CPI (Maoist) calls for Country Wide Protests Against Price- rise and Scams and State Terror - 4th- 6th February and Bharat Bandh on February 7th

COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MAOIST)

CENTRAL COMMITTEE

Press Release

January 15, 2011

Unite And Fight Against Price-rise, Scams And State Terror!

Make Success Country-wide Protests From 4 to 6 February
And Bharat Bandh on February 7

The latest addition to the already long-list of sufferings of the people of our country is the new rise in food inflation to 18.5 percent with prices touching the sky. On top of this petrol prices have been hiked (Rs 2.50 per litre) from the midnight of 15 January which would again lead to more price-rise in all items particularly in food items. The life of 'Aam Aadmi' would become even more miserable with the prices of onion, mirchi, atta, pulses, vegetables soaring. Though price-rises have become an integral part of our life since decades, this kind of price-rise in the conditions where more than 90 percent of the workforce is employed in unorganized sector and where 83 percent of the people live on less than 20 rupees daily income, the connotations are grave and disturbing. Add to it the continuous loss of employment of even white collar jobs of the middle classes due to the world wide economic crisis and the picture which emerges is even bleaker.

It is one thing to put up with this. But how should one also put up with the most inhuman, cruel, insensitive and callous statement of the person in the highest post in our country, that too a person who is supposed to administer this country efficiently so that the lives of the people turn for better? While the people and particularly the children of this country are dying in their lakhs each year just due to lack of food and nutrition, this person had the audacity to declare that the present price-rise is due to the increase in food consumption of the poor people! This is the zenith of shamelessness one can ever reach. It is not our fault if this sounds like an echo of what an equally if not a more barefaced person named Mr. Bush (Junior) said some days back accusing the people of countries like China and India of consuming more, leading to a crisis! At least one could understand the contempt a President of the imperialist country (US), the number one enemy of the world people, would have for the people of third world countries. But Mr. Manmohan Singh! You have out stepped all the limits of decency and humanity in expressing such contempt for the people of the country you are supposed to lead. The blood of every patriot boils and the face of every citizen burns with indignity to hear this from the high offices of this country. Surely our beloved country and its dignified people do not deserve this shabby treatment.

It is under the aegis of this Prime Minister that a Mukesh Ambani builds a Mahal worth 3,500 crores, ministers function on a daily basis from five-star hotels, trillions of rupees are guzzled in scams by every single person who is even a bit of somebody in his parliament or his administrative mechanism and army/police/forest services (the 1,76,000 crore 2G Spectrum scam is still fresh in public memory) not to mention their billions of dollars stacked away safely in Swiss banks! All the future trading, hoarding, black marketing, faulty PDS which have become the trademark of the 'independent' India have all been brazenly pushed aside as the possible reasons for this appalling inflation rate and the poor people who are breaking their backs in conditions which can be compared to the medieval times (again a fallout of the LPG policies gifted to us since 1991 by this reliable servant of IMF and World Bank) and are not even able to have one square meal in a day have become the culprits. Wah ! Great Economics indeed, worth a Nobel Prize! This is not just a cruel joke on the poor people of our country (whom he doesn’t represent at all) but also an unabashed attempt to cover up the scams and hoarding of the richie rich people of our country and the imperialist countries (whom he represents so well) and to divert the attention of the people from the actual causes of inflation and burning problems at present.

What is the actual condition prevailing? On the one hand, people are tragically suffering with this price-rise while on the other hand a new scam is rising on the horizon along with the sun every day. The price-rise is closely linked with the scam-rises of the ministers and high-rises of the comprador bureaucratic bourgeoisie along with the rise in their bank accounts in the Swiss banks. (Remember? India refuses to reveal the names of those persons who have amassed billion of dollars in these banks?) The recent 2G Spectrum scam has exposed the back door deals of the big players of the corporate world, ministers and hi-fi media people while the series of scams which came to light have uncovered the brash pillage by all the parliamentary parties of the resources rightfully belonging to the people. The BJP which had stalled the proceedings of the Parliament for a whole session with the demand of instituting a JPC on 2G Spectrum scam is desperately trying to masquerade as a 'clean party' hiding its own set of scams, one of the major of these happening in Karnataka under BJP Chief Minister Yedyurappa. The close relations which Congress and BJP, including the leader of opposition Ms. Sushma Swaraj have with the notorious mining mafia bosses Reddy brothers are well documented. There is another purpose too. With Aseemanand singing in police custody and the unearthing of other evidences, the direct involvement of the saffron terrorists in the Samjhauta Express, Malegaon and Mecca Masjid blasts stands exposed and the JPC probe demand and the uproar about price-rise are aimed at diverting the attention of the people from the heinous criminals involved in those blasts. The UPA government dumped A. Raja, of course after lot of hullabaloo due to inescapable evidence implicating him, in the 2G spectrum scam in order to save the skin of the Prime Minister and Sonia who are the directors of this sky-scraping scam and without whose involvement such a spectacle would be impossible. The names of highest level ranking generals in the army have also come up in scams not to mention the bureaucrats. The mother of all scams but which is not so visible is the stockpiling of thousands of crores of rupees by the likes of Naveen Patnaik, Raman Singh, YSR (now dead), Yedyurappa, Nitish Kumar, Narendra Modi, Vilasrao Deshmukh and Ashok Chavan in the form of commissions earned through the MoUs they are signing with the MNCs and imperialists. YSR had alone earned nearly 60,000 crores of rupees in his term as CM and one can imagine how many billions of rupees of the hard earned money of the common people is filling the coffers of all these super gangsters.

The people of our country are not sitting quite while these scamsters and gangsters are pillaging our wealth. In every corner of our country people are agitating at various levels and in different forms against corruption, all kinds of anti-people policies, price-rise and loot of natural resources. Of all these resistances, the most organized and militant struggle is waged by our party the CPI (Maoist). That is why it was named the biggest internal security threat by the Sonia-Manmohan-Chidabaram gang and an unprecedented countrywide multi-pronged offensive was launched on it in the name of Operation Green Hunt (OGH). The intensification of the anti-people, pro-imperialist policies which give rise to scams and price-rise and the repression on CPI (Maoist) are directly proportional and this became particularly obvious in the past two months. The Prime Minister and Home Minister are conducting series of meetings to crush the Maoist movement and in the latest meeting held in January first week with higher level officers of police and paramilitary forces of six states, they laid emphasis on synergy between intelligence agencies, paramilitary and the police. This insistence on synergy is not an innocent proposal but is aimed at perpetrating more massacres, mopping up campaigns and clearing the adivasisand Maoists from the forests. Some more billions of rupees were allotted for this War on People.

In West Bengal, the social fascist CPM in collusion with the central government has increased the number of camps to 140 in Jangal Mahal and Lalgarh and filled them with police, paramilitary and its own counter-revolutionary Harmad Bahini goons, with an eye on the upcoming elections. That the ongoing atrocities and repression on the people of these areas would increase is anybody's guess and the massacre by CPM/Harmad cadres of eight people and injuring many more in Lalgarh area in the first week of January are an indication of the terrible things in store. On December 3, 2010, the police arrested the West Bengal state secretary of our party Com. Sudeep Chongdar, state committee members Kalpana Maiti, Barun Sur, Anil Ghosh and some other comrades while another state committee member Com. Dwijen Hembram was arrested earlier. They were cruelly tortured and false cases were foisted on them. Particularly, the insulting and inhuman treatment meted out to Com. Kalpana is denigrating the dignity of a woman.

In Bihar and Jharkhand arrests, tortures, barbarous attacks and murders of Maoist cadres are continuing. In Andhra Pradesh despite the claims of the ruling classes that they have suppressed the Maoists, fake encounters and attacks on the people haven’t stopped. On 17 December, 2010, in an encounter in Visakhapatnam district four comrades including three women were killed. People fighting against seizure of their lands for SEZs, thermal power plants and for a separate Telangana state are being fired upon indiscriminately.

