Revolutionary Autonomous Region Declared in Western Nepal --RW\/OR ONLINE\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/p>
From A World to Win News Service<\/p>\r\nRevolutionary Autonomous Region Declared in Western Nepal\r\n
Revolutionary Worker #1227, February 1, 2004<\/i>, posted at rwor.org<\/p>\r\n<\/i>
We received the following from A World to Win News Service.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
January 19, 2004. A World to Win News Service.<\/i> In an enormous step toward the \r\nemancipation of all of Nepal, the people of the Magar region in the western part of the country have \r\nestablished their own revolutionary autonomous regional government. The Magar people are a minority \r\nnationality who have been oppressed and without political power since Prithur Narayan Shah conquered \r\nthem and Nepal's other minority peoples--who together make up the majority of Nepalese--when he led the \r\nviolent unification of Nepal in 1768.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
The Magar Autonomous Region was announced on January 9, 2004, amid a gathering of 75,000 \r\npeople of that region. A convention held on the 7th and 8th of January of the 130 representatives of the \r\nMagar Autonomous Region elected a 27-member Working Committee.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
The People's War led by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) has inflicted severe defeats on the \r\narmed forces of the monarchy, making it possible for the people of much of rural Nepal to seize political \r\npower and set up their own ruling United People's Committees. CPN(M) policy is to fight for a country-\r\nwide united government of anti-feudal and anti-imperialist patriotic forces, within which the oppressed \r\nnationalities will have the right of self determination.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Comrade Prachanda, chairman of the CPN(M) and supreme commander of the People's Liberation \r\nArmy, and comrade Baburam Bhattarai, the convenor of the United People's Revolutionary Council (the \r\nembryo of the future Nepal-wide revolutionary government) sent their greetings to this mass assembly. \r\nComrade Diwakar, a member of the standing committee of the CPN (Maoist), Comrade Krishna Bhadur \r\nMahara and Comrade Ravani of the Maoist revolutionary movement of India delivered speeches to this \r\nevent in person.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
According to a report on the Nepali Maoist website Krishnasen Sambad Samiti, the village of \r\nThawang in Rolpa district was specially decorated for the event. Welcome gates were set up to greet the \r\nrepresentatives and delegates coming from different parts of the region and the country. The surrounding \r\nhills were decked with communist red flags.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Thawang is the village where in 1980 the people completely boycotted elections and all the ballot \r\nboxes were turned in empty. This was on the call of the forerunner of the CPN (Maoist), the Communist \r\nParty of Nepal Mashal, which appealed to the people to oppose the elections to the local councils (called \r\nPanchayats) run by feudal notables under the authority of the king. Right after the boycott, the Royal Army \r\ncame to the village and destroyed it. The Maoist people of Thawang stood firm on their commitment. This \r\ngreat revolutionary beacon encouraged people throughout the country to stand up for the complete \r\ndestruction of the reactionary system and fight for a New Democratic Society as part of the advance to \r\nsocialism and eventually communism, a world without classes or any form of oppression. Thus this village \r\nremained the center of gravity of the Maoist revolutionary movement in Nepal. Since the initiation of the \r\npeople's war on 13 February 1996, the revolutionary masses of Thawang have been a firm pillar of \r\nrevolution. Despite the destruction of village and several subsequent Royal Army operations with horrible \r\natrocities, this village has remained an inspiration to the Magar region and the whole country. Now it has \r\nbeen the historic site of the declaration of the autonomous government of the Magar community.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Nepal is a multinational, multilingual country dominated by the Brahmin and Chhetrie castes since \r\nthe country's forcible unification. Nepalese society was united under the feudal centralized monarchical \r\nregime not through fraternal harmony among the people, but through suppression, repression and \r\ndiscrimination. The real unity of the people can only be achieved through revolution to smash these chains, \r\nmake people politically sovereign and thus pave the way for economic and cultural development.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Because this step was taken as part of a people's war led by a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist party, it is a \r\nstep toward uprooting the class, caste and national oppression of the Nepali people and the country's \r\ndomination by India and imperialist powers. The declaration of the autonomous region is aimed at the \r\nmonarchical regime which represents and enforces that system of oppression.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
According to the KSS news service, the people of other oppressed nationality regions will also \r\ndeclare regional and national autonomy in different parts of the country.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nBackpackers Checking Out Nepal People's War\r\n\r\n
January 19, 2004. A World to Win News Service <\/i>. Tourist arrivals in \r\nNepal were up by 50% in November and December 2003 as compared to the last two \r\nmonths of the year before. This was unexpected, because the government has put \r\nthe whole country under a state of emergency and many Western governments have \r\nadvised their citizens to avoid the country because of the now almost eight- \r\nyear-old people's war. But, according to BBC, at least, it seems that the \r\npeople's war is one of the main reasons Western youth are coming to Nepal.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
