ML Update: a CPI(ML) Weekly News Magazine

The G8 summit on 1-3 June in Evian in France marked the first reunion between the US and ‘old’ Europe after the Iraq war had virtually split the world’s elite club of the richest and most powerful countries into two camps revolving around what came to be known as the Anglo-American and Franco-German axes. France, Germany and Russia had however already moved a step back and demonstrated their readiness to patch up their wartime differences with the Bush-Blair alliance by unanimously endorsing the recent UN Security Council resolution on the immediate future of post-Saddam Iraq.

Though the G8 summit was held amid signs of a continuing global recession, it was Iraq and not the economy which overshadowed the summit. Both Bush and Chirac made a number of gestures to indicate that they were ready to ignore the past and look to the future and work together in reshaping post-Saddam Iraq. Bush made a public statement about seeking Chirac’s ‘advice’ on West Asia. But the deep divisions among the world’s major imperialist powers could not be hidden behind such diplomatic phrases.

Bush used the G8 summit as a platform for pleading for still greater unity in the continuing war against ‘terrorism’ declaring that “this is no time to stir up divisions in a great alliance”. But the very fact that Bush reduced his own participation in the G8 summit to a mere one-day stopover in a six-country, seven-day junket – for him Evian remained sandwiched between meetings in Poland and Russia before and the Middle East afterwards – made it amply clear that all was not well with the ‘great alliance’.

The summit could not produce any major economic declaration to combat the global recession. This had become clear during the G8 finance ministers’ meeting held two weeks before. The continuing decline in the value of dollar vis-à-vis euro has begun to make European exports less competitive. The economic portents of the American policy of “punishing France, warning Germany and pardoning Russia” are yet to become clear with regard to the ongoing reconstruction of post-Saddam Iraq. Meanwhile, the American threats to Iran are also loaded with serious implications for the European powers who have close economic and defence ties with Iran.

For the anti-globalisation protesters, Evian was the first major opportunity to vent their accumulated ire against the imperialist merchants of death and devastation. All over Europe, the demand for trying Bush and Blair for their war crimes is getting louder. In Britain itself, Blair is faced with a growing demand for a ‘war probe’ as evidences indict him for manufacturing and exaggerating the so-called Iraqi threat. And the list of crimes is getting longer with every passing day. In the wake of its military victory in Iraq, the Bush Presidency is now busy producing a new series of nuclear bombs that are capable of ‘destroying bunkers beneath 300 metres of rock, and … ideal for targeting stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons’.

The choice of Evian as the venue for G8 summit was itself a product of stringent security considerations. After the violent demonstrations during the July 2001 G8 summit in Italy’s Genoa, last year the summiteers had fled to Kananaskis, a remote mountain resort in the Canadian wilderness where protesters could get no closer than 17 kilometres from the village. This year again, the French and Swiss police – backed by a reserve force of German police as well – tried to enforce a security zone with a radius of at least 10 miles surrounding the summit’s site. All roads leading into Evian were blocked, and heads of state and other leading participants in the summit were flown over the protests in helicopters. Yet, tens of thousands of protesters assembled on both sides of the border, in Geneva in Switzerland and Lausanne in France and clashed with the police.

As part of the G8’s script of an ‘extended dialogue’, Prime Minister Vajpayee put in a guest appearance in Evian, reiterating his claim to renounce politics if he failed to win peace with Pakistan. Is it intended to win more laurels for his presumed ‘statesmanship’? Or is it an admission of his fear that the days of his government were getting numbered? Meanwhile, back home in Hyderabad, the BJP’s own summit has now made it official that Advani, the ‘iron man’, would now share the limelight in the next elections with ‘vikas purush’ (priest of development) Vajpayee.

The Party Central Committee met at Siliguri (in Darjeeling district of West Bengal) from 28 to 31 May. The important points of the deliberations of the CC are as follows:

Having toppled the Saddam Hussein regime through a brutal war of aggression, the Anglo-American forces are now busy consolidating their grip on Iraq. After completely bypassing the UN during the war, the US and the UK came back to the UN to seek its approval for their role in post-Saddam Iraq and they have succeeded in securing a unanimous resolution supported by 14 members of the Security Council with the fifteenth member, Syria, abstaining from the vote. This surely marks a retreat on the part of France, Russia and China, the permanent members who had earlier opposed the war in varying degrees, but differences and frictions continue among the world’s major powers with regard to the future of Iraq and as to how best to secure their own stakes in post-Saddam Iraq and West Asia as a whole.

The occupying powers, however, have still not succeeded in putting up a semblance of a new Iraqi regime. Hundreds of Iraqi people have already been killed in the course of the US-led bloody occupation. Even though there is no organised centre of Iraqi resistance, various sections of the Iraqi society are offering strong, if sporadic, opposition to the foreign occupation forces. The US has had to respond to this situation by replacing its military administrator Jay Garner with the civilian face of Paul Bremmer. Ironically, Bremmer has begun his innings by issuing a shoot-at-sight order against so-called Iraqi ‘looters’.

