LF To Protest Against WTO’s Attempts At

Furthering Imperialist Globalisation

  B Prasant

BENGAL Left Front would undertake two statewide programmes in December.  First, on December 13, it would organise protest demonstrations all over Bengal to register a strong protest against the sustained attempts by the WTO to subserve imperialist interests.

The Bengal Left Front strongly holds that the latest rounds of the ministerial conference of the WTO at Hong Kong would see attempts at ‘finalising’ the unfinished agenda of Cancun.  Attempts would surely be made by the WTO secretariat to push through legislations and directives on such issues as agricultural pricing and global price equity. 

The Bengal Left Front has no doubts that such measures would immeasurably harm the national economic interests of the developing countries in particular, broadening and deepening the process of immiserisation of billions of people.

The Bengal Left Front, meeting at the Muzaffar Ahmad Bhavan in the early afternoon of November 28, has also urged upon the Left TU’s and Left mass organisations and, indeed, upon mass organisations from every political persuasion, to participate in the statewide programme and to make December 13 a resounding protest day against the intransigence of the WTO.

Biman Basu, chairman, Bengal Left Front later informed the media that massive demonstrations would be held throughout the day to register the protest of the people against the WTO’s misdeeds.

The Bengal Left Front would also organise a plethora of anti-communal and pro-secular programmes throughout the day of December 6, the day in 1992 when the fundamentalist and communal elements pulled down the Babri Masjid in Uttar Pradesh unleashing a major and violent backlash throughout the country as the propagators of the move gloated and chortled in devilish glee.  A large central rally would be held in Kolkata under the aegis of the Kolkata unit of the Bengal Left Front, said Biman Basu.

The Bengal Left also took up the issue of franchise and voting in the light of newspaper reports that said in sum and substance that the Election Commission would prefer to bar from the voting process those who had criminal cases pending against them.

The Bengal Left Front reacting to the newspaper reporting has held that the issue of barring persons having criminal cases pending against them should be looked at again legally because there appears a difference between a case and a conviction.

Biman Basu clarified to say that the view of the Bengal Left Front on the issue was a mere ‘primary and preliminary observation on newspaper reports.’  Biman Basu said that the issue should be looked at legally at the appropriate levels.  The issue, said the CPI(M) leader, touched the democratic rights of the citizens to take part in the electoral process.

Reacting to questions from the media at the news conference Biman Basu added to say that in the 1952 Lok Sabha polls, Kongsari Halder had won a sweeping victory while in jail despite being unable to take part in the election campaign at all.

Biman Basu pointed out that in Kerala in 1965, more than 25 communist candidates won electoral victories even while they were either behind bars or serving the Party underground.  Biman Basu was of the view that democratic movements and arrests that are a fall out of acts emanating from those movements should really be differentiated from acts of crime.