Parallel Governments Of Maoists And Moriarty
When the elections to the constituent assembly are held, the Maoists are going to have to participate as a political party, or not. That transformation is a precondition. On the other hand, state restructuring can be a happy price to pay for that transformation. Such restructuring should be the democratic goal with or without the Maoists. Only when that is true will the process of transformation be smooth. Unnecessary friction can be avoided if the seven party alliance gets proactive about state restructuring.
Army
There are two armies. The state army is 90,000 strong, the Maoist army is 35,000 strong. Step one should be to put both into barracks and register all of their weapons and soldiers. Then the idea is to keep them that way until elections are held. After elections, you integrate them, then you downsize that army.
Each party has to take a stand. How big do you want the army to be? What do you want its ethnic and gender composition to be? How do you hope to achieve that? The future army should not be composed just from the state and the Maoist armies. We should also look beyond.
But the idea of keeping the two armies in separate barracks only makes sense if the rest of arms management is part of the package deal.
The interim Prime Minister is to be the Commander In Chief of both armies.
Militia
There are 100,000 armed Maoist militia. They can not remain intact. There are 70,000 armed personnel in the state police the armed police force. The Maoist militia may not now pretend to be the state police. The police are an organ of the state. It is not possible for any person to be part of the state police and a member of a political party like that of the Maoists at the same time.
It might be possible to induct some of the Maoist militia into the state police. Again, such acts should not be limited to the state police and the Maoist militia. The idea of the future Nepal Police should cast its net wide. People who are currently not part of the police, and who are not Maoist militia should not get penalized.
Courts
The Maoists have set up courts all over the place. Those courts are peopled by members of the Maoist party. That may not continue. That has to go. When the Maoists participate in the constituent assembly elections, they should be a political party that does not own any courts. The court, just like the police and the army, is an organ of the state.
All village courts have to come under the district courts of the state. In that process many village courts will get disbanded. Some will get reorganized. A few might get retained, although I doubt it.
Local Governments
Eight party governments have to be set up in all villages, towns, and cities so as to help the process of Maoist transformation into a political party.
Interim Government
Then you are looking at an eight party interim government at the center.
Republic
The first day of the first session of the constituent assembly will declare Nepal a republic, guaranteed. The Maoists have to face that reality. On the other hand, they could hasten it by making free and fair elections to a constituent assembly possible at the earliest. And they do that by becoming a political party.
Summit Talks And Obstinate Congressias
Summit Talks And Maoist Nonsense
Summit Talks: Four Heads Talking
Televise The Summit Talks
The Summit Talks Will Succeed
Money Management
There should be a provision in the interim constitution that requires all political parties to make their book keeping transparent. A final step in the Maoist transformation from a parallel state to a political party will be to make sure no political party has more than twice the money of the second largest party. Any extra money has to be submitted to the state.
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Nepal army in row over killing Maoist Times of India, India
NEPAL: From Maosim to Fascism in the Himalayas? American Chronicle, CA Dr. Thomas A. Marks What remains ill understood is that the Maoists are not using even the same vocabulary, much less the same game plan, as the present political system. They continue to see themselves as a people’s war on the offensive. They simply are proceeding along an avenue of approach complementary to armed actions. Violence and non-violence are but two facets of a unified struggle, very much as, in boxing, feints and movement of the body are as necessary as punches thrown. ........ people’s war is like any parliamentary campaign – except violence is used to make sure the vote comes out in your favor ...... they assert, echoing Lenin, that democratic politics practiced by the “old-order” – ancien regime – is but a façade for oppression, oppression that 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. ...... Lenin called those who unwittingly join such fronts, thinking they are acting on their own, “useful idiots.” ....... the sheer level of terror inflicted by the Maoists has been quite forgotten in the rush to attack the army, the APF (Armed Police Force), and the hapless police ...... For a Maoist movement, the goal is always power. ...... They are like any political machine in a rough neighborhood – they can “deliver” the vote. .... It is “boss politics” played by “big boy rules” -- the film, “The Gangs of New York,” provides useful visualization. ........ In seeking “peace” and holding that they are “not for violence,” what the Maoists mean is that they would much rather the state delivered to them (the Maoists) power rather than making them (the Maoists) fight for it. ........ they say all forces must lock up their weapons, but this does not include their local forces, their “militia” ......... They have stated, as Prachanda recently did, that they oppose “parliamentary republicanism” ...... Today’s realities are opposed with tomorrow’s promises. ....... 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. ........... the Maoists really have no answers to the challenges facing Nepal. They simply claim that they will do better than the bumbling (and bloody, they claim) incompetents who have preceded them. ........ what to do about Nepal? They see structural issues that can be addressed by “will.” Most of us see a population that has exceeded the carrying capacity of the land. .......... Nepal and its troubles have implications for the region and beyond. ........ Nepal’s geo-fiscal realities ...... Nepalis have proved a valuable component of the Indian labor pool (especially militarily, where Nepalis apparently comprise one-eighth of the manpower of India’s infantry battalions). ....... New Delhi’s strategy is to get one by facilitating in Nepal creation of a “West Bengal” or a “Kerala” – states where the tamed Indian left challenges and even rules, where it continues with its nasty verbiage and bizarre worldview, but where it must respond to the realities of power and hence stays within the lanes on the national political highway. ........ Disorder produces refugees, unleashes intra-Indian passions, transfers elements of the conflict to Indian soil, and sucks New Delhi into foreign policy nastiness. ......... SPAM (the Seven Party Alliance and the Maoists) ...... India .. is quite ignorant as to the actual nature of the Maoists ........ the most apt comparison for Nepal would seem to be to the Albania of the Cold War, when its lack of resources and close affinity with Maoist ideology reduced it to a complete backwater. ........ Hamas and Hezbollah, for example, thought they could be both respectable and disrespectable, that they could be both in government and carry our terrorist actions. ....... Hamas and Hezbollah, one could argue, 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 Palestinian and Lebanese populations. ............. the very nature of Nepali parliamentary democracy, with its corruption and ineptitude, led to its marginalization ....... New Delhi’s political class seems to have seriously miscalculated. ..... ntegrally linked not only with South Asian Maoism, through CCOMPOSA, but also with global Maoist forces through RIM. ....... It is naïve to claim the radical wing of a radical Maoist movement will simply salute and call it a day, even if the leadership decides reigning in the combatants is the best tactical course of action. ........ the irony of Nepali parliamentary democracy – it proved incapable of using mobilization of democratic capacity to defend itself. ......... the Thai, the Filipinos, the Peruvians, and the Sri Lankans did to defeat their Maoists. They brought reform to imperfect systems and made them better. .......... man-eating systems as desired by the left-wing, of which the Maoists are the premier representatives. ......... the claim that there is “no military solution” to insurgency is simply a canard. ...... no army can be committed simply to defend the status quo. It must be committed to defend transformation. ....... the Maoists have worked so hard not to let their vision and plans get out into the open ..... hope is not a method. ...... For reconciliation, all elements of society need to be engaged. At the moment, the Maoists and some misguided elements of SPA are proceeding in much the same fashion as did the government of Sri Lanka when it marginalized its Tamil population. ...... The security forces number more than 160,000 individuals in intact units. ........ To think a socialist reshuffling of Nepal’s demographic and physical pieces will produce a panacea is a pipe dream. To the contrary, in advancing their “triumph of the will” solution, the Maoists seem quite unawares that they have fixed upon, as course of action, the very title of Hitler’s most powerful fascist propaganda film.
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Nepali Micro-Finance Institutions: Untapped potential Grameen Bank has 2.4 million borrowers, 95 percent of whom are women. .... bank research has shown that women tend to have a longer term planning and spend more business profits on family members than their male counterparts. ...... The example of Grameen has inspired a global micro credit movement that has spread to 65 developing countries and has reached 17 million borrowers around the globe. ...... more than 700 thousand families are associated with the micro-credit organizations in Nepal. ..... the repayment rate of such micro-finance companies was almost 99 percent despite the fact that loan was provided to poor women without collateral.
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Media persons continue to face attacks, harassment 'District-in-charge' of the Maoist in the eastern Nepali district of Udaypur, Santosh, and other rebel leaders harassed and threatened media persons and human rights workers, as the latter raised some issues concerning the rebel outfit during an interaction organized by the rebels at district headquarters Gaighat. The program was organized by the rebel themselves to "discuss current political issues". ...... when some journalists and human rights workers raised queries about the donation campaign and some other current issues concerning the Maoists, Santosh bluntly stated that a "journalist had to be a Maoist first to understand news concerning the party (Maoists)". He also accused the media in general of spreading a negative image of his party among the masses. ....... "District-in-charge" Santosh came down heavily on the journalists and rights activists, claiming that they were commenting against the party. Further, claiming that he did not find it necessary to abide by his party's central level decisions, he said Chairman Prachanda's decision to close down the "people's courts" was not practical. ....... Maoist "battalion commissar" Sangam threatened the journalists, saying, "Think before writing news about the party (Maoists)". ...... The atrocities by the Maoists in Udayapur came a day after central leaders of Maoists apologized for the misbehavior meted out to journalists by their cadres on Sunday when Maoists did not allow journalists to cover the news of Baluwatar summit meeting
Maoist to investigate attack against GEFONT members
Maoist to investigate attack against GEFONT members
In Nepal, time to check the dangerous drift INSN Nepal’s political parties have begun to stumble in the final crucial laps with a needless controversy over the disposition of Maoist arms. ...... insisting on the surrender of arms before a political settlement was like putting the cart before the horse. ..... “Let us say they give up their weapons and then we fail to reach a political solution. It will not be difficult for them to pick up the gun again.”
