Actions in India and the Philippines

I’m not sure whether the following reports are ‘ideologically acceptable’ but over the last year there has been a rash of direct action attacks against corporations and in defence of the environment and the indigenous peoples that live there, undertaken by Maoist forces in both India and the Philippines.

I’m not sure whether the following reports are ‘ideologically acceptable’ but over the last year there has been a rash of direct action attacks against corporations and in defence of the environment and the indigenous peoples that live there, undertaken by Maoist forces in both India and the Philippines. The following reports and communiques are taken from a variety of web-sites (supportive and hostile).

India

1. Naxals attack in Gadchiroli [December 2007]

CHANDRAPUR: Naxalites set ablaze three vehicles – two tippers and a truck – of a contractor on Wednesday evening. The incident took place near Haldwahi Tola village in Chamorshi tehsil of Gadchiroli district, said the police.

According to sources, the Naxals came to the village and after identifying the vehicles of the construction company – Sainath Constructions – set those ablaze. The Naxalites then disappeared into the jungle.

Sanjay Latkar, SDPO of Chamorshi division, said, “The Naxals have burnt the three vehicles owned by Raju Biyani, director of Sainath Constructions on Wednesday evening.”

(http://maoistresistance.blogspot.com/2007/12/naxals-attack-in-gadchiroli.html)

2. Maoists attack Essar Steel plant in Chhattisgarh

Raipur, Apr 25 [2008]: About 300 heavily armed Maoists on Friday attacked an iron ore beneficiation plant of Essar Steel in Chhattisgarh, and set 53 trucks and three heavy machines on fire, a senior police officer said.
The attack was carried out near Kirandul in the state’s Dantewada District where the insurgents have been running a de-facto administration for years.
“Armed rebels attacked Essar Steel’s iron ore facility and created havoc for hours, by setting at least 53 trucks and three heavy machines on fire, in a raid that ended in the early hours of Friday,” R. K. Vij, Inspector General of Police of Bastar range, told media.
The plant supplies high quality iron ore from its 8 million tonne per annum (MTPA) unit to the pellet plant at Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh.
According to police, rebels overpowered a few employees working in the plant during night shift and then sprayed diesel on vehicles and set them on fire.
The rebels later slipped into the nearby forest. The rebels left pamphlets at the attack site saying their act was to protest transportation of local rare natural resource iron ore to outside the state and the country.
Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi is on a four-day visit to tribal pockets in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

(http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/business/maoists-attack-essar-steel-plant-in-chhattisgarh-2_10042081.html)

3. In September 2008 a photo essay about the anti-Maoist militia the Salwa Judum appeared on the Internet. Part of the essay read as follows:

The conflict sits on top of one of the most valuable iron mines in Asia [in Bacheli, Chhattisgarh]….. Some people allege that Salwa Judum only exists to free up land for mining contracts, and is not really a fight against communism.

[A] massive steam shovel was attacked by Naxals a month before I arrived. Naxals target mining infrastructure because they say local people don’t reap any benefit from the multi-billion dollar industry. (Unfortunately the damage was temporary and the machine has been repaired)

Christopher Kindo is the Deputy Director of Mining in Chhattisgarh. he says that he doesn’t understand why Naxals keep attacking his equipment. (Aaahhh …. the innocence dripping from his face could melt anyone’s heart)

The mining machinery in Chhattisgarh comes from an American company and sells for half a million dollars per truck. [A] massive load puller can hold several tons of top grade iron which eventually ends up in building projects across India and Japan. The mines are a central target of Naxal militants.

(http://naxalrevolution.blogspot.com/2008/09/salwa-judum-photo-essay.html)

4. Naxalites set eight vehicles on fire

Sunday November 30 2008

Raipur (PTI): Eight vehicles were set on fire in two separate incidents by suspected Naxalites in Dantewada and Bijapur district, police said today.

Naxalites stopped the road construction work between Kamalur and Kundeli in Dantewada district and set three tippers, two dozers, a pokelene machine and a trailer on fire late last night, police said.

