Asia
Malalai Joya: The Afghan people are `squashed between two powerful enemies'
October 18, 2009 -- Malalai Joya: ``Now, my people are squashed between two powerful enemies. From the sky, the occupation forces are dropping bombs, even using cluster bombs and white phosphorus and killing innocent civilians in the name of combatting the Taliban. On the ground, the Taliban and also the Northern Alliance fundamentalists continue their fascism against men and women of my country.
India: Statement condemns government military offensive against the Indigenous people
Adivasi women protest in West Bengal.
October 14, 2009 -- Sanhati is a collective of activists/academics who have been working in solidarity with peoples' movements in India by providing information and analysis (see http://www.sanhati.com).
We have been profoundly disturbed by the Indian government's reported plans to launch an unprecedented military offensive in the huge forested regions of central India, populated by millions of Indigenous tribes (adivasis), for stamping out an alleged Maoist insurgency. We feel that this will be a democratic and humanitarian disaster. Hence we have taken the initiative, in consultation with progressive intellectuals, to draft a statement of protest against the Indian government's military offensive and have circulated it among democratic and peace-loving citizens of India and the world for endorsement.
Below is the statement, the list of signatories (which includes many eminent intellectuals/academics) and a background note which puts the current conflict into perspective.
To Dr. Manmohan Singh Prime Minister,
Afghanistan: Interview with Malalai Joya -- The occupation is `a war on the Afghan people'
Sydney protest against the Afghanistan war, October 8, 2009, organised by the Stop the War Coalition. See Malalai Joya's message to the protesters below the interview.
Malalai Joya interviewed by Steven Littlewood
October 9, 2009 -- Malalai Joya has been described as “the bravest woman in Afghanistan”. A long-term opponent of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) presence in her country, Malalai Joya first rose to prominence through a heartfelt and controversial speech in 2003 that was an indictment of the powerful positions gifted to Afghan warlords by the US-led coalition. She was elected to the Afghan parliament in 2005 and continued her campaign against war criminals and fundamentalists there until being suspended in 2007 for criticising fellow MPs. Activists Noam Chomsky and Naomi Klein are amongst those who have called for her reinstatement.
CPI (ML) Liberation: Cooperation, not confrontation, should be the basis of India's China policy
Philippines socialists: `Moratorium on foreign debt to pay for a modern weather forecasting service'
Scenes from Manila in the aftermath of Typhoon Ondoy. Photos: Vitamin OC.
By Partido Lakas ng Masa
Moratorium on foreign debt servicing to pay for essential and basic services! Upgrade Pagasa’s equipment now!
Thailand: Comparing the 1976 and 2006 coups
By Giles Ji Ungpakorn
India: Lalgarh’s battle for dignity and justice
By the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation
September 27, 2009 -- The following appeared as the editorial in the July 2009 issue of Liberation, the central organ of Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) – CPI (ML). Since then, while the paramilitary campaign in Lalgarh has ended, repression against the adivasi (tribal) people of Lalgarh continues, with incidents of rape and violence reported. It must be remembered that the People’s Committee against Police Atrocities (PCPA) began in Lalgarh after adivasi women were sexually assaulted by police during an anti-Maoist raid; one woman was blinded. The state government of West Bengal [formed by the pro-business Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Front] initiated an enquiry that established the assaults had taken place – but only offered some monetary ``compensation’’ to some of the victims, refusing to meet their demand of punishment for, and a public apology by, the police authorities concerned.
East Timor: The struggle for full independence — 10 years on
By Mericio Akara, translated by Vannessa Hearman
September 30, 2009 -- Dili -- What is commemorated as Timor Leste’s (East Timor) “liberation” is the United Nations-facilitated referendum on August 30, 1999.
East Timor, which had been a Portugese colony, was already an independent country, as a result of the pro-independence political party Fretilin declaring East Timor independent on November 28, 1975. But barely days after the independence proclamation, on December 7, 1975, the Suharto dictatorship in Indonesia used all its military firepower to invade Timor Leste.
The invasion was brutal and the occupation lasted 24 years before the UN referendum in 1999. During the occupation, the Indonesian military tortured and slaughtered our people. Such terrible acts became an everyday spectacle in Timor Leste.
Philippines: Flood relief appeal from Partido Lakas ng Masa
By Reihana Mohideen, international desk, Partido Lakas ng Masa (Party of the Labouring Masses)
Thailand: When King Pumipon dies ...
By Giles Ji Ungpakorn
People's Republic of China at 60: socialist revolution, capitalist restoration
[Click HERE for more analysis of the Chinese Revolution and its evolution.]
By Chris Slee
September 23, 2009 -- October 1 will mark 60 years since Mao Zedong proclaimed the creation of the People's Republic of China. This followed the victory of the People’s Liberation Army, led by the Communist Party of China (CCP), over the US-backed Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party, KMT).
In 1921, when the CCP was founded, China was in chaos. Western intervention — military, economic, political and cultural — had destroyed or undermined traditional Chinese institutions. New, stable institutions had not been created. Various imperialist powers grabbed pieces of Chinese territory.
Some modern industry was established, mainly in the coastal cities. But most Chinese people were peasants, heavily exploited by big landowners.
People's Republic of China at 60: Maoism and popular power, 1949–1969
Youth demonstrate during the Cultural Revolution.
[Click HERE for more analysis of the Chinese Revolution and its evolution.]
By Pierre Rousset
With the proclamation of the People’s Republic of China on October 1, 1949, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) found itself at the head of a country three times larger than Western Europe, with a population of some 500 million. The internal situation was favourable to the revolutionary regime. At the end of a long series of civil and foreign wars, the population sought and relied on the new leaders to achieve peace while the ongoing people’s mobilisation opened the way for a deep reform of society.