Communist Party of India (Marxist)
Goa State Organizing Committee
Mukund Building, 2nd Floor, F.L.Gomes Road, P.O.Box No. 90, Vasco-da-Gama,
Goa - 403 802.
Date : 24 - 10 - 2008
Press Release
GOA CPI(M) RALLY CALLS FOR STOP TO THE JOINT EXERCISES WITH U.S.
NAVY
Responding to the call of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of
India (Marxist) to express the strong opposition of the people of India to
the Joint India-US Naval Exercises (Malabar '08), by simultaneously holding
protest rallies and demonstrations in all the states along the west coast of
India on 24-10-2008, the Goa State Organizing Committee of the CPI(M) held a
peaceful rally and demonstration at Vasco-da-Gama, Goa, before the Indian
Navy's Goa Area HQ and before the Deputy Collector of Mormugao. About 60
workers, peasants, women and youth participated in the rally which began at
the State Committee office at 3.30 p.m. Led by Dr. Vivek Monteiro (C.C.'s
in-charge for Goa), Thalmann Pereira (State Secretary), and Suresh S Naik
and Naresh K. Shigaonkar (State Secretariat members), the rally first
marched to the gates of INS Gomantak, the Head Quarters of Goa Naval Area
and Naval Aviation, where a Memorandum addressed to the Defence Minister was
presented through the Commanding Officer. The rally then wended its way
through the avenues of Vasco-da-Gama city to the office of the Deputy
Collector where another Memorandum addressed to the Prime Minister was
handed over.
The Memorandums contained the following important points : -
1. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, our first Prime Minister, in line with
India's policy of anti-imperialism and non-alignment was of the firm opinion
that the entire Indian Ocean should be a zone of peace and that U.S.
imperialism should not have even a toe-hold on Indian soil. It was the
intelligence information that Dr. Salazar (the then dictator of Portugal)
was about to give Mormugao Port on long-lease to the U.S.A. for putting up a
naval base here, which prompted Pandit Nehru to swiftly send in the Indian
Armed Forces to liberate Goa on 19-12-1961. Pandit Nehru thereby prevented
the setting up of a U.S. Navy base in the Mormugao Port which would have
been a perennial thorn in the flesh of India. The action of the present
Congress-led U.P.A. Government to permit the very same U.S. Navy to come
into Mormugao Port and also to loiter all along the West Coast of India,
therefore represents a complete and shameful reversal of Pandit Nehru's
progressive position by his very own party.
2. The U.S. Navy which the Government of India now seeks to
welcome into Indian waters, is the same U.S. Navy which so menacingly sailed
into the Bay of Bengal during the Bangladesh war in December 1971, with its
nuclear weapons aimed at the Indian people. Till date, no U.S.
Administration or official has expressed even an iota of regret for that
intended nuclear annihilation of our people.
3. After 1971, in utter disregard of India's efforts to make the
Indian Ocean a nuclear-free zone, the USA set up a base in the Diego Garcia
Islands in the Indian Ocean where nuclear-armed B-52 bombers are kept ready
to strike at any Asian country including India.
4. All overt and covert actions of the U.S. Navy in and around the
Indian Ocean have always been to wage war and shower bombs on defenceless
civilians whether in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq or, as now, in
Pakistan. For all its mighty presence in the region, the U.S. Navy has not
even once offered to help India to protect or free its merchant sailors from
the clutches of pirates off Malaysia or Somalia. Many Goan families have
lost their sons to pirates, while the U.S. Navy looked on.
5. The strategy of the USA is to keep up its naval presence in the
Indian Ocean only to threaten and bully any country that does not agree with
the USA's imperialistic trade and economic interests. There is therefore
absolutely no commonality of interests in maintaining navy-to-navy relations
between India and the USA. On the contrary, maintaining such relations
brings us into conflict with all our neighbours.
6. In 2003, the Indian Parliament voiced a consensus opinion that
no Indian troops would be sent to Iraq and that no port or airport
facilities would be given to US troops on the way to Iraq or returning from
Iraq. However, the present India-US Naval Exercises are a direct violation
of this national consensus, since the US Navy ships involved in the Joint
Exercises are very much part of the on-going US-led war against the innocent
Iraqi people.
7. The decision to have Joint India-US Naval Exercises is contrary
to the Foreign Policy and National Security Policy prescriptions of the
Common Minimum Programme set out in May 2004 as the basis of the present UPA
Government at the centre.
8. The Joint India-US Naval Exercises are thus not backed by the
will of the Indian people and are also against their fundamental interests.
Moreover, they spell an outright and unauthorized departure from our
long-standing Foreign Policy of Anti-Imperialism and Non-Alignment.
9. The proud and rich traditions and reputation of the Indian
Navy, as the armed defender of the Indian people and their sovereignty,
cannot be allowed to be sullied and compromised by a politically
short-sighted decision to force it to co-operate with the tainted U.S. Navy.
The rally was addressed at its culmination by Dr. Vivek Monteiro and
Thalmann Pereira. In his speech, Dr. Monteiro highlighted the glorious role
of the Indian Navy sailors in the RIN Mutiny of 1946 which was supported by
the working class of Mumbai for the freedom of the country from British
colonialism. He warned that just as the Vajpayee Govt. paid the price in May
2004 for its dubious pro-American role, so also the Congress-led UPA Govt.
will pay the price for their folly of trying to hitch on to the American
bandwagon to the complete detriment of the Indian people.
Thalmann Pereira in his speech called upon the people of Goa to remain
steadfast to Pandit Nehru's vision that Mormugao Port shall not be allowed
to harbour any naval vessel of the USA or any other imperialistic power, and
to reject the contrary vision of Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul
Gandhi.
Sd/-
(Thalmann P. Pereira)
Secretary