New site: Neilsnepal.com

This site is in the process of being migrated to http://www.neilsnepal.com
I sold a photo on Demotix.com and bought my own URL with the proceeds.

Maoists Lockdown Government Offices

Kathmandu, Nepal. 2/11/2009.

Members of the UCPN(Maoist) and their supporters, including Central Committee member Hisila Yami danced and chanted slogans in front of the Kathmandu Metropolitan City Office today, continuing a nation wide protest campaign started on Sunday. Nepal Army members drilled on their training grounds just a few meters away.

The stated objectives of the program are civilian supremacy, a Maoist led government, integration of the Maoist Army into the Nepal Army, and a logical conclusion the the peace process. A blockade of the Kathmandu valley and it’s international airport are planned in 9 days if a resolution is not found before then.

Hisila Yami dances along with supporters outside the Kathmandu Metropolitan City Office.

Nepal Maoists Stage Torch Rally in Kathmandu

Some well connected Maoist supporters are indicating the Maoists are really going to make a go of it this time. I can tell you this torch rally was convincing in that they can still get their supporters out on the street. Most people here will tell you that the other parties are not capable of the organization necessary to carry out a rally of this type. I’ll do my best to keep the photos coming.

Leaders of the UCPN(Maoist) and their supporters numbering upwards of 25,000 marched through central Kathmandu in the initiation of a planed 10 day round or protests aimed at the establishment of “civil supremacy” and or the dissolution of the current government. They are slated to culminate in the blockade of the nations only international airport, and the declaration of autonomous regions across the country.

The Maoists have presented the ruling parties in government with three options for a possible resolution of the crisis; allow a debate in parliament on the role of the President, table a joint resolution describing the president’s previous move to sack the army chief as unconstitutional, or force the president to issue a public apology.

Maoists to Blockade Airport.

Yikes, These protests are starting tomorrow. It should prove interesting. I have some other issues to deal with, but I’ll try and get a camera out there.

Maoists ask airlines to stop Kathmandu flights on Nov 10

KATHMANDU: Nepal’s former Maoist guerrillas Friday asked all international airlines to stop flights to and from Kathmandu on Nov 10, saying it
would be a token sacrifice for democracy.

Maoist lawmaker and former finance minister Dr Baburam Bhattarai, who is coordinating a series of fresh protests by his party against the coalition government of Nepal from Sunday, said appeals were being sent to airlines through the media and pamphlets not to run flights to and from Kathmandu’s lone international airport, the Tribhuvan International Airport, on Nov 10 when the protest is aiming to catch the attention of the world afresh.

Bhattarai said his party was willing to reach a negotiated settlement with the ruling parties and call off the protests but admitted that the possibility of reaching an understanding was remote. The Madhav Kumar Nepal government, that has been beset with Maoist opposition since its formation in May, is being asked to either allow a debate in parliament on the role of the President, Dr Ram Baran Yadav, who reinstated the chief of the army after the earlier Maoist government fired the general, or table a joint resolution rapping the president’s move as unconstitutional or have the beleaguered president issue a public apology.

Tarai-Madhes: Searching for Identity Based Security

Situation Update: 88

By Bishnu Pathak, PhD
and Devendra Uprety

Peace, justice and freedom must be major components of any future security in Nepal. However, Nepal’s transition is deepening in crisis due to the growing ranks of rebel forces, particularly in the Tarai-Madhes. While the State fails to deliver security to the ordinary people, particularly in countryside, the peace process of Nepal is endangered, justice is delayed, and freedom is restricted. The migration of hill-and-mountain dwellers out of the Tarai-Madhes has not stopped. The people who remain in such places have had much to fear. The cases of extra-judicial killings, forceful disappearances, torture, extortions, rapes and so forth continue. To understand this unfortunate state of affairs, it is necessary to delve into a brief history of the region.

Understanding the Tarai-Madhes

Nepal is divided into three areas topographically; Mountains, Hills, and Tarai-Madhes. The Tarai-Madhes, though the flattest and most accessible part of the country, remained isolated until the mid 20th century due to malaria-infestation. This area stretches from the Indo-Gangetic plains to the Himalayan foothills and connects the plains culture to the hill culture.  Constrained between the Mechi River in the east and Mahakali River in the west, it makes up about 23 percent of the total land area of the country. With an average elevation of less than 100 meters (in sharp contrast to the highest Mountains in the world), the average length and breadth of the Tarai-Madhes are about 900 km and 70 km respectively. The Tarai-Madhes incorporates 20 out of 75 districts, including close to half the 26 million population of the country. The region was annexed into Nepal during the unification period, beginning in the mid 1770s, by Prithivi Naarayan Shah. However, much of the ancient Tarai-Madhes areas, ruled by various kings and principalities for centuries, are now in the Bihar and Uttar Pradesh states of India.

