26개의 게시물을 찾았습니다.
300일...
이랜드 노동자는 계속 파업투쟁 중입니다!
19일 토요일 낮 3시 홈에버 상암점으로!
("Agit-prop" video by: 숲속홍길동同志)
우리 모두를 위한 투쟁!!
In and around Seoul's Dongdaemun Stadium was the place for thousands of street vendors who earned here the money to feed their famelies. After the expulsion of the street venors in the Cheonggyejeon Street just inside the stadium at least 900 street vendors stall's got a place.. But now it's over!
Today, despite the fierce resistance by hundreds of street vendors (it was smashed by hundreds of gangsters (backed by large units of the riot cops), hired by the Seoul Metropolitan Gov't and the construction companies, i.e. the Construction Mafia), the complete destruction of the stadium started. And hundreds of families lost their basis of existence - likely forever!
Dongdaemun Stadium Fading Away (Korea Times, 4.16)
The Seoul Metropolitan Government Wednesday began to dismantle the Dongdaemun Baseball Stadium, which will be replaced by Dongdaemun Design Park and Plaza. However, the demolition work met with strong protests from hundreds of street vendors who have used the site for years.
The removal of the nation's first modern sport stadium and the construction of a new park and plaza is part of the city government's plans to have new iconic structures in the capital.
Builders had clashes with street vendors and five were injured ― one of them, aged 60, had a severe injury to his eye.
From the early morning, hundreds of vendors blocked the main gates to the stadium with vehicles. Beginning around 1 a.m., the clash continued until 6 a.m. when 500 construction workers broke down the gates and entered the stadium.
The stadium was built in 1926 under Japanese colonial rule and it has since served as a popular venue for sports events, mainly high school baseball.
The city government plans to transform it into a large park with design facilities to help the district specialize in fashion, as it does now with an array of shopping malls and markets.
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2008/04/113_22636.html
Related contributions:
☞ 16일 새벽 동대문풍물시장 침탈 사진 (4.16)
☞ The bulldozer triumphant (2007.12.21)
The latest results of the CA election, according to the Nepali Election Commission:
The CPN(M) have won 117 of the 212 constituencies in which the vote counting has completed till today. Nepali Congress (NC) is a distant second with 33 seats followed by CPN-UML at 29 seats. The Madhesi Janadhikar Forum (MJF) has won 22 seats while Terai Madhes Loktantrik Party (TMLP) bagged 7 seats. Nepal Sadbhavana Party (NSP) led by Rajendra Mahato and Nepal Workers and Peasants Party (NWPP) have won 2 seats each.
Of the total 240 constituencies in the First-Past-The-Post system, CPN(M) are very close to garnering simple majority.
Now the Nepali and especial the int'l bourgeois media is asking for the reason of CPN(M) possible victory. And AFP got the answer: "In Rolpa in west Nepal, a Maoist bastion during the revolt that ended in 2006, former rebels have told villagers they can see who they're voting for through binocular cameras in the sky. The illiterate and naive villagers tend to believe it." (That's not a joke, it's just a part of a "report" by AFP!!^^)
And of course not everyone in the Nepalese ruling class can accept the current reality, according to The Himalayan Times:
Tanahun NC Cadre Commits Suicide After Party's Defeat
Nepali Congress (NC) Devghat VDC Committee Secretary Laxminath Pokharel, 54, on Sunday night committed suicide after not being able to accept the result of Constituent Assembly (CA) elections. Pokharel committed suicide by hanging himself in front of his home, said Police Inspector of Tanahun's Abukhairini Area Police Post, Som Thapa.
He reportedly killed himself for being unable to accept the nationwide defeat of NC in the CA elections. He had been active in NC for the last 37 years.
Related articles:
☞ Maoists poised to take power in Nepal (IHT, 4.14)
☞ Maoists' Win is Positive Development.. (Himalayan Times)
☞ NC mulling over whether to stay in the gov't or not (NepalNews)
☞ Roter Stern über Nepal (Junge Welt, 4.14)
Today's German conservative daily newspaper Die Welt came to the realization that, because of the increasing activities and influence of the neo-nazi/fascist organisations, the "Entire East-Gemany is a No-Go-Area" - especialy for people who are not looking like (f******)"Arians", i.e. white Germans.
