thanks to Alastair Reith and Maoist List for this article

Solidarity this Weekend in London with Oppressed Tribals Struggle in India


SOLIDARITY WITH THE OPPRESSED TRIBALS’ STRUGGLE

Speaker: G N Saibaba
General Secretary
Revolutionary Democratic Front India

Friday 27th November 7pm
Merchmont Community Hall
62 Marchmont Street London.
WC1N 1AB, near Russell Square Station

Organised by:

CO-ORDINATION COMMITTEE OF REVOLUTIONARY COMMUNISTS OF BRITAIN

(c/o BM Box 2978, London WC1N 3XX)

Supported by:

Second Wave Publications
George Jackson Socialist League Britain
South Asia Solidarity Forum
World People’s Resistance Movement - Britain
Indian Workers Association (GB)
Democracy and Class Struggle

Evening of International Solidarity with Political Prisoners


Let us unite and struggle to
free all political prisoners across the world!

Speakers and presentations
on the current issues and the struggles of political prisoners across the world
(Speakers from Brazil, India, Iran, Philippines, Turkey, US and …)

Statements & messages of solidarity

Documentary film:
The Peoples’ Resistance in Lalgarh

Revolutionary music and cultural performances
in solidarity with political prisoners

Program starts at 6:00 pm on Saturday

28 November 2009
Central Library

Large Hall

2 Fieldway Crescent
London N5 1PF

Holloway Road (Piccadilly Line) or

Highbury and Islington (Victoria Line)



Organised jointly by:

Activists of the People’s Fadaii Guerrillas of Iran - London.

Democratic Anti-imperialist Organisation of Iranians in Britain

Devrimci Demokrasi (Revolutionary Democracy Magazine)

Indian Workers’ Association -GB (IWA-GB)

Int’l Committee for Solidarity with Political Prisoners (UPOTUDAK)

Migrante International (Filipino Migrants alliance)

Solidarity Committee with Free Political Prisoners (OTDK)

Supported by:

International Migrants Solidarity Centre - London,

International League of Peoples’ Struggle

International food and drinks are available.

For all information and solidarity messages contact
pol.prisoners@ gmail.com

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Maoist leader Tusharkant Bhattacharya released from Central Jail in Warangal


CPI (Maoists) central committee member , Tusharkant Bhattacharyya, a leading intellectual and ideologue in India was freed from Warangal Jail late Thursday (November 19) night. Tusharkant Bhatttacharya was lodged in Warangal prison for the past two years.

According to Andhra Police, Bhattacharya was acquitted in three cases registered against him in the state, while he already has got bail in the case registered against him in Bihar.

Speaking to media soon after his release from the prison, Tusharkant Bhattacharya reiterated that as long as there was State violence and oppression against the people, the Maoists movement will continue to fight for the depressed classes and those being exploited.

He charged the governments both at the Centre and State levels with terrorising the tribals and forcing them to flee from the forest areas so that the natural resources and mine deposits in the region could easily be handed over to the multi-national companies. “What they are planning now in Chattisgarh in the name of Green Hunt is nothing but a ploy to displace the adivasis. However, the Maoist party with the support of the people will not allow the evil designs of the Centre,’’ he said.

Despite his failing health, the Maoist leader said he would continue to serve the party and would play an active role in the people’s movements. “Protecting the mineral wealth in the forest areas will always be the priority of Maoists,’’ he said.

He said false cases were foisted against him and that he was mentally tortured in the prison. However, he said nothing would deter him. Former CPI (Janashakti) leader Amar was among those who came to receive Bhattacharya at the prison.

Bhattacharya was captured by Bihar Police in a raid on his rented house in Patna’s Dujra locality on September 20, 2007. At the time of arrest, Bhattacharya was looking after the Maoist movement in Uttarkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Uttar Bihar, known as the Triple U in Maoist parlance.

Tusharkant Bhattacharya — resident of Kagaznagar in Andhra’s Adilabad district is one of the leading idealogues of the Maoist Movement in India. He was arrested 2 years ago in September, 2007 from Patna. He is responsible for the infamous Tappalpur Village killings which led to a flight of landlords from 4 Andhra districts

Nepal's Maoists announce fresh protests

KATHMANDU - Nepal's opposition Maoist party on Saturday announced a fresh, month-long round of anti-government protests, accusing the new administration of failing to address its demands.

The Maoists, who waged a decade-long war against the state before winning elections in 2008, said they would launch nationwide protests on Sunday, culminating in a three-day general strike in December.

The Maoist-led government fell in May after the president overruled their decision to sack the head of the army, and since then they have held regular protests, preventing parliament from sitting and paralysing the capital.

"We have been compelled to announce a third round of protests because the government has made no effort to meet our demands," said party spokesman Dinanath Sharma.

"But we will keep the door open for further talks with the government."

Sharma also said the Maoists would allow the parliament to reopen for three days to pass this year's budget, which should have been approved by lawmakers three months ago.

Most government workers including police and the army went without pay last month because government departments cannot draw down any more money until the new budget is passed.

The Maoists want the president to apologise for his move to reinstate the army chief, which they say was unconstitutional, and are also calling for a parliamentary debate on the head of state's powers.

Earlier this month, they blockaded the government headquarters in Kathmandu for two days in protest against the president's move.

Monday, November 16, 2009

When the Indian State Declares War on its People - New Film





We have been hearing many stories about the human rights violations before and after Operation Green Hunt was announced. Allegations and counter-allegations have been going around. Fact-finding investigations have uncovered the atrocities security forces are committing in these areas, but now those very findings are being questioned.At such a time it is crucial to present the reality and tear the veils obscuring the truth. When the State Declares War on the People is a 15-minute trailer by Gopal Menon based on his recent coverage of the ground reality in Chhattisgarh. This short film contains exclusive interviews with victims and their testimony including 1 1/2 year old Suresh who had three fingers chopped off his left hand, an old man who was electrocuted and whose flesh was ripped off with knives, women raped by Special Police Officers and CRPF.

The film also presents the views of Arundhati Roy and Mahesh Bhatt, two eminent citizens who have been closely following developments in Chhattisgarh. The clear intention of the State - to wipe out all resistance through terror in the name of fighting the Maoists - is demonstrated in this film.

About the Director

Gopal Menon is an activist-filmmaker focusing on caste, communalism and nationality. He was arrested twice while trying to go to Lalgarh and beaten with rifle butts and lathis. He was detained in Dantewada too. This is a trailer of a larger film on the Indian State’s war on the people.

Some of Menon’s earlier films are Naga Story: The Other Side of Silence, Hey Ram!! Genocide in the Land of Gandhi, PAPA 2 (about disappearances in Kashmir) and Resilient Rhythms (a rainbow overview of the Dalit situation) amongst others.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

SOLIDARITY WITH THE OPPRESSED TRIBALS’ STRUGGLE


SOLIDARITY WITH THE OPPRESSED TRIBALS’ STRUGGLE

Speaker: G N Saibaba
General Secretary
Revolutionary Democratic Front India

Friday 27th November 7pm
Merchmont Community Hall
62 Marchmont Street London.
WC1N 1AB, near Russell Square Station

Organised by:

CO-ORDINATION COMMITTEE OF REVOLUTIONARY COMMUNISTS OF BRITAIN

(c/o BM Box 2978, London WC1N 3XX)

Supported by:

Second Wave Publications
George Jackson Socialist League Britain
South Asia Solidarity Forum
World People’s Resistance Movement - Britain
Indian Workers Association (GB)
Democracy and Class Struggle

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Kisenji Interview on Armed Struggle, Peace Talks and People's Democracy


‘I Am the Real Patriot [Desh Bhakt]"

Tusha Mittal, Tehelka, November 13, 2009

In this interview, underground Maoist leader Kishenji speaks on issues such as peace talks, armed struggle, the party's sources of funding, the difference between people's democracy and India's formal democracy, and the goals of the CPI (Maoist).

