This is an archived blog post from The Acorn.
There’s no surprise here — the Naxalites (or Maoists, as they are now known as) had already announced their decision to pull out of ‘peace talks’ with the Andhra Pradesh state government months ago. Keeping their emissaries engaged in talk about peace talks was only the final tactical move in this round of the game.
Engaged as they were in negotiations with a pathetically sympathetic government, one would have expected that the Maoists would have in the least stopped killing civilians. But the they killed 51 civilians in the first three months of 2005, compared to 39 during the same period last year. Ironically for apologists of terrorism, and unsurprisingly for the rest, more number of civilians have died during the time the Maoists were ‘talking’ to the government. The central government’s figures show a similar upsurge in violence and killings across the several states plagued by the Maoists.
While announcing their exit, the Maoists’ emissaries blaming the government, among other things, of pursuing fascist policies. Laying the blame at the government’s door is easy. Especially so when the chief minister himself cuts an defensive pose. It was the Maoists, he said, who have changed their position; the state government remained interested in pursuing peace talks. Considering that the Maoists made their intentions clear well over three months ago, and never were serious about stopping violence in the first place, the chief minister’s stance does not quite hide the fact that the Maoists just stood him up.
If you would like to share or comment on this, please discuss it on my GitHub
Previous © Copyright 2003-2024. Nitin Pai. All Rights Reserved.