Already before last week (4.05) the German leading bourgeois magazine Der Spiegel published following report:
Family Escapes Small Town Xenophobia
Insulted, spat at and attacked -- by ordinary Germans. Unable to bear the daily racism, a pastor's family fled from a small town in eastern Germany back to the their former home in the west.
Sometime last year, Miriam Neuschäfer, who has dark skin because her mother is Indian, decided it was time to record the daily instances of racism she and her family were suffering. The 32-year-old mother of five and wife of a German clergyman wrote down her encounters with the citizens of Rudolstadt, a small town in the eastern German state of Thuringia.
"It helped me work through it," she says, "and some day I want the children to understand everything that happened to us."
A slight woman, Neuschäfer sits at her kitchen table, flipping through the yellow file. She constantly shakes her head. Ten pages filled with black writing. She has more just like it in a drawer -- perhaps 50, she estimates.
When she first started she would write in full sentences but ended up just jotting down bullet points. The files are a disturbing account of the events that drove the family out of Rudolstadt after spending almost eight years trying and failing to get on with the locals. They have moved back to western Germany, to the town of Erkelenz in the Rhineland where they are not subject to daily abuse.
She could no longer stand the racism, the hostile comments from everyday citizens, the feeling that she was hated in her own country. "It was an escape," she says. "It was a matter of survival."
Neuschäfer grew up in the Lower Rhine region of Germany, studied theology and speaks perfect German. Her husband, Reiner Andreas Neuschäfer, 40, is a pastor. In 2000, he was offered the position as schools administrator for the southern Thuringia region.
It was an attractive job, and the family had no qualms about moving east. The Neuschäfers and their two young children moved to Rudolstadt, a former royal retreat in a pretty valley near Erfurt. It's a small town with 25,000 residents. A family would find its footing and make new friends in a place like this, they thought.
But the Neuschäfers remained strangers in Thuringia.
From the beginning, says Reiner, the family sensed major "cultural differences." They found it hard to get to know people and the few friends they did make had also come from western Germany. They felt isolated. But they didn't lose heart. Perhaps, they thought, they had just misread the local character. After all, even native Thuringians admit they have a tendency to be grumpy and aren't the easiest people to please.
It will work out in the end, thought the Neuschäfers. But it didn't. In fact, things started to get worse.
The Neuschäfers began to sense something more profound than just cool distance. "We could sit here for hours, and I could just keep coming up with examples," says Miriam, as she browses through her accounts of hate and animosity.
"Your Skin Isn't Right"
The alarm bells first went off in 2002 during a conversation with the kindergarten teacher of Jannik, the oldest son, who is now 10 years old. The conversation suddenly turned to the issue of integration. "Your skin isn't right," the other children said to him. It got so bad that Jannik tried to scrub his skin white with a coarse brush.
According to the parents, when Jannik went to grade school later, the teasing continued. "Mom, what's a nigger?" the young boy asked at home. His classmates had taunted him, saying: "You are this brown because you rubbed shit all over yourself." One day, nine school mates reportedly beat Jannik up on the playground so badly that Reiner called the police. The school administration scolded the small boys who had roughed him up.
The second-oldest daughter, Fenja, who is now eight, also came home with stories of being bullied. And the mother, Miriam, had her own harassment experiences, too. She recalls how an elderly gentleman in a supermarket said: "Amazing the kind of people they let shop here" as she and her children walked past. "Go back to the jungle!" she remembers another man yelling at her once. She was in a parking lot and hadn't closed her car door fast enough for his liking as he tried to pull his car into the adjacent spot.
Less Than Helpful Authorities
It wasn't long before just being stared at by people started to get to Miriam. "I just kept my eyes on the ground and counted the paving stones, she says. It wasn't long before she stopped venturing out of her house on her own.
Even when she was accompanied with her large and powerfully built husband or with the few friends they had, Miriam and the children sensed people's animosity. Whenever the family showed up at a busy playground, it would empty out abruptly. "In glorious sunshine," according to the mother. One day a teenager spat at her as she walked through a park with an acquaintance, she says.