Nepal: A people in transition Damn them, praise them, hate them or love them, the Maoists in Nepal are here to stay. .... We were greeted by a red arch of the communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) announcing the public meeting at Rajbiraj. There were many more all along the way as we travelled from Siraha to Rajbiraj, a distance of about 200 kms, on the Mahendra highway. We gave up counting after 27. ........ When we reached the town at around 10.30 am, it seemed as though it had been taken over by the Maoists. ...... Estimates of the crowd varied between 80,000 and 1,00,000, mostly from the surrounding villages. ..... Only three members of the Maoist negotiating team and 13 central committee (CC) members were authorised by the CPN (Maoist) to address public meetings. ...... The meeting was telecast live by Kantipur TV. In addition, loudspeakers had been put up throughout the town to enable others to hear the speeches. ....... Management and security at the meeting were provided by unarmed People’s Liberation Army (PLA) personnel and activists of the Madhesh Rashtriya Mukti Morcha (MRMM). The police and the Nepali army remained out of sight. This is how meetings are being organised by Maoists throughout Nepal including the one in Kathmandu on June 2, which drew, even opponents admit, six to seven lakh people. ........ people sat through the meeting, which lasted for nearly six hours. Speeches were heard in rapt silence ...... The speeches by two CC members of the CPN (Maoists), Maitrika Prasad Yadav and Gopal Kirati, were the longest and provided a detailed account of the Maoist perspective and touched on a number of issues, not just to do with the current situation but also how the Maoists view the national question (the right of self-determination), on which the Maoists promised self-rule in a federal structure. They spoke about ending feudalism and assured land redistribution (a rural land ceiling of 10 bighas and continuance of their land re-distribution programme). There was emphasis on changing the Madhesh women’s status in society, that they wanted them to be equal partners, and the party’s objective of equal representation for women. ....... Maitrika Prasad Yadav took up the issue of citizenship and the caste system, particularly the oppression of dalits. ...... Mahendra Paswan of MRMM, the wife of Ram Kumar Yadav (a popular teacher and peasant organiser in Madhesh) and Ram Raja Singh ....... a very large meeting, the largest in Rajbiraj in their memory ........ his party is convinced that one way to stem the possibility of degeneration of a revolutionary movement is through “competitive (pratispardha) politics”. ....... One remarkable thing among Maoist activists is the absence of an exaggerated assessment of their own strength. Will they win elections to the CA? The answer is that democratic republicanism will garner an overwhelming mandate. ....... “jan sabhas”, meetings of party members are taking place across Nepal to clear doubts, answer questions, including about the course adopted by the party ....... Badal has likened the present situation to the 1917 February revolution in Russia, but says that his party believes there has to be an October revolution. ...... What they caution against is any attempt at assassination of their leaders and penetration by unsavoury elements. ........ many in even the seven party alliance (SPA) acknowledge, albeit privately, that but for the PLA, the Palace-Army combine would have attempted a coup by now. ....... The question of merger/ de-commissioning is deferred to after the elections to the CA....... these meetings at Dang, Dhangadhi, Butwal, Biratnagar, Janakpur, Kanchanpur, Pokhara, Nepalgunj, etc, taken together, have attracted an audience of 80 lakh people! ........ no other party has so far been able to hold “jan sabhas” anywhere in Nepal. ...... when we pointedly asked the leaders of the nagarik andolan to list the mistakes of the Maoists, one referred to extortion, kidnapping, or misuse of people’s courts. ....... while even royalists today speak of a republic, a distinction between an anti-feudal republicanism and its upper class anti-land reform variant is necessary. ....... News stalls in the smallest town keep the Marxist classics and other books ...... in the last few years, the demand for Marxist literature appears to have become even more pronounced. Class analysis, class struggle and class-based politics are part of everyday conversation. ....... An eyewitness to a recent meeting between the acting prime minister of Nepal with US and Indian envoys said that the former was downright rude; he was sarcastic, and regarded the seven party alliance as gullible and warned that the US may withdraw economic aid in the event of the Maoists joining the interim government.
Streets of Baluwatar (4)
CPN(M): Proposal for Points of Agreement Between CPN(M) and Nepal Government
A Tale of Two Talks The main sticking points that have blocked a deal in the previous three rounds of talks in a week between Koirala and Prachanda were disputes over the disarming of the rebel army and the future of the monarchy ...... While preparations for the fourth round of talks between the government and CPN(M) were on, Koirala agreed to meet King’s emissary, his principal secretary, Pashupati Bhakta Maharjan, on Saturday (October 14). .... “the king’s contact with Koirala can affect the peace talks”. ..... “In a dramatic turn of events in recent weeks, Koirala, once a bitter critic of the king, and his Nepali Congress party, whose leaders have been frequently persecuted by the past kings, are now the sole defenders of monarchy, advocating retaining a ceremonial king for the sake of national unity. This has angered the Maoists, who have threatened to break off the talks and accused Koirala of conspiring with the palace. Even the other parties in the ruling alliance say they want a republic and are blaming Koirala and his party for the deadlock in peace talks over the issue of monarchy.”
Streets of Baluwatar (3)
Streets of Baluwatar (2)
In the streets of Baluwatar
Summit Meeting: Citizen’s Hope and Anticipation
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