Nepal: Mayday with the Maoists

I didn't come to Kathmandu to investigate the Maoist rebellion or the birth pangs of a new republic, but to renew my Indian visa and spend a few days in the cool air of the Himalaya. I've been reading the local English language newspapers since arriving last week (my favorite article so far was a sarcastic put-down of the US ambassador for characterizing GW Bush as one of the global giants of environmentalism). The amount of Maoist activity they describe is surprising, particularly the "bandhs", or strikes, called by the rural Maoists that have effectively closed the rest of the country off from Kathmandu. The lead article in the Kathmandu Post on Saturday was an interview with the leader of the Maoists, now part of the interim government. He was clear in his demand - the interim government must declare Nepal a republic by May 15, or there will be consequences for Nepal's recent peaceful facade.

This morning I noticed, in passing, that it was May 1st. Hmm.  Mayday. Maoists. It could be interesting, I mentioned to my wife.  

I've been aware of the problems in Nepal for quite some time. My wife and I first visited the mountain kingdom in 2001, just months after the entire royal family, with the exception of the King's brother, were gunned down in highly suspicious circumstances. The "official" story eventually became that a love-sick prince had, at a large celebration, killed his parents, siblings and assembled relatives and then himself because he wasn't being allowed to marry the woman of his choice. The only member of the family not present at the celebration became the new King. Conspiracy theories spring from less, but the people of Nepal seemed willing to accept the official version.

Despite the palace intrigue, our visit was amazingly free of difficulty.  We toured and trekked and moved on after a month. The stories of the Maoist insurrection in the villages seemed very far away as we dined in Thamel (the tourist section of Kathmandu) and trekked part of the Annapurna circuit.

Within a couple of years the situation in Nepal worsened, with the King eventually disbanding the legislature and assuming all power. Big mistake. This eventually led to an alliance between the Maoists and the displaced forces of democracy, which in turn led to enought unrest that the King backed down. It was approximately a year ago that the interim government, with a large representation by the Maoists, took power with the charter to plan for the birth of a republic.

Back to the present. The talk in India this year has been the re-opening of Nepal, and it's confirmed by the crowds of rich westerners thronging the streets of Thamel. The shops are doing good business and the restaurants are full of steak-eating (in a Hindu country) trekkers. But everyday a new story in the paper... businessmen being assessed "special" taxes by armed Maoist youths, road closures (by the Maoists) on the way to Kathmandu to protest police actions elsewhere, beatings and even special license plates some of the Maoists are using on their vehicles. The government, and the people, seemed paralyzed by fear of the mostly young (and angry) "reds", and no one seems willing or able to exert any control.

Mayday. During breakfast we saw a small group of slogan-chanting, red-flag-waving marchers skirt the edge of Thamel. I foolishly thought that was the end of it. We decided to go to Durbar Square for the day and were convinced by a bicycle-rickshaw driver to go with him - he wanted the business worse than the taxi driver, and even though it would cost us more to be conveyed by pedal power, while sitting in the hot sun on a slow journey, we couldn't resist his near pleading.

About 5 minutes out of Thamel we noticed a handful of red-flag-waving youths stopping and turning around traffic from the opposing direction. It was odd watching the hardened (and older) taxi drivers taking immediate instruction from the youths in rags. All vehicles turned around as soon as they were told, with no argument. Our rickshaw was passed through, as we seemed to be going in the direction they wanted us to go.

As we approached the first major intersection we could see quite a few red headbands and flags, and four of them came running up and stopped our rickshaw. They were angry and obviously drunk with power.  One of them did most of the talking (yelling, actually), all of it to the rickshaw man. None of the Maoists even looked at my wife or I (surprising but appreciated - we seemed like excellent targets for angry young Reds, being carried along like colonials by the labor of another - an issue any fair-minded person fights with in Asia. Is it better to be politically correct or feed the rickshaw driver's family? I waver.).

