Solidarity with the Federação Anarquista Gaúcha

Key statements and articles are marked with a *

Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Statements

2009-09-27 at 12h40 (Sunday) – Kennedy Road Development Committee Attacked – People Have Been Killed

2009-09-27 at 22h40 (Sunday) – The Attacks Continue in the Presence of the Police and Senior ANC Leaders

2009-09-29 at 13h53 (Tuesday) – ‘The ANC Has Invaded Kennedy Road’ by S’bu Zikode*

2009-10-01 at 16h53 (Thursday) – Update from Kennedy Road

2009-10-01 at 16h55 (Thursday) – Rushed (and Rough) Transcript of an Interview (anonymous of course) with Two Young Women Still Living in Kennedy Road

2009-10-06 at 22h00 (Tuesday) – Our Movement is under Attack*

2009-10-11 at 10h30 (Sunday).- The ANC Attack on AbM Continues in Kennedy Road

2009-10-15 at 23h30 (Thursday) – The Kennedy Eight are now the Kennedy Thirteen

2009-10-20 at 09h45 (Tuesday) – Intimidation Continues: ANC mob threatens clergy and the chairperson of the AbM Women’s League outside court

2009-10-22 at 11h17 (Thursday) – Party Politics Vs Living Politics in Kennedy Road by S’bu Zikode

Video footage and photographs

2009-09-28 at 21h35 (Monday) – Photos: S’bu Zikode’s House after the attack*

2009-10-01 17h08 (Tuesday) – Photos: Abahlali at Court to defend the ‘Kennedy 8′ (from 29 September 2009)

2009-09-30 at 16:10 (Wednesday) – Eyewitness Video Testimony (Footage taken on Sunday and Monday)*

2009-10-01 at 16:54 (Thursday) – Moving Video Interview with S’bu Zikode

2009-10-01 (Thursday) – DemocracyNow! Video interview with Abahlali baseMjondolo (DN! Is the largest progressive media radio station in the United States)*

2009-10-08 – Photos from AbM Protest in Support of the Kennedy 8 (from 08 October 2009)

2009-10-09 – Video from the New York Solidarity Protest (and some photos)

2009-10-10 – Photos of Jenny Morgan’s Film screened at Musgrave Centre

Solidarity Petition: An Open Letter to Jacob Zuma (now with over 1,050 signatures)*

Solidarity Poster:AbM awareness raising solidarity poster

Statements of Solidarity with Abahlali baseKennedy Road

2009-09-28 – Joint Statement on the attacks on the Kennedy Road Informal Settlement in Durban (27 signatures from academia)*

2009-09-29 – Testimony from Brother Filippo Mondini and in Zulu: Ubufakazi bukaBrother Fillipo Mondini

2009-09-29 – Democracy Under Attack in Kennedy Road – A Statement by Bishop Rubin Phillip* and in Zulu: Umbhishobhi Omkhulu waseKapa uhlaba ukuhlaselwa kwaBahlali baseMjondolo

2009-09-29 – Letter to the International Media from Nigel Gibson & Raj Patel

2009-09-29 – Kennedy Road Murders Recall Terror of the 1980s (ZACF Statement)

2009-09-30 – Durban Action Against Xenophobia Statement

2009-09-30 – Statement from The Children of South Africa (CHOSA)

2009-09-30 – War on Want Writes to the South African High Commissioner (UK)

2009-10-01 – Statement from the International Forum in Denmark

2009-10-01 – Statement on Kennedy Road Informal Settlement by AFRA

2009-10-01 – War on Want (UK) calls for an end to violence against South African shack dwellers

2009-10-01 – The Poverty Initiative (USA) Supports the Shackdwellers Movement

2009-10-01 – Development Action Group’s statement on the violent attacks on Abahlali baseMjondolo in Kennedy Road

2009-10-01 – The KZN Monitor asks tough questions of the South African Police Service

2009-10-01 – Letter from the Editors of the Academic Journal “Interface”

2009-10-01 – Slum Dwellers International Statement on the Attacks on Kennedy Road Settlement, Durban, South Africa

2009-10-01 – Statement by Global Peace & Justice in Auckland, New Zealand

2009-10-01 – Statement of Support from KwaZulu-Natal Christian Council (KZNCC) in response to the Kennedy Road Killings

2009-10-01 – US Center for Constitutional Rights: Solidarity Statement

2009-10-01 – Statement of Support to the AbM from Movement for Justice in el Barrio in New York City *

2009-10-02 – Statement of Support from the Democratic Socialist Movement

2009-10-02 – Statement of Support from the Archbishop of Cape Town *

2009-10-02 – Statement of Support from the Treatment Action Campaign

2009-10-02 – Statement by the National Association of Democratic Lawyers

2009-10-02 – SACC Appalled by Violent Attacks Against Democracy* and in Zulu: iSACC Ikhala Ngodlame Lokuhlasela Kwentando Yeninigi

2009-10-02 – International Alliance of Inhabitants call for solidarity with AbM

2009-10-05 – Diakonia responds to the attacks on Abahlali baseMjondolo

2009-10-05 – APF in Solidarity with Abahlali baseMjondolo: In Defence of Democracy

2009-10-05 – Afrika Soree! Fraternal Solidarity Message to Abahlali baseMjondolo

2009-10-06 – ILRIG and 56 community organisations: A message of solidarity to Abahlali baseMjondolo

2009-10-06 – In Solidarity with Abahlali baseMjondolo by Jacques Depelchin

2009-10-07 – CiViSOL Statement of Solidarity

2009-10-07 – KwaZulu Natal Christian Council Leaders visit the 8 Leaders of AbM in Sydenham Police Station

2009-10-07 – Statement by Bishop Barry Wood, Auxiliary Bishop of Durban and Episcopal Chairperson

2009-10-09 – Statement in support of Abahlali baseMjondolo by 12 renown academics including Noam Chomsky and Naomi Klein

2009-10-09 – Solidarity rally with Abahlali baseMjondolo at South African consulate by Picture the Homeless

2009-10-10 – Contribution to a Panel Discussion on John Dugard’s Legacy to Human Rights Activism and Litigation – by Suart Wilson

2009-10-15 – Students for Law and Social Justice Statement in Support of AbM

2009-10-16 – Statement by the Conference of the Democratic Left in Support of AbM

2009-10-22 – Letter to Jacob Zuma from the Methodist Bishop of Natal

Opinion pieces on the attacks

2009-09-30 – Abahlali baseMjondolo Is Not A Criminal Movement (The Mercury) *

2009-10-01 – Pogrom murders in the Durban area (Politicsweb)

2009-10-02 – Ethnic cleansing (Business Day)

2009-10-04 – A bad week for South Africa (Politicsweb)

2009-10-06 – The crude excesses of power (The Witness)

2009-10-06 – How a poor people’s movement was crushed (The Sowetan)*

2009-10-07 – Acid test for ANC’s commitment to democracy (Business Day)

2009-10-07 – Kennedy Road Truth Being Hidden (Business Day)

2009-10-08 – Worrying utterances by Crispin Hemson (Business Day)

2009-10-08 – Is the ANC the big bad wolf in Kennedy Road? (Mail & Guardian – Thought Leader)

2009-10-09 – Empirical evidence that the Kennedy 8 are being framed

2009-10-12 – Violent campaign against homeless people’s group (Daily News)

2009-10-13 – The Underside of South African Democracy (SACSIS)

2009-10-14 – ANC’s shameful cover-up (The Witness)

