Kashmir under seige after fresh killings

More than 12,000 prisoners in California have entered their fifth day of a hunger strike in a push to end long-term solitary confinement, which they call a form of "indefinite state-sanctioned torture."

                 

More than 12,000 prisoners in California have entered their fifth day of a hunger strike in a push to end long-term solitary confinement, which they call a form of "indefinite state-sanctioned torture." Other demands include ending harsh group punishment, redefining gang activity, improving food quality, and increasing access to healthcare and education services. In addition to refusing meals, more than a thousand prisoners are also missing classes and prison work programs. This is the third large-scale hunger strike in the past two years. The current fast began at Pelican Bay State Prison and has now spread to two-thirds of the state’s 33 prisons. Corrections officials have reportedly responded by threatening to search prisoners’ cells, subject them to mental health evaluations, and deny them access to visitors and mail. "While the solitary confinement is at the core of it, it’s kind of about a lot of other issues," says Shane Bauer, a reporter who investigated the use of solitary confinement in U.S. prisons for Mother Jones magazine last year. "It’s become a much more widespread hunger strike. Each prison has its own demands. There are demands you see for rise in wages, from 13 cents an hour to $1 an hour, demand for the return of educational classes, and really the demands for the return of a lot of services that have been cut in recent years." Bauer began investigating solitary confinement in the United States shortly after being released from 26 months in an Iranian prison.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
       

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: More than 12,000 prisoners in California have entered their fifth day of a hunger strike in a push to end long-term solitary confinement, which they call a form of "indefinite state-sanctioned torture." In addition to refusing meals, more than a thousand prisoners are also missing classes and prison work programs. This is the third large-scale hunger strike in the past two years. The current fast began at Pelican Bay State Prison and has now spread to two-thirds of the state’s 33 prisons. Corrections officials have reportedly responded by threatening to search prisoners’ cells, subject them to mental health evaluations, and deny them access to visitors and mail.

Well, this is a video produced by the Prisoners’ Hunger Strike Solidarity Committee listing their demands. It includes a response from Terry Thornton, spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections.

PRISONER HUNGER STRIKE SOLIDARITY COMMITTEE DEMANDS: End long-term confinement. End group punishment and administrative abuse. Abolish the debriefing policy and modify gang status criteria. Provide adequate and nutritious food. Create and expand constructive programming.

TERRY THORNTON: There are some things that we cannot do. Some of the other things like a calendar, a cap, those are things that actually may be doable. But I don’t know that we’re going to be pressured or coerced into doing these things.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: The hunger strike comes as California has asked the Supreme Court to release it from an order to reduce its prison population by about 10,000 prisoners this year due to inhumane conditions. According to court documents, at least one California prisoner "needlessly dies every six or seven days due to constitutional deficiencies." California has had a prisoner suicide rate that at times has been 80 percent higher than the national average.

AMY GOODMAN: Reporter Shane Bauer, one of the three American hikers who was held in solitary confinement in Iran, went inside California’s Pelican Bay prison last year. This is a clip from a video report he made last year when officials gave him a tour of one of the 11-by-seven-foot solitary confinement cells in the Security Housing Unit, or SHU.

SHANE BAUER: Why don’t they have windows here?

LT. CHRIS ACOSTA: Just the way it was designed.

SHANE BAUER: But why?

LT. CHRIS ACOSTA: I don’t know. I can’t explain that.

DAVID BARNEBURG: The inmate will be in the cell, and then a food tray will be passed through the cell.

SHANE BAUER: If they ever leave the pod, prisoners have to strip naked, pass their hands through a food slot to be handcuffed, then wait for the door to open.

DAVID BARNEBURG: Inmates come out to, you know, get some exercise. There’s more room to run out here.

SHANE BAUER: Prisoners only get an hour in this concrete dog run every day.

AMY GOODMAN: That report was by our guest, journalist Shane Bauer, who joins us now from San Fransisco. He spent 26 months in Tehran’s Evin Prison, four of them in solitary. Seven months after being freed, Bauer began investigating solitary confinement in the United States. His cover story for Mother Jones last year was headlined "Solitary in Iran Nearly Broke Me. Then I Went Inside America’s Prisons." In it, he found California prisoners are being held for years in isolation based on allegations they’re connected to prison gangs. Evidence against them might include possession of, quote, "black literature" or writings about prisoners’ rights.

