Haiti's Story must be told

Picture Francois Dominique Toussaint L'Ouverture (1743-1803 AD)

Haiti was the scene of the only successful slave revolution in history when the heroic descendants of African slaves drove out the strongest army in the world at that time, the French.

The French government forced Haiti to pay reparations of millions of dollars for daring to rebel.

FRANCE AND THE UNITED STATES WANTED AN EXAMPLE MADE OF THIS AFRIKAN NATION TO SHOW WHAT WOULD LIE IN STORE FOR ANY OTHER REBELLIOUS AFRIKAN NATION

Tthe U.S., also at that time feared the influence of Haiti on the slaves in the USA, and with France embarked on a policy of isolating and impoverishing Haiti.

This established, Haiti’s destructive patterns of political violence and economic chaos continuing from then up to the present time.

Between 1915 and 1934 U.S. marines occupied Haiti, suppressing a liberation struggle and implanting puppets. The U.S. backed the infamously cruel tyrant Papa Doc Duvalier, and then his son Baby Doc in the middle of the century..

The US and French governments conspired to overthrow the popular president Jean-Bertrand Aristide in the 1990's and then again just a few years ago in 2004.

In Haiti's hour of need the past must be remembered and the people of Haiti freed from the destructive power of Imperialism in the 21st Century.

Statement of the George Jackson Socialist League and Democracy and Class Struggle

Wake Europe up to crimes of Indian State with Spring Thunder Europe 2010- French language version

Déclaration de Democracy and Class Struggle appelant à une campagne pour la lutte Indienne en Europe dans les six premiers mois de l’année 2010

Democracy and Class Struggle demande la libération immédiate de Kobad Ghandy, Ravi Sharma Anuradha, Sri Chhatradar Mahato, Raja Sarkhel et Prasun Chatterjee, Tusharkanta Bhattacharya et tous les maoïstes et des autres prisonniers politiques en Inde et la fin immédiate de l’opération cessation immédiate de l’opération Green Hunt….

La guerre contre le peuple aussi connu contre l’Opération Green Hunt a commencé le 1er Novembre 2009. A la mi Novembre plus de 12 villages ont été complètement ravagées par des agents de l’Etat indien obligeant leurs habitants à se réfugier dans la forêt profonde.

Deux incidents distincts de massacres ont eu lieu en Dandakaranya et un dans l’Orissa au cours duquel plus de dix-sept adivasis (tribaux) ont été assassinés par les forces armées gouvernementales.

On a rapporté que des milliers d’adivasis abandonnent leurs maisons dans Chattisgarth et émigrent vers l’Andhra Pradesh, après que l’0peration Hunt a été lancé.

Les brutalités des forces gouvernementales se multiplient chaque jour, comme on peut le voir dans Narayanpatna, Orissa. Le mois dernier des paysans adivasis manifestaient pour les droits à la terre la police leur a tirés dessus, tuant deux de leurs chefs. Soixante-douze personnes ont été arrêtées sans aucune accusations.

Compte tenu de ces développement, le nombre de morts ou de blessés ainsi que les déplacés et les villages détruits ne fera qu’augmenter dans les semaines à venir si le gouvernement indien ne met pas à terme immédiat de son offensive militaire contre le peuple.

Democracy and Class Struggle demande à tous les forces progressistes, communistes et révolutionnaires forces en Europe de construire une campagne de soutien pour nos frères et sœurs en Inde et pour dénoncer les brutalités de l’Etat indien devant le peuple d’Europe.

En 2010, et en particulier au cours des six premiers mois de l’année, nous appelons à une campagne publique dans toute l’Europe sur la lutte en Inde, avec des meetings, projections de films, manifestations.

Les adivasis luttent pour notre planète et leur terre et nous devrions lutter pour eux en retour.

L’appel de Democracy and Class Struggle a été approuvé par les organisations suivantes pour Réveiller l’Europe face aux crimes de l’Etat indien en 2010 avec Spring Thunder Europe 2010

Parti Communiste Maoïste de France

(nuevo) Partito Comunista Italiano

Partito dei Comitati d’Appoggio alla Resistenza – per il Comunismo – CARC Italy

Serve the People – Communist League of Norway

Co-ordination Committee of Revolutionary Communists of Britain

Revolutionary Praxis – Britain

World People's Resistance Movement - Britain


Translation thanks to futurrouge comrades http://futurrouge.wordpress.com/

Italy : The Struggle against Racism and Fascism

1. The struggle against racism and fascism in Italy

The criminal attack against migrant workers in Rosarno, in Italian region Calabria, has been known all over Europe.

It demonstrates what our Party is saying for months, that Italy is a fore front of racist and fascist war the European bourgeoisie is carrying out against migrants. The Italian State make people drowned in the Mediterranean sea, had made their boats sink, is organizing and supporting economically and politically in many Italian cities fascist and racist groups who have representatives in the bourgeois institutions and who did attacks against migrants, so as against gay people, workers, leftist young people and communists’ seats and so on, and acts together with the criminal organizations as it does in Rosarno. They are the criminal organizations that killed six African people in Castel Volturno in Campania in September 2009, by gangsters with carabinieri’s uniforms .

So as Italy is a forefront of this bourgeoisie’s war, it is a forefront of the resistance by the people’s masses and by the communists.

On January 2009, in Rome, tens thousands of migrant people marched in a demonstration of more than a hundred thousand people in support of Gaza Palestinians attacked by Zionists, one of the many demonstrations that leftist, anti-imperialist, antifascist and antiracist forces and the people’s masses by themselves are been able to organize in the latest years independently from revisionists forces.

On July 2009, an antifascist and antiracist squad started from the National Feast of the Association for Proletarian Solidarity for demonstrating against a fascist and racist “patrol” in Massa (Tuscany), and against the fascist and racist “security package”, the laws promulgated by the Berlusconi’s gang against migrants. The comrades were attacked by the police and by the fascists, three of them arrested, among them Alessandro della Malva, secretary of the CARC Party Tuscan Federation, member of the National Direction of CARC. The arrested were liberated after a hard struggle by people supporting them, demonstrating in front of the police stations, blocking the railway stations at Massa and in Naples. The minister Maroni, member of the racist Lega Nord, was compelled to modify the racist measures aimed to organize anti-migrant patrols.

On 11 October 2009 in Pistoia (Tuscany), 20 people who were having a meeting for organizing antifascist and antiracist activities in Tuscany were seized by the police and held in the police station all night long, with the false charge to have participated in an antifascist raid against a fascist seat near there. Three of them were arrested, and one of them, Alessandro della Malva, kept in jail where he is still today, with no right ever to communicate by mail with people outside and mainly with his Party, in rigorous imprisonment. Many demonstrations and initiatives of solidarity for him have been carried out, involving hundreds and thousands of people, relatives, friends, comrades, remembering us the images we got of the solidarity for the political prisoners we see, for example, in Turkey.

On 16 October, another great demonstration against racism and fascism, with ten thousands of people, was held in Rome, this one too self organized by leftist, anti-imperialist, antifascist and antiracist forces.

We ask the international antiracist, antifascist and communist movement to pay attention to what the imperialist bourgeoisie is testing in Italy, that is how to promote the reactionary mobilization of the popular masses. We also ask to the movement to support strongly the resistance the popular masses, the antiracist, antifascist and communist forces are carrying out against these that we call “fascism testing” by the bourgeoisie.

The comrades of ATIK (Confederation of Workers from Turkey in Europe) have made a statement about Rosarno facts.

Their statement is important. It answers to the call we sent already in the summer, asking the antiracist, antifascist and communist movement, and mainly the European one, to take care how what was happening in Italy, both about bourgeoisie’s war against migrants and about the struggle against this war, that is a kind of war itself, part of the protracted revolutionary people’s war applied according to the particular laws to be applied in the imperialist countries.

We have some remarks to make about the statement. Below we reproduce the document and indicate the remarks. Our comments are in italic.


2. ATIK statement

The hysteric aggression against migrants in Italy-Rosarno is
‘modern slavery racism’!

The aggression against migrants in Rosarno is not “hysteric”. It is a planned operation, organized by the local criminal organizations connected with the State forces of repression, a part of a national strategy carried out by the extreme right of the imperialist bourgeoisie, of whom Berlusconi’s gang is representative. The tactic to make acting before the illegal forces (fascist or criminal gangs) and then the legal ones (the carabinieri, the police) as a rearguard is the old one tested firstly by Italian Fascism in the Twenties of the past century.

Rosarno fact are not “modern slavery racism”. The migrants are not slaves. They are integral and important part of the Italian working class. Some of them were workers of Northern Italy factories fired because of the crisis. All of them were workers of the agricultural sector in Southern Italy.

