New broadcasts on the state murder of Maoist leader Kishanji

India: Thousands rally to honor murdered Maoist leader Kisanji

This photo shows the thousand who honored Kisanji in his hometown — Karimnagar, Andhra Pradesh. The people condemned the state murder of this beloved leader — and denounced the outrageous use of “false encounter” justifications.

Even some of the police there were reportedly mourning and crying.

The people sang the “Song of Resistance” in his honor — and as a sign of their deepest yearnings for liberation and revolutionary change.

India’s people mourn Maoist leader Kishenji

Revolutionaries and oppressed peoples all over the world are mourning the assassination of CPI(Maoist) leader Kishenji. The loss is especially difficult for the people of India, even as they gather to celebrate his life and contributions to human liberation.

There is evidence Kishenji killed in what is called a “fake encounter.” This is an incident when police or paramilitaries capture a person, kill her/him in detention, and then manufacture evidence to make the killing look like it occurred in combat. It is nothing but cowardly, ruthless, cold-blooded murder. Indian state forces have often engaged in this practice to cover up their ruthless persecution of Maoist and Adivasi (tribal) people. 

This article appeared at the Hindustan Times.

Hundreds Pay Last Respects to Kishenji

November 27, 2011

Maoist sympathisers, revolutionary writers, singers, representatives of various people’s organisations, civil liberties activists and hundreds other on Sunday paid their last respects to slain Maoist leader Kishenji in his hometown Peddapalli in Andhra Pradesh. People in large numbers turned up at Kishenji’s house to pay their tribute and console his family members. With folded hands, the mourners were seen passing by the flower bedecked coffin amid huge police presence.

Nepal – Line Struggle for the Future in Rolpa

A woman in Rolpa district, Nepal.

In the Kasama article Nepal’s Crossroads: Without a People’s Army, the People Have Nothing , written in June 2011, Eric Ribellarsi and Mike Ely wrote:

“There is a revolutionary people in Nepal – that has matured through the complex ebbs and flows of a real revolutionary situation. There are bases of the Peoples Liberation Army where determined commanders remain focused on seizing state power. There are cores of communist revolutionaries at all levels of the Maoist party who are seeking to carve a way forward. There are embryos of popular militias and peoples power. And there are millions and millions of Nepali people caught between hope and frustration – wanting a new Nepal and a new world.”

Here is one story of Nepalis who have given their lives for revolutionary change. Now, as the fate of the revolution looks less certain, they are stuck in precisely that state between hope and frustration . It appeared at asianewsnet.

An Encounter in Ghorabi

Adiya Adhikari

The Kathmandu Post 5-10-11: After the end of the war, Saraswati Magar (name changed) , a Maoist activist from Rolpa, built a single-story two-room brick house on a small plot of land on the outskirts of Ghorabi, Dang.

Nepal – Dev Gurung – “We Need to Recommence our Revolution.”

Revolution in South Asia continues to provide news about the ongoing line struggle within the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist). One section of the party believea a path to socialism is impossible in Nepal at this time. The other wants to continue the revolution to its completion, moving Nepal forward to New Democracy and socialism.

The following article features statements by a leader of the revolutionary faction within that party. It originally appeared at redstarnepal.com, which has emerged as the English language voice of the revolutionary wing of Nepal’s Maoists.

Nepalese Leaders are Acting as Cowards

Kathmandu, November 19: Chief Whip of Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), Dev Gurung has said that uncompleted people’s war and revolution need to be finalized to its goal.

Speaking to an inaugurating ceremony of Nagarik Yuwa Bikas Club Saturday in Kathmandu, he said that grass roots people’ s mandate has not been fulfilled.

Losing our brother Kishenji

We received the terrible news that the leading Indian Maoist Kishenji (AKA Mallojula Koteswara Rao) was murdered in by government forces in a “fake encounter.” Kishenji was a leading figure and spokesman for India’s Maoist (Naxalite) movement — and reportedly the military leader of their embryonic popular armed forces.