 

Shane Bauer, welcome back Democracy Now! It’s great to have you with us. Talk about this strike that’s going on throughout California prison system.

 

SHANE BAUER: Thanks for having me, Amy.

 

So, right now they’re—the California Department of Corrections is reporting about 2,400 people on hunger strike [Correction: 12,421 prisoners on hunger strike]. You know, by their criteria, this means that people have refused meals for nine consecutive meals. But the numbers of people that aren’t eating might be much higher.

 

At the core of this hunger strike is the issue of indefinite detainment in solitary confinement in the Security Housing Units, or SHU. The way that it works now, an inmate is deemed a gang affiliate and placed in the SHU for an indeterminate amount of time. In Pelican Bay Prison, the average amount of time spent there is seven-and-a-half years, but there are around 80 people that have been in that prison for 20 years or more, one man who’s been in for 42 years.

 

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: But, now, Shane, the prison authority’s definition of "gangs" seems to be pretty elastic, not having to do with any actual activities or illegal acts of the prisoners within the system. Could you talk about how they define these, quote, "gangs"?

 

SHANE BAUER: Right. So, up until about a year ago, there was about—there were seven gangs that qualified for placement, indeterminate placement, in the SHU. These are prison gangs, you know, really dangerous gangs like the Mexican Mafia that can, you know, kind of run crime out onto the street. But the criteria for determining whether somebody is a member or an associate of those gangs is kind of notoriously loose. I have seen cases of people who are put in the SHU and deemed gang members because they have academic books by the Black Panthers or journal writings about African-American history. Even the materials for gang investigators teach that the use of the words "tío" or "hermano," "uncle" or "brother" in Spanish, can indicate gang activity. So it’s a very loose kind of criteria. And somebody, like you said, doesn’t actually have to do anything to get put in there. They don’t have to, you know, hurt somebody to get an indefinite SHU term.

 

Since the last hunger strike about a year and a half ago, the Department of Corrections has been—has kind of reformed its policy to where now an inmate who is considered an associate, not a member, but somebody who kind of associates with one of these gangs, has to actually commit a serious rules violation to get put in the SHU. But at the same time, they’ve kind of changed the rules for what that means. So, in the past, that would mean, you know, an inmate stabbed somebody, tried to escape, something like that. But now a serious rules violation can include, you know, the possession of these books or drawings by an inmate that show gang symbols. So it’s kind of the same—the same kind of stuff that has always been used to put people in the SHU indefinitely.

 

AMY GOODMAN: Shane Bauer, in your major report for Mother Jones last year, you examined how hard it is for prisoners who are in solitary confinement due to alleged gang affiliations to appeal for their release into a less restrictive area. This is a clip from the video that accompanied your report when you spoke with officials at Pelican Bay Prison.

 

SHANE BAUER: Much of the evidence brought by gang investigators like Barneburg comes from informants. It’s confidential and can’t be refuted.

DAVID BARNEBURG: They’ve got multiple different avenues to review the gang material that’s being used against them and challenge it.

SHANE BAUER: But Barneburg says he has never seen a successful appeal in his 15 years at Pelican Bay. When journalists are led into the SHU, the only inmates allowed to talk are those who are informing on fellow prisoners. They don’t like me asking why.

Could we talk to a prisoner who’s not going through the debriefing process?

LT. CHRIS ACOSTA: When we go up to the main line.

SHANE BAUER: But within the SHU?

LT. CHRIS ACOSTA: No. We just always use these guys right here.

SHANE BAUER: But why?

LT. CHRIS ACOSTA: We just don’t.

SHANE BAUER: So my guides take me out of the SHU to meet Paul Bocanegra. He was in solitary for 12 years.

PAUL BOCANEGRA: It is punishment. It’s meant to break a person.

SHANE BAUER: He got out by informing on other prisoners, a process called "debriefing," which, among prisoners, can mean death.

PAUL BOCANEGRA: You know, you’re going to be targeted for assault, possibly murder. So that’s always in the back of your head.

AMY GOODMAN: That report from Shane Bauer with Mother Jones, Shane with us in the studio in San Francisco, award-winning investigative journalist who himself was imprisoned and in solitary confinement in Iran in 2009. Shane, talk about the demands right now of the prisoners who are on hunger strike.

