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|  | US try to end Nepals peace process
By Krishna 06/05/2003 At 18:29 The US government has put the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) and its mass front, United People's Front in the category of terrorists, while Nepalese goverment itself does not regard them as terrorists any more. US Agenda of Intervention in Nepal
by Anand Swaroop Verma
The US government has put the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) and its mass front, United People's Front in the category of terrorists (vide letter dated 30th April 2003) issued by US department of State. Publication of this news on the May day astonished everyone. It is to be noted that Nepal government is currently holding peace talks with the Maoists whose first round concluded on 27th April. More importantly government of Nepal itself has withdrawn the terrorist tag on the Maoists before the cessation of hostilities on January 29th as a rebel pre condition to declare a cease-fire.
It is ironical that the Nepal government does not consider this Nepalese organisation as a terrorist organisation but US government seems more enthusiastic to include it in the list of terrorists. Is there any impending danger to American citizens or America's national interest? As these are the precondition in America's laws to declare any foreign organisation as terrorist!
Maoists of Nepal are waging struggle aimed at ending the Monarchy and establishment of a genuine democracy. They belong to the same communist tradition from which has emanated CPN (UML) which is the main opposition party and also had been the part of the government. The major difference between the two is the fact that CPN (UML) has become a parliamentary party undermining the popular aspirations. This compelled the Maoists to opt for the armed struggle while boycotting the parliament. This makes it very clear that Maoists of Nepal, in no way, pose any threat to the national interest of the US. Still including them in the list of terrorist organisation issued by Colin Powell on 30th April raise serious concerns and apprehensions.
In fact the Maoists pose no threat to the national interest of America but they pose serious threat to American imperialism and the globalised world economic order. This is the main reason of US keenness in Nepalese affairs since the beginning of People's War in 1996. Initially it expected the early death of the movement but contrary to it movement's base started becoming pervasive and it registered unprecedented increase among its supporters. Not only this, in the span of just three years it expanded its organisational base in most of the 75 districts of Nepal and created liberated zones in more than 25 districts. American establishment got alarmed. After disintegration of Soviet Union the American imperialism intoxicated with the end of communism could not accept this phenomenon. At a time when it was celebrating the 'end of history' and inaugurating the era of 'clashes of civilizations', the emergence of a powerful peoples movement disturbed its festivity. That is why reports of foreign and defence departments and various intelligence agencies of the US have advised the US Presidents to concentrate on South Asia instead of Europe which poses no more threats to the interest of America. Not only to counter the communist threat but also to keep an eye on China, which is-according to US experts- gradually emerging into economic, political and military rival, the US needs a foothold in South Asia. A study of the events before and after the aggression on Afghanistan makes it clear that under the pretext of the events of September 11, America would have intervened in Afghanistan any way.
The way Kashmir is becoming an issue of concern for the US hawks after their campaign in Iraq, it is clear that it is looking for excuses to have its military bases in South Asia. It already has substantial military presence in Pakistan and has conducted joint military exercises with India. Presently, it is preaching to India and Pakistan both to adopt the path of negotiated peace but as soon as the process of negotiated peace would seem to turn into reality, it will resort to sabotage the process as it has done in Nepal.
In case of Nepal, American authorities had been advising both the parties to resolve the matter through negotiation. The situation for the commencement of negotiations got a shot in the arms when Nepal's Home minister Dharam Bahadur Thapa, in a press conference declared that Nepalese government does not consider Maoists as terrorist and that the awards on the Maoists would be soon withdrawn for which he even criticised the former prime minister Sher Bahadur Deuba. Even before that on 20th November Nepal's Women and Social Welfare minister Gore Bahadur Khapangi had expressed the hope of the withdrawl of awards for the arrest of Maoists. Two days before this, on 18th November, Nepal's deputy prime minister B. P. Mandal had assured the media persons in Birat Nagar that government can consider the Maoist demand of a Constituent Assembly if they were sincere for the peace talks. In such a situation home minister's statement gave a positive message to the Maoists. This sent an alarm in the American establishment which started conspiring to sabotage it. On 14th December 2002 US assistant foreign Secretary and incharge of South Asian affairs Christina Rocca visited Kathmandu and told the press persons that America did not desire to interfere in Nepal's internal affairs but spoke venomously against the Maoists. She further added, 'although the maoists have not been put on any terrorist list, this step may be taken into consideration if their violence continue unabated.' Christina Rocca did not stop her mischiefs even after declaration of ceasefire on 29th January. On 4 February 2003 while talking to the journalists of 'Defence Writers Group', though she expressed some hope from the cease fire yet she emphasised the 'deteriorating situation'. On 28 February US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Donald Camp took part in a programme entitled 'Preventing a Communist Overthrow of Nepal'. Camp made very clear in his speech that success of Maoists in Nepal would hamper American interest though he did not substantiate. 'The US does not wish to see these insurgents prevail'. His argument is , 'the Maoists threaten US interests.