"Spat at? I can't imagine that," says Georg Eger, the deputy mayor, vigorously shaking his head in his office on the second floor of the Rudolstadt town hall. He raises his finger and continues: "I even rule that out." City spokesman Michael Wagner tries to soften that categoric statement a little. Of course, one can't vouch for every single citizen, he says.
There's a whole lot of head shaking in Rudolstadt's town hall these days. "We've been steamrolled," Eger says. Steamrolled by reports about the Neuschäfers' flight from the xenophobia of some of Rudolstadt's inhabitants.
Crisis management is what is called for now, says the spokesman. He adds that he is drafting a public statement by the city in response to the matter. Every sentence counts. The example of Mügeln (more...) made that clear. In that small town in Saxony, in August 2007, a drunken mob attacked a group of Indian men after a confrontation at a street festival. The group shouted racist taunts, but Mügeln's mayor played down the problem and blamed the violence on visitors from out of town.
Fear of the Mügeln Effect
Like Mügeln, Rudolstadt is worried about its reputation. In recent years the city has fought an uphill battle to improve its image. In 1992, after 2,000 neo-Nazis marched here in memory of Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess, the town was labelled a bastion of the far right. Today, Rudolstadt's inhabitants proudly point out that the town is home to Germany's largest world music festival, which draws 10,000 people from all over the world each year.
Now the town's administration fears its reputation is slipping again. The mayor's office has received hundreds of hate e-mails. Their message: "We won't be returning to Rudolstadt."
The town has to walk a fine line. It has to fight against the blanket judgment that it is a nest of xenophobia, but it must also avoid publicly dismissing the Neuschäfers' claims as being made-up stories. At times, the latter is particularly hard. The deputy mayor speaks of "schoolyard scuffles." The mayor intends to meet Reiner Neuschäfer soon to clear up the matter as soon as possible. Until then, he'll ask around about something that he never cared to hear about before. He'll talk to the police, who confirm the Neuschäfers filed two legal complaints. And he'll talk with the school, which is currently defending itself against the accusation that it didn't do enough to help.
The Neuschäfers say they aren't bitter, that this is not about stigmatizing eastern Germany or Rudolstadt. They did not seek out the publicity. The story of their flight from Thuringia leaked out gradually, reaching the press by coincidence.
Miriam and her children finally moved to Erkelenz last October. At first it was just intended as a vacation, as rest and recuperation. But it became an "act of liberation". They found they couldn't bring themselves to return to Rudolstadt.
Miriam and her children Jannik, Fenja, Ronja, Jarrit and Jannis Neuschäfer are enjoying life in their former home. Their father is still looking for a job back in the Rhineland. For now, every weekend he drives the 430 kilometers (267 miles) between Erkelenz, where he spends time with his family, and Rudolstadt, where he sleeps during the week on a mattress in their empty flat.
At the moment, he is on vacation. Next Tuesday, he will drive back to Thuringia for the first time since the accusations of racism were made public. He has "mixed feelings" about the looming trip, he says. He knows "it could be a gauntlet."
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,545492,00.html
Related interview:
☞ "Ganz Ostdeutschland ist No-Go-Area" (Die Welt, 4.14)
And today's bourgeois daily newspaper Tagesspiegel published following shocking report about Germany's first almost pure fascist community/village:
"THIS IS THE PEOPLE'S VICTORY!"
Last Thursday (4.10) the people of Nepal voted for the Constituent Assembly (CA). Although the election final results will be available in at least two weeks (according to the Nepalese Election Commission) the Nepalese media published a few first - actually interesting, for the Nepalese ruling class likely very outraged ( they "are seemingly at unease over the nationwide sweep of the election by the party of former rebels", i.e. the CPN(M), so today's Nepalnews) - trends: Until now CPN(M) got 15 seats (but there are 601 in the CA!!), the (revisionist) CPN-UML and the (bourgeois) Congess Party each got four seats... [Updates coming till 5:00 pm Sunday show that the CPN(M) have bagged 57 seats of the total 94 election constituencies where vote counting has been completed. CPN(UML) got 17 and Nepali Congress 16 seats, according to the NEC.](*)
Chairman Prachanda triumphs in Ktm-10 as his party takes initial lead (Nepalnews, 4.12)
According to latest reports, CPN-Maoist chairman Prachanda has won in Kathmandu constituency-10 (KTM-10) with a huge vote margin, as his party has also taken an initial lead in seat counts. Our reporter at the vote-counting center said that the official announcement for the same would be made shortly.
