Doing Business With Baburam Bhattarai

This article in The Tribune sheds some light on Bhattarai's mindset. But we also have to listen to him speak directly in his recent communication. Refer to Baburam Bhattarai On A Democratic Republic.

Some observations I would like to make:

1. The goal is to end the violence in the most peaceful way possible from a position of strength. The goal is democracy. That means engaging with the Maoists politically through dialogues. Back channel communications are where you start. There is no military solution. There has to be a political solution through respectful dialogue, especially since that is also the preferred of the two options.
2. I am for a Democratic Republic with or without the Maoists. In his recent communication Bhattarai has said the Maoists are for a Democratic Republic with or without the democrats. That is what they want on their own. Maybe a communist republic five decades from now. But it is their "scientific, objective" determination, judgment call, that what they want at this point for Nepal, owing to the socio-economic conditions, is a Democratic Republic.
   
3. And they do not want a Democratic Republic through an armed revolution. They want it through a Constituent Assembly. That is what I want.
4. And so it is for the democrats to do their homework. And form a coaltion with the Maoists. Got to engage them politically, and got to stay engaged with them. You have to do that if you are for the democratic process and are against violence. Meaning, if you do not, you are indirectly for violence, and continued civil war.
   
5. I feel the political platform has been gelling. It has been taking shape.
   
6. Next question has to do with disarming the Maoists. I want UN mediation. That is what the Maoists want. It can not be India, or some other state. It can not be bilateral, because the warring factions within Nepal have demonstrated time and again we can not do it on our own. If it is okay to take external military assistance for the fight, it is okay to take external assistance for peace. The UN is the most neutral, respected party I can think of for the purpose.
   
7. There will be many details, and many disagreements along the way. I expect some posturing by various factions along the way. But peacemaking is a process, it is work, it is a delicate process, like heart surgery. Let the UN professionals do the work. The process will be transparent for the most part.
   
8. The end result: an all-party government that has Maoist participation, that has the sole mandate of holding elections to a Constituent Assembly at the earliest, with the Maoists disarming before they become part of the government. In the process, I expect the RNA to get renamed, and reorganized in a major way. Personally I want it disbanded for good, but I am open to the possibility others might disagree. Mechanisms will have to be put in place to make sure the disarmed Maoist fighters do not have options to rearm quickly, at a moment's notice. And the state will have to provide extra pesonal security to the Maoist leadership as they participate in the government and the democratic process.
   
9. It is possible for the Maoists to emerge as one of the largest political parties within the democratic process. I am fine with that. And it is just fine if, in their internal deliberations, they continue to dream of a socialist utopia that they might be able to achieve in, say, five decades. I would not even mind their anti-India, anti-US, anti-UML rants. As long as they get disarmed, and stay disarmed, as long as they accept peaceful co-existence with other parties, as long as they accept the multi-party democratic framework, their internal deliberations and ideology are their private matter.
   
10. The whole idea is to move them from "Power flows through the barrel of a gun" to "Power flows through the ballot box."
    