The leadership has made clear that it seeks to replace the constitutional monarchy with an absolutist communist regime.' He expressed the apprehensions that because of Maoists 'Nepal could quite easily turn into a failed state, a potential haven for terrorists like that which we have transformed in Afghanistan.' He also stated that America was helping Royal Nepalese Army along with its allies India and Britain to counter the Maoist threat and that its consistently keeping a watch on Nepal. He further added, 'the United States faces a number of foreign policy challenges around the world, and Nepal is on this list. We keep our eyes on the situation daily, and work constantly to ensure that our policies pursue US national interests and the interests of the Nepali people.' It should be noted that such damaging statements from Donald camp and Christina Rocca started coming at a time when the process of peace talks between government and Maoists had already been on. Toeing the line of Christina Rocca he also issued open threat of America's right to declare Maoists as terrorist organisation. The establishment of a negotiated peace and consequent adoption of nonviolent democratic path by Maoists would be unfavourable for America. The US is waiting for the failure of the talks and Maoists' going back to the armed struggle so that it gets an opportunity for military intervention in the name of fighting terrorism. Notwithstanding all this, consignments of arms from America, India and Belgium had already reached Nepal. Not only this, 50 US military experts are already conducting joint military exercises with RNA.
An advertisement regarding US position on the matter is worth mentioning. On 26 February 2003 USAID invited applications for 'Personal services Contractor' on its internet site. The advertisement says, 'In order to respond to the on-going Maoist insurgency in Nepal, USAID is supporting interventions to address the conflict through its newly formed Special Projects Office which addresses Conflict Prevention, Mitigation and Response (CPMR). The USAID Mission has integrated CPMR into its overall country strategy for the period 2000-2005, with the CPMR portion managed by the Special Projects Office (SPO). The last date for the submission of the applications was 25 March 2003. Last year on May 15-16 India's then Army chief general S Padmanabhan and on May 27 Britain's Chief of Defence Staff, Admiral General Sir Michael Boyce visited Maoist dominated areas of Nepal. Both of them assured the Nepalese government of their full support in nailing the Maoists. Just one day prior to General Padmanabhan's visit to Nepal, Indian paratroopers and US Special Operation personnel started joint military exercises near Agra. This was the biggest joint military exercise since India's independence. On 19 June 2002 British Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Mike O'Brien told the chairman of the Britain-Nepal Parliamentary Group, Sir John Stanley in the Parliament, "We are working closely with our US colleagues and others in identifying ways to stop the insurgency." On the day of the commencement of the joint military exercises, Christina Rocca issued a statement, 'From the start of his Administration, President Bush has sought a global approach to US-India relations to engage India on the whole range of issues that currently confront the international community...The most topical area of this partnership is in our military to military relations.' She also said that the US and the India have come closer in course of 'the war against terrorism.'
By putting Maoists in the list of terrorist organisations, the US has made its intentions clear. Whether Nepal or Kashmir if Americans are able to make their military presence in South Asia under whatever pretext, it will pose severe threat to the entire South Asia in general, and to the sovereignty of India in particular. Therefore it is imperative upon all democratic forces to help the ongoing peace process in Nepal in reaching its logical conclusion. In this lies the interest of India and also the interest of entire South Asia.
May 3, 2003
Anand Swaroop Verma Q-63, Sector 12 Noida 201301 [India]
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>>Add a comment
While the Nepalese government has been a feudal one, the Maoists are not the good guys portrayed in this article. The fighting initiated by them has caused massive environmental destruction, including killing of many rare animals. The same is true of the Marxist FMLN in Columbia, who have murdered indigenous people in the name of fighting capitalism and imperialism. While I'm also opposed to what they're fighting, I can't support groups that harm nature or indigenous people, who have more right to be there than anyone.
