VIOLENCE IN ASSAM

The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has issued the following statement on July 25, 2012:

THE Polit Bureau of the CPI(M) expresses its grave concern at the escalating violence in Assam which is taking a communal turn and is spreading from the Bodo Territorial Administered District and Kokhrajar to neighbouring districts and areas. It is indeed deeply disturbing that over 35 people have lost their lives, several are untraced, over 50 villages have been burnt, thousands have been forced to flee from their homes. Tragically, the insecurity is so high among all communities that even those in relief camps do not feel safe.

This is a monumental failure of the Congress led government in Assam, which refused to take timely action allowing the tensions to increase from the first incident on July 6. Even earlier, the warning signs of distrust and tensions among different communities were ignored. The central government must explain why it too delayed its response to the violence.

The CPI(M) also strongly condemns the motivated propaganda that seeks to justify the violence against the minority community in the name of illegal migration from Bangladesh. This is a total fabrication since the large majority of people in these areas are Indian citizens who have been living in the area for decades, having been displaced from their own areas due to the erosion of their land by the Brahmaputra and other rivers. It is the tragedy of Assam, a state which has multi-lingual, multi-religious and different communities that the dominant political parties should practice a politics which divide and weaken people’s unity, leading to repeated bouts of violence.

It demands that the government take immediate steps to restore law and order. All those who are directly involved in the violence must be identified and punished severely. The government must give full compensation to the families whose members have been killed. It must give compensation to those injured. Proper arrangements must be made for relief in the camps where security must be ensured. The CPI(M) appeals to the people to restore peace and to put an end to this fratricidal violence, isolating the trouble makers.

A delegation of MPs from the CPI(M) will be visiting Assam shortly.

The Central Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) met in New Delhi on July 21-22, 2012. It has issued the following statement:

TAMILNADU: 50 Years of Theekkatir

THEEKKATIR has completed half century of existence. It was a rough and tough journey throughout the years. Theekkatir was born as a weapon for the ideological fight against the then right revisionists in the Communist Party of India. It was June 29, 1963 when Theekkathir was started as a weekly organ from Chennai with the fund collected by Coimbatore mill workers. Its first editor was Comrade Arputhasamy, fondly called as Appu.

When CPI(M) was formed in 1964,Theekkathir became the official organ of the Party's Tamilnadu state committee and its regular edition was launched in 1969 at Madurai, a stronghold of the Party. Theekkathir became a daily newspaper in 1971 with headquarters at Madurai.

The paper's second edition was started from Chennai in 1993. It was inaugurated by Comrade EMS Namboodiripad. Its third edition, in a multi-colour form, was launched from the industrial city of Coimbatore on May 23, 2007. It was inaugurated by CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat. The fourth edition from Tiruchirapalli was inaugurated by CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Sitaram Yechury on September 5, 2010.

From the very first day, Theekkathir established itself, in a militant and vibrant journey, as an organiser of the Party and as a spokesperson in the political-social history of modern Tamilnadu. It played a crucial role in the history of class struggles of the working class in Tamilnadu for the past 50 years.

Under the editorship of the veteran leaders of the CPI(M) N Sankarish, K Muthiah, and V Meenakshi Sundaram, the daily's contributions for the buildup of the Party, class and mass organisations as well as imparting Party education have been priceless. In this connection we must also remember. We should here remember the veteran leaders who dedicated themselves for the growth of the paper, late Comrades P Ramamurthi, M R Venkatraman, A Balasubramaniyam, A Nallasivan, N Varadharajan and S S Giri.

The tireless journey of Theekkathir has now entered into its historic Golden Jubilee year on June 29, 2012. The state committee of the Party decided to celebrate the golden jubilee year with massive participation of the readers. Statewide special subscription drive aiming to increase the wide circulation and the readership of the paper has been planned; felicitation of senior news agents, readers and reporters; family meetings of the daily's staff; a special souvenir publication; competitions for students and some other edition-wise programmes have been planned. And finally, a big and massive function to commemorate the end of golden jubilee year would be held at Madurai on June 29, 2013.

AN IMPRESSIVE

BEGINNING

The beginning of the Golden Jubilee year of Theekkathir was very impressive and had drawn more than 5000 people, mostly agricultural workers, at Thiruvarur, a stronghold of the Party.

On behalf of the Tamilnadu state committee of the CPI(M), the Thiruvarur district committee of the Party held a colorful inaugural public meeting on June 29. CPI(M) Polit Bureau member K Varadharajan inaugurated the golden jubilee celebrations at this meeting. State secretary G Ramakrishnan, central committee member K Balakrishnan MLA, state secretariat members MNS Venkatraman, N Srinivasan, senior leader G Veeriahan and district leaders spoke in the meeting. Theekkathir editor V Parameshwaran presided over the meeting.