2009-10-14 – The Kennedy Road killings are akin to Stalinism and a threat to democracy (Cape Times)

2009-10-21 – Time is perfect for rethink on housing policy (The Mercury)

Mainstream South African media

2009-09-28 – SAPA: Attackers Associated with ANC (News24)

2009-09-29 – Attack on shack dwellers slammed (Sunday Times)

2009-09-29 – Academics condemn attack on settlement (Business Day)

2009-09-29 – SAPA: Fund Set Up for Victims (News24)

2009-09-29 – Xhosa attack ‘far more sinister’ (The Witness)

2009-09-30 – Kennedy Road attack: ANC and police in the spotlight (The Natal Witness)

2009-09-30 – Police ‘behind shack attack’ (The Mercury)

2009-09-30 – Fund set up after Durban attack (Business Day)

2009-10-01 – Call on Zuma to probe attacks (The Sowetan)

2009-10-01 – Call for solidarity among shack dwellers (The Mercury)

2009-10-02 – Shack people out in the cold after attack (The Mercury)

2009-10-03 – Ethnic Tension Boils Over (The Mail & Guardian)*

2009-10-06 – Church enters Kennedy Road fray (The Sowetan)

2009-10-06 – Churches appeal for aid (East Coast Radio)

2009-10-09 – Shack dwellers ask Zuma to calm tensions (SAPA)

2009-10-09 – Modern-day ‘Robin Hood’ is disillusioned with ANC (The Mercury)

2009-10-09 – Kennedy Road Olive Branch a Sham (The Mail & Guardian) *

2009-10-09 – I-ANC iphika imibiko yokuhlasela abahlali (Isolezwe) in isiZulu

2009-10-10 – Kennedy Road gets global response (The Weekender)

2009-10-10 – State turns against shack dwellers (The Weekender)

2009-10-12 – Bishop call for suport for Abahlali baseMjondolo (The Witness)

Alternative media articles

2009-09-30 – Shack dwellers’ struggle by Sokari Ekine

2009-10-01 – DemocracyNow! Video and radio interview and transcript*

2009-10-02 – Column: Abroad view By Alex Kadis

2009-10-02 – Violent Attacks on Social Movement Abahlali baseMjondolo Misrepresented (SACSIS)

2009-10-02 – Provincial Government & Police Endorse Attack on Abahlali baseMjondolo (Pambazuka)

2009-10-08 – ANC blamed for involvement in shanty town attack (Religious Intelligence)

2009-10-08 – Devastation in Samoa and South Africa by John Minto (Scoop.co.nz)

2009-10-08 – Democracy’s everyday death: South Africa’s quiet coup by Nigel Gibson and Raj Patel (Pambazuka)*

Related events

2009-09-30 – Protest at the South African Embassy in London on Wednesday (on 30 September) with photo and video footage

2009-10-03 – Solidarity Protest in Grahamstown – Monday 5th October 2009

2009-10-09 – Solidarity Protest Today at the South African Consulate in New York City (with some photos and video)

2009-10-14 – Solidarity Protest at the University of Cape Town (on Wednesday 14^th of October)

2009-10-22 – Lecture: Party politic vs living politic in Kennedy Road by Sbu Zikode (Thursday 22^nd October)

Other languages

2009-09-28 – Nye etniske opptøyer i Sør-Afrika (Norwegian)

2009-09-30 – Los hechos de los ataques en AbM (Espanol)

2009-09-30 – Attacco Alla Democrazia Nelle Baraccopli del Sudafrica (Italiano)

2009-09-30 – Sud Africa. La protesta del movimento dei baraccati Abahlali arriva a Londra (Italiano)

2009-09-30 – Νότιος Αφρική: Τρομακτική επίθεση παρακρατικών και μπάτσων στους Abahlali, υπάρχουν νεκροί (Greek)

2009-10-01 – Θυμίζουν τον τρόμο της δεκαετίας του 1980 (Greek)

2009-10-01 – ANC acusado de atacar y asesinar a los que viven en chabolas (Espanol)

2009-10-01 – Opération coup de poing à Durban par Philippe Rivière (Frances)

2009-10-02 – Südafrika: Unser Verbrechen ist ganz einfach: Wir sind selbstorganisierte Arme… (Danish)

2009-10-02 – Declaracion de apoyo a nuestr@s hermanas y hermanos de Sudafrica del Movimiento de los de Casas de Carton (Abahlali baseMjondolo) de parte de Movimeinto por Justicia del Barrio en Nueva York, EU (Espanol)

2009-10-09 – Piu a Sud del Sudafrica – Fillipo Mondini (Italiano)

2009-10-12 – De como não remover favelas (Português)

2009-10-14 – Sør-Afrika: Et demokratis død (Nowegian)

Other media mentioning the Kennedy Road attacks:

2009-10-14 – The Annual Desmond Tutu Peace Lecture (given by Bishop Phillip)

2009-10-14 – With Olympics Came New Laws to Sweep up Homeless

2009-10-16 – Cynthia McKinney: My visit to Cape Town, South Africa (SF Bay View)

Weapons Of Mass Desperation

Operation Green Hunt, the offensive against Naxals, might blow up in our faces. SHOMA CHAUDHURY examines the tricky and dangerous terrain

Enemy worthy? Naxals in Abujmarh. Women suckle babies. The poverty shows Photo: AP

ON SEPTEMBER 22, 2009, India woke up to the news that the Delhi Police had captured a top Naxal ideologue, 58-year-old Kobad Ghandy – a South Bombay Parsi who had grown up in a giant sea-facing house in Worli, had gone to Doon School, and had studied for a CA in London before returning to India to work with the most destitute of Indian citizens in Maharashtra, before going underground in the 1970s. His wife Anuradha, a sociologist, went underground with him and died of cerebral malaria last year. (Malaria, particularly the lethal falciparium malaria, is a common affliction in the neglected heartland of central India.) Home Minister P Chidambaram called Ghandy the State’s “most important Naxal catch.”

On the night of September 22, Times Now had a prime time debate on the significance of Ghandy’s arrest. The aggressive rhetoric of anchor Arnab Goswami epitomised typical high urban attitudes to Naxal issues. If you happened to watch him anchor the show, several terrifying things would have become evident. Over this past year, the Home Ministry has been planning a major armed offensive against the Naxals, particularly in Chhattisgarh. According to reports, the plan involves stationing around 75,000 troops in the heartland of India — including special CRPF commandos, the ITBP and the BSF. Scattered newspaper accounts have spoken of forces being withdrawn from Jammu and Kashmir and the Northeast; there is also talk of bringing in the feared Rashtriya Rifles — a battalion created specially for counter-insurgency work — and the purchase of bomb trucks, bomb blankets, bomb baskets, and sophisticated new weaponry. Minister Chidambaram has also said that if necessity dictates, he will bring in the special forces of the army.

The decision to launch such a massive armed operation on home ground — due to start this November — should have triggered animated political, civil society and media debate. But Operation Green Hunt — as the offensive is being termed — has been gathering force in almost complete silence. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Home Minister Chidambaram have variously called Naxals — or “Maoists” — “the gravest threat to India’s internal security.” Perhaps a military offensive against them is the answer, but is it the only answer? Is it the best answer? Will it provide a solution? Who will be impacted by this offensive? What will be its repercussions? Who are we really declaring war on? What are we declaring war on? Are we going into this with eyes wide open? Is there anything we should have learned from the seemingly irreparable psychological mess in Kashmir and the Northeast? These are the questions a democratic society should be asking. One can perhaps understand the well-heeled turning their back on such bleak issues. But with such a significant operation looming on the horizon, what can excuse the complete absence of debate from national political parties?

