KOLKATA, India, March 20 (Reuters) - Train and bus services were disrupted in parts of rural east and central India on Tuesday as Maoist rebels joined protests over a policy of establishing industrial parks on farmlands.
The rebels had called for a 24-hour strike in Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Orissa and Bihar to protest against last week's killing of at least 14 villagers when police opened fire on demonstrators in Nandigram in West Bengal.
But the strike call had no impact on cities, police said.
The villagers in Nandigram were angry at plans to force them off their lands to make way for a low-tax special economic zone (SEZ), a proposal that has since been shelved.
At least a dozen long-distance trains were cancelled as rebel activists blocked railway tracks at several places in Jharkhand and Bihar, police and witnesses said.
All bus services to Maoist strongholds in the southern tip of Chhattisgarh and in parts of the neighbouring southern state of Andhra Pradesh were cancelled.
<http://www.opendemocracy.net/conflict-india_pakistan/sahni_maoists_4451.jsp> India and its Maoists: failure and success Ajai Sahni 20 - 3 - 2007
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In any event, the temporary de-escalation came to an obvious end after the ninth congress of the Maoists - held at an undisclosed forest location, believed to be in Jharkhand on the last days of January and 1 February 2007 - resolved to focus on four key aims:
* "to advance the people's war throughout the country"
* to extend support to the "nationality struggles against
Indian expansionism" in Kashmir and the northeast
* to call on "dalits (the oppressed segments of the pernicious
Hindu caste system) to rally under the revolutionary banner
to militantly resist... growing attacks and discrimination"
* to mobilise a "militant mass movement against the neo-liberal
policies of globalisation, liberalisation, privatisation", focusing
immediately on "SEZs (Special Economic Zones) and
displacement", and on marshalling support from
"small industries and traders" who have been "pushed... to
bankruptcy" by the "massive imperialist/TNC (trans-national
company)/CBB (comprador-bureaucrat-bourgeoisie) offensives".
In effect, the Maoists propose to exploit each existing and potential pool of grievances, every Indian faultline, in order to engineer a gradual consolidation across the country.
<http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/IC20Df01.html> Mar 20, 2007 India's Maoists take their war to a new level By Sudha Ramachandran
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Maoist documents and statements provide pointers to their growing ambitions and changing strategy. In 2004, Maoists, who had hitherto focused their operations in rural India, spoke of a new strategy to target urban centers. Their Urban Perspective Document lay down guidelines for working in towns and cities and for mobilizing support among students and urban unemployed. They identified two belts as targets for urban mobilization: Bhilai-Ranchi-Dhanbad-Kolkata and Mumbai-Pune-Surat-Ahmedabad. -- Yoshie