READING THE CODE: Maoist Plans for the Revolution

(Courtesy: Dr. Thomas A. Marks)

A political risk consultant in Honolulu, Hawaii, Dr. Marks recently authored the entry, “Maoism in South and Southeast Asia,” in the Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern World (1750-Present); Peter M. Stearns, ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, March 2008).

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Since their loss of the government in May of this year, the Maoists have threatened almost daily to launch another round of street violence if their demands are not met. They now have made good on those threats, building upon their continued use of terrorism beneath the surface to launch an open round of struggle designed to bring down the government. Put in the words of Prachanda (as per Republica): “The Maoist CC meeting decided to hit the streets for the sake of ‘civilian supremacy’ a Maoist-led national unity government, national independence, a new constitution, and the peace process.”

That statement says it all. One might wonder: What if the present political line-up continues to vote, as it has, for another, non-Maoist party to lead the government? Or to carry on as if Nepal indeed is independent, is involved in a peace process, and is writing a constitution, with only the Maoists determined to keep all of those things from being realities? “We don’t want to go back to the jungle as the regressive forces have wished,” answers Prachanda gravely.

The problem is that “back to the jungle” has never been the plan. Just what the Maoists are up to has been stated time and again, most recently by Central Committee member (and Mrs. Bhattarai), Hisila Yami, in a op-ed published by Kantipur located at the following URL: http://www.kantipuronline.com/kolnews.php?&nid=208193.

Maoist Game Plan

The article contains the Maoist "game plan," spelled out very clearly. Maoists speak openly but in a language which utilizes "code." All one must do is decode, and the course of action appears. In fact, the same terminology can be found by perusing the pronouncements of any of the Maoist movements which have left their bloody fingerprints on the post-World War II pages of history.

Particularly interesting, though, is the striking similarity between the Nepali Maoist formulations and those of their Philippine counterparts. Though one might suspect plagiarism, the reality is simply that the ultimate sources are the same if one is using Maoist texts. They draw upon an eclectic group for inspiration but overwhelmingly Lenin and Stalin.

What unfolds in Ms. Yami’s discussion is the contents of the recent Maoist leadership debate on how to proceed. It's an old debate when it comes to Maoist insurgency: Do you mine beneath the opposition's castle, ultimately bringing it down with a charge from below? Or do you charge the gates, because you know the enemy within is weak and of limited will to resist?

Ms. Yami -- speaking for her husband's (and presumably Prachanda’s) faction -- recognizes that attempting to seize power now through overt mechanisms (“back to the jungle”) will certainly result in disaster -- and probably Indian invasion. Consequently, what she advocates is the classic "tunnel under them" or united front approach. The "new democratic republic" she mentions is the normal Maoist vehicle for doing this.

"A new democratic republic" sounds innocuous, but it is "Maoist" for a united front government. This is a government of like-minded forces brought together to oppose particular issues but later discarded when it is time to "move on." Such an approach was called "salami tactics" (from slicing the salami) in the 1960s and was used by the Soviets in Eastern Europe and, of course, the Maoists everywhere.

The tactic is simple: you get “useful idiots” to throw in with you to support tactical issues, such as "civilian supremacy." Who would be opposed to that? But the point is to use the issue to neutralize a particular foe, to achieve a particular end. The army, for instance, as has been demonstrated, remains the last real obstacle to the Maoists’ being able to do whatever they want. Neither the police nor the Armed Police will oppose them. They will simply fall in line, particularly because their leadership will be replaced with people who favor the Maoists. Thus, the need of the moment is to use the lofty goal to rally a coalition capable of neutralizing the army.

Once the particular issue at hand has been achieved, however, a new "crisis" issue will emerge. Then, the Maoists will seek to isolate the new foe – with the “issue” often explicitly invented to place that foe in its precarious position. The “Maoist discussion before this discussion” – on which foe was primary – centered around just this issue. At the time, Nepali Congress (NC) was seen as the key obstacle (in cahoots with the army, to be sure), because the UML was playing the “useful idiot” role.

Turns the worm, the UML has thrown sand in the gears, siding with both NC and the nefarious “still RNA at heart” (as the Maoists see it, especially in their not-so-secret conclaves).

What must be done, then, is to form the new coalition – their “Maoist-led national unity government” – to isolate and eliminate NC, UML, and NA. Gradually, by splitting, splitting, and splitting ("slicing the salami"), they will eliminate their rivals until the only people left are Maoists. Nobel Prize-winning author, the late Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, lays this out exactly in his famous work, Lenin in Zurich (1975).

A Republic is Not a Republic

A "people's federal democratic republic" (see Ms. Yami’s text) is but an interim step to the "new democratic republic" and the eventual "people's republic." Ms. Yami has spelled it out clearly: the need at present is to mobilize "anti-feudal" and "anti-imperialist" forces (feudal forces are those who favor parliamentary democracy and the market; imperialists are, in pride of evil place, the Americans and their friends, especially the dastardly Indians). How to mobilize these forces? By giving them the Maoist version of "federalism," a passing out of linguistic, ethnic, and economic goodies which exist in theory but will prove disastrous in fact. Long before realization is reached, the Maoists will have moved on and consolidated complete power.

Ironically, since the technique always works when faced with the sort of handicapped thinking one encounters in a particular slice of Nepal's chattering classes, what Ms. Yami is so angry about is the hard-core Maoists within her own party, those who want to "go for it." This is the group that challenges Prachanda and wants to use concerted street violence and assassination to sweep away the opposition.

A version of this is in play. The killing and the threats are daily reported in Nepali media. The unsavory actions of the Maoists at the Balaju Industrial Area are ample testimony to the manner in which violence has been woven into the warp and woof of every action undertaken by the “CPN(M)” (whatever its new name, it remains the same crew). So, too, do numbers of Nepali politicians bear witness to the actions of left wing fascism as they flee the country to escape the kukris, beatings, and kidnappings of the YCL storm troopers (yes, they’ve reflagged – name changes are meaningless).

And such sub-rosa violence is working. Yet, for the hard-core, none of this has given the Party power. The army remains intact and will fight; and India -- and even the most feckless and fickle of the foreign presence – seem willing to support the present government. Ultimately, though, it's an Indian show, and the Bhattarai faction is well aware that an IPKF would end the Maoists. They are not LTTE.

Faced with such a situation, Ms. Yami is surely correct that the proper course is to walk softly and carry a big kukri. Unfortunately, to keep the factions aligned, Prachanda has agreed to go to the well one more time, to once again threaten and bluster in the expectation that capitulation will result.

The Future

How well Prachanda has calculated will determine the future of Nepal. By now, a sizable portion of the public is wise to the Maoist strategy. It is unlikely he could field the same lineup as he so often threatens for a Janaandolan III. Nevertheless, he has mobilized the lumpens and the clueless in sufficient numbers to make a go of it.

By “discuss civilian supremacy,” Prachanda is not advancing the plain English meaning of the phrase. What he and the Maoists mean is this: if the government will once again give in, declare that only the prime minister can hire and fire, all will be well.

And it will be – for the Maoists. They will provoke the next round of crisis, put together the united front necessary to resume government leadership, then use that position to eliminate their few remaining foes. Dictatorship, when it comes, will be implemented in the name of “rule of law.”

Lenin in State and Revolution (p.73) put it bluntly: “…[T]heir resistance must be broken by force; it is clear that where there is suppression there is also violence, there is no liberty, no democracy.”

Thesis, antithesis and synthesis (By Hisila Yami)

Will the Real Prachanda Stand Up?

(Courtesy: Dr. Thomas A. Marks)

Just what goes on in the mind of Pushpa Kamal Dahal? His Maoists have lost the reigns of power through their own refusal to foster reconciliation. Yet no sooner has his custom-made (Rs. 110,000) bed been moved out of the Baluwater official residence, than “Fierce One” claims that democratic process is “counterrevolution.”

For good measure, he throws in that the goal of the new leadership is to restore the monarchy, which would seem laughable were it not accompanied by the orders for the YCL storm troopers to take to the streets.

Is this method or madness? Is Robin Just a Hood?

Where to look for answzers? It seems we have but a single book to which we can turn.

