“NO TROOPS TO IRAQ!”

Left Front Holds Convention In Kolkata

TWO slogans arose from the Left Front convention held at the Kolkata University centenary hall on July 12: “No Indian troops for Iraq!” and “US imperialism, Hands off Iraq!”

The convention, presided over by veteran Forward Bloc leader, Asoke Ghosh, was attended a large number of people from all walks of life who crowded the spacious hall that was the venue of the conference, with very many people having to stand outside to catch the speeches that were made by Left Front leaders.

Raising the resolution that condemned the BJP-led union government’s move to send forth 17,000 Indian troops to Iraq to subserve the US interests there, state CPI(M) secretary Anil Biswas said that by sending the Indian troops to occupied Iraq, India was virtually flouting the United Nations. This, said Biswas, was because the UN had already said that it would not send any peacekeeping troops to that country that the US has seized by force.

Biswas pointed out how India was now asked by the US to impose the forced occupation of Iraq while the latter country had always been supportive of India and had, indeed, asked for Indian intervention when the US launched its multi-pronged invasion in March.

The whole episode, said the speaker, was a carefully orchestrated part of the larger scheme to get India to serve the US interests in the Middle East and perhaps beyond, in the years to come. It was with this aim that four joint exercises of US and Indian armed forces had taken place on Indian soil and many more were in the offing.

Biswas concluded by saying that by going to Iraq and enforcing the peace of the grave the US seeks to impose there, Indian troops would simply be regarded as mercenaries and India would lose its position of honour vis-à-vis the people of Iraq. Sending Indian troops would be hurtful to our national dignity that was already being jeopardised by the BJP-led NDA central government’s constant surrender to and compromise with the US imperialism.

In his speech, Bengal chief minister and CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Buddhadeb Bhattacharya said that in the wake of the debacle of the Soviet Union, the US had worked towards establishing a unipolar world where it would have the final word in any matter, at any place across the globe.

Bhattacharya said that having clamped down global financial hegemony (although with dubious success) through such agencies as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, the US was now keen to build up a global politico-military power, and the first venture in this direction in recent times had been Yugoslavia, followed by Afghanistan and by Iraq.  The line would obviously not end there, he said.

The excuse, said the Bengal chief minister, for the US invasion of Iraq was the supposed presence of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). After “precision” bombs had left the Iraqi cities including Baghdad flattened, and following the killing of thousands upon thousands of innocent men, women and children (that was passed off under the euphemism “collateral damage”), the US troops indulged in, and allowed, looting on a large scale that included the pillaging of priceless artefacts of the Baghdad museum. (The stolen goods were to duly appear in the US and European markets under the patronage of gangs of art thieves.) The WMDs were never found but the ruse had served its terrible purpose.

In the event of the BJP government ignoring popular opinion and pushing through its plan to send out Indian troops to Iraq, Bhattacharya pointed out, the people of Iraq would regard us as mercenaries and enforcers of the US occupation. 

India was gradually becoming the subservient ‘strategic partner’ of the US, said Bhattacharya, adding that the country was straying away from the path of non-alignment. A campaign-movement must be launched all over the country to prevent the Indian government from sending out troops to Iraq.

At the same time, relentless and constant pressure must be brought to bear on the Vajpayee government to ensure that no US bases were set up in India and that the strategic partnership between India and US were brought to an immediate end, concluded Bhattacharya.

Other speakers on the occasion included Manjukumar Majumdar (CPI), Sunil Sengupta (RSP), Pratim Chatterjee (Forward Bloc-Marxist), Prabodh Sinha (DSP), Moni Pal (WBSP), Mihir Byne (RCPI), and Sadhan Kar (Biplabi Bangla Congress). (B Prasant)     

Hyderabad: Call To Foil Govt Attempts

THE people of the country must foil the BJP-led NDA government’s attempts to send Indian armed forces to Iraq at the US’s behest. This was the view expressed by Sitaram Yechury, member of the CPI(M) Polit Bureau, at a seminar on the issue of dispatch of Indian troops to Iraq, organised at Hyderabad by the city committee of Awaaz on July 11. Yechury asked the people to rise against this move of the government, which is taking wrong decisions, and teach it a fitting lesson. Raising a pointed question as to how the government could take a unilateral decision to send our armed forces to Iraq even without discussing the issue in parliament, he made it clear that such a step would be tantamount to mortgaging the self-respect of our country. Along with the Left parties, the Congress also was opposing the move, he said.   

Lashing out at the Vajpayee government for trying to transform India into a slave of the US imperialists, Yechury warned that the US, having made Iraq its colony through naked aggression, would not hesitate to impose its hegemony on other countries. The reasons trotted out by the US to justify its aggression against Iraq have been proved to be false. Terming as ridiculous the US’s pretext that it waged war against Iraq because the latter did not honour the UN resolutions, the CPI(M) leader asked as to why in Iraq the US could not so far find out weapons of mass destruction, one of the pretexts for the aggression. 

