VANGUARD - Expressing the viewpoint of the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist)
For National Independence and Socialism • www.cpaml.org
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Bangladesh: Eradicate Hasina-Awami-Indian fascism completely and utterly.
Struggle for the Establishment of the Governance of the Struggling Students, Workers, Peasants, Poor, Middle class.
(August 5, 2024. Extended reprint: August 8, 2024)
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The 15-year Hasina-Awami misrule has finally come to an end. The students have won a great victory in their fearless movement. To achieve this goal, many different political forces and masses have made immense sacrifices and conducted valiant armed and unarmed struggles for the past decade and a half. In this continuation, around 350 lives were lost to achieve this feat at the last minute. Several thousand people were injured. Over five hundred people lost their eyes. Many more have become permanently crippled. 15,000 or more people were taken into custody. In addition to that, thousands of political activists and common people have been killed, and millions of people have suffered oppression and unjust arrests in the past 15 years. False cases have been filed against hundreds of thousands of people.
However, this victory is not the end of the fight, rather it is just the beginning. There is still a long way to go. Because the oppressed cannot be liberated until the power or rule of the bona fide struggling masses is established. That has been experienced many times in the past—in '69, '71, '75, and '90. Even after shaking off the main enemy sitting on the neck, the puppets of the ruling elite bourgeoisie have seized power. To prevent this, the struggling masses must struggle for the right political agenda. Currently, an "interim government" has been formed under the initiative of the military and the bureaucrats. We shall rationally insist that the hopes of the oppressed students for emancipation from fascism be fulfilled. In light of this, we would like to draw attention to a few key points below.
1. To establish a provisional government composed of representatives of all anti-fascist classes, professions, communities, and democratic political forces instead of an externally imposed government led by pro-western ex-military, civilian bureaucrats, bourgeois intellectuals, professionals, and elite bourgeoisie representatives.
- Strongly oppose the imposition of martial law, so-called army-backed governments, or the imposition of a state of emergency.
- Complete repeal of the constitution that allows fascism.
- Promulgation of a new constitution and basic principles of a state system favourable to the democratic system.
- Abolition of the district council, sub-district, and UP formed on the blueprint of fascism.
- Formation of “mass committees” of farmers, workers, labourers, students, youth, middle class, religious and ethnic minorities, progressive and democratic intellectuals at all levels of society starting from village/neighborhood, and having the administrative work done by them. To form an armed “Mass Militia” under them to counter any anti-Mass threat and attack.
- Creating an environment for fair elections based on the elimination of fascism, the development of mass power, and the urgent demands of the anti-fascist democratic forces, especially the workers, peasants, students, and masses.
2. Arresting and punishing all Awami godfathers who are the main pillars of Hasina-India fascists and have dominated all spheres of state and society for the past 15 years.
- Hasina's fascist allies included cabinet members, parliamentarians, powerful bureaucrats, powerful military officers, tyrannical officers of Police-RAB-DB, big businessmen, media magnates, so-called student-youth terrorists, abominable and identified elites among judges, professionals, cultural leaders, etc. Publish a list of names of all these people and arrest them. Disarm them all.
- Immediate release of prisoners in "Aynaghar," a torture prison maintained by the Hasina-loyalist DGFI. Publish a white paper on this.
- Immediate abolition of the murderous RAB force.
- Publishing the list of public enemies involved in murder, disappearance, rape, and money laundering, and prosecuting them under the speedy trial law.
-Banning the Chhatra League, Jubo League, and Hasina-Awami League as terrorist and fascist organizations. Depriving them of their political rights.
- Confiscation of all properties of the above. Confiscation of all agricultural lands, wetlands, residential plots, and commercial plots occupied by Awami fascists. Free distribution of agricultural land to landless-poor farmers. Opening of reservoirs to fishermen.
3. The immediate release of all political leaders and activists of all political parties and struggling people who were tortured and imprisoned during the last 15 years of fascist rule, especially in the last July movement. The withdrawing of all cases brought against them.
4. Opening universities and educational institutions immediately. Lifting the curfew, sending the army back to the barracks. Deploying of BGB immediately to guard the borders. Having the university halls managed by student committees. De-fascistization and reformation of the administration of universities.
5. Publishing the list with the names, addresses, and ages of all those killed during the fascist regime, especially in recent movements. The state should provide compensation to the affected families. All injured should be provided with medical treatment at state’s expense. Those who have already undergone treatment at their own expense should be compensated. A white paper on the injured should be published. Those responsible should be punished severely.
- Listing the general police—Ansar—BGB and army personnel, and common people killed in various anarchic activities that followed the fall of Hasina and honoring them socially.
6. All anti-national agreements and understandings with foreign countries, especially with India, by the Hasina-Awami government in the last 15 years must be cancelled.
- The Rampal Power Plant destroying the Sundarbans should be stopped immediately.
- Immediate cessation of providing India with train and road corridors through Bangladesh, giving them the responsibility for the Teesta project, buying electricity from India at a high price etc.
- Announcing no new agreement or compromise with India until India publicly apologises for supporting Hasina's fascism.
- To be fully alert of subversive or potentially aggressive activities of Indian expansionists. Condemning their harbouring of Hasina/Awami fugitives in India and demanding their handover to Bangladesh.
- Strictly opposing all imperialist meddling and conspiracy, including those of America, China, and Russia, on internal matters of the country.
7. Immediate repeal of all black laws, including the Service Act, Digital Act, and Industrial Police.
8. Accepting the legitimate demands of workers, farmers, fishermen, poor and working urbanites, tenants, students, teachers, and musicians. Implement stringent measures immediately to break up syndicates and regulate commodity pricing. Taking strict measures to stop extortion and bribery by the Hasina-Awami Fascist bureaucrats and police regarding sidewalk traders, hawkers, transport workers, markets, buying and selling land, building houses, getting government jobs, etc. Strictly controlling the change of hands of extortion and of expropriation. Taking strict measures to prevent persecution and attacks on religious and ethnic minorities.
If the interim government is not formed and run in the above way, it will be a imperialist-comprador bourgeois government based on the existing fascist structure, which will not be able to fulfil the aspirations of the struggling masses.
The above demands are not a complete program. Rather, these are only some preliminary outlines for creating an anti-fascist environment and system. Hence many more amendments may be made to it, and specifications have to be made that can be finalised based on the opinion of the serious anti-fascist fighting forces.
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Our proletarian party has not only fought relentlessly against the recently expelled Hasina fascism but also outlined a genuine revolutionary program for real liberation from all imperialism, including that of America-China-Russia, Indian expansionism, and their crony elite bourgeoisie, semi-feudal exploitation-control. The party is thus conducting a continuous struggle for the real independence of the country and the empowerment of the masses of people, including the workers, peasants, and middle class, and the establishment of a truly democratic society. The ongoing anti-fascist struggle is a part of this. We are working to fight to the end and lead it to victory. The ultimate goal of the fight is to establish a society without exploitation in the country and move towards communism worldwide.
To advance that goal and to achieve a real revolution, the oppressed people must take up arms, build an army of their own, and build a rural-based people's war based on the program of agrarian revolution. All struggles should be conducted based on this aim and work. The advanced section of students and youth must be equipped with Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. They should be organized into a revolutionary party. Only then can their today's sacrifice and struggle progress towards success.
-Central Committee, Proletarian Party of Purbo Bangla.