West Bengal’s “Communist” Leaders Amass Huge Fortunes

This very revealing article appeared in The Week on February 7, 2010. It gives some perspective on why the adivasis of the Lalgarh region, the farmers of Nandigram and Singur, and increasing numbers of the oppressed in West Bengal are targeting the ruling party, the Communist Party (Marxist) as an exploiting and repressive force.

Comrade bourgeois: Many communist leaders in West Bengal amass huge fortunes

Rabi Banerjee

Himangshu Das is the zonal committee secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in Khejuri, Nandigram. A member of local zilla parishad, he gets a salary of Rs 1,500 a month. As district committee member of the party in East Midnapore he earns another Rs 1,500. These are his only known sources of income.

But, people of Nandigram say Das is a crorepati [one crore = 10 million]. He has a palatial house with air-conditioned rooms in Khejuri, and owns a car and a bike. Villagers allege that he siphoned off funds meant for the local civic bodies. In August 2009, they attacked his house, dragged him out and beat him up in public. Das fled the village with family and is yet to return. “How could a communist leader amass such huge wealth? He had become a crorepati and behaved like an industrialist,” said Manik Maity, a villager.

Not long ago, communist leaders in West Bengal were known for their simple lifestyle. Today, three decades after the Left Front started ruling the state, they live in palatial houses, drive expensive SUVs, own shopping malls and factories, and wear branded clothes. Ironically, they are still driven by the same philosophy—uplift the proletariat.

Anuj Pandey, a Marxist leader from Lalgarh, was jobless before joining the party. As the Lalgarh zonal committee secretary, he earns Rs 1,500 a month, his only known source of income. A couple of years ago, Pandey built a sprawling house on 20 acres—the only big house in the tribal-dominated Lalgarh. In the tribal upsurge in August 2009, the villagers raided the house and destroyed everything including air-conditioners, LCD television, refrigerator and expensive furniture.

“He did not think twice before building such a huge house in the middle of thatched huts. Is he really a communist? No way,” said Chunibala Hansda, local legislator. Pandey and family are yet to return to Lalgarh, which is now known as a Maoist-controlled territory. “Had people like Pandey not been there, Lalgarh would have never seen such massive tribal movements. Tribes got united seeing these communists looting government properties,” said Haripada Hansda, a local tribal leader.

But how did Das and Pandey, who are just district-level leaders, amass such wealth? Some local CPI(M) leaders said they were closely associated with the Central government -sponsored projects in the areas. The projects to improve rural employment and alleviate poverty had huge funds. The leaders allegedly took advantage of lack of monitoring by the government.

“Pandey minted money the way he liked,” said a former panchayat officer in West Midnapore. According to him, the leaders’ lavish lifestyle is just a reflection of the vast fortune they made. “Where will they put the money in? All cannot trust their relatives and deposit it in their names. So they have to spend money on their lavish lifestyle,” he said.

If leaders in Lalgarh and Nandi-gram flourished on the Central funds, in Haldia township, about 40 km away, the labour movement made many comrades millionaires.

S.K. Muzaffar, CPI(M) councillor in the Haldia municipality, controls the workers’ union of the Haldia dock and allegedly runs the dock’s labour market. He has a godown, a cargo trading agency and a logistic agency in the dock. About 1,500 labourers work under him.

A school dropout, Muzaffar was a worker in the dock in the 1970s. Later he became an employee of Haldia municipality which he left to become a CPI(M) leader. “For him, becoming a communist was more profitable than being a worker in the municipality,” said a local Congress leader.

After the CPI(M) rose to power in the state, Muzaffar started getting more and more contracts, and became a councillor in the municipality. His one son is studying in London and another helps him in business. Another son has a fascination for car racing. Muzaffar does not see anything wrong in being a communist and a businessman at the same time. “Tell me where it is written that communists cannot become businessmen and become rich. It’s the propaganda of frustrated people,” he said.

Ashok Patnaik and Ananta Bera, two other Marxist bigwigs in Haldia, also have thriving businesses. Patnaik quit his job as a primary schoolteacher and joined the party. He soon became chairman of a cooperative society which gave him direct contact with the business community. As the chairman of a council in the Haldia Development Authority, he looked after the major land deals in the Haldia township, which was a pet project of former chief minister Jyoti Basu.

“Basu wanted to make Haldia an industrial hub and spent crores for its development. Leaders like Patnaik benefited from it,” said a local CPI(M) leader. When the Haldia port was upgraded, Patnaik, like Muzaffar, seized the opportunity. Now, he is one of the richest contractors in the Haldia dock. “He drives almost all cars available in the market. He is one of the richest communists in India,” said a local CPI(M) leader.

Bera also made it big with the port. Hailing from a poor family in Contai, East Midnapore, he moved to Haldia with his wife, also a CPI(M) member, in the late 1970s. He hugely benefited from the party’s decision to make Haldia an industrial hub for car and petrochemicals.

“They are successful businessmen and CPI(M) leaders as well. They have changed the meaning of communism,” said a senior CPI(M) leader on condition of anonymity. These leaders, however, are unfazed. Said Muzaffar: “Not only are we successful businessmen, but we have also given employment to a lot of poor people. We are the true communists. Let the jealous be jealous.”

Many other communist leaders have relied on muscle power to amass wealth. Tapan Ghosh and Sukur Ali from Garbeta are CPI(M) district committee members in West Midnapore. The CBI arrested them after 11 Trinamool Congress workers were burnt alive in Chotoangaria, Birbhum, 10 years ago. But the CBI failed to establish their links with the carnage and they walked free. They still remain powerful and even ministers are not sure of winning elections without their help. “That is the only reason why the CPI(M) has not taken any action against them despite numerous allegations against them,” said a local CPI(M) leader.

Ghosh was a schoolteacher and Ali a small-time farmer. After joining the party, they started making lucrative business deals as potato growers. “In Garbeta, they control the cold storage and agro businesses,” said Aurobinda Sain, a local Congress leader.

These creamy layers in the CPI(M) have led to an identity crisis in the party, especially when a good number of its leaders still remain committed to the ideology. “After coming to power, the Left Front government did many things to empower the underprivileged. After a few years, leaders began asking people to pay them back. This is unfortunate for a party which talks of class struggle,” said Abhirup Sarkar, economist at Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata. He said the party no longer had the strength to take action against these leaders.

CPI(M) state secretary Biman Bose, a leader known for his austerity, recently wrote in a party note: “The biggest challenge for the party today is to prevent a good number of leaders from becoming non-communist. They should withdraw from all non-communist activities.”

But it is easier said than done. The leadership is well aware how idealistic young leaders have become fat cats over the decades. Former MPs, Lakshman Seth of Haldia and Mainul Hasan of Murshidabad, drive SUVs that cost around Rs 17 lakh each, though Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee lives in a one-room apartment. Both Seth and Hasan are the blue-eyed boys of the chief minister and the party.

Many ordinary partymen also take pride in their leaders’ ‘achievements’. Balai Sabui and Dibakar Koley of Singur are neighbours and used to roll bidis together. Sabui is now chief of the Hooghly district’s Krishak Sabha, the peasant wing of the CPI(M). He is also a district transport secretary, who issues permits to vehicles. He played a lead role in submitting reports on land acquisitions in Singur. Though he struggled to make ends meet earlier, Sabui is a rich man now. He has a two-storey house at Singur and a Bolero jeep.

Koley, still a poor bidi roller, is proud of his neighbour. “He has become a success story for poor men like us. We are proud to know that even a former bidi worker could have a car or a big house,” he said. But what Koley does not realise is that Sabui’s legitimate income is less than what he earns as bidi worker.

CPI(ML) Naxalbari Perspective on Operation Green Hunt

On the Perspective of the Resistance against Operation Greenhunt

A Perspective on the Resistance to Operation Green Hunt – by Comrade Ajith, Secretary – Communist Party of India (Marxist – Leninist) Naxalbari (Participant in the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement)


The Central government has deployed a huge military force targeting a wide area ranging from Jharkhand to Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra to West Bengal – Odisha. This is the spearhead of a massive attack to suppress and eliminate the revolutionary movement advancing in this area, led by the CPI (Maoist). This suppression campaign has been named Operation Greenhunt. The Home Minister P. Chidambaram and top officials of the Manmohan Singh government have openly talked about using the Air Force and carryingout so-called surgical strikes. There are reports that advanced military-technical support and equipment from the US and Israel is being used.

These murderous plans of the UPA government has the open support of most parliamentary parties. The Congress, BJP and CPM are its main proponents. They are united in an unholy alliance against the people. This unity of ruling class parties and their anti-people suppression campaign has, on the other hand, triggered off an unprecedented polarisation. A wide range of progressive, democratic forces and personages have come forward to condemn and oppose Operation Greenhunt. They are joining up, along with revolutionary forces, to form broad platforms to mobilise people and resist the government’s plans. They have rightly judged that Operation Greenhunt is nothing other than a “War on the People”. This development is a very important advance. It has already forced the Central government to change its offensive public stance, even though it continues with the suppression campaign.

