Prachanda proposes launching "People's Revolt"

Concluding that the elections for the Constituent Assembly (CA) is impossible without announcing republic and adopting proportional representation based election system, Maoist chairman Prachanda has proposed to launch "people's revolt" as an alternative.
According to Kantipur daily, Prachanda made this proposal at the central committee meeting of the Maoists, which has started from Tuesday in Kathmandu .
In his political resolution, Prachanda has stated that "people's revolt" has become possible due to conclusions that the party reached in the aftermath of decade-long "people's war", 19-day-long people's movement, and one year of legitimate struggle by his party.

"The report states that CA election is impossible without announcing republic and without adopting PR electoral system. (In the absence of the election) it says the "people's revolt" has no alternative," a central member of the Maoist revealed.
Discussing Prachanda's proposal, some central members are said to have wondered how a revolt can be launched when the party is in the government. They said party leadership should be ready to sacrifice and immediately walk out of the government to announce programmes of struggle.
On the eve of the central committee meeting, there were differences among the central leaders on whether to launch such revolt before or after the CA elections. They, however, were united in their conclusion that the revolt is necessary.
Maoists have been claiming that their revolt will be of peaceful nature. "We abandoned the decade-long people's war feeling that we can achieve republic also through peaceful means. We signed in the peace agreement. But now, India and the parties have betrayed us. Having reached to this conclusion, there are preparations for revolt," another central member told Kantipur.
The Maoists have also calculated that more the transition phase prolongs, lesser role they will get to play. They have also concluded that the Congress is pushing them the most. A source added that there is a section within the party, which believes that the party should not immediately walk out of the government and announce the revolt as there will be complications in the management of combatants during the two months of monsoon period and people, too, won't come to streets then.
The central committee meeting is discussing to finalise the party's future direction to be submitted at the plenum (expanded meeting). The plenum will begin immediately after the central committee meeting ends.

