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|  | US Gvt. Interfering in Nepal Negotiations--An Interview
By Villagespring 07/05/2003 At 16:42 Interview with Dr. Baburam Bhattarai, negotiator and spokesman for the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) discussing the US government interference in the peace negotiations and other aspects of the seven year-old People's War in Nepal. For the past seven years the country of Nepal has been wracked by an insurgent "People's War." The war was initiated in February 1996 in the communist-dominated Rolpa and Rukum districts in far western Nepal when the dominant landlord forces used police force to thwart the communists from participating in parliamentary and local elections. Building on the desperate frustration borne of decades of violence against Nepal's mostly rural population in the name of "development," the war has quickly spread throughout Nepal with widespread popular support in the countryside as well as strong sympathies from urban populations frustrated with the corruption, greed, and lack of vision of the urban-based client development-regime. Starting in the "base areas" carved out in the west, the insurgents have extended their control to all the countryside, leaving just major urban areas and district headquarters in military control of the state. From this position of strength, the insurgents this last month opened up peace negotiations with the state with the aim of bringing about major reforms and true democratization of the state. Even as these negotiations are being initiated, however, the United States government has made statements and taken actions that are undermining the possibility of reconciliation. These and other issues are discussed by Dr. Baburam Bhattarai, a central committee member of the Communist Party (Maoist), spokesman, and chief negotiator for the insurgents in an interview yesterday with an IndyMedia activist in Kathmandu. Also attached is a translation of the proposal put forward by the Maoists in the talks (a better quality translation being prepared has not yet been released).
INDYMEDIA: So how are you doing?
BHATTARAI: Talking politically or personally? [He laughs.]
INDYMEDIA: Both
BHATTARAI: Well, personally I am fine. Feeling okay, doing okay. Politically, things are very uncertain. It is a very uncertain time. Politically things are in flux. You never know what's going to happen tomorrow. So how are you doing? What's your observation?
INDYMEDIA: I see things superficially. I think that one would have to ask specific things, like what's your observations about this … maybe I should start earlier … what led to this peace dialogue?
BHATTARAI: No, you want a formal recording for this?
INDYMEDIA: It doesn't have to be formal. I can edit it down anyway, so it doesn't matter where we start.
BHATTARAI: The peace talks are an objective necessity. After seven years of People's War, we have reached a stage which determines that the old political-military parlance is at a strategic equilibrium. The old state is crumbling at such a pace that it can't survive as it is. And we are making gradual progress, and the next stage we have to strive for is the seizure of power. For that, if the old state is ready to find a peaceful way out, then we should give peace a chance. So those are our observations. Because of the particular geo-strategic position of Nepal, there is increasing intervention from outside. If we can solve the problem internally, that will be better. In case we can't do it, then there is the next thing. That is how we thought it's time to try for a peaceful solution, because the old state, the old constitution is not functioning, and people are for a political change.
So concerning the talks, it depends how the other side responds. The signs aren't very encouraging. There is confusing interference from the US government. They have been supplying sophisticated weapons to the Royal Army, and the US government has recently listed us as terrorists. So it seems these people aren't very interested in a solution to the problem. They want to avail the problem and find a way of intervening in it.
INDYMEDIA: What do you think their goal is?
BHATTARAI: We don't know what exactly they are up to, but the result of this recent declaration of the US government is disturbance of the peace process. Maybe they want to create a situation in Nepal so that they can intervene on some pretext. After the Afghanistan and Iraq aggression, they are now turning toward South Asia, and Nepal is between India and China. Maybe they want to gain a military stronghold in Nepal so that they can fulfill their strategic objectives.
INDYMEDIA: So this would be an excuse for doing it?
BHATTARAI: Yes, it seems, it seems. So this is quite unfortunate, it seems. So we expect the international community, particularly the civil society and other progressive organizations in the USA to take note of it. Whether the Nepalese people have a right to determine their own future or not. Because what we are fighting for is a completion of the democratic process. We are not imposing an immediate communist agenda in Nepal, though we are Marx-Leninist-Maoist and we want a radical structure in our society. In the case of Nepal, since it is a semi-colonial, semi-feudal society, first we want to complete the democratic revolution. And the real power is being exercised by the absolute monarchy. And so we are making common fight with other democratic forces to complete the revolution. The US government, which claims itself to be a democratic government, should have no reason to intervene here. So I think this thing should be taken up by the international community. I think if the US government tries to intervene here … I know that they are doing it. They just signed here one five-year agreement with this old state here on counter-insurgency operations. On that pretext they are bringing in sophisticated communication-military weapons to install here, they are supplying arms, and they are bringing in secret army men to take care of the security of the high ups here. So their ultimate goal seems to be to build up some sort of military base here in Nepal so they can use it against India and China in the future.
INDYMEDIA: Make a forward presence. And so the US government signed a five year agreement?
BHATTARAI: Yes, and they declared us terrorists, you see. When we are in the negotiation table, and the old state has removed that tag against us. If the US government declares us terrorists, that means they are out to disrupt the peace process. They are not in favor of the peace process.
INDYMEDIA: And this last weekend there has been an announcement of a new democracy movement. Has your group signed onto that or not?
BHATTARAI: You mean the parliamentary parties?
INDYMEDIA: Yes.
BHATTARAI: No, you see it is not a question of signing or not signing. You see we are already in the movement. Our movement is to complete a democratic transition. As you know we had reservations since 1990 that the democratic changes introduced in 1990 were not complete. They were not enough. So we want to enlarge the scope of democracy to take care of the oppressed classes, the oppressed nationalities, oppressed regions, and the women, and the Dalits. Until when you have that democracy, in which we can give power to these oppressed sections of the people, then democracy doesn't mean anything for the real people. So our fight is to complete that democratic process. But these democratic parties didn't realize it. So now the king has taken whatever little power was given in 1990; he has taken it back. So now it is time that these parliamentary parties joined us and led the movement against the monarchy to complete the democratic process.
In the beginning they hesitated, they didn't do anything for the past six months. So now they are coming forward. That is welcome. So it is not a question if we joined their movement. Now they have joined our movement.
INDYMEDIA: Is this a formal thing, did they contact you or are they …
BHATTARAI: We have some understanding. The only thing is that they are not very clear as yet over what they want. They say they are fighting against the takeover by the king. But that won't be enough, you see. Until or unless you make a new constitution and go to the people to elect a constituent assembly which will draft a new democratic constitution, the democratic process cannot be complete. So their demands are not clear. They just want to restore the status quo. But our position is that only restoring the status quo won't help now. Because under the old constitution real power was exercised by the king, so he instituted that and he has scrapped the old constitution. So now it is high time we started up fresh and drafted a new constitution which will be more democratic and which will be written by the people themselves. And they will say what to do about the king. Only then will king be brought under the constitution and within the constitutional framework. The real strength of the king is the royal army, and the royal army was never under the people's elected representatives.
So one of our basic demands is, as you well know, we want to have a round-table conference of all the major political forces, who will draft an interim constitution and make an interim government, and then we will hold an election for a constitutional assembly. And that constitutional assembly will draft a new democratic constitution. This is our immediate demand. So we want to make a common cause with those major forces who want to fight for democracy in Nepal.
INDYMEDIA: What kind of organization can you create in the population so the constituent assembly won't be co-opted and can become a real force in itself.
BR: Yea, our proposal is those parliamentary constituencies, they weren't very representative, earlier. So we want to create new parliamentary constituencies in which broader masses of the people can be represented—oppressed classes—and then we want to give autonomy to various nationalities and oppressed regions, so they can have their own representation in the constituent assembly. Then we want to give power to women; they should have provision of special representation in the constituent assembly. Then the Dalits should also have their representation in the constituent assembly. And this broad representative house can draft a truly democratic constitution. So in the earlier parliamentary elections, these deprived sections and regions -- women and Dalits -- were not properly represented. So that house, parliament, was not truly democratic. So we want to change this framework of elections, so the constitutional assembly becomes very democratic, and it can make a really new democratic constitution. This is our immediate proposal.
INDYMEDIA: I think of the US strategy elsewhere, if we jump back to that question. It creates a long-term war which slowly wears down all the forces in the country, because the US has unlimited resources, relatively. I don't know what it is going to do, if it will get over-extended with its wars in Iraq, and Syria and wherever else it is planning to go. But its strategy in the past has always been to wear down any revolutionary force. And so, besides this peace process, how do you see the long-term future?
