NEW DELHI: Eighteen leaders of four Left parties, Congress (S) and Janata Dal, on Tuesday broke the ban on demonstrations outside the U.S. embassy here and courted arrest after leading a march there to protest the American aggression against Iraq.
More than 3000 slogan-shouting demonstrators, including workers and students, marched to the U.S. embassy, but police stopped them about 500 metres away from the embassy in the diplomatic enclave here.
The leaders, who addressed the demonstrators before courting arrest, accused the Chandra Shekhar government of trying to act like a surrogate to the U.S. imperialism by allowing refueling of American aircraft at Indian airports and banning protests outside the U.S. embassy.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) politburo member, Harkishan Singh Surjeet, said all parties, including the Congress (I) would take up the issue of refueling in Parliament on the first day of the budget session and isolate the ruling party.
Demanding that the government take initiative towards Organising an international conference on the Palestinian question under United Nations auspices, Surjeet said the overwhelming enthusiasm and high morale of the Iraqi people despite grave devastation had taught a lesson to the US..
CPI leader M Farooqi, charged the government with distorting India’s traditional foreign policy of non-alignment by allowing refueling of U.S. aircraft, which we said implied that India had taken sides in the gulf war.
He said the US. Aggression was not only a threat to the Gulf countries and their oil-based economies, but also a threat to the entire developing world.
Others who spoke were Forward Bloc general secretary, Chitta Basu, revolutionary socialist party leader Nani Bhattacharya, Janata Dal leader Tarif Singh and Congress (S) leader Dr I.P. Singh.
Article extracted from this publication >> February 15, 1991