With unmistakable pride, he says he’s India’s Most Wanted Number 2. CPI (Maoist) Politburo member Mallojula Koteshwar Rao alias Kishenji, 53, grew up in the interiors of Andhra Pradesh reading Gandhi and Tagore. It was after understanding the history of the world, he says, that he disappeared into the jungles for a revolution. During search operations in 1982, the police broke down his home in Peddapalli village. He hasn’t seen his mother since, but writes to her through Telugu newspapers. After 20 years in the Naxal belt of Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh, he relocated to West Bengal. His wife oversees Maoist operations in Dantewada [a district in southern Chhattisgarh]. Now, at a hideout barely a few kilometres from a police camp in Lalgarh, he reads 15 newspapers daily and offers to fax you his party literature. If you hold on, he’ll look up the statistics of war on his computer. Excerpts from a midnight phone interview:

Tell me about your personal journey. What made you join the CPI (Maoist)?

I was born in Karimnagar in Andhra Pradesh (AP). In 1973, after a BSc mathematics degree, I moved to Hyderabad in to pursue law. My political journey began with my involvement in the Telangana Sangarsh Samiti, which has been pressing for a separate Telangana state. I launched the Radical Students Union (RSU) in AP. During the Emergency in 1975, I went underground to take part in the revolution. Several things motivated me: Writer Varavara Rao, who founded the Revolutionary Writers Association, India’s political atmosphere and the progressive environment in which I grew up.

My father was a great democrat and a freedom fighter. He was also vice-president of the state Congress party. We are Brahmins, but our family never believed in caste. When I joined the CPI (ML),my father left the Congress saying two kinds of politics can’t survive under one roof. He believed in socialism, but not in armed struggle. After the Emergency ended in 1977, I led a democratic peasant movement against feudalism. Over 60,000 farmers joined it. It triggered a nationwide peasant uprising.

The Home Minister has agreed to talks with CPI (Maoist) on issues like forest rights, land acquisition and SEZs [Special Economic Zones]? Why did you reject his offer? He’s only asking you to halt the violence.

We are ready to talk if the government withdraws its forces. Violence is not part of our agenda. Our violence is counter violence. The combat forces are attacking our people every day. In the last month in Bastar, the Cobra forces have killed 18 innocent tribals and 12 Maoists. In Chhattisgarh, those helping us with development activities are being arrested. Stop this; the violence will stop. Recently, the Chhattisgarh DGP [Director-General of Police] called the 6,000 Special Police Officers of Salwa Judum a force of pride. New recruitment continues. These people have been raping, murdering and looting tribals for years. Entire villages have been deserted because of the Salwa Judum. The government can say whatever it likes, but we do not believe them. How can they change policy when they aren’t even in control? The World Bank and America is.

On what conditions will you de-escalate violence?

The PM should apologise to the tribals and withdraw all the troops deployed in these areas. The troops are not new, we have been facing State terror for the last 20 years. All prisoners should be released. Take the time you need to withdraw forces, but assure us there won’t be police attacks meanwhile. If the government agrees to this, there will be no violence from us. We will continue our movement in the villages like before.

Before it agrees to withdrawing troops, can you give the State assurance you won’t attack for one month?

We will think about it. I’ll have to speak with my general secretary. But what is the guarantee there won’t be any attack from the police in that one month? Let the government make the declaration and start the process of withdrawing. It shouldn’t be just a show for the public. Look at what happened in AP. They began talks and broke it. Our Central Committee member went to meet the AP Secretary. Later, the police shot him for daring to talk to the government.

If you really have a pro-people agenda, why insist on keeping arms? Is your goal tribal welfare or political power?

Political power. Tribal welfare is our priority, but without political power we cannot achieve anything. One cannot sustain power without an army and weapons. The tribals have been exploited and pushed to the most backward extremes because they have no political power. They don’t have the right to their own wealth. Yet, our philosophy doesn’t insist on arms. We keep arms in a secondary place. We faced a setback in AP because of that.

The government says halt the violence first, you say withdraw the troops first. In this mindless cycle, the tribal people you claim to represent are suffering the most.

So let’s call international mediators then. Whether it’s Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal or Maharashtra, we never started the violence. The first attack always came from the government. In Bengal, the CPM [Communist Party of India (Marxist)] cadre won’t let any non-party person enter villages under their control. Police has been camping in the Lalgarh area since 1998. In such a situation, how can I press for higher potato prices and drinking water? There is no platform for me to do that. When the minimum wages in West Bengal were Rs 85 per day, people were being paid Rs 22. We demanded Rs 25. The Mahabharat [war] began when the Kauravas refused to grant the Pandavas even the five villages they asked for. The State refused our three-rupee hike. We are the Pandavas; they are the Kauravas.

You say violence is not your agenda, yet you’ve killed nearly 900 policemen in the past four years. Many of them came from poor tribal families. Even if it is counter violence, how is this furthering a pro-people goal?

Our battle is not with the police forces, it is with the State. We want to minimise the number police casualties. In Bengal, many police families actually sympathise with us. There have been 51,000 political murders by the CPM during the last 28 years. Yes, we have killed 52 CPM men in the last seven months, but only in retaliation to police and CPM brutality.

How is the CPI (Maoist) funded? What about the allegations of extortion?

There are no extortions. We collect taxes from the corporates and big bourgeoisie, but it’s not any different from the corporate sector funding the political parties. We have a half-yearly audit. Not a single paisa is wasted. Villagers also fund the party by voluntarily donating two days’ earnings each year. From two days of bamboo cutting in Gadchiroli we earned Rs 25 lakh. From tendu leaf collection in Bastar we earned Rs 35 lakh. Elsewhere, farmers donated 1,000 quintals of paddy.

What if a farmer refuses to donate?

That will never happen.

Because of fear?

No. They are with us. We never charge villagers even a paisa for the development activity that we initiate.

What development have you brought to Maoist-dominated areas? How has life improved for the tribals of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand?

We’ve made the people aware of the State’s real face, told them how rich people live and what they’re deprived of. In many of these areas the tendu leaf rate used to be one rupee for 1,000 leaves. We got it hiked to 50 paise per leaf in three districts of Maharashtra, five districts of AP and the entire Bastar region. Bamboo was sold to paper mills at 50 paise per bundle. Now the rate is Rs 55. But these victories came after we faced State resistance and brutality. In Gadchiroli alone, they killed 60 people on our side, we killed five.

The CPI(Maoist) also sends medical help to 1,200 villages in India almost daily. In Bastar, our foot soldiers are proficient doctors, wearing aprons, working as midwives in the jungles. We don’t give them arms. We have 50 such mobile health teams and 100 mobile hospitals in Bastar itself. Villagers go to designated people for specific illnesses: for fever go to Issa, for dysentery to Ramu and so on. There is so much illness in these areas that there are not enough people to pick up the dead bodies. We give free medicines to doctors for distribution among the people. The government doesn’t know that the medicines come from their own hospitals.

If the State sends civil administration to the Naxal belt, will you allow it?

We will welcome it. We want teachers and doctors to come here. The people of Lalgarh have been asking for a hospital for decades. The government did nothing. When they built one themselves, the government turned it into a military camp.