Workers may be treated worse than slaves, but anyway they are not property of somebody, they are free men and women, even if this means that they are free to die because they lack means of subsistence. Workers are a higher kind of laborers than slaves, and this is not a matter of words, but of what political action we are going to carry out with them and for them.

In South Italy, in the Calabria region in Rosarno, new attacks occurred against semi-legal or illegal migrants that are brought into the region for seasonal agricultural work.

The original source of the conflicts in the town has been the violent measurements against the migrant worker’s legitimate mass action by the Rosarno police and carabinieri teams, after the racist-fascist-mafia circles had injured two migrants with firearms. Migrants are moving to protest against the inhumane treatments, humiliations, discrimination and racist aggression of the past months in Rosario. With their legitimate upraising, they have presented a new example of the tradition of civil courage.

It is said that hundreds of migrants were injured during the joint attacks by the mafia circles and the police. The international ruling media is reflecting the issues distorted and is instigating racism by doing so. Migrants have been complaining in the past periods that ‘protection fees’ have been forced upon them by the notorious mafia organization of the Calabria region ‘ Ndrangheta’ resulting in a second exploitation. After these events hundreds of migrants were made subject to sudden and forced deportation without any legality to base this on, they were placed into homes in Bari and Brindisi that not even had a hygienic infrastructure. Thousands of migrants and refugees whom lives are at risk have the intention to flee the region with their own recourses.

The Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni is supporting the hysterical aggressive attacks of the mafia- police collective against illegal migrants, by stating ‘The incidents in Rosarno have shown the necessity for harder method in the struggle against illegal migration and migrant criminality’.

Against this, the progressive, democratic Italian public opinion and the left opposition have expressed a correct political analysis by stating that ‘the essential problem is not the migrants (legal or illegal) but the exploitive, mafia, racist and fascist-minded power struggle’.

Ten thousands of migrant workers are being put to work as slaves in the Calabria region, in Rosano, on the fruit fields, working under bad, unhealthy and precarious conditions. Even the refugee board of the UN, the UNCHR and the Italian unions has been criticizing these inhumane conditions for many years.

Since the period of Mussolini, Calabria is known as a province where racist, fascist-minded and the mafia are very strong, is actually economically an agricultural and domestic tourism region. The demand for maximum profit and superiority on competition through the exploitation of cheap, non-skilled, precarious migrant labour is the common goal of the small businesses, large farmers and the capitalists.

To say that “Since the period of Mussolini, Calabria is known as a province where racist, fascist-minded and the mafia are very strong” is a cliché, and moreover a cliché used by the racists themselves. We need to be dialectical. Calabria has been the region of many important peasants struggles after the Second World War, occupation of lands, tens of people killed. It has been a region with an important communist tradition. It has been a region with one of the most important workers struggles in the Nineties, the one of Enichem workers of Crotone. Going back in the past, before the period of Mussolini, this was the region of the hardest people’s war by the so called “brigands” against the occupation by the Italian State. Going further back, it was one of the lands with utmost resistance against the Vatican, in the sixteenth century, in a struggle that would have determined the future of our peninsula for the next centuries until today. Thousands of Calabrian Waldensians were killed by the papal forces. Tommaso Campanella, jailed for thirty years, one of the most important revolutionary thinkers of the century, was Calabrian. Gioacchino da Fiore, one of the most important inspirers of the revolutionary heretical movements of whole Europe in the first centuries of the past millennium, was Calabrian. More than 2500 years ago Pythagoras, well known as one of the greatest philosophers and mathematicians in all history, came in Calabria, in Crotone, were he wanted to establish an aristocratic government, but democrats rebelled, and killed him and his followers.

The Calabrian people’s masses are among the most oppressed masses in Italy, obliged to migrate themselves in many parts of Italy and all over the world. They are the first victims of the Mafia system. Their resistance must be known and supported. The Communists must be able to unite the resistance of the migrant people and that of Calabrian people. If they are not be able to do so, it is a problem of them. The reason why the reactionary powers are strong in Calabria is the fact that Communists are weak, it is a problem of the Italian Communist Movement, from the period of Mussolini until today

The entire Italian ruling class is profiting from this nationwide fascist-minded relentless exploitation. Berlusconi, who heads up the most racist power in Europe, is named the ‘representative of modern fascism of our times’ by many of the Italian leftists and progressive public opinion because of the oppressive implementations on all workers and migrants.

Those who talk about “modern fascism” in Italy are wrong. In Italy there is not fascism like the one we had from 1922 to 1945. If it were so, all people who call themselves “communists” would be in jail, or killed. There will be no freedom of strike, we should have an open terroristic regime, mass extermination, and so on. No doubt that Berlusconi and its gang are trying to establish something like this, but they have not yet succeeded in doing it. In Italy, so as in the other imperialist countries, we have a regime of counter preventive revolution, aimed
to maintain people’s masses’ cultural and political backwardness,
to prevent people’s masses from building their mass organizations, doing so as they associate themselves in organizations (trade unions, associations, etc.) led by men of the regime to selectively repress Communists,

To develop channels for popular masses’ participation in bourgeoisie’s political struggle in a subordinate position, following its parties and exponents, making them believe that so doing they participate in leading the State, that they somehow “are the State”

To satisfy the requests of improvement that the popular masses make more strongly, to give everyone the hope to have a dignified life and feed this hope with some practical result, to envelop every worker in a network of financial bonds (loans, mortgages, bills, taxes, rents, etc.) that every moment make him risk to lose everything or anyway much of its social state and richness if he’s not able to respect fixed deadlines.

Thanks to this regime the imperialist bourgeoisie rules in the imperialist countries. This is the regime that the communists have faced in most of the imperialist countries, (with the exception of the countries and the periods when bourgeoisie adopted the open terroristic dictatorship as Nazism or Fascism). This is the regime still existing in the imperialist countries, even if somewhere, as in Italy, the extreme rightist bourgeoisie is trying to restoring fascism, that anyway it will not be different from the old one. That is why we ask to the forces that are talking of modern fascism what they are talking of.

Who says that we are in a fascist regime says something wrong and damaging. It is wrong, because Fascism is the terrorist dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. It involves consequences and has characteristics everyone knows in Europe and all over the world, many people for having learned them the hard way.

Undoubtedly in Europe and particularly in Italy part of the imperialist bourgeoisie is trying to get at this. Outlawing the youth communist organization of Czech Republis is one of these attempts. The imprisonment of Alessandro della Malva in Italy, and the general attack against CARC Party and against all the organizations of the caravan of the (n)PCI are “fascism testing” as well. Also the attack against Rosarno migrants is this. Italy is a forefront of the clash between reactionary and revolutionary mobilization of people’s masses.

Anyway, they are all attempts. To say that we are already in a fascist regime, modern or not, means to say that enemy has already won. That is why it is a damaging thesis. It does not allow to organize people’s masses to defend the conquests and the political freedom they, in Italy, had been able to wring out from the bourgeoisie by the war of Resistance and workers struggles followed in the decades after the Second World War, and that the bourgeoisie has not been able to destroy completely. It does not allow uniting the struggle of these people’s masses with the struggle of migrants, who are the first target of the “fascism testing” of racists, fascists and Mafia men of Berlusconi’s gang.

This unity between autochthonous and migrants’ people’s masses is a necessary means for winning. This unity is a means that guarantees victory.

On behalf of the Confederation of Workers from Turkey in Europe; we condemn the modern slavery, degrading, oppressive, racist, fascist-minded policies of the Italian government and state. Once more we declare that we will not cease to protect the right of migrants where we will be. We call upon the Italian and international democratic-progressive public opinion, unions, human rights organizations and activists to act more to defend the rights of migrants. Long live the international unity of workers and the fraternity of people!

End to the civil-bureaucracy-police and mafia cooperative racist aggression in Italy!

Solidarity with the attacked African (illegal, legal) migrants!

Democratic rights of migrants are also human rights!

End to the aggression against migrants and refugees!

The EU 2010 Return Directives should be stopped immediately!


Conclusions

In Italy, but also elsewhere, there is only one way for defending migrants’ rights and interests. As we told in the 23rd Thesis of our Second Congress (November 2009), “communists and progressive people must committ themselves on a large scale in order to favour by all means migrants’ organization and mobilization to defend their rights and to favour the unity between the auchtoctonous and the migrant people’s masses in the common struggle against bourgeoisie and its system of mysery and exploitation”. They will do so advancing in the revolutionary struggle for establishing socialism in their countries. This is the core of the matter, and it is very important that every force of the international communist movement and of the resistance movement of the people’s masses all over the world become aware of this.
We thank very much the Turkish comrades for their statement that reveals a deep attention to many details of the political struggle ongoing in Italy. Mainly we thank them for the opportunity they gave us to start a debate within the international antifascist and antiracist movement about some most importante and decisive issues.


