GurgaonWorkersNews no.44 - Material on Maruti Suzuki Workers' Struggle in Manesar, India Full Version: www.gurgaonworkersnews.wordpress.com Wildcat Strikes, Factory Occupations and Protest Camps Since June 2011, around 3,500 workers at Maruti Suzuki car plant openly confront the factory regime and its institutional allies in Manesar, in the south of Delhi. Their struggle leaped over to other automobile factories in the industrial corridor, which brought the world's third largest automobile assembly plant in nearby Gurgaon to a halt. While in the US automobile workers have to confront the introduction of a union sanctioned "Two Tier"-wage system, which enforces a dramatic (global) wage drop and generational division, the Maruti Suzuki workers refuse the status as cheap labour. In the most significant workers' struggle in India in the last two decades the young workers managed to undermine the companies' attempts to divide them along the lines of temporary and permanent contracts. The struggle attacked the core of the Indian development model and puts it into question: integration into global markets and production structures on the highest technological level combined with harshest casualisation of the workforce. While waves of protest against the impacts of the crisis rock the globe, their occupations and protest camps are an angry exclamation that this system is in crisis even when it is 'booming'. In its potential, their struggle can become part of the missing link between the strike waves at Honda in China in 2010 and the mass mobilisations against corrupt austerity regimes during the 'Spring Uprisings' and in the global North in 2011. We hope to be able to provide some material and thoughts for the necessary debate about this dispute and the general question of 'how to organise for the self-emancipation of the working class'. Please circulate widely. *** Collection of Quotes from the Front-Line *** Summary of the Struggle from June to October 2011 *** Chronology *** General Political Thesis for the Debate * Links, Videos and Documents (Written Agreements) * Contribution: A Critique of the 'Balance-Sheet of the Maruti Suzuki Struggle' in GurgaonWorkersNews no.41 * Article in Faridabad Majdoor Samachar with Workers' Reports after the first Factory Occupation in June * Short Reports by Workers in Automobile Factories in Manesar/Faridabad, Distributed by FMS Shortly before Dispute at Maruti Suzuki Broke Out News from India's Special Exploitation Zone - www.gurgaonworkersnews.wordpress.com |
Monday, October 31, 2011
Material on Maruti Suzuki Workers' Struggle in Manesar, India
india -End of peace talks: Naxal letter to Bengal interlocutors
End of peace talks: Naxal letter to Bengal interlocutors
Madhuparna Das, India ExpressOctober 29 2011
Kolkata–The peace talks between the West Bengal government and CPI (Maoist) have come to an end with the Maoists calling them “misleading and senseless”.
The letter dated October 26 has been circulated internally in the party and its frontal organisation claimed the state government started operation in Junglemahal from August 24 and it continued till September 30, when the interlocutors purportedly held a meeting with the Maoists. Moreover, the raids and operations have been stepped up after the meeting that was held on September 30.
Addressing Bhadra and other interlocutors, Akash says in the letter, “We have repeatedly informed you and the committee members about the operations of the joint forces and the villages where they raided. We requested you to be vocal in front of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee that how the pre-conditions of peace talks are being violated. But you always kept us saying not to do this and not to do that. Why did not you tell the same thing to the state government. Peace talk and operation cannot continue simultaneously and in the name of peace talk, the treachery of Mamata Banerjee will also not continue for long.”
Akash has also denied the charge of conspiring to kill Banerjee and Mukul Roy. “This is a blatant lie. We never planned any such thing otherwise it would not have been leaked. Moreover, there is no question of threatening her MLA Srikanta Mahato.”
Commenting on the death of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha leader Babu Bose, Akash, in the letter, confirmed that Bose was eliminated by them.
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spanish traslation of a new document of PCIm-l Naxalbari sobra Nepal
Nepal y el reto para los maoistas
La participación en el proceso de la Asamblea Constituyente, y en el gobierno, en Nepal ha sido utilizado por la dirección del UCPN (Maoista) para liquidar la naturaleza revolucionaria del partido y hundirlo en el marasmo parlamentario. Desde hace algún tiempo, ésta ha sido la manifestación política concreta del revisionismo, de la desviación del partido del camino de la revolución democrática.
Ahora se ha ahondado al constituirse en primer ministro de Nepal el Dr. Baburam Bhattarrai mediante un acuerdo con los partidos Madheshi, conocidos agentes del expansionismo hindú. Siguiendo el guión marcado por los reaccionarios y aceptado por la dirección del UCPN (Maoista), el nuevo gobierno ha entregado las llaves de las armas del Ejército Popular de Liberación (ELP). Una vez desprovisto de su capacidad de lucha a través de las políticas de la dirección del UCPN (maoista), se le prepara ahora para su eliminación formal y así acabar con uno de los mayores logros de los últimos 10 años de guerra popular. Así, el pueblo no tendrá en quién apoyarse y será entregado a los lobos reaccionarios.
10 años de guerra heroica de masas y sus inmensos sacrificios dieron a la pequeña organzación PCN (maoista) fama y reconocimiento internacional. Este partido que brilló en la historia del movimiento comunista internacional, ha sido reducido a un "pequeó partido político" más que debe negociar vergonzosamente algún espacio en los bancos de las clases dirigentes. Hoy, los líderes de esta organización son moneda de cambio por unos puestos en ministerios y por el reconocimiento de los expansionistas hindúes al servicio del imperialismo. Cada paso dado por ellos pretende demostrar a sus amos que están comprometidos con el abandono del camino revolucionario.
Cuando los comunistas cambian de color es aún peor. El eslogan "servir a las masas" se convierte en "servir a los amos imperialistas-expansionistas". Al dejar de ser un partido de clase, éste adquiere la aprobación de las clases dirigentes. También se destapa el velo que esconde la moralidad burguesa. La degeneración, el consumismo sustituyen la forma de vida sencilla, el respeto revolucionario a uno mismo y la modestia. Los revisionistas son semillas de reaccionarios y esclavos de los imperialistas en las filas revolucionarias. En poco tiempo contaminan a toda la organización, decapitan su fuerza ideológica y revolucionaria. Lo primero que hacen para liquidar una organización revolucionaria es traer el liberalismo como posición ideológica. Renuncian a los principios leninistas del partido y convierten a la organización en un foro de debate abierto y no funcional. Esto puede verse en el UCPN (maoista).
Los maoistas han ganado ventajas estratégicas a lo largo de 10 años de guerra popular que liberó vastas regiones del país estableciendo el poder popular. El avance de la revolución intensificó la crisis dentro de las clases dirigentes y empujó al imperialismo expansionista. Esto preparó el contexto para el acuerdo de paz de 2006 y el levantamiento de las masas que llevó a acabar con el odiado monarca Gyanendra. El partido maoista ocupó una posición única en el liderazgo nacional, ganando el apoyo para completar la agenda inacabada de la revolución. Pero en lugar de aprovechar estos factores favorables y aplicar las tácticas adecuadas para cumplir las aspiraciones del pueblo, la dirección se desvió de las tareas estratégicas de la revolución. Las raices ideológicas y políticas de la desviación, incluyendo las diferentes tendencias contenidas en las "tácticas de paz", constituyen un asunto de lucha ideológica dentro del movimiento maoista de Nepal e internacional. Los puntos de vista de nuestro partido, incluyendo la correspondencia con la dirección del UCPN (maoista), se pueden ver en 'Naxalbari', nº 3 (thenaxalbari.blogspot.com). Esta lucha ideológica debe ser profundizada sobre todo por parte de los maoistas nepalíes. La tarea inmediata para éstos y para las masas revolucionarias de Nepal es la de levantar la bandera de la rebelión abierta contra el cuartel general revisionista e iniciar la reconstrucción del partido sobre bases sólidas de Marxismo-Leninismo-Maoismo. Deben salir del pantano revisionista del politiqueo de la Asamblea Constituyente y retomar el camino de la revolución.
La herencia revolucionaria de los maoistas de Nepal, enriquecido por la heroica guerra popular protagonizada por valientes hijos e hijas de Nepal, junto con la solidaridad de los pueblos del mundo con la revolución, son la base para afrontar este reto. Como se decía en la resolución política de la CCOMPOSA, “Los pueblos de todo el mundo miran a los maoistas de Nepal para salir de todas las conspiraciones internas y externas y avanzar con determinación hacia la consecución de la nueva revolución democrática".
Chile: Comunicado del Frente Estudiantil Revolucionario y Popular (FERP)
El pasado sábado 10 de septiembre del presente año, se le asestó un inicial y duro golpe a la bestia imperialista, ese día se conformó el Frente Estudiantil Revolucionario y Popular, que tiene como objetivos principales la lucha por las reivindicaciones de los estudiantes (la lucha por el Poder y la lucha reivindicativa son dos caras de una misma moneda siendo la lucha por el Poder la primera y principal reivindicación del pueblo), la denuncia y combate al imperialismo, la lucha contra el oportunismo de toda laya y la educación en la violencia revolucionaria.
Luego de cuatro encuentros de estudiantes revolucionarios se constituye como tal el FERP (en el quinto encuentro). En los encuentros anteriores se reconoció la necesidad imperiosa de desarrollar la propaganda anti-imperialista y se asumieron algunas tareas propias de jóvenes revolucionarios, de ahí que algunos compañeros impulsan la construcción de un frente que asumiera la guía y síntesis de las tareas, de manera que la invitación para el quinto encuentro tenía una doble implicancia, por una parte se llamaba a hacer un balance de las movilizaciones y por otra a participar de la construcción y constitución de FERP.
La política de FERP es la aplicación de la línea de masas al frente estudiantil, las masas hacen la historia, con las masas todo sin las masas nada. Las masas se organizan según los intereses comunes de las clases a las que pertenecen, nuestra tarea entre las masas estudiantiles es organizar, movilizar y politizar, apuntar a las fuerzas democráticas que estén por la revolución, además de solidarizar con todas las luchas del pueblo y bregar por la unión obrero-campesina para la liberación de nuestro pueblo.
FERP asume la lucha consciente contra el imperialismo y todos sus lacayos, los oportunistas y todo aquel que quiera llevar al pueblo al despeñadero, bregamos por la unidad de todas las clases revolucionarias del país para poder conquistar una educación nacional, científica y de calidad, y principalmente arrojarnos a la conquista del poder
¡¡VIVA EL FRENTE ESTUDIANTIL REVOLUCIONARIO Y POPULAR!!
¡¡ EDUCACIÓN CIENTIFICA, NACIONAL Y DE CALIDAD AL SERVICIO DEL PUEBLO!!
¡¡SOMOS ESTUDIANTES, NO SOMOS PACIFISTAS, VIVA LA LUCHA
ANTI-IMPERIALISTA!!
India - texts for new international campaign article of Arundhati roy - Dead men Talking, by Arundhati Roy
NEW DELHI: On 23rd September 2011, at about three in the morning, within hours of his arrival at the Delhi airport, the US radio-journalist David Barsamian was deported. This dangerous man, who produces independent, free-to-air programmes for public-radio, has been visiting India for forty years, doing dangerous things like learning Urdu and playing the sitar.
He has published book-length interviews with Edward Said, Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Ejaz Ahmed and Tariq Ali. (He even makes an appearance as a young, bell-bottom wearing interviewer in Peter Wintonik’s documentary film on Chomsky and Herman’s Manufacturing Consent.) On his more recent trips to India he has done a series of radio interviews with activists, academics, filmmakers, journalists and writers (including myself). Barsamian’s work has taken him to Turkey, Iran, Syria, Lebanon and Pakistan. He has never been deported from any of these countries.
So why does the world’s largest democracy fear this lone, sitar-playing, Urdu-speaking, left-leaning, radio producer? Here is how Barsamian himself explains it: “It’s all about Kashmir. I’ve done work on Jharkand, Chattisgarh, West Bengal, Narmada dams, farmer suicides, the Gujarat pogrom, and the Binayak Sen case. But it’s Kashmir that is at the heart of the Indian state’s concerns. The official narrative must not be contested.” News reports about his deportation quoted official “sources” as saying that Barsamian had “violated his visa norms during his visit in 2009-10 by indulging in professional work while holding a tourist visa.”
Visa norms in India are an interesting peep-hole into the Government’s concerns and predilections. Taking cover under the shabby old banner of the War on Terror, the Home Ministry has decreed that scholars and academics invited for conferences or seminars require security clearance before they will be given visas. Corporate executives and businessmen do not. So somebody who wants to invest in a dam, or build a steel plant or a buy a bauxite mine is not considered a security hazard, whereas a scholar who might wish to participate in a seminar about say displacement or communalism or rising malnutrition in a globalized economy, is.
Foreign terrorists with bad intentions have probably guessed by now that they are better off wearing Prada suits and pretending they want to buy a mine than wearing old corduroys and saying they want to attend a seminar. (Some would argue that mine-buyers in Prada suits are the real terrorists.)