But silence, perhaps, is only the lesser worry. A few days ago, the government announced an ad blitzkrieg as part of its psychological offensive. “Naxals are nothing but coldblooded murderers” the ad screamed across all major news dailies. The visual showed a series of men, women and children brutally killed by Naxals.

On the night of September 22, discussing Kobad Ghandy, Arnab Goswami mouthed the same line. “Terrorist or ideologue?” he intoned, with the moral certitude of a man who has never got off his urban chair to trudge the interiors of the country. “Six thousand innocent Indians have been killed on Mr Ghandy’s ‘watch,’” he said (as if Kobad Ghandy was some Idi Amin figure presiding over a banana republic), “and yet human rights organisations and NGOs are asking for his release.” (Mr Goswami always reserves special scorn for human rights activists, as if they are a uniform sub-species of anti-national humankind, rather than men and women with differing and individual views.) “What about the 12-year-old girl the Naxals killed in Jharkhand?” he thundered. “What about the 15 CPM cadres they killed in Bengal last night?” Every time one of his panelists tried to introduce the larger political context behind Naxalism or a more complex argument, Mr Goswami swatted them down: “The question we are asking is very simple,” he said, “is he a terrorist or an ideologue? Is he responsible for violence or not? Can he be blamed for 6,000 dead or not?”

Watching the show was like straying into a child’s playroom, watching the grave judgments of infants playing at Good and Evil. As an individual point of view it would have counted for nothing, but as the voice of Times Now, currently deemed the most popular English channel, Mr Goswami’s unthinking edit line seems symptomatic of a wider, urban, English-speaking constituency. Coupled with the government ads, it presents the disturbing prospect of a public discourse that is marked by reductive official propaganda on the one side and infantile ignorance and simple-mindedness on the other. We can afford neither.

AT THE heart of the Naxal riddle, there are three primary questions: Who is a Naxal? What is one’s position on violence as a tool of struggle? And why is Naxalism on the rise across the country? To understand the first, try a useful metaphor. Imagine fish in water. Naxal leaders are the fish, finite, identifiable (even punishable); the water is the vast, infinite constituency they speak for. And swim in.

As Kobad Ghandy proves, a Naxal ideologue, commander or politburo leader can come from any milieu. The disempowered dalits of Andhra Pradesh, the destitute tribals of Chhattisgarh, the middle-class intellectuals of Bengal or the privileged rich of Bombay. These “informed revolutionaries” function at two levels. At a political level, they do not believe in parliamentary democracy (where they see power still concentrated in the hands of the feudal upper class) and their long-term objective is to seize State power for the people through armed struggle. In this, they threaten the sovereignity of the Indian State and many humanist thinkers, including men like K Balagopal of the Human Rights Forum, who was part of brokering peace talks between the government and Naxals in Andhra Pradesh in 2004, believe the State is within its rights to confront them. “The Maoists themselves would not tolerate such a challenge if they came to power,” says he. Balagopal is also critical of Naxal leaders creating “liberated zones” where the Indian State cannot function. “If they claim to be the voice of the people, can they pursue a political agenda that injures people — either by their actions or the repercussions they invite? Does the current tribal generation of Chhattisgarh want to sacrifice itself for a utopian future that may never come?”

It is true that in this prolonged ideological war, many Naxal attacks like the horrific one on the Ranibodli police station two years ago and the more recent one in Rajnandgaon embrace brutal tactics and almost fetishise violence. Even if these attacks are against an oppressive and corrupt police, it is a nobrainer to condemn them and say one is opposed to this violence. Or that their perpetrators should be punished.

But like dozens of other intellectuals, Balagopal points out that it is suicidal to focus only on this ideological war or resort to extrajudicial means alone to quell it. Can Naxalism really be wiped out by brute counter force? If that were so, Siddhartha Shankar Ray’s crackdown in Bengal in the 70s should have nailed it for all time. But the fact is, while stories of their own coercions are true, Naxal leaders enjoy wide support because they also espouse social-economic causes and empower people that the Indian State has ignored — criminally — for 60 years. Most Naxal cadres, therefore, are not “informed revolutionaries” fighting a conceptual war: they are beleagured tribals and dalits fighting local battles for basic survival and rights. Bela Bhatia, an activist, says she met a mazdoor in Bihar who was part of the cadre. “You can call me a Naxal or whatever you want,” he said. “I have picked up the gun to get my three kilos of annaj.”

The point is, should the Indian State be declaring armed war on its most despairing people? Is there no other way to empower them and wean them away from the gun and the seduction of the ‘informed revolutionary’? When Arnab Goswami evoked the 15 dead CPM members in Bengal last week, he forgot to mention that, according to newspaper reports (since no TV channel bothered to send teams there to find out) a 10,000-strong crowd of tribals had descended on the CPM office which was stockpiling arms in Inayatpur, near Lalgarh. When his panelists tried to draw his attention to this, he scathingly dubbed all 10,000 tribals as Maoists. Should “Operation Green Hunt” then stamp all 10,000 out? And if 10,000 Maoists had attacked an office, is it possible that only 15 people would have died? What is the real truth about the attack on the CPM office last week? And why was the superintendent of police, visiting a day later, unable to find any bodies? And why were the central paramilitary forces stationed there unable to prevent any of it?

Lalgarh, in fact, is a textbook case for the Naxal riddle. Over the last six months, mainstream Indian media has been agog about the “Naxal menace” in Lalgarh. But almost no one thought to ask, was the flare up in Lalgarh in May sui generis? Does an entire society become Maoist overnight? Very few bothered to report that the trouble in Lalgarh began after the Maoists attempted an assassination of Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya earlier this year. In retaliation, the Bengal police rounded up and brutalised scores of innocent tribal boys in neighbouring Lalgarh, who had nothing to do with the attack. After several months of this sort of general, untargeted police oppression, angry and desperate, the tribal community spontaneously organised themselves as a resistance force, fighting the might of the Indian State with nothing more than traditional tools – pick-axes, bows and arrows. A few weeks later, it appears, Kishenji, a Maoist leader from Andhra Pradesh arrived to raise the ante, teaching tactics of struggle, meshing solidarity with guns and advice. The State responded with increased force and brought in paramilitary forces — a dry run for Operation Green Hunt. After several days of heavy fire, ironically using Maoist jargon, the State declared Lalgarh had been “liberated”. But, the truth is, it has been on burn ever since. The attack on the CPM office is only the most recent expression of simmering anger in the area.

As Himanshu Kumar, a Gandhian and the only human rights activist on ground zero in faraway Dantewada where Operation Green Hunt is to be launched, says, “We can all be agreed on the premise that Naxalism is a problem, but why are these poor people attracted to a politics that will end in death? Have we created such a heinous system that death is more attractive than the deprivations and humiliations this system doles out? If that is so, why should I defend this system? All that these people want is food, health care, school, clothes and their legitimate right over their land. Yet, instead of weaning them away by strengthening the democratic process, if we are going to run our democracy only on the strength of weapons, I fear we are entering a dangerous and irrepairable state. We are headed for civil war.” Men like Himanshu should know. For 17 years, he has functioned like an ICU on the edges of a wounded society, providing education and health care, painstakingly drawing tribals into the electoral and constitutional process. The government, loath to undertake the trouble, has been happy to outsource its functions to him. Yet now, it is deaf to his wisdoms. Worse, it hasn’t even consulted him.

