Down with OBAMA & US IMPERIALISM!

The Corporate Media is eulogising US president Obama’s visit to India as a great event. That he is visiting Pakistan only in 2011 and this is his longest stay in a foreign country are repeated as great stories. Along with US think tanks, the corporate media are writing editorials after editorials thanking and congratulating Manmohan Singh for not wasting this opportunity for a Bi-lateral Investment Treaty to ensure further US inroads in to Indian economy, trade and defence. According to them, the growing power of China poses a risk to Asian Security balance and so India should strengthen its strategic alliance with US to dove-tail its policies as a natural ally of US. Thus the US imperialists and their Indian compradors are working overtime to make Obama’s visit a great success at the cost of the masses in this country. The United States, as part of its global hegemonic designs, is pursuing policies which are inimical to the national sovereignty and the people’s interests of many countries. As far as India is concerned, the United States is aggressively pressurising the government to adopt economic policies which are detrimental to the people in the name of a strategic alliance. Take the case of the Civil Nuclear Liability Act. UPA government got it adopted by the parliament through many dirty deals just including a paltry Rs. 1500 crores as the liability of the supplier and builder of a plant in case of an accident. There are loopholes to serve the supplier from most of the liabilities even after adopting the much debated amendment. But according to US this
Act should be amended to save the supplier further from liabilities. Various forms of pressure are exerted to get it done before the outdated US nuclear plants and technology are imported to this country. That, in spite of the disastrous Enron
episode, and in spite of the fact that Three Mile Island/Chernobyl like nuclear disasters, radiation danger and nuclear waste disposal calls for putting an end to any further nuclear plants, as the European and US governments are doing under public pressure, Manmohan Singh is bending backwards to please the US bosses. It
poses a great danger to people in the region like Jaitapur, Maharashtra, where new nuclear plants are planned. Vested interests are calling for strengthening
economic ties with US further when Obama has taken steps to cut down outsourcing by raising H1-B and L1 Visa fees for foreign companies and when he has threatened to end tax breaks to companies that outsource. In spite of any amount of pleading by Manmohan, these steps are bound to be followed threatening the much trumpeted IT
sector of this country. Besides, US demands raising of foreign investment caps in sectors such as defence, and further tightening of the ‘intellectual property regime’ to help the MNCs. The US think tanks are prompting to Obama to cut down barriers to transfer of technology so that defence and high-tech sales to India shall double
in next five years. US imperialists’ strategic goals are very clear. Still, as in the past, the Manmohan Singh government is going to further surrender before US pressure. Obama or Bush, the strategic goals of US have not changed. So it is responsibility of
all revolutionary and democratic forces and the vast toiling masses of the country to campaign and protest against the UPA government’s complete surrender to the US imperialism. The people of India must raise their voice in support of the following demands to the US President: -
Scrap the Indo-US Defence Framework Agreement which seeks to convert India into a military ally of the United States. Stop pressurizing India to give up liability claims on US nuclear suppliers.
The United States should stop pressurizing India on foreign policy and to open up agriculture, retail trade, education and other services for American capital and multinational companies.
Justice for the victims of the Bhopal Gas accident; to make Dow Chemicals pay for the damages and for the clean up of the factory site; US should extradite Warren Anderson to India to stand trial.
Withdraw the remaining 50,000 US troops in Iraq forthwith; have a political settlement in Afghanistan to establish an independent and neutral state and withdraw US-Nato forces immediately.
End the US embargo on Cuba; stop all assistance to Israel till it vacates the occupied Palestinian and Arab territories.