Stop the Air War being waged by the Indian Army against Tribal villages on the borders of Chhattisgarh and Telangana
CDRO Fact Finding Team
At 11 AM on 11 January 2023, the air strikes continued. This attack was carried out in the villages of Madkanguda, Mettuguda, Bottethong, Sakleer, Madinaguda, Kannemerka, Pottemangam, Bottalanka, Rasappalli, Errapadu in Kishtaram and Pamed areas of Chhattisgarh state killed a tribal woman named “Pottamhang”. Bombing attacks by drones have continued for two consecutive years in the past. All these are continuing the war on tribals for Adani, Ambani, Jindal, Tatas, and Lloyds which are part of the corporate companies.
On March 4, 5, and 6, 2023 under the auspices of the Coordination for Democratic Rights Organizations (CDRO) the fact-finding was done. The President of the Civil liberties committee, Professor Gaddam Laxman from Telangana, , N. Narayana Rao General Secretary, Joint Secretaries Madana Kumaraswamy, M. Tirumalaiah, Jabali, Mahabubnagar, Joint District Secretary Jakka Balaiah and Chiluka Chandrasekhar, General Secretary, CLC, Andhra Pradesh, Ellanki Venkateswarlu, Nayaka Apparao, Brahma, Prasad, Krishna, Joint Secretaries, P.S.Ray of AFDR, West Bengal including, Ethammul Haka from Haryana PUCR participated in the fact-finding.
The first village visited by the fact-finding team was Mettaguda, Oosur block, Bijapur district where bomb attacks took place on January 11, 2023, in Kishtaram and Pamed areas. Nine drone bombs were dropped from the Sky in his vicinity when the farmer of that village who was harvesting grain in the agricultural field belonging to Mukapodium, at 11 o’clock in the morning. Within 10 minutes of the bombardment, two helicopter gunships fired machine guns and flew over Mettuguda to Bottentog village. As the machine gun fire occurred on the nearby hillock, the fact-finding team also inspected that hillock too. The traces of the gun bullets were identified.
Farmers of the Bottenthong Village (Oosur Block, Bijapur District) also fled the village fearing the ongoing police fire with machine guns from the helicopter while harvesting their grain. After that these helicopters crossed the pond and killed an Adivasi woman named Pottamhangi with gunfire. The fact-finding members noticed gunshot marks on the trees and bullet shells in all the surrounding trees.
In Erravalli (Oosur Block, Bijapur District) village, Adivasi women were worshiping God near the ‘Kallam’, and an old Adivasi woman jumped into the pond and hid in the pond next to her because she was afraid of gunfire from the machine guns. Many of the women went into the forest and hid under the trees. The tribals showed empty bullet shells to our fact-finding team.
On one side is the BJP central government and Chhattisgarh Bastar IG. Sundar Rajan did not make any statement regarding the dead Pottamhangi and said that they were only using the combat helicopters to move the armed forces in the camps and not to fight against the tribals and did not fire as the Maoists are now claiming. But on that day, all the major media in the country made huge propaganda that Maoist leader Hidma had died in the Encounter. In the early hours of the morning, neither the encounter nor Hidmam’s death was reported in the news media. Waging war on people is a reality.
Drone bombs and the firing of combat helicopters have actually happened. There are so many pieces of evidence of a war against the people. Everything I G Sundar Rajan saying is a lie. We should all recognize that all this is part of the Indian government’s aerial war against the people of India. In a democratic system, there should be a state of punishment by the courts for any crime committed by the people. We should all recognize the Indian government as a criminal who is preparing to kill Adivasis because no one has the power to kill them. As a civil society, we all need to speak against this murder.
Since 2005, governments have been waging a war against the indigenous people of Dandakaranya under various names to hand over their land to Local investors like Adani, Ambani, Mittal, and foreign imperialists as there are crores worth of mineral wealth under the feet of tribals in central India. Salvajudam, which started in 2005, is the main War. This included the burning of 644 villages, the displacement of 1,50,000 tribals, and the killing of hundreds in fake encounters. This massacre stopped after Mahendrakarma’s murder in 2013. Before that Prof. Nandini Sundar’s courtroom struggle also came in handy. After that in 2009 Operation Sarenda, and Operation Anaconda as part of Corporate Security which formed paramilitary forces under the name of Operation Green Hunt.
After that, since 2009, as part of the corporate security of setting up paramilitary forces in the name of Operation Green Hunt, the police forces in the names of Operation Sarenda, Operation Anaconda, and Operation Vijay have been combing the tribal villages for months and have completely endangered the right to life of the tribals. After the Salwa Judum ban by the supreme court, the Chhattisgarh government merged all these forces into its security forces under the name of District Reserve Guards. In 2016, it continued its war against tribals under the name of Mission 16. Nowadays Operation Samadhan and Prahar engage in direct warfare with Tribals. It is unconstitutional and anti-democratic for the government to wage war against natives in a democratic India. If there is indeed an armed rebellion in the country it is the prime duty of the government to declare it.