David Barsamian did not travel to India to buy a mine or to attend a conference. He just came to talk to people. The complaint against him, according to “official sources” is that he had reported on events in Jammu and Kashmir during his last visit to India and that these reports were “not based on facts”. Remember Barsamian is not a reporter, he’s a man who has conversations with people, mostly dissidents, about the societies in which they live.
Is it illegal for tourists to talk to people in the countries they visit? Would it be illegal for me to travel to the US or Europe and write about the people I met, even if my writing was “not based on facts”? Who decides which “facts” are correct and which are not? Would Barsamian have been deported if the conversations he recorded had been in praise of the impressive turnouts in Kashmir’s elections, instead of about what life is like in the densest military occupation in the world? (600,000 actively deployed armed personnel for a population of ten million people.) Or if they had been about the army’s rescue operations in the 2005 earthquake instead of about the massive unarmed uprisings that took place on three consecutive summers? (And which received no round-the-clock media attention, and no-one thought to call “the Kashmir Spring”).
David Barsamian is not the first person to be deported over the Indian Government’s sensitivities over Kashmir. Professor Richard Shapiro, an anthropologist from San Francisco was deported from Delhi airport in November 2010 without being given any reason. Most of us believe it was the government’s way of punishing his partner, Angana Chatterji, a co-convenor of the International Peoples’ Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice, which first brought international attention to the existence of unmarked mass graves in Kashmir. May Aquino, from the Asian Federation against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD), Manila, was scheduled to visit Kashmir in September 2011.
She was deported from the Delhi Airport. Earlier this year, on 28th May, the outspoken Indian democratic rights activist Gautam Navlakha was deported to Delhi from Srinagar airport. (Farook Abdullah, the former Chief Minister of Kashmir justified the deportation, saying that writers like Gautam Navlakha and myself had no business entering Kashmir, because “Kashmir is not for burning”—whatever that means.) Kashmir is in the process of being isolated, cut off from the outside world by two concentric rings of border patrols—in Delhi as well as Srinagar—as though it’s already a free country with its own visa regime. Within its borders of course, it’s open season for the Government and the Army. The art of controlling Kashmiri journalists and ordinary people with a deadly combination of bribes, threats, blackmail and a whole spectrum of unutterable, carefully crafted cruelties has evolved into an art form.
While the government goes about trying to silence the living, the dead have begun to speak up. It was insensitive of Barsamian to plan a trip to Kashmir just when the State Human Rights Commission was finally shamed into officially acknowledging the existence of 2700 unmarked graves from three districts in Kashmir. Reports of thousands of other graves are pouring in from other districts. It is insensitive of the unmarked graves to embarrass the Government of India just when India’s record is due for review before the UN Human Rights Council.
Apart from Dangerous David, who else is the world’s largest democracy afraid of? There’s young Lingaram Kodopi an adivasi from Dantewada, Chattisgarh, who was arrested on the 9th of September 2011. The police say they caught him red-handed in a market place, while he was handing over protection money from Essar, an iron-ore mining company, to the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist). His aunt Soni Sori says that he was picked up by plainclothes policemen in a white Bolero from his grandfather’s house in Palnar village. Now she’s on the run too.
Interestingly, even by their own account, the police arrested Lingaram but allowed the Maoists to escape. This is only the latest in a series of bizarre, almost hallucinatory accusations they have made against Lingaram and then withdrawn. His real crime is that he is the only journalist who speaks Gondi, the local language, and who knows how to negotiate the remote forest paths in Dantewada, Chhattisgarh, the other war zone in India from which no news must come.
Having signed over vast tracts of indigenous tribal homelands in central India to multinational mining and infrastructure corporations in a series of secret Memorandums of Understanding—in complete contravention of the law as well as the Constitution—the government has begun to flood the forests with hundreds of thousands of security forces. All resistance, armed as well as unarmed has been branded ‘Maoist’. (In Kashmir the preferred phrase is ‘jihadi elements’).
As the civil war grows deadlier, hundreds of villages have been burnt to the ground. Thousands of adivasis have fled as refugees into neighbouring states. Hundreds of thousands are living terrified lives hiding in the forests. Paramilitary forces have laid siege to the forest. A network police informers patrol village bazaars making trips for essential provisions and medicines a nightmare for villagers. Untold numbers of nameless people are in jail, charged with sedition and waging war on the state, with no lawyers to defend them. Very little news comes out of those forests, and there are no body counts.
So it’s not hard to see why young Lingaram Kodopi poses such a threat. Before he trained to become a journalist, he was a driver in Dantewada. In 2009 the police arrested him and confiscated his jeep. He was locked up in a small toilet for forty days where he was pressurized to become a Special Police Officer (SPO) in the Salwa Judum, the government sponsored vigilante army that was at the time tasked with forcing people to flee from their villages. (The Salwa Judum has since been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.)
The police released Lingaram after the Gandhian activist Himanshu Kumar filed a habeas corpus petition in court. But then the police arrested Lingaram’s old father and five other members of his family. They attacked his village and warned villagers not to shelter him. Eventually Lingaram escaped to Delhi where friends and well-wishers got him admission into a journalism school. In April 2010 he traveled to Dantewada and escorted to Delhi the witnesses and victims of the barbarity of the Salwa Judum, the police and paramilitary forces enabling them to give testimony at the Independent Peoples’ Tribunal. (In his own testimony Lingaram was sharply critical of the Maoists as well.)
That did not deter the Chattisgarh Police. On July 2nd 2010, the senior Maoist leader Comrade Azad, official spokesperson for the Maoist Party, was captured and executed by the Andhra Pradesh police. Deputy Inspector General Kalluri of the Chattisgarh Police announced at a press conference that Lingaram Kodopi had been elected by the Maoist Party to take over Comrade Azad’s role. (It was like accusing a young school child in 1936 Yenan of being Zhou-en-Lai.) The charge was met with such derision that the police had to withdraw it. They had also accused Lingaram of being the mastermind of a Maoist attack on a Congress legislator in Dantewada. But perhaps because they had already made themselves look so foolish and vindictive, they decided to bide their time.
Lingaram remained in Delhi, completed his course and received his diploma in journalism. In March 2011 paramilitary forces burned down three villages in Dantewada— Tadmetla, Timmapuram and Morapalli. The Chhattisgarh Government blamed the Maoists. The Supreme Court assigned the investigation to the Central Bureau of Investigation. Lingaram returned to Dantewada with a video camera and trekked from village to village documenting first-hand testimonies of the villagers who indicted the police. (You can see some of these on Youtube.) By doing this he made himself one of the most wanted men in Dantewada. On September 9th the police finally got to him.
Lingaram has joined an impressive line-up of troublesome news gatherers and disseminators in Chattisgarh. Among the earliest to be silenced was the celebrated doctor Binayak Sen who first raised the alarm about the crimes of the Salwa Judum as far back as 2005. He was arrested in 2007, accused of being a Maoist and sentenced to life imprisonment. After years in prison, he is out on bail now. Several people followed Binayak Sen into prison—including Piyush Guha and the filmmaker Ajay T.G. Both have been accused of being Maoists.
These arrests put a chill into the activists’ community in Chattisgarh, but didn’t stop some of them from continuing to do what they were doing. Kopa Kunjam worked with Himanshu Kumar’s Vanvasi Chetna Ashram, doing exactly what Lingaram tried to do much later—traveling to remote villages, bringing out the news, and carefully documenting the horror that was unfolding. (He was my first guide into the forest villages of Dantewada.) Much of this documentation has made its way into legal cases that are proving to be a source of worry and discomfort to the Chattisgarh government. In May 2009 the Vansvasi Chetna Ashram, the last neutral shelter for journalists, writers and academics who were traveling to Dantewada, was demolished by the Chhattisgarh government.
In December 2009, on Human Rights Day Kopa was arrested. He was accused of colluding with the Maoists in the murder of one man and the kidnapping of another. The case against Kopa has begun to fall apart as the police witnesses, including the man who was kidnapped, have disowned the statements they purportedly made to the police. It doesn’t really matter, because in India we all know the process is the punishment. It will take years for Kopa to establish his innocence, by which time the administration hopes the arrest will have served their purpose. Many villagers who were encouraged by Kopa to file complaints against the police have been arrested too. Some are in jail.
Others have been made to live in roadside camps manned by SPOs. That includes many women who committed the crime of being raped. Soon after Kopa’s arrest Himanshu Kumar was hounded out of Dantewada. In September 2010 another adivasi activist Kartam Joga was arrested. His offense was to have filed a petition in the Supreme Court in 2007 about the rampant human rights abuses committed by the Salwa Judum. He is being accused of colluding with the Maoists in the April 2010 killing of 76 Central Reserve Police personnel in Tadmetla. Kartam Joga is a member of the Communist Party of India (CPI) which has a tense, if not hostile relationship with the Maoists. Amnesty International has named him a Prisoner of Conscience.
Others have been made to live in roadside camps manned by SPOs. That includes many women who committed the crime of being raped. Soon after Kopa’s arrest Himanshu Kumar was hounded out of Dantewada. In September 2010 another adivasi activist Kartam Joga was arrested. His offense was to have filed a petition in the Supreme Court in 2007 about the rampant human rights abuses committed by the Salwa Judum. He is being accused of colluding with the Maoists in the April 2010 killing of 76 Central Reserve Police personnel in Tadmetla. Kartam Joga is a member of the Communist Party of India (CPI) which has a tense, if not hostile relationship with the Maoists. Amnesty International has named him a Prisoner of Conscience.
Meanwhile, the arrests continue at a steady pace. A casual look at the First Information Reports (FIRs) filed by the police give a pretty clear idea of how the deadly business of Due Process works in Dantewada. The texts of many of the FIRs are exactly the same. The name of the accused, the date, the nature of the crime and the names of witnesses are simply inserted into the biscuit mould. There’s nobody to check. Most of those involved, prisoners as well as witnesses, cannot read or write.
One day, in Dantewada too the dead will begin to speak. And it will not just be dead humans, it will be the dead land, dead rivers, dead mountains and dead creatures in dead forests that will insist on a hearing. Meanwhile, life goes on. While intrusive surveillance, internet policing and phone-tapping and the clamp-down on those who speak up becomes grimmer with every passing day, it’s odd how India is becoming the dream destination of literary festivals. There are about ten of them scheduled over the next few months. Some are funded by the very corporations on whose behalf the police have unleashed their regime of terror.
The Harud Literary festival in Srinagar (postponed for the moment) was slated to be the newest, most exciting one—“As the autumn leaves change colour the valley of Kashmir will resonate with the sound of poetry, literary dialogue, debate and discussions…” Its organizers advertised it as an ‘apolitical’ event, but did not say how either the rulers or the subjects of a brutal military occupation that has claimed tens of thousands of lives, bereaved thousands of women and children and maimed a hundred thousand people in its torture chambers can be ‘apolitical’. I wonder – will the literary guests come on tourist visas? Will there be separate ones for Srinagar and Delhi? Will they need security clearance? Will a Kashmiri who speaks out go directly from the festival to an interrogation centre, or will she be allowed to go home and change and collect her things? (I’m just being crude here, I know it’s more subtle than that.)
The festive din of this spurious freedom helps to muffle the sound of footsteps in airport corridors as the deported are frog-marched on to departing planes, to mute the click of handcuffs locking around strong, warm wrists and the cold metallic clang of prison doors. Our lungs are gradually being depleted of oxygen. Perhaps it’s time use whatever breath remains in our bodies to say: Open the bloody gates.
India - Nouvelles sur la guerre populaire en Inde
18 septembre 2011Inde : Quelques nouvelles...
La police de l’Etat du Bastar a arrêté mardi, à leur domicile, onze maoïstes dans le district de Jagdalpur. Ces arrestations ont été effectuées sur base de renseignements qui ont fait l’objet de prime en argent. Mercredi, un habitant du district de Bijapur (Chhattisgar) a été exécuté par la guérilla pour avoir donné des informations à la police. Jeudi, des affiches maoïstes ont été collées dans la région de Jangalmahal pour dissuader les jeunes de répondre à l’appel au recrutement lancé par la Policé spéciale et la National Volunteers Force - organisations paramilitaires gouvernementales.
Aujourd’hui, une guérillero a été arrêtée dans le district de Garwah (Jharkhand). La police est intervenue dans le village de Katra après avoir été informée de sa présence sur place. En outre, les autorités ont saisi treize détonateurs, trois bâtons de gélatine, un kilo d’explosifs et de la littérature maoïste. Plus tard dans la journée, un groupe de guérilleros a effectué une attaque éclair contre un contingent de soixante hommes de la CRPF dans le district de Bijapur (Chhattisgarh). Les maoïstes ont tué un soldat avant de trouver refuge dans les jungles avoisinantes. Les forces de sécurité ont immédiatement répliqué, mais n’ont pas pu retrouver les guérilleros.