What is your larger long-term vision? Outline three tangible goals.

The first is to gain political power, to establish new democracy, socialism and then communism. The second is to make our economy self sufficient so we don’t need loans from imperialists. We are still paying off foreign loans from decades ago. The debt keeps increasing because of the devaluation of our currency. It will never be repaid. This is what the World Bank wants. We need an economy that works on two things — agriculture and industry. First, the tribals want land. Until they own their land, the State will exploit them. The people should be entitled to a percentage of the crop depending on their labour. We are not opposed to industry; how can there be development without it? But we should decide which industries will work for India, not America, not the World Bank. Instead of big dams, big industries, we’ll promote small-scale industries, especially those on which agriculture depends. The third goal is to seize all the big companies – from the Tatas to the Ambanis, cancel all the MoUs [Memoranda of Understanding], declare their wealth as national wealth, and keep the owners in jail. Also, from the grassroots to the highest levels, we will create elected bodies in a democratic way

But look at the history of communist governments the world over. They became as oppressive as the ones they overthrew. There are ample examples of coercion and absence of dissent in Maoist regimes. How is this in the best interest of the people?

These are all stories spread by the capitalists. People in the villages are dying by the hundreds, but all our doctors want to live in the cities. All our engineers want to serve Japan or the IT sector. They reached their positions using the nation’s wealth. What are they doing for my country? The State cannot insist you become a doctor. But if you do, it should insist you use your skill for two years in the villages. How oppressive the State is depends on who is controlling the reigns of power.

We want to have a democratic culture. If there is no democracy, ask the villagers to start another revolution and overthrow us. In an embryonic form, we already have an alternative democratic people’s government in Bastar. Through elections, we choose a local government called the revolutionary people’s committee. People vote by raising their hands. There is a chairman, a vice-chairman, and there are departments – education, health, welfare, agriculture, law and order, people’s relations. This system exists in about 40 districts in India at present. The perception that Maoists don’t believe in democracy is wrong.

What exists in India today is formal democracy. It’s not real. Whether it’s Mamata Banerjee, or the CPM, or the Congress party, it is all dictatorship. We negotiated the release of 14 adivasi women in Bengal to show the world who the State is keeping in jail; to expose their real face.

If you believe in democracy, why do you shun the democratic process that already exists? The Maoists in Nepal contested elections.

To create a new democratic State, one has to destroy the old one. Nepal’s Maoists have compromised. What elections? There are 180 MPs with serious criminal charges. More than 300 MPs are crorepatis [someone who is worth more than 10 million rupees]. Do you know the US Army is already conducting exercises at a base in Uttar Pradesh? They openly said they can take the Indian Army with them wherever they want. Who allowed them this audacity? Not me. I am opposing them. I am the real desh bhakt (patriot).

What kind of nation do you want India to be? Pick a role model.

Our first role model was Paris. That disintegrated. Then Russia collapsed. That’s when China emerged. But after Mao, that too got defeated. Now, nowhere in the world is the power truly in the hands of the people. Everywhere workers are fighting for it. So there is no role model.

When communism hasn’t worked elsewhere, why will it work for India? China now admits Mao’s theories were fallible. In Nepal, the Maoists are already seeking foreign investment.

What the Maoists in Nepal are doing is wrong. Following this path will only mean creating another Buddhadeb [the "Marxist" Chief Minister of West Bengal] babu. We have appealed to them to come back to the old ways. Wherever socialism or communism took root, imperialism tried to destroy it. Of course, Lenin, Mao, Prachanda – all have weaknesses. After winning the Second World War, Lenin and Stalin replaced internal democracy with bureaucracy. They disregarded the participation of the people. We will learn from their mistakes. But capitalism too has had to stand up after being shot down. How can you say that capitalism has been successful? Socialism is the only way out.

But in power, you could be as fallible as the Nepal Maoists or the CPM?

If we change, the people should start another krantikari andolan (revolution) against us. If the ruler — no matter who — becomes exploitative, then the people need to stand up to demand their democracy. They should not have blind faith in a Kishenji, or a Prachanda or a Stalin. If any neta or party deviates from their own ideology, then end your faith in them and revolt again. The people should always keep this tradition alive.

Have you ever faced any personal dilemmas? Is violence the only way you can mount pressure on the State?

I believe we are trying to do the right thing. We are waging a just war. Yes, there can be mistakes along the way. Unlike the State, when we make mistakes, we admit it. The beheading of Francis Induwar was a mistake. We apologise for it. In Lalgarh, we are trying different strategies. We have recently made concrete development demands and given the government a November 27 deadline. We’ve asked for 300 borewells and 50 make-shift hospitals. I have also knocked on the doors of Left Front parties – Forward Bloc, RSP, CPI and even CPM. I’m even in touch with ministers within the Bengal government. I’ve spoken to the Chief Minister himself.

The CM office has rubbished this.

I have spoken to the CM. I told him to stop State brutality and said we have mailed our development demands. He said he is under pressure from his own party and from Home Minister Chidambaram.

Why isn’t the police able to catch you?

In eight states, there are day and night search operations on for me. I’m India’s Most Wanted Number 2. In 1,600 villages in Bengal, people are currently on night guard to ensure the police can’t find me. There are 500 policemen in a camp 1.5 kilometres from where I am right now. The people of Bengal love me. The police have to kill them before they can get me.

The Home Secretary recently alluded to China giving you arms. Is this true?

Clearly, he doesn’t know the basics of our philosophy. To win a war, you need to know your enemy. Our position is diametrically opposite to China. I thought Chidambaram and Pillai were my competition, but never imagined I have such low-standard enemies. They are flashing swords in the air. Victory will be ours.

What is your opinion of the Lashkar-e-Taiba? Do you support their war?

We may support some of their demands, but their methods are wrong and antipeople. LeT should stop its terrorist acts because it cannot help accomplish any goals. You can only win by taking the people along with you.

November 20th Maoist deadline for consensus in Nepal


Addressing a mass meeting at the end of the second-phase stir for restoration of 'civilian supremacy' in the capital Friday afternoon, Dahal aka Prachanda said his party will begin third phase of protests if the coalition government failed to address the demands by November 20.

He said that Nepali people have given mandate to the Maoist party to conclude the peace process and write new constitution for the country and that his party is committed to fulfill the duties entrusted by the people.

Dahal said since the current government is operated through 'remote control', it cannot lead the peace process. He accused Nepali Congress of trying to suspend the constituent assembly and impose presidential rule.

Maoist vice chairman and coordinator for second phase stir Dr Babu Ram Bhattarai said his party is ready to end the House deadlock if other parties accept parliamentary discussion on step taken by the president.

Before converging into mass gathering, the party had picketed Singh Durbar, the government's main seat, from early morning today restricting government officials and ministers entering inside

SOURCE: NEPAL NEWS

Fight for the unconditional Release of com. Kobad Ghandhy:CPI Maoist Press Release



Posted by Rajeesh on November 14, 2009 on Indian Vanguard

COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MAOIST)
CENTRAL COMMITTEE
Press Release: September 29, 2009
Fight for the unconditional release of Maoist leader comrade Kobad Ghandy!

Maoists are champions of people’s cause; Expose the reactionary propaganda that Maoists are terrorists!!