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...violence has been initiated by the ruling class. As Mao said, "Wherever there is oppression there is resistance." It is the task of all progressive and revolutionary-minded people to find the way to end this oppression once and for all. Can you tell a young woman who's choices are being sold into sex-slavery or a lifetime of back-breaking labor, married as a child, subject to the rule of her husband, that she is wrong to fight for a whole new world? Do you instead stand with the brutal police forces who terrorize the people; raping, killing, gouging people's eyes out?
Another World is Possible! Another World is Needed!
Mao didn't oppress anyone. Oh wait...
Maybe we shouldn't get into the Great Leap Forward(into starvation).
To Wolverine,
I agree with your position against those who needlessly destroy the environment (and all takings from the earth which are not exchanges are needless, I should say) and those who kill the indigenous (and I should add here that no such killing could be justified as an act against capitalism or imperialism as it reflects such narrow ideologies). However, I only wish to ask that you provide some direction toward the places we can find evidence for your statements. Speaking on my behalf, I am unfamiliar with the conflicts in Nepal and I would like to know the situation better for my own judgment. Any response is appreciated.
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Wolverine I agree with you that the destruction of the environment and the death of indigenous people is wrong but it does need to be pointed out that system these people are fighting against has destroyed more of the environment, rare animals and killed more people than the Maoists in Nepal or Marxists in Columbia could possibly do.
I'm not saying I agree with destroying the environment to stop capitalism but if there is no struggle at all then things will not get better. It might be that the destruction caused by these conflicts now will stop greater destruction in the future.
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social change in Nepal is a long-term process. going up against centuries of the caste system (which is very much alive and well), intense oppression of women, concentrated land ownership, and rampant political corruption cannot be solved with a few governmental reforms or with one armed uprising. what is needed is cultural change as much as political change; until people of different castes begin to view each other as equals, the socio-economic conditions that the maoists are fighting against will continue despite any new laws or political order. while the Hindu monarchy does marginalize Nepal's indigenous and religious minorities, many people still identify with the monarchy. you can't make them embrace a new social structure through the barrel of a gun -- it takes patience and dialogue.
ask most Nepalis what they think of the Maoists' demands, and they will agree with them. ask if they support the Maoists and the answer is almost always no -- people do not want violence. the Maoists target police barracks to gain weapons, and they also extort money from the poor peasants they claim to represent. many get caught in the crossfire and just want peace.
on the other hand, the pressing issues that the Maoists raise would not be getting nearly so much attention had there not been an armed uprising. the Maoists have finally gained a seat at the table; now they need to be heard. we must support the negotiations and the peace process.
the US needs to stay out of Nepali politics. it is up to the Nepali people to change their government and address the injustices that have created such intense poverty and lack of access to education, health care, and sustainable and just development.
dherai kuraa garnuparchha, sabbai nepaliharu sangai basnuparchha.
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[This article suggests that the USA sponsored the assasination of King Birenda on June 1, 2001.]
September 2002
Comparisons Between Recent U.S.-Backed Coups: Caracas and Kathmandu
by Wayne Madsen
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One thing about the CIA is that their playbook rarely changes. Take for example, the agency's involvement in the recent abortive military coup against Venezuela's democratically-elected President Hugo Chavez. The April 13 Washington Post reported that during the period leading up to the coup against Chavez, “members of the country's diverse opposition had been visiting the U.S. Embassy ... hoping to enlist U.S. help in toppling Chavez. The visitors included active and retired members of the military, media leaders and opposition politicians.”
The CIA, which had a special covert team in Venezuela since last June, had groomed these potential coup leaders, which now appears to have also included members of the proto-fascist Roman Catholic cult, the Opus Dei ….
But the most interesting aspect of the visits of Venezuelans to the U.S. Embassy before the coup there is the similarity to events that took place in Kathmandu during the months prior to the massacre of Nepal's Royal Family last June.
On June 1st, 2001, King Birendra, his wife and all his children, were assassinated. His younger brother, Gyanendra, was conveniently absent from the from the palace at the time of the massacre of all those who were ahead of him in succession to the throne. At first, Gyanendra and Prime Minister Girija Koirala announced that the worst royal massacre since the assassination of the Romanovs of Russia in 1917 had been caused by an automatic weapon that had gone off by itself. Soon, the explanation for the massacre was changed to a story befitting any Hollywood script. It was then announced that the King's oldest son, Crown Prince Dipendra, had murdered his entire family and then shot himself because his mother had forbidden him to marry a commoner. The new King Gyanendra's only son, Paras, an unpopular brute, was at the palace during the slaughter but managed to survive without so much as a scratch. Gyanendra himself has long been a CIA and U.S. corporate stooge. For example, he has a relationship with Henry Kissinger that goes back to the 1970s and the Ford administration. On the other hand, King Birendra wanted to open peace negotiations with the rebels and was also known to be a stauch anti-Indian Nepali nationalist.