23 septembre 2011Inde : Action de la guérilla déjouée
Une équipe de la police du Chhattisgarh a découvert ce matin une bombe de 25 kilos le long d’une route du district de Raipur. Selon les autorités, celle-ci se trouvait dans une zone densément forestière et idéalement placée pour exploser au passage de la patrouille. Les forces de sécurité ont pu la désamorcer et déclencher une opération de ratissage immédiate afin de tenter de capturer les guérilleros maoïstes particulièrement actifs dans la région. Mercredi, ils avaient tendu une embuscade à une brigade de la police, blessant gravement deux soldats de la Special Task Force.
26 septembre 2011Inde : Des nouvelles de la contre-guérilla
Dimanche, les autorités ont annoncé avoir arrêté Somji Made, 25 ans, à Gadchiroli dans le district du Maharashtra. Originaire du Bastar, il est le commandant du Aheri Militia Dalam et avait passé la frontière du district la veille. Les autorités l’accusent d’être activement impliqué dans l’insurrection maoïste et d’être mêlé à diverses affaires de meurtres, de tentatives de meurtre, de fusillades avec la police,...
Aujourd’hui, une équipe des forces paramilitaires et de la police du Chhattisagarh a découvert cinq bombes le long d’une route dans la région du Bastar (district de Kanker) où la guérilla maoïste est particulièrement active. Trois bombes de 4 kg et deux de 2 kg ont pu être désamorcées immédiatement. Les autorités ont déclaré que les maoïstes avaient probablement planifié une attaque visant une équipe des forces de sécurité, celles-ci effectuant quotidiennement des opérations de ratissages dans la zone. Toujours aujourd’hui, les forces de sécurité ont arrêté Dilip Mahato, un des leaders du People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities, un organisme tribal pro-maoïste. Les autorités l’accusent d’être un agent de liaison au service des guérilleros. Enfin, deux maoïstes ont été tués au cours d’une fusillade avec la police dans la région forestière de Gollapalli (Chhattisgarh). Les forces de sécurité seraient tombées sur un groupe de guérilleros durant une opération de ratissage, entraînant une série d’échanges de coups de feu au cours de laquelle deux guérilleros ont été abattus alors que tous les autres sont parvenus à s’échapper. Sur place, la police a retrouvé et saisi deux fusils.
1er octobre 2011Inde : Revers pour la contre-guérilla
Depuis presque une semaine, la CRPF et la police de l’état du Jharkhand mènent une vaste opération conjointe de ratissage dans le district de Bokaro, et plus précisément dans et autour des Jhumra Hills. Un soldat de la section d’élite anti-naxalite de la CRPF (la force CoBRA) a été blessé durant une fusillade opposant son bataillon à un groupe maoïstes. Les opérations militaires se sont intensifiées depuis mardi, quand les guérilleros ont tués deux soldats de la force CoBRA et ont blessé trois hommes des forces de sécurité. Les maoïstes, tirant parti de l’obscurité et de leur parfaite connaissance du terrain, n’ont pas été capturés. Les autorités ont annoncé être parvenues à en blesser plusieurs et avoir démanteler un de leur camp à proximité du lieu de la fusillade.
L’inspecteur général adjoint de la police de Bokaro a annoncé que les mouvements des guérilleros étaient surveillés de près par des hélicoptères qui survolent constamment la zone vallonnée alors que l’importante opération de ratissage se poursuit au sol. Il a également appelé les districts voisins de Hazaribagh et de Giridih à rejoindre l’opération afin d’encercler les guérilleros.
4 octobre 2011Inde : Une présumée percepteuse maoïste arrêtée
Soni Sori, une enseignante aborigène du district de Dantewada, dans le Chhattisgarh, a été arrêtée mardi dans la région de Katwaria Sarai par la police de Delhi. Elle est soupçonnée d’avoir perçu, pour le compte de la guérilla maoïste, l’argent de l’impôt révolutionnaire payé par le groupe ESSAR. Cinq dossiers similaires ont été ouverts contre Sori dans le Chhattisgarh. Un Directeur général de groupe ESSAR avait été arrêté le 27 septembre pour son rôle présumé dans le paiement l’impôt révolutionnaire. ESSAR voulait éviter les raids de la guérilla contre un pipeline desservant une mine de fer dans le district de Dantewada.
8 octobre 2011Inde : La guérilla maoïste frappe les forces de sécurité
Trois paramilitaires du Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) ont été tués hier vendredi, et un autre sérieusement blessé, dans une explosion d’un IED placé par la guérilla maoïste dans l’Etat du Chhattisgarh près de Geedam, à 400 km au sud de Raipur. Après l’explosion du véhicule, les guérilleros ont ouvert un feu nourri, puis se sont fondus dans la jungle. Deux bataillons du SSB avaient été déployés dans l’Etat du Chhattisgarh en 2008, principalement protéger les camps de la milice anti-maoïste Salwa Judum, elle même étrillée par la guérilla.
8 octobre 2011Inde : Arundhati Roy sur l’expulsion de David Barsamian
Au début du mois de septembre, le journaliste de radio indépendant américain David Barsamian s’set vu refoulé à l’aéroport de New Delhi alors qu’il projetait de se rendre au Cachemire. On connait Barsamian pour ses nombreux entretiens avec des militants, des journalistes et des auteurs, dont Arundhati Roy. Cette dernière s’est exprimée dans The Hindu au sujet de cette expulsion et profite de la tribune qui lui est offerte pour exposer la répression subie par toutes les personnes, en Inde, qui tentent de se faire entendre, ou de mettre en avant les manoeuvres anti-populaires du gouvernement.
9 octobre 2011Inde : Les forces de sécurité attaquent un camp de la guérilla
Une force combinée du Groupe d’Opérations Spécial (SOG) et de la CRPF effectuait une opération de ratissage hier dans la jungle de Kuleijharan près de Tampersingha (dans l’Etat de Jharkhand), quand elle s’est heurtée à une unité de la guérilla maoïste. Une violente fusillade a eu lieu, qui ne semble pas avoir fait de victime. La force combinée a pu s’emparer d’un camp abandonné par la guérilla, récupérant une grande quantité d’explosifs et de matériel.
Une seconde fusillade s’est déroulée aux premières heures ce dimanche matin dans le district de Dakshina Kannada (Karnataka). Celle-ci s’est tenue après qu’une bande de guérilleros ait attaqué un contingent de 25 membres de la force anti-maoïste du Karnataka dans la forêt. Selon les porte-parole de la police, un policier serait décédé au cours de l’affrontement et une vaste opération de ratissage a été déclenchée dans toute la région.
10 octobre 2011Inde : Un policier tué dans une fusillade
Un policier de 40 ans a été tué au cours d’un combat avec les maoïstes dans la soirée de samedi. Il faisait partie d’une équipe de quatorze hommes envoyés dans la région de Belthangady (district de Dakshina Kannada) sur base de renseignements faisant état de mouvements naxalites. Un collègue du policier abattu a déclaré qu’ils étaient tous les deux lorsqu’ils ont repéré les guérilleros, vers 23h30. Au moins un d’entre eux transportait une lampe de poche. Il a ouvert le feu, mais son collègue a presqu’immédiatement été touché par une balle maoïste. La fusillade a duré une dizaine de minutes. Selon les membres de la force anti-naxalites, ces derniers seraient retournés sur place plus tard, ont scandé des slogans et récupérés leurs affaires. Le porte-parole de la police locale a annoncé que, malgré l’obscurité, plusieurs guérilleros avaient pu être identifiés et qu’une enquête avait été ouverte à leur encontre pour meurtre et tentative de meurtre. C’est la première fois qu’une telle opération policière est organisée dans le district de Kakshina Kannada (Mangalore), les maoïste n’y était pas présents jusqu’il y a peu.
12 octobre 2011Inde : Guérilla et contre-guérilla
En début de semaine, le CPI(M) a lancé un appel à la grève générale dans l’Andhra Pradesh afin d’exiger que la police traduise en justice l’un de ses dirigeants, actuellement détenu sans avoir été jugé. Dans ce cadre, un groupe de guérilleros armés accompagnés par des sympathisants ont abattu des arbres le long de nombreuses routes principales du district de Visakhapatnam, bloquant ainsi la circulation pendant plusieurs heures. Par ailleurs, la chute d’arbres a également partiellement détruit un poste de surveillance du département forestier.
Dans le district de Narayanpur (Chhattisgarh), les maoïstes et les forces de sécurité se sont affrontés tôt ce matin. Le face à face a eu lieu à proximité d’un village quand les maoïstes ont ouvert le feu contre une équipe conjointe de la CRPF et de la police de l’état qui patrouillait dans la zone. Un guérillero, pour la capture duquel était promise une récompense de 5000 roupies (75 euros) avait été annoncée, a été tué durant la fusillade. Selon les autorités, il s’agirait de Negi Rawat, un maoïste recherché pour plusieurs crimes et attaques contre la police. Sur place, les forces de sécurité ont saisi des armes et de la littérature maoïste.
13 octobre 2011Inde : Intensification des missions de surveillance
La Special Task Force (STF) de la police du Tamil Nadu et le département forestier de l’état ont annoncé qu’ils allaient mener des opérations conjointes de ratissage aux frontières des quinze districts que compte l’état. Cette décision est intervenue lors d’une réunion tenue au bureau du directeur général de la police ce mercredi. Les deux parties se sont mises d’accord pour partager leurs renseignements et leurs ressources, mais également pour mettre en place des séances d’entrainement conjointes. A l’origine, la STF avait été créée afin de capturer un contrebandier notoire agissant dans les forêts du Tamil Nadu. Après son assassinat en 2004, celle-ci s’est principalement concentrée sur la formation des policiers à la lutte dans la jungle. Mais aujourd’hui, elle va encore plus loin. ’Nous travaillerons maintenant avec les gardes forestiers afin de prévenir le braconnage, la contrebande et l’extrémisme de gauche. Les gardes forestiers vont donc contribuer aux opérations anti-maoïstes en fournissant des renseignements sur des personnes ou des activités suspectes le long des frontières’. Les 22.000 kilomètres carrés de zone forestière s’étendant entre les districts de Tiruvallur et de Kanyakumari disposent de sept camps de la STF et ont des frontières avec l’Andhra Pradesh, le Karnataka et le Kerala. Selon les autorités, ’la police et les fonctionnaires du département forestier vont créer une base de données des contrevenants et des éléments extrémistes. Nous avons suggéré que des photos de carte d’identité soient données aux surveillants payés à la journée pour le département forestier’. Elles ont également ajouté que les forces de sécurité allaient mener des exercices de patrouilles conjointes avec leurs homologues des états voisins.
15 octobre 2011Inde : Police contre gréviste
En juin dernier, les ouvriers de l’usine Maruti Suzuki de Manesar (Haryana) ont mené une vaste action de grève pour exiger une amélioration de leurs conditions de travail et le droit de former un syndicat indépendant de celui existant au sein de l’usine. En septembre, un nouveau mouvement de protestation a fait suite à l’obligation faite par la direction de signer un pacte de bonne conduite, et dont la non-signature entraînait une interdiction de rentrer dans l’usine. 44 employés et 1200 intérimaires ont été suspendus des suites de cette grève. Depuis le 7 octobre, tout le personnel a arrêté le travail afin d’exiger la réintégration de ces ouvriers. Jusqu’à hier, ils occupaient l’usine. Mais pour venir à bout du mouvement, la direction a fait appel aux autorités. Le gouvernement a envoyé 2500 policiers afin de déloger les grévistes, a déclaré leur grève illégale et a entamé les démarches afin d’annuler l’enregistrement des deux syndicats à l’origine du mouvement. Face aux forces de l’ordre, les ouvriers ont été forcé de quitter les locaux, mais ont déclaré poursuivre leur action de grève.
22 octobre 2011Inde : Succès de la guérilla
Plusieurs brigades policières ont été déployées dans les zones forestières du Bastar (Chhattisgarh) ce matin pour tenter d’appréhender un groupe de maoïste au lendemain d’une attaque au cours de laquelle six policiers sont décédés. Vendredi après-midi, des douzaines de guérilleros ont tendu une embuscade à un contingent de seize membres de la force du district dans le village de Netanar, à 30 kilomètres de Jagdalpur. Ceux-ci revenaient d’une mission d’inspection de bâtiments suspectés d’avoir été endommagés par la guérilla. Six policiers sont morts sur place alors que cinq autres ont été grièvement blessés. Les guérilleros ont d’abord pris d’assaut les policiers à moto avant d’ouvrir le feu. Le directeur général de la police a annoncé que plusieurs brigades de la force du district ratissaient les alentours du village de Netanar et les environs afin d’appréhender les guérilleros responsable de l’attaque.
24 octobre 2011Inde : De nouvelles routes pour la contre-guérilla
Hier, B.K. Ponwar, ancien chef de l’armée indienne de contre-insurrection a mis en avant les nouvelles nécessité de la contre-guérilla dans les zones contrôlées par les maoïstes. Ponwar est actuellement directeur du Counter Terrorism and Jungle Warfare Collecge créé en 2005 par le gouvernement du Chhattisgarh pour former les policiers à combattre les guérilleros comme des guérilleros. Hier, il a déclaré que l’Inde devait construire un nouveau réseau routier exclusivement destiné aux déplacements des forces de sécurité dans les zones dominées par la guérilla.