The British Broadcasting Service reports that many youth actively seek out a \r\nchance to chat with the Maoist-led rebels.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
A Canadian trekking guide returning from the Khumbu region where Mount \r\nSagarmatha (Everest) is located told a BBC reporter that for many of her charges \r\ntalking with Maoist rebels was the high point of their visit. A professional \r\nwith 18 years of experience, she said that she herself had several such \r\nmeetings. \"I have had pleasant talks with them and they were quite polite with \r\nme.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
The president of the Trekking Agents' Association of Nepal put it this way: \r\n\"We would like to see an end to the insurgency. But the fact remains that many \r\ntrekkers have actually begun to enjoy their brief stints with the rebels.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
A British trekker who came across the Maoists in the Annapurna region in \r\nWestern Nepal last month said, \"I enjoyed chatting with them.\" At the end of her \r\nmeeting in which the rebels explained the reasons behind the people's war, she \r\ndecided to give them 500 rupees ($7) to support their cause.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
The BBC reported, \"Declared a terrorist organization by the government, the \r\nCommunist Party of Nepal (Maoist) has stated officially that it does not intend \r\nto harm tourists and for the seven years of the insurgency has so far kept its \r\nword. The rebels stop by teahouses to talk to tourists and ask for donations. \r\nTrekkers usually hand over an average of $14. There have been very few reported \r\ncases of tourists being pressured after refusing to pay. And those cases have \r\ntended to be with individuals who turned out not to be associated with the \r\nrebels. Many trekkers are happy to receive the souvenir of a receipt from the \r\nMaoists for their donations.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Nepal's dependence on tourism is one consequence of the country's domination \r\nand the feudalistic oppression of the people that hinders development. While the \r\nCPN(M) has made clear their intention to foster a self-reliant economy after the \r\ncountry's liberation, they are not at all opposed to people visiting their \r\ncountry with honest intentions, now or in the future. The fact that Western \r\nyouth are eager to see a revolution in progress for themselves and hear what the \r\nMaoists have to say is a very bad sign for imperialism, the dominant world \r\nsystem that offers no future to any of the world's people. These backpackers \r\ncome not only to see Sagarmatha, the world's highest mountain, but also the \r\nheights to which Nepal's peasants and other common people are aspiring to take \r\ntheir country and all humanity, a country where, to quote the Internationale, \"a \r\nbetter world's in birth.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nNepal Rulers: Desperate Schemes and Royal Failures\r\n\r\n
January 12, 2003. A World to Win News Service.<\/i>On paper, Nepal is a \r\nconstitutional monarchy, that is, a state where the power of the king is limited \r\nby law and shared with parliament. But in fact the feudal king has taken all \r\npower into his own hands, with his power based more and more nakedly on the \r\nRoyal Army, which in turn is backed by the U.S.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
The fig leaf of a constitutional monarchy fell to the ground when King \r\nGyanendra dissolved parliament, sacked the government, and appointed his own \r\nprime minister and cabinet in October 2002. Since then, he has increasingly \r\nadopted fascistic measures both in relation to the People's War led by the \r\nCommunist Party of Nepal (Maoist) and the now-unemployed reactionary \r\nparliamentary parties. The king's current Finance Minister (and ex-acting Prime \r\nMinister) Prakash Chandra Lohani recently declared that even criticism of the \r\nking or his government would no longer be tolerated.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Quoting a speech Lohani delivered in the district of Morang in eastern Nepal \r\non December 20, Kantipuronline wrote, \"Lohani said it is illegal to make \r\nprovocative words against the monarchy and the government. The government would \r\nleave no stone unturned to punish those people who voiced criticism of the \r\nmonarchy, he added.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
This is a return to the spirit of the Panchayat system, when the country was \r\nrun by councils (Panchayats) of feudal nobles, with the king as the ultimate \r\nauthority, and all political parties were banned. King Birendra was forced to \r\naccept the abandonment of this system by a popular uprising in 1990 that \r\nculminated two decades of mass movements. Gyanendra, Birendra's brother, seized \r\nthe throne in 2001, after a massacre of most of the royal family that Gyanendra \r\nhimself is believed to have ordered.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Whether a constitutional monarchy with a parliament or an absolute monarchy, \r\nNepal is a dictatorship of a tiny feudal, bureaucrat capitalist ruling class \r\nlong kept in power by India and the Western imperialist powers. In 1996, under \r\nthe leadership of the Maoists, the Nepali people began a war for their \r\nemancipation. It has progressed with such force that today most of the \r\ncountryside is under the revolutionary rule of a new, people's state based in \r\nthe villages. The old state has reacted with implacable rage, killing more than \r\n8,000 of Nepal's best son and daughters, torching villages, raping and murdering \r\ncivilians, looting homes, torturing thousands of people and disappearing \r\nhundreds of people.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Whatever limits there are on state repression have come not from the state or \r\nits laws but from the mass struggle. Recently some student leaders were arrested \r\nfor chanting slogans against the king and the government. However, faced with \r\ndaily powerful student protests in Kathmandu, the old state was forced to \r\nrelease them, and the movement has continued.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
