Nepal: new developments, new challenges, great dangers

A World To Win News Service writes;

Nepalese politics have taken a complex turn with the restoration of parliament by the feudal autocrat Gyanendra Shah and the acceptance of this proposal by the parliamentary parties. US Ambassador James Moriarty commented, with a shudder of relief, that if this deal had not been made, Nepal “was close to getting rid of the monarchy entirely by a violent revolution.” (Nepalnews.com, 27 April) Reports now indicate that at least 19 people died and 5,000 were seriously injured in the three weeks of mass upsurge whose main demand was the total abolition of the monarchy. The alliance of seven parliamentary parties ignored this sacrifice in their eagerness to reach a compromise with the king.

The US, which led the foreign arm-twisting that led to the agreement between the palace and the parliamentarians, is strutting its unchanged status as the boss of Nepal. Moriarty is still brazenly issuing instructions to the parliamentarians: “[T]here is a potentially useful role for the institution of the monarchy as a unifying factor.” Some journalists have written that the king’s last-minute compromise saved the unity of the Royal Army and his own role as its commander in chief. Preserving the Royal Army seems to be the US’s chief concern.

The New York Times correspondents wrote (29 April) that it “remains an open question” whether the Royal Army would ever obey anyone but the monarch, who in addition to his political authority claims to be an incarnation of the Hindu deity Vishnu. At the same time, Moriarty reiterated the demand that the rebel armed forces led by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), which control most of the countryside, lay down their arms. He said that the US would consider resuming military aid to the Nepali government, ostensibly cut off after the king dropped all pretence of democratic rule last year.

In a written statement, the American government said it would “strive to support Nepal”, which South Asian commentators took as a promise of renewed military support against the people’s war if the Maoists do not abandon it. Even if they do, however, the US has made its goal clear: “to expunge the Maoists from Nepali society.” US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher, who made that statement 7 April, was due to arrive in Kathmandu 2 May to give more orders to the king and the parliament. His signalled his intentions, however, by declaring that the American attitude toward the Maoists was unchanged.

On 28 April, as former Prime Minister G. P. Koirala took office, swearing the oath of loyalty to the king mandated by the 1990 constitution that enshrines the throne, a huge crowd gathered for a public meeting in the capital in support of the Maoists. The heads of the Maoist-led student organization and trade union spoke, their first public appearance in three years.

In the countryside, despite the three-month ceasefire called by the CPN(M) and its acceptance by the parliamentarians, there were at least several very serious incidents of continuing Royal Army repression. On 25 April Royal Army soldiers raped a woman in Morang district in eastern Nepal. As the masses encircled the Royal Army barracks the following day and tried to destroy it, the RNA opened fire and killed six people. This could be understood as a political statement. On 27 April, a Royal Army helicopter opened fire on what they claimed was a Maoist mass meeting in a secondary school in Tharpu, in the Tanahu district. Two days later the RNA launched a similar aerial attack on a mass meeting organized by the Maoists at Sunawal area of Nawalparasi district, in central Nepal.

Comments

[Comandante Gringo]

All the bourgeois actors here have signaled treachery and future violence and subterfuge to the masses. The sooner the masses move to crush these bourgeois dogs and take the entire country from the elites, the better they will be able to withstand the foreign intervention which will follow close on the heels of that.

But it's up to the urban masses to join with the rural masses now: the maoists can't expect to take on both the internal and external enemy, isolated, on their own. That wouldn't be smart, and they shouldn't -- won't -- do it. And so this ugly little passion play is going to have to be played out a bit, while the people come to grips with this last attempt to fool and divert them.

At least it will wake a lot of people up, both inside & outside Nepal, to how you simply cannot make any deals with the bourgeoisie or their agents: they will stab you in the back -- or the belly, for that matter -- at the first opportunity which presents itself. And that goes for all those social-democrat and even [ex-]"communist" parties, which long ago sold the workers' birthright for a mess of pottage.

The only thing I'm really wondering is: how badly do the maoists really want a socialist republic at this point? In other words: how much do they really believe they must stick to stalinist 'stagist' theory, and thus to a bourgeois parliamentary republic for the foreseeable future? And whither their strategic alliance with the Naxalites?

[kersplebedeb]

i was wondering if anyone could shed light on this report of CPN(M)members violently attacking sex trade workers: http://66.116.151.85/?p=3533

[little light]

The basic issue of the sex trade in Nepal is that women are treated like cattle, bought and sold.

That will end, and in many places it already has.

Note that no other political party addresses in any serious way the shipping of Nepalese women to Indian brothels, or the fact of women's subordination.

What NGOs "say" and what they "do" are often very different.

Western bourgeois "freedom" of sexual slavery is fucking gross. Sometimes in a popular movement, people will make mistakes. In this case, who knows?

A dozen women beaten is bad. A nation of women bought and sold is the problem... unless you're the kind of person who thinks sexual access to subordinated women is your birthright of "liberty."

Prostitution is capitalist tyranny.

[Deva]

The belief that the Nepalese Army will only obey the King is a myth. For 104 years this Army was under the complete control of the then Rana Government. It even fought against the Nepali Congress led Revolution of 1950 which was actively supported by the then King Tribhuban.

The Army supports whoever has the legal and constitutional authority. It is a professional army and no amount of disinformation can change this fact.