Angry Protest In Guwahati

Isfaqur Rahman

THE US-led military attack on Iraq drew condemnation and strong protest from the CPI(M) in Guwahati,  the capital city of Assam. Articulating the anti-war sentiments of the people, the party’s state unit organised a meeting and procession in the city on March 21 to register protest against the blatant US aggression. Several hundreds of party members, sympathisers and a wide cross-section of the people assembled at the Judges Field and participated in the protest action that was organised at a short notice.

Condemning the dawn-time air strikes on Baghdad, the CPI(M) Central Committee member Uddhab Barman said “military action has been launched contrary to world public opinion and contrary tot he principles and norms of international law and UN charter.  There is no justification to this military action,” Barman called the US attack “a crime against Iraqi people and against the humanity.”

Addressed the protesters, CPI(M) state secretary Hemen Das thundered against the Bush-Blair administrations and said “if we allow the international law to be replaced by the right of might, this would jeopardise the principle of the sovereignty of states.” Condemning the operation ‘shock and awe,’ Das said, “it is a war for grabbing the rich oil resources of Iraq and is a further step towards America’s hegemonistic designs.” He called upon the people of Assam, too, to build up opinion and join the worldwide resistance against the criminal acts of Bush and Blair.

Later, slogan shouting  protesters took out a massive procession and paraded through the main streets of Guwahati. The procession expressed anger against US imperialism and demanded immediate halt to the war in Iraq. (INN)

  Anti-War Demonstrations In Karnataka

 ANTI-WAR protests have been organised in various parts of Karnataka since the bombing of Iraq began on March 20. On Sunday there was a CPI-CPI(M) led joint demonstration at the Cubbon Park Bangalore in which hundreds participated. In Tumkur, 70 kms away from Bangalore, about 500 people demonstrated in a procession that wound a distance of 4 kilometers in the town and ended in a public meting outside the Town Hall. The demonstration was organised by several groups, including the CITU, SFI, DYFI, BGVS and many other organisations. Many citizens outside the fold of the above groups also attended the meeting. It may be recalled on February 22, exactly a month ago, Tumkur had witnessed a large antiwar demonstration, organised at the BGVS’s Education Convention. 

In the meeting on Saturday, several speakers explained the nature of the war, being led by US imperialist’s aim to achieve complete hegemony in order to plunder the globe. Many speakers, including Syed Md Mujib,- a prominent political leader of the district debunked the thesis of clash of civilization and said that the people who demonstrated on the streets of Washington, London, Paris, Rome, Adelaide or Perth had no clash with those who protested in Baghdad, Cairo, Karachi , Kuala Lampur, Delhi or Tumkur. The real clash , he said was between the forces of peace and a miniscule minority who unleashed war. The meeting also resolved to start picketing in Tumkur against the sale of Pepsi and Coke and promote coconut water instead. The crowd lustily cheered this suggestion and it was resolved to enlist the coconut growers and vendors in this campaign. Earlier the meeting burnt the effigies of the Bush-Blair duo. These effigies were kept on display so that the citizens could treat them with “chappal slaps”.

In Bangalore several groups have taken up the task of organising anti-war demonstrations. CONCERN, a group in the Indian Institute of Science has decided to campaign against the sale of Pepsi and Coke in the campus. Independently, the same decision was taken by several groups, which demonstrated on March 20 and 21 in front of the British Library and the British Trade Centre. The British Trade Centre authorities were totally taken aback as these demonstrators came without any “warning”. Several officials were seen harassing the security staff as to why their “intelligence” failed and whether the demonstrators could take photographs of the British Library and the British Trade Centre buildings.        

Students March Against War In Kolkata

B Prasant

SEVERAL thousand students from all over Bengal, and from other parts of the country marched along the streets of Kolkata on March 12 denouncing the US imperialist designs on Iraq.  The march commenced from the College Street campus of the Kolkata University and ended in front the American Centre.  Ignoring the nor’easter that blew across the city, the students marched along the streets of Kolkata, shouting slogans against US.  The students later handed over a unanimous resolution against war to the officers of the American Centre.

Earlier, addressing an all-India students’ convention held at the Kolkata University Centenary Hall, former chief minister of Bengal, Jyoti Basu said that in emoting a craving for the so-called middle path, the Vajpayee government was playing into the hands of the US.  The BJP government must immediately move away from this opportunistic stance and condemn the war designs of the US and its cohorts on Iraq.

