MAOISTS OFFENSIVE IN NEPAL
by B.Raman
On July 7, Maoist insurgents in Nepal attacked and blew
up police posts in Bichaur of Lamjung district, Wamitaksar of Gulmi
district and Taruka of Nuwakot district. 21 policemen were killed in
Bichaur , nine in Wamitaksar and 10 in Taruka. Before withdrawing,
the Maoist looted all the arms and ammunition kept in these posts.
The attack came in the wake of a series of incidents
reported from different parts of Nepal since July 1 as indicated below:
* July 1: 15 Maoists burnt down a police post and the
Customs Office located at Dhansighpur and Bardawa villages respectively.
* July 2: About 200 Maoists shot dead five policemen
and looted all weapons before blowing up a police outpost at Tekre
village in remote Arunodaya. The outpost is located about 10
kilometres south of an area police station in Bhimad, a rural hub which
lies about three hours on foot from Khaireni on the Prithivi Highway
that links Kathmandu with Pokhara. The Royal Nepal Army defused two
bombs that were hung on a banner by the Maoists at two sensitive city
areas of Butwal municipality.
* July 3: Three Maoists were killed at a village in
Kalikot district in far west Nepal in an hour-long exchange of fire with
the police. There were no police casualties. About 50
Maoists burnt down an unoccupied police post at Lalbhoji. The
Maoists had attacked the same post a month ago, killed three policemen
and looted all the arms and ammunition, following which the 40-member
staff of the post was transferred to Bhajani. Maoists set fire to
a carpet factory at Thimi, eight kms east of Kathmandu, and destroyed
carpets and factory equipment.
* July 5: Three policemen were killed and more than 50
others abducted in separate incidents in village Kusum in Banke district
and village Bhingri in Rolpa district in far west Nepal. Maoists
attacked Kusum, a tiny rural market village nestled on the busy
East-West highway, located about 70 km east of Nepalgunj, killing one
policman and abducting 11 others who had surrendered. A girl was
shot dead. The Maoists also looted a large cache of arms and
ammunition after forcing the 40 policemen to surrender. They also
searched about 100 houses in the vicinity after blowing up the police
station.
* July 6: Maoists stopped a bus in Pyuthan district
and kidnapped 21 police recruits on their way to the Mid-Western Region
Police Training Centre at Nepalgunj, Banke district. The recruits
were from the Bhingri village of the Rolpa district.
* July 7: Maoists destroyed a telephone tower of the
Nepal Telecommunications Corporation at Dhulikhel 35 kms east of
Kathmandu, disrupting telephone services in the area. Six small
explosive devices concealed inside effigies and banners were found in
Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur. The devices were either dangling
from effigies of King Gyanendra and Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala
or attached to banners with anti-India and anti-US slogans. A time
bomb exploded in the Bhimsen Cinema Hall in Thimi in the Kathmandu
Valley. Maoists bombed the head office of the Annapurna
Conservation Area at Hariyokharka near the resort town of Pokhra in
Kaski district causing extensive damage. A video room and library
were destroyed in the attack. A vehicle was damaged when Maoists
hurled a petrol bomb at the office of the Nepal Water Supply Corporation
in Itahari district. Maoists burnt down the office of the Nepal
Electricity Authority in Panchkhal and a vehicle of the Authority in
Bhatratpur in Chitwan district.
The Maoists have stepped up their attacks on police
posts since December last year in order to loot arms and ammunition and
better equip themselves for what they look upon as the coming
confrontation with the Royal Nepal Army. They claim to have already
defeated and demoralised the police and say that, when they defeat the
Army too, the road to power in Kathmandu would be open to them.
Purna Bahadur Gharti, one of the leaders of the Maoist
movement, has been quoted as saying: "We are psychologically and
physically prepared to take on the army. And we will declare a
People's Republic of Nepal when we defeat the Royal Nepal Army and get rid
of the Narayanhiti Palace." Amongst those playing an active role is
Kal Bahadur Nath, a deserter from the Royal Nepal Army.
On December 1 last year, the Maoists had announced the
formation of a People's Government in Rukum district, consisting of a
chief, a deputy chief and 15 others. The Maoists said that the
government is a transitional one, and that elections would soon be held
for a permanent one. The people's government, according to them,
would provide security to the villages, help the families of the martyrs,
promote local development, counter the oppressive activities of the police
and the army and help increase the productivity of the farmers.
The Maoists have been propagating that when they capture
power in Kathmandu, the foreign policy of the national people's government
to be set up by them would have the following features:
* All bilateral and multilateral treaties and agreements
found unjust or unequal will be scrapped. All treaties that were
secretly entered into will be made public and those that are not fair
will be scrapped. Special facilities currently being provided to
powerful countries will be ended.
