Hail the heroic raid by PLGA on Silda camp in Paschim Mednipur!

COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MAOIST)

CENTRAL COMMITTEE

Press Release: February 17, 2010

Armed counter-offensive is inevitable to defend the poor from the brutal Operation Green Hunt unleashed by bandits Chidambaram and Buddhadeb!!

On February 15, Maoist guerrillas of the PLGA carried out a daring day-light raid on a camp consisting of 51 Eastern Frontier Rifles personnel at Silda in West Midnapore district of West Bengal and annihilated at least 24 mercenary troops. The entire camp was run over by the heroic PLGA guerrillas accompanied by scores of people’s militia members. A huge cache of sophisticated arms like AK-47s, Insaas and SLRs along with several thousand rounds of ammunition were seized from the enemy forces. The attack came just six days after the Kolkata meeting of murderers from the four states of Jharkhand, Bihar, West Bengal and Orissa convened by Union Home Minister Chidambaram on February 9 to step up joint operations against the Maoists and the adivasi people of the region.

The daring tactical counter-offensive by brave PLGA warriors is a fitting reply to Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram’s countrywide counter-revolutionary armed onslaught against the Maoists in the name of Operation Green Hunt that had taken a heavy toll of innocent adivasi lives in recent months particularly in the states of Chhattisgarh, Orissa, West Bengal and Maharashtra. The khaki mercenaries sent by Chidambaram have created a reign of terror in the adivasi villages murdering, abducting and torturing adivasis; raping adivasi women; destroying their houses and property; burning the foodgrains and stealing hens, pigs, goats etc.; occupying the schools thereby preventing the children from pursuing their studies; harassing petty traders, teachers, doctors, and other employees; blocking the entry of civil rights activists and impartial observers to prevent the truth from flowing out; abducting eye-witnesses to police murders of adivasis; spreading canards and malicious slander against Maoist leaders and those belonging to the democratic and revolutionary mass organizations; and countless other atrocities on unarmed innocent adivasis. These mercenaries deployed by Chidambaram, Raman Singh, Buddhadeb, Naveen Patnaik and others have disturbed peace and created insecurity for the people of the vast adivasi-inhabited region—the so-called Red Corridor. To bring peace to the region there is no other way than to throw out the evil forces that are disrupting peace and creating brutal terror. As long as these forces persist in their brutal attacks on innocent unarmed people, as long as they carry on their counter-revolutionary suppression campaigns such as Green Hunt, the Maoist guerrillas and the oppressed people have no other option but to retaliate as in Silda. The sole responsibility for the death of the EFR jawans in Silda lies with Chidambaram and Buddhadeb who are using them as cannon-fodder in their dirty counter-revolutionary war for the mineral wealth of the adivasi regions. The CC, CPI(Maoist) appeals to the jawans of the state and central paramilitary forces not to become cannon-fodder in this war waged by a tiny parasitic exploiting class against the poor and oppressed people of our country.

Chidambaram began his Operation Green Hunt with the attack on the people's movement in Lalgarh thinking that dominating the area would be a cake walk since the armed Maoists present there were very few in number. He nurtured the fond hope that Lalgarh would serve as a laboratory for his bigger genocidal operations in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa and elsewhere. Chidambaram, like every other fascist dictator in history, believes that brute force can extinguish the fire of revolution. Relying excessively, rather solely, on the numerical strength and capabilities of his mercenary soldiers, the Sonia-Manmohan-Chidambaram gang is trying to crush a just people's rebellion. But what decides the ultimate outcome in the people's war is the role of the people, not weapons or elite anti-Naxal commando forces.

The successful heroic raid at Silda by Maoist guerrillas points to the massive ground swell of support for the Maoists in Jangalmahal region. Buddhadeb and Chidambaram had helped the adivasi masses of the region to grasp the need for overthrowing the repressive state apparatus by means of an armed revolution. Silda raid is a fitting answer to the unprecedented brutal armed offensive by the Indian state on the oppressed and exploited people of our country. It is a counter-offensive aimed at establishing peace in a region disturbed by the khaki mercenaries sent by Chidambaram and Buddhadeb. People are increasingly realising that peace can be established in the region not by mere appeals, peaceful protests, petitions against human rights violations in so-called courts of law, but through armed resistance by the masses themselves. The armed camps set up in the region have become objects of intense hatred and symbols of brutal oppression and suppression of the masses. It is only by wiping out these armed camps of the people's enemies that peace can be established in the region and a sense of security can develop among the people. This is the only real answer to the Operation Green Hunt that is intended to pave the way for the Greed Hunt of the MNCs and comprador big capital.

Today the biggest threats to peace in the country are the reactionary rulers whose policies have led the country into darkness. The anti-people policies of the rulers have created extreme insecurity, misery, starvation, mass suicides, price-rise, unemployment, disease, and what not for the vast majority of the people. But the rulers are bulging forever becoming billionaires and stashing away their filthy black money sucked from the poor into Swiss banks and benami holdings. It is in service of these unscrupulous exploiters and filthy rich that fascists like Chidambaram unleash the worst kinds of atrocities on poor unarmed people.

The horror-filled stories of Dantewada and Bijapur where the police gun down over a score of innocent adivasis every week, where even eye-witnesses to these cold-blooded murders are abducted and threatened by the police goons, where the police have become a law unto themselves, should open the eyes of those who shout against acts of revolutionary counter-violence carried out by Maoist guerrillas. It is time all democratic forces rally in support of the people’s war waged by the Maoists for the liberation of our country from the rapacious clutches of the imperialists and a handful of corporate elites.

Azad,

Spokesperson,

Central committee,

CPI(Maoist)