There are many reasons motivating such a wide array of forces and people with differing political views and interests to come together against Operation Greenhunt. The most important one among them is the recognition that this suppression campaign, though immediately directed against the revolutionary war led by the CPI (Maoist), is the spearhead of a broader plan to attack and eliminate a wide range of resistance movements going on all over the country. They include movements against privatisation, displacement, environmental destruction, and many others.

They are obstacles in the plans of the UPA government to open up the whole country to the ravages of globalisation. This is why, the Central and State governments devote funds and forces to suppress them evenwhile they cut down on social services with the plea of resource shortage. The struggling masses are aware that they are fighting crucial battles. So they keep up stiff resistance despite facing repeated state attacks. This is also why these struggling forces, their supporters and democratic, progressive sections quickly understood the deeper implications of Operation Greenhunt and joined up against it. This is the crucial political significance of the broad countrywide movement emerging against the “War on the People”. It carries the potential to develop into a broad alliance against the people’s enemies, internal as well as external. The question of its perspective thus becomes all the more important.

The dominant perspective right now is one that considers the need to clear out the Maoists and their followers from these mineral rich regions as the main motivation behind Operation Greenhunt. It is argued that their strong presence is holding up several crores of mining and power projects lined up by TNC’s and Indian compradors. Hence the huge push to drive out the Maoists and secure these regions. This view is influential within the Maoist camp also.

Well, it is certainly true that a number of monopolies like Tata, Mittal and Vedanta are just waiting to plunder the resources of these areas. A good part of it is slated for export as raw material to imperialist countries. The only thing preventing this right now is the people’s war and politicised Adivasi masses led by the CPI (Maoist). But to reduce Operation Greenhunt to this or even mainly consider it from this angle would be wide off the mark. It is like missing out US imperialism’ s world strategic aims in the Iraq war and seeing it mainly as a war done for oil. The question of control over resources is certainly involved. But this is neither the sole issue, nor even the main one. The important thing to be grasped is the political, strategic aim of Operation Greenhunt. What is the ground reality?

The Adivasi masses of these regions have established control not just over its resources. They have taken control of their destiny, their lives, into their own hands. They are building a different society- vibrant with their tribal traditions, yet modern enough to imbue new values. They are not doing this for their own selves alone. No, they see it as part of a larger project concerning the whole country. They have been able to do this and achieve such a lofty vision with the force of arms, led by a communist party guided by Marxism-Leninism- Maoism.

We, as Maoists, believe that this is precisely why all this became possible. Therefore, for us, the resistance to the “War on the People” is a matter of defending this people’s war by all means. But, obviously, this is not how it is viewed today by quite a number of forces and individuals who have courageously stepped forward to resist. Defence of the people’s war cannot be made a basis for a broad unity that includes them. Does this mean that protection of resources or Adivasi rights remain as the only basis? No. We could make the real state of affairs existing in the Adivasi regions of India as a starting point.

Protection of scheduled Adivasi areas was promised by the Indian Constitution six decades ago. Later, the Panchayat Raj Constitutional ammendment promised a large dose of autonomy. All of this has been blatantly violated by the Central and State governments. Such Constitutional safeguards have become empty shells under which the most inhuman trampling of Adivasi way of living and habitats take place. Even the highest courts have either failed to prevent this or promoted it, as seen in the Narmada dam agitation. But here, in a large part of India, tribal peoples are making control over land, resources and society a reality, through struggles. This is an immediate fight to end exploitation, oppression and block aggressive moves of big corporates and the state. More importantly, it is a long term struggle projecting a different type of living.

What is this life? Sustainable development; people’s friendly education; growing emancipation of women; a halt to domination and plunder of foreign and Indian exploiters; a new culture that rebuilds Adivasi traditions anew instead of mocking them. The illuminating fact is that all of this is being created by Adivasi tribes who are despised as ‘primitives’ by so-called mainstream society. The ‘backwards’ are teaching the ‘forwards’. This hits at the very pillars of Brahmanism, the core of all reactionary anti-people thinking in our country. The motivation this could give to the numerous oppressed and exploited sections in the country is a real threat for the rulers.

Leaving out or minimising this political significance and limiting the resistance to a defence of resources or Adivasi human rights is not good. Unity should be achieved on the highest possible level. The country and the people need it. While all can debate on the rights or wrongs of the particular forms of struggle or political colouring, the defence of the achievements made by the Adivasi people, of the way of life they are building, can certainly be incorporated in the basis of a resistance forum against Operation Greenhunt. This much is already evident from the articles, media discussions and comments of notable intellectuals. We owe it to the future generations to defend the right of a people to decide their own destiny

India’s War on Maoists is Backed by a Parallel War on Rights Activists

office of the Gandhian Vanvasi Chetra Ashram bulldozed in 2009, Dantewada, Chhattisgarh



This article appeared in Outlook India on February 1, 2010

The Claws Of The State

The war on Maoists is backed by a parallel war on rights activists

Jyoti Punwani

There are things I haven’t forgotten about that October night 30 years ago, like the shock of discovering that my knees were shaking as the banging on the door grew louder. The voices, coarse and angry, were asking for P.V. Bhaktavatsalam, the lawyer who had dared to defend those charged with being Naxalites in a state obsessed with eliminating them. The parallels with modern-day Chhattisgarh couldn’t be greater.

Back then, between August and October 1980, ten young men had been killed in police encounters in the North Arcot and Dharmapuri districts. Their crime? Organising peasants in that backward region, where the Naxalites had a base. M.G. Ramachandran, then chief minister, had given the police, headed by the megalomaniacal Walter Dawaram, a carte blanche to crush the peasant movement. The police went about their task in the only manner they know: eliminating the leaders and arresting those protesting these murders for sedition.

In those post-Emergency days, when human rights was a cause that attracted celebrities, an all-India fact-finding team set out to investigate these ‘encounters’. Headed by Cho Ramaswamy, editor of the Tamil magazine Thuglak, it included environmentalist Claude Alvares and senior journalist Mohan Ram. None of these names mattered. We had barely checked into our lodge when a mob of plainclothesmen and “victims of Naxalites” started stoning our lodge. After what seemed an eternity, uniformed police escorted us out of the lodge and the town “for our own safety”. I remember the cringing gratitude I felt towards these “saviours” as they drove away their own drunken colleagues, but not before Claude’s glasses were broken and Mohan was given a black eye.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve thought about that night often. Nothing seems to have changed, except the ruling parties. The Naxalites are active again in our most backward areas, and the police have again been given a free hand. Once again, anyone exposing the illegal actions of the police—the rapes and killings of adivasis over the last five years—has been targeted. Himanshu Kumar, a Gandhian, has been evicted from the area; Dr Binayak Sen was jailed. Over the last two months, fact-finding teams trying to enter the forests of Chhattisgarh and Orissa, where tribal resistance to land being acquired for private industry is being brutally suppressed, have been attacked or turned back.

In Narayanpatna, Orissa, an all-women’s team out to investigate last November’s killing of two adivasi leaders in police firing was first attacked inside a police station and then on the road. The attackers were plainclothesmen and civilians who were later “dispersed” by policemen.
In Chhattisgarh, the police have set up an obstacle course for teams trying to reach the Maoist heartland of Bastar. On December 14, they seized the vehicles of an all-women team, citing irregularities in the drivers’ documents. When the women tried to go ahead by bus, the police warned the bus drivers not to carry them. All this was to “save” them, the women were told. The police let them have a taste though—a mob punctured the tyres of the bus in which the team was returning. Prof Nandini Sundar of Delhi, a petitioner in the Supreme Court against the government-backed Salwa Judum, was stalked by the police, turned away by hotels and hounded by Bastar’s unique tribal Special Police Officers in the hostel she stayed the night. She, too, had to return without reaching her destination. Only Medha Patkar managed to breach, briefly, the police’s ‘No Entry’ sign, but not before her team was attacked with eggs by Salwa Judum tribals on Dantewada’s main road as police stood by, watching.

But 30 years on, three developments have changed the situation radically. One, the Centre has openly entered the fray, sending its forces to crush the Maoists, making the adivasi areas a war zone. Two, the police have raised anti-Maoist groups: Salwa Judum in Bastar and Shanti Samitis in Orissa, which can tackle human rights busybodies too. Finally, “human rights” has lost the halo that propelled celebrities into action.

Two years after DIG Mohandas sent us packing from Tamil Nadu, declaring, “I can tell you for sure that no fact-finding committee will be allowed to come here”, another team did just that. (By then, the encounter toll had risen to 21.) Heading the second team were socialist MPs Surendra Mohan and Mrinal Gore, and Swami Agnivesh. Today, human rights groups wonder who can break into Chhattisgarh DGP Vishwaranjan’s protected zone, where tribal eye-witnesses to “encounters” are so well protected against “outsiders” that, despite Supreme Court orders, their own lawyers are denied access.