* Will not be part of any military alliance and will
protest any action that tries to subjugate a third country by force.
* Will follow an independent foreign policy and will
not be a member of useless organisations such as the SAARC.
* Will keep all neighbours at the same distance, will
follow and practise a policy of equality, friendship and understanding
with all countries.
* Will not establish relations with countries that
discriminate on the basis of religion, colour, caste or are carrying out
military action against a third country. Existing treaties with
such countries will be scrapped.
* Unjust military action will be opposed and help in
all forms will be provided to the country against which military action
is being taken.
* Aid in whatever form will be provided to people who
are being oppressed in their particular countries and even if a civil
war is taking place, the oppressed will be provided aid.
* Voices will be raised in the international forums to
fight for the rights of land-locked countries.
* Only treaties that are equal and beneficial to both
the parties will be signed, and exchange programmes will be held at
regular intervals.
* Treaties that foster friendship and understanding
will be promoted.
The Maoists have forcefully stopped the teaching of
Sanskrit in schools and banned the singing of the national anthem in the
areas controlled by them. They have introduced their own national anthem, which
is a popular national song written by Madhab Ghimire "
�Gauncha geet Nepali jyotiko pankha uchali, jai, jai, jai Nepal, sundara
shanta vishal� (Nepalese sing the song rising light high; great, great
and great Nepal - beautiful, peace and the great!).
CP Gajurel (Comdrade Gaurav), one of the leaders of the
Maoist movement, has in an interview earlier this year described the
so-called achievements of the Maoists as follows:
"The major gain so far is the formation of the
people's government. Mao always said the formation of the people's
government is the central point of any revolution or revolutionary.
The formation of the people's government is our aim, too. Our
immediate aim is to destroy or get rid of the present system, which is
feudal, class-ridden and is in the grip of corrupt middlemen and rich
people, and establish a people's government. The formation of a
government or a ruling body always has to be the final aim of any
revolution, otherwise it is fruitless. Our party is moving in the
direction of forming such a government.
"The central aim of any revolution in the world is
the formation of the people's government, and therefore this power that we
have gained after the sacrifice of many, many people, we consider the main
achievement of our party so far. People who do not understand the
formation of our people's government, do not understand the essence of our
revolution nor will they ever understand the science of revolutions.
"The formation of our local governments is based on
the path shown by Mao. Mao said that the villages should surround
the cities and then slowly take them over. This will be a slow,
drawn-out process, but the end result will be what we have always wanted.
"Local areas will not be formed if the party does
not show clear, precise ideas and thinking. If the parameters of the
revolution are not drawn, then that revolution will just move in circles
and not achieve anything. The formation of our people's government
is a blow to all the opportunists in the country and proves that a
people's government can still be formed in this rapidly changing world.
"By studying our movement and thinking, many
like-minded parties are slowly moving in the direction we have
shown. The formation of the people's war groups is the second most
important achievement of our movement. Mao said that armed forces
were the only possessions of the people, the absence of which meant that
the people do not own anything. The formation and the working of the
people's army in Nepal has proved Mao's thinking to be true. It is
true that if we did not have the people's army, we would not have been
able to form the people's government, nor have the resources or basis to
strengthen it. A class struggle will take place until a class system
remains in society.
"A class struggle will remain and its main aim will
be the subjugation of class enemies. For that, the army is the main
weapon. When we started our revolution in 1996, we did not have the
people's army. Our army was not a different entity. At that
time there were no clear differences between our army and other wings of
our organisation. We started with these teams, fought with them and
slowly, after making a lot of sacrifices, we have formed our people's
army. Our army is now so powerful that the national police has also
accepted defeat.
"In our struggle, we have now come to a point where
the CPN (Maoist) has become an established party of the country. Not
only this, we have now established our presence in the international arena
too. Two political forces are present in the country. One is a
very old system, which has become weak, outdated and irrelevant with the
passage of time. People have now started shunning this system and
are eagerly supporting the new system, which is very active in many parts
of the country. In areas where the new system is in play, the old
system is being rapidly uprooted and thrown out, and will never return.
"In the same way, there are at the present moment
two armies in Nepal, one that has been formed by the people and their
sacrifices and is called the people's army, and another, the slave of the
class society, which is corrupt and class-ridden. Both armies are
preparing to defend their ground.
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet
Secretariat, Govt. of India, and, presently, Director, Institute For
Topical Studies, Chennai. E-Mail: [email protected]
)
