Nepal's Civil Unrest

Maoists join mainstream, interim govt

The Indian Express
Yubaraj Ghimire
Saturday, June 17, 2006

NEPAL: Overground after two decades, Prachanda criticises govt, ministers listen and nod



KATHMANDU, JUNE 16:He did not invoke Marx, Lenin or even Mao. For a change, Maoist chief Prachanda invoked Lord Buddha, the apostle of peace, as his role model for future politics of competitive parliamentary democracy as he came overground and announced the decision to join the interim government to be formed shortly.

?'?'Some 2,500 years ago, Lord Buddha led a revolution and gave a message of peace in this land. Today we are going to make another history,'' Prachanda told journalists within the precincts of the Prime Minister's official residence after the ten-hour summit-level talks between the Government and the rebels were over.

The crowded press conference marked the end of his underground life that has spanned almost two decades?-its last half as head of the Maoist insurgency which began in February 1996.

The meeting which took place on the eve of Prime Minister G P Koirala's departure to Bangkok for his medical check-up, in principle, brought the two sides to an agreement to involve the United Nations for management of arms of both the Nepal Army and Maoist guerrillas so that the proposed elections to the constituent assembly would be fair and free from intimidation, a statement signed by Koirala, Prachanda and other top leaders of the Seven-Party Alliance said. But nothing specific was said about the decommissioning or demobilization of the guerrillas.

A committee of legal experts led by Laxman Aryal, retired judge of the Supreme Court, has been formed to draft the ?'interim constitution' which will form the basis for formation of an interim government with Maoist participation. The formation of the interim government would be preceded by dissolution of the revived house of parliament and the ?'people's government' formed by the Maoists.

?'?'We want that the draft should be ready within a month,'' Prachanda said, but there are apparently divisions between the two sides on the issue. He hoped that the election to the constituent assembly will take place within a year.

Prachanda, his wife Sita Dahal and party ideologue Baburam Bhattarai were flown in from Pokhara in western Nepal in a private helicopter chartered by the Government for the summit-level talks. The ten-hour meeting?-in which Koirala and Prachanda had a one-on-one discussion a couple of times, together lasting nearly 90 minutes?-perhaps encouraged the Maoist chief to concede that Koirala or any one were free to support ?'?'ceremonial monarchy as that's what the competitive multi-party democracy is supposed to be.''

Prachanda, by all means, was the uncontested ruler or hero today as he was flanked by leaders of the 7-party alliance on the dais, and all listened to him, at times nodding their heads in support, when he spoke about the mismanagement of the present government.

His guerrillas, most of them carrying bags which many suspected had arms inside, took charge of the law and order as well the responsibility to regulate the crowds in the Prime minister's residence. ?'?'I did not want the event of my coming overground in such a poorly managed situation. This shows how pathetically this government has been running the country,'' he said. Deputy Prime Minister Amik Serchan and Home Minister K P Sitaula listened quietly. Sitaual had gone all the way to Pokhara in the morning to escort the Maoist leaders to the Prime Minister's residence.

?'?'We are not using this peace process for any short-term political gain. We want to make this country a model of peace and development in the whole world through development, industrialisation and drastic cut in unnecessary expenses,'' he said adding ?'?'what glory has the Nepal army achieved except taxing on the government and committing rapes on women?.''

The Ministers present there chose not to respond. Koirala perhaps sensed the likely embarrassment when he excused himself from sharing the dais with the Maoists chief. ?'?'We will manage the country with just about 20,000 Army instead of the 90,000 at present. Can this army face Indian or Chinese army in case of war?'' he asked, adding ?'?'but we can train 25 million Nepalese as militias, and they can defeat Indians or Americans if they come aggressively.''

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Nepal: King Depressed or Scheming?

Marty Logan
July 21
IPS

Four months ago he was the one figure in Nepal everyone turned to for a solution to political deadlock. Today King Gyanendra is reduced to a shadow, although a persistent one, hovering over a delicate peace process being carried out by the government and Maoist rebels.

