People's Voice December 1-31, 2008

The Spark!

Theoretical and Discussion Bulletin of the Communist Party of Canada

The Spark!

The latest issue of The Spark! theoretical journal, is now on sale for $5 at Communist Party offices (see p. 8) or People’s Co-op Books, 1391 Commercial Drive, Vancouver.

Articles include

“Introduction to a General Theory of Culture” (Barry Lord);

“Political & Economic Realities Behind Colombian Labour Relations” (Sacouman, Moore & Brittain);

“Treaty Process & Indian Nationalism” (Ray Bobb);

“Lenin: Heritage of the Socialist Market Economy” (C.J. Atkins);

“Nature of the State Under Bush & Harper” (Stephen Von Sychowski);

plus reviews, editorials, and more.

People's Voice deadlines:
JANUARY 16-31
Thursday, January 8
FEBRUARY 1-15
Thursday, January 22
Send submissions to PV Editorial Office,
706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, V5L 3J1, pvoice@telus.net

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People's Voice finds many "Global Class Struggle" reports at the "Labour Start" website, http://www.labourstart.org. We urge our readers to check it out!

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1) DUMP THE HARPER TORIES NOW!
Fight for New Policies that Put People First!

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2) B.C. FEDERATION DELEGATES SHIFT TO THE LEFT

(The following article is from the December 1-31, 2008, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)

B.C. Labour Committee, Communist Party of Canada

The B.C. Federation of Labour (BCFED) held its 52nd Convention in Vancouver from November 24-28, on the theme "Organizing to Win". This Convention marked a significant shift to the left for the Federation. It is urgently important that we assess these changes and what this means for the trade union movement.

     The Convention was held while the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression is sweeping the capitalist world and the working class here in Canada and across the globe is suffering the brunt of the fallout from this crisis. It was held while the trade union movement internationally faces the all-out attack of capitalism. It was held at a time when the people of Canada and of the world are facing the threat of fascism and ever expanding war.

It would appear that these devastating conditions, taken with the hard work of left trade unionists including Communists, have begun to generate a higher level of class consciousness within the trade union movement.

     At this Convention it was not only the Communist Party who condemned the capitalist system. It was brother Jim Sinclair when he talked about how the free market system has failed, how we need to stop talking about how to fix it and start talking about how to replace it. It was brother Dave Coles when he spoke in favour of nationalization, stating that the capitalists had failed. It was Stephen Lewis who spoke about the horrors of the capitalist system and called for "democratic socialism" which, by his description, sounded significantly different and more advanced from the social democracy espoused by the current New Democratic Party (NDP) leadership.

     While the mainstream of the debate still falls within the scope of social democracy this has also begun to clear the way for broader and deeper debate than seen in recent decades. It has put questions of nationalization and of capitalism vs. socialism on the table.

     This shift came as a surprise to the right wing, the labour aristocracy. Before the start of the convention it was predicted by many that a challenger to the right of Brother Sinclair would attempt to unseat his Presidency. This never materialized. Perhaps it was only rumour from the start. Or perhaps a challenger in viewing the mood on the Convention floor realized that the political cost of challenging from the right and losing was too great a risk.

     Before the start of Convention it was widely predicted that the bi-annual Policy Convention would be eliminated. While the BCFED officers almost unanimously stood in favour of this move, the Convention floor voted close to 2/3 opposed to the idea, far from the 2/3 in favour needed to pass. This was a major victory for union democracy which secured the right, for two more years at least, for the rank and file of the labour movement to democratically choose the policy and direction of their Federation.   There was also no advance indication that such progressive policies as the nationalization of the oil industry or solidarity with Venezuela's Bolivarian Socialist Revolution, or support for the War Resisters campaign would come to the floor. But they did and all were supported unanimously or close to it. The level of unity on the floor around these questions points to a situation where the rank and file delegates are increasingly trying to lead, or push, the actual Federation leadership into action.

