India: March 5 marks the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Aizawl – the first air raid by the Indian Air Force on civilian territory within the country by David Buhril

March 5 marks the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Aizawl – the first air raid by the Indian Air Force on civilian territory within the country. This is as good a time as any to go beyond just questioning the morality of the bombing, or the complexities that led to it. It’s time to understand its legacy.

The story began in 1961, when the Mizo Hills were a part of the state of Assam. The Mizo National Front formed on October 28 that year, and asserted its right to self-determination. The group initially adopted a non-violent approach to secure its political objective. However, following intense internal pressure after human rights violations by security forces in the area, the Mizo National Front took up arms.

The battle begins

On February 28, 1966, the fighting volunteers of the Mizo National Front launched Operation Jericho to throw out Indian forces stationed in Mizoram – launching simultaneous attacks on Assam Rifles garrisons in Aizawl and Lunglei. The next day, the Mizo National Front declared independence from India.

Operation Jericho shocked the security forces stationed in the Mizo Hills – the insurgents swiftly managed to capture significant installations including the government treasury and the 1st Assam Rifles headquarters – both in Aizawl – and Army installations in Champhai and Lunglei districts.
The central government led by Indira Gandhi may have been taken by surprise, but the reprisal was swift. On March 5, four fighter jets of the Indian Air Force – French-built Dassault Ouragan fighters (nicknamed Toofanis), and British Hunters – were deployed to bomb Aizawl. Taking off from Tezpur, Kumbigram and Jorhat in Assam, the planes first used machine guns to fire at the town. They returned the next day to drop incendiary bombs. The strafing of Aizawl and other areas continued till March 13 even as the town’s panicked civilian population fled to the hills. The rebels were forced to retreat into the jungles of Myanmar and Bangladesh, which was then East Pakistan.

Colossal destruction

Recounting his memories of that day, Thangsanga, a veteran member of the Mizo National Front, said the bombing took them by surprise. “Our little town was suddenly encircled by four screaming jet fighters,” he said. “Suddenly, bullets rained and bombs were dropped. Burning buildings collapsed and there was dust and chaos everywhere.

They hit the heart of Mizoram, but not the Mizo spirit”.

No one had imagined that the Union government would bomb its own territory.

“It took us by surprise that the government had the courage to deploy jet fighters to bomb Aizawl that it dared not fly inside China or Pakistan,” said Remruata, a village council member. “Well, charity begins at home.”

The bombing caused colossal destruction with some reports saying Aizawl town had caught fire. Fortunately, only 13 civilians were killed.

The establishment – including the government and the armed forces – kept mum or even flatly denied that Aizawl had been bombed. Details only emerged decades later when several writers and former insurgents emerged with their accounts of the day the people in Aizwal saw planes shoot fire.

A March 9, 1966, report by the now-defunct Kolkata-daily, the Hindustan Standard, quoted Prime Minister Indira Gandhi as saying that the fighter jets had been sent in to airdrop men and supplies, not bombs. But the question was, why would anyone deploy fighter jets to drop rations?

Zo nationalism

Since 2008, Mizoram has observed March 5 as Zoram Ni or Zoram Day. The idea is to revive the idea of self-determination and instil the importance of sacrifice among the younger generation. “Self-determination is our birthright,” said Malsawma, a member of the Zo-Reunification Organisation or ZORO.

“We cannot allow our land and peoples to be divided in India, Bangladesh and Burma [Myanmar] in the name of democracy, a republic or anything else.

Our resolution remains that we are united as one people in our own land. Not the Britishers’ land, not Indian land, but in Zo-land”.

Zamawia, another ZORO member, said he strongly believed that the Mizos right to self-determination was unquestionably attached to Zo nationalism.

The bombing helped strengthen Zo nationalism said Zarzosanga, a Mizo scholar. “The bombing of Aizawl did not deter or detach the heart of Zo nationalism,” he said. “Instead it makes Zo nationalism more evident and alive and outside the interest and understanding of Indian nationalism. The bomb actually othered the Mizos from India and Indians.

The blunder made by the government of India with its decision to bomb Aizawl was an affirmation and acknowledgment of Mizo nationalism."

Marked as the ‘other’

The bombing may have managed to crush the Mizo uprising but it also helped usher in two more decades of insurgency. Following the bombing, the Union government implemented what it termed the “regrouping of villages” in which thousands of Mizos deep in the hills and hamlets of what is now Mizoram were forcefully displaced – their homes and villages burned – and relocated in centres along an arterial highway under armed guard ostensibly so that the Indian state could keep an eye on them.