As part of their all-round brutal offensive against the CPI(Maoist) and the ongoing people’s war in India, the Sonia- Manmohan-Chidambaram fascist clique at the Centre and the various exploiting class parties in the states, irrespective of their colour, have engaged their lawless repressive state apparatus to eliminate the central and state leadership of our Party. Exactly a month after the arrest of a Polit Bureau member of our Party, comrade Sumit, from Ranchi on August 19, and four months after the abduction and brutal murder of our Central Committee member com Patel Sudhakar, another Polit Bureau member and a senior leader of the CPI(Maoist), comrade Kobad Ghandy, was arrested from Delhi. Comrade Kobad Ghandy had just returned from a trip to the guerrilla zone.

The arrest of comrade Kobad Ghandy is being touted as a big success of the Intelligence officials while it was actually a result of the betrayal by a weak element in the Party who was acting as his courier. He was betrayed by his courier who led the SIB from AP and the Intelligence wing in Delhi to the appointment spot in Bhikaji Cama Place in South Delhi. The police claimed that he was arrested on the night of 20th September, but the actual arrest was made on 17th. The prompt reaction from various democratic and civil rights organizations foiled the plan of the Intelligence agencies and the police officials to torture and murder him as is their usual norm. The CC, CPI(Maoist) hails the efforts made by the various democratic forces in defending the life of comrade Kobad Ghandy and appeals to them to fight against the heinous attempts of the reactionary rulers to implicate him in false cases, to conduct Narco tests and to mentally harass him.

Comrade Kobad Ghandy, who hails from a rich, elitist background, had abandoned everything and mingled with the oppressed masses serving them selflessly for almost four decades. He lived with the unorganized workers, adivasi peasants, and the urban poor and became popular among the oppressed sections of the Indian people. He organized revolutionary activity in Maharashtra during the 1970s and became a member of the Central Committee of erstwhile CPI(ML)[PW] in 1981. He continued as a member of the CC of the merged CPI(Maoist) in 2004 and was elected to the Polit Bureau after the Unity Congress—9th Congress in February 2007. He played a crucial role in bringing out the Party publications in English and was also looking after the subcommittee on Mass Organisations set up by the CC besides other works. The arrest of comrade Kobad Ghandy is a great loss to the CPI(Maoist) and the Indian revolution.

The reactionary rulers were elated by this temporary success and the wily Chidambaram had congratulated the Intelligence agencies for the ‘prize catch’. Like true heirs to George Bush these state terrorists have stepped up their propaganda that the Maoists and the Maoist leader comrade Kobad Ghandy are terrorists. They churn out numbers to show how thousands have become victims of Maoist violence. But the fact is: while the Maoists had punished only the repressive forces of the state, the anti-people feudal forces and the police agents, it is the police, para-military forces and the armed vigilante gangs like the salwa judum that are continuously carrying out a mass murder campaign completely destroying over 800 tribal villages, murdering over 500 adivasis and raping over a hundred adivasi women in Dantewada and Bijapur districts alone. Same is the story in Bihar, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal’s Lalgarh and other areas, Orissa, Maharashtra, and so on.

This 21st century breed of Goebbels can never fool the people through their outright lies about the Maoists who live among the people, who live for the people, and who have no other interests than those of the oppressed people. None would believe that the freedom-loving Maoists who are fighting for the oppressed people undergoing countless sacrifices and facing tremendous hardships and brutal repression by the police would terrorise the very same people for whose liberation they have been waging a bitter war against the Indian state. It is a Tata, a Mittal, a Jindal, a Vedanta, a Ruia and
their loyal representatives like Manmohan, Chidambaram, Raman Singh that are terrified by the Maoists who are challenging their exploitation and oppression of the adivasis and the abundant wealth in the vast adivasi belt.

Comrade Kobad Ghandy is a role model to be emulated by the new generation of youth that is being estranged from its own people by the elitist, slavish, anti-people colonial education system and selfish values promoted by the pro-imperialist rulers. Let us unite to fight against the attempts by the Indian state to persecute revolutionary intellectuals, Maoist leaders and fighters like comrade Kobad Ghandy who had dedicated their entire lives for the liberation of the people from the clutches of imperialist, feudal and comprador capitalist exploitation and oppression. Maoists are servants of the people while Manmohans, Chidambarams and Raman Singhs are servants of the imperialists, feudal forces and the lumpen, parasitic, mafia capitalist class. Maoists are fighting selflessly for the liberation of the oppressed while Manmohan Singhs Chidambarams, Raman Singhs and Co are the oppressors spreading terror among the people.

Azad,
Spokesperson,Central Committee, CPI(Maoist)

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Maoist leaders Amik Sherchan, Krishna Bahadur Mahara amongst those injured in clashes


Cadres of Unified CPN (Maoist) clashed with riot police while staging sit-ins and other protest programmes outside the country's administrative center, Singha Durbar, from early morning, Thursday, as part of their second phase of agitation against the President's move.

More than 50 Maoist cadres including senior leaders and some lawmakers of the party were injured after police resorted to baton-charge and fired tear-gas shells to prevent the crowd from entering the prohibited areas around Singha Durbar in the course of their protests.

Places like Maitighar, Anamngar and Bijuli Bazaar saw the most clashes between the police and the protesters. The situation there remained tense in these areas throughout afternoon.

Our correspondents covering the protests said Maoist leaders Amik Sherchan, Krishna Bahadur Mahara including few other Maoist lawmakers are among the injured in today's clashes. They are undergoing treatment at the Bir Hospital and Everest Nursing Home.

Thousands of cadres of UCPN (Maoist) and its sister organisations along with their leaders have gathered around the country's administrative center Singha Durbar from early morning, Thursday, as part of their second phase of agitation against the President's move to overrule the erstwhile government's decision to sack the then army chief

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Centre should write proposal for talks: Top Indian Maoist leader


Posted by Rajeesh on Indian Vanguard on November 11, 2009

Asserting that they were ready for a ceasefire, the Maoists Tuesday night said the central government should come out with a written proposal for dialogue, and rebutted the government’s demand for end to violence as a pre-requisite for talks.

Regretting that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and union Home Minister P. Chidambaram have not responded to an open letter written by him, Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) politburo member Koteswar Rao alias Kishenji told IANS that the joint forces combating the rebels must be withdrawn first.

“The joint forces (of the centre and the respective states) perpetrating atrocities on the people in tribal areas and jungles must be withdrawn. The government should also set free the people arrested in connection with our agitation,” the top Maoist leader said over phone from an undisclosed destination.

Responding to union Home Secretary G.K. Pillai’s statement that the Maoists should shun violence to pave the way for talks, Kishenji said: “We are opposed to violence. We don’t indulge in violence on our own. It’s the government which lets lose violence on us.”

“Look at the way the security forces torture our people, the poorer sections fighting for their rights. The government should stop violence first and declare a ceasefire.”

“I have written to the prime minister and the home minister. But they have not replied. They should. And if the government is serious about a dialogue with us, it should write to our general secretary with a concrete proposal,” he said. Prokerala

Bhattarai warns govt against using force during their peaceful protests


Unified CPN (Maoist) Vice-Chairman Dr. Baburam Bhattarai has warned that any act of repression by the government during their 'Singha Durbar gherao' program will be met with strong retaliation from the party.


Maoist vice chairman Dr Baburam Bhattarai speaks about Thursday's Singha Durbar 'gherao' programme during a press conference in Kathmandu on Wednesday, 11 Nov 09. nepalnews.com/NPA


Speaking at an interaction program in the capital Wednesday, the Maoist ideologue advised the government against stopping them from entering the prohibited zone to picket the seat of the government.