In bringing out a biography of “the valiant one” – as per the author, Indian journalist Anirban Roy; “fierce one” as per the most common rendering in Nepal – Mandala Book Point has performed a service. As the only successful communist effort to seize power since the end of the Cold War, the Maoists and their leader require study.

Unfortunately, for anyone interested in something more than various personal details, “the revolutionary” will remain “unknown.” Roy’s book touches upon little of substance and thus leaves us with less than can be gained by reading the often accurate, insightful, and increasingly caustic assessments in the Nepali daily media.

If there is one subject which must be the essence of any book on an insurgent leader, it is the relationship between the leadership and the manpower of the movement. Not only is this critical for understanding the course of the CPN(M)’s people’s war, but also for understanding now the inability of Prachanda’s Maoist-led, pseudo-coalition government to produce little beyond chaos, declining livelihood, and intimidation.

Many have argued – certainly it seems to be the opinion of Roy and a fraction of the Indian foreign policy establishment – that Prachanda is “really” a larger than life version of Robin Hood who has sought only to address the myriad economic, social, and political grievances (as well as hopes and aspirations) of the marginalized Nepali masses. This “moral economy of the peasants” version simply does not consider the obvious: what if Robin is just a Hood?

For the central question of the nasty decade of Maoist insurgency in Nepal has been whether the dog wagged his tail or vice versa. How much that occurred – and it was a bloody decade between 1996 and 2006, with the dead augmented an order of magnitude by mutilations, disappearances, and the like – was planned or simply the result of being astute enough to exploit events as they were carried out autonomously or semi-autonomously by others?

What seems clear is that a fairly typical (in Nepali terms) party structure, the CPN(M), led by marginalized elites (the principal figures among whom, like Prachanda, were Brahmins), achieved traction through linkage with dissatisfied tribal formations, particularly Maggars (who appear historically to have provided a plurality of those recruited to the British Gurkhas). This was not unlike what occurred in the Hmong areas of the north during the unsuccessful effort of the Communist Party of Thailand (CPT) or in the northern Luzon homelands of the Igorots during the 1980s heyday of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).

There, the leadership was Maoist, the manpower grievance guerrillas. Whether the CPT or CPP actually exercised command and control over the tribal formations remains unclear, as it does in the CPN(M) case.

How the Maoists Wages War

In Nepal, the tribal formations appear to have been the heart of the main forces, Maoist battalions, just as the so-called “Secret Army” of the US in Laos was built upon Hmong alienated by North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao abuse. The Maoist battalions were in essence copies of the Indian Gurkha establishment (no surprise given the prominence in Maoist training of ex-figures from that establishment, which presently numbers more than 40 battalions). They were mixed gender, had good discipline, and fought effectively using standard though innovative tactical doctrine.

These forces, however, were a distinct minority amidst the violence that swept across Nepal. They were linked to the numerous local wars that raged in Nepal’s localities – theoretically, in the 3,913 Village Development Committees (VDCs, counties in Western terminology). It was at this local level that the atrocities largely took place.

Efforts to place the onus of human rights abuses on government forces do not hold up well, since they essentially sidestep the massive level of assault and maiming, not to mention destruction of infrastructure, that was carried out by Maoist local forces. Even as this debate has continued, what has not been touched – certainly not in Roy’s volume – is the connection between such local agency and Maoist central structures.

How much was ordered versus simply exploited?

The CPN(M) leadership throughout has claimed absolute control over the organization – except when it comes to owning up to widespread depredation. To the contrary, the Maoists continue to fall back upon denying that which is undeniable. They simply do not acknowledge that their movement wreaked havoc upon the country.

Yet the only defence is to claim that the main forces were the movement, and the rest occurred as commission by loosely affiliated fellow-travellers. This, of course, means they did not actually carry out the insurgency.

This is far from an idle issue, since lawlessness continues under the official umbrella of the Young Communist League (YCL; reflagged but the same organization), storm troopers drawn from the lumpen ranks but officered by the same Maoist chain-of-command that ran the main forces. As a consequence, the demoralized police, unable to act due to continuous political intervention, have been displaced by armed gangs linked to the major political parties.

It matters very much, too, as illustrated by “Prachandagate.” It is not that UNMIN “miscounted.” It is that the inspectors did not know what to count.

The Maoists packed both local and main forces into the camps, plus thousands of brand new recruits. In any Maoist structure, main forces (the battalions) are the tip of the iceberg. Most “combatants” are local forces, largely unarmed with high-powered firearms.

It is similar to the structure of any state security forces. In Nepal, the bulk of the armed representatives of the government are not in the army but in other forces, such as the police.

Hence – as Prachanda himself said in his defence – most of those in the camps were indeed “combatants” of sorts but not the “real guerrillas” that the world was hoodwinked into thinking it was counting. Further, while it could count weapons turned in, it had no way of knowing what was not turned in – and some of the best and most powerful pieces did not appear in the UNMIN inventories.

It has already been noted by one and all what happened next. The camps were used to expand the actual main forces (with the Maoists allowed to retain a proportion of their weapons), while the chain-of-command stood up new local forces – the YCL.

What, then, do the Maoists have in mind for the future of Nepal? Prachanda speaks constantly of the need to displace parliamentary democracy in favor of a people’s republic (though, as with the actual name of the CPN(M), a new formulation has lately been advanced).

Key elements in the Maoist leadership urge an outright power grab. Prachanda and his faction appear to feel that such would provoke, at best, isolation (not least from dominant India), at worst, external intervention (again, India is a prime candidate). Therefore, they urge caution, noting that the same end can be achieved without provocative action.

The Maoists themselves are rent by factionalism, with some truly odious characters not only urging but openly leading violent acts even as Prachanda consuls…what? As noted accurately in Nepali media, “Fierce One” seems all but schizophrenic in his shifts between conciliatory rhetoric and threats of vengeance to be visited upon any who seek to thwart the grandiose schemes of him or his party.

Revolution in the Revolution

Any student of the Nepali insurgency would have asked that such issues as discussed here be placed at the heart of a biography of Prachanda. Regrettably, they are not even raised much less addressed.

From knowledge, though, comes the ability to act. Would be that there had been an understanding of the basics of Maoist military structure. Key issues which remain for exploration by the media and academia:

• First, a discussion of the strategic thought of the Maoists is needed, especially of the factionalism that led to the fierce debates that occurred within the leadership ranks during the struggle. These offer the Rosetta Stone to Prachanda’s present conduct (and that of his faction).
• Second, how was operational advance during “the war” related to the individual positions of the Maoist leadership, especially Prachanda (who, judging from Nepali cell phone intercepts, spent much of the decade not in the theatre of operations but India)?
• Third, what were the actual mechanics whereby this advance was achieved? How, for example, did the urban commandos function in the Kathmandu Valley? Who gave the orders to kill those who were murdered and left hanging on poles throughout the country?
• Fourth, given the way events have been developing as concerns New Delhi, what was the relationship of Prachanda and his leadership to India? What was the agreement both thought they had reached? After all, it not only did not arrest him (Nepali security forces did provide to the Indians his whereabouts) but ultimately intervened decisively in favor of the insurgents.
• Fifth, what was the role played by fellow-travellers (both domestic and international) in the Maoist effort? At no time did Prachanda or the Maoists exist as isolated actors. They interacted with numerous Nepali political parties and individuals (e.g., elements of the press and the human rights establishment), as well as numerous foreign actors, official (e.g., certain embassies) and unofficial (e.g., certain INGOs). What was the end-game being pursued by these forces and how did it influence the conflict? Was Prachanda central or marginal to these activities?
• Sixth, how do the party factions relate to the present chaos and unwillingness of the Maoist movement to engage in good-faith reconciliation? To what extent is Prachanda a prisoner of the local forces that swept him to power or a shrewd politician playing the ends against the middle?
  

End-Game

Certainly the author pegs him as the latter, though no disinterested observer would accept this position without a great deal of scepticism. Put bluntly, as stated above in slightly different terms: what does “the unknown revolutionary” really believe?

Regrettably, no answers to these and other questions are to be found in the book. What we do know from readily available sources is not encouraging.

Power is the end-game for Prachanda and the Maoists. All they do revolves around that one goal.