The following is one of the more recent accounts of outrage and exposure.

Our hearts are with the brave communist fighters of India and the hundreds of millions of oppressed people who dream of liberation.

This article is re-posted from our sister site,  Kasama.

Varvara Rao:

Maoist leader Kishenji was tortured before being killed

Telugu poet and Maoist sympathiser Varvara Rao Friday alleged that top Maoist leader Kishenji was tortured before being killed in a fake encounter and demanded a white paper from the West Bengal government.

“Kishenji was subjected to inhuman torture as his body bore marks of several injuries and he was killed in a fake encounter 24 hours after being nabbed. I demand a white paper on the killing,” Rao told reporters at the state secretariat.

Rao also demanded filing of a case under section 302 in compliance with NHRC norms against those responsible for the killing in a memorandum to Home Secretary G D Gautama.

He alleged that four other Maoists were still being held in captivity ‘like Kishenji’.

Rao said that Kishenji’s niece Deepa Rao had arrived with him from Peddapalli in Andhra Pradesh and should be allowed to identify the body.

“Kishenji’s mother is very old and a cancer patient. She wants to see her son. Kishenji’s body should be brought to Kolkata for preservation and sent to Hyderabad.

“The body should be handed over to the family with due honour as he was a political worker,” he said, acknowledging that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had announced that Kishenji’s last rites would be performed with honour.

“The Andhra Pradesh government killed many Maoists in this way, but at least it conducted the post mortem complying with NHRC norms. Azad’s body (another Maoist top leader killed in encounter few years ago) was sent to his Delhi residence in accordance with NHRC norms,” Rao said.

Alleging that the present state government was closely following the style of functioning of the preceding Left Front regime, he said “I think there is no need for any discussions with the fascist, imperialist and feudalistic government in the present situation”.

“Kishenji, (CPI-Maoist secretary) Ganapathy and many others favoured talks which is no longer required in the present situation, nor are interlocutors,” he said.

Rao was accompanied by two Association for Protection of Democratic Rights members, besides Deepa.

Corporate attacks on India’s peasants

As Lenin observed back in 1916, imperialist countries export financial capital to poorer countries, in order to exploit their resources and labor. Back then, most of these countries were formally colonized. With the assistance of less powerful capitalist regimes and firms, finance capital based in the imperialist countries is still able to plunder these formerly colonized nations. While banks like JP Morgan Chase and Citigroup have swindled US workers and forced many people out of their homes, they also help destroy communities on the other side of the globe. 

The following article from Samar discusses the transnational dimensions of capitalist exploitation and shows concrete links between US banks and the displacement of indigenous people and peasants in India. It also highlights the need for  international solidarity with oppressed peoples all over the world–the vast majority of the 99% are outside the US and Europe:

People in the west have joined the global south in putting corporate greed on trial. We can only hope that this unified voice will strengthen the ongoing resistance of those on the periphery to bring about some real victories to the people directly affected by the crimes of corporate capital.

What the article doesn’t mention however, is the Maoist organizing and resistance in Orissa and other areas of India that are targeted by Indian and international corporations. A diagnosis of these problems is one thing. Finding effective ways to resist–and form new societies–is another issue altogether, and one the Maoists of India have taken seriously.

Land Grabs and Corporate Steel

November 14, 2011

by Neil Agarwal, Sufina Ali and Prachi Patankar

For the past six years, forest dwelling peasant communities in the Indian state of Orissa have been living under the threat of dispossession by the largest proposed foreign direct investment in the history of the country. Pohang Iron and Steel Company (POSCO), a South Korean conglomerate and third biggest steelmaker in the world, has set its sights on acquiring over four-thousand acres of land and access to rich mineral deposits of the region. If realized, this twelve billion dollar project will displace a community of 22,000 tribal people for the sake of a steel plant, strip 20,000 fishermen of their means of support to allow for a captive port, and cause long-term environmental damage through unsustainable mining of iron ore. The stakes of this project extend beyond simple tabulations of those whose lives and livelihoods are under immediate attack; because of the sheer size of POSCO, its outcome may determine the conditions under which foreign capital is allowed to enter the subcontinent in the future.

