Resistance

2007-07-31T19:42:00.001+05:30

Edited and published by: International Department, Central Committee, Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), | No 17, July 2007 |

Maoist Information bulletin [Published by International Department, Central Committee, Communist Party Of Nepal (Maoist)] extracts below. Complete Information bulletin can be found at http://krishnasenonline.org/Bulletin/editorial.html

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EDITORIAL

After a gap of many months we are able to bring this issue in your hand; we must apologize to our readers for this delay. It was further more important for us to provide with the latest information regarding rapid political developments especially in Nepal, which we could not be done because of this delay.

After the outstanding development of People's War for ten years, new situation arrived at in Nepal for the joint mass movement in order to overthrow the 239 years old autocratic monarchy and establish `republic'. As a result of ten years of PW and unprecedented 19 days joint mass movement based on the achievement of the PW, a new political situation has been emerged in Nepal. The agenda of election of constituent assembly which was the agenda of only CPN(Maoist) before six years is now major political agenda of the nation. The heroic people of Nepal have already established republic in the street during the Mass Movement-II and it is the responsibility of the eight parties to institutionalize the same through the process of election of the constituent assembly, which it seems far from being achieved. Under a grand design of the foreign and domestic reactionaries, namely, the US imperialists, Hindu fundamentalists of India and monarchists, to sabotage the election of constituent assembly, it was not held in the stipulated time of `mid-June' and it has been rescheduled for November 22, 2007.

Some districts of Terai, plain land of southern part of Nepal adjoing to India, have now become the play ground for all the reactionary elements and use their stooges to fulfill their reactionary ambitions. The immediate aim of this design is to sabotage the process of election of constituent assembly and wipe out the influence of our party from Terai and its long term aim is to separate and split Terai or Madhesh from Nepal and incorporate in Bihar of India. Leadership of the seven parties who are engaged in the politics of appeasement and the interim government which is victim of inaction, there is every possibility that the reactionary conspiracy may succeed to disrupt the process of election of constituent assembly. Only a bold and daring decision of declaring `republic' from the legislature-parliament and go to the election, which only can ensure the election to be held in stipulated date. But pro-US, pro-king and pro-Indian Hindu fundamentalist elements within the leadership of `Seven parties' are causing obstacles in it. Thus we feel that another popular mass movement needs to be launched so that the government and the seven parties will be compelled to agree in declaring `republic' from the legislature which can pave the way for the election of constituent assembly and form a `New Nepal'

Our Party, the CPN(Maoist) thinks that it is going through a new experiment of continuing and developing the revolution through peaceful way in a situation created by the ten years of PW and the successful historic April mass movement. It is quite natural that revolutionaries and oppressed people of the world have their eyes on the political development of Nepal. Definitely Nepal is in the cross road. There are definitely big challenges and big opportunities. Necessity of the hour is to face the challenges and achieve the opportunities.

Revolution in Nepal is the part of the world revolution. Therefore it should serve the world revolution and also deserves support from world revolutionaries. While developing the PW during the last ten years it was felt that the international support was not enough that was required to achieve the nationwide victory of the revolution. It is necessary to fulfill this task during this time of peaceful development of the revolution. Every body can easily see how our party is working hard for the enhancement of our international relations. It will not be any exaggeration to say that we have made a significant achievement in this regard during the last six to ten months.

To enhance the international relation is not only necessary for the nationwide victory but it is essential for sustaining the new state as well. In the event of the US imperialist working day and night to isolate our party, further enhancement of international relation is inevitable both for the victory of the revolution and sustenance of the new state. Who is real friend of our country and the people of Nepal and who is not, can be determined by the role played by them in relation to the development of revolution and its sustenance.

NATIONAL

Madhes at Crossroads

- Sanjay Kumar

Monarchy in Nepal has repressed the Madeshi, a large indigenous population in the plains for ages. The deliberate process of isolating them psychologically and politically began with the myth of misquoted unification by Prthivi Narayan Shah. During Rana, Panchayat and Post 1990 regimes, the autocratic state tried to wash off her moral duties by giving a handful reactionary and feudal Madhesis representation in the state organs. The undemocratic steps of the state hurt the sentiments of the proletarian Madhesis. They got disillusioned and alienated further from the mainstream, thereby generating hatred and anger among the Madhesi people against the state and privileged class.

However, the Madhesis took their plight as destiny and sealed their lips against exploitation, humiliation and discrimination in any form. They could not express their grievances and exchange ideas due to their inability to communicate in the state imposed monolithic Nepali language. The linguistic barrier and incompetence crippled the Madhesi people and caused them to suffer from inferiority complex and helplessness. They looked up Khas speaking hill people as their superior and ruler. Being victimized by the state, they narrowed themselves down to the inferior and ruled. The author still recollects the exploitations and tortures inflicted upon the humble Muslim community in his village in the district of Morang during Panchayat regime. They were often falsely accused and unjustly persecuted for the robberies and crimes committed by the Indian criminals across the border.

A ten-year Glorious People's War led by Nepal Communist Party (Maoist) has shaken the very foundation of the monarchy by polarizing all the marginalized sections across the nation. Nepal has shifted from the homogenized singularity to the heterogenized plurality. The Madhesis have equally taken a leading role in the Maoist's insurgency. They have fully internalized Prachanda Path- blended with the trinity of Marxism, Leninism and Maoism-as the only way to liberate them. Fully armed with Prachanda Path, the present transformed and trained proletarian Madhesis are on the path of making an inclusive federal republic Nepal with right to autonomy and self- determination. Consequently, February Madhesi Movement emerged and forced the reactionary and bourgeoisie political parties like Nepali Congress and UML to move along the republican path.

The royalist, imperialist and other reactionary forces are actively involved with all their muscle and money powers to obstruct the republic-bound nation and hurl it back to the state of violence, chaos and lawlessness. They succeeded in aborting April Uprising to mere 19 days and barred it from turning into a decisive mass revolution by exploiting Congress's and UML' Hamletian dilemmas, pro-Indian and palace policy. In lie of safeguarding and learning lessons from the historic set back, both Congress and UML continue to indulge in derailing the republic track on the pretext of various lame excuses. The Indian extreme Hindu fundamentalists, American imperialists and reactionaries from both inside and outside are resorting to sabotage the upcoming Constituent Assembly poll. They have made Madhes a soft target. In their initiation, coverage and financial assistance, several secessionist and criminal groups are mushrooming in Madhes. They are desperately trying to jeopardize the racial harmony and brother hood existing between hill and Madhes peoples. They are under the false illusion that they will succeed in befooling and blackmailing the Madhesis as usual.

The Madhesis have clearly comprehended that the gory carnage of Gaur was the evil design of the reactionaries. Madhes and Madhises are an integral part of Nepal and no sectarian force can secede it. Class demarcation and feudalism have been deep rooted among Madhesis for ages. Social crimes like casteism, dowry and witchcraft have been imported to the holy land of Madhes from across the Indian Territory due to cultural tieings and open border. The Madhesis have to take a resolution to uproot such social crimes and combat a decisive war under the leadership of the proletarians on the path of Prachand doctrine for their emancipation in particular and all margins in general. The united fight of all proletarians will certainly defeat the bourgeois feudals for once and all

If every Nepali takes to their heart the great Madhesi spiritual, "say with pride that we are Madhesis, the sons of the soil, not foreign immigrants", Nepal will truly reflect "Unity in Diversity" with her multi-ethnic, multi-linguistic and heterogeneous rhetoric identities.

INTERNATIONAL

Foreign relation of CPN(Maoist) on the rise

-- Com. Gaurav

It is big news in Nepal these days that Maoist Party is striving very hard to develop its foreign relations. They also make their assessments that it has achieved tremendous success in this regard. The visits made by some of the leaders of our Party to foreign countries and our bilateral talks with the official delegations of various countries including our immediate neighbor and a tested long time friend of our country, China is being cited as the examples. This short article relates to the same subject.

Yes it is true that we are striving very hard to develop and strengthen our foreign relation. During the period of People's War the regime had declared our party a terrorist organization and had approached most of the governments of the world. Based on their relation with the regime some of the governments had listed our party as terrorist organization and some though did not listed but treated us as terrorists. In such circumstances it was not possible for us to develop any king of relation and ties with us. When we negotiated with parliamentary parties to launch a joint mass movement against the autocratic monarchy with the aim of establishing democratic republic and made a series of negotiations including the interim legislature and interim government in which we have significant representation in both. A new political situation has emerged due to this new change in political scenario.

Therefore, our party's international relation was confined to the relation with the fraternal and friendly revolutionary parties and organizations of different parts of the world. Because of the change in the political situation that has given rise to a new possibility of developing revolution with peaceful form of struggle we are obliged to develop state to state relations with various governments which are friendly to our nation and the process that we have decided to adopt to resolve the political crisis and way out for forward development.

We have already brought out our views in open through different mediums. Now we have two aspects of our foreign relationship: fraternal and friendly relations with Maoist and other revolutionary communist parties and organizations and side by side relation with other political forces and the governments of various countries which are friendly to our country and the people of Nepal and supporting the ongoing political process. Therefore the success of out foreign relation can be gauged through both the perspectives.

There is no such significant shift in the development of fraternal and friendly relations with the Communist forces. It is also true that we have come in touch and extended relations with new such forces. As because there is no upsurge of the revolutionary movements led by communists in the world today, this relation will have no such a magnitude to determine or influence the ongoing political developments. But it never means that it does not bear any significance. Unity of the communist revolutionaries has its own significance and deserves to be maintained and developed.

It is true that there is a significant shift in developing relation with various governments which are friendly to our country and supporting the ongoing political process in Nepal and providing help to enhance this process. Frankly speaking we have good relation with all countries of the world except the Bush administration. During the 52 minutes long discussion with the leadership of our Party, the visiting former US president Jimmy Carter opined that it was unjust not to remove the terrorist tag from our party in the given situation that we have a strong presence in the interim legislature and also in the interim government. The relation with the European countries is good enough. We have easy access with them. The recent visits of our leadership including our Chairman have enhanced this relation to further higher level. The heightened relationship of our party with the European countries will definitely create diplomatic pressure to Washington. The Bush administration is thus isolated from the world and from even within US for its flawed policy regarding its relation with our party.

Our relation with China, the immediate neighbor and long tested friend of the Nepalese people has developed enormously within short span of time. The strong statement made by the Chinese Ambassador explaining the policy of his country that `China would never tolerate any foreign intervention in Nepal' at a time when we are facing a threat against the integrity of our beloved motherland is really of paramount importance, which paves the way thus demonstrating that there is ample scope in advancing our relationship at the higher level. The relationship with our other immediate neighbor India is fairly good. The support the separatist elements are enjoying from India, especially from Bihar has definitely caused some problem in Nepal. But the government of India seems not to have any role into it. Our only concern is that the government of India should use its good office to help control the bad situation in Nepal by preventing such elements from getting any support from the Indian soil.

Therefore it will be no exaggeration to say that the foreign relation of our party has been enhanced and it is developing fairly well.

REPORT

Report from Nepal

- C.P.N (Maoist)

"To deal with the question of 'completion' of the bourgeois revolution in the old way is to sacrifice living Marxism to the dead letter"
- Lenin (collected works Vol-24)

The real importance of this precious teaching of the great Lenin was seriously felt in the practical sense in the communist movement in Nepal as the People's War led by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) CPN{M} entered into the stage of strategic equilibrium from the stage of strategic defense. Though there are plenty of instances of changes of tacks in the history of our party nevertheless, it had not become imperative for the major tactical shift until the people's war reached the stage of strategic offense. By then we have chalked out a new way and have trying to advance revolutionary practice through this labyrinth. Still it is the concrete features peculiar to this historical situation in Nepal that led to this tactical shift. It is doubtless that this situation is borne as the natural consequence of these ten years of heroic armed struggle led by our party.
On several occasions we have brought out our assessment that the domestic situation in Nepal is favorable and ripe to capture central state power in the near future but as all the genuine communist parties engaged in revolutionary practice know that the international situation is quite unfavorable to accomplish new democratic revolution and sustain it, it is obvious that we should try to mobilize justice loving people all over the world in general and the peoples of south Asia in particular to garner support in favor of revolution, improving on the domestic situation in the same spirit. For this we should dare to abandon the course once selected and have the courage to climb the unexplored mountain.
Lenin often quotes a letter written by Engels to F.A.Sorge where the founder of scientific socialism says "Our theory is not a dogma but a guide to action". This we believe validates to any situation and any individual communist party. It is easy to cling to dogmas and memorizing some revolutionary phrases without being engaged in the revolutionary practice. But a genuine communist party should never forget that Marxism teaches us to become critical towards Marxism itself, and only revolutionary practice is a laboratory to know that whether one is upholding Marxism or something else. In the dazzling light of this Marxist principle the C.P.N (Maoist) has been applying Marxism to the concrete situation of Nepal which we believe will further develop this science.
The historic Chunbang meeting of the central committee of C.P.N (Maoist) held in Sept/Oct 2005 has put an indelible mark in the history of the party itself. Before this meeting internecine strife representing two lines was at its peak and it was made public too. The revolutionary masses were quite depressed fearing that it might threaten the very existence of the party's and the reactionary forces were thrilled with ecstasy. But the central committee under the leadership of Com. Prachanda devised the ways and means of turning intra party struggle into a motive force that propelled the party forward. The meeting resolved the intra-party struggle and achieved a new unity applying the method of unity, struggle and transformation and maintaining the dialectical debate. One of the most important decisions taken in this meeting was that the party should forge an alliance with the agitating parliamentary parties despite their unstable and vacillating character in order to isolate and abolish the monarchy.
The question of the abolition of the monarchy comprises a different meaning in the context of Nepal. It is the only reactionary institution which is deep rooted and well organized with more than a one hundred thousand strong army. Because of this reality external and internal forces of reaction have joined hands to prop up the crumbling monarchy and have been trying to convince the vacillating parliamentary forces that once the monarchy is gone there will be no able force remaining to halt the ever growing march of the Maoist force. So the parliamentary forces should break its ties with the Maoist and try to save the monarchy with some change in its form. It's the awareness of the Nepalese people and the tactical movement of our party against the monarchy that forces like the Nepali congress and United Marxist Leninist were forced to maintain conditional ties (even if temporary) with the C.P.N (M).
The C.P.N (M), for one and a half years has taken this compromise. If we seriously study and analyze the concrete condition and character of this compromise it becomes self evident that our policy is neither all alliance and no struggle nor all struggle and no alliance, but combines both. Grasping the teaching of Lenin we have avoided "give money and fire arms to share the loot" instead we have given the bandits money and firearms in order to lessen the damage they can do and facilitate their capture and execution. With this sole intention we had a twelve point understanding against the autocratic monarchy on 22nd of November 2005. As expected this understanding proved as a catalyst to boost the moral of the struggling people all over the country. The big uprising unique in the contemporary world forced the otherwise reluctant king to invite the seven party alliances to choose a prime minister and form a government. The government of the India, U.S and U.K lost no time to welcome this move. This bid to douse the fire was failed as the agitation uninterruptedly moved forward with the clear goal of abolishing the monarchy. Our strong presence and participation was a matter of anxiety for the self claimed messiah of democracy. Finally the government of India, U.S and their lackeys in Nepal hatched a conspiracy and made the king to make another proclamation where he for the first time accepted that the sovereignty of Nepal lies to the Nepalese people. It was clear then only that these interventionists had a tacit understanding with the king and he was assured that they will secure his position and the institution of monarchy will remain in the future dispensation once the resentment of the people will climb down.
After the royal proclamation of 24th April 2006 we tried to advance the movement denouncing the proclamation and exposing the ill design behind it. But there was already a division in the movement since the seven party alliances took it as a victory and formed the government without any delay. In its first meeting itself it passed a resolution that there will be an election of an assembly for a new constitution and called the C.P.N (M) for parleys. That multiplied the illusion and a large section of people expected that the monarchy will be out in the near future.
The political scuffle with the reactionary forces has been intensified during this period. A Political offensive has taken the place of the military strike. The old parliament that was reestablished by royal proclamation was dissolved and a new interim legislature is in existence where 83 members are ours. An interim constitution and the interim government have been formed with our participation. If we look at these happenings superficially it seems that the C.P.N (M) has deviated from the revolutionary path. But if we look back at the history of C.P.N (M) and seriously study the under current it will lead to another conclusion.
Before initiation of people's war a small number of comrades were sent to the then parliament and some of our revolutionary comrades from fraternal parties vehemently criticized for this. Not only that we were expelled from the "Revolutionary International movement". Subsequent development in our part proved that we could initiate the war by protecting revolution from the revolutionary phrases that we used to memorize in the early period. Now we see every possibility to combine protracted people's war with insurrection. The 2nd historic conference of our party adopted a line that there should be a union of protracted people's war and insurrection to accomplish the revolution. We see the present development is leading the Nepalese society to prove the correctness of our ideas that we developed.
From the very beginning we were aware of the road map charted by the domestic and external enemies especially U.S and India. They intended to bring fabricated change in the monarchy, to tame the C.P.N (M) in parliamentary politics and enable a parliamentary party like Nepali Congress become as a dominant force in the country. By hook or by crook they have been trying to achieve this goal. But their every effort has the boomeranged because of the stand taken by the C.P.N (M). Instead of being a parliamentary puppet the people's revolutionary aspirations are being centered in the C.P.N (M). Hundreds of thousands of masses of people are being mobilized and the party influence among the masses is increasing everyday. The desperate activities of slandering the Maoist through various Medias secretly funded by the C.I.A and Raw
and the murdering of our cadres by their vigilante forces amply prove that they are failing in their mission.
The enemy who is attacking our party especially its youth wing the 'Young Communist League' with whatever they find in their hands, has generated mass resentment against the enemies. And our mass line, discipline of our PLA and political line has gathered momentum to prepare the ground for the final insurrection. We are utilizing this transitional phase to spread our mass base and consolidate it, to get rid of our own short comings and bring disintegration in the enemy's camp so that we can give a final blow and usher into the country a new democracy.

Note: This report was presented by the delegation of CPN (Maoist) at the meeting of CCOMPOSA, which was held in last week of June ]

IT'S THE RIGHT TIME TO INCREASE SUPPORT FOR THE DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION IN NEPAL

- Johan Peter Andresen, Leader of the Health Team for Nepal project.

The Health Team for Nepal was formed in 2006. The aim of the Health Team project is to help the poor people in the rural areas of Nepal. The Health Team for Nepal cooperates with the medical department of the People's Liberation Army in order to attain this goal. The health team for Nepal consists of two parts: the medical specialists and the support group

SOLIDARITY

Solidarity With Nepalese Revolution

--Com. Basant

Development of people's revolution in Nepal, which is at the doorstep of seizing central power, has strongly drawn attention of the whole world. On the one hand, the reactionaries of all hues, mainly the US imperialism and the Hindu fundamentalists in India, are doing all they can to sabotage this process before it gives birth to a New Nepal, free from feudalism and imperialism. And, on the other, it has drawn up the working class and the oppressed masses the world over closer than ever before to the struggling Nepalese people, who are desperately waiting to see it happen soon. Furthermore, their deep concern and awareness on how they can play a role to defend Nepalese revolution from external threats is very much inspiring.

Within a few months in the past, there have been various interactive programs, indoor and outdoor, in different parts of the world. Of them, given the geo-political location of Nepal the programs that were organised in India, on the challenges and possibilities facing the Nepalese revolution, do have far-reaching significance. Be it outdoor programs organised in different 17 cities and participated by party activists, and revolutionary and just-loving masses or be it 27 indoor programs held in presence of party leaders from various revolutionary, left and democratic parties and intellectuals all over India has, in deed, revealed how serious and resolute they are on their internationalist duty to defend the revolution in Nepal.

Although it was not possible to get in touch with all of the like-minded parties and intellectuals, what has revealed from these programs is that a good majority of left force in India is very much inspired from the development of revolution in Nepal and is thirsty of its success. They have a deep realisation that given the reactionary Nehru Doctrine, which considers Nepal under its protectorate, and India-locked geographic condition of Nepal it is largely the Indian people who can extend an important helping hand for the success, sustenance and development of Democratic Revolution in Nepal, till the same has been accomplished in India.

Whoever was met with had basically a firm common opinion that the future of revolution in Nepal is basically dependent on how strongly and thoroughly the revolutionary and democratic forces in India develop solidarity movement with it. And their untiring effort to materialise it is really enthusiastic. It is a very good thing for Nepalese revolution. Truly, it has further encouraged the Nepalese people, struggling in their mission to build a new Nepal in the beginning of the twenty-first century.

Land clash sets off tit-for-tat game- Left settles Nandigram scores with sack cry

2007-07-30T14:08:00.001+05:30

Mudigonda (Khammam), July 29: Handed its own Nandigram in Andhra Pradesh, the CPM is using it to settle the Bengal Nandigram sc ores.

Politburo member Sitaram Yechury demanded the resignation of Congress chief minister Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy for yesterday's police firing in this village that killed four Left land activists and two by-standers.

"Reddy demanded the resignation of Buddhadeb B hattacharjee on account of police firing in Nandigram. He should quit on the same grounds," said Yechury, who has rushed here with other Left leaders.

The CPM appears to have decided to use the tragedy at Mudigonda, 15km from Khammam town and 211km from Hyderabad, to polish its pro-landless image and offset its mistake in Nandigram.

Unlike Bengal, where the CPM is acquiring plots for industry in the face of Opposition-led farmer protests, the Marxists have joined theCPI in Andhra to agitate for land for the poor.

The firing happened during a Left bandh to protest the Congress regime's failure to keep its poll promise of handing vacant government land to the urban homeless to build houses and the rural poor to cultivate.

A mob had attacked the revenue divisional officer's (RDO's) office at Mudigonda, burning documents and furniture, when the police caned them, fired tear gas shells and then 70 bullets.

Yechury and CPI leader Gurudas Dasgupta claimed the police had fired on peaceful protesters.

Police hide

Mudigonda today bore close parallels with Nandigram. The administration seemed to have collapsed amid simmering public rage, with most personnel having deserted the police stations in Khammam town and Mudigonda, which are being guarded by the reserve police.

The police's morale appears to have been hit after the government transferred Khammam police chief R.K. Meena and suspended his deputy, additional superintendent M. Ramesh Babu. A circle inspector and a sub-inspector, too, have been suspended.

The police may not have expected such a carnage. ASP Ramesh Babu, believed to have ordered the firing, left the scene in plain clothes, a resident said.

"He took off his uniform and escaped in a lungi and T-shirt borrowed from a constable," said schoolteacher Harinarayan, 46.

The bodies are still lying in front of the collectorate. Since morning, supporters of the Left, who have called another bandh, have been descending on Khammam.

As in Nandigram, motley Opposition leaders — such as the Telengana Rashtra Samiti's K. Chandrasekhar Rao and the Telugu Desam's N. Chandrababu Naidu — are making a beeline for the carnage site.

But not a single Congress leader dared follow them. S. Chandrasekhar, a minister from the district, chose to slam the Left from his secretariat chamber in Hyderabad.

'AK-47s, SLRs'

Tales of police brutality and charges that they used self-loading rifles (SLRs) and AK-47s have worsened the government's worries. "For the first time, state police used AK-47s," Naidu alleged.

Neither the police nor the government has so far denied the charges.

The bloodstained RDO office compound and the road leading to it are strewn with bricks, handbags, torn shirts and saris, battered mobile phones, half-eaten food packets and empty water bottles. They lie side by side with police batons and bamboo shields, metal hats, cartridges, unexploded teargas shells and official wireless sets.

Witnesses said one of the policemen had provoked the protesters, prompting some to throw stones and some others to barge into the office.

"A sub-inspector lost his eye in the stone throwing," an officer countered.

"The policemen seemed to be waiting for such a thing to happen. Within minutes, we heard gunfire from all three corners. It went on for 15-20 minutes," said Bagaru Babu, a farmer who was watching from a half-closed shop nearby.

Residents said 40 to 50 people were injured in the stampede and lathi-charge. "The police beat up the protesters with metal lathis and bamboo and wooden sticks," said Veerabhadra Rao, a demonstrator.

Five people with head and kidney injuries are in hospital, three of them in a coma, the police said.

The government has announced Rs 5 lakh for the family of each of the dead and Rs 50,000 for each injured.

Housing irony

The site of the land battle, ironically, is a place where the government had been touting its showpiece housing project for the poor.

Mudigonda is dotted with 500-600 half-finished houses, being built under the Indiramma project, which features 25 lakh houses across the state, each with a portrait of Indira Gandhi in front.

The Left says the houses are too expensive at Rs 40,000-45,000 and wants free plots for the poor instead. The Congress accuses it of playing politics.

Substitute for the state

2007-07-27T09:15:00.001+05:30

The economy continues to grow at more than 9 per cent. Corporate profits are breaking records. The foreign exchange reserves have touched $ 216 billion. The share market is booming as never before. The one small cloud on the horizon, a sharp decline in consumer demand, may soon dissipate for the Finance Minister has hinted that interest rates may soon come down? All this is happening just when the international media have noticed the gathering discontent in China and are asking, for perhaps the first time, whether India may not indeed be the better bet in the long run.

Indians are, therefore, basking in the glory of recognition. Didn't Goldman Sachs predict something like this in its BRICS report of 2004? Success is also making us belligerent: Witness India Inc.'s angry response to the Prime Minister's criticism of the inordinate increases in salaries that it has awarded to itself.

This self-congratulation is premature. The Indian economy has overcome many structural hurdles to growth and efficiency in the past decade and has every reason to be proud of its achievements. Nor is there any need to deny the catalytic role that a younger generation of Indian entrepreneurs has played in the transformation. But anyone who believes that the future is assured is living in a fools' paradise. What he or she takes to be a tranquil sea is but an oasis of calm sheltered by a small lee shore. There is a storm building up in the country which is particularly dangerous, because it has not one but two epicentres. The cross winds that these are capable of generating could sink the Indian state.

The first is the developing Maoist threat in central India. The second is the slow, but unstoppable, spread of the battle between Empire and Nation that is tearing West Asia apart, across the Himalayan wall into the Indian sub-continent. The cocoon of peace in which we live is, therefore, becoming ever more fragile.

This article is devoted to the first problem — the developing rebellion in the countryside. How little the government and the media understand the seriousness of the Maoist threat is reflected in their continuing use of the terms 'Naxalites' and Maoists as homonyms. This is not accidental. Naxalism has been around for a long time, and has not so far posed a serious impediment to development. We should not, therefore, lose too much sleep over their reincarnation as Maoists.

This is pure self-delusion. There is little resemblance between the Naxalism of the 1960s and 1970s and the Maoism of today. The Naxalite movement began in West Bengal in the late 1960s, was infiltrated by the Bengal police, turned upon itself, and was ruthlessly crushed. Its leaders took refuge in the jungles of adjoining states in Orissa, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, and along the Kerala-Karnataka border. For the next three decades it was a fringe movement in about a quarter of the country's districts, but making little dent on the lives of people outside its immediate pockets of influence.

All this changed in October 2004 when 22 Naxalite groups came together to form the CP(Maoist). This time, behind the tired exhortations to wage 'class struggle' and 'revolution' they had a definite agenda. It was to stop the alienation of land from the tribals, the harijans and the marginal farmers — the poorest of the poor — in the name of development. The Maoists made it clear that what the government, the media and the intelligentsia called 'development' was expropriation. Instead of making the poor its beneficiaries , it made them its victims.