Power can be gained “peacefully” – by which the Maoists mean the system surrenders to them and their plans for societal dismemberment. Or it can be achieved violently – what the Maoists are preparing to do with their street thugs (they have announced it).

If Roy’s book provides no answers, there are thousands (literally) which do. Pick up any volume on the rise of Fascism between the great wars. There, a reader will find spelled out chapter and verse what is unfolding in Nepal. Only the name of the storm-troopers has changed to protect the guilty.

All This is Fleeting: Sri Lanka and the Maoists

(Courtesy: Dr. Thomas A. Marks)

When a victorious general was granted a “Triumph” in ancient Rome – a parade through the streets – the sources claim a man rode behind him in his chariot with the specific job of whispering, “All this is fleeting.”

So it must seem with Prachanda and his Maoists.

Indeed, “Fierce One” seemed so spooked by ongoing events in Sri Lanka that he scored an own-goal by bringing up the subject in the recent Kathmandu rally. There will be no such end for the Maoists, he railed, lest any be tempted to think that his band of not-so-merry men would go the way of the declawed Tigers.

Poor Prachanda – the photos of LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) supremo Prabhakaran's body are widely available on the net. Thus it seems he had been reminded that "all are mortal," which is the other phrase the man in the chariot is supposed to have been directed to say.

Antiquity aside, it is useful to draw some lessons for Nepal from the Sri Lankan case. I have spent considerable time in both and cover them in separate chapters of my recent book. In one sense, they are very different, in another much the same.

Dynamics of Sri Lankan Conflict

Democracies struggle in South Asia, where the holding of elections conceals a great deal that is profoundly undemocratic. In particular, parliamentary mechanisms often lead to lack of safeguards for minority positions and marginalization of entire communities.

In Sri Lanka, such a dynamic took the post-independence form of marginalization of the Tamil minority (17%) by the very large Sinhalese majority (80%). Though both communities in reality had further divisions, especially the Tamils (notably, between Sri Lanka and Indian Tamils), it was the need to define the identity of Sri Lanka as a state that set the two nations against each other.

Significantly, both before and during the Tamil upheaval, Sri Lanka faced Maoist upheavals. Both were led by the Janata Vimukthi Peramuna, JVP (People’s Liberation Front), 1971 and 1987-90, and had more of a class character (i.e., poor versus “them”). Even such a general description does not do justice to the complexity of Sri Lankan society that saw the same effort to harness local divisions, whatever they were, by the JVP.

In particular, in a characteristic shared with Nepal’s Maoist insurgency, the first JVP bid for power was driven by upheaval within the young. An agriculturally-based economy; limited alternative sectors unable to provide employment for a rapidly expanding population; an age-pyramid dominated by youth; an educational system teaching the wrong things (and generally in the wrong languages for the jobs available); strong caste influences that further narrowed opportunities; and a democracy which was neither transparent nor efficient; all served to make “liberation” or “revolution” an attractive prospect. The result was death and destruction.

Crushed, the JVP plotted its comeback, which was provided by Indian intervention. “Peacekeeping” to New Delhi, “invasion” to most Sri Lankans, the social explosion that shook the island led to a level of upheaval that would be familiar to Nepalese. With the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) locked in its own battle against the Tamil insurgents in the North and East, the Sri Lankans were able to focus on the Southern, terror-driven violence and finish it. The entire JVP leadership was eliminated, and the survivors joined legal politics – where their bizarre positions today make India’s Marxists appear almost rational.

Significantly, by the time the chastised Indians departed (after a thousand-plus dead and twice that wounded), LTTE had become a full-spectrum insurgency, complete with armor and artillery. Ultimately, it would field everything from aircraft to underwater demolitions teams to suicide squads in three dimensions (land, air, and sea). Large battles included an entire brigade camp (1,200-men) wiped out on the government side.

A post-9/11 ceasefire left LTTE as the de facto rulers of the Tamil-dominated Northern and Eastern Provinces. Yet LTTE leader Prabhakaran was simply unable to leave well enough alone. Just as the Nepali Maoists had their assassination and bombing command in the Kathmandu Valley during the 1996-2006 war), so LTTE had its equivalent. And just as the Maoist-directed YCL is encouraged to continue its depredations, so LTTE executed a campaign of terror in government-controlled areas. The main target was moderate Tamils, hundreds (literally) of whom were assassinated.

Enabling the LTTE effort were the same external actors one finds so dominant in Nepal – even some of the same countries – any number of which have now been told, in so many ways (some directly), that they are no longer welcome in Colombo.

How Did the Sri Lankans Win?

Colombo’s position on foreign intervention in its affairs highlights the key element which led to successful resolution of the present stage of conflict: a mobilization of national will. In this, one could argue that Sri Lanka engaged in a state version of the successful Nepali Maoist mass mobilization in the latter’s surge to power. Taking the analogy a step further, it could be argued that the “lost” decades for Colombo were occasioned by adopting a “Nepali government approach” – unfocused, under-resourced, and lacking mobilization and will.

Early on, 1983-87, the Sri Lankan approach was completely military, even as the 1987-90 counter-JVP effort utilized all elements of national power (with, to be sure, a very “big boy rules” mentality guiding the whole). Thereafter, a gradual but steady shift occurred in which Colombo, while understanding the root causes of the struggle, realized it would have to adopt a philosophy of total mobilization for the ultimate clash.

Why had it not done this previously? States invariably seek to fight limited wars until forced by circumstances to do otherwise. For insurgents, wars are always total. Similarly, internal wars have phases. What is an appropriate course of action at one point in time, say, 1983-87, is not necessarily the path to take in, say, 2006-2009.

In 2006, faced with an LTTE which had wiped out all rival insurgent groups (there were once at least three dozen) – as well as all moderate Tamil politicians it could liquidate – Colombo saw no recourse but renewed violence. The increasingly shrill efforts of external actors to push “peace” foundered on the reality that LTTE was already at war. It had used the latest “ceasefire” in exactly the manner it had done in the past, as a weapon to refit, regroup, and reposition its forces.

In this, LTTE was no different than the Nepali Maoists, who used ceasefires for similar purposes. As I have pointed out in recent articles, the only surprising element in “Prachandagate” is how many seem to have forgotten the earlier evidence of the same behavior. This can not surprise: The Maoists share with LTTE a worldview that sees “struggle” as the normal condition of mankind. Violence and nonviolence are but sides of the same coin. “Heads I win, tails you lose.”

To their credit, the Sri Lankan leadership saw through this strategy and turned the coin on its edge. Indeed, the superb effort at the top, of planning and motivation, was in many respects a family affair, with President Mahinda Rajapaksa relying upon his brothers – Gotabaya, Secretary of Defense, and Basil, special advisor. The three responded with their own “coin,” skillfully constructing a multifaceted effort.

The cutting edge was military, led by the increased professionalism of a very large, battle-hardened military led on the ground by General Sarath Fonseka. But it was built upon political and popular mobilization, combined with astute cultivation of foreign support beyond Sri Lanka’s normal, pro-Western allies.

For the Sri Lankans recognized that, when all was said and done, their Western supporters, whether states or INGOs, would see to their own designs and leave Colombo in the lurch. When this indeed turned out to be the case, Sri Lanka had constructed a position, built upon a network of alternative sources of arms and supplies (notably from China and Pakistan), which allowed it to finish the business.

The elimination of the LTTE counter-state was carried out systematically, despite an active, increasingly shrill campaign that sought outright invasion of the country – under the guise, to be sure, of “humanitarian intervention” a la the former Yugoslavia, with, apparently, a “Tamil Kosovo” to follow.

That the same approach was used by external actors to neutralize the Nepali state in the 1996-2006 period needs no highlighting. That the result looks rather more like the Balkans and rather less like a nation-state also needs no highlighting.

For the neo-colonialists, the very fact that Nepal experienced upheaval meant its old-order lacked legitimacy. Hence, went their logic, it had no right to defend itself.

Sri Lanka provides the same evidence of imperfection, as Sri Lankan politicians, pundits, and intellectuals are quick to point out. Still, they note further, they are Sri Lankan imperfections and will now have a Sri Lankan solution. Nepal remains yet a neo-colony, and there is no leadership in sight of the quality one sees in Colombo.