BHATTARAI: You are right. They want to wear down the revolutionary forces, as they did in the countries of Central America, like El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and other places. We thought that they would follow that strategy. Bringing the peace process, dragging it on indefinitely, and then wear it down. We thought that, but now the way they are entering this peace process indirectly, I don't think that they are even going to follow that policy here. They just want to scuttle it, sabotage it, and I think they want to directly intervene here militarily. So we don't know their strategy, but at this stage they are following some different strategy here. They want some pretext to directly intervene so that they can station themselves permanently.
INDYMEDIA: Because I know already they have a whole string of military bases stretching all the way from the ex-Soviet Union to …
BHATTARAI: Yes, from Central Asia through Afghanistan all the way to the Philippines and other places. So this there is a definite chain encircling the whole of China and India. So this seems to be the long-term strategy of theirs. We hope the regional powers realize this, and other forces in Europe and America will realize this. It is not a question of Nepal and our revolution, only. They should think about a broader perspective.
INDYMEDIA: Well, the international capitalist is definitely thinking in a broader perspective.
BHATTARAI: Now the good thing after the Iraq war, though they have won militarily, I think morally they have lost. There is a lot of opposition against the US aggression in Iraq. I mean, people in America, Europe, and elsewhere. The way that millions of people came in the street against that war. I think that this is a very encouraging sign. So people are rising up to resist monopoly capital all over the world.
INDYMEDIA: It seems the more they overextend themselves, also the more pressure it will create from home.
BHATTARAI: So I think it is now time to fight this movement world wide.
INDYMEDIA: Okay. In the west [Nepal] you have set up a lot of base areas. In your declaration I was reading that you were saying basically that the Nepal army controls the cities and towns, but in the countryside it doesn't have a functional presence anymore.
BHATTARAI: That's the reality, that's the objective reality. Everybody knows that. All the countryside is under our control, and the Royal Army is confined to the district headquarters and the urban areas. The old state accepts this, acknowledges this.
INDYMEDIA: Since the United States' involvement, how has the situation been changing for you? Or has it yet?
BHATTARAI: It hasn't changed as yet, but if the US pumps in such good weapons and sends military advisers, which they have already done. They have said they have just sent them for training. And then the situation will change afterwards. But in our opinion, since it is a People's War, we are based on the people, the masses of the people. We are fighting a very low-intensity war. Their high technology won't make much impact on us. I think we can fight them. But we don't want the situation to arise, because it will bring untold suffering to the masses of the people. And our country being sandwiched between India and China, again India will be tempted to intervene, again China will feel threatened, and that will be very dangerous, Nepal being caught in an international conflict which will create an unfortunate situation like Afghanistan, Cambodia or elsewhere. That is why we want a peaceful solution to the problem, without external influences.
INDYMEDIA: It seems now it would be a good strategy to enlist, like you were saying before, a lot of forces around the world in support in one way or another.
BHATTARAI: Yea, I think people should realize the long-term implications.
INDYMEDIA: And then, when you say you control the countryside, what does that mean for people in villages and so forth?
BHATTARAI: The old machinery is smashed there. We have been trying to create people's committees, new people's committees. So they are exercising real power at the local level. So they are carrying out various development activities, like education, health, and other cooperative activities like in agriculture and small industries. These things we are introducing -- the cooperative system -- because most of the people in the countryside are poor peasants with very small holdings. So we are trying to introduce this cooperative system.
INDYMEDIA: And so you have a banking system too?
BHATTARAI: Yes, we have the cooperative banking.
INDYMEDIA: And what kind of government are you setting up? How is it being run.
BHATTARAI: The government is the people's committees. We hold a general gathering of all the people, and that will elect their own committee. So in that committee, there is special representation of the oppressed classes -- the women, the Dalits, and the minority nationalities. So that will be a sort of coalition type government, a multiparty, an all-party government. That type of system, a democratic system, we are introducing.
INDYMEDIA: Have you been having any type of resistance from different groups in society like high caste or things like that?
BHATTARAI: Initially there was some resistance, but now they have been overwhelmed. In the rural areas you don't find much resistance. You see there is no presence of the old state there. And the whole army has retreated to the district headquarters and the urban areas. The countryside is left to the revolutionary forces.
INDYMEDIA: But don't you have the army coming in with its helicopters and things?
BHATTARAI: No, sometimes they go. They conduct military operations. They massacre the people sometimes. After the ceasefire this has largely stopped, but sometimes they go.
INDYMEDIA: Why does the mainstream press talk a lot about Maoist violence as opposed to the …
BHATTARAI: No this is funny, you see. The mainstream press has legitimized state violence. We are resisting. Ours is a counter violence. In fact, from early days, so far they have been enjoying a monopoly on violence. Now the common people have raised arms to resist that violence and defend themselves. So the mainstream press and the world thinking which justifies violence of the old state makes some kind of hue and cry against the counter violence of the people. I think the revolutionary forces … would understand this difference.
INDYMEDIA: And also along this line there have been reports of summary executions. How does that fit into a strategy, or is it people out of control or something …
BHATTARAI: No, in fact these people [the Royal Nepal Army and police] have been massacring people, shooting people under the pretext of fake encounters, which have been exposed by various human rights organizations, amnesty international, and others. In our areas, sometimes we have people's committees, we have people's courts. Some criminals have been punished in vary rare cases. So when you have some rare cases of punishing the criminals, so they make a hue and cry of summary executions. That is not true. Most of the shooting has been done by them. The Amnesty International report says that more than eighty percent of the killing has been done by the Royal Nepal Army. And most of them were unarmed people, the general masses, not the real combatants.
INDYMEDIA: So there are always these reports that fifty Maoists, a hundred Maoists were killed. Have you had those kinds of casualties, or …
BHATTARAI: That is a fake encounter, if Maoists were killed, they should have seized weapons, but if fifty people are killed they will seize one gun, how can that be? If they had been real combatants they should have seized fifty guns, or at least forty guns. But they seize only one gun and kill fifty people. They are killing unarmed people.
INDYMEDIA: Yes, I know somebody whose cousin was killed by the military and they said this person was a Maoist. And the same with those eight or twenty workers or something …
BHATTARAI: Yea, twenty-seven workers were killed in Kalikot. They were workers engaged in construction at the airport there. They had gone from a village near Kathmandu and they were killed. The army said they were Maoists, that they had killed the Maoists. But later on human rights organizations went there and found the truth. In fact they were unarmed laborers who were killed. There are so many such incidents. So there is violation of human rights.
INDYMEDIA: In your statement you said something about you are working for a radical political solution in your declaration for the peace process. But are the negotiators and the people behind the negotiators, are they going to be able to -- I mean you said a "progressive," not radical political solution -- but even for them wouldn't even a progressive solution which lets more people into the political process, for example, wouldn't that be counter to their interests and their position in the society? The people you are negotiating with and the people behind them like the king and the US government, perhaps. Do you have much optimism for the peace process?
BHATTARAI: No willingly they are not going to relinquish power. Nobody relinquishes power voluntarily. But for that you have to apply pressure from the masses of the people. So I think there is enough pressure from the masses of the people. You see the whole countryside, most of the countryside, is liberated. And even in the urban areas there is a lot of resentment of people who want change. Because of this pressure, we think that they will relinquish some of the power. The entire power, they won't relinquish it. But since we are negotiating a peaceful solution, we think even though they may not like to relinquish power, they will be forced by the objective conditions of the negotiating path which should lead to some progressive change. Which is not totally revolutionary, but it should be a step towards revolution. This change would lead to a combination of democratic process and to a revolutionary change in the society. It can make a beginning for revolutionary change. It depends: if the external forces don't intervene, we think that the people's forces will be in a position to assert their power. The balance has been tipped towards the people. So that is why they are asking for foreign intervention. If we are able to prevent this foreign intervention, then there are chances for progressive change. It depends on whether we will be able to prevent that foreign intervention.
INDYMEDIA: Unfortunately I don't have your document written out before me, but just in terms of bringing democracy and bringing people into the political process, it seems pretty democratic. It is strange that the US, which always professes democracy, would be against this sort of thing.