Though the state of Mizoram was formed in 1987 after the Union government and the Mizo National Front signed the Mizoram Peace Accord, today, Zo nationalism – an ideological formulation of Zo peoples fragmented by the process of decolonisation and spread across India, Myanmar and Bangladesh – continues to assert itself.

“The horror of that day still haunts every Mizo,” said Lalremruata, a progressive member of the Zo-Reunification Organisation. “But the positive aspect is that it inspires us to secure Zo nationalism, which is already crossing national boundaries”.

For the Mizos, Aizawl is the heart of their identity and belonging. During the fight for Indian Independence, Mizos had been left on the periphery. The bombing of Aizawl to secure the Indian nation state further paralysed the Mizos from sharing in the notion of Indian nationalism. The excessive action simply helped to cement the feeling of otherness within the Mizos vis-à-vis the rest of India.

Was that the only option available to the Union government at the time? Whatever the answer, it was clearly the military and political weapon used to assert mainland India’s dominance over the Mizos.

http://scroll.in/article/804555/50-years-ago-today-indira-gandhi-got-the-indian-air-force-to-bomb-its-own-people

SOURCE: 

India: Report From Bastar

The outlawed Communist Party of India (Maoist) has said that “goons and anti-social elements” are creating havoc in the Bastar region of Chhattisgarh in the name of anti-Maoist operations.

A recent press statement issued by Mohan, the new secretary of south Bastar divisional committee of the CPI (Maoist), also claimed that the recent attacks on human rights activists and journalists in Bastar were orchestrated at the behest of right-wing groups.

“The atrocities on Bastar tribals are at their peak due to the BJP government’s policy to loot minerals and land of Bastar tribals. It is all a part of a bigger conspiracy to render the indigenous Tribals landless. Tribal women are being gang-raped. There is no such thing as administration in Sukma, Dantewada and Bijapur district of Bastar,” said the statement said from Mohan, who has reportedly replaced senior leader Ganesh Uike as the secretary of South Bastar divisional committee of the Maoists.

“Innocent civilians are being killed and branded as Maoists and propaganda is being carried out in the media. Villagers from interior areas are being threatened with arrests and being made to surrender as Maoists,” he added.

The Maoist leader also claimed that the police killed an eight-year-old child in Hurra village of Bastar on February 19. While appealing to the people of Bastar to condemn the attacks on human right activists and journalists, the Maoist leader asked the government to dissolve the District Reserve Guard (DRG), a recently formed special anti-Maoist unit of Bastar police, consisting largely of local tribal youth but including some former dreaded Maoist leaders.

India: The Maoists have come out in support of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) students' union president Kanhaiya Kumar

The Maoists have come out in support of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) students' union president Kanhaiya Kumar, who was recently arrested on sedition charges in connection with an event held at the varsity to commemorate the death of Afzal Guru.

In a press statement released by the western sub-zonal bureau of the Communist Party of India (Maoist), the organisation demanded the release of "innocent" Kumar.

The release, which police sources claimed had first been circulated among the locals of Maharashtra's Gadchiroli district before being apprehended by the police, also went on to criticise the Narendra Modi government.

"If it is sedition to take the name of Afzal Guru, the heartbeats of the 124 crore Indians will also be seditious," the release stated. Kanhaiya's arrest has been called a conspiracy by the "orthodox Hindu Fascists".

The release claimed that Kumar's arrest was an attack on "progressive, secular and pro-people thinking and ideologies".
'
"The eroding image of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Akhil Vidyarthi Parishad could not be digested by the blind nationalist forces which is why they Kanhaiya Kumar was targeted in a planned manner and was sent to jail on false charges of sedition," the statement read.

The banned Maoist outfit called for "an end to the anti-democratic Brahmanical Hinduism of the Modi government" and demanded that "people not be forced to become Hindus", apart from deprecating the "saffronisation of the society" and the "communalisation: of the country.

The Delhi High Court would be pronouncing a decision in the matter relating to the bail plea of Kumar on Wednesday. Justice Pratibha Rani had reserved the order on Monday.

The Delhi Police had opposed Kumar's bail plea, but the Delhi government had been in favour of bail being granted to the student leader.