Completely stripped of all legal powers by the parliament he revived after three weeks of massive street protests in April and widely believed to be the last of his line before a republic is declared in this South Asian nation, the king is a rare figure in the capital these days. All of which frequently provokes the question: what will he do next?

Some suggest he will commit suicide. "How could this man who considered himself to be Lord Vishnu live with the humiliation of being summoned before a royal commission (investigating violence against April's "people's movement") or being made to go to the tax department to pay his taxes?" asked the head of an inter-governmental organisation at dinner recently.

"I heard that he used to do a ceremony where he would make a fire of dried chillies, believing that the smoke would give him super-human powers," he added.

"The king has been made completely ceremonial and has no power," says constitutional lawyer Bhimarjun Acharya. When he surrendered to the hundreds of thousands of people marching against his direct rule in April, he "categorically and explicitly said that the power rests with the people", Acharya told IPS.

Since then, members of parliament (MPs) removed the king as "supreme commander" of the army, cut all legal links between the monarch and parliament, declared the royal family's property taxable, and renamed "His Majesty's Government" the "Government of Nepal".

That is not all. This week MPs removed the king as the patron of Kathmandu's Pashupatinath Temple, one of the holiest sites for the world's Hindus, assigning that position to the prime minister. The culture, information and tourism minister is to take over the queen's role as chair of the temple trust.

Earlier this month, the parliament decided that the king's Jul. 7 birthday would no longer be a national holiday. But that did not stop a few thousand people from gathering at Narayanhiti Palace in the capital's centre, among them Hindu priests, Buddhist monks, members of the monarch's former administration -- and Chief of Army Staff General Pyar Jung Thapa.

Some saw Thapa's visit as a snub of parliament's decision to not mark the king's 59th birthday and a sign of foreboding. "The army is completely loyal to the king," said Acharya. "Some people are guessing there might be another coup."

The political situation is far from stable. Peace talks between leaders of the Maoists, who claim to have 36,000 fighters, and the alliance of political parties (SPA) that organised April's movement continue but the rebels remain armed and are said to be actively recruiting and soliciting "donations".

Maoist leaders accuse politicians of being insincere in agreeing to the rebels' longstanding demand to dissolve the House of Representatives and call elections to a constituent assembly that would represent all sectors of Nepali society. That assembly would draft a new constitution, spelling out the future of the monarchy.

Former high-ranking civil servant Yadav Kant Silwal points out that some influential nations would prefer to see monarchy in Nepal, arguing that without the institution a vacuum would be created that could be filled by the Maoists, who have been warring against the state for a decade.

"US Ambassador Moriarty and even the Indians wouldn't mind if the monarchy continues...monarchists and some in the army brass must be looking for an opportunity" for the king to regain power, added Silwal in an interview.

Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala has also argued that the door must be left open for the monarchy to play a role in the new Nepal or there could be a backlash from "regressive" forces.

Leading civil society figure Devendra Raj Panday rejects any future role for the monarchy. "Just because something is old doesn't mean it's cherishable...We're trying to recreate Nepal, based on new values and in tune with the demands of the time...we cannot carry baggage of history that might be detrimental to this cause."

The people's demands "could have been addressed and harmony built and maintained (but) the monarchy became very partisan towards feudalism and elites at the expense of vast sections of the population", added Panday in an interview.

Parliament's public accounts committee said earlier this month that it will investigate the royal family's wealth. King Gyanendra owns a number of expensive royal properties and businesses, which include a large stake in the Soaltee Group, the third-largest business group in Nepal with estimated net assets of 100 million US dollars.

After the royal massacre in 2001, the king acquired all the assets of his late brother, King Birendra, and his family and it is rumoured that he has deposited hundreds of millions of dollars in a Swiss bank and taken nearly nine tons of gold out of the country.

It was also rumoured that the king would provoke a bloodbath before giving up power. "If it really meant shooting hundreds of civilians, he wouldn't blink.," one long-time Nepal observer told IPS during April's movement. But while 21 protesters were killed, the monarch did not order security forces to suppress demonstrations, a former minister testified earlier this month.

