HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------- ML Update A CPI(ML) Weekly News Magazine Vol.-5; No.-39; 25 Sep- 1 Oct 2002 THE BSP-BJP JOINT VENTURE IN UP Nobody had really expected Mayawati to issue a fresh notification to set up a special court in Lucknow for the trial of Advani, Joshi and Uma Bharti. Over the last one decade Mayawati has time and again demonstrated that she is capable of stooping to any level of opportunism to secure her chief ministerial chair. It was therefore unthinkable that she would put her coveted chair at stake by embarrassing the very party with whose blessing she is running the show in Lucknow. What may have surprised political watchers and especially those who still have illusions about the BSP is the kind of arguments she dished out in support of her decision not to issue a notification. Mayawati said the CBI was free to pursue the case in a regular court. The CBI has of course never shown any interest in proceeding with the case which involves none other than the Union Home Minister. So much for the myth of the CBI's autonomy. It is precisely for this reason that democratic forces have been insisting on the resignation of the three concerned ministers. But Mayawati did not stop merely at taking this potshot at the smokescreen of the 'autonomy' of CBI. She also rejected the idea of a special court for such trials as she apparently believed that ordinary courts were sufficient for every one 'big or small'. And then she also argued that since the case was a decade old there was no justification for issuing any notification now! For Mayawati, the demolition of Babri Masjid has thus become a clear non-issue. In fact, she gave a clean chit to the BJP by holding the Congress and the Samajwadi Party primarily responsible for all the 'trouble'. Indeed Mayawati had already thrown ample hint when just a week after being sworn in as UP Chief Minister for the third time she had ordered the unprecedented crackdown on the May 10-11 Shaheed Mela to commemorate the 145th anniversary of the great rebellion of 1857. One of the BSP's main slogans in the UP election (intended primarily for the BJP's social base, it would seem) was to sell Mayawati as a compulsion of UP politics (UP ki mazboori hai, Mayawati zaroori hai). The course that Mayawati has chosen, however, increasingly seems to be one of strategic choice rather than sheer tactical compulsion. She is clearly in a mood to cement the BSP-BJP alliance as a stable and long-term arrangement in UP politics and probably also in national politics. On September 28, Advani is slated to address the BSP's 'Dhikkar Rally' in Lucknow as the chief guest. Mayawati's terms for this strategic alliance are still not fully clear, but she has already made it more than clear that she has no scruples about endorsing the saffron agenda whether in Gujarat or at Ayodhya. Close on the heels of the Supreme Court's verdict on the changes in the NCERT curriculum, Mayawati's announcement has come as a big legal relief for the BJP. In fact, the BJP is celebrating it as a vindication of the BJP's agenda. We have seen Vajpayee bare his saffron soul once again before his NRI audience saying saffron was the colour of Indian culture and saffronisation of education only meant basing education on a strong cultural foundation! What value is that education which is divorced from culture, he wondered. And now hordes of BJP-VHP-Bajrang Dal activists are bent upon celebrating that culture again in UP. Inaugurating the BJP's 'jan jagaran abhiyan' (mass awakening campaign) in Varanasi, Venkaiah Naidu reiterated the BJP's commitment to the Ayodhya issue while Vinay Katiyar, the state BJP chief threatened to repeat Ayodhya at Kashi and Mathura. The battle lines in UP politics are now clearly drawn. On the land leased in from the BSP, the BJP has begun sowing fresh seeds of communal mischief hoping to reap another bumper harvest at the hustings. Revolutionary democratic forces will have to wage a spirited resistance to reclaim this land. CPI(ML) CONDEMNS PRE-EMPTIVE MILITARY POLICY OF BUSH ADMINISTRATION The CPI(ML) has strongly condemned the ongoing US campaign against Iraq and the US-sponsored Israeli seize to the office of the Palestine leader Yasser Arafat. In a statement issued on 22 September, the Party said that America's continued war mongering against Iraq even after Iraq's unconditional offer to co-operate with the UN weapons inspectors has clearly exposed Washington's 'real objectives'. "These objectives have also been reflected in the latest annual report presented to the US Congress by the American President outlining pre-emptive military policy of the Bush administration", the Party said and described this Bush doctrine as 'a charter of endless terror and unilateral aggression'. The Party said,"at a time when voices of protest have begun to be heard in many countries against Bush-Blair's war designs and even when many allies of the US are also distancing themselves from this US campaign, India's failure to oppose the American war plan will only invite isolation for India from third world countries and democratic international opinion." ON CAUVERY DISPUTE The dispute over sharing of Cauvery water remains a