Partito dei Comitati d’Appoggio alla Resistenza – per il Comunismo (CARC) - Italia
Via Tanaro, 7 - 20128 Milano - Tel/Fax 02.26306454
e-mail: resistenza@carc.it

http://www.carc.it/

Unified CPN (Maoist) lawmakers have boycotted Monday's sitting of the parliament - clarification sought on serious issues

Unified CPN (Maoist) lawmakers have boycotted Monday's sitting of the legislature parliament demanding government's official position on some controversial issues including Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal's alleged statement about making the Maoists' plight similar to that of Liberation of Tigers of Tamil Eleam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka.

UCPN (Maoist) parliamentary board deputy leader Narayan Kaji Shrestha had sought government's official position on PM Nepal's alleged statement, Indian army chief's statement about army integration in Nepal and alleged import of arms through Sunauli border on January 14th.

200 Years Ago: The Slaves of Haiti and Slavemasters of the U.S.

The gathering at Bois Caiman where Haiti's revolution started

Posted by Mike Ely on KASAMA on January 18, 2010 - Re-published on Democracy and Class Struggle and dedicated to the comrades of the George Jackson Socialist League.


Haiti and the U.S. were always entwined — from their very origins in the 1700s. Slave revolution in the Caribbean caused the American settler-state to tremble as it expanded. Revolution in Haiti — then one of the most profitable colonies in the world — greatly weakened the French empire. It stirred the hearts of slaves throughout the Americas, leading to whispered plans of revolt. And it provided an opening to the slave owners of the U.S. to grab new lands all the way to the Mississippi river — first (on paper) from the French, and then (through bloody genocide) from the Indian peoples.


The following is from Consortium news and appears on Alternet.

Haiti’s Tragic History Is Entwined with the Story of America
By Robert Parry

Announcing emergency help for Haiti after a devastating 7.0-magnitude earthquake, President Barack Obama noted America’s historic ties to the impoverished Caribbean nation, but few Americans understand how important Haiti’s contribution to U.S. history was.

In modern times, when Haiti does intrude on U.S. consciousness, it’s usually because of some natural disaster or a violent political upheaval, and the U.S. response is often paternalistic, if not tinged with a racist disdain for the country’s predominantly black population and its seemingly endless failure to escape cycles of crushing poverty.

However, more than two centuries ago, Haiti represented one of the most important neighbors of the new American Republic and played a central role in enabling the United States to expand westward. If not for Haiti, the course of U.S. history could have been very different, with the United States possibly never expanding much beyond the Appalachian Mountains.

In the 1700s, then-called St. Domingue and covering the western third of the island of Hispaniola, Haiti was a French colony that rivaled the American colonies as the most valuable European possession in the Western Hemisphere. Relying on a ruthless exploitation of African slaves, French plantations there produced nearly one-half the world’s coffee and sugar.

Many of the great cities of France owe their grandeur to the wealth that was extracted from Haiti and its slaves. But the human price was unspeakably high. The French had devised a fiendishly cruel slave system that imported enslaved Africans for work in the fields with accounting procedures for their amortization. They were literally worked to death.


The American colonists may have rebelled against Great Britain over issues such as representation in Parliament and arbitrary actions by King George III. But black Haitians confronted a brutal system of slavery. An infamous French method of executing a troublesome slave was to insert a gunpowder charge into his rectum and then detonate the explosive.

So, as the American colonies fought for their freedom in the 1770s and as that inspiration against tyranny spread to France in the 1780s, the repercussions would eventually reach Haiti, where the Jacobins’ cry of “liberty, equality and fraternity” resonated with special force. Slaves demanded that the concepts of freedom be applied universally.

When the brutal French plantation system continued, violent slave uprisings followed. Hundreds of white plantation owners were slain as the rebels overran the colony. A self-educated slave named Toussaint L’Ouverture emerged as the revolution’s leader, demonstrating skills on the battlefield and in the complexities of politics.

Despite the atrocities committed by both sides of the conflict, the rebels – known as the “Black Jacobins” – gained the sympathy of the American Federalist Party and particularly Alexander Hamilton, a native of the Caribbean himself. Hamilton, the first U.S. Treasury Secretary, helped L’Ouverture draft a constitution for the new nation.

Conspiracies

But events in Paris and Washington soon conspired to undo the promise of Haiti’s new freedom.

Despite Hamilton’s sympathies, some Founders, including Thomas Jefferson who owned 180 slaves and owed his political strength to agrarian interests, looked nervously at the slave rebellion in St. Domingue. “If something is not done, and soon done,” Jefferson wrote in 1797, “we shall be the murderers of our own children.”

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, the chaos and excesses of the French Revolution led to the ascendance of Napoleon Bonaparte, a brilliant and vain military commander possessed of legendary ambition. As he expanded his power across Europe, Napoleon also dreamed of rebuilding a French empire in the Americas.

In 1801, Jefferson became the third President of the United States – and his interests at least temporarily aligned with those of Napoleon. The French dictator was determined to restore French control of St. Domingue and Jefferson was eager to see the slave rebellion crushed.

Through secret diplomatic channels, Napoleon asked Jefferson if the United States would help a French army traveling by sea to St. Domingue. Jefferson replied that “nothing will be easier than to furnish your army and fleet with everything and reduce Toussaint [L’Ouverture] to starvation.”

But Napoleon had a secret second phase of his plan that he didn’t share with Jefferson. Once the French army had subdued L’Ouverture and his rebel force, Napoleon intended to advance to the North American mainland, basing a new French empire in New Orleans and settling the vast territory west of the Mississippi River.

In May 1801, Jefferson picked up the first inklings of Napoleon’s other agenda. Alarmed at the prospect of a major European power controlling New Orleans and thus the mouth of the strategic Mississippi River, Jefferson backpedaled on his commitment to Napoleon, retreating to a posture of neutrality.

Still – terrified at the prospect of a successful republic organized by freed African slaves – Jefferson took no action to block Napoleon’s thrust into the New World.

In 1802, a French expeditionary force achieved initial success against the slave army, driving L’Ouverture’s forces back into the mountains. But, as they retreated, the ex-slaves torched the cities and the plantations, destroying the colony’s once-thriving economic infrastructure.

L’Ouverture, hoping to bring the war to an end, accepted Napoleon’s promise of a negotiated settlement that would ban future slavery in the country. As part of the agreement, L’Ouverture turned himself in.

Napoleon, however, broke his word. Jealous of L’Ouverture, who was regarded by some admirers as a general with skills rivaling Napoleon’s, the French dictator had L’Ouverture shipped in chains back to Europe where he was mistreated and died in prison.

Foiled Plans

Infuriated by the betrayal, L’Ouverture’s young generals resumed the war with a vengeance. In the months that followed, the French army – already decimated by disease – was overwhelmed by a fierce enemy fighting in familiar terrain and determined not to be put back into slavery.

Napoleon sent a second French army, but it too was destroyed. Though the famed general had conquered much of Europe, he lost 24,000 men, including some of his best troops, in St. Domingue before abandoning his campaign.

The death toll among the ex-slaves was much higher, but they had prevailed, albeit over a devastated land.






By 1803, a frustrated Napoleon – denied his foothold in the New World – agreed to sell New Orleans and the Louisiana territories to Jefferson. Ironically, the Louisiana Purchase, which opened the heart of the present United States to American settlement, had been made possible despite Jefferson’s misguided collaboration with Napoleon.

“By their long and bitter struggle for independence, St. Domingue’s blacks were instrumental in allowing the United States to more than double the size of its territory,” wrote Stanford University professor John Chester Miller in his book, The Wolf by the Ears: Thomas Jefferson and Slavery.

But, Miller observed, “the decisive contribution made by the black freedom fighters … went almost unnoticed by the Jeffersonian administration.”

The loss of L’Ouverture’s leadership dealt a severe blow to Haiti’s prospects, according to Jefferson scholar Paul Finkelman of Virginia Polytechnic Institute.

“Had Toussaint lived, it’s very likely that he would have remained in power long enough to put the nation on a firm footing, to establish an order of succession,” Finkelman told me in an interview. “The entire subsequent history of Haiti might have been different.”

Instead, the island nation continued a downward spiral.

