>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Partha Roy) >Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >CPI(M) Calls For Withdrawal of US Consul General > > > >The West Bengal state secretary of the CPI(M) has called for an early >withdrawal of the present US consul general from Bengal who sent two employees >of the so-called "analysis wing" of the US consul general’s office in Calcutta >to Nanur in Birbhum district. These employees were sent for conducting a kind >of "fact-finding" mission on what had transpired at the Soochpur village on >July 27 where 11 armed hoodlums in the pay of local jotdaars had been lynched >by irate villagers. The goons, all of them in the pay of the Trinamul-BJP >combine, had come to snatch back parcels of land that had been under Barga >cultivation after the vesting of the land in the state government and its >redistribution among the rural poor. > >The US consulate office had sent Sourav Sen and Tinku Roy, both former >newspersons presently in the employ of the consulate, to prepare a report >which was later sent to the US Human Rights Commission. > >Describing the entire sordid episode as a "clear transgression of the >sovereign status of India as an independent nation," Anil Biswas said the >state CPI(M) has called for the withdrawal from Calcutta at the earliest of >both the US consul general Sandrolini and his spouse, Seema Sirohi, who is the >Washington-based correspondent of a Calcutta daily. Both of them, Biswas >asserted, had played an active role in the entire conspiratorial move against >a sovereign nation. > >Biswas told the Calcutta media that the move "appeared to form an integral >part of the elaborate conspiracy being put together to destabilise the >political situation in Bengal in the run up to the elections to the state >legislature coming up in the year 2001." > >CPI(M) MP, Biplab Dasgupta, who was asked by the state unit of the Party to >take the issue up with prime minister A B Vajpayee and for eign minister >Jaswant Singh, wrote a letter to both and raised three issues that needed an >early clarification. These are: 1) Whether or not the US consul general asked >for the permission of the central government to send such an "investigative >team" to Soochpur in Birbhum bypassing the state administration, especially >the state police; 2) If the answer is no, then would the central government >deem it fit to communicate to the US ambassador its displeasure over the >matter; and 3) If the central government had cleared such a move by the US >consul general, a move that clearly transgresses all norms of center-state >relations, what constitutes the central government’s justification of such a >stand? > >Biswas affirmed that in view of the irrefutable proof which lay with the state >unit of the CPI(M) regarding the "poaching" by the two US consulate general >office employees in Soochpur, the sullen silence that the US consulate >maintained over the matter was understandable. In the event of the central >government failing to organise any move over the extremely sensitive issue, >the Party would go in for large-scale demonstrations very soon, Biswas said. > >Biswas added to recall for the benefit of mediapersons that a former US >ambassador to India, Daniel Patrick, had written in his memoirs how the US >administration had twice sent forth funds to ensure the defeat of the >communists, once in Kerala and once more in Bengal. Biswas also focussed >attention in this connection on the way in which Mamata Banerjee, the Trinamul >Congress supremo, has made no secret of her declared intention to present a >set of fait accompli before the central government on the supposed "break-down >of the law-and-order situation in Bengal" and to call for clamping down of >article 356 on the state before the 2001 elections. _______________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki - Finland +358-40-7177941, fax +358-9-7591081 e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kominf.pp.fi _______________________________________ [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe/unsubscribe messages mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] ________________________________________