perennial dispute between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. The recent agitation by Karnataka farmers has followed the CRA directive to release water to Tamil Nadu and the Supreme Court endorsing it. The major political parties in both the states play a sectarian role and incite the farmers for mass agitation. Instead of arriving at a mutually acceptable formula for sharing water in a year of shortage, they play vote-bank politics. The Congress, inspite of being an all-India party, plays the most opportunistic role on the issue, taking one stand in one state and a diametrically opposite stand in another state. The role of Jayalalitha and Krishna are equally worse. The NDA government at the center ignores the issue. In the interest of unity of the people of both the states, democratic forces and farmers' organisations should unite and fight for concrete lining up of the canals to optimise water usage and avoid wastage. They should appeal for unity and oppose the sectarianism of the major parties. 'ORISSA BANDH' AGAINST NALCO PRIVATISATION Orissa witnessed a successful statewide bandh on 19 September in protest against the Centre's decision to privatise the National Aluminium Company (NALCO). The Bandh called by several major trade union organisations including the Party led All India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU) and supported by all political parties barring the BJP, evoked massive response across the state. Despite discomfort and vaccilation of its leadership, the ruling Biju Janata Dal also participated in this bandh. While major commercial establishments remained closed throughout the state, the public transport system also came to a halt as both buses and train services were affected. Most government offices recorded thin attendance. The majority of the Banks and ATMs had their shutters down and educational institutions wore a deserted look. More than 5,000 bandh supporters and activists of various trade unions and political parties were arrested and police lathicharged bandh supporters at several places including the major industrial center, Rourkela. As for NALCO, production came to a halt at its two plants at Damanjodi and Angul as the employees participated in the bandh. The CPI(ML) leaders and activists joined the protesting workers in Bhubneshwar and elsewhere in the state. At a time when the BJP-led central govt. is bent upon pursuing the disinvestment and privatisation plans, this mass protest from Orissa is bound to spill over. WORKERS PROTEST IN SABERKANTHA IN GUJARAT Nearly 500 daily wage workers held a protest dharna and meeting at Himmatnagar in Sabarkantha district in Gujarat on 16 September. The protest call was given by the organisation of daily wage workers affiliated to the AICCTU. Regularisation of daily wage workers as government employees, implementation of the decisions of fifth Pay Commission, sanction of salaries pending for five months in forest department and an end to the corruption in government offices were the main demands. After the protest meeting, which was addressed among others by CPI(ML) Gujarat In-charge Ranjan Ganguly, AICCTU leaders Dashrath Simhali, H.J. Pagare, veteran communist leaders Kantilal Dabhi, Rupabhai Parmar, Babulal Balat and Chimanbhai D. Parmar, a delegation met the District Collector and handed over a memorandum to him. The protesters also called upon the workers of Himmatnagar and elsewhere in Sabarkantha to join the 28 September Ahmedabad Convention to be held against communal fascist designs of the saffron forces. POLICE REPRESSION ON AIPWA-RYA-AISA PROTEST The police in league with the goons hired by the Ballia district women's hospital administration attacked the protest demonstration at Ballia in Uttar Pradesh on 17 September held by hundreds of activists and supporters of AIPWA, AISA and RYA. Instead of taking action against a doctor and hospital administration and arresting goons who attacked the demonstration, the district administration has started repressing the protesters. This protest was held against criminal negligence of a doctor of the district hospital which led to a severe caesarian mishap in which the throat of the baby was cut. The police administration has implicated several leaders of AIPWA, AISA and RYA in false cases and arrests are being made. The administration has also started targeting CPI(ML) leaders. The state committee member of the Party and secretary of UP Khet Mazdoor Sabha Sriram Chaudhary has also been arrested and jailed. He has started indefinite fast in the jail in protest against illegal arrests. The Party also held a protest demonstration at Ballia on 25 September. Road-blockades and protests at police stations are also being organised . Several other organisations and political parties have also extended their support to this ongoing agitation. AISA INITIATIVES IN JNU The All India Students Association unit in Jawaharlal Nehru University held a public meeting on Kashmir question on 2 Sep. The main speakers of the meeting were human rights activist Gautam Navalakha and senior journalist jawed Naqvi. The speakers traced the history of the struggle of Kashmiri people and highlighted the communal intervention by the RSS time