The government extended the prohibited areas around the Singha Durbar area on Tuesday in view of the Maoists' plan to picket the government administrative center on Nov. 12 and 13.

Bhattarai, who is also the chairman of the party's United National People's Movement Nepal that is organizing the nationwide agitation, said that the Maoists will bring in hundreds of thousands of people in the streets to break the prohibitory orders on that day to picket Singh Durbar.

He assured that the party will exercise maximum restraint to avoid any untoward incident during their peaceful protests.

But if the government resorts to force, we will retaliate, he warned

SOURCE: NEPAL NEWS

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

On Contradictory Statements from Nepal’s Maoist Leaders



Posted by Mike Ely on November 10, 2009

Gary pointed out the piece below that appeared in the Nepali Times.

It reports a discussion with Baburam Bhattarai in which he says “contradictory statements from our leaders is one of our weaknesses.”

This is an acknowledgment of an obvious fact: That for a long time, the public remarks by leading Maoists in Nepal have contradicted each other, pointing in different directions and giving different explanations for policy. It is true of individual leaders (including Bhattarai himself) that their remarks (to put it mildly) vary.

This fact has produced quite a bit of debate among those of us who follow the Nepali revolution closely. It has caused controversy. Some forces internationally have seized on this or that phrase to justify their views (often their dismissal) of the Nepali Maoist strategies — as the rest of us repeatedly discover that other phrases are used at other times and create a more textured complexity to that party’s public expression.

What explains this?


•Is it the case that the Nepali Maoists have “loosened” the hold of public discipline — allowing different leaders to act as individual public political players expressing their individual views?
•Is it the case that the line struggle within the Maoist party has become sharp enough that different factions are publicly making their case and fighting for adherents?
•Is it the case that the Maoists are expressing both tactical slogans in the politics of each moment (especially to the daily press), while also expressing long range strategic goals (especially in more formal documents)?
I think it is all of these things.


The Nature and Timing of a Final Assault


I think large revolutionary parties, standing at the edge of life-and-death decisions look like this (and always have).

When the Bolsheviks were planning the 1917 October revolution, two of their top leaders (Zinoviev and Kamenev) took their disagreement public — saying that they wanted an all-socialist coalition government and opposed the idea of a party led insurrection. When Mao and Zhou Enlai were negotiating with the Nixon administration to end the international isolation of “Red China” — the public “Shanghai Communique” had to go through many revisions, not because Nixon was making problems, but because Mao and Zhou had sharply different views on the importance of upholding the need for revolution throughout the world. When the revolutionary workers of Berlin broke out into street fighting in January 1919, the two main communist leaders Rosa Luxenburg and Karl Liebknecht had sharply different ideas about how to act and what to say — and each proceeded to follow their conscience.

Pointing this out does not mean that victory is certain or guaranteed. The struggle developing between Mao and Zhou continued and ultimately resolved itself badly. The differences between Rosa and Karl reflected both the weakness of their theoretical understandings and of their new-born communist organization — and the whole affair ended with their capture and assassination. Such conflicts arise from the difficult choices and adverse conditions faced by all revolutions — and the fact is that most revolutionary opportunities don’t result in successful revolutions or socialism.

But I’m arguing that it does not help to view revolutions through linear thinking — or to believe (in a dogmatic way) that the correct choices are already obvious because they are embedded in this-or-that inherited text. You can’t solve the real problems of real life with voluntarism, fantasy and wishful thinking. And the problems of revolution are rarely simply a matter of will.

Easy for You to Say

I hear from people who feel “encouraged” whenever the Nepali Maoists speak of insurrection, and are then “disappointed” whenever events show more waiting — as if “we” already know the time is ripe for the Nepalis. Perhaps the time is not quite right — to confront and break up the National Army right now. Isn’t that a very material and practical question that requires specific knowledge of the mood of the masses, the divisions among the enemy and the strength of the mobilized revolutionary forces? Isn’t that why communists say that you “can’t play at insurrection” and that “insurrection is an art”? How can any of us possibly evaluate those crucial details from here? And what kind of thinking casually assumes the time has long been right (since 2006? before? forever?) and that revolutionary victory is just a matter of “strategic will”? Isn’t that “easy for you to say”?

Such pubic differences can be, as Bhattarai says, a “weakness.” Certainly if the core of revolutionary forces are unable to agree and act, and certainly if they are unable to collectively find their way through the tactical minefield between disaster and victory, and certainly if a confusion over fundamental goals characterizes the inner party struggle.

Factional Polemics on a Complex Terrain

Bhattarai’s remarks below (if they are in deed his, and if they are accurately conveyed here) have a sharply polemical edge toward “Some of our leaders” who (Bhattarai writes) “have a dogmatic ideology.” It reminds us again, that Bhattarai has repeated represented a distinct pole within the UCPN(Maoist) — and that his remarks sometimes reflect the unified position of his party, and sometimes a highly factional expression.

At the same time, these remarks have that kind of tactical edge which is so hard to read. Bhattarai states: “We want to assure you that this will be a peaceful movement,” when the reporters asked him about his talk of a “final assault against the enemy to complete the revolution.” And sure, obviously, this round of mass protests (which we have just seen unfold in the streets of the capital) were designed from the beginning as a “peaceful movement” — as everyone can see from the videos and reporting. People came without arms. They did not seek street-fighting with the police. They didn’t try to enter or occupy the government offices they shut down. There was a relaxed and even festive air to the actions — with lots of smiles and dancing.

But these actions also seem to serve the function of “dress rehearsal” for the next stages of conflict, some of which may (may!) be anything but peaceful. Certainly the Maoist leadership is now assessing the response of the people and their own cadre to this round of protest and blockades. They are gauging how the police and soldiers responded, and the mood among middle strata. They are training their cadre and former PLA commanders to gather forces, and move in coordinated ways through these urban streets, to find the key strategic government locations, and so on.

Learning from a Living Process

I have to confess that I am often a bit frustrated with various revolutionaries who seem to have a very mechanical and ahistorical sense of the revolutionary process — who seem to think that revolutionaries should announce what they are going to do, in detail with appropriate quotes from the classics, then win the people to those plans, then carry them out. It is a quite voluntarist view of politics — that has little sense of the complexities of mass line and maneuver.

What does Mao mean when he says “the road is tortuous and the future is bright”?

Why does Lenin talk about climbing a mountain as far as he can, and then descending again to find a new way to try a new ascent?

Why do communists speak of joining the people in a process, by which THEY (sections of the actual people broadly) learn about the nature of parties and class forces so that THEY can grasp their own role, interests and needs?

We are watching a real-life process (and thanks to the magic of our times, we are watching it in real time). And like those inhabitants of Plato’s cave, we are watching statements projected as shadows on the cave wall — that represent struggles, summations and concerns that we can’t experience directly.

I repeatedly feel that watching this process can help peel away the idealism and dogmatic fetishism that have built up in our own stunted movement — a movement that, frankly, has suffered from a protracted inability to be part of real politics and which, consequently, often has only the most tenuous schematic sense of what an actual roiling revolutionary movement of millions of real people would be like. Viewed from within vestpocket sectlets, with elaborate beliefs but few followers, an actual revolution can seem compromised and confused, (even sullied) and certainly slow to proclaim the moment of decisive confrontation. And I think again, “that’s easy for you to say.”

* * * * * * * * *

Here is the article from the Nepali Times

Contradiction in terms

Maoist leader Baburam Bhattarai admits weakness
Although Maoist ideologue Baburam Bhattarai appeared relaxed at a meeting of Kathmandu-based editors on Wednesday, he was hard pressed to explain comments he made in a revolutionary website last week in which he threatened a “final assault against the enemy to complete the revolution”.

