English Voice of Nepal’s Maoist Revolution: Red Star #17

The recent edition of the Red Star, newspaper of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) is now available in English. This issue (published July 16-31 on Krishnasen Online)  contains an important article by Prachanda (aka Pushpa Kamal Dahal) on the problems of forming the Nepal’s next government and who must lead it, the so-called program of army integration,  the question of holding the Party Vongress during the People’s War period and more.

We share this extract:

The government must be formed under the leadership of our Party

by Prachanda, Chairman UCPN-M

The Politburo meeting that was held for the long time has decided that it will lead the national united government. if it’s sure that the national united government will be formed, who will be the prime minister?

The Politburo meeting has decided that national unity government must be formed under the leadership of UCPN (M). When the time comes to form that government, our party will finalise about the leadership. We didn’t discuss it this time. The main focus is that the government must be formed under the leadership of our party. It’s the party that counts, not the person.

Kashmir: Wikileaks Exposes India Torture & U.S. Complicity

The following from the British Guardian (December 16).

A leaked cable documents the Indian government torture in Kashmir. Photograph: Tauseef Mustafa/AFP/Getty Images

“In 852 cases, the detainees reported ill-treatment, the [Red Cross] said. A total of 171 described being beaten and 681 said they had been subjected to one or more of six forms of torture.

“These included 498 on which electricity had been used, 381 who had been suspended from the ceiling, 294 who had muscles crushed in their legs by prison personnel sitting on a bar placed across their thighs, 181 whose legs had been stretched by being “split 180 degrees”, 234 tortured with water and 302 ‘sexual’ cases, the ICRC were reported to have told the Americans.”

The central Indian government has long threatened and dominated people on India’s border regions. They invaded East Pakistan, they absorbed Sikkim, they have waged war on their borders with Pakistan and China, and they have engaged in intrigues within Sri Lanka, they have carried out relentless counterinsurgency against the people on their eastern borders.

Indian domination — through unequal treaties, political infiltration and economic weight — is one of driving concerns of the Maoist revolution in Nepal.

Now Wikileaks has provided a chilling insight into the ruthless and and brutal mechanisms of that Indian domination: the massive dump of U.S. government cables includes evidence of systematic torture by Indian forces in the occupied northern border region of Kashmir — where the people have long struggled for self-determination and independence.

The cables also reveal that the U.S. has had detailed knowledge of that Indian torture for years: The same U.S. government that has tortured its own Muslim opponents in a secret network of CIA prisons around the world turns a blind eye when its Indian ally carries out torture of Kashmir’s people on their own  soil.

Wikileaks: U.S. Ambassador Urged Learning from India’s Brutal Counterinsurgencies

U.S. Ambassador Mulford -- Eager student and partner in Indian torture and counter-insurgency

“Using every opportunity available to signal our interest in learning from India – which has successfully tackled ’asymmetrical’ insurgencies in Punjab and Kashmir – will go a long way to reduce this distrust and may prompt Indian officials to be more receptive to our offers of support,”
U.S. Ambassador  Mulford, secret embassy cable, Feb. 23, 2007.

India describes itself as “the world’s largest democracy.” And the U.S,. as we all know, portrays itself as “the shining city on the hill” — supposedly inspiring all of humanity.

But now, thanks to Wikileaks, we can see that the alliance of India and the United States involved a sinister sharing of experience — a joint interest in counterinsurgency. India sees itself as an expert — having fought the aspirations of many peoples within and beyond its borders. And apparently the U.S. agrees.

This experience we have all now learned includes the extensive, systematic and ongoing torture of people under Indian occupation in Kashmir. A focus on torture? Something else the U.S. and India have in common.

The following was published in the Hindu.

U.S. Complicit: As India Tortures Kashmir’s People

This appeared on the World Socialist Web Site.

US complicit in India’s systematic use of torture in Kashmir

By Deepal Jayasekera
21 December 2010

US diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks show that Washington has long had evidence of Indian authorities’ systematic use of torture against opponents of Indian rule over Jammu and Kashmir, but has chosen not to speak out against New Delhi’s gross human rights violations.

In a classified cable sent in April 2005, the then-US ambassador to New Delhi, David C. Mulford, reported to the US State Department on a “confidential briefing” embassy officials had received from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) “on widespread severe torture in Indian prisons in Kashmir between 2002 and 2004.”

“The continued ill-treatment of detainees,” reported Mulford, “despite longstanding ICRC-GOI (Government of India] dialogue, have led the ICRC to conclude” that New Delhi “condones torture.”

In their briefing, the ICRC officials emphasized that those subjected to torture by Indian authorities were generally not anti-Indian insurgents—since Indian security forces have a standard practice of summarily executing suspected insurgents. Rather they were noncombatants, those accused of providing the insurgents support or suspected of having useful information: the “detainees were rarely militants (they are routinely killed), but persons connected to or believed to have information about the insurgency.”