For the first time after decades the Maoists have begun to draw mass support from the jungle-dwellers, and the rural landless poor. Urban India first became aware of the qualitative change in the challenge it faced when, in 2005, a thousand Maoists invaded Jehanabad in Bihar, drove away the police, opened the jails to set their comrades free, and carried away the arms in the Kotwali. For more than half a day the writ of the Indian State ceased to run in Jehanabad. Since then groups of armed Maoists have fought pitched battles with large contingents of the police in Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Orissa.

The government has responded by calling a succession of meetings with state home ministers to work out a strategy to contain the Maoist challenge. All of them have ended with demands by the state governments for police reinforcements, and better arms and communications. But police repression can easily backfire. Recently, supposed informers offered to lead a police party to a large Naxalite encampment, but led it into an ambush instead in which 25 policemen lost their lives. The arms that the Maoists seized show, beyond serious doubt that behind the façade of 'police action' the state government has declared virtual war upon the Maoists. For the police is using front-line weapons — AK 47s, and the new ultra-light and accurate INSAS infantry rifles. The encounter also shows that for now at least, it is the Maoist who are winning.

How has revolutionary violence regained its attraction for the poor? If the press releases are a reliable yardstick, then in not one of the meetings devoted to the 'Naxalite problem' did the central and state governments make an effort to probe its causes. And yet the answer is staring us in the face.

Development requires land, and whenever land is acquired, even if it is 'forest' or 'revenue' land 'owned' by the government, someone loses his or her traditional rights of usage. The rapid acceleration of development in the past 15 years has increased the pace at which these rights are being taken away. Worse still, as the post-liberalisation 'development fever' has spread to the state governments, they have become increasingly insensitive to the plight of the losers from economic development. To cite just one example, when tribals asked the Orissa government in 2005 for the return of land acquired to build the Rourkela steel plant but allowed to lie barren for decades, they were met with bullets. On other occasions they were simply arrested and carted off to jail.

The Maoists are gaining a following because the poor are becoming convinced that they can obtain no redress from the democratic system. After 11 general elections and an equal number of state elections they know that their elected representatives have only to reach the state capital to put up their 'for sale' signs.

It is a telltale indicator of where the pulse of the new India beats that the alienation of land only came to its attention when Tata Motors faced resistance in Singur. The police firings and needless deaths that resulted forced the Centre to take the state completely out of the business of acquiring land for Special Economic Zones. But it did even this grudgingly, for in the guidelines it carefully avoided reference to the land that it intended to acquire for 342 hydel projects. For the acquisitions, which will require twenty times as much land as the SEZs, the State will continue to exercise the right that a British government gave to itself in 1894, of taking over the natives' land whenever it wanted, provided it was for a 'public purpose'.

The victimisation of the poor will therefore continue. And the ranks of the Maoists will continue to swell.

Maoist cloud sends House under cover

2007-07-27T09:12:00.001+05:30

Maoist cloud sends House under cover

SHEENA K AND RASHEED KIDWAI

July 26: Maoists have driven the state underground.

For the first time since Independence, an Assembly today held a secret sitting — with no visitors, journalists or cameras present, only the MLAs and three officials.

The reason: the Chhattisgarh Assembly was discussing the Naxalite menace, described last year by the Prime Minister as the "biggest internal security challenge ever faced by our country".

Chief minister Raman Singh said he decided on an in-camera session to allow members to discuss the issue "openly and freely". What the statement implied, but left unsaid, was that elected legislators are reluctant to speak out with the Naxalites watching.

Assembly secretary Devendra Verma said as much: "The members avoid speaking on such sensitive issues in the open. Even the government, which finalises strategic plans for such problems, avoids opening its cards."

The decision to hold the session behind closed doors appeared to have worked. The House, which met at 11am, was to sit till 3pm but the discussion was first extended by three hours and then again by another two hours.

Other than the MLAs, only the state's top officials — chief secretary Shivraj Singh, principal secretary S.V. Prabhat and director-general of police Viswaranjan — were present.

Speaker Prem Prakash Pandey said afterwards that members of the ruling and the Opposition parties had a constructive discussion and he was hopeful the debate would result in a solution. He refused to give details of the talks.

Leader of the Opposition Mahendra Karma and BJP legislator Devji Patel said all members had been briefed not to speak about the session. Even minutes of the discussion will be kept under wraps.

Rule 163 A — under which the Speaker gave consent for the session — says any disclosure of the proceedings will be treated as "gross breach of privilege of the Assembly".

Former chief minister Ajit Jogi was unimpressed. "Being the first to do this or that does not mean anything. Dr Raman Singh must remember it is the government's responsibility to ensure peace and safety."

But party colleague Karma, who leads the 35 Congress MLAs in the 90-member House, was more supportive. He agreed that the session had to be held in secrecy because Naxalites often target MLAs who speak out against them and hoped something "concrete" would emerge out of it.

"Generally, a secret sitting of Parliament or the Assemblies is held in wartime. It underlines that the menace of Red army is no less than a war," a Congress member said.

Hundreds killed in relentless attacks and 13 states designated Naxalite-hit have not caused the alarm that a single blast in Delhi or Mumbai does, but perhaps the sight of the state going under cover will force urban India to wake up to the problem of the outback.

International Conspiracy, Latest Logic of Repression by Marxist Gestapo Mechanism!

2007-07-27T09:01:00.001+05:30

International Conspiracy, Latest Logic of Repression by Marxist Gestapo Mechanism!

Buddhadeb Now sees International conspiracy! What for? Is it a Marxist government at all? Does this government undermine US interests or it has decided to overthrow the Zionist Brahminical system? Who is opposing his brand of capitalist Development?
Mrs Indiran gandhi was most quoted to warn of international conspiracies whenever she faced any challange within!
Mind you, this is the latest logic of repression by Marxist Gestapo Mechanism!

International conspiracy to destabilse India, says Buddhadeb while India's ruling Congress party looked set to lose power in the tiny western tourist state of Goa on Thursday after a group of legislators withdrew their support to the coalition. Expressing concern at terrorist activities in West Bengal like last year's blast at a railway station in Jalpaiguri that killed eight people, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee today said this was part of an international conspiracy to destablise India from within. Buddhadev Bhattacharjee today admitted that his Left Front government was not free from corruption and his `do-it-now` slogan given a year ago could not overnight bring transparency in the administration.

A total of 40 people were killed in political clashes in West Bengal last year, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee told the assembly today.

The 40 included 24 CPI-M activists, three members each of the Trinamool Congress and congress and 10 from parties like the Gorkha National Liberational Front and Jharkhand Party, he said while replying to a question.

A total of 3,998 arrests were made in connection with the clashes and 19 cases were registered, he said.

West Bengal`s opposition Trinamool Congress today rejected Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacherjee`s apology and appeal to lift its boycott of the assembly shortly after he expressed regret for his alleged derogatory remarks about the leader of the opposition.The political heat over farmland acquisition issue, sought to be cooled down during the recent parleys between Marxist veteran Jyoti Basu and Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee, is still raging in West Bengal with the latter's decision to boycott the chief minister for his alleged derogatory remarks in the Assembly recently.

The Basu-Mamata talks, which generated hope of an early restoration of peace in trouble-torn Singur and Nandigram as also ensuring normal relations between the government and the opposition, received a setback nearly a month after over the Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya's comments against the opposition leader in the state Assembly.

The Trinamool Congress' decision to boycott all House proceedings where the Chief Minister will be present, has come at a time when the state Assembly is on its extended budget session and that is likely to continue till end of this month.

The chances of rapprochement between the ruling Left Front and the main opposition Trinamool Congress over the controversial farmland acquisition issue had brightened after the former Chief Minister's diplomacy. The exercise however, received the jolt with the Chief Minister's comments on opposition leader Partha Chatterjee.

During his reply to Home (police) department's budget speech last week, the Chief Minister made a remark against Chatterjee, questioning his power and liberty to speak in his own party without fear.

It was a matter of concern that explosives used to trigger the blast at Belakoba Railway Station were brought from outside and local people were involved in the attack, he told the assembly in reply to a question.

Terrorists were active along the Western and the Eastern borders. "If we look at Pakistan and Afganistan, we can see what shape terrorism is taking on the subcontinent," he said.

Asked whether the US had a hand in this conspiracy, Bhattacharjee replied that the US had a role wherever terrorist activities were taking place across the world.

"I cannot say specifically whether the US has a hand here, but there is no doubt that they play some role in the subcontinent," he said in reply to a supplementary question.

Bhattacharjee said the state government was working in tandem with the Centre to combat terrorist activities. The danger remained despite stepped up vigil, he said.

Noting that information was regularly exchanged among intelligence agencies of the state, the Centre, the Army and BSF, he said in some cases, arrests were made on the basis of information provided by the central agencies.

Bhattacharjee, who also holds the home portfolio, admitted there were some weakness in the state intelligence agencies.

Replying to a question on the Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO), he said after the operation by Bhutan's army against rebels sheltering in the kingdom, KLO activities had stopped for some time and the militants took shelter in a neighbouring country.

The KLO was now trying to re-group in Cooch Behar, Jalpaiguri and Siliguri in North Bengal, where vigil had been stepped up. The KLO problem would persist because of the Ulfa in Assam, he said.

Claiming that the KLO and other groups did not have the people's support, he said the state government had initiated a process to bring KLO militants back to the mainstream and around 150 of them had returned. But other groups like the Kamtapur People's Party were coordinating among themselves.

To another question, he said the state government would provide compensation of Rs 50,000 to families of the eight persons killed in the blast at Belakoba Railway Station. But this was getting delayed due to a complicated procedure, he said.

Asked whether the state had sought more security forces from the Centre, Bhattacharjee said: "We have asked for more forces keeping in mind the situation in Jammu and Kashmir and the Western border."

Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said on Wednesday that a just-completed nuclear deal with India complies with U.S. law, but some experts doubted that, and lawmakers said the agreement could face a rough road in the U.S. Congress.
\
Congressional sources and other experts told Reuters the agreement reached last week appears to go a long way toward meeting the demands of India's nuclear establishment, giving New Delhi rights only accorded to key U.S. allies Japan and the European Union.

"The administration is going to call this a success even though from policy and legal perspectives, there are major problems," said one congressional source, who spoke anonymously because he learned details of the deal on a confidential basis.

The pact, approved by India's cabinet on Wednesday, would allow India access to U.S. nuclear fuel and equipment for the first time in 30 years, even though New Delhi refused to join non-proliferation pacts and tested nuclear weapons.

"We're very satisfied because we know the agreement is well within the bounds of the Hyde Act," Burns told reporters after testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The Hyde Act, approved by Congress in December, created a unique exception to U.S. export law to allow nuclear cooperation with India. The just-completed agreement, called a 123 agreement after a section of the U.S. Atomic Energy Act, spells out technical details for that nuclear cooperation.

Communist Buddha of West Bengal confesses corruption but does any one know how much they have milked from expatriate Indians (NRIs)
Media Release
Jul. 26, 2007

Countless money has been stolen by the West Bengal communists from expatraite Indians who tried to set up industries in West Bangal but did not understand only bribes work with these communists.

These communists are in bed with Indian oligarchs like Tata, Birla, Ambanis who feed them well with money. These communists will do anything to get hold of money. They preach laziness in west Bengal. The approach to the expatriate Indian is simple - you have it, I do noy. So your's is mine.

When it comes to Indian oligarchs, the comminists are straightened top to the bottom. Thge oligarchs treat these communists as street dogs. They throw a some crores of Rupees (million of dollars) and ask them to secure the oligrachs'' interests at the cost of common people and poor farmers.

The communists are now in bed with Intalian born Sonia Gandhi's congress party too. That has happened because Indian oligrachs want that to happen.

http://www.indiadaily

"Hugo Chavez has an oil strategy... but can this lead to liberation?"

2007-07-25T08:59:00.001+05:30

23 July 2007. A World to Win News Service. Following is the first of two instalments of an article by Raymond Lotta reprinted from the 1 July 2007 issue of Revolution, newspaper of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA. ( revcom.us) It is a part of a fuller analysis being developed by a writing group about Hugo Chavez and what has been happening in Venezuela since Chavez came to power in 1998.

The nature of Hugo Chavez's "Bolivarian revolution" is a highly important and widely discussed issue among progressive and radical-minded people. Chavez has carried out a host of social and economic measures whose stated aim is to empower and improve the lives of the poor and politically disenfranchised in Venezuelan society; he has condemned the US as an imperialist and bullying power; and in 2005 he announced that Venezuela was embarking on a project of "21st-Century Socialism". At a time when the US is waging its "war on the world" and at a time when the US has been spearheading a pounding and brutalizing neoliberal economic agenda for the countries of the Third World – developments in Venezuela have attracted great interest.

But what is the actual programme and outlook of Hugo Chavez, what is the character of the process unfolding in Venezuela, and where is it heading? Does Chavez's programme represent a real alternative to imperialist-led exploitation, a viable road to liberation in today's world? And what is the meaning of socialism in today's globalized world?

Our view is that the "Bolivarian revolution" does not represent a fundamental break with imperialism, nor embody a vision or path to truly radical societal transformation. But understanding why this is so is a complex matter requiring close analysis. In the full analysis soon to be published, we discuss the historical factors shaping Venezuela's development, the economic model that Hugo Chavez has been bringing forward, the role of the army and new popular institutions in the "Bolivarian revolution", the social and class forces involved in and leading this movement, and the larger debate about "21st-century socialism" and the real challenges of making revolution in today's world.

While we offer this critique of the Chavez project , it in no way cuts against our stand with the Venezuelan people and our total opposition to any attempts by US imperialism to undermine or openly commit aggression against the Chavez regime.

This article focuses on Venezuela's oil economy. We start here because oil has been so central to Venezuela's historical domination by imperialism and to Venezuela's economic-social development, and because oil figures centrally in Hugo Chavez's programme to reclaim sovereignty and change Venezuelan society.

Our goal is to contribute to understanding, to learn from analysis of others, and to deepen dialogue and debate about these crucial issues.

During his electoral campaign for president in 1998, Hugo Chavez took on the old elite this way: "Oil is a geopolitical weapon, and these imbeciles who govern us don't realize the power of an oil producing country." 1 He expressed his strategic thinking about oil in a 2006 interview:

"We are today implementing a strategic programme called the Oil Sowing Plan: using oil wealth so Venezuela can become an agricultural country, a tourist destination, an industrialized country with a diversified economy. We are investing billions of dollars in the infrastructure: power generators using thermal energy, a large railway, roads, highways, new towns, new universities, new schools, recuperating land, building tractors, and giving loans to farmers. One day we won't have any more oil, but that will be in the 22nd century. Venezuela has oil for another 200 years." 2

Chavez has spoken often about weaning Venezuela away from excessive dependence on the oil sector. But as the above statements and concrete policy underscore, oil will continue for some time, certainly for the medium term, to be the backbone of the economy and the keystone of Venezuela's foreign policy.

What kind of resource?

There is no question that Venezuela is rich in oil. Venezuela possesses the largest conventional oil reserves in the Western hemisphere (more than three times the proven reserves in the US); has trillions of cubic feet of natural gas; and has, by some estimates, untapped reserves in the Orinoco belt of the country that may exceed those of Saudi Arabia. Nor is there any question that oil revenues can grow astronomically: the price of oil is approaching near-historic highs, in the range of $65 per barrel.

But why is oil as a sphere of investment and as a "petrodollar" financial instrument "black gold"? Oil has become a source of productive and monetary wealth within a certain set of social production relations. The growth and contemporary expansion of world capitalism has produced a profit-based agro-industrial structure that relies heavily and disproportionately on a non-renewable resource, oil, as an essential economic input whose world price has impacted production costs, profits, and competitive advantage. In the post-World War 2 period, new oil-based and oil-related industries like auto, petrochemicals, and plastics, arose. Moreover, the exploration, extraction, refining, and marketing of oil form a highly profitable sector of the world economy. 3

An historical trajectory of oil-fuelled development under world capitalism has been ruinous of human lives and planetary ecology. The production and consumption patterns of the advanced capitalist countries – where 25 percent of the world's population lives but which consume 75 percent of the world's resources – are now culminating in a global climate crisis. A just and rational world economy would neither be organized around a social structure of exploitation and inequality nor be based on this kind of non-sustainable technical-resource foundation.

Oil has also become a weapon in world politics. This too is a function of imperialism. Power relations are integral to imperialism. Control over resources yields geo-economic advantage and geo-political domination – in which some powers gain privileged and monopolistic access to resources and the ability to control other economies and states. Oil has been an object of imperialist rivalry, collusion, and conquest, including through local proxy wars. Oil has been a means of propping up and controlling neocolonial regimes awash in oil revenues and corruption, like Nigeria. The modern, imperialist global military machine runs on oil.

Oil and Venezuela

Venezuela has played a certain historical role in the imperialist international division of labour: as a strategic exporter of oil. And the economic pillar of the modern Venezuelan state system has been the extraction of rents from oil companies, the charge for allowing them to pump oil out of the ground. Over the last half century, oil income has both lubricated a certain kind of growth and development in Venezuela and locked Venezuela in to an international oil economy dominated by Western imperialism.

Oil, with its booms and busts, reshaped the economic geography of the country. Caracas, the capital city of Venezuela, more than doubled in size between 1920 and 1936, and doubled again between 1936 and 1950. Then it tripled between 1950 and 1971. The oil economy gave rise to a new middle class dependent on the state and disbursement of oil revenues, while shantytowns of the rural poor spread through and literally seeped into the muddy slopes of western Caracas. Today, almost 90 percent of Venezuela's population lives in the cities and half of the population of Caracas lives in poverty. One measure of oil's distorting effects on the economic and social structure of Venezuela has been the vast growth of the "informal economy" in the cities: the urban self-employed (like peddlers and street merchants) and workers who perform unregistered or "off-the-books" labour and services. 4

Oil has produced and perpetuated a developmental trajectory marked by great economic and social gaps: between the productivity of the petroleum sector and the productivity of the non-petroleum sectors; between the development of the rural and urban areas; and between rich and poor, in the cities and in the countryside.

Let's step back. From 1958 to 1998, Venezuela earned some $300 billion in oil revenues. What has this meant for the masses of people in Venezuela, and what kind of development has resulted from subordination to the dynamics of the world imperialist economy and the world oil industry within that?

The production of oil has actually stifled any significant industrial diversification. Much of the new infrastructure built between the 1960s and 1980s is decaying for lack of maintenance. Floods and mudslides, aggravated by uncontrolled urbanization, have washed away towns. Health hazards stalk the shantytowns in which 60 percent of Venezuela's urban population lives. The number of people living in official poverty nearly doubled between 1984 and 1995; and, today, more than half of Venezuela's working population works in the precarious informal economy. 5

Hugo Chavez has decried the oligarchic oil economy with its corruption, patronage, and extremes of glittering wealth and grinding poverty. He has spoken of the need to revive the peasant economy. But can a different form of oil economy produce a just and viable alternative to the neoliberal economic model and lead to socialism? And just how different will such an economy be if it requires the massive infusion of foreign investment capital and a gamble in a game of oil markets?

A programme that cannot break out of the status quo; a programme wracked with contradictions

Chavez has pinned the success of his programme of social equity and diversification of the economy on oil revenues. His main economic order of business, as he repeatedly states, is "sowing the petroleum." This is a phrase and programme that has been part of Venezuela's populist-nationalist politics and discourse since the mid-1930s: the government is to assert greater control over oil revenues, use oil wealth to promote development, and allow more people to share in the oil bounty. Chavez is counting on high and rising oil prices to undergird vast increases in government spending, a growing state presence in the economy, and subsidized prices for certain domestic products (mainly gasoline but also imported consumer goods, including food). In 2004, $1.7 billion of the state oil company's $15 billion budget was allocated to fund social programs; soon thereafter it went to $4 billion a year. 6

Chavez, after having restructured the management of the state oil company, is moving along three tracks to maximize oil revenues to make good on his programme. He is seeking to expand oil production. He is seeking to increase state ownership and the government's share of earnings, royalties, and taxes deriving from foreign-based activity in the hydrocarbon sector (oil, natural gas, and coal). And he is seeking out new markets for oil, both to absorb expanded output and as a cushion against possible US pressure and retaliation. These are not simply technical tools of economic management; they are bound up with a capitalist logic, and are fraught with the contradictions of dependent, imperialist-led development.

On the first track, the strategic 25 year Plan Siembra Petrolera (Oil Sowing Plan), in its first phase for 2005-2012, calls for an increase in production from current levels (2006 estimates range from 2.8-3.3 million barrels a day) to 5.8 million barrels of oil per day in 2012. In the gas industry, similar large-scale development is also planned.

The Venezuelan state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) estimated in 2006 that this phase of the expansion plan requires some $75 billion to finance new investment. Where is this money coming from? Most will come from the state oil company. Some 25 to 30 percent is expected from external, private sources: borrowings from banks, offset by anticipated oil earnings, and investments by the foreign oil companies operating in Venezuela. 7

Chavez is counting on increased output from the so-called Orinoco Petroleum Belt, a region in the centre of the country that has been the site of major investments by the state oil company and foreign operators, like Exxon-Mobil, ConocoPhillips, and France's Total SA. Since the 1990s these imperialist transnationals have invested more than $17 billion, which may have grown in value to $30 billion. The extraction and processing of this extra-heavy crude oil requires expensive investment in heavy machinery, treatment, and storage complexes. Partial processing of this oil on the spot, to make it liquid enough to flow in pipes, produces enormous amounts of waste material.

There is a sharp contradiction. On the one hand, the state must extract financial resources from the oil industry to underwrite its development and social spending plans (and, increasingly, to meet rising popular expectations and shore up the political base of the Chavez regime). On the other hand, the state must invest to maintain the competitiveness of the oil industry as a capitalist enterprise in the international capitalist market.8

Again, there is great tension here. In the last two years, social programmes have absorbed a larger share of the state oil company's budget than has spending on maintenance and new oil capacity. This social spending by the government puts strains on needed investments in the oil sector. To say investments are "needed" is not to make some pure technical statement; rather, investments are "needed" from the standpoint of an oil-exporting economy and the dictates of the world market – improving efficiency and compensating for possible price declines with expanded output. Because Venezuela's wells are so old, output declines 23 percent a year – and so it is necessary to drill new wells just to maintain capacity. 9 There is a pull exerted by competition on the world market, intensified by low levels of investment in Venezuela's oil sector relative to other oil-producing countries, to upgrade and expand the industry, and maintain profitability.

If foreign investment comes forth to finance a major share of Plan Siembra, this investment carries with it real control and puts real leverage in the hands of those foreign investors. This is important to bear in mind. Venezuela is not unusual in having formal sovereignty over its oil. Some three-quarters of the world's oil and gas reserves and half of global output are controlled by national state oil companies like Saudi Aramco, Kuwait Petroleum, and the Algerian state company. But the national-state oil companies rely on international finance, work through international trade and marketing channels, and collaborate with the large, Western-based transnational oil companies, like Exxon-Mobil. These transnational corporations and their service company networks have strong competitive advantage: in scale, reach, and core managerial and technological competences, financial capabilities, support by the Western imperialist governments, and the ability to pull up stakes in a country like Venezuela.

In terms of the second track: higher tax and royalty payments. In April 2006, Chavez announced his intention to increase PDVSA's share in major projects to 60 percent from 40 percent. The Chavez government is creating new forms of joint ventures (what are now called "mixed companies") with Shell, Chevron, British Petroleum, and others. Oil resources and oil profits are jointly owned in the form of single new enterprises – only now, the Venezuelan government obtains a higher proportion of profits than it had previously, while the foreign oil companies, with heavy investments, benefit from current high oil prices and prospect of profitable new oil fields. At the same time, the government has negotiated with the 22 foreign companies operating in Venezuela to agree to a new tax law that is being enforced retroactively.

On May 1, 2007, Chavez made good on his ultimatum to the foreign companies that they accept a larger share of ownership by the Venezuelan government or cease operations. Chavez may be a tough negotiator (and did succeed in getting a larger slice of rising oil revenues from companies who want to stay put in order to recoup the value of their investments and make huge profits). At the same time, to keep these projects alive, to go forward with expansion plans, Chavez must reach some kind of understanding with foreign capital, as these firms are providing essential finance and technology. So the threat of takeover was sweetened with a commitment to compensate the firms. 10

The third track of the oil programme is to restructure Venezuela's external trade relations away from dependence on the US as a market and source of investment capital and technical expertise. Venezuela accounts for some 12 percent of the US's daily oil imports, and plays a certain strategic role in the US's ability to project power in the world. But the other side of the equation is more telling, illustrating an aspect of Venezuela's structural dependency: that 12 percent share of US oil imports accounted for by Venezuela represents 60 percent of Venezuela's total production!11

In seeking to diversify markets, Chavez has opened negotiations with China and has plans to sell Venezuelan oil to China, the world's second-largest energy consumer, and to India as well. But there are high costs of servicing these markets. Venezuela does not have a Pacific port, and large tankers cannot make it through the Panama Canal. So Venezuela would need to construct pipeline through Colombia in order to ship the oil. But shipment to Asia is costly, owing to the long distances involved. Further, China does not have adequate capacity to refine Venezuela's sulphur-rich crude. China is investing substantial sums to increase that capacity, but China is also exploring for oil and gas closer to its shores in the South China Sea and angling as well for deals in the Caspian Sea region.

The US connection is a difficult knot for Chavez to cut, especially if oil is to be the centrepiece of development. There is the close proximity of the US market and low transportation costs. There are the refineries in the US adapted to processing Venezuela's oil. And the US continues to be Venezuela's most important trading partner (US-Venezuela trade actually rose 36 percent in 2006). These are among the pressures operating on Chavez to maintain stable economic relations with the US, 12 even if the US has other plans.

Part of Chavez's strategy for diversification involves inviting foreign companies from outside the traditional circle of the big Western oil majors to invest in Venezuela's petroleum industry and to participate in his plan for a continental gas pipeline project stretching from Venezuela down to Argentina. These form part of Chavez's efforts to create more multilateral investment and trade links. Chavez is courting companies from India, China, Russia, and elsewhere. Chavez hails investment plans in Latin America as anti-US regional integration.

But whether in Venezuela or elsewhere in Latin America, the essence of these projects is: investment by capitalist firms... according to capitalist methods of exploitation...to be measured by capitalist criteria of profitability. These projects have enormous social consequences for local populations, including dislocation of indigenous peoples. And they have enormous environmental consequences. 13

Chavez must assure long-standing Western and new investors of a relatively stable business-receptive environment. It is revealing that the Chavez regime has designated the oil sector a "strategic industry." The state-appointed management tightly controls this sector (and the oil industry is one where worker co-participation, the limits and real nature of which will be discussed in a subsequent instalment of this series, is forbidden).

One critical-minded supporter of Chavez has observed, "the joint ventures provide a reality check to those used to only a diet of Chavez speeches...[B]ut in the current circumstances, paradoxically, a Faustian pact with foreign capital may be necessary to keep the forces of imperialism [US pressure and intervention] off Venezuela's back." 14

This captures much of the "best-case" thinking about Chavez's oil-based strategy of development. But this "best-case" thinking rests on a misunderstanding of imperialism. As desirous of genuine social change as many Chavez supporters are, that cold-water splash of "reality check" is worth pursuing further.

Modern-day enclave development

Imperialism manifests itself not simply through economic bullying or military threat and intervention – and US military action against Venezuela is by no means "off the table". It is also expressed through the structure and functioning of the world economy and the existing economic and social structure of Venezuela, which reflects and reinforces dependency on oil and subordination to the world market.