 

SHANE BAUER: One of the core demands relates to what—the video clip that you were just showing. It’s an end to this debriefing process. So, the way it’s set up now is, one of the two ways to get out is to inform on other prisoners or snitch. And, you know, that involves kind of giving a roster of names of people who are involved in the gang that the person is alleged to be affiliated with. This is an extremely dangerous situation. You know, when somebody does this, they’re kind of marked for death by actual gang members. But a lot of prisoners face this dilemma where they either have to kind of stay in solitary confinement for years at a time—four years is the minimum amount of time before their case can be reviewed—or to kind of give up names. So it creates this kind of revolving-door scenario where people are giving up names to get out and other people are being brought in. And in a case where somebody is not an actual gang affiliate and they want to get out, you know, there’s a lot of pressure to kind of give up something, you know, to get out of this extremely difficult situation.

 

Also right now with this hunger strike, as opposed to the one a year and a half ago, while the solitary confinement is at the core of it, it’s kind of about a lot of other issues. It’s become a much more kind of widespread hunger strike. Each prison kind of has its own demands. There are demands you see for rise in wages from 13 cents an hour to a dollar an hour, demand for the return of educational classes, and really the kind of demands for the return of a lot of the services that have been cut in California prisons over the past 30 years.

 

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Shane, given this remarkable level of resistance now over several years by the inmates, how have they been able to organize statewide and be able to maintain their networks, or I guess their collectives, within the prisons, even to the point now of producing a video explaining some of their—some of their demands?

 

SHANE BAUER: Well, there’s a lot of kind of coordination with groups inside and outside that are kind of connected, you know, throughout the system that are kind of making this kind of communication possible. It’s extremely difficult in solitary confinement, as you know, to communicate with people outside of your pod of eight inmates, let alone across the state.

 

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to play a comment from Sarah Shourd, who, with you, were arrested in 2009, and Josh Fattal, on the border of Iran and Kurdistan, Iraq. You are both married now. You and Sarah got married. You were released after spending months in solitary confinement. Last year, Sarah Shourd spoke at Amnesty International conference and described the prison conditions she underwent.

SARAH SHOURD: During my 13-and-a-half months as a political hostage in Iran, I was held in solitary confinement at Evin Prison in Tehran. After just two months, my mind began to slip. I would spend large portions of my day crouched down on my hands and knees by a small slot in my cell door, listening for any sounds that might distract me from the terror of my isolation. I suffered from insomnia, nightmares, emotional detachment and violent panic attacks. More than once, I completely lost control and began screaming and beating at the walls until my knuckles bled. Perhaps the most unbearable mental torture was not knowing when I would see my family again. Sometimes worrying about my mother would keep me from sleeping for days at a time. And it was eight months before they even let me call her and tell her that I was alive. Even then, that phone call lasted about five minutes.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Sarah Shourd describing Iran, her imprisonment there. Shane, as you go from your imprisonment in Iran to Pelican Bay, to the prison system in California, talk about what you find—the similarities, the differences—and the significance of this strike today.

 

SHANE BAUER: Well, I mean, the conditions in Iranian prison are awful. We were in a political prison, a ward of, you know, people—pro-democracy activists, things like that. People are physically tortured there. But what really shocked me about Pelican Bay, compared to my experience in Iran, is, one, the length of time that people spend there. Sarah spent 13-and-a-half months in solitary confinement. It’s an extremely long amount of time. In Pelican Bay, that’s nothing. I mean, like I said, seven-and-a-half years is the average time. But also, the actual cells—the cells are smaller, and there’s not—there’s no windows in the cells, so inmates never see the outside. When they go to exercise, they go to kind of a larger cell with a plexiglass roof. But I spoke to inmates there that hadn’t seen a tree in 12 years. And, you know, there’s no comparison to that kind of situation in Iran.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And could you relate that to this astonishingly high suicide rate that is—has now become endemic in the California prison system?