BHATTARAI: Well it shows that these people are not in favor of democracy. When the real oppressed masses of the people are empowered, when women, Dalits, and their operational committees are asking for a democratic change, then why does the US government, which always claims to be democratic, intervene in favor of the old regime, the monarchist regime? That's why we expect people in America, Europe and elsewhere, to apply pressure against the US government not to intervene in the democratic process in a country like ours. Because we are in no position to harm US interests, economically or otherwise, we cannot harm much after this democratic change. So we don't see much reason for intervention here apart from their strategic goal, the immediate … we don't see why the US government should intervene otherwise.
INDYMEDIA: I had one other question. Are there ways within the party that the lower down people … I mean most of the parties here are very undemocratic internally, and are there ways that within your party their can be accountability and stuff from the top down or from the bottom up?
BHATTARAI: No, as you know we are trying to learn lessons from past experiences: what happened in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, China and other places. So there is some problem with the Communist Party there. In the course of time the Communist Party developed into a huge bureaucratic apparatus. So there are some problems. So we are trying to make the progressive change in that structure. Consequently, the cadres, the low-level cadres should enjoy enough democracy to check that process and certainly the masses of the people, even the masses of the people … [here the recording device became full, but he told how the conditions were different here than in previous revolutions and thus the revolutionary strategy must be different. Thus the term for the revolutionary strategy has been given as the Marx-Mao-Prachanda Path. He enunciated that revolution must be a permanent process.]
 Email:: Villagespring "at" yahoo.com
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i've been wondering when the hell the international left would recognise and start thinking about the revolutionary war taking place in nepal.
i think there is a tendency to think 'oh, nepal, it's just a tiny country i've never heard of, who cares?' but actually, the process in nepal has potentially huge implications for all of us, because it has the potential to spill over into india--bihar, andrah pradesh, where the maoists there are fighting--particularly if the indians intervene in nepal, which would not surprise me at all.
i find it disappointing how so many people on the left seem only attracted to 'glamorous' conflicts like the one in chiapas, etc, without paying attention to potentially very important things going on in nepal, northern india, the philippines, etc. as far as i can tell it has to do with the fact that the mainstream media downplay these conflicts, but we have a responsibility to look beyond the mainstream media, no?
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I would like to thank the folks at Indymedia for bringing us information on a situation that I, personally, have been unable to get much information on. Whereas all I knew before was the vague knowledge that something was goin on, it is very nice to hear about the theory and strategy and situation of the Nepalese revolution from the source.
It's also worth saying that, from a political point of view, it will be very significant when the first socialist revolution is successful, after socialism had been said to be dead since the fall of the Soviet Union.
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Thankyou Indymedia for this.
There are two questions I would love you to have asked:
1) What do they think of the Zapatistas, and how do they compare their two strugles?
2) What are their links with the Chineese government?
The Zapatistas are often seen as fundamentally different to other guerilla movements of the Twentieth Century, they've inspired a global movement and because of this have received massive global solidarity which has helped them immensely. They practise radical bottom-up democracy, aim to open political space rather than capture state power, and have a division between their military and civil institutions with the former (which is not democratic) subordinate to the latter (which is highly democratic).
As Bhattarai said 'Nobody relinquishes power voluntarily.' It is for this reason that many people around the world are reluctant to support the Maoists in Nepal. Most of us have learnt from the communist struggles turned dictatorships of the past and see this as following the same lines. This said, we shouldn't write off any struggle against such a massively oppressive state automatically. It is hopeful that Bhattarai speaks some of the language of radical democracy but it also seems that ultimate power within the Maoists lies in the upper hierarchy. The 'Proposal to Peace Talks by CP (Maoists) of Nepal' seems to basically support a representative democratic state, which as the current world situation shows, is inclined to develop a self-serving ruling-class, who sell-out the real interests of the people (like in all states). The document does contain however some very radical points, for example:
'A new "land relation" should be formed on the basis of "one who works for the land owns the land". A just land distribution law should be enforced.'
'The foreign encroachment and internal destruction created in the name of NGOs and INGOs should be stopped and. The policies imposed by the international financial institutions should be declared null and void.'
This all said, I beleive groups around the world should organise solidarity with the rebels because:
1) They clearly better represent the needs of the people than the monarchists do.
2) International solidarity will help them succeed and will be the only way to avoid massive US-sponsored repression.
3) If they acheive power through more peaceful means and have close links with external democratic grass-root forces, they're likely to be less repressive when in power, and hopefully might bring real improvements.
peace and solidarity
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I lived in Kathmandu for six months in 2001. I am totally committed to liberal minded independent media resources but this article is a one-sided ill-informed knee-jerk reaction based on a preconceived idea about the government always being wrong and extreme leftist insurgent groups always being right. The Maoists (which is what they are actually called by everybody in Nepal) ARE violent terrorists. They have killed hundreds and hundreds of people since 1996 - that's why they have control over the rural areas - people are terrified of them. They are just as corrupt as the government they are trying to bring down. I was an English teacher in Nepal and there were days I couldn't leave the school after work because the Maoists had set fires at the gates. Other days - bandh days - nobody was allowed to work. Nobody was allowed to drive cars and nobody could open their shops or run their businesses. For the rich upper classes it was just a day off from work, but for the taxi drivers, shopkeepers and factory workers is was a day's paycut. The Maoists are a bunch of violent corrupt idiots who are screwing over the few people left in Nepal who still believe that it's worth trying to be hardworking and honest. They don't even realise that Mao's government was the most corrupt of all. Independent Media should be about real Independence - not just token independence from corporate and government bias, but independence from ideological bias of any kind. I'm disappointed.
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"I lived in Kathmandu for six months in 2001. I am totally committed to liberal minded independent media resources but this article is a one-sided ill-informed knee-jerk reaction based on a preconceived idea about the government always being wrong and extreme leftist insurgent groups always being right. The Maoists (which is what they are actually called by everybody in Nepal) ARE violent terrorists. They have killed hundreds and hundreds of people since 1996 - that's why they have control over the rural areas - people are terrified of them. They are just as corrupt as the government they are trying to bring down. I was an English teacher in Nepal and there were days I couldn't leave the school after work because the Maoists had set fires at the gates. Other days - bandh days - nobody was allowed to work. Nobody was allowed to drive cars and nobody could open their shops or run their businesses. For the rich upper classes it was just a day off from work, but for the taxi drivers, shopkeepers and factory workers is was a day's paycut. The Maoists are a bunch of violent corrupt idiots who are screwing over the few people left in Nepal who still believe that it's worth trying to be hardworking and honest. They don't even realise that Mao's government was the most corrupt of all. Independent Media should be about real Independence - not just token independence from corporate and government bias, but independence from ideological bias of any kind. I'm disappointed."
What bullshit coming from the mouth of an Western "liberal." This idiot repeats all the standard Western and Nepali government lies about the Maoists being "terrorists." The terrorists are the ones in WAshington DC and their stooges in the Nepalese government who are more than happy to rape and exploit the Nepalese workers to their heart's content, while trying to kill off any resistance to your sham "democracy."
This Esther fails to explain why the Maoists have increasing popular support in the countryside if they are such "terrorists." She also fails to explain how the Nepal government and their Western governments are not the TRUE TERRORISTS as they are the ones with the guns, attack heliocopters, and artillery used to murder anyone who refuses to bow down before your Capitalist World disOrder.
This idiot Esther exemplifies why Western Liberals are fundamentally just as corrupt, malevolent, and evil as their Right Wing counterparts. Her definition of "democracy" is a Western style client state ruled by pro-Western scum who are more than willing to sell out their country to Western Imperialist interests and corporations.
Even her defintion of "independent media" is a twisted and skewed defintion. She claims that independent media should be independent of any ideological basis--excepting her own *Liberal Imperialst* bias which she refuses to admit and ackowledge in the first place.
Esther should take her Tourist-turned-English-Teacher ass back to your pampered Western world where you have no clue and no idea what revolutionary struggle is all about.
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The last two postings make some valid points, Esther does it in a constructive way, Idiot Detector does not.
Firstly Esther. Having spent time in Nepal, you've more direct experience of what's going on there than I have, still I can't uncritically accept your point. I'm sure the Maoists are violent, this is not really disputed by anyone, the important point is the context. The violence, both direct and systemic, that has been directed at the rural poor in Nepal for so long, as elsewhere in the world, is immense. The fact that they are using violence to try to combat this is not in itself significant. What is significant, and almost impossible for me to gage here in the British Isles, is whether this violence is excessive given the situation and whether the rebels represent an emancipating force, or a new set of tyrants.