Chavez is perpetuating a form of export-led growth centred on the oil industry. The irrationality of an economy so geared to oil is expressed in the fact that only 20 percent of Venezuela's total oil production enters into the domestic economy. 15 It is expressed in the fact that while Venezuela's state oil company (PDVSA) is the country's single largest employer, with about 45,000 on its payroll, employment in the oil sector accounts for less than 1 percent of Venezuela's total work force. 16 It is expressed in the fact that, despite high oil prices and earnings, official unemployment in Venezuela has ranged from 8 to 15 percent in the Chavez years, with the poverty rate at 30 percent at the start of 2007. 17

This is a profoundly distorted economy: today, the oil sector accounts, and this has been a long-standing pattern, for about one-third of Venezuela's Gross Domestic Product (GDP), 50 percent of the government's revenue, and 80 percent of Venezuela's export earnings. As one of the world's top oil producers, Venezuela is a top emitter of CO2 emissions in Latin America and has the region's highest per capita rate of carbon emissions. 18

The oil-export economy induces a form of "enclave" development. Such development responds to external sources of economic dynamism: the world oil market, conditions of demand in the major imperialist and regional economies, the rhythm and direction of world capital flows, etc. And such capital-intensive mono-export development is a barrier to integrated, all-around agricultural and industrial development in the exporting country.

Here it is necessary to elaborate on two related aspects of dependent development: lopsidedness and heightened exposure and vulnerability to the world market.

In the oppressed nations, the oil sector requires massive investment in advanced equipment and technology. These technology demands are met disproportionately from outside the economy – much of the advanced technology required by the oil sector is either imported, requiring that foreign exchange be generated to pay for imported capital goods, or obtained through the joint ventures (the foreign oil and oil-service companies involved, like Halliburton, provide the technology in-house or purchase it on the world market).

Moreover, much of this technology cannot be widely diffused and adopted throughout the economy to revolutionize social production. This is so for two reasons. First, much of the specialized oil-drilling and oil-engineering technology is not appropriate to overall conditions of social-economic development. Second, even where some of this technology could have useful direct and indirect spin-off applications, there does not exist a broad-based industrial structure to which the benefits could accrue – exactly because the oil focus has constrained broader development.

The oil sector is not significantly stimulating new demand for locally produced industrial products, nor is it resulting in a rising socially useful skills level of the overall work force. You do not have a process of agricultural and industrial development unfolding that strengthens local capacity to innovate and adapt technology. These are consequences of enclave-like, oil-based development. 19

Under Chavez, PDVSA, the Venezuelan state oil company, has been seeking agreements with foreign oil companies requiring as a condition of entry that they source (obtain) more oil-service supplies locally. But as oil resources are depleted, and as the extraction and processing of Venezuela's heavy crude and rich-rich oil grows more challenging, new technology requirements appear. And as these requirements are met with even more specialized and sophisticated technology, the technology gaps between the oil sector and the rest of the economy are reproduced on a new level. 20

Meanwhile, the huge port, pipeline facilities, and other infrastructure investments to facilitate the exploration, extraction, and shipment of oil and coal are often out of scale to the needs of the overall economy – again, since they serve these more self-contained, outward-oriented investment projects, like the Orinoco Petroleum Belt plans.

As mentioned earlier, the oil sector overall accounts for a very small fraction of total employment. Chevron's huge $3.8 billion investment in the Orinoco Petroleum Belt initially will have created 6,000 jobs – upon completion, the project will only need 700 permanent employees.

These are phenomena of the enclave-like character of oil-based development. But here is the rub: the overall agro-industrial structure is profoundly influenced and skewed by the oil sector. There is heightened unevenness as between the productivity and wage levels and technological dynamism of a modern oil sector and other segments of the economy; and, as will be discussed shortly, the oil industry has negative feedback effects on domestic agriculture and food production. At the same time, the build-up of the state-capitalist oil sector strengthens class interests and class forces that have a strong stake in maintaining the dominant macro-economic structure.

To develop an agricultural base that could meet the food needs of society, provide rural employment, and develop through mutually reinforcing links with an integrated and balanced industrial structure would require a) a very different allocation and prioritisation of resources serving the needs of the now exploited and oppressed, and b) a break with the economic logic, structure of options, and pressures of the local and world capitalist market system (what Marxists call the law of value).

Footnotes

1. Cited in Nicholas Kozloff, Hugo Chavez: Oil, Politics, and the Challenge to the US (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), p. 7. No original Spanish-language source available.

2. Greg Palast, "Hugo Chavez," Interview in Z, July 2006. www.zmag.org.

3. See Larry Everest, Oil, Empire, and Power: Iraq and the US Global Agenda (Monroe, Me.: Common Courage Press, 2004).

4. On the growth of Caracas, see Allen Gilbert, The Latin American City (London: Latin America Bureau, 1998), pp. 7-11.

5. See J.P. Leary, "Untying the Knot of Venezuela's Informal Economy," naclanews, December 6, 2006. http://news.nacla.org.

6. US Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration, Country Analysis Briefs, Venezuela, June 2004. www.eia.doe.gov.

7. On the 2006-2012 expansion plan and its costs and financing, see the statements and interviews by PDVSA officials at www.pdvsa.com.

8. These kinds of contradictions are pointed to in Fernando Coronil, "Magical Illusions or Revolutionary Magic? Chavez in Historical Context," NACLA Report on the Americas, Vol. XXXIII, No 6, 2000. See this article and also the highly important analysis of the historical development of the rentier oil economy and modern Venezuelan state and various incarnations of plans to "sow the petroleum" in Fernando Coronil, The Magical State: Nature, Money, and Modernity in Venezuela (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997).

9. See David Luhnow and Peter Millard, "As Global Demand Tightens, Oil Producer Has Agenda," The Wall Street Journal , August 1, 2006.

10. See Simon Romero and Clifford Krauss, "Deadline Nears in Chavez Fight Against Big Oil," The New York Times , April 10, 2007; Simon Romero, "Chavez Takes Over Foreign Controlled Oil Projects in Venezuela," The New York Times, May 2, 2007. In his July 2006 interview with Greg Palast (see zmag.org), Chavez says about the foreign oil companies, "[W]e don't want them to go, and I don't think they want to leave the country, either. We need each other."

11. Claude Larsimont, "Hugo Chavez, the Bolivarian Use of Petrodollars and the Oil Market," ESISC Background Analysis 10/05/2006.

12. See James Surowiecki, "The Financial Page: Synergy With The Devil," The New Yorker, January 8, 2007, p. 26.

13. On the environmental and human rights issues posed by Chavez's petroleum and natural gas regional initiatives, see David Hallowes and Victor Munnik Poisoned Spaces: Manufacturing Wealth, Producing Poverty, www.groundwork.org.za , October 2006; "Open Letter to President Hugo Chavez," Sociedad Homo et Natura, posted at www.nadir.org in April 2006.

14. Steven Mather, "Joint Ventures: Venezuela's Faustian Pact with Foreign Capital," Venezuelanalysis.com , September 30, 2006, www.venezuelanalysis.com .

15. Year-end data for 2006 from US Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration.

16. "Venezuela: Minerals," Encyclopedia Britannica Online, www.britannica.com. [back]

17. Bernardo Alvarez, "Venezuela's Global Agenda: Six More Years," April 5, 2007, Venezuelanalysis.com , www.venezuelanalysis.com .

18. Data from US Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration, Country Analysis Briefs, Venezuela, September 2006, www.eia.doe.gov]

19. The question of appropriate technology and whether raw materials investments spur linkages to other parts of the economy has been a long-standing topic of research and analysis on the part of radical, dependency, and Marxist theorists. The 2003 report by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, Foreign Investment in Latin America and the Caribbean, 2003 examines patterns of foreign investment in Latin America and questions supposed benefits and spillover effects resulting from natural resources investments.

20. On new oil seismic technology and highly sophisticated secondary and tertiary recovery methods, some of which are now being used in Venezuela, see Jad Mouawad, "Oil Innovations Pump New Life into Old Wells, The New York Times, March 5, 2007.

Fate of tribals unchanged since independence: Mahasweta Devi

2007-07-20T12:56:00.001+05:30

She has been a staunch leftist for 60 years, yet writer Mahasweta Devi minces no words when it comes to criticising the communist government of West Bengal, be it over land acquisition in Nandigram or trading of the dancing girls of Purulia.

'The fate of one-sixth of India is the same as it was at the time of independence. The state and central administrations have failed to deliver,' the Jnanpith award winner said talking about her life-long passion for tribal India.

She was in the capital to deliver the 2007 Durgabai Deshmukh Memorial Lecture on 'Fundamental Human Rights for the Nautch Girls of Purulia'.

'Tribal land is being appropriated without compensation. Nandigram and Singur are the worst examples of the state's apathy for the poor,' Mahasweta Devi, 82, told IANS in an interview. She was referring to land acquisition for industrialisation in these two pockets of West Bengal.

Mahasweta Devi, despite her advanced age, is busy either writing or travelling to far-flung places to intervene on behalf of tribals. She is self-effacing and shuns publicity. Thus it did not come as a surprise when she declined an honour at the recently held World Hindi Conference in New York saying there were more deserving Hindi authors.

The author of celebrated works like 'Hajar Churashir Maa' and 'Aranyer Adhikar' has taken up the cause of the Purulia dancing girls, saying trading them was an illogical outcome of the tradition of tribal folklore.

Comparing these girls to the Devdasis or temple dancers of South India, Mahasweta Devi said, 'In the heart of West Bengal, a Left Front-ruled state for 30 years, this cruel practice of purchasing a young girl, making her sing and dance to please her male clientele, taking all her money and treating her like a pariah goes on and on.'

She said their buyers make them dance at public functions to augment their income but do not provide basic amenities to their children born out of wedlock, ostracise them and dump their bodies as garbage, 'depriving them even a dignified funeral'.

She wants the state government to grant these women the right to property, health, education, equality and dignity in life and death.

She said she is not a feminist but strongly believes that half of humanity - namely, women - is suffering because of their physicality. 'Unless we give dignity to that, nothing will change,' she said.

Mahasweta Devi, who has organised tribals in Bengal and Bihar, wants the rest of the country to follow suit. She is a popular columnist in Bengali daily newspapers, often forcing the establishment to take note and act.

'The state government has deliberately failed to do even the minimum for the people of the state. No roads, no electricity, no doctors. Universal primary education is a part of the package of failures,' she said.

Recently Kolkata Police notified her as a Maoist but had to withdraw after strong protests from artists and writers all over the country.

She wishes to see a hospital built in the Palamu district of Jharkhand, which she believes is the most backward district of the country. She has concentrated on this area and much of her creative writing is also based on its people.

India News

Legacy of the Maoist Communist Centre- Commemorating 25th death Anniversary

2007-07-18T08:19:00.001+05:30

By Harsh Thakor

On July 18th 1982, 25 years ago ,Comrade Kanhai Chaterjee left for his heavenly abode. He made a historic contribution to The Indian Communist Movement as with Amulya Sen,he was the founder of he Maoist Communist Centre which was formed I Octobr 20th 1969.This organization is one of the constituents of he historically formed C.P.I(Maoist) in 2004.Kanhai Chaterjee literally lived and breathe revolution.Few Orgaisnationjs I hehistory of he Comunst Movement have launches such daring actions on the enemies.It si a tribute to he outstanding tenacity o their comrades that they survived for 35 years,traversing every thorn in the bush.

It was his innovative thinking that made him critical of Charu Mazumdar's C.P.I(M.L.)and it's tactical line of individual annihilation. Comrade K.C.chalked out a path for the M.C.C whereby they formulated a strategy of heir own. The methods of work they adopted resembled Comrade Mao Tse Tung's Red Army in the revolutionary war. Few revolutionary books or observers cannot remember their striking similarity with the Chinese Peoples Liberation Corpses, particularly he way they fled to the mountains. It was Comrade Kanhai Chaterjee who believe staunchly that the time was not appropriate for the forming of the party.He felt their had to be greater development in the revolutionary movement to form a party. In his view first an agrarian revolutionary movement had to be launched. Today it is significant that both the Charu Mazumar C.P.I(M.L) and the Maoist Communist Centre are recognized as the founding parties and not just Charu Mazumdar's
party.(The Peoples War and Party Unity Groups staunchly defended the Charu Mazumdar Party as the re-organised party.)

History of the Formation of the Party.(Compiled from PeoplesMarch-Nov 2004 issue)
The Maoist Communist Centre was originally called the 'Dakshin Desh 'group
It was originally apart of he A.I.C.CR but eventually pulled out.

Comrades Kanai Chatterjee and Amulya Sen, while working amongst the masses in Kolkata, Howrah and Hoogli and comrade Chandrashekar Das raised the banner of revolt against the line of the CPM 7th Congress. The "Chinta" group was formed in 1965 as a secret revolutionary centre within the CPM carrying out revolutionary propaganda amongst its rank-an-file. In 1965/66 six issues of the magazine were brought out whichdealt with the following topics: (a) the class character of the Indian state, (b) China's path is our path, (c) neo-colonialism and the weapon of PL 480's role, (d) the Programme of the 7th Congress, the nature of the revisionist leadership and the peasant question in India, etc. The CPM's English and Bengali organs launched a massive attacks on the articles that appeared in the "Chinta". This resulted in big discussions throughout the rank-and-file. In late 1966 the secret magazine, "Chinta", was closed down and a magazine named "Dakshin Desh" was brought out openly. The group came to be known as the "Dakshin Desh" group. In early 1967, before the Naxalbari uprising com. Kanai Chatterjee had a long discussion with Com. CM. At this meeting they had a common understanding on advancing the peasant movement and decided to maintain close relations.

But the relations did not grow. From 1967 to 1969 the then "Dakshin Desh" group built up the movement in Kolkata, Howrah, Hoogli, Midnapur, Bardhwan,Birbum and 24 Parganas, together with some work in Assam and Tripura. They built the peasant movement firstly in Sonarpur during the later part of the 60s and then in Kanksa in Bardhwan district. Thereafter they established some contacts with Bihar, it began work there. In October 1969 the MCC was formed. It was Com. Kanai Chatterjee who laid the basic line for their
Centre in the very first issue of "Lal Pataka" brought out in 1969. The important topics dealt with were: (a) the importance of Maoism (then called 'thought') in the present era, (b) in the present situation the tactical line and tactical slogans, (c) the correct policy towards the participation in elections and a correct analysis of the boycott of elections, saying that
though it was a question of tactics, it acquires the significance of strategy in the concrete conditions of India, (d) the Correct line regarding the armed agrarian revolutionary war, that is, protracted people's war including army building and base areas (e) correct orientation towards forms of struggle (open and secret, legal and illegal, peaceful and armed), (f)
the programme, tactics and methods of the peasant struggle, (g) approach and method towards the UF, (h) political propaganda (i) on the women's question, the student movement and the nationality question in India, and (j) methods of leadership..(excerpted from Peoples March Nov-Dec 2004 issue) The founding documents of the M.C.C. stressed te importance of base areas in he revolutionary process."If we are to build armed agarian revolution,a peoples army and red base areas ,we will always have to remain firm on some basic principles regarding their inter-relation.The building up and consolidation of the armed agrarian revolution,peoples army and base areas -thes tasks are related to each other. "If we are to build up an agrarian revolution no peoples army can be built up.Similarly an agrarian revolution cannot  be built up without a Peoples Army..Again without a peoples army no base area can be built up. Similarly without base areas the very existence of peoples army cannot be maintained. It is only through agrarian revolutionary
guerilla struggle and the establishment of the peoples army that a red base area can be built up Again throug this work alone can the revolutionary high tide can be accelerated throughout the country,and depending on the base areand with the help of he Peoples Army,the agrarian revolution alo can be consolidated,deepened an expanded."This statement was he chief demarcating factor of the M.C.C withthe C.P.I.(M.L).

Some references from July-Oct 1997 issue of Vanguard regarding polemical differences of M.C C with Peoples War Group.

Quoting Kanhai Chaterjee "It is wrong to say that Dakshin Desh Group left the A.I C.C.R because of it's difference es on the issue of immediate formatin of he [party.A.I.C.C.R.did not recognize any group with aseparate identity like he 'Dakshin Desh Groups as it's constituents.No representative of this group was amember o he Est Bengal Co-ordination Committee. Or of he A.I.C.C.R."

The M.C.C made the following criticism of the C.P.I(M.L) 'Naturally as the party was formed without following the revolutionary process, method and style, some known degenerated elements could capture some posts in the leadership from he beginnings. This facilitates undeclared groups and a tendency of group mentality and bureacratism replacing democratic Centralism.'

Kanhai Chaterjee stated "We have to give utmost importance on organ sing extensive political campaign and political exposure campaign on a large scale. Only this will take us towards he path of Peoples War and inspire the masses to politics of Socialism,peoples Democracy  and armed peoples dictatorship under the leadership of the working class.In view of he present semi-colonial and semi-feudal society of India the exposure of the economy an politics at present and the propogation of the politics of agrarian evolution or peoples democratic revolution will take the centre sage in the whole programme.

Phases of struggle of M.C.C

The first phase can be stretched from 1964 to 1968 and began when the revisionist line was established at the first Congress of the CPI (M). i) drawing a clear line of demarcation with the revisionists in the political and organizational fields, (ii) linking the daily revolutionary practice of Indian revolution to the theory (iii) developing a political and
tactical line not merely as a formality, but giving it a concrete structure in various spheres of activity and (iv) based on these revolutionary policies, style and method, and in the course of revolutionary struggles and guided by a revolutionary theory, to build a revolutionary party. The second phase, which stretched from 1969 to 1978, was a period of implementation of the party's line, policies and plans. It was a period of gaining practical
experience towards the path of establishing the 'Red Agrarian Revolutionary Resistance War.' Work was begun on this basis in the Sundarbans, 24 Parganas, Hoogli, Midnapur, Kanksa, Gaya and Hazaribagh. Of these experiences the most encouraging was that of Kanksa and Hazaribagh. Here, a wide movement was built on issues like wage hike, seizure of crops, fertiliser problem, confiscation of grains from landlords and against
various forms of political and social oppression. Also, a wide mass movement was built, some notorious landlords punished and steps were taken towards disarming of the enemy and arming the people.

             However although claiming to defer from  Charu Mazumdar's line in their actual working process ,their practice was virtually The same. The Maoist Communist Centre also deployed the tactic of "Individual annihilation of the Class Enemy.'It was Comrade Kanhai Chaterjee who made a rectification of the line where the formation of mass organizations and bulding of mass movements was indispensable.The M.C.C did not build  separate peasant organization but had a strategy to build he KrantiKari Kisan Comitees.These Committees tried the landlords and re-distributed land to the landless
peasants. Punishments weRe awarded to guilty Landlords.Mass Fronts were also bilt in he student,youth women and Cultural Front.The Nari Mukti Sanggh,a mass organization of women led a significant movement. It was in 1978 when the MC.C made a self-correction and decided to form mass organizations like the Revolutionary Peasants Committee. The mistakes of the past were analysed. The third phase, which stretched from 1979 to 1988, was a period of taking the lessons, both positive and negative, of the second phase and enriching both the theory and practice. In this phase the MCC focused on Bihar; and with the perspective of building a people's army and base area, the Bihar-Bengal Special Area Committee was established, the 'Preparatory Committee for Revolutionary Peasant Struggles' was formed and soon Revolutionary Peasant Councils emerged. In this phase militant struggles developed and the landlords' authority smashed, thousands of acres of land seized and distributed to the landless, and property of the
landlords seized and distributed..

Relation with C.P.I(M.L)Peoples War .(Compiled from Peoples March) It has been a long and tortuous path of over two decades of discussions between the two parties. The process witnessed many ups and downs. It saw even some dark periods. But finally it emerged triumphant. The first ever meeting between the latter two parties began in 1981, when the then leaders, comrade Kanai Chatterjee of the then MCC and com KS of the
then CPI(ML)(PW) met for over 12 days. After this very first meet both leaders, though belonging to different streams, stated that the grounds to merge are strong as both were basically traversing a similar path. Both parties set out the procedure for preparation of the documents and then merger. Meanwhile, the erstwhile CPI(ML)[Party Unity] also had good
relations with the then MCC, both having regular touch. This too continued until the early 1990s, after which relations soured and clashes began. Though the desire for unity of the PW and the MCC was strong it did not progress much, because of various reasons. In 1982 com. KC died out of illness caused from the rigours of underground life and com. KS was arrested. After that the PW was rocked by two major internal crises in the CC, on both occasions involving the general secretaries of the party. Though attempts to further the unity process continued, particularly in the brief period between the two crises (1988-90), it was only after its resolution that talks were again taken up in seriousness from 1992. This continued for three years, after which it finally broke down due to some differences on international issues. Both parties issued a joint statement for the failure
of the talks, outlining the differences and its suspension for the time being but vowing to take it up again later. Then relations to some extent also soured between the MCC and the PW, particularly after the merger of PW and PU.

Then in 1998 the two major parties within the M-L trend, the PW and the PU, merged to form a single party of this trend. But already the situation at the ground level in Bihar had deteriorated and after 1998 the clashes between PW and the MCC continued and intensified. Then the two parties entered the period now referred to as the "Black Chapter" of the Indian revolution. Large numbers were killed from both sides. This situation caused much damage to the revolutionary movement. This process continued even when various genuine supporters of the movement opposed the retaliatory methods adopted by both parties. Many intellectuals and progressive elements who support revolution appealed to both the parties to stop these clashes. Different communist revolutionary groups and parties in the country appealed to resolve the clashes. Many South Asian Maoist parties, and other international Maoist forces also appealed to stop the clashes. In due course the process of rethinking was already going on inside the MCC. At the time of the PW/PU unity itself the PW took a decision to unilaterally stop clashes, but neither did it make it public nor convey it to the MCC, so it had little impact. In this overall backdrop the MCC took the initiative in openly declaring a unilateral ceasefire in January, 2000. Thereafter, PW also responded to stop the clashes. Hence the negative relation between the two parties started turning into a positive one. In the meantime the PW held its 9th Congress in August, 2001. Also the MCCI had to face a major two line struggle with a small faction from within on certain ideological-political and other issues.

Finally, the process of talks between the two parties was once again started in August 2001. The other important reason for the growing closeness of the two were the decisions of the PW Congress which rectified some of its earlier understandings and also adopted Maoism in place of Mao Thought. In the very first meeting the delegations of the two parties offered a serious self-criticism, and decisions were taken to initiate joint activities at the Bihar/Jharkhand level. The written self-criticisms were taken publicly throughout the rank-and-file of the Bihar/Jharkhand party and the situation further developed in the positive direction. Throughout the period of the latter part of 2001 and entire 2002 major joint activities were taken in Bihar-Jharkhand including the successful three-day economic blockade of the two states in protest against POTA. Talks also continued between these two parties through this period. Finally, it was in the important Feb. 2003 bilateral meeting that a decision was taken to take concrete steps for starting discussion on ideological- political issues of line with the clear direction and purpose of merger of the two parties. In
this meeting a serious and extensive self-criticism was put forward by both parties for the "Black Chapter" and this too was carried publicly. Both parties vowed never to repeat clashes with class friends no matter how severe the difference. At this meeting the grounds were also laid to advance and finalise the process of merger They were, firstly, on the ideology of the Party — Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. The other documents decided to be drafted were on the Programme, Strategy & Tactics, Political Resolution on the International and Domestic Situation, and the Party Constitution. The task of drafting the five documents was divided amongst the two parties. Then, in four rounds of negotiations, between the high-level delegations of the two Parties and the respective CCs, final agreement was reached after detailed discussions on these documents on all major issues at a joint meeting of the two CCs on Sept.2004. The documents were adopted and decided to be translated into about 10 regional languages to be discussed throughout
the party. Some minor differences that remained were referred for further discussion and study to be clinched at a later date. Finally the joint CC meeting of both parties took the decision of merger and a Central Committee (Provisional) was established.

Work on Mass Fronts

In the open mass work the Maoist Communist Centre formed the first revolutionary Student Organisation in Bihar ,the Revolutionary Students League and a strong Cultural organizations,the Krantikari Budhijibi Sangh and the Krantikari Sanskritik Sangh. .It also set up various units of the Krantikari Kisan Commitees,which carried out Peoples Courts against class enemies and distributed land to the tiller. They also consolidated it's
peasant movement . Another Significant contribution og the M.C C was the work of their women's front organization,the 'Nari Mukti Sangh"They played a major role leading tribal revolts of women.in Bihar However by the late 1990's its student and youth front was totally destroyed by enemy forces.The party recruited 500 wholetimers and more than 10000 members.The Emergence of revolutionary student organisations was of great significance in Bihar. The Revolutionary Students League led by the Maoist Communist Centre was the first ever Revolutionary Student organisation which carried out the first ever Go to Villages campaign in Bihar by a student front in 1989.In that campaign they upheld the Chinese Revolution in commemorating the 40th anniversary year. A Village campaign was also held in1993 protesting against the Death Sentence on M.C.comrades in the Dalechauk Baghera Uprising in Aurangabad and against the demolition of the Babri Masjid in December 1992,where a cycle rally was also held.Memorable Comrades of the Maoist Communist Centre.

.In 1978 Comrdae Jeeblal and several cadres were responsible or he rectification line in the M.C.C.Comrade Jeblal Mahto was martyred .Comrade Mahato was a peasnt activist who was killed I apolice encounter. Comrade Kamdeo,was the son of a middle peasant. Who left college to work as arailway labourr.On August 7th 1984 he was engulfed by the police while satging ameeeting of the Krantikari Kisan Commitewe.He was shot in cold
blood with his hands tied behind his back.His last wordswere 'Long ive the Revolution.'
Cpmrade Rameshwar Yadav was the son of a middle peasant. In 1976 he joined the M.C.C an became an important peasant leader .He led armed actions with immaculate skill. Ironically he was killed on Republic day while conducting a meeting in Lenjoa village in Hazirabagh district.

KrantiKari Kisan Committee.Notse compiled From Aloke Banerjee's article fromWorld to win and A.I R.S F.publication(Naxalabari.-Not just the name of a village"-commemorating 30 years) Struggles were adopted through a huge network of villages. In the initial stages a Krantikari Kisan Sanharsh Committee was formd.(Preparatoty Committee for Revolutinary Peasnt Styruggles)When the peasants were organized in large numbers under this banner,these committees wee developed into full fledged Krantikari Kisan Commitees'.(Revolutionay Peasnt Councils) The 2 slogans raised were "All land to the Real Tillers' and ALL Power to the Peasant Commitees".The rape and molestation of wome was taken up in al earnest .Notorious dacoits were punished. The forcible harvesting of crops planted by landlords on gair-Mazruia land was also challenged and they were

seized by he Revolutionary Comitees. All types of disputes wre challenged at the village level Armed Red Defence Corpses were active in supporting the strugglesSelf 0defece squads were formed of the village youth. The main areas struggle were Hazaribagh, Gaya and Aurangabad.

One famous action was carried out on landlord Rameshwar Singh.For years the peasants were trampled by the landlords iron feet. On January 6th 1983 the Kisan Committee gathered at is 'Kacheri'. He was arrested and tried. They not only killed him but burnt his house. This was the firs time that he people seriously saw the need of combining mass struggles with armed movements.