Road Ahead

Nevertheless, a great deal of effort is now being put into discussing what could go wrong in Sri Lanka. It seems something of a parlor game for the Western media, with the more liberal outlets outraged (the only word for it) that any small Asian country would have the gall to ignore the commands of the “usual suspects,” so used to issuing orders backed by threats of aid cut-offs and “war crimes trials.”

As Colombo continues to steer its own course, the threats have again begun to escalate. They are fruitless. Sri Lanka has committed to reconciliation, but it is unwilling to have the terms of its internal arrangements dictated to it.

What will matter, then, is sincerity. Whether the state can deliver upon its promises to its marginalized minority will become clear soon enough.

This is the state of play in Nepal, as well, with little sincerity in evidence on the part of the prime culprits in the current mess, the Maoists. Indeed, recent Maoist pronouncements do not bode well for timely or acceptable resolution.

Once again, having created a disaster, the Maoists have resorted to threats as their “solution.” They have stated that they will allow the processes of governance and constitution-writing to go forward – but only if they are given what they have demanded all along – the right to run roughshod over NA, as the last stumbling block in their ability to stage a slow-motion coup.

That threatening violence, if one does not get his way, is but violence camouflaged does not enter into Maoist calculations (or those of their external backers). Yet, in the shadow of Sri Lanka, with its carnage enroute to peace, the Maoists have been offered a chance to establish their bonafides.

They can either commit to peaceful politics, or they can choose to continue their sub-rosa violence (much of which is not particularly “sub”). They had eight months to place their cards on the table and proved themselves utterly incompetent at all save 3M: menace, mugging, and murder.

If the Maoists are sincere, it is time to disband the goon squads and engage in politics as per the plain definition of the word, the process whereby society decides and implements who gets what – rights, resources, privileges, and obligations. Politics pursued by “other means” is, as per Clausewitz, no longer politics but war.

History and geography have left Nepal a very imperfect state in search of a nation. As Sri Lanka has been given a second chance, so is this the case for Nepal. It has been given an opportunity to become a nation-state.

In this, the Maoists have a voice, but they must respect that of others. As for the Nepalese chattering classes, on the verge of trying their hand at the ultimate balancing act, coalition politics, they can draw another lesson from the ancients: Carpe Diem – seize the day.

MAOIST INSURGENCY: RETURN OF THE NIGHTMARE

(Courtesy: Dr. Thomas A. Marks)

(Originally published in "India and Global Affairs [New Delhi], Apr-Jun 09," re-posted here with the Author's consent).

Dr. Thomas A. Marks is a political risk consultant based in Honolulu, Hawaii, who has authored a number of benchmark works on Maoist insurgency, to include his recent Maoist People’s War in Post-Vietnam Asia.

Maoist insurgency is back. People’s war, once thought to have ended with the Cold War, is alive and well in South Asia. Large parts of India are effectively “no-go” areas. Bangladeshi officers cite Maoism as a greater threat than violent radical Islamists. Sri Lanka, having twice decimated the Maoist JVP at considerable human cost, now has them in the ruling coalition, where their often-bizarre positions are a faithful replication of India’s own legal Maoist spectrum. And to the north, what was the world’s only official Hindu kingdom finds itself now ruled by a party which yet begins its meetings before pictures of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao (Nepalis all, cynics note).

Ironically, New Delhi can look to its own intervention for the Maoist victory in Nepal. It was South Bloc which gave heed to the legal left and, in return for the swing votes which allowed Congress to cling to power, effectively ceded control of Nepali policy to the Indian Marxists. The shift brought on by Marxist opposition to the nuclear pact with the US came too late to save Kathmandu, and the country is now a failed state, posing a far greater security threat than ever it did when it was convulsed by war.

Ironically, too, Maoist growth in the Subcontinent continues even as the last real threat elsewhere, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), has been decimated and driven into a survival posture. Marxist but not Maoist, FARC nevertheless used a potent version of people’s war as its revolutionary doctrine. Copied from a combination of FMLN (El Salvador) and Vietnamese manuals, it was only national mobilization under President Alvaro Uribe (2002-present) which reversed the tide.

Why this stunning reality in South Asia? Why now?

Brave New World

The answer to the first query is that South Asia has long had the perfect conditions for Maoist upheaval. To the second, that the age of globalism has exacerbated many of these conditions.

Indeed, it can be argued that the present global situation is “the perfect storm,” combining as it does elements of two past eras of carnage. The first was the profound, irrevocable upheaval of the Industrial Revolution, which gave Europe the so-called “Age of Revolution” and the first age of terrorism. The second was the economic, social, and political despair of the interim between the world wars, which produced the twin nightmares of Stalinism and Fascism and their stupefying cost to humanity.

That terrorism has returned to lash out against the Brave New World of globalism hardly needs mention. It only needs emphasis how sterile is the approach that seeks to gather individual characteristics of those who, say, blow themselves up and then generalizes to the whole. Quite the contrary, it is the context, married to organizational acumen and finesse, that taps individual particulars. Nowhere is this more evident than in the violent radical Islamist organizations, such as Hamas and Hezbollah.

It is the violent radical Islamists who are the modern manifestation of fascism (termed by some, Islamofascists), complete with an anti-Semitism that would make the early Hitler of Mein Kampf appear somehow inadequate in his virulence. It is the Maoists who are heirs to Stalinism. Indeed, South Asian communism is distinguished by its continued domination by the thought of one of history’s most loathsome figures, Stalin.

In “globalism,” what was often local is now all but invariably international. Eras of profound change produce winners and losers. Mao emerged from the death of the Chinese imperial system and the clash between two alternative views of its successor, the Republic of the Kuomintang (KMT) and the “People’s Republic” of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). By exploiting everything from economic-social-political dislocation to Japanese invasion, he was able to build a challenge capable in the end of seizing the world’s most populous country.

Inspired, self-proclaimed Maoist insurgencies emerged in the likes of Malaya, Thailand, the Philippines, Burma, Cambodia, India, Sri Lanka, Peru, and ultimately Nepal. Even communist but non-Maoist insurgencies recognized the efficacy of people’s war as strategy, and potent versions were seen in Vietnam, Laos, El Salvador, and Colombia. More often than not, linkages were established between the theaters of conflict, with China often directly involved in assisting its ideological partners.

For a time after the end of the Cold War, Maoism seemed a past nightmare. Globalism and the spectacular growth of challenges to the nation-state ensured that the heyday of people’s war was recreated in South Asia. Pronounced economic-social-political imperfections ensured that the 21st Century would see a new age of Maoist bloodshed, with ideologically inspired leaders mobilizing the alienated masses.

Nature of the Challenge

Maoism as a goal seeks to reorder society in a quest for social justice. There is no template as to how this reordering is to take place, except that it is to be Marxist-Leninist (communist). Theoretically a transitional dictatorship guiding socialism to achieve communal ownership of the means of production, in reality it has led only to would-be totalitarianism and attendant human carnage. Even China, where Mao Tse-tung invented the particular politico-military approach that is people’s war, has turned its back on “Maoist” ideology, which produced a tragedy conservatively estimated to have cost 80 million lives.

This is irrelevant to Maoists elsewhere. Arising in terribly flawed states such as Peru or Cambodia, Maoist insurgents seek a way out of the structural abyss by championing a triumph of the will.

Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso) saw the “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution” of 1967-76 as a model for its future Peru. China saw it as a self-inflicted disaster that cost the lives of millions. The Khmer Rouge saw in their own “Year Zero” approach the Cambodian version of Mao’s “Great Leap Forward,” which latest research convincingly demonstrates to have cost between 30 and 50 million lives. In Cambodia, between one-fifth and one-third of the population perished.

Whatever the lack of a realistic goal, the means to achieve the end is manpower, mobilizing the masses in order to overwhelm the foe. The way, linking means to goal, is the strategy of people’s war. The mobilized masses are organized into a new state, a “counter-state,” to challenge the existing state.

In this mobilization, “all politics is local.” Leaders, normally drawn from marginalized elites – divorced either objectively or subjectively (in the mind) – look at the imperfections of the state and advance Maoism as the solution. Specifics need not be spelled out, since utopia is sufficient inspiration for followers, who seek redress of immediate grievances (as well as reinforcement of hopes and aspirations).

