SUMMARY
PBCP (Purbo Banglar Communist Party - East Bengali Workers Party) is a Bangladeshi outlawed radical Maoist political party and insurgent group. Originally, PBCP was formed by Maoist factions of the Bangladesh Communist Party in 1968, under pressures brought about by the Sino-Soviet split. From its inception, the main goal of the PBCP was an armed struggle against the Government of Pakistan and, after independence, against what PBCP saw as an illegitimate Bangladeshi government for the creation of a Maoist-style Communist state. The group has been outlawed in the late 1970s by the military government of Ziaur Rahman, being considered a threat to the national security of Bangladesh. By the early 1990s, PBCP’s ideology was reported to have shifted from pure Maoism to a mixture of communist ideas, combining Naxalite ideology, Maoism, orthodox Marxism-Leninism and even Cuban communism. Further, the Government of Bangladesh claims that PBCP is little more than a group of robbers, extortionists and bandits ("dacoits"), using communist ideology only as a facade to justify and legitimize organized crime. PBCP members, as well as members of other Bangladeshi communist insurgent groups are collectively referred to as "Sarbahara" (have-nots or proletariat).
PBCP has a relatively small influence in the overall Bangladeshi political environment - most of its activities being confined to the Chalan Beel area of South-West Bangladesh, a poor, dense and relatively rural marshland close to the Indian border. While PBCP advertises a violent overthrow of the government and has organised a paramilitary force, its presence is relatively weak and diffuse, mainly engaging in extortion, assaults and gun-fights. Further, most of PBCP’s violent activities have been targeted at rival groups present in the area, either communist (in the 1990s), or Islamic (in the mid-2000s). Such conflicts are mainly territorial in nature – as rivals threat PBCP’s vital sources of funding - extortion and taxation. PBCP has no obvious external affiliations or connections. However, there are allegations of collaboration with Naxalite groups in the Indian state of West Bengal.
The strength of PBCP varied in time, weakening significantly in 1999, as a police operation taking place between 23 April 1999 and 7 May 1999 led to the arrest of 13.500 suspected militants, some of which PBCP. After this setback, however, the group’s overall strength is reported to have increased in 2001, when a series of amnesties released a large number of PBCP militants from prison.
It is fairly difficult to distinguish a clear organisation and leadership of PBCP. Two factions are known to exist, PBCP-Janajuddha and PBCP-Red Flag, originating after a split of the main party in 2003. Existing reports indicate a relatively low level of organisation within PBCP, with numerous weakly linked cells, scattered around a relatively large territory.
PBCP has been involved in the non-state category of UCDP organised violence.