Prachanda, or Puhpa Kamal Dahal, secured 20,499 votes, almost double than his close rival Rajendra Kumar K.C of NC who got 11,103 votes. UML fared badly in this constituency also as in other Katmandu constituencies that used to be its stronghold. The party’s bet for the constituency, Sanu Kumar Shrestha, managed to garner just 6,216 votes.
Along with Prachanda, another Maoist leader and minister in Koirala cabinet Hisila Yami has retained the winning streak of the party by emerging victorious with 9273 votes in Kathmandu constituency-7. Her closest rival Rajendra Prasad Shrestha of UML has come second with 6,114 votes while Pramila Singh Dangol of NC has got 5680 votes.
Three other top Maoist leaders have already donned the victory cap in various places across the country, and they are – Krishna Bahadur Mahara from Dang 3, Dev Prasad Gurung from Manang-1 and Pampha Bhusal from Lalitpur-3. Senior Maoist leaders Ram Bahadur Thapa (Badal) and Dr Baburam Bhattarai are also ahead in their constituencies in Chitwan-2 and Gorkha-2 respectively and are expected to win with considerable margin.
According to latest Nepalnews count, Maoists leads the seat count with 14 constituencies to its name , while NC and UML have 4 seats each and NWPP trails with 2 seats.
http://www.nepalnews.com/archive/2008/apr/apr12/news07.php
And some politicians had to take the first consequences:
M. Nepal set to quit UML General Secretary post
(eKantipur, 4.12)
Top CPN-UML leader Madhav Kumar Nepal Saturday has decided to table his resignation from the post of party General Secretary.
Nepal’s resignation comes in the wake of his defeat in the Constituent Assembly elections from Kathmandu district constituency-2 with a huge margin of votes.
UML central leader Bishnu Rijal informed that Nepal has already tabled his resignation at the party central committee.
Nepal lost at Kathmandu-2, his home constituency, to previously not-so-popular Maoist candidate Jhakku Prasad Subedi.
Nepal had secured only 12,324 votes, while the winner Subedi had garnered 13,858 votes.
The CPN-UML had ruled all the constituencies of Kathmandu district in the last parliamentary elections in 1999.
http://www.kantipuronline.com/kolnews.php?&nid=143772
Related articles:
☞ CPN(M): "We want to continue working with parties.." (Nepalnews, 4.12)
☞ Carter says US should recognize Maoist poll victory (Nepalnews, 4.12)
☞ Maoists in early Nepal vote lead (al-Jazeera, 4.12)
☞ Surprise lead for Maoists.. (The Observer/UK, 4.13)
* For more informations:
☞ The latest CA election results (permanent updated by Nepalnews)
In the last weeks the new Cuban gov't has announced and enacted a series of reforms. Last Monday (4.07) The Guardian published a very impressive report about the latest developments (*) on the Caribbean Island:
To save communism(**), Raúl
experiments with consumerism
Minor economic reforms by Castro's brother risk exposing inequality and encouraging the desire for change
From the ample girths and gold jewellery you could tell the Fuentes family was doing well, and from the determined way in which its five members strode into the shop you could tell they were about to do even better.
They had come for a Wanjiu pressure cooker and Daewoo washing machine, counting out the money with a certain panache. Why not? To be fleshy and flashy is to be part of Cuba's new revolutionary vanguard: Havana bling.
This was Dita, an electronics store in Galerías de Paseo, Cuba's dowdy answer to Harrods, and it was an incongruous scene. While Fidel Castro exhorted revolutionary solidarity from a banner outside the shop, the family members could hardly see the leader's words over the cardboard boxes they were hauling.
Out on the street they packed their trophies into a 10-year-old Ford - a modern showcase by local vehicle standards - and with a screech of the tyres sped home.
En route was the Karl Marx Theatre, but you doubted they would stop to see what was on.