In an unprecedented severe offensive on Maoist areas in Odisha in the past two months nearly 25 Maoist cadres and ordinary people were killed and most of these 'encounters' were fake. Five Maoists in Kalinganagar area on January 2, nine Maoists in Niyamgiri area on January 9 and two Maoists in Keonjhar area on January 12 were killed in so-called encounters. Right in the beginning of this year two villagers were killed in cold-blood in Bargarh district and the police claimed it was an encounter.

On 8 October, in Savargaon of Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra (Dandakaranya), the ITBP forces had fired mortars shells on a school leading to the death of 6 people including two school children and injuries to eight more. On the next day on 9 October, in a fierce encounter in Mahasamund district of Chhattisgarh (CG) six comrades were martyred and the police killed two innocent villagers mercilessly in the same incident. On 23 November, the CRPF had massacred nine villagers near Jegurugonda in Dantewada district. The CG government is suppressing dissent in the most reactionary manner by arresting democratic intellectuals, putting them in jails and pronouncing harsh punishments on them. The recent conviction of CPI (Maoist) Politburo member Narayan Sanyal, Human Rights activist Dr. Binayak Sen, trader Piyush Guha and editor-writer Asit Sengupta is a blatant example of this. Though this offensive is obviously directed against the Maoists, in reality this is directed against all those individuals and organizations that are resisting the policies of the government.

Beloved people of India!

This is not the time to cry over the depths of despair and degradation the ruling classes are forcing us into. The need of the hour is for all the people to come together and fight back the anti-people, repressive and pro-imperialist policies of the state and to direct our fight against scamsters, hoarders, black marketeers and forces of the repressive state.

Our Central Committee appeals to all the people to observe protests from 4 to 5 February and one-day Bharat bandh on 7 February against price-rise, scams and state terror. We are making it clear that there would be no bandh during the protest days and that Bharat bandh would be observed in six states – West Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh and three districts in Maharashtra – Gadchiroli, Gondia, Chandrapur and one district in Madhya Pradesh – Balaghat. Medical services and people attending examinations and interviews will be excluded from the bandh activities.

(Abhay)

Spokesperson,

Central Committee,

CPI (Maoist

Arab Leaders Keep a Wary Eye on Tunisia

The New York Times

CAIRO — From the crowded, run-down streets of Cairo to the oil-financed halls of power in Kuwait, Arab leaders appear increasingly rattled by the unfolding events in Tunisia and elsewhere in the Arab world, where men continued to set themselves on fire — two more in Egypt on Tuesday, and a third who was stopped.

Though the streets of Cairo, Algiers and other Arab cities around the region were calm, the acts of self-immolation served as a reminder that the core complaints of economic hardship and political repression that led to the Tunisian uprising resonated strongly across the Middle East.

“You have leaders who have been in power for a very long time, one party controlling everything, marginalization of the opposition, no transfer of power, plans for succession, small groups running the business, vast corruption,” said Emad Gad, a political scientist at the Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies. “All of this makes the overall environment ripe for an explosion at any second.”

But while there is widespread anticipation about a revolutionary contagion, particularly in Egypt and Algeria, where there have been angry and violent protests, political analysts said that each country is different, making such conclusions premature. Egypt lacks the broad and educated middle class of Tunisia, while in Algeria the middle class failed to join the angry young men in rioting, regional experts said.

In Jordan, an Islamist opposition party, the Islamic Action Front, issued a demand that the offices of prime minister and other high officials be made elective instead of appointive, as they are now. But like the other outbursts, it quickly died away.

“For all the sound and fury, it doesn’t look like much political dividend will come out of what happened in Algeria, in the short term,” said Hugh Roberts, an independent scholar and a specialist on North Africa based here. “It looks like it has gone quiet. It was a big blast of angry, hot air, but in an unfocused way, which leaves most things the same.”

So for now, the most pronounced impact from the unexpected Tunisian uprising is a lingering sense of uncertainty. That is itself either unnerving or exhilarating, depending on one’s perspective, in a region sitting on the fault lines of religious strife, political repression and economic uncertainty, experts said.

“We did not expect Tunisia to go the direction it has. Who had Tunisia on the mind a few weeks ago?” said Amr Hamzawy, research director with the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut. “The ingredients are partially there for it to happen again, but we just do not know.”

Some Arab leaders have ordered security crackdowns to keep calm in the streets, and offered some symbolic gestures. In Syria, President Bashar al Assad backed off the imposition of austerity measures. In Kuwait, the emir doled out money.

In Egypt, where organizers are calling for a nationwide protest on Jan. 25, officials struggled to project a sense of calm and normalcy, while stepping up talk of economic reform and government accountability. Arab leaders have also said they will focus on combating unemployment when they meet later this week at an economic summit meeting in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el Sheik.

Fahmy Howeidy, an Egyptian political expert and newspaper columnist, said that while he did not believe conditions were ripe for a similar uprising in Egypt, the government was keenly aware that “what happened in Tunisia has definitely created a different atmosphere. It convinced people that they can revolt in the streets, and that these regimes are not as strong or as mighty as they appear.”

Before the riots in Tunisia turned into a mass uprising against the rule of the longtime autocratic president, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, it appeared that either Egypt or Algeria stood a greater chance of some kind of mass public revolt. For years, both have suffered from sclerotic political systems led by aging presidents, with support from the military. For years, both have confronted protests over difficult economic conditions and widespread youth unemployment.

But Mr. Hamzawy noted that in Tunisia the middle class and the trade unions joined protests that initially broke out over economic complaints, and helped transform the discontent into calls for political change. In Egypt, where the leadership continues to rely on a decades-old emergency law that allows arrest without charge, there is a lot of room for free and critical speech, offering a safety valve for expression that did not exist in Tunisia, he said.

In Egypt, he said, the array of interests that benefit from corruption is much wider than in Tunisia, where it was restricted to a small circle around the president. That, he said, means there are more people with an interest in preserving the system. And finally, he said, the military in Tunisia was not politicized and did not have any experience in securing city streets, unlike in Egypt, where the military has risen to the government’s defense before, and most likely would again. In addition, Mr. Hamzawy said that the protests that have racked Egypt recently have mostly been by workers for economic reasons, and that the government effectively bought them off with concessions before they began making political demands.

In Algeria, Mr. Roberts said, there are two primary differences with Tunisia that make comparisons imperfect. The first, he said, was that in Tunisia the riots spread all over the country and eventually involved different elements of society all on the same side. “That gave the movement its moral power,” he said.

By comparison, he said, “In Algeria, that never happened. There was no real support from trade unions, in fact none at all as far as one can see, and there was a good deal of middle class hostility to them because of the destruction. The guys rioting were desperate, angry young men with no political perspective at all.”

But more fundamentally, he said, Algeria is not as repressive as Tunisia was. “It is not an autocracy, it is an oligarchy,” he said, explaining that in addition to the president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, there are multiple power centers, like the military, the intelligence services and the elite bureaucrats. That, he said, meant that unlike in Tunisia there is no one target of public ire, and no public sense that protests would help to dislodge those at fault.

“Even though Bouteflika is unpopular, people know their problems do not simply come down to him,” he said. “You have a situation where there is a great deal of discontent, including in the middle class, but no one has any prescription for how to deal with it.”

Mona El-Naggar reported from Cairo, and Michael Slackman from Berlin.

The good news from Tunisia

17 January 2011. A World to Win News Service.

In a world sorely in need of good news and a Middle East that has seemed to be getting darker, a ray of light has broken through in Tunisia.