Saudi Air Force Deploys to Support Turkey's Military Intervention in Syria

Black Skin White Fatigues - Against Gurkha Recruitment

Democracy and Class Struggle comrades may recognise some of the people speaking and in the audience at this event last year.

Red Salutes to Comrades Peter and Harry and Roshan and Ollie and their contributions to the meeting.

SEE ALSO

Gurkha's in British Army

http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/two-hundred-years-of-shame-time-to-end.html

http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/british-army-gurkhas-dissolving.html

Gurkha's in Indian Army

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorkha_regiments_(India)

https://www.quora.com/How-many-Gurkhas-are-in-the-Indian-Army

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Green_Hunt

Letter from Norwegian workers to workers in British Isles - Trade Unions Give up on European Union by Doug Nicholls

By refusing to join the EU Norwegian workers and trade unions have enjoyed many an advantage over their British counterparts.

Now they want Britain to follow their example and leave the union, writes DOUG NICHOLLS

Trade Unionists Against the EU has been invited to several trade union conferences in Europe and received best wishes from workers’ organisations throughout the continent.

Perhaps not enough has been done over the last three decades to link up in solidarity with our nearest neighbours in the EU as they have faced the full wrath of EU neoliberalism.

We sent a delegate to respond to the request of Greek unions to share our views. They strongly concluded, as reported in the Morning Star previously, that as a smaller economy with acute EU-related difficulties there was only so much they could do alone to resist the beast, and now they were looking to British workers to be resolute and campaign for a vote to leave the EU.

French workers face a fundamental threat to their Labour Code mirroring the attack on us through the Trade Union Bill and reflecting the EU wide attempt to sweep away workers’ and trade union rights and particularly collective bargaining.

The destruction of collective bargaining in the accession states was for example one of the EU conditions of their joining. The EU hasn’t exactly run to the defence of British trade unions as our collective bargaining coverage has dropped by 75 per cent over the last 35 years.

A statement was issued to our delegates via a huge meeting in Paris in which French trade unionists expressed their hope that perhaps at last after the years of delusions following Jacques Delors speech to the TUC, our movement would reject the EU.

Some years ago we visited building workers in Sweden, one of a number of groups throughout the continent who had seen their terms and conditions and national agreements replaced by worse terms paid to deliberately imported labour from other EU countries.

The notorious Viking and Laval cases followed and the European Court of Justice, to no-one’s surprise, made it explicit that business and employers’ freedoms trump all workers’ protections.

Norwegian trade unionists who have held a strong line through their unions against EU membership recently wanted us to attend one of their conferences to explain to us how important a vote to leave would be for workers everywhere.

A follow-up conference in Trondheim attended by nearly 600 trade union delegates issued a special statement to describe how important it was to them that we leave.

The statement neatly sums up the hope millions of workers throughout Europe that we will get it right:?

 “To our fellow workers in the United Kingdom, In the near future you will be voting in a referendum on whether the UK should stay a member of the EU or leave the EU.

“Like you, we have a rightist government pushing austerity measures, forwarding privatisation, increasing class differences and increasing unemployment.

“Like you, the two biggest parties in Norway are in favour of EU membership: the Conservative Party and the Labour Party.

“Like you, the biggest employers’ organisation favours EU membership.

“The elite in Norway have tried to make Norway a member of the EU twice: In 1972 and in 1994. On both occasions the Norwegian people voted No.

“Keeping Norway outside the EU has been favourable for the working class.

“Norway’s parliament is still the highest authority in Norway. About 9 per cent of EU law is implemented in Norway.

Norway controls its territorial waters and all fishing in its waters. Norway controls its oil resources. Norway is not subject to EU foreign policy. 

Norway has its own central bank that is not subject to the European Central Bank, and so on.

“In this globalised world workers are facing the forces of globalised companies. These global companies are undermining national sovereignty and democracy.

“We urge you to see the possibilities to strengthen your struggle by defending national self-determination and democracy. 

This means leaving the EU and struggling hand in hand with workers in Europe and around the world against the EU, TTIP, TISA and other agreements that undermine national independence and democracy.

“Greetings of international solidarity.”


Doug Nicholls is chair of Trade Unionists Against the EU.