After a few minutes of watching from above, while the young Maoists refused to let the rickshaw either continue on or go back, my wife and I hopped down and started walking back toward our hotel. Before long we saw why the traffic was being diverted - thousands of red-flagged and headbanded marchers were coming our way on the narrow street. We pressed ourselves against the wall and watched them go by for about half and hour.

Most of the marchers were having a great time - many looked drunk. I spotted "Eminem" and "Fitty Cent" t-shirts along with many other examples of American cultural hegemony. Mixed into the mostly male crowd were a few women. Most of the crowd seemed benign - except the stick wielders. Every few yards there were men, usually young and usually angry looking, walking along with sticks they used to clear the way or nudge the marchers along. They were scary, actually. One of them looked at my wife and I with pure malevolence as he passed. I couldn't resist meeting his stare - I hoped my expression was loving and accepting. He held my gaze until he was well past us.

After waiting out the march we slowly walked back to Thamel. Along the way we saw some shopkeepers hanging royalist flags over the street - bravely done, coming 45 minutes after the march had passed. I tried asking some of the shopkeepers about the march and the Maoists in general but they all seemed very reluctantnt to say anything. "Too dangerous" is all I could get out of one of them.

We'll be out of the country (if the Maoists let the loads open) before May 15, the date when the Maoist's leader has insisted upon the declaration of a republic "or else" (my translation, not his words). In general my sympathies are with the rural poor and trade unionists who make up the majority of the Maoist movement - the monarchy has not served the people of Nepal and what I'm witnessing are the results of generations of unfair treatment. I have no position on the economic policies being espoused by the Maoists in Nepal - I haven't done the research to know what they demand, other than the end of the monarchy, and I can certainly support that.

No matter what your politics, though, you better keep an eye on the situation if you or anyone you know is planning a trip to Nepal this summer. I'm not so sure it's all as settled as the tourist agents might have you believe.

•  It's the middle of the night at home...

  ...but I wanted to get this down while it was fresh. Thanks for reading such a long report.

  by sfgary on Tue May 01, 2007 at 01:49:23 AM PDT

  •  i studied abroad in nepal

    in spring of '97, when this stuff was simmering, but before the shit hit the fan. the maoists faced down some pretty hard repression between then and now, and i'm not surprised they're fearless and angry.

    i hope the people of nepal end up with a stable, democratic and just government, when this is said and done.

    by wu ming on Tue May 01, 2007 at 02:56:43 AM PDT

  •  In Defense of the Maoists

    I appreciate diaries like this that give us a little windown into another part of the world. I've never been to Nepal and so I appreciate anything that conveys the flavor.

    That said, I am distressed by the casual willingness of people from rich countries (rich in part because of their exploitation of poor countries like Nepal) to pronounce on the merits of revolutionary movements of the poor.

    The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) enjoys massive support among huge swathes of Nepal's poor because they have aggressively fought against the whole package of feudal arrangements that keep them down. Do they have their failings? Sure, but those should always be examined within the broader context of Nepali society and politics. The Nepali people must choose between the actual options on the table. The monarchy and old parliamentary parties have demonstrated their bankruptcy. The Maoists led the fight to establish a democratic multi-party republic. Their insurgency opened up the space in which all the forces were able to come forward. They have an ambitious program to transform a truly wretched social system and frankly deserve our sympathy and support. Nobody else is offering anything better (not least India and the U.S. who have sought to bolster the brutal and corrupt former royal army).

    It is worth noting as well that the Maoists in Nepal have been publicly very critical of what they see as the anti-democratic errors of the communist-led revolutons of the 20th century. In contrast to most communist parties around the world the CPN(M) is open about differences of opinion within its leadership. They have also argued for the need for genuine multi-party democracy as a check against the  bureaucratic and authoritarian turns taken by previous revolutions.

    by Christopher Day on Tue May 01, 2007 at 07:30:51 AM PDT

    •  I'm afraid we see different Maoists.

