World Affairs:
Indonesia
Students & Workers are up in Arms
Student protests continued in
Jakarta and other cities braving
the police repression. The protests
began in the middle of September
grew during the last week to
become
largest
student
mobilization in two decades.
Students are opposing the
introduction of new criminal code
by the Parliament and curtailing
the powers of anticorruption body.
The protestors also raised other
issues, including a call for an end
to ‘militarism’ in Papua and West
Papua, amid the brutal army
crackdown in those provinces and
government action to end massive
peat fires that are engulfing cities
with toxic gases.
The government of President
Joko Widodo postponed the vote
on criminal code which contained
many anti-democratic measures
criminalizing various activities and
explicitly
anti-communist
provisions. Even then students
continued protests through to the
first week of October. On 30 th
September, thousands of students
marched towards Parliament
building in Jakarta as that was the
final session of the Parliament
whose term ends in 2019. The
students were stopped by police
barricades and heavily armed
officers. As the students tried to
breach the barricades, hundreds
were injured and several hundreds
were detained. The clashes
continued till that evening and
authorities said 210 were injured
and 519 were detained for
questioning. As usual the govern-
ment branded the protestors as
‘rioters’ who conspired to disrupt the
Parliament proceedings.
As the talks with Widodo failed,
the Confederation of Indonesian
Trade Unions announced sto-
ppage of work from first October.
6
The union stated that it will mobilize
upto 50,000 workers outside the
Parliament and 1,00,000 across
the archipelago.
The action of unions has been
called in opposition to industrial
laws, which repressed wages and
led to the victimization of workers
seeking to fight for their social and
democratic rights.
President Widodo imposed
many pro-business policies
including tweaking the anti-
corruption body to make it
ineffective, privatization of water
supply, removing of the regulations
over corporate control of land and
natural resources and imple-
mentation of many infrastructure
projects to attract foreign
investment that had displaced poor
people and caused considerable
harm to environment. These are
part of the ongoing policy of the
successive governments impo-
sition of the dictates of big business
and imperialist finance capital.
This led to deterioration of
living and working conditions many
more times and vast social and
economic inequalities. The protest
by students and strike by the
workers are the outcome of
growing unrest and discontentment
among the people of Indonesia.
The ruling classes of
Indonesia are using nefarious tactic
of nurturing religious chauvinism
along with brutal repression and
denial of democratic rights. The
new criminal code panders the
conservative Islamic forces by
seeking to uphold monogamy,
marital fidelity and other religious
values.
The crisis is leading to
infighting among the ruling class
sections. One section wants to clip
the wings of President Widodo by
proposing constitutional amend-
ments, while other section is
encouraging its front trade union
to take over the protest actions by
the people Indonesia. Yet the aim
of both sections is only to
strengthen the grip of family
oligarchies that control Indinesian
politics for decades and to find
ways to effectively suppress the
political and social upheavals being
recently erupted.
Revolutionary Homage to comrade Sundaram
Com. Sundaram, popularly known as ‘Neenda-Payanam (Long
March) Sundaram,’ Chennai (TN) has departed at an advanced age
of 96 years owing to the failure of health. He joined the CPI (ML) of
1970. He worked with Com. Kavai Eswaran [the departed leader and
the secretary of TNSC of CPI (ML)] in the Revolutionary Cultural
Movement. He was publishing a magazine called ‘Neenda Payanam’.
He also worked together with Com. Md. Ghani (alias Nalla Sivan). He
differed with the line of annihilation and upheld the Naxalbari politics.
In the last years of his life, he came under the influence of Tamil
Nationalist politics. In his life, he was active in organizing the poor in
the slum area MGR Nagar, Chennai and the civil liberties activities to
oppose state terrorism against the CRs and the people. We cherish
his memories and pay our revolutionary homage to the departed
comrade.
Oct 21, 2019
Central Committee
CPI (ML)
Class Struggle