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May
17, 2003
Nepal Today
Maoists Visit
the US Embassy
By GARY LEUPP
Recent events in Nepal, while drawing little notice
from the U.S. press, are worth some attention. The Himalayan
nation of 24 million people has been rocked by a Maoist insurgency
since 1996, but now, for the second time in two years, the government
and the Maoists are sitting down for peace talks. The Communist
Party of Nepal (Maoist) negotiates from a position of considerable
strength. It may control about half the country, and can paralyze
seemingly at will even the capital, Kathmandu, when it calls
for a general strike. The government is in disarray. Last October
King Gyanandra dismissed the prime minister and sidelined the
parliament, infuriating the electoral parties (over half of which
see themselves as "communist" in some sense, although
they oppose the Maoists' violent strategy for effecting radical
social change). Since then the king has exercised power through
a puppet prime minister and cabinet commanding little popular
support.
The Maoists' guerrilla war (which they
call a People's War) now engages not just the paramilitary police
but also the Royal Nepalese Army (newly supplied with Belgian
Minimi machine guns and British MI-17 helicopters, among other
western military equipment), answerable directly to the king.
But negotiations between the crown and the rebels, following
a ceasefire that began January 29, have let to some extraordinary
developments. Talks had occurred earlier (in late 2001) between
the Nepali government and the Maoists, but they broke down over
the issue of a key CPN(M) demand: a constitutional convention
to produce a republican form of government. The government of
the prime minister at the time had refused, saying the existence
of the monarchy was not negotiable. The Maoists relented on that
point, but still demanded a constitutional assembly to involve
all parties. When the government refused, the Maoists resumed
the armed struggle, wreaking some severe and embarrassing damage
on the RNA. In that context, the highly unpopular Gyanandra made
his power grab. Now the king's circle is once again negotiating
with the Maoists, while the sidelined legal political parties
fume that they're being left out and protest vigorously against
the king. (Various political parties held a demonstration against
the king May 8, 50,000 strong in Kathmandu.)
The Maoists, earlier this year, demanded
as a precondition for talks that the government stop referring
to them as "terrorists," something the government had
started to do from January 2002, apparently at the instigation
of the U.S. Colin Powell had that month made the first-ever
visit of a U.S. secretary of state to Nepal and referred to the
war against the rebels as part of the international "war
on terrorism." (Thus he conflated al-Qaeda with Maoism,
which doesn't make any logical sense, but you know how freely
and creatively the Bushites use that term.) Now the king of Nepal
has indeed officially removed that designation, conceding to
the rebels' demand as a precondition for peace talks.
So now the number two man in the CPN(M),
Dr. Baburam Bhattarai, is in Kathmandu circulating openly as
head of the Maoists' negotiating team. The party has openly set
up an office in the capital, phone number to be announced soon.
Preliminary talks have been cordial, even as some aspects of
the armed struggle, and political mobilization, continue. But
into this relatively congenial atmosphere of negotiations, the
U.S. State Department for some reason saw fit to contribute a
new element. Whereas it had not in the past placed the CPN(M)
on its official list of international terrorist organizations,
it elected, on April 30, to suddenly do so.
The apparent reason for the designation
is that two Nepali security guards around the U.S. embassy were
killed in 2002, and another embassy attack occurred on January
26, just before the ceasefire was announced. These actions have
been linked to the CPN(M). The timing of the designation is interesting.
(It may be influenced by Indian worries about the negotiations
underway; India has its own Maoist insurgencies linked to the
Nepalese, and India becomes increasingly allied to Washington.
See the Weekly Telegraph,
May 7) Just as the Nepali government itself was saying, "We
agree that you're not really terrorists," Washington
decided to announce, "We've now decided you definitely do
fall under our 'global terrorism' category." It may be a
signal to the Nepali political establishment that it must not
allow the Maoists to negotiate their way into power.
In response, Bhattarai and an aide headed
to the U.S. embassy May 5, and had a meeting with a first secretary,
saying, apparently: "We're a liberation movement. We're
not terrorists, and would appreciate it if you'd stop calling
us that." Then Ambassador Malinowski, who has for quite
a while been calling the rebels terrorists, started sounding
almost conciliatory: "We really wish that the Maoists will
have their name out from the list as soon as possible."