Asked to explain his statement in the interview with the World People’s Resistance Movement in which he predicted “another round of armed clashes” on Thursday, Bhattarai admitted “contradictory statements from our leaders is one of our weaknesses”.

At the meeting with chief editors Bhattarai didn’t just appear moderate, but back-pedalled furiously on his party line. “Some of our leaders have a dogmatic ideology, but that is a peripheral group,” he said. “We will soon be announcing our party line. We want to assure you that this will be a peaceful movement.”

Bhattarai was asked about the declaration of 13 ethnically-demarcated ‘federal republics’, and admitted that it was not going according to the direction of the party leadership, and that it was only a ’symbolic’ gesture to give an ‘identity’ to various ethnic groups.

Bhattarai made a distinction between ‘nationalities’ and ‘ethnicities’ and said the federal units were not a parallel government, but provinces named after ethnicities. “But we are aware that the debate is not going according to our plan,” he admitted, “it is going the wrong way.”

Bhattarai also came across as accommodating on a compromise with the other parties. “Some kind of common resolution from parliament or a gesture from the president would remove the need for protests,” he said. “We want to bring closure to the issue of the president’s move in a manner that would be acceptable to all.”

All this was in stark contrast to Bhattarai’s own recent public speeches and his 26 October WPRM interview, excerpts from which follow:

WPRM: Why did the Maoist party enter the peace process and attempt to change society through Constituent Assembly elections?

Baburam Bhattarai: Our understanding was that after abolishing the monarchy and establishing a bourgeois democratic republic, the proletarian party would take the initiative and launch forward the struggle towards the New Democratic Revolution. We knew the bourgeois forces, after the abolition of the monarchy, would try to resist, and our main contradiction then would be with the bourgeois democratic parties. A new field of struggle would start.

Now we are preparing for the final stage of the completion of the New Democratic Revolution. In a few months, maybe there will be some intervention from the imperialist and expansionist forces. We may again be forced to have another round of armed clashes. We have decided to again focus on the basic masses of the people both in urban and rural areas. In the decisive stage of confrontation with the reactionary forces we could again combine our bases in the rural areas and our support in the urban areas for a final assault against the enemy to complete the revolution.

Can you explain how the UCPN(M) understands the nature of the state in this transitional period? Can the New Democratic Revolution be completed through the holding of an election?
A sort of flux has been created, it has not been stabilised. Within this nature of the state, we think it will be easier for the revolutionary forces to intervene and further destabilise the state, putting pressure on it from outside the state which can be smashed to make a New Democratic state.

What we are talking about is not organising elections within the bourgeois state, we are talking about after the revolution in a New Democratic or socialistic framework, where there will be certain constitutional provisions whereby the reactionaries, imperialists and criminal forces will not be allowed to participate. This concept of competition is only a general concept, the actual mode of that competition we have still to work out.

PROTEST AGAINST THE INDIAN STATE’S WAR AGAINST IT'S POOREST !


SOLIDARITY WITH THE OPPRESSED TRIBALS’ STRUGGLE

Speaker: G N Saibaba
General Secretary
Revolutionary Democratic Front India

Friday 27th November 7pm
Merchmont Community Hall
62 Marchmont Street London.
WC1N 1AB, near Russell Square Station

Organised by:

CO-ORDINATION COMMITTEE OF REVOLUTIONARY COMMUNISTS OF BRITAIN

(c/o BM Box 2978, London WC1N 3XX)

Supported by:

Second Wave Publications
George Jackson Socialist League Britain
South Asia Solidarity Forum
World People’s Resistance Movement - Britain
Indian Workers Association (GB)
Democracy and Class Struggle

Operation Blind Hunt


Posted by Rajeesh on INDIAN VANGUARD November 10, 2009

ON THE morning of October 23, 14 adivasi women walked out of West Bengal’s Midnapore jail in crumpled saris. Frail and bewildered, they wondered how they would travel 100 km back to their villages in Lalgarh. The women did not know why they had been arrested, or why they were being released.

The previous night, these women had been the cause of shrill debate across television studios – their release was equated with the famous Kandahar terrorist swap. Maoists had attacked the Sankrail Police Station in West Bengal, killed two officers and kidnapped the officer in charge (OC). These women — “the Naxal prisoners,” India’s own Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists — were being swapped for OC Atindranath Dutta. A lower court had rejected their bail plea; now a sessions judge in Midnapore had conveniently granted bail.

Then came a piercing outcry: Is the West Bengal Government soft on Maoists? On cue, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya clarified that his government is not weak, that this is a one-off incident, that no such release will ever happen again. Swiftly, Home Minister P Chidambaram distanced himself, saying this was solely a decision of the West Bengal Government. Immediately, Left Front General Secretary Prakash Karat sprung into damage control mode, emphasising his party is indeed against the Maoists. Home Secretary GK Pillai said the swap was unfortunate. Amid the high-decibel rhetoric, no one asked the basic question. Who are these women? What are they guilty of? What is the evidence of their links with the Maoists? Why were they in jail in the first place?

When you see this frenzy over the release of 14 innocent adivasi women – among them a 70-year-old widow – you know there is reason to be afraid. Operation Lalgarh has set off a horrifying blindness, symptomatic of any war zone. There are the troops, there is the enemy; there is nothing in between. Everything else is collateral damage; everyone else, a prisoner of war. When the Centre launches Operation Green Hunt this year, this is what will be replicated on a much larger scale across Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Bihar. There will be many more hostages and neither side may be willing to swap.

If you had met the families of these adivasi women before any such swap was imminent, you’d know there is reason to be afraid. A skeletal Rabi Patro is sewing sal leaves into plates; he earns Rs 50 for every 1,000 plates. He cannot afford the journey to Midnapore jail to meet his wife. Dhanaraj Mahato is grumpy. With his wife gone, he has to feed the cows and goats. Tapasi Baske’s afraid her mother-in-law may never return but her immediate worry is the hen eating up her rice. None of these families have the resources to travel to court or engage a lawyer. None of them know that in a land far away, their kin have already been labelled as Maoists; that the basic tenet of a just State – being deemed innocent until proven guilty – has been reversed.

LOCAL HUMAN rights groups say there have been more than 400 arrests in and around Lalgarh since June 2009. The police put the figure at 388, of which they say 88 have direct links with Maoists. The remaining, they say, are connected to “front organisations of the Maoists” such as the People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA). When you begin to examine the evidence, the specific cases against these men and women, a grand charade, a manic witchhunt comes to light. There is a strategy, a pattern. You can be booked for waging war against the State for raising slogans like “Maoist Zindabad, PCAPA Zindabad” at mass protest rallies – rallies you never attended. Arrested as a Maoist for shouting “Run, Kishenji!” while fleeing from the police. The police don’t have to explain how they nabbed you, but missed the much-wanted CPI (Maoist) spokesperson who was apparently in the same crowd. You can be charged for attempting to murder the police with “deadly weapons” such as “brickbats, bows and arrows” though there is no record of police injury. The Maoists could barge into your poultry farm and threaten you to attend rallies and the next day, you could be arrested for “giving shelter to the Maoists”.

Monday, November 9, 2009

CAPITALIST CRISIS MAKES SOCIALISM NECESSARY


Statement on the 20th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall
By Prof. Jose Maria Sison Chairperson,

International Coordinating Committee
International League of Peoples' Struggle
9 November 2009


Since the fall of the Berlin wall on 9 November 1989, the world capitalist system has sunk deeper into crisis. It is now undergoing its most severe crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s, with some commentators calling the present crisis “the Greater Depression” in terms of its effects on the jobs and livelihood of the workers and peoples of the world.