In 1804, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the radical slave leader who had replaced L’Ouverture, formally declared the nation’s independence and returned it to its original Indian name, Haiti. A year later, apparently fearing a return of the French and a counterrevolution, Dessalines ordered the massacre of the remaining French whites on the island.

Though the Haitian resistance had blunted Napoleon’s planned penetration of the North American mainland, Jefferson reacted to the shocking bloodshed in Haiti by imposing a stiff economic embargo on the island nation. In 1806, Dessalines himself was brutally assassinated, touching off a cycle of political violence that would haunt Haiti for the next two centuries.

Jefferson’s Blemish

For some scholars, Jefferson’s vengeful policy toward Haiti – like his personal ownership of slaves – represented an ugly blemish on his legacy as a historic advocate of freedom. Even in his final years, Jefferson remained obsessed with Haiti and its link to the issue of American slavery.

In the 1820s, the former President proposed a scheme for taking away the children born to black slaves in the United States and shipping them to Haiti. In that way, Jefferson posited that both slavery and America’s black population could be phased out. Eventually, in Jefferson’s view, Haiti would be all black and the United States white.

Jefferson’s deportation scheme never was taken very seriously and American slavery would continue for another four decades until it was ended by the Civil War. The official hostility of the United States toward Haiti extended almost as long, ending in 1862 when President Abraham Lincoln finally granted diplomatic recognition.

By then, however, Haiti’s destructive patterns of political violence and economic chaos had been long established – continuing up to the present time. Personal and political connections between Haiti’s light-skinned elite and power centers of Washington also have lasted through today.

Recent Republican administrations have been particularly hostile to the popular will of the impoverished Haitian masses. When leftist priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide was twice elected by overwhelming margins, he was ousted both times – first during the presidency of George H.W. Bush and again under President George W. Bush.

Washington’s conventional wisdom on Haiti holds that the country is a hopeless basket case that would best be governed by business-oriented technocrats who would take their marching orders from the United States.

However, the Haitian people have a different perspective. Unlike most Americans who have no idea about their historic debt to Haiti, many Haitians know this history quite well. The bitter memories of Jefferson and Napoleon still feed the distrust that Haitians of all classes feel toward the outside world.

“In Haiti, we became the first black independent country,” Aristide once told me in an interview. “We understand, as we still understand, it wasn’t easy for them – American, French and others – to accept our independence.”

Robert Parry’s new book is Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq.”

© 2010 Consortium News All rights reserved.

India drives tribals into Maoist arms By Sudha Ramachandran

This article was published in Asia Times on January 16, 2010

India drives tribals into Maoist arms
By Sudha Ramachandran

KORAPUT, Orissa – Six weeks after police action in Narayanpatna in Koraput district in the eastern state of Orissa left two tribals dead and scores of others injured, tension here shows no signs of abating. Arbitrary arrests of tribals continue with about 109, including at least 12 children, thrown in jail so far on charges that include criminal conspiracy, rioting, sedition and waging war against the state – and police and paramilitary forces have stepped up operations to hunt down activists of the Chasi Mulia Adivasi Sangha (CMAS), a tribal rights organization active in the area.

The CMAS activists have retreated deep into the forests, where they are said to be regrouping. “The hunt for CMAS activists and the intimidation of tribals by the police has forced tribals to seek refuge in the surrounding forests, which are Maoist hideouts,” a senior official in Koraput told Asia Times Online. “By their actions, the police are pushing the tribals to turn Maoist.”

This is the case not just in Narayanpatna but also across villages and towns in India’s tribal areas in Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bengal and Andhra Pradesh. Police atrocities against tribals are fueling support for the Maoists.
Tribals are the most marginalized section of Indian society, worse off than even the Dalits (formerly referred to as Untouchables). Around 49.5% of tribals live under the official poverty line, 76.2% are illiterate and almost 30% have no access whatsoever to doctors in clinics. Displaced from their land and discriminated against in the industrial job markets are now fighting to keep their land, their only remaining resource.

With peaceful agitations and democratic institutions having failed to redress their grievances or provide them with a modicum of justice, tribal alienation in India’s democracy has grown at a massive pace. And it is among this anger and alienation that Maoists are increasingly finding support and recruits.

India’s Maoists believe in armed struggle to overthrow the state and bring socio-economic change. Many tribals say that they are opposed to the use of violence but are left with no option but to pick up the gun to counter the violence of the state and of its police and paramilitary forces. Many tribals still engage in mass politics and agitations to address their grievances. But are being pushed by the state to embrace Maoism and armed struggle.

And the line between tribal political activism and Maoist armed struggle is increasingly blurring with Maoists often coming forward to endorse and support tribal causes. The targets of Maoist violence are often those who exploit the tribals or harass them, like landlords, police and moneylenders.

Analysts have been pointing out that it is the failure of the state to address tribal grievances that is fueling support for the Maoists and their growing influence in the country. But the state seems to think that eliminating the Maoists militarily will resolve the problem.

A massive military offensive to eliminate Maoists was launched recently in the forests of Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and Orissa. About 80,000 troops have been deployed here, with another 20,000 more to be sent in the coming weeks. This, in an area that has around 2 million people, over half of whom are tribal.

While officials far away from the battlegrounds sound confident of success, those at ground zero are not optimistic. There is a feeling that as the anti-Maoist offensive gathers steam, tribal alienation from the state – already dangerously high – will soar. ”The CMAS will grow, gain ground and capture Narayanpatna,” the Koraput official warns.

Police officials say they are hunting down CMAS activists as they are engaging in violence and “anti-people activity”. However, it is hard to dispel the feeling that the police action against the tribal organization has more to do with protecting the interests of powerful sections in the area.

The CMAS has been mobilizing tribals to take back land that was illegally grabbed from them by non-tribal landlords and moneylenders. And it has been successful in re-appropriating about 800 hectares acres of land. Not surprisingly, this has raised the hackles of the non-tribal landlords. The growing assertiveness of the CMAS has rattled mining companies and the liquor mafia, as well.

This motley group of private mining companies, the liquor mafia, land grabbers and contractors is reported to be behind the setting up of shanti (or peace) committees in Koraput, Malkangiri and other districts to counter tribal organizations like the CMAS.

Orissa has rich mineral deposits. It has 70% of all of India’s bauxite reserves (the sixth-largest deposit in the world), 90% of India’s chrome ore and nickel and 24% of its coal. But tribals inhabit much of this mineral-rich land. Mining companies – Indian and multinational – have been lining up to extract this wealth. But tribal agitations and Maoist violence have been blocking their ambitions.

Informed sources in Koraput say that mining companies are putting money into shanti committees to clip the wings of the CMAS and other similar tribal organizations. While shanti committee members in Koraput and Malkangiri say that they came together “spontaneously” to counter the “forcible grabbing of land and looting of crops by outfits like the CMAS”, it does seem that the local administration has played a role in putting them together.

Worse, it appears to be backing the shanti committees’ activities. Shanti committees have been attacking and beating up tribal activists, even murdering them. Members of an independent fact-finding team who went to Narayanpatna to investigate the November police-firing incident were beaten up.

Still no action has been taken against the shanti committees. P K Sahni, deputy superintendent of police, Koraput, said that the activities of the shanti committees are “peaceful, legal and democratic”. Its members are not taking the law into their own hands. Hence, “no cases have been filed against them”.

In contrast to their handling of the shanti committees with kid gloves, stands the police’s extra-tough approach to the CMAS. The Koraput police have called for a ban on the organization.

Non-governmental organization activists in Koraput point out that the CMAS campaign to re-appropriate land grabbed from tribals is not illegal. The Orissa government has enacted laws recognizing the tribals’ right over ancestral land and prohibiting the transfer of land to non-tribals. If the CMAS has been forcibly re-appropriating land this is because tribal appeals to the state for justice have fallen on deaf ears.

The CMAS has been a political movement so far, working for tribal rights through mass mobilization of tribals, agitations and protests. It is the police and the powerful interests they are protecting that are pushing them underground by hounding its activists, arresting them and calling for a ban on the organization.

There are striking similarities between what is happening in Orissa with the controversial salwa judum (peace march) in neighboring Chhattisgarh. Like Orissa, Chhattisgarh’s southern districts of Bastar and Dantewada are rich in minerals. And as in Orissa, tribals who have been resisting the takeover of their land by the state and private mining companies inhabit these areas.

Vigilante groups peopled by tribals, armed by the state and reportedly funded by mining companies and liquor mafias to counter the Maoists active here, have wreaked havoc in Dantewada and Bastar since 2005. The cycle of violence and counter-violence triggered by the salwa judum is reported to have driven tens of thousands of tribals out of their land – an important goal of the mining companies and landlords who fund the vigilante violence. It does seem that Orissa’s shanti committees are aiming to achieve a similar goal in mineral-rich Koraput and other areas.

