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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the June 27, 2002
issue of Workers World newspaper
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INDIA AND PAKISTAN:
ANTI-IMPERIALIST UNITY REACHES ACROSS BORDERS
By Gery Armsby
In response to mounting tensions and the specter of all-out
war between their two countries, numerous groups and
thousands of workers in India and Pakistan took to the
streets June 13 to denounce threats of war by the Vajpayee
and Musharraf governments.
Left parties, workers' organizations, women's groups and
anti-globalization forces in Pakistan and India carried out
a day of joint anti-war demonstrations throughout their
respective countries.
A protest of more than 1,000 in Lahore, the Kashmiri capital
within Pakistan's borders, was jointly called by four left
parties of Pakistan: the Communist Mazdoor Kissan Party,
National Workers Party, Labor Party of Pakistan and the
Peoples Party (Shaheed Bhutto). Several labor union
federations, human rights and community organizations, and
youths also participated.
Despite a heavy police presence, the anti-war activists took
their demands before the public at the Lahore Press Club,
chanting, "No to war," and "U.S. imperialism out of South
Asia." The Lahore demonstration demanded an immediate
withdrawal of Indian and Pakistani troops from border areas
and demilitarization of the part of Kashmir known as the
Line of Control.
Demonstrators also demanded an end to preparations for large-
scale--and potentially nuclear--war being made by both India
and Pakistan, an immediate withdrawal of all U.S. and other
imperialist forces from the region, and respect for the
right to self-determination of the Kashmiri nation.
At a rally before the international press, speakers stressed
that the policies of the U.S. government were largely to
blame for the increase in tensions between India and
Pakistan. They spoke against unprecedented nuclear
proliferation in the region and demanded cuts in military
spending.
Many speakers expressed deep appreciation for Indian groups
that showed solidarity by holding similar actions in the
region and across India that day. They were optimistic that
further coordinated actions of progressive forces in India
and Pakistan would occur again in the near future.
WORKER SOLIDARITY ACROSS SUBCONTINENT
After learning of the Pakistani groups' plans for a June 13
demonstration, a coalition of left groups in India
coordinated simultaneous anti-war, anti-imperialist protests
in Delhi, Chennai, Calcutta, Lucknow, Patna, Ranchi,
Vijaywada and other major cities.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist Leninist)-Liberation,
Socialist Unity Center of India, CPI (ML)-Red Flag, CPI (ML)-
Unity Initiative, CPI (ML)-New Democracy, Communist
Organization of India (ML) and the Marxist Communist Party
of India collaborated to bring out their supporters among
the Indian working class in a show of anti-imperialist
solidarity against the mounting war crisis.
More than a dozen rallies across India protested the
warmongering of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party as well as
the likelihood of increased imperialist intervention in the
subcontinent as a result of the conflict.
Six of the Indian groups issued a joint statement calling
for unity "against imperialist globalization,
communalization and Gujarat genocide, war jingoism and
subservience to imperialism, particularly U.S. imperialism."
Gujarat is the scene of a vicious police campaign against
minority groups and the poor. More than 2,000 Gujarat
Muslims have been killed since late February.
The joint statement, announcing a June 19-27 campaign of
people's actions throughout India, warns, "Though the war
threat has receded apparently under imperialist maneuvers,
[U.S. and other imperialist powers] continue to flood the
subcontinent with arms and ruin the economy of both India
and Pakistan further.
"The danger of U.S.-UK military presence in Kashmir has
increased. With the military bases of the U.S. and its
allies already in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the war moves on
the border have provided opportunity for the aggravation of
imperialist intervention in the region as part of the global
policing by the U.S."
The current phase of the conflict over Kashmir--which has
its historical roots in the colonization of the region by
the British--was ostensibly sparked by a May 14 attack
against an Indian army base in Jammu that left 30 people
dead. A standoff between India and Pakistan ensued with a
grave threat of nuclear attack that imperiled the region and
alarmed the world.
Because a war between India and Pakistan would mean major
complications for their imperialist adventure in nearby
Afghanistan, Washington and its junior partner in London
moved swiftly to control the situation.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld held private meetings with Indian
Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Pakistani President
Pervez Musharraf in order to offer a "solution" to the
conflict that would serve imperialist aims.
Although tensions along the Line of Control appear to have
eased in the wake of the U.S. diplomatic visits,
progressives in India and Pakistan are not lulled by U.S.
maneuvers in the name of "brokering a peaceful solution" and
plan to keep up their anti-war activities.
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