The points you make about the strike are most likely true, just as they are for almost any strike anywhere in the world. Strikes are an essential means for the working class to make a meaningful protest. They always cause hardship in the short-term, and the poorest often come out the worst in this. Still, if this was to stop people resisting anywhere, and they merely try to change things through the rule-book written by the oppressors, the world would be an even worse place than it is now and we wouldn't get anywhere.
Finally Esther, as an English teacher, although you probably meant well, in the eyes of the Maoists and most rural people in Nepal, you probably hold a far greater resemblance to their historical enemies than you do to them.
Secondly, Idiot Detector - I'd guess you're a Marxist-Leninist of sorts. I get this feeling partly from your politics but primarily from your tone and discourse. I've been trying to have rational dialogue with a number of M-Ls for a while now but its hard work. Rather than making clear points, they tend to insult their opposition, accuse them of ulterior motives and deliberately misrepresent them (I won't bother to point out exactly how you do all of these, but trust the intelligence of most readers to see it for themselves).
Idiot D, you seem very sure of the true and pure motives of the Maoists, do you have any factual basis /personal experience for this (in which case it would be nice if you shared it 'cos that's what indymedia’s about), or do you just know it to be true, because it is?
Oh yeah, and why bother using the word 'terrorist'? It's such a loaded term it means nothing and so gets us no where. Who admits to being a terrorist? - they all call themselves freedom-fighters, soldiers, politicians, CEOs etc.
--- My final point. I've been searching for any article making a link between the zapatistas and the Maoists in Nepal, in relation to the points in my first posting and haven't found any. Is no one else thinking about this? Is it not important?
regards
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with regard to the comments by esther:
having spent some time in nepal, mainly in the countryside though also in the towns and kathmandu, i can tell you several things. esther's post is a bit of a misrepresentation, but it is easy to see where you could get these ideas from being there.
kathmandu is very different from the rest of the country. even the small towns are dramatically different to the condition in the remote villages (where the majority of the population live). most of the villages are 4 days walk over shit terrain to the nearest road, have no electricity, and no official government infrastructure. the maoists are very definitely on the side of the peasants in the remote villages, as opposed to the towns. this is where they find their support base. it is quite easy for them to set up a peoples' government because the people of these villages have never benefited from a government before--for example, for the first time they have access to an unbiased and non-patriarchal judicial system (the peoples' courts).
so the maoists are mainly supported by, and fight on the side of, the vast majority of the population, who live in the remote areas. this means that they don't usually hesitate to do things like cut off power to towns (usually there is one big town--2000 people or so--in each district, and this is where the military and police hide) in order to gain a military advantage. although this pisses off the townspeople, for most of their support base electricity is something that has never existed.
it is important to realise the maoists tactics that are called 'terrorist' are coming from a very different perspective. for example, when they blow up power plants donated by foreign governments in order to cut off power to towns and gain a military advantage. a nepali told me once: when the maoists blow up a bridge, people ask them, 'why did you blow up that bridge? when you take power, won't we still need bridges?' and the maoists respond: 'how many people are in this village? 1000? and how many stones are in the bridge? 1000. so if everyone in this village brings one stone, we can rebuild the bridge in a day'. the point being, nepal could be a much more developed country, it's only the socioeconomic system that is holding them back. and the things the maoists must destroy in the short run are a necessary sacrifice in order to achieve that long run development that nepalis so badly want.
with regard to stories of horrible violence carried out by maoists: first of all, the vast majority of the violence against anyone, especially civilians though, is carried out by the army and the police, who are famous for entering villages, lining people up, and massacring them in order to increase their quota of 'maoists' killed for the newspapers. second, it is true that occasionally maoists kill people they do not need to kill, and probably engage in torture, etc. this is basically for the same reason it happened in china, which is very simple: the maoists are a guerrilla army made up of up to 20000 peasants, most of whom started off completely illiterate, poor, and degraded, and have been cheated, exploited, and oppressed by the semi-feudal regime and by the government. suddenly, these people are plucked out of some of the worst living conditions you can imagine, and given a submachine gun. now the situation is the same, except they are armed, and the guy who has been oppressing them their whole lives, raping their daughters, etc, is not. what do you expect them to do? no matter how much the maoist leadership tries to impose judicial procedure, etc, they cannot control what happens in these situations.
finally, you must realise that when you talk to people in nepal, especially after the period of martial law began, they are very afraid to actually say that they like the maoists. the reason for this is that if you so much as say you like the maoists, you can be shot, with no trial, nothing. i don't know what it was like before martial law was declared, but i doubt people were shouting in the streets about how much they love the maoists. many people in kathmandu, particularly petit-bourgeois types, don't like the maoists because they threaten business (tourism). but the fact that up to 50,000 people were reported to have shown up at the recent maoist rally in kathmandu, and probably at least 10 times that were too scared to go (for fear of losing jobs, getting put on a hit list, etc), shows that support in kathmandu is deeper than it seems.
in nepal, the truth is a very hard thing to determine. but one thing that is quite clear is that the government and the press, who they control (they rounded up and tortured to death many pro-maoist journalists at the beginning of the martial law period) do NOT tell the truth. they do not exist to enforce laws, but instead are a giant mafia. nepal has child labour laws, but the government employs children to build roads. they have environmental laws, which the government does not obey. etc etc. the government (and police) of nepal were recently named the most corrupt in the world by a south asian corruption investigation organisation. so what esther says about the government having some good in it is really not true. a nepali guy of 19 years i met in kathmandu once told me: 'i could die like a dog in the street and no one would care'. in other words, the police and government do not exist to support or help the people, but to extort money from them, to rob them, to rape them, etc.
long live the people's war in nepal!
bob smith
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Teaching the Royal Nepal Army "Lal Salaam"
Revolutionary Worker #1199, May 18, 2003, posted at rwor.org
There is currently a cease-fire between the Nepalese government and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist). Both sides have agreed to a "code of conduct" in which the government pledged not to attack or use armed force against the people's rights in return for the People's Liberation Army's suspension of operations.
The April 8 issue of the Kathmandu weekly newspaper Janadesh*carried the following report:
Since the cease-fire and its aftermath, we have been constantly receiving information about violations of the code of conduct by the Royal Nepali Army (RNA), which the PLA is strictly following.
According to information we have just received on an incident that took place some time ago, the PLA Satbaria Second Battalion sponsored a program to celebrate the anniversary of the People's War on 28 February in Dullu, in western Nepal. The next morning, the Royal Nepalese Army (RNA), thinking that the PLA had left the village, came in at 9 a.m. Around 150 RNA soldiers cordoned off the program site, randomly firing their rifles. They began looting, beating people and burning belongings. But the RNA was wrong about the situation. While being careful not to violate the code of conduct following the cease-fire and not even open fire in self-defense, the PLA had encircled the RNA. By that time the RNA had injured several villagers.
The Maoists wanted to talk with them 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. His captors replied that the negotiations are going on at the top level and soldiers were not supposed to hold a dialogue with the Maoists. After that, Basnet said that if you are here to fight, you are surrounded by the PLA and none of you will go back alive. The soldiers then took him to speak to an RNA major. The RNA sent a negotiating team to talk to the Maoists. PLA Company Commander Comrade Jokhim and others spoke with the RNA. Finally they persuaded the RNA men to return all the looted belongings and beg the villagers for pardon.
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.
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FOOTNOTES:
* In November 2001, when the Nepalese government declared a "state of emergency," they immediately raided the offices of Maoist newspapers, including Janadesh . Editors and journalists were arrested, equipment and files confiscated, and the newspapers were closed down. The editor of Janadesh , Krishna Sen, was later arrested and tortured to death in custody. In November 2002, some of the revolutionary journalists who were being held in jail were finally released. And just recently, Janadesh has begun to publish again.
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I'm not sure what the CPN(M) would say about the Zapatistas, other than "It's right to rebel!" As I understand it, the Zapatistas' goals are more about autonomy than state power, though.
I do know that there is absolutely no connection between the current government of China and the Maoists in Nepal, since the Chinese government has long left the revolutionary socialist road. The capitalists who run the country, though within a "Communist Party" may prove to be a huge threat to victory to the Maoists in Nepal. The closer victory comes, the more Nepal can serve as an inspiration to the oppressed masses of that entire region- and that is something that the rulers of China fear as much as the rulers of the US.