WHICH BRINGS us to the element of water in the Naxal metaphor. People who say human rights activists and the questions they raise are antinational, would be surprised to know what men like Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee themselves have had to say earlier about the Naxal riddle. Not to mention a galaxy of judges and constitutionalists.

In 2006, the Planning Commission asked an expert committee for a report on development challenges in “extremist affected areas.” The committee comprised senior officers like former UP police chief Prakash Singh; former intelligence head, Ajit Doval; senior bureaucrats like B. Bandopadhyay, EAS Sarma, SR Sankaran and BD Sharma; and activists like Bela Bhatia and K Balagopal. The report submitted in October 2008 had some visionary analysis and recommendations.

“The main support for the Naxalite movement,” it said, “comes from dalits and adivasi tribals”: the element of water: the infinite constituency in which Naxal leaders swim. Dalits and adivasis comprise a staggering one fourth of India’s population, yet are disproportionately destitute and low on the Human Development Index scale. Worse, they suffer the most humiliation and indignity: the proverbial insult on injury. The report is an exhaustive anthology of the causes for rural discontent and violence — recording meticulous data and case studies — but at the heart of its argument, it places the “structural violence implicit in our social and economic system” as the key explanation for Naxalite violence. Slamming the neoliberal directional shift in government policies, it urges a “development centric” rather than “security centric” approach to the Naxal problem.

Curiously, three years earlier in 2005, human rights lawyer Kannabiran had written a letter to Dr Manmohan Singh reminding him of his own report as a Planning Commission Member in 1982 and one written by Pranab Mukherjee in 2002 that had come to the same conclusion. As Bela Bhatia says, “With all this insight and understanding already with them, it is completely mystifying why they should go against their own intuition and recommendation and take a security-centric route. Actually,” she adds, “it is not mystifying. It only makes the character of the Indian State more clear.”

This ‘character’ gets even more depressing when you know that barely a week ago, on 15 September, Arjun Sengupta, former economic adviser to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi also wrote that “Naxalism is a cry that must be heard”. Responding to Dr Manmohan Singh’s admission that despite the State’s best efforts to contain the “Naxal menace”, violence was still on the rise, Sengupta wrote powerfully, “It is important to understand why this is so and in what sense Naxalite violence is different from other violent outbursts. Although it has always expressed itself as a breach of law and order with violence, murder, extortion and acts of heinous crimes, it may not be prudent to think of every protest movement of the disaffected people as a simple issue of law and order violation, and calling for its brutal suppression. This form of extremism, indeed, goes beyond law and order, fanning some deep-seated grievance. We must try to resolve those problems first, as otherwise the violence will remain insurmountable.”

(Way back in 1996, Justice MN Rao of the Andhra Pradesh High Court had also remarked in a judgment, “While left wing extremism is viewed as a problem by the administration, it is increasingly being perceived as a solution to their problems by the alienated masses.” Why is this so? That’s a question every self-styled jingoistic nationalist must ask themselves.)

As Sengupta reminds the prime minister, he is right to fear that Naxal violence will raise its head again and again, because at its heart is the deeper structural violence that our democratic Republic refuses to address: a violence that forces 77 percent of Indians to live on less than Rs 20 a day while 5 percent enjoy lives that border on obscene excess.

Structural violence: that’s an imaginative vacuum. For most urban Indians, the lives of tribals and dalits has no meaning, no face, no flesh. Our books no longer write of it, our films no longer evoke it, our journalists no longer cover it. It’s not just the poverty; it’s bumping into a face of the Indian State you have never seen before: brutal, illegal, rapine, pimped out to serve the interests of a few. Unless one travels into the silent smoky hole in the heart of this country — the remote jungles of Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh; the desolate corners of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar and Rajasthan, one cannot feel the dread of this question: How will Operation Green Hunt solve this? You might stealth-march a mythic army of COBRA commandoes into this imaginative vacuum, but how will that dissolve the “two categories of human beings” our nation has created? Operation Green Hunt may kill several hundred ‘informed revolutionaries’ and several thousand of the despairing poor who have taken up arms, but how will it address the birth of new anger — anger born out of bombing an old wound?

As anthropologist and historian Ram Guha says, “It’s like a house with three rooms. One room was already on fire. Instead of dousing that, you willfully set fire to another room, then bulldoze the whole structure down.”

ONE OF the key architects of Operation Green Hunt, Home secretary Gopal Pillai sits in a giant office in powerful North Block. At first meeting, he doesn’t seem the average cynic you expect Indian bureaucrats to be. An amiable, thoughtful man, he says he’s seen long years of service in the Northeast and knows what a security-centric approach can do to a people, how it can trigger a world of smoke and mirrors where nothing is what it seems and everyone is chasing someone’s shadow. He seems open and ready to listen. More, he is full of surprisingly honest admissions: Manipur is a society in collective depression, he says. Yes, raising the Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh (which human rights activists have been crying hoarse about) was wrong; yes, the Naxals have often taken up causes and done work that the government should have. But, he adds, their violent disruptions are a real deterrence for governance. You have no argument with that.

According to him, then, Operation Green Hunt is being planned as a kind of “area domination”. “We want to take back control of the land; but we will only fire if we are fired against,” says he. “Lalgarh is the model; we want no collateral damage. Our real success will be in restoring civil administration in this area. PDS, mobile medical vans, stronger police chowkis, schools – that’s our goal.” You feel eager to believe him.

Part of the problem of administering the tribal villages in the jungles of Chhattisgarh is that they are lonely and farflung; also few in the district or political administration know the tribal languages. Operation Green Hunt has been long in the planning. Battalions of CRPF men and para-military forces across the country are being given crash courses for the impending operation. The Centre has sanctioned 20 new schools in jungle warfare; invited crores worth of bids for military equipment. Is there a similar hot-foot programme for training, sensitising and incentivising the civil administration? you ask. Has he invited civil society activists in the region for their inputs? Mr Pillai has a sudden shocked moment of self-recognition. No, he admits, and scribbles “training” and “dialogue” on a yellow notepad.

There is a month to go before Operation Green Hunt is launched. A familiar despair sprouts: the gap between stated intention and action. And miles of paper and good advice gathering dust in the Planning Commission.

TODAY, THE biggest riddle for anybody concerned about a just and equal world is the dilemma of violence as a tool of political struggle. When the government shows such poor intention, when it is completely deaf to peaceful people’s movements like the Bhopal gas victims’, or the tribal resistance to bauxite mining in Niyamgirhi, or the Narmada Andolan, is one justified in asking the poor to defang themselves, unless one is willing to step out of one’s comfort zone and share their lives of helpless status quo?

Should one distinguish between Naxal violence and spontaneous rural violence? Yet, in a democratic society, how can violence of any kind be condoned? Where does that leave democratic practice?

Despite these internal tussles, contrary to what Arnab Goswami asserts, almost the entire human rights community is agreed that not only is Naxal violence to be condemned, but subdued. Increased and international access to weaponry has led to escalating violence. As Prakash Singh, a widely respected retired police chief, says, “The Naxals used to move in dalams [cells] of 20. That’s gone up to a 100. They have sophisticated weapons and their attacks have become more brutal. We have to show that such armed insurrection will not be tolerated.”