Instead of accepting being pressed down and passive, the masses of people seized the initiative and toppled a hated head of state who had long administered the country for the benefit of France, the other European powers and the U.S., a man who was backed by all of them until the very end. While the Tunisian events are not like, for instance, Iraq and Afghanistan, where the U.S. has suffered serious military setbacks, this is a movement where no reactionaries have hegemony, at least so far.



This is rare in today's world where imperialists and Islamic reactionaries too often monopolize the political stage. These events have brought hope not only to Tunisians but millions of other people sick of the unbearable status quo crushing the region and the globe.



For this reason Tunisians face a very difficult situation as the enforcers of today's world order and their present and possible future Tunisian underlings and allies manoeuvre to stuff the genie – the people – back into the bottle.



In less than a month events moved at such a dizzying pace that each day brought about new and unexpected situations. The cork began to loosen last 17 December in the town of Sidi Bouzid. The police confiscated the fruit and vegetables Mohamed Bouazizi, a 26-year-old unemployed university graduate, was selling in the street. When his efforts to protest through legal channels went unheeded, he set fire to himself in a front of local government offices. Security forces attacked demonstrating local students who put the blame for the young man's death on the regime.



This resonated deeply in a society where the schools have been churning out large numbers of graduates who seldom find a place in an economy subordinated to foreign investment, particularly tourism and low-wage garment and footwear manufacture for export. At first the protest movement was strongest in towns in the country's disadvantaged central and western regions. By late

December thousands of people in the capital and other coastal cities demonstrated in support of the youth in Sidi Bouzid. The demand for jobs quickly went over to a movement to topple the regime.



The movement drew in the educated classes – a strike by 95 percent of the country's lawyers and a demonstration by hundreds of them in front of the government palace in Tunis 6 January gave it impetus. But it also involved much of Tunisian society, including various classes, with little political differentiation. In January, especially during the second week, the protests became more confrontational. Demonstrators set up barricades and fought back against the security forces. In the working class Tunis suburb of Ettadhamen-Minihla people attacked government buildings. Their chant, "We are not afraid, we are not afraid, we are afraid only of god", revealed both a new mood of daring and determination and the persistence of traditional thinking. For the first time the army was deployed in several cities. Many dozens of people were killed in clashes with the police over the next days.



After first dismissing the crowds as "terrorists", President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali began to try to save his regime by offering them concessions. He visited the hospital room of the dying young man who had immolated himself. On 12 January he sacked the Interior Minister, claiming that orders for shooting people at Bouazizi's funeral and other demonstrators had been issued behind his back. The next day he promised not to run again in the 2014 elections. But the protests only became more defiant. On 14 January he fled, reportedly after the army chief of staff advised – or told – him to go.



As his last act, Ben Ali told a long-time loyal henchman, his prime minister Mohammed Ghannouchi, to replace him as head of state. This was not acceptable to the protesters. In a desperate attempt to cover the new government with the cloak of the rule of law, the courts declared that the speaker of parliament, the Ben Ali henchman Fouad Mebazaa, should become head of state, according to the constitution that Ben Ali had put in place. Mebazaa turned around and made ex-prime minister the new prime minister.



As things now stand, the situation is complicated. The police and armed militia that were Ben Ali's personal gang have been using their guns to cash in on their loyal service by looting. Their rear-guard action, including sniper fire on crowds, has had a (perhaps intended) political effect. It spurred a popular demand for order – neighbourhood self-protection committees sprang up – and helped divide those who now want stability from those still unsatisfied.



Ben Ali had reportedly recruited militia members from among petty criminals, and the police are certainly extortionist thugs at best, in addition to their role as the main force imposing repression and torture. The army has arrested the former Interior Minister and Ben Ali's head of security, accusing them of fomenting violence to prolong political instability.



At the same time the army is also trying to make the people back down. While armed forces units were briefly withdrawn from the streets just prior to Ben Ali's abdication and flight, reportedly because they did not want to use their tanks and armoured cars against the crowds, they have moved back in force. On 17 January came the announcement of a "unity government" in which the six key portfolios went to seasoned members of the ruling party and three other senior ministerial positions were given to opposition parties legal under Ben Ali. Several thousand people, including many trade union members, gathered in front of the Interior Ministry to chant that this new government did not meet the people's aspirations. They were attacked with clubs, water cannons, tear gas and warning shots.


Unhappiness in the Western capitals



This joyous explosion of the Tunisian people has brought unhappiness and deep concern to the Western governments. Nowhere is this more true than in France, where President Nicholas Sarkozy called an emergency meeting of his cabinet to plan what to do after the fall of Ben Ali.



As the newspaper Le Monde and other media have abundantly detailed, France supported Ben Ali to the bitter end. (See the Facebook page "Ben Ali Wall of Shame" – more than a third of Tunisia's 10 million people are said to have access to Facebook and Twitter.) Early on in his presidency, in 2008, Sarkozy feted the Tunisian tyrant with a super-delegation featuring Mrs Sarkozy and seven ministers. IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who hopes to be the opposition Socialist Party's next presidential candidate, visited to tout Tunisia's economy as a "model for emerging countries". Several French government ministers made statements supporting Ben Ali during his final days. The day before Ben Ali fled, Sarkozy's Interior Minister Michelle Alliot-Marie offered to send French police to "share French skills" and train their Tunisian counterparts in handling "security situations". Although in her statement for French public consumption she added that the police should preserve order and respect democratic rights, the official version of her statement left out this second clause, probably because it might embolden Ben Ali's opponents. In Tunis, people commented that the last thing they needed in fighting a "police state" was French police.



When the fleeing president's private plane approached Paris, Sarkozy apparently gave orders that it not be allowed to land. Members of Ben Ali's family who had been waiting for him in a luxury hotel at the Euro Disney amusement park were asked to leave. Finally, it was Saudi Arabia that gave Ben Ali shelter, probably to France's great relief. A leader of the fascist National Front criticized Sarkozy bitterly for betraying a great personal friend and a friend of France.



It could be said that the basic deal that kept Ben Ali in power so long was that France allowed him and especially his wife's family to enrich themselves obscenely as long as he efficiently performed his role as manager of France's Tunisian enterprise – not very different than a bank or other big corporation. In trying to protect France's man, Sarkozy was continuing the policy of all the French presidents of the right and left who came before him.



Tunisia's ties with France are not only financial. In fact other European powers (especially Italy) and the U.S. have also profited from Tunisia's enslavement to the world market and the economic boom under Ben Ali. But there are also political and cultural ties that have made Tunisia particularly pliable to Paris and therefore important to France's regional and global efforts.



France made Tunisia a "protectorate" by invading it in 1881 and ran it directly until 1957. But unlike Algeria, for instance, which France's ruling capitalists considered an integral part of their country, so that it had to win its independence through a long and hard-fought war, Tunisia became independent without a violent struggle (not unrelated to the war going on in much larger Algeria at the time), and slipped easily and quickly into the neocolonial mode. Its first president, Habid Bourguiba, was also a close "friend of France" from independence until 1987, when the senile old man was overthrown by his security chief, the military leader Ben Ali.



The U.S. did not see Ben Ali as their man the way France did, but Washington was not far behind in supporting him. The "Tunileaks" (WikiLeaks of cables to the U.S. State Department from the American embassy in Tunis) are very revealing in that regard. A report from the U.S. ambassador spread over a series of cables details the almost surreal degree to which Ben Ali's family used its power to accumulate personal wealth, so much so that "50 percent of the economic elite" are members of his and especially his wife's family. This is seen as making the regime more fragile than it would be with a broader-based ruling class. Yet the ambassador's main complaints centre around Ben Ali's failure to support American initiatives that might soften the country's ties with France, particularly in the educational and cultural fields.