India Trains Israeli-Armed Assassins to Target Maoist Leaders

India For Selective Assassination Of It's Own Citizens?

By Trevor Selvam

31 January, 2010

Countercurrents.org

Recent statements from Indian leaders and police officers gives away the new strategy on the war on Naxalism. To make the movement "headless" by carrying out selective assassination of its leaders with the help of Israeli operatives

Plucky savvyness combined with unnecessary bravado has recently marked the attempts at media interface by some Maoist leaders. There are benefits to reap and a price to pay, as a result. On the one hand, it has been a long time coming for the Maoists to come out of their jungle bases and give press conferences, or invite selected correspondents to visit their bases under armed escort. They correctly understood that their political program (and not their military campaign only) needed to be promoted and publicized. They realized that innovative tactics needed to be implemented to popularize their struggles and their demands and acquire some mainstream presence. It took them a long time to also realize that when you wish to take on the state of India, that you must at least marginally capture the imagination of some of those who read papers, surf the net, hang out in cafes and do occasionally get agitated about issues of justice, honesty and righteousness. Such people cannot be ignored. In fact their chatter can eventually affect the mood of the nation. For too long the media in India has been significantly successful in disorienting, deflecting and mesmerizing the minds of urban folks into imagining a country that is not up to par because it is behind the West in so many ways. This state of stupor persists, but there is now an increasing awareness in some circles at least, that India’s postures about its growth, success and international stature can overnight become a hollow dream, if the word gets around that India has treated its first citizens with violence, deprivation, displacement and eventual genocide. The hollowness behind the growth figures, much of which has limited authenticity when seen in terms of the high current account deficit, high unemployment, incredible rise of prices, is also becoming evident even among the India- shining crowd. Despite all the bravado that Kamal Nath and Montek Ahluwalia indulge in, in Davos (after all they would all be seeking International jobs, very soon) the baseline figures of India’s economic progress are quite undermined with the phenomenal rise in poverty, illiteracy, infant malnutrition, farmer suicides and poor potable water facilities and sanitation related fatalities. It is an interesting development that one of the Government’s own bodies has declared that the assault on India’s tribals “is one of the largest land grabs since Columbus”, --that brigand, pirate and drunken sailor, who landed somewhere, near the Bahamas and declared he had found India.

Well, a section of India’s population-I daresay a large section-- also needs to discover India. And, they are doing so. And it is because of that, there are some magazines on the net, and on print, that are taking the time to trek into the Naxalite bases and interview their leaders. Not everything is lost to the vacuous, hold the crotch, ape the West, get BPO-fever generation, MCed by the Shahrukh, Infosys, IPL and Kingfisher cultural nexus.

Initially, the Maoists’ planned to let some of their spokesperson come overground. This experiment failed, as the Governments of West Bengal (GWB) and India (GOI) wasted no time in slapping them with Unlawful Activities charges and put them in the slammer. No one talks about them anymore, other than the struggling Civil Liberties organizations. They are forgotten. Fortunately for the Maoists, there are a large number of academics and sympathetic journalists, ( as opposed to the band of poets, actresses and intellectuals who made a half hearted attempt to raise their voices on Lalgarh and then withdrew into their shells in no time at the first threats from the GWB) who have taken it upon themselves not to be intimidated and have spoken out in fairly clear terms both on TV and as well on the web and print media on the hypocrisy and superficiality of the mainstream media’s analysis (or extreme lack of it) in parroting the GOI’s and GWB’s mendacious piety about non-violence, abjuring arms, law and order and “foreign hand.”

In India, except for the alternate press and in most cases Tehelka, the media engages in sensationalist lies or they repeat the lies of the government and they get away with it. In India, an Inspector General of Police blatantly concocts lies about the wealth and assets of Chatradhar Mahato and also gets away with it, without anybody seeking litigation against spreading such falsehood. In India, the police go after the wives, husbands, children, brothers and sisters of those who are absconding or have launched cases against the police. In India, police chiefs openly boast about how to make a cold blooded execution look like an encounter and the Home Minister meets with those same experts to discuss democracy. In India, judges make pronouncements on corporate crime, based on whether it is good for India’s image or not! In India, an 80-year old woman’s breasts get chopped off and an 18-month old child’s fingers get lopped off by anti-Naxalite vigilantes and the press orders a martini with a twist and watches the sunset over Juhu.

Well, the Maoists have broken some ground in bringing to the surface the mess that lies below the pink obscenity that is the Indian parliament, where over one hundred and fifty criminally accused thugs occupy seats. The Maoists leaders have been audacious and dignified in giving interviews after much planning and deployment of their own security measures. It was necessary, because otherwise the Arnab Goswamis and the Barkha Dutts and their unapologetic clones were having a field day, dishing out report after report about the murderous Maoists, without analyzing what had been going on for several years, both at Abujhmarh and Lalgarh. For too long they were unable to convey their message to middle and upper class readers and net surfers about what they were fighting for. Now there is sudden mainstream discussion, on MOUs, Schedule 5 and 6, Abujmarh, Dantewada, Bastar and sites have sprung up all over the world that follow the Indian state’s war against its own people.

It is now time for the Maoists to take stock of the situation. The Indian state was caught off guard, both on the ground and in the airwaves. They sent in their khaki-pant wearing, Enfield rifle toting constables after the Maoists and they came back soon, pissing in their pants. Then they sent in their AK-47 and Insas-rifle toting para-military forces after the Maoists. They also have come back with their tails between their legs. Then they deployed Special Forces with reptilian and canine names like Cobra, Greyhound or some other fearsome moniker like Garudas. Their boats were sunk and their anti-mine vehicles were blown up and their helicopters beat a hasty retreat.

Enter the Israelis

It has been known for several years that India has acquired over 4,000 Galil 7.62 mm super sniper rifles, and night vision sights, laser range finders and other targeting equipment. This is not an infantry rifle, but the ammunition is the same as an Indian INSAS and an AK-47, purchased from Rumania. This is also all separate, of course from thermal imaging equipment, satellite transmission of such images and use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, better known as drones. All from Israel in the main. In fact India takes up more than 50% of Israel's arms exports. It has also been known that India manufactures under license the Russian gas-fired, super sniper semi automatic Dragunov SVD59. Now comes the report of a special training session involving at least 30 top ranking officers who have just completed special training under "foreign" instructors. Nothing works in Indian media lingo than "foreign hand." But of course, in this case it does not matter, because the foreign hand is only for a good cause! These trainers are not bearded Jihadists or Asiatic desperadoes in the north east with Chinese made grenades. A report from the PTI states the following.

“Special task force to tackle Maoist insurgency”

Kolkata: The Maoist-infested states, including Jharkhand and Maharashtra, have set up a special task force in their bid to jointly tackle the Naxal problem, a senior West Bengal police officer said.

West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and some other Maoist-hit states have selected 30 officers for the special task force to deal with the Maoist problem, he said.

The 30 selected officers had undergone a month-long training programme at Ghatsila in Jharkhand. Some foreign army officials, who have experience in tackling guerrilla warfare, also imparted them training, the police officer said.”

Mr. Chidambaram had one of his associates state recently in a press conference that the strategy of his initiative is to render the Naxalites "headless." In other words he stated very clearly, that the target is to eliminate the leaders of the Naxalites. As per the same report, “a highly placed official in the security establishment told IANS earlier this week, "We believe there could be around 50 such leaders scattered all over. We are targeting them to make the entire movement headless and make a serious dent," the official said. ”

In a special report cited by the BBC, the following was also stated by a security official, “So we are specifically targeting the Maoist leadership and you will see a lot of special operations based on specific intelligence."

The official said that "almost all the states are doing their bit, and that a special operation in West Bengal earlier this week - in which Maoist military wing chief Koteswara Rao narrowly escaped arrest - was a good example of that. ”

It is significant that Ms. Mamata Banerjee, the Central Minister and self-appointed Bengal-saver, (and stand-up comedian, live theatre activist who attempted suicide with a black shawl and danced on JP Narayan’s car) and who one walked in lock-step with LK Advani, was ready to beg and plead to the Naxalites to come and negotiate with her. She must be in on Mr. Chidambaram’s deadly game plan.

She also knows that by the time of the next polls in West Bengal, if she cannot make a settlement in the continuously expanding Naxalite terrain, she will have a hard time putting up candidates to fight the CPI(M) . She wants to make a deal with the Maoists, while all along claiming that they do not exist! She is a mockery of her own self and a pivotal Quasimodo for PCC.

