LK Advani was the alleged target of the bombs

A court in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu has sentenced 23 people to life in prison in connection with a series of bombs nine years ago.

Among those sentenced was the man described as the mastermind of the plot, SA Basha.

Nineteen bombs went off in the town of Coimbatore on 14 February 1998 just before Hindu nationalist leader LK Advani was due at an election rally.

Some 58 people were killed in the blasts which caused chaos in the town.

In all 166 people faced charges of being involved in the blasts, and around 153 have been found guilty.

Basha, the founder of the banned radical Muslim group, Al-Umma, is the most high profile defendant to be sentenced.

In August, another prominent defendant, Abdul Nasser Madani, the leader of the Kerala-based People's Democratic Party, was acquitted.

The 1998 bombings sparked clashes between Hindu and Muslim mobs in Coimbatore, some 2,400km (1,500 miles) south of Delhi.

The bombs went off close to where Mr Advani was due to speak.

At the time, he was president of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He was not at the podium when the bombs went off because his flight had been delayed.

Coimbatore was also the scene of Hindu-Muslim clashes in November 1997 after two men belonging to a radical Muslim group allegedly killed a Hindu policeman.

At least 17 people died in the violence that followed.

Burma: Thousands dead in massacre of the monks dumped in the jungle

The most senior official to defect so far, Hla Win, said: "Many more people have been killed in recent days than you've heard about. The bodies can be counted in several thousand."

Mr Win, who spoke out as a Swedish diplomat predicted that the revolt has failed, said he fled when he was ordered to take part in a massacre of holy men. He has now reached the border with Thailand.

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Slaughter: Executed monks have been dumped in the jungle

Meanwhile, the United Nations special envoy was in Burma's new capital today seeking meetings with the ruling military junta.

Ibrahim Gambari met detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi in Rangoon yesterday. But he has yet to meet the country's senior generals as he attempts to halt violence against monks and pro-democracy activists.

It is anticipated the meeting will happen tomorrow.

Heavily-armed troops and police flooded the streets of Rangoon during Mr Ibrahim's visit to prevent new protests.

Mr Gambari met some of the country's military leaders in Naypyidaw yesterday and has returned there for further talks. But he did not meet senior general Than Shwe or his deputy Maung Aye - and they have issued no comment.

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Tensions: People gather outside a temple after a police raid today

Reports from exiles along the frontier confirmed that hundreds of monks had simply "disappeared" as 20,000 troops swarmed around Rangoon yesterday to prevent further demonstrations by religious groups and civilians.

Word reaching dissidents hiding out on the border suggested that as well as executions, some 2,000 monks are being held in the notorious Insein Prison or in university rooms which have been turned into cells.

There were reports that many were savagely beaten at a sports ground on the outskirts of Rangoon, where they were heard crying for help.

Others who had failed to escape disguised as civilians were locked in their bloodstained temples.

There, troops abandoned religious beliefs, propped their rifles against statues of Buddha and began cooking meals on stoves set up in shrines.

In stark contrast, the streets of Rangoon and Mandalay - centres of the attempted saffron revolution last week - were virtually deserted.

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Checkpoint: Police outside the house of opposition leader Aung Sang Suu Kyi today

Executed: The body of a Buddhist monk floats in a river

A Swedish diplomat who visited Burma during the protests said last night that in her opinion the revolution has failed.

Liselotte Agerlid, who is now in Thailand, said that the Burmese people now face possibly decades of repression. "The Burma revolt is over," she added.

"The military regime won and a new generation has been violently repressed and violently denied democracy. The people in the street were young people, monks and civilians who were not participating during the 1988 revolt.

"Now the military has cracked down the revolt, and the result may very well be that the regime will enjoy another 20 years of silence, ruling by fear."

Mrs Agerlid said Rangoon is heavily guarded by soldiers.

"There are extremely high numbers of soldiers in Rangoon's streets," she added. "Anyone can see it is absolutely impossible for any demonstration to gather, or for anyone to do anything.

"People are scared and the general assessment is that the fight is over. We were informed from one of the largest embassies in Burma that 40 monks in the Insein prison were beaten to death today and subsequently burned."

The diplomat also said that three monasteries were raided yesterday afternoon and are now totally abandoned.

