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A fight to the death in
Nepal
By Dhruba Adhikary
KATHMANDU - Anyone going through literature put
out by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) will
understand that the ultimate aim of the "People's War",
launched in early 1996, is to convert the Himalayan
kingdom into a state run by the believers of
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
Their Internet web site
places Prachanda, their supremo who goes with one name,
on a par with Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin and Mao Zedong.
And the Nepali expression of the "Prachanda Path" is
made to appear comparable to the Shining Path movement
in Peru. Baburam Bhattarai, one of the leader's
right-hand men, used to cite the Peruvian insurgency as
a possible role model for Nepal. Bhattarai was at the
forefront of the activists who, in 1992, collected
signatures from Nepal's members of parliament who
subsequently urged the authorities in Lima to release
Abimael Guzman, or Chairman Gonzalo.
It appears
that Nepali Maoists continue to take advantage from
their linkages with RIM (the Revolutionary International
Movement), which was instrumental in introducing them to
comrades from other parts of the world, including those
in India and Turkey.
While their eventual plan
is the abolition of Nepal's monarchy, the methods
employed by the Maoists to achieve this goal have been
violent from the beginning. And they are open on this
count. Their belief in Mao's words are exemplified by
Chinese leader Mao Zedong's slogan that leads their web
site: "Political power grows out of the barrel of a
gun."
Guns seem to be more important to Maoists
than men who handle these weapons. Incidents over the
years indicate that the guerrillas prefer to lose their
men - and now an increasing number of women - rather
than the rifles that they manage to snatch from the army
and the police. Lately, they have begun procuring small
arms from various sources in India, which shares an
1,800-plus kilometers of unregulated land border with
Nepal.
The Maoists' declared ideology depicts
them as communists and their violent methods project
them as terrorists, which does not sit well with
countries more tuned to Western democratic systems.
India certainly has not taken the phenomenon as
something easily digestible. New Delhi termed Nepal's
Maoists as terrorists even before Kathmandu took a
decision on the issue. Indian authorities apparently
reacted to the Maoist denunciation of India as an
"expansionist" power.
Like other communist
groups, the Maoists accuse the United States of being a
power with "imperialist" designs, and their wrath
against the US has found expression in different forms.
Fatal attacks on two US embassy guards in Kathmandu, the
killing of Rabindra Shrestha, a Nepali national who
worked as an agricultural specialist in a US-aided
project in the western hill district of Salyan, and hits
on two Coca-Cola plants elsewhere in the country are
some of the examples of their displeasure with the US.
The United Kingdom, which regards Nepal as a
traditional ally in South Asia, mainly due to the Gurkha
connection, castigates Maoists for adopting violent
measures to attain their political goals. Conspicuously
though, Maoists have not inflicted any physical harm on
personnel, projects or properties belonging to either
India or Britain. The incident of October 19 was an
exception when rebels abducted a British army officer
trekking in the Baglung area on the western hills. Two
days later he was released, and Prachanda himself took
the unprecedented step of issuing a public apology -
from his underground hideout - over the incident.
More than 8,000 lives have been lost in eight
years and, according to figures released on Tuesday,
over 1,200 deaths have occurred in the period since the
collapse of the latest ceasefire on August 27. Informal
Sector Education Center, a human rights group, also says
that citizens have been killed by both Maoists and
security forces consisting of personnel from the Royal
Nepal Army, the Nepal Police and the Armed Police Force.
Maoist rebels, who now are spread in all 75
districts of the country, continue to kill people who
either do not make financial contributions or who show
unwillingness to feed their workers or who act as
informers to the police or army. School teachers,
journalists and government officials have been murdered,
often by slitting heads from bodies. In the absence of a
credible security cover, people in rural areas are
unable to offer any resistance.
And apart from
the loss of lives, the insurgency has already cost the
country dearly in economic terms, and the destruction of
infrastructures has inflicted additional damage to
Nepal's farm-based subsistence economy.