Cuba is changing. In the past five weeks the government has announced and enacted a series of reforms unimaginable under Castro. It is now legal to buy mobile phones, computers and DVD players. Cubans may now rent cars and stay at hotels previously reserved for foreigners. More significantly, farmers can now cultivate idle state land and buy equipment without special permission.
Havana is buzzing with rumours of further announcements. Lifting restrictions on foreign travel, perhaps, or strengthening the near-worthless peso so more people can afford the goods that are priced in a separate currency created for foreigners.
"Finally the government is listening to us. This is stuff we've been asking for for years," said Andrea, a 44-year-old technician. It is fitting that a popular new import is an electronic pedal-bike. "Not a new era, a new cycle," she added.
Optimism is cautious. So far the changes do not add up to perestroika-style economic reforms, much less a glasnost-style cultural opening. The one-party state is tinkering with its half-century-old system to ease material hardship. The idea is to save communism in the Caribbean, not abandon it.
Havana remains a sea of decrepitude. Traffic remains a time-warp blend of 1950s American cars, three-wheel yellow cabs, Soviet-era Ladas and new Chinese-made buses. Stallholders still offer meagre wares in an illegal type of mouse capitalism. Most people are lean - if less gaunt than before thanks to easing food shortages.
"What the government is doing is a very small first step," said a western diplomat. "They are doing the easy things and giving people more freedoms. We are still waiting for the big changes that will make a difference economically. And that will be much harder to do."
The most important change so far is in agriculture, in which mismanagement has shrivelled cash crops such as sugar, tobacco and coffee and forced the lush island to import 80% of its food. Now decision-making has been decentralised and some restrictions lifted to give farmers more incentive to produce.
The other changes have merely legalised what has been common practice. The moneyed Cubans listening to reggaetón music by the pool bar in El Nacional hotel yesterday were the same ones who were there a month ago. Many had wangled computers, DVD players and mobile phones long before the bans were lifted. Those unable to afford such goods before still cannot afford them.
The announcements have signalled greater tolerance for displays of wealth and, by extension, displays of inequality. "Before if you had cash you would hide it but now people feel freer to show it," said the diplomat.
It is not news to Cubans that a small minority of the 11-million population is well off thanks to remittances from relatives in the US and shady hard currency dealings. The offspring of Communist party officials are among the so-called "mickies" who flash their designer gear.
Free universal education and healthcare remain solid but sanctioning spending sprees on previously banned consumer goods has given ironic resonance to revolutionary slogans.
"We can construct the most just society in the world," Castro's brave words said in another banner, this time overlooking the Carlos Tercero shopping mall. Beneath it passed some families with boxes marked Yamaha, Samsung and Phillips, and many who did not.
José, a waiter at a state restaurant who earns £9 a month, was off-duty, sipping a soft drink along with his nine-year-old daughter. The neighbouring table's family was clustered around a newly purchased £130 DVD player and sorting through a hawker's pirated wares. "We've got a VHS player but you can't get films for it anymore," José said. "My daughter doesn't have cartoons."
It is no coincidence that José was black and the neighbouring family white. Racism is illegal on the island but paler-skinned Cubans dominate government and the economy and are more likely to have relatives in the US.
The authorities appear uncomfortably aware that lifting economic restrictions risks exposing and compounding that inequality, at least in the short term. Speakers at a state-sponsored Intellectuals' Conference last week welcomed the reforms but hinted that social divisions could deepen. The comments were reported in the Communist party daily newspaper, Granma.
Raúl Castro knows reform is essential. Nobody starves but most Cubans struggle to put decent food on the table. Since taking over from his ailing brother Fidel in 2006, a transition confirmed with Raúl's inauguration as president last month, the 76-year-old has repeatedly spoken of the need to improve an economy, 90% of which is controlled by the government.
Only so much ruin can be blamed on the US embargo and when the Castro brothers die, taking with them the revolution's founding legitimacy, its fate will hinge on delivering better material conditions, said one Havana economist: "They know they have maybe five years to turn things around. It's fix or perish."
Sceptics say the effort is doomed. That no matter how much a moribund agriculture blossoms or how fast greater wealth trickles down, Cuba will remain an outpost of unworkable ideology until the day the place implodes.