 

SHANE BAUER: Yeah. In California, around 40 percent of suicides are happening in isolation units. So this is, you know, the vast majority of—when you take into account the population, which is around 11,000 or 12,000 people in isolation in California, the rate of suicide is far higher. There’s been—psychologists have kind of named a specific syndrome that comes with long-term isolation. They call it the SHU syndrome, which, you know, includes kind of violent outbursts, suicidal thoughts, hallucinations. People really lose their mind in these places. A lot of inmates I’ve corresponded with have talked about people cutting themselves, kind of, you know, throwing feces around the cells, and just kind of hearing constant screams. You know, it’s the kind of situation that human beings are not intended to endure. You know, we need social contact. We need to interact with other human beings to have our own kind of identity and maintain our sanity.

 

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Shane, we want to thank you very much for being with us. Shane Bauer, award-winning investigative journalist. He himself was imprisoned in solitary confinement in Iran, now back talking about the massive strike that is taking place throughout the prison system in California. And we will continue to follow this strike.

 

You can also go to our website to talk about—to see a discussion about another hunger strike, and that’s Guantánamo. Visit democracynow.org to hear an interview with former Guantánamo prosecutor Colonel Morris Davis about the ongoing hunger strike at Guantánamo. This is Democracy Now! Stay with us.

Detained NDFP Consultant Ramon Patriarca goes on hunger strike

 NDFP peace consultant protests Aquino regime's failure to advance peace talks

 

The Negotiating Panel of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines today expressed firm support for the 12-day hunger strike of NDFP Consultant Ramon Patriarca. Detained at Camp Lapu-lapu in Cebu City, Patriarca started his hunger strike on 11 July to end on 22 July when President Aquino will give his State of the Nation Address (SONA).

In a statement released to the media, Patriarca condemned President Aquino for failing to respect binding peace agreements forged by the government of the Republic of the Philippines (GPH) with the NDFP. He criticized Aquino for not respecting the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG), and instead abducting, torturing and detaining NDFP personnel involved with the peace negotiations.

Patriarca also criticized the GPH president for refusing to release political prisoners in accordance with the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL). He slammed the Aquino administration for causing the number of political prisoners to increase beyond 400.

In his statement on his hunger strike, Patriarca underlined the “miserable failure” of Aquino to advance the peace talks with the NDFP.

Top officials of the Aquino government have publicly declared the termination of the peace talks, seemingly not aware of provisions in the JASIG stipulating that a written notice of termination must be given first to the other Party.

Patriarca explained that despite repeated demands by various peace advocates for the resumption of peace talks, the Aquino regime has embarked on escalated militarization in accordance with the US-designed Oplan Bayanihan counter-insurgency program. Oplan Bayanihan is a militarist scheme based on the triad strategy of combat, intelligence and civil-military operations.

Luis G. Jalandoni, Chairperson of the NDFP Negotiating Panel, extended solidarity with Patriarca's hunger strike. “His courageous militant action underlines the increasing opposition of the Filipino people against the Aquno regime, in the face of repeated oil price hikes, ever increasing prices of basic commodities, costs of water, electricity, transportation, and other services.”

 

REFERENCE:
Roselle Valerio
Information Officer
NDFP International Information Office
email: ndf@casema.nl | info@ndfp.net
tel: +31 30 2310431

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India : ‘After falling in love, I saw the reality of caste’: E. Ilavarasan

 

Dalit youth E. ILAVARASAN, whose marriage to a Vanniyar girl had resulted in caste violence in Tamil Nadu last year, was found dead on a railway track .

Given below is an interview Ilavarasan gave to KAVIN MALAR and was published in the Tamil edition of India Today magazine.

This translation is by PRAKASH VENKATESAN.

Did you realise you were going to be in the headlines in TN when you got married?

 

No. Certainly not. I thought ours would be just like any other marriage. Divya thought so too. We thought they (Divya’s parents) would be angry initially but can be eventually reconciled. We simply did not expect these things would happen. I now can really understand the horrendous nature of caste and the heinous things it is capable of after falling in love.

 

Why do you think Divya is suddenly saying now that she wants to go with her mother?

 

Someone is operating behind the scenes. They have threatened that her mother’s life and mine would be in danger if Divya does not return back. Probably that is why she has taken such a decision. She can’t live without me. She won’t be able to take this three weeks separation. She used to tell me often that she can’t live without me even for an hour. The plan to separate us was plotted in PMK’s head office. Now they have executed it.

 

Did you and Divya had any problems after your marriage?

 

No. We were happy. Though we were running from place to place in fear, we were quite happy to be together.