The cables make the point that while Tunisia is small and without much regional influence, it is particularly useful to the U.S. in terms of its informal ties with Israel and its refusal to support the Palestinians, even in the purely rhetorical and hypocritical ways dear to some other Arab regimes. The ambassador also expressed appreciation for the regime's Westernised trappings (such as its adoption of French family law, including a ban on polygamy) and its apparent success in strangling Islamic fundamentalism. For these reasons, while continuing to express concern for what are seen as the regime's self-inflicted weaknesses, a later cable advises the U.S. State Department to "dial back the public criticism" and continue efforts to strengthen U.S. influence in the country in the context of supporting Ben Ali.



But U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did have the very good luck to give a speech calling on Arab governments to reform the day before Ben Ali fell, and President Barack Obama was the first head of state to salute the developments. Under the guise of "promoting democracy" the U.S. will likely seek to advance its influence in Tunisia and the Arab world in the course of the present political turmoil.



Still, turmoil in the Middle East is what the U.S., France and all the big powers are united against. Tunisia does not have the strategic value to the U.S. as other "friends" such as Egypt, Algeria and Jordan, as the diplomatic cables point out, but what has broken out there does pose dangers for regimes that are crucial to continued U.S. regional control. It is no accident that the focus of Clinton's speech was the need to strengthen Arab regimes under the U.S.'s thumb in order to isolate the Islamic Republic of Iran.


The bright spots and dangers of the current situation



The best thing about the events in Tunisia is that for once the people themselves have stepped in and become the motor force driving events. As a reactionary Washington commentator pointed out, even if U.S. and Western interests are not necessarily threatened by the fall of Ben Ali in and of itself, those interests could be imperilled by the fact that he has been thrown out thanks to a popular upsurge and not allowed to go quietly in the kind of smooth transition that characterized the end of fascist regimes in Pinochet's Chile and Franco's Spain. (Anne Applebaum, Washington Post, 17 January 2011)



Many commentators have said that the absence of a strong Islamic movement is one reason why the West is not more worried about what's going on there and hasn't tried to more directly intervene. Actually, there hasn't been much opportunity or means for the West to do that so far. But it is also true that it is a very good thing that this upsurge has been able, until now at least, to steer clear of the deadly dynamic that has kept the terms of struggle in other countries confined to open capitulation to imperialism versus a reactionary Islamic fundamentalist movement that does not truly break with the imperialist system even while upsetting the imperialist order.



Commentators have compared the events in Tunisia with the 1979 fall of the Shah of Iran. The revolutionary process there had the advantage of a much longer period of political turmoil and fighting before it was aborted by the installation of today's hated Islamic Republic. When the U.S. and the UK could no longer keep the Shah in power, they decided that an Islamic regime in Iran would be preferable to the uncertain and perhaps revolutionary alternatives, although they probably regretted that later. In the case of Tunisia, it is not impossible that the U.S. summed up those lessons and decided to pull the plug on Ben Ali before the situation became even more uncontrollable.



Explicitly examining the Tunisian situation from the angle of how to pursue U.S. interests, the academic Steven A. Cook wrote for the Web site of U.S. Council on Foreign Relations, "Whether the [Tunisian] military leaders are democrats is not the issue; rather, their concern seems to be that graft, corruption, and the practices of one of the worst police states in the Middle East proved to be a threat to social cohesion and stability." Cook deliberately overlooks the fact that U.S.-dependent regimes in the region like Egypt have killed and tortured many more people than in Tunisia. Probably he means that Ben Ali ran one of the most successful states in the region in terms of its ability to stifle opposition almost completely for 27 years – until a month ago, when these "practices" no longer worked. But his characterization of the role of the Tunisian military is both accurate and expresses the American imperialist point of view.



While various clans have disputed over the spoils, the Tunisian army has always been and is still the backbone of a comprador (imperialist-dependent) state and the ultimate guarantor of a whole imperialist-dominated economic, social and ideological order. In fact, given the country's geopolitical situation, it has little other reason to exist. If the army dumped Ben Ali and has tried to distance itself from his torturers and jailers, it is all the better to play that role. This is why one of the Wiki-leaked U.S. cables stresses the importance of American support for the "neutrality" of the Tunisian army vis a vis disputes among the "economic elite".



It is impossible to predict what concessions to popular demand the military behind Tunisia's governments of the day may feel compelled to grant, and to what degree such concessions may succeed – or fail – at quelling people's anger. It is very possible that they will have to allow more space for political debate and the people's will to be expressed than they normally do. But it is absolutely certain that the Tunisian armed forces and the imperialists will focus on preserving the existing state power.



The media are now arguing that this is the first Arab revolution. One reason why that is wrong is that so far, this has not been a revolution, strictly speaking, in the sense of bringing about fundamental change in social, political and economic relations, or even a thorough regime change. But lessons should be taken from earlier upheavals that toppled feudal monarchies (Egypt and Sudan, Iraq) and and neocolonial republics (Syria). For instance, while the U.S. was at certain points somewhat favourable to the nationalism of Egypt's Gamal Nasser, in terms of challenging British and French dominance of the Middle East, the U.S.'s objective was to make Egypt an American neocolony. Similarly, while the military coups in Syria and Iraq, with their nationalist trappings, created problems for some Western powers, neither of these countries experienced any liberation.



There is also the example of neighbouring Algeria in the 1990s, where the U.S. and the West at first backed political reform in order to achieve a more broad-based and stable comprador regime, and then dropped it when it became clear that Islamic elements would win elections. This helped provoke ten years of bloody and thoroughly reactionary strife in which both the regime and the fundamentalists slaughtered many thousands of people and both sides specifically targeted the intellectuals. The fact that many Algerians felt trapped and mortally threatened by both the comprador regime and its religious fanatic opponents played a major role in putting a damper on the popular struggles that had shaken Algeria in the 1980s. In fact, this experience had a big influence in bringing about a state of political depression in the Arab world.



The media have also enjoyed throwing around the term "Jasmine Revolution", in hopes that the Tunisian upsurge will take the path of the non-violent (on the part of the people) and totally non-revolutionary "colour revolutions" in former Soviet-bloc countries, most recently in Ukraine, which have brought nothing but disappointment, disillusionment and a new plunge into passivity for the people. That is one possibility, and the one for which the enforcers of the world order will do their best to impose, but that is not the only one now.



The Tunisian people have every reason to be happy and proud, but it's no use pretending that they don't face formidable obstacles. The imperialists and the various varieties of smaller reactionaries are going to interact with the people's movement in complex and perhaps unpredictable ways, seeking to slam shut the door that the people have opened through their struggle and sacrifice.



It is far from certain, but there are objective reasons to hope that the enemies of the Tunisian people will not be able to consolidate their grip for a while, and that this situation will continue to inspire and spur on other people and constrain the reactionaries' regional efforts, especially if the movement that brought down Ben Ali develops in a way that gives expression to the independent and revolutionary interests of the people in opposition to the imperialists and their system. The world needs more open doors like the one the Tunisian people have given us, and it needs breakthroughs to the other side.

Juan Cole: Tunisia Uprising "Spearheaded by Labor Movements, by Internet Activists, by Rural Workers; It’s a Populist Revolution"

Democracy Now



"This is the first popular revolution since 1979," Cole says. "This revolution so far has been spearheaded by labor movements, by internet activists, by rural workers. It’s a populist revolution, and not particularly dominated in any way by Islamic themes, it seems to be a largely secular development."

AMY GOODMAN: We’re spending the hour on the revolution that is unfolding right now in Tunisia. The latest news is that three members of the national unity government representing the protests in the streets have just pulled out of that unity government. We’re going first to Juan Cole, professor of history at the University of Michigan. His blog is "Informed Comment" online at juancole.com. His most recent book, Engaging the Muslim World. And then we’ll be joined by Anthony Shadid, based in Beirut, also in Baghdad, but now in Beirut.

Juan Cole, this latest news and the significance of this revolution?