     Unfortunately, Thursday's speech by B.C. NDP leader Carole James missed the mark and landed far to the right of much of the over-all Convention discussion. It was entirely based on the repetitive listing off of the evils of Gordon Campbell's Liberals, but made no hint of an attempt to link these evils to the capitalist system. It also made no mention of the role of the labour movement or the work it has done and will do, with the exception of going to vote for the NDP come election time. It is clear that to James, the labour movement is merely a large pool of potential NDP votes rather than an important movement in and of itself. While James' speech brought on thunderous applause as usual there was a higher than usual number of delegates who stayed in their seats throughout much of the speech and many dissatisfied comments could be heard from delegates afterwards. The NDP's rightward shift may soon come into serious conflict with the politics and values of the labour movement at the rank and file level if not at the leadership level.

     It is also worth noting that this Convention saw a concerted effort by many of the affiliates to increase the number of young worker delegates. This was a big success with almost 90 young workers. This was over twice as many as the previous year and made up nearly 10% of the Convention. On the whole, these young workers seemed to form a relatively progressive, militant and democratic minded segment of the Convention delegates.

     On the second to last day of the Convention it was announced that the Harper government was planning to enact legislation which would eliminate the right to strike for public sector workers, roll back negotiated wage increases and thereby attack the very right of working people to form a union and bargain collectively. This was among other absurd policies which he claimed would help the economy out of crisis. The Convention floor erupted with outrage.

     An emergency resolution was brought to the floor calling on the opposition parties to form a coalition government in order to oust the Harper Conservatives. This resolution passed nearly unanimously.

     The Communists supported the resolution tactically because the alternatives would be accepting Harper's drive towards fascism, or a new election which could lead to a Harper majority under the current conditions. However the resolution was missing something important. It was missing what the Federation would do if the opposition parties failed to form a coalition. What action would we take to protect the rights of workers?

     It was on this point that we Communists spent the rest of the Convention organizing. A statement was issued and work was done to try to help bring a new emergency resolution on this to the floor. Unfortunately this led to a clear expression of the iron grip of the right on the labour movement. The resolution was suppressed and discussion of the issue shut down by the chair. Another resolution on a windfall profit tax on oil companies was printed and distributed but then mysteriously disappeared from the day's agenda. And an important resolution from the Kamloops and District Labour Council, calling to open the discussion on capitalism vs. socialism, may have passed, but never made it to the floor.

     Meanwhile the final day of Convention was filled with resolutions which, although important, all pale in comparison to the importance of the labour movement developing a fight back program against Harper's assault on our basic and fundamental rights. Instead this crisis was simply deemed a matter of "political action" and was therefore handed off to the New Democratic Party. As a result the only defense that the labour movement in B.C. will have against this attack in the event of the opposition parties failing to form a coalition will be whatever plan of action is decided by the Executive. An item of such historical importance deserves the input of the rank and file at Convention. Instead the remaining items were referred to the Executive of the Federation without direction, thus closing the official debate on these issues within the BCFED until next year. This points to the fact that the left forces at Convention missed out on a huge opportunity to build their ranks, organize around key resolutions and possibly raise a challenge to some of the more right wing leaders within the Federation. This is because no Action Caucus was organized to unite these forces so that they could work collectively to achieve these goals. This should be on the mind of every left wing trade unionist between now and the next Convention. We cannot expect the change we know the movement needs to come from the sky; it is up to us all to achieve it together.

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3) PSAC STRIKE AT CANADA POST

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4) VISION-COPE VICTORY RAISES HOPES IN VANCOUVER

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5) WHAT'S THE STORY ABOUT YOUTH APATHY?

(The following article is from the December 1-31, 2008, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)

By Johan Boyden, Toronto

For young people, the 2008 federal election could have been a critical arena of struggle to curb the vicious neo-liberal offensive of the Harper Conservatives. However, many young people did not respond by voting. In fact, in an election with the lowest voter turn-out in Canadian history at less than sixty percent, fewer youth appear to have cast a ballot than ever before. Over a million youth in Canada didn't vote.