Earlier in the morning, at the offices of the daily’s four editions – Madurai, Chennai, Coimbatore and Tiruchi – impressive inaugural programmes were held. At Madurai campus, veteran leader of the Party and a dedicated administrator of the daily, A Abdul Wahab raised the Red flag. And veteran leaders N Sankaraiah and R Umanath raised the Red flag respectively at Chennai and Tiruchi. P R Natarajan, CPI(M) MP, hoisted the flag at Coimbatore edition office.

In Madurai office, which has the legacy of the entire history of Theekkathir, senior comrades A Abdul Wahab, freedom fighter I Mayandi Bharathi, writer N Ramakrishnan, novelist D Selvaraj, Professor Arunan and ‘Theekkathir’ R Narayanan were honoured by CPI(M) state secretary G Ramakrishnan. All those comrades had dedicated themselves for the daily’s growth at its early stages.

A modified library named after Comrade K Muthiah, long served editor and multi-faceted icon of the paper, was opened by N Ramakrishnan, who penned many books on the history of the Party’s growth and struggles in Tamilnadu and dedicated himself from the very first copy of the paper.

A photograph in memory of Comrade N Varadharajan, former state secretary of the Party who had established his love and affection on the day to day growth of Theekkathir was unveiled as also that of K Muthiah’s. Senior comrades who have completed 25 years of service to the paper were felicitated by MNS Venkatraman.

Senior leader of the Party and the editor of Semmalar, literary monthly of the party, S A Perumal presided over the function. In all the four editions, workers, including the editorial and administrative staff, and Party leaders and cadres from the respective districts participated along with their family members.

(INN)

WAR IMPOSED ON SYRIA BY IMPERIALISTS

SYRIA IN A “STATE OF WAR”

Yohannan Chemarapally

THE Syrian president, Bashar Assad, declared in late June that Syria was now in a “state of war.” He was speaking after the shooting down of a Turkish military jet which had entered the Syrian air space. Syria said that it had responded to a “gross violation of its territory.” Turkish officials, including the prime minister, have admitted that the plane did stray briefly into Syrian air space. The Turkish foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, has confirmed that the downed jet was on a radar testing mission. Such tests help in providing information about the position of anti-aircraft guns and ground to air defences. Relations between Turkey and Syria have been tense since the uprising began. The wreckage of the jet was found in Syrian waters with telltale signs that it was shot down by an anti-aircraft gun. Anti-aircraft guns have a range of around two kilometres.

INTERVENTION PLAN THROUGH TURKEY

Syria had another important reason for being extra-sensitive of unidentified aircraft straying into its airspace. Five years ago, Israeli aircraft had flown over Turkish territory and then bombed a military facility in the Syrian desert. The Israelis claimed that the site they bombed was the location of a secret nuclear weapons reactor being built by Syria. In 2006, four Israeli jets had flown over the residence of the Syrian president, prior to an Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Syria has beefed up its defences against aggression from the air. The downing of the Turkish fighter jet is a warning that Syria has acquired a sophisticated defence against potential enemies.

A NATO attack on Syria will not be like their military adventure in Libya. That may be one of the reasons the West is trying a different model of intervention in Syria. This time, intervention could be through the auspices of Turkey, bolstered by the petrodollars from client monarchies like Qatar and Saudi Arabia. The al Sauds recently announced that they will be paying the salaries of the rebel “Free Syrian Army” with the approval of the Obama administration. Most of the casualties after the six point Annan peace plan was put in motion have been Syrian army-men. In the last week of June, the Syrian government announced that it had buried 112 of its army personnel.

Turkey, a NATO member state, has vowed to retaliate and has since massed troops along the long border with Syria. Talking after the shooting down of the Phantom F-4 fighter, Turkey’s prime minister, Reccep Tayyip Erdogan said that his country is changing the rules of engagement and would now treat every military element approaching Turkey from the Syrian border as  “a military  threat and will be treated as a military target.” This belligerent stance is aimed at thwarting Syrian efforts to stop the infiltration of rebel fighters and arms through the 550 miles long border the two countries share. Turkey is threatening to invoke Article 4 of the NATO treaty which allows member states to call for emergency talks.

The NATO secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said that the alliance strongly condemned the shooting down of the Turkish fighter jet but said that Article 5 of the Treaty was not discussed.  Article 5 calls for a united military response if a NATO member country is attacked. The Obama administration had announced that it would work with its NATO ally Turkey to hold Syria accountable for what US officials claim was “a deliberate act” of shooting down the Turkish fighter jet. But key NATO states like Germany are reluctant to get sucked into a military conflict with Syria. The Russian foreign ministry urged Turkey not to view the incident as “a provocation or intentional action” and that the shooting down of the F-4 fighter should not be used to further destabilize the situation in the region. But Erdogan seems determined to fish in troubled waters. In a speech to the country’s Parliament in the last week of June, Erdogan said that Turkey would provide “all possible support to liberate the Syrians from dictatorship.” The Syrian rebel army is being trained by NATO in a command and control centre in Iskenderum, near the border with Syria.