JUAN COLE: Well, this is the first popular revolution since 1979. But it’s distinctive in that the Iranian Revolution in 1979 was ultimately taken over by the ayatollahs, by a clerical elite, and so it didn’t develop in a democratic direction, whereas this revolution so far has been spearheaded by labor movements, by internet activists, by rural workers. It’s a populist revolution, and not particularly dominated in any way by Islamic themes, it seems to be a largely secular development. And it’s occurring in a Sunni and an Arab country, unlike Iran, which is Persian and Shiite. And it’s occurring in a country that has many similarities to other countries living under authoritarian regimes with limited employment opportunities and a kind of long-term economic stagnation. So, it’s something that other Arab countries might well look to—the publics, at least—for inspiration.

AMY GOODMAN: What about the coverage? As I raced through my TV dial this weekend, trying to find coverage, it was extremely difficult to find coverage of the revolution in Tunisia.

JUAN COLE: Oh, the U.S. 24-hour cable news networks fell down on the job with regard to Tunisia. Ben Wedeman, a veteran reporter at CNN, made heroic efforts, did get to Tunis. I don’t get a sense that his dispatches were put through by his editors back in Atlanta. And mostly, you couldn’t find out what was going on in Tunisia from television, from American mass media. You had to be on the internet. There’s a Twitter channel, "SidiBouzid," which is excellent. There are Facebook formats. The French press, if one knows—if you can read French, was much better. But the American corporate news just blew off this story. They’re not interested in it. They don’t seem to think it’s important. Or maybe they’re a little bit afraid of it, because it is, after all, a revolution made by workers, and American corporate media are a little nervous about things like that.

AMY GOODMAN: Juan Cole, what if it was an Islamist revolution?

JUAN COLE: Well, had this been a revolution led by the Muslim party, the Ennahda, by the longtime opposition leader Rashid Ghannoushi, then I’m quite sure that it would have been 24/7 coverage. It would have knocked off of the news many of the fluff stories that dominated it. But since it was a labor revolution and an internet activist revolution, it wasn’t seen as connected in any way to the master narrative of American foreign policy, which is now the—still the war on terror, even though they don’t call it that.

AMY GOODMAN: And Al Jazeera’s coverage of this, Juan Cole? Very hard to get Al Jazeera on television, terrestrial television, in the United States, of course. I think Toledo and Burlington, Vermont are the only places that you can get it on cable channels here.

JUAN COLE: Yeah, and Dearborn, I think, has it. But—and the Washington, D.C. area, you can get it on the Verizon network. But the Al Jazeera English is difficult to get. For some strange reason, it’s not available on DISH satellite, which does run other foreign channels. And the Arabic, actually, is available much more widely, because it is carried on DISH. Al Jazeera did an excellent job of covering the events, although it should be noted that many Tunisians were miffed at Al Jazeera, because they felt that they gave too much air time to the Muslim activists, who were not representative of this movement, and that Al Jazeera kind of has a little bit of a bias towards the Islamic movements.

AMY GOODMAN: And can you talk about the effects on the whole region, as you are monitoring coverage and reaction around the world? And particularly Saudi Arabia—does the regime there, the autocratic regime that has been in power for decades, have something to worry about?

JUAN COLE: Well, I think all the regimes in the Arab world are very nervous about this development. It is something new. I did survey the reactions. You know, interestingly, the deputy prime minister of Israel expressed concern, lest this spread and maybe regimes come to power, more democratic, but more hostile to Israel, in places like Jordan and Egypt. Libya, interestingly enough, the longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who started as a revolutionary himself, condemned the Tunisian people as immature and impatient, who said, just—"You should have just waited Ben Ali out. Why would you be so eager to have a new president?" And he sounded like an old fuddy-duddy and really did himself no favors, I think. And, of course, he was mainly speaking to his own people, pleading for their patience. And other countries were much more circumspect.

The Arabs of Kirkuk in Iraq, who are now increasingly under Kurdish domination, threatened to make a Tunisian-style uprising if they didn’t get their rights. So, oppressed people, people in Gaza joined in demonstrations in solidarity. Oppressed groups throughout the region were delighted. Status quo powers, whether they, you know, are old revolutionaries like Gaddafi or status quo powers like Israel, were very nervous about this.

AMY GOODMAN: And, of course, Ben Ali has taken refuge in Saudi Arabia. And if you heard Fares Mabrouk, they are calling for him to be extradited back to Tunisia to be tried.

JUAN COLE: Well, Saudi Arabia has long served as a kind of asylum or refuge for deposed politicians. Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan went there when he was overthrown by Pervez Musharraf. Idi Amin went there. This is nothing new.

One thing to keep in mind is that Tunisia is not an oil state. And it suffered from a kind of nepotism that was extreme. I mean, the U.S. leaked cables from WikiLeaks suggest that 50 percent of the economic elite of that country was related in one way or another to the president or to the first lady, Leila Ben Ali, and her Trabelsi clan. So, the combination of not having any extra resources to bribe people and buy them off and also of monopolizing the country’s economic resources in the hands of a few relatives was unique to Tunisia. I mean, there are similar situations, but the Tunisians took it to an extreme—

AMY GOODMAN: Yet, you say this is not—

JUAN COLE:—the Tunisian regime did.

AMY GOODMAN: You say this is not a WikiLeaks revolution, but a hunger revolution.

JUAN COLE: Well, it’s a revolution—you know, all revolutions are multiple revolutions happening at the same time. So there’s a strong element of economic protest. There’s a class element. Twenty percent of college graduates are unemployed. There’s extreme poverty in the rural areas. And the regime was doing things that interfered with economic development. They would use the banks to give out loans to their cronies, and then the cronies wouldn’t pay back the banks, so they were undermining the financial system. And that made it—and the extremeness of the dictatorship, the demands constantly for bribes, discouraged foreign investment. So the regime was all about itself. It was doing things that were counterproductive. And it injured the interests of many social groups—the college-educated, the workers. Now, the three ministers that pulled back out of the national unity government today were from the General Union of Tunisian Workers, which is an old, longstanding labor organization. So, it was a mass movement; it included people from all kinds of backgrounds.

AMY GOODMAN: Juan Cole, we’re also joined by Anthony Shadid from Beirut, the foreign correspondent for the New York Times, two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting.

What Sparked Tunisian Revolution?

Statement of Solidarity from Greece to the People of India

ICAWPI

Let us express our solidarity to the people’s revolutionary movement of India

Lately, large military and police forces of the Indian state, supported by para-military organizations, have conducted a murderous military offensive to crush the resistance of the poor native peasants who defend their land and wish to live in their homeland under humane conditions.

The Communist Party of India (Maoist), which supports and participates in this revolutionary struggle of the masses, is under fierce attack by the forces of the Indian reactionaries. As a result, in the beginning of July, the forces of the Indian reactionaries murdered in cold blood a party leader and an independent journalist, thus outraging the left and democratic people not only in India, but all over the world.

A few days before this event, the Communist Party of Greece(marxist-leninist), CPG(m-l), took the initiative to call a meeting of parties and organizations of the left, which concluded in a joint statement of condemnation of the murderous military operation of the Indian state and solidarity to the people’s revolutionary movement. The statement was published in newspapers of the left and also in one of the biggest daily newspapers in Greece.

The meeting decided to protest outside the Indian Embassy in Athens, which was held on July 6^th. The murder of the Indian revolutionary and the journalist was already known when the protest took place. CPG(m-l) had a banner with their names and the slogan “honor and glory to the Indian revolutionaries”.

These are the slogans of the protesters:

- Victory to the struggle of the Indian people

- The military offensive of the army and the police murders militants and peasants

- The land belongs to those who work it, not to the multi-nationals that loot it

- In India the militants, the poor peasants and the communists are slaughtered

- Hands-off the Indian peasants, hands-off the Indian guerillas

- Peoples are victorious with weapons in their hands

- Solidarity to the Indian people

- Those who now murder will confront the peoples’ struggle

The revolutionary struggle of the Indian people can and must find support and solidarity all over the world. It is an armed revolutionary struggle that the more it strengthens the more will become a reference to revolutionary forces in every country, which will feel it as their own struggle.