Selective assassination

Selective assassination, use of UAVs, missile attacks on selected homes and sniper fire has been a hallmark of the Israeli Mossad and Defence forces, not only in Gaza and the West Bank, but also in different parts of the world including South America, Iran and Europe. For the past several years it is now well-known that India has entered into very close collaboration with the IDF and over 32 non-disclosure arms and security agreements have been signed with them. The Mossad has titillated gun-and ammo freaks and underhanded counter-insurgency nutjobs with their secretive killing techniques. Assassination and murder that goes undocumented, un-prosecuted and never brought to light, when the Mossad is involved. The CIA fumbles, trips and gets blown up. Not the Mossad. That is why India has chosen them to deploy dirty tricks on India’s citizens. Perhaps, Mr. Chidambaram would like to take out the Maoists leaders one by one and he has realized that it will not happen by sending in 100,000 troops and anti-mine trucks or IAF helicopters. So the next tactic is to walk away from the roads and get special forces trained to go into the jungles and “live there like guerillas” and seek the Maoists in their hideouts. Therefore high power sniper rifles, night vision sights have become necessary. The "headless" statement should be studied carefully. I am wondering if it is actually code word for carrying out assassinations.

The report went on to further state the following: "The force would be named soon and it will be pressed into action as and when the training programme is completed," Director General of Police of West Bengal Bhupinder Singh told PTI.

"More officers would be recruited to strengthen the force after the completion of the training of the first batch," the DGP said.

They were given training on how to use highly sophisticated weapons and taught the technique to detect explosives, he said. They were also told how to survive in deep forest areas for longer period of time, the officer said. The main objective of the force will be to stay in forest areas near the base camps of the Maoists and to gather detailed information about their activities and their strength, Singh said.”

It would be propitious of these Maoist leaders not to fall into the traps being laid out by the security forces.

Kali Akuno: Are We Free Yet?

The following article originally appeared on Kali akuno's blog Navigating the Storm


Barack Obama & the New Afrikan “National Question”

Are We Free Yet?

by Kali Akuno


May 24th, 2008

In Honor of the 83rd Birthday of Malcolm X and the clarity he brought to the New Afrikan[1] revolutionary movement.

Since the stunning Iowa victory of Senator Barack Obama in January, a great deal has been said and written about the declining or ongoing significance of “race” and “racial prejudice” in US society and the prospect of a person of Afrikan descent being its President as proof of its substantive social transformation. While this discussion must be regarded as an advance over the conservative moralistic and race-coded discussions that have dominated political debate in the US since the 1980’s, we must acknowledge its critical limitations.

In the main, these discussions individualize the issues and only engage the behavioral and subjective aspects of inequality and oppression. What is fundamentally missing is a critical discussion of the structural and systemic nature of oppression and exploitation within the US and how the Obama campaign “phenomenon” relates to these structures and dynamics.

This paper seeks to investigate the strategic relationship of the Obama campaign to the structural dynamics of oppression and exploitation within the US. In particular, it will focus on the question of New Afrikan or Black national oppression within the US and how the Obama campaign addresses this oppression. It also seeks to address certain strategic questions that progressive forces within the national liberation and multi-national working class movements must struggle with over the course of the next six months in order to ensure that our demands and interests are advanced – regardless of whether Obama wins or loses the Presidential election in November.

Some of the strategic questions this paper seeks to address are:

1. What is Obama’s organic relationship to the New Afrikan or Black nation?
2. What class position, alignment and program does Obama represent?
3. How does Obama’s campaign strategy and program relate to the historic interests and demands of the Black nation?

What is the “National Question”?

In summary, from a dialectical materialist framework, the “national question” refers to a) the unequal structural relationship of colonized and oppressed peoples to international capital, oppressor nations, imperialism, and white supremacy and b) to the historic struggles of colonized and oppressed peoples to liberate themselves from these oppressive systems and forces, either in whole or in part (as not all of these “peoples” or “national liberation” struggles have sought to remove themselves from capitalist relations of production).

The inequalities between peoples produced by capitalism are historic. They are rooted in the development of the capitalist world system through the colonization and/or subjugation of the globe and its non-European peoples by the ruling classes of the western European states (i.e. Portugal, Spain, France, England, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, and Italy) beginning in the 15th century.

In order to facilitate the process of capital accumulation they initiated on a world scale, the ruling classes of Europe developed a social system and ideology that divided world production along several lines, some of which predated capitalism, some of which developed specifically to suite capitals historic needs. The pre-capitalist social divisions that were exploited were religion, ethnicity, nationality and patriarchy. The new and fundamentally principal divisions developed by and with capitalism are race and state-bound nationality.

The purpose of exploiting and/or developing these inequalities is a) to facilitate the control of the land, labor, and (material and immaterial) resources of the subject and oppressed peoples and b) to foster competition between and amongst these peoples for the material and social rewards conferred by this exploitative and alienating system.

In the United States the “national question” specifically addresses the structural relationship of colonized, oppressed, and subject peoples to the European settler-colonial project and the imperial national-state apparatus that reinforces it. This project is premised on the genocide and dispossession of indigenous peoples (the First Nations); the enslavement and colonial subjugation of Afrikan peoples and their descendents; and the dispossession and colonial subjugation of Xicanas/os.

The New Afrikan National Question

Throughout the history of the US settler-colonial project New Afrikans have fundamentally been concentrated in the southeastern portion of the projects possessions. The foundation of this concentration was historically premised on the utilization of enslaved Afrikan labor to produce cash-crops like tobacco, cotton, rice, dyes, and sugar, for international consumption. During the early mercantile stages of capitalist development the climatic conditions, soil quality, and strategic location of these possessions facilitated them being incorporated into the world-capitalist system as a zone of mono-crop commodity production. This population concentration and the relations of production exercised in this zone facilitated the formation of the New Afrikan people as a colonized diasporic Afrikan nation subject to will of the European settler-colonial project and its capitalist-imperialist regime between 1619 and 1865.

The mechanization of agriculture in the Southeastern portion of the settler-colonial state in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, combined with an intense program of labor control and repression during this period, displaced millions of New Afrikans. In the search for refuge and jobs, displaced New Afrikans re-concentrated in the urban industrial centers of the East Coast, Mid-West, and West Coast between the 1910’s – 1960’s. In the process of this resettlement, millions of New Afrikans joined the ranks of the industrial working class. However, they did so fundamentally on an unequal structural basis. Exploiting the subject status of New Afrikan people, capital, the labor bureaucracy, and the various European settler communities relegated New Afrikans to the lowest strata’s of the working class, where they were concentrated in the lowest paid and most hazardous occupations that restricted their ability to earn and accumulate. This process of development established the social and economic terms of New Afrikan national oppression throughout the entire expanse of the US settler-colonial project.

Simultaneously, the vast majority of New Afrikans who remained in the New Afrikan national territory (i.e. the Southeastern portion of the settler-colonial project) became subject to a new regime of accumulation and distorted national development. Reacting to the gains made in the industrial “north” by the multi-national working class movement between the 1930’s – 50’s, industrial capital “outsourced” production to New Afrika to exploit the subjugated status of the New Afrikan working class. Although the New Afrikan working class was kept from effectively organizing itself into labor unions, this development did expand the overall circuit of capital within the New Afrikan nation, which helped stimulate the rise of the civil rights movement and its petit bourgeois program of civil inclusion within the legalistic confines of the settler-colonial project.

The limited social and economic gains of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements set the present terms of national development for the New Afrikan nation. New Afrika, like all nations and nationalities, is a class stratified social formation. Like all the peoples and nations subjugated and colonized by the European colonial powers, capital and capitalist social relations have articulated New Afrika’s social development. Throughout it’s nearly 400 years of development, the overwhelming majority of New Afrikans have been and are members of the working classes (either as chattel slaves, peasants, or proletarians). However, a very limited New Afrikan bourgeoisie has existed since at least the mid-19th century. Throughout much of New Afrikan history, this extremely small, typically service based petit-bourgeoisie has tended politically to be more progressive than reactionary in its political outlook and program. In the main this bourgeois class has provided leadership to and support for the primary historical demands of the New Afrikan national liberation movement. In summary these demands have been and are:

1. Land for self-determining or autonomous development and accumulation.
2. Equal treatment before the law of the settler-colonial state.
3. Equitable distribution of the social surplus distributed throughout the settler- colonial state.
4. Self-determining political power.
5. Self-reliant and self-sustaining economic development.
6. Reparations.

However, the accumulation gains (meager as they were) of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements combined with major shifts in the relations of production on a worldwide scale, transformed the relationship of the New Afrikan bourgeoisie to the whole of the New Afrikan nation from the 1970’s to the present. The two dominant features of this process of transformation are a) the phenomenal rise of the comprador bourgeoisie in the 1970’s and 80’s, and b) the rapid transformation of this comprador bourgeoisie into a trans-national bourgeoisie from the 1980’s to the present. As will be argued throughout this paper, this transformation not only changed the overall structural composition of the New Afrikan bourgeoisie, it has forever altered its political worldview and program.