The disagreements arise over strategy and efficacy. A top security expert who wishes not to be named but is generally considered a hawk, for instance, has serious doubts over Operation Green Hunt. Ironically, he voices the anxiety of a wide range of human rights activists. “To attempt this kind of an action by police forces against your own land and people is a dangerous trap,” says he. “We usually reserve such operations for hostile territory. The police is supposed to go after particular individuals – say, Ram Lal, a criminal. But in an operation of this kind, you don’t even know who Ram Lal is, it is very difficult to know who he is or get accurate intelligence on his movements. You might end up killing Ram Lal’s relatives or his whole village. And if you don’t hold inquests, you’ll never know who you killed.”

Kashmir and the Northeast are bleeding, painful reminders: once paramilitary forces or the army moves in, you can never really withdraw. No bureaucrat or military strategist or powerful minister can control the vicious logic of paranoia, fake killings, genuine mistakes and revenge that sets in. When friend and family can be an informer, everyone is an enemy.

Already, this helpless cycle has started to turn in Chhattisgarh. Last week, in the first of its assaults, a company of 100 COBRA commandos set off to destroy an alleged Naxal arms factory in Chintagufa area. They were caught in Naxal fire. Seven COBRAs were killed. In turn, they claimed to have killed nine Naxals (whose bodies they say they have) and many more they claim the Naxals dragged away. The government has tried to pass this off as a big triumph. But the deadly smoke and mirrors game has already begun. Villagers claim the COBRAs made no kills and had dragged innocents out of villages to tot some up, among them an old man and woman. Chhattisgarh DGP Vishwaranjan does not help matters by refusing to answer questions: “I don’t have any details,” he says. An odd answer for a DGP. Plus, there’s the wound of six COBRAs dead in the first sortee.

As Operation Green Hunt kicks into top gear, all these problems will magnify. The hallucinations of the impregnable forest. Extremists who disappear, leaving villagers to bear the brunt of the commandos’ ire. Paranoia within and without, revenge and, as in the Salwa Judum, innocent tribals caught between the fury of the Naxals and the fury of the State.

Pressure will create equal and opposite counter pressure. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh can’t seem to grasp this simple physical equation. The impact of the Salwa Judum was to drive more tribals into the arms of Naxals. Operation Green Hunt promises to set the place on fire. When Binayak Sen spoke against the Salwa Judum, he was jailed. Now, when Himanshu Kumar is warning about impending civil war, no one is listening.

“Not commandos. Send in health workers and schoolteachers protected by the CRPF,” pleads he. “Show the tribals hope and they will choose life over death.” But the weight of his voice does not sway even a mote of dust in the corridors of the Home Ministry.

THERE IS one final silent piece in the escalating Naxal violence that has gripped the country: neo-liberal land grab and tribal rights. It is no coincidence that a majority of the Naxal leadership today is from Andhra Pradesh. According to journalist N Venugopal, the roots of this go back to the Telengana Movement of 1946-51, which was abruptly withdrawn by the Communist Party. In the Andhra Second Five-Year Plan (1956), 60 lakh acres of surplus land was identified. Yet by the time the Land Ceiling Act was passed in 1973, and enough concessions had been made to rich landowners, the State said only 17 lakh acres of surplus land was available, and it distributed only four. Land, livelihood and liberation was the clarion call then. Still driven by that unfulfilled aspiration, most leaders today are from the families of the ‘46 – ’51 movement.

EAS Sarma, former Commissioner of Tribal Welfare and former secretary, Expenditure and Economic Affairs, unlocks the real heart of the matter. “I am totally against violence of any kind and a firm believer in democratic process,” says he. “But Left extremism is a secondary issue. How many tribals even know there is a government? Their only experience of the State is the police, contractors, and real estate goons. Besides, the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution grants tribals complete rights over their traditional land and forests and prohibits private companies from mining on their land. This constitutional schedule was upheld by the Samatha judgement of the Supreme Court (1997). If successive governments lived by the spirit of the Constitution and this judgment, tribal discontent would automatically recede.”

Mr Sarma is probably right. Human rights activists have long argued that the real intention of the Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh was to capture tribal land — brimming-rich with minerals — and hand it over to private companies. The fact that 600 tribal villages have been evacuated in the last few years gives credence to this theory. If tribals no longer live on that land, the inconvenient Fifth Schedule of the Constitution will not apply.

Given that the Supreme Court directed that the Salwa Judum was to be dismantled, perhaps, Operation Green Hunt is the second lap. In any case, whether for ill-intention, poor execution, or unplanned collateral damage, there is much to fear in the impending operation.

In the meantime, we would all do well to read the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution.

Statement from national platform of adivasi and forest dwellers’ mass organisations (Campaign for Survival and Dignity) on Government offensive

October 12 2009

A Pretext to Impose Brutal Repression: the Government’s “Offensive” Is a Formula for Bloodshed and Injustice

The Campaign for Survival and Dignity, a national platform of adivasi and forest dwellers’ mass organisations (listed below) from ten States, unequivocally condemns the reported plans for a military “offensive” by the government in the country’s major forest and tribal areas. This offensive, ostensibly targeted against the CPI (Maoist), is a smoke screen for an assault against the people, especially adivasis, aimed at suppressing all dissent, all resistance and engineering the takeover of their resources. Certain facts make this clear:

The government tells us that this offensive will make it possible for the “state to function” in these areas and fill the “vacuum of governance.”

This is grossly misleading. The Indian state is very, very active in these areas, often in its most brutal and violent form. A vivid example is the illegal eviction of more than 3,00,000 families by the Forest Departments a few years ago. Laws have been totally disregarded; Constitutional protections for adivasi rights blatantly ignored and their rights over water, forest and land (jal, jangal, jamin) glaringly violated. Every month an increasing number of people are jailed, beaten and killed by the police. If this is the picture of what “absence” of the state means, people are terrified of what the “presence” of the state will mean. It can only mean converting brutalized governance into militarized rule, a total negation of democracy.

This is not a war over “development”. People’s struggles in India today are over democracy and dignity

Meaningful development must contribute to strengthening the right of all people to their resources and their production, and thereby to control over their own destiny. For generations, adivasis have fought for their Constitutional rights and entitlements. More recently, mass democratic movements have fought for new laws and policies, such as the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act (PESA), the Forest Rights Act, the right to work and the right to food, in addition to earlier laws like the Minimum Wages Act, the Restoration of Alienated Lands Acts, and land reform and moneylending laws. These laws make it possible for people to fight for greater control over their lives, their livelihoods, their lands and their forests. However these laws are respected more in the breach; if the government wants “development”, let it first stop the blatant disregard of its own laws. Let people determine the path of their own development, in accordance with their rights over their resources and the type of infrastructure they desire. The Constitution itself requires this kind of planning. The claim that “development” can be provided through military force is both absurd and ridiculous.

This war is not about “national security”; it is about ‘securing’ the interests of global and Indian capital and big business.