"He's a very unpredictable person," said Silwal, who worked with Gyanendra before he ascended to the throne. "Sometimes I wonder if he even has common sense. He could have done two or three things that would have made him popular among the people, like use some of his money to set up a trust -- but he did nothing."

Maoists call for new revolt in Nepal

The former underground party has threatened to quit the government if parliament fails to abolish the monarchy by the beginning of next week.

By Sudeshna Sarkar in Kathmandu for ISN Security Watch (13/09/07)

Three years ago, the Malla Hotel in Kathmandu, a former palace converted into a flourishing hotel by a scion of the country's erstwhile ruling Rana dynasty, was the target of a guerrilla attack by Maoist insurgents who had been fighting since 1996 to found a communist republic in the Himalayan kingdom.

On Thursday, 13 September, the hotel was to be the venue of a round-table conference called by the rebels to plan the strategy for a new revolt.

Though the meeting was called off at the last moment, apparently because the Maoist chief, party chairman and supreme commander of the People's Liberation Army Prachanda was feeling indisposed, the guerrillas have warned of a drastic change from next week, when their month-long ultimatum to the government runs out.

The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), which ended its armed struggle for the abolition of Nepal's constitutional monarchy and a communist republic last year by signing a peace pact with the new government, is now making fresh demands.

By signing the peace pact, the Maoists agreed to take part in an election where voters would decide if they still wanted a king or preferred to become a republic. Though Nepal, isolated from the rest of the world until 1950, used to revere its kings as gods, it received a shock in 2001 when a midnight massacre occurred in the royal palace in the capital, killing then-King Birendra and nine more members of the royal family.

After Birendra's younger brother, Gyanendra, ascended the throne and began controlling the government by first sacking the prime minister and appointing his own men, anti-monarchy sentiments began to grow. From whispered criticism, the feeling erupted into bold public protests nationwide last year after Gyanendra staged a bloodless coup with the backing of the army and imposed his own rule for 15 months.

Continuous street protests for 19 days that left the economy bankrupt brought the nation to a standstill and snapped Nepal's diplomatic ties, forced the king to step down and hand over power to an alliance of seven major opposition parties. The alliance, which in the past had been resisted the Maoist demand to put the monarchy to a vote, changed its mind after the royal coup and called a truce with the rebels.

Now however, with 69 days left for the crucial constituent assembly election on 22 November, the Maoists are demanding the abolition of monarchy before the election.

Maoists feeling waning popularity

"Nowhere in the world has any reigning monarch ever given up the throne voluntarily," Prachanda told the media last month when his party gave a month-long ultimatum to Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala. "The palace has been trying to sabotage the election, especially by inciting violence in the southern plains. To ensure a free and fair election, we have to abolish [the] monarchy before the exercise."

The election was first scheduled for June. However, it had to be postponed due to the deteriorating security situation, especially in the plains where more than a dozen armed groups are now waging separate armed battles demanding autonomy.

The postponement left the Maoists unhappy since they had been banking on the high anti-monarchy feeling that prevailed until last year to give them a win at the polls. In return for agreeing to a deferred poll, they wrested a constitutional amendment from the government.

According to the new amendment, if the government feels the king is trying to scupper the November election or indulge in any anti-national activity, it can remove him if two-thirds of the MPs agree.

Now, fearing a waning of their popularity - due to the high-handedness of cadres, the refusal to return the public property captured by them during the civil war and failure to release child soldiers - the Maoists are pressuring the government to abolish the monarchy by using the constitutional provision instead of waiting for a public verdict.

"If the government fails to meet our demand by 17 September, we will leave the government and start a new peaceful but strong movement," Prachanda said in a statement.

With the new "revolt" to include a series of strikes, holding the election would be impossible if the threat was carried out.

Multitudinous revolts

Meanwhile, two of the biggest armed groups on the rampage in the south have also issued warnings to the government, saying they would oppose the election in their strongholds.

Ironically, both are groups of former Maoists. Jay Krishna Goit, one of the most senior Maoist leaders from the south plains, led a revolt in the party, saying it was dominated by the elite hill community and did not address the plight of the plains community.

