As “peace talks” get no traction, Philippine government war on people’s resistance slated to expand

Revved-up counterinsurgency

AT GROUND LEVEL, by Satur C. Ocampo (The Philippine Star) | January 19, 2013

“I am now in a position to influence the implementation of (Oplan) Bayanihan as chief of staff because I now become its operational commander. Unlike when I was the CGPA (commanding general of the Philippine Army), I had a limited role as the force provider. But now I will have a direct hand in the implementation of Bayanihan.”

Thus declared Lt. Gen. Emmanuel Bautista, who became AFP chief last Thursday, regarding the Aquino government’s six-year counterinsurgency program for which he is credited as key author. Basically the program is lifted from the 2009 US Counterinsurgency Plan applied in Iraq and Afghanistan.

One can gather from his statement both a sense of relief and gratification: relief from frustration, as Army commander having had an ancillary or “limited role as the force provider,” and gratification for finally being put fully in-charge of implementing his own plan.

Hence the go-go spirit exuded by Gen. Bautista. He told the press he would “hasten the tempo” of the AFP’s 44-year-old campaign against the Left armed revolutionary movement, with the end-goal to “render irrelevant” the NPA and its armed struggle.

Going by the timeframe of Oplan Bayanihan, officially known as the Internal Peace and Security Plan, Bautista has to work really hard and fast. (His stint as AFP chief ends on July 20, 2014.) The plan calls for the “substantial completion” of the end-goal within the first three years of the program, or in 2011-2013.

This is because within 2014-2016 the AFP aspires to relinquish its lead role in counterinsurgency “to appropriate government agencies” so that it can “initiate its transition to a territorial defense-focused force.”

Where Ants Drove Out Elephants

The Story of People’s Resistance to Displacement in Jharkhand

January 6, 2012

By Stan Swamy, Sanhati

This article is an introduction to the trajectory of peoples’ movements against displacement in Jharkhand in the last few years. As the author writes, the resistance in Jharkhand has resulted in the fact that “[o]ut of the about one hundred MOUs signed by Jharkhand government with industrialists, hardly three or four companies have succeeded in acquiring some land, set up their industries and start partial production.” – Ed.

2010: A rally against Operation Green Hunt, in Ranchi, Jharkhand

Displacement is painful for anybody – to leave the place where one was born and brought up, the house that one built with one’s own labour. It is most painful when no alternate resettlement has been worked out and one has nowhere to go. And when it comes to the indigenous Adivasi People for whom their land is not just an economic commodity but a source of spiritual sustenance, it can be heart-rending.

A very conservative estimate indicates that during the last 50 years approximately 2 crore 13 lakh people have been displaced in the country owing to big projects such as mines, dams, industries, wild-life sanctuaries, field firing range etc. Of this, at least 40%, approximating 85 lakhs, are Indigenous Adivasi People. Of all the displaced, only one-fourth have been resettled. The remaining were given some cash compensation arbitrarily fixed by local administration and then neatly forgotten.

Independent studies done during the mid-1990s reveal that in Jharkhand about 15 lakh persons have been displaced and about 15 lakh acres of land alienated from mainly Adivasi people. Needless to say, during the last 15 years a lot more displacement of people and alienation of land have taken place. Strange but true, rehabilitation of the displaced was never taken seriously by any govt during all these six decades when the process of industrialization for ‘national development’ has been in vogue. In fact there was no rehabilitation policy at all!MOU-signing spree after the creation of Jharkhand

The real reason for the creation of Jharkhand as a separate state in November 2000 was not so much to respect and honour the long cherished wish and struggle of the indigenous people to govern themselves as per their culture & traditions, but in view of opening up the vast mineral resources to national & international mining companies whose pressure was increasingly brought to bear on the government. Quite understandably, one MOU after another was signed between the state government and various companies without any reference or consultation or consent of the mainly Adivasi people in whose land all this natural wealth is stored.

From Greece: A CALL FOR STRUGGLE AND SOLIDARITY

[The struggling people of Greece are marking new levels of resistance, and the struggle involves sharp debates over the direction to take: whether to get the struggle off the streets and fold the resistance  into appeals to reform or to electorally renew the system, or to rely on the people to broaden and sharpen their popular resistance.  This statement from the Communist Party of Greece (marxist-leninist) outlines the contending views.– Frontlines ed.]

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The general strike of June 15, the great militant demonstrations in Athens, in Thessaloniki and all other big cities, and the continuing gathering of thousands of working people, youth, unemployed and other citizens in Syntagma Square and other squares, are the new culmination of the struggle of the Greek people who, for a year now, fight against the barbarous policy of the Memorandum that the IMF, the EU along with the Papandreou government have imposed on them.

These hours and days the workers and the Greek youth fight a glorious battle against the savage anti-popular measures. They fight a battle against the sell-out of public property and the occupation of our country by the imperialists and the predators of the foreign multinationals. They fight against policies that create millions of unemployed and poor. They coordinate their fight with the struggles of the European and Arab people who demand social justice and freedom. They demand the ousting of the IMF and the European Union.

The PASOK government of Papandreou, but also the other parties – the New Democracy Party and the fascist LAOS Party – that are servants of the local big capital and the imperialists, try to find ways to disorient this great popular mobilization.

Orissa, India: Odisha Police arrest 17 people for opposing land acquisition for Posco Project

OrissaDiary.com, Friday, June 03, 2011

Report by Orissa Diary correspondent; Jagatsinghpur: At least 17 persons including PS member, Female arrested for obstructing land acquisition for proposed Posco Project and they have been released from Kujanga Police Station. On the other hand 41 bittlevine farm has been demolished and compensation paid Rs 66 lakh .

As per the information the Police arrested PS member Basudev Behera, Jagu Behera,Fagu Behera, Rangadhar Behera, Sachikanta Mohapatra, Gyan Mohapatra, Sarat Mohapatra, Laxmi Mohapatra, Charu Mohapatra, Beena Mohapatra, Sabita Mohapatra, Rashmi Ranjan Mohapatra, Harihar Behera, nakula Behera, Manoranjan Mohapatra, Meera Behera etc 17 persons were arrested for obstructing land acquisition. Latter they have been released from Kujanga Police Station.

On the other hand POSCO Pratirodha Sangram Samiti in a statement alleges that on 3rd June 2011 (today), at around 9 am, the Odisha police and administration have brutally beaten villagers of Nuagoan who opposed the forceful acquision of their land to be handed over to the POSCO Company. Basu Behera, the Panchayat Samiti member of Gadkujang Panchayat and vice President of PPSS (POSCO Pratirodha Sangram Samiti) bled owing to the attack. The police destroyed their betel vines.

17 people including women and 6 children (5-12 years old) have been arrested. Police platoons, numbering about 20, are creating an atmosphere of fear to terrorise and force us to obey their dictates. Now the police is threatening, by using loud speakers, that if the villagers do not leave their betel vines voluntarily, then force will be used indiscriminately to destroy them. The administration incited pro-POSCO people to burn down the betel vines of Natha Samal, PPSS member from Nuagaon village.