     Is this really about youth apathy, or the disinterest of the big parties to engage youth in the issues? Does the omission of youth issues from the discourse of the big business parties have an ideological goal, to disengage youth from the process?

     It is worth noting that many youth were effectively administratively disenfranchised. Voter enumeration is no longer done before elections (surveys suggest that not knowing where and how to vote is the main reason youth don't vote). New regulations on I.D. meant students living away from home, young workers who have recently moved, renters who don't pay utility bills, and youth without drivers license or passport identification could not register at the polls.

     CBC, for example, reported that two-thirds of Dalhousie students in Halifax were turned away from polling stations and could not vote, as were people from oppressed Aboriginal communities in the north, like Nunavut.

     Some claim the low youth vote echoes youth cynicism towards parliament as an arena of struggle, and that it may even be positive(!). Certainly, Young Communist League members on the campaign trail heard comments like "voting doesn't matter," or "they're all the same," or even, in response to the Communist demand to elect a large progressive block of MPs, "maybe a coalition government could be just as bad."

     Really? Despite my differences with their generally pro-market policies, I applaud the Green Party for raising the issue of coalition politics in the election, which I overheard discussed in more than one student bar. Of course, the effectiveness of any form of "coalition-ish" government would depend on the composition of the coalition, and especially public pressure. Medicare, federally legislated under a Liberal minority with the NDP holding the balance of power, comes to mind.

     Municipally, Canada has seen left-wing labour-community formations including Communists and socialists, like COPE in Vancouver. Allende's Chile was a coalition including Communists, as are many of Latin American's contemporary anti-imperialist governments. Those coalitions reflect militant struggle on the streets, campuses, and workplaces. A powerful and broad People's Coalition on the streets could germinate a parliamentary expression, and move Canada in a fundamentally new direction.

     This is a serious issue for anyone who seeks a better world, and asks what might create revolutionary conditions that would open a path to socialism. It's serious for anyone who wants to defeat Harper and the corporate agenda, because we are not going to see the resistance come from parliament or by electing the Liberals; it will come from the broad people's struggle.

     Given that youth can be a radical and dynamic force for change, nobody should celebrate the lower youth vote. Not voting essentially votes for the incumbent. Youth should vote for the candidate who most closely represents their class interest. In fact, had youth voted en-masse, it would be unlikely that Harper's Conservatives would be returning to power with 16 new seats and less than a two percent increase in their popular vote.

     Even though Student Vote had more private schools participating than ever before, and voted for a (very weak) Harper minority, it still gave the NDP 66 seats, and the Greens 25 percent of the popular vote. That's a good argument for lowering the voting age to 16. The Communists received, on average, five percent.

     Still, if youth are now ideologically cynical towards elections, what then of the Obama phenomenon? Rather, isn't the low youth vote a reflection of the failure of the mainstream parties to put forward real alternatives for young people's concerns? And what confidence should youth have in our voting system, which desperately needs some form of proportional representation - or even the entire capitalist system, which today offers a bleak future of debt and financial crisis?

     To be sure, the corporate media's election debates included many "youth issues" - youth crime, the arts, and climate change. Just before the election, Conservative MPs issued a taxpayer-funded flyer demanding police "get tough" against "young thugs" which would increase the already disproportionate numbers of youth of colour and Aboriginal youth in jail.

     When announced, the platform plank to lower the Young Offenders Act to age fourteen drew widespread public anger. The Bloc correctly pointed out that jails were "a university of crime." In his acceptance speech, Harper refrained from mentioning this proposal in French. The warm sweater was swept away exposing the Harper Conservatives' dangerous anti-people agenda, and raising tactical problems for the right-wing. (I expect this proposal will now temporarily disappear into the dark crypt where Tory policy wonks live in vampire's coffins.)

     Still, the large opposition parties did not project a real alternative. The NDP were relatively quiet about creating good quality jobs for youth, despite today's manufacturing jobs crisis. Their proposal for raising the minimum wage was below the poverty line. What about police racial profiling? And how seriously can we take their demand for tuition reductions when they are increasing fees in Manitoba?