After emerging as the world’s sole superpower in the wake of the collapse of the former Soviet Union, the US itself is wracked by a severe crisis and is further plunging the world with it. The imperialists and its propagandists perorate on how value and value-creation in the economies of the socialist states and then the modern revisionist regimes were distorted by the state bureaucracy.

Now all the countries of the world in varying degrees are reeling from a crisis driven by unbridled private greed under the slogan of “free market globalization” involving the fantastic accumulation of immense wealth by the financial oligarchy and monopoly capitalists through unrelenting super-exploitation of the working people, financial manipulation and the berserk generation of fictitious capital.

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the social conditions of the workers and peoples of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union have plummeted under the conditions of unbridled capitalist exploitation, oppression and violence. Poverty levels have risen due to massive unemployment and depressed incomes. Inflation has been cutting down the value of wages, pensions and savings.

State investment in production and job creation has been significantly reduced. Public allotment to education and other social services has plummeted. The educated have difficulties finding work and illiteracy is spreading. The workers’ and peoples’ health have taken a beating, causing severe malnutrition, stunting growth among the youth and shortening the average life span of people.

The number of children living in the streets and left to fend for themselves in these very cold countries has multiplied. The suicide rate has grown among them by significant percentages. The situation of the street children and society at large is being further aggravated by the current financial and economic crisis.

The anger and discontent of the workers and peoples of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union are becoming manifest in different ways. Parties of the Left are becoming popular and are gaining strength in national elections. The workers and people are speaking out against the accelerated escalation of exploitation, oppression and violence of the big bourgeoisie.

Survey after survey shows that the people feel they are plunging deeper into poverty and that they are increasingly disillusioned and angry with capitalism and its unfulfilled promises. With the onslaught of the current economic and financial crisis, there is rising interest in and study of Marxist and progressive writings. The imperialists and the local ruling classes are responding to this by deflecting the workers and peoples from the class struggle and anti-imperialist solidarity by promoting divisions and hatred based on chauvinism, racism, ethnocentrism and religious bigotry.

The Comecon is gone. But all the former revisionist-ruled countries are now in the tight grip of the US-controlled world capitalist system and are caught up in the turmoil of the gravest economic crisis since the Great Depression. The crisis is whipping up fascism and aggressive wars. The room for inter-imperialist competition has become more cramped and more intense, with Russia and China joining in as big power players.

The Warsaw Pact is gone. But the NATO has been expanded as to include the former revisionist-ruled countries in Eastern Europe, reaching the borders of Russia. Most of the former revisionist-ruled countries are potential hotbeds of fascist repression and aggressive wars as already indicated by the violent disintegration of Yugoslavia by a series of wars instigated by the imperialists and by wars involving Chechnya and Georgia. Mercenary forces from the former revisionist-ruled countries have been deployed by the NATO to distant lands like Iraq and Afghanistan.

The crisis of monopoly capitalism has brought ever-greater suffering among the workers and peoples of the world. The imperialist-controlled multilateral agencies underestimate world hunger when they report that only 1 billion people go hungry out of the more than six billion human population. They say that this is the largest number of people going hungry in history, and the same number of people suffer from malnutrition.

This situation is bound to get worse, as world economic output is predicted to decrease this year, the first time since World War II. The contraction of employment is estimated to last for another eight years. The number of people living on less than $2 per day will increase by hundreds of millions. Decreasing demand for consumer goods, semi-manufactures and raw materials impacts heavily on millions of workers and peasants in neocolonial economies.

The workers and peoples of the world are waging various legal and illegal forms of organized action to protest the anti-people policies of imperialism. International gatherings of the monopoly capitalists, the finance oligarchy, and heads of imperialist states have become occasions for mass protests by indignant workers and peoples in the meeting areas and in various countries. Countries assertive of national independence are exposing and lambasting the dictates and impositions of imperialism.

Armed revolutions for national liberation and democracy are continuing and gaining strength in the Philippines, Colombia, India, Peru and Turkey. The people of Iraq and Afghanistan are waging armed resistance against the occupation and colonization of their countries by the US. The armed forms of struggle are bound to grow in strength and advance as a result of the intensification of the crisis of monopoly capitalism.

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the workers and peoples of Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and the world have undergone ever worsening economic and social conditions. They see monopoly capitalism as an evil and bankrupt system that is destroying the world’s productive forces and is inflicting immense suffering on the people.

Monopoly capitalism is igniting the people’s desire for socialism. So long as imperialist oppression and exploitation persist, the people fight for national and social liberation. It is farthest from the truth that monopoly capitalism is the end of history. The utter bankruptcy of monopoly capitalism and its descent to ever more barbarous forms of plunder and aggression drive the people to fight for their rights and for a bright socialist future.

The workers and peoples of the world are called upon to persevere in the struggle for genuine socialism, against monopoly capitalism that is now in the throes of its worst crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The crisis of the world capitalist system makes socialism necessary for humankind.

Contrary to the claims of the imperialists and their propagandists that socialism fell in 1989, the fall of the Berlin Wall has actually meant the collapse of the modern revisionist regimes in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and the completion of the restoration of capitalism. It is the end result of the revisionist betrayal of socialism started by Khruschov in 1956 and completed by Gorbachov in the years of 1989-91.

The history of socialist countries from the Bolshevik victory of 1917 up to 1956, and from the founding of the People’s Republic of China up to 1976 shows great leaps in the advancement of the social, economic, political, cultural and defense situations of the workers and peoples of those countries. The poverty, hunger, joblessness, and the cruelties of exploitation and oppression before the victory of the socialist revolution were overcome. The great victories in socialist construction and revolution were achieved despite imperialist wars of aggression and economic and military blockades and subversion.

The rise of modern revisionism in socialist countries and elsewhere reversed all the great achievements of socialism. Advances in the situation of the workers and peoples were slowly but surely eroded, and pre-revolutionary forms of exploitation, oppression and violence were restored. Together with criminal syndicates in the so-called free market, the modern revisionist big bourgeoisie grew fat on bureaucratic corruption and enjoyed the lifestyles of the rich and famous, while the workers and peoples suffered from the decrease in food, jobs, savings and social services.



As workers and peoples grew restive and began clamoring for reforms, the ruling revisionist regimes imposed severe political repression. In Eastern Europe, and in East Germany especially, this condition fueled the mass protests that brought about the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The revisionist regimes in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union peacefully gave up power and gave way to the legalization of their bureaucratic loot, the barefaced restoration of capitalism and the blatant privatization of state assets.

Since Nikita Khrushchov’s reign in the Soviet Union, genuine proletarian revolutionaries the world over have called the ruling regimes in the Soviet Union and its satellite states in Eastern Europe as modern revisionists, who mouth socialism but practice capitalism. They have predicted that it will not take long before capitalism reveals itself bare-faced in these countries.

The fall of the Wall has shown how accurate their predictions are. The modern revisionists in these countries have since exposed themselves as pseudo-communists and anti-communists. It is modern revisionism, not socialism, which fell with the Berlin Wall and delivered the workers and peoples of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe into the even more predatory and violent rule of barefaced capitalism. The revisionists had earlier undermined, eroded and destroyed socialism.

