People's Democracy

MILITARY action against Afghanistan by the US and its allies is imminent. This will be yet another war launched by America. The Bush administration is threatening to make this a "global war against terrorism." Iraq and some other countries are also threatened. A large-scale military attack on Afghanistan will kill thousands of innocent civilians.

The CPI(M)’s Polit Bureau has called upon all state units to immediately launch a campaign against this declaration of war, to be conducted through public meetings, demonstrations, processions and the like. The speeches and writings for the campaign will stress the following points.

1) The CPI(M) strongly condemns the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US. Along with all Indians, we extend deep sympathy to the families who have lost their loved ones. The outrage cannot be justified in any manner.

2) There is an urgent necessity to find out who committed this crime and bring them to justice. For this, the US administration must make careful probe to identify the culprits, produce the evidence and move the UN and other international fora to apprehend the guilty.

3) Instead of doing this, however, the US has utilised this attack to declare a "global war against terrorism." The US has abrogated to itself the authority to define what is terrorism, and who is a terrorist, all in accordance with its own interests. But it was the US itself that financed and equipped the Afghan fundamentalists through the CIA and ISI. The Taliban and Osama bin Laden are its own products. All around the world the US has sponsored and supported regimes that used terror against their own people. We firmly oppose any unilateral military action by the US and its allies. Furthermore, NATO, set up as a European war alliance, has no business to conduct military operations in Afghanistan.

4) Any massive bombardment of Afghanistan or other military operations will claim the life of thousands of innocent civilians. The CPI(M) is totally opposed to the fundamentalist and reactionary Taliban regime. Nor have we any sympathy for Osama. But to sacrifice the life of thousands of innocent people cannot be justified in any way.

5) The BJP-led government shamelessly announced unconditional support for America’s war efforts. It offered to provide its military bases for logistic support to the US armed forces. It also wanted that the US use India instead of Pakistan as its base for operations. The Vajpayee government thought it could gain from the USA’s so-called ‘crusade’ against ‘Islamic’ terrorism.

However, the US approached Pakistan and got its cooperation for launching its operations from Pak territory. This made the BJP regime look foolish and exposed its eagerness to act as a lackey of the US in the subcontinent. The BJP leadership has thus compromised India’s independence and sovereign position. This is part of the pro-imperialist and pro-US foreign policy of the BJP-led government. The people must oppose this betrayal of India's interests and compromise of our sovereignty by the Vajpayee government.

6) The US war is not going to be confined to just military action against Afghanistan. It will use the so-called fight against terrorism to rally more and more forces to its side. The US had earlier targetted Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Iraq and Libya as states sponsoring terrorism. Now the US will try to target other countries and organisations. The Palestinian people fighting for an independent state, those fighting for emancipation and against oppression in Latin America and all other progressive movements will be targeted in the name of fighting terrorism. Reactionary ruling classes in many countries will seek US help in this job. The people must be warned against this.

7) The Indian prime minister announced in his broadcast on September 15 that the people will have to bear with more taxes and burdens because economic difficulties will grow. Indian economy was already in crisis before September 11; now it will aggravate. The government will seek to impose new burdens, justify all this in the name of a fight against global terrorism and strengthen the internal oppressive machinery. There must be resistance against these burdens.

8) The people must also be alerted against any move to identify the Muslim community with terrorism; against the RSS and its outfits trying to whip up anti-Muslim sentiments. They must be told that terrorist activities in India stem from diverse sources. At the same time there must be condemnation of extremist calls hailing Osama or jehad, as was done by the Imam of Delhi’s Jama Masjid. People must be appealed to maintain communal harmony.

9) As for Jammu & Kashmir, the extremists cannot be countered without a democratic solution to the problem. While we condemn Pakistan aiding and abetting fundamentalist and extremist groups in J&K, we must demand that priority be given to a political settlement by devolving maximum autonomy to the state within the Indian Union.

During the campaign, wherever possible, we must involve other parties too.