At his border hideout last night, 42-year-old Mr Win said he hopes to cross into Thailand and seek asylum at the Norwegian Embassy.

The 42-year-old chief of military intelligence in Rangoon's northern region, added: "I decided to desert when I was ordered to raid two monasteries and force several hundred monks onto trucks.

"They were to be killed and their bodies dumped deep inside the jungle. I refused to participate in this."

With his teenage son, he made his escape from Rangoon, leaving behind his wife and two other sons.

He had no fears for their safety because his brother is a powerful general who, he believes, will defend the family.

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Protests: But the situation inside Burma remains unclear

Mr Win's defection will raise a faint hope among tens of thousands of Burmese who have fled to villages along the Thai border.

They will feel others in the army may follow him and turn on their ageing leaders, Senior General Than Shwe and his deputy, Vice Senior General Maung Aye.

Message to the People of Burma

Message

I extend my support and solidarity with the recent peaceful movement for democracy in Burma. I fully support their call for freedom and democracy and take this opportunity to appeal to freedom-loving people all over the world to support such non-violent movements. Moreover, I wish to convey my sincere appreciation and admiration to the large number of fellow Buddhists monks for advocating democracy and freedom in Burma.

As a Buddhist monk, I am appealing to the members of the military regime who believe in Buddhism to act in accordance with the sacred dharma in the spirit of compassion and non-violence.

I pray for the success of this peaceful movement and the early release of fellow Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

Tenzin Gyatso
September 23, 2007

Suit filed to probe Rahul Gandhi's detention by FBI
By Indo-Asian News Service

Lucknow, March 8 (IANS) A suit has been filed in the high court here seeking information about the alleged detention of Congress MP Rahul Gandhi and his Colombian girlfriend by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 2001.

The petition, filed by four lawyers, is likely to be heard Wednesday.

According to the public interest litigation, Gandhi, the son of Congress president Sonia Gandhi, and his companion were released after being detained at Boston airport following the intervention of the Prime Minister's Office.

At that time, Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the Indian prime minister and Gandhi was not a member of the Lok Sabha.

"Vajpayee's principal secretary and then national security adviser Brajesh Misra spoke to top US authorities to enable Rahul Gandhi and his girlfriend to get away," claimed Prem Chandra Sharma, who moved the court along with three others.

Sharma claimed to have gathered this information through the Internet and said he had downloaded certain documents to substantiate his allegations.

The petition alleged that Gandhi was found in illegal possession of about $200,000. And it was in that connection that the FBI had detained him along with his girlfriend Sep 21, 2001.

The FBI was said to have sought an explanation about Gandhi's possession of such a huge amount of money, which he was unable to provide, the petition said.

The petition sought a writ of mandamus to the Indian ambassador to the US as well as the union home secretary to make a disclosure about the entire episode.

RAHUL GANDHI INVOLVED IN GANG RAPE

At the outset I wish to confirm that Hindu Unity is aware of the seriousness of the charges we are levelling against Rahul Gandhi (aka Raul Maino) son of Sonia Gandhi (aka Antonia Maino). Members of Hindu Unity in Lucknow and Amethi have confirmed the news and will soon come out with necessary evidence to nail Rahul Gandhi and his friends. The following is the information that Hindu Unity has gathered. The photograph was obtained from the girl's family and is being posted here with their permission.


On 3rd December 2006, Rahul Gandhi was camping at Amethi along with 7 others including 4 foreigners (two from Britain and other two from Italy, names not known).Around 9 P.M all of them were drinking liquor at a V.I.P. guest house in a high security zone. They had an uninvited guest, a young girl named Sukanya Devi, 24 years of age, a staunch follower of Nehru-Gandhi family and daughter of Congress worker Balram Singh.

Sukanya was looking for an opportunity to meet Rahul Gandhi since last two years and on that fateful night she able to meet him. Sukanya's family has been supporting the Congress party since the time of Nehru.

When she met Rahul he spoke to her for a couple of minutes and later he and his friends offered here liquor. Sukanya was amazed seeing all this, she was not feeling comfortable, she refused to have liquor and took permission to leave, but she was forced to stay back and drink. She kept resisting, but they raped her one by one. She cried for help, but her cries fell on deaf ears. Even the security personnel preferred to remain as mute spectators.

