Wednesday, 27 March 2013
North Korea and the United States: Will the Real Aggressor Please Stand Down?
http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.in/
By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers
US political leaders and media pundits trumpet North Korea’s recent testing of missiles and nuclear weapons as a great threat. But the US mass media do not tell the whole story. Without the context of history and current events, the actions of North Korea look insane, but when put in context we find that the United States is pushing North Korea on this path. North Korea is really not a significant threat compared to what the United States is doing with nuclear weapons, the Asia Pivot and war games off the Korean coast. In this article, we seek greater understanding by putting ourselves in the place of North Korea.
Historical Context: Korea, a Pawn for Big Power, Brutalized by the United States
The history between Korea and the United States goes back to the late 1800s when the US had completed its manifest destiny across North America and was beginning to build a global empire. In 1871, more than 700 US marines and sailors landed on Kanghwa beach in west Korea, seeking to begin US colonization (a smaller US invasion occurred in 1866). They destroyed five forts, inflicting as many as 650 Korean casualties. The US withdrew, realizing it would need a much larger force to succeed, but this was the largest military force to land outside the Americas until the 1898 war in the Philippines. S. Brian Willson reports that this invasion is still discussed in North Korea, but it has been erased from the history in South Korea as well as in the United States.
Alan Winnington and The Taejon Massacre
http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.in/
Democracy and Class Struggle says in view of current developments on The Korean Peninsula, we are revisiting the Taejon Massacre carried out by South Korean Troops which was blamed on North Korea, in fact the US made a film at the time with Humphrey Bogart called Crime of Korea blaming the Communists.
Alan Winnington a journalist who exposed the truth of this South Korean atrocity at the time was the subject of discussion of the British Cabinet for High Treason - the truth was high treason in 1950.
He had his British Passport withdrawn and not allowed to return to UK.
Will the truth about US activities in Korea be treason in 2013 ?
As for Taejon, a massacre undoubtedly occurred, but what precisely happened, when and who was responsible remain to be settled. The first published references to the massacre appeared in an article in the English communist paper, the Daily Worker, dated 9 August 1950. [49]
Its correspondent, Alan Winnington, accompanying the (Northern) Korean People's Army on their march southwards, reported having inspected mass graves at a village called 'Rangwul' near Taejon, which is about 160 kilometres south of Seoul. [50]
He concluded from inspection of the graves, photographic evidence and discussions with villagers in the vicinity, that approximately 7000 prisoners from the gaols of Taejon and nearby had been summarily executed at that spot between 6 and 21 July (when the area was captured by the KPA), and buried in mass graves dug by locally press-ganged peasants.
His report was reproduced in a pamphlet, I Saw the Truth in Korea, which so distressed the British Cabinet that serious consideration was given to trying him for treason (sic). [51] Except in the sense of the outrage they provoked in London, Winnington's allegations, repeated in his posthumously-published autobiography, were never treated seriously, were never investigated, and were not mentioned in the subsequent United States Army report.
As it happened, the two Australian officers who earlier had constituted the UNCOK Field Observer team, Major Peach and Wing Commander Rankin, were in the Taejon area at the precise time that Winnington concluded the massacre must have taken place, acting as liaison officers between the United Nations and south Korean forces.
On 9 July (according to Peach's 1950 dispatch), he and Rankin were on the 'road from Taejon to Konju . . . along the Kum River, a few miles short of Konju'. Trucks loaded with prisoners were going south before the northern advance.'52 As Peach later recalled the incident: 'Before my very eyes I saw at least two or three killed, their heads broken like eggs with the butts of rifles. [53]
Later, in Konju, he was told that prisoners from the Konju gaol were being shot. [54] Peach reported details to the South Korean Home Minister but believed that nothing was done. A contemporary photograph in the London Picture Post shows a truckload of such prisoners on the banks of the Kum River about halfway between Seoul and Pusan 'on their way to execution'. [55]
They were described as 'South Korean suspected traitors'. Four days later, on 13 July, the northern forces crossed the Kum River, and on 20 July captured Taejon. When Winnington reached Taejon, the city was still burning. The sequence of events strongly suggests that Winnington, Peach and Rankin were all witnesses to different stages of the same terrible event.