Part 1 – The Interrogations

Interrogating the “National” Question

Barack Obama has asserted on several occasions a) that race doesn’t matter and b) that there is only “one” America.

The implication of these statements, even if only stated for strategic affect, is that the national contradictions within the US settler-colonial project have been negated and resolved. Even a cursory glance at the socio-economic inequalities between the various nationalities in the US reveals that these assertions are blatantly false. However, the unprecedented success of Obama’s campaign and the ground it has broken as it relates to a “Black” candidate appealing to white voters on a national level reveals that something qualitative has changed in this country. The question is what is it?

I argue that the source of the qualitative change lies in the changing composition of class throughout the US settler-colonial project. The advance of global capital and its transformation of production and accumulation throughout the capitalist world-system generated this compositional shift. I posit that the process of transformation popularly called “globalization” has created a trans-national bourgeoisie and growing multi-national or “cosmopolitan” trans-national service and working classes. It is my position that Barack Obama is a member of and represents the political and economic interests of the trans-national bourgeoisie and the social interests of the growing trans-national classes. More specifically, Barack Obama is a product of the New Afrikan trans-national bourgeoisie, which emerged in the main from the comprador or neo-colonial sector of the New Afrikan bourgeois class between the 1970’s to the present.

The fundamental question regarding this new class composition for progressive and revolutionary forces within the New Afrikan national liberation movement is how to strategically relate to Barack Obama and this trans-national bourgeois class? Is this class (or class fraction) a friend or a foe of the New Afrikan national liberation movement? I argue three things:

1. That the material basis for the traditional class collaboration theory of the united and/or national liberation front strategy of oppressed peoples and nations in general, and of its historic application to the New Afrikan national liberation movement in particular, no longer applies.
2. That the left has not developed a general or particular theory of how to strategically relate to these new class forces.
3. As a result, we are presently ill equipped theoretically and programmatically to address the Obama phenomenon and seize the historic opportunities it presents to advance the interests of the national liberation and multi-national working class movements.


How does the trans-national bourgeoisie differ from other bourgeoisie classes, particularly amongst oppressed nations like the New Afrikan nation? The general theory of national liberation maintains that there are two primary fractions of the capitalist or bourgeois class (that is the class that owns and controls the means of production). These are 1) the national, progressive, or “anti-imperialist” bourgeoisie and 2) the comprador or “sell-out”, “Uncle Tom”, or neo-colonial bourgeoisie.

The national or anti-imperialist bourgeoisie is theoretically a progressive force drawn from the organic, inner driven life of the oppressed nation that is materially compelled to promote the development of the productive forces of the nation for its own self-interests and to resist the incursion of imperialism and its suppression of this autonomous national development for these self-same interests.

The comprador or sell-out bourgeoisie is theoretically a reactionary force also drawn from the organic, inner driven life of the oppressed nation, which is conversely compelled to collaborate with imperialism to retard the autonomous or self-determining development of the oppressed nation.

The fundamental difference between these two bourgeois fractions and the transnational fraction is their organic relationship to the oppressed nation. The national and comprador bourgeoisies are dependent upon relations of production within the social and political life of the oppressed nation. Meaning they are both dependent on the working masses of the oppressed nation for their very existence, and hence can be held accountable to the working classes within it in various ways. The trans-national bourgeoisie on the other hand, even though it emerged primarily from the comprador fraction in New Afrika and elsewhere, is not dependent for its existence upon the oppressed nation and its relations of production. The trans-national bourgeoisie, as its name implies, is not a national or national-state bound entity. Its basis for existence lies in exploiting the peoples and working classes of the globe, and it is generally only accountable to or held in check by its fractional partners and rivals (largely through their financial control of various capital markets as exhibited by their deflation of various national-state markets like Mexico in the early-1990’s; Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and South Korea in the late 1990’s; and Brazil and Argentina at the turn of this century).

Now, while I posit that this understanding of Obama’s positioning helps us to understand his relationship with the New Afrikan nation and its historic demands, I argue that we still do not completely understand at this point, how it relates to his mass appeal to white voters in many instances who are not part of this trans-national formation. This I argue, we as progressives and revolutionaries, have to interrogate further to gain a deeper understanding of its strategic potential.

Interrogating the Campaign

Despite what one may personally think of Obama and the principle merits of his campaign, what we have to acknowledge is that his actions and his campaign are deeply rooted in a particular analysis of how to address national oppression in the US. This analysis is rooted in the “integrationist” and “beloved community” narratives of the New Afrikan petit bourgeois leadership of the Civil Rights Movement and its white liberal bourgeois patrons. The strategy behind this narrative appeal is to highlight the commonalities between the oppressor and oppressed peoples, rather than address their contradictions and differences.

This strategy is rooted in the reality that the road to victory goes through the white electorate and its sheer numerical strength. Based on this reality, I argue there are two historical dynamics that have fundamentally shaped the Obama campaign and its strategy.

1. No Democratic candidate has won a majority of white voters since 1964. For a Democratic candidate to win, they are going to have to win a sizeable portion of, if not the majority of, the white settler vote.
2. The Jesse Jackson campaigns of 1984 and 1988. These two campaigns serve as the primary negative examples for the Obama campaign. They illustrate what NOT to do as an Afrikan candidate running for President, which has determined key aspects of his strategy, particularly his methods of appeal to white and Jewish voters in particular.


Based on these realities, the Obama campaign made a deliberate and strategic choice NOT to base his candidacy in the institutions (like the Black church, civic organizations, unions, and the media) or historic demands (see demands) of the New Afrikan nation. In order to give himself the opportunity to win, Obama must avoid being viewed as a “Black” candidate by any and all means. This explains in part, why he has distanced himself from the likes of Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakhan, and Jeremiah Wright – the “traditional” representatives of the “progressive” New Afrikan bourgeoisie.

However, his campaign has also relied upon the staunch support of the Democratic Party by New Afrikan people. New Afrikans have been the most consistent base of support for the Democratic Party since the 1964 election of Lydon B. Johnson. In fact, New Afrikans have voted consistently for Democratic Presidential candidates in the range of 80 – 90% since 1956. This fact however, should not be surprising. Democratic candidates can and do take the New Afrikan vote for granted because in the main, New Afrikans have no other
genuine political option to represent their interests. Knowing this, Obama and his campaign know that they have to make few special appeals to New Afrikans and most of the other oppressed peoples within the “traditional” Democratic Party coalition to garner their votes (certain “Latino” populations it can be argued might constitute exceptions).

Interrogating the Popular Forces

Regardless of how marginalized New Afrikan demands and institutions are to the Obama campaign, the fact is that since Obama’s Iowa victory in January, New Afrikans have turned out in near record numbers to support his campaign for the Democratic nomination. How do we explain this outpouring of support despite his lack of engagement with New Afrikan demands and institutions?

Further, how do we explain his victories in states like Iowa, Kansas, Oregon, Colorado, Connecticut, Nebraska, Vermont, and Wyoming where the vast majority of the electorate are white settlers who are not substantively incorporated into the trans-national nexus of production?

Part of the answer I believe lies in the trans-national class developments spoken of earlier. The other part of the answer I believe lies in the popular response to the last 7 years of the Bush regime. As a direct result of the failed occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, the accumulation of unprecedented debt, the partisan management of the economy, the exposed lies and deceit, and the hostile, belligerent, and dictatorial “style” of management, this election is in many ways serving as a popular anti-Bush referendum.

The popular, multi-national, multi-class forces engaging the Obama campaign are clearly clamoring for a change of management. This was first evidenced in the elections of 2006 and has been further illustrated in several off-term Congressional elections in Illinois, Louisiana, and Mississippi where Democrats took elections in long-held Republican districts. Barack Obama, for reasons of personal history (including his newness to Capital Hill), style (particularly his cultivated charisma and flair for the optimal, however programmatically empty it may be), and strategy (including a tacit exploitation of cultural stereotypes about New Afrikan people being good listeners and empathizers) has thus far demonstrated that he would be a profoundly different manager than either of his remaining Democrat or Republican rivals.

What I think progressives and revolutionaries have to be clear on in relating to these popular forces is that a clamoring for a change of management does not equate to a clamoring for a fundamental change of program. It is on the question of program that I would argue that the national question strongly reenters the fry and could perhaps fracture the broad multi-national, multi-class alliance thus far mobilized by the Obama campaign.

For instance, the historic demands of New Afrikan people are not going to go away without a revolutionary transformation of the US settler-colonial state. In fact, as the mortgage crisis deepens over the course of the next 2 to 4 years, some of the demands, like economic development and reparations perhaps, are only going to become stronger.