CIA TRAINING ANTI-SYRIA FORCES

The trouble in Syria has already had its repercussions in neighbouring Lebanon where fighting has broken out between pro- and anti-Syrian government supporters. In Iraq, extremist groups have been mounting deadly terror attacks against Shia pilgrims and places of worship. “Syria is not Libya. It will not implode. It will explode beyond its borders,” Kofi Annan has warned. Even in Libya, the US/NATO intervention has only wrought chaos and anarchy. The legacy of the US invasion of Iraq is still playing havoc in the region, stoking sectarian strife and regional animosities. Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire issued a heart felt plea to stop the rush towards war in Syria. “We need to stop this mad rush towards a war the mothers and fathers and children of Syria do not want and do not deserve,” she wrote. But another more recent Nobel Peace Prize winner, the current president of the United States, seems to be all for a military solution to the Syrian crisis.

The Syrian opposition, now in possession of lethal sophisticated arms supplied by the West and its regional allies, has been targeting the Syrian army and government buildings in Damascus province and a few other cities. Stories in the American media have now acknowledged a widely known fact ---- that the CIA is training the anti-government forces based in Turkey and other neighbouring countries. Gunmen backed by the West attacked a pro-government television station --- Ikhbariya TV located in the southern suburbs of Damascus. Three journalists and four security guards were killed in the attack. After bombing the building to rubble, the militants took away another dozen employees. Their fate is still unclear. There was hardly any criticism for these heinous acts from those in the West posing as champions of democracy.

The UNHRC has said that Syrians are being increasingly targeted because of their religious beliefs. It has now come to light that those killed in the massacre at Houla were mostly Alawites. The western media's pronounced bias was again on full display in the third week of July, when the international media reported that Syrian government forces were responsible for the massacre of more than 200 people near the city of Hama. About 24 hours later, the truth came out that there were only 15 casualties, all of them rebel fighters. The government troops were responding to an attack. The truth did not stop Indian newspapers from repeating the lie in editorials critical of the government in Syria.

The German newspaper, Frankfurter Algermeine Zeitung, has reported that the real authors of the Houla massacres were members of the Free Syrian Army, propped up by Turkey and the West. Alawites, along with Christian and other minorities, are known to support the government. Amnesty International has documented the killing of captured soldiers and the kidnapping and killing of people suspected to be close to the government. The UN’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict condemned the recruitment and use of children by the armed groups. The German media has reported recently that their Intelligence Services have found large numbers of Al Qaeda activists from other countries active inside Syria. The increasing number of suicide bombings bear testimony to this.

WITH AN EYE ON IRAN

The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, has been demanding the ouster of the Syrian president on every available occasion. She repeated the demand again when a special meeting was convened in Geneva at the end of June in a seemingly last ditch attempt to save the “Kofi Annan Peace Plan.” At the meeting the key international powers agreed to the idea of a transitional government which would include members of the opposition, being set up. Russia remained opposed to the American demand that Assad should not have any role in the proposed transitional government.

Before the Geneva meet, the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, had categorically stated that Moscow “is not supporting and will not support any external meddling and this also applies to the fate of Bashar al Assad.” Russia as well as Kofi Annan wanted Iran and Saudi Arabia to be invited to the Geneva meeting to brighten the prospects for a negotiated peaceful settlement as both the countries are interested parties in the Syrian conflict. But the US secretary of state objected to Iran’s participation arguing that Iran had no meaningful role to play. The main goal of US and Israeli strategists is to instal a pro-American regime in Damascus, leaving Iran without friends in the region. Iran could then be the next candidate for regime change.

The final communiqué, issued after the meeting, said that the proposed transitional government “could include members of the present government and the opposition and other groups and shall be formed on the basis of mutual consent.” Despite the demands of the US and its allies, Russia and China saw to it that the final communiqué called for a “Syrian solution” to the ongoing conflict. The UN peace envoy to Syria, Kofi Annan, warned that “time was running out” and said that peaceful dialogue was the only way to avoid a full-fledged civil war. Annan also warned about the dangers of underestimating the “extreme dangers posed by the conflict --- to Syria, to the region and to the world.” The Russian foreign minister said in Geneva that he was delighted with the outcome of the meeting saying that no foreign military intervention would be imposed on Syria.