 

When did the marriage happen?

 

I was on my way to Trichy for a football match. When I was in Omalur, I got a call from Divya saying that people in her house are trying to get her married to someone else. She asked me to take her with me. We went to Andhra Pradesh and got married there.

 

How is the relationship between you and Divya’s parents?

 

Ilavarasan found dead on railway tracks yesterday.Photo by N Bashkaran / The Hindu

 

Divya’s father was a good person. He was indifferent to caste. We still don’t believe he committed suicide because of our marriage. Divya’s mother, she was not that opposing either. After our marriage her brothers are not talking to her. But people around her are instigating her. They knew that I was going to get an appointment order to join the police force and filed a case against me and deliberately made efforts against it to get the order cancelled. These were not done by her mother. She is being compelled by people of her caste to do these deeds

 

How did you feel when three Dalit villages were burnt in Dharmapuri?

 

Guilty. We even thought about committing suicide. Not even in our dreams we thought her father would commit suicide. She was deeply affected by her father’s death. She cried a lot.

 

We can not forget that November 7th. People from her side said they want to meet Divya and take her back with them. I told them it is certainly possible to talk. In November 7th, a meeting was arranged between both the sides in Thoppur. Her father was not present there. Divya’s mother asked her to return back but Divya firmly refused. Half an hour after the meeting we got the news of her father’s suicide and villages being burnt. We saw it in TV. The caste in which I was born into is their problem. People who are capable of doing these deeds can go to any extent.

 

What are you going to do to get Divya back?

 

I will keep on fighting. Authorities know who burnt three villages. But they have not taken any action. They have to. They have to publicly announce where Divya is. They have to investigate and publicly announce about the people who are directly and indirectly trying to separate us. The decision to be separated would not have been from her heart. I want to talk with Divya first. After that, am quite certain everything would be okay.

Ganti Prasadam - His Legacy Cannot Be Erased by N Venugopal

Assassinated by the enemies of the people on July 4 in Nellore, Ganti Prasadam’s legacy, which has taken root in the political culture of the Maoist movement in Andhra Pradesh, will grow and bear fruit.

N Venugopal (venugopalraon@yahoo.com) is the editor of Veekshanam, a Telugu monthly journal of political economy and society.
 

With the ghastly assassination of Ganti Prasadam, a popular Maoist ideologue, trade unionist, writer and public speaker, on July 4 in Nellore, the state seems to have thought it has succeeded in intimidating those who question its brutalities. The horrifying murder might have been planned as a threat to all those involved in public activity through democratic forums.

However, on his death bed – with two surgeries to remove the three bullets that had pierced his abdomen and spinal cord, and to treat the deep wound on his neck, the result of being hacked with a coconut knife – Prasadam said that the assassins may be able to kill him but his spirit would not die. Thus the assassins and those behind them failed; within a few hours of their dastardly act, the fact that Prasadam’s persistent spirit lived on in the movement was proved in the massive and spirited funeral procession a day later at Bobbili town, 750 kms away from the place of assassination.

Ganti Prasadam’s life stands as an example of human diversity and versatility, and his death, of the state’s violence and viciousness. For more than 45 years of the 64 years of his life, he worked both in legal, open, democratic as well as clandestine organisations. He was implicated in more than a dozen cases (in most of which he was acquitted) and spent about three years in various jails. Beginning his political life as a trade union organiser in Bobbili town in Srikakulam (currently in Vizianagaram) district in 1972, his activities extended to almost all social spheres and spread across the state – among students, youth, writers, workers, relatives and friends of martyrs, and in the party, the underground alternative press and the democratic rights movement, as also among political prisoners. At the time of his death, he was honorary president of the Amarula Bandhu Mitrula Sangham (ABMS, the Association of Relatives and Friends of Martyrs), Andhra Pradesh, all-India vice president of the Revolutionary Democratic Front (RDF) and executive member of the Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners (CRPP).

Born into a middle-class Brahmin family of Chakarapalle in Balijapet mandal in 1949, Prasadam had his education in Bobbili. At a young and impressionable age at the time of Srikakulam struggle, he came under its influence as he finished his graduation in 1970. The town was one of the first industrial centres in the region with thousands of workers in sugar and jute mills and vibrant trading activity. By 1972 Prasadam became an important activist in the town and founded the Kalasi Sangham (porters’ union).