There was one further witness, whose testimony strengthens the suspicion. Philip Deane, in 1950 correspondent for the London Observer, was told this story while in a prison camp in north Korea after his capture, of a massacre in Tacjon just before the town fell to the communists. His informant was a French priest, Father Cadars, and Cadars' veracity seemed beyond dispute. Deane wrote as follows:
'[Fr Cadars] told me that just before the Americans retreated from the town, South Korean police had brought into a forest clearing near his church 1700 men, loaded layer upon layer into trucks. These prisoners were ordered out and ordered to dig long trenches. Father Cadars watched. Some American officers, Cadars said were also watching. When a certain amount of digging was complete, South Korean policemen shot half the prisoners in the back of the neck. The other half were then ordered to bury the dead. [56]
After Father Cadars' protest was dismissed, the remainder were likewise killed. He was told they were 'Communist guerrillas who rebelled in the Taejon gaol'.
Unless, by some terrible fate, there were two massacres in the Taejon vicinity-the one described by Winnington and Cadars which occurred in July and was perpetrated by the Rhee forces, and the one which is described by the United States Army as having occurred in late September and having been comitted by the KPA-it is hard to avoid the suspicion that the events witnessed by all these men were aspects of the same unfolding massacre.
In 1992, however, more than 40 years after the events occurred, a full account was published for the first time in a South Korean monthly journal. [57] What Winnington wrote was confirmed (except for some discrepancy in the numbers involved) by eyewitnesses and men who had actually taken part in the massacre. The only matter which remained unclear was whether Americans had been directly involved or not.
We now know, therefore, that the atrocity which the United States Army describes as the worst of the war, ranking with the Rape of Nanking and Belsen, was committed by forces acting in the name of the United Nations.[58]
• 149 'US Belsen in Korea: Americans Drove Women to Pits of Death', Daily Worker, 9 August 1950.
• 150 The village, though pronounced as Winnington wrote it, should actually be written as 'Nangwul'.
• 151 Jon Halliday, 'Anti-Communism and the Korean War (1950-1953)' in Socialist Register, eds Ralph Miliband, John Saville and Marcel Liebman, London, 1984, pp. 130-63, at p. 146
• 152 Extract from the Peach report contained in Dispatch by A.B. Jamieson, 2 August 1950, in Australian Mission in Tokyo to Canberra, 10 August 1950, AA 3123/5, part 4
• 153 Interview, Sydney, 14 August 1982
• 154 Rankin confirmed this account in a 12 August 1982 interview with this author by referring to his 1950 diary.
• 155 'War in Korea', by journalist Stephen Simmons and cameraman Haywood Magee, Picture Post, vol. 48, no. 5, 29 July 1950, p. 17. The caption to the photograph described the incident as one 'which has been investigated by a United Nations observer'.
• 156 Philip Deane, Captive in Korea, London, 1953, p. 83. The 1953 United States Army report locates the headquarters of the north Korean forces it alleged were responsible for the September massacre 'in the Catholic mission' in Taejon.
• 157 No Ka-Won, 'Taejon hyong-mu-so sa-chon san-baek myong hak-sal sa-kon' (The massacre of 4300 men from the Taejon prison), Mal, February 1992, pp. 122-31. I am grateful to Chung Kyung-Mo for bringing this material to my attention, and to Kim Hong-Ja for translating it into Japanese.
• 158 Cumings, 1990, p. 700 refers also to American internal evidence' which corroborated Winnington, though giving the figure of 2,000~4,000 rather than 7,000 victims
Source : http://www.iacenter.org/Koreafiles/ktc-lone-mccormack.htm
Democracy and Class Struggle says in view of current developments on The Korean Peninsula, we are revisiting the Taejon Massacre carried out by South Korean Troops which was blamed on North Korea, in fact the US made a film at the time with Humphrey Bogart called Crime of Korea blaming the Communists.
Alan Winnington a journalist who exposed the truth of this South Korean atrocity at the time was the subject of discussion of the British Cabinet for High Treason - the truth was high treason in 1950.
He had his British Passport withdrawn and not allowed to return to UK.
Will the truth about US activities in Korea be treason in 2013 ?
As for Taejon, a massacre undoubtedly occurred, but what precisely happened, when and who was responsible remain to be settled. The first published references to the massacre appeared in an article in the English communist paper, the Daily Worker, dated 9 August 1950. [49]
Its correspondent, Alan Winnington, accompanying the (Northern) Korean People's Army on their march southwards, reported having inspected mass graves at a village called 'Rangwul' near Taejon, which is about 160 kilometres south of Seoul. [50]
He concluded from inspection of the graves, photographic evidence and discussions with villagers in the vicinity, that approximately 7000 prisoners from the gaols of Taejon and nearby had been summarily executed at that spot between 6 and 21 July (when the area was captured by the KPA), and buried in mass graves dug by locally press-ganged peasants.
