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NEPAL: The Prachanda Path Towards Urban Insurrection

Gary Leupp writes: The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) announced yesterday that its guerrilla  forces, the New People's Army, will observe a three-month ceasefire. This is particularly significant in that the move is a unilateral one. The regime might decide to respond in kind, and reign in the Royal Nepali Army, which is reportedly unhappy with the war and the king. But the Maoists, who will defend themselves in any case if attacked, seem less concerned with the government's response than with the reaction of the mainstream political parties sidelined and abused since the king's February 1 coup.

There have been two ceasefires since the People's War began in 1996 -- from June to November  2001 and January to June 2003. But these were declared by both sides, and accompanied by peace talks with the regime. This time, having bested the RNA in at least one recent major battle, the Maoists control about 80% of the country. They already operate as a government (of the People's Republic of Nepal) and from a position of strength have simply announced that they will conduct no offensive actions through November.      

In past peace talks, the Maoists' insisted on the convening of a national assembly to fashion a new constitution as their condition for ending the revolutionary war. They shelved their initial demand for the abolition of the monarchy, but talks deadlocked when the king and the parliamentary parties refused to abandon the current constitution. Persistent conflict between the legal political parties and the king, greatly exacerbated since King Gyanendra seized absolute power, has allowed the Maoists to play the two off against one another. Even before February the Maoists, noting that the parties lacked political clout, demanded direct talks with the king. But after seizing power, declaring martial law and unleashing a wave of terror against his mainstream political rivals, Gyandendra proposed  holding talks with the Maoists only to find them no longer interested. "Gyanendra has pushed the country into darkness -- there is no justification for immediate talks," stated CPN(M) leader Prachanda (Pushpa Kamal Dahal). At the same time, the Maoists offered the parties facilities in liberated zones to  conduct their own organizing efforts against the king. [READ]

Nepal: Maoists Announce Unilateral Ceasefire

A World To Win News Service forwarded this report from supporters of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist): The people’s war in Nepal is undergoing a new twist in its long march to nationwide political power. The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) announced a unilateral ceasefire for three months beginning 3 September. Coupled with the ceasefire, the party has also initiated a programme for mass mobilisations from 10 September to 3 December.

The main item on the agenda is the overthrow of the feudal monarchy and the achievement of a People’s Republic of Nepal.

This programme include three phases. The first phase, from 10 September to 2 October, involves countrywide political propaganda such as putting up wall posters, leafleting, street-corner speeches and cultural performances in favour of the formation of an interim government, the election of a constituent assembly and the establishment of the People’s Republic of Nepal. The second phase, to last another month, will focus on door-to-door visits aimed at informing the Nepalese people about the current political situation and the party’s policies. These public relations efforts will be accompanied by small-scale development projects. The third phase will see bigger and bigger demonstrations at the district and regional levels and the broad arousal of the masses to achieve the agenda put forward by the party. [READ full report]

Hurricane Katrina: Collecting Food, Gathering Rage

By Jed Brandt (from The Indypendent)

The atrocity of New Orleans is what white supremacy looks like. On top of a mountain of black corpses, television demagogues will say that this “isn’t about race.” But the proof is in the pudding, not what’s written on the package.

While the government turned on the overwhelmingly Black victims of Hurricane Katrina as if they were the problem, local residents took food, water and clothing to make it through the floods. They were treated as criminals to be contained, called animals for the very desperation they endured. Wild and unsubstantiated stories of wanton rape echoed old Southern tales of white women in danger, and the black skin of the victims was supposed to blind us to their manifest suffering.

When the Army Corps of Engineers warned that the city’s protective levees couldn’t withstand a severe hurricane, they were ignored. Not one of the politicians making that decision even needed to say why. It’s not about race, just so long as it’s rich white people making decisions about poor black lives. Government incompetence and bureaucratic corruption were hidden behind outlandish exaggerations of attacks on rescue workers as federal officials literally turned away aid and left tens of thousands stranded for days without food, fresh water or toilets at the Superdome. And then, when the troops were finally marshaled, they came “locked and loaded” to menace the survivors. A jail was hastily constructed out of the same Greyhound bus station that failed to evacuate residents with nowhere to go, too poor to own cars. The same troops who leveled Falluja were brought in to  protect property while men and women, old people and children were literally dying in the flooded ghettos.

There are heroes to this story, but they don’t have titles of responsibility and power. In small towns and big cities, everyday people collected food, assembled their cars into impromptu supply convoys and headed down to New Orleans. And a brave few, such as Kanye West, said the plain truth: “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” He didn’t need a cue card to know what he had to say.
The problem is bigger than Bush, even if his smug indifference puts an ugly face to the deeper reality. White supremacy is the creaking spine of America.

It must be said plainly: Black people were brought to this country in chains. They picked the cotton and built the roads. Black women nannied the children of privilege, and endured the subterranean vices of puritan longing. In the aftermath of slavery, African-Americans were turned into share-croppers on the old plantations and wage slaves in the cities. When basic civil rights were wrested from the white power establishment, literally nothing was done to end the systematic economic and social subordination of black people as a people. Welfare and prisons regulated the masses, while about one in five “made it” into the middle class. Black people never got their 40 acres and a mule. Instead of hating poverty, this system taught us to hate the poor – to hate ourselves. To fear.