’Les routes à l’intérieur des régions touchées par l’insurrection utilisées par les civils et la police sont criblées de mines et les guérilleros y ont déposé des IED à peu près partout. Donc, un réseau routier neuf doit être mis en place dans les terrains difficiles et celui-ci doit être placé sous surveillance constante. Ces routes doivent être établies pour mettre en oeuvre une réoccupation des régions occupées, et c’est la meilleure manière de pénétrer dans les bastions des guérilleros. Ces routes réservées aux forces de sécurité leur permettront de se déplacer plus rapidement dans les zones de combat et de frapper fort’.
25 octobre 2011Inde : Intensification et succès de la contre-guérilla
Suspectant la présence de guérilleros en provenance du Chhattisgarh et du Jharkhand qui se seraient réfugiés dans l’Orissa, les autorités ont intensifié leurs opérations de ratissage dans les districts de Ganjam, Gajapati et Kandhamal. La force d’élite CoBRA, la CRPF, l’India Reserve Battalion, le Special Operation Group et les forces de police locales ont été déployées pour expulser les guérilleros de ces zones. Les maoïstes sont suspectés de camper dans ces trois districts alors qu’une vaste offensive policière a été déclenchée dans les deux états précités. La police craint également qu’ils soient en train de projeter une campagne d’actions dans l’Orissa. Elle a en effet récemment découvert et saisi une énorme quantité d’explosifs dans le district de Kandhamal et détruit un campement de guérilléros dans le district de Gajapati.
D’autre part, les autorités ont affirmé avoir capturé trois maoïstes et saisi des armes ce lundi dans le district de Bokaro. Ayant été renseignées, les forces de sécurité ont arrêté un guérillero dans la jungle et celui-ci les auraient guidé jusqu’à sa planque, où se trouvaient deux de ses camarades et trois fusils. Toujours lundi, mais dans le district de Rohtas (Bihar), les autorités ont annoncé avoir arrêté sept guérilleros. Dimanche, la police locale et un bataillon CoBRA ont effectué une descente sous un pont en construction sur le fleuve Sone. Le commandant maoïste Sudarashan Ram - alias Firoj - a été arrêté avec quatre de ses camarades. Ils étaient recherchés dans le cadre d’une enquête sur le meurtre d’un officier de police, ainsi que d’une douzaine d’autres affaires. Des armes traditionnelles, des cartouches et quatre téléphones portables leur ont été saisis. Dans un raid distincts, deux guérilleros ont été arrêté dans la région de Chutia, dans le district de Rohtas. Enfin, un homme originaire du Bihar a été arrêté lundi dans le district de Hazaribagh. La police l’accuse d’avoir mis en place un réseau pour fournir des armes au maoïstes.
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Canada - Pourquoi avons-nous quitté le site d’Occupy Ottawa- Parti communiste révolutionnaire
– Déclaration conjointe de l’Association étudiante marxiste de l’Université d’Ottawa (uOMSA) et du Parti communiste révolutionnaire à Ottawa
Les signataires de cette déclaration souhaitent expliquer les motifs qui les ont amenés à quitter le site d’Occupy Ottawa, où ils étaient impliqués depuis le début. Les camarades ont été victimes d’une vendetta politique à caractère anticommuniste menée par des leaders non-élus du mouvement, marquée notamment par un incident disgracieux ayant mis en danger la vie et l’intégrité de plusieurs militantes et militants. La déclaration vous est envoyée en version originale anglaise.
Throughout the following statement, we’ll do our best to keep things short and concise. It’s been a tumultuous few days and even now piecing together a narrative out of the events that transpired is difficult. Nonetheless we’ll try and do the following: 1) give a background to our own involvement in Occupy Ottawa; 2) give a narrative of the difficulties we faced; and 3) offer constructive suggestions as to what needs to be fixed in the camp.
We went into Occupy Ottawa knowing that this was not going to be the movement that ended capitalism. What we hoped was that out of this, movements that could end capitalism would emerge. We also came with a handful of critiques about consensus, the rhetoric of the 99%, the class composition of the movement, and other aspects. We later on developed these critiques more fully into pamphlets and extended the critique to the hidden leadership that was forming. But believing that critique without action is useless, we threw ourselves into the movement with the intentions of sticking it out to the end. Our “agenda” was two-fold: 1) we wanted to bring students into the Marxist’s student’s association (MSA); and 2) we wanted to see if we could start a Proletarian Revolutionary Action Committee (PRAC), modeled after the one in Toronto.
In terms of involvement, we camped out at Occupy Ottawa from the first day of the occupation. We held meetings on the site. We attempted to run seminars on topics like “Socialism and the Occupation”, and “What is capitalism?”. We were involved in a number of nuts-and-bolts committees like the food committee and the medic committee, but we made a conscious decision to not get involved in the leadership of the camp. As such, we were not involved in any of the leadership committees (media, facilitation, infrastructure, etc.) nor were we part of the hidden leadership.
Our difficulties began one week into the occupation, and centred largely around two individuals. For anonymity’s sake, we’ll call them Individual #1 and Individual #2. Individual #1 is a member of the hidden leadership, and is on the infrastructure committee. He identifies as an anarcho-pacifist and a Buddhist. Individual #2 is someone who has spent a lot of time in the camp; we do not believe that they are part of the hidden leadership.
After getting our own infrastructure together over the course of the first week, we finally decided to set up a tent from which we could conduct propaganda. We also decided to hold a meeting around the statement of the PCR-RCP Canada surrounding the occupations (it can be found here: http://www.pcr-rcp.ca/en/ ). As such, we handed out the statement as well as invitations to a discussion that was to be held the next day.
We had the misfortune of handing an invitation to Individual #1. After making a laborious show about suffering the indignation of being given a piece of paper from Maoists, he proceeded to spend a good chunk of the evening mocking us, from a distance of course. In and of itself this is not particularly damning; lots of people aren’t Maoists, and we have no illusions as to our own popularity in Canada. His actions, however, set the baseline for what would be a constantly escalating anti-communist campaign.
On the next day, we finally put up our propaganda tent. Before we had even finished setting out a literature table, we were approached by someone on safety committee who requested we take down our tent, move it away from the central walkway, or make it less visible. We adamantly refused; there had been nothing decided at a GA which would limit our ability to conduct propaganda, and therefore we found it absolutely nonsensical for us to abide by an arbitrary decision. Heated comments were exchanged over the next few hours between us and members of the hidden leadership. It needs to be stated, in the interests of fairness, that the individual who initially told us to move our tent would later be incredibly helpful and fair in dealing with other situations as they arose.
Eventually we came to an informal agreement that we would designate one side of the main walkway as a political area where anyone could come and conduct propaganda. We were thrilled with this; political debate in the interests of unity can never be anything but helpful. We agreed to take this to the GA. However, at the GA, the infrastructure committee put forward a counter-proposal that would have had us relegated to an area at the back of the camp; an effective ghettoisation of politics. We believe Individual #1 to have been involved in this derailment. We of course blocked the counter-proposal, and eventually there was a vote of no confidence in the facilitators and as such the GA was shut down. (This is a simplified version of events; there were actually three proposals put forward. We can go into more detail elsewhere for those who are interested in procedure, but it isn’t particularly relevant to the narrative of events.)
It’s worth noting that in the lead-up to the GA, Individual #1 was heard going around to others in the camp and agitating against us. He told people that (some of whom happened to be our friends), to paraphrase, “Historically communists only join movements to split them”. This was of course without ever talking to us about our politics or our intentions; Individual #1 prefers to act in a sneaky manner rather than having political disagreements in the open. We believe Individual #1 contributed in the creation of an atmosphere which encouraged violence toward us.
What followed the disastrous GA was altogether positive. Many of the hidden rifts in the camp were forced open, and there was plenty of political discussion. Some of the hidden leadership began questioning the consensus and GA structure that we had adopted at Occupy Ottawa. By the next morning things seemed to have calmed down quite a bit; our tent existed in a weird space of non-officiality, but nobody (it seemed) was questioning our right to be there and conduct propaganda work.
The next night everything changed. During the half hour or so that we had left the camp to grab coffee, Individual #1 decided to it would be funny to hang a feces, urine, and blood covered blanket over our tent. Despite promoting the leaderless nature of this movement, he had someone carry this action out. After initially denying involvement in this act, he later said he suggested it as a “joke”. It’s worth noting that he stated to others that he said he intended to do it but only for a short time where we couldn’t see it because he thought it would be funny. He also alleged that he thought that there was only urine on the blanket, as if that makes things any better.
Individual #1 speaks out of both sides of his mouth; it really isn’t relevant what justification he gives at any given moment or to any given party. What is relevant is that Individual #1 thought it would be a good idea to hang a urine, blood, and feces soaked blanket on our tent. It was later revealed to us that the blood on the blanket belonged to an individual who may be infected with a communicable blood disease. This was an incredibly violent act on the part of Individual #1, which put all of us in danger.
(As a brief aside, we want to point out that we don’t hold any grudges against the individual whose blood was on the blanket. Many people have different diseases for a multitude of reasons; it’s up to us to build structures and communities that can properly care for all people. This being said, the fact that the blood was diseased complicated matters for us.)
Because the blanket had blood on it, it was decided that our tent be put under quarantine for 16 hours; the amount of time the communicable blood disease takes to break down outside of the human body. In order to maintain the quarantine, we watched the tent until 4:30AM at which point the medic committee was to take over. During the quarantine process, Individual #2 continually used old-fashioned HIV scare tactics to suggest that the tent should just be torn down. During the night, someone approached the tent to tear it down, and when they were stopped, they said that someone had given them drugs to do so. Sometime between 4:30AM and 9:00AM Individual #2 tore down the tent using his bare hands. When questioned that morning by someone not involved with us, he replied “These people need to go. They are going to divide this movement.”
We returned to the camp that morning in an effort to get Individual #1 expelled for his actions. This still has not been done; we were told by a member of the hidden leadership that Individual #1 “does too much work to leave.”
Later that day, the spot that the tent formerly had been (which should have still been under quarantine), was taken over by another tent. Individual #2 claimed that the community had come to a consensus that we had to go, that the location was too good to allow us to use, and that we had failed the community by not enforcing the quarantine throughout the night. By failing to enforce the quarantine after 4:30AM, we were told that we had passed our problem onto the community that that this was unacceptable. All of this was decided, he told us, at a secret morning meeting that we had been invited to but had failed to show up at. Throughout the entire conversation Individual #2 was attempting to physically intimidate us. Everything Individual #2 had said was of course false; there had been no decision beyond the one at the GA two nights earlier that allowed us to conduct propaganda work. We discovered this after taking to people around the camp. Let it also be known that at no time did Individual #2 attempt to tear down the media tent, where the blanket had also been hanging for some time.
The tent had been disposed of in a location that we are still unaware of. All of our propaganda materials –pamphlets, books, flags, banners, etc.– were left in a pile with the contaminated materials. As of now we have still not been compensated for either the tent or the materials.
Evaluating the safety of our situation, and the relative effort and resources we were putting into the movement VS gain we were getting out of it, we decided to leave. We decided to have one final conversation with Individual #1 and Individual #2 to try and get a more coherent picture of what happened. The conversation with Individual #1 ended with Individual #1 running away and screaming “Fascists!” at us, a statement he maintains is fact. The conversation with Individual #2 ended with more physical intimidation, threats of violence directed at us, and Individual #2 screaming “The communists are taking over!” It shouldn’t need to be stated that we are neither fascists, nor were we trying to take over.
It was these last interactions that confirmed for us that the attacks we had been facing were targeted and political in nature. For a movement that claims to be inclusive and non-violent, we faced both ostracisation and violence. On the part of the hidden leadership, there was no willingness to create a space that was safe for us.
Since we left we have heard reports of Neo-Nazis setting up in the camp. One of our friends was threatened by them, with the Neo-Nazis not only threatening to cover her in urine, but also following her home (away from the camp) for a short time. This is unacceptable.
We would like to underline that some of the experiences at the camp were positive, and some of the people we met and conversations we had were fantastic. However, until these issues are dealt with, we cannot in good conscience return to the camp. To this end, here are a series of suggestions that could have prevented this from happening, and they are the bare minimum required for our return:
1) The lack of involvement of much of the left hurt this movement. While no individual should feel obligated to challenge things like racism, sexism, etc. the left as a whole does have a duty to do this. Many on the left refused to engage in the movement, and because of that, right wing and anti-social politics were allowed to manifest themselves in the movement. A chorus of “shit’s fucked up” is not helpful; what is helpful, is people on the ground making changes.
2) Individual #1 and Individual #2 need to be removed from the camp. We cannot feel safe in this camp until they are gone.
3) Occupy Ottawa needs to have some form of organized force in order to remove anti-social elements like the fascists.
