People's Voice: a new Nepali Maoist journal
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- Category: News & Analysis
- Created on Saturday, 11 May 2013 22:33
- Written by Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist
Kasama is pleased to share news of a new international pubilcation being produced by the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist called People's Voice. The following is an introduction article to this new magazine. Kasama will be sharing articles from the magazine over the next few days. A PDF version of the magazine is also available.
Towards New Revolution
International Department of Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist has decided to bring out regular informative online service, which can fulfill the demand of our friends in abroad who like to get information about ongoing revolutionary movement in Nepal. Out friends in abroad were facing with a situation of making opinion about the political movement of Nepal fully based on bourgeois media, which is deliberately against the revolutionary movement. We believe that this problem will be overcome by now.
Right at this moment Nepalese society is heading towards a sharp polarization. Serious political crisis had started after the dissolution of Constituent Assembly after four years of its election without making New Constitution. Both objectives of the “peace process”, the Integration of PLA and Royal Nepal Army and Making New Constitution were completely shattered which gave rise to the insurmountable political crisis. This crisis has been further aggravated after the retrogressive event of 14 March 2013, in which the President announced a 25 point Declaration by annulling 20 clauses of present Interim Constitution and appointed a “Nonparty-election government”, at the recommendation of “mechanism of supreme leaders of four major parties” which is completely unconstitutional. The proposed election was shattered due to the boycott movement of political forces led by C P N –Maoist. Though the “election of Second Constituent Assembly” has not yet been formally declared by the government, it has again started to collect the names of voters for new election, which is being disrupted by revolutionary forces.
In a new development wide protest has been started when the “election government” appointed a man who was declared responsible for the suppression of Historic Mass Movement and convicted in corruption cases, at the post “Commission for Abuse of Authority”, which mainly looks after the cases of corruption. It has further helped polarize the people of Nepal in two different camps: Patriotic, Republican, Leftist forces in one side and Nation betrayers, anti-people and reactionary forces on the other. It is CPN-Maoist, which is leading the Patriotic and Democratic movement.
The issue of “election” has become such an issue which distinguishes entirely two different camps. The renegades, puppet of foreign forces, anti-people forces are hell bent to hold the “election”. Majority of the political groups are against it. It is clear that the so called “election” has not been planned to deliver a new constitution, but to get rid of and get approval for the betrayal of nation, anti-people acts, and corruption scandals. So the drama of “election” deserves to be boycotted. Only a popular Mass Movement can resolve the confronting crisis. Revolutionary forces are trying to transform this political crisis into a people’s revolution.
May 1 in Nepal: "If they use arms, we'll do the same"
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- Category: News & Analysis
- Created on Thursday, 02 May 2013 04:57
- Written by eric ribellarsi
Reports are beginning to come in from May 1 in Nepal. Kasama will share more as the develop. Special thanks to Bikkil Sthapit for sharing photos and reports.
Thousands of workers marched through Kathmandu in rallies organized by the All Nepal Revolutionary Trade Union Federation, chanting demands for 8 hours for work, 8 hours for recreation, and 8 hours for rest. The workers delivered a 25 point demand list, chanting "implement it without change."
The crowd was led by Biplab, a leading member of the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist, who then gave a speech stating that the unconstitutional coup government of Kil Raj Regmi has been attempting to brutally suppress their party, and that the sham elections are a part of that plan. Biplab said that the Maoists have heard the state is planning to deploy the police and the army if they disrupt the sham elections. "Our decision is, if they try to conduct the election without arms, we'll defy it without arms. If they use arms or armed forces, we'll do the same."
More photos after the break.
May 1 in Turkey: Police Terror and Militant Resistance
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- Category: News & Analysis
- Created on Thursday, 02 May 2013 00:28
- Written by Halkin Gunlugu
There photos come to Kasama from Halkin Gunlugu, a radical newspaper sympathetic to the Maoist Communist Party of Turkey (MKP). Kasama will be translating reports from Turkey when possible.