      The ones I see, even now, post cease-fire, beat the crap out of local level political leaders trying to campaign or even educate the people on what a Constituent Assembly means, attack the rallies of opposition parties, and refuse to allow other political forces to exercise any democratic rights at all.  They storm the podium in parliament at the drop of a hat now that they're in there, the leader just got caught driving a vehicle they boosted from some businessman and put falsified plates on, and they parade up and down my street wearing cute little matching t-shirts that say, I kid you not - "raider commando" with sticks in their hands in groups of 60 hard-faced youth, demanding "voluntary" donations.  When they came to my house and I declined to 'volunteer' I was told ominously they would "remember who were our friends and who were not".  

      This is not support for multi-party democracy in practice at all - it's simple lip service for political expediency.  Something chairman Prachanda has openly said is part of their strategy to win by another means, and then implement their agenda, whether it's what the people want or not.  They, after all, know best what the people should want if they are not enemies of the people.  They use the same lip service in preaching radical communist ideology to the masses at a group meeting, and then in the afternoon having dinner with the business community and assuring them of their support for capitalism and the private property rights they spent the morning decrying and promising to strip from people.  The biggest thing to understand here is that no one sees anything wrong with a leader like Prachanda (or Koirala for that matter) telling two diametrically opposing things to two different groups of people, because no one believes they're telling the truth anyway.  The cynicism is incredible (and justifed for the most part).

      I think there's a disturbing willingness among some on the left to glorify revolutionary groups in the name of 'the people' and as answers - maybe seeming to promise the most immediate route out of poverty and disenfranchisement - but at the cost of turning a blind eye to their own feudalistic or dictatorial tendencies.  These folks are a heck of a lot closer to Pol Pot in their practices than they are to the kind of revolutionary many of us could support.  There's a chill that comes over me whenever I hear Chairman Prachanda talk about "necessary casualties" and "unfortunate costs" to his revolution.  But then, I know a woman whose brother was hacked into several not so large pieces in front of his wife, children, and the entire village (the better to terrify them into compliance) for the sin of opposing the Maoists' kidnapping of the schoolchildren he was responsible for for political indoctrination and bomb-making classes.  And I could tell many other stories as well, including of a woman teacher friend shot down on the streets of Kathmandu while walking one morning.  Or another friend whose 70 year old ill father was bused in under threat of death to participate as a volunteer (one per household doncha know!) in the People's Movement last year, leaving his even more weak wife alone to manage their small farm.  These things may have somewhat colored my willigness to see them as legitimate, moral, fighters for "the people".

      I also very much dispute that the majority of the people support them.  They did at one point before the revolution turned brutal.  Some still do, but in a feudalistic, let's follow the one promising us the most for nothing, and promising to get even with the ones who have more sort of mindset that really needs to change.  But the majority of the people I talk to - the poor, inside and outside Kathmandu valley - do  not support them, but see them as a very large threat to the democratic processes recently restored.  And are not just a little bit scared shitless of them.  With good reason.  They just want peace.  That's all.  Peace.

      by American in Kathmandu on Tue May 01, 2007 at 08:04:42 AM PDT

      •  Thank You for your reaonable assessment

        You are quite accurate in your assessment of the Post-Colonial mess that Nepal is, and equally so in taking Western Liberals to task for uncritical (or shall we say ingnorant) acceptance of Nepalese Maoists as a popular movement.

        I hesitate to compare them to the Shining Path, but the situation does have some instructive parallels.

        It's a tragedy Nepal, with such a rich culture and proud people, should face such a difficult transition that the best alternative is the loweest common denominator, an angry mob of adolecent solders mislead by the politically corrupt.

        Sadly, this is a process destined to run it's course in the absence of international attention. Nepal is simply too small and too surrounded by regional powers to be otherwise.

        by koNko on Wed May 02, 2007 at 03:36:26 AM PDT

    •  I make no pronouncements on the merits

      I might come from a rich country, but my observations were about what I'm seeing and reading here. As I said at the end of the diary I'm sympathetic to the movement.  That doesn't make the aggression of youthful adherents right or pleasant, though.

