ATIK | Confederation of Workers from Turkey in Europe | AHM-ATIK News Center
ATIK | 02 – 02 – 2010 | “My Husband was killed by the Punjab police. My brother in law was arrested and then killed. I was humiliated and then raped. My son, Devinder pal Singh Bhullar is on death row. How can anyone expect me to live my life, should I walk my way into death crying or do I fight for a more human and justfull system in India?” Upkar Kaus, a woman from India
These words describe the anti-people repressive policies of the Indian state and previous Singh government.
For a long period, not one day passes by where the international media doesn’t report on the human rights situation in India. Every day, people in certain regions in India are being displaced from their shelters and homes and are brought into so called “Reservation camps”. Progressive and revolutionary activists of the Indian people are being tortured, killed or imprisoned. About 5.000 people belonging to the left opposition have disappeared until now.
With the military operation “Green Hunt”, the Indian government has lunched a broad repressive and brutal “annihilation offensive” against the people. In the poorest regions in India, with the military operation “Green Hunt”, the Indian government has launched a broad repressive and brutal “annihilation offensive” against the people. In the poorest regions in India the legitimate people upraising with the support of the ethnic minorities against this adversity, gains more and more sympathy worldwide.
The truth and impact of the military offensive of the Indian state against the people
In those areas in where the peoples’ movement is the strongest, valuable resources were found, resources that the Indian government wants to sell to the multinational cooperations- and even if only partly- has sold some of it, between the closure of the contracts and the big money are the poor, isolated tribes and revolutionaries “Naxalites”, who wage an organized, successful uprise against this situation. Or as the Indian progressive writer Arundhati Roy says “the government doesn’t give the people anything else then violence and disrespect. And now they want to take away from them the last thing that they have, their land”.
The ruling classes want to expend this strategy of repression in the next five years. For this reason, people are being dragged out from their villages, they are being displaced and are brought to so- called “security camps”. These immoderate measurements of the ‘security delusion’ in those areas and the stationed security forces of the Indian state are absolutely unacceptable. 27 battalions of the border security forces and of the Indo-Tibetian border police will be placed to Chattisgarth, Orissa and Maharastra in order to finally accomplish this bloody strategic offensive.
„If Left radicalism grows in those areas in where the rich resources of natural minerals are, then it will have negative effects over the foreign investments in our country”. (PM Singh, June 9th, 2009)
With this statement the Indian prime minister tried to justify its repressive state policies against his own people. These words and the subsequent annihilation policies are pro-monopolist and are only serving the interests and purposes of the imperialists and the ruling reactionary classes in India.
India is one of the most important countries in the South-East Asia Region. India likes to talk about itself as the “biggest democracy of the world”. Not only because of its rich raw materials and natural resources, but also geo-strategically’ India is a very important part of the imperialist policies in Asia. In the last ten years India’s expansionist policies haven’t just grown in the country itself, but also in other countries it is present, especially the military presence of India in Sri Lanka, Nepal borders, Kashmir etc. show that the spectrum of the operation “green hunt” is very broad.
The Indian repression policies against minorities have existed ever since the foundation of the Indian state, especially because of the reactionary, backward Cast system people are treated like “scums” and in some regions massacres and executions that have resulted from this injustice against the lowest members of the Cast are still present. One example, the government in Chattisgarh has admitted that since the beginning of Salwa Judum in 2005, another campaign in order to control the “critical areas” only with the difference that in this policy the main aim was also the minorities living in those areas, there have been more massacres and repression. Since SJ, more than 644 villages in the district Dantewada in where the most Adivasi minority live, have been emptied and destroyed.
It is) obvious that such a policy can only be realized with violence and that is why many people are being brutally killed merely because they are defending their houses. In the Adivasi’s regions woman and young girls are being raped and abused by soldiers. By encounters they are being used by the government as shield.
The government has officially stated that all people from the villages) who refuse to come to the SJ camps or who do not cooperate, and those who speak against this policy will be banished, imprisoned or killed. There are also people who are declared “Naxalite rebels” just because they were in the forests near the villages.
Another topic that continuously takes in the public is the situation of the political prisoners in India. Many leaders of the progressive and revolutionary peoples’ movement in India are presently imprisoned. Amongst them is the well known revolutionary Kobad Ghandy who joined the social and national liberation struggle when he was a teenager.
Kobad was arrested on September 17th, 2009 at Cama Place at around 16:00 O’clock by the Indian secret police forces. He was held for four days and was systematically tortured. Nobody knew where he was and how he was doing. Only on the fourth day he was allowed to call a lawyer and his family. Kobad Ghandy is only an example how political activists in India are being treated. In the prisons, the prisoners face daily repression and must live under inhuman conditions. Prisoners are not permitted sufficient health treatment. If a person is bailed out, he or she can be rearrested at any time without any reason. Many political prisoners are incarcerated several years without any sentence. Hundreds of them are being given the death penalty and are waiting for their execution.
Two sectors of people or groups were identified by the state as the main aim “in the war against terror”. The first ones are the Maoists and the other are the Naxalites. India’s PM had defined both movements in April 2009 as the “only biggest danger for national security”. Added to this is the Muslim movements who are being oppressed because of their believes and have to face massacres and executions, they are being announced as wanted “terrorists” and ISI agents. For example, the ISI-Islamic Students Movement was closed down because it was suspected to be a “terrorist organisation”.
The state security forces and regional government take every authority to arrest, torture and imprison people at any time. Sometimes people disappear for days, once when they are under arrest they undergo systematic torture in where the police intensively try to force them to sign a fake confession. Regions such as West Bengal, Orissa, Andra Pradesh, Mahrastrha, Bihar and Jharkhand are the worse places concerning this repression. Anyone who dares to speak out against this state repression is automatically called a “potential terrorist”.
The time to oppose and to start a broad mobilized solidarity campaign against this pro-imperialist and reactionary policies has come The solidarity with the oppressed people and nations in the world is the duty of all progressive, revolutionary and democratic forces and individuals. International solidarity can help to carry the concrete demands of the displaced people, political prisoners and their families and all others who support the peoples’ movement in India to the international public.
Our concrete demands are:
1. Stop the Operation „Green Hunt“, immediate retreat of the military
2. Closing of all camps and an end to the ban against the Adivasis and other minorities
3. An overall investigation of political assassinations and torture cases
4. Immediate release of all political prisoners
5. Abolishing the death penalty
6. Abolishing the Cast system in India
7. Self determination for all minorities and indigenous tribes
We from ATIK, hereby declare our solidarity with the people’s movement in India and support the struggle of the political prisoners. We call upon the international public, to protest against the repressive policies of the Indian state.
In the frame of an international solidarity campaign, which will start on February 5th, 2010, we are sending this call to all progressive, democratic and revolutionary forces who want to be in solidarity with the legitimate struggle in India.
Don’t forget; Solidarity is The Sincerity of the People! (Che Guevara)
LONG LIVE INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY!
Time: 10-12pm
Date: 5th February 2010
Place of actions: please see addresses below
Indian Embassy Frankfurt am Main
Friedrich Ebert Anlage 26, Tel: (069) 1530050 , Fax: (069) 554125,E-Mail:
Nordrhein-Westfalen, brunch of Indian Embassy Boehnertweg 9, D-45359 Essen, Tel.: (0201) 8680420,
Indian Embassy Holland, Buitenbustweg 2, 2517 Den Haag, NL
Indian Embassy Switzerland CH– Kirchenfeldstraße 28, 3005 Bern
