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Maoist Insurgents Gaining Ground in Confused and Disheartened Nepal
By Mike Mcphate, Pacific News Service, June 20, 2001

Nepal -- the size of Illinois, squeezed between the world's two largest countries -- has been a democracy only since 1990. But the prosperity that was supposed to follow is nowhere evident, and a Maoist insurgency is enjoying considerable success in the countryside, where 90 percent of the people live. PNS Contributor Mike McPhate is a part-time reporter and copy editor for the Kathmandu Post, Nepal's leading English daily. He is currently affiliated with a study abroad program in Nepal through the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

"We want people's war," says Aruna Katuwal, age 12, with two big blue ribbons in her hair.

People in Nibosay, a riverside village in northeastern Nepal, say police killed Aruna's father three years ago for suspected ties to the Maoists.

On a ridge just above, a village mostly inhabited by ethnic Tamangs, hosts a small battalion of Maoist guerrillas. This morning they are talking about constructing a statue to martyrs of the revolution.

Bandu, the Maoist secretary for this district, says that at first "we only had one stick to fight," but now Maoists are "preparing to announce a people's government" in the district.

Police killed his 16-year-old daughter, says Bandu. Her picture is displayed on the river bank along with those of 12 other martyrs.

Police would arrest villagers suspected of Maoist ties and kill them in custody, but as the insurgency's influence grew, the police were driven out.

"There was and is police brutality almost everywhere," says Mukunda Kattel, director of INSEC, a human rights organization that has documented abuses. "The government saw a radical communist government coming up and they sought to nip it in the bud."

Nepal's largest weekly newspaper, "Janadesh," gives the Maoists space for their gripes against the government.

Editor Krishna Sen spent 22 months in prison after publishing a letter from a Maoist leader. It hasn't slowed him down. "Publishing this paper is a duty to the people," he says. "I will not stop the struggle against the government."

Sen, once leader of the student wing of the Maoist movement, claims that "Maoists will only resort to violence in direct encounters." But human rights workers and press reports describe killings of landlords, informants, politicians and -- a favored target -- police.

Guerrillas surround a police post at midnight, chant slogans, call on the police to surrender their rifles, then begin throwing bombs and firing. More than 70 police were reportedly killed during the first week of April in separate attacks.

Bitterness for the state is the Maoists' main source of strength. But they also offer results. Using funds extorted from landowners and looted from banks, they deliver land to the landless, equal rights for low caste groups and women, and the elimination of social ills like gambling and alcohol.

The Maoists have total control in six districts and run activities in as many as 70 of Nepal's 75 districts. As the Maoist gain influence, human rights leaders say open opposition to the party is forbidden.

"People don't dare speak out," says Sushil Pyakurel, chair of Nepal's Human Rights Commission. "They've been instructed that there is no other party than the Maoists."

Dambar Shrestha, headmaster at a school in Maoist- controlled Gobindi village, says no one in his community opposes the Maoists. "The other parties have gone underground," he says, laughing. "They are afraid of the Maoists."

Pushpa Kamal Dahal -- called Prachanda, or 'fierce' -- declared himself party chairman last February at the Maoists' largest gathering to date (they estimated 20,000 in attendance). He also introduced 'Prachanda Path,' a Nepalized version of "Marxism-Leninism-Maoism."

In an interview with 'The Independent,' Babu Ram Battarai, perhaps the movement's most revered figure, said the Maoist objective is the "elimination of the class position of parasitic classes."

Battarai, 45, combines academic excellence (he holds a doctorate from India's prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University) and rousing rhetoric. He led the party underground in 1996 after his party split with those who chose constitutional legitimacy.

Last December, a government minister met informally with a Maoist central committee member with the help of Padma Ratna Tuladhar, the human rights leader fabled for uniting left and right against the King.

Tuladhar was optimistic, but when the Maoists requested as a precondition the whereabouts of some cadres -- particularly Dinesh Sharma -- the government then presented Sharma before a hastily staged press conference denouncing Maoism. Shortly after, he explained that he had been tortured and forced to make the statement.

The royal bloodbath earlier this month only complicates matters. The removal of King Birendra, believed to be an incarnation of the Hindu deity Vishnu, orphaned the Hindu nation. Men from every walk of life waited in lines many for hours to shave their heads, a Hindu custom usually reserved for the passing of one's father. Every shop in Katmandu closed for nearly a week.

Sorrow gave way to rage as protesters refused to accept the official account of the murders. Repression follows -- three top editors at Nepal's largest daily were arrested and charged with sedition for publishing a letter from Babu Ram Battarai in which he railed against "imperialists and "expansionists" and called new king Gyanendra a "villain."

With the throne and the political establishment both badly damaged, Maoists are optimistic about the future. And even though it could mean losing the freedoms of multi-party rule, an authoritarian option may be the last recourse of a nation with nowhere left to turn.


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