Indian communists protest U.S. naval exercises

Indian communists protest U.S. naval exercises

By Ashok Sharma - The Associated Press

Posted : Tuesday Sep 4, 2007 7:19:35 EDT

NEW DELHI — Dozens of communists chanted anti-U.S. slogans as they left an eastern Indian city Tuesday for the site of a naval exercise involving India, the U.S. and three other countries, a party official said.

“The fight against imperialism will continue,” about 80 party workers in Calcutta shouted as they boarded buses for Vishakhapatnam, a southern port city near the venue of the exercise, set to begin hours later.

Twenty-five warships from India, the U.S., Australia, Japan and Singapore are participating in the four-day drill in the Bay of Bengal, said Capt. V.K. Garg, the Indian navy spokesman.

Another group of party workers was scheduled to leave Wednesday for Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu state, for Vishakhapatnam, where a protest rally is scheduled Saturday.

“An attempt to bind India to the United States on foreign policy would not be acceptable,” said a statement from the Communist Party of India (Marxist).

The party’s support is crucial for the survival of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government.

Along with its objections to the naval drills, the party is leading the opposition to a landmark India-U.S. nuclear pact, which it says could undermine India’s nuclear weapons program and independent foreign policy.

The deal lets the U.S. send nuclear fuel and technology to booming but energy-starved India, which has been cut off from international atomic markets for the past three decades by its refusal to sign nonproliferation accords and its testing of nuclear weapons.

Adm. Timothy J. Keating, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, praised the developing military relationship between the U.S. and India, describing it last month as “solid, good and improving steadily.”

“We are engaging in exercises, exchange of personnel and we are working on disaster relief assistance,” he said during his visit to the Indian capital of New Delhi.

Navy Times article.