Arundhati Roy on Kashmir

Kashmiris defy Indian troops for self-determination

25 October 2010. A World to Win News Service.

The pictures of young people and teenagers with their faces covered throwing stones at security forces firing real bullets remind us of the Palestinian intifada, but this time in another corner of the world.

In another photo, we see no dead or funerals, but the cries of grief from women of different ages standing next to each other clearly indicates that they are mourning a murdered family member.

The body of a young man is held high by a crowd while hundreds of people gather around in another picture. The men’s faces are full of anger. Some point their finger as if they were threatening someone. Some are full of grief. Teenagers standing quietly in the corner of the picture seem to be thinking of revenge.

What the Hell Is Happening in Nepal?

This piece appeared on truthdig (two months ago on September 1). It includes commentary on anti-Maoist critiques from forces in the international Left.

Supporters of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) dance to a patriotic song as they block a road in Katmandu. AP / Altaf Qadri

KATMANDU, Nepal—On Sept. 5, Nepal’s parliament will attempt to elect a prime minister, the sixth try in almost three months. Nobody is ringing gongs in anticipation of success.

The impasse reflects the deep antagonism between the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) and the country’s traditional parties.

Four years ago the Maoist guerrillas stopped fighting and agreed to run in parliamentary elections. Two years later, much to the surprise of the traditional parties, the Maoists won a plurality in popular elections for a Constituent Assembly. Newspaper columnist and political analyst Prashant Jha told me, “The Maoists have gone through tremendous changes in the last few years” and have to be treated as a serious political force.

Arundhati Roy: Whither Kashmir? Freedom or Enslavement?

This article is from Times of India.

Indian Colonialism Replaced British Imperialism:  Arundhati Roy

Srinagar: Advocating the right to self-determination for the people of Kashmir, author-activist Arundhati Roy on Sunday contended that in 1947, British imperialism was replaced with Indian colonialism which “continued to subjugate the people of India.”

Speaking at a seminar titled “Whither Kashmir?  Freedom or Enslavement,” Roy asked Kashmiris to ponder on the type of society they have in mind for themselves.

“Imperial colonialism is fast being replaced by corporate colonialism and Kashmiris would have to make a choice whether or not they wanted the Indian oppression to be replaced by a future corporate oppression of the local masses,” she said.

Arundhati Roy in Kashmir: I May Be Arrested

This appeared in The Hindu. Arundhati Roy is the author of many works, including Walking With the Comrades.

by Arundhati Roy

October 26, 2010 — I write this from Srinagar, Kashmir. This morning’s papers say that I may be arrested on charges of sedition for what I have said at recent public meetings on Kashmir.

I said what millions of people here say every day. I said what I, as well as other commentators have written and said for years. Anybody who cares to read the transcripts of my speeches will see that they were fundamentally a call for justice. I spoke about justice for the people of Kashmir who live under one of the most brutal military occupations in the world; for Kashmiri Pandits who live out the tragedy of having been driven out of their homeland; for Dalit soldiers killed in Kashmir whose graves I visited on garbage heaps in their villages in Cuddalore; for the Indian poor who pay the price of this occupation in material ways and who are now learning to live in the terror of what is becoming a police state.

Yesterday I travelled to Shopian, the apple-town in South Kashmir which had remained closed for 47 days last year in protest against the brutal rape and murder of Asiya and Nilofer, the young women whose bodies were found in a shallow stream near their homes and whose murderers have still not been brought to justice.

FIRE Collective Event: Reportback from the Revolution in Nepal

This was originally on thefirecollective.org.

Austin, TX Event: Reportback from the Revolution in Nepal

The Mountains Tremble: A Reportback from the Revolution in Nepal

Nepal is a small land-locked country where communist revolution is changing everything. People are rising up against kings, castes and imperialism. Women are rising to lead. The revolution is related to the revolution unfolding in India. In May and June of 2010, Eric Ribellarsi traveled to Nepal to report on these events. Eric Ribellarsi’s presentation will tell the story of this revolution, the current situation in Nepal, and feature video and photography from his journey.

