Nepal: Comrade Kiran answers the journalists during press meet after the formation of CPN-Maoist

http://www.wprmbritain.org/

These questions and answers are from the press conference that was organized on the 19th of June 2012 by the newly formed Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist, which finally ruptured from the then Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) after a long history of fierce two-line struggle in the party preceding a 2 day long National Convention held in Kathmandu, Nepal. Chairman of the newly formed CPN-M, Comrade Kiran (Mohan Baidya) answered the questions raised by journalists during the press conference. There is a minor edit for clarity.

The uncut-hour long audio of the press conference question and answer session can be found here . Only useful to Nepali listeners.

Thanks to Comrade Pooja  for taking her time to make this audio available in English transcription.

Please click on the image for larger view.

Q: – How do you justify the formation of the new party? How should general people understand this?

A: - Communist party is a party for the benefit of the proletariat and the people. In the case of Nepal, the aim of a communist party remains to move forward, raising the issues of safeguarding national sovereignty; people’s democracy and livelihood then ultimately leap towards socialism and communism. This is self-proven. In the process of attaining this aim we went through people’s war, and did considerable amount of work among and with the people. We built our base areas, practiced our newly formed people’s power but then conciliation took place amidst as we moved forward to build a new Nepal.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t compromise, we should but while compromising, the act of abandoning our entire basis (achievements) has happened. The act of slipping down from our mission and objectives has happened. The dream we carried was of a constitutional assembly but where is the constitution? How did the constituent assembly function? Talking about people’s livelihood, how has the corruption been mounting-up? That fact is clearer. In the process of making a constitution there was an agreement to move forward institutionalizing the rights of the working class, indigenous people, ethnic minorities, women & dalit; including the rights of all oppressed class, region and gender but ditching all these primary issues of constitutional thematic committees it is apparent that ex-chairman, Prachanda surrendered everything to Congress & UML by forming a dispute resolution sub-committee under the constitutional committee.

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Against Eco-incarceration: Class Struggle and Indigenous Rights in India

http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2012/shah070612.html
by Alpa Shah

Whereas once the primitive was our savage other, today the native is the bearer of an alternative future.  In the late 1980s the Kayapo Chief Raoni, with his spectacular feathered headdress, accompanied the pop star Sting on concert tours to enlighten western audiences of the ecological disaster in the Amazon that came hand-in-hand with human rights abuses.  Soon after, Chief Pykati-re, with a similar headdress of plumage could be spotted with a "thumbs up" gesture on the walls of Body Shops promoting the late Anita Roddick's controversial "trade not aid" vision all over the world.  Though the Body Shop opened only more than a decade later in Delhi's Khan Market and Mumbai's Linking Road, perhaps it will not be too long before Bollywood produces an Indian avatar of James Cameron's Hollywood blockbusterAvatar.¹

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Frederick Douglass: What to the Slave is Your Fourth of July?

http://kasamaproject.org/

Posted by Mike E on June 27, 2010

“What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy-a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.

“Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.“

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A speech given at Rochester, New York, July 5, 1852

Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens:

He who could address this audience without a quailing sensation, has stronger nerves than I have. I do not remember ever to have appeared as a speaker before any assembly more shrinkingly, nor with greater distrust of my ability, than I do this day. A feeling has crept over me quite unfavorable to the exercise of my limited powers of speech. The task before me is one which requires much previous thought and study for its proper performance. I know that apologies of this sort are generally considered flat and unmeaning. I trust, however, that mine will not be so considered. Should I seem at ease, my appearance would much misrepresent me. The little experience I have had in addressing public meetings, in country school houses, avails me nothing on the present occasion.

The papers and placards say that I am to deliver a Fourth of July Oration. This certainly sounds large, and out of the common way, for me. It is true that I have often had the privilege to speak in this beautiful Hall, and to address many who now honor me with their presence. But neither their familiar faces, nor the perfect gage I think I have of Corinthian Hall seems to free me from embarrassment.

