[Reader-list] Fwd: EKTA on Massacre of Civilians by Maoist Insurgents in Chhattisgarh and State Response

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Sukla Sen <sukla.sen at gmail.com>
Date: 18 May 2010 16:41
Subject: EKTA on Massacre of Civilians by Maoist Insurgents in
Chhattisgarh and State Response

EKTA (Committee for Communal Amity), Mumbai hereby strongly condemns
the lethal attack by the Maoist insurgents yesterday afternoon on a
private bus at Chingavaram on the Dantewada-Sukhma road in
Chhattisgarh in an overly successful bid to kill a group of traveling
armed Special Police Officers (SPOSs) - adivasi youths recruited to
battle Maoist insurgency in the state, with the full knowledge that
the bus was carrying also a large number of unarmed civilian
passengers taking no part in the ongoing armed conflicts between the
insurgents and the state. This is morally utterly repulsive.
We also, on this note, strongly disapprove the brutal summary
executions of unarmed civilians, including adivasis and other sections
of the poor and marginalized, by the Maoists tagging them as
“informer”.
At the same time, we also take note of the fact that a large group of
SPOs, maybe around 20, elected to travel by a bus full of civilian
passengers, plying through an area known to be prone to mine blasts
and other forms of armed assaults by the Maoists, despite the fact
they are engaged in an open and no holds barred war with the
insurgents, killing each other at the first available opportunity.
This amounts to virtually holding the civilian passengers as helpless
hostage and trying to use them as human shield for their own safety.
It is also just unacceptable.
While on this orgy of gory violence, the reflexive cry of Sri
Chidambaram in the wake of these tragic murders for more of the same
(failed measures), asking for an “expanded mandate” i.e. permission to
use air strikes against the insurgents operating in an area with deep
forest covers and sheltering for ages large number of adivasi
inhabitants is also unacceptably disturbing. So is his vituperative
verbal assault on civil society groups committed to uphold democratic
values and norms so as to cover up his own dismal performance as the
Union Home Minister.
The fact that the detailed recommendations made by a body of
recognised experts appointed by no less than the Planning Commission
of India to tackle Maoist insurgency have gone completely unheeded
despite persistent failures of the tried and tested repressive
measures deserves close attention.
On this note, we also strongly condemn Odisha government’s armed
assaults on unarmed civilian resistors protesting against proposed
mega projects by the Posco, and also Tata, Vedanta etc., overriding
all ecological, social, and also legal, considerations.
It seems that the state is bent upon sending the message, in unison
with the insurgents, that in Indian democracy peaceful protests have
no reasonable chance of being heard and the only way out is armed
banditry.
At the end, we again appeal to the warring parties to immediately come
to the negotiating table and eschew blood spilling violence. Obviously
the “democratic” state has a greater responsibility and just cannot
afford to emulate a band of armed outlaws.
The sate must also immediately have an authentic and thoughtful relook
at the “strategy” being pursued hitherto by it and make serious
attempts to initiate inclusive and participatory development to better
the lot of the marginalised adivasi populations, in particular - the
main constituency of the insurgents, to cut them off from their
principal support base.
Mindless armed action will only bring in more and more tragedies it its wake.
An internal disturbance fuelled by an overpowering sense of alienation
felt by a significant section of the population born out of desperate
poverty and cruel oppressions cannot be and must not be tackled the
way a war is waged against a clearly identified uniformed external
enemy.
Sukla Sen
for EKTA (Committee for Communal Amity), Mumbai
18 05 2010