Revolutionary forces should lead the creation of a broad movement of solidarity and support for this great struggle of the Indian people.

Solidarity is the weapon of the people

August 2010

Communist Party of Greece(marxist-leninist)

For my people

By Margaret Walker

For my people everywhere singing their slave songs

repeatedly: their dirges and their ditties and their blues
and jubilees, praying their prayers nightly to an
unknown god, bending their knees humbly to an
unseen power;

For my people lending their strength to the years, to the

gone years and the now years and the maybe years,
washing ironing cooking scrubbing sewing mending
hoeing plowing digging planting pruning patching
dragging along never gaining never reaping never
knowing and never understanding;

For my playmates in the clay and dust and sand of Alabama

backyards playing baptizing and preaching and doctor
and jail and soldier and school and mama and cooking
and playhouse and concert and store and hair and Miss
Choomby and company;

For the cramped bewildered years we went to school to learn

to know the reasons why and the answers to and the
people who and the places where and the days when, in
memory of the bitter hours when we discovered we
were black and poor and small and different and nobody
cared and nobody wondered and nobody understood;

For the boys and girls who grew in spite of these things to

be man and woman, to laugh and dance and sing and
play and drink their wine and religion and success, to
marry their playmates and bear children and then die
of consumption and anemia and lynching;

For my people thronging 47th Street in Chicago and Lenox

Avenue in New York and Rampart Street in New
Orleans, lost disinherited dispossessed and happy
people filling the cabarets and taverns and other
people's pockets needing bread and shoes and milk and
land and money and something--something all our own;

For my people walking blindly spreading joy, losing time

being lazy, sleeping when hungry, shouting when
burdened, drinking when hopeless, tied, and shackled
and tangled among ourselves by the unseen creatures
who tower over us omnisciently and laugh;

For my people blundering and groping and floundering in

the dark of churches and schools and clubs and
societies, associations and councils and committees and
conventions, distressed and disturbed and deceived and
devoured by money-hungry glory-craving leeches,
preyed on by facile force of state and fad and novelty, by
false prophet and holy believer;

For my people standing staring trying to fashion a better way

from confusion, from hypocrisy and misunderstanding,
trying to fasion a world that will hold all the people,
all the faces, all the adams and eves and their countless
generations;

Let a new earth rise. Let another world be born. Let a

bloody peace be written in the sky. Let a second
generation full of courage issue forth; let a people
loving freedom come to growth. Let a beauty full of
healing and a strength of final clenching be the pulsing
in our spirits and our blood. Let the martial songs be
written, let the dirges disappear. Let a race of men now
rise and take control.

“Our Republic cannot bear the stain to kill its own Children."says Indian Court on Azad killing

The Hindu

Notice to Centre, A.P. on encounter killing of Azad and journalist

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday sought the response of the Union and the Andhra Pradesh governments on two petitions seeking a judicial inquiry into the alleged encounter killings of Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad, spokesperson of the Communist Party of India (Maoist), and journalist Hemchandra Pandey by the Andhra Pradesh police on the night of July 1 last year.

A Bench of Justices Aftab Alam and R.M. Lodha issued the notice, returnable in six weeks, after hearing counsel Prashant Bhushan, appearing for petitioners Swami Agnivesh and Pandey's wife Bineeta Pandey.

Justice Alam orally observed: “Our Republic cannot bear the stain to kill its own children. We will issue notice. They will have to respond. We hope there will be good and convincing answer to the questions [raised in the petitions].”

The petitioners said the post mortem reports and fact-finding carried out by the Coordination of Democratic Rights Organisations (CDRO) clearly indicated that it was not a genuine encounter and that Azad and Pandey were killed in blatant violation of their rights under Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution.

Azad was carrying a letter from Swami Agnivesh for peace talks when he was taken into custody along with Pandey. Then Swami Agnivesh sent a letter to Azad, suggesting three possible dates for starting a 72-hour suspension of armed resistance by the CPI (Maoist) and simultaneous cessation of action by the government forces. During that period, the government would invite Maoists for talks and initiate a mutual ceasefire agreement, the petitioners said.

However, on the intervening night of July 1-2, both Azad and Pandey were killed. According to the CPI (Maoist), Azad was scheduled to meet local contact Sahadev in Nagpur at 11 a.m. on July 1 and travel to the Dandakaranya forests for meeting senior Maoists to discuss Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram's proposal and likely dates for a ceasefire.

But he never turned up for the meeting.

“The alleged encounter, if proved fake — as indicated by the CDRO report — is in blatant violation of Article 21.” The refusal to initiate an inquiry, despite questions raised about the veracity of a police investigation by human rights activists, organisations and sections of the media, and the disruption it caused to the peace process initiated by the Home Minister himself were “unreasonable and arbitrary” and raised serious questions about the bona fides of the Home Ministry, the petitioners said.

Probe committee found holes in police version of Azad death

J. Balaji — PHOTO: S. HARPAL SINGH

A file photograph of the body of Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad, killed in an encounter with the police on the Velgi hills in Adilabad district of Andhra Pradesh on July 1.

NEW DELHI: With the Supreme Court coming down on the Centre and the Andhra Pradesh government for the alleged cold-blooded killing of Maoist spokesperson Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad and journalist Hemchandra Pandey, the authorities will finally be forced to answer the series of uncomfortable questions thrown up by an independent investigation into the encounter last year.

While the State police claimed the alleged encounter with Azad and a large group of Maoists took place in the limits of the Wankadi police station of Adilabad district on the night of July 1, a fact-finding team constituted by the Coordination of Democratic Rights Organisations (CDRO) poked holes in the official account.

The team, consisting of notable personalities including Supreme Court senior advocate Prashant Bhushan, opined that Azad was likely shot dead from a very close range, not more than a foot, rather than from a distance as the police said.

The CDRO argued that the duo was killed with the knowledge of the Union Home Ministry as Azad was preparing for peace talks between the Centre and the Maoists at the initiative of social activist Swami Agnivesh.

Referring to the post mortem report of Azad, the report raised doubts on the versions given by the police and pointed out: “… the fatal bullet entry wound from the chest ‘at the left 2nd intercestal space' had ‘darkening burnt edges'. The burnt mark at the entry wound is a clear indication of a bullet being fired from a very close range (no more than a foot). The corresponding exit wound is at the ninth and tenth inter-vertebral space and depth is nine inches.”

“That means the bullet entered from the upper chest and travelled downwards. This questions the police version that Maoists were on the top of the hill and they (police) were below,” the team opined.

The team, referring to the version of the police that they located the two unidentified bodies (which later turned out to be that of Azad and Pandey) only the next morning (July 2), wondered how the police were able to pinpoint the location of the Maoists in a forest of several hundred sq.km on the Andhra Pradesh-Maharashtra border.

How come, despite 30 minutes of firing (11 to 11.30 p.m.), not a single policeman suffered any injury, whereas only Azad and Pandey were killed, the report asks. If there were 20 Maoists as stated in the FIR, why were they able to locate only two kit bags and two weapons. “In any escapade there would be more belongings left behind.”

Similarly if the police were unaware of the identities of the two dead men till 9.30 a.m. on July 2 at the time of filing of the FIR, how did the electronic media learn by 6 a.m. on July 2 that Azad had been killed in an encounter? Several channels had also announced his death. “So it clearly shows that the police knew who they had killed,” the team said.

The team wondered why the police selected Wankadi mandal for the “encounter” as the “villagers clearly told us that in recent years there had been no Maoist activity in the region.”