Discussion of ‘Occupy Wall Street’ in Nepal

This article is from redstarnepal.com,  which has emerged as the English language voice of the revolutionary wing of Nepal’s Maoists.

‘Occupy Wall Street’: New Trend of Global Movement

Kathmandu, 23 October: In the specific name of ‘Occupy Wall Street’, millions of people gathered together in the common places over 1,500 cities globally. Hundreds of US cities were occupied and many of the Chowks and the cross roads were liberated that day.  The slogan was made broader under ‘occupy together’. This made participation of the people broader and more effective.

Monsanto’s zombie crops in Nepal?

Imperialist countries often use development aid to force neoliberal economic reforms on poorer countries. USAID, the US government’s notorious ‘foreign aid and assistance’ program has a history of promoting export-oriented agricultural production in countries like Haiti. This is what happened there: 

This “aid” from the Americans, along with the structural changes in the countryside predictably forced Haitian peasants who could no longer survive to migrate to the cities…where the new manufacturing jobs were supposed to be.  However, when they got there they found there weren’t nearly enough manufacturing jobs go around.  The city became more and more crowded.  Slum areas expanded.  And to meet the housing needs of the displaced peasants, quickly and cheaply constructed housing was put up, sometimes placing houses right “on top of each other.”

USAID is operating in Nepal, and not just in easily accessible urban areas. Reporters from the blog Winter Has Its End observed projects associated with USAID in fairly remote, rural areas of the country, where small-scale peasant agriculture is the primary occupation. If Nepal follows a capitalist path of development, its future might resemble Haiti’s. 

The article below suggests USAID  in Nepal is working with Monsanto, one of the most widely hated corporations in the world.  Genetically modified crops sold by companies like Monsanto have destroyed the lives of farmers in India, causing many to commit suicide. This note  from USAID’s site confirms that the organization is helping Monsanto to push its hybrid varieties of corn, However,  it disavows the claim that GMO seeds are part of the deal. 

As usual, reports from the bourgeois press should be considered with some caution. The article originally appeared here.

Monsanto partners with USAID to push GM corn in Nepal

Sunday, November 20, 2011

by Jonathan Benson

The southeast Asian country of Nepal is once again having to fight against foreign interests that are trying to take over its agricultural system. Biotechnology giant Monsanto apparently has its sights set on bringing genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) to this sliver of a country just north of India, and it is allegedly working with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), a so-called humanitarian group, and officials in Nepal to make it happen.

Arundhati Roy Slams Silence on India’s Brutal Occupation of Kashmir

New York: Renowned Indian activist and novelist Arundhati Roy has decried the silence of the international community over the continued “brutal Indian occupation of Kashmir” and said Kashmiris should be given the right of self-determination.

This article is from www.dawn.com

“Kashmir is one of the most protracted and bloody occupations in the world – and one of the most ignored,” she told a large audience at the Asia Society during a discussion on “Kashmir – a Case for Freedom”.

Under the Indian military rule in Kashmir, Ms Roy said, freedom of speech was non-existent and human rights abuses were routine. Elections were rigged and the press controlled.

She said the lives of Kashmiris were made miserable by gun-totting security personnel who harassed and terrorized people with impunity, adding that disappearances were almost a daily occurrence as also kidnapping, arrests, fake encounters and torture.

Mass graves have been discovered and the conscience of the world remains unstirred.

What is the road to revolution in Nepal?

The following response to an earlier post about the 7 point agreement on Nepal’s Army integration raises a number of important questions. How did counter-revolutionary lines develop within the UCPN(M)? Was it due to the class backgrounds of certain leaders? Or was it due to incorrect or dogmatic views of the path to New Democracy and socialism?