She kept weeping all along and was threatened and asked to keep her mouth shut. She was given Rs.50,000 /-. She straightaway went to the local police station. The police refused to book any complaint and asked her to go home.

Before she could reach home, Congress workers had gathered at her house and gave a different version of the incident to her father. They accused her of trying to seduce Rahul Gandhi. Her father Balram Singh, without giving her a chance to explain what had happened to her beat her up mercilessly. Balram Singh learnt the facts from others who were witness to the crime, but he preferred to remain quite as he did not want to challenge Rahul Gandhi and the Congress Party.

Sukanya's mother Sumitra Devi, who learnt about the whole incident immediately went with her daughter to Police HQ in Amethi. The Police officials refused to book any complaint and advised her to remain quite. She went from pillar to post pleading for justice, but no one heard her pleas.

Sumithra Devi gave a statement in a press conference with a very thin attendance and there she was confronted by Congressmen who physically assaulted both mother & daughter. On 27th December 2006 Sumithra Devi went to New Delhi to meet Sonia Gandhi. Sonia refused to meet her. With no options left she went to Human Rights Commission who just noted down her complaint and asked her to leave.

The Congressmen have threatened to kill both Sumithra Devi and her daughter Sukanya if she makes the rape issue public. Both the mother and daughter are in despair trying to seek justice. Both mother and daughter were camping in New Delhi for over a fortnight to get an appointment with the President of India. They have not got an appointment either with the President or with the Chief Justice.


Both mother and daughter are now in hiding. If the Congressmen don't kill her, the Opus Di (secret service of the Vatican) definitely will. It is important that we locate Sumanthra Devi and Sukanya, offer them protection.

By Amarnath Tewary BBC News, Bihar

(Photos: Prashant Ravi)" border="0" height="152" hspace="0" vspace="0" width="203"> Mr Mishra has worn the tilak throughout his career

A senior official in India's Bihar state faces suspension for wearing the Hindu red mark on his forehead at work.

Lakshman Mishra, deputy director of the agriculture department, is accused of breaching a new government dress code.

He says he has worn the mark, or tilak, on his forehead at work for 30 years and it is his religious right to do so.

His colleagues support him - nearly all of them arrived at work on Friday wearing red marks in protest, and unions are threatening mass action.

Suicide threat

Mr Mishra's troubles began in August when new guidelines were issued on what state government officials could wear at the office.

No one should be suspended for wearing a holy tilak as it's a matter of personal choice Bihar Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh

Almost all the bodies have been identified and handed over to relatives

India's main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party has called a shutdown in the southern city of Hyderabad to protest against Saturday's twin blasts.

At least 42 people were killed and more than 60 wounded in explosions at an open-air auditorium and a restaurant.

Almost 36 hours after the attacks, police are yet to find any clear leads.

The state authorities say groups in Pakistan and Bangladesh are responsible for the blasts. Both Pakistan and Bangladesh denied the accusation.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has called for a policy of "zero tolerance" in dealing with terrorism.

On alert

In response to the party's call for a day-long shut-down, schools and colleges and shops across Hyderabad city remain closed.

Although people can be seen walking on the streets, traffic on the roads is thin.

One of the blasts ripped through the Lumbini amusement park

A hysteria of sorts has been generated by reports that some of China's products lack quality control. Some cat food has been tainted. A few cell phone batteries have blown up. Cough syrup contained stuff that makes you sick. And so on. In response, the Chinese government actually executed its regulatory head of food and product safety, Zheng Xiaoyu.

How very strange this last point is! In the West, we long ago gave up the idea that these people are actually supposed to carry out their jobs and should be personally responsible for their failure to do so.

What is most striking about these criticisms is how historically insular they appear in light of the modern history of China. This is a subject that is deeply painful, horrifying in its detail, highly instructive in helping us understand politics — and also puts into perspective these reports of recent troubles in China. It's a scandal, in fact, that few Westerners are even aware, or, if they are aware, they are not conscious, of the bloody reality that prevailed in China between the years 1949 and 1976, the years of communist rule by Mao Zedong.