"With 80 countries around the world marking May 1 as a public holiday, Istanbul's Taksim Square was in lockdown on Wednesday, after the Turkish government banned May Day protests there.The square is the site of a 1977 May Day massacre in which dozens of people died under disputed circumstances. Hashem Ahelbarra, reporting from Istanbul, said: "There have been scuffles, particularly in areas that lead to Taksim Square, which has been sealed off. "Protesters say they should be given access to celebrate May 1 in a place of symbolic importance; they want to honour the memory of those who were killed here. There is a tug of war under way between the government and people." Earlier images showed police spraying water at protesters who threw objects at their vehicles...
May Day marchers continue clashes with police in Istanbul, Turkey, after Turkish police blocked access to a city square. Masked protestors throw objects during clashes in Istanbul. Turkish riot police used water cannon and tear gas on Wednesday in a bid to disperse hundreds of protesters who defied a Labour Day ban on demonstrations in a central part of Istanbul. Protestors use a makeshift barricades during clashes -- Cops using teargas, water cannons."
Nepali Maoists: The coup regime elections will not be held
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- Category: News & Analysis
- Created on Wednesday, 01 May 2013 06:51
- Written by C.P. Gajurel
The fact is that this election is being conducted not for drafting of the new constitution. Instead the election is to goad the country towards party less system and also is being held or will be held at the cost of national sovereignty. That is why I would say that the entire process of the election is nothing more than a drama. This election will not be held. We will not allow it to happen.
For months now, the coup regime in Nepal has been trying to hold sham elections aimed at legitimizing a new form of oppression in Nepal. To date, 57 political parties being led by the Conmmunist Party of Nepal-Maoist have been organizing general strikes and mass resistance to the coup led by Chief Justice Regmie and three counter-revolutionary political parties. The following is an interview with Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist Vice Chairman Gajurel. It first appeared on Telegraph Nepal.
TQ1: Practically all the parties have by now kept themselves busy in preparation of the poll, however, your party doesn’t appear to have been inclined for that. But why?
Gajurel: Yes! It is true. Why to bother for such an election which is not going to be held. To recall, Prachanda and the likes had been crying for election in the past. They got tired thereafter. Now once again they have been crying in favor of election. Neither the election dates have been announced nor there the atmosphere for participating in the said poll prevailing. If not so then most of the parties may in all likelihood reject the poll. That is why this election will not be held as propagated. There is thus no question to participate in a poll which will not be held at all. That is why we are free from election fever.
TQ2: Why the election should not take place? Most of the political parties have stated that election would be held even if your party rejects the poll? What say you?
Gajurel: They will definitely say so. You may recall that they used to claim that the election would be held in June itself. But why it did not take place? They had told that the election fever was on since the beginning of February/March. So neither the country is in the grip of what is being taken as election fever, nor do the people appear that much interested in the conduct of the poll. I tell you frankly that until the basic fundamentals for conducting the poll remain not in place, Nepal will not have the poll as such.
TQ3: So what if the election is held?
Gajurel: Take it for granted that there is no chance for the conduct of the poll. What will we do in case election does take place is a matter which could be decided later? Until and unless the 25 and 11 point agreed upon by the four parties doesn’t get dissolved, none of the parties will take part in a poll to be conducted by this unconstitutional government. So will we do? No participation in the poll.
Boston: It's Not a Chechen Thing
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- Category: News & Analysis
- Created on Thursday, 25 April 2013 19:08
- Written by Gary Leupp
Why It's Not a Chechen Thing, But All About the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
What Motivated the Boston Bombers
New details emerge every day, raising more questions. But the outlines of the stomach-churning story seem clear. Two young men, brothers who emigrated from Kyrgyzstan twelve years ago with their parents and sisters—high-achieving, “well-assimilated” immigrant men—planted bombs at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three and injuring well over 250. They killed an MIT campus policeman for no apparent reason, hijacked an SUV, engaged in a gunfight with police, and sowed citywide fear for five days. Both self-identified as Chechens, although neither grew up nor spent much time in the Russian republic of Chechnya; and as Muslims, although the older was the observant one, the younger a pot-smoking (maybe pot-dealing) Hennessey drinker. The older held a green card and had applied for U.S. citizenship but had been denied it.
How to define these men, and to describe the event? Let us step back and survey the big picture.
