Labour unrest in the Gulf: Maoists played key role

MAOISTS from Kerala were in the leadership of the activities among the labourers in the Gulf area and they had played a vital role in organising the workers from India who went for strike demanding better living conditions.Sources told Express that some of them fled the country after the authorities started the crack down.Now, they are back in Kerala. These cadres are working for the CPI (Maoist) under various capacities in the state.The CPI (Maoist) had succeeded in establishing secret party cells among the Indian labourers, especially among Malayalis who constitute a good majority.The cadres worked among the migrant labourers who are up in arms against the ‘inhuman’ treatment meted out to them by their employers.There were a series of labour unrest in Dubai, Bahrain and Kuwait. The Dubai government had sentenced 45 Indians to six months’ imprisonment for launching a strike demanding higher wages.There was a week-long agitation by the labourers in Bahrain also. Sources said the authorities in the Gulf could not apprehend any of the Maoist workers who were behind the unrest. The network is still intact. There is a Maoist group operating in the Gulf which has close ties with the party in India. This group helps the party to raise funds also.There were offers from the Gulf to raise fund to start a press to print People’s March, the unofficial mouthpiece of the CPI (Maoist).The offer came when the state police threatened press owners not to print the magazine after the arrest of its editor P Govindan Kutty. Some of the pro-Maoist blogspots are operated by Malayalis in the Gulf. maoistrevolutioninindia. blogspot, a blog which is non-functional now, was operated by a Maoist sympathiser in the Gulf who hails from Thrissur.CPI (Maoist) general secretary Ganapathi, in an interview, had said that what is labelled as Islamic fundamentalism is actually a struggle against imperialism.He attested Hizbollah leader Nazarullah’s statement that the Leftists and the Islamists are natural allies.This part of the interview was translated into various languages and it was distributed among Muslims in the Gulf