Saturday, November 6, 2010 @ 1PM

ACC Pinnacle Campus, Room 1013

7748 Highway 290 West

Austin, TX 78736

Presented by The FIRE Collective and Twelfth Revolution

Download PDF

Nepal: Strategic Differences and the Road Forward

This article is from myrepublica.

Maoist Plenum to Discuss Separate Papers

Kathmandu, Oct. 12: The Maoists have decided to take separate political documents  prepared by the top three leaders — Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Vice chairmen Mohan Baidya and Dr. Baburam Bhattarai — to the party plenum, scheduled to begin November 14 in Gorkha district, for debate and discussion.

A meeting of the top office bearers took a decision to this effect recently.

The last central committee meeting of the party had decided that Chairman Dahal  would accomodate the views expressed in the separate documents prepared by Baidya and Bhattarai and prepare a new one for presentation at the plenum.  As per the decision, the vice-chairmen duo will present their documents at the plenum if they are not satisfied with Dahal’s new document.  “The leaders agreed to take the separate documents to the plenum as that would be more democratic,” said Maoist politburo member Narayqan Sharma.

An Analysis of the US Counterinsurgency Guide 2009

US Special Forces training Philippine army

This was originally in Ang Bayan, Sept. 20th, 2010.

US Counterinsurgency Guide 2009: Guide to imperialist intervention and aggression and counterrevolutionary war

Executive Committee-Central Committee,
 Communist Party of the Philippines

The US COIN Guide was issued by the US government in January 2009. It presents US imperialism’s current official doctrine in fighting revolutionary armed struggle in colonial and semicolonial countries.

It is allegedly the product of summed-up experiences in implementing “counterinsurgency” in various parts of the globe for the past 40 years and was the result of collaborative efforts of nine US government agencies and/or offices led by the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, Department of State.

The agencies involved in writing the US COIN Guide 2009 are the Department of State, Department of Defense, Department of Justice, Department of The Treasury, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Agriculture, Department of Transportation, Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the US Agency for International Development.

Through the document, the US government speaks as a sole superpower and self-appointed international policeman. It unabashedly presents the various types and levels of interference and intervention, which are undertaken with or without the permission of the targeted subject of ‘assistance’ or client government, in the name of fighting “insurgency.”

Maoists in India: Writings & Interviews by Comrade Azad

Maoists in India: Writings & Interviews by Azad

Thanks to Frontlines of Revolutionary Struggle for posting this.

This is to announce a new book – Maoists in India: Writings & Interviews by Azad, published by Friends of Azad. Below are the Preface and Table of Contents to generate your interest.  The book is priced Rs 100 in India and $ 6 outside India. The books can be had from Varavara Rao, 203, Lakshmi Apartments, Malakpet X Roads, Hyderabad, India 500036.

With regards

Friends of Azad

In Honour of Our Friend

We, the friends of Cherukuri Rajkumar (Azad), present this bouquet of his writings and interviews collected from popular newspapers and websites, to all those who are interested to know the ideas of the Maoist politics in India in general and Azad’s articulation of the politics in particular. Azad has been our friend for more than thirty years and as much time, two thirds of his short life of 56 years, he spent developing, exploring, elucidating and debating these ideas.

A voracious reader and prolific writer that he was, the writings collected here might be less than a tenth of his literary output. Much of his writing was anonymous or under different pseudonyms in clandestine journals and documents and we leave it for future research to prepare his collected works, most probably with active support from the party for which he was a spokesperson, member of Central Committee and Politbureau at the time of his brutal killing by police on July 2, 2010 in Adilabad forests of Andhra Pradesh.