Source: The Nepal News, August 1, 2007

Nixon, Mao And Nepali Maoists

Ritu Raj Subedi

The White House, the centre of world capitalism, has not always been an enemy of the Maoist world. In one of the eventful eras of US politics, former US President Nixon triggered a series of shocks, known as 'Nixon shocks,' in US history. One such shock was his dramatic visit to China and recognition of Mao's regime. This took place at a time when the whole western block was hostile and refused to recognise Red China. After Nixon's visit, the world's leaders beat a path to Mao's door.Cold WarAgainst the backdrop of worsening Sino-Soviet relations, Nixon wanted to balance the Cold War by wooing Mao. On the other hand, Mao wanted to re-launch himself on the international stage by rolling a red carpet for Nixon. However, their meeting did not happen so simply. In the beginning, both the sides were very aware about their images and did not want to be seen as courting each other. But it was Mao's side that broke the ice. In November 1970, Zhou En-Lai sent a message through the Romanians, who had good relations with both China and the US, saying that Nixon would be welcome in Beijng. The White House responded very carefully. It made no reference to a presidential visit, thinking that the idea would be 'premature and potentially embarrassing.' As the issue of a visit did not gain momentum, one event that took place in the sport sector gave a new twist to the scenario. In March, China sent a table tennis team to Japan for the world championship. In an interesting development, a US player got on a Chinese bus and shook hands and talked to a Chinese player. The US player expressed his desire to come to China to participate in a sport event. Mao first turned down the US request. After many deliberations, he phoned the Foreign Ministry at midnight to invite the US team.The news caused a sensation in the world. The American and western media made fascinating reports on it on a daily basis. "Nixon," wrote a commentator, "was truly amazed at how the story jumped off the sports pages and onto the front pages."The ping-pong diplomacy of Mao captivated Nixon. In his memoir, his Security Advisor Henry Kissinger wrote, "Nixon was excited to the point of euphoria. He wanted to skip the emissary stage lest it take the glow off his own journey." By the end of May, it was settled, in secret, that Nixon would go to China.By inviting Nixon, Mao got many things. The US abandoned its old ally Taiwan and offered China a permanent Security Council seat at the UN with veto power. It was fixed during the behind-the-scene meeting between Kissinger and Zhou. The US made a huge commitment to pull all forces out of Indochina and Korea. Kissinger also agreed to give sensitive information on Russia to China. Mao even floated the idea of forging a Sino-US alliance against the Soviet Union to obtain sophisticate military technology and boost China's aircraft industry and superpower programme.At the meeting, Nixon told Mao, "The Chairman's writings moved a nation and have changed the world." But a clever Mao manipulated Nixon's visit in a way that he continued to be seen as an anti-American champion in the world. However, Nixon was not a loser. At home, the American people praised him for opening a door to China and trying to bring the Vietnam war to an end. He was paid off in his second-term presidential win by a huge margin. Until he was disgraced and forced to resign as president over his role in the 'Watergate scandal,' he remained a successful Republican President. Almost three-and-a-half-decades later, President George W. Bush of Nixon's party has refused to recognise the CPN-Maoist of Prachanda who has followed Mao's doctrine to seize power using guerrilla warfare tactics. Nixon's man is ignoring Mao's disciple. May be that the Nepali Maoists do not hold as strategic an importance as Mao who completely tamed his enemy and ruled a colossal China. On the other hand, Prachanda has won the insurgency only by half. He could not bust the powers of his enemy. By courting Mao, Nixon challenged Kremlin that resulted in the singing of the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT).The White House often cites Maoist violent activities as a factor to put the terrorist tag on them. Comparing the atrocities of the Nepali Maoists to Mao's excesses seen during the Cultural Revolution, the Great Purge and in crushing his long-time comrades, the former tend to be less ruthless. Going by the statements of Maoist leaders, Nepal holds strategic value for the US because of its geo-political location. Dr. Babu Ram Bhattarai, a Maoist ideologue, talking to this author, claimed that the US is keeping an eye on the rising Asian super powers - China and India - by consolidating its position in Nepal. Whatever the intention of the US in treating the Maoists as terrorists, its policy towards the Nepali Maoists might create a new diplomatic paradigm. China is now in search of a reliable force in Nepal after the monarchy, its long-time trustworthy ally who is struggling for survival. Communist China always considered the king a reliable force in keeping its territorial interests intact. It is said that Chairman Mao had suggested that the Nepali communists work with king against the backdrop of Chinese hostility to India. Silent diplomacyGrowing Chinese interest in the Nepali peace process and the visit of a top Maoist commander to China is an indication that China will no more maintain silent diplomacy here. And the America's continued hard posture towards the Maoists will only give birth to another ally against it in the region.

Source: The Rising Nepal, August 1, 2007

Nepal's Failed Unification?