The ongoing military operations supposedly against the Maoists will enable the police and the mining companies, landlords and liquor mafias they protect to get rid of the tribals, all in the name of fighting the “Maoist terrorists”.

Tribal activists in Malkangiri Asia Times Online spoke to say they are not Maoist as they are working overground and engage in mass politics instead of armed struggle. But this is a difference that the police do not or rather do not want to see. Police have apparently told them that when the paramilitary forces reach their village, tribals and Maoists will be treated similarly.

India’s tribal heartlands can expect a bloodbath.

Sudha Ramachandran is an independent journalist/researcher based in Bangalore.

Interview: G. N. Saibaba, General Secretary of the Revolutionary Democratic Front of India

11 January 2010. A World to Win News Service. In the following interview, conducted in London last November, G. N. Saibaba, General Secretary of the Revolutionary Democratic Front of India, gives his views on Operation Green Hunt, an Indian government offense against Maoist revolutionaries in the hills and forests of central and eastern India. It has been excerpted and somewhat condensed.


Q: Why has the Indian government decided to escalate its offensive against the revolutionaries in India on such a huge scale right now?


A: The particular context actually expresses the hidden agenda of the Indian government. During the past five years, it has been very busy making agreement called memorandums of understanding, MOUs, with many foreign and domestic companies, but mainly for foreign investment. These agreements are mainly for large-scale mining projects and industrial projects in special economic zones. Vast areas within India, both rich agricultural fields and areas rich with minerals like Jharkand, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and West Bengal were agreed upon. But in the past five years one could see widespread resistance to land acquisition for these projects, with or without the leadership of the Naxalites [Maoists], both in the areas where these minerals are found and elsewhere. As a result, most of the revolutionary forces working in these areas have gone from strength to strength, and the Indian government recognises that the Communist Party of India (Maoist) benefited most from the resistance to the land acquisition process. This is clearly mentioned in Home Ministry reports.


Now after five years of this resistance, when the government understands that none of these agreements have gotten off the ground due to the resistance of these movements of the people, now in the name of flushing out the Naxalites or Maoists they want to actually acquire this land. They want to go to war with the people, and in the name of fighting the Naxalites, whom they also call terrorists, the CPI(Maoist) has been banned under a particular law called the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, the UAPA, an amended colonial act. Using this kind of terror tactics and colonial laws, they have already created an atmosphere where they have demonised these people. Now they have declared a war, but their real intention is to take over the vast areas that are under the control of the revolutionary movement to a large extent, and in other regions where there is resistance with or without Naxalites. They have used organs of repression before, torturing the people, terrorising the people and creating the Salwa Judum, a kind of private army created by the authorities. But none of these low-intensity warfare techniques promoted by the U.S. worked. So now they want to launch a full-scale war. Their hidden agenda is to hand over these natural resources, land and forests, to the multinational companies. That is their real agenda.


Q: Could you tell us a little more about tribal people in these area?


A: The tribal people or adivasis live in the areas and the hilly regions of central and eastern India and some other areas. They have their own economy, their own culture and traditions, and religion. They are outside the Hindu caste system. Traditionally they have never really become part of what is called mainstream India. Their economy remained based on food gathering, animal husbandry and primitive agricultural methods. They revolted against the British and never allowed them to take over their lands. After independence in 1947, the Indian government came up with a constitution that provided specific laws and provisions recognising their distinct cultures. There are hundreds of tribes. Each tribe has its own identity and mechanisms, with a tribal economy dependent on forest produce. The Constitution does not allow the Indian government to apply the same laws there as in the rest of the country, and the specific conditions have to be taken into account, though the Indian government has always violated this.


They are the poorest of the poor, and in the past years at least 20 million of them have been displaced for various projects. Their experience is that their brethren who have been displaced from their areas have never been able to go back – it is a lot like what happened in the U.S. with the Red Indians, or what happened with the aboriginal people in Australia and New Zealand. They are almost 100 million people, and most of them are now facing destitution and decimation.


Traditionally the tribal people took up arms. They had a great history of armed struggle against the British. The Naxalbari uprising [the 1967 peasant rebellion from which the Indian Maoist movement emerged, named after the West Bengal village where it started] was a tribal uprising. Later Marxist-Leninist groups in India chose and entered these areas to organise these adivasis, after studying the history of the armed rebellions, and because they are the most backward regions where the Indian state could not penetrate.


Of course the Marxist-Leninists and the Maoist movements are not limited to these areas in India, though they are there predominantly. There's one part of the story about Indian revolutionaries that holds that they represent only adivasis – they do represent adivasis, but it is not restricted to that.


The Lalgarh movement in its present phase started as a spontaneous movement against police repression and the West Bengali government and the CPI-Marxist. [Contrary to its name, the so-called Communist Party of India-Marxist is a reactionary party. It runs the state of West Bengal and is part of the central government. It is infamous for its attempts to violently suppress the people and imprison and kill revolutionaries] . The CPI(Maoist) has been there for the last 12 years, organising among the Lalgarh people. A major development project was planned there, and the West Bengal chief minister, along with the project officials, went to inaugurate the project. As they were returning, the Maoists tried to blast his car but he escaped. The government used that as a pretext for sending a huge number of troops there in the name of catching the Maoists responsible for that blast. But the troops resorted to major atrocities against the tribals, and this provoked mass resistance. So since the Maoists were already there, this resistance grew from village to village.


The kind of movement that developed is very interesting – it's a mass movement involving everyone of all ages, from child to the elderly, women and men. Each village formed a committee, a People's Committee against Police Atrocities. Each committee is composed of five women and five men. This happened initially in 1,100 villages, and then spread to 2,000 or even more today. A cluster of villages will have another committee, sending one woman and one man from each smaller committee.. So there is this other committee that also has an equal representation of men and women, and each decision to take a rally or protest or arms, everything is decided by the committee. And the committees are responsible for the general welfare of the village. All the committees sit together and decide on what date will a rally be held, when or if they must take up arms, with the elders sitting there, and the general body of the village.


The Maoists have existed there, and were part of the villages. This mass formation is at the forefront always. The Maoists gave quiet training, whatever was needed – though the local tribals who are themselves Maoists are leading sections.


Lalgarh comprises only a small part of a region as big as Great Britain – and the movement spread throughout this region. The initial demands of the tribals was that those police officials who were responsible for atrocities should be punished. And they decided the form of the punishment: the officials should come to the villages and apologise, particularly in the face of the victims, things like that. Then when the entire existing administrative structure was thrown out of the region, they started constructing a new society, building roads, digging wells, distributing land, creating collective agricultural formations – this all happened within a year. They have started schools, hospitals, they've invited doctors and nurses from outside. They are trying to build self-reliant means of establishing everything, crops, vegetables, schools, hospitals, cooperatives, developing agriculture collectively. The women's movement came within this when they didn't get an equal opportunity in it. This is a new social movement and it's taken this kind of shape. At the back of it the Maoists are there, and they are no one other than they themselves, unlike what the Indian government is saying that they're infiltrating from outside, which is totally untrue. At the most, a few people are there from outside, the rest of the leaders are from there own community.


Q: So you are saying that this movement and the Maoist leadership is out to change the world, to build an embryo of a new revolutionary society – isn't one of the goals of the Indian movement to go in and smash that kind of revolutionary dream?


A: When I talked of the new society taking shape in Lalgahr, there are other larger experiments taking place in other parts of the country, especially over the last decade. In Chhattisgarh, Orissa, parts of Jharkand – these are all tribal areas, and they have had consistent movements for more than two decades. The Maoists entered these areas about 30 years ago, and in the last twenty years they have built up movements in vast areas. The area around Lalgarh is in fact small compared to all this. Thy have already built new societies throughout these areas I named above. And the government clearly wants to smash the revolutionary alternative in these areas. The CPI(Maoist) clearly declared that they wanted to expand to other areas only after showing a model of a new society in these particular areas. And they have declared that they can influence the vast majority of masses of India by showing a new society already working there..


The first attempts were started in Chhattisgarh where thousands of villages were freed from the exploiting classes, the feudal classes and their ruling elements, the police, the army, the state, and people have elected governments in village after village, called revolutionary people's councils, thousands of villages in Chhattisgharh and Jharkand, hundreds of villages in Orissa, thousands in Andhra Pradesh, and they still have their own governments, they are directly elected by the majority of people. The few handfuls of five or six ruling class elements who decided to remain will not have the right to vote; they have to accept the government of the people. This government has different departments for health and education. They have started producing food grains, establishing agricultural cooperatives. The people decide themselves, all the decisions are referred back to the people's committees, and all the committees, including the militias and armed forces and so on, will work under the control of the people's government.