Tale of Rebellion of Lalgarh and Jungalmahal

Nepal: Maoist Leader’s Reiterate-PLA Won’t Be Dissolved, YCL Will Expand

The following was originally published on Nepal News , Saturday October 9th under the headline “PLA won’t be dissolved”

At a time when the UCPN (Maoist) is coming under increasing pressure to integrate its combatants, some Maoist leaders have said the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will not be dissolved.

Speaking at a picnic organised by Maoist youth wing, Young Communist League (YCL) , Maoist standing committee member and the military in-charge Barshaman Pun said other parties were trying to ‘finish off’ the Maoist party by dissolving the PLA.

Pun, who is a member of the Special Committee for supervision, integration and rehabilitation of the Maoist combatants, said the Maoists will not give up arms before they are sure of the future of the peace process and the constitution-drafting.

Speaking at the same function, PLA chief Nanda Kishor Pun said that the PLA “is ready to make whatever sacrifice people want”.

Nepal – PLA Slams Indian Allegation!

This article was published in Nepal News.

PLA Slams Indian Allegation of Naxalites Receiving Training in its Camps as ‘Propaganda’

Nepal News  12 October 2010

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) on Tuesday refuted the news about Nepal’s Maoists imparting training to Indian Maoists on Nepali soil as ‘baseless and ficticious.”

Issuing a statement on today, PLA chief Pasang expressed regret at these kinds of “baseless and ficticious propaganda” and said he completely denounces it.

In a report that appeared in Monday’s edition of the Indian Express newspaper, the Indian government claimed that Indian Maoists sneak into Nepali territory to get training from the Maoists’ PLA fighters and international terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Toiba.

According to report, the Indian Home Ministry gave the details of the movement of Maoists from India to Nepal and vice-versa and requested the Maoist Naxalite-hit states “to stay on high alert in the fight against Naxalites.”

The report said that the Indian home ministry note says that on June 28, the Maoists from Andhra Pradesh who were led by Comrade Pankaj from Bihar, crossed over to Malangwa in Nepal  and joined 20 trainees undergoing training in the PLA camp.

In the statement Pasang said that these kinds of allegation has only raised suspicion whether some forces are conspiring to derail the ongoing peace process and constitution writing in Nepal in order to create a premise for greater intervention in the country’s internal affairs. nepalnews.com

Arundhati Roy – The Poverty of India’s Trickle-Down Revolution, Pt. 2

This is the second part of a two-part series.  The first part was posted here.  This was originally in Newstatesman.com

The Crisis of Indian Democracy (Part 2)

By Arundhati Roy

Newstatesman – September 11,2010

Over the past few months, the government has poured tens of thousands of heavily armed paramilitary troops into the forest. The Maoists responded with a series of aggressive attacks and ambushes. More than 200 policemen have been killed. The bodies keep coming out of the forest. Slain policemen wrapped in the national flag, slain Maoists, displayed like hunter’s trophies, their wrists and ankles lashed to bamboo poles; bullet-ridden bodies, bodies that don’t look human any more, mutilated in ambushes, beheadings and summary executions. Of the bodies being buried in the forest, we have no news. The theatre of war has been cordoned off, closed to activists and journalists. So there are no body counts.

On 6 April 2010, in its biggest strike ever, in Dantewada the Maoists’ People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA) ambushed a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) company and killed 76 policemen. The party issued a coldly triumphant statement. Television milked the tragedy for everything it was worth. The nation was called upon to condemn the killing. Many of us were not prepared to – not because we celebrate killing, nor because we are all Maoists, but because we have thorny, knotty views about Operation Green Hunt. For refusing to buy shares in the rapidly growing condemnation industry, we were branded “terrorist sympathisers” and had our photographs flashed repeatedly on TV like wanted criminals.

What was a CRPF contingent doing, patrolling tribal villages with 21 AK-47 rifles, 38 Insas rifles, seven self-loading rifles, six light machine-guns, one Stengun and one two-inch mortar? To ask that question almost amounted to an act of treason.