Others paint a rosier scenario for a government with several advantages: a cowed opposition and submissive population; subsidised Venezuelan oil courtesy of President Hugo Chávez; strengthening ties with Asia and Latin America; and the example of China's and Vietnam's communists successfully riding economic liberalisation.
Raúl can already boast one remarkable feat: he has tamed the big brother who used to rail against the reforms now unfurling. Fidel's published "reflections", newspaper articles which are his only form of public communication, have largely avoided commenting on the changes. No one knows whether Raúl has persuaded the sickly 81-year-old to go along or simply overruled him.
The bigger unknown is how Cubans will react. Being given a little more economic opportunity could sate or whet the yearning for change, and shore up or undermine the regime. It is Pandora's Box and opening the lid even a fraction is a gamble.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/07/cuba
* btw.. THE MAIN obstacle for more and further (capitalist) reforms in Cuba is the U.S. policy of boycott against the island. If it would be lifted, in a very short time Cuba would follow the economical (at least!!) way of China or Vietnam!!
** Of course Cuba, as all the other former and current "socialst" countries, isn't/never was a "communist" society!!
Related articles:
☞ Raul's crowd-pleasing reforms.. (AP, 4.04)
☞ Cadres or caddies? (Guardian, 4.11)
☞ Nicht mehr so langweilig (Junge Welt, 4.07)
☞ Neuland auf Kuba (JW, 4.08)
4.09 General Election in S.K. - the final results (according to K. Herald):
Grand National Party - 153
United Democratic Party - 81
Liberty Forward Party - 18
Pro-Park Geun-hye Alliance - 14
Democratic Labor Party - 5
Creative Korea Party - 3
Independents - 25
..and the New "Progressive" Party got: NOTHING!
Well, finally it's a brutal result - but it was foreseeable. Especially the almost total defeat of the "left"/"progressive" parties (DLP, NPP).
WELCOME TO THE REALITY!! (sorry!!!)
And of course the S.K. bourgeoisie is now in party mood:
☞ Progressives Sidelined (Korea..)
☞ Conservatism Sweeps Korea (..Times)
*****
But, hopefully, this development is terminating any illusions about the current (capitalist!!) system! Just remember the spring 2004 when hundreds of thousands of citizens - among them many labour, anti-war, human right activists were demonstrating to defend Roh Moo-hyun (during the impeachment campaign against him), despite the fact that he already proved that his policy also stands just for (increasing) exploitation and oppression(*).. So - hopefully - the current (political) development will lead to a situation where something like that never will be happen anymore!!
* Almost a half year before the impeachment campaign the Roh dov't started with the massive crackdown against un-documented migrant workers. In spring 2004 our sit-in strike in Myeong-dong took place since almost 4 month. And during the anti-impeachment protests, many rallies were held on the same place were we had our sit-in strke (Myeong-dong Cathedral compound) and we were criticized by a large number of political activists (many of them called themselves "leftwing", "progressive", even "socialist"..) about our strong anti-gov't/anti-Roh positions..^^
CPN(M) election campaign
Tomorrow, Nepalis vote in elections for a constituent assembly which is meant to write a new constitution and serve as a parliament for the Himalayan country.
The assembly will decide the fate of the country's (almost powerless) monarchy.
The majority of the political parties - from the communist left, like the CPN(M), to the bourgeois right (Congress Party etc.) - will likely declare a (or better said: any) kind of "republic".
GEFONT's campaign poster for the CA election
But the gap between the different ideas of the coming "republic" couldn't be deeper: the CPN(M) prefere likely the "People's Republic", the CPN-UML ( together with GEFONT) a "Federal Democratic Republic" and the Congress Party wants just an "ordinary" parliamentarian democracy (i.e. a bourgeois republic). And unfortunately the developments before tomorrow's election day (just read the stuff below) have - possibly(??) - nothing to do with any kind of "democracy", ...not really.
Nepal police fire on activists (al-Jazeera, 4.09)
Police have opened fire on protesters in western Nepal, killing at least one person, ahead of landmark elections to choose an assembly that will rewrite the constitution.
Protesters took to the street on Wednesday, angry at the slaying of a Maoist election candidate that has prompted authorities to postpone polling in the district.