4) Drug and alcohol use should be controlled within the camp. This should be done in a way that recognizes that many homeless people use Confederation Park as a place for drug and alcohol use, and by no means should they be prevented to do so or kicked out. Those on active duty within the camp (medic, safety, legal, etc.) should be sober.
Until these actions are taken, we will not involve ourselves with this movement anymore. Here’s hoping the real decision makers at Occupy Ottawa are willing and listening.
October 28, 2011
Les signataires de cette déclaration souhaitent expliquer les motifs qui les ont amenés à quitter le site d’Occupy Ottawa, où ils étaient impliqués depuis le début. Les camarades ont été victimes d’une vendetta politique à caractère anticommuniste menée par des leaders non-élus du mouvement, marquée notamment par un incident disgracieux ayant mis en danger la vie et l’intégrité de plusieurs militantes et militants. La déclaration vous est envoyée en version originale anglaise.
Throughout the following statement, we’ll do our best to keep things short and concise. It’s been a tumultuous few days and even now piecing together a narrative out of the events that transpired is difficult. Nonetheless we’ll try and do the following: 1) give a background to our own involvement in Occupy Ottawa; 2) give a narrative of the difficulties we faced; and 3) offer constructive suggestions as to what needs to be fixed in the camp.
We went into Occupy Ottawa knowing that this was not going to be the movement that ended capitalism. What we hoped was that out of this, movements that could end capitalism would emerge. We also came with a handful of critiques about consensus, the rhetoric of the 99%, the class composition of the movement, and other aspects. We later on developed these critiques more fully into pamphlets and extended the critique to the hidden leadership that was forming. But believing that critique without action is useless, we threw ourselves into the movement with the intentions of sticking it out to the end. Our “agenda” was two-fold: 1) we wanted to bring students into the Marxist’s student’s association (MSA); and 2) we wanted to see if we could start a Proletarian Revolutionary Action Committee (PRAC), modeled after the one in Toronto.
In terms of involvement, we camped out at Occupy Ottawa from the first day of the occupation. We held meetings on the site. We attempted to run seminars on topics like “Socialism and the Occupation”, and “What is capitalism?”. We were involved in a number of nuts-and-bolts committees like the food committee and the medic committee, but we made a conscious decision to not get involved in the leadership of the camp. As such, we were not involved in any of the leadership committees (media, facilitation, infrastructure, etc.) nor were we part of the hidden leadership.
Our difficulties began one week into the occupation, and centred largely around two individuals. For anonymity’s sake, we’ll call them Individual #1 and Individual #2. Individual #1 is a member of the hidden leadership, and is on the infrastructure committee. He identifies as an anarcho-pacifist and a Buddhist. Individual #2 is someone who has spent a lot of time in the camp; we do not believe that they are part of the hidden leadership.
After getting our own infrastructure together over the course of the first week, we finally decided to set up a tent from which we could conduct propaganda. We also decided to hold a meeting around the statement of the PCR-RCP Canada surrounding the occupations (it can be found here: http://www.pcr-rcp.ca/en/ ). As such, we handed out the statement as well as invitations to a discussion that was to be held the next day.
We had the misfortune of handing an invitation to Individual #1. After making a laborious show about suffering the indignation of being given a piece of paper from Maoists, he proceeded to spend a good chunk of the evening mocking us, from a distance of course. In and of itself this is not particularly damning; lots of people aren’t Maoists, and we have no illusions as to our own popularity in Canada. His actions, however, set the baseline for what would be a constantly escalating anti-communist campaign.
On the next day, we finally put up our propaganda tent. Before we had even finished setting out a literature table, we were approached by someone on safety committee who requested we take down our tent, move it away from the central walkway, or make it less visible. We adamantly refused; there had been nothing decided at a GA which would limit our ability to conduct propaganda, and therefore we found it absolutely nonsensical for us to abide by an arbitrary decision. Heated comments were exchanged over the next few hours between us and members of the hidden leadership. It needs to be stated, in the interests of fairness, that the individual who initially told us to move our tent would later be incredibly helpful and fair in dealing with other situations as they arose.
Eventually we came to an informal agreement that we would designate one side of the main walkway as a political area where anyone could come and conduct propaganda. We were thrilled with this; political debate in the interests of unity can never be anything but helpful. We agreed to take this to the GA. However, at the GA, the infrastructure committee put forward a counter-proposal that would have had us relegated to an area at the back of the camp; an effective ghettoisation of politics. We believe Individual #1 to have been involved in this derailment. We of course blocked the counter-proposal, and eventually there was a vote of no confidence in the facilitators and as such the GA was shut down. (This is a simplified version of events; there were actually three proposals put forward. We can go into more detail elsewhere for those who are interested in procedure, but it isn’t particularly relevant to the narrative of events.)
It’s worth noting that in the lead-up to the GA, Individual #1 was heard going around to others in the camp and agitating against us. He told people that (some of whom happened to be our friends), to paraphrase, “Historically communists only join movements to split them”. This was of course without ever talking to us about our politics or our intentions; Individual #1 prefers to act in a sneaky manner rather than having political disagreements in the open. We believe Individual #1 contributed in the creation of an atmosphere which encouraged violence toward us.
What followed the disastrous GA was altogether positive. Many of the hidden rifts in the camp were forced open, and there was plenty of political discussion. Some of the hidden leadership began questioning the consensus and GA structure that we had adopted at Occupy Ottawa. By the next morning things seemed to have calmed down quite a bit; our tent existed in a weird space of non-officiality, but nobody (it seemed) was questioning our right to be there and conduct propaganda work.
The next night everything changed. During the half hour or so that we had left the camp to grab coffee, Individual #1 decided to it would be funny to hang a feces, urine, and blood covered blanket over our tent. Despite promoting the leaderless nature of this movement, he had someone carry this action out. After initially denying involvement in this act, he later said he suggested it as a “joke”. It’s worth noting that he stated to others that he said he intended to do it but only for a short time where we couldn’t see it because he thought it would be funny. He also alleged that he thought that there was only urine on the blanket, as if that makes things any better.
Individual #1 speaks out of both sides of his mouth; it really isn’t relevant what justification he gives at any given moment or to any given party. What is relevant is that Individual #1 thought it would be a good idea to hang a urine, blood, and feces soaked blanket on our tent. It was later revealed to us that the blood on the blanket belonged to an individual who may be infected with a communicable blood disease. This was an incredibly violent act on the part of Individual #1, which put all of us in danger.
(As a brief aside, we want to point out that we don’t hold any grudges against the individual whose blood was on the blanket. Many people have different diseases for a multitude of reasons; it’s up to us to build structures and communities that can properly care for all people. This being said, the fact that the blood was diseased complicated matters for us.)
Because the blanket had blood on it, it was decided that our tent be put under quarantine for 16 hours; the amount of time the communicable blood disease takes to break down outside of the human body. In order to maintain the quarantine, we watched the tent until 4:30AM at which point the medic committee was to take over. During the quarantine process, Individual #2 continually used old-fashioned HIV scare tactics to suggest that the tent should just be torn down. During the night, someone approached the tent to tear it down, and when they were stopped, they said that someone had given them drugs to do so. Sometime between 4:30AM and 9:00AM Individual #2 tore down the tent using his bare hands. When questioned that morning by someone not involved with us, he replied “These people need to go. They are going to divide this movement.”
We returned to the camp that morning in an effort to get Individual #1 expelled for his actions. This still has not been done; we were told by a member of the hidden leadership that Individual #1 “does too much work to leave.”
Later that day, the spot that the tent formerly had been (which should have still been under quarantine), was taken over by another tent. Individual #2 claimed that the community had come to a consensus that we had to go, that the location was too good to allow us to use, and that we had failed the community by not enforcing the quarantine throughout the night. By failing to enforce the quarantine after 4:30AM, we were told that we had passed our problem onto the community that that this was unacceptable. All of this was decided, he told us, at a secret morning meeting that we had been invited to but had failed to show up at. Throughout the entire conversation Individual #2 was attempting to physically intimidate us. Everything Individual #2 had said was of course false; there had been no decision beyond the one at the GA two nights earlier that allowed us to conduct propaganda work. We discovered this after taking to people around the camp. Let it also be known that at no time did Individual #2 attempt to tear down the media tent, where the blanket had also been hanging for some time.
The tent had been disposed of in a location that we are still unaware of. All of our propaganda materials –pamphlets, books, flags, banners, etc.– were left in a pile with the contaminated materials. As of now we have still not been compensated for either the tent or the materials.
Evaluating the safety of our situation, and the relative effort and resources we were putting into the movement VS gain we were getting out of it, we decided to leave. We decided to have one final conversation with Individual #1 and Individual #2 to try and get a more coherent picture of what happened. The conversation with Individual #1 ended with Individual #1 running away and screaming “Fascists!” at us, a statement he maintains is fact. The conversation with Individual #2 ended with more physical intimidation, threats of violence directed at us, and Individual #2 screaming “The communists are taking over!” It shouldn’t need to be stated that we are neither fascists, nor were we trying to take over.
It was these last interactions that confirmed for us that the attacks we had been facing were targeted and political in nature. For a movement that claims to be inclusive and non-violent, we faced both ostracisation and violence. On the part of the hidden leadership, there was no willingness to create a space that was safe for us.
Since we left we have heard reports of Neo-Nazis setting up in the camp. One of our friends was threatened by them, with the Neo-Nazis not only threatening to cover her in urine, but also following her home (away from the camp) for a short time. This is unacceptable.
We would like to underline that some of the experiences at the camp were positive, and some of the people we met and conversations we had were fantastic. However, until these issues are dealt with, we cannot in good conscience return to the camp. To this end, here are a series of suggestions that could have prevented this from happening, and they are the bare minimum required for our return:
1) The lack of involvement of much of the left hurt this movement. While no individual should feel obligated to challenge things like racism, sexism, etc. the left as a whole does have a duty to do this. Many on the left refused to engage in the movement, and because of that, right wing and anti-social politics were allowed to manifest themselves in the movement. A chorus of “shit’s fucked up” is not helpful; what is helpful, is people on the ground making changes.
2) Individual #1 and Individual #2 need to be removed from the camp. We cannot feel safe in this camp until they are gone.
3) Occupy Ottawa needs to have some form of organized force in order to remove anti-social elements like the fascists.
4) Drug and alcohol use should be controlled within the camp. This should be done in a way that recognizes that many homeless people use Confederation Park as a place for drug and alcohol use, and by no means should they be prevented to do so or kicked out. Those on active duty within the camp (medic, safety, legal, etc.) should be sober.
Until these actions are taken, we will not involve ourselves with this movement anymore. Here’s hoping the real decision makers at Occupy Ottawa are willing and listening.
October 28, 2011
Friday, October 28, 2011
Oakland - Courageous, Determined Resistance in the Face of Brutal Police Assault
Occupy Oakland:
Courageous, Determined Resistance in the Face of Brutal Police Assault
Revolution received the following report:Thursday, October 27, 2011. As we post this report about developments with Occupy Oakland many things are going on. Oakland's mayor Jean Quan's first statement after the brutal police attack on Occupy Oakland Tuesday night had praised the police. But under widespread criticism, Quan issued another statement on Thursday expressing concern for those injured in the police assault and promising an investigation. She also said people would be allowed to return to the Occupation area. And Thursday night, there was a General Assembly in the Plaza and people had set up camp again. The courageous, determined resistance of the Occupiers, the broad outrage at the police violence, and support from others have forced the authorities to take back a step, for now. This is a real victory for the people.
In the wake of fierce resistance in the face of two massive police operations in one day, the Occupy movement in Oakland announced its decision to take its struggle to another level: a general strike and day of mass action for November 2. Across the Bay, in San Francisco thousands gathered at the occupy encampment Wednesday night to prevent a police raid, joined by some city supervisors and candidates for mayor—and though there were buses and police staging across town the attack never came. The authorities seems to be somewhat in disarray, under a spotlight after launching the violent police actions in Oakland on Tuesday—still wanting to crack down, still lying about why, and trying to blame the protesters for provoking the police violence. Meanwhile a young man, Scott Olsen, lies unconscious in critical condition in an Oakland hospital from injuries he received at the hands of the police on Tuesday. Revolutionaries have been involved in this struggle and filed this report.
At 4 pm, on Tuesday, a crowd of 500 people gathered in front of the library in downtown Oakland, just blocks away from Frank Ogawa Plaza, which the people have renamed Oscar Grant Plaza. A facilitator spoke from the steps and balcony, giving props to the librarians who had refused police requests to close. Different people, reflecting the diversity of the movement, gave short statements that were repeated peoples' microphone style. A homeless woman spoke of her love for the movement. A teacher said the system was broken and there is a need for revolution. An announcement was made that we would march to "reclaim the plaza," where the police had attacked and dismantled Occupy Oakland early Tuesday morning, and received roaring approval.
