US special forces on the ground in India, stationed in Nepal

BBC News reports that US special forces are “present” but “not stationed” in India. According to a Pentagon commander, these forces are training the Indian state in counter-terrorism measures. Though the article does not mention India’s Maoist insurgency, it can be assumed that the training provided by US special forces will be used against the CPI(Maoist) and other red militants as well.

Furthermore, the Pentagon official does confirm that US forces are not just “present,” but stationed in Nepal on a semi-permanent basis, no doubt with the intention of crushing any insurrection in Nepal. It is well-known that US forces have a close relationship with the Nepalese Army, but it is disturbing that the Pentagon is now leaking this information to international media.

The article notes that “US teams were also present in…Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Maldives.”

We ask our readers to spread this information to as many sources as possible.

Pentagon commander says US special forces in India

US special forces are present in five South Asian countries, including India, a top Pentagon commander has revealed.

US Pacific Commander Admiral Robert Willard said the teams were deployed to help India with their counter-terrorism co-operation.

The US and India were working together to contain Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based militant group blamed for the 2008 Mumbai attacks, he said.

The US embassy in Delhi clarified that the troops were not stationed in India.

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.

Philippines: Secret Cables Reveal Exercises Used as Cover for US Military

The following comes Philipinnes Revolution.net

Secret Cables Reveal Exercises Used as Cover for US Military

Communist Party of the Philippines

September 16, 2011

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) today called attention to secret cables from the US Embassy in Manila published by the website Wikileaks.org revealing the use of the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) and the annual Balikatan joint military exercises as “legal cover” for the involvement of US military forces in combat operations in the Philippines.

The CPP statement coincided with the 30th anniversary of the historic Philippine Senate decision of September 16, 1991 to abrogate the Military Bases Agreement of 1946. The abrogation paved the way for the dismantling of Subic Naval Base, Clark Air Base and several other American military installations in the Philippines.

“Thirty years after the abrogation of the MBA, US military forces continue to trample on Philippine sovereignty by maintaining permanent presence, engaging in local combat operations, advising the AFP in strategic planning and using the Philippines as a platform for its ‘power projection’ activities in the Pacific region,” said the CPP.

In a cable dated January 19, 2005 titled “AFP/DND Talks Produce Progress on Counterterrorism Scenarios,” former US Ambassador Francis Ricciardone reported to the US State Department that Philippine military and security officials held a working meeting with representatives of the US Pacific Command and succeeded in “developing a range of enhanced US-GRP counterterrorism scenarios”.

In the said meeting, officials and legal counsels of the Department of National Defense (DND) assured the US military that “(we are trying to) push the envelope to combat-related activities” but asserted that such activities “should fall under ‘the rubric of exercise’ because of the difficulty the word ‘operation’ posed for the Filipino side.” DND officials gave assurances that the VFA and Philippine Supreme Court decisions covered such operations.

“This and other secret cables clearly reveal that so-called joint exercises regularly conducted by the US and Philippine militaries merely serve to camouflage the direct involvement of US military forces in combat operations in the Philippines,” said the CPP. According to the CPP, US military forces are involved in combat operations not only in Southwestern Mindanao where the 700-strong Joint Special Operations Task Force (JSOTF)-Philippines is based, but also against the New People’s Army in various parts of the country.

United States Punishing Strike Organizers in Nepal

Workers on Strike in Nepal

This article was originally posted on myrepublica.com and contains obvious bourgeois distortions of (bandas) strike organizers, but it is notable that the United States has put a spotlight on these organizers as a threat and something that bares consideration as the Nepalese revolution grapples with the extended tentacles of imperialism of both American and Indian varieties.  

 US To Put Banda Organizers on Visa Watch

Kiran Chapagain

Kathmandu, May 27: With the country facing one after another banda in recent days , the US Embassy has decided to act tough against banda organizers who use threat of violence to enforce their strikes.

Embassy Spokesperson Heather Steil told Republica on Thursday that Ambassador Scott H.  Delisi has decided to put the organizers of Friday’s banda on the embassy’s visa watch list, invoking an existing visa policy.  She further said  the embassy will also enforce the policy on organizers of future bandas.

U.S. Imperialists Unleash “Terror-Scare” in Philippines

Philippines-NPA Fighters

New wave of “Terror-Scare” an old US Imperialist ploy to intensify military intervention for US military basing and economic interest

Jorge “Ka Oris” Madlo

Spokesperson

National Democratic Front of the Philippines

Mindanao November 6, 2010

There has been a series of “terror-scare” spreading in the country of late. The National Democratic Front of the Philippines in Mindanao (NDFP-Mindanao) views this chain of events along the following the lines:

1. The United States, being in the throes of a deep recession and trapped in the quagmire of wars of aggression in the Middle East, is looking up to the Philippines as its second front to secure its geo-politics in the Asia-Pacific, protect its economic interest and unhampered US military basing in the country. It had to install a more reliable ally — Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III – through a pre-programmed election and drum up a new wave of terror to justify its intensified military intervention.

Must Study: How Feds Target International Connections

Imperialist Agent

The following originally appeared on Kasama.

Each of us needs to understand the implications and dangers of these developments.

First that we need to expose and help defeat attempts to criminalize internationalism.

Second, while important solidarity work remains legal and urgent –  such efforts should not be “coordinated with” international groups. I.e.Specific international connections and coordination are being made legally “radioactive” and internationalist work within needs to be carefully independent (in planning, conception and finances) from people outside the country — no casual communications, no back and forth flow of suggestions, no appearance of mutual consultation on plans, no exchange of seemingly innocent help (

skills, money, etc.) Any international communications by solidarity participants should be limited and careful scrutinized with these legal constraints in mind. Anyone who is approached by someone claiming to be from a proscribed group who claims to have suggestions (however innocent) should report the incident and not pursue the conversation — entrapment is a real tactic of sinister forces.

Thanks to  Ka Frank for sending this.

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