Any people’s war, then, is in reality myriad local wars, with “Maoism” serving only as the driver for leadership and committed cadres. Indoctrination of the so-called “grievance guerrillas” gives the effort greater cohesion.

Role of Violence

People’s war is a strategy for armed politics. The mistake is to think it is merely “war,” by which we normally mean action between armed forces. To the contrary, people’s war is very much like any electoral campaign – except violence ensures “the cards favor.”

Significantly, rebels such as the Maoists claim they are merely doing what the state itself has been doing all along. They assert there never has been “non-violent politics.” Rather, echoing Lenin, they label democratic politics practiced by the “old-order” but a façade for oppression. This oppression is carried out using the violence of the state through its armed component, the security forces, as well as the “structural violence” of poverty and injustice.

Thus the Maoists see themselves as engaged in a struggle for liberation, of self-defense even. Such a struggle will proceed along different but orchestrated lines of effort. Use of violence is but one line of effort. Within that line of effort, there are varied forms of violence, from assassinations to main force attacks – the large actions that seek to battle units of the armed forces on even terms.

Each type of violence – terror, guerrilla warfare, main force warfare, war of position (i.e., liberated areas) – may be thought of as a campaign, comprised of numerous discrete acts separate in time and space yet connected in a unity of action designed to achieve a goal. We can speak, for instance, of the campaign of terror that the Maoists use to eliminate all who oppose them in local areas, whether individuals or police. Who can forget those famous photos of the mutilated individuals in Nepal, especially teachers, their limbs hacked, their bodies hanging from poles?

Yet such terror occurs for a reason: to clear the space for political action, to eliminate competitors. This is why legal political activists are normally particular targets. They compete to mobilize the same target audience as the Maoists. Such rivals must be driven out so that the Maoist cadres have uncontested access to the masses. This clears the way for insurgent political mobilization.

Of course, such methods are anathema, even as certain portions of the party platform are attractive. It is for this reason that the Maoists sponsor a multitude of front organizations, the wide variety, for instance, of ethnic and community rights organizations one sees from the Philippines to Nepal to India. On the surface, they are not Maoist, but in reality fronts are controlled by the Maoists. Student, labor, and human rights organizations are normally prominent in this respect.

Such control need not be direct. Fronts can present themselves as independent, even as they are being used to enhance Maoist strength. Lenin called those who unwittingly join such fronts, thinking they are acting on their own, “useful idiots.”

Even as this goes on inside the country, the Maoists work outside. States tend to focus upon the tangible links. Much more important is the information campaign of the insurgents, designed to present their movement as almost benign. As states make mistakes, such as seen in instances of indiscipline when military units are deployed, these are exploited to claim the state itself is the problem, terror as but a natural, defensive component of the solution.

For a Maoist movement, the goal is always power. They must have power, because their goal is to refashion society. They are not seeking reintegration. That would be to accept the structure that exists and to play by that structure’s rules.

Quite vocally, they reject the legitimacy of that structure and its rules. That is why they are adamant that there must be a remaking of society.

Have they worked out the details of what this new society will look like? Of course not. That is the beauty of being the political challenger. Today’s realities can be opposed with tomorrow’s promises.

This is what politicians always do, even those who run “on my record.” The danger of left-wing ideologues, such as the Maoists, is that their worldview dramatically constrains their view of possibilities.

They tend to think of fantasies, such as “self-reliance” and “independence,” as ends that can be achieved if only “will” is harnessed. It was just such fantasies, implemented through violence, that gave us the astonishing crimes of the past century – crimes, it must be noted, the Maoists deny occurred.

India’s Need for Enhanced Approach

India’s approach to the Maoists in South Asia, whether internal or elsewhere, has been consistently misguided, improperly inspired and organized, and wholly tactical.

Internally, there has been a failure to take the threat seriously. The conceptualization of the Maoists as having a military and a political wing quite misses the reality of an armed political party advancing on five lines of effort – political (mass mobilization), allies (creating fronts), violence (of various types, not all present but interlocking when such is the case), political warfare (using nonviolent actions, such as subversion, to make violence more effective), and international (which can be decisive).

The inability or unwillingness of the center to coordinate an inter-state response allows the unified Maoist challenge to play the seams between state forces. Such assistance as New Delhi has provided has been tactical. Calling an individual and small unit tactical center for police “counterinsurgency training” highlights the point. Counterinsurgency is a strategic category. There are no “counterinsurgency tactics,” only tactics applied appropriately in support of correct strategy and operational art.

Externally, India has erred in thinking the Maoists are but a version of the Northeast ethnic insurgents and thus can be “bought.” Nepal offers the best example to the contrary.

There, the Maoists first used the monarchy as their foil, as a surrogate for what they claimed was its role in the old-order. If the “feudal monarchy” is swept away, they endlessly repeated, all would be right with Nepal. In this, they certainly were assisted by the tragic circumstances which placed the then-incumbent, Gyanendra, on the throne. Similarly, they were assisted by his mistakes in maneuvering through the maze of Nepali politics.

A number of elements figured into their calculations. First, as the hegemonic power in an unstable subcontinent, India wanted restoration of order. This was necessary for precisely the reasons stability is desired in Sri Lanka. Disorder produces refugees, unleashes intra-Indian passions, transfers elements of the conflict to Indian soil, and sucks New Delhi into foreign policy nastiness. Second, having opted for order, India played a hand well known to its smaller neighbors: intervention. The only question was how to intervene.

Here, there are several schools of thought. My past work in Sri Lanka has led to my being less than charitable as to Indian motives. In the Sri Lankan case, New Delhi was into everything from supporting terrorism to running covert ops in a friendly, neighboring democracy. Only when the Frankenstein it helped to create, LTTE, turned on its former benefactor did logic and morality reassert themselves in New Delhi’s policy.

In this case, in Nepal, it is perhaps too early to speak in such terms. What we know at the moment is that is that the weak position of the coalition government in New Delhi, combined with its normal “Great Game” psychology and the eagerness of certain Indian personalities, especially on the left, to expand their own role and spheres of involvement, led to a policy shift that supported SPAM (the Seven Party Alliance and the Maoists).

It was disappointing and tragic that the SPA and the Palace could not have a meeting of minds. Parliamentary democracy should have been the ultimate bulwark against the Maoist challenge, but the very nature of Nepali parliamentary democracy, with its corruption and ineptitude, led to its marginalization. The increasingly bitter split between SPA and the king became all but inevitable in such circumstances, but personalities also played a central role, as they do in all that occurs in Nepal.

It seems equally clear that India, as it did previously in Sri Lanka, went into the present endeavor quite misinformed by its alleged experts, not to mention its intelligence organs, and that it was ignorant as to the actual nature of the Maoists – no matter the efforts of those same personalities just mentioned to claim how wise, thoughtful, and caring Prachanda and other members of the Maoists leadership were.

In once again misreading the situation in a neighboring state, India now seeks a “soft landing.” To get one, New Delhi’s strategy has been to facilitate in Nepal creation of a “West Bengal” or a “Kerala” – states where the tamed Indian left challenges and even rules (sometimes, in the case of the latter), where it continues with its nasty verbiage and bizarre worldview, but where it must respond to the realities of power and hence stay within the lanes on the national political highway.

What New Delhi has overlooked is that such realities occur in India only because of the capacity of the national state to force compliance. Subtract the Indian military, paramilitary, and police forces from the equation, and India would be anarchy. Not surprisingly, that is the very term being used by many to describe the situation in Nepal.
This has its own implications for India’s security and for its struggle against the growing strength of the Indian Maoists. What Nepal itself is facing is the “state within a state” as seen in Palestine with Hamas and Lebanon with Hezbollah. Whether events play themselves out as we are seeing even now in the Middle East depends quite upon what the Maoists are actually up to.

Hamas and Hezbollah have behaved as the Nepali Maoists seem determined to behave, to participate in “the system” only to use it for their own ends. Those “ends,” obviously, have now made life even worse for the population.

The Way Ahead

What Nepal as a state never understood was that it faced an armed political campaign. This means – a lesson for India -- that democracy, no matter how messy, accompanied by good governance and transparency, should be at the heart of any response to the Maoists, with the security forces providing the shield.