Any government worried about security would send its troops against mining mafias, the forest mafias, violent vigilante groups like the Salwa Judum and others. Rather than being curbed, these killers are in fact supported by the police. Have the security forces ever been deployed to defend the people struggling to protect themselves, their forests, their livelihoods and their futures? The answer is no. The notion of “security” being advanced by the government clearly has nothing to do with the people. Rather, it is to enable big business to engage in robbery and expropriation of resources, which they have decided will be one of their main sources of accumulation. Hence, mining, “infrastructure” , real estate, land grabbing, all aimed at super-profits, are being projected as “development” needed by the people. Huge amounts of international and government money are being pumped into so-called “forestry projects” which displace people from their lands and destroy biodiversity (even while they are trumpeted as a strategy for climate change). The UPA is rushing into agreements with the US and other imperial countries to throw open mining and land to international exploitation. But where do the forests, land, water and minerals lie? They are found in the forest and tribal areas, where people – some organised under the CPI (Maoist), some organized under democratic movements, some in spontaneous local struggles, some simply fighting in whatever manner they can – are resisting the destruction of their homes, resources and their lives. The “offensive against the Maoists” is only a subterfuge to crush this citizens’ resistance and to provide an excuse for more abuse of power, more brutality and more injustice.

The government knows perfectly well that it cannot destroy the CPI (Maoist), or any people’s struggle, through military action.

How can the armed forces identify who is a “Maoist” and who is not? The use of brute military force will result in the slaughter of thousands of people in prolonged, bloody and brutal guerrilla warfare. This has been the result of every “security offensive” in India’s history from Kashmir to Nagaland. So why do this? And why now? Unless the goal has nothing to do with “wiping out the Maoists” and everything to do with having an excuse for the permanent presence of lakhs of troops, arms and equipment in these areas. To protect and serve whom?

Hence the need for fear mongering and hysteria about Maoist “sympathisers” and their “infiltration” into “civil society.”

The government has a very long history of labeling any form of dissent as “Naxalite” or “Maoist.” The Maoists’ politics are known; their positions are public; the only secret aspect of their work is their personal identities and military tactics. We who work in these areas do not fear this bogey of “infiltration” in our groups by Maoists, for the different stands taken by our organizations and theirs are clear, and in some areas there are open disputes. This scaremongering is just an excuse to justify a crackdown on all forms of dissent and democratic protest in these areas, a crushing of all people’s resistance, and the branding of any questioning, any demand for justice, as “Maoist.”

In the final analysis, peace and justice will only come to India’s workers, peasants, adivasis, dalits and other oppressed sections through the mass democratic struggle of the people. A democratic struggle requires democratic space. The conversion of a region into a war zone, by anyone, is unacceptable. In the forest areas in particular, there is now a need for a new peace, one that can only be achieved through a genuine democratic dialogue between the political forces involved. For this to happen, this horrific “offensive” must first be called off. If the government really wishes to claim that it is committed to protecting people and their rights, let its actions comply with the requirements of law, justice and democracy.

Endorsing organisations

Bharat Jan Andolan
National Front for Tribal Self Rule
Jangal Adhikar Sangharsh Samiti (Mah)
Adivasi Mahasabha (Guj)
Adivasi Jangal Janjeevan Andolan (D&NH)
Jangal Jameen Jan Andolan (Raj)
Madhya Pradesh Jangal Jeevan Adhikar Bachao Andolan
Jan Shakti Sanghatan (Chat)
Peoples Alliance for Livelihood Rights
Chattisgarh Mukti Morcha
Orissa Jan Sangharsh Morcha
Campaign for Survival & Dignity (Ori)
Orissa Jan Adhikar Morcha
Adivasi Aikya Vedike (AP)
Campaign for Survival and Dignity – TN
Bharat Jan Andolan (Jhar)

A list of statements and media articles on the attack on Abahlali baseMjondolo in Durban.

Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Statements

2009-09-27 at 12h40 (Sunday) – Kennedy Road Development Committee Attacked – People Have Been Killed

2009-09-27 at 22h40 (Sunday) – The Attacks Continue in the Presence of the Police and Senior ANC Leaders

2009-09-29 at 13h53 (Tuesday) – ‘The ANC Has Invaded Kennedy Road’ by S’bu Zikode*

2009-10-01 at 16h53 (Thursday) – Update from Kennedy Road

2009-10-01 at 16h55 (Thursday) – Rushed (and Rough) Transcript of an Interview (anonymous of course) with Two Young Women Still Living in Kennedy Road

2009-10-06 at 22h00 (Tuesday) – Our Movement is under Attack*

2009-10-11 at 10h30 (Sunday).- The ANC Attack on AbM Continues in Kennedy Road

2009-10-15 at 23h30 (Thursday) – The Kennedy Eight are now the Kennedy Thirteen

Video footage and photographs

2009-09-28 at 21h35 (Monday) – Photos: S’bu Zikode’s House after the attack*

2009-10-01 17h08 (Tuesday) – Photos: Abahlali at Court to defend the ‘Kennedy 8′ (from 29 September 2009)

2009-09-30 at 16:10 (Wednesday) – Eyewitness Video Testimony (Footage taken on Sunday and Monday)*

2009-10-01 at 16:54 (Thursday) – Moving Video Interview with S’bu Zikode

2009-10-01 (Thursday) – DemocracyNow! Video interview with Abahlali baseMjondolo (DN! Is the largest progressive media radio station in the United States)*

2009-10-08 – Photos from AbM Protest in Support of the Kennedy 8 (from 08 October 2009)

2009-10-09 – Video from the New York Solidarity Protest (and some photos)

2009-10-10 – Photos of Jenny Morgan’s Film screened at Musgrave Centre

Solidarity Petition: An Open Letter to Jacob Zuma (now with over 1,050 signatures)*

Solidarity Poster:AbM awareness raising solidarity poster

Statements of Solidarity with Abahlali baseKennedy Road

2009-09-28 – Joint Statement on the attacks on the Kennedy Road Informal Settlement in Durban (27 signatures from academia)*

2009-09-29 – Testimony from Brother Filippo Mondini and in Zulu: Ubufakazi bukaBrother Fillipo Mondini

2009-09-29 – Democracy Under Attack in Kennedy Road – A Statement by Bishop Rubin Phillip* and in Zulu: Umbhishobhi Omkhulu waseKapa uhlaba ukuhlaselwa kwaBahlali baseMjondolo

2009-09-29 – Letter to the International Media from Nigel Gibson & Raj Patel

2009-09-29 – Kennedy Road Murders Recall Terror of the 1980s (ZACF Statement)

2009-09-30 – Durban Action Against Xenophobia Statement

2009-09-30 – Statement from The Children of South Africa (CHOSA)

2009-09-30 – War on Want Writes to the South African High Commissioner (UK)

2009-10-01 – Statement from the International Forum in Denmark

2009-10-01 – Statement on Kennedy Road Informal Settlement by AFRA

2009-10-01 – War on Want (UK) calls for an end to violence against South African shack dwellers

2009-10-01 – The Poverty Initiative (USA) Supports the Shackdwellers Movement

2009-10-01 – Development Action Group’s statement on the violent attacks on Abahlali baseMjondolo in Kennedy Road

2009-10-01 – The KZN Monitor asks tough questions of the South African Police Service

2009-10-01 – Letter from the Editors of the Academic Journal “Interface”

2009-10-01 – Slum Dwellers International Statement on the Attacks on Kennedy Road Settlement, Durban, South Africa

2009-10-01 – Statement by Global Peace & Justice in Auckland, New Zealand

2009-10-01 – Statement of Support from KwaZulu-Natal Christian Council (KZNCC) in response to the Kennedy Road Killings

2009-10-01 – US Center for Constitutional Rights: Solidarity Statement

2009-10-01 – Statement of Support to the AbM from Movement for Justice in el Barrio in New York City *