His report was reproduced in a pamphlet, I Saw the Truth in Korea, which so distressed the British Cabinet that serious consideration was given to trying him for treason (sic). [51] Except in the sense of the outrage they provoked in London, Winnington's allegations, repeated in his posthumously-published autobiography, were never treated seriously, were never investigated, and were not mentioned in the subsequent United States Army report.
As it happened, the two Australian officers who earlier had constituted the UNCOK Field Observer team, Major Peach and Wing Commander Rankin, were in the Taejon area at the precise time that Winnington concluded the massacre must have taken place, acting as liaison officers between the United Nations and south Korean forces.
On 9 July (according to Peach's 1950 dispatch), he and Rankin were on the 'road from Taejon to Konju . . . along the Kum River, a few miles short of Konju'. Trucks loaded with prisoners were going south before the northern advance.'52 As Peach later recalled the incident: 'Before my very eyes I saw at least two or three killed, their heads broken like eggs with the butts of rifles. [53]
Later, in Konju, he was told that prisoners from the Konju gaol were being shot. [54] Peach reported details to the South Korean Home Minister but believed that nothing was done. A contemporary photograph in the London Picture Post shows a truckload of such prisoners on the banks of the Kum River about halfway between Seoul and Pusan 'on their way to execution'. [55]
They were described as 'South Korean suspected traitors'. Four days later, on 13 July, the northern forces crossed the Kum River, and on 20 July captured Taejon. When Winnington reached Taejon, the city was still burning. The sequence of events strongly suggests that Winnington, Peach and Rankin were all witnesses to different stages of the same terrible event.
There was one further witness, whose testimony strengthens the suspicion. Philip Deane, in 1950 correspondent for the London Observer, was told this story while in a prison camp in north Korea after his capture, of a massacre in Tacjon just before the town fell to the communists. His informant was a French priest, Father Cadars, and Cadars' veracity seemed beyond dispute. Deane wrote as follows:
'[Fr Cadars] told me that just before the Americans retreated from the town, South Korean police had brought into a forest clearing near his church 1700 men, loaded layer upon layer into trucks. These prisoners were ordered out and ordered to dig long trenches. Father Cadars watched. Some American officers, Cadars said were also watching. When a certain amount of digging was complete, South Korean policemen shot half the prisoners in the back of the neck. The other half were then ordered to bury the dead. [56]
After Father Cadars' protest was dismissed, the remainder were likewise killed. He was told they were 'Communist guerrillas who rebelled in the Taejon gaol'.
Unless, by some terrible fate, there were two massacres in the Taejon vicinity-the one described by Winnington and Cadars which occurred in July and was perpetrated by the Rhee forces, and the one which is described by the United States Army as having occurred in late September and having been comitted by the KPA-it is hard to avoid the suspicion that the events witnessed by all these men were aspects of the same unfolding massacre.
In 1992, however, more than 40 years after the events occurred, a full account was published for the first time in a South Korean monthly journal. [57] What Winnington wrote was confirmed (except for some discrepancy in the numbers involved) by eyewitnesses and men who had actually taken part in the massacre. The only matter which remained unclear was whether Americans had been directly involved or not.
We now know, therefore, that the atrocity which the United States Army describes as the worst of the war, ranking with the Rape of Nanking and Belsen, was committed by forces acting in the name of the United Nations.[58]
References:
• • 149 'US Belsen in Korea: Americans Drove Women to Pits of Death', Daily Worker, 9 August 1950.
• 150 The village, though pronounced as Winnington wrote it, should actually be written as 'Nangwul'.
• 151 Jon Halliday, 'Anti-Communism and the Korean War (1950-1953)' in Socialist Register, eds Ralph Miliband, John Saville and Marcel Liebman, London, 1984, pp. 130-63, at p. 146
• 152 Extract from the Peach report contained in Dispatch by A.B. Jamieson, 2 August 1950, in Australian Mission in Tokyo to Canberra, 10 August 1950, AA 3123/5, part 4
• 153 Interview, Sydney, 14 August 1982
• 154 Rankin confirmed this account in a 12 August 1982 interview with this author by referring to his 1950 diary.