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From the International Department of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)
To Our Friends in America
Revolutionary Worker #1151, May 19, 2002, posted at rwor.org
We received this statement from the International Department of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist).
Dear Friends,
A rare spectacle of a rendezvous between the PM of the poorest country (Sher Bahadur Deuba of Nepal) and the President of the richest country (George W. Bush of the USA) is taking place in Washington on May 7. Do you know what is the common point of interest for these two polar opposites? Have you ever pondered why the arrogant U.S. rulers, who till the other day could not distinguish between `Naples' (in Italy) and `Nepal', should now offer the coveted hospitality to the poor lackey in the Oval office?
Both these leaders of the exploiting classes of the two countries are haunted by the spectre of the ongoing people's liberation movement in Nepal and are now confabulating to jointly exorcise this ghost. As co-fighters in the same side of the barricade of the exploited and oppressed of the world we feel, we, too, need to communicate with each other and thwart the evil designs of our common enemies.
As already reported in the media, Deuba is visiting Washington to beg for massive U.S. military and financial assistance to crush the popular people's democratic movement led by CPN (Maoist) in Nepal. Starting with the first ever visit to Nepal by a U.S. Secretary of State, Colin Powell, in January last and culminating in the week long visit of a high level U.S. military delegation in April, the U.S. administration has been systematically building the case for a massive armed intervention and creation of a permanent military base in Nepal (apparently to take on China & India in the long run). Current Deuba visit is, thus, meant to formally initiate a long term U.S. military engagement in Nepal and the Himalayan region with the immediate pretext of extinguishing the ever-raging democratic movement of the Nepalese people, which they slander as `terrorism'.
But can the heroic rebellion of the impoverished Nepalese masses against class, caste, gender, regional and national oppression under the age-old semi-feudal and semi-colonial dispensation, be branded and brushed aside as mere `terrorism'? Certainly not. After September 11 it may be fashionable and convenient for all the sundry ruling classes of the world to castigate every dissent and rebellion against their oppressive rule as `terrorism'. But history has always made a clear distinction between a legitimate `revolutionary war' with a progressive ideological-political mooring and the lunatic acts of terrorism with a regressive intent. In that sense the progressive democratic political nature of the revolutionary People's War (PW) led by the CPN (Maoist), which has a country-wide mass following of tens of millions, should have never been in question. Even a mainstream daily The Times of India had this to say about it in its editorial comment of January 27, 2002: "Unlike the Taliban and the many outfits inspired by Osama Bin Laden, the Maoists of Nepal, for all their violence, represent a progressive protest movement which is neither anti-modern nor exclusivist in ethnic and religious terms. The Maoists are not anti-women, anti-education or anti-development and were till recently, negotiating with elected authorities who have a dismal record of both governance and adherence to democratic norms".
About the question of current compulsive violence in the form of PW against a militarist monarchical state in Nepal, the American people with their own glorious history of war against British colonialism in the 18th century (1776 to be precise) and a civil war against the slave-owners in 1861-65, should have no pacifist illusions. As long as the society and nations get divided into haves and have-nots and the oppressors and the oppressed, nobody can wish away wars of one kind or the other. You can only choose between just and unjust wars. And history will certainly testify that the PW waged by the most oppressed masses of Nepal is a legitimate and just war aimed at ending all wars from the face of the earth.
What is the immediate agenda of this epic fight in Nepal? It should be clear to every keen follower of the events that it is a pure and simple fight between traditional monarchy and modern democracy. The immediate demands of the movement are: formation of an interim government, election to a constituent assembly and institutionalisation of the republic. As every student of political history would concede these are the common demands of every bourgeois democratic revolution, from Europe to Americas to anywhere. But is there no elected parliament in Nepal? Therein lies the biggest source of illusion and disinformation to our foreign friends, particularly in America and Europe. Though there is a namesake parliament with occasional ritual of elections as in most of the Third World countries, the real and effective state power is vested in the traditional feudal monarchy. This has been ensured through a King-granted constitution which perpetuates the `traditional authority' of the monarchy to promulgate the country's constitution, preserves all the feudal privileges, and above all, provides for continued allegiance of the Royal Nepal Army (RNA) to the institution of monarchy. As a result, particularly after the heinous palace coup d'etat of June 2001 and imposition of a state of emergency since November 2001, a fascistic royal military dictatorship has been thrust in the country and the cosmetic parliament and the legal parliamentary parties reduced to helpless rubber stamps to legitimise & embellish the feudal autocracy. The recent open tirades of the RNA chief, Prajjwal Rana, against the parliamentary parties and their leaders, including the ruling Nepali Congress Party, and the defiant rebuttal of the RNA headquarters the other day to the peace initiatives of the seven parliamentary parties, speak eloquently of this. Thus, though in outer appearance the fight at times may appear between parliamentary democracy and people's democracy (or between `old' and `new' democracy), the essential fight is between autocratic monarchy, on the one hand, and forces of democracy, both inside and outside parliament, on the other. The American people conversant with the long drawn struggle, both armed and unarmed, between the monarchy and the parliament from seventeenth century onwards to the beginning of twentieth century in Europe, including Britain, France, Germany and others, should be able to better appreciate the repeat or continuation of the same history in present-day Nepal, though with some extra particularities.
How about, then, the much alleged intentions of the CPN (Maoist) to impose a one-party `communist dictatorship' in place of monarchial autocracy in the country? This is another slander deliberately spread by the reactionary forces and innocently picked up by the gullible public. Firstly, the Party is committed to the three immediate demands cited above. And secondly, the Party has time and again publicly disowned the model of one-party dictatorship in the future people's democratic state, which is well-articulated in a recent public statement issued by Chairman Prachanda on March 27. And we quote: `we want to clarify once again that we are committed to guarantee party freedom in the new state-power to be constructed after the destruction of feudal autocracy. The state envisaged by us will not be a one-party dictatorship. The freedom to operate political parties according to one's ideological convictions and contest elections will be guaranteed. There only the activities of such elements upholding feudalism and inviting foreign domination will be curbed. We are committed to establish and develop a people's democratic system of the twenty-first century. Such a democratic system won't be a mechanical imitation of the traditional kind but will be guided by the people's needs of the twenty-first century'. Also, the 75-point Policy and Programme of the recently formed United Revolutionary People's Council (URPC), an embryonic Central People's Government Organising Committee in the form of a revolutionary united front under the leadership of CPN (Maoist), provides a broad outline of our envisaged future state policies.
Then why is Deuba, an `elected' PM, touring the world to canvas support for the royal military dictatorship? This is part of the paradox every democratic movement in history has to face. Like a section of the bourgeoisie had reneged in favour of the monarchy in the British, French, German, Russian and other democratic revolutions, so has Deuba betrayed the trust of the people and his own Nepali Congress Party and sold himself out to the feudal palace. The fact that his Information Minister J. P. Gupta, recently expelled from the Congress party for siding with the RNA chief against the party line, but still continues in the Deuba puppet cabinet, adequately speaks of the rift between his own party and the government on the question of supporting the royal military dictatorship. Deuba is, thus, a deceptive `parliamentary' mask worn by the Gyanendra-Paras-Prajjwal clique to hoodwink the democratic world opinion, which needs to be unmasked sooner than later.
What about Deuba's oft-repeated outbursts that the Maoists walked off from the peace negotiations last November and hence won't trust again any move for negotiations? This is again not real Deuba speaking but just parroting the feudal autocrats behind the curtains. The naked truth is that he is in no position, even if he wants, to negotiate on the question of republic or a constituent assembly, which are the cardinal immediate demands of the people's movement. That is why all through the negotiation process last autumn he could neither accept the demands presented, nor forward any alternative political solutions to the problem, while Gyanendra was mobilising RNA behind the scenes. Even now, when all the parliamentary political parties and civil society have expressed themselves in favour of a negotiated political settlement and the CPN (Maoist) has favourably responded to it, the Gyanendra clique, RNA and Deuba are running around begging external military interventions to save their skins. Does this not sufficiently expose Deuba's real self?