From Gaya to Dhanbad,the struggle spread to Bokaro,Aurangabad,Hazaribagh and Giridih.Later in land seizure movements starting in fulls wing from 1986 to 1990,7000 acres of land were re-distributed.They also raised spectacular squad actios.In August 2001 an armeds quad under the leadership of the Maoist Communist Centre stopped a truckload og grain and distributed half thes acks of pulses to the masses,before they wee forced to retreat by the arrival of police enforcements.The next ,night they repeated the experience
halting,8000 strong,5 trucks on the Grand Trunk Road.Slogans were shouted calling for confiscating the moneylenders good sto distributr amogst the poor,to establish the authority of the revolutionary peasnt committees and protect the people from starvation. Before the goods were distributed,thirty jeeploads of police arrived at the scene.For hours there was afierce combat as the revolutionaries had laid mines.M.CC combatants herouically resisted the might of the police forces.(From Aloke Banerjee's Article-'Inside M.C.C Country')

A special  court in Gaya had meted out a life imprisonment to a number of members of the Krantikari Kisan Committee which had led an uprising in the 1990's that had seen the militant involvement of thousands of poor anmd middle peasants.The M.C.Ccalled for a 72 hour bandh in Bihar and Jharkahnd in protest.Rialwyy tracks were blocked,Schools and colleges boycotted,courts boycotted,shops and markets closed Etc. Revolutionary raids in retaliation were organized by the M.C.C  during the 3 day bandh. IN Lohardaga,Gumla
etc.(Aloke Banerjee-'Inside M.C.C country.

This trend spread all over and hundreds of landlords were brought to he book. Guilty landlords we shaved and paraded in public. The most notorious we sentenced to death. Some even repented and were forgiven. hey would now operate under he watchful administration of he Committee. All the 'Kacheri's' were razed to the ground. Famous examples were Moha Khan of Kadirganj I Gaya,Madhumati ingh of Balia,Surakasha Singh ofPachmi,,Main Singh the owner of 2900 acres in Pipra and the Mahant of Bodhgaya.The famous words 'Utha Hai ToofanZamana Badal Raha' were now echoing all over.(A storm
has  risen ,the times are changing).The M.C.C also called ahistoric 72 hour bandh I Bihar and Jharkhand against he death sentence ofn membersof the Krantikari Kisan Committee who had led ahistoric uprising.Schools,colleges,courts,offices,shops and markets remained closed.All movement of vehicles virtually ceased.Railway services came to a
standstill.Thousands of people lay on the railway tracks.Business came to a standstill. Revolutionary raids were organized in Lohardaga ,Gumla and elsewhere.

Memorable Actions(Compiled fro 'A World to Win Article by Aloke Banerjee and from A.I.R.S.F.booklet-'Naxalbari is not just the name of a Village' The M.C C.launched a series of military type attacks on the police and military forces..On December 2002 , The M.C C was able to disarm 66 jawans in a raid when they captured 50 weapons after attacking a police contingent in Jharkhand. In his appraisal of the Movement of M.C.C  Prakash
Singh(Former Inspector General of Police in his book The Naxalite Movement in India) States:The M.C.C has been running a parallel judicial system in certain pockets.These are described as Jan Adalat or Peoples Courts.Farzand Ahmed of India Today writes this example,"Silence descends as Laxman, the area commander of M.C.C , a sinister figure with his face covered appears.The 2 acused, with their hands tied behind their backs are brought in.Laxman launches into his ideological monologue 'In today's system, the toiling masses working hard but get nothing to eat. On the other hand, these bastard thieves  lift goats and diesel. He then asks the villagers to select 5 judges. The 5 judge bench hears he charges and announces its verdict -5 lathi blows and 5 slaps by each children publicly.The verdict ,confirmed by the people by avoice vote is quickly executed, accompanied by the requisite

slogan'Naxalbari Ek Hi Rasta.'

One of he most famous actions carried out by the M.C.C was in Dalechauk Baghera in Aurangabad on May 29th 1987.The Yadav activists of the Maoist Communist Centre slaughtered 42 Rajputs in retaliation for murders. Aurangabad is a feudal centre.I Seshani Village the landlords launched an atack on Seshani vilage on April 19th 1987.This was in retaliation to the policies of the Krantikari Kisan Commitees who banned the selling of 150
acres of land owned by the Mahanta of Jnibigha village. This land was brought by Lootan Sinh. The Kisan Commitee destroyed the office of Babu Lotan and his tractors wee burnt. A red flag was hoisted over his land. The landlords were also enraged by an earlier clash with the M.C.C and the fact that hundreds of Mahua trees were owned by the Kisan SAmiti.In a attack he landlords launched an attack on M.C.C activists in Seshani, killing 8
activists and 2 children.

Following this the Red Defence Corpes launched an attack on Dalechauk Baghera. That area historically had the most notorious landlords like Satyendra Narayan Singh,Ram Narseh Singh and Lootan Babu.Triveni Singh,SAmresh Singh and Abhan Singh wee other tyrants. It was the Krantikari Kisan Commitees that challenged their might. Another similar incident took place i Bara village in Gaya district o February 12th 1992,when 37 upper caste members of the Bhumihar caste wee hacked to death.

According to Prakash Singh(Former Inspector General of Police0 in his book'The Naxalite Movement in India':The party has built an armed wing known as the Lal Raksha Dal and manged to stockpile about 7 to eight hundred firearms of different descriptions,including a couple of A-K 47 Rifles. ..

Jharkhand.

Here the M.C.C led a famous movement. They negotiated with leaders of the Jharkahand Mukti Morcha LIKE Sibu Soren and Vinod Mahato that a separate state was no solution for the tribals  and  what was fundamentally required was uprooting the social system.nI Jharkhand the .M.C.C waged many a famous struggle ,seizing and re-distributing landlord's land. They defended the formation of separate state of Jharkand but only when it was connected to the overall class struggle.Sibu Soren was unsympathetic but Vinod Mahato was impressed with the M.C.C. Between 1987 an 1990,over 7000 acres  of land in
Chatanpur were re-distributed  among the villagers.Forset offices were attacked .In 1991 the landlords formed the Sunlight Sena in retaliation .The M.C C retaliated. Their armed squads liquidated the entire Sena in the region.

Assesment  of  the  Maoist Communist Centre.

Strengths

The fact that for 35 years it survived he onslaught of the Indian State with phenomenal tenacity inWest Bengal,Bihar Etc leading an arm3ed struggle in Bihar is one of the greatest achievements in he annals of the orld Communist Movement.The military action sit conducted are comparable to the intensity in Peoples Wars in Nepal ,Peru and Phillipines and the style of functioning to some extent resmbled the Chinse Comunist Party in heir revolutionary Armed Struggle.It's mass fronts joined the All India League for
Revolutionary Culture and the All India Revolutionary Students Federation.It's final merger into the C.P.I(Maoist) is a historical achievement.

It must be noted that the heroic actions carried out in Bihar and Jharkhand today is virtually the line of the Maoist Communist Centre until the 2004 merger into the C.P.I.(Maoist). The erstwhile Party Unity or Peoples War Group never carried out as intense military actions.Eg Historic Jehanabad Jail break.and the Giridh Armoury raid (commemorating the 75th annioversary of the Chittagong Armouy raid It is the M.C.C which has made he biggest contribution to the bulding of the Peoples Liberation Guerilla Army in Bihar and Jharkkhand.

To me one of the most significant historical contribution sof M.C C was their challenging the authenciy of the C.P.I(M.L) formed by Charu Mazumdar.THe fact that the recently constituted C.P.I(Maoist) considers both the Charu Mazumdar Party and the M.C C as the percusors of the re-organised party proves the historical contribution of the M.C.C.In the authors view the revolutionary party has not been re-organised,nor has it developed a
mass military line. It is fascinating that even 10 years ago the C.P.I(M.L) Peoles War wrote a polemical critique on MC'C' refusal to recognize the Charu Mazumdar C.P.I(M.L) as the re-organised party.The peoples War Group thought that it was a left sectarian stand of the M.C.C , unable to understand how sectarian the Charu Mazumdar C.P.I(M.L) was with regard to comrades and organizations outside the A.I C.C R. Weaknesess

The most important question of historic assessment was their original difference with the original C.P.I(M.L) and later why it developed serious differences with the Peoples War Group or Party Unity Group to the extent that even inter-group clashes occurred on a wide scale.This reflected he defective military line of both the erstwhile Peoples War Group and the M.C.C. True they resolved it ultimately but did they analyse the root cause
of the clashes and rectify those aspects of the line that caused them?

Although M.C.C led a historic armed struggle it's movement was vitiated with serious defects. The organization was unable to develop a correct mass military line .Several actions were performed which did not take into account the state and development of the agrarian revolutionary movement in their respective areas. Such actions instead of basing themselves on people's mass movements, substituted them. A correct strategy has not been adopted to develop base areas f rom guerilla Zones. It has not successful defended or consolidated base areas as he Chinse Communist Party did. In this light it is very important to study the method the Chinese Communist Party adopted while carrying out their armed revolutionary struggle. This year is 80 years since the famous Chinkanshang uprising in China. (In 1927 Mao's Red Army retreated to the mountains. That was the year the seeds of armed struggle was launched with he Autumn Harvest or Nanchang Uprising on August 1st 1927..It is also the 80 th anniversary year of the formation of the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army) It would also be significant to compare how the Maoist Communist Center consolidated their base areas in comparison with he Chinese Communist Party in their base areas i the 1930's.The Chinese Red Army. always stressed on the relation of the armed movement with the Agrarian revolution. Even during armed struggle or conducting armed actions they consolidated agrarian revolution and re-distributed land. In this light it is also important to compare the period in China of consolidation and preparation of the peasant mass movement before armed struggle was launched .I uphold their merger with Peoples War Group and heir self -condemnation as
remarkable but I don't hink they have made aself-critical analysis of the agrarian revolutionary or military line.The M.C.C often adopted the line of the 'Individual annihilation of he class enemy', in contrast to the mass line. Significantly it was known as he 'Jungle' party as it hardly resorted to open activity.

Athough mass organizations were formed they were utilized as mere front organizations of the M.C.C and not given a distinct open identity .Legal and open mass struggles were neglected to a considerable extent. The relation between armed struggle and open mass activity was hardly developed . Open mass struggles were reqired during repression of democratic rights,communal riots ETC.During the 1993 Babri Masjid riots,there were hardly any open mass movements organized in opposition (although mass fronts launched some protests)A separate revolutionary peasant organization was not formed. There was also confusion between caste and clas Struggle.Acts were launched against oppression of down trodden cates without taking into account class analysis.(1987 Dalechauk-Baghera massacre of RAjputs being he best example)Work on the trade Union sphere was neglected and hardly any emphasis was placed on building revolutionary struggle with the urban areas.(WEst Begal is he best example)

One theoretical weakness of the Maoist Communist Centre was it's replacing the term 'Mao Zedong Thought',with 'Maoism.'Even the C.C.P did not replace Mao Tse Tung Thought with Maoism in the Socialist and Cultural Revolution Period.This denies the fact that it is the 'era of imperialism' as profounded by Comrade Lenin. It also joined the Revolutionary Internationalist movement ,a Communist International Organization,which
was prematurely formed, without adequate development of the World Communist Movement.

Let us end the article dipping our blood to all the martyrs of the Maoist Communist Cente and bow down to he immortal contributions of Comrade Kanhai Chaterjee. Red Salutes to Comrade Kanhai Chaterjee on his 25th death anniversary day.(Founder of Maoist Communist Centre)and all the Martyrs of the Maoist Communist Centre.

Pay Homage first to Founding members Kanhai Chaterje,Amulya Sen,Chandrashekar Das.
Pay Homage to mass activists ,leaders like Revolutionary Student League leader Com Arjun,(Martyred in 1995.He joined R.S L in 1987 playing a major role in the student movement by initialisng 'Go To Village Campaigns'.Murdered on 10th July 1995 by Sukar Paswan and his criminal goons in Bageshwari,Gaya after being kidnapped)Comrade Manoj ( C.Y.L.activist and later armed squad member.Killed in encounter on July 1998). C.YL.activist Baijnath Singh,Krantikari KIsan Committee activists Jeeblal Mahato, (1978) Rameshwar Yadav,KamdeoEtc. ,(August 7th,1984) By Harsh Thakor With reference to
'Naxalbari is not just the name of a village'-commemorating 30 years of Naxalbari
'Peoples March' 'A World to Win -Article by Aloke Banerjee. 'Naxalite Movement in India'by Prakash Singh. This year is the 20th anniversary year of the Famous Dalechauk Baghera
Uprising on May 29th 1987. It is also the 10th death anniversary year of Comrade Baijnath,who fought valiantly in the Revolutionary Student League and the C.Y.L but sadly commited suicide due to socio-economic misfortune.He was born in 1967,so it
is also his 40th birth anniversary year.

Important notes with regArd to ChinEse Recvolution in light of studying both the postive and negative aspects of the line of M.C.C We must remember the method of functioning of the Chinese Red Army in the period of pre- armed struggle and armed struggle phase. It is relevant to compare the armed struggle of the C.P.I. (Maoist) with the armed struggle of
the Chinese Red Army. And asses the similarities and differences. With Here are some compiled notes from 'Red Star over China' and "Edgar Snow's China."Significantly it is he 80th anniversary year of the period when armed Struggle was launched in China.

"By spring peasant struggles began to erupt in Hupeh, KInagsi, Fukien and Hunan, with a militant tendency. In 1927 the Autumn Harvest uprising was organized which propagated a programme.Before 1927 Mao had written a thesis on the peasant movement through his 'Report and Investigation of the Peasant movement in Hunan'14 great deeds were mentioned .The greatest one was that the poor peasants were organized against the enemies. In addition to that political prestige of landlords was smashed, landlords compelled to audit accounts, grain hoarding opposed, police chiefs offices taken over and magistrates elected, most brutal oppressors paraded through the streets, usury stopped, landlords militia conquered banditry eliminated, oppressive landlords fined, male tyranny over woman fought against, mass education amongst illiterates promoted, superstitious customs fought against, marketing and credit co-operatives organized, and roads and irrigation projects built financed by landlords.

Attempts at armed risings in Canton and Nanchang were ruthlessly suppressed.
Collecting fragments of the peasant associations Mao launched the first rural armed insurrection, called the Autumn Harvest Uprising. Implementing complete separation from the Kuomintang, organisation of a peasant worker revolutionary army, confiscation of the property of small and middle, as well as great landlords, setting up the power of the Communist Party of Hunan and organization of the Soviets By September a widespread uprising was organized, through the peasant uprisings of Hunan, and the first units of
the worker-peasant army were formed. Recruits were drawn from the peasantry, the Hanyang miners and the insurrectionist troops of the Kuomintang. This was called the 'First division of the Workers and peasants army.' It is significant that the miners were included as it illustrates the importance of the work I the Working class area. By 1922 the Hunan party had already organized more than twenty trade Unions among miners, railway workers, municipal employees, renters and workers in the govt.mint. Numerous
struggles were organized with youth and students." "'In the 6th Congress of the Party resolutions wee made approving of the emphasis on the agrarian movement. Work as expanded to new Soviet district A democratic programme was propagated in the Soviet of Chingkanshan in November 1927.Mao's first army front committee refused to adopt the
putschist tactics of raiding, burning and killing the landlords. In May 1928 Chu The's forces combined with Mao's and a plan was drawn to build a six hsien soviet area to consolidate the Communist power in the Hunan,Kiangsi,Kwantung border districts.2 tendencies were combated.0ne to advance to the capital of Changshah,the other to retreat to the South of the Wanton border. It was advocated that land had to be divided, masses armed Etc.Kuomintang officials wee killed and Soviet governments established areas
which included a population of fifty-70 millions of peasants were bolshevized. A mass effort to establish political, economic and social reforms was launched.Landlords, usurers and local militarists were liquidated Debts were canceled, deeds torn up, and land distributed amongst peasants and soldiers.

Fascinatingly, originally the Red Army was armed with traditional arms like pitchforks and spears. (Similar to Naxalbari Movement in India)."

"The 4th army went on to carry successful campaigns after the 4th Red army was formed in Chingkanshan.A soviet was established in Tongue where unity was built with local red troops. The existence of militant mass movements prior to the arrival of the Red Army assured their successs, and helped to consolidate Soviet power. The influence of the Red Army now extended, through the agrarian mass movements and partisans. A conference was held in Lucien in December 1929, which developed the plans for the future of the Red
Army. It paved the way for the creation of soviet in Kiangsi.Question of land policy was argued at length, an s well as the struggle against opportunism. The Kiangsi provisional Soviet govt was formed which was enthusiastically received by the peasants."

In the later period it is worth recounting how the Chinese Red Army was victorious in the 5th campaign against Chiang Kai Shek.The Red Army retreated from Kiangsi so swiftly and secretly that the main forces of red troops, estimated at about 90,000 men, had already been marching for several days before the enemy headquarters was aware of what was happening. Partisans replaced the regular troops in Southern Kiangsi when practically the whole red army was constituted near Yutu, in Southern Kiangsi the order
was given for the Great Long March. Besides the army, thousands of red peasants, children, and women including non –communist elements joined the march....'

"By 1935 It is worth recounting the achievements of the Red Army formed 'Soviet Society'. Land was confiscated from the officials big landlords, tax collectors Etc and the immediate demands of the poor peasantry was satisfied. he Reds not only created the economic base for support amongst the poor and landless peasantry by giving them farms but in some cases won the gratitude of the middle peasants, by abolishing tax exploitation. I n
some cases small landlords was won over to their side in the anti-Japanese movement. Both the landlord and rich peasant was allowed as much land as they could as long as they cultivated it with their own labour.In districts where there was no land scarcity, the lands of resident landlords and rich peasants was not confiscated, but the wasteland and land of absentee owners was distributed Poor farmers were given loans at very low rates of interest, Usury was abolished and several thousand agricultural implements made in the
Red Arsenals. Thousands of pounds of grain were supplied to landless peasants breaking wasteland. A primitive agricultural school was built, too. Co-operative farming was introduced Corruption was stopped, opium was eliminated that had been so predominant earlier, beggary and unemployment eliminated, foot binding abolished, child slavery abolished, prostitution banned, introduced divorce laws I, education made free and universal Etc."

"The fact that the Reds had their base in the mass of the population was reflected in the fact that in all the older Soviet Districts the policing and guarding was done by the peasant organizations alone. There were few red Army garrisons in the Soviet Districts all the fighting strength of the army being kept I the Front. Local defense was carried out by the village defense corps, peasant guards and partisans The Intensive organization of the
peasantry created a rear guard and base which freed the Red Army to operate with extreme mobility for which it was noted... Wherever the Reds went they radically changed the situation of the tenant farmer, the poor farmer he middle farmer and all the have not elements .All forms of taxation were abolished in the new districts only a progressive single tax on land was collected .The Reds gave land to the land hungry peasants and also seized the land and livestock from the wealthy classes and re-distributed it to the
poor."

"A structure was established within the Soviets. Each village elected its delegates to the higher Soviets clear up to the delegates elected for the Soviet Congress. Various committees were established under each of the district Soviets. An all powerful Committee, usually elected in a mass meeting shortly after the occupation of a district by the Red Army, and preceded by an intensified propaganda campaign, was the revolutionary Committee. It called for elections and re-elections, and closely cooperated
with the Communist Party.Commitees were formed in every branch organ of the Soviets, right up to the Central Government. The Communist Party had an extensive membership amongst farmers and workers and not only in the government. There was also an organization of Young Communist-The young vanguards and the Children's brigades. Mass Organizations like Communist Youth Leagues, Etc were organized. Peasant guards were also incorporated into such an organized structure. The mass base of the soviet Movement was built upon the organization of workers and peasants Unions, with the
principal role in the hands of the peasantry.'

"The Chinese Communists never regarded land distribution as anything more than a phase in building a mass base. They ultimately aimed to establish a Socialist State In Fundamental Laws of the Chinese Soviet Republic; The first All-China-Soviet Congress in 1931 had written an established programme showing this. However the social, political and economic organization of the Red districts had always been a provisional affair and still the main task was to build a military and political base for the extension of revolution
on a wider and deeper scale, rather than try out Communism in China." Collective production brigades were established Activities were carried out beyond production and distribution. Great areas could be quickly planted and harvested collectively. In 'Saturday Brigades' not only children's organizations but every Soviet official, Red Partisan, Red Guard, omens organization members, and any Red Army detachment participated. An economic, cultural and political Unity was incorporated through this process

The mass line of the Red army is depicted by a red Devil. (members of the children's or youth corpse) 'Are there any landlords left here?
The Young comrade Hsiao Key replied, 'No, no landlords. They have all run away and been killed by our Red Army'
This answer reflected how the masses felt that the Red Army was their own army.
During the Long March, often the peasantry sent groups to urge the reds to
detour and liberate their districts. The broad masses only understood it was
a poor man's army and hardly understood the Red Army's political
programme.The Red Army had destroyed land deeds, abolished taxes and armed
the poor peasantry."

Fwd: Two press statements of CPI (Maoist)

2007-07-17T02:33:00.001+05:30

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Karnataka: State sponsored decoit in the name of Maoist party

CPI (Maoist) statement on state sponsored decoit

Respected editors,representatives of the media and progressive and democratic organizations and individuals. Struggle greetings to you. We are sending this release on dacoit of 4 houses near Agumbe, for your kind information and requesting to publish the same in the esteemed media with due consideration.

Yours in struggle

Gangadhara
For the state committee
CPI(Maoist)
karnataka

Wide news are conspicuously spread that we did dacoit of 4 houses and taken kilos of silver, tens of thousands of rupees and snatched ear rings and thali and chains from the women by thrashing them e t c.

This is stage-managed dacoity by the bajarangadal,bhaaratheeya janatha party leaders and police combine. Police themselves participated with sophisticated weapons and wearing masks with baja ranga dala goons in dacoity as they and bajarangadala are good experienced ones on this by their routine practice of running theft,loot and sandal wood smuggling. This is for diverting public attention from cowardly atyadka fake encounter of theirs and imposing fascist terror and killings on people further.They trying avoid any enquiry of their crimes of cold blooded murders. They earlier also did these type of dacoity nearby kallugudde and other area in smaller level in the name of us. They also burnt government bus in nearby sringeri and tried to charge it on us, but their intention was not fulfilled.They exposed themselves before the public.Police kept silence on those matters.No heroic! Arrests, no heroic! encounters were made for that.

They and so-called law keepers did not shout for action on bus burners and looters at that time. The leaders of bajaranga dala and police officials jointly planned this shameful dacoity. They looted gun only for charging blame on us.
We never do dacoity,we only sieze looted belongings of common people with criteria of social justice. We do any thing with open declartion. we never hide those things from the people.

We did not sent any threatening letter to BJP MLA of theerthahalli Aaraga jnanendra and others.We are not indulge in such acts. We declare openly on any such matters. Jnaanendra got nervoused by his anti social acts,exploitation,patronizing sandal wood and timber mafia and loot, so that he applied for police protection with cunning method ,hero pose and created emotional scene in the house to get sympathy of other members of the assembly. Now lieng shamefully that threatening letter received from us.BJP MLA of karkala Sunilkumar acting as a goon without changing habits and profession of his previous life, without considering whatever oath he took while entering assembly, at least for the name sake.Bajarangadalaï¿½s sandal mafia leader Mahendrakumar shouting arrogantly after completing dacoity to take stringent action on us without any investigation. These three were connived with this plot of dacoity. Ruling government and fascist sanghparivaar playing dangerous games. This will certainly attracts serious repercussions. No one of these crimes can hide from the people. These types of cowardice and cunning acts never won in the history of revolutionary movement. No such reactionary force can divert people and their participation in struggle by these type acts.

We are demanding government question Mahendra kumar,Sunilkumaar,Aaraga jnaanendra and police officials on this dacoity by independent investigative agencies other than police department.

We requesting to conduct independent enquiries by pro people, democratic and human rights organizations on this dacoity and harassment of women and reveal the facts of dacoity.

We are appealing people and democrats to condemn and fight against these communal and state combineï¿½s crimes on people.

With revolutionary greetings

Gangadhara
For the state committee
CPI(Maoist)
karnataka
15-07-07

CPI(Maoist) karnataka press release of open letter to chief Minister and home minister
Monday, July 16, 2007

Respectable editors and representatives of the media, struggle greetings to you.We are sending this 'open letter to the chief minister and socialist home minister' for your kind information and requesting to publish the same in the esteemed media.

Yours in struggle

Gangadhara
For the state committee
CPI(Maoist)
karnataka

------------------------------ ---------------------------------------
An open letter to the chief minister and the socialist home minister

Mr. Chief Minister and Mr home minister,

After massacring ruthlessly, our comrade and poor tribal people in atyadka recently with your rifles, violating all rules and norms that you had to protect and follow, you both told the media that if we surrender our weapons then you are ready to talk with us. But you both not mentioned about withdrawing killer anti naxalite force and your weapons, stopping of operation of cold-blooded murders and creating conducive atmosphere. We don't think that your talk is sincere one. We know that this is your drama for covering your real fascist faces before the public.

Ridiculing thing is, you are saying that you are not aware of problems of the people there. After several years of struggle, hundreds of representations, hundreds of appeal letters you and your predecessor governments did not turn towards solving any single problem of the people. Not given land and records. Not made any efforts to stop exploitation from landlords and contractors, moneylenders, forest department, not ensured proper wages and just price for the agro produce. Rather than that added fuel to the burning fire by announcing national parks, reserve forests, check dams, thermal power projects like schemes and eviction of the people. These are all only for the interests of imperialists and local comprador companies. Adding to this, you and your predecessor governments directly joined hands with fascist communal forces and masterminded communal massacre in Dakshina Kannada Bengalooru and communal clashes in other parts of the state. As a responsible keeper of the rule of law whole assembly shamelessly withdrew cases of massacre, arson, loot, rapes of fascist gangs of Sangh Parivar without even minimum discussions in the house. Then how people can trust your government.

Having weapons is not our wish, will or craze. Actually we did not take weapons at first. We have been worked without weapons from the early. Our comrades worked among people and organized them for their just demands. Your predecessor governments, forest and police department did not left us to organize people without taking weapons, not allowed even for being with the people. Aggressively came forward for forceful implementation of anti people projects and eviction of the people by using police and weapons. Several harassments, false cases, arrests, tortures were made on people and on our cadres without following so-called rules. Though it is democratic principle, not even considered people's just demands and opposition to the anti people projects there. By that, government and its departments pushed us to take weapons for self-protection and for organizing people.

We never surrender people's interests. We never allow destroying people and their interests at any cost. You and your predecessor governments murdered our beloved nine comrades and four poor people by using guns. Implicated tens of false cases on our comrades and struggling people. You are implicating false cases even after the murdering and arrest our comrades and people. Your government had released posters containing our comrade's photos. Projected them as criminals. Do you know?, they are all having good personal history of honesty, sincerity, culture, they never thought about crime and exploiting the people. They are all dedicated their whole life and sacrificing all for the service of the people. Do you think that sacrificing life for social cause is an easy thing? Such a dedication and sincerity are with our comrades. Such invaluable they are. Then how you and your khaki force murders people decent poor people and our cadres so easily? How it possible in this so-called democracy? Are you having any faith in democracy and democratic principles whatever you are propagating? Can you answer these? But you and your force not even taking stringent, so called, legal actions towards anti social elements mafia goons, many such people are in your cabinet But you and your predecessors continuously keeping and protecting big land lords, compradors, anti people exploiters, land grabbers, anti social fascist goons, distillery mafia, land mafia, mining mafia, forest mafia etc. Not taking any actions on them according to the law. At the same time fixing false cases on struggling poor and democratic people and suppressing them.
Your government is also following the same predecessor government policies, with more aggressiveness. By giving large amount of farmer's agricultural lands to the imperialists and compradors in the name of SEZs.

You are playing drama of village stay with much fanfare. But not solved any of basic problems of those village people. You also conducted farmers meeting and attended personally by saying you are sincere for farmers cause. But you did not make any fundamental solution to the problems of dying farmers. Farmers are ending their lives in day today manner. Waiving of farmers loans become cheap drama. It not yet reached dying poor and middle peasants.