     I challenge any party to go ahead and steal this idea: abolish tuition fees. This is exactly the type of issue that would engage young people. Our reality is that youth unemployment is rising, young workers' earnings are falling, and murders of Aboriginal youth and youth of colour at the hands of the police are becoming a common occurrence across Canada.

     Take Alwy Al-Nadhir, a young high-school student, shot last Halloween at age 18 by the Toronto Police. Or Michael Langan, a 17-year-old Métis who died shortly after being tasered in Winnipeg by police this July. Or African-Canadian Freddy Villanueva in Montreal, shot by police this August (the Ligue de la jeunesse communiste du Québec has prepared a music video of a recent demonstration against police brutality, at http://www.Youtube.com/ycltube).

     Did you hear their names mentioned during the TV debates? Who is apathetic here?

     Harper's criticisms of the arts also explosively exposed their anti-people agenda. However, funding for physical culture, especially women's sports, and emerging young artists was largely absent from the debate that followed. Likewise, only market-based solutions were presented on global warming.

     In short, the scope of proposals by the big parties on youth issues was superficial and narrow. On many issues important for young people - military recruitment on campuses, two-tier contracts, or access to education - the corporate media silence was, generally, not broken.

     Here is a big challenge for all progressive youth and student forces: to break that media black-out, confront the failures of the corporate parties to speak to youth, and unite young people behind a fighting agenda - all the more urgent, necessary and possible given today's systemic crisis of capitalism.

     (Johan Boyden is the General Secretary of the Young Communist League of Canada. The next issue of PV will carry an assessment of the economic crisis, and its implications for youth and students.)

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6) THERE IS AN ALTERNATIVE

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7) A WRONG APPROACH

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8) SAVE JOBS - BUILD A CANADIAN CAR INDUSTRY NOW!

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9) EQUALIZATION BATTLE PART OF RESISTING TORY AGENDA

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10) CUPE 3903: ON THE PICKET LINE FOR JOB SECURITY AND ANTI-POVERTY WAGES

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11) REPORT FROM SAO PAULO

(The following article is from the December 1-31, 2008, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)

People's Voice editor Kimball Cariou attended the recent 10th Conference of Communist and Workers' Parties on behalf of the Communist Party of Canada. Originally held in Athens by the Communist Party of Greece, and then in Portugal and Belorussia the last two years, this year's conference was hosted in Sao Paulo by the Communist Party of Brazil. These annual meetings are important opportunities for the Parties to exchange views and to build unity in action. Here is Comrade Cariou's report.

Travelling to Sao Paulo was certainly an eye-opening experience. Flying over the Amazon rain forest, one can see vast areas being opened for cultivation, a process full of contradictory results for the people of Brazil and for the planet. Then the descent into Guarulhos International Airport brings a sudden change from green forests and croplands to a densely-packed city of high rises, with over thirty million people in the wider region.

     At the airport, our hosts from the Partido Comunista do Brazil (PCdoB) were busy finding representatives of the 65 parties which came to Sao Paulo. Stopping first for coffee at an airport kiosk, the comrades who welcomed me quickly launched into a heated debate - about the merits of various Brazilian soccer teams!

     From there, it was a one-hour drive to the downtown Novotel Jaragua hotel where the conference took place. Along the route, the PCdoB comrades filled me in on everything from attempts to improve the lives of street vendors to the different fuels used by passing vehicles.

     One interesting sight was a nearly-finished but abandoned high rise, perhaps ten stories tall. An organization of poor people which the PCdoB supports is campaigning to pressure civic authorities to turn the building over to house the homeless. Despite some bureaucratic resistance, the comrades were optimistic that the campaign would succeed.

     That story was typical of Brazil today, a country with a broad left alliance government led since 2002 by President Lula da Silva of the Workers' Party. Three other left parties are in the government: the PCdoB, the Democratic Labour Party (PDT), and the Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB). While the political left is far larger than in Canada, it remains a minority within Brazil, and Lula's coalition also includes centrist parties. The result is a government focused on strengthening regional economic cooperation and independence from U.S. domination. But it is not a socialist government, despite many policies which aim to improve the lives of working people and the poor.