Goit formed the Janatantrik Terai Mukti Morcha (Democratic Plains Liberation Alliance), which is asking for an autonomous state for plains people in the south. However, the organization soon split with a second faction now headed by a former Goit lieutenant, Jwala Singh, who also is asking for an autonomous state.

The Singh group especially has become very active in the plans, executing a series of killings, extortion and general strikes. This week alone, it killed two civilians, including the principal of a school.

Last month, Singh issued a press statement from underground saying his group would oppose the election and begin protests from 18 September. Now Goit has issued a similar warning, saying his band would enforce a four-day strike in the plains from 20-23 November, which includes the critical election day.

Besides the armed groups, four different ethnic organizations, who had in the past paralyzed the country by enforcing general strikes, sometimes for several days, are also demanding autonomous states for their communities.

Though the government hurriedly signed new agreements with them in recent times, all of them are accusing it of not implementing the pacts and warned they could start fresh protests.

One of them, the Madhesi Janadhikar Forum (Plains People's Rights Forum), since this year has become the biggest challenge for the Maoists there. There are whispers that the Forum has reached a seat-sharing understanding with Koirala's Nepali Congress, the biggest party in the country, giving the Maoists additional reason to announce a new revolt.

The turmoil is not simply confined to the south.

On 2 September, three near-simultaneous bombs went off in crowded places in the capital, including a minibus, killing three women and injuring 26 people, making it the worst attack on the capital ever.

While police have yet not been able to make any headway besides issuing a sketch of a possible suspect, the Maoists are accusing royalists and the army of having engineered the attacks. Royalists, predictably, are alleging that the guerrillas caused the blasts.

Following the explosions, the army submitted a report to the prime minister, which, according to Nepal's media, portends there could be more violence after the election, if the results are not to the liking of the Maoists.

Political and economic time bomb

As the political complications become increasingly entangled, an economic time bomb is also ticking away, unheeded by the government.

Nepal faces an acute fuel scarcity as Indian Oil Corporation, the sole provider of petro products to the state-run Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC), has slashed supplies by over 60 percent for non-payment of dues.

A succession of governments forced the NOC to sell fuel at a high subsidy as a populist measure, which caused it to run up a loss of billions of rupees each year. Currently, the NOC owes over NRS 10 billion to the Indian company as well as a group of financial institutions from which it has been borrowing regularly to pay its fuel bills.

Though the NOC has been urging the government to increase fuel prices, the government for fear of public anger on the eve of the election, has refused to heed the plea. Even aviation fuel stocks have plummeted, causing the NOC to warn the government that the scarcity is likely to affect the election.

Despite the national crisis, the minister for commerce, industry and supplies, Rajendra Mahato, remains preoccupied with a vicious intra-party feud. Dissidents in his Nepal Sadbhavana Party are asking the PM to replace him, and with the uncertainty about the ministry, there is no one to address the oil crisis.

The coming week promises to be critical for Nepal, sealing the fate of the election, the eight-party government and even the peace pact that ended a decade-old violent insurgency in which over 13,000 people were killed.

Official: Nepal's former communist rebels win elections

AP
Apr 24, 2008

Former communist rebels won the most seats in Nepal's new governing assembly, taking more than double the number of their nearest rival, an election official said Thursday.

The former insurgents, known as the Maoists, are now expected to form the backbone of Nepal's new government and usher in sweeping changes to the impoverished Himalayan nation, although they will not have an absolute majority in the 601-seat Constituent Assembly.

Among the biggest likely changes is the abolition of Nepal's 239-year-old monarchy, which the Maoists have repeatedly said must go.

But the Maoists, who are considered terrorists by the United States, have made it clear they are committed capitalists, albeit left-leaning ones, and have no plans to transform Nepal into a communist state.

Apart from that, there's still much uncertainty over what the new government will look like. The Maoists have been in talks in recent days with the other major parties about forming an administration and are pushing for the creation of a president. That job they want filled by their leader, who is known as Prachanda, or "the fierce one" in Nepali. [..]