Ram Kumar Khanal, an area police chief, said the police had opened fire with live ammunition in order to disperse protesters who were smashing stores and busses.
He said Wednesday's protesters were defying a curfew imposed in the area following the killing of the candidate.
Call for calm
Prachanda, Nepal's Maoist leader, earlier called on his party activists to remain calm.
"The need of the hour is to show restraint and have a fair and free election," Prachanda said in a statement after meeting Girija Prasad Koirala, Nepal's prime minister.
The dead candidate was Rishi Prasad Sharma, a member of the Communist Party of Nepal United Marxist Leninist, one of Nepal's top three political parties.
Election officials in Surket district, where Sharma was killed, subsequently postponed voting in Thursday's constitutional assembly elections.
A new polling date will be chosen in about a week for the constituency in Jahare Bazar town, Binod Kumar Pokhrel, an election official was reported by the Associated Press as saying.
Activists killed
In a separate incident on Tuesday, police shot dead six Maoist activists in Dang district, 300km west of Kathmandu, the capital, officials said.
Police shot the activists as they clashed with supporters of the Nepali Congress party, an official said on Wednesday.
"Six Maoists were killed and five injured after police intervened in clashes between cadres of the Nepali Congress and Maoist supporters," Mohan Sapkota said.
Officials imposed a curfew in Dang district after the deaths on Tuesday night.
Al Jazeera's Jane Dutton, reporting from Kathmandu, said the situation was tense across the country.
"There has been an escalation in violence prior to the elections," she said, adding that there had been at least four bomb explosions in the capital in recent days.
Dutton also reported there would be 136,000 police on the streets during the elections and that travel bans and a ban on the sale of alcohol would also be imposed.
Tamrat Samuel, a UN official overseeing the elections in Neapl, called the violence "unfortunate".
He told Al Jazeera: "These are unfortunate events that should not happen given the committments all the parties have given us. We have been in constant contact with the parties, all are committed to a free and fair election."
The United Nations peace mission in Nepal has appealed for an end to pre-election intimidation and violence, which it says could undermine the polls.
The elections, due on Thursday, are part of a peace process that brought Nepal's Maoists fighters into mainstream politics and ended a decade-long civil war in which at least 13,000 people have died.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/D2D40AF4-E6AC-4CC6-AFAE-CCF226B165B1.htm
Baburam threatens takeover in 10 minutes
(eKantipur, 4.06)
Senior Maoist leader Dr Babu Ram Bhattarai warned Saturday that people would seize power within ten minutes of the announcement of poll results if Maoists were defeated through rigging in Constituent Assembly (CA) election.
Addressing an election rally here, Dr Bhattarai claimed that people were impatiently waiting to elect the Maoist party, which made sacrifices for CA during the decade-long war against the establishment. He added that none of the forces could defeat the Maoists if there were free and fair polls.
“Maoists are the mother of the CA. Let the CA not be kidnapped by fake mothers. Only the Maoists should reap the crops they sowed. Monkeys should not be allowed to reap the crop,” said Dr Bhattarai. “If Maoists were defeated through riggings the people will seize power within 10 minutes, not 10 days.”
He said that Young Communist League (YCL) members and People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will make sure no cheating takes place during the elections and reiterated that his party is ready to accept any verdict of free and fair elections.
Dr Bhattarai alleged that both “national and international regressive forces” were hatching conspiracies to defeat the Maoists fearing that the Maoists are certain to win the elections.
He warned that sustainable peace in the country will not come about without properly managing the People’s Liberation Army. He criticized Nepali Congress and CPN-UML for failing to mention the issue of PLA management in their manifestos.
http://www.kantipuronline.com/kolnews.php?&nid=143242
Related articles, recently published:
☞ 7 Maoists killed in clash with police in Dang (eKantipur, 4.09)
☞ Prachanda urges YCL to be on ‘defensive’ posture (nepalnews, 4.06)
☞ Maoists ready to accept any outcome of CA polls.. (eKantipur, 4.05)
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Progressive parties fighting uphill battle
The Democratic Labor Party stunned the nation in 2004 when it became the nation's first leftist group to win seats in the National Assembly.
