A World To Win News

international | anti-capitalism | other press Tuesday November 01, 2005 22:24 by AWTW - A World To Win News Service

The AWTWNS packet for the week of 31 October 2005 contains three articles, all in this file. They may be reproduced or used in any way, in whole or in part, as long as they are credited. To subscribe, go to AWTWNS

• London/Turkey: Stepping forward to fill the shoes of the fallen

• Afghanistan Maoists speak: On the situation of the Taleban

• US/India nuke agreements: a very dirty deal


London/Turkey: Stepping forward to fill the shoes of the fallen


31 October 2005. A World to Win News Service. There had been many large meetings of Turkish and Kurdish revolutionary immigrants in east London over the years, but 15 October was no ordinary occasion. It was a memorial for Maoist Communist Party of Turkey (MKP) Secretary-General Cafer Cangoz and 16 other party leaders and members murdered by the Turkish armed forces on their way to the 2nd Party Congress last 16 June. Those attending this London commemoration were only too aware of the stakes posed by that massacre: the Turkish media had featured front-page stories proclaiming that the Turkish government had “destroyed the Maoists with a single blow”.



The more than 500 people at the memorial had a message too, but a very different one: not only that revolution was alive in the hearts of millions of Turkey’s oppressed, but that they were going to transform their grief into new, greater determination in the battle against oppression.



Tears came to the eyes of many men and women as they listened to presentations of how ordinary people from every walk of life in the country had been transformed into fighters for the cause of the international working class and had devoted and ultimately sacrificed their lives on the battlefield for a new world. A 25-minute video documentary that showed the events following the massacre gripped the crowd. As footage of the mass reaction to their deaths in Turkey and in the Turkish and Kurdish immigrant communities in Europe unrolled on the screen, showing the crowds of thousands in Istanbul, Dersim and other cities that carried the coffins of their comrades, the hall rang with defiant chants.



A speech from the party declared that the enemy’s boasts in the aftermath of the assassination had died on their lips as the whole country witnessed thousands pouring onto the streets to mark their respect for the fallen comrades and the cause for which they gave their lives. But the speech also issued a pointed challenge to those who had come to this and other such meetings. It recalled that the party had faced grievous days like this before, not least of all when its founding chairman Ibrahim Kaypakayya was murdered within a year of the party’s creation in 1972. It also emphasised how he had raised the Maoist banner at a time when he had only a small handful of followers, yet this had been the crucial basis for great advances that followed.



There has been much wrangling among revolutionaries in Turkey about what led to the murder of these comrades. A veteran revolutionary spoke to set this discussion in its proper context. First, it is necessary to grasp firmly and deeply that “these were our Spartacuses”, referring to the leader of the greatest of the slave rebellions against the Roman Empire who was eventually captured and killed by the Romans. When the enemy strikes down our leaders, the first question to be asked is not what they might or might not have done better, but were they right to rebel? Were they right to raise the red flag of revolution and fight heart and soul for another world? When the enemy inflicts a hard blow, it is only by rallying first to the vanguard and its core principles that the basis for future advances can be laid. As a statement in honour of these fallen comrades by the Committee of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement put it, “The enemy hoped to crush the MKP but the party, surrounded by the masses supporting it wholeheartedly, has begun the hard task of transforming grief and anger into scientific revolutionary plan.”



The speeches also pointed out how the challenge facing people to come forward in this sense is not for some distant future, but for now. Great turmoil is already roiling the world and particularly the Middle East. Events in Turkey have greatly intensified their pace, and it is urgent for the party there to rally its ranks and make big advances. In this regard, the party speech pointed out that the many statements to the MKP from the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement and its participating parties should be treated not just as expressions of internationalist solidarity, but also as initial summations of the invaluable experience acquired by the international communist movement, and that these should be studied for the precious lessons they contained.



Above all the speech emphasised the need to step forward at this crucial juncture. And it spoke plainly and powerfully to what this meant: to give your heart to the world’s oppressed, and to take up the science of revolution that enables you to fight for a world without oppressors and exploiters, a communist world.

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Afghanistan Maoists speak: On the situation of the Taleban



31 October 2005. A World to Win News Service. Following is the second of a series of excerpts from a recent interview with a spokesman for the Communist (Maoist) Party of Afghanistan, founded in May 2004. It was conducted by Haghighat, the newspaper of the Communist Party of Iran (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist). Both parties are participants in the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement, the embryonic centre of the world’s Maoists.



What is the situation of Taleban at the present time?