He urged them to renounce violence as a means to effect change.
(Rather ironic, given that the neocons in charge in Washington
advocate violence on a colossal scale to produce their
kind of change, which they don't see as terrorist but rather
anti-terrorist. But I digress.)
So they are, or they aren't, on the list,
these Nepali Maoists who fully intend to plant the red flag on
Mount Everest crowning their People's War, their political power
growing out of the barrels of their guns, but also resulting
from painstaking political work. If they are "terrorist,"
and if they gain power, those describing them as such may have
to put up or shut up, attack them or reach some accommodation.
If they aren't terrorists (and can be depicted as merely bad,
but not really a major problem to U.S. interests, which are actually
very few in Nepal), maybe Washington will, if they come to power
(perhaps as the key element in a multi-party system, to which
the Maoists indeed seem committed), just leave Nepal alone. Or
they might apply sanctions, or forbid American citizens from
mountain-climbing in the country and financing badness through
hiring Sherpas. Or maybe they'll assign the handling of this
particular problem to newfound ally, New Delhi. But that would
irritate Beijing, not for ideological but geopolitical strategic
reasons.
Could the Maoists in Nepal acquire power
soon, in this setting where the U.S. juggernaut probably can't
intervene effectively? One recent column in the Kathmandu press
(which has been under severe censorship since November 2001,
when a "state of emergency" was declared and many journalists
arrested) pooh-pooh'd the idea, saying that the strengthening
of the RNA and the opposition from India and the U.S. precludes
a Maoist victory. On the other hand, the Kathmandu newspaper
Janadesh (which was banned in November 2001, and its editor
arrested and tortured to death, but which has now resumed publication)
supplies evidence to the contrary.
Seems that on February 28 of this year
members of the Maoists' guerrilla force (the People's Liberation
Army) held a program to celebrate the inception of the People's
War in 1996 in the village of Dullu, in western Nepal. This took
place in the context of the ceasefire. After the festivities
the guerrillas withdrew from the site. RNA forces moved in and
began to loot and burn and beat up local people, apparently to
punish them for supporting the rebels.
"The Maoists wanted to talk with
them," according to the Janadesh report, " and
get them to leave the village. The president of a revolutionary
student organization, Kaman Singh Basnet, went to speak to them.
The RNA grabbed him and began to beat him. They demanded to know
who he was. Basnet answered that he was a student leader and
that he wanted to talk to them." The government soldiers
rejected this overture, saying that talks between the Maoists
and the government were being held at higher levels and that
soldiers had orders not to talk to Maoists. The student
informed them that if they were there to fight, they should know
that "you are surrounded by the PLA and none of you will
go back alive." Suddenly the soldiers bothering this student
activist became enlightened, and the student was taken to talk
with an RNA major, who then learning that PLA Company Commander
Comrade Jokhim was nearby, sent a team of soldiers to negotiate
with him. Jokhim suggested that the RNA return looted goods
to the villagers and request their forgiveness. This the soldiers
did, according to the report.
The Janadesh account concludes:
"For whatever reasons, the RNA team began to say Lal
salam! (red salute!) to the PLA fighters and shake hands
with them. The RNA major was furious at having seen his men asking
questions and listening to explanations about the People's War
and People's Liberation Army. He shouted, 'Oh, boys! If you stay
and talk with them for 20-25 minutes, you will also become communists!
We must leave now.' Then they went away. But the RNA soldiers
waved goodbye until they disappeared in the distance."
That Bhattarai can saunter into the U.S.
embassy in the capital city of a country torn by war, representing
the highest level of the communist insurgency, and get the U.S.
ambassador to state that he himself wishes (for whatever reasons
he adduces) to remove the insurgents from the terror list "as
soon as possible," suggests that both the Maoist leader
and the ambassador are thinking realistically. It also suggests
that the Nepali revolutionary movement is strong and confident,
and that even being tagged by that "terrorist" designation
(which considering the source, can be mistaken, libelous, and
merely used to intimidate and vilify) won't cramp the comrades'
style.
Gary Leupp
is an an associate professor, Department of History, Tufts University
and coordinator, Asian Studies Program.
He can be reached at: gleupp@tufts.edu
Yesterday's
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