With its economy increasingly in doldrums, the US wants to grab the wealth of other countries and is trying to impose its politico-economic hegemony on them, Yechury said. He explained how the US is responsible for the growth of terrorism in the world. It is, on the one hand, aiding and abetting terrorism in other countries and, on the other, attacking some countries in the name of fighting terrorism.  

Yechury also pointed out how communal forces are trying to depict the people of a particular community as terrorists. Making it clear that the BJP and the Sangh Parivar were trying to rake up the Ayodhya controversy again in view of the forthcoming elections, he asked the people to teach a fitting lesson to the BJP that is trying to gain mileage by making the Ayodhya issue its electoral agenda.

Abdul Raheem Qureshi, secretary of All India Muslim Personal Law Board, came down heavily on the BJP-led government for trying to mortgage our independence won through innumerable sacrifices. Unwilling to allow its armed forces in Iraq to be killed, the US is forcing the NDA government to sacrifice the Indian army instead, he said. Allured by the dollars being dangled by the US, our rulers are willing to sacrifice Indian lives in Iraq. They prostrated before the US by providing petrol to its warplanes during the US attack on Afghanistan. Having marginalised the United Nations to serve its nefarious interests, the US is trying to transform the Asian countries into its flunkeys. Qureshi asked one and all to oppose the slavish move of the government to send our forces to Iraq. 

Abbas (state secretary of Awaaz), Sikander (member, Muslim Personal Law Board), Nizami, Ashraf Ali and Yunus Ali Khan (president, vice president and secretary, respectively, of the city committee of Awaaz) and others also took part in the seminar. (M Venugopala Rao)               

Protest March In Tripura

AT only five days’ notice given by the Tripura state unit of the National Platform of Mass Organisations (NPMO), on July 8 the entire state roared its resolution to resist the Vajpayee-led centre’s reprehensible and insidious idea of sending Indian troops to Iraq. On this occasion, the people of Tripura made it clear that they would not tolerate the centre’s move in this regard as it would only further the ominous imperialist design of an all-out attack on the freedom and sovereignty of third world countries including India. The statewide protest programme on Tuesday was the first phase of a massive movement in Tripura that the NPMO has decided to build up in the days to come. The decision was arrived at by a meeting of the NPMO’s state unit, held in the Agartala Press Club on July 2 evening.

As part of the protest programme on July 8, the central protest march took place in Agartala. It was joined by members, women and men, of various mass organisations including trade unions and professionals’ organisations. The participants included students and youth, various sections of employees, workers including motor workers, intelligentsia including teachers and technologists, writers and doctors. All of them raised a storm of protest while parading through the main thoroughfares of the state capital --- singing songs, raising slogans and holding placards, banners and posters. On the eve of the march they congregated in the Children’s Park, Agartala, where a brief meeting was held. Tripura Employees Coordination Committee president Satyabrata Battacharjee presided.

Addressing the marchers, the NPMO state convenor, CITU state secretary and power minister Manik Dey said that in order to bring the entire third world under the clutch of its cruel economic exploitation the United States has either been making some countries fight against one another or carrying out direct military aggression on certain countries of its own sweet will. Faced with violent resistance in Iraq while seeking to siphon off the country’s oil resource, the US is now seeking to scale down its own presence and asking other countries to bear the burnt of the resistance. Manik Dey wondered how the government of India could bring itself to conspire into sending Indian troops to Iraq against the wishes of the people of both the countries, and to use our country’s army for attacking the freedom and sovereignty of another country, at the cost of endangering our own, while the duty  of an army is to defend the country’s freedom and sovereignty. He announced that Tripura would ceaselessly struggle to foil any such pro-imperialist design. In his presidential speech Satyabrata Bhattacharjee condemned the state terrorism being carried out by the AIADMK government of Tamil Nadu against its employees. He said we have to fight such terror just as we fight the global terror tactics of US imperialism. (INN)

Orissa: Dharna Before Raj Bhawan

ON July 11, protesting against the union government’s decision to send troops to Iraq for policing under US command and demanding the roll-back of this decision, the Left and secular parties including the CPI(M), CPI, Janata Dal(S), CPI(ML), SUCI and Samajwadi Party staged a joint dharna before the Raj Bhawan at state capital Bhubaneswar.

Prominent among those who addressed the dharna were former Orissa chief minister Smt Nandini Satpathy, economist Professor Basudev Sahoo, Dr Narayan Rao and Professor Gayadhar Rout, Janardan Pati and Sivaji Patnaik of the CPI(M), D K Panda of the CPI, K C Patra of the JD(S), Khitish Biswal of the CPI(ML), Uddhab Jena of the SUCI and Baishnab Parida of the Samajwadi Party.

Smt Satpathy reminded that we all opposed when US and Britain launched their war against Iraq in violation of the UN’s principles. Now that the US is the occupying authority, it is seeking to use our troops as cannon fodders in order to protest its drive of recolonisation of Iraq and crush the patriotic resistance gaining strength there since the war. She urged upon the people to oppose this anti-national decision of the NDA government.

A memorandum addressed to the governor of Orissa was presented, wherein he was requested to communicate and impress upon the union government that ir must roll back its decision to send Indian troops to Iraq. (Santosh Das)