Bangladesh: Workers Employ Road-rail Blockade

The following comes from bdnews24.com. John Bellamy Foster recently wrote “Ecologically, the world’s climate and the life-support systems of the entire earth are being transformed by a process of runaway global warming.” As the poorer countries of the earth pay the price for over energy use from the wealthier nations, many actions such as this railroad blockade in Bangladesh represent the coming battles for energy and resources.  The earth and its inhabitants can no longer afford the capitalist economic system as a means of providing for the earth.

Blockade in Barapukuria

Road-rail blockade in Barapukuria

Dinajpur, May 4 (bdnews24.com)—Ending a two-day coal mine siege programme, a citizen committee has enforced a 48-hour road-rail blockade programme in Barapukuria to push for its three-point charter of demands.

Bangladesh: The Climate Change Migrants

Bangladesh: Poor countries are paying the cost of imperialisms ecological impact.

This article is from ekantipur.com

The Climate Change Migrants

Abir Abdullah:

Abir Abdullah is a Bangladeshi photo-journalist, based in Dhaka, Bangladesh

12/04/10: Nature has never made it easy to live in Bangladesh.  The country is situated in the low-lying Ganges Delta formed by the confluence of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers. Most of the land is less than 10 metres above sea level. It is a country swamped by annual floods, with a coast battered by cyclones and tornadoes, yet an interior subject to drought at times.

With nearly 150 million inhabitants, Bangladesh is also the most densely populated country on the planet. As warnings against climate change grow in intensity, Bangladesh is forecast as the scene of increasing numbers of climate migrants.

Book review: Churchill’s secret war in India

We received the following from A World to Win news service.  They ask that we note their new email address for readers:  aworldtowinns@yahoo.co.uk

by Susannah York

Madhusree Mukerjee’s book, Churchill’s Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India During World War II (Basic Books, New York, 2010), is a deeply moving read.

Her subject is the 1943 famine that ravaged India for over a year, snuffing out the lives of 3 million people. Mukerjee argues that the figure should be adjusted upwards to over 5 million. When thinking about the millions of dead resulting from World War II, many atrocities come to mind: the 6 million Jews killed in the concentration camps, half a million Roma, 20 million Soviet citizens, 8 million Chinese, to name only some examples. Not so well-known, especially to people from the imperialist citadels, are those who suffered and died from what Mukerjee calls the “man-made” famine in India, a human catastrophe that could have been easily prevented if Churchill had not refused to assign available ships from Australia to carry their surplus grain to the Bengal region. This famine gets rarely mentioned in British history.

One More Reason for Revolution: Sex Trade in South Asia

“In cross border trafficking, India is a sending, receiving and transit nation. Receiving children from Bangladesh and Nepal and sending women and children to Middle Eastern nations is a daily occurrence.”

“There are more than 400,000 child prostitutes in India.”

“About 5,000-7,000 Nepalese girls are trafficked to India every day. 100,000-160,000 Nepalese girls are prostituted in brothels in India.  About 45,000 Nepalese girls are in the brothels of Mumbai  and 40,000 in Kolkata.  Many of the girls are barely 9 or 10 years old.

“Around 200,000 to 250,000 Nepalese women and girls are already in Indian brothels. The girls are sold by poor parents, tricked into fraudulent marriages, or promised employment in towns finally to end up in Indian brothels. They’re locked up for days, starved, beaten and burned with cigarettes until they learn how to serve up to 25 clients a day.”

Trafficking in Asia accounts for a large share of the global volume of trafficked women and children.  In the last two decades, the number of trafficked women and children in Asia has increased alarmingly.

South Asia is considered the most vulnerable region for trafficking because of its large population, large-scale rural-urban migration, bitter poverty and recurrent natural disasters causing widespread desperation.

Women and children are sold, traded, exchanged for sexual slavery and prostitution, and bonded labour across borders, such as from Bangladesh to India, Pakistan, and the Middle East; from Nepal to India; from Burma to Thailand; from Vietnam to Kampuchea; and from the Philippines to Japan.

This article was published by Bangladesh Online  Weeklyblitz.net.

South Asian Women and Children in Danger

by Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury

According to regional media, 27,000 Bangladeshi women and children have been forced into prostitution in Indian brothels only during 1997. Bangladesh and Nepal are the main sources of trafficked children in south Asia, while women from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal are regularly trafficked to Indian and Arab brothels.

Interview on Capitalism, NGOs & Popular Movements in Bangladesh

December 28, 2010 — Anu Muhammad is a Marxist academician from Bangladesh. He is currently serving as professor in the Department of Economics in Jahangirnagar University, Savar, Dhaka. He is also general secretary of National Committee to Protect Oil, Gas, Mineral Resources Power and Ports and has been involved in various people’s movements in Bangladesh. He, along with the committee, played an instrumental role in the success of the Phulbari Movement against Open Pit Mining in Phulbari, Bangladesh. He writes extensively on globalisation, social transformation, gender issues, NGOs and energy issues, and has authored more than 20 books.

