On the 1st of February 2005, the king of Nepal, Gyanendra Bikram Shah, who had acceded to the throne in June 2001 under cover of the massacre of the royal family by his nephew Dipendra, declared a state of emergency in the small Himalayan kingdom. For a few days, the country was cut off from the world, the telephone and air connections interrupted. The Prime Minister’s government Sher Bahadur Deuba was dismissed, the heads of the main political parties put under arrest, hundreds of militants imprisoned. The democratic liberties were deferred, the free press gagged. According to the royal declaration, the objective of these measures was to « save the democracy», eliminate a notoriously corrupted ministerial team and restore civil peace in the country after nine years of Maoist insurrection.
The king’s hostile takeover was relatively well received by the working class and the middle class, indignated by the corruption of political men from the parties, as well as by the blockade and the Maoists’ and their sympathizers’ endless strikes. On the other hand it was very badly received by the international community, especially India and the United States. These two countries interrupted (at least officially) their arms supply to the Himalayan Kingdom until the restoration of democracy there. The countries of the European Community also protested against this act of royal absolutism. Only China and Pakistan stayed away from this tumult. The state of emergency was lifted almost three months later, on 30th April 2005. The freedom of press is however far from being totally restored and many political militants remain imprisoned. His Majesty’s Government (HMG) still rules only in the Katmandu valley and the administrative centers of the districts. The rest, i.e. the major part of the rural areas, is still subjected to at least a partial control of the Maoist insurgents.
This episode is only one of the several recent signs of the royal family’s will to regain control over the country to curb a political crisis that got considerably worse during the last few years. Since 1996, beginning of Maoist insurrection in the hills of western Nepal, three forces in fact share the power: 1°)- the political parties originating from the 1990 democratic restoration and the elections that followed, Congress and communist parties in the lead, 2°)- the royal power which in the previous period (1960-1990, Panchayat regime) has taken command of the country, 3°)- the Maoist guerillas, in favour of the armed violence to form a republic, with Baburam Bhattarai and Pushpa Dahal, called « Prachanda » at their head, who are against one another lately.
Who are these guerillas? Where do they come from? What sustains them? The Nepalese-Maoist Communist party (PCM-M) results from a split of the Nepalese Communist party. It advocates setting up of a people’s democracy in Nepal, abolition of the royalty and repeal of the treaties with India. Ideologically, this ever-changing revolutionary scene is straight from the Indian naxalism, which is also born out of successive ruptures within the Communist parties. Militarily, one estimates its operational force at about 10,000 men, more or less well-armed. But this People’s Liberation Army also has a militia and a strong network of sympathizers scattered in the major part of the country, which doubles, indeed triples its number. The movement seems to be particularly active among the young educated people. The word got around in the villages that the Maoist troupes were above all completely filled in by the failed SSLC candidates (Secondary School Leaving Certificate, after about ten years of study). It is influential within certain tribal groups (Magar in the West, Tamang and Thangmi in the East) as well as among the Dalits who form a particularly disadvantaged group of the population. The women form significant part of the movement. The managing cadre, to a large extent comprising of the Brahmin caste, is more often former school teachers and professors. The deep root of the insurrection however ought to be looked for in the big state of poverty of Nepal, generalized corruption, incapacity of the political parties to respond to the needs of the people in the years that followed the setting up of the democracy in 1990 and failure of the transfer policy of the international aid towards the most underprivileged regions of the country.
This movement is supported officially neither by China nor India. The two super-power neighbors have condemned the methods and the objectives of the insurgents several times. China does not favor the setting-up of a movement in its frontiers that threatens the stability of the region and that proclaims an ideology (Mao Zedong’s) from which it has turned away. India for its part worries about an armed revolutionary arc already very active in its territory (Bihar, Jharkhand, Assam and Andhra Pradesh) and whose connections with the Nepalese guerillas are well established. The Nepalese army however reproaches its Southern neighbor for being used as a rear base for the rebels. Regular back and forth movements of the activists are confirmed across the border. The Indian security forces have recently reacted by strengthening their control in the 1750 km of borders (sometimes in zones with poor security). To get themselves armed and subsist, the Maoists in fact count on three sources: the support coming from « brother» revolutionary parties of South Asia which pass by India, « the revolutionary tax» set up on a large part of the Nepalese territory, finally the attacks against the banks.
From 1996 to 2001, the Maoist rebellion was a massive success. Without experiencing any resistance, it managed to lead large-scale military operations against police stations and made a name for itself in most parts of the country, to the point of completely controlling certain districts. The absence of reaction and procrastination of King Birendra before the rise in power of the insurrection have not stopped to raise comments… The Maoists took advantage of it in all the cases to stretch their sphere of activity everywhere they could and by applying their program here and there: debt cancellation, distribution of lands, setting-up revolutionary courts and educational programs catering to their propaganda in the schools. According to some people (especially sophisticated elite), they ended up by representing a credible alternative for political parties and the royalty. King Gyanendra’s accession to the throne in 2001 marked a radical political change. The new king, younger brother of the late king, mobilized the army against the insurgents and devoted himself to reduce the activities of the political parties, some of which behaved as objective allies of the insurrection.
This civil war has killed till now at least 11 000 people and left thousands wounded. It has paralyzed the country, its economy, the development programs and projects. It has brought about the displacement of thousands of people (about 100 000), as well as an unprecedented increase in emigration, especially of men, from the areas of the hills hit by the conflict to the Southern plains and the Kathmandu Valley, the latter striving to become a huge refugee camp. Generally speaking, the Nepalese population (25 millions today) finds itself caught in a crossfire: it is the hostage of the Maoist terror on one hand, that asserts itself by making threats, but it is also subjected to acts of violence and brutalities of the Nepalese security forces, hardly inclined to establish a clear separation between Maoists and the villagers under their influence. As in any military conflict, the press suffers from the situation and the democratic institutions do not function freely anymore: there were no elections in the country since 1999 and one cannot see well how elections could be held in the current situation.
It seems to be imperative to rule out any military solution, at least short time. Of course, the security forces (some 150 000 persons, police and army taken together) have achieved some successes here and there, they seem to be better organized, better equipped, and better armed than four years ago. But their capacities of intervention remain still restricted to a small over trained elite. A large part of the army remains confined to its barracks. The Maoists, on their side, show signs of running out of steam and division. They don’t have the offensive and restrict their actions to ambushes and targeted assassinations of representatives of power that is. More serious: they have lost one part of their support with the farmers of the hillside areas, indignated by the summary executions and the massacres of civilians, often women and children. The People’s Liberation Army is however still quite strong to paralyze the routes of Nepal and cut the main commercial axes with India, vital for the national economy. The very mountainous landscape of the country, the difficulties of quick intervention from one place to another, except by helicopter (the army has only about twenty, of which all are not operational), are still its best assets in this conflict. |
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30/12/14
from 01/04/12 to 31/03/13