On the Revolutionary Road

Prasadam’s entry into trade union politics synchronised with the reorganisation of Naxalite forces in the state in the aftermath of heavy losses in Srikakulam. Viplava Rachayitala Sangham (Virasam, the Revolutionary Writers’ Association), formed in 1970, and Jana Natya Mandali, formed in 1972, were keeping the torch of Naxalbari politics aflame and naturally Prasadam became active in both these organisations. His mentor, Mamidi Appalasuri was a follower of Charu Mazumdar and was an elected member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) [CPI (ML)] in 1970. However, the party split after the death of Charu Majumdar, and Appalasuri, along with Kondapalli Seetaramaiah (KS) continued the legacy of the CPI (ML) even though contacts with other states got cut off. By 1974 the contacts with other states were revived and the Central Organising Committee (COC) was formed and Prasadam continued to work in his trade union and in Virasam and JNM under this party’s guidance.

After a couple of arrests and attacks from police and mill owners, Prasadam had to go underground during the Emergency. He was arrested in 1977. By the time he was released, differences were building up between KS and Applasuri finally culminating in the latter remaining in COC and the former setting up the CPI (ML) AP State Committee, which became the CPI (ML) (People’s War) in 1980. Prasadam continued to be with Appalasuri as the latter merged his party with the CPI (ML) Party Unity in 1982. During this time, Prasadam became a popular trade union leader in Bobbili and formed at least 30 workers’ unions in various fields, including among hotel workers, cinema theatre workers, mill workers and khalasis, in the town, and founded a coordination committee of all these unions. With the death of Appalasuri in 1997 and the merger of CPI (ML) Party Unity with the CPI (ML) (People’s War) in 1998, Prasadam became part of People’s War and went underground once again. In the meanwhile, Prasadam’s younger brother Ganti Subrahmanyam (Rajanna, Ramesh) who was with People’s War was killed in a fake encounter in Kopardang in Rayagada district of Odisha in August 1998. Becoming a member of the AP State Committee of People’s War, Prasadam took charge of the party press, particularly Kranti, the State Committee’s monthly organ and continued in that position even after the CPI (ML) (People’s War) became CPI (Maoist), till he was arrested in May 2005.

The CPI (ML) (People’s War) was a banned party then and the ban was relaxed in July 2004 as it was invited for talks by the state government. The first round of talks were held in October 2004 and the second round, scheduled to be held in November of that year, could not take place as the state government went back on its ceasefire agreement and began repression and fake encounters. Finally in January 2005, the party announced that it was also moving away from the ceasefire. In that context, the party gave the responsibility of assessing the existing situation to Prasadam and he in turn wanted to have feedback from various sources sympathetic to the movement.

Since the state had begun heavy repression by that time, he wanted to meet his sources outside Andhra Pradesh and asked a team of four members of Virasam to come to Aurangabad to brief him about the obtaining situation. He met the team at Maharashtra Tourism Guest House in Aurangabad for a three-day conversation and at the end of the second day itself police swooped on them. All of them were blindfolded, tortured and kept in illegal custody for three days before being produced in a court in Nizamabad, charging them in what became the Aurangabad Conspiracy Case. In fact, the party was not banned then and there was nothing illegal or conspiratorial in the meeting. While he was in jail in this case, which was finally struck down in 2010, he was implicated in half a dozen other cases, including an attack on a police station and a failed attempt on a Superintendent of Police, in both of which he was acquitted later.

In the Open Front

While the trials were going on, he came out on bail in late 2006 and since then he had been working openly. He joined the ABMS and became its president. In that position he was always rushing to the spots of fake encounters, exposing the real, cold-blooded nature of the killings, consoling the family members of the deceased, and organising memorial meetings. Thus, he and the other members of the ABMS became a constant threat to the police. As he held the position of the party spokesperson before his arrest, all the mass organisations were also looking up to him for his advice and guidance in their activities. The police could not tolerate this and he was implicated in more cases so as to hamper his movements and engage him more in attending to court matters. To further restrict his movements, the police tried to keep him behind bars in fresh cases.