and again in the state. The role of the successive governments that aggravated the situation further was also pointed out by the speakers. AISA national executive member and JNU unit President Radhika Menon opened the discussion and conducted it. Another public meeting was organised in JNU by AISA, on 13 Sep on "The world after September 11- impending attack on Iraq", was addressed by the noted political commentator Achin Vinaik. In another development, AISA unit Secretary Inteshar Ahmad had sat on a hunger strike for five days , on a call given by the JNU Students' Union demanding punishment to the communal lumpens within the campus. As the Students' Federation of Iindia led JNUSU compromised with the administration and went in for an agreement on a diluted set of demands, the AISA has resolved to continue the struggle in the days to come. AIPWA CONFERENCE IN DELHI Second Delhi State Conference of the Aii India Progressive Women's Association was held on 22 September. The main agenda of the conference was "towards building a powerful movement against increasing atrocities on women and for rights to the working women". The conference was addressed by AIPWA national President Srilata Swaminathan and General Secretary Kumudini Pati. They emphasised over the fact that the incidents of violence against women have increased alarmingly with the fascist forces gaining ground nationally and called upon the delegates to launch a powerful movement against the attack of globalisation and communal fascism. They said that the policies of liberalisation and globalisation have aggravated the already sorry plight of working women further and felt a need for an effective legislation that can ensure social and economic security and dignity of women. The Conference strongly condemned the heinous crimes committed over women by fascist forces of saffron brigade and demanded immediate dismissal of killer Narendra Modi govt. in Gujarat. The Conference was conducted by a three member presidium comprising of Savitri Khanduri, Savita Singh and Sunita. A 35 member state council and a 9 member state executive were formed in the conference with Savitri Khanduri as President and Sunita as Secretary along with five Vice-presidents and one joint secretary. A five member advisory board was also constituted by the Conference. A play was staged by the AIPWA activists in the Conference. MILITANT ChCHAKKA JAM AGAINST LIQUOR MAFIA The All India Progressive Women's Association held a chakka jam in Lalkuan of Nainital District in Uttaranchal on September 16 demanding prohibition of liquor, 33% reservation of women in various state govt. departments and for formation of a State Women's Commission. This protest also pressed the demand for taking legal action against those involved in illegal production and trafficking of liquor in the district. All the activities in the town came to a halt due to this militant protest. The jam was lifted after nearly two hours when the ADM and other respective authorities came to the spot and assured the AIPWA leaders of the appropriate action against the criminals. The question of illegal liquor and total prohibition is always a sensitive issue for women in Uttaranchal. DEMONSTRATION BY TEA WORKERS IN ASSAM On 16 Sept, at the call of central committee of Asom Sangrami Chah Sramik Sangha (ASCSS), the Biswanath Charioli committee organised a protest demonstration in front of BDO office, Behali and handed over a memorandum addressed to the Chief Minister of Assam demanding 20% Bonus for the Tea Garden workers, exemplary punishment to those managements who have violated the labour laws and to take back the hike in electricity fees. More than 2000 workers participated in the demonstration. A mass meeting was held which was addressed by the General Secy of the union Bibek Das and a procession was brought out which was led by CPI(ML) District Secy Lila Sarma and local Secretary Lakhi Kurmi. RYA GHERAOED FCI GODOWN AT AZAMGARH Revolutionary Youth Association (RYA) agitators gheraoed Food Corporation of India godown at Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh on 20 September to protest the incidents of starvation deaths in the state. Agitators also held a public meeting in front of the office of District Collector before the gherao. The police arrested several activists who were released later. ANTI-WAR PROTESTS IN AMERICAN CITIES Thousands of people took part in a series of demonstrations against possible military attack by America on Iraq. Protests took place in Washington DC, San Franscisco, Oakland, Los Angeles, San Luis, Seattle, Fresno and other cities in the US. In Washington DC, demonstrators rallied and picketed outside the venue of annual Aerospace Technology Exposition, organised by the US Air Force Association. This event, where Donald Rumsfeld was scheduled to be a keynote speaker, was mainly a congregation of over 100 military contractors meant for buying and selling their latest weapons of mass destructions. In San Franscisco, a rally of more than 500 was organised while 300 people marched at in Los Angeles. The protests were organised by an anti-war coalition, ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) from 14-16 September. STOP THESE