How many died as a result of persecutions and the policies of Mao? Perhaps you care to guess? Many people over the years have attempted to guess. But they have always underestimated. As more data rolled in during the 1980s and 1990s, and specialists have devoted themselves to investigations and estimates, the figures have become ever more reliable. And yet they remain imprecise. What kind of error term are we talking about? It could be as low as 40 million. It could be as high as 100 million or more. In the Great Leap Forward from 1959 to 1961 alone, figures range between 20 million to 75 million. In the period before, 20 million. In the period after, tens of millions more.

As scholars in the area of mass death point out, most of us can't imagine 100 dead or 1000. Above that, we are just talking about statistics: they have no conceptual meaning for us, and it becomes a numbers game that distracts us from the horror itself. And there is only so much ghastly information that our brains can absorb, only so much blood we can imagine. And yet there is more to why China's communist experiment remains a hidden fact: it makes a decisive case against government power, one even more compelling than the cases of Russia or Germany in the 20th century.

The horror was foreshadowed in a bloody civil war following the Second World War. After some nine million people died, the communists emerged victorious in 1949, with Mao as the ruler. The land of Lao-Tzu (rhyme, rhythm, peace), Taoism (compassion, moderation, humility), and Confucianism (piety, social harmony, individual development) was seized by the strangest import to China ever: Marxism from Germany via Russia. It was an ideology that denied all logic, experience, economic law, property rights, and limits on the power of the state on grounds that these notions were merely bourgeois prejudices, and what we needed to transformed society was a cadre with all power to transform all things.

It's bizarre to think about it, really: posters of Marx and Lenin in China, of all places, and rule by an ideology of robbery, dictatorship, and death that did not come to an end until 1976. So spectacular has the transformation been in the last 25 years that one would hardly know that any of this ever happened, except that the Communist Party is still running the place while having tossed out the communist part.

The experiment began in the most bloody way possible following the second world war, when all Western eyes were focused on matters at home and, to the extent there was any foreign focus, it was on Russia. The "good guys" had won the war in China, or so we were led to believe in times when communism was the fashion.

The communization of China took place in the usual three stages: purge, plan, and scapegoat. First there was the purge to bring about communism. There were guerillas to kill and land to nationalize. The churches had to be destroyed. The counterrevolutionaries had to be put down. The violence began in the country and spread later to the cities. All peasants were first divided into four classes that were considered politically acceptable: poor, semi poor, average, and rich. Everyone else was considered a landowner and targeted for elimination. If no landowners could be found, the "rich" were often included in this group. The demonized class was ferreted out in a country-wide series of "bitterness meetings" in which people turned in their neighbors for owning property and being politically disloyal. Those who were so deemed were immediately executed along with those who sympathized with them.

The rule was that there had to be at least one person killed per village. The numbers killed is estimated to be between one and five million. In addition, another four to six million landowners were slaughtered for the crime of being capital owners. If anyone was suspected of hiding wealth, he or she was tortured with hot irons to confess. The families of the killed were then tortured and the graves of their ancestors looted and pillaged. What happened to the land? It was divided into tiny plots and distributed among the remaining peasants.

"There is only so much ghastly information that our brains can absorb, only so much blood we can imagine."

Then the campaign moved to the cities. The political motivations here were at the forefront, but there were also behavioral controls. Anyone who was suspected of involvement in prostitution, gambling, tax evasion, lying, fraud, opium dealing, or telling state secrets was executed as a "bandit." Official estimates put the number of dead at two million with another two million going to prison to die. Resident committees of political loyalists watched every move. A nighttime visit to another person was immediately reported and the parties involved jailed or killed. The cells in the prisons themselves grew ever smaller, with one person living in a space of about 14 inches. Some prisoners were worked death, and anyone involved in a revolt was herded with collaborators and they were all burned.

There was industry in the cities, but those who owned and managed them were subjected to ever tighter restrictions: forced transparency, constant scrutiny, crippling taxes, and pressure to offer up their businesses for collectivization. There were many suicides among the small- and medium-sized business owners who saw the writing on the wall. Joining the party provided only temporary respite, since 1955 began the campaign against hidden counterrevolutionaries in the party itself. A principle here was that one in ten party members was a secret traitor.