As per Article 3 of the Geneva Convention of 1949, it is the duty of the government to prevent harm to the public. International legal organizations such as Amnesty International, the United Nations, and other judicial organizations should work as monitors in relation to these attacks. In absence of this, in 2021 and 2022, bombs were planted with drones and the right to life of the tribals was completely insecure.
It is against the spirit of the Indian Constitution that the very government which is supposed to protect the right to live in the Constitution is waging an aerial war against the people of this country. It is against humanity also. The democratic and humane values established by the people of India through many processes and struggles are being written down by the government. This incident shows that our democratic system is in deep crisis. The rulers who had to solve the social, economic, and cultural problems escalated them and eventually took a war decision.
International rules of war also say that no attack should be made on human habitation and no military action should be taken against people. The Indian government is not following the rules with its own people, including wars against neighboring countries. It is against democracy for the government to declare war on the people at a time when they want peace and human rights against the war all over the world. On the one hand, India, which opposes the year-long Russia-Ukraine war, and the attack by war helicopters on the natives of India, clearly shows the undemocratic nature of the government. We all need to oppose this and stand for the right to life of the natives.
After the Maoist movement crossed the Godavari and entered Dandakaranyam in 1980, it took a two-decade struggle to reduce the forest officials’ raids on the tribals and the looting of Shawkars and to establish minimum living conditions for them. In order to suppress this struggle, Dandakarunya has a total of more than 100 armed police camps and military operations under many names are going on continuously. Attacks are taking place not because of the presence of oppressive Maoists with the armed forces of the government, but because the natural resources worth crores are lying in the layers of the earth in the forest because the Adivasis are not giving them a chance to be exploited by the investors. The tribals are agitating with the Maoists and are preparing for serious armed attacks on that pretext. The government is trying hard to eradicate the Maoist movement just like the LTTE, the ethnic struggle movement in Sri Lanka.
On April 14 and 15, 2022, the bomb was also dropped by drones. These bombs were dropped on the villages of Kottam, Rasam, Erram, Sakilere, Madasa, Dulade, Kannemark, Pottimagam, and Bottom. After April 14 and 15, 2022, 30 intellectuals along with the National Campaign to Defend Democracy, which is working on an all-India level, condemned it and demanded that it be stopped immediately. As a part of that, they also demanded that the Chhattisgarh government clarify whether this is really an armed rebellion or a law and order issue.
On 11 May 2017, a peaceful dharna by tribals against a security camp in Siligeru area was going on. Suddenly police opened fire and four persons were shot dead. A pregnant woman died in the stampede. A total of 5 people died. So far, the government has not responded legally to these deaths. They have been holding dharnas for 662 days peacefully and democratically against it. A truly democratic government would have always addressed the demands of the people. People’s democratic agitations are continuing in 12 places across Bastar. Adivasi communities and intellectuals continue to fight against security camps. But the government stands as a patron of the capitalists and does not come forward to implement the basic rights of the people. These are the stark truths that the people of Silingeru told the fact-finding team.
Demands:
# Chhattisgarh should immediately stop the drone bombings that have been going on for the last three years in the South Bastar region, we demand that the government stop the war attacks immediately considering the attack by drones and war helicopters in 2023 as a violation of the Geneva Convention.
## More than 100 existing security camps in Chhattisgarh should be removed immediately.
###.Silinger camp immediately as a solution to tribal agitation against Silinger security camps in Silinger area for more than 500 days peacefully.
We demand the immediate removal of the Silinger camp as a solution to the agitation by the tribals against the Silinger Security Camps in the Silinger area for more than 500 days.
#### Chhattisgarh police and paramilitary give one crore rupees ex gratia to dead tribals and fifty thousand rupees to injured tribals.
#### Criminal cases should be registered against the police paramilitary forces who committed murders, assaults, and fake encounters against tribal women.
##### Development works should be done by central and state governments according to the resolution of the tribal village council.
###### The central government should start the talks again with sincerity as Peace talks were initiated in Hyderabad in 2004 under the leadership of Senior IAS officer SR Sankaran. …
Members of the fact-finding team CDRO…
1. P. S . Ray ..West Bengal .. A.P.D.R, West Bengal.
2. Ethmammul Haque, PUCR, Haryana State.
3. Professor Gaddam Laxman, President.Civil Liberties Committee, Telangana
4.N. Narayana Rao, General Secretary, Civil Liberties Committee, Telangana
5. Madana Kumaraswamy, Joint Secretary, Telangana Civil Liberties Committee.
6. M. Tirumalaiah, Joint Secretary, Telangana Civil Liberties Committee.
7..Jabali, Joint Secretary, Telangana Civil Liberties Committee.
8. Jakka Balaiah, Chief Secretary, Joint Mahbubnagar District.
9. Chiluka Chandrasekhar, General Secretary, Civil Liberties Committee, Andhra Pradesh.
10. Ellanki Venkateswara, Joint Secretary, Assistant Secretary.
11. Brahmam, EC Member, Civil Liberties Committee, Andhra Pradesh.
12. Subbarao, EC Member, Civil Liberties Committee, Andhra Pradesh.
13. Prasad, EC Member, Civil Liberties Committee, Andhra Pradesh.
14. Krishna, EC Member, Civil Liberties Committee, Andhra Pradesh.