When a group of people, including Sireesha, the partner of Ramakrishna, Central Committee member of the CPI (Maoist) and one of the chief representatives of the party at the 2004 talks, were intercepted while going into the Odisha forests near Simliguda in Koraput district on 13 October 2010, Prasadam was accused of sending them there and he was implicated in the case under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). When he was in jail, the Malkangiri collector Vineel Krishna was held hostage by the Maoist guerrillas, and during the process of negotiations, Prasadam was named as a probable candidate for continuing the talks. G Haragopal and Dandapani Mohanty, interlocutors at that time, went to meet Prasadam at Bhubaneswar jail. Haragopal recollected that Prasadam was so considerate and humane that even as one of the CPI (Maoist)’s demands was his release, he declined to come out and instead asked for the release of hundreds of tribal persons implicated in false cases.

He came out on bail after a couple of months and not only revived his work in the ABMS, but also began working in the RDF and the CRPP. He became one of the two vice presidents of the RDF at its national conference held in April 2012 in Hyderabad and within a short time the government of Andhra Pradesh imposed a ban on the organisation. He was also active in the CRPP and, in that capacity, contacted and provided for the requirements of political prisoners in almost all the jails in Andhra Pradesh.

A Committed Political Life

Prasadam was also an accomplished writer and cultural activist, beginning his career with poetry and songs and moving into theoretical and polemical writing. He penned a number of essays in Kranti without a by-line and in several other Telugu journals under his own name and various pseudonyms. In the last eight years of his public life, except for a little more than two years in jail, he gave most of his time to mass activity, writing, inspiring and organising people, mobilising people into purposeful activity, addressing meetings, sitting in protests and demonstrations, supervising post-mortems and taking over the dead bodies of those killed in encounters to hand them over them to their families, and organising humane and respectful funerals of all those martyrs, etc.

Indeed, the last three days of his life would explain what kind of life he led. On July 2 he spent hours with railway workers discussing intricate points about the forthcoming negotiations with their management and took a bus to Guntur to address a memorial meeting the next day. On July 3, it was a meeting to pay homage to a senior respected writer who spent at least ten years underground as part of the CPI (ML) (People’s War)’s press team after his retirement as a teacher. After this meeting, he travelled to Nellore where the relatives and friends of those who were martyred in a fake encounter that took place twenty years ago hold a commemorative meeting every year on the same day. Since it was also the formation day of Virasam, the revolutionary writers’ association also holds a seminar on related topics there every year. Prasadam addressed the seminar in the forenoon session and went to see the sister of a martyr who was in a hospital and almost in her last days. He was to come back to participate in the afternoon session, but while he was coming out of the hospital and walked a few yards, an assailant fired at him. To make sure he was dead, another assailant snatched a knife from a nearby coconut cart and hacked him on the neck. He was immediately rushed to the hospital and in two consecutive surgeries three bullets were removed from his body. All through he was alert and conscious, and spoke to the attending doctors.

Given this uninterrupted track record in public activity and steadfast commitment to revolutionary politics, it is but natural that he earned the wrath of the powers that be, particularly the police in Andhra Pradesh. Indeed, the track record of Andhra Pradesh police in eliminating radical voices in public life through extra-judicial methods is quite notorious. They have their own invention of “encounter” killings to “bump off” (these are the exact words used by the then home minister while ordering one of the early killings in 1969) armed cadre after catching them unarmed. For dealing with public personalities who are seen as thorns in their beds to be removed, the police have evolved another method of using hired brute forces without soiling their own hands. The list of public personalities killed in this manner is very long: Gopi Rajanna, Narra Prabhakar Reddy, and T Purushottham, all advocates, A Ramanatham and A Narayana, highly respected doctors, Japa Lakshma Reddy and Kalinga Rao, both farmers and mass organisers, Azam Ali and Kanakachary, teachers, Belli Lalitha and Ilaiah, singers, and Muneppa and Mannem Prasad, dalit activists. One can add dozens of attempts and threats to this list.

While the earliest of these murders took place in 1984 and the latest in 2005, it would be interesting to note that in all these cases, there was no investigation, no trial and no punishment of the culprits. Most of these murders were claimed by one or the other paper-organisation floated for the purpose and the police neither investigated nor publicised who were behind these organisations. It was everybody’s guess that the police bigwigs were the mentors, godfathers and protectors of these mercenaries. Keeping this history in mind, almost everybody pointed at the police for Prasadam’s murder even though a fake organisation staked claim. Strangely, this time around, the AP Police Officers’ Association came out with a statement denying their role, which ended with an open threat.