As the rivers of blood rose ever higher, Mao brought about the Hundred Flowers Campaign in two months of 1957, the legacy of which is the phrase we often hear: "Let a hundred flowers bloom." People were encouraged to speak freely and give their point of view, an opportunity that was very tempting for intellectuals. The liberalization was short lived. In fact, it was a trick. All those who spoke out against what was happening to China were rounded up and imprisoned, perhaps between 400,000 and 700,000 people, including 10 percent of the well-educated classes. Others were branded as right wingers and subjected to interrogation, reeducation, kicked out of their homes, and shunned.

But this was nothing compared with phase two, which was one of history's great central planning catastrophes. Following collectivization of land, Mao decided to go further to dictate to the peasants what they would grow, how they would grow it, and where they would ship it, or whether they would grow anything at all as versus plunge into industry. This would become the Great Leap Forward that would generate history's most deadly famine. Peasants were grouped into groups of thousands and forced to share all things. All groups were to be economically self-sufficient. Production goals were raised ever higher.

People were moved by the hundreds of thousands from where production was high to where it was low, as a means of boosting production. They were moved too from agriculture to industry. There was a massive campaign to collect tools and transform them into industrial skill. As a means of showing hope for the future, collectives were encouraged to have huge banquets and eat everything, especially meat. This was a way of showing one's belief that the next year's harvest would be even more bountiful.

Mao had this idea that he knew how to grow grain. He proclaimed that "seeds are happiest when growing together" and so seeds were sown at five to ten times their usual density. Plants died, the soil dried out, and the salt rose to the surface. To keep birds from eating grain, sparrows were wiped out, which vastly increased the number of parasites. Erosion and flooding became endemic. Tea plantations were turned to rice fields, on grounds that tea was decadent and capitalistic. Hydraulic equipment built to service the new collective farms didn't work and lacked any replacement parts. This led Mao to put new emphasis on industry, which was forced to appear in the same areas as agriculture, leading to ever more chaos. Workers were drafted from one sector to another, and mandatory cuts in some sectors was balanced by mandatory high quotas in another.

In 1957, the disaster was everywhere. Workers were growing too weak even to harvest their meager crops, so they died watching the rice rot. Industry churned and churned but produced nothing of any use. The government responded by telling people that fat and proteins were unnecessary. But the famine couldn't be denied. The black-market price of rice rose 20 to 30 times. Because trade had been forbidden between collectives (self-sufficiency, you know), millions were left to starve. By 1960, the death rate soared from 15 percent to 68 percent, and the birth rate plummeted. Anyone caught hoarding grain was shot. Peasants found with the smallest amount were imprisoned. Fires were banned. Funerals were prohibited as wasteful.

Villagers who tried to flee the countryside to the city were shot at the gates. Deaths from hunger reached 50 percent in some villages. Survivors boiled grass and bark to make soup and wandered the roads looking for food. Sometimes they banded together and raided houses looking for ground maize. Women were unable to conceive because of malnutrition. People in work camps were used for food experiments that led to sickness and death.

"Because trade had been forbidden between collectives (self-sufficiency, you know), millions were left to starve."

How bad did it get? 1968 an 18-year-old member of the Red Guard, Wei Jingsheng, took refuge with a family in a village of Anhui, and here he lived to write about what he saw:

"We walked along beside the village… Before my eyes, among the weeds, rose up one of the scenes I had been told about, one of the banquets at which the families had swapped children in order to eat them. I could see the worried faces of the families as they chewed the flesh of other people's children. The children who were chasing butterflies in a nearby field seemed to be the reincarnation of the children devoured by their parents. I felt sorry for the children but not as sorry as I felt for their parents. What had made them swallow that human flesh, amidst the tears and grief of others — flesh that they would never have imagined tasting, even in their worst nightmares?"

The author of this passage was jailed as a traitor but his status protected him from death and he was finally released in 1997.

How many people died in the famine of 1959–61? The low range is 20 million. The high range is 43 million. Finally in 1961, the government gave in and permitted food imports, but it was too little and too late. Some peasants were again allowed to grow crops on their own land. A few private workshops were opened. Some markets were permitted. Finally, the famine began to abate and production grew.