     Some of these complexities were the topic of a meeting on my first evening, at the nearby six-story building of the PCdoB's Central Committee. There I met with a member of the party's executive, for a discussion on Brazilian politics.

     The PCdoB, he explained, is one of the few Brazilian parties with a coherent, country-wide ideological stance. With some 200,000 members, the party plays a major role in the labour movement, on campuses, and among homeless organizations. Inside the government, the PCdoB struggles for more progressive macroeconomic policies to assist the poor, for regional integration and national sovereignty, and for strengthening democratic rights and freedoms.

     The left bloc of four federal parties also functions at the state and municipal levels, with some exceptions. The four parties cooperate in Sao Paulo, for example, while in Rio de Janeiro, they are divided. In the recent municipal elections across the country, the PCdoB elected 44 mayors as part of left coalitions, and 608 councillors.

     November 20, my first full day in Sao Paulo, was also a unique holiday, Black Awareness Day, marking 120 years since the 1888 abolition of slavery in Brazil and the modern struggle for equality. Many of us joined the PCdoB contingent in a march of perhaps 20,000 people through the streets near our hotel.

     The Conference opened the next morning, with a message from President Lula: "Dear comrades - This is not a protocol gesture, but an act of recognition of your role in the fight to defend the interests of the working class and poor people, and your efforts in the construction of a new international economic order world-wide..."

     Lula's greeting was followed by Renato Rabelo, President of the PCdoB, who launched into an examination of the deepening global crisis of capitalism and the collapse of the neoliberal economic model. The election of Barack Obama, he said, reflects the objective reality of crisis trends in the United States, and the defeat of the genocidal, warmongering policies of George W. Bush. But there should be no illusions about the difficult process of winning real changes in U.S. policies, he warned, a view echoed by many other parties. The PCdoB, comrade Rabelo went on to note, stands for "the developing and upgrading of revolutionary thinking to our times", based on using the most positive lessons of socialism of the 20th century to achieve a society free from capitalist exploitation and oppression.

     The participating parties each had ten minutes to present papers, dealing with a wide range of the issues faced by the revolutionary forces today.

     Going in Portuguese alphabetical order, the Communist Party of South Africa was first to speak, represented by Politbureau member Chris Matlhako. "The myth of the free market has exploded," he said, "bankers and speculators have become the least popular people on the planet." In the long run, he warned, "the current crisis of financialized global capitalism must surely become a rallying cry to redouble our efforts to end a system in which the lives and destinies of the working people and the poor across the world are held hostage to a handful of unaccountable speculators on Wall Street."

     Over the next two days, more than sixty parties spoke, revealing a pattern of strong agreement on certain key ideas.

     There was unanimity that the economic downturn will be worse and more prolonged than most bourgeois analysts and politicians are willing to admit, at least in public. The recent stock market crashes, all agreed, reflect a much deeper structural capitalist crisis, not just another "boom-bust" recession. The symptoms of this crisis include tremendous relative over-production, declining international demand and trade, growing unemployment, astronomical levels of household and national debts, and a worsening threat of environmental collapse.

     There was also a consensus that while wide-ranging measures to protect the living standards of the working class are urgently necessary, "Keynesian" strategies of economic stimulation will not resolve the crisis. By seeking to put the burden of "bailouts" on the working people in order to protect their profits, the ruling classes of the imperialist countries are in fact creating the potential for an even more serious economic catastrophe.

     This situation, the parties agreed, is also an ideological crisis for capitalism, deprived of its powerful arguments for the so-called "free market." This opens up new possibilities for advances by the communist and workers' parties and other left forces, as working people search for progressive solutions. Perhaps most significant, socialism is emerging again as the only real alternative to capitalist devastation; already the ideas of socialism are gaining lost ground in many parts of the world, especially in Latin America.

     (The presentations of the various parties and the conclusions of the Conference are being posted on websites such as Solidnet, http://www.solidnet.org, and the PCdoB's site, http://www.vermelho.org.bc. On the next page are the Declaration adopted by the Conference, and excerpts from the Communist Party of Canada's presentation.)