In The News

• Power eludes Maoists in Nepal Chief ideologue and No. 2 in the Maoist hierarchy Babu Ram Bhattarai (BRB) comes from Gorkha .... He learnt the ropes at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi ...... On April 11, 2003, he made this offer to King Gyanendra: “Our basic agenda is to form a Republican state. If the King abdicates voluntarily, we will offer him some position. It will be good if he agrees to play the role of Norodom Sihanouk”. King Norodom Sihanouk, we all know, abdicated the throne on October 6, 2004....... The King is equally adamant about not rolling back...... it is instructive to study the recent thoughts of BRB, nom de plume Jit Bahadur, Commander of the newly formed Central Command, in interaction with his cadres sometime in October 2004. The dialogue recorded on four audio-cassettes and translated from Nepali to English, was captured by the RNA in their biggest military operation in Baglung from October 7 to 14 last year .... BRB was lucky to escape capture. Like the LTTE, Maoists are crazy about filming and recording their activities. The two previous prize catches by the RNA were films of a high-power training conference in 2001 and the famous attack on Beni. ...... all is not well with the revolution because the ultimate goal of capturing power in Kathmandu has eluded the Maoists. BRB maintains and correctly, that the High Command is united under the leadership of its supremo Prachanda, though there are differences between those who favour a negotiated settlement and others preferring to launch the so-called strategic offensive...... “as of now, we have lost at least 10,000 comrades but our party has achieved new heights” ....... Dominating the discussion are two themes: military power and India. The obsession with military power is evident from repeated references to “reaching Kathmandu” and the inescapable reality that “wars cannot be won without ammunition and weapons”. It is well known that Maoists are short of weapons and ammunition. Only 40 per cent of their fighting company of 130 cadres carry weapons....... Nepalese diaspora and the internal revolutionary tax regime have together contributed cash and jewellery worth $150 million, some of it looted from banks ....... The Maoists pay the highest attention to physical fitness. The speed of attack and dispersal carrying their casualties are given the highest priority...... BRB is reassuring comrades that though Kathmandu is far, “we will reach it step by step”.......The obsession to seize Kathmandu is deep-rooted..... capturing Kathmandu even for a day was vital for the morale of the movement and to justify the sacrifices made by the people ..... The road to Kathmandu, warns BRB, is difficult. We will need to improve our attack techniques at new heights, stock grain, interdict RNA supply lines, neutralise enemy air attacks and prepare for attacks on a very large scale....... No longer are Maoists able to dislodge the RNA from their defences. The last successful Maoist attack was in March 2004 at Beni and that too, against the police and not the RNA....... the biggest problem of this war for the Maoists is the lack of defence against air assault which is responsible for 70 per cent of their casualties..... The RNA have perfected a technique called Tora Bora which is free-fall delivery of mortar bombs from helicopters...... The Maoists have no anti-aircraft weapons. They are also unable to organise and mobilise large-scale attacks as they were able to throughout 2002 against the RNA....... BRB was counselling comrades on recourse to tunnel and mine warfare and espionage ...... Maoists have made villages dig trenches in some border areas so as to fight “expansionist India”, BRB’s obsession no. 2. He realises that the capture of power in Kathmandu is related to resisting India, organising Nepalese living in India and eventually overcoming the Indian Army......... He admits that the people were not happy with the ideology framed by them. It had to be reviewed. These remarks were made presumably in the aftermath of grave brutality and indiscipline by Maoists in Dailekh and Baglung where all the villages revolted against their cadres and punished them. Nepal’s human rights groups have catalogued in gruesome detail, some of these excesses........ Under no circumstances would Maoists allow the holding of elections or joining the government for what he calls “the drama of peace talks”. He is probably on the side of that section in his party that wishes to undertake the strategic offensive ...... He has also reiterated his party’s determination to fight the King and CPN UML, the two other class enemies after India and the US. His admission that in this day and age, no one is 100 per cent Communist, must be comforting for the illiterate but revolutionary cadres........ The illusions of a Maoist military victory are comparable with the miscalculation of the Royal game plan of defeating the Maoists. The ground situation in Nepal is still in a strategic stalemate. Only a political process will open a door. King Gyanendra is hardly likely to do a Sihanouk anytime soon.
• Maoist deal to sideline Nepal’s king
  
• US jittery over Nepal President [George W] Bush's declaration of the United States's support for freedom around the world very much extends to Nepal ..... Camp stated, "We are concerned about abuses and atrocities by Maoists and human rights abuses by government security forces including extra-judicial killings and 'disappearances'. We continue to vet units receiving US assistance to ensure that none is implicated in human rights violations. An amendment to the FY 2005 Senate Appropriations bill stipulated that Foreign Military financing could be made available to Nepal if the secretary of state determined that Nepal was taking a number of steps to improve the human rights practices of the security forces. We have made it clear to the government of Nepal that we expect to see appropriate, timely and transparent investigations of any credible allegations of abuse and that failure to do so could jeopardize our ability to continue assistance. We will continue to convey our strong concern about human rights violations by the security forces to the highest levels of the Nepal government and urge swift investigation and punishment." on February 20, met Royal Nepali Army (RNA) chief General Pyar Jung Thapa in his Kathmandu headquarters soon after the royal takeover, Thapa hinted at invoking the 1950 India-Nepal Friendship Treaty to seek Indian troops to deal with the Maoist insurgency...... The Indian position, as it was eventually communicated, was that India could not deny troops if asked....... Gyanendra forced the Nepali cabinet to shut down the Tibetan cultural center affiliated to the Dalai Lama following the Christmas weekend visit to Hong Kong of King Gyanendra's son, Crown Prince Paras, and the fact that the coup itself took place after his second trip to Hong Kong in January...... the king's decision to open the Lhasa-Kathmandu Road. This road had been built but never opened....... Pakistan never really condemned the Maoist movement within Nepal. China, by contrast, was always categorical in condemning the Nepali Maoists and supporting the royalty..... General Pyar Jung Thapa ... In Beijing for a week, Thapa held talks with top military officials such as Defense Minister General Cao Gangchuan and General Liang Guanglie, chief of staff of the People's Liberation Army.......... US legislators Frank Wolf and Mark Udall in a letter to colleagues criticizing the harassment of Tibetans in Nepal........ The US has also become a major provider of military assistance to Nepal, allocating over US$29 million in grants to pay for US weapons, services and training from October 2001 to October 2004....... For fiscal 2004, the Bush administration asked Congress for $10.6 million financing....... Washington has a series of military arrangements with countries bordering China, stretching from its new bases in the Central Asian republics through Southeast Asia to its formal allies in northeast Asia: Japan and South Korea....... the US was threatening to raise the issue of human rights in Nepal in the United Nations and other world forums. Nepal was threatened with expulsion from the UN, the World Trade Organization, and so on. According to Indian intelligence, Nepal has approached China to veto any such threat.