Prachanda's reaction to Thursday's news was subdued ?- he spoke about the mechanics of government and shied away from grand statements about Nepal's future. It was clear that the Maoists, who have led the vote tally since counting began, have moved past celebrating and are now trying to figure out just how to run the country.

The assembly the Maoists will lead is charged with rewriting Nepal's constitution while it governs the country. Its seats were chosen through a mix of direct elections and a proportional representation system. Election Commission official Yam Bahadur Dura said Thursday's preliminary results show the Maoists won a total of 217 seats.

In second place was Nepal's traditional electoral power, the Nepali Congress, with 107 seats. And the other major party, the Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist), which had been expected to win the election, was in third with slightly fewer seats. [..]

One Nepali Congress official, Ram Sharan Mahat, said his party was split on what to do. "Many of the members suggest that we should not be part of the Maoist-led government or have any partnership with them," he told The Associated Press.

The United Marxist-Leninists were still trying to asses why they fared so badly in the polls, which many observers tipped them to win, said Raghuji Pant, a senior party official.

The election was touted as the cornerstone of a 2006 peace deal struck with the Maoists following weeks of unrest that forced Nepal's king to cede power, which he had seized the year before.

The Maoists, meanwhile, expressed hope that Washington would remove them from its list of terrorist groups after Prachanda met with foreign ambassadors, including American envoy Nancy Powell. "I hope after this meeting America will reconsider their policy," Prachanda told reporters.

Nepal's Maoists say monarchy 'finished'

AFP
Apr 14, 2008

Election, and Maoists, Could Transform Nepal


The Maoist leader Prachanda, top center, stumped last month in Katmandu.

New York Times
April 9, 2008

With one vote on Thursday, this longtime Himalayan kingdom, wedged strategically between India and China, will have the chance to do what few modern nations have done: refashion its entire government.

After 10 years of fighting, Nepal's Maoist insurgents have come out of the jungle and will take part in elections to choose a special assembly to rewrite the Constitution. That bold experiment will give this nation of 27 million an opportunity to cement peace and install a fully elected government, while most likely ending the monarchy that has ruled Nepal for 250 years.

But it is not without risks. Their rivals accuse the Maoists of bullying their way to power in a campaign marred by violence and intimidation. The Maoists insist they do not want to go back to war, but neither have they renounced armed struggle. Judging by the campaign, critics here and abroad say they do not trust that yesterday's insurgents will act as democrats in the future.

A recent campaign stop for the former insurgent leader, known by his nom de guerre, Prachanda ?- or "the fierce one," in Nepali ?- opened with the snap-crackle of small-gun fire blasting from a pair of scratchy speakers, punctuating a rousing revolutionary tune. "Light the lamp of love," the lyrics went. "I go carrying the flag of revolution and Nepal in my heart."

United Nations monitors have said that despite an agreement among the political parties to maintain peace, "violence and intimidation by party workers continued," but they accused the Maoists supporters of responsibility for a majority of attacks. Rival parties have felt the sting most.

"Still there are some doubts about their intentions," said Shekhar Koirala, who is on the central committee of the rival Nepali Congress Party. "Still, they feel they can capture the government by sheer force. That is one big worry."

With 10,000 polling places, about 10,000 candidates and more than 234,000 election workers to supervise the entire operation, Nepal has never had elections quite like this before.

The Constituent Assembly will not only decide whether to abolish the monarchy, but it will also determine how the country's ethnic groups and castes will be represented in government and even what kind of government Nepal will have.

Nepalis will in effect cast two votes. They will choose a candidate to represent their district and separately choose a party. To ensure that women and ethnic and caste groups have a voice, each party has had to abide by certain quotas.

The elections have been delayed twice, in part because of an armed ethnic uprising in Nepal's southeastern plains. Though the situation is mostly calm now, a handful of ethnic Madhesi factions there continue to threaten candidates.

"This election is part of the peace-building process," the election commissioner, Bhojraj Pokharel, said in an interview. "This is not a normal election."

