Post card campaign and Cycle Rally launched to condemn the State
sponsored killings of tribals in Chhattisgarh and to demand that Mr.
Chidambaram stop the tribal atrocities immediately

25/1/2010, Chennai: Speaking out against the State-sponsored killings
and rapes of adivasis of Dantewada district in Chhattisgarh, Campaign
for Justice and Peace-Tamil Nadu launched a post-card campaign and
cycle rally from Salem to the constituency of Home Minister P
Chidambaram in Sivaganga. Human rights activist Prof Marx and feminist
poet Kutti Revathi announced the launch of the campaign at Chennai.

The month-long cycle rally will start from Salem on the 26^th of
January and will cover a distance of 900 kms going through Namakkal,
Karur, Dindigul, Madurai to Sivaganga and finally come full circle to
Chennai via Pudokottai, Trichy, Perambalur, Cuddalore, Pondicherry,
Villipuram, and Kanchipuram. Cycling through villages and small towns,
the cyclists will inform Tamil people about the killings and rapes of
innocent tribals in Dantewada District in southern Chhattisgarh.
Government-sponsored counter-insurgency ‘operation green hunt’ and
armed militia operation ‘salwa judum’ has turned into a massive tribal
genocide in Dantewada, Bijapur in Chhattisgarh and the neighbouring
district of Malkangiri in Orissa. Squarely blaming the Home Minister,
50,000 to 1 lakh postcards demanding Mr Chidambaram to stop the
‘tribal hunt’ in the guise countering ‘internal terror’ will be sent
from Tamil Nadu in Tamil and English.

Over the last two years, atleast 3, 00,000 people have been displaced
from the 644 “liberated villages” because of Salwa Judum. Of these
about 50,000 were forcibly taken to the camps on the highways where
they face acute shortage of food, water and other basic amenities.
Another 50,000 have fled to Andhra Pradesh. The remaining 2,50,000 who
fled to the forests for fear of being killed have been deemed Maoists
and are hunted down every day by the armed forces. More than 5000
civilians are said to have lost their lives. At least 50 girls and
women have been raped and sexually abused, and many more cases have
gone undocumented. Police has failed to register FIRs inspite of
numerous complaints. National Human Rights Commission, which had taken
testimonies of the rape victims in June 2008, has remained silent and
no action has been taken.

“State’s creation of unconstitutional forces like SPOs of Salwa judum
and spending public money on such nefarious activities is highly
depolorable,” said Prof Marx.

In January 2010, a local newspaper reported mass exodus of over 25,000
people from 18 villages in Konta block of Dantewada to the bordering
villages of Andhra Pradesh due to massive combing operations by the
‘operation green hunt’ forces. Independent journalists have reported
killings of 44 men, women, even children as young as 10 years old
between August and October 2009.

A team of 25 human rights and social activists from across India,
including five members from Tamil Nadu, were recently attacked by a
salwa judum mob of 400 people supported by people in uniform when they
went to attend the proposed public hearing of atrocities and killings
in Dantewada. Uniformed and un-uniformed armed people in unnumbered
vehicles followed the activists, creating a sense of terror and threat
over the two days that they were in Dantewada. “Clearly the
Chhattisgarh government did not want us to know the truth”, said
Archana Seker, a 19 year old student and one of the members of the
Tamil Nadu team which had recently visited Dantewada.

Likening the situation of adivasis in Dantewada to Tamil civilians in
Sri Lanka, poet Kutti Revathi questioned Mr Chidambaram’s and the
State’s ulterior motives behind ‘cleansing’ of adivasis from the
mineral rich land of central India.

Despite the several decadeds long presence of Maoists in the region,
the Central and Chattisgarh Government’s renewed actions ostensibly
against the Maoists began in June 2005, a few days after Tata Steel
signed an MoU for mining iron ore and locating a steel plant in the
area. MoU’s worth $13 billion have been signed by the Chhattisgarh
Government in the region.

Contact:

Madhumita Dutta +91 9444390240; Archana Seker +91 9840523235

Campaign for Justice and Peace, 42 A, FF, 5^th Avenue, Besant Nagar,
Chennai- 600090, INDIA