How the feudal autocrat came to depend entirely on the military was recently \r\ndescribed by Jaya Prakash Prasad Gupta, a cabinet minister of the former Deuba \r\ngovernment. He spoke frankly because he faces huge corruption charges and has no \r\nhope of returning to office.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
In 2002, Gupta bragged that the Deuba government would wipe out the \r\nMaoist-led movement within three to six months. Now asked to comment on the \r\nhumiliating failure of his prediction, he answered that this was the opinion of \r\nthe whole state apparatus at that time.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
A political solution to the People's War, as posed by the Maoists, would have \r\nrequired profound political, social and economic changes, including a \r\nconstitutional transformation. The ruling class was not ready for that. The \r\narmed police had failed to suppress the People's War. Therefore, the ruling \r\nclass agreed to rely on the army.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Gupta emphasized that the decision to call out the army was approved by the \r\nDeuba government, the parliamentary opposition and the king.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Gupta also said that while negotiations between the government and the \r\nMaoists were underway during the tenure of the Deuba government, an all-party \r\nmeeting (of the monarchist and the parliamentary parties in the government and \r\nthe opposition, with the most important discussions held in secret) decided that \r\nthey would not accept any basic changes to the constitution, especially not the \r\nabolition of the monarchy.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
A state of emergency was imposed on the basis of that agreement. The Royal \r\nArmy declared that if the Maoists did not use the negotiations to surrender any \r\nhope of revolution, then \"We can corner them within three to six months.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Asked why the government issued an Interpol \"Red Corner\" notice for the \r\narrest of the CPN(M) leaders and put a bounty on their head, Gupta repeated that \r\nthey had believed that they could \"contain\" the Maoists in three months. \"We \r\nfelt that with unified police and Royal Army operations, we could disrupt the \r\nMaoists and destroy their training centers. That would lead them to agree on \r\nnegotiations\" (that is, to agree to the government's position that negotiations \r\nshould lead to a return to the social situation before the war, not profound \r\nsocial change).<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Gupta continued, \"When we issued the `red corner' notices, we believed that \r\nthe Maoist leaders would be arrested in India. But none of them were arrested. \r\nIn spite of the reward offered for those who would surrender, not even a single \r\nweapon was surrendered in that process. There were no signs that any Maoists had \r\nbeen turned in out of someone's greed for the reward. The army could not be \r\nmobilized with the same expectations.\" (The reactionary old state thought at the \r\nbeginning of the imposition of state of emergency that the Royal Army would be \r\nthe magic weapon to contain or defeat the People's War, but instead it was \r\nhumiliated on the battlefield.) \"Everything failed. And after six months, we had \r\nagain reached the conclusion that a political move should be launched.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
The government then reached an agreement with the CPN(M) to begin a new round \r\nof negotiations, Gupta concluded. \"We had an understanding with the Maoists by \r\nthat time. There was an understanding to declare a cease-fire again on 6 \r\nOctober.\" But King Gyanendra sacked the Deuba government on 4 October 2002. The \r\ndeteriorating situation forced the king to accept a new round of negotiations \r\nanyway in January 2003, but seven months later the CPN(M) announced that the \r\nnegotiations had become \"irrelevant\" because of the Royal Army's violations of \r\nthe cease-fire agreement and the monarchy's refusal to envision its own end \r\nthrough a constitutional assembly and the establishment of a republic.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Gupta's interview makes it clear that neither the king nor the parliamentary \r\nparties ever had any intentions of allowing any real change to take place by \r\npeaceful means, through negotiations. Instead, they were conspiring against the \r\npeople and the revolution. Ironically, as desperately as the parliamentarians \r\nwanted to accept the system headed by the king, in the end the king decided he \r\nhad no use for them. None of them want to accept the will of the people and the \r\nrevolutionary change the people have shown their determination to achieve \r\nthrough their participation in and support for the revolutionary war.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Since that time the war has advanced enormously. According to the Maoist \r\nInformation Bulletin put out by the CPN(M) (www.cpnm.org), \"This has forced the \r\nhired killers of the despotic monarchy to retreat to newly fortified barracks in \r\nselected strategic areas, and more than eighty percent of the country has passed \r\non to the control of the revolutionary forces.\"<\/p>\r\n\r\n
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