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| Scott Olsen, seriously injured by police projectile, Oakland, October 25, 2011 photo: Jay Finneburgh |
Before the march left the plaza, rapper and musician Boots Riley said:
"I'm proud to see all of you shown' up here in Oakland to show to show that you are committed to that…All over the world, people are wondering what's goin’ to happen here in Oakland. People that are not involved in the movement are looking to see if this is a movement they want to join. People that are in the movement want you guys to win. We are the 99%.We will stop the world and make those motherfuckers jump off. I've been told that we are going to march and take back Oscar Grant Plaza for our comrades that are in jail for the people watchin’ all around the world and for your grandchildren who you'll want to tell that you were here."
The march took off towards Broadway, where an army of police, standing behind metal barricades occupied the plaza, the march turned left toward the police station. It was clear the people would not stand for being bullied. On one corner near the station riot police brandishing huge shotguns with belts displaying shiny shells stood posing. People yelled at the police, "shame, shame" and got up in their faces. There was an arrest. The march split into two. On a smaller street, police grabbed and handcuffed two people and then were surrounded by a crowd of hundreds of angry people demanding "let them go!" Eventually, more cops came in and set off some kind of small explosive. The march scattered briefly, only to reunite with another crowd that had been split off before.
People were determined to go to the plaza and started marching toward it. A chant initiated by revolutionaries resonated with the crowd and rang out again and again: "Rise up with the people of the world. Rise up, rise up, rise up." The march filled the area in the intersection, in front of the line of heavily armed police blockading Oscar Grant plaza. The crowd was chanting "The role of police: to serve and protect—not us—but the 1 percent!"
Suddenly there were extremely loud noises, flashes and sounds of shots. Sparks flew on all sides of us as we ran, people were getting hit. Then the tear gas spread, and people were coughing and covering their faces. In this first big attack, a member of Iraq Veterans against the War was hit in the head at close range by a police projectile.
We talked with photographer Jay Finneburgh who witnessed and photographed the police attack:
"I was at 14th and Broadway about 15 feet from the police line. Without warning they started lobbing flash bang grenades into the crowd. Several went over our heads in the middle of the crowd, they released tear gas.... Scott Olsen, who was directly behind me, got hit in the head and crumpled to the ground. I thought he had tripped and was going to get back up, but I turned around and noticed he was still on the ground and he wasn't moving. Several and myself went back to him. I took several shots while protesters, who were trying to figure out what was wrong with him, started screaming for a medic. And then they lobbed another flash bang right into the group surrounding Scott Olsen. In one of the images I have there is a large flash of light and one of the activists is cringing, and that is when the flash bang grenade went off. At that point there was so much gas I couldn't breath. Three or four people were carrying Scott Olsen, they got him to 15th and set him down. He was bleeding from the head and looked dazed. Somehow people got him to the hospital and I hear he is in stable but critical condition with brain swelling and a two inch crack in his skull. Later I noticed the blood stains where Scott Olsen had gone down and a few feet away I picked up a police projectile, a bean bag. But I heard that police are saying it was a tear gas canister which meant the police must have shot it, not into the air but at head level from only 15 feet away."
During the evening and late into the night many people were hit with projectiles that were shot or lobbed by police, but the people did not go away. Some people reported they heard that tear gas canisters were picked up and thrown back at police. Youth of all backgrounds were predominant in the crowd. There were many people of all ages from the bottom of society. And there was a general sense of comradeliness among people in the huge crowd. Again and again people regrouped, marched, and fearlessly faced the army of riot cops. They chanted "Who are You Protecting?" and "We're still here!" They also put a sports-type chant to good use: "Let's-go, Oak-land!"
There were at least five, maybe seven more attacks that night by police who came from many different cities, and the Internet is filed with photos of protesters with bruised backs, stomachs and legs and some bloodied faces. The National Lawyer's Guild and the ACLU have both issued statements condemning the police actions in Oakland demanding an investigation. They told Revolution that they are getting calls from people who were injured by police projectiles and some from people who fell sick from being tear gassed at close range, including a woman in a wheelchair. They do not yet have figures on the numbers of people injured, nor the extent of their injuries. They are trying to document the different munitions used by the police.
An official police press released blatantly lied about the use of force and made up a ridiculous story that the protesters were the ones using explosives:
Q. Did the Police deploy rubber bullets, flash-bag grenades?
A. No, the loud noises that were heard originated from M-80 explosives thrown at Police by protesters. In addition, Police fired approximately four bean bag rounds at protesters to stop them from throwing dangerous objects at the officers.
Q. Did the Police use tear gas?
A. Yes, the Police used a limited amount of tear gas for a small area as a defense against protesters who were throwing various objects at Police Officers as they approached the area.
In spite of repeated attacks protesters stayed in the streets late into the night, and thousands showed up for the general assembly in the plaza the next evening on Wednesday. The fences were taken down by the people. The police had backed off, for the evening. There were vigils for Scott Olsen. And there were reports of demonstrations from New York to Cairo in support of the people in Oakland. After consensus was reached for the November 2 general strike, people again took to the streets and marched until the early hours of Thursday morning. Occupy Oakland's announcement for the November 2 general strike and mass action ends with the words, "The whole world is watching Oakland. Let’s show them what is possible."
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The following was posted at the Occupy Together website www.occupytogether.org/ Call for Vigils for Scott at Occupations Everywhere
This morning Occupy Oakland and Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) put out a call for occupations across America and around the world to hold solidarity vigils for Scott Olsen, a former Marine and two time Iraq War veteran. Olsen sustained a skull fracture after being shot in the head on October 25 with a police projectile while peacefully participating in an Occupy Oakland march.Occupy Oakland and IVAW—an organization that Scott Olsen is a member of—are organizing the Oakland vigil. It will be held today, Thursday, October 27, 7:00 pm PST, during the General Assembly of Occupy Oakland at 14th St. and Broadway.
They are also calling on other occupations that are part of the 99% movement to take time to vigil for Scott this evening. Some occupations will take a few moments during their General Assembly to hold Scott in their thoughts, to honor his commitment to social justice, and to hope for his strong recovery.
Scott joined the Marines in 2006, served two tours in Iraq, and was discharged in 2010. Scott moved to California from Wisconsin and currently works as a systems network administrator in Daly City.
Scott is one of an increasing number of war veterans who are participating in America's growing Occupy movement. Said Keith Shannon, who deployed with Scott to Iraq, "Scott was marching with the 99% because he felt corporations and banks had too much control over our government, and that they weren't being held accountable for their role in the economic downturn, which caused so many people to lose their jobs and their homes."
People across the country reacted with outrage yesterday to the police brutality unleashed against peaceful people engaged in protest in Oakland—and particularly to the injury of Scott Olsen. Occupy Oakland has been a public forum, set up on public land, concerned with critical public issues about the nation’s financial crisis, consolidation of wealth and power, and the ability of citizens to meaningfully participate in the democratic process. The brutality they were met with sends a chilling message to those who want to serve their country by working for social change.
Scott is currently sedated and in critical condition at a local hospital.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Police attack Occupy Oakland with massive force: over 100 arrested
Police attack Occupy Oakland with massive force: over 100 arrested
 Photo: Dave Id |
 Photo: Dave Id |
Tuesday, October 25: At 3 a.m. word went around that the encampment would be raided. Later they would learn that hundreds of cops began staging at the Oakland Coliseum at around 1 a.m. Back at the camp, a couple hundred people prepared to stand their ground. Two youths told me that they waited for the raid but that when it happened it was swift and overwhelming—much more violent than anyone expected: a military assault.
At 4 a.m. hundreds of police in riot gear from many different cities cordoned off the blocks of the area around City Hall and Oscar Grant Plaza (Frank Ogawa Plaza), kept the media out, and completely surrounded the camp. Police made a dispersal announcement and simultaneously moved on the camp, ripping up tents, scattering belongings everywhere. Flash grenades went off and smoke filled the air. Someone tweeted that as the attack ensued, the encampment marching band was playing, hard. About 70 people were arrested. As word spread of the attack, others came to downtown Oakland to protest. Police made more arrests—we witnessed incidents of police suddenly swarming in on people and taking them away. This afternoon the National Lawyers Guild told Revolution that a total of over 100 people had been arrested.
The second encampment (Snow Park) near Lake Merritt was also raided. People told Revolution of beatings they witnessed, including one involving a disabled woman. One man was beaten so bad he could not walk to the paddy wagon and an ambulance had to be brought in to take him away. For a few hours after the camp was destroyed people continued to stay in the street, to gather in groups, confronting the police and denouncing the assault. Black, white, Asian, Latino, old, young, homeless and well-heeled: the crowd was diverse and deeply angry.
Oakland Mayor Quan defended the raid in the name of “sanitation” and “public safety” in a press conference she held with the chief of police in City Hall, behind police barricades after this violent raid was carried out. No one from the public was allowed in. Mayor Quan issued a statement defending the raid and praising the police. “I commend Chief Jordan for a generally peaceful resolution to a situation that deteriorated and concerned our community. His leadership was critical in the successful execution of this operation.”
This is not over. There is a planned regroupment at 4 p.m. today at the Main Library in downtown Oakland, followed by a march to a City Council meeting scheduled for this evening. Protesters are reportedly being held on $10,000 bail each until a Thursday morning court date. People are being urged to call the mayor (510-238-3141) and the Sheriff (510-272-6878) to demand their immediate release.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Call for a new estraordinary week of support people'war in India !
The International Committee to support the people's war in India, that was born on the appeal launched at the International meeting in Paris on January 2010 and gained the participation of comrades from several countries, with the mobilization of the week 2 to 9 of April has shown an international extent and played a role in promoting information and taking side in support of the People's War in India, in the context of the more general situation of class struggle, imperialism and the struggle of the proletarians and oppressed people, decided, in the framework of the protracted campaign, handling the contradictions in the different countries, to launch a new international week of action from 14 to 22 January 2012 with the slogans:
“the repression by the Indian government does not stop but feeds the People's War”
“may the wind of the People's war reach the proletarian masses all-around the world”
The campaign opens the work that leads to the international conference of support planned for the summer 2012.
The campaign includes initiatives and meetings in different countries to collect signatures and organize the participation to the International Conference.
The Committee calls the Icawpi and all the committees of solidarity with the people's war and the Indian revolution to organize this activity together with us.
Adherence, internationally and in each country can be of any organization, political parties, committees that decide to participate, whether individually or as a group or platform of organizations.
The Committee calls on all the blogs and web-sites, that are giving a big contribution to the knowledge of people's war India, the exposure and strugle again st of the Operation Green Hunt, and to widespread the documents of the CPI(M), to play their important role in realizing the campaign and for the success of the International Conference in 2012.
The Committee, taking lessons from the previous campaign in 2-9 April 2011 is primarily aimed at the proletariat and the masses for a massive participation in initiatives.
The Committee invites all the adhering forces to consider that the support for People's War in India is the datum that unites and mobilizes.
The Committee, in particular in the imperialist countries, will mobilize particularly in a campaign against Indian transnationals companies that expand even in the imperialist countries.
The Committee reiterates that it supports in the form of solidarity all the people's wars and the anti-imperialist struggles ongoing in other countries in the world and considers all of them important and decisive in the tsruggle against imperialism.
The Committee will bring in all anti-imperialist demonstrations against the political and economic summit of imperialists and the imperialist war, the support to the PW in India, the propaganda and the invitation to attend the International Conference
International Committee to Support People's War in India
October 2011
csgpindia@gmail.com
El Comité Internacional de apoyo a la guerra popular en la India
- nacido en la apelación de la reunión de enero 2010 en París y que recogió la
adhesión de camaradas de diferentes países, ha dimostrado, a travès de la
semana de movilización del 2 a 9 de abril, el alcanze internacional y su
función de promoción, información y la toma de posición en apoyo de la guerra
popular en la India, en el contexto más general de la situación de la lucha de
clases, del imperialismo y de la lucha de los proletarios y pueblos oprimidos
– decidió, en el marco de la campaña prolongada, tratando las contradicciones
en los diferentes países, de lanzar una nueva semana de acción internacional
desde 14 a 22 de enero, 2012, con las siguientes palabras de orden:
"La represión del gobierno de la India y del imperialismo, no apaga sino
alimenta la guerra popular"
"Que los vientos de la guerra popular en la India llegan a las masas
proletarias en todos los rincones del mundo"
La campaña abre la fase que nos va a conducir a la Conferencia internacional
prevista para el verano de 2012.
La campaña incluye iniciativas y reuniones en diferentes países para recopilar
la adhesión a la Conferencia Internacional y organizar la participación.
El Comité pide all'Icawpi y todos los comités de solidaridad con la guerra
popular y la revolución de la India para organizar juntos esta actividad.
La adhesión a nivel internacional y en cada país puede ser de todas las
organización, los partidos, los comités que deciden participar, ya sea
individualmente o como grupo o cartel de las organizaciones.
El Comité hace un llamamiento a todos los blogs y los sitios que están
contribuyendo mucho al conocimiento de la guerra popular de la India, a la
queja en contra de la operación Cacería Verde, y difundir los documentos del
PCIm. Para jugar un papel importante en la implementación de la campaña y el
éxito de la Conferencia Internacional 2012.
