Note: the state of ‘Odisha’ is also known as ‘Orissa’. The MoUs referred to in the article are ‘memorandums of understanding’, or documents describing bilateral or multilateral agreements. Thanks to Banned Thought for making the statement available. Posting here does not imply endorsement.

COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MAOIST)

CENTRAL COMMITTEE

Press Release

January 12, 2011

Condemn the indiscriminate killings and fake encounters

by the police and paramilitary forces in Odisha !

People would surely defeat the conspiracy of Naveen Patnaik

to hand over the natural resources of Odisha to the Corporations

by decimating the Maoist revolutionary movement !

As part of the massive offensive Operation Green Hunt being conducted in coordination by the central and state governments with the avowed aim of decimating the Maoist revolutionary movement completely, the special police and paramilitary forces have resorted to indiscriminate killings in the past two months in Odisha and have taken nearly 25 lives in cold-blood in various incidents. Of these most of them were fake encounters while others were incidents where hundreds of police and paramilitary were deployed with specific information about the whereabouts of the guerillas and fired indiscriminately on the guerillas and the people with them.

Recently on January 12, 2011, in an ‘encounter’ in a forest area in Keonjhar district two Maoists had died and on January 9, 2011 in an alleged encounter in Bandhkamali mountains which fall under the Niyamgiri area of Rayagadha district, nine comrades were martyred. Ravi, one of the martyred comrades, is an important leader who has been working among the oppressed people of Odisha for the past few years. He hails from East Godavari district in Andhra Pradesh. Just one week back, on January 2, 2011 in the encounter which was said to have taken place in the Rayaghati forests under Kalinganagar area in Jajpur district, five Maoists including three women comrades were martyred. One among these martyrs was an Area Committee member of the Kalinganagar area. They were in preparation for some mass activities on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the massacre of Adivasis on January 2 when this incident occurred. On 29 December, 2010, in an alleged encounter in Talpada forest area of Keonjhar district one woman comrade was martyred. Before this in the fourth week of December the police announced that three Maoists had died in an encounter at Adaba forest area in Gajapati district. In the beginning of January, in another alleged encounter in Bargarh district two persons had died but the people had declared that they were ordinary people and that the police had killed them in cold-blood. Some days before this there were news items in the media that even the encounter in Gajapati district was also a fake one and that ordinary people had died in this. Though huge scale protests were staged by people and democrats on these fake encounters, the Naveen government is not caring a damn and is resorting to murders of ordinary people and revolutionaries unscrupulously.

Odisha is a state abundantly rich in mineral, water and forest resources but it has become the abode of dire poverty and hunger deaths. Odisha is in the first place in iron reserves and it has many other valuable mineral resources. But all this wealth is filling the coffers of the wealthy while the conditions of the poor people are deteriorating. In the past 63 years of so-called independence, the oppressed people of Odisha, particularly the adivasis are getting crushed under the feudal and imperialist exploitation. The Odisha government led by the Mining Mafia Boss Naveen Patnaik has turned Odisha into the paradise of the mining corporations by signing innumerable MoUs with them. More than 49 MoUs regarding steel plants, more than 20 MoUs regarding thermal power plants, some MoUs for alumina refinery projects and a harbor were signed. The MoU worth 55,000 crores of rupees signed with the MNC Posco belonging to South Korea is the biggest foreign direct investment in India. The Odisha government had shamelessly violated its own laws while granting permissions to Tata in Kalinganagar and Vedanta in Niyamgiri apart from Posco. All these MoUs lead to untold miseries for the Odisha people. These would lead to destruction of the forests, lands, water, ecology and all aspects of their lives. This could be one of the biggest man-made disasters in the world. That is why the people of Odisha are fighting against this atrocity and exploitation.

In the recent past, Odisha people agitated and are still agitating against the exploitation and atrocities of the MNCs and big comprador bourgeoisie companies like Tata, Vedanta, Posco etc. and also against the feudal exploitation in the Narayanapatna area of Koraput district. Government used brutal force against these struggles and killed many people. On January 2, 2006, the police fired on the adivasis who refused to hand over their cultivable lands to the Tata Steel company in Kalinganagar and killed at least fourteen of them. In many other instances, people had become injured or have lost their lives in police firings. People launched agitations against bauxite mines of Vedanta company in Niyamgiri area and against Vedanta Alumina refinery in Lanjigarh. Caving in before the people’s agitations, the Central government had cancelled permission to Vedanta with the reason that it had violated rules and regulations. But the people are still continuing their agitation as they feel that as long as the Vedanta refinery exists in Lanjigarh it is detrimental to their very existence and that it would adversely affect their lands and ecology. People of Odisha are fighting against such issues in many places. The Maoist party is leading these agitations in many places and supporting them in others. More important is the fact that people are welcoming the leadership of Maoists and are aspiring for it. The Odisha people have realized that there is no political party other than the Maoist party which could put an end to feudal and imperialist exploitation. The Maoist movement is expanding to many new areas. The Naveen Patnaik government with the full support of the UPA government at the centre is resorting to these massacres precisely because the Maoists constitute the main hurdle to their blanket loot of resources. Particularly, it is obvious to one and all that the callous murder of nine revolutionaries in Niyamgiri area has happened with the aim of facilitating the wholesale loot of Vedanta and under its aegis. Similarly it is also very clear that the fascist massacres resorted to by the government in the Kalinganagar area (in Jajpur and Keonjhar districts) is to facilitate the exploitation of corporations like that of Tata and others waiting in the wings to occupy this whole area. Naveen Patnaik who is gobbling billions of rupees as the stooge of the corporations and his administrative machinery are being threatened seriously by the existence of the Maoist movement. That is why they are resorting to fascist onslaught on the people and the guerilla squads spending billions of rupees on increasing police, commando forces (SOG), SPO and informer network on a huge scale.

History has proven many a times that it is impossible to suppress the people’s movements with murders, offensives and suppression campaigns. The comprador Naveen Patnaik, Vedanta ex-director and the CEO of the present Operation Green Hunt Chidambaram, other ruling class oligarchs and their imperialist masters are dreaming that they would be able to put aside all the hurdles in the path of exploitation of the feudal classes and the corporations by crushing the Maoist revolutionary movement. The people are bound to come to the fore more militantly to intensify their struggles. Though the spate of encounters in the past few days indicate the intensity of the offensive on the Maoists this should be seen as part of the overall offensive on all the people’s movements fighting against their loot. We can stop these massacres only by taking up arms and fighting in a united manner against the anti-people, pro-imperialist policies followed by the blood-thirsty Naveen government and against corporate exploitation.

The Central Committee of the CPI (Maoist) is appealing to all the people of our country and democrats to condemn in severe terms these atrocious massacres and fake encounters. We are appealing to the people to demand independent judicial inquiry into all these incidents of firings and to demand punishment for all the police officials involved in them. We are appealing to all that they should realize that these offensives are not carried on exclusively on the Maoist movement and that they are aimed at all those who are raising their voice or fighting against this corporate loot. Our Central Committee is calling upon all the democratic, progressive and patriotic forces to unite and fight against the corporate exploitation and against the massacres perpetrated by the central and state governments and against the Operation Green Hunt carried on for the incessant loot of our resources.

(Abhay)

Spokesperson,

Central Committee,

CPI (Maoist)