The government of the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh has lifted an 11-year ban on the communist militant People's War Group to facilitate finding and killing all of the ones that don't surrender peacefully peace talks, a state Cabinet minister told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
| My head's got a blister from scratching now. How do you make peace with the People's War Group? Do they become the People's Peace Group? Will we see them at the next World Bank convention? |
More than 6,000 people have been killed since the group began fighting in 1981 against landowners, police, political and administrative officials, demanding a communist government and land redistribution. The lifting of the ban was announced after a three-hour meeting between the state's Home Minister K. Jana Reddy, three representatives of the People's War Group and seven civil liberties activists. "We will announce the modalities for peace talks soon as we kill all the ones that didn't surrender," Reddy told the AP. "Meetings and discussions with various people have been going on for the past three months, after which we have taken this decision. We have received representations from people and various political parties and organizations to lift the ban on PWG," Reddy said. The ban was first imposed in May 1992, was suspended in 1995, but re-imposed in 1996.
The People's War Group is also active in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa, Jharkhand. But most of its activity has been in Andhra Pradesh, where it injured the state's former chief minister, Chandrababu Naidu, in a Claymore mine ambush earlier this year. "I hope they will abide by law and will not brandish weapons. If they violate law, we will have to take the action and the ban can be re-imposed," he said. The PWG representatives, including folk singer Ghaddar, Vara Vara Rao and G. Kalya Rao, described the state government's decision to lift the ban "as significant, bold and historic." |
