Nepal: Revolutionary Maoists face the difficulty of breaking free from the bog

[Based on the information in this news report, the UCPN(M) Central Committee meeting this weekend has not sharpened, but stalled, the initiative of the revolutionary Maoists.  It appears that the forces led by Baidhya and Thapa have been unable to gather support from the ambivalent centrists, which may reflect the class nature of these forces who have been bolstered by the infusion of bourgeois and revisionist parties through merger into the UCPN(M), as well as from years of isolation from the revolutionary base of the party in the countryside.  By confining the line struggle to internal organizational bodies, which have been repeatedly stalled into inaction by the revisionist Party Chairman Dahal, this outcome has been produced.  At the same time, the struggles of peasants to hold onto and extend revolutionary land redistribution, and the initiatives of former PLA fighters to carry the struggle forward in rural areas, are growing--and what leadership develops from here--and in what forms--remains to be seen. -- Frontlines ed.]

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Hardliners at a loss over future course

KAMAL DEV BHATTARAI, The Kathmandu Post

KATHMANDU, DEC 31 -

With their political document failing to cajole the crucial moderates and others in the party’s central committee, which was postponed on Saturday, the hard-line faction of the UCPN (Maoist) led by Mohan Baidya seems to have been at a loss over their future course of action.

The hardliners’ newfound dilemma, in effect, is likely to prolong the status quo in the Maoist party.

The Baidya camp had believed that once they raised the “hot” issues, such as return of the seized properties, people’s war, combatants’ problems, financial irregularities, BIPPA, and scientific land reforms, their position would be strong in the Central Committee (CC) meeting that ran for four days. They had hoped that they would be able to gain full support of over two dozen “moderates” in the CC led by Vice-chairman Narayan Kaji Shrestha, who has been a kingmaker in the party’s politics. Baidya had also hoped to take into confidence some leaders from factions led by Party Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai.

Nepal: Revolutionary Maoists’ document to the Central Committee, UCPN(M)

Here is the New Document by Com. Kiran

The Next Front,  January 2nd, 2012

( This is the Document by Comrade Mohan Baidhya ‘Kiran,” tabled on ongoing CC Meeting.  We all know, The Central Committee Meeting of UCPN( Maoist ) is going on. There is no need of comment on this document. But it is the matter to note that  Comrade  Kiran is still looking  for the ”revolutionary transformation ” of Prachada ! Thanks to Comrade Lamsal for this excellent translation. )

Kiran : On problems of the party and their resolution

1. Need for a new report:

Now, the class struggle is at a serious juncture and this class struggle has been reflected on our party’s two-line struggle. The history of Nepal’s new people’s democratic revolution and communist movement is at a new turning point.  We are in the grave type of labor pain. While, on the one hand, the conspiracy to liquidate the process of great people’s war initiated in 1996 into parliamentary quagmire is being consolidated; the revolutionary line, on the other, has emerged more effectively against this trend with a new commitment to give continuity to the Nepali new people’s democratic revolution.

In the history of Nepali people’s revolution and communist movement, a chapter has come to an end and a new chapter has begun. And this process is moving ahead. In order for us to carry forward and complete the task of Nepali revolution, a new historic necessity has emerged in the class struggle and two-line struggle of the party that requires us to face newer and more serious challenges. History has sought a clear-cut and straight answer from us whether to resolutely march forward facing and overcoming these challenges or to surrender before the reactionaries.

But our revolution continues. In this crucial period, the sacrifice and contribution and the stories of unprecedented courage and bravery of our great martyrs, disappeared and injured warriors and the people demonstrated in the entire Nepal’s revolution and great People’s War must be remembered with especial significance and due respect. The great ideals and dreams of people’s liberation and revolution are linked together as integral part of the fierce class struggle and two-line struggle in the party. And we can never forget these ideals and dreams.

The political report  entitled “Brief Political Report on Emerging Crisis: Their solution and Future Programmes”  presented by Chairman comrade Prachanda on December 24, 2011 in the central committee meeting has not recognized and acknowledged this complexity and reality of the class struggle and the two-line struggle. This has, hence, necessitated a separate political report.

ANC accused of airbrushing allies and rivals out of anti-apartheid struggle

South Africa’s ruling party said to be rewriting the past to give itself the starring role as it celebrates its centenary

David Smith in Johannesburg

guardian.co.uk, Saturday 31 December 2011

History may be written by the victors, but who gets top billing? South Africa‘s ruling African National Congress, one of the most famous political movements in history, has been accused of “airbrushing people out” of the liberation past as it prepares to celebrate its centenary.

