CAMPAIGN CONDEMNS MASSACRE IN NANDIGRAM
The Campaign for Survival and Dignity joins other people's movements,
human rights groups and progressive political forces in condemning the
massacre that occurred yesterday in Nandigram, West Bengal. Estimates
of the number of those who have died range anywhere from ten to fifty
or more; and the situation is still reportedly tense throughout the
area.
The Campaign condemns this inhuman repression against the protesters of
Nandigram. Reports say that more than 5000 police were sent into the
area yesterday in the face of a two month old blockade by the local
protest committee. Claims are being made by the West Bengal government
and leaders of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) that the
'violence' was the result of actions by 'Maoists', but such claims ring
hollow and echo the standard excuses used by governments across India
when their police forces indulge in repression. Notwithstanding efforts
to reduce this to a party battle between the CPI(M) and the Trinamool
Congress, the real nature of the Nandigram conflict should not be
forgotten; it was and is essentially about the seizure of land for a
Special Economic Zone, and the resistance to this project.
But the Left Front government has opted for massacre instead of
dialogue, and for a bloodbath instead of democracy. This is an atrocity
against both the people of the area and Left politics itself.
Hence we demand that:
- the West Bengal government withdraw the police from Nandigram and
release all those arrested immediately;
- the officials responsible for the firing and the political
leaders who supported the violence be prosecuted for murder;
- the West Bengal government immediately halt large scale diversion
and acquisition of land for SEZ's and industrial projects and hold
negotiations with the people's groups opposing these plans.
It is a tragedy that Nandigram, an old bastion of the struggle for
land, should be the theatre of a bloodbath. But the Nandigram clash is
no isolated incident. It is a part of a groundswell of popular anger
and resistance against SEZ's and neoliberal policies across every
corner of this country. It is time that the ruling class reads the
writing on the wall and withdraws from its efforts to sell our
resources and our people's rights in the name of "economic growth." No
amount of sophistry can disguise what happened in Nandigram yesterday;
and no amount of reasoning can justify it.
On behalf of the Convening Collective
15.03.07