• 155 'War in Korea', by journalist Stephen Simmons and cameraman Haywood Magee, Picture Post, vol. 48, no. 5, 29 July 1950, p. 17. The caption to the photograph described the incident as one 'which has been investigated by a United Nations observer'.
• 156 Philip Deane, Captive in Korea, London, 1953, p. 83. The 1953 United States Army report locates the headquarters of the north Korean forces it alleged were responsible for the September massacre 'in the Catholic mission' in Taejon.
• 157 No Ka-Won, 'Taejon hyong-mu-so sa-chon san-baek myong hak-sal sa-kon' (The massacre of 4300 men from the Taejon prison), Mal, February 1992, pp. 122-31. I am grateful to Chung Kyung-Mo for bringing this material to my attention, and to Kim Hong-Ja for translating it into Japanese.
• 158 Cumings, 1990, p. 700 refers also to American internal evidence' which corroborated Winnington, though giving the figure of 2,000~4,000 rather than 7,000 victims
Source : http://www.iacenter.org/Koreafiles/ktc-lone-mccormack.htm
Tuesday, 26 March 2013
Saturday, 16 March 2013
Chhattisgarh - Preliminary Report on the Fact Finding in Bijapur
http://sanhati.com/
March 16, 2013
by Democratic Students’ Union (DSU)
In the three weeks from mid-January till the first week of February, several villages in the Bijapur District of Chhattisgarh experienced the terror of the armed forces of the Indian state. The CRPF, Chhattisgarh state police, erstwhile SPO’s of the Salwa Judum along with various coercive arms of the state orchestrated a systematic targeting of villages, burnt down hundreds of homes, ostensibly in random, further, burnt down the schools built by the people, picked up villagers, young and old, and physically tortured them while their homes burned to the ground. The affected villages are Pidia, Tomnaka, Singham, Lingham, Komati, Tomudum, and Kondapadu, and in each of these between eight and thirty homes were burnt down by the armed forces. In the village of Dodi-Tumnar, a school with hostel facility for about a hundred children, both girls and boys, run by the Janatana Sarkar was looted and then burnt down by the invading forces in the last week of January. Two battalions of about 1000 CRPF personnel each, besides Koya commandos and SPO’s arrived at the village school at 9 am on that day. They systematically proceeded to destroy the school after firing into the air twice. Even as the students and the schoolmaster fled into the forest, the armed forces caught an old man on his way to the field and chopped off his hand with his own sickle. Following this, the forces looted the storeroom and the kitchen of the school, poisoned the water well, and destroyed the roof, walls, and furniture of the school before finally burning it to the ground. They then marched to the nearby village of Pidia. This village, that houses approximately 265 homes, witnessed first hand the ruthlessness with which the armed force burn down the homes and livelihood of those who stand up for their right to life and liberty. Close to thirty homes were burnt down in one part of this village alone. The charred remains of the homes, cattle sheds, storerooms, utensils can be seen littered with empty bottles of beer and other brands of alcohol. It is clear that this planned attack is part of the routine of military life that participates in wanton destruction and celebrates the impunity they enjoy.
Wednesday, 13 March 2013
Friday, 8 March 2013
International Womens Day - Past and Present by Anuradha Ghandy
http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.in/
Democracy and Class Struggle is pleased publish our late comrade Anuradha Ghandy's article on International Women's Day.
8 March 2001 is the 91st anniversary of the International Women's Day (IWD), which was first declared in 1910. In that year, Clara Zetkin, inspired by the working class women's movement in America, proposed to the Second International Conference of the Socialist Working Women that an annual celebration of women's day be held. The Socialist International meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark, established a Women's Day, international in character, to honour the movement for women's right and to assist in achieving universal suffrage for women. The proposal was greeted with unanimous approval by the conference of over 100 women from 17 countries. No fixed date was selected for the observance.
As a result of this decision, the first International Women's Day was held on 19 March 1911 in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland, where more than one million women and men attended rallies. In addition to the right to vote, they demanded the right to work, to vocational training and an end to discrimination on the job. The date was chosen by Germany women as 19 March, because, on that date in 1848, the Prussian king, faced with an armed uprising, had promised many reforms, including an unfulfilled one of votes for women.