Racism and Islamophobia Shape the Coverage
The U.S. remains a deeply racist society, the nature of its racism always evolving, old targets forgotten, new targets found. The habit of hate does not diminish but merely seeks new objects. The “No Irish Need Apply” signs of the 1860s (here in my city of Boston) are a distant historical memory after the election of presidents of Irish descent. Young people in the Obama era can hardly imagine the Jim Crow laws in the South in effect to the 1960s. The Japanese-American internment camps of the 1940s are treated officially as a national shame. Old racisms survive of course (just consider the Black unemployment and incarceration rates) but new ones more energetically flourish. Especially since 9/11, Middle Eastern ethnicities have been popular targets. Hate crimes against people appearing to be of Middle Eastern origin quadrupled in the following year.
After the 9/11 attacks, it was not difficult for those promoting a U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq to win over the majority of people in this country. They were able to convince them that al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein were in cahoots. They argued this based on contrived evidence too thin to persuade any critical mind, but that was not the point. The war-mongers knew they could rely on the (sometimes subconscious) racist reasoning: the attackers were Arabs, Saddam is an Arab, they all hate America, they must be working together to attack us, we must defend ourselves by preventative action. The plan worked, as it could not have if the “us vs. them,” essentializing anti-Arabism had not resonated somewhere deep in the American soul.
Most people in this country are unclear about the distinctions between Arabs, Iranians and Turks (the three major ethic groups in the Middle East), much less distinctions within the Arab nations. So when a “War on Terror” was declared, and targets as in fact dissimilar as al-Qaeda, Iraq, Yassir Arafat, Hamas, Hizbollah, Iran, Syria, a tiny faction of Iraqi Kurds, etc. lumped together and labeled “terrorist,” the way was paved, psychologically and ideologically, for ongoing war against anyone in the Middle East. GIs in Iraq decorated their barracks with posters showing images of bin Laden alongside images with Saddam, linking them both to 9/11, urging the troops to see their occupation of Iraq as somehow retaliation for those attacks.
“Life and Death” for Nepal’s Coup Regime
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- Category: News & Analysis
- Created on Sunday, 21 April 2013 22:56
- Written by eric ribellarsi
For more background of the current crisis in Nepal, read this.
For 7 years, post-monarchy Nepal has been without a unifying constitution. Its Constituent Assembly has collapsed as of 2011, and its reactionary forces have been unable to cohere a new legitimate form of rule in Nepal. It is in this context that reactionary leaders of Nepal declare that staging a coup and holding elections under this coup is a matter of “life and death.” (1)
And it is in the face of all of this political corruption on the back of the people that Nepal’s Maoists are continuing to boycott the elections which are being organized by a coup d’etat regime led by unelected Prime Minister Regmi. The Nepali Maoists have gathered a growing political coalition of 57 political parties (grown from the 33 that participated in this month’s general strike) against these coup elections. (2)
The CPN-Maoist “People’s Volunteers” have begun organizing people to refuse to take part in the elections, have fought and chased away state election officials, and have worked to defeat a new “Nepal citizenship” scheme aimed at warping the election results. The citizenship scheme is suspected of granting citizenship to Indian businessmen residing in Nepal, and making it impossible to register for indigenous people in the remote regions of Nepal. (2)
U.S. moves to crush Guantanamo hunger strikers
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- Category: News & Analysis
- Created on Wednesday, 17 April 2013 08:02
- Written by A World to Win News Service
The hunger striker Fayiz al-Kandari told his lawyer, "I scare myself when I look in the mirror. Let them kill us, as we have nothing to lose. We died when Obama indefinitely detained us. Respect us or kill us, it's your choice. The United States must take off its mask and kill us." (Russian Times, 27 March 2013)
The following article first appeared on A World to Win News Service.
15 April 2013. After weeks of minimizing the extent and seriousness of a hunger strike at the U.S.'s Guantanamo prison camp, the authorities have moved to stop it by force. Shortly after 5 am on 13 April, guards moved in to the communal living area with the intention of forcing the men into individual cells. Prisoners "resisted with improvised weapons" and the guards fired "four less than lethal rounds", causing injuries, none of them serious, according to a statement from the U.S. military's Southern Command, which refused to provide further details. The weapons were said to be broom and mop handles.
