Posts Tagged ‘Nepal’
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. This marks a clearly identifiable point at which the UCPN (M) and it’s leaders have decided to take an action that does appear (to my admittedly far from expert eye) to be in violation of the peace accords. The peace accords are already in tatters of course, and have been broken several times by the military before this, notably with their recruitment of new soldiers, and therefore nobody can accuse the Maoists of “starting it”, but it’s a very significant development nonetheless. 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 » |
Nepal Army General: Army integration will not happen
Well, surprise surprise, leading figures in the reactionary Nepal Army have come out with a clear statement saying they will not allow army integration to happen. A major part of the peace accords between the Nepali state and the Maoists was the integration of the People’s Liberation Army and the reactionary army. The Maoist’s intention with doing this is to “democratise” the Nepal Army, and “professionalise” the PLA. This is a bold proposal that carries both great dangers and great potential benefits – if the Nepal Army is flooded with passionate, commited revolutionary fighters it will at the very least make it extremely difficult for the military to move against the Maoist Party and could conceivably split the army or take it over entirely. History shows that the army of a reactionary state tends to split during a time of revolutionary crisis. Read the rest of this entry »
UNMIN says PLA breached peace accords, Maoists allege conspiracy against peace
Well, the UN Mssion in Nepal is denying it gave the PLA fighters permission to leave the cantonments, and has instead called them a breach of the peace accords. The Maoists have claimed and as far as I’m aware continue to claim they had the UNMIN’s permission to leave the cantonments, so the situation’s obviously a tad messy.
Meanwhile Prachanda has expressed “bewilderment” over the issue.
Chairman Dahal said some parties are concocting plots to drive the Maoists out of the peace process.
Claiming the detention of Maoist People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in Kapilvastu with weapons being an example of the conspiracy, Dahal argued that the UN body said nothing when he was travelling from the east in a vehicle belonging to the cantonment.
“I don’t understood where the gap is this time around?” Dahal expressed his bewilderment at the UNMIN’s criticism of the Kapilvastu incident. Read the rest of this entry »
India wants to crush Nepal’s Maobadi
Prachanda faces down the Indian bull, while the army commander and President Yadav prepare to murder the infant republic
In the past few days I’ve mentioned a UML leader called Khanal, currently Chairman of the party. The Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist), a revisionist group, is currently going through major internal turmoil that may lead to a split. Khanal is seen by many as being friendlier towards the Maoists than the other big name in the UML, a man named Oli, who is seen as being more friendly towards India than Khanal. The Prime Minister of Nepal’s precarious government coalition, Madhav Nepal, is also from the UML, but has recieved little mention in the reports of these struggles.
Now Khanal has come out with some sensational statements. He claims that Indian officials advised him last week to “take repressive measures against the Maoists”, telling him “we are ready to supply weapons, you go ahead with the plan”. Khanal went on to say that “they have been advising leaders of other parties to take repressive measures against the Maoists”. Khanal said he “did not accept their advice”. Read the rest of this entry »
Update on arrested PLA fighters
New details have emerged about the arrested group of PLA fighters caught by the police carrying weapons outside the cantonment. This report says nineteen were arrested (previous reports said twenty two), and has specified the number and type of weapons captured. A PLA officer from the cantonment the arrested fighters came from has come out and said that they had left the cantonment “to provide security to party Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal” and that they “were returning to the camp as per the directive of the party leadership”. He denied that this goes against the peace process in Nepal.
Meanwhile, a UCPN (M) leader called Barsaman Pun is claiming that the PLA fighters had permission from the United Nations Mission In Nepal (UNMIN), the UN body set up to oversee the peace process and monitor the situation on both sides. Frankly this seems pretty implausible to me. It’s doubtful the UNMIN would approve any such request, and even if they did it’s highly unlikely they would do so without informing the Nepali government and police forces! If the UNMINdid approve this, it’s going to make it even more unpopular amongst the reactionary forces in Nepal, who are already anoyed with what they see as it’s overly soft approach to the Maoists and the PLA.
It appears the PLA fighters were not captured as such – there was a standoff between them and armed police and they willingly chose to allow themselves to be arrested peacefully in order to avoid a gun battle which could well have totally derailed an already tenuous peace process. Read the rest of this entry »
PLA soldiers arrested outside of cantonments!
Women and men fight for freedom together in the PLA
There’s been reports over the past week or two that the People’s Liberation Army is on high alert, that “guerrilla warfare has dominated the regular exercise session inside the camp” and that according to a PLA Division Commander the Maoist army’s “battle-hardened combatants are prepared for another war for the sake of transformation.”
And now, in the midst of numerous references by Maoist leaders to an impending’People’s Revolt’, about 22 armed PLA fighters have been arrested by armed police while travelling east from their cantonment. The fighters had assault rifles and other ‘modern weaponry’ in their possession.
Under the peace treaty signed in 2006, the PLA fighters are not permitted to leave their cantonments. The only question remaining then is whether or not the Maoist party leadership knew of and ordered this. It’s possible they may deny it to save face, but considering the tight control the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) has had over it’s armed wing in the past it seems unlikely this was an action by rogue elements. Read the rest of this entry »
Maoists threaten People’s Revolt in Nepal
Things are really heating up in Nepal at the moment. Obviously all of this is taken from the bourgeois media after being translated from Nepali into English, and should therefore be taken with a shitload of salt, but it’s worth paying attention too nonetheless.
The Maoists, as part of the ongoing nationwide protest movement, are currently holding a series of ‘Training Programs’ around the country to prepare the party cadres for revolt. The Nepali media have reported that “Dahal urged all the participants to be mentally prepared if they would be wage another people’s war in the country“, and that Maoist leaders are currently carrying out “preparation for the people’s revolt”.
Over the past week there have been more media reports of senior Maoist leaders talking about launching a revolt and capturing the state than there have been in the past few months. Prachanda himself has come out with such statements several times, the Chief Whip of their CA representatives has said it, the leader of the Party in Kathmandu… etc etc. At the same time as this has been happening there’s been a noticeable increase in tension and conflict between the Maoists and everyone else over the issue of army integration – the Maoists demanding it more and more stridently, and the other parties saying just as loudly that it ain’t going to happen. India has weighed in with statements that the Nepali army shouldn’t take ‘politicised’ fighters into it’s ranks, which is obviously a big deal. Army integration is the biggest political issue in Nepal at the moment, along with all the issues that flow from it such as the military not operating under civilian control. Read the rest of this entry »
