In Nepal, it's the king to
move By Dhruba Adhikary
KATHMANDU - While King Gyanendra takes time off
to review his own performance since he stalled the
democratic process two years ago, his hand-picked prime
minister, Sher Bahadur Deuba, remains busy finding the
right bait to persuade Maoists to agree to a new round
of peace talks. But the Maoists say - from their
hideouts within and outside the country - that they will
not negotiate with royal servant(s); they prefer to
directly deal with the king, who is both the de facto as
well as de jure ruler of Nepal.
The king is the
supreme commander of the Royal Nepali Army (RNA), a
force currently with a combined strength of 138,000
armed personnel, including those from civil and armed
police agencies. Recent US and Indian support to these
security organizations in the form of training and
equipment has emboldened the royal regime to take on the
rebels, who launched a "people's war" in 1996.
The Maoists initially described the abolition of
the feudal institution of the monarchy as their primary
objective; but with the passage of time they have
transformed that to be their ultimate goal.
Intrigues and paradoxes abound, leaving room for
conjecture and speculation. The abduction and subsequent
"elimination" of radio journalist Dekendra Thapa by the
Maoists - in August - is one such example the media
often cite. Thapa, a correspondent of the state-owned
Radio Nepal in the mid-western district of Dailekh, was
executed because he worked as a compere in an official
program organized to felicitate King Gyanendra when he
was on a tour of Maoist-affected districts in the
region.
People on the street question what prompted
the Maoist underground leadership to leave the royal
tour undisturbed, but kill a radio reporter whose "crime"
was to help conduct an officially approved
program. The usual Maoist charge against journalists is
that they spy for the security agencies.
Another
piece of the jigsaw puzzle has come in the form of a
pre-condition the Maoists have fixed to revive the peace
talks. And it has to do with their insistence that they
be allowed to negotiate directly with King Gyanendra,
not with Deuba, whom they consider to be merely a
servant of the palace.
Political analysts are
intrigued by this argument because Deuba's status is no
better or no worse than that of the two persons whom the
king appointed premier after he suspended democracy on
October 4, 2002. First it was Lokendra Bahadur Chand, a
known palace protege, and then Surya Bahadur Thapa,
another discredited royalist, who headed the second
royal government.
Yet the Maoists did not have
any hesitation or reservations in accepting their offers
for peace talks. So why are the Maoists now declining
Deuba's peace overtures? Those who give credence to the
conspiracy theories that followed the palace massacre of
June 1, 2001, tend to suspect that several of the present
moves are aimed at consolidating the king's political
power base.
There are still nagging doubts in
the minds of many Nepalis that King Birendra was
assassinated on that day through a plot that might have
been hatched outside Nepal. Girija Prasad Koirala, who
was prime minister then, has often talked about a "grand
design", although he has refrained from explaining what
he means. Books and contemporary media reports on the
incident continue to allude to conspiracy theories. An
article in Monthly Review, a US publication, printed in
September 2002 quoted "unblemished sources" to allege
that the US Central Intelligence Agency - under George
Tenet - and its Indian counterpart, the Research and
Analysis Wing (RAW), had a hand in the killing of
Birendra - and other family members - as Birendra was
"known to be a staunch anti-Indian Nepali nationalist".
The article,
written by Wayne Madsen, also referred to a US plan to
throw a "cordon sanitaire
of
pro-US states around China".
The authorities may
conveniently dismiss such reports as mere speculation,
and want to remind people - both at home and abroad -
about the madness of Crown Prince Dipendra, who by some
accounts killed his parents because his mother had
refused to allow him to marry a commoner. This has been
an ongoing public relations exercise.
But those
who are worried about the derailment of the democratic
process are reluctant to minimize the significance of
some of the events and trends witnessed in the
intervening years since the royal carnage. The premature
dissolution of parliament, the dismissal of an elected
government, an enhanced role for the rapidly expanding
armed forces (at the expense of civilian administration)
and the monarch's search for a "constructive role" for
himself are some of the developments which are at
variance with the king's public commitment to democratic
governance.
"The fate of the 1990 constitution
is indeed at a crossroads," said Ganesh Raj Sharma, the
country's leading constitutional lawyer. Political
parties, considered one of the main pillars of
democracy, are rapidly losing relevance. Although it is
a widely held view that party leaders themselves have to
take the bulk of the blame for bringing this situation
to the fore, analysts also point to a public perception
that the present king, too, has not done much to help
institutionalize the multi-party political system.