The vote will take place two years after street protests forced King Gyanendra to cede power and brought the Maoists out of the jungle. Under a peace deal, the rebels agreed to sequester nearly 20,000 fighters and to lock up their weapons under United Nations supervision.

As the Maoists strive to cast themselves as law-abiding leaders, word and deed reflect an awkward balancing act. Sometimes, for instance, the Maoist leader, Prachanda, whose real name is Pushpa Kamal Dahal, says his party will "capture" the state. He salutes the guerrillas who have fought and died for the Maoist cause.

Once, he even referred to an October Revolution, which some Nepalis took as a veiled threat that his cadres would take up arms again if they did not win the vote. Prachanda says he has not uttered the phrase since campaigning began.

On a recent morning, as hammer-and-sickle flags fluttered in the wind, Prachanda arrived at his campaign rally in a black-and-white checkered blazer. His hair was slicked back. He could have passed for a 1940s union boss were it not for the marigold garlands that hung on him like a florid neck brace.

"I am not asking for your votes in the traditional sense," Prachanda said, summing up the unease of a revolutionary forced to cast around like a prosaic politician. "My representation here is symbolic. I represent thousands of martyrs."

By Prachanda's own admission, former members of Maoist paramilitary squads function openly as the Young Communist League. They are accused of some of the worst excesses.

In mid-March in central Nepal, the youth cadres beat up workers of the rival Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist), better known here as U.M.L., putting one candidate in a hospital, according to the United Nations human rights agency here.

On Tuesday another U.M.L. candidate was shot and killed, though it was not immediately clear who carried out the attack.

On Wednesday, the police shot dead at least six Maoist advocates in western Nepal, a local official said, according to Agence France-Presse.

In February, the Nepali Congress Party accused the Maoists of setting a candidate's home on fire. As the candidate fled, a boulder was hurled at him from the top of a hill, causing him to fall and fracture his hip.

The Maoists say their cadres have also been beaten up by the rival U.M.L. workers, who unlike the Maoists have stayed away from armed struggle and bore the brunt of Maoist anger during the insurgency.

Pradip Nepal, a Communist Party member of Parliament, said the tactics of the young Maoists had already become a political liability for Prachanda.

"There are two types of Communists," he said, summing up the differences with his rivals. "One is democratic, one is autocratic. Ours is a democratic party. Theirs is not."

Ian Martin, the chief of the United Nations Mission in Nepal, said he had urged Prachanda, 54, to rein in his young supporters. "You can't deny a political party the right to a youth movement," Mr. Martin said. "But what you can insist upon is that the youth movement be peaceful and respect the norms of multiparty democracy."

In an interview in his office here, Prachanda sought to allay fears, saying that the excesses had been tempered and that the youths were primarily engaged in directing traffic and planting trees. He said that his party had time and again promised to abide by the election and that it had no intention of going back to war. As for the militant language, he said it was "for public consumption," and directed at his people.

"Because our party, our cadres have come from war, they always use the words we should have to capture, we should have to be militant, we should go ahead, we will win," he explained, and then he smiled. "Even in using words, we have to be more cautious."

He maintained that his insurgency had set the agenda for the elections, which many of the other major parties had now come around to accept: principally, a federal republic and the abolition of the monarchy.

But since then, the Maoists have added a demand, which rival parties are not so enthusiastic about: a presidential system. Their campaign slogan has been "Prachanda for President."

His party calls for overhauling the state and abandoning "feudal property relations" for a "capitalistic mode of production." Prachanda promises to improve the economy with a railroad that would link Lhasa, in Tibet, to the Indian border.

"We are fighting against feudalism, we are not fighting against capitalism," Prachanda said in the interview. "In the phase of our socioeconomic development, it is not possible to have a socialist revolution. We are saying that this is a bourgeois democratic revolution.

"We will create a conducive atmosphere to have more profit for the capitalist. We are not going to do anything else than that."

Not all are convinced, like Kunda Dixit, editor of The Nepali Times, an English-language magazine. "They are talking out of all sides of their mouth," he said.