Media reports at the time quoted human rights activists alleging that Azad and Pandey were picked up by the police at Nagpur on June 30 and brought to Andhra Pradesh in a helicopter and shot dead. They also mentioned that Azad was carrying a letter of Swami Agnivesh at the time of his arrest. Azad was a central committee member of the CPI (Maoist).

Even Railway Minister and Trinamool Congress president Mamata Banerjee raised doubts on the death of Azad and demanded a judicial probe. There were pleas in this regard in Parliament too. But Home Minister P. Chidambaram rejected them, stating the issue was a State subject and it was for the Andhra Pradesh government to decide

The Communist Hypothesis

Read the full text of Alain Badiou's new book The Communist Hypothesis

The Communist Hypothesis

Pro American President of Tunisia flees the Country

The fall of Ben Ali marks the first time that widespread street demonstrations had overthrown an Arab leader. And people throughout the Arab world had begun debating whether Tunisia’s uprising could prove to be a model, threatening other autocratic rulers in the region.

The Financial Times.

By Heba Saleh in Tunis

January 13 2011

Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the president of Tunisia, has been forced out of office by weeks of protests in which dozens have been killed. State television announced that had he had fled to Malta and would be replaced temporarily by Mohamed El Ghannouchi, the prime minister.

Mr Ghannouchi announced on television that he was taking over the authorities of the president because Mr Ben Ali was unable to discharge his functions temporarily.

He called for calm and promised to carry out political, social and economic reforms.

Less than an hour before the announcement was made, Mr Ben Ali had imposed a state of emergency across the country and dismissed his government as he tried to cling to power in the face of an escalating uprising demanding his removal.

As Tunis was gripped by protests on Friday, Mr Ben Ali, who has been rolling out concessions in recent days, said legislative elections would be held in six months.

On the streets of Tunis, the focal point of the unrest, which erupted a month ago over unemployment, had become Mr Ben Ali and his family, widely accused of corruption.

On Friday thousands of demonstrators, mostly middle class professional men and women, gathered, chanting: “Go, go, go … game over.” Police used teargas to disperse the crowds.

“We want an end to corruption and bribery,” said Mariam, who described herself as an unemployed television presenter. “The most important thing is that his [Ben Ali’s] family would stop ruling and stop stealing and that there should be elections.”

Much of the anger was directed against the family of Leila Trabelsi, the second wife of Mr Ben Ali, which controls lucrative sectors of the economy and are the focus of allegations of corruption.

Mr Ben Ali ruled Tunisia with an iron grip for 23 years; opposition is stifled, and the country is an anomaly among pro-western Arab states for its extensive restrictions on freedom of expression.

In recent weeks, however, Tunisians have breached a barrier of fear, going out on the streets to demand jobs and freedom. The spark for the unrest in December was in the small inland town of Sidi Bouzid, where an unemployed graduate set himself aflame after police confiscated fruit and vegetables he sold without a permit.

Dozens of people have been killed in clashes between rioters and police, according to human rights groups. The official death toll is 23. Reports citing medical sources say that 12 more people were killed in disturbances on Thursday night, most of them in Tunis.

But, even as Mr Ben Ali announced a series of concessions, calls for his departure have become bolder.

On Thursday, the president promised that he would not seek to stay in power after his term has expired in 2014. He vowed to lift restrictions on freedom of expression and the internet and to bring down the price of basic foods.

“This regime is on its deathbed,” said Nabiha, a middle-aged teacher sheltering from the teargas in the entrance of the central banks. “It is accustomed to repression, and they have planted fear in us.”

As the large-scale demonstrations continued, Thomas Cook, the UK tour operator, said that it was evacuating nearly 4,000 of its customers from Tunisia.

“Although there has been no specific problems for our holidaymakers, their well-being is our primary concern so, as a precaution, we’ve taken the decision to bring them back to the UK as soon as we can,” Thomas Cook said in a statement.

The unrest and crackdown have worried western governments that had considered Tunisia’s authoritarian regime a stabilising force in north Africa.

Hillary Clinton, US secretary of state, told a conference in Qatar on Thursday that many Middle Eastern countries were “sinking into the sand” because they were failing to tackle resource crises and youth anger.

Samir Amin on the Collapse of Neoliberalism, the idea of socialism today, and the Indian Maoists

CPM Harmads shoot dead Villagers in Lalgargh

DNA

Eightpersons, including a woman, were killed and around 18 injured after unidentified persons fired at villagers in Maoist-hit Lalgarh of West Bengal on Friday. While Trinamool Congress has alleged that the gunmen were armed CPI(M) activists the Left has pointed finger towards the Maoists.

On Friday morning, the villagers of Netai gheraoed the residence of local CPI(M) leader, Ranjit Dandapat, alleging that the house was used as a camp for armed party workers. After a short while, bullets were shot from inside the house, killing the villagers.

Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee on Friday blamed the Left party for the killings, saying it was utilising its “harmads” as a killing machine. “They (CPM) are claiming that we are doing politics with bodies. But they are doing the politics of killing and terror. Let them stop it, we will also not parade bodies,” Mamata, who took out a procession in Kolkata with the bodies of three party workers killed in Burdwan on Thursday, told a rally.

“We believe in democracy. We want people to give a fitting reply to CPI(M)-sponsored terror through ballots. We don’t want power at the cost of people’s blood,” she said before leaving for Lalgarh.

Mamata said her party would not call a bandh to protest the killings, but would condemn it through a “dhikkar diwas” (condemnation day) on Saturday. Senior CPI(M) leader from West Midnapore, Sushanta Ghosh, on the other hand, claimed the Maoists fired at a gathering of CPI(M) party workers, while they assembled to participate in a party programme. “Those killed were CPI(M) activists,” he said.

State chief secretary Samar Ghosh, on the other hand, ruled out the involvement of Maoists behind the massacre. “In all probability, this is a case of political clash and there is no Maoist link to it,” he said.

The Centre said it is closely monitoring the situation in Lalgarh and is in constant touch with the state government to ensure security. The chief minister countered, saying Chidambaram’s letter was written under compulsion of alliance politics with Trinamool and was far from reality. The home minister claimed that he had made the comment basing on specific inputs from different government agencies. –with PTI inputs

Fairlytale - Mikill Pane

Interview with Binayak Sen

CPI Maoist Press Release - Serving the People is not conspiracy - Supporting People's struggle can never be sedition

COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MAOIST) CENTRAL COMMITTEE

Press Release

Serving people is not conspiracy!

December 24, 2010

Supporting people’s struggles can never be sedition!!

The Scamsters who amass billions of rupees are the real conspirators! The Gangsters who sell-out our country to imperialists are the real traitors!!

Observe Protest Week from January 2nd to 8th, 2011 against the fascist Chhattisgarh government’s court judgments that sentenced Civil Rights activist Doctor Binayak Sen, Maoist leader Narayana Sanyal, trader Piyush Guha under sedition for life imprisonment and magazine editor Asit Sengupta for eight years imprisonment!

On December 24, the Raipur district additional sessions court sentenced for life civil rights activist Dr. Binayak Sen, our party Politburo member Comrade Narayan Sanyal, trader Piyush Guha under IPC, Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act and UAPA implicating them in false cases. The life sentences were pronounced by B.P. Verma under IPC section 124 (sedition), 120 B (conspiracy) and many other kinds of sentences were pronounced under various sections of CSPCA and UAPA. The eight year sentence for Asit Sengupta was pronounced on the same day by O.P. Gupta. Both these judgments are the latest additions to the huge cache of anti-people, fascist repressive measures of the Indian ruling classes.