2009-10-02 – Statement of Support from the Democratic Socialist Movement

2009-10-02 – Statement of Support from the Archbishop of Cape Town *

2009-10-02 – Statement of Support from the Treatment Action Campaign

2009-10-02 – Statement by the National Association of Democratic Lawyers

2009-10-02 – SACC Appalled by Violent Attacks Against Democracy* and in Zulu: iSACC Ikhala Ngodlame Lokuhlasela Kwentando Yeninigi

2009-10-02 – International Alliance of Inhabitants call for solidarity with AbM

2009-10-05 – Diakonia responds to the attacks on Abahlali baseMjondolo

2009-10-05 – APF in Solidarity with Abahlali baseMjondolo: In Defence of Democracy

2009-10-05 – Afrika Soree! Fraternal Solidarity Message to Abahlali baseMjondolo

2009-10-06 – ILRIG and 56 community organisations: A message of solidarity to Abahlali baseMjondolo

2009-10-06 – In Solidarity with Abahlali baseMjondolo by Jacques Depelchin

2009-10-07 – CiViSOL Statement of Solidarity

2009-10-07 – KwaZulu Natal Christian Council Leaders visit the 8 Leaders of AbM in Sydenham Police Station

2009-10-07 – Statement by Bishop Barry Wood, Auxiliary Bishop of Durban and Episcopal Chairperson

2009-10-09 – Statement in support of Abahlali baseMjondolo by 12 renown academics including Noam Chomsky and Naomi Klein

2009-10-09 – Solidarity rally with Abahlali baseMjondolo at South African consulate by Picture the Homeless

2009-10-10 – Contribution to a Panel Discussion on John Dugard’s Legacy to Human Rights Activism and Litigation – by Suart Wilson

2009-10-15 – Students for Law and Social Justice Statement in Support of AbM

2009-10-16 – Statement by the Conference of the Democratic Left in Support of AbM

Opinion pieces on the attacks

2009-09-30 – Abahlali baseMjondolo Is Not A Criminal Movement (The Mercury) *

2009-10-01 – Pogrom murders in the Durban area (Politicsweb)

2009-10-02 – Ethnic cleansing (Business Day)

2009-10-04 – A bad week for South Africa (Politicsweb)

2009-10-06 – The crude excesses of power (The Witness)

2009-10-06 – How a poor people’s movement was crushed (The Sowetan)*

2009-10-07 – Acid test for ANC’s commitment to democracy (Business Day)

2009-10-07 – Kennedy Road Truth Being Hidden (Business Day)

2009-10-08 – Worrying utterances by Crispin Hemson (Business Day)

2009-10-08 – Is the ANC the big bad wolf in Kennedy Road? (Mail & Guardian – Thought Leader)

2009-10-09 – Empirical evidence that the Kennedy 8 are being framed

2009-10-12 – Violent campaign against homeless people’s group (Daily News)

2009-10-13 – The Underside of South African Democracy (SACSIS)

2009-10-14 – ANC’s shameful cover-up (The Witness)

2009-10-14 – The Kennedy Road killings are akin to Stalinism and a threat to democracy (Cape Times

Mainstream South African media

2009-09-28 – SAPA: Attackers Associated with ANC (News24)

2009-09-29 – Attack on shack dwellers slammed (Sunday Times)

2009-09-29 – Academics condemn attack on settlement (Business Day)

2009-09-29 – SAPA: Fund Set Up for Victims (News24)

2009-09-29 – Xhosa attack ‘far more sinister’ (The Witness)

2009-09-30 – Kennedy Road attack: ANC and police in the spotlight (The Natal Witness)

2009-09-30 – Police ‘behind shack attack’ (The Mercury)

2009-09-30 – Fund set up after Durban attack (Business Day)

2009-10-01 – Call on Zuma to probe attacks (The Sowetan)

2009-10-01 – Call for solidarity among shack dwellers (The Mercury)

2009-10-02 – Shack people out in the cold after attack (The Mercury)

2009-10-03 – Ethnic Tension Boils Over (The Mail & Guardian)*

2009-10-06 – Church enters Kennedy Road fray (The Sowetan)

2009-10-06 – Churches appeal for aid (East Coast Radio)

2009-10-09 – Shack dwellers ask Zuma to calm tensions (SAPA)

2009-10-09 – Modern-day ‘Robin Hood’ is disillusioned with ANC (The Mercury)

2009-10-09 – Kennedy Road Olive Branch a Sham (The Mail & Guardian) *

2009-10-09 – I-ANC iphika imibiko yokuhlasela abahlali (Isolezwe) in isiZulu

2009-10-10 – Kennedy Road gets global response (The Weekender)

2009-10-10 – State turns against shack dwellers (The Weekender)

2009-10-12 – Bishop call for suport for Abahlali baseMjondolo (The Witness)

Alternative media articles

2009-09-30 – Shack dwellers’ struggle by Sokari Ekine

2009-10-01 – DemocracyNow! Video and radio interview and transcript*

2009-10-02 – Column: Abroad view By Alex Kadis

2009-10-02 – Violent Attacks on Social Movement Abahlali baseMjondolo Misrepresented (SACSIS)

2009-10-02 – Provincial Government & Police Endorse Attack on Abahlali baseMjondolo (Pambazuka)

2009-10-08 – ANC blamed for involvement in shanty town attack (Religious Intelligence)

2009-10-08 – Devastation in Samoa and South Africa by John Minto (Scoop.co.nz)

2009-10-08 – Democracy’s everyday death: South Africa’s quiet coup by Nigel Gibson and Raj Patel (Pambazuka)*

Related events

2009-09-30 – Protest at the South African Embassy in London on Wednesday (on 30 September) with photo and video footage

2009-10-03 – Solidarity Protest in Grahamstown – Monday 5th October 2009

2009-10-09 – Solidarity Protest Today at the South African Consulate in New York City (with some photos and video)

2009-10-14 – Solidarity Protest at the University of Cape Town (on Wednesday 14^th of October)

Other languages

2009-09-28 – Nye etniske opptøyer i Sør-Afrika (Norwegian)

2009-09-30 – Los hechos de los ataques en AbM (Espanol)

2009-09-30 – Attacco Alla Democrazia Nelle Baraccopli del Sudafrica (Italiano)

2009-09-30 – Sud Africa. La protesta del movimento dei baraccati Abahlali arriva a Londra (Italiano)

2009-09-30 – Νότιος Αφρική: Τρομακτική επίθεση παρακρατικών και μπάτσων στους Abahlali, υπάρχουν νεκροί (Greek)

2009-10-01 – Θυμίζουν τον τρόμο της δεκαετίας του 1980 (Greek)

2009-10-01 – ANC acusado de atacar y asesinar a los que viven en chabolas (Espanol)

2009-10-01 – Opération coup de poing à Durban par Philippe Rivière (Frances)

2009-10-02 – Südafrika: Unser Verbrechen ist ganz einfach: Wir sind selbstorganisierte Arme… (Danish)

2009-10-02 – Declaracion de apoyo a nuestr@s hermanas y hermanos de Sudafrica del Movimiento de los de Casas de Carton (Abahlali baseMjondolo) de parte de Movimeinto por Justicia del Barrio en Nueva York, EU (Espanol)

2009-10-09 – Piu a Sud del Sudafrica – Fillipo Mondini (Italiano)

2009-10-12 – De como não remover favelas (Português)

2009-10-14 – Sør-Afrika: Et demokratis død (Nowegian)

Other media mentioning the Kennedy Road attacks:

2009-10-14 – The Annual Desmond Tutu Peace Lecture (given by Bishop Phillip)

2009-10-14 – With Olympics Came New Laws to Sweep up Homeless

America Latina en Movimiento, 23 September 2009

“…They become legitimate not through their property but through their work, in this world in which work is becoming extinct. They become legitimate because they make History, in a world that has already proclaimed the end of History. These men and women are an absurdity because they bring back to life a feeling that was lost…”

(“News of the survivors”, Eldorado dos Carajás, 1996).

