Friday, April 06, 2007

Support the Struggle of the Nandigram Peasants

The Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) has recently released its report on the second wave of killings of peasants in the Nandigram region. Nandigram is approximately 150 kilometres south of Kolkata (Calcutta), the state capital of West Bengal.

The killings have been carried out by thugs organised by the revisionist CPI (Marxist)-led Left Front Government, which has sought to create a series of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) as a means of attracting foreign investment capital into West Bengal.

The Nandigram area was previously very pro-CPI(M). The only reason why this very strong mass base suddenly turned against the CPI(M) was the proposed land acquisition for an SEZ to built by the Indonesian MNC Salem International.

The founder of the Salim Group is Liem Sioe Liong. Reportedly the richest man in Indonesia, Liem owes much of his fortune to privileges granted him by the fascist dictator Suharto, whom he befriended in the 1940s.

It was precisely because Nandigram was emerging as a model for anti-SEZ, anti-corporate-land grab resistance that it invited such horrible repression. It had become a sore spot and a source of concern and anxiety, not just for local CPI(M) leaders or the LF Government, but for all Governments all over the country.

The repression started with a massacre of villagers on January 7, 2007. In Singur, police arrested nearly 500 Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation activists at a January 8 solidarity protest.

Then the goons came back on March 14 and conducted a further massacre over a three-day period. On March 23, the CPI(ML) launched a nationwide campaign in solidarity with the Singur and Nandigram struggles.

An excellent in-depth analysis of this struggle can be found here on the Marxist-Leninist Lists website.

The Right to Food website has asked all concerned people to write letters of protest to the national and state authorities in India and West Bengal:

Recipient of letter:

Shri Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee
Chief Minister
Government of West Bengal
Writers' Building,
Kolkata 700001
India

Shri Abdur Rezzak Mollab
Minister In Charge
Land and Land Reforms Department,
Government of West Bengal
Writer's Building
Kolkata - 700001
India

Hon'ble Justice Shri Shyamal Kumar Sen
Chairperson
West Bengal Human Rights CommissionIndia

Dr. Manmohan Singh
Prime Minister of India
South BlockRoom No. 152
New Delhi- 110001
India

2 comments:

haisanlu said...

Good aticle on Nandigram - Mike your comment on Katyn did'nt post properly - you can repost - I copied it but it has no links.

Keep up the struggle

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