Western funding of Islamicists

Mina Kumar wejazzjune at hotmail.com
Sat Oct 13 13:54:55 PDT 2001



>From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
>Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>Subject: Re: Western funding of Islamicists
>Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2001 16:24:49 -0400
>
>Mina Kumar wrote:
>
>>(An Indian reader can't read this without thinking of Bhindranwale!)
>
>More please...

Indira Gandhi and the Congress Party funded the charismatic Sikh fundamentalist Bhindranwale to cut into the Akali Dal Party's popularity in Punjab. As B became more popular, he became increasingly committed to armed struggle for an independent Sikh state, Khalistan. He holes up in the Golden Temple, the holiest Sikh place of worship, IG raids the temple, her bodyguards shoot her in revenge, thousands of Sikhs are killed by the Congress Party's flunkies in retaliation, state terrorist and separatist attacks convulse Punjab. Eventually, the populace gets sick of the whole thing, militancy ebbs, normalcy more or less returns.

I don't know much about the last part... it would be interesting to see what lessons it holds for places like Algeria. Anyway the TLS article made the point that the people in places like the Kabyle region have reached the point where they're equally sick of the govt and the Islamicists.

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