Situation Update – 88: Searching for Identity Based Security

Nammuna Agricultural Center

I originally posted this article on United We Blog, but the site was hacked and my post disappeared shortly thereafter. However, it was apparently also chosen for the Demotix widget and appeared in websites for the Himalayan times and the London Telegraph as well as the websites outlined here:

By Neil Horning

On the way to Chorkate, Gorkha, about a 3 hour bus ride from the district headquarters, a conspicuous facility covered with red flags is noticeable by the roadside.
Nammuna Agricultural Center is run by the United Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) as an agricultural cooperative, intended to teach agricultural skills and collective farming to locals and serve as a model for similar facilities nation wide. Dr. Baburam Bhattarai’s childhood village overlooks the center.
The cooperative raises buffalo and pigs, farms fish and grows rice and vegetables. According to members, Sarmila Bagle and Hari Khanal, 20-30 Maoist cadres work in the center, with locals (paid 100-400 Rupees or about $1.50 to $6.00 a day) comprising an additional half of the workforce. Gender balance rests at 50%. Cooking is done on a rotational basis involving both men and women, and decisions are made through semi-regular meetings of the members.
Agricultural cooperatives are the first step in a Maoist development strategy known as collectivization, in where the manpower from individual plots is pooled to increase efficiency of production. In China, first land titles were distributed to peasants as part of a land reform process. Next, peasants with individual plots were encouraged to voluntarily join agricultural cooperatives which were later combined into massive communes. The initial stages of this plan met with measured success, while the later stages during the great leap forward have been blamed for massive famines and are the subject of much controversy.

The Maoist Insurgency in Nepal and US Counterinsurgency Doctrine

This throughly researched researched article provides sober analysis of the implications of the Nepali conflict from the perspective of the US military.

by Major Timothy R. Kreuttner, Small Wars Journal

The Maoist Insurgency in Nepal and US COIN Doctrine (Full PDF Article)

Since the beginning of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), the US Army has wrestled with how to apply socio-cultural factors in counterinsurgency. The case of Nepal provides an example of a state that failed to adequately address socio-cultural problems in an ethnically diverse country and consequently lost power to a Maoist insurgency. The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) (CPN) gained power by way of free elections after a twelve-year insurgency starting in 1996. While the government of Nepal focused on a military solution, the Maoists grew in strength by out-governing the state and building a solid popular base. After achieving a military stalemate, the CPN transitioned from violence to political maneuvering by exploiting fissures between the parliamentary parties and the monarchy. A key to Maoist success was its ability to mobilize dissatisfied classes and ethnic groups. The government of Nepal was unable to gain or maintain the support of the people because of political upheaval, repressive tactics, and failure to solve social issues among the different groups. US and other foreign training and material support to Nepal were helpful militarily, but insufficient because they did little to address the core political, social, and economic problems unique to Nepal. The Maoist insurgency has implications for US counterinsurgency doctrine that suggest a need for a better understanding of the socio-cultural and political factors that motivate insurgency.

The US military, like the Nepalese Army, faces challenges in understanding the cultures of host nations and adversaries. US counterinsurgency doctrine, as articulated in US Army Field Manual 3-24/Marine Corps Warfighting Publication 3-33.5, Counterinsurgency, stresses gaining legitimacy and gives cultural considerations at the tactical level, but still lacks a comprehensive explanation of how to apply cultural expertise operationally for strategic success. The preface of FM 3-24 warns that the manual “is not intended to be a standalone reference. Users should assess information from other sources to help them decide how to apply the doctrine…to the specific circumstances facing them.” The writers acknowledge that given the complexity and changing characteristics of counterinsurgency operations, FM 3-24 is incomplete. Professional journals and blog sites serve as forums for updating counterinsurgency methods. A case such as Nepal, where insurgents adapted Maoist strategy to the conditions of their country, illustrates the difficulty of formulating a counterinsurgency strategy in a challenging political environment with limited means.

Solid Analyis from International Crisis Group

Nepal’s Future: In Whose Hands?

Asia Report N°173
13 August 2009

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Nepal’s peace process is in danger of collapse. The fall of the Maoist-led government, a mess largely of the Maoists’ own making, was a symptom of the deeper malaise underlying the political settlement. Consensus has steadily given way to a polarisation which has fed the more militaristic elements on both sides. While all moderate politicians still publicly insist that there is no alternative to pursuing the process, private talk of a return to war – led by generals of the Nepalese Army who have never reconciled themselves to peace – has grown louder. Outright resumption of hostilities remains unlikely in the short term but only concerted efforts to re-establish a minimal working consensus and a national unity government including the Maoists can avert the likelihood of a more dangerous erosion of trust. Strong international backing, with India eschewing short-term interference in favour of longer-term guardianship of the process it itself initiated, will be essential.