WARMONGERS, STAND BY THE PEOPLE OF IRAQ! The Bush administration had planned to 'celebrate' the first anniversary of September 11 by mounting yet another murderous offensive on Iraq. As the anniversary approached, the intent was declared quite openly with a combined Anglo-American air attack on Iraqi targets. For the time being, Saddam Hussein has however spoiled the celebrations by offering to cooperate unconditionally with the UN programme of weapons inspection. This has robbed the Bush administration of its pet excuse to pound Iraq with another round of lethal bombing. The warmongers of Washington have seen left fuming with blind rage. President Bush and his men have arrogantly dismissed Iraq's offer as just a tactical move to cheat and retreat, to delay, deceive and deny. They are worried that the inspection may yield nothing. US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld therefore has already started arguing that an "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence of weapons of mass destruction." To defuse Saddam 's 'tactical move', the Bush brigade is now invoking its strategic vision of a unipolar world in which the US has every right to act unilaterally. In his latest Annual Report to the US Congress, President Bush has discarded all notions of a multilateral balance of power and the strategy of deterrence as outdated remnants of the Cold war period. The key word now is pre-emptive or preventive action, anticipatory strike to crush all potential threats from all quarters. This latest Pentagon paradigm has also been elaborated in an article published in the current (September-October, 2002) issue of Foreign Affairs, the journal of the US Council on Foreign Affairs. Since terrorism has gone transnational, Washington, we are told, cannot be expected to have any respect for any notion of national sovereignty or international law in dealing with terrorism. In other orders, the new global order recognises only one power a s sovereign, the imperial power of the US. Everything else is just a piece of paper that can be consigned to the wastepaper basket of this American Empire. It was Afghanistan yesterday. Today it is again Iraq. Tomorrow, it could be any other country. The entire world is now on the hit list of the world's biggest terrorist agency. This is the real rogue state phenomenon that confronts the world. With the number one rogue state threatening to go berserk, the number two has followed suit. Israel has stepped up its anti-Palestine military campaign. A vicious attempt is on to exterminate Yasser Arafat in his besieged West Bank headquarters. The 73-year-old leader and two hundred of his supporters are crammed in four rooms of the devastated Ramallah compound. In Iraq, not less than a million children have already perished as a result of the prevailing sanctions which entail an embargo on even basic life-saving drugs. These sanctions have been the real weapons of mass destruction while the US continues to reduce the whole of Iraq to rubble in the name of destroying military capabilities that the US itself had bestowed on Saddam Hussein during the pre-Gulf War periods. Those were the days when the US used to treat him as the best American bet in the region against Iran and the Kurdish rebels. How long can the world turn a blind eye to this limitless hypocrisy? Halting the Bush-Blair-Sharon war machine at all costs has become the crying need of the hour. It is reassuring to see that from the third world to the first, more and more people are now joining hands against the real source of war and terror. Chinks are once again becoming visible in the grand global coalition Washington had cobbled with such effortless ease in the wake of last year's strikes on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon. Russia, China, France and Germany have all expressed their strong opposition to any unilateral American action. Indeed, Bush became a major agenda in the German elections and was rightly compared by some people to his only peer in history. Adolf Hitler. As the slogan goes, "Jo Hitler ki chal chalega, woh Hitler ki maut marega." (Whoever steps into Hitler's shoes will meet with Hitler's fate.) ____________________________________________________________________________ ______ DISMISS THE KILLER NARENDRA MODI GOVERNMENT !t.! REMOVE RSS GOVERNOR FROM GUJARAT ! _____________________________________________________ Join the 'Sankalp Sabha' to assert Bhagat Singh's Revolutionary Legacy in Battle against Communal Fascism and Imperialist Domination And Release of the book-- Shaheed-E-Azam Bhagat Singh - Vichar Aur Sangharsh Organised by AISA-RYA At Firozshah Kotla Ground, Delhi On September 28, 2002 ____________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________ [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.cpiml.org ______________________________________ --------------------------- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^==^============================================================= This email was sent to: [email protected] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.bacIlu Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^==^============================================================= |
