Tropic of Chaos_ Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence - Christian Parenti [71]
For years, the Greyhounds conducted search-and-destroy operations in the forest belt of northern Telangana, and they still do. Sometimes they confront armed dalam (the cadre) in firefights. More often, they kill unarmed guerrillas and civilian supporters.46 Aided by a network of paid informants, tribal irregulars in service to the state, and former Naxals who have switched sides, the Greyhounds spent half a decade combing the hills, mapping both the physical and social terrain, observing the comings and goings of activists, learning the social networks in the villages, and then—in the style of the US Army’s Operation Phoenix in South Vietnam—breaking the key social links between the guerrillas and the people. That is to say, they killed both the dalam, the armed cadre, and the unarmed sangam, or activists. The strategy continues, though not as intensely. Always, when the dead are displayed to the press—blood smeared and dirty, laid out, two or three at a time, on reed mats—the Greyhounds ascribe the assassinations to self-defense. The euphemism describing the killings is always the same. They are “encounters” or accidental collisions between armed bandits and the forces of order. In the Red Corridor, this is the nomenclature of state terrorism. 47
The zenith of Naxalite activity in Andhra Pradesh occurred in October 2003, when the chief minister of the state, N. Chandrababu Naidu, was visiting the famous Venkateswara Temple to attend part of a Hindu festival. As his convoy left the temple, a series of six remote-controlled claymore mines lifted the earth beneath the vehicles in a deafening shock of linked explosions. The minister’s bulletproof ambassador car was mangled and flipped off the road. But, to the credit of Hindustan Motors’ retrofitting, Naidu survived with only light wounds to the face and chest. His driver and four other members of the legislative assembly, however, were very badly hurt. The assailants were cadre of the outlawed People’s War Group (PWG), one of the largest and oldest Maoist parties in India.
“The attack on Naidu shows that there really is no alternative but to revive dialogue and peace talks between the PWG and the government,” said one of the Naxals’ aboveground spokespeople, the popular left-leaning folk singer Gaddar, who uses only one name.48 Indeed, the attack was one of the Naxals’ most spectacular assaults yet, not because of its size but because of its target; they had almost decapitated a state government. The Political and Economic Weekly lamented the implications:
With the state government panic-stricken by the attempt on the life of Chandrababu Naidu and the PWG peeved by the failure of its attempt, both sides are hardening their vengeful attitudes and Andhra Pradesh is likely to go through another cycle of vicious killings. The victims will be fall guys. The police will target poor villagers and human rights activists as “suspected Naxalites” (as they have done by raiding the house of the veteran civil liberties movement leaderKGKannabiran) and arrest or kill them in false encounters. The PWG, in its turn, will take it out on some village “pradhan” or subordinate government employee, branding them as “informers,” and let off steam by setting fire to a few railway stations or bus depots.49
After the bombing against Chief Minister Naidu, the police in Andhra Pradesh turned up the heat. Naidu’s government reopened negotiations with the PWG. (Talks had been under way starting in June 2002, but a massive attack on a bus full of police ended them.) The police were ordered to pull back and the rebels were implored to do likewise. “We have reports that squads are roaming in villages with arms. We are requesting them not to move around with weapons,” said Andhra Pradesh’s home minister.50