To deal with the Maoists...

[Sabir]

To deal with Maoists

While the hunt is on for the Maoists, one after another bad news coming in. Rarely we see any success story against the Maoist elements. But death toll of civilians and security personals is on rise. Now it is time to rethink whether there is any way of success the way things are moving on. In my opinion government is making a grave mistake by not allowing army to take care of the situation. State police force, CRPF without any training of jungle warfare are becoming soft target of Maoist guerrillas .Maoists are not known to use weapons as sophisticate as militants do in Kashmir. What will happen when they will accumulate those? In a frontal war they won’t stand a day even in front of the Police Force, but facing them in jungles is a different thing. While WB and other state governments building up their specialized force Army should have been called in to clean up those areas.

Now we should give a look on where the Maoists are beating our Police Force and let us try to analyze whether there is a way out.

The police camps are attacked to break the morale of young and inexperienced policemen and also for looting weapons. Some simple measures can make those camps less vulnerable with very limited recourses as prescribed by experts. They suggested barbed-wire fencing in certain manner and banker with machine guns (if not possible at least AK-47). The arms and ammunitions must be kept on first floor and spiral stairs should be accessible for one person at a time (So that a single guard with an AK 47 at first floor can hold on many attackers from climbing up). There must be sentry in the roof top for 24 hours and if possible one sniper. Bankers should be there in four corners to cover the sentries or sniper in case of a gun-battle. I am adding a diagram to show it.

Unfortunately none of these implemented. Even some camps and police stations don’t even have grills in windows. No wonder many young policemen have lost their lives in their own camp and equipments like INSAS rifles and ammunitions have been looted.

Another soft target of the Maoists is police convoy patrolling through Jungle. Blasting the convoy with land mines and firing up on puzzled policemen and job is over. When reinforcement comes Maoists are vanished in dense cover of jungle. I never understand the logic behind these patrols. I have never heard they have nabbed or dropped any Maoist in encounter while patrolling the jungles.

The war should be fought the way Maoists are fighting. Their own strategy should be used against them. Instead of patrolling in jungle and praying not to face them there, security forces should try to ambush them on their tracks.

It is not impossible to identify the routes and tracks the Maoists use in Jungle. Small groups of well trained snipers will monitor their movements and drop couple of them whenever possible. These sniper groups should be well trained in camouflaging techniques. Along with other necessities to live in jungle for 3-4 days they must carry secondary weapons (say AK47) to fight in case their hideout is revealed to a larger group of militants. They must be provided night vision equipments which will definitely give them an advantage in case of gun-battle at darkness. These small groups has to carry sophisticate navigation (navigation is an essential part of commando training) and communication devices so that they can come for assistance of another group or ask for quick reinforcement when a gun battle is apparent or they feel a militants group can be cornered doing so.

Helicopters should be provided to drop commandos in quicker time to encircle a group of militants or to ambush them in their escape route during an operation.

I hope the strategy mentioned will give better results than what is going on at present. As I said earlier the Maoists still lacking sophisticated equipments like the Jihadi groups in Kashmir. The cover of jungle is their biggest weapon. But it will not be the same tomorrow. They are accumulating funds from extortion and loots and very soon they will have access to most modern weapons and other things. If they are not eliminated today, tomorrow they will become invincible (at least in their own den).

 

[amoy]

When studying root causes for 'Maoist' uprisings (still in the 3rd world countries), we need to read again Mao's insight into social problems (on impoverished landless peasants) 70years ago_____________>>>>> REPORT ON AN INVESTIGATION OF THE PEASANT MOVEMENT IN HUNAN

13. THE CO-OPERATIVE MOVEMENT
The peasants really need co-operatives, and especially consumers', marketing and credit co-operatives. When they buy goods, the merchants exploit them; when they sell their farm produce, the merchants cheat them; when they borrow money for rice, they are fleeced by the usurers; and they are eager to kind a solution to these three problems. During the fighting in the Yangtze valley last winter, when trade routes were cut and the price of salt went up in Hunan, many peasants organized co-operatives to purchase salt. When the landlords deliberately stopped lending, there were many attempts by the peasants to organize credit agencies, because they needed to borrow money. A major problem is the absence of detailed, standard rules of organization. As these spontaneously organized peasant co-operatives often fail to conform to co-operative principles, the comrades working among the peasants are always eagerly enquiring about "rules and regulations". Given proper guidance, the co-operative movement can spread everywhere along with the growth of the peasant associations.