Nepali parliamentary democracy proved incapable of using mobilization of democratic capacity to defend itself. It did not do what the Thai, the Filipinos, the Peruvians, and the Sri Lankans (against the JVP, twice) did to defeat their Maoists. They brought reform to imperfect systems and made them better. They remain imperfect, but so are all systems. And they are not the vicious, man-eating systems as desired by the left-wing, of which the Maoists are the premier representatives.

It should be obvious that the claim that there is “no military solution” to insurgency is simply a canard. Armed capacity enables the campaign of reform, because armed capacity is what enables the challenge to the old-order.

In circumstances such as India (or Nepal earlier), security forces are not committed simply to defend the status quo. They must be committed to defend transformation. That transformation, though, must look rather more like what can be seen in India as it advances toward economic, social, and political modernity – and a lot less like Mao’s China.

The Washington Times Editorial - Nepal's Maoists Double Cross

The video clip referred to in the Washington Times editorial may located at the following URL:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CL-OuByKFJQ&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Emyrepublica%2Ecom%2Fportal%2F&feature=player_embedded

Video of Pushpa Kamal Dahal (Prachanda) telling his Maoists how they plan to install a one party communist republic in Nepal (and how they've used the international community as "useful idiots").

EDITORIAL: Nepal's Maoist double-cross

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/may/07/nepals-maoist-double-cross/

So the chairman of Nepal's Maoist radicals brags that he and his fellow-travelers tricked United Nations officials and admits that the 2006 peace deal was a sham - and gets caught on videotape doing it. The video of the recently resigned Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, also known as Prachanda, was shot in January 2008 and just surfaced.

Revealingly, he instructs his fellow communists not to be fooled by the compromises struck with Nepal's democratic government. Seizing total power, he makes clear, remains the communist goal.

The latest crisis in Nepal is a useful case study in communist duplicity and instructive for those who believe that the path to peace with guerillas is cutting deals with them. The Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) joined Nepal's government after a decade-long insurgency that left more than 12,000 dead. Under terms of the 2006 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, the Maoists agreed, among other things, to cut the size of their force in half, place their weapons under U.N. supervision and participate peacefully in the political process. In the 2008 elections, the Maoists emerged as the largest party in parliament with 30 percent of the vote, and Prachanda was named prime minister.

But the communists didn't consider the war really ended. The Maoists steadily maneuvered to increase their power with a view toward implementing their revolutionary agenda.

The latest step was an attempt to remove Nepal Army Chief Gen. Rookmangud Katawal, who had resisted Maoist demands to integrate their guerrilla army into the national force. He maintained that the "former" guerrillas are brainwashed fanatics seeking to seize control of the army. He's got a point.

Nepal's President Ram Baran Yadav blocked Prachanda's move to sack Gen. Katawal. Prachandra resigned in protest. Nepal's Supreme Court now has the case.

Prachanda says it is a question of civilian control of the military. That's rich. Meanwhile communist thugs are taking to the streets in coordinated demonstrations calling for further intervention from the U.N.

The video of a relaxed Prachanda addressing his party faithful exposed the Maoists' cynical manipulation of the political system. In true communist spirit, Prachanda said that the compromises struck with the government were only tactical expediencies, and that the "bidroha," or rebellion, was still on. He joked about how they duped the United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN) into thinking they had 35,000 fighters when in fact they only had 7,000 to 8,000, which allowed them to swell their ranks to 20,000 while claiming to be demilitarizing. And he confirmed Gen. Katawal's suspicions by saying it would take only a small number of his guerrillas to establish "complete Maoist control" of the Nepal Army.

He added that they had not turned over their weapons as required and that relief money earmarked for the victims of the civil war would be diverted to party coffers. "You and I know the truth," he slyly told his comrades, "but why should we tell it to others?"

In an unguarded moment, Prachanda revealed he is still a terrorist at heart and those who make deals with him are dupes. "Why would we abide by [the peace deal] after we win?" he said on the tape. "Why would we follow it when we have the upper hand?"

The situation in Nepal and Pakistan's Swat Valley illustrate the risks in bargaining with extremists, who do not change their goals, only their methods. The lesson is important when contrasted to Sri Lanka and Colombia, where we have seen the value of taking the fight to insurgents. U.S. deal makers should understand that there is more than one way to lose a guerrilla war. Sometimes it happens with the stroke of a pen.

Holding the Preachers of Accountability, Accountable for their Actions - The UN's Failure in Nepal

In light of the evidence caught on video, readers are encouraged to review the chronology of events captured in the postings below.

The question that every Nepali must ask themselves is who we should hold accountable for the callous manner in which the UNMIN (United Nations Mission in Nepal) handled the arms (and armies) verification process?

As was the case in East Timor, Ian Martin parachuted in and out of Nepal. But those who will bear the consequences of Martin’s (and the UN’s) willingness to play the role of a (most) “useful idiot,” remain in-country.

If the United Nations as an institution fails to hold its personnel accountable, then Nepalis need to hold Ban Ki Moon and the UN hierarchy accountable for the UN’s complete failure in executing its mandate in Nepal.

February 25, 2007
Summary of Declared (by State) vs. Inventoried (by UNMIN), Weapon Counts
http://nepaliperspectives.blogspot.com/2007/02/symmary-of-declared-by-state-vs.html

February 25, 2007
Discrepancies in Maoist Weapons Inventoried by UNMIN – Do the Math
http://nepaliperspectives.blogspot.com/2007/02/discrepancies-in-maoist-weapons.html

March 01, 2007
The UN and Maoist Arms Controversy: Overkill or Negligence?
http://nepaliperspectives.blogspot.com/2007/02/un-and-maoist-arms-controversy-overkill.html

March 01, 2007
UN Fast Losing Credibility in Nepal
http://nepaliperspectives.blogspot.com/2007/03/un-fast-losing-credibility-in-nepal.html

June 18, 2007
UNMIN Clarifies its Role but Just in Time to be Humiliated by the Maoists
http://nepaliperspectives.blogspot.com/2007/06/unmin-clarifies-its-role-but-just-in.html

July 04, 2007
UNMIN's Arms Verification Process in Nepal - More Timely Information and Transparency Needed
http://nepaliperspectives.blogspot.com/2007/07/unmin-in-over-its-head-in-nepal-arms.html

July 15, 2007
The UN's (UNMIN) Involvement in Nepal's Peace Process: A turning point or another fiasco in the making?
http://nepaliperspectives.blogspot.com/2007/07/uns-unmin-involvement-in-nepals-peace.html

July 17, 2007
UNMIN's July 16 Press Release and Subsequent Q&A Disaster
http://nepaliperspectives.blogspot.com/2007/07/unmins-july-16-press-release-and.html

July 19, 2007
UNMIN's "Consulting" Mentality Not Conducive to Nepal's "Stakeholder" Needs
http://nepaliperspectives.blogspot.com/2007/07/unmins-consulting-mentality-not.html

September 21, 2007
What has UNMIN Accomplished in Nepal?
http://nepaliperspectives.blogspot.com/2007/09/what-has-unmin-accomplished-in-nepal.html

November 01, 2007
What UNMIN Should Do to Manage Nepal's Peace Process
http://nepaliperspectives.blogspot.com/2007/11/courtesy-krishna-hari-pushkar-un-is.html

November 26, 2007
UNMIN in Need of Immediate Reform
http://nepaliperspectives.blogspot.com/2007/11/unmin-in-need-of-immediate-reform.html

December, 2007
Constructive Feedback for Ian Martin - Time for a change in UNMIN's Leadership
http://nepaliperspectives.blogspot.com/2007/12/constructive-feedback-for-ian-martin.html

February 04, 2008
Deficient UNMIN
http://nepaliperspectives.blogspot.com/2008/02/deficient-unmin.html

February 07, 2008
UNMIN's (Matthew Kahane's) Observations Completely Legitimate; India's Guilt-Ridden Reaction, Nonsense
http://nepaliperspectives.blogspot.com/2008/02/unmins-matthew-kahanes-observations.html

Strategic intent

(Courtesy: Dr. Hari Bansha Dulal)

Annie Lowrey of Foreign Policy, the award-winning magazine of global politics, economics, and ideas founded by Samuel Huntington and Warren Demian Manshel lists Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s government as one of the five governments worldwide that deserves to fail. One of the major charges against him is that he has been unable to maintain political stability and contain violence. Lowrey asserts, “Prachanda must maintain political stability and avoid any violence at all costs – or Nepal risks catastrophe.”