The immediate cause of the Maoists’ departure from government on 4 May 2009 was their bungled attempt to dismiss the army chief. As the consent for action that they had secured from coalition partners unravelled under external pressure, they pushed ahead unilaterally. Their legally dubious sacking order prompted an even more contentious intervention by the ceremonial president to countermand it. Maoist leader Prachanda quit on grounds of principle; the question of the balance of power between prime minister and president remains in dispute.

Federalism: Risk Assessment

Situation Update: 86
July 15, 2009

– Bishnu Pathak, PhD*

Today, 40 percent of the world population lives under the rule of a federal state, but 60 percent under unitary. 30 (16% out of 192 UN members) matured, emergent, and micro-federations practice federalism. They are comprised not only of powerful and developed nations, but developing countries as well; namely, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Iraq, Malaysia, Pakistan, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, the USA, etc. Similarly, most of the 162 (84% out of 192 UN-member) nations such as China, France, Denmark, Finland, Indonesia, Israel, Iran, Italy, Japan, Jordon, South and North Korea, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Ukraine, United Kingdom, etc. are unitary states.

Federations are found both in advanced industrial nations (European American, or otherwise) to multi- cultural states (Asian nations such as India, Malaysia, and United Arab), to post communist European nations such as Czechoslovakia and former Yugoslavia to Asian Muslim countries like Pakistan. However, former communist countries such as Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia and Pakistan are said to be failed federations due to balkanization or ongoing deep-rooted identity based conflict.

Despite the considerable national importance and political exertion over this very issue, research in Nepal comparing federal and unitary state systems has been thus-far severely lacking. Comparison of information advantageous and is advantageous toward federalism stem taking into account unitary state alternatives has been given below:
Situation Update 86 Federal System Risk Assessment

Open Letter to the UCPN (Maoist)

I’ve reposted this letter from the CPI(Maoist), in it’s entirety, from an Indian leftist students site. I post this now, as I have posted similar things before, in the interest of showing the different forces tugging on the UCPN(Maoist). In not so few words, it indicates the CPI(Maoist)’s concern that the UCPN(Maoist) is headed toward “revisionism” and/or defeat by even participating in multi-party politics and army integration at all.

The Nepalese Maoists have maintained that they adopted multi-party politics, not as a compromise leading toward defeat, but out of the realization that the party will become ossified and divorced from the masses if not forced to continually compete in regular elections. This is a principle that has been excepted as self evident in most of the world already, but is particularly tricky for orthodox communists to wrap their heads around, owing to their experience with what happens in leftist parties after engaging in electoral politics (It’s not that they are defeated necessarily, but that they become an mile wide and an inch deep). The Nepalese Maoist counter-argument to this letter would be, as I understand it, that they have not lost ground but gained it since they adopted their new line. While they had 5,000 full time soldiers before the ceasefire, now they have 20,000 (as revealed by Prachanda’s scandalous video). Where they were a nearly exclusively rural movement before, now they have the largest, best organized, and most militant urban labor organizations in the country. It is this perception -that they are strategically gaining on their present course- that I believe is behind the recent decision on their part to lead a “National Unity Government” rather than attempt an urban uprising. It is fair to say that they will not accept any terms from other parties (the Army, the 22 other parties, or international actors) in which they do not continue to perceive themselves to be gaining strategically. If were to compromise to far, at that point, the orthodox faction will hold sway, and a line similar to the one indicated below will be implemented.

Politbureau, Communist Party Of India (Maoist)

May 20, 2009 (Became available 28th June 2009)

Dear Comrades!
We have been keenly following the recent developments taking place in your country, Nepal. With the CPN(M) emerging as the single largest party in the elections to the Constituent Assembly in April 2008 and the formation of the new government consisting of a coalition of several Parties, some of which are known for their anti-people, pro-feudal, pro-imperialist and pro-Indian expansionist past, an ideological-political debate has arisen in the entire revolutionary camp in India and the world regarding the path, strategy, and tactics pursued by your Party, the CPN(M), in advancing the revolution in Nepal. There have also been reports in the media concerning the proposal of your Party leadership to change the name of the Party by removing the term `Maoist’. All these make it all the more urgent to conduct a deeper debate on the ideological-political line pursued by the CPN(M), particularly after it came to power through elections, after a decade-long people’s war and forming the government with some of the arch-reactionaries who had earned the wrath of the Nepalese masses.