The ANC, the oldest liberation movement in Africa, turns 100 years old next Sunday, the cue for year-long commemorations costing 100m rand (£7.8m).

While no one questions the central role of Nelson Mandela and other ANC leaders in winning freedom from racial apartheid in 1994, rival political organisations and various commentators say the anniversary will be manipulated to sideline the contributions of others.

“The ANC are rewriting history,” said Allister Sparks, a veteran journalist and analyst and the co-author of Tutu: The Authorised Portrait. “They’re airbrushing people out. I don’t know of a street named after Desmond Tutu, and he was effectively the leader [of the anti-apartheid movement] for 15 years. I’m not trying to belittle the ANC, but they didn’t do it all.”

Istanbul: Mass arrests at protest of Turkish government’s massacre in Sirnk Uludere

35 Civilians Dead – Protestors Released

32 people who were taken into custody in Istanbul because they protested the death of 35 civilians were now released. The villagers were killed in an aerial strike in south-eastern Turkey.

Riot police stand guard as Kurds protest after Turkey's air force attacked suspected Kurdish rebel targets across the border in Iraq, killing some 35 people, many of them believed to be smugglers mistaken for guerrillas, in Istanbul, Turkey, Thursday, Dec. 29. 2011. The killings spurred angry demonstrations in Istanbul and several cities in the mostly Kurdish southeast.

Kurds protest after Turkey's air force attacked suspected Kurdish rebel targets across the border in Iraq, killing a dozen people, many of them believed to be smugglers mistaken for guerrillas, in Istanbul, Turkey, Thursday, Dec. 29. 2011.

Istanbul – BİA News Center

03 January 2012, Tuesday

32 people were taken into police custody on 29 December in Istanbul because they protested the death of 35 civilians who were killed in an operation of the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) in south-eastern Turkey. All of the 32 people in custody, among them conscientious objector İnan Süver, were released on 31 December.

The TSK carried out an aerial strike in the region of Uludere in the Kurdish-majority province of Şırnak in the night of 28 December. Unmanned air vehicles and thermal cameras of the TSK had determined a group of people close to the Iraqi border. Thereupon, an aerial strike was launched in the region close to the Ortasu Village.

35 civilians from the villages of Ortasu (Roboski) and Gülyazı were reported dead after the incident. It turned out later on that these people were not members of the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) as supposed by the military but villagers aged between 12 and 37 years old who were smuggling diesel fuel.

After the funerals, relatives of the victims explained the reason why they went to get diesel fuel from Iraq: “Poverty is the reason. This is our only source to get by”.

The fascist Turkish state massacre of 40 peasants in Şırnak

With the massacre of 40 peasants in Şırnak the fascist Turkish state has added a new massacre to its list of atrocities against the Kurdish nation!

3 January 2012

ATİK | 03 – 01 – 2011 | The fascist Turkish state is continuing the massacres against the innocent Kurdish nation by means of chemical weapons. In the village of Roboski of Şırnak Uludere province 40 innocent people have been massacred in bombings by war planes. In the warmongering statement after the last MGK (National Security Council) meeting, the practical implementation of the statement “The operations will continue day and night” was that, civilian peasants have been brutally killed through air bombings. We are carefully awaiting to know what the AKP government will fabricate with regards to the massacre under their responsibility while they are claiming to be against the massacres of the Khadafi regime in Libia, the Esad regime in Syria  and also calling upon and threatening  Esad to seize the massacres.

Forty peasants from Ortasu (Roboski) in the Uludere region,  between the ages of 15 to 20 who were returning to their village from where they had been working were brutally killed by F-16 war-craft bombings. According to the statement of the wounded peasants who survived the bombings,  “When we came back the jets started bombing us. A bitter smell was in the air during the bombing. Suddenly people started to burn and were killed. 5-6 people hid between the rocks to escape the bombing. The airplanes have also bombed there. They all died there at the rocks”. As a result of the bombings large number of burned and mutilated corpses of many people were taken to the county.

The policy of destruction and denial against the Kurdish nation since the founding of the Turkish Republic State is continuing with massacres and mass arrests. Racism is being instigated in all layers of society by imposing the mentality of any Kurdish in movement is ‘guilty’. Within the last month, lawyers and journalists have been arrested, detention periods have been prolonged, their homes and offices have been raided, extrajudicial executions, mass killings have taken place. These are a continuation of the atrocities of the nineties in a different form.