The reasons given for this assault are mutually contradictory on the face of it. The statement says that the action was in response to the covering up of surveillance cameras, windows and glass partitions by the prisoners, and at the same time, it claims that the "ongoing hunger strike necessitated" that the prisoners be moved into individual cells for "medical assessments". The media was also informed that prisoners had to be isolated from one another to prevent "coercion" by their fellow detainees to join the hunger strike.
Hunger Strike Begins at Wallens Ridge State Prison
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- Category: News & Analysis
- Created on Wednesday, 17 April 2013 07:03
- Written by Solidarity with Virginia Prison Hunger Strikers
This first appeared on virginiaprisonstrike.
On Monday, April the 15th it was brought to the attention of the Solidarity with Virginia Prison Hunger Strikers Coalition that a hunger strike has been initiated at Wallens Ridge State Prison located in Big Stone Gap, Virginia. Based off inside information there are at least 16 individuals participating in this hunger strike. The status of the strikers is unknown at this time.
Last May a hunger strike was initiated at Red Onion State Prison, which is located 30 minutes north of Wallens Ridge State Prison and could be considered its sister site. Between the prior hunger strike and the current one, the VADOC has conducted a new effort to transport many of the prisoners formerly held at Red Onion to Wallens Ridge. Although Wallens Ridge is a lower-level security prison it is commonly said by prisoners and ex-prisoners that Wallens Ridge is a more brutal and corrupt prison than Red Onion. Even though the technical status of Wallens Ridge is security-level 4 there has now been a new security-level designation within Wallens Ridge, in correspondence with Red Onion transfers, known as security-level S. According to the VADOC January newsletter the reasoning behind this campaign is to “give...offenders more programmatic opportunities and more pathways to lower security prisons” and that it has resulted in “..a reduction in the number of Administrative Segregation offenders, a reduction in incidents, and a reduction in offender grievances.” The fact that these young men are compelled to risk their lives in order to gain a little more fairness, a little more decency, refutes whatever the official line of the VADOC may be in its efforts to keep the population under its thumb.
Portland Event: A Fresh Start to Change Everything - Nepal's Revolution
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- Category: News & Analysis
- Created on Saturday, 13 April 2013 03:25
- Written by Liam Wright and Natalio Pérez
Over the last sixteen years millions in Nepal have risen up to change their fate. They waged ten years of people’s war, battling against kings, castes, landlord classes, and foreign domination. Many around the world hoped for a revolutionary seizure of power and a new society for Nepal. After suffering tremendous setbacks the revolutionary dreamers are regrouped, aiming to start a communist revolution anew.
In January of 2013, revolutionary journalists Natalio Perez and Liam Wright of the Kasama Project traveled to Nepal. Their presentation will tell the story of Nepal’s revolution, the current situation there, feature video and photos from their journey.
Monday, April 22, 2013 @ 7PM
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Culture Of Resistance
It's on: revolutionary openings in Nepal
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- Category: News & Analysis
- Created on Saturday, 06 April 2013 22:00
- Written by eric ribellarsi
A profound legitimacy crisis has emerged for the anti-revolutionary forces of Nepal. As we go to press, 33 political parties, led by the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist, are launching a national general strike (known as a bandh, a tactic where workers and militants surround and force the closure of all businesses) throughout the entire country beginning tomorrow, April 7. Let's rewind a bit and understand the root of these strikes and the crisis surrounding them.
Nepal is one of the poorest countries on the entire planet. It is one of the few places in the world that has never been formally colonized. Its monarchies more or less prevented a direct British conquest of the country (losing two-thirds of its territory in the process). The ruling army of Nepal is unlike the state of other oppressed countries where the state is usually directly integrated into global imperialism. In Nepal, the state has historically been of a feudal-nationalist type (one that bitterly oppressed the people while resisting integration into the imperialist world system).
Through a ten year long protracted people's war (liberating 80% of the country’s territory!) and torrents of revolt in the capitol city of Kathmandu, the old monarchy of Nepal was toppled in 2006. The leading revolutionary party, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), emerged as the largest political party in the Constituent Assembly elections (a post-revolutionary electoral body) following that rebellion. While this was viewed as a victory inside of the party, there were very different lines inside of the party about how to approach this victory.