Likewise, the trans-national capital interests supporting Obama’s campaign have no intentions of stopping their accumulation mission. Rather, they are trying to expand it through the application of a friendlier management approach of their primary regulating instruments – namely the US military, treasury, and Federal Reserve Bank. And further, many of the white service and working class voters who are supporting Obama are not demanding an end to imperialism and globalization, but a return to the high standards of living they are accustomed and feel entitled to as settlers, i.e. “Americans”.

Interrogating the Moment

This is an extremely unique moment in human history, one that should not be slept on by progressives and revolutionaries anywhere, let alone in the US.

There are three general things that make this moment particularly unique:

1. The rapid collapse of the ecological systems that support human civilization as a direct consequence of the capitalist world-systems need for constant growth and expansion and its dependence on a petro-chemical driven system of mass industrial production to stimulate and sustain this growth.
2. The declining hegemony (in both its geo-political and Gramscian connotations) of the US imperial state and the shift to a multi-polar geo-political world order.
3. The comparative weakening of the US national economy and the deepening of trans-national production and accumulation.


In order to be properly contextualized, the Obama campaign and corresponding “phenomenon” must be situated as a direct response to this unique moment in history. As has been argued earlier, his campaign is clearly a factional response, one fundamentally serving the interests of the trans-national bourgeoisie and its means and instruments of accumulation and rule. The two fundamental questions stemming from this assessment are, 1) is this class and the alliance of forces it has amassed strong enough to contain the contradictions it has unleashed and 2) can it continue its accumulation program and political project without a major transformation away from petro-chemical dependent
production?

I argue that the answer to both questions is emphatically, NO. Returning to our focus of analyzing the Obama campaign in relation to the New Afrikan national question, there are several examples that clearly illustrate why.

The trans-national program of accumulation is fundamentally driven by a finance driven post-Fordist, intelligence dominated system of production. The intense mechanization of this production regime is rapidly dislocating millions, if not billions, of workers, worldwide. The New Afrikan working class was one of the first and most devastated sectors of the international proletariat hit by this accumulation regime. Since the 1970’s, millions of New Afrikans have been economically dislocated and physically displaced by this transformation, which is only set to worsen with the crisis of finance (witnessed with the mortgage crisis that robbed millions of New Afrikans of their merge capital equity) and the deepening of global production. What is also clear is that the options of absorbing this surplus labor into the low-wage service economy or warehousing (i.e. incarcerating) it, is reaching its political and financial limits. The likely outcomes of the escalating crisis are:

1. More intense economic dislocation
2. More intense physical displacement and forced relocation (New Orleans being a clear precedent)
3. More intense and concentrated New Afrikan resistance
4. An escalation of the demands made on the state and capital by New Afrikans


As a representative of the trans-national bourgeoisie, its production regime, and the US imperial state, how would Obama be compelled to address these contradictions? I argue that he would fundamentally have to exercise the Nixon option as it related to the New Afrikan nation (and other oppressed nations within and beyond US national-state boarders). Plainly stated the Nixon option is the calculated employment of “carrot and the stick” stratagems. Obama’s carrot would be to ameliorate or buy off a sectors of the New Afrikan bourgeoisie and working class by offering a set of concessions, primarily in the realm of loan forgiveness (for the mortgage crisis) and job training programs (more than likely for “Green Jobs” and the like). The stick would be the strategic application of state repression against resistant and non-compliant forces within the New Afrikan working class. The purpose of the Nixon option now, as during his Presidency in the late 60’s and early 70’s, would be to fracture the political unity of the New Afrikan nation against the trans-national bourgeoisie and its program.

Staying with our analysis, it is also clear that the Green transformation option is a dead end for the trans-national bourgeoisie and its program. Although elements of the trans-national bourgeoisie are clearly leading the charge for the development of “green” capitalism, it is not, and in fact cannot, advocate for the transformation of scale needed to curb the production of greenhouse gases to stall or reverse climate change without bankrupting itself. As a result, it cannot and will not generate enough “Green Jobs” to reincorporate the millions of New Afrikans that have been economically dislocated by trans-national production.

Yet in still, what we can posit with confidence at this moment is that capital is going to go to extreme lengths to extend its life and barbaric domination over human civilization. Conversely, as the events of the last 7 years have illustrated, we should also expect to see an escalation and diversification of resistance.

Part 2 - Outlining a Framework to Seize the Moment

So, how should the New Afrikan and multi-national liberation and working class movements strategically engage this historic campaign and critical moment?

One of the first priorities of engagement is theoretical development. One of the principle things the New Afrikan and multi-national left movements must figure out is how to engage the trans-national bourgeoisie. As stated earlier, as of now, our movements do not have a general, let alone united, perspective on this question. In fact, I would argue that most of our forces are still utilizing the traditional united or national liberation front theory to determine their positions and courses of action.

I argue that because the trans-national bourgeoisie cannot be easily pressured by the national liberation and working class movements within the US settler-colonial project, these movements should not invest the majority of their time and energy engaging an “inside” strategy of critical engagement with the Obama campaign. I argue that thinking strategically, these forces should concentrate their energy on building autonomous political movements and institutions (like the Reconstruction Party) within the US national-state that seek to build a broad multi-national united front of oppressed peoples and workers that makes a principle of building strategic links and alliances with the autonomous national liberation, international working class, global justice, and environmental movements throughout the world. As the trans-national bourgeoisie thinks and acts globally, we must also think and act globally to advance our own interests.

However, as the vast majority of our peoples and forces are going to support the Obama campaign and potential Presidency, in the short-term we tactically have to invest a critical degree of time and energy engaging them, if only to try and win a considerable portion of these forces to a left perspective and program. And it is here that we need theoretical clarity. How do we offer a radical critique of Obama, his class position, interests, and program without alienating ourselves from the popular masses? How do we move these forces to engage in autonomous self-determining action outside of the Democratic Party? How do we educate and move the white settler forces mobilized by Obama to actively
engage an anti-racist, anti-imperialist perspective and program?

To these ends, a hard-pressed counter campaign against Obama I would argue is not the most effective or productive way to engage these popular forces from this point forward. Rather, I think the multi-national left must seek to highlight the contradictions of Obama’s campaign and program through a combined “outside-inside” strategy that seeks to advance a coherent set of principle demands and push him and the forces he has mobilized sharply to the left. Again, I think the formation of an autonomous “outside” political force should be primary. However, what is perhaps most tactically critical is that both the “outside” and “inside” forces aggressively promote and propagate these common demands; vigorously dialogue and debate in a principled, non-sectarian manner; and openly communicate and collaborate whenever and wherever possible.

Some of the primary strategic demands that must be raised are drawn from the historic demands of oppressed peoples, particularly New Afrikans, combined with the demands of the multi-national working class, women’s, and environmental justice movements. The combination of these demands will expose not only the limits of the trans-national bourgeoisie and its production regime, but of US imperialism itself and its inability to make good on its democratic promises, either at “home” or abroad. Some of the most critical of these demands include2:

1. The full and immediately ending of the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.
2. The full and unqualified support for Palestinian self-determination and the Right to Return.
3. The full and immediate Right of Return for the more than 250,000 New Afrikans displaced from their homelands in New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
4. The repeal of the “war on drugs” and mandatory minimum sentencing that has resulted in the imprisonment of more than 2.5 million people, the vast majority of whom are New Afrikans.
5. The full support for the rights of women and the LGBTQ communities, including full support for initiatives like the Equal Rights Amendment and “gay” marriage.
6. The full and immediate repeal of the various Patriot Acts and other undemocratic anti-terror laws and Executive Orders.
7. The full, complete, and unconditional amnesty for the millions of migrant and displaced workers in the US.
8. The full and unqualified commitment to reduce the carbon imprint of the US by 80% or more by 2016 to stem the production of climate changing greenhouse gases.
9. The commitment to the public financing of alternative solar, wind, aquatic, and organic energy to sustain the economy, and the elimination of all nuclear energy and hard metal extraction.


By Way of Conclusion

Although the road ahead may not be clear, and the outcome of our actions far from certain, the New Afrikan national liberation movement, and the movements of all oppressed and exploited peoples, must seize this critical moment. The survival of humanity demands that we must act, and act in our own interests. Barack Obama nor any other bourgeois messiah is going to liberate us. We must liberate ourselves.

Footnote 1: A New Afrikan is a person of Afrikan descent, particularly those historically enslaved and colonized in the Southeastern portion of the North American continent, that presently live under the colonial subjugation of the United States government. New Afrikan is the connotation of the national identity of this Afrikan people that recognizes their political aspirations for self-determination and independence.

Footnote 2: See also the demands articulated in the “Draft Manifesto for a Reconstruction Party” by the National Organizing Committee for a Reconstruction Party and “Hillary and McCain: the White Block that must be stopped” by Eric Mann. 10. Reparations for Indigenous, New Afrikan, Xicano, Puerto Rican, Hawaiian and other peoples and nations colonized by the US (including Guam, Alaskan natives, etc.).