In this interview, which first appeared at Radical Notes and is posted with permission at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal, Anu Muhammad speaks to Manoranjan Pegu about the politico-economic trajectory of Bangladesh in the context of capitalist globalisation, geopolitical changes in South Asia and the role of India, and assesses the significance of recent popular movements in the country.

Sharing this interview here on RSA does not imply agreement with its analysis.

Manoranjan Pegu: How do you characterise the overall nature of the Bangladeshi economy, and its location in global capitalism?

Anu Muhammad: Within the global capitalist system, Bangladesh can be considered a peripheral capitalist economy. We are experiencing a phenomenon where the situation in peripheral countries such as Bangladesh is unfolding in a way very different from the standard definition. Here the state has been very effective in creating a repressive mechanism, but it has not been able to work towards formulating its own policies. Practically, it operates under a “bigger state”, which is the larger framework of the global capitalist power structure. The policies the government tries to implement are mostly formulated outside the national parliament and even outside people’s knowledge. The policies are formulated under different projects supported by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the British Department for International Development (DFID), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and UN organisations. We find the presence of consultants from these agencies in every policy process and project, which needless to say are favourable to corporate interests.

Bangladesh: Four Workers Killed by Police Bullets in Chittagong Export Zone

Garment workers clash with law enforcers and burn a bus at Chittagong Export Processing Zone gate yesterday. The shockwave sent ripples through the entire apparel sector forcing many factories to close. Photo: Aunrup Kanti Das

Thanks to entdnglichung for this.

“Unruly garment workers clashed with law enforcers in Chittagong, Dhaka and Narayanganj out of grievances over wage yesterday leaving at least four people dead and 200 others injured.

The four including a garment worker and a rickshaw-puller were killed during a five-hour clash in and around Chittagong Export Processing Zone (CEPZ). The identity of the other two remained unknown. Labourers of other factories also joined the garment workers.

Police fired 600 rounds of bullet and 150 teargas canisters to disperse the agitating workers in the three places. They picked up at least 65 people including 30 in the port city.

The workers pelted law enforcers with brickbats and stones. They also damaged 11 garment factories and 20 roadside buildings.

The protesters set five vehicles ablaze and damaged 90 more bringing traffic on Chittagong Airport Road, Dhaka Airport Road and Dhaka-Sylhet Highway to a halt for hours.

The clashes led to the closure of the entire CEPZ in the morning and suspension of production at three factories in Dhaka and another in Narayanganj. The CEPZ houses 156 factories with 1,54,000 workers.

…

Earlier, the workers of Youngone Ltd took to the streets demanding reinstatement of a „temporary“ Tk 250 food allowance that the management withheld when it started paying the new minimum wage, said an official of the company.”

Bangladesh: Climate Change Migrants On The Front Line

This article is from ekantipur.com.

In Dhaka half a million immigrants arrive in the city each year.  This article gives a brief picture of their lives.

The Climate Change Migrants

ABIR ABDULLAH

December 4 2010 – Nature has never made it easy to live in Bangladesh.  The country is situated in the low-lying Ganges Delta formed by the confluence of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers. Most of the land is less than 10 metres above sea level. It is a country swamped by annual floods, with a coast battered by cyclones and tornadoes, yet an interior subject to drought at times. With nearly 150 million inhabitants, Bangladesh is also the most densely-populated country on the planet. As warnings about climate change grow in intensity, Bangladesh is forecast as the scene of increasing numbers of climate migrants .

In low-lying areas, it is not unusual to be knee-deep in water during the flood season – some local crops, such as rice, depend on rising waters. But floods are becoming more extreme and unpredictable. Crops have been totally destroyed; livestock lost

Interview with Maoist Woman From Nepal

This interview was published in tamilweek.com

Jwala Kumari Shah is one of 39 women who attended a  South Asian feminist conference in Bangladesh.  The interview begins with a quote from Rosa Parks, an African-American  woman who refused to sit in the back of the bus during the Civil Rights Movement in the 60’s .

This interview is one example of a woman’s life after she joined the Maoist revolutionary war in Nepal.

From Maoist Rebel to Member of Constituent Assembly

by Dushiyanthini Kanagasabapathipillai

October 30, 2010 – “Each person must live their life as a model for others” – Rosa Parks, (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005), African-American Civil Rights Activist

Jwala Kumari Shah is a Constituent  Assembly member from the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist).

She had been an active fighter for 12 years while being with the Maoists.  She spent several years underground fearing for her safety.  She is married to a fellow party member and has three sons.