Now about the question of violence. We are not for any violence on people. But you are talking about peace and non-violence after ruthlessly torturing and murdering people and our cadres. Real crude violence have been perpetrating on common people by governments and its departments, contractors, landlords, big companies, communal gangs, mafia gangs etc. Class violence, caste violence, communal violence and violence on women are increasing rapidly without any check by the ruling system. For example what justice made to Kambalapalli victims, what justice provided to the communal massacre?What justice made to acid attacks,female foeticides,sex exploitation of women? what justice provided to fake encounter victims by ruling system.

There are hundreds and thousands of examples for prevailing crude violent injustices. Governments and its departments are directly involving and protecting those violence. We did not kill anybody or threatened any common people. We only retaliated for the violence perpetrating on people and on us, as ruling system itself is the sole responsible for that. We retaliated after losing four of our invaluable comrades including our beloved state secretary com. Saketh Rajan by state violence. Police informers are nothing but police

We presented people's demands of canceling national park, reserve forests, bio parks, providing land and records, canceling anti people projects etc. to the erstwhile Dharamsingh's coalition government, your party was part of that. DharamSingh government played policy of stick in hand butter in talks and continued to suppress our party and people's struggle. The same coalition government killed our secretary Saketh Rajan and Shivalingu and rewarded criminal police officials with medals and money. One among them i,e sreenidhi's criminal and anti social character exposed recently. That exposed the hoax of Dharamsingh govt's fascist nature and sincerity towards people. Before that S.M. Krishna government also played such hoax dramas by killing our beloved comrades Parvathi and Hajima, then announcing false packages. Rewarded killer police officials with medals and money.
Up to now no governments showed any move towards canceling imperialist managed anti people projects and stopping eviction of people, guarantee for the people's lives, land and nature. You cannot do that, as you are all agents of ruling class and imperialists. Your government spear heading the eviction of people both in rural and urban areas from their birthland for sake of imperialist companies and compradors. Now your government is doing all efforts to evict and destroy Nandagudi, Hassan and other area peasants and lands for the SEZ etc.

By employing licensed killer goons to kill people, acting upon cruel police official's directions, giving clean chit to killer officials in the house, targeting pro people and progressive individuals and organizations, curtailing all creamy layered democratic space and norms, imposing false cases, doing unlawful arrests etc, murdering revolutionaries and people, your government is adopting more aggressive fascist measures towards struggling people. It is your necessity for serving ruling class better, getting their mercy and support for your chiefministership, for mortgaging and selling land and common people to imperialists, continuing exploitation and loot. By naming after secular you and your party joined hands with the fascist, castiest, Brahmanical and communal hooligan party in opportunist way. Then what justice can expect from you towards the people?

We have not any self interests in doing struggle.We are doing this with great concern and love towards exploited people and nation ,for bringing real democratic society.

If you are sincere to your words,you please, solve people's problems first.Concider our party as revolutionary political party. Withdraw anti naxalite force and disband it.Take actions on killer police officials to ensure confidence on legal and administrative system.Scrap all anti people rules and regulations and acts. Ensure misuse of law and rule on common people. Take stringent action communal goons. Withdraw all false cases foisted on people,democrats and on our cadres. Ensure safety and security for peoples lives.Provide lands to the landless and the poor peasants.Provide land records to the poor peasants. Stop the eviction of the people from their birth lands both in rural and urban. Stop evicting slum dwellers and provide proper shelter and livelihood .Stop the exploitation and loot of land lords,contractors,forest departments police and other officials.Cancel national parks,reserve forests,animal sanctuaries,big dams, check dam projects,nandikur thermal power project,gundya power project,sezs.Make proper plan for the safety of wild animals and nature without harming people's lives. Make proper lively hood for evicted people of kaiga bedthi, and seebird projects by providing lands and facilities. Reinstate those evicted people of thatkola ,badra etc in thier ancestral lands. Encourage and make alternate eco friendly and people friendly power and irrigation projects.Stop giving fertile agricultural lands to IT BT and other people for negligeble price.Promote village based industries. Promote small and medium scale industries.Stop big business houses to enter into the retail and small scale business sectors.Ensure protection for daliths and women from caste and sex exploitaion. Ensure employment generation promoting village based and decentralised small and medium scale industries.Stop the exploitation and loot of imperialists and compradors.Scrap all unequal and unjust agreements with imperialists. Provide security for dying peasants with real and basic help of just price for thier produce and scrapping all their financial liabilities.Ban anti people lotteries and liquors from the state. Ensure real federal system. Confiscate extra lands and illegal holdings of big land lords and big corporate business houses and distribute it to poor and needy people of the state. Impose restrictions on accumulating huge profits and properties.

There are sevaral such problems, making people to suffer and bleed. You please move towards solving these basic and fundamental problems of the state with sincerity and might. We know that all these problems cannot be solved at once or by an individual but we demanding to make sincere efforts on that. Make condusive atmosphere for talks Concider peoples demands and struggle democratically.Ensure democracy for all common people with freedom of expression and struggle against injustice and exploitation.Make environment of freedom,democratic rights and non violent ruling system.Then only,it is possible for us to disband our weapons.

With concern and regards on common people,Democracy,social Justice, nation and country

Gangadhara
For the state committee
CPI(Maoist)
karnataka
15-07-07

--
Regards,

resistanceindia@gmail.com

Karnataka: State sponsored decoit in the name of Maoist party

2007-07-17T01:26:00.001+05:30

CPI (Maoist) statement on state sponsored decoit

CPI(Maoist) karnataka press release of open letter to chief Minister and home minister

2007-07-16T18:19:00.001+05:30

---------------------------------------------------------------------
An open letter to the chief minister and the socialist home minister

Mr. Chief Minister and Mr home minister,

We have not any self interests in doing struggle.We are doing this with great concern and love towards exploited people and nation ,for bringing real democratic society.

With concern and regards on common people,Democracy,social Justice, nation and country

Gangadhara
For the state committee
CPI(Maoist)
karnataka
15-07-07

Commemorating the 20th anniversary of the ‘Anti Communal and anti State

2007-07-12T14:39:00.001+05:30

Commemorating the 20th anniversary of the famous rally on July 10 th 1987 in
Moga in Faridkot district in Punjab by the 'Anti Communal and anti State
terrorism Front'.

By Harsh Thakor

Introduction

July 10 th 1987 is day when the democratic and revolutionary movement will
remember for hundreds of years.On this day the revolutionary masses of
Punjab under the leadership of the 'Anti-Communal and anti-repression Front
held a huge 10,000 strong rally thwarting the offensive of the Khalistani
forces.The people of Punjab assembled like a swarm of bees in this historic
protest. It was the first major state-wide protest against the enemies. One
was reminded o the American fascist onslaught on the peole of Vietnam.The
heroic resistance of he masses also  resmbled this.They valiantly fought
against the iron feet of oppression Khalistani movement marked a historic
epic in the history of post-Independent India. This reactionary communal
fascist movement advocated the liberation of Sikhs and a separate state to
be carved out for the Sikh people. Khalistani ideology advocated a separate
theocratic state based on all the tenets of Sikhism.
Jagjit Singh Chauhan was the founder of this movement in the late 60's
abroad. Natively from Punjab he had settled abroad, and in Britain formed
Sikh religious groups advocating a new state for the Sikhs.
The Khalistani dictates included a ban on cigarettes, a ban on eating meat,
a ban on drinking liquor, a ban on beauty parlours, prohibition against
shaving and compulsion of women to wear Salwar Kameez. The people had to
observe the Khalistani code in all ways of life.
In Punjab the Akali Dal represented the religious Sikh politics through the
Akali movement which had its origin in the Singh Sabha movement of the late
1920's which tried to communalise a secular anti-imperialist movement. To
divert it, the Shiromani Gurudwara Prabhandak committee was formed with the
blessings of the British.

The Akali movement professed the Anandpur Sahib resolution that converted
several democratic issues into Sikh demands. Democratic demands of the
people like the arrest of the Jodhpur detenues, the sharing of river waters
with Haryana, the transfer of the capital from Chandigarh to Amritsar, and
the punishing of criminals during the Delhi riots were taken up as religious
issues.

However the fundamental difference of the Akali Dal from the Khalistanis was
that they wanted to gain power within the Indian State through electoral
means, while the Khalistanis advocated a total religious liberation struggle
to de-throne the Indian State. There were forces within the Akali Dal which
openly supported the Khalistani armed actions and election boycott, like the
United Akali Dal faction led by Baba Joginder Singh. In the mid 80' Sant
Longowal, the Akali Dal president was assassinated by the Khalistanis for
collaborating on a settlement with the ruling Congress.

From the early 80's to the early part of the 90's the state of Punjab was
ravaged by Khalistani terrorism. Communal fascists were a great threat to
the people's democratic movement. The Akali Dal represented the Sikh
communalists while the Congress represented the Hindu communalism. Both
parties used the communal terrorists against each other.

Indira Gandhi created and patronized Bhindranwale, a Sikh communal fanatic,
to electorally defeat the Akali Dal. Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale belonged to
a Sikh fundamentalist sect which opposed the electoral Akali Dal politics.
In the earlier phases the Akali Dal patronized the Sikh fundamentalist
forces, harbouring several terrorists in religious temples. However when the
contradiction between the Khalistani liberation and Akali Dal ideology
became acute, the Congress won Bhindranwale to their side to de-stabilise
the Akali Dal, the ruling party.

The Khalistani movement was an agent of the Indian state. Heavy state
terrorism took place in Punjab against the common people in the name of
combating the communal terrorists. Often a truckload of weaponry sent for
arming the Khalistani terrorist forces was allowed by the Police. The
situation was reminiscent of the Vietnam war and in no post-partition period
was such communal terror experienced. The rays of darkness had extinguished
the light from the land of Punjab.

The Khalistanis were armed to the core. Innocent Hindus were shot in buses
by bullets from AK-47 machine guns. Women were raped who disobeyed the
Khalistani dictates, houses razed to the ground. Villagers were forced to
bow to Khalistani dictates at the butt of the gun. Jounnalist Lala Jagat
Narain, of the Hindu Samachar was assassinated when he condemned
Bhindranwale.

In 1984 in June the Indian Army carried out Operation Bluestar to suppress
the Forces of Khalistani terrorists that had taken refuge in the Golden
Temple (a Sikh religious temple). It was one of the most repressive
anti-democratic acts that took place in the history of post-Independence
India. 100 innocent Sikhs were shot with their hands tied down behind their
backs. Various religious shrines were destroyed. Bhindranwale was killed.
At that time in Jodhpur in anxiety Sikhs belonging to the Army in sheer
desperation left Jodhpur to ensure their families were safe in the chaos
that was created. They were frightened that their families could be
attacked. These soldiers were arrested in the name of treason! In
retaliation in October 1984, Indira Gandhi was assasinated by 2 Sikh
fanatics. One of the people charged, Kehar Singh who was awarded the death
sentence, was innocent.

After Indira Gandh's assassination the worst massace ever in
post-independence India took place. 5000 Sikhs, were massacred by communal
forces led by Jagdish Tytler and L.K Bhagat. Innocent Sikhs were chopped or
burnt alive. Several Hindu families came to the rescue of Sikhs by
sheltering them and saving them from being trampled by the iron feet of
oppression. To this day the perpetrators of the massacre have not been
imprisoned.

In the later phase, through military combing operations in Operation
Woodrose, the police tortured several innocent families, under the pretext
that they had been harbouring terrorists. In villages in Punjab several
innocent Sikh people, mainly youth were killed in staged encounters. The
police falsely claimed that they were communal terrorists killed in
encounters.

Several Black laws were also proclaimed which were used as a tool to
suppress the secular democratic activity like workers strikes, etc. The
situation in Punjab was the equivalent of a ship trying to survive in a
storm. In 1985 an accord was made by Rajiv Gandhi representing the Centre
and Sant Longowal, the Sikh Akali leader, who wished for a non-violent
solution and a compromise with the Centre. (He represented Sikh communal
politics but through negotiation in contrast to the Khalistani militants.)
This was opposed by the United Akali Dal led by Baba Joginder Singh along
with the All India Sikh Students federation and the Damdami Taksal of
Bhindranwale. Shortly later Longowal was assassinated by Khalistani
rerrorists with the blessings of the organizations just mentioned.

In 1987 the ruling Rajiv Gandhi goverment brought in President's Rule,
introducing the Terrorist and Disruptive Area Act to curb the Khalistani
terrorists. However, in contrast to what it meant to be doing, the same
government started dealing with Khalistani gangs. On February 20th 1987 a
head Sikh priest offered to act as a mediator between the Centre and the
Sikh militant organizations. Within minutes of this announcement, the
Khalistani liberation force accepted the Akal Takhts Directives and accepted
a ceasefire.

Soon after a hindu religious priest visited the Golden Temple on May 6-8 to
hold talks with the Sikh militant priest Darshan Singh Ragi. The State
police chief Ribiero visited Amritsar on May 6th, and the Ceentral Reserve
Police Force surrounding the Temple were withdrawn for 3 days. Well-known
underground communal terrorists, such as Avatar Singh Brahma visited the
temple for negotiations. The Hindu priest explained that he was acting for
the Central Government. The withdrawal of the Central Reserve Police Force
for the first time since 1984 lent credibility to this. The Priest even
claimed that he had documents showing that all 5 Jathedars and Khalistani
gangs including the All India Sikh Students Federation factions and the
Khalistani Commando force had given their approval for, and participated in
tape recorded negotiations. The priest stated that Darshan Singh Ragi was
equally anxious to create an atmosphere of peace and tranquility in Punjab.
On May 9th 1987 the priest flew back to Delhi to inform the Prime Minister
of his talks.

On May 21st the Punjab Government announced the release of 100 out of 800
militants arrested on the pretext of good behaviour. This amply proved the
point that the Centre was simply playing games. The Government had no
intention of combating communal terrorism; instead it was biding for the
appropriate time to strike a deal with one or the other terrorist faction.
Ultimately what was at stake was only the question of allocation and sharing
of power. [Last few paragraphs taken from the democratic rights journal, 'In
Defence of Democratic Rights'.
.
              .
                The Front against Repression and Communalism was formed by
Some Revolutionary Groups namely the Unity Centre of Communist
Revolutionaries of India,(Nagi Reddy Group),the Central Team of he
C.P.I(M.L ) the O.C.C.P.I.(M.L) and few other groups.The purpose of he Front
was to organize mass revolutionary resistance against Khalistani and state
terrorism. It initiated a programme to combat the Khalistani terrorism in
building 'cores' of revolutionary resistance.'No political leader could use
the image of the front to project their political image. The Front would
also not play  a role of mass sectional organizations nor be attached to any
group as 'front' organization. It would have it's independent structure, in
order  to pool  all the possible resources against the twin enemies of
Khalistan and State terrorism.It was reviewed that mere propaganda was
insufficient and a separate organization had to be created as a mass
political platform to combat the enemy.A clear cut programme had to be
allotted to he organsiation depending on the comparative strength of the
enemy forces.F ront leaders refused to accept he armed license of he Indian
state and instead mobilised people into using traditional weapons.

              First Resistance(From Frontier Artile by N.K Jeet and article
'In Defence of Democratic Rights'0
On  April 10 the the first sign sof resistance was demonstrated by he
Punjabi people led by Front leader Megh Raj BahtuanaIn March in 1987 the
ringleaders of the United Akali Dal and the A.I.S.S.F,in the course of a
conference at village Chaina,near Bhagtuana,threatened to assassinate front
leader Megh Raj Baghtuana,who was holding meetings against them.Despite
these threats Megh Raj,a front organiser,refuted the fascist ideology of the
communal terrorists programme.The masses in Bhagtuana responded
heroically,organising a demonstration armed with traditional
weapons,surrounding the supporters of the Khalistani ideology. material.
Those supporters had to beg mercy from the people Semi-secret mass meetings
were organised and a score of volunteers armed with conventional weapons and
under-cover illegal firearms toured the villages to raise funds and to
propogate anti-Khalistani material. 9units of the Front in
Goniana,Rampura,Malout, Lambi, Lehra, Kotkapura, Nihalsinghwala, Moga and
Jaitu organised a massive armed conference in Jaitu on April10th.Thousands
of people assembled in the conference shouting Slogans" a Hindu Raaj na
Khalistan,Raaj Kare Mazdoor,Kisan.(Neither Hindu Rule or Khalistani rule, we
want the rule of Workers and peasants)They were armed with traditional
weapons like Lathis,swords,and spears.The village of Jaitu seemed to be
staging a festival of the masses. From various towns and villages people
approached leaders of the front to hold such programmes at their places. In
Bishnandi and Bazakhana,terrorists destroying tombs of the dead were beaten
mercilessly by the masses.At Jaitu,an Amrithdari Sikh who tried to forcibly
close a cigarette shop was beaten up by the villagers.Similar incidents took
place in Kotli,Chaina,Matta,Sedh SinghWala Villages. with people armed with
traditional weapons showing mass defiance Such mass resistance reminded
people of the heroic resistance and courage of ranks formed from common
people during the Great Patriotic War against the Nazi Fascists On April
14th a truckload of terrorists armed with naked swords and firearms came to
attack the house of Front leader Megh Raj.They were met with a shower of
brickbats and stones from the housetops. T he Front workers armed with
traditional weapons,forced the terrorists to retreat.5Khalistanis were
literally beaten by the villagers.In the end the police raided the office of
the Front in Rampura Phul showing whose side they were on

July 10th Rally(From Bleeding Punjab report)

On July 10th the scene was reminiscent of he resistance the Vietnamese
masses staged combating the American oppressor enemy.. The people thronged
from all over Punjab. The rally was held when the Khalistani terrorists were
at the peak of the onslaught and t did not permit any democratic cultural
activities.Silmuntaneously the ruling Barnala govt.did not permit any
democratic assembling of people under the pretet of urbing terrorist
activities.In the same area where the rally was being held an activist of
the Front namely'Lal INderSingh Lalli was murdered by the terrorists. The
entire family of a C.P.I.worker was eliminated.The Front's understanding and
perspective was projected and explained.Later a masive demonstario was held
in the city.The demonstration was a great succes in 3 ways:
I 1nrespect of projecting the basically correct revolutionary perspective of
the resistance against bot types
In respect of expressing the militant mood and valiant spirit of the Punjabi
people  against both form sof terror.
3.In respect of demonstrating positive hopes  to he masesin succesfuly
combating the enemy.

Other Front Struggles(From Bleeding Punjab report)

In July 1989, a state level demonstration was held at Moga,in memory of
local Front worker,Lal Inder Lali,Prithipal Singh Randhawa and Avtar Sinh
Dhudke.It had agraet impact on the peole of Moga.
In Lehra Gagga in Sangrur in Oct.1988,district the Khalistani terrorists
issued a threat to the life of Front leader Balbir Singh,as he staunchly
opposed  the harassment of a wine shop worker.In the form of rallies the
Front stateda prolonged campaign. And the local Khalistani Sikh student
supporters had to plead for mercy.

Khalistanis attacked an R.S S Shaka at Moga on June 25th.1989,killing 27 and
injuring 30 people.The Front gave a bandh call in Moga ,the next day Some
Hindu Communal organizations tried to manipulate the situation for their
ends but the Front was alerted and they exposed this by issuing
pamphlets,pasting posters and holding public meetings.

In September 1989 a fortnight campaign was taken up in Khanna ,in
Ludhiana,educating people about Khalistan and state terrorism.It ended in a
public rally in Khanna.

In Aulakh,some Khalistani terrorists looted a peasant of 60 grams of
gold,8000 Rupees Etc.The Front mobilized people against this and mentally
prepared them to fight the enemy. The villagers then went to the house of
one marauder they identified and seized 60 Gms of gold and recovered other
looted property. The culprit was beaten severely by village people and then
handed over to the police.
In Saido village in Faridkot district the Khlaistani forces snatched
rifles(licensed) from innocent villagers and insulted several men and
women.The police took no action. The Front explained the political situation
to he villagers and the need for people to organize their own self-defence.
In Rampura Phul a gang of Khalistanis abducted an Industrialist.Nohar Chand.
And demanded 5 lakh ransom.The local Front people explained the victim's
family not to pay the ransom,but the family refused and in turn were all
slain by the terrorists.Front activits now staged a protracted campaign
organizing rail and road blockades. as well as demonstrations and sit-ins I
front of police stations. The Front leaders detected the culprits, who
belonged to nearby villages and when they revealed the names to the
villagers ,they were so enraged that they wanted to murder the culprits. The
Front however explained that such an action would be counter-productive and
would lead to further communal tension..
..

In De  1989 in Saido in Faridkot, terrorists snatched guns from the people
and beat up and insulted several people. They even killed 2 men.Led by the
Front the people prepared themselves. The police paid no attention to
suspected men who wore covered faces .The Front explained the villagers the
need to organize self defence.

In Malout 35 people were killedinI the nearby own of Abohar..The Front
committee of the area organized a bandh in the city and organized rallies at
many places in  the city.The Front leader had earlier carried out a
sustained campaign educating the masses in the need for self defence when a
gang of robbers raided the village.he Police hardly came to their help.A 250
strong committee was formed by he villages including 2 Front members.

In Bagli Kalan in Ludhiana, one teacher Kulwant Singh and Front activist was
attacked by he terrorists.Kulwant immediately grappled with them This act
was a boost to all he people in the area. Teachers of the area went on
strike just on hearing the news, and different teachers organizations formed
a action comitee. Later,on May 15th  a militant demonstration was held ,A
miltant public rally was held by the Front,the Moulder and steel Workers
Union and other mass organizations.

And mass rallies

Resistance in Bhoenpur –Machiwara Vilage of Ludhiana district(From Bleeding
Punjab report by Surkh Rekha Group)

The people of Bhoenpur exhibited phenomenal revolutionary tenacity..In
Machiwara village they resisted any terrorist attack. Their Sarpanch,Jasbir
Singh had been assassinated by terrorists.The masses of Bhoenpur armed
themselves with rifles They armed themselves with rifles and other weapons
and guarded important points of defence for 24 hrs. Even when he Front
workers went to work on the fields, they were prepared to resist he
Khalistani Forces

In March 19991 a gang of Khalistani terrorists attacked he hose of Co Jasbir
  but his sister resisted valiantly. She started showering brickbats from
top.Within minutes the entire village came o the scene with rifles ,swords
and spears and chased he terrorists for long.Now they dared to enter the
village.
I April 1992,a village volunteer force overpowered a terrorist who had been
spotted by an alert owner of a clothes shop. The terrorist confessed all his
crimes to the voluinteers after being intensely interrogated by the
volunteers. He confessed he was a member of te Khalistani Libraton Force
and having killed a girl in the neighbouring cotton factory and a temple
priest. He also confessed that his gang was responsible or bomb blasts in
Machiwala and SAmrala towns and that they wee planning amass killing of
factory workers.The following day the terrorist was producedin a Peoples
Court and they found hmi guilty of serious crimes. He was awarded a death
sentence and shot down by a bullet.
The people of Mamjh  depended on their own self-defence to guard their
village.They prevented many Hindu families from fleeing by giving hem
protection.The villagers literally never bowed down to the terrorists
despite being attacked atleast on 10 different occasions.

Resistance of families(From Bleeding Punjab report)

Families were encouraged in offering mass rseistance.This was demonstrated
by many examples.8 Brick kiln workers of Ghanaur Kalan in Sangrur district
fought the 'Azad Babbar Khalsa' gang.Although 5 terrorists encircled their
houses,the kiln workers fought back like tigers  with conventional
weapons.(terrorists were armed with Assault rifles)Women were armed with
uns.

An activist of a Dalit family ,Narang Singh in Sangrur district valiantly
thwarted terroristsThre times the terrorists attackerd his house but Narang
resisted with his rifle.His son grappled with a terrorist.Similarly Pritam
Singh's family fought terrorists in Niammat Pura in Sangrur.While sleeping
they were attacked. However Protam Singh and his family fought like tigers.
His wife was martyred (Gurbachan Kaur.

Manjit Singh,a teacher in Village Kot in Amritsar ,combated 3 terrorists
demanding money.Her husband was attacked by a chopper but Manjit retaliated
and snatched the chopper hitting the assailant with full force.By now many
villagers assembled to support Manjit. The terrorists had to flee.  They
returned some time later, but the people were prepared to face
them.Ultimately all 5 terrorists wee thrashed by the people.

Bhgawan Singh  and his family wee attcked thrice.Bhagawn Singh retaliated by
firing his 12 bore gunUltimately he terrorists had to run away.In the 2nd
attck his family members participated in the resistance and he terrorists
had to flee.The family was effectively trained in handling weapons for
resistance.

Swaran Singh ,a Sarpanch in Ghora Nab of SAngrur district resisted the
Khalistani attacks,along with his 6 brothers.His family always assisted him
and his nephew was killed onMarch 12th 1992.

Lastly,Balwinder Singh from Biwind in Amritsar district,was attacked but
refused to surrender His family aided him as welL as friends and comrades.
Everyone in the family vows to fight till the last after having been
attacked 12 times.

Martrydom of Sewewala Martrys(From Frontier June 1991issue)

OnApril 9th 1991 Megh Raj Jagpal Singh, Karam Singh, Pappy, Gurjant Singh
and 9 other Front activists were massacred in Sewevala in Faridkot district.
To commemorate their death a statewide protest took place which culminated
in a 10,000 strong rally in Sewewala where people assembling from allover
the state, armed with traditional weapons as well as raising anti-Khalistan
and anti-State slogans were mobilised. A self-defence barricade was made
against the Khalistani terrorists and police protection was
opposed.Thousands of peole assembled at Bhagtuana,Dilwan Kalan,elbrah,
Rampura Etc.Mettings and processions were held throughout the state. Echoes
of the revolutionary spirit reverberated in the hearts of the people
assembled like a light radiating over them. It appeared like a huge red
flame had lit the Sewewala village. The martyrdom of the Sewewala Martyrs
wrote a new chapter in the history of the Indian Communist Movement. Months
after the martyrdom of front activists,a agng of terrorist attempted to
snaek in the village at night .However vigilant volunteers noticed hem and
pened fire on hem.The terrorists fled.A l;arger contingent of people came
out armed with whatever weapons available.

2 years later a commemoration programme.After a considerable study of the
political situation it was decided to launch a commemoration programme for
the Sewevala martyrs.The Harijan basti region was where the programme was
launched .The revolutionary forces made adequate security
arrangements,taking the necessary precautionary and retaliatory measures,to
thwart the terrorists suspected moves.The Harijan peasntry playe the biest
role I he conference while sections of the Jat peasntry wre
neutralisd.(Earlier some wee sympathetic to he Khalistani forces)
A day before the programme security was installed on the roofs of the
exterior of the basti .Trained volunteers manned them. Barricades were
installed in the lanes and by-lanes to prohibit the entry of suspicious
elements. The Barricades were provided cover by armed volunteers positioned
on rooftops. All security posts were covered with a special signal system A
network of couriers was organised which raced from one spot to the other
exchanging information. All posts had their own commanders and an
operational zone operating under a unifying a higher command.
On the day of the programme, entry was entitled only by identity passes. A
Harijan Dharamshala staged the programme.Slogans such as "Down with
Khalistani and State terrorism "and "Long Live the Sewewala Martyrs "were
painted on the boundary walls of the building.The ground was decorated with
red Flags and a bed of red sand. Amidst flower petals name plates of martyrs
were placed. A community kitchen served cooked and sweet packed rice to the
participants. From the home village of martyred comrade Megh Raj Baghtuana,
a contingent of 70 men, women and children carrying red flags and escorted
by girl volunteer reached Sewewala.The women participants numbered more than
150 in the conference. By 12 o'clock,3,000 people had arrived, more than2/3
from the agricultural labourers,industrial labourers,electricity workers and
other working sections. At 12.30 the Family members of the martyrs came on
stage. 2.05 was the exact time of the attack on the Sewewala Martyrs 2 years
previously.
The great achievement of the martyrs conference was that a most favourable
situation was turned into a favourable situation reminiscent of the Vietcong
who heroically defeated the American forces in the Vietnam war.The campaign
also effectively answered the question of the mass revolutionary line over
the line of squad actions.A n earlier supporter of Squad actions stated"What
we achieved here can not be achieved by a squad action."Another Student
leader stated"Mass revolutionary line is invincible and armed squad action
cannot substitute it".A volunteer Student Group stated"We have gained a
valuable experience in the mass revolutionary line." The policy of learning
from the masses and then educating them and learning correct ideas from the
masses was meticulously applied.