Hugo Chavez was champion of the Venezuelan People : Communist Party of the Philippines
http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.in/
Message from the Communist Party of the Philippines
06 March 2013
On behalf of the Filipino people and their revolutionary forces, the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) extends its deepest sympathies to the Venezuelan people during their time of mourning following the death of their beloved president Hugo Chavez.
For the past decade and a half, Hugo Chavez served as the Venezuelan people's champion. Under his leadership, Venezuela bravely treaded the path of anti-imperialism and opened a new era of radical social reform. The nationalization of Venezuela's oil put an end to foreign monopoly control and gave Venezuela vast wealth to use for the people's welfare needs -- from free education, health care and public utilities.
Serving as the Venezuelan people's champion, Hugo Chavez earned the ire of the US imperialist government which demanded the return of the rights of the exploitative and oppressive foreign capitalists who sought to monopolize Venezuela's oil and other natural resources. The US government never relented in its effort to overthrow the Hugo Chavez government and engaged in internal subversion by funding and arming the forces that opposed the Bolivarian revolution.
Under Hugo Chavez's leadership, Venezuela joined Cuba in building the Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas which sought to unite the countries of Latin America and the Caribbeans to push against the imperialist tide of neoliberalism. His fierce hatred of imperialism inspired other countries to defend their patrimony and national freedom.
The US and other imperialists celebrate the death of Hugo Chavez. The Venezuelan people, however, are not ready to surrender their victories and will surely continue to march along the path of social revolution.
Wednesday, 6 March 2013
Anti-Posco : Villagers resist the government’s push to acquire lands
http://sanhati.com/
March 5, 2013
Bombing in POSCO Area:When we don’t question..
by Samadrusti
It is not even a month old when armed police force invaded Govindapur to forcibly acquire land for POSCO. Since February 3, 2013 this area has been turned in to an armed police camp. Excepting pro-posco goons no one can enter the village and no one can get out.Police patrolling continues for 24 hours. Even cats and dogs can’t enter without police approval. Suddenly there was a bomb attack in the village on March 2, 2013 evening.. Police were informed. They did not respond for 15 hours. But within an hour they could call media to inform them that it was an accident involving bomb making.No media person questioned the SP how could he know it without reaching the spot. 3 important leaders of the anti-posco agitation died on the spot. Two would have survived had they received medical help. One was taken to the hospital by people themselves. One of them had filed a FIR against a very powerful Idco officer who had attacked villagers on February 3, 2013. Our team was among the few people to reach the spot within hours.The images will make any one think and raise questions. When we don’t question, truth is crushed and untruth prevails.
Critical Crossroads in Nepal: Presentation to the Newly Reorganized CPN(M) by RCP, USA Supporter
http://revcom.us/
February 24, 2013 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
For 10 years (from 1996 to 2006), a very important People's War took place in Nepal. Under the leadership of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), small forces were able to challenge the old state, then ruled by a monarchy. The party's stated goal was to carry through a New Democratic Revolution as the first stage of a revolution that would then go forward to the socialist stage, as Mao had done in China. The revolution met with a tremendous response among the millions of peasants and workers and educated youth in Nepal. A powerful People's Liberation Army [PLA] was formed; most of the countryside of Nepal was taken out of the grip of the traditional feudal and comprador capitalist rulers; and liberated base areas were proclaimed in much of the country. The revolution also won increasing support from middle-class elements centered in the capital and other cities of the country. The strength of the revolution also intensified the disarray of the ruling classes, and many of them concluded that it would be impossible to continue to rule Nepal under the old monarchy. At the same time, the desperate rulers and armed forces of the old state, backed up by India, and Western imperialist powers, and with support from the new capitalist rulers in China as well, fought ferociously against the revolutionary forces.
Unfortunately, in 2005 a crucial shift in the line of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) took place at the Chunwang meeting. That Central Committee meeting of the party ratified a policy of abandoning the goal of establishing a new state, a people's republic led by the proletariat and its party, in favor of fighting for a "democratic state." Once this line was set, a whole series of shifts in strategy, tactics, and policy also took place. Agreements for a "multi-party democracy" were made with the main reactionary political parties in Nepal. And in November 2006, the Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed which: formally ended the People's War; agreed to a plan to merge the PLA into the reactionary army of the old state; disbanded the organs of power that had been established in the liberated base areas; and established elections to a Constituent Assembly. An interim government was formed with the CPN(M) holding some of the ministries.
