© Velar Grant/Demotix/CorbisAravindan and Chanda Balakrishnan were arrested on suspicion of holding three women captive at addresses in south London, including Peckford Place (above).
The 73-year-old man arrested on suspicion of holding three women captive in a south London flat for 30 years is a one-time Communist party activist who was well known within far-left circles in London during the mid- and late 1970s as the leader of a separatist party-cum-commune.
Aravindan Balakrishnan, known as Comrade Bala, had been a senior member of the Communist party of England (Marxist-Leninist) - a member of the party's central committee - but according to a history of the movement he split from the party in 1974.
His new organisation, described as "characterised by the ultra-left posturing and Mao worship", was called the Workers' Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought. But the group is not thought to have been active since the 1970s - before one of the women, now aged 30, was born.
Comment: As Mark Ames, and Yasha Levine relate in their article linked below: An examination of the ideas behind the Omidyar Network and of the investments it has made suggests that its founder is anything but a "different" sort of billionaire. Instead, what emerges is almost a caricature of neoliberal ideology, complete with the trail of destruction that ensues when that ideology is put into practice. The generous support of the Omidyar Network goes toward "fighting poverty" through micro-lending, reducing third-world illiteracy rates by privatizing education and protecting human rights by expanding property titles ("private property rights") into slums and villages across the developing world. In many regions, Omidyar Network investments have helped fund programs that create worsening conditions for the world's underclass, widening inequalities, enhancing exploitation, pushing millions of people into crippling debt and supporting anti-poverty programs that, in some cases, resulted in mass-suicide by the rural poor. See: Wolf in sheep's clothing? Billionaire neoliberal Pierre Omidyar