     But there was more to the event than listening to speeches. I was able to exchange experiences and ideas with a wide range of delegates, such as Madhev Nepal, the former leader of the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist). Last spring, the CPN(UML) finished third in the country's first fully democratic election, receiving 21% of the total vote, behind the 30% won by the CPN (Maoist) party and 22% for the pro-capitalist Nepali Congress party. But with nearly 60% of the total vote and a strong majority in parliament, the various revolutionary and communist parties in Nepal are now in power. The corrupt and dictatorial monarchy has been abolished, and the new coalition government is working to eradicate the legacy of feudal economic relations.

     Over meals and drinks, I met leading comrades from the parties of Russia, Paraguay, Palestine, Denmark, Ireland, Great Britain, the USA, Greece, and other countries. The smaller parties face many of the same difficulties and challenges as the Communist Party of Canada, but share the same experience of a recent upsurge in public support for radical economic change and even for the perspective of socialism.

     One highlight was an evening rally in solidarity with the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean, held in a venue owned by the Sao Paulo union of bank workers. Some two thousand people jammed in, mostly members of the PCdoB and its youth group, the UJS, waving red flags and chanting slogans. After an opening musical performance, the crowd heard from a series of speakers: leaders of the PCdoB and Brazil's other main left parties; the Cuban ambassador, and representatives of the progressive governments of Bolivia and Paraguay; Chris Matlhako of the SACP; Socorro Gomes, the Brazilian journalist and peace activist who is now president of the World Peace Council; Brazil's Sports Minister, a PCdoB member; representatives of labour and anti-poverty groups.

     For the first time since the early 1990s, the wheel of history is making a decisive turn towards the renewed possibilities of socialism. Across the planet, the Communist and Workers' Parties are becoming stronger and more active, challenging the failed capitalist model. The parties which spoke at Sao Paulo and the people of Brazil are proof, as the South African communists say, that "socialism is the future!"

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12) SAO PAULO PROCLAMATION: SOCIALISM IS THE ALTERNATIVE

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13) "NEW SUPPORT FOR RADICAL IDEAS"

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14) BIG QUESTIONS FOLLOW MUMBAI TERROR STRIKES

(The following article is from the December 1-31, 2008, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)

B. Prasant, PV correspondent in India

Mumbai, November 28 - I tap these lines out in a small shanty-like structure some way off but opposite the Taj hotel, one of the landmarks of south Mumbai. A deathly firefight still rages in one of the sixth floor rooms, smoke billowing out, muffled sounds of grenades repeatedly bursting.

       Late at night on November 26, 40-odd heavily-armed, "commando"-trained terrorists, mostly but not wholly of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin, simultaneously attacked several places: two large multi-storeyed hotels, the Taj and the Oberoi Trident, in the south city, preferred by foreign tourists from the West and the East; Mumbai's crowded VT Railway terminus, near the Taj; Santa Cruz airport up in north-west Mumbai; Cama and GT hospitals in south Mumbai; the Leopold restaurant, opposite VT terminus, another favourite haunt of foreign tourists; Nariman Point building, another skyscraper that houses the HQ of a branch of the Hasidic sect; two petrol pumps near the Nariman Point; and a large stretch of urban area abutting the two hotels.

     There is still a lone gunfighter putting up a fierce resistance and even counterattack in the maze of corridors, rooms and annexes of the Taj. The fourth and the sixth floors are aflame - we feel the heat even 1000 metres away.

     What was the modus operandi? Two clean-shaven blue jeans/white shirt youth, each carrying a large tote bag, entered the VT terminus, took out US-built MI6s and sprayed bullets around, then leapt out onto the street and commandeered a Police SUV cruiser. They knew the area well; as one drove around, the other took single shots at pedestrians. Then the duo disappeared.

     The Santa Cruz airport episode was a mere tip of the iceberg that was to follow. Four men burst shells from slide-action shot guns, thrust past the dying security guards, shot at the panicky passengers in the lounge, and left. We do not know how they later joined up with the base at the Taj.