Since 1989 up to the present, imperialism and its well-paid propagandists in the mass media and academe have tirelessly repeated their line on the fall of the Berlin Wall. They have misrepresented the revisionist regimes as socialist and boasted that their fall meant the futility of socialism and the end of history with capitalism and liberal democracy.

They have touted the jump from the frying pan of revisionist-ruled state monopoly capitalism to the flames of barefaced capitalism as the beginning of development and democracy. But the imperialist powers are incomparable in discrediting monopoly capitalism through their unbridled plunder and wars of aggression and the recurrent and increasingly severe crisis.

The workers and peoples of the world are subjected to ever-increasing exploitation, oppression and violence and are impelled to wage resistance, seek national and social liberation and aim for the attainment of socialism. The present crisis, which has been generated by the US-directed policy of neoliberal “globalization” in the last three decades, incites the people to struggle for socialism.

The world capitalist system continues to sink deeper into crisis. It is devastating jobs and livelihood of the workers and peoples of the world. The profuse use of public funds to bail out the big banks and corporations in the military industrial complex is building bigger bubbles than ever before. These are bound to burst and cause a steeper fall in the crisis.

The US and its imperialist allies have generated the global financial and economic crisis, have plunged the world into a state of economic depression and have aggravated and deepened the conditions for state terrorism and aggressive wars.


The combination of state monopoly capitalism and monopoly capitalism in imperialist countries is responsible for the unprecedentedly greatest devastation of productive forces through the most rapacious forms of private profit-taking and private accumulation, including the wanton creation of fictitious capital.

We are in the era of modern imperialism and proletarian revolution. Further economic crisis, social disorder, state terrorism and imperialist wars of aggression are in prospect. These are the objective conditions for the rise of revolutionary movements for national and social liberation led by the working class.

Friday, November 6, 2009

CHIDAMBARAM CANNOT FOOL PEOPLE WITH THE DRAMA OF TALKS AT GUN-POINT! Statement of CPI Maoist


COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MAOIST)CENTRAL COMMITTEE

October 30, 2009

CHIDAMBARAM CANNOT FOOL PEOPLE WITH THE DRAMA OF TALKS AT GUN-POINT! AS LONG AS STATE TERROR AND MASSACRES OF UNARMED ADIVASIS CONTINUE THERE IS NO QUESTION OF TALKS!!

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Home Minister Chidambaram have been putting forth the most absurd proposal for talks with the CPI (Maoist)
provided the latter abjured violence. While amassing thousands of
paramilitary forces in the Maoist-dominated areas in the country and
carrying out brutal attacks against unarmed adivasi people and the
Maoist revolutionaries, they are shamelessly talking of violence by
Maoists. According to the grand plan of the reactionary rulers a total
of 75,000 central forces, assisted by tactical air support by IAF
choppers, will go to war by the end of this month. An equal number of
police forces from the states will join these central forces to carry
out the biggest ever military offensive against the people in general
and the Maoists in particular. While deploying such a huge force,
which is greater in size than the armies of most countries in the
world, Chidambaram is trying to fool the people that he is not going
to war with the Maoists. It is the state terror, saffron terror, and
state-sponsored terror that have become the greatest threat to peace
and security in our country. The Congress-led UPA government has to
its credit the massacre of over 2000 people and Maoist revolutionaries
in the past five years. And yet, Manmohan and Chidambaram have the
audacity to say that their government is implementing the “rule of
law” and ask the Maoists to lay down arms and sit for talks.
Asking Maoists to lay down arms as a pre-condition for talks shows the
utter ignorance of Manmohan and Chidambaram regarding the historical
and socio-economic factors that had given rise to the Maoist movement
or are too intoxicated by the brute force they possess by which they
dream they can stamp out a movement rooted in the socio-economic
causes.

The CC, CPI (Maoist), makes it crystal-clear that laying down arms means a betrayal of the people’s interests. We have taken up arms
for the defence of people’s rights and for achieving their liberation
from all types of exploitation and oppression. As long as oppression
and exploitation exist, people will continue to be armed in ever
greater number. However, an agreement could be reached by both sides
on a cease-fire if Manmohan and Chidambaram give up their irrational,
illogical, impractical, absurd and obstinate stand that the Maoists
should abjure violence. They should be introspective and decide
whether they are prepared to abjure state terror and unbridled
violence on the people. If at all they are serious about talks then
they should first create a conducive atmosphere by earnestly
implementing at least what is guaranteed by the Indian constitution by
which they swear.

They should stop illegal abductions of Maoists and people suspected to
be supporting Maoists. They should put an immediate halt to torture
and murder of unarmed people, instruct their so-called security forces
to desist from raping women in Maoist-dominated areas, abandon their
policy of destroying the property of the people and burning adivasi
villages. They should withdraw the police and para-military camps from
the school buildings, panchayat community buildings and from the
interior areas so as to instill a sense of security among the people.
They should disband the state-sponsored armed vigilante gangs like
salwa judum, sendra, gram suraksha samiti, nagarik suraksha samiti,
shanti sena, harmad bahini, and other blood-thirsty mercenary gangs
that are unconstitutionally established by the police top brass and
the ruling class parties. An impartial judicial commission of enquiry
should be formed to go into the inhuman atrocities by the police,
CRPF, other central forces and the vigilante gangs on Maoists and the
people at large and basing on the investigations the culprits should
be punished as per the law. All those arrested for being Maoists or on
suspicion of aiding the Maoists, including people in particular who do
not have any connection with our organisation, should be released
unconditionally. They should repeal all draconian laws and Acts such
as the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), Chhattisgarh Special
Powers Act, Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), etc. They should
disband the government-organised concentration camps in the name of
rehabilitation of the adivasis displaced from their villages, pay
adequate compensation to over two lakh adivasis who were forcibly
displaced by the salwa judum gangs and the CRPF-police combine. All
those who have become victims of state and state-sponsored terror,
i.e., those who were murdered, maimed, raped and pushed into a state
of mental trauma should be given adequate compensation.


As for socio-economic issues, the lands of the tribals should be
handed back to them wherever they are snatched from them; the mining
and other so-called development projects that lead to displacement of
the tribals and destruction of their way of life should be immediately
disbanded. All the MOUs signed with the imperialist MNCs like Vedanta
and the big business houses like the Tatas, Mittals, Essar, Jindal,
etc should be scrapped. The much trumpeted policy of Special Economic
Zones which is nothing but to create enclaves of foreign occupation
and imperialist plunder that ruin havoc in the social, economic,
ecologic and cultural lives of the people living in these areas should
be immediately scrapped along with the colonial policy of land
acquisition. The lands snatched away from the tribals by unscrupulous
landlords, other non-adivasis, and by the government should be
restored to their rightful owners. If these are fulfilled, then one
can think of talks to discuss on the deeper issues that are blocking
the real development of our country.

The CC, CPI (Maoist) unequivocally asserts that the government’s
proposal for peace talks is only a propaganda ploy that in no way
differs from the peace proposals of Hitler prior to World War II.
After the Cabinet Committee on Security had given the final approval
for the massive offensive against the Maoists, after the IAF choppers
are ready with the Garuda commandos and gunships to pulverize the
adivasi areas, these war-mongers are talking of peace! We appeal to
all democratic and peace-loving forces to expose the hypocrisy and
double-speak of Manmohan, Chidambaram, Raman Singh, Buddhadeb and
others and oppose their war preparations against the oppressed
downtrodden people of our country who are waging a struggle for land,
livelihood and liberation from inhuman feudal and imperialist
exploitation.


Azad,
Spokesperson,
Central Committee,
CPI(Maoist)