Analysis of the work of the 'Front'

The' revolutionary mass line' of the 'Front against Repression and
Comunalism'  was an education to the Communist movement worldwide. These
were the salient features.
1. Irrespective of political Ideology people would be moblilised against the
twin onslaught of Khalistan and State terror.The Front never attached class
sectional mass organizations to the Front or used it to project party
politics.
2.Mantaining a clear-cut programme to resist the Khalistani fascist attacks
as well as state terror on the masses to enable the masses to form
self-defence combat forces.A programme was chalked out studying the strength
of the Khalistani fascists and the capability of the Front in resisting
them.Similarly programmes were taken against police terror.
3.Making the people involved and the center of all activity through
organizing self -defence and never substituting the role of the masses.Some
groups launched Armed Squad actions.The front answered this with democratic
mass revolutionary resistance.Mass preparation was made for all
programmes.Infact through their involvement the people learned a lesson in
fighting the enemy and their own capacity in self –defence against
reactionary forces.Planning and political preparation was emphasized.
4.No form of soft-pedalling with the Khalistani forces like some groups and
giving equal emphasis to opposing state terror.The Front leaders refused to
accept the armed licences of the Indian State.
5.The Front was a  launching pad for other sections of people to struggle
against he enemy. Teachers, shopkeepers Etc could all pool into he
resistance.
Several other remarkable struggles took place led by the Front.Here are some
examples.
.

The struggles of the Front will be written I the annals of the revolutionary
Movement worldwide)The methods devised have a permanent place in the
revolutionary polemic s in combating he reactionary forces.(particularly
with regards to Communalism)Let us remember al those Front members who
dipped heir blood on the 20th anniversary day of the Moga raly.The study of
the 'Front against Repression and Communalism' demonstrates the results of
persisting educating the masses, which is so important or the launching of
[peoples revolutionary armed struggle.It was similar to the methods he
Chinese Communist party used in heir agrarian revolutionary movement to
combat he enemy.

Obituary
This year is the 20th death anniversary(assassinated in June 1987) year of
Comrade Lal Inder Singh Lalli, an activist of the Front. Although a
C.P.I.worker he playd amajor role I the work o he Front and valiantly fought
the reactionaries.

I have comiled the struggle reports from a booklet 'The Bleeding Punjab'
written by 2 revolutionary journasl fro Punjab-'the Surkh Rekha' and the
'Inquilabi Jantakh Leh".The author recommends readers to purchase the
report which is of historical relevance.

Killing of Parameshwar surprises villagers

2007-07-12T09:37:00.001+05:30

Kalasa July 12: Both surprise and sorrow gripped the town on Wednesday as soon as it became aware of the fact that A S Parameshwar (30) from Athyadka village was one among the five, who were killed in an police encounter at Menasinahadya on Tuesday.

Parameshwar was a very familiar face for all those in the town who were interested in progressive issues. The man who usually found with a small bag on his shoulder every now and then, had just been to the town last week to meet his friends and had returned to his native place.

A member of a Girijana family in Menasinahadya, Parameshwara had actively involved in the struggle connected to Kudremukh National Park. A 2-3 acre agricultural land was the only source of livelihood for the 3 brothers, including him.

Parameshwar was a person with a straight forward opinion regarding social issues. A familiar face in Kalasa, Sringeri and Chikmagalur areas, he had found media as the powerful tool to fight against injustice.

He was the brain behind the successful Girijana convention held at Kalasa last year. Though he could not complete even his high school education, Parameshwar was knowledgeable enough to talk confidently about GATT, WTO and the like!

Being the general secretary of Rashtriya Udyana Virodhi Okkuta, Paramwshwar appeared publicly for his struggles, and why the government did not arrest him if he was a naxal, as they claim? That is the pertinent question posed by the people here.

CPI(Maoist) karnataka- press release on hatyadka fake encounter

2007-07-11T23:40:00.001+05:30

Respectable editors and representatives of the media. Struggle greetings. We are sending this press release on fake encounter of Atyadka on 10th july morning.

Please favour this for publication with due consideration in the esteemed media.

Yours in struggle,
Gangadhara
For the state committee
CPI (Maoist)
KARNATAKA
11-07-07

State police goons murdered 5 people in atyadka near menasinahadya of koppa talluk.In that our malanadu area committe member com Goutham is one among them. All others are poor asivasi village people.The state armed goons (anti naxalite force) of the state indiscriminately fired on the house from all sides intentionally without caring sleeping people there. They did not considered to leave house owner and others lives even they could avoid that bloodshed. They caught them and later killed there to create terror among struggling people. Now concocted the story of encounter and wounded police etc to cover up their fascist cruelty. After killing they played drama of encounter by firing indiscriminately on that house for few a minutes.

There was no real encounter happened. They avoided public and media to see even dead bodies until 4 o clock yesterday. They tried to wipe out all evidences; including that house holders, of fake encounter. They only allowed seeing the bodies after completing their drama and stories of lies even people protested it strongly. Before that they floated the news as 2dead, 5 were arrested, few were surrendered.5 police were seriously wounded,3 hours of gunfight etc in the media.
Kumara swami's coalition government started creating ground for these type of fascist repression on struggling people through creating fear among intellectuals, people and democrats who are voicing against government' s anti people policies and acts. Some intellectuals were even heeded to it and they made public apologies to the government by saying that armed struggle of the people is anti people one, against to the people's interests etc and they are opposing it and supporting the government for maintaining democracy, peace?!…

Com Goutham hailed from poor peasant family of Thurvihal village of sindhnoor talluk in Raichur district. He completed his post graduation, worked as a lecturer for short period and joined our squad few years back. Though he was not familiar with the conditions of the malnad he adjusted himself. He became an area committee member in 2005. He was a good reader; reading of new books is his enthusiastic habit. He was simple and dedicated his life to the people's cause until his last breath.
Com. Parmeshwara hailed from the poor adivasi family of hatyadka of koppa talluk, chickmagalore dist. He was active in adivasi struggle, took leading role in several struggles. He was serving as general secretary of anti national park federation. He is much interested in grasping politics of exploitation, feudalism, imperialism etc. He never misses any resources of knowledge.
Rame gowdlu,Kaveramma and Sundaresh were poor adivasi peasants of Menasina hadya and Atyadka.They were actively participated in struggles, good, simple and loving people. They always with the side of the masses. They served our squads with affection.

We are saluting these great martyrs. We are heartily sharing sorrows of their family and relatives.
By inflicting these types of crimes on humanity and struggling people, revolutionary movement cannot be stopped. Fascist ruling classes were here started applying their entire fascist weapons to destroy and suppress revolutionary and peoples movement as their last resort. They are not comfortable with the so-called democracy, rules, norms etc for their exploitation and loot. Fascist Kumara swami government must take responsibility of these political murders.

Ruling class and imperialist stooges Kumara swami, Yadiyurappa, M.P prakash like politicians and Shankarbidari, A.M. prasad,Vipulkumar like police officers will learn proper lessons from the people and will have to pay proper price for these crimes.

We strongly condemn these cold-blooded murders and strongly demanding to conduct independent judicial enquiry on the matter.

We are demanding to book murder cases on respective police officers and arrest them immediately.
We appeal all pro people organizations and individuals to condemn this state murders and fight against it.

All appeal all intellectuals and democrats to condemn this state murder for safeguarding people, their cause, democratic rights and human rights.

We are appealing all human rights organizations and activists to conduct independent enquiries on this matter and reveal actual facts before the public.

With struggle greetings

Gangadhara
For the state committee
CPI (Maoist)
KARNATAKA
11-07-07

Kannada Pamphlets on Com Sende Rajamouli released by CPI(Maoist)Karnataka

2007-07-11T23:30:00.001+05:30

Kannada Pamphlet

Source : Recieved via email

Click on Images to enlarge -

To download Peoplesmarch in Hindi and Tamil

2007-07-11T23:26:00.001+05:30

Received via email

Dear friends,

People's March pdf versions from July 2006 to July 2007 uploaded.

Hindi People's March pdf version of May 2007 uploaded.

Tamil People's March - Makkal Perani- pdf version of Jan 2007 uploaded.

Visit the updated Peoplesmarch website at

http://peoplesmarch.googlepages.com/

P.Govindan kutty

Editor, People's March

Orissa: Maoist Citadel in Malkangiri

2007-07-10T16:01:00.001+05:30

Orissa: Maoist Citadel in Malkangiri
Prasanta Kumar Pradhan
Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management, New Delhi, India

Maoist violence in Orissa has largely been a spillover from neighbouring States. Sharing borders with deeply Maoist-afflicted States like Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh, Orissa has found itself constrained in dealing with the armed rebels as they progressively extend their areas of operations. While 15 of Orissa's 30 Districts have, over the years, witnessed Maoist violence and mobilization, it is the border Districts which have been the worst affected.

Orissa's southern-most District, Malkangiri shares its southern and eastern borders with Visakhapatnam, East Godavari and Khammam Districts of Andhra Pradesh, while in the west it is bordered by Chhattisgarh's Bastar District. Only its northern border retains a link with the State through the Koraput District. Spread over an area of 5,791 square kilometres, nearly 52 percent of the District is forested. The hilly terrain of the Eastern Ghats and the dense forests running through the District accentuate its remoteness and inaccessibility.

On May 1, 2007, State Home Secretary T.K. Mishra disclosed that 39 extremists, 38 police personnel and 37 civilians were killed in Orissa over the preceding seven years. According to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), a total of 23 fatalities were recorded in 2006, compared to 17 fatalities in 2005, eight in 2004, and 16 in 2003. While the MHA does not provide District-wise break-ups of fatalities, according to the Institute for Conflict Management database, nine fatalities were reported from Malkangiri in 2006, as against five in 2005. In 2007 (till June 30), out of a total of 18 fatalities recorded in Orissa, Malkangiri alone accounts for nine. The District has already recorded the following significant incidents in 2007:

June 26: CPI-Maoist cadres targeted a communications tower of the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) at Balimela. Police said the Maoists had fixed two landmines below the tower, one of which exploded, partially damaging the installation.
June 17: CPI-Maoist cadres blew up two road rollers – one at Kapatuti village and the other at Resettlement Colony (RSC)-6 village.
June 14: Maoists tried to blow up a BSNL mobile phone tower in the Malkangiri Village (MV)-79 area, disrupting cellular phone services.
June 7: A civilian and one Central Reserve Police (CRPF) trooper were injured in an exchange of fire between a group of Maoists and CRPF personnel at Kalimela.
May 28: A government-run passenger bus was partially damaged by a CPI-Maoist-triggered claymore mine explosion at Laxmanguda.
April 29: A CRPF sub-inspector and two suspected CPI-Maoist cadres were killed in an exchange of fire near MV-79 village.
April 24: One person was killed and two others wounded in a landmine blast triggered by the CPI-Maoist cadres at MV-96 village.
March 19: Two CPI-Maoist cadres were killed in an encounter with SF personnel at Jakelkundi Forest area under Kalimela Police Station.
February 12: A CPI-Maoist cadre was killed in an encounter with the Police in Kalimela.
February 13: Three police personnel were injured as CPI-Maoist cadres opened fire targeting a Police party accompanying election officials for the first phase of the three-tier Panchayat (village local bodies) polls in Kalimela Block.
February 12: A CPI-Maoist cadre was killed in the Malkangiri District on the eve of the Panchayat elections.
January 26: A CRPF trooper was killed and two others injured in a landmine explosion triggered by CPI-Maoist cadres near MV-126 under the Kalimela Police Station limits.

Malkangiri District comes under the jurisdiction of the Andhra-Orissa Border Special Zonal Committee (AOBSZC), which was formed by the erstwhile People's War Group (now CPI-Maoist) in 2001. Maoists in Malkangiri work in close coordination with their comrades from across the borders in Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh and also receive instructions from the senior command concentrated in these States – now principally in Chhattisgarh. In March 2007, it was reported that 100 hardcore armed Maoists from Chhattisgarh had sneaked into the bordering Malkangiri and Koraput Districts of Orissa. A red alert was sounded in the tribal pockets of these Districts when Police received intelligence inputs from the Bastar District of Chhattisgarh that armed Maoists were moving towards Malkangiri and Jeypore subdivision in Koraput. Official sources in Malkangiri informed SAIR that the Maoists move constantly across the borders in groups that consist of up to 300-400 members.

The Maoists function through their dalams (squads), and those operating in Malkangiri currently include the Kalimela dalam, the Poplur dalam, the Motu dalam, the Jhanjavati dalam, and the Korkonda dalam, among others. The leaders of a dalam are rotated or transferred cyclically to other dalams in different locations in order to evade the Police. These dalams recruit locals and send them to the various Maoist training centres in Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.. According to official sources, the Maoists in Malkangiri carry a range of modern weapons including AK-47s, LMGs and SLRs, in addition to pistols and .303 rifles. In addition, cadres receive specialised training in the use of landmines, grenades and bombs including a range of improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Intelligence sources indicate that the Maoists are now using high-power jammers and filters to block mobile and wireless services in the Naxalite zones.

The retreat of the State administration is evident from the impact of periodic strike calls given by the Maoists in the area. On May 21, the Maoist's AOBSZC called for a week-long strike (from May 21 to 27) in the border Districts of Orissa and Andhra Pradesh, protesting against alleged Police excesses in tribal areas and fake encounters in the Naxalite zones. The strike was total in the Malkangiri District. Normal traffic in and outside areas bordering Malkangiri, Kalimela, Chitrakonda and MV-79 areas was badly affected. Similarly, on June 26, protesting against the formation of Special Economic Zones in the country, Maoists began a two-day economic blockade in Orissa. They obstructed roads leading to Kalimela, Motu and other villages in Malkangiri by felling trees and placing huge boulders on the roads. Normal traffic was severely disrupted, in spite of claims to the contrary by the District administration.

Opium cultivation has emerged as a major source of income for the Maoists in Malkangiri. Hundreds of acres in the District, especially areas in Chitrakonda and Kalimela, have been covered under ganja (marijuana) crops, with poor tribal farmers are lured by the Maoists into this illegal cultivation with a promise of better returns. A single plant fetches as much as INR 200 for the cultivator, and according to one estimate, a plantation on about half an acre can fetch more than INR 50,000, which is far more lucrative than any other form of agricultural activity in the region. According to reports, over 10,000 quintals of ganja are produced in the Kalimela and Chitrakonda areas each year. Cultivation is maintained round the year in the Maoist-affected tribal pockets of Janvai, Pepermetla, Poplur, Maligudaodia and Manamkonda. From the Malkangiri District, ganja is exported to nearby townships in Orissa including Bolangir, Sambalpur and Rourkela, from where it is reportedly transported onwards to Nepal and Pakistan.

CRPF personnel are the mainstay of anti-Maoist operations in Malkangiri and are supported by the regular Police, personnel of the Orissa State Armed Police, the Special Operation Group and the 1 ^st India Reserve Battalion. In May 2007, Police in the Malkangiri District started a poster campaign highlighting atrocities by the Maoists and details of a Government package for surrendered extremists. The hoardings also reiterated the Government's commitment to protect surrendered Maoists.

On June 28, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, speaking in the State Legislative Assembly, claimed that the situation relating to Left Wing extremism in Orissa is better than that in the neighbouring states of Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. This, however, can at best provide cold comfort. With dense and hilly forests, a large body of trained cadres, with supporters among the local tribals and a helping hand from across the State's borders, Maoists have found it rather easy to create a serious challenge for the Security Forces and have converted Districts like Malkangiri into safe areas for their activities. Intermittent counter-Maoist operations and a weak surrender policy have proven entirely insufficient to contain this challenge, and the situation can only worsen, unless a dramatic augmentation of capacities and operations is witnessed in the District, and the enveloping area in the State and across its boundaries.

Media for Ever

No More Street Food in Delhi!

2007-07-09T08:35:00.001+05:30

Lalit Batra

Most cities and towns in the so called Global South are marked today by an overwhelming presence of the informal economy. Hawkers and street vendors are one of the most visible segments of the informal sector. When Keith Harth, an economic anthropologist, on a mission to study urban labour markets in Africa, coined the term 'informal economy' he was, to a large extent, referring to scores of hawkers and street vendors selling a bewildering array of goods on the streets in cities and towns of Africa. Till 1960s the dominant discourse viewed the presence of the informal sector of the economy, including hawkers and vendors, as a temporary phenomenon, a by-product of the transition from the 'traditional' to the 'modern' economy. It was assumed that as the process of modern capitalist development advances this sector would cease to exist soon enough with the extension of the legal, regulatory and administrative frameworks of the State to all aspects of economic activity.

However various studies subsequently conducted in many parts of the world proved beyond doubt that far from shrinking, the informal sector was in fact expanding. In almost all of Asia, Africa and Latin America, the majority of the workforce was found to be working in the informal or unorganised sector. Recent studies suggest that subsequent to the ascendance of neo-liberal economic policies in most parts of the world, its speed of expansion has increased substantially. In fact even in advanced industrialised countries of the West informalisation of the economy and the workforce is rising significantly.

Today about 93 per cent of India's work force is in the unorganised sector, which accounts for 63 per cent of the country's GDP. There is a dearth of reliable data on the prevalence of the informal sector in urban areas. There are studies which put these numbers at 65 percent in small towns to 46 percent in million plus cities. In any case, one can safely assume that over half the workforce in urban areas is earning its livelihood in informal sector. A large number of those within the urban informal sector- 15 percent according to one estimate- are street vendors.

Delhi has a workforce of roughly 40 lakhs, only about 22 per cent of which are employed in the organised sector. There is a paucity of official data on the number of hawkers and vendors operating in the city but reliable estimates put the figure between 3 to 4 lakhs making it one of the most important informal sector activities in Delhi. The problems faced by street vendors in the city are now too well known to need any elaboration. Studies conducted by several organisations recount the familiar tale of barely enough earnings to be able to survive, harassment and plundering by the police, municipal authorities and local musclemen, criminalisation by law, non recognition in official city plans, apathy or hostility of the middle and upper classes and so on.

Unlike many other major cities the Master Plans of Delhi have repeatedly made provisions for accommodating and regularising hawkers and vendors but there has been little effort on the part of authorities to effectively implement these provisions. Thus till date less than 20,000 tehbazari licenses have been issued by municipal authorities rendering the existence and livelihoods of over 90 per cent street vendors illegal and making them easy preys to all kinds of harassment and exploitation. A study conducted by Manushi, an NGO, in 2001 puts the payments made by hawkers and street vendors in Delhi by way of bribes and extortion to police, municipal officials and local musclemen at Rs. 600 crores annually!

In this context the recent Supreme Court order banning cooked street food in the capital is like punishing the victim instead of the perpetrator. The order put a seal of approval on the scheme proposed by the MCD and the NDMC to ban cooked street food in order to regulate hawking and vending in Delhi with a view to beautify the city for the Commonwealth Games 2010. Citing reasons of health and hygiene, the court ordered that, except tea and coffee sellers, all other hawkers selling cooked food on streets will have to go. The court also rejected the petition filed by hawkers' associations and NGOs like NASVI, SEWA and Manushi for conducting a comprehensive survey to ascertain the number of hawkers in the city and identify suitable hawking sites.

At a time when the economy has stopped creating jobs despite all the hullabaloo about 8 percent growth rate, the court order is bound to add a few lakh more to the list of the unemployed. Not only that it will kill the 500 year old great culinary tradition of street food of Dilli beside making the city further unsafe. Significantly, the order comes at a time when the government is considering allowing 100 percent FDI in retail. Sealing of commercial units, removal of hawkers... has the highest court of land put its weight firmly behind the Reliances, Walmarts and McDonalds of the world?

Pratirodh

North East: National liberation Movements , not govt, run the show here

2007-07-09T08:33:00.001+05:30

Neelesh Misra and Nagendar Sharma, Hindustan Times

There is no pomp just a house with a tin roof, lost behind rows of shops selling stationery, meat and groceries. But in Manipur's Ukhrul town, this inconspicuous house is far more powerful than any office of the central or state government.

This is the office of the Underground. Rebels, not the government, run the show in Manipur and several other areas of the northeast. Largely ignored by the national government and media for decades, the region is home to some of the world's longest running insurgencies, the most complex web of militancy in India.

"It is an open secret. There is a parallel government running in Manipur because people are not getting what they expected of the government," said LM Ngaranmi, a Naga community leader in Manipur's Ukhrul district bordering Myanmar.

In Ukhrul, the face of the Underground is the man known to most by his position the "Chief Administrative Officer". He was travelling to Dimapur, the rebel headquarters, when HT sought a meeting. Among his many jobs is collecting "tax".

In Manipur, government employees have it deducted at source by the rebels' agents at the workplace. Across the region, hundreds of thousands of contractors, traders, shopkeepers and most people with any sort of stable income pay hefty cuts to the Underground. Abductions for ransom and killings are frequent.

Even the governor admits the State has been invisible in many areas. "When I came to Manipur (in 2004), there were six sub-divisions totally under Underground control for 10 years. A 10-year-old boy had never seen the face of a police constable," Manipur Governor Shivinder Singh Sidhu told the NE TV channel. Not much has changed; in fact the rebels' influence is even more sweeping.

According to police estimates, the United Liberation Front of Asom (Ulfa) makes hundreds of crores of rupees annually from extortion. Central intelligence officials say that the NSCN (IM), the main Naga insurgent group that has a cease-fire with the government, has been passing its annual budget of between Rs 20 crore and Rs 25 crore from taxes each year. There is no way to independently confirm the figures.

Across the region, insurgency exists to some degree in almost all the eight states of the northeast Assam, Manipur, Nagaland, Tripura, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim. Almost 5,700 militants attacks have taken place since 2003 killing almost 4,000 people, mostly suspected militants and civilians.

In Manipur, nearly all consumer goods being sold in shops from torches to cars cost substantially higher because all vehicles coming into the state have to pay extortion money at Dimapur in Nagaland, headquarters of the NSCN (IM), the main Naga rebel group. "It is not possible for any government to prevent this (extortion) completely," Nagaland Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio recently told the State Assembly.

"Money comes from different departments of Manipur. And the IM is taking annual taxes transport tax, godown tax, and so on. It is becoming quite unbearable," said Yumnam Joykumar, the Manipur police chief.

Cadres of the NSCN-IM mostly teenagers and men in their 20s roam the streets of Dimapur, checking if vehicles have the receipts they get after paying tax to the 'Government of People's Republic of Nagaland'.

Any vehicle without the receipts is burnt or damaged. Some face a worse fate. Ramesh, a trader's son who declined to give his surname, fled the state after his father was killed in daylight, publicly.

"We had a flourishing shop and used to get letters from the rebel groups, including both factions of the NSCN for donations. My father paid these people, but when demands became unreasonable he refused, and had to pay the price," he said. Worse, there is deep alienation between New Delhi and the northeast, adding to the churning.

A police officer recalls the day when he was summoned for official work to Agartala by aides of a High Court judge from outside the state. The next morning, the judge summoned the officer to his room and said he was not pleased with the state government's arrangements. "But Agartala is the capital of Tripura, it does not come under Assam, your honour," the officer said.

On the other side of the divide, are citizens like those on a recent flight from Dimapur from Kolkata, who muttered: "So many Indians on the flight today!"

Hindustan Times

Atrocities Against UP Dalits in the Wake of Mayawati's Victory:

2007-07-09T08:26:00.001+05:30

While Mayawati is being hailed for her party's unique metamorphosis from Bahujan to 'Sarvajan', Mayawati's victory has no doubt sharpened
the aspirations of dalits in UP for democracy and empowerment. However, the few weeks that have followed Mayawati's ascension to power have witnessed a
disturbing trend: a spate of assaults and atrocities against dalits.

Take the example of Mohanlalganj, barely an hour's journey away from the seat of power in Lucknow. Here, a poor and aged dalit peasant was shot
dead, and his son as well as daughter-in-law seriously injured .Their only fault was that they resisted the forcible grabbing of their land in the name
of road by a rich Brahmin who also happened to be a government officer. Despite being pre-warned about the possibility of such an assault, police and
administration turned a blind eye.

In Raebareilly, again in the vicinity of the state capital, an old dalit agrarian labour was brutally beaten to death. He had refused to work
for a Rajput landlord, since the landlord had not paid his long-due wages and instead got him arrested on a false pretext of theft during the Mulayam
regime. Possibly emboldened by the formation of Mayawati Government he asserted his minimum democratic right to accept or refuse an employer,
and paid for it with his life. Significantly, the killers - upper caste feudal men, are also 'associated' with the BSP. So when the local Rajput BSP
leader came to the spot apparently to assert the rights of dalits, he was actually maneuvering to save the main culprits, his caste-class kinsmen!

The Bundelkhand region, hit by famine and drought, is a site of tremendous agrarian distress. In Mahoba, a village in Bundelkhand, a dalit village
Pradhan was recently tied up and brutally beaten by a moneylender landlord of Brahmin origin. This humiliation and violence was inflicted on him
as punishment when he failed to repay the usurious interest on the loan lent by the landlord. Recall that such moneylenders are responsible in a large
part for turning Bundelkhand into another Vidarbha, with soaring suicide rates of poor peasants.

In western UP too, a dalit boy was killed - ironically when hen joined others of his community who were celebrating the victory of Mayawati .
Here too the 'Sarvajan' killers are yet to face any punishment.

The emerging pattern of these incidents indicates that despite the 'historic' victory of Mayawati ji`s Sarvajan politics and the miraculous 'social
engineering', the assaults on dalits continue unabated. In fact perhaps the assault has intensified because there is assertion on the part of
dalits in the wake of their heightened expectations, while the oppressors, too, do see a new hope in the Sarvajan Sarkar and assert their feudal 'right' to
oppress!

Liberating the state from the clutches of mafia-criminals was the USP of Mayawati in the recently held elections. Needless to say, this goal
requires an uncompromising battle against criminalization of politics, not just some selective gimmicks based on political convenience. The use of criminals
to grab power is the basic source of break-down of law and order in the society. And obviously the vulnerable sections of the society, the poor
and the dalits, are its worst victims.

Dalit emancipation and establishing a casteless society are the proclaimed strategic goals of Mayawati . The continuing atrocities on dalits even
in the wake of victory is a warning that these goals are impossible without thoroughgoing democratization of the state and society. Doing away with
all forms of feudal oppression, strict implementation of SC/ST Act without dilution, resolving land disputes through proper land reforms by
constituting a Land Commission, ensuring proper and timely wages and holding the state machinery responsible for any lapse regarding atrocities on
the poor are some of the minimum steps required.

Will the Mayawati govt., in its new avatar as government of the Sarvajan, dare to address these urgent issues of democratic reform that are the
only possible bases of dalit dignity?