And, ultimately, what is the road to socialism in a country like Nepal, which is still shaking off its feudal class relations and is vulnerable to the global reach of military and economic imperialism? What kind of transitional stages are necessary? Should revolutionaries unite with the bourgeois parties who want to bring investment from India and elsewhere to ‘develop’ Nepal along capitalist lines? The revolutionary forces in Nepal have argued that this is a road to further immiseration for the vast majority of the country’s people. 

We encourage readers to share their views on these questions.

by Kumar Sarkar

Siva said: “Leaving aside what the likes of Bhattarai and Hisila Yami had in mind when joining the Maoist Party, we need to examine how others from different class backgrounds and with healthy attitudes got corrupted– and that may include Dahal.”

Bhattarai and Yami did not ‘sneak’ into the party. Nor did Prachanda. They joined with honest intentions of ‘fighting for socialism’.

Nepal: Revolutionary peasants refuse to return land

Peasants with the ANPF(Revolutionary) flag

One of the aims of the  People’s War (1996-2006), was to provide “land to tiller,” or free agricultural land for peasants to farm individually or collectively. To accomplish this, the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) helped peasants confiscate lands from feudal lords or rich landowners. This was especially necessary in the heavily-populated Terai region in Southern Nepal, where arable land is scarce relative to the population.

However, according to the terms of the recent Seven-Point Agreement, peasants have been ordered to return much of this land. Peasants who are part of All Nepal Peasants Federation-Revolutionary are refusing to do so.

This development is especially interesting, as some leaders of the ANPF(Revolutionary) are aligned with Prachanda, who signed the seven-point agreement. What this means, if anything, is not clear. 

Peasant Against Returning Land

by RedStar

Kathmandu, 16 November:

All Nepal Peasants Federation-Revolutionary (ANPF (Revolutionary) has declared not to return the land; which was confiscated in the period of People’s War. It was declared in a press meet held in capital city Kathmandu yesterday. ANPF-Revolutionary is standing against the returning of the land where the poor and homeless people are farming for their livelihood making their small huts.

Nepal – Bhutanese refugees go on hunger strike

For more of the history and significance today of the Bhutanese Refugees see the SAREV article  from Nov. 13, 2011: Bhutanese Refugees: Pawns of US imperialism

This article is from myrepublica

Bhutanese refugees on hunger strike

RSS

Jhapa, Nov. 15:  The Bhutanese refugees in Jhapa district who have been deprived of identity cards and the government relief packages have staged a fast-unto-death from Tuesday, demanding identity cards.

Some 15 Bhutanese women refugees have joined in the hunger strike.

Nepal – Raising the Flag of Revolt – Comrade Thapa “Badal”

This address was at the press-meet by Comrade Badal  which was held in Kathmandu against the 7-point agreement made the night before.

The tone is emotional.  In particular Badal is furious with the attempt to dissolve the PLA.   He says 

“the rightest deviation, which dissolved the PLA that has sacrificed itself for the peace and transformation, will be gone soon.  Hundred thousands of new PLA soldiers will take birth from the ashes of the dissolved PLA.”

This article is from redstarnepal.com

  We Have Raised the Flag of Revolt-Ram Bahadur Thapa “Badal”

2 November 2011

Today is the historic day for all of us in the course of fighting against imperialism and the expansionism. This moment we are holding a press-meet in a historic moment because we are going to express even our commitment but not only the opinion.

Nepal’s Revolutionaries call for PLA to abandon army integration

Nepal’s Revolutionary Maoist forces are shaking things up.

As this statement points out, the revolutionaries are taking concrete steps to resist the terms of the Seven Point Agreement between Bhattarai, Prachanda and several bourgeois parties. Leaders Kiran and Badal are calling for PLA fighters to abandon the process of integrating with the Nepal Army.

The statements were originally published in the English-language version of The Red Star.

Revoluionary faction calls PLA Soldiers not to participate in fusion

by RedStar

16 November, 2011

Kathmandu, 16 November: Senior Vice Chairman Mohan Baidya “Kiran” and General Secretary Ram Bahadur Thapa “Badal” have called the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to be separated fronm the procvess of integration of the army.