It was a simple wedding, they exchanged flowers.  The relatives and villagers were surprised as there were neither rings nor ceremony for their wedding.  “We loved each other and decided to get married and we lead a happy and simple life” says Jawala Kumari Shah with a snowy smile.

I had a rare opportunity to spend some time with her in Bangladesh.

She was one among 39 women participants of SANGAT XVth South Asian Feminist Capacity Building Course on Gender, Sustainable Livelihoods, Human Rights and Pease which was held in Rajendrapur, Bangladesh in September-October 2010.

She is friendly and polite with strong political views.  She loves to be photographed alone and with her friends.  She likes to wear the Nepali flag engraved on a brass pin on the left side of her coat.

Basanta: The Volcano of Revolution in South Asia Today

The Maoist revolution has made a major forward leap — after the initiation of people’s war in Nepal in 1996 and the merger of two major revolutionary streams to form the Communist Party of India (Maoist), in 2004.

The Nepalese people’s revolution has now reached to the threshold of seizing central political power.

In the present era, the proletarian revolution does not remain a phenomenon merely of a single country.

South Asia is becoming a front of collision between two fronts: one formed of the proletariat and their class allies national and international and other alliance formed of the imperialists and their lackeys from the individual countries. A new world in South Asia is now gestating in the womb of this contradiction.

The victory of revolution in South Asia will have a far-reaching implication and become a harbinger to spread the flames of revolution all across the world.

On the other, its defeat will result in a complete demoralisation of the people not only of this region but those all across the globe. In this situation, a strong solidarity to the revolution in South Asia is the need of the day.

The following talk was given on July 2, in Istanbul, during the European Social Forum’s seminar on South Asia’s revolutions.

By Basanta (Indra Mohan Sigdel)
member, Politburo of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)

Dear comrades and delegates, revolutionary greetings!

I would like to take this opportunity to extend our revolutionary salutation on behalf of our party, the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), to the organiser, the European Social Forum, who invited our party to attend this august programme in Istanbul, Turkey.

In addition, I would like to extend our revolutionary greetings to the entire delegates participating in this seminar. I feel honoured to be here with all the delegates from around the world.

But, more than that I would like to utilise this opportunity to share experiences that the working class all across the world has gathered through their valiant struggles against imperialism and its anti-people and neo-colonial policies like privatisation, liberalisation and globalisation, and as well the ruling classes subservient to it.

Maoist Party in Bangladesh Reorganizes

Posted on Maoist Revolution, December 10, 2009

Editorial of the international journal Anubad Sahityo Potro, issue no. 10 of the Maoist Unity Group (MUG) of the Proletarian Party of East Bengal (PBSP)/Bangladesh. December 2009

Posting this information does not imply any endorsement or evaluation of this group or its actions.

The 10th issue of the Anubad Sahitya Potro is the last issue of the journal. We have published such unpublished documents through this journal that are principally important to give theoretical assistance to the reconstruction of our domestic communist movement.
Then starts our new departure. We have been able to initiate a line struggle in this country.

Our party is the main Maoist party of this country. The other party CPEB [Communist party of East Bengal (ML)] despite claiming themselves as Maoist have almost been collapsed because of the process of their practice of Guevarist trend since long. Chairman Siraj Sikder established proletarian Maoist party, the PBSP. He made socio economic analysis of the society of East Bengal, broke the chain of the old and new revisionism by carrying a hard ideological struggle against those, initiated people’s war, for the first time in East Bengal established armed force led by the class proletariat and established Base Area twice: once in Payarabagan in 71 and then in Chittagong Hill tract during 72-75. [This area is located in southeast Bangladesh near Burma.]

Bangladesh: Police murder revolutionary leader

4 August 2008. A World to Win News Service. The Bangladeshi police have murdered Mizanur Rahman Tutul, a leader of the Purba Bangla Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) Lal Pataka [Red Flag].

The police Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) arrested the 42-year-old Tutul, also known as Mijan, on 25 July in the Uttara area of Dhaka, the country’s capital, according to a press conference given by his mother Novera Khatun at the Jhenaidah Press Club on the evening of 26 July. The 80-year-old woman demanded that the government not kill him and instead follow the process of law and bring him to trial. She also said her physician son had not committed crime any except membership in the clandestine party. The Bangladeshi newspaper Jugantor also reported that day that Tutul had been arrested on 25 July.

Nevertheless, on 27 July, the authorities claimed that Tutul was killed in a “crossfire” in a field in the northern area of Naogaon at around 4 am that morning– two days after his arrest and about eight hours after the press conference – in what was described as a police raid on a secret meeting of members of the outlawed party. Although the police claimed that the meeting had involved 50-60 armed revolutionaries and 80 police, they said that Tutul was the only casualty and that all the others escaped. Raninagar Medical Complex doctors pronounced him dead on arrival. A picture of his bloody corpse was triumphantly displayed in the press.