Pratirodh

On the matter of a ceasefire declaration, peace talks and the proscription of the CPP/NPA

2007-07-08T09:33:00.001+05:30

Communist Party of the Philippines

July 04, 2007

The past several days, Arroyo's key security and defense officials have been jabbering about resuming formal peace negotiations with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) preconditioned on the capitulation of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the New People's Army (NPA) through a premature and unwarranted declaration of a ceasefire.

In the face of the rejection of such a demand, National Security Adviser and Acting Defense Secretary Norberto Gonzales has gone to the extent of threatening to proscribe the CPP/NPA as "terrorists" under the so-called Human Security Act (HSA) together with such groups as the Abu Sayyaf, Rajah Solaiman Group and the Jemaah Islamiyah.

At the same time, Gloria Arroyo has vowed to use the HSA, scheduled to take effect this July 15, to "crush the terrorist movement." Gonzales has issued instructions to government troops to pay no attention to criticisms of its rights violations and step up its campaign of suppression.

Such arrogant threats and patently fascist attitude do not indicate an honest desire for real peace talks.

The CPP and the revolutionary forces cannot be compelled to declare a ceasefire in the absence of any substantive agreement to resolve the basic socio-economic and political reforms that lie at the roots of the armed conflict.

The NPA cannot declare and implement a ceasefire while gross human rights violations continue to be committed by the Arroyo regime against the leaders, consultants and forces of the revolutionary movement, activists of the democratic movement and the masses. A ceasefire under such conditions would be tantamount to capitulation. The NPA cannot allow the Arroyo regime to carry out its campaign of suppression with impunity. Revolutionary armed resistance against state terrorism is just and necessary.

The CPP, NDFP and the revolutionary forces in the Philippines are much desirous of resuming formal peace negotiations, stalled since 2004 because of the GRP's adamant refusal to fulfill its obligations under agreements reached with the NDFP. The NDFP had earlier forwarded its willingness to enter into a ceasefire agreement with the GRP within the framework of a 10-point Concise Agreement for an Immediate Just Peace that sets key favorable conditions and the adoption of necessary agreements before a ceasefire could be put into effect.

The Arroyo regime, on the other hand, has failed to show sincerity in the peace process. Not once in the past six years has it shown good faith by fulfilling its obligations. It has consistently reneged on its responsibilities embodied in The Hague Declaration of 1992, the 1998 Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL), the Joint Agreement on Security and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG) and the Oslo Accords of February and April 2004.

A major provision in the Oslo Accords, in particular, requires the GRP to undertake efforts to resolve the outstanding issue of the inclusion of the CPP, the NPA and NDFP chief political consultant Jose Ma. Sison in lists of "terrorist organizations" maintained by the US and EU. The Oslo Accords took cognizance of the fact that such listing and meddling by the US in Philippine internal affairs violate national sovereignty and are detrimental to the peace process.

The Arroyo regime's plan to proscribe the CPP and NPA in its own list of "terrorist organizations" all the more makes the resumption of formal peace negotiations impossible.

The Arroyo regime wants to use the proscription of the CPP/NPA under the HSA as basis for its all-out campaign of suppression first against the revolutionary forces, and then against the legal democratic forces and other staunch anti-Arroyo forces and oppositionists the regime claims to be "fronts of the CPP/NPA."

There is nothing new in the Arroyo regime's threat to proscribe the CPP/NPA. Notwithstanding the repeal of the anti-subversion law, the Arroyo regime has all long maliciously branded the CPP/NPA as "terrorist" to denigrate the legitimate revolutionary demands of the Filipino people, vilify the revolutionary armed struggle, scuttle the peace negotiations and justify the US-supported all-out war of terror and campaign of suppression against the revolutionary forces and the people.

Since 2001, the Arroyo regime has engaged in an all-out terror campaign of extrajudicial killings, abductions, illegal arrests, military saturation drives, artillery shelling and aerial bombing of entire communities. All these compel the Filipino people to take up arms to defend their rights and exact justice and retribution for all the crimes perpetrated by the state's armed forces

The NPA and the revolutionary forces must persist in vigorously advancing revolutionary armed struggle to defend the people and put an end to the Arroyo regime's reign of terror.

Maoists unleash publicity war

2007-07-07T23:59:00.001+05:30

Maoists unleash publicity war

K. Srinivas Reddy

Circulate copies of documentary to enlist youth into their ranks

Propaganda war: A video grab from the documentary released by the Maoists shows rebels training at an obstacle course in Bastar district of Chhattisgarh.

HYDERABAD: The Maoists seem to be adopting the latest technology in their bid to strengthen their armed struggle. They have now launched a publicity blitzkrieg to enlist youth into their fold by circulating a one-hour documentary on their "military successes" in the Bastar district of Chhattisgarh.

VCDs containing the documentary are in circulation in Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Orissa and other States. The documentary is primarily intended to encourage youth to join the ranks of the People's Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA), the military wing of the Communist Party of India (Maoist).

The documentary urges viewers to support the cause of the Maoists and join the PLGA in protecting the "rights of the adivasis" in Bastar "being ruthlessly exploited by successive governments." Intelligence officials are worried about the propaganda war, for which there is neither an answer from the Government nor a counter-strategy from the security forces.

The documentary, a copy of which is available with The Hindu, not only shows the preparations of the PLGA fighters but also live footage of the raid on the Murkinagar police outpost in Bijapur district on April 16, 2006. During the raid, seven policemen and 10 Special Police Officers were killed, and 49 weapons, including a light machine gun and thousands of bullets, were seized by the Maoists. The footage shows the ease with which the PLGA fighters mounted the attack and overran the police camp amid gunfire and the crackle of wireless sets used by them to coordinate the movement of their assault teams. Explosion of hand grenades, rapid fire from an LMG, orders being shouted for advancing towards the camp and firing …, the documentary captures every detail, just like the war movies.The documentary also dwells on the endurance and fitness modules, and weapons and combat training of the PGLA men.

"The documentary would certainly appeal to the youth as it projects an extremely positive image of the Maoist rebels. It seeks to drive home the message that the Maoists are in no way inferior to the security forces," a top officer said.

TheHindu

CPI (ML) targets private hospitals

2007-06-29T23:34:00.001+05:30

Monday June 25 2007 12:28 IST

NIZAMABAD: The CPI (ML) New Democracy party's effort in the name of 'Prajarogya Parirakshana' is sending jitters to the private medical sector.

The party along with its related organisation All India Kisan Mazdoor Sangh (AIKMS) is now initiating all-party movement against injustice in the medical sector and trying to check looting of patients by the big hospitals.

The Telugu Desam Government has introduced an Act for checking the private medical sector and the Congress Government has released GO 135 recently to augment its implementation.

However, there seems to be no impact of the Act on the private hospitals. In such a scenario, the CPI (ML) with partnership of Telugu Desam, TRS and people's organisations formed a committee in Armoor for implementing its programme.

The newly formed committee has submitted one memorandum to the government and another to the Indian Medical Association (IMA) giving it two months time to ensure that the managements of the private hospitals function according to the Private Nursing Home Regulatory Act.

The CPI (ML) leaders also suggested the IMA representatives to see that the managements agree for running the hospitals in favour of public.

Buoyed with few recent successes in this area, the party has also prepared an action plan for spreading the movement to other districts like Nizamabad, Karimnagar and other areas.

The party had made one RMP in Armoor mandal bear the expenses for the treatment of one patient in a corporate hospital after his treatment on the person had an unwanted effect.

In another case, a young advocate had received timely medical service in Kammarapalli.

The party's efforts had even prompted some high-level officials suggest to the management of a private hospital to pay compensation to the bereaved family of a Dalit woman who died in their hospital.

AIKMS State secretary V Prabhakar called upon all politcal parties and people's organisations to join hand with them in their endeavour.

He ruled out allegations that their partymen were attacking doctors.

Meanwhile, Andhra Pradesh Nursing Homes Association district unit secretary E Ravinder Reddy said the CPI (ML) was asking for payment of compensation to the bereaved families of deceased in their hospitals and made it clear that it was not possible.

"Encouraging such incidents might prevent doctors from taking up serious cases," he feared. IMA district unit secretary Dr Mahipal Reddy said the party's efforts to check the medical profession was giving rise to new problems.

DM&HO MVVS Murhty said they do not have any information about the introduction of the Private Nursing Home Act. We are still awaiting for government orders, he said.

http://www.newindpress.com

Nandigram on the boil again

2007-06-29T18:32:00.001+05:30

New Delhi: Nandigram continues to be on the boil. CPI-M activists and farmers reportedly hurled crude bombs at each other on Friday morning.

After a lull of ten days, fresh violence erupted on Thursday evening. One person was wounded in firing between an anti-land acquisition group and CPI-M activists.

The firing took place at Tekhalibazar, the same area where supporters of Bhumi Uchched Pratirodh Committee (Anti Land Acquisition group) and CPI-M had traded fire sporadically for three days from Ju ne 15.

Around 200 policemen were deployed on Thursday to bring the situation under control.

The Bengal government's plans for a special economic zone in Nandigram were scrapped soon after 14 people died in police firing on March 14. But sporadic clashes between CPI-M activists and farmers against land acquisition are yet to stop.

East Midnapore district superintendent of police G A Srinivas said the firing between the two sides began at 0700 hrs, IST and continued for an hour.

He said one person was injured in the exchange of fire. BUPC convenor Sheikh Suffian claimed the injured Nishi Kanta Pradhan was a Committee supporter.

Suffian also claimed CPI-M cadres had fired 30 rounds at Committee supporters at Tekhalibazar.

http://www.ibnlive.com

Govt Must Bear Responsibility for Encounter Killings - NCHRO

2007-06-29T16:03:00.001+05:30

Press Release

Mumbai, Jun 29: The following are the resolutions adopted at the meeting of Human Rights and Civil Society Activists called by the National Confederation of Human Rights Organization

(NCHRO), on the occasion of International Day of "Solidarity with Victims of Torture", held at the Mumbai Patrakar Sangh hall on June 26, 2007.

Encounter killings are part of a deliberate and conscious state administrative practice for which the Indian government must bear responsibility. The successive political groups in power sanctified this de facto policy of extra-judicial killings by members of the police forces, the armed forces and para-military security personnel in Jammu and Kashmir, Assam, Manipur and Tripura and by state armed police in Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Gujarat in the name of eliminating naxalites, terrorists or criminals.

The State has armed itself with draconian laws such as Armed Forces Special Powers Act, Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, and derivative state legislations which are irrational, unjust and against the principles of natural justice. These laws justify preventive detention and encourage extraction of confessions by any method.

The United Nations Basic Principles emphasise that the use of force and firearms by law enforcement officials should be in consonance with respect for human rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that "everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person." Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) provides that "every human being has the inherent right to life. This right shall be protected by law. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life." Extra-judicial killings clearly contravene the right to life.

India ratified ICCPR in 1979 and signed the convention against torture since 1997, but it has since betrayed its commitment to take effective measures to ensure that extra-judicial killings do not occur. It is yet to follow-up on that and have a ratification of the said convention. The rapid increase in the number of such killings flies in the face of the Right to Life as enshrined in Article 21 of the Indian Constitution. These antiquated laws are yet to be amended and brought in line with international practices. Infact there is no real investigation into such extra-judicial killings. It is no surprise therefore that the guilty in the police and security forces remain unpunished.

The hopes that a just civil society had in the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), have been belied because of serious flaws in the Statutes. The NHRC and other National Commissions too have not been able to call the guilty to account for violence against religious minorities, women, dalits and tribals.

This "National Convention on Encounter Killings" organized by National Confederation of Human Rights Organizations (NCHRO) in association with Amnesty International of India on this 26th day of June 2007, on the International Anti-torture day, notes gross violation of human rights, specially of torture and extra judicial deaths in many countries. The Convention condemns the assault on human dignity in the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay in the Cuban island, the military prisons in Iraq, and the situation in countries of South Asia and thereby demands the following:

We demand from the Government of India and State Governments, the following:

Urgent and effective measures to stop fake encounters, disappearances, custodial violence, custodial death and extra judicial killings by police, special squads and security forces.
Reform the criminal justice system and the Penal code, beginning the process by repealing all special legislation that enable a culture of torture and culture of impunity.
Prevent cruel, inhuman or degrading punishments by authorities.
Stop discrimination and violence against women, indigenous peoples, dalits and minorities and ensure genuine safe guards.
Strengthen the statutes of the NHRC, State Human Rights and Minorities Commission (SHRMC) and other statutory bodies.
Protect and rehabilitate the victims and survivors of encounter killings and other police atrocities, and give them affirmative compensation.
Ratify UN convention against torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment (convention against torture) by making amendments in statutes.
Establish a national register of the missing persons, and of the victims of torture, custodial deaths and encounter killings under the supervision of the NHRC.
Establish public grievance and redressal mechanisms in the pattern of Lokayukta and Ombudsman to take cognisance of excesses committed by the police and armed personnel, and to enforce Command Responsibility..

Maintain the sanctity of the ultimate power of Clemency now being exercised by the President of India and by State Governors from judicial and political aggression and encroachments.

Philippine Maoists attack on army outpost, kill 7 troops

2007-06-29T16:01:00.001+05:30

MANILA (Reuters) - About 70 communist New People's Army (NPA) rebels attacked and overran an army outpost on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, killing a soldier and six part-time troops, a police general said on Friday.

Antonio Nanas, regional police chief, said the Maoist rebels surprised an undermanned army outpost in Las Nieves town late on Tuesday night, attacking from three directions.

"A soldier was killed in the initial burst of gunfire," Nanas told reporters, adding a team of soldiers and reservists defended their positions for several minutes before they were overwhelmed by superior firepower.

The rebels ransacked the detachment and captured six reservists. They were later executed. "We found their bodies not far from the outpost," he said.

The NPA, fighting one of the world's oldest communist insurgencies and active in 69 of 81 provinces, often attacks remote military and police facilities to steal weapons and ammunition.

The Philippines, which is also fighting Muslim insurgents, has said that the NPA is its biggest security threat. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo ordered an all-out war against the communists in June 2006.

Peace talks between the government and the rebels stalled in 2004 after the United States and some European countries put the NPA and its leaders on terrorist blacklists

On Thursday, the NPA's political leaders, based in The Netherlands, rejected Manila's proposal for a ceasefire as a condition before talks could be re-started, describing it as an unacceptable demand tantamount to capitulation.

http://in.today.reuters.com

Maoist leader Babulal gets life term

2007-06-29T08:14:00.001+05:30

Rebel Babulal gets life term

OUR CORRESPONDENT

Giridih, June 28: A fast track court today awarded life term to Babulal Murmu, an extremist, for his futile attempt to kill former chief minister Babulal Marandi four years ago.

The ninth fast track court of additional district and sessions judge R.D. Yadav pronounced the punishment after hearing 17 out of 18 chargesheeted witnesses.

At least eight prime witnesses, including several police officers and villagers, identified Babulal as one of the attackers. The police had booked Babulal under the Arms Act, too, but the court did not sentence him on that account.

A group of CPI(Maoist) activists had attacked the security personnel guarding Marandi on September 6, 2003, at Sidhwa-Soti in Tisri to kill the former chief minister.

In the ambush, the rebels triggered three landmine blasts and opened fire on Marandi's security forces and killed three persons — constable Claiment Soren and villagers Paura Kisku and Mahendra Sharma.

Babulal, Vishnu Rajwar, Taslumuddin, Ganauri Ravidas and two others were named accused in the case with 200 others in the unknown category.

On November 14, 2003, Tisri police arrested Babulal. Since then, he was under trial in the Giridih court.

Other than the attack on Marandi, Maoists have committed several crimes, including butchering 16 villagers in Bhelwaghati and looting rifles from the homeguard training centre, in the area. But in most of the cases the police had to release the accused persons due to lack of evidence.

Oriss: House debates Maoist menace

2007-06-29T08:11:00.001+05:30

Statesman News Service
BHUBANESWAR, June 28: The Maoist menace needs to be viewed in proper perspective as it is not confined to Orissa. The incidence of violence during their current economic blockade have taken place in several states, said chief minister Mr Naveen Patnaik while adding without being complacent one can say that the situation in neighbouring states is worse than Orissa.

Replying to a notice for adjournment on Left wing extremist-related violence at Deogarh and Koraput as well as two other murder cases at Keonjhar and Athgarh, the CM said 14 states were affected by the Left wing extremism. Reeling out figures he said during the current year, there were 31 instances of attacks by Naxalites in Orissa whereas in Chhattisgarh, the number of cases were 169 and in Jharkhand, it was 118.

Over the past seven years, the casualty figure in Orissa was 103 as against 941, 930 and 1867 in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Andhra Pradesh, he informed.

Denying the Opposition charge that the police were demoralised and unable to tackle the problem, Mr Patnaik claimed that his government had taken systemic steps to improve the efficiency of the police. Over 10,600 posts had been created and 4806 constables recruited. The India Reserve Battalion was formed and two more such battalions are to be established, he added.
He pointed out that the administration was getting the support of local people and the recent Maoist attack in Deogarh where they had killed three persons was because they were not getting support of the locals.

Countering the Opposition on failure in the socio-economic front , specially land related issues, the CM noted that a few days ago, he had gone to Rayagada and distributed 18,235 pattas to landless people which is the " highest in the country at one single function". "The police were concerned about the trip but it was so important that I decided to go and I am happy I did," he remarked.

It is not true that the government had failed to perform in the socio-economic front, stated the chief minister while noting that the growth rate during the 10th Plan period was higher than projections.

Earlier, he referred to the four particular instances and said on 21 June, Maoists entered Ranigola village and Telikusimi village of Deogarh district. They killed three persons suspecting their involvement in anti-Naxalite operations that had taken place in the village on 3 July last year when four hardcore Maoists had been killed. The Maoists had suffered amajor setback in the region due to two successfully anti-Naxalite operations last year in which seven Maoists had died, he said.

On the same day, Maoists attacked the Darliput railway station in Koraput district, he said. He also provided details of the other two criminal cases that had been registered at Athgarh of Cuttack district and Elkania in Keonjhar district.

Initiating the discussions, Congress leader Mr Narasingha Mishra had lambasted the government for its failure on the socio-economic front as a result of which the poor and tribals were taking to naxalism.

He decried that several key posts were lying vacant including those of DIG of two important range. Nothing has been done on land reforms and this government does not want to provide land to the landless, he alleged , caustically adding that the government was grabing land and displacing tribals . You will be digging your own grave if you take comfort by drawing comparisons with neighbouring states, he remarked.

Several other Congress leaders accused the government of complete failure on the law and order front and the socio-economic front. The treasury bench members led by Kalpataru Das countered referring to pro-poor measures taken by the government and the growth of left wing extremism in different states.

The statesman

West Bengal Police policy opens red success door

2007-06-28T22:39:00.001+05:30

Police policy opens red success door

RANJAN DASGUPTA

Ranchi, June 27: A faulty policy on police transfer has come as a boon for the Maoists to reap mileage from the two-day economic blockade, which ends midnight today.

Central Coalfields Limited (CCL) could despatch only 17,500 tonnes of coal — against its usual 67,000 tonnes — by railways yesterday, the first day of the blockade.

The sudden fall in the supply of coal was due to unavailability of wagons, said senior CCL officials, adding that it has hit the company and the state financially.

The blockade crippled economic activities, especially in the transport sector. With businessmen having low confidence on the law enforcing agencies, they thought it prudent to withdraw trucks and other commercial vehicles. "If the rebels can murder a Lok Sabha member (Sunil Mahto) in broad daylight, can anyone rely on the government to protect our lives and properties?" asked a leading transporter.

Some of the senior state police officers admitted that the fear factor has gripped the common people about the rebels. "To instil the confidence among the people the police machinery has to undertake operations against rebels on a continuous basis. But men in khaki are hardly visible in remote parts of districts that have become safe haven for the unofficial men in khaki — the rebels. They are punishing those who defy their diktat and the common masses do not have the courage to ignore agitation sponsored by the Naxalites," said a superintendent of police.

Several police officers admitted that clearly there is a lack of motivation to inspire the jawans and the officials to take on the rebels fearlessly. "It is a fact that in our state, the authorities transfer police officers and jawans in Naxalite-hit districts and police stations as punishment for their alleged problem with the higher-ups. So will such staff give their cent per cent in battling the rebels?" questioned a senior police officer.

In many rebel-hit states, the government makes it a point to depute its most efficient officer in districts that are hit by Naxalites.

Manpower is another issue that is preventing the police from carrying out the anti-Naxalite operations. Take the case of the government railway police assigned to keep a tab on trains and stations. Against the sanctioned strength of 800, only 550 jawans are functioning and with this skeleton force, GRP has to provide escort parties in over 70 trains passing through the state.

But deputy chief minister Sudhir Mahto refused to admit that the police had failed to tackle the issue. "The rebels adopt hit and run strategy. They do not have the courage to come to face to face with police. The government is serious in dealing with the problem."

Meanwhile, Maoist area commander Teklal Mahto was arrested by Giridih police from Dwarpahri under Jamua police station. "He was wanted in eight cases of loot, murder and violence," said superintendent of police A.K. Singh.

In Bokaro, two rebels — Rameshwar Gangu (40) and Dhaneshwar Mahto (32) — were arrested from Upper Ghat in Nawadih. Both were wanted in many cases.

Maoist eye on target for 4 months

2007-06-28T22:33:00.001+05:30

West bengal: railway station attack, Eye on target for 4 months

A STAFF REPORTER

A Maoist poster warning against setting up special economic zones pasted at the station. Picture by Rahul Mahato

Calcutta, June 27: The plot to set Biramdih railway station on fire was hatched four months ago and the Chandil zonal action squad of the CPI (Maoist) was assigned the job, sources close to the Maoists told The Telegraph today.

Sudip Chongdar, in charge of the squad, was, however, told not to kill any railway employee.

The sources said Chongdar, in his mid-40s, picked 40-odd men from his squad for the task — said to be first of its kind in the state. They were from Bengal and Jharkhand.

"We believe they slipped into Jharkhand by using the dense forest routes of the Dalma range," said an Intelligence Bureau official.

The sources said the decision to set the station ablaze had been taken at the party congress held in February in a Jharkhand forest. More than 100 delegates from 16 states were present.

"It was left on Chongdar, who is also a state committee member of the organisation, to select a station," the source said. "He chose Biramdih because it falls within the four areas — Bagmundi, Ayodhya, Saraikella and Chandil — where his squad operates."

Intelligence officials believe Biramdih station's location made it an easy target. "It is flanked by two ranges of hills, Dalma and Ayodhya. This would make it easy for the rebels to get to the station undetected as well as escape to Jharkhand."

According to information gathered by IB officials from villagers, Chongdar and his men had been spotted near the station for the past one month.

But IB officials believe that Chongdar had taken the villagers into confidence. "That is why we had no prior information and no one tipped us off about the strike," said an official.

CPI( Maoist )karnataka press release on miss propaganda of state force.

2007-06-28T18:57:00.001+05:30

Source : Received via email

Respectable editors and representatives of the media, struggle greetings.
We are sending our press release about the miss propaganda on com, Padma ,life partner of com,sende Rajamouli.central committe member and state secretary of karnataka. There were some news, regarding that in the media, particularly telugu .
Please consider to publish this release with due importance.
Yours in struggle,
Gangadhara
For the state committee
27-06-07 Cpi(maoist)
karnataka

------------------------------

-----------------------------------------
Com padma,life partner of sende Rajamouli is with the party contact. Ruling class's killer forces and enemies of the people are spreading ill fabricated stories. These are all to cover and divert their cowardice, fake encounter of com Sende Rajamouli.

As we already given press statement on 25th , he was caught at Kollum of kerala, while talking through public telephone near ksrtc there. Its number is 0474 2765303. He talked through that phone on 21st, at after noon 2 o clock with the one of our comrades. He ended his call abruptly with the sound like yeaha. Then he did not called any body. He had no work in AP at that time. He was not in charge of any area of AP. He was relieved from all responsibility there. He was serving only as Karnataka in charge and state secretary from last November.

We appeal all pro people organizations, human right organizations and individuals to defeat the ill intentional lies and miss propaganda of state forces.
We appeal to bring all actual facts before the public.

With revolutionary greetings,
yours
Gangadhara
For the state committee
27-06-07 CPI (MAOIST)
Karnataka

Maoist movement unearthed in T. Nadu

2007-06-28T18:36:00.001+05:30

Maoist movement unearthed in T. Nadu

Madurai, June. 28 (PTI): The investigation of three Tamil extremists, arrested on Monday in neighbouring Theni District, has revaled the presence of a Maoist group in Tamil Nadu with links to naxals in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh.

Initial investigation of the arrested, including two law college students, has found the existence of the new outift headquartered at Dharmapuri, which in the past witnessed naxalite activities, police said.

It was suspected that about 400 college students from various places across the state would have become the members of the movement, they said.

Based on information given by the three arrested, the police were now conducting raids at various places to arrest their leaders and other members.

The three extremists were arrested on June 25 after they were nabbed from a forest area in Periyakulam taluk of Theni district by residents of a nearby village. Some others, including two women, managed to escape. The group was armed with latest rifles and grenades.

The main objective of the movement was to rob the rich, corrupt officials and give the booty to the poor. According to initial investigation, the arms and explosives seized from them included grenades of high quality (make not known), pistols and some ammunitions.

The extremists had taken training in a clearing made in the Western Ghats and had come to Periyakulam for second phase of training. They had received funding from Maoist groups.

DIG Intelligence A.K.Viswanathan had visited the spot where the extremists were nabbed.

Karnataka: ‘Naxal supporter’ list to be reviewed

2007-06-28T17:28:00.001+05:30

Special Correspondent

Naxal sympathisers is a more appropriate

phrase: Prakash

Bangalore: Home Minister M.P. Prakash said here on Wednesday said that the list of "naxalite supporters" released by the Police Department would be reviewed in the light of the fact that it includes names of progressive thinkers.

Speaking to presspersons on the sidelights of a function organised by the Karnataka State Police Sports Control Board, the Minister, however, said that the list was not prepared by the police with any "ulterior motives". "Naxal sympathisers" is a more appropriate phrase to use rather than "Naxal supporters" to describe some in the list, he added.

Asked about increasing police encounters in the city, he claimed that the number was lower than the encounters in some other major cities in the country.

http://www.hindu.com

No impact of Maoist blockade call in Andhra Pradesh

2007-06-27T20:59:00.001+05:30

No impact of Maoist blockade call in Andhra Pradesh

Hyderabad, June 27: A two-day "economic blockade" called by Maoist guerrillas had no impact in Andhra Pradesh with police remaining on high alert on areas bordering Chhattisgarh and Orissa, which were hit hard by the blockade.

The blockade called by Maoists in protest against the 'anti-people' policies of the government had no impact even in districts with a long history of Maoist violence.

Police said Maoists set afire a bus in Visakhaptanam district in coastal Andhra Pradesh on Tuesday to protest the killing of their leader S. Rajamouli in a gun battle last week. Delayed reports reaching the state capital said a group of 20 Maoists torched the bus of state-run Road Trasnport Corporation at R.V. Nagar in the district, about 650 km from here.

The Maoists also set afire records of forest development corporation and coffee board research centre in the same area. Barring these incidents, the state has not witnessed any Maoist violence since Tuesday.

However, police in Khammam district bordering Chhattisgarh, and Srikakulam, Vizianagaram and Visakhapatnam bordering Orissa remained on alert to foil any attack by the guerrillas.

Police officials said the blockade had no impact on normal life in the state because of their recent successes in firmly handling Maoists.

Police were already on alert amid reports that the Maoists, who suffered many setbacks in recent months, were trying to regroup. Fearing attacks on electricity plants during the blockade, the authorities had stepped up security.