The
Maoists claim - and authorities agree in private
conversations - that the presence of government
authority is effectively confined to district
headquarters. This means that the largest part of the
country's 23 million population is left unattended. To
Maoists, this is a major gain as it provides them a
basis for propaganda that about 80 percent of Nepal is
already under their control.
The present spell
is a phase of uncertainty, with a weak civilian
government in Kathmandu trying to be assertive through
military action. It is a period that has evolved after
several rounds of peace talks held between 2001 and 2003
failed to produce tangible results in terms of the
political reforms that the Maoists demanded. Rebel
leaders, who have gone underground since the collapse of
negotiations in August, have blamed the "old regime" for
remaining adamant, even after the Maoists' willingness
to be flexible in their demands submitted on behalf of
the poor and down-trodden sections of the population.
A round-table meeting of both communist and
non-communist political forces, the formation of an
all-party interim government and the holding of
elections for a constituent assembly (for writing a new
constitution to replace the one enacted in 1990) are the
three main demands put forward by the Maoists.
Media reports and comments indicate that King
Gyanendra is averse to a constituent assembly, fearing
for the future of the monarchy. The Maoists have
repeatedly said in clear terms that the feudal
institution of the monarchy would not have any place in
their political scheme. Actually, from their standpoint,
the era of the monarchy effectively came on June 1, 2001
- the day that King Birendra, together with the queen
and crown prince, were killed in a palace shootout, the
details of which remain a mystery.
In any case,
what will happen if most of the other political parties,
which the monarch alienated by dismissing an elected
government in October 2002, also agree to be supportive
to the Maoists on this issue? Nobody can ignore this
question.
Military sources claim that the
Maoists have suffered a major setback in recent weeks,
losing hundreds of fighters. Attacks carried out by
insurgent groups on police posts and other government
installations were foiled by security forces, who have
also been successful in retrieving some of the weapons
the rebels have seized in the past.
The Maoists,
however, rebuff these assertions, and it is difficult to
independently verify who among the belligerent parties
is speaking the truth. Officers commanding the field
operations believe that they will reduce the rebel
strength before long, provided the civilian authorities
in Kathmandu do not once again fall into the Maoist trap
of another round of negotiations. The military want the
political leadership to understand what the Maoists did
during previous peace talks - they used them to buy time
to re-group and augment their fighting capabilities.
The security forces are emboldened by the latest
statement of Surya Bahadur Thapa, who heads the
government appointed by the king. Thapa said that he
would not consider any other option until the military
strength of the Maoists was reduced to a minimum level.
The latest US action to freeze the assets of the
Maoists needs to be examined against this background.
Although the US envoy in Kathmandu, Michael Malinowski,
has likened Maoist tactics to those of Cambodia's
infamous Khmer Rouge, Washington had not taken any
direct measures on them thus far. It was only in March
that Washington placed them on a secondary (watch) list
of organizations whose activities could be harmful to
American interests.
And the US decision of
October 31 to declare the Maoists a threat to US
security came shortly after the rebel organization
issued a statement outlining its new strategy. This,
signed by Prachanda, was issued on October 20 with a
pledge not to harm the activities of non-government
organizations, except those run with US support.
Washington responded in kind by issuing an
executive order from Secretary of State Colin Powell to
freeze Maoists' assets. A Washington Post report on
November 7, however, described the measure as a "
largely symbolic move". What carries more than a
symbolic significance is the US appeal to other
countries to take similar steps.
India rightly
acknowledged that it is the most important among such
"other countries". But the Indian envoy in Kathmandu,
Shyam Saran, did not lose any time in telling the US
audience that New Delhi was unlikely to extend any
meaningful cooperation on the matter. "The US has its
way of dealing with such matters, while India has its
own way of doing things."
The responses differ
because the interests and perceptions of the countries
are divergent. Shyam Saran denied having any knowledge
of Maoists maintaining bank accounts in India. This kind
of response can undoubtedly stand on legal and technical
grounds, but it cannot convince the public at large. And
if Maoist insurgency, for instance, is a "common
threat", as has been mentioned by the ambassador, should
not New Delhi help Kathmandu to devise a strategy to
uncover the sources of its funding?
