Asia

The workers of Taunsa Barrage upheld their end of the bargain. They agreed to return to work on the promise that all of their demands would be met within 48 hours. Not only have management not met these demands, they have hired thugs to threaten the workers and PTUDC activists.

The Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign Multan held a meeting yesterday in solidarity with the Airbus workers. Participants were informed about the struggle of Airbus workers in France and other European countries, and discussed the campaign demanding the nationalisation of the company.

Maarten VH, active as a Marxist student in Belgium and now collaborating with the Editorial staff of Marxist.com, went to Pakistan recently and attended the conference of the Marxists of The Struggle. Here he gives some of his impressions about the situation in Pakistan.

A bitter strike has erupted at the Taunsa Barrage in Pakistan, as workers are demanding payment of wage arrears and better working conditions. One worker, whose wife was in hospital delivering a child, was beaten when he asked for payment of his wages to pay for proper medical care. His wife ended up dying in hospital due to lack of funds to pay for care.

On March 14 up to 100 peasants in Nandigram, West Bengal, were brutally massacred by the police as they protested against land-grabbing operations. The leaders of the CPI-M in the local government have justified this action as part of their so-called “development model”. The contradictions between the leaders of the Indian communist movement and the millions of workers who support them are posed here sharply.

On March 31 the Nepalese Maoists joined a coalition government with bourgeois parties. From armed struggle they have gone to ministerial portfolios. Now the masses will be expecting something concrete for themselves, real economic and social improvement. But will this be possible in such a Popular Front coalition?

Jam Saqi, is the former general secretary of the Communist Party of Pakistan. He has joined The Struggle, the Marxist tendency in Pakistan. In this interview he explains how he became active and finally came to understand the limitations of Stalinism. He invites all genuine revolutionary workers and youth on the South Asian subcontinent to join the International Marxist Tendency and struggle for socialist revolution.

The Indonesian ruling class thought they had destroyed Marxism forever when they brutally suppressed the Communist Party of Indonesia in 1965. However, people and organizations are born and die, come and go, but ideas cannot be killed. Just ten years after the overthrow of the Suharto regime and the promise of democracy and prosperity, not much has changed in Indonesia - except that the workers and youth are searching for ideas that can lead to a fundamental transformation of society, the ideas of Marxism.

The lawyers of Pakistan by taking to the streets to oppose an arbitrary act of the dictatorship have demonstrated their desire to fight, and if properly led, they could go far further than the immediate issue, to a genuinely national revolutionary struggle for democracy. Instead of that, all the indications are that the lawyers' movement is beginning to weaken and subside. Why is this?

After the brutal police attack on a peaceful rally in Kashmir on March 8, there were protests across the whole region. In Rawalkot the youth broke through police lines and successfully marched to the District Court. No amount of repression is going to stop the will of the workers and youth to fight for their rights.

A demonstration was called today to protest against the failure of the state’s reconstruction efforts in Azad Kashmir. The demonstration was brutally attacked by police. Several comrades have been injured and arrested.