Category Archives: South Asia

Osama Bin Laden and the legacy of the ‘war on terrorism’

The following commentary by Kosta Harlan is from Fight Back! News:

As the news of Osama Bin Laden’s killing by U.S. forces inside Pakistan reverberates across the world, it is a good time to take stock of the ‘war on terror’ and what it has brought to the world.

Ten years of the “war on terror”

Just days after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, President George W. Bush stated, “This crusade – this war on terrorism – is going to take a while, […] And the American people must be patient. I’m going to be patient. But I can assure the American people I am determined.”

A few days later, Bush said, “Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.”

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Freedom Road looks at the international situation

The following is the International Section of the Main Political Report from the 6th Congress of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, which took place in May 2010. The other two sections of the MPR, the Economic section and Domestic report have both been previously published. Taken as a whole, the FRSO’s MPR gives a concrete, Marxist-Leninist analysis of the concrete situation facing us:

Introduction

The world has changed, and the pace of change is accelerating. From the mountains of Colombia to the jungles of the Philippines to the streets of the Middle East, and in the cities and town across the United States and Europe, something new has come into being. The camp of resistance is growing and monopoly capitalism is in decline. The principal contradiction in the world today is between the peoples of the Third World(1) and imperialism. The U.S. is the principal imperialist power in the world today and as such it is the main danger to the world’s peoples.

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Woman Rebel: new documentary about Nepalese Maoist woman guerrilla

This is a trailer for the movie “Woman Rebel“, a documentary about “Silu” a battalion commander in the Nepalese Maoist’s People’s Liberation Army. It will air on HBO tonight August 18 at 8pm and again August 26 at 11:45am. Check out the synopsis on HBO’s website.

CP of India (Maoist) on the murder of Azad

The following statement from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of India (Maoist), North Regional Bureau, from July 3rd 2010, is from the website Banned Thought:

  • It is not an encounter at all!! It is a cold blooded murder by AP Police!!
  • Red Salutes to Martyrs com. Azad (Cherukuri Rajkumar) and com. Hem Pandey (Jitender)!!
  • Let us avenge the killings of the beloved comrades by the khaki clad fascist gangs of AP government!!

Azad was arrested at Nagpur on June 1st along with com. Hem Pandey

On June 1st, the notorious Andhra Pradesh Special Branch Police for its abductions and cold blooded murders, have arrested com. Azad, Polite Bureau member and Spokesperson of CPI (Maoist), and com. Hem Pandey, a zonal committee level comrade in Nagpur city around 11’o clock when they went to meet a comrade who was supposed to receive them from Dandakarnaya zone. Com. Azad reached Nagpur around 10 am on the fateful day along with com. Hem Pandey, after travelling from long distance.  With specific information, the lawless goons of AP SIB abducted them, perhaps flown them in a helicopter, to Adilabad jungles near Maharashtra border and killed them point block and in cold blood.

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10 NATO troops killed in Afghanistan, U.S. occupation crumbling

The following article by Kosta Harlan is from Fight Back! News:

Ten NATO occupation soldiers were killed by Afghan resistance forces on June 7, marking the deadliest day on record for the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan. Seven of those killed were U.S. soldiers. NATO reported that five troops were killed in an insurgent attack against a police training center, two soldiers were killed in a roadside bombing attack and one in a small arms attack. One day earlier, June 6, five NATO troops were killed in small arms fire attacks, a roadside bombing and a car crash. It is unclear if the car crash was related to a resistance attack.

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Pakistan: Hashtnagar, a land forgotten

The following article was sent to The Marxist-Leninist by the author, Lahore based film-maker and activist Ammar Aziz:

My film thesis research has recently made me visit a piece of land that, despite its significant historical importance , has been brutally ignored in the pages of history. Surrounded by Afghan border, conservative feudal culture and tribal areas that have been in media attention in the recent past due to Taliban, that area is none other then Hashtnagar which stands as its own example in the history of class struggle in Pakistan. Consisting of a cluster of eight villages, Hashtnagar is  one of the two divisions of Charsadah district in Pakhtoon Khawah (NWFP) and is one of the province’s most fertile lands known for its sugar cane production. The element of militant armed Socialist struggle differentiates Hashtnagar from the rest of the leftist movements in Pakistan.

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Revolutionary crisis in Thailand

The following is from Lalkar, a British Marxist-Leninist journal:

The south east Asian nation of Thailand is in the grip of an increasingly profound revolutionary crisis, which may yet end in a bloody crackdown and the reassertion of openly dictatorial rule by the wealthy elite around the royal family and the military top brass or, as we fervently hope, the coming to power of a new government, representing the interests of the poor, the vast majority, and dedicated to pursuing the root and branch revolutionary reforms of society that Thailand and her people so desperately need.

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