And now, what is the ground reality at the war front inside the country? The armed mass rebellion of the oppressed and the deprived has so thoroughly swept the country that almost the whole of the countryside, particularly in the hills, has been liberated from the old oppressive order. The recent five-day countrywide shut-down (Nepal bandh) has brought the ripples of the epic mass rebellion to cities and towns. The tall claims of the old order that with the clamping of countrywide state of emergency the so- called magic wands of mercenary RNA would take no time to wipe out the People's Liberation Army (PLA) have been burst asunder. Having been thoroughly defeated in every real encounter with the PLA, the reactionary RNA has been massacring innocent and unarmed masses and political activists in dozens everyday in fake encounters. There have been Hitlerite instances of butchering of hundreds of political prisoners, eg. Gyan Prasad Chalise in Bardia, Kamal Bhujel and Sumitra Ghimire in Kaski, Ajab Lal Yadav in Sarlahi, and many others. The most heinous crimes of atrocious proportions by the RNA have been the systematic genocide of hundreds of unarmed masses and political activists as retaliatory tactics after the defeats [in the real] battles, eg. in Kalikot and Achham in February, in Rolpa (Gumchal) in March, in Dang in April and in Rolpa-Piuthan in the first week of May. The latest carnage in Rolpa-Piuthan and Doti has been designed to show some `results' and `success' to their foreign masters on the eve of Deuba's U.S. and UK visits. This is also meant to put pressure on the parliamentary parties to extend the tenure of emergency rule by another six months. But such deceptive tactics cannot hide the imminent collapse of the rotten RNA, unless buttressed by the foreign powers.
The exertion of state terror by the royal dictatorship to muzzle and subdue the independent media has been the most horrendous. Not only are hundreds of media persons incarcerated without trial, making the country the single largest prison of journalists in the world, the dissenting newspaper offices have been ransacked and shut-down. Some reputed journalists have been threatened with life (e.g. Yubraj Ghimire of Kantipur) and made to pen and mouth RNA propaganda of white lies against the revolutionary forces. While no independent verification of the battle and encounter stories are permitted, all the print and electronic media are forced to carry only the RNA bulletins and launch disinformation campaign against the people's democratic movement.
It is in this context that we want to appeal to all our friends, particularly in America and Europe, not to get carried away by the one-sided propaganda of the feudal autocratic forces and their foreign imperialist masters and try to ferret out facts from fictions. There is certainly no `clash of civilizations' between the East and the West, as the ruling class ideologues prefer to term, but only `clash of classes' which would cut across all national, racial, and religious boundaries. And there will definitely be no `end of history' of mankind but the end of history of only antagonistic classes. Therefore, the oppressed people of the world look upon their class brothers and sisters in the USA, the most powerful and dangerous imperialist power on earth at the moment, to make revolution in the belly of the beast and stop it from intervening in the revolutionary processes elsewhere.
Finally, a few words to the Nepalese emigrants in the USA, who are said to number around fifty thousand. As long as the global system of uneven and unequal development prevails, people will tend to migrate to the greener pastures. But please keep in mind that unless this structural anomaly is remedied, people will never be safe anywhere in the universe. Your oppressed brothers and sisters back home look up to your enlightened opinion and actions.
May 6, 2002 INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT COMMUNIST PARTY OF NEPAL (MAOIST)
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A World To Win Magazine  http://www.awtw.org has good information on the struggle going on there and the politics of the CPN(M) revolutionaries. the CPN(M) publication, The Worker, provides lots of information on party line, etc.
So, do the Maoists in Nepal plan set up a participatory democracy or go the way of dictators like Stalin and Mao and just usurp all the power for themselves and chosen members of the Communist Party? I don't mean to sound inflammatory, but I'm curious to know, because a lot of Maoists elsewhere, such as the Maoist Internationalist Movement, openly uphold Mao's Cultural Revolution and the totalitarian regime of Stalin, claiming that Communist dictatorship is "true democracy."
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"I do know that there is absolutely no connection between the current government of China and the Maoists in Nepal, since the Chinese government has long left the revolutionary socialist road. The capitalists who run the country, though within a "Communist Party" may prove to be a huge threat to victory to the Maoists in Nepal. The closer victory comes, the more Nepal can serve as an inspiration to the oppressed masses of that entire region- and that is something that the rulers of China fear as much as the rulers of the US."
You have it backwards, its actually the leaders of India who hate and fear the Maoists more than China does. The Maoists are essentially Nationalists and are opposed to foreign invertention in Nepal, which India has historically and currently is engaging in as a *Strategic Partner* of the USA. More importantly, India has its own Maoist insurgency to deal with in the form of the People's War Group (PWG) which has carried out numerous attacks against the India State, and has connections to the Maoists in Nepal. Also, there are some indications that the Maoists in Nepal are receiving help from the Pakistani ISI.
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After Indian independence, the new rulers of India sought to replace the British as the imperial masters of the kingdoms that lay in the Himalayan foothills between India and China. In Sikkim, a small state that adjoins Nepal to the east, India established a “protectorate” in 1950, and in 1973 the King was deposed in a coup crudely engineered by the Indian intelligence agency. Sikkim was thereupon annexed by India. Bhutan, a kingdom next in line to the east of Sikkim, like Nepal and Sikkim borders both India and China. When, in 1964, the Prime Minister of Bhutan moved to have a balanced foreign policy between China and India, he was assassinated by Indian operatives and the king’s younger brother, Lendrup Dorje, was put in his place. Bhutan has kept its formal independence, but ever since there have been Indian army posts inside Bhutan at the border crossings with China. Nepal has been a harder nut to crack....
Why was King Birendra and his family murdered at this particular moment? What was his crime in the eyes of the expansionist and imperialist powers? Whatever your political ideology might be, one thing every honest Nepali nationalist has to agree with is this: King Birendra’s liberal political ideology and his patriotism were seen as his weakness and had become a crime in the eyes of the expansionist and imperialist powers. During the one-sided Indian economic embargo and revolution of 1990, instead of surrendering himself to the expansionist powers, he surrendered to his people. This did not make the expansionist forces happy. Later, his unwillingness to mobilize the army—which has a tradition of loyalty towards the King—to curb the People’s Revolution taking place under the leadership of Nepal Communist Party (Maoist) became his biggest crime in the eyes of the imperialist and expansionist powers. Some Marxist pundits, based on this, called us a pro-monarchy party, and we can now say that we—NCP(Maoist) and King Birendra—had similar views on many national issues and this had created in fact an informal alliance between us. Obviously, this scared the imperialist powers and their cronies. In the context of a deteriorating Sino-US relationship and a growing strategic alliance between India and the US, the King who appeared soft on us—the Maoists—and China had become an irritation to the American Imperialists and especially to the Indian expansionists.
India’s dream of annexing Nepal like Sikkim had to be amended and instead they had to make Nepal a Bhutan first, before making it another Sikkim. After CIA (and the recently opened FBI branch in Delhi) approval, RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) [the Indian covert intelligence and operations agency] came up with a grand master plan to annex Nepal. Just like the cunning fox of folk-lore who stole the chickens by falsely shouting that an eagle was arriving, RAW too created a fake tale about the ISI (Inter Service Intelligence) [the Pakistani covert intelligence and operations agency] being active in Nepal and having penetrated the Palace. [The next few sentences, which refer to the 1964 Bhutan events, suggest a direct involvement of the new royal family in the June 1st slaughter] They even chose a Jigme Sigme for the Bhutanization of Nepal. And it is through that Jigme Sigme that the massacre was carried out. There shouldn’t be any doubt that RAW, which had already found their Lendup Dorje in Girija [the current pro-Indian Nepali Congress Prime Minister], aligned the new Jigme Sigme with their Lendup Dorje for the Bhutanization of Nepal, with a goal of eventual Sikkimization of Nepal.