Some viewed the Constituent Assembly as a place to expose the limits of this form, and to prepare the minds and organization of millions of people for a new national armed insurrection. They based themselves on the millions of poor peasants and Nepal's small urban proletariat, organized in dozens of mass organizations and the All Nepal Trade Union Federation (Revolutionary). Others, notably Bhattarai and Prachanda (two counter-revolutionary leaders of the party), viewed the Constituent Assembly as an end in itself, and aligned themselves with powerful international imperialist forces, NGOs, and urban middle classes.
The movement split in 2011 after a deal that brought Baburam Bhattarai to the position of prime minister in Nepal. Bhattarai had gone to the state of India (and the United States), and promised India increasing ownership of Nepal’s natural resources and industries in an agreement known as BIPPA. He had promised the Indian state to integrate 10,000 fighters from the south of Nepal (Terai) where many are pro-India secessionists. This was meant to curtail the feudal-nationalism of the Nepal Army and place it more directly under imperialist control. He ordered the handover of the arms of the People’s Liberation Army, and the dissolution of that revolutionary army. And yet, in the face of all of this, the revolutionaries of Nepal have regrouped.
They have regrouped into the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist. They have been in preparations for a new “People’s Revolt” – a national armed insurrection aimed at bringing about a new revolutionary road in Nepal. This strategic orientation has been the plan of their party when it entered the cities from the countryside, and they are creatively innovating and investigating how to make it a reality.
The BIPPA agreement did not go well for the Bhattarai regime. This agreement was even more reactionary than anything ever proposed by the old bourgeois political parties of Nepal, who were not fully on-board with it. The Bhattarai regime’s central promise to Nepal was to write a new constitution and stabilize the country. Two years later, it has failed, providing only a new corrupt bureaucracy. The CPN-Maoist describes the new form of oppression as neo-colonialism, meaning a colonized society ruled by local oppressors (like South Africa). There is no new constitution, the country is in chaos, and Bhattarai has been exposed as a counter-revolutionary who has betrayed the people on a profound level.
In this context, Bhattarai’s ruling party, the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), handed over the government to Nepal’s chief judge, Khilraj Regmi, who is now the completely unelected prime minister of the country. Regmi along with the political parties that handed power to him claim that this is a preparation for “fair and democratic elections.” But millions of people say it is a part of a larger coup, meant to impose a new, even more reactionary form of oppression on the people. They point out that these elections do not even claim to guarantee the replacement of Regmi as Prime Minister of Nepal.
CPN-Maoist militants have seized the land of the prime minister, and re-distributed it. They have, together with 33 other political parties, brought the country to a halt. They say this is a preparation for “People’s Movement III.” People’s Movement I was a national rebellion that forced Nepal’s monarchy to hold elections in 1991, and People’s Movement II was the country-wide revolt that toppled King Gyanendrah in 2006. More militant actions and confrontations are coming.
Meanwhile, the government has demanded that the CPN-Maoist’s security officers hand over the remaining arms that are used to protect the party’s leadership. Responding, CPN-Maoist General Secretary Thapa said, "We don’t' need the old rusted weapons, we will submit it and take new ones to the houses of people… New arms are being made in the factory… They will come to the homes of the cadres."
Let’s be alert, and prepared to stand in solidarity with Nepal's revolution if future revolutionary openings (or extreme repression of revolutionaries) emerge.
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Kasama is a communist project for the forcible overthrow and transformation of all existing social conditions. We are open to learning, unafraid to admit our own uncertainties. We will not shrink from what we do know: the solutions cannot be found within the current world order or the choices it provides. We are for revolution. We seek to find the forms of organization and action for the people most dispossessed by this system to free themselves and all humanity.
To take this road, we need a fearless, open-eyed debate, discussion and engagement. We need fresh analyses of the rapid changes shaping the world around us. We need to sum up a century of revolutionary strategies and attempts, victories and defeats – instead of the conventional wisdom and facile verdicts that paralyze our movements. We need to re-imagine a radical politics that can take life among people and move mountains.