After some years of this experiment, for the first time one could see that irrigation projects are made, in huge numbers, whereas the government of India in six decades never paid any attention to irrigation projects there. Drinking water projects were made, hundreds of schools have been started, health care systems at the village and higher levels have been made, the illiterate adivasis were trained by experienced doctors from outside and inside, for each village there's one barefoot doctor in a cluster of villages, and the healthcare clinics are working continuously. The educational system includes regular schools, makeshift schools – which move from time to time when the children have to work in some other area – and adult schools. They have their own syllabus. The syllabus is framed according to scientific models using outside and internal educational experts, and a grade by grade syllabus is made. All the world-famous scientific models of study material, including audiovisual material, have been translated into the tribal languages and then used in the education.


Further, for the first time in the history of these regions, they have surplus grain – not only for the revolutionary army, which is called the People's Liberation Guerrilla Army, but for the people too. Even now if the Indian military offensive blocks these areas for several years they will not have a problem due to this surplus grain, and in addition they have fish ponds and other income-generating activities. These villages and their governments have started exporting to other markets as well, keeping the surplus for their own consumption, and using the surplus they have accumulated to build other development projects. This is the way in which their self-reliant economy is developing, which is not dependent on imperialism or on any other outside areas. This is the way that they wanted to show that socialism, a new society, can emerge from these kinds of areas, so that the entire country can take inspiration for socialism.


Q: What about these accusations that these movements are blocking the economic and overall development of the Indian people?


A: The Maoists don't view these so-called development projects as beneficial to the people. They see this particular kind of development as for the superprofits of the multinational corporations through the superexploitation of the people's labour. They will degrade the land, and lead to the people being thrown off the land. So this is pro-imperialist development which benefits a section of the ruling classes in India and the imperialists, monopoly capital. The Indian government has announced that the movement is blocking these projects and will be harmful to the people of the region and the entire country. But it is development for the corporate sector, and the people are offering an alternative vision of development, and they are doing it practically, on the ground. There is no case of real government development programmes being blocked by the Maoists. For example, if the government tries to build a school or hospital, then the Naxalites will never block it. Or if they are building something for the people's economy – but of course the government has no intention of carrying out development projects for the benefit of the people. In addition to these projects for the benefit of the multinational corporations, the only other kind of development projects the government plans are vast projects for roads in the interior areas, to bring in the army and security forces, which definitely the people stop and block.


The question is, what development model has the Indian government adopted for the past 60 years? It is a pro-imperialist development model, which serves the imperialists by giving resources and raw materials to them


It is better for the people of India and the whole world if the minerals remain underneath the hills and the forests, for two reasons. One, if you want to mine these minerals you will have to displace the adivasis and you will not have any system where they will be fully rehabilitated. And the ruling class has no right to displace them – it is their natural habitat. Second, another major reason why the minerals should not be exploited is that not only will the people be displaced, but that these are vulnerable fragile forest and hilly areas, and if you exploit them there will be irreparable damage to the countryside. It will cause major upheaval for climate change and warming, and the Indian subcontinent would never recover. It would have a major impact on the entire subcontinent. So for environmental reasons and the reasons of people's lives, these should not be exploited. But there are ways in which these minerals could be mined in minor ways, ways that would not aggravate the situation and displace the people. They could be used in small quantities for the benefit of the people, but that would have to be decided by the people of the region themselves, and not by outsiders.


Q: How do you answer the charge of terrorism that the Indian government is hurling against the Maoists?


A: The Indian government has come up with a law stating that the CPI(Maoist) are terrorists. But there is widespread acceptance that the Maoist movement is a people's movement, and there is no acceptance among the people to call them terrorists. It's a charge that is totally untrue, for there is no activity they conduct that could be called terrorist. They are working for the people and for their liberation. They do not want the country to be split into parts, except for Kashmir and some states where national liberation movements are very strong. This is a social and political movement, it is based on a political ideology, Marxism, which at its present stage is called Maoism, and they want to conduct social transformation by defeating the ruling classes, the comprador bourgeoisie and bureaucrat bourgeoisie and feudal class that are ruling this country, and to establish an egalitarian society. So they are the most humanist people, with a particular class ideology, working class ideology, and they are a political force. This is the real opposition to the ruling classes in India, which is building an alternate development model, and so they cannot be called terrorist. The Indian government wants to influence the middle classes and broader strata by calling the Maoists terrorists.


Very recently the Prime Minister of India, when declaring this war, also admitted that the Maoists have huge mass support, including from the urban areas, but at the same time he is declaring war. So this is a major contradiction that can be shown to the people, and the government has been forced by the people to admit that the Maoists have this support from the people and the intelligentsia. The Home Minister, who comes out every day with a statement against the CPI(Maoist) and the Naxalites, has acknowledged that the government cannot deal with the Maoists in the same way as it does certain other organisations that he has termed terrorist. There is a big contradiction in the government's statements: while agreeing that there is mass support and making this distinction with other groups that they call terrorists, they at the same time talk about the Maoists as terrorists.


Thousands of prominent people from all over the world have signed a petition against the Indian government's offensive.. It has been handed to the PM and released to the press. There is a vast protest that is being galvanised in every city and town in India, hundreds of conferences have been held against the military offensive, demonstrations are being held all over the country.


The Maoists are appealing to these people, saying that if they have these differences they should be sorted out amongst the people, but this is a time to come together against the state offensive. So there is a debate.


Q: Could you say something about the role of the U.S. and the West in regards to this offensive?


A: The Home Minister, the minister responsible for internal security, had gone to the U.S. and stayed there for a whole week. He stayed in an office of the FBI and according to reports in the U..S. and Indian media spent four days there. And after he returned from the U.S., he said that this military offensive was very necessary in order to conquer, hold and develop the regions. This is the same slogan as is used by the U.S. military generals in Afghanistan, and is now being used to refer to this war being prepared against India's people.


Four years ago, when the Memorandum of Understanding was signed, two members of the U.S. military establishment went around these areas, that is, the Maoist strongholds, to conduct a survey. Before that they came to Mumbai, where they met with U.S. consular officials, along with Indian industrialists who were partners in these projects. A major meeting took place there. They then went to Chhattisgarh. When it came out in the newspapers that these military strategists were travelling around this area, a big hue and cry erupted, and they had to cut short their trip after two days, and then they left.


Soon afterwards, the Indian government announced that the Salwa Judum militia would fight the Maoists. They unleashed terror and caused the emptying of 700 villages. Interestingly, these were villages that were in plans signed for major projects. They wanted to vacate more. They displaced 300,000 tribals, burning down many villages, thousands were killed, and the rest were herded into camps and the like. Very interestingly, the major companies that had big stakes in U.S. investment, could not establish anything in those areas because control of those areas fell back into the hands of the Maoists within months.


The latest evidence of U.S. involvement is that the Indian government has conceded that the U.S. is providing logistic support for this war. What does that mean? They are using the U.S. global positioning systems in order to mobilise their troops and to locate the Maoists in the forests. The U.S. is helping to map the deployment of forces on the ground, and while they're doing this, from time to time the U.S. is providing support for the movement of Indian forces, according to Indian government statements. I don't think U.S. support is just limited to mapping deployments and the like, it is much more than that.


Recently Prime Minister Mahmohan Singh went to the U.S. and met with Obama. That led to a new agreement to buy huge amounts munitions and other military supplies from the US, in the amount of 18 billion dollars.


Israel is providing drones. It has also trained a huge number of Indian forces, and is continuing to do this. Last month the U.S. and Indian armies held joint military exercises in the heart of India, the centre of the country, which lasted more than a month. The press reported that the Indian armed forces have gained training from the experience of the U.S. military's wars in different parts of the world. So U.S. support is more than just logistical – the joint exercises, this arms deal, the Israeli involvement in training the forces, and supplying the latest military technology, usually provided by the Israelis, but recently by the U.S. as well.

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THE CARC PARTY OF ITALY SAYS LET’S NIP IN THE BUD THE EXPERIMENTS OF RACISM AND FASCISM!

Statement

NO TO THE PERSECUTION OF COMMUNISTS AND ANTI-FASCISTS!
LET’S DEFEND FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND ORGANIZATION OF COMMUNISTS AND OTHER OPPONENTS to PAPAL REPUBLIC!
NO TO THE NEW SPECIAL COURTS!

LET’S NIP IN THE BUD THE EXPERIMENTS OF RACISM AND FASCISM!