During this period the CPN(M) was reorganized as the United Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), uniting with other parties and individuals who had not been involved in the People's War or who had even opposed it.
Elections were held in 2008. The UCPN(M) won the largest number of seats in the Constituent Assembly and a government was formed with UCPN(M) chairman Prachanda as Prime Minister.
Throughout this period of reversal of the revolution, sharp debate took place, first privately and then publicly, between the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA and the UCPN(M). A series of letters were sent by the RCP, USA which sharply criticized and struggled against the revisionist line that had been adopted by the UCPN(M) and the consequences of that line. [See "On Developments in Nepal and the Stakes for the Communist Movement: Letters to the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) from the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, 2005-2008 (With a Reply from the CPN(M), 2006)."]
Under pressure from the army and the leaders of the old state, the Prachanda government resigned in 2009 and a new government was formed by the previous opponents of the People's War.
In November 2011, after a prolonged governmental crisis, a new government was formed with Baburam Bhattarai, a prominent leader of the party as Prime Minister. This government quickly moved to finalize the destruction of the revolution [See "Baburam Bhattarai—Chosen Gravedigger of the Nepal Revolution," Revolution, September 11, 2011.]
Throughout this period many members and supporters of the UCPN(M) became increasingly uncomfortable with the direction things were going, as the fruits of the revolution were abandoned one by one. Some of these forces inside the UCPN(M) formed an opposition to the leadership of Chairman Prachanda. Eventually these forces left the party in 2012 and formed a separate party, taking the original name of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist).
The newly reorganized CPN(M) recently held its founding Congress. While the new party has attracted those who hate the increasingly ugly results coming from the reversal of the revolution, the new CPN(M) has unfortunately been unable to decisively break from the essential problems of line, and resulting practice, of the UCPN(M)—the line which has led to this disastrous situation for the revolution.
In this light, a supporter of the RCP, USA, who had long been associated with building support for the revolution in Nepal, was invited to offer opinions to the recent Congress. What follows is a slightly edited transcript of what was conveyed to that Congress.
* * * * *
The following is a contribution to the recently held Congress of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) made by a long time supporter of the revolution in Nepal who is a supporter of the RCP, USA and the new synthesis of Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA.
Greetings comrades. Let's get straight to the point. We are at a critical crossroads, not only in the revolution in Nepal but also in the international communist movement. A few years ago, millions in Nepal looked to the Maoists as their hope to end oppression. Now the masses' former leaders have become the ugly face of their oppressors and exploiters. Much of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement is being turned into apologists of revisionism. What happened—what's the problem—and what's the solution?
International Women’s Day 2013:
http://revcom.us/
Fight for the Liberation of Women
All Around the World
March 10, 2013 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
How often do you hear it... when a woman is raped... when a woman is humiliated and disrespected, when a woman is battered or murdered...
“She should have known better.”
Bullshit!
Protest against the oppressive working conditions at Tazreen Fashions garment factory in Bangladesh where 121 garment workers died and at least 200 were injured in a fire, November 2011. Photo: AP
Should have known better than what? Known better than to be born female in a world where rape isepidemic on every continent? Known better than to live in South Africa, where four in every 10 women will be the victims of rape? Or in India, where a 23-year-old student was dragged off a public bus, raped, brutally tortured, and left for dead? Or in the USA, where every 15 seconds a woman is beaten, where every day three to four women are killed by their partners, where one out of four female college students will be raped or sexually assaulted while in college?
Should a young girl “know better” than to live in “the democratic West” where she will be bombarded with images that tell her that her goal in life is to be “sexy” for a man—even before she knows what intimate relationships are all about? Should a high school student in Ohio “know better” than to go to a party where she is drugged and raped and then have that posted on YouTube—like in the old days when the KKK would lynch a Black man and brag about it in the newspapers?
Or, if she’s born in a part of the world controlled by reactionary religious fundamentalists, should she “know better” than to be a young woman driven out of Pakistan for playing sports? Or a girl in U.S.-occupied Afghanistan who wants to learn to read, but can’t go to school because reactionary Islamist forces allied with the U.S. occupiers, or the Taliban, won’t let her leave her house for fear of having acid thrown in her face?