There is blame to go around. But no shuffling of chairs at the table of power can whitewash this crime. There will be blue-ribbon panels and partisan acrimony, the television buzz will turn bodies in the street into talking points and “policy imperatives,” as surely as the Kerner Commission met a generation ago to dissipate the anger that burned city after city in righteous rage. 

They lied us into war. They manipulate our fears and turn us against each other. There is an us and a them. Let is be said in all clarity that this is not our government. It does not serve us or work for us or care about out lives. It serves only one master whose name is money.

The same people who collected food for the suffering are now gathering rage. Another hurricane is coming, this one made of flesh and blood, and breathing fire.

Indypendent: 'Hurricane Katrina: Gathering Rage'

For the last week and a half, the good volunteers of The Indypendent have been working around the clock to assemble a collection of stories, and plain truth analysis about the atrocity of New Orleans.

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If you feel the importance of this moment and the need to get open-spirited, radical information out into the subways and all five boroughs, free bundles of the Indy will be available for pickup at the Indymedia office in Midtownand drop spots in Brooklyn. Teams will also be travelling down to Washington DC for the September 24 antiwar march.

Some of the Indy's stories will be featured on RedFlags in the coming days, and all will be up on NYC.indymedia.org, Indymedia.us, NoLa.indymedia.org and Houston.indymedia.org

We can make a difference in what this catastrophe means:
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Suheir Hammad: 'A Prayer Band' -- poem on Katrina

SUHEIR performing "A Prayer Band" at the Refugees for Refugees event. (Photo: Tom Martinez)

From Electronic Intifada: A Palestinian-American from Brooklyn, Suheir Hammad has appeared on the HBO show “Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry,” hosted by Mos Def. Her poems have been featured in numerous publications, on the BBC World Service, and National Public Radio.

Hammad recently wrote two poems about Hurricane Katrina and the aftermath. The first reprinted here, "A Prayer Band", was performed at an event organised by Hammad called "Refugees for Refugees" in New York City on September 9th, which raised $5,000 for hurricane relief.

Suheir arrived in Jackson, Mississippi on Sept. 12 to deliver the money personally and help with direct relief efforts.

a prayer band
by Suheir Hammad

every thing

you ever paid for
you ever worked on
you ever received

every thing

you ever gave away
you ever held on to
you ever forgot about

every single thing is one
of every single thing and all
things are gone

every thing i can think to do
to say i feel
is buoyant

every thing is below water
every thing is eroding
every thing is hungry

there is no thing to eat
there is water every where
and there is no thing clean to drink

the children aren’t talking

the nurses have stopped believing
anyone is coming for us

the parish fire chief will never again tell anyone that help is coming

now is the time of rags
now is the indigo of loss
now is the need for cavalry

   new orleans
   i fell in love with your fine ass   poor boys   sweating   frying
   catfish   blackened life   thick women   glossy   seasoning
   bourbon   indians   beads   grit   history of races
   and losers who still won

   new orleans
   i dreamt of living   lush   within your shuttered eyes
   a closet of yellow dresses   a breeze on my neck
   writing poems for do right men and a daughter of refugees

i have known of displacement
and the tides pulling every thing
that could not be carried within
and some of that too

a jamaican man sings
those who can afford to run will run
what about those who can’t
they will have to stay

end of the month tropical depression turned storm

someone whose beloved has drowned
knows what water can do
what water will do to once animated things

a new orleans man pleads
we have to steal from each other to eat
another   gun in hand   says we will protect what we have
what belongs to us

i have known of fleeing desperate
with children on hips in arms on backs
of house keys strung on necks
of water weighed shoes
disintegrated official papers
leases   certificates   births   deaths   taxes

i have known of high ways which lead nowhere
of aches in teeth   in heads   in hands tied

i have known of women raped by strangers   by neighbors
of a hunger in human

i have known of promises to return
to where you come from
but first any bus   going any where

tonight the tigris and the mississippi moan
for each other as sisters
full of unnatural things
flooded with predators and prayers

all language bankrupt

how long before hope begins to eat itself?
how many flags must be waved?
when does a man let go of his wife’s hand in order to hold his child?

who says this is not the america they know?

what america do they know?

were the poor people so poor they could not be seen?

were the black people so many they could not be counted?

this is not a charge
this is a conviction

if death levels us all
then life plays favorites

and life   it seems   is constructed
of budgets   contracts   deployments
of wards and automobiles   of superstition and tourism
and gasoline   but mostly insurance

and insurance   it seems   is only bought
and only with what cannot be carried within
and some of that too

a city of slave bricked streets
a city of chapel rooms
a city of haints

a crescent city

where will the jazz funeral be held?

when will the children talk?

tonight it is the dead
and dying who are left
and those who would rather not
promise themselves they will return

they will be there
after everything is gone
and when the saints come
marching like spring
to save us all

"George Bush Doesn't Care About Black People"

There's a new Kanye West remix making the rounds.