CPI (Maoist): No Question Of Giving Up Arms

Patnaik’s call for talks is sheer hypocrisy!

No question of giving up arms as long as exploitation and oppression persist!!

We shall continue to arm the masses with arms seized from enemy!!

—Press Release by CPI (Maoist)

On 24th February, the Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik announced that he was prepared for talks with the Maoists if they gave up arms. This call for abandoning arms as a precondition for talks is quite amusing, to say the least, as it had come particularly in the wake of the daring Nayagarh multiple raids in which over a thousand arms were confiscated by the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army led by our Party. It is relevant to point out in this context that his claim of having recovered 80% of the arms and 70% of the ammunition seized by the Maoists is sheer humbug and an attempt to boost up the sagging morale of his mercenary police force.

Most of the arms and ammunition had safely reached the Maoist bases breaking the encirclement attempts by the anti- Naxal special police and central paramilitary forces guided by helicopters. The call of Naveen Patnaik to the Maoists to give up arms is as naïve,or rather as foolish, as someone asking him to give up exploitation and oppression of the people of Orissa and stop being a servile manager of the imperialists and comprador capitalists. Asking the Maoists to give up arms, while announcing in the same breath, the setting up of another five India Reserve Battalions in the state and equipping the forces with the most sophisticated weaponry, is like the devil itself citing scriptures. The CC, CPI(Maoist), considers the proposal of talks by the Orissa government as a mere publicity stunt and reaffirms its commitment to spread the flames of armed struggle throughout the state of Orissa which is being reduced to a backyard of the imperialist MNCs and comprador big business sharks.

India: Maoists Strike Hard

[Thanks to Ka Frank]

Maoists strike again: 21 cops killed in blast

(AFP) 17 July 2008 BHUBANESWAR – At least 21 Indian police commandos were killed yesterday in a Maoist rebel attack in the mineral-rich but impoverished east of the country, officials said.

The attack came as top officials met in New Delhi to try and devise a strategy to stamp out the worsening left-wing guerrilla revolt in a large swathe of the country left out of India’s economic boom. Federal home ministry and state officials said a special counter-insurgency unit was hit by a landmine blast while patrolling Malkangiri district, a known Maoist stronghold in the far south of Orissa state. “So far we can confirm 21 policemen belonging to special operations group were killed in the landmine blast,” Orissa’s police chief, Gopaal Nand, told AFP in state capital Bhubaneswar. “The policemen were travelling to locate landmines, as the rebels had organised roadblocks on a strategic road,” he said, adding that fighting was continuing into the night.