Tuesday, 5 March 2013
Noida Police keeps a labour leader and 6 citizens under illegal custody March 3, 2013
http://sanhati.com/
At the behest of the factory owners, the reign of terror of police continues
by Bigul Mazdoor Dasta
Noida, March 1. Several mass organizations including Bigul Mazdoor Dasta have strongly condemned the Noida police’s act of illegal detention of the labour leader Tapish Maindola and 6 common citizens. A petition is also being filed today at the Allahabad High Court against the illegal custody.
Ajay Swamy of Delhi Metro Kamgar Union told that on the evening of February 27th, 10-12 persons came in 2 Bolero vehicles to the DTP Centre of Navin Prakash in Ghaziabad and forcibly took him and his employee Raju along with them. They forced Navin to call the activist of Bigul Mazdoor Dasta and his friend Tapish by phone and as soon as Tapish reached there, police captured him. Without informing the people present there as to where they were taking them, the policemen took all three along with them. None of the three were allowed to make a call and their phones were taken away and switched off.
Anti-Posco : Villagers resist the government’s push to acquire lands March 2, 2013
http://sanhati.com/
NAPM Condemns Attack on PPSS by Goons and Subsequent death of 3 activists 030313
State is Sponsoring and Promoting Violence not the PPSS
Punish the Criminals Halt Land Acquisition
New Delhi, March 3 : In the continuing saga of
state violence and oppression, when nearly 6 platoons of police were present in
the area for starting the forceful land acquisition procedure, bombs were
hurled at around 6:30 pm on a meeting room of Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti,
at Patna Village, Dhinkia, Jagatsinghpur, killing Manas Jena – Age 32 died on
the spot. Two others Nabanu Mandal – 35 and Narahari Sahoo – 52 succumbed to
their injuries, since police didn’t respond to their call for ambulances on time.
Mr. Laxman Paramanik was critically injured and is undergoing treatment at the
moment.
This act of terror is extremely condemnable and
will not deter the spirit of resistance. It is also unfortunate that rather
than taking action against the company sponsored goons, who have attacked in
past too, the district administration has been spreading canards that the
people died while making bombs. The history of Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti
shows that the movement has been non-violent and peaceful even when the the
state forces and goons have attacked them with ferocity on many occasions
latest being on February 3 rd.
It need to be mentioned that the movement has
faced several instances of state repression, document in a recently release
fact finding report titled, “Captive Democracy”. The report says that “230
cases had been filed implicating about 1500- 2000 villagers resisting POSCO
between 2006 and 2012. Most of the complaints have left the number of accused
open-ended, which allows the police to implicate any person in any case,
despite not being specifically named therein. A large number of these cases
have been filed by government officials during times of peaceful demonstrations
by the members of the PPSS.”
Shri Abhaya Sahoo, the President of the PPSS was
arrested on two occasions and has over 50 cases registered against him, including
cases when he wasn’t present in the villages on the day of the alleged offence.
Manorama Kathua, President Women’s Wing of the PPSS, aged about 29 years has
several cases filed against her and has been unable to apply for bail due to
financial constraints and has not left the village in 6-7 years. These are just
few instances of arbitrary actions of the police and the impacts of the same.
Hence, it is unfortunate that the state is again
trying to criminalise the movement and forcefully acquire the land. The
sacrifices made by the activists to save their land and right to earn a
dignified living must be respected. The actions of Orissa government is in
complete violation of democratic norms and principles of justice. As of now the
environmental clearance given by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF)
on January 31, 2011 stands suspended by the order of National Green Tribunal
(NGT) dt March 30 2012. The project does not even have a memorandum of
understanding with the state government now, with one signed on July 22, 2005
having lapsed. So what is the basis on which the state is acquiring land for
the project?
The nation needs an answer for this continued
brutality and loss of life and livelihood and constant harassment and complete
disruption of normal life. People’s movements from across the country stand in
solidarity with the struggle of villagers of Jagatsinghpur and condemn this
barbaric action of the state government and company sponsored goons.
Medha Patkar, Dr. Sunilam, Prafulla Samantra, Arundhati Dhuru, Sandeep Pandey, P Chennaiah, Ramakrishna Raju, Sister Celia, Suniti S R, Gabriele
Dietrich, Maj Gen S.G.Vombatkere (Retd), Anand Mazgaonkar, Gautam Bandopadhyay, Vimal Bhai, Mukta Srivastava, Suhas Kolhekar, Rajendra Ravi,
Bhupender Singh Rawat, Seela Mahapatra, Madhuresh Kumar
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