      Or maybe it does - but it is what it is and I'd rather not be in the middle of it.

      by sfgary on Tue May 01, 2007 at 09:20:47 PM PDT

      •  I think many are..

        My dilemma is similar perhaps to yours.  I'm not only sympathetic, but in agreement with much of what they have to say - their diagnoses of the problems that plague Nepal, and with much of their social agenda.  I think the majority of the Nepali people would agree, and that's part of the reason even much of the elite inteligentsia supported them initially.  (Their economic program is another matter - if it's what they proposed initially it would be disastrous - massive collectivization of agriculture, stripping of property rights, sealing of borders with India, focus on self-sufficiency and primary agriculture.  They're hinting at a more moderate mixed system now, but haven't yet been able to articulate what that means though goodness knows they've had more than a decade of war to figure out what they want to do, one would think.)

        My main issue is with their brutality and tactics.  And with their commitment to democracy which I believe is very much in doubt.  They do not tolerate dissent.  They do not believe in, nor follow, the rule of law, even at the top levels.  While they decry the corruption and moral decay of other political leaders, their own behavior is no different. And some are dismayed by the hypocrisy of the leader of the movement driving around in expensive cars, Rolex on arm, and sending his daughter to a private expensive university abroad while demanding all private schools be closed in Nepal.  I suppose one can take some comfort in the possibility (as many do) that being in power now will lead to them becoming just another politician as corrupt and venal as the others, but unlikely to forsake the comforts of donorsponsored training programs abroad, power and prestige and graft opportunities galore to go back to the jungles.  Some consolation.  My biggest problem remains the threat of violence, always violence - at the drop of a hat - to achieve their aims.  Peruse a newspaper from today - like this one:

        http://nepalitimes.com/...

        and the stories of beatings, intimidation, kidnapping for ransom, forced donations, and thrashing of political opponents abound.  A celebration of Democracy Day a few days ago was marked by their followers hurling objects at another political leader who was trying to address -- not a royalist, mind you, but a Nepali Congress member of the current government that the Maoists have joined in alliance with.

        This patterm is greatly concerning and gives credence to those who take seriously the Chairman's words to his cadre that joining the government and Parliament was simply a maneuver to take power by another means, but that they will take power - even if they have to scare the crap out of people to vote for them or suffer the 'consequences'.  And if the election still doesn't go in their favor, back to armed warfare they'll go, because what the people want is really not all that important to them.  I don't know that it's likely, but I can't say it's not either.  I find it all very worrying.

        by American in Kathmandu on Wed May 02, 2007 at 03:43:14 AM PDT

        •  sorry about the strikethrough

          don't know how that happened, lol.

          by American in Kathmandu on Wed May 02, 2007 at 03:44:53 AM PDT

•  Thanks for posting this!

  It was a vivid and accurate snapshot of what Kathmandu looked like today.

  My sympathies are with the poor in Nepal as well.  I agree they have been poorly served by their leaders - whether monarchs or politicians.  I however hold absolutely zero confidence in the Maoists ability or even willingness to behave any differently, except perhaps in being even more brutal.  Just yesterday a gang of Maoist thugs was terrorizing shopkeepers on my street for "voluntary" donations - money they could hardly afford to give.  Very democratic and enlightened of them, don't you think?  Their behavior has not changed since joining Parliament and government.  How anyone thinks free and fair elections - without fear of intimidation - is possible in this climate is beyond me.  Instead these "pro-people" thugs continue their tactics of intimdation, violence, and, while better than guns, we get to see the spectacle of women cadre of two political parties brawling on college campuses, and witness countless other instances of attempts to use force to accomplish their objectives.

  One small quibble - drives me nuts when people - even the NYTimes - say the king dismissed the Parliament.  While technically true - as it would be if Queen Elizabeth did so in England - at that particular moment (though not afterwards) King Gyanendra was acting as a constitutional monarch - simply giving his assent to the recommendation of the last democratically elected PM's (Deuba) request that parliament be dissolved, as was his right (as stupid a move as it was).  The only reason this even happened was so he didn't lose a no-confidence motion and be ousted in favor of our almost current PM, Koirala, who was his mentor until the party split.  