On 20 January in Rome, the Supreme Court will consider the appeal by the public prosecutor of Bologna attorney Paolo Giovagnoli and by Marcello Branca, General Attorney of the Republic at the Court of Appeal of Bologna, against the sentence of nonsuit judgement because facts do not subsist issued on 1 July 2008 by the GUP (Judge for Preliminary Hearing) Rita Zaccariello, about the Eighth Judicial Proceedings (OPG) for “subversive association” (paragraph 270 bis of Penal Code) brought forward for five years by Giovagnoli against 12 comrades of the (new) Italian Communist Party, the CARC Party and the ASP.

The sentence of the GUP Zaccariello barred the way to the exploitable use by the reactionary right of the crime of subversive association, inherited from the fascist penal code, to attack, suppress, subdue to various harassments (house searches, abuses of power, intimidations, seizures, controls, infiltrations, etc.) opponents to the regime of the Papal Republic introduced in our country at the end of Fascism.

This sentence unveiled and demonstrated that from 2003 to 2007 PM Giovagnoli used the paragraph 270a of penal code (in particularly the accusation of terrorism) against some comrades of (n) PCI, CARC Party and ASP and bodies close to them, that is the caravan of (n) PCI, with the main objective to outlaw (n) PCI and hinder the work of the public organizations that recognize themselves and cooperate with his plan to make Italy a new Socialist country.

His aim was to declare them “terrorist organizations”, against whom automatically apply the wicked deeds provided by the international “anti-terror” laws and regulations: essentially, detention of suspected people without judicial proceedings, deprivation of liberty and civil rights by decision of the police, harassments and various bullying.

The stop put to the “new Torquemada” Giovagnoli and his accomplices and instigators was a victory for Communists, anti-fascists and all sincere democrats and marked an important step against the resolutions to outlaw Communists and the repression of people’s movement of resistance in our country!

Let’s mobilize so that the Supreme Court confirm the sentence by the GUP and put a stop to those want to promote reactionary devolution in our country, to the reactionary right wing gathered around the Berlusconi government and its fascists and racists ministers.

The Supreme Court will stand up for one or other of the two conceptions of repression (and in particular about the use of crimes of association and the so-called anti-terror laws) existing within the ruling class, the magistracy and the institutions of our country.

On the one hand there is the component of the ruling class that does not want its hands tied by laws in force and is determined to expand and make more and more violent, open and declared the preventive repression against students, workers, immigrants, fighting trade union militants , anti-fascists and communists, up to the outlawing of Communists and all opponents. It is one that leaves a free hand and instigates fascist, racist and members of criminal organizations while pursues, imprisons and condemns anti-fascists, communists and other opponents to the current regime. It is the reactionary right wing, promoter of the experiments of fascism embodied by the Berlusconi’s gang. Judges as Giovagnoli and Branca, who support the indiscriminate use of preventive and anti-terror laws and crimes of association, are part of this component of the bourgeoisie which tends to the subversion of the established order and that points to create judiciary and special courts tame to Berlusconi’s government and its ministries. Their appeals to the Supreme Court, Branca’s Declaration about the extension of police powers and the Italian-French bilateral group on “terrorism and serious threats” built by Giovagnoli speak for themselves!

On the other hand, there is that component of the ruling class that wants to follow, as far as possible, the laws ratified in the Constitution and the penal code, to carry out the repression of political opponents. This is more reluctant to the subversion of the established order and does not participate (and sometimes hinders, denounces) the illegal measures and procedures the reactionary right uses against opponents of the bourgeoisie and in particular of Berlusconi’s government. The sentence of GUP Zaccariello refers to this conception, the conception of the leftist and moderate rightist bourgeoisie.

In essence, the Supreme Court will decide whether to support that part of the magistracy and of the ruling class who wants to strengthen the repression in our country without getting their hands tied by law and the rights ratified in the Constitution, and clear the field by judges who, in one way or another, are reluctant to turn into this road or counter this attempt to openly trample on the rights ratified in the Constitutional Charter and to advance towards the outlawing of the Communists, along with related plans to create special courts and tribunals, strictly subordinated to the executive for political repression.

The Supreme Court will have to decide whether ranging within those who, at least formally, follow the democratic values of the Constitution, born from the victory of the Partisan Resistance against Nazi-Fascism, or rather within those who believe that freedom of expression and organization ratified by the Constitution are no longer compatible with the political and social situation that is going on, within those who believe that to manage the acute and terminal phase of the of the general crisis (layoffs, business closures of firms, greater misery and exploitation for workers, precarious workers, retirees) it is necessary to sacrifice individual and collective freedoms of people’s masses and to recognize owners, businessmen and adventurers of all kinds full freedom to exploit men, women and children, to plunder natural resources, to devastate the environment in which we live. It will have to decide, therefore, whether or not to endorse the package of laws ready-made for Berlusconi, its gang and its class, the so called “reform” of the justice Berlusconi and most reactionary bourgeoisie want to carry out to ensure impunity and a free hand to governments, financial companies, great industries, bankers, rich, high authorities, government, military and ecclesiastical authorities.

The persecution of Communists, the increasingly blatant violations of the Constitution and the laws that to some extent protect the interests of the masses, the suppression of anti-fascists, the police charges against workers, students, environmentalists, the Centers where illegal migrants are closed in, the security package and the hunting of immigrants, the raids of Rom camps, the evacuations of social centers, the militarization of whole cities and areas, the extension of measures of control and repression go hand in hand with the proliferation of experiments of fascism. Casapound, Forza Nuova Fiamma Tricolore, La Destra, the green shirts of the racist Borghezio, etc, that is the most reactionary ruling class, properly represented by the gang of criminals, fascist and clerical gathered around Berlusconi, is testing each fascist and racist group and movement to find one able of leading the reactionary mobilization of the masses. By the establishment of locations of Forza Nuova, of Casapound and other fascist formations in popular neighboroughs, this part of the bourgeoisie prepares the conditions for organizing the masses, especially young people from whom it is taking away any hope of living and future, on the field of reactionary mobilization. So, it tries to shift the problems and contradictions it has in ruling and ensuring decent living conditions to the bulk of the population in the attack to the immigrant “who steals jobs” and to the “different one” “who undermines the values of Christian civilization” in the “war to foreign competition that ruin our businesses”, in the conquest of “living space” for our own bosses, in the struggle to “defend the interests of Italians before all and above everything. “

To repress opponents and mobilize the most backward and brutalized part of the masses against the other part, to drag them all in the aggression and plunder of other countries is the way by which the ruling class dominant tries to “get out of the crisis” keeping up its system of social relations, its power and its privileges. The revolt of immigrants in Rosarno has uncovered what is the future that this scum is preparing for us: brutal exploitation, elimination of most basic rights, degrading conditions of life, misery and general degradation. It showed what means it uses to do this: the fascist squads arm in arm with organized crime and police and carabinieri forces.

It is possible to put a stop to all this! It is possible prevent the reactionary right from constituting its emergency government! Workers’ Organizations, People’s Organizations, the true democrats must pick up the reins of the country and build their own government, a government of People’s Bloc, which bars the way to the reactionary right wing, to fascists and racists, and takes all necessary measures to cope with the worst effects of crisis by centering the interests of workers, students, pensioners, immigrants and housewives. This government will make the popular masses do the experience needed for large sections of the population understand that “while the owners can do nothing without the workers, workers can do everything better without the owners”. So, such experience will strengthen the fight to end the capitalist system and make Italy a country free from owners, from Vatican, the U.S. imperialists and the criminal organization, a country where everyone could have a life of dignity and that will allow to make new steps on in the development of human civilization: a new socialist country!

The fight against the persecution of Communists and anti-fascists, against the clearance of fascists and subsidizing racists, against attempts to subjugate the magistracy under the orders of the reactionary right and to throwing into wastepaper basket what remains of the political rights gained by the Partisan Resistance feeds the construction of the People’s Bloc Government.

We call all true democrats, all anti-fascists, all anti-racist, all Communists to take a stand against these attacks and to mobilize and participate in the rally on 20January held in Rome against the persecution of the communists, against the persecution of comrades belonging to (n) PCI, the CARC Party and the ASP!

We invite all anti-fascist and democratic forces to join the rally of 20 January which will be held contemporarily at the Court of Pistoia at the first hearing of the trial against the anti-fascists arrested on 11 October in Tuscany (including Alessandro Della Malva, federal secretary and a member of National Direction of CARC Party and National and Juri Bartolozzi member of CARC Party of Pistoia) and the rally of 26 January at the court of Massa, at the trial againts the anti-fascists who have sponsored and organized an anti-fascist, antiracist and popular squad on July 25, 2009 and have disinfected the city from the fascist squad SSS!