The spreading insurgency
However, the main challenge Nepal faces today is
the Maoist insurgency. What initially appeared
as local-level activities of some mischief-makers confined to
a few villages in hill districts in the mid-western
region has now become a nationwide phenomenon, which
is already being described as a low-intensity civil
war. Last October, an American conflict specialist,
C Gersony, concluded after a field study that the
Maoist insurgency had spread to other parts of the country
because Nepal's law-and-order machinery, which was under the elected
government, did not take any serious measures for six
long years after the insurgency began. He wondered why,
and this question remains a part of the unresolved
mystery.
The number
of insurgency-related deaths, mainly in the countryside, since
October last year alone has exceeded 2,000, pushing the total figure
to 10,000 plus. The agony of those who have survived
violent attacks - from both insurgents and security
forces - is horrifying. Thousands have lost their limbs
and are unable to work to earn a living. Women have lost
their husbands, and children have become orphans. Those
who are alive cannot go to schools as these facilities
have been converted into training grounds and shelters
by the Maoists. They claim that two-thirds of the
country's territory is already under their control. The
authorities in the capital strongly deny such claims,
but they do concede that police posts from most of the
rural areas have been withdrawn to district
headquarters.
With the exception of the
Kathmandu Valley, security in most of country's 75
districts is now confined to district headquarters.
Maoist calls for any nationwide or areawide general
strike are rarely defied. In August, the rebels called
for a blockade of the valley that houses Kathmandu and
two other districts. This made the population jittery,
but the Maoists took that to mean that the valley's
residents were responding favorably.
The actions
and operations of the RNA and police/intelligence units
under a "unified command" have thus far been largely
defensive. Offensive actions from government forces have
been few and far between. Similarly, efforts to recover
weapons snatched by rebels have been less than
encouraging. Less than one-fourth of the arms stolen
from army barracks and police posts since 2001 have been
recovered, though the army's belief is that the rebels
now often run out of ammunition.
From the
official standpoint, the rebels' ability to procure guns
and bullets from the Indian market across the porous
Nepal-India border has lately been drastically reduced
because of New Delhi's renewed pledge to curb Maoist
activities in and from Indian territory. Reports of the
arrest of a few guerrilla leaders in the Indian states
bordering Nepal have raised the confidence level of the
security forces.
Time to talk? It
is against this background that a new (third) round
of peace talks is being mooted by the government.
The European Union, which holds a softer stand on the
Maoists, has issued a statement welcoming the
government's invitation to the rebels for dialogue. As
indicated above, the Maoist leaders have responded to
this latest official initiative through a list of six
questions, asking the "old regime" to agree to involve
the United Nations or any other credible international
organization in the proposed negotiation process. But
the royal regime has not been enthusiastic about the
idea of involving the UN, because Deuba thinks that
India and the US are opposed to this proposition.
Interestingly, the publicly
announced policy of these two countries, together with
the United Kingdom, is that it is for Nepal to take a
firm decision. The real reason, analysts think, that Kathmandu
is evasive about the prospect of taking UN assistance is
a fear that, once allowed, UN officials will begin
putting question marks on Nepal's existing work
procedures, including those related to human-rights
issues. Hence the insistence to find a solution from
within. But how long can the Deuba government sit idly,
watching deadly attacks on security personnel and
civilians alike?
Not very
long, it appears. The latest indication to this came from
Deuba when he spoke to the media on Sunday. He said even if
the Maoists do not come forward for negotiation,
his government will soon start making arrangements
for parliamentary elections. Deuba said he would wait
for the Maoist response as Nepalis begin to celebrate
the Dashain festival in two weeks. Whether elections are
feasible in the existing circumstances is a different
matter. And commissioners at the Election Commission are
already under Maoist threat to resign from their posts.
Workers in Deuba's Nepali Congress (Democratic)
Party do not appear serious about elections. They want
the media to take a more serious message from the
statement Deuba issued after returning from a visit to
India last month. Deuba warned the rebels that if the
appeal for talks is ignored, his government will be
forced to use force. Accordingly, the country's security
apparatus is preparing to launch offensive attacks on
rebel-infected areas to drastically reduce the Maoists'
strength, thereby forcing them to sit for a "meaningful
negotiation". The next couple of months are going to be
crucial, high-placed government officials predict.
But the Maoists say that they have not found
the required sincerity in the government's proposal.