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Actually, instead of just speculating on who the Maoists in Nepal are, you could find out from them. Check out the Revolutionary Worker (rwor.org) series called Dispatches, where a revolutionary form the RCP, USA travelled with guerilla squads, and interviewed the chairman, Pranchanda. Go to A World To Win, (awtw.org) an internationalist magazine inspired by the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement, who the CPN(M) are a participating party in. Or check out their own website at www.cpnm.org. Silly comments like Maoists being essentially nationalist are far off the mark, and if you look at the struggle developing in the region, a struggle that goes over state lines, and over nationality lines, and still call this guded by "nationalist" ideology, then you show your deep ignorance of communist revolution, and of nationalism. The Maoists in Nepal are internationalists, why, because they recognize that the woprld revolution comes first, the revolution of the people around the world is primary, then is a Marxist Leninist Maoist stance. The Maoists in Nepal are not directly fighting for socialism, they recognize the need in semi-feudal countries for a New Democratic revolution to open the door for socialist revolution. The Maoists in Nepal are organizing with Maoist parties throughout South Asia in the Coordinatin Committee of Maoist Parties of South Asia (CCOMPOSA). These include parties from India, Bangladesh, etc. The Maoists in Nepal are a part of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement, a movement of genuine Maoist parties around the world. From South Asia, to North and South America. From Turkey to Italy. Do they support Stalin, of course they do, as any revolutionary communist does. They also correctly point out the errors in Stalins line and approach around particular things. And they look to Mao Tse-Tungs summation of Comrade Stalin. And finally of course they support the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. The most revolutionary period in human history. The attacks on this monumental event are attacks on peoples right to resist against oppression. And all revolutionary communists uphold this period and this struggle. 
who are the Maoists
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Was that my comment you were replying to? Well, assuming that it was, don't misconstrue my comment as meaning that I don't agree with and support (at least in principle) what the Maoists in Nepal are fighting for. I agree with a lot of the tenets of Marxist-Leninism, but I disagree with many of its proponents, including people like Mao and Stalin.
A lot (though not all, of course) of Communists I've encountered seem to be very authoritarian in their thinking, as evidenced by their belief in Marxist-Leninism as a "universally applicable truth" (as Mao put it) and their tendency to insult those who disagree with them, claiming that the latter are "wrong" and not truly devoted to social change, and often refusing to work with other groups like Socialists and Anarchists. Not surprisingly, Mao and Stalin both usurped the movements started by Sun Zhongshan, Chen Duxiu and V.I. Lenin, respectively, using "revolution" as a pretext for turning their respective countries into totalitarian dictatorships.
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Hey, If people are interested in politically defending the people's war in Nepal, there's an informal group of people in NYC doing that. At the moment, they're called the Ad-Hoc Nepal Solidarity Committee and they meet weekly discussing what's going on and what it means for the people of the world, and politically defending the right of the people of Nepal to liberate themselves, oppose US intervention, and so on. Even if you're just interested in finding out more about Nepal and such, contact them. You can reach them by emailing them at  li_visit_nyc@yahoo.com
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LAAL SALAAM! For those wanting more infos on the revolution in Nepal (& elsewhere), check out MAOIST_GUNS list/Yahoo!-group. Send e-mail to: *** MAOIST_GUNS-subscribe@yahoogroups.com *** for free subscribe. It should work whether yours is Yahoo! account or not (if not work, set up Yahoo! account is free). Below is self-description of the group... - Laddo Kecxoveli - MAOIST_GUNS. This list is open to all supporters of the Politics and ideology of Maoism, the third and Highest stage of Marxism, otherwise known as MARXISM-LENINISM-MAOISM. The list is also open to people who are at the very least anti-imperialist and want to learn more on issues at stake. MAOIST GUNS will give regular updates from various sources on the People`s War`s being waged in NEPAL, PERU, INDIA, TURKEY, PHILLIPINES as well as other struggles including Armed Struggles being waged by Maoist forces and people's Wars being prepared in IRAN, BANGLADESH, SRI LANKA etc in the service of the WORLD REVOLUTION to liberate humanity from the dog-eat-dog system of Capitalism/imperialsm. MAOIST GUNS will also post statements from Maoist parties around the Globe when they arrive and members are encouraged to search for statements and articles in relation to these. MAOIST GUNS understands that the World is divided into Oppressed and Oppressor Nations and that Africa, Asia and Latin America are the Storm centres of the WORLD REVOLUTION. World revolution can only succeed if the proletariat of capitalist countries supports struggles for liberation of colonial &; semi-colonial peoples and Vice Versa. MAOIST GUNS is also designed for postings on other Armed struggles including Ireland, Colombia, Palestine where Maoists don`t lead these struggles at present and off MASS uprisings and street protests around the Globe. Postings from the Maoist press, wheather from the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement, Revolutionary worker, A World To Win,etc is greatly encouraged to inspire debate as part of the "Unity, Struggle, Unity, Transformation" process. * Please avoid tons of postings from the reactionary press, although some articles are at times necessary as they give some `news`, in a round about way!
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I think it's worth noting that there are many other forces and organizations on the left in Nepal which are distinct from, and in opposition to, the Maoists in the Comunist Party of Nepal (Maoist). In fact, the CPN(M) may not even be the largest and most popular of the communist parties in Nepal. That distinction may well belong to the Communist Party (United Marxist-Lenninist), which was itself a merger of several communist factions.
The CP (UML) actually won one national election in Nepal and was the largest opposition party at the time the King dissolved parliament. There are at least four other significant communist groups in Nepal. The communist movement has a long history in Nepal and has been influenced by the history of communist movements there in both China and India.
There are also a number of non-communist leftist and left nationalist parties and groups of significance in Nepal. Most appear to work in a loose alliance which has been referred to as the democratic movement and which Dr. Bhattarai refers to as the "parliamentary parties". The CPN(M) condemns these other communist and leftist forces as being reformist and insufficiently revolutionary and for pursuing a deadend electoral strategy. I have never read propaganda from the CPN(M) that ever even dignifies these parties and groups by stating their names.
The other communist and leftist groups have condemned the CPN(M)'s "people's war" as terrorism and cited numerous examples in which the CPN(M) has deliberately killed other leftists. These other left forces have also held that armed struggle is not the way to advance democracy and socialism in Nepal and is, to the contrary, holding up advances by justifying state repression and plunging the country into chaos and an unwinnable civil war.
Differences in the immediate political proagams of the various communist and leftist forces in Nepal are not great. All appear to favor a constitutional democracy and take basic stances for social and economic justice. Most favor some form of socialism.
I am not the kind of U.S. leftist who takes sides within the people's movements in other countries. I certainly believe in the people's right to liberation through armed struggle, but whether such an armed struggle is a good or bad strategy in any given situation is to my way of thinking up to the people of that country and in that situation to decide and not for me. I also do not believe that one's position on a strategy of "people's war" or armed struggle is the decisive determinant of whether one's politics is revolutionary or not. I am contented with my position that "people's war" is not an effective and positive strategy for building the movements for social, economic, and environmental justice and real democracy here in the U.S. In Nepal, there is certainly very significant support for both the non-violent left and for the CPN(M)'s armed struggle.
Readers in this country that rely solely on information from the CPN(M), and its U.S. supporters of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), might well be led to think that the CPN(M) is the only communist, leftist, or revolutionary grouping in Nepal. This would be mistaken.
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actually people would be right in thinking that the CPN(M) is the only communist party in Nepal, though there are many who claim the mantle. Just cuz someone calls themselves a communist does mean that they represent communism.
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j, I don't really agree... Just because one group says they're the only "true" Communists doesn't make them Communists either. From what I've seen, the views of most Stalinist-Maoist (as opposed to Marxist-Leninist) parties, aside from leftist rhetoric, have more in common with fascism than Communism. From my perspective (maybe I'm being a little judgemental :b), most Maoists come across as emotionally immature would-be dictators, as evidenced by their tendency to try and "refute" any other leftist group (even other Communists) that doesn't agree verbatim with their line, and the tendency to denounce any criticism of their ideology or of Mao Zedong as an attempt by "imperialists" to spread lies. Check out http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM for a more insightful look. The Maoist concept of "proletarian democratic dictatorship" is bunk because all it really does is replace the old landlords and capitalists with new landlords and capitalists wrapped in a red flag. Look at China, for example: between 1949 and 1976, most Chinese lived in poverty while Chairman Mao had six mansions (one of which had a swimming pool) and his own private train. Any time a small group of people has powers, rights, and privileges that other people don't have, that group constitutes a de facto upper class, whether or not the poor are being fed properly and have roofs over their heads. "Proletarian dictatorship" also fails to address the fact that power, like wealth, can be as powerful a drug as heroin. Even if such a regime starts out operating in a benevolent manner, like the one in China did, the leadership class soon becomes addicted to power and the privilege that comes along with it, and the "People's Republic" degenerates into the "Communist Party's Republic." I personally think that Communists who try to achieve their aims through democratic means or set up genuinely democratic socialist regimes (as opposed to American Jeffersonian democracy or "democratic dictatorship") after the revolution is over are genuine Communists, because they're concerned with actually helping people, not just getting into power and keeping it.