Lowrey correctly identifies what needs to be done in order to avert catastrophe, which in my view is not that difficult, but whether or not Prime Minister Dahal is doing enough to maintain political stability and contain violence is the most important question. Is Lowrey overreacting? No! Somalia and Afghanistan are excellent examples that showcase what political instability and violence can do to a nation.

Some of us think that political instability and violence are part of a package that a nation trying to take a giant leap has to live with for a while. But how long should that period be allowed to exist? The shorter, the better. And, it really depends upon the ability of the political leadership of the country in question to understand what political instability and violence can do to the overall economy and social fabric. For example, in poor landlocked Botswana, a unique form of democracy combining British parliamentary ideas with African traditions has been functioning well since the 1960s. A free press and a lively political system have developed. One of the many reasons why Botswana is a functional democracy in a largely dysfunctional continent is because the statesmen that took over were mindful of the importance of political stability and law and order in the country. On the contrary, seemingly endless ethnic conflicts in Sudan, Rwanda, Burundi, Nigeria, Chad, Angola, Ethiopia, and the Congo have cost many millions and made these countries highly unstable. One of the major reasons behind political instability in these countries is that the politicians deliberately invoke "ethnic action and nationalism", for ulterior motives, to achieve political and economic objectives. When that happens conflict takes shape of a vicious circle with no end in sight making political instability a norm rather than an exception.

We have started to see similar signs in Nepal too. While lawlessness continues, politicians talk as if a peaceful democratic transition can be taken for granted. But it cannot. Failure to combat lawlessness and instability undermines a country´s stock of ´social´ capital - that is, the relations of inter-group solidarity and cohesion which allow negotiation, compromise, and agreement between opposing factions. In Nepal, the consequence of the failure to stem the vortex of violence and lawlessness is that the country is fragmenting into an archipelago of competing power factions. Unless these centrifugal forces are contained, the country will drift further and further from a social compact.

The question, however, in the case of Nepal is whether or not Dahal is interested in maintaining political stability and containing violence? If the answer is yes, why is political instability and violence increasing with each passing day?

Anyone following Nepali politics closely knows very well that the Maoists want more political violence and chaos—not less. If you look at the Maoists movement, it becomes evident that as the frequency and magnitude of their violent activities increased, so did their level of recognition and their domination over the existing political parties and the state got greater. For the Maoists, violence pays and as long as they benefit politically from it, they are not going to abandon violence. It’s a no-brainer. The chief ideologue of the Maoist movement, Baburam Bhattarai, has openly admitted that violence and chaos benefits his party politically. If violence did not matter and benefit them politically, they would not have formed the Young Communist League (YCL).

Unlike visionary statesmen such as Jawaharlal Nehru and Nelson Mandela, who followed acts of destruction with greater acts of construction, Nepali Maoists ideologues’ quench for destruction seems to have no boundary. Nehru and Mandela fought tirelessly against oppression and injustices, but after coming to power, they spent many years preserving the systems that their predecessors had put in place. Once in power, Mandela, who had approved radical and violent resistance to apartheid, reached out to White’s to create a multicultural South Africa. Maybe, it is absurd to compare Bhattarai – who thinks destruction alone will pave the way for construction – with Nehru, who preserved existing institutions, which he rightly thought was necessary to build a modern democratic state. The point I am trying to make here is that people without violent streaks have proved to be more constructive in world history. If destruction was the only way towards construction, Somalia and Afghanistan by now would have been the most prosperous state on the face of this earth.

It is time that we, Nepalis, realize that putting too much faith on politicians will only result in disappointment. The moderates within the society need to come out before it is too late. We need to force the state to address the genuine grievances of ethnic minorities and maintain law and order. It is not the ordinary Nepali citizens who are blocking the emancipation of ethnic groups. It is the ruling coalition’s largest partner which is not able to fulfill the promises that it made on its way to get where they are today. Why should an ordinary Nepali struggling to remain afloat pay the price for someone else’s wayward political ambitions?

(This piece was originally published at the following URL: http://www.myrepublica.com/portal/?action=news_details&news_id=4320. It is re-posted here with the author's consent)

Re-thinking Maoist Democracy

(Courtesy: Dr. Hari Bansha Dulal)

The populist floodgates that have been thrown open have dangerously destabilized the country. In the name of equality, ethnic fundamentalism is on the rise. Law and order situation is in a shambles. Judiciary is being ridiculed and attacked. Can a nation with an acutely vulnerable judiciary, absence of law and order, and social capital (dangerously depleted by rising ethnic hatred) prosper and consolidate democracy? Nepal represents a failing democracy in which the prospects for consolidation have narrowed down significantly mainly due to the politicians´ inability to manage peoples’ expectations and to look for solutions for domestic political problems from within the country.

The ruling party has been inconsistently consistent about their lack of faith in multi-party democracy and the opposition parties do not have the required strength and vision to mainstream the Maoists. Democratic consolidation in Nepal now is a generational challenge, requiring a long-term process of locally embedded civil society development, party institutionalization, and the disarmament of insurgency groups.

Virtually nothing will be achieved at this point by blaming the Maoists for derailing the democratic process and looking for an external solution to the problem. Why would the Maoists strengthen a system in which they never had faith to begin with? The Maoists had it all figured out. They wanted to get rid of the old political structure and fill the vacuum, which they have succeeded in doing so. With their militia controlling rural areas, they knew very well that major political parties of yesteryears would not be able to stand their wrath for long. The Maoists’ calculation went awry when ethnic dissent sparked off. But they quickly figured out a way to deal with it. By accommodating Madhesi Janadhikar Forum (MJF) and Nepal Sadbhavana Party in the government, they have frozen the chances of large scale ethnic revolt that could potentially bring down their government. As far as small-scale ethnic dissent is concerned, they are ready to strike a deal even if such deals have the potential to hurt the nation in the future. Their past deals clearly show how well they have mastered the art of using “useful idiots.”

Their biggest hurdle for now is neutralizing the Nepali Army (NA) and overhauling the bureaucracy. They want to neutralize the army because it is the only institution in Nepal that can put a brake to the Maoists march towards establishment of one party rule. By neutralizing the army—the process has already begun with the formation of Army Integration Special Committee—they want to negate the possibility of a takeover by the army or an army-backed government. For the Maoists, overhauling the bureaucracy is equally important because the Maoists know it very well that the Nepali bureaucracy is not neutral. The Maoists will not hesitate to provide golden parachutes so that they can get rid of civil servants they don’t want. By doing so, the Maoists will not only substantially reduce the threat to their regime but also please donors and other external players that have been advocating for reforms in security sector and bureaucracy. Actually, it might be perceived as a step towards promoting good governance by the donors and the Maoists government might end up benefiting both diplomatically and financially.

The Maoists have never shied away from making known their desire to establish one-party rule in Nepal. The one-party rule they want to establish does not have to be like North Korea´s. They can live with the West Bengal-type model, where they can run the show without much of a threat from other political players. Probably, that is the easiest and safest route for the Maoists. All they have to do is continue what they have been doing so far—flush out the political cadres of major political parties from rural areas. That way they can guarantee the outcome of future elections and appear democratic to the external world at the same time. This formula was successfully experimented in Constituent Assembly elections and it worked out pretty well in favor of the Maoists. They might want to take this experiment to the urban areas now. But how difficult would that be when you have the covert support of security forces, and the bureaucracy is willing to do the needful?

While the Maoists are working hard to find a way within the country to consolidate their rule, the opposition parties appear clueless regarding how to preserve their political space. The leaders of the opposition parties once again want our southern neighbor to devise a survival formula for them.