Prasadam bequeathed his legacy in a number of long-lasting tangible effects – his writings, public speeches, a sturdy organisation, and exemplary human relations. “Save me, I want to live to see the revolution” and “It seems I am going to die, but it will be the death of a single person, not of his spirit” – these were some of the precious sentences he uttered on his death bed. The unmistakable hand of the murderous state will not be able to erase this legacy.

SOURCE: Economic and Political Weekly

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The Indian Press mouthpiece of India State : They Praise a Renegade while they kill a Revolutionary

How Nepali Maoists chose democracy

Prashant Jha, The Hindu

 

Democracy and Class Struggle contrasts the killing of Ganti Prasadam with the praise for Prachanda in the Indian media, nothing can be more stark.

 

The recent Prachanda condolences for Salwa Judam founder we thought was the bottom of the pit from Prachanda, but he always exceeds himself, This time in praise of the Indian Comprador State saying about India "Our relations must be the best example of bilateral ties in the rest of the world.”

 

Prachanda talks of how his party made fundamental changes to its ideology
 

In August 2010, at the nadir of relations between India and Nepali Maoists, the former Foreign Secretary, Shyam Saran, went to Kathmandu as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s special envoy.

With the Maoists blaming India for blocking their ascent to power, Mr. Saran conveyed a clear message to Maoist chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’: “You can either be a revolutionary force with a coercive apparatus or a civilian party abiding by the discipline of multiparty democracy. Make a choice.”

 

Almost three years later, Mr. Prachanda — at a function chaired by his ‘old friend’ Mr. Saran in the Indian capital on Monday evening — declared that the party had made a choice in favour of ‘democracy’ and ‘progressive nationalism.’

 

The Maoist leader announced that his party, through a national congress in the southern town of Hetauda in February, made three fundamental changes to its ideology.

 

“One, we have accepted peaceful transition, peaceful multiparty democratic politics.” Mr. Prachanda referred to the integration and rehabilitation of the ‘Maoist armed cadres’ as proof, and pointed out, “My party has also given up its ruling mandate, to form a government led by the Chief Justice, to hold elections in a free, fair, and acceptable manner.”

 

The second shift was the ‘focus on economic prosperity and development’ as a party strategy. He thanked India for being Nepal’s biggest development partner, sought investment in a range of sectors, and said, “Economic development is essential for political stability, and a prosperous and developed Nepal will help address the security concerns of our neighbours.”

 

He also floated the idea of ‘trilateral cooperation’ between China, India and Nepal in hydropower and for the development of Lumbini. Mr. Prachanda was quick to add this was a ‘long-term vision,’ not meant to ‘undermine or replace’ bilateral relations between the countries.

 

And three, in a reference to apprehensions about the sporadic ‘anti-Indian’ rhetoric emanating from the Maoist leadership and its broader strategic vision, Mr. Prachanda said, “For the first time, we have criticised narrow nationalism, feudal nationalism and adopted progressive nationalism. We want good relations with India. Our relations must be the best example of bilateral ties in the rest of the world.” He added that on his visit to Beijing last week, where he met President Xi Jinping, the Chinese leadership too encouraged them to have good ties with India.

 

This, Mr. Prachanda said, was where they differed with the “dogmatic and sectarian” view of extremist colleagues like Mohan Vaidya ‘Kiran’, who have split and continue to criticise Indian ‘expansionism’.

 

So why did he not make the choice earlier? In a meeting with National Security Adviser Shiv Shankar Menon on Monday morning, Mr. Prachanda said that had he acted earlier, the “engine would have moved, but the bogies would have got left behind.”

 

“It took time because we were attempting something unique, and needed to get our cadre and machinery along. But now, the choice is made,” he told The Hindu.


Prachanda makes it appear that the turnabout was a political version of a religious experience, but the "born-again bourgeois" actually prepared this reversal and capitulation and betrayal over many years. 

Still, his sugary description of the lure is a near-textbook example of the peaceful road to integration into the bourgeois/feudal state machine and capitulation to India and China and the Western imperialist powers.

Comment from Frontlines of Revoltionary Struggle USA