Monitoring Indian Communists - 2

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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Conference on <b>People’s Foreign Policy</b>  <!--emo&:blink:--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='blink.gif' /><!--endemo-->
7-8 December 2006, Mumbai


Following two days of discussions at the Conference on People’s Foreign
Policy on 7-8 December 2006, Mumbai attended by delegates from <b>trade unions,
social movements, resistance movements, students organisations, women’s
organisations</b> from Bangladesh, India, Lebanon, Burma , Nepal, , Pakistan,
Palestine, Sri Lanka and regions of Kashmir and Tibet along with academicians
and social critics,

We note that:

In the first four decades of independence, India made efforts to chart an
economic policy based on the principle of self-reliance. It also acquired a
degree of manoeuvrability in foreign policy based on principles of
non-alignment;

Following the shift in India’s economic policy in favour of an
accelerated neo-liberal agenda since the early 1990s, the foreign policy has
come to be aligned closely with the US while assuming a misplaced sense of
power as a nuclear weapon state and its quest for emerging as a regional power;

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the world has come to be
dominated by the United States that has extended its domination by suppressing
all forms of resistance to US policy and has following 9/11 sought to divided
the world between those ‘for us’ and ‘against us’, directed in substantial
measure against the countries and peoples of West Asia;

India’s acceptance of the global domination of the US is reflected in 18
July 2005 agreement on nuclear policy with the US, its recent conduct in the
WTO, cooperation with the US agenda for India on genetically modified foods,
its growing relationship with Israel including military relations, its complete
reversal on its support for Iran and virtually pulling out of the Indo-Pak-Iran
gas pipeline deal and its willingness to be part of the ‘global war against
terror’;

India’s policy in South Asian is based on a principle of domination and
inequality; and as a consequence, continuing to suppress the democratic
aspirations of the people of Kashmir, while it has sought to prove to the world
that Pakistan is a primary site for spawning global terror; and further
claiming to support the democratic aspirations of the people of Burma, Nepal
and Sri Lanka while providing these states with military, political and
financial support to suppress these very struggles;

Through the deployment of armed forces in Kashmir and the North-East is
to large extent for suppressing the peoples movement, the projected threat
perception along the borders has provided the Indian state with the rational to
justify an enormous defence budget that otherwise cannot be justified by any
acceptable measure of force requirement for self defence and standards of
public spending for a country that is home to the largest number of the worlds
poor;

The Indian foreign policy assessment of a unipolar global order dominated
by the US fails to fully understand or estimate the balance of power globally
of the EU, Russia and China and the perceived lack of space for an intervention
for changing the balance of force by an independent foreign policy is
invalidated by the course adopted by some countries in Latin America and West
Asia where struggles of people has changed the nature of the foreign policy;

The major victory against Israeli aggression in Lebanon by Hezbollah led
Lebanese National resistance, the strengthening of the National resistance in
Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan and the world wide opposition and protests
against war and occupation is forcing US imperialism into a defensive position

Foreign policy is very much a reflection and outcome of the policies
pursued by government at home and thus has a direct impact on the daily lives
of citizens.

We believe that foreign policy, like any other policy, must be rooted in
the democratic aspirations of citizens. It must be rooted in <b>building a society</b>
that is based on economic, social and political<b> equality </b>and is free from all
forms of discrimination where people are free to chart their own destinies
without internal or external force or coercion. Such a policy must seek to
defend and advance the right to independence and self-determination of nations
and towards this end promote a multi-polar <b>world order</b>. Indian foreign policy is out of sync with these aspirations.

Laying the foundation for such a policy needs us to ground our
aspirations with a sense of realism so that we successfully evolve strategies
for struggles for a people’s foreign policy.

We resolve to:


Secure Global peace by
- Building on equality of nations and respect for human dignity
within countries that eliminates all forms of racism, xenophobia, religious and
social prejudices and demonisation of Muslims and other peoples
- Global disarmament and denuclearisation
- Securing and sustaining independence, sovereignty and right of
development of nations
- Demilitarisation of the society by abrogating all laws that
enables military to intervene in domestic social and political conflict
- All states signing and ratifying the Rome Treaty of the
International Criminal Court.
- Supporting Liberation movements and Struggles of Nations
against aggression by the US and its’ allies and by other expansionist powers.
- Working for a genuine and just settlement of the Palestinian
peoples’ right to self determination and securing the early, complete and
permanent withdrawal of US forces from Iraq
- Initiating Diplomatic and economic sanctions against military
regimes
- Abrogating of Indo-US nuclear treaty



Build a South Asia on the basis of:
- Democracy, Secularism and Social equality by eliminating all
forms discrimination
- Peaceful political settlement of peoples’ aspirations,
including Kashmiris, Tamil and Baluchis , according to widely accepted
international principles and practice
- Regional framework for peaceful and equitable development of
peoples and nations of this region with resolution of bilateral issues,
including border disputes and where needed renegotiation of bilateral
treaties, on the basis of equality and mutual interest
- Reduce and chanellise defence spending for social development
and demilitarise the region including nuclear disarmament.
- Elimination of the US hegemony and domination of imperialist
states


Work towards Alternative Economic Policies based on peoples' economies
for prosperity and increased co-operation and socialisation, and rejecting
those that are anti-people and neo-liberal led market policies, which
enrich a few corporations and countries.


Ensure Rights of Migrant Workers: Assure migrant workers the security
of movement and right to livelihood, facilitate easy visa and
naturalisation and penalise human trafficking. In particular, provide
mechanism for work permits for South Asian countries and protect fishing
rights of the fisher communities in South Asia in the territorial waters
of the South Asian region.



Evolve a rational and ecologically sustainable policy on water, energy
and pollution.

And affirm the following Plan of Action:


To build a sustained campaign for a people’s foreign policy for India,
holding a series of regional conferences and workshops and deepen this
process by creating commissions for study and drafting specific policies
on:
- Global militarisation and nuclearisation
- labour rights
- social and gender discrimination
- water
- energy
- global environment and climatic change
- Peoples’ movement in North-East
- Religious Minorities
- Indigenous people
· To develop a wider alliance with other countries with focus on
people-to-people dialogue of the discriminated and the oppressed and organise a
parallel ‘Peoples Conference of South Asian’ during the SAARC meeting in Delhi

· Focus and prioritise solidarity movements in support of the
resistance against the illegal occupations of Iraq and Palestine and organising
a ‘West Asia-South Asia Solidarity Conference’ in India and join the
international day of action on 9 June 2007 marking the 40th year of Israel's
occupation and control of the West Bank and Gaza<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

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