To them, growing foreign interference has become a
matter of serious concern. From their point of view, it
would be useless to enter into dialogue with Deuba's
team. Besides, their demand for a constituent assembly,
an elected body to write a new constitution,
remains unfulfilled. "We are definitely heading for a
decisive battle," said Lekhnath Neupane, a central
committee member of the outlawed Communist Party of
Nepal (Maoist), by telephone from an undisclosed location in
the western hills.
Echoing his party supremo, Prachanda, Neupane said, "We
are mobilizing our workers to take our strategic offensive
to a new height." Neupane said the Maoists plan to
achieve this objective before the "people's war" enters its
10th year - on February 13. Prachanda had earlier warned
Deuba not to invite any foreign army, but anticipated
that his party would have to ultimately fight the Indian
army.
The Maoist leadership refuses, however, to
accept that it is their violent agitation which is
responsible for the present state of affairs.
Although senior army officers bill most of the
Maoist claims on their military strength as no more than
propaganda, rebel leaders maintain that they now have a
fighting force of 25,000 young men and women, grouped
into three divisions, nine brigades and 29 battalions.
This force, called the People's Liberation Army (PLA -
as the Chinese army is also called), is backed by a
100,000-strong people's militia. Prachanda himself is
the supreme commander of the PLA. This Maoist force has
considerably expanded in the past three years. And they
have successfully stormed army barracks and police
posts, killing scores of soldiers at a time. Armed
guerrillas attacked Beni, a township on the western
hills, a few months ago, inflicting heavy casualties.
They now have acquired capabilities to assault more than
one district center at the same time. In between, the
Maoists have divided the country in nine provinces and
set up provisional governments. It is on this basis that
they claim Nepal now has two parallel governments, one
headed by King Gyanendra, and the other headed by
Prachanda.
The belligerent postures on both
sides is indicative of a head-on conflict. "It is
disturbing that the government is not serious at all to
stop what is likely to be a prolonged cycle of
violence," said Shyam Shrestha, editor of Mulyankan, a
left-leaning Nepali journal. It is preposterous, he
said, to ask Maoists to lay down their weapons before
they can be invited for talks. In his opinion, people in
authority tend to underestimate the destabilizing power
that the Maoists possess. After the formation, in July
2001, of a regional body called the Coordination
Committee of Maoist Parties and Organizations in South
Asia (CCOMPOSA), consisting of radical communists from
Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and India, the
Maoists have become stronger.
James F Moriarty,
US ambassador to Nepal, who was in New Delhi last month,
found a change in the Indian perception of the Maoist
insurgency. "I think the government, the civil society
and the media in India have all begun to realize that
the Maoists not only pose a threat to the government of
Nepal but also pose a threat to stability in larger
parts of India," he told the Kathmandu Post newspaper on
Monday.
Can the Maoists defeat the army and capture
overall power? Not likely in the foreseeable future.
But the unpredictable and violent methods they use to
intimidate people can have devastating consequences. And
the worst does not seem to be over yet.
How then can the two sides move ahead? Should the Maoists
meet the king directly it is unlikely that they would ask
him to abdicate. All they will say is that their
minimum demand is for an elected constituent assembly - to
write a new constitution, replacing the one enacted in
1990. Politicians close to the palace see a danger in
this scheme because they think the constituent assembly
might vote to end the monarchy itself. Nevertheless, if
the king agrees to meet this Maoist demand it will not
have broad-based legitimacy, which is essential for
an important exercise like electing an assembly solely
for drawing up the country's main statute. This is
the reason other mainstream parties have been advocating
for the restoration of the parliament the king
prematurely dissolved in May 2002.
Leaders of these parties argue that a decision
on a constituent assembly by the parliament will be
acceptable to all concerned. But can the parliament,
dissolved almost two years before its five-year term ended,
be revived at this stage? Former chief
justice BishwaNath Upadhyaya, who headed the panel that drafted
the 1990 constitution, says it can be revived. He says the king can
issue a decree by invoking Article 127 of the incumbent
constitution. Constitutional experts support this view.
It is expedient for the Maoists, therefore, to give up
violence and join hands with other political parties to
force the re-establishment of parliament.
Otherwise, the deadlock will remain unbroken,
with King Gyanendra clinging to his powers and the
Maoists fighting to remove him. Nepal's future lies
largely in the hands of the monarch.
Dhruba Adhikary is the vice president
of the Nepal Press Institute. He has been a Dag
Hammarskjold Fellow at the United Nations.
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