SEE ALSO:

The Growing Myth of Social Europe
http://tuaeu.co.uk/?page_id=803

The Nature of the European Union

http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/the-nature-of-european-union-and-its.html

YR AFLONYDDWCH MAWR - SAVE OUR SOVEREIGNTY

http://greatunrest2012.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/sos-save-our-sovereignty-campaign-vote.html


Democracy and Class Struggle does not endorse any of the anti EU organisations because they are overwhelmingly George Galloway/Nigel Farage British and they do not defend the right of self determination for the nationalities in the British Isles upto and including the point of separation.

From our class and national viewpoint we oppose the European State and the British State and will take the opportunity of the referendum to expose the hypocrisy of George Galloway and Nigel Farage has British nationalists.

However we also will also expose the pro EU hypocrisy of Plaid Cymru and the Scottish Nationalists and Sinn Fein for their promotion of the European Superstate and its making of Wales,Scotland and Ireland and England nothing more than EU dependencies and not politically independent states.

India: JNU Student Union President Kanhaiya Kumar Released On Bail After Being Arrested for Sedition

Saudi Arabia's "Northern Thunder," Sound and Fury Signifying Nothing says Ulson Gunnar

The news has been abuzz before and during the ceasefire announced amid Syria's conflict about Saudi Arabia's possible intervention. Saudi Arabia has threatened to intervene amid incomprehensible, contradicting rhetoric, claiming that it would enter Syrian territory to "fight" IS (the Islamic State), but would do so only now because the Syrian government has refused to step down.

Of course, the only coherent forces on the ground fighting IS now are the Syrian government's troops and Kurdish fighters who now appear to be working with Damascus.

Saudi Arabia's intervention to remove President Bashar al Assad from power would seem to work in IS' favor, not against it.

To give Saudi Arabia's confusing threats some teeth, Riyadh announced its "Northern Thunder" military exercises which it claimed would be one of the largest military exercises ever held. The United Arab Emirates' "The National," would report in an article titled, "Saudi Arabia hosts joint military exercise," that: Armed forces from 20 countries have begun manoeuvres in northeastern Saudi Arabia, described by the official Saudi Press Agency as one of the world’s biggest military exercises.

Troops from the other five Gulf Arab states – the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar – as well as Pakistan, Malaysia, Turkey, Egypt, Morocco, Jordan and Sudan are among those participating in the Ra’ad Al Shamal, or Northern Thunder, exercise, Spa agency reported.

The military drill – which began on Saturday and involves ground, air and naval forces – will be “one of the world’s most important military exercises based on the number of forces participating and the area of territory used”, the agency said.

While that sounds impressive, with Saudi news outlets claiming some 350,000 troops were expected to participate, not a single photo or video has surfaced so far showing this impressive force in action.

The entire point of mounting such monumental military exercises is to show off one's military power to the world, not merely write about it in news articles.

And more specifically, in Saudi Arabia's case, such exercises are meant to show those nations it is trying to coerce by threat of military force just what it faces if concessions are not made.

The National Interest in an article titled, "Saudi Arabia Goes to War," points out some obvious shortcomings of Saudi Arabia's military that, even at face value, undermine Riyadh's threats before they left the mouths of its diplomatic corps.

In the article it states:

Tanks, combat aircraft and missiles are only as powerful as the people operating, maintaining and supporting them. And in this domain, Saudi Arabia has a very long way to go.

Not much is known about the proficiency of Saudi Arabia’s military as a fighting force. The only real war the Saudis have taken part in was Operation Desert Storm in 1991; and most of the fighting there was done by the US.

More recently Saudi Arabia has been fighting in Yemen, but unsuccessfully so far. Foreign advisers speak about the difficulties in bringing Saudi Arabian soldiers to the desired combat readiness and proficiency.

The article also mentions another key shortcoming, Saudi Arabia's overdependence on foreign soldiers filling its ranks and the high number of contractors it relies on, as illustrated in its ongoing war with neighboring Yemen.

Multiplying Complications

There are several complications that immediately undermine Saudi Arabia's threats.

It's one thing to have an army, but it's another thing to actually get it into another theater of war that isn't bordering your own nation.

Moving troops into Syria will require the cooperation and complicity as well as additional logistical expertise of other nations to move troops from Saudi Arabia either through Jordan and into Syria, or in large numbers to Turkey by sea and then onward to Syria.

And, it is one thing to have such capabilities to move enough troops for any sort of meaningful incursion into Syria, and quite another thing to be able to keep them armed, fueled and otherwise supplied, especially during sustained combat operations.