In his address, CPI (M) Polit Bureau member, Sitaram Yechury, too, said that the BJP government must speak out clearly against the US design or it would be evident that they are in favour of the aggressive intent of the US itself.  Yechury said that the stand taken by the BJP government ran counter to the popular mood in India.

The convention was subsequently spread over the three campuses of the Kolkata, Jadavpur, and Rabindra Bharati Universities.  State secretary of the Bengal unit of the CPI (M), Anil Biswas, Left Front chairman, Biman Basu, Tripura chief minister, Manik Sarkar, economists, Ashok Mitra, Jayati Ghosh, Utsa Patnaik, and Admiral (retired) Vishnu Bhagwat.  Various sessions were held to voice strong dissent to the war efforts of the US and its allies.

As part of the convention, Jyoti Basu inaugurated a website of the students against war called: http://www.sawindia.org

In the meanwhile, the Bengal Left Front has announced that on March 25 a mass convention against was would be held at the Kolkata University Centenary Hall followed by a march in Kolkata on March 30.  In the convention as well as in the march, Left parties not part of the Bengal Left Front would join in.  District-level anti-war processions and conventions are being held from March 13 as a prelude the central programmes.

  Anti-American Demos In Maharashtra

P R Krishnan

THE people of Mumbai metropolis joined the world-wide protest movement against American war on Iraq when they staged a huge demonstration at Churchgate just a kilometre away from the US Information Centre in South Mumbai. This was in the evening on Friday, March 21, when the Forum Against Terrorism And War organised under its banner a protest action. Similar protests demonstrations have also been staged in Nasik, Pune, Nagpur, Aurangabad, Solapur, Ichalkaranji and other towns and cities in Maharashtra on that day and on subsequently days. In all these places effigies of the war mongering US president George Bush and the British prime minister Tony Blair were burned. The people taking part in the protest demonstrations through full throated slogans extended greetings to and expressed solidarity with the brave people of Iraq. A huge contingent of police cordoned of the angry demonstrators.

In Mumbai and in all other places in Maharashtra the demonstrators included a large number of college students, young girls, boys and women. Apart from industrial workers and employees from factories and offices, a large number of the demonstrating public comprised a good number of intellectuals. Among them were teachers, professors, lawyers, journalists, writers, authors, medical practitioners, trade union functionaries and political activists. The Forum Against Terrorism And War in Mumbai is represented by CPI(M), CPI, Samajwadi Party, Pasants and Workers Party, Lal Nishan Party and trade union organisations like CITU, AITUC, TUCI, Kamgar Aghadi, Sarva Sramikh Sangh, Trade Union Solidarity Committee and some NGO organisations.

But what added importance to and urgency for the protest demonstrations in Mumbai and other parts of Maharashtra was the call given by the CPI(M) Maharashtra state secretariat for the statewide united protest actions. Ashok Dhawale, CPI(M) CC member, Mahendra Singh, the party’s Mumbai committee secretary, Yeshwant Chavan (Lal Nishan Party), K L Bajaj, Sayed Ahmed, Dr Vivek Montero, Dr S K Rege, K R Raghu, Hemkant Samant and P R Krishnan (CITU), Dr K K Theckedath and Ram Sagar Pande (BUCTU), Kiran Moghe, Mariam Dhawale, Sugandhi Francies and Armaity Irani (AIDWA), Sailendra Kamble (DYFI), Abu Asim Azmi (Samajwadi Party), Narayan and Tara Reddy (CPI), Sukumar Damle (AITUC), Ashok Bannerji and Dr Sudhir Paranjpe (Indian School of Social Sciences), N Vasudevan (TU Solidarity Committee) were amongst others who participated in the Churchgate demonstration. Reports reaching Mumbai indicated that in many such demonstrations staged in different places in Maharashtra a cross section of people had participated. Activists of mass organisations like CITU, SFI, DYFI, AIDWA, AIKS, AIAWU were in the forefront of all these protest actions.

It needs to be mentioned here that the leaders of the anti-war platform “Forum Against Terrorism And War” in a meeting held on March 24 has  decided to hold under its banner a massive anti-war anti-American rally in Mumbai’s Azad Maidan on April 4. This rally will be addressed among others by Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav, CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury, CPI leader A B Bardhan and RJD leader Laloo Prasad Yadav. The committee has also chalked out 15 meetings in different parts of the metropolis for the preparation and success of this anti-war public rally.