Indeed,
Indian authorities have dealt with the case of the
Maoists differently on different occasions. First,
Indian security agencies did not prevent the Maoists
from holding a conference in Siliguri, a township in the
state of West Bengal. Secondly, Maoist leader Krishna
Bahadur Mahara safely granted a television interview to
a Western network from an undisclosed location in New
Delhi. The case of Chandra Prakash Gajurel, another
senior member of the Maoist leadership, is equally
intriguing. Gajurel was detained by Indian police in
August at Chennai airport when he was about to board a
Europe-bound plane, on charges of using forged British
travel documents. But Indian authorities refused to
transfer him to Nepal, though they have in the past
handed back field-level Maoist workers, often picked up
from hospitals they visit for treatment of minor
injuries.
The standard reaction from New Delhi
on Nepal's complaints on such matters is invariably
based on two arguments: that India is a democracy and
cannot therefore apply restrictive laws on people
residing in Indian territory, and that the border
between Nepal and India is open - meaning unregulated.
But such contentions remain unconvincing, even to those
Indians who have actively worked to implement New
Delhi's external relations for a long time.
The
following observation of K V Rajan, Indian ambassador to
Nepal from 1995 to 2000, is illuminating:
"To
plead that it is difficult to keep track of such
[Maoist] activity because of an open border is to give
credibility to the same argument made by Nepal in
defense of its inability to prevent cross-border traffic
of criminals and terrorists."
The Maoists also
have found it expedient to reciprocate whatever covert
support they receive from India. For example, they no
longer criticize India, let alone harm Indian interests
in Nepal. No point is raised, even when border areas are
encroached, high dams are constructed causing inundation
in Nepali territory, Nepali nationals mistreated in
Indian towns and Nepal is short-changed in agreements to
utilize water flowing from the rivers of Nepal. Instead,
the Maoists prefer to use their weight to denounce the
US, a country located on the other side of the world; a
country which is unlikely to colonize or usurp Nepal.
China, Nepal's neighbor to the north, too, is not
considered a menace by Nepalis.
Meanwhile, while
Britain continues to be a part of the US-led alliance
against terrorism in a global context, it holds a
different viewpoint on Nepal's Maoists. Although Nepal's
military continues to receive "non-lethal" assistance
from the UK, the British stand is that there is no
military solution to the ongoing insurgency. They also
share some of the views of European partners, whose
concerns are primarily focused on socio-economic reforms
and on human rights issues. Reports of excesses
committed by security forces, mainly by the army, have
come under the close scrutiny of some European
countries, including Germany, Switzerland and Norway.
It seems, then, that Western sympathy for the
Maoists is on the decline because the Maoists themselves
have failed to maintain their image as saviours of the
poor and socially-disadvantaged groups. In their
attempts to change tactics from time to time, the Maoist
leadership has lost its grip on its own cadres. Members
of rebel militia units have begun to defy orders from
the top. This trend has been particularly visible since
the Maoists announced a nine-day unilateral ceasefire
during the Dashain festival last month. Media reports
say that Maoists in villages did not stop their killing
spree, and they also reported other activities, such as
looting, extortion and rape.
Mohan Bikram Singh,
a strong personality in Nepal's communist movement since
the 1950s, is of the view that the "People's War" is an
extremism, a terrorist idea, which can be exploited by
the monarchy to regain the absolute powers it lost
during the pro-democracy movement of 1990.
Would
the Maoists be prepared to abandon the insurgency if
they were to receive an offer for sharing power with the
present regime and take the country to fresh elections?
No, according to Baburam Bhattarai, a rebel leader.
"There is just no chance of our sharing the spoils of
power within the present autocratic monarchical system,
whether through showcase 'elections' or no elections,"
Bhattarai wrote in a newspaper in July.
There's
clearly no end in sight for Nepal's turmoil.
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