Al Qaeda and IS supply lines have been having trouble making it over the Turkish-Syrian border without being picked off by Russian and Syrian airpower. Would they have greater success if they flew the Saudi flag?

However, this last point could be addressed by Saudi troops simply latching on to the supply lines already in place for Al Qaeda and IS, lines likely already very familiar to planners in Riyadh, since they have helped underwrite them to begin with.

Still, the unique requirements for a modern, mechanized army would need these lines expanded and augmented, something Saudi Arabia has little experience doing.

And experience is perhaps a third failing Saudi Arabia brings with it when it tries to threaten other nations of invasion. Entering into the Syrian conflict and doing anything more than seizing a buffer zone at the edge of Syria's territory would be the first "rodeo" of its kind for Riyadh. And if such a move was considered a "rodeo," its move into Yemen next door could be considered a "junior rodeo," and one Riyadh has yet to finish.

Saudi Arabia's Threat of Invasion is Cover For Something Else...

If Saudi Arabia cannot even win on the battlefield in neighboring Yemen, with fighting even spilling over the border into Saudi territory, it is unlikely it will do any better against the battle-hardened, better organized and better equipped forces of the Syrian Arab Army, let alone Russia's presence in the country.

Clearly Saudi Arabia's phantom military exercises and posturing are cover for something else.

It is likely that anything that goes over the border into Syria under the Saudi flag will be anything other than actual Saudi forces.

Remember those Al Qaeda and IS supply lines mentioned earlier?

What if the fighters and equipment pouring into Syria simply changed their black flags to Saudi Arabia's?

A no-fly-zone over Syria to protect Syrian forces as they near Al Raqqa could help the West back down from a series of final but desperate options their bad judgement seems to be encouraging them to consider.

And though Saudi Arabia's demands for "democracy" in Syria despite the fact that Saudi Arabia itself is an absolute monarchy devoid entirely of elections, staged or otherwise, are particularly discredited, an undeserving air of legitimacy still surrounds the regime in Riyadh, perhaps enough to make it difficult for Syrian or Russian forces to attack terrorists flagged as Saudis.

Consider also that while moving thousands of additional troops into the theater may be difficult, moving Saudi warplanes is not.

Many are already reportedly in Turkey, standing by for operations. Saudi-flagged terrorists backed by Saudi airpower would be a particularly potent mix that could keep supply lines to terrorists fighting in Syria's interior open long enough to break Syrian-Russian operational momentum and create a stalemate only tough concessions made by Moscow and Damascus could break.

With this possibility, it would benefit Syria and its allies to begin considering a true no-fly-zone over the country, excluding from Syrian airspace all nations (especially the Saudis and Turks) not given authorization by Damascus.

The matter could be brought before the UN under the plausible pretext that Syrian troops are closing in on IS positions in Al Raqqa and the chance of mishaps are growing by the day. This is not even a ploy, because in fact, Syrian forces are closing in on Al Raqqa.

Now would be as good a time as any to begin closing off Syrian airspace and helping the US and its allies back down from increasingly desperate options, saving them from themselves and their demonstrably bad judgement.

Ulson Gunnar, a New York-based geopolitical analyst and writer especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

SOURCE: http://journal-neo.org/2016/03/02/saudi-arabias-northern-thunder-sound-and-fury-signifying-nothing/

SEE ALSO: http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/operation-northern-thunder.html

Syrian Ceasefire - Latest Military Report for March 1st - 2016

India : At least eight suspected Maoists, including five women, were shot dead in an encounter with security forces in a forest near the Telangana-Chhattisgarh border early Tuesday morning.

At least eight suspected Maoists, including five women, were shot dead in an encounter with security forces in a forest near the Telangana-Chhattisgarh border early Tuesday morning.

Security personnel of CRPF, Chattisgarh Police, and Greyhounds of Telangana Police were conducting combing operations in the area based on a tip-off about a Maoist meeting when the encounter took place with the Maoists who are suspected to be from the Venkatapuram Area Committee of Bhadrachalam in Khammam district. Secretary of the Venkatapuram Area Committee Lachchanna is suspected to have been killed in the encounter.

Greyhounds Police officials said that eight persons including five women were killed but they could not confirm if one of them was Lachchanna. Another wanted Maoist leader, Telangana State Secretary Hari Bhushan alias Hari Kishan is also suspected to have been either injured or killed. Police recovered an AK 47 rifle, several .303 rifles and some small arms and ammunition from the site.