Reference Materials and Resources

1. “The New Imperialism: Crisis and Contradictions in North/South Relations”, by Robert Biel. Zed Books, 2000.
2. “Saviors or Sellouts: The Promise and Peril of Black Conservatism, from Booker T. Washington to Condoleezza Rice”, by Christopher Alan Bracey. Beacon Press, 2008.
3. “We Are Not What We Seem: Black Nationalism and Class Struggle in the American Century”, by Rod Bush. New York University Press, 1999.
4. “Locked in Place: State-building and late industrialization in India”, by Vivek Chibber. Princeton University Press, 2003.
5. “Reviving the Developmental State? The Myth of the ‘National Bourgeoisie’”, by Vivek Chibber. Printed in Socialist Register 2005, edited by Leo Panitch and Colin Leys. Published by Monthly Review Press, 2004.
6. “A Brief History of Neoliberalism”, by David Harvey. Oxford University Press, 2005.
7. “Revolutionaries to Race Leaders: Black Power and the Making of African American Politics”, by Cedric Johnson. University of Minnesota Press, 2007.
8. “Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice: Foreign Policy, Race, and the New American Century”, by Clarence Lusane. Praeger Press, 2006.
9. “The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World”, by Vijay Prashad. The New York Press, 2007.
10. “A Theory of Global Capitalism: Production, Class, and State in a Transnational World”, by William I. Robinson. John Hopkins University Press, 2004.
11. “Transnational Conflicts: Central America, Social Change, and Globalization”, by William I. Robinson. Published by Verso, 2003.
12. “Global Capitalism: the New Leviathan”, by Robert J. S. Ross and Kent C. Trachte. State University of New York Press, 1990.
13. “The Transnational Capitalist Class”, by Leslie Sklair. Blackwell Publishers, 2001.
14. “Double Trouble: Black Mayors, Black Communities, and the Call for a Deep Democracy”, by J. Phillip Thompson, III. Oxford University Press, 2006.
15. “A Nation within a Nation: Amiri Baraka and Black Power Politics”, by Komozi Woodard. University of North Carolina Press, 1999

Howard Zinn: The Historian Who Made History

Howard Zinn, one of the greatest intellectuals and historian died the other day. its unbelievable how our media ignored this legend's death. Anyway i post this article for my readers here. It was written by Dave Zirin and appeared in The Nation

Howard Zinn, my hero, teacher, and friend died of a heart attack on Wednesday at the age of 87. With his death, we lose a man who did nothing less than rewrite the narrative of the United States. We lose a historian who also made history.

Anyone who believes that the United States is immune to radical politics never attended a lecture by Howard Zinn. The rooms would be packed to the rafters, as entire families, black, white and brown, would arrive to hear their own history made humorous as well as heroic. “What matters is not who’s sitting in the White House. What matters is who’s sitting in!” he would say with a mischievous grin. After this casual suggestion of civil disobedience, the crowd would burst into laughter and applause.

Only Howard could pull that off because he was entirely authentic. When he spoke against poverty it was from the perspective of someone who had to work in the shipyards during the Great Depression. When he spoke against war, it was from the perspective of someone who flew as a bombardier during World War II, and was forever changed by the experience. When he spoke against racism it was from the perspective of someone who taught at Spelman College during the civil rights movement and was arrested sitting in with his students.

And of course, when he spoke about history, it was from the perspective of having written A People’s History of the United States, a book that has sold more than two million copies and changed the lives of countless people. Count me among them. When I was 17 and picked up a dog-eared copy of Zinn’s book, I thought history was about learning that the Magna Carta was signed in 1215. I couldn’t tell you what the Magna Carta was, but I knew it was signed in 1215. Howard took this history of great men in powdered wigs and turned it on its pompous head.

In Howard’s book, the central actors were the runaway slaves, the labor radicals, the masses and the misfits. It was history writ by Robin Hood, speaking to a desire so many share: to actually make history instead of being history’s victim. His book came alive in December with the debut of The People Speak on the History Channel as actors, musicians, and poets, brought Zinn’s book alive.

Howard was asked once whether his praise of dissent and protest was divisive. He answered beautifully: “Yes, dissent and protest are divisive, but in a good way, because they represent accurately the real divisions in society. Those divisions exist – the rich, the poor – whether there is dissent or not, but when there is no dissent, there is no change. The dissent has the possibility not of ending the division in society, but of changing the reality of the division. Changing the balance of power on behalf of the poor and the oppressed.”

Words like this made Howard my hero. I never thought we would also become friends. But through our mutual cohort, Anthony Arnove, Howard read my sports writing and then gave his blessing to a book project we called A People’s History of Sports in the United States.

We also did a series of meetings together where I would interview Howard on stage. Even at 87, he still had his sharp wit, strong voice, and matinee-idol white hair. But his body had become frail. Despite this physical weakness, Howard would stay and sign hundreds of books until his hand would shake with the effort.

At our event in Madison, Wisconsin, Howard issued a challenge to the audience. He said, “Our job as citizens is to honestly assess what Obama is doing. Not measured just against Bush, because against Bush, everybody looks good. But look honestly at what Obama’s doing and act as engaged and vigorous citizens.”

He also had no fear to express his political convictions loudly and proudly. I asked him about the prospects today for radical politics and he said,

“Let’s talk about socialism. … I think it’s very important to bring back the idea of socialism into the national discussion to where it was at the turn of the [last] century before the Soviet Union gave it a bad name. Socialism had a good name in this country. Socialism had Eugene Debs. It had Clarence Darrow. It had Mother Jones. It had Emma Goldman. It had several million people reading socialist newspapers around the country… Socialism basically said, hey, let’s have a kinder, gentler society. Let’s share things. Let’s have an economic system that produces things not because they’re profitable for some corporation, but produces things that people need. People should not be retreating from the word socialism because you have to go beyond capitalism.”

Howard Zinn taught millions of us a simple lesson: Agitate. Agitate. Agitate. But never lose your sense of humor in the process. It’s a beautiful legacy and however much it hurts to lose him, we should strive to build on Howard’s work and go out and make some history.

74 Members of Human Rights Organizations Arrested on Way to Lalgarh

The Statesman

Members of Rights body held on way to Lalgarh

MIDNAPORE: About 74 members of seven Kolkata-based human rights organisations were arrested at Kharagpur railway station this morning. Members of Association for Democratic Rights (APDR), Suraksha Samiti, West Bengal Bandi Mukti Manch, Lalgarh Manch, and Legal Service Centre, were on their way to Lalgarh when they were arrested. About 15 students of Presidency College were also in the visiting team.

Soon after they boarded the train at Kharagpur, they were called out and taken to the police station on the plea that prohibitory orders are in force in Lalgarh. The members of the human rights organisations have been booked under Section 143, 186, 188 and 511 of the Indian Penal Code. They will move court protesting against the dubious role of the police, the APDR leader told reporters.

Renowned social activist Ms Medha Patkar and several other members of the cultural world from Mumbai proceeding to Lalgarh had to face a similar ordeal last year. The APDR state secretary, Mr Debiprasad Roy Chowdhury, who was among the arrested, expressed surprise over the incident particularly when Section 144 of the CrPC was not in force in Kharagpur station.

“The railway minister and Trinamul chief Miss Mamata Banerjee was allowed to hold her rally at Jhargram town recently by slackening prohibitory orders. Then why such double standard on the part of police,” he asked. The West Midnapore SP, Mr Manoj Verma, however, was not available for comment.

Meanwhile, the Bhursa village in Salboni wore a deserted look today as most of the inhabitants fled their homes in the aftermath of a long gunbattle between the suspected Maoist cadres and the CPI-M gunmen yesterday in which three Maoist cadres were killed

Jesus Guides Their Bullets

boingboing


Secret "Jesus" Bible codes inscribed on American military weapons


ABC News reports that high-powered rifle sights provided to the US Army and Marines by Michigan weapons maker Trijicon include coded references to Bible passages about Jesus Christ:
The sights are used by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and in the training of Iraqi and Afghan soldiers. The maker of the sights, Trijicon, has a $660 million multi-year contract to provide up to 800,000 sights to the Marine Corps, and additional contracts to provide sights to the U.S. Army.
U.S. military rules specifically prohibit the proselytizing of any religion in Iraq or Afghanistan and were drawn up in order to prevent criticism that the U.S. was embarked on a religious "Crusade" in its war against al Qaeda and Iraqi insurgents.

One of the citations on the gun sights, 2COR4:6, is an apparent reference to Second Corinthians 4:6 of the New Testament, which reads: "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."

Philippines: 3,000 Attend CPP Anniversary Celebration in Mindanao

This article appeared in the January 7, 2010 issue of Ang Bayan (The People).

