Chengara Land Struggle which completed one year on 4th Aug, 08, is coming to a head. From third of August, the combined Trade Unions supported by Harrison Malayalam Plantation Management and C P M leadership have started a Resistance Programme. They are blocking all roads to the Chengara area where 25000 odd people are staying. The goonda sanghom which is what Trade Union Leaders Resistance means in effect, not only blocks anybody who tries to visit the area, but also treats the women and children in the most heinous ways. There are incidents where women are abducted and kept in the Estate store and raped. Young people who try to reach shops outside the struggle area are badly beaten up. Several groups who tried to meet the people in Chengara have been either arrested or sent back.
The people in Chengara continue in good spirits. All the same they are in the grip of poverty. Diseases like diarrhoea, jaundice and chickenpox are spreading fast. The situation is precarious.
On top of it all, the combined trade unions have warned that they will take a Rally into Chengara on 3rd September 2008. This seems to be the scheme hatched out by the C P M to drive out the Dalits and Adivasis. While this anti-dalit, anti-adivasi stance of C P M leadership is taking satanic posture, the party was holding`` SC/ST Development Convention’’ on 16th of August 2008 in Kochi claiming that the caste struggle in very much a constituent of class struggle and the Party’s programme.
The threat of combined attack on the Dalits and Adivasis in Chengara is in the air. Poverty and diseases are tightening their stranglehold on the people there .The determination and resoluteness on the part of the community there in the form of preparedness to fight by offering their lives is very much before our eyes. But the brute power of the state is getting ready to demolish that spirit by massacring them. This is the struggle People’s Movements have to be ready for.
Many groups especially youth groups are coming forward offering full support. This gives us hope.
Take on the struggle. The Chengara Land Struggle Solidarity Group
Thiruvalla
18.08.08
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