     The real massacre started at the Leopold. Carrying UZI sub-machine guns, four youth clad in denim jackets, blue jeans, sneakers, two of them curiously carrying Hindu religious symbols slung around their right wrists, targeted foreigners enjoying their late evening drink following dinner. A quick deathly spray of bullets, five stun grenades and four grenades tossed in - and they vanished into the by now howling and panic-ridden south city, leaving behind the dead and wounded.

     Another group of five or six broke into the main elevator of the Nariman Point building, wearing full body armour, thick protective headgear, gloves and jackboots. Bursts of automatic rifles followed, and a tragedy unfolded. They quickly identified the rabbi and his family of nine, shot each one execution fashion, a bullet each into the back of the neck. One body - a woman's - was flung out from the third floor onto the street below.

     The fifth group of three men shot their way into the Trident, went in a very familiar fashion to the service elevator, jumped out at the fifth floor, and then started kicking open doors, asking for people holding UK or US passports. Six foreigners were shot dead. The rest of the guests were locked up from outside of the rooms. At every place the assassins raided, they cut off the cable TV, electricity, and running water. Each group carried a small portable TV.

     The largest group of 15-odd entered the Taj which apparently they wanted to blow up, as another terrorist group ("India-sponsored" had screamed Gen Pervez Musharraf) had blown up the Marriott Hotel in Pakistan some months back. The intruders made for rooms in the fourth and sixth floors, where two "sleeper cells" lay ready with grenade launchers, at least two dozen Kalashnikovs, 200 or more filled-in magazines for the rifles, loose AK 47 and AK 56 shells, 20-odd Browning 9mm pistols, 100-odd loaded clips, large butcher knives with serrated edges, and at least one grenade launcher.

     These men utilised the maze of corridors to shuffle around each floor, hunt people with British and US passports, and just shot them, no word spoken. Then they split up, visited the seven lobbies of the seven middle floors, started to spray bullets, and then went into the kitchens with their message of death. Hundreds died at the Taj. At last count, the deflated official figures be darned, no less than 40-odd foreigners died cruelly at the Taj hotel.

     By the morning of November 27, the administration, prodded by the irate people of Mumbai, started to react. The first police contingent, sent in perhaps as cannon fodder, were simply cut down without getting in a single shot. Then the commandos started to descend - 2500 of them to tackle the 40-odd highly motivated and trained assassins. The various commando groups, among whom cooperation was conspicuous only by its absence, belonged to the Army, the Navy, and the anti-terrorist squad.

     Fierce gun battles commenced at all points. The conflict zones resembled vast balls of fire and reverberated with thunderous noise shocks as grenades were lobbed back and forth. Glass shards lay a foot thick in front of the place where I was holed up with an Indian TV crew. The commando leaders, never lacking misplaced braggadocio, soon started to brief the TV, giving out their positions as well as their plans, even speaking of the "great dedication, high motivation, and superb training" of the assassins, making the latter happy as well as aware of the police moves.

     Finally, after 18 hours of intense firefight, the terrorists either fell or made good their escape. Among the last to die was a young man at the Taj who blew himself up in a sight too horrendous to describe near one of the windows overlooking the street.

     The Indian commandos took a bad hit. We could see how the element of surprise lay with the killers, who were supposed to be first-timers in India, if one believed the official TV and radio channels, and the politicians of various shades.

     A set of questions remain after the last bullet has been fired and the last mortal remains of those slain taken away.

     Did the cache of arms, ammunitions, survival food rations, clothing, body armours, medicines and bottles of water precede the arrival of the killers, and if so, then why and how?

     Who came in the small boat found floating around the Mumbai dock area with a headless body and a smashed-in sat-phone that had been used to call up various cities and town in India?

     Why was the media allowed to depict with great detail every move of the Indian commandos throughout the operation, including the rappelling down onto the rooftop of the Nariman Point building? After seeing the repeated shots of this on their portable TV sets, the assassins hastened to kill the rabbi and his family.

