Forwarding an article on Heron UAV below.
An account of arms merchants and their profits by
any and every means !!!! It would be an
interesting study the personal life trajectory
of any one of them .
The Bible says what you sow you shall reap .
Niloufer
----- Original Message -----
From: SUNDARA BABU
To: activism-news-network
Sent: Friday, July 29, 2011 12:41 PM
Subject: [ANN:4473] Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) Heron UAV
todeployagainst adivasis in India
---------- Forwarded message ----------
http://www.negedneshek.org/2011/07/iai-heron-uav-to-deploy-against-adivasi-in-india/
Jimmy Johnson: IAI Heron UAV to deploy against adivasis in India
27/07/2011
Israel Aerospace Industries’ (IAI) Heron unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is set
to add another to its list of targeted victims, adivasi (tribal) militants in
central and eastern Indian states. The Daily News & Analysis of Mumbai notes
that the national government will undertake “a first-of-its-kind effort to
counter Maoists” and will deploy the IAI “Heron’s eagle eyes to track their
movements on [a] real time basis.” [note: 'the Centre' - found throughout the
linked article - is a term used in India to refer to the national government
and 'Naxalite' is a term used to refer to the various communist adivasi groups
engaged in armed struggle to protect themselves and their lands, formerly from
the Forest Department, now primarily from mining companies, the police, and
local paramilitaries.]
Arundhati Roy’s stellar 2010 essay “Walking With The Comrades” is a vital
read for understanding the Naxalite struggle and a 2009 essay of hers – “Mr.
Chidambaram’s War” – also offers tremendous context. For months now, the Indian
press has been filled with discussions about deploying the nation’s UAV fleet
against the Naxalites. For reasons of budget, training, local police rejection,
technological problems (mostly questions about the efficacy of the Heron’s
capability for surveillance in the dense jungle where the Naxalites are strong)
and political sensibilities, the decision was not made until now.
India first ordered the Heron UAV in 2001, then placed further orders in 2003
and 2005. IAI’s drone sales to India go back to Heron precursors such as the
Harpy (1995), Searcher (1996), and Searcher II (2000, 2002). The firm has also
played a major role in developing Indian drone technology and has signed
several joint-development agreements with Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. and
Jubilant Bhartia Group.
To date, UAVs have primarily been deployed along India’s coastline and the
borders with China and Pakistan by the Army and Navy, and in the disputed
region of Jammu and Kashmir, especially during the 1999 Kargil War. Now they
are to be deployed against what Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called “perhaps
[India's] gravest internal security threat.”
Roy and the Naxalites themselves portray things differently. Roy points to a
2008 report [PDF] from a panel of experts commissioned by the Indian government
itself which states:
However, the Naxalite movement has to be recognised as a political movement
with a strong base among the landless and poor peasantry and adivasis. Its
emergence and growth need to be contextualised in the social conditions and
experience of people who form a part of it. The huge gap between state policy
and performance is a feature of these conditions. Though its professed long
term ideology is capturing state power by force, in its day to day
manifestation it is to be looked upon as basically a fight for social justice,
equality, protection and local development.
The Naxalites then can only be a grave security threat if current Indian
policy offers no recourse for demands for social justice. If the Indian state
was amenable to social justice it could simply accede to the just adivasi
demands, almost instantly removing any threat from militants. Instead, India
has declared war on its own citizens.
Roy points out the language often use to describe the targeted areas such as
‘Maoist infested‘ or ‘Maoist afflicted‘. The use of public health and
epidemiological terminology points to solutions much more like disease
eradication than population engagement (this despite the panel of experts
stating explicitly that “Since the goals of the movement are political it has
to be addressed politically.”).
In the best of times, which have not been very good, the Indian state has
neglected entirely the adivasi communities. When the ‘democratic’ Indian state
has engaged, common results have been brutal and tragic. The panel of experts
listed some of the norms:
Social boycott.
Denial of employment.
Consumer segregation (not being allowed to buy certain products, such as
fish).
Denial of the right to vote.
Public insults and humiliation by upper castes.
Forbidding the carrying out of cultural practices.
Theft of goods by police and upper caste persons.
Forced nude marches through public areas.
It gets worse:
Violent suppression of political demonstrations.
Being force-fed excrement (in the case of a carpenter who demanded pay owed
for work).
Indentured servitude/debt peonage.
Arbitrary arrest, torture and detention.
Arson by police, landlords and upper caste individuals and groups against
houses and entire villages.
Amputations of hands, fingers and limbs by upper caste persons.
Kidnapping and murder by upper caste persons.
Mass extrajudicial executions (“encounter killings”) by police and
paramilitaries.
Systematic rape by police and military.
The desire to keep this piece manageable demands ending the list there.
And who are the Naxalites the Heron will be deployed against? Roy describes
them as such.
The Maoists’ guerrilla army is made up almost entirely of desperately poor
tribal people living in conditions of such chronic hunger that it verges on
famine of the kind we only associate with sub-Saharan Africa. They are people
who, even after 60 years of India’s so-called Independence, have not had access
to education, healthcare or legal redress. They are people who have been
mercilessly exploited for decades, consistently cheated by small businessmen
and moneylenders, the women raped as a matter of right by police and forest
department personnel. Their journey back to a semblance of dignity is due in
large part to the Maoist cadre who have lived and worked and fought by their
side for decades.
Their public image is one of a savage group attempting to keep India in the
Stone Age by perpetrating brutal attacks against agents of progress and
development. The brutality of Naxalite attacks and ambushes is undeniable. Some
attacks are impossible to defend, at least to defend sensibly. But as Roy
points out, “People have the right to resist annihilation.” Annihilation is
what the adivasis are facing. India’s largest newspaper, Times of India, noted
in 2009 that the “Naxal cancer” is spreading. The only answer to cancer of
course, is to cut it out. That is the policy being pursued and that is what the
Heron will be deployed for.
To date the Heron is being, has been or will soon be deployed against:
The Palestinian and Lebanese people, for use against whom it was developed.
The Iraqi people by Australia.
The Afghani people by Australia, Canada, France, Germany
The Kurdish people by Turkey.
Favela dwellers in Rio in Brazil (though the much more sensible policing
policies being pursued by elements of the Rio police and national government
allow for the possibility that it will not lead to human rights abuses).
Narcotraffickers around El Salvador by El Salvador and the US (while
narcotraficantes don’t deserve much sympathy, the history of US-led anti-drug
efforts have invariably included massive injustices).
To this we can now add the adivasi peoples of Central and Eastern India.
Developed for use against the Palestinian people, it is a paradigmatic
technology of Israel’s ‘Pacification Industry.’ It is not a tool to bring
security, or justice and peace. It will not further the political engagement
the Indian government recognizes as necessary to address mass injustices faced
by adivasis. It will not work out the details in negotiations between
Palestinians and Israelis. It is a tool to manage and extend the inequality of
the status quo.
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