Rishikesh Ram Bhandari

As different Nepal and Liberia are, there exist important commonalities in regime hegemonies, state structure and social exclusivity that are crucial in understanding Nepal's current transition. Both of these relatively new states are struggling to establish their identities and cast away historical legacies that have restricted multidimensional national expression. Comparing histories from the very outset to the current day, we find some compelling parallels.ParallelsIn order to extinguish the problems of slavery by repatriation to Africa, the United States established the American Colonisation Society (ACS). The freed slaves, called Americo Liberians, started a colony, defeating numerous little kingdoms and ultimately gaining independence from the United States in 1847. On the other side of the hemisphere, a few decades earlier, Prithvinarayan Shah waged his unification campaign to create a modern Nepal. His dream took shape once he captured the three kingdoms in the Kathmandu Valley. After independence, the ACS had to consolidate a deeply divided nation. Naming itself from the Latin liberare, Liberia was confined only to capital Monrovia, which was occupied by the Americo Liberians. The indigenous Liberians had not been absorbed into the national mainstream and did not identify with this imposed 'Liberia'. The Americo Liberians made use of existing tribal chieftaincies to extend their domain. As a result, the chieftains got a fused role, both as the customary lawgiver as the local clan chief and an administrative role of the new government in Monrovia.After Prithvinarayan Shah and the subsequent Shah Kings conquered the baise and chaubise rajyas, the subjugated kingdoms' rulers were still kept in place, only to be governed from Kathmandu. Thus, the rajas became administrative functionaries of the Shah Kings, and it is through the conduit of such minor kings that the capital was able to extend its control. In this way, the minor kings maintained equilibrium between the Shah King and the subjects.When ACS created its colony, it did not do so by taking over one nation, but numerous little ethnic entities. Similarly, Prithvinarayan Shah did not usurp only one national consciousness. There was no overarching identity space that Prithvinarayan Shah had filled with his cavalry. Because of this, it was hard, ideologically, for the kingdoms to unite in expulsing the aggressors. Furthermore, as the deposed kings were still in considerable power as they were given administrative functions under the new Nepal, they lacked enough incentive to revolt and were absorbed into the ruling class. As a result, a distinct two-layered rule was created - the ruling class and the ruled. This crafted state structure allowed Prithvinarayan Shah to wield force to maintain a politically unified (yet) divided nation.In both countries, the state existed as a vacuous shell, and the diverse ethnicities never became incorporated into the mainstream. It was necessary for the ruler to exercise absolute hegemony to keep the state intact. Liberians did this by making the True Whig Party the sole party and extending membership only to Americo Liberians, hence on social lines. Indigenous Liberians were even yet to be called citizens of the state. The Shahs and the Ranas employed the same strategy by keeping the monarchy and ultimately the oligarchy intact by limiting power within the thakuri kshetriyas. The feudal land structure reinforced the Rajas' hegemony down to the village and also became a tool to further suppress the marginalised. Prithvinarayan Shah's much touted chaar jaat chhattis barna ko fulbaari (garden of four castes and thirty six sub-castes) is reduced to mere propaganda (rhetorical ploy) when we see how social cohesion was based not on an egalitarian playing field for all castes but a distinct hierarchy that subjugated identities of every ethnicity outside the maharaja's aristocracy. The scramble for Africa internally buttressed the TWP as it had to ward off imperialistic forces. Americo Liberians even used indigenous Liberians as bonded labourers to encourage investment for plantations, later on drawing the attention of the League of Nations. On the other hand, the East India Company had been sending off aggressive signals which Prithvinarayan Shah tried to counter by hastening his unification campaign to forge a strong nation. Ultimately, the Ranas used the extractive framework to gain support from the East India Company by exporting people as mercenaries for the British army. The Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 and the two world wars are prime examples. The Gurkhas were allegedly welcomed into the British troops for their bravery and valiant behaviour, but we must realise that this was a form of slave trade grounded on foreign policy objectives, repression and economic destitution, and is a form of resource plunder.After more than 150 years of hegemonic rule, an indigenous Liberian, Samuel Doe toppled the Americo Liberians' regime promising a new Liberia. However, as the state ACS-TWP crafted state structure had been so embedded that he found it easier to operate in the system rather that to bring change. The same situation resulted in Nepal when the political parties gained power. The democracy they brought in was not inclusive and participatory. It was only with the sheer force of the April movement that the ethnic minorities started to really clamp down about their rights and identities. Since King Gyanendra had been symbolically vanquished, the ethnic minorities who had been subjugated to maintain the garden of Prithvinarayan Shah started to display the deep divisions that were never dealt with since the unification process started two centuries ago. Once a hegemonic structure is toppled, the repressed identities come to surface. The ethnic issues that are being raised are a result of the improper unification process based on imposing a coercive and extractive feudal structure. LessonsLiberia is well into post conflict reconstruction and reconciliation. Nepal needs to learn an important lesson about ethnicity from Liberia. There are important lessons that Nepal can learn from Liberia. Labelling ethnic tensions as mere political propaganda of the regressive royalists shall only serve to elude us about the suppressed ethnic tension. We need to realise that ethnic tensions could not have been played up if cleavages had not existed in the first place. Therefore, all effort must be taken to create a new and inclusive participatory democracy.

Source: The Rising Nepal, August 1, 2007