     Why does the Congress-run government specifically dub the terrorists as from Karachi and not from any other place?

     Why was Prime Minister Singh's earlier request to his Pakistani counterpart to send in the chief of the Pakistan's Inter-services Intelligence (ISI) chief first acceded to and then suddenly refused after a mysterious phone call from a foreign embassy to Pakistan prime minister's office?

     Why was commandant Hemant Karkarey of the Mumbai police (who had of late unearthed rich and credible material about the involvement of a section of Hinduised army officers in the recent Malegaon and Modasa blasts) sent in to face the killers at Cama hospital in an armoured vest visibly too large for his size, leaving large parts of his neck and chest exposed, and with a head gear that he had to reject because it was too small? Hemant, a three-decade acquaintance of mine, was a dedicated, much-decorated professional with impeccable secular credentials; he died, shot precisely in the neck and upper chest with three shots from large-calibre MI6 bullets.

     Finally, and this is treading on pretty dangerous ground, the BBC World Service TV kept showing footage of Indian commandos entering and exiting the Nariman Point building while commenting that the men were "Israeli commandos." So, who is right and why?

   One worrying after-thought for the people of the country as a whole - the authorities say that 15 terrorists have been killed and one taken into custody. Where have the rest gone?

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15) WHAT'S LEFT

VANCOUVER, BC

Quinteto Tiempo in Concert, Friday - Dec. 5, 7:30 pm, Peretz Centre, 6184 Ash St., fundraister for Cuban relief and the communities of Bajo Lempa in El Salvador. Presented by the Mangle Association of BC and Vancouver & District Labour Council, tickets $30 from People’s Co-op Books, 1391 Commercial.

Report from Brazil, Sunday - Dec. 7, 1 pm, People’s Voice editor Kimball Cariou reports from the meeting of Communist & Workers’ Parties in Sao Paulo, 604-255-2041 for info.
Open House, at the Centre for Socialist Education - 706 Clark Drive, Sun., Dec. 7, 2:30-5 pm. Music, refreshments, door prizes, 604-254-9836 for details.

West Coast War Resisters benefit - Friday, Dec. 19, 6:30 pm, Unitarian Church, 949. W. 49th Ave.

KELOWNA, BC

Report from Brazil - Tue., Dec. 9, PV editor Kimball Cariou reports on the international meeting of Communist & Workers’ Parties in Sao Paulo, call 250-860-6108 for time & place.

WINNIPEG, MB

Israeli occupation on trial - 2:30 pm, Sun., Dec. 14 with speakers Mark Arnold, legal counsel to Bil’in, Palestian village, and Dr. Mark Etkin, author of Palestine: Occupation, Siege and Mental Health, at Millennium Library, info United Jewish People’s Order 338-3448.

What do we need from the new coalition government? - Thur., Dec 18. Panelists, location and time to be announced. Info: Real Majority Agenda Coalition, 947-9334.

“Red” carpet gala, awards dinner and benefit for Canadian Dimension - Sat, Dec. 20, 6:30 pm, tickets $50, info 957-1519.

TORONTO, ON

Celebrate 50th Anniversary of the Cuban Revolution - New Year’s Eve, Dec. 31, 7:30 pm, live music with Pablo Terry and Sol de Cuba, dinner, dance, midnight wine toast to the independence of Cuba, AUUC Cultural Centre, 1604 Bloor St. West. Tickets $45 in advance, $50 door, ph. Sharon 905-951-8499 or Brien 416-762-5745. Sponsored by Canadian Cuban Friendship Association Toronto, http://www.ccfatoronto.ca.

HOLD THE DATE: Sat., Feb. 28, 290 Danforth Ave., Norman Bethune Day event, media sponsor People's Voice, tickets $5 on sale now, door prize will be a one week all-inclusive trip tor two to Cuba!

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December 1-31, 2008 Volume 16 - Number 21 $1

The Spark!

The Spark!

December 1-31, 2008
Volume 16 - Number 21
$1