Comrades hold successful CPP anniversary celebration in Mindanao


The main celebration in Mindanao of the Party’s 41st anniversary led by Jorge “Ka Oris” Madlos was a success despite brazen violations by the AFP of its own ceasefire declaration that was supposed to have been in force from December 24 to 26. Up to 3,000 people attended the colorful celebration, including people from different provinces, towns and barrios, 39 media workers and local politicians.

Ka Oris called for the allout implementation of tasks by the revolutionary forces in the next five years with the objective of raising the level of people’s war from the strategic defensive to the strategic stalemate.

He called for the intensification of armed struggle. He said that 90% of more than 300 high-powered firearms added to the NPA arsenal in Mindanao in 2009 alone came from tactical offensives against military and police elements. Hundreds of thousands of peasants also benefited from the fruits of agrarian revolution in Mindanao island. Areas of operations expanded in Northeastern Mindanao Region (NEMR) as well as other parts of the island.

Among the highlights of the Party celebration was a tribute to media workers who were cold-bloodedly murdered in Ampatuan, Maguindanao on November 23. After reading the tribute, Ka Oris mentioned all the names of the 31 media workers who fell victim to the Maguindanao massacre. Meanwhile, NDF-NEMR spokesperson Ka Maria Malaya and the journalist guests led a candle lighting ceremony dedicated to the martyrs from the media sector.

AFP violations of the ceasefire

Meanwhile, Ka Oris reported attempts by the AFP to disrupt the main celebration of NDF-Mindanao. Elements of the 58th IB and the 41st DRC put up checkpoints in Barangay Ganayon and Diatagon in Lianga, Barangay Poblacion and Buhisan in San Agustin and Barangay Amontay in Marihatag on December 25 to harass people, allies and friends who intended to join the celebration. They also intimidated some motorcycle drivers to extract information on the actual site of the celebration.

A day after the celebration, a company from these military units, along with two armored personnel carriers, a military tank, a military jeep and a military pick up entered the site of the Party celebration in Barangay Mahaba, Marihatag, but by then, the guerrilla forces had already left the area after the invited guests from the media and other sectors had safely exited. The guerrillas closely monitored the enemy’s movements. They were under strict orders to refrain from firing at the military units in deference to the local residents’ observance of the new year.

On the other hand, all vehicles leaving Marihatag were stopped at checkpoints and searched while videos were taken of the passengers. The media people and the masses courageously confronted these forms of harassment and intimidation. The media workers also took videos of such harassment and aired the footage on television.

Also on December 25, the 58th IB set up a tactical command post near the site of the Party anniversary celebration of Front 30 along Tago River, San Manuel, Surigao del Sur. The following day, military forces took position to prepare for an attack. As a consequence, the committee overseeing the celebration decided not to push through with the other parts of the program and transferred the guerrilla forces and the masses to safer ground. But the AFP continued to advance, resulting in a clash on the morning of December 27 between an AFP unit and an NPA unit, wounding several soldiers. The military retaliated by firing 105 mm howitzer shells that missed their target. The next day, the AFP sent two helicopters to evacuate their casualties.

Indian Ambassador Threatens Prachanda, Wines and Dines Nepali Journalists

This article was published in Telegraph Nepal.

We will make Prachanda’s fate akin to Gyanendra: Indian Ambassador


This particular incident took place some two weeks back.

Some selected and ‘very few’ journalists were invited at the Indian Embassy in Kathmandu. And, they were served lavish dinner- obviously at the cost of teeming poverty stricken Indian nationals. The Embassy staffers took special care in that the invitation would not go into wrong hands. The fear factor continues to haunt the Indian Embassy clerical officials.

The “sole mission” of the dinner was to provide special instructions to those salaried journalists who are considered as ‘very close’ to the Indian embassy. Money matters after all!

What was the training cum instructions then coming from the India House? Sources say that the objective of the dinner was to assign befitting roles to the Nepali journalists during the visits of Indian Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna followed by Indian Army Chief Deepak Kapoor. Krishna has already left and Kapoor is still in Nepal. This means that this dinner was served much ahead of Krishna’s Nepal trip.

Rakesh Sood, the Indian ambassador-the host of the ceremony and the real administrator of this unfortunate country, who looked beaming that night talked to each and every “India friendly” journalists. He instructed them one by one-much similar to how a teacher does to his student in the primary school, and told them all not to prepare any reports that gave the impression to the public that India was interfering in Nepali matters. Naughty Ambassador.

He also told them not to cover any news or favor write-ups criticizing Indian role in Nepal. He also informed them that in order to foil the ongoing Unified Maoists’ Party Led agitation for National Independence such a strategy should work perfectly.

As the night began falling slowly and slowly the intimacy between the journalists and the Ambassador began increasing. Naughty Alcohol! The journalists thus began asking various questions. Is New Delhi planning to restore monarchy in Nepal? Why Gyanendra is being laid red carpet in New Delhi? How dare Maoists’ open up new front against India? Why is India silent? Several questions were posed to the Ambassador…however he had just an answer to all those questions.

Sood summed up stating this. “Prachanda Ko Bhi Gyanendra Banadengey- we will make Prachanda’s fate similar to Gyanendra.” “Bas itna hi kafi hai-this much is enough”.

Sources reveal finally, all the attending journalists who had enough booze that night returned home happy.

Kishenji: “Without Expansion, We Can’t Retain our Existing Bases”

This article was posted on Hindustan Times on January 21, 2010.


Guns and poses


Maoists are eyeing areas beyond their forest and rural strongholds and speaking in a language that would do opposition political parties proud. This strategy, which has also seen the Left-wing extremists surface in a new, media-savvy avatar, comes even as Maoist violence has increased in the country.

The ultimate goal of the banned CPI (Maoist) — the rebel outfit’s writ runs across large swathes of Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Bihar, Orissa, Jharkhand and West Bengal — remains “seizure of power at the Centre to change the constitution and establish new democracy”.

But strategically, Maoists feel the need to expand their base to newer areas, since this would also keep security forces diverted, and speak on issues that resonate with voters. “Without expansion, we can’t retain our existing bases,” CPI (Maoist) politburo member and eastern operations in-charge, Koteshwar Rao alias Kishenji, told Hindustan Times.

The need for an urban base has made the Maoists behave more like a mainstream political party, if recent events in West Bengal and other rebel-affected states are anything to go by.

The various issues Maoists have recently spoken about include price rise; industrial pollution; coal theft; daily working hours and wages in factories; hike in education fees and municipal taxes; protection of national wealth and corruption in the political system and bureaucracy.

But there has been no let-up in violence: there were more than 2,000 incidents of violence involving Maoists last year, up from 1,591 incidents in 2008, according to the Union Home Ministry. Yet, the Maoists are trying to give the impression that they are playing a proactive role in the issues of the state, a senior bureaucrat in Kolkata said.

Kishenji even commented on the Copenhagen climate summit and its fallout. He raised a storm of sorts by calling up the West Bengal environment secretary M.L. Meena in December to “discuss” environmental issues.

Director General of West Bengal Police Bhupinder Singh said it was evident from the Maoists’ media interactions that they were trying to address the urban and semi-urban populations. “This is the largest target audience of the media so Maoists are trying to portray themselves as good people fighting for just causes,” he said.

Maoists have also shown willingness to father movements jointly with mainstream parties on common issues. “These forums help them build contacts and expand the strength of cadres,” Singh said. “Students in urban areas are soft targets.”

Kishenji reportedly called up several leaders fighting for the cause of Telangana’s statehood to chalk out a joint action plan. In Jharkhand and Orissa, the rebels are attempting to build a mass movement with other parties against polluting sponge iron factories. In November, Maoists supported a Bengal bandh called by the Socialist Unity Centre of India to protest price rise. Kishenji called up Forward Bloc central committee member Hafiz Alam Sairani during the party’s meet in December, proposing a joint movement against price hike and SEZs.

Police reports say Maoists send “political observers” to places of unrest in urban and semi-urban areas

In Andhra Pradesh, though about a dozen small Maoist groups operate besides the CPI (Maoist), their influence is limited to small pockets. Of these, two groups — CPI-ML (Janashakti) and CPI-ML (New Democracy) — have participated in elections in the past. In Jharkhand, Maoists are not only influencing polls, but also fighting elections in a big way.

Polush. S, a “commander” of a CPI (Maoist) breakaway faction, defeated Koche Munda of the BJP from Torpa assembly seat in Khunti district sparking celebrations in the Simdega jail, where Polush was lodged.

In Chhattisgarh, the police had “dismantled the urban network” of the rebels but “their urban connections and groups have again expanded”, state police spokesman RK Vij said.

Overall, as the pressure on the rebels increases in their hideouts across the country — with Home Minister P. Chidambaram taking a tough line against them and several senior politburo members behind bars — the Maoists are trying to make inroads into urban areas and simultaneously gain political ground.