The other day a friend told me that the US Embassy has
ordered all American citizens, except those providing
essential service to the US Embassy to leave Nepal
immediately. A large number of Americans were seen at
Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport trying to
catch flights to different destinations, before they
got contaminated by a disease called “revolution”.
This gives me a good feeling.
Why? Because it shows that the Nepali people have
successfully resisted the USA’s attempts to hijack,
manipulate and subvert the mass movement. The USA
tried its best and I am sure that they are going to
try again. Richard Boucher the Assistant Secretary of
State is due in Kathmandu on May 2, 2006. Over the
past five years the State Department sent “scholars”
“security advisers” and “counter insurgency experts”
to train and assist the Nepali academics, researchers
NGO activists in the “art and science” of in conflict
resolution and strengthen local stake holders for
peace. They also trained the Royal Nepal Army
officials in developing modern security strategies and
counter insurgency - in plain words killing the
Maoists more effectively.
The Ambassador of the United States never tired of
comparing the Nepali Maoists with the Khmer Rogue.
American experts’ put out scholarly discourses, which
compared Nepal with that of Peru and Cambodia.
American agencies funded Nepali scholars to study
techniques of “conflict analysis”, "conflict
resolution“and conflict transformation”. Seminars
were organised where doom’s day scenarios were created
and discussed. The Maoists were shown as a greedy lot,
hungry for power, using the poor and exploiting the
emotions of women and discriminated Indigenous
peoples and the Dalits. The Royal Nepal Army was
supplied with 20,000 M-16 rifles from Washington,
20,000 Insas rifles from Delhi, 100 helicopters from
London and 30,000 Minimax guns from Belgium. At the
end of the day, all the State Department experts, all
the Generals of Pentagon and the other friendly
governments could not spot the people of Nepal.
The USA has never experienced a revolution of the kind
that is taking place in Nepal. The great American
Revolution was not led by the hungry and exploited
masses. This happened in France, in Russia, in China
and in Cuba. It is difficult to predict when the
oppressed masses would overcome their fear of the
oppressor. As history is witness, they do. And, when
they do overcome their fear, they become a virtually
unstoppable force. They change history. Remember
Spartacus and the slaves.
For nearly 200 years, the Shah and Rana rulers of
Nepal held the people to ransom. The Hindu ruler was
propped up as the embodiment of god. Ordinary Nepalese
were not even allowed to look at his face. They kept
up the most archaic Hindu customs to hold the people
down.
Through alliance with the British colonial masters of
India and later with the rulers of independent India,
Britain and the USA they perpetrated their rule. Their
main business was to supply poor Nepali men as
mercenaries to foreign governments as cheap canon
fodder. On each Nepali mercenary the rulers collected
commission. The agreement between Nepal’s King and the
British allowed the British to pay the Nepali Ghurkhas
in British army a paltry sum as they salary and
pensions ranging from five to fifteen pounds sterling
per month for a life time of service in her majesty’s
government. The Royal Nepal Army even today deducts a
hefty sum from the compensation received by the Nepali
peacekeepers in the employment of the UNO.
After the USA began its global war on terror and
President Bush “privatised” security services,
hundreds of Nepalese were recruited into so-called
“ancillary” service of security companies like group
Four, Executive Solutions, Ghurkha International and
Blackwater Inc. As the dead bodies of Nepali workers
started returning from Iraq, Ache and Afghanistan, it
became clear what this so-called ancillary service
really was. Even today, American recruited Ghurkha
guards protect Hamid Karzai, the Afghan President. The
King of Brunei does not trust any one but Ghurkhas for
his personal safety.
In Nepal it is an old fashioned revolution led by the
poor oppressed masses. The people are united in their
struggle against the king, the symbol of oppression.
It is not an ethnic strife or a religious or a
sectarian war. Those are the wars that the State
Department knows and likes. They have hordes of
experts and advisors who are waiting in various "think
tanks" and universities to be sent to all places where
such conflicts/wars are raging. But a revolution of
the kind that is unfolding in Nepal is not something
that the USA knows how to deal with.
Now the king has revived the House of Representatives,
which he dissolved on the advice of Mr. Sher Bahadur
Deuba in October 2002. Mr. Deuba had already lost the
support of the majority in the house when he advised
the king. The king was happy to dissolve the house as
the house was opposed to the extension of the state of
emergency. The house elected in May 1999 has already
completed its term of five years under the 1990
constitution. Yet the leaders of the seven parties
were adamant in their demand for the revival of this
house. Why one might ask. What was the need to revive
a dead house which could only be done by the king,
whom the people hated? There are no obvious answers.
The Maoists have been insisting that the seven party
alliance should hold a national convention and declare
the formation of a national government as an interim
measure. The seven party alliance did not agree. Seems
they were afraid that neighbouring and other
governments might not recognize their government. They
were also afraid that they would be seen as having
come under the influence Maoists, who were branded as
“terrorist” by USA and India. The US Ambassador has
been pushing the leaders of the seven parties to
renounce the 12 point agreement with the Maoist. But
this did not happen.
On the nineteenth day of the mass movement the king
and the Royal Nepal Army was faced with the prospect
of a crowd of five million people surrounding the
capital city of Kathmandu. I am told, as the palace
rats started to desert the sinking royal ship, the
king finally lost his nerve. He was ready to
compromise with the leaders of the seven parties.
There are credible reports that he sent his emissary
to the head of the UNDP in Nepal to intervene in the
“backdoor” negotiations with the leaders of the seven
party alliance leaders in crafting the proclamation
that the king read out in his midnight proclamation of
April 24, 2006. This was “accepted” by the leaders of
the seven parties.
What Nepalese want is a new political system - an
inclusive democracy, freedom from exploitation and
discrimination, respect for human rights and a new
society. The women of Nepal, who were out in large
numbers want equal status in society. The marginalised
communities, the indigenous people (janajatis), the
Dalits, Muslims and Madhesis want an end to
discrimination. They want a federal system of
governance which will guarantee their “autonomy” and
their “culture, language and identity”. The people
want the new government to guarantee their right to
work, right to housing, right to water, health and
education.
The leaders of the seven parties will soon return to
the House of Representatives. They are now preparing
to form an interim government. They have also made it
clear that they will not deviate from their commitment
to holding elections for a constituent assembly.
Several mass organisations including trade unions,
teacher’s associations, organisations of Janajatis and
Dalits have announced that they would encircle Singha
Darbar, where the parliamentarian would meet on Friday
(April 28).
The State Department has said that the king should
continue to be the “ceremonial head of state”. The
majority of the people of Nepal want an end to
monarchy. They want the king and his family to leave.
They see the king as the symbol of the old system
which perpetrated the control of the feudal classes
and sold the country’s economic and political
independence to foreign governments and multinational
companies for personal gain. Is this the end of
monarchy and the beginning of a new era? Will the
people of Nepal defeat the new imperialists? We are
yet to see.
Tapa Bose
South Asia Forum for Human Rights
Kathmandu
April 27, 2006, 12.40 P.M .