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I admittedly have little understanding of what is happening in nepal at the present time, and after reading this article with it's accompanied (conflicting) responses i feel like i know even less, although i truly appreciate the format of open dialogue presented here.
during my stay in nepal some six years ago, i met and talked with people from various races, and or castes, and or classes. I did get a sense of a large rift between the rich and poor in Khatmandu specifically, but it did not seem at all to the degree of what i'd witnessed in "democratic" india. In the countryside/mountains i of course only travelled through a comparatively small swathe of area, mostly in the annapurna region. but i got the sense from other people that other regions had related problems. the problems of the villages and small townships that i moved through seemed more related to ecological concerns than anything else. thte rapid increase in populations seemed to be taxing the resources of a fragile ecosystem, and this created an imbalance which would certainly eventually lead to greater poverty. (in addition tourists, like myself, were increasingly impacting these resources). My sense was that "family planning" was a relatively unknown and unpracticed excercise, and i met a few foreigners who were there specifically to develop programs that would build awareness in this direction. undoubtedly some donated external resources i witnessed such as solar powered water heaters could contribute to less taxation of local resources such as wood which was becoming more and more scarce... and $$$ could help in this regard... but it is hard for me to imagine exactly what real influence, -negative or positive- the royal family ever had on the largely rural mountainous regions of nepal. it frankly never seemed like there was that much of a relationship to me. so it doesn't seem like a huge feat that the maoists supposedly are in control of the countyside. what i'm wondering is what exactly their agendas are. because it seemed like most of the villagers i encountered had their own local, (sort of tribal), governments. will victory by the maoists replace these with some more faceless authority? will it see them attempt to control the population problem through forced abortions and sterilizations like in china? will religious freedom be abolished, like in china? ---the most incredible and inspiring aspect of nepal to me is the mixture of religions that have been overlapping, influencing, and blending with each other with relative flexibility and openess for so long that new hybrids have been developed. the cultural wealth of nepal is it's diversity of cultures, a historical diversity that is due to it's crossroads location. will a maoist regime homogonize nepal, as china is still attempting to homogonize itself in tibet? will a destabilized, autonomous, maoist nepal end up being annexed into china, and share the rape of natural rescources and genocide of it's historical population eventually, as tibet is still experiencing? these are just some questions from an uninformed conjecturer. i do not support monarchy, no--- but neither do i support any communist regimes, for they are obviously capable of enormous evils in the name of "the people", just as the U.S. is capable of enormous evils in the name of "freedom and democracy". have fanatical ideaologies ever led to stable harmonious societies?
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In "Other communist forces in Nepal" Thu May 15 '03, Jonathan Nack made some incorrect statements about CPN(Maoist) stance toward other communist parties in Nepal, and in general did give false idea of we communists struggle for a little dignity for our people. That does include struggle among ourselves, very true, and also necessary. But not like Jonathan imagines it.
Our party, CPN(Unity Centre-Mashal) is called by the CPN(M) its "closest friendly force", and CPN(M) is called as the same by our party. Jonathan paints a picture in which the CPN(M) condemns /rejects all other communist forces and all other communist and revolutionary forces condemn their "People's War" as "terrorism". This is completely false picture. As his final proof he says, "I have never read propaganda from the CPN(M) that ever even dignifies these parties and groups by stating their names."
Well, this is a terribly misleading picture. Like all communist parties, CPN(M) has clear and detailed positions, which are updated from time to time, on each and every other political force in the country. These forces are all named. It is not the secret assessment, but published in the very party documents. Jonathan, maybe they have not published these information in English, I don't know. But please don't assume that what is not in English or on the internet does not exist. Most all political writing in Nepal exists only in Nepali and our some other languages. You will have very false impression if you think otherwise that what you can read in English is the sum and total.
About assessments of other communist and left forces: Like our party, CPN(M)'s assessments of other forces range from non-revolutionary opportunist forces (like CPN(UML) to M-L revolutionary forces who they disagree with on different points of principle and practice. Our two parties mutual relation is in the last category.
Does that mean that we support their "People's War"? No. Do they condemn us as non-revolutionary because of that major disagreement? Also no. Do we call them "terrorist" because they have launched an armed struggle when (as we think) objective conditions were not ripe and mass organization base was not ready? No.
And, Jonathan, it is most important to correct your another blanket assertion here too: NO self-named communist or socialist force in Nepal has condemned the "People's War" as "terrorism". Our party has condemned some abuses of our cadres, and even some killings. So have other parties. That is quite a different matter. We recognize they are a revolutionary pro-people force. We engage in friendly criticism and ideological struggle in hopes that they will rectify mistakes. We also recognize our enemy: the people's enemy. You should know that even the so-called government admits that its forces have done most of the killing in this war. For every one CPN(M) killing of a non-combatant there have been a hundred or thousand by the feudal forces. Do not mistake it. About government torture chambers, our brothers and sisters scars could teach you too. Which ones are terrorists would not be a complicated question to understand if you knew the situation here.
Another writer has rightly said that not all forces are communist just because they call themselves so. Here in Nepal communism is the popular ideology. Effect of this may be difficult for some westerners to think through - if you live where "communist" has been propagandized as most evil demon of hell for decades and decades. Most our people are poor and oppressed from birth till death. It is no surprise that they understand easily some basic communist principles - that fruits of their labour should be theirs but are not due to prevailing system, that private property system depends on immiseration, and so on. They know these things with their bones, and hungry bellies.
In this situation, with communism being most popular ideology, it is also not surprising that the title of communist gets abused. Just like popular "democracy" concept gets so abused in the Western countries. It can be profitable to claim communist credential, get elected, eat commissions and drive Pajeros. But does this mean all communist forces, or even leaders are corrupt? No. Our so many people there are, who you will never read about, who give body and soul for sake of our suffering brothers and sisters. These are not dictators in the making like some imagine. yes, there will always be the problem of power & corruption. When the day comes that a real communist force holds state power in nepal it will struggle with that also. we can be sure about it. But we believe in power of the people to teach and control their revolutionary forces.
Several writers here seem to say: because a communist force might be tempted for dictatorial rule or develop an elite ruling class after taking power, therefore by every means communist forces should be prevented from state power.
This is a strange argument! So then: those who are already corrupt, who already rule as worst dictators, who oppress with every tool of culture, economics, religion, guns -- because they are already corrupt (in ACCORD with their ideology, not against it!!) -- they should be kept safely in power??! And we should take no chances about maybe the revolutionaries and the people will have to struggle with the problem of remaining honest to revolutionary goals in the day when they can decide their own destiny???!!
Well, now, this is not our way. Life is a risk when death from starvation is closer than death from the gun. Here we will take our chances trying for better future for all our brothers and sisters.
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I don't think that Communists should be kept from state power, but I think they should be kept from having absolute power or final authority and turning into the pigs in Orwell's "Animal Farm."
Even though China, North Korea, and other countries under the rule of the Communist Party claim or have claimed to have "people's governments," there has been a very clear and obvious distinction in all these countries between the state and the people they've claimed to represent, with the latter having no real influence over the state. In order to have real political power, "the people" have to join the Communist Party, which requires them to hold certain views and values. Even still, most people who join the Party will probably never have a chance to become presidents, prime ministers, or even legislators, as leaders in high-level positions are usually anointed by those who are already at the top. In effect, this makes political power a privilege for only certain people rather than a right to which all are entitled. Hence, the "People's Republic" becomes the "Communist Party Elite's Republic," perpetuating the class system and making it permanent.
I'm neither a Communist nor Nepalese, so maybe it's not "proper" for me to say this, but I personally think that should the Maoists, they should set up a non-partisan participatory democracy like the Athenians, Celts and many different Native American peoples had, with all leaders being elected, all members of society participating in decision-making, and authority flowing from the bottom-up instead of from the top-down by way of appointed cadres. An authoritarian one-party state is what opens the doors for the bureaucracy and corruption that have exemplified Communist states in the past and present.
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We saw the posting on the Ad-Hoc Nepal Solidarity Committee. We welcome people to e-mail us at li_visit_nyc@yahoo.com. We seek to put the truth out about what is happening in Nepal and refute the slander and lies against the popular insurgency in Nepal – to provide accurate information on the conditions of the people of Nepal, who the rebels are and what they are fighting for, the increasing interference by the US and other foreign powers, and the intensifying repression against the people of Nepal. On this basis, we will build political opposition to US and other foreign intervention in Nepal. Ad-Hoc Nepal Solidarity Committee |