  The drama of watching the two main opposition parties refuse to protest this, in hopes of getting the big chair themselves, and, if rumor has it, even putting Deuba up to it, and, later, the King up to firing him, could only happen in a place like this.  Nothing is ever as it seems, and politics is a game, to be played for power, and with very little regard for the welfare of Nepal's people, its economy, or even its democracy.  While the King bears a great deal of responsibility for the democratic crisis that unfolded, in my personal view, at LEAST equal blame accrues to their corrupt political party leaders who wantonly squandered their democratic political system all in an attempt to seize and hold power for themselves.  They were truly shameless.  

  The Nepali people deserve far better.  But the Maoists are not it.  In my personal view of course.

  Thank you again for such a vividly written and fascinating eyewitness account - I hope many see it and catch the flavor of the mood on the street, which I think you portrayed beautifully!

  by American in Kathmandu on Tue May 01, 2007 at 03:02:04 AM PDT

  •  thank you

    I appreciate the new info on the dismissal of parliament - as I understand it the PM was a piece of work...

    On another note, I saw the US embassy staff partying it up at New Orleans last night. I'm glad I didn't have any business there this morning...

    by sfgary on Tue May 01, 2007 at 07:13:05 AM PDT

    •  oh dear...

      I hear stories from my kids, but I'm not associated, and am too old to be out partying in Thamel, lol.

      by American in Kathmandu on Tue May 01, 2007 at 08:08:24 AM PDT

•  Whole new meaning....

  to that old Bob Seger song, eh?

  [Note: abbreviated, low tech version for that kind-of-scary, for-the-masses, "bootleg" sort of appeal...]

  by Immigrant Punk on Tue May 01, 2007 at 03:57:34 AM PDT

  •  lol

    You do, actually, still see Bob Seger on t-shirts around town, lol.

    These days it's not the same as what it seems to have been like in the 60s or 70s, but there are still lots of young tourists who hang out in Thamel - more Europeans and Israeli, it seems, than Americans.  But I think in general the tourists these days come more for the cultural and spiritual elements you can find here.  And the trekking in the gorgeous Himalayas, of course!

    by American in Kathmandu on Tue May 01, 2007 at 04:02:28 AM PDT

•  Thanks for posting this

  Glad it was 'rescued,' or I would have missed it.

  My wife and I were in Nepal twice, in 1998 and 2000, so it's good to get an on-the-scene update.  I know I we long to visit again.

  I have very mixed feelings about the Maoists.  Though I certainly want to see economic and social justice for the people of Nepal, I'm wary of the narrow dogma of the Maoists and the violence with which they can enforce it.  They remind me very much of the Sendero Luminoso of Peru, with all the violence and chaos they caused there (I visited Peru in 1982 and again in 1988, the height of the Sendero violence.)

  by DebtorsPrison on Tue May 01, 2007 at 08:32:05 PM PDT

  •  they probably remind you of them

    because that movement was their role model, including the initial tactics of control the countryside and strangle the cities.  The similarities have been noted by many conflict experts (including those none too enchanted with the current or past political set ups).  It was an astute observation.

    by American in Kathmandu on Wed May 02, 2007 at 03:24:34 AM PDT

•  Great post

  I'm going to be doing a "MayDay in Review" follow-up to my MayDay Preview posts over at The Agitator and I'll definitely include a link to this report of yours!

  by ActivistGuy on Tue May 01, 2007 at 09:08:10 PM PDT

  •  thank you for reading

    I'm really quite grateful to have been caught up in the march (once was enough, though). I wanted to take pictures but my wife refused to give me the camera - probably wise, but there were some great scenes.

    by sfgary on Tue May 01, 2007 at 09:24:28 PM PDT

•  "American Innocents Abroad" n/t

  by koNko on Wed May 02, 2007 at 03:20:00 AM PDT