Nepal: Between a Rock and a Hard Place
In the Himalayan kingdom of Nepal, the small, impoverished
nation was once again stained by violence. A bloody conflict Sunday
left hundreds of Maoist insurgents, security forces and civilians
dead. Sushil Sharma of the BBC said, “that if the claims and
counter claims are true, Sunday’s clash would be the heaviest since
the insurrection was launched in 1996.”
A raging battle between the monarch-controlled government and
the Maoist rebels who wish to implement a communist republic in the
nation, the civil conflict has claimed nearly 9,000 lives in the
past eight years, according to BBC reports. With this large death
toll and recent smaller attacks on government targets throughout
Nepal, the insurgency shows no signs of coming to a peaceful
conclusion any time soon.
Questions about what exactly is occurring in this mountain
nation abound. As Tilak P. Pokharel said in a 2003 World Press
Review article, “In retrospect, it is easy to see the Maoist
rebellion as a natural outgrowth of the 150 years of ineffective,
isolationist, and autocratic government.” With Nepal being ruled
from 1846-1956 by the hereditary ministers who had British support
called Ranas, who treated Nepal “as their own private fiefdom”
according to Pokharel, resulting in Nepal struggling economically
and lagging behind in world relations.
Due to pressure from the Nepali Congress Liberation Army in
1959, the first democratic elections were held, although the
experiment in democracy did not last long; King Mahendra disbanded
the government in 1960, establishing the panchyat system, made up
of councils over which he as king could wield ultimate
authority.
Many found problems with this system. It is in the 1990 protest
movements by students, communist groups and professionals the
Maoist groups can perhaps be seen as having their intellectual
start, according to Pokharel and other analysts.
Adopting a version of Mao Zedong’s communism and modeling
themselves on the Shining Path Movement, The Maoists “have thrived
the most in Nepal’s flawed democratic experiment, which has bred
political instability, corruption and lawlessness.” Demanding a
“republican state through an elected constituent assembly election
to draft a new constitution,” according to Suman Pradha of the
Manila Times, the Maoists used guerilla tactics and kidnappings to
attempt to force the monarchy into reacting.
Certainly, with all the corruption and intrigue involved in the
monarchy today and in the past, it appears as if a message for
change must be heeded. “Nepal today is buffeted by a combination of
palace intrigue, a corrupt, inefficient government” and other
concerns, said Brahma Chellaney of the Japan Times in 2001. With
the 2001 massacre of the royal family and the subsequent assumption
of the throne by the king’s brother Gyanendra (who himself is
suspected as being involved in the palace massacre) who, in 2002,
“suspended Parliament and appointed a new government,” according to
Pokharel, which effectively put him in supreme command. Viewed as
unconstitutional by the majority of the political parties, the
Maoists and others used this as yet another example of the
corruption of the monarchy to fight against.
With “hundreds of Nepali citizens said to be among the country’s
growing ranks of ‘disappeared,'” according to Daniel Lak of the
BBC, the royal government cannot be seen as an efficient or even
benevolent force.
It is hard to say that the Maoists offer any solutions, however.
With an equally troubling record on human rights, the Maoists
(while they are said to control 40 percent of the Nepali territory)
are just as bad a choice due to their corrupt activities as well.
“They forcefully extort money and seize food from the locals’
houses,” said Top Bahadur Khadka, a human-rights organization
official, as quoted in Pokharel’s article. The Maoists, likewise,
have been implicated in many disappearances, burnings of villages,
kidnappings of officials and ignoring the guidelines of the Geneva
Convention.
With the eruption of this recent violence and the death count
growing to a staggering amount, Nepal is in desperate need of a
solution, one which does not appear to lie with either the monarchy
or the Maoists. “Nepalese are unsure of what the future holds,”
Pokharel asserts, and he and the Nepalese are correct in their
concerns.
Meg is a graduate student studying anthropology. Her column
appears every Wednesday.
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