New Delhi: Warning that the US was trying
to rope in India into its strategic umbrella, the CPI(M) on Sunday
alleged Washington was mounting pressure on New Delhi to open
up the large Indian market to American companies.
"Two days before the Prime Minister left for the US,
an American official had said they will demand that India open
up its insurance and defence production sectors to foreign
investment and American companies," CPI(M) general secretary
Prakash Karat said here.
At the concluding session of the three-day global meet
of communist parties, he said "pressures will continue to be
mounted by imperialism on India and we (the Left) will have to
launch struggles to resist this."
In 2005 soon after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met
then US President George Bush, an agreement was signed by the
two countries a few months later which "laid the foundations
of a strategic partnership" and imposition of conditions to
implement "neo-liberal" policies in India, he said.
Karat alleged a similar situation existed now. "US
imperialism wants to gain control over India's massive market,
... We will have to stop this by launching big struggles".
Asserting that communists were in the forefront of
popular struggles across the globe, CPI General Secretary A B
Bardhan said it was only at communist gatherings where one
could see the parties of Israel and Palestine as well as from
US and Cuba standing together, "symbolising the unity of the
working people worldwide."
Referring to the "imperialist intervention" in South
Asia, Karat warned that like the US faced defeat in Vietnam,
"President Obama will face the same fate in Afghanistan".
Leaders of RSP and Forward Bloc, T J Chandrachoodan
and Barun Mukherjee, also addressed the gathering and called
for launching of ceaseless campaigns against imperialism and
on issues concerning the working class and peasantry.
Scott Marshall, leader of the Communist Party of
United States, expressed solidarity with his Cuban counterpart
and said "large sections" of the American people were opposed
to the war in Iraq, the blockade of Cuba.
Quoting a recent survey, he claimed 22 per cent of
people in his country thought socialism to be a "system
superior to capitalism". His Cuban counterpart Oscar Martinez
said "we have to make our socialism more effective" in face of
the capitalist crisis.
While Israeli Communist leader Faten Kamal Ghattas
condemned Zionist occupation of Palestine and Lebanese
territory, his Palestinian comrade Fawaz blamed US imperialism
for backing the Israeli government and fomenting trouble in
the region.
CPI(M) Politburo member Sitaram Yechury briefed the
session on the resolution adopted at the conference and said
struggles would be launched in the coming days in various
countries against the "aggressive" designs of the US and NATO
and against economic deprivation and growing impoverishment of
people.
PTI
First Published: Sunday, November 22, 2009, 21:36