Not surprisingly, the opposition was quick to reject the proposal of a transitional government that was proposed in Geneva. The Syrian National Council (SNC), the opposition umbrella group, staid that the latest proposals “were a farce.” The official Syrian newspaper, Al Baath, said that the agreement in Geneva failed because it resembled another enlarged meeting of the UN Security Council. Teheran said that the Geneva meet would have had a greater chance of success if the Syrian and Iranian representatives were present at the talks. “The meeting was not successful --- because Syria was not present and some influential nations were not present,” said the Iranian deputy foreign minister, Hossein Amir Abdolohian. 

President Assad meanwhile ordered his recently reshuffled cabinet to single-mindedly focus on crushing the uprising which is now in its 16th month. “When one is in a state of war, all our policies and capabilities must be used to secure victory,” Assad told the new cabinet. The Syrian government seems prepared for all eventualities. And it is far from isolated internationally. Venezuela, like other Latin American and Caribbean countries, has been with the Syrian government in its time of need. The Venezuelan government recently dispatched 35,000 tonnes of diesel to Syria. It is planning to send another ship full of diesel in the coming weeks. Due to act of sabotage and terrorism targeting gas and oil pipelines, coupled with sanctions imposed by the EU on the state oil company, Syrians have been facing an acute energy crisis. Iran has also been helping out.

Courtesy: People's Democracy

DHARNA AT DELHI BY LEFTIST PARTIES

COUNTRY IN DARK ON 31-07-201

GUJARAT Mass Support on Food Security, BPL Issues

GUJARAT

Mass Support on Food Security, BPL Issues

MORE than 10,000 man and women gheraoed the collector’s office at Bhavnagar in Gujarat for two hours in protest against the rising prices and for 35 kilogram foodgrains at Rs 2 per kilo to all citizens. It was at the call of the Left parties, viz the CPI(M), CPI, RSP and Forward Bloc, to take up the issue of food security.

All through the past few weeks, in June and July, units of the CPI(M) made preparations in their respective areas, campaigned and decided to hold rallies between July 6 and 13. The campaign began over one month ago in Bhavnagar city and other parts ofBhavnagar district, including Palitana, Mahuva, Hatheb and Ghogha, and brought people in good numbers to the concluding rally on July 11.

In Bhavnagar town, every ward unit made hectic preparations and a “Monghvari Rath” visited the wards on allotted days. The rath was fitted with a microphone and bedecked with various kinds of posters which drew attention of the city people. Nalini Jadeja and Ashok Sompura, the CPI(M)’s Bhavnagar city secretary, toured in the “Monghvari Rath” that started from Bhagat Singh Chowk in the city and travelled more than 200 km distance, covering 17 wards of the Municipal Corporation in six days. From July 5 to 10, local leaders of the CPI(M) held and addressed more than 73 meetings in different areas along the route of the Monghvari rath.

The public meeting at Bhagat Singh Chowk, one which sent the rath upon its journey, was presided over by veteran CPI(M) leader Subodh Mehta and addressed by the CPI(M)’s state secretary Arun Mehta, district secretary Nalini Jadeja and city secretary Ashok Sompura. During these days, more than 30,000 handbills were distributed to explain the issues related to the food security bill, the situation of the poor people in Gujarat vis-à-vis the APL-BPL division, and the sad plight of the public distribution system.

On July 11, people in good numbers reached Moth Baag where a public meeting was organised. In fact, more than 10,000 people, with women in hitherto unprecedented numbers, gathered in the said garden that overflowed, so much so that all the adjoining roads too were occupied. The huge mass meeting continued for more than two hours. People from Palitana, Mahuva, Ghogha, Botad, and Hathab came to the garden in trucks.

After the meeting, the people marched in a procession to the Collectorate and the Municipal Corporation. Both these offices are facing each other. The demands they raised were as under:

1) Forthwith arrest of the all-round price rise; declaration of forwards trading in foodgrains as illegal; withdrawal of the petro-product prices; early passage of the Food Security Bill without waiting for elections.

2) As the process for issue of BPL cards in Bhavnagar stands completed, these cards must be distributed forthwith.

3) Immediate start of the supply of 35 kilo foodgrains at Rs 2 per kg to all ration cardholders without dividing them into the APL and BPL categories, and incorporation of this provision in the food security bill.

The Bhavnagar Collector came out of his office to meet the CPI(M) delegation and receive its memorandum. He promised that he would call a meeting of all officers on July 16, and invited the entire mass on that day.

The district units of the AIDWA, CITU, DYFI and Slum Dwellers Union put in hard work for the success of the campaign that also sought to highlight how the Congress as well as the BJP has been, despite their verbal commitments, trying to scuttle these demands. The CPI(M) has made it clear that it would not rest content till these demands were met and that it would organise actions in the state during the five days from July 30 to August 3 when the Left parties would be staging a dharna in front of parliament in New Delhi.

The CPI(M) and CPI have planned joint rallies, gheraos, jail bharo and other action programmes in 14 districts of Gujarat.