Chhattisgarh - Statements against the killing of villagers during alleged encounter in Bijapur

http://sanhati.com/articles/5230/

July 3, 2012

Press Release from Revolutionary Democratic Front

When the adivasi peasants of Sirkegudem, Kothagudem and Rajupenta – adjacent villages separated by not more than a kilometre in the Bijapur district of south Chhattisgarh – gathered in hundreds on the night of 28 June 2012 to plan the performance of the traditional festival Beej Pandum (seed festival), they least expected to be surrounded by six hundred armed forces personnel of the Indian state. At least 18 adivasis lost their lives in the cold-blooded massacre that followed. Two other villagers were likewise killed near Jagargunda village of Sukma district the same night, and predictably, were shown as casualties of an ‘encounter’ between the Maoists and the armed forces. As the testimonies of the eyewitnesses coming through the media, activists as well as the statements of the CPI (Maoist) now confirm, the killing of the adivasis was a heinous massacre committed by the Cobra battalion of the CRPF and the Chhattisgarh police under the command of top police officials including CRPF Director General Vijay Kumar and Chhattisgarh Inspector General of Police T G Longkumar. It is also clear that this massacre is a part of Indian state’s extermination campaign against the Maoist revolutionary movement and the adivasis of central and eastern India under the rubric of Operation Green Hunt that was launched with a media blitzkrieg in September 2009.

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Chairman Kiran on Nepal’s new Maoist party

http://kasamaproject.org/

Posted by Mike E on July 1, 2012

The uncut-hour long audio of the press conference question and answer session  is available in Nepali.Thanks to ComradePooja  for taking her time to make this audio available in English transcription. And thanks to World People’s Resistance Movement of Britainfor circulating this.

Q: How do you justify the formation of the new party?

How should general people understand this?

A: - Communist party is a party for the benefit of the proletariat and the people. In the case of Nepal, the aim of a communist party remains to move forward, raising the issues of safeguarding national sovereignty; people’s democracy and livelihood then ultimately leap towards socialism and communism. This is self-proven. In the process of attaining this aim we went through people’s war, and did considerable amount of work among and with the people. We built our base areas, practiced our newly formed people’s power but then conciliation took place amidst as we moved forward to build a new Nepal.

The fighting spirit of Nepal’s communist youth — on May First

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t compromise, we should but while compromising, the act of abandoning our entire basis (achievements) has happened. The act of slipping down from our mission and objectives has happened. The dream we carried was of a constitutional assembly but where is the constitution? How did the constituent assembly function? Talking about people’s livelihood, how has the corruption been mounting-up? That fact is clearer. In the process of making a constitution there was an agreement to move forward institutionalizing the rights of the working class, indigenous people, ethnic minorities, women & dalit; including the rights of all oppressed class, region and gender but ditching all these primary issues of constitutional thematic committees it is apparent that ex-chairman, Prachanda surrendered everything to Congress & UML by forming a dispute resolution sub-committee under the constitutional committee.

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Framing new movement: A revolutionary festival in Crete

http://kasamaproject.org/

Posted by Mike E on June 28, 2012

photo: Sopiko Japaridze

A report from Greece by the Winter Has Its Endproject.

by Sopiko Japaridze, Eric Ribellarsi, and Sara Khaled

Sometime around 7 A.M., our group of reporters stumbled back to the apartment we’d been staying at. Making our way through the maze of narrow street corners, we are greeted by the sunrise.

All night, until 8 A.M., Crete’s May Days festival went on, fusing communist politics and local culture.

Together, we‘ve been reflecting back on the last two days of nonstop camaraderie and politics.

The young Greek communists who put together this festival here in Heraklion, Crete (the capitol city of an island south of the Greek mainland) infuse politics with a flourishing radical culture. The organic fusion between people’s enjoyment of music, dance, food and politics has been nothing like the political world we come from.

We’ve come to Crete for the “Delayed Maydays Festival.” It’s situated in the center of a park in the heart of Heraklion, the capital city of Crete. All around, young communist students hang ful banners bearing slogans and art. One slogan reads

“With the people at the front, we can find a way out.”

The Georgiadis park is beautifully shaded by trees cooling everyone under them. Trash bags are taped to the trees to easily collect trash. Chairs and tables brought from homes are placed underneath the shade and throughout open areas. There are vendors selling everything from apricots to jewelry. A table is set up with kegs and kegs of beer and hard alcohol for mixed drinks made to order.  Marinated pork souvlaki is cooked on grills, which KOEs members keep going day and night. They use hair dryers to keep the coals going despite the wind.

Reconstruction of society

Back in Athens, we’d heard that the Communist Organization of Greece (KOE) believes that it is very important to “reconstruct” the Greek society “socially, politically, and economically.” This phrase captures the spheres of the society that KOE believes will have to be profoundly transformed to bring about a revolutionary future in Greece.