El Comité sobre la base de las lecciones de la campaña anterior, 2-9 abril,
tiene como objetivo principal el proletariado y las masas para una
participación masiva a las iniciativas.
El Comité invita a todos los que se unen a considerar que el apoyo a la GP de
la India es el dato que une y moviliza.
El Comité, en particular en los países imperialistas, se movilizará en la
campaña en la lucha contra las multinacionales indias que amplían incluso en
los países imperialistas.
El Comité reitera que apoya en forma de solidaridad todas las guerras
populares y las luchas antiimperialistas que se desarrollan en otros países del
mundo, considerandoles todas como importantes y cruciales en la lucha contra el
imperialismo.
El Comité aporterá en todas las manifestaciones anti-imperialista, contra las
cumbres políticas y económicas del imperialismo, contra la guerra imperialista,
la campaña de apoyo, la propaganda y la invitación para participar a la
Conferencia Internacional
Comité Internacional de Apoyo a la guerra popular en la India
octobre 2011
csgpindia@gmail.com
csgpindia@gmail.com
Le Comité International de soutien à la guerre populaire en Inde - né à partir de l'appel du meeting de Janvier 2010 à Paris et qui a recueilli l'adhésion des camarades de différents pays, a démontré, avec la semaine de mobilisation du 2 à 9 avril, sa portée internationale et sa fonction de promotion, d'information et de prise de position en soutien de la guerre populaire en Inde, dans le contexte plus général de la situation de la lutte de classe, de l'impérialisme et de la lutte des prolétaires et des peuples opprimés - a décidé, dans le cadre de la campagne prolongée, traitant avec les contradictions dans les différents pays, de lancer une nouvelle semaine internationale d'action du 14 au 22 Janvier 2012 avec les mots d’ordre:
“La répression du gouvernement indien et de l'impérialisme n’arrête pas mais, au contraire, alimente la guerre populaire”
“Que le vent de la guerre populaire en Inde arrive aux masses prolétariennes dans tous les coins du monde”
La campagne ouvre la phase qui nous emmènera à la conférence internationale prévue pour l'été 2012.
La campagne comprend des initiatives et des réunions dans les différents pays pour recueillir l'adhésion à la Conférence internationale et organiser la participation.
Le Comité invite l'Icawpi et tous les comités de solidarité avec la guerre populaire et la révolution indienne à organiser cette activité ensemble.
L'adhésion au niveau international et dans chacun des pays est ouverte à toutes les organisations, les partis politiques, les comités qui décident de participer, individuellement ou en tant que groupe ou cartel d'organisations.
Le Comité appelle tous les blogs et les sites qui contribuent beaucoup à la connaissance de la guerre populaire en Inde, à dénoncer et lutter contre l'opération Green Hunt, à diffuser les documents du PCI(maoïste) et à jouer un rôle important dans la réalisation de la campagne et dans le succès de la Conférence internationale de 2012.
Le Comité, en s'appuyant sur les leçons tirées de la campagne précédente du 2 au 9 avril, s’adresse principalement au prolétariat et aux masses populaires pour une participation massive aux initiatives.
Le Comité invite toutes les forces qui s'associent à considérer que le soutien à la GP en Inde c’est la donnée qui unit et mobilise.
Le Comité, en particulier dans les pays impérialistes, va se mobiliser dans la campagne dans la lutte contre les multinationales indiennes qui s’élargissent même dans les pays impérialistes.
Le Comité réitère qu'il soutient en forme de solidarité toutes les guerres populaire et les luttes anti-impérialistes qui se développent dans d'autres pays du monde, en les considérant toutes importantes et cruciales dans la lutte contre l'impérialisme.
Le Comité portera la campagne de soutien, la propagande et l'invitation à participer à la Conférence internationale dans toutes les manifestations anti-impérialistes, contre les sommets politiques et économiques de l'impérialisme, contre la guerre impérialiste.
Comité International de Soutien à la guerre populaire en Inde
Octobre 2011
El Comité Internacional de apoyo a la guerra popular en la India
- nacido en la apelación de la reunión de enero 2010 en París y que recogió la
adhesión de camaradas de diferentes países, ha dimostrado, a travès de la
semana de movilización del 2 a 9 de abril, el alcanze internacional y su
función de promoción, información y la toma de posición en apoyo de la guerra
popular en la India, en el contexto más general de la situación de la lucha de
clases, del imperialismo y de la lucha de los proletarios y pueblos oprimidos
– decidió, en el marco de la campaña prolongada, tratando las contradicciones
en los diferentes países, de lanzar una nueva semana de acción internacional
desde 14 a 22 de enero, 2012, con las siguientes palabras de orden:
"La represión del gobierno de la India y del imperialismo, no apaga sino
alimenta la guerra popular"
"Que los vientos de la guerra popular en la India llegan a las masas
proletarias en todos los rincones del mundo"
La campaña abre la fase que nos va a conducir a la Conferencia internacional
prevista para el verano de 2012.
La campaña incluye iniciativas y reuniones en diferentes países para recopilar
la adhesión a la Conferencia Internacional y organizar la participación.
El Comité pide all'Icawpi y todos los comités de solidaridad con la guerra
popular y la revolución de la India para organizar juntos esta actividad.
La adhesión a nivel internacional y en cada país puede ser de todas las
organización, los partidos, los comités que deciden participar, ya sea
individualmente o como grupo o cartel de las organizaciones.
El Comité hace un llamamiento a todos los blogs y los sitios que están
contribuyendo mucho al conocimiento de la guerra popular de la India, a la
queja en contra de la operación Cacería Verde, y difundir los documentos del
PCIm. Para jugar un papel importante en la implementación de la campaña y el
éxito de la Conferencia Internacional 2012.
El Comité sobre la base de las lecciones de la campaña anterior, 2-9 abril,
tiene como objetivo principal el proletariado y las masas para una
participación masiva a las iniciativas.
El Comité invita a todos los que se unen a considerar que el apoyo a la GP de
la India es el dato que une y moviliza.
El Comité, en particular en los países imperialistas, se movilizará en la
campaña en la lucha contra las multinacionales indias que amplían incluso en
los países imperialistas.
El Comité reitera que apoya en forma de solidaridad todas las guerras
populares y las luchas antiimperialistas que se desarrollan en otros países del
mundo, considerandoles todas como importantes y cruciales en la lucha contra el
imperialismo.
El Comité aporterá en todas las manifestaciones anti-imperialista, contra las
cumbres políticas y económicas del imperialismo, contra la guerra imperialista,
la campaña de apoyo, la propaganda y la invitación para participar a la
Conferencia Internacional
Comité Internacional de Apoyo a la guerra popular en la India
octobre 2011
csgpindia@gmail.com
on Gaddafi Executed, Western imperialist vultures descend on Libya from AWTWnews
Gaddafi Executed, Western imperialist vultures descend on Libya
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The Events in Libya in Perspective
The uprising in Libya is an expression of profound discontent in Libyan society. Broad sections of Libyan society, taking inspiration from events in Tunisia and Egypt, have risen against an oppressive regime. And this uprising in Libya is part of the wave of rebellion sweeping through the imperialist-dominated Middle East.
But when you compare events in Libya with those of Egypt, there are two major differences.
First, in Libya, you have a situation where imperialist intrigue is commingling with genuine and just mass upheaval. This makes things highly complicated.
In Egypt, the uprising was overwhelmingly a product of mass discontent against a U.S-backed client regime. But U.S. imperialism had a reliable base within the leadership and command structure of the Egyptian military. Now the outcome of the uprising in Egypt has by no means been sealed. Protests are still erupting, people are debating what’s been accomplished and what hasn’t. U.S. imperialism has important capacities and assets inside Egypt.
That’s not the case in Libya. You don’t have that kind of military apparatus with such close ties to the U.S. So this creates both necessity and opportunity for the U.S. and West European imperialists. They are reaching out to and seeking to bolster oppositional forces in Libya who might be the embryo of an entirely new neocolonial regime, one that would be a more pliant tool of Western interests. And it can’t be ruled out that imperialist operatives have, from the very beginning of this uprising, been assisting some of the oppositional forces.
While there is genuine and just mass upheaval, there are also significant elements of imperialist manoeuvring involved. These are things that we need to analyze and understand more deeply.
The second major difference between what’s happening in Libya and the upheavals in other parts of the Middle East is Gaddafi himself. Muammar Gaddafi is not the same as Mubarak.
I know this is not the official story line of the State Department or the narrative put out on CNN about a crazed, autocratic ruler... but Gaddafi actually had popular support when he came to power in 1969, especially from sections of the intelligentsia and professional and middle classes. He had popular bases of support for many years of his rule.
For three decades, Gaddafi was viewed by many inside and outside of Libya as someone standing up for the genuine national interests of Libya... as someone who stood against imperialism and the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
Gaddafi is not the same as the openly servile Hosni Mubarak... even though the Gaddafi regime never fundamentally broke with or fundamentally challenged imperialism.
Libya did not really exist as a unitary state until after World War 2. It gained its formal independence in 1951.
In the late 1500s, the coastal regions of what is today Libya were conquered by the Turkish Ottoman empire. In 1910, Italian imperialism moved to colonize the area of Libya. Libya is strategically located in North Africa on the Mediterranean Sea. When Italy came to the imperialist banquet table, other colonial powers had already imposed their presence in the region. The British ruled Egypt. The French had colonized Algeria. From 1911 to 1943, Italy employed savage means to consolidate its rule in Libya. The historian Abdullatif Ahmida describes this as one of the most brutal colonizations of the 20th century.
Italy was on the losing side of World War 2. After the war, the U.S. and Britain put their weight behind a pro-Western constitutional monarchy in Libya headed by King Idris. He allowed the U.S. to set up Wheelus Air Base. It was one of the U.S.’s largest overseas military facilities... and the base was used for military training, missile testing, and for fighter and reconnaissance missions.
It was only in 1959 that large oil deposits were discovered in Libya. U.S. and European companies moved in big time to set up production operations. The banking sector grew rapidly, especially after an oil pipeline to the Mediterranean Sea was finished. Oil revenues soared through the decade of the 1960s. But the foreign oil companies were getting the lion’s share of earnings. And what oil wealth did return to Libya... it was concentrated in the hands of a small mercantile, banking, and speculator elite.
Poverty remained widespread. So, mass resentment against the Idris monarchy was growing.
Then you had the impact of regional and world events. In 1967, Israel attacked Egypt and Syria with the support of the U.S. In Libya, students, intellectuals, and workers organized mass actions and strikes. There were also protests against the U.S. war in Vietnam. Unrest was spreading in the face of the Libyan government’s total subordination to the West.
In the 1960s, a wave of national liberation struggles – in Asia, Latin America, and Africa – was battering imperialism and shook the international order. This aroused literally hundreds of millions throughout the world to rise in resistance. This was a time when a new nationalist spirit was being stirred, when ideas of Arab unity against imperialism were taking hold. It was a time when revolutionary China was influencing social forces and Marxism-Leninism was a big part of the ideological discourse. But the fact that the U.S. was under this kind of siege also provided openings for many different class forces who had been held down by imperialism. They saw new possibilities.
Gaddafi was part of a group of young army officers influenced by the pan-Arabist and social reformist ideas of Gamal Nasser, the leader of Egypt. Gaddafi came from poor desert-tribal origins, and other radical-minded officers came from lower-class backgrounds. The military was one of the few institutions in Libyan society that afforded them any chance of training and mobility.
These young army officers were outraged by the corruption and subservience of the ruling regime. IIn 1969, they organized a coup against the King and constituted a new government out of what they called their Revolutionary Command Council.
Gaddafi argued that Libya’s national sovereignty had been bartered away, that foreign capital had been allowed to dictate to the Libyan people. He accused the old order of squandering Libya’s oil resources and doing little to alleviate the suffering of the Libyan people.
He forced the U.S. to accelerate its timetable for closing down Wheelus Air Base. He moved to nationalize banks. He made the government a major stakeholder in the oil industry. He promised to develop agriculture and industry and did direct some funds into these sectors. He enacted social programs in the 1970s that over the next 20 years led to real improvements in mass literacy, life expectancy, and housing. These actions and polices had popular support.
But for all of Gaddafi’s anti-imperialist rhetoric, this whole project rested on the preservation and expansion of Libya’s oil-based economy. It rested on Libya’s continued insertion into the global capitalist system... its division of labour and international relations of exploitation.
Gaddafi relied heavily on Western Europe as a market for Libyan oil. He used oil revenues to buy French jets, to attract German manufacturing capital to Libya, and even to become a major investor in Italy’s largest auto company. Italy, the old colonial power, was allowed to keep its operations going in Libya.
Gaddafi harnessed oil revenues to restructure society. He was creating a social welfare system with particular political features. He set up “people’s committees” at local levels in order to widen his political support and to redirect tribal and clan loyalties toward the central regime. At the same time, he outlawed unions and independent political organization and muzzled press criticism of the regime.