The people calling themselves Taleban today are only one part of the Taleban that was in power. Originally there were several factions. One was the faction of Mullah Omar, and the Taleban close to him, the most strictly fundamentalist current. Another faction was led by Mullah Rabbani, who were more moderate in religious terms by comparison. Later, after the Taleban seized power in Kabul, Mullah Rabbani became the equivalent of Prime Minister. Another group in Taleban close to Rabbani was Khodam al Froghan, which included older mullahs. The Taleban were mainly composed of mullahs and religious school students. The Taleban also received political and military backing from a group called Shah Navaz, supporters of the deposed monarch Zahir Shah [among them today’s president, Hazmid Karzai, and his father], and the Party of the Afghan Nation, a Pashtun bigot organisation. [The Pashtun are the country’s dominant nationality. The Taleban also represented Pashtun rule over the other nationalities.] After the Taleban seized power, they took a position against Zahir Shah. A short time later they proclaimed the Islamic Emirate [Islamic religious rule] and named Mullah Omar Amir al Momenine (the head of all believers). At that point Taleban was openly getting closer to Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda.



In this new situation, the faction of Zahir Shah supporters, that is, technocrats [mainly in favour of ties with the US and the West] and the Pashtun khans [local feudal despots] who had been supporting the Taleban began to distance themselves from them. The US gradually distanced itself from the Taleban as well [Even though the US, acting through Pakistan, first brought them to power.] The Taleban assassinated Karzai’s father. After 11 September 2001, most of the other factions, including supporters of Mullah Rabbani, distanced themselves from Mullah Omar. Since the Taleban lost power, only a small part of their original forces, mainly the Mullah Omar faction, have continued to oppose the US and the new puppet regime. The other factions have been integrated into the new regime in various degrees.



From a military point of view, the war has been continued by a small part of the original Taleban. They suffered major losses during the US invasion. Some were scattered and disappeared. One section of those who fought the US at first left the Taleban and joined the government and became part of Karzai’s armed forces. So militarily and politically today’s Taleban is only one small piece of their original configuration.



Are there still many Taleban fighters?



We don’t know the exact number. The Americans have estimated their number at about 1,000 fighters. The Taleban themselves give no number but claim that they have forces in 30 out of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces. They are fighting a scattered guerrilla war, with no specified areas. Sometimes they mount operations of 200-300 armed men, especially near the Pakistan border. Occasionally they seize an area in certain Pashtun districts. But they are not able to stay there very long. So in practical terms, the US and its allies occupy the whole country.



Are the Taleban present only in Pashtun areas?



Recently they seem to have a presence in other areas too. But even in those areas they rely on the local Pashtun population. When they were in power, the Taleban never appealed to anyone other than Pushtuns. And now their support is limited exclusively to Pashtuns.





How do the people see them?



The Pashtun masses are mainly against the occupiers and the puppet regime. The Taleban have been able to take advantage of this opposition – for example, to rely on them for logistics and to some extent recruit among them. But for various reasons, including the present Taleban slogans, the Pashtun masses don’t play an active part in the war. The fact is that the blind religious slogans that were once used against the Soviets and their puppet regime have little force against the US and its puppet regime. There are two reasons for that. One is that the US was closely allied with the Mojahedeen during the resistance against the Soviets [built as an anti-communist crusade, even though the USSR had long ceased to be socialist], and the US can’t be mistaken for communists. Secondly, the current puppet regime is an Islamic regime. These two factors work together and have weakened the religious motivation for resistance to the occupiers. The Taleban can’t rally support among the non-Pashtun masses, who are solidly against them. In fact, one reason for the extensive capitulation to occupiers and the puppet regime among non-Pashtun is a fear of a Taleban come-back. But among the non-Pashtuns, those who are against the occupiers and the puppet regime do not support Taleban.



Could the Taleban come back to power through the fight against the US invaders?



If we leave aside Gulbedin Hekmatyar [a Pashtun warlord and the leader of the notorious fundamentalist Islamic Party that has stayed outside the Karzai regime and the people close to him, who don’t amount to anything significant, the fact is that at the moment the Taleban are the only force fighting the US in Afghanistan. But their fight cannot grow and expand and move toward victory. They do not have the active support of the imperialist forces that oppose the US, they don’t have the support of the bulk of the local exploiting forces, and even as a reactionary resistance they are not likely to advance much more. Furthermore, they are severely restricted because they have identified themselves with Pashtun nationalism. It is extremely hard for them to work with and develop their forces among non-Pashtun people. As already mentioned, religious slogans are not very effective in the struggle against the US and non-communist and anti-communist forces and an Islamic republic. The Taleban’s war has little active support from the masses. Even the very religious Pashtun people who are to some extent close to them often don’t actively support them. In sum, their war has no clear perspective.



From this point of view, launching a revolutionary people’s war, which [in a time of occupation] means a war of national liberation, is necessary to lead the revolutionary popular and national resistance. More than that, it can be said that the future of the whole resistance against the occupiers and the puppet regime is tied to launching and advancing in that kind of war.

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US/India nuke agreements: a very dirty deal



31 October 2005. A World to Win News Service. The US and India have recently come up with a deal so shamelessly dirty that everyone should know about it. It illustrates the naked self-interest of regimes that always do the opposite of what they say, and what really drives their foreign policy.