In another incident, about three dozen Naxalites led by Ursa Bodhra, a hardcore Naxalite, set a vehicle on fire for allegedly carrying supplies meant for security forces at Gangalur region of Bijapur last night….

http://naxalwatch.blogspot.com/2008/11/naxalites-set-eight-vehicles-on-fire.html
Philippines

5. communique published by the New Peoples Army, republished on the website of the Negros Chronicle

….September 15, 2008
The NPA Mt. Talinis Front Command based in southeast Negros island implemented last September 9 a directive from the Provisional Revolutionary Government to punish the Tamlang Valley Agricultural Development Corporation (TVADC) for promoting and planting jathropa and cassava in the said area.
According to Ka Dom Pantaleon, spokesperson of the NPA Mt. Talinis Front Command, Red fighters seized and immediately burned three tractors owned by the TVADC late Tuesday night in Sitio Cuadra, Barangay Mantikil, Siaton town in Oriental Negros.
The punitive action was implemented after it was proven that the year-old TVADC project has gravely dislocated the planting of the traditional corn, rice and other food crops in Tamlang Valley, he said.
Lands previously used by farmers for own-consumption food production were now forcibly used for bio-fuel purposes, and a succession of Army battalions were employed to actively harass and dupe farmers to plant jathropa and cassava, he added……

(http://www.negroschronicle.com/?p=379)

6. Red Army’s anti-biofuels campaign continues
October 28, 2008

The NPA will implement more preventive measure against private agri-business corporations like the Tamlang Valley Agricultural Development Corporation (TVADC) for worsening the food supply problem and causing numerous military abuses in southeast Negros.
Thus said Ka Dom Pantaleon, spokesperson of the NPA Pulang Mt. Talinis Front Command, as he announced yet another punitive action against the TVADC biofuels company mainly based in barangay Casalaan, Siaton, Oriental Negros.
In a press release, Pantaleon said the countryside-based people’s democratic government ordered an NPA team last October 3 to confiscate and burn two TVADC-owned tractors in sityo Tamlang, barangay Talalak, in Sta. Catalina town. No one was harmed in the incident, he added.
It was the second such operation in as many months by the Red army to protect upland peasants from the intrusive and harmful biofuels company co-owned by the family of ex-Congressman Herminio Teves and their Korean business partners….
Pantaleon revealed that the NPA will continue implementing similar orders for punitive actions from the countryside-based people’s democratic government that are meant to block the widespread growing of jathropa and cassava in and around the vast Sta. Catalina-Siaton-Valencia-Pamplona border barangays of Oriental Negros known as Tamlang Valley.
More importantly, it will impose armed punitive actions against the 302nd Brigade for providing protection and even colluding with TVADC in forcing ordinary farmers to plant jatrhopa and cassava, instead of their traditional food crops like upland rice and corn, he added.
The NPA spokesperson said the mercenary AFP has become the biofuels campaign’s most visible “errand boys” for the agri-business company and the Teves family in southeast Negros.
This has resulted to numerous human rights abuses, including the enforced disappearances of ordinary farmers Flaviano Arante and Reynold Yanoc – both residents of barangay Talalak, Sta. Catalina town – who have been missing and feared salvaged since early this year, he added…..

http://www.philippinerevolution.net/cgi-bin/statements/statements.pl?author=npasn;date=081028;language=eng

7. December 23, 2008

[extract]…..The NPA also burned six (6) multi-million heavy equipments of SRMI as punishment for their considerable transgressions against the environment, indigenous Filipinos, workers and people affected by their mining operations.
SRMI is owned by the Amante political family and has wrought environmental destruction to the municipality of Tubay, paid low wages and unjustly treats its workers, disrespects the rights of the indigenous Filipinos to their ancestral lands and deprives them of their ”royalty share”. SMRI’s unquenchable greed is forcibly put over and above the interests of the indigenous Filipinos, small miners and the masses through the hiring of Ret. Col De Lara and establishing a big security force whose members include abusive criminals.

http://www.philippinerevolution.net/cgi-bin/statements/statements.pl?author=ndfnm;date=081223;language=eng