[Reader-list] Fwd: [humanrights-movement:1999] CPI (ML) Press Statement demanding halt to paramilitary offensive in Chhattisgarh

[Venugopalan K M]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Kavita Krishnan <kavitakrish73 at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 12:44 AM
Subject: [humanrights-movement:1999] CPI (ML) Press Statement demanding halt
to paramilitary offensive in Chhattisgarh
To:






*

Press Statement by CPI (ML) - Liberation

Halt paramilitary offensive in Chhattisgarh
*

Halt ‘Operation Green Hunt’

War on the people cannot bring peace to Bastar

Disbanding Salwa Judum and ensuring rights of adivasi people is the only
road to peace

New Delhi, September 20

The paramilitary offensive launched in Bastar by CoBRA battalions along with
State police is a matter of grave concern for all those who seek the return
of peace in the region. The experience of counter-insurgency offensives in
other parts of the country as well as that of the past few years in
Chhattisgarh itself have clearly shown that paramilitary ‘cleansing
operations’ never bring peace or end militancy. In effect, such operations
have invariably spelt a war on the people, with mass scale violations of
human rights, and have been quite ineffective in checking military actions
by Maoists or insurgent groups.

The UPA Government, by sponsoring a militaristic offensive in Bastar and
backing up the Chhattisgarh Government in the patronage of a private militia
(the Salwa Judum), is not even heeding the recommendations of the Expert
Committee appointed by the Planning Commission. In its report submitted in
early 2008, this Committee had explicitly counseled against ineffective
militaristic solutions, pointing instead to a "socio-economic malaise"
caused by State’s failure to ensure basic Constitutional entitlements to the
poorest and most deprived of people.

In a highly irresponsible manner, the Home Ministry is accompanying its
offensive with screaming ads displaying photographs claimed to be victims of
‘naxalites’ who, the ad claims are "nothing, but cold-blooded murderers."
Civilian killings by Naxalites are indefensible. But killings of innocents
by the State, in order to brand them as extremists in death, is surely a far
more heinous offense. The Home Ministry is silent on the numerous
‘encounters’ in Bastar, where villagers have identified the victims as
innocent adivasis rather than ‘dreaded naxalites’. The Ishrat Jehan case has
emphasized that ‘encounters’ which are yet to proved genuine by a judicial
enquiry are all too likely to be fake. Are fake encounters not cold-blooded
murders? An estimated 2 lakh adivasi people of Bastar have been rendered
homeless since the launch of the Salwa Judum offensive in 2005. There have
been several charges of rape and loot against leaders of the Salwa Judum.
What passes for the ‘counterinsurgency’ operation in Chhattisgarh is clearly
nothing but a war on the people.

The only road to peace in Bastar, in this situation, can be for the State
and central Governments to immediately put an end to the war on the people
by private militia (Salwa Judum) and paramilitary; to ensure the return of
the displaced adivasis to their villages; and guarantee of their rights to
land, livelihood and life.

Prabhat Kumar,

For CPI(ML) Central Committee


Communist Party of India (ML)
Liberation
CPI(ML)

U-90 Shakarpur
Delhi - 110092
Phone: 91-11-22521061
Fax: 91-11-22442790
Web-site: www.cpiml.org




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