But then the third phase came: scapegoating. What had caused the calamity? The official reason was anything but communism, anything but Mao. And so the politically motivated roundup began again, and here we get the very heart of the Culture Revolution. Thousands of camps and detention centers were opened. People sent there died there. In prison, the slightest excuse was used to dispense with people — all to the good, since the prisoners were a drain on the system, so far as those in charge were concerned. The largest penal system ever built was organized in a military fashion, with some camps holding as many as 50,000 people.

There was some sense in which everyone was in prison. Arrests were sweeping and indiscriminate. Everyone had to carry around a copy of Mao's Little Red Book. To question the reason for arrest was itself evidence of disloyalty, since the state was infallible. Once arrested, the safest path was instant and frequent confession. Guards were forbidden from using overt violence, so interrogations would go on for hundreds of hours, and often the prisoner would die during this process. Those named in the confession were then hunted down and rounded up. Once you got through this process, you were sent to a labor camp, where you were graded according to how many hours you could work with little food. You were fed no meat nor given any sugar or oil. Labor prisoners were further controlled by the rationing of the little food they had.

The final phase of this incredible litany of criminality lasted from 1966 to 1976, during which the number killed fell dramatically to "only" one to three million. The government, now tired and in the first stages of demoralization, began to lose control, first within the labor camps and then in the countryside. And it was this weakening that led to the final, and in some ways the most vicious, of the communist periods in China's history.

The first stages of rebellion occurred in the only way permissible: people began to criticize the government for being too soft and too uncommitted to the communist goal. Ironically, this began to appear precisely as moderation became more overt in Russia. Neo-revolutionaries in the Red Guard began to criticize the Chinese communists as "Khrushchev-like reformers." As one writer put it, the guard "rose up against its own government in order to defend it."

During this period, the personality cult of Mao reached it height, with the Little Red Book achieving a mythic status. The Red Guards roamed the country in an attempt to purge the Four Old-Fashioned Things: ideas, culture, customs, and habits. The remaining temples were barricaded. Traditional opera was banned, with all costumes and sets in the Beijing Opera burned. Monks were expelled. The calendar was changed. All Christianity was banned. There were to be no pets such as cats and birds. Humiliation was the order of the day.

Mises Tee: $11 Do not give in to evil!

Thus was the Red Terror: in the capital city, there were 1,700 deaths and 84,000 people were run out. In other cities such as Shanghai, the figures were worse. A massive party purge began, with hundreds of thousands arrested and many murdered. Artists, writers, teachers, scientists, technicians: all were targets. Pogroms were visited on community after community, with Mao approving at every step as a means of eliminating every possible political rival. But underneath, the government was splintering and cracking, even as it became ever more brutal and totalitarian in its outlook.

Finally in 1976, Mao died. Without a few months, his closest advisers were all imprisoned. And the reform began slowly at first and then at breakneck speed. Civil liberties were restored (comparatively) and the rehabilitations began. Torturers were prosecuted. Economic controls were gradually relaxed. The economy, by virtue of human and private economic initiative, was transformed.

Having read the above, you are now in a tiny elite of people who know anything about the greatest death camp in the history of the world that China became between 1949 and 1976, an experiment in total control unlike anything else in history. Many more people today know more about China's exploding cell-phone batteries than they do about the hundred million dead and the untold amount of suffering that occurred under communism.

When you hear about shoddy products coming from China or wheat poorly processed, imagine millions in famine, with parents swapping children to eat in order to stay alive. And what do China's critics today recommend? More control by the government. Don't tell me that we've learned anything from history. We don't even know enough about history to learn from it.

Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. is president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, editor of LewRockwell.com, and author of Speaking of Liberty. See his Mises.org archive. Send him mail. Comment on the blog.

Note on sources, all of which you should buy and read in detail: "China: A Long March into Night," by Jean-Louis Margolin in The Black Book of Communism, by Stéphane Courtois et al. (Harvard, 1999), pp. 463–546; Death by Government, by R.J. Rummel (Transaction, 1996); Hungry Ghosts: Mao's Secret Famine, by Jaspar Becker (Owl Books, 1998); and Mao: The Unknown Story, by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday (2006).