What the politicians of opposition parties fail to understand is, even if they come to the power and rule the country, which is only possible through NA´s backing, they will not be able to run the show for very long. They want to rule the country that no longer exists. Today’s Nepal is drastically different from the past. Nepal, as a nation, has gone too far left. First of all, even if India supports the opposition’s quest for power, removing the Maoists from power will not be as easy as removing Gyanendra Shah. The support that Pushpa Kamal Dahal has and the scale of violence that he can unleash is no match to the support and options that the former king had. So even if opposition parties bounce back with tacit support from India and the backing of NA, which in my view is completely unacceptable and undemocratic, they will not be able to rule for long. Dahal has way more support than what Gyanendra enjoyed during his rule. And, think about the cross-mobility of communists from the CPN-UML to the Maoist party. The recent college elections have clearly shown that the younger generation in Nepal is increasingly leaning towards the left. There is nothing to be cheerful about the poor showing of the Maoists in recent student union elections. Third place is good enough. It will not take very long for student leaders from the UML-affiliated student wing to migrate to the Maoist wing. They share the same ideology.

The options that the opposition parties in Nepal have at this point are very limited. For now, they should forget about scratching the backs of foreign leaders to garner support to bounce back to power. Such move is neither democratic, nor will it help them remain in power for long. The only way to keep the Maoists deviating away from democratic path is by keeping them engaged. It will take time, which Girija Prasad Koirala and other aged leaders unfortunately do not have on their side given their age and desire to establish their siblings in politics. We had an option to taste the success that Mahendra Rajapaksa in Sri Lanka is enjoying now, but we decided not to take that route and it is now too late to even think about it. Now, it is an ideological battle between the hardcore leftists and true democrats, if any. NA should not be dragged into this fight.

Let the people of Nepal themselves realize the difference between living in a liberal society and under hardcore leftists´ rule. A revolution that will occur then after will be the real revolution for democracy. It will be a long slog but would be worthier than the shortcut our southern neighbor devises for us. Not very long ago they devised a formula to establish democracy in Nepal and we all know how well it worked out. We are the ones who are now paying for their five-decade-long expertise in democratic consolidation. Do we really need another set of formulas from them again?

(Originally published at: http://www.myrepublica.com/portal/?action=news_details&news_id=3146)

To Retain or Retire?

(Courtesy: Chiran Thapa)

Once again, Nepal braces for another nail biting affair. Just when it was time to heave a sigh of relief following the recruitment row, another bout of vicious sparring between the Nepal Army and the Maoists in the government is underway.

Before, the row was over recruitment. This time it is over retirement.

As a customary practice, the Nepal Army had written to the Defence Ministry to extend the tenures of eight of its Brigadier Generals. Such extensions were never stymied in the past. This time, however, the Maoist Defence Minister did not acquiesce. When the Defence ministry did not forward the extension proposal to the cabinet, time elapsed and the Generals' retirement dates passed by.

Initially, when no word came from the Defence Ministry, the Generals were asked to continue with their respective tenures by the Chief of Army Staff (CoAS). But, now that the Defence Ministry has sent a letter to the Army Headquarters to retire the Generals, it remains to be seen how the Nepal Army will respond.

This case bears some resemblance to the retirement of senior officers of the Nepal Police. Just last month, the government did not extend the tenures of the Inspector General of Police (IGP) Hem Bahadur Gurung and three Additional Inspector-Generals (AIGs). Previously too, the government had not extended the tenures of eleven senior police officers who consequently retired in September of last year. That lot included the IGP Om Bikram Rana, five AIGs and five Deputy Inspector Generals (DIGs).

But the Nepal Army's case is markedly different. For one, the Police Force is utterly politicized and the institution has had very little say over postings, promotions and retirements. The Nepal Army, however, had thus far kept such matters strictly under its institutional purview. And the Defence Ministry had never before interjected in such affairs.

Also, under the robust commandership of the current CoAS, the Nepal Army has deftly maintained the chain of command and kept the institution intact. With great dexterity, the CoAS has effectively restrained those that want to come out blazing against the former foes and those that want to sycophantically pay homage to newly ensconced political masters.

Furthermore, under his watch, the Nepal Army has kept its boots off the political landscape. Instead, it has subtly cultivated cordial relations with various political forces, the media, the foreign diplomatic corps and other luminaries.

It is these extensive cordial links cultivated by the Nepal Army that have bolstered its clout and leverage. And the recruitment and retirement tussles manifest those relationships. The retirements of the senior Police officers were hardly an issue for other political forces. But, in the Nepal Army's case, politicians of all persuasions have fervently jumped into the ring to support the Nepal Army.

This time too, various political forces have joined the fray to support the Army. Numerous Nepali Congress (NC) leaders have called on the President Ram Baran Yadav - who is currently the Supreme Commander of the Nepal Army, and requested him to intervene to retain the Generals.

Under the leadership of the NC President – Girija Prasad Koirala, leaders of CPN (UML), CPN (Marxist Leninist), Nepal Sadbhawana Party, Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) and Rastriya Janashakti Party (RJP) have decided to forge an alliance against the decision to retire the Generals.

Besides the politicians, others are throwing in their weight too. A group of four former Lieutenant Generals met the President and requested him to use his “special influence” to end the controversy. They believe that such large scale retirement of the hierarchy would gravely jeopardize the structure and functioning of the institution. On the other hand, one retired Major General and a few other former junior officers have come out in support of the Defence ministry's decision saying that "the retirement is purely an administrative matter and the generals should retire as per the Defence Ministry's decision."

Amid these divergent perspectives, however, there is another distinctly inseparable element about this row. It has to do with the previous recruitment row. Recently, the Nepal Army had mulishly recruited new personnel into its ranks flouting the Defence Minister's objections. The Minister's inability to halt the recruitment process had greatly emasculated and embarrassed him and his party that is leading the government. Hence, given the history, the line between vengeance and righteousness is blurred.

This issue, however, transcends beyond the realms of vengeance or righteousness. For the Maoists, it is a face saving game coupled with their aspiration to reign over the Nepal Army. The only bulwark that stands in the Maoist path of total domination is the Nepal Army. The Maoists understand very well that if it were to get hold of the levers that controlled the Nepal Army, they can suppress and sideline any political opposition with relative ease.

Moreover, at a time when the country is in a hideous mess, this imbroglio provides the Maoist leadership with a much needed respite. This incident is being effectively exploited to divert the attention of the masses away from the inadequacies and insecurities plaguing the Nepali society. Faced with a sharply declining popularity, both nationally and internationally, the Maoists are trying to employ the Nepal Army's resistance to their advantage. By propagating Army's actions as a serious breach of democratic norms and values, the Maoists intend on garnering public support.

But most importantly, it sorely needs to demonstrate its supreme status to the people, and especially to its restive cadres and combatants. By overriding their stiff resistance in the recruitment row, the Nepal Army had given the Maoists a black eye. This incident had unmistakably demonstrated the acumen and strength of the Nepal Army.

It is no wonder why this tussle has become a must win situation for Maoists. The Maoists direly need to redeem themselves after their ignominious retreat from the recruitment row. They need to demonstrate that they are in control and that they have managed to lasso the most powerful institution in the country.

In the meantime, the Army too needs to prove that it still retains the capability to withstand and overcome political interference and that it will not be bossed around whimsically by those who want to infuse a politically indoctrinated bevy into its professional ranks.

If the Maoists are able to withhold the decision and let the Generals retire, it will set a new precedent. From the Maoist viewpoint, it would herald a new beginning in the control of the Nepal Army. This would certainly ease the way for the wholesale integration of their combatants into the National Army.

From the Nepal Army's standpoint, however, it will mark the beginning of political encroachment. And it will certainly instill a visceral sense of vulnerability amongst the troops, especially amongst the higher ranking officers.

But if the Nepal Army digs its heels firmly enough and is able to retain its Generals, then implications could be adverse for the Maoists. If Maoists are compelled to retract their decision, then it would be another humiliating blow to its stature and morale. And it would once again project the Nepal Army as a far superior force.

As this row unfolds, the prognosis is bleak. By retiring Brigadiers and upgrading the Colonels, the Maoists are perhaps hoping to prop up a new hierarchy in the Nepal Army that is more pliable to their interest. But, the new lot could easily turn out to be more radical and recalcitrant than the released ones. In any case, whichever way the tussle goes, it will most certainly poison the sour relationship that already persists between these two formidable forces. Not only that, this could possibly be the beginning of an end of an apolitical National Army.