Vito Gianotti, jornalista e historiador, Núcleo Piratininga de Comunicação – Rio de janeiro

http://www.alainet.org/active/33230〈=es

By: Wadner Pierre and Jeb Sprague – Inter Press Service

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Aug 20 (IPS) – Government authorities in Haiti face recent criticism over allegations that they continue to jail political dissidents.

On Aug. 7, Amnesty International called for the release of Ronald Dauphin, a Haitian political prisoner. Dauphin is an activist with the Fanmi Lavalas movement of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. He was seized by armed paramilitaries on Mar. 1, 2004 – the day after Aristide’s government was ousted in a coup d’état.

According to Amnesty, “the delay in bringing Ronald Dauphin to trial is unjustifiable and is politically motivated”. The organisation “opposes Ronald Dauphin’s continued detention without trial, which is in violation of his rights, and urges the Haitian authorities to release him pending trial.”

Amnesty noted that Dauphin’s health has deteriorated severely in Haiti’s National Penitentiary, which is notorious for the appalling conditions to which it subjects inmates. One of Dauphin’s co-defendants, Wantales Lormejuste, died in prison from untreated tuberculosis in April 2007.

In May 2009, doctors examined Dauphin and called on the authorities to immediately transfer him to a hospital. But today, nearly five and half years since his original arrest, he has not seen his day in court and remains locked up.

Demonstrations in downtown Port-au-Prince, with hundreds of supporters, occur here on a weekly basis, calling for the release of political prisoners. They are organised by local grassroots groups such as the Kolektif Fanmiy Prizonye Politk Yo, Fondasyon 30 Septanm, Organizasyon AbaSatan, and the Group Defans Prizonye Politik Yo.

At one protest, Rospide Pétion a former political prisoner and Lavalas supporter, told IPS, “It is unjust to keep Dauphin in prison while criminals are on the street working without prosecution. We ask for justice for Ronald and all the unknown political prisoners from the slums.”

Last year, the Inter American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) ordered the Haitian government to immediately improve prison conditions. That ruling also ordered the Haitian government to pay 95,000 dollars in damages to Yvon Neptune, one of Ronald Dauphins co-defendants, for numerous violations of his legal rights.

The Haitian government has disregarded the ruling to date. Neptune received a “provisional release” in 2006 after spending two years in prison but the case against him has yet to be dismissed, despite an appeals court order in his favour.

Ronald Dauphin is the last of 16 Fanmi Lavalas members and supporters imprisoned based on allegations made by the organisation Réseau National de Défense des Droits Humains (RNDDH), as well as some relatives of the victims, that a massacre was perpetrated between Feb. 9 and 11, 2004 in St. Marc, 100 kms north of Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital.

RNDDH received funding from the Canadian government for the prosecution of the supposed perpetrators of the massacre. However, U.N. investigators – despite U.N. hostility to Fanmi Lavalas and support for the coup-installed government that ruled Haiti until 2006 – have not backed the accusations made by RNDDH.

In 2005, the U.N. Human Rights Commission’s independent expert on human rights in Haiti, Louis Joinet, concluded that what happened at St. Marc was that armed groups -supporters and opponents of the Aristide government – clashed and that there were casualties on both sides.

In 2006, Thierry Fagart, head of the Human Rights department of the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Haiti, rebuked RNDDH for never substantiating its allegations by even providing a list of the names of the victims.

Amnesty International’s appeal on behalf of Ronald Dauphin also called for an impartial and thorough investigation into the events that took place in St. Marc, and it observed that “The investigating magistrate has only focused on the alleged crimes committed by the group supporting former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide and failed to identify the victims among the former president supporters and their alleged perpetrators.”

In July, the director of RNDDH, Pierre Esperance, told IPS, “In our system, the criminal becomes a victim because the system doesn’t work.”

Brian Concannon of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH) agreed that the shortcomings of Haiti’s legal and prison system punish the innocent and guilty alike.

However, Concannon noted that the coup-installed government of 2004-2006 “arrested hundreds of political opponents, some at the insistence of RNDDH. Over five years after the arrests began, not a single political prisoner has been convicted of any crime.”

“Some were acquitted at trial, like folk singer Annette Auguste ‘So Ann’, or cleared by an appeals court, like activist priest Rev. Gérard Jean-Juste, when the prosecution was not able to submit a shred of evidence. Many more remain in prison, or in legal limbo like Yvon Neptune.”

On Aug. 9, former President Bill Clinton, now a U.N. envoy to Haiti, addressed influential Haitian émigrés gathered at a luxury resort in Sunny Isles Beach, Florida.

Working class Haitian activist groups like Veye-yo, which is based in Miami, have been calling on Clinton to work on behalf of Ronald Dauphin as he recently did on behalf of U.S. journalists imprisoned in North Korea. A group of Veye-yo activists assembled just outside the resort calling for such action.

Momentum has been growing for Dauphin’s release. Evel Fanfan, a Haitian attorney for the Association des Universitaires Motivés pour une Haiti de Droits (AUMOHD), also speaking at the recent gathering in Florida, expressed firm solidarity with the campaign to end illegal detentions such as that of Dauphin.

The Haitian government denies that it holds political prisoners. Haiti’s ambassador to the United States, Raymond Joseph, denying that he has even heard of Dauphin, says, “There are no political prisoners in Haiti. The fact that Neptune and the others are out of jail and they were the most prominent and that this person… is still in jail, to me underscores… some people are in jail but not for political reasons, but since they belong to a certain party they are shopping this around and saying ‘its because I belong to this party that I’m in jail’”.

Others argue this is part of a pattern, part of a concerted campaign to silence Haiti’s poor that continues today with the blocking by the government’s Conseil électoral provisoire (CEP) of Fanmi Lavalas from taking party in recent elections.

Speaking last Wednesday on Free Speech Radio News, Pierre LaBossiere, a founding member of a North American-Haiti solidarity organisation, the Haiti Action Committee, said, “We have petitions to President René Préval to free the political prisoners. People shouldn’t be in jail because of their political beliefs.”

“Because of their strong feelings that President Aristide is the true spokesman for their aspirations they were put in jail on trumped up charges, never a day in court and they are sitting there for years,” he said.

In May, U.S. Representative Maxine Waters wrote to Haitian Prime Minister Michèle Pierre-Louis and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, warning that the failure to provide adequate medical treatment to Dauphin could “cause the injustice [of illegal imprisonment] to become a death sentence.”

Dauphin learned about Amnesty’s statement on his behalf while listening to a radio interview that his attorney, Mario Joseph (of the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux), was giving about his case.

Dauphin’s wife told IPS, “Ronald was pleased when he heard the news on the radio”. However, she remains distraught over her husband’s situation. His ailing mother, Janne, who is 78, is also suffering immensely wondering what will become of her son.

Guy Adams, The Independent

Teresita Lopez is in hiding. “Somewhere in the Amazon” is as much as she is willing to reveal about her current location now she has been placed on the Peruvian government’s most-wanted list.