Four years later, these representatives' popularity is shrinking, and there is a split in their ranks. Their prospects in the parliamentary elections tomorrow are slim.
The DLP earlier this year disintegrated into two parties after factional feuding that was triggered by its meager showing in the December presidential election.
The DLP's candidate, Kwon Young-ghil, got 2.8 percent of the vote, far lower than the party's projection of 10 percent. He won 3.9 percent in the 2002 election.
The DLP and its splinter group, the New Progressive Party, are striving to reinvigorate the left wing in the upcoming elections.
The DLP fielded candidates for 103 constituencies and 10 proportional representation seats, while the NPP registered 34 candidates for directly elected seats and 11 for proportional ones.
But voters are increasingly uninterested in politics which stresses ideology, and this has led to what analysts see as a crisis for progressives.
In recent opinion polls, the DLP and the NPP ranked fifth and seventh, respectively, with approval ratings of about 3.8 and 1.9 percent.
The progressive duo has two major problems, according to the experts.
They have no regional strongholds, unlike the Grand National Party, with its major support in the southeastern Gyeongsang provinces, and the United Democratic Party, with its base in the southwestern Jeolla provinces.
The DLP and NPP candidates are not even doing well in their only home turf, Ulsan, according to recent surveys. In five constituencies of the industrial city, progressive candidates have gotten less than half the approval ratings of the leading candidates.
Compounding the problem for leftists is the fact that South Koreans have become fed-up with ideological conflict among political parties. Analysts say that this has much to do voters' having been disenchanted and even alienated by the policies of the Roh Moo-hyun administration.
Citizens are now more interested in a pragmatic agenda which stresses issues related to their livelihood. This sense of priorities is amplified by the deepening strains in the economy.
Workers, farmers and many lower-income voters sent 10 DLP members to the legislature in 2004, but the group's support has dwindled over the last four years.
Progressives attribute this to the party's dependence on the radical Korea Confederation of Trade Unions as its main support base. Additionally, there is the party's stubborn pro-North Korea stance.
In the wake of its utter defeat in the presidential election, members of the minority People's Democracy faction led by Reps. Sim Sang-jeong and Roh Hoe-chan sought to revamp the party. But they gave up their DLP membership after they failed to patch up their differences with the mainstream National Liberation group over the party's stance on radical labor groups and Pyongyang. The defectors formed the New Progressive Party on Feb. 16, and adopted moderate policies.
The progressive parties are emphasizing their trademark concerns: welfare for workers, farmers and the underprivileged. The DLP has also used the very specific slogan: "Half Tuition, Temps into Regular Workers." The promise is to improve working conditions for temporary workers and cut the skyrocketing university tuition to 1.5 million won ($1,500) per semester.
And the NPP decided to field the nation's first openly lesbian politician for a parliamentary seat.
In addition, they are seeking to improve their prospects by aligning with other liberal parties so as to derail the Lee Myung-bak administration's controversial cross-country canal plan.
But a party split will mean fewer parliamentary seats and a weaker voice for workers and farmers in the Assembly, analysts point out.
The progressive parties are focusing on a few politicians, in recognition of the fact that their fate largely depends on these individuals' success.
The DLP is concentrating its support on Kwon Young-ghil and Kang Ki-kab, who are running for in Changwon and Sacheon, South Gyeongsang Province, respectively.
Kwon, who is trying for a second term, is slightly ahead in recent opinion polls against his GNP rival. Kang is behind the GNP's Lee Bang-ho, but is doing his all to narrow the margin to 5.2 percent.
The NPP's co-chairman, Roh Hoe-chan, is fighting against Hong Jung-wook of the GNP. In the latest Munhwa Ilbo survey, Roh has 38.3 percent support, outperforming Hong by 7.5 percentage points.
Another co-chairman, Sim Sang-jeong of the progressive party, is running against the GNP candidate, Sohn Beom-kyu in Goyang-Deokyang, Gyeonggi Province. Sim lags behind by a margin of about 10 percentage points, but is hoping for better by integrating with the UDP candidate, Han Pyeong-seok.
A group of progressive intellectuals and lawyers have joined the campaigns for progressive candidates, along with dozens of celebrities, including people in the film industry.
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