He used oil revenues to build up a large security and military apparatus... both to put down any internal opposition to the regime and to project Libya as a political model and regional force in the Middle East and Africa.
Ideologically, the Gaddafi regime combined social welfarism and pan-Arabism with retrograde values. Islam was made the official state religion. Women had more opportunities than before, but patriarchal Sharia law was made the foundation of legal-social codes. Gaddafi was vehemently anticommunist... and claimed to be finding a third way between capitalism and communism.
The reality was that Gaddafi was creating a state capitalism... based on oil revenues and beholden to world imperialism for markets, technology, transport, and investment capital.
Gaddafi was changing things, but within the existing framework of imperialist dominance, capitalist property relations, and a complex web of tribal loyalties and regional divisions.
There was nothing truly transformative in terms of breaking with imperialism. There was nothing truly transformative in terms of the masses having the kind of leadership and radically different political state power that could enable them to remake the economy and society in a truly liberating direction.
Bob Avakian has this very incisive formulation about “three alternatives” in the world. Now I am paraphrasing here, but he basically says this. The first alternative is to leave the world as it is... which is totally unacceptable. Or you can make some changes in the distribution of wealth and forms of rule, but leave the basic exploitative production and oppressive social relations of society and the world basically intact. That’s the second alternative.
Or, and this is the third alternative, you can make a genuine revolution. A revolution that aims to transform all relations of exploitation, all oppressive institutions, all oppressive social arrangements, and all enslaving ideas and values... a revolution to overcome the very division of human society into classes. That third alternative is the world proletarian revolution to achieve communism.
Gaddafi’s program, his social and economic model, fits into that second alternative that changes some aspects of the status quo but keeps the oppressive essence of existing social order the same.
The notion of Gaddafi as a “strongman” obscures the essence, the class essence, of things. This is what Marxism enables us to understand.
Look, all societies at this stage of human history are divided into classes. Leaders don’t float in some ether. They concentrate the outlook, the methods, and aspirations of different classes. Gaddafi and those military officers who took power in 1969, what I was talking about earlier... they represented and concentrated the outlook of a radicalized sector of the petty bourgeoisie and national bourgeoisie of a nation oppressed by imperialism.
They felt stymied by imperialist subjugation. And from their class standpoint, the problem, as they saw it, was that Libya was getting a bad deal. They wanted to make market mechanisms, which are based on exploitation and the production of profit, somehow “work” for the benefit of the whole nation. They had this illusion that they would be able to wrench concessions from imperialism... and force imperialism to come to terms with them. But the fact is: global capitalism operates according to a definite logic and imposes its norms on these societies and economies.
These bourgeois nationalist forces claimed to speak for the whole nation. They saw their interests as being identical with the interests of all social classes in the nation. But there are dominant and dominated classes in these nations.
One of the slogans that Gaddafi raised was: “not wage earners but partners.” In other words, here you have this system based on profit and integration into capitalist world markets, but somehow you could turn everyone into equal stakeholders. That was both populist rhetoric and illusion, ignoring the basic antagonism between workers and capitalists.
In Libya, wage-labor is part of the foundation of the economy. There’s 20 percent unemployment. The reality is that wage earners cannot be “partners” of capital.
My point is that whatever idiosyncrasies Gaddafi might have... if you want to understand the Gaddafi program, you have to analyze the class interests and outlook that he represents and how those interests were interacting with the world situation.
When Gaddafi consolidated power in the early 1970s, the regime had certain things going for it in world politics and world economics. To begin with, the U.S. was facing defeat in Vietnam and its global economic power was weakening. So that created some space.
Second, the Soviet Union was challenging the U.S. globally. Now the Soviet Union claimed to be socialist. But socialism in the Soviet Union had been overthrown by a new capitalist class in the mid-1950s. The Soviet Union became a social-imperialist power. By the mid-1970s, it was contending for influence and control in different parts of the world. Part of its global strategy was to build up client regimes in key areas of the Third World. The Soviet Union began offering economic aid, oil agreements, and diplomatic support to regimes like that headed by Gaddafi... and the Soviets became a major weapons supplier to Libya.
And there was a third factor. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the world oil industry was going through changes. The major oil companies were entering into new arrangements with oil producers in the Third World. Formal control over production was allowed to pass into the hands of Third World governments and their state oil companies. Imperialist domination was exerted through control over oil refining, marketing, technology, and finance. But now producer countries had more latitude at the production level... you have the Third World producers cartel, OPEC. And in the 1970s the price of oil was rising. These developments worked to Gaddafi’s advantage.
But the bourgeois nationalist forces such as Gaddafi were neither willing nor able to lead the masses to break with imperialism and to carry forward a liberating social revolution. They chafed under imperialism but also feared the masses. Again, this has to do with theclass nature of these rulers: they were held down by relations of imperialism but could not see beyond a world in which they control exploitative relations... rather than a world that has abolished exploitation.
So here you have Gaddafi... securing his hold on power... wheeling and dealing with imperialism... and seeking to modernize an oil economy subordinated to the norms of world capitalist production. Over 95 percent of Libya’s export earnings were coming from oil, and in the 1973-83 decade, Libya became one of the three largest weapons importers in the Third World. This was distorted and dependent development.
On the international stage, Gaddafi criticized conservative Arab regimes and presented himself as the real champion of the Palestinian people’s rights. He voiced support for African liberation. This was part of his popularity.
Gaddafi was demonized by the U.S. Imperialists in the 1980s, but this had nothing to do with the repressiveness of the regime or Gaddafi’s style of rule. I mean the U.S. was propping up brutal client regimes and “strongman despots” in Central America – and their human rights violations made Gaddafi look positively benign. The problem the U.S. imperialists had with Gaddafi was his close ties to the Soviet bloc... the problem they had was assertiveness in supporting certain radical movements and groups that might benefit the Soviet bloc at a time when the rivalry between the U.S. and Soviet-led blocs was heading towards a global military showdown.
At that time Ronald Reagan provoked aerial fights with Soviet-made Libyan jets off the Libyan coast. The U.S. set out to punish the regime with economic sanctions and diplomatic pressures. U.S. oil companies suspended operations.
Libya has been a significant energy supplier to Western Europe. This was a source of tension between the U.S. and the West European imperialists. I think there is strong evidence that Reagan’s military attacks on Libya that I referred to earlier were also aimed at bringing the West European imperialists more closely into line, as the face-off with the Soviet social-imperialist bloc was intensifying.
Under U.S. pressure, the UN imposed sanctions on Libya. These moves to isolate Libya began to pinch Libya’s economy and periodic declines in world oil prices hurt the economy as well. And Libya’s oil industry was in need of upgrading and new investment.
Then in 1989-91, the Soviet Union and its bloc collapsed. This marked a qualitative shift in international relations. It knocked a lot of the wind out of Gaddafi’s project. He no longer had this great power backing. And the demise of the Soviet Union gave the U.S. new freedom—and it moved to exploit this new freedom in the Middle East and other parts of the Third World. In this changed situation, Gaddafi began cultivating closer ties with the West European imperialists. By the end of the 1990s, relations were restored with Great Britain. Italy was allowed greater sway over Libya’s oil and natural gas sectors.
The U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 was another turning point. It put more pressure on Gaddafi—would Libya be next? Gaddafi was also worried about a fundamentalist Islamic challenge to his rule. So he began making overtures to the U.S. After 9/11, the Gaddafi regime started sharing intelligence about al-Qaida-type forces with the U.S. In 2004, Gaddafi announced that he was giving up various nuclear and other weapons programs. The U.S. took Libya off its list of “terrorist states.” Gaddafi became a valued ally in the U.S. war against terrorism. Bush gave the green light to U.S. oil companies to sign new contracts with Libya. Gaddafi began privatizing some sectors of industry.
Gaddafi bowed and scraped before the imperialists. Last year he signed an agreement with Italy to seal off the crossing routes for undocumented African immigrants coming through Libya to Europe. This was ugly. He demanded billions in payment for patrolling borders... and he issued racist warnings that Europe would turn “black” unless it adopted stricter measures to turn back African immigrants. This was the “rehabilitated” Gaddafi whose son met with Hillary Clinton... this was the Gaddafi that the London School of Economics was accepting huge donations from... the Gaddafi that the British were now selling arms to. The imperialists found Gaddafi useful and “workable.”
In early February 2011, the International Monetary Fund released a report on Libya’s economy and commended the Gaddafi government, and I’m quoting, for its “ambitious reform agenda” and “strong macroeconomic performance”... and “encouraged” authorities to keep on this promising path. What higher praise, than from the IMF!
But now, when it suits them, and it’s really brazen... when they might be able to utilize mass discontent to install an even “more workable” regime, the imperialists are back to the master narrative of “Gaddafi the madman,” “Gaddafi the strongman.”
I’ve focused a lot on the class nature of Gaddafi and the social-economic character of the development model that the Gaddafi regime was pursuing. This is important in understanding how things have unfolded and how growing numbers of people turned against Gaddafi and this model.
Over the last decade, oil wealth and nationalized properties were becoming the province of a narrower and narrower circle, including the extended Gaddafi family... and more of this wealth was being invested abroad.
The widespread censorship became increasingly unbearable at a time when people were seeking outlets for expression. Dissidents were being arrested. There was a thirst for political life outside the official structures. The so-called “people’s councils” were largely discredited, having become arms of a patronage system and tools of a surveillance network. There was a thirst for cultural diversity – until recently, foreign languages could not be taught in the schools. Health care has deteriorated recently. Unemployment has risen.
Gaddafi’s response has been heavier repression... while looking to invigorate the economy with infusions of Western capital. One of the paradoxes of recent years is that when the sanctions were lifted, and the sense of siege abated, Gaddafi’s anti-imperialist and nationalist appeals did not have the same resonance. His militant “luster” had worn thin... the allegiance he previously commanded was dissipating.
The uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt lit a fuse As we’re doing this interview, the situation in Libya is both cloudy and bloody. Gaddafi announced his intention to fight to the end to retain power. Right now the central government controls Tripoli and the western regions of the country, while oppositional forces have taken command of the east. Some ministers and military figures have gone over to the opposition and become part of a nucleus of another government in the making.
Some within this “interim national government council” are calling for Western air strikes to aid them. This is a reactionary demand that represents a craven pro-imperialist stance. This is not in the interests of the Libyan people, who have long suffered under imperial domination.
Something to keep in mind is that this is the first upheaval in the region that has disrupted oil production. Libya has the largest proven oil reserves of any African country, and Libya supplies a significant share of Europe’s oil needs. So this too is a factor influencing imperialist calculations. The imperialists are using the pretext of “humanitarian concern” as an ideological wedge for possible military intervention.
What kind of leadership?
One of the things to emphasize here, looking at the situation in Libya and the continuing struggle in Egypt, is that the notion of “leaderless” movements... it’s untrue and it’s very damaging.
In Libya, as in Egypt, different class and social forces have been in the field. They are bringing their interests and outlooks into the fray... and various forces are vying for leadership and seeking to push these movements in certain directions. You have lawyers assembling in eastern Libya who want to restore the old 1952 constitution, which served a decrepit political and social order. And doctors, university professors, students, disaffected youth, and workers who had taken to the streets... well, they are part of a larger swirl in which reactionary tribal leaders, former ministers, and colonels are angling for position and leadership. You have some people who are trying to settle old scores. You have youth raising slogans “no to tribalism and no to factionalism.” And in this same swirl, the imperialists are manoeuvring.
Different class forces are bringing forward leadership, programs, and agendas that correspond to their interests. And different sections of society are looking for leadership.
The question is not leadership or no leadership. No, the question is what kind of leadership? Serving what goals? Using what methods to achieve those goals? And where there is no truly revolutionary and communist leadership, history has repeatedly shown that the masses lose... the people who are the most bitterly oppressed and exploited... and who yearn for and most desperately need fundamental change... they get left out and betrayed.
In his recent statement on Egypt, Bob Avakian speaks to these issues very powerfully, and I want to read from it. He says: “When people ... in their millions finally break free of the constraints that have kept them from rising up against their oppressors and tormentors, then whether or not their heroic struggle and sacrifice will really lead to fundamental change, moving toward the abolition of all exploitation and oppression, depends on whether or not there is a leadership, a communist leadership, that has the necessary scientific understanding and method, and on that basis can develop the necessary strategic approach and the influence and organized ties among growing numbers of the people, in order to lead the uprising of the people, through all the twists and turns, to the goal of a real, revolutionary transformation of society, in accordance with the fundamental interests of the people.”
But, and this brings me back to issues of class, to make the kind of revolution that can really emancipate all of humanity... this requires bringing forward the basic sections of the people as the backbone and driving force of revolutionary transformation and as conscious emancipators of all humanity. It requires a leadership capable of doing so. So there are important lessons to be drawn from what is happening. There are big challenges to rise to. And as Avakian has also emphasized, the future remains to be written.
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