Page 1 of 2 China and the West step into Nepal crisis
By Peter Lee
The abrupt curtailment on May 7 of the bandh or general strike in
Kathmandu called by the United Communist Party Nepal-Maoist (UCPN-M) seemed to
demonstrate the limits of the Maoists' popular support. However, this apparent
setback reflects a deal to smooth the Maoists' re-entry into Nepal's government
as China and Western powers try to bring an end to months of unproductive and
potentially violent deadlock. Beijing looks forward to the formation of a
consensus government incorporating the Maoists and responsive to China's
concerns.
India, on the other hand, must ponder if it is ready to resign itself to the
loss of a compliant if ineffectual client regime in Kathmandu.
New Delhi orchestrated the entry of the Maoist insurgents into
mainstream politics. Then, alarmed by the Maoists' victories in the 2008
parliamentary elections, it propped up a rump government of democratic parties
that has been able to exclude the Maoists from civilian power, but unable to
win widespread respect and support. Concurrently, India ramped up its ties with
the reliably anti-Maoist Nepalese army, raising the specter of military
intervention and a return to civil war if the process of political
reconciliation collapsed.
Faced with Indian stonewalling, the Maoists found a willing ally in Beijing -
even though, on ideological grounds, the UCPN-M excoriates the current regime
of the Chinese Communist Party as "revisionist".
During the brief period in 2008 after the election when the Maoists held power,
in a conscious and high-profile break with precedent, the prime minister made
his first official visit to Beijing instead of New Delhi. During the mortifying
anti-Chinese demonstrations in the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic
Games, the Maoist government ingratiated itself to China by coming down hard on
restive Tibetan refugees in Kathmandu.
Soon after, the Maoists pulled out of the government in a dispute over
successful (and somewhat unconstitutional) efforts by Nepal's (pro-Indian)
president to block the Maoists' attempts to remove the (pro-Indian) chief of
army staff.
Since then, in an atmosphere of increasing acrimony and anti-Indian resentment,
the Maoists have struggled to push aside the tottering bourgeois edifice of
coalition government nominally led by Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal of the
Nepali Congress. Together with their People's Liberation Army (PLA) personnel
rusticating in United Nations-supervised cantonements and thuggish Youth
Communist League (YCL) street forces, the Maoists are increasingly seen and
resented as a part of the problem.
Although the Maoists dominate large areas of the countryside, the urban
insurrectionary nut has proved hard to crack.
At the beginning of May, the Maoists mustered over 100,000 supporters to
Kathmandu to demand that a Maoist-led administration replace the current order.
The government, reportedly with backbone inserted by the Indian government,
declined to fold. Western powers met with the Maoists' leader, Pushpa Kamal
Dahal (nom de guerre "Prachanda", meaning "awesome") to urge restraint.
The Maoists' claim to iron-handed control of the streets was challenged by an
embarrassing counter-demonstration of some 20,000 white-shirt clad opponents.
Prachanda decided not to escalate matters and called off the bandh.
There was a certain amount of exultant backslapping among the democratic
parties that somebody had finally faced down the Maoists. However, the euphoria
was short-lived.
If the India-backed government had its way, it would have weathered the bandh
simply to kick the political can another year down the road by extending the
term of the current Constituent Assembly - which, by virtue of the Maoists'
boycott, has been able to accomplish nothing for a long, long time.
However, this prospect was apparently not pleasing to the European Union, the
United States or China.
The deadlock has a cost. Financially and economically, Nepal is a basket case.
According to government statistics, 66% of Nepalese households are short of
food and half of the children in the country are malnourished - and no doubt
providing a ready reservoir of future cadres for the Maoists. [1]
More importantly, the Maoists apparently have no intention of allowing the
current government to extend its rule.
May 28, 2010, is the witching hour - this is the date, after over two futile
and unproductive years, when the mandate of the Constituent Assembly to write a
new constitution and make way for normalized, democratic business, expires.
The Maoists have declared that no extension of the assembly is acceptable and
the current government will have its legality evaporate on May 28.
The Maoists have circulated reports that they are preparing a "final jolt" -
another round of mass demonstrations and strikes designed to plunge the nation
into a constitutional crisis and pave the way for the Maoists' triumphant
return to government on their own terms.
Observing the Maoist display of muscle in Kathmandu and the continued
helplessness of the coalition government as it stumbled into the waning days of
its existence, the US and EU have apparently decided to remove the Nepal brief
from New Delhi's hands and try to orchestrate a more peaceful transition.
China finds itself in the highly satisfactory position of lining up with the
United States and against India on the matter of Nepal, which has been
recognized - both by the West and by China - as well within India's sphere of
influence for decades.
Already prior to the bandh, on April 26, US Assistant Secretary of State
Robert Blake visited Kathmandu to encourage the Maoists to renounce violence
both in the upcoming demonstration and in their political platform.
In return, various inducements were offered: removal of the Maoists from the US
terrorist list and the promise that, if PLA combatants couldn't find a happy
home in the army, the West would throw some money at the problem ("vocational
training or other kinds of training," as Blake put it). [2]
On April 29, Admiral Robert Willard, commander of the US Pacific Command,
visited Kathmandu to talk things over with the Nepalese army and, presumably,
discourage them from the idea of pouring from their barracks to violently
suppress the bandh.
Or, as the US Embassy put it:
[Willard] reiterated the United States'
position that all parties should exercise restraint during the planned upcoming
demonstrations and work to fashion a permanent peace through dialogue and
constructive consultations. [3]
On May 4, China's Ministry of
Foreign Affairs spokesperson Jiang Yu departed from China's stated policy of
non-interference in other countries' internal affairs and obliquely stated
Beijing's support for a government that included the Maoists:
As a
friendly neighbor, China sincerely hopes that all political parties in Nepal
... seek political common ground and properly handle internal differences
through dialogue and consultation so as to jointly press ahead with the
hard-won peace process ... [4]
After Prachanda obligingly
pulled the plug on the irritating but non-violent bandh (featuring the
usual heavy-handed intimidation and extortion of money, goods and services by
the YCL, but little overt bashing with clubs, bricks and bars), the US, the EU
and China stepped in to encourage the formation of a consensus government, that
is, a government that included the Maoists and, on the basis of the Maoists'
plurality in the 2008 elections, a Maoist prime minister.
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