Archive for September 2009
Nepal: Ripe for revolt
Maoist supporters rallied against the government on Saturday
There’s been so much news from Nepal in the past 48 hours I barely know where to begin! Since there’s so much of it it’s possible that I’ll give an incomplete view of some developments, but that’s probably unavoidable. Either way, there’s been a hell of a lot happening and it’s worth keeping up with it.
To start things off, Maoist cadres attacked Finance Minister Surendra Pandey, hurling stones at his car as he attended a function which they disrupted, raising black flags as a sign of protest. The attack was in response to remarks he made earlier in the day at the UML’s party convention. Apparently, he claimed that the Maoists will be unable to destabilise the government as it has earned the support of it’s coalition partners by making all the Madhesi party leaders government ministers, and he was reported as saying “Leave the issue of toppling the government. Homework is being carried out to make all the 26 parties participate in the government”. Considering how unstable a government made up of that many parties inevitably must be, and also considering the new developments in the internal struggle within the UML party (more on that later), this government is a weak and insecure one regardless of how many times it expands it cabinet.
The Maoist-affiliated All Nepal National Independent Student’s Union – Revolutionary (ANNISU-R) has declared an indefinite shutdown of all private “higher secondary” schools in Nepal. The ANNISU – R organises students in high schools as well as universities, and it’s candidates were elected to the leadership of student unions across Nepal recently. It is demanding an increased number of teachers be allocated to public schools rather than private ones, the domain of a privileged few. Read the rest of this entry »
Nepal’s Maobadi stress commitment to LGBT liberation
This news is espescially positive since there have been reports in the past of some members of the UCPN (M), including leading ones, making homophobic remarks. That said the Maoists have since shown in practice that this is a thing of the past – when in government they enacted progressive legislation in support of LGBT rights.As I wrote in January this year in my article “Nepal – A Revolution in Progress“;Despite the endless deadlocks caused by the resistance of its coalition partners, the Maoist government has still managed to enact some progressive social change. It has abolished slavery, banning the Haliya system of bonded agricultural labour.
It has also given formal recognition to Third Gender people, with a 21 year old lesbian woman receiving the first identity card stating her gender as “Third” in early September. This is an extremely radical move considering how dominated Nepal is by its feudal culture, with all the backward ideas that entails. Nepal’s first openly gay MP has been elected to the Constituent Assembly, representing a minor communist party separate from the Maoists. Despite the fact that he is not in the CPN (M), the conditions for his election only exist because of the new, revolutionary culture the Maoists are trying to create. Read the rest of this entry »
Prachanda: “If the mandate of the CA election is further ridiculed we will declare war”
Prachanda gave a speech at a book launching ceremony yesterday which from all accounts was pretty damn fiery. According to Telegraph Nepal, he stressed that the “The Constituent Assembly and the Peace Process are the offspring of the decade long revolt undertaken by the Maoists’ Party”, and stated that “if the constitution drafting process and the peace process were blocked, there will be yet another fierce revolt.”
The TN article was entitled “Fresh Nepal revolt may take toll of One Million”, a rather suspect move on their part. They obviously lifted a single line from his speech (quoted in the article) in which he noted that a revolutionary seizure of power by the masses would result in many deaths. The way the title is worded implies that Prachanda is callously playing with the lives of people and indeed delights in their possible deaths, but his actual words tell a different story. Read the rest of this entry »
Confirmed: Maoist parallel government has been revived
The reports were accurate, and in fact the Maoists now appear to have gone well beyond just forming a “Shadow Cabinet” that mimics the form of the government. If this report is accurate, they have explicitly and openly begun to reform the parallel government and reestablish (openly, it’s naive to think it ever totally stopped) revolutionary participatory democracy throughout the country.
The background to this is the failure of both the Maoist-led government and the current government to set up local administrative councils in Nepal. Read the rest of this entry »
Maoists form parallel government in Nepal!
An office of the old United People's Revolutionary Council, the original parallel state of the CPN (M)
The exact details of this are not clear as of yet, but it now appears that once agin there are not just two armies in Nepal, but two governments as well. Big development!
Maoists form ‘Shadow Cabinet’
| Monday, 31 August 2009 09:59 |
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The Unified CPN (Maoist) has formed 18 departments resembling the ministries of the government. A meeting of the party’s Joint National People’s Movement Committee on Sunday formed the departments. Many of the departments are coordinated by party leaders who were ministers in related ministries in the Maoist-led government. Dr Baburam Bhattarai, who was the finance minister in the previous government, is the coordinator of the Planning and Finance Department. Likewise, Giriraj Mani Pokhrel, the former health minister coordinates the health department and former tourism minister Hisila Yami coordinates the tourism, physical infrastructure and science department. Along with the central departments, the Maoists have also decided to form local bodies. Read the rest of this entry » |