INTERVIEW WITH NICKGLAIS OF DEMOCRACY AND CLASS STRUGGLE

INTERVIEW WITH NICKGLAIS OF DEMOCRACY AND CLASS STRUGGLE

West Bengal - Release of political prisoners : Review Committee debate revisited

http://sanhati.com/articles/5194/

June 27, 2012

by Ranjit Sur

“Giving a huge sigh of relief to the TMC leaders and party workers implicated in various cases in connection with both the cognizable and non-cognizable offences, the West Bengal government has now decided to withdraw charges against them. The state government is planning to withdraw simple charges as well as serious charges like murder, possession of illegal arms and the cases in which non-bailable warrants have been issued against the Trinamool workers. West Bengal Law Minister Malay Ghatak has said that Trinamool workers were framed due to the political rivalry by previous left regime. Sources say that the government has issued directions to withdraw cases against nearly 500 party workers implicated in various cases concerning to the previous violent protests in Singur, Nandigram and North 24-Parganas. The state Law Ministry has asked all the public prosecutors concerning to these cases to act in this direction and ensure their release. Following the orders, the public prosecutors have already sent a proposal to the concerned DMs in this regard.”(JPN/Bureau)

With this order, the Government of West Bengal has resolved a long-standing debates amongst the rights workers and political forces of “third stream” in West Bengal. When questioned by members of the media, the West Bengal Law Minister and Government pleader rightly argued that the Government has every right to withdraw cases and release prisoners by applying Sec 321 of CrPC , adding that the Government wanted to apply that rule only. They are not doing any illegal thing. The Law Minister and the Government Pleader is absolutely right in their argument. What they had not said but should have said is that even convicted prisoners can be released applying Sec 432 of CrPC.

But where is the debate and how it is resolved ?

A critique of the Allahabad Court Judgement

http://sanhati.com/

June 28, 2012

A joint note by PUCL and PUDR

To ask for papers proving guilt in black and white,
Is useless for there need be no such papers
The guilty have proof of their innocence
The innocent often have no proof.
- Bertolt Brecht

Introduction

On the 8th of June 2012 Additional District Judge, Sunil Kumar Singh, Presiding officer of the District and Session Court, Allahabad, pronounced life imprisonment to 36 year old Seema Azad, writer and editor of Dastak (a monthly magazine) and the Organising Secretary of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, Uttar Pradesh branch, under waging war against the Government of India and for offences related to being a member and supporter of a terrorist organisation. Her husband Vishwa Vijay too was similarly sentenced. The Judgement came exactly after the two had spent twenty seven months (two years and three months) in Naini Jail.

This Judgement has once again exposed how the Indian Security Establishment, the Police and the Intelligence are working in tandem with a section of the Judiciary and that any arrest made in the name of Maoism and Terrorism can be justified by invoking the draconian laws like the UAPA and the colonial era security provisions of the Indian Penal Code. Through this judgement there is also an attempt to send a warning to all activists of their fate if they are going to be questioning Government policy or hold alternative views.

RDF strongly Condemns the Dalit Massacre in Lakshimpeta in Srikakulam

http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.in/

22 June 2012

Press Release

RDF strongly Condemns the Dalit Massacre in Lakshimpeta in Srikakulam

Punish the Culprit Upper Caste Brahmanical Forces Including their Abettors, the Ruling Party Leaders like

RDF Hails the Exemplary Courage of Dalit People of Lakshimpeta for Putting Up Brave Fight to Own the Land.

Rally Around All Dalit and Adivasi People’s Struggles for Self-Assertion and Dignity

Develop Self-Defense to Protect the Movement and its Gains Against Murdours Attacks of the Brahmanical Forces.

Yet another massacre on dalit people in Andhra Pradesh shows that the landowning castes still turn violent when dalits assert themselves to take over land.  Four dalit people were hacked to death, and about 30 dalit men and women were critically injured in a well-orchestrated attack by Turpu Kapu backward caste brahmanical forces in Lakshimpeta village of Vangara block in Srikakulam District on 12 June 2012. The brahmanical forces targeted 60 dalit families in the village with crude and brutal weapons like bombs, sickles, hatchets and axes supported and patronised by the ruling Congress Party leaders of the region. Burada Sundara Rao (45), Chitri Appadu (35), Nivarti Venkati (65) and Nivarti Sangameshu (40) died in the bloodbath. Bodduru Papaiah died in King George Hospital, Vishakhapatnam on 20 June while taking treatment. With his death, the number of people killed in the massacre increased to five.

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