Earlier this year the current government of India signed a major contract with the Iranian regime to build a gas pipeline between the two countries. India’s present government, led by the Congress Party and including two parties that falsely call themselves Marxist, held this up as proof that it is different than the slavishly pro-US flunkies previously in office. India is now a temporary UN Security Council member, and bidding for a permanent seat – supposedly as a representative of the third world. Some people hoped India would use its present Security Council position to block the US’s attempts to use the UN to bring about regime change in Iran. But just the opposite happened.



Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Washington in July and signed a “strategic partnership” agreement with the US. In this context, President George W. Bush promised India access to American nuclear technology. In return, Singh agreed that India would support the US against Iran at the UN. In a reversal of what many people expected, on 24 September India supported a US resolution at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in favour of referring Iran to the UN Security Council for punishment if it refused to drop its nuclear programme. Right now US under secretary of state R. Nicholas Burns is in Delhi working out the details of just what the Indian regime will get as a reward. India is expected to vote with the US at a second vote in November. Most importantly, India’s vote at the IAEA was a signal of the position it intends to take in the Security Council itself.



Bush’s offer of nuclear technology to India came at exactly the same time as the US was pressing the IAEA to put Iran on the road to Security Council sanctions. Using a similar excuse about what turned out to be non-existent “weapons of mass destruction”, the US also used the Security Council-imposed economic embargo to weaken Saddam Hussein’s regime. In the case of Iraq, this helped prepare the ground for an eventual invasion. Now the US is looking for any excuse it can find to overturn an Iranian regime that doesn’t suit its present goals of more direct and open domination of the Middle East.



Let’s look at the facts about Iran and India in relation to nukes. Iran is a signer of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Pact. Under international law it has every right to operate nuclear power plants and it invited UN inspectors to verify that it is not making bombs. India refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and, as the Maoists of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Naxalbari) put it, “started an arms race in South Asia”. India held its first atomic test explosion in 1974 for what it claimed were “peaceful purposes”. Then in 1998 it exploded another one, this time bragging that it had become a nuclear weapons state. Why does the US support India’s right to nuclear weapons and oppose letting Iran even make electricity with uranium?



It is true that the nature of nuclear programmes is such that there is no wall between peaceful and warlike uses of the process of splitting atoms. The knowledge and technology developed in making nuclear power plants can be used to make bombs. That’s one basic reason why the US and every imperialist country – those that openly have atomic weapons and those that don’t – put so much emphasis on atomic energy plants. But stopping nuclear proliferation or reducing the chances of a horrendous nuclear war have nothing to do with the US’s position or India’s sudden apparent shift. The US claims the right – based on its military might – to reward and punish countries by telling some they can have atomic weapons and, in the case of others, using alleged efforts to attain such weapons as an excuse for imposing “regime change”.



The US cut India off from American technology in the 1970s when India was in the orbit of the USSR. American law dating from that decade bans any US nuclear cooperation with India because of India’s nuclear weapons. This makes Bush’s promises to India illegal – a technicality he says he’ll get around by having Congress change the law before anything is actually shipped. What the US is giving India now is not technology but its blessing – acceptance of India as a member of the nuclear club. The reason for this policy shift is that the US feels it can consolidate India as “the new outpost of the US in South Asia”, as the CPI(ML) (Naxalbari) said in a 14 September press release. “This surrender is a logical culmination of the foreign policies adopted by the various governments in power at the Centre. If a total sell-out of the country to the US imperialists was effected during NDA [the previous government], a total surrender is now shamefully endorsed during the present UPA government.” “There exists no such thing as non-alignment in a US-dominated unipolar world and India’s foreign policy was always tied up to one or the other imperialist power,” Naxalbari continues. Putting “India firmly in the US orbit”, it said, “serves Indian expansionism.”



The US’s attitude toward Pakistan’s nukes is another illustration of American motives. UN weapons inspectors had found traces of enriched uranium on nuclear centrifuges Iran had bought second-hand. The regime claimed it had not used them to obtain the advanced levels of enrichment necessary for making weapons. For many months the US used this as its main argument why Iran should be punished. But it turned out that the traces on the centrifuges came from Pakistan’s use of them to make enriched uranium for bombs before they sold the centrifuges to Iran. Instead of criticising Pakistan for doing what the US forbids Iran to do, the US dropped the whole matter. Pakistan’s Islamic military dictatorship is now also an important American ally, along with its rival India – and while the US has always encouraged that rivalry to facilitate its domination of both countries the US intends to keep both regimes in its pocket.



It should be noted that while supporting atomic weapons in India and Pakistan, the US also wants to forbid North Korea to have any capacity for self-sustaining nuclear energy. Also, all the UN Security Council members are engaged in a conspiracy of silence about one of the world’s most dangerous nuclear-armed rogue regimes, Israel, with whom Pakistan is becoming closer and closer in parallel with its arrangements with the US.



While the US uses the “nuclear card” to reward and punish regimes according to its imperialist interests, it remains by far the world’s biggest holder of nukes, the only country ever to have used them and the only one that could imagine itself winning a nuclear war. In all of these cases, the goal of American policy is the same – world domination.

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