VISIT : http://www.carc.it/

Wake Europe up to crimes of Indian State with Spring Thunder Europe 2010

Statement from Democracy and Class Struggle calling for campaign on Indian Struggle in Europe in first six months of 2010

Democracy and Class Struggle calls for the immediate release of Kobad Ghandy, Ravi Sharma Anuradha,Sri Chhatradar Mahato,Raja Sarkhel and Prasun Chatterjee,Tusharkanta Bhattacharya and all Maoist and other political prisoners in India and the immediate ending of Operation Green Hunt..


The War against the People also known has Operation Green Hunt began on 1st November 2009. By Mid November more than 12 villages had been completely ravaged by agents of the Indian State forcing their inhabitants to take shelter in the deep forest.


Two separate incidents of mass killings took place in Dandakaranya and one in Orissa in which more than seventeen adivasis( tribals) were murdered by government armed forces.


There are reports that thousands of adivasis are abandoning their houses in Chattisgarth and migrating to Andhra Pradesh after 0peration Green Hunt was launched.


The brutalities of the government forces are increasing every day as can be seen in Narayanpatna, Orissa. Last month adivasis peasants demonstrating for land rights were fired at by police killing two of their leaders. Seventy two people were arrested on cooked up charges.


Given these development , the number of dead or injured people along with the displaced and destroyed villages will only mount in the coming weeks if the Indian Governments does not call for an immediate halt to its military offensive against the people.


Democracy and Class Struggle calls upon all progressive, communist and revolutionary forces in Europe to build a campaign of support for our Indian brothers and sisters and expose the brutalities of the Indian State before the people of Europe.


In 2010, particualrly in the first six months of the year we call for a public campaign throughout Europe on the struggle in India of meetings, film shows, demonstrations.


The adivasis are fighting for our planet and their land and we should fight for them in return.


The Democracy and Class Struggle call has been endorsed by the following organisations to Wake Europe up to the crimes of the Indian State in 2010 with Spring Thunder Europe 2010


Maoist Communist Party of France

(new) Italian Communist Party

Partito dei Comitati d’Appoggio alla Resistenza – per il Comunismo - CARC Italy

Serve the People - Communist League of Norway

Co-ordination Committee of Revolutionary Communists of Britain

Revolutionary Praxis - Britain

World Peoples Resistance Movement - Britain


Statement prepared by Democracy and Class Struggle

To be released 10th January 2010

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW/KISHENJI, CHIEF, PEOPLE’S LIBERATION ARMY

By Sarbari Bhaumik

A wily fox has many exits to his lair. So also with Koteswara Rao alias Kishenji, national chief of the People’s Liberation Army and politburo member of the CPI (Maoist). Media-savvy, he often speaks to the press, but on his own terms. His call would come out of the blue and he would hang up immediately after giving his sound bite. Long phone calls, he knows, will give away his location.

But in an interview with THE WEEK, Kishenji spoke at length on a wide range of issues, including Telangana, Kashmir and the northeast. Excerpts:

What is your response to the decision to form Telangana?

The demand for Telangana is very old and we support it. Though Delhi has announced its intention to form Telangana, I doubt their sincerity. Many rich and powerful Telugus have illegal land in Hyderabad and have invested millions there. There are powerful people in the UPA who are linked to these vested interests. They will create roadblocks.

But will a separate state help? Jhar-khand’s tribal leaders are as corrupt as those who ran Bihar.

Creation of Jharkhand was the first step towards fulfilling aspirations of tribals who were neglected in Bihar. It will not solve all problems, but it is the first victory. Now they will have to fight corruption within their society. It is because tribal leaders like Shibu Soren and Madhu Koda betrayed them that tribals have turned to us. But the fight for a separate state where they are masters of their destiny is the first step of revolutionary mobilisation for deprived people.

So you would also support the Gorkhaland movement?

Of course. In fact, the undivided Communist Party, the old CPI, had called for this soon after Independence. The demand first came from CPI legislator Ratanlal Brahmin, a leader of the hill people. There is a CPI resolution supporting the demand for a Gorkha state. The CPI(M) emerged from the CPI, but they are now pandering to Bengali chauvinism.

And strangely, there is no difference between [Congress leader]Pranab Mukherjee, [Trinamool Congress chief] Mamata Banerjee and [West Bengal Chief Minister] Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. They are all trying to capitalise on the Bengali sentiment against a division. This is cheap politics. These politicians have done nothing for the people of West Bengal, but now want to divide the Nepalis and Bengalis. We want the poor on both sides to maintain their unity and foil evil designs of bourgeois politicians.

Will the Gorkhas get a separate state?

Not by going on hunger strikes and tripartite talks. These methods do not get you anywhere in India. You have to fight.

An armed fight? But Telangana came out of hunger strikes.

Telangana is still a long way off. We Maoists believe in a combination of armed struggle and mass mobilisation. After all, Telangana or Gorkhaland are not separatist demands. They want to remain in India.

But your party has also supported separatism. The CPI (Maoist) has an agreement with the People’s Liberation Army of Manipur. Your party supports the Manipuris’ right to self-determination.

That is not supporting separation! The people of the northeast and Kashmir have a right to self-determination and we wholeheartedly support their struggle for it. Theirs is a just demand and we want to tell them that the struggling poor of India are with them in their fight against the exploitative Indian state.

But self-determination only means that they can decide if they want to stay in India or become independent. We are against India imposing itself on these people who have developed independently for a long time.

Our understanding with the Revolutionary People's Front of Manipur [PLA is its military wing] is based on our recognition of Manipur’s right to self-determination and their commitment not to attack the Indian proletariat. That is the first step towards a revolutionary front of the struggling people of India and of Manipur.

ULFA attacks poor Biharis in Assam, despite your talking to them.

We unconditionally support ULFA’s struggle for self-determination in Assam. We only want them to stop attacking the Indian proletariat. We will continue to engage with ULFA on this issue.

The PLA has traditionally accepted its commitment to the Indian revolution, but ULFA has never agreed to carry that ideological baggage. They talk of building socialism on a nationalist base
.
ULFA cannot ignore the revolutionary struggle of Indians and our enormous goodwill for their struggle. It has gained nothing by trusting neighbouring countries like Bhutan and Bangladesh, where puppet governments of India rule. They have betrayed ULFA under Indian pressure or when it suited them. Look how many ULFA leaders have been handed over by Bangladesh in recent weeks. ULFA cannot trust these governments. They have to trust us.

But don’t you see the tendency of many of these ethnic armed movements to get co-opted by the Indian state?

I know what you are talking about. We are not dealing with movements which have made deals with India or are ready to do so. ULFA is still fighting, despite many reverses. ULFA chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa was handed over to India, but Home Secretary G.K. Pillai lied that he had surrendered. Typical Indian divide-and-rule policy. They want Rajkhowa and ULFA’s military chief Paresh Barua to fight.

Have you ever discussed these issues with Barua? He is the one who orders attacks on Biharis in Assam, isn’t he?

We have engaged with him. I met him under the party name of Pradip, that is my identity for him. He does not know me as Koteswara Rao or Kishenji. I wish to speak to him again. I sincerely want ULFA, the PLA and other such groups fighting for separate homelands or for self-determination to fight the exploitative Indian state alongside us.

We do not want to impose the model of our struggle on them, as they know how to fight best under their own circumstances. But we want them to attack the enemies of the people, and not the poor, wherever they come from.

Are you not being ambitious? The Burmese Communist Party tried to rope in ethnic separatist movements like the Kachins and Karens into their fold but failed because the Wa and Kokang tribes, who formed the majority of their armed soldiers, deserted.
We do not want to bring any of these self-determination struggles into our fold. We do not want to absorb them. We respect the right to self-determination. But they must realise we have a common enemy—the oppressive government in Delhi. They cannot fight Delhi alone.

So you are supporting them for tactical reasons?

Not at all. We want them to be part of a broad front so that we can co-ordinate our struggles. But this should be based on sound politics, not mere tactics. So we have come out in political support for the movements of self-determination. We now want to unite their struggles with the nationality movements. This is the next stage of the Indian revolution.

You support Kashmir’s right of self-determination?

We do. But only if it is a genuine struggle. If Kashmir wants independence, so be it. But that should cover the whole of Kashmir. We have no patience for religious radicalism. If the Taliban attacks India, we will be the first to fight them. But we cannot deny Kashmir’s aspirations for self-determination. That is a secular aspiration focused on Kashmiriyat, not a Taliban-style religious fanaticism.