We join the people of Iraq and the global voice of peace, freedom and justice to demand an immediate end to the US-led foreign occupation of Iraq and complete restoration of Iraq’s sovereignty and the right of the Iraqi people to run their own country and determine their own future. The Government of India is reportedly getting ready to send Indian troops to Iraq as part of a US-led multinational stabilisation force. We must strongly oppose any such move for it will place our country in a role of a US collaborator, pit us against the national aspirations of the people of Iraq and intensify our isolation from the Arab nations in particular and the developing world in general. Such a move will also construe a blatant violation of the anti-war resolution passed in Indian Parliament under pressure from the Indian people. In this context, the CC also took strong exception to the recent advocacy of a US-Israel-India axis by representatives of the NDA government.

In the wake of the Iraq war, Washington has stepped up its offensive in the whole of West Asia. Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia have all been put on notice to comply with American dictates. A thoroughly unjust and coercive peace is being sought to be imposed on the people of Palestine even as Israel continues to wage its barbaric war of occupation. Beyond West Asia, countries like Cuba and North Korea too find themselves faced with heightened American pressure and an ever growing threat of American intervention. Washington has also started manufacturing a new series of ‘smarter’ nuclear bombs, the so-called mini nukes. The worldwide anti-war campaign must therefore intensify its resistance to the American imperialist design to establish its complete and absolute hegemony and impose a unipolar world order. Despite the recent rapprochement between the Franco-German and Anglo-American axes, it has not been possible for the European rulers to insulate the G-8 summit in France from powerful anti-American and anti-imperialist protests.

We welcome the emerging atmosphere of normalisation of Indo-Pak ties and steps taken towards restoration of full-scale diplomatic relations between the two neighbours. The steps announced so far, especially on the part of India, have however been very limited and essentially of a symbolic nature. Moreover, even these limited measures conform more to the requirements of the so-called American roadmap for South Asia than to the popular desire for peace and friendship in both India and Pakistan. We stand for accelerated efforts towards complete normalcy between the two countries based on bilateral dialogue and complete rejection of American interference.

We also reject Vajpayee’s description of the present attempt as the last attempt. The present phase is preceded by the biggest Indian military mobilisation which had witnessed the deployment of nearly half a million Indian troops all along the India-Pakistan border. This had however proved completely counterproductive and a huge drain on the Indian exchequer. Any genuine Indian peace inititaive must be based on a clear admission of the failure of the Vajpayee government’s policy of ‘coercive diplomacy’, a euphemism for a militarist strategy.

(a) The CC noted with satisfaction the widespread response evoked by the 21 May call for an all-India strike in many parts of the country. The central and state governments however continue to push through the anti-people policies of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation despite certain pre-poll gestures of slowing down and rolling back some measures here and there. The recent decision to further reduce the PF interest rate and the refusal of the Vajpayee government to enact a separate legislation for agricultural labourers are two more cases in point. The agrarian crisis too shows no sign of abating and the severe drought prevailing in many parts of the country has generated famine-like conditions. In these circumstances, we must intensify our efforts for building a powerful movement of the working class including unorganised and agricultural workers, the poor and middle peasantry, and the unemployed youth and students. The initiative unleashed in the course of the Feb. 26 Parliament March and May 21 all-India general strike must be intensified by ensuring still bigger mobilisation of the concerned sections of the affected people.

(b) The CC also drew the attention of the entire Party to the task of countering the BJP’s sustained and systamatic communal offensive centring around issues like trishul distribution, Ayodhya, religious conversion etc. The unfortunate and unwarranted decision of the Allahabad High Court asking the ASI to dig up the disputed land in Ayodhya has already set a dangerous precedent. Even though the digging has not yielded any definitive evidence of a temple predating the Babri mosque, the NDA government has already changed the official version submitted before the Liberhan Commission tracing the origin of the dispute back to 1528 when the Masjid was built instead of 1948 when the idol of Ram was surreptitiously smuggled in. Despite some symbolic acts like the arrest of Togadia by the Gehlot government of Rajasthan or the detention of another VHP leader by the Madhya Pradesh Government in connection with the Bhojshala agitation, the general stand adopted by Congress-led state governments remains one of appeasing the Sangh Parivar. This is emboldening the BJP and other RSS affiliates to step up their sinister communal campaign as a strategy for the November Assembly elections.

(c) The CC also took note of the BJP’s dangerous divisive moves in the North East like the proposed scrapping of the IMDT Act in Assam and the (now deferred) proposal to grant hill tribe status to Bodos residing in Karbi Anglong and NC Hills districts of Assam. Instead of addressing the key issues of Assam like an honest implementation of the Assam Accord and creation of an Autonomous State under Article 244A of the Indian Constitution, the NDA government has adopted a selective approach to further its devious divide-and-rule design. The BJP’s dangerous and sectarian moves had earlier led to a serious turmoil in Manipur and now serious clashes have broken out between Dimasas and Hmars in NC Hills and Cachhar districts of Assam. We must boldly oppose the BJP’s divisive moves emboldened by the complicity of the Congress government and the Congress-led Autonomous Councils of Karbi Anglong and NC Hills and uphold the banner of people’s harmony and united struggle for realisation of the collective democratic aspirations of the broad masses of the people.