Maoists lost many of their top leaders during last few months. Police on June 22 gunned down another top leader S. Rajamouli in Anantapur district bordering Karnataka.

Rajamouli was the mastermind behind the assassination attempt on then Andhra Pradesh chief minister N. Chandrababu Naidu in October 2003. He was a prominent member of the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) and was also heading the outfit in Karnataka.

Andhra Pradesh has been one of the strongholds of the Maoist movement.

More than 6,000 people have been killed in Maoist violence since 1969.

New kerala

Huge losses as Maoist 'economic blockade' ends

2007-06-27T20:13:00.001+05:30

New Delhi, June 27 (IANS) A two-day 'economic blockade' called by Maoists in six states to protest special economic zones (SEZs) ended Wednesday on a violent note, causing losses of well over Rs.1.5 billion to the economy, officials said.

Although there were only a few incidents of violence, with a railway station torched in West Bengal, the protest crippled normal life in parts of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and West Bengal, proving the rebel clout in impoverished rural areas.

In West Bengal's Purulia district, about 50 guerrillas set fire to the Station Master's room at Biramdih railway station around 1.30 a.m. The attack destroyed the signalling system. Biramdih - on the Jharkhand-West Bengal border - is some 285 km from Kolkata.

'The (rebels) came and scared us away. We watched from a distance as they set the station on fire and fired gunshots in the air,' said Debasis Roy, a railway employee.

The Maoists shouted anti-government slogans and left behind leaflets and posters listing their demands. Three bombs were also found on railway tracks, a police officer said.

Train services between Bihar and Jharkhand, including the state capitals Patna and Ranchi, were cancelled. Normal life was disrupted in rural areas in four of Bihar's districts, officials and news reports said.

In Chhattisgarh, now the bloodiest battleground between the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) and security forces, rail and road traffic were badly hit in the southern Bastar region.

Public transport went off the roads and movement of iron ore from Dantewada district's Bailadila hills to Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh was halted, Girdhari Nayak, the inspector general of police (Maoist operation), told IANS.

Maoists blocked interior pockets of Bastar, Bijapur, Narayanpur, Dantewada and Kanker districts by placing wooden logs on the roads.

In Bihar, shops were closed and buses were off the roads in rural parts of Arwal, Jehanabad and Gaya districts as well as a few pockets in Patna district.

But the protest had no major impact in Andhra Pradesh and Orissa. A bus had been set on fire Tuesday in Andhra Pradesh, where the police have gunned down a string of Maoist leaders in recent times.

The blockade was an economic disaster, especially in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh.

In Jharkhand alone, official estimates put the losses at around Rs.1.5 billion, spread over two days.

The railways have reportedly lost Rs.300 million due to cancellation of goods and passenger trains. At many places the Maoists destroyed railway property. In Latehar district, they burnt two engines and damaged 12 goods train bogies.

Around 1,500 buses did not ply during these two days, causing a loss of Rs.15 million. Trucks stood idle, leading to a loss of Rs.30 million.

The economic blockade also disrupted coal and iron ore production and transport, leading to losses of around Rs.600 million.

Businesses in the state have also been derailed by the blockade. The import and export business has been frozen for the two days causing losses of around Rs.500 million to traders, said a member of the Jharkhand Chamber of Commerce.

In Jharkhand, for the second day, rail and road traffic came to a complete halt. In rural areas, schools as well as colleges remained closed. Ranchi University has postponed examinations for postgraduate courses.

The CPI-Maoist called for the blockade to denounce SEZs. The party said SEZs were coming up on land taken away from farmers and being given away to industry at throwaway prices.

The police in West Bengal hunted for the attackers of the railway station, according to Inspector General of Police Jogesh Chattopadhayay. Meanwhile, shopkeepers kept their shops shut in the state's Purulia, Bankura and West Midnapore districts.

Most of Left-ruled West Bengal was, however, unaffected by the blockade.

Orissa police chief Amarananda Patnaik told IANS Wednesday: 'There is absolutely no incident. Everything is peaceful and normal today.'

Thousands have been killed in India since the Maoist rebellion began in 1967 in a village in West Bengal. The Maoists are now active in many states.

http://news.monstersandcritics.com/india

Student attacked by CPIM goons

2007-06-27T08:00:00.001+05:30

Student booked for Maoist 'link'

Statesman News Service
DURGAPUR, June 26: Three of the five students of United Students Democratic Front who were detained by Katwa police last evening were released after preliminary questioning. Though Lokeshweri Dasgupta, second year history student at Jadavpur University, Priyonkar Dey of JU and Supriyo Sur of Presidency College were released, Jaladhar Mahato was arrested for his suspected links with Maoists.
Police said that Jaladhar might have links with the Lalgarh squad of the Maoists in West Midnapore and his name had figured during investigations following two Maoist strikes in Belpahari in 2005. The other three students were released after police did not find any links with them and the Maoists. However, police are yet to question Ashim as his condition is not stable and is currently admitted at a local hospital with critical head injuries. All the five were taken to the Katwa police station yesterday following a squabble at a village about six km from Katwa town. Around 5:30 p.m. yesterday, the students were attacked by a group of CPI-M activists when they were seen taking measurement near the proposed thermal power super-project at Srikhand village. The villagers beat up the entire five-member group.

Maoist blockade success in Chhattisgarh

2007-06-27T07:57:00.001+05:30

Agencies

Raipur, June 26: Normal life was disrupted today in Naxal-infested areas of Chhattisgarh on the first day of a 48- hour economic blockade called by Maoists to protest against Special Economic Zones and the economic policies of the Central and state governments.

"The impact of the economic blockade could be witnessed in many parts of the state, spread across the three regions of Bastar, Sarguja and Raipur. However, no incident has been reported so far from any part of the state," a source in the police headquarters said here.

Reports reaching here said both train and road traffic were disrupted in many parts of the state due to the blockade.

Transportation of iron ore from Bailadila continued to be affected today as railway lines were damaged by Naxalites in Dantewada district yesterday. Passenger trains were also cancelled in the Bastar region today, police said.

Bijapur was hit by a blackout for the third consecutive day today after Maoists destroyed two electricity towers in landmine blasts on Sunday night. To enforce the blockade, Maoists also felled trees to disrupt road communications in many places.

Vehicles stayed off the roads in many places as the rebels had targeted passenger buses in Bastar and Sarguja regions during their last protest, police said. Maoists kept schools and weekly markets out of the purview of the blockade.

The Maoists blew up the two towers in the Bhairamgarh jungle, about 550 km from the state capital, plunging the whole of Bijapur district into darkness since Sunday night. Officials said repair work was now underway.

Rail services hit

Maoists blew up railway tracks in Latehar, causing a freight train to derail, as the 48-hour economic blockade called by them paralysed rail traffic and affected life in Naxal strongholds in Jharkhand today.

Maoists used dynamite to blast the tracks, leading to derailment of 22 wagons and the engine of a freight train between Chetar and Richuguta stations last night, senior public relations officer Amerandra Das said.

Another length of track was blasted between Mangra halt and Barwadih near Latehar, he said. Maoists also dragged a truck onto a level crossing on the Grand Chord line near Parasanth Outer last night. Police later removed the truck, Das said. Train services were badly affected between Gomo-Barkakana and Garwah Road and Barkakana, railways officials said.

Railway authorities had yesterday cancelled all passenger trains on the Gomo-Barkakana route and the Palamau Express on the CIC section in Dhanbad. Though police were on patrol, long distance buses stayed off the roads.

www.centralchronicle.com

Maoists dispute police claim

2007-06-26T12:59:00.001+05:30

K. Srinivas Reddy

HYDERABAD: Maoists have disputed the Andhra Pradesh police claim that top naxal leader Sande Rajamouli was shot dead in an encounter at Dharmavaram town of Anantapur district.

A statement from Gangadhara, Maoist spokesman for Karnataka, said Rajamouli was in fact arrested near a bus stand in Kollam in Kerala on Friday at 2 p.m. when he was talking to a party leader over phone and killed later.

Rajamouli left Bangalore at 8 p.m. on Wednesday night, the statement said.

Mr. Gangadhara said Rajamouli, a central committee member, was appointed Karnataka secretary in November 2005 following a split in the ranks. This happened after the fifth State conference in 2005-2006.

Demanding action against the police officers responsible for the killing, Mr. Gangadhara said the murder was a great loss to the Indian revolution and, Karnataka in particular.

www.hindu.com

Baster: Strangers in their own land

2007-06-26T12:58:00.001+05:30

Book Review

JYOTIRMAYA SHARMA

A complex and nuanced story of the 'adivasis' of Bastar being displaced in the name of development

SUBALTERNS AND SOVEREIGNS — An Anthropological History of Bastar (1854-2006): Nandini Sundar; Oxford University Press, YMCA Library Building, Jai Singh Road, New Delhi-110001. Rs. 650.

This is not merely an anthropological history of Bastar, as the subtitle of this very important book suggests, but also an exploration on the part of the author of the normative universe that will eventually determine the increasingly fragile idea of Indian democracy and its institutions. It tells a very complex and nuanced story of the 'adivasis' of Bastar being displaced by centralised models of "development", losing, in turn, their rights over la nd, water and forests.

While the conclusion in the book ends on a cautiously optimistic note, hoping for a better future for the 'adivasis' of Bastar, a people who have become strangers in their own land, the afterword is a testimony to the cruel shattering of this optimism. It tells the story of the anti-Naxalite counterinsurgency operation in Bastar called Salwa Judum. Termed by the Chhattisgarh Government variously as a "spontaneous", "self-initiated", "people's movement" and a "peace campaign", it literally means a "purification hunt". It has taken the form of a state-sponsored drive against Naxals, but in truth, it has emptied villages, left houses burnt and displaced nearly a million people. It is also a story of indiscriminate arson, looting and rape by young vigilantes with the active involvement of security forces and politicians.

Complex picture

What is significant is that the complex picture involving an increasingly centralised state and resistance to its arbitrary power in the guise of democracy does not escape the attention of Nandini Sundar's narrative. She says: "Young men armed by the government wield their guns with new-found machismo, excited when they find and kill some 'dreaded Maoist' who is often a former neighbour or even a relative, but are deeply nervous at the demons they have unleashed within. And in the jungles, the Maoists carry out military exercises, defending some imagined 'guerilla zone'. In an ironic twist orchestrated by the Indian state, young Naga and Mizo reservists, whose collective historical memories include the burning and regrouping of their own villages a few decades earlier, burn adivasi villages and rape women with impunity." The press too reports Naxal violence enthusiastically, while exhibiting an uncharacteristic coyness towards writing about state-sponsored violence. In the end, the 'adivasis' are caught between the Naxalites and the Salwa Judum, both imitating the criminality of the other.

Story of Bastar

The book is a very skilful coming together of anthropology and history. It exhaustively chronicles the story of Bastar from the time colonial administrative structures sought to impose "order" and "civilisation" on the 'adivasis' by imposing colonial prejudices and stereotypes to the present time when state-sponsored private vigilantism in the name of countering the Maoist movement threatens to wreck an entire way of life. It also details the way in which the 'adivasis' have resisted the colonial state in the past and a repressive state now.

But Sundar's study is not an attempt to romanticise either the 'adivasis' or their history as one of "undiluted innocence or even heroism." She is clear that "resistance cannot be produced on demand to be participated in or written about, but that it is always there as actuality and potential in the everyday structures of life…" Therefore, even for the 'adivasis', "everyday life is thus conducted through a mixture of active collusion, compromise or call it innovative fusion, resignation or call it avoidance…"

Erosion of a way of life

The centrality of her thesis is that despite the steady erosion of the 'adivasi' way of life, despite the increasing insouciance of the modern Indian state towards the needs of the 'adivasis' of Bastar, and despite the predatory inroads of the modern market economy into the forests of Bastar in the name of "development", there is no singular model by which we can comprehend the complexity of choices and the modes of resistance that the 'adivasis' employ, much less impose a monochromatic paradigm on their choices. This is how the author articulates this very significant point: "[T]here is no unitary insurgent consciousness that we can capture, rooted in 'culture'. In the process of individuals making collective choices of whom to support, what culture to adopt, when to rebel and when not to rebel — whether to organise under a 'traditional' system, whether to support a king or the communists, whether to represent themselves as indigenous people or both, culture is redefined, sometimes in old and sometimes in new terms. These are not entirely free or conscious choices, but they are choices nonetheless."

Sundar's book on Bastar, therefore, is a masterly narrative of the increasing failure of the Indian state to sustain democracy and provide governance. It ought to be read as a note of caution by all democrats, but also can be read for the restrained fluidity of the writing and the subterranean black humour that often is seen in its pages. An instance of the latter is K.P.S. Gill describing Salwa Judum as a real Gandhian movement.

www.hindu.com

Police stations in naxal areas to be fortified

2007-06-26T12:55:00.001+05:30

Mangalore, June 26: Wary of a guerrilla a attack on police stations in naxal affected in Malnad and coastal areas, the police Department has initiated a move to fortify the stations on Andhra Pradesh model.

The Karnataka State Police Housing Corporation Ltd. Has started the process for 14 stations in Chikmagalur, Udupi and Dakshina Kannada districts at an estimated cost of Rs 8 lakh each, Inspector-General of Police (Western Range) H N Sathyanarayana Rao told here on Saturday.

Eight police stations in Chikmagalur, four in Udupi and two in Dakshina Kannada would be fortified.

While some police stations are directly involved in the on going operation against the naxalites, other stations are located in places where the naxals wielded some influence, Rao said.

The personnel in these 14 stations were trained to deal with naxal attacks. The move to fortify was to provide added protection during the attacks. The police were making every effort to step up the intelligence gathering to pro-empt such a possibility. But, this was rendered difficult since villagers in naxal affected areas were not coming out with details, he said.

Terming the recent killing of an agriculturist –cum –grocer at Gandaghatta under Sringeri Police station limits as a mistaken identity, Rao asserted that the department took due care to protect the identity of any person who provided information on anti-social elements.

On possible emerging law and order threats in Western Range comprising Dakshina Kannada, Udupi, Uttara Kannada and Chikmagalur, Rao said the range as a whole was susceptible to terrorist attack.

While the police are dealing with the naxals, attention needs to be paid to smuggling of arms through the porous coastal borders.

Police should be vigilant about the communal situation there, he added.

Udayavani

West Bengal: RYL attack on railway tram, protest against industrialization

2007-06-26T12:29:00.001+05:30

Naxal act a crime: Cops

- 1 HELD FOR TRAM ATTACK

A STAFF REPORTER

A youth, said to be a member of a Naxalite outfit, has been arrested on charges of setting fire to a tram on College Street on Sunday night.

Bhola Dutta, in his early-30s, was picked up from his Muraripukur Road home on Monday. Police said he is a member of the Revolutionary Youth League (RYL), known to be sympathetic to the CPI (Maoist).

Sunday's incident marked the first attack on government property by Naxalites in Calcutta since the Seventies. In February, the window-panes of Lexus Motors, on AJC Bose Road, were smashed by a group of Jadavpur University students who were reportedly members of a Naxalite group. Three of them were arrested.

An RYL spokesman said "last night's incident was a symbol of our protest against the state government's atrocities in the name of industrialisation", but the police dubbed it a "criminal" act.

"We are not ready to accept the RYL's claim that setting ablaze the tram was part of their political movement. The incident was a criminal act and the accused will be treated accordingly," said Pradip Chatterjee, deputy commissioner of police (headquarters).

Dutta, who runs a small business, has been charged with damaging government property and indulging in criminal conspiracy. Chatterjee said all those present with Dutta have been identified. "We will arrest them soon."

A group of five intercepted the tram heading towards Belgachhia at the crossing of Mahatma Gandhi Road and College Street. "After the driver and the passengers in the first-class coach were forced to get off, the youth sprinkled kerosene on the footboard and threw a burning matchstick," said an officer of Bowbazar thana.

On seeing a police jeep, the youths fled, leaving behind handwritten leaflets. "The fire was doused immediately and the tram taken to the depot," said the officer.

The RYL spokesman asserted that such incidents would recur if the government did not adopt "a people-friendly industrialisation policy".

2-day Maoists blockade start today

2007-06-26T12:19:00.001+05:30

BASTAR (CHHATTISGARH): Tension prevailed in the parts of Chhattisgarh as Maoists began their two-day economic blockade on Tuesday. Two tribal civil militia members were killed overnight. Railway tracks were damaged to halt transportation of iron ore to Andhra Pradesh.

"Rebels axed to death two tribal members of the civil militia movement Salwa Judum in an overnight attack in Bijapur district. The guerrillas also halted the transportation of iron ore from Dantewada district's Bailadila hills to Visakhapatnam by damaging railway tracks at several points on Monday," a police official told media.

The outlawed Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) has called for an economic blockade Tuesday and Wednesday to protest the alleged exploitation of the state's natural resources by private and public firms. The rebels claim the resources belong exclusively to the locals of the area.

They are also opposed to the formation of special economic zones (SEZs) in various parts of the country.

The Bastar region in southern Chhattisgarh, spread across 40,000 sq km, is rich in minerals and forest resources. It is home to several private companies, including Essar Steel Ltd, and India's largest public sector iron ore producer and exporter National Mineral Development Corporation Ltd (NMDC).

Normal life has been thrown out of gear in the interior areas of five districts in the Bastar region - Narayanpur, Bijapur, Bastar, Kanker and Dantewada. Transporters have kept their vehicles off the road fearing attacks by Maoists. The rebels, however, have exempted ambulances and school buses from the strike.

The Chhattisgarh government has beefed up security at railway stations, highways, government installations and iron ore rich regions to foil Maoist attacks during the blockade.

Maoists have a strong presence in the Bastar region and even run a parallel government in some areas.

According to police estimates, around 5,000 hardcore Maoists armed with AK-47 rifles and landmines, backed by nearly 20,000 cadres, are active in southern Chhattisgarh's hilly terrain.

CPI(Maoist) Statement regarding the fake encounter killing of com Sandre Rajamouli

2007-06-25T12:15:00.001+05:30

source:via email

Respectable editors and representatives of the media , struggle greetings to you.This is our press ralease regarding murder of our beloved com Rajamouli ,central commitee member and our state secretary by the ruling class goons of andhra police.

Requesting to publish this with due consideration.
yours in struggle,
Gangadhara 24-06-07
for the state committee
CPI (MAOIST)
Karnataka

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Comrade Raja mouli alias Naveen, central committee member and karnataka state committee secretary was cought at Kollom of kerala state on 22nd, at 2 o' clock after noon, by the ruling class goons of andhra special police. At that time he was talking through phone, numbered 0474 2765303; may be at Kollum ksrtc bus stand, with the one of our comrades of karnataka.They tortured him severely and murdered with out caring any so called legal rules and norms. Then concocted, as usual, general story of encounter . He started from Bangalore on 20 th june at night 8.o clock . Whatever informations giving by the killer police officials about encounter is utterly false.These ruling class criminals are acting as mafia gangs, operating for money,posing as protecters of people,cheating civil society,doing all anti social activities and protects anti socials. Rajashekara reddy government of Andhra pradesh killed our comrade by throwing away all rules and norms that it has to be followed and protected.

Com Rajamouli was simple and mingling person. He took the responsibility of karnataka from november 2005. He was active and enthusiastic, had a good military knowledge, he delivered it to others also.He tried to know karnataka and guided as a secretary for more than one and half years He actively participated and led the successful struggle against right opportunist line,which came forward in the karnataka party during the 5th state conference ( 2005-2006.)

He was a relentless fighter in the miltary field and in the political feild. He contributed by bringing important political questions for discussions in recently concluded unity congress of the party. He spent his most of the life for serving the people and party.

His martyrdom is great loss to all India movement and karnataka particularly. People and party lost great revolutionary leader and military teacher. We are sharing all sorrows and griefs of his family and people. We saluting his parents for their contribution to indian revolution, by giving great leader to the people.

Revolutionary move ment can not be stopped by these type of heinous crimes on humanity by the ruling classes. Revolution is naturally growing phenamena reactionaries are naturally dying phenamena of this coercive exploitative world.Leadership and leaders were emerges and emerging from people's struggle.People's struggle can not be stopped without stopping exploitation.Revolution can not be stopped without bringing non exploitative egalitarian society.
Rajashekara reddy government will have to pay proper price for this murder.

* We strongly condemns this heinous murder of our beloved com Sendhe Rajamouli.

* We are pressing strongly to bring all murderers under punishment.

* We are requesting human rights organizations and activists to bring all facts of this state murder before the the people

* We appeal all people , democrats ,pro people organizations and progressives to condemn this murder and fight against this fascist rulers and their goons in uniform.

With revolutionary greetings

Yours in struggle,
Gangadhara 24-06-07
for the state committee
CPI (MAOIST)
Karnataka

CPI(Maoist) Central Committee member, Sande Rajamouli killed

2007-06-24T13:39:00.001+05:30

Maoist mastermind falls to cop bullets

G.S. RADHAKRISHNA

Sande Rajamouli

Hyderabad, June 23: CPI (Maoist) second-in-command Sande Rajamouli, the man who had nearly succeeded in killing former chief minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, fell to police bullets last night in the latest blow to the rebels in insurgency-hit Andhra Pradesh.

The 47-year-old Naxalite leader had 120 cases against him in Chhattisgarh, Andhra and Orissa; was on the wanted list in seven other states and had a cash reward of Rs 16 lakh on his head.

Rajamouli, also known as Prasad, headed the group's operations in Karnataka and was said to be the No. 2 in the CPI (Maoist) hierarchy after national secretary Muppala Lakshman Rao (Ganapati).

The encounter also claimed a woman guard of the Maoist leader while another rebel escaped under cover of darkness.

Andhra police said the exchange of fire took place near the Dharmavaram railway station in Anantapur district. "They kept running and fired at the police who retaliated, killing Prasad on the spot," said district police chief Stephen Ravindra.

"The woman rebel died in hospital later. Another injured Maoist escaped," Ravindra added.

Rajamouli, who was also a member of the central military commission of the rebel outfit, had masterminded the October 1, 2003, landmine explosions that nearly killed Naidu while the Telugu Desam boss, then the chief minister, was on his way to the Balaji temple near Tirupati.

The blasts had ripped apart Naidu's bullet-proof vehicle but he escaped with fractures to his left collarbone and wrist.

Rajamouli's death is the latest in a series of setbacks the CPI (Maoist) has suffered in Andhra, where Maoist violence has claimed more than 7,500 lives since 1969.

The outfit, which has lost several leaders, including its top boss in the state, last year, had brought the Karimnagar native back to Andhra to regain control of former strongholds like the Nallamala forests.

Early on Friday, Maoists also struck on the Andhra-Orissa border, blasting the engine of a goods train that ferries iron ore to Visakhapatnam.

The rebels, however, failed to blast the railway station though they asked all the employees to vacate the premises.

Police sources said the late-night attack has disrupted movement of iron ore.

CPI(Maoist) press release on posters released by Karnataka state Govt against them

2007-06-24T13:10:00.001+05:30

Respectable editors and all representatives of the media. Struggle greetings to you.We are sending this press release on posters released by state police against us. Requesting to favour this for the publication.

Yours in struggle,
Gangadhara
For the state committee
CPI (Maoist)
23-06-07 karnataka
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Police department has released posters containing photos of our comrades as most wanted ones and fixed one lakh rupees on each. They projected all these most social concerned persons as anti social criminals. But actually the fact is that police officials are the most criminal, anti people elements, murderers. Shankar Bidari is one of them, who ruined the life of the people of Chamaraja nagara, Kollegala, Mysore area. In the name of anti Veerappan operation he did such a brutal and uncivilized violence on common people.Many women and girls were gangraped,molested,and murdered.people's property looted and foisted several false cases, by thisshankara bidari and his men. This was also revealed by Justice Sadashiva commission's enguiry. But no action was taken by the any ruling governments. That same bloodthirsty man, continuing these anti people activities, in the same manner. Ruling classes and their parties are indulging waves of crimes on people and country. For maintaining thier exploitation,loot,compradorship to imperialists, these cruel forces and it's masters are playing this threatening game with the thought of preventing people from struggle for their life and society. Never, impossible, peoples's struggle can not be stopped by any force. revolutionary movement can not be suppressed by these dirty and cruel acts on humanity. History proved it .People will broke all barriers and chains of exploitation.

The Janatha Dal and BJP coalition government is preparing to unleash terror on struggling people. On the one hand they are imposing false cases, arresting, encountering etc and on the other, they are including pro people's organizations pro people individuals and democrats in the list like criminals,to stop their voice.

This is nothing but preparing the ground for ruthless offensive on people. This is total violation of so called democratic rules and principles and the real intention is to implement fascist rules. By that they are trying to make favourable atmosphere for forth coming anti people projects, which results displacements of the people and losing of land ,such as national parks, reserve forests, BT parks, water and power projects, road projects etc.

These are all part of suppression of people's movements all over India. In nandigram of west Bengal, hundreds of people butchered by CPI (M) led government. In orissa, chattisghad,jharkhand, bihar, Andhra pradesh and else where, state and central governments unleashing ruthless terror on people. Kidnappings, gang rapes, fake encounters, arsons etc are become common.

Karnataka government is having coordination with central joint operational command (JOC), which is formed particularly for suppressing our movement.

Government is not showing any concern for agitating people of the land and their burning problems.They only trying to ruin people and land. Is these governments are by the people, to the people and for the people.? they are by the ruling class,to the ruling class and for the ruling class i,e big land lords,comprador buerocratic capitalists.That,s why people have only way, struggle and war.

We strongly condemn these anti people acts of government and it's forces We are demanding to withdrawal of those posters, photos, rewards and lists with immediate effect Immediately withdraw listing of pro people organizations and individuals as anti people ones. We appeal all freedom loving people, democrats, progressives, and intellectuals to condemn these anti people activities of government and it's forces, wage relent less struggle for right to organize and be organized, right to live, right to speak and right to fight.

Dare to rebel, dare to win.

with revolutionary greetings
yours,
Gangadhara
For the state committee
CPI (MAOIST)
KARNATAKA

CPI(Maoist) Central Committee member, Sande Rajamouli killed

2007-06-24T13:01:00.003+05:30

K. Srinivas Reddy

HYDERABAD: Two days after the Maoist threatened to step up attacks against politicians in Andhra Pradesh, the State police inflicted a stunning blow to the Maoist movement by killing its Central Committee member, Sande Rajamouli, in an alleged encounter in Anantapur district, bordering Karnataka, on Friday night.

Rajamouli, a senior cadre who was also a member of the Central Military Commission, was stated to be the brain behind the abortive 'Alipiri attack' on N. Chandrababu Naidu.

Incidentally, he is the second CMC member to be killed in Andhra Pradesh in recent times. Earlier, Wadkapur Chandramouli, a CMC member, was killed in Visakhapatnam Agency area this year.

Rajamouli's killing in front of the railway station in Dharmavaram town of Anantapur is bound to generate criticism within the Maoist ranks in view of his top stature. The point of discussion among the Maoists could be on how a member of the Central Committee and CMC moved without proper protection into Andhra Pradesh where the Maoists have officially announced their retreat in the wake of severe and continuous police onslaught. Incidentally, both the slain CMC members, Rajamouli and Chandramouli, hail from Karimnagar district.

Maoist party secretary Muppalla Laxman Rao alias Ganapathi is also from the same district. Rajamouli's wife Rajitha, who was the District Committee Secretary of Karimnagar, was also killed in an encounter.

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CPI(Maoist) Central Committee member, Sande Rajamouli killed

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CPI(Maoist) Central Committee member, Sande Rajamouli killed

CPI(Maoist) karnataka press release of open letter to chief Minister and home minister
Monday, July 16, 2007