Sentencing for life our party Politburo member Comrade Narayan Sanyal, Binayak Sen, a doctor who had dedicated his life as a doctor serving the poor people selflessly, a prominent civil rights activist and the vice- president of PUCL and Piyush Guha, a trader belonging to Kolkata is the most shameless thing for the rulers to do even while boasting that this is the biggest democracy in the whole world. Opposing the repressive policies of the government, the fascist Salwa Judum, raising his voice for the repeal of the black law CSPSA and standing in support of the just peoples movements are the ‘crimes’ committed by Dr. Binayak Sen for which he has been punished with life sentence. When he was arrested in May 2007 and kept in jail for two years, immense protests were held and severe condemnations were issued by democratic sections, medical community, Nobel laureates and many others in India and abroad. Pronouncing this sentence ignoring all this can only mean that the fascist rulers are without any scruples or embarrassment issuing a threat to all the democratic, progressive and patriotic sections of our country. If responding positively towards people’s issues in a legal, democratic manner, serving the people sincerely and criticizing the anti-people policies of the government is ‘sedition’, then one can imagine what kind of ‘democracy’ is being practiced in this country and how dangerous it is for the people.

The eight year sentence for Asit Sengupta (editor of the Hindi version of 'A World To Win' which is published in various languages all over the world) who is languishing in jail since three years with the false accusation that he was participating in Maoist activities is nothing but stifling the Freedom of Press. Recently, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh, DGP Viswaranjan, Bastar IG Longkumer and Dantewada SP Kalluri gang had published pamphlets under the name ‘Maa Danteswari Adivasi Swabhimani Manch’ and had openly declared that they would kill journalists SRK Pillai, Anil Sharma and Yaswant Rai along with democrats Himanshu Kumar and Arundhati Roy and had the audacity to declare that it is indeed their own doing! So much for the ‘rule of law’ harped upon by our rulers day in and day out!

Comrade Narayan Sanyal, a 73-year old veteran communist who began his revolutionary life in 1968 and has dedicated more than four decades of his life for the liberation of the oppressed people, is ailing with various health problems and has been languishing in the dark dungeons of the fascist Chhattisgarh government since five years. The Sonia-Manmohan-Chidambaram-Raman Singh terrorist gang is killing Maoist leaders in fake encounters and sentencing many of them to harsh punishments under black laws. They are subjected to physical and mental tortures in the inhuman conditions prevailing in jails.

On July 29, 2010, our party activist Comrade Malati @ Santi Priya and a worker Surendra Kosaria were sentenced to ten years imprisonment using false witnesses under the case that Maoist propaganda CDs were sent to the MLAs. Amitabh Bagchi, a Politburo member of our party and Comrade Kartik, a state committee member of West Bengal, incarcerated in Ranchi jail, were also sentenced to life imprisonment through fast track court in Jharkhand. On October 29, the AP government sentenced Comrade Panduranga Reddy and three others to four years imprisonment in the Alipiri case (attack on ex-CM Chandrababu) using false witnesses. Many more revolutionary activists and ordinary people are being sentenced to very harsh punishments including capital punishment by the reactionary courts serving the exploiting ruling classes. Comrades Sushil Roy and Kobad Gandhi who are senior leaders and ailing with various health problems and old age; comrades Shobha, Patitpavan Haldar, Pramod Mishra, Vijay, Asutosh, Balraj, Chintan, Biman, Bidhan, Chandi Sarkar, Balganesh, Jharkhand Abhen’s Jeetan Marandi and thousands of other comrades are denied bail, being implicated in false cases one after another and made to languishin jails for years together. In West Bengal, Comrade Swapan Das arrested under UAPA was denied health care in Jail and became the first martyr of this draconian law.

The UPA government bent on selling our natural and human resources to imperialist MNCs like Vedanta and to comprador bourgeoisie like Tata, Essar, Jindal, Mittal etc has declared CPI (Maoist) as the biggest internal security threat as it is standing in their way offering stiff resistance to this unlimited loot. As part of this, the government is carrying on vicious foul propaganda using its propaganda machine. Since August 2009, in the name of Operation Green Hunt the central and state governments are resorting to brutal attacks on the revolutionary movement and particularly adivasis are being massacred by deploying millions of police and paramilitary forces in Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and other states. This offensive is carried on under the guidance and full support of imperialists, particularly the US imperialists. The exploiting rulers are using every means at their disposal to portray our party which is fighting with the lofty aim of establishing people’s government of democratic classes basing on the unity of worker-peasants by overthrowing the imperialists, bureaucratic comprador bourgeoisie and the feudal classes, as ‘terrorist’ and ‘traitor’. Why are the ministers, political leaders, big bourgeoisie and their brokers, the real traitors who are amassing billions of rupees in scams and stacking them in Swiss Banks shamelessly roaming in the corridors of power not booked under SEDITION? Why are all those criminals who perpetrated and facilitated the Bhopal Gas Tragedy not called CONSPIRATORS? How could striving for the liberation of the toiling masses become SEDITION? How could democrats who raised their voices and pens in support of people's movements be called CONSPIRATORS?

These sentences are nothing but a part of the bigger conspiracy of the ruling classes to eliminate all kinds of hurdles to their anti-people, unpatriotic and immoral neo-liberal economic policies. This is an alarm signal that fascist repression would intensify further in the near future. These judgments are an eye opener for those who believe and get deceived innocently that there is still some semblance of democracy in this country. Though the overt statements of the ruling gang declare that Maoist movement is their prime target, what is happening in reality is a fascist onslaught on progressive and democratic forces who wish for the welfare of the people and aspire to protect the interests of our country vis-à-vis the imperialists. Our party is appealing to the people to stand united against this offensive and defeat it through a determined fight.

The comprador governments are resorting to suppression of people’s movements and nationality liberation struggles using black laws like UAPA, CSPCA, MCOCA and AFSPA following in the footsteps of the US government which promulgated black laws like the Homeland Security Act. The reactionary legal system which had never bothered to book or sentence the saffron terrorists who had killed many innocent people in the Mecca Masjid, Malegaon and Ajmer Sharif bomb blasts or the scamsters and political gangsters involved in scams like 2G Spectrum (worth 1,76,000 crores of rupees), Commonwealth games, Adarsh housing society, Karnataka lands and dozens and dozens of other scams are eagerly sentencing revolutionaries, people’s leaders, democrats and activists of national liberation movements in Kashmir and North-East.

The CPI (Maoist) Central Committee is appealing to all democratic, patriotic forces, national liberation activists and to all civil rights activists, organizations, students, intellectuals, teachers, writers, artistes, doctors, lawyers, media friends, workers and peasants to come out on the streets condemning and opposing these judgments delivered through the reactionary legal system by the collusion of the UPA government at the centre and the BJP government in Chhattisgarh. We appeal to all of you to build united and militant agitations demanding the immediate repeal of UAPA, CSPCA, MCOCA and AFSPA. We appeal to all the progressive, democratic and revolutionary organizations, communities and individuals of various countries to condemn in severe terms this criminal act of the Indian ruling classes and express their vigorous protest in various democratic struggle forms. In the past the international community stood in strong solidarity with the Indian people’s movements and had condemned the arrest of Binayak Sen and demanded his immediate release. Now the time has come for it to play this role more solidly.

Our party calls upon the people to observe protest week all over the country from January 2 to 8 against these judgments by creatively taking up various protest activities including press conferences, statements, dharnas, rasta rokos, meetings, protest rallies, processions, signature campaigns, wearing black badges, waving black flags, burning of effigies etc., and to take up legal battles condemning severely the anti-people, traitorous and fascist policies of the ruling classes.

Our party is calling upon all our ranks, PLGA forces and revolutionary mass organizations to take up various protest forms on this occasion by mobilizing vast masses.

Our Central Committee is making it very clear that no call for bandh is being given as part of this protest week and is requesting the people and media not to believe the deliberate propaganda of the police to portray this as a bandh call.

(Abhay) Spokesperson, Central Committee, CPI (Maoist)