The CPI(ML) legislatores and Party affiliated Agrarian Labourers Association (Khet Mazdoor Sabha) called on the President A. P. J. Abdul Kalam at Raj Bhavan in Patna on May 31 during his visit to Bihar and drew his attention towards the miseries, growing sense of insecurity and constitutional neglect of the agrarian labourers in Bihar and elsewhere in the country. The delegation asked him to take effective measures in the direction of enactment of a central legislation for the agricultural labourers in the country. The President was on a three day tour of Bihar.

The delegation led by Party legislatores in the Bihar Assembly Mahboob Alam, Rajaram Singh and Satya Dev Ram met the President and apprised him of the miserable plight of agricultural workers and rural poor which constitutes more than 50 % of the population. It said that in ‘backward’ states like Bihar, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan the agrarian labourers are living with a sense of utter neglect, insecurity and deprivation, their condition is also not different in the so called ‘developed’ states like Maharashtra, Andhra, Punjab and Haryana.

Incidents of arson and looting of houses of dalits, raping their women - not only by feudal-criminal nexus but also by the police - and the massacres by private terrorist armies whose number is growing, have become common features of Bihar’s polity. Thanks to the politician-criminal nexus that the central and state governments have never taken any effective action against these private armies and feudal elements. This has further increased the insecurity among rural poor and agricultural labourers.

Many amendments in the Land Reforms Act during 60s to 90s have failed accomplish the important task of redistributing land to the landless and this fact is providing adequate ground for the economic stagnation and social repression in Bihar. Moreover, social welfare schemes in the state, such as social security pension, PDS scheme, BPL card scheme, Indira Awas Yojana and scholarship grants for the students, are faulty to the hilt and their benefits never reaches to the poor and needy.

A charter of demands was also handed over to the President to demand the enactment of a central legislation for agrarian labourers that must address the questions of work throughout the year, strict implementation of Minimum Wages Act, equal wages to women workers, stringent action against those who attack political rights and social dignity of rural poor and commit killings and massacres of dalits and agrarian labourers, distribution of lands, proper housing facilities and education, etc.

On May 30, a large number of agricultural labourers sat on a day-long dharna in support of the above mentioned demands in Patna and expressed their angst over the persistent insensitive attitude of the central and state governments.

The All India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU) held nationwide protests on May 31against cut in interest rate of the Employees' Provident Fund and for restoring the 12 percent interest rate on EPF. The Protest demonstration, in Delhi, was held before the EPF Office when a crucial meeting of EPF Trustees Board was scheduled to take place. However, the venue of the meeting was shifted to avoid confrontation with the demonstrators.

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We express our condolences at the sudden passing away of Comrade Ambalal Gometi, state president of Rajasthan Kisan Sangathan and a veteran leader of the Party, who left us on May 25 in Udaipur. Comrade Gometi remained active till his last breath and struggled for nearly four decades for the rights of the poor and working people in the tribal belt of Rajasthan. He remained actively involved till his last day in the preparations for the district conference of the Rajasthan Kisan Sangathan. Comrade Gometi played an important role in strengthening the revolutionary left movement in the state.

Bush arrived for his first face-to-face meeting with European heads of state since the illegal war in Iraq that divided the major imperialist powers in the spa town of Evian in Fance, where G8 annual summit met in the backdrop of expanding economic recession and war of recolonialization. But soon, group together had to confront huge popular protests erupted on the first day of summit on June 1. An estimated 120,000 people—50,000 on the Swiss side and 70,000 on the French side of the border between two countries—took part in mass demonstrations and condemned the world’s richest nations’ hegemonistic intentios. Despite the presence of 25,000 French and Swiss police and military personnel deployed to protect the rich 8, agitators even tried to attack the barricades and police used tear gas shells and water cannon to disperse them. Police also battled anti-capitalist activists in Lausanne who had set on fire barricades and sprayed graffiti on cars. Around as many as 400 people were arrested. On a nearby motorway a Briton was seriously wounded when police cut a rope he was climbing to hang a protest banner.

Over a hundred representatives from 24 countries and representing of some of the biggest anti-war coalitions and groupings all over the world gathered in Jakarta from May 18-21 to plan next phase of anti-war movement after the United States’ invasion of Iraq. Delegates adopted the “Jakarta Peace Consensus” which called for immediate end to the illegal occupation of Iraq and the withholding of recognition to any regime installed by the US and Britain and to hold an international war crimes tribunal for prosecuting the US and its allies and called for a week of action against WTO during its coming meet in Cancun, Mexico in September. The CPI(ML) had send a solidarity message to the Jakarta meet.