Today, the news media is reporting that Nepali “Maoists” brutally murdered 160 policemen, beheading some in the process. Like with Chavez in Venezuela, one must peer beyond this CIA-inspired corporate media disinformation. The fact remains that Chavez and his supporters are Venezuelan nationalists opposed to American bullyism. Similarly, the so-called Maoists of Nepal, while mostly leftists, are first and foremost, Nepali nationalists who are attempting to prevent Gyanendra from turning Nepal into another state of India, much like what happened to neighboring Sikkim in 1975. Gyanendra, being part of the Bush Family's New World Order, is part and parcel of the U.S. plan to throw a cordon sanitaire of pro-U.S. states around China.
In the months leading up to the Nepali coup, the CIA established an office in the Maharajgunj District of Kathmandu, next door to the residence of Prince Gyanendra. Witnesses reoprtedly saw streams of Nepali police and military officials streaming into the offices. Other U.S. “civilians,” said to be with private military contractor CIA fronts like MPRI, were also seen arriving at the offices. In the spring, a U.S. Special Operations Forces personnel arrived in Kathmandu on a secret exercise code-named Bailey Nightingale I. The cover for the exercise was said to be earthquake disaster training. But it now appears it had another disaster in mind. The military team was composed of U.S. psychological operations (PSYOPs) personnel adept at coming up with tales like the one about the Crown Prince murdering his family.
Much is written in the western media about the Maoist leader Prachanda and Baburam Bhattarai, the leader of the Nepal Communist Party (Maoist), being terrorists. Yet they are no more terrorists than Yassir Arafat is in trying to ensure an independent Palestinian state and David Ben Gurion was in his fight to ensure an independent Jewish state. The use of the pejorative Cold War term “Maoist” and “Communist” against enemies of the United States is not new. in 1996, when Tupac Amaru guerrillas stormed the Japanese embassy in Lima, Peru, they were called Maoists by the Peruvian oligarchy and its U.S. allies. The CIA provided a Schweizer RG-8A surveillance plane to help crush the rebels, who were all subsequently killed by the Peruvian military. Yet Tupac Amaru, while leftist, was also naionalist. The group's name was borrowed from the pre-Spanish Incan language. Tupac Amaru's main beef was that Peru's President, Alberto Fujimori, was not legitimate because he was not an actual Peruvian citizen. They claimed he was ineligible to serve because he was born in Japan, not Peru. Now, Tupac Amaru's claim has been authenticated. The ousted Fujimori now resides in Tokyo as a guest of the Japanese government, and he said he plans to run for a seat in the Japanese Diet, something, incidentally, only Japanese citizens, not Peruvians, can do.
The CIA's disinformation machinery was proven wrong in Lima, in Kathmandu, and now, in Caracas. The CIA and George Tenet, its director, have once again been shown to be nothing more than scam artists with a knack for lying through their teeth.
According to unblemished sources in Kathmandu, the king and his family were quickly dispatched by a Nepali army commando unit trained at the time by U.S. Special Operations forces sent by U.S. Pacific Commander in Chief Adm. Dennis Blair (he's the same guy who propped up Gen. Wiranto with special training while the good general was committing genocide in East Timor). What was to become the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Influence (PSYOPs division) prepared a story, with the assistance of India's Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) intelligence agency, that the King and his family were murdered as a result of the Crown Prince going nuts with automatic weapons after being forlorn over his mother's refusal to allow him to marry a commoner.
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The Maoists in Nepal are primarily "indigenous" themselves. The government, subservient to imperialism, is responsible for the overwhelming majority of death and destruction, not to mention the whole overall anarchy of development in a third world nation which causes untold environmental degradation.
Listen to biddyarthi. It sounds like he lives in Nepal or at least used to. And he knows what he is talking about. I've visited Nepal for months.
Several things come to mind.
The brutality of the Maoist uprising shocked me, especially compared to the usual gentleness of the Nepalese. There have been beheadings and extortion of people in the countryside.
The average person in Nepal universally thinks the government is completely corrupt.
It would